CHAPTER XXV

Sally and Eugene and Charlie had almost finished breakfast. It was a silent group; Eugene was quiet, for he had not got over the mortification at his miserable failure of the night before, and, besides, the very fact that he was eating breakfast with Sally was enough to make him quiet. Charlie was sulky and morose and penitent. There had been very little said, but that little had been to the point, and Charlie had pleaded _nolo contendere_, which, in this case, was equivalent to a plea of guilty; guilty of the offense as charged and guilty of obtaining money from Patty under false pretenses, although Sally could not find out how much. He would only say that it was not so very much; he could not remember exactly how much. And Sally had promised to give him a reasonable allowance if he would honestly try to keep within it and would give up his bad habits, which would be his unfailing ruin if he kept on. It might be necessary to take him out of college. He was to go home with them and the council of war would decide about that. Charlie seemed somewhat anxious about the composition of that council, although he did not seem to care very much whether he left college or not. As Sally had not decided upon that point, she did not gratify his curiosity. And Charlie had given the required promises. He had even promised more than was required of him, for he agreed to reform permanently. Sally had her doubts about its being permanent. She had seen too much of the effects of the "bug," as Horry Carling had called it. But she could not ask more, and she sighed and expressed herself as satisfied and they went in to breakfast. That incident was closed.

Now she was leaning back in her chair, watching the others putting the finishing touches on a rather substantial breakfast. A call-boy was speaking to the head waiter; and that august official came with stately step to Sally's table.

"A gen'leman to see Miss Ladue," he announced privately in Sally's ear.

Sally looked up in surprise. "To see me?" she asked. "Are you sure? Who is it? Do you know?"

"He asked was Miss Ladue staying here, but he didn't give no card and he wouldn't give no name. I could say that you've gone or that we can't find you," the man suggested, "if you don't care to see him."

"Oh, no," said Sally, with a quick smile. "I'll see him. He may have come to tell me of a long-lost fortune. But," she added with a puzzled wonder, "I can't imagine who it can be."

Eugene got up, pushing aside his coffee. "Let me go, Sally."

Sally was already up. "Oh, no," she said again. "Thank you, Eugene, but you and Charlie may as well finish your breakfast in comfort. There's plenty of time before our train goes and I will join you in a few minutes. I'm only wondering who in the world it is and what he wants. Perhaps it's Everett."

A look of annoyance came into Spencer's eyes at the mention of Everett. Why couldn't he let them alone? But Sally was rapidly vanishing in the wake of the head waiter, who delivered her safely to the call-boy. At the door of a small reception room the boy paused, parted the hangings, and bowed Sally in.

As she entered, a man rose from a chair near the window and stood waiting. Although Sally could not see his face because of the light behind him, there was something vaguely familiar in his manner of rising from the chair and in his attitude. It troubled her.

"You wished to see me?" she asked, wondering why he did not come forward to meet her.

"Miss Sallie Ladue?" he asked in return. Sally's hand went to her heart involuntarily; her mother's trick, exactly. The man seemed to be smiling, although Sally could not see that, either. "I want to make sure. It is sometime since--"

"Turn around to the light, so that I can see your face," Sally commanded. Her voice was hard and cold. It may have penetrated his armor. He turned obediently, giving a short laugh as he did so.

"My face may be a trifle the worse for wear since you have seen me," he remarked airily. "A trifle the worse for wear; which yours is not. Has anybody ever told you, Sally, that you have become a lovely woman? Or wouldn't you care for that tribute?"

"We will not discuss my appearance, if you please." Sally's voice was still hard and cold; like steel. She came around in front of him and scrutinized his face closely. There could be no possible doubt. "Well, father?"

"You don't seem glad to see me, Sally. After an absence of--er--a hundred years or so, one would think that you might be. But, I repeat, you don't seem glad to see me."

"No," said Sally quietly. "I'm not."

He laughed. His laugh was unpleasant. "Truthful as ever, I see. Wouldn't it be better to mask the truth a little, when it must be as disagreeable as it is now? To draw even a thin veil over it, so that it can be perceived dimly--dimly if unmistakably?"

Sally shook her head and she did not smile. "I see no object in it. What is your purpose in seeing me now? I do not doubt that you have a purpose. What is it?"

He seemed to find a certain pleasure in tantalizing her. "Aren't you curious to know how I found out your whereabouts?"

"I am not interested in that. Tell me your purpose."

"What other purpose could I have than to see my daughter after so many years? Is it permitted, my dear Sally, to ask after the health of your mother?"

"She is well; as well as can be expected. It is not your fault that she did not die years ago. She was four years getting over that trouble of hers. You laughed at her headaches, you remember. She was four years in Doctor Galen's sanitarium."

He waved his hand lightly, as of old. "A little misunderstanding, Sally, which I greatly regret. But four years of Doctor Galen! How did you manage to pay him?"

"That," replied Sally, "cannot possibly be any concern of yours."

"Ah, true. It is not any concern of mine. But is it not possible to see your mother? She is still my wife, I presume, and you are still my daughter."

"She is still your wife and I am your daughter. But you shall not see her if I can prevent it."

"And--I gather from the tenor of your remarks that you would resist any attempt at--er--reuniting a family long separated by circumstances."

Sally smiled disdainfully. "I am of age. As to my mother, I should resist. No court would compel it."

"Ah," he said, smiling, "how well you meet my points! You are of age, and no doubt you are right about the courts. There is no law that will prohibit my trying, I think. And Charlie is not of age, if my recollection serves me."

Before Sally could frame an answer, there was a slight noise in the hall and Charlie burst in. "I beg your pardon," he said hastily. The two were standing, and he had not recognized Sally. But an instant's gaze was enough. "Sally!" he exclaimed. He looked at the man. A wave of red rushed into his face. "Charlie!" he cried involuntarily. Then he recovered. "What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming to see my sister?"

Sally was inexpressibly distressed. She started to speak. She would have said something--told him the truth, of course--to save them both; but a quiet movement of her father's hand stopped her. He seemed to be waiting patiently for the next stone.

"Do you know, Sally," Charlie continued, "who this man is? He is the dealer in number seven. He has no right--no business to try to see you. I insist on his leaving at once."

Sally spoke with surprising gentleness, considering her mode of speech to her father only a few minutes before. "We have some business, Charlie," she said. "He will go as soon as that is done. Now, leave us, please, to finish it, for we have not a great deal of time. It is all right."

And Charlie withdrew slowly, with many a glance from one to the other and many a misgiving as to the business which seemed to be of so private a nature. They heard his steps retreating down the hall.

Sally turned her shocked face to her father, "Won't you sit down?" she asked gently. "I am very sorry; sorrier than I can tell you--for--everything, but especially for that speech of Charlie's. But Charlie did not know."

"And I prefer that he shouldn't," her father replied. He had seated himself with his face half turned away from the light. "I have many hard things to bear, Sally, and, strange as it may seem to you, I try to bear them with patience. I have to, so why make a virtue of necessity? That speech of Charlie's--made in ignorance--was less hard for me than your own."

"I am sorry," Sally said again, "but I meant what I said, most emphatically. You are not to suppose that I didn't. But I am sorry for my manner--if it hurt you."

He smiled faintly. "It was not intended to soothe or to amuse, I take it," he remarked. And he lapsed into silence, fingering his hat nervously and turning it around in his hands.

Sally sat gazing at the lined old face before her a long time without speaking. As she looked, her eyes softened even more and grew tender--and those eyes could be wonderfully tender. He bore her gaze as well as he could, but he was ill at ease. If the truth must be told, his mood had softened, too, and the very fact embarrassed him. Perhaps he remembered the days of the little lizard and the coal-trees and the occasions when the gynesaurus had climbed to the topmost branch and gazed forth upon a wide prospect of tree-tops and swamps. It could not have been pleasant to recollect those days. For him, they were no more and could be never again. He was roused by Sally's low voice.

"Oh, father," she said impulsively, "why do you do it? Why can't you give it up? I could get your lizard for you. Why not return to your old life? You might do something yet. At least, it would be a comfort to be respectable."

He laughed at that. "No doubt it would," he observed, "be a great comfort to be respectable. And no doubt it would be a great comfort to you to have a respectable father; reformed; dragged from the depths." The tears came to Sally's eyes. "Does your programme," he asked then, nonchalantly, "include--er--reuniting a family long separated by circumstances? You may remember that I mentioned the matter once before."

She shook her head slowly and regretfully. "I'm afraid not. I couldn't consent to exposing mother to the--" She hesitated and stopped.

"The dangers incident to such an arrangement?" he suggested. "Pardon me for supplying what you were considerate enough to omit. Perhaps you are wise. And Charlie?"

"And Charlie." She nodded. "You see, yourself, that such a thing could not be--at any rate, until you have proved that you could do it."

"I couldn't," he answered promptly. "Don't think that I haven't tried. I have tried, repeatedly. I hate the life, but I can't give it up. But," he added, "you need not have been afraid for Charlie."

"I am very much afraid for Charlie," said Sally simply, "in any case. He is sick of it now. How long the present mood will last, I do not know. Could you manage that he is not allowed to play at--at your--"

He bowed gravely. "That can be arranged, I think."

"Thank you, father."

Once more there was silence between them. Finally he made a movement as if to go. "I was--I wanted--was curious to see how you had come out, Sally. That was the main reason for my troubling you. If there were other reasons, they no longer exist. I--"

"Don't go yet, father," Sally interrupted. "I have more to say."

He sat down again and waited. She was considering--trying to consider the problem before her in every aspect. But she could not get the point of view of her father and Charlie, and she wanted to.

"Father," she resumed, "what _is_ the attraction? I have been trying hard to get a sympathetic view of it and I can't. I can't see anything except what is sordid and repulsive. The life is--is not desirable--"

"Not very desirable," he broke in, with a horrible, dry laugh.

"And it can hardly be simply covetousness. If it is, you miss your mark. What I--"

"It is not covetousness. I may as well say that it is not a sin of covetousness," he corrected, "in deference to the generally received opinion. I have no desire to gloss over and to try to excuse by a form of words, although I, personally, am not convinced that it is a sin according to natural law. However, we need not discuss that aspect of it."

He waved that view aside with a familiar motion of his hand. How familiar they were--those little tricks of the hand and of the voice! They made Sally's eyes fill and a lump come in her throat. She raised her hand to her forehead and leaned upon it. It half concealed her eyes. She said nothing. The professor went on in his old lecture-room manner; a judicial manner.

"No, it is not a sin of covetousness, but simply a passion to which any man who is subject to it can't help giving way. It is a passion as old as humanity--perhaps older. There are no more inveterate gamblers than the savages. Possibly," he added, smiling, "my little lizard had it; possibly it goes back to those ancient days that you know about, Sally. It may be that the saurians had their own games of chance and their own stakes--and, I may add, their own methods of enforcing payment. Indeed, their life was one great gamble. For that matter, life is no more than that now."

Sally made an inarticulate protest.

"As for getting the other man's money," the professor continued, unheeding, "that is merely incidental. We feel better, it's true, when we win, but that is for another reason. It has nothing to do with the game--keeping his money. The other man can keep his money--or, as far as the game is concerned, I would give it back to him--for all the happiness it brings him or would bring me. The distinction which I mean to draw is a little subtle, but I flatter myself that you can appreciate it."

He looked at her and she nodded. The tears still stood in her eyes.

"Happiness, Sally," he resumed, absently gazing at the wall, "is--but you probably do not care for my views on the subject of happiness," he said, interrupting himself and glancing at her with a smile. The smile was rather pleasant to contemplate; a thing sufficiently remarkable--for him. "Probably you think I am better qualified to tell you what it is not than what it is; how to avoid it than how to get it. I can give advice, but I cannot follow it."

Sally smiled quickly. "Your views are interesting," she said. She stirred a little. She did not know how he would take what she was about to say. "You would--would you feel hurt, father, if I should offer you an allowance?"

A quarter of an hour before, he would not have felt hurt or embarrassed in the least. In fact, that was the very thing he had come there for. At the moment, it was different. A flush crept into his face slowly.

"Why should I feel hurt?" His voice had changed. It had lost that intimate quality which it had had during the last few minutes, when he had been on the point of telling Sally about happiness. "It is Uncle John's money, I suppose? Why should I feel any compunctions about taking it? And--er--there are conditions incident to the acceptance of this--er--this gift, I suppose?"

"I'm afraid there are," she replied; "at least, tacitly understood."

He considered for a few moments. "I think," he said then, "that it will conduce to happiness, on the whole, if we are not too tacit about those conditions. What are they?"

"I hoped," she answered gently, "that you would not insist on my repeating them. You must understand, from what I have said, what they are."

"I prefer that they should be stated as conditions."

"Very well." Sally's voice was harder and colder. "As you like. You are not to take any steps whatever, even to reveal your existence to my mother and Charlie. Charlie is not to be allowed to play at your house--not to be allowed to enter it."

"But, Sally, I may be unable to prevent that," he protested. "The house is not mine. I am only--only an employe and an underling. I will do what I can, but there is no use in promising what I can't perform."

Sally smiled a little. It was something new for him to stick at promising.

"Those are the conditions which I must make in self-defense," she said.

"May I venture to ask what is offered on the other side?"

She made a rapid calculation. "The most that I can offer you is seven hundred a year. I'd like to make it a thousand; but I have mother and Charlie to take care of, and I must pay Patty what she had let him have--without my knowledge," she added apologetically. "I agree to send you sixty dollars a month on those conditions."

He was leaning back in his chair and spoke in his old manner, lightly.

"And if the conditions are violated?"

"The allowance stops," Sally replied promptly.

"And further?"

There was a suspicion of moisture again in Sally's eyes. "You make it unnecessarily hard, father," she said gently. "I shall act further if you compel me to." She was reminded of the time when she had asked his permission to go to dancing-school. Her feelings, she found, were much the same as they had been on that occasion. "I am ready to put it in writing if you wish."

"Oh, no," said the professor airily. "It is not necessary, Sally. Your word would be all that anybody could require; anybody who knew you."

"Thank you," she murmured. It was very low and he gave no sign of having heard it.

Again he was silent; then he turned to her. A smile of amusement curled his lip. "There is, at least, no question of sentiment in all this, is there, Sally?"

"Oh, I don't know," she murmured more gently than ever. She was not looking at him, but down at the arm of her chair. "There may be, but I must not let it interfere with my judgment--in this matter. There is mother to think of."

"Ah! I infer that your mother would not welcome an occasion for reuniting that family which I mentioned."

It was not a question and Sally said nothing. After a pause, the professor sighed and spoke again.

"I accept your munificent offer, Sally. There is nothing else to do."

It was his way--it had always been his way to put the giver in the wrong, by a simple turn of words; to make her feel as if it were he who was conferring the favor. Sally felt somehow guilty and apologetic.

"Will you give me your address?" she asked, diffidently--"the address to which you would like your money sent?"

He wrote on a slip of paper with an old stub of a pencil which he pulled from his pocket and handed her the paper. She read it and looked up at him quickly.

"Am I to make them out in this name?" she asked. "It is not--"

"It is not Ladue," he interrupted deliberately, but showing more emotion than he had shown hitherto. "Professor Charles Ladue, I would have you know, Sally, died about ten years ago, in extreme poverty and distress--of mind as well as of body."

Sally's tears overflowed and dropped, unheeded. She put out her hand impulsively, and laid it upon his.

"Oh, father!" she whispered. "I am sorry."

"I believe you are," he said. He rose. "Now I will go back to obscurity. Don't be too sorry for me," he added quickly. "I cultivate it."