Chapter 24

Quin's life at the factory these past three weeks had been full of new and engrossing business complications. Mr. Bangs seemed bent upon trying him out in various departments, each change bringing new and distracting duties. Just what was the object of the proceeding Quin had no idea; but he realized that he was being singled out and experimented with, and he applied to each new task the accumulated knowledge and experience of those that had gone before. It was all very exciting and gratifying to a person possessed of an inordinate ambition to have a worthy shrine ready the moment his goddess evinced the slightest willingness to occupy it.

"Old Iron Jaw's got his optic on you for something," said Miss Leaks, the stenographer. "Maybe he wants you to pussy-foot around in Shields' shoes and do his dirty work for him."

"Well, he's got another guess coming," said Quin; but her remark disturbed him. Of course it was no concern of his how the firm did business, but more than once he had been called upon to negotiate some delicate matter that was not at all to his liking.

"See here, young man," Mr. Bangs said upon one of these occasions, "I am not paying you for advice. You are here to carry out my orders and to make no comments."

"That's all right," Quin agreed good-naturedly; "but I got a conscience that was trained to stand on its hind legs and bark at a lie."

"The quicker you muzzle it the better," said Mr. Bangs. "You can't do business these days by the Golden Rule."

On the Saturday when Eleanor saw Quin in the park with Rose Martel, the factory had been in the throes of one of its most violent upheavals. Some weeks before the old steam engine had been replaced by an expensive electric drive. There had been much interest manifested in the installation of the modern motor, and Quin, with his natural love of machinery, had rejoiced that his duties as shipping clerk required him to be present at the unpacking. He and Dirk, the foreman, never tired of discussing the perfection of each particular feature. But a few days after the departure of the installation foreman, the new motor burnt out, necessitating the shutting down of the factory and causing much inconvenience.

Dirk was beside himself with rage. He declared that something heavy had been dropped upon the armature winding, and he blamed every one who could have been responsible, and some who could not. In the midst of his tirade he was summoned to the office, where he was closeted for more than an hour with Mr. Bangs and Mr. Shields. When he emerged, it was with the avowed belief that the armature had been defective when received. This sudden change of front, taken in connection with the fact that the third payment was due on the motor in less than sixty days, set every tongue wagging.

Quin was in no way involved in the transaction; but, as usual, he had an emphatic opinion, which he did not hesitate to express.

"I don't know what's got into Dirk!" he said indignantly to Mr. Shields, the traffic manager, as they left the office together. "He knows the injury to the armature was done in our shop and that we are responsible for it."

"I guess Dirk's like the rest of us," said Shields bitterly; "he knows a lot he can't tell."

"What do you mean? Do you think it was a frame-up?"

"Well, we don't call it that. But when the boss gets in a hole, somebody's got to pull him out. I'm getting mighty sick of it myself. Wish to the Lord I could pull up stakes as Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Chester did."

It was not until they separated that Quin's thoughts left the disturbing events of the day and flew to something more pleasing. For two weeks now he had had to content himself with chance interviews with Eleanor, meager diet for a person with an omnivorous appetite; but to-night there was the prospect for a long, uninterrupted evening. Since the day of Miss Enid's wedding he had found her perplexed and absent-minded; but the fact that she always had a smile for him, and that nothing was seen or heard of Harold Phipps, sufficed to satisfy him.

When he started across Central Park the sun was just setting, and he turned off the main path and dropped down on a bench to rest for a moment. He had acquired a taste for sunsets at a tender age, having watched them from many a steamer's prow. He knew how the harbor of Hongkong brimmed like a goblet of red wine, how Fujiyama's snow-capped peak turned rose, he knew how beautiful the sun could look through a barrage of fire. But it was of none of these that he thought as he sat on the park bench, his arms extended along the back, his long legs stretched out, and his eyes on a distant smokestack. He was thinking of a country stile and a girl in white and green, in whose limpid eyes he watched the reflected light of the most wonderful of all his sunsets.

For the third time since leaving the office, he consulted his watch. Six-thirty! Another hour and a half must be got through before he could see her.

A rustle of leaves behind him made him look up, but before he could turn his head two hands were clapped over his eyes. Investigation proved them to be feminine, and he promptly took them captive.

"It's Rose?" he guessed.

"Let me go!" she laughed; "somebody will see you."

She slipped around the bench and dropped down beside him.

"I was coming out the avenue and spied you mooning over here by yourself. What's the trouble?"

"No trouble at all. Just stopped to get my wind a bit--and watch the sunset."

"I think you are working too hard." She looked at him with anxious solicitude. "I've a good notion to put you on buttermilk again."

"Good work! Put me on anything you like except dried peaches and wienies."

"And you need more recreation," Rose persisted. "It's not good for anybody to work all day and go to school at night. What's the matter with us getting Cass and Fan Loomis and going down to Fontaine Ferry to-night?"

"Can't do it," said Quin with ill-concealed pride. "Got a date with Miss Eleanor Bartlett."

Rose sat silent for a moment, stirring the dead leaves with her shabby boot; then she turned and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Quin," she said, "I am worried sick about Nell and Harold Phipps."

Quin, who had been trying to beguile a squirrel into believing that a pebble was a nut, looked up sharply.

"What do you mean?" he said. "She hasn't seen him since last summer, and she never mentions his name."

"_Don't_ she? She hardly talks about anything else. She writes to him all the time and wears his picture in her watch!"

"Do you know that?"

"Of course I know it. She can't talk about him at home, so she pours it all out to me."

"But haven't you told her what you know about him?"

"I've hinted at it, but she won't believe me because she knows I hate him. I wanted to tell her about what he said to me, and about that nurse he got into trouble out at the hospital; but I was afraid it might make an awful row and spoil everything for Papa Claude."

"I don't care who it spoils things for! She's got to be told." Quin's eyes were blazing.

"But perhaps if we leave it alone he'll get tired of her. They say he keeps after a girl until he gets her engaged to him, then drops her."

"He'd never drop Miss Nell. No man would. He'd be trying to marry her."

"But what can we _do?_ The more people talk about him, the more she's going to take up for him. That's Nell all over."

"Couldn't Mr. Martel----"

"Papa Claude's as much taken in as she is. You remember the night over home when he talked about his lovely detached soul? He never sees the truth about anybody."

"Well, he's going to see the truth about this. If you don't write to him to-night and tell him the kind of man Mr. Phipps is, I will!"

"Wait till to-morrow. I'll have another round with Nell. I've got some proof that I think she'll have to believe."

Quin rose restlessly. He wanted to go to the Bartletts' at once, if only to stand guard at the gate against the danger that threatened Eleanor.

"Aren't you coming home to supper?" asked Rose.

"No," he said absently; "I don't want any supper."

For an hour he paced the streets, trying to think things out. His burning desire was to go straight to Eleanor and lay the whole matter before her. But according to his ethics it was a poor sport who would discredit a rival, especially on hearsay. He must leave it to Rose, and let her furnish the proof she said she possessed.

At eight o'clock he rang the Bartletts' bell, and was surprised when Miss Isobel opened the door.

"She isn't here," she said in answer to his inquiry. "We cannot imagine what has become of her. She must have gone out just before dinner, and she has not returned."

"Didn't she say where she was going?"

"No." Miss Isobel's lips worked nervously; then she drew Quin into the dining-room and closed the door, "She and mother had a very serious misunderstanding, and--and I'm afraid mother was a little severe. I did not know Eleanor was gone until she failed to come down to dinner. I've just sent Hannah up to telephone my brother to see if she is there."

"She probably is," Quin spoke with more assurance than he felt. "About what time did she leave here?"

"It must have been between six-thirty and seven. How long would it take her to get out to Ranny's?"

"Depends on whether she went in her machine or a street-car," said Quin evasively. "Besides, she may have gone to the Martels'."

"I don't think so," said Miss Isobel, twisting her handkerchief in her slender fingers; "because, you see, she--she took her suit-case."

For the first time, Quin's face reflected the anxiety of Miss Isobel's.

When Hannah returned she reported that no one answered the telephone at the Randolph Bartletts'.

"Suppose the child gets there and nobody is at home!" groaned Miss Isobel, whose imagination always rushed toward disaster. "What on earth shall I do?"

"Leave it to me," said Quin. "I'll run around to the Martels', and if she's not there I'll go out to Valley Mead. She's sure to be one place or the other."

"Of course she must be; but I'm so anxious! You will go right away, won't you? And telephone the minute you find out where she is. Then I'll tell mother I gave her permission to go."

Miss Isobel pushed him toward the door as she spoke:

"You--you don't think anything dreadful could have happened to her, do you?"

Quin patted her shoulder reassuringly.

"Of course not," he blustered. "She'll probably be in before I get around the corner. If not, I bet I find her at the Martels', toasting marshmallows."

In spite of his assumed confidence, he ran every step of the way home. As he turned the corner he saw with dismay that the house was dark. His call in the front hall brought no answer. He turned on the light, and saw an unstamped letter addressed to himself on the table. The fact that the writing was Eleanor's did not tend to decrease his alarm.

He tore off the envelop and read:

_Dear Quin:_

Grandmother has said things to me that I can never forgive as long as I live. I am leaving her house in a few moments forever. By the time you get this I shall be on my way to Chicago to join Harold Phipps. We have been engaged for two weeks. I did not mean to marry him for years and years, but I've simply _got_ to do something. He cares more for me and my career than any one else in the world, and he understands me better than anybody.

You'll get this when you go home to supper, and I want you to telephone Aunt Isobel right away and tell her I won't be home to-night. She will think I am with Rose and that will keep her from being anxious. I don't care how anxious grandmother is! To-morrow I'll send them a wire from Chicago telling them I'm married.

Dear Quin, I know this is a terribly serious step, and I know you won't approve; but I am unhappy enough to die, and I don't know where else to turn, or what to do. Some day I hope you will know Mr. Phipps better, and see what a really fine man he is. Do try to comfort Aunt Isobel, and make her understand. Please don't hate me, but try to forgive your utterly miserable friend,

E. M. B.

Quin stood staring at the letter. He felt as he had on that August day when the flying shrapnel struck him--the same intense nausea, the deadly exhaustion, the bursting pain in his head. Involuntarily he raised his hand to the old wound, half expecting to feel the blood stream again through his fingers.

"Married! Married!" he kept repeating to himself dazedly. "Miss Nell gone to marry that man, that scoundrel!"

He sat down on the stair steps and tried to hold the thought in his mind long enough to realize it. But Phipps himself kept getting in the way: Phipps the slacker, as he had known him in the army; Phipps the condescending lord of creation, who had refused to take his hand at Mr. Ranny's; and oftenest of all Phipps the philanderer, who had insulted Rose Mattel, and been responsible for the dismissal of more than one nurse from the hospital. The mere thought of such a man in connection with Eleanor Bartlett made Quin's strong fingers clench around an imaginary neck and brought beads of perspiration to his forehead.

"Something's got to be done!" he thought wildly, staggering to his feet. "I got to stop it; I got----"

Then the sense of his helplessness swept over him, and he sat down again on the steps. She had evidently left on the eight-o'clock train for Chicago, and it was now eight-thirty. There was nothing to be done. What a fool he had been to go on hoping and daring! She had told him again and again that she didn't care for him; but she had also told him that she did not intend to many anybody. But if she hadn't cared for him, why had she come to him with her troubles, and followed his advice, and wanted his good opinion? Why had she looked at him the way she had the day of Miss Enid's wedding, and said she remembered her dances with him better than those with anybody else? In bitterness of spirit he went over all the treasured words and glances he had hoarded since the day he met her. He didn't believe she loved Harold Phipps! She didn't love anybody--yet. But, in her mad desire to escape from home, she had taken the first means that presented itself. She had stepped into a trap, from which he was powerless to rescue her.

In a sudden anguish of despair he flung himself face downward on the steps and gave way to his anguish. There was no one to see and no one to hear. All the doubts and discouragements, the humiliations and disappointments, through which he had passed to win her, came back to mock him, now he had lost her. The world had suddenly become an intolerable vacuum in which he gasped frantically for breath.

What was the use in going on? Why not put an end to everything? He could make it appear an accident. Nobody would be the wiser. The temptation was growing stronger every second, when he suddenly remembered Miss Isobel.

"I forgot she was waiting," he muttered, stumbling into the sitting-room and fumbling for the telephone. "Miss Nell said I was to keep her from being anxious--she wanted me to comfort her. But what in hell can I say!"