Chapter 26

"So I am to understand that the young lady defies my authority and refuses point-blank to come home."

"That's about what it comes to, I reckon."

It was evening of that eventful Sunday when Eleanor and Quin had returned from Chicago. He and Madam Bartlett sat facing each other in the sepulchral library, where the green reading-light cast its sickly light on Lincoln and his Cabinet, on Andrew Jackson dying in the bosom of his family, on Madam savagely gripping the lions' heads on the arms of her mahogany chair.

That her quarrel with Eleanor and the girl's subsequent flight had made the old lady suffer was evinced by the pinched look of her nostrils and the heavy, sagging lines about her mouth; but in her grim old eyes there was no sign of compromise.

"Very well!" she said. "Let her stay at her precious Martels'. She will stand just about one week of their shiftlessness. I shan't send her a stitch of clothes or a cent of money. Maybe I can starve some sense into her."

Quin traced the pattern in the table-cover with a massive brass paper-knife. It was a delicate business, this he had committed himself to, and everything depended upon his keeping Madam's confidence.

"You never did try letting her have her head, did you?" He put the question as a disinterested observer.

"No. I don't intend to until she gets this fool stage business out of her mind."

"Well, of course you can hold that up for six months, but you can't stop it in the end."

"Yes, I can, too. I'd like to know if I didn't keep Isobel from being a missionary, and Enid from marrying Francis Chester when he didn't make enough money to pay her carfare."

"That's so," agreed Quin cheerfully. "And then, there was Mr. Ranny." He waited for the remark to sink in; then he went on lightly: "But say! They all belong to another generation. Things are run on different lines these days."

"More's the pity! Every little fool of a kite thinks all it has to do is to break its string to be free."

"Miss Nell don't want to break the string; she just wants it lengthened."

Madam turned upon him fiercely.

"See here, young man. You think I don't know what you are up to; but, remember, I wasn't born yesterday. If Eleanor has sent you up here to talk this New York stuff----"

"She hasn't; I came of my own accord."

"Well, you needn't think just because I've shown you a few favors that you can meddle in family affairs. It's not the first time you've attended to other people's business."

Her fingers were working nervously and her eyes beginning to twitch. She made Quin think of Minerva when Mr. Bangs came into the office.

"I bet there's one time you are glad I meddled," he said with easy good humor. "You might have been walking on a peg-stick, Queen Vic, if I hadn't butted in. Do you have to use your crutches now?"

"Crutches! I should say not. I don't even use a cane. See here!"

She rose and, steadying herself, walked slowly and painfully to the door and back.

"Bully for you!" said Quin, helping her back into the chair. "Now what were we talking about?"

"You were trying to hold a brief for Eleanor."

"So I was. You see, I had an idea that if you'd let me put the case up to you fair and square, maybe you'd see it in a different light."

"Well, that's where you were mistaken."

"How do you know? You haven't listened to me yet!"

Madam glared at him grimly.

"Go ahead," he said. "Get it out of your system."

"Well, it's like this," Quin plunged into his subject. "Next July Miss Nell will be of age and have her own money to do as she likes with, won't she?"

"She won't have much," interpolated Madam. "Twenty thousand won't take her far."

"It will take her to New York and let her live pretty fine for two or three years. Everybody will cotton up to her and flatter her and make her think she's a second Julia Marlowe, and meantime they'll be helping her spend her money. Now, my plan is this. Why don't you give her just barely enough to live on, and let her try it out on the seamy side for the next six months? Nobody will know who she is or what's coming to her, and maybe when she comes up against the real thing she won't be so keen about it."

Madam followed him closely, and for a moment it looked as if the common sense of his argument appealed to her. Then her face set like a vise.

"No!" she thundered her decision. "It would be nothing less than handing her over bodily to that pompous old biped Claude Martel! For the next six months she has got to stay right here, where I can know what she is doing and where she is!"

"Do you know where she was last night?" Quin played his last trump.

She shot a suspicious look at him from under her shaggy brows.

"You said she was at the Martels'."

"I did not. I said she was all right and you'd hear from her to-day."

"Where was she?"

"She was on the way to Chicago to join Mr. Phipps."

He could not have aimed his blow more accurately. Its effect was so appalling that he feared the consequences. Her face blanched to an ashy white and her eyes were fixed with terror.

"She--she--hasn't married him?" she cried hoarsely.

"No, no; not yet. But she may any time."

"Good Lord! Why haven't you told me this before? Call Isobel! No! she's at church! Get Ranny! Somebody must go after the child!"

Quin laid a quieting hand on her arm, which was shaking as if with the palsy.

"Don't get excited," he urged. "Somebody did go after her last night, and brought her home."

"But where is she now? Where is that contemptible Phipps? I'll have him arrested! Are you sure Nellie is safe?"

"I left her safe and sound at the Martels' half an hour ago. Will you listen while I tell you all about it?"

As quietly as he could he told the story, interrupted again and again by Madam's hysterical outbursts. When he had finished she struggled to her feet.

"The child is stark mad!" she cried. "I am going after her this instant."

"She won't see you," warned Quin.

"I'll show you whether she sees me or not! I am going to bring her home with me to-night. She's got to be protected against that scoundrel. Ring for the carriage!"

Quin did not move. "She said if any of you started after her you'd find her gone when you got there."

"But who will tell her?"

"I will. I promised she wouldn't have to see you. It was the only way I could get her back from Chicago."

She scowled at him in silence, measuring his determination against her own.

"Very well," she said at last. "Since you are in such high favor, go and tell her that she can come home, and nothing more will be said about it. I suppose there's nothing else to do under the circumstances. But I'll teach her a lesson later!"

Quin balanced the paper-knife carefully on one finger.

"I don't think you quite understand," he said. "She isn't coming home. She still says she is going to marry Mr. Phipps. He will probably get her telegram when he goes to the hotel, and when she doesn't turn up in Chicago he will take the first train down here. That's the way I've figured it out."

"And do you think I am going to sit here, and do nothing while all this is taking place?"

"No; that's what I been driving at all along. I want you and Miss Nell to come to some compromise before he gets here."

"What sort of compromise? Haven't I swallowed my pride and promised to say nothing if she comes back? Does she want me to get down on my knees and apologize?"

"No. That's the trouble. She don't want you to do anything. All she is thinking about is getting married and going to New York."

"She can go to New York without that! That contemptible man! I knew all summer he was filling her head with romantic notions, but I never dreamed of this. Why, she's nothing but a child! She doesn't know what love is----" Then her voice broke in sudden panic. "We must stop it at any cost. Go--go promise her anything. Tell her I'll send her to New York, to Europe, anywhere to get her out of that wretch's clutches. My poor child! My poor baby!"

Her grief was no less violent than her anger had been, and her tearless sobs almost shook her worn old frame to pieces.

Quin knew just how she felt. It had been like that with him last night when he heard the news. With one stride he was beside her and had gathered her into his arms.

"There, there!" he said tenderly. "It's going to be all right. We are going to find a way out."

This unexpected caress, probably the first one Madam had received in many years, reduced her to a state of unprecedented humility. She transferred her resentment from Eleanor to Harold Phipps, and announced herself ready to follow whatever course Quin suggested.

"I'd offer her just this and nothing more," he advised: "The fare to New York, tuition at the dramatic school, and ten dollars a week."

"She can't live on that."

"Yes, she can. Rose Martel does."

Madam became truculent at once.

"Don't quote that girl to me. Eleanor's been used to very different surroundings."

"That's the point. Let her have what she hasn't been used to. You have tried giving her a bunch of your money and telling her how to spend it. Try giving her a little of her own and letting her do as she likes with it."

"I don't care what she does for the present, if she just won't marry that man Phipps. Make her give you her word of honor not to have anything whatever to do with him for the next six months. By that time she will have forgotten all about him."

"I'll do my best," said Quin, rising. "You'll hear from me first thing in the morning."

"Well, go now! But ring first for Hannah. We must pack the child's things to-night. The main thing is to get her out of town before that hound can get here. Don't you think either Ranny or Isobel had better take her on to New York to-morrow?"

Quin returned to the Martels' breathing easily for the first time in twenty-four hours. As he passed Rose's room on the way to his own, he saw a light over the transom, and heard the girls' voices rising in heated argument. He knew that the subject under discussion was Harold Phipps, and that Rose's arraignment was meeting with indignant denial and protest. But the fact that Rose could offer specific evidence that would shake the staunchest confidence gave him grim satisfaction.

He stumbled into his own small room, and lay across the bed looking up at the shadows made by the street lamp on the ceiling. Would Miss Nell believe what she heard? Would it go very hard with her? Would she give Phipps up? Would she accept Madam's offer? And, if she did, would she ever be willing to come home again?

Then his thoughts swerved away from all those perplexing questions and went racing back over the events of the day. For nine blissful hours he had had Eleanor all to himself. They had taken a day-coach to avoid meeting any one she knew, and he had managed to secure a rear seat, out of the range of curious eyes. Here she had poured out all her troubles, allowing the accumulated bitterness of years to find vent in a torrent of unrestrained confidence.

She recalled the days of her unhappy childhood, when she had been fought over and litigated about and contended for, until the whole world seemed a place of hideous discord and petty jealousies. She pictured her circumscribed life at the Bartletts', shut in, watched over, smothered with care and affection, but never allowed an hour of freedom. She dwelt on the increasing tyranny of her grandmother, the objection to her friends, the ruthless handling of several prospective lovers. And she ended by telling him all about her affair with Harold Phipps, and declaring that nothing they could say or do would make her give him up! And then, quite worn out, she had fallen asleep and her head had drooped against his shoulder.

Quin could feel now the delicious weight of her limp body as she leaned against him. He had sat so still, in his fear of waking her, that his arm had been numb for an hour. Then, later on, when she did wake up, he had got her some cold water to bathe her face, and persuaded her to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of milk. After that she had felt much better, and even cheered up enough to laugh at the way he looked in the queer cap the obliging stranger had given him.

"I could make her happy! I know I could make her happy!" he whispered passionately to the shadows on the ceiling. "She don't love me now; but maybe when she gets over this----"

His thoughts leaped to the future. He must be ready if the time ever came. He must forge ahead in the next six months, and be in a position by the time Eleanor had tried out her experiment to put his fate to the test. He must make up to old Bangs, and stop criticizing his methods and saying things that annoyed him. He must sacrifice everything now to the one great object of pleasing him. Pleasing him meant advancement; advancement meant success; success might mean Eleanor!

He got up restlessly and tiptoed to the door. The light over Rose's transom was gone and the house was silent.