Chapter 16

Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's. "Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.

Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right, Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."

The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you----!" he screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.

"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly! Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."

"Now, say! Do you think----"

At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside just in time.

"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."

"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.

"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."

"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin' m' wife. G'night, everybody."

He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the door and into the deepening dusk.

"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.

His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's apt to have trouble," he concluded.

"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"

"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't leave Josie Lockwood alone."

"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.

"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."

A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.

"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly, stepping nearer.

"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."

"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"

"What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind. "'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."

So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back files in the Citizen office!

"Indeed?"

"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin', but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."

"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?"

"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You can't fool me!"

A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his fingers were itching.

"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"

"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr. Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----"

Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.

"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening, thanks."

"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"

"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."

"You better agree----"

Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at his feet and held it out.

"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.

Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw it out here," he replied prudently.

Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an afterthought.

He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.

"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....

The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.

"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again. Now--ready?"

He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello, darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh, about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."

Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a little timidly.

Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and hooked up the receiver.

"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.

XXI

AS OTHERS SAW HIM

If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....

It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness, her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent, with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming--the more so for her slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....

"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"

He was speechless.

She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him both her hands. He took them, stammering.

"It's such a surprise, Betty----!"

"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here and see--what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I thought that you or father----" Her eyes fell and she faltered, withdrawing her hands.

By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."

"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.

"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."

"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile half wistful.

"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"

"Did I seem so very awful, then?"

"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."

"Then you think father will be pleased?"

"If he isn't, I'm blind!"

She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"

"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.

"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for you----"

"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty. Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be in you before it could come out. You know that."

She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely. "Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."

"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.

"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard and try to treat people the way you do--kindly, Nat, and considerately, and bravely and tenderly and honestly----"

He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands. "Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"

But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I--I never was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the whole world!"

"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"

"Oh, I know, Nat--I know you don't like me to say this, but I must, just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you and..."

But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short, hard laugh.

"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."

"Nat, what do you mean?"

He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you--feel that way toward me?"

She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."

"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."

He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between them was utterly intolerable.

"You never guessed that, did you?"

"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I--"

"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't tell you just now--not now...."

"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and see father--I mustn't forget--" she faltered, half blinded by the mist of the happiness before her eyes.

"No--wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all, she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I must."

Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.

"To-night, Betty--this evening, just a little while ago, I became engaged to Josie Lockwood."

She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up, frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he found her hand in his.

"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."

The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart, while she walked quietly from the store.

After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.

"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"

Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like the stuff any more.... But"--his gaze fell upon the cigar case--"I can have a smoke. That'll help some!"

With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.

"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be--I'll be damned!"

He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"

To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if hit by a club.

"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"

By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended his existence.

"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"

"No--rotten!"

"What's the matter?"

"_Nothing_!" Nat shouted ferociously.

"Anything I kin----"

"_No_!"

At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you? I came down to bring you home to supper."

"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your confounded systems have got me into all this----"

He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the door.

"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold on! Where are you going?"

"To the only place I can get any consolation--church!"

XXII

ROLAND'S TRIUMPH

But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle and Josie and Roland and...

"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....

"Besides, I've no right there--an impostor--a contemptible low-lived pup like me!...

"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come here? Why was I ever such a fool?...

"How _could_ I be such a fool?..."

He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived everybody--even himself for a time--played the cad and the bounder with consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham," and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and self-respect, to his greed for money.

But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the deception and--ruining the life of one woman--perhaps two: Josie Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's, for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly loved him...

But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he might--and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base level...

To-morrow--no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself, declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville, lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....

So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an hour and a half, back--all blindly: circling back to the store, in the course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its course for home.

It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful, cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.

He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.

"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up the store."

He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the last few hours.

"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad to get off. Angle's waiting."

"Angle----?"

"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."

"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you--I was thinking."

"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."

"About what?"

"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to congratulate you, don't we, Angie."

"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."

"O Lord!" groaned Nat.

"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up the spunk to--to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer. Didn't it, Angie?"

"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"

"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and smiling feebly upon them.

"Yes, sir."

"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"

Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....

Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat, to betray a mind far from complacent.

"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've been looking all over for you."

"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going through with this thing."

"You're not?"

"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern, so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm able--and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of it, I'm through."

"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely. "But what about your word to me?"

"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than by ruining a woman's life."

"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly. "And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can pay me back when it's convenient--I don't care when. But what I want to know is what you mean to do?"

"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."

"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job ahead of you."

"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for you and then to--to----"

"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.

"That's what I meant."

"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen." Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if anyone else had tried it."

"Do you think so--honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was undisguised.

"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her over--there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."

"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want it."

"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of money a great help if you want to live a happy life."

"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up the money and try for the others."

"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"