Chapter 15

The maddening feature of this calm assumption of superiority was the fact that the woman seemed really to believe for the moment exactly what she was saying and to forget why Dodd had jeopardized his fortunes; her manner showed her shallow estimate of the situation.

“There's another way of doing it,” raged the young man, infuriated by this repudiation of obligation. “I'll blow the whole thing about the two of us--and she'll be glad enough to have me after it's all over.”

“You haven't any right to bring all this trouble and disgrace into my family.”

“You know one way of preventing it and you'd better get busy, Mrs. Kilgour,” he advised. “I'm going to give you another chance of keeping your word and paying your debt to me. I want Kate--and I have waited for her long enough.”

He clapped on his hat and hurried away.

He left the mother sprawled on a couch, her ringed hands clutched into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have convinced any unprejudiced hearer that she felt real grief.

When Richard Dodd entered his uncle's offices in the First National block a little later he was in the mood to force his affairs a bit. He enjoyed liberties there which the ordinary caller did not have and he walked into Kate Kilgour's little room without attracting attention or comment.

“I know exactly how you feel about last night, Kate.” He addressed her respectfully and humbly. “I understand that this is no place to discuss the matter. I haven't come here to do so. I apologize for the affair. I'm going to say this to you--I took your mother's advice. She planned the thing and trumped up the errand which called you to that house. I'm afraid she is rather too romantic. I only say this, Kate: a man's love can make him do foolish things. Please talk with your mother when you go home--and take her advice. If you do, it will be better for all of us.” He trembled with the restraint he had put upon himself. “You can see that I have been punished, Kate. I am a different man--you ought to be able to see it. Awful trouble has come to me. I need your love to help me through it.”

She gazed at him with level, cold eyes.

“You don't understand. I can't explain, dear! But I'm telling you the truth. Kate, if you don't forget that folly I was guilty of last night and be to me what you have been--if you don't marry me very soon you will be sorry.”

“Are you threatening me, Richard?”

“No, I didn't mean it to sound like that. But I know that with your appreciation of what sacrifice means you will be very unhappy if you toss me away and then find out certain things.”

“This is not the time for riddles, Richard. What do you mean?”

“I have said all I can say.”

“I do not love you well enough to be your wife. I have not meant to play the coquette. I have not known myself. You and my mother--Oh, why rehearse? You know the story. You have understood that my love for you was not what you should have. We may as well end it here and now, Richard. I will forget last night. I will forget all the rest--for it is ended!”

“It cannot be ended,” he retorted. “Understand! It cannot be ended. I am trying to hold myself together, Kate. Don't provoke me. I call on you to keep your promise. No other man shall have you.” He leaned close. “Do you love any other man?”

She looked up at him and spoke slowly and gravely. “I do not think I do, Richard.”

He scowled at her. “You don't _think_ you do! What in the name of Judas do you mean by a remark like that?”

“It's because I'm trying to tell the truth,” she returned, with simple earnestness.

“This is a sort of new mood you're in?” he persisted.

“Yes.”

He hesitated. He started to speak and then was silent for a long time. “Damnation! I won't insult you!” he blurted at last.

“I hope not, Richard.”

“It's preposterous!”

“What is preposterous?” Her tone was calm.

“I saw you look at a man last evening.”

“Very well!”

“I have seen women look at me like that in my life.”

“I was not conscious that I looked at any man in any especial manner.”

“You couldn't see yourself. Perhaps you did not realize that you looked at that man with any meaning in your eyes. But the women who looked at me as you looked at him told me that they loved me. I am talking it right out! But if I should hint that you're in love with a tramp I should insult you. I am crazy, that's all. My troubles are affecting my mind. Forgive me, Kate.”

“You are, of course, referring to the young man who broke in on our prospective business last evening.” There was just a touch of contempt in her demeanor; but her air was coldly business-like; sitting there at her desk she held him, physically and mentally, at arm's-length. Her poise was sure. It seemed perfectly natural for her to be discussing a young man in an impersonal manner.

“I am referring to that low-lived vagrant we met on the road--that iceman--that--well, I don't know what he is except that the devil seems to be kicking him under my feet to trip me. Kate, Kate, it's too ridiculous to talk about--that wretch!”

“Do you mean by that remark that I am taking any interest in that young man outside of mere curiosity?”

“I don't know why you should have any curiosity about a tramp.”

“You are not a good student of physiognomy, Richard.”

“So you have been studying him, have you? You went away with him and left me. What did he say to you? Where did he leave you? I haven't dared to think about your going away with him. I excused it because you were angry--so angry you'd even pick up a tramp for an escort. But what interest do you take in that renegade?” His tones were acrid with jealousy.

“I did not find him a renegade. I found him a mystery, Richard. And I hope that some day I will know what the mystery is.”

“Are you trying to drive me mad?”

“I am merely chatting along in order to keep you off a topic which is distressing. I heard that your uncle intended to have the man investigated after he came into the office here and made that brave stand. I happened to hear the talk the young man made. Perhaps that accounts for my curiosity. Did your uncle find out much about the man?”

“I don't know what he found out,” declared Dodd, rapidly losing control of himself. “But I propose to find out for myself.”

“Please do, Richard,” said the girl, ingenuously and earnestly. She seemed to be losing some of the hauteur she had shown at the first of their meeting.

“I'll find out enough to put him in jail, where he probably belongs. I'm not going to insult you, Kate, by any more talk about a tramp. You can't shift me from the main topic. Go home and talk with your mother, as I have told you. We are going to be married!”

“Richard, our affair is ended.”

“Then who is the man?”

“There is no man.”

“If you say that and mean it, then you don't know women as well as I know them. You don't know even yourself!” he declared. “I want to say to you, Kate, that we are all walking on mighty thin ice. The sooner you and I take hold of hands and get safely ashore--just you and I--the better it will be. Just let your curiosity about other men fall asleep. I tell you again, go home and talk with your mother.”

He bowed, reached his hand to touch hers, but refrained when she turned suddenly to her desk and resumed her work.

Young Dodd hurried out of the building without attempting to see his uncle, and cooled his head and his passion and soothed his physical discomfort by a headlong dash in his car back to the state's capital city.

The girl took her courage in her hands and asked Mr. Peter Briggs, in as matter-of-fact tone as she could muster, whether he did not want any record copy made of his notes in regard to that person who had bearded Colonel Dodd. But Mr. Briggs informed her that the matter was not of sufficient importance.

“The fellow is merely a cheap, loafing sort--here to-day, there to-morrow,” said Briggs. “I investigated him thoroughly.”

Until then Miss Kilgour had always had a high opinion of Peter Briggs's acumen. She promptly revised that estimate, reflecting that age is bound to dull a person's senses and cloud his judgment.

XXI

THE HONORABLE LION CONFERS WITH COLONEL TIGER

All his people in the offices of the Honorable Archer Converse noticed that the chief was not amiable that day. His usual dignified composure was wholly lacking. He gave off orders fretfully, he slapped papers about on his desk when he worked there; every now and then he glanced up at the portrait of his distinguished father and muttered under his breath. He had called for more documents relating to state health statistics, reports on water systems, and had despatched a clerk to the capital city to secure certain additional facts, figures, and literature. The junior members of his law firm knew that he had taken much to heart the case of the citizens of Danburg, who had been blocked in their honest efforts to build a water system and who now charged various high interests with conspiracy. The litigation was important--the issues revolutionary. But the juniors had never seen the chief fussed up by any law case before.

Then something really did happen!

The three citizens of Danburg who had occasionally conferred with him came into his office and lined up in front of him. Mr. Davis scratched his chin and blinked meekly, Mr. Erskine exhibited his nervousness by running his fingers around inside his collar, and Mr. Owen fairly oozed unspoken apology.

“Look here, gentlemen,” snapped Mr. Converse, “I'm not ready for you. I told you not to come until next week. I have an immense mass of material to study. You're only wasting time--mine and yours--coming here to-day.”

“Well, you see, your honor,” stammered Davis, “we came to-day so as to save you more trouble and work.”

“Work!” echoed Mr. Converse, seizing the arms of his chair and shoving an astonished face forward.

“Why--why--you see we've decided not to push this case any further. And whatever is owing to you--name the sum.” He did not relish the glow which was coming into the attorney's eyes, nor the grim wrinkles settling about the thin lips. “So that there won't be any hard feelings, in any way,” Davis hastened to say.

“What has happened to you men all of a sudden?” demanded the lawyer. “Explain! Speak up!”

Davis's face was red, and he found much difficulty in replying.

“Well--you see--you know--if you get into law you never know when you're going to get out. We feel that this case is bound to drag! It's an awful big case--and they've got lots of money to fight us.”

“I told you I'd take your case for bare expenses and court fees,” stormed the lawyer. “It's a case I wanted to prosecute.”

“We know--you were mighty fine about it--but we've decided different. You see, the Consolidated--”

Mr. Converse came onto his feet and shook his finger under Davis's nose. “Don't you dare to tell me you have sold out to the Consolidated,” he shouted in tones that rang through his offices and brought all his force to the right about and attention.

“That wasn't it--exactly. But they'll take it off our hands--will do the right thing, now that we have shown 'em a few things! Colonel Dodd has seen new light. And it is too good a price for us to throw down.”

“You have let those monopolists buy you off. They have paid you a big bribe because they are getting scared. They were afraid they had played the old game once too often. I have them where I want them! No, my men! You've got to fight this thing, I say.”

“You can't drag us into law unless we're willing to go,” stated Davis, doggedly. “We've taken their money and the papers have been passed--and that settles it. We haven't done anything different than the others have done in this state.”

“No, and that's the trouble with this state,” cried Converse, with passion. “You came in here at first and talked like men--like honest men who had good reason for righteous anger--and I took your case. And now you sneak back here and give up your fight--bribed after I clubbed them until they were willing to offer you enough money.”

“We have only done what straight business men would do Mr. Converse,” declared Owen.

“We had a chance to go to the high court with a case that would open up the whole rottenness in this state before we got done fighting, and you have sold out!”

“Good day. We don't have to listen to such talk,” said Erskine.

“You wait one minute.” The lawyer pulled open a drawer and found his check-book. He wrote hastily and tore out the check. “Here's that retaining-fee you paid me. Now get out of my office.”

He drove them ahead of him to the door, shouting insistent commands that they hurry.

When they were gone he gazed about at his astonished associates, his partners, and his clerks.

“I apologize most humbly ladies and gentlemen, for making such a disturbance. I--I hardly seem to be myself to-day.”

He went to his desk and sat down and stared up at the portrait of War-Governor Converse for a long time. At last he thumped his fist on his desk and shook his head.

“No,” he declared, as if the portrait had been asking him a question and pressing him for a reply, “I can't do it. I could have gone into the courts and fought them as an attorney. I could have maintained my self-respect. But not in politics--no--no! It's too much of a mess in these days.”

But he pushed aside the papers which related to the affairs of the big corporations for which he was counsel and kept on studying the reports which his clerks had secured for him--such statements on health and financial affairs as they were able to dig up.

A day later his messenger brought a mass of data back from the State House along with a story about insolent clerks and surly heads of departments who offered all manner of slights and did all they dared to hinder investigation.

“It's a pretty tough condition of affairs, Mr. Converse,” complained the clerk, “when a state's hired servants treat citizens as if they were trespassers in the Capitol. It has got so that our State House isn't much of anything except a branch office for Colonel Dodd.”

“But you told them from what office you came--from my office?”

“Of course I did, sir.”

“Well, what did they say?”

The clerk's face grew red and betrayed sudden embarrassment.

“Oh, they--they--didn't say anything special: just uppish--only--”

“What did they say?” roared Mr. Converse. “You've got a memory! Out with it! Exact words.”

Clerks were taught to obey orders in that office.

“They said,” choked the man, “that simply because your father was governor of this state once you needn't think you could tell folks in the State House to stand around! They said you didn't cut any ice in politics.”

“That's the present code of manners, eh? Insult a citizen and salaam to a politician!”

“Mr. Converse, I waited an hour in the Vital Statistics Bureau while the chief smoked cigars with Alf Symmes, that ward heeler. I had sent in our firm card, and the chief held it in his hand and flipped it and smoked and sat where he could look out at me and grin--and when Symmes had finished his loafing they let me in.”

Mr. Converse turned to his desk and plunged again into the data.

The next day he put a clerk at the long-distance telephone to call physicians in all parts of the state--collecting independent information in regard to the past and present prevalence of typhoid; he read certain official reports with puckered brow and little mutters of disbelief, and after he had read for a long time that disbelief was very frank. Mr. Converse had rather keen vision in matters of prevarication, even when the lying was done adroitly with figures.

He was not a pleasant companion for his office force during those days; his irascibility seemed to increase. He knew it himself, and he felt a gentleman's shame because of a state of mind which he could not seem to control.

And finally, out of the complexity of his emotions, he fully realized that he was angry at himself and that his anger at himself was growing more acute from the fact that he realized that the anger was justified. For he woke to the knowledge that he had allowed himself to grow selfish. He resented the fact that anybody should expect him to meddle with public affairs--to get into the muddle of politics. And he knew he ought to be ashamed of such selfishness--and, therefore, he grew more angry at himself as he continued to harbor resentment against any agency which threatened to drag him into public life.

He knew where the shell of that selfishness had been broken--it was cracked in the meeting where his chivalry had received its call to arms in behalf of the helpless. Those men had gazed at him, had told their troubles--and had left it all to his conscience! He did not believe those men were shrewd enough to understand so exactly in what fashion he could be snared in their affairs.

“Confound that rascal who inveigled me there!” ran his mental anathema of the strange young man. “He must have been the devil, wearing that frock-coat to hide his forked tail. And here I am now, fighting for peace of mind!”

And his struggle for his peace of mind drove him, at last, to set his hat very straight on his head and march across the street to Colonel Symonds Dodd's office.

The Honorable Archer Converse had made up his mind that no influence in the world could pull or push him into politics. He held firmly fixed convictions as to what would happen to a good man in politics. To get office this man of principle would be obliged to fight manipulators with their own choice of weapons. And once in office, all his motives would be mocked and his movements assailed. Converse was a keen man who had studied men; he was not one of those amiable theorists who believe that the People always have sense enough in the mass to turn to and elect the right men for rulers. He understood perfectly well that accomplishing real things in politics is not a game of tossing rose-petals.

He went to call on Colonel Dodd. He went with the lofty purpose of a patriotic citizen, resolved to exhort the colonel to clean house. It seemed to be quite the natural thing to do, now that the idea had occurred to him. Certainly Colonel Dodd would listen to reason--would wake up when the thing was presented to him in the right manner; he must understand that new fashions had come to stay in these days of reform.

Thinking it all over, considering that really the matter of this water-supply and attendant monopoly of franchises had become an evil, that the prospects of the party would be endangered if the party leaders continued to nurse this evil, Mr. Converse was certain that he and the colonel would be able to arrange for reform, by letting the colonel do the reforming.

They faced each other. Their respective attitudes told much!

Colonel Dodd filled his chair in front of his desk, using all the space in it, swelling into all its concavities--usurping it all.

The Honorable Archer Converse sat very straight, his shoulders not touching his chair-back.

Physically they represented extremes; mentally, morally, and in political ethics they were as divergent as their physical attributes.

“I'm sorry that you were able to take those Danburg men into camp,” said Mr. Converse, couching his lance promptly and in plain sight like an honorable antagonist. “I had been retained and proposed to expose conditions in the management of water systems.”

“I don't know what you mean,” replied the colonel, following his own code of combat and mentally fumbling at a net to throw over this antagonist.

“Yes, you do,” retorted Mr. Converse. “You know better than I do because you own the water systems of this state. But if you need to be reminded, Colonel, I'll say that you are making great profits. You can afford to tap lakes--spend money for mains even if you do have to go fifteen or twenty miles into the hills around the cities and towns.”

“Whom do you represent, sir?”

“Colonel Dodd, I think--really--that I'm representing _you_ when I give you mighty good advice and do not charge for it.”

“I've got my own lawyers, Mr. Converse.”

Both men were employing politeness that was grim, and they were swapping glances as duelists slowly chafe swords, awaiting an opening.

Sullen anger was taking possession of the colonel, thus bearded.

Righteous indignation, born from his bitterness of the past few days, made Converse's eyes flash.

“You are one of the richest men in this state, Colonel Dodd, and your money has come to you from the pockets of the people--tolls from thousands of them. Remember that!”

“Huh!” snorted the colonel, looking up at a bouquet.

It is not often given to men to place proper estimate on their own limitations. Otherwise, the Honorable Archer Converse would never have gone in person to prevail upon Colonel Symonds Dodd. In temperament and ethics they were so far asunder that conference between them on a common topic was as hopeless an undertaking as would be argument between a tiger and a lion over the carcass of a sheep.

Mr. Converse rose, unfolding himself with dignified angularity.

“I must remind you, sir, that I belong to the political party of which you assume to be boss. If you refuse to give common justice to the people, then you are using that party to cover iniquity.”

Colonel Dodd worked himself out of his chair and stood up. “I am taking no advice from you, sir, as to how I shall manage business or politics.”

“Perhaps, sir, in regard to your business I can only exhort you to be honest, but as regards the party which my honored father led to victory in this state I have something to say, by gad! sir, when I see it being led to destruction.”

“Well, sir, what have you to say?”

“I will not stand by and allow it to be ruined by men who are using it to protect their methods in business dealings.”

“What ice do you think you cut in the politics of this state?” inquired the colonel, dropping into the vernacular of the politician, too angry to deal in any more grim politeness.

“Not the kind you are cutting, sir--your political ice is like the ice you cut from the poisoned rivers.”

“It seems to be still popular for cranks to come here and threaten me,” sneered the colonel. “It was started a while ago by a shock-headed idiot from the Eleventh Ward.”

The Honorable Archer Converse displayed prompt interest which surprised the colonel. “A young man from the Eleventh Ward? Was he tall and rather distinguished-looking?”

Colonel Dodd snorted his disgust. “Distinguished-looking! He threatened me, and I had him followed. He's a ward heeler. Better look him up!” His choler was driving him to extremes. He was pricked by his caller's high-bred stare of disdain. “He seems to be another apostle of the people who wants to tell me how to run my own business. Yes, you better look him up, Converse.”

“Very well, sir! If he came in here and tried to tell you the truth about yourself he's worth knowing. Furthermore, I think I do know him.”

“Ah, one of those you train with, eh? Do you like him?”

It was biting sarcasm, but to the colonel's disappointment it did not appear to affect his caller in the least. Converse even smiled--a most peculiar sort of smile.

“I must say, sir, that I have been hating him cordially.”

The colonel grunted approbation.

“But from now on, sir, for reasons best known to myself, I'm going to make that young man my close and particular friend. You'll hear from us later.”

He bowed stiffly and went out, leaving Colonel Dodd staring after him with his square face twisted into an expression of utter astonishment, his little eyes goggling, his tuft of whisker sticking up like an exclamation-point.

“The first appropriation the next legislature makes,” he soliloquized, “will have to be money enough to build a new wing on the insane-hospital. They're all going crazy in this state, from aristocrats to tramps.”

XXII

ENLISTING A KNIGHT-ERRANT