Chapter 5

"Practically alone--the nearest ranch was four miles from ours. Naturally, we saw few people, the most constant visitor at this time being a young man who owned the ranch next to ours, who, during the year, had ridden over to see us with increasing frequency. His name was Ralph Buckner, and he seemed to us to be a characteristic product of the West--with his large frame, bluff manners, and frank, open countenance. We all liked him, and the fact that he differed so much from the Eastern men I had known perhaps caused me to show a greater interest in him than I really felt. At all events, no girl was ever more genuinely surprised by an offer of marriage than I was, when it came unexpectedly one day, with that determination back of it to secure what he desired which was a part of the man himself. I did manage to collect my senses long enough to insist that I have time to think the matter over--for I had no idea of marrying him; but, much to my surprise, father approved the idea from the moment I told him of the proposal. Then it developed that Ralph had already approached him on the subject. Father, poor dear, thought only of my future and what he believed would be my happiness. It was so evident that I held in my hands the solution of his most serious problem that he never knew the misgivings I felt from the first. He could live on at the ranch for the present, busying himself with the work which kept him out-of-doors; then later, if he preferred, he could come and live with us."

"Couldn't he see what a sacrifice it meant to you?" Alice asked.

"No, dear; you must remember that, in his way, Ralph was an attractive fellow. He had been successful with his ranch; he was agreeable and intelligent; his Western boldness, as it seemed to me, was at times tempered with a certain gentleness hardly to be expected in a man of his nature; and, all in all, he was a man to whom any girl could at least give respect, and affection might come later. It meant settling down in the West for the rest of my life, but this was inevitable, anyway. I must forget the old friends and the old associations, and could I not do this better with a husband's help than alone? I asked myself a thousand questions and ended by deciding that I would marry him.

"It was a short courtship--delay was a word not found in Ralph Buckner's vocabulary. We were married and began our life at his ranch, which, as I say, was near enough to my father so that we could be in frequent communication. He had been much concerned about me, having discovered more of my homesickness for the East than I had realized, so to see me well settled and apparently happy relieved him of a heavy load."

"But you weren't happy even at first," Alice insisted. "How could you be?"

"I say 'apparently happy,' dear, for that was all it was. Ralph did what he could for me in his own way, so at first it was perhaps my fault that we were not more congenial; but his ways were not my ways, and I kept looking for what was not there. He was well-born, but his life on the ranch for so many years had dulled his appreciation of those finer, innate qualities which every wife craves--he had forgotten how to be the gentleman. Don't think that I expected the impossible, or anything incongruous to the life we were leading; but there are little attentions, thoughtful considerations and other things in a husband's relation to his wife, trivial perhaps in themselves, which the wife expects and misses if she does not receive--the more so, if she has deluded herself into believing that the instincts for them are inborn, and only require her suggestion to develop and bring them to fruition. These qualities he had seemed to show before we were married, but they proved to be only a veneer which soon wore off."

"Why do you bring this all back now ?" Alice asked, sympathetically, seeing the lines deepen in Eleanor's face.

"I must tell it to you, dear--we have grown so close that I feel this is all that remains between us. When you know this, we shall be sisters indeed."

"We are that already and more," Alice urged. "Only think how near of an age we really are."

"In years, yes; but sometimes I feel as if I had already lived centuries."

"Will the telling of this take a few of those centuries from you?" the girl inquired, smiling.

"I hope so; and that is one reason why I am asking you to share the burden with me. All that I have told you so far has been unimportant compared with what followed. Had it simply been a difference in temperament, I have no doubt that I should have become accustomed to the absence of these things I craved, and have adjusted my life to meet the new conditions. But other and more serious difficulties soon arose. With Ralph Buckner possession seemed to be enough. I have seen him scheme for months to secure some high-bred horse or a fancy breed of cattle, and after they became his property hardly care whether he ever saw them again. So it was with his wife. Within six months he resumed his fortnightly visits to Colorado Springs on alleged business, from which he always returned worn out and ill-tempered. Until we were married, I had no idea that his life on the ranch and his life in Colorado Springs were so distinctly apart, but I was soon to learn it with bitter clearness."

As the story progressed Alice could feel the increasing tenseness. Eleanor had herself well in hand, but the occasional break in her voice evidenced the strain.

"There was a so-called club in Colorado Springs whose members included the wildest young men of the town and several of the younger ranchmen who were able to stand the pace. In this Ralph was a leading spirit, drinking and gambling with that abandon which was his dominant characteristic. 'Buckner is a poor gambler but a good loser,' one of them is reported to have said, but that only meant that Ralph succeeded in concealing his real feelings until he reached home; for it was his wife who received the full force of the reaction as his brain cleared from the fumes of the liquor and he came to a realization of his losses."

She paused and looked at her companion, and encouraged by Alice's rapt attention continued:

"Our baby was born a year after we were married--"

"I never knew of that," the girl said, quietly.

"Don't," was the reply; "I can't go on if you weaken me by your sympathy."

"Forgive me, dear Eleanor," Alice murmured.

"By that time every remnant of a tie which held us together had disappeared. The child, however, was a real link, and for a little while gave us something to think of besides ourselves. For a year, perhaps, Ralph went less frequently to Colorado Springs, and I came to think that we might possibly be able to continue our lives together for the child's sake. But the novelty wore off from this new plaything, as it had from the others, though it lasted longer than anything else ever had, and then Ralph's absences from the ranch became more and more frequent and of longer duration. I cared little for this, as it enabled me to take Carina to my father's ranch, where I forgot for the time being the emptiness of the home to which we must sooner or later return."

Alice glanced up tenderly. "Poor dear Eleanor," she said, softly; but Mrs. Gorham went on without heeding:

"One day, when little Carina was three years old, we were visiting at my father's. It was late in the afternoon, and we were playing some child's game together when the door was suddenly thrown open and Ralph glowered in at us, his face purple with drunken anger. Even the four-mile ride had failed to sober him, and he leaned against the framework of the door to steady himself. The child, startled by the sudden interruption and terrified by the expression on her father's face, ran to me for protection, burying her little face in my lap.

"'That's right,' he leered at her; 'that's what they teach you to do here--make you hate your father, don't they? I'll give you a chance to get acquainted with me.'

"Then he crossed the room and tore the child from my arms, in spite of her shrieks of fear and our joint efforts to stop him. Even my father, who did all he could, was helpless against the man's almost superhuman strength. In a moment he had mounted his horse with Carina in front of him, and was galloping at breakneck speed down the long trail which led to our ranch. Father rushed to the barn, but I was there before him. Between us we saddled the mare I had ridden so many times before I was married, and I urged her forward to make up as much as possible for the lost time. But I had not far to go--"

The recital proved too much for Eleanor, in spite of her efforts to control herself. Her eyes filled with tears, and her body was convulsed with emotion as she bent her head until it rested against her companion's face.

"Don't, dear," urged Alice; "tell me the rest some other time."

"No, no!" Mrs. Gorham cried; "you must know it all, and then we need not speak of it again. I had gone over less than half the distance when I came upon them both lying in the trail. I never knew how it happened. He told some one afterward that the horse stumbled. It may have been that; it may have been anything with him in that condition. He had fallen at the side of the trail and was conscious before I left him, but Carina was--dead."

"Don't, don't go on--I can't stand it!" cried Alice.

Eleanor paused as if in response to Alice's appeal, but a glance at her face showed that an emotion stronger than even the words had expressed was holding her in its grip.

"Father was dead, too, when I returned," she said at last, her eyes still gazing into space.

"The excitement killed him?" Alice asked, breathlessly, still further shocked by the double tragedy.

"That and his anxiety over my unexplained absence."

"Your absence?" queried the girl, mystified by Eleanor's apparent incoherency. "Didn't you just say that he was dead when you returned?"

Mrs. Gorham started violently. "What am I saying!" she cried, involuntarily. In a moment she was herself again. "Yes, dear, of course I returned; but not as soon as he expected, and the shock of it all killed him. You understand, don't you? I was very ill, and a friend helped me to a hospital in Denver."

"But you said you had no friends except the man you married," Alice urged, trying to follow the narrative.

"Yes, dear, you are right," Eleanor replied somewhat confused; "but one always finds friends when in trouble, you know. It was so with me, and after I recovered my strength I lived on there in Denver with the small legacy my father left me, supplemented later by a little more from the sale of the ranch. A year after Carina's death I applied for a divorce, on the ground of desertion. My lawyer found Ralph somewhere to serve the summons on him, and reported him as having already become a professional gambler and a confirmed drunkard. He made no defence at the trial, and I have never seen him since."

"But it's all over now, Eleanor dear," Alice said, soothingly. "Daddy and I will try to make up to you for what you have been through. You must let us do that."

"You have done it already," Eleanor replied, feelingly, her temporary obsession having passed. "You and darling little Patricia have become a real part of my life, and my one prayer has been that I could do as much for you. Your father restored my lost faith in men almost the first time I met him in my lawyer's office in Denver."

"Yes." Alice accepted the tribute to her father as a matter of fact. "He nearly killed himself in Pittsburgh before he gave up his business there, and he went out West two or three times to get back his health. And the last time he brought you back, too. I have always loved the West for that."

Mrs. Gorham smiled as she continued: "I learned of his work from others and from himself, and rejoiced to find a man with real ideals, in business and in his every-day life, actually lived up to. I had no notion of what that first chance meeting would lead to, of the home that it would give me among my girlhood friends, filled with the love and sympathy which my heart had always craved. Now you know the whole story, Alice dear--now you know why the tears come sometimes to my eyes as I press to my heart that quaint, precious little sister of yours, so near the age Carina would have been, who softens the memory of the sweet dead face by giving to it a living reality."

"I understand," the girl cried, throwing her arms about Eleanor's neck and embracing her warmly. "I can't say the right thing now I am so unstrung, but I love you even more than ever because you've let me share it with you."

So they separated for the night--the woman's heart bleeding from the reopening of the former wound, yet happier that her accepted confidante had become acquainted with that part of her life which was consecrated to a memory; the girl made older by the sudden drawing of the curtain from one of life's daily yet unheralded tragedies.

VIII

Stephen Sanford arrived in Washington two days later. Little as the boy realized it, his father's pride in his son was unbounded, and stood out in marked contrast to the sterner elements in his character which had combined in such fashion as to enable him to carve out a success among and in competition with the sturdy, persistent business luminaries who developed Pittsburgh from an uncouth bed of iron and coal into a great manufacturing centre. His friends rallied him on his many indulgences to his son, all of which he accepted in good part, with a uniform rejoinder that, say what they liked, his son was going to be brought up a gentleman.

Allen's boyhood was guided by private tutors, and so hemmed in with conventions which even to his youthful mind were obviously veneers, that it was with a positive relief that he welcomed the change from the restraint of home to the freedom of college life. Yet the boy naturally possessed inherent qualities which, while not leading him to drink too deeply from the fount of wisdom, still kept him within lines which won for him the affection of his fellows and the respect of his instructors, even though his standing as a student was far below what the professors thought it might have been.

During all this period his father followed his career with that same care and insight which had characterized his own business success. He was proud of the position which the boy took--proud of his ability to mix well with his fellows; proud of his splendid run against Yale at New Haven which placed the ball within striking-distance of the blue goal; proud of his seat in the victorious eight at New London, and equally certain that the other seven had not done their full duty when the shell was nosed out by Yale at the finish on the succeeding year. If the boy had missed getting his degree Stephen Sanford would have considered his son a failure, but with the prized parchment actually secured--the first in the history of the Sanford family--he cared little how narrow the margin.

Yet Allen had passed through all these years without a suspicion of his father's real feelings toward him. He was rebuked for his extravagances each time he asked for money, yet a substantial check always accompanied each rebuke. He was criticised for not making a better record in his studies, and his success in other lines, it seemed to him, was always accepted as a matter of course. He felt convinced that his father looked upon him as a colossal failure, and he was too good-natured to quarrel with this estimate of his abilities; yet with characteristic optimism, he saw no reason to let this fact interfere with his every-day life and the pleasures it offered him.

So Allen went to Europe soon after graduation and acquired further experience in running a motor-car in England and on the Continent, together with an increased familiarity with foreign scenery and the most expensive hotels. On his return, he announced his desire to begin his business career, more because that was what his classmates were doing than because he was anxious to exchange the freedom of his present life for the confinement of an office.

"You leave that to me," his father had answered, brusquely. "What you don't know about business won't help you any in giving advice. You're going into the diplomatic service."

Unfortunately for the smooth execution of Stephen Sanford's idea, the whole country at this moment happened to be agitated over the discovery that a member of the diplomatic corps at Washington had taken advantage of his official position to secure plans and information, which he had transmitted to a power unfriendly to America, but allied to the government which he represented. The diplomat fled, ignominiously disgraced; but as far as Allen could judge from the comment he heard, his greatest sin was considered to be the breaking of the thirteenth commandment, "Thou shalt not be found out."

All this prejudiced the boy unduly against diplomacy as a profession. In his eyes the acts of this man were unsportsmanlike; and to Allen Sanford, who looked upon a "good sport" as the noblest work of God, this charge was the most serious in the category of crime. But his expostulations and protests to his father were of no avail. Stephen Sanford had made up his mind, and that was the end of it. Until he met Alice, Allen had been more upset because his father still treated him as a child than on account of any serious opposition to plans which he himself had formed. He had never yet focussed himself upon any one particular determination with sufficient strength to make his father's objections other than an annoyance. But now, assimilating a part of the girl's enthusiasm, and strengthened by the instant admiration which Mr. Gorham commanded, he was determined to make a stand at this point, taking the head of the great Consolidated Companies as his model, and with lance in hand to charge the world just as he would have "bucked" the Yale line. Even the undesired diplomatic position was apparently not forthcoming; now he would not only make an effort on his own account, but he would insist upon his right to do so. He did not know that the real reason he had heard nothing from his father during these weeks was because the positions which had been offered thus far appeared to the older man too insignificant for his son to be able to accept with dignity. As one of the Pennsylvania senators remarked, "Stephen Sanford evidently expects his son to go to the Court of St. James."

With Allen in this mood, it was not surprising that the meeting between father and son, immediately after Stephen Sanford arrived in Washington, should have ended in a declaration of war. During the interview Allen gave abundant evidence of his unfitness for anything which required diplomacy; and his father, surprised to find in the boy a will as unyielding as his own, and angered beyond expression by Allen's opposition, lost all control over himself and stamped out of the house, leaving his son behind, cast out forever from his affection, protection, and support.

"Let the young cub starve for a while and he'll realize what his father has done for him," he fumed. "Let him shift for himself and we'll see how soon he'll come home to roost."

On he stamped along the street, his cane expressing upon the pavement the anger which consumed him, but becoming less violent as he approached the hotel where he had his appointment with Gorham. He must calm himself, he urged, inwardly. He had acted in the only way he could, and his old friend must not think he had been hasty or injudicial in the position he had taken. He must be deliberate and self-possessed, as Gorham himself would have been under the same circumstances. Then the cane came down again on the hard pavement with a resounding blow. "Damn Gorham!" he muttered; "damn all these smooth-mannered men who never lose their tempers; damn everybody!"

"Come in, Stephen, come in; I'm glad to see you," Gorham greeted him as he puffed into the apartment, almost exhausted by the double strain of losing his self-control and his strenuous efforts to regain it. "I didn't realize it was so warm outside. This is the most summer-like October I have ever seen. Sit down and I'll have Riley mix you up something cooling."

"No," commanded Sanford, "not a drop; I'm cool enough. I've been hurrying, that's all. Haven't forgotten how fussy you are about keeping appointments on the minute, you see."

Gorham laughed. "I must have learned the trait from you; but it doesn't apply to an old friend like Stephen Sanford," he said. "Business is business, of course; but you wrote me that you wanted my advice. There are no minute appointments in friendship, Stephen. My time is yours."

"Thank you." Sanford was sparring for breath. "I haven't pestered you much with my personal affairs, have I?"

"You couldn't 'pester' me with them, Stephen. If I can serve you I'll be as glad to as you would be to reciprocate."

"Yes, yes." The visitor still employed monosyllables as far as possible as his vehicle of expression, but he was mastering his emotion.

"Have you seen Allen?" Gorham asked, naturally but unfortunately.

Sanford sprang out of his chair and waved his arms wildly. "Why do you try to stir me all up again ?" he cried. "Can't you let me get my breath?"

Gorham looked at him amazed. "Has anything happened?" he asked.

"The young reprobate! I'll show him. I've cut him off without a penny, Robert; do you understand--without a penny!"

"You've done what?" Gorham demanded, his face sobering.

"I'll show him that he can't make a monkey out of his father. You've seen him, Robert. You know what an obstinate, headstrong cub he is. Wants to go into business, does he? Thinks he knows what's good for him better than his father does, does he? I'll show him. He can go to the devil now--that's where he can go."

Gorham knew better than to interrupt Sanford until his tirade was spent. He watched him pacing up and down the room; he noted the twitching of his features, the clenched hands, and the violent color in his face.

"You're taking chances to let yourself get worked up like this, Stephen," he said, quietly, at length. "You and I are growing older, and our systems won't stand what they used to."

Sanford stopped abruptly. "That's what he's counting on, the ingrate. I've spent my whole life building up those furnaces and making money so that he might be a gentleman. Now he throws it all over, and he thinks I'll shuffle off in one of these spells; but I'll fix him. Not a penny of my money shall he get--not one penny."

"How has Allen disgraced himself? Has he been stealing, or is it forgery or murder?"

"You--you," Sanford sputtered, "you dare to suggest that my boy would disgrace himself! You--you--"

"Sit down, Stephen, and calm yourself," Gorham laughed. "No one could think of a less heinous crime than I have suggested, judging by your own arraignment of the boy. How can I help you unless you tell me what has happened?"

"I'm an old fool to let you string me so, but I'm all used up."

"And the boy has been a young fool and proved himself a chip of the old block--how is that for a guess?"

"So you're going to take sides with him, are you?"

"How can I tell until I know the circumstances ?"

"He won't do what his father tells him," Sanford explained. "That's the situation in a nutshell."

"Good! Now you are becoming communicative. So you've cut him off because he won't do what you tell him?"

"Yes--the young reprobate. How he ever broke into my family is more than I can understand."

"You're sure your way is better than his, are you, Stephen?"

"Of course I am. Aren't you?"

"I don't know what your way is any more than I know Allen's, so I can speak without prejudice. I just wanted to be sure that you had given both sides of the question sufficient consideration to be certain of your position. It's a serious thing to send your own son adrift, Stephen."