Part 6

“Aren’t you glad, then?” asked Chalmers gently. He had sat down opposite her, by the fire. Patsy admitted again that he was _almost_ as handsome as Warren. Too bad he never _did_ anything, she reflected; he was too good for just the Club. In fact, Patsy decided suddenly, he was good enough to help her.

“Am I glad?” she repeated slowly, while her eyes still measured him. “Well, Kent--you know all about it, of course--would you be? Oh, I suppose I’m a little cad to answer you like that,” she went on swiftly, “even though you are Timothy’s friend--my brother’s friend, and--my husband’s. _Because_ you are, perhaps I should say. But Kent”--she faced him squarely, with that little boyish movement of the shoulders that Patsy would never lose, no matter how many tens of years went by--“you’re my friend too--have been ever since I came to Washington; and that’s a very long time. You know how I’ve worked for Warren, how I’ve hated the work I had to do for him--because of the wires to be pulled and the finesse to be made use of, all the sort of thing a Congressman’s wife has to do, you know, and that was like driving nails into the frankness Timothy and I had always been used to. But you know I _did_ do that work, Kent--for Warren’s sake; nothing else in the world! And (Patsy turned her head away abruptly) my reward was always, that I was _everything_ to Warren.”

“Yes----?” Chalmers’ voice came to her like the strong grip of an understanding hand.

“Well,--that’s all. You know--Warren says every one in Washington knows--I’ve not been everything to him. It was only necessary for me to go away for a very little time and--Warren found some one who was _really_ everything to him.” Patsy looked across at Warren’s friend, but he was shading his eyes, so that she could not see them. “Just put yourself in my place, Kent; suppose Farleigh----”

“That is what I’m trying to do, put myself in your place,” Chalmers interrupted very quietly; “and I admit it’s not a pleasant place, Patsy. Still--Warren told you all this? He came straight to you, and told you everything?”

“Yes. But----”

“He might very easily not have told you,” meditated Chalmers. “People--in such cases, people don’t often tell, you know.”

“He knew, of course, I’d find out,” returned Patsy a bit scornfully. “In this place every one knows everything.”

“Or invents it,” retorted Chalmers. “Tell me truthfully, Patsy, if you had heard that Warren was er--interested in some other woman, that she was using her influence” (Chalmers hesitated), “her husband’s influence to get him a Cabinet appointment--Warren told you that?” he added quickly.

“Yes,” said Patsy, very low.

“Then--_truthfully_--if any one in Washington had told you this thing about Warren, tell me--would you have believed it? _Would you_, Patsy?”

There was a moment of rather tense silence; then “Warren sent you here to plead for him,” Patsy broke out, tying her handkerchief in hard little knots; “and you’re doing it--oh, cleverly! But it’s no good, Kent. Of course, I wouldn’t have believed it; you know that. But it’s no good, Kent, Warren----”

“And you don’t credit Warren with the wit to know it too?” Chalmers interrupted, impatiently. “I daresay there have been stories, plenty of them, about Warren, as there are about every politician, that have made your blood boil, Patsy; and yet, with all the experience he’s had with you, and knowing how much importance you’d attach to _this_ story if it were to come to you in the usual way, you think that Warren told you the truth himself because he was _afraid_? My dear Patsy, you don’t know strength when it’s shown you!”

“My dear Kent,” Patsy’s voice was as cold as the fall wind that whistled to them through the chimney, “I know weakness when I’ve lived with it for ten years. Oh, you don’t need to remind me”--she went on restlessly--“I know I’ve _liked_ Warren’s weakness, I’ve encouraged it, I suppose, by begging him _not_ to be a saint and all that, like his mother and all those Boston aunts had tried to make him. And, secretly, I suppose too, I’ve rather gloried in being the stronger nature: I was willing Warren should have the cleverness, the brains, if I could direct them. I liked feeling myself always the power behind the throne, and all that sort of thing, and--well, you can’t blame me if I resent having the throne usurped in my absence!”

“Is that what you said to Warren, when he told you?” Chalmers had risen and walked over to the window. It was very cold and bleak outside.

“I said to Warren”--Patsy’s friend had never heard quite _that_ note in her voice--oddly hollow it was, and colorless--“that as he had made the decision, he must abide by it. That we were both of us too sensitive to make a scandal, and besides there was the Angel--Junior, I mean; I told Warren we should have to go on living here, of course; but that--as he had already chosen to go his way, I certainly should not interfere. I had no idea of subjecting myself to more confessions like this morning’s.”

“Yes!” Chalmers wheeled round suddenly and came over to her. “And I suppose that while you were saying it, you felt very eloquent and injured and pleased with yourself--that you were able to put it to him so clearly, and convincingly. And you congratulated yourself for not flying into a rage and making a scene, as so many women would have done. The very fact that you were talking _down_ to him gave you a pleasant thrill of self-approbation!--oh, I know you strong people,” he added bitterly. “You’re the weakest people in the world!”

“Kent!” She was too astonished to be furious, even.

“Yes; I mean it. Lord knows I’ve been strong long enough to know, haven’t I? But by Heavens, I’m beginning to fairly long to be weak! Here you have a man (he still stood over her, sternly) whom you have, confessedly, encouraged in his weakness, nay, _taught_ his weakness. You teach him, too, to depend on you utterly, you give him all the complement of sense and practical judgment that his own brains and imagination need; then suddenly, and for the first time, you withdraw all this--not heartlessly, for you had Junior’s welfare to consider; but unrealizingly. You withdraw all this that Warren has depended on for years, and he finds himself all at once alone. A hand is stretched out--and you know as well as I do, Patsy, in Washington it is not _a_ hand, but many hands. He takes one of them--a little doubtfully, yet somehow trustingly, too; and--it’s a very experienced hand, this that he’s caught hold of--he lets it drag him deeper and deeper, till he very nearly drowns. Then, all of a sudden, he comes to the top--with a little gasp of realization. He shakes himself loose--oh, yes, he did, weeks ago!--he puts in a month of the most ghastly shipwreck a man can know. And at the end of that time he has the sublime courage to tell you! And you--what do you do for him?”

“How do you know all this about Warren?” demanded Patsy, irrelevantly. This time it was she who had risen and gone over to the window. “He told me, when I asked about you, that he had scarcely seen you, since I’d been away. How do you know what he’s been through?”

“I know, Patsy--because--I’ve been through shipwreck myself, though of a different sort. Thank God!--a different sort! For I never had to screw my shrinking soul up to the point of baring it to a strong person’s knife!” Chalmers came over to her, and laid both hands on her shoulders. “Patsy, dear little girl, just remember, will you, that I _am_ Timothy’s friend, and your friend, and--Warren’s friend; remember it, will you? For I’ve said some rather harsh things to you. But--don’t you see? Maybe it’s because I envy you--yes” (as Patsy’s eyes opened wide at him), “that may be it. You see, little pal”--Chalmers’ voice was not quite steady--“in spite of everything, Warren hasn’t failed you! Or if he has, it’s been to show himself to you, nearer perfect than he’s ever been before. He was weak, yes; even cheap, perhaps--which is much worse than weak--but through that very weakness somehow he gained strength to climb up and stand beside you--on your level, for the first time in his life. And you--oh, Patsy! you pushed him over the precipice! It’s a way strong natures have--the way of the fittest, I suppose; you didn’t see that for the first time in his life _he_ was strong, worthy of you, worthy of all you had given him before. You saw--isn’t it so, Patsy?--_only the woman_?”

“Yes,” said Patsy, faintly, “it is so.” She was staring amazedly at the handsome, passionately earnest face of the clubman. “But, Kent--I don’t understand--why do _you_ feel so keenly about all this? You”--she laughed a little nervously--“it’s almost as though you were pleading your own case. But I’m sure such a thing has never happened to you, Kent--it couldn’t somehow: you’re er--too remote, too much of a--what shall I say?--not dreamer, exactly----”

“Yes,”--the lines about the clubman’s mouth hardened--“I think you have hit it exactly, Patsy: I’ve been too much of a dreamer! But”--he slumped down into his chair again--“let all that go; it’s of no consequence anyway, my part. Just say you’ll let Warren see that it’s not going to make any difference, will you?--the--the woman, I mean? You _will_ say that much, Patsy?”

Patsy looked away from him, for a long moment. Then her hand met his with the old impulsive frankness. “Yes, I will, Kent. If you care enough for Warren to come here and plead for him, I surely care enough to forgive him! Though, of course”--she weakened a little--“you’re an outsider in the affair: you can’t really see what it means to----”

“To forgive? Perhaps not,--then again, perhaps I do. You see----”

“Somebody had to forgive the woman, I suppose,” it occurred to Patsy who was intent on her own train of thought; “or not to forgive her. Oh, do you know if I were that woman’s husband, Kent, I just _couldn’t_ forgive her--that’s all! I couldn’t. Why, _think_----” she broke off suddenly, looking up at him with a little laugh. “Do you know what just came into my mind, Kent?--something perfectly absurd!--that what _I_ ought to do now, is to _go beg the woman’s husband to forgive her_! Then I’d have conquered my weakness as well as Warren did his, eh?” Patsy stopped abruptly; for there in the door stood Warren.

He still wore his overcoat, and his splendidly built body seemed to have hunched down into it--apathetically. “Well----?” he said, coming over and dropping into a third chair by the fire, “I suppose you’ve talked it all over?”

The big clubman, his friend, got up and began slowly to draw on one glove. “Ye-es,” he said,--and it was with the characteristic Club drawl--“we’ve talked it all over, Warren, and--it’s all right!” His ungloved hand went out to the other man; who stared at it--then up into the face above it--and finally, with a long breath, wrung it nearly off.

“Well, I must be toddling along to the Club,” added Chalmers lightly; “the boys will be missing me, you know; yes, the boys will be missing me. Good-night, Patsy, my dear” (she had gone over to the door with him, and he spoke in an undertone) “and--and don’t worry too much about that--that other person, you know. I daresay her hus--I daresay it’s all right with her, too. Good-night, Warren.”

* * * * *

“It _is_ all right?” Warren asked his wife. In his tired face a little glimmer of vitality showed.

“All right!” echoed Patsy, her eyes meeting his with a something he had never seen in them before. Then, “Take this wet coat off at once, Warren Adams,” she scolded, “and those boots--you’re to go straight upstairs and change them. I declare, it’s certainly a good thing I’ve come home!--you’re worse than Junior, about your rubbers!” She was tugging at his heavy coat, but he caught her hands and drew her about, to face him.

“Yes,” he said--reverently--“it’s a very good thing you’ve come home!”

And for some reason, Patsy had to snatch her hands away and go flying up the stairs ahead of him.

“But do you know, Claire,” she told the little stepmother, after she had finished the story of Chalmers’ visit and his strange zeal on Warren’s behalf, “it’s just as I told Kent: I can’t see how that woman’s husband _can_ forgive her! Why, she----”

“You told Kent that?” asked the stepmother, oddly.

“Why, yes--why not?”

“Nothing. Except that--that woman’s husband is Kent. The woman, you see, was Farleigh.”

“_Farleigh!_” Patsy covered her face with her hands. “Oh, no--no! Not Farleigh, Claire!--why it couldn’t have touched Kent, a thing like that; it couldn’t, you know--and then you see he came here to plead for Warren. Oh, no, no, Claire--it couldn’t have been Farleigh!”

“The woman was Farleigh,” insisted the little stepmother, with gentle obstinacy.

“And I told him he couldn’t judge--that he was too much of an outsider, too remote----!” Patsy drew her hands down from her face, with a little sob. “I said ‘you’re too much of a dreamer’; and--oh, Claire!--Kent said ‘yes, you’ve hit it exactly! I’ve been too much of a dreamer!’” Patsy had dropped down on one of the big trunks, and was crying bitterly. There is no personal grief in the world as poignant as the pain one feels for a creature who bears his silently.

“But, Patsy--don’t cry so, dear”--into the older woman’s face had come a wonderful understanding sweetness--“don’t you see why Kent came here and talked to you that way? Don’t you see that it’s futile to be sorry for a man who loves as Kent can love?”

“You mean----?” Patsy sat up and dried her eyes.

“I mean--why do you suppose that Kent came here to-day to plead for Warren, Patsy?--to plead for his friend? Never in the world! He came to plead for the injury wrought his friend!--for the person who wrought the injury. Ah, my dear!--to be loved as Kent loves Farleigh----!” The silver-haired woman’s voice had sunk almost to a whisper. “It--it’s worth being wicked, just to find it out. It’s sublime!”

“And he went off to the Club!”--Patsy was talking more to herself than audibly--“he said the boys would be missing him--_the boys_, that’s all!”

Somewhere a bell rang musically. A child’s voice called “Mumsie!” And a man came and stood in the door, waiting--his eyes fixed yearningly on the tear-stained face within.

Patsy looked at him--looked at the little stepmother; but as she slipped a hand through the arm of each of them, it was not of them she was thinking, but of Chalmers--clearly a clubman, _pure and simple_.

VII

PIX--PURELY A PHILANTHROPIST

“Don’t be so lazy,” said Kent, “get something to do.”

“I have something to do,” said Pix; “I’m a philanthropist.”

“That’s what I mean;--get an occupation.”

“My dear boy,” reproachfully Pix looked at him, “don’t say unnecessary things. You know I was educated for the position of an English gentleman; though my brains in the first place weren’t half bad. Besides, I make a very good philanthropist.”

“So does anybody.”

“Who’s rich enough,” added Pix, lighting another pipe. “One can make quite exhaustive use of being rich, d’ye know, Chalmers? You and I, for instance, shouldn’t have to be sitting here on a Park bench unless we were rich; I shouldn’t dare to be smoking a pipe, you wouldn’t dare to be puffing Pall Malls at a shilling the box--you’d be opening and re-opening a case of monogrammed Egyptians you couldn’t afford, for the sake of showing any one who happened to pass that you could afford them.”

“I thought you said I wouldn’t dare to be sitting on this bench--who’d pass, then? where?”

“I’m never logical,” Pix returned, without pride; “what philanthropist is? D’ye know, Chalmers, I believe some day I’m going to do something extraordinary at philanthropy.”

“It isn’t likely,” Chalmers discouraged. His eyes were fixed absently on the White House across the Park.

“I know it isn’t. That’s why I may do it. In fact I’m almost sure----”

“I wish I could lend hope to the idea, but an unlikely philanthropist--_really_, Pix! Credulity must have its limits.”

“---- Almost sure I shall do something spectacular at it,” finished Pix, meditative, between puffs. “Perhaps I’ll even do a philanthropic turn for you, Kentie, old boy,” benevolently.

“Wish I thought it,” muttered Kent, over a fresh Pall Mall, “but that would be almost too much to expect, eh? That a philanthropist should help some one who needed it?” He stared still more fixedly at the gleam of white beyond the trees.

And Pix suddenly remembered something he had heard--something about Chalmers’ wife--he forgot just what it was, but---- He screwed uncomfortably on the end of the bench. “Shall we be toddling?” he said finally. “Think we’ve aired our riches quite flagrantly enough, don’t you? Then there’s to dine----”

“Where do you do it?” Chalmers rose, with as much alacrity as could be expected--of a clubman. “Boys’ Boxing Club, Home for Blond Babies, Ladies’ select Slumming Society--or----”

“With you,” interposed Pix, sauntering the more aimlessly for his injury; “being the first time--at your house, that is--I had hoped you might remember it.”

“My dear fellow, I’m delighted!” Chalmers didn’t look it (he had forgotten how, perhaps) but he looked less absent. For a moment he gazed at Pix as though he saw him. “I remember now. Farleigh did say she’d asked you for to-night.”

“Yes--said in the note she’d make it a _parti à trois_, too. Thought it was no end good of her. A fellow gets so rotten sick of these drove dinners, what? Slum society or high society, it’s all the same. But I say, old boy, I--you’ll think it’s beastly cheek, I suppose, but do you mind telling me why she invited me? I’ve seen her only once, you know, at the de Tregers’ and I’ve known you only at the Club--I--I just wondered what my cue was, y’know,” he dropped his monocle, rather uneasily.

“I’m sure I can’t tell you.” Kent Chalmers gazed straight ahead of him, though he spoke lightly. “Farleigh--my wife--has no set code of move--that I know of,” he added. “Just come and be yourself--that’ll do.”

“Thanks,” replied Pix soberly. Yes, it ought to do; even for Farleigh Chalmers. Pix was, unabbreviated, Charles Clarence Hope de Crecy Pixenthorpe, younger son of Somebody or Other in Middleshire. That he was a younger son is not extraordinary; that he was a rich younger son is almost an epigram. But on the contrary, it’s the truth. He had gone to Africa, and come back that way; and after a girl (who had enough of her own) had added further to his good fortune by saying no to him, he had turned to philanthropy and America. “They go together,” he had said placidly. “One can’t be a philanthropist on a big scale--one can’t be anything abnormal on a big scale, except in America.”

So he had gone. And terminated in Washington. Only four months now since his first donation to the Needy Boys’ guild; yet Farleigh Chalmers was inviting him to dinner. Farleigh Chalmers’ husband wondered what there was important about Pix, besides his being rich. He knew there was something; Farleigh knew any number of rich men in the Capital. Yes, there was something--and he liked Pix; almost, comparatively, as he loved Farleigh. He knew, moreover, that Pix in spite of his trip to Africa, knew nothing about the world--of Washington, Washington, as he wished Farleigh did not know it.

His heel crunched round in the gravel, as they left the Mall. “By the way, Pix, I’ll be late to-night--I’ve to see a man at the Club about something at seven, so--don’t hurry, old boy. Eight o’clock’s plenty of time. Farleigh never minds one’s being late.”

“Right!” Pix clapped his shoulder. “Going to the Club now, eh? Well, au revoir. I’m for the Men’s Friendly--they have sandwich and beer at six. Gad, but a philanthropist does have to feed!--er beg pardon, Kent, really! Sure I’ll enjoy my dinner, you know, but--yes, ’bye, old chap.”

* * * * *

Having agreed to come at eight o’clock, Pix presented himself at Chalmers’ residence, twenty to eight sharp. Strain enough keeping one’s word, as a philanthropist, he reflected inaudibly to the butler who was removing his coat; besides, he wanted to see----“Is Mrs. Chalmers down?” he asked the man.

“Yes, sir, Mrs. Chalmers is down, sir. Marster’s just come in ’arf a minute ago, sir, but Mrs. Chalmers is hin the library. I’ll just hannounce you, sir.”

“Awfully good of you,” as a (now) Brother of Humanity, Pix felt called upon to show fraternity with the butler classes. In fact he followed Binks so affectionately, he almost trod on his own name.

“Yes, that’s what I met with as a first disaster, Mrs. Chalmers,” he came into the soft-lit library with a gentle melancholy in his appeal; “you’ll let my--er--fellow man be the only one to call it, though, won’t you? To Chalmers and the chaps at the Club, I’m just Pix.”

“I shall be delighted, Mr.--Pix,” Farleigh gave him her hand with that smile of hers that meant--well, there were those who could have told him. “Won’t you sit down? Kent is dressing yet, I’m afraid--he came in late, an appointment, I believe, with some man.” Farleigh herself sat down with one of her quick, lithe movements--Pix remembered now, he had noticed that night at the de Tregers’. She was slim, svelte, and with slender tapering hands and feet. Her hair and eyebrows were dense black; blue black. And she wore red. Pix liked her; she reminded him of a cat. And he reflected there were excellent points about a cat; people didn’t appreciate ’em.

“I suppose of course you know the British minister?” she began, watching him out of her restless eyes, as he sat down beside her. It was spring and the open windows let in a little breeze to ruffle her dark hair. “Sir Maxon-Goring? he must be quite an intimate of yours, no?”

“No,” said Pix, watching her in return. “He goes in for politics--very bad form on the part of an ambassador. I’ve nothing to do with him.”

Farleigh laughed, and looked at Pix with more interest. “You don’t go in for politics, then? Why not?”

“I’m too rich; can’t afford ’em.” The philanthropist smiled at her--that smile of his that meant--well, no one needed to tell her. It meant that Pix was _there_, behind the monocle. It meant--a discouraging outlook for Farleigh. “Only poor men should risk their lives for the nation--er--their idea of the nation: rich men must be left in safety--to give away their money. I suspect that’s Kent’s idea, too?”

“Oh, Kent!” exclaimed Farleigh, and then, catching herself hastily, “Kent isn’t interested in politics, no,” she added quietly--but her long pointed fingers tapped her armchair at Pix’s side. “He says--there’s too much intrigue in them; and he hates intrigue.”

“And you don’t?” from behind the monocle, the mild eyes gazed at her yet more kindly. Yes, he remembered now what he had heard; he knew what it was, about Chalmers’ wife. And that odd note in Kent’s voice, the absent stare, the long silences in the clubman’s jolly talk--“you like politics?” he turned his question to Farleigh over, like one showing the reverse side of the same piece of goods.

“I like anything that is complex,” replied Farleigh slowly. “And I want Kent--Mr. Pix,” she leaned toward him with a feline swiftness, “will you----”