Part 14

“What you said,” replied she.

“Beatrice--I insist on a serious answer. Peter came to me and said----”

“Oh, papa! Surely, you’re not going over that again. You said it all before.”

Richmond paused to frame a question that could be answered only plainly. “Did you tell Peter you would not marry him?” he said sternly, though he had too good a sense of humor not to appreciate her childish cleverness.

“I did,” laughed Beatrice, engagingly at her ease. “Can you blame me?”

Richmond seated himself on the bench beside her. “You realize the consequences of your refusal?” he said coldly.

Her face became sober. The eyes with which she met his gaze were as resolute as his own. “I realize the consequences of _not_ refusing,” said she. “And I’m prepared to take the consequences _of_ refusing.”

Richmond’s baffled expression was pushed aside by one of arrogant anger. “What did Peter say to you? I understand this affair. I’ll make that young man writhe for his impudent treachery!”

“He pleaded with me to marry him. He refused to release me. He went straight to you----”

“You can’t trick me!” cried her father, his expressive eyes sparkling ominously. “Before I get through with this situation I think all concerned will regret having crossed my will. That’s always the way--good nature is mistaken for weakness.”

“You may ruin Peter if you feel you can afford to be so contemptible,” said Beatrice unmoved, “and you may ruin Roger Wade--though I doubt if he’ll regard losing a little money as ruin. But you----”

“I told you I’d drive him from the country in disgrace!”

Through the youth of the girl showed her inheritance of strength of soul, to make a woman of her, a personality a match for his own. “If you bring out anything disgraceful about him that’s true you’ll be only doing what’s right,” said she calmly. “If you try to damage him with falsehood I shall myself tell who’s doing it and why.”

A sense of his powerlessness against her silenced him.

“You may do your worst, as I was saying,” she went on. “But I shall not marry any man I do not at least respect; I shall not marry any poor, tiresome creature like Hanky. I’ve learned better. I’ve found something with which to contrast life with him. And I cannot and will not do it.”

There, of course, had been a time in Daniel Richmond’s career when he had made his way and gained his points by discussing and reasoning with his fellow-beings. Every leader wins leadership by persuading his fellows that he has the necessary qualifications. But that time had long passed; for many a year Richmond had been in the habit of deciding what to do at a council within his own brain and informing the outside world of his decision only by acts and orders. He now continued silent, regarding the ground; he was fighting for control of his temper, fighting for the calmness to argue with this rebel daughter. To make her reasonable he must first become so, himself.

“You have not known this artist long--have you?” he said at length in the tone of a rational being and a father.

“Long enough,” replied the girl.

“Long enough for what?” inquired the father pleasantly, though his daughter’s tone--she being still much ruffled internally--was teasing his temper.

“Long enough to know that I care for him.”

Her father laughed agreeably. “You and I are much alike, my dear,” said he. “You know yourself well enough to know that the real reason for your excitement is opposition. Now, be reasonable. What could I do but oppose? Can you blame me for opposing? Can you wonder that I am afraid you will do something foolish--something you will regret your whole life? Suppose this was a case of some other father and daughter--a case you had no personal interest in. Would you be on the side of the father or of the daughter?”

There was no resisting this fairness, so fairly put. Beatrice smiled. “On the side of the father,” said she promptly. “I don’t expect you to understand, father. I see all your arguments. I see how foolish and headlong I seem to you. But-- The fact remains that I love Roger Wade. I know I am not making a fool of myself in loving him. Oh, you’ll say that in the same circumstances other girls have said the same thing, when they were simply blinded and deceived by their craze for romance. But this case is the exception. And I _know_ it.” She looked at him with her sweetest expression. “Let me ask you a few questions. Do you _know_ Roger?”

“I understand that sort of man perfectly. It’s a familiar type. Every girl with expectations has several such buzzing about her.”

“Is that _honest_, father? Is that really the impression you have of Roger Wade?”

The dangerous look reappeared in Richmond’s face--in his eyes, round his mouth.

“Now, don’t get angry, father. That would be confession, you know. One does not get angry in a discussion unless one is in the wrong.”

“Who wouldn’t get angry, seeing a girl like you bent on making a fool of herself.”

“If you were where you were when you started, and you met such a man as Roger, you’d be----”

“Don’t speak his name to me,” cried Richmond, twitching and squirming. “I ask you to take time to come to your senses.”

“I’ve tried that. When I don’t see him, it’s even clearer to me than when I do that I must marry him. Besides, if he _weren’t_ on earth now, I still couldn’t marry the Hanky sort. Oh, father dear--can’t you see the change in me? As you say, I’m like you. Put yourself in my place. Would _you_ marry the sort of person Hanky is--the sort all the Hankies are--if you could--” She sighed. “But I can’t. He won’t. Father, please help me!”

There was a conflict of expressions in Richmond’s face as she made this appeal movingly. It was sheer confession of fear of his own better self which loved his daughter, which respected the things she was now learning to respect--it was sheer confession when he flew into furious rage--the one mood where a human being is safe from the entreaties of heart and the counsels of higher intelligence. “You are crazy--plain crazy!” he cried in his most insulting tone. “There’s no excuse for you--none! Reasoning with you is time wasted.”

“If I’m crazy there’s every excuse for me,” answered she, with the placidity of the anger that is beyond the stage of bluster and sputter. “If I’m not crazy there’s no excuse for you.”

“Answer me! Are you going to be sensible? Are you ready to drop tomfoolery and make a happy and contented future for yourself?”

“If I can,” replied she. “If Roger will----”

Up sprang Richmond. “Not another word! I’ll show you, miss----”

“Yes, one word more,” interrupted she. “I want to say just one thing more. If you do not agree to let Peter and Mr. Wade alone I shall leave your house at once--and this time it will be for good.”

“_You_--threaten _me_!” he shouted, shaking with fury, for that sense of ultimate powerlessness with her had driven him quite insane.

“Do you wish me to stay or to go?” asked she, her color gone, but every sign of steadfastness in her face, in her figure, in her attitude.

“Go!” he shrieked. “Go--and make a fool and a scandal of yourself. Go! Go! Go!”

And away he rushed, a crazy man.

XIV

THE SECOND FLIGHT

Peter met her in the main entrance. “How did he take it?” he asked excitedly, his nerves obviously unstrung.

“Not very well,” replied she.

“Yes--I saw him tearing away into the woods. Good Lord! How _can_ you take it so quietly!”

By way of answer Beatrice shrugged her shoulders and lifted her eyebrows.

“Beatrice--honestly don’t you think we’d better go ahead and do as he wants? He is a dangerous man--believe me, he is. I don’t like to speak so of your father, but everyone agrees that he----”

“You can never tell a man’s family any news about what he is,” said Beatrice.

“He’ll make life a hell for you,” groaned Hanky. “And he’ll make mischief for me.”

“I think not,” replied she. “He’ll have other things besides you to occupy him. He knows it’s wholly my fault.”

“But, Beatrice--don’t be obstinate. You must know it’d really not be so rotten bad to marry me.”

“I thought I mentioned the fact that I’m in love with some one else.”

“Oh--to be sure,” said Peter. “I suppose that has got something to do with it. But your obstinacy----”

“That’s it,” mocked the girl. “Obstinacy. Well, whatever my reason is, I’m leaving here by the next train.”

“But I was going by that,” objected Hanky. “I must get away from here.”

“Better stay on and let father see you’re not at all to blame,” advised she. “If we went up town together he’d be sure you were conspiring with me.”

“Oh, I’ll stay--I’ll stay,” cried Peter. “But where are you going, Beatrice?”

“Not to get any of my friends in trouble,” said she. “I’ll take Valentine and go to a hotel--to the Wolcott. Come and call. I’ll not tell father.”

“At a hotel!” Peter stared stupefied. “You don’t mean you’re leaving home--for good?”

“Wouldn’t you--in my place?”

“No. I’d be sensible and marry the man my father wished.”

Beatrice looked at him quizzically. “Hanky,” said she, “you ought to fall on your knees every day of your life and give thanks that you had the good luck to escape marrying me.”

Her mischievous smile, her mocking tone, combined with the words themselves, had an immediately tranquilizing effect upon him. Not for the first time by any means he had a chilling, queasy misgiving that there was truth in that view of a marriage between them. After a pause he said:

“But what will you do?”

“Blessed if I know,” replied she, as if the matter were of not the smallest consequence.

“You’ll have no friends. Nobody’ll dare be friends with you.”

“Have I any friends now?--any worth calling my own?”

“Then, as I understand it, you haven’t got much money. About enough to pay for dresses?”

“About.”

“Then--what will you do?” repeated he, a real, friendly solicitude in his voice and, better still, in his eyes.

“That’s unimportant. I’m escaping worse than I could possibly be running into.”

“Marry me, Beatrice,” cried he. “It’s not a bad bet if you lose.”

She put out her hand impulsively with a grateful smile, the sweetest and friendliest he had ever had from her. “I like that, Hanky! And I like you when you show what you really are. But I’m not taking advantage of your generosity.”

“I mean it, Beatrice--in dead, sober earnest--on a cold collar.”

She shook her pretty head smilingly. “Good-by. Come to see me. If we run across each other when father’s about scowl and look the other way.”

“What do you take me for?”

“For a person with a little sense. Keep solid with father--for Allie’s sake.”

“But I want _you_----”

She fled, laughing as if she had not a care in the world.

She tried to make her departure unobtrusive. But her father would not have it so. Coming toward the house with the worst of his rage about steamed away he caught sight of her and her maid waiting while several trunks and packages were being loaded on the roof of a touring car. At the sight he went insane again. He rushed wildly toward them and shouted out, heedless of the servants: “Take that car back to the garage, Léry! Valentine, go into the house--report to Mrs. Richmond. And you”--he glared crazily at his daughter--“if you leave here you walk!--and you never come back!”

Beatrice took the hand bag from her maid. “Good-by, Valentine,” said she. There was a wonderful, quiet dignity in her bearing--a delicate correctness of attitude, neither forward nor shrinking--evident sensibility to the situation, yet no desire to aggravate it by show of superior breeding or by defiance. It was a situation savagely testing character. Beatrice responded to the test in a way that augured well for her being able to look out for herself in any circumstances. She smiled pleasantly, yet with restraint, to the agitated servants and started down the road.

Valentine hesitated, then set out in her wake. “Come back here!” shouted Richmond. “You are in my employ, not my daughter’s.”

Beatrice, guessing what was occurring, paused and turned. “Do as my father says,” she said. “I shall not be able to keep you.”

“I, too, belong to myself, mademoiselle,” replied the girl with a quiet dignity equal to that of her mistress. “I cannot stay here. I’ll go with you if I may. But--I’ll not stay here.”

Richmond, realizing that his rage of the impotent had once more whirled him into an impossible situation, disappeared in the house. Before Beatrice and Valentine reached the lodge the auto overtook them. The chauffeur, Léry, swung the car close in to the footpath beside the road, jumped from his seat, opened the door.

“Did my father send you?” asked she.

“Yes, mademoiselle.”

When the two women were seated--Beatrice insisted on Valentine’s sitting by her--Beatrice said: “I don’t believe Léry.”

Valentine gave a queer, little smile.

“But,” continued Beatrice, “father will never make any inquiries.”

“Léry understands,” said Valentine.

“Understands--what?”

“That you will win. Your father adores you.”

“You don’t know,” said Beatrice, shaking her head in a decided negative. “And I can’t tell you.”

XV

WADE’S LOST FORTUNE

Beatrice had selected Valentine as her maid after trying more than a score of various nationalities. She had selected her because Valentine was a lady, and she could not endure servility or veneer manners in the close relations that must exist between mistress and maid. In calling Valentine a lady Beatrice did not mean that she was a “high-toned” lady, or a fine lady, or a fashionable lady, or any of the other qualified ladies, but that she was just a lady--well mannered, with delicate instincts, intelligent, simple and sincere. Valentine acted as Beatrice liked to believe she herself would act if she had to work for her living and happened to find being lady’s maid the most convenient way to do it.

At the Wolcott Beatrice registered beneath her own name that of Miss Valentine Clermont. When the two were in the little inside suite Beatrice took by way of making a beginning in the direction of the practice of economy, she said:

“For the present, at least, you are to be my companion. I can’t live here alone or just with a maid. So, the parlor is to be changed into a bedroom for you.”

“Very well, mademoiselle,” promptly acquiesced the intelligent Valentine, showing how rightly Beatrice had judged her.

“Miss Richmond,” corrected Beatrice with a smile.

“Pardon--certainly,” said Valentine.

“We are rather cramped here,” Beatrice went on. “But I guess I’ll be looking back on this as spacious luxury before long.”

Miss Clermont smiled.

“Why do you smile, Miss Clermont?”

“You do not know your father, Miss Richmond.”

“I assure you we have parted finally,” said Beatrice. “If you have any idea that in following my fortunes you are going with a person in the position I had until two hours ago, put it out of your mind. I can pay your wages--beg pardon, salary it is now--through next month--perhaps for another month after that. Then I shall be-- Well, mine is a precious small income--and will be smaller. However, I’ll see that you get a place soon.”

Miss Clermont smiled.

“Why do you smile, Miss Clermont? Because you don’t believe me?”

“Not at all, Miss Richmond,” protested Valentine. “If you’re right about your situation--then I shall stay with you until you are settled--and, possibly, I can help you. If you are wrong--then I shall stay on as your maid until you marry. After that--Monsieur Léry and I are engaged. When we marry we shall go into business together.”

Beatrice paused in arranging her hair, turned and, half sitting on the low bureau, looked at her companion with the expression of one who has just given birth to a new and fascinating idea. “Why shouldn’t _we_ go into business--you and I?” she said. “I’ll have to do something,” she went on. “I simply can’t content myself to live on--on what I’ll have after a few days from now. I love luxury--nice surroundings--good things to eat--beautiful clothes. Why not dressmaking?”

“We should get rich at it,” declared Miss Clermont.

And then it came out that she and Léry had been planning a dressmaking business. Miss Richmond was just what they needed to make it a swift and stupendous success. They had ten thousand dollars. If Miss Richmond could put in as much and would be a public partner attracting fashionable trade, giving the establishment eclat by wearing beautiful dresses in fashionable restaurants or for drives in the Avenue, and so on--and so on. “I can put in at least ten thousand,” said Beatrice. “And I have ideas about clothes.”

“Indeed, yes,” assented Valentine warmly. “You have a style of your own.”

“Yes, I think you and I have got me up rather stunningly these last two years,” said Beatrice.

The dressmaking business was as good as started before they had dinner--at which Miss Richmond had her companion sitting opposite her. Miss Clermont as a companion was a triumph. No one but a Frenchwoman could have glided so easily from menial to equal. “But then, I knew she could,” thought Beatrice, “the instant I looked at her hands, when she came to try for the place. Hands tell more than faces--and hers are the hands of a lady.”

At noon the next day, while Beatrice and Valentine were out walking, Peter telephoned, leaving word that he would call at half past four. At that hour Beatrice received him in the hotel parlor. He eyed her with admiring wonder. He expected to find all sorts of signs of her altered position--would not have been surprised had she already begun to look dowdy and down at the heel. Her radiance of spirit, of body and of toilet struck him as little less than miraculous. “You certainly are a cool one,” said he. “Why, you don’t look a bit upset.”

“Never felt so well in my life,” declared Beatrice. “I feel so--so--free!”

Peter shook his head warningly. “Wait till you have had a full dose. Wait till you really find out what you’re up against.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, you’re out of your world. It’s all very well to jump into the water and swim for a few minutes--just for the fun of the thing. But how about going in for being a fish and _living_ in the water--eh?”

“I’d no idea you could do so well, Peter,” said Beatrice. “That’s both wise and witty. Why didn’t you begin that sort of talk sooner?”

“Oh, I say!” protested the young man. “I’m not such a mutt as you thought me. No one could be.”

“Better and better,” cried Beatrice. “First thing you know I’ll be trying to steal you back from Allie.”

Peter colored consciously. He said with a foolish attempt at the offhand: “Oh--I saw her--at lunch. She wants to come to see you, but don’t dare. Your father’s got her father right where he can put the screws on him.”

“She might have telephoned,” said Beatrice, and her tone even more than her look showed how Allie’s defection had hurt, how it was rankling.

Peter looked depressed. “Yes--I suppose she might,” conceded he. “But don’t be too hard on her, Beatrice. You know how afraid we all are of your father.”

“_You_’re here,” said Beatrice sententiously.

“Yes.” Peter reddened. “Hang it, I can’t fake with you. Fact is--well--while I hope I’d have come anyway, still, I’d not be so open about it, I’m afraid, if I hadn’t your father’s consent.”

“He told you to come!”

“He hasn’t given up,” said Peter with the air of a peddler undoing his pack. “Asked me if I knew where you were stopping. I said yes--that you told me. He asked where. I couldn’t think of any side step, so I let out the truth. Any harm in that?”

“Not the slightest. I’m not hiding from anybody.”

“Then he said--just as I was leaving him on the ferry this morning: ‘If you wish to call on my daughter and try to bring her to her right mind I’ve no objection.’”

“And I’ve no objection, either,” said the girl, “unless you try to bring me to my right mind. That one subject is taboo. You understand?”

Peter nodded. “I knew you meant it yesterday. I’m going ahead with Allie. You and I are such old friends that I feel I can talk things over with you. You see, it’s this way. I want to get married and settled. We all marry and settle young in our family. I can’t have what I want--but I can get something mighty good. Allie’s a trump. Such a comfortable sort.”

“You couldn’t do better,” said Beatrice with more warmth than she felt. For she had her eyes open to Allie now--too recently open for her to be tolerant of what were weaknesses of the same species as Beatrice’s own, if of a different genus.

“I’m not really in love with her,” continued Peter. “But----”

“But that’s of no consequence,” said Beatrice. “You’re one of the sort that thinks whatever belongs to them is the grandest ever. You’ll soon be crazy about her.”

“And she’ll always look well, too. She’s the image of her mother, and the way to test a girl’s staying quality is to see how her mother holds together. Yes, Allie’s good for the whole run--right into the last quarter.”

Beatrice and Peter went into the restaurant and in a quiet corner sat down to the sociability of tea. “Hanky,” said she, “I am going to treat you as a friend. I am going to ask you to attend to some matters for me which you must promise me never to speak of.”

Hanky showed that he was as highly flattered as the next young man would be by marks of intimacy and confidence from a pretty and superior young woman. “You can count on me--for anything I feel I’ve the right to do,” said he. “But, whether I do it or not, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Beatrice poured the tea in reflective silence. Not until she had tasted her own cup did she venture to begin expressing the thoughts she had been arranging. “Roger Wade has about forty thousand dollars invested in the bonds of the Wauchong Railway.”

Peter leaned back and gave a low whistle. He shook his head and repeated the whistle.

“I see you understand.”

“I begin to,” said Peter.

Looking down at her plate and speaking somewhat nervously and hurriedly the girl went on:

“I want you--through your broker or banker or however you please--I want you to buy those bonds at what their market price was before the road went into the hands of a receiver. I think it will take about fifty thousand dollars. But buy them if it costs a hundred thousand. I can’t go higher than that.”

Hesitatingly she lifted her eyes. Peter was sitting back in his chair regarding her with an expression it makes any human being proud to have caused in another’s face.

A little color came into the girl’s cheeks and into her eyes a look of gratitude for the compliment and of pleasure in it. She went on:

“You understand, no one must know--must have the ghost of a suspicion. Especially Roger Wade. But no one--no one.”

Peter busied himself at lighting the cigarette he selected with care from the dozen in the huge gold case he carried in the inside pocket of his sack coat.

“Your agent,” continued the girl, as if laying before him a carefully thought-out plan, “can say he represents some men who are getting ready to fight to get control of the road.”

“I didn’t know you knew anything about business,” said Peter huskily, just for something to say.

“A little,” said Beatrice, who, in fact, was her father’s own daughter--though, of course, she was not foolish enough to have failed to use to its uttermost value the favorite feminine pretense of being hopelessly incapable when it came to matters like business. “Will you do it?”

“How much’ll you have left?” said Peter.

“Plenty,” Beatrice assured him. “Plenty.”

“I know better.”

She made an impatient gesture. “I’ll have more than enough to carry out my plans.”

“There’s no reason on earth why you should do this,” protested he. “You----”