Part 15

“Drop it, Peter,” said she with a touch of her old imperiousness--of her father’s intolerance of objection from inferior minds. “I know what I’m about. Roger Wade is being stripped of all he has through no fault of his--through my folly. I got him into the scrape--a scrape he wanted to have nothing to do with. It’s up to me to get him out.”

“He had no business to come fooling round you!”

“He didn’t, Peter,” said the girl with convincing candor. “He-- I see I’ve got to tell you. I proposed to him, and he refused me.”

“_You_ did--_that_!”

Beatrice blushed and laughed. “Oh, I made an idiot of myself. I thought he was hanging back because he was awed--because father was rich--and all that.”

Peter narrowed his eyelids and screwed up his mouth in an attempt to look acute. “He’s working some sly dodge. Mark my word, some sly dodge.” And he wagged his head wisely.

“I wish he were!” sighed Beatrice. “Because he liked me I thought he--cared. You see, Peter, I’m telling you everything. Will you do what I ask?”

Peter settled deeper in his chair. “I’d like to--I want to--but--” At the beginnings of disappointment and disdain in her expression he straightened, flushed. “Yes, by gad, I _will_ do it!”

“Why did you hesitate?”

“I didn’t.”

Beatrice looked at him doubtfully; suddenly she realized. “You fear father’ll find out you did it? I hadn’t thought of that. No--you mustn’t, Hanky. I’ll get some one else.”

“You’ve got to let me do it,” insisted he. “Anyone who didn’t know all the circumstances would make a mess of it. I want to do it. And it isn’t much of a risk.”

The event was that she yielded. Toward noon the next day he telephoned that he had the bonds--had paid forty-one thousand dollars for them--exactly. “I’ve got them here at my house. I can bring them to you this afternoon if you like.”

“Do,” said Beatrice.

And at four he came with a parcel. Her eyes brightened at sight of it. “I, too, have a package,” said she.

“So I see. What is it?”

“Your forty-one thousand in Governments.”

“But Governments are worth more.”

The girl laughed. “Not a cent. I didn’t say forty-one thousand par. I had the exact calculation made at the bank.”

“What an ass I am, to forget you were Daniel Richmond’s daughter.”

“Give me my railway bonds.”

The exchange was made, he pretending that he did not dare release his hold on his package until she had given him a hold on hers. The waiters, idle in the restaurant at that hour, grinned at the sight of so much gayety in two such superior-looking, young people. And it certainly did look like a love affair--an engagement. Nor is it surprising that Peter, full of the sense of having done her quite a favor and not without risk to himself, should have again become hopeful that this girl--“such a stunner--and so dead square, too”--might be thinking more favorably of him.

“Now that these things are straightened out, Beatrice,” said he, “and as you’ve got over your notions about Wade--why not give _me_ a chance?”

She laughed. “Allie’s affianced!” mocked she.

“I’ve told you that----”

“But,” interrupted she, “I never told you that I was--was cured--of Roger Wade.”

“But you are. And he’s off your conscience.”

Beatrice’s eyes had an expression that sent a pang--and a thrill, too--through him. “Peter--I love him,” she said with quiet intensity--Dan Richmond intensity. “And I think you know now what that means with me.”

He paled, stared at his cup. “I wish to God I didn’t,” he muttered.

“Now, Peter, you don’t mean that and you know it. The only reason you keep after me is because you’ve always been used to having your own way and you hate to be baffled.”

“That’s all the reason you stick on after Wade,” retorted he.

She laughed. “I’ll admit that has something to do with it. But not all, Hanky. And the other part’s the important part.”

“You must know he’s after your money,” said he, looking down sourly.

“And you?” retorted she.

“Oh, I,” said he with Vanderkief hauteur. “I fancy I’m above suspicion.”

“Father says that the people who do the queerest tricks are the ones that’re above suspicion--and take advantage of it. My, but you’re red, Hanky. And while we’re suspecting-- Did you get those bonds for me just because you----”

“Don’t say that, Beatrice!” he cried. “Honest, I didn’t. I wasn’t trying to collect.”

“I believe you,” said she. “Please don’t do anything to make me doubt.”

“I won’t. I throw up the sponge. I’ll not annoy you any more.”

“You’ll be friends?”

“I’d hate to lose _your_ friendship,” said he with his slow, heavy earnestness. “It’s the thing I’ve got that’s most worth while.”

XVI

PETER CALLS ON ROGER

Beatrice had carefully avoided learning anything at all about the Wauchong Railway before investing nearly half her fortune in its bonds. She wished to spare herself the temptation to hesitate; and she was too fond of money as a means, too alive to its value, too well trained in the matter of foolish investments, to trust her newly developed virtue far. But now that the thing was done she made thorough inquiry into the affairs of the railway. It did a losing passenger business; it had made its money--very satisfactory earnings--by reason of its northern terminal being in a group of rich coal mines. Her father ruined the road by so juggling traffic agreements with the coal companies that the Wauchong’s whole paying freight business was at a stroke transferred to another road. The bonds were next to worthless. On the face of the facts she had spent forty-one thousand dollars for a few ounces of waste paper.

She was glad to find, on searching her heart, that she had not the faintest feeling of regret for her action. It gave her a gratifying opinion of herself to discover that, on the contrary, she regarded her investment with satisfaction and pride. But these emotions did not clash with a strong desire to recover the lost forty-one thousand, if that could be brought about. She gave the matter anxious and intelligent thought. The only plan that came to her and seemed at all practicable was to let it leak out in Wall Street that a big block of the bonds had been taken at more than par by Daniel Richmond’s daughter _after_ the wiping out of the road’s revenues. This news would probably boom the bonds and stocks if sent out adroitly. But Beatrice decided against the scheme; she could not forget the losses to the innocent it would involve. Perhaps the time had been--and not so very long ago, either--when this view of the affair would not have occurred to her. But since then she had experienced, had suffered, had learned. With a sigh she put the bundle of bonds away in her safety-deposit box and entered their cost to profit and loss. Her total income was now reduced to just under twenty-seven hundred a year. “And I need at least that many thousand,” thought she. “Let us see what this dressmaking scheme has in it.”

And she proceeded to revolve Valentine’s project with a deliberate, pessimistic, flaw-seeing scrutiny that would have commanded the admiration of her father and would have increased his amazement how one so strong in the head could be so weak in the heart. She questioned and cross-questioned Valentine, who, for all her cleverness, had far too much of the optimist in her composition. Beatrice had learned from her father that hope, an invaluable ally when the struggle is on, is an enemy, the worst of enemies--a traitor and a destroyer--if admitted to the counsels when the struggle is planning. So, she took the worst possible view of every phase of the proposed enterprise, and insisted that all calculation be based upon the theory that they would lose money from the start, would lose heavily, must prepare themselves to hold out for the longest possible period against not only bad business, but also bad luck.

Meanwhile, Peter was engaged in strenuous combat with a generous impulse which seemed to him as out of place in his mind as an eaglet in the brood of a hen. But the impulse would not expel; it lingered obstinately, fascinating him as the idea of doing something unconventional sometimes seizes upon and obsesses a primly conventional woman. Finally, it fairly dragged him into a kind of rake’s progress of generosity--for good has its rapid road no less than evil. It put him alone in his speediest auto and, in the teeth of his dread of being seen by Richmond or by some one who would tell Richmond, drove him along the dusty highways of Northern New Jersey until he came to Deer Spring--to a charming old farmhouse in its farthermost outskirts.

He went up the flowery lane to the old-fashioned porch, so cool, so quiet, so restful, behind its odorous veils of blooming creepers. A little exercise with the big brass dragon’s head that had served as knocker for the best part of a century, and a pleasant-looking old woman came round the corner of the house, wiping her hands on her kitchen apron. Said Peter:

“Is Mr. Wade at home?”

“Not just now,” replied she, her head thrown far back that she might inspect him through the spectacles on the end of her long, thin nose. “I reckon most likely he’s up to the studio.”

“Where is it?”

“You follow the path back of the house--through the woods and the hollow, then up the round-top hill. You’ll have to walk. It’s a right smart piece--about a mile and a half.”

“Is there any place where I could”--Peter stopped and blushed; he had caught himself just in time to prevent the word “hide” from slipping out--“where I could put my machine?”

“There’s the shed behind the house.”

“Thank you.” And he sprang away to get the auto tucked out of sight.

When this was accomplished his mind became somewhat easier and he set out for the studio. He got on fairly well with himself--until he stood face to face with the big artist. Wade regarded him inscrutably: Peter regarded Wade with an expression which, in a woman, would have betokened an impending fit of hysteria.

“You don’t remember me, Mr. Wade?” said he.

“I remember you perfectly,” Roger replied.

“I--I called on a matter of--that is, not exactly of--well--a matter.”

“Will you come in?” said Roger, standing aside.

“Thank you--I’ll be glad to,” was Peter’s eager reply.

Within, his eyes made for a covered canvas on an easel in the middle of the big room. “Is that by any chance Mr. Richmond’s picture?” asked he.

“Mr. Richmond’s picture?” said Roger. “I know nothing of any picture of Mr. Richmond.”

“_For_ Mr. Richmond.”

“Neither of nor for.”

“I beg your pardon,” stammered Peter. “I rather hoped you’d let me have a look at it. You know, I was engaged to Miss Richmond.”

Roger continued in his waiting attitude. Peter felt himself dwindling before this large, dark calm. He shifted uneasily from leg to leg, opened and shut his mouth several times, finally burst out: “I say, what an ass you must think me.” And he gave Roger an honest, pathetic look of appeal--an ingenuous plea for mercy.

The large, dark calm was rippled by a smile--a very human smile. It made young Peter instantly feel that he was talking with a young human being just like himself.

“I did want to look at the picture,” said he. “You know the one I mean--the picture of _her_.”

Roger’s gaze wavered a little, steadied. “I’m sorry--but it’s not finished,” said he.

“Oh--I see. And, naturally, you do not want anybody to look at it. Well--I’ll come another time--if I may.”

Roger bowed.

Peter was desperate. He puffed furiously at his cigarette, finally burst out: “Did you know that Miss Richmond and her father had quarreled?”

“Really?” said Roger politely, and so far as Peter could judge the news interested him only to the degree more discouraging than no interest at all.

“Yes--they’ve quarreled--and she’s left home--is living alone at a hotel in New York--says she’s never going back.”

Peter was not sure, but he thought he saw a something or other flash across the artist’s face, like a huge, swift-swimming fish near the surface of opaque water. He felt encouraged to go on.

“I think I ought to tell you. Miss Richmond and I _were_ engaged. It’s been broken off. Her father is furious. She’s in love with another man.” Peter glanced at Roger’s inscrutable eyes, blushed, glanced down again. “She has sacrificed everything for this other man. It’s really stunning, the way she did it--and a lot more I can’t tell you. And I do believe she’ll stick--will not go back--though she’s got next to nothing. You know her--know what a fine girl she is.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Roger cordially.

“She’s at the Wolcott--if you care to call. I guess she’s rather lonely, as all her old pals are shying off. You see, her father’s a deadly dangerous sort--liable to do up anybody who sided with her.”

Roger, his gaze upon a far, unseen country, was pale and somber.

“I do hope you’ll look in on her, Wade,” said Peter. “She’d appreciate it.”

Wade’s eyes slowly turned with his returning thoughts until they centered upon the eyes of young Vanderkief. Suddenly Roger’s face was illuminated by that splendid smile of his. He grasped Peter by the hand. “I’m glad to know you,” said he. “And--I beg your pardon--for things I’ve thought about you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” cried Peter. “I’m not a dog in the manger, you know. And I tell you she’s got a stiff stretch ahead of her--downright rough. Of course she’s no fool. Still, it wouldn’t be possible for any woman of her age and her bringing up to realize what she was bumping into, dropping out of her class, sacking her father and trying to scratch along on worse than nothing. When you’ve got tastes a little money’s only an aggravation. Especially for her sort of woman. Won’t you try one of my cigarettes?”

“Delighted,” said Roger, taking one.

“Well, I must move on,” proceeded Peter. “You don’t mind my butting in?”

“Not in the least. It was a fine friendly--decent thing to do.... Would you like to see the picture?”

And without giving Peter time to reply, or himself a chance to repent the impulse, he flung aside the drapery over the easel in the middle of the room. He and Peter gazed in silence. It was a glorious vision of morning in the springtime. Upon lake and cataract, upon tree and bush and stone, sparkled the radiance of the birthday of summer. That radiance seemed to come from the figure of a young girl in a canoe, her paddle poised for the stroke--an attitude of exquisite grace, a figure alive in every line of flesh and drapery--a face shedding the soft luster of the bright hopes and dreams and joys that are summed up in the thrilling word, youth. Roger was right in thinking it his best work, his best expression of that intense joy of life which he was ever striving to put upon canvas.

Peter gave a long, furtive sigh. “Yes,” he muttered, “she can look like that.” He had seen her look just so once--when she told him she loved the artist and would never change. Queer, how anyone could so love that she got happiness out of giving love, even though it was unreturned. Queer--yet, there it was. Roger, with a sudden gesture, recovered the canvas. Peter stood motionless, staring at where the picture had been--it was still there for him. He roused himself, looked at the painter with frank admiration and respect. “That’s worth while!” said he. “No wonder she----”

Roger’s frown checked him. But only for a moment; then he went on, in an awed undertone: “She’s more of a--a person than anyone I ever saw. If she’d let me I’d be crazy about her. As it is, while I know I can never get her, everything’s stopped short with me until I’m sure she’s out of reach--married to some one else. I’m a better man for having known her, for having loved her.”

Roger was standing with arms folded upon his broad chest--powerful arms bare to the elbow. He seemed lost in reverie.

“Thank you for showing me that,” said Peter gratefully and humbly. “I’d wish to own it if it wasn’t that--well, I’d never be able to get any peace of mind if I had it about. I’d stare at it till I went crazy.”

Roger flushed a significant, a guilty deep red.

Peter got himself together with a shake of his big frame. “I’m off, now. You’ll not say anything about my having called--not to her or anyone?”

“I do not see anyone,” said Roger in a constrained voice.

“But you’ll surely--” began Peter, but he halted on the threshold of impertinence. “Well--I hope you’ll look in at the Wolcott and cheer her up. Good-by. Thank you again.”

The young men shook hands with the friendliness of intimacy. Roger went with Peter to the door, where they shook hands again. As Peter was turning away he happened to glance down into the woods to the left. There, beating a hasty, not to say undignified retreat, was Daniel Richmond!

“Now what do you think of that?” cried Peter. “What the devil is _he_ doing here?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Roger indifferently.

“No doubt he recognized me,” Peter went on. “He’s got me scared to a panic--for fear he’ll half ruin me--just out of a general insanity of meanness. If he asks you what I was doing here say I came to buy the picture. You don’t know how much trouble he could make for me.”

“I’ll probably not see him.”

“Do--for her sake, do,” urged Peter. “Be civil to him. Try to soften him down. You ought to do it for her--honest, you ought.”

“That’s true,” said Roger gravely.

Peter departed. Roger stayed on in the doorway. Presently Richmond reappeared, making his way slowly up the steep toward the studio. He arrived much out of breath, but contrived to put unmistakable politeness into his jerky tones as he gasped: “Good afternoon, Mr. Wade.”

“How d’ye do, Mr. Richmond?” was Roger’s civil rejoinder. His talk with Peter had put him in a frame of mind to bear and forbear, to do whatever he could toward ending the quarrel between father and daughter.

“I’d be greatly obliged--for a few--minutes of your time,” said Richmond between breaths.

He looked old and worn and tired. Violent passions, especially violent temper, freely indulged, had played their wonted havoc. And these eroding emotions had deepened seam and gutter painfully. There had now appeared the gauntness in eye socket and under jawbone, about the saddest of the forewarnings of decrepitude and death that show in the human countenance with advancing age. Roger pitied him, this really superior man who had given his life furiously to plowing arid golden sands and was reaping ill health and unhappiness as his harvest. “Come in,” said Roger.

When they were seated in the cool, airy workroom and had lighted, Richmond a cigar, Roger his pipe, Richmond glanced at the covered picture and said: “Is that it?”

“Yes,” replied Roger, not in a tone that invited further conversation along those lines.

“I’ve come to see you about it,” persisted Beatrice’s father, apparently undiscouraged.

“I do not care to discuss it,” said Roger.

“It is a picture of my daughter--painted for----”

“It is not a picture of your daughter,” interrupted Roger, “and it was painted for my own amusement.”

“My wife gave you the commission, with the idea of a surprise for me.”

Roger was silenced.

“So,” Richmond went on, “the picture belongs to us.”

“No,” said Roger quietly. “I purpose to keep it.”

“You certainly have a strange way of doing business,” said Richmond with resolute amiability.

“I don’t do business,” replied Roger.

Richmond waved his hand. “Oh--call it what you like. Artists paint pictures for money.”

“I don’t know about others,” said Roger. “But I paint for my own amusement. And of my work I sell enough to enable me to live.”

“Very fine--very fine,” said Richmond, in the tone of a man who doesn’t believe a word of it, but politely wishes to seem impressed. “I saw from the beginning of our acquaintance that you were an unusual man. I’ve thought about you a great deal”--with a sly smile--“naturally.”

Roger made a slight inclination of his head.

“I owe you an apology for the way I acted the other day. And I make it. I lost my temper--a bad habit I have.”

“Yes, it is a bad habit,” said Roger dryly. “A particularly bad one for a man in your position, I should say.”

“How in my position?” inquired Richmond, surprised.

“Oh, an independent man like me, who asks nothing of anybody, can afford that sort of thing. But you, who are dependent upon others for the success of your plans--that’s very different.”

“Um,” grunted Richmond, little pleased but much struck by this new view of him as slave, not master. “Um.” A long pause, with Richmond the more embarrassed because Roger’s silence seemed natural and easy, like that of a statue or of a man alone. “I also--I also wish to say,” Richmond resumed, “that on thinking the matter over I feel I did you an injustice in believing you--in accusing you--” He could not find a satisfactory word frame for his idea.

“In suspecting I was after your daughter and your money?” suggested Roger with an amused, ironic twinkle.

“Something like that. But, Mr. Wade, you are a man of the world. You can’t wonder at my having such an idea.”

“Not in the least,” assented Roger.

“At the same time I do not blame you for being angry.”

Roger smiled. “But, my dear sir, I was not angry. I didn’t in the least care what you thought. Even if you had succeeded in your vicious little scheme for robbing me of my competence, I still couldn’t have been angry. It is so easy for a man to make a generous living if he happens not to have burdened himself with expensive tastes.”

“That matter of the railway bonds--it will be adjusted at once, Mr. Wade. I was sorry the exigencies of a large operation forced me to--to----”

In his indignation Roger forgot the resolutions Peter had soothed and softened him into making. With his curtest accent he said: “What you did was contemptible enough. Why make it worse by lying?”

Richmond sprang to his feet. Roger rose toweringly, in his face a plain hope that his guest was about to depart. Richmond sat down again. “You have me at your mercy,” cried he with a ludicrous mingling of attempt at politeness and frantic rage.

“I?” said Roger, laughing. “Oh, no. Neither of us can do the other any harm. I wouldn’t if I could. You couldn’t if you would. Don’t you think we have had about enough of each other?”

“I have a favor to ask of you,” said Richmond sullenly.

Roger hesitated, seated himself. There was a look in his visitor’s eyes--a look of misery--that touched his heart.

“Mr. Wade,” Richmond began again after a brief silence, “I am a man of very strong affections--very strong. Circumstances have concentrated them all on one person, my daughter Beatrice. They say everyone is a fool in at least one way. I am a fool about her.”

Wade, inscrutable, was gazing at the drape over his painting.

“But,” Richmond went on, “if she married against my will, much as I love her, foolish as I am about her, I would cut her off relentlessly.”

“Then you don’t love her,” said Roger. “If you did you’d insist on her freely choosing the man she is to live with, the man who is to be the father of her children.”

“Our ideas differ there,” said Richmond stiffly.

“I am not surprised that she has left you,” pursued Roger. “You have made her realize that you don’t love her. And from what I know of her I doubt if you will ever get her back until you change your notions of what loving means.”

Suspicion was once more sparkling in Richmond’s wicked eyes. “You may be sure I’ll not change, Mr. Wade,” said he with a peculiarity of emphasis which even the simple-minded Roger could not fail to understand.

Roger laughed heartily. “At it again!” cried he. “Really, you are very amusing.”

“Be that as it may,” snapped Richmond, “I want you to know that I will never take her back--_never!_--until I am sure she has given you up. You may stake your life on that, sir. When I put my hand to the plough I do not turn back.”