A Black Adonis Part 25

"Do I know this individual?" asked Archie.

"Yes. You brought him to the house and introduced him to her."

The man gave a slight cry, in spite of himself.

"Not Roseleaf!"

Hannibal bowed impressively; and at the moment Mr. Fern's footsteps were heard in the entry.

Mr. Weil did not know, when he tried to think about it afterwards, whether the wool merchant noticed particularly that he and Hannibal had been talking together, or suspected that they might have confidences.

His head was too full of the startling statement he had heard, and when he was again upon the street he wandered aimlessly for an hour trying to reconcile this view with the facts as they had presented themselves to his mind previously.

Millicent in love with Roseleaf! She had said very little to the young man, so far as he had observed. Her younger sister--sweet little Daisy--had monopolized his attention. If it were true, what an instance it was of the odd qualities in the feminine mind, that leave men to wonder more and more of what material it is constructed. But _was_ it true? Was Hannibal a better judge, a closer student, than the rest of them? He did not like Millicent, any better than she liked him. Was he trying a game of mischief, with some ulterior purpose that was not apparent on the surface?

Out of it all, Archie Weil emerged, sure of but one thing. He must use his eyes. If Millicent loved Roseleaf, she could not hide it successfully from him, now that he had this clue.

The girl's novel was selling fairly well. Weil had made a bargain with Cutt & Slashem that was very favorable. It gave him an excuse to talk with the auth.o.r.ess as much as he pleased, and he used his advantage. He brought her the comments of the press--not that they amounted to anything, for it was evident that most of the critics had merely skimmed through the pages. He came to tell her the latest things that Gouger had said, what proportion of cloth and paper covers were being ordered, and the other gossip of the printing house. And now he talked about the work that Shirley was engaged on, and grew enthusiastic, declaring that the young man would yet make a place for himself beside the Stevensons and Weymans.

Millicent struck him as caring much more for news of her own production than that of the young man who had been represented as the object of her adoration. If she was half as fond of Roseleaf as Hannibal intimated, she was certainly successful in concealing her sentiments from the shrewd observer. The result of a fortnight's investigation convinced Weil that the negro had made a complete mistake, and all the hypotheses that had arisen were allowed to dissipate into thin air and fly away.

Another two weeks pa.s.sed and Hannibal still remained with the Ferns. An inquiry of Daisy produced the answer that he thought of remaining in America till spring. The girl tried to act as if it made not the slightest consequence to her whether he went or stayed, but she did not succeed. Mr. Weil knew that she wished most heartily for the time when the negro would take his departure. She was bound up in her father, and Hannibal was worrying him to death--from whatever cause. She wanted the tie between him and this black man broken, and hated every day that stood between them and his hour of sailing.

Roseleaf was almost as uneasy as Daisy over the delay. He had given her the money she asked for, though no allusion to its purpose had been made.

She still had it, somewhere, unless she had given it to the one for whom it was intended. When she took the package from his hand she rose on her tiptoes and kissed him with the most affectionate of gestures. It was the second occasion on which he had been permitted to touch her lips, and he appreciated it fully. He realized from her action how deeply she felt his kindness in providing her with the funds that were to relieve her father of an incubus that was sapping his very life.

"You don't find much use for our black Adonis yet, I see," said Weil, as he laid down the latest page of the slowly building novel. "I had hoped you would penetrate the secret of his power over your heroine's father, by this time."

"No, I cannot understand it at all," replied Roseleaf. "And if you, with your superior quickness of perception, have found nothing, I don't see how you could expect me to."

"You have greater opportunities," said Weil, with a smile that was not quite natural. "You have the ear of the fair Miss Daisy, remember," he explained, in reply to the inquiring look that was raised to him.

"Ah, but she knows nothing, either," exclaimed Roseleaf. "I am sure of that."

Mr. Weil was silent for some moments.

"Well, if you cannot find the true cause," he said, "you will have to invent a hypothetical one. Your novel cannot stand still forever.

Imagine something--a crime, for instance, of which this black fellow is cognizant. A murder--that he peeped in at a keyhole and saw. How would that do?"

Roseleaf turned pale.

"You know," he said, "that you are talking of impossibilities."

"On the contrary, nothing is impossible," responded the other, impatiently. "College professors, delicate ladies, children not yet in their teens, have committed homicide, why not this handsome gentleman in the wool business? Or if you _won't_ have murder--and I agree that blood is rather tiresome, it has been overdone so much--bring a woman into the case. Let us have a betrayal, a wronged virgin, and that sort of thing."

The color did not return to the young man's cheek.

"Which is still more incredible in the present case," he said. "Do you think Wilton Fern could do evil to a woman? Look in his face once and dismiss that libel within the second."

A desperate expression crossed the countenance of the elder man.

"You must agree that he has done something!" he cried. "He wouldn't allow a darkey to annoy him like this for fun, would he? He wouldn't wear that deathly look, and let his child grow thin with worriment, just as a matter of amus.e.m.e.nt!"

To this Roseleaf could not formulate a suitable answer. He felt the force of the suggestions, but he would not a.s.sociate crime with the sedate gentleman who was the object of these suspicions. He simply could not think of anything disreputable in connection with Daisy's father, and it seemed almost as bad to invent an offense for the character in his novel whose photograph he had thus far taken from Mr. Fern.

Daisy was surprised, a month after this, to have Mr. Weil stop her in the hallway, and speak with a new abruptness.

"Why don't that cursed n.i.g.g.e.r start for Europe?" he asked.

She glanced around her with a frightened look. She feared ears that should not might hear them. But she rallied as she reflected that Hannibal was miles away, in fact in the city with her father.

"He is going soon," she replied. "But why do you allude to him by that harsh term? I thought you rather liked him."

"I do," he answered. "I like him so well that if he continues to talk to--to your father--as I heard him the other day, I will throw him into the Hudson: I can't stand by and see him insult an--an old man--much longer."

The girl looked at him with sad eyes.

"I thought I had succeeded in silencing that kind of talk," she said.

"Mr. Roseleaf used to speak very violently of Hannibal, but he has listened to reason of late. Let me beg you to see nothing and hear nothing, if you are the friend of this family you have given us reason to believe."

She extended her hand, as if to ask a promise of him, but he affected not to see it.

"When does he intend to go?" he demanded.

"Before the 1st of April."

"I will give him till that date," he answered, "but not an hour beyond.

He will sail out of this country for some port or other, or there will be a collision. You must not, you shall not defend him!" he added, as she was about to speak. "I know the harm he is doing, and it must have an end!"

Turning from her suddenly he went out of doors. Far down the road he stopped to look around, pressing his hand to his forehead, like one who would make sure he is awake, and not the victim of some fearful dream.

CHAPTER XV.

THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER.

Before the first of April came, Hannibal sailed. During the winter he had taken lessons in French of a city teacher, until he believed he could get along after a fashion with that language. He announced to Daisy that he would go on the third of March, then he changed it to the tenth, and again to the seventeenth. Each time, when the date approached, he seemed to have a weakening of purpose, a dread of actually plunging into the tide that set toward foreign sh.o.r.es. The girl had interviews with him on each of these occasions, at which what pa.s.sed was known only to themselves. And each time, when she had reached her own room, she threw herself on her bed and wept bitterly.

But, at last, on the twenty-fourth, he went. With his overcoat on his arm, his satchel and umbrella in his hands, he said "Good-by" to the little party that gathered at the door. He had been treated with great consideration in that home. Perhaps he realized this to some extent as he was about to turn his back upon it. Certain it is that he could not hide the choking in his throat, as he said the words of farewell. Archie Weil, who stood there with the rest, thought he saw a strange look in those black orbs as they dwelt a moment on the younger daughter; but it pa.s.sed so quickly he could not be sure.

Mr. Fern was there, and Roseleaf. Millicent had responded, when a servant went to inform her that Hannibal was going, that she was very glad. Did she wish to go down? By no means. She hoped she was not such a fool.

Weil, who watched everybody, saw an unmistakable relief in the careworn countenance of Mr. Fern, when the tall form of his late servant disappeared at the gate.

"I hope you will do well," had been the last words of the merchant, and Daisy had added, "So do we all, I am sure." Roseleaf had not spoken. He had stood a little apart from the others, his mind filled with varying emotions. It was he who had furnished the money to carry out this plan, and if it made one hour of Daisy's life happier he would be content.