A Man's Hearth Part 27

"Anthony, why did you not tell me that you met Mrs. Masterson?" she put her quiet question. "Why did you leave me to hear it from Michael?"

Startled, he still continued to look down into her eyes with no confusion in his own.

"I suppose I should have told you," he frankly admitted. "But it wasn't of any importance, and I--well, I cut such a poor figure that I dodged exhibiting it to you. The woman caught me on the Avenue and fairly bullied me into a tea-room, with my collar wilted and oily hands. I think she did it out of pure malice, too, for she had nothing to say, after all. But--surely _that_ did not make you ill, Elsie?"

"You never thought that I might mind your going?"

"Why?" he asked simply. "What is it to us? You don't, do you?"

She put up her hands and clasped them behind his head.

"Set down the tea," she laughed, tears in her mockery, "or we will spill it between us. Did you think me an inhuman angel, dear darling? No, I don't mind; but I did."

"Like that?" amazed. "So much?"

"You keep remembering who Mait' Raoul Galvez raised," she warned, her lips against his. "I'm mighty jealous, man!"

"But I love you," he stammered clumsily. "That woman--she looked like a vixen! Poor Fred!"

Their first misunderstanding was pa.s.sed, and left no shadow. By and by they drank the cold tea together, and Elsie persuaded her nurse to go to the factory as usual.

"I was not sick, just full of badness," she conscientiously explained.

"Although it might not have happened if I had been altogether just the same as usual, Anthony."

They talked over the affair at more leisure, that evening. But they could find no reason for Lucille Masterson's insistence upon that brief interview with Anthony. Why had she forced him to attend her? He could honestly a.s.sure Elsie that Mrs. Masterson had made no attempt to win him back to his former allegiance; rather, she had taunted and antagonized him. As a caprice, they finally cla.s.sified and dismissed the episode.

What they did not dismiss from their thoughts was the conversation they had held in the new white house, the day they had bought the guitar.

They did not speak of Anthony's ambitions, but Elsie came to speak often and with freer enthusiasm of her native Louisiana. Her husband saw through the innocent ruse with keener penetration than she recognized, and so far it failed. He understood that she was cunningly preparing to make easy for him their way of retreat, in case he lost his fight; preparing to convince him that was the way she most desired to go. He loved her the better; and was the more obstinately determined to force his own way.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CHALLENGE

Each day found Anthony less willing to leave the place he had chosen. He did not want to abandon the work commenced in the factory; he had attained an active personal interest in his progress there. He was well aware that he would soon know more about some possibilities of the mill than did Mr. Goodwin himself. His father never had concerned himself at all with such matters. Mr. Adriance was the converging-point of the many lines forming a widespread net of affairs in which this factory was but one strand. He did not even find time to notice Mr. Goodwin's advancing years and the desire for retirement the old man was too proud to voice.

But the strand whose smallness was disdained by the greater Adriance might well prove able to support the lesser.

An accident still further determined his wish to remain. One day Mr.

Goodwin came down to the lower room; occupied the chair in Adriance's enclosure for a quarter-hour and watched the proceedings. These occasional visits had done much to establish firmly "Andy's" authority, yielding as they did the manager's sanction to the new order of things.

But this time Mr. Goodwin had something to say to the young man whom he and Cook had grown to regard as a fortunate discovery of their own.

"Andy," he began, using the nickname as Adriance himself had suggested on observing the positive reluctance with which the old gentleman handled familiarly the revered name of the factory's owner; "Andy, to-morrow there will be a meeting at the office of Mr. Adriance in New York City; I shall be present." He cleared his throat a trifle importantly. "I shall have pleasure in mentioning the excellent, the really excellent, work you have done here. I shall mention you personally."

Anthony carefully put down the papers he held and stood still, trouble darkening across his face. He saw what was coming, and he saw no way to stop it. He did not want his father to learn of his presence here from an outsider, or at a public meeting. He wanted to tell Mr. Adriance his own story, with their kinship to help him. He wanted to explain Elsie to the man who was championing Mrs. Masterson; he wanted to tell him of the new Adriance to come. He hardly thought it possible that his father would deny him the simple opportunity he asked, or try to force the monstrous wrong of a separation between man and wife, if he understood.

But if the bare fact that Tony was secretly in his employ were flung before him, Mr. Adriance was quite capable of regarding this as an added defiance and even mockery of himself. Mr. Goodwin's speech flowed placidly on:

"Your abilities are really exceptional, exceptional; I am sure that they will be suitably appreciated. You are doing much better work than Ransome. I shall advise that I be allowed to create a new position for you at a new salary. I should like you to supervise the entire shipping department on this floor, not merely the trucking."

"You are very good," Adriance murmured; "I am not quite ready perhaps for that. By the time the next meeting is held----"

"I have said that you were competent," Mr. Goodwin reminded him with some stiffness. "I am accustomed to judge such matters, pray recollect.

I am quite sure Mr. Adriance will feel pleasure that a connection of his, even a distant connection, should thus distinguish himself from the ordinary employee."

"No! That is--I should wish----" Adriance caught himself stumbling, and colored before the astonished eyes of the other. "I mean to say, family influence cannot help me in that way. Can you place the matter before Mr. Adriance without using my name?"

The older man chilled in severe amazement. Very slowly he took off his _pince-nez_ with fingers a trifle uncertain.

"Certainly not," he said, rigidly. "Why should I do so remarkable a thing?"

That challenge was not easily answered. The silence persisted unpleasantly. Through the breach it made trickled a thin stream of doubt, which rapidly grew to a full current of suspicion. Still Adriance could find nothing to reply, and the situation became more than embarra.s.sing. Mr. Goodwin at last arose.

"I regret that I made this proposition," he said. "Of course it was not in my calculations that you had anything to conceal, especially from Mr.

Adriance. We will of course drop the matter for the present."

"You mean that I may continue here as I am?"

"I hope so. You will comprehend that it becomes my duty to set this matter before Mr. Adriance. It is not right that I should employ in his name a man who fears to have his presence here known to his employer. I will bid you good-morning."

This condition was worse than the first. Recognizing himself as cornered, Adriance cast a hurried glance around him, found no one within ear-shot of his little enclosure, and took a step toward the man about to leave him.

"Wait! Mr. Goodwin, I am Tony Adriance."

The little old gentleman stared at him blankly.

"My father does not know that I am here, no one knows except my wife.

Will you not sit down again and listen to me?"

Still Mr. Goodwin stared at him, dumb. Smiling in spite of his vexation and anxiety, the young man quietly fronted the scrutiny. He was quite aware that in his working clothes, his hands evidencing his winter of manual labor, his face dark with the tan of months of wind and sun, he hardly looked the part he claimed; that is, if Mr. Goodwin knew anything of the former Tony Adriance. But he kept the candid honesty of his eyes open to the other's reading, and waited. Perhaps if those rather unusual blue-black eyes he and his father had in common had confronted Mr.

Goodwin in the brightness of daylight, he might before this have been identified. At any rate, they convinced now, even in the deceptive light.

"There is a resemblance," murmured Mr. Goodwin.

"To my father? Yes, I think so; I have been told so."

"But--why----?"

One of the usual interruptions called Adriance away before he could reply. The old gentleman sat dazed, watching him. When the vehicle had pa.s.sed on, Adriance turned back to the other man.

"I married without consulting my father, last autumn," he said quietly.

"Will you dine with me to-night, Mr. Goodwin, at my own house up the hill, and let me explain to you what I am doing and why I am doing it?

If you have any doubt of my ident.i.ty, you may easily fix it by asking my father when you see him to-day whether his son is at home or not."

Mr. Goodwin found his voice with some difficulty.

"No, I would prefer to understand before I see Mr. Adriance. Come up to my private office now; Cook can manage here for an hour without you. I am astounded, even bewildered, Andy--Mr. Adriance----"