A Master's Degree Part 22

"Elinor was heavy on Wream's conscience," Vincent went on, "because he and her father, Dr. Nathan Wream, took the fortune to endow colleges and university chairs that should have been hers from her mother's estate.

You see, Dennie, there was no wrong in the plan. Elinor would be provided for by me. I would get up in my chosen profession. n.o.body was robbed or defrauded. Joshua Wream's last years would be peaceful with his conscience at rest regarding Elinor's property. And, Dennie, who would n't want to marry Elinor Wream?"

"Yes, who wouldn't?" Dennie looked up with a smile. And if there were tears in her eyes Burgess knew they were born of Dennie's sweet spirit of sympathy.

"What is wrong, then?" she asked. "Is Elinor unwilling?"

"Elinor and I are bound by promises to each other, although no word has ever been spoken between us. It is impossible to make any change now. We are very happy, of course."

"Of course," Dennie echoed.

"I had a letter from Dr. Wream last night. A pitiful letter, for he's getting near the brink. Dennie--these funds I hold--I have never quite understood, but I had felt sure there was no other claimant. There was a clause in the strangely-worded bequest: 'for V. B. and his heirs.

Failing in that, to the nearest related V. B.' It was a thing for lawyers, not Greek professors, to settle, and I came to be the nearest related V. B., Vincent Burgess, for I find the money belonged to my sister's husband, and I thought he left no heirs and I am the nearest related V. B. by marriage, you see?"

"Well?" Dennie's mind was jumping to the end.

"My sister married a Victor Burleigh, who came to Kansas to find his brother. Both men are dead now. The only one of the two families living is this brother's son, young Victor Burleigh, junior in Sunrise College.

He knows nothing of his Uncle Victor, my brother-in-law--nor of money that he might claim. He belongs to the soil out here. n.o.body has any claims on him, nor has he any ambition for a chair in Harvard, nor any promise to marry and provide for a beautiful girl who looks upon him as her future guardian."

Vincent Burgess suddenly ceased speaking and looked at Dennie.

"I cannot break an old man's heart. He implores me not to reveal all this, but I had to tell somebody, and you are the best friend a man could ever have, Dennie Saxon, so I come to you," he added presently.

"When did this Dr. Wream find out about Vic?" Dennie asked.

"A month ago. Some strange-looking tramp of a fellow brought him proofs that are incontestable," Burgess replied.

"And it is for an old man's peace you would keep this secret?" Dennie questioned.

"For him and for Elinor--and for myself. Don't hate me, Dennie. Elinor looks upon me as her future husband. I have promised to provide for her with the comforts denied her by her father, and I have lived in the ambition of holding that Harvard chair--Oh, it is all a hopeless tangle.

I could never go to Victor Burleigh now. He would not believe that I had been ignorant of his claim all this time. He was never wrapped up in the pursuit of a career--Oh, Dennie, Dennie, what shall I do?"

He rose to his feet and Dennie stood up before him. He gently rested his hands on her shoulders and looked down at her.

"What shall you do?" Dennie repeated, slowly. "Whisky, Money, Ambition--the appet.i.te that destroys! Vincent Burgess, if you want to win a Master's Degree, win to the Mastery of Manhood first. The sins of the fathers, yours and mine, we cannot undo. But you can be a man."

She had put her dimpled hands on his arms as they stood there, and the brave courage of her upturned face called back again the rainy May night, and the face of Victor Burleigh beside Bug Buler's cot, and his low voice as he said:

"I cannot play in tomorrow's game and be a man."

CHAPTER XII. THE SILVER PITCHER

_A picket frozen on duty-- A mother starved for her brood-- Socrates drinking the hemlock, And Jesus on the rood.

And millions who, humble and nameless, The straight hard pathway trod-- Some call it Consecration, And others call it G.o.d_.

--WILLIAM HERBERT CARRUTH

"DR. FENNEBEN, I should like much to dismiss my cla.s.ses for the afternoon," Professor Burgess said to the Dean in his study the next day.

"Very well, Professor, I am afraid you are overworked with all my duties added to yours here. But you don't look it," Fenneben said, smiling.

Burgess was growing almost stalwart in this gracious climate.

"I am very well, Doctor. What a beautiful view this is." He was looking intently now at the Empire that had failed to interest him once.

"Yes; it is my inspiration. 'Each man's chimney is his golden milestone,'" Fenneben quoted. "I've watched the smoke from many chimneys up and down the Walnut Valley during my years here, and later I've hunted out the people of each hearthstone and made friends with them. So when I look away from my work here I see friendly tokens of those I know out there." He waved his hand toward the whole valley.

"And maybe, when they look up here and see the dome by day, or catch our beacon light by night, they think of 'Funnybone,' too. It is well to live close to the folks of your valley always."

"You are a wonderful man, Doctor," Burgess said.

"There are two 'milestones' I've never reached," the Doctor went on.

"One is that place by the bend in the river. See the pigeons rising above it now. I wonder if that strange white-haired woman ever came back again. Elinor said she left Lagonda Ledge last summer."

"Where's the other place?" Burgess would change the subject.

"It i's a little shaft of blue smoke from a wood fire rising above those rocky places across the river. I've seen it so often, at irregular times, that I've grown interested in it, but I have missed it since I came back. It's like losing a friend. Every man has his vagaries. One of mine is this friendship with the symbols of human homes."

Burgess offered no comment in response. He could not see that the time had come to tell Fenneben what Bond Saxon had confided to him about the man below the smoke. So he left the hilltop and went down to the Saxon House. He wanted to see Dennie, but found her father instead.

"That woman's left Pigeon Place again," Saxon said. "Went early this morning. It's freedom for me when I don't have to think of them two.

Thinking of myself is slavery enough."

Burgess loitered aimlessly about the doorway for a while. It was a mild afternoon, with no hint of winter, nor Christmas glitter of ice and snow about it. Just a glorious finishing of an idyllic Kansas autumn rounding out in the beauty of a sunshiny mid-December day. But to the man who stood there, waiting for nothing at all, the day was a mockery. Behind the fine scholarly face a storm was raging and there was only one friend whom he could trust--Dennie.

"Let's go walking, you and me!"

Bug Buler put up one hand to Burgess, while he clutched a little red ball in the other. Bug had an irresistible child voice and child touch, and Burgess yielded to their leading. He had not realized until now how lonely he was, and Bug was companionable by intuition and a stanch little stroller.

North of town the river lay glistening between its vine-draped banks.

The two paused at the bend where Fenneben had been hurled almost to his doom, and Burgess remembered the darkness, and the rain, and the limp body he had held. He thought Fenneben was dead then, and even in that moment he had felt a sense of disloyalty to Dennie as he realized that he must think of Elinor entirely now. But why not? He had come to Kansas for this very thinking. It must be his life purpose now.

Today Burgess began to wonder why Elinor must have a life of ease provided for her and Dennie Saxon ask for nothing. Why should Joshua Wream's conscience be his burden, too? Then he hated himself a little more than ever, and duty and manly honor began their wrestle within him again.

"Let's we go see the pigeons," Bug suggested, tossing his ball in his hands.

Burgess remembered what Bond had said of the woman's leaving. There could be no harm in going inside, he thought. The leafless trees and shrubbery revealed the neat little home that the summer foliage concealed. Bug ran forward with childish curiosity and tiptoed up to a low window, dropping his little red ball in his eagerness.

"Oh, tum! tum!" he cried. "Such a pretty picture frame and vase on the table."

He was nearly five years old now, but in his excitement he still used baby language, as he pulled eagerly at Vincent Burgess' coat.

"It isn't nice to peep, Bug," Burgess insisted, but he shaded his eyes and glanced in to please the boy. He did not note the pretty gilt frame nor the vase beside it on the table. But the face looking out of that frame made him turn almost as cold and limp as Fenneben had been when he was dragged from the river. Catching the little one by the hand he hurried away.

At the gateway he lifted Bug in his arms.

He was not yet at ease with children.

"I dropped my ball," Bug said. "Let me det it."