David Malcolm Part 21

They came down the gangway one by one, the ex-judge leading; then Gladys Todd, rather mannish in a straight-cut English suit and a sailor hat, slung from her shoulder a camera, and nestling in one arm a Yorkshire terrier; then Doctor Todd, unchanged, in the same clothes in which he had sailed, for he was one of those men who could go twice around the world and collect nothing but statistics and postcards; then Mrs. Todd with her two greatest acquisitions in bold evidence, a lorgnette and a caged paroquet.

For a moment I felt that I had come solely to welcome ex-Judge Bundy home. He was first to get my hand, and he held it while he told me how kind it was of me to take so much trouble; it was good to be home; he was always glad to get back to America--speaking as though these expeditions were annual events. He might have gone on and presented me to his friends the Todds had I not disengaged myself and turned to my fiancee with a hand outstretched.

"Look out for Blossom," she warned me, hardly more than touching my finger-tips. "Blossom always snaps at strangers."

Blossom justified the statement by barking viciously at me.

"I am so glad to have you back again, Gladys," I said, speaking in a low voice, for I had an instinctive feeling that ex-Judge Bundy had turned his head, though ostensibly he was busy with porters.

"And it's so nice to see you," she replied, and her gaze wandered vaguely about the pier. She had written that it would be so good just to let her eyes rest on me, but now their appet.i.te was quickly satisfied, and it nettled me.

I spoke to her again, louder, reiterating my delight, and she raised her eyebrows and answered that she was glad that I was pleased. Doctor Todd and Mrs. Todd, however, were not so casual in their greeting. The doctor took both of my hands and declared that this was a happy family reunion. Mrs. Todd kissed me on both cheeks and gave me the paroquet to carry. As we made our way through the crowd, she asked me if I did not think that Gladys had improved, but to myself, as I watched her striding ahead of us in her mannish clothes, I said that she certainly looked quite trim and smart, and I found myself wondering if she still painted tulips on black plaques or would deign to sing "Douglas, tender and true"? Perhaps, to her mind, broadened by a year of travel, I was but a provincial fellow, whose musical education had not gone beyond "The Minute Guns at Sea," who, never having seen the galleries of Europe, could have no appreciation of art.

I was irritated. I wanted to set myself right in her mind, to show her that I, too, had grown broader and wiser. But there was no opportunity. She was busy either with the trunks or in keeping Blossom quiet. During the drive to the hotel the situation was little better.

We were in an ancient barouche, piled high with luggage, Mrs. Todd, Gladys, and I, ex-Judge Bundy having tactfully suggested that he take the doctor with him in a hansom.

Mrs. Todd was voluble. She was artfully sentimental. She spoke of the day when, as a young girl, she had left home for six weeks, and she recalled her emotions as she came back to find the doctor waiting for her at the station. They were married shortly afterward. How history repeats itself! But Gladys was not impressed by the coincidence. She merely said that she was glad to have Blossom ash.o.r.e again, for at times the dog had been fearfully sea-sick. I could have strangled Blossom. Nothing is more humiliating to a man than to discover that a woman's love for him is waning. Here is a reflection on his power of fascination. But it is doubly humiliating to find himself supplanted by a little woolly dog, to see the caresses which he would claim as his showered with ostentation on a diminutive animal. At that moment it seemed that Blossom had supplanted me. He nestled in her arm, and when for the tenth time I expressed my delight in having her home, she turned from me and stroked the creature's silky back. Time and again I, striving to do my duty, charged against the steel points of her indifference. Even Mrs. Todd noticed my plight. As we were leaving the carriage at the Broadway hotel whither Judge Bundy had led the way she whispered to me that evidently three was a crowd, and acting on that belief, she contrived to leave the two of us alone in the great parlor of the hotel while the doctor and the Judge held a colloquy with the clerk.

This Gladys Todd, sitting amid the faded grandeur of the hotel parlor, this handsome mannish woman in a tweed suit, with a snappy dog in her arm, was not the same girl beside whom I had sat ages ago, watching her paint tulips and sprays of wisteria, not the same whose voice had joined with mine in the sentimental strains of "Annie Laurie." But I felt that I had a duty, and I sat down on the sofa and held out my hand and in a voice of pleading asked her again if she was not glad to see me.

"No, David," she said, turning her eyes downward to Blossom.

I was quite unprepared for such a frank admission, and it came like a blow. In all my thought of Gladys Todd I had quite accustomed myself to the confession that I did not look with pleasure to her home-coming, but that she might regard me in the same light never occurred to me.

This knowledge was humiliating. I had been holding myself to the strict line of duty and honor, but I had never suspected that she might be impelled by exactly the same motives. Now I was hurt. As I sat staring at her I cast about for the reason of the change. In my case it was another woman, but a superlatively wonderful woman. In hers it might be another man, a superlatively wonderful man. The idea was not pleasant. In my case there was at least the excuse of old acquaintance. In hers the change must have come in a single week at sea, where miles of walking on the deck and hours leaning on the rail with elbows close together might have revealed some kindred spirit.

There flashed to me her action in turning from me, the watcher on the pier, to ex-Judge Bundy, and in him losing all thought of me. But ex-Judge Bundy was not a superlatively wonderful man. He was only a rich widower with two married daughters, and was old enough to be her father. My estimate of my own worth was not so modest that I could conceive of my interests ever being seriously jeopardized by this pompous maker of nails. It was pleasanter to think that the fault lay rather in my own unworthiness than in another's worth, and my pride urged me to combat her, to prove that while I might not be all that a woman of her ideals could ask, yet my shortcomings were those of my fellows in ma.s.s and not of the individual.

"I do not understand, Gladys," I said, and I held out my hand to take hers and to rea.s.sert my old ascendancy, but I was foiled by Blossom, who darted at me with such fierceness as to compel me to draw back.

"David, I'm so sorry," she said. She looked me in the eyes and spoke with the even voice of one who had entire command of herself. "The plain truth is that I have made a great mistake. I really thought I cared for you."

"And now you think you don't," I said, brushing aside such an absurdity with a wave of my hand. "Nonsense! After four years, you can not tell me that you have suddenly discovered that you never cared for me. I can not give you up for some absurd whim."

She shook her head. "It is not a whim. I see clearly now. We were very young when we became engaged, and I didn't understand how serious the step really was. In the last week at sea I have had time to think it all over, and now I know it best that after this we be just friends--nothing more. You will forget me. You will find another woman worthier of you."

Little as I knew of women, I realized that while these last two statements might be perfectly true, to accept them as true would sever the last strand of the cord which bound us. At that moment I did not want to lose Gladys Todd. She was very lovely as she sat there, with her eyes downcast, caressing her dog. She was the promised reward of my years of work. For her I had labored, scrimped and saved, cramped myself in a narrow room in a boarding-house, and almost shunned my fellows, to realize our dream of the little house on the bit of green.

At that moment the dream was very dear to me and I could not see it wrecked for some whim. I grew belligerent. I reached out my hand again, as though by mere physical power I would prove my unchanging mind, but again Blossom was on guard.

"I shall not forget you," I said, and I folded my arms with grim determination and fixed my eyes on her face to break her by mere will-power. And then to what untruth did pride drive me? "I have not changed. I shall never change, Gladys. I love you now more than ever, and I will not give you up."

The light in her eyes was not quite so cold, nor was her voice so even and at her command. "I am sorry, David, but you must."

"But I won't," I returned.

"Oh, why do you drive me to it?" she cried with a gesture of despair.

"Can't you see, David, that there is some one else to be considered?"

"Some one else?" I exclaimed.

"I didn't think you would be so ungenerous--so selfish," she said in a low voice, while her hands played rapidly over Blossom's head. "I have tried to be honorable and fair to you. But he was so kind, so good--he is so lonely----"

"He--who is he?" I demanded, in my anger abandoning all effort to hold to the honorable course to which I had set myself.

"You should not ask me," she replied, her voice growing hard. "After I had come to know him, to know how fine he was, I really tried to keep on caring for you, David, but I simply couldn't. I am fond of you, of course, but not in the way I thought. You are too young. It is a mistake for a woman to marry a man of her own age. She should marry one whom she can look up to, honor and respect. Love in a cottage is well enough to read of, I suppose, but enduring love must be built on something more."

I wanted to laugh at myself for the fool I had been. I arose. It was useless to sit longer with folded arms and determined eyes fixed on her face, to break her will by hypnotic power. I knew that I was defeated, and however better defeat might be than victory, judged in wisdom, it was not pleasant to a man of spirit. I stood before her pulling on a glove and she looked up at me with a suggestion of defiance. I was not heart-broken. I felt that I should be, but I knew that I was suffering only in my pride. I wanted to sit down again in friendly fashion and tell her how hard I had tried to do my duty, that I too loved another, and that now she had made the way easy for me, but I refrained from such petty revenge.

I held out my hand. "I wish you all happiness, Gladys," I said. "You must not trouble about me. No doubt you have chosen wisely."

"You are a dear, good boy, David," she said, rising and addressing me in a motherly tone as though she had suddenly attained twice my years.

"You will find another woman more worthy of you--I know you will. And when you come to Harlansburg you must bring her to see us. We shall be such good friends."

To Harlansburg? The whole story was clear in my mind. I remembered the Egyptian picture, the pyramids, the camels, and young Marshall's warning. And I had been so blind that a moment since I was saying that if another man had wrought this changed mind in Gladys Todd he must be a superlatively wonderful man. After all, the superlatively wonderful man was ex-Judge Bundy. Now the blow to my pride was fairly crushing.

It did seem that I had a few natural qualities which should have weighed in the scales against such a rival. But if I had youth, he had wealth; if I had promise, he had the same promise of youth fulfilled in giant nail works; if I offered a vine-clad cottage on a bit of green, he could give the big gray-stone house with many turrets, the lawn with the marble lions and perfect terraces sloping down to the ornate fence.

The very absurdity of the situation saved me from regret.

Gladys Todd was looking at me with narrowed eyes. I think she expected some outburst of emotion. Perhaps she felt sorry for the pain that she had caused me. But as I looked at her and remembered the past, as I thought of the judge, the house, and the marble lions, even my wounded pride was forgotten. I checked the smile which was threading my lips.

I took my conge as a man should, gravely, with head bowed under the crushing blow, with eyes downcast as though they would never again look up into the joyous sunlight. I turned and left the room.

By the rule, I should have looked back, hesitated, and gone on. But my mind was filled with the fear of meeting Doctor Todd or Mrs. Todd, or worse, Judge Bundy. How to treat Judge Bundy, did I meet him, was not clear--whether to pa.s.s him with a haughty stare, or to stop and congratulate him, or even thank him. Discreetly I followed the dark windings of the hall and left the hotel by a private entrance. In the street I looked up into the sunshine. I was free. I could not dissemble with myself any longer, and I turned to the avenue with a quick and joyous step. A new life had opened to me and I was stepping into it unburdened, and with a prize to fight for. In those few moments Gladys Todd had gone into the past. She was hardly more than a shadow to me now, hardly more real than Mr. Pound or Miss Spinner or any other of the dim figures in my memory. Before me was Penelope--the future and Penelope. Her world was not my world, but I vowed that I would make it mine.

Perhaps, I said, I shall see her again this very morning and perhaps she will greet me again with that same kindly, glorious smile. And surely she would smile did she know that I was free from the yoke to which I had bent myself in a moment of forgetfulness. My duty had been to Penelope since that day when we rode from the clearing, and from that day my heart had always been with her. Reading from the past, her destiny and mine were written before me in clear, bold letters. How good the world was! How bright the day! How quick my step as I turned up-town!

And I saw Penelope. She bowed to me from a hansom, and I answered, beaming. I halted. Herbert Talcott was sitting at her side. He stared at me, tipped his hat brusquely, then turned to her and made some laughing remark.

I stood looking after the receding hansom until it disappeared in the maze of traffic. I took my conge as a man does sometimes, with my head bowed under the crushing blow, and my eyes downcast, knowing in my heart that for me the sunshine could nevermore be joyous.

CHAPTER XXII

There was no doubt in my mind that Penelope Blight was engaged to marry Talcott. They announced the fact when they rode the length of the Avenue together in a hansom. But had I questioned the meaning of their appearing thus in public I could not long have cheered myself with vain hope, for the papers next morning blazoned the news to all the world.

That they printed it under great staring head-lines was not surprising to me, for to me this fact transcended all others in importance.

Beside it the rumblings of war in the Balkans, the devastating flood in China, or the earthquake which wrecked a southern city were trifles.

So to my distorted view the papers were filled with the announcement of my overwhelming misfortune. Only by the greatest effort could I drag myself from reading and rereading to my humdrum task. Before me in black and white was the last chapter in my own story, the story which had begun that day when I went fishing. Every line of it, couched in the hackneyed phrases of the business, was a cutting blow, and yet I must return again and again to the beating. Had Rufus Blight been a poor man, a worthy man whose sole claim to consideration lay in his having discovered some balm for human ills, then a paragraph would have sufficed for the announcement of his niece's engagement. But he was a millionaire; he lived in one of the largest houses in town, and his niece was the greatest catch of the day, measured in dollars; therefore, the coming marriage was worthy of columns. The existence of Herbert Talcott became also of prime importance, not because he had ever done anything, but because he was to marry the heiress of the Blight fortune. How many a worthy Jones or a poor but n.o.ble Robinson has to descend to an advertis.e.m.e.nt to make his happiness known to the careless world? How many a lovely Joan goes to her wedding unread-of because her forebears were lacking, not in those qualities which open the gates of heaven, but in acquisitiveness?

To the public it could matter little that Rufus Blight was a simple, kindly soul who was as contented years ago when he stood behind his counter as to-day when he sought on the golf-links that sense of action which is necessary to a man's happiness. The vital fact was that the trust had paid him millions for his steel-works; not that Penelope was a simple, lovely woman like thousands of her sisters, but that her wedding-gifts would be worthy of the daughter of Maecenas. Accustomed though I had become in the routine of my work to just such a judgment of vital facts, now that the story told was my own last chapter I made a silent protest against the manner of the telling.

I thought of Rufus Blight as a quiet man, happiest not in the stately library, but in his den surrounded by a medley of homely things.

Thinking of Penelope I turned to those vagrant dreams, now forbidden.

In them Penelope and I were to go back to the valley, to ride again over the mountain road, to stand again as we had stood that day when she led me over the tangled trail into the sunlit clearing. Those were joys in which millions had no part. But as I read of the Blight millions, and of that blue-blooded Talcott line which traced back a hundred years to a member of the cabinet, it was hard for me to believe that I knew these exalted beings, that I had sat with Rufus Blight and talked of days in the valley, that Penelope and I had galloped over the country astride the same white mule, that I even had engaged with one so distinguished as Herbert Talcott in a brawl in a restaurant. Gilded by those who report the comings and goings of those whom one should know, as Mrs. Bannister might put it, they seemed aliens, manikins that moved in a stage world. As such I tried to think of them, for it was best, but I had as well set myself to efface my memory.

The last chapter of my own story was written by unknown hands. The epilogue remained, in which I was to go on seeking what contentment I could find in action. But my whole story was not written on these flimsy pages. It was before me always and always I was turning to it, always asking myself how it would have run had this not happened or had that occurred. Studying it over and over again in my room at night and on my long walks up-town, I found that I could not think of Penelope Blight as an alien creature for whose happiness I had no longer any care. What of her story which was in the writing? Did she know this Talcott whom she had chosen to fill its last pages? She knew him as I knew him first, as a quiet, gentlemanly man with pleasant manners. Was it not her right to know him as I knew him now, as a drunken brawler, who in his cups had betrayed the unworthy motive of his devotion?

These questions troubled me for many days. I was not a prude. I knew that all men have their foibles, that many great men have over-indulged in liquor, that a man's whole character is not to be d.a.m.ned by a single slip. I knew that did all women see the men whom they choose for marriage as others see them we should have a plague of spinsters. But I feared for Penelope Blight. This was not because Talcott was worse than the ma.s.s of his fellows, but because the best of his fellows was none too good for her. But how could I go to her and declare that Talcott when drunk had avowed a purpose to marry her for her millions?

It seemed the part of a tattler. The world would say that I acted from jealousy. Indeed, it was hard at times to convince myself that jealousy was not the basis of my fear for her. Yet I felt that I must save her from a disillusionment which might come too late. Were her father here that disillusionment would be speedy; but he was far away, and always his last words were with me, as he spoke them that night in the street: "You will take care of Penelope, won't you, boy?"

I had promised that. It was simply repeating my boyhood promise. And now I kept asking myself if I was not forgetting that trust when I kept silent because I feared in my pride to place myself in the light of an intermeddler, a bearer of scandalous tales; I would remember that morning when we had stood by the cabin door and I told her not to be afraid for I was guarding her. Was I guarding her?

For two weeks I kept puzzling over my course of action. I felt that the knowledge I held was hers by right, and hers, not mine, to judge of its triviality. Yet I could not bring myself to face her with it.