Fairfax and His Pride Part 28

"His readin' buks, sor," she said, "wud ye cast an eye?"

But here Rainsford refused, and returning to his own lodgings higher up in the town, and on a better scale, went home thoughtful, touched, and with a feeling of kinship with the truant engineer. Before, however, he could take any steps to look for Fairfax, a coloured man from somewhere appeared with the request that Mrs. Kenny send all Fairfax's things. The mysterious lodger enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no address; nor had the coloured man any information for Nut Street, and a decided antipathy existed between George Washington and Mary Kenny. She was pale when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into his trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to the unopened packet of his mother's treasures. She was unconscious of what sacred thing she touched, but she was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini.

Peter Rainsford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the elusive Fairfax, was only disappointed.

At the close of the following Sunday afternoon, Rainsford was reading in his room when Fairfax himself came in.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Fairfax," the paymaster's tone was not that of a disaffected patron to a delinquent engineer. "You are just two weeks late in reporting Number Twenty-four. But I'm sincerely glad you came, whatever the reason for the delay."

Rainsford's greeting was that of a friend to a friend. Fairfax, surprised, lifted his eyebrows and smiled "thanks." He took the chair Rainsford offered. "Why _thank_ you, Rainsford." He took a cigar which Rainsford handed him. He was in the dress of a railroad man off duty.

"Now I don't know anybody I've been more curious about," said the paymaster. "Where on earth did you go to, Fairfax? You don't know how you have mystified us all here, and in fact, me from the first."

"There are no end of mysteries in life," said the young man, still smiling; "I should have wondered about you, Mr. Rainsford, if I had had either the time or the courage!"

"Courage, Fairfax?"

"Why yes," returned the engineer, twisting his cigar between his fingers, "courage to break away from the routine I've been obliged to follow."

Fairfax saw before him a spare man of about forty years of age. The thin hair, early grey, came meekly around the temples of a finely made and serious brow, but the features of Rainsford's face were delicate, the skin was drawn tightly over the high cheek-bones. There was an extreme melancholy in his expression; when defeat had begun to write its lines upon his face, over the humiliating stain, Resignation had laid a hand.

"Well, I'll spare you wondering about me, Fairfax," the agent said; "I am just a plain fellow, that's all, and for that reason, when I saw that one of the hands on my pay-roll was clearly a gentleman, and a very young one too, it interested me, and since I have been to Kenny's"--he hesitated a little--"since I have heard something about you from that good soul, why, I am more than interested, I am determined!"

Fairfax, his head thrown back, smoked thoughtfully, and Rainsford noted the youthfulness of the line of his neck and face, the high idealism of the brow, the beautiful mouth, the breeding and the sensitiveness there.

"Why, it's a crime, that's what it is. You are young, you're a boy.

Thank G.o.d for it, it is not too late. Would you care to tell me what brought you here like this? I won't say what misfortune brought you here, Fairfax,"--he put his nervous hand to his lips--"but what folly on your part."

Rainsford took for granted the ordinary reasons for hard luck and the harvest of wild oats.

Fairfax said, "I have no people, Rainsford; they are all dead."

"But you have influential friends?"

"No," said Fairfax, "not one."

"You have extraordinary talent, Fairfax."

The young man started. "But what makes you think that?"

"Falutini told me."

Fairfax laughed harshly. "Poor t.i.to. He's a judge, I daresay." His face clouded, grew quite stern before Rainsford's intent eyes. "Yes," he said slowly, "I think I have talent; I think I must have a lot somewhere, but I have got a mighty dangerous Pride and it has driven me to a sort of revenge on Fate, an arrogant showing of my disdain--G.o.d knows of what and of whom!" More quietly he said: "Whilst my mother lived I could not beg, Rainsford, I couldn't starve, I couldn't scratch and crawl and live as a starving artist must when he is making his way. I wanted to make a living first, and I was too proud to take the th.o.r.n.y way an artist must."

Fairfax got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked across Rainsford's small room. It was in excellent order, plainly furnished but well supplied with the things a man needs to make him comfortable. There were even a few luxuries, like pillows on the hard sofa, bookshelves filled with books and a student's lamp soft under a green shade. As he turned back to the paymaster Fairfax had composed himself and said tranquilly--

"I reckon you've got a pretty bad note against me in the ledger, haven't you, Rainsford?"

"Note?" repeated the other vaguely. "Oh, your bad conduct report. Well, rather."

"Who has got my job on Number Twenty-four?"

"Steve Brodie."

Fairfax nodded. "He surely does know how to drive an engine all right, and so do I, Rainsford."

"You mustn't run any more engines, Fairfax."

"I don't want to come back to West Albany and to the yards," said the engineer.

"I haven't much influence now," Rainsford said musingly, "but I have some friends still. I want you to let me lend you some money, a very small sum."

The blood rushed to Fairfax's face. He extended his hand impulsively.

"There, Rainsford, you needn't go on. You are the first chap who has put out a rope to me. I did have twenty-five cents given me once, but otherwise----"

"I mean it sincerely, Fairfax."

"Rainsford," said the young man, with emotion in his voice, "you are a fine brand of failure."

"Will you let me stand by you, Fairfax?"

"Yes, indeed," said the other, "I will, but not in the way you mean. I reckon I must have felt what kind of a fellow you were or I wouldn't be here. At any rate you're the only person I wanted to see. I quite understand you can't take me back at the yards, and I don't want to drive in and out from West Albany. Could you do anything for me at the general company, Rainsford? Would they give me a job in Albany? I'd take a local though I'm up to an express."

"No," said Rainsford, "you mustn't think of driving engines; I won't lift my hand to help you."

"It is all I can do," returned the engineer quietly, after a second, "all I want." Then he said, "I've _got_ to have it...."

"Why I'll _lend_ you enough money, Fairfax, to pay your pa.s.sage to France!"

"Stop!" cried the young man with emotion, "it's too late."

"Nonsense," said the other warmly, Fairfax's voice and personality charming him as it charmed others. "Why, you are nothing but a big, headlong boy! You have committed a tremendous folly; you've got art at your finger tips. Are you going to sweat and stew all your life in the cab of an engine? Why, you are insane."

"Stop," cried Fairfax again, "for the love of heaven...."

Rainsford regarded him, fascinated. He saw in him his own lost promises, his own lost chance; it seemed to him that through this young man he might in a way buy back the lost years.

"I'll _not_ stop till I have used every means to make you see the hideous mistake you're making."

"Rainsford," said Antony, paling, "if you had made me this offer the day before I left Nut Street, I would have been in France by this. My G.o.d!"

he murmured beneath his breath. "_How_ I would have escaped!"--checked himself with great control for so young a man and so ardent a man. He was a foot taller than his desk-bowed pale companion, and he laid his hand impulsively on his chief's shoulder.

"If you can give me a _job_, Rainsford, do so, will you? I know I have no right to ask you, after the way I have treated the Company, but I am married. I have married Molly Shannon. You know her, the girl at Sheedy's." He waited a second, looking the other man in the eyes, then, with something of his old humour, he said, "There are two of us now, Rainsford, and I have got to make our living."