In Apple-Blossom Time Part 12

It's a great little old office, that is. There's more business transacted there than you might suppose." He met Geraldine's grave gaze, and added: "Many a profitable half-hour your father has spent there.

Yes, indeed, d.i.c.k Melody knew which side his bread was b.u.t.tered on, and I'm in hopes of being as good a friend to his daughter as I was to him."

Geraldine yielded to the invitation in silence. She wished to discover every possible detail which could make her understand how her father, as popular with men as with women, and with every custom of good manners, had often sought this brute. Doubtless it was to obtain money. Probably her father had died in debt to the man. Probably it was that fact which gave her jailer his evident certainty that he had her in his power. Her father was dead. Was there anything in the law that could hold her, a girl, responsible for his debts? It was surely only a matter of days before she could make her escape and meanwhile she would try not to let disgust overpower her reason. She was not sorry to be asked to see the abode of the spider, in the center of which he sat and watched the approach from any direction of those who dragged themselves of necessity into his web. Let him tell what he would about her father. She wished to know anything concerning him, of which Carder had proof. She would not allow her poise to be shaken by lies.

It was bright day and the office was but a few hundred yards from the house. All the same, as they walked along, she was glad to hear a sharp metallic clicking a little distance behind them, and turning her head, to see Pete ambling along with his clumsy, bow-legged gait, dragging a lawn-mower. Little protection was this poor oaf with the scars of his master's whip upon him, but Geraldine had seen a doglike devotion light up the dull eyes in those few minutes up in her room, and in spite of the dwarf's hopeless words she felt that she had one friend in this place of desolation. She expected the master would drive the boy away when the mower began to behead the dandelions, but Rufus appeared unaware of the monotonous sound.

"Pretty ship-shape, eh?" he said when they were inside the office. He indicated the open desk with its orderly files of papers and well-filled pigeon-holes. Placing himself in the desk-chair he drew another close for his visitor.

Geraldine moved the chair back a little and sat down, her eyes fixed on the telephone at Carder's left. That instrument connecting with the outside world, the world of freedom, fascinated her. If she could but get ten minutes alone with it! She had some friends of her school days, and the pride which had hitherto prevented her from communicating with them was all gone, immersed in the flood of fear and repulsion which, despite all her reasoning, swept over her periodically like a paralysis.

Rufus leaned back in his seat and surveyed his guest. She looked very young in the soft, pale-green dress she wore.

"Here I am, you see, master of all I survey, and of a good deal that I don't survey--except with my mind's eye." He shook his head impressively. "I can do a lot for anybody I care for." He pulled his check-book toward him. "I can draw my check for four figures, and I'll do it for you any time you say the word. How would you like to have a few thousands to play with?"

Geraldine removed her longing gaze from the telephone and looked at her hands. She could not meet the insupportable expression of his greedy eyes.

"Two figures would do," she said, "if you would allow me to go to town and spend it as I please."

"Why, my beauty," he laughed, "you can spend any amount, any way you please."

"Alone?" asked Geraldine, her suddenly eager eyes looking straight into his, but instantly shrinking away.

"Of course not," he returned cheerfully. "I ought to get something for my money, oughtn't I?"

She was silent, and he watched her as if making up his mind how to proceed.

"Look here," he said at last in a changed tone, "I don't know what I've got to gain by beating about the bush. I've shown you plain enough that I'm crazy about you and I've told you that I always get what I go after."

Geraldine's heart began to beat wildly. She kept her eyes on her folded hands and the extremity of her terror made her calm.

"I'm goin' to treat you as white as ever a girl was treated; but I want you, and I want you soon. I know we're more or less strangers, but you can get acquainted with me as well after marriage as before. I know all this ain't regulation. A girl expects to be courted, but I'll court you all your life, little girl."

The lawn-mower clicked through the silence in which Geraldine summoned the power to speak. Indignation helped to steady her voice. She looked up at her companion, who was leaning forward in his chair waiting for her first word.

"It is impossible for me to marry you, Mr. Carder," she said, trying to hold her voice steady, "and since your feeling for me is so extreme, I intend to leave here immediately. You speak as if you had bought me as you might have bought one of your farm implements, but these are modern days and I am a free agent."

Carder did not change his position, his elbows leaning on the arms of his chair, his fingers touching.

"I have bought you, Geraldine," he answered quietly.

She started up from her chair, her indignation bursting forth. "I knew it!" she exclaimed. "My father died owing you money and you have determined that I shall pay his debts in another coin! He would turn in his grave if he heard you make such a cruel demand."

The frank horror and repulsion in the girl's eyes made the blood rise to her companion's temples.

He pointed to her chair. "Sit down," he said. "You don't understand yet."

She obeyed trembling, for she could scarcely stand. His unmoved certainty was terrifying. "Your father was a very popular man. His vanity was his undoing. Juliet was too smart to let him throw away her money, so rather than lose his reputation as a good sport, rather than not keep up his end, he looked elsewhere for the needful, and he came to me, not once, but many times. At last he wore out my patience and the Carder spring ran dry, so far as he was concerned; then, Geraldine"--the narrator paused, the girl's dilated eyes were fixed upon him--"then, my proud little lady, handsome d.i.c.k Melody fell. He began helping himself."

"What do you mean--helping himself?" The girl leaned forward and her hands tightened until the nails pressed into her flesh.

Rufus Carder slipped his fingers into an inside pocket and drew forth two checks which he held in such a way that she could read them.

"You don't know my signature," he went on, "but that is it. Large as life and twice as natural. Yes"--he regarded the checks--"twice as natural. I couldn't have done them better myself."

Geraldine's hands flew to her heart, her eyes spoke an anguished question.

"Yes," Rufus nodded, "d.i.c.k did those." The speaker paused and slipped the checks back into his pocket. "I breathed fire when I discovered it, and then very strangely something occurred which put the fire out."

Again he leaned his elbows on the chair-arms, and bent toward the wide eyes and parted lips opposite. "I saw you sitting in the park one day,"

he went on slowly, "you got up and walked and laughed with a girl companion. I found out who you were. I went to your father, who was nearly crazy with apprehension at the time, and I told him there was no girl on earth for me but you, and that if he would give you to me I would forgive his crime. I didn't want a forger for a father-in-law. It was arranged that this month he should bring you out here and make his wishes known. His reputation was safe. Even Juliet suspected nothing. He is still mourned at his clubs as the prince of good fellows; but his sudden death prevented him from puttin' your hand in mine."

A silence followed, broken only by the rasping of the lawn-mower and Rufus Carder watched the girl's heaving breast.

"So you see," he went on at last, "all you have to do to save your father's name is to sit down in the lap of luxury; not a very hard thing to do, I should think. You'll find that I'll take--" The speaker paused, for another sound now broke in upon the click of the lawn-mower, an increasingly sharp noise which brought him to his feet and to one of the many windows which gave him a view in every direction.

A motor-cycle was speeding up the driveway.

"That's Sam Foster comin' to pay his rent," he said. "There'll be many a one on that errand along about now," he declared with satisfaction.

"Cheer up," he added, turning back to the pale face and tremulous lips of the young girl. "Your father wasn't the first fine man to go wrong; but they don't all have somebody to stick by 'em and shield 'em as he did. The more you think it over, the more--"

The motor-cycle had stopped during this declaration, and the rider now stepped into the office-door. Geraldine, her hands still unconsciously on her heart, gazed at the newcomer. Could it be that Rufus Carder had a tenant like this youth? The well-born, the well-bred, showed in his erect bearing and in his sunny brown eyes, and the smile that matched them.

The owner started and scowled at sight of him.

"Mr. Carder, I believe," said the visitor.

Rufus's chair grated as he advanced to edge the stranger back through the door.

"Your business, sir," he said roughly. "Can't you see I'm in the midst of an interview?"

Ben's eyes never left those of the young girl, and hers clung to him with a desperate appeal impossible to mistake. She rose from her chair as if to go to him.

"Yes, Mr. Carder, and I won't interrupt you. I'll wait outside. I came to see Miss Melody with a message from one of her friends and I'm sure from the description that this is she." The young fellow bowed courteously toward Geraldine, who stood mute drinking in the inflections of his voice; the very p.r.o.nunciation of his words were earmarks of the world of refinement from which she was exiled. In her distraction she was unconscious of the manner in which she was gazing at him above the tumult of grief at her father's double treachery. Her father had sold her, sold her in cold blood, and her life was ruined. Had the visitor in his youth and strength and grace been Sir Galahad himself, she could not have yearned more toward his protection.

To Ben she looked, as she stood there, like a lovely lily in a green calyx, and her expression made his hands tingle to knock flat the scowling, middle-aged man with the unkempt hair and the missing tooth who was uneasily edging him farther and farther out the door.

"Miss Melody don't wish to receive calls at present and you can tell her friend so," said Rufus in the same rough tone. "She don't wear black, but she's in mournin' all the same. Her father died recently. Ain't you in mournin', Geraldine?" He turned toward the girl.

She had dropped her hands and seized the back of her chair for support.

"Yes," she breathed despairingly.

"Can't I see you for a few minutes, Miss Melody?" said Ben over the wrathful Carder's shoulder. "Miss Upton sent me to you. My name is Barry."

"No, you can't, and that's the end of it!" shouted Rufus.

Ben's smile had vanished. His eyes had sparks in them as he looked down at the shorter man.

"Not at all the end of it," he returned. "Miss Melody decides this. Can you give me a few minutes?"

As he addressed her he again met the wonderful, dark-lashed eyes that were beseeching him.