Other People's Business Part 28

Mr. Hornblower came from the barn as he drove up and greeted him with successfully disguised cordiality. But a glance convinced Justin that the long siege was nearly at an end. In the pouches under the man's weary eyes, in a certain sagging of his lower lip, in an indefinable air of being beaten, Justin read the signs of approaching capitulation.

"Mis' Hornblower is in the house. I guess you'd better see her this morning. I'm pretty busy for visiting."

"I won't keep you long, Mr. Hornblower. I just want to lay a proposition before you that's sure to interest as good a business man as you are." Justin waited while the farmer tied the horse, and then, slipping his hand through the old man's arm, guided him dexterously around the house. Robert Hornblower yielded like one hypnotized, an expression of rigid horror on his face as if while seeing some peril immediately ahead, he found himself unable to avoid it.

Mrs. Hornblower sat in a rocking-chair by the window, tapping the floor with her heel as the chair swayed, and nervously smoothing imaginary wrinkles from an immaculate ap.r.o.n. Justin took a step toward her, then stopped with an awkward jerk. Early as he was, another caller was ahead of him. In the opposite corner, grim and unsmiling as fate, sat Persis Dale.

Justin realized his own embarra.s.sment with angry wonder. He had the emotions of a boy caught in a foray on the preserve closet. "Good morning," he said, and was shocked by the startled suspicion of his own voice. He carried out his original intention of shaking hands with Mrs. Hornblower, though without his customary grace of manner, and then turned to go through the same ceremony with Persis, but her tightly folded arms gave little encouragement to this design. He compromised by taking a chair near her and saying pleasantly, "You're an early arrival."

"I calculated you'd be here as soon as you got done your breakfast,"

Persis replied, and left him to interpret the ambiguous remark as he pleased.

Justin's career had not been of a sort to cultivate undue sensitiveness. A moment sufficed to make him master of himself. "I came out to discuss a little business proposition with Mr. Hornblower,"

he explained carelessly. "But I don't want to interfere with the enjoyment of you ladies. Some other time--"

"Don't mind me," interposed Persis. "Mis' Hornblower and I haven't anything special to talk about. We're interested in your business proposition, both of us."

"I don't know as I care to hear it," interrupted Mr. Hornblower, speaking with a certain wildness, an indication that he had almost reached the limit of resistance. His voice was shrill and unnatural.

"All I want is to be left in peace on the farm where my father lived and died before me."

"Robert," said the submissive Mrs. Hornblower witheringly, "I'd be ashamed to talk as if I'd been born an oyster instead of a man."

"Of course, Mr. Hornblower," Ware began soothingly, "I should be very unwilling to over-persuade you. If my proposition does not commend itself to your own good judgment, you are perfectly justified in turning it down. Or if you are not in the mood for talking business to-day, some other time--"

"There's no time like the present," said Persis Dale. "And if you don't like what he's got to offer, you can say no, Mr. Hornblower, and stick to it. Your _no_ is as good as his _yes_, I'm sure, when it's your business that's being talked of."

She had suddenly become the dominant figure in the room. Mrs.

Hornblower glanced at her uncertainly. The promoter smiled propitiatingly. The old man shuffled toward her with an evident hope that through proximity he might profit by her st.u.r.dy strength.

"I don't mind listening, Persis," he said tremulously. "I'm a reasonable man. What I object to is being nagged and badgered as if I didn't have a right to say my soul was my own."

"I'm sure, Mr. Hornblower," Ware interrupted, "that Miss Dale will tell you that I have no wish to hurry you into any decision you will regret.

In our business, satisfied patrons are our best a.s.set. I only want to call attention to a little matter that may have escaped your attention and then leave you to think it over." Though his remarks were addressed to the farmer, his appealing gaze was fixed on Persis. He was disagreeably uncertain as to her att.i.tude. Possibly she had come with the purpose of doing him a favor. And possibly-- But he dismissed the alternative before it had taken shape in his thoughts.

On the evening before he had made plain his willingness to take up their acquaintance just where it had left off, twenty years before.

And if he knew anything of women, nothing would induce her to imperil the renewal of that relation.

In spite of this conviction his manner showed embarra.s.sment as he began his explanation. The smooth phrases he had used so often that he could have spoken them in his sleep came readily to his lips, but even to himself they sounded hollow and unconvincing. He was embarra.s.sed too, by Persis' tendency to ask questions, to inform herself as to every detail of the plan he was unfolding. So persistent was she in her cross-examination, that Mrs. Hornblower showed signs of irritation.

"Goodness, Persis, it ain't necessary for Mr. Ware to go into all those points. It ain't as if this was the first time we had ever talked over the matter."

"It's just as well to have things plain," Persis replied imperturbably.

Justin noticed that she looked less youthful and comely than on the occasions when he had previously seen her. She had the gray and care-worn look excusable in a woman approaching the fortieth mile-stone who has spent a wakeful night. He was conscious of a sense of annoyance in noting the distinctness of the triangle formed by her firm mouth and the lines that slanted obliquely back from its corners. Her persistence, too, troubled him. He was well aware that there is no more serious flaw in a wife than the habit of asking questions.

In spite of interruptions he finally finished his story and folded the papers from which he had used certain figures to give his statements an authoritative air. Mr. Hornblower squirmed uneasily, looking at Persis as if appealing for help.

"As I said before, Mr. Hornblower," Justin a.s.sured him with an air of gentle consideration, "I am not at all desirous of hurrying you in the matter. If you prefer to think over what I have said, and then when you reach a decision--"

"I don't see," exclaimed Mrs. Hornblower, from her seat near the window, "why it shouldn't be settled to-day. We've got a good offer for the farm now, but if Robert keeps Mr. Jeffreys hanging by the gills, the chances are that he'll satisfy himself somewhere else. And it isn't as though we hadn't talked this over from A to izzard."

"You've got to make up your mind sometimes," Persis Dale corroborated her. "I always feel as if 'twas a relief to get a thing settled."

Mrs. Hornblower who up to this moment had seemed to regard Persis'

presence as an affront, smiled upon her almost affectionately. Robert Hornblower had an air of feeling himself deserted. Justin was not sure.

"But before you get the thing all settled and signed," Persis continued smoothly, "there's one little thing I'd like to have Mr. Ware explain.

If, this investment is such a good thing for you, why isn't it just as good for me?"

A tense silence followed which Mrs. Hornblower broke. "For you?" She pushed her spectacles up on her forehead as if she found the lenses an obstruction to vision rather than an aid. "Have you--have you been thinking of putting any money into apples?"

"I asked him last night about investing ten thousand dollars in this company. He talked against it--strong. He gave me to understand that if I was getting ten per cent. on my money I was lucky."

Justin sat with his eyes on the floor, making no effort to explain. It was checkmate, and he knew it. The love of his youth had played with him, tricked him, used him for her purposes even while he believed her on the point of capitulation. It was small consolation at that moment to realize that greater men had lost greater stakes through that little illusion of being irresistible to the s.e.x. He turned sick with humiliation, hot with hate. He had prided himself on his sophistication, and this country woman had laid a trap for him into which he had obligingly blundered. To attempt an explanation would be folly. Checkmate!

"Ten per cent.!" Mrs. Hornblower's voice rose shrill and frightened.

"Why, in the Apple of Eden Investment Company--"

"Yes, I reminded him about the twenty-five per cent. by the tenth year, and he laughed at me. Said the guarantee you set such store by might as well be used for curl papers, if the company got sick of its bargain."

"Why don't you say something?" Mrs. Hornblower turned on Justin furiously. "What do you mean by letting her run on in this crazy fashion and never wagging your tongue?" Underneath her anger sounded a note of despair. No one who knew Persis Dale ever doubted her absolute truth. And unless she had lied the thing was beyond explanation.

Before Justin could reply, Robert Hornblower was on his feet. Another startling transformation had come over the old man. Years and decrepitude fell from him like a discarded garment. As he advanced upon Justin, his fists clenched, he actually looked a formidable figure.

"You get out of my house, you sneaking lying swindler. You clear out and never open your head to me one word about your d.a.m.ned old company or I'll--"

"Robert!" shrieked Mrs. Hornblower in hysterical protest.

Ware rose with as much dignity as the situation permitted. Few men can feel themselves the target of the scorn of three honest people and not wince, and Justin, whatever his weaknesses, did not lack sensibility.

"If you wish to accept Miss Dale's version of the matter, it is immaterial to me. I have given you more time than I could well afford to spare so small an investment, because I remembered you as my boyhood friends. I shall be glad to drop the matter." And then, quite against his will, he looked at Persis.

She sat straight and pale, her eyes steely, her lips grim. And once he had kissed those lips, and those contemptuous eyes had poured into his, faith and love unstinted. As he stumbled toward the door, the thought crossed his mind that the boy who had won the love and respect of Persis Dale was not the poor dolt he had thought him. The years had brought loss as well as gain.

"Good morning." He made an effort to speak with his customary easy self-possession, and Mr. Hornblower's answer was to slam the door upon him. "Good riddance to d.a.m.ned bad rubbish," he roared.

"Robert!" screamed Mrs. Hornblower. "Profanity at your age. Twice in five minutes."

"Hold your tongue!"

The mental collapse of Mrs. Hornblower was physically evident. Flabby and shaken, she sat looking with unfeigned terror at her metamorphosed lord and master. And Mr. Hornblower, puffing out his chest, looked very much like the oldest son of the individual he had appeared an hour previous.

"I've got a word to say to you, Lena," remarked the reconstructed Mr.

Hornblower. "Women are all right when they keep their place. After this I want to have it understood I'm not going to have any interference in my business." He walked to the door and turned for a parting defiance. "d.a.m.ned if I will."

Mrs. Hornblower's attack of hysterics occupied Persis till noon. She looked pale and heavy-eyed as she alighted from her car at her own door. She was about to enter when an object on the lawn caught her eye. Tacked to an upright stake driven into the turf, was a flapping piece of brown paper on which appeared straggling letters, executed in colored chalk.

"Notiss

I will not klene my teth agen onles I get a nikle a weak