People Like That Part 17

"That ought to have given you courage. Why didn't you marry Madeleine?"

"I couldn't get hold of her. And, besides, she got so worked up that she went all to pieces, and I--I wasn't patient enough, I guess.

When they came back I managed to see her once, but we both got mad and said things we shouldn't, and she gave me up. I heard Harrie had been giving her a rush in El Paso, and if Mrs. Swink can manage it she'll have Madeleine engaged to him before he knows how it happened."

"Are you able to marry, Tom? Is there any reason why you shouldn't?"

"No, there isn't." His head went up. "I can't give her what her mother can, but I can take care of her all right. On the first of next May father makes me general manager of the business. He hasn't spared me because I was his son, and he wouldn't give me the place until I'd earned it, but I'll get it pretty soon now. I wish you knew my father, Miss Dandridge. There isn't any sort of search-light he can't stand, and it isn't his and mother's fault if I can't stand them, also."

"I don't think they'd be uneasy if any were to be turned on. I wouldn't. Good night, Tom. Be careful how you meet Madeleine. How many times have you seen her since she got here?"

"Just once before this afternoon." His face flushed. "Something is the matter. She's not like herself. Her mother's up to something."

"When you want to see her, come down here and see me. Don't meet on corners or in the park, and--and the next time you're engaged don't let a girl think you're going to wait indefinitely. If she isn't willing to marry you and go to Pungo if necessary, she isn't the girl for you to marry. Good night."

At the door I turned. Tom was still standing at the foot of the steps, staring at me, in his face slow-dawning understanding.

CHAPTER XX

As Selwyn and David Guard shook hands, eagerness of desire must have been in my face, for Selwyn, turning, seemed puzzled by what he saw.

Going into the room adjoining my sitting-room, I left them alone for a few moments, and when I came back I was careful to keep out of my eyes that which as yet it was not wise that they should tell. I have long since learned a man must not be hurried. Certainly not a man of Selwyn's type.

Sitting down in a corner of the sofa, I nodded to the men to sit down also, but that which they had been discussing while I was out of the room still held, and, returning to it, they stood awhile longer, one on either side of the mantelpiece, and, hands in my lap, I watched them with hope in my heart of which they did not dream.

They are strangely contrasting--Selwyn and David Guard. That is, so far as outward and physical appearance is concerned. But of certain inward sympathies, certain personal standards of life, certain intellectual acceptances and rejections, they have far more in common than they imagine, and to find this basis upon which friendship might take root is a desire that sprang into life upon seeing them together. Should they ever be friends, they would be forever friends. Of that I am very sure.

By Selwyn's side David Guard seemed smaller, frailer, less robust than ever, yet about him was no hint of feebleness, and his radiation of quiet force was not lessened by Selwyn's strength. His clothes were shabbier than ever, his cravat even less secure than usual, and the long lock of hair that fell at times across his forehead was grayer than formerly, I thought, but no externals could dim the consciousness that he was a man to be reckoned with.

Opposite him Selwyn seemed the embodiment of all he lacked. The well-being of his body, the quiet excellence of his clothes, the unconscious confidence, born of ability and abundance, the security of established position, marked him a man to whom the G.o.ds have been good. But the G.o.ds mock all men. In Selwyn's eyes was search for something not yet found. In David Guard's the peace that comes of finding. I had hardly thought of their knowing each other.

To-night, quite by accident, they had met. Selwyn had come according to agreement. David Guard, to tell me of a case in which he was interested. He had come before Selwyn, and at the latter's entrance had started to go. I would not let him go. If they could be made friends--G.o.d!--what a power they could be!

They were discussing the war. The afternoon's reports had been somewhat more ghastly than usual.

"The twentieth century obviously doesn't propose to be outdone by any other period of history, recorded or unrecorded." One hand in his pocket, an elbow on the mantel-shelf, Selwyn looked at David Guard.

"In the quarter of a million years in which man, or what we term man, has presumably lived on this particular planet, nothing so far has been discovered, I believe, which tells of such abominations as are taking place to-day. It's an interesting epoch from the standpoint of man's advance in scientific barbarism."

"It deepens, certainly, our respect for our primeval ancestors."

David Guard smiled grimly. "I understand there are still tree-dwellers in certain parts of Australia who knock one another in the head when it so pleases them to do. For the settlement of difficulties their methods require much less effort and trouble than ours. On the whole, I prefer their manner of fighting. Each side can see what the other's about."

"So do I." Curled up in the corner of the sofa, I had not intended to speak. A woman's opinions on war don't interest men. "The fundamental instinct in man to fight may require a few thousand more years to yield to the advisability of settling differences around a table in a council-chamber, but one can't tell. Much less time may be necessary. The tree-dwellers and the cave-dwellers and the tent-dwellers spent most of their time sc.r.a.pping. We do have intervals of peace in which to get ready to fight again."

"So did they, though their intervals were shorter, perhaps, owing to their simpler methods of attack." Selwyn laughed. "In their day, warfare being largely a personal or tribal affair, little time was necessary for preparation. With us the whole machinery of government is needed to murder and maim and devastate and ruin. Civilization and science and education have complicated pretty hopelessly the adjustments of disputes, the taking of territory, and the acceptance of opposing ideals. The biggest artillery and the best brains for butchery at present are having their day. Humanity in the making has its discouraging side."

"It has!" David Guard's voice was emphatic, though he, too, laughed.

"If humanity made claim to being a finished product, there'd be justification for more than discouragement. It makes no such claim.

Fists and clubs, and slingshots and battle-axes, are handier weapons than guns and cannon, and armored air-ships and under-sea craft, but in the days of the former using, but one kind of army was sent out to fight. To-day we send out two."

"Two?" Selwyn looked puzzled. "What two?"

"One to undo, as far as possible, the work of the other. The second army, not the first, is the test of humanity's advance; the army that tries to keep life in the man the other army has tried to kill, to give back what has been taken away, to help what has been hurt, to feed what has been starved, to clothe what is made naked, to build up what has been broken down. Each country that to-day gives fight, equips and trains and sends out two contrasting armies. They work together, but with opposing purposes. The second army--"

"Has a good many women in it. But it's so stupid, so wicked and wasteful, to fight over things that are rarely finally settled by fighting. It's bad business!" My hands twisted shiveringly in my lap. "Do you suppose the time will ever come when man will see it's the animal's way of getting what he wants, of keeping others from getting what he's got, of settling difficulties and defending points of view? Do you think he'll ever find a better way?"

"In a few thousand years--yes," Selwyn again smiled and, changing his position, stood with his back to the fire. "When we have the same code for nations as for individuals, the same insistence that what's wrong in and punishable for a man is wrong in and punishable for his country, or when we cease to think of ourselves as group people and remember we are but parts of a whole, we may cease to be fighting animals. Not until then, perhaps. Personally, I think war is a good thing every now and then. That is, in the present state of our undevelopment."

"So do I." David Guard's shoulders made energetic movement. "War brings out every evil pa.s.sion of which man is possessed, but it has its redemptive side. It clears away befogging sophistries, delivers from deadening indulgences and indifferences; enables us to see ourselves, our manner of life, our methods of government, our obligations and our injustices, in perspective that reveals what could, perhaps, be grasped in no other way. It brings about readjustments and reaccountings, and puts into operation new forces of life, new conceptions of duty. It's a frightful way of making man get a firmer grip on certain essential realizations, of taking in more definitely the high purpose of his destiny, but at times there seems no other way. I pray G.o.d we may keep out of this, but if it means a stand for human rights--"

"We'll all enlist!" The faces of the men before me were sober, and quick fear made my voice unsteady. "War may have its redemptive side; it may at times be necessary for the preservation of honor and the maintenance of principle, but that's because, I imagine, of our unpreparedness as human beings to--to be the right sort of human beings. When we are there'll be no time to kill one another. We'll need it all to help each other. I hate war as few hate it, perhaps, but should it come to us I'm as ready to join my army as you to join yours." I got up and took the hand David Guard was holding out to me. "I wish you didn't have to go. Must you?"

"Must. Got an engagement at nine-fifteen. I'll see you before the week is out about Clara Rudd. Good night." He turned to Selwyn, shook hands, and was gone.

In the corner of the sofa I again sat down, and Selwyn, turning off the light in the lamp behind me, took a chair and drew it close to me. Anxiety he made no effort to control was in his eyes.

"Well--have you anything to tell me?"

"Not as much as I hoped. Mrs. Mundy hasn't been able to find Etta Blake yet. Until--"

"Etta Blake?" Selwyn's tone was groping. "Oh, the little cashier-girl. I didn't expect you to tell anything of her. I wish you'd put her out of your mind." His face darkened.

"I can't. She seems to be in no one else's. But we won't talk of her to-night. I saw the Swinks this afternoon."

"I know you did. Mrs. Swink telephoned Harrie to-night. Did my apprais.e.m.e.nt approach correctness?"

"Of Mrs. Swink, yes. She's impossible. Most fat fools are. They're like feather beds. You could stamp on them, but you couldn't get rid of the fool-ness. It would just be in another place. She told me she was manicured on Mondays, ma.s.saged on Tuesdays, marcelled Wednesdays, and chiropodized on Thursdays, and one couldn't expect much of a daughter with that sort of a mother; still, the girl interested me. I feel sorry for her. She mustn't marry Harrie."

"But who's going to tell her?" Selwyn's voice was querulously eager.

"I thought perhaps you might find--find--"

"I did." I nodded in his flushed face. "I don't think it will be necessary to tell her anything. She's very much in love, but not with Harrie."

Selwyn sat upright. A certain rigidity of which he is capable stiffened him. He looked much, but said nothing.

"I've had an interesting time this afternoon. I never wanted to be a detective person, but I can understand the fascination of the profession. Luck was with me, and in less than thirty minutes after meeting her I was pretty sure Madeleine Swink was not in love with Harrie and was in love with some one else. A few minutes later I found out who she was in love with, found he was equally in love with her; that they were once engaged and still want to get married. Our job's to help them do it."

Selwyn's seriousness is a heritage. Frowningly he looked at me.

"This is hardly a thing to jest about. I may be very dense, but I fail to understand--"

For an hour we talked of Madeleine Swink and Mrs. Swink, of Harrie and Tom Cressy, and in terms which even a man could understand I told how my discoveries had been made, of how I had managed to see Tom and Madeleine together, and of my frank questioning of the former. But what I did not tell him was that my thought was not of them alone.

By my side the little girl with the baby in her arms had seemed clinging to my skirt.

"What sort of a girl is she?" In Selwyn's voice was relief and anxiety. "Has she courage enough to take things in her own hands?

I've no conscience so far as her mother is concerned. She deserves no consideration, but, being an interested party, I--"

"You needn't have anything to do with it. I'm not sure what sort she is, or how much courage she's got, but worms have been known to turn.

If a hundred years before they were born somebody had begun to train her parents to be proper parents she might have been a better product, still there seems to be something to her. For Tom's sake I hope so."