Seven Miles to Arden Part 2

"You know she would, dear. What would the man do if she didn't?"

The voice sounded strained and unnatural in its intensity and appeal.

Patsy rose, troubled in mind, and tiptoed to the only other door in the den.

"'Tis a grand situation for a play," she remarked, dryly, "but 'tis a mortial poor one in real life, and I'm best out of it." She turned the k.n.o.b with eager fingers and pulled the door toward her. It opened on a dumbwaiter shaft, empty and impressive. Patsy's expression would have scored a hit in farce comedy. Unfortunately there was no audience present to appreciate it here, and the prompter forgot to ring down the curtain just then, so that Patsy stood helpless, forced to go on hearing all that Marjorie and her leading man wished to improvise in the way of lines.

"... I told you, _forged_--"

Patsy was tempted to put her fingers in her ears to shut out the sound of his voice and what he was saying, but she knew even then she would go on hearing; his voice was too vibrant, too insistent, to be shut out.

"... my father's name for ten thousand. I took the check to the bank myself, and cashed it; father's vice-president.... Of course the cashier knew me.... I tell you I can't explain--not now. I've got to get away and stay away until I've squared the thing and paid father back."

"Billy Burgeman, did you forge that check yourself?"

"What does that matter--whether I forged it or had it forged or saw it forged? I tell you I cashed it, knowing it was forged. Don't you understand?"

"Yes; but if you didn't forge it, you could easily prove it; people wouldn't have to know the rest--they are hushing up things of that kind every day."

A silence dropped on the three like a choking, blinding fog. The two outside the hangings must have been staring at each other, too bewildered or shocked to speak. The one inside clutched her throat, muttering, "If my heart keeps up this thumping, faith, he'll think it's the police and run."

At last the voice of the man came, hushed but strained almost to breaking. To Patsy it sounded as if he were staking his very soul in the words, uncertain of the balance. "Marjorie, you don't understand!

I cashed that check because--because I want to take the responsibility of it and whatever penalty comes along with it. I don't believe father will ever tell. He's too proud; it would strike back at him too hard. But you would have to know; he'd tell you; and I wanted to tell you first myself. I want to go away knowing you believe and trust me, no matter what father says about me, no matter what every one thinks about me. I want to hear you say it--that you will be waiting--just like this--for me to come back to when I've squared it all off and can explain.... Why, Marjorie--Marjorie!"

Patsy waited in an agony of dread, hope, prayer--waited for the answer she, the girl he loved, would make. It came at last, slowly, deliberately, as if spoken, impersonally, by the foreman of a jury:

"I don't believe in you, Billy. I'm sorry, but I don't believe I could ever trust you again. Your father has always said you couldn't take care of money; this simply means you have got yourself into some wretched hole, and forging your father's name was the only way out of it. I suppose you think the circ.u.mstances, whatever they may be, have warranted the act; but that act puts a stigma on your name which makes it unfit for any woman to bear; and if you have any spark of manhood left, you'll unwish the wish--you will unthink the thought--that I would wait--or even want you--ever--to come back."

A cry--a startled, frightened cry--rang through the rooms. It did not come from either Marjorie or her leading man. Patsy stood with a vagabond glove pressed hard over her mouth--quite unconscious that the cry had escaped and that there was no longer need of muzzling--then plunged headlong through the hangings into the library. Marjorie Schuyler was standing alone.

"Where is he--your man?"

"He's gone--and please don't call him--that!"

"Go after him--hurry--don't let him go! Don't ye understand? He mustn't go away with no one believing in him. Tell him it's a mistake; tell him anything--only go!"

While Patsy's tongue burred out its Irish brogue she pushed at the tall figure in front of her--pushed with all her might. "Are ye nailed to the floor? What's happened to your feet? For Heaven's sake, lift them and let them take ye after him. Don't ye hear? There's the front door slamming behind him. He'll be gone past your calling in another minute. Dear heart alive, ye can't be meaning to let him go--this way!"

But Marjorie Schuyler stood immovable and deaf to her pleading.

Incredulity, bewilderment, pity, and despair swept over Patsy's face like clouds scudding over the surface of a clear lake. Then scorn settled in her eyes.

"I'm sorry for ye, sorry for any woman that fails the man who loves her. I don't know this son of old King Midas; I never saw him in my life, and all I know about him is what ye told me this day and sc.r.a.ps of what he had to say for himself; but I believe in him. I know he never forged that check--or used the money for any mean use of his own. I'd wager he's shielding some one, some one weaker than he, too afeared to step up and say so. Why, I'd trust him across the world and back again; and, holy Saint Patrick! I'm going after him to tell him so."

For the second time within a few seconds Marjorie Schuyler listened and heard the front door slam; then the G.o.ddess came to life. She walked slowly, regally, across the library and pa.s.sed between the hangings which curtained her den. Her eyes, probably by pure chance, glanced over the shimmering contents of the waste-basket. A little cold smile crept to the corners of her mouth, while her chin stiffened.

"I think, Toto," she said, addressing the toy ruby spaniel, "that it will not be even a June wedding," and she laughed a crisp, dry little laugh.

III

PATSY PLAYS A PART

Patsy ran down the steps of the Schuyler house, jumping the last four. As her feet struck the pavement she looked up and down the street for what she sought. There it was--the back of a fast-retreating man in a Balmacaan coat of Scotch tweed and a round, plush hat, turning the corner to Madison Avenue. Patsy groaned inwardly when she saw the outlines of the figure; they were so conventional, so disappointing; they lacked simplicity and directness--two salient life principles with Patsy.

"Pshaw! What's in a back?" muttered Patsy. "He may be a man, for all his clothes;" and she took to her heels after him.

As she reached the corner he jumped on a pa.s.sing car going south.

"Tracking for the railroad station," was her mental comment, and she looked north for the next car following; there was none. As far as eye could see there was an unbroken stretch of track--fate seemed strangely averse to aiding and abetting her deed.

"When in doubt, take a taxi," suggested Patsy's inner consciousness, and she accepted the advice without argument.

She raced down two blocks and found one. "Grand Central--and drive--like the devil!"

As the door clicked behind her her eye caught the jumping indicator, and she smiled a grim smile. "Faith, in two-shilling jumps like that I'll be bankrupt afore I've my hand on the tails of that coat." And with a tired little sigh she leaned back in the corner, closed her eyes, and relaxed her grip on mind and will and body.

A series of jerks and a final stop shook her into a thinking, acting consciousness again; she was out of the taxi in a twinkling--with the man paid and her eyes on the back of a Balmacaan coat and plush hat disappearing through a doorway. She could not follow it as fast as she had reckoned. She balanced corners with a stout, indeterminate old gentleman who blocked her way and insisted on wavering in her direction each time she tried to dodge him. In her haste to make up for those precious lost seconds she upset a pair of twins belonging to an already overburdened mother. These she righted and went dashing on her way. Groups waylaid her; people with time to kill sauntered in front of her; wandering, indecisive people tried to stop her for information; and she reached the gate just as it was closing. Through it she could see--down a discouraging length of platform--a Balmacaaned figure disappearing into a car.

"Too late, lady; train's leaving."

It was well for Patsy that she was ignorant of the law governing closing gates and departing trains, for the foolish and the ignorant can sometimes achieve the impossible. She confronted the guard with a look of unconquerable determination. "No, 'tisn't; the train guard is still on the platform. You've got to let me through."

She emphasized the importance of it with two tight fists placed not overgently in the center of the guard's rotundity, and accompanied by a shove. In some miraculous fashion this accomplished it. The gate clanged at Patsy's back instead of in her face, as she had expected.

A bell rang, a whistle tooted, and Patsy's feet clattered like mad down the platform.

A good-natured brakeman picked her up and lifted her to the rear platform of the last car as it drew out. That saved the day for Patsy, for her strength and breath had gone past summoning.

"Thank you," she said, feebly, with a vagabond glove held out in proffered fellowship. "That's the kindest thing any one has done for me since I came over."

"Are ye--"

"Irish--same as yourself."

"How did ye know?"

"Sure, who but an Irishman would have had his wits and his heart working at the same time?" And with a laugh Patsy left him and went inside.

Her eye ran systematically down the rows of seats. Billy Burgeman was not there. She pa.s.sed through to the next car, and a second, and a third. Still there was no back she could identify as belonging to the man she was pursuing.

She was crossing a fourth platform when she ran into the conductor, who barred her way. "Smoking-car ahead, lady; this is the last of the pa.s.senger-coaches."

Patsy had it on the end of her tongue to say she preferred smoking-cars, intending to duck simultaneously under the conductor's arm and enter, w.i.l.l.y-nilly. But the words rolled no farther than the tongue's edge. She turned obediently back, re-entering the car and taking the first seat by the door. For this her memory was responsible. It had spun the day's events before her like a roulette wheel, stopping precisely at the remark of Marjorie Schuyler's concerning William Burgeman: "He's the most conventional young gentleman I ever saw in my life. Why, you would shock--"

A strange young woman doling out consolation to him in a smoking-car would be anything but a dramatic success; Patsy felt this all too keenly. He was decidedly not of her world or the men and women she knew, who gave help when the need came regardless of time, place, acquaintanceship, or s.e.x.

"Faith, he's the kind that will expect an introduction first, and a month or two of tangoing, tea-drinking, and tennis-playing; after which, if I ask his permission, he might consider it proper--" Patsy groaned. "Oh, I hate the man already!"