The Cost Part 11

"Indeed! You are very kind to warn me of my awful danger." He looked down at her with a quizzical smile.

"And I wish to say I think it's a disgrace that they didn't do it long ago," she went on, her anger rising to the bait of his expression.

"Your opinions are always interesting," he replied. "If you have nothing further I'll ask your permission to relieve you of----"

"No," she interrupted. "I've not said what I wished to say. You're making it hard for me. I can't get accustomed to the change in you since last year. There used to be a good side to you, a side one could appeal to. And I want to talk about--Fred. You're RUINING him."

"You flatter me." He bowed mockingly. "But I doubt if HE'D feel flattered."

"I've told him the same thing, but you're too strong for me." Her voice trembled; she steadied it with a frown. "I can't influence him any longer."

"Really, Miss Shrewsbury----"

"Please!" she said. "Fred and I were engaged. I broke it last night.

I broke it because--you know why."

Scarborough flushed crimson.

"Oh," he said. "I didn't know he was engaged."

"I know you, Hampden Scarborough," Olivia continued. "I've understood why you've been degrading yourself. And I haven't blamed you--though I've wondered at your lack of manhood."

"You are imposing on my courtesy," he said haughtily.

"I can't help it. You and I must talk this thing to the end. You're robbing me of the man I love. Worse than that, you're destroying him, dragging him down to a level at which HE may stay, while YOU are sure to rise again. You've got your living to make--I don't agree with those who think you'll become a professional gambler. But he his father's rich and indulgent, and--G.o.d only knows how low he'll sink if you keep on pushing him."

"You are excited, hysterical. You misjudge him, believe me," said Scarborough, gently.

"No--I know he's not depraved--yet. Do you think _I_ could care for him if he were?"

"I hope so. That's when he'd need it most."

Olivia grew red. "Well, perhaps I should. I'm a fool, like all women.

But I ask you to let him alone, to give his better self a chance."

"Why not ask him to let ME alone--to give MY better nature a chance?"

"You--laughing at me in these circ.u.mstances! You who pretended to be a man, pretended to love Pauline Gardiner----"

He started and his eyes blazed, as if she had cut him across the face with a whip. Then he drew himself up with an expression of insolent fury. His lips, his sharp white teeth, were cruel.

She bore his look without flinching.

"Yes," she went on, "you think you love her. Yet you act as if her love were a degrading influence in your life, as if she were a bad woman instead of one who ought to inspire a man to do and be his best.

How ashamed she'd be of you, of your love, if she could see you as you are now--the tempter of all the bad impulses in this college."

He could not trust himself to reply. He was suffocating with rage and shame. He lifted his hat, walked rapidly away from her and went home.

Pierson had never seen him in an ugly mood before. And he, too, was in an ugly mood--disgusted with his own conduct, angry at Scarborough, whom he held responsible for the unprecedented excesses of this last trip to Chicago and for their consequences.

"What's happened?" he asked sourly. "What's the matter with YOU?"

"Your Olivia," replied Scarborough, with a vicious sneer, "has been insulting me for your sins. She is a shrew! I don't wonder you dropped her."

Pierson rose slowly and faced him.

"You astonish me," he said. "I shouldn't have believed you capable of a speech which no gentleman could possibly utter."

"YOU, sitting as a court of honor to decide what's becoming a gentleman!" Scarborough looked amused contempt. "My dear Pierson, you're worse than offensive--you are ridiculous."

"No man shall say such things to me especially a man who notoriously lives by his wits."

Scarborough caught him up as if he had been a child and pinned him against the wall. "Take that back," he said, "or I'll kill you." His tone was as colorless as his face.

"Kill and be d.a.m.ned," replied Pierson, cool and disdainful. "You're a coward."

Scarborough's fingers closed on Pierson's throat. Then flashed into his mind that warning which demands and gets a hearing in the wildest tempest of pa.s.sion before an irrevocable act can be done. It came to him in the form of a reminder of his laughing remark to Pauline when he told her of the traditions of murder in his family. He released Pierson and fled from the apartment.

Half an hour later Pierson was reading a note from him:

"I've invited some friends this evening. I trust it will be convenient for you to absent yourself. They'll be out by eleven, and then, if you return, we can decide which is to stay in the apartment and which to leave."

Pierson went away to his fraternity house and at half-past eight Scarborough, Chalmers, Jack Wilton and Brigham sat down to a game of poker. They had played about an hour, the cards steadily against Chalmers and Brigham--the cards were usually against Brigham. He was a mere boy, with pa.s.sionate aspirations to be considered a sport. He had been going a rapid gait for a year. He had lost to Scarborough alone as much as he had expected to spend on the year's education.

Toward ten o'clock there was a jack-pot with forty-three dollars in it and Brigham was betting wildly, his hands and his voice trembling, his lips shriveled. With a sudden gesture Chalmers caught the ends of the table and jerked it back. There--in Brigham's lap--were two cards.

"I thought so!" exclaimed Chalmers. "You dirty little cheat! I've been watching you."

The boy looked piteously at Chalmers' sneering face, at the faces of the others. The tears rolled down his cheeks. "For G.o.d's sake, boys,"

he moaned, "don't be hard on me. I was desperate. I've lost everything, and my father can't give me any more. He's a poor man, and he and mother have been economizing and sacrificing to send me here.

And when I saw I was ruined--G.o.d knows, I didn't think what I was doing." He buried his face in his hands. "Don't be hard on me," he sobbed. "Any one of you might have done the same if he was in my fix."

"You sniveling cur," said Chalmers, high and virtuous, "how dare you say such a thing! You forget you're among gentlemen----"

"None of that, Chalmers," interrupted Scarborough. "The boy's telling the truth. And n.o.body knows it better than YOU." This with a significant look into Chalmers' eyes. They shifted and he colored.

"I agree with Scarborough," said Wilton. "We oughtn't to have let the boy into our games. We must never mention what has happened here this evening."

"But we can't allow a card sharp to masquerade as a gentleman,"

objected Chalmers. "I confess, Scarborough, I don't understand how you can be so easy-going in a matter of honor."

"You think I must have a fellow-feeling for dishonor, eh?" Scarborough smiled satirically. "I suppose because I was sympathetic enough with you to overlook the fact that you were shy on your share of our Chicago trip."

"What do you mean?"

"The three hundred you borrowed of Pierson when you thought he was too far gone to know what he was doing. My back was turned--but there was the mirror."

Chalmers' sullen, red face confirmed Scarborough's charge.

"No," continued Scarborough, "we GENTLEMEN ought to be charitable toward one another's DISCOVERED lapses." He seated himself at his desk and wrote rapidly: