The Cost Part 31

"And how long will you stay with them?"

"Not more than a week, I should say," she answered with a grimace.

"And then--where?"

She did not reply for some time. Studying her face, he saw an expression of lonesomeness gather and strengthen and deepen until she looked so forlorn that he felt as if he must take her in his arms.

When she spoke it was to say dubiously: "Back to New York--to keep house for my brother--perhaps."

"And when his wife frees herself and he marries again--where will you go?"

Gladys lifted a fold of her cape and drew it about her as if she were cold. But he noted that it hid her face from him.

"You want--you need--a home? So do I," he went on tranquilly. "You are tired of wandering? So am I. You are bored with parade and parade--people? So am I. You wish freedom, not bondage, when you marry? I refuse to be bound, and I don't wish to bind any one. We have the same friends, the same tastes, have had pretty much the same experiences. You don't want to be married for your money. I'm not likely to be suspected of doing that sort of thing."

"Some one has said that rich men marry more often for money than poor men," interrupted Gladys. And then she colored as she recalled who had said it.

Langdon noted her color as he noted every point in any game he was playing; he shrewdly guessed its origin. "When Scarborough told you that," he replied calmly, "he told you a great truth. But please remember, I merely said I shouldn't be SUSPECTED of marrying you for money. I didn't say I wasn't guilty."

"Is your list of reasons complete?"

"Two more the clinchers. You are disappointed in love--so am I. You need consolation--so do I. When one can't have the best one takes the best one can get, if one is sensible. It has been known to turn out not so badly."

They once more lay back watching the clouds. An hour pa.s.sed without either's speaking. The deck-steward brought them tea and biscuits which he declined and she accepted. She tried the big, hard, tasteless disk between her strong white teeth, then said with a sly smile: "You pried into my secret a few minutes ago. I'm going to pry into yours.

Who was she?"

"As the lady would have none of me, there's no harm in confessing,"

replied Langdon, carelessly. "She was--and is--and--" he looked at her--"ever shall be, world without end--Gladys Dumont."

Gladys gasped and glanced at him with swift suspicion that he was jesting. He returned her glance in a calm, matter-of-fact way. She leaned back in her chair and they watched the slippery rail slide up and down against the background of chilly, rainy sea and sky.

"Are you asleep?" he asked after a long silence.

"No," she replied. "I was thinking."

"Of my--proposition?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't it grow on you?"

"Yes."

He shifted himself to a sitting position with much deliberateness. He put his hand in among her rugs and wraps until it touched hers. "It may turn out better than you antic.i.p.ate," he said, a little sentiment in his eyes and smile, a little raillery in his voice.

"I doubt if it will," she answered, without looking at him directly.

"For--I--antic.i.p.ate a great deal."

XXIV.

DUMONT BETRAYS DUMONT.

Fanshaw versus Fanshaw was heard privately by a referee; and before Mrs. Fanshaw's lawyers had a chance to ask that the referee's report be sealed from publicity, the judge of his own motion ordered it. At the political club to which he belonged, he had received an intimation from the local "boss" that if Dumont's name were anywhere printed in connection with the case he would be held responsible. Thus it came to pa.s.s that on the morning of the filing of the decree the newspapers were grumbling over their inability to give the eagerly-awaited details of the great scandal. And Herron was Catonizing against "judicial corruption."

But Dumont was overswift in congratulating himself on his escape and in preening himself on his power.

For several days the popular newspapers were alone in denouncing the judge for favoritism and in pointing out that the judiciary were "becoming subservient to the rich and the powerful in their rearrangements of their domestic relations--a long first step toward complete subservience." Herron happened to have among his intimates the editor of an eminently respectable newspaper that prides itself upon never publishing private scandals. He impressed his friend with his own strong views as to the gravity of this growing discrimination between ma.s.ses and cla.s.ses; and the organ of independent conservatism was presently lifting up its solemn voice in a stentorian jeremiad.

Without this reinforcement the "yellows" might have shrieked in vain.

It was a.s.sumed that baffled sensationalism was by far a stronger motive with them than justice, and the public was amused rather than aroused by their protests. But now soberer dailies and weeklies took up the case and the discussion spread to other cities, to the whole country.

By his audacity, by his arrogant frankness he had latterly treated public opinion with scantiest courtesy--by his purchase of campaign committees, and legislatures, and courts, Dumont had made himself in the public mind an embodiment of the "mighty and menacing plutocracy"

of which the campaign orators talked so much. And the various phases of the scandal gave the press a mult.i.tude of texts for satirical, or pessimistic, or fiery discourses upon the public and private rottenness of "plutocrats."

But Dumont's name was never directly mentioned. Every one knew who was meant; no newspaper dared to couple him in plain language with the scandal. The nearest approach to it was where one New York newspaper published, without comment, in the center of a long news article on the case, two photographs of Dumont side by side--one taken when he first came to New York, clear-cut, handsome, courageous, apparently a type of progressive young manhood; the other, taken within the year, gross, lowering, tyrannical, obviously a type of indulged, self-indulgent despot.

Herron had forced Fanshaw to abandon the idea of suing Dumont for a money consolation. He had been deeply impressed by his wife's warnings against Fanshaw--"a lump of soot, and sure to s.m.u.tch you if you go near him." He was reluctant to have Fanshaw give up the part of the plan which insured the public d.a.m.nation of Dumont, but there was no other prudent course. He a.s.sured himself that he knew Fanshaw to be an upright man; but he did not go to so perilous a length in self-deception as to fancy he could convince cynical and incredulous New York. It was too eager to find excuses for successful and admired men like Dumont, too ready to laugh at and despise underdogs like Fanshaw. Herron never admitted it to himself, but in fact it was he who put it into Fanshaw's resourceless mind to compa.s.s the revenge of publicity in another way.

Fanshaw was denouncing the judge for sealing the divorce testimony, and the newspapers for being so timid about libel laws and contempt of court.

"If a newspaper should publish the testimony," said Herron, "Judge Gla.s.sford would never dare bring the editor before him for contempt.

His record's too bad. I happen to know he was in the News-Record office no longer ago than last month, begging for the suppression of an article that might have caused his impeachment, if published. So there's one paper that wouldn't be afraid of him."

"Then why does it shield the scoundrel?"

"Perhaps," replied Herron, his hand on the door of his office law-library, "it hasn't been able to get hold of a copy of the testimony." And having thus dropped the seed on good soil, he left.

Fanshaw waited several weeks, waited until certain other plans of his and Herron's were perfected. Then he suddenly deluged the sinking flames of the divorce discussion with a huge outpouring of oil.

Indirectly and with great secrecy he sent a complete copy of the testimony to the newspaper Herron had mentioned, the most sensational, and one of the most widely circulated in New York.

The next morning Dumont had to ring three times for his secretary.

When Culver finally appeared he had in his trembling right hand a copy of the News-Record. His face suggested that he was its owner, publisher and responsible editor, and that he expected then and there to be tortured to death for the two ill.u.s.trated pages of the "Great Fanshaw-Dumont Divorce! All the Testimony! Shocking Revelations!"

"I thought it necessary for you to know this without delay, sir," he said in a shaky voice, as he held out the newspaper to his master.

Dumont grew sickly yellow with the first glance at those head-lines.

He had long been used to seeing extensive and highly unflattering accounts of himself and his doings in print; but theretofore every open attack had been on some public matter where a newspaper "pounding"

might be attributed to politics or stock-jobbery. Here--it was a verbatim official report, and of a private scandal, more dangerous to his financial standing than the fiercest a.s.sault upon his honesty as a financier; for it tore away the foundation of reputation--private character. A faithful transcript throughout, it portrayed him as a bag of slimy gold and gilded slime. He hated his own face staring out at him from a three-column cut in the center of the first page--its heavy jaw, its cynical mouth, its impudent eyes. "Do I look like THAT?" he thought. He was like one who, walking along the streets, catches sight of his own image in a show-window mirror and before he recognizes it, sees himself as others see him. He flushed to his temples at the contrast with the smaller cut beside it--the face of Pauline, high and fine icily beautiful as always in her New York days when her features were in repose.

Culver shifted from one weak leg to the other, and the movement reminded Dumont of his existence. "That's all. Clear out!" he exclaimed, and fell back into his big chair and closed his eyes. He thought he at last understood publicity.

But he was mistaken.

He finished dressing and choked down a little breakfast. As he advanced toward the front door the servant there coughed uneasily and said: "Beg pardon, sir, but I fear you won't be able to get out."

"What's the matter?" he demanded, his brows contracting and his lips beginning to slide back in a snarl--it promised to be a sad morning for human curs of all kinds who did not scurry out of the lion's way.

"The crowd, sir," said the servant. And he drew aside the curtain across the gla.s.s in one of the inside pair of great double doors of the palace entrance. "It's quite safe to look, sir. They can't see through the outside doors as far as this."