The Custom of the Country Part 33

"But it was before Miss Hicks left that you told me you'd sent for her, and that she'd be here the following week. And you say Miss Hicks has been gone three weeks."

This was what he had worked out in his head, and what he meant to say to his sister; but something seemed to snap shut in his throat, and he closed his eyes without speaking.

Even when Mr. Spragg came to see him he said nothing. They talked about his illness, about the hot weather, about the rumours that Harmon B.

Driscoll was again threatened with indictment; and then Mr. Spragg pulled himself out of his chair and said: "I presume you'll call round at the office before you leave the city."

"Oh, yes: as soon as I'm up," Ralph answered. They understood each other.

Clare had urged him to come down to Long Island and complete his convalescence there, but he preferred to stay in Washington Square till he should be strong enough for the journey to the Adirondacks, whither Laura had already preceded him with Paul. He did not want to see any one but his mother and grandfather till his legs could carry him to Mr.

Spragg's office. It was an oppressive day in mid-August, with a yellow mist of heat in the sky, when at last he entered the big office-building. Swirls of dust lay on the mosaic floor, and a stale smell of decayed fruit and salt air and steaming asphalt filled the place like a fog. As he shot up in the elevator some one slapped him on the back, and turning he saw Elmer Moffatt at his side, smooth and rubicund under a new straw hat.

Moffatt was loudly glad to see him. "I haven't laid eyes on you for months. At the old stand still?"

"So am I," he added, as Ralph a.s.sented. "Hope to see you there again some day. Don't forget it's MY turn this time: glad if I can be any use to you. So long." Ralph's weak bones ached under his handshake.

"How's Mrs. Marvell?" he turned back from his landing to call out; and Ralph answered: "Thanks; she's very well."

Mr. Spragg sat alone in his murky inner office, the fly-blown engraving of Daniel Webster above his head and the congested sc.r.a.p-basket beneath his feet. He looked f.a.gged and sallow, like the day.

Ralph sat down on the other side of the desk. For a moment his throat contracted as it had when he had tried to question his sister; then he asked: "Where's Undine?"

Mr. Spragg glanced at the calendar that hung from a hat-peg on the door.

Then he released the Masonic emblem from his grasp, drew out his watch and consulted it critically.

"If the train's on time I presume she's somewhere between Chicago and Omaha round about now."

Ralph stared at him, wondering if the heat had gone to his head. "I don't understand."

"The Twentieth Century's generally considered the best route to Dakota,"

explained Mr. Spragg, who p.r.o.nounced the word ROWT.

"Do you mean to say Undine's in the United States?"

Mr. Spragg's lower lip groped for the phantom tooth-pick. "Why, let me see: hasn't Dakota been a state a year or two now?"

"Oh, G.o.d--" Ralph cried, pushing his chair back violently and striding across the narrow room.

As he turned, Mr. Spragg stood up and advanced a few steps. He had given up the quest for the tooth-pick, and his drawn-in lips were no more than a narrow depression in his beard. He stood before Ralph, absently shaking the loose change in his trouser-pockets.

Ralph felt the same hardness and lucidity that had come to him when he had heard his sister's answer.

"She's gone, you mean? Left me? With another man?"

Mr. Spragg drew himself up with a kind of slouching majesty. "My daughter is not that style. I understand Undine thinks there have been mistakes on both sides. She considers the tie was formed too hastily. I believe desertion is the usual plea in such cases."

Ralph stared about him, hardly listening. He did not resent his father-in-law's tone. In a dim way he guessed that Mr. Spragg was suffering hardly less than himself. But nothing was clear to him save the monstrous fact suddenly upheaved in his path. His wife had left him, and the plan for her evasion had been made and executed while he lay helpless: she had seized the opportunity of his illness to keep him in ignorance of her design. The humour of it suddenly struck him and he laughed.

"Do you mean to tell me that Undine's divorcing ME?"

"I presume that's her plan," Mr. Spragg admitted.

"For desertion?" Ralph pursued, still laughing.

His father-in-law hesitated a moment; then he answered: "You've always done all you could for my daughter. There wasn't any other plea she could think of. She presumed this would be the most agreeable to your family."

"It was good of her to think of that!"

Mr. Spragg's only comment was a sigh.

"Does she imagine I won't fight it?" Ralph broke out with sudden pa.s.sion.

His father-in-law looked at him thoughtfully. "I presume you realize it ain't easy to change Undine, once she's set on a thing."

"Perhaps not. But if she really means to apply for a divorce I can make it a little less easy for her to get."

"That's so," Mr. Spragg conceded. He turned back to his revolving chair, and seating himself in it began to drum on the desk with cigar-stained fingers.

"And by G.o.d, I will!" Ralph thundered. Anger was the only emotion in him now. He had been fooled, cheated, made a mock of; but the score was not settled yet. He turned back and stood before Mr. Spragg.

"I suppose she's gone with Van Degen?"

"My daughter's gone alone, sir. I saw her off at the station. I understood she was to join a lady friend."

At every point Ralph felt his hold slip off the surface of his father-in-law's impervious fatalism.

"Does she suppose Van Degen's going to marry her?"

"Undine didn't mention her future plans to me." After a moment Mr.

Spragg appended: "If she had, I should have declined to discuss them with her." Ralph looked at him curiously, perceiving that he intended in this negative way to imply his disapproval of his daughter's course.

"I shall fight it--I shall fight it!" the young man cried again. "You may tell her I shall fight it to the end!"

Mr. Spragg pressed the nib of his pen against the dust-coated inkstand.

"I suppose you would have to engage a lawyer. She'll know it that way,"

he remarked.

"She'll know it--you may count on that!"

Ralph had begun to laugh again. Suddenly he heard his own laugh and it pulled him up. What was he laughing about? What was he talking about?

The thing was to act--to hold his tongue and act. There was no use uttering windy threats to this broken-spirited old man.

A fury of action burned in Ralph, pouring light into his mind and strength into his muscles. He caught up his hat and turned to the door.

As he opened it Mr. Spragg rose again and came forward with his slow shambling step. He laid his hand on Ralph's arm.

"I'd 'a' given anything--anything short of my girl herself--not to have this happen to you, Ralph Marvell."

"Thank you, sir," said Ralph.