The Dominant Dollar Part 23

"That's all, I believe, I have to impart concerning December the sixth, all concerning the celebration. That is--" of a sudden the bantering voice was serious and low--"that is, unless there's something more you'd like to know."

The girl was busy with the clover again, very busy.

"I think you've told me all there is to tell," she said steadily. "I understand."

Darley Roberts waited; but that was all.

"Very well." The voice was normal again, tolerant, non-committal. "It's your turn, then. I fear I'm becoming positively loquacious. I monopolize the conversation. Let's hear your report since--Thanksgiving, I believe,--the last time I heard it."

For some reason the girl lost interest in her work. At least there seemed less need of immediate haste. She rolled the silks and the linen together with a little unconscious sigh of relief.

"Since Thanksgiving," she said, "I've cooked eighteen meals for father and myself. I've been out of town once, coached two thick heads twice each, attended one bridge party--or was it five hundred? I believe that's all."

"Not had a call from Miss Simpson?" smilingly.

"How did you know?"

"I don't know. I asked you."

"Yes; Agnes called--of course."

"What report of your friends the Randalls, then?"

"Shame on you--really."

"No. I didn't mean it that way--really. You know it. I'm interested because you are. How are things coming on with them?"

The girl fingered the roll in her lap absently. "Badly, I'm afraid.

Margery's gone to Chicago to visit her cousin, and shop. She can't seem to realize--or won't. I went over and baked some things for Harry yesterday. He's dismissed the maid they had and the place looks as cheerful as a barn. I didn't even see him."

"You noticed the house, though, doubtless. Much new furniture about?"

"Yes, for the dining-room; a complete new suite, sideboard and all, in weathered oak. It's dear.... How in the world did you know, though?"

"A big rug, too, and curtains, and--a lot of things?"

"How did you know, you? Tell me that."

"Would you say it was worth four hundred dollars in all, what you saw?"

The eyes were smiling again.

"Perhaps. I don't know. I have never bought such things.... You haven't answered my question yet."

"I know because Mr. Randall told me. He also requested me, as a favor, to ask you about them instead of going to the house myself."

"Which means you made him a loan to pay the bill. Are you a friend of Harry's?"

"A loan, yes. A friend--only as your friends are mine."

"It's too bad, a burning shame--when Harry works so hard, too." The girl winked fast, against her will. "I can't quite forgive Margery."

"For going to Chicago?"

"For everything. For that too."

"Not if I told you I advised her to go?"

"You!" In astonishment complete the girl stared. "You advised her to go?"

"Yes, the same day I made Randall the loan. It was really a coincidence.

I wondered they didn't meet in the elevator."

"A lawyer in a little town like this, with several departments in his business, comes in contact with a variety of things," he commented after a moment.

"Tell me about Margery." The girl seemed to have heard that suggestion only. "I can't understand, can't believe--really."

For a moment Roberts was silent. There was no banter in his manner when he looked up at last.

"I didn't tell you this merely to gossip," he said slowly; "I think you appreciate that without my saying it; but somehow I felt that you ought to know--that if any one could do any good there it is you. I never met either of them before, that's another coincidence; but from what you've told me and the little I saw of them both that day, I felt dead sorry.

Besides, life's so short, and I hate--divorce."

"You can't mean it has come to that?"

"It hadn't come, but it was coming fast. She visited me first. From there she was going straight to her father--to stay."

"It's horrible, simply horrible--and so unjustified! You induced her, though, to go to Chicago instead?"

"It was a compromise, a play for time. I tried to get her to go back home, but she refused, positively. The only alternative seemed to be to get her away--quick.... Was I right?"

"Yes, I think so, under the circ.u.mstances. But the trouble itself, I can't understand yet--Was it that abominable furniture?"

"Partly. At least that was the final straw, the match to the fuse. The whole thing had been gathering slowly for a long time. I didn't get the entire story, of course. She wasn't exactly coherent. It seems she ordered it on her own responsibility, and when the goods were delivered--the thing was merely inevitable, some time--that was all."

"Inevitable? No. It was abominable of Margery--unforgivable."

"I don't know about that; in fact I'm inclined to differ. I still maintain it was inevitable."

"Inevitable fiddlesticks! Harry is the best-natured man alive, and generous. He's been too generous, too easy; that's the trouble."

"'Generous?'" gently. "'Generous?'... Is it generous for a man with nothing and no prospect of anything to take a girl out of a home where money was never a consideration, and transplant her into another where practically it is the only thought?... 'Generous' for his own pleasure, to undertake to teach her a financial lesson he knew to a moral certainty in advance she could never learn? Do you honestly call that 'generous'?"

"But she could learn. It--was her duty."

"Duty!" Roberts laughed tolerantly. "Is 'duty' in the dictionary you use a synonym for 'cooking' and 'scrubbing' and 'drudgery'? Is that your interpretation?"

"Sometimes--in this case, yes; for a time."

"Permanently, you mean?"