The Happiest Time of Their Lives Part 35

"For backing up every stupid thing his daughter said."

"Loyalty is a fine quality."

"Justice is better," answered his mother.

"Oh, well, he's old," said Wayne, dismissing the whole subject.

They walked up their four flights in silence, and then Wayne remembered to ask something that had been in his mind several times.

"By the way, Mother, how did you happen to come to the Farrons at all?"

She laughed rather self-consciously.

"I hoped perhaps Mr. Farron might be well enough to see me a moment about Marty. The truth is, Pete, Mr. Farron is the real person in that whole family."

That evening he wrote Farron a note, asking him to see him the next morning at half-past ten about "this trouble of which, of course, Mrs. Farron has told you." He added a request that he would tell Pringle of his intention in case he could give the interview, because Mrs. Farron had been quite frank in saying that she would give orders not to let him in.

Farron received this note with his breakfast. Adelaide was not there. He had had no hint from her of any crisis. He had not come down to dinner the evening before to meet Mrs. Baxter and the useful people asked to entertain her, but he had seen Mathilde's tear-stained face, and in a few minutes with his father-in-law had encountered one or two evident evasions. Only Adelaide had been unfathomable.

After he had read the letter and thought over the situation, he sent for Pringle, and gave orders that when Mr. Wayne came he would see him.

Pringle did not exactly make an objection, but stated a fact when he replied that Mrs. Farron had given orders that Mr. Wayne was not to be allowed to see Miss Severance.

"Exactly," said Farron. "Show him here." Here was his own study.

As it happened, Adelaide was sitting with him, making very good invalid's talk, when Pringle announced, "Mr. Wayne."

"Pringle, I told you--" Adelaide began, but her husband cut her short.

"He has an appointment with me, Adelaide."

"You don't understand, Vin. You mustn't see him."

Wayne was by this time in the room.

"But I wish to see him, my dear Adelaide, and," Farron added, "I wish to see him alone."

"No," she answered, with a good deal of excitement; "that you cannot.

This is my affair, Vincent--the affair of my child."

He looked at her for a second, and then opening the door into his bedroom, he said to Wayne:

"Will you come in here?" The door was closed behind the two men.

Wayne was not a coward, although he had dreaded his interview with Adelaide; it was his very respect for Farron that kept him from feeling even nervous.

"Perhaps I ought not to have asked you to see me," he began.

"I'm very glad to see you," answered Farron. "Sit down, and tell me the story as you see it from the beginning."

It was a comfort to tell the story at last to an expert. Wayne, who had been trying for twenty-four hours to explain what underwriting meant, what were the responsibilities of brokers in such matters, what was the function of such a report as his, felt as if he had suddenly groped his way out of a fog as he talked, with hardly an interruption but a nod or a lightening eye from Farron. He spoke of Benson. "I know the man," said Farron; of Honaton, "He was in my office once." Wayne told how Mathilde, and then he himself, had tried to inform Mrs. Farron of the definiteness of their plans to be married.

"How long has this been going on?" Farron asked.

"At least ten days."

Farron nodded. Then Wayne told of the discovery of the proof at the printer's and his hurried meeting in the park to tell Mathilde. Here Farron stopped him suddenly.

"What was it kept you from going through with it just the same?"

"You're the first person who has asked me that," answered Pete.

"Perhaps you did not even think of such a thing?"

"No one could help thinking of it who saw her there--"

"And you didn't do it?"

"It wasn't consideration for her family that held me back."

"What was it?"

Pete found a moral scruple was a difficult motive to avow.

"It was Mathilde herself. That would not have been treating her as an equal."

"You intend always to treat her as an equal?"

Wayne was ashamed to find how difficult it was to answer truthfully. The tone of the question gave him no clue to the speaker's own thoughts.

"Yes, I do," he said; and then blurted out hastily, "Don't you believe in treating a woman as an equal?"

"I believe in treating her exactly as she wants to be treated."

"But every one wants to be treated as an equal, if they're any good."

Farron smiled, showing those blue-white teeth for an instant, and Wayne, feeling he was not quite doing himself justice, added, "I call that just ordinary respect, you know, and I could not love any one I didn't respect. Could you?"

The question was, or Farron chose to consider it, a purely rhetorical one.

"I suppose," he observed, "that they are to be counted the most fortunate who love and respect at the same time."

"Of course," said Wayne.

Farron nodded.

"And yet perhaps they miss a good deal."

"I don't know _what_ they miss," answered Wayne, to whom the sentiment was as shocking as anything not understood can be.