The Landloper Part 38

"I wonder what Kate would say if she knew how I had come to the scratch.

She knew her father was a hero. I wonder whether she would think I am one!" he said, after silence had continued for a long time.

"Are you going to tell her?" the mother gasped.

"I love her too much. But, see here! Do you think I picked that five thousand off a rose-bush?"

"You told me your uncle loaned it to you."

"You think I got it easy--got it for the asking, and that's why you have been loafing on the job," he said, with bitterness. "Ask my uncle for money? I should say not. He never loosened for anybody yet--not even his relatives. Mrs. Kilgour, I love your daughter so much--I was so anxious to help you--I stole that five thousand from the state treasury. I have been covering it in my accounts for more than a year--h.e.l.l all the time with plenty of white-hot when the legislative committee has been over the accounts. Some day some blasted fool will wake up enough to see that there's a hole in my figures."

He put his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet. The woman's face grew white.

"That's how it stands with me, Mrs. Kilgour. You know you were not square with me at the start. You said you needed the money for only a few weeks--you said you were pinched in a stock deal. You lied to me.

You have wasted the money on fine feathers for your back. I have kept still. You can't pay me. I've got to struggle out of the mess as best I can. But, by the eternal G.o.ds, there's something coming to me, and that's your daughter. Now are you going to wake up?"

"I'll do everything I can." Her tone was not convincing, however.

He realized that this woman with the pulpy conscience and the artificial emotions, selfish and a coward, was merely vaguely stirred by his revelation, not spurred by the extent of his sacrifice in her behalf.

"Do what you _can_? Whine to me like that after I have stolen state's money and am standing under my steal? What if this state tips over politically and they investigate the treasury? I tell you, Mrs. Kilgour, I deserve to have Kate. I'm going to have her. You have got to fix it--and right away."

"But I can't marry off a girl of twenty as if she were a Chinese slave."

His insistence caused her to display more of her pettish resentment.

"If you can't deliver the goods, Mrs. Kilgour, I shall take a hand in it."

"How?"

"I'll tell her the story."

"You wouldn't dare."

"She has a sense of honor and of obligation even if you haven't. She will pay. She'll pay with herself. That's a devil of a way to get a wife, but if that's the only way I'll take it."

"But you have just owned up that you have embezzled money. As Kate's mother it's my duty to protect her from disgrace."

That amazing declaration fairly took away Dodd's breath.

By the manner in which the woman now looked at him it was plain that he had sunk in her estimation.

"You know, Richard, a mother feels called on to protect a good daughter."

He got up and stamped on the floor in his pa.s.sion and swore.

"I appreciate what you did for me--but, really, I didn't ask you to steal money--and I supposed your uncle was always liberal with you. You should not have told me falsehoods."

The maddening feature of this calm a.s.sumption of superiority was the fact that the woman seemed really to believe for the moment exactly what she was saying and to forget why Dodd had jeopardized his fortunes; her manner showed her shallow estimate of the situation.

"There's another way of doing it," raged the young man, infuriated by this repudiation of obligation. "I'll blow the whole thing about the two of us--and she'll be glad enough to have me after it's all over."

"You haven't any right to bring all this trouble and disgrace into my family."

"You know one way of preventing it and you'd better get busy, Mrs.

Kilgour," he advised. "I'm going to give you another chance of keeping your word and paying your debt to me. I want Kate--and I have waited for her long enough."

He clapped on his hat and hurried away.

He left the mother sprawled on a couch, her ringed hands clutched into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have convinced any unprejudiced hearer that she felt real grief.

When Richard Dodd entered his uncle's offices in the First National block a little later he was in the mood to force his affairs a bit. He enjoyed liberties there which the ordinary caller did not have and he walked into Kate Kilgour's little room without attracting attention or comment.

"I know exactly how you feel about last night, Kate." He addressed her respectfully and humbly. "I understand that this is no place to discuss the matter. I haven't come here to do so. I apologize for the affair.

I'm going to say this to you--I took your mother's advice. She planned the thing and trumped up the errand which called you to that house. I'm afraid she is rather too romantic. I only say this, Kate: a man's love can make him do foolish things. Please talk with your mother when you go home--and take her advice. If you do, it will be better for all of us."

He trembled with the restraint he had put upon himself. "You can see that I have been punished, Kate. I am a different man--you ought to be able to see it. Awful trouble has come to me. I need your love to help me through it."

She gazed at him with level, cold eyes.

"You don't understand. I can't explain, dear! But I'm telling you the truth. Kate, if you don't forget that folly I was guilty of last night and be to me what you have been--if you don't marry me very soon you will be sorry."

"Are you threatening me, Richard?"

"No, I didn't mean it to sound like that. But I know that with your appreciation of what sacrifice means you will be very unhappy if you toss me away and then find out certain things."

"This is not the time for riddles, Richard. What do you mean?"

"I have said all I can say."

"I do not love you well enough to be your wife. I have not meant to play the coquette. I have not known myself. You and my mother--Oh, why rehea.r.s.e? You know the story. You have understood that my love for you was not what you should have. We may as well end it here and now, Richard. I will forget last night. I will forget all the rest--for it is ended!"

"It cannot be ended," he retorted. "Understand! It cannot be ended. I am trying to hold myself together, Kate. Don't provoke me. I call on you to keep your promise. No other man shall have you." He leaned close. "Do you love any other man?"

She looked up at him and spoke slowly and gravely. "I do not think I do, Richard."

He scowled at her. "You don't _think_ you do! What in the name of Judas do you mean by a remark like that?"

"It's because I'm trying to tell the truth," she returned, with simple earnestness.

"This is a sort of new mood you're in?" he persisted.

"Yes."

He hesitated. He started to speak and then was silent for a long time.

"d.a.m.nation! I won't insult you!" he blurted at last.

"I hope not, Richard."

"It's preposterous!"

"What is preposterous?" Her tone was calm.