The Penalty Part 25

And she gave Bubbles a charmingly bound copy of Rostand's "Far-Away Princess," and when Bubbles had trotted off, she dropped into her chair and cried because she thought she had broken poor West's heart. But there was stern stuff in his heart, and exultation, for he knew that in the supreme test of his life, he had thought only of--her.

XIX

"There, everything is understood," said Blizzard; "we are agreed upon the 15th of next January. And you can bring enough men on from the West to do the work?"

O'Hagan, thick-set, black, bristling, nodded across the table. "You have guaranteed the money and the hats," he said; "I will guarantee the men.

What's behind that door?"

"Nothing but a junk-closet," said Blizzard. "Drink something."

O'Hagan poured three fingers of dark whiskey into a short gla.s.s and drank it at one gulp. "After that one," he said, "the wagon until the 15th."

"Yes," said Blizzard with some grimness. "There must be no frolicking.

And mind this, Jimmie: the more good American citizens who don't speak English that you can corral the better. We don't want intelligence. We want blind obedience with a hope of gain. And they mustn't know what they are to do till it's time to do it. They should begin to come into the city by the middle of December, a few at a time. Let 'em come to me half a dozen at once for money, weapons, and orders."

Again O'Hagan nodded. This time he rose, and the two shook hands across the table. O'Hagan seemed to labor under a certain emotion; but Blizzard was calm,

"Keep me posted," he said, "and for G.o.d's sake, Jimmie, cut out the little things. You're in big now. Forget your troubles and your wrongs.

Leave liquor alone and dynamite. Remember that on the 15th of next January you and I'll be square at last with law and order and oppression. Good luck to you!"

When O'Hagan had gone Blizzard moved his chair so that it faced the door of the junk-closet. And he smiled occasionally as if he were one of an audience at some diverting play. From time to time he took a drink of whiskey and licked his lips. An hour pa.s.sed, two hours, and always the legless man kept his agate eyes upon the closet door.

When two hours and fifteen minutes had gone, he drew an automatic pistol from his pocket, and held it ready for instant use. A few minutes later, finding his original plan of humor a little tedious in the working out, he spoke in a clear, incisive voice:

"Better come out of that now or I shall begin to shoot."

The door opened, and Rose staggered into the room. After a short pause, during which she swayed and gasped for breath, an automatic pistol fell with a clatter from her nerveless fingers. She sank to the floor all in a heap and began to cry hysterically.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The door opened, and Rose staggered into the room]

Blizzard slid from his chair and secured her pistol. His face wore an expression of amused tolerance. "Tell me all about it," he said. "Crying _can't_ do any good, and talking may. You hid in the closet to listen. It's not the first time. I found one of your combs, and saw where you'd brushed away the dirt so's not to spoil your dress. Now I'd like to know how much you know, and whom you've told it to?"

"What's the use?" said Rose with sudden desperation. "You've got me--n.o.body'll ever know from me what I've heard to-night. You're going to kill me."

"I doubt it," said Blizzard. "Now look up and tell me all about everything."

"Well," she said, "I've been spying on you."

"I know that. I knew that the day you came. When you said you loved me I knew you were lying."

"At first," she said, "I pa.s.sed over everything I could find out about you. It wasn't much."

"I took care of that."

"Then I made up things--just to keep the others from knowing I wasn't playing fair. I wanted to put that off as long as I could. Anything I really found out--like your first talk with O'Hagan--I just kept to myself. I know I lied to you the first day. But I'm not lying now."

The legless man smiled tolerantly. "Why did you keep on trying to find out things--if you didn't mean to use them?"

"Because I wanted to know all about you, what you were doing, what your interests were. I thought I could be more useful to you that way."

"It's a good thing for you, Rose," said Blizzard, "that I guessed all this. If I hadn't you wouldn't be alive now. And so, now that you've gotten to know me pretty well, there's something about me, is there, that's knocked your ambitions galley-west?"

"I had friends that trusted me," she said, "and I've played double with them. And now I've got only you."

"Tell me one thing," and Blizzard asked the question with some eagerness, "what particular quality of mine got you to feeling this way about me?"

"I guess it's every quality now," said Rose, "but it started with me the first time I heard you play, and knew that, whatever you'd been and done, and were planning to do, you had a soul above it all. And I knew that if your soul had ever had a fair chance you'd have been more like a G.o.d than a man."

"Well, well," said Blizzard after a long silence, "perhaps. Who knows!

And so it was the music that changed your heart? Well, why not? n.o.body makes better music--unless it's Hofman."

The idea of appealing to the heart of quite another girl through his music filled the legless man with a wild hoping. Why not? If he could play himself clean out of h.e.l.l whenever he pleased, why not another? He would not tell her the possibilities of n.o.bility that yet remained in him. He would play them to her.

"Rose," he said, "you're the best pedaller I ever had. You've got music in you. We'll practise up and give a concert. I'll ask some n.o.bs in.

We'll turn the piano so that seeing how the pedalling is done won't distract their attention from the music. But they won't hear our music, Rose. It will be better than that. They shall roll in it, bathe in it, see heaven!"

"That's what I saw."

Blizzard's agate eyes glinted with a strange light. It was as if the beast in him was fighting with the G.o.d. But gradually all mercifulness, all-pity, went out, and the fires which remained were not good to see.

He kissed her and she kissed him back.

XX

Feeling that she had been working too hard, being in much distress about Harry West, and in some for herself, and learning that Wilmot Allen was to be of the party, Barbara told Blizzard, at the end of his sitting on Friday, that he need not come Sat.u.r.day, as she was going to spend the week-end with the Bruces at Meadowbrook.

"I'm dog-tired," she said, "and that's the same as being discouraged. We both need a rest. Things have been at a stand-still nearly all the week."

"I think you are right about yourself," said Blizzard, "but won't your gay friends keep you up till all hours?"

"They will _not_" said Barbara, "and it won't be gay. During a falling market there are never more than two happy people at the largest Long Island house-party. The men will sit by themselves and drink very solemnly. The women will sit by themselves and yawn till ten o'clock. It will be very boring and very restful."

"Speaking of falling markets, is my friend Mr. Allen to be among those present? I understand that he has been very hard hit."

"I don't know about that," said Barbara. "He often is. Yes, he is to be among those present, and I'm really going just to have a chance to talk to him."

"_With_ him or _to_ him?" asked Blizzard with one of his sudden, dazzling smiles.

"_To_ him," said Barbara, also smiling, "I, too, have listened to tales out of school, and since he is my oldest friend, and probably my best, he must be straightened out."