The Street Called Straight Part 22

"Yes; and it's the first time I've ever struck it."

She shook her head slowly. "I don't know. I'm a little bewildered. This morning everything seemed so clear, and now--I understand," she went on, "that we shall be taking all you have."

"Who told you that?" he asked, sharply.

"It doesn't matter who told me; but it's very important if we are. _Are_ we?"

He threw his head back in a way that, notwithstanding her preoccupation, she could not but admire. "No; because I've still got my credit. When a man has that--"

"But you'll have to begin all over again, sha'n't you?"

"Only as a man who has won one battle begins all over again when he fights another. It's nothing but fun when you're fond of war."

"Didn't I do something very rude to you--once--a long time ago?"

The question took him so entirely unawares that, in the slight, involuntary movement he made, he seemed to himself to stagger backward.

He was aware of looking blank, while unable to control his features to a non-committal expression. He had the feeling that minutes had gone by before he was able to say:

"It was really of no consequence--"

"Don't say that. It was of great consequence. Any one can see that--now.

I was insolent. I knew I _had_ been. You must have been perfectly aware of it all these years; and--I _will_ say it!--I _must_ say it!--you're taking your revenge--very n.o.bly."

He was about to utter something in protest, but she turned away abruptly and sped up the stairs. On the first landing she paused for the briefest instant and looked down.

"Good-by," she faltered. "I must go back to papa. He'll need me. I can't talk any more just now. I'm too bewildered--about everything. Colonel Ashley will arrive in a day or two, and after I've seen him I shall be a little clearer as to what I think; and--and then--I shall see you again."

He continued to stand gazing up the stairway long after he had heard her close the door of Guion's room behind her.

XI

It was not difficult for Davenant to ascribe his lightness of heart, on leaving Tory Hill, to satisfaction in getting rid of his superfluous money, since he had some reason to fear that the possession of it was no great blessing. To a man with little instinct for luxury and no spending tastes, twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year was an income far outstripping his needs. It was not, however, in excess of his desires, for he would gladly have set up an establishment and cut a dash if he had known how. He admired the grand style in living, not so much as a matter of display, because presumably it stood for all sorts of mysterious refinements for which he possessed the yearning without the initiation. The highest flight he could take by his own unaided efforts was in engaging the best suite of rooms in the best hotel, when he was quite content with his dingy old lodgings; in driving in taxicabs, when the tram-car would have suited him just as well, and ordering champagne, when he would have preferred some commoner beverage. Fully aware of the insufficiency of this method of reaching a higher standard, he practised it only because it offered the readiest means he could find of straining upward. He was sure that with a wife who knew the arts of elegance to lead the way his scent for following would be keen enough; but between him and the acquisition of this treasure there lay the memory of the haughty young creature who had, in the metaphor with which he was most familiar, "turned him down."

But it was not the fact that he had more money than he needed of which he was afraid; it was rather the perception that the possibility of indulging himself--coupled with what he conceived to be a kind of duty in doing it--was sapping his vigor. All through the second year of his holiday he had noticed in himself the tendency of the big, strong-fibered animal to be indolent and overfed. On the principle laid down by Emerson that every man is as lazy as he dares to be he got into the way of sleeping late, of lounging in the public places of hotels, and smoking too many cigars. With a little encouragement he could have contracted the incessant c.o.c.ktail and Scotch-and-soda habits of some of his traveling compatriots.

He excused these weaknesses on the ground that when he had returned to Boston, and got back to his ordinary round of work and exercise, they would vanish, without having to be overcome; and yet the nearer he drew to his old home, the less impulse he felt for exertion. He found himself asking the question, "Why should I try to make more money when I've got enough already?" to which the only reply was in that vague hope of "doing a little good," inspired by his visit to the scene of his parents' work at Hankow. In this direction, however, his apt.i.tudes were no more spontaneous than they were for the life of cultivated taste.

Henry Guion's need struck him, therefore, as an opportunity. If he took other views of it besides, if it made to him an appeal totally different from the altruistic, he was able to conceal the fact--from himself, at any rate--in the depths of a soul where much that was vital to the man was always held in subliminal darkness. It disturbed him, then, to have Drusilla Fane rifle this sanctuary with irreverent persistency, dragging to light what he had kept scrupulously hidden away.

Having found her alone in the drawing-room drinking her tea, he told her at once what he had accomplished in the way of averting the worst phase of the danger hanging over the master of Tory Hill. He told her, too, with some amount of elation, which he explained as his glee in getting himself down to "hard-pan." Drusilla allowed the explanation to pa.s.s till she had thanked him ecstatically for what he had done.

"Really, Peter, men are fine! The minute I heard Cousin Henry's wretched story I knew the worst couldn't come to the worst, with you here. I only wish you could realize what it means to have a big, strong man like you to lean on."

Davenant looked pleased; he was in the mood to be pleased with anything.

He had had so little of women's appreciation in his life that Drusilla's enthusiasm was not only agreeable but new. He noticed, too, that in speaking Drusilla herself was at her best. She had never been pretty.

Her mouth was too large, her cheek-bones too high, and her skin too sallow for that; but she had the charm of frankness and intelligence.

Davenant said what was necessary in depreciation of his act, going on to explain the benefit he would reap by being obliged to go to work again.

He enlarged on his plans for taking his old rooms and his old office, and informed her that he knew a fellow, an old pal, who had already let him into a good thing in the way of a copper-mine in the region of Lake Superior. Drusilla listened with interest till she found an opportunity to say:

"I'm so glad that _is_ your reason for helping Cousin Henry, Peter; because I was afraid there might be--another."

He stopped abruptly, looking dashed. Unaccustomed to light methods of attack and defense, it took him a few seconds to see Drusilla's move.

"You thought I might be--in love?"

She nodded.

"That's queer," he went on, "because I'd got the same impression about you."

It was Drusilla's turn to be aghast. She was a little surprised at not being offended, too.

"What made you think that?" she managed to ask, after getting command of herself.

"What makes one think anything? However," he conceded, "I dare say I'm wrong."

"That's a very good conclusion to come to. I advise you to keep to it."

"I will if you'll do the same about me."

She seized the opening to carry the attack back in his direction.

"I can't make a bargain of that kind, Peter. The scientific mind bases its conclusions on--observed phenomena."

"Which I guess is the reason why the scientific mind is so often wrong.

I've had a good deal to do with it in the copper-mine business. It's always barking up the wrong tree. I've often heard it said that the clever scientist is generally a poor reasoner."

"Well, perhaps he is. But I wasn't reasoning. I was merely going by instinct when I thought you might have a special motive for helping Cousin Henry. If you had, you know, it wouldn't be any harm."

"It mightn't be any harm; but would it be any good?"

"Well, that might depend a good deal--on you."

"On me? How so? I don't know what you're driving at."

"I'm not driving at anything. I'm only speculating. I'm wondering what I should do if I were in your place--with all your advantages."

"Rot, Drusilla!"

"If I were a man and had a rival," Drusilla persisted, "I should be awfully honorable in the stand I'd take toward him--just like you. But if anything miscarried--"

"You don't _expect_ anything to miscarry?"

She shook her head. "No; I don't expect it. But it might be a fortunate thing if it did."

"You don't mean to infer that this man Ashley mightn't come up to the scratch?"