The Sturdy Oak Part 19

"Yes, that's all," replied Genevieve, her melancholy gaze on George.

Yesterday she would have had Emelene's childlike faith. But this stranger, who, for a trivial and tyrannical reason, had sent away Betty--how would _he_ act?

"They showed these right opposite your windows?" she questioned.

"Yes," he returned. "Our friend Mrs. Herrington did it herself. It was the first course of our dinner. If you think that's good taste--"

"I would expect it of her," said Alys Brewster-Smith.

"But it makes it so easy for George," Emelene repeated. "They'll know now what sort of a man he is. Little children at work, just to make a little more money--it's awful!"

"Talking about money, George," said Alys, "have you seen to my houses yet?" "Not yet," replied the hara.s.sed George. "You'll have to excuse my going into the reasons now. I'm late as it is."

His voice had not the calm he would have wished for. As he took his departure, he heard Alys saying,

"If you'll let me, my dear, I'd adore helping you about the housekeeping. I don't want to stay here and be a burden. If you'll just turn it over to me, I could cut your housekeeping expenses in half."

"d.a.m.n the women," was the unchivalrous thought that rose to George's lips.

One would have supposed that trouble had followed closely enough on George Remington's trail, but now he found it awaiting him in his office.

Usually, Penny was the late one. It was this light-hearted young man's custom to blow in with so engaging an expression and so cheerful a manner that any comment on his unpunctuality was impossible. Today, instead of a gay-hearted young man, he looked more like a sentencing judge.

What he wanted to know was,

"What have you done to Betty Sheridan? Do you mean to say that you had the nerve to send her away, send her out of my office without consulting me--and for a reason like that? How did you think I was going to feel about it?"

"I didn't think about you," said George.

"You bet you didn't. You thought about number one and your precious vanity. Why, if one were to separate you from your vanity, one couldn't see you when you were going down the street. Go on, make a frock coat gesture! Play the brilliant but outraged young district attorney. Do you know what it was to do a thing of that kind--to fire a girl because she didn't agree with you?"

"It wasn't because she didn't agree with me," George interrupted, with heat.

"It was the act of a cad," Penny finished. "Look here, young man, I'm going to tell you a few plain truths about yourself. You're not the sort of person that you think you are. You've deceived yourself the way other people are deceived about you--by your exterior. But inside of that good-looking carca.s.s of yours there's a brain composed of cheese. You weren't only a cad to do it--you were a fool!" "You can't use that tone to me!" cried George.

"Oh, can't I just? By Jove, it's things like that that make one wake up.

Now I know why women have a pa.s.sion for suffrage. I never knew before,"

Penny went on, with more pa.s.sion than logic. "You had a nerve to make that statement of yours. You're a fine example of chivalry. You let loose a few things when you wrote that fool statement, but you did a worse trick when you fired Betty Sheridan. G.o.d, you're a pinhead--from the point of view of mere tactics. Sometimes I wonder whether you've _any_ brain."

George had turned white with anger.

"That'll just about do," he remarked.

"Oh, no, it won't," said Penny. "It won't do at all. I'm not going to remain in a firm where things like this can happen. I wouldn't risk my reputation and my future. You're going to do the decent thing. You're going to Betty Sheridan and tell her what you think of yourself. She won't come back, I suppose, but you might ask her to do that, too. And now I'm going out, to give you time to think this over. And tonight you can tell me what you've decided. And then I'll tell you whether I'm going to dissolve our partnership. Your temper's too bad to decide now. Maybe when you've done that she won't treat me like an unsavory stranger."

He left, and George sat down to gloomy reflection.

To do him justice, the idea of apologizing to Betty had already occurred to him. If he put off the day of reckoning, when the time came he would pay handsomely. He realized that there was no use in wasting energy and being angry with Penny. He looked over the happenings of the last few hours and the part he had played in them, and what he saw failed to please him. He saw himself being advised by Doolittle to concentrate on the Erie Oval. He heard him urging him not to be what Doolittle called unneighborly. The confiding words of Cousin Emelene rang in his ears.

He saw himself, in a fit of ill-temper, discharging Betty. He saw Genevieve, lovely and scornful, urging him to be less pompous. All this, he had to admit, he had brought on himself. Why should he have been so angry at these questions? Again Emelene's remark echoed in his ear. He had only to answer them--and he was going to concentrate on the Erie Oval!

There came a knock on the door, and a breezy young woman demanded,

"D'you want a stenographer?"

George wanted a stenographer, and wanted one badly. He put from him the whole vexed question in the press of work, and by lunch time he made up his mind to have it out with Betty. There was no use putting it off, and he knew that he could have no peace with himself until he did. He felt very tired--as though he had been doing actual physical work. He thought of yesterday as a land of lost content. But he couldn't find Betty.

He bent his steps toward home, and as he did so affection for Genevieve flooded his heart. He so wanted yesterday back--things as they had been.

He so wanted her love and her admiration. He wanted to put his tired head on her shoulder. He couldn't bear, not for another moment, to be at odds with her.

He wondered what she had been doing, and how she had spent the morning.

He imagined her crying her heart out. He leaped up the steps and ran up to his room. In it was Alys Brewster-Smith. She started slightly.

"I was just looking for some cold cream," she explained.

"Where's Genevieve?" George asked.

"Oh, she's out," Alys replied casually. "She left a note for you."

The note was a polite and noncommittal line informing George that Genevieve would not be back for lunch. He felt as though a lump of ice replaced his heart. His disappointment was the desperate disappointment of a small boy.

He went back to the gloomy office and worked through the interminable day. Late in the afternoon Mr. Doolittle lounged heavily in.

"Have some gum, George?" he inquired, inserting a large piece in his own mouth.

He chewed rhythmically for a s.p.a.ce. George waited. He knew that chewing gum was not the ultimate object of Mr. Doolittle's visit.

"Don't women beat the Dutch?" he inquired at last. "Yes sir, mister; they do!"

"What's up now?" George inquired. "The suffragists again?"

"Nope; not on the face of it they ain't. It's the Woman's Forum that's doin' this. They've got a sweet little idea. 'Seein' Whitewater Sweat'

they call it.

"They're goin' around in bunches of twos, or mebbe blocks o' five, seein' all the sights; an' you know women ain't reasonable, an' you can't reason with them. They're goin' to find a pile o' things they won't like in this little burg o' ours, all right, all right. An'

they'll want to have things changed right off. I want to see things changed m'self. I'd like to, but them things take time, an' that's what women won't understand.

"Jimminee, I've heard of towns all messed up and candidates ruined just because the women got wrought up over tenement-house an' fire laws an'

truck like that. Yes sir, they're out seein' Whitewater this minut, or will be if you can't divert their minds. Call 'em off, George, if you can. Get 'em fussy about sumpen else."

"Why, what have I to do with it?" George inquired.

"Well, I didn't know but what you might have sumpen," said Mr. Doolittle mildly. "It's that young lady that works here, Miss Sheridan, an' your wife what's organizin' it. Planning it all out to Thorne's at lunch they was, an' Heally was sittin' at the next table and beats it to me. You can see for yerself what a h.e.l.l of a mess they'll make!"

CHAPTER IX. BY ALICE DUER MILLER