The Tempting of Tavernake Part 21

Mr. Dowling turned back toward the car.

"Young man," he said, "you can brazen it out as much as you like, but you have been guilty of a gross breach of faith. I shall take care that the exact situation is made known in all responsible quarters. You'll get no situation with any firm with whom I am acquainted--I can promise you that. If you have anything more to say to Dowling, Spence & Company, let it be in writing."

They parted company there and then. Tavernake and Beatrice went down the hill in silence.

"Does this bother you at all?" she inquired presently.

"Nothing to speak of," Tavernake answered. "It had to come. I wasn't quite ready but that doesn't matter."

"What shall you do now?" she asked.

"Borrow enough to buy the whole of the hill," he replied.

She looked back.

"Won't that mean a great deal of money?"

He nodded.

"It will be a big thing, of course," he admitted. "Never mind, I dare say I shall be able to interest some one in it. In any case, I never meant Mr. Dowling to make a fortune out of this."

They walked on in silence a little further. Then she spoke again, with some hesitation.

"I suppose that what you have done is quite fair, Leonard?"

He answered her promptly, without any sign of offence at her question.

"As a matter of fact," he confessed, "it is an unusual thing for any one in the employ of a firm of estate agents to make speculations on their own account in land. In this case, however, I consider that I was justified. I have opened up three building speculations for the firm, on each one of which they have made a great deal of money, and I have not even had my salary increased, or any recognition whatever offered me.

There is a debt, of course, which an employee owes to his employer.

There is also a debt, however, which the employer owes to his employee.

In my case I have never been treated with the slightest consideration of any sort. What I have done I shall stick to. After all, I am more interested in making money for myself than for other people."

They had reached the corner of the field now, and turning into the lane commenced the steep descent. It was Sunday evening, and from all the little conventicles and tin churches below, the bells began their unmusical summons. From further away in the distance came the more melodious chiming from the Cathedral and the city churches. The shriller and nearer note, however, prevailed. The whole medley of sound was a discord. As they descended, they could see the black-coated throngs slowly moving towards the different places of worship. There was something uninspiring about it all. She shuddered.

"Leonard," she said, "I wonder why you are so anxious to get on in the world. Why do you want to be rich?"

He was glancing back toward the hill, the light of calculations in his eyes. Once more he was measuring out those plots of land, calculating rent, deducting interest.

"We all seek different things," he replied tolerantly,--"some fame, some pleasure. Mr. Dowling, for instance, has no other ambition than to muddle round the golf links a few strokes better than his partner."

"And you?" she asked.

"It is success I seek," he answered. "Women, as a rule, do not understand. You, for instance, Beatrice, are too sentimental. I am very practical. It is money that I want. I want money because money means success."

"And afterwards?" she whispered.

He was attending to her no longer. They were turning now into the broad thoroughfare at the bottom of the lane, at the end of which a tram-car was waiting. He scribbled a few, final notes into his pocket-book.

"To-morrow," he exclaimed, with the joy of battle in his tone, "to-morrow the fight begins in earnest!"

Beatrice pa.s.sed her hand through his arm.

"Not only for you, dear friend, but for me," she said. "For you? What do you mean?" he asked quickly.

"I have been trying to tell you all day," she continued, "but you have been too engrossed. Yesterday afternoon I went to see Mr. Grier at the Atlas Theatre. I had my voice tried, and to-morrow night I am going to take a small part in the new musical comedy."

Tavernake stared at her in something like consternation. His ideas as to the stage and all that belonged to it were of a primitive order. Mrs.

Fitzgerald was perhaps as near as possible to his idea of the type. He glanced incredulously at Beatrice--slim, quietly dressed, yet with the unmistakable, to him mysterious, distinction of breeding.

"You an actress!" he exclaimed.

She laughed softly.

"Dear Leonard," she said, "this is going to be a part of your education.

To-morrow night you shall come to the theatre and wait for me at the stage-door."

CHAPTER XI. A BEWILDERING OFFER

Elizabeth stood with her hands behind her back, leaning slightly against the writing-table. The professor, with his broad-brimmed hat clinched in his fingers, walked restlessly up and down the little room. The discussion had not been altogether a pleasant one. Elizabeth was composed but serious, her father nervous and excited.

"You are mad, Elizabeth!" he declared. "Is it that you do not understand, or will not? I tell you that we must go."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Where would you drag me to?" she asked. "We certainly can't go back to New York."

He turned fiercely upon her.

"Whose fault is it that we can't?" he demanded. "If it weren't for you and your confounded schemes, I could be walking down Broadway next week.

G.o.d's own city it is, too!" he muttered. "I wish we'd never seen those two young men."

"It was a pity, perhaps," she admitted, "yet we had to do something. We were absolutely stonybroke, as they say over here."

"Anyway, we've got to get out of this," the professor declared.

"My dear father," she replied, "I will agree that if a new city or a new world could arise from the bottom of the sea, where Professor Franklin was unknown, and his beautiful daughter Elizabeth had neyer been heard of, it might perhaps be advisable for us to go there. As it is--"

"There is Rome," he exclaimed, "or some of the smaller places! We have money for a time. We could get another draft, perhaps, from Wenham."

She shook her head. "We are just as safe here as anywhere on the Continent," she remarked.

Once more he struck the table. Then he threw out his hands above his head with the melodramatic instinct which had always been strong in his blood.

"Do you think that I am a fool?" he cried. "Do you think I do not know that if there were not something moving in your brain you would think no more of that clerk, that bourgeois estate agent, than of the door-mat beneath your feet? It is what I always complain about. You make use of me as a tool. There are always things which I do not understand. He comes here, this young man, under a pretext, whether he knows it or not.