The Third Degree Part 20

"May I speak to you a moment?"

He turned quickly and looked at her in surprise. For the first time he was conscious of her presence. Bowing courteously, he shook his head:

"I am afraid I can do nothing for you, madam--as I've just explained to your confreres of the press."

Annie looked up at him, and said boldly:

"I am not a reporter, Mr. Jeffries. I am your son's wife."

The banker started back in amazement. This woman, whom he had taken for a newspaper reporter, was an interloper, an impostor, the very last woman in the world whom he would have permitted to be admitted to his house. He considered that she, as much as anybody else, had contributed to his son's ruin. Yet what could he do? She was there, and he was too much of a gentleman to have her turned out bodily. Wondering at his silence, she repeated softly:

"I'm your son's wife, Mr. Jeffries."

The banker looked at her a moment, as if taking her in from head to foot. Then he said coldly:

"Madam, I have no son." He hesitated, and added:

"I don't recognize----"

She looked at him pleadingly.

"But I want to speak to you, sir."

Mr. Jeffries shook his head, and moved toward the door.

"I repeat, I have nothing to say."

Annie planted herself directly in his path. He could not reach the door unless he removed her forcibly.

"Mr. Jeffries," she said earnestly, "please don't refuse to hear me--please----"

He halted, looking as if he would like to escape, but there was no way of egress. This determined-looking young woman had him at a disadvantage.

"I do not think," he said icily, "that there is any subject which can be of mutual interest----"

"Oh, yes, there is," she replied eagerly. She was quick to take advantage of this entering wedge into the man's mantle of cold reserve.

"Flesh and blood," she went on earnestly, "is of mutual interest. Your son is yours whether you cast him off or not. You've got to hear me. I am not asking anything for myself. It's for him, your son. He's in trouble. Don't desert him at a moment like this. Whatever he may have done to deserve your anger--don't--don't deal him such a blow. You cannot realize what it means in such a critical situation. Even if you only pretend to be friendly with him--you don't need to really be friends with him. But don't you see what the effect will be if you, his father, publicly withdraw from his support? Everybody will say he's no good, that he can't be any good or his father wouldn't go back on him.

You know what the world is. People will condemn him because you condemn him. They won't even give him a hearing. For G.o.d's sake, don't go back on him now!"

Mr. Jeffries turned and walked toward the window, and stood there gazing on the trees on the lawn. She did not see his face, but by the nervous twitching of his hands behind his back, she saw that her words had not been without effect. She waited in silence for him to say something.

Presently he turned around, and she saw that his face had changed. The look of haughty pride had gone. She had touched the chords of the father's heart. Gravely he said:

"Of course you realize that you, above all others, are responsible for his present position."

She was about to demur, but she checked herself. What did she care what they thought of her? She was fighting to save her husband, not to make the Jeffries family think better of her. Quickly she answered:

"Well, all right--I'm responsible--but don't punish him because of me."

Mr. Jeffries looked at her.

Who was this young woman who championed so warmly his own son? She was his wife, of course. But wives of a certain kind are quick to desert their husbands when they are in trouble. There must be some good in the girl, after all, he thought. Hesitatingly, he said:

"I could have forgiven him everything, everything but----"

"But me," she said promptly. "I know it. Don't you suppose I feel it too, and don't you suppose it hurts?"

Mr. Jeffries stiffened up. This woman was evidently trying to excite his sympathies. The hard, proud expression came back into his face, as he answered curtly:

"Forgive me for speaking plainly, but my son's marriage with such a woman as you has made it impossible to even consider the question of reconciliation."

With all her efforts at self-control, Annie would have been more than human had she not resented the insinuation in this cruel speech. For a moment she forgot the importance of preserving amicable relations, and she retorted:

"Such a woman as me? That's pretty plain----. But you'll have to speak even more plainly. What do you mean when you say such a woman as me?

What have I done?"

Mr. Jeffries looked out of the window without answering, and she went on:

"I worked in a factory when I was nine years old, and I've earned my living ever since. There's no disgrace in that, is there? There's nothing against me personally--nothing disgraceful, I mean. I know I'm not educated. I'm not a lady in your sense of the word, but I've led a decent life. There isn't a breath of scandal against me--not a breath.

But what's the good of talking about me? Never mind me. I'm not asking for anything. What are you going to do for him? He must have the best lawyer that money can procure--none of those bar-room orators. Judge Brewster, your lawyer, is the man. We want Judge Brewster."

Mr. Jeffries shrugged his shoulders.

"I repeat--my son's marriage with the daughter of a man who died in prison----"

She interrupted him.

"That was hard luck--nothing but hard luck. You're not going to make me responsible for that, are you? Why, I was only eight years old when that happened. Could I have prevented it?" Recklessly she went on: "Well, blame it on me if you want to, but don't hold it up against Howard. He didn't know it when he married me. He never would have known it but for the detectives employed by you to dig up my family history, and the newspapers did the rest. G.o.d! what they didn't say! I never realized I was of so much importance. They printed it in scare-head lines. It made a fine sensation for the public, but it destroyed my peace of mind."

"A convict's daughter!" said Mr. Jeffries contemptuously.

"He was a good man at that!" she answered hotly. "He kept the squarest pool room in Manhattan, but he refused to pay police blackmail, and he was railroaded to prison." Indignantly she went on: "If my father's shingle had been up in Wall Street, and he'd made fifty dishonest millions, you'd forget it next morning, and you'd welcome me with open arms. But he was unfortunate. Why, Billy Delmore was the best man in the world. He'd give away the last dollar he had to a friend. I wish to G.o.d he was alive now! He'd help to save your son. I wouldn't have to come here to ask you."

Mr. Jeffries shifted uneasily on his feet and looked away.

"You don't seem to understand," he said impatiently. "I've completely cut him off from the family. It's as if he were dead."

She approached nearer and laid her hand gently on the banker's arm.

"Don't say that, Mr. Jeffries. It's wicked to say that about your own son. He's a good boy at heart, and he's been so good to me. Ah, if you only knew how hard he's tried to get work I'm sure you'd change your opinion of him. Lately he's been drinking a little because he was disappointed in not getting anything to do. But he tried so hard. He walked the streets night and day. Once he even took a position as guard on the elevated road. Just think of it, Mr. Jeffries, your son--to such straits were we reduced--but he caught cold and had to give it up. I wanted to go to work and help him out. I always earned my living before I married him, but he wouldn't let me. You don't know what a good heart he's got. He's been weak and foolish, but you know he's only a boy."

She watched his face to see if her words were having any effect, but Mr.

Jeffries showed no sign of relenting. Sarcastically, he said:

"And you took advantage of the fact and married him?"

For a moment she made no reply. She felt the reproach was not unmerited, but why should they blame her for seeking happiness? Was she not ent.i.tled to it as much as any other woman? She had not married Howard for his social position or his money. In fact, she had been worse off since her marriage than she was before. She married him because she loved him, and because she thought she could redeem him, and she was ready to go through any amount of suffering to prove her disinterested devotion. Quietly, she said: