The Triumph of Virginia Dale Part 51

"It doesn't make any difference how you do it. Kidnap her for all I care. What I want is to get her back," the mill owner stormed.

"Has it occurred to you, that in such matters care must be taken to avoid a serious rupture of those affectionate relations which, after all, are the basis of the home and the natural tie between a father and daughter?" Hezekiah suggested quietly.

Obadiah's face was swollen with pa.s.sion, his obstinacy written deep in it. "She must come home," he proclaimed. "I want her. I'm tired of living alone. You go and make her come back."

The smooth shaven countenance of the lawyer hardened. His usual good-humored expression melted into one of resolution as he said with great calmness, "I have thought, sometimes, Obadiah, that you fail to display a clear conception of an attorney's duties."

"What?"

"You don't appreciate the scope of my employment."

"What has that got to do with my daughter?"

"It has this. I do not conceive it my duty to force your daughter to return to your home against her wishes."

"You refuse to obey my instructions?" Obadiah almost screamed, throwing discretion to the winds in the tumult of his wrath.

"Yes, I refuse," answered the lawyer, leaping to his feet and talking down at his employer. "I refuse," he repeated in a voice in which pa.s.sion found no place, "as I have always refused when you would have seduced me into doing an unjust act. There are questions upon which fair minds may differ. Men of honor may argue for the side in which they believe or have been retained. From divers contentions, strongly maintained, comes the bright star of right, shining clear, in its purity, above the storm clouds of litigation. But, Your Hon--"

Hezekiah paused and began anew--"But, sir, there are fundamental questions involving moral law upon which right minded men must agree."

"What's this tirade got to do with me?" Obadiah demanded.

Hezekiah silenced the mill owner with a gesture of great dignity.

"Never interrupt counsel in the midst of argument," he protested, absently. "Undoubtedly you will be afforded ample time to present your own views." He paused, blinking nervously. The interruption had disturbed his train of thought, but in a moment he continued. "At stated periods, prudent merchants take trial balances and invoices that they may know the condition of their business. It is likewise well for men at times to take account of their relations with their a.s.sociates.

It is my purpose to do that now, Obadiah Dale." In Hezekiah's eyes was a far away look now. "It's nearly thirty years since I entered your employ--thirty years, Obadiah, the cream of my life. Its period of highest power I have given to you. My life must be judged by my accomplishments for you. You and I alone know what part my judgment has had in the development of your great business. As a young man, I liked you, Obadiah. I admired your energy and perseverance and that combativeness which made you give battle in open compet.i.tion for new fields of commercial activity. Success came to you in a measure permitted to but few, and the tremendous power of wealth accompanied it. Thoughts come to me of your wife, that fair rose of the Southland, who not only brought sunshine into your own house but spread it among all those who were privileged to know her. In her you were a twice blessed man. A daughter was born to you, the image of her mother, and so were you thrice blessed."

Hezekiah's face became stern. "I have tried to judge you fairly at the bar of my heart, Obadiah. Old friendship has pleaded for you.

Unhappiness over the loss of your wife may have swayed you. Yet, something tells me that you were always the man that you have been of late, concealing the evil in you that you might the better court success. At any rate, there has been a gradual outward change in you until here and now"--Hezekiah was very grave--"I impeach you before the high court of my heart for divers crimes and offenses, treasonable in their nature, against the good will and happiness of your fellowmen."

The prisoner at the bar gave a start, possibly remembering that the historical punishment for treason was the headsman's axe.

"You have hardened, Obadiah," the lawyer continued relentlessly, "until you have grown as icy cold as the winter hills of your native lands. You have become cruel and rapacious in your business dealings.

Of late years your commercial pathway is strewn with the wrecks of enterprises, which in no sense affected your own safety but which you have ruined through a sheer desire to dominate, a naked l.u.s.t for power.

Controlled by greed and avarice, no generous thought for your fellowmen actuates you. Steeped in your own selfishness, you sit in this room like--" shaking a forefinger at Obadiah the attorney hesitated, seeking a fitting condemnatory simile. Suddenly he concluded--"like a fat hog," and struck the desk of the alleged swine such a thump that the pork jumped.

"Your memory will tell you how many times I have blocked your devilish schemes by convincing you that, if persisted in, the anti-trust laws must land you behind prison bars."

Hezekiah in the pose of a stout statue of liberty, thrust up his right arm and clasped his left hand to his breast. He fixed accusing eyes upon the manufacturer and cried in a big voice, "If the world knew as much about you as I do, I am not so sure but they'd incarcerate you under the first law of nature--self-preservation."

"Hush!" Obadiah paled visibly and with great nervousness viewed the open transom.

Hezekiah leveled an arraigning hand at his employer. "Your actions should be such that you could rest in equanimity while they are cried aloud in the market places. The hour of reckoning is at hand, Obadiah.

You believe yourself invincible. Blinded by a curtain of obstinacy you have not read your destiny. I tear it aside and expose your dark future. Your daughter, beautiful and affectionate, filled, as was her mother, with thoughts of others, discovers your true character and, turning from you, prefers the peace of a good conscience amidst humbler surroundings to a home of wealth in your company. She leaves you--alone."

Obadiah winced.

Hezekiah returned to his task with renewed vigor. "This morning your personal staff--men who have been with you for years--separate from you.

I have no hesitation in a.s.suming that they departed rankling beneath injustice. They leave you--alone. Now your attorney"--Hezekiah's voice was filled with feeling--"your adviser for years, tenders his resignation rather than to be a party to enforcing your selfish demands against your own daughter. He leaves you--alone."

Stunned by this unexpected shot, Obadiah appeared to shrink in his chair.

Highly pleased at the effect and sound of his own words, Hezekiah seized upon the order of the Board of Health and, shaking it in the face of the mill owner, waxed ever more eloquent. Floating away upon the wings of his own fervid oratory, he continued in ringing tones.

"The keen eye of this great Commonwealth has found you out. Now does its strong right arm, the law, reach forth to protect the weak and restrain the strong. In ardent pursuit of evil it draws ever nearer and nearer, until at last it embraces even the waste--"

Hezekiah stopped short. A look of horror, loathing and disgust swept his countenance. He was inexpressibly shocked at the extraordinary conclusion to which his simile hastened.

To Obadiah, the repugnance in Hezekiah's face depicted antipathy towards himself. For years the attorney had been the manufacturer's one friend.

He had admired the lawyer's learning and leaned upon his judgment. For years he had known that words were playthings in his legal adviser's mouth; but that look was too much. The aversion and detestation displayed crushed the mill owner. Humbled to the dust he reviewed the calamities which Hezekiah had so ably painted. With due allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, they frightened him. He must save Hezekiah to pilot him through the darkness.

Sick and weary and miserable but above all else lonely, Obadiah arose from his desk and confronted the lawyer. "Hezekiah, you will not leave me?" he begged, in pitiful humiliation, his anger gone.

The placid Hezekiah was shaken to the depths of his soul at the catastrophe which had befallen him. Vain of his oratorical ability, he regarded his address to Obadiah as a worthy effort until his final bull. Such slips are remembered by one's professional brethren until the end of one's life. He took his grievance out on the abased Obadiah.

"I'm tired," he growled, "tired of your greed and selfishness, tired of your confounded pigheadedness and the continual sc.r.a.p in which you live. You're old, Obadiah. I bet you ten dollars that the hea.r.s.e is in use which will haul you to the cemetery."

Obadiah shuddered and displayed no disposition to take the wager.

Hezekiah went on testily. "You worry about money until every one hates and despises you. It's bad for my reputation to work for you--to be caught in your company. I have saved enough to keep me comfortable until I die and I'm going to take it easy. I want to quit fighting law suits and go to compromising." A glint of his usual humor flashed in Hezekiah's eyes. "If you'd let me compromise your cases, I might stay."

Obadiah made a quick motion as of consent.

Hezekiah viewed his shaking employer with great severity. "You must prove your conversion by your works," he rapped. "You've got to show me."

"What should I do, Hezekiah?" the manufacturer, looking helpless and old, begged. "Give me the benefit of your advice."

"Do?" snapped Hezekiah petulantly. "Decide how you think a thing ought to be done and do the opposite. You're always wrong."

"Please be specific, Hezekiah."

At the word "please," the lawyer started in surprise. In a moment he growled, "Compromise. Learn to consider the rights and wishes of other people. The compromise is a most valuable instrument in bringing about domestic happiness," and with this sage advice, Hezekiah, the bachelor, left his employer.

Stricken low by physical disorder and verbal a.s.saults, it was a day of gloomy forebodings to Obadiah. After Hezekiah's oration, the path ahead, usually certain and clear to him, seemed beset with obstacles and lined with eyes of hatred.

When he went home that night there seemed to be a stoop in his usually erect carriage and a deep anxiety dwelt in his eyes. Hardly touching his dinner, he sat through it, in his dining room, plunged in thought.

Serena marked the change in the behavior of her employer with great interest. Returning to the kitchen, she told Ike, "Mr. Devil done sna'ah dat ole man wid er bait o' shinin' gol'. Now he gwine hawg tie 'im wid hot chains outen de fu'nace o' to'ment so dat he kin tote 'im to de aige o' de bottomless pit an' cas' 'im into de fiah an' brimstone. Dat ole man is er strivin' mighty fie'ce to git loose. He's er gnawin' off er leg to git outen de sn'ah, as de hot i'on burns 'im an' de brimstone smoke choke 'im."

The chauffeur, being for the moment in high favor, was enjoying a piece of pie as a fitting appetizer for his later dinner. "He ain' lif' up his voice in prah or mek no sign er tall," responded the youth, giving close attention to the pastry and but little heed to the demoniacal trapping going on in the neighborhood.

"Dey's er fightin' ete'nally, boy," explained Serena with scorn.

Ike rolled his eyes, exposing large areas of white until they rested upon the woman. "Ain' you mek er mistake, Miss Sereny?" he suggested respectfully. "Ain' you mean infe'nally?"

"Look yere, boy," she retorted with great dignity, "ah ain' er astin' no trash lak yo'all to teach me nothin'. Ah gits ma 'ligion f'om de good book in de chu'ch house. Min' you' own business."

Obadiah retired early and again tossed backwards and forwards through long hours. Hezekiah had indeed torn aside a concealing veil from the manufacturer's life. Obadiah was not a man given to introspection, but, for the first time in years, the words of his attorney had forced it upon him. Tonight his boasted accomplishments were nothing, while episodes which he would have gladly forgotten loomed large. Above all else a great loneliness and fear of the future crushed him.