The Vehement Flame Part 20

Maurice sat down, cleared his throat, and put his hands in his pockets so they would not betray him. "I--" he said.

Mr. Houghton appeared absorbed in biting off the end of his cigar.

"I--" Maurice said again.

"Maurice," said Henry Houghton, "keep the peace. If you and Eleanor have fallen out, don't stand on your dignity. Go upstairs and say you're sorry, whether you are or not. Don't talk about lawyers."

"My G.o.d!" said Maurice; "did you suppose it was _that_?"

Mr. Houghton stopped biting the end of his cigar, and looked at him.

"Why, yes; I did. You and she are rather foolish, you know. So I supposed--"

Maurice dropped his face on his arms on the big dusty table, littered with pamphlets and charcoal studies and squeezed-out paint tubes. After a while he lifted his head: "_That's_ nothing. I wish it was that."

The older man rose and stood with his back to the mantelpiece. They both heard the clock ticking loudly. Then, almost in a whisper, Maurice said:

"I've been--blackmailed."

Mr. Houghton whistled.

"I've had a letter from a woman. She says--"

"Has she got anything on you?"

"No proof; but--"

"But you have made a fool of yourself?"

"Yes."

Mr. Houghton sat down again. "Go on," he said.

Maurice reached for a maulstick lying across the table; then leaned over, his elbows on his knees, and tried, with two trembling forefingers, to make it stand upright on the floor. "She's common. She can't prove it's--mine." His effort to keep the stick vertical with those two shaking fingers was agonizing.

"Begin at the beginning," Henry Houghton said.

Maurice let the maulstick drop against his shoulder and sunk his head on his hands. Suddenly he sat up: "What's the use of lying? She's _not_ bad all through." The truth seemed to tear him as he uttered it. "That's the worst of it," he groaned. "If she was, I'd know what to do. But probably she's not lying... She says it's mine. Yes; I pretty well know she's not lying."

"We'll go on the supposition that she is. I have yet to see a white crow. How much does she want?"

"She's only asked me to help her, when--it's born. And of course, if it _is_ mine, I--"

"We won't concede the 'if.'"

"Uncle Henry," said the haggard boy, "I'm several kinds of a fool, but I'm not a skunk. I've got to be decent"

"You should have thought of decency sooner."

"I know. I know."

"You'd better tell me the whole thing. Then we'll talk lawyers."

So Maurice began the squalid story. Twice he stopped, choking down excuses that laid the blame on Eleanor.... "It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been--been bothered." And again, "Something had thrown me off the track; and I met Lily, and--"

At last it was all said, and he had not skulked behind his wife. He had told everything, except those explaining things that could not be told.

When the story was ended there was silence. The older man, guessing the untold things, could not trust himself to speak his pity and anger and dismay. But in that moment of silence the comfort of confession made the tears stand in the boy's eyes; he said, impulsively, "Uncle Henry, I thought you'd kick me out of the house!"

Henry Houghton blew his nose, and spoke with husky harshness. "Eleanor has no suspicions?" (He, too, was choking down references to Eleanor which must not be spoken.)

"No. Do you think I ought to--to tell--?"

"No! No! With some women you could make a clean breast... I know a woman--her husband hadn't a secret from her; and I know _he_ was a fool before his marriage! He made a clean breast of it, and she married him.

But she knew the soul of him, you see? She knew that this sort of rotten foolishness was only his body. So he worshiped her. Naturally. Properly.

She meant G.o.d to him... Mighty few women like that! Candidly, I don't think your wife is one of them. Besides, this is _after_ marriage.

That's different, Maurice. Very different. It isn't a square deal."

Maurice made a miserable shamed sound of agreement. Then he said, huskily, "Of course I won't lie; I'll just--not tell her."

"The thing for us to do," said Mr. Houghton, "is to get you out of this mess. Then you'll keep straight? Some fellows wouldn't. You will, because--" he paused; Maurice looked at him with scared eyes--"because if a man is sufficiently aware of having been a d.a.m.ned fool, he's immune. I'll bet on you, Maurice."

CHAPTER XII

Yet Henry Houghton had moments of fearing that he would lose his bet, for Maurice was such a very d.a.m.ned fool! One might have guessed as much when he would not admit that Lily was lying. She might be blackmailing him, he said; she might be a "crow"; but she wasn't lying. When his guardian had talked it all out with him, and written a letter which Maurice was to take to a lawyer ("she'll want to get rid of the child; they always want to get rid of the child; so she may let you off easier if you say you'll see that it is cared for; and we'll have Hayes put it in black and white") when all these arrangements had been made, Maurice almost dished the whole thing (so Mr. Houghton expressed it) by saying--again as if the words burst up from some choked well of truthfulness:

"Uncle Henry, it isn't blackmail; and--and I've got to be half decent!"

Down from the upper hall came a sweet, anxious voice: "Maurice, darling!

It's twelve o'clock! What _are_ you doing?"

Mr. Houghton called back: "We're talking business, Eleanor. I'll send him up in a quarter of an hour. Don't lose your beauty sleep, my dear.

(Mary _must_ tell her not to be such an idiot!)" Then he looked at Maurice: "My boy, you can't be decent with a leech. You've got to leave this to Hayes."

"She isn't a leech. I ought to help her, I'll see her myself."

"My dear fellow, don't be a bigger a.s.s than you can help! You can meet what you see fit to call your responsibilities, as a few other conscientious fools have done before you; though," he added, heavily, "I hope she won't suck you dry! How you are going to squeeze out the money, _I_ don't know! I can't help you much. But you mustn't appear in this for a single minute. Hayes will see her, and buy her off."

Maurice shook his head, despairingly: "Uncle Henry, she's common; but she's not vicious. She's a nice little thing. I know Lily! I'll see her.

_I'll have to!_ I'll tell her I'll--I'll help her." No wonder poor Henry Houghton feared he would lose his bet! "I know you think I'm easy meat,"

Maurice said; "but I'm not. Only," his face was anguished, "I've _got_ to be half decent."

It was after one o'clock when the two men went upstairs, though there had been another summons over the banisters: "Maurice! Why don't you come to bed?" When they parted at Maurice's door, Mr. Houghton struck his ward on the shoulder and whispered, "You're more than half decent.

I'll bet on you!" and Maurice whispered back:

"You're _white_, Uncle Henry!"