The Wayfarers Part 21

"Mother!" expostulated Miss Bertha.

"Well, my dear, I don't see why you speak to me like that. I'm not in my second childhood yet! I don't know why he couldn't get a swelled hand from dancing; some of these young girls are so athletic, they grip your fingers like a vise-I know _I_ find it very unpleasant. Don't you remember-no, of course you don't, but I do-how poor General Grant's hand was puffed out to twice its size from people shaking it? The picture of it was in all the papers at the time."

"I don't think William danced much," said Ada.

Mrs. Snow pursed her pale lips and shook her small, neat head.

"All I know is that he was quite worn out; he slept so heavily that he never heard me at all when I rattled at his door-k.n.o.b and called to him at three o'clock this morning that I thought I heard some one on the porch below his window. It's very odd-I've heard it before. I don't think it's cats, and I'm so afraid of tramps."

The statuesque Ada looked up with a swiftly startled expression.

"There are always tramps around," said Mrs. Willetts.

"Yes, I know it, and it worries me to have William out so late alone.

William is nothing but a child, though he is so tall," said Mrs. Snow.

"Of course, last night his sisters were with him." She paused before harking back to the appetizing theme. "They say Miss Linden is still staying at the Leverichs'. I shouldn't think she'd stay there an hour longer than she could help. They say Mrs. Alexander refused to have her back again at first-did you hear that? They say--"

And in Dosia's room, where she lay alone, the long, silent day wore on; the gray clouds shifted, shifted above. What had happened? Nothing-and everything.

If Leverich was to keep his word about Lawson, the preparations for his departure must be speedy. They also took money. Leverich could contract for any amount of expenditure to be paid in the future by large drafts, but to hand over five hundred on the minute in cash was at certain times and hours an irritatingly difficult procedure. He cursed the necessity now, with a fervor born of the disastrous ball, and the late hours, and the further fact that stocks had gone down suddenly and he was out on a deal. The gray clouds meant also, in the city, clouds of dust, which the raw wind swept smartingly into his eyes every time he had occasion to go out. As he was getting ready at last to go home with the purchased tickets, he looked up and saw Justin coming in. Leverich nodded to the other's greeting, but did not otherwise return it.

"I won't ask you to sit down," he said curtly; "I want to catch the four-o'clock train out. How are you getting on? All right?"

"All wrong."

"What's the matter?"

"This," said Justin, with a white light in his eyes, and holding out a letter which the other took half reluctantly, relapsing mechanically into the chair by his desk, while Justin dropped straddle-legged into another opposite, his face looking over the back of it, around which his arms were clasped. He went on talking, while the other slowly unfolded the paper and looked at the heading.

"You remember those first big consignments we sent out after the fire?

Well, the whole output was rotten!"

"Great heavens!" said the other, sitting up straight, with his eyes stuck to the lines. "Are you sure it's as this says?"

"Sure? It's the sixth letter of the kind we've had in ten days; three came in this morning's mail. The packing-room is full now of returned machines-what we'll do with the rest I don't know. A couple of firms want the instruments duplicated; the rest want their money back. We talked big at first, thought it was a mistake-that's why I didn't speak of it to you-but it's no mistake; the whole output's rotten. The bars are rusted and bent, so that everything's out of gear; it would cost more to repair the machines than to make new ones."

"Were the bars those you got from Cater?" asked Leverich.

"Yes."

Leverich whistled.

"It's no fault of his, those he used were all right."

Bullen says they must have been a fraction off size for us, and that did the business. Heaven only knows how many more letters we'll get! I don't see how we're to pay up and get out of it, as it is."

"Yes," said Leverich, throwing the letter down on the desk, drumming on it with the ends of his fingers. Then he shrugged his big shoulders as if shunting the burden from them as he rose. "Well, I must go. Sorry I can't help you out, but Martin's away now. By the way, when you can pay up on that interest, we'll be glad to have it. We've been going pretty easy with you, you know, but it can't last forever; we've got to have our money, as well as other people." He had not meant to say anything of the kind, but the bad news and the inferred appeal had accented the irritation of the day.

"Oh, certainly," said Justin, with a swift gleam in his blue eyes, and a pride that could be large enough to make contemptuous allowance for a little meanness in the man from whom he had received benefits. He had counted on Leverich's ready help in this trouble, but there was more between the two men than the money-from the first moment of meeting this afternoon, Dosia's name, unspoken, had correlated in each a little hidden spring of antagonism. One of Justin's womenkind had misused Leverich's hospitality; both resented the fact and her enforced departure. How many business situations have been made or marred by domestic happenings, no history of finance will ever tell.

And still the long day wore on in Dosia's silent room.

The preparations for Lawson's going were all made before the nightfall that was to cover his exit. His trunk had gone; his coat and hat and hand-luggage were stacked conveniently together on a chair in the empty, cleared-out room.

"And this is the last money you'll ever get from me," Leverich said, counting out the bills on the table by which Lawson sat uneasily, his head and part of his swollen, discolored face bandaged, his dark eyes glancing furtively from under their heavy lids. "There are your tickets, they'll carry you through. Peters will be at the door with the carriage at nine to take you to the train here, and James will go over with you to the terminal and put you on the sleeper. You can't get out too fast for me."

"It's kind of you to kick a fellow when he's down," said Lawson sardonically.

"It's a pretty expensive kick," returned Leverich grimly, "but it's the last. You'll never get a cent more from me, nor from Myra either, if I know it."

"Oh, very well," said Lawson indifferently. But when his sister came in afterwards alone, he cut her words short; through all her plaintive farewell complainings there was a manifestly cheerful prevision of relief when he should be gone.

"I've had enough of this-don't come in here again. He says you're to send me no money, but you're to send me all I want-you hear?"

"Oh, Lawson!"

"You know why you'd better." He fixed his eye on her threateningly, and the full color blanched suddenly from her face.

"Yes, yes, I will." She made an effort to recover herself. "If you realized how used up I am over all this--"

"Don't come in here again!" His rising voice, the glance he shot at her, sent her flying from the room-it was as if some crouching animal were about to leap a barrier between them.

The shifting gray clouds were darkening now into a solid ma.s.s, the eerie wind that had sprung up whined fitfully around the corners of the house, as he sat there waiting. After a while the door opened and shut; there was a soft, rustling noise. Lawson looked up, and saw Dosia against that background of the darkening sky. She was in a white silken gown, given her by Mrs. Leverich, that fell in straight folds from her waist to her feet. She had been in white the night of the ball. But her face! He put his hand involuntarily across his eyes. So pinched, so wan, so small, so piteously changed that face, he did well to hide the sight of it from him. Only her eyes-those eyes that were the mirrors of Dosia's soul-showed that she still lived; in them was a steadfastness and a purpose won from death.

She came straight toward him, though with a slow and languid step, dragging a low chair forward to a place by his. His rough appearance, so different from his usual carelessly well-cared-for aspect, sent a momentary spasm over her pinched face, but that was all. She dropped into the chair as one who found it difficult to stand, saying after a moment's silence, in a childlike voice:

"Please take your hand down from your eyes; please don't mind looking at me."

He dropped the hand heavily on the table, with some inarticulate protest.

"Please don't mind looking at me. I want to say-I came here to say-it is all wrong to act as if everything were all your fault, as if you were all to blame. I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, all day long. If I had done what was right, none of this would have happened. It was my fault too."

"No!" said Lawson roughly.

"Yes." She stopped, and repeated solemnly: "It was my fault too. They are sending you away now because-because you had been making love to me. But I let you"-her locked fingers twisted and untwisted as she talked-"I _wanted_ you to, when I knew it was wrong, when I didn't really love you. That was why you couldn't respect me. If I had been quite high and good, you would not have-none of this would have happened."

"Oh!" said Lawson; the old bitter, mocking smile flickered back to his lips. "Really, don't you think you're setting too much value even on _your_ influence? I a.s.sure you, you can have quite a clear conscience in that regard."

She went on, with no attention to what he had been saying beyond the fact that her pale cheek seemed to whiten and her gaze was fixed the more solemnly on his.

"I couldn't be satisfied until I had thought out the truth. There is nothing that satisfies but the truth." Her voice sank to a whisper. "If it cuts your heart in two, you've got to bear it-and be glad-because it's the truth. I know now that, after all, I didn't help you; I _hindered_. That's all the more reason for me to stand by you now. And I came to say,"-she took his hand and laid her cold cheek upon it,-"if you go away-take me with you! I have enough money to go too. If you have to work, I'll work; if you are hungry, I'll be hungry. There is no one to love you but me, and I _will_. I said I would believe in you, and I will believe in you-as I promised-always."

"My G.o.d!" said Lawson. He tore his hand from her, and flung his head upon his folded arms on the table, breaking into great, voiceless sobs that shook him from head to foot. Half-inarticulate words fell from him: "Don't touch me-don't come near me!" At last he turned, and, gathering up a fold of her gown, kissed it again and again. His pa.s.sion raised a faint stir of the old thrill that came from she knew not where, except that his presence inevitably called it forth.

"For this once you may believe in me," he said. "Look at me!" His gaze, burning with an inner scorn, rested on hers. "You are the dearest, the loveliest-" His voice broke once more, he had to wait before he could regain it. "If I were to let you sink your life with mine, I'd deserve to be hung. I've let you talk as if you could help me. Well, you can't, and I'll tell you why-I'll clear your conscience of me forever. Down at the bottom of it all, I don't want to be helped. I don't want to be made better. I don't want to live a different life! There are moments when I've deceived myself as well as you, but it was all rot. It's not that I'm not fit for you,-no man's that!-but I'm made so that I'd rather go to the devil than _be_ fit for you. The more you cared for me, the more I'd drag you down. That's the whole brutal truth. The one saving grace I own is that I tell it to you now."

"Ah, no, no!" said Dosia, with a cry. "It can't be so." She turned her head from side to side, as one looking for succor; her composure was failing her, after so many cruel knife-thrusts in her already bleeding heart-she yearned over him with a compa.s.sion and longing too great to bear.