The Iron Woman Part 24

Robert Ferguson listened, frowning. "You'll give him money to spend in ways you don't approve of?"

She nodded sullenly. "I have to."

"You don't have to!" he broke out; "for G.o.d's sake, Mrs.

Maitland, _stop!_"

"What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean ... this isn't my business, but I can't see you--Mrs.

Maitland, if I get to talking on this subject, we'll quarrel."

The glare of anger in her face died out. She leaned back in her chair and looked at him. "I won't quarrel with you. Go on. Say what you think. I won't say I'll take your advice, but I'll listen to it."

"It's what I have always told you. You are squeezing the life out of Blair by giving him money. You've always done it, because it was the easy thing to do. Let up on him! Give him a chance. Let him earn his money, or go without. Talk about making him independent--you've made him as dependent as a baby! I don't know my Bible as well as you do, but there is a verse somewhere-- something about 'fullness of bread and abundance of idleness.'

That's what's the trouble with Blair. 'Fullness of bread and abundance of idleness.'"

"But he's been at college; he couldn't work while he was at college," she said, with honest bewilderment.

"Of course he couldn't. But why did you let him dawdle round at college, pretending to special, for a year after he graduated? Of course he _won't_ work so long as he doesn't have to. The boy wouldn't be human if he did! You never made him feel he had to get through and to go to work. You've given him everything he wanted, and you've exacted nothing in return; not scholars.h.i.+p, nor even decent behavior. He's gambled, and gone after women, and bought everything on earth he wanted--the only thing he knows how to do is to spend money! He has never done a hand's turn of work in his life. He is just as much a dead beat as any beggar who gets his living out of other people's pockets. That he gets it out of your pocket doesn't alter that; that he doesn't wear rags and knock at back doors doesn't alter it. He's a dead beat! Any man is, who takes and doesn't give anything in return. It's queer you can't see that, Mrs. Maitland."

She was silent.

"Why, look here: I've heard you say, many a time, that the best part of your life was when you had to work hardest. Isn't that so?" She nodded. "Then why in thunder won't you let Blair work?

Let him work, or go without!"

Again she did not speak.

"For Heaven's sake, give him a chance, before it's too late!"

Mrs. Maitland got up, and stood with her back to him, looking out of the smoke-grimed window. Presently she turned round. "Well, what would you do now--supposing he did buy the picture?"

"Tell him that he has overdrawn his allowance, and that if he wants the picture he must earn the money to pay for it. Say you'll advance it, if instead of going to Europe this summer he'll stay at home and go to work. Of course he can't earn five thousand dollars. I doubt if he can earn five thousand cents! But make up a job--just for this once; and help him out. I don't believe in made-up jobs, on principle; but they're better than nothing. If he won't work, darn the picture! It can be resold."

She blew her lips out in a bubbling sigh, and began to bite her forefinger. Robert Ferguson had said his say. He gathered his papers together and got on his feet.

"Mr. Ferguson ..." He waited, his hand on the k.n.o.b.

"Yes?"

"'Bliged to you. But for the present--"

"Very well," Robert Ferguson said shortly.

"Just put through the business of the picture. Hereafter--"

Ferguson shrugged his shoulders.

CHAPTER XV

After his first spasm of angry disgust, when he declared he would go East the next morning, Blair's fancy for "hanging round Mercer" hardened into purpose; but he did not "hang round" his mother's house. "The hotel is pretty bad," he told Nannie, "but it's better than _this_." So he took the most expensive suite in the big, dark old River House that in those days was Mercer's best hotel. Its blackened facade and the Doric columns of its entrance gave it a certain exterior dignity; and its interior comfort, combined with the reviving a.s.sociations of youth, lengthened Blair's two or three days to a week, then to a fortnight.

The day after that distressing interview with his mother, he went gaily round to Mrs. Richie's to pound David on the back, and say "Congratulations, old fellow! Why in thunder," he complained, "didn't I come back before? You've cut me out, you villain!"

David grinned.

"'Before the devil could come back, The angel had the inside track,'"

he admitted.

"Well, if you'll take my advice, you won't be too angelic," Blair said a little dryly. "She always had a touch of the other thing in her, you know."

"You think I'd better cultivate a few vices?" David inquired amiably; "I'm obliged for an example, anyhow!"

But Blair did not keep up the chaffing. The atmosphere of Mrs.

Richie's house dominated him as completely as when he was a boy.

He looked at her serene face, her simple, feminine parlor, the books and flowers and pictures,--and thought of his mother and his mother's house. Then, somehow, he was ashamed of his thoughts, because this dear lady said in her gentle way:

"How happy your mother must be to have you at home again, Blair.

You won't rush right off and leave us, will you?"

"Well," he hesitated, "of course I don't want to"--he was surprised at the ring of truth in his voice; "but I am going to paint this summer. I am going to be in one of the studios in Paris."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said simply. And Blair had an instant of uncertainty, although a moment before his "painting" had seemed to him necessary, because it facilitated another summer away from home; and after the interview with his mother's general manager, a summer away from home was more than ever desirable.

Mr. Ferguson had handed over the five thousand dollars, and then freed his mind. Blair listened. He heard that he was a sucker, that he was a poor stick, that he wasn't fit to black his mother's boots. "They need it," he said, chuckling; and Robert Ferguson nearly burst with anger!

Yet when the check was on its way to New York, and the picture had been s.h.i.+pped to Mercer, Blair still lingered at the River House. The idea of "renewing their youth" had appealed to all four friends. In the next two or three weeks they were constantly together at either one house or the other, or at some outside rendezvous arranged by Blair--a drive down to Willis's, a theater party and supper, a moonlight walk. Once David suggested "ice- cream at Mrs. Todd's." But this fell through; Blair said that even his sentimentality could not face the blue paper roses, and when David urged that the blue paper roses were part of the fun, Blair said, "Well, _I'll_ match you for it. All important decisions ought to be left to chance, to avoid the burden of responsibility!" A pitched penny favored Blair, and Mrs. Todd did not see the 'handsome couples.' It was at the end of the first week, when they were all dining with Mrs. Richie--the evening meal was beginning to be called dinner nowadays in Mercer; that Mrs. Richie's soft eyes, which took duty and energy and ability so sweetly and trustingly for granted,--Mrs. Richie's believing eyes did for Blair what Robert Ferguson's vociferating truthfulness had not been able to accomplish. It was after dinner, and she and Blair had gone into the little plant-room, where the air was sweet with hyacinths and the moist greenness of ferns.

"Blair," she said, putting her soft hand on his arm; "I want to say something. You won't mind?"

"Mind anything _you say? I should think not!"

"It is only that I want you to know that, when the time comes, I shall think it very fine in you, with your tastes and temperament, to buckle down at the Works. I shall admire you very much then, Blair."

He gave her a droll look. "Alas, dear Mrs. Richie," he began; but she interrupted him.

"Your mother will be so proud and happy when you get to work; and I wanted you to know that I, too--"

He took her hand from his arm and lifted it to his lips; there was a courtliness about Blair, and a certain gravity, which at moments gave him positive distinction. "If there is any good in me," he said, "you would bring it out." Then he smiled. "But probably there isn't any."

"Nonsense!" she cried, and hesitated; he saw that her leaf-brown eyes were wet. "You must make your life worth while, Blair. You must! It would be such a dreadful failure if you didn't do anything but enjoy yourself." He was keenly touched. He did not kiss her hand again; he just put his arm around her, as David might have done, and gave her a hug. "Mrs. Richie! I--I _will_ brace up!"

"You are a dear fellow," she said, and kissed him. Then they went back to the other three, to find Elizabeth in a gale of teasing merriment because, she said,. David was so "terribly talkative"!

"He has sat there like a b.u.mp on a log for fifteen minutes," she complained. "Say something, dummy!" she commanded.