The Colossus Part 17

When she was gone he stood again at the window. The night was breathing hard. He spoke to himself with mock concern: "Two hours ago you were simply a fool, but now you are a scoundrel."

CHAPTER XV.

TOLD HIM HER STORY.

When he awoke the next morning his blood seemed to be clogged somewhere far from the seat of thought, and then it came with a leap that brought back the night before. "But I won't argue with you," he said, turning over. "Argue," he repeated. "Why, it's past argument now. I will simply do the best I can and let the worst take care of itself. But I do despise a vacillator, and I am one. The old man maybe right. Nature admires strength and never pities the weak. And what am I to do if I'm not to carry out my part of this programme? The trial is over," he said as he got up. "I am Henry Witherspoon."

He was busy in his room at the office when Brooks entered.

"Well, hard at it, I see."

"Yes. Sit down; I'll be through with this in a moment."

He sat himself back from the desk, and Brooks asked, "Can't you go out to lunch with me?"

"Isn't time yet."

"Hardly, that's so," Brooks admitted, looking at his watch. "I happened to have business in this neighborhood and thought I'd drop in. Say," he added in a lower tone, and nodding his head toward the door of the adjoining room, "who is she?"

"The literary reviewer."

"She's a stunner. What's her name?"

"Miss Drury."

"You might introduce me."

"She's busy."

"Probably she'd go to lunch with us."

"She refuses to go out with any one."

"Hasn't been here long, eh?" That was the floorwalker's idea. "Well, I must get back, if you can't go with me. So long."

Henry took a book into Miss Drury's room. "Here's something that was sent to me personally," said he, "but treat it as you think it deserves."

She looked up with a suggestion of a smile. "Are you willing to trust the reputation of your friends to me?" she asked.

"I am at least willing to let you take charge of their vanity."

"Oh, am I so good a keeper of vanity?"

"No, you are so gentle an exterminator of it."

"Thank you," she said, laughing. Her hair seemed ready to break from its fastenings, and she gave it those deft touches of security which are mysterious to man, but which a little girl practices on a doll.

"You have wonderful hair," he said.

And she answered: "I'm going to cut it off."

This is woman's almost invariable reply to such a compliment. Henry knew that she would say it, and she knew that she would not cut it off, and they both laughed.

"How did you happen to get into newspaper work?" he asked.

Her face became serious. "I had to do something," she answered, "and I couldn't do anything else. My mother was an invalid for ten years, and I nursed her, read to her day and night. Sometimes in the winter she couldn't sleep, and I would get up and amuse her by writing reviews of the books I had read. It was only play, but after she was dead I thought that I might make it earnest."

"And your father died when you were very young, I suppose."

She looked away, and with both hands she began to touch her hair again. "Yes," she said.

"Tell me about him."

"Why about him?"

"I don't know. Because you have told me about your mother, I suppose."

"And are you so much interested in me?" she asked, looking earnestly at him.

"Yes."

"I ought not to tell you, but I will. We lived in the country. My father was"--She looked about her and then at him. "My father was a drunkard, but my mother loved him devotedly. One day he went to the village, several miles away, and at evening he didn't come home, and my mother knew the cause. It was a cold, snowy night. Mother stood at the gate, holding a lantern. She wouldn't let me stand there with her, it was so cold, but I was on my knees in a chair at the window, and I could see her. She stood there so long, and it seemed so cruel that I should be in a warm room while she was out in the cold, that I slipped out and closed the door softly after me. I stood a short distance behind her, and I had not been standing there long when a horse, covered with snow, came stumbling out of the darkness. Mother called me, and I ran to her. We went down the road, holding the lantern first one side, then the other, that we might see into the corners of the fences. We found him lying dead in the road, covered with snow. Mother was never well after that night--but really I am neglecting my work."

He returned to his desk. The proof-sheets of a leading article were brought to him, but he sat gazing at naught that he could see.

"Are you done with those proofs?" some one asked.

"Take them away," he said, without looking up. He sat for a long time, musing, and then he shook himself, a habit which he had lately formed in trying to free himself from meditations that sought to possess him.

He went out to luncheon, and just as he was going into a restaurant some one spoke to him. It was old man Colton.

"My dear Mr. Witherspoon," said the old man, "come and have a bite to eat with me. Ah, come on, now; no excuse. Let's go this way. I know of a place that will just suit you. This way. I'm no hand for clubs--they bore me; they are newfangled."

The old man conducted him into a bas.e.m.e.nt restaurant not noticeable for cleanliness, but strong with a smell of mutton.

"Now, suppose we try a little broth," said the old man, when they had sat down. "Two bowls of mutton broth," he added, speaking to the waiter. "Ah," he went on, "you may talk about your dishes, but at noontime there is nothing that can touch broth. And besides," he added, in a whisper, "there's no robbery in broth. These restaurant fellows are skinners of the worst order. I'll tell you, my dear Mr.

Witherspoon, everything teaches us to practice economy. We must do it; it's the saving clause of life. Now, what could be better than this? Go back to work, and your head's clear. My dear Mr. Witherspoon, if I had been a spendthrift, I should not only be a pauper--I should have been dead long ago."

He continued to talk on the virtues of economy. "Won't you have some more broth?"

"No, thank you."

"Won't you have something else?" he asked, in a tone that implied extreme fear.