The Landloper Part 28

He crushed back with his lips all her protests; standing over her, he held her upon the piano-bench until by main strength and with all the force of her resentment she tore away from him.

"And now you are going to blame me because I can't help it," he gasped.

"I don't in the least understand why normal persons can find any pleasure in that kind of folly."

"Is your idea of loving anybody rubbing noses like Eskimos?"

"I'd endure that kind of loving in preference to that kind of kissing, Richard. That isn't love which you're offering--not the kind of love I want. I am going out for my walk--you filched it from me. No, I'm going alone. Go and talk with mamma, if you like."

She escaped the clutch he made and hurried out and to the elevator.

Flushed and angry, Dodd made his way to an inner room where Mrs. Kilgour was reading a novel, sunning herself with feline indolence. She put the book by with evident regret.

"Oh, Kate, has so much poise!" she lamented, breaking in on the young man's complaints. "She is so like her father. No one except myself could do anything with him at all. Sometime it was very hard for me! He would set his mind and his teeth! But I always won in the end."

"Well, go ahead and win now," commanded the surly lover. "You are simply letting this thing run along."

"I know Kate's nature, Richard. It's only a matter of the right time."

He sat down at her feet on the end of the couch.

"The time is here--now!" he told her. "I insist that you make Kate understand. I have been patient and reasonable for a year. You have promised me that you will bring everything around all right. Why don't you do it?"

"But delivering a daughter into marriage isn't like delivering groceries on order!" Her tone showed a bit of impatience. "Be reasonable!"

"I don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings, but we must get down to cases. I'm not asking you to deliver anything to me except what was promised long ago--promised by Kate herself. And you know what you said when I loaned you five thousand dollars to help you save those stocks. Excuse me, Mother Kilgour, but I can't always control my nature; I've been in the game with the bunch for a long time and I'm naturally suspicious--I have seen a good many chaps trimmed, and I don't propose to have anything put over on me."

"You are insolent and cruel," she cried, her cheeks pale.

"I don't mean you--I believe you want to help me. But it's time to be up and doing. She doesn't give me one good reason why she will not be married right away. It's only jolly and putting it off."

"But you are twitting me about the service you have done me! I am not selling my daughter!"

"That isn't it at all! But you must agree that I have been good to you. I want you to be a friend to me. But I don't get anything that's definite. If this thing drags on and on the first thing I know some fellow will come along and she'll fall for him. That's the girl nature!"

"You are talking about my daughter, Richard! She has her father's disposition and she is true blue. She has given her promise and she will keep it."

"When?" he demanded, curtly.

"I can't drive her."

"You said you could," he insisted. "You said a year ago when I advanced that money that you knew just how to handle her."

"Are you going to keep twitting me about that money?"

"No; only I'm going to say that you haven't even told me about what stocks you were protecting. You haven't said anything about repaying the loan, Mother Kilgour. It has been a sort of general stand-off all around for me. Hold on! I'm not making a holler! But I like to be taken in right. I'm a Dodd, and I can't help playing to protect myself."

"It will come around all right, Richard. You don't know Kate as I do.

I understand her because I understood her father. She is rather self-centered. But she is romantic underneath! But you know you're so sort--sort of--well, just a business man--so matter-of-fact. A girl like Kate needs to be stirred--her poise shaken--something like that!"

"Lochinvar business, eh?" he sneered.

"It must be something a little bit out of the ordinary to hurry her, Richard. Go away, please. Let me think. I have an idea. I must spend a little time on it."

"How much time?"

"Oh, I don't know just how much. Be patient."

"Mrs. Kilgour, if this thing cannot be put through by you I want you to say so. I'm at the end of that patience you're appealing to. I won't be fooled."

"You don't need to say that you're Colonel Dodd's nephew," she retorted.

"You have all the family traits."

"Well, there's one I haven't got: I loaned you five thousand dollars without taking security--and that's the act of a good friend. Excuse me, but I've got to speak of it--you need a little reminder. Four days from now I'll have my marriage license from the city clerk. And when I have it in my hands I shall come to you and shall expect that you'll do your part."

"I will," she said.

"How? I want plain statements from now on."

"I will write you a letter to-morrow," she faltered. "I will give you directions what to do. You'd better not come here till--till I have it all arranged. You know what they say about absence!"

"I know what they say about a good many things. But I want something besides say-so."

"I will tell you in my letter what to do. Then you follow instructions."

"I don't like to go into a thing blind. What is the plan?"

"Oh, if I tell you all about it you'll go and do something to spoil it,"

she protested, impatiently. "A woman knows about such matters better than a man does. I will write to you at the State House. Now be patient!"

"I'll be going before you preach any more patience to me," he said, sourly. "I might be provoked into saying something you won't like."

After he had gone she rose and touched up her cheeks.

"The fool! They are all alike," she muttered, viciously. "They pay. They never forget they have paid. Then they stand with their hand out--and just remember that they have paid. I am glad I bought this novel," she added, taking the book from the couch and settling herself to read. "The woman who wrote it must have known human nature. If the plan worked in the case of the girl she writes about it ought to work in the case of Kate. If it doesn't it will be his fault because he has hurried me so. A poor, persecuted woman can't do everything."

And she applied herself to her recently discovered manual of procedure in the case of stubbornness in a maid.

XVI

FARR HAS A VISION AND CLOSES HIS LIPS

Walker Farr put aside papers upon which he had been working since he had eaten his modest supper, and pulled on his coat and went forth into the evening. He strolled up one of the streets in the Eleventh Ward of Marion, manifestly glad to be out among the people.

He stopped at the curb and hailed the driver of a truck-wagon which was loaded down with kegs and jugs.