The Landloper Part 36

Converse."

"But you ought to understand my temperament better--you ought to know it's going to stick in my mind, worry me, vex me, set me to seeking for remedies. It's just as if I'd been retained on a case. I feel almost duty-bound to pitch in."

"It's strange how a man gets pulled into a thing sometimes--into something he had no idea of meddling with," philosophized Farr, blandly.

"That's the way it has happened in my case."

"It has, eh?" demanded Mr. Converse, sharply. He had tacitly accepted the young man's companions.h.i.+p for the walk back to the Boulevard. "Now, look here! Just who are you?"

"My name is Farr and I'm nothing."

"You needn't bluff me--you're a politician--a candidate for something."

"I'm not even a voter in this state. It's men like you, sir, who ought to be candidates for the high offices."

"My sainted father trained me to respect self-sacrifice, Mr. Farr. But for a clean man to try to accomplish things for the people in politics these days isn't self-sacrifice--it's martyrdom. The cheap politicians heap the f.a.gots, the sneering newspapers light the fire and keep blowing it with their bellows, and the people stand around and seem to show a sort of calm relish in watching the operation. And when it is all over not a bit of good has been done."

"I'm afraid I have wasted an evening for you, sir. I'm sorry. I hoped the troubles of those men, when you heard them at first hand, would interest you."

"Interest me! Confound it all, you have wrecked my peace of mind! I knew it all before. But I'm selfish, like almost everybody else. I kept away where I couldn't hear about these things. Now, if I sleep soundly to-night I'll be ashamed to look up at my father's portrait when I walk into my office to-morrow morning. Why didn't you have better sense than to coax me into your infernal meeting?" He rapped his cane angrily against the curbstone as he strode on. "And the trouble with me is,"

continued Mr. Converse, with much bitterness, "I know the conditions are such in this state that a meeting like that can be a.s.sembled in every city and town--and the complaints will be just and demand help.

But there's no organization--it's only blind kittens miauling. It's d.a.m.nable!"

"But this is the kind of country where some mighty quick changes can be made when the people do get their eyes open," suggested the young man.

Mr. Converse merely grunted, tapping his cane more viciously.

They were on the frontier of the Eleventh Ward now. The brighter lights of the avenues of up-town blazed before them.

"Then you will not go into politics?" inquired Farr.

"I'd sooner sail for India with a cargo of hymn-books and give singing-lessons to Bengal tigers."

"Good night, sir," said Farr. He halted on the street corner which marked the boundary of the ward.

"Good night, sir!" replied Mr. Converse, striding on.

The young man watched him out of sight. He heard the angry clack of the cane on the stones long after the Honorable Archer Converse had turned the next corner.

"Maxim in the case of a true gentleman," mused Farr: "tap his conscience on the shoulder, point your finger at the enemy, say nothing, simply stand back and give conscience plenty of elbow-room--it needs no help.

There, by the grace of G.o.d, goes the next governor of this state."

XX

CONSIDERATION: ONE DAUGHTER

On the morning following his discomfiture Richard Dodd posted himself in a little tobacco-shop opposite the Trelawny Apartment-house. Lurking behind cigar-boxes in the window, he held the door of the house under surly espionage. It was plain to the shopkeeper that "the gent had made a night of it." Dodd's eyes were heavy, his face was flushed, and he lighted one cigarette after another with shaky hands.

Shortly before nine o'clock Kate Kilgour came out and walked down the avenue on the way to her work. Dodd stared after her until she was out of sight. Shame and anger and desire mingled in the steady gaze he leveled on her; in her crisp freshness she represented both the longed-for and the unattainable. He was conscious of a new sentiment in regard to her. In the past his impatience had been tempered by the comforting knowledge that she had promised herself to him--that she was his to own, to possess after a bit of tantalizing procrastination. Now he was not at all sure of her. He had been just a bit patronizing in the past--his successes with women had inflated his conceit--he had exhibited a rather careless air of proprietors.h.i.+p--his manner had said to her and to others, "This is mine; look at it!" But now when he had watched her out of sight jealousy, anger, the sour conviction that he had forfeited her regard combined to make him desperate, and the excesses of the night before kindled a flame which heated all his evil pa.s.sions.

He threw away his cigarette, cursed roundly aloud, and hurried across the street into the Trelawny.

When Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to her suite she clung to the door-casing, exhibiting much trepidation.

He stepped in, closed the door, and put his back against it.

"Have you got those hysterics out of you so that you can listen to me and then talk sense?" he demanded, coa.r.s.ely.

She went into her sitting-room and he followed, muttering:

"No wonder you ran away from me last night--no wonder you didn't have the face to stay and take what you deserve. How in tophet I ever allowed you to plan and manage I can't understand."

"You asked me to," she faltered.

"I didn't ask you to rig up a dirty conspiracy to queer me."

"Richard, you are not yourself. You have been drinking!" She tried to exhibit protesting indignation and failed. "Come to me when you are yourself."

"There's no more of this to-morrow business goes with me, Mrs. Kilgour.

I'll admit that you're Kate's mother. But just now you are something else. You have tried to do me, and n.o.body gets by with that stuff--man, woman, or child. We'll have our settlement here and now."

"I did the best I could," she wailed.

"Out of what d.a.m.nation novel did you get that idea?" he raged.

"It seemed to be a good plan, Richard. I swear by everything sacred I thought it would come out all right. Don't rave at me." Her voice sunk to an appealing whisper. She picked up a book from her table. "If you will only listen--"

"So you did get it out of a novel! My G.o.d! what have your fool ideas done to me?"

"How do you dare to talk to Kate's mother like that?"

"I am not talking to Kate's mother, I tell you! I'm talking to a woman who has put me into a h.e.l.l on earth. I'm talking to you, Mrs. Kilgour, and you don't know the whole story yet."

"All my life it has been the same--only trouble and sorrow and to be misunderstood." She began to sob.

"Is there anything in that novel about ringing in an iceman to break up a marriage? I say it was all a conspiracy. You didn't intend to be square. You intended to rig a scheme so that you could duck out from under. You have always done that, Mrs. Kilgour."

"I had nothing to do with that man coming in."

"Don't try to fool me any more. You told me to come, didn't you? You must have told some yarn to your daughter to have her come."

"I did--it was all--"

"And then you told that plug-ugly to come in, too, and break it up so as to queer me. Why did I ever fall for such lunacy? If I hadn't been desperate I would never have let you drag me into such a devilish scheme. But now you have got to do your part to square me. It's going to be straight talk from now on, Mrs. Kilgour. There must be a settlement between us."

She looked away from him. She was plainly searching her soul for excuses to postpone that settlement.