The Desired Woman Part 17

"No--not yet." Marie choked up. "The firm has an idea that his friends may help him restore the money, and they won't prosecute if he can make the loss good. He has been hoping to get help out there among his wife's people, but has failed. The time is nearly up--only two days left, and I--My G.o.d, do you think I can live after that boy is put in jail? It has made a fiend of me, for if I hadn't taken up with you I would have gone to Texas with him and it might not have happened. There is a streak of bad blood in our family. My father was none too good. He was like you, able to dodge the law, that's all. But poor Hal didn't cover his tracks."

"Stop, Marie!" Mostyn demanded, in rising anger. "What do you mean by mentioning _me_ in that sort of connection?"

"Humph! What do I mean? Well, I mean that men say--oh, I've heard them talk! I don't have to tell you who said it, but I have heard them say if you hadn't broken old Mr. Henderson all to pieces several years ago you'd never have been where you are to-day."

"You don't understand that, Marie," Mostyn answered, impatiently.

"Henderson took it to court, and the decision was--"

"Oh, I know!" She tossed her head. "Your lawyers pulled you through for a rake-off, and the Henderson girls went to work. They live in a shabby little four-room house not far from here. I often see them at the wash-tub in the back yard. The old man hates you like a snake, and so do the girls. I can't blame them. When you get down in the very dregs through dealing with a person you learn how to hate. The thing stays in the mind night and day till it festers like a boil and you want to even up some way."

"Marie, listen to me," Mostyn began, desperately deliberate. "Why can't we come to an agreement? You want to help your brother out of his trouble, I am sure. Now, that is a big amount of money, as you know, and even a banker can't always get up ready funds in such quant.i.ties as that, but suppose I give it to you?"

"You--you give it to me?" she stammered, incredulously, her lips falling apart, her white teeth showing. "Why, you said, not a month ago, that you were too hard pushed for money even to--"

"This is different," he broke in. "Through your conduct you are actually driving me to the wall and I am desperate. I am ready to make this proposition to you. I will get up that money. I'll send you a draft for it to-day provided--provided, Marie, that you solemnly agree not to disturb me at all in the future."

"Do you really mean it?" She leaned forward, eagerly. "Because--because if you _don't_ you ought not to mention it. I'd cut off my hands and feet to save that dear boy."

"I mean it," he answered, firmly. "But this time you must keep your promise, and, no matter what I do in the future, you must not molest me."

"I am willing, d.i.c.k. I agree. I love you--I really do, but from now on you may go your way and I'll go mine. I swear it. May I--may I telegraph Hal that--"

"Yes, telegraph him that the money is on the way to him," Mostyn said.

Marie sank into a chair opposite him and rested her tousled head on her crossed arms. A trembling sob escaped her, and she looked up. He saw tears filling her eyes. "After all, I may not be so very, very bad,"

she said, "for this will be a merciful act, and it comes through my knowing you."

"But it must be the end, Marie," he urged, firmly. "It is costing me more than you can know, but I must positively be free."

"I know it," she answered. "I will let you alone, d.i.c.k. You may marry--you may do as you like from now on."

"Then it is positively settled," he said, a new light flaring in his eyes. "For good and all, we understand each other."

"Yes, for good and all," she repeated, her glance on the floor.

A moment later he was in the street. The sun had never shown more brightly, the sky had never seemed so fathomless and blue. He inhaled a deep breath. He felt as if he were swimming through the air.

"Free, free!" he chuckled, "free at last!"

Reaching the bank, he was about to enter when he met, coming out, a dark, straight-haired, beardless young man who promptly grasped his hand. It was Alan Delbridge.

"h.e.l.lo!" Delbridge said, with a laugh. "Glad to see you back. You look better. The wild woods have put new life in you. I knew you'd come as soon as the Mitch.e.l.ls got home."

"It wasn't that," Mostyn said, lamely.

"Oh, of course not," Delbridge laughed. "You were not at all curious to learn the particulars of the old chap's big deal--oh no, you are not that sort! A hundred or two thousand to the credit of a fellow's fiancee doesn't amount to anything with a plunger like you."

Mostyn laid a hesitating hand on the shoulder of the other.

"Say, Delbridge," he faltered, "this sort of thing has gone far enough.

I am not engaged to the young lady in question, and--"

"Oh, come off!" Delbridge's laugh was even more persistent. "Tell that to some one else. You see, I _know_. The old man confides in me--not in just so many words, you know, but he lets me understand. He says you and he are going to put some whopping big deals through, presumably after you take up your quarters under his vine and fig tree."

Mostyn started to protest further, but with another laugh the financier was off.

"Ten thousand dollars!" he thought, as he moved on. "He speaks of my business head; what would he think of the investment I have just made?

He would call me a weakling. That is what I am. I have always been one.

The woman doesn't live who could worry him for a minute. But it is ended now. I have had my lesson, and I sha'n't forget it."

At his desk in his closed office a few minutes later he took a blank check, and, dipping his pen, he carefully filled it in. Mechanically he waved it back and forth in the warm air. Suddenly he started; a sort of shock went through him. How odd that he had not once, in all his excitement, thought of Dolly Drake! Was it possible that his imagination had tricked him into believing that he loved the girl and could make actual sacrifices for her? Why, already she was like a figment in some evanescent dream. What had wrought the change? Was it the sight of Delbridge and his mention of Mostyn's financial prowess?

Was it the fellow's confident allusion to Mitch.e.l.l and his daughter?

Had the buzz and hum of business, the fever of conquest, already captured and killed the impulses which in the mountains had seemed so real, so permanent, so redemptive?

"Dolly, dear, beautiful Dolly!" he said, but the whispered words dropped lifeless from his lips. "I have broken promises, but I shall keep those made to you. You are my turning-point. You are to be my wife. I have fancied myself in love often before and been mistaken, but the man does not live who could be untrue to a girl like you. You have made a man of me. I will be true--I will be honest with you. I swear it! I swear it!"

CHAPTER XV

A little later he and his sister were at luncheon in her dining-room.

"I am losing patience with you, d.i.c.k," she said, as she poured his tea.

"Is that anything new?" he ventured to jest, while wondering what might lay in the little woman's mind.

"You are too strenuous," she smiled, as she dropped two lumps of sugar into his cup. "Entirely too much so. I saw from your face this morning that you are already undoing the effects of your vacation. The old glare is back in your eyes; your hands shake. I really must warn you.

You know our father died from softening of the brain, which was brought on by financial worry. You are killing yourself, and for no reason in the world. Look at Alan Delbridge. He is the ideal man of affairs.

Nothing disturbs him."

"It is always Delbridge, Delbridge!" Mostyn said, testily. "Even _you_ can't keep from hurling him in my teeth. He is as cold-blooded as a fish. Why should I want to be like him?"

"Well, take Jarvis Saunders, then," she returned. "What more success could a man want than he gets? I like to talk to him. He has a helpful philosophy of life. When he leaves his desk he is as happy and free as a boy out of school. I saw him pitching and catching ball in a vacant lot with one of your clerks the other day. Is it any wonder that so many mothers of unmarried daughters consider him a safe catch for their girls? I am not punning; he really is wonderful."

"Oh, I know it," Mostyn answered, drinking his tea, impatiently. "I was not made like him. I am not to blame."

Mrs. Moore eyed him silently for a moment, then a serious expression settled on her florid face. "Well," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "when are you going to make a real clean breast of it?"

A shudder pa.s.sed through him. She knew what had brought him home.

Marie's hysterical protest had leaked out. The girl had talked to others besides Saunders.

"What do you mean?" He asked the question quite aimlessly. He avoided her eyes.

"I want to know about your latest love affair," she laughed, softly.

"Just one line in your last letter meant more to me than all the rest of it put together. As soon as I heard you were staying at Drake's I began to expect it. So I was not surprised. You see, I saw her a year ago. Jarvis introduced us one day. He put himself out to do it.

According to him, she was wonderful, a genius, and what not."