The Desired Woman Part 32

"I should like nothing better than to have you do it always," he heard himself saying; but the sight of her clouded face checked the words which packed upon his utterance.

"Oh, I could never be as bold as that," she put in quickly. "You said you would like to go to the meeting. It _is_ public, but I am going to ask you a favor, and I never was so much in earnest in my life. Do you know, I think I could get through that speech better if not a soul was in the audience that I ever saw before. I would rather have you there than any one else, for I know you would be sympathetic, but I want to face it absolutely alone. I can't tell why I feel so, but it is a fact."

"I can understand it," Saunders answered. "I had to make a speech at a convention of bankers once, and the fact that I was a total stranger to them all made the task easier. But when are you going back home?"

"To-morrow at twelve," she said.

"And this evening?" he inquired.

"There is to be a reception given us at the Governor's mansion." Dolly shrugged her shoulders. "Somebody is to take us all from the hotel in a bunch. I have a new dress for it. That will be another experience, but, as it comes after my speech, I am not even thinking of it."

"Then I'll see you at the train in the morning," Saunders said. "I want to get the news of your speech. I am confident that you will acquit yourself beautifully. You can't fail. It isn't in you."

They had reached the steps of the Capitol. A number of women and men were entering, and Dolly turned to join them.

"That's some of my crowd," she smiled. "Can't you tell by the way they stare and blink, like scared rabbits? The men's clothes look as if they still had the price-tags on them--regular hand-me-downs. Good-by; I'll see you at the train."

CHAPTER VIII

That afternoon, in coming from a lawyer's office, Saunders saw Tom Drake standing in the crowd which was always gathered at the intersection of Whitehall and Marietta streets. Falling back un.o.bserved into a tobacconist's shop on the corner, the young man looked out and watched the mountaineer. With hands in his pockets, Drake stood eying the jostling human current, a disconsolate droop to his lank form, a far-off stare in his weary eyes.

"He has tried and given up already," Saunders reflected. "Dolly knows him better than he knows himself. This is no place for a man like him.

He is homesick, poor chap! He counts himself the most unfortunate man on earth, and yet he is the most blessed, for he is her father. How can he look at her, hear her voice, and not burn with triumphant pride? Her father! If I only dared, I'd treat him as I'd treat my own father, but she would resent it. It would hurt her feelings. I have to consider her. She didn't quite like what I did for George; but, no matter, I'm going to speak to him."

Therewith Saunders skirted the thickest part of the surging ma.s.s and suddenly came upon Drake, who, in order to be out of the way of pedestrians with more purpose than himself, had stepped back against the wall of the building. Their eyes met. Drake's wavered sheepishly, but he took the hand cordially extended, and made an effort to appear at ease.

"I saw Dolly this morning," Saunders began. "She told me you came down with her."

"Yes, I thought--I thought I might as well." Drake's lips quivered. "I reckon she told you that I am sorter strikin' out on a new line?"

"She said something about it." Saunders felt that the topic was a delicate one. "I hope you are finding an--an opening to your liking."

Drake was chewing tobacco, and he spat awkwardly down at his side.

There was a certain timidity in the man for one so bold as he had been in his own field of life among rough men of crude acts and habits.

"I've looked about some," he said, a flush creeping into his tanned cheeks. "I've been to the machine-shops and to two or three contractin'

carpenters. They all said they was full up with hands--men waitin' on their lists for times to improve. Buildin' is slow right now, an'

expert hands already on the spot get the pick of the jobs. Machinery is stealin' the bread out of the workin'-man's mouth. A machine takes the place of twenty men in many cases."

"I see, I see," Saunders said. "The country, after all, is the best place for a man brought up on a farm."

Drake, thrown off his guard, sighed openly. "I reckon you are right,"

he agreed. "To tell you the truth, Saunders, I don't think I'm goin' to land anything on this trip, and it makes a feller feel sorter sneakin'

to go back empty-handed. I put my judgment up against all the rest.

George, Dolly, and her mother, an' even John Webb, tried to get me to listen to their advice, but not me! Oh no, I was runnin' it! I reckon I'm bull-headed. Le'me tell you some'n'. I'd go back an' hire out to George as a day-laborer if I didn't have more pride than brains. He needs hands. He told me so. You are makin' a man out o' him, Saunders, an' I want to thank you."

"What have you got to do just now?" Saunders asked. "Couldn't you go to the bank with me?"

Drake hesitated. His color deepened. He avoided Saunders's tentative gaze. "I reckon I won't, to-day, anyway," he faltered. "I never was much of a hand to hang about big places o' business."

"Then suppose we step into the lobby of the Kimball House; it is close by," Saunders suggested. "There are some seats there, and we could sit down for a few minutes. The truth is, I want to ask your advice about my plantation. You are better posted up there than I can be, staying here as much as I do."

"Oh, that's different!"

A look of relief swept over the rugged face. "I only wish I could help you some, no matter how little. You did me the biggest favor once that ever one man did another. When you jerked me back from the train that night and forced me to behave myself you saved me from no end o' shame an' trouble. La, me! I've thought of that a thousand times."

"Don't mention it." Saunders was touched by the deep surge of grat.i.tude in the despondent voice. "If I had not been a great friend of yours and of your family, I would not have dared to act as I did. But that is past and gone."

"Not with me--a thing like that never pa.s.ses with me," Drake answered, as they crossed the street and entered at the side door of the hotel.

They found some unoccupied chairs in a quiet part of the big office.

The clerks behind the counter were busy a.s.signing rooms to a throng of pa.s.sengers from an incoming train. A dozen negro porters and bell-boys were rus.h.i.+ng to and fro. The elevators were busy. The tiled floor resounded with the scurrying of active feet. Saunders saw the mountaineer watching the scene with the lack-l.u.s.ter stare he had caught in his eyes a few minutes before.

"You said you wanted to ask me something about your place," Drake suddenly bethought himself to say.

"Yes, it is like this. You know my manager, Hobson, of course?"

"Yes, pretty well," Drake made reply, slowly. "That is, as well as any of us mountain men do. He never has been much of a chap to mix with other folks. To tell you the truth, most of us think he is stuck up.

Well, I reckon he has a right to be. He gets darn good wages. n.o.body knows exactly what he makes, but it is reported that you give 'im fifteen hundred a year. He has saved most of it, and has turned his pile over till there isn't any telling how much the feller is worth."

"Yes, I am paying him fifteen hundred," Saunders said, lowering his voice into one of confidential disclosure. "I want to talk to you about him, and I know you will help me if you can. He has, as you say, laid up money, and he has recently established a warehouse business at Ridgeville. For the last month he has scarcely been at my plantation half a dozen times."

"I noticed that," Drake said, "but he told me that he had it fixed so that he could be at both places often enough to keep things in shape.

He is a good business man, and I reckon he will do what he contracts."

"But I am not at all satisfied as it is," Saunders answered. "I am thinking of disposing of my bank interest and settling down up there for good, and I'd like to have a manager with whom I can be in touch every day. I am interested in farming myself, and I don't want my manager to have too many irons in the fire. The trouble with Hobson is that he is now giving his best thought and energy to his own business."

"I see," Drake said. "Well, that's accordin' to human nature, I reckon.

They say Hobson speculates in grain an' cotton, an' when a feller gets to playin' a game as excitin' as that it is hard for 'im to get down to humdrum matters."

Saunders linked his hands across his knee, and looked down at the floor for a moment in silence. He seemed to be trying to formulate something more difficult to express than what he had already touched upon.

"The truth is," he plunged, suddenly--"just between you and me, in confidence, I was compelled to speak to him about the matter the other day; and, to my surprise, he told me bluntly that as he was now placed he would not care to give full time to the management of my affairs. He has his sights pretty high. He is making money rapidly, and he feels independent."

"Good Lord! You don't mean that he would throw up the job?" Drake exclaimed, in astonishment. "He's a fool, a stark, starin' fool. Why, I never heard o' the like! It is by all odds the best berth in our county."

"He is to quit on the first of next month," Saunders said, "and that is what I want to see you about. The truth is that--well, I've had _you_ in mind for some time, and I was rather disappointed when I heard you were thinking of getting work down here. You are the very man I want for the place, if you will do me the favor of accepting it."

The stare of astonishment in the eyes of the mountaineer became a fixed glare of almost childlike incredulity. So profound was his surprise that he was unable to utter a word. His hand, suddenly quivering as with palsy, went to his tobacco-stained lips and stayed there for a moment. Then his imprisoned voice broke loose.

"You can't mean that, Jarvis--you can't, surely you can't!"

"Yes, I do," Saunders responded, drawn into the other's emotional current. "I want a man who is popular with the people, and you have hundreds of friends. If--if you accept I'd like for you to remain here in Atlanta for a week at least, to help me buy some implements and supplies."

"_If_ I accept--_if!_" Drake laughed at the sheer absurdity of the word. "Do I look like a fool? Just now I was ready to go back home, ashamed to look my family in the face because I couldn't find work at a dollar a day, and my board to pay out of it, and now--now--" The voice faltered and broke.