Mr. Bingle Part 18

"I beg pardon, sir--I didn't mean to be rough," cried Flanders. "I'm so excited I don't know what I'm doing, that's all. A man may be excused for a lot of brainstorm antics when he's going to be married again.

It--"

"Married again? I thought you said you'd never--"

"What I mean is this: I was going to be married once and now I'm going to be married again. See? Oh, you know what I mean. I'm just driveling--simply driveling with joy. We fixed it all up fifteen minutes after we got together. You might congratulate me, Mr. Bingle."

"G.o.d bless my soul! Congratulate you on what?"

"I'm going to marry your governess."

CHAPTER IX

THE MAN CALLED HINMAN

Bright and early on Christmas morning, Mr. Sydney Force walked slowly, even irresolutely up the broad avenue leading to Mr. Bingle's stupendous door-step. The snow had been cleared off of the narrow footpath, but the president of the great city bank was so deeply engrossed that he failed to take advantage of this singular demonstration of worthiness on the part of Edgecomb and his a.s.sistants so soon after the break of dawn. As a matter of fact, he had forgotten that it was Christmas morning. He walked in the middle of the roadway, in four inches of snow, and kept his gaze fixed rather intently on the big house at the top of the avenue.

Mr. Force had not slept well. Indeed, he had not slept at all. The shock he had received early in the evening was of the kind that shatters one's peace of mind to a degree but little short of calamitous. A plunge into ice-cold water would have failed to produce the deadly chill that crept over him when he heard the name of Glenn.

How he succeeded in controlling himself so well that his profound agitation escaped the attention of the others, he could not explain. He was amazed to find that he had managed it so well. For, it must be confessed, Mr. Force's habitual equanimity had undergone a strain that came so near to resulting in a collapse that only a miracle--(it may have taken the form of stupefaction, or a kindly paralysis)--only a miracle could have kept him from betraying the one great secret of his life.

Ordinarily, he would have put off calling on the Bingles for a month or six weeks, being that scornful of social amenities; but he could hardly wait for the approach of sunrise to be on his way to Seafood on this brilliant Christmas morning. It was not a brilliant, s.h.i.+mmering day for him, however. He saw nothing beautiful in the steel-blue sky: to him it was a drab, unlovely pall. He saw no beauty in the snow-clad foliage, no splendour in the bejewelled tree-tops, no purity in the veil of white that lay upon the face of the earth. He saw only himself, and he was a drear, bleak thing as viewed introspectively.

Nor is it to be taken for granted that Mr. Bingle slept well on this night before Christmas. Neither he nor his wife went to bed until far along in the wee sma' hours. The great house was as still as the grave, save for the occasional crack of shrinking woodwork and the rattle of dislodged icicles on the window-ledges outside. The wind had died away.

It seemed that all nature, respecting their mood, had hushed its every noise in order that they might think, and think, and think on without hope or a single sign of promise in this time of despair.

They were to lose Kathleen. The man had been somewhat vague about it, but the situation was clear to them, even though it was not so to him.

Their claim to the child--the one they loved best of all--was no longer undivided. A real father had turned up to a.s.sert his rights. They might dispute his claim and make the affair so awkward and so unpleasant for him that he would withdraw, but what would be their gain? The man existed. He was the real father. Kathleen was the flesh and blood of this tardy penitent, this betrayer of women, this coward. Never again, so long as she lived, could she be looked upon as theirs. Even though she remained with them, and in perfect contentment, there would still be the sinister shadow lying across the path--the shadow of a man hiding, of a man who dared not come out into the open but whose everlasting presence was a threat.

They did not know this man, they did not know whether he was a blackguard or a gentleman. He was a destroyer; that much they knew. He had wrecked a human life. The detective had declared to Mr. Bingle that his client was a man of means, married, and eminently respectable, but then a detective's idea of respectability is not always a safe one to go by. Every man is respectable until some one is hired to prove that he isn't.

When Mr. Force rang the front door-bell, Mr. and Mrs. Bingle were seated before the fire in the library. Kathleen sat upon the former's knee. The rest of the children had been sent off to the huge playroom on the top floor, and their distant shrieks, m.u.f.fled by the thicknesses of many doors and walls, came faintly down to the fireside. With the subdued, even refined jingle of the door-bell, the two Bingles straightened up in their chairs and looked into each other's eyes, suddenly apprehensive. Who could be calling on them at such an early hour? Was it some one in connection with this unhappy business? Could it be possible that they had come to take Kathleen away so soon?

"Better run upstairs, now, Kathie," said Mr. Bingle, abruptly.

"Skedaddle! Go up the back way, dear." He thought of the back-stairs just in time. It wouldn't do for her to encounter the strange, perhaps unfeeling emissaries in the main hall. No telling what they might do.

They might even take forcible possession of her and be off before help could be summoned.

"I want to stay here with you, daddy," protested Kathleen, resolutely clinging to her perch on his knee--and was not to be dislodged. Before Mr. Bingle could utter another word, Diggs appeared in the door and announced Mr. Force. Instantly Kathleen's manner changed. She released her grip on Mr. Bingle's arm and slid to the floor. "Oh, I hate him! I don't want to see him."

"Kathie!" cried Mrs. Bingle, distressed. "You should not say such things. Mr. Force is very nice to you. He likes you--"

"He gives me a pain," said Kathleen succinctly.

"Good heavens!" gasped Mr. Bingle. "Where did you learn such language as that?"

"It isn't language, daddy," said Kathie. "It's just slang. Everybody uses it. Don't people give you a pain sometimes?"

"Never!" said he. "I don't believe in slang," he added, as if to fortify himself against a conviction. "You needn't go, deary. Stay and see Mr. Force."

"I don't want to see him. I want to see Fairy. Oh, daddy, what are you going to let her get married for? I know Freddie will commit suicide if she marries that old Flanders."

"Freddie? What business is it of his?"

"I mustn't tell," she said, suddenly realising that she had been on the point of betraying a grave secret. An instant later she was off like the wind, whisking out of one door as Mr. Force entered by the other.

"Dear me, dear me," sighed Mr. Bingle, staring at his wife helplessly; "what do you suppose has happened to Frederick? A boy of his age talking of suicide is--Oh, good morning, Mr. Force. Merry Christmas!

'Pon my word, you're an early bird. Come up to the fire. You look half frozen. Why, by George, your teeth are chattering. Diggs! Throw on a couple of logs, will you, and get the whiskey. We keep it for medicinal purposes and--"

"Not for me," broke in Mr. Force hastily. "Not a thing to drink, old man. I'm quite all right. It is a bit snappy outside. Good morning, Mrs. Bingle. How are you feeling since the--I beg your pardon, Bingle, I really don't want a drink. Silly of me to s.h.i.+ver like this. You'd think I had a chill, wouldn't you? But I'll be all right in a minute or two."

He stood with his back to the blazing logs. His teeth were chattering, but not because of the cold. Every nerve in his body was on edge; his physical being was merely responding to the turmoil that filled his brain. Could they have seen his hands, clasped behind his back, they might have wondered why the fingers were locked together in a grip so fierce that the cords stood out in ridges on his wrists.

"You don't know what you miss, not having children about you on Christmas morning," said Mr. Bingle, planting his small figure alongside that of the tall man and attempting to spread his coat tails, an utter impossibility in view of the fact that he had no tails to spread, being incased in a dressing gown that reached almost to his heels when he stood erect but unmistakably touched the floor if he permitted his dignity to sag in the least--and he was having some difficulty in maintaining his dignity on this doleful morning, it may be said. "It would have done your heart good, Force, if you could have been here this morning--say at half-past six--and seen the circus we had. Well, sir, it was--"

"Half-past six? My dear man, you don't mean to say those little rascals got you out of bed at that unG.o.dly hour. Why, I would have--"

"Just the other way 'round," said Mr. Bingle, sheepishly. "We had to fairly yank 'em out of bed. We are the rascals, Force--Mary and I. We couldn't wait, don't you see? But, of course, you don't see. You couldn't see unless you'd been counting on Christmas morning for months. You--But, what's the matter, Force? 'Pon my word, you DO need a bracer. Mary, dear, won't you see if--"

"See here, Bingle," blurted out Mr. Force, in desperation, "I want a few words with you alone. It is--imperative. Hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Bingle. I'm a bit upset--yes, considerably upset--over something that has come up in the--er--that is to say, quite recently. I--I want your husband's advice on--on a matter of grave importance."

The Bingles stared at him for a moment in speechless concern. Then Mr.

Bingle managed to give expression to the fear that entered his heart as Force concluded his amazing remarks.

"Anything--anything wrong at the bank?" he inquired, swallowing hard.

Was the man about to tell him that the bank--the great bank--was going under, that there had been defalcations, that--but even as he pictured the collapse of the bank there shot into his brain another and still more ghastly thought: had the Supreme Court decided against him in the long-fought case of Hooper et al vs. Bingle?

"Certainly NOT," exclaimed Mr. Force, with sudden irascibility. His nerves WERE at a high tension, there was no denying that. "Nothing whatever to do with the bank, sir. What the dev--what could have put such a thought into your head, Bingle?"

"You looked so--so blasted serious," said Mr. Bingle, with surprising heat.

"Thomas!" cried his wife, aghast.

"Beg pardon, Force," muttered Mr. Bingle, very much ashamed of himself.

"I didn't mean to be profane. I guess I'm a little nervous myself."

"Can't I look serious without putting the bank on its last legs?"

demanded Mr. Force, glaring.

"Certainly," Mr. Bingle made haste to a.s.sure him. "Look as serious as you please, Force. I know it can't hurt the bank. Don't go, Mary. Mr.

Force and I will slip up to my study. We are less likely to be interrupted there."

"I trust Mrs. Force is well," said the lady of Seawood, and there was a note of anxiety in her voice. There HAD been a queer taste to the lobster a la Newburg. She remembered mentioning it to Mr. Bingle after the company had gone.

Mr. Force was guilty of an uneasy start. What was the woman driving at?

What put it into her head to mention his wife? Why SHOULDN'T his wife be well?