The Turmoil Part 23

"Well, we'd got in a way of not talking much," said Roscoe. "It looks to me now as if we'd pretty much lost the run of each other the way a good many people do. I don't say it wasn't my fault. I was up early and down to work all day, and I'd come home tired at night, and want to go to bed soon as I'd got the paper read--unless there was some good musical show in town. Well, you seemed all right until here lately, the last month or so, I began to see something was wrong. I couldn't help seeing it."

"Wrong?" she said. "What like?"

"You changed; you didn't look the same. You were all strung up and excited and fidgety; you got to looking peakid and run down. Now then, Lamhorn had been going with us a good while, but I noticed that not long ago you got to picking on him about every little thing he did; you got to quarreling with him when I was there and when I wasn't. I could see you'd been quarreling whenever I came in and he was here."

"Do you object to that?" asked Sibyl, breathing quickly.

"Yes--when it injures my wife's health!" he returned, with a quick lift of his eyes to hers. "You began to run down just about the time you began falling out with him." He stepped close to her. "See here, Sibyl, I'm going to know what it means."

"Oh, you ARE?" she snapped.

"You're trembling," he said, gravely.

"Yes. I'm angry enough to do more than tremble, you'll find. Go on!"

"That was all I was going to say the other day," he said. "I was going to ask you--"

"Yes, that was all you were going to say THE OTHER DAY. Yes. What else have you to say to-night?"

"To-night," he replied, with grim swiftness, "I want to know why you keep telephoning him you want to see him since he stopped coming here."

She made a long, low sound of comprehension before she said, "And what else did Edith want you to ask me?"

"I want to know what you say over the telephone to Lamhorn," he said, fiercely.

"Is that all Edith told you to ask me? You saw her when you stopped in there on your way home this evening, didn't you? Didn't she tell you then what I said over the telephone to Mr. Lamhorn?"

"No, she didn't!" he vociferated, his voice growing louder. "She said, 'You tell your wife to stop telephoning Robert Lamhorn to come and see her, because he isn't going to do it!' That's what she said! And I want to know what it means. I intend--"

A maid appeared at the lower end of the hall. "Dinner is ready," she said, and, giving the troubled pair one glance, went demurely into the dining-room. Roscoe disregarded the interruption.

"I intend to know exactly what has been going on," he declared. "I mean to know just what--"

Sibyl jumped up, almost touching him, standing face to face with him.

"Oh, you DO!" she cried, shrilly. "You mean to know just what's what, do you? You listen to your sister insinuating ugly things about your wife, and then you come home making a scene before the servants and humiliating me in their presence! Do you suppose that Irish girl didn't hear every word you said? You go in there and eat your dinner alone! Go on! Go and eat your dinner alone--because I won't eat with you!"

And she broke away from the detaining grasp he sought to fasten upon her, and dashed up the stairway, panting. He heard the door of her room slam overhead, and the sharp click of the key in the lock.

CHAPTER XVIII

At seven o'clock on the last morning of that month, Sheridan, pa.s.sing through the upper hall on his way to descend the stairs for breakfast, found a couple of scribbled sheets of note-paper lying on the floor. A window had been open in Bibbs's room the evening before; he had left his note-book on the sill--and the sheets were loose. The door was open, and when Bibbs came in and closed it, he did not notice that the two sheets had blown out into the hall. Sheridan recognized the handwriting and put the sheets in his coat pocket, intending to give them to George or Jackson for return to the owner, but he forgot and carried them down-town with him. At noon he found himself alone in his office, and, having a little leisure, remembered the bits of ma.n.u.script, took them out, and glanced at them. A glance was enough to reveal that they were not epistolary. Sheridan would not have read a "private letter" that came into his possession in that way, though in a "matter of business"

he might have felt it his duty to take advantage of an opportunity afforded in any manner whatsoever. Having satisfied himself that Bibbs's scribblings were only a sample of the kind of writing his son preferred to the machine-shop, he decided, innocently enough, that he would be justified in reading them.

It appears that a lady will nod pleasantly upon some windy generalization of a companion, and will wear the most agreeable expression of accepting it as the law, and then--days afterward, when the thing is a mummy to its promulgator--she will inquire out of a clear sky: "WHY did you say that the people down-town have nothing in life that a chicken hasn't? What did you mean?" And she may say it in a manner that makes a sensible reply very difficult --you will be so full of wonder that she remembered so seriously.

Yet, what does the rooster lack? He has food and shelter; he is warm in winter; his wives raise not one fine family for him, but dozens. He has a clear sky over him; he breathes sweet air; he walks in his April orchard under a roof of flowers. He must die, violently perhaps, but quickly. Is Midas's cancer a better way?

The rooster's wives and children must die. Are those of Midas immortal? His life is shorter than the life of Midas, but Midas's life is only a sixth as long as that of the Galapagos tortoise.

The worthy money-worker takes his vacation so that he may refresh himself anew for the hard work of getting nothing that the rooster doesn't get. The office-building has an elevator, the rooster flies up to the bough. Midas has a machine to take him to his work; the rooster finds his worm underfoot. The "business man" feels a pressure sometimes, without knowing why, and sits late at wine after the day's labor; next morning he curses his head because it interferes with the work--he swears never to relieve that pressure again. The rooster has no pressure and no wine; this difference is in his favor.

The rooster is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather. Midas is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather. The rooster thinks only of the moment; Midas provides for to-morrow. What does he provide for to-morrow? Nothing that the rooster will not have without providing.

The rooster and the prosperous worker: they are born, they grub, they love; they grub and love grubbing; they grub and they die.

Neither knows beauty; neither knows knowledge. And after all, when Midas dies and the rooster dies, there is one thing Midas has had and rooster has not. Midas has had the excitement of acc.u.mulating what he has grubbed, and that has been his life and his love and his G.o.d. He cannot take that G.o.d with him when he dies. I wonder if the worthy G.o.ds are those we can take with us.

Midas must teach all to be as Midas; the young must be raised in his religion--

The ma.n.u.script ended there, and Sheridan was not anxious for more.

He crumpled the sheets into a ball, depositing it (with vigor) in a waste-basket beside him; then, rising, he consulted a Cyclopedia of Names, which a book-agent had somehow sold to him years before; a volume now first put to use for the location of "Midas." Having read the legend, Sheridan walked up and down the s.p.a.cious office, exhaling the breath of contempt. "Dam' fool!" he mumbled. But this was no new thought, nor was the contrariness of Bibbs's notes a surpise to him; and presently he dismissed the matter from his mind.

He felt very lonely, and this was, daily, his hardest hour. For a long time he and Jim had lunched together habitually. Roscoe preferred a club luncheon, but Jim and his father almost always went to a small restaurant near the Sheridan Building, where they spent twenty minutes in the consumption of food, and twenty in talk, with cigars. Jim came for his father every day, at five minutes after twelve, and Sheridan was again in his office at five minutes before one. But now that Jim no longer came, Sheridan remained alone in his office; he had not gone out to lunch since Jim's death, nor did he have anything sent to him--he fasted until evening.

It was the time he missed Jim personally the most--the voice and eyes and handshake, all brisk and alert, all business-like. But these things were not the keenest in Sheridan's grief; his sense of loss went far deeper. Roscoe was dependable, a steady old wheel-horse, and that was a great comfort; but it was in Jim that Sheridan had most happily perceived his own likeness. Jim was the one who would have been surest to keep the great property growing greater, year by year. Sheridan had fallen asleep, night after night, picturing what the growth would be under Jim. He had believed that Jim was absolutely certain to be one of the biggest men in the country. Well, it was all up to Roscoe now!

That reminded him of a question he had in mind to ask Roscoe. It was a question Sheridan considered of no present importance, but his wife had suggested it--though vaguely--and he had meant to speak to Roscoe about it. However, Roscoe had not come into his father's office for several days, and when Sheridan had seen his son at home there had been no opportunity.

He waited until the greater part of his day's work was over, toward four o'clock, and then went down to Roscoe's office, which was on a lower floor. He found several men waiting for business interviews in an outer room of the series Roscoe occupied; and he supposed that he would find his son busy with others, and that his question would have to be postponed, but when he entered the door marked "R. C. Sheridan.

Private," Roscoe was there alone.

He was sitting with his back to the door, his feet on a window-sill, and he did not turn as his father opened the door.

"Some pretty good men out there waitin' to see you, my boy," said Sheridan. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Roscoe answered indistinctly, not moving.

"Well, I guess that's all right, too. I let 'em wait sometimes myself!

I just wanted to ask you a question, but I expect it'll keep, if you're workin' something out in your mind!"

Roscoe made no reply; and his father, who had turned to the door, paused with his hand on the k.n.o.b, staring curiously at the motionless figure in the chair. Usually the son seemed pleased and eager when he came to the office. "You're all right, ain't you?" said Sheridan. "Not sick, are you?"

"No."

Sheridan was puzzled; then, abruptly, he decided to ask his question. "I wanted to talk to you about that young Lamhorn," he said. "I guess your mother thinks he's comin' to see Edith pretty often, and you known him longer'n any of us, so--"

"I won't," said Roscoe, thickly--"I won't say a dam' thing about him!"

Sheridan uttered an exclamation and walked quickly to a position near the window where he could see his son's face. Roscoe's eyes were bloodshot and vacuous; his hair was disordered, his mouth was distorted, and he was deathly pale. The father stood aghast.

"By George!" he muttered. "ROSCOE!"

"My name," said Roscoe. "Can' help that."

"ROSCOE!" Blank astonishment was Sheridan's first sensation. Probably nothing in the world could have more amazed his than to find Roscoe--the steady old wheel-horse--in this condition. "How'd you GET this way?" he demanded. "You caught cold and took too much for it?"

For reply Roscoe laughed hoa.r.s.ely. "Yeuh! Cold! I been drinkun all time, lately. Firs' you notice it?"