A Man's Hearth Part 20

He was profoundly gratified and excited by this morning's success. It gave him self-confidence, and it enabled him to ask a share in the factory's management with something more tangible to offer his father than the mere a.s.sertion that he saw improvements to be made. He actually had accomplished something. He would save many thousands of dollars by utilizing the machines on hand instead of purchasing more of the costly motor-trucks, with their expenses of upkeep, additional chauffeurs, and inevitable deterioration from use.

He walked out into the cold, fresh air to glimpse the suns.h.i.+ne and cool his hot flush of satisfaction. He thought of Elsie with a pa.s.sion of tenderness and triumph. He resolved that he would not tell her of his plans until they were better a.s.sured. He must begin to shelter her from excitement or possible disappointment. No, he would not speak of the reconciliation he hoped to effect with his father; not yet. But of course he would tell her of his new position in the factory, and they would exult over it together. Adriance decided he would wait until their dinner was over and cleared away, then he would draw her down beside him in the firelight and astonish her.

There was a little lunch cart across the way, much frequented by chauffeurs, car-conductors and ferry-men. He went there for his lunch, as he usually did when noon found him near the factory. It seemed to him that there was already a little difference in the way the fellow-workers whom he found there treated him. Already they seemed to feel that he was moving away from them--had taken the upper trail, as it were. Indeed, he felt a change in himself not to be denied. It was not arrogance, merely the a.s.surance of a man who sees a definite path before him and follows it to his own end; he had ceased to live from day to day.

But he was quite sure that he would never forget this day. If he had a son he would tell him about this when he reached manhood. And he would be his son's guide to this satisfaction of work accomplished, lest he miss it altogether, as Tony himself so nearly had done. There were to be no worthless Adriances.

CHAPTER XIII

WHAT TONY BUILT

By a caprice of chance, it was that day Masterson came; almost at the hour when Adriance, tired and exultant, was rearing a structure of good dreams as he ate his cheap food at the counter of the lunch-cart under the shadow of the huge electric sign bearing his name.

Morning had arrived at noon, when Elsie was called to her front door by a clang of the bell; one of those small gongs favored years ago, that snap with a pulled handle. Down at the end of the straight path she heard laughter and the high-pitched voices of women above the soft roll of an automobile's motor. Surprised, she opened the door.

Before her, on the high, absurd little porch, a man in motoring furs stood and steadied himself by grasping the snow-powdered railing.

Confronted by a woman, he lifted his cap, and a sunbeam piercing the old roof gleamed across his close-clipped auburn curls.

"I was told at the little shop that a chauffeur lived here," he explained, pleasantly enough. The glare of the sun on snow dazzled his first vision. "Our compressed air system is out of order, and my man forgot to put in a hand-pump. I----"

His voice trailed away into silence. He had seen her face.

"Elsie?" he doubted. "Elsie?"

She smiled at him with her serene composure, although deep color swept over her face with the startled movement of her blood.

"Mrs. Adriance," she corrected. "Will you not come in? I am sorry Mr.

Adriance is not at home."

He crossed the threshold mechanically, his gaze not leaving her.

"I did not believe it," he exclaimed, under his breath. "I thought Lucille--lied."

"Mr. Masterson!"

He shook his head in deprecation of offense, continuing his scrutiny of her. He had the appearance of a man fevered by drink or illness; his eyes were bright behind a surface glaze, his face was haggard, yet flushed. His features, always of a fineness almost suggesting effeminacy, had sharpened to an extreme delicacy that promised little for health or endurance.

"They told me a chauffeur lived here," he said, presently.

"Anthony is a chauffeur," she answered, compa.s.sion for the change in him making her voice very gentle. "But I am afraid we have no automobile tools to lend. All such things are kept at the factory or in the machine he drives."

He swept aside the subject of automobiles with an impatient movement of his hand, and slowly turned to look over the room.

It had gathered much of comfort during those last months, that room; and something more. Scarlet-flowered curtains hung at the windows, echoing the vivid note of scarlet salvia in bloom on the sills. A shelf of books had been put up; beneath, a small table held the jade-and-ivory chessmen drawn up in battle array on their field. As always, the fire glowed, and on the hearth the cat stretched drowsily. Cheer dwelt in the place, the atmosphere of comrades.h.i.+p and a.s.sured love; and the pulse of it all was the girl who stood, tranquil of regard, rich in life and beautiful with health, princess in her own domain.

At her Masterson looked longest, his handsome, bitter mouth oddly twisted out of shape.

"You're different," he p.r.o.nounced, finally.

"I am very happy."

"Happy? Here? You married a millionaire's son to live here?"

"I married to live with my husband," she proudly corrected him.

Again he looked around, and suddenly laughed out with an over-loud lack of control that in a woman would have been called hysterical.

"Tony Adriance's house!" he cried, striking his gloved hands together.

"Tony--idle Tony, easy Tony, Tony of teas and tangos--Tony has built this! Why----," he bent toward her. "You have been matching work with G.o.d, Elsie Adriance; you have made a man!"

She drew back, aghast at the bold irreverence. He laughed again at her expression.

"You think I meant that wrongly? I did not. I know well enough the way Tony is going, and the way I am. That is if he sticks to this! Are you never afraid he will not! Never afraid he will drift back to the easier ways?"

"No," she affirmed. A s.h.i.+ning radiance lighted her confident eyes. She carried beneath her heart that which made Anthony and her forever one.

Fear was done with; it no longer, wolf-like, hunted down her happiness.

"No? Do you think he will be content to be a chauffeur on a honeymoon all his life? I'm going to do something decent, Elsie; I'm going to help you clinch Tony Adriance. No, don't protest. I'm going to force my help on you both, wanted or not. Why, you can't keep him out of New York forever! Send him there to-night, to me, and I'll finish what you have begun."

Amazed and dismayed, she retreated from his urgency.

"Excuse me," she began a stiff refusal.

He cut her short with impatience.

"Then I'll leave a message for him. Don't look like that; I only want him to meet me in a public restaurant. Can't you trust me?"

"You do not understand."

"I understand more than you do," he retorted bluntly. "But if I am wrong, no harm will be done. I want to see him, anyhow. Are you afraid of me?"

"No."

"Well, then----?"

He pulled off his gloves and took a card and fountain pen from his pocket. Elsie watched him helplessly as he wrote, chilled in spite of herself by a return of the old dread. What, was she not able to hold Anthony certainly, even now? She tried to look around her, fortifying her spirit with all the prosaic evidences of their united life. After all, Masterson knew "Tony"; he knew nothing of the man Anthony was.

She was able to meet her visitor's glance with her usual calm, when he put the message he had written into her hand.

"Tell him to come," he pressed. "Have you forgotten he and I were friends? And I'll always be grateful to you for loving Holly. Did you know I had lost Holly?"

She paled, the baby face rising before her.

"Lost him! Not----?"