The Riverman Part 66

"Does that satisfy you?"

"I suppose it's got to."

"Very well. I have the papers here all made out. They need simply to be signed and witnessed. Timbull is the nearest notary."

He unlocked the outside door.

"Come," said he.

In silence the two walked the block and a half to the notary's house.

Here they were forced to wait some time while Timbull dressed himself and called the necessary witnesses. Finally the papers were executed. In the street Newmark paused significantly. But Orde did not take the hint.

"Are you coming with me?" asked Newmark.

"I am," replied Orde. "There is one thing more."

In silence once more they returned to the shadowy low library filled with its evidences of good taste. Newmark threw himself into the armchair. He was quite recovered, once again the imperturbable, coldly calculating, cynical observer. Orde relocked the door, and turned to face him.

"You have five days to leave town," he said crisply. "Don't ever show up here again. Let me have your address for the payment of this note."

He took two steps forward.

"I've let you off from the pen because I didn't want my life bothered with the thought of you. But you've treated me like a hound. I've been loyal to the firm's interests from the start; and I've done my best by it. You knifed me in the back. You're a dirty, low-lived skunk. If you think you're going to get off scot-free, you're mightily mistaken."

He advanced two steps more. Newmark half arose.

"What do you mean?" he asked in some alarm.

"I mean that I'm going to give you about the worst licking you ever heard TELL of," replied Orde, b.u.t.toning his coat.

XLIX

Five minutes later Orde emerged from Newmark's house, softly rubbing the palm of one hand over the knuckles of the other. At the front gate he paused to look up at the stars. Then he shut it decisively behind him.

Up through the maple shaded streets he walked at a brisk pace, breathing deep, unconsciously squaring back his shoulders. The incident was behind him. In his characteristic decisive manner he had wiped the whole disagreeable affair off the slate. The copartners.h.i.+p with its gains and losses, its struggles and easy sailing was a thing of the past. Only there remained, as after a flood the sediment, a final result of it all, the balance between successes and failures, a ground beneath the feet of new aspirations. Orde had the Northern Peninsula timber; the Boom Company; and the carrying trade. They were all burdened with debt, it is true, but the riverman felt surging within him the reawakened and powerful energy for which optimism is another name. He saw stretching before him a long life of endeavour, the sort of endeavour he enjoyed, exulted in; and in it he would be untrammelled and alone. The idea appealed to him. Suddenly he was impatient for the morrow that he might begin.

He turned out of the side street. His own house lay before him, dark save for the gas jet in the hallway and the single lamp in the library.

A harmony of softly touched chords breathed out through the open window.

He stopped; then stole forward softly until he stood looking in through the doorway.

Carroll sat leaning against the golden harp, her s.h.i.+ning head with the soft shadows bent until it almost touched the strings. Her hands were straying idly over accustomed chords and rich modulations, the plaintive half-music of reverie. A soft light fell on her slender figure; half revealed the oval of her cheek and the sweep of her lashes.

Orde crept to her unheard. Gently he clasped her from behind.

Unsurprised she relinquished the harp strings and sank back against his breast with a happy little sigh.

"Kind of fun being married, isn't it, sweetheart?" he repeated their quaint formula.

"Kind of," she replied; and raised her face to his.