One Man in His Time Part 18

"Well, I might try," he answered, and added curiously, "I wonder whom you find to play with? Not your father?"

"Oh, no, not Father. He is as serious as Mr. Benham, only he laughs a great deal more. Father jokes all the time, but there is something underneath that isn't a joke at all."

"I should like to talk to your father. I want to find out, if I can, what he really believes."

"You won't find out that," said Patty, "by talking to him."

"You mean he will not tell me?"

"Oh, he may tell you; but you won't know it. Half the time when he is telling the truth, it sounds like a joke, and that keeps people from believing him. He says the best way to keep a secret is to shout it from the housetops; and I've heard him say things straight out that sounded so far fetched n.o.body would think he was in earnest. I was the only person who knew that he was speaking the truth. They call that a 'method', the politicians. They used to like it before he was elected; but now it makes them restless. They complain that they can't do anything with him."

"That," remarked Stephen, as she paused, "appears to be the chronic complaint of politicians."

"Does it? Well, Mr. Gershom is always saying now that Father can't be depended on. It was much more peaceable," she concluded with artless confidence, "when he let them manage him. Now there are discussions and disagreements all the time. It all seems to be about what they think people want. Have you any idea what they want?"

"Does anybody know what they want--except when they want money?"

"Well, some of them would like Father to go to the Senate," she returned navely, "and some of them wouldn't. Do you think that Mr. Benham would be better in the Senate?"

"I think so, of course. But you mustn't judge, you know, by what my thoughts happen to be."

"I'm not judging. I hate politics. I always have. I want to get as far away from them as I can."

He looked at her intently. "And where would you like to go?"

"Into the movies." Her eyes sparkled at the thought. "At least I wanted to go into the movies until I saw Mrs. Page this afternoon."

"Mrs. Kent Page?" he asked in astonishment. "My Cousin Corinna?"

"Yes, in the old print shop. Isn't she adorable?"

He smiled at her fervour. "I have always found her so. But what has she to do with your change of ambition?"

"Oh, nothing, except that she is lovelier than any actress I ever saw."

They had reached the house, and while they ascended the steps, the sound of the Governor's voice, raised in vehement protest, floated to them through the half-open door.

"He must be talking to Julius Gershom," whispered Patty. "It is always like that."

"I don't care a d.a.m.n for the whole bunch of you," said Vetch suddenly.

"You can go and tell that to the crowd!"

"Well, I'll come back again after I've told them," Gershom replied in an insolent tone; and the next moment the door swung back and he appeared on the threshold.

At sight of Patty and Stephen he attempted to cover his embarra.s.sment with a jest. "Your father and I were having one of our little arguments about a Ladies' Aid Society," he said. "He is beginning to kick against too much ice cream."

"Well, if you argue as loud as that," replied the girl with imperturbable coolness, "it won't be necessary to go and tell it to the crowd."

In an instant she had changed from the sparkling elusive creature Stephen had known into a woman of authority and composure. What an eternal enigma was the feminine mind! He had flattered himself that he had reached the end of her superficial attractions; and in a minute, by some startling metamorphosis, she was changed from a being of transparent shallows into the immemorial riddle of s.e.x. She might be anything, or everything, except the ingenuous girl of the moment before.

"We must learn to lower our voices," said the Governor in a laughing tone. His anger, if it were anger, had blown over him like a summer storm, and the clear blue of his glance was as winning as ever. "I've been looking into the matter of that appointment Judge Page asked me about," he added, "and I think I may see my way to oblige him."

"If you are free for half an hour I'd like to have the talk we spoke of the other day," answered Stephen.

"Oh, I'm free except for Darrow. You won't mind Darrow."

He turned toward the library on the left of the hall; and as Stephen entered the room, after a gay and friendly smile in Patty's direction, he told himself that the man promised to be more interesting than any girl he had ever known.

CHAPTER XI

THE OLD WALLS AND THE RISING TIDE

A tall old man was standing by the window in the library, and as he turned his face away from the light of the sunset, Stephen had a vague impression that he had seen him before--not in actual life but in some half-forgotten picture or statue. The Governor's visitor was evidently a carpenter, with a tall erect figure and a face which had in it a dignity that belonged less to an individual than to an era. Beneath his abundant white hair, his large brown eyes still shone with the ardour of a convert or a disciple, and his blanched, strongly marked features had the aristocratic distinction and serenity that are found in the faces of the old who have lived in communion either with profound ideas or with the simple elemental forces of sky and sea. In spite of his gnarled hands and the sawdust that had lodged in the frayed creases of his clothes, he was in his way, Stephen realized, as great a gentleman and as typical a Virginian as Judge Horatio Lancaster Page. Both men were the descendants of a privileged order; both were inheritors of a formal and authentic tradition.

"This is Mr. Darrow," said Vetch in a voice which contained a note of affectionate deference. "I think he knew your father, Culpeper. Didn't you tell me, Darrow, that you had known this young man's father?"

"No, sir, I only said I'd worked for him," replied Darrow, with an air of genial irony which brought the Judge to Stephen's mind again. "That's a big difference, I reckon. I did some repairs a few years ago on a row of houses that belonged to Mr. Culpeper; but the business was all arranged by the agent."

"That was part of the estate, I suppose," explained Stephen. "My father leaves all that to his agent."

"Yes, I thought as much," replied Darrow simply; and after shaking hands with his rough, strong clasp, he sat down in a chair by the window.

"They've made a lot of changes inside this house," he remarked. "Before they added on that part at the back the dining-room used to be in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I remember doing some work down there when I was a young man and there was going to be a wedding."

"Well, that long room is very little use to me," returned Vetch. "As far as I am concerned they might have left the house as it was built." Then turning abruptly to Stephen, he said sharply: "You heard Gershom's parting shot at me, didn't you?" There was a gleam of quizzical humour in his eyes, and Stephen found himself asking, as so many others had asked before him, "Is the man serious, or is he making a joke? Does he wish me to receive this as a confidence or with pretended hilarity?"

"Something about telling the crowd?" he answered. "Yes, I heard it."

"We were having a tussle," continued Vetch lightly. "The fat's in the fire at last."

Stephen laughed drily. "Then I hope you will keep it there."

"You mean you would like an explosion?"

"I mean that anything that could clear up the situation would be welcome."

At this Vetch turned to Darrow and observed whimsically: "He doesn't seem to fancy our friend Gershom."

Darrow looked round with a smile from the window. "Well, there are times when I don't myself," he confessed in his deliberate way. "Of all bullies, your political bully is the worst. But he is not bad, he is just foolish. His heart is set on this general strike, and he can't set his heart on anything without losing his head." As the old man turned his face back to the sunset, the strong bold lines of his profile reminded Stephen of the impa.s.sive features of an Egyptian carving. Was this the vague resemblance that had baffled him ever since he had entered the room?

"To tell the truth," said Stephen frankly, "the fellow strikes me as particularly obnoxious; but I may be prejudiced."

"I think you are," responded Vetch. "I owe Gershom a great deal. He was useful to me once, and I recognize my debt; but the fact remains, that I don't owe him or any other man the s.h.i.+rt on my back!" As he met Stephen's glance he lowered his voice, and added in a tone of boyish candour that was very winning in spite of his colloquial speech: "I like your face, and I'm going to talk frankly to you."

"You may," replied the young man impulsively. It was impossible to resist the human quality, the confiding friendliness, of the Governor's manner. The chances were, he said to himself, that the whole thing was mere burlesque, one of the successful sleight-of-hand tricks of the charlatan. In theory he was still sceptical of Gideon Vetch, yet he had already surrendered every faculty except that impish heretical spectator that dwelt apart in his brain.