XXIX
The Flesh-Pots of Egypt
Convinced by Verda Richlander's telephone message to the constructioncamp that he stood in no immediate danger, Smith spent the heel of theafternoon in the High Line offices, keeping in wire touch withStillings, whom he had sent on a secret mission to Red Butte, and withWilliams at the dam.
Colonel Baldwin, as he learned from Martin, had gone to attend thefuneral of one of his neighbors, and was thus, for the moment, out ofreach. Smith told himself that the colonel's presence or absence madelittle difference. The High Line enterprise was on the knees of thegods. If Williams could pull through in time, if the river-swellingstorms should hold off, if Stanton should delay his final raid past thecritical hour--and there was now good reason to hope that all of thesecontingencies were probable--the victory was practically won.
But in another field the fighting secretary, denying himself in theprivacy of his office to everybody but Martin, found small matter forrejoicing. It was one of life's ironies that the metamorphosis which hadshown him, among other things, the heights and depths of a puresentiment had apparently deprived him of the power to awaken it in thewoman he loved.
It was thus that he was interpreting Corona Baldwin's attitude. She hadrecognized the transformation as a thing in process, and had beeninterested in it as a human experiment. Though it was chiefly owing toher beckoning that he had stepped out of the working ranks at theconstruction camp, he felt that he had never measured up to her ideals,and that her influence over him, so far as it was exerted consciously,was as impersonal as that of the sun on a growing plant. She had wishedobjectively to see the experiment succeed, and had been willing to usesuch means as had come to hand to make it succeed. For this cause, heconcluded, with a curiously bitter taste in his mouth, her interest inthe human experiment was his best warrant for shutting the door upon hislove dream. Sentiment, the world over, has little sympathy withlaboratory processes, and the woman who loves does not apply acid testsand call the object of her love a coward.
Letting the sting of the epithet have its full effect, he admitted thathe was a coward. He had lacked the finer quality of courage when he hadspirited Jibbey away, and he was lacking it again, now, in accepting thedefensive alliance with Verda Richlander. He had not shown himself atthe hotel since his return from the long drive with Starbuck, and thereason for it was that he knew his relations with Verda had now becomean entanglement from which he was going to find it exceedingly difficultto release himself. She had served him, had most probably lied for him;and he assured himself, again with the bitter taste in his mouth, thatthere would be a price to pay.
It is through such doors of disheartenment that temptation finds itseasiest entrance. For a dismal hour the old life, with its conventionalenjoyments and limitations, its banalities, its entire freedom from theprickings of the larger ambitions and its total blindness on the side ofbroadening horizons and higher ideals, became a thing most ardently tobe desired, a welcome avenue of escape from the toils and turmoils andthe growing-pains of all the metamorphoses. What if a return to itshould still be possible? What if, surrendering himself voluntarily, heshould go back to Lawrenceville and fight it out with Watrous Dunham inthe courts? Was there not more than an even chance that Dunham hadoffered the large reward for his apprehension merely to make sure thathe would not return? Was it not possible that the thing the crookedpresident least desired was an airing of his iniquitous business methodsin the courts?
Smith closed his desk at six o'clock and went across to the hotel todress for dinner. The day of suspense was practically at an end anddisaster still held aloof; was fairly outdistanced in the race, as itseemed. Williams's final report had been to the effect that theconcrete-pouring was completed, and the long strain was off. Smith wentto his rooms, and, as once before and for a similar reason, he laid hisdress clothes out on the bed. He made sure that he would be required todine with Verda Richlander, and he was stripping his coat when he hearda tap at the door and Jibbey came in.
"Glad rags, eh?" said the _blase_ one, with a glance at the array on thebed. "I've just run up to tell you that you needn't. Verda's dining withthe Stantons, and she wants me to keep you out of sight until afterward.By and by, when she's foot-loose, she wants to see you in themezzanine. Isn't there some quiet little joint where we two can go for abite? You know the town, and I don't."
Smith put his coat on and together they circled the square toFrascati's, taking a table in the main cafe. While they were givingtheir dinner order, Starbuck came in and joined them, and Smith wasglad. For reasons which he could scarcely have defined, he was relievednot to have to talk to Jibbey alone, and Starbuck played third handadmirably, taking kindly to the sham black sheep, and filling him up, inquiet, straight-faced humor, with many and most marvellous tales of theearlier frontier.
At the end of the meal, while Jibbey was still content to linger,listening open-mouthed to Starbuck's romancings, Smith excused himselfand returned to the hotel. He had scarcely chosen his lounging-chair ina quiet corner of the mezzanine before Miss Richlander came to join him.
"It has been a long day, hasn't it?" she began evenly. "You have beenbusy with your dam, I suppose, but I--I have had nothing to do but tothink, and that is something that I don't often allow myself to do. Youhave gone far since that night last May when you telephoned me that youwould come up to the house later--and then broke your promise,Montague."
"In a way, I suppose I have," he admitted.
"You have, indeed. You are a totally different man."
"In what way, particularly?"
"In every conceivable way. If one could believe in transmigration, onewould say that you had changed souls with some old, hard-hitting,rough-riding ancestor. Mr. Stanton has just been telling me the story ofhow, when you first came here, you fought barehanded with three minerssomewhere back in the hills."
A bleak little smile of reminiscence wrinkled at the corners of thefighter's eyes.
"Did he tell you that I knocked them out--all three of them?" he asked.
"He said you beat them shamefully; and I tried to imagine you doing sucha thing, and couldn't. Have your ambitions changed, too?"
"I am not sure now that I had any ambitions in that other life."
"Oh, yes, you had," she went on smoothly. "In the 'other life', as youcall it, you would have been quite willing to marry a woman who couldassure you a firm social standing and money enough to put you on afooting with other men of your capabilities. You wouldn't be willing todo that now, would you?--leaving the sentiment out as you used to leaveit out then?"
"No, I hardly think I should."
Her laugh was musically low and sweet, and only mildly derisive.
"You are thinking that it is change of environment, wider horizons, andall that, which has changed you, Montague; but I know better. It is awoman, and, as you may remember, I have met her--twice." Then, with afaint glow of spiteful fire in the magnificent eyes: "How can you makeyourself believe that she is pretty?"
He shrugged one shoulder in token of the utter uselessness of discussionin that direction.
"Sentiment?" he queried. "I think we needn't go into that, at this lateday, Verda. It is a field that neither of us entered, or cared to enter,in the days that are gone. If I say that Corona Baldwin has--quiteunconsciously on her part, I must ask you to believe--taught me whatlove means, that ought to be enough."
Again she was laughing softly.
"You seem to have broadly forgotten the old proverb about a womanscorned. What have you to expect from me after making such an admissionas that?"
Smith pulled himself together and stood the argument firmly upon itsunquestionable footing.
"Let us put all these indirections aside and be for the moment merely aman and a woman, as God made us, Verda," he said soberly. "You know, andI know, that there was never any question of love involved in ourrelations past and gone. We might have married, but in that case neitherof us would have gotten or exacted anything more th
an the conventionaldecencies and amenities. We mustn't try to make believe at this lateday. You had no illusions about me when I was Watrous Dunham's hiredman; you haven't any illusions about me now."
"Perhaps not," was the calm rejoinder. "And yet to-day I have lied tosave you from those who are trying to crush you."
"I told you not to do that," he rejoined quickly.
"I know you did; and yet, when you went away this morning you knewperfectly well that I was going to do it if I should get theopportunity. Didn't you, Montague?"
He nodded slowly; common honesty demanded that much.
"Very well; you accepted the service, and I gave it freely. Mr. Kinziebelieves now that you are another Smith--not the one who ran away fromLawrenceville last May. Tell me: would the other woman have done as muchif the chance had fallen to her?"
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, "I hope not," but he did not sayit. Instead, he said: "But you don't really care, Verda; in the way youare trying to make me believe you do."
"Possibly not; possibly I am wholly selfish in the matter and am onlylooking for some loophole of escape."
"Escape? From whom?"
She looked away and shook her head. "From Watrous Dunham, let us say.You didn't suspect that, did you? It is so, nevertheless. My fatherdesires it; and I suppose Watrous Dunham would like to have mymoney--you know I have something in my own right. Perhaps this may helpto account for some other things--for your trouble, for one. You were inhis way, you see. But never mind that: there are other matters to beconsidered now. Though Mr. Kinzie has been put off the track, Mr.Stanton hasn't. I have earned Mr. Stanton's ill-will because I wouldn'ttell him about you, and this evening, at table, he took it out on me."
"In what way?"
"He gave me to understand, very plainly, that he had done something;that there was a sensation in prospect for all Brewster. He was soexultantly triumphant that it fairly frightened me. The fact that hewasn't afraid to show some part of his hand to me--knowing that I wouldbe sure to tell you--makes me afraid that the trap has already been setfor you."
"In other words, you think he has gone over Kinzie's head and hastelegraphed to Lawrenceville?"
"Montague, I'm almost certain of it!"
Smith stood up and put his hands behind him.
"Which means that I have only a few hours, at the longest," he saidquietly. And then: "There is a good bit to be done, turning over thebusiness of the office, and all that: I've been putting it off from dayto day, saying that there would be time enough to set my house in orderafter the trap had been sprung. Now I am like the man who has put offthe making of his will until it is too late. Will you let me thank youvery heartily and vanish?"
"What shall you do?" she asked.
"Set my house in order, as I say--as well as I can in the time thatremains. There are others to be considered, you know."
"Oh; the plain-faced little ranch girl among them, I suppose?"
"No; thank God, she is out of it entirely--in the way you mean," hebroke out fervently.
"You mean that you haven't spoken to her--yet?"
"Of course I haven't. Do you suppose I would ask any woman to marry mewith the shadow of the penitentiary hanging over me?"
"But you are not really guilty."
"That doesn't make any difference: Watrous Dunham will see to it that Iget what he has planned to give me."
She was tapping an impatient tattoo on the carpet with one shapely foot.
"Why don't you turn this new leaf of yours back and go home and fight itout with Watrous Dunham, once for all?" she suggested.
"I shall probably go, fast enough, when Macauley or one of his deputiesgets here with the extradition papers," he returned. "But as to fightingDunham, without money----"
She looked up quickly, and this time there was no mistaking the meaningof the glow in the magnificent brown eyes.
"Your friends have money, Montague--plenty of it. All you have to do isto say that you will defend yourself. I am not sure that Watrous Dunhamcouldn't be made to take your place in the prisoner's dock, or that youcouldn't be put in his place in the Lawrenceville Bank and Trust. Youhave captured Tucker Jibbey, and that means Tucker's father; and myfather--well, when it comes to the worst, my father always does what Iwant him to. It's his one weakness."
For one little instant Smith felt the solid ground slipping from beneathhis feet. Here was a way out, and his quick mentality was showing himthat it was a perfectly feasible way. As Verda Richlander's husband andJosiah Richlander's son-in-law, he could fight Dunham and win. And thereward: once more he could take his place in the small Lawrencevilleworld, and settle down to the life of conventional good report and easewhich he had once thought the acme of any reasonable man's aspirations.But at the half-yielding moment a word of Corona Baldwin's flashed intohis brain and turned the scale: "It _did_ happen in your case ... givingyou a chance to grow and expand, and to break with all the oldtraditions ... and the break left you free to make of yourself what youshould choose." It was the reincarnated Smith who met the look in thebeautiful eyes and made answer.
"Your friends have money, Montague--plenty of it."]
"No," was the sober decision; and then he gave his reasons. "If I coulddo what you propose, I shouldn't be worth the powder it would take todrive a bullet through me, Verda, for now, you see, I know what lovemeans. You say I have changed, and I _have_ changed: I can imagine thepast-and-gone J. Montague jumping at the chance you are offering. Butthe mill will never grind with the water that is past: I'll take what iscoming to me, and try to take it like a man. Good-night--and good-by."And he turned his back upon the temptation and went away.
Fifteen minutes later he was in his office in the Kinzie Building,trying in vain to get Colonel Baldwin on the distance wire; tryingalso--and also in vain--to forget the recent clash and break with VerdaRichlander. He had called it a temptation at the moment, but perhaps itwas scarcely that. It was more like a final effort of the man who hadbeen to retransform the man who was. For a single instant the doors ofall his former ambitions had stood open. He saw how Josiah Richlander'smoney and influence, directed by Verda's compelling demands, could beused to break Dunham; and that done, all the rest would be easy, all thepaths to the success he had once craved would be made smooth.
On the other hand, there was everything to lose, and nothing, as theworld measures results, to be gained. In a few hours at the furthest thegood name he had earned in Brewster would be hopelessly lost, and, sofar as human foresight could prefigure, there was nothing ahead but lossand bitter disgrace. In spite of all this, while the long-distance"central" was still assuring him that the Hillcrest wire was busy, hefound time to be fiercely glad that the choice had been only a choiceoffered and not a choice accepted. For love's sake, if for no highermotive, he would go down like a man, fighting to the end for the rightto live and think and love as a man.
He was jiggling the switch of the desk 'phone for the twentieth time inthe effort to secure the desired line of communication with Baldwin whena nervous step echoed in the corridor and the door opened to admitWilliam Starbuck. There was red wrath in the mine owner's ordinarilycold eyes when he flung himself into a chair and eased the nausea of hissoul in an outburst of picturesque profanity.
"The jig's up--definitely up, John," he was saying, when his speechbecame lucid enough to be understood. "We know now what Stanton's 'otherstring' was. A half-hour ago, a deputy United States marshal, with aposse big enough to capture a town, took possession of the dam andstopped the work. He says it's a court order from Judge Lorching at RedButte, based on the claims of that infernal paper railroad!"
Smith pushed the telephone aside.
"But it's too late!" he protested. "The dam is completed; Williams'phoned me before I went to dinner. All that remains to be done to savethe charter is to shut the spillways and let the water back up so thatit will flow into the main ditch!"
"Right there's where they've got us!" was the rasping reply. "They won'tlet Will
iams touch the spillway gates, and they're not going to let himtouch them until after we have lost out on the time limit! Williams'sman says they've put the seal of the court on the machinery and haveposted armed guards everywhere. Wouldn't that make you run around incircles and yelp like a scalded dog?"
The Real Man Page 29