Air Trust

by George Allan England

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  CATHERINE'S SUPREME DECISION.

  The meal was almost at an end--silently, like all their hours spenttogether, now--before the old man sprang his _coup_. It wascharacteristic of him to wait thus, to hold his fire till what heconceived to be the opportune moment; never to act prematurely, underany circumstances whatever.

  "By the way, Kate," he remarked, casually, when coffee had been servedand he had motioned the butlers out of the room, "by the way, I've beenrather badly disappointed, today. Did you know that?"

  "No, father," she answered. She never called him "daddy," now. "No, I'msorry to hear it. What's gone wrong?"

  He looked at her a moment before replying, as though to gauge her mindand the effect his announcement might have. Very charming she looked,that evening, in a crepe de Chine gown with three-quarter lace sleevesand an Oriental girdle--a wonderful Nile-green creation, very simple(she had told herself) yet of staggering cost. A single white rosegraced her hair. The low-cut neck of the gown revealed a full, strongbosom. Around her throat she wore a fine gold chain, with a French20-franc piece and her Vassar Phi Beta Kappa key attached--the onlypendants she cared for. The gold coin spoke to her of the land of herfar ancestry, a land oft visited by her and greatly loved; the gold keyreminded her of college, and high rank taken in studies there.

  Old Flint noted some of these details as he sat looking at her acrossthe white and gleaming table, where silver and gold plate, cut glass andflowers and fine Sevres china all combined to make a picture of splendorsuch as the average workingman or his wife has never even dreamed of orimagined; a picture the merest commonplace, however, to Flint andCatherine.

  "A devilish fine-looking girl!" thought he, eyeing his daughter withapproval. "She'd grace any board in the world, whether billionaire's orprince's! Waldron, old man, you'll never be able to thank mesufficiently for what I'm going to do for you tonight--never, that is,unless you help me make the Air Trust the staggering success I think youcan, and give me the boost I need to land the whole damned world as myown private property!"

  He chuckled dryly to himself, then drew the paper from his pocket.

  "Well, father, what's gone wrong?" asked Kale, again. "Yourdisappointment--what was it?"

  She spoke without animation, tonelessly, in a flat, even voice. Sincethat night when her father had tried to force Waldron upon her, and hadtaunted her with loving the vagabond (as he said) who had rescued her,something seemed to have been broken, in her manner; some spring ofaction had snapped; some force was lacking now.

  "What's wrong with me?" asked Flint, trying to veil the secret maliceand keen satisfaction that underlay his speech. "Oh, just this. Youremember about a week ago, when we--ah--had that little talk in themusic room--?"

  "Don't, father, please!" she begged, raising one strong, brown hand."Don't bring that up again. It's all over and done with, that matter is.I beg you, don't re-open it!"

  "I--you misunderstand me, my dear child," said Flint, trying to smile,but only flashing his gold tooth. "At that time I told you I was lookingfor, and would reward, if found, the--er--man who had been so brave andquick-witted as to rescue you. You remember?"

  "Really, father, I beg you not to--"

  "Why not, pray?" requested Flint, gazing at her through his pince-nez."My intentions, I assure you, were most honest and philanthropic. If Ihad found him--_then_--I'd have given him--"

  "Oh, but he wouldn't have taken anything, you see!" the girlinterrupted, with some spirit. "I told you that, at the time. It's justas true, now. So please, father, let's drop the question altogether."

  "I'm sorry not to be able to grant your request, my dear," said the oldman, with hidden malice. "But really, this time, you must hear me. Mydisappointment arises from the fact that I've just discovered the youngman's identity, and--"

  "You--you have?" Kate exclaimed, grasping the edge of the table with anervous hand. Her father smiled again, bitterly.

  "Yes, I have," said he, with slow emphasis, "and I regret to say, mydear child, that my diagnosis of his character is precisely what I firstthought. Any interest you may feel in that quarter is being applied to avery unworthy object. The man is one of my discharged employees, athorough rascal and hard ticket in every way--one of the lowest-bred andmost villainous persons yet unhung, I grieve to state. The fact that hecarried you in his arms, and that I owe your preservation to him, is oneof the bitterest facts in my life. Had it been any other man, no matterof what humble birth--"

  "Father!" she cried, bending forward and gazing at him with strangeeyes. "Father! By what right and on what authority do you make theseaccusations? That man, I know, was all that innate gentleness andupright manhood could make any man. His nobility was not of wealth ortitle, but of--"

  "Nonsense!" Flint interrupted. "Nobility, eh? Read _that_, will you?"

  Leering, despite himself, he handed the paper across the table to hisdaughter.

  "Those marked passages," said he. "And remember, this is only thebeginning. Wait till all the facts are known, the whole conspiracy laidbare and everything exposed to public view! _Then_ tell me, if you can,that he is poor but noble! Bah! Sunday-school dope, that! Noble, yes!"

  Catherine sat there staring at the paper, a minute, as though quiteunable to decipher a word. Through a kind of wavering mist that seemedto swim before her eyes, she vaguely saw the words: "Socialist WhiteSlaver!" but that these bore any relation to the man she remembered,back there at the sugar-house, had not yet occurred to her mind. Shesimply could not grasp the significance of the glaring headlines. And,turning a blank gaze on her father's face, she stammered:

  "Why--why do you give me this? What has this got to do with--_me_? With_him_?"

  "Everything!" snarled the Billionaire, violently irritated by hisdaughter's seeming obtuseness. "Everything, I tell you! That man, thatstrong and noble hero of yours, is this man! This white slaver! Thiswild beast--this Socialist--this Anarchist! Do you understand now, ordon't you? Do you grasp the truth at last, or is your mind incapable ofapprehending it?"

  He had risen, and now was standing there at his side of the table,shaking with violent emotion, his glasses awry, face wrinkled and drawn,hands twitching. His daughter, making no answer to his taunts, sat withthe paper spread before her on the table. A wine glass, overset, hadspilled a red stain--for all the world like the workers' blood, spilledin war and industry for the greater wealth and glory of the masters--outacross the costly damask, but neither she nor Flint paid any heed.

  For he was staring only at her; and she, now having mastered herself alittle, though her full breast still rose and fell too quickly, wasstruggling to read the slanderous lies and foul libels of theblue-penciled article.

  Silently she read, paling a little but otherwise giving no sign to showher father how the tide of her thought was setting. Twice over she readthe article; then, pushing the paper back, looked at old Flint with eyesthat seemed to question his very soul--eyes that saw the living truth,below.

  "It is a lie!" said she, at last, in a grave, quiet voice.

  "What?" blurted the old man. "A--a lie?"

  She nodded.

  "Yes," said she. "A lie."

  Furious, he ripped open the paper, and once more shoved it at her.

  "Fool!" cried he. "Read _that_!" And his shaking, big-knuckled fingertapped the editorial on "Socialism Unveiled."

  "No," she answered, "I need read no more. I know; I understand!"

  "You--you know _what_?" choked Flint. "This is an editorial, I tell you!It represents the best thought and the most careful opinion of thepaper. And it condemns this man, absolutely, as a criminal and a menaceto society. It denounces him and his whole gang of Socialists orAnarchists or White-slavers--they're all the same thing--as a plague tothe world. That's the editor's opinion; and remember, he's on theground, there. He has all the facts. You--_you_ are at a distance, andhave none! Yet you set up your futile, childish opinion--"

  "No more, father! No more!" cried Catherine,
also standing up. She facedhim calmly, coldly, magnificently. "You can't talk to me this way, anymore. Cannot, and must not! As I see this thing--and my woman'sintuition tells me more in a minute than you can explain away in anhour--this fabrication here has all, or nearly all, been invented andcarried out by you. For what reason? This--to discredit this man! Tomake me hate and loathe him! To force me back to Waldron. To--"

  "Stop!" shouted the old man, in a well-assumed passion. "No daughter ofmine shall talk to me this way! Silence! It is monstrous andunthinkable. It--it is horrible beyond belief! Silence, I tellyou--and--"

  "No, father, not silence," she replied, with perfect poise. "Notsilence now, but speech. Either this thing is true or it is false. Ineither case, I must know the facts. The papers? No truth in _those_! Thefinding of the courts? today, they are a by-word and a mockery! All Ican trust is the evidence of my own senses; what I hear, and feel, andsee. So then--"

  "Then?" gulped the Billionaire, holding the back of his chair in atrembling grasp.

  "Just this, father. I'm going to Rochester, myself, to investigate thisthing, to see this man, to hear his side of the story, to know--"

  "Do that," cried Flint in a terrible voice, "and you never enter thesedoors again! From the minute you leave Idle Hour on that fool's errand,my daughter is dead to me, forever!"

  Swept clean off his feet by rage, as well as by the deadly fear of whatmight happen if his daughter really were to learn the truth, he had losthis head completely.

  With quiet attention, the girl regarded him, then smiled inscrutably.

  "So it be," she replied. "Even though you disinherit me or turn me offwith a penny, my mind is made up, and my duty's clear.

  "While things like these are going on in the world, outside, I have noright to linger and to idle here. I am no child, now; I have beenthinking of late, reading, learning. Though I can't see it all clearly,yet, I know that every bite we eat, means deprivation to some otherpeople, somewhere. This light and luxury mean poverty and darknesselsewhere. This fruit, this wine, this very bread is ours because someobscure and unknown men have toiled and sweat and given them to us. Eventhis cut glass on our table--see! What tragedies it could reveal, couldit but speak! What tales of coughing, consumptive glass-cutters, bendingover wheels, their lungs cut to pieces by the myriad spicules of sharpglass, so that we, we of our class, may enjoy beauty of design andcoloring! And the silken gown I wear--that too has cost--"

  "No more! No more of this!" gurgled old Flint, now nearly in apoplexy."I deny you! I repudiate you, Anarchist that you are! Go! Never comeback--never, never--!"

  Stumbling blindly, he turned and staggered out of the room. She watchedhim go, nor tried to steady his uncertain steps. In the hallway,outside, she heard him ring for Slawson, heard the valet come, and bothof them ascend the stairs.

  "Father," she whispered to herself, a look of great and pure spiritualbeauty on her noble face, "father, this had to come. Sooner or later, itwas inevitable. Whatever you have done, I forgive you, for you _are_ myfather, and have surely acted for what you think my interest.

  "But none the less, the end is here and now. Between you and me, a greatgulf is fixed. And from tonight I face the world, to battle with it,learn from it, and know the truth in every way. Enough of this false,easy, unnatural life. I cannot live it any longer; it would crush andstifle me! Enough! I must be free, I shall be free, to know, and dare,and do!"

  That night, having had no further speech with old Flint, Kate left IdleHour, taking just a few necessities in a suit-case, and a few dollarsfor her immediate needs.

  Giving no explanation to maid, valet or anyone, she let herself out,walked through the great estate and down Englewood Avenue, to thestation, where she caught a train for Jersey City.

  The midnight special for Chicago bore her swiftly westward. No sleepingcar she took, but passed the night in a seat of an ordinary coach. Herticket read "Rochester."

  The old page of her Book of Life was closed forever. A new and betterpage was open wide.