A Man's Hearth

by Eleanor M. Ingram

  CHAPTER XV

  THE OTHER MAN'S ROAD

  The damp cold of a March night closed chillingly around the two, as theypassed through the revolving door into the street. The restaurant didnot face on Broadway, the street of a million lights; for a moment theyseemed to have stepped into darkness, after the dazzle of light justleft. Adriance turned away from the vociferous proffers of taxicabs,with an economy prompted by Elsie's guiding hand rather than his ownprudence. Indeed, his great amazement and vicarious shame for Mastersonleft him with slight attention for ordinary matters.

  But they were not allowed to reach the subway, and return as they hadcome. As they neared the station entrance, a limousine rolled up to thecurb and halted across their path. The car's occupant threw open thedoor before the chauffeur could do so, and leaned out.

  "Come in," commanded, rather than invited Masterson's voice. "Youdidn't wait for me, so I had a chase to catch you. Put Mrs. Adriance in,Tony, and tell the man where you want to go. The ferry, is it? Allright; tell him so."

  He spoke with an abrupt impatience and strain that excused much by itsaccount of his sick nerves. Adriance complied without objection. Beforeshe quite realized the situation, Elsie found herself seated beside him,opposite Masterson in the warmed interior of the car.

  The air of the limousine was not only warm, but perfumed. Withoutanalyzing their reason, it struck both the Adriances as peculiarlyshocking that this should be so. Elsie identified the white heliotropescent worn by the dancer. The globe set in the ceiling was not lighted,but the street lamps shone in, showing the thinness of Masterson'sflushed face and its haggardness, accentuated by smudges of make-upimperfectly removed. Elsie felt a quivering embarrassment for him, and adesperate hopelessness of finding anything possible to say. She divinedthat Anthony was experiencing the same feelings, but intensified.

  The car rolled smoothly around Columbus Circle and settled into a steadypace up Broadway. The rush of after-theatre traffic was long since over,the streets comparatively clear. Masterson spoke first, with a defiancethat attempted to be light.

  "Well, haven't you any compliments for me? I've been told I do it prettywell. That's the only thing I learned at college of any use to me!"

  "How did you come----?" Adriance began, brusquely. "I mean--what sentyou there, to that? Why, Fred----?"

  "I thought it was you, Tony, until to-day," was the dry retort. "I'vethought so ever since I found out who was financing the case. Until thismorning, I believed Lucille lied when she told me you were married. Isuppose I should apologize to you; consider it done, if you like."

  "Don't!" Adriance begged. His hand closed sharply over his wife's.

  "We have been married since last November," she gravely came to his aid."I am sure Mrs. Masterson told you only the truth in that. Indeed, theannouncement was published in the newspapers! Since then, we have beenliving where you saw me this morning; on a honeymoon quite out of theworld."

  "I don't read more of any newspaper than the first pages," Mastersonreturned. "I see you two do not read even so much, or you would hardlyhave been taken by surprise, to-night. Shocked, were you, Tony? Isuppose I would have been, myself, once. Now----"

  "Now----?" Adriance prompted, after waiting.

  Masterson faced his friend with a sudden blaze in his hollow eyes.

  "Now, I am through with being shocked at myself, through with thinkingof myself or sparing myself and other people. Can't you see, can't youguess for whom alone I would do this--or anything else? Have youforgotten Holly? I may not have a wife, but I have a son. And I will nothave my son reared as I was, married as I was, and ruined as I am. I amgoing to have money, if I fish it out of the gutter, to take him away tosome clean, far-off place. There I shall rear him myself, understand! Heshall never know this Fred Masterson. Roughing it outdoors will put mein fit condition long before he is old enough to criticise. He's got afine little body, Tony! I'll have him as hard and straight as a pinetree. I'll teach him to work. What will I care for the squalls of thiscorner of the world, when I have done that? Since Lucille divorced me,I've stripped my mind of a good deal of hampering romance."

  He was interrupted by the exclamation of both his listeners.

  "Divorced you?" Adriance echoed, stifled by the pressure of warringemotions. "Divorced you, after all?"

  "You don't mean to say you didn't know?" He studied the two faces withincredulous astonishment; then, convinced by their patent honesty,shrugged derision of himself. "Conceited lot, all of us! We think if ourtea-cups drop, the crash is heard around the world. Yes, I have been asingle man for three months. You have been away for six, remember. Butit went through very quietly. Lucille is strong for propriety andconventions. She even," his face darkened with an angry flood ofbitterness startling as a self-betrayal, "she even is willing to paypretty highly for them. Holly----"

  The sentence remained unfinished. Elsie's memory returned to thatmorning, when Masterson told her that he had lost Holly. She glimpsedhis meaning now.

  The automobile had long since left behind the flash and glitter oftheatrical Broadway. When the gliding silence of the progress wassuddenly broken by a blast of the car's electric horn sounding warningto some late pedestrian, the three within started as if at an unnaturalhappening.

  "It went through quietly," Masterson sullenly picked up the brokenthread, "because she bargained with me. She said that if I made nodefence, she would let me take Holly. Well, I kept my word; I stayedaway from the whole business and didn't even get a lawyer--like a fool.I don't even know what they said about me. I didn't care, since shewanted it. And then she asked the court for the custody of Holly; andgot him. It was only for the boy's good, she says; I was not fit to havecharge of him."

  "Oh!" Elsie gasped.

  Masterson lighted a cigarette with an attempt at unconcern. He had asingular difficulty in bringing the burning match in contact with theend of the little paper tube--a lack of coordination between the nervesand muscles that held a sinister meaning for one able to interpret thesigns.

  "Thanks," he acknowledged the unworded sympathy. "Maybe you know I wasfit, then; or, at least, would have been fit if I had had him. Nothaving him, I went to--I beg your pardon, Mrs. Adriance."

  "Fred----" Adriance essayed.

  The other man hushed him with a gesture.

  "I know what you are going to say, Tony. Don't! My wife, my _late_ wifeand I have managed this business. Keep out of what doesn't concern you.Here, I'll give her due to her, too! If I had not been weak, all thiswould never have happened. But if she had played the game, it wouldnever have happened, either. Well, I lose. But Holly shall not pay forthe game he had no share in. I am telling you two what I have told noone else. When I have enough money, I shall buy Holly from his motherand take him to Oregon. Lucille always needs money. Phillips is outthere, Tony. Do you remember my Cousin Phil? Well, I started him outthere ten years ago; sold my first automobile to help him out of a badscrape. He says there is room for me; work that will support any man whodoesn't want too much. They raise square miles of fruit. I only wish itwas the other side of the world!"

  The limousine swung to the left, jarring across a network of car tracks.They were turning down to the ferry. Elsie nestled her hand into herhusband's, divining his pain.

  "Nice machine, this," Masterson observed, casually. "One thing, I'm notmaking a gutter exit! You wouldn't believe what they pay me for my bitof college theatrical work. I did it at first on a bet, after a supperparty I gave to celebrate my freedom. I think it must annoy Lucilleconsiderably. It suits me; and there isn't any other way I could earn soquickly what I need. Here we are."

  The automobile had stopped, and the chauffeur threw open the door.

  "The ferry-boat is just coming across, sir," he stated.

  "Very well," his employer dismissed him. "Mrs. Adriance, you had betterstay in here until the boat docks; it is cold, to-night. Tony and I willgo buy the tickets."

  "You might say Elsie, still," she answered gently. "You
know we werealways good friends."

  "You are good to say so now," he returned. "Thank you."

  The two men did not buy the tickets; instead, they walked side by sideacross the rough, cobblestone square in front of the ferry-house.Adriance was pale, but steadily set of face and determination to havedone, here and now with all deceit.

  "Fred, I've got to clear things between us," he forced the distastefulspeech. "Before I met my wife, I did see a great deal of Mrs. Masterson.You spoke a while ago of believing me responsible for her wanting adivorce. Once I might have done such a thing, I do not know. But, I didnot. I went away, in order that I should not."

  The other nodded, almost equally embarrassed by the difficult avowal.

  "That's all right, Tony. I understand. But don't blame me too much formy mistake. Do you know who paid all the expenses of the case, whoseinfluence kept it out of the newspapers as much as possible--in short,who managed the whole campaign? Except about Holly; that was a woman'strick! Do you know?"

  "Why, no. How should I?"

  The boat was in the slip; across the clank of unwinding chains, the fallof gangways and tread of men and horses, Masterson's reply came:

  "Your father."

  The amazing statement stunned Adriance beyond the possibility of reply.No outcry, no denial of complicity could have been so convincing as theutter stupefaction of the regard he fixed upon his friend. What had thesenior Adriance to do with this affair? What had he to do with LucilleMasterson?

  "It is true," Masterson answered his doubt. "Now you know why I did notbelieve you were married, until I met your wife, this morning. And," hehesitated, "that is why, when I did understand, I brought you to see me,to-night. I could not say so before Mrs. Adriance, but evidently yourfather is not pleased with your marriage, since you're living like alaborer, across the river. Make no mistake, Tony; your father never inhis life did anything without reason. If he got Lucille her divorce,why, he knows you admired her, once. And he always liked her, himself.Suppose he figured that if she were free, you might wish to become so?Why not? We all know couples where both parties have been divorced andmarried several times, and no one says a word against them."

  The recoil that shook Adriance was strong as physical sickness. Like awoman, he was glad of the darkness.

  Divorce between Elsie and himself? He could have laughed at the coarseabsurdity of the idea, if it had not been for his disgust and desire toget away from the subject.

  "We shall miss the boat," he said curtly. "Thank you, Fred, but that isall nonsense. The truth of the matter is that you are sick--and nowonder! Come, man, pull yourself up and you'll get past all this. Why,you are only twenty-eight; start over again here! Drop everything andcome home with Elsie and me for a while. You saw how we live; it isn'tmuch, perhaps, but you would get back your health. And we can force Mrs.Masterson to let you have Holly part of the time, at least."

  "I saw the way you live," Masterson repeated. "Yes. And you see the wayI live. I'm no preacher, but measure them up and choose if ever you feeldiscontented, Tony. As for taking me home, neither of us could stand it.I drink all day to keep myself merry enough to stand that restaurant,and take morphine at night to keep myself asleep. No, we will not talkabout it. I must put this through in my own way, and then leave thispart of the earth. I can drop all this at once when I am ready. I am noweakling physically."

  The two wanted back to the car. Just before they reached it, Mastersonclosed the discussion.

  "Think over what I've told you. You can't love your wife any more than Idid Lucille." He shivered in the damp air, drawing his fur-lined coatcloser about him. "I couldn't keep her, though I tried hard, at first.Wish you better luck."

  It was three o'clock in the morning when Adriance slipped his key intothe clumsy old lock of his house-door, while Elsie perched herself onthe railing of the porch. Within they heard his dog barking boisterouswelcome.

  "Up to work at seven," he commented, as the clock struck simultaneouslywith the opening of the door. But there was no complaint in his tone. Hethrew his arm around Elsie and drew her across the threshold with a deepbreath of relief.

  "Let me light the lamp," she offered.

  "I'll light it." He held her closer. "Wait a moment; the hearth givesglow enough. I have been thinking--if it should be a boy, I would liketo call our son after that jolly old ancestor of yours: the black-sloopman, Martin Galvez."

  "Not Anthony?"

  "No."

  The brevity of the answer silenced her. She gave her consent moredelicately than in words. But still Adriance did not move toward thelamp, or release his companion.

  "Elsie, you are happy, aren't you?"

  "More than happy, dear."

  "If ever you are not, if you want anything you have not got, tell me.You know I am not going to keep you in this poor place always, or letyou work for me; I am working towards better things for you, now. I havenot told you, yet--I was promoted to a new position to-day. I have workinside the factory, and some individuality. I am no longer just one of atroup of chauffeurs. And, of course, this is only a beginning. It is allfor you, everything, will you remember? If ever--I'm often stupid and,well, a man!--if ever you find me lacking, you will tell me, won't you?"

  She clasped her hands over the hand that held her. This ending to theday of doubt and anxiety closed her round with a hush of deep content.She wanted to cry out her love and happiness and gratitude for histenderness, to exalt him above herself. But with a new wisdom, she didnot. Where he had placed her, she stood.

  "Yes," she assented. "Yes."