Part 16

“Oh, you--you--” He broke in and then stopped, lacking words. “What's the use?” he muttered. “You don't even know your own daughter. She has been enduring me because you have been keeping at her. I understand it now. You told me you could hurry it up. You have made me look like a melodrama villain. You have made her hate me. Now own up! Didn't she rave to you after you got home and tell you she hated me? You have nailed me to the cross for ever where she is concerned--now haven't you? Own up.”

“I can win her back, Dicky. Give me a little time.” But she was not able to look at him. “Don't scold me any more. I'm her mother. She will obey her own mother in time. Don't hurt my sensitive nature any more.” She began to weep, twisting her rings on her trembling fingers.

He scowled at her, narrowing his eyes. “You haven't been playing square with me, Mrs. Kilgour.”

“Call me Mother Kilgour, Dicky, just as you always have.”

“I won't stand for any more bluffing, Mrs. Kilgour. Kate has sworn to you that she will never marry me--now hasn't she?”

“But I can talk her around--you can win her back. I'll tell her it was my plan--I'll have courage to tell her later--”

“So you have been laying that crazy idea all to me?”

“But I'll get up courage to tell her some day--and your devotion will win her back--devotion always wins. You can--”

“Mrs. Kilgour, I know you pretty well. I repeat, I know you have always ducked out from under--that's your nature. But here's a thing you can't dodge. You've got to come to time. You know how I love Kate. There isn't any reason why she shouldn't marry me. There's no excuse for her holding me off the way she does. You've got to fix it for me--quick! Understand? This fluff talk about 'devotion' and 'some day' doesn't go. I want

## action. Now hold on! I don't mean to threaten--I've been square with you

till now. Good gad, you don't realize what a price I've paid!”

“And now on top of your other insults you are going to twit me again because I have borrowed five thousand dollars from you. Oh, Dicky, I thought you were more of a gentleman?”

“Mrs. Kilgour, I have simply got to make you understand what I have done for you before you'll wake up and do something for me.”

“I appreciate what you did, Dicky. Honestly, I do. You save me from losing money on my stocks.”

“Where are those stocks?”

She did not look at him. “I have them put away--all safe. They are all right. Just as soon as business is better I will get your money for you, Dicky. You shall have it, every cent.”

“Where are those stocks, I say! Mrs. Kilgour, look at me. Were are they?”

“Why are you so particular about knowing where they are?” Protecting herself, she showed a flicker of resentment.

“Because you must sell and hand me that money--at once.”

“I--I don't believe I can realize on them just now. They are--are down just at present. They--”

“What are the stocks?”

“I don't care to reveal my private business, Richard.”

“It happens to be my business, too. I'm in trouble. I must know. I shall stay here till I find out. You may as well come across.”

“As soon as I can arrange it--I will tell you. Very soon now!”

He snapped himself out of his chair and went across the room to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent his face to hers.

“You haven't any stocks, Mrs. Kilgour.”

“No,” she whispered, his eyes dominating her.

“What did you do with that money I loaned you?”

“I paid--a debt.”

“What debt? Answer! This thing must be cleared up--_now_!”

She began to weep.

“No more hysterics, Mrs. Kilgour. We are now down to cases. Something bad will happen if you don't confide in me.”

Then, cornered, with the impulse of weak natures to seek support from stronger--to appeal to a victor who cannot be eluded--she blurted the truth.

“They got to suspecting me when I was cashier for Dalton & Company. I heard they were going to put experts upon my books, Dicky. I didn't want to go to jail. I would have disgraced Kate. I knew you loved her and would not want her mother to be arrested. I had to have that money. I told you the story about the stocks. So I was saved from being disgraced.”

“Oh, you were?” His eyes flamed so furiously that she turned her gaze from him.

“And now I feel better, for I have confided in you and you're going to be my good and true friend from now on. It will be made up to you, Dicky.”

“What had you done with all that money you took from Dalton & Company?”

“It costs so much to live--and keep up the position I had when Andrew was alive! A woman needs so many things, Richard. I have always been proud. I was obliged to--”

He swore and swung away from her. “Wasted it on dress and jewelry! You turned the trick on one man and put him underground. And I'm the next victim! I knew I was being played for a sucker, but, oh--”

He battered his fists against the wall in pure ecstasy of rage. Then he sat down and put his face in his hands.

The woman clucked sobs which did not ring true.

“I wonder what Kate would say if she knew how I had come to the scratch. She knew her father was a hero. I wonder whether she would think I am one!” he said, after silence had continued for a long time.

“Are you going to tell her?” the mother gasped.

“I love her too much. But, see here! Do you think I picked that five thousand off a rose-bush?”

“You told me your uncle loaned it to you.”

“You think I got it easy--got it for the asking, and that's why you have been loafing on the job,” he said, with bitterness. “Ask my uncle for money? I should say not. He never loosened for anybody yet--not even his relatives. Mrs. Kilgour, I love your daughter so much--I was so anxious to help you--I stole that five thousand from the state treasury. I have been covering it in my accounts for more than a year--hell all the time with plenty of white-hot when the legislative committee has been over the accounts. Some day some blasted fool will wake up enough to see that there's a hole in my figures.”

He put his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet. The woman's face grew white.

“That's how it stands with me, Mrs. Kilgour. You know you were not square with me at the start. You said you needed the money for only a few weeks--you said you were pinched in a stock deal. You lied to me. You have wasted the money on fine feathers for your back. I have kept still. You can't pay me. I've got to struggle out of the mess as best I can. But, by the eternal gods, there's something coming to me, and that's your daughter. Now are you going to wake up?”

“I'll do everything I can.” Her tone was not convincing, however.

He realized that this woman with the pulpy conscience and the artificial emotions, selfish and a coward, was merely vaguely stirred by his revelation, not spurred by the extent of his sacrifice in her behalf.

“Do what you _can_? Whine to me like that after I have stolen state's money and am standing under my steal? What if this state tips over politically and they investigate the treasury? I tell you, Mrs. Kilgour, I deserve to have Kate. I'm going to have her. You have got to fix it--and right away.”

“But I can't marry off a girl of twenty as if she were a Chinese slave.” His insistence caused her to display more of her pettish resentment.

“If you can't deliver the goods, Mrs. Kilgour, I shall take a hand in it.”

“How?”

“I'll tell her the story.”

“You wouldn't dare.”

“She has a sense of honor and of obligation even if you haven't. She will pay. She'll pay with herself. That's a devil of a way to get a wife, but if that's the only way I'll take it.”

“But you have just owned up that you have embezzled money. As Kate's mother it's my duty to protect her from disgrace.”

That amazing declaration fairly took away Dodd's breath.

By the manner in which the woman now looked at him it was plain that he had sunk in her estimation.

“You know, Richard, a mother feels called on to protect a good daughter.”

He got up and stamped on the floor in his passion and swore.

“I appreciate what you did for me--but, really, I didn't ask you to steal money--and I supposed your uncle was always liberal with you. You should not have told me falsehoods.”

The maddening feature of this calm assumption of superiority was the fact that the woman seemed really to believe for the moment exactly what she was saying and to forget why Dodd had jeopardized his fortunes; her manner showed her shallow estimate of the situation.

“There's another way of doing it,” raged the young man, infuriated by this repudiation of obligation. “I'll blow the whole thing about the two of us--and she'll be glad enough to have me after it's all over.”

“You haven't any right to bring all this trouble and disgrace into my family.”

“You know one way of preventing it and you'd better get busy, Mrs. Kilgour,” he advised. “I'm going to give you another chance of keeping your word and paying your debt to me. I want Kate--and I have waited for her long enough.”

He clapped on his hat and hurried away.

He left the mother sprawled on a couch, her ringed hands clutched into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have convinced any unprejudiced hearer that she felt real grief.

When Richard Dodd entered his uncle's offices in the First National block a little later he was in the mood to force his affairs a bit. He enjoyed liberties there which the ordinary caller did not have and he walked into Kate Kilgour's little room without attracting attention or comment.

“I know exactly how you feel about last night, Kate.” He addressed her respectfully and humbly. “I understand that this is no place to discuss the matter. I haven't come here to do so. I apologize for the affair. I'm going to say this to you--I took your mother's advice. She planned the thing and trumped up the errand which called you to that house. I'm afraid she is rather too romantic. I only say this, Kate: a man's love can make him do foolish things. Please talk with your mother when you go home--and take her advice. If you do, it will be better for all of us.” He trembled with the restraint he had put upon himself. “You can see that I have been punished, Kate. I am a different man--you ought to be able to see it. Awful trouble has come to me. I need your love to help me through it.”

She gazed at him with level, cold eyes.

“You don't understand. I can't explain, dear! But I'm telling you the truth. Kate, if you don't forget that folly I was guilty of last night and be to me what you have been--if you don't marry me very soon you will be sorry.”

“Are you threatening me, Richard?”

“No, I didn't mean it to sound like that. But I know that with your appreciation of what sacrifice means you will be very unhappy if you toss me away and then find out certain things.”

“This is not the time for riddles, Richard. What do you mean?”

“I have said all I can say.”

“I do not love you well enough to be your wife. I have not meant to play the coquette. I have not known myself. You and my mother--Oh, why rehearse? You know the story. You have understood that my love for you was not what you should have. We may as well end it here and now, Richard. I will forget last night. I will forget all the rest--for it is ended!”

“It cannot be ended,” he retorted. “Understand! It cannot be ended. I am trying to hold myself together, Kate. Don't provoke me. I call on you to keep your promise. No other man shall have you.” He leaned close. “Do you love any other man?”

She looked up at him and spoke slowly and gravely. “I do not think I do, Richard.”

He scowled at her. “You don't _think_ you do! What in the name of Judas do you mean by a remark like that?”

“It's because I'm trying to tell the truth,” she returned, with simple earnestness.

“This is a sort of new mood you're in?” he persisted.

“Yes.”

He hesitated. He started to speak and then was silent for a long time. “Damnation! I won't insult you!” he blurted at last.

“I hope not, Richard.”

“It's preposterous!”

“What is preposterous?” Her tone was calm.

“I saw you look at a man last evening.”

“Very well!”

“I have seen women look at me like that in my life.”

“I was not conscious that I looked at any man in any especial manner.”

“You couldn't see yourself. Perhaps you did not realize that you looked at that man with any meaning in your eyes. But the women who looked at me as you looked at him told me that they loved me. I am talking it right out! But if I should hint that you're in love with a tramp I should insult you. I am crazy, that's all. My troubles are affecting my mind. Forgive me, Kate.”

“You are, of course, referring to the young man who broke in on our prospective business last evening.” There was just a touch of contempt in her demeanor; but her air was coldly business-like; sitting there at her desk she held him, physically and mentally, at arm's-length. Her poise was sure. It seemed perfectly natural for her to be discussing a young man in an impersonal manner.

“I am referring to that low-lived vagrant we met on the road--that iceman--that--well, I don't know what he is except that the devil seems to be kicking him under my feet to trip me. Kate, Kate, it's too ridiculous to talk about--that wretch!”

“Do you mean by that remark that I am taking any interest in that young man outside of mere curiosity?”

“I don't know why you should have any curiosity about a tramp.”

“You are not a good student of physiognomy, Richard.”

“So you have been studying him, have you? You went away with him and left me. What did he say to you? Where did he leave you? I haven't dared to think about your going away with him. I excused it because you were angry--so angry you'd even pick up a tramp for an escort. But what interest do you take in that renegade?” His tones were acrid with jealousy.

“I did not find him a renegade. I found him a mystery, Richard. And I hope that some day I will know what the mystery is.”

“Are you trying to drive me mad?”

“I am merely chatting along in order to keep you off a topic which is distressing. I heard that your uncle intended to have the man investigated after he came into the office here and made that brave stand. I happened to hear the talk the young man made. Perhaps that accounts for my curiosity. Did your uncle find out much about the man?”

“I don't know what he found out,” declared Dodd, rapidly losing control of himself. “But I propose to find out for myself.”

“Please do, Richard,” said the girl, ingenuously and earnestly. She seemed to be losing some of the hauteur she had shown at the first of their meeting.

“I'll find out enough to put him in jail, where he probably belongs. I'm not going to insult you, Kate, by any more talk about a tramp. You can't shift me from the main topic. Go home and talk with your mother, as I have told you. We are going to be married!”

“Richard, our affair is ended.”

“Then who is the man?”

“There is no man.”

“If you say that and mean it, then you don't know women as well as I know them. You don't know even yourself!” he declared. “I want to say to you, Kate, that we are all walking on mighty thin ice. The sooner you and I take hold of hands and get safely ashore--just you and I--the better it will be. Just let your curiosity about other men fall asleep. I tell you again, go home and talk with your mother.”

He bowed, reached his hand to touch hers, but refrained when she turned suddenly to her desk and resumed her work.

Young Dodd hurried out of the building without attempting to see his uncle, and cooled his head and his passion and soothed his physical discomfort by a headlong dash in his car back to the state's capital city.

The girl took her courage in her hands and asked Mr. Peter Briggs, in as matter-of-fact tone as she could muster, whether he did not want any record copy made of his notes in regard to that person who had bearded Colonel Dodd. But Mr. Briggs informed her that the matter was not of sufficient importance.

“The fellow is merely a cheap, loafing sort--here to-day, there to-morrow,” said Briggs. “I investigated him thoroughly.”

Until then Miss Kilgour had always had a high opinion of Peter Briggs's acumen. She promptly revised that estimate, reflecting that age is bound to dull a person's senses and cloud his judgment.

XXI

THE HONORABLE LION CONFERS WITH COLONEL TIGER

All his people in the offices of the Honorable Archer Converse noticed that the chief was not amiable that day. His usual dignified composure was wholly lacking. He gave off orders fretfully, he slapped papers about on his desk when he worked there; every now and then he glanced up at the portrait of his distinguished father and muttered under his breath. He had called for more documents relating to state health statistics, reports on water systems, and had despatched a clerk to the capital city to secure certain additional facts, figures, and literature. The junior members of his law firm knew that he had taken much to heart the case of the citizens of Danburg, who had been blocked in their honest efforts to build a water system and who now charged various high interests with conspiracy. The litigation was important--the issues revolutionary. But the juniors had never seen the chief fussed up by any law case before.

Then something really did happen!

The three citizens of Danburg who had occasionally conferred with him came into his office and lined up in front of him. Mr. Davis scratched his chin and blinked meekly, Mr. Erskine exhibited his nervousness by running his fingers around inside his collar, and Mr. Owen fairly oozed unspoken apology.

“Look here, gentlemen,” snapped Mr. Converse, “I'm not ready for you. I told you not to come until next week. I have an immense mass of material to study. You're only wasting time--mine and yours--coming here to-day.”

“Well, you see, your honor,” stammered Davis, “we came to-day so as to save you more trouble and work.”

“Work!” echoed Mr. Converse, seizing the arms of his chair and shoving an astonished face forward.

“Why--why--you see we've decided not to push this case any further. And whatever is owing to you--name the sum.” He did not relish the glow which was coming into the attorney's eyes, nor the grim wrinkles settling about the thin lips. “So that there won't be any hard feelings, in any way,” Davis hastened to say.

“What has happened to you men all of a sudden?” demanded the lawyer. “Explain! Speak up!”

Davis's face was red, and he found much difficulty in replying.

“Well--you see--you know--if you get into law you never know when you're going to get out. We feel that this case is bound to drag! It's an awful big case--and they've got lots of money to fight us.”

“I told you I'd take your case for bare expenses and court fees,” stormed the lawyer. “It's a case I wanted to prosecute.”

“We know--you were mighty fine about it--but we've decided different. You see, the Consolidated--”

Mr. Converse came onto his feet and shook his finger under Davis's nose. “Don't you dare to tell me you have sold out to the Consolidated,” he shouted in tones that rang through his offices and brought all his force to the right about and attention.

“That wasn't it--exactly. But they'll take it off our hands--will do the right thing, now that we have shown 'em a few things! Colonel Dodd has seen new light. And it is too good a price for us to throw down.”

“You have let those monopolists buy you off. They have paid you a big bribe because they are getting scared. They were afraid they had played the old game once too often. I have them where I want them! No, my men! You've got to fight this thing, I say.”

“You can't drag us into law unless we're willing to go,” stated Davis, doggedly. “We've taken their money and the papers have been passed--and that settles it. We haven't done anything different than the others have done in this state.”

“No, and that's the trouble with this state,” cried Converse, with passion. “You came in here at first and talked like men--like honest men who had good reason for righteous anger--and I took your case. And now you sneak back here and give up your fight--bribed after I clubbed them until they were willing to offer you enough money.”

“We have only done what straight business men would do Mr. Converse,” declared Owen.

“We had a chance to go to the high court with a case that would open up the whole rottenness in this state before we got done fighting, and you have sold out!”

“Good day. We don't have to listen to such talk,” said Erskine.

“You wait one minute.” The lawyer pulled open a drawer and found his check-book. He wrote hastily and tore out the check. “Here's that retaining-fee you paid me. Now get out of my office.”

He drove them ahead of him to the door, shouting insistent commands that they hurry.

When they were gone he gazed about at his astonished associates, his partners, and his clerks.

“I apologize most humbly ladies and gentlemen, for making such a disturbance. I--I hardly seem to be myself to-day.”

He went to his desk and sat down and stared up at the portrait of War-Governor Converse for a long time. At last he thumped his fist on his desk and shook his head.

“No,” he declared, as if the portrait had been asking him a question and pressing him for a reply, “I can't do it. I could have gone into the courts and fought them as an attorney. I could have maintained my self-respect. But not in politics--no--no! It's too much of a mess in these days.”