Part 12

When she came home that day and was alone in her room, she had shed some passionate tears; her young strong heart had rebelled utterly; she wanted happiness too, wanted it as bitterly as Margaret did, but Margaret had robbed her of it! She gave way then to the passion and the rage of her grief, she forgot all Christian maxims, and in her heart stormed against Margaret again, not against Margaret’s lover. But the fury of her mood passed, leaving her pale and wan, exhausted by it, but still unsubmissive. It was no longer an unusual thing to wash away the stains of tears and go down stairs with a smile. It occurred to her as she smoothed her rumpled hair and made her toilet for the evening that she had learned the alphabet of deceit too easily, she was a veritable whited sepulchre. Nevertheless she went down bravely to meet her father and take up her life just where she had broken off for those few hours of mad grief and restlessness. But the delay fretted her nerves; it was one thing to be ready, another to keep that smile, that brave air of comfort for an hour, two hours, three! She grew uneasy, too, for the judge,--could he be ill? Could anything have happened? A dim foreboding crept through the preoccupation of her mood. She ran to the front window and looked down the long street and saw her father coming slowly toward the house, his head slightly bowed and his tall thin figure showing more than usually the student’s stoop of the shoulders. The last rays of sunlight slanting down the street fell on the whiteness of his beard and hair.

A swift, pained perception of his age, his feebleness, gave Rose a sudden sharp pang of grief, of foreshadowed loss; the revelation that comes suddenly--like the opening of a window in the soul--of the mortality of those we love, of life’s awful uncertainty.

She opened the door with a pale face. “Father!” she exclaimed, “you’re so late, I was getting anxious.”

He looked up without a smile, his eyes dull and weary. “I was delayed--by business matters,” he said simply.

He followed her into the library, and putting down a bundle of papers he carried sank wearily into his great chair and hid his face in his hands without another word.

Rose looked at him keenly, her heart throbbing with a new dismay, and seeing that the fingers which pressed his temples slightly trembled she went to the dining-room and pouring out a glass of wine brought it to him. “You are very tired,” she said gently; “try to take this, father, I think you need it.”

He looked up blankly, took the glass and tasting the wine set it aside. His face had aged ten years.

In her distress Rose only thought of cheering him. She averted her eyes; it seemed almost an indelicacy to inquire too closely into such apparent distress. “The roses I ordered came to-day,” she said, with a forced lightness of tone which jarred; “I thought, perhaps, we could decide this evening where to set them out. Do you think they’d do best by the south wall, father?”

He passed his hand over his eyes like a man whose sight was failing. “The roses?” he repeated absently; “I do not know. My child,” he added in a heavy tone, “something has happened to-day; I’m practically a ruined man.”

She caught her breath, frightened for the moment and taken unawares; in the assured comfort and peace of her life it seemed impossible. “Oh, father!” she exclaimed, “not really?”

He nodded, speech was difficult; the full force and horror of the calamity still hung over him.

A hundred conjectures darted through her mind, but intuitively she knew the actual fact, his trust had been betrayed. “It’s that man--the note you endorsed?” she said.

“Yes,” he replied simply, “that and the unfortunate investments I made in New York. They turned out badly two months ago; I did not tell you, Rose, but I was swindled. This morning the note came due and Erkhardt has disappeared.”

“Oh, the villain!” Rose exclaimed hotly, “and you so kind. Father, can’t it be delayed--warded off? Surely something can be done--must you lose all that too?”

He roused himself with an effort from the cloud which seemed to be enfolding him, shutting down on his stupefied senses. “I shall have to pay the whole obligation; it can’t be honorably delayed,” he said; “it will sweep away my whole principal, Rose, and leave me nothing but my salary.”

“But we can live on that,” she exclaimed eagerly, her face brightening, “we can easily live on that, father; you’ll see how famously I can manage!”

The judge looked at her with a pitiful tightening of the lines about his mouth, his eyes filled with unshed tears; her ignorance seemed to him the sweetest, the most helpless thing in the world. “But when I die, Rose,” he said hoarsely, “and I may die soon--” he rose and walked to and fro before the open window where the soft twilight was falling. He was suddenly bowed with years, shrunken, haggard. “My God, child, there will be nothing for you!” he broke out at last.

She went to him then, throwing her young arms around his neck and staying him in his walk. He looked at her, bewildered, and she laid her soft cheek against his in a mute caress. “It doesn’t matter, father!” she whispered; “don’t think of me, don’t add that to your burden.”

The old man groaned. “My child,” he exclaimed, his voice quavering with grief, “my poor child, I can never forgive myself!”

Tears of sympathy filled her eyes, but she smiled bravely. “Why, father, we have so much--here is the house, the--”

“It’s mortgaged,” he said, and sank heavily into his chair.

For an instant Rose stood appalled. Unconsciously she glanced about her; in the gathering gloom the dear familiar room, the book-lined walls, the littered table, the old clock, seemed suddenly changed. Between yesterday and to-day, between this morning and to-night was a great gulf fixed. She shivered, a horrible sensation of loss, of unreality, of despair, swept over her young soul and bared it to misery, the poignant, unreasoning misery of youth. Then she saw the bowed white head, the bent shoulders which had borne the heat and burden of the day, and forgot herself. She knelt by his chair and slipped her arms around his neck. “Nothing matters, dear daddy, while we have each other,” she whispered, a little sob in her voice.

He put his shaking hand on her head. “My poor child,” he repeated.

She raised her head, a soft light in her eyes. “Father, you’ll let me sing now,” she said, “you’ll let me sing--I know I can make a fortune for us both. Mancini told me that with a year in Paris I could be ready. He believes in my voice, father, and you know he has trained two great sopranos.”

The judge shook his head sadly. “Child, child, you know how I feel about your singing in public!”

“But now, daddy,” she pleaded, “now when it will save me from poverty, and I love it, oh, I love it! May I go, just for six months?”

Again the judge shook his head, his lips almost formed “no,” but Rose’s arms tightened around his neck.

“Don’t say it, daddy!” she cried, “don’t say it, for then you will not unsay it! Truly, truly I must sing, it is my greatest desire, my happiness, the talent that was given me--surely I mustn’t be the one to fold it in a napkin! Daddy, daddy, say yes.”

He sat looking out of the window with unseeing eyes, his lips compressed. The demand struck at his dearest prejudices, his firmest convictions, yet to leave her helpless and poor!

In the still room the ticking of the clock sounded with monotonous distinctness; it seemed to jar the silence. Twilight fell fast, the corners were dark, the two faces in the foreground showed white and tense.

At last the judge sighed heavily. “I must give in,” he said, with slow reluctance, “in my folly I have wrecked us both; I’m no longer fit to command. You may sing, child, but I hope it will only be in concerts.”

Rose’s face fell but hope kindled, one step was gained, and like every wedge it makes the other easier. “But I must go abroad to be finished for any really great success,” she said; “father, can’t you go with me?”

The judge looked at her strangely. “Child, I never thought,” he said harshly; “I haven’t the money to send you yet,--you’ll have to wait until we can save it; it’s another denial for you, Rose. You know I sent a large check to Allestree the other day, and there is little left now.”

A wild hope leaped in her heart, she knew the check would come back, but dared she tell him? Would he take it if it came? Her lips trembled, she was glad of the darkness. “Father, I shall sing,” she said bravely, “perhaps,--who knows,--I shall sing so well that you’ll be proud of me and sit and applaud and send me bouquets.”

He wiped away the gathering moisture in his eyes. “I’ve always been proud of you, Rose!” he said sadly, “but that a child of mine should have to sing for a living! The Lord’s hand is heavy upon me in my old age,” he added pitifully, completely broken down.

The girl’s arms were closer about his neck; her own sorrow, her thoughts of Fox were lost in her love for the old man in his distress. “Who knows?” she cried with new sweet courage, almost gay in her bravery, “perhaps I shall be as lucky as Patti and we’ll have a great fortune and a palace to live in! Oh, daddy, I shall be so happy to sing!”

But he sat motionless, his chin upon his breast and his dull eyes fixed on the open space beyond the window where the lilac bush stood like a ghost amidst the gathering night.

XIX

FOX sat at his writing-table turning over and signing some papers left there in methodical order by his stenographer. He was going out of town at last, and the thought of escape from the oppression of the last few weeks was like a breath of sweet fresh air from the hills where he was born. But even with the prospect of this reprieve he did his work mechanically, glancing up occasionally at the waving tree-tops which were on a level with his open windows and limited his view.

Sandy lay at his feet waiting impatiently for his daily run and in sympathy with his master’s mood. Fox spoke to him once or twice as he paused in his work, and once he bent down and caressed the faithful creature’s head; there was comfort in the sense of dumb companionship. Yet at this very moment of depression he was aware that he had achieved a signal political triumph. His last speech before the closing of Congress had resounded from one end of the country to the other, and been caught up and echoed abroad. He had healed a breach in the party, plucked victory from defeat, and his name was on every lip.

A few months ago the significance of it would have stirred him deeply, his keen political foresight would have shown him the greatest possibilities; now it was dead sea fruit. He knew that in a year, perhaps in less time, he must take a step which would inflict a sharp injury to his career, which would, perhaps, lose him his popularity forever.

And a few weeks ago how differently the world had looked! Then such a victory as he might now easily win would have meant greater honor to offer to the girl he loved.

His lips tightened and he bent to his work. He was still reading and signing letters when there was a knock at his door, and he opened it to admit Louis Berkman. Berkman had been away and, returning but a few days before, was not fully aware of the current gossip, but he had just heard of Fox’s achievement and came in with breezy congratulations.

“My dear fellow, I always said you had it in you! Some day we shall get you in the White House!”

Fox laughed a little bitterly. “It will be a long day, Berkman,” he said coolly; “the newspapers make a great deal of fuss over a small matter.”

“Not at all! I just saw Wingfield, and you know he hasn’t much reason to love you; he told me that you’d be Secretary of State in three months.”

Fox bit his lip. “Wingfield’s an old fool!” he retorted sharply.

Berkman laughed. “Oh, I know about White, he’ll have to go; I’m jolly sorry on account of his wife, she’s no end of fun! What the devil has he been doing with that Osborne woman’s help? I heard in New York that she had sold information to Wall Street and something about our Navy to Japan.”

“I don’t believe that!” said Fox flatly; “White hasn’t done that, it’s only meant as an attack on him of course. They say everything of Mrs. Osborne, they always have, and that dirty sheet in New York has published a lot of lies; it ought to be suppressed.”

“Nevertheless White will go out; I hear that everywhere,” said Berkman obstinately; “and then you’ll come in.”

Fox smiled with exceeding bitterness. “Then I shall not come in,” he retorted quietly; “I shan’t go into the Cabinet.”

Something in his tone at last warned Berkman, and he colored deeply with embarrassment. Certain vague rumors took shape in his mind and he remembered suddenly Margaret’s mood after they had left Fox and Rose together in Rock Creek Park. He reached over and took a cigarette from the box on the table and lighted it to hide his confusion.

“I believe you’re right,” he said, with assumed lightness of tone; “the Cabinet isn’t as brilliant an opportunity as the House. At any rate I congratulate you, my dear fellow, and I wish you all success.”

Fox thanked him dryly and asked a few desultory questions about Berkman’s trip and his new book which was in press.

“It will be out in about ten days,” the author said calmly, “and then my friends will make a business of sending me all the adverse criticisms. If I didn’t like to see the favorable ones occasionally I shouldn’t need to employ clipping bureaus. I’m hanged if I see the point of view which makes it a duty to be disagreeable!”

Fox laughed. “My dear fellow, our friends never realize us. I remember the first speech I ever made at the primaries; I was a little flushed with success; I’d had some applause, but suddenly I heard a voice, the sharp high voice of my childhood’s neighbor, an old Methodist deacon, and it said: ‘Well, I’m beat if it ain’t Billy Fox makin’ a speech, an’ the last time I saw him I was mighty nigh givin’ him a lickin’ for fishin’ on Sunday in my pool!’ By heavens,” Fox added with sudden bitterness, “I wish I were fishing there now; how cool and deep the shadows were!”

“Trout, of course?” said Berkman sympathetically.

Fox nodded. “Big ones; there was a willow behind the pool; we cut our whistles there and hid there when we saw old man Siddons coming. Lord, Berkman, how the past slips away!”

“You ought to go back there now,” said the author abruptly, as he rose; “I never saw you so pale; have you been ill?”

“Never better; you know that like Prosper Merimée I am naturally of the color of the pale horse in the Apocalypse.”

“Ah, well,” said Berkman, knocking the ashes from his cigarette, “I don’t envy you public life; it’s a harness, Fox, and a pretty tight harness too, I fancy.”

“I don’t think I shall see a great deal more of it,” Fox answered, with an enigmatical smile.

Berkman stared. “You!” he exclaimed; “you’re at the threshold, man; in another year or so the country will be clamoring for you.”

“Or against me,” said Fox scornfully; “wait a moment,” he added, with a complete change of tone, “I’ll go with you, this room suffocates me to-day, it’s full of vapors!”

* * * * *

Meanwhile old Mrs. Allestree sat opposite to Judge Temple in his library; the door was closed and they were alone save for the birds in the garden, for the windows were wide open, cool striped awnings shading the room from the warm glow of the afternoon, which steeped that secluded spot in slumberous calm.

“Stephen, I’m the criminal,” she said firmly, “Robert had nothing whatever to do with it; there’s your old check and you’ve got to keep it!”

The judge colored painfully; he had aged twenty years in the last few weeks and his old friend saw it. Once or twice she had winked back her tears but her voice was acrid.

“I can’t keep it and keep the picture,” he said firmly; “Robert has earned the money; I distinctly stipulated that I should pay the regular price for the portrait.”

“And Robert never meant you should! My dear friend, you and I know that he loves Rose; why hurt the boy’s feelings?”

“That’s one reason why I can’t accept it, don’t you see--” the judge stopped abruptly.

The old woman nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I see; I know Rose doesn’t love him; I wish she did, I hope and pray she may! But that’s neither here nor there; as for the money, Robert won’t have it.”

“Then I shall return the picture, and I should like to keep it, especially if Rose goes abroad.”

She looked at him with exasperation. “You know Rose can’t go without that money; you just admitted that you couldn’t afford it!”

“Which was not an appeal for charity,” flashed the judge hotly.

“Stephen, I’m ashamed of you!” she exclaimed, then her eyes brightened and she looked at him with new defiance. “You can’t have the picture, Robert will keep it; he loves it better than anything else; you shan’t insult him with money for it; I won’t have it, sir! Where are your old ideas of chivalry? One would suppose that you were one of these new vulgar people who think that money is the criterion of everything, that they can buy shares in paradise! You’ve lived too long in the neighborhood of the new rich; I’m really ashamed of you. I hated to have Robert part with the picture anyway; he shan’t do it now for he’ll never take pay for it!”

The judge looked blank, his hands trembled. “But I wanted it!” he said plaintively, “I can’t stand in the child’s light but--” he passed his shaking hand over his forehead--“I shall miss her terribly.”

Mrs. Allestree nodded wisely without any sign of relenting. “I know,” she said, “so shall I! But Robert won’t take pay for the picture; I fancy _you_ selling a picture of the woman you loved!”

The old man sighed profoundly, staring at the floor, distinctly aware that she was tapping her foot impatiently and eying him like an angry sparrow, her head on one side. The silence was painful, they both heard the bees in the trumpet creeper which hung blooming over the bow-window.

After a while she stole a cautious amused look at him, then she stirred eagerly in her chair. “Stephen, I’ve just thought of a way! Robert will, of course, keep the picture, but he’ll lend it to you while Rose is away.”

Her manner was a trifle too elaborately casual, but the judge did not observe it; a shamed look of relief stole over his face, he passed his handkerchief across his brow, pushing back the scant white hair. “And I can give it back as soon as she comes home,” he said with almost an eager note in his voice.

“Yes,” Mrs. Allestree replied in a matter-of-fact tone, stern business in her eye as she added: “you’ll have to give it back at once, Stephen, and, of course, you’ll be responsible for it while it’s here. Now, you give that check to Rose, I want to hear the child sing.”

The judge sighed profoundly, his head bowed. “I’d rather be whipped, Jane,” he said brokenly, “but the child has set her heart on it--and I’ve shown myself an old fool!”

Mrs. Allestree rose. “You have!” she said uncompromisingly, “but then we’re both way behind the times. In the first place you’ve only had one wife and I’ve only had one husband! Margaret White left for Omaha to-day; of course she’ll be divorced and married to my nephew in half an hour. I’ve some hope now of being fashionable, if I can get a motor accident in the family! And you’re broken hearted because your girl wants to sing in public; tut, Stephen, you’re a hopeless old fogy, go and marry Martha O’Neal!”

BOOK II

I

IT was early in the following December before Mrs. Allestree again came face to face with the situation which was so intimately connected, though in such different ways, with the happiness of two members of her family, her son and her nephew. The long months that had intervened, however, had not dulled her remembrance of that vivid scene in Margaret’s bedroom, or lessened the degree of her secret sympathy--which was in exact opposition to her judgment.

It was a long time indeed before she could recur to that scene without a poignant feeling of guilt; her conscience pinched her with self-righteousness; she had found the mote in her sister’s eye without seeing the beam in her own, she had judged without experience. However, after awhile, this sensitiveness was enveloped in a thicker moral coating, and she began again to view the affair with horror. The two little White children were constant spectacles in the parks with their two French nurses and their general air of bewildered desolation; it was perfectly well known that Estelle had raised a terrible outcry for her mother and refused to be comforted, in spite of the conscientious efforts of poor old Mrs. White who, whatever her faults, was sincere in her devotion to the two poor little waifs of wealth.

Mr. White, meanwhile, had created fresh scandal by his open devotion to Lily Osborne, and would probably have been still more outrageous if that astute young woman had not judiciously absented herself from the city at the very moment when society had reached the limit of its endurance; but her disappearance from the surface scarcely arrested White’s downward career; he was plunging deeper and deeper, and there were many rumors of scandals connected with his administration which would lead to his dismissal from the Cabinet. Some secret information from the Navy Department had found its way into the hands of a foreign government, and the way of its passage through White’s careless hands to Lily Osborne’s and from hers to the representative of the foreign power was unfortunately made altogether too plain to be ignored except on the surface of things, to hush scandal.