The Debtor Part 14

However, he was a little fellow, and there had been a good many of his opponents. He felt a pleasant thrill of fatherliness and protection. He looked kindly into the little, pink-flushed face.

"Very well, my son," said he. "Stay as long as you like. Take a seat." The boy sat down. His legs were too short for his feet to touch the floor, so he swung them. He gazed ingratiatingly at Anderson, and now and then cast an apprehensive glance towards the door of the office. Anderson continued mounting his b.u.t.terflies, and paid no attention to him, and the boy seemed to respect his silence.

Presently the great cat emerged quite boldly from his refuge under the table, crouched, calculated the distance, and leaped softly back to his red cus.h.i.+on. The boy hitched his chair nearer, and began stroking the cat gently and lovingly with his little boy-hand, hardened with climbing and playing. The cat stretched himself luxuriously, p.r.i.c.ked his claws in and out, shut his eyes, and purred again quite loudly. Again the little room sang with the song of the river, the wind in the trees, and the cat's somnolent note. The afternoon light rippled full of green reflections through the room.

The boy's small head appeared in it like a flower. He smiled tenderly at the cat. Anderson, glancing at him over his b.u.t.terflies, thought what an angelic aspect he had. He looked a darling of a boy.

The boy, stroking the cat, met the man's kindly approving eyes, and he smiled a smile of utter confidence and trust, which conveyed delicious flattery. Then suddenly the hand stroking the cat desisted and made a dive into a small jacket-pocket and emerged with a treasure. It was a great b.u.t.terfly, much dilapidated as to its gorgeous wings, but the boy looked gloatingly from it to the man.

"I got it for you," he whispered, with another glance at the office door. Anderson recognized, with the dismay of a collector, a fine specimen, which he had sought in vain, made utterly worthless by ruthless handling, but he controlled himself. "Thank you," he said, and took the poor, despoiled beauty and laid it carefully on the table.

"It got broke a little, somehow," remarked the boy; "it's wings are awful brittle."

"Yes, they are," a.s.sented Anderson.

"I had to chase it quite a spell," said the boy, with an evident desire not to have his efforts underestimated.

"Yes, I don't doubt it," replied Anderson, with grat.i.tude well simulated.

"It seemed rather a pity to kill such a pretty b.u.t.terfly as that,"

remarked the boy, unexpectedly, "but I thought you'd like it."

"Yes, I like to have a nice collection of b.u.t.terflies," replied Anderson, with a faint inflection of apology. In reality, the b.u.t.terflies' side of it had failed to occur to him before, and he felt that an appeal to science in such a case was rather feeble. Then the boy helped him out.

"Well," said he, "I do suppose that a b.u.t.terfly don't live very long, anyhow; he has to die pretty soon, and it's better for human beings to have him stuck on a pin and put where they can see how handsome he is, rather than have him stay out in the fields, where the rain would soak him into the ground, and that would be the end of him. I suppose it is better to save anything that's pretty, somehow, even if the thing don't like it himself."

"Perhaps you are right," replied Anderson, regarding the boy with some wonder.

"Maybe he didn't mind dying 'cause I caught him any more than just dying himself," said Eddy.

"Maybe not."

"Anyhow, he's dead," said the boy.

He watched Anderson carefully as he manipulated the insect.

"I'm sorry his wing got broken," he said. "I wonder why G.o.d makes b.u.t.terflies' wings so awful brittle that they can't be caught without spoiling 'em. The other wing ain't hurt much, anyhow."

A sudden thought struck Anderson. "Why, when did you get this b.u.t.terfly?" he asked.

The boy flushed vividly. He gave a sorrowful, obstinate glance at the man, as much as to say, "I am sad that you should force me into such a course, but I must be firm." Then he looked away, staring out of the window at the tree-tops tossing against the brilliant blue of the sky, and made no reply.

Anderson made a swift calculation. He glanced at a clock on the wall.

"Where did you get this b.u.t.terfly?" he inquired, harmlessly, and the boy fell into the net.

"In that field just beyond the oak grove on the road to New Sanderson," he replied, with entire innocence.

Anderson surveyed him sharply.

"When is afternoon school out?" asked Anderson.

"At four o'clock," replied the boy, with such unsuspicion that the man's conscience smote him. It was too easy.

"Well," said Anderson, slowly. He did not look at the boy, but went on straightening the mangled wing of the b.u.t.terfly which he had offered on his shrine. "Well," he said, "how did you get time to go to that field and catch this b.u.t.terfly? You say it took a long time, and that field is a good twenty minutes' run from here, and it is a quarter of five now." The boy kicked his feet against the rounds of his chair and made no reply. His forehead was scowling, his mouth set. "How?" repeated Anderson.

Then the boy turned on the man. He slid out of his chair; he spoke loudly. He forgot to glance at the door. "Ain't you smart?" he cried, with scorn, and still with an air of slighted affection which appealed. "Ain't you smart to catch a feller that way? You're mean, if you are a man, after I've got you that big b.u.t.terfly, too, to turn on a feller that way."

Anderson actually felt ashamed of himself. "Now, see here, my boy,"

he said, "I'm grateful to you so far as that goes."

"I didn't run away from school," declared Eddy Carroll, looking straight at Anderson, who fairly gasped.

He had seen people lie before, but somehow this was actually dazzling. He was conscious of fairly blinking before the direct gaze of innocence of this lying little boy. And then his elderly and reliable clerk appeared in the office door, glanced at Eddy, whom he did not know, and informed Anderson, in a slightly impressed tone, that Captain Carroll was in the store and would like to speak to him.

Anderson glanced again at his young visitor, who had got, in a second, a look of pale consternation. He went out into the store at once, and was greeted by Carroll with the inquiry as to whether or not he had seen his son.

"My boy has not been seen since he started for school this morning,"

said Carroll. "I came here because another little boy, one of my son's small school-fellows, who has succeeded in treading the paths of virtue and obedience, volunteered the information, without the slightest imputation of any guilty conspiracy on your part, that you had been seen leading my son home to your residence to dinner," said Carroll.

"Your son made friends with me on his way from school this noon,"

said Anderson, simply, "and upon his evident desire to dine with me I invited him, being a.s.sured by him that his so doing would not occasion the slightest uneasiness at home as to his whereabouts."

Anderson was indignant at something in the other man's tone, and was careful not to introduce in his tone the slightest inflection of apology.

He made the statement, and was about to add that the boy was at that moment in his office, when Carroll interrupted. "I regret to say that my son has not the slightest idea of what is meant by telling the truth. He never had," he stated, smilingly, "especially when his own desires lead him to falsehood. In those cases he lies to himself so successfully that he tells in effect the truth to other people. He, in that sense, told the truth to you, but the truth was not as he stated, for the ladies have been in a really pitiable state of anxiety."

"He is in my office now," said Anderson, coldly, pointing to the door and beginning to move towards it.

"I suspected the boy was in there," said Carroll, and his tones changed, as did his face. All the urbanity and the smile vanished. He followed Anderson with a nervous stride. Both men entered the little office, but the boy was gone. Both stood gazing about the little s.p.a.ce. It was absolutely impossible for anybody to be concealed there. There was no available hiding-place except under the table, and the cat occupied that, and his eyes shone out of the gloom like green jewels.

"I don't see him," said Carroll.

Then Anderson turned upon him.

"Sir," he said, with a kind of slow heat, "I am at a loss as to what to attribute your tone and manner. If you doubt--"

"Not at all, my dear sir," replied Carroll, with a wave of the hand.

"But I am told that my son is in here, and when, on entering, I do not see him, I am naturally somewhat surprised."

"Your son was certainly in this room when I left it a moment ago, and that is all I know about it," said Anderson. "And I will add that your son's visit was entirely unsolicited--"

"My dear sir," interrupted Carroll again, "I a.s.sure you that I do not for a moment conceive the possibility of anything else. But the fact remains that I am told he is here--"

"He was here," said Anderson, looking about with an impatient and bewildered scowl.

"He could not have gone out through the store while we were there,"

said Carroll, in a puzzled tone.

"I do not see how he could have done so un.o.bserved, certainly."

"The window," said Carroll, taking a step towards it.

"Thirty feet from the ground; sheer wall and rocks below. He could not have gone out there without wings."