The Mask Part 22

"Of course we do." Lowering his voice he added significantly: "At least I do."

Apparently the compliment fell on deaf ears, for, turning her head away, she said quickly:

"Please don't be sarcastic."

More seriously, and in the same tone, that even Helen, who was only a short distance away, could not hear, he said:

"I'm never sarcastic. I think you are all a woman should be."

"Do you mean that?"

"I do. I have thought it for a long time."

"Really?"

"Really."

The young girl colored with pleasure. For all her sophisticated and independent manner she was still a child at heart. She had no thoughts of marriage, but it flattered her to think that she had the power to attract and interest this serious, brilliant man of the world. She said nothing more, relapsing into a meditative silence as she busied herself helping the maid to set out the tea table.

To Helen it was a source of keen satisfaction to notice the attention which the brilliant young lawyer was paying her sister. She had long recognized his sterling qualities. He was a man of whom any woman might well be proud. He could not but make a good husband. Next to Kenneth and her baby no one was dearer to her than Ray and, since their mother died, she had felt a certain sense of responsibility. To see her well and happily married was the one secret wish of her life.

But overshadowing these preoccupations at present were those other new anxieties which preyed upon her sensitive mind with all the force of an obsession. Was there any part of her husband's life that he had hidden from her? Was he really as loyal as she had always fondly and blindly believed; had his ambition led him to take grave financial risks that might one day jeopardize their comfort and happiness, the very future of their child?

Ray rose to put away the tea table, and she found herself sitting alone with the lawyer. There was a moment's silence, and then, as if thinking out aloud what was on her mind, she said:

"Thank G.o.d, he's safe; I had the most fearful premonitions----"

The lawyer laughed.

"Don't put your trust in premonitions--things happen or they don't happen. It's absurd to believe that misfortunes are all prepared beforehand."

"Then you are not a fatalist?"

"Decidedly not. I hope I have too much intelligence to believe in anything so foolish."

"Do you believe in a Supreme Being who has the same power to suddenly snuff us out of existence as he had to create us?"

"I neither believe nor disbelieve. Frankly, I do not know. What people call G.o.d, Jehovah, Nature, according to my reasoning, is an astounding energy, a marvellous chemical process, created and controlled by some unknown, stupendous first cause, the origin of which man may never understand. How should he? He has not time. We are rushed into the world without preparation. We are ignorant, helpless, blind. Gradually, by dint of much physical labor and mental toil, we succeed in ferreting out a few facts regarding ourselves and the physical laws that govern us. We are just on the verge of discovering more--we are just beginning to understand and enjoy life--when suddenly we find ourselves growing old and decrepit. Our physical and mental powers fail us, and the same force that benevolently created us now mercilessly destroys us, and we are hurled, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, back into eternity whence we came. Rather absurd, isn't it?"

Intensely interested Helen looked up. Eagerly she exclaimed:

"You have a whole system of philosophy in a mere handful of words, haven't you?"

He smiled.

"It's all one needs, and perhaps as good as those more complicated and more verbose."

More seriously and lowering her voice so Ray, who was still busy at the other end of the room, might not overhear, she said:

"Mr. Steell--you are so clever--you know all about everything. Tell me, do you know anything about Wall Street?"

The ingenuousness of the question amused him. With a laugh he answered:

"A little--to my sorrow."

"It's a dangerous place, isn't it?"

"Very; it has a graveyard at one end, the East River at the other, two places highly convenient at times to those who play the game."

"If luck goes against him, a man could lose his all, then?"

"Not only his all but the all of others, too--if he's that kind of a man."

She was silent for a moment. Then she continued:

"And sometimes even fine, honest men are tempted, are they not, to gamble with money which is not theirs?"

"Many have done so. The prisons are full of them. There is nothing so dangerous as the get-rich-quick fever. All the men who gamble in stocks have it. It becomes a mania, an obsession. Their judgment becomes warped; they lose all sense of right and wrong."

"There's something else I want to ask you. What do you think of Signor Keralio?"

He hesitated a moment before he answered. Then, with some warmth, he said:

"As I told you before, I think he's a crook, only we can't prove it.

I've been looking up his record. It's a bad one. The fellow has behaved himself so far in New York, but out West he is known under various names as one of the slickest rogues that ever escaped hanging.

At one time he was the chief of a band of international crooks and blackmailers that operated in London, Paris, Buenos Ayres, and the City of Mexico. The scheme they usually worked was to get some prominent man so badly compromised that he would pay any amount to save himself from exposure, and they played so successfully on the fears of their victims that they were usually successful."

A worried look came into the young wife's face. Perhaps there was more in Signor Keralio's relations with her husband than she had suspected.

Quickly she asked:

"Why do they permit a man of that character to be at large?"

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.

"You can't proceed against a man unless there is some specific charge made. The police have nothing now against him. He may have reformed for all I know. But that was his record some years ago."

"I don't think he'll dare come here again," went on Helen. "He's exceedingly offensive, and yet he has about him a certain magnetism that compels your attention, even while his manner and look repels and irritates. Only the other day he----"

Before she could complete the sentence, there was a loud ring at the front door bell. Helen hastily rose, but Ray had already gone forward.

"It's Mr. Parker," she cried. "I saw him coming from the window."

The next instant the door of the drawing-room was flung open and Mr.

Parker appeared.

"Hallo, ladies! Howdy, Steell!"

The president of the Americo-African Mining Company was not looking his usual debonair self that evening. His manner was nervous and fl.u.s.tered, his face pale and drawn with anxious lines. His coat lacked the customary boutonniere, and his crumpled linen and unshaved chin suggested that he had come direct from his office after a strenuous day without stopping to go through the formality of making a change of attire.