Broken to the Plow Part 18

Watson smiled widely...

The girl Ginger came that very afternoon. She was dressed very quietly in black, with only a faint trace of make-up on her cheeks. Almost anyone would have mistaken her for a drab little shopgirl. Fred felt awkward in her presence.

"I'm going away to-night--for some time," he said, when she had seated herself. "And I wanted to thank you for your interest when--"

She shook her head. "That wasn't anything," she answered.

He wondered what next to say. It was she who spoke finally.

"I suppose you got out of your mess all right," she half queried.

He opened his cigarette case and offered her a smoke. She declined.

"Well, not altogether... My friend Hilmer worked a compromise... I'm going to a place to sober up." He laughed bitterly.

She folded her hands. "One of those private sanitariums, I suppose, where rich guys bluff it out until everything blows over."

"No, you're wrong again... I'm going summering in a state hospital."

Her hands, suddenly unclasped, lifted and fell in startled flight. "An insane asylum?" she gasped. He leaned forward. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it's the only place in this state where they send drunks... I know plenty who've been through that game... You can't tell me anything about that."

He stared at her in silence and presently she said:

"What are they doing to you, anyway? Railroading you? I don't believe you know where you _are_ going."

He shrugged wearily. "No; you're right. And I don't much care."

"Why didn't you send for me?" she demanded. "That night when they got you I told you I had a pull... I'm not a Hilmer, but I can work a few people myself... I haven't always been a cheap skate. There was a time when I had them fighting over me. And that wasn't so long ago, either... I'm still young--younger than a lot that get by. But, anyway, I've got a lot of old-memory stuff up my sleeve that can make some people step about pretty lively... There's more than one man in this town who would just as soon I kept my mouth shut... I could even run Hilmer around the ring once or twice if I wanted to."

He felt a bit tremulous, but he put a tight rein upon his emotions.

"It's very good of you," he said, "but, really, I couldn't quite have that, you know... I don't mean to be ungrateful or unkind, but there are some things that--"

She laughed. "Oh yes, I know... You feel that way now, of course...

You're a gentleman; I understand that... And I haven't run up against many gentlemen in my day... Oh, there were a lot who had plenty of money and they were polite enough when it didn't matter ... but ...

Well, I know the real thing when I see it... You're going to that h.e.l.l hole, too, just for that very reason... Because you haven't got the face to be nasty..."

He crumpled the unlighted cigarette in his hand and flung it from him.

"What do you know about me?" he asked.

"Women aren't fools!" she retorted. "And least of all women like me!

... I wish to G.o.d I'd known you sooner!"

He watched the quivering revelations run in startled flight across her face, hiding themselves as swiftly behind the dull shadows of indifference. For a moment the room seemed flooded in a truant flash of suns.h.i.+ne. She seemed at once incredibly old and as incredibly touched with a vagrant youth. How eagerly she must have given herself!

How eagerly she could give herself again!

He rose in his seat, confused. She seemed to have taken it for a sign of dismissal, for she followed his example.

"Maybe it isn't too late," she faltered. "Maybe I could work that pull I've got ... if you want me to."

He shook his head. "It's out of my hands," he answered. She moved to the door, as if to place a proper distance between them.

"What does your wife think about it?"

He shrugged.

"You won't like what I'm going to say," she flung out, defiantly. "But that night when I saw your wife _I_ knew."

"Knew what?"

"That she wasn't playing fair..." Her face was lighted with a primitive malevolence. "She isn't straight!"

He tried to pull himself up in prideful refutation, but the effort failed. He was turning away defeated when a knock sounded on the door.

Watson entered. Ginger drew herself flatly against the wall. The attorney gave a significant glance in her direction as he said to Starratt:

"Your wife is waiting in the hall ... just around the corner. I thought it best to ..."

Ginger came forward quickly. "Good-by!" she said, hurriedly.

He put out a hand to her. She moved a little nearer and, suddenly, quite suddenly, she kissed him. He drew back a little, and presently she was gone...

He looked up to find Helen standing before him. She was a little pale and her lips more scarlet than ever, and her thick, black eyebrows sharply defined. He had never seen her look so disagreeably handsome.

"That woman who just went out," she began, coolly, "she's the same one who--"

"Yes," he interrupted, crisply.

"Who is she?"

He looked at her steadily; she did not flinch. "A friend of mine."

Her lip curled disdainfully. "Oh!" she said, and she sat down.

Toward evening they came for him, or rather Watson did, with a taxicab.

"Everything has gone nicely," Watson explained, pridefully. "You certainly were lucky in having Hilmer for a friend ... no humiliation, no publicity."

Fred, standing before the bureau mirror, brushed his hair. "Where are you taking me now?" he inquired.

"To the detention hospital... You'll stay there a week or so for observation... It's a mere form."

"And from there?"

"To the state hospital at Fairview."