The Sins of the Children Part 21

Again she laughed. "Oh, say!" she said. "What are you anyway? Reporters on the trail of a story? I'm telling you the truth. Why not? As for Ita,--Oh, ho! She put it all over a b.o.o.b, she did. She's ambitious, she is. She was out to find a mut who'd keep her, that was her game. She told us so from the first. We used to watch her trying one after another of the soft ones. But they were wise, they were. But at last some little feller fell for her foreign accent and little sobs. She had a fine tale all ready. Oh, she's clever. She ought to be on the stage playing parts.

Most of us go round to her place in the daytime and have a good time with some of her men friends. I've not been yet. But from what my sister says, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she gets her man to marry her.

From what she says, he's a sentimental Alick, and, O Gos.h.!.+ won't she lead him some dance!"

At last Graham broke forth, his face white, his eyes blazing and his whole body shaking as though he had ague. "You're lying!" he shouted.

"Every word you've said's a lie!"

The girl, entirely unoffended at this involuntary outburst, bent forward and looked at Graham with a new gleam of intelligence, amus.e.m.e.nt and curiosity. "My word, I believe you're Mr. Strabosck. I believe you're the b.o.o.b. Oh, say! come into the light. I guess I must have a look at you."

Graham got up, stood swaying for a moment as though he had received a blow between the eyes, and staggered across the room and out into the pa.s.sage.

"Now he knows," said Kenyon. "Come on, Peter. We shall have our work cut to hold him in. There was blood in his eyes." Utterly ignoring the girl, Kenyon made for the door, forced his way through new arrivals and found Graham utterly sober, but with his mouth set dangerously, standing in front of the j.a.panese. "My hat and coat, quick!" he was saying, "or I'll break the place up."

"Steady, steady," said Kenyon. "We don't want a scene here."

"Scene be d.a.m.ned. I tell you something's got to break."

The j.a.panese ducked into the coat-room.

"Where's Peter?" Graham looked back expecting to see his brother's head and shoulders above the crowd. There was no sign of him.

By accident the lime-light which had been suddenly turned on for a new performance fell on Peter as he was marching towards the door of the studio. Instantly he found himself surrounded by half a dozen good-natured men who had all taken a little too much to drink. They, like the other people present, were in Egyptian clothes and obviously glad to see in Peter a healthy normal specimen of humanity.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, brother, where are you off to?" asked one.

"Out!" said Peter shortly.

"I'll be darned if you are. Come and have a drink!"

"No, thanks, I've other things to do."

"Oh, rot! Be a sport and stay and help us to stir things up. Come on, now!"

Peter tried to push his way through. "Please get out of the way," he said.

But a jovial red-headed fellow got into it. "You're staying, if I have to make you."

Something snapped in Peter's brain. Before he could control himself he bent down and picked up the man by the scruff of his neck and the cloth that was wound round his middle and heaved him over the heads of the crowd into a divan, and then hitting out right and left cleared a path to the door, leaving chaos and bleeding noses behind him. Without waiting to get his hat and coat he made a dash for the elevator, caught it just as it was about to descend and went down to the main floor dishevelled and panting.

Out in the street he saw Kenyon trying to put Graham into a taxicab.

Kenyon saw him and called out. "Come on, or Papowsky will make it hot for us."

On his way home from a late evening at one of his clubs, Ranken Townsend caught the name Papowsky, whose evil reputation had come to his ears. He threw a quick glance at the men who were leaving her place and saw that one of them was Peter. He drew up and stood in front of the man in whom he thought he had recognized cleanness and excellence and told himself that he was utterly mistaken.

"So this was your precious business engagement," he said, with icy contempt. "Well, I don't give my daughter to a man who shares her with women like Papowsky, so you may consider yourself free. Good night."

And the smile that turned up the corners of Kenyon's mouth had in it the epitome of triumph. All along the line he had won. All along the line.

Peter watched the tall disappearing figure. He felt as though he had been kicked in the mouth.

PART THREE

LIFE

I

That night was one of the most extraordinary that Peter ever spent.

Although he was smarting under the terrible injustice of Ranken Townsend's few, but very definite words, and felt like a man who had suddenly come up to an abyss, he took Graham in hand and devoted himself, with all the tenderness of a woman, to this poor boy.

All the way home in the cab Graham had been more or less held down by Kenyon and his brother. His brain was in a wild chaos. The realization that he had been tricked and made a fool of hit him hard. In his first great flush of anger he was filled with an overwhelming desire to go to the apartment in which he had placed Ita Strabosck and smash it up. He wanted to have the satisfaction of breaking and ripping apart every piece of furniture that he had bought to make her comfortable and happy, and make an absolute shambles of the place. He wanted also to order that girl out into the street. At that moment he no longer cared what happened to her or where she went. His vanity had received its first rude shock. All the way home he shouted at the top of his voice and struggled to get away from the men who were looking after him. It took all Peter's strength to hold him tight. It was by no means a good sight to see this young man, who only half an hour before had been exhilarated by champagne and the feeling that he was really of some account as a man of the world, reduced to a condition of utter weariness by his violent outbursts. At first he absolutely refused to enter the house and insisted upon walking up and down the street. Finally, by making an appeal to his brother's affection, Peter persuaded him to go in quietly and up to his own room. There, pale and exhausted and entirely out of spirits, Graham turned quickly on his brother. "Keep Kenyon out," he said. "For G.o.d's sake, keep Kenyon out! I want _you_."

Kenyon heard these words and smiled to himself, nodded to Peter, and went downstairs again to make himself comfortable in the library and have a final cigarette before going to bed. He had every reason for self-congratulation. Graham was free,--there was no doubt about that,--and it looked as though Peter also would now be able to be made useful again. Luck certainly had been on his side that night.

It was not much after one o'clock when Peter shut the door of Graham's bed-room. From then onwards he turned himself into a sort of nurse, doing his best to concentrate all his thoughts on his brother's trouble and keep his own until such time as he could deal with it; and, while Graham poured out his heart--going over his story of the Ita Strabosck rescue again and again--Peter quietly undressed him, bit by bit. "Yes, old man," he kept saying, "I quite understand; but what you've got to do now is to get to bed and to sleep. Let me take off your coat. That's right. Now sit down for a second. Now let me undo your shoes. It's a jolly good thing I came home. You bet your life I'll stand by you and see you through--you bet your life I will!"

"And you swear you'll not say anything about this to mother or Belle, and especially father--even if I'm ill,--in fact to any one? You swear it?"

"Of course," said Peter.

There was something comical as well as pathetic in the sight of this big fellow playing the woman to this distraught boy,--undoing his tie, taking off his collar and gradually getting him ready for bed. It was a long and difficult process and needed consummate tact, tender firmness and quiet determination. A hundred times Graham would spring to his feet and--with one shoe on and one shoe off, minus coat and waistcoat, tie and collar--pace the room from end to end, gesticulating wildly, sending out a torrent of words in a hoa.r.s.e whisper--sometimes almost on the verge of tears. He was only twenty-four--not much more than a boy. It was very hard luck that he should be up against so sordid a slice of life at a time when he stood at the beginning of everything.

But Peter knew intuitively that it was absolutely necessary for Graham to rid his system of this Strabosck poison and empty out his heart and soul before he could be put to sleep, like a tired child. And so, with the utmost patience, he subjected himself to play the part of a mental as well as a physical nurse. Better than that, he mothered his brother, smoothed him down, sympathized with him, a.s.sured him again and again that he had done the only possible thing; and finally as the first touch of dawn crept into the room had the infinite satisfaction of putting the clothes about his brother's shoulders and seeing his dark head buried in his pillow. Even then he was not wholly satisfied. Creeping upon tip-toe about the room he laid hands on Graham's razors and put them in his pocket. He was possessed with a sort of terror that the boy might wake up and, acting under a strong revulsion of feeling, cut his throat. It must be remembered that he had watched a human being under the strain and stress of a very strong and terrible emotion and he was naturally afraid. He knew his brother's excitable temperament. He had heard him confess that the girl had exercised over him something more than mere physical attraction, and although he was no psychologist it was easy for him to see that, for a time at any rate, Graham was just as ready to hurt himself as to hurt the girl. Some one had to be paid out for his suffering and it was Peter's business to see that his brother, at any rate, escaped punishment. Not content with having got Graham to bed and to sleep and secured the razors which might be used in a moment of impetuousness, Peter stayed on, sat down near the bed and listened to one after another of the sounds of the great city's awakening. It was then that he permitted himself to think back. He didn't remember the fracas in the studio apartment or the unpleasantness of the place with the unhealthy, unpleasant creatures who had been there. He repeated to himself over and over again the words--the cold, cruel words of Ranken Townsend,--"So this was your precious business engagement. Well, I don't give my daughter to a man who shares her with women like Papowsky, so you may consider yourself free." In his mind's eye he could see the tall artist march away. He felt again as though he had been kicked in the mouth.

II

Ranken Townsend had arranged a sitting with Madame Mascheri, the famous opera singer, at eleven o'clock. He entered his studio at ten, and the first thing he did was to ring up one of his best friends and get into a quarrel with him. He had already so surprised his old servant at breakfast that she had retired to the kitchen in tears. He was angry and sore and there was likely to be a nice clash in the studio when he said sharp things to the spoiled lady who considered that all men were in their proper places only when they were at her feet.

Ranken Townsend was more than angry. He was disappointed--mentally sick--completely out of gear. He had seen Peter Guthrie--and there was no argument about the fact--come out of a notorious house, dishevelled and apparently drunk. It was a sad blow to him. A bad shock. The effects of it had kept him awake nearly all night. Betty was the apple of his eye. He was going to protect her at all costs, and he knew that in doing so he must bring great unhappiness into her life. He had believed in Peter Guthrie. He had seemed to him to be a big, strong, clean, honest, simple, true fellow who had gone straight and who meant to continue to go straight. It meant a tremendous amount, an altogether incalculable amount to him as a father to have found that his estimate was wrong. He realized perfectly well that his words had been harsh the night before.

He detested to have been obliged to say them; but, for the sake of his little girl, he was not going back on them. The evidence was too strong.

The telephone bell rang. He stalked across to it. "Well?" he said.

"What's that? Who did you say? Send him up at once." And then, with his jaw set and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he took up a stand in the middle of the studio and waited.

It was Peter. He came in quietly and looked very tired. "Good morning, Mr. Townsend," he said.

The answer was sharp and antagonistic. "I don't agree with you."

Peter put down his hat and stick, went up to the artist and stood in front of him squarely and without fear. "You're going to withdraw what you said last night."

"You think so?"

"Yes."

"Why?"