The Pace That Kills Part 2

He reached the portiere before Justine fully grasped the discourtesy of his conduct. She stared after him wonderingly, her lips half parted, her clear eyes dilated and amazed, the color mounted to her cheeks, and she made as though to leave her seat.

But this Roland thought it wise to prevent. "Miss Dunellen," he murmured, "I am afraid Dr. Thorold was bored. It is my fault. I had no right--"

"Bored! How could he have been? I am sure I don't see--"

"Yes, you do, my dear," thought Roland; "you think he was jealous, and you are wrong; but it is good for us that you should." And in memory of the little compliment her speech had unintentionally conveyed he gave another twist to his mustache.

The outer door closed with a jar that reached him where he sat. "Thank G.o.d!" he muttered; and divining that if he now went away the girl would regret his departure, after another word or two, and despite the protestation of her manner, he bade her good-night.

It is one of the charms of our lovely climate that the temperature can fall twenty degrees in as many minutes. When Roland entered the Dunellen house he left spring in the street; when he came out again there was snow. Across the way a lamp flickered, beneath it a man was standing, from beyond came a faint noise of pa.s.sing wheels, but the chance of rescue by cab or hansom was too remote for anyone but a foreigner to entertain. Roland had omitted to provide himself with any protection against a storm, yet that omission affected him but little. He had too many things to think of to be anxious about his hat; and, his hands in his pocket, his head lowered, he descended the steps, prepared to let the snow do its worst.

As he reached the pavement the man at the lamp-post crossed the street.

"Mistrial," he called, for Roland was hurrying on--"Mistrial, I want a word with you."

In a moment he was at his side, and simultaneously Roland recognized the cousin. He was b.u.t.toned up in a loose coat faced with fur, and over his head he held an umbrella. He seemed a little out of breath.

"If," he began at once, "if I hear that you ever presume to so much as speak to Miss Dunellen again, I will break every bone in your body."

The voice in which he made this threat was gruff and aggressive. As he delivered it, he closed his umbrella and swung it like a club.

"_A nous deux, maintenant_," mused Roland.

"And not only that--if you ever dare to enter that house again I will expose you."

"Oh, will you, though?" answered Roland. The tone he a.s.sumed was affectedly civil. "Well now, my fat friend, let me tell you this: I intend to enter that house, as you call it, to-morrow at precisely five o'clock. Let me pick you up on the way, and we can go together."

"Roland Mistrial, as sure as there is a G.o.d in heaven I will have you in the Tombs."

"See here, put up your umbrella. You are not in a condition to expose yourself--let alone anyone else. You are daft, Thorold--that is what is the matter with you. If you persist in chattering Tombs at me in a snow-storm I will answer Bloomingdale to you. You frightened me once, I admit; but I am ten years older now, and ten years less easily scared.

Besides, what drivel you talk! You haven't that much to go on."

As Roland spoke his accent changed from affected suavity to open scorn.

"Now stop your bl.u.s.ter," he continued, "and listen to me. Because you happen to find me in there, you think I have intentions on the heiress--"

"It's a lie! She--"

"There, don't be abusive. I know you want her for yourself, and I hope you get her. But please don't think that I mean to stand in your way."

"I should say not."

"In the first place, I went there on business."

"What business, I would like to know?"

"So you shall. I took some papers for Mr. Dunellen to examine--papers relative to my father's estate. To-morrow I return to learn his opinion.

Next week I go abroad again. When I leave I promise you shall find your cousin still heart-whole and fancy-free."

As Roland delivered this little stab he paused a moment to note the effect. But apparently it had pa.s.sed unnoticed--Thorold seemingly was engrossed in the statements that preceded it. The scowl was still on his face, but it was a scowl into which perplexity had entered, and which in entering had modified the aggressiveness that had first been there. At the moment his eyes wandered, and Roland, who was watching him, felt that he had scored a point.

"You say you are going abroad?" he said, at last.

"Yes; I have to join my wife."

At this announcement Thorold looked up at him and then down at the umbrella. Presently, with an abrupt gesture, he unfurled it and raised it above his head. As he did so, Roland smiled. For that night at least the danger had gone. Of the morrow, however, he was una.s.sured.

"Suppose we walk along," he said, encouragingly; and before Thorold knew it, he was sharing that umbrella with his foe. "Yes," he continued, "my poor father left his affairs in a muddle, but Mr. Dunellen says he thinks he can straighten them out. You can understand that if any inkling of this thing were to reach him he would return the papers at once. You can understand that, can't you? After all, you must know that I have suffered."

"Suffered!" Thorold cried. "What's that to me? It made my mother insane."

"G.o.d knows I nearly lost my reason too. I can understand how you feel toward me: it is only what I deserve. Yet though you cannot forget, at least it can do you no good to rake this matter up."

"It is because of--" and for a second the cousin halted in his speech.

"_Voila!_" mused Roland. "_Je te vois venir._"

"However, if you are going abroad--"

"Most certainly I am. I never expect to see Miss Dunellen again."

"In that case I will say nothing."

They had reached Fifth Avenue, and for a moment both loitered on the curb. Thorold seemed to have something to add, but he must have had difficulty in expressing it, for he nodded as though to reiterate the promise.

"I can rely upon you then, can I?" Roland asked.

"Keep out of my way, sir, and I will try, as I have tried, to forget."

A 'bus was pa.s.sing, he hailed it, and disappeared.

Roland watched the conveyance, and shook the snow-flakes from his coat.

"Try, and be d.a.m.ned," he muttered. "I haven't done with you yet."

The disdain of a revenge at hand is accounted the uniquest possible vengeance. And it is quite possible that had Roland's monetary affairs been in a better condition, on a sound and solid basis, let us say, he would willingly have put that paradox into action. But on leaving Tuxedo he happened to be extremely hungry--hungry, first and foremost, for the possession of that wealth which in this admirably conducted country of ours lifts a man above the law, and, an adroit combination of scoundrelism and incompetence aiding, sometimes lands him high among the executives of state. By political ambition, however, it is only just to say he was uninspired. In certain a.s.semblies he had taken the trouble to a.s.sert that our government is one at which Abyssinia might sneer, but the role of reformer was not one which he had any inclination to attempt. Several of his progenitors figured, and prominently too, in abridgments of history; and, if posterity were not satisfied with that, he had a very clear idea as to what posterity might do. In so far as he was personally concerned, the prominence alluded to was a thing which he accepted as a matter of course: it was an integral part of himself; he would have missed it as he would have missed a leg or the point of his nose; but otherwise it left his pulse unstirred. No, his hunger was not for preferment or place. It was for the ten million which the Hon. Paul Dunellen had gathered together, and which the laws of gravitation would prevent him from carrying away when he died. That was the nature of Roland Mistrial's hunger, and as incidental thereto was the thirst to adjust an outstanding account.

Whatever the nature of that account may have been, in a more ordinary case it might have become outlawed through sheer lapse of time. But during that lapse of time Roland had been in exile because of it; and though even now he might have been willing to let it drift back into the past where it belonged, yet when the representative of it not only loomed between him and the millions, but was even attempting to gather them in for himself, the possibility of retaliation was too complete to suffer disdain. The injury, it is true, was one of his own doing. But, curiously enough, when a man injures another the more wanton that injury is the less it incites to repentance. In certain dispositions it becomes a source of malignant hate. Deserve a man's grat.i.tude, and he may forgive you; but let him do you a wrong, and you have an enemy for life.

Such is the human heart--or such at least was Roland Mistrial's.

And now, as the conveyance rumbled off into the night, he shook the snow-flakes from his coat.

"Try, and be d.a.m.ned," he repeated; "I haven't done with you yet."

IV.