The Penalty Part 9

"You won't leave Blizzard up to me all alone, will you? Not _now_, you won't?"

"No, Bubbles, not now. Whenever he's posing in this room, you and I won't be far off."

"Because," said Bubbles, smiling with relief, "I'd do my best, but if it came to a show-down with _him_ there ain't a thing I _could_ do."

"One time or another," said Harry, "we'll _get_ him. You and I will."

"I betcher," said Bubbles.

And in his little peaked face there was much that was threatening to the ultimate welfare of the legless beggar.

X

Barbara, ordinarily clear-minded and single-minded, drove uptown with her thoughts in a state of chaos. She wished to think only about her newly begun head of Satan fallen, since nothing else seemed to her at the moment of any importance, but the face, hands, and voice of the young secret-service agent refused to be banished, and kept suing for kindly notice.

In almost the exact degree in which the legless beggar was repulsive to her sense of perfection the secret-service agent was attractive. She had never seen a man so agreeable to her eyes. And yet, as a marine artist might see fame in painting a wreck upon a sea-sh.o.r.e, rather than a fine new s.h.i.+p under full sail, so she felt that, artistically considered, there was no comparison whatever between the two men. The face of the elder compelled attention and study, and loosed in the observer's mind a whole stream of conjecture and unanswerable questions. The face of the younger began and ended perhaps in the attractions of youth and high spirits. It was a face of which, should the mind back of it prove wanting, you might tire, and learn to look upon as commonplace.

In the midst of unguided thinking Barbara laughed aloud; that small boy whom she had lifted from the cold gutter to comparative affluence and incomparable affection for his rescuer came unbidden into the flurry-scurry of her thoughts, and remained for some time. And she knew that if all her friends should fail her, if the beggar returned no more to be modelled, if the secret-service agent proved but a handsome empty sh.e.l.l, Bubbles would always show up at the appointed time and place while life remained in him. Then, again, as she tried to concentrate upon her bust of Blizzard, the secret-service agent stepped forward, you may say, and smiled into her eyes. And she smiled back. Again she seemed to feel the strong clasp of his hand, and to hear the agreeable and even musical intonation of his strong voice. Odd, she thought, that he should come to put on door-k.n.o.bs, turn out to be a secret-service agent, and have at the same time, if not the characteristics of a fine gentleman, those at least of a man of education and sensibility infinitely superior to the highest type of day-laborer or detective. One of her new acquaintances talked like a gentleman and claimed to be the son of a distinguished man; the other, claiming nothing, was infinitely more presentable; and there was only the small boy who remained frankly representative of his cla.s.s. In spite of his coat of bright b.u.t.tons, he was of the streets streety; a valiant little ragam.u.f.fin, in all but the actual rags. He had the morals of his cla.s.s and the point of view, and differed only in the excellence of his heart. This was a heart made for loving, devotion, and sacrifice. Yet it was crammed to the brim with knowledge of evil, and even tolerance therefor. That certain men in certain circ.u.mstances would act in such and such a way was not a horrible idea to Bubbles, but merely a fact. In the boy's code stealing from a friend was stealing, but stealing from an enemy was merely one way of making a living.

Upon arriving at her father's house, Barbara met Wilmot Allen just turning away from the door. His handsome face brightened at the sight of her, and he sprang forward hatless to furnish her with quite unnecessary aid in stepping out of the taxi.

"Oh, _there_ you are!" he said. "Sparker said you might be home for lunch and again you might not. Please may I graft a meal?"

"Of course," said Barbara, "but unless somebody else drops out of the skies we'll be all alone."

"Your father off on a case?"

"Yes," said Barbara, as they went in, "he is operating, but in Wall Street. And what's the best news with you?"

"That spring's come and summer's coming. When do your holidays begin?"

"_That"_ said Barbara, with a certain air of triumph, "is a secret of the workshop. Let's sit in the dining-room. It's the only way to hurry lunch."

To persons used to humbler ways of life Dr. Ferris's dining-room would have proved too large and stately a place for purposes of intimate conversation. Warriors and ladies looked down from the tapestried walls upon a small round table set with heavy silver and light gla.s.s for two, and having the effect, in the midst of an immense deep-blue rug, of a little island in a lake. But Barbara and Wilmot Allen, well used to even larger and more stately rooms, faced each other across the white linen with its pattern of lotus-plants and swans, and chatted as comfortably and unconcernedly as two children in their nursery.

"As for holidays," said Barbara, "I have a new model, Wilmot; a wonderful person, and that means _work_. I may stay in town right through the summer."

Allen sighed loudly, and on purpose. "You make me tired," he said.

"Bring a lump of clay down to Newport, and _I'll_ sit for you."

Barbara affected to study his face critically. Then she shook her head.

"My new model," she explained, "has got the face of a fallen angel. I think I can do it. And if I can do it, why, I see all the good things of sculping coming my way."

"An ordinary every-day angel face wouldn't do?" her guest insinuated. "I could go out and fall."

"I don't doubt it!" she returned somewhat crisply. "I feel very sure that you could disgrace yourself without trouble and even with relish.

But it wouldn't show in your face. You see, you couldn't really be wicked."

"Couldn't I though!" exclaimed the young man. "A lot you know about it.

I could eat you up for one thing without turning a hair, and that would be wicked."

"It wouldn't," Barbara laughed. "It would be greedy. My new model has the face of a man who has never stopped at anything that has stood in his way. I fancy that he has murders up his sleeve and every other crime in the calendar. And sometimes memory of them brings the most wonderful look of sorrow and remorse into his face, and at the same time he looks resolved to go on murdering and burning and sinning because he can't get back to where he was when he began to fall, and must go on falling or perish. Don't you think that if I can cram that into a lump of clay I'll make a reputation for myself?"

"I think," said Wilmot, "that if you've got that kind of a man sitting for you, you'll need all the reputation you can get. You talk of him with the same sort of enthusiasm that a bird would show in describing being fascinated by a snake."

Barbara considered this judicially. "Do you know," she agreed, "it is rather like that. He fascinates me, and at the same time I never saw a brute I hated so. He must be wicked to deserve such pain."

"Oh, he suffers, does he?"

"Of course. Wouldn't you suffer every minute of your life if you had no legs?"

Barbara, intent upon what was on her plate, did not perceive the sudden astonished darkening of Wilmot Allen's face, nor that the interest which he had hitherto only feigned in her new model had become genuine.

"What is he?"

"I was going to say 'just a beggar,'" said Barbara. "But he isn't just a beggar. I've gathered that he's rather well off, and that he's one of the powers on the East Side. And he looks money and power, even if he doesn't talk them."

"Is his name by any chance Blizzard?"

She looked up in astonishment "How did you know?"

"Oh," he said cheerfully, "I've knocked about the city and known all sorts of curious people, and heard about others. So Blizzard's your new model. Now look here, Barbara, are we old friends, or aren't we?"

"Very old friends," she said.

"Then let me tell you that you're a little fool to have anything to do with a man like that. You can't touch pitch, you know, and--"

"I only touch him with a pair of compa.s.ses," she interrupted sweetly.

"Don't quibble," said Allen with energy; "it's not like you. That man is so bad, so unsavory, so vile, that you simply _mustn't_ have him about.

He's dangerous."

"So is a volcano," said Barbara, "but there's no reason why the most innocent bread-and-b.u.t.ter miss shouldn't paint a picture of a volcano if she felt inspired."

"I see that there's only one thing to do. I shall tell your father."

Wilmot Allen was genuinely troubled. And Barbara laughed at him.

"I'm not a child," she said.

"That's just it," said he; "that's why you ought to be ashamed of yourself. And anyway you are a child. All girls say they aren't until they get into a mess of some sort, and then they excuse themselves to themselves and everybody else by protesting that they were. 'I was so young. I didn't know,' and all that rot."

"Blizzard," said Barbara, "is quiet, polite, and a good talker. He comes, he sits for me, and he goes away."

The butler having left the room, Wilmot fixed his rather tired eyes on Barbara's face, and spoke with a certain earnest tenderness. "Barbs," he said, "take it from me, happiness doesn't lie where you think it does. I think the very highest achievements of the very greatest artists haven't brought happiness. Look here, old dear; put a limit to your ambition.