People Like That Part 13

"Why don't you smoke? Haven't you a cigar?" I reached for a box of matches behind me. "Begin at the beginning and tell me everything."

Selwyn lighted his cigar and for a while smoked in silence. In his face were deep lines that aged it strangely and for the first time I noticed graying hair about his temples. Suddenly something clutched my heart queerly, something that cleared unnaming darkness, and understanding was upon me. Unsteadily my hand went out toward him.

"There is nothing you cannot ask me to do, Selwyn. There is nothing I would not do to help you."

He lifted my hand to his lips. "There is no one but you I would talk to of this. You will not misunderstand. If I could not come to you--"

I drew my hand away. "That's what a woman is for, to--to stand by when a man needs her." My words came stammeringly. "I heard Harrie was away. Where is he and why did he go?"

"He's in Texas. He went, I think, because of a mix-up with a girl here he had no business knowing. There was a row, I believe."

Selwyn frowned, flicked the ashes from his cigar with impatient movement. "There's no use going into that. I'm not excusing him; there's no excuse, but so far as that's concerned there's nothing to be done, so far as I can see. He got involved with this girl, a little cas.h.i.+er at some restaurant downtown who thought he was going to marry her. I knew nothing about this until a few weeks ago. When I heard it, I went to see the girl."

The tension of past weeks, not yet entirely unrelaxed, snapped with such swiftness that I seemed suffocating, and, lest he hear the sob in my throat, I got up and went over to the window and opened it a little. "Was she--" I made effort to speak steadily. "Was she the girl who was brought in here? The girl you were with some three weeks ago?"

Selwyn, who had gotten up as I came back to the sofa, again sat down.

"Yes. She was the girl." His voice was indifferently even. He had obviously no suspicion of my unworthy wondering, had forgotten, indeed, his indignation at the question I had asked him after seeing him with her. Other things more compelling had evidently crowded it from memory.

"I had never seen her until the night I saw her here. She, I learned later, knew me, however, as Harrie's brother. I had been told that Harrie was infatuated with her, and, knowing there could only be disaster unless the thing was stopped, I went to see the girl. The evening you saw me was the second time I had seen her. I was trying to make her promise to go away. This isn't her home. She came here to get work."

Selwyn leaned back against the sofa, and his eyes looked into mine with helpless questioning. "I've been brought in contact professionally with many types of human beings, but that girl is the most baffling thing I've come across yet. I can't make her out. The night after I saw her here I went to see her at what, I supposed, was her home, just opposite the Hadley box-factory. Later she told me she didn't live there, and would not say where she lived. All the time I talked to her her eyes were on her hands in her lap and, though occasionally her lips would twist, she would say nothing. It isn't a pleasant thing for a man to tell a girl his brother isn't a safe person for her to go with, isn't one to be trusted, but I did tell her. She's an odd little thing, all fire and flame, and to talk frankly was to be brutal, but some day she should thank me. She won't do it. She will hate me always for warning her. She knew as well as I that marriage was out of the question, and yet she would not promise to give Harrie up. When you saw me I was on my way for a second talk with her. Meeting her on the street, I did not go to the house, which she said she had just left, and as she would not tell me where she was going, I had to do my talking as we walked."

"Did she promise to go away?" I looked into the fire, and the odd, elfish, frightened face of the girl with the baby in her arms looked at me out of the bed of coals. "Did she promise to go?" I repeated.

Selwyn shook his head. "She would promise nothing. I could get nothing out of her, could not make her talk. Harrie has been a durned fool--perhaps worse, I don't know. I tried to help her, and I failed."

My fingers interlocked in nervous movements. Why hadn't the girl told Selwyn? Why was she s.h.i.+elding Harrie? Would she tell me or Mrs. Mundy what she would not tell Selwyn? I could send Mrs. Mundy to her now--could break the silence which was mystifying to her.

Selwyn's hands moved as though to rid them of all further responsibility. "You can't do anything with people like that. She'd rather stay on here and take the chance of seeing Harrie than go away from temptation. I'm sorry for her, but I'm through."

"No, you're not through. Perhaps we've just begun. Maybe there--there were reasons of which she couldn't tell you that kept her here." I looked at him, then away. "The night we heard her fall, heard her cry out; the night we brought her in here, you met some one across the street when you went away. Was it--Harrie?"

In Selwyn's face came flush that crimsoned it. "Yes, it was Harrie.

I don't know what happened. He had been drinking, but I can't believe he struck her. If he did--my G.o.d!"

With shuddering movement Selwyn's elbows were on his knees, his face in his hands, and only the dropping of a coal upon the hearth broke the stillness of the room. Presently he got up and again went over to the window. When he next spoke his voice was quiet, but in it a bitterness and weariness he made no effort to conceal. "It was Harrie, but he would tell me nothing about the girl. From some one else I learned where I could find her. A few days after I saw her, Harrie went away."

"Did you make him go?"

"No. I had a talk with him during which he told me to mind my own d.a.m.ned business and he would mind his." Selwyn turned from the window and came back to the sofa, on his lips a faint smile. "When he went off he didn't tell me he was going, left no address, and for some time I didn't know where he was. Less than three weeks ago I had a telegram from him saying he was ill and to send money. I wired the money and left for El Paso on the first train I could make. I tried to see you before I went, but you were out."

"Why didn't you write?"

"I couldn't. Once or twice I tried, but gave it up. I found that Harrie had undoubtedly been ill, but when I reached him he was up and about. Two hours before I took the train to return home he informed me of his engagement to--"

"His what?" For a moment I sat rigidly upright, in my eyes indignant unbelief. Then I sat back limp and relaxed, my hands, palms upward, in my lap.

Selwyn's shoulders shrugged. "Your amazement is feeble to what mine was. On the train going down he had renewed his acquaintance with a girl and her mother he had met somewhere; here, I believe, and a week after reaching her home the girl was engaged to him. Her name is Swink."

"Is she crazy?"

"No. Her mother is crazy. I don't blame the girl. She's young, pretty, silly, and doubtless in love. Harrie has fatal facility in making love. This mamma person has a good deal of money; no sense, and large social ambitions. She's determined to get there. If only fools died as soon as they were born there would be hope for humanity. A fat fool is beyond the reach of endeavor." With eyes narrowed and his forehead ridged in tiny folds, Selwyn stared at me.

"Have women no sense, Danny? Have they no understanding, no--"

"Some have. But sense and understanding interfere with comfortable ignorances that aren't pleasant to be interfered with. Does this female parent know anything about Harrie? Did she let her daughter become engaged before making inquiries about him?"

"She knows very well who he is. She's visited here several times.

If told of Harrie's past dissipations, she'd soothe herself with the usual dope of boys being boys, and men being men, and bygones being bygones." Selwyn's hands made gesture of disgust. "It's a plain case of d.a.m.ned fool. She deserves what she'll get if she lets her daughter marry Harrie. But the daughter doesn't. Somebody ought to tell the child she mustn't marry him. If there was a father or brother the responsibility would be on them. There's neither."

"But didn't you tell Harrie--that--that--"

"I did. And the language I used was not learned in a kindergarten.

Among other things I told him was that if he-- Oh, it's no use going into that. It's easy to say what you'll do, but it isn't easy to show your brother up as--as everything one's brother shouldn't be."

For a moment or two Selwyn continued his restless walking up and down the room, in his face no masking of the pain and weariness of spirit that were possessing him. To no one else would he speak so frankly of a family affair, and I wanted much to help him, but how? What was it he wanted me to do? I could not see where I came in to do anything.

"Is Harrie very much in love?" Such questioning was consciously silly, but something had to be said. "Do you think he really loves the girl?"

"No, I don't. He says he does, of course, but he doesn't love anything but himself. Making love is a habit with him. Our girls know how to take the sort of stuff he talks; rather expect it, but this little creature is obviously a literalist. I imagine Harrie hardly remembers how it happened. He probably was surprised to find himself engaged. However, he's determined to go through with it. A million-dollar mother-in-law has a good deal in her favor. But something is the matter with the boy. He's not himself."

"Didn't he go away about a year ago, and stay some time? If he could begin all over--"

"There's nowhere under heaven I wouldn't send him if he'd go with the purpose of beginning all over, but he won't stay away. About six months ago he went to South America and stayed four months. Since he got home he's been worse than ever--reckless, defiant, and drinking heavily. His health has gone and most of his money; practically all of it. I don't know what to do. I want to do what is right. Tell me what it is, Danny."

My breath was drawn in s.h.i.+veringly and the frightened face of the girl with the baby in her arms again seemed close to me. Why was I so halting, so afraid to speak? Usually I reached decisions quickly, but I couldn't get rid of the girl's eyes. They seemed appealing for protection. Until I knew more about her I must say nothing. Mrs.

Mundy must go to see her and then--

"I know I shouldn't bother you with all this." Selwyn's voice recalled me and the face in the fire vanished. "But there is no one else I can talk to. I should as soon go to a patient in a nerve sanitarium as to Mildred. As a sister Mildred is not a success.

She'd first have hysterics and tell me I was brutal to poor Harrie, and then declare that to marry a million dollars was the chance of a lifetime for him. One of the ten thousand things I can't understand about women is their defense of men, their acceptance of his--shortcomings, and their disregard of the woman who must pay the price of the latter. Mildred would probably not give Miss Swink a thought."

"Harrie's sister and his mamma-in-law-to-be will doubtless find each other congenial. They believe in sweet ignorance and blind acceptance for their s.e.x. But what do you want me to do, Selwyn?

What is it I can do?"

"I don't know." Hand on the back of the sofa, he looked down at me.

"When things go wrong I always come to you. When they go right you are not nice to me. To-day I had a letter from Harrie. He's coming back next week. His fiancee and her mother are coming with him. The engagement is not to be announced just yet, however, and he asks me to keep it on the quiet."

"And you've told me."

"Told you!" Selwyn's voice was querulous. "Don't I tell you everything? Mrs. Swink has friends here, strivers like herself--the only kind of people you won't have anything to do with. But I'm going to ask you to call. Perhaps you'll be able--"

"She won't want to know me. I'll be no use to her. I can't help her in any way, and people like that are too keen to waste time on people like me. I don't give parties."

"But Kitty does. I don't know how you'll go about it, but you'll find a way to--to make the girl understand she mustn't marry Harrie, or certainly not for some time. I feel sorry for the child, but--"

"And the other girl--the little cas.h.i.+er-girl? What about her?"

For a moment Selwyn did not seem to understand. "Oh, that girl! I don't think there'll be any trouble from her. She doesn't seem that sort. Forget her. You can't do anything. I've tried and failed."

"I may fail, but I haven't tried. You dispose of her as if she didn't count."