The Whirligig of Time Part 21

Automatically following his daily custom he cheeked his coat and hat at the cloak room and collected his mail from his post-box. Then he went straight to the one room in the club where he thought he was likely to be alone; a small reading-room usually popular in the afternoon but deserted by early evening. He found it empty, as he had expected. With a sigh of relief he turned out all the electric lights and threw himself on a couch in front of the open wood fire--a graceful though unnecessary compliment on the part of the club management to meteorological conditions.

But unluckily his glance fell on the unopened letters he still held in his hand, and immediately his trouble was on him again. One of them he recognized as coming from his Uncle James and the other, bearing the post-mark of New Haven, was from Beatrice. With a slight groan of combined resignation and disgust he tore open his uncle's letter and read it by the flickering light of the fire.

Dear James:

Your young brother has made more of a mess of it than we hoped would be the case. The Mowbray woman has brought suit for $40,000, and is likely to get it, or a good part of it, according to Raynham, whom I saw about the business yesterday.

She has letters and a spoken promise in the presence of witnesses. We have nothing except the knowledge that Harry was drunk when he wrote the letters and drunk when he spoke the words, which is not much comfort. Still, Raynham thinks she can be made to settle out of court, especially if we take our time.

We have got to show her first that the world will not come to an end because a Wimbourne has been mixed up with a woman--which it won't. It will be a matter, Raynham thinks, of $15,000 at least; probably more.

What is going to become of the boy? Have you any influence over him? If not, who has? It is about time somebody exerted some on him, other than bad. He has much to fight against.

"Your aunt sends her love. Your affect. uncle,

JAMES WIMBOURNE.

In spite of his fatigue and his disgust, James smiled as he finished the letter. It was so characteristic of Uncle James; the most conventional sentences, the ones that seemed to mean least, really meant the most.

"Your aunt sends her love"; only a person who knew Uncle James could appreciate the consciously suppressed humor of that phrase. As if Aunt Cecilia were not in such a vortex of conflicting emotions over the affair that such a conventional message would not be as far from her as Bagdad! "He has much to fight against"; Harry had much to fight against; Uncle James knew what, and he knew that James also knew. Connotative meanings like these more than atoned for the unflinching frankness of certain other phrases.

On the whole, James felt better for having read the letter, and opened Beatrice's with a lighter heart.

Dear James; (he read)

Jack Trotwood has just been here and told me that that unspeakable woman is actually going to sue Harry for breach of promise. I tried to get him to tell more, but he said that that was all he had been able to get out of Harry. It's too awful! You can imagine what a time I've been through, seeing him at least once a week and not being able to say a word about the whole business. I've had to depend on Jack Trotwood for all my information, and naturally he hasn't wanted to say much. Do you mean to say Harry hasn't written you all this term? I cannot understand it at all.

Aunt Selina seems quite cut up about it, and wishes you were here. 'Tell James to come,' she said when I told her I would write you. I must confess, though, that I don't see what good you could do--now. Of course, terrible as this suit is, it does relieve things in one way, at least. Once we're quite sure it's merely money she's after, it doesn't seem quite so bad. I even think it is better now than it was early in the autumn, when we thought he was actually fond of her.

There is no other news to give you; as you can imagine, we have not been thinking of much else. Poor Harry, how sorry I am for him! How much I wish I could help him, and how little I can do!

As ever yours,

BEATRICE.

This letter was less comforting than the other. Beatrice's words seemed to James to carry a veiled reproach with them; to implicate him much more closely in Harry's disgrace than he had as yet thought of implicating himself. "I don't see what good you could do--now;" "better now than it was in the early autumn--" such sentences could not but have their sting for the sensitive mind, and James was sensitive when Harry was concerned, and even more so when Beatrice was.

Had he been negligent in regard to Harry? Oh, yes, he was perfectly willing to admit that he had, now that he came to think it over, though he would rather have had anybody other than Beatrice point out the fact to him--and that, doubtless, was because a comment from Beatrice would have twice the force of the same comment uttered by any one else. He had never really put himself out for Harry in any way, since the days when England seemed too far for him to venture to discover what the years were making of him. In the critical period of his senior and Harry's soph.o.m.ore year he had shown himself entirely incapable of giving the friends.h.i.+p and sympathy and guidance that were needed. Jack Trotwood, and not he himself, had been Harry's best friend, in every sense of the phrase, for three years and more. And after graduation, he had come to Minneapolis.

Then this degrading affair with the manicure. James had heard of that first through Beatrice, for Harry's letters, which had arrived at regular, though rather long, intervals, had ceased abruptly in September, at the beginning of the college year. That had been almost a relief to James. Harry's letters had been calculated to widen rather than bridge the gulf between them. They had been amusing and always cleverly written. A letter written on the previous Tap Day, dated conspicuously "Thursday, May 18, 7 P.M." (two hours after Harry had failed to receive an election to any senior society) had been a perfect masterpiece of omission. It ran pleasantly along on the weather, the outward appearance of the university, sundry little incidents of no importance or interest, the economic condition of the country--everything except Tap Day, himself, anything that would interest James. This letter had irritated James beyond all expression, yet at the same time he admired it for what it was worth, and hated himself for admiring it.

And so, as he was obliged to learn from other sources of Harry's missing a senior society, so he was dependent on others for all his information _in re_ Myrtle Mowbray. In October Beatrice had written him that Harry had been seen much in the society of the woman, who conducted her business in connection with a barber shop situated conveniently for the patronage of the student body. Jack Trotwood had also written, somewhat timidly, to the same effect, evidently much perplexed about where his truest duty to Harry lay. Apparently there had been motor parties to neighboring country inns, more or less conspicuous carryings-on in restaurants about town, and so forth. Such tidings became more and more acute for a month, and then ceased. There was reason for hoping that the nonsense was all over. Then the thunderbolt of to-day.

James had not really been much worried, before to-day. He had caught a glimpse of "the Mowbray woman," as he always thought of her, one day in the previous June, while in New Haven for Commencement. He had been strolling along Chapel Street with a group of cla.s.smates, and one of them called his attention to a female form emerging from a shop door, giving in a discreet undertone a brief explanation of her celebrity, ending with a vivid word of commendation--"Some fluff." James looked, and saw a pretty face. It had been but a fraction of a second, and the face was turned away from him; but it was enough to leave quite a lasting impression on his mind--an impression that had not been without its effect on his reception of the news of Harry's infatuation. A pretty face! Well, when all was said and done, Harry had not been the first man of his acquaintance to become enamored of a pretty face--and get over it. He did not approve of the alleged infatuation; the thought of it gave him considerable uneasiness. But, helped out by the impression, his optimistic temperament had battled with the uneasiness and in the end overcome it; prevented it, certainly, from growing into anything like anxiety, anything that would necessitate drastic and disturbing measures, such as pulling up stakes, for instance, and hurrying New Haven-ward.... Oh, how loathsomely lazy and indifferent he had been, now that he looked back on it all!

A pretty face! The memory of it was still sharply out-lined on the back of James' brain and drove introspection and self-recrimination into momentary abeyance. A clear, slightly olive complexion, rising to a faint pink on the cheeks--artificial? Not as he remembered it; there was no suggestion of the chorus-girl--sharply-drawn eyebrows and dark hair.

Above, a hat of some sort; below, a suit, preferably of dark blue serge.

The impression had been recurrent in James' mind during these past months; not soon after it was received, in the summer; since then. There was something irritating and tantalizing about this circ.u.mstance; it was as though the impression had been strengthened by a second view. Where had he seen that face again, if at all? Yes, he had seen it, somewhere; he was almost certain of it. He was absolutely certain of it; he could remember everything--except the time and place. Which after all were important adjuncts to definite recollection--! No, he would not laugh himself out of it; he was sure. He would remember all about it some time when he least expected it.

He left it at that, and listlessly lay at full length watching the fire and allowing his thoughts to wander from the all-absorbing topic and its octopus-like ramifications. The fire was fascinating to watch; he loved open fires and wished they would have one in this room every evening. It would be almost like a home to come back to, after work. It was particularly pleasant to watch, like this, in an otherwise dark room, as it cast its intermittent flare on the walls and furniture. It brought out the rich warm tones in the brown leather of the chairs and the oak of the wainscot, and picked out small particles of gilt here and there in the ceiling decoration, and set them twinkling back in a cheerful, drowsy way. From the dim outside world beyond the open door came occasional sounds of club life; the distant clatter of crockery, the swish of a pa.s.sing elevator, a voice finding fault with a club servant.

James listened to them at first, in a half-amused, idle sort of way; then gradually they faded from his consciousness and he was aware of nothing but the fire and its flickering yellow light.

He watched the fire intently, absorbedly, with the lazy concentration with which a tired brain often fastens itself on some physical object, as though to crowd out other thoughts clamoring for admittance. The fire was beginning to burn low now, with flames that never rose more than a few inches above the logs. Every few moments a small quant.i.ty of half-burnt wood dropped off and fell to the glowing bed of coals beneath, and the flames broke out afresh in the place it fell from.

James watched this process with a growing sense of expectancy; he seemed to be always waiting, waiting for the next fall; yet when the next fall came he was still waiting.... Was it only the fall of the coals that he was waiting for? It must be something else, something that had nothing to do with the fire at all; something much more important; something that he longed not to have come, yet, and at the same time wished were over.... He seemed now not to be lying at full length, but sitting on the broad arm of a chair. The fire-light's glow fell no longer on leather and oak, but on old flowered chintz and mahogany.... Now he was sitting no longer; he was bending over--bending low over something white; turning his ear so as to catch certain words that some one was uttering in a whisper; words that were indelibly burnt on his brain; words that were as inseparable from his being as life....

Then in an instant the room, the fire, everything vanished; and in their place, filling his whole consciousness--that face! He knew it perfectly now, exactly when, where, all about it; no room for mistake or doubt any more! He started upright on the couch; his whole world seemed suddenly illumined by a blinding flash of light. In another instant he was aware that somebody had turned on the electric light, and of a face staring quizzically into his. He heard a voice.

"h.e.l.lo, you all alone in here, Wimbourne? You must be fond of the dark!--What are you looking so all-fired pleased about, I wonder?"

"Oh--Laffan! How are you?... Nothing much; I just thought of something, that's all."

"Congratulations on your thoughts. I'm looking for some one to dine with; I suppose you've eaten? It's late--"

"Whew--nearly eight! No, I've not eaten; shall we go up together?"

They started to leave the room, but James stopped abruptly in the doorway, suddenly practical, master of himself, of the whole situation.

"I say, Laffan, you're a lawyer, aren't you?"

"I attempt to be."

"Well, I want to consult you, professionally, if you'll let me. Consider me a client! Now, what I want to know is this; suppose a--"

"Oh, rot, man--not on an empty stomach! Come along upstairs; you can tell me all about it while you eat!"

CHAPTER XIII

SARDOU

About a week later James went to the head of his firm, the cla.s.smate's father who had offered him his position, and asked for a few days' leave of absence.

"Why didn't you go to Smith?" said his employer, naming the head of the department in which James was working.

"I didn't think he'd let me off without your leave, sir."

"Hm.... You must go, must you?"

"I'm afraid I must. Indeed, I'm bound to say, sir, that I shall go, leave or no leave."

"Hm. Well, you can go; but if you take more than half a week it'll have to come off your annual vacation."

"Thank you, sir, I shan't need more than that," said James and the interview was closed. No word was spoken of the reason for James'

departure. Jonathan McClellan, founder and owner of the McClellan Automobile Company, knew a thing or two beside how to run an automobile business. He also read the papers.

That was on a Thursday. In the course of the evening James conducted an interview with his friend Laffan and at midnight or thereabouts he took train for Chicago. He proceeded next day to New York, and thence, on Sat.u.r.day, to New Haven, arriving there early in the afternoon.

He went straight from the station to the law offices of Messrs. Raynham and Rummidge and remained there upwards of half an hour. Every sign of satisfaction was visible on his face as he emerged, but Raynham, who escorted him to the outer door, seemed not nearly so well pleased.