Victor Ollnee's Discipline Part 23

"Shall we go home?"

"Home? I have no home. No, let's camp right here in the park. There must be a lunch counter somewhere."

"There's something better than a lunch counter. There's the German Building."

"I'll stand you for a beer and sandwich," he shouted. "Show it to me."

Returning the boat to the landing, he paid his fee with a satisfied smile. "I never gave up forty-five cents with better grace in my life,"

he said to her.

She led the way to the cafe in the German Building, and there they ate and drank in modest fas.h.i.+on, while he expressed his grat.i.tude for her guidance. "I owe you all I've got," he declared, displaying his little handful of money. "You've shown me another side of the city's life. It isn't so bad, this wild life of Chicago. We'll come again. _Will_ you come again?" He bent a frankly pleading gaze upon her.

"Indeed I will. I love it here; but Aunt Louise prefers to ride about in the car. However, you haven't seen all the park yet. You must see the prairies at the south end, and the Spanish caravels, the convent--all the marine side of it. Let's walk down the beach."

He was glad to accept her guidance in this matter also, and they set off down the curving walk, slowly, as if they found each new rood of ground more enjoyable than that already traversed. He had a feeling that nothing so sweet, so perfect as this day's companions.h.i.+p could ever again come to him, and he lingered over each view as if determined to extract its every possible phase of enjoyment, and when two paths presented themselves, he shamelessly advised taking the longer one. So they came to The Old Convent, to The Caravels in The South Lagoon, and at last to The Sand Hills. This was the climax of their walk. These dunes were so different from anything he had ever seen, so remote, so suggestive, and so flooded with the light of his own growing romance, that they seemed of another and strangely beautiful land.

Taking seats upon the gra.s.s in the sunlight, which was just warm enough to be delightful, they absorbed the scene in silence, entranced by the sails, the far water-line, the sun, the wind, and the fluting of the birds. The few people who drifted by were unimportant as shadows; and Leo took no thought of time till a cloud crossed the sun and the wind felt suddenly chill; then she rose. "We must go home, or they'll certainly think we've gone to St. Joe."

He returned to his jocular mood. "If I had ten dollars I'd ask you 'why not?'"

"I wouldn't consent if you had a million."

He pretended to be astonished. "You would not? Why?"

"Because I believe in the pomp and circ.u.mstance of matrimony. No runaway marriages for me! When I marry, it shall be in a vast cathedral, with a mighty organ thundering and a long procession of awed and s.h.i.+vering brides-maids."

"I'm sorry your tastes run in that way. I don't, at this time, feel able to gratify them."

"n.o.body asked you, sir," she said; then looking about her, she sighed deeply. "I hate to leave this place. It seems as though it could never be so beautiful again. Haven't we had a heavenly day?"

"I dread going back to the town, for then my needs and all my life problems will swarm."

"I wish I could help you," she said, sincerely.

"You can," he earnestly a.s.sured her. "If you will only come out here with me now and again I shall be able to stand a whole lot of 'grief.'"

They were walking westward at the moment, past the golf-course, and a sense of uneasiness filled the girl's heart. She looked up at him with a grave face. "I don't know why, but I feel an impulse to hurry. I feel as though we ought to get home as quickly as possible. They may be worried about us."

He did not share her apprehension. "I don't think they'll suffer."

"Something urges me to run," she repeated. "We must go directly home."

He quickened his step with hers, responding to the anxiety which had come into her tone, but experiencing nothing of it in his heart. What he did feel was the certainty that his day of careless ease was over. The sky seemed suddenly to have lost its brightness. The birds had fallen silent. The crowds of people seemed less festive. The world of work-worn men rolled back upon them in a noisy flood as they caught a car and went speeding down the squalid avenue. Leo's anxiety seemed to increase rather than to lessen as they neared her home. "There's been some accident!" she insisted. "I can't tell what it is, but I think your mother has been hurt."

He could not believe that anything serious had happened to his mother; but when they alighted to walk across the boulevard he was quite as eager to reach the house as she.

The man at the door wore an expression of well-governed concern, which led Leo to sharply ask: "What is it, Ferguson? What has happened?"

"They have taken her, Miss."

"Taken? Who? What? Who have taken her?"

"The bailiff, Miss."

"The bailiff?"

"Yes, Miss, the officers came with a warrant just as Mrs. Ollnee was sitting down to luncheon, and it was ever as much as she could do to get them to wait till she had finished. Mrs. Joyce has gone with her."

Leo confronted Victor with large eyes. "That was the precise moment when I had my sensation of alarm."

Victor was white and rigid with indignation. "Where did they take her?"

"To the Bond Street Station, sir. You are to come at once."

"How do I get there?"

"I'll show you," volunteered Leo. "Is the electric out, Ferguson?"

"I don't think so, Miss."

"Order it around at once." She turned to Victor. "Don't worry. Aunt Louise is not easily rattled. She is able to command all the help that is necessary. She will have her own lawyer and will see that everything is done to s.h.i.+eld your mother from harm."

He was aching with remorseful fear. "Oh, if we had not stayed so long,"

he groaned, all the beauty and charm of the morning swept away by a wave of guilt. "Only think! I left the house without a word of greeting to her! Doesn't it show that there is no peace or security for either of us so long as we remain here? I have tried twice to get away from this, and now--"

The electric carriage came smoothly to the door, and Leo, dismissing the driver, motioned Victor to enter. "I'll drive," she said; and they swept out of the gate and down the boulevard as if, by a wafture of the hand, this young girl had invoked the aid of an Oriental magician.

The run was easy and swift, till they reached the crowded cross-street which led westward into the city deeps; and as the carts thickened and coa.r.s.e and vicious humanity began to swarm Victor was moved to a.s.sert the man's prerogative. He resented the admiring glances which the loafers addressed to his companion, and a feeling of awkward helplessness came upon him. "I wish you'd let me run this car," he said, morosely.

Slowly they felt their way to the west, straight on toward a great railway depot, with Leo deftly winding her way amid trucks and express wagons, darting past clanging street-cars, and plowing through swarms of nondescript men and slattern women, till at last she halted on a crossing, and, leaning from the window, inquired of the police officer the way to the Bond Street Station.

"Right around the corner, Miss," he replied, with a smile, pointing the way with his club.

She turned up a narrow alley which ran parallel with the great domed shed of the railway, and drew up before an ugly doorway in a grimy brick building of depressing architecture.

Victor alighted with a full realization of having left heaven for a filthy, squalid h.e.l.l. The clang and hiss of engines in the shed, the jar of heavy trucks, the cries of venders, the grind and howl of cars, the sodden stream of humankind, deafened and appalled him. Nevertheless, he took the lead into the gloomy anteroom of the station, which was half filled with officers in uniform escorting or placidly watching dull-hued, depressed, and unkempt men and women in arrest.

On inquiry of another officer, they were directed to the door of a long hall, which was in effect a tunnel. "You'll find your party in the court-room," the officer said.

Victor led the way through this battered hallway, and at the end of it came into a large, bare room lighted with dusty windows on the north. It was in effect a hall divided in halves by an open railing. In the eastern end of the chamber the judge was seated surrounded by his clerks examining a little group of silent men. In the western half of the room, outside the railing, sat a somber and motley a.s.semblage of negroes, Italians, and Greeks, mostly young, each presenting a savage and sullen face. In the midst of such a throng of miscreated beings Leo seemed of angelic loveliness and purity.

Before the crowd became aware of her, the keen-eyed girl had discovered the objects of their search. "There they are," she whispered, pointing to the corner at the judge's right, where Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ollnee were seated, in close conversation with a dark, smoothly-shaven man of middle age. "Oh, I'm so glad," she added, "Mr. Bartol is with them."

She led the way, quite fearlessly, through the aisle and directly up to the gate, where she was met by the bailiff, or warden of the room, a sullen-faced, sloppy Irishman. He was too keen-eyed not to be immediately impressed by her beauty and something strong and clear and fine in her glance, but before he had time to ask her what she wanted the gentleman whom she called Bartol came forward, and at his touch the officer gave way respectfully, and the two young people entered the inclosure.

Mrs. Ollnee rose upon seeing Victor, and lifted her arms to his neck.

"Oh, I'm so glad you've come," she murmured, in deep relief.