Queed Part 54

Surface's face became agitated. "I believe there is nothing else in the world--that I wouldn't do for you--a thousand times over--but--"

Then Queed threw the last thing that he had to offer into the scales, namely himself. He leaned over the table and fixed the old man with imploring eyes.

"I'd do my best to make it up to you. I'll--I'll live with you till one or the other of us dies. You'll have somebody to take care of you when you are old, and there will never be any talk of the poorhouse between you and me. It can all be arranged quietly through a lawyer, Professor--and n.o.body will guess your secret. You and I will find quiet lodgings somewhere, and live together--as friends--live cleanly, honorably, honestly--"

"For G.o.d's sake, stop!" said Surface, in a broken-voice. "This is more than I can bear."

So Queed knew that it was hopeless, and that the old man meant to cling to his dishonored money, and let his friend go. He sank back in his chair, sick at heart, and a painful silence fell.

"If I refuse," Surface took up the theme, "it is for your sake as well as mine. My boy, you don't know what you ask. It is charity, mere mad charity to people whom I have no love for, who--"

"Then," said Queed, "two things must happen. First, I must lay the facts before Miss Weyland."

Surface's manner changed; his eyes became unpleasant.

"You are not serious. You can hardly mean to repeat to anybody what I have told you in sacred confidence."

Queed smiled sadly. "No, you have not told me anything in confidence.

You have never told me anything until I first found it out for myself, and then only because denial was useless."

"When I told you my story last June, you a.s.sured me--"

"However, you have just admitted that what you told me last June was not the truth."

Again their eyes clashed, and Surface, whose face was slowly losing all its color, even the sallowness, found no sign of yielding in those of the younger man.

Queed resumed: "However, I do not mean that I shall tell her who you are, unless you yourself compel me to. I shall simply let her know that you are known to be alive, within reach of the courts, and in possession of a certain sum of money withheld from the trustee funds. This will enable her to take the matter up with her lawyers and, as I believe, bring it before the courts. If her claim is sustained, she would doubtless give you the opportunity to make rest.i.tution through intermediaries, and thus sensational disclosures might be avoided.

However, I make you no promises about that."

Surface drew a breath; he permitted his face to show signs of relief.

"Since my argument and knowledge carry so little weight with you," he said with a fine air of dignity, "I am willing to let the courts convince you, if you insist. But I do beg--"

Queed cut him short; he felt that he could not bear one of the old man's grandiloquent speeches now. "There is one other thing that must be mentioned," he said in a tired voice. "You understand, of course, that I can live here no longer."

"My G.o.d! Don't say that! Aren't you satisfied with what you've done to me without that!"

"I haven't done anything to you. Whatever has been done, you have deliberately done to yourself. I have no desire to hurt or injure you.

But--what are you thinking about, to imagine that I could continue to live here--on this money?"

"You contradict yourself twice in the same breath! You just said that you would let the courts settle that question--"

"As to the Weyland estate's claim, yes. But I do not let the courts regulate my own sense of honor."

Surface, elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands. Queed slowly rose, a heart of lead in his breast. He had failed. He had offered all that he had, and it had been unhesitatingly kicked aside. And, unless long litigation was started, and unless it ultimately succeeded, Henry G. Surface would keep his loot.

He glanced about the pleasant little dining-room, symbol of the only home he had ever known, where, after all, he had done great work, and been not unhappy. Personally, he was glad to leave it, glad to stand out from the shadow of the ruin of Henry G. Surface. Nevertheless it was a real parting, the end of an epoch in his life, and there was sadness in that. Sadness, too, he saw, deeper than his repugnance and anger, in the bowed figure before him, the lost old man whom he was to leave solitary henceforward. Saddest of all was the consciousness of his own terrible failure.

He began speaking in a controlled voice.

"This interview is painful to us both. It is useless to prolong it.

I--have much to thank you for--kindness which I do not forget now and shall not forget. If you ever reconsider your decision--if you should ever need me for anything--I shall be within call. And now I must leave you ... sorrier than I can say that our parting must be like this." He paused: his gaze rested on the bent head, and he offered, without hope, the final chance. "Your mind is quite made up? You are sure that--this--is the way you wish the matter settled?"

Surface took his face from his hands and looked up. His expression was a complete surprise. It was neither savage nor anguished, but ingratiating, complacent, full of suppressed excitement. Into his eyes had sprung an indescribable look of cunning, the look of a broken-down diplomat about to outwit his adversary with a last unsuspected card.

"No, no! Of course I'll not let you leave me like this," he said, with a kind of trembling eagerness, and gave a rather painful laugh. "You force my hand. I had not meant to tell you my secret so soon. You can't guess the real reason why I refuse to give my money to Miss Weyland, even when you ask it, now can you? You can't guess, now can you?"

"I think I can. You had rather have the money than have me."

"Not a bit of it. Nothing of the kind! Personally I care nothing for the money. I am keeping it," said the old man, lowering his voice to a chuckling whisper, "_for you!_" He leaned over the table, fixing Queed with a gaze of triumphant cunning. "I'm going to make you _my heir!_ Leave everything I have in the world _to you!_"

A wave of sick disgust swept through the young man, momentarily engulfing his power of speech. Never had the old man's face looked so loathsome to him, never the man himself appeared so utterly detestable.

Surface had risen, whispering and chuckling. "Come up to the sitting-room, my dear boy. I have some papers up there that may open your eyes. You need never work--"

"Stop!" said Queed, and the old man stopped in his tracks. "Can't I make you understand?" he went on, fighting hard for calmness. "Isn't it clear to you that _nothing_ could induce me to touch another penny of this money?"

"Ah!" said Surface, in his softest voice. "Ah! And might I inquire the reason for this heroic self-restraint?"

"You choose your words badly. It is no restraint to honest men to decline to take other people's money."

"Ah, I see. I see. I see," said Surface, nodding his s.h.i.+ning hairless head up and down.

"Good-by."

"No, no," said the old man, in an odd thick voice. "Not quite yet, if you please. There is still something that I want to say to you."

He came slowly around the tiny table, and Queed watched his coming with bursts of fierce repugnance which set his hard-won muscles to twitching.

An elemental satisfaction there might be in throwing the old man through the window. Yet, in a truer sense, he felt that the necessity of manhandling him would be the final touch in this degrading interview.

"You value your society too high, my dear boy," said Surface with a face of chalk. "You want too big a price. I must fork over every penny I have, to a young trollop who happens to have caught your fancy--"

"Stand away from me!" cried Queed, with a face suddenly whiter than his own. "You will tempt me to do what I shall be sorry for afterwards."

But Surface did not budge, and to strike, after all, was hardly possible; it would be no better than murder. The two men stood, white face to white face, the two pairs of fearless eyes scarcely a foot apart. And beyond all the obvious dissimilarity, there appeared a curious resemblance in the two faces at that moment: in each the same habit of unfaltering gaze, the same high forehead, the same clean-cut chin, the same straight, thin-lipped mouth.

"Oh, I see through you clearly enough," said Surface. "You're in love with her! You think it is a pretty thing to sacrifice me to her, especially as the sacrifice costs you nothing--"

"Stop! Will you force me in the name of common decency--"

"But I'll not permit you to do it, do you hear?" continued Surface, his face ablaze, his lower lip trembling and twitching, as it does sometimes with the very old. "You need some discipline, my boy. Need some discipline--and you shall have it. You will continue to live with me exactly as you have heretofore, only henceforward I shall direct your movements and endeavor to improve your manners."

He swayed slightly where he stood, and Queed's tenseness suddenly relaxed. Pity rose in his heart above furious resentment; he put out his hand and touched the old man's arm.

"Control yourself," he said in an iron voice. "Come--I will help you to bed before I go."

Surface shook himself free, and laughed unpleasantly. "Go! Didn't you hear me tell you that you were not going? Who do you think I am that you can flout and browbeat and threaten--"

"Come! Let us go up to bed--"