The Incendiary Part 49

And so the logic of Richard McCausland and the psychology of Meyer s.h.a.garach were both overmatched by the intuitions of a loyal girl--a girl who knew something about lenses because she dealt with cameras, and who brought to the problem a concentration of thought as powerful as that of the sunlight on the professor's spectacles. Both the lawyer and the detective came forward promptly to pay her their homage; and the last she saw of McCausland he was focusing one of the lenses on the end of his cigar, readily obtaining the desired red light.

But Emily was not holding court even for them while there was still a stroke of work to be done. Her second thought was of Harry in his cell. With admirable modesty avoiding Robert's kiss, she took him and Rosalie by the hand and made them friends at once. Then, leaving Beulah Ware to chat with Brother Tristram, the trio sped over to the jail. At the court-house door they met Dr. Silsby, who came flying along, florid and out of breath, mopping his face with a napkin which he had probably mistaken in his hurry for a handkerchief.

"Is it over?" he cried.

"Over? We're acquitted," cried Emily, using a reckless plural. "What makes you so late?"

"Stopped to nib a quill after lunch," grumbled the director of the Arnold Academie, as he gave Robert a pump-handle squeeze.

It was a changed Harry that stepped out of the cell in murderers' row. In the confidence of the preceding night the two cousins had grown closer together than ever before. After all, as Harry had said on the stand, they were both Arnolds and the sole survivors of that eccentric blood.

But a stronger bond was soon to rivet them together in the waxing amity of the two girls, one of whom was dearer than kin to each of the cousins. Rosalie's exclusiveness and the wealth she continued to enjoy with an equanimity he could not understand at first prevented Robert from doing full justice to her. But on acquaintance she proved as merry (among her chosen few) as any la.s.sie, and a certain child-like innocence, all the more singular from her a.s.sociation with the stage, made a charming foil to the ripe womanly beauty of her person.

Moreover, as the months roll by, and Robert learns more and more what men and women really are, he lowers his standards gradually as to what may be expected of them. Not that he has given up his ideals. Far from it! He is still a socialist; and, what is better, a sower of good seed in action, placing goodly portions of his income here and there, with something of his uncle's bow-wow manner, to be sure, as though it were no personal pity tugging at his heart-strings, but only an abstract desire to see things s.h.i.+p-shape in the world, an impatience at disorder. But this affected matter-of-factness doesn't suffice to shake off the blessings of his pensioners.

If he chooses to set all orthodoxy by the ears with that series of fire-brand polemics which, as readers remember, succeeded the "Modest Proposal for a Consumers' Trust," so that one old granny among his opponents has already christened him "the Legicide," what do Mrs. Lacy and Mrs. Riley know or care? I fancy most of us, if we were burdened with a maniac son or blessed with the love of a dutiful boy like Walter, would accept a.s.sistance for their sakes, and ask no questions of the giver.

Mrs. Arnold is too old now ever to forget that her maiden name was Alice Brewster. It was the fear of staining that name with the published details of a petty intrigue that caused her to sail for Europe so suddenly. For it was she, conscious of her own financial straits, and anxious for Harry if his inheritance should be cut off, who had conducted the correspondence with Ellen Greeley. In this there was nothing criminal; but much to wound her pride. So she had fled from the ordeal of testifying before s.h.a.garach, and the disclosures which she foresaw were inevitable.

Her embarra.s.sments have since been tided over and the family fortune saved, at least from total s.h.i.+pwreck. The match with Rosalie March guarantees to Harry the gratification of all his tastes; and, as the young couple are coming to Woodlawn to live, the sting of separation is softened. Ah, the fond jealous mothers who must forget their own honeymoons to chide the child that only obeys divine injunctions in cleaving to another when the time is ripe!

Of Emily Barlow what more can be said? Praise is superfluous; intrusion on her betrothal joys, soon to merge into marriage happiness, deeper if less unmixed with care, an impertinence.

Of late the whole world seems conspiring to bless her. Only the other day Tristram March won the sculpture prize at the academy with his life-size group "Driftwood Pickers at the Sea Level." The critics have gone mad over the boldness of his conception--one figure erect and peering far off, two stooping and adding to their f.a.got bundles. The whole ocean is there in that fretted line of surf--a bare suggestion. One interpreter has gone so far as to see in the figures a type of humanity itself, on the margin of some mysterious beneficent element which surrounds it. But the salient fact to Emily is that Tristram won the prize, and is striving might and main for another more precious--the hand of the dark, collected girl who gave him both subject and inspiration during their memorable week at Digby.

And s.h.a.garach--the iron will, the giant mind--what is his destiny? To be always a criminal lawyer, a consorter with publicans and sinners? Always, we may be sure, to protect the innocent, to whatever sphere the buoyancy of his genius may lift him; and whether he wear ultimately the ermine or the laurel wreath he will never forget one cause, which brought him, with much added celebrity and some unhappiness, the friends.h.i.+p of three couples so rare and fine--that great search for the Incendiary which is registered (not without pique) in Inspector McCausland's private docket as "The Eye-Gla.s.s Fiasco."

THE END.