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CHAPTER XXV

The Colonel Gives Up His Luxuries

The Colonel pulled himself together. Ellis was gone, and relieved from that oppressive influence Blanchard held up his head. He tried to smile, and found that he succeeded fairly well. He tested his voice; it came as usual, sonorously.

"Thank Heaven!" he said, "the fellow's gone."

"Father," answered Judith, "you and I have both done wrong."

He waved his hand impatiently; would her confounded straightforwardness not let him forget? "Never mind."

"Never mind?" she repeated. "Father, we can't put this aside for a single minute. We must plan at once what shall be done."

"You always were fiery," he said indulgently. "Well, go ahead."

"We need Beth," and Judith went to call her in. Beth came, white with apprehension, having heard tones but not words, and feeling rather than knowing that there was trouble. She sought to learn all from one question. "Where is Mr. Ellis?"

"Gone," answered Judith. "He will not come here again."

"Oh," she cried, "I am glad. Then why so grave?"

"Mr. Ellis," her sister said, "has gone away very angry, and father owes him money." Then she looked upon the Colonel with sudden suspicion. "Father, you said about ten thousand dollars. Was it more?"

"My dear child," he protested, "this matter is not so great as you suppose. And I cannot tell you all of my affairs."

"Father," she returned, "for my sake, if not for yours, Mr. Ellis should be paid at once."

He rebuked her. "I know how to keep our honour clean. Mr. Ellis shall be paid at once."

"You promise that, sir?"

"I do."

"And will it mean that we must sell the house?"

"It will." The Colonel always excelled in the delivery of monosyllables.

"Sell the house?" gasped Beth.

"Come here, dear," said Judith, and drew her to her side. "Beth, you have plenty of courage, I know."

"I hope so." Pleased by the unusual caress, Beth controlled her trembling. "What are you planning, Judith?"

"We must entirely change our way of life." Judith looked to her father for confirmation; he nodded. "Are you willing to work, Beth?"

"I am willing," was the confident answer.

"Father," Judith asked, "how much will the house bring?"

"Come here," he answered. "Let me tell you what we must do."

He went to the sofa; they followed. Beth took the place he indicated at his side; Judith sat in a chair. The Colonel, still smiling, looked on them paternally, and began to depict in words his ready imaginings.

"When the house is sold and the debt is paid," he said, "we shall have left – let me see, perhaps twenty thousand dollars. I don't need to explain," he interrupted himself to say, "that had not other resources previously failed me – mismanagements and losses, dears, not from my fault – I should never have turned to Mr. Ellis for assistance. No, no; of course you understand that. Therefore, the house is our only source of capital. Well, twenty thousand left: that would mean perhaps a thousand dollars a year to house and feed and clothe us. Yes, perhaps a thousand." The Colonel clung to the perhaps; it was covering a lie, several lies. "You see, we shall really be in difficulties."

"Yes," murmured Beth.

The Colonel warmed to his task. "Now, you are both young; on the other hand I am not old, and I am a soldier. The habit of courage, girls, I learned in my youth. So we are well equipped. But, only a thousand dollars! That will pay rent; perhaps it will pay for food. And our clothes, our little knick-knacks, we must earn for ourselves."

"Shall we take an apartment?" asked Beth, for Judith remained silent, watching her father intently. "One of the new ones they have been putting up?"

"Ah, no," he said kindly. "They cost five hundred a year, my child. This must be something of an emigration, Beth: this quarter of the town is no longer for us. But there are very respectable, quiet neighbourhoods where we can go; and even houses, not apartments, that we can rent. Does that dismay you?"

Beth pressed his hand. "No, father, no!"

He avoided Judith's steady look, and smoothed Beth's hair. "Servants – I don't think we can afford them. One of you two must do the housework. Which shall it be?"

"I!" Beth answered promptly.

"Cooking, dishwashing, sweeping," he warned her. "Are you really willing?"

"If you will be patient with my mistakes."

"My dear little girl, I am proud of you. Judith, is she not fine?" But still he kept his eyes upon the pleased and blushing Beth. "And we two others will earn the money."

"I am sorry," responded Beth. Then she brightened. "But, father, need it be so bad as this? You know so much of affairs; you can command a good salary at once."

"Remember," he said, "that I have failed. The world has gone against me. No one will have use for me. A clerk or a bank messenger – that is the most I can look to be."

"No, no!" cried Beth, shocked.

"It is natural," he said with resignation. "And perhaps Judith, with her talents and her typewriter, before long will be supporting all three of us." For the first time Judith heard his natural tone, in this reminder of his many little flings. "And we will all economise!"

"It will not be hard," Beth said.

"No," was the paternal response, "because we shall be doing it together. Think – some little four-room cottage. Perhaps not all the modern improvements, but never mind. We leave you early in the morning, Judith and I; we take the crowded electrics with all the other people going to their work. Judith snatches a few minutes to go to a bargain sale; I, at a ready-made-clothing store, fit myself to a twelve-dollar suit. Then we work hard all day, we three – and perhaps it will be hardest for you, Beth, to be so much alone. But at night we meet over the simple meal you have prepared, and go early to bed, fatigued by our day."

Even Beth saw how far this was from the Colonel's nature. "Father, it will be hardest for you."

"No worse," he replied, "than the Wilderness campaign. Never you fret, dear; I can resign my luxuries. And if our friends over here sometimes speak of us with pity, we shall not meet them often enough to feel hurt when they do not recognise us in our cheap clothes."

"Father," cried Beth. "Our friends will stand by us. You shall see!"

"They will patronise us," he answered. "Shall we care for that? Especially Judith." And he turned to her at last.

"I can stand anything," she replied. "I am glad that you have foreseen all this, father."

"Did you doubt me?" he asked. He rose, and the girls rose with him. "But now I must go to my room; I must make a beginning on my new life. Good-night, Beth. Kiss me. Kiss me, Judith. Dears," he said, gazing on them affectionately, "we have had little dissensions from time to time, but I promise never to quarrel with you more. No, don't reply; I know you will be as forbearing toward me. Good-night; I am going to my study." He went to the door, and paused a moment. "Judith, did you really doubt me? You shall see what I can do."

Waving them a final good-night, he was gone. He climbed the stair briskly at first; then his step became slower, and his head bowed. In his study he sank into a chair and passed his hand across his forehead, where the perspiration had already started out. That had been an effort, but it was over, and now – !

He was sitting alone in this little room; like shadows his thoughts closed in on him. No, he had not lied; he had said perhaps. But the house was mortgaged to its full value, Ellis held the mortgages, and the interest was long overdue. The furniture was pledged. Monday, owning nothing but the clothes on his back, he would be turned into the street. Judith had failed him; everything had failed him. Life, so pleasant, had played him false at last; there was no outlook any more. Slowly, without spirit, consumed with self-pity, he took pen and paper and began to write. How little there was to say! The letter was finished all too soon.

In the parlour the two girls sat and spoke together. "How brave of father!" Beth said.

Judith answered, "I never saw him less like himself."

"He is a new man," Beth explained. "He is setting us an example. We must work, and be a credit to him."

Judith's energy returned. She would work, she said. The typewriter was her own; it was paid for. She would apply herself to master it. Were they still rich, even then she would go to work. She must occupy herself, and forget. And as for Beth, before long Jim would come and claim her.

Then Judith remembered Mather's note, and the trouble deepened. If Jim had gone wrong, how would Beth, innocent Beth, bear that? She stole a glance at her sister. Beth was listening.

"Father, is that you?" she called.

The Colonel's voice answered from the hall. "I just came down for something." They heard him go up-stairs again.

"He came down very quietly," said Beth. "I heard him in the back parlour. Poor father! He is very brave."

Then both sat silent, thinking. "We have good blood," said Judith at last with a tremor of pride in her voice. "We will show we are not afraid of what may happen."

"Yes," Beth answered. " – Hush, what was that?"

"I heard nothing," Judith said.

Beth's eyes grew larger as she sat rigid. "It was a groan," she whispered. "Listen!"

Then they both heard it, unmistakable, coming from the floor above. They started up, but stood in fear, questioning each other with their eyes. Again it came, but feebler, like a deep sigh.

"Father!" cried Judith, and hastened to the stairs. Up they hurried; they were breathless when they reached the study door. There they halted, transfixed.

The Colonel had finished his letter; it lay on the desk by his side. He reclined in the easy-chair as if asleep, but from his breast stood out the handle of the Japanese knife.

CHAPTER XXVI

In Which Judge Harmon Enters the Story

Judith stood waiting at the telephone; at the Club the waiter had gone to fetch Mather. How slow he was in coming! How tired she felt! The wires sang in her ears; she heard faint voices speaking indistinctly; she had a dull consciousness of surrounding space, of connection with far-off spheres, out of which those voices rose, whispered, almost became articulate, then died away to let the humming of the spheres begin again. Then some man said loud and briskly: "Hello!"

"I am using the line," said Judith.

The man begged her pardon and drifted across the Styx, from whose dim territory a tinkling voice spoke complainingly for a while, then faded away. The buzzing in the wires increased the confusion in her head, and Judith, very, very weary, found herself clinging to the instrument lest she should fall. With a strong effort she regained her self-control.

Then she heard in the telephone sounds as of distant heavy strokes of metal; they grew louder, then the wire clicked. Mather spoke: "Hello!"

"Oh, George!" she gasped. His voice was calm, quiet, perfectly modulated, as if he stood there at her side. She released her hold on the instrument; with him talking so to her she could stand alone.

"That is you, Judith? Jim is there?"

"Jim?" She had forgotten him. "Oh, no."

"Then can I do anything for you?"

"Something has happened here," she said, "to – to father. He left a letter addressed to you and Mr. Pease."

"Left a letter?" She heard the change in his voice.

"Tell no one, please," she begged. "We telephoned for Mr. Pease and learned that he is at Judge Harmon's; Beth has gone there for him. Can you come? At once, George?"

"Instantly," he answered. "That is all?"

"All. Good-bye."

She heard him hang up his receiver. In her turn she left the telephone, and stronger in the knowledge that he was coming she began to pace the room. Pease too was coming; Beth would bring him soon.

But Pease, who had started for the Judge's, had turned aside at the foot of the steps when he saw Ellis waiting in the vestibule. Pease, telling himself that he could return, had gone away half an hour before, and all who had entered the Harmon house that evening were Ellis and Jim Wayne.

Jim had come first – a wild, dishevelled Jim. He had wandered a good deal that day, after first leaving Chebasset in the morning and next spending much time at a ticker. He had not been home; he had not eaten, he had given Mather the slip a couple of times, and his moods had varied from fear to bold resolution, and then to sullen despair. But since in the light fluids of his nature hope easily beat up its accustomed surface-froth, he arrived at the Harmons' in a more cheerful mood, looking for the coming of Ellis to relieve him of the consequences of his folly. When Mrs. Harmon had drawn the portieres, and had begun to tell him how untidy he was, he explained matters with a laugh.

"Been sitting over my accounts," he said. "Forgot to brush my hair, did I? Here's a mirror; just look away a moment, Mrs. Harmon, please, while I – " He began to arrange his hair with his fingers.

But she watched him. "I can't lose a chance to see a man prink," she said. "Tell me about the accounts, Mr. Wayne."

"Upon my word," he cried, "there's one item I forgot to put down! Just like me; and so important, too!"

"What is it?" she inquired.

"The item, or the cost?"

"Both. Tell me."

He set a condition. "One or the other, choose. Wait!" He went to his overcoat, which he had flung upon a chair, and drew a box from the pocket. "Now choose," he directed, holding up the box.

"Oh," she pouted, "that is one of Price's boxes. I can't know the cost if I am to see what you've bought. You'll show it to me, won't you?"

"You would like to see it?"

"Of course."

"Then open it," he said, giving her the box. "It's for you."

"For me?" and she opened the little case. "Oh, Mr. Wayne, a locket! What good taste you have – oh, and I didn't see the chain!" Then she regarded him reproachfully. "Now, Jim, you know you really mustn't."

"Always call me Jim!" he directed. "Why mustn't I?"

"Because you can't afford it."

"I can!" he asserted. "At least, I could when I bought it. I was three thousand to the good then."

"Indeed?" she thought, "and what happened later?" Deciding that possession was worth securing, she snapped the chain around her neck. "And so you have had a very lucky day?"

"Well," explained Jim, "there was a steady rise at first. But then there came a couple of flurries, and the bottom dropped out of everything I held."

"And you lost much?"

"No, no," he said quickly. "I was watching; I got out at once. I'm not so very badly off, and Ellis said he'd help me straighten matters. He's coming here this evening."

She was much relieved, but covered her feeling by coquetting. "So that is all you came here for?"

"That isn't fair," cried Jim. "Didn't I bring the locket? Now Mrs. Harmon!" He tried to take her hand. After some resistance on her part, he succeeded.

Holding that plump and somewhat large assembly of digits, from which no manicurist had as yet been able to remove the fresh bright pink reminding of its earlier uses (for Mrs. Harmon had once done her sewing and washed her own clothes) – holding that hand, Jim felt more agitation than when he first held Beth's. And though he looked into wide-open eyes, which met his without a tremor of their lids or a suggestion of a downward glance, Jim was more thrilled than by the sweet confusion Beth so oft discovered, even to her accepted lover. This was rare; it quickened his blood; he was preparing to taste the ruby of those lips, when into his consciousness came the clang of the door-bell, which was of the good old-fashioned kind. Before the noise had well begun, Mrs. Harmon had withdrawn her hand and placed a chair between herself and her admirer, whose ardent glance had proclaimed his intention with such distinctness that (combined with the door-bell) it had alarmed her modesty. And although Jim, calculating that the servant could not reach the door for half a minute, pursued and begged her not to be so cruel, she laughed at him and maintained her distance until in the hall were heard the rustle of the maid's skirts and then the opening of the front door. Jim was so disgusted that even the appearance of Ellis did not at first recall him to a willing obedience of the laws of propriety. But when Ellis, from an abrupt entrance, as abruptly halted and fixed him with a scowl, Jim came back to himself.

"Oh," said Ellis, "I had forgot you."

"I – I don't want to trouble you, Mr. Ellis," replied Jim.

"But you'd like some four, five, six thousand to help you out, hey? That's what you've been waiting here for?"

"You said you'd help me, sir."

Ellis turned his unchanged scowl on Mrs. Harmon. "Better drop him, Lydia," he said. "He's an eternal fool."

"Stephen," she cried indignantly, "have you lost money, too? More than he has, I'm sure." He sneered, and she added, "Something's gone wrong with you, then, to make you so rude."

His frown became blacker still; he had been walking the streets, and came here in the hope of distraction only to be reminded of Judith. "Hold your tongue, Lydia," he said roughly. Then he surveyed Jim once more. "You little fool, get out of your scrape by yourself!" Grasping his hat as if he would crush its brim, he turned to go.

"Don't come again, Stephen," she flung after him, "until you've found your temper."

Yet the last glimpse of Ellis, as he departed, gave distress to poor Jim. "Why," he said helplessly, as the outer door closed. "Why, Mrs. Harmon, he – he said he'd help me!"

But such common preoccupations as money-difficulties were, at this moment, foreign to Mrs. Harmon's mood. Jim had stirred her blood, she was glad that Ellis had gone. Now she moved nearer to the young man, so that the space between them was free. "Never mind," she said lightly.

"Never mind?" repeated Jim. "But Mrs. Harmon, I've – " No, he couldn't tell her. Yet what should he do?

"Leave business for the daytime," she said. "Forget the mill; forget the office." She came nearer still.

Jim hung his head. Mather was after him surely; and what could he say to his mother?

"Stephen will come round," said Mrs. Harmon. "Leave him to me."

"Oh," cried Jim, "you will help me? Just a little, Mrs. Harmon?"

"Why should I?" she asked archly. She was very close now, and was looking in his eyes.

"For our friendship," he answered.

"Friendship!" she repeated. Her tone roused him; he looked, and her glance kindled his. "Only friendship?" she asked softly.

"Oh!" he breathed, and caught her in his arms.

Again came the cursed interruption of the jangling door-bell. "You shall not go!" he said, holding her fast. She murmured, "I do not wish to." They stood motionless, and heard the servant pass through the hall and open the front door. They listened, ready to spring apart.

"The Judge?" the servant asked. "Yes, in his study. This way." Again the footsteps and the rustling skirt passed the door. The two in the parlour waited until the door of the Judge's study opened and shut. Then Jim lowered his head upon the one that nestled at his shoulder.

"At last!" he whispered. And their lips met.

But Beth was in the Judge's study. Behind his table sat the old man – no, not so very old, in years only sixty, but he carried them ill. A life of labour among books, a disappointment in his wife, made him seem ten years older than he was. The Judge never exercised, was sometimes short of breath and dizzy, but was at all times scornful of the wisdom of doctors. His face was naturally stern, yet a smile came on it when he saw Beth. He rose, adjusted a different pair of glasses, and then saw the distress on her countenance.

"Why, Beth!" he exclaimed. "Is anything wrong?"

"Is Mr. Pease not here?" she asked in return.

"Pease? No, he has not been here."

"His cousin said," explained Beth, "that he was coming here. And so I came at once, since you have no telephone. Father – oh, Judge Harmon, my father has killed himself!"

The Judge turned white. "Killed?" He put his hand to his breast. "My dear child! My poor Beth! Killed himself? Oh, I am so sorry!"

"There is nothing to do," said Beth with admirable calmness. "But he left a letter directed to Mr. Mather and Mr. Pease."

"Mr. Pease is not here," the Judge repeated, much distressed. "Let me bring you home again. – But your Mr. Wayne was here earlier. Perhaps he is still in the parlour with my wife."

"Jim here?" cried Beth, springing to the door. "Oh, I hope he is!" Hastily she left the study, sped along the hall, and parted the parlour curtains. There were Jim and Mrs. Harmon, in the growing fierceness of their first embrace. Beth saw how eagerly they strained together, and heard their panting breaths.

She stood still and made no sound, but her senses noted everything: Jim's hand that pressed on Mrs. Harmon's shoulder, her closed eyes, her hands linked behind his neck – and his sudden movement as he shifted his arm, only to press her closer. And still that clinging kiss continued, ecstatic, terrible. Beth could not move, could scarcely breathe, until behind her rose the Judge's cracked and horror-stricken voice.

"Lydia!"

Hurriedly they disengaged and stood apart – moist lips, hot cheeks, and burning eyes still giving evidence of their passion. Then Mrs. Harmon dropped her face into her hands and turned away, but Jim gazed with mounting shame into the eyes that met his – met while yet they showed Beth's detestation of him. And the Judge stood quiet, his hand pressed to his breast, his breath stopped, his head confused with the noises that roared in his ears.

At last Beth moved. Slowly she put her hands together; her eyes showed more of indignation, less of loathing. She drew her hands apart and held out to him the right – not with fingers upward, beckoning, but palm downward, fingers closed together. Then she opened them. The golden circlet fell, its diamond flashing; it bounded on the rug, and rolled; it stopped at Mrs. Harmon's feet. She, looking downward through her fingers, wondering at the silence, saw, and started away with a cry.

Then Beth turned her back on Jim, and went away. The old Judge followed, dazed, and the curtains fell behind them.