CHAPTER 25. FRIENDLY ENEMIES
Ridgway had promised Aline that he would see her soon, and when hefound himself in New York he called at the big house on Fifth Avenue,which had for so long been identified as the home of Simon Harley. Itbore his impress stamped on it. Its austerity suggested the Puritanrather than the classic conception of simplicity. The immense roomswere as chill as dungeons, and the forlorn little figure in black, lostin the loneliness of their bleakness, wandered to and fro among herretinue of servants like a butterfly beating its wings against a paneof glass.
With both hands extended she ran forward to meet her guest.
"I'm so glad, so glad, so glad to see you."
The joy-note in her voice was irrepressible. She had been alone forweeks with the conventional gloom that made an obsession of the shadowof death which enveloped the house. All voices and footsteps had beensubdued to harmonize with the grief of the mistress of this mausoleum.Now she heard the sharp tread of this man unafraid, and saw the alertvitality of his confident bearing. It was like a breath of the hills toa parched traveler.
"I told you I would come."
"Yes. I've been looking for you every day. I've checked each one off onmy calendar. It's been three weeks and five days since I saw you."
"I thought it was a year," he laughed, and the sound of his uncurbedvoice rang strangely in this room given to murmurs.
"Tell me about everything. How is Virginia, and Mrs. Mott, and Mr.Yesler? And is he really engaged to that sweet little school-teacher?And how does Mr. Hobart like being senator?"
"Not more than a dozen questions permitted at a time. Begin again,please."
"First, then, when did you reach the city?"
He consulted his watch. "Just two hours and twenty-seven minutes ago."
"And how long are you going to stay?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"For one thing, on whether you treat me well," he smiled.
"Oh, I'll treat you well. I never was so glad to see a real livesomebody in my life. It's been pretty bad here." She gave a drearylittle smile as she glanced around at the funereal air of the place."Do you know, I don't think we think of death in the right way? Or,maybe, I'm a heathen and haven't the proper feelings."
She had sat down on one of the stiff divans, and Ridgway found a placebeside her.
"Suppose you tell me about it," he suggested.
"I know I must be wrong, and you'll be shocked when you hear."
"Very likely."
"I can't help feeling that the living have rights, too," she begandubiously. "If they would let me alone I could be sorry in my own way,but I don't see why I have to make a parade of grief. It seems to--tocheapen one's feelings, you know."
He nodded. "Just as if you had to measure your friendship for the deadwith a yardstick of Mother Grundy. It's a hideous imposition laid on usby custom, one of Ibsen's ghosts."
"It's so good to hear you say that. And do you think I may begin to behappy again?"
"I think it would be allowable to start with one smile a day, say, andgradually increase the dose," he jested. "In the course of a week, ifit seems to agree with you, try a laugh."
She made the experiment without waiting the week, amused at hiswhimsical way of putting it. Nevertheless, the sound of her ownlaughter gave her a little shock.
"You came on business, I suppose?" she said presently.
"Yes. I came to raise a million dollars for some improvements I want tomake."
"Let me lend it to you," she proposed eagerly.
"That would be a good one. I'm going to use it to fight theConsolidated. Since you are now its chief stockholder you would beletting me have money with which to fight you."
"I shouldn't care about that. I hope you beat me."
"You're my enemy now. That's not the way to talk." His eyes twinkledmerrily.
"Am I your enemy? Let's be friendly enemies, then. And there'ssomething I want to talk to you about. Before he died Mr. Harley toldme he had made you an offer. I didn't understand the details, but youwere to be in charge of all the copper-mines in the country. Wasn'tthat it?"
"Something of that sort. I declined the proposition."
"I want you to take it now and manage everything for me. I don't knowMr. Harley's associates, but I can trust you. You can arrange it anyway you like, but I want to feel that you have the responsibility."
He saw again that vision of power--all the copper interests of thecountry pooled, with himself at the head of the combination. He knew itwould not be so easy to arrange as she thought, for, though she hadinherited Harley's wealth, she had not taken over his prestige andforce. There would be other candidates for leadership. But if hemanaged her campaign Aline's great wealth must turn the scale in theirfavor.
"You must think this over again. You must talk it over with youradvisers before we come to a decision," he said gravely.
"I've told Mr. Jarmyn. He says the idea is utterly impossible. Butwe'll show him, won't we? It's my money and my stock, not his. I don'tsee why he should dictate. He's always 'My dear ladying' me. I won'thave it," she pouted.
The fighting gleam was in Ridgway's eyes now. "So Mr. Jannyn thinks itis impossible, does he?"
"That's what he said. He thinks you wouldn't do at all."
"If you really mean it we'll show him about that."
She shook hands with him on it.
"You're very good to me," she said, so naively that he could not keepback his smile.
"Most people would say I was very good to myself. What you offer me isa thing I might have fought for all my life and never won."
"Then I'm glad if it pleases you. That's enough about business. Now,we'll talk about something important."
He could think of only one thing more important to him than this, butit appeared she meant plans to see as much as possible of him while hewas in the city.
"I suppose you have any number of other friends here that will wantyou?" she said.
"They can't have me if this friend wants me," he answered, with thatdeep glow in his eyes she recognized from of old; and before she couldsummon her reserves of defense he asked: "Do you want me, Aline?"
His meaning came to her with a kind of sweet shame. "No, no, no--notyet," she cried.
"Dear," he answered, taking her little hand in his big one, "only thisnow: that I can't help wanting to be near you to comfort you, because Ilove you. For everything else, I am content to wait."
"And I love you," the girl-widow answered, a flush dyeing her cheeks."But I ought not to tell you yet, ought I?"
There was that in her radiant tear-dewed eyes that stirred the deepeststores of tenderness in the man. His finer instincts, vandal and paganthough he was, responded to it.
"It is right that you should tell me, since it is true, but it isright, too, that we should wait."
"It is sweet to know that you love me. There are so many things I don'tunderstand. You must help me. You are so strong and so sure, and I amso helpless."
"You dear innocent, so strong in your weakness," he murmured to himself.
"You must be a guide to me and a teacher."
"And you a conscience to me," he smiled, not without amusement at thethought.
She took it seriously. "But I'm afraid I can't. You know so much betterthan I do what is right."
"I'm quite a paragon of virtue," he confessed.
"You're so sure of everything. You took it for granted that I lovedyou. Why were you so sure?"
"I was just as sure as you were that I cared for you. Confess."
She whispered it. "Yes, I knew it, but when you did not come I thought,perhaps---- You see, I'm not strong or clever. I can't help you asVirginia could." She stopped, the color washing from her face. "I hadforgotten. You have no right to love me--nor I you," she faltered.
"Girl o' mine, we have every right in the world. Love is never wrongunless it is a theft or a robbery. There is nothing between me andVirginia that is not artificial and
conventional, no tie that ought notto be broken, none that should ever of right have existed. Love has theright of way before mere convention a hundredfold."
"Ah! If I were sure."
"But I was to be a teacher to you and a judge for you."
"And I was to be a conscience to you."
"But on this I am quite clear. I can be a conscience to myself.However, there is no hurry. Time's a great solvent."
"And we can go on loving each other in the meantime."
He lifted her little pink fingers and kissed them. "Yes, we can do thatall the time."
CHAPTER 26. BREAKS ONE AND MAKES ANOTHER ENGAGEMENT
Miss Balfour's glass made her irritably aware of cheeks unduly flushedand eyes unusually bright. Since she prided herself on being sufficientfor the emergencies of life, she cast about in her mind to determinewhich of the interviews that lay before her was responsible for herexcitement. It was, to be sure, an unusual experience for a young womanto be told that her fiance would be unable to marry her, owing to asubsequent engagement, but she looked forward to it with keenanticipation, and would not have missed it for the world. Since shepushed the thought of the other interview into the background of hermind and refused to contemplate it at all, she did not see how thatcould lend any impetus to her pulse.
But though she was pleasantly excited as she swept into thereception-room, Ridgway was unable to detect the fact in her coollittle nod and frank, careless handshake. Indeed, she looked soentirely mistress of herself, so much the perfectly gowned exquisite,that he began to dread anew the task he had set himself. It is not apleasant thing under the most favorable circumstances to beg off frommarrying a young woman one has engaged oneself to, and Ridgway did notfind it easier because the young woman looked every inch a queen, andwas so manifestly far from suspecting the object of his call.
"I haven't had a chance to congratulate you personally yet," she said,after they had drifted to chairs. "I've been immensely proud of you."
"I got your note. It was good of you to write as soon as you heard."
She swept him with one of her smile-lit side glances. "Though, ofcourse, in a way, I was felicitating myself when I congratulated you."
"You mean?"
She laughed with velvet maliciousness. "Oh, well, I'm dragged into theorbit of your greatness, am I not? As the wife of the president of theGreater Consolidated Copper Company--the immense combine that takes inpractically all the larger copper properties in the country--I shouldcome in for a share of reflected glory, you know."
Ridgway bit his lip and took a deep breath, but before he had foundwords she was off again. She had no intention of letting him descentfrom the rack yet.
"How did you do it? By what magic did you bring it about? Of course,I've read the newspapers' accounts, seen your features and your historybutchered in a dozen Sunday horrors, and thanked Heaven no enterprisingreporter guessed enough to use me as copy. Every paper I have picked upfor weeks has been full of you and the story of how you took WallStreet by the throat. But I suspect they were all guesses, merelysuperficial rumors except as to the main facts. What I want to know isthe inside story--the lever by means of which you pried open the doorleading to the inner circle of financial magnates. You have often toldme how tightly barred that door is. What was the open-sesame you usedas a countersign to make the keeper of the gate unbolt?"
He thought he saw his chance. "The countersign was 'Aline Harley,'" hesaid, and looked her straight in the face. He wished he could find someway of telling her without making him feel so like a cad.
She clapped her hands. "I thought so. She backed you with thatuncounted fortune her husband left her. Is that it?"
"That is it exactly. She gave me a free hand, and the immense fortuneshe inherited from Harley put me in a position to force recognitionfrom the leaders. After that it was only a question of time till I hadconvinced them my plan was good." He threw back his shoulders and triedto take the fence again. "Would you like to know why Mrs. Harley puther fortune at my command?"
"I suppose because she is interested in us and our little affair.Doesn't all the world love a lover?" she asked, with a disarming candor.
"She had a better reason," he said, meeting her eyes gravely.
"You must tell me it--but not just yet. I have something to tell youfirst." She held out her little clenched hand. "Here is something thatbelongs to you. Can you open it?"
He straightened her fingers one by one, and took from her palm theengagement-ring he had given her. Instantly he looked up, doubt andrelief sweeping his face.
"Am I to understand that you terminate our engagement?"
She nodded.
"May I ask why?"
"I couldn't bring myself to it, Waring. I honestly tried, but Icouldn't do it."
"When did you find this out?"
"I began to find it out the first day of our engagement. I couldn'tmake it seem right. I've been in a process of learning it ever since.It wouldn't be fair to you for me to marry you."
"You're a brick, Virginia!" he cried jubilantly.
"No, I'm not. That is a minor reason. The really important one is thatit wouldn't be fair to me."
"No, it would not," he admitted, with an air of candor.
"Because, you see, I happen to care for another man," she purred.
His vanity leaped up fully armed. "Another man! Who?"
"That's my secret," she answered, smiling at his chagrin.
"And his?"
"I said mine. At any rate, if three knew, it wouldn't be a secret," washer quick retort.
"Do you think you have been quite fair to me, Virginia?" he asked, withgloomy dignity.
"I think so," she answered, and touched him with the riposte: "I'mready now to have you tell me when you expect to marry Aline Harley."
His dignity collapsed like a pricked bladder. "How did you know?" hedemanded, in astonishment.
"Oh well, I have eyes."
"But I didn't know--I thought--"
"Oh, you thought! You are a pair of children at the game," thisthousand-year-old young woman scoffed. "I have known for months thatyou worshiped each other."
"If you mean to imply" he began severely.
"Hit somebody of your size, Warry," she interrupted cheerfully, as toan infant. "If you suppose I am so guileless as not to know that youwere coming here this afternoon to tell me you were regretfullycompelled to give me up on account of a more important engagement, thenyou conspicuously fail to guess right. I read it in your note."
He gave up attempting to reprove her. It did not seem feasible underthe circumstances. Instead, he held out the hand of peace, and she tookit with a laugh of gay camaraderie.
"Well," he smiled, "it seems possible that we may both soon be subjectsfor congratulation. That just shows how things work around right. Wenever would have suited each other, you know."
"I'm quite sure we shouldn't," agreed Virginia promptly. "But I don'tthink I'll trouble you to congratulate me till you see me wearinganother solitaire."
"We'll hope for the best," he said cheerfully. "If it is the man Ithink, he is a better man than I am."
"Yes, he is," she nodded, without the least hesitation.
"I hope you will be happy with him."
"I'm likely to be happy without him."
"Not unless he is a fool."
"Or prefers another lady, as you do."
She settled herself back in the low easy chair, with her hands claspedbehind her head.
"And now I'd like to know why you prefer her to me," she demandedsaucily. "Do you think her handsomer?"
He looked her over from the rippling brown hair to the trim suedeshoes. "No," he smiled; "they don't make them handsomer."
"More intellectual?"
"No."
"Of a better disposition?"
"I like yours, too."
"More charming?"
"I find her so, saving your presence."
"Please justify yourself in detail."
H
e shook his head, still smiling. "My justification is not to beitemized. It lies deeper--in destiny, or fate, or whatever one callsit."
"I see." She offered Markham's verses as an explanation:
"Perhaps we are led and our loves are fated, And our steps are counted one by one; Perhaps we shall meet and our souls be mated, After the burnt-out sun."
"I like that. Who did you say wrote it?"
The immobile butler, as once before, presented a card for herinspection. Ridgway, with recollections of the previous occasion,ventured to murmur again: "The fairy prince."
Virginia blushed to her hair, and this time did not offer the card forhis disapproval.
"Shall I congratulate him?" he wanted to know.
The imperious blood came to her cheeks on the instant. The sudden stormin her eyes warned him better than words.
"I'll be good," he murmured, as Lyndon Hobart came into the room.
His goodness took the form of a speedy departure. She followed him tothe door for a parting fling at him.
"In your automobile you may reach a telegraph-office in about fiveminutes. With luck you may be engaged inside of an hour."
"You have the advantage of me by fifty-five minutes," he flung back.
"You ought to thank me on your knees for having saved you a wretchedscene this afternoon," was the best she could say to cover herdiscomfiture.
"I do. I do. My thanks are taking the form of leaving you with theprince."
"That's very crude, sir--and I'm not sure it isn't impertinent."
Miss Balfour was blushing when she returned to Hobart. He mistook thereason, and she could not very well explain that her blushes were dueto the last wordless retort of the retiring "old love," whose hand hadgone up in a ridiculous bless-you-my-children attitude just before heleft her.
Their conversation started stiffly. He had come, he explained, to saygood-by. He was leaving the State to go to Washington prior to theopening of the session.
This gave her a chance to congratulate him upon his election. "Ihaven't had an opportunity before. You've been so busy, of course,preparing to save the country, that your time must have been very fullyoccupied."
He did not show his surprise at this interpretation of the fact that hehad quietly desisted from his attentions to her, but accepted it as thecorrect explanation, since she had chosen to offer it.
Miss Balfour expressed regret that he was going, though she did notsuppose she would see any less of him than she had during the past twomonths. He did not take advantage of her little flings to make the talkless formal, and Virginia, provoked at his aloofness, offered no morechances. Things went very badly, indeed, for ten minutes, at the end ofwhich time Hobart rose to go. Virginia was miserably aware of beingwretched despite the cool hauteur of her seeming indifference. But hewas too good a sportsman to go without letting her know he held nogrudge.
"I hope you will be very happy with Mr. Ridgway. Believe me, there isnobody whose happiness I would so rejoice at as yours."
"Thank you," she smiled coolly, and her heart raced. "May I hope thatyour good wishes still obtain even though I must seek my happinessapart from Mr. Ridgway?"
He held her for an instant's grave, astonished questioning, beforewhich her eyes fell. Her thoughts side-tracked swiftly to long for andto dread what was coming.
"Am I being told--you must pardon me if I have misunderstood yourmeaning--that you are no longer engaged to Mr. Ridgway?"
She made obvious the absence of the solitaire she had worn.
Before the long scrutiny of his steady gaze: her eyes at last fell.
"If you don't mind, I'll postpone going just yet," he said quietly.
Her racing heart assured her fearfully, delightfully, that she did notmind at all.
"I have no time and no compass to take my bearings. You will pardon meif what I say seems presumptuous?"
Silence, which is not always golden, oppressed her. Why could she notmake light talk as she had been wont to do with Waring Ridgway?
"But if I ask too much, I shall not be hurt if you deny me," hecontinued. "For how long has your engagement with Mr. Ridgway beenbroken, may I ask?"
"Between fifteen and twenty minutes."
"A lovers' quarrel, perhaps!" he hazarded gently.
"On the contrary, quite final and irrevocable Mr. Ridgway and I havenever been lovers. She was not sure whether this last was meant as aconfession or a justification.
"Not lovers?" He waited for her to explain Her proud eyes faced him."We became engaged for other reasons. I thought that did not matter.But I find my other reasons were not sufficient. To-day I terminatedthe engagement. But it is only fair to say that Mr. Ridgway had comehere for that purpose. I merely anticipated him." Her self-contemptwould not let her abate one jot of the humiliating truth. She flayedherself with a whip of scorn quite lost on Hobart.
A wave of surging hope was flushing his heart, but he held himself wellin hand.
"I must be presumptuous still," he said. "I must find out if you brokethe engagement because you care for another man?"
She tried to meet his shining eyes and could not. "You have no right toask that."
"Perhaps not till I have asked something else. I wonder if I shouldhave any chance if I were to tell you that I love you?"
Her glance swept him shyly with a delicious little laugh. "You nevercan tell till you try."
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