Simeon sighed, letting himself down into his desk chair with a grunt. He had eaten too much lunch; the fuzzy dull discomfort was back, but not the gnawing pains. Food always helped them. But he was sick of eating at Berry’s or Delmonico’s. Pretty soon he could go to the Knickerbocker, though, he thought, relaxing. Have lunch with Bull and Van Vrandt, not as a guest, but as a member. Simeon lit himself a cigar, watched the wreath of fragrant blue smoke curling up toward the gasolier.
Lemming’s discreet tap sounded on the door which opened and shut again.
‘Hello, Mr. Tower,’ cried Terry cordially from the door. ‘Enjoying your after-dinner cigar?’ and he strode to the desk, grinning, and holding out his hand. ‘Good of you to see me!’
Simeon put down the cigar and his eyes congealed. He nodded briefly, touched Terry’s hand, and indicated the chair. If Lemming’s let a salesman in on me—he thought, and another thought—A ‘ladies’ man,’ big! He looked at the curly reddish hair brilliant with pomatum, the ingratiating cocksure smile, the wide shoulders under the puce broadcloth coat.
‘Why did you want to see me, and you have a name, I presume?’
‘Oh, to be sure, I have,’ said Terry, sitting down and making himself comfortable, ‘but I doubt you’ll like it much when you hear it, so let’s chat a bit first. I’ve long admired you, Mr. Tower, and it’s a fair treat to of met you at last.’ This was the way to do it, breezy, good-natured, and a bit of the brogue for charm.
‘I think,’ said Simeon, ‘that we will have your name now.’
He did not move at all and his voice was quiet.
Terry’s confident grin faded a trifle. ‘If you like. My name, then, is Dillon. Xavier T. Dillon.’ And he leaned forward, watching eagerly.
‘Indeed,’ said Simeon. There was a pause. He picked up the cigar and took a leisurely puff. ‘I thought you had died in the Chicago fire.’
Terry moistened his lips, trying to stiffen his face, which he knew was crestfallen. Still, he had seen the slightest flicker in the watchful eyes opposite him.
‘You knew I was in Chicago?’ he said lamely.
‘Certainly, And when your gambling house burned, I was told you went with it.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ said Terry, trying to recapture the light touch.
Simeon lifted one shoulder, compressed his lips, and waited. Get out of my office, he thought, get out! You were finished and done with. I haven’t thought of you in years. She hasn’t either. I can’t stand this, too, just now. Get out!
He kept his eyes steadily on Terry, who felt a slow dull heat rising in him. The game had bogged down. This was the moment for teasing, a delicate baiting, watch the rich little man squirm, but good-humoredly.
‘It’s awkward having me turn up, isn’t it?’ he burst out.
Simeon shrugged again. The office was thick with silence. It clung to the damask draperies, it pressed on the maroon carpet, the massive furniture.
‘You know damn well it’s awkward, you know damn well it’s ruinous—if I talk!’ cried Terry, goaded into the open by that impassive silence. ‘What about your precious social position? What about Fey’s position?’ That’s done it, he thought with relief, for at the mention of Fey’s name an involuntary tremor showed on the compressed mouth.
‘D-does Mrs. Tower know anything about this?’ asked Simeon, still in the remote, bored tone, but Terry relaxed still further. Got him asking questions, at least; got him stammering a bit, for all he sits there like an image.
‘Oh, of course not!’ answered Terry airily. ‘No use upsetting Fey. I wouldn’t hurt her for anything in the world. Nor would you/ he added, with a charming smile.
‘What is it you want? ’ said Simeon, and he heard his own voice, channeled, impersonal.
‘Why——’ said Terry, crossing his legs. ‘Let’s just run over the situation, clear it up for both of us. People don’t know Fey was ever Mrs. Dillon, and they don’t know she was divorced, and if they did know, the public wouldn’t stand for the kind of divorce she got; it must have been pretty phony.’
‘How do you know?’ said Simeon sharply.
‘Oh, my dear Tower! I’m not a fool. I’ve searched the records; the divorce doesn’t appear. I suspect you used one of the convenient little Tammany setups, and they’re in very bad odor just now, aren’t they?’
Got out of that one pretty neatly, thought Terry.
‘What is it you want?’ repeated Simeon.
Terry took a deep breath. ‘Ten thousand dollars,’ he said. ‘In cash, of course.’
Simeon rose, leaning a second on the desk, and then straightening. ‘That’s preposterous. Get out!’
‘Oh, not preposterous at all. A millionaire like you. That’s chicken feed. It’s only fair that you should pay for the privilege of forgetting certain things in your past. I know quite a lot more than you think—for instance ’—he paused—‘ Pansy Miggs.’
Good old Lemming, thought Terry, watching; that was quite a tip. Tower’s face turned a nasty color like the dusty lace curtains in the window behind him. But you had to admire his control. His voice still wasn’t higher or lower as he said, ‘I’ll have to think it over, Dillon. You can come back Thursday.’
‘Oh, sure——’ said Terry, getting up. ‘There’s no great hurry.’ He grinned at the silent figure behind the desk, feeling almost sorry for him. ‘Thursday,’ he said, and after leaving the office, he winked at Lemming, who sprang into the hall. Terry clasped his hands and waved them in the air, the sign of victory. ‘Going fine,’ he whispered. ‘See you later.’
Simeon sat on at his desk, staring at the heavy bronze inkstand.
Why didn’t I call the police? Why don’t I call the police? Go to Commissioner Smith. No use; not like the old days. If Oakey Hall was still mayor—squash the whole thing and no one the wiser. Hustle that red-headed jackanapes out of town. Wickham no use. Don’t know him. But money talks still——Don’t dare risk it. He’d gab to the papers. Money—— I haven’t got it. Where could I raise ten thousand in cash by Thursday—pay him off—get rid of him—get his receipt—scare hell out of him—get that crook from the investigation agency put him on a train for the West. I’ve handled things like this before—that little guinea back in ’66 who smelled out the Transic figures—the Ring took care of him, buried in the Tombs for a year; when he came out he’d lost interest. But I can handle this alone. I’m a fool to get jumpy. He can’t prove anything. Face him down. Let him go ahead. Say he’s lying. He’s not the type to go through with it. Bluff him. But where’d he get his facts? Pansy, too; nobody knew about Pansy. Somebody’s talking. Lemming? Can’t be; he didn’t know, and why would he keep quiet all this time. Not Fey—she couldn’t—she hated him —he said he hadn’t seen her. Got to protect Fey.
If this damnable pain in my middle would stop, I could think. Not like me to get panicky. I’ve been in tighter spots. But he’ll go to the Tribune. He’s got enough brains for that. They’d tie it in with that old Ring business and Erie. All forgotten; Gould’s got away with it. He faces them down and goes ahead, but it’s not his private life, too. The Knickerbocker Club. I’ve got to go home, can’t think here. They’d rally around, Bull and Van Vrandt and Snelling. They wouldn’t believe scandal. They like me, they’ve become my friends—and Fey's. Let him go ahead, prepare a denial for the papers, maybe squash the whole thing yet. I’m Simeon Tower. Who’s going to listen to that long grinning imbecile? But if I bought him off, he’d shut up. I’d see to that. Offer him five. He hasn’t got the guts for real blackmail. Whatever happens, Fey mustn’t know. She might try to see him. But she’s loyal. There’s no danger there. He deserted her and Lucy. And Lucy. Get rid of him quickly, hustle him out of town. Why didn’t I get his address—fool! It would take until Thursday to get the agency to track him down. But maybe he said something to Lemming——
Simeon pushed the bell-button.
Lemming glided respectfully in. ‘Yes, Mr. Tower?’
‘That man who was here, did
he give you his name or address?’
‘Why, no, sir. He wouldn’t. I thought him a shade mysterious, but as I assumed it was about that—ah—information, I didn’t insist.’
‘Yes. Quite,’ said Simeon. The secretary waited; beneath hooded lids he inspected his employer’s face avidly.
‘That’s all,’ said Simeon. ‘I’m going to go home now.’ ‘Indigestion bothering a bit?’ asked the secretary sympathetically. .
Simeon moved his lips in a smile. ‘A bit.’ He looked at the thin, sharp-faced man, and suddenly saw familiarity, the warmth of years of association. ‘ Noah—we’ve—you’ve been with me a long time. Perhaps I haven’t remembered to tell you that I appreciate your service—your usefulness and loyalty.’
Fancy that, thought Lemming; fine words butter no parsnips, my lad.
‘It’s been a pleasure to work for you, Mr. Tower.’
There was a silence. Simeon felt and suppressed in himself an instinct of appeal. Noah, tell me I haven’t lost my grip, tell me I can lick ’em all as I used to. Childish.
‘As soon as I get the G. and S.D. and Transic straightened out, we’ll have to reconsider the matter of your salary,’ he said.
Lemming bowed. ‘That’s good of you, sir.’ And a wait till Doomsday if I’m not mistaken, he added to himself. That was the catch; he wasn’t sure yet that the little bulldog mightn’t yet worry his way out or he’d take that tempting offer in Gould’s office. But in the meantime one could look out for number one.
Simeon sighed. He gestured toward the closet and Lemming sprang to get the overcoat and hat, held the coat up with solicitous speed.
That night Fey was filled by a nervous gaiety. She saw that Simeon was low physically and she set herself to amusing him out of the heavy silences. She had put Terry out of her mind. He might hang around New York forever, for all she cared; she would never get in touch with him again. She had spent the day alone locked into her little boudoir and she had been able to flood the problem with a noon light of practical analysis. The two meetings in the park had been foolish, perhaps, but justifiable, for they had established the fact that she did not love Terry. She could see him objectively, dispassionately. She was cured and strong once more. And that shameful resurgence of emotion was conquered.
She had dressed carefully for Simeon on that Tuesday night, a new green taffeta robe de toilette, with darker green overdress and bustle. It was disconcerting not to have him notice it. And yet several times she caught him watching her, but as she smiled in quick response, he turned his eyes away. He ate little, drank nothing, and her chatter about the doings of Astors, Bulls, or Ward McAllister, which before this never failed to interest him, provoked only absent-minded answers or none at all.
After dinner, when Miss Pringle sent Lucita down to the drawing-room to say good night, he roused himself and became more normal. He smoothed the child’s curls and listened patiently to a rendition of ‘The Angel’s Lament’ on the Chickering.
When she had finished, Lucita sat on his lap and rang his chiming watch—a nightly ceremony. As she tucked it back in his pocket, Fey knew a second of terror, for the child said, ‘Papa, why don’t you have an elk’s tooth on your chain like—? ’ She stopped and looked at her mother guiltily.
‘Like who, pet?’ asked Simeon.
Fey got up and went over to the child—‘Oh, I don’t believe she knows anyone with an elk’s tooth,’ she said, laughing. ‘ Come, darling, time for bed.’
Ignoble, thought Fey, and to force my child into it, too. I’ve never deceived Simeon. Why don’t I tell him I’ve seen Terry? It means nothing now. I will tell him when I get back to the drawing-room.
But she did not. Simeon sat staring into the fire. He looked shrunken, hunched over, his back making an old man’s curve; she saw this with pity and an unexpected prick of irritation. Like a monkey, she thought; why does he let himself look like a tired monkey? The doctor said there was nothing much wrong. All these men have indigestion at times. This she knew from the half-admiring plaints she listened to over the teatables. All rich men had dyspepsia; it was almost a mark of caste.
‘You’re tired, dear,’ she said briskly. ‘Would you like me to stroke your head?’ So often lately he asked for this, drawing comfort from the magnetic vitality in her hands.
He straightened his back, moving to a more comfortable position on the mohair couch. Charter the yacht, he thought. Pembroke’ll snap at it; won’t ask questions. Only way to raise the cash, only thing won’t cause talk.
‘Sing something, Fey,’ he said. He gestured toward the piano. She continued to look at him. There was something—something more than dyspepsia or business. I used to know what he was thinking. Now he won’t let me in. She gave a dissatisfied sigh. The evening had curdled; she had put on the new dress, piled her hair into an elaborate mass of ringlets for him. As a sign—I make myself lovely for you alone, I want only you. He should have known.
She walked to the piano on which she could play a few simple chords by ear. The guitar which she preferred had been forbidden. Fashionable ladies did not play guitars, which were foreign instruments, raffish, associated with street-singers.
Fey struck the D minor chord and began to sing, ‘Flee as a bird to your mountain, Thou who art weary of sin——’ This was a favorite of Simeon’s, a plaintive hymn whose words had been written by the poetic Mrs. Dana. It was a favorite of Fey’s, too, though she had never told Simeon why. Mrs. Dana had appropriated an old Spanish melody for her hymn, and the music sent Fey back to a night twenty years ago in Santa Fe when she and her father had been walking along the Alameda in the moonlight and this tune had come floating, disembodied, from one of the shuttered houses. They had stopped to listen, both hushed by the poignancy, the yearning question in that gentle song. She remembered the smell of earth and burning cedar, the look of the low adobes across the little river, and the feel of her father’s hand. She had squeezed it tight as they listened, and when the song had ended, he had bent and kissed her. She remembered the joy of receiving his rare caress, and that momentary certainty of shared emotion.
The English words had always seemed meaningless interlopers; she had sung them automatically. Tonight the curtain of her resistance was abruptly raised. A sensuous tingle ran up her spine.
'Flee as a bird to your mountain.
Thou who art weary of sin.
Go to the clear flowing fountain.
Where you may wash and be clean.
Fly, for the avenger is near thee;
Call, and the Saviour will hear thee——
She forgot Simeon. Her voice deepened and throbbed, her eyes misted. This was message; this was awareness otice more returned after the long dark night of the soul, the illuminating ray of secret wisdom, a ray of sound as well as light. ‘Listen——’ it said, beneath the yearning music, beneath the trite words. ‘Listen. There is still time.’
Her hands fell from the keys, her voice broke and stopped. Her fixed eyes stared unseeing through the pampas grass bouquet on the piano, the still-life painting and pressed leather wallpaper behind it.
‘What is it, Fey?’ Simeon spoke sharply. He got up and came over to her.
She swallowed, reaching for his hand and laying her cheek against it. She gave a choked little laugh.
‘Nothing. I’m silly. The music suddenly——Simeon, we must be closer to each other. Don’t shut me out. Help me, darling, help me——’
His eyes had softened and come alive until her last unconsidered words.
‘Help you?’ he repeated. ‘How do you mean?’
She saw the suspicion, the guarded look. Oh, what is it?—she thought—it can’t be—he can’t know about Terry!
‘I don’t know what I mean. I’m foolish. Women are sometimes.’ She looked up at him through her wet lashes, her small head tilted on the long white neck, her red mouth tremulous with a pleading smile.
He caught his breath and kissed her. She did not resist, she put her arms around his neck
, but he felt her body shiver, and for the instant that he saw into the gray eyes the pupils contracted, as though they closed against repulsion.
His arms dropped.
Instantly she tried to make amends. ‘Don’t let me go like that. I love you, Simeon.’
‘You’re tired, my dear, I think.’ He moved heavily from the piano bench back to the fire. ‘Better get some rest.’
‘You’ll come up soon?’
‘Pretty soon. Don’t stay awake.’
She went upstairs, her head bent, her hand heavy on the banister, and as she reached the door of her room, Miss Pringle darted out. ‘May I speak to you, madam?’
Fey raised her eyes and sighed. ‘ Certainly. In the boudoir.’ She led the way into the rosewood, velvet-and-lace confection Simeon had built for her.
‘I think there’s something you should know, madam,’ said the governess, sitting gingerly on a damask chair in response to Fey’s gesture.
And why, thought Fey, sighing again, when people start that way is it never, never anything pleasant? She began to strip off her rings and drop them on the ring-stand.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Yesterday afternoon I took Lucy to the park and a gentleman accosted us. I must say quite a handsome and pleasant-spoken young man.’
Fey’s hands stopped moving. She stood with her back to Miss Pringle, holding the last ring clenched in her fingers. The dry, clipped voice continued:
‘He hailed her by name, the name you call her, “Lucita,”’ said Miss Pringle, with distaste, ‘and at first the child acted rather strange, as though she didn’t know him.’
Fey shut her eyes for a second, dropped the last ring on the stand, and turning around, said, ‘Well, who was it?’
‘A distant cousin of yours, a Mr. Smith, he told me. He was very civil. He begged leave to join us, and as Lucy soon stopped acting silly and addressed him as Cousin Terry, I saw no harm.’ There was the suggestion of a flutter in the spinster voice, of bridling.
So he got around her as he can any woman, thought Fey, with fury. How dared he bother Lucita! He promised. It was clearly understood——