John sat down, seized with a species of vertigo.
"McQuade, you wrote that."
"Me? You"re crazy!"
"Not at all. Let me advise you. The next time you put your hand to anonymous letters, examine the type of your machine. There may be some bad letter."
"I don"t know what you"re driving at," McQuade declared.
"I see that I must read this, then, to convince you." Warrington stood up, his back toward Bennington. He unfolded the carbon sheet and began to read.
McQuade saw Medusa"s head, little versed as he was in mythology. He lowered his cigar. The blood in his face gradually receded.
""In two sums of five hundred each,"" Warrington went on.
Morrissy, who suddenly saw visions of bars and stripes, made a quick, desperate spring. Warrington struck him with full force on the side of the head. Morrissy reeled, stumbled to the floor and lay there. The others were on their feet instantly.
"Stay where you are, John; I don"t need any a.s.sistance. Now, McQuade, I"ve got you where I want you." Warrington spoke with deadly calm now.
"This carbon was found in your waste-basket and brought to me. The girl is where you can not find her. There are two courses open to you."
"What are they?" There was murder in McQuade"s heart, but there was reason in his head. He saw exactly where he stood. They had him.
"One is state"s prison; the other is a full retraction of this base calumny. Take your choice."
"Bolles?"
"It"s true, every d.a.m.n word of it," said Bolles venomously. "Your janitor in New York told me the facts. You know they"re true."
"Bolles, I nearly killed you one night. So help me, if you do not withdraw that, I"ll kill you here and now!" It was the first time Bennington had spoken.
"Bolles," said McQuade, "did you sell a lie to me?"
Bolles eyed Bennington, who had pushed Warrington out of the way and was moving toward him. He saw death on Bennington"s face. Warrington again interposed, but John swept him aside with ease.
"Well, there was a doctor and a nurse there all night with them. But she was in Warrington"s rooms all night. That seemed enough for me."
Bolles put the table between him and Bennington. He was genuinely afraid.
Morrissy turned over and sat up, rubbing his head. Presently he pulled himself to his feet. He was dazed. Recollection of what had happened returned to him. This dude had knocked him out.
"You"ll pay well for that," he said.
"Sit down. It"s only a marker for what I"ll do to you if you make another move. Now, McQuade, which is it?"
"Go ahead and write your letter," McQuade snarled.
Warrington proceeded.
"Now sign it," he said. "Here, John, take care of this carbon. Bolles, your signature." Bolles scrawled a shaking hand. Warrington put the paper in his pocket. "Bite, both of you now, if you dare."
"I"ll trouble you for that carbon," said McQuade.
"Hardly. But you have my word of honor that it shall not be used against you unless you force me. It will repose in my deposit box at the bank. But as for you, Morrissy, this climate doesn"t suit your abilities. The field is too small. Take my advice and clear out. That is all, gentlemen. Come, John."
When they were gone Morrissy turned savagely upon McQuade.
"I told you you were a d.a.m.n fool!"
"Get out of here, both of you; and if you ever stick your heads in this office again, I"ll smash you."
McQuade dropped into his chair, once more alone. He sat there for an hour, thinking, ruminating, planning; but all his thinking and ruminating and planning had but one result: they had him licked.
Morrissy was right; he was a fool. The girl! He would have liked her throat in his fingers that moment, the sneaking, treacherous baggage!
Licked! To go about hereafter with that always menacing him! But there was one ray of consolation. He knew something about human nature.
Bennington and Warrington would drift apart after this. Bennington had cleared up the scandal, but he hadn"t purged his heart of all doubt.
There was some satisfaction in this knowledge. And Warrington would never enter the City Hall as Herculaneum"s mayor.
Chapter XX
By November John and his wife were on the way to Italy. There is always a second honeymoon for those who have just pa.s.sed the first matrimonial Scylla and Charybdis; there is always a new courtship, deeper and more understanding. Neither of them had surrendered a particle of their affection for Warrington, but they agreed that it would be easier for all concerned if there came a separation of several months.
"You are all I have," said Warrington, when they bade him good-by. "I shall be very lonely without you. If I lose the election I shall go to j.a.pan."
"There"s always Patty and the mother," said John, smiling.
"Yes, there"s always Patty and her mother. Good-by, and G.o.d bless you both. You deserve all the happiness I can wish for you."
Warrington plunged into the campaign. It would keep him occupied.
Mrs. Bennington and Patty lived as usual, to all outward appearance.
But Patty was rarely seen in society. She took her long rides in the afternoon now, always alone, brooding. Her young friends wondered, questioned, then drifted away gradually. Poor little Patty! No one had told her; the viper had not been shaken from her nest. Day after day she waited for the blow to fall, for the tide of scandal to roll over her and obliterate her. She was worldly enough to know that Mrs.
Franklyn-Haldene was not the kind of woman to keep such a scandal under lock and key; others must know, Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene"s particular friends. So she avoided the possibility of meeting these friends by declining all invitations of a formal character. Perhaps after a time it would die of its own accord, to be recalled in after years by another generation, as such things generally are. Patty derived no comfort from the paragraph in the Sunday papers announcing Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene"s departure for Egypt, to remain for the winter.
She kept in touch with all that Warrington did. The sense of shame she had at first experienced in reading his speeches was gone. Her pride no longer urged her to cast aside the paper, to read it, to fling it into the flames. Sometimes she saw him on the way home from his morning rides. It seemed to her that he did not sit as erectly as formerly. Why should he? she asked herself bitterly. When the heart is heavy it needs a confidante, but Patty, brave and loyal, denied herself the luxury of her mother"s arms. Tell her this frightful story? Bow that proud, handsome head? No.
"It is very strange," mused her mother, one evening, "that Mr.
Warrington calls no more. I rather miss his cheerfulness, and John thinks so much of him."
Patty shivered. "He is very busy, mother. Election is only three days off, and doubtless he hasn"t a minute to call his own."
Nor had he. Pulled this way and that, speaking every night, from one end of the city to the other, he went over the same ground again and again, with the same noise, the same fumes of tobacco and whisky and kerosene, with his heart no longer behind his will. Yes, Warrington was very busy. He was very unhappy, too. What did he care about the making up of the slate? What was it to him that this man or that wanted this or that berth? What were all these things? But he hid his dissatisfaction admirably. His speeches lacked nothing.
Election day came round finally, and a rare and beautiful day it was.
The ghost of summer had returned to view her past victories. A west wind had cleared the skies, the sun shone warm and grateful, the golden leaves shivered and fluttered to the ground. Nature had lent a hand to bring voting humanity to the polls. Some men are such good citizens that they will vote in the rain. But warmth and sunshine bring out the lazy, the indifferent, and the uninterested.
Warrington voted early in the morning, rode to the Country Club, made an attempt to play golf over the partly frozen course, lounged round till three in the afternoon, and then returned to town. There was not a flutter in his heart. There was this truth, however, staring him in the eyes: if he lost, he would become an indifferent citizen; if he won, an in different mayor. He was not a man to falsify his accounts for the inspection of his conscience.