"I think so."
"Is he worried?"
Plank said deliberately: "I should be, if my interests were locked up in Amalgamated Electric."
"Could you tell me why that would worry you?" she asked, smiling persuasively across at him.
"No," he said, "I can"t tell you."
"Because I wouldn"t understand?"
"Because I myself don"t understand."
She thought awhile, brushing the rose velvet of her mouth with the fan"s edge, then, looking up confidently:
"Mr. Siward is such a boy. I"m so glad he has you to advise him in such matters."
"What matters?" asked Plank bluntly.
"Why, in--in financial matters."
"But I don"t advise him."
"Why not?"
"Because he hasn"t asked me to, Miss Landis."
"He ought to ask you.
He must ask you.
Don"t wait for him, Mr.
Plank. He is only a boy in such things."
And, as Plank was silent:
"You will, won"t you?"
"Do what--make his business my business, without an invitation?" asked Plank, so quietly that she flushed with annoyance.
"If you pretend to be his friend is it not your duty to advise him?" she asked impatiently.
"No; that is for his business a.s.sociates to do. Friendship comes to grief when it crosses the frontiers of business."
"That is a narrow view to take, Mr. Plank."
"Yes, straight and narrow. The boundaries of friendship are straight and narrow. It is best to keep to the trodden path; best not to walk on the gra.s.s or trample the flowers."
"I think you are sacrificing friendship for an epigram," she said, careless of the undertone of contempt in her voice.
"I have never sacrificed friendship." He turned, and looked at her pleasantly. "I never made an epigram consciously, and I have never required of a friend more than I had to offer in return. Have you?"
The flush of hot displeasure stained her cheeks.
"Are you really questioning me, Mr. Plank?"
"Yes. You have been questioning me rather seriously--have you not?"
"I did not comprehend your definition of friendship. I did not agree with it. I questioned it, not you! That is all."
Plank rested his head on one big hand and stared at the cl.u.s.ters of dim blossoms behind her; and after a while he said, as though thinking aloud:
"Many have taken my friendship for granted, and have never offered their own in return. I do not know about Mr. Siward. There is nothing I can do for him, nothing he can do for me. If there is to be friendship between us it will be disinterested; and I would rather have that than anything in the world, I think."
There was a pause; but when Sylvia would have broken it his gesture committed her to silence with the dignity one might use in checking a persistent child.
"You question my definition of friendship, Miss Landis. I should have let your question pa.s.s, however keenly it touched me, had it not also touched him. Now I am going to say some things which lie within the straight and narrow bounds I spoke of. I never knew a man I cared for as much as I care for Mr. Siward. I know why, too. He is disinterested. I do not believe he wastes very many thoughts on me. Perhaps he will. I want him to like me, if it"s possible. But one thing you and I may be sure of: if he does not care to return the friendship I offer him he will never accept anything else from me, though he might give at my request; and that is the sort of a man he is; and that is why he is every inch a man; and so I like him, Miss Landis. Do you wonder?"
She did not reply.
"Do you wonder?" he repeated sharply.
"No," she said.
"Then--" He straightened up, and the silent significance of his waiting att.i.tude was plain enough to her.
But she shook her head impatiently, saying: "I don"t know whose dance it is, and I don"t care. Please go on. It is--is pleasant. I like Mr.
Siward; I like to hear men speak of him as you do. I like you for doing it. If you should ever come to care for my friendship that is the best pa.s.sport to it--your loyalty to Mr. Siward."
"No man can truthfully speak otherwise than I have spoken," he said gravely.
"No, not of these things. But--you know w-what is--is usually said when his name comes up among men."
"Do you mean about his habits?" he asked simply.
"Yes. Is it not an outrage to drag in that sort of thing? It angers me intensely, Mr. Plank. Why do they do it? Is there a single one among them qualified to criticise Mr. Siward? And besides, it is not true any more!
is it?--what was once said of him with--with some truth? Is it?"
The dull red blood mantled Plank"s heavy visage. The silence grew grim as he did his slow, laborious thinking, the while his eyes, expressionless and almost opaque in the dim light, never left her"s, until, under the unchanging, merciless inspection, the mask dropped for an instant from her anxious face, and he saw what he saw.
He was no fool. What he had come to believe she at last had only confirmed; and now the question became simple: was she worth enlightening? And by what t.i.tle did she demand his confidence?
"You ask me if it is true any more. You mean about his habits. If I answer you it is because I cannot be indifferent to what concerns him.
But before I answer I ask you this: Would your interest in his fortunes matter to him?"
She waited, head bent; then:
"I don"t know, Mr. Plank," very low.
"Did your interest in his fortunes ever concern him?"