In complete revulsion, Keith scuttled the frivolous world of women. As he expressed it, he was sick of women. They made him tired. Too much fuss trying to keep even with their vagaries. A man liked something he could bite on. He plunged with all the enthusiasm and energy of his vivid personality into his business deal of the water lots and into the fascinating downtown life of the pioneer city. The mere fact that he had ended that asinine Morrell affair somehow made him think he had made it all up to Nan, and he settled back tacitly and without further preliminaries into what his mood considered a most satisfactory domestic basis. That is, he took his home and his home life for granted. It was there when he needed it. He admired Nan greatly, and supplied her with plenty of money, and took her to places when he could get the time. Some day, when things were not quite so lively, they would go somewhere together. In the meantime he never failed to ask her every evening if she had enjoyed herself that day; and she never failed to reply that she had. Everything was most comfortable.
After the Firemen"s Ball Nan, somehow relieved of any definite uneasiness, felt that she should be made much of, should be a little wooed, that Keith should make up a little for having been somewhat of a naughty boy. When, instead, she was left more alone than before, she was hurt and depressed. Of course, Milton did not realize--but what was there for her? Wing Sam ran the house; she worked a good deal in the garden, a.s.sisted by Gringo. Probably at no time in modern history have wives been left so much alone and so free as during this period. The man"s world was so absorbing; the woman"s so empty.
Ben Sansome dropped in quite often. He was always amusing, always agreeable, interested in all sorts of things, ready to give his undivided attention to any sort of a problem, no matter how trivial, to consider it attentively, and to find for it a fair and square deliberate solution. This is exceedingly comforting to the feminine mind. He taught Gringo not to "jump up"; he found out what was the matter with the _Gold of Ophir_ cutting; he discovered and took her to see just the shade of hangings she had long sought for the blue room.
Within a very short time he had established himself on the footing of the casual old-time caller, happening by, dropping in, commenting and advising detachedly, drifting on again before his little visit had a.s.sumed rememberable proportions. He had always the air of just leaning over the fence for a moment"s chat; yet he contrived to spend the most of an afternoon. He spoke of Keith often, always in affectionate terms, as of a sort of pal, much as though he and Nan _both_ owned him, he, of course, in a lesser degree.
One afternoon, after he had actually been digging away at a bulb bed for half an hour, Nan suggested that he come in for refreshment.
Gradually this became a habit. Sansome and Nan sat cozily either side the little Chinese tea table. He visibly luxuriated.
"You don"t know what a privilege this is for me--for any lonesome bachelor in this crude city--to have a home like this to come to occasionally."
He hinted at his situation, but made of its details a dark mystery. The final impression was one of surface lightness and gayety, but of inner sadness.
"It is a terrible city for a man without an anchor!" he said. "Keith is a lucky fellow! If I only had some one, as he has, I might amount to something." A gesture implied what a discouraged b.u.t.terfly sort of person he really was.
"You ought to marry," said Nan gently.
"Marry!" he cried. "Dear lady, whom? Where in this awful mixture they call society could one find a woman to marry?"
"There are plenty of nice women here," chided Nan.
"Yes--and all of them taken by luckier fellows! You wouldn"t have me marry Sally Warner, would you--or any of the other half-dozen Sally Warners? I might as well marry a gas chandelier, a grand piano, and a code of immorals--but the standard of such women is so different from the standard of women like yourself."
Nan might pertinently have inquired what Ben Sansome did in this gallery, anyhow; but so cold-blooded and direct an attack would have required a cool detachment incompatible with his dark, good looks, his winning, appealing manners, his thoughtfulness in little things, his almost helpless reliance on her sympathy; in other words, it presupposed a rather cynical, elderly person. And Nan was young, romantic, easily stirred.
"All you need is to believe in yourself a little more," she said earnestly and prettily. "Why don"t you undertake something instead of drifting? Some of the people you go with are not especially good for you--do you think so?"
"Good for me?" he laughed bitterly. "Who cares if I go to the dogs?
They"d rather like me to; it would keep them company! And I don"t know that I care much myself!" he muttered in a lower tone.
She leaned forward, distressed, her eyes shining with expostulation.
"You mustn"t hold yourself so low," she told him vehemently. "You mustn"t! There are a great many people who believe in you. For their sake you should try. If you would only be just a little bit serious--in regard to yourself, I mean. A gay life is all very well----"
"Gay?" he interrupted, then caught himself. "Yes, I suppose I do seem gay--G.o.d knows I try not to cry out--but, really, sometimes I"m near to ending it all----"
She was excited to a panic of negation.
"Oh, no! no!" she expostulated vehemently. ("Egad, she"s stunning when she"s aroused!" thought Sansome.) "You mustn"t talk like that! It isn"t fair to yourself; it isn"t fair to your manhood! Oh, how you do need some one to pull you up! If I could only help!"
He raised his head and looked directly at her, his dark, melancholy eyes lighting slowly.
"You have helped; you are helping," he murmured. "I suppose I have been weak and a coward, I will try."
"That"s right. I am so glad," she said, glowing with sweetness and a desire to aid. "Now you must turn over a new leaf," she hesitated.
"Every way, I mean," she added with a little blush.
"I know I drink more than I ought," he supplied in accents of regret.
"Don"t you suppose you could do without?" she begged very gently.
"Will you help me?" He turned on her quickly; then, his delicate instincts perceiving a faint, instinctive recoil at his advance, he added: "Just let me come here occasionally, into this quiet atmosphere, when it gets too hard and I can see no light; just to get your help, the strength I shall need to tide me over."
He looked very handsome and romantic and young. He was apparently very, deeply in earnest. Nan experienced a rash of pity, of protective maternal emotion.
"Yes, do come," she a.s.sented softly.
XXIV
All this time Keith was busy every minute of the day. The water-lot matter was absorbing all his attention. Through skilful and secret agents Neil had acquired a great deal of scrip issued by the city for various public works and services which the holders had not yet exchanged for the new bonds. These he turned over to Keith. Very quietly, by prearrangement, the latter sued and obtained judgments.
When all this had been fully accomplished--and not before then--the veil of secrecy was rent. Rowlee"s paper advertised a forthcoming sale of water lots to satisfy the judgments.
Then followed, for Keith, an anxious period of three days. But at the end of that time the commissioners issued a signed warning that the t.i.tles conveyed by this sale would not be considered legal. On seeing this, Keith at once rushed around to Neil"s office.
"Here it is," he announced jubilantly. "They held off so long that I began to be afraid they did not intend to play our game for us. But it"s all right."
The matter was widely discussed; but next morning placards, bearing the text of the commissioners" warning, were posted on every blank wall in town and distributed as dodgers. These were attributed by the public to zeal on the part of those officials; but the commissioners knew nothing about it.
"Some anonymous friend of the city must have done it," Hooper told his friends, and added, "We are delighted!"
The unknown friend was Malcolm Neil himself.
This warning had its effect. As Keith had predicted, n.o.body cared to put good money into what was officially and authoritatively announced as a bad t.i.tle. At the sheriff"s sale there were no bona fide bidders except the secret agents of Malcolm Neil. The sheriff"s t.i.tles--such as they were--went for a song. Immediately the ostensible purchasers were personally warned by the commission; but they seemed satisfied.
So matters rested until, a little later, the commissioners inserted in all the papers the customary legal advertis.e.m.e.nts setting forth a sale by them, under the State law, of these same water lots to satisfy the interest and fill the sinking fund for the bonds. The next morning appeared a statement signed by all the ostensible purchasers under the sheriff"s sale. This stated dearly and succinctly the intention to contest any t.i.tles given by the commissioners, even to the highest courts. This was marked _advt_, to indicate the newspaper"s neutrality in the matter. Rowlee commented on the situation editorially, He took the righteous and indignant att.i.tude, expressing extreme journalistic horror that such a hold-up should be possible in a modern, civilized community, hurling editorial contempt on the dastardly robbers who were thus intending to shake down the innocent purchasers, etc. In fact, he laid it on thick, But he managed to insinuate a doubt. Between the lines the least astute reader could read Rowlee"s belief that perhaps these first purchasers might have a case, iniquitous but legal. He hammered away at this for a week. By the end of that time he had, by the most effective, indirect methods--purporting all the time to be attacking the signers of the warning--succeeded in instilling into the public mind a substantial distrust of the stability of the t.i.tles to be conveyed at the commissioners" sale. Malcolm Neil complimented him highly at their final and secret interview.
Again Keith"s predictions were fulfilled to the letter. n.o.body wanted to buy a lawsuit. There were a few bidders, it is true, but they were faint hearted. Another set of Malcolm"s secret agents bid all the lots in at a nominal figure. That very afternoon they all met in Neil"s stuffy little back office. Keith had the deeds prepared. All that was necessary was to affix the signatures. The purchasers under both sales conveyed their rights to Neil and Keith. The latter now possessed uncontested and incontestable t.i.tle.
XXV
Having personally delivered the deeds to the recorder"s office, Keith went home. In the relief from pressure, the triumph, and the exaltation, his instinct carried him to the actual background of his life--his genuine but preoccupied affection for Nan. The constraint, that had been so real to her, had never been anything but nebulous to him.
He burst into the house, capered around the room boyishly, seized her, and waltzed her gayly about. Quite taken by surprise, Nan"s first thought was that he had been drinking too much; so naturally she failed to rise instantly to the occasion.
"Stop it, Milton!" she cried. "What has got into you! You"re tearing me to ribbons!"
He laughed heartily.
"You must think I"m crazy," he acknowledged. "Sit down here, and learn what a great man your husband is." He poured out the story of the transaction, omitting no details of the clever schemes by which it had been worked. He was, above all, proud of his legal address and ac.u.men--there was something in Eastern training, after all; this lay right under their noses, but none of them saw it until he came along and picked it up. "And there are some pretty smart men out here, too, let me tell you that," he added. "They"re from all parts of the world, and they"ve had a hard practical education, their eye teeth are cut!"
His egotism over being keener than the acknowledged big men was very fresh and charming. The money gained he mentioned as an afterthought, only when the other aspect of the situation had been exhausted. "The cold hard dollars are pretty welcome just now," he told her. "There"s about a quarter million in those lots--and we can realize on all or part of them at any time. All came out of here!" He tapped his forehead, and paused in his rapid pacing to and fro to look down at her In the easy chair, "We are well off now. We needn"t scrimp and save"--it did not for the moment occur to him that they had not been doing so--"I"m going to get you eight new gowns, and twelve new hats, and a bushel of diamonds----"