"I don"t believe that!" May exclaimed in her sharp, decisive little way.
She sat looking at me rather sternly with the same look on her face that I had remembered for twenty years. And the next thing that she said was pretty much what I thought she was going to say:--
"Van, you are always a great hand to think what you want to believe is the only thing to believe! You know that!"
She smiled unconsciously, with the little ironical ripple which I knew so well, and I smiled, too. I couldn"t help myself. We both seemed to have gone back to the old boy and girl days. But I was angry, as well, and began to defend myself.
"No," she interrupted. "It isn"t a mite of use for you to bl.u.s.ter and get angry, Van. I don"t trust you! I haven"t for some time. I have been worried for Will. Don"t you let him mix himself up in your ways of doing things, Van Harrington!"
"If he is so terribly precious," I said hotly, "I guess you had better take him back to Jasonville."
"Maybe I shall," she answered quietly. "I"d take him to the meanest little place in creation rather than know he had done any such thing as you say you have done!"
We were both pretty angry by this time, and yet we both smiled. She was such a snappy, strong little woman--I admired her all the time she was making me angry! Somehow it brought back all that time long ago when I had thought the world began and ended with her. We had never been so near each other since. And I think she felt somewhat in the same way.
"Well," I said at last, "I am not going to fight this thing out with you, May, or with any other woman. I have too much else on hand. I am answerable for all I do or have done. If you and Will don"t like my company, why, we have got to do without you."
I wished I hadn"t been so small as to make that fling. She flashed a look at me out of her eyes that brought me to my senses in a moment. I took her by the shoulders. "See here, May, we mustn"t quarrel. Let"s all hang together in this, as in other things. You women don"t know what business means."
She smiled back into my eyes and retorted, "It seems to be just as well we don"t!" In a moment more she added: "But you mustn"t think that I can make up like this. You and I don"t look at things in the same way."
"Never did!" I said dryly. "At any rate, you had better go up now and look after Sarah. She can"t keep on this way. She"s got to look at this more sensibly. She isn"t like you, May!"
"No," May retorted, "she isn"t! But this hurts her, too. Perhaps she cares more what folks _say_ than I do. And she believes in her religion, Van."
"That"s all right. Her religion tells her to forgive, and not to judge, and a few other sensible truths, which that minister seemed to forget to-day."
"I never expected to see you, Van Harrington, asking for quarter in that way!" she flashed.
Then she went back to Sarah. What my sister-in-law said set me to thinking queer thoughts. I admired the way she took the matter, though it made me pretty angry at the time. It seemed straight and courageous, like her. If we had married, down there at home in the years past, there would have been some pretty lively times between us. I could never have got her to look at things my way, and I don"t see how I could have come to see things her way. For in spite of all the preacher and May had to say, my feeling was unchanged: women and clergy, they were both alike, made for some other kind of earth than this. I was made for just this earth, good and bad as it is,--and I must go my way to my end.
CHAPTER XX
TREACHERY
_Who was the traitor?--Sloc.u.m"s logic--We send for our accomplice--One look is enough--The poison of envy--I see the last of an old friend--Sloc.u.m points the moral--What people know--Public opinion--Cousin Farson again--We lunch at a depot restaurant--I touch granite_
The Monday morning after Mr. Hardman"s outbreak, Sloc.u.m was waiting for me at my office. In reply to my telegram he had come back from St.
Louis, where he had been attending to some business in connection with Farson"s railroad.
"They got it pretty straight this time," was all he said as a greeting, with a care-worn sort of smile.
"They can"t prove it! We"ll bring suit for libel. I must put myself straight--for family reasons."
But the lawyer shook his head doubtfully.
"That wouldn"t be safe, Van! It"s too close a guess. I rather think they"ve got all the proof they want."
"Where did they get it, then? Not out of Lokes. He hasn"t any reason to squeal. Nor the judge, nor his brother-in-law!"
"Of course not; but how about Frost? This is the way I figure it out: when those rats were euchred in their hold-up game by Garretson"s dismissing his injunction, they were mad enough and determined to find out who sold them. It didn"t take them long to see that the judge had been fixed in some way. They nosed around, and spotted the judge"s brother-in-law as the one who made the trade. Then they started out to get proof."
"Well?"
Sloc.u.m looked at me shrewdly.
"I have been thinking about that all the way back from St. Louis. There is only one man left in the combination."
We stared at each other for a minute.
"You don"t mean _him_!" I gasped.
"Who else?"
"Not Hostetter--not Ed!"
"Send for him, and we"ll find out," he answered shortly.
I telephoned out to our office in the Yards to send Hostetter to the city, and while we waited we discussed the story in all its bearings.
"We"ve got the trick," Sloc.u.m commented in reply to my desire for action. "And Marx, who managed this business for Carmichael, is shrewd enough to see it. _They_ won"t bother us."
There was some comfort in that reflection: no matter what the scandal might be, we had the London and Chicago properties in our possession, and nothing short of a long fight in court could wrest them from our control.
"The only thing to do," the lawyer continued, "is to keep quiet. The papers will bark while the election is on, and it looks mighty bad for Garretson. But out here most people forget easily."
It was queer to hear old Sloc.u.m talking in that cynical tone, as if, having accepted the side that was not to his taste, he took pleasure in pointing out its safety.
"Well," I grumbled, thinking of May and Sarah, "it"s mighty uncomfortable to be held up by rats like Lokes, Frost, and company, and then be branded as a briber!"
"What do you care?" Sloc.u.m asked harshly. "It won"t hurt _you_ much.
You"ll make money just the same, and there aren"t many who would lay this up against you. Of course, there are always a few who are shrewd enough to guess just about what has happened, and remember,--yes, remember a story for years! But you don"t care for their opinion!"
I knew that he was thinking of the honest men in his own profession, the honorable men at the head of the bar, who would mark him henceforth as my hired man.
Hostetter arrived soon, a shifty look in his eyes. He had changed a good deal since that time he had slept out on the lake front. He was a heavy man, now, with a fleshy face, and his dress showed a queer love for loud finery. He wore a heavy seal ring, and a paste diamond in his tie, which was none too clean. His sandy mustache dropped tight over his mouth. Yet in spite of his dress and his jewellery, he was plainly enough the countryman still.
"Ed," I said at once, "have you been talking to any one about that matter of the bonds--the deal with Lucas Smith?"
He glanced at Sloc.u.m and then at me. One look at his face was enough: the story was there.
"You low dog!" I broke out.
Sloc.u.m tried to hush me. Hostetter muttered something about not knowing what we were talking about.