CHAPTER III
THE FINAL KICK
It was Sat.u.r.day, and Ethel Manton was lunching early that she might accompany her fifteen-year-old brother on a ride through the park.
A certain story in the morning paper arrested her attention, and she reread it with flushed face and tightening lips. It was well done, as newspaper stories go, this account of a lurid night on Broadway which wound up in a crescendo of brilliance with the flooring of a policeman.
No names were mentioned, but the initiated who read between the lines knew that only one man could have pulled off the stunt and gotten by with it.
"For goodness" sake, Eth, aren"t you ever going to finish? You"ll waste the whole afternoon over that old paper!"
Young Charlie had bolted his luncheon and waited impatiently in a deep window-seat overlooking the park. His sister laid down the paper with a sigh.
"Are the horses ready?" She asked the question in a dull, listless tone, so unlike her usual self that even Charlie noticed.
"Gee! You don"t seem very keen about it. And look what a day! You look like you were going to a funeral."
Before the girl could reply he turned again to the window: "Look, a taxi is stopping and somebody is getting out. Oh, it"s Bill Carmody!
Ain"t he a crackerjack, though? Say, Eth, why don"t you marry Bill?
He"s just crazy about you--everybody says so, and----"
"Charlie!" The word was jerked out hysterically, and the boy was puzzled at the crimson of her face.
"Well, I don"t care, it"s so! And then I"d be a brother-in-law to Bill Carmody! Why, he can lick everybody down to the gym. He put on the gloves with _me_ once," he boasted, swelling visibly, "just sparring, you know; but he promised to teach me the game. And football! There never was a half-back like Bill Carmody! Why he----"
"Do hush! He might hear you. Run along, now. You ride on and I will overtake you. I--I must see Mr. Carmody alone."
"_Mr._ Carmody! So you two have had a sc.r.a.p! Well, if I was a girl, and Bill Carmody wanted to marry _me_, you bet, I"d marry him before he got a chance to change his mind. You bet, when I grow up I"m going to be just like him--so there!"
The boy flounced defiantly out of the room, leaving the girl alone with a new fear.
Since the death of her parents she had bravely and capably undertaken the management of the household, and her chief care was this impulsive boy who was so dear to her heart.
"Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you." The words of her dying mother came to her vividly. "He is really a n.o.ble little fellow--but hard to manage."
And now, added to the sorrow that already seemed crushing her, was this new anxiety.
Charlie had set up an idol--and the fact that his idol was also her idol--although she never admitted it--struck fear to her heart. For the undiscerning eyes of the boy were blind to the feet of clay.
In the library across the hall, William Carmody paced nervously up and down, pausing at each turn to gaze abstractedly out of the window.
After what seemed an interminable wait, the portieres parted and the girl stepped into the room. In her hand she carried a carefully folded newspaper. She crossed to the table and, regarding the man with a cold, disconcerting stare, waited for him to speak.
"h.e.l.lo, Ethel! No, thank you, I have had luncheon. I----" His gaze encountered the unwavering blue eyes, and he suddenly dropped the air of flippant a.s.surance. "Er, I came to see you," he added lamely.
"Yes?" There was little of encouragement in the word with its accompanying inflection.
"You see, I am leaving New York."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, I am going away." He paused, but receiving no answer, continued, "I am going away to--to make good. And I came to say good-by. When I return, if--if you are still free, I will have something to tell you--something I have often told you before, but--well, things will be different, then."
"I suppose you said good-by to your _other_ friends last night?" Her glance rested for a moment on the folded newspaper, and the silky sneer of her retort was brutal--with the studied brutality of the female of the species who would inflict pain. The man winced under its sting.
"Last night cannot be recalled," he replied gravely. "Whatever happened then is past and gone. You are right; figuratively speaking, I _have_ said good-by to the others--to Broadway, and all it stands for. You alone know of my going. I am making no promises. If I fail no one will know--nor care. When I make good I will return--and then----"
The girl looked up. Their glances met, and in the depths of the steady gray eyes the soft blue ones read purpose--unflinching purpose to fight and win for the glory of an infinite love.
Her eyes dropped. She felt the hot blood mount to her face under the compelling magnetism of his gaze. She loved this man. In all the world no other could so move her. She loved--yet feared him. The very strength of him--the overmastering force of his personality--his barbaric disregard of conventionality at once attracted and frightened her.
In that moment she knew, deep down in her heart, that if this man should take her in his arms and hold her close against the throbbing of his great heart, his lips find hers, and should he pour into her ears the pent-up torrent of his love, her surrender would be complete.
His was the master mind, and in all the years to come that mind would rule, and she, the weaker one, would be forced under the yoke of its supremacy. She prayed for strength.
Let those who believe that once the living flesh has turned to clay the spirit dies, ascribe to a trick of memory the vision of her dying mother that flashed before the eyes of the girl, and the whispered words: "Look after Charlie as long as he shall need you."
But those there are who know that in that momentary vision spoke in faint memory-whispers the gentle spirit-mother, who--ranking high in that vast army which, in the words of the immortal Persian,
"Before us pa.s.sed the door of Darkness through,"
--would guide the footsteps of her loved ones.
Thus strength came and steeled the heart of one great little woman who battled alone against love for her right to rule and shape the destiny of lives. The momentary flush receded from her face, and when her eyes again sought the man"s, their glance was coldly repellent. She even forced a smile.
"Is it so amusing, then--my going?" he asked a little grimly.
"Yes, rather amusing to consider where a man would go and what he would do. A man, I mean, whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can "lick" most anybody, and can "drink more and stay soberer than any of the sports he travels with.""
The dull red flooded the man"s face at her words. Unconsciously he squared his shoulders and there was an unwonted dignity in his reply:
"I am well aware that my accomplishments are more in the nature of liabilities than a.s.sets. In spite of this I will make good--somewhere."
He stepped closer to the girl, and his voice grew harsh, almost rasping in its intensity. "I _can_ beat the game. And I will beat it--now! Just to show you and your kind what a _man_ can do--a man, I mean," he added, ""whose sole recommendation seems to be that he can lick most anybody--and can drink more and stay soberer than any of the sports he travels with." Incidentally, I am glad to know your real opinion of me.
I once believed that you were different from the others--that in you I had found a woman who possessed a real soul."
He laughed, a short, grating laugh--deep down, as though rude fingers drew a protest from raw heart-strings--a laugh that is not good to hear.
"I even thought," he went on, "that you cared for me--a little. That you were the one woman who, at the last of things, would give a man a helping hand, a little word of encouragement and hope, perhaps, instead of the final kick."
He bowed stiffly and turned toward the door. "Good-by!" he said, and the heavy portieres closed behind him.
In the room the girl, white as marble, heard the click of the front door, the roar of a newly cranked motor, and the dying _chug, chug_ of the retreating taxi.
That afternoon Charlie Manton rode alone, and when he returned, hungry as a young wolf, to be told that his sister had retired with a sick headache, he drew his own conclusions, nodding sagely over his solitary dinner.
Later, as he pa.s.sed her door on the way to his room, he placed his ear at the keyhole and listened a long time to her half-m.u.f.fled sobs.