"Are you--are you engaged to him, Pen?" gasped her mother.
"Judging by my feelings, I should say not. I feel as if it was a last will and testament. But you"d better ask him when he comes."
"I can"t bear to look at him."
"I guess he"s used to that. He don"t seem to expect to be looked at.
Well! we"re all just where we started. I wonder how long it will keep up."
Mrs. Lapham reported to her husband when he came home at night--he had left his business to go and meet her, and then, after a desolate dinner at the house, had returned to the office again--that Penelope was fully as bad as Irene. "And she don"t know how to work it off. Irene keeps doing; but Pen just sits in her room and mopes. She don"t even read.
I went up this afternoon to scold her about the state the house was in--you can see that Irene"s away by the perfect mess; but when I saw her through the crack of the door I hadn"t the heart. She sat there with her hands in her lap, just staring. And, my goodness! she JUMPED so when she saw me; and then she fell back, and began to laugh, and said she, "I thought it was my ghost, mother!" I felt as if I should give way."
Lapham listened jadedly, and answered far from the point. "I guess I"ve got to start out there pretty soon, Persis."
"How soon?"
"Well, to-morrow morning."
Mrs. Lapham sat silent. Then, "All right," she said. "I"ll get you ready."
"I shall run up to Lapham for Irene, and then I"ll push on through Canada. I can get there about as quick."
"Is it anything you can tell me about, Silas?"
"Yes," said Lapham. "But it"s a long story, and I guess you"ve got your hands pretty full as it is. I"ve been throwing good money after bad,--the usual way,--and now I"ve got to see if I can save the pieces."
After a moment Mrs. Lapham asked, "Is it--Rogers?"
"It"s Rogers."
"I didn"t want you should get in any deeper with him."
"No. You didn"t want I should press him either; and I had to do one or the other. And so I got in deeper."
"Silas," said his wife, "I"m afraid I made you!"
"It"s all right, Persis, as far forth as that goes. I was glad to make it up with him--I jumped at the chance. I guess Rogers saw that he had a soft thing in me, and he"s worked it for all it was worth. But it"ll all come out right in the end."
Lapham said this as if he did not care to talk any more about it. He added casually, "Pretty near everybody but the fellows that owe ME seem to expect me to do a cash business, all of a sudden."
"Do you mean that you"ve got payments to make, and that people are not paying YOU?"
Lapham winced a little. "Something like that," he said, and he lighted a cigar. "But when I tell you it"s all right, I mean it, Persis. I ain"t going to let the gra.s.s grow under my feet, though,--especially while Rogers digs the ground away from the roots."
"What are you going to do?"
"If it has to come to that, I"m going to squeeze him." Lapham"s countenance lighted up with greater joy than had yet visited it since the day they had driven out to Brookline. "Milton K. Rogers is a rascal, if you want to know; or else all the signs fail. But I guess he"ll find he"s got his come-uppance." Lapham shut his lips so that the short, reddish-grey beard stuck straight out on them.
"What"s he done?"
"What"s he done? Well, now, I"ll tell you what he"s done, Persis, since you think Rogers is such a saint, and that I used him so badly in getting him out of the business. He"s been dabbling in every sort of fool thing you can lay your tongue to,--wild-cat stocks, patent-rights, land speculations, oil claims,--till he"s run through about everything.
But he did have a big milling property out on the line of the P. Y. & X.,--saw-mills and grist-mills and lands,--and for the last eight years he"s been doing a land-office business with "em--business that would have made anybody else rich. But you can"t make Milton K. Rogers rich, any more than you can fat a hide-bound colt. It ain"t in him. He"d run through Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Tom Scott rolled into one in less than six months, give him a chance, and come out and want to borrow money of you. Well, he won"t borrow any more money of ME; and if he thinks I don"t know as much about that milling property as he does he"s mistaken. I"ve taken his mills, but I guess I"ve got the inside track; Bill"s kept me posted; and now I"m going out there to see how I can unload; and I shan"t mind a great deal if Rogers is under the load when it"s off once."
"I don"t understand you, Silas."
"Why, it"s just this. The Great Lacustrine & Polar Railroad has leased the P. Y. & X. for ninety-nine years,--bought it, practically,--and it"s going to build car-works right by those mills, and it may want them. And Milton K. Rogers knew it when he turned "em in on me."
"Well, if the road wants them, don"t that make the mills valuable? You can get what you ask for them!"
"Can I? The P. Y. & X. is the only road that runs within fifty miles of the mills, and you can"t get a foot of lumber nor a pound of flour to market any other way. As long as he had a little local road like the P. Y. & X. to deal with, Rogers could manage; but when it come to a big through line like the G. L. & P., he couldn"t stand any chance at all.
If such a road as that took a fancy to his mills, do you think it would pay what he asked? No, sir! He would take what the road offered, or else the road would tell him to carry his flour and lumber to market himself."
"And do you suppose he knew the G. L. & P. wanted the mills when he turned them in on you?" asked Mrs. Lapham aghast, and falling helplessly into his alphabetical parlance.
The Colonel laughed scoffingly. "Well, when Milton K. Rogers don"t know which side his bread"s b.u.t.tered on! I don"t understand," he added thoughtfully, "how he"s always letting it fall on the b.u.t.tered side.
But such a man as that is sure to have a screw loose in him somewhere."
Mrs. Lapham sat discomfited. All that she could say was, "Well, I want you should ask yourself whether Rogers would ever have gone wrong, or got into these ways of his, if it hadn"t been for your forcing him out of the business when you did. I want you should think whether you"re not responsible for everything he"s done since."
"You go and get that bag of mine ready," said Lapham sullenly. "I guess I can take care of myself. And Milton K. Rogers too," he added.
That evening Corey spent the time after dinner in his own room, with restless excursions to the library, where his mother sat with his father and sisters, and showed no signs of leaving them. At last, in coming down, he encountered her on the stairs, going up. They both stopped consciously.
"I would like to speak with you, mother. I have been waiting to see you alone."
"Come to my room," she said.
"I have a feeling that you know what I want to say," he began there.
She looked up at him where he stood by the chimney-piece, and tried to put a cheerful note into her questioning "Yes?"
"Yes; and I have a feeling that you won"t like it--that you won"t approve of it. I wish you did--I wish you could!"
"I"m used to liking and approving everything you do, Tom. If I don"t like this at once, I shall try to like it--you know that--for your sake, whatever it is."
"I"d better be short," he said, with a quick sigh. "It"s about Miss Lapham." He hastened to add, "I hope it isn"t surprising to you. I"d have told you before, if I could."
"No, it isn"t surprising. I was afraid--I suspected something of the kind."
They were both silent in a painful silence.
"Well, mother?" he asked at last.
"If it"s something you"ve quite made up mind to----"
"It is!"
"And if you"ve already spoken to her----"
"I had to do that first, of course."