It was a mellow room, in which the bindings of long rows of books, mostly purchased by Grandpa Thorley in "sets," an admirable white-marble chimney=piece in a Georgian style, and a few English eighteenth-century prints added by Archie Masterman himself, disguised the heavy architectural taste of the sixties. Grandpa Thorley had built the house at the close of the Civil War, the end of that struggle having found him--for reasons he was never eager to explain--a far richer man than its beginning. He had built the house, not on his own old farm, which was already being absorbed into the suburban portion of the city, but on a ten-acre plot in County Street, which, with its rich bordering fields, its overarching elms, and its lofty sites, was revealing itself even then as the predestined quarter of the wealthy. So long as there had been no wealthy, County Street had been only a village highway; but the social developments following on the Civil War had required a Faubourg St.-Germain.
In this house Miss Louisa Thorley had grown up and been wooed by Archie Masterman. It had been the wooing of a very plain girl by a good-looking lad, and had received a shock when Grandpa Thorley suspected other motives than love to account for the young man"s ardor. Her suitor being forbidden the house, Miss Thorley had no resource but to meet him in the city on the 7th of March, 1880, and go with him to a convenient parsonage. Thor was born on the 10th of February of the year following.
Two days later the young mother died.
Grandpa Thorley himself held out for another ten years, when his will revealed the fact that he had taken every precaution to keep Archie Masterman from profiting by a penny of the Thorley money. So strict were the provisions of this doc.u.ment that on the father was thrown the entire cost of bringing up and educating Louisa Thorley"s son.
But Archie Masterman was patient. He took a lease of the Thorley house when Darling & Darling as executors put it in the market, and paid all the rent it was worth. Moreover, there had never been a moment in Thor"s life when he had been made to feel that his maintenance was a burden unjustly thrown on one who could ill afford to bear it. For this consideration the son had been grateful ever since he knew its character, and was now eager to make due return.
For the minute he was moving restlessly about the room, not knowing what to say. From the way in which his father, who was comfortably stretched in an arm-chair before the fire, dropped the evening paper to the floor, while he puffed silently at his cigar, Thor knew that he was expected to give some account of the interview between himself and the trustee that afternoon. Any father might reasonably look for such a confidence, while the conditions of affectionate intimacy in which the Masterman family lived made it a matter of course.
The son was still marching up and down the room, smoking cigarettes rapidly and throwing the b.u.t.ts into the fire, when he had completed his summary of the information received in his two meetings with the executor.
The father had neither interrupted nor asked questions, but he spoke at last. "What did you say was the approximate value of the whole estate?"
Thor told him.
"And of the income?"
Thor repeated that also.
"Criminal."
Thor stopped dead for an instant, but resumed his march. He had stopped in surprise, but he went on again so as to give the impression of not having heard the last observation.
"It"s criminal," the father explained, with repressed indignation, "that money should bring in so trifling a return."
"He said it was very conservatively invested."
"It"s d.a.m.ned idiotically invested. Such incompetence deserves an even stronger term. If my own money didn"t earn more for me than that--well, I"m afraid you wouldn"t have seen Vienna and Berlin."
The remark gave Thor an opening he was glad to seize. "I know that, father. I know how much you"ve spent for me, and how generous you"ve always been, with Claude to provide for, too; and now that I"m to have enough of my own I want to repay you every--"
"Don"t hurt me, my boy. You surely don"t think I"d take compensation for bringing up my own son. It"s not in the least what I"m driving at. I simply mean that now that the whole thing is coming into your own hands you"ll probably want to do better with it than has been done heretofore."
Thor said nothing. There was a long silence before his father went on:
"Even if you didn"t want _me_ to have anything to do with it, I could put you in touch with people who"d give you excellent advice."
Thor paced softly, as if afraid to make his footfalls heard. Something within him seemed frozen, paralyzed. He was incapable of a response.
"Of course," the father continued, gently, with his engaging lisp, "I can quite understand that you shouldn"t want me to have anything to do with it. The new generation is often distrustful of the old."
Thor beat his brains for something to say that would meet the courtesies of the occasion without committing him; but his whole being had grown dumb. He would have been less humiliated if his father had pleaded with him outright.
"And yet I haven"t done so badly," Masterman continued, with pathos in his voice. "I had very little to begin with. When I first went into old Toogood"s office I had nothing at all. I made my way by thrift, foresight, and integrity. I think I can say as much as that. Your grandfather Thorley was unjust to me; but I"ve never resented it, not by a syllable."
It was a relief to Thor to be able to say with some heartiness, "I know that, father."
"Not that I didn"t have some difficult situations to face on account of it. When the Toogood executors withdrew the old man"s money it would have gone hard with me if I hadn"t been able to--to"--Thor paused in his walk, waiting for what was coming--"if I hadn"t been able to command confidence in other directions," the father finished, quietly.
Thor hastened to divert the conversation from his own affairs. "Mr.
Willoughby put his money in then, didn"t he?"
"That was one thing," Masterman admitted, coldly.
Thor could speak the more daringly because his march up and down kept him behind his father"s back. "And now, I understand, you think of dropping him."
"I shouldn"t be dropping him. That"s not the way to put it. He drops himself--automatically." The clock on the mantelpiece ticked a few times before he added, "I can"t go on supporting him."
"Do you mean that he"s used up all the capital he put in?"
"That"s what it comes to. He"s spent enormous sums. At times it"s been near to crippling me. But I can"t keep it up. He"s got to go. Besides, the big, drunken oaf is a disgrace to me. I can"t afford to be a.s.sociated with him any longer."
Thor came round to the fireplace, where he stood on the hearth-rug, his arm on the mantelpiece. "But, father, what"ll he do?"
"Surely that"s his own lookout. Bessie"s got money still. I didn"t get all of it, by any means."
"No; but if you"ve got most of it--"
Masterman shot out of his seat. "Take care, Thor. I object to your way of expressing yourself. It"s offensive."
"I only mean, father, that if Mr. Willoughby saved the business--"
"He didn"t do anything of the kind," Masterman said, sharply. "No one knows better than he that I never wanted him at all."
But Thor ventured to speak up. "Didn"t you tell mother one night in Paris, when we were there in 1892, that his money might as well come to you as go to the deuce? Mother said she hated business and didn"t want to have anything to do with it. She hoped you"d let the Willoughbys and their money alone. Didn"t that happen, father?"
If Thor was expecting his father to blanch and betray a guilty mind, he was both disappointed and relieved. "Possibly. I"ve no recollection. I was looking for some one to enter the business. He wasn"t my ideal, the Lord knows; and yet I might have said something about it--carelessly.
Why do you ask?"
The son tried to infuse his words with a special intensity as, looking straight into his father"s eyes, he said, "Because I--I remember the way things happened at the time."
"Indeed? And may I ask what your memories lead you to infer? They"ve clearly led you to infer something."
During the seconds in which father and son scrutinized each other Thor felt himself backing down with a sort of spiritual cowardice. He didn"t want to accuse his father. He shrank from the knowledge that would have justified him in doing so. To express himself with as little stress as possible, he said, "They lead me to infer that we"ve some moral responsibility toward Mr. Willoughby."
"Really? That"s very interesting. Now, I should have said that if I"d ever had any I"d richly worked it off." It was perhaps to glide away from the points already raised that he asked: "Aren"t you a little hasty in looking for moral responsibility? Let me see! Who was it the last time? Old Fay, wasn"t it?"
Thor flushed, but he accepted the diversion. He even welcomed it. Such glimpses as he got of his father"s mind appalled him. For the present, at any rate, he would force no issue that would verify his suspicions and compel him to act upon them. Better the doubt. Better to believe that Willoughby had been a spendthrift. He would have no difficulty as to that, had it not been for those d.o.g.g.i.ng memories of the little hotel in the rue de Rivoli.
Besides, as he said to himself, he had his own ax to grind. He endeavored, therefore, to take the reference to Fay jocosely. "That reminds me," he smiled, though the smile might have been a trifle nervous, "that if you don"t want to renew Fay"s lease when it falls in, I wish you"d make it over to me." Disconcerted by the look of amazement his words called up, he hastened to add: "I"d take it on any terms you please. You"ve only got to name them."
Masterman backed away to the large oblong library table strewn with papers and magazines. He seemed to need it for support. His tones were those of a man amazed to the point of awe. "What in the name of Heaven do you want that for?"
Thor steadied his nerve by lighting a cigarette. "To give me a footing in the village. I"m going into politics."
"O Lord!"