Thor asked the question on sitting down to table. His father looked at his mother, who replied, with some self-consciousness:
"He"s--he"s gone West."
"West? Where?"
"To Chicago first, isn"t it, Archie?"
Masterman admitted that it was to Chicago first, and to the Pacific coast afterward. Thor"s dismay was such that Lois looked at him in surprise. "Why, Thor? What difference can it make to you? Claude"s able to travel alone, isn"t he?"
The efforts made by both his parents to carry off the matter lightly convinced Thor that there was more in Claude"s departure than either business or pleasure would explain. Before Lois, who was not yet in the family secret, he could ask no questions; but it seemed to him that both his father and his mother had uneasiness written in their faces. He could hardly eat. He bolted his food only to put Lois off the scent. The old tumult in his soul which he was seeking every means to still was beginning to break out again. If it should prove that he had given up Rosie Fay to Claude, and that, with his parents" connivance, Claude was trying to abandon her, then, by G.o.d....
But he caught Lois"s eye. She was watching him, not so much in disquietude as with faint amus.e.m.e.nt. It seemed odd to her that Claude"s going away for a holiday should vex him so. Poor Lois! He was already afraid on her account--afraid that if Rosie Fay were left deserted--free!--and a temptation he couldn"t resist were to come to him!--Lois would be the one to suffer most.
By the middle of the afternoon, when his father had gone off in one direction and Lois in another, he found an opportunity for the word with his stepmother which he had hung about the house to get.
"There"s nothing behind this, is there?"
She averted her head. "How do I know, Thor? _I_ had nothing to do with it. All I know is just what happened. Claude came rushing home last Wednesday, and said he had to go right off to Chicago on business. I helped him pack--and he went."
"Why didn"t any one tell me?"
"Well, you haven"t been at the house. And it didn"t seem important enough--"
"But it is important, isn"t it? Doesn"t father think so?"
She tried to look at him frankly. "Your father doesn"t know any more about it than I know--and that"s nothing at all. Claude came to him and said--but I really oughtn"t to tell you, Thor. Your father would be annoyed with me."
"Then it"s something that"s got to be kept from me."
"N-no; not exactly. It"s only poor Claude"s secret. We didn"t try to wring it from him because--Oh, Thor, I wish you would let things take their course. I"m sure it would be best."
"Best to let Claude be a scoundrel?"
"Oh, he couldn"t be that. I want to be just to that girl, but we both know that there are queer things about her. There"s that man who"s giving her money--and dear knows what there may be besides. And so if they _have_ quarreled--"
But Thor rushed away. Having learned all he needed to know on that side, he must hear what was to be said on the other. He had hoped never again to be brought face to face with Rosie till she was his brother"s wife.
That condition would have dug such a gulf between them that even nature would be changed. But if she was not to be Claude"s wife--if Claude was becoming a brute to her--then she must see that at least she had a friend.
His heart was so hot within him as he climbed the hill that he forgot that Lois would probably be there before him. As a matter of fact, she was talking to Fay in a corner of the yard, standing in the shade of a great magnolia that was a pyramid of bloom. All around it the ground was strewn in a circle with its dead-white petals, each with its flush of red. Near the house there were yellow clumps of forsythia, while the hedge of bridal-veil to the south of the gra.s.s-plot seemed to have just received a fall of snow.
Fay confronted him as, slackening his pace, he went toward them; but Lois turned only at his approach. Her expression was troubled.
"Thor, I wish you"d explain to me what Mr. Fay is saying. He doesn"t want me to see Rosie."
"Why, what"s up?"
Fay"s expression told him that something serious was up, for it was ashen. It had grown old and sunken, and the eyes had changed their starry vagueness to a dulled animosity.
"There"s this much up, Dr. Thor," Fay said, in that tone of his which was at once mild and hostile, "that I don"t want any Masterman to have anything to do with me or mine."
Thor tried to control the sharpness of his cry. "Why not?"
"You ought to know why not, Dr. Thor. And if you don"t, you"ve only to look at my little girl. Oh, why couldn"t you leave her alone?"
Lois spoke anxiously. "Is anything the matter with her?"
"Only that you"ve killed her between you."
Thor allowed Lois to question him. "Why, what _can_ you mean?"
"Just what I say, ma"am--that she"s done for."
Lois grew impatient. "But I don"t understand. Done for--how?" She turned to her husband. "Oh, Thor, do see her and find out what"s the matter."
"No, ma"am," Fay said, firmly. "He"s seen her once too often as it is."
Lois repeated the words. ""Once too often as it is"! What does that mean?"
"Better ask _him_, ma"am."
"It"s no use asking me," Thor declared, "for I"ve not the slightest idea of what you"re driving at."
"Oh, I know you can play the innocent, Dr. Thor; but it"s no use keeping up the game. You took me in at first; you took me in right along. You were going to be a friend to me!--and buy the place!--and keep me in it to work it!--and every sort of palaver like that!--when you was only after my little girl."
Thor was dumb. It was Lois who protested. "Oh, Mr. Fay, how can you say such things? It"s wicked."
"It may be wicked, all right, ma"am; but ask _him_ how I can say them.
All I know is what I"ve seen. If you was going to marry this lady," he went on, turning again to Thor, "why couldn"t you have kept away from my little girl? You didn"t do yourself any good, and you did her a lot of harm."
It was to come to Thor"s aid as he stood speechless that Lois said, soothingly: "But I had nothing to do with that, Mr. Fay. I never wanted anything of Rosie but to be her friend."
"You, ma"am? You"re all of a piece. You"re all Mastermans together. What had you to do with being a friend to her?--getting her to call!--and have tea!--and putting notions into her head! The rich and the poor can"t be friends any longer. If the poor think they can, the more fool they! We"ve _been_ fools in my family, thinking because we were Americans we had rights. There"s no rights any more, except the right of the strong to trample on the weak--till some one tramples on _them_. And some one always does. There"s that. We"re down to-day, but you"ll be down to-morrow. Don"t forget it, ma"am. America has that kind of justice when it hasn"t any other--that it makes everybody take their turn. It"s ours now; but you"ll get yours as sure as life is life."
Lois looked at Thor. "Can you make out what he means?"
"I can make out that he"s very much mistaken--"
"Mistaken, Dr. Thor? I don"t see how you can say that. I wasn"t mistaken the night I saw you creeping into that hothouse over there, where you knew my little girl was at work. I wasn"t mistaken when I saw you creep away. Still less was I mistaken when I stole in after you had gone, and found her with her arms on the desk, and her head bowed down on them, and she crying fit to kill herself. That was just a few days before she heard you was going to marry this lady--and she"s never been the same child since. Always troubled--always something on her mind. Not once since that night have you darkened these doors, though you"d had a patient here. Have you, now?"
"I didn"t come," Thor stammered, "because Dr. Hilary had done all that was necessary for Mrs. Fay, and--and I"ve been away."
"But if you didn"t come," Fay went on, with the mildness that was more forcible than wrath, "some one else did. You"d left a good subst.i.tute.
He"s finished the work that you began. He was here with her an hour last Wednesday morning--just after I"d warned him off for good and all."
Thor started. "Let me go to her."
But Fay stood in his way. "No, sir. To see you would be the finishing touch. She can"t hear your name without a shiver going through her from head to foot. We"ve tried it on her. Between the two of you--your brother and you--it"s you she"s most afraid of." There was silence for a second, while he turned his gray face first to the one and then to the other of his two listeners. "Why couldn"t you all have let her be? What were you after? What have you got out of it? _I_ can"t see."