"No, Rose," and again Mr. Piper"s voice was stately. "This is my--difficulty. No matter how hard it may be."
"Of course I did not understand--how could I?--that Rose--was such a very good friend of your sister"s and all your family"s. Rose had told me something about it, I believe--but I was so--foolishly disturbed--when I came in--that really, I--well I must admit that even if I had seen you when I first came in that would hardly have been the thought uppermost in my mind at the time." He spoke in the same tone of kindly reproof toward himself that he would have used if business worries had made him commit a small but definite act of inhospitality toward one of his guests.
"And naturally--you will think me very ignorant indeed of my son"s affairs--and those of his friends--but while I had heard from Peter--of the breaking of your engagement--you will pardon me, I hope, if I touch upon a subject that must be so painful to you--I had no idea of the fact that you were--intending to leave the country--and knowing Rose thought that with her present position on "Mode"--" he paused.
"It was very kind indeed of Mrs. Severance to offer to do what she could for me," said Oliver non-committally. He thought he got the drift of the story now--a sheer one enough but with Mr. Piper"s present reaction toward abas.e.m.e.nt and his obvious wish to believe whatever he could, it had evidently sufficed.
"I know it was silly of me having Oliver to dinner here alone--" said Mrs. Severance with the air of one ready to apologize for a very minor impropriety. "Silly and wrong--but Louise was coming too until she telephoned about Jane Ellen"s little upset--and I thought we could have such fun getting supper together with Elizabeth away. I get a little tired of _always_ entertaining my friends in restaurants, Sargent, especially when I want to talk to them without having to shout. And _really_ I never _imagined_--"
She looked steadily at Mr. Piper and he seemed to shrink a little under her gaze.
"As for Elizabeth," he said with hurried vindictiveness, "Elizabeth shall leave tomorrow morning. She--"
"Oh, we might as well keep her, Sargent," said Mrs. Severance placidly.
"You will have to pay her blackmail, of course--but after all that"s really your fault a little, isn"t it?--and it seems as if that was more or less what you had to do with any kind of pa.s.sable servant nowadays.
And Elizabeth is perfection--as a servant. As police--" she smiled a little cruelly. "Well, we shan"t go into that, but I think it would be so much better to keep her. Then we"ll be getting something out of her in return for our blackmail, don"t you see?"
"Perhaps. Still we have no need of discussing that now. I can only say that if Elizabeth is to stay, she will have to--" "Reform? My dear Sargent! When everything she did was from the most rigidly moral motives? I had no idea she was such a _clever_ cat, though--"
"She will have ample opportunities of exercising her cleverness in jail if I can find any means of getting her there, and I think I can.
Really," said Mr. Piper reflectively, "really when I think--"
Then he stopped.
"But you"re still waiting for an--explanation--aren"t you, Oliver?"
"Having been very nearly a.s.sa.s.sinated because of Elizabeth"s abilities in telephone conversation, I should think he might very well be interested in knowing what is going to happen to her. However--"
"Yes," and Mr. Piper"s face became very sober. He looked at his gla.s.s as if he would be willing to resign the Presidency of the Commercial in its favor if it would only explain to Oliver for him.
"You were saying, Sargent?" said Mrs. Severance implacably.
"I was. Well, I," he began, and then "You," and stopped, and then he began again.
"I said that it would be--difficult--for me to explain matters to you fully, Oliver; I find it to be--even more difficult than I had supposed.
I--it is rather hard for a man of my age to defend his manner of life to one of your age, even when he himself is wholly convinced that that manner is not---unrighteous. And in this particular case, to one of his son"s best friends."
He twisted his fingers around the rim of his gla.s.s. Oliver started to speak but Mr. Piper put up his hand. "No--please--it will be so much easier if I finish what I have to say first," he said rather pleadingly.
"Well--the situation here between Rose and myself--must be plain to you now." Oliver nodded, he hoped in not too knowing a way. "Plain. How that situation arose--is another matter. And a matter that would take a good deal too long to tell. Except that, given the premises from which we set forth--what followed was perhaps as inevitable as most things are in life.
"That situation has been known to no other person on earth but ourselves--all these years. And now it is known. Well, Oliver, there you have it. And you happen to have us also--entirely in your hands. Because of a spying, greedy servant--and my own stupidity and distrust--we have been completely found out. And by one of my son"s best friends.
"I wish that I could apologize for--all the scene before this. Better.
I hope that you will believe that I am trying to do so now. But I seldom make apologies, Oliver, even when I am evidently in the wrong--and this hasn"t been one of my easiest to make. And now."
He sat back and waited, his fingers curled round his gla.s.s. And, as he looked at him, Oliver felt a little sickish, for, on the whole, he respected Mr. Piper a good deal more than his irreverent habit of mind permitted him to respect most older people, and at the same time felt pitifully sorry for him--it must be intensely humiliating to have to explain this way--and yet the only thing Oliver could do was to take the largest advantage possible of his very humiliation and straightforwardness--the truth could still do nothing at all but wreck everybody concerned.
"I give you my word of honor, Mr. Piper, to keep everything I know entirely and completely secret," said Oliver, slowly, trying to make the large words seem as little magniloquent as possible. "That"s all I can say, I guess--but it"s true--you can really depend on it."
"Thank you," said Mr. Piper quite simply. "I believe you, Oliver," and again Oliver felt that little burn of shame in his mind.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Severance, copying Mr. Piper finished his drink and rose. "And now, I do not wish you to misunderstand me," he said.
"I have not come to my age without realizing that there are certain services that cannot be paid for. But you have done me a very great service, Oliver--a service for which I should have been glad to give nearly everything material that I possess. I merely wish you to know that in case you should ever need--a.s.sistance--from an older man---in any way--that is clumsily put, but I can think of no other suitable word at the moment--I am entirely at your disposal. Entirely so."
"Thank you, sir," said Oliver a little stiffly. Mr. Piper was certainly heaping coals of fire. Then he wondered for an instant just what Mrs.
Ellicott would think if she could have heard the President of the Commercial say that to him--
Mr. Piper was moving slowly toward the door, and the politeness that had been his at the beginning of the conversation was nothing to his supreme politeness now.
"And now," he said, as if he were asking everybody"s pardon for an entirely unintentional intrusion, "I really must be getting back to Southampton--and you and Rose I imagine have still quite a bit to talk over--"
"But--" said Oliver clumsily, "but Mr. Piper--" and "Must you really, dear?" said Mrs. Severance in the softest tones of conventional wifely reproach.
Her manner was ideal but Oliver somehow and suddenly felt all the admiration he had ever had for her calm power blow away from him like smoke. He could not help extremest appreciation of her utter poise--he never would be able to, he supposed--but from now on it would be the somewhat shivery appreciation that anyone with sensitive nerves might give to the smooth mechanical efficiency of a perfectly-appointed electric-chair.
"No," said Mr. Piper perfectly, "I insist. You certainly could not have finished your discussion before I came and for the present--well--it seems to me that I have intruded quite long enough. I wish it," he added and Oliver understood.
"You are staying with us, over tomorrow, Oliver, are you not?" said Mr.
Piper calmly, and Oliver a.s.sented. "I suppose we shall see each other at breakfast then?"
"Oh yes, sir." And then Oliver tried to rise to Mr. Piper"s magnificence of conventionality in remark. "By the way, sir, I"m driving back in Peter"s car--as soon as Mrs. Severance and I have finished our talk--I couldn"t pick you up anywhere, sir, could I?"
Mr. Piper smiled, consulting his watch. "There is an excellent train at 10.33--an excellent one--" he said, and again Oliver was dumfounded to realize that the whole march of events in the apartment had taken scarcely two hours.
"Thank you, Oliver, but I think I had better take that. Not that I distrust your driving in the least, but it will be fairly slow going, I imagine, over some of those roads at night--and this was one evening on which I had really intended to get a good night"s sleep."
He smiled again very quaintly.
"You"ll be dancing as soon as you get back, I suppose? I understand there is to be a dance this evening?"
"Yes, sir--at least, I guess so. Told Peter I"d show up."
"Youth," said Mr. Piper. "Youth." There was a certain accent of dolefulness in the way he said it.
"And now I shall call a taxi," he said briskly.
"Can"t I take you down--?" Oliver began, but
"No, no. I insist," said Mr. Piper a little irritatedly, and then Oliver understood that though he might be quixotic on occasion, he was both human and--Oliver hesitated over the words, they seemed so odd to his youth to be using of a man who was certainly old enough to be his father--really in love with Mrs. Severance after all. So, until Mr.
Piper"s taxi came they chatted of indifferent matters much as they might have while watching people splashing about in the water from the porch of the swimming pool at Bar Harbor--and Oliver felt exceedingly in the way. These last dozen minutes were the hardest to get through of the whole evening, he thought rather dizzily; up till now he had almost forgotten about Ted, but it would be quite in keeping with everything else that had happened if just as Mr. Piper were leaving, a formal farewell on his lips and everything straightened out to everyone"s conspiratorial or generously befooled satisfaction, Ted should stagger into the room like the galvanized corpse of a Pharoah wrapped in towels instead of mummy-cloth and everything from revolver-shots to a baring of inmost heart-histories would have to be gone through with again.
So when Oliver heard the telephone ring again he knew it was too good to be true, and, even when Mr. Piper started to answer it, was struck chilly with a hopeless fear that it might be police. But Fate had obviously got a trifle bored of her sport with them, or very possibly tired out by the intricacy of her previous combinations--for it was only the taxi after all and Mr. Piper was at the door.
"No use saying good-by to you now, is there, Oliver?" he said quietly, but held out his hand nevertheless.
"Well, good-by, Rose," as he scrupulously shook hands with Mrs.
Severance.