Daphne Deane (13 page)

So she stole from her bed into the hall, shutting the door carefully behind her, and went to the telephone, answering, "Yes?" in a tone that would have intimidated almost any mere telephone operator.

She caught the words "Western Union" and pricked up her ears.

"Yes," she said under her breath. "Yes, this is his home. I'll take the message."

She made them repeat it until she had written down every word, and then she studied it under the hall light a full minute until she had memorized it and figured out just about what it might mean to William Knox in the light of that threat in the early evening. Then she marched into the bedroom, thrust up the light like a banner, and stood over the snoring William, a gaunt figure in a high-necked nightgown and crimping pins, the severe lines of her face unsoftened by even her plain daytime garb.

"William!" she said, shaking him firmly with one hand while she held the paper containing her notes in the other. "Here's a telegram!
Telegram!
Do you hear?" she shouted in his good ear.

And William turned over and said: "Eh? What? A telegram?"

"Yes, I said a telegram! And now what do you think? You certainly have got yourself in one nice mess if ever! What was it that Gowney man said to you about responsibility? Well, you've got it now, all right, and I expect this is going to ruin us at last. I've always told you you would do it, with your everlasting softness, always trying to accommodate everybody, even though you knew it couldn't be done. And now you've got your comeuppance!"

"Now, now Martha!" deprecated William Knox. "Suppose you stop getting excited and just let me understand what you're talking about. Where is this telegram you're speaking about? Who brought it?"

"Brought it? Brought it!" sniffed Martha. "As if a telegram had to be brought in these days! We've got a telephone, haven't we? I took it, of course."

"But why didn't you call me, Martha? The wire was for me, wasn't it? You should have called me. Business calls should always be given to me."

"Yes? Well, do you want me to try to wake you up in time to take a message when it might have been somebody had died or something, and you snoring like the seven sleepers?"

"Well, then, Martha, where is this telegram? Who is it from? Are you going to tell me, or shall I call up Western Union and get them to give it over again?"

William Knox arose with all the dignity he could muster in his plaid pajamas.

"Well, it's from that Morrell man. He said he doesn't
want
to sell his house, and I heard you tell that Gowney bum that he might take possession tonight!
Now
, if you haven't got yourself in a jam, then my name's not Martha Knox."

William came over to his irate wife, took the paper she was holding, and walked downstairs to his desk in the living room to study it. Martha followed him with questions, getting little satisfaction from him, whereupon she took to giving advice.

"If you ask
me
," she volunteered, sitting halfway up the stairs with her nightgown wrapped around her feet, "I'd say you better get that young sprig on the telephone at once and tell him it's too late. You found you had already sold the house before he got here, or something like that. Or else I'd get my clothes on and go out and rout up that bum of a Gowney and tell him he
can't have
the house! You better take along whatever it was he gave you and tell him you've been thinking it over and you don't feel right about accepting it. If it's money, I'd better go along. It isn't safe for you to go out so late with money alone, and I don't trust that Gowney anyway. If you'd asked
me
--"

"Well, but I
didn't
ask you, Martha! This is
my
affair. Will you let me handle it?"

"No, William," firmly, "I know my duty. You've got yourself in a jam, and much as I disapprove I'll stand by you. I'm going with you if you are going out."

"Martha Knox, will you go back to your bed and try to get some sleep? This is my jam, isn't it? And I'll get out of it somehow. Now,
go
!"

Eventually, after she had said her say, Martha went because she knew she had faithfully said all there was to say. But William sat up till almost dawn trying to figure his way out of the affair. Then, when he found his head going around in circles, he succumbed to sleep on the living room couch and was snoring away serenely when Martha came down to get breakfast ready in the morning.

But over in the cellar of the old Morrell house, with cellar windows well draped in burlap to keep the light from sifting through, strange things were going on.

"William!" said Martha Knox, standing over him severely. "Did you call up that young Morrell on the telephone last night?"

"Well, no, Martha. I didn't want to upset him last night after a long journey."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"You just leave that to me, Martha," said William. "I've got the matter all thought out. You leave it to me."

"Yes, leave it to you, and who'll you leave it to?" said Martha angrily as she slammed out to the kitchen. "
Such works!
A man with no backbone and no common sense! Always getting into a jam!"

She waited until William had eaten a hearty breakfast before she mentioned it again.

"Well, aren't you going to call New York now? It would have been a lot cheaper to have called him in the night, but I suppose you figure since he's paying the expenses it doesn't matter. I don't call that being exactly honest, but at least you ought to call him now."

William cast a withering glance at the clock.

"I didn't want to call him at his apartment. It's better to do business at his office."

"Well, it's after nine o'clock, isn't it? He's surely there by this time. I do wish you'd get busy. You make me nervous as a cat."

"Well, you see, Martha, I'm a businessman, and I know business ways. It's never good to disturb a man the first thing when he gets to the office. There's the morning mail that has to be attended to, and he can't be interrupted."

"Fiddlesticks!" said Martha. "What mail will that young sprig have to attend to, except letters from girls and invitations? Have a little sense, William, and go to that telephone at once!"

But William stuck it out until ten o'clock before he gave in to the haggling, the truth being that he couldn't quite decide just how to handle this important matter so that he would not lose his own share in the transaction. At last, unready though he was for the important conversation, he was driven to it.

But by this time Keith Morrell was off to Boston.

It hadn't been in his scheme of things at all to take another journey, especially to Boston. But when he arrived at the office he found, instead of his regular routine work of drawing plans and making front elevations, that he had to pack a suitcase hurriedly and take the train in half an hour. The member of the firm who would naturally have gone on such an assignment had been taken suddenly ill.

"You'll have to go, Morrell," said Sawyer. "It needs somebody who thoroughly understands the plans. All instructions are in this envelope. I had them written out last night after you telephoned you would be in the office this morning. These people don't understand about the extra expense involved in making those changes they wanted. I think you can make it plain to them. I would have sent Hendrickson, only he has not had anything to do with this contract, and I was afraid he wouldn't understand."

So Keith had been hurried away and surprisingly found himself removed for the time being from any necessity of meeting Anne.

Now Anne had written him a note inviting him to the shore for the weekend and promising him a good time in her most caressing manner, not even mentioning their differences of opinion. She had sent the letter to the office, that it might reach him sooner, and it had arrived while he was in Rosedale. But in the hurry of getting him off, the office clerk had forgotten to give him his mail, so he did not have that on his mind, either. As the office had provided him with plenty to do in the way of preparing for the coming interview in Boston, perhaps it was just as well.

So he sat in his Pullman chair with a table before him and papers spread over it, figuring away, drawing an outline now and again, making notes of the different points he must present. He realized that this was an important commission he had been given, and he wanted to make good. It might help him to rise more quickly than he had hoped.

There is nothing like a lot of good hard work to make a young man forget girls, even sweet, practical girls who know how to work and can bring to mind long-forgotten prayers. Perhaps Keith had a realization of this as he put aside all other thoughts and worked away mile after mile. He was having his chance now, a small chance at least, and he was going to make the most of it and do this thing well.

His work in Boston was interesting, going over matters step by step with the firm who were giving the contract, figuring and redrawing and figuring again, telephoning back and forth for instructions, and returning at last, feeling that he had succeeded in what he had been sent out to do. It was somebody's fault of course that he didn't get Anne's letter at once, even the morning he reached New York again. It didn't get to his attention until late in the afternoon, after a day of good, hard work that had given him a sense of satisfaction and an added self-respect. He frowned as he read the letter, studied the date, and realized that it was this very evening for which she had invited him, hoping that the weekend could begin Friday night instead of Saturday. The last train for the shore would leave in just three-quarters of an hour.

He was in no mood to be so easily placated. He had been working too hard and doing too well for the last few days to have an inferiority complex. He didn't care to let Anne patch things up lightly without an apology for her disagreeable imperiousness. She needn't think she could recall him as easily as that, with just a smile and the snap of her pretty little fingers. She wasn't to play fast and loose with him any longer.

Besides, there was a full morning's work waiting for his attention tomorrow, maybe longer than a morning's work, even if it was Saturday. He didn't intend to suggest to the office that he take a half-day off at this important stage of the game. Rather he would stay all the afternoon and work Saturday every hour and minute it contained than give the impression that he was an idler who was only hanging around for a holiday.

He shut his lips firmly, gave a perplexed minute or two to thought, and then almost haughtily went to the telephone booth.

He told himself that he didn't care whether he got Anne or not. Just as well if she wasn't there. He would leave a message for her if he couldn't get her, and let things come out as they would. She would probably be furious at him for not replying sooner, but she might as well understand now as later that he was a working man and couldn't sit around and await her pleasure, nor dance to her piping all day long.

But Anne was there. She had not gone far from the telephone these last few days. She had almost been afraid that this new man-fancy of hers had more character than she supposed and perhaps was really angry now. She answered at once, breathlessly, with that little pleased rising inflection she knew so well how to assume at times.

Still a bit haughty, he explained that he had been in Boston on business and had not received her note until a few minutes ago and that he was sorry but it would be utterly impossible for him to run down to the shore this evening. He was having to work hard all day Saturday.

"Oh, Keith--!" There was disappointment and a caress in her tone that soothed his ego. She had known they would. Yet his voice was still curt as he explained that he was a working man.

She did not dispute that as he had expected she would; instead she put on her sweetest voice and coaxed, insinuating that her heart was breaking for a glimpse of him, although she didn't say so in so many words, and that he had been away a very long time.

At last he relented so far as to promise to run down Saturday evening. Yes, he would come in time for dinner
if he could
. But he wasn't at all sure he could remain more than the evening.

She had to be satisfied with that.

He hung up feeling that he had at last scored a point with her. She had not once been imperious nor resentful. Perhaps it had been a good thing that he went away as finally as he had gone. Perhaps it had made her realize that he was a man with a will and character of his own and not a piece of putty that she could mold to her will. And perhaps when she came to realize that, it might bring her to a sweeter, more reasonable attitude, to the kind of attitude a right-minded girl should have toward her lover's life plans. He told himself that he had always hoped that perhaps she would one day put aside her spoiled, selfish ways and prove to have a soul beneath the surface as lovely as her face, and that if he had not had that hope he would never have allowed himself to become as close to her as he had. It had been only in the solemn night watches when they were not on good terms that he had owned to himself that she was selfish and spoiled and probably never would change.

But now, as he hung up the receiver, he set his lips firmly. He wasn't going to let her pull the wool over his eyes any longer. Either she would give in and be reasonable and look at things as he did, or else he was done, and he meant that she should understand that from now on. He would go down to dinner tomorrow night, this once, and see how things were, and he would be very careful not to let her compelling mood melt his resolve. He would take precautions with himself, put on a sort of life preserver of moral fiber. Perhaps--he paused in startled wonder at the thought as he opened the door of the telephone booth--perhaps he might even pray about it before he went! Would that do any good? Could he expect a neglected God to take any interest in a thing like that? Of course, though, prayer might at least have a reflex influence upon him, even if God were not listening. He had heard a wise and learned speaker say once that the only good in prayer was its reflex influence on the person who prayed. Well, if even that were all, at least he might try it. But he had a strong feeling that there was really more to it than that, and if he was going back to prayer as his mother had taught him, he must at least have some faith in it.