"How much do I owe you?" he asked, unrolling the bills. "It comes out of me," he said. Marriott was disappointed in this haggling appeal, not for his own sake, but for Gibbs's; it detracted from the romantic figure he had idealized for the man, just as Gibbs's intoxication had done.
Marriott hesitated in the usual difficulty of appraising professional services, but when, presently, he rather uncertainly fixed his fee, Gibbs counted out the amount and gave it to him. Marriott took the money, with a wonder as to where it had come from, what its history was; he imagined in a flash a long train of such transactions as McDougall must be too familiar with, of such deeds as had been involved in the hearing before the commissioner, of other transactions, intricate, remote, involved, confused in morals--and he thrust the bills into his pocket.
"It comes out of me," Gibbs explained again. "They hadn't any fall money."
"Have you heard from them?" asked Marriott, who did not know what fall money was, and wished to change the subject.
"No," said Gibbs, shaking his head. "I'm going out to the trial. I'll take along that newspaper guy and some witnesses for the others. I'll get 'em a mouthpiece. Maybe we can spring 'em."
But, as Marriott learned several days later, Gibbs could not spring them. He went to the trial with an entourage of miserable witnesses, but he did not take Wales, for Wales's newspaper would not give him leave of absence, and there was no process to compel his attendance.
But Kouka and Quinn went, and they gave Gibbs such a reputation that his testimony was impeached. He could not, of course, take Dean. Dean's business, like McDougall's, was unfortunately of such a nature that it did not stand investigation, and he did not make the best witness in the world. Mason and Dillon and Mandell and Squeak were sentenced to the penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth for five years. At about the same time Archie Koerner pleaded guilty to stealing the revolver and was sentenced to prison for a year.
Marriott left at last for his vacation, but he could not forget Mason taking his unjust fate so calmly and philosophically. He had great pity for him, just as he had for Archie, though one was innocent and the other guilty. He had pity for Dillon, too, and, yes, for Mandell and Squeak. He thought of it all, trying to find some solution, but there was no solution. It was but one more knot in the tangle of injustice man has made of his attempts to do justice; a tangle that Marriott could not unravel, nor any one, then or ever.
X
Like most of the great houses along Claybourne Avenue, the dwelling of the Wards wore an air of loneliness and desolation all that summer.
With Mrs. Ward and Elizabeth in Europe, the reason for maintaining the establishment ceased to be; and the servants were given holidays.
Barker was about for a while each day looking after things, and Gusta came to set the house in order. But these transient presences could not give the place its wonted life; the curtains were down, the furniture stood about in linen covers, the pictures were draped in white cloth.
At evening a light showed in the library, where Ward sat alone, smoking, trying to read, and, as midnight drew on, starting now and then at the strange, unaccountable sounds that are a part of the phenomena of the stillness of an empty house. He would look up from his book, listen, wait, sigh, listen again, finally give up, go to bed, worry a while, fall asleep, be glad when morning came and he could lose himself for another day in work. Dick never came in till long after midnight, and Ward seldom saw him, save on those few mornings when the boy was up early enough to take breakfast with him at the club. Such mornings made the whole day happy for Ward.
But the few hours she spent each day in the empty house were happy hours for Gusta Koerner. She was not, of course, a girl in whom feeling could become thought, or sensation find the relief of expression; she belonged to the class that because it is dumb seems not to suffer, but she had a sense of change in the atmosphere. She missed Elizabeth, she missed the others, she missed the familiar figures that once had made the place all it had been to her. But she loved it, nevertheless, and if it seemed to hold no new experiences for her, there were old experiences to be lived over again.
At first the loneliness and the emptiness frightened her, but she grew accustomed; she no longer started at the mysterious creakings and tappings in the untenanted rooms, and each morning, after her work was done, she lingered, and wandered idly about, looked at herself in the mirrors, gazed out of the windows into Claybourne Avenue, sometimes peeped into the books she could so little understand.
Occasionally she would have chats with Barker, but she did not often see him; he was always busy in the stables. Ward and Dick were gone before she got there. But the peace and quiet of the deserted mansion were grateful, and Gusta found there a sense of rest and escape that for a long time she had not known. She found this sense of escape all the more grateful after Archie's trouble. He had not been at home in a long time, and they had heard nothing of him; then, one evening she learned of his latest trouble in those avid chroniclers of trouble, the newspapers. Her father, who would not permit the mention of his son's name, nevertheless plainly had him on his mind, for he grew more than ever gloomy, morose and irritable. And then, to make matters worse, one Saturday evening Charlie Peltzer threw it up to Gusta, and they parted in anger. On Sunday afternoon she went to see Archie at the jail, and stayed so late that it was twilight before she got to the Wards'. She had never had the blues so badly before; her quarrel with Peltzer, her father's scolding, her mother's sighs and furtive tears, her own visit to the prison, all combined to depress her, and now, in the late and lonesome Sunday afternoon she did her work hurriedly, and was just about to let herself out of the door when it opened suddenly, and Dick Ward, bolting in, ran directly against her.
"Hello! Beg pardon--is that you, 'Gusta?" he said.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, leaning against the wall, "you scared me!"
Dick laughed.
"Well, that's too bad; I had no idea," he said.
She had raised her clasped hands to her chin, and still kept the shrinking attitude of her fright. Dick looked at her, prettier than ever in her sudden alarm, and on an impulse he seized her hands.
"Don't be scared," he said. "I wouldn't frighten you for the world."
She was overwhelmed with weakness and confusion. She shrank against the wall and turned her head aside; her heart was beating rapidly.
"I--I'm late to-day," she said. "I ought to have been here this morning."
"I'm glad you weren't," said Dick, looking at her with glowing eyes.
"I must hurry"---she tried to slip away. "I--must be going home, it's getting late; you--you must let me go."
She scarcely knew what she was saying; she spoke with averted face, her cheeks hot and flaming. He gazed at her steadily a moment; then he said:
"Never mind. I'll take you home in my machine. May I?"
She looked at him in wonderment. What did he mean? Was he in earnest?
"May I?" he pressed her hands for emphasis, and gazed into her eyes irresistibly.
"Yes," she said, "if you'll--let me--go now."
Suddenly he kissed her on the lips; there was a rustle, a struggle, he kissed her again, then released her, left her trembling there in the hall, and bounded up the stairs.
"Wait a minute!" he called. "I came home to get something. You'll wait?"
Gusta was dazed, her mind was in a whirl, she felt utterly powerless; but instinctively she slipped through the door and out on to the veranda. The air reassured and restored her. She felt that she should run away, and yet, there was Dick's automobile in the driveway; she had never been in an automobile, and-- She thought of Charlie Peltzer--well, it would serve him right. And then, before she could decide, Dick was beside her.
"Jump in," he said, glancing up and down the avenue, now dusky in the twilight. They went swiftly away in the automobile, but they did not go straight to Bolt Street--they took a long, roundabout course that ended, after all, too suddenly. The night was warm and Gusta was lifted above all her cares; she had a sensation as of flying through the soft air.
Dick stopped the machine half a block from the house, and Gusta got out, excited from her swift, reckless ride. But, troubled as she was, she felt that she ought to thank Dick. He only laughed and said:
"We'll go again for a longer ride. What do you say to to-morrow night?"
She hesitated, tried to decide against him, and before she could decide, consented.
"Don't forget," he said, "to-morrow evening." He leaned over and whispered to her. He was shoving a lever forward and the automobile was starting.
"Don't forget," he said, and then he was gone and Gusta stood looking at the vanishing lights of the machine. Just then Charlie Peltzer stepped out of the shadows.
"So!" he said, looking angrily into her face. "So that's it, is it?
Oh--I saw you!"
"Go away!" she said.
He snatched at her, caught her by the wrist.
"Go away, is it?" he exclaimed fiercely. "I've caught you this time!"
"Let me alone!"
"Yes, I will! Oh, yes, I'll let you alone! And him, too; I'll fix him!"
"Let me go, I tell you!" she cried, trying to escape. "Let me go!" She succeeded presently in wrenching her wrist out of his grasp. "You hurt me!" She clasped the wrist he had almost crushed. "I hate you! I don't want anything more to do with you!"
She left him standing there in the gloom. She hurried on; it was but a few steps to the door.
"Gusta!" he called. "Gusta! Wait!"
But she hurried on.