"What kind is he?"
"Oh, he's a swell lobster."
"They tell me he's strong."
"He's the limit."
Her eyes lighted up suddenly and she sat upright.
"Then I'll go see him!"
"Jane!" Gibbs exclaimed with as much feeling as he ever showed. He saw by the flashes of her eyes that her mind was working rapidly, though he could not follow the quick and surprising turns her intentions would take. He had a sudden vision, however, of her sitting in Eades's office, talking to him, passing herself off, doubtless, for the respectable and devoted wife of Jackson; he knew how easily she could impose on Eades; he knew how Eades would be impressed by a woman who wore the good clothes Jane knew how to wear so well, and he felt, too, that in his utter ignorance of the world from which Jane came, in his utter ignorance of life in general, Eades would believe anything she told him; and becoming thus prejudiced in the very beginning, make untold work for him to do in order to save his friend.
"Jane," he said severely, "you let him alone; you hear?"
She had risen and was drawing on her gloves. She stood there an instant, smiling as if her new notion pleased her, while she pressed down the fingers of her glove on her left hand. Then she said pleasantly:
"Good-by, Dan. Give my love to Kate."
And she turned and was gone.
XXIV
Elizabeth had heard her father enter and she imagined him sitting in the library, musing by the fire, finding a tired man's comfort in that quiet little hour before dinner. Sensitive as ever to atmospheres, Elizabeth felt the coziness of the hour, and looked forward to dinner with pleasure. For days she had been under the gloom of Archie's conviction; she had never followed a murder case before, but she had special reason for an interest in this. She had helped Marriott all she could by wishing for his success; she had felt his failure as a blow, and this, with the thought of Gusta, had caused her inexpressible depression. But by an effort she had put these thoughts from her mind, and now in her youth, her health, her wholesomeness, the effect of so much sorrow and despair was leaving her. She had finished her toilet, which, answering her mood, was bright that evening, when she heard Dick enter. Half the time of late he had not come home at all, sometimes days went by without her seeing him. She glanced at the little watch on her dressing-table; it was not yet six and Dick was home in time for dinner; perhaps he would spend the evening at home. She hoped he had not come to dress for some engagement that would take him away. Her father, she knew, would be happy in the thought of the boy's spending an evening with him; almost pathetic in his happiness. Of late, more and more, as she noted, the father had yearned toward the son; the lightest word, a look, a smile from Dick was sufficient to make him glow with pleasure. It made Elizabeth sad to see it, and it made her angry to see how her mother fondled and caressed him, excusing him for, if not abetting him in, all his excesses. But these thoughts were interrupted just then by Dick's voice. He was in the hall outside, and he spoke her name:
"Bess!"
The tone of the voice struck her oddly. He had pushed open the door and hesitated on the threshold, peering in cautiously. Then he entered and carefully closed the door behind him. She scented the odor of Scotch whisky, of cigarettes, in short, the odor of the club man. His face, which she had thought ruddy with the health, the exuberance, the inexhaustible vitality of youth, she saw now to be really unhealthy, its ruddy tints but the flush of his dissipations. Now, his face went white suddenly, as if a mask had been snatched from it; she saw the weakness and sensuousness that marred it.
"Dick!" she said, for some reason speaking in a whisper. "What's the matter? Tell me!"
At first a great fear came to her, a fear that he was intoxicated. She knew by intuition that Dick must frequently have been intoxicated; but she had never seen him so, and she dreaded it; she could have borne anything better than that, she felt. He sank on to the edge of her bed and sat there, rocking miserably to and fro, his overcoat bundled about him, his hat toppling on the side of his head, a figure of utter demoralization.
"Dick!" she said, going to him, "what is it? Tell me!"
She took him by the shoulders and gave him a little shake. He continued to rock back and forth and to moan;
"Oh, my God!" he said presently. "What am I going to do!"
Elizabeth gathered herself for one of those ordeals which, in all families, there is one stronger than the rest to meet and deal with.
"Here, sit up." She shook him. "Sit up and tell me what ails you."
The fear that he was intoxicated had left her, and there was relief in this. "And take off your hat." She seized the hat from his head and laid it on the little mahogany stand beside her bed. "If you knew how ridiculous you look!"
He sat up at this and weakly began drawing off his gloves. When he had them off, he drew them through his hand, slapped them in his palm, and then with a weary sigh, said:
"Well, I'm ruined!"
"Oh, don't be dramatic!" She was herself now. "Tell me what scrape you're in, and we'll see how to get you out of it." She was quite composed. She drew up a chair for him and one for herself. Some silly escapade, no doubt, she thought, which in his weakness he was half glad to make the most of. He had removed his overcoat and taken the chair she had placed for him. Then he raised his face, and when she saw the expression, she felt the blood leave her cheeks; she knew that the trouble was real. She struggled an instant against a sickness that assailed her, and then, calming herself, prepared to meet it.
"Well?" she said.
"Bess," he began fearfully, and his head dropped again. "Bess"--his voice was very strange--"it's--the--bank."
She shivered as if a dead cold blast had struck her. In the moment before there had swept through her mind a thousand possibilities, but never this one. She closed her eyes. There was a sharp pain in her heart, exactly as if she had suddenly crushed a finger.
"The bank!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "Oh, Dick!"
He hung his head and began to moan again, and to rock back and forth, and then suddenly he leaned over, seized his head in his two hands and began to weep violently, like a child. Strangely enough, to her own surprise, she found herself calmly and coolly watching him. She could see the convulsive movements of his back as he sobbed; she could see his fingers viciously tearing at the roots of his hair. She sat and watched him; how long she did not know. Then she said:
"Don't cry, Dick; they'll hear you down-stairs."
He made an effort to control himself, and Elizabeth suddenly remembered that he had told her nothing at all.
"What do you mean," she asked, "by the bank?"
"I mean," he said without uncovering his face, and his hands muffled his words, "that I'm--into it."
Ah, yes! This was the dim, unposited thought, the numb, aching dread, the half-formed, unnamed, unadmitted fear that had lurked beneath the thought of all these months--underneath the father's thought and hers; this was what they had meant when they exchanged glances, when now and then with dread they approached the subject in obscure, mystic words, meaningless of themselves, yet pregnant with a dreadful and terrible import. And now--it had come!
"How much?" she forced herself to ask.
He nodded.
"It's big. Several--"
"What?"
"Hundreds."
"Hundreds?"
He hesitated, and then,
"Thousands," he said, tearing the word from him.
"How many thousands?" she asked, when she could find the courage.
Again he cowered before the truth. She grew impatient.
"Tell me!" she commanded. "Don't be a coward." He winced. "Sit up and face this thing and tell me. How many thousands have you stolen?"
She said it in a hard, cold voice. He suddenly looked up, his eyes flashed an instant. He saw his sister sitting there, her hands held calmly in her lap, her head inclined a little, her chin thrust out, her lips tightly compressed, and he could not meet her; he collapsed again, and she heard him say pitifully, "Don't use that word." Then he began to weep, and as he sobbed, he repeated:
"Oh, they'll send me to the penitentiary--the penitentiary--the penitentiary!"