Children of the Whirlwind
perhaps get sent away for a year or several years, during which we don't
take in a nickel. I figured that over a term of years my average income
was mighty small. As a business man it seemed to me that I was in a poor
business, with no future. So I decided to get into a new business that
had a future. That's the size of it.”
“You're turning yellow--that's the real size of it!” snarled Barney
Palmer, half starting toward him.
“Better be a little careful, Barney,” Larry warned with tightening jaw.
“You really mean, Larry,” demanded Old Jimmie, “that you're going to
drop us after us counting on you and waiting for you so long?”
“I'm sorry about having kept you waiting, Jimmie. But we've parted
definitely.” Then Larry added: “Unless you want to travel my road.”
“Your road! Never!” snapped Barney.
“And you, Jimmie?” Larry inquired, his eyes on Barney's inflamed face.
“I don't see your proposition. And I'm too old a bird to start something
new. No, thanks. I'll stick to what I know.”
His next words, showing his long yellow teeth, were spoken slowly, but
they were hard, and had a cutting edge. “You've got a sweet idea of
what's straight, Larry: dropping us without a leader, just when we need
a leader most.”
Larry's composed yet watchful gaze was still on Barney. “You're not
really left in such a bad way. Barney here is ready to take charge.”
“You bet I am!” Barney flamed at him, his hands clenching. “And the
bunch won't lose by the change, you bet! The bunch always thought you
were an ace--and I always knew you were a two-spot. And now they'll see
I was right--that you were always yellow!”
Larry still leaned against the safe in the same posture of seeming ease,
but he expected Barney to strike at any moment, and held himself in
readiness for a flashing fist. Barney had been hard to hold in leash in
the old days; now that all ties of partnership were broken, he saw in
those small gleaming eyes a defiance and a hatred that henceforth had
no reason for restraint. And he knew that Barney was shrewd, grimly
tenacious, and limitless in self-confidence and ambition.
“And listen to this, too, Larry Brainard,” Barney's temper carried him
on. “Don't you mix in and try any preaching on Maggie.” He half turned
his head jealously. “Maggie, don't you listen to any of this boob's
Salvation Army talk!”
Maggie did not at once respond, but stood gazing at the two confronting
figures. To her they were an oddly dissimilar pair: Barney in the
smartest clothes that an over-smart Broadway tailor could create, and
Larry in the shapeless garments that were the State's gift to him on
leaving prison.
“Maggie,” he repeated, “don't you listen to this boob's talk!”
“I'll do just as I please, Barney.”
“But you're going to come our way?” he demanded.
“Of course.”
He turned back to Larry. “You hear that? You leave Maggie alone!”
Larry did not answer, though his temper was rising. He looked over
Barney's head at Maggie's father.
“Jimmie,” he remarked in his same even voice, “anything more you'd like
to say?”
“I'm through.”
“Then,” said Larry, “better lead your new commander-in-chief out of
here, or I'll carry him out and spank him.”
“What's that?” snarled Barney.
“Get out!” Larry ordered, in a voice suddenly like steel.
Barney's fist swung viciously at Larry's head. It did not land, because
Larry's head was elsewhere. Larry did not take advantage of the opening
to strike back, but as the fist flashed by he seized the wrist, and
in the same instant he seized the other wrist. The next moment he held
Barney helpless in a twisting, torturing grip that he had learned from
one of his non-Christian friends at the Y.M.C.A.
“Barney--are you going to walk out, or shall I kick you out?”
Barney's answer came after a moment through gritted teeth: “I'll walk
out--but I'll get you for this!”
“I know you'll try, Barney. And I know you'll try to get me behind my
back.” Larry loosed his grip. “Good-night.”
Barney backed glowering to the door; and Old Jimmie, his gray face an
expressionless mask, silently followed him out.
All this while the Duchess had looked on, motionless in her corner, a
dingy, forgotten part of the dingy background--no more noticeable than
one of her own dusty, bizarre pledges.
CHAPTER VI
For a moment after the door had closed upon Barney and Old Jimmie, Larry
stood gazing at it. Then he turned to Maggie.
She was standing slenderly upright. Her head was imperiously high,
her black eyes defiant. Neither spoke at once. More than before was he
impressed by her present and her potential beauty. Till this night he
had thought of her only casually, as merely a young girl; he was not now
consciously in love with her--her young woman-hood had burst upon him
too suddenly for such a consciousness--but a warm tingling went through
him as he gazed at her imperious, self-confident youth. Part of his mind
was thinking much the same thought that Hunt had considered a few hours
earlier: here were the makings of a magnificent adventuress.
“Maggie,” he mused, “you didn't get your looks from your father. You
must have had a fine-looking mother.”
“I don't know--I never saw her,” she returned shortly.
“Poor kid,” Larry mused on--“and with only Old Jimmie for a father.” She
did not know what to say. For a long time she had dreamed of this man as
her hero; she had dreamed of splendid adventures with him in which she
should win his praise. And now--and now--
He switched to another subject.
“So you have decided to string along with your father and Barney?”
“I have.”
“Don't you do it, Maggie.”
“Don't you preach, Larry.”
“I'm not preaching. I'm just talking business to you. The same as I
talked business to myself. The crooked game is a poor business for a
woman who can do something else--and you can do something else. I've
known a lot of women in the crooked game. They've all had a rotten
finish, or are headed for one. So forget it, Maggie. There's more in the
straight game.”
She had swiftly come to feel herself stronger and wiser than her
ex-hero. In her tremendous pride and confidence of eighteen, she
regarded him almost with pitying condescension.
“Something's softened your brain, Larry. I know better. The people who
pretend to go straight are just fakes; they're playing a different kind
of a smooth game, that's all. Everybody is out to get his, and get it
the easiest and quickest way he can. You know that's so. And that's just
what I am going to do.”
Larry had once talked much the same way, but it seemed puzzlingly
strange just now to hear such talk from a young girl. Then he
understood.
“You couldn't help having such ideas, Maggie, living among crooks
ever since you were a kid. Why, Old Jimmie could not have used better
methods, or got better results, if he had set out consciously to make
you a crook.” Then a sudden possibility came to him. “D'you suppose he
could always have had that plan--to make you into a crook?” he asked.
“What difference does that make?” she demanded shortly.
“A funny thing for a father to do with his own child,” Larry returned.
“But whether Jimmie intended it or not, that's just what he's done.”
“What I am, I am,” she retorted with her imperious defiance. Just then
she felt that she hated him; she quivered with a desire to hurt him: he
had so utterly destroyed her romantic hero and her romantic dreams. Her
hands clenched.
“You talk about going straight--it's all rot!” she flamed at him. “A lot
of men say they're going straight, but no one ever does! And you won't
either!”
“You think I won't?”
“I know you won't! You don't know how to do any regular work. And,
besides, no one will give a crook a chance.”
She had unerringly placed her finger upon his two great problems, and
Larry knew it; he had considered them often enough.
“All the same, I'm going to make good!” he declared.
“Oh, no, you're not!”
Perhaps he was stirred chiefly by the sting of her taunting tongue,
by the blaze of her dark, disdainful eyes; and perhaps by the changed
feeling toward this creature whom he had left a half-grown girl and
returned to find a woman. At any rate, he crossed and seized her wrists
and gazed fiercely down upon her.
“I tell you, I'm going to go straight, and I'm going to make a success
of it! You'll see!” And then he added dominantly: “What's more, I'm
going to make you go straight, too!”
She made no attempt to free herself, but blazed up at him defiantly.
“You'll make me do nothing. I'm going to be just what I said, and I'm
going to make a success of it. Just wait--I'll prove to you what I can
do! And you--you'll be a failure, and will come slinking back and beg us
to take you in!”
They glared at each other silently, angrily, their aroused wills defying
each other. For a moment they stood so. Then something--a mixture of his
desire to dominate this defiant young thing and of that growing change
in him toward her--surged madly into Larry's head. He caught Maggie in
his arms and kissed her.
All the rigidity went suddenly from her figure and she hung loose in his
embrace. Their gazes held for a moment. She went pale, and quivering
all through she looked up at him in startled, wide-eyed silence. As
for Larry, a dizzying, throbbing emotion permeated his whole astonished
being.
Suddenly she pushed herself free from his relaxing arms, and backed away
from him.
“What did you do that for?” she whispered huskily.
But she did not wait for his answer. She turned and hurried for the
stairway. Three steps up she turned again and gazed down upon him. Her
cheeks were once more flushed and her dark eyes blazing.
“It's going to be just as I said!” she flung at him. “I'm going to
succeed--you're going to fail! You just wait and see!”
She turned and ran swiftly up the stairway and out of sight. Neither of
them had been aware that the Duchess, a drab figure merged into a drab
background, had regarded them fixedly during all this scene. And Larry
was still unconscious that the old eyes were now watching him with their
deep-set, expressionless fixity.
Motionless, Larry stood gazing at where Maggie had been. Within him was
tumult; he did not yet understand the significance of that impulsive
kiss... He began to walk the floor, his mind and will now more in
control. Yes, he was going to go straight; he was going to make good,
and make good in a big way! And he was going to make Maggie go straight,
too. He'd show her! It wasn't going to be easy, but he had his big plan
made, and he had determination, and he knew he'd win in the end. Yes,
he'd show her!...
Up before the mirror Maggie sat looking intently at herself. Part of
her consciousness was wondering about that kiss, and part kept fiercely
repeating that she'd show him--she'd show him--she'd show him!...
Looking thus into their futures they were both very certain of
themselves and of the roads which they were to travel.
CHAPTER VII
Larry was still gazing at where Maggie had stood, flashing her defiance
at him, when Hunt came thumping down the stairway.
“Hello, young fellow; what you been doing to Maggie?” demanded the
painter.
“Why?”
“Her door was open when I came by and I called to her. She didn't
answer, but, oh, what a look! What's in the air?”
And then Hunt noted the Duchess apart in her corner. “I say,
Duchess--what were Larry and Maggie rowing about?”
“Grandmother!” Larry exclaimed with a start. “I'd forgotten you were
here! You must have heard it all--go ahead and tell him.”
“Tell him yourself,” returned the Duchess.
Larry and Hunt took chairs, and Larry gave the gist of what he had said
about his decision to Barney and Old Jimmie and Maggie. The Duchess,