Joan and Co.
“He’s at home,” replied Dicky. “He’s going to stay at home for a while.”
“Can I see him at the house?”
“No,” said Dicky.
“But look here—this is serious. I spoke of twenty-five thousand. It
looks now as though we might have to raise four times that.”
“Eh?”
“We’ve got to buy that new process, no matter what it costs. If we
don’t we’ll be put out of business in six months.”
Dicky passed his hand over his forehead.
“That so?”
“I’ve got to talk it over with your father, I tell you. Every day we
wait is going to make it harder.”
“A hundred thousand dollars, you said?”
“Perhaps more. The point is, we’ve got to have it.”
“Look here, Forsythe,” began Dicky, “that’s a lot of money under the
present circumstances.”
“The present circumstances?” inquired Forsythe.
“The fact is, dad has got in kind of bad on the market.”
“Good God!” choked Forsythe.
“I’m going to see his lawyer as soon as I can get away, but, to speak
frankly, it looks bad. Your friend Toole led him into deep water.”
“You mean—”
“It will take about all he has to square himself. I haven’t been able
to go into details with him yet, but I guess there isn’t much doubt
he’ll have to scrape together every cent he can raise in and out of the
business.”
“He—he’s bankrupt?”
“Practically.”
“Then he’ll drag us all down!”
Dicky resented the tone of his voice.
“Whom do you mean by all of us?”
“You and me and—why, he was a damn fool!”
“Look here, Forsythe!”
“I mean it,” Forsythe ran on wildly. “If he had held off another week—”
“I’d cut out that kind of talk if I were you.”
“I backed him with every cent I had in the world. I have a right to
talk. I—”
But at this point Dicky quite unceremoniously hung up the receiver.
There was not much use in talking over the telephone to a man in his
condition. And to tell the truth, he was not in the slightest sorry
for him. He had never liked the man. The way he wore his hair was
against him, and his friends Toole and the others were against him.
CHAPTER XXXI
DISCHARGED
As soon as Forsythe went out, Joan closed the door and stood with her
back against it facing Devons.
“Now,” she said, “can’t we forget the whole incident and go on with our
work?”
Devons looked up at her. He was breathing a little rapidly and his face
was flushed.
“It isn’t right for you to be mixed up in such miserable affairs,” he
answered.
She smiled a little.
“I didn’t mind,” she assured him. “It was rather exciting. It was a
little bit like a play, wasn’t it?”
“With you as the heroine,” he said. “You fought him single-handed and
won. Only—don’t you see I can’t let you take the risk again?”
“I don’t think he will come back again.”
“Not Forsythe, perhaps, but there are others. The city is full of
them—of men and women eager to give an evil turn to situations of this
sort. I didn’t think of it until Forsythe opened my eyes. I can thank
him for that much. You see, Joan,—you don’t belong down here. That’s
the truth and every one knows it.”
“Mark!” she cried.
“You’re a Fairburne,” he ran on. “Your mother reminded me of that once,
and it didn’t mean very much then. We from the West are apt to laugh at
names. We’re apt to scorn them, because out there a lot of us haven’t
names that mean very much. But here it’s different. New York isn’t the
West, after all. And a name like yours gives you certain privileges and
demands certain obligations. It’s sort of a sacred thing to be guarded.
And a man—if he thinks a great deal, a very great deal of the woman
back of the name—has to shoulder those obligations. Joan—don’t you
understand?”
He had stepped closer to her. His eyes were on fire.
“This doesn’t sound like you,” she answered.
“Because,” he went on breathlessly,—“because I’m saying things now
I’ve fought back for weeks—fought back because I had no right to say
them. But this last hour has changed everything. You have been so
magnificent—so wonderful, Joan. I was ready to sell out to Forsythe—to
take the little he would give me, cancel my debts, and go back home
with my share of what was left. It was all I could do to save you from
the danger I’d led you into. That meant leaving you and forgetting you.
I had steeled myself to that. Then you came, and made that unnecessary.
You gave me another chance. For now, with Forsythe out of the way,
it’s going to be easy. You saw how badly he wanted this. He’d have
committed murder, I think, to get my process. That means it is going
to sweep everything before it. A few months more of hard work and the
business will be doubled, trebled—there is no end to it. That’s what I
see ahead of me—a fortune and then, perhaps—you.”
He seized her hand.
“You mustn’t,” she protested.
But he could not be stopped now.
“You,” he repeated. “I love you, Joan. Day after day I’ve fought
against it, knowing that I wasn’t worthy of you. ’Way back in those
days at your house, I knew. I dared love you then when I wasn’t
anything but a penniless outcast. The beauty and gentleness and grace
of you crept into my soul. I lay there while you read and marveled at
you. And I gripped my jaws and swore that if I got my strength back I’d
go out into the world and win for you the things you deserved.”
“Please!” she broke in.
The words hurt her. They were almost the same words Dicky had used.
They sent her thoughts back to those few moments at Delmonico’s when he
had leaned over the table and spoken. She had answered him that she was
starting on a great adventure. So she had, and now—
“That’s what I swore,” he continued, “and that’s what I mean to do.
It’s almost within my grasp now, if you’ll wait just a little while
longer, Joan. You’ll do that?”
His eyes were burning into her. She turned her head to escape them. She
felt the power and the earnestness of them, but they only frightened
her.
“For—for what?” she asked hopelessly.
“Until I have a right to go to your father and claim you. Until I can
give you all the things I’ve dreamed of giving you. It sounds wild to
you? But I know now what I have here. Not New York City alone, but the
whole State—the whole Nation—shall bring me tribute so that I can lay
at your feet the treasures of the world. I’ll have ships sailing to
India for you and other ships sailing to the land of pearls for you.
They’ll come back laden with presents for you. Ah, Joan—wait a little
while for me.”
And all the answer she made was this:
“Then you don’t need me here any more?”
“No, thank God. The drudgery will soon be over. But the typewriter
there in the corner—” He smiled. “I shall put that away. I shall buy a
new one for Miss Manning and keep the other sacred.”
“She’s to take my place?”
“I’ve engaged her to take over the bookkeeping and the correspondence.
There will be a great deal of it soon.”
“So—”
“So you’re to remain safe at home.”
He raised her fingers to his hot lips. Then he threw back his shoulders
and faced her with the pride of a conqueror. It was like this that Miss
Manning saw him as she opened the door and came in.
Joan went back to the house as she was bidden—went back with so much
of the joy gone out of her that when she came in to lunch, much to her
mother’s surprise, the latter appeared distinctly worried.
“My dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairburne; “I trust nothing serious has
occurred.”
She spoke as though she were in a frame of mind to expect most anything
to happen.
Joan smiled weakly.
“To all intents and purposes I’ve been discharged, Mother,” she replied.
“You are not going down to—to that place any more?”
“No. I’m not wanted.”
“Then I shall be forced to admit that I am under a certain obligation
to Devons,” declared the mother.
“How?” inquired Joan.
“For having sense enough to appreciate the fact that you were entirely
out of place there.”
“But you don’t understand. If I had made myself essential, this
wouldn’t have happened. He—he has found some one to do the work
better—for a few dollars a week. To fail isn’t anything to be proud of,
is it?”
“It’s something to be thankful for if it keeps you at home,” replied
Mrs. Fairburne.
Joan lowered her head. “I’m ashamed,” she said. “Thoroughly ashamed.”
For a moment the mother studied her in amazement. It was evident the
girl was sincere. That was quite the most peculiar feature. In some
way her daughter was hurt—humiliated. In the end she gave up trying to
explain it and crossed to her side.
“There,” she attempted to comfort. “This has been from the first an
unfortunate incident, but if it has ended as well as it has, let us be
thankful.”
“I tried—I tried so hard.”
“Yes, dear.”
“And I was doing better every day.”
“Yes, dear.”
“If he had given me another month—”
It was the mother heart which spoke now.
“Cry a little, dear,” she urged. “Then it will be easier to forget.”
So Joan cried a little, though in the end she smiled through her tears
at her foolishness.
CHAPTER XXXII
GOLF
It was the office boy who found Forsythe. When the lad came in that
morning to perform his usual tasks he saw the man in his chair leaning
forward with his head on his desk as though asleep. He tiptoed about
his work in order not to wake him. And then—in passing closer to the
desk—he saw something crimson like red ink spattered over the papers
upon which the head rested. Then he saw the clasped hand and the
revolver.
Holding his breath, as though more than ever anxious now not to awaken
the man, he stole out. In the corridor he began to lift his voice in a
panic.
“He’s shot himself!” he cried.
Dicky answered the telephone that rang wildly that morning at seven,
and at the news said quietly:
“Notify the police. Don’t ring up here again. I’ll be right down.”
He was out of the house fifteen minutes later and at the office at
half-past seven. Already the officers were there, but after feeling of
the cold dead pulse they ordered the man left where he was until the
coroner arrived. Dicky took one look at him—at the stiff figure and
the brushed-back hair and went on to his father’s office. He sat down
in the old swivel chair and called up Wentworth, his father’s lawyer.
He got the man out of bed.
“I wish you could come down right away,” he said. “There’s the devil to
pay all round.”
“But, my dear fellow,” protested Wentworth, “a couple of hours from now
will do quite as well.”
“Oh, come on,” pleaded Dicky. “I’m all hollow in the pit of me.”
“Then I’d suggest a good breakfast.”
“Come on, will you?” shouted Dicky. “There’s a dead man here and I
don’t know what’s coming next.”
He hung up the receiver without further identifying the dead man, which
perhaps is what brought Wentworth down there within an hour. But he
was needed to answer the thousand questions the reporters put, if for
no other reason. And after that, when things were cleaned up a little
and the two were alone, Dicky in his father’s old swivel chair and
Wentworth opposite him, the lawyer began to go to the heart of the
matter.
“Tell me all you know,” he demanded.
Dicky told him, but, everything considered, it was not much.
“I guess dad has been cleaned out all right enough,” concluded Dicky.
“But this Forsythe—where does he come in?” inquired Wentworth.
“He owned some stock in the company,” answered Dicky. “He was all
worked up trying to put through a deal to acquire a new process which
he thought was going to put us out of business. When I told him what
had happened to dad he seemed pretty well worried, but—Holy Smoke! I
didn’t think it would lead to anything like this.”
“Perhaps there was something else,” suggested Wentworth.
“Not that I know of.”