The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
because I have borrowed five thousand dollars from you. Oh, Dicky, I
thought you were more of a gentleman?”
“Mrs. Kilgour, I have simply got to make you understand what I have done
for you before you'll wake up and do something for me.”
“I appreciate what you did, Dicky. Honestly, I do. You save me from
losing money on my stocks.”
“Where are those stocks?”
She did not look at him. “I have them put away--all safe. They are all
right. Just as soon as business is better I will get your money for you,
Dicky. You shall have it, every cent.”
“Where are those stocks, I say! Mrs. Kilgour, look at me. Were are
they?”
“Why are you so particular about knowing where they are?” Protecting
herself, she showed a flicker of resentment.
“Because you must sell and hand me that money--at once.”
“I--I don't believe I can realize on them just now. They are--are down
just at present. They--”
“What are the stocks?”
“I don't care to reveal my private business, Richard.”
“It happens to be my business, too. I'm in trouble. I must know. I shall
stay here till I find out. You may as well come across.”
“As soon as I can arrange it--I will tell you. Very soon now!”
He snapped himself out of his chair and went across the room to her. He
put his hands on her shoulders and bent his face to hers.
“You haven't any stocks, Mrs. Kilgour.”
“No,” she whispered, his eyes dominating her.
“What did you do with that money I loaned you?”
“I paid--a debt.”
“What debt? Answer! This thing must be cleared up--_now_!”
She began to weep.
“No more hysterics, Mrs. Kilgour. We are now down to cases. Something
bad will happen if you don't confide in me.”
Then, cornered, with the impulse of weak natures to seek support from
stronger--to appeal to a victor who cannot be eluded--she blurted the
truth.
“They got to suspecting me when I was cashier for Dalton & Company. I
heard they were going to put experts upon my books, Dicky. I didn't want
to go to jail. I would have disgraced Kate. I knew you loved her and
would not want her mother to be arrested. I had to have that money.
I told you the story about the stocks. So I was saved from being
disgraced.”
“Oh, you were?” His eyes flamed so furiously that she turned her gaze
from him.
“And now I feel better, for I have confided in you and you're going
to be my good and true friend from now on. It will be made up to you,
Dicky.”
“What had you done with all that money you took from Dalton & Company?”
“It costs so much to live--and keep up the position I had when Andrew
was alive! A woman needs so many things, Richard. I have always been
proud. I was obliged to--”
He swore and swung away from her. “Wasted it on dress and jewelry! You
turned the trick on one man and put him underground. And I'm the next
victim! I knew I was being played for a sucker, but, oh--”
He battered his fists against the wall in pure ecstasy of rage. Then he
sat down and put his face in his hands.
The woman clucked sobs which did not ring true.
“I wonder what Kate would say if she knew how I had come to the scratch.
She knew her father was a hero. I wonder whether she would think I am
one!” he said, after silence had continued for a long time.
“Are you going to tell her?” the mother gasped.
“I love her too much. But, see here! Do you think I picked that five
thousand off a rose-bush?”
“You told me your uncle loaned it to you.”
“You think I got it easy--got it for the asking, and that's why you have
been loafing on the job,” he said, with bitterness. “Ask my uncle for
money? I should say not. He never loosened for anybody yet--not even his
relatives. Mrs. Kilgour, I love your daughter so much--I was so anxious
to help you--I stole that five thousand from the state treasury. I have
been covering it in my accounts for more than a year--hell all the time
with plenty of white-hot when the legislative committee has been over
the accounts. Some day some blasted fool will wake up enough to see that
there's a hole in my figures.”
He put his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet. The woman's
face grew white.
“That's how it stands with me, Mrs. Kilgour. You know you were not
square with me at the start. You said you needed the money for only a
few weeks--you said you were pinched in a stock deal. You lied to me.
You have wasted the money on fine feathers for your back. I have kept
still. You can't pay me. I've got to struggle out of the mess as best
I can. But, by the eternal gods, there's something coming to me, and
that's your daughter. Now are you going to wake up?”
“I'll do everything I can.” Her tone was not convincing, however.
He realized that this woman with the pulpy conscience and the artificial
emotions, selfish and a coward, was merely vaguely stirred by his
revelation, not spurred by the extent of his sacrifice in her behalf.
“Do what you _can_? Whine to me like that after I have stolen state's
money and am standing under my steal? What if this state tips over
politically and they investigate the treasury? I tell you, Mrs. Kilgour,
I deserve to have Kate. I'm going to have her. You have got to fix
it--and right away.”
“But I can't marry off a girl of twenty as if she were a Chinese slave.”
His insistence caused her to display more of her pettish resentment.
“If you can't deliver the goods, Mrs. Kilgour, I shall take a hand in
it.”
“How?”
“I'll tell her the story.”
“You wouldn't dare.”
“She has a sense of honor and of obligation even if you haven't. She
will pay. She'll pay with herself. That's a devil of a way to get a
wife, but if that's the only way I'll take it.”
“But you have just owned up that you have embezzled money. As Kate's
mother it's my duty to protect her from disgrace.”
That amazing declaration fairly took away Dodd's breath.
By the manner in which the woman now looked at him it was plain that he
had sunk in her estimation.
“You know, Richard, a mother feels called on to protect a good
daughter.”
He got up and stamped on the floor in his passion and swore.
“I appreciate what you did for me--but, really, I didn't ask you to
steal money--and I supposed your uncle was always liberal with you. You
should not have told me falsehoods.”
The maddening feature of this calm assumption of superiority was the
fact that the woman seemed really to believe for the moment exactly what
she was saying and to forget why Dodd had jeopardized his fortunes; her
manner showed her shallow estimate of the situation.
“There's another way of doing it,” raged the young man, infuriated by
this repudiation of obligation. “I'll blow the whole thing about the two
of us--and she'll be glad enough to have me after it's all over.”
“You haven't any right to bring all this trouble and disgrace into my
family.”
“You know one way of preventing it and you'd better get busy, Mrs.
Kilgour,” he advised. “I'm going to give you another chance of keeping
your word and paying your debt to me. I want Kate--and I have waited for
her long enough.”
He clapped on his hat and hurried away.
He left the mother sprawled on a couch, her ringed hands clutched
into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have
convinced any unprejudiced hearer that she felt real grief.
When Richard Dodd entered his uncle's offices in the First National
block a little later he was in the mood to force his affairs a bit. He
enjoyed liberties there which the ordinary caller did not have and he
walked into Kate Kilgour's little room without attracting attention or
comment.
“I know exactly how you feel about last night, Kate.” He addressed her
respectfully and humbly. “I understand that this is no place to discuss
the matter. I haven't come here to do so. I apologize for the affair.
I'm going to say this to you--I took your mother's advice. She planned
the thing and trumped up the errand which called you to that house. I'm
afraid she is rather too romantic. I only say this, Kate: a man's love
can make him do foolish things. Please talk with your mother when you go
home--and take her advice. If you do, it will be better for all of us.”
He trembled with the restraint he had put upon himself. “You can see
that I have been punished, Kate. I am a different man--you ought to be
able to see it. Awful trouble has come to me. I need your love to help
me through it.”
She gazed at him with level, cold eyes.
“You don't understand. I can't explain, dear! But I'm telling you the
truth. Kate, if you don't forget that folly I was guilty of last night
and be to me what you have been--if you don't marry me very soon you
will be sorry.”
“Are you threatening me, Richard?”
“No, I didn't mean it to sound like that. But I know that with your
appreciation of what sacrifice means you will be very unhappy if you
toss me away and then find out certain things.”
“This is not the time for riddles, Richard. What do you mean?”
“I have said all I can say.”
“I do not love you well enough to be your wife. I have not meant to
play the coquette. I have not known myself. You and my mother--Oh, why
rehearse? You know the story. You have understood that my love for
you was not what you should have. We may as well end it here and now,
Richard. I will forget last night. I will forget all the rest--for it is
ended!”
“It cannot be ended,” he retorted. “Understand! It cannot be ended. I am
trying to hold myself together, Kate. Don't provoke me. I call on you
to keep your promise. No other man shall have you.” He leaned close. “Do
you love any other man?”
She looked up at him and spoke slowly and gravely. “I do not think I do,
Richard.”
He scowled at her. “You don't _think_ you do! What in the name of Judas
do you mean by a remark like that?”
“It's because I'm trying to tell the truth,” she returned, with simple
earnestness.
“This is a sort of new mood you're in?” he persisted.
“Yes.”
He hesitated. He started to speak and then was silent for a long time.
“Damnation! I won't insult you!” he blurted at last.
“I hope not, Richard.”
“It's preposterous!”
“What is preposterous?” Her tone was calm.
“I saw you look at a man last evening.”
“Very well!”
“I have seen women look at me like that in my life.”
“I was not conscious that I looked at any man in any especial manner.”
“You couldn't see yourself. Perhaps you did not realize that you looked
at that man with any meaning in your eyes. But the women who looked
at me as you looked at him told me that they loved me. I am talking
it right out! But if I should hint that you're in love with a tramp I
should insult you. I am crazy, that's all. My troubles are affecting my
mind. Forgive me, Kate.”
“You are, of course, referring to the young man who broke in on our
prospective business last evening.” There was just a touch of contempt
in her demeanor; but her air was coldly business-like; sitting there
at her desk she held him, physically and mentally, at arm's-length. Her
poise was sure. It seemed perfectly natural for her to be discussing a
young man in an impersonal manner.
“I am referring to that low-lived vagrant we met on the road--that
iceman--that--well, I don't know what he is except that the devil
seems to be kicking him under my feet to trip me. Kate, Kate, it's too
ridiculous to talk about--that wretch!”
“Do you mean by that remark that I am taking any interest in that young
man outside of mere curiosity?”
“I don't know why you should have any curiosity about a tramp.”
“You are not a good student of physiognomy, Richard.”
“So you have been studying him, have you? You went away with him and
left me. What did he say to you? Where did he leave you? I haven't dared
to think about your going away with him. I excused it because you were