The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
to drop in and see him. He told me to tell you so. This is no official
order, you understand. Just drop in informally, and he'll probably have
something interesting to say to you.”
“I'm terribly rushed up--shall be till after convention,” averred Mr.
Breed, piercing the end of a cigar with a peg he had whittled from a
match.
“What's the good of your being a fool any longer?”
“Always have been, so I've found out from that state committee who never
told a lie--and it's comfortable to keep on being one,” he said, with
great serenity.
“You don't think for a minute that you are going to get control of the
next legislature, do you?”
“How much money have you got--your own money, I mean?” inquired Mr.
Breed, guilelessly, his eyes centered carefully on the lighted tip of
his cigar.
“Say--you--you--What do you mean by that?” rasped Dodd, putting the
cracker of a good round oath on the question.
“I meant that I wanted to bet something--and I wouldn't want you to go
out and borrow money--or--or--anything else.” From the cavernous depths
where his eyes were set Mr. Breed turned a slow and solemn stare on the
enraged chief clerk of the state treasury.
“What do you want to bet?”
“Any amount in reason that after the first of next January there'll be
a fresh deal in the way of state officers in every department in the
Capitol. Arguing futures don't get you anywhere, son. If you've got
money to back that opinion you just gave me it will express your notions
without any more talk. But don't go borrow--or--or anything else.”
Dodd stared at the shrewd old political manipulator for a long time.
“You have money to bet, have you?” he asked.
Mr. Breed languidly drew forth a wallet which would make a valise for
some men and carelessly displayed a thick packet of bills.
“There it is,” he said, “and I earned it myself and so I ain't poking it
down any rat-hole without being condemned sure that I'll be able to pull
it all back again with just as much more sticking to it. That wouldn't
be sooavable--and from what you know of me I'm always sooavable.”
Dodd looked at the bills, carefully straightened in their packet, and
giving every evidence of having been hoarded with an old man's caution.
There was something about that money which impressed him with the
sincerity of Mr. Breed's belief in his own cause. The young man grew
visibly white around the mouth.
“I'll see you later, Breed,” he gulped. “I don't believe you know what
you are talking about--but I'm not national bank on legs. I'll be around
and cover your cash.”
He went back into the bar, swallowed a glass of whisky, and went out
and hailed a cab. He directed the driver to carry him to the Trelawny
Apartment.
Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to the vestibule of the suite.
“Is Kate at home?” he demanded.
“Yes, Richard!” She shrank away from him, for his aspect was not
reassuring. “You know--she has given up her work--she is--”
“I know all about it, Mrs. Kilgour. But I want to ask you whether she
has given up her work in order to marry me at once?”
“Why, I--She said--I think it will come about all right, Dicky.” She was
pitifully unnerved.
“Have you told her why she must marry me?”
“It is not time to tell her--it is not right--I can't--”
He seized her arm and pulled her into the sitting-room. The daughter
rose and faced them, reproof and astonishment mingling in her
expression.
“This thing is going to be settled here and now,” said the lover,
roughly. “There is going to be no more fooling. Has your mother put this
matter up to you so that you understand it, Kate?”
“She has told me that she owes you five thousand dollars,” returned
the girl. Her eyes flashed her contempt. “You told me that yourself. I
repeated the statement to her and she admits it.”
“But did she tell you how it happens that she owes me that money?”
“For God's sake, Richard, have some pity! This is my own daughter.
I will sell everything. I will slave. I will pay you. Kate, for my
sake--for your own sake, tell him that you will marry him.”
“I will not marry this man,” declared the girl. “It has been a mistake
from the beginning. As to your business with him, mother, that is not my
affair. You must settle it.”
“You belong in the settlement,” declared Dodd. “Hold on! Don't leave
this room, Kate.”
He reached out his hands to intercept her, and Mrs. Kilgour, released,
fell upon the floor and began to grovel and cry entreaties.
But his raucous tones overrode her appeals.
“We're all together in this. I am five thousand dollars shy in the state
treasury, Kate. I took that money and loaned it to your mother when she
begged me to save her stocks. But she didn't have any stocks.”
Mrs. Kilgour grasped his knees and shook him. But he kept on.
“She had embezzled from Dalton & Company. What I did saved her from
prison and you from disgrace, Kate. And now I am in the hole! Listen
here! There's hell to pay in this state just now! The soreheads are
banding together. A man has just offered to bet me big money that
there's going to be an overturn in the State House departments. I don't
know whether it will happen--but you can understand what kind of torment
I'm in. Kate, are you going to let me stand this thing all alone?”
The girl stood silent and motionless in the middle of the room.
She did not weep or faint. Her face displayed no emotion. It was as
white as marble.
“Do you want to drag my daughter down with you?” cried Mrs. Kilgour.
“You'd better not talk about dragging down,” he shouted, passionately.
“I didn't steal for myself. Give me your love, Kate! Give me yourself
to encourage me, and I'll get out of the scrape somehow. I'll find ways.
But if you don't come with me I won't have the courage or the desire to
fight my way through. I'll not disgrace you if you marry me--I swear I
will not! With you to protect from everything I'll make good. Symonds
Dodd is my uncle. He won't see the family name pulled in. But you must
marry me!”
“And if I do not?” she asked.
“We'll all go to damnation together. I don't care! I'll blow it all. I
won't be disgraced alone because of something I did for your mother. I
may sound like a cur. I don't care, I say! I'm going to have you, and I
don't care how I get you!”
“We need not be so dramatic,” said the girl. Some wonderful influence
seemed to be controlling her. “Mother, stop your noise and go and sit
in that chair. You demand, do you, Mr. Dodd, that to save my mother from
exposure as a woman who has stolen, I must be your wife?”
“I do.”
“Do you really want a wife who has been won in that fashion?”
“I want you.”
“You realize, fully, don't you, the spirit in which I shall marry you?”
“We'll take care of that matter after we are married, Kate. You have
liked me. You will care for me more when you come to your senses in this
thing.”
“You remember what my father did in the way of sacrifice, I suppose? It
was no secret in this state.”
“Yes,” he muttered, abashed under her steady gaze.
“I am like my father in many ways--in many of my thoughts. Perhaps if
he had not set me such an example in the way of sacrifice I should say
something else to you, Mr. Dodd. But as the matter stands between us,
considering the demand you make on me, I will marry you.”
The concession was flung at him so suddenly--he had expected so much
more of rebellion--that he staggered where he stood. He advanced toward
her. But she waved him back.
“Sit down!” she commanded. “This matter has gone far outside romance.
It has become one of business. It is a matter of barter. I have had
some experience in business. You say that mother owes you five thousand
dollars which you took from the state treasury?”
“Yes, Kate.”
“And your books will be examined very carefully, of course, if there is
an overturn in your office?”
“Yes. It won't be any mere legislative auditing.”
“I know something about politics as well as about business, Mr. Dodd.
I cannot very well help knowing, after my experience in your uncle's
office. I suppose the next state convention will determine pretty
effectually whether there will be an overturn or not?”
“If we renominate Harwood it ought to give us a good line on the control
of the next legislature,” he told her. “A hobo and a goody-goody,” he
added, with scorn, “think they have stirred up a revolution, but
they have another think coming.” He had been calmed by her outwardly
matter-of-fact acceptance of the situation. But he did not perceive the
fires of her soul gleaming deep in her eyes.
“If Governor Harwood is renominated and the next legislature is in
the hands of your uncle, as usual, you will be sure to remain in your
position?”
“Of course!”
“And you can hide the discrepancy on your books from the auditing
committee?”
“I am pretty sure I can.”
“You appreciate fully, don't you, Mr. Dodd, why, after all my troubles
in this life up till now, I should hesitate to marry a man with state
prison hanging over him?”
“Yes.”
“If Governor Harwood is not renominated I shall expect you to defer
our marriage until you can work out of your difficulties. There will be
danger and it is not in the bargain of my sacrifice that I shall pass
through such disgrace with you; at any rate, I do not consider that
added suffering is in the trade and will not agree to it. I prefer to
remain as I am and share the disgrace of my mother. Do you agree to
that?”
“I don't like it, but I suppose I've got to be decent in the matter.”
“But if Governor Harwood is renominated at the convention I will concede
a point on my part and will marry you at once, taking it for granted
that you will be able to clear yourself. In that way both of us are
making concessions--and such things should be considered in a bargain.”
She was coldly polite.
He bowed, not knowing exactly what reply to make to her.
“You have accused me of trifling in the past,” she continued. “I will
now try to show you that I can conduct straight business as it should be
handled. Shall I make a memo of our agreement and hand it to you?”
“There is no need of it,” he stammered.
“Thank you, Mr. Dodd. And now that the matter has been settled to our
mutual satisfaction, I will ask you to go. I think my mother needs my
attention. And I am reminded that our bargain does not dispose of the
fact that my mother owes you five thousand dollars. I will reflect
on how that debt may be paid--by insurance”--her face grew whiter
still--“or by some arrangement.”
“I wish you wouldn't say such--” But she interrupted him.
“On my part, this is strictly business, Mr. Dodd, and I must consider
all sides. I will give the money matter careful thought. I'm sure we can
arrange it. I have merely bought my mother's good name with _myself_!”
He stumbled out of the room and went on his way.
“Mother, you and I have some long, long thoughts to busy ourselves with
before we attempt to talk to each other,” said the girl when the two
were alone. “I am going to my room. Please do not disturb me until
to-morrow.”
For an hour Kate Kilgour was a girl once more, sobbing her heart out
against her pillow, stretched upon her bed in abandon of woe, torn by
the bitter knowledge that she was alone in her pitiful fight. She was
more frank with herself in her sorrow than she ever had been before.
She owned to her heart that a few days before even a mother's desperate
plight would hardly have won such a sacrifice as she had made.
She was ready to own that she loved that tall young man of mystery
whose face had refuted the suspicion that he was a mere vagrant. It
was strange--it was unaccountable. But she had ceased to wonder at the
vagaries of love. In her prostration of mental energies and of hope she
confessed to herself that she had loved him.