A week had passed--a week of new life for Garrison, such as he had never dreamed of living. Even in the heyday of his fame, forgotten by him, unlimited wealth had never brought the peace and content of Calvert House. It seemed as if his niche had long been vacant in the household, awaiting his occupancy, and at times he had difficulty in realizing that he had won it through deception, not by right of blood.
The prognostications of the eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, to the effect that everything would be surprisingly easy, were fully realized. To the major and his wife the birthmark of the spur was convincing proof; and, if more were needed, the thorough coaching of Snark was sufficient.
More than that, a week had not passed before it was made patently apparent to Garrison, much to his surprise and no little dismay, that he was liked for himself alone. The major was a father to him, Mrs. Calvert a mother in every sense of the word. He had seen Sue Desha twice since his "home-coming," for the Calvert and Desha estates joined.
Old Colonel Desha had eyed Garrison somewhat queerly on being first introduced, but he had a poor memory for faces, and was unable to connect the newly discovered nephew of his neighbor and friend with little Billy Garrison, the one-time premiere jockey, whom he had frequently seen ride.
The week's stay at Calvert House had already begun to show its beneficial effect upon Garrison. The regular living, clean air, together with the services of the family doctor, were fighting the consumption germs with no little success. For it had not taken the keen eye of the major nor the loving one of the wife very long to discover that the tuberculosis germ was clutching at Garrison's lungs.
"You've gone the pace, young man," said the venerable family doctor, tapping his patient with the stethoscope. "Gone the pace, and now nature is clamoring for her long-deferred payment."
The major was present, and Garrison felt the hot blood surge to his face, as the former's eyes were riveted upon him.
"Youth is a prodigal spendthrift," put in the major sadly. "But isn't it hereditary, doctor? Perhaps the seed was cultivated, not sown, eh?"
"Assiduously cultivated," replied Doctor Blandly dryly. "You'll have to get back to first principles, my boy. You've made an oven out of your lungs by cigarette smoke. You inhale? Of course. Quite the correct thing. Have you ever blown tobacco smoke through a handkerchief? Yes? Well, it leaves a dark-brown stain, doesn't it? That's what your lungs are like--coated with nicotine. Your wind is gone. That is why cigarettes are so injurious. Not because, as some people tell you, they are made of inferior tobacco, but because you inhale them. That's where the danger is. Smoke a pipe or cigar, if smoke you must; those you don't inhale. Keep your lungs for what God intended them for--fresh air. Then, your vitality is nearly bankrupt. You've made an old curiosity-shop out of your stomach. You require regular sleep--tons of it----"
"But I'm never sleepy," argued Garrison, feeling very much like a schoolboy catechised by his master. "When I wake in the morning, I awake instantly, every faculty alert--"
"Naturally," grunted the old doctor. "Don't you know that is proof positive that you have lived on stimulants? It is artificial. You should be drowsy. I'll wager the first thing you do mornings is to roll a smoke; eh? Exactly. Smoke on an empty stomach! That's got to be stopped. It's the simple life for you. Plenty of exercise in the open air; live, bathe, in sunshine. It is the essence of life. I think, major, we can cure this young prodigal of yours. But he must obey me-- implicitly."
Subsequently, Major Calvert had, for him, a serious conversation with Garrison.
"I believe in youth having its fling," he said kindly, in conclusion; "but I don't believe in flinging so far that you cannot retrench safely. From Doctor Blandly's statements, you seem to have come mighty near exceeding the speed limit, my boy."
He bent his white brows and regarded Garrison steadily out of his keen eyes, in which lurked a fund of potential understanding.
"But sorrow," he continued, "acts on different natures in different ways. Your mother's death must have been a great blow to you. It was to me." He looked fixedly at his nails. "I understand fully what it must mean to be thrown adrift on the world at the age you were. I don't wish you ever to think that we knew of your condition at the time. We didn't--not for a moment. I did not learn of your mother's death until long afterward, and only of your father's by sheer accident. But we have already discussed these subjects, and I am only touching on them now because I want you, as you know, to be as good a man as your mother was a woman; not a man like your father was. You want to forget that past life of yours, my boy, for you are to be my heir; to be worthy of the name of Calvert, as I feel confident you will. You have your mother's blood. When your health is improved, we will discuss more serious questions, regarding your future, your career; also--your marriage." He came over and laid a kindly hand on Garrison's shoulder.
And Garrison had been silent. He was in a mental and moral fog. He guessed that his supposed father had not been all that a man should be. The eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, had said as much. He knew himself that he was nothing that a man should be. His conscience was fully awakened by now. Every worthy ounce of blood he possessed cried out for him to go; to leave Calvert House before it was too late; before the old major and his wife grew to love him as there seemed danger of them doing.
He was commencing to see his deception in its true light; the crime he was daily, hourly, committing against his host and hostess; against all decency. He had no longer a prop to support him with specious argument, for the eminent lawyer had returned to New York, carrying with him his initial proceeds of the rank fraud--Major Calvert's check for ten thousand dollars.
Garrison was face to face with himself; he was beginning to see his dishonesty in all its hideous nakedness. And yet he stayed at Calvert House; stayed on the crater of a volcano, fearing every stranger who passed, fearing to meet every neighbor; fearing that his deception must become known, though reason told him such fear was absurd. He stayed at Calvert House, braving the abhorrence of his better self; stayed not through any appreciation of the Calvert flesh-pots, nor because of any monetary benefits, present or future. He lived in the present, for the hour, oblivious to everything.
For Garrison had fallen in love with his next-door neighbor, Sue Desha. Though he did not know his past life, it was the first time he had understood to the full the meaning of the ubiquitous, potential verb "to love." And, instead of bringing peace and content--the whole gamut of the virtues--hell awoke in little Billy Garrison's soul.
The second time he had seen her was the day following his arrival, and when he had started on Doctor Blandly's open-air treatment.
"I'll have a partner over to put you through your paces in tennis," Mrs. Calvert had said, a quiet twinkle in her eye. And shortly afterward, as Garrison was aimlessly batting the balls about, feeling very much like an overgrown schoolboy, Sue Desha, tennis-racket in hand, had come up the drive.
She was bareheaded, dressed in a blue sailor costume, her sleeves rolled high on her firm, tanned arms. She looked very businesslike, and was, as Garrison very soon discovered.
Three sets were played in profound silence, or, rather, the girl made a spectacle out of Garrison. Her services were diabolically unanswerable; her net and back court game would have merited the earnest attention of an expert, and Garrison hardly knew where a racket began or ended.
At the finish he was covered with perspiration and confusion, while his opponent, apparently, had not begun to warm up. By mutual consent, they occupied a seat underneath a spreading magnolia-tree, and then the girl insisted upon Garrison resuming his coat. They were like two children.
"You'll get cold; you're not strong," said the girl finally, with the manner of a very old and experienced mother. She was four years younger than Garrison. "Put it on; you're not strong. That's right. Always obey."
"I am strong," persisted Garrison, flushing. He felt very like a schoolboy.
The girl eyed him critically, calmly.
"Oh, but you're not; not a little bit. Do you know you're very--very-- rickety? Very rickety, indeed."
Garrison eyed his flannels in visible perturbation. They flapped about his thin, wiry shanks most disagreeably. He was painfully conscious of his elbows, of his thin chest. Painfully conscious that the girl was physical perfection, he was a parody of manhood. He looked up, with a smile, and met the girl's frank eyes.
"I think rickety is just the word," he agreed, spanning a wrist with a finger and thumb.
"You cannot play tennis, can you?" asked the girl dryly. "Not a little, tiny bit."
"No; not a little bit."
"Golf?" Head on one side.
"Not guilty."
"Swim?"
"Gloriously. Like a stone."
"Run?" Head on the other side.
"If there's any one after me."
"Ride? Every one rides down this-away, you know."
A sudden vague passion mouthed at Garrison's heart. "Ride?" he echoed, eyes far away. "I--I think so."
"Only think so! Humph!" She swung a restless foot. "Can't you do anything?"
"Well," critically. "I think I can eat, and sleep----"
"And talk nonsense. Let me see your hand." She took it imperiously, palm up, in her lap, and examined it critically, as if it were the paw of some animal. "My! it's as small as a woman's!" she exclaimed, in dismay. "Why, you could wear my glove, I believe." There was one part disdain to three parts amusement, ridicule, in her throaty voice.
"It is small," admitted Garrison, eyeing it ruefully. "I wish I had thought of asking mother to give me a bigger one. Is it a crime?"
"No; a calamity." Her foot was going restlessly. "I like your eyes," she said calmly, at length.
Garrison bowed. He was feeling decidedly uncomfortable. He had never met a girl like this. Nothing seemed sacred to her. She was as frank as the wind, or sun.
"You know," she continued, her great eyes half-closed, "I was awfully anxious to see you when I heard you were coming home----"
"Why?"
She turned and faced him, her grey eyes opened wide. "Why? Isn't one always interested in one's future husband?"
It was Garrison who was confused. Something caught at his throat. He stammered, but words would not come. He laughed nervously.
"Didn't you know we were engaged?" asked the girl, with childlike simplicity and astonishment. "Oh, yes. How superb!"
"Engaged? Why--why----"
"Of course. Before we were born. Your uncle and aunt and my parents had it all framed up. I thought you knew. A cut-and-dried affair. Are you not just wild with delight?"
"But--but," expostulated Garrison, his face white, "supposing the real me--I mean, supposing I had not come home? Supposing I had been dead?"
"Why, then," she replied calmly, "then, I suppose, I would have a chance of marrying some one I really loved. But what is the use of supposing? Here you are, turned up at the last minute, like a bad penny, and here I am, very much alive. Ergo, our relatives' wishes respectfully fulfilled, and--connubial misery /ad libitum/. /Mes condolences/. If you feel half as bad as I do, I really feel sorry for you. But, frankly, I think the joke is decidedly on me."
Garrison was silent, staring with hard eyes at the ground. He could not begin to analyze his thoughts.
"You are not complimentary, at all events," he said quietly at length.
"So every one tells me," she sighed.
"I did not know of this arrangement," he added, looking up, a queer smile twisting his lips.
"And now you are lonesomely miserable, like I am," she rejoined, crossing a restless leg. "No doubt you left your ideal in New York. Perhaps you are married already. Are you?" she cried eagerly, seizing his arm.
"No such good luck--for you," he added, under his breath.
"I thought so," she sighed resignedly. "Of course no one would have you. It's hopeless."
"It's not," he argued sharply, his pride, anger in revolt. He, who had no right to any claim. "We're not compelled to marry each other. It's a free country. It is ridiculous, preposterous."
"Oh, don't get so fussy!" she interrupted petulantly. "Don't you think I've tried to kick over the traces? And I've had more time to think of it than you--all my life. It is a family institution. Your uncle pledged his nephew, if he should have one, and my parents pledged me. We are hostages to their friendship. They wished to show how much they cared for one another by making us supremely miserable for life. Of course, I spent my life in arranging how you should look, if you ever came home--which I devoutly hoped you wouldn't. It wouldn't be so difficult, you see, if you happened to match my ideals. Then it would be a real love-feast, with parents' blessings and property thrown in to boot."
"And then I turned up--a little, under-sized, nothingless pea, instead of the regular patented, double-action, stalwart Adonis of your imagination," added Garrison dryly.
"How well you describe yourself!" said the girl admiringly.
"It must be horrible!" he condoled half-cynically.
"And of course you, too, were horribly disappointed?" she added, after a moment's pause, tapping her oxford with tennis-racket.
Garrison turned and deliberately looked into her gray eyes.
"Yes; I am--horribly," he lied calmly. "My ideal is the dark, quiet girl of the clinging type."
"She wouldn't have much to cling to," sniffed the girl. "We'll be miserable together, then. Do you know, I almost hate you! I think I do. I'm quite sure I do."
Garrison eyed her in silence, the smile on his lips. She returned the look, her face flushed.
"Miss Desha--"
'You'll have to call me Sue. You're Billy; I'm Sue. That's one of the minor penalties. Our prenatal engagement affords us this charming familiarity," she interrupted scathingly.
"Sue, then. Sue," continued Garrison quietly, "from your type, I thought you fashioned of better material. Now, don't explode--yet a while. I mean property and parents' blessing should not weigh a curse with you. Yes; I said curse--damn, if you wish. If you loved, this burlesque engagement should not stand in your way. You would elope with the man you love, and let property and parents' blessings----"
"That would be a good way for you to get out of the muddle unscathed, wouldn't it?" she flashed in. "How chivalrous! Why don't you elope with some one--the dark, clinging girl--and let me free? You want me to suffer, not yourself. Just like you Yankees--cold-blooded icicles!"
Garrison considered. "I never thought of that, honestly!" he said, with a laugh. "I would elope quick enough, if I had only myself to consider."
"Then your dark, clinging girl is lacking in the very virtues you find so woefully missing in me. She won't take a risk. I cannot say I blame her," she added, scanning the brooding Garrison.
He laughed good-humoredly. "How you must detest me! But cheer up, my sister in misery! You will marry the man you love, all right. Never fear."
"Will I?" she asked enigmatically. Her eyes were half-shut, watching Garrison's profile. "Will I, soothsayer?"
He nodded comprehensively, bitterly.
"You will. One of the equations of the problem will be eliminated, and thus will be found the answer."
"Which?" she asked softly, heel tapping gravel.
"The unnecessary one, of course. Isn't it always the unnecessary one?"
"You mean," she said slowly, "that you will go away?"
Garrison nodded.
"Of course," she added, after a pause, "the dark, clinging girl is waiting?"
"Of course," he bantered.
"It must be nice to be loved like that." Her eyes were wide and far away. "To have one renounce relatives, position, wealth--all, for love. It must be very nice, indeed."
Still, Garrison was silent. He had cause to be.
"Do you think it is right, fair," continued the girl slowly, her brow wrinkled speculatively, "to break your uncle's and aunt's hearts for the sake of a girl? You know how they have longed for your home- coming. How much you mean to them! You are all they have. Don't you think you are selfish--very selfish?"
"I believe the Bible says to leave all and cleave unto your wife," returned Garrison.
"Yes. But not your intended wife."
"But, you see, she is of the cleaving type."
"And why this hurry? Aren't you depriving your uncle and aunt unnecessarily early?"
"But it is the only answer, as you pointed out. You then would be free."
He did not know why he was indulging in this repartee. Perhaps because the situation was so so untenable. But a strange, new force was working in him that day, imparting a peculiar twist to his humor. He was hating himself. He was hopeless, cynical, bitter.
If he could have laid hands upon that eminent lawyer, Mr. Snark, he would have wrung his accomplished neck to the best of his ability. He, Snark, must have known about this prenatal engagement. And his bitterness, his hopelessness, were all the more real, for already he knew that he cared, and cared a great deal, for this curious girl with the steady gray eyes and wealth of indefinite hair; cared more than he would confess even to himself. It seemed as if he always had cared; as if he had always been looking into the depths of those great gray eyes. They were part of a dream, the focusing-point of the misty past --forever out of focus.
The girl had been considering his answer, and now she spoke.
"Of course," she said gravely, "you are not sincere when you say your primal reason for leaving would be in order to set me free. Of course you are not sincere."
"Is insincerity necessarily added to my numerous physical infirmities?" he bantered.
"Not necessarily. But there is always the love to make a virtue of necessity--especially when there's some one waiting on necessity."
"But did I say that would be my primal reason for leaving--setting you free? I thought I merely stated it as one of the following blessings attendant on virtue."
"Equivocation means that you were not sincere. Why don't you go, then?"
"Eh?" Garrison looked up sharply at the tone of her voice.
"Why don't you go? Hurry up! Reward the clinging girl and set me free."
"Is there such a hurry? Won't you let me ferret out a pair of pajamas, to say nothing of good-bys?"
"How silly you are!" she said coldly, rising. "The question, then, rests entirely with you. Whenever you make up your mind to go--"
"Couldn't we let it hang fire indefinitely? Perhaps you could learn to love me. Then there would be no need to go." Garrison smiled deliberately up into her eyes, the devil working in him.
Miss Desha returned his look steadily. "And the other girl--the clinging one?" she asked calmly.
"Oh, she could wait. If we didn't hit it off, I could fall back on her. I would hate to be an old bachelor."
"No; I don't think it would be quite a success," said the girl critically. "You see, I think you are the most detestable person I ever met. I really pity the other girl. It's better to be an old bachelor than to be a young--cad."
Garrison rose slowly.
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