Part 19 (2/2)
”Sit down, Geoffrey. I have a great deal to say to you, and don't know how to begin,” she said. ”But first I am sincerely grateful for all you have done.”
”We will not mention that. Neither, I hope, need I say that Miss Savine of all people could never be indebted to me. You must know it already.”
Helen thanked him with her eyes as she sank into the chair he wheeled out so that the light left her face in shadow. Geoffrey stood near the window framing and he did not look directly towards her. Helen appreciated the consideration which prompted the action and the respect implied by his att.i.tude.
”I am going to ask a great deal of you, and remind you of a promise you once made.” There was a little tremor in her voice. ”You will not think it ungracious if I say there is no one else who can do what seems so necessary, and ask you if you do not consider that you owe something to my father. It is hard for me, not because I doubt you, but because----”
Geoffrey checked her with a half-raised hand. ”Please don't, Miss Savine--I can understand. You find it difficult to receive, when, as yet, you have, you think, but little to give. Would that make any difference? The little--just to know that I had helped you--would be so much to me.”
Again Helen was grateful. The look of anxiety and distress returned as she went on.
”I dare spare no effort for my father's sake. He has always been kindness itself to me, and it is only now that I know how much I love him. Hitherto I have taken life too easily, forgetting that sorrow and tragedy could overtake me. I have heard the physician's verdict, and know my father cannot be spared very long to me. I also know how his mind is set upon the completion of his last great scheme. That is why, and because of your promise, I have dared ask help of--you.”
”Will it make it easier if I say that, quite apart from his daughter's wishes, I am bound in honor to protect the interests of Julius Savine so far as I can?” interposed Geoffrey. ”Your father found me much as you did, a struggling adventurer, and with unusual kindness helped me on the way to prosperity. All I have I owe to him, and perhaps, the more so because we have cunning enemies, my own mind is bent on the completion of the scheme. I believe that we shall triumph, Miss Savine, and I use the word advisedly, still expecting much from your father's skill.”
Helen gravely shook her head. ”I recognize your kind intentions, but you must expect nothing. It is a hard thing for me to say, but the truth is always best, and again it is no small favor I ask from you,--to do the work for the credit of another's name--taking his task upon your shoulders, to make a broken man's last days easier. I want you to sign the new partners.h.i.+p agreement, and am glad you recognize that my father was a good friend to you.”
The girl's courage nearly deserted her, for Helen was young still, and had been severely tried. While Geoffrey, who felt that he would give his life for the right to comfort her, could only discreetly turn his face away.
”I will do it all, Miss Savine,” he said gravely. ”I had already determined on as much, but you must try to believe that the future is not so hopeless as it looks. You will consider that I have given you a solemn pledge.”
”Then I can only say G.o.d speed you, for my thanks would be inadequate,”
Helen's voice trembled as she spoke. ”But I must also ask your forgiveness for my presumption in judging you that day. I now know how far I was mistaken.”
Geoffrey knew to what she referred. The day had been a memorable one for him, and, with pulses throbbing, he moved forward a pace, his eyes fixed upon the speaker's face. For a moment, forgetting everything, his resolutions were flung to the winds, and he trembled with pa.s.sion and hope. Then he remembered his promise to the sick man, and Helen's own warning, and recovered a partial mastery of himself. It was a mere sense of justice which prompted the girl's words, his reason warned him, but he felt, instinctively, that they implied more than this, though he did not know how much. He stood irresolute until Helen looked up, and, if it had ever existed, the time for speech was past.
”I fear I have kept you too long, but there is still a question I must ask. You have seen my father in many of his moods, and there is something in the state of limp apathy he occasionally falls into which puzzles me. I cannot help thinking there is another danger of which I do not know. Can you not enlighten me?”
Helen leaned forward, a strange fear stamped upon her face. Fresh from the previous struggle, Geoffrey, whose heart yearned to comfort her, felt his powers of resistance strained to the utmost. Still, it was a question that he could not answer. Remembering Savine's injunction--to hold her father's name clean--he said quickly: ”There is nothing I can tell you. You must remember only that the physician admitted a cheering possibility.”
”I will try to believe in it.” The trouble deepened in Helen's face, while her voice expressed bitter disappointment. ”You have been very kind and I must not tax you too heavily.”
Geoffrey turned away, distressed, for her and inwardly anathematized his evil fortune in being asked that particular question. He had, he felt, faltered when almost within sight of victory, neglecting to press home an advantage which might have won success. ”It is, perhaps, the first time I have willfully thrown away my chances--the man who wins is the one who sees nothing but the prize,” he told himself. ”But I could not have taken advantage of her anxiety for her father and grat.i.tude to me, while, if I had, and won, there would be always between us the knowledge that I had not played the game fairly.”
Thomas Savine came into the room. ”I was looking for you, and want to know when you'll go down to Vancouver with me to puzzle through everything before finally deciding just what you're going to do,” he said. They talked a few moments. After the older man left him, Geoffrey found himself confronted by Mrs. Savine.
”I have been worried about you,” she a.s.serted. ”You're carrying too heavy a load, and it's wearing you thin. You look a very sick man to-day, and ought to remember that the main way to preserve one's health is to take life easily.”
”I have no doubt of it, madam,” Thurston fidgeted, fearing what might follow; ”but, unfortunately, one cannot always do so.”
Mrs. Savine held out a little phial as she explained: ”A simple restorative is the next best thing, and you will find yourself braced in mind and body by a few doses of this. It is what I desired to fix up my poor brother-in-law with when you prevented me.”
”Then the least I can do is to take it myself,” said Geoffrey, smiling to hide his uneasiness. ”I presume you do not wish me to swallow it immediately?”
Mrs. Savine beamed upon him. ”You might hold out an hour or two longer, but delays are dangerous,” she warned him. ”Kindness! Well, there's a tolerable reason why we should be good to you, and, for I guess you're not a clever man all round, Geoffrey Thurston, you have piled up a considerable obligation in your favor in one direction.”
”May I ask you to speak more plainly, Mrs. Savine?” Geoffrey requested and she answered:
”You may, but I can't do it. Still, what you did, because you thought it the fair thing, won't be lost to you. Now, don't ask any more fool questions, but go right away, take ten drops of the elixir, and don't worry. It will all come right some day.”
The speaker's meaning was discernible, and Geoffrey, having a higher opinion than many people of Mrs. Savine's sagacity, went out into the sunlight, satisfied. He held up the phial and was about to hurl it among the firs, but, either grateful for the donor's words, or softened by what he had heard and seen, he actually drank a little of it instead. Then came a revulsion from the strain of the last few days, and he burst into a laugh.
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