Part 17 (2/2)

”Oh, come off!” Delbridge's laugh was even more persistent. ”Tell that to some one else. You see, I _know_. The old man confides in me--not in just so many words, you know, but he lets me understand. He says you and he are going to put some whopping big deals through, presumably after you take up your quarters under his vine and fig tree.”

Mostyn started to protest further, but with another laugh the financier was off.

”Ten thousand dollars!” he thought, as he moved on. ”He speaks of my business head; what would he think of the investment I have just made?

He would call me a weakling. That is what I am. I have always been one.

The woman doesn't live who could worry him for a minute. But it is ended now. I have had my lesson, and I sha'n't forget it.”

At his desk in his closed office a few minutes later he took a blank check, and, dipping his pen, he carefully filled it in. Mechanically he waved it back and forth in the warm air. Suddenly he started; a sort of shock went through him. How odd that he had not once, in all his excitement, thought of Dolly Drake! Was it possible that his imagination had tricked him into believing that he loved the girl and could make actual sacrifices for her? Why, already she was like a figment in some evanescent dream. What had wrought the change? Was it the sight of Delbridge and his mention of Mostyn's financial prowess?

Was it the fellow's confident allusion to Mitch.e.l.l and his daughter?

Had the buzz and hum of business, the fever of conquest, already captured and killed the impulses which in the mountains had seemed so real, so permanent, so redemptive?

”Dolly, dear, beautiful Dolly!” he said, but the whispered words dropped lifeless from his lips. ”I have broken promises, but I shall keep those made to you. You are my turning-point. You are to be my wife. I have fancied myself in love often before and been mistaken, but the man does not live who could be untrue to a girl like you. You have made a man of me. I will be true--I will be honest with you. I swear it! I swear it!”

CHAPTER XV

A little later he and his sister were at luncheon in her dining-room.

”I am losing patience with you, d.i.c.k,” she said, as she poured his tea.

”Is that anything new?” he ventured to jest, while wondering what might lay in the little woman's mind.

”You are too strenuous,” she smiled, as she dropped two lumps of sugar into his cup. ”Entirely too much so. I saw from your face this morning that you are already undoing the effects of your vacation. The old glare is back in your eyes; your hands shake. I really must warn you.

You know our father died from softening of the brain, which was brought on by financial worry. You are killing yourself, and for no reason in the world. Look at Alan Delbridge. He is the ideal man of affairs.

Nothing disturbs him.”

”It is always Delbridge, Delbridge!” Mostyn said, testily. ”Even _you_ can't keep from hurling him in my teeth. He is as cold-blooded as a fish. Why should I want to be like him?”

”Well, take Jarvis Saunders, then,” she returned. ”What more success could a man want than he gets? I like to talk to him. He has a helpful philosophy of life. When he leaves his desk he is as happy and free as a boy out of school. I saw him pitching and catching ball in a vacant lot with one of your clerks the other day. Is it any wonder that so many mothers of unmarried daughters consider him a safe catch for their girls? I am not punning; he really is wonderful.”

”Oh, I know it,” Mostyn answered, drinking his tea, impatiently. ”I was not made like him. I am not to blame.”

Mrs. Moore eyed him silently for a moment, then a serious expression settled on her florid face. ”Well,” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, ”when are you going to make a real clean breast of it?”

A shudder pa.s.sed through him. She knew what had brought him home.

Marie's hysterical protest had leaked out. The girl had talked to others besides Saunders.

”What do you mean?” He asked the question quite aimlessly. He avoided her eyes.

”I want to know about your latest love affair,” she laughed, softly.

”Just one line in your last letter meant more to me than all the rest of it put together. As soon as I heard you were staying at Drake's I began to expect it. So I was not surprised. You see, I saw her a year ago. Jarvis introduced us one day. He put himself out to do it.

According to him, she was wonderful, a genius, and what not.”

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