Part 36 (2/2)
Whipp called her by her first name. I heard her myself.”
On the whole, Geraldine had scored, and really, although she was at peace with the whole world, the fact of Mrs. Barry's approval dwarfed every other opinion and event; for it meant that no longer need she set up a mental warning and barrier against thoughts of her lover.
A few days afterward Ben telephoned to have Lamson at the station at a certain hour, and he and Pete returned from their strange quest. Little he dreamed of the stir that telephone message caused in his home.
All the way out to Keefe on the train he was planning interviews with his mother and wondering whether the seed he had dropped into her mind before leaving had borne fruit. He had promised Geraldine not to coerce her, and the girl's pride he knew would not submit to opposing his mother's wish. Therefore, when Mrs. Barry walked out on the piazza to meet him, it was a very serious son that she encountered.
”What is the matter, Benny?” she asked as she kissed him. ”Have you failed?”
”No, indeed. I have succeeded triumphantly. I've got Carder in a box, and, believe me, he won't try to lift up the lid and let anybody see him.”
”He was here soon after you left,” said Mrs. Barry calmly.
Ben looked surprised and alert.
”What did he want?”
”Pete; and he was going to have him or put you in the lock-up. Also he wanted Miss Melody. He's a wretch, Ben. I'm glad you went after him.”
”He'll not trouble her any more,” said the young fellow, walking into the house with his mother clinging to his arm. ”Carder is going to have ample leisure to think over the game he has played. Isn't it a strange satire of fate that should make insignificant little Pete the boomerang to turn back and floor him? Pete's an ideal witness. He sees what he sees and he knows what he knows, and nothing can shake him because he doesn't know anything else. Great Scott! when I located the facts at that hospital and linked them together and brought an accusation against Carder, it was like opening a door to a swarm of hornets. He has made so many people hate him that when the timid ones found it would be safe to loosen up, they were ready to fall upon him and sting him to death. He's safe to get a long sentence, and it will be time enough when he comes out to talk to him about Mr. Melody's debts--if Geraldine wishes it.”
Ben looked around suddenly at his mother.
”Have you been to Keefeport to see Geraldine?”
She returned his gaze smiling, and feigned to tremble. ”I'm so glad I have, Ben. You look so severe.”
”And did you take that magnifying gla.s.s?”
”Yes.”
”Wasn't I right?” asked Ben with some relief.
”You were. I like the girl. I feel we are going to be friends.”
”Well, then, how about her being a clerk for Miss Upton?”
Ben asked the question frowning, and flung himself down beside his mother where she had seated herself on a divan. Why couldn't her blood run as fast as his? Why must she be so cold and deliberate at a crucial time? ”Going to be friends!” What an utterly inadequate speech!
”I want to talk to you about that,” rejoined his mother. ”Will you please go into my study and bring me a letter you'll find on the table?”
Without a word, and still with the dissatisfied line in his forehead, the young man rose and moved away toward the closed door of the sanctum.
He opened it and there was a moment of dead silence. Mrs. Barry could visualize Geraldine as she looked standing there, radiantly expectant, mischievously blissful. The door slammed, and all was silence.
The mother laughed softly over the bit of sewing she had picked up. For a minute she could not see very plainly, but she wiped her eyes and it pa.s.sed.
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