Part 34 (1/2)
Wallingford swelled up with righteous indignation.
”Vittoreo Matteo,” he charged, ”you are a rascally scoundrel! I met you in New York and you imposed upon me with a miserable pack of lies.
I have investigated and I find that there is no Etrusca, near Milan, Italy, no Etruscan black pottery, no Vittoreo Matteo. You induced me to waste a lot of money in locating and developing a black mud-swamp.
When you had gained my full confidence you came to me in Blakeville with a c.o.c.k-and-bull story that your mother was dying in Genoa, and on the strength of that borrowed a large sum of money from me. You are gone--I don't know where. I shall have to make a clean breast of this matter to Jonas Bubble, and tell him that if I can not pay that note when it falls due he will have to foreclose. You heartless villain!
Waiter, ice us another bottle of that ninety-three.”
When Wallingford returned to his wife he found her very thoughtful.
”When are we going to Blakeville, Jim?” she asked.
He studied her curiously for a moment. She would have to know him some time or other. He had hoped to put it off while they were leading this unruffled existence, but now that the test had come he might as well have it over with.
”I'm not going back,” he declared. ”I'm through with Blakeville.
Aren't you?”
”Yes,” she admitted, pondering it slowly. ”I could be happy here always, or, if not here, wherever you are. But your business back there, Jim?”
He chuckled.
”I have no business there,” he told her. ”My business is concluded. I borrowed forty-five thousand dollars on that forty acres of sticky mud, and I think I'll just let the bank foreclose.”
She looked at him a moment, dry-eyed and dry-lipped.
”You're joking,” she protested, in a low voice.
”Not at all,” he seriously a.s.sured her.
They looked at each other steadily for some moments, and gradually Wallingford saw beneath those eyes a spirit that he might conquer, but, having conquered, would always regret.
”It's--it's a swindle!” she gasped, as the true situation began to dawn upon her. ”You don't mean, Jim, that you are a swindler!”
”No, I wouldn't call it that,” he objected, considering the matter carefully. ”It is only rather a shrewd deal in the game of business.
The law can't touch me for it unless they should chase down Vittoreo Matteo and find him to be a fraud, _and prove that I knew it_!”
She was thoughtful a long time, following the intricate pattern of the rug in their sitting-room with the toe of her neatly-shod foot. She was perfectly calm, and he drew a sharp breath of relief. He had expected a scene when this revelation should come; he was more than pleased to find that she was not of the cla.s.s which makes scenes.
Presently she looked up.
”Have you thought of what light this puts me in at home? Have you thought how I should be regarded in the only world I have ever known?
Why, there are a thousand people back in Blakeville who know me, and even if I were never to meet one of them again--Jim, it mustn't be!
You must not destroy my self-respect for ever. Have you spent any of that money?”
”Well, no,” he reluctantly replied. ”I have plenty of money besides that.”
”Good!” said she with a gasp of relief. ”Write father that, as you will be unable to carry out your projects, you are sending him the money to take up that note.”