Part 31 (2/2)

Her antagonist, Edith, was not more coherent in her own wailings, and she had the advantage of a mother for listener. She had also the disadvantage of a mother for duenna, and Mrs. Sheridan, under her husband's sharp tutelage, proved an effective one. Edith was reduced to telephoning Lamhorn from shops whenever she could juggle her mother into a momentary distraction over a counter.

Edith was incomparably more in love than before Lamhorn's expulsion. Her whole being was nothing but the determination to hurdle everything that separated her from him. She was in a state that could be altered by only the lightest and most delicate diplomacy of suggestion, but Sheridan, like legions of other parents, intensified her pa.s.sion and fed it hourly fuel by opposing to it an intolerable force. He swore she should cool, and thus set her on fire.

Edith planned neatly. She fought hard, every other evening, with her father, and kept her bed betweentimes to let him see what his violence had done to her. Then, when the mere sight of her set him to breathing fast, she said pitiably that she might bear her trouble better if she went away; it was impossible to be in the same town with Lamhorn and not think always of him. Perhaps in New York she might forget a little.

She had written to a school friend, established quietly with an aunt in apartments--and a month or so of theaters and restaurants might bring peace. Sheridan shouted with relief; he gave her a copious cheque, and she left upon a Monday morning wearing violets with her mourning and having kissed everybody good-by except Sibyl and Bibbs. She might have kissed Bibbs, but he failed to realize that the day of her departure had arrived, and was surprised, on returning from his zinc-eater, that evening, to find her gone. ”I suppose they'll be maried there,” he said, casually.

Sheridan, seated, warming his stockinged feet at the fire, jumped up, fuming. ”Either you go out o' here, or I will, Bibbs!” he snorted. ”I don't want to be in the same room with the particular kind of idiot you are! She's through with that riff-raff; all she needed was to be kept away from him a few weeks, and I KEPT her away, and it did the business.

For Heaven's sake, go on out o' here!”

Bibbs obeyed the gesture of a hand still bandaged. And the black silk sling was still round Sheridan's neck, but no word of Gurney's and no excruciating twinge of pain could keep Sheridan's hand in the sling. The wounds, slight enough originally, had become infected the first time he had dislodged the bandages, and healing was long delayed. Sheridan had the habit of gesture; he could not ”take time to remember,” he said, that he must be careful, and he had also a curious indignation with his hurt; he refused to pay it the compliment of admitting its existence.

The Sat.u.r.day following Edith's departure Gurney came to the Sheridan Building to dress the wounds and to have a talk with Sheridan which the doctor felt had become necessary. But he was a little before the appointed time and was obliged to wait a few minutes in an anteroom--there was a directors' meeting of some sort in Sheridan's office. The door was slightly ajar, leaking cigar-smoke and oratory, the latter all Sheridan's, and Gurney listened.

”No, sir; no, sir; no, sir!” he heard the big voice rumbling, and then, breaking into thunder, ”I tell you NO! Some o' you men make me sick!

You'd lose your confidence in Almighty G.o.d if a doodle-bug flipped his hind leg at you! You say money's tight all over the country. Well, what if it is? There's no reason for it to be tight, and it's not goin' to keep OUR money tight! You're always runnin' to the woodshed to hide your nickels in a crack because some fool newspaper says the market's a little skeery! You listen to every street-corner croaker and then come and set here and try to scare ME out of a big thing! We're IN on this--understand? I tell you there never WAS better times. These are good times and big times, and I won't stand for any other kind o' talk.

This country's on its feet as it never was before, and this city's on its feet and goin' to stay there!” And Gurney heard a series of whacks and thumps upon the desk. ”'Bad times'!” Sheridan vociferated, with accompanying thumps. ”Rabbit talk! These times are glorious, I tell you!

We're in the promised land, and we're goin' to STAY there! That's all, gentlemen. The loan goes!”

The directors came forth, flushed and murmurous, and Gurney hastened in. His guess was correct: Sheridan had been thumping the desk with his right hand. The physician scolded wearily, making good the fresh damage as best he might; and then he said what he had to say on the subject of Roscoe and Sibyl, his opinion meeting, as he expected, a warmly hostile reception. But the result of this conversation was that by telephonic command Roscoe awaited his father, an hour later, in the library at the New House.

”Gurney says your wife's able to travel,” Sheridan said brusquely, as he came in.

”Yes.” Roscoe occupied a deep chair and sat in the dejected att.i.tude which had become his habit. ”Yes, she is.”

”Edith had to leave town, and so Sibyl thinks she'll have to, too!”

”Oh, I wouldn't put it that way,” Roscoe protested, drearily.

”No, I hear YOU wouldn't!” There was a bitter gibe in the father's voice, and he added: ”It's a good thing she's goin' abroad--if she'll stay there. I shouldn't think any of us want her here any more--you least of all!”

”It's no use your talking that way,” said Roscoe. ”You won't do any good.”

”Well, when are you comin' back to your office?” Sheridan used a brisker, kinder tone. ”Three weeks since you showed up there at all.

When you goin' to be ready to cut out whiskey and all the rest o' the foolishness and start in again? You ought to be able to make up for a lot o' lost time and a lot o' spilt milk when that woman takes herself out o' the way and lets you and all the rest of us alone.”

”It's no use, father, I tell you. I know what Gurney was going to say to you. I'm not going back to the office. I'm DONE!”

”Wait a minute before you talk that way!” Sheridan began his sentry-go up and down the room. ”I suppose you know it's taken two pretty good men about sixteen hours a day to set things straight and get 'em runnin'

right again, down in your office?”

”They must be good men.” Roscoe nodded indifferently. ”I thought I was doing about eight men's work. I'm glad you found two that could handle it.”

”Look here! If I worked you it was for your own good. There are plenty men drive harder'n I do, and--”

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