Part 7 (2/2)
”Should I need to?” asked Challoner. ”After I had put those old ladies from the Foundling into the witness-box, should I need to, Mrs.
Daventry? Would they stick to their lie? Any tenth-rate attorney could turn 'em inside out as easy as an old glove, if they tried to. But they wouldn't try--and you know it as well as I do.”
Challoner had put his finger on the danger-spot of the Daventrys'
position. Those two old ladies would have suffered much heart-searching before they told their lie, and not a little remorse afterward. Questioned upon their oaths they would speak the truth, and the whole truth. Of that Joan felt sure.
”There are men, too, in Buenos Ayres who knew me when I was in Chile,”
Challoner continued; and then once more Robert Daventry interposed.
”But you wouldn't be mad enough to go to law with us,” he cried, and Challoner laughed.
”Oh, yes, I would, and I would put you into the witness-box, too. A pretty figure you would cut, with your Patagonian brother, eh? I wouldn't bring my action here, of course, in this district. You've got your local syndic in your pocket, I grant you. But the law runs in Buenos Ayres nowadays, and don't you forget it.”
Robert Daventry turned aside to hide his discomfiture, and walked once or twice across the room. He had no doubt that this man was James Challoner and Cynthia's father. His story was too circ.u.mstantial to be disputed. Moreover, neither he nor Joan could publicly dispute it.
There had been no brother in Patagonia. He turned abruptly to Challoner: ”How much do you want?”
Joan moved quickly to his side with a cry of protest. Money it might be necessary to pay, but it must be asked for, not offered. To offer it was to admit the claim.
”What are you saying, Robert?” she cried.
Robert turned to her quietly.
”It must come to that in the end. Why not now and have done with it?
How much?”
A smile of triumph broadened over Challoner's face. Outside the door Cynthia leaned forward, her hands clasped over her heart in an agony of suspense. Why didn't he answer? Why was he so long?
The answer came at length:
”I want my daughter, nothing else. She is not of age. I have a right to her; I'll take her away with me to-night.”
Cynthia crouched back in her chair, clasping its arms tightly with her hands, and making herself very small. To Joan and Robert Daventry the demand was incredible, even though their ears had heard it. Challoner could not mean it. It was an expedient to raise the price. But Cynthia had caught a note of malice in his voice which brought back before her eyes the malice of his looks as he had stood before her in the field.
He meant to take her away, and that night. She glanced toward the door. To leave her home, to be swallowed up in the darkness with this stranger for her companion! She clung to the chair in a panic of terror. Then she heard Robert Daventry repeating the words in a daze:
”You want to take her away? Cynthia?” And as though the meaning of Challoner's demand for the first time broke in on him, ”Never!” he cried violently.
”I want to take her away to-night;” and now the malice in Challoner's voice was audible to Joan too. She stared at him over the table. He sat nodding his head at her with little quick movements, his eyes very bright, and a horrid smile about his mouth. She remembered what Cynthia herself had said: ”He seemed to hate me.”
”You grudge her her happiness, her life with us!” she exclaimed; and Challoner beat his fist upon the table in a sudden anger.
”Is it strange?” he cried. ”All these years here she has been sitting soft and walking daintily. What have I been doing? 'Look at yourself in a gla.s.s'--That's what you said,” and he turned to Robert Daventry.
”I told you I'd remember it, and I do. A fine life I have had of it for fourteen years. Mate tea and enough work a day to throw a trades-unionist into hysterics! No wonder I've lost my looks.”
All the bitterness of his fourteen years of degradation seemed to be concentrated in his words. The easy good-humor with which he had begun had vanished. He was a man venomous with grievances. He was still the old James Challoner in this; he had enemies, only now the enemies were not a few to be searched for through a list, but all who had a sixpence in their pockets. Joan herself was frightened. She realized the mistake which she and her husband had made in their eagerness to disbelieve the story of this man. She understood now that when she had thought of Cynthia and compared her with the reaper, she had been thinking only of the flower and had omitted her own a.s.siduous cultivation of the plant. She recognized now that the look of race which fourteen years of luxury had refined in the girl, fourteen years of degradation might well have obliterated in the man.
”I have had enough of it,” cried James Challoner. ”It's now her turn.”
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