Part 24 (1/2)

And then the pitiless fates turned the screws of the rack again and the father burst forth in his vain grief, with his high, soft, woman's voice. ”I wonder--I wonder--I wonder, what G.o.d has in waiting for you to make up for this?”

Before she could answer, the telephone bell rang. The wife stepped to the instrument. ”Well,” she said when she came back. ”The hour has struck; the expressman went to Tom for the express charges; he knows the package is here and,” she added after a sigh, ”he knows that I know all about it.” She even smiled rather sadly, ”So he's coming out--on his wheel.”

CHAPTER XXII

IN WHICH TOM VAN DORN BECOMES A WAYFARING MAN ALSO

The father rose. His head was cast down. He poked a vine curling about the porch floor with his cane.

”I wonder, my dear,” he spoke slowly, and with great gentleness, ”if maybe I shouldn't talk with Tom--before you see him.”

He continued to poke the vine, and looked up at the daughter sadly. ”Of course there's Lila; if it is best for her--why that's the thing to do--I presume.”

”But father,” broke in the daughter, ”Tom and I can--”

But he entreated, ”Won't you let me talk with Tom? In half an hour--I'll go. You and Lila slip over to mother's for half an hour--come back at half past twelve. I'll tell him where you are.”

The mother and child had disappeared around the corner of the house when the click of Van Dorn's bicycle on the curbing told the Doctor that the young man was upon the walk. The package from the capital still lay beside the porch column. The Doctor did not lift his eyes from it as the younger man came hurrying up the steps. He was flushed, bright-eyed, a little out of breath, and his black wing of hair was damp. On the top step, he looked up and saw the Doctor.

”It's all right, Tom--I understand things.” The Doctor's eyes turned to the parcel on the floor between them.

The Doctor's voice was soft; his manner was gentle, and he lifted his blue, inquiring eyes into the young Judge's restless black ones. Dr.

Nesbit put a fatherly hand on the young man's arm, and said: ”Shall we sit down, Tom, and take stock of things and see where we stand? Wouldn't that be a good idea?”

They sat down and the younger man eyed the package, turned it over, looked at the address nervously, pulled at his mustache as he sank back, while the elder man was saying: ”I believe I understand you, Tom--better than any one else in the world understands you. I believe you have not a better friend on earth than I right at this minute.”

The Judge turned around and said in a disturbed voice, ”I am sure that's the G.o.d's truth, Doctor Jim.” Then after a sigh he added, ”And this is what I've done to you!”

”And will keep right on doing to me as long as you live,” piped the elder man, twitching his mouth and nose contemptuously.

”As long as I live, I fancy,” repeated the other. In the pause the young man put his hands to his hips and his chin on his breast as he slouched down in the chair and asked: ”Where's Laura?”

”Over at her mother's,” replied the father. ”n.o.body will interrupt us--and so I thought we could get down to gra.s.s roots and talk this thing out.”

The Judge crossed his handsome ankles and sat looking at his trim toes.

”I suppose that idea is as good as any.” He put one long, lean, hairy hand on the short, fat knee beside him and said: ”The whole trouble with our Protestant religion is that we have no confessor. So some of us talk to our lawyers, and some of us talk to our doctors, and in extreme unction we talk to our newspapers.”

He grinned miserably, and went on: ”But we all talk to some one, and now I'm going to talk to you--talk for once, Doctor, right out of my soul--if I have one.”

He rose nervously, obeying some purely physical impulse, and then sat down again, with his hands in his thick, black hair, and his elbows on his bony knees.

”All right, Tom,” piped the Doctor, ”go ahead.”

”Well, then,” he began as he looked at the floor before him, ”do you suppose I don't know that you know what I'm up to? Do you think I don't know even what the town is buzzing about? Lord, man, I can feel it like a scorching fire. Why,” he exclaimed with emotion, ”feeling the hearts of men is my job. I've been at it for fifteen years--”

He broke off and looked up. ”How could I get up before a jury and feel them out man by man as I talked if I wasn't sensitive to these things?

You've seen me make them cry when I was in the practice. How could I make them cry if I didn't feel like crying myself. You're a doctor--you know that. People forget what I am--what a thousand stringed instrument I am. Now, Doctor Jim, let me tell you something. This is the bottom hard pan of the truth: I never before really cared for these women--these other women--when I got them. But I do care for the chase, I do care for the risk of it--for the exhilaration of it--for the joy of it!”