The Landloper Part 60

"I hoped we were better friends," she said simply. "I am very sad to find you do not trust us."

"Oh, I'm selfish--that's it. Remember me as a selfish man who was tired and ran away."

"We have talked about you, Uncle Etienne and I, and we have never said that you are selfish."

"That shows you don't know me," said Farr, roughly.

"But we know what you have done," insisted the old man, with patient confidence. "For what you say you shall not do we do not care about that. For we have seen what you have done--ah, we know about that and care about it very much. You are wiser than we are, and if you say you must go we can only look at you very sad and bow the head. I wish I had some language so to tell you how very sorry! But the Yankee words--I know not those which tell how sorry I shall be. It is not much I can do for the poor little childs--only whittle and save pennies for the fresh air."

Another man, another tone, might have put rebuke, indirectly, into those words. But old Etienne, rasping his hard palms nervously, was merely vowing himself to sacrifice because there was no one else left to do so.

Farr understood and was softened.

"And now I must go to the bed for my sleep, because the rack must be cleared before the wheel start to go roompy-roomp in the big pit asking for its water." He was showing nervousness, haste, his voice trembled; he staggered when he lifted himself out of his chair.

"You'd better say good-by to me now," said Farr, rising with the old man. "It's a good night under the stars. I shall probably be far out on the road by daylight."

"Good-bye," muttered old Etienne, fumbling his hat and bowing.

"But aren't you going to say something else to me--say you're sorry to have me go?" demanded the young man. "We have been close together in some things we shall never forget."

"I have told you. I cannot say how sorry." The old man's voice was little more than a husky whisper.

"I like you, Uncle Etienne. I want you to know it. You are an old saint." He put out his hand, but the rack-tender turned and hurried to the door. "Not take my hand?" cried Farr. "Am I as much of a traitor as all that?"

"Oh, I cannot speak! I have no word," wailed the old man from the gloom in the street. His voice rose in shrill, cracked tones. He began to weep aloud. He had been restraining his feelings with all the strength of his will since Farr had announced his intentions. His departure was flight.

He began to run away down the sidewalk. "Saint Joseph, guard my tongue!"

he gasped over and over. "I'll go very fast so that I not say it, for I am only old Pickaroon, and he is fine gentlemans!" He continued to weep broken-heartedly.

"Mr. Farr, he was afraid he would tell you how much he loved you--afraid that you would be insulted if he presumed to tell you of it."

"I don't think I just understand that," commented Farr, staring into the night, peering to get another glimpse of Etienne.

"I understand!" said the girl. "It would be too bad for you to go away and think that at parting he was not polite to you. I would not like to have you suppose that fault is in one from Tadousac. He has told me. If you will not follow him and frighten him by saying that you know it, I will tell you."

"I will not follow him. Probably I shall never see him again."

"It may be a bit hard for you to understand, for you do not know the French nature, perhaps. But since little Rosemarie went away for ever he has loved you. You made something more of him than the old rack-tender when you took him into partners.h.i.+p. When you made him your friend before all the big men at the City Hall something bloomed in him, m'sieu'--something that before had been only a withered bud! Ah, you think I am fanciful? Very well! I cannot think how to say it any other way. You are a token for him from little Rosemarie who has gone away; you are friend, you are son, you are in his eyes destined savior of these poor people."

"I am glad I am going away. I would hate to betray such childlike faith.

Good-by, Miss Zelie!"

He heard her call to him when he was in the street. He turned and halted and saw her slim, white figure at the gate, and he stepped back half-way.

She was girlish sympathy incarnate, and his troubled, hungry, self-accusatory soul caught the radiation of that womanly solace.

"It's not what you say to me you are," she said, her breath coming fast, her tones low. "It's what I know you are! That you will be when at last you shall come to yourself. I do not care what you say. I shall not remember! To the world--to me--to poor Etienne, just now, you lied about yourself, M'sieu' Farr--about your real self. But you did not lie to a little girl when she asked you to show your true self to her. Of yourself--with little Rosemarie--that shall I remember!"

"I thank you," he said, gratefully.

"Some day some woman will love you," she continued. "And when you are sure that she does love you, then you will tell her your troubles and she will know what to say to make things right for you. For that is the mission of good women. They understand how to listen and how to help the men they love. You shall see!" She hurried into the house.

Farr was promptly admitted when he presented himself at the door of Archer Converse's residence, and he was conducted to that gentleman's library, and came face to face with his patron, whom he found sitting very erect in a high-backed chair.

"I have been waiting for you, sir," said Converse.

"I expected that you would be waiting, sir."

"Be seated."

"I will stand, if you please. I have only a few words to say."

"Then your nature must have changed very suddenly," said the lawyer, dryly. "Or did you pump your reservoir dry of language when you put my name in nomination to-day?"

Farr bowed without reply.

"I hear that speech commended very highly. Among opportunists you deserve high rank, Mr. Farr. You have tipped a state upside down very effectively, and I am upside down along with the rest."

"I will stand here very patiently, sir, and take my punishment. As between ourselves, I had no right to do what I did to-day without consulting you. As regards conditions in the state, I had a right to seize that opportunity and give to the people a man who can be depended on. I did so. Go ahead, now, Mr. Converse!"

To the young man's surprise, the nominee arose and came to him with hand outstretched. A smile broke through the grimness of the lawyer's countenance. "I have accepted a public trust with pride, I am obeying my plain duty with satisfaction, and I shall work to be elected with all my might. Otherwise I wouldn't be the son of my father. My boy, I have had a talk with Citizen Drew to-day. He told me about your idea of kicking honest men into politics. I want you to understand that I thank you heartily because you have kicked me in. I'm going to swim!"

"'Then G.o.d's in His Heaven and the world's all right,'" declared Farr.

The lawyer's quizzical and searching gaze was rather disquieting; the young man had found Converse eyeing him with peculiar interest during their meetings in the recent past. Now Converse bestowed particularly intent scrutiny on his caller.

"I feel that I have done my work, sir," Farr hastened to say, anxious to terminate this interview. "I am going away--out of the state. I shall not return."

Mr. Converse did not break out into protest. He eyed Farr more closely.

Then he reached a b.u.t.ton and turned on the full light of the chandelier.

"You have a good reason for deserting just when you are most needed, I presume, sir?"

"I have. It is a reason which especially concerns the success of the legislation which we have discussed. If I stay I shall hamper you."

"I will ask you to stand where you are for a few minutes, sir," said the lawyer, commanding rather than requesting. He went to a cabinet and drew forth a package. He brought that packet to the table and began to sort photographs.

He selected one, regarded it with careful gaze, and s.h.i.+fted his eyes to the young man's face.

"Um!" he commented, with judicial tone. "Now--suppose you tell me--just how your continued presence in this state will hamper me"--he paused; he drawled the next words, emphasizing them--"Mr. Bristol!"

Farr had begun nervous retreat when the lawyer had begun comparison of the living features with the photograph. It was plain that he feared rather than understood.

"Hold on, there!" shouted the investigator. "You may as well stay and settle this matter, Bristol. You look at this picture! You recognize it, do you? If you are in any doubt I'll inform you that it's a picture of your father when he and I were in law-school together."

"I deny any relations.h.i.+p to that man."

"Your tone and your manner convict you, my boy. I jumped you with that name purposely. I am no fool when it comes to examining a witness. When I first laid eyes on you I thought I had seen you, yourself, somewhere, and I have been puzzling my brains. Then it occurred to me that I had known in my youth a fellow who looked like you. You're the son of your father, all right. Don't stultify yourself by lying to me. You are Morgan Bristol's boy! Hah?"

"I am," confessed the young man, with resignation.