The Penalty Part 22

"Please don't," she said. "I'm not through."

In his eyes, soft and full of understanding, there was a gentle, if masterful, smiling. "Yes, you are," he said, "for now. I haven't watched you at work all these mornings without learning something about the way you go at it. Do you know what a blind alley is?"

"Yes," she said petulantly, "and I'm in one."

"Quite so," said Blizzard. "And you're not taking the right way out.

First you tried to climb up the house on the right, then the house on the left, and when I interrupted you, you were making a sixth effort to s.h.i.+n up the lightning-rod of the house that blocks the alley."

Barbara laughed. "But," she objected, "I've got to get out somehow--or fake--or call the thing a fiasco, and give it up."

"Of course you've got to get out," said Blizzard, "and it's very simple."

"Simple!" she exclaimed; "a lot you know about it."

"Quite simple," he repeated; "you merely face about and walk out. In, other words, remove that lump of mud which one day is going to be more like my ear than my ear itself, and begin over."

And it came home to Barbara that the man was right. "Thank you," she said simply. "You're a great help. That is precisely what I shall do."

"But don't do it now."

"Why not?"

"Because you've wasted the freshness of your early-morning zeal with vain efforts. Destroy what you've done--there's always satisfaction in that; but either leave the re-doing alone for to-day, or try something else."

"When," said Barbara, beginning to feel soothed and confident again, "did I put myself in your hands for guidance?"

"The moment you lost your presence of mind," said the beggar; "that's when a woman always puts herself in a man's hands. Put a cloth over his satanic majesty's portrait, and sit down and relax your muscles, and talk to the devil himself."

Barbara did as he commanded with the expression of a biddable child. She flung herself into a deep chair, and drew a long, care-free breath.

"There," she said, "I knew I wasn't fit."

"You can't spend the night at a Country Club, dance till 4 A.M., catch the 7 A.M. for town, and do good work--not always."

"How did you know all that?"

Blizzard laughed. "From a man," said he, "who had planned to rob the Meadowbrook Club last night. There is a fine haul of scarf-pins, and sleeve-links, and watches and money in the bachelors' quarters. He came to me in great dejection and explained what very hard luck he had had.

He said the whole place was lit up and full of people and music, and no chance for an honest man to earn a cent. I happened to ask if you were there, and he said you were. The train was a guess, and so of course was the 4 A.M. Will you take a piece of well-meant advice? Either be a society girl or a sculptor. But don't burn the candle at both ends. You even look tired, and that's nonsense at your age."

He laughed like a boy.

"They tell me," he said, "that I could do the new dances. They tell me they are just like clinches in a prize-fight, and that only the novices move their feet."

Barbara's brows contracted. "I'm going to ask you a favor," she said.

"If you want to talk about your misfortune, G.o.d knows I'm ready to listen. I feel some of the responsibility. But please don't joke about it. We're friends, I think. And I like to forget that you're not exactly like other people. And sometimes I do."

"Truly?" His eyes were full of suppressed eagerness and elation.

"Yes," she said, "when you talk high-mindedly and generously, as you can, when you want to, I enjoy being with you, in touch with a mind so much more knowing and able than my own. But, now we've made a beginning, I'd really like to talk about--all this dreadful mess that's been made of your life, and how things can be made easier for you, and for my father."

Figuratively, Blizzard's tongue went into his cheek at the mention of Dr. Ferris, but the expression of his face underwent no change. "Of course," he said simply, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "I have forgiven your father. He was very young--very excitable--inexperienced."

"_Actually"_ she said, "in your heart, you've forgiven him? And you're not saying things just to make me comfortable?"

"I am afraid," he confessed, "that I am too selfish to say or do things just to make other people comfortable. Did you ever hate anybody?"

"I think so."

"Did you like it?"

"For a while it was rather fun to think up things to do to the person, and then it got to be disagreeable, and feverish, like a cut that's festered, and then I made a strong effort, and found that hating was very poor company and led nowhere."

"Exactly," said the beggar. "Do you mind if I talk frankly? My hatred for your father persisted a great many years, until I found that going to bed with it every night and getting up with it every morning was a slow poison that was affecting all the rest of me--my power to think out a line of action, my power to stick to it, even my power to like people that were good to me and faithful to my interests. I found that I was beginning to hate everybody and everything in the world and the world itself. Meanwhile, Miss Barbara, I did things that can never be undone."

He was silent, and appeared to be turning over the leaves in the books of his memory. Suddenly he spoke again.

"And it was all so silly," he said, "so futile. The cure was in my head all the time--just longing to be used. And fool that I was, I didn't know it."

"What was the cure?"

"It was the sovereign cure for all our troubles, Miss Barbara--reason, and crowds. Stand morning or evening at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge--stand there with your trouble, and consider that among the pa.s.sers, better carried than yours, are troubles, far, far greater than yours, more poignant, lives lived in dungeons deeper and more dark. Your father has lived a life of most admirable utility: should he be hated for one mistake? Suppose that it had been some other small boy's legs that he wasted, instead of mine? Would I hate him for it? Why, no. I'd say it's too bad. But since it was I that lost the legs I lost all sense of proportion and justice and was a long time--a long time coming back to it."

"May I know what brought you round?"

The beggar felt that he might dare a little. He smiled. "Of course. What brought me around was the discovery that he had created something far, far more important than what he had destroyed. At first I thought you were like so many other girls of your cla.s.s--well dressed, and good to look at. Then that you had a very genuine talent, and were going to count in the world. Then, and this is best, it came over me that you were one girl in a million--that you would do whatever seemed right to you, not without fear of criticism, and pain and sacrifice, but regardless of them. And so, you see, the reparation is made. The father hurt, and the daughter cured."

Barbara's face had become very grave. "However wrong you are about my character," she said, "the reparation is not yet made. And you may be sure of this--that, whatever the criticism, I owe you friends.h.i.+p and you shall have it,"

The beggar trembled inwardly, but he shook his head. "You could hardly pull me up to a level," he said, "upon which friends.h.i.+p between us would be possible. Imagine that I have sunk to the chin in mud, and that at the last time of calling I have been pulled out. Still the mud clings to me."

"Nonsense," said Barbara, "you can be washed."

They both laughed, and at once became grave again.

"You don't know," he said, "what I've been or what I've done. You can't even imagine."

"That is not the point," said Barbara, "and this is: Are you sorry? If you really have been rotten, do you want to be sound and fine? If you do I'm your friend, and whatever help I can give you, you shall have."

"If you knew," he said humbly, "how I dread the bust being finished!

I'll be like a child stealing a ride by the strength of his arms, I'll have to drop off then--won't I?--back into the mud."

"I'm not offering you friends.h.i.+p," she said, "merely while you are useful to me. Do well, Mr. Blizzard, and do good, and I will always be your friend."

"Do you believe that I want to do well, that I want to do good? That I want to wipe the past from the slate?"

"You have only to tell me," she said loyally, "and I shall believe."

"Then I tell you," he said, and Barbara jumped impulsively to her feet and shook hands with him.