Ben Blair Part 37

"On your honor?"

The big man crossed his hands over his heart in the manner of small boys.

Sidwell was satisfied. "All right, then. This is the last time you and I will ever get--this way together."

Hough looked as solemn as though at a funeral. "Why so?" he protested.

"Are you angry with me yet?"

"No, it's not that. I've forgiven you."

"What is it, then?" Hough felt that he must know the reason of his lost position, and if in his power remove it.

"I'm going to quit drinking after to-night, for one thing," explained Sidwell. "It isn't adequate. But even if I didn't, I don't expect we'll ever be together again after a few days, after you go away."

The listener looked blank. Even with his muddled brains he had an intimation that there was more in the statement than there seemed.

"I don't see why," he said bewilderedly.

Again Sidwell leaned forward. Again his face grew pa.s.sionate and magnetic.

"The reason why is this. I have had enough, and more than enough, of this life I've been living. Unless I can find an interest, an extenuation, I would rather be dead, a hundred times over. I've become a nightmare to myself, and I won't stand it. In a few days you'll have departed, and before you return I'll probably have gone too. Nothing but an intervention of Providence can prevent my marrying Florence Baker now. Life isn't a story-book or we who live it undiscerning clods. She knows I am going to ask her to marry me, and I know what her answer will be. We'll be away on our wedding-trip long before you and Elise return in the Fall." The speaker's voice was sober. Only the heightened color of his face betrayed him.

"I say I'm through with this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an interest--but one--and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before G.o.d, I never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more money than she can ever spend--enough if she wishes to buy the elect of the elect.

She is young, and she will soon forget--if it's necessary. With me, my actions have largely ceased to be a matter of ethics. I am desperate, Hough, and a desperate man takes what presents itself."

But Hough was in no condition to appreciate the meaning of the selfish revelation of his friend's true character. Since he married his lapses had been infrequent, and already his surroundings were becoming a bit vague. His one ambition was to appear what he was not--sober; and he straightened himself stiffly.

"I see," he said, "sorry to lose you, old pal, very sorry; but what must be must be, I s'pose," and he drew himself together with a jerk.

Sidwell glanced at the speaker sarcastically, almost with a shade of contempt. "I know you're sorry, deucedly sorry," he mocked. "So sorry that you'd probably like to drown your excess of emotion in the flowing bowl." Again the ironic glance swept the other's face. "Another smile would be good for you, anyway. You're entirely too serious. Here you are!" and the decanter once more did service.

Hough picked up his gla.s.s and nodded with gravity "Yes, I always was a sad devil." By successive movements the liquor approached his lips.

"Lots of troubles and tribulations all my--"

The sentence was not completed; the Cognac remained untasted. At that moment there was a knock upon the door.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BACK-FIRE

When Ben Blair left the Baker home he went back to his room at the hotel, closed and locked the door, and, throwing off coat and hat, stretched himself full-length upon the floor, gazing up at the ceiling but seeing nothing. It had been a hard fight for self-control there on the prairie the day Florence rejected him, but it was as nothing to the tumult that now raged in his brain. Then, despite his pain, hope had remained. Now hope was lost, and in its place stood a maddening might-have-been. Under the compulsion of his will, the white flood of anger had pa.s.sed, but it only made more difficult the solution of the problem confronting him. Under the influence of pa.s.sion the situation would have been a mere physical proposition; but with opportunity to think, another's wishes and another's rights--those of the woman he loved--challenged him at every turn.

At first it seemed that a removal of his physical presence, a going away never to return, was adequate solution of the difficulty; but he soon realized that it was not. Deeper than his own love was his desire for the happiness of the girl he had known from childhood. Had he been certain that she would be happy with the man who had fascinated her, he could have conquered self, could have returned to his prairies, his cattle, his work, and have concealed his hurt. But it was impossible for him to believe she would be happy. Without volition on his part he had become an actor in this drama, this comedy, this tragedy,--whatever it might prove to be; and he felt that it would be an act of cowardice upon his part to leave before the play was ended. He was not in the least religious in the sense of creed and dogma. In all his life he had scarcely given a thought to religion. His knowledge of the Almighty by name had been largely confined to that of a word to conjure with in mastering an obstreperous bronco; but, in the broad sense of personal cleanliness and individual duty, he was religious to the core. He would not s.h.i.+rk a responsibility, and a responsibility faced him now.

Hour after hour he lay p.r.o.ne while his active brain suggested one course after another, all, upon consideration, proving inadequate. Gradually out of the chaos one fundamental fact became distinct in his mind. He must know more of this man Clarence Sidwell before he could leave the city, and this decision brought him to his feet. Under the circ.u.mstances, a strategist might have employed others to gather surrept.i.tiously the information desired; but such was not the nature of Benjamin Blair. One thing he had learned in dealing with his fellows, which was that the most effective way to secure the thing one wished was to go direct to the man who had it to give. In this case Sidwell was the man. With a grim smile Ben remembered the invitation and the address he had received the first night he was in town. He would avail himself of both.

Night had fallen long ere this; when Ben arose the room was in darkness, save for the reflected light which came through the heavily curtained windows from the street lamps. He turned on an electric bulb and made a hasty toilet. In doing so his eye fell upon the two big revolvers within the drawer of the dresser; and the same impulse that had caused him to bring them into this land of civilization made him thrust them into his hip pockets. It was more habit than anything else, just as a man with a dog friend feels vaguely uncomfortable unless his pet is with him. Blair had the vigorously recurring appet.i.te of a healthy animal, and it suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet dined. Descending to the street, he sought a _cafe_ and ate a hearty meal.

A half-hour later, the elevator boy of the Metropolitan Block, where Sidwell had his quarters, was surprised, on answering the indicator, to find a young man in an abnormally broad hat and flannel s.h.i.+rt awaiting him. The youth was of vivid imagination, and knowing that a Wild West troupe was performing in town, one glance at Ben's hat, his suspicions became certainty.

"Eleventh floor," he announced, when the pa.s.senger had told his destination; then as the car moved upward he gathered courage and looked the rancher fair in the eye.

"Say, Mister," he ventured, "give me a pa.s.s to the show, will you?"

For an instant Ben looked blank; then he understood, and his hand sought his trousers' pocket. "Sorry," he explained, "but I don't happen to have any with me. Will this do instead?" and he produced a half-dollar.

The boy brought the car deftly to a stop within a half-inch of the level of the desired floor. "Thank you. Mr. Sidwell--straight ahead, and turn to the left down the short hall," he said obligingly.

Blair stepped out, saying, "Don't fail to be around to-morrow when I do my stunt."

With open-mouthed admiration the boy watched the frontiersman's long free stride--a movement that struck the floor with the springiness of a cat, very different from the flat-footed jar of pedestrians on paved streets.

"I won't!" he called after him. "I'd rather see't than a dozen ball-games! I'll look for you, Mister!"

At the interrupting tap upon the door, Sidwell voiced a languid "Come in," and merely s.h.i.+fted in his seat; but his big companion, with the hospitality of inebriation, had returned his gla.s.s unsteadily to the table and arisen. He had taken a couple of uncertain steps, as if to open the door, when, in answer to the summons, Ben Blair stepped inside.

Hough halted with a suddenness which all but cost him his equilibrium.

The expansive smile upon his face vanished, and he stared as though the bottomless pit had opened at his feet. For a fraction of a minute not one of the three men spoke or stirred, but in that time the steady blue eyes of the countryman took in the details of the scene--the luxurious furnis.h.i.+ngs, the condition of the two men--with the rapidity and minuteness of a sensitized plate. Ironic chance had chosen an unpropitious night for his call. Intoxication surrounding a bar, under the stimulus of numbers, and preceding or following some exciting event, he could understand, could, perhaps, condone; but this solitary dissipation, drunkenness for its own sake, was something new to him. The observing eyes fastened themselves upon the host's face.

"In response to your invitation," he said evenly, "I've called."

Sidwell roused himself. His face flushed. Despite the liquor in his brain, he felt the inauspicious chance of the meeting.

"Glad you did," he said, with an attempt at ease. "Deucedly glad. I don't know of anyone in the world I'd rather see. Just speaking of you, weren't we?" he said, appealing to Hough. "By the way, Mr.--er--Blair, shake hands with Mr. Hough, Mr. Winston Hough. Mighty good fellow, Hough, but a bit melancholy. Needs cheering up a bit now and then.

Needed it badly to-night--almost cried for it, in fact"; and the speaker smiled convivially.

Hough extended his hand with elaborate formality. "Delighted to meet you," he managed to articulate.

"Thank you," returned the other shortly.

Sidwell meanwhile was bringing a third chair and gla.s.s. "Come over, gentlemen," he invited, "and we'll celebrate this, the proudest moment of my life. You drink, of course, Mr. Blair?"

Ben did not stir. "Thank you, but I never drink," he said.

"What!" Sidwell smiled sceptically. "A cattle-man, and not refresh yourself with good liquor? You refute all the precedents! Come over and take something!"

Ben only looked at him steadily. "I repeat, I never drink," he said conclusively.

Sidwell sat down, and Hough followed his lead.

"All right, all right! Have a cigar, then. At least you smoke?"

"Yes," a.s.sented Blair, "I smoke--sometimes."

The host extended the box hospitably. "Help yourself. They're good ones, I'll answer for that. I import them myself."