Youth Challenges Part 44

Did she love Bonbright? At last she dared to put the question squarely.... Her answer came quickly. "Oh, I do... I do!" she cried, aloud. "I love him...." A surge of happiness welled up from her heart at the words. "I love him," she repeated, to hear the sound of them again.

The happiness was of short life. "I love him--but it's too late....

It's always too late," she sobbed. "I've lost him.... He's gone. ..."

The girl who could give herself to a man she did not love for the Cause was not weak; she did not lack resolution, nor did she lack the sublimity of soul which is the heritage of women. She had lost her happiness; she had wrecked her life, and until this moment there seemed no possibility of recovering anything from the wreckage.... But she loved.... There was a foundation to build from. If she had been weak, a waverer, no structure could have risen on the foundation; it must have lain futile, accusing. But there was strength in her, humility, a will that would dare much, suffer much, to fight its way to peace.

"If he loves me still," she thought; and there hope was born.

"If I go to him.... If I tell him--everything?" she asked herself, and in asking made her resolution. She would venture, she would dare, for her happiness and for his. She would go, and she would say: "Bonbright, I love you.... I have never loved anybody but you.... You must believe me." He would believe her, she knew. There was no reason why he should not believe her. There was nothing for her to gain now by another lie.

"I'll make him believe," she said, and smiled and cried and smiled again. "Hilda will tell me where he lives and I'll go to him--now...."

At that instant Hilda was coming to her, was on the stairs, and Hilda looked grave, troubled. She walked slowly up the stairs and rapped on the door. "Ruth," she called, "it's Hilda.... May I come in now?"

Ruth ran to the door and threw it open. "Come in.... Come in." Her voice was a song. "Oh, Hilda..."

"Honey," said Hilda, holding her at arm's length, '-his father is dead.

They found him dead just after noon...."

"Oh!..." said Ruth. It was an instant before the full significance of this news was shown to her. Then she clutched Hilda with terror-stricken fingers. "No.... No!..." she cried. "It can't be.... It mustn't be...."

"Why--what is it? I--I didn't think you'd take it like this...."

"I love him.... I love Bonbright," Ruth said, in a blank, dead voice.

"I was going to him.... I was going to tell him... and he would have believed. But now---he wouldn't believe. He would think I came--because his father was dead--because he--he was what I thought he was when I married him.... Don't you see? He'd think I was coming to him for the same reason.... He'd think I was willing to give myself to him--for that...."

Hilda took the slight form in her arms and rocked her to and fro, while she thought.... "Yes," she said, sorrowfully, "you can't go to him now.... It would look--oh, why couldn't his father have made a will, as he was going to?... If he'd left his old money to charity or something.... We thought he had.... But there has been no will.

Everything is Bonbright's...."

"I'm always--too--late..." Ruth said, quietly.

CHAPTER XXIX

Bonbright was in his own home again--in the house that had been his father's, and that was now his. He stood in the room that had been his since babyhood. He had not thought to stand there again, nor did he know that the room and the house were his own. He had come from the shops but a half hour before; had come from that room where his father lay across his desk, one arm outstretched, the other s.h.i.+elding his face. There had been no time to think then; no time to realize. ...

What thought had come to him was one of wonder that the death of his father could mean so little to him. Shock he felt, but not grief. He had not loved his father. Yet a father is a vital thing in a son's life. Bonbright felt this. He knew that the departing of a father should stand as one of the milestones of life, marking a great change.

It marked no change for him. Everything would go on as it had gone--even on the material side. It was inevitable that he should remember his father's threat to disinherit him. Now the thing had come--and it made little difference, for Bonbright had laid out his life along lines of his own.... His father would be carried to the grave, would disappear from the scene--that was all.

He saw that the things were done which had to be done, and went home to his mother, dreading the meeting. He need not have dreaded it, for she met him with no signs of grief. If she felt grief she hid it well. She was calm, stately, grave--but her eyes were not red with weeping nor was her face drawn with woe. He wondered if his father meant as little to his father's wife as it did to his father's son. It seemed so. There had been no affectionate pa.s.sage between Bonbright and his mother. She had not unbent to him. He had hardly expected her to, though he had been prepared to respond....

Now he was in his room with time to think--and there was strangely little to think of. He had covered the ground already. His father was dead. When Bonbright uttered that sentence he had covered the episode completely. That was it--it was an EPISODE.

A servant came to the door.

"Mr. Richmond wishes to speak with you on the phone, Mr. Bonbright,"

the man said, and Bonbright walked to the instrument. Richmond had been his father's counsel for many years.

"Bonbright?" asked Mr. Richmond.

"Yes."

"I have just had the news. I am shocked. It is a terrible thing."

"Yes," said Bonbright.

"I will come up at once--if you can see me. The death of a man like your father entails certain consequences which cannot be considered too soon. May I come?"

"If you think it is necessary," said Bonbright.

"It is necessary," said Mr. Richmond.

In twenty minutes Richmond was announced and Bonbright went to meet him in the library. Richmond extended his hand with the appropriate bearing for such an occasion. His handshake was a perfect thing, studied, rehea.r.s.ed, just as all his life was studied and rehea.r.s.ed. He had in stock a manner and a handshake and a demeanor which could be instantly taken off the shelf and used for any situation which might arise.

Richmond was a ready man, an able man. On the whole, he was a good man, as men go, but cut and dried.

"Your father was a notable man," he declared. "He will be missed."

Bonbright bowed.

"There will be a great deal for you to look after," said the lawyer, "so I will be brief. The ma.s.s of detail can wait--until after--er--until you have more leisure."

"I think, Mr. Richmond, it is my mother you wish to see, not myself. I thought you would understand my position. I am surprised that you do not, since you have been so close to my father.... My father and I did not agree on matters which both of us considered vital. There were differences which could not be abridged. So I am here merely as his son, not as his successor in any way."

"I don't understand."

"My father," said Bonbright, with a trace of impatience, "disowned me, and--disinherited, I believe, is the word--disinherited me."

"Oh no! No!... Indeed no! You are laboring under a misapprehension. ...

You are mistaken. I am glad to be able to relieve your mind on that point. Nothing of the sort was done. I am in a position to know. ... I will admit your father discussed such action, but the matter went no farther. Perhaps it was his intention to do as you say, but he put it off.... He seemed to have a prejudice against making a will. As a matter of fact, he died intestate..."

"You mean--"

"I mean that your father's wealth--and it was considerable, sir--will be disposed of according to the statutes of Descent and Distribution.

In other words, having failed to dispose of his property by testament, the law directs its disposition. With the exception of certain dower rights the whole vests in yourself."

Here was something to think of. Here was a new and astounding set of circ.u.mstances to which he must adapt himself.... He experienced no leap of exultation. The news left him cold. Queerly, his thoughts in that moment were of Ruth and of her great plan.

"If she had waited..." he thought.

No, he was glad she had not waited. He did not want her that way.... It was not her he wanted, but her love. He thought bitterly that he would willingly exchange all that had become his for that one possession. He could have anything--everything--he wanted now but that....

"I am glad to be able to give you such news," said Mr. Richmond.

"I was thinking of something else," said Bonbright.

Richmond looked at the young man obliquely. He had heard that Bonbright was queer. This rumor seemed not without foundation. Richmond could not comprehend how a young man could think of anything else when he had just learned that he was several tunes a millionaire.