The Grafters
Page 22
XXII
A BORROWED CONSCIENCE
The conversation on the Brentwood porch was chiefly of Breezeland Inn as ahealth and pleasure resort, until an outbound electric car stopped at thecorner below and Loring came up to make a quartet of the trio behind thevine-covered trellis.
Later, the ex-manager confessed to a desire for music--Penelope'smusic--and the twain went in to the sitting-room and the piano, leavingElinor and Kent to make the best of each other as the spirit moved them.
It was Elinor's chance for free speech with Kent--the opportunity she hadcraved. But now it was come, the simplicity of the thing to be said haddeparted and an embarrassing complexity had taken its place. Under otherconditions Kent would have been quick to see her difficulty, and wouldhave made haste to efface it; but he was fresh from the interview withMrs. Brentwood, and the Parthian arrow was still rankling. None the less,he was the first to break away from the commonplaces.
"What is the matter with us this evening?" he queried. "We have beensitting here talking the vaguest trivialities ever since Penelope andLoring side-tracked us. I haven't been doing anything I am ashamed of;have you?"
"Yes," she confessed, looking away from him.
"What is it?"
"I asked a certain good friend of mine to come to see me when there isgood reason to believe he didn't want to come."
"What makes you think he didn't want to come?"
"Why--I don't know; did he?" She had turned upon him swiftly with anoutflash of the playful daring which had been one of his major fetteringsin time past--the ecstatic little charm that goes with quick repartee andinstant and sympathetic apprehension.
"You have never yet asked anything of him that he wasn't glad enough togive," he rejoined, keeping up the third person figurative.
"Is that saying very much--or very little?"
"Very little, indeed. But it is only your askings that have beenlacking--not his good will."
"That was said like the David Kent I used to know. Are you really quitethe same?"
"I hope not," he protested gravely. "People used to say of me that Imatured late, and year by year as I look back I can see that it was a truesaying. I have done some desperately boyish things since I was a mangrown; things that make me tingle when I recall them."
"Like wasting a whole summer exploring Mount Croydon with a--a somebodywho did not mature late?"
"No; I wasn't counting that among my lapses. An older man than I ever hopeto be might find excuses for the Croydon summer. I meant in other ways.For one thing, I have craved success as I think few men have ever cravedit; and yet my plowings in that field have been ill-timed and boyish to adegree."
She shook her head.
"I don't know how you measure success; it is a word of so many, manymeanings. But I think you are your own severest critic."
"That may be; but the fact remains. It is only within the past few monthsthat I have begun to get a true inkling of things; to know, for example,that opportunities are things to be compelled--not waited for."
She was looking away from him again.
"I am not sure that I like you better for your having discovered yourself.I liked the other David Kent."
He smiled rather joylessly.
"Somebody has said that for every new point of view gained we have tosacrifice all the treasures of the old. I am sorry if I am disappointingyou."
"I don't know that you are. And yet, when you were sitting at Miss VanBrock's table the other evening telling us about your experience with thepoliticians, I kept saying to myself that I didn't know you--that I hadnever known you."
"I wish I knew just how to take that," he said dubiously.
"I wish I knew how to make you understand," she returned; and then: "Icould have made the other David Kent understand."
"You are in duty bound to try to make this one understand, don't youthink? You spoke of a danger which was not the violent kind, such asLoring fears. What is it?"
"You have had two whole days," she rejoined. "Haven't you discovered it?"
"I haven't found anything to fear but failure," was his reply.
"That is it; you have given it a name--its only true name--failure."
"But I am not going to fail."
"You mean you are going to take our railroad away from these men who havestolen it?"
"That is what I mean."
"And you will do it by threatening to expose them?"
"I shall tell Governor Bucks what I know about the oil field deal,assuring him that I shall publish the facts if he doesn't let the law takeits course in ousting Judge MacFarlane and the receiver."
She rose and stood before him, leaning against one of the vine-clad porchpillars with her hands behind her.
"David Kent, are there any circumstances in which you would accept abribe?"
He answered her in all seriousness.
"They say every man has his price: mine is higher than any bid they haveyet made--or can make, I hope."
"Why don't you let _them_ bribe _you_?" she asked coolly. "Is it becauseit is inexpedient--because there is more 'success' the other way?"
He tried to emulate her coolness and made a failure of it.
"Have I ever done anything to make you think I had thrown common honestyand self-respect overboard?" he demanded.
Her answer was another question, sharp-edged and well thrust home.
"Is it any worse to take a bribe than it is to give one? You have justadmitted that you are going to buy the governor's neutrality, you know."
"I don't see it in that light at all."
"The other David Kent would have seen it. He would have said: These menare public criminals. If I can not bring them to justice, I can at leastexpose them to the scorn of all good men. Therefore I have no right tobargain with them."
Kent was silent for a long time. When he spoke it was to say:
"Why have you done this, Elinor?"
"Because I had to, David. Could I do less?"
"I suppose not. It's in the blood--in your blood and mine. Other folk callit the Puritan virus of over-righteousness, and scoff at it. I don't know:sometimes I think they have the best of the argument."
"I can't believe you are quite sincere when you say that," she asserted.
"Yes, I am. One can not compromise with conscience; that says itself. ButI have come to believe latterly that one's conscience may be morbidlyacute, or even diseased. I'll admit I've been taking treatment."
"That sounds very dreadful," she rejoined.
"It does, doesn't it? Yet it had to be done. As I intimated a few minutesago, my life has hitherto been a sort of unostentatious failure. I used tothink it was because I was outclassed: I know now it has been because Iwouldn't do as other men do. It has been a rather heart-breakingprocess--to sort out the scruples, admitting the just and overriding theothers--but I have been given to see that it is the price of success."
"I want you to succeed," she said.
"Pardon me; I don't think you do. You have reopened the door to doubt, andif I admit the doubt I shall fail."
The sonata Penelope was playing was approaching its finale, and Elinor wassuddenly shaken with a trembling fit of fear--the fear of consequenceswhich might involve this man's entire future. She knew Kent was leaning onher, and she saw herself as one who has ruthlessly thrust an iron baramong the wheels of a delicate mechanism. Who was she to be hisconscience-keeper--to stand in the way and bid him go back? Were her ownmotives always so exalted? Had she not once deliberately debated this samequestion of expediency, to the utter abasement of her own ideals?
Penelope had left the piano, and Loring was looking at his watch. Kent sawthem through the open window and got upon his feet.
"Grantham is saying he had no idea it was so late," he hazarded. "If Ithank you for what you have said I am afraid it must be as the patientthanks the surgeon for the knife-stroke which leaves him a cripple forlife."
It was the one word needed to break her resolution.
His smile was a mere indrawing of the lips.
"Having opened the door, you would try to shut it again, would you? Howlike a woman! But I am afraid it can't be done. I had been trying to keepaway from that point of view.... There is much to be said on both sides.There was a time when I wouldn't have gone into such a thing as this fightwith the junto; but being in, I should have seen it through regardless ofthe public welfare--ignoring that side of it. I can't do it now; you haveshown me that I can't."
"But I don't want to be a stumbling-block," she insisted. "Won't youbelieve that I wanted to help?"
"I believe that your motive was all it should be; yes. But the result isthe same."
Loring and Penelope were coming out, and the end of their privacy was athand.
"What will you do?" she asked.
"I don't know: nothing that I had meant to do. It was a false start and Iam back under the wire again."
"But you must not turn back unless you are fully convinced of the wrong ofgoing on," she protested.
"Didn't you mean to convince me?"
"No--yes--I don't know. I--it seems very clear to me; but I want it toseem clear to you. Doesn't your conscience tell you that you ought to turnback?"
"No," he said shortly; but he immediately qualified the denial. "You maybe right: I am afraid you are right. But I shall have to fight it out formyself. There are many things to consider. If I hold my hand, thesebucaneers will triumph over the stockholders, and a host of innocentpeople will suffer loss." Then, seeing the quick-springing tears in hereyes: "But you mustn't be sorry for having done what you had to do; youhave nothing to reproach yourself for."
"Oh, but I have!" she said; and so they parted.