CHAPTER XXXVII.
BACK TO THE OLD SAN FELIPE TRAIL.
In the office of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company, JamesGreenfield was aroused by a knock at the door. He lifted his head fromhis arms and looked around as if awakened out of a deep sleep.
Another knock, and he slipped the picture he held in his hand into hispocket and called, "Come in."
The door opened and Jefferson Worth stepped into the room.
For a moment the president of the wrecked Company sat staring at hisbusiness rival, then he leaped to his feet, his fists clenched and hisface working with passion. "You can't come in here, sir. Get out!" hesaid with the voice and manner he would have assumed in speaking to atrespassing dog.
Jefferson Worth stood still. "I have business of importance with you,Mr. Greenfield," he said, and his air of quiet dignity contrastedstrangely with the rage of the larger man.
"You can have no business with me of any sort whatever. I have nothingto do with your kind. This is my private office. I tell you to get out."
Jefferson Worth turned calmly as though to obey, but instead of leavingthe room closed the door and locked it. Then, placing the small grip hecarried upon the table, he deliberately went close to the threateningpresident and said coldly: "This is rank nonsense, Greenfield. I won'tleave this office until I'm through with what I came to do. I havebusiness with you that concerns you as much as it does me."
"You're a damned thief, a low sharper! I tell you I have nothing to dowith you. Now get out or I'll throw you out!"
Jefferson Worth answered in his exact, precise manner, as thoughcarefully choosing and considering his words: "No, you won't throw meout. You'll listen to what I have come to tell you. The rest of yourstatement, Greenfield, is false and you know it. It will be just aswell for you not to repeat it." The last low-spoken words did notappear to be uttered as a threat but as a calm statement of a carefullyconsidered fact. James Greenfield felt as a man who permits himself torage against an immovable obstacle--as one who spends his strengthcursing a stone wall that bars his way or a rock that lies in his path.With an effort he regained a measure of his self-control.
"Well, out with it. What do you want?"
"Sit down," said Worth, pointing to a chair. Mechanically the otherobeyed. "You have no reason for taking this attitude toward me, Mr.Greenfield," began Worth with his air of simply stating a fact.
At his words the wrath of the other again mastered him. "No reason!You--you dare to tell me that? When you and the young woman that youcall your daughter have come between me and the boy who is more than ason to me! When you have broken our close relationship of years'standing and robbed me of his companionship! When you have wrecked andruined all my plans for his future! When you have defeated the objectof my life! No reason? But what can you understand of us? You're anobody, sir, without a place or a name in the world; a common,low-bred, ignorant sharper with no family but a nameless daughter ofunknown parentage whom you found on the desert. How can you understandwhat Willard Holmes is to me?"
"I figured that you would feel this way about it," came the colorlesswords. "That's what I came here for to-night--to fix it up."
The angry amazement of Greenfield at what he considered the man'spresumption could find no expression.
Worth continued: "I know a great deal more about you and your folksthan you think. When I saw that my"--he hesitated over the word, thenspoke it plainly--"my daughter was becoming interested in WillardHolmes, I took some pains to look up his history. In doing that Inaturally found out a good deal about you. Later I learned a good dealmore."
"It is immaterial to me what you know," muttered the other in a tone ofdeep disgust. "What do you want?"
Worth spoke with quiet dignity. "I want you to understand first, Mr.Greenfield, that my girl is just as much to me as young Holmes is toyou. You are right; I am a nobody, ignorant and all that, but you mustnot think Mr. Greenfield that because you belong in New York and Ibelong in the West that this thing is harder for you than it is for me.You are not going to lose your boy but I"--for the first time hehesitated and his voice expressed emotion--"I am going to lose my girl."
The pathos of this lonely man's words touched even Greenfield. Hismanner was more gentle as he said gruffly: "It's a bad business, Mr.Worth; a damned bad business for both of us. I wish I had never heardof this country."
"You'll feel different about that. Anyway I figure that this countryand this work will be here long after you and I are gone, and so willthese young people." Again he hesitated and his slim fingers caressedhis chin. Then from behind that gray mask he asked: "How much do youknow about our finding Barbara in the desert?"
"I know the story in a general way, that's all. It does not interestme."
"Let me tell you the facts."
In his brief, colorless sentences Jefferson Worth related the incidentsof that trip across the desert, and as he did so Greenfield began torealize that some powerful motive had brought this man to him and wasforcing him to relate his story with such exact care for the details.
"And you never found the slightest clue even to the child's name?" heasked, when Worth had finished.
Jefferson Worth hesitated, then: "Mr. Greenfield, you had a youngerbrother who came West?"
The man gazed at the speaker in amazement as he answered mechanically."Yes. He died out here somewhere--in California, I believe. I was neverable to learn the details. He was an adventurous lad and a good deal ofa rover. But why--how--" As the full import of the question dawned uponhim Greenfield started from his seat. "My God, man! You don't mean--youcannot mean that it was my brother Will who was lost in that sandstormon the desert? That the woman you found by the water hole was his wife,Gertrude, and that--that--" His voice sank to a whisper. "Will wrote methat there was a child--that she had Gertrude's hair and eyes. I hadnever seen her." He turned fiercely upon his companion. "And you havekept this from me all these years? You have kept my only brother'schild from me? By God, sir! I--But perhaps this is all one of yourdamnable tricks. What proof have you that this is so, and if it is, whyhave you kept it a secret?"
Jefferson Worth opened his satchel and laid the tin box on the deskbefore the president of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company."This box was found this afternoon by Texas Joe and Pat, who brought itto me. I opened it. It is all here."
When Greenfield had examined the contents of the box--letters, some ofthem written by himself to his brother, papers relating to WilliamGreenfield's business affairs and property, and photographs of thelittle family and of the two brothers and their parents, he looked upto see Jefferson Worth sitting motionless, his form relaxed, his headdropped forward.
Without a word--for no word was needed--their hands metin a firm grip ]
Suddenly the words of the man who had been a father to his brother'schild came back to Greenfield. "My girl is just as much to me as youngHolmes is to you. You are not going to lose your boy, but I am going tolose my girl." In a flash the financier saw it all--saw how JeffersonWorth loved Barbara as his own child, as Greenfield cared for WillardHolmes; saw how Worth might have destroyed the papers so strangelybrought to light and kept the secret; saw and realized a little whatstrength of character it had taken to overcome the temptation, and feltwhat the man was suffering.
As Greenfield's hand fell on his shoulder, Jefferson Worth slowlylifted his head. Slowly he rose to his feet. In silence the two menfaced each other. Without a word--for no word was needed-their handsmet in a firm grip.
After a little while Greenfield asked eagerly: "Where is she now, Mr.Worth? Where is the girl? Does she know? I must see her at once. Come!And Willard--I wonder if he is still in town. Come, we must go to them."
But Jefferson Worth answered: "I've been figuring on that, Mr.Greenfield. You had better let me tell Barbara myself. And if I wasyou, after what you have probably said to Holmes on this subject, Iwouldn't be in a hurry to tell him. For the sake of their future we'dbetter let Barbara handle that matte
r herself. You can easily figure itout that it will be best for them that way."
The Winning of Barbara Worth Page 39
