CHAPTER XXXI — THE TRANSFORMING OF DROOM
Jane was ill and did not leave her room during the two days following the visit to the penitentiary. She was haunted by the face of James Bansemer, the convict. It was beyond her powers of imagination to recall him as the well-groomed, distinguished man she once had known. Graydon was deeply distressed over the pain and humiliation he had subjected her to through Droom's unfortunate efforts. The fact that she could not or would not see him for two days hurt him more than he could express, even to himself. The day before he left for New York, however, she saw him in their parlour. She was pale and very quiet.
Neither mentioned the visit to the prison; there was nothing to say.
"You will be in New York next week?" he asked as he arose to leave. His spirit was sore. She again had told him that he must not hope. With an hysterical attempt to lead him on to other topics, she repeated her conversations with Teresa Valesquez, urging him with a hopeless attempt at bravado, to seek out the Spanish girl and marry her. He laughed lifelessly at the jest.
"We will leave Chicago on Monday. Father will have his business affairs arranged by that time. I would not let him resign the presidency. It would seem as if I were taking it away from him. We expect to be in Europe for six or eight months. Then, I am coming back to New York, where I was born, Graydon—to work!"
He went away with the feeling in his heart that he was not to see her again. A single atom of determination lingered in his soul, however, and he tried to build upon it for the future. Rigby's wedding invitation had come to him that morning—almost as a mockery. He tore it to pieces with a scowl of recollection.
Droom's effects were on the way to New York. He hung back, humbly waiting for Graydon to suggest that they should travel East on the same train. His grim, friendless old heart gave a bound of pure joy—the first he had known—when the young man made the suggestion that night.
Together they travelled eastward and homeward, leaving behind them the grey man in stripes.
Jane's six months in Europe grew into a year—and longer. It was a long but a profitable year for Graydon Bansemer; he had been enriched not only in wealth but in the hope of ultimate happiness. Not that Jane encouraged him. Far from it, she was more obdurate than ever with an ocean between them. But his atom of determination had grown to a purpose. His face was thinner and his eyes were of a deeper, more wistful grey; they were full of longing for the girl across the sea, and of pity and yearning for the man back there in the West.
He had toiled hard and well; he had won. The shadow of '99 was still over him, but the year and a new ambition had lessened its blackness. Friends were legion in the great metropolis; he won his way into the hearts and confidence of new associates and renewed fellowship with the old. Invitations came thickly upon him, but he resolutely turned his back upon most of them. He was not socially hungry in these days.
Once a week he wrote to his father, but there never was a reply. He did not expect one, for James Bansemer, in asking him to write, had vowed that his son should never hear from him again until he could speak as a free man and a chastened one. True to his promise, Graydon instituted no movement to secure a pardon. He did, by a strong personal appeal, persuade Denis Harbert to drop further prosecution. There were enough indictments against his father to have kept him behind the bars for life.
Elias Droom had rooms in Eighth Avenue not a great distance from Herald Square. He was quite proud of his new quarters. They had many of the unpleasant features of the old ones in Wells Street, but they were less garish in their affront to an aesthetic eye. The incongruous pictures were there and the oddly assorted books, but the new geraniums had a chance for life in the broader windows; the cook stove was in the rear and there was a venerable Chinaman in charge of it; the bedroom was kept so neat and clean that Droom quite feared to upset it with his person. But, most strange of all, was the change in Droom himself.
"I've retired from active work," he informed Graydon one day, when that young man stared in astonishment at him. "What's the use, my boy, in Elias Droom dressing like a dog of a workingman, when he is a gentleman of leisure and affluence? It surprises you to see me in an evening suit, eh? Well, by Jove, my boy, I've got a dinner jacket, a Prince Albert and a silk hat. There are four new suits of clothes hanging up in that closet," he said, adding, with a sarcastic laugh. "That ought to make a perfect gentleman of me, oughtn't it? What are you laughing at?"
"I can't help it, Elias. Who would have dreamed that you'd go in for good clothes!"
"I used to dream about it, long ago. I swore if I ever got back to New York I'd dress as New Yorkers dress—even if I was a hundred years old. I've got a servant, too. What d'ye think of that? He can't understand a word I say, nor can I understand him. That's why he stays on with me. He doesn't know when I'm discharging him, and I don't know when he's threatening to leave. What do you think of my rooms?"
It was Graydon's first visit to the place, weeks after their return to New York. He had not felt friendly to Droom since the day at the prison; but now he was forgetting his resentment, in the determination to wrest from him the names of Jane's father and mother. He was confident that the old man knew.
"Better than Wells Street, eh? Well, you see, I was in trade then. Different now. I'm getting to be quite a fop. Do you notice that I say 'By Jove' occasionally?" He gave his raucous laugh of derision. "Dined at Sherry's the other night, old chap," he went on with raw mimicry. "They thought I was a Christian and let me in. I used to look like the devil, you know."
"By the Lord Harry, Elias," cried Graydon, "you look like the devil now."
"I've got these carpet slippers on because my shoes hurt my feet," explained Droom sourly. "My collar rubbed my neck, so I took it off. Otherwise, I'm just as I was when I got in at Sherry's. Funny what a difference a little thing like a collar makes, isn't it?"
"I should say so. I never gave it a thought until now. But, Elias, I want to ask a great favour of you. You can—"
"My boy, if your father wouldn't tell you who her parents are, don't expect me to do so. He knows; I only suspect."
"You must be a mind reader," gasped Graydon.
"It isn't hard to read your mind these days. What do you hear from her?" Graydon went back to the subject after a few moments. "I am morally certain that I know who her father and mother were, but it won't do any good to tell her. It didn't make me any better to learn who my father was. It made me wiser, that's all. How's your father?"
After this night Graydon saw the old man often. They dined together occasionally in the small cafes on the West Side. Droom could not, for some reason known only to himself, be induced to go to Sherry's again.
"When Jane comes back, I'll give you both a quiet little supper there after the play maybe. It'll be my treat, my boy."
The old man worked patiently and fruitlessly over his "inventions." They came to naught, but they lightened his otherwise barren existence. There was not a day or night in which his mind was wholly free from thoughts of James Bansemer.
He counted the weeks and days until the man would be free, and his eyes narrowed with these furtive glances into the future. He felt in his heart that James Bansemer would come to him at once, and that the reckoning for his single hour of triumph would be a heavy one to pay. Sometimes he would sit for hours with his eyes staring at the Napoleon above the bookcase, something like dread in their depths. Then again he would laugh with glee, pound the table with his bony hand—much to the consternation of Chang—and exclaim as if addressing a multitude:
"I hope I'll be dead when he gets out of there! I hope I won't live to see him, free again. That would spoil everything. Let me see, I'm seventy-one now; I surely can't live much longer. I want to die seeing him as I saw him that day. The last thing I think of on earth must be James Bansemer's face behind the bars. Ha, ha, ha! It was worth all the years, that one hour! It was even worth while being his slave. I'm not afraid of him! No! That's ridiculous. Of course, I'm not afraid of him. I only want to know he's lying in a cell when I die out here in the great, free world! By my soul, he'll know that a handsome face isn't always the best. He laughed at my face, curse him. His face won her—his good looks! Well, well, well, I only hope she's where she can see his face now!"
He would work himself into a frenzy of torment and glee combined, usually collapsing at the end of his harangue. It disgusted him to think that his health was so good that he might be expected to live beyond the limit of James Bansemer's imprisonment.
At the end of eighteen months, Jane was coming home. She had written to Graydon from London, and the newspapers announced the sailing of the Cables on one of the White Star steamers.
"I am coming home to end all of this idleness," she wrote to him. "I mean to find pleasure in toil, in doing good, in lifting the burdens of those who are helpless. You will see how I can work, Graydon. You will love me more than ever when you see how I can do so much good for my fellow creatures. I want you to love me more and more, because I shall love you to the end of my life."
The night before the ship was to arrive Graydon was dining with the Jack Percivals. There were a dozen in the party—a blase, bored collection of human beings who had dined out so incessantly that eating was a punishment. They had come to look upon food as a foe to comfort and a grievous obstacle in the path of pleasure. Bridge was just beginning to take hold of them; its grip was tightening with new coils as each night went by. Nobody thought of dinner; the thought was of the delay in getting at the game; an instinct that was not even a thought urged them to abhor the food that had come into their lives so abundantly.
Night after night they dined out; night after night they toyed with their forks, ate nothing, drank to hide their yawns, took black coffee and said they enjoyed the food tremendously.
Graydon Bansemer was new to this attitude. He was vigorous and he was not surfeited with food; he had an appetite. Just before six o'clock his host called him up by 'phone, and, in a most genial way, advised him to eat a hearty meal before coming up to dinner. Graydon made the mistake of not following this surprising bit of advice.
He sat next to Mrs. Percival. She appeared agitated and uncertain. Servants came in with the dishes and almost immediately took them away again. No one touched a mouthful of the food; no one except Graydon noticed the celerity with which the plates and their contents were removed; no one felt that he was expected to eat. Graydon, after his first attempt to really eat of the third course, subsided with a look of amazement at his hostess. She smiled and whispered something into his ear. He grew very red and choked with—was it confusion or mirth?
Everybody gulped black coffee and everybody puffed violently at cigars and cigarettes and then everybody bolted for the card tables.
Jack Percival grasped Graydon's arm and drew him back into the dining-room. He was grinning like an ape.
"It worked, by George—worked like a charm. Great Scott, what a money and time saver! I was a little worried about you, Bansemer, but I knew the others wouldn't catch on. Great, wasn't it?"
"What the dickens does it mean?" demanded Graydon. "Mean! Why, good Lord, man, nobody ever eats at these damned dinners. They CAN'T eat. They're sick of dinners. That crowd out there takes tea and things at five or six o'clock. They wouldn't any more think of eating anything at a dinner after the caviar and oysters than you'd think of flying. It's a waste of time and money to give 'em real food. This is the second time I've tried my scheme and it's worked both times. I can serve this same dinner twenty times. Everything's made of wax and papier mache. See what I mean? And I'll leave it to you that there isn't a soul out there who is any the wiser. By George, it's a great invention. I'm going to patent it. Come on; let's get in there. They're howling for us to begin."
Graydon, his mind full of Jane, played at a table with Colonel Sedgwick, a blase old Knickerbocker whose sole occupation in life was saying rude things about other people. To-night he was particularly attentive to his profession. He kept Graydon and the two women sitting straight and uncomfortable in their chairs between hands and positively chilled while the game went on.
Graydon's game was a poor one at best, but he was playing abominably on this occasion. He could not tear his thoughts from the ship that was drawing nearer and nearer to New York harbour with each succeeding minute. In his mind's eye he could look far out over the black waters and see the lonely vessel as it rushed on through the night. He wondered if Jane were asleep or awake and thinking of him.
The Colonel's irascibility finally drove him from the game. He apologised for his wretched playing, but the Colonel did not apologise for the disagreeable things he had said.
It was one o'clock when Graydon reached his rooms. There he found a note from Elias Droom.
"I have an especial reason," he wrote, "for asking you and Miss Cable to dine with me on Monday night. We will go to Sherry's. Let me know as soon as you have seen her."
CHAPTER XXXII — ELIAS DROOM'S DINNER PARTY
He was mystified and not a little upset by this almost peremptory summons from the old man. He hurried over to Droom's quarters the next morning, after ascertaining that the steamer would not reach the dock until two or three o'clock. Droom was at work on one of his amazing models.
"Hello," he said ungraciously. "I thought I invited you for to-night."
"I want to know something about it, Elias," said Graydon, sitting upon the end of the workbench. "She'll not get in before the middle of the afternoon, and she may not feel like going to Sherry's to-night."
"Just as she likes," said Droom pettishly. "You mean that she would not like to be seen there with me unless there is to be something in it for her, eh?"
"Nonsense. You've got something on your mind, Elias. What is it? Why do you insist on going to-night?"
"I don't. It's to-night or not at all, however. I'm not in the habit of letting people decide when I shall dine at Sherry's. If she doesn't want to come, let her say so." That was all Graydon could get out of him, so he left in a more perplexed frame of mind than before.
He was at the dock long before the steamer came to a stop after its eight days of ceaseless throbbing. She was waving to him from the rail, her face beaming with happiness. It was just as he had seen it in his dreams of this day. More than ever he arrayed his love against her principle; more than ever was he determined to overcome the obstacles which she had thrown up in her self-arraignment.
There was a cold, biting wind blowing, with the suggestion of snow in the skies. The passengers came down with rosy cheeks, coloured by the frost-laden hours on deck. After the tedious, disagreeable hour with the customs officials, the Cables were driven to the Holland House. Graydon Bansemer, sitting opposite to Jane in the carriage, was almost speechless with joy and eagerness. The old restraint was still upon him, but it was being worn down by degrees as he gathered encouragement from the clear, inviting eyes of the girl he worshipped. The love in those happy, glowing eyes could not be mistaken for loyal indifference.
She was more beautiful than ever to his hungry, patient eyes; she was more desirable, more priceless. David Cable and his wife had been immensely benefited in every way by their months abroad. Jane had found the sunshine for them and it had been her purpose in all these months to keep them free from the shadows. They had travelled Europe over and they had lived in the full warmth of pleasure.
Cable took Graydon aside as they entered the hotel. The latter had implored Jane to give him a few minutes alone at the earliest possible moment.
"Tell me about your father, Graydon," said David Cable.
"He is still in—in Joliet," replied the young man quietly.
"He has not offered to help us in clearing up the mystery?"
"I have had no word from him, Mr. Cable. He seems to be in his tomb. I am afraid he will not help us, sir. He has said he would not; that means a great deal, I am sorry to say."
He then told him of Elias Droom's strange invitation, adding that he believed the old man was ready to reveal all that he knew.
"She must go with you to-night, then," said Cable. "It is necessary. She wants to know the truth. She has said so."
"It won't matter, sir, so far as I am concerned. She—"
"She has come back, my boy, determined to go on with her plans. I am sorry, Graydon, but I am at last convinced that she means to give her life to the work."
"By Heaven, Mr. Cable, she shall not do it! I can't live without her," cried Graydon miserably. Cable smiled sadly as he shook his head.
At half past seven o'clock Jane Cable and Graydon met Droom at Sherry's. She was paler than usual and there was a queer chill in her heart. Bansemer was more nervous than he had ever been before in his life.
Elias Droom, the strangest creature in the big restaurant, arose to greet them as they entered the doors. He had been waiting inside and out for half an hour, and his welcome was quite in keeping with his character, He uttered a few gruff words of greeting to her, accompanied by a perfunctory smile that gave out no warmth; then he started off with rude haste toward the table he had reserved. Not a word concerning her welfare, her health, her return to the homeland—no sign of interest or consideration. They followed him silently, anxiously.
The old man was conspicuously repulsive in his finery. It is unnecessary to say that his clothes did not fit his lank figure: tailors cannot perform miracles. His long chin was carefully shaven, but the razor could not remove the ruts and creases that hid the thick stubble of grey and black. Not one but one hundred diners looked with curiosity upon the nervous, uncouth old man. There was a buzz of interest and a craning of necks when the crowd saw the handsome couple join him at the table in the corner.
"I wish you'd order the dinner for me, Graydon," he said, rather plaintively. "I can pay for it, Miss Cable," he added with an attempt at joviality, "but I'm no good at ordering. These young swells know all about it. Get champagne, Graydon. Order something nice for Miss Cable. Anywhere up to twenty dollars. I'm not a millionaire, Miss Cable. Tell the waiter I'll pay for it, Graydon. This is a swell place, isn't it, Miss Cable? I've never been in Europe, but they say they can't touch our restaurants over there. Get oysters, Graydon."
"By Jove, Elias, you are giving us a treat," laughed Graydon. The old man's mood had changed suddenly. He was beaming in his effort to be agreeable. A glance around the room had convinced him that the prettiest woman there was sitting at his table. He felt a new sense of pride.
"I am proud of myself," said Droom—and he meant it.
"It's very good of you to ask me to come, Mr. Droom," said Jane, her bright eyes meeting his before they could lift themselves into the customary stare above her head.
"I'm not so sure about that," said Elias. From time to time he glanced uneasily toward a table at his left. It was set for six persons, none of whom had arrived. "I trust it will not be the last time you will honour me, Miss Cable. I am getting very hospitable in my old age. If you don't mind, Graydon, I won't drink this cocktail. I may take the champagne. I'm quite a teetotaler, you see. Milk, always. By the way, Graydon," he said, turning suddenly to the young man, "I suppose you've led her to believe that I had a motive in asking her to dine to-night—I mean other than the pleasure it would give to me."
"I—I rather thought something of the sort," stammered Graydon.
"Well, there is a motive. I've decided at last to tell all I knew. Don't look like that, Miss Cable. You'll attract attention. Calm yourself. It will be some time before the story is forthcoming. Besides, I doubt very much whether you'll get any great satisfaction out of it, although it may clear things up a bit for you. If you've been hoping that your father and mother—well, we'll take our time. Here are the oysters. Oysters make me think of your father, Graydon. Don't choke, my boy," he chuckled as Graydon stiffened quickly. "He had a woman arrested at her own dinner party one night—right over there in Fifth Avenue, too. Search warrant, and all that. The oysters were being served when the papers were served. Ah, he was a great man for effective revenge. She had dared him, you see. Did you ever hear of the other time when he permitted an ignorant host to invite two deadly enemies to the same dinner? One fellow had robbed the other fellow of his wife. Terrible scandal. Your father knew that they expected to kill one another on sight. And yet when the host told him whom he expected to invite he let him ask the two men. He told me about it afterward. It amused him. Everybody but the host knew of the row and there was a panic in the drawing-room."
"Good Lord," gasped Graydon, helplessly pushing the oysters away. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Oh, it was a great joke. It's a good dinner story. The joke comes in at the end. Both those fellows got tight and went home with their arms about one another. By the way, Graydon, what do you hear from your father?"
Graydon looked uncomfortably at Jane, whose face was set with distress.
"Elias, you've got no right to—" began the young man coldly.
"I beg your pardon if I've offended," said Droom abjectly. "I—I don't know the etiquette of small talk—forgive me. I was interested, that is all."
"It may interest you to know that I had a long talk with Mr. Clegg this afternoon. He says there is a movement on foot to secure a pardon for father. Father hasn't asked anyone to intercede. It is known that he will go to England to live as soon as he is released. That's an inducement, you see," he said bitterly.
Droom's face turned a frozen white; his steely eyes took on a peculiar glaze, and his hand grasped his leg as if it were a vise intended to hold him in his chair.
"I haven't told you about it, Jane," went on Graydon. "Mr. Clegg has seen father and he says he is indifferent about it. He intends to leave the country in any event. I am going to write to him to-night, asking him to let them apply for the pardon. It may save him from three years more of servitude. Mr. Clegg is sure he can get his release—what's the matter, Elias?"
The old clerk's body had stiffened and the look in his face was something horrible to behold. Terror was visible in every lineament. His companions started from their chairs in alarm. With a mighty effort the old man succeeded in regaining a semblance of self-control. His body relaxed, and his jaw dropped; his voice was trembling and weak as he responded, an apologetic grin on his face.
"Nothing—nothing at all. A momentary pain. Don't mind me. Don't mind me," he mumbled. "I have them often. I think it's my heart. What were you saying, Graydon? Oh, yes, the pardon. I-I hope you'll mention me in writing to your father. Tell him I hope to—to see him if he comes to New York."
"I don't believe he likes you, Elias," said Graydon, half jestingly.
"Wha—what has he said to you?" demanded Droom sharply.
"He rather resented your taking Jane and me to Joliet that day." The old man's grin was malicious. "He won't forgive you that."
"I shall never forget how he looked at you, Mr. Droom," said Jane with a shudder. Droom trembled with a new spasm of fear.
Attention was diverted by the arrival of the party of six. The men were distinguished in appearance, the women aristocratic but spirited. That they were well known to many of the diners in those days at Sherry's was at once apparent; they were bowing right and left to near-by acquaintances. After much ado they finally relapsed into the chairs obsequiously drawn back for them and the buzz of conversation throughout the place was resumed.
Graydon, lowering his voice, named the newcomers to Jane, who looked at them with fresh interest. The names were well known to New York and European society. For the moment Elias Droom was unnoticed. He took the opportunity to collect his nerves and to subdue his too apparent emotion. Jane was recalled from her polite scrutiny of the women at the next table by hearing her name mentioned in Droom's hoarsest voice, modified into something like a whisper.
"Miss Cable, I not only asked you to come here in order to tell you the name of your father, but to point him out to you."
There was an instant of breathless silence at the table. So startling was his announcement that every other sound in the room escaped the ears of his two listeners.
"There was a new hundred dollar bill found in the basket with you. Your grandfather's signature was on that bill. He was the president of the bank which issued it. Your mother was—" Here he leaned forward and whispered a name that fairly stunned his hearers. Graydon caught his breath and a new light appeared in his eyes. He was beginning to believe that the old man's brain was affected. Jane leaned forward in her chair, an incredulous smile on her lips.
"Don't jest, Elias," began Graydon, somewhat roughly.
"I am not jesting. It is the truth, I swear it," snapped Elias.
"But, great Heaven, man, consider what you've said. It's one of the best families in this country-it's preposterous to say—"
"Of course, her family is one of the best. She was a blue stocking. That's where Miss Cable gets most of her good blood."
"My God, Elias, I can't believe it!" cried Graydon.
Jane was staring blankly at the old man's face.
"Your father will tell you the same. For more than twenty years I have known the secret. There is no documentary proof, but this much I do know: James Bansemer received fifty thousand dollars for keeping his mouth closed. He found out the truth and he profited by it as usual. Oh, he knew that hundred dollar bills are not left with pauper babes. I don't know how he unearthed the truth about Miss—"
"Sh! Don't mention the name aloud!"
"But he did unearth it, beyond all possible chance of mistake. Your father, Miss Cable, is sitting at that table. Don't look up just yet. He is staring at you. He doesn't know you, but he does know you are a pretty woman. The gentleman with the grey hair, Graydon. See? That man is her father."
Graydon half started up in his chair, his lips apart, his eyes riveted on the man designated. Every drop of blood seemed to have frozen in his veins.
"Good God, Elias!" he whispered. "Why, that is—" The name stuck in his throat.
"The son of the man who signed the banknote. He is Jane's father. There's blue blood in him—there has been since King Henry's day—but he is a villain for all that. Now, Miss Cable, I've done my duty. I've told you the absolute truth. You could not have expected more—you could not have asked a greater climax. The name of Vanderbilt or Astor is no better known than that man's name, and no ancestry is better than that of your mother. I will now give to you one of the articles of proof that connects you with their history." He handed to her a small package. "It is the letter written to James Bansemer by your paternal grandfather, agreeing to an appointment to discuss a question of grave moment. I found the letter that same day, and I've kept it all these years. It bears your grandfather's signature. That is all. I heard part of that interview, and I stake my soul that what I've told you is true."
Jane sat looking at him as if paralysed. Her mind was quite incapable of grasping the full import of his words—the words she had craved for so many months, and yet dreaded.
"I knew he was coming here to-night. He gives a theatre party. To-morrow he goes abroad. That is all."
"He's living in Paris," muttered Graydon mechanically. Jane spoke for the first time, as in a daze.
"I—I have seen him many times in Paris. My father? Oh, oh, it can't be true."
"Jane, let me take you away from here—" began Graydon, observing her pallor.
"No. Let me stay. It can't matter, Graydon. I want to look at him again and again," she said, shrinking back as if the whole world were staring at her. By the most prodigious effort she regained control of her fleeing composure. It was a trying moment.
"He's worth millions," said Droom. "It will be worth while for YOU to—"
"No!" she exclaimed passionately. "Do you think I will present myself to him after he has cast me off! No! a thousand times, no!"
At that instant the party of six hurriedly arose to leave the place. The tall man with the grey hair—the handsomest man of all—was staring boldly at Jane's averted face, now red with consciousness. As he passed her in going out of the room, his look grew more insistent. She glanced up and a faint smile crossed his face.
"Devilish handsome girl," he remarked to the man behind him and then he passed out of her sight, perhaps forever.
"The woman with him?" cried Jane, her eyes following the beautiful creature at his side, "is she my mother?"
"No," said Graydon, averting his eyes to avoid her expression; "she is his wife."
Droom waited until the party was out of the restaurant before uttering a word.
"Inside of two years I have pointed out two fathers to their children—yours and his, Jane. Your mothers are dead. There isn't much choice as to fathers. If I were you, I'd say I had the better of the bargain. Take an old man's advice, both of you, and let bygones be bygones. Start life now, just as if nothing had happened before, and get every atom of happiness out of it that you can. Don't you two pay for the sins of your fathers."
"I couldn't live in New York if he were living here," murmured Jane.
"Hey, waiter, your bill," said Droom, with sudden harshness.
It was snowing and the wind was blowing a gale when they emerged from the place. Jane hung heavily upon Graydon's arm; he could feel that she was sobbing. He did not dare to look into her face, but he felt something cruelly triumphant surging in his heart. Elias Droom waited until their cab came up. Then he offered his hand to both, hesitatingly, even timidly.
"Good-night. Be happy. There is nothing else left for you but that. Graydon, when you write to your father, give him my love."
CHAPTER XXXIII — DROOM TRIUMPHS OVER DEATH
Droom stood for a few moments in the hurtling snowstorm, abstractedly gazing toward Longacre Square. The chill in his marrow was not from the blizzard that swept down upon him; the gaunt grey look in his face was not that of hunger or want. There was fever in his brain and chill in his heart. He had forgotten Jane's trivial tragedy; his one overwhelming thought was of James Bansemer.
The heavy ulster was unbuttoned and the snowflakes pelted in against his neglected shirt front. A doorman called his attention to the oversight. He came to himself, drew the coat close about his long frame, and hurried off down Fifth Avenue. The storm was so vicious that he boarded a crosstown car at Forty-second Street. A man elbowed him in the narrow vestibule. He looked up and gasped aloud in sudden terror. An instant later he laughed at his fears; the man was not James Bansemer. A cold perspiration started out over his body, however. Through his brain there went racing the ever-revolving cry:
"He'll come straight to me-straight to me!"
The hour was not late, but the blizzard had driven the crowds from the streets. Eighth avenue sidewalks were deserted except for the people who were obliged to brave the storm. As Droom hurried south to his lodgings he became possessed of a racking belief that someone was following close upon his heels—someone who was rushing up to deal him a murderous blow in the back. The old man actually broke into a frantic run in covering the last half block.
It was not until he was in his rooms, with the door bolted that he could rid himself of the dread. The fire had gone out and the light was low. His teeth chattered and his hand shook as he raised the wick in the lamp. The palsy of inexplicable fear was upon him. Kneeling before the stove he began to rebuild the fire. His back was toward the door and he turned an anxious face in that direction from time to time. Footsteps on the stairway sent a new chill through his gaunt frame. They passed on up the next flight, but he waited breathlessly until he heard the door of the apartment above slam noisily.
For half an hour he sat huddled in front of the stove without removing his hat and ulster.
"Curse the luck," he was saying over and over again to himself, sometimes aloud. "Why should he have a pardon? What are the laws for? Curse that meddling old fool Clegg! They'll set him free, and he'll hunt me out, I know he will. He won't forgive me for that day's work. He may be free now-it may have been he who followed me. But no! That's a silly thing to think. It takes weeks and months to get a pardon. Maybe—maybe they won't get it, after all."
He tried to throw off his desperate feeling of apprehension, chattering all sorts of comforting reasons and excuses to himself as he scurried about the rooms with aimless haste. Try as he would, however, when the time came, he could not read—not even of his courage-inspiring Napoleon. The howl of the wind annoyed and appalled him; he caught himself listening intently for sounds above and not of the storm. A nervous, intermittent laugh broke from his lips as he went on cursing himself for a fool to be so disturbed by Graydon's report.
"What have I to fear from him? Why should I let that look of his unnerve me so? Why can't I forget it? It—it didn't mean anything. I'm a fool to think of it. Nearly two years ago, that was. Why, he may be—" A new thought chased the old one out before it was formed. His eyes caught sight of one of his completed models, standing in the corner. It was the model for the guillotine.
For a long time he sat staring at the thing, a hundred impressions forming and reforming in his brain.
"I wonder if I'll really die before he is liberated," he was saying dumbly to himself. "I wonder if I will. There's no sign of it now. I'm strong and well enough to live for years. Suppose he is freed inside of a month or two, what then? By Heaven, I'd be losing the dearest hope of my whole life. My last sight of him—that beautiful vision behind the bars—would be spoiled, undone, wiped out. He'd be as free as I. I won't die inside of a month, I'm sure. He'd come here and laugh at me and he'd kill me in the end. God! I know he would. He'd have the joy of seeing my pain and terror and defeat—he'd see me LAST! I'd be bloody and crushed and—"
He checked himself in the midst of these dire forebodings to rise suddenly and cross to the ghastly looking frame with the cords, the hinges, and the great broadaxe that lay harmlessly in the grooves at the top. For many minutes he stood and gazed at the axe, his flesh as cold as ice. Then he tested the cords. The axe dropped heavily to the block below. He smiled with cunning triumph at his own skill.
The odour of geranium leaves assailed his nostrils. With an ugly impulse he turned and swept the pots from the window box, scattering them over the floor.
"I'm in a devil of a humour," he laughed as he surveyed the wreck. "Something's gone wrong with me. I've never mistreated my flowers before." He lifted the broadaxe to its place, tenderly, almost lovingly. "By my soul, it's a beautiful piece of work. It's as sure as the grave itself."
Again he stood off and looked at the infernal bit of his own handiwork, his eyes glistening with dread of the thing. He turned and fled to the opposite side of the room, keeping his back toward the silent guillotine which seemed to be calling to him with mocking yet fascinating persistency.
"Curse the thing," he groaned. "Damn it, I didn't make it for my own use. What is the matter with me?" He glanced slyly, fearfully over his shoulder and then faced the thing deliberately, his jaws set, his eyes staring.
"It is a quick way—a sure way," he muttered. "I haven't anything to live for and but a few years at most. Nobody cares whether I live or die—not even I. James Bansemer could not batter me down, as he surely will, if I—"
He crossed to an old chest and unlocked its lid with feverish haste. A bundle of papers came up in the grasp of his tense fingers. Casting dreadful glances at the insistent axe, he seated himself at the table and began looking over the papers.
"He won't take his father's rotten money, but he'll take mine. It's honest. It represents wages honestly, bitterly earned. There's more than twenty thousand to give him. He'll be surprised. Twenty thousand." He laid the first paper, his will drawn in favour of Graydon Bansemer, signed and addressed; upon the table, and then carelessly tossed the other documents into the chest. "By the Lord Harry, I'll have the best of James Bansemer yet. His boy will take my money even though he spurns his. God, I wish I could see him when he knows all this. It would be glorious."
He fingered the document for a tense moment, and then arose to remove his coat and vest. These he hung away in his closet with all his customary carefulness. In the middle of the room he stopped, his quivering face turned toward the gaunt thing of execution. His feet seemed nailed to the floor; his brain was urging him to go on with the horrid deed, his body was rebelling. The torture of terror was overpowering him.
Suddenly he found his strength of limb. With a guttural howl he clasped his hands to his eyes and fled blindly into his bedroom. Hurling his long, shivering frame upon the bed, he tried to shut out the enticing call of the thing of death. How long he quivered there, shuddering and struggling, he could not have told. In the end—and as suddenly as he had fled—he leaped up and with a shrill laugh dashed back into the other room.
There was no hesitation in his body now. With a maniacal glee he rushed upon the devilish contrivance in the corner, tearing the axe from its place with ruthless hands. Throughout the building rang the sounds of smashing wood, furious blows of steel upon wood, and high above the din arose the laugh of Elias Droom. In two minutes, the guillotine lay in chips and splinters about the room—destroyed even as it was on the point of destroying him.
Dropping back against the wall, wet with perspiration, a triumphant grin upon his face, Elias surveyed the wreckage. His muscles relaxed and his eyes lost the dread that had filled them. The smile actually grew into an expression of sweetness and peace that his face had never known before.
As he staggered to a chair close by, a great sigh of relief broke from his lips.
"There!" he gasped. "It's over! it's over! My head is on my shoulders—it really is after all! It is not rolling into the corner—no! no! By my head—my own head, too—it was a close call for you, Elias Droom. Now, I'll take what comes. I'll wait for James Bansemer! I'll stick it out to the end. If he comes, he'll find me here. I've conquered the infernal death that stood waiting so long for me in that corner—and I never suspected it, either. God, how near it was to me! It stood there and waited for me to come. It knew that I would come sooner or later! But I've smashed it—it's gone! It's not there!"
With eager hands he gathered up the pieces of wood and cast them into the stove. As the remains of that frightful minister of death crackled and spit with defeated venom, Elias Droom calmly pulled on his worn dressing gown, lighted his pipe and cocked his feet upon the stove rail, a serene look in his eyes, a chuckle in his throat.