“Oh, come in, Laura!”
cried her sister, as Laura appeared in the doorway.
“Don’t stand there! Come in
if you want to take part in a grand old family row!”
With a furious and tear-stained face, she was confronting
her father who stood before her in a resolute attitude
and a profuse perspiration. “Shut the door!”
shouted Cora violently, adding, as Laura obeyed, “Do
you want that little Pest in here? Probably he’s
eavesdropping anyway. But what difference does
it make? I don’t care. Let him hear!
Let anybody hear that wants to! They can hear
how I’m tortured if they like. I didn’t
close my eyes last night, and now I’m being tortured.
Papa!” She stamped her foot. “Are
you going to take back that insult to me?”
“`Insult’?” repeated
her father, in angry astonishment.
“Pshaw,” said Laura, laughing
soothingly and coming to her. “You know
that’s nonsense, Cora. Kind old papa couldn’t
do that if he tried. Dear, you know he never
insulted anybody in his ”
“Don’t touch me!”
screamed Cora, repulsing her. “Listen, if
you’ve got to, but let me alone. He did
too! He did! He knows what he said!”
“I do not!”
“He does! He does!”
cried Cora. “He said that I was I
was too much `interested’ in Mr. Corliss.”
“Is that an `insult’?” the father
demanded sharply.
“It was the way he said it,”
Cora protested, sobbing. “He meant something
he didn’t say. He did! He did!
He meant to insult me!”
“I did nothing of the kind,” shouted the
old man.
“I don’t know what you’re
talking about. I said I couldn’t understand
your getting so excited about the fellow’s affairs
and that you seemed to take a mighty sudden interest
in him.”
“Well, what if I do?”
she screamed. “Haven’t I a right to
be interested in what I choose? I’ve got
to be interested in something, haven’t
I? You don’t make life very interesting,
do you? Do you think it’s interesting to
spend the summer in this horrible old house with the
paper falling off the walls and our rotten old furniture
that I work my hands off trying to make look decent
and can’t, and every other girl I know at the
seashore with motor-cars and motor-boats, or getting
a trip abroad and buying her clothes in Paris?
What do you offer to interest me?”
The unfortunate man hung his head.
“I don’t see what all that has to do with
it ”
She seemed to leap at him. “You
don’t? You don’t?”
“No, I don’t. And
I don’t see why you’re so crazy to please
young Corliss about this business unless you’re
infatuated with him. I had an idea and
I was pleased with it, too, because Richard’s
a steady fellow that you were just about
engaged to Richard Lindley, and ”
“Engaged!” she cried,
repeating the word with bitter contempt. “Engaged!
You don’t suppose I’ll marry him unless
I want to, do you? I will if it suits me.
I won’t if it suits me not to; understand that!
I don’t consider myself engaged to anybody, and
you needn’t either. What on earth has that
got to do with your keeping Richard Lindley from doing
what Mr. Corliss wants him to?”
“I’m not keeping him from
anything. He didn’t say ”
“He did!” stormed Cora.
“He said he would if you went into it. He
told me this afternoon, an hour ago.”
“Now wait,” said Madison.
“I talked this over with Richard two days ago ”
Cora stamped her foot again in frantic
exasperation. “I’m talking about
this afternoon!”
“Two days ago,” he repeated
doggedly; “and we came to the same conclusion:
it won’t do. He said he couldn’t go
into it unless he went over there to Italy and
saw for himself just what he was putting his money
into, and Corliss had told him that it couldn’t
be done; that there wasn’t time, and showed him
a cablegram from his Italian partner saying the secret
had leaked out and that they’d have to form
the company in Naples and sell the stock over there
if it couldn’t be done here within the next week.
Corliss said he had to ask for an immediate answer,
and so Richard told him no, yesterday.”
“Oh, my God!” groaned
Cora. “What has that got to do with your
going into it? You’re not going to risk
any money! I don’t ask you to spend
anything, do I? You haven’t got it if I
did. All Mr. Corliss wants is your name.
Can’t you give even that? What importance
is it?”
“Well, if it isn’t important,
what difference does it make whether I give it or
not?”
She flung up her arms as in despairing
appeal for patience. “It is important
to him! Richard will do it if you will be secretary
of the company: he promised me. Mr. Corliss
told me your name was worth everything here:
that men said downtown you could have been rich long
ago if you hadn’t been so square. Richard
trusts you; he says you’re the most trusted
man in town ”
“That’s why I can’t do it,”
he interrupted.
“No!” Her vehemence increased
suddenly to its utmost. “No! Don’t
you say that, because it’s a lie. That isn’t
the reason you won’t do it. You won’t
do it because you think it would please me!
You’re afraid it might make me happy!
Happy happy happy!”
She beat her breast and cast herself headlong upon
the sofa, sobbing wildly. “Don’t
come near me!” she screamed at Laura, and sprang
to her feet again, dishevelled and frantic. “Oh,
Christ in heaven! is there such a thing as happiness
in this beast of a world? I want to leave it.
I want to go away: I want so to die:
Why can’t I? Why can’t I! Why
can’t I! Oh, God, why can’t
I die? Why can’t ”
Her passion culminated in a shriek:
she gasped, was convulsed from head to foot for a
dreadful moment, tore at the bosom of her dress with
rigid bent fingers, swayed; then collapsed all at once.
Laura caught her, and got her upon the sofa.
In the hall, Mrs. Madison could be heard running and
screaming to Hedrick to go for the doctor. Next
instant, she burst into the room with brandy and camphor.
“I could only find these; the
ammonia bottle’s empty,” she panted; and
the miserable father started hatless, for the drug-store,
a faint, choked wail from the stricken girl sounding
in his ears: “It’s it’s
my heart, mamma.”
It was four blocks to the nearest
pharmacy; he made what haste he could in the great
heat, but to himself he seemed double his usual weight;
and the more he tried to hurry, the less speed appeared
obtainable from his heavy legs. When he reached
the place at last, he found it crowded with noisy
customers about the “soda-fount”; and
the clerks were stonily slow: they seemed to know
that they were “already in eternity.”
He got very short of breath on the way home; he ceased
to perspire and became unnaturally dry; the air was
aflame and the sun shot fire upon his bare head.
His feet inclined to strange disobediences: he
walked the last block waveringly. A solemn Hedrick
met him at the door.
“They’ve got her to bed,”
announced the boy. “The doctor’s up
there.”
“Take this ammonia up,”
said Madison huskily, and sat down upon a lower step
of the stairway with a jolt, closing his eyes.
“You sick, too?” asked Hedrick.
“No. Run along with that ammonia.”
It seemed to Madison a long time that
he sat there alone, and he felt very dizzy. Once
he tried to rise, but had to give it up and remain
sitting with his eyes shut. At last he heard Cora’s
door open and close; and his wife and the doctor came
slowly down the stairs, Mrs. Madison talking in the
anxious yet relieved voice of one who leaves a sick-room
wherein the physician pronounces progress encouraging.
“And you’re sure her heart trouble
isn’t organic?” she asked.
“Her heart is all right,”
her companion assured her. “There’s
nothing serious; the trouble is nervous. I think
you’ll find she’ll be better after a good
sleep. Just keep her quiet. Hadn’t
she been in a state of considerable excitement?”
“Ye-es she ”
“Ah! A little upset on
account of opposition to a plan she’d formed,
perhaps?”
“Well partly,” assented the
mother.
“I see,” he returned,
adding with some dryness: “I thought it
just possible.”
Madison got to his feet, and stepped
down from the stairs for them to pass him. He
leaned heavily against the wall.
“You think she’s going
to be all right, Sloane?” he asked with an effort.
“No cause to worry,” returned
the physician. “You can let her stay in
bed to-day if she wants to but ”
He broke off, looking keenly at Madison’s face,
which was the colour of poppies. “Hello!
what’s up with you?”
“I’m all right.”
“Oh, you are?” retorted
Sloane with sarcasm. “Sit down,” he
commanded. “Sit right where you are on
the stairs, here,” and, having enforced the
order, took a stethoscope from his pocket. “Get
him a glass of water,” he said to Hedrick, who
was at his elbow.
“Doctor!” exclaimed Mrs.
Madison. “He isn’t going to be sick,
is he? You don’t think he’s sick
now?”
“I shouldn’t call him
very well,” answered the physician rather grimly,
placing his stethoscope upon Madison’s breast.
“Get his room ready for him.” She
gave him a piteous look, struck with fear; then obeyed
a gesture and ran flutteringly up the stairs.
“I’m all right now,”
panted Madison, drinking the water Hedrick brought
him.
“You’re not so darned
all right,” said Sloane coolly, as he pocketed
his stethoscope. “Come, let me help you
up. We’re going to get you to bed.”
There was an effort at protest, but
the physician had his way, and the two ascended the
stairs slowly, Sloane’s arm round his new patient.
At Cora’s door, the latter paused.
“What’s the matter?”
“I want,” said Madison thickly “I
want to speak to Cora.”
“We’ll pass that up just
now,” returned the other brusquely, and led
him on. Madison was almost helpless: he murmured
in a husky, uncertain voice, and suffered himself
to be put to bed. There, the doctor “worked”
with him; cold “applications” were ordered;
Laura was summoned from the other sick-bed; Hedrick
sent flying with prescriptions, then to telephone
for a nurse. The two women attempted questions
at intervals, but Sloane replied with orders, and
kept them busy.
“Do you think I’m
a –a pretty sick man, Sloane?”
asked Madison after a long silence, speaking with
difficulty.
“Oh, you’re sick, all right,” the
doctor conceded.
“I I want to speak to Jennie.”
His wife rushed to the bed, and knelt beside it.
“Don’t you go to confessing
your sins,” said Doctor Sloane crossly.
“You’re coming out of the woods all right,
and you’ll be sorry if you tell her too, much.
I’ll begin a little flirtation with you, Miss
Laura, if you please.” And he motioned to
her to follow him into the hall.
“Your father is pretty
sick,” he told her, “and he may be sicker
before we get him into shape again. But you needn’t
be worried right now; I think he’s not in immediate
danger.” He turned at the sound of Mrs.
Madison’s step, behind him, and repeated to her
what he had just said to Laura. “I hope
your husband didn’t give himself away enough
to be punished when we get him on his feet again,”
he concluded cheerfully.
She shook her head, tried to smile
through tears, and, crossing the hall, entered Cora’s
room. She came back after a moment, and, rejoining
the other two at her husband’s bedside, found
the sick man in a stertorous sleep. Presently
the nurse arrived, and upon the physician’s
pointed intimation that there were “too many
people around,” Laura went to Cora’s room.
She halted on the threshold in surprise. Cora
was dressing.
“Mamma says the doctor says
he’s all right,” said Cora lightly, “and
I’m feeling so much better myself I thought I’d
put on something loose and go downstairs. I think
there’s more air down there.”
“Papa isn’t all right,
dear,” said Laura, staring perplexedly at Cora’s
idea of “something loose,” an equipment
inclusive of something particularly close. “The
doctor says he is very sick.”
“I don’t believe it,”
returned Cora promptly. “Old Sloane never
did know anything. Besides, mamma told me he said
papa isn’t in any danger.”
“No `immediate’ danger,”
corrected Laura. “And besides, Doctor Sloane
said you were to stay in bed until to-morrow.”
“I can’t help that.”
Cora went on with her lacing impatiently. “I’m
not going to lie and stifle in this heat when I feel
perfectly well again not for an old idiot
like Sloane! He didn’t even have sense
enough to give me any medicine.” She laughed.
“Lucky thing he didn’t: I’d
have thrown it out of the window. Kick that slipper
to me, will you, dear?”
Laura knelt and put the slipper on
her sister’s foot. “Cora, dear,”
she said, “you’re just going to put on
a negligee and go down and sit in the library, aren’t
you?”
“Laura!” The tone was
more than impatient. “I wish I could be
let alone for five whole minutes some time in my life!
Don’t you think I’ve stood enough for
one day? I can’t bear to be questioned,
questioned, questioned! What do you do it for?
Don’t you see I can’t stand anything more?
If you can’t let me alone I do wish you’d
keep out of my room.”
Laura rose and went out; but as she
left the door, Cora called after her with a rueful
laugh: “Laura, I know I’m a little
devil!”
Half an hour later, Laura, suffering
because she had made no reply to this peace-offering,
and wishing to atone, sought Cora downstairs and found
no one. She decided that Cora must still be in
her own room; she would go to her there. But as
she passed the open front door, she saw Cora upon
the sidewalk in front of the house. She wore
a new and elaborate motoring costume, charmingly becoming,
and was in the act of mounting to a seat beside Valentine
Corliss in a long, powerful-looking, white “roadster”
automobile. The engine burst into staccato thunder,
sobered down; the wheels began to move both Cora and
Corliss were laughing and there was an air of triumph
about them Cora’s veil streamed and
fluttered: and in a flash they were gone.
Laura stared at the suddenly vacated
space where they had been. At a thought she started.
Then she rushed upstairs to her mother, who was sitting
in the hall near her husband’s door.
“Mamma,” whispered Laura,
flinging herself upon her knees beside her, “when
papa wanted to speak to you, was it a message to Cora?”
“Yes, dear. He told me
to tell her he was sorry he’d made her sick,
and that if he got well he’d try to do what she
asked him to.”
Laura nodded cheerfully. “And
he will get well, darling mother,” she
said, as she rose. “I’ll come back
in a minute and sit with you.”
Her return was not so quick as she
promised, for she lay a long time weeping upon her
pillow, whispering over and over:
“Oh, poor, poor papa! Oh, poor, poor Richard!”