At no time had it been Phil Kendrick’s
habit to entertain an inflated opinion of his own
importance. On occasion he had ridden around
the gridiron on the shoulders of idolatrous students;
but his modesty had been one of the factors underlying
his popularity. Despising conceit in others,
he was too prone, perhaps, to take himself to task
for those little mistakes which every young man is
liable to make from time to time.
It is safe to say, however, that never
in all his life had he arraigned himself upon the
carpet of his own condemnation so severely as now
while paddling across the bay for the second time within
the hour. If the McCorquodale incident earlier
in the evening had lowered his opinion of his own
judgment he was now ready to concede that he had no
judgment whatsoever. It was of little use to
tell himself that it served her right, or that she
had dared him deliberately to do what he had done.
That did not alter the fact that if he ever met her
again it was not likely that he would, of
course, but if he did, somewhere, sometime he
had erected a barrier to her good will which would
preclude all hope of her friendship. His status
in her sight was that of a “miserable fresh
Aleck!”
Thus, as a relief to his feelings
and in part to keep warm by exertion, did Phil come
home through the fog at headlong pace in a high state
of discontent, a veritable bear with a sore head.
As he lifted the canoe to its place in the boathouse
something pricked his finger, and by the light of
a match he found a dollar bill pinned to one of the
canoe cushions with a tiny brooch. His hire! the
only reward he had had any right to expect!
The sight of these souvenirs did not tend to restore
his peace of mind, and there was little mirth in the
short laugh which he bestowed upon them as he thrust
them into his pocket; yet it is interesting that he
looked upon them as souvenirs, even while deciding
to dismiss the whole matter permanently from his thoughts.
The launch was not back yet, he noted.
Well, Stinson could go to the devil with it for all
he cared! He slammed the boathouse door and
strode up the side-street, this mood carrying as far
as the picket gate. His hand was on the latch
before he realized that the library windows were blurring
through the fog with light.
Had the servants all gone crazy to-night?
He went around to the front of the house, and with
his face between the slats of the verandah railing,
peered through the French windows. Muttering
astonishment, he climbed over the railing, fitted
his latch-key noiselessly and swung open the double
glass doors that gave direct entrance to the room.
The slight sound of his entry passed unnoticed by
the Honorable Milton Waring, who continued to lean
over his desk completely absorbed in a litter of papers.
But for the heavy odor of stale cigar
smoke it would have been easy to suppose that the
fog without had crept into the library. The air
was blue. Phil’s glance swept the disordered
room. Three empty whisky glasses stood on the
library table. The butts of cigars and innumerable
cork-tipped cigarettes lay smothered in gray ashes
that spilled untidily in sundry ash-trays. There
was a char of burned paper in the open grate where
a few coals still glowed redly. The desk was
covered with packets of folded papers, held together
by rubber bands, and loose sheets upon which much
figuring had been done with the blue pencil which
his uncle favored. A stock certificate or two
peeped from a closed account book.
Phil looked again at the bowed figure,
struck by a laxity of manner that was foreign to the
Honorable Milton Waring. His thick iron-gray
hair, usually so carefully brushed, was rumpled on
end where his fingers had plowed and held his head
while he figured with the other hand. He had
removed his collar and tossed it aside impatiently;
it lay on the floor behind the chair, leaving the
tie still hanging loosely around the neck, the end
of it twisted over one shoulder. The door in
front of which the intruder stood was outside the older
man’s line of vision; but Phil could see a flushed
cheek, and there was an air of dejection in his uncle’s
attitude quite out of keeping with customary poise.
The subject of these observations
reached abruptly for the decanter on the desk and
poured himself a stiff drink of Scotch whisky.
The neck tinkled a little tattoo against the glass.
He swallowed the liquor neat and shook his head in
a spasmodic grimace. The sigh with which he
settled back in his chair was one of utter weariness.
Phil gave a slight cough to announce his presence.
“Pardon me, Uncle Milt, if I’m
intruding, but I didn’t know you were in town
Why, what’s wrong?” he ended quickly;
for his uncle had sprung from his chair and was clinging
to the edge of the desk for support while he stared
as if he were gazing at an apparition.
In truth, quite aside from his quiet
entry, the young man’s appearance was startling
enough. His facial disfigurement achieved a bizarre
effect which the condition of his clothes served to
heighten. The once jaunty panama hat hung shapelessly
about his ears and from beneath it a plaster of blond
hair slanted across his forehead rakishly. His
collar was a soggy mess, from which depended a dark
red string in sorry travesty of a flowing tie.
His shirt was soiled with mud, his coat and trousers
full of wrinkles.
“For heaven’s sake, boy!
What’s happened? Train wreck?”
He dropped back into his chair, eyeing his nephew
in amazement. “Why aren’t you at
Sparrow Lake with your aunt? Get my wire?
Eh? They told me you left this morning ”
His voice was hoarse and it trailed away as if the
situation embarrassed him and he was not quite sure
how to handle it. He stared uncertainly, drumming
nervously with his fingers.
Phil nodded as he sat down in the
nearest chair and stared back. The surprise
of finding his uncle there was overridden by the new
discovery of his evident diffidence, his flushed face,
a lack of that self-contained bearing which always
had marked him as a man of large affairs. It
was his uncle’s strict rule, he recalled, never
to take a second drink; it was an axiom of the Honorable
Milton’s that the second drink drew the cork
on indiscretion and eventual inebriety. That
something had happened which must have disturbed him
greatly to make him break this rule was a deduction
as simple as the evidence that he had broken it.
“What about you, Uncle Milt?”
suggested Kendrick after a brief explanation of his
change of plans a recital which carefully
avoided mention of McCorquodale or the mysterious
woman of the fog. “If I had known that
Aunt Dolly was going to be alone I wouldn’t have
let Thorpe persuade me to stay over a day.”
“I was called in unexpectedly important
business ” He pushed uneasily
at the papers on the desk. “Have a cigar,
Philip?” He passed the humidor as he spoke,
then scratched a match and held it to his nephew’s
selection with careful courtesy. He shook his
head in smiling disapproval of the swollen eye.
“Bad business, young man! Bad business!
A fine flower of folly you have there, eh? Don’t
grow ’m like that at the Ladies’ Aid meeting
at the First Baptist Church, do they?” He settled
back in his chair, chortling.
Phil smiled as he tossed aside his hat.
“Blame it on the fog, Uncle
Milt. I was foolish enough to trip over something
in the dark and take a header down the Canoe Club stairs
into the water,” he explained mendaciously.
“Me for the woods to-morrow without fail.
I guess I got off easy at that, for you can’t
see your hand in front of your face out on the bay
to-night. Stinson almost ran me down with the
launch missed me by a couple of feet and
that’s all.”
“Stinson? Stinson, d’you
say? Don’t mean our Stinson in our
launch? Not our Stinson in our very own launch,
Phil’p? You s’prise me greatly.
In the dark like that How do
you know?” he challenged.
Kendrick smiled at the transparency of this attempt.
“I recognized his voice for
one thing. Stinson was speeding the parting
guests the three who drank out of the glasses
yonder. Pshaw, you know as well as I do that
you sent me that wire to clear the way for this little
affair to-night, and you’re wishing right now
that I was at the bottom of the lake! But it’s
all right, Uncle Milt.”
His uncle did not laugh. Instead
he eyed the younger man from beneath heavy brows that
met in a scowl.
“Sherlock Holmes, eh?
When’d you start emulating Sherlock Holmes?”
he growled. “Been a meeting here yes business.
What of it?”
“Nothing at all, if you say
so. Only don’t make the mistake of thinking
I’m still a mere kid, Uncle Milt. I’d
hate to think there was any other reason why you have
never admitted me to your confidence. Did it
ever occur to you that perhaps I might well,
sort of dig in and help you in some way? You
and Aunt Dolly have been mighty good to me and I kind
of feel Well, you know what I
mean,” he finished diffidently.
The Honorable Milton Waring’s
brows unbent. His gaze wandered automatically
to the pile of papers on the desk and for a moment
he was silent.
“There is nothing you can do,
Phil Phill_up_, to
help,” he said at last, shaking his head slowly,
while the tired lines deepened about his eyes.
“I thanks all same.”
Kendrick hunched his chair nearer
and laid a hand on the other’s knee.
“You’re in trouble of
some kind,” he said earnestly. “Please
don’t try to deny it, Uncle Milt. I promised
Billy Thorpe I’d join him next week on a fishing
trip, but that’s all off if I can be of any use
to you. That special course in engineering next
fall that’s all off, too, if you
need me. It’s my duty to help and it’s
your duty to let me. We both owe it to Aunt
Dolly, don’t we?”
A look of apprehension sprang into
the tired eyes. He waved his hand swiftly towards
the empty glasses.
“Your aunt she must
know nothing of all this. I warn you
now, Phil’p, not a word. No
use causing her needless worry. Her social duties,
understand, These business affairs ”
His voice trailed again and he looked anxiously for
his nephew’s acquiescence.
“That goes as a matter of course,”
nodded Kendrick. “So far as I am concerned,
this little chat with you has never taken place and
there’s been nobody here except the servants so
far as I am concerned. But is there any danger
of anybody What would be the object
of anybody spying on this particular little séance?”
He paused at the quick consternation which the suggestion
aroused.
“What do you mean, Philip?”
demanded the Honorable Milton sharply. He sat
up more alertly. “Why do you ask such a
foolish question? Are you talking at random
or?”
“Very much at random,”
assured Kendrick hastily. “I was just
wondering. Because Well,
it would be the only way anybody who happened to be
interested would find out about your meeting, wouldn’t
it? I don’t intend to talk about it, as
I said before. I thought perhaps if it had anything
to do with the political situation, for instance, detectives,
you know around election time. I don’t
pretend to know very much about these things, of course.”
“You are fortunate,” grunted
the Honorable Milton, dryly. “Seems to
me you are allowing your imagination to run away with
you, young man. Advise you to curb it.”
Phil took a long pull at his cigar
and studied his uncle keenly as he blew the smoke
into the air.
“Do you want to know how I really
got this beauty spot this ’flower
of folly’ as you called it?” he asked
unexpectedly. “I had a little argument
with a fellow to-night who insisted that you were he
retracted it, of course were a political
grafter!”
The smile with which the Honorable
Milton Waring had welcomed the promised change of
subject faded slowly. He wagged his head in reproof.
“Very foolish of you, Philip to
take any notice of that sort of thing. Let ’em
talk!” Yet he looked at this nephew of his with
a new interest. “Grafter, eh? Didn’t
believe it, eh?”
“Anyone who looks up your political
record, Uncle Milt, must respect you,” said
Phil seriously. “These newspapers that
are so fond of handing out roasts seem to overlook
the fact that you were the man mainly responsible
for kicking out Rives and his crowd and cleaning up
the whole rotten administration. It makes me
mad. And some of them have got the nerve to
hint that the present Government
“Don’t let’s get
into any political discussion, Philip,” interrupted
his uncle, holding up his hand in protest. “Please.
I’m too tired for that. I’m sick
of it, d’you hear? Politics! Politics!
The same miserable tactics of misrepresentation!
The same petty motives that have bedeviled public
life for the past Damn them!”
He heaved himself abruptly from his
chair and began to pace the room restlessly while
Kendrick watched him, surprised by the unexpected
vehemence of the outburst. After a turn or two
he stopped directly in front of his nephew, and in
his eyes was a strange look.
“There are many things, my boy,
which you cannot be expected to understand without
a lot of explanation,” he said more quietly.
“I cannot go into any of these things now.
If you ever accept a public office in later life
try to look upon it as a sacred trust to be fulfilled
according to the dictates of conscience. Then
you will begin to understand what is meant by ‘burden
of effort’ and ’the heat of the day.’
I want you to believe that even one man against a
pack of wolves can put up at least some kind of a
fight, even though he knows that sooner or later he
is doomed to go down. I have tried conscientiously
to do what I thought was my duty. Do you believe
that?”
“Certainly,” nodded Kendrick without hesitation.
“Thank you, Philip. No
matter what happens I want you to continue to believe
that.”
“Look here, Uncle Milt, if anybody
is trying to put anything over on you, why not let
me in on the scrap?” urged Phil eagerly.
“I meant what I said a moment ago. What
is it? What’s the matter? Finances?
Let me help. I’ll write you a cheque for
what I have in the bank and we can raise something
on my Parkview property
The Honorable Milton tossed his head
in a chuckle of amusement.
“How much have you got?” he smiled.
“About two thousand in the bank,
another couple of thousand in negotiable securities oh,
about ten thousand, roughly, including the real-estate.
We could sell that. I’ll look after it
first thing after breakfast.”
“Ten thousand dollars is neither
here nor there, Philip,” said his uncle, shaking
his head slowly. “I could raise such a
sum by the mere request. Perhaps if it were
five times the amount Just the
same I am grateful for your offer, my boy.”
“Fifty thousand dollars!”
murmured Phil. “It’s a lot of money
when you haven’t got it.”
The Honorable Milton glanced at the
clock on the mantel and gave an exclamation.
“It’s time you and I were
in bed. I hear Stinson just coming in.
Everything’s all right. I’m going
to turn in now.”
At the foot of the stairs he paused
to lay a hand on his nephew’s shoulder and there
was unwonted gentleness in his manner.
“Good-night, Philip. And
thank you for the the ‘flower of folly,’”
he said awkwardly.
For a moment Kendrick stood watching
the Honorable Milton Waring as he mounted the stairs
slowly, a heavy hand upon the banister rail.
The gray head was bowed. There was an air of
dejection in the whole figure as of one who tastes
the bitterness of defeat.