Lost Ecstasy/Chapter 42
MR. TULLOSS sat in the tile-floored morning room of Henry's country house, with a bottle of whisky and a siphon of soda at his elbow. His straw hat—he had abandoned his Stetson at Omaha, at Jennie's order—had been taken from him in the hall, and it had apparently required two men to bring in the refreshments. Two men. He must remember to tell Jennie.
He could look beyond into the drawing room. Not that he called it a drawing room. To him a drawing room was a place where one drew. It was a parlor, a very fine parlor. Even Kirkenbride, the Senator back home, had no such room as that.
For the first time, not so much the hopelessness of his errand as a doubt of its rightness, began to trouble him. So this was what the girl had given up, to go out with Tom McNair to that God-forsaken place on the Reservation! Perhaps Tom had been right after all. "She was tired of me, that's all. I was just something for her to play around with for awhile." And the incident of the Hamel girl had simply forced an issue that was bound to come.
He was very warm, and the whisky had made him warmer. He got out his handkerchief and mopped his face.
"It's the humidity," he said. "We get hot as blazes out home, but it's a dry heat."
Henry nodded. He did not like Tulloss; not since he had ignored his request and written him that letter. "I have always done business with my cards on the table." Well, his cards—Henry's—had been on the table from the start. Let Tulloss turn his up now. He had come for something. Henry eyed him warily.
"I don't suppose you came to see me to talk about the climate, Tulloss."
"No, although climate has something to do with it. We've had a bad year. Maybe you know it, maybe you don't. But it's about wrecked the cattle business, for a while anyhow. It looks as though I'll have to take over Potters' end of the L. D. Either that, or—find somebody to buy it."
"If that means me, no," said Henry, unequivocally. "I'm through."
"It's a good ranch. With proper handling, and wheat to fall back on, it's a paying proposition."
"With the cattle failing on good wheat years, and vice versa!"
"I've found a man who doesn't know a bad year for cattle when he meets it."
"Who is it?"
"It happens," said the banker, clearing his throat, "to be your son-in-law, Tom McNair."
Suddenly Henry was very angry. His neck swelled, his face was deeply suffused.
"I regard that as a distinct impertinence, Tulloss. That name is not mentioned in this house. The fellow has wrecked my family; he virtually killed my—killed my wife. He has ruined my daughter's chances for any satisfactory marriage. And you can come here and ask me to discuss him!"
"You don't have to say a word," said Tulloss blandly. "Let me do the talking, Henry. In the first place, I don't put all the blame on Tom, but that's neither here nor there. I didn't come here to quarrel. And when your girl tells me she doesn't want to go back to Tom McNair, I'm ready to hunt up my hat and go away. But I have a sneaking idea, Henry, that the time comes when all a man can do for his children is to help them to be happy. And by the time he's able to do that, generally speaking, he's so old that he's forgotten how."
Henry stirred in his chair.
"I'll ask you this: is Kay happy?"
"Happy? She's just lost her mother."
"I'll change it, then, is she happier here than she would be out West?"
"At least she's fed and clothed! Do you know how she came back to me? In rags, and half starved! I was profoundly shocked. Even now, when I think of it, my blood boils."
"She'd be comfortable enough on the L. D. And fed, too—although I think you're wrong about that. They were poor, of course; they didn't have any flunkeys bowing and scraping around, but they did have enough to eat."
That last speech was hardly tactful, but it only hardened in Henry a resolve already made. He would never lift a finger to help Tom McNair. He said so in a variety of ways, some of them rather reminiscent of old Lucius in their luridness.
"And you can tell McNair that for me," he finished.
Mr. Tulloss got up. He was hotter than ever, and the flunkeys had taken his hat. Where the devil was his hat?
"All right, Henry. All right," he said. "No reason for getting excited about it. If Potter's in the shape I think he is I'll take over the L. D. myself. And—" his voice rose somewhat—"I'll put McNair on it too, by God. Then when your girl goes back to him, as she will, she'll have a home anyhow. And no thanks to you!"
He stalked out, located his hat, jerked it from James, jammed it on his head, and got into his taxicab.
When he looked at the meter it said four dollars and eighty-five cents, and he sat in silent fury all the way back. Nevertheless, he had not spent all of the four dollars and eighty-five cents in vain.
Some of Henry's complacency had been destroyed by that visit. At dinner that night—those long deadly dinners where Kay and her father sat across from each other at the massive table and made conversation for the benefit of the servants, and fell into silence the moment they were alone—he looked at her more carefully than he had for a long time. She looked badly. By gad, she looked sick! For the first time in many weeks he addressed a personal question to her.
"How do you feel, Kay? Are you all right?"
He was startled to see that the look she gave him was actually grateful.
"I'm all right, father."
"Do you—sleep?"
"Not always, but I read, you know. I don't mind it."
When the long ritual of the meal was over he went into his library, as was his custom now, and closed the door. There were some drawings on his desk; he had to select something for Katherine's grave. He picked one up and sat holding it. She had hated the shaft over his father's grave, but he had put it up, nevertheless. And what was that queer thing she had wanted to put on it? "He has followed the trail into the sunset." It was a silly, sentimental thing, and he had not let her do it. There were a great many other things he had not let her do. Maybe Tulloss was right, and he had been a hard man. Katherine. Katherine.
He made up his mind then that if Tulloss reopened the matter of the L. D. he would consider it. Then, if the fellow actually made good
But he was the old Henry, nevertheless. He reflected rather grimly that perhaps a reconciliation would be better than a divorce. He had had enough publicity; all he could stand. And Tulloss was no fool. He had never spent a dollar unless there were two in sight.
Mr. Tulloss, however, did not reopen the matter. He went on to New York, miserably put on the suit he had bought for the Bankers' Convention years ago, tied his white tie, and wandered self-consciously through hotel and theater lobbies, never quite accustomed to clothing indecently short in front and awkwardly long behind.
And then one night, getting his key from his box, he found a telegram there waiting for him.
He read it twice, and then looked at his wife.
"I guess we'll be hitting the back trail, Jen," he said. "How soon can you be ready?"
Tom's entire herd had been stolen, and Tom himself was out gunning for Little Dog.
They went back, Mr. Tulloss and Jennie; Jennie unwilling but acquiescent, the banker watching schedules, uneasy, impatient. He puzzled his wife. He was not a soft man.
"What difference does it make to you whether Tom McNair kills an Indian or not?"
"He'll get life this time, or maybe worse. That's why."
It was not an answer, but she let it go at that. She thought that somehow there must be money at stake, and watched to see if he leaned back to rub that old bullet of his. She never thought it might be pity.
Tom was in the mountains when they reached Ursula. Allison told Tulloss that, and that Tom had taken a pack horse and "all the armament he owned."
"He's plumb crazy," said the Sheriff. "Not talkin' any, y'understand. Just ridin' and lookin' round."
"You get word to him I want to see him," said Mr. Tulloss grimly.
"I want to see him myself!" said the Sheriff. "But that's easier said than done."