The Fighting Chance

“I’m going to find out. Hush a moment!” and in the same calm, almost childish voice: “Oh, Howard, is that you? Yes, I know I promised not to do this, but that was before things happened!… Well, what am I to do when it is necessary to talk to you?… Yes, it is necessary!… I tell you it is necessary!… I am sorry it is not convenient for you to talk to me, but I really must ask you to listen!… No, I shall not write. I want to talk to you to-night—now! Yes, you may come here, if you care to!… I think you had better come, Howard.... Because I am liable to continue ringing your telephone until you are willing to listen.... No, there is nobody here. I am alone. What time?… Very well; I shall expect you. Good-bye.”

She hung up the receiver and turned to Mortimer:

“He’s coming up at once. Did I say anything to scare him particularly?”

“One thing’s sure as preaching,” said Mortimer; “he’s a coward, and I’m dammed glad of it,” he added naively, relighting his cigar, which had gone out.

“If he comes up in his motor he’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said. “Suppose you take your hat and go out. I don’t want him to think what he will think if he walks into the room and finds you waiting. You have your key, Leroy. Walk down the block; and when you see him come in, give him five minutes.”

Her voice had become a little breathless, and her colour was high. Mortimer, too, seemed apprehensive. Things had suddenly begun to work themselves out too swiftly.

“Do you think that’s best?” he faltered, looking about for his hat. “Tell Merkle that nobody has been here, if Quarrier should ask him. Do you think we’re doing it in the best way, Lydia? By God, it smells of a put-up job to me! But I guess it’s all right. It’s better for me to just happen in, isn’t it? Don’t forget to put Merkle wise.”

He descended the stairs hastily. Merkle, of the invisible eyes, held his hat and gloves and opened the door for him.

Once on the dark street, his impulse was to flee—get out, get away from the whole business. A sullen shame was pumping the hot blood up into his neck and cheeks. He strove to find an inoffensive name for what he was proposing to do, but ugly terms, synonym after synonym, crowded in to characterise the impending procedure, and he walked on angrily, half frightened, looking back from moment to moment at the house he had just left.

On the corner he halted, breathing spasmodically, for he had struck a smarter pace than he had been aware of.

Few people passed him. Once he caught a glimmer of a policeman’s buttons along the park wall, and an unpleasant shiver passed over him. At the same moment an electric hansom flew noiselessly past him. He shrank back into the shadow of a porte-cochere. The hansom halted before the limestone basement house. A tall figure left it, stood a moment in the middle of the sidewalk, then walked quickly to the front door. It opened, and the man vanished.

The hansom still waited at the door. Mortimer, his hands shaking, looked at his watch by the light of the electric bulbs flanking the gateway under which he stood.

There was not much time in which to make up his mind, yet his fright was increasing to a pitch which began to enrage him with that coward’s courage which it is impossible to reckon with.

He had missed Quarrier once to-day when he had been keyed to the encounter. Was he going to miss him again through sheer terror? Besides, was not Quarrier a coward? Besides, was it not his own money? Had he not been vilely swindled by a pretended friend? Urging, lashing himself into a heavy, shuffling motion, he emerged from the porte-cochere and lurched off down the street. No time to think now, no time for second thought, for hesitation, for weakness. He had waited too long already. He had waited ten minutes, instead of five. Was Quarrier going to escape again? Was he going to get out of the house before—

Fumbling with his latch-key, but with sense enough left to make no noise, he let himself in, passed silently through the reception-hall and up to the drawing-room floor, where for a second he stood listening. Then something of the perverted sportsman sent the blood quivering into his veins. He had him! He had run him down! The game was at bay.

An inrush of exhilaration steadied him. He laid his hand on the banister and mounted, gloves and hat-brim crushed in the other hand. When he entered the room he pretended to see only Lydia.

“Hello, little girl!” he said, laughing, “are you surprised to—”

At that moment he caught sight of Quarrier, and the start he gave was genuine enough. Never had he seen in a man’s visage such white concentration of anger.

“Quarrier!” he stammered, for his acting was becoming real enough to supplant art.

Quarrier had risen; his narrowing eyes moved from Mortimer to Lydia, then reverted to the man in the combination.

“Rather unexpected, isn’t it?” said Mortimer, staring at Quarrier.

“Is it?” returned Quarrier in a low voice.

“I suppose so,” sneered Mortimer. “Did you expect to find me here?”

“No. Did you expect to find me?” asked the other, with emphasis unmistakable.

“What do you mean?” demanded Mortimer hoarsely. “What the devil do you mean by asking me if I expected to find you here? If I had, I’d not have travelled down to your office to-day to see you; I’d have come here for you. Naturally people suppose that an engaged man is likely to give up this sort of thing.”

Quarrier, motionless, white to the lips, turned his eyes from one to the other.

“It doesn’t look very well, does it?” asked Mortimer; and he stood there, smiling, danger written all over him. “It’s beginning rather early,” he continued, with a sneer. “Most engaged men with a conscience wait until they’re married before they return to the gay and frivolous. But here you are, it seems, handsome, jolly, and irresistible as ever!”

Quarrier looked at Lydia, and his lips moved: “You asked me to come,” he said.

“No; you offered to. I wished to talk to you over the wire, but “—her lip curled, and she shrugged her shoulders—“you seemed to be afraid of something or other.”

“I couldn’t talk to you in my own house, with guests in the room.”

“Why not? Did I say anything your fashionable guests might take exception to? Am I likely to do anything of that kind?—you coward!”

Quarrier stood very still, then noiselessly turned and made one step toward the door.

“One moment,” interposed Mortimer blandly. “As long as I travelled down town to see you, and find you here so unexpectedly, I may as well take advantage of this opportunity to regulate a little matter. You don’t mind our talking shop for a moment, Lydia? Thank you. It’s just a little business matter between Mr. Quarrier and myself—a matter concerning a few shares of stock which I once held in one of his companies, bought at par, and tumbled to ten and—What is the fraction, Quarrier? I forget.”

Quarrier thought deeply for a moment; then he raised his head, looking full at Mortimer, and under his silky beard an edge of teeth glimmered. “Did you wish me to take back those shares at par?” he asked.

“Exactly! I knew you would! I knew you’d see it in that way!” cried Mortimer heartily. “Confound it all, Quarrier, I’ve always said you were that sort of man—that you’d never let a friend in on the top floor, and kick him clear to the cellar! As a matter of fact, I sold out at ten and three-eighths. Wait! Here’s a pencil. Lydia, give me that pad on your desk. Here you are, Quarrier. It’s easy enough to figure out how much you owe me.”

And as Quarrier slowly began tracing figures on the pad, Mortimer rambled on, growing more demonstrative and boisterous every moment. “It’s white of you, Quarrier—I’ll say that! Legally, of course, you could laugh at me; but I’ve always said your business conscience would never let you stand for this sort of thing. ‘You can talk and talk,’ I’ve told people, many a time, ‘but you’ll never convince me that Howard Quarrier hasn’t a heart.’ No, by jinks! they couldn’t make me believe it. And here’s my proof—here’s my vindication! Lydia, would you mind hunting up that cheque-book I left here before dinn—”

He had made a mistake. The girl flushed. He choked up, and cast a startled glance at Quarrier. But Quarrier, if he heard, made no motion of understanding. Perhaps it had not been necessary to convince him of the conspiracy.

When he had finished his figures he reviewed them, tracing each total with his pencil’s point; then quietly handed the pad to Mortimer who went over it, and nodded that it was correct.

Lydia rose. Quarrier said, without looking at her: “I have a blank cheque with me. May I use one of these pens?”

So he had brought a cheque! Had he supposed that a cheque might be necessary when Lydia called him up? Was he prepared to meet any demand of hers, too, even before Mortimer appeared on the scene?

“As long as you have a cheque with you, Howard,” said Lydia quietly, “suppose you simply add to Mr. Mortimer’s amount what you had intended to offer me?”

He stared at her without answering.

“That little remembrance for old time’s sake. Don’t you recollect?”

“No,” said Quarrier.

“Why, Howard! Didn’t you promise me all sorts of things when I wanted to go to your friend Mr. Siward, and explain that it was not his fault I got into the Patroons Club? Don’t you remember I felt dreadfully that he was expelled—that I was simply wild to write to the governors and tell them how I took Merkle’s clothes and drove to the club and waited until I saw a lot of men go in, and then crowded in with the push?”

Mortimer was staring at Quarrier out of his protruding eyes. The girl leaned forward, deliberate, self-possessed, the red lips edged with growing scorn.

“That was a dirty trick!” said Mortimer heavily. He took the pad, added a figure, passed it to Lydia, and she coolly wrote a total, underscoring it heavily.

“That is the amount,” she said.

Quarrier looked at the pad which she had tossed upon the desk. Then he slowly wetted his pen with ink, and, laying the loose cheque flat, began to fill it in. Afterward he dried it, and, reading it carefully, pushed it aside and rose.

“It wouldn’t be advisable for you to stop payment, you know,” observed Mortimer insolently, lying back in his chair and stretching his legs.