The Forbidden Way

"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't want you to know."

"I'm glad to know. It makes me – happy. I've been trying for so many years to find you."

"You tried?" in astonishment.

"Yes, I didn't know anything about – about having a son – until it was too late. One of my associates – in the West – told me later. I tried to find out – where they had taken you, but the nurse in the hospital – had gone – and there was no record of her – or of – of you." He spoke with a great effort, striving against the drowsiness which from time to time attacked him. "They did things – differently in those days. She – your mother – never mentioned my name. We had had a quarrel – a serious quarrel – just after we were married – "

"Married?" Jeff leaned forward over the white coverlid toward the old man's distorted face. "You were married?" he whispered, awe-stricken.

"Yes, married, Jeff – married – I – I have the papers – at home – I'll show them to you – "

Jeff bent his head suddenly over the old man's lean fingers and kissed them impulsively.

"Married!" he murmured, "Thank God! Thank God for that."

The General's eyes followed him plaintively, while he struggled for breath. "Yes, it's true. In Topeka – Kansas. That's what I wanted to tell you. I couldn't go – I couldn't die without letting you know that. It didn't matter to her – she could forget. I did her a wrong, but not a great wrong, as I did you. I've thought about you all these years, Jeff. It's my secret – I've kept it a long time – "

He sank back into his pillows, exhausted, breathing heavily again, and the doctor who had stood in the doorway came forward. "I think you had better rest, General. Mr. Wray can come in later." But the General resolutely waved him aside with a movement that suggested his old authority.

"No, not yet – I'm better – I'll sleep again in a moment." And, as the doctor withdrew, the old man's grasp on Jeff's hand grew tighter. "They took you away from the hospital – without even giving you a name."

"Yes, sir – I had no name but the one they gave me." Jeff tried to make him stop talking, but he went on, striving desperately:

"I had men working – to try and find you. I've their reports at home – you shall see them. I want you to know that I did all I could. We got the name of the nurse."

"Mrs. Nixon?"

"I think – no," he said confusedly. "I can't remember – she disappeared – "

"Yes, sir. She married again and went to Texas. She took me with her."

Bent's eyes searched Jeff's piteously. "That was it," he whispered, "that was it. That's my excuse – I tried, you know I tried, don't you? It has been my burden for years – more even lately – than when I was younger – the wrong I had done you. Say that you understand – won't you – my – my – son?"

The tears had come into Jeff's eyes, welled forth like the gush of water in a dry fountain, and fell upon the old wrinkled fingers.

"I do, sir – I do."

The General's hand left the coverlid and rested for a moment on Jeff's shoulder.

"I hoped you would. I've always hoped you'd forgive me when you knew."

Jeff straightened and brushed his eyes. "There's nothing to forgive. I – I only want you to get well – you will, sir. They say you're better."

"Yes, Jeff, better – better already – but I'm very tired. I think – I think – I can sleep now – but don't go away – don't go," and he sank back in a state of coma.

General Bent recovered. The stroke was a slight one, and he gained strength and the use of his faculties rapidly. But Time had served its notice of dispossession, and they all knew that the hour had come when the management of Bent's great business interests must pass to younger hands. Within a few weeks he was permitted to sit up for an hour each day, and with Cortland's help took up the loose ends of the most urgent business. But he tired easily, and it was evident to them all that the days of his activity were ended.

In spite of it all, a great calm had fallen over the General's spirit. The quick decision, the incisive judgment, were still his – for one doesn't forget in a moment the habits of a lifetime of command – but his tones were softer, his manner more gentle, and in his eyes there had dawned a soft light of toleration and benignity which became him strangely.

Gladys, who had come on from Lakewood, was with him constantly and watched these changes in her father with timid wonder. He had never been one to confide in his children, and it required some readjustment of her relations with him to accept the quiet appeal of his eyes and the sympathy and appreciation which she found in his newly begotten tenderness. In Cortland, too, she saw a great change, and it surprised her to discover the resolute, unobtrusive way in which he met his responsibilities, both functional and moral. Jeff and Camilla, aware of their anomalous position, had decided to leave the hotel and go back to Mesa City as soon as General Bent grew better. It was Cortland who prevailed on them to stay.

"We're all one family now, Jeff," he said firmly, "one and indivisible. Gladys and I are of a mind on that, and father wishes it so. Your claim on him comes before ours – we don't forget that – we don't want to forget it."

Jeff, unable to reply, only grasped him by the hand. And then, with Larry's help, the two of them plunged into the business of straightening out the tangle in the General's affairs and Jeff's. It was a matter of moment with Cortland to give the Saguache Short Line a proper schedule at once, and so by his dispensation on the twenty-fifth of May, as Jeff had boasted (he thought of it now), trains were running from Pueblo to Saguache. The Denver and Western, too, restored its old schedule from Kinney, and the Saguache Mountain Development Company resumed its business by really developing.

In the absence of his two sons, Camilla and Gladys sat with the old man, reading or talking to him as the fancy seized him to have them do. He liked to lie on a couch at the window and look out toward the mountains beyond which Jeff's interests lay, while Camilla told him of her husband's early struggles in the Valley. He questioned her eagerly, often repeating himself, while she told him of the "Watch Us Grow" sign, of the failure of Mesa City, and of its rejuvenescence.

"Perhaps, after all," the old man would sigh, "perhaps it did him no harm. It makes me very happy, child." He didn't say what made him happy, but Camilla knew.

Then there came a day when the General was pronounced out of all danger and capable of resuming a small share of his old responsibilities. On that day new articles of partnership were drawn for the firm of Bent & Company, into which Jeff Wray was now admitted. The "Lone Tree" mine and the Saguache Smelter figured in the transaction. Mrs. Cheyne, who had a wise corner in her pretty head, refused to accept the money which had been advanced to Jeff Wray, and now insisted on bonds of the Development Company and stock in the Short Line. Lawrence Berkely, whose peace had been made with Curtis Janney, now became the Western representative of the Amalgamated Reduction Company, with Pete Mulrennan as actual head of the Mesa City plant. It was from General Bent that all of the plans emanated, and Curtis Janney without difficulty succeeded in arranging matters in New York. He took a sardonic pleasure in reminding the General that he had once suggested the advisability of using Jeff's talents for the benefit of their company – and accepted these plans as a slight tribute to his own wisdom.

General Bent wanted to go up to Mesa City to see the mine, but it was thought best by the doctors to send him East to a lower altitude, and so, about the middle of June, Cortland took him to New York, leaving Jeff and Camilla to stay for a while at Mesa City, where Camilla could watch the building of "Glen Irwin." She could not find it in her heart to give up the West – not altogether. Later on they would spend their summers there – up in the mountains – Jeff's mountains.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HOUSEHOLD GODS – AND GODDESSES

The years which followed seemed very short ones to Camilla – a time of quiet delight, of restitution, and fulfillment. General Bent had wanted them to come and live with him in the old house down in Madison Avenue, and Jeff, in his whole-hearted way, had given him the promise, but it was Camilla who had thought it wisest for them to have an establishment of their own. The house was just off the avenue near the Park, a rented place, for Camilla had not yet arrived at the state of mind to consider New York their home. But most of Jeff's time was now spent in New York – seven months of the year at least – and she was beginning to learn with reluctance that before long only their summers could be spent at "Glen Irwin." On certain afternoons Camilla sat in the library downstairs with her embroidery frame (she always seemed to be sewing now), her lap covered with thin, flimsy fabrics, the borders of which she was embellishing. They were very tiny pieces of material, apparently shapeless, but from time to time she held them at arm's length before her, her head on one side, and smiled approval of her own handiwork. It was here that Jeff liked to find her – thus occupied. He had not even contracted the habit of stopping at a club on the way uptown, and unless he was detained on important matters she knew when she would hear the sound of his key in the latch outside.

Mrs. Wray had made it known that she was not at home except to the chosen few. The General came on certain days for his "toddy," Gladys on the way home from "teaing it," Mrs. Rumsen, Dolly Haviland, and Rita Cheyne, each for a peep behind the curtain.

Rita Cheyne came oftenest and stayed longest. She had no social responsibilities, she claimed, except that of seeing the small garments in Camilla's lap made successfully. She was hopelessly bored, more demurely cheerful, more buoyantly pessimistic than ever.

"What a joy it must be," she sighed, "to have an object in life. My objects are all subjective. I have a dreadful fear that I'm getting to be a philosopher."

Camilla bit off her thread and smiled.

"Platonic?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so. I used to take such desperate fancies to people. I used to want to make people like me whether they wanted to or not. Now I'm really indifferent. I actually don't care whether my hat is on straight or not. It's such a pity. I used to like to be svelte, fluffy, and smartly groomed. I didn't mind suffering the tortures of the rack if I knew I was effective. Now – I'm positively dowdy. I don't care what I wear so long as I'm comfortable – and I'm actually getting fat, Camilla! The horror of it!"

Camilla looked up at the exquisite afternoon frock, which fitted her slender figure as only one made by Patrain could, and smiled.

"Yes, Rita, positively corpulent. It's a pity. You really had a good figure once."

"The worst of it is that I don't seem to care," she went on, oblivious. "I used to love to dress for moods – for my moods and for other people's. I thought that Art could solve every problem that came to me. Art!" she sniffed contemptuously. "Art in a woman is merely a confession of inefficiency. I used to think that Art was immortal. Now I find that only Nature is."

Camilla lifted the tiny sacque with its absurd blue silk cuffs and examined it with a satisfied air. When she had finished she leaned over to Rita and whispered with the air of an oracle:

"Nature is– immortal."

"It is. You're right," she sighed. "But it's my nature to be merely mortal – and I'm going to die very hard. I must continue to hide my inefficiencies – by Art."

"You're not inefficient," Camilla corrected. "You're merely feminine – extravagantly feminine – "

"Yes, feminine – but not womanly. Oh, I know what I am!" she concluded fiercely.

"You're a darling!" said Camilla softly. "You're very much more womanly than you want people to think you are. Why should you take such a delight in these?" Camilla laid a hand on the wicker basket beside her.