The Pace That Kills: A Chronicle

"And not only that – if you ever dare to enter that house again I will expose you."

"Oh, will you, though?" answered Roland. The tone he assumed was affectedly civil. "Well now, my fat friend, let me tell you this: I intend to enter that house, as you call it, to-morrow at precisely five o'clock. Let me pick you up on the way, and we can go together."

"Roland Mistrial, as sure as there is a God in heaven I will have you in the Tombs."

"See here, put up your umbrella. You are not in a condition to expose yourself – let alone anyone else. You are daft, Thorold – that is what is the matter with you. If you persist in chattering Tombs at me in a snow-storm I will answer Bloomingdale to you. You frightened me once, I admit; but I am ten years older now, and ten years less easily scared. Besides, what drivel you talk! You haven't that much to go on."

As Roland spoke his accent changed from affected suavity to open scorn. "Now stop your bluster," he continued, "and listen to me. Because you happen to find me in there, you think I have intentions on the heiress – "

"It's a lie! She – "

"There, don't be abusive. I know you want her for yourself, and I hope you get her. But please don't think that I mean to stand in your way."

"I should say not."

"In the first place, I went there on business."

"What business, I would like to know?"

"So you shall. I took some papers for Mr. Dunellen to examine – papers relative to my father's estate. To-morrow I return to learn his opinion. Next week I go abroad again. When I leave I promise you shall find your cousin still heart-whole and fancy-free."

As Roland delivered this little stab he paused a moment to note the effect. But apparently it had passed unnoticed – Thorold seemingly was engrossed in the statements that preceded it. The scowl was still on his face, but it was a scowl into which perplexity had entered, and which in entering had modified the aggressiveness that had first been there. At the moment his eyes wandered, and Roland, who was watching him, felt that he had scored a point.

"You say you are going abroad?" he said, at last.

"Yes; I have to join my wife."

At this announcement Thorold looked up at him and then down at the umbrella. Presently, with an abrupt gesture, he unfurled it and raised it above his head. As he did so, Roland smiled. For that night at least the danger had gone. Of the morrow, however, he was unassured.

"Suppose we walk along," he said, encouragingly; and before Thorold knew it, he was sharing that umbrella with his foe. "Yes," he continued, "my poor father left his affairs in a muddle, but Mr. Dunellen says he thinks he can straighten them out. You can understand that if any inkling of this thing were to reach him he would return the papers at once. You can understand that, can't you? After all, you must know that I have suffered."

"Suffered!" Thorold cried. "What's that to me? It made my mother insane."

"God knows I nearly lost my reason too. I can understand how you feel toward me: it is only what I deserve. Yet though you cannot forget, at least it can do you no good to rake this matter up."

"It is because of – " and for a second the cousin halted in his speech.

"Voilà!" mused Roland. "Je te vois venir."

"However, if you are going abroad – "

"Most certainly I am. I never expect to see Miss Dunellen again."

"In that case I will say nothing."

They had reached Fifth Avenue, and for a moment both loitered on the curb. Thorold seemed to have something to add, but he must have had difficulty in expressing it, for he nodded as though to reiterate the promise.

"I can rely upon you then, can I?" Roland asked.

"Keep out of my way, sir, and I will try, as I have tried, to forget."

A 'bus was passing, he hailed it, and disappeared.

Roland watched the conveyance, and shook the snow-flakes from his coat. "Try, and be damned," he muttered. "I haven't done with you yet."

The disdain of a revenge at hand is accounted the uniquest possible vengeance. And it is quite possible that had Roland's monetary affairs been in a better condition, on a sound and solid basis, let us say, he would willingly have put that paradox into action. But on leaving Tuxedo he happened to be extremely hungry – hungry, first and foremost, for the possession of that wealth which in this admirably conducted country of ours lifts a man above the law, and, an adroit combination of scoundrelism and incompetence aiding, sometimes lands him high among the executives of state. By political ambition, however, it is only just to say he was uninspired. In certain assemblies he had taken the trouble to assert that our government is one at which Abyssinia might sneer, but the rôle of reformer was not one which he had any inclination to attempt. Several of his progenitors figured, and prominently too, in abridgments of history; and, if posterity were not satisfied with that, he had a very clear idea as to what posterity might do. In so far as he was personally concerned, the prominence alluded to was a thing which he accepted as a matter of course: it was an integral part of himself; he would have missed it as he would have missed a leg or the point of his nose; but otherwise it left his pulse unstirred. No, his hunger was not for preferment or place. It was for the ten million which the Hon. Paul Dunellen had gathered together, and which the laws of gravitation would prevent him from carrying away when he died. That was the nature of Roland Mistrial's hunger, and as incidental thereto was the thirst to adjust an outstanding account.

Whatever the nature of that account may have been, in a more ordinary case it might have become outlawed through sheer lapse of time. But during that lapse of time Roland had been in exile because of it; and though even now he might have been willing to let it drift back into the past where it belonged, yet when the representative of it not only loomed between him and the millions, but was even attempting to gather them in for himself, the possibility of retaliation was too complete to suffer disdain. The injury, it is true, was one of his own doing. But, curiously enough, when a man injures another the more wanton that injury is the less it incites to repentance. In certain dispositions it becomes a source of malignant hate. Deserve a man's gratitude, and he may forgive you; but let him do you a wrong, and you have an enemy for life. Such is the human heart – or such at least was Roland Mistrial's.

And now, as the conveyance rumbled off into the night, he shook the snow-flakes from his coat.

"Try, and be damned," he repeated; "I haven't done with you yet."

IV

To the New Yorker March is the vilest month of all the year. In the South it is usually serene. Mrs. Metuchen, who gave herself the airs of an invalid, and who possessed the invalid's dislike of vile weather, was aware of this; and while the first false promises of February were being protested she succeeded in persuading Miss Dunellen to accompany her out of snow-drifts into the sun. It was Aiken that she chose as refuge; and when the two ladies arrived there they felt satisfied that their choice had been a proper one – a satisfaction which they did not share alone, for a few days after their arrival Roland Mistrial arrived there too.

During the intervening weeks he had seemed idle; but it is the thinker's characteristic to appear unoccupied when he is most busily engaged, and Roland, outwardly inactive, had in reality made the most of his time.

On the morning succeeding the encounter with Thorold something kept coming and whispering that he had undertaken a task which was beyond his strength. To many of us night is apt to be more confident than are the earlier hours of the day, and the courage which Roland had exhibited spent itself and went. It is hard to feel the flutter of a bird beneath one's fingers, and, just when the fingers tighten, to discover that the bird is no longer there. Such a thing is disappointing, and the peculiarity of a disappointment consists in this – the victim of it is apt to question the validity of his own intuitions. Thus far – up to the looming of Thorold – everything had been in Roland's favor. Without appreciable effort he had achieved the impossible. In three days he had run an heiress to earth, gained her father's liking, captivated her chaperon, and, at the moment when the air was sentient with success, the highway on which he strode became suddenly tortuous and obscure. Do what he might he could not discern so much as a sign-post; and as in perplexity he twirled his thumbs, little by little he understood that he must either turn back and hunt another quarry, or stand where he was and wait. Another step on that narrowing road and he might tumble into a gully. Did he keep his word with Thorold he felt sure that Thorold would keep his word with him. But did he break it, and Thorold learn he had done so, several consequences were certain to ensue, and among them he could hear from where he stood the bang with which Mr. Dunellen's door would close. The only plank which drifted his way threatened to break into bits. He needed no one to tell him that Justine was not a girl to receive him or anyone else in the dark; and even fortune favoring, if in chance meetings he were able to fan her spark of interest for him into flame, those chance meetings would be mentioned by her to whomsoever they might concern. No, that plank was rotten; and yet in considering it, and in considering too the possibilities to which, were it a trifle stronger, it might serve as bridge, he passed that morning, a number of subsequent mornings. A month elapsed, and still he eyed that plank.

Meanwhile he had seen Miss Dunellen but once. She happened to be driving up the Avenue, but he had passed her unobserved. Then the weather became abominable, and he knew it was useless to look for her in the Park; and once he had visited her father's office and learned again, what he already knew, that in regard to the lost estate, eternity aiding, something might be recovered, but that the chances were vague as was it. And so February came and found his hunger unappeased. The alternate course which had suggested itself came back, and he determined to turn and hunt another quarry. During his sojourn abroad he had generally managed a team of three. There was the gerundive, as he termed the hindmost – the woman he was about to leave; there was another into whose graces he had entered; and there was a third in training for future use. This custom he had found most serviceable. Whatever might happen in less regulated establishments, his stable was full. And that custom, which had stood him in good stead abroad, had nothing in it to prevent adoption here. Indeed, he told himself it was because of his negligence in that particular that he found himself where he was. Instead of centring his attention on Miss Dunellen, it would have been far better to wander in and out of the glittering precincts of Fifth Avenue, and see what else he could find. After all, there was nothing like being properly provisioned. If one comestible ran short, there should be another to take its place. Moreover, if, as Jones had intimated, there were heiresses enough for export purposes, there must surely be enough to supply the home demand.

The alternate course alluded to he had therefore determined to adopt, when an incident occurred which materially altered his plans. One particularly detestable morning he read in public print that Mrs. Metuchen and Miss Dunellen were numbered among the visitors to South Carolina, and thereupon he proceeded to pack his valise. A few days later he was in Aiken, and on the forenoon of the third day succeeding his arrival, as he strolled down the verandah of the Mountain Glen Hotel, he felt at peace with the world and with himself.

It was a superb morning, half summer, half spring. In the distance a forest stretched indefinitely and lost itself in the haze of the horizon beyond. The sky was tenderly blue, and, beneath, a lawn green as the baize on a roulette-table was circled by a bright-red road. He had breakfasted infamously on food that might have been cooked by a butcher to whom breakfast is an odious thing. Yet its iniquity he accepted as a matter of course. He knew, as we all do, that for bad food, bad service, and for futility of complaint our country hotels are unrivalled, even in Spain. He was there not to enjoy himself, still less for the pleasures a blue ribbon can cause: he was there to fan into flame the interest which Miss Dunellen had exhibited; and as he strolled down the verandah, a crop under his arm, his trousers strapped, he had no intention of quarrelling with the fare. Quite a number of people were basking in the sunlight, and, as he passed, some of them turned and looked; for at Aiken men that have more than one lung are in demand, and, when Roland registered his historic name, to the unattached females a little flutter of anticipation came.

But Roland was not in search of flirtations: he moved by one group into another until he reached a corner of the verandah in which Mrs. Metuchen and Miss Dunellen sat. Merely by the expression on the faces of those whom he greeted it was patent to the others that the trio were on familiar terms; and when presently he accompanied Miss Dunellen off the verandah, aided her to mount a horse that waited there, mounted another himself, and cantered off with the girl, the unattached females declared that the twain must be engaged. In that they were in error. As yet Roland had not said a word to the charge he might not have said to the matron. Both of these ladies had been surprised when he reached Aiken, and both had been pleased as well. In that surprise, in that pleasure, Roland had actively collaborated; and taking on himself to answer before it was framed the question which his advent naturally prompted, he stated that in journeying from Savannah to Asheville he had stopped over at Aiken as at a halfway house, and that, too, without an idea of encountering anyone whom he knew. Thereafter for several days he managed to make himself indispensable to the matron, companionable to her charge; but now, on this particular morning, as he rattled down the red road, the courage which had deserted him returned; and a few hours later, when before a mirror in his bedroom he stood arranging his cravat, he caught a reflection of Hyperion, son-in-law of Crœsus.

V

In a fortnight that reflection was framed with a promise. Justine had put her hand in his. The threads by which he succeeded in binding her to him are needless to describe. He understood that prime secret in the art of coercing affection which consists in making one's self desired. He was never inopportune. Moreover, he saw that Justine, accustomed to the devotion of other men, accepted such devotion as a matter of course; in consequence he took another tack, and bullied her – a treatment which was new to her, and, being new, attractive. He found fault with her openly, criticised the manner in which she sat her horse, contradicted her whenever the opportunity came, and jeered – civilly, it is true, but the jeer was there and all the sharper because it was blunted – at any enthusiasm she chanced to express. And then, when she expected it least, he would be enthusiastic himself, and enthusiastic over nothing at all – some mythical deed canned in history, the beauty of a child, or the flush of the arbutus which they gathered on their rides. To others whom he encountered in her presence he showed himself so self-abnegatory, so readily pleased, sweet-tempered, and indulgent, so studious even of their susceptibilities and appreciative of what they liked and what they did not, that in comparing his manner to her and his manner to them the girl grew vexed, and one evening she told him so.

They happened to be sitting alone in a corner of the verandah. From within came the rhythm of a waltz; some dance was in progress, affectioned by the few; Mrs. Metuchen was discussing family trees with a party of Philadelphians; the air was sweet with the scent of pines and of jasmines; just above and beyond, a star was circumflexed by the moon.

"I am sorry if I have offended," he made answer to her complaint. "Do you mind if I smoke?" Without waiting for her consent he drew out a cigarette and lighted it. "I have not intended to," he added. "To-morrow I will go."

"But why? You like it here. You told me so to-day."

With a fillip of forefinger and thumb Roland tossed the cigarette out into the road. "Because I admire you," he answered curtly.

"I am glad of that."

The reproof, if reproof there were, was not in her speech, but in her voice. She spoke as one does whose due is conceded only after an effort. And for a while both were mute.

"Come, children, it is time to go to bed." Mrs. Metuchen in her fantastic fashion was hailing them from the door. Already the waltz had ceased, and as Mrs. Metuchen spoke, Justine rose from her seat.

"Good-night, Don Quichotte," the old lady added; and as the girl approached she continued in an audible undertone, "I call him Don Quichotte because he looks like the Chevalier Bayard."