Now, on this night, after Sturgis had appeared, questioned and gone, she saw another picture, one that had come to her just before she had fainted, the vision of a man with the face of a soldier and the eyes of a poet, that irresistible compound of the resolute and the magnetic which was Effingham’s.
Then her father had telephoned. The picture faded, another surged—an engraving in a Victorian novel which represented an old man standing on a threshold and bidding a huddling girl begone!
Meanwhile, below, in the bookless library, her father sat. He too had his pictures. Kate’s mother who had died long since. Kate as a child, Kate as a young girl, Kate as a debutante, Kate dismissing Scarlet, Kate renouncing coronets, Kate refusing the strawberry leaves, Kate wanting only to be happy. There were these. There were others. In particular, a Newport vista in which together stood Kate and Effingham. Now the silent collapse, the ambiguousness of Sturgis and at once with that insight which had made Duncan what he was, he knew. The front door had not closed on Sturgis before he saw it all.
Passionless as algebra, devoid of nerves, accustomed in any crisis to think and to act, he rang, gave directions, had himself lifted to his rooms, from which, the next morning, mentally armed, he descended to the library again.
Always in Wall Street before the opening, he had intended on this morning to be there earlier still. There were brokers to be summoned, orders to be given, details to be arranged. Instead of which, telephoning to his office that he might not be down that day, he sent for Kate.
When presently, languid and lovely in a honey-colored gown, she appeared, he got up, motioned to the chair in which a doge had throned, closed the door, took another seat, looked at the girl and smiled.
“How did you sleep?”
Kate, settling herself, answered absently: “Fairly well, father. And you?”
“Oh, as usual. Now I want to have a talk with you.”
Kate who had been looking down, looked up. “About what, father?”
“About myself, of course. What do people ever want to talk about? But incidentally a little too about you. Now Kate, things have not been going very well lately, have they?”
Kate flushed. “In what way do you mean?”
“I mean that when things do not go well, ignorant people always blame someone else, sensible people blame themselves and wise people blame nobody. A wise man knows that whatever happens, happens because it had to happen and because it could not happen otherwise. Do you follow me?”
Confusedly Kate sat back. “Yes—no. I mean not quite.”
Duncan nodded at her. “I will put it more clearly then. We all make mistakes. You may have also made them. In that case I shall not blame you. On the contrary. The only punishment a father should inflict is forgiveness.”
Kate turned uneasily. Was it possible, she wondered, that he knew—and already! “But punishment for what?” she got out.
“Well—for remaining single. Now I want you to marry and to marry Scarlet. Will you?”
Kate straightened. “Certainly not.”
“It will be a bit awkward then. It will mean going abroad and for the moment I had other plans.”
Kate now was crimson. She knew he knew. In miserable protest she half-raised a hand. “But—”
“Oh,” he got in. “I know you don’t care for Scarlet. He is a damned scoundrel. It is for that reason I selected him.”
“But—”
“Precisely. He will treat you badly. You can leave him. I will get you a divorce and afterward it may be that you will meet someone with whom you can be happy and for me at least it is not selfish to want you to be that.”
“But—”
“There! I understand how you feel. Leave it all to me. I am a business man. But in every business man’s stock-in-trade there is, or ought to be, honesty and my honesty in regard to you will surprise Scarlet. But he is blackguard enough to thank his stars for even that opportunity of getting a quid pro quo in cash.”
Kate had shriveled. Pay a man to marry me! she tormentedly thought. But before she could protest again, nervously she started.
At the door a tap had come, low and discreet, and a footman appeared with a card on a tray which he brought to Duncan.
Duncan took the card, looked at it, looked again and from it looked at the footman.
“Where is he?”
“In the drawing room, sir.”
Duncan turned to Kate. “Poor’s Manual is at your elbow. It is one of the most diverting books ever printed. You might occupy yourself with it until I return.”
As he spoke, he got up, followed the servant, crossed the wide tapestried hall and entered the ornate, but now less brilliant room, in the center of which stood Effingham.
In similar circumstances there are fathers who would have reviled him, struck him, thrown him from the house. In places less ornate, he might have been cowhided, strangled, shot.
Duncan asked him to be seated. But the asking was accompanied by a look which was chill and pointed as a rapier.
With unswerving eyes, that look Effingham returned. “Mr. Duncan, I am sorry to trouble you. In coming here I asked for Miss Duncan. I was told she was engaged.”
Duncan nodded. “Well, what of it?”
For a second Effingham considered the question. Then out the answer came. “Mr. Duncan, I am here to ask your daughter—”
Instantly Duncan got it. But what he said was: “We are not in Salt Lake.”
Effingham made a gesture. “Forgive
