Gonfallon’s breath came quicker. The change in Claire, a change which since the preceding night was greater than that of an August displaced by March, the flippancy of her indifference, the enervations of the day, the conflicts with himself, the conversation overheard and uninterpreted, the unexplained presence of a man whom he loathed and whom he could give himself no valid reason for loathing—these things had put him in a state of irritation which is comparable only to that which comes of a sudden depletion of force. But of the inward ferment there was little if any outward show. He eyed her narrowly, his lip austere.
“At your age, Ruth would have felt herself contaminated by such a man,” he said, at last, and paused expectant of some reply.
But Claire answered nothing. Her eyes had gone up again to the ceiling. From beneath her skirt a patent-leather shoe, narrow and pointed, moved in and out.
“Did you not hear me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered, with her negligent drawl—“yes, I heard; but you see, Chris, customs have changed since the fall of Troy.”
To this Gonfallon feigned assent, his lip austerer than before.
“Very true,” he said. “Yet, if I may not admonish you, it is at least my duty to inform your father that you receive a ruffian to insult you in my house.”
“Ah!” As though battle were imminent, she straightened herself. Her expression had lost its flippancy; it had become frosty and brilliant. “Do you know, I thought you were listening? In regard to father, do as you like; only don’t tell him you mistook his daughter for—”
The speech unfinished was like a bugle blown through the crimson of an autumn eve. It was harmonious, it was inspiring, but it jarred. It awoke Gonfallon from a trance. Claire’s eyes were no longer pensive; they had the chill and glitter of steel. And now as she laughed her voice was hard and metallic as her eyes.
“There, Chris,” she added, in lighter tone; “I am not one of your congregation yet.”
She had arisen, and was about to pass him by, but something in his face seemed to detain her steps. Through one of those influences occult yet recognized, her lips took on their former sweetness, her eyes glowed, and she smiled.
“Claire—” he murmured, and would have caught and held her, perhaps, but a voice in the hall, unheard by him, must have alarmed her: she eluded him, and disappeared in the dining-room beyond.
“Mr. Bucholz, sir, and can he see you?” It was Jane the housemaid, angular as a hendecagon and prim as a Puritan Sunday.
Gonfallon started. He was as an aeronaut dropped from colorless ether into some dank moraine.
“He says it’s most important,” the woman added, and patted her apron flat.
As yet he was not wholly himself; the variety and multiplicity of emotions had not had the effect of a sedative; but he nodded gravely enough, and presently he caught a whiff of alcohol: Mr. Bucholz was before him.
“Take a seat,” said Gonfallon, mechanically.
“Thanks, I’ve just had one.”
The tone in which he spoke arrested attention. For a second Gonfallon eyed him suspiciously. Could it be that Claire—But no; such a supposition was absurd.
“Gonfallon, I want a moment with you. Are you busy?” Mr. Bucholz spoke with the air of one to whom the possible occupation of his host was a matter of no importance.
To Gonfallon’s hands came a sudden moisture. “No,” he replied.
Mr. Bucholz had a forehead that was wide yet low, the forehead of a murderer. His face was thin, his body obese. Since his disasters his complexion had assumed the hue of a brandied cherry. He looked shabby, and he was unshorn. His manner was a compound of alternate pompousness and jocularity. To Gonfallon he was revolting. To Jane, and possibly to others, it was a matter of wonder that such a man could be the father of a girl like Claire.
“You are well, I hope?” Gonfallon added.
At this Mr. Bucholz laughed aloud; but his laugh was nervous, yet unsonorous as a muffled bell—a laugh that came wholly from within, a laugh which frightened and which chilled.
“See here, parson, I want you to do something for me—something—how shall I put it? Well, let us call it ad majorem Dei gratiam. That is technical, is it not?”
“And concise.”
“And concise, as you say. By the way, I think I will change my mind. Suppose you sit down too.”
Mr. Bucholz found a seat, and Gonfallon, relieved of his sudden panic, followed suit.
“You remember,” Mr. Bucholz continued, “that when Jerolomon got me in that corner everything went. Twenty million; not a penny less. The place at Irvington, the house on Fifth Avenue, the yacht, the stable, stocks, bonds, all the tra-la-la of wealth, evaporated in a night. I lost my grip. The few hundred thousand that remained followed in a fortnight. The last fifty-dollar bill I could call my own I dropped in a bucket-shop. Curious, isn’t it?” And Mr. Bucholz put his hand to his head and for the moment seemed to lose himself in thought.
“Well?”
“Ah, yes.” And Mr. Bucholz looked up again. “Well, after that, as you know, Usselex gave me his gold-business. It was good of Usselex, for I had squeezed him once myself. Jerolomon, I have reason to believe, suggested it to him. However, it was four thousand a year—just the salary I paid the gardener who did picturesque geometry for me at Irvington: why, you get almost three times as much yourself. Or rather,” he added, in an undertone, as though reflecting on the point of the speech, “or rather I got it for you. But that’s as may be. A week ago I learned, accidentally as I then thought, that Jerolomon was engineering another corner in wheat. I went to him and asked a loan. He laughed at me. I told him he had taken everything I had. ‘Bucholz,’
