_ CHAPTER XI. FLAREBACKS IN THE CASE OF LOVE AND A MOB
Again was Stewart a close listener, his chin resting on his knuckles, his serious eyes searching Lana's face while she talked.
A cozy harbor was afforded by the bay of the great window in the library. When Stewart had returned to the girl he noticed that she had provided the harbor with a breakwater--a tall Japanese screen; waiting there she had found the room draughty, she informed him.
He was placid when he returned. His demeanor was so untroubled and his air so eagerly invited her to go on from where she had left off that she did not bother her mind about the errand which had called him away.
"I'm really glad because we adjourned the executive session for a recess," she confided. "I've had a chance to think over what I was saying to you, Stewart. While I talked I found myself getting a bit hysterical. I realized that I was presumptuous, but I couldn't seem to stop. But I have been going over it in my mind and I'm glad now that my feelings did carry me away. Friendship has a right to be impetuous on some occasions. I never tried to advise you in the old days. You wouldn't have listened, anyway."
"I've always been glad to listen to you," he corrected.
"But it makes a friend so provoked to have one listen and then go ahead and do just as one likes. I want to ask you--while you have been away from me have you been reflecting on what I said?"
He stammered a bit, and there was not absolute candor in his eyes. "To tell the truth, Lana, I allowed myself to be taken up considerably with other matters. But I did remember my promise to hurry back to you, just the minute I could break away," he added, apologetically.
"I'm a little disappointed in you, just the same, Stewart! I've been hoping that you were putting your mind on what I said to you. I was hoping that when you came back----"
"Well, go on, Lana!" he prompted, gently, when she paused.
"It's so hard for me to say it so it will sound as I mean it," she lamented. "To make my interest appear exactly what it is. To find the words to fit my thoughts just now! I know what they're saying about me these days in Marion. I know our folks so well! I don't need to hear the words; I have been studying their faces this evening. You, also, know what they're saying, Stewart!"
He confined his assent to a significant nod; Jeanie MacDougal's few words on the subject had been, for him, a comprehensive summary of the general gossip.
"When I was speechifying to you in St. Ronan's office you thought I had come back here filled with airs and lofty notions. I knew how you felt!"
He shook his head and allowed the extent of his negation to be limited to that! "I'll tell you how I felt--some time--but now I'll listen to you."
"I was putting all that on for show, Stewart! I felt so--so--I don't know! Embarrassed, perhaps! And I felt that you--" her color deepened then in true embarrassment. "And--and--they were all there!" It was naïve confession, and he smiled.
"So I said to my wee mither, Lana, by way of setting her right as to meddlesome tongues."
"I am sincere and honest still, Stewart, where my real friends are concerned. I've just complained because I can't find words to express my thoughts to you. Well, I never was at a loss when we were boy and girl together." She paused and they heard the sound of music.
"There's a frilly style of talk that belongs with that--down there," she went on. There was a hint of contempt in her gesture. "But you and I used to get along better--or worse--with plain speech." The flash of a smile of her own softened her
moue.
"I make it serve me well in my affairs," agreed Morrison.
"Do you think I'm airy and notional and stuck up?"
"No!"
"Do you think I'm posing as a know-it-all because I have been about in the world and have seen and heard?"
"No!"
"But you do think I'm broader and wiser and more open-minded and have better judgment on matters in general than I had when I was penned up here in Marion, don't you?"
"Yes!"
"Stewart, you're not helping me much, staring at me and popping those noes and yesses at me! You make me feel like--but, honestly, I'm not! I don't intend to seem like that!"
"Eh?"
"Why, like an opinionated lecturer, laying down the law of conduct to you! I don't mean to do all the talking."
"You'd better, Lana--for the present," he advised, seriously; "If you have something to say to me, take care and not let me get started on what I want to say to you."
She flushed. She drew away from him slightly. In her apprehensiveness she hurried on for her own protection. "I hoped you were coming back just now, Stewart, and put out your hand to me as your friend, a good pal who had given sensible advice, and say to me, 'Lana, you have used your wits to good advantage while you have been out and about in the world, and your suggestions to me are all right.' Aren't you going to say so, Stewart?"
"As I understand it, putting all you said to me awhile back in that plain language we have agreed on, you tell me that I'm missing my opportunities, have gone to sleep down here in Marion, am allowing myself to be everlastingly tied up by petty business details that keep me away from real enjoyment of a bigger and better life, and that there's not the least need of my spending my best years in that fashion."
"You state it bluntly, but that is the gist of it!"
"Yes, I was blunt. I'm going to be even more blunt! What do I get out of this prospective, bigger life, Lana?" He drew a deep breath. "Do I get--you?"
"Stewart, hush! Wait!" He had spread his hands to her appealingly. "I am talking to you as your friend--I'm talking of your business, your outlook. I must say something further to you!"
He set as firm a grip on his emotions as he had on his anger earlier in the evening when Krylovensky's hand had dealt him a blow. Her demeanor had thrust him away effectually. The fire died in his eyes. "Go on, Lana! I have promised to allow you to have your say. And, once I start, only a 'Yes!' can stop me."
She displayed additional apprehension and plunged into a strictly commercial topic with desperate directness. "I'm positive that you have no further need of making yourself a slave to details of business. I know that you can be free to devote yourself to the higher things that are worthy of your real self and your talents, Stewart. Father says that through Mr. Daunt there will come to you the grandest opportunity of your life. I suppose that's what Mr. Daunt explained to you when you were with him this evening. Even though you may not consider me wise in men's business affairs, Stewart, you must admit that my father and Mr. Daunt know. You haven't any silly notions, have you? You're ready to seize every opportunity to make a grand success in business, the way the great men do, aren't you?"
There was a very different light in Morrison's eyes than had flamed in them a few moments before. He stared at her appraisingly, wonderingly. His demanding survey of her was disconcerting, but his somberness was that of disappointment rather than of any distrust.
"Has your father asked you to talk to me on the subject of that business?"
She did not reply promptly. But his challenge was too direct.
"I confess that father did intimate that there'd be no need of mentioning him in the matter."
"He asked you to talk to me, then?"
"Yes, Stewart!"
"And I thought you were talking only for yourself when you begged me to step up into that broader life!" His voice trembled. She did not appear to understand his emotion.
"But I
am talking for myself," protested the girl.
"You're talking only your father's views, his plans, his ambition, his scheme of life--talking Daunt's project for his own selfish ends!"
"I don't understand!"
"I hope you don't! For the sake of my love for you, I hope so!" He was striving to control himself. "In the name of what we have been to each other in days past, I hope you are not their--that you don't realize they are making you a----But I can't say it! I want proof from you now by word o' mouth! I don't want any more prattle of business! I want you to show me that you are talking for yourself. Lana Corson, say to me some word from your own heart--something for me alone--something from old times--to prove that you are what I want you to be! I love you. You are mine! I don't believe their gossip. I have never given you up. I've been waiting patiently for you to come back to me. Can't you go back to the old times--and speak from your own soul?"
The intensity of his appeal carried her along in the rush of his emotion. "Stewart, I have been speaking for myself, as best I knew how! I'm back to the old times! If you need further words from me, you shall have them."
Senator Corson stepped around the end of the screen. "You will postpone any further words to Mr. Morrison! I have some words of my own for him! Lana, Coventry Daunt is waiting for you in the ballroom and I have told him that you will be there at once."
"Mr. Daunt must continue to wait, father. I have something to tell Stewart, and you must allow me to say it--say it to him, alone."
"You shall never speak another word to him on any subject with my permission. I have been listening and--"
"Father, do you confess that you have been eavesdropping?"
"My present code of manners is perfectly suited to the tactics of this fellow who has flouted me and insulted an honored guest under my roof this evening. Morrison, leave the house!"
"He shall stay at the request of his hostess," declared the girl, defiantly.
"On with you to your guests--that's where your hostess duties are!" Corson reached to take her arm.
Stewart hastily raised Lana's hand and bent over it. "I am indebted to you for a charming evening." He stood erect and his demeanor of manly sincerity removed every suggestion of sarcasm from the conventional phrase he had spoken quietly. "The charm, Senator Corson, has outweighed all the unpleasantness."
When he turned to retire Corson halted him with a curt word.
"Lana, I command you to go and join your partner."
But Miss Corson persisted in her rebelliousness. She did not relish the ominous threat that she perceived in the situation. "I shall stay with you till you're in a better state of temper, father."
"You'll hear nothing to this man's credit if you do stay," said the Senator, acridly. "I have just talked on the 'phone with the Governor, Mayor Morrison. He asked me to notify you that your mob which you have stirred up in your own city, by your devilish speeches this evening, is evidently on the war-path. He, expects you to undo the mischief, seeing that your tongue is the guilty party!"
Lana turned startled gaze from her father to Morrison; amazement struggled with her indignation. Her amazement was deepened by the mayor's mild rejoinder.
"Very well, Senator. I have an excellent understanding with that mob."
"Making speeches to a mob!" Lana gasped. "I'll not allow even my father to say that about you, Stewart, and leave it undisputed."
"Your father is angry just now, Lana! Any discussion will provoke further unpleasantness!"
"Confound you! Don't you dare to insult me by your condescending airs," thundered Corson. "You have your orders. Go and mix with your rabble and continue that understanding with 'em, if you can make 'em understand that law and order must prevail in this city to-night."
The library was in a wing of the mansion, far from the street, and the three persons behind the screen had been entirely absorbed in their troubled affairs. They had heard none of the sounds from the street.
Somebody began to call in the corridor outside the library. The voice sounded above the music from the ballroom, and quavered with anxious entreaty as it demanded, over and over: "Senator Corson! Where are you, Senator Corson?"
"Here!" replied the Senator.
The secretary rushed in. "There's a mob outside, sir! A threatening mob!"
"Ah! Morrison, your friends are looking you up!"
"They are radicals--anarchists. They must be!" panted the messenger. "They are yelling: 'Down with the capitalists! Down with the aristocrats!' I ordered the shades pulled. The men seemed to be excited by looking in through the windows at the dancers in the ballroom!"
"There'll be no trouble. I'll answer for that," promised the Mayor, marching away.
Before he reached the door the crash of splintered glass, the screams of women and shouts of men; drowned the music.
Stewart went leaping down the stairs. When he reached the ballroom he found the frightened guests massed against the wall, as far from the windows as they could crowd. A wild battle of some sort was going on outside in the night, so oaths and cries and the grim thudding of battering fists revealed.
Before Stewart could reach a window--one of those from which the glass had been broken--Commander Lanigan came through the aperture with a rush, skating to a standstill along the polished floor. Blood was on his hands. His sleeves hung in ribbons. In that scene of suspended gaiety he was a particularly grisly interloper.
"They sneaked it over on us, Mister Mayor!" he yelled. "I got a tip and routed out the Legion boys and chased 'em, but the dirty, Bullshevists beat us to it up the hill. But we've got 'em licked!"
"Keep 'em licked for the rest of the night," Morrison suggested. "I'll be down-town with you, right away!"
But Lanigan, in his raging excitement, was not amenable to hints or orders, nor was he cautious in his revelations. "We can handle things down-town, Your Honor! What we want to know is, what about up-town--up on Capitol Hill?"
"You've had my promise of what I'll do. And I'll do it!"
Senator Corson and his daughter had arrived in the ballroom. The Senator was promptly and intensely interested in this cocksure declaration by Morrison.
"Your promise is the same as hard cash for me and the level-headed ones," retorted Commander Lanigan. "But whether it's the Northern Lights in the skies or plain hellishness in folks or somebody underneath stirring and stirring trouble and starting lies, I don't know! Lots of good boys have stopped being level-headed! I'll hold the gang down if I can, sir. But what I want to know is, can we depend on you to tend to Capitol Hill? Are you still on the job? Can I tell 'em that you're still on the job?"
"You can tell 'em all that I'm on the job from now till morning," shouted the mayor. He was heard by the men outside. They gave his declaration a howl of approval.
"The people will be protected," shouted an unseen admirer.
Stewart hurried to Senator Corson and was not daunted by that gentleman's blazing countenance.
"I'm sorry, sir. This seems to be a flareback of some sort. I'll have police on guard at once!"
"You'll protect the people, eh? There's a flatterer in your mob, Morrison! You can't even give window-glass in this city suitable protection--a mayor like you! I'll have none of your soviet police around my premises." He turned to his secretary. "Call the adjutant-general at the State House and tell him to send a detachment of troops here."
"I trust they'll co-operate well with the police I shall send," stated the Mayor, stiffly. He hastened from the room.
When Stewart had donned hat and overcoat and was about to leave the mansion by the main door, Lana stepped in front of him. "Stewart, you must stop for a moment--you must deny it, what father has been saying to me about you just now!"
"Your father is angry--and in anger a man says a whole lot that he doesn't mean. I'm in a hurry--and a man in a hurry spoils anything he tries to tell. We must let it wait, Lana."
"But if you go on--go on as you're going--crushing Mr. Daunt's plans--spoiling your own grand prospects--antagonizing my father--paying no heed to my advice!" The girl's sentences were galloping breathlessly.
"We'll have time to talk it over, Lana!"
"What! Talk it over after you have been reckless enough to spoil everything? You must stand with your friends, I tell you! Father is wiser than you! Isn't he right?"
"I--I guess he thinks he is--but I can't talk about it." He was backing toward the door.
"You must know what it means--for us two--if you go headlong against him. I stand stanchly for my father--always!"
"I reckon you'll have to be sort of loyal to your father--but I can't talk about it! Not now!" he repeated. He was uncomfortably aware that he had no words to fit the case.
"But if you don't stand with him, you're in with the rabble--the rabble," she declared, indignantly. "He says you are! Stewart, I know you won't insult his wisdom and deny my prayer to you! Only a few moments ago I was ready----But I cannot say those words to you unless----You understand!"
This interview had been permitted only because Senator Corson's attention had been absorbed by Mrs. Stanton's hysterical questions. But the lady's fears did not affect her eyesight. She had noted Lana's departure and she caught a glimpse of the mayor when he strode past the ballroom door with his hat in his hand.
"Yes, I'll be calm, Senator! I'm sure that we'll be perfectly protected. Lana followed the mayor just now, and I suppose she is insisting on a double detail of police."
The Senator promptly followed, too, to find out more exactly what Lana was insisting on.
"Haven't you joined your rabble yet, Morrison?" Corson queried, insolently, when he came upon the two.
"I'm going, sir--going right along!"
Lana set her hands together, the fingers interlaced so tightly that the flesh was as white as her cheeks. "'Your rabble!' Stewart! Oh! Oh!" In spite of her thinly veiled threat of a few moments ago, there was piteous protest in her face and voice.
"According to suggestions from all quarters, I don't seem to fit any other kind of society just now," he replied, ruefully. He marched out into the night.
"Call my car," Senator Corson directed a servant.
In the reception-hall he encountered Silas Daunt, "Slip on your hat and coat. Come along with me to the State House. I'll show you how practical politics can settle a rumpus, after a visionary has tumbled down on his job!" _