"Damnation!" he muttered, fumbling for another cigar.
His charities already had been attended to for the year. That portion of his income devoted to such things was now entirely used up. But he remained uneasily aware that the portion reserved for further acquisition of Americana – books, prints, pictures, early American silver, porcelains, furniture, was still intact for the new year now beginning.
That was his only refuge from loneliness and the ever-living grief – the plodding hunt for such things and the study connected with this pursuit. Except for his son – his ruling passion – he had no other interest, now that his wife was dead – nothing that particularly mattered to him in life except this collecting of Americana.
And now his son had gone away again. The day had to be filled – filled rather quickly, too; for the parting still hurt cruelly, and with a dull persistence that he had not yet shaken off. He must busy himself with something. He'd go out again presently, and mouse about among musty stacks of furniture "in the rough." Then he'd prowl through auction rooms and screw a jeweller's glass into his right eye and pore over mezzotints.
He allowed himself just so much to spend on Americana; just so much to spend on his establishment, so much to invest, so much to give to charity —
"Damnation!" he repeated aloud.
It was the last morning of the exhibition at the Christensen Galleries of early American furniture. That afternoon the sale was to begin. He had not had time for preliminary investigation. He realized the importance of the collection; knew that his friends would be there in force; and hated the thought of losing such a chance.
Turning the leaves or his newspaper for the advertisement, he found himself again confronted by the columns containing the dreary "Hundred Neediest Cases." And against every inclination he re-read the details of Case 119.
Odd, he thought to himself angrily, that there was nobody in the city to contribute the few dollars necessary to this little girl. The case in question required only fifty dollars. Fifty dollars meant a home, possibly moral salvation, to this child with her winning disposition and unruly ways.
He read the details again, more irritated than ever, yet grimly interested to note that, as usual, it is the very poor with many burdens who help the poor. This carpenter, living probably in a tenement, with a wife, an unborn baby, and a herd of squalling children to support, had still found room for another little waif, whose drug-sodden parents had been kind to her only by dying.
John Cleland turned the page, searched for the advertisement of the Christensen Galleries, discovered it, read it carefully. There were some fine old prints advertised to be sold. His hated rivals would be there – beloved friends yet hated rivals in the endless battle for bargains in antiquities.
When he got into his car a few minutes later, he told the chauffeur to drive to Christensen's and drive fast. Halfway there, he signalled and spoke through the tube:
"Where is the United Charities Building? Where? Well, drive there first."
"Damn!" he muttered, readjusting himself in the corner under the lynx robe.
CHAPTER II
"Would you care to go there and see the child for yourself, Mr. Cleland? A few moments might give you a much clearer idea of her than all that I have told you," suggested the capable young woman to whom he had been turned over in that vast labyrinth of offices tenemented by the "United Charities Organizations of Manhattan and the Four Boroughs, Inc."
John Cleland signed the cheque which he had filled in, laid it on the desk, closed his cheque-book, and shook his head.
"I'm a busy man," he said briefly.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I wish you had time to see her for a moment. You may obtain permission through the Manhattan Charities Concern, a separate organization, winch turns over certain cases to the excellent child-placing agency connected with our corporation."
"Thank you; I haven't time."
"Mr. Chiltern Grismer would be the best man to see – if you had time."
"Thank you."
There was a chilly silence; Cleland stood frowning at space, wrapped in gloomy preoccupation.
"But," added the capable young woman, wistfully, "if you are so busy that you have no time to bother with this case personally – "
"I have time," snapped Cleland, turning red. For the man was burdened with the inconvenient honesty of his race – a sort of tactless truthfulness which characterized all Clelands. He said:
"When I informed you that I'm a busy man, I evidently but unintentionally misled you. I'm not in business. I have time. I simply don't wish to go into the slums to see somebody's perfectly strange offspring."
The amazed young woman listened, hesitated, then threw back her pretty head and laughed:
"Mr. Cleland, your frankness is most refreshing! Certainly there is no necessity for you to go if you don't wish to. The little girl will be most grateful to you for this generous cheque, and happy to be relieved of the haunting terror that has made her almost ill at the prospect of an orphanage. The child will be beside herself with joy when she gets word from us that she need not lose the only home and the only friends she has ever known. Thank you – for little Stephanie Quest."
"What did the other people do to her?" inquired John Cleland, buttoning his gloves and still scowling absently at nothing.
"What people?"
"The ones who – her parents, I mean. What was it they did to her?"
"They were dreadfully inhuman – "
"What did they do to the child? Do you know?"
"Yes, I know, Mr. Cleland. They beat her mercilessly when they happened to be crazed by drugs; they neglected her when sober. The little thing was a mass of cuts and sores and bruises when we investigated her case; two of her ribs had been broken, somehow or other, and were not yet healed – "
"Oh, Lord!" he interrupted sharply. "That's enough of such devilish detail! – I beg your pardon, but such things – annoy me. Also I've some business that's waiting – or pleasure, whichever you choose to call it – " He glanced at his watch, thinking of the exhibition at Christensen's, and the several rival and hawk-like amateurs who certainly would be prowling around there, deriding him for his absence and looking for loot.
"Where does that child live?" he added carelessly, buttoning his overcoat.
The capable young woman, who had been regarding him with suppressed amusement, wrote out the address on a pad, tore off the leaf, and handed it to him.
" – In case you ever become curious to see little Stephanie Quest, whom you have aided so generously – " she explained.
Cleland, recollecting with increasing annoyance that he had three hundred dollars less to waste on Christensen than he had that morning, muttered the polite formality of leave-taking required of him, and bowed himself out, carrying the slip of paper in his gloved fingers, extended as though he were looking for a place to drop it.
Down in the street, where his car stood, the sidewalks were slowly whitening under leisurely falling snowflakes. The asphalt already was a slippery mess.
"Where's that!" he demanded peevishly, shoving the slip of paper at his chauffeur. "Do you know?"
"I can find it, sir."
"All right," snapped John Cleland.
He stepped into the little limousine and settled back with a grunt. Then he hunched himself up in the corner and perked the fur robe over his knees, muttering. Thoughts of his wife, of his son, had been heavily persistent that morning. Never before had he felt actually old – he was only fifty-odd. Never before had he felt himself so alone, so utterly solitary. Never had he so needed the comradeship of his only son.
He had