“That’s funny,” said Marjorie Schuyler, rising. “There’s Billy now. I’ll bring him in and let you see for yourself that he’s not at all an object of sympathy—or pity.”
She disappeared into the library, leaving Patsy speculating recklessly. They must have met just the other side of the closed hangings, for to Patsy their voices sounded very near and close together.
“Hello, Billy!”
“Listen, Marjorie; if a girl loves a man she ought to be willing to trust him over a dreadful bungle until he could straighten things out and make good again—that’s true, isn’t it?”
“Billy Burgeman! What do you mean?”
“Just answer my question. If a girl loves a man she’ll trust him, won’t she?”
“I suppose so.”
“You know she would, dear. What would the man do if she didn’t?”
The voice sounded strained and unnatural in its intensity and appeal. Patsy rose, troubled in mind, and tiptoed to the only other door in the den.
“’Tis a grand situation for a play,” she remarked, dryly, “but ’tis a mortial poor one in real life, and I’m best out of it.” She turned the knob with eager fingers and pulled the door toward her. It opened on a dumbwaiter shaft, empty and impressive. Patsy’s expression would have scored a hit in farce comedy. Unfortunately there was no audience present to appreciate it here, and the prompter forgot to ring down the curtain just then, so that Patsy stood helpless, forced to go on hearing all that Marjorie and her leading man wished to improvise in the way of lines.
“... I told you, forged—”
Patsy was tempted to put her fingers in her ears to shut out the sound of his voice and what he was saying, but she knew even then she would go on hearing; his voice was too vibrant, too insistent, to be shut out.
“... my father’s name for ten thousand. I took the check to the bank myself, and cashed it; father’s vice-president.... Of course the cashier knew me.... I tell you I can’t explain—not now. I’ve got to get away and stay away until I’ve squared the thing and paid father back.”
“Billy Burgeman, did you forge that check yourself?”
“What does that matter—whether I forged it or had it forged or saw it forged? I tell you I cashed it, knowing it was forged. Don’t you understand?”
“Yes; but if you didn’t forge it, you could easily prove it; people wouldn’t have to know the rest—they are hushing up things of that kind every day.”
A silence dropped on the three like a choking, blinding fog. The two outside the hangings must have been staring at each other, too bewildered or shocked to speak. The one inside clutched her throat, muttering, “If my heart keeps up this thumping, faith, he’ll think it’s the police and run.”
At last the voice of the man came, hushed but strained almost to breaking. To Patsy it sounded as if he were staking his very soul in the words, uncertain of the balance. “Marjorie, you don’t understand! I cashed that check because—because I want to take the responsibility of it and whatever penalty comes along with it. I don’t believe father will ever tell. He’s too proud; it would strike back at him too hard. But you would have to know; he’d tell you; and I wanted to tell you first myself. I want to go away knowing you believe and trust me, no matter what father says about me, no matter what every one thinks about me. I want to hear you say it—that you will be waiting—just like this—for me to come back to when I’ve squared it all off and can explain.... Why, Marjorie—Marjorie!”
Patsy waited in an agony of dread, hope, prayer—waited for the answer she, the girl he loved, would make. It came at last, slowly, deliberately, as if spoken, impersonally, by the foreman of a jury:
“I don’t believe in you, Billy. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I could ever trust you again. Your father has always said you couldn’t take care of money; this simply means you have got yourself into some wretched hole, and forging your father’s name was the only way out of it. I suppose you think the circumstances, whatever they may be, have warranted the act; but that act puts a stigma on your name which makes it unfit for any woman to bear; and if you have any spark of manhood left, you’ll unwish the wish—you will unthink the thought—that I would wait—or even want you—ever—to come back.”
A cry—a startled, frightened cry—rang through the rooms. It did not come from either Marjorie or her leading man. Patsy stood with a vagabond glove pressed hard over her mouth—quite unconscious that the cry had escaped and that there was no longer need of muzzling—then plunged headlong through the hangings into the library. Marjorie Schuyler was standing alone.
“Where is he—your man?”
“He’s gone—and please don’t call him—that!”
“Go after him—hurry—don’t let him go! Don’t ye understand? He mustn’t go away with no one believing in him. Tell him it’s a mistake; tell him anything—only go!”
While Patsy’s tongue burred out its Irish brogue she pushed at the tall figure in front of her—pushed with all her might. “Are ye nailed to the floor? What’s happened to your feet? For Heaven’s sake, lift them and let them take ye after him. Don’t ye hear? There’s the front door slamming behind him. He’ll be gone past your calling in another minute. Dear heart alive, ye can’t be meaning to let him go—this way!”
But Marjorie Schuyler stood immovable and deaf to her pleading. Incredulity, bewilderment, pity, and despair swept over Patsy’s face like clouds scudding over the surface of a clear lake. Then scorn settled in her eyes.
“I’m sorry for ye, sorry for any woman that fails the man who loves her. I don’t know this son of old King Midas; I never saw him in my life, and all I know about him is what ye told me this day and scraps of what he had to say for himself; but I believe in him. I know he never forged that check—or used the money for any mean use of his own. I’d wager he’s shielding some one, some one weaker than he, too afeared to step up and say so. Why, I’d trust him across the world and back again; and, holy Saint Patrick! I’m going after him to tell him so.”
For the second time within a few seconds Marjorie Schuyler listened and heard the front door slam; then the goddess came to life. She walked slowly, regally, across the library and passed between the hangings which curtained her den. Her eyes, probably by pure chance, glanced over the shimmering contents of the waste-basket. A little cold smile crept to the corners of her mouth, while her chin stiffened.
“I think, Toto,” she said, addressing the toy ruby spaniel, “that it will not be even a June wedding,” and she laughed a crisp, dry little laugh.
III
PATSY PLAYS A PART
Patsy ran down the steps of the Schuyler house, jumping the last four. As her feet struck the pavement she looked up and down the street for what she sought. There it was—the back of a fast-retreating man in a Balmacaan coat of Scotch tweed and a round, plush hat, turning the corner to Madison Avenue. Patsy groaned inwardly when she saw the outlines of the figure; they were so conventional, so disappointing; they lacked simplicity and directness—two salient life principles with Patsy.
“Pshaw! What’s in a back?” muttered Patsy. “He may be a man, for all his clothes;” and she took to her heels after him.
As she reached the corner he jumped on a passing car going south. “Tracking for the railroad station,” was her mental comment, and she looked north for the next car following; there was none. As far as eye could see there was an unbroken stretch of track—fate