Delphi Complete Works of Booth Tarkington (Illustrated), page 686
Ames was a “man of affairs” but not of such affairs as this. People spoke of him sometimes, he knew, as “on top of the world”; he wasn’t there now. The scene Laila’d made might have badly shaken even an old philanderer but it was wholly new and tasted like death to this able and diligent man whose previous experience had never explained how many kinds of women there are, or that one he thought he knew could be atrociously surprising. In these moments Ames Lanning wasn’t aware of himself as an up-and-coming great captain of industry; he was only a mortal creature like any other who discovers the world not to be his oyster but a jungle path whereon may fall the shadow of the leaping panther.
The revulsion within him had come when Laila’d said, “You’ll have to fire Tuke.” Her jolly but semi-caressing coquetries had long been among the pleasantest rewards of Ames’s success; but, after years of admiration of her, when she said “Fire Tuke” he began to know her. Then, quickly, he knew more of her. Overlooking even his daughter completely, babbling infantile folly about New York, brushing Henry L. Roe’s convictions aside as of no consequence, self-persuaded that a man was life-and-death in love with her because he’d stumbled into comforting her too pleasantly for a few minutes — why, the woman had weeds for brains!
Of all creatures the weed-brained can be the most fatally dangerous; and the manner of Laila’s departure brought him sure foretaste of calamity. She was going to splash mud sky high — all over herself and all over Roe Metal Products; but Ames would be blackest with it.
By a strange order of nature it is the innocent of this world who suffer the most from their consciences; and it is they whose imaginations are busiest with thoughts of supposedly deserved impending punishments to be endured. Would a monstrous public opinion believe that he was honor bound to spend the rest of his life “making amends” to Laila Speer? “Honor”? What a word! For years he’d been a greatly honored, honorable man. When such a one is dishonored, what’s left of him?
XLI
ON THE CITY’S horizon, vacantly half-seen through the window at which he stared, dark movements against the sky finally reminded him that a convicted man has to go on living until the drop falls. So was routine compulsory. The dark movements were the far away upward pulsations of smoke from the stacks of Plant Three where a great stoking went on: Roe Metal Products was hurrying. “All right,” Ames said faintly, as if in resigned answer, and with a flaccid hand pushed buttons on the rim of his desk. He resumed his work, interrupting it for a moment late in the afternoon to give instructions that his house should be called and his wife informed that he couldn’t come home for dinner and might be out late.
He worked till after seven; then went down to the street, where the varicolored lights were begging into the evening dimness for customers, and groups in the sidewalk crowds began to weave toward the movies. A speeding young couple, linked, bounced into him. Ames apologized mutteringly, annoying the boy and girl but the more and making him wonder why it was he who asked pardon. Was his threatening future already so humbling him that he must beg every heedless idiot to forgive him for still remaining a corporeal presence?
Yes, he’d just proved it, thus showing himself to be not much like himself — not like the assertively rising Ames Lanning of yesterday. It was in this mood that he entered the quiet downtown restaurant where he sometimes lunched with other Roe Metal Products men; he had the waiter give him the small table that was farthest from the glass front door. The place was almost silent; only a few tables were occupied and these by diners too serious over food to talk much. Ames ordered a thin dinner and had about stopped trying to finish it when he heard the street door open, and, glancing up absently, saw Tuke Speer coming in.
Tuke went to the table nearest the door, the length of the room from Ames, of whom he didn’t appear to be aware, and, when the waiter came, gave his order in a low voice, not looking away from the “Carte du jour”. The tables between Ames and Tuke were all vacant and the two men sat facing each other across these intermittent shapes of white cloth and twinkling cutlery. Ames looked steadily at Tuke for some moments but had no return of his gaze from Laila Speer’s husband. Tuke kept his eyes upon the restaurant list until he was compelled to look up by the greeting of an acquaintance. This was young Miley Stuart, who came in briskly and appeared to be much surprised, and cheered, too, by the sight of a friend unexpected in that place.
“This is luck!” the young man said brightly. “I’ve got seven or eight things on my mind I’ve wanted to ask you about those new blueprints ever since you closed work for the afternoon, Mr. Speer. Do you mind if I sit at your table and eat while I ask ’em, sir? They’re really rather important, and if you don’t mind I’d like — —” Miley interrupted himself, seeming equally surprised to see Ames Lanning, who had paid his waiter and was rising to leave. “Well, Golly me!” Miley exclaimed. “Just a minute, Mr. Speer, and I’ll be back.” He hurried down the room toward Ames. “Mr. Lanning, is your car parked somewhere? Wouldn’t you like me to go with you to see if it’s all right? I thought I noticed the other day you seemed to be having a little trouble with the starter. I’d be only too glad to — —”
“No. No, thank you. It’s in a garage nearby, where I always leave it,” Ames said. “They keep it in condition and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the starter.”
“But I’d be delighted if you’d let me.” Miley walked up the aisle between the tables, keeping beside Ames and making a flutter of polite offers. “Do let me go along, Mr. Lanning. It would only take me a minute to see if that starter’s as right as you think. I’m not in the least hungry. You may have had a pretty tiring day; but I haven’t and I’d only be too glad. I’m pretty sure I’m right about the starter, and the garage people may have neglected it. I could straighten it out very easily for you if you’d let me and I’d be only too glad to — —”
“No, no, it’s not needed,” Ames said; and, as Miley renewed his flutter, the two passed Tuke’s table with the over-courteous young man on the side toward Tuke, who did not look up.
Outdoors, on the pavement, Miley abruptly became less insistent. “Well, sir, if you’re sure there’s no trouble with your starter — —”
“None at all,” Ames said. “Goodnight, Miley.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
Ames walked away, thinking not of Miley Stuart’s eagerness to be useful to the father of a pretty girl but of the hollow-eyed concentration Tuke Speer had bent upon the menu. Never before had Ames been confronted by a former friend who’d come to hate him so openly, for surely hatred must be both open and hot when the hater is willing for you to see that he cannot bear even to look at you. Ames asked the neon-lighted night what he’d done to incite that passion. If he’d really done anything Kate would have told him, wouldn’t she? “Wait, though,” he admonished himself with misgiving. She hadn’t been telling him anything much for quite a time, had she? — not until last Sunday night when she’d gibed at him for his solicitude about Laila. Remembering that “solicitude”, he felt a chill rising from the pit of his stomach.
Sunday night and Tuke at the open window of the library! Irretrievable, but it had all been a kind of accident. So, then, accidents could happen to anybody — even to the strong, to the proud and the confident. Accidents don’t care whom they destroy. Ames was like a dreamer who strolls balmily in a grove of shady trees — and the dream turns into nightmare with all the myriads of leaves become scorpions and centipedes and the very path beneath his feet reptilian.
He went to the garage, got his car and drove northward, but not through the long street that passed his house. Beyond the city he reached a three-ply highway into which he shot at a great speed immediately afterward increased. Thus he covered fifty-six miles and reached Roeville in three-quarters of an hour, coming to a stop before an unending dimness of brick wall and the floodlighted sign seventy yards long, “Roe Metal Products Corporation of America”. From within Plant Two’s vastness came a muffled chugging, a deep noise that meant America growing and growling in the dark, preparing its defense of the world; and Ames Lanning, hearing such stout sounds, might rightfully have taken some credit to himself for them, since it was he who was responsible for their disturbance of what otherwise would have been the silent night. Not giving himself credit for anything whatever, though, he went into the vibrant building and treated its night staff to a surprise inspection that lasted two hours.
He drove homeward more slowly than he’d come, hoping that everyone at his house would be wrapped in slumber when he arrived; but both Kate and Celia came to greet him as he opened the front door. Celia told him that he looked tired and both asked if they couldn’t get him something to eat.
“No, no,” he said. “I had dinner at Frederic’s, plenty. I’m afraid you’re right about my being tired, though. I had to go out to Roeville and I’ll have to be out there again early to-morrow morning. Probably be there all day. I’d better go straight up to bed now if you don’t mind. Goodnight. Goodnight.”
They watched him go up the stairway; then looked at each other as anxious women do. “White as a sheet,” Celia said, when they’d heard his door close. “Did you see his expression and notice his voice? Just stricken! I think something’s happened.”
“Yes, all the time, Celia, these days. A great many men are wearing themselves out as he does.”
Celia shook her head. “No, he’s an ox for work; he’s always been so and I’m sure it isn’t that. Do you want to know what I think? I’ll bet you — —” She interrupted herself, as four notes of the chromatic scale were whistled outside. “It’s Miley!” she said, ran to the door, opened it, and echoed the whistle.
“Saw you were still lighted up,” the young man explained, appearing in the doorway. “I had something to mention and thought maybe you’d come out and — oh, good evening, Mrs. Lanning!”
“Come in!” Celia bade him, and glanced toward upstairs. They took him into the living-room, closed the double doors, and Celia said, “You haven’t been doing that again, have you?”
Miley looked embarrassed. “Mrs. Lanning, I —— Celia — —”
“Speak up,” Celia said. “She knows now what I’m worried about and maybe it’ll be no harm if she gets a little that way, herself. I’ve told her a dozen times Tuke Speer hates Father for no reason on earth. We all understand. You can speak out, Miley.”
“It’s all right, of course,” he began. “Mr. Speer went home about nine o’clock and the lights went out along toward eleven and — —”
“Didn’t I tell you not to do that again?”
“I had nothing else to do,” he said. “I thought I might as well sit there in my car; but nobody came out and I’m pretty sure they must be asleep by now. Celia, I thought maybe you’d want to hear about what happened earlier.”
“There!” Celia’s brow darkened at Kate. “Didn’t I tell you something had? Go on, Miley!”
His embarrassment returned. “It seems to have begun in the afternoon really.” He paused, glancing dubiously at Kate; but Celia gave him an imperative nod, which he obeyed. “I might be mistaken but it rather seemed to me to have something to do with — with Mrs. Speer.”
“All right, go ahead,” Celia said. “I just told you that Kate and all of us know perfectly well that Tuke’s crazily jealous of every man his wife so much as speaks to, and that includes Father. Go ahead!”
“All right, if you say, Celia. It might be nothing of course; but toward closing time Mr. Speer and I were working together at his long table, and Mr. Lanning sent down some blueprints he’d checked over. It was that talky young clerk, Eckling, who brought them. Eckling handed ’em to Mr. Speer, and, because he always has to have something to say, said he’d made it from your father’s office, Celia, to the Plant in twelve minutes in spite of the traffic. Mr. Speer wrote a receipt for the blueprints and then Eckling wanted to give himself a nice gabby exit, so he said, ‘Well, gents, I’ll skim back to headquarters!’ ” Miley, sometimes a mimic, imitated the high voice of the too-chatty messenger. “ ’Oh, by the way,’ the fool said. ‘We had a beautiful visitor there this afternoon, Mr. Speer, as I suppose you know. We’re all hoping she was seeing Mr. Lanning about joining us in our war work. Yes, your good wife paid us quite a call, quite a call!’ ”
“That was helpful!” Celia exclaimed. “Laila’d been to — —”
“To Mr. Lanning’s office,” Miley said. “Yes, so it seems; and this idiot, Eckling, just to make more conversation as he left, put in, ‘A marvelous-looking lady, Mr. Speer; we all envy you!’ and then got himself out in a state of affability and pleasure, though Mr. Speer only looked at him. Mr. Speer didn’t speak to me either; he just pushed the blueprints over to me and went to his desk and sat down and didn’t do anything.”
“This world’s full of Ecklings!” Celia cried. “They ruin people! Don’t stop, Miley.”
“Yes, Celia. I couldn’t help but be sorry for Mr. Speer, he looked so tense and so forlorn and so strange. Of course he’s been a pretty strange-looking man ever since I’ve known him. I don’t suppose he was always like that, though.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Kate said. “I don’t mean to interrupt you, Miley. You followed him when he left, did you?”
“Yes, Mrs. Lanning; but he didn’t go till very late. He just sat there. I’d worked through the blueprints and finished up the other job we were on long before he left. He didn’t speak to me — just suddenly got up and went out. I let him get a start, then trailed after him. He drove all the way home but didn’t get out — only sat in his car and looked at the house — and then he turned round and went downtown again, to Frederic’s restaurant.”
“Frederic’s!” This was an outcry from Celia. “But to-night Father went to Frederic’s!”
“Yes, he was there,” Miley said, and made the picture for them.
Before he’d finished, Celia was shaking. “Haven’t I been right?” she asked her stepmother. “If Miley hadn’t been there and kept between them — and think of how Father looked when he came in the door just now! That woman in his office this afternoon — what for? — and Tuke knows that she went there! You still think I’ve been hysterical, do you?”
Kate didn’t answer. Standing, she seemed to be intently studying the floor; but, coming out of this contemplation, she said, “You’re a dear thing, Miley Stuart!” and left the room.
She went upstairs, and, seeing light beneath her husband’s door, rapped gently. He opened the door, stood before her in a bathrobe and spoke rather roughly. “What is it?”
“Nothing, Ames, except that in the morning before you leave there’ll be a basket packed for you and enough in it for three or four others if you want to ask them to eat with you at Plant Two to-morrow and keep on talking instead of bolting food in the cafeteria.”
“Thank you; that’s very thoughtful.”
“Is there anything wrong at Plant Two, Ames?”
“No, not so far. There could be some labor trouble out there if we’re not careful.”
“Don’t let it worry you,” Kate said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t let anything worry you, Ames — not anything at all.” With that, she stood on tiptoe, put her arms about his neck and kissed him quickly.
He looked tragic. “Kate!”
“But that’s nothing,” she said, and gave him the sad hint of half a smile over her shoulder, as she opened her own door. “A kiss doesn’t mean anything, Ames; but don’t forget what I told you: don’t worry about Plant Two or about anything else — and of course please don’t think I’m trying to be advising you. Goodnight.”
XLII
IN THE MORNING Kate waited until almost eleven; then she walked half way round the block and rang the bell of a small white house that stood in a narrow neat lawn. A languid young colored woman, responding, said, “No’m, Miz Speer ain’t home at all this morning. No’m.” Kate was as conscious of tensed ears at the top of the stairway as if they buzzed; and, departing, she felt herself watched hotly.
A polite generation preceding this stylizedly mannerless present one held that no gentleman ever raises his glance to the upper windows of a house as he approaches it or as he leaves it afterward; but Kate Lanning, though aware of the old rule, felt that it didn’t apply to a lady in emergency. Apparently absorbed in thought, she reached the pavement before the small lawn, then looked up unexpectedly and caught a glimpse of the withdrawal of a face from between closing folds of chintz at a bedroom window. This disappearing face, pallidly haggard beneath wisps of unkempt black hair and not beautiful to-day, seemed to send a deadly message whirring on the air as if fast to a steel-pointed arrow: “I’ll get YOU if I die for it!”
At home Kate waited again, then tried to call Laila on the telephone; the housemaid’s voice was still uninterested. “No’m, Miz Speer ain’t home, so she say she ain’t go’ answer no ‘phone-calls . . . No’m, I couldn’t say when . . . No’m, I on’y come in by the day up to four-thirty, so I couldn’t say when . . . No’m, I pos’tively couldn’t say.”
Kate called Plant Three and asked to speak to Mr. Speer. “This is Kate Lanning,” she said, when he answered. “I’ve been trying to see Laila; but I’m afraid she isn’t going to let me. I wanted to talk to her first of course; but if I can’t I’ll just have to go ahead with you — if you’ll let me. Could you come here any time to-day or this evening — or I’ll meet you anywhere you say?”
There was a long pause; then he said, “No; I believe not, Kate.”
“I think we’d better have a talk, Tuke.”
