A Man's Hearth. Eleanor M. Ingram

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СКАЧАТЬ them. The woman from whose presence he had come to this chance encounter once had told him that any human being looked absurd propelling a baby-coach. He recalled that statement now, and did not find it true. It was such a sane thing to do, so natural and good. At least, it seemed so when this girl did it. He envied the man, whoever he might be, who did, or would love her; envied him the clean simplicity she would make of life and the absence of hateful complications.

      People were glancing curiously at his motionless figure; he aroused himself and walked on. He had chosen his own way of living, he angrily told himself; there was no excuse for whining if he did not like the place where free-will had led him. Yet—had he? Or had he, instead, been trapped? The doubt was ugly. He walked faster to escape it, but it ran at his heels like one of those sinister demon-animals of medieval legend.

      Across the blackening river electric signs were flashing into view; gigantic affairs insolently shouldering themselves into the unwilling attention, as indeed they were designed to do by Jersey's desire for the greater city's patronage. Looking toward one of these, the man read it with a sullen distaste: "Adriance's Paper." That simple announcement marked an industry, even a monopoly, great enough to have been subjected more than once to the futile investigations of an uneasy government.

      The family name was sufficiently unusual, the family fortune sufficiently well known to have been bracketted together for him wherever he had gone. In school, in college, and later, always he had found a courier whisper running officiously before him, "Young Adriance—paper, you know. Millions!" And always it had led him into trouble; at twenty-six he was just commencing to realize that fact. The trouble never had been very serious until now. He never had committed anything his mother's church would have called a mortal sin. Even yet he stood only on the verge of commission. But he could not draw back; he was like a man being inexorably pushed into a dark place.

      The house toward which he turned did not arrest the eye by any ostentatious display. In fact, it was remarkable only for being one of the very few houses on lower Riverside Drive which possessed lawns and verandas. Set in a small town, or a suburb, the gray stone villa would have been merely "very handsome." Here, it gained the value of an exotic. To Anthony Adriance, junior, as he climbed the steps that night, it seemed to stare arrogantly from its score of blinking windows at the glittering sign on the opposite shore. Cause and effect, they duly acknowledge each other. The man paused to glance at them both, then let his gaze fall to the avenue below the terraced lawn. That way the black-gowned girl had gone. Probably she had turned across into the city; her dress was hardly that of a resident of the neighborhood.

      The man who took his hat and coat deferentially breathed a message. Mr. Adriance was in the library and desired to know if his son was dining at home.

      "Yes," was the prompt, even eager reply. "Certainly, if he wishes it. Or—never mind; I will go in, myself."

      The inquiry was unusual. It was not Mr. Adriance's habit to question his son's movements. One might have said they did not interest him. He and "Tony" were very good acquaintances and lived quite without friction. He was too busy, too self-centred and ultra-modern to desire any warmer relation. Affection was a sentimentality never mentioned in that household; a mutilated household, for Mrs. Adriance had died twenty years before Tony's majority.

      But it was not curiosity, rather an odd, faintly flickering hope that lighted the younger man's eyes as he entered the room and returned his father's nod of greeting. The two were not unlike, at a first glance; definitely good features: eyes so dark that they were frequently mistaken for black instead of blue, upright figures that made the most of their moderate height—these they had in common. The great difference between them was in expression; the difference between untempered and tempered metal. No one would ever have nicknamed the elder Anthony "Tony."

      "I shall be glad to dine with you," the younger Anthony opened, at once. "I'll go change, and be back. Were you going to try the new Trot tonight—I think you said so?"

      "No. I had an hour this afternoon," Mr. Adriance stated, picking up a pen from the table and turning it in his fingers. He had a habit of playing with small articles at times—to distract his listener's attention rather than his own, said those who knew him well. Neither to his son nor to himself did it occur as incongruous that he should discuss a lesson in dancing with the matter-of-fact decision that made his speech cold and sharp as the crackle of a step on a frost-bound road. "It is not so difficult as the tango, though more fatiguing. Where had you intended to dine, tonight? At the Mastersons'?"

      Tony Adriance colored a slow, painful red that burned over face and neck like a flame scar.

      "Fred asked me," he made difficult work of the reply. "I couldn't get out of it very well, but I am glad of an excuse to stay away. It is early enough to 'phone."

      Mr. Adriance turned the pen around.

      "If Masterson was to be there, you might safely have gone," he pronounced.

      "If——"

      "Exactly. Dining with Mrs. Masterson will no longer do. Am I speaking to a full-grown man or a boy? If Mrs. Masterson chooses to get a divorce, and you afterward marry her, very good. It is done; divorce is accepted among us. But there must be no gossip concerning the lady."

      "There is no cause for any," retorted the other, but the defense lacked fire. He looked suddenly haggard, and the shamed red scorched still deeper. "She—isn't that kind."

      "No. She is very clever." He laid down the pen and took up a book. "I was cautioning you. Will you hurry your dressing a little? I have an early engagement down-town this evening."

      The dry retort was not resented. The younger man did not retreat, although way was shown to him. Since the subject had been dragged into the open ground of speech, he had more to say, with whatever reluctance.

      "You don't seem to consider Fred," he finally said.

      "Why should I?" Mr. Adriance looked up perfunctorily. "Masterson is nothing to me. You have not considered him."

      "I have! At least, I tried to stop this—after I understood. I never meant——"

      There was a pause, during which Mr. Adriance turned a page. The sentence was not completed, but Tony Adriance lingered as if in expectation of some reply to it; an expectation half eager, half defiant. No reply was made; finally it became evident there was to be none.

      "I thought you might object." He forced a laugh with the avowal, but his eyes denied the lightness. "Parents do in books and plays, you know. I thought you might tell me—— Oh, well, to pull out of this and bring home a woman of my own instead of some other man's woman. It isn't very pretty!"

      Mr. Adriance looked up with a certain curiosity.

      "You have a sentimental streak, Tony? I never suspected it. Why should I object to an affair so suitable? You have been following Mrs. Masterson about for a year; she is altogether charming and will make a good hostess here—a great lack in our household. I admire her myself, more than any débutante I ever saw. I am very well satisfied. Suppose you had brought home some milkmaid romance, a wife to stumble over the rugs and defer to the servants? No, no; manage this properly, that is all my advice. Meanwhile, do you know it is after seven o'clock? Unless you hurry——"

      "Oh, I'll hurry," was the dry promise. "And I am much obliged for the advice. But I fancy a good many of us may defer to the milkmaids, after we are dead."

      He swung the door shut with unnecessary force, as he went out. While he climbed the broad, darkly-lustrous stairs, he was aware that his father was turning СКАЧАТЬ