will see that he gets his money. In his place I should be feeling
uneasy."
"Ma'am!" protested Steve.
Mrs. Porter silenced him with a gesture.
"Be quiet!" she said.
Steve was quiet.
Mrs. Porter returned to Kirk.
Of all her burning words, Kirk had not heard one. His eyes had never
left Ruth's. Like her, he was trying to read a message from a face that
seemed only cold. In this crisis of their two lives he had no thought
for anybody but her. He had a sense of great issues, of being on the
verge of the tremendous; but his brain felt numbed and heavy. He could
not think. He could see nothing except her eyes.
His inattention seemed to communicate itself to Mrs. Porter. She rapped
imperatively upon the table for the third time. The report galvanized
Steve, as, earlier in the day, a similar report had galvanized Mr.
Penway; but Kirk did not move.
"Mr. Winfield!"
Still Kirk made no sign that he had heard her. It was discouraging, but
Lora Delane Porter was not made of the stuff that yields readily to
discouragement. She resumed:
"As for this wretched girl", she indicated the silent Mamie with a wave
of her hand, "this abandoned creature whom you have led astray, this
shameless partner of your......"
"Say!"
The exclamation came from Steve, and it stopped Mrs. Porter like a
bullet. To her this interruption from one whom she had fallen upon and
wiped out resembled a voice from the tomb. She was not accustomed to
having her victims rise up and cut sharply, even peremptorily, into the
flow of her speech. Macbeth, confronted by the ghost of Banquo, may
have been a little more taken aback, but not much.
She endeavoured to quell Steve with a glance, but it was instantly
apparent that he was immune for the time being to quelling glances. His
brown eyes were fixed upon her in a cold stare which she found
arresting and charged with menace. His chin protruded and his upper lip
was entirely concealed behind its fellow in a most uncomfortable
manner.
She had never had the privilege of seeing Steve in the active exercise
of his late profession, or she would have recognized the look. It was
the one which proclaims the state of mind commonly known as "being
fighting mad," and in other days had usually heralded a knock-out for
some too persistent opponent.
"Say, ma'am, you want to cut that out. That line of talk don't go."
Great is the magic of love that can restore a man in an instant of time
from being an obsequious wreck to a thing of fire and resolution. A
moment before Steve's only immediate object in life had been to stay
quiet and keep out of the way as much as possible. He had never been a
man of ready speech in the presence of an angry woman; words
intimidated him as blows never did, especially the whirl of words which
were at Lora Delane Porter's command in moments of emotion.
But this sudden onslaught upon Mamie, innocent Mamie who had done
nothing to anybody, scattered his embarrassment and filled him with
much the same spirit which sent bantam-weight knights up against
heavy-weight dragons in the Middle Ages. He felt inspired.
"Nix on the 'abandoned creature,'" he said with dignity. "You're on the
wrong wire! This here lady is my affianced wife!"
He went to Mamie and, putting his arm round her waist, pressed her to
him. He was conscious, as he did so, of a sensation of wonderment at
himself. This was the attitude he had dreamed of a thousand times and
had been afraid to assume. For the last three years he had been
picturing himself in precisely this position, and daily had cursed the
lack of nerve which had held him back. Yet here he was, and it had all
happened in a moment. A funny thing, life.
"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Porter.
"Sure thing," said Steve. His coolness, the ease with which he found
words astonished him as much as his rapidity of action.
"I stole the kid," he said, "and it was my idea at that. Kirk didn't
know anything about it. I wired to him to-day what I had done and that
he was to come right along. And," added Steve in a burst of
inspiration, "I said bring along Mamie, too, as the kid's used to her
and there ought to be a woman around. And she could be here, all right,
and no harm, she being my affianced wife." He liked that phrase. He had
read it in a book somewhere, and it was the goods.
He eyed Mrs. Porter jauntily. Mrs. Porter's gaze wavered. She was not
feeling comfortable. Hers was a nature that did not lend itself easily
to apologies, yet apologies were obviously what the situation demanded.
The thought of all the eloquence which she had expended to no end added
to her discomfort. For the first time she was pleased that Kirk had so
manifestly not been listening to a word of it.
"Oh!" she said.
She paused.
"That puts a different complexion on this affair."
"Betcha life!"
She paused once more. It was some moments before she could bring
herself to speak. She managed it at last.
"I beg your pardon," she said.
"Mine, ma'am?" said Steve grandly. Five minutes before, the idea that
he could ever speak grandly to Lora Delane Porter would have seemed
ridiculous to him; but he was surprised at nothing now.
"And the young wom...... And the future Mrs. Dingle's," said Mrs. Porter
with an effort.
"Thank you, ma'am," said Steve, and released Mamie, who forthwith
bolted from the room like a scared rabbit.
Steve had started to follow her when Mrs. Porter, magnificent woman,
snatching what was left from defeat, stopped him.
"Wait!" she said. "What you have said alters the matter in one respect;
but there is another point. On your own confession you have been guilty
of the extremely serious offence, the penal offence of kidnapping a
child who..."
"Drop me a line about it, ma'am," said Steve. "Me time's rather full
just now."
He disappeared into the outer darkness after Mamie.
* * * * *
In the room they had left, Kirk and Ruth faced each other in silence.
Lora Delane Porter eyed them grimly. It was the hour of her defeat, and
she knew it. Forces too strong for her were at work. Her grand attack,
the bringing of these two together that Ruth might confront Kirk in his
guilt, had recoiled upon her. The Old Guard had made their charge up
the hill, and it had failed. Victory had become a rout. With one speech
Steve had destroyed her whole plan of campaign.
She knew it was all over, that in another moment if she remained, she
would be compelled to witness the humiliating spectacle of Ruth in
Kirk's arms, stammering the words which intuition told her were even
now trembling on her lips. She knew Ruth. She could read her like a
primer. And her knowledge told her that she was about to capitulate,
that all her pride and resentment had been swept away, that she had
gone over to the enemy.
Elemental passions were warring against Lora Delane Porter, and she
bowed before them.
"Mr. Winfield," she said sharply, her voice cutting the silence like a
knife, "I beg your pardon. I seem to have made a mistake. Good night."
Kirk did not answer.
"Good night, Ruth."
Ruth made no sign that she had heard.
Mrs. Porter, grand in defeat, moved slowly to the door.
But even in the greatest women there is that germ of feminine curiosity
which cannot be wholly eliminated, that little grain of dust that
asserts itself and clogs the machinery. It had been Mrs. Porter's
intention to leave the room without a glance, her back defiantly toward