“I see,” said Montague, gravely. “Go on.”
“Well, after that I made up my mind that I couldn’t stay anywhere where I had to see him. And I knew he would never go away without a scene. If I had asked Mrs. Prentice to send him away, there would have been a scandal, and it would have spoiled everybody’s trip. So I went out, and found there was a train for the East in a little while, and I packed up my things, and left a note for Mrs. Prentice. I told her a story—I said I’d had a telegram that your mother was ill, and that I didn’t want to spoil their good time, and had gone by myself. That was the best thing I could think of. I wasn’t afraid to travel, so long as I was sure that Charlie couldn’t catch up with me.”
Montague said nothing; he sat with his hands gripped tightly.
“It seemed like a desperate thing to do,” said Alice, nervously. “But you see, I was upset and unhappy. I didn’t seem to like the party any more—I wanted to be home. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Montague, “I understand. And I’m glad you are here.”
They reached home, and Montague called up Harvey’s and told his brother what had happened. He could hear Oliver gasp with astonishment. “That’s a pretty how-do-you-do!” he said, when he had got his breath back; and then he added, with a laugh, “I suppose that settles poor Charlie’s chances.”
“I’m glad you’ve come to that conclusion,” said the other, as he hung up the receiver.
This episode gave Montague quite a shock. But he had little time to think about it—the next morning at eleven o’clock his case was to come up for trial, and so all his thoughts were called away. This case had been the one real interest of his life for the last three months; it was his purpose, the thing for the sake of which he endured everything else that repelled him. And he had trained himself as an athlete for a great race; he was in form, and ready for the effort of his life. He went down town that morning with every fibre of him, body and mind, alert and eager; and he went into his office, and in his mail was a letter from Mr. Hasbrook. He opened it hastily and read a message, brief and direct and decisive as a sword-thrust:
“I beg to inform you that I have received a satisfactory proposition from the Fidelity Company. I have settled with them, and wish to withdraw the suit. Thanking you for your services, I remain, sincerely.”
To Montague the thing came like a thunderbolt. He sat utterly dumbfounded—his hands went limp, and the letter fell upon the desk in front of him.
And at last, when he did move, he picked up the telephone, and told his secretary to call up Mr. Hasbrook. Then he sat waiting; and when the bell rang, picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Mr. Hasbrook’s voice, and to demand an explanation. But he heard, instead, the voice of his own secretary: “Central says the number’s been discontinued, sir.”
And he hung up the receiver, and sat motionless again. The dummy had disappeared!
To Montague this incident meant a change in the prospect of his whole life. It was the collapse of all his hopes. He had nothing more to work for, nothing more to think about; the bottom had fallen out of his career!
He was burning with a sense of outrage. He had been tricked and made a fool of; he had been used and flung aside. And now there was nothing he could do—he was utterly helpless. What affected him most was his sense of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which had made him their puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that he or any other man could make against them. They were like elemental, cosmic forces; they held all the world in their grip, and a common man was as much at their mercy as a bit of chaff in a tempest.
All day long he sat in his office, brooding and nursing his wrath. He had moods when he wished to drop everything, to shake the dust of the city from his feet, and go back home and recollect what it was to be a gentleman. And then again he had fighting moods, when he wished to devote all his life to punishing the men who had made use of him. He would get hold of some other policy-holder in the Fidelity, one whom he could trust; he would take the case without pay, and carry it through to the end! He would force the newspapers to talk about it—he would force the people to heed what he said!
And then, toward evening, he went home, bitter and sore. And there was his brother sitting in his study, waiting for him.
“Hello,” he said, and took off his coat, preparing his mind for one more ignominy—the telling of his misfortune to Oliver, and listening to his inevitable, “I told you so.”
But Oliver himself had something to communicate something that would not bear keeping. He broke out at once—“Tell me, Allan! What in the world has happened between you and Mrs. Winnie?”
“What do you mean?” asked Montague, sharply.
“Why,” said Oliver, “everybody is talking about some kind of a quarrel.”
“There has been no quarrel,” said Montague.
“Well, what is it, then?”
“It’s nothing.”
“It must be something!” exclaimed Oliver. “What do all the stories mean?”
“What stories?”
“About you two. I met Mrs. Vivie Patton just now, and she swore me to secrecy, and told me that Mrs. Winnie had told some one that you had made love to her so outrageously that she had to ask you to leave the house.”
Montague shrunk as from a blow. “Oh!” he gasped.
“That’s what she said,” said he.
“It’s a lie!” he cried.
“That’s what I told Mrs. Vivie,” said the other; “it doesn’t sound like you—”
Montague had flushed scarlet. “I don’t mean that!” he cried. “I mean that Mrs. Winnie never said any such thing.”
“Oh,” said Oliver, and he shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe not,” he added. “But I know she’s furious with you about something—everybody’s talking about it. She tells people that she’ll never speak to you again. And what I want to know is, why is it that you have to do things to make enemies of everybody you know?”
Montague said nothing; he was trembling with anger.
“What in the world did you do to her?” began the other. “Can’t you trust me—”
And suddenly Montague sprang to his feet. “Oh, Oliver,” he exclaimed, “let me alone! Go away!”
And he went into the next room and slammed the door, and began pacing back and forth like a caged animal.
It was a lie! It was a lie! Mrs. Winnie had never said such a thing! He would never believe it—it was a nasty piece of backstairs gossip!
But then a new burst of rage swept over him What did it matter Whether it was true or not—whether anything was true or not? What did it matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome things that everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody was saying! It was what everybody believed—what everybody was interested in! It was the measure of a whole society—their ideals and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and gossip of lew intrigue.
A flood of rage surged up within him, and swept him, away—rage against the world into which he had come, and against himself for the part he had played in it. Everything seemed to have come to a head at once; and he hated everything—hated the people he had met, and the things they did, and the things they had tempted him to do. He hated the way he had got his money, and the way he had spent it. He hated the idleness and wastefulness, the drunkenness and debauchery, the meanness and the snobbishness.