IX
WHEN he returned from Wind River, Kent determined, after clearing off what work had accumulated in his absence, to pay a visit to Edith Garwood. He sent no advance notice of his coming, and her surprise at seeing him was considerably more apparent than any joy she might have felt; for she was carrying on an interesting affair with a young gentleman who really did not know the extent of resources which had been in his family in the form of real estate for something over a century. It was most annoying that Joe Kent should turn up just then.
“I'm just going out,” she said. “Why didn't you tell me you were coming?”
“No particular reason,” said Joe, feeling the coolness of his reception. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. I have made engagements which I can't very well break, even for you. If you had told me”
“Don't worry,” said Joe. “I'll take what's left. You're going out, and I shan't keep you. May I call to-night?”
That evening happened to be blank. She gave him the desired permission, and feeling that she had perhaps shown her irritation too plainly, asked him to accompany her.
“It's an afternoon affair,” she explained, “and of course you won't care to come in; but you may see me that far if you like, and the car will set you down anywhere.”
As they entered the waiting car a gentleman on the other side of the street raised his hat. Miss Garwood bowed, and Joe acknowledged the salute mechanically. It was only when the car shot by the pedestrian that he recognized him as Mr. Stanley Ackerman.
“Hello!” he exclaimed. “Do you know that fellow?”
“Really, Joe,” she replied, “I wish you wouldn't speak of my father's friends in that way.” Her annoyance was genuine, but his words were not the cause of it. She disliked Ackerman and distrusted him. Also he knew the young man with the real estate pedigree.
“I can't congratulate your father on that particular friend,” Kent observed bluntly, and became thoughtful.
Mr. Ackerman looked after the car and became thoughtful also. Shortly afterward he entered Hugh Garwood's office.
The president of the O. & N. would have been spare and shapely if he had taken ordinary exercise; but being far too busy a man to spend any time on the trifling matter of physical well-being his figure had run to seed. Only his head was lean and alertly poised, by virtue of the keen, ever-working brain within. The face was narrow, hard, and determined; and the mouth, set awry beneath the close-clipped gray moustache, was ruthless and grim. It was, in fact, a fairly good indication of his character and methods. He was never known to forego an advantage of any kind, and he was accustomed to bludgeon opponents into submission without being particular where he cut his clubs.
“Well, Ackerman,” he said, “what's the news?”
Mr. Ackerman had no news. It was a fine day, though cool. Beautiful weather. Made a man want to be outdoors.
Garwood grunted. He was not interested in the weather, save as it affected business. Snow blockades and wash-outs and natural phenomena producing them received his attention. Apart from such things he scarcely knew whether a day was fine or not.
“All very well for people who have time to burn,” he commented. “I haven't.”
“Young people enjoy it,” said Mr. Ackerman, getting his opening. “I saw your daughter go by in a car as I came downtown. Lovely girl that. I thought she looked remarkably well and happy.”
“She ought to be happy,” said her father grimly. “She spends enough money.”
“You can afford it. It won't be long till some one else is paying her bills. Plenty of young men would think it a privilege.”
Garwood, from his knowledge of Mr. Ackerman's indirect methods of approach, suddenly regarded him with attention.
“What are you driving at, anyway, Ackerman?” he asked. “You don't want to marry her, do you?”
Mr. Ackerman disclaimed any such desire with haste and evident sincerity. “There was a very good-looking young fellow with her this afternoon,” he observed.
“Trust her for that,” growled Garwood. “Who was it? Young Statten?”
“No,” said Mr. Ackerman slowly, enjoying the sensation in advance, “his name is Kent, Joseph Kent of Falls City.”
“What?” cried Garwood, and straightened in his chair as if he had received a shock, as indeed he had.
“Yes,” said Mr. Ackerman. “You remember she was in Falls City for some weeks this summer. I heard somewhere—you know how these things get about—that she and Kent were—well, in fact, I heard that they were together a great deal.”
Garwood rapped out a man's size oath. “Why didn't you tell me this before?”
“Knowing Miss Edith's penchant for innocent summer flirtations I attached no importance to it,” smiled Mr. Ackerman.
Garwood sat frowning. “You may be right. That girl would flirt with a man's shadow. However, I'll put a stop to this at once. Now see here, Ackerman, you've bungled the Kent matter so far.”
“I have not,” denied Mr. Ackerman indignantly. “He simply would not sell. That's not my fault.”
Garwood dismissed the protest with an impatient gesture. “The fact remains that I haven't got what I'm after. Crooks's business and Kent's are all that prevent us from controlling the lumber market on the O. & N. and the Peninsular. Crooks is pretty strong, but this winter must break Kent, and after that we'll get Crooks. We absolutely must have the water powers which Kent owns. He has a fortune in them, if he only knew it and had money enough to develop them, and we also need his mills. We must have these things, and there must be no mistake about it.”
“If he doesn't deliver the logs he has contracted to deliver” Ackerman began, but Garwood cut him short.
“It must be made impossible for him to deliver them. If he makes good it gives him a new lease of life and delays our plans; but if he doesn't cut the logs he can't deliver them, whether his drive is hung up or not.”
“It was against my advice that his tender for the Wind River limits went through.”
“I know. But he could ill afford to put up the cash for them. His credit is becoming badly strained. A small cut or non-delivery will be fatal to him.”
“But how can we prevent his cutting?”
“Really, Ackerman, you are dense to-day,” said Garwood. “Clancy Brothers have timber near Wind River. We can't touch the other camps, so far as I can see at present, but if you represent matters properly to the Clancys I think they will look after that one.”
When Garwood went home that evening he called his daughter into his private room and went straight to the point.
“Now, Edith,” said he, “I want to know what there is between you and young Kent.”
She flushed angrily, immediately fixing the responsibility for the leak on Ackerman. “Who told you there was anything between us?”
“Never mind. Is it a fact?”
“Is what a fact?”
“Don't beat about the bush with me. How far has this flirtation of yours gone?”
“Not very far,” she answered calmly. “Mr. Kent has merely asked me to marry him.”
“What!” cried Garwood, “you don't mean to tell me you're engaged?”
“I suppose we are—in a way.”
“This must stop,” said Garwood. “I thought you had more sense. You can't marry him. He is a nobody; he is on the verge of bankruptcy; he is merely after my money.”
She cast a sidewise glance at a long mirror and laughed at the lovely reflection. “You are not complimentary, papa. Don't you think a young man might fall in love with me for myself?”
“I am not talking of love, but of marriage,” said Garwood cynically. “I won't have it, I tell you. You must drop Kent now.”
“Why?”
“Because I say so,” said her father, his mouth setting firmly. “I won't mince matters with you, Edith. Inside a year Kent will be looking for a clerk's job. You're not cut out for a poor man's wife.”
“You mean that if I married him you would give me nothing?”
“You grasp my meaning exactly. Not a cent during my life nor after my death.”
Edith Garwood sighed as plaintively as she could; but it was in fact a sigh of relief. It was put up to her so squarely that she had no choice, as she looked at it. She was already tired of Kent, anxious for an excuse to break with him, and she had secretly dreaded the affair coming to her father's knowledge. Now the worst was over. And she saw an opportunity of avoiding a scene with Joe, which she had dreaded also.
“Of course I haven't been brought up to marry a poor man,” she said. “We would both be miserable, if it came to that. So it would be a mistake, wouldn't it?”
“Undoubtedly,” responded Garwood, who, having carried his point much more easily than he expected, found a certain amusement in her mental processes, as one is entertained by the antics of a kitten.
“Then I suppose I shall have to give him up,” she continued, with another beautifully plaintive sigh. “He is to call to-night. Will you tell him? Or shall I write him a note?”
“No doubt you know the correct procedure,” said Garwood. “Write your note and give it to me. Make it firm and definite.”
She nodded agreement. “And now, papa, don't you think I am a very dutiful, self-sacrificing daughter?”
Garwood reached for his check-book with a smile of grim comprehension. “How much does it cost me this time?” he asked.
When Joe called that evening he was shown into Hugh Garwood's study. The railway man, seated at his desk, eyed him keenly. Kent found the scrutiny unfriendly, and stiffened.
“I called to see Miss Garwood,” said he. “My name is Kent.”
“Sit down, Mr. Kent,” said Garwood. “My daughter has given me this note for you. Will you please read it.”
Joe read. It was brief and to the point, and wound up with perfunctory regrets. There was no possibility of misunderstanding it. He folded the missive.
“I presume you know the contents of this letter, Mr. Garwood?”
“I am aware of them, yes.”
“Miss Garwood says that you object to her engagement to me. Will you kindly tell me why?”
“With pleasure. You are not in a position to marry, and you entrapped my daughter into a clandestine engagement, which was not a manly thing to do. In fact, to put it very plainly, you are trying to marry money.”
“To put it just as plainly,” said Joe, flushing, “I don't care about your money at all. I am in a position to marry. The secret engagement I own up to and take the blame for. I shouldn't have consented to it.”
“Consented?” said Garwood sharply. “Then it was my daughter who suggested that?”
“Not at all,” said Joe, lying manfully as he felt bound to do after the slip. “It was my fault entirely.”
Garwood smiled cynically. “You needn't shoulder all the blame. I know her better than you do.” He was rather surprised at the equanimity with which Kent accepted his dismissal. He had looked for a stormy interview with a disappointed, unreasonable youth who would protest and indulge in heroics. He felt quite kindly toward this young man, whose business, nevertheless, he intended to smash. Inwardly he made a note to offer him some sort of a job when that was accomplished. “I take back what I said a moment ago. But you must understand that there can be nothing between you and my daughter.”
“I think I understand that very well,” said Joe. “Glad to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Garwood. By the way, please tell Mr. Ackerman I recognized him to-day. Good night.”
Edith Garwood, peeping from behind a drawn blind, expected to see an utterly crushed being slink from the house. What she saw was an erect young man who paused on the steps to light a cigar, cocked it up at a jaunty angle, and went down the street head up and shoulders back.
In fact, Joe Kent was shaking hands with himself. He had known for some time that his feeling for Edith Garwood fell far short of love; but as he looked at it, he could not tell her so. So that his dismissal, instead of plunging him into the depths of gloom, boosted his spirits sky-high.
“Thank the Lord!” he exclaimed fervently as he swung down the street. “Joe, my son, let this be a lesson to you. Cut out the girl proposition and stick to business.” He became thoughtful. “So old Ackerman's a friend of Garwood's. And Garwood tells me I'm not in a position to marry. I wonder how he knows so much about it? I wonder” He did not complete the sentence, but Garwood's words stuck in his recollection.