The Reason

by Sophie Kerr

The Reason

BY SOPHIE KERR

THE Honorable Peter J. Webster squeezed himself out of the rickety station cab and slowly undid the kinks that the size of the vehicle had necessitated. At last he stood on the sidewalk, a fat giant in his fur coat, looming colossal in the winter night. The driver pointed with his whip across the sidewalk and through the iron gates at a dark and silent mansion outlined against the sky.

"That's Judge Kincaird's house," he announced. "They don't let nobody drive in there after dark. Dun'no' why. Thanky, sir. Giddup!"

Me drove away, and the Honorable Peter marched through the iron gates and up to the Trout door, where, after some fumbling and profane mutterings, he located a bell and rang vigorously.

A light flared up in the hall, and presently the door was opened by a somewhat untidy maid with the air of being a casual relative or friend rather than a servant.

"Come right in," she said, hospitably. "Take off your overcoat or you won't feel it when you go out. I guess you better set in the lib'ry—that's where the judge sees his friends mostly."

The Honorable Peter followed directions and found himself in the library—a library to dream of. Books scaled the walls from floor to ceiling, and overflowed on to the mantelpiece, hewn in Caen stone. Books sprawled comfortably on tables, and lamps were lit so as to entice one to the deeply cushioned chairs and seats. One picture only—a Gari Melchers—lit the somber, book-lined walls; and there was one orderly table, but only one, and that was cleared for writing, with everything plain and serviceable and worn with use; but books elbowed it, impudently, in little special turning cases. The fire leaped up in welcome to the Honorable Peter, and a window-box of crimson tulips received him with a drift of silken petals.

"What a wonderful room!" said the Honorable Peter, half aloud. "The old rascal does himself well." He walked over to the shelves and looked at the books. At his hand he found an ingenious system of little electric lights that could be turned here and there by any one searching for any particular volume. The Honorable Peter played it about on the titles, amused at its simplicity and cleverness. "Greek, Greek, Greek!" he muttered. "He ought to be able to talk it by this time. And what have we here? Ah! this is where his law library begins—and, by George! Ab's gone in for first editions, too—"

He dropped the light, for the judge was upon him, shaking his hands—both his hands—shouting, "Peter, you old pirate!" at him, thumping him on the back and being thumped in return.

"Gosh! how gray you are, Ab!" bawled the Honorable Peter.

"Gray yourself, Ironjaw!" retorted the judge, fending him off. "Here, sit down, you old ruffian. What are you doing in a respectable town, anyway? Stick to Washington, Peter—"

They leaped at each other pantingly, and then fell apart, grinning like two eight-year-old boys.

"You everlasting old thief!" said Peter, affectionately; "that's the kind of a welcome I get when I drop off the Limited and drive for hours around this moth-eaten burg, in a one-horse shay that's a relic of the Dark Ages, just to call on an old friend—"

"Have you had dinner?" asked the judge, hastily. "I was so surprised and glad to see you I forgot all about asking you."

"Just about what I'd expect from you," said Peter, tauntingly. "Fortunately I knew the sort of a man I was going to see, and got my dinner on the train." His heavy face, with its lines of heady power and dominance that the encroaching flesh could not conceal, was broken into a thousand jovial wrinkles. His deep-set eyes were lit with affection. Of all the friendships that the Honorable Peter had ever had, the one that had not changed from its youthful beginning was the one with Abner Kincaird.

"Since you don't want to eat," said the judge, "you might as well sit down. I suppose I've got to put up with you for a day or two." With pretended misery he returned the Honorable Peter's affectionate glance, but with the difference that kindness and affection seemed a more natural relaxation to his austere and disciplined countenance than it did to Peter's grosser features.

"God bless 'im!" Peter was thinking. "He looks like Andrew Jackson crossed with Franciscan friar. The Chief's made no mistake this time."

He stretched himself in a deep chair before the fire and went on with the conversation, while the judge put fresh wood on the flames and heaped up the coals between the gleaming andirons. "Oh no, Ab," he said, "I'm not going to exile myself for that length of time. I must catch the midnight train; I've got to go on to California, and lose no time. By the way, what's the idea in not letting a carriage drive in after dark? My cab stopped out in the street and left me to grope my way to the house any way I could."

"It's Janey's idea," explained Kincaird, restrainedly. "It makes her nervous to have people driving in, unless the porte-cochère lights are lit. She thinks we might be going out in the car, and— Well, the drive's narrow and of course there might be an accident, if people were careless—or not able to see well—"

Webster choked back an impatient snort. It seemed to him a very silly explanation. But he didn't say so. Instead, "I have no manners at all," he said. "How is Janey? I haven't seen her for Lord knows how long."

"She's very well," said Kincaird, putting the poker aside at last and dusting his hands together. "She'll be delighted to see you. Let me call her."

"I'll be delighted to see her, too," said the Honorable Peter, promptly, "but maybe we'll both enjoy it more if and I have our talk first. Sit down, Ab. I've got something mighty important to say to you."

"I know that prelude," began the judge, in mock mournfulness, shaking his head and gazing solemnly into the fire. "I've heard it many a time. 'Something important to tell you'—that's the man who wants to borrow money. And I thought he was doing pretty well down in Washington, too, though he never gave much promise as a boy. Confidential friend of the President—at the White House every day, or over in York conferring with financiers. Why, every day the newspapers cartoon him as the power behind the throne—biggest man of his party— Well, well, you never know. This is said to be an honest administration—maybe party pickings are getting scarce. Speak up, Peter. Anything up to fifty thousand is yours."

"This isn't a touch," observed the Honorable Peter, delightedly, "so you needn't begin to button up your pockets. Fifty thousand! It makes pretty listening, but I know your grandfather was a Scotchman. I'd have as much chance to borrow fifty thousand dollars from you as a tallow-legged cat with an asbestos dog chasing her through hell would have of not getting caught. You listen to me, Ab Kincaird, for a minute or two without getting fresh, if you can." His boyish grin harmonized with his boyish vernacular. But now both dropped away from him. He pulled his shaggy brows together and looked at the judge with piercing gravity. "Trensham's going," he said.

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed the judge, startled. "Why—what was it—the Russian treaty?"

"Oh, that and a lot of other fool things," answered Peter. "He's been wagging his jaw pretty freely to the newspaper boys, and though most of 'em have had sense enough not to print what he said, two or three things have leaked into the papers—you probably know."

The judge nodded affirmation. "I do know," he said, "and, of course, that Russian treaty mess was inexcusable.

"He's an idiot," returned Peter. "His jaw's the only thing in his head that works. But, anyway, he's going. His resignation went over to the White House yesterday, and it 'll be accepted, and everything will be given to the papers to-morrow afternoon. Now, of course, we're looking about for another Secretary of State. Not that there aren't plenty of people who think they could hold down the job. Do you know, Ab, the reason I eat and sleep so much is because at meal-times and when I'm in bed office-seekers can't get at me. This flesh of mine is a tribute to the persistence and omnipresence of the American office-seeker."

The two men laughed. Then the Honorable Peter leaned forward and put his hand gently on his old friend's knee. "Ab," he asked, "how would you like to be Secretary of State?"

"Why—Peter—man, are you crazy?"

"Wait a minute. No, I'm not crazy. I'm here this evening at the request of the President to offer the portfolio of State to Abner Kincaird—"

"Pete!—you Warwick, you—you suggested it!" broke in the judge, accusingly.

"I did not," answered Peter, indignantly. "It was his own idea. I'm not saying it didn't receive my approval, Ab. You see, he's been reading your book on international law and he wants somebody there who thinks, as he does, that it's high time for this country to abandon her naïve, provincial diplomacy and take her place as a world power—that he doesn't intend that she shall sit anywhere but at the head, or mighty near the head, of the council-table. By God! Ab, that man has a vision—"

"It's not just a vision, Peter. He's got the thrust to put the thing through—"

"Yes, he has. And think, Ab—you've dreamed and written and lectured and taught this thing for years and years—now would be your chance to give it concrete form, to develop a great doctrine of patriotic statecraft—a doctrine you've always believed in and hoped for, to give our democracy a voice among the powers—a voice speaking always tor greater social justice, tor fairer humanity, a voice that may not be disregarded. The time has come for it, Ab—"

"Yes, Peter, the time has come for it—"

"And if we let this opportunity go by, we're going to decline as a nation. We'll fatten in materialism; we'll lose everything that the old days of Washington and Lincoln gave us by their noble privations, their sacrifices, and their heart-searching struggles. Our involved party systems will grow in unwieldy corruption, and politics will be more than ever a dirty business instead of a privilege of citizenship." His voice rose to a climax of earnestness.

The judge smiled very tenderly. "You ought to be a Secretary of State, Peter," he said.

Peter drew back in embarrassment. "Oh, come," he said, "I'm not a politician, not a statesman. It's a statesman we want, Ab—and you're the man. You've made a great name for yourself by your books and your law-school work and the big cases you've handled before the Supreme Court. But now you've got a new client—bigger than any you've had. Your country wants to retain you, Ab. And think, Ab, think of the everlasting kudos, my boy. That may mean nothing to you, but it 'll mean a lot to your children and your children's children. Think of some of the men who've sat in that chair—no, don't think of all of 'em; but think of Jefferson, of John Marshall, of Clay, of old Dan'l Webster, of Seward and Hay and Elihu Root—why, Ab, your opportunity is more wonderful than all of 'em put together. And I'm glad you've got it, Ab. You're the only man in the world in whose success I can rejoice as full-heartedly as if it was my own. I—I asked the President to let me come and tell you myself—" He had to stop and cough huskily. "And you know," he went on, in a firmer voice, "because you've been there often enough to see it, that Washington's the most delightful place in America to live if you have something big to do. It's close enough to New York so that you can make agreeable connections there, and not so close that New York's rush and mass rides you down. Every one worth while comes to Washington at some time or other, and you can pick and choose. Of course, it's not like London, where everything and every one worth knowing is in a radius of a few miles, but, under this administration at least, official society has brains and culture—I hate the word, but it 'll serve—to offer. Just think of the men in the Cabinet, Ab—they're men of parts, and not little picayune party squirts, like some of their immediate predecessors. Why, we talk in Washington now, and it's good talk, too—better I never heard outside of London and Dublin. You'll enjoy that—and take your part. How you will entertain, Ab! Janey can have a salon, if she wishes."

The judge had been sitting quite still while Peter talked, looking into the fire. The back log had caught and was flaming, but a little uncertainly, and now the judge rose and drew the coals nearer to the wood. The tongues of fire shot up merrily and a shower of tiny, golden sparks, like a burst of fairy sky-rockets, flew up the black chimney throat. Then the judge sat down again and leaned his head on his hand, as though to shield his eyes from the blaze.

"But I can't take it, Peter," he said.

For a whole minute, ticked slowly away by the Willard clock that hung against one of the bookshelf partitions, there was silence as the Honorable Peter stared at the weary figure sitting so near to him. Wild expostulations came to his tongue, but he checked them.

"What is it, Ab?" he began at last, persuasively. "You're not pressed for money, are you? The Cabinet salaries are ridiculously low. You couldn't live on what you'd get, of course. But I always thought you'd laid away plenty, though I have wondered—for it seemed as if there couldn't be any reason for your staying in this dead little hole unless you wanted to live economically—you don't mind my frankness. But, Ab—good Lord, anything I've got's yours! Don't let want of a little money keep you from this—"

"It isn't money, Peter," said the judge, taking his hand from his eyes and turning to face his friend. "I've got enough money to live anywhere, even if I never write another brief. It's something else—and it's something that can't be changed."

"But, Ab—damn it! look here," said Peter, growing alarmed. "You're not ill, are you? Of course, we've all incipient arteriosclerosis—all we old chaps—but what's that? But there's nothing else, is there? You've got to tell me that."

"No," said the judge, bitterly; "I'm as well and as sound as any man of sixty-two has any right to be. It's something— Well, I've got to ask you to my refusal without a reason, Peter. And I will tell you this," he added, slowly and distinctly, "I would rather be Secretary of State through this administration than be Saint Peter himself, with all the archangels thrown in. And to have you come and offer it to me, Peter, and offer it to me in the way you have done—has meant—has meant more to me—" He paused.

"Oh, rot!" growled the Honorable Peter. "Now, Ab, I'm not going to let you turn me down in this mysterious way. Come, play fair. You know you can trust me. Damned if it doesn't make me feel somehow as if you didn't trust me, Ab."

The judge looked across at his old friend wearily. "You don't mean that, Peter," he said. "Come—you aren't trusting me. I can't tell you why I'm refusing. I would if I could, but I can't. Good Lord! man, don't you think I want to take it? Don't I realize all it offers? Wouldn't any sane man jump at it? It's so much bigger and greater than anything I'd ever hoped for—I've never even dreamed of such a thing. I've done my work because it seemed right to me, Peter, not for the money or the honor it would bring. I've never

Crooked the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.

I've never coveted things for myself. I've never sought things for myself. Oh—what's the use talking! Take your golden apple, Peter; it's not for me."

The Honorable Peter threw up his hands. "You're the biggest damn fool I ever knew," he declaimed. "You're the—" The words died on his lips, for the door behind him opened and a woman came in.

"What's keeping you, dear: she asked. Then: "Oh, I didn't know there was any one here. Well, if it's not Peter Webster! I do declare! And looking just the same, only maybe a little mite fleshier! I'd have known you anywhere, Peter, even if it has been such a length of time since I've seen you. Why, it must be almost twenty years. I'm real glad to see you!"

"And I'm glad to see you, Janey," said Peter, heartily. "By George! time seems to stand still with you."

It was the truth. She had been little and plump and rosy when Abner Kincaird married her, and she was little and plump and rosy still. Her softly graying hair was parted in the middle and drawn into a plain knot, as she had worn it when a girl. Her black-silk dress and modest lace collar had somehow an air of a former generation's "best," and the big white apron that she wore over it was silent evidence of unfashionable thrift.

"You always were a great hand to say pretty things," said Janey. "I see you haven't changed. Why didn't you tell me Peter was here, Abner? I hope he's going to stay a spell, now he is here."

"I wish I could," said Peter, "but I've got to go on to California on the midnight train, Janey."

"Oh, for goodness' sakes, that is a shame!" she exclaimed. "Well, you come right out of this barn of a lib'ry and into my settin'-room, an' let me get you up a snack of something—some sandwiches and coffee; and I made doughnuts to-day, too. You ought to have a bite before you go out into all this cold."

She turned, with eager hospitality, and led the way out across the hall into a room which seemed part of another house, it was so utterly different from the library they had left. Gaudy green-and-gold paper in big figures covered the walls, and against this background hung steel engravings: "The Signing of the Declaration of Independence," "Lincoln's Funeral Train," "William Penn Dealing with the American Indians," and "Marmion's Defiance to Earl Douglass." A high, gilded chandelier dispensed an unbecoming light over furniture upholstered in red rep, with innumerable tight buttons. Flat bouquet-vases stood at either end of the mantel-shelf, flanking a black marble clock with a prancing gold steed atop. A what-not filled with shells and worthless curios, spotless of dust, stood at one side. There was a round center-table with a fringed, red cover, and on it a work-basket piled high with sewing. This Janey removed.

"You two boys set down," she commanded. "Here, Peter, take that patent rocker and get some solid comfort after Abner's old leather chairs. He would have that lib'ry furnished the way he wanted it, but I'm ashamed to have anybody go in it, it's so queer. Now I'm going right out in the kitchen, and I'll have something in three shakes of a lamb's tail." She laughed comfortably.

"Let one of the maids do it, Janey," suggested the judge.

"Both the girls have gone to bed," replied Janey. "And, anyway, I'd ruther get it myself."

The two men sat silent as she bustled out. Honorable Peter, looking about the room, discovered a photograph of a young man.

"Hello!" he said. "Is that Abner junior? What a magnificent chap he is! What's he doing now?"

"He's the chief construction engineer for a big New York firm—Smith & Hollis," the judge said, his eyes lighting with pride. "He's been in South America for a year and a half now—railroad work. He's done well, Peter. I wanted him to study law, but he hated it, and finally I let him follow his bent."

"That's fine!" said Peter. "And your daughter, Ab—little Janey? Where is she now?"

"She married Randall, the Labor M.P. They met when she was at school in Switzerland," answered the judge.

Peter nodded. "I knew that," he said.

"They're in London most of the year, of course, and they have a country place in Kent. They have three beautiful children, Peter. I've never seen them. I can't persuade Janey to go over, and she doesn't want me to go alone. Next year, though, little Janey's coming over to visit us and bring the children. Randall's a fine young chap—a little too earnest at times, but that's a good fault of youth. Little Janey's got a rich life before her, and she'll get everything out of it. I'm glad of that."

"Please open the door," came in Janey's muffled tones outside. They both sprang to do her bidding, and she came in with a mighty tray.

"Oh, Janey, why didn't you call me?" said the judge, taking it from her hands.

He turned and set it on the table. There were roast-beef sandwiches, a great pile of them, mustard and horse-radish, a coffee-pot, cups and saucers, sugar, and a silver pitcher of cream—and a plate of doughnuts, round, brown, and sugary. At sight of these Peter set up a wild shout.

"Honest-to-goodness doughnuts!" he exclaimed. "I thought the species was extinct."

Janey beamed at him. But the judge frowned. "Janey," he said, "you knew it's bad for you to be around the hot stove frying doughnuts. Why will you do it? Why don't you teach Caroline, or Susan?"

"Pshaw, Abner!" she returned, "they never get 'em right. I guess I'm going to fry my own doughnuts as long as I have the strength. You'd never believe, Peter," she went on, turning to him, "how Abner goes on at me about the housework. Why, he'd clutter up the whole place with servants if I'd let 'im, and leave me nothing to do but sit and hold my hands all day long. It'd just about kill me to do that. Here, help yourself." She poured the coffee and returned to her subject. "This big house is an awful lot of work," she went on, "and the help you get nowadays is so trifling! Susan would never touch a duster to the chandeliers, or wipe the backs of the pictures, unless I kept right after her. And yet, with all the work, I near about die of lonesomeness when the judge goes away on his cases or to give his lecture courses."

"Why don't you go with him, then?" asked Peter, taking another sandwich.

She threw up both hands in dismay, and her round face drew itself into lines of such scared timidity that it was at once ludicrous and pitiful.

"I did try it, Peter," she wailed, "but traveling scares me to death. I never have an easy minute on the train, thinking about accidents, and I'm so lonesome in the hotels, and the waiters and bell-boys and everybody seems so smarty and impudent, and the things you get to eat I wouldn't feed to a stray cat. Abner could order 'em around, but I guess they knew I wasn't used to 'em. And when we was asked out places everybody was so grand, and so educated—why, we used to go to dinners where I didn't understand a single word they was talking about during the whole meal, and there wasn't a neighborly woman in the lot. They'd look at me so queer and speak so rude when I tried to talk to any of 'em. And dress! Why, I used to be ashamed for 'em. Peter, maybe you won't believe it, but some of those women—respectable ones that you see their names in the paper for charities and church work—used to wear dresses cut so low, it was just scandalous! And some of 'em painted their faces!" She brought out this last in a horrified whisper.

"You have to get used to that," said Peter, reasonably. "Everybody does it."

The color mounted into Janey's cheeks, and she set her lips primly and folded her hands over her white apron. "I can't get used to it, and I'm not going to," she announced. "It makes me kinda sick even to think about it. I'd never have a comfortable minute amongst such goings-on. I'm a great home body, only it pretty nigh kills me to have Abner away. I get so low in my mind I'm almost bedsick. Abner's all I've got, you know, Peter." She turned and looked at the judge with such love and devotion in her eyes that the Honorable Peter turned his gaze away.

"So you see, Peter," said the judge, slowly, "why I have decided to devote my life to writing and give up my active practice and my lecture courses."

"But-you know, Abner," cried Janey, "I don't want you to. I'd ruther die than be a stumbling-block to you." The little woman's eyes filled with fond tears. She turned to Peter impulsively. "He's the best husband in the world, Peter," she said. "He's been like this ever since the day we was married. You know we married young, but all the first years, when we had such a struggle to get along, why he helped me with the housework and the childern, even with the wash, whilst he was working and studying and trying so hard to get ahead. He used to read me the things he was workin' at, but, shucks! I'd drop off to sleep in the middle of it, I was so tired. The childern was such active little tykes, seemed like they wore me out. And you know our first baby died when he was three years old. And he was always sickly; sometimes I'd have to be up day and night with him—" Her eyes filled with tears again and she pressed her handkerchief to them openly.

The judge had risen and was walking back and forth about the room. "And you know, too, Peter," he said, "that all the time I was working through my law course and waiting for cases, Janey, with all her other work, took in sewing and did baking for the neighbors. It was she who paid the rent and bought the food we ate. Well, there, there—we're becoming emotional. Come, Peter, try one of these famous doughnuts. You never ate anything half so good in all your life, I'll warrant."

"They're simply bully!" declared the Honorable Peter, following the judge's lead. "Janey, you've got to promise to send me a dozen of these every time you make 'em."

"Oh, would you like me to?" she asked, wistfully. "I'd love to do it. Seem 's if there was so little I c'n do for anybody nowadays—except Abner. I don't mind saying it before an old friend like you, Peter, though I wouldn't tell everybody I feel this-a-way; but, truly, sometimes seems if the childern never belonged to me since they got out of pinafores. It was school and college and special studies, and traveling here and traveling there—I couldn't pretend to keep up with 'em. And when they come home they're grown so they don't look natural to me, and they don't do my way. Not but that they're both splendid childern and I miss them cruel, but—well, we're out of touch, somehow. But Abner—I tell you I c'n always count on him." She turned toward her husband again with that look of perfect trust and adoration. Then she put her hand to her head. "I believe if you'll excuse me," she went on, "I'll retire. I did get a little headachy to-day. I'm not so young as I used to be, Peter. Good night. It's been grand to see you again and have 'a dish o' discourse,' as my grammaw used to say."

"You can't look in the mirror and slander your youth, Janey," said Peter, rising and taking her outstretched hands.

They bowed her gallantly to the stairs, the two of them. Then they went back into the ugly sitting-room. The judge looked around uncomfortably.

"I'll just carry the tray into the library," he said. "We can be more com— We won't be so likely to disturb Janey there."

The judge carried in the tray and revived the smoldering fire.

"Those doughnuts surely are the best I ever ate," said Peter, breaking a lengthy silence. "By the way, Ab, how will I get down to the station? Can I telephone for a cab?"

"I'll run you down in the car," said the judge, promptly. "It's all ready, and it 'll only take ten minutes. Perhaps we'd better be moving."

They hurried into their coats, and Peter waited until the judge brought round the car, then stepped in beside him. The night air was stingingly cold, but neither of them knew it. On the station platform, at the train steps, the judge held out his hand.

"You understand now, Peter," he said.

"I understand perfectly," said Peter, leaning down to wring the judge's hand. "Good-by—you—you darned old—saint."