The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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himself into a chair upon the vacant front porch, he heard her stifling an attack as she mounted the stairs to her own room. He swung the chair about, with its back to the street, and sat facing the wall. He saw nothing. There are profundities in the abyss which reveal no glimpse of the sky.
Presently he heard his father coughing near by; and the sound was hateful, because it seemed secure and unshamed. It was a cough of moral superiority; and just then the son would have liked to believe that his parent's boyhood had been one of degradation as complete as his own; but no one with this comfortable cough could ever have plumbed such depths: his imagination refused the picture he was bitterly certain that Mr. Madison had never kissed an idiot.
Hedrick had a dread that his father might speak to him; he was in no condition for light conversation. But Mr. Madison was unaware of his son's near presence, and continued upon his purposeless way. He was smoking his one nightly cigar and enjoying the moonlight. He drifted out toward the sidewalk and was accosted by a passing acquaintance, a comfortable burgess of sixty, leading a child of six or seven, by the hand.
"Out taking the air, are you, Mr. Madison?" said the pedestrian, pausing.
"Yes; just trying to cool off," returned the other. "How are you, Pryor, anyway? I haven't seen you for a long time."
"Not since last summer," said Pryor. "I only get here once or twice a year, to see my married daughter. I always try to spend August with her if I can. She's still living in that little house, over on the next street, I bought for her through your real-estate company. I suppose you're still in the same business?"
"Yes. Pretty slack, these days."
"I suppose so, I suppose so," responded Mr. Pryor, nodding. "Summer, I suppose it usually is. Well, I don't know when I'll be going out on the road again myself. Business is pretty slack all over the country this year."
"Let's see--I've forgotten," said Madison ruminatively. "You travel, don't you?"
"For a New York house," affirmed Mr. Pryor. He did not, however, mention his "line." "Yes-sir," he added, merely as a decoration, and then said briskly: "I see you have a fine family, Mr. Madison; yes-sir, a fine family; I've passed here several times lately and I've noticed 'em: fine family. Let's see, you've got four, haven't you?"
"Three," said Madison. "Two girls and a boy."
"Well, sir, that's mighty nice," observed Mr. Pryor; "_mighty_ nice! I only have my one daughter, and of course me living in New York when I'm at home, and her here, why, I don't get to see much of her. You got both your daughters living with you, haven't you?"
"Yes, right here at home."
"Let's see: neither of 'em's married, I believe?"
"No; not yet."
"Seems to me now," said Pryor, taking off his glasses and wiping them, "seems to me I did hear somebody say one of 'em was going to be married engaged, maybe."
"No," said Madison. "Not that I know of."
"Well, I suppose you'd be the first to know! Yes-sir." And both men laughed their appreciation of this folly. "They're mighty good-looking girls, _that's_ certain," continued Mr. Pryor. "And one of 'em's as fine a dresser as you'll meet this side the Rue de la Paix."
"You mean in Paris?" asked Madison, slightly surprised at this allusion. "You've been over there, Pryor?"
"Oh, sometimes," was the response. "My business takes me over, now and then. I _think_ it's one of your daughters I've noticed dresses so well. Isn't one of 'em a mighty pretty girl about twenty-one or two, with a fine head of hair sort of lightish brown, beautiful figure, and carries a white parasol with a green lining sometimes?"
"Yes, that's Cora, I guess."
"Pretty name, too," said Pryor approvingly. "Yes-sir. I saw her going into a florist's, downtown, the other day, with a fine-looking young fellow--I can't think of his name. Let's see: my daughter was with me, and she'd heard his name--said his family used to be big people in this town and----"
"Oh," said Madison, "young Corliss."
"Corliss!" exclaimed Mr. Pryor, with satisfaction. "That's it, Corliss. Well, sir," he chuckled, "from the way he was looking at your Miss Cora it struck me he seemed kind of anxious for her name to be Corliss, too."
"Well, hardly I expect," said the other. "They just barely know each other: he's only been here a few weeks; they haven't had time to get much acquainted, you see."
"I suppose not," agreed Mr. Pryor, with perfect readiness. "I suppose not. I'll bet _he_ tries all he can to get acquainted though; he looked pretty smart to me. Doesn't he come about as often as the law allows?"
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Madison indifferently. "He doesn't know many people about here any more, and it's lonesome for him at the hotel. But I guess he comes to see the whole family; I left him in the library a little while ago, talking to my wife."
"That's the way! Get around the old folks first!" Mr. Pryor chuckled cordially; then in a mildly inquisitive tone he said: "Seems to be a fine, square young fellow, I expect?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Pretty name, `Cora'," said Pryor.
"What's this little girl's name?" Mr. Madison indicated the child, who had stood with heroic patience throughout the incomprehensible dialogue.
"Lottie, for her mother. She's a good little girl."
"She is _so_! I've got a young son she ought to know," remarked Mr. Madison serenely, with an elderly father's total unconsciousness of the bridgeless gap between seven and thirteen. "He'd like to play with her. I'll call him."
"I expect we better be getting on," said Pryor. "It's near Lottie's bedtime; we just came out for our evening walk."
"Well, he can come and shake hands with her anyway," urged Hedrick's father. "Then they'll know each other, and they can play some other time." He turned toward the house and called loudly:
"Hedrick!"
There was no response. Behind the back of his chair Hedrick could not be seen. He was still sitting immovable, his eyes torpidly fixed upon the wall.
"Hed-_rick_!"
Silence.
"Oh, _Hed_-rick!" shouted his father. "Come out here! I want you to meet a little girl! Come and see a nice little girl!"
Mr. Pryor's grandchild was denied the pleasure. At the ghastly words "_little girl_," Hedrick dropped from his chair flat upon the floor, crawled to the end of the porch, wriggled through the railing, and immersed himself in deep shadow against the side of the house.
Here he removed his shoes, noiselessly mounted to the sill of one of the library windows, then reconnoitred through a slit in the blinds before entering.
The gas burned low in the "drop-light"--almost too dimly to reveal the two people upon a sofa across the room. It was a faint murmur from one of them that caused Hedrick to pause and peer more sharply. They were Cora and Corliss; he was bending close to her; her face was lifting to his.
"Ah, kiss me! Kiss me!" she whispered.
Hedrick dropped from the sill, climbed through a window of the kitchen, hurried up the back-stairs, and reached his own apartment in time to be violently ill in seclusion.
CHAPTER NINE
Villages are scattered plentifully over the unstable buttresses of Vesuvius, and the inhabitants sleep o' nights: Why not? Quite unaware that he was much of their condition, Mr. Madison bade his incidental gossip and the tiny Lottie good-night, and sought his early bed. He maintained in good faith that Saturday night was "a great night to sleep,"