The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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sister, as Laura appeared in the doorway. "Don't _stand_ there! Come in if you want to take part in a grand old family row!" With a furious and tear-stained face, she was confronting her father who stood before her in a resolute attitude and a profuse perspiration. "Shut the door!" shouted Cora violently, adding, as Laura obeyed, "Do you want that little Pest in here? Probably he's eavesdropping anyway. But what difference does it make? I don't care. Let him hear! Let anybody hear that wants to! They can hear how I'm tortured if they like. I didn't close my eyes last night, and now I'm being tortured. Papa!" She stamped her foot. "Are you going to take back that insult to me?"
"`Insult'?" repeated her father, in angry astonishment.
"Pshaw," said Laura, laughing soothingly and coming to her. "You know that's nonsense, Cora. Kind old papa couldn't do that if he tried. Dear, you know he never insulted anybody in his----"
"Don't touch me!" screamed Cora, repulsing her. "Listen, if you've got to, but let me alone. He did too! He did! He _knows_ what he said!"
"I do not!"
"He does! He does!" cried Cora. "He said that I was--I was too much `interested' in Mr. Corliss."
"Is that an `insult'?" the father demanded sharply.
"It was the way he said it," Cora protested, sobbing. "He meant something he didn't _say_. He did! He did! He _meant_ to insult me!"
"I did nothing of the kind," shouted the old man.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I said I couldn't understand your getting so excited about the fellow's affairs and that you seemed to take a mighty sudden interest in him."
"Well, what if I _do_?" she screamed. "Haven't I a right to be interested in what I choose? I've got to be interested in _something_, haven't I? _You_ don't make life very interesting, do you? Do you think it's interesting to spend the summer in this horrible old house with the paper falling off the walls and our rotten old furniture that I work my hands off trying to make look decent and can't, and every other girl I know at the seashore with motor-cars and motor-boats, or getting a trip abroad and buying her clothes in Paris? What do _you_ offer to interest me?"
The unfortunate man hung his head. "I don't see what all that has to do with it----"
She seemed to leap at him. "You _don't_? You _don't_?"
"No, I don't. And I don't see why you're so crazy to please young Corliss about this business unless you're infatuated with him. I had an idea--and I was pleased with it, too, because Richard's a steady fellow--that you were just about engaged to Richard Lindley, and----"
"Engaged!" she cried, repeating the word with bitter contempt. "Engaged! You don't suppose I'll marry him unless I want to, do you? I will if it suits me. I won't if it suits me not to; understand that! I don't consider myself engaged to anybody, and you needn't either. What on earth has that got to do with your keeping Richard Lindley from doing what Mr. Corliss wants him to?"
"I'm not keeping him from anything. He didn't say----"
"He did!" stormed Cora. "He said he would if you went into it. He told me this afternoon, an hour ago."
"Now wait," said Madison. "I talked this over with Richard two days ago----"
Cora stamped her foot again in frantic exasperation. "I'm talking about this afternoon!"
"Two days ago," he repeated doggedly; "and we came to the same conclusion: it won't do. He said he couldn't go into it unless he went over there to Italy--and saw for himself just what he was putting his money into, and Corliss had told him that it couldn't be done; that there wasn't time, and showed him a cablegram from his Italian partner saying the secret had leaked out and that they'd have to form the company in Naples and sell the stock over there if it couldn't be done here within the next week. Corliss said he had to ask for an immediate answer, and so Richard told him no, yesterday."
"Oh, my God!" groaned Cora. "What has that got to do with _your_ going into it? You're not going to risk any money! I don't ask you to _spend_ anything, do I? You haven't got it if I did. All Mr. Corliss wants is your name. Can't you give even _that_? What importance is it?"
"Well, if it isn't important, what difference does it make whether I give it or not?"
She flung up her arms as in despairing appeal for patience. "It _is_ important to him! Richard will do it if you will be secretary of the company: he promised me. Mr. Corliss told me your name was worth everything here: that men said downtown you could have been rich long ago if you hadn't been so square. Richard trusts you; he says you're the most trusted man in town----"
"That's why I can't do it," he interrupted.
"No!" Her vehemence increased suddenly to its utmost. "No! Don't you say that, because it's a lie. That isn't the reason you won't do it. You won't do it because you think it would please _me_! You're afraid it might make me _happy_! Happy--happy--_happy_!" She beat her breast and cast herself headlong upon the sofa, sobbing wildly. "Don't come near me!" she screamed at Laura, and sprang to her feet again, dishevelled and frantic. "Oh, Christ in heaven! is there such a thing as happiness in this beast of a world? I want to leave it. I want to go away: I want _so_ to die: Why can't I? Why can't I! Why can't I! Oh, God, why _can't_ I die? Why can't----"
Her passion culminated in a shriek: she gasped, was convulsed from head to foot for a dreadful moment, tore at the bosom of her dress with rigid bent fingers, swayed; then collapsed all at once. Laura caught her, and got her upon the sofa. In the hall, Mrs. Madison could be heard running and screaming to Hedrick to go for the doctor. Next instant, she burst into the room with brandy and camphor.
"I could only find these; the ammonia bottle's empty," she panted; and the miserable father started hatless, for the drug-store, a faint, choked wail from the stricken girl sounding in his ears: "It's--it's my heart, mamma."
It was four blocks to the nearest pharmacy; he made what haste he could in the great heat, but to himself he seemed double his usual weight; and the more he tried to hurry, the less speed appeared obtainable from his heavy legs. When he reached the place at last, he found it crowded with noisy customers about the "soda-fount"; and the clerks were stonily slow: they seemed to know that they were "already in eternity." He got very short of breath on the way home; he ceased to perspire and became unnaturally dry; the air was aflame and the sun shot fire upon his bare head. His feet inclined to strange disobediences: he walked the last block waveringly. A solemn Hedrick met him at the door.
"They've got her to bed," announced the boy. "The doctor's up there."
"Take this ammonia up," said Madison huskily, and sat down upon a lower step of the stairway with a jolt, closing his eyes.
"You sick, too?" asked Hedrick.
"No. Run along with that ammonia."
It seemed to Madison a long time that he sat there alone, and he felt very dizzy. Once he tried to rise, but had to give it up and remain sitting with his eyes shut. At last he heard Cora's door open and close; and his wife and the doctor came slowly down the stairs, Mrs. Madison talking in the anxious yet relieved voice of one who leaves a sick-room wherein the physician pronounces progress encouraging.
"And you're _sure_ her heart trouble isn't organic?" she asked.
"Her heart is all right," her companion assured her. "There's nothing serious; the trouble is nervous. I think you'll find she'll be better after a good sleep. Just keep her quiet. Hadn't she been in a state of considerable excitement?"
"Ye-es--she----"
"Ah! A little upset on account of opposition to a plan she'd formed, perhaps?"
"Well--partly," assented the mother.
"I see," he returned, adding with some dryness: "I thought it just possible."
Madison