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Out of the Primitive

R >> Robert Ames Bennet >> Out of the Primitive




"Then you'll lunch with me and make an early call at the Gantrys'.
Miss Dolores requested me to give you an urgent invitation."

"Excuse _me!_" said Blake. "No High Society in mine."

"You'll come," confidently rejoined his friend. "You owe it to Miss
Genevieve."

Blake frowned and sat for some moments studying the point. Lord James
had him fast.

"Guess you've nailed me for once," he at last admitted. "Rather have a
tooth pulled, though."

"I say, now, you got along swimmingly at Ruthby."

"With your father. He wasn't a Chicago society dame."

"Oh, well, you must make allowances for the madam. Miss Dolores
explained to me that 'Vievie has only to meet people in order to be
received, but mamma has to keep butting in to arrive--that's why she
cultivates her grand air.'"

"No sham about Miss Dolores!" approved Blake.

"Right-o! You'll come, I take it. What if the dragon does have rather
a frosty stare for you? She said I might bring you to call. Seriously,
Tom, you must learn to meet her without showing that her manner flecks
you. Best kind of training for society. As I said just now, you owe it
to Miss Genevieve."

"Well--long as you put it that way," muttered Blake.

"You'll get along famously with Miss Dolores, I'm sure," said Lord
James. "She's quite a charming girl,--vivacious and all that, you
know. She's taken quite a fancy to you. The mother is one of those
silly climbers who never look below the surface. You have twice my
moral stamina, but just because I happen to have a title and some
polish--"

"Don't try to gloze it over," cut in Blake. "Let's have it straight.
You're a thoroughbred. I'm a broncho."

"Mistaken metaphor," rejoined his friend. "I'm a well-bred nonentity.
You're a diamond in the rough. When once you've been cut and
polished--"

"Then the flaws will show up in great shape," gibed Blake.

"Never think it, old man! There is only one flaw, and that will
disappear with the one cutting required to bring the stone to the best
possible shape."

"Stow it!" ordered Blake. The rattling of the doorknob drew his gaze
about. "Here's Grif, back at last. He's been to chin with Papa
Leslie." He squinted aggressively at the older engineer, who entered
with his usual air of seeming absorption in the performance of his
most trivial actions. "Hello, you Injin! Gone into partnership with H.
V.? You've been there all morning."

"Other way 'round, if anything," answered Griffith. He nodded
cordially in response to the greeting of Lord James, and began
rummaging in his pockets as he came over to the desk. "Now, where's
that letter? Hey?--Oh, here it is." He drew out a long envelope, and
started to open it in a precise, deliberate manner.

"So he fired you, eh?" rallied Blake.

"In a way," said Griffith, peering at the paper in his hand. "It seems
he's unloaded the Zariba project onto the Coville Company."

"Thought it couldn't be put through, eh?" said Blake. "Bet he didn't
let it go for nothing, though."

"It's not often he comes out at the little end of the horn," replied
Griffith. "Didn't take the Coville people long to wake up to the
situation. Look here."

Blake took the opened letter, which was headed with the name and
officers of the Coville Construction Company. He read it through with
care, whistled, and read it through the second time.

"Well, what you think of it?" impatiently demanded Griffith.

"_Whee!_ They sure must think H. V. has left them to hold the bag.
Fifty thousand bonus to the engineer that shows 'em how the dam
can be built!"

"Strict business," croaked Griffith. "The company is stuck if they
quit. Fifty thousand is only ten per cent of their net profits if the
project goes through. Wish I had a show at it."

"Well, haven't you? It says any engineer."

"I had quit before you came, only I didn't like to own up to H. V."

"You needn't yet a while. I'll keep digging away at it. If I put it
through, we divvy up. I'm working for you. See?"

"Not on your life, Tommy! I don't smouge on another man's work."

"Well, then, we'll say I'm to split it because you put me next to the
chance."

"No go. I've no use for three-fourths of what I'm making nowadays.
It's just piling up on me. Look here. I happened to speak about you to
the Coville people--looking ahead, you know. They want me to try you
out on some work I'm too busy to do myself. It's not much, and they
offer only one-fifty a month as a starter, but it may lead to
something better than I can do for you."

"Yes, that's so," considered Blake.

"It is checking field work reports that come in slowly this time of
year. That's the only trouble. You'll be sitting around doing nothing
half the time--that is, unless you're fool enough to waste any more
time on this dam' dam."

"Waste time?" cried Blake, his eyes flashing. "Watch me! Wait till you
get your next bill for electric lights! You've given me my cue, Grif.
I'm going to buck through this little proposition in one-two-three
style, grab my fifty thousand, and plunge into the New York Four
Hundred as Tommy Van Damdam. Clear out, you hobos. I'm going to work!"

"Don't forget I've got you on for lunch and Mrs. Gantry's," reminded
Lord James.

Blake paused, pencil in hand. "Aw, say, Jimmy, you'll have to let me
off now."

"Can't do it, old man, really."

"At least that infernal call."

"No, you've got to get used to it. Tell you what, I'll let you off on
the lunch if you'll be at my hotel at four sharp. Don't squirm. That
gives you as many hours to grind as are good for you at one stretch.
If you try to funk it, I'll hold you for both lunch and call. Your
social progress is on my conscience."

"Huh!" rejoined Blake. "Don't wish you any hard luck, but if you and
your conscience were in--"

"Four sharp, remember!" put in Lord James, dodging from the room.

Griffith followed him closely and shut the door.

"I'm not so busy, Mr. Scarbridge. Step into my private office and have
a cigar," he invited, and as Lord James hesitated, he added in a lower
tone, "Want your idea about him."

Lord James at once went with the engineer into his office.

"You wish to speak about Tom? "he said.

"Yes. Did you notice that look about his eyes? It's the first sign."

"Oh, no! let us hope not, Mr. Griffith. I happen to know he has
suffered a severe disappointment. It may be that."

"Well, maybe. I hope so," said Griffith dubiously. With innate
delicacy, he refrained from any inquiry as to the nature of Blake's
disappointment. As he handed out his box of cigars, he went on, "I
don't quite like it, though. He's a glutton for field work, but this
indoors figuring soon sets him on edge. He can't stand being cooped
up." "Count on me to do all I can to get him out."

"Yes, I'm figuring on you, Mr. Scarbridge. He's told me all about you.
Between the two of us, we might stave it off and keep him going for
months. Wish I knew more about the girl--Miss Leslie. If she's the
right sort, there's just a chance of something being done that I gave
up as being impossible, last time he was with me--he might be
straightened out for good."

"It's possible, quite possible! Others have been cured,--why not he?"
exclaimed Lord James, his face aglow with boyish enthusiasm. But as
suddenly it clouded. "Ah, though, most unfortunate--this stand of Miss
Leslie's!"

"What about her?" queried Griffith, as the other hesitated.

"She has told him that he must win out absolutely on his own strength,
without her aid or sympathy."

"Well, I'll be--switched! Thought she loved him."

Lord James flushed, yet answered without hesitancy. "It is to be
presumed she does, otherwise she would not have forced this test upon
him."

"How d' you make that out?"

"Mere grateful interest in his welfare would have been satisfied by
the assurance of his material success. On the other hand, her--ah--
feeling toward him is at present held in restraint by her acute
judgment. She had reason to esteem him in that savage environment. She
now realizes that he must win her esteem in her own proper
environment. She is not merely a young lady--she is a lady. Her rare
good sense tells her that she must not accept him unless he proves
himself fit."

"He's a lot fitter than all these lallapaloozer papa's boys and some
of their fathers,--all those empty-headed swells that are called
eligibles," rejoined Griffith.

"It's not a question of polish or culture, believe me. She is far too
clever to doubt that he would acquire that quickly enough. My
reference was to this one flaw, which may yet shatter him. The
question is whether it penetrates too deep into his nature. If not--if
he can rid himself of it--then even I admit that he would make her
happy."

"Yet she won't lift a finger to help him fight it out?"

"Courage is the fundamental virtue in a man. It includes moral
strength. If she cannot be sure of his strength, she will always doubt
him and her love for him."

"Can't see it that way. If she helped him, and he won out, he'd be
cured, wouldn't he?"

"I've been trying to guess at a woman's reason, but I'm not so rash as
to attempt to argue the matter," said Lord James. He picked up his hat
and held out a cordial hand to the engineer. "She may or may not be
right. I'm not altogether certain as to the intuitive wisdom of women.
However that may be, we at least shall do our best to pull him
through."

"That's talking, Mr. Scarbridge!" exclaimed Griffith.




CHAPTER XV

BY-PLAY


Promptly at four that afternoon Blake was shown to the rooms of his
friend at the hotel. He entered with a glum look not altogether
assumed.

"Well, here I am," he grumbled. "Hope you're satisfied. You're robbing
me of the best part of the day."

"I daresay," cheerfully assented Lord James. "Now look pleasant till I
see if you're dressed."

"No, I haven't a thing on. Just clothed in sunshine and a sweet
smile," growled Blake, throwing open his raincoat to show his suit of
rough gray homespun. "You don't ever get me into that skirty coat
again. I can stand full dress, but not that afternoon horror-gown. I'm
no minister."

"Don't fash yourself, old man. At least you've been tailored in
London, and that's something. You'll do--in Chicago."

"I'll do O.K. right here," said Blake. "What say? You've spoiled my
afternoon. We'll call it quits if you settle down with me and put in
the time chinning about things."

"Tammas, I'm shocked at you," reproved Lord James. "You cannot wish to
disappoint Mrs. Gantry, really!"

"Mrs. Gantry be--"

"No, no! Do not say it, my deah Tammas! When one is in Society,
y'know, one is privileged to think it, but it's bad form to express it
so--ah--broadly--ah--I assure you."

He adjusted his monocle and stared with a vacuous blandness well
calculated to madden his friend. Blake hurled a magazine, which his
lordship deftly sidestepped. He reached for his hat, and faced Blake
with boyish eagerness.

"Come on, Tom. Chuck the rotting. We're wasting time."

"Must have a taxicab waiting for you," bantered Blake.

"No, a young lady. Miss Dolores is really eager to become acquainted
with you, and--er--she may have a friend or two--"

"Excuse _me!_"

"Tammas the quitter!"

Lord James started for the door, and Blake followed him, striving hard
to maintain his surly look. At the street entrance he sought to
postpone the coming ordeal by urging his need for exercise.

"Don't worry. I'll pay," said Lord James, pretending to misunderstand,
and he raised his finger to the chauffeur of the nearest cab. "You can
walk home, if you wish to save pennies. Now, you know, we desire to
reach Mrs. Gantry's as soon as possible."

"Yes, we do!" growled Blake.

He seemed more than ever determined to remain in his glum mood, and
the pleasant badinage of his friend during their run out to Lincoln
Park Boulevard rather increased than lessened his surliness. When they
entered through the old Colonial portal of the Gantry home, he jerked
off his English topcoat unaided, contemptuously spurning the
assistance of the buff-and-yellow liveried footman. But as they were
announced, he assumed what Lord James termed his "poker face," and
entered beside his friend, with head well up and shoulders squared.

"Good boy! Keep it up," murmured Lord James. "She'll take you for a
distinguished personage."

Blake spoiled the effect by a grin, which, an instant later, was
transformed into a radiant smile at sight of Genevieve beside Mrs.
Gantry.

Dolores came darting to meet them, her black eyes sparkling and her
lithe young body aquiver with animation.

"Oh, Lord Avondale!" she cried. "So you _did_ make him come. Mr.
Blake, why didn't you call at once?"

"Wasn't asked," answered Blake, his eyes twinkling.

"You are now. So please remember to come often. Never fear mamma. I'll
protect you. Oh, I'm just on tiptoe to see you in those skin things
you wore in Africa. I made Vievie put on her leopard-skin gown, and I
think it's the most terrible romantic thing! And now I'm just dying to
see your hyena-skin trousers and those awful poisoned arrows and--"

"Dolores!" admonished Mrs. Gantry.

"Oh, piffle!" complained the girl, drawing aside for the men to pass
her.

Even Mrs. Gantry was not equal to the rudeness of snubbing a caller in
her own house--when she had given an earl permission to bring him. But
the contrast between her greetings of the two men was, to say the
least, noticeable.

Blake met her supercilious bearing toward him with an impassiveness
that was intended to mask his contemptuous resentment. But Genevieve
saw and understood. She rose and quietly remarked: "You'll excuse us,
Aunt Amice. I wish Mr. Blake to see the palm room. I fancy it will
carry him back to Mozambique."

Mrs. Gantry's look said that she wished Mr. Blake could be carried
back to Mozambique and kept there. Her tongue said: "As you please, my
dear. Yet I should have thought you'd had quite enough of Africa for a
lifetime."

"One never can tell," replied Genevieve with a coldness that chilled
the glow in Blake's eyes.

They went out side by side yet perceptibly constrained in their
bearing toward one another.

Dolores flung herself across the room and into a chair facing her
mother and Lord James.

"Did you see that?" she demanded. "I do believe Vievie is the coldest
blooded creature! When she knows he's just dying for love of her! Why,
I never--"

"That will do!" interrupted Mrs. Gantry.

"I'll leave it to Lord Avondale. Isn't it the exact truth?"

"Er--he still looks rather robust," parried Lord James.

"You know what I mean. But I didn't think she'd behave in this dog-in-
the-manger fashion. She might have at least given me a chance for a
tete-a-tete with him, even if he is _her_ hero."

"I am only too well aware what Lord Avondale will think of _you_,
going on in this silly way," observed Mrs. Gantry.

"If Lord Avondale doesn't like me and my manners, he needn't. Need
you, Mr. Scarbridge?"

"But how can I help liking you?" asked the young Englishman with such
evident sincerity that the girl was disconcerted. She flashed a
bewildered glance into his earnest face, and turned quickly away, her
cheeks scarlet with confusion.

"Ah, Earl," purred her mother, "I fully appreciate your kindness. She
is Genevieve's cousin. You are therefore pleased to disregard her
gaucheries."

"Ho! so that's it?" retorted Dolores. "Lord Avondale needn't trouble
to disregard anything about me."

"Believe me, I do not, Miss Gantry," replied Lord James. "I find you
most charming."

"Because I'm Vievie's cousin! Well, if you wish to know what I think,
I think all Englishmen are simply detestable!" cried the girl, and she
sprang up and flounced away, her face crimson with anger.

"You had better go straight to your room," reproved her mother.

The girl promptly dodged the doorway for which she was headed, and
veered around to a window, where she turned her back on them and
perched herself on the arm of a chair.

Mrs. Gantry sighed profoundly. "_A-a-ah!_ Was ever a mother so
tried! Such temper, such perversity! Her father, all over again!"

"If you'll permit me to offer a suggestion," ventured Lord James, "may
it not be that you drive with rather too taut a rein?"

"Too taut! Can you not see? The slightest relaxation, and I should
have a runaway."

"But a little freedom to canter? It's this chafing against the bit. So
high spirited, you know. I must confess, it's that which I find most
charming about her."

"Impossible! You cannot realize."

"Then, too, her candor--one of the rarest and most admirable traits in
a woman."

"Simply terrible! That she should fling her--opinion of you in your
face!"

"Better that than the usual insincerity in such cases of dislike. It
gives me reason to hope that eventually I can win her friendship."

"Your kindness is more than I can ever repay!"

"You can by granting me a single favor."

"Indeed?" Mrs. Gantry raised her eyebrows in high arches.

"By receiving my friend as my friend."

"Ah! Had you not asked permission to bring him, he would not have been
received at all."

"Not even as the man who saved your niece?"

"That is an obligation to be discharged by her father."

"I see. Very well, then. Regarding him simply as my friend, I ask you
to consider that he is undergoing a most difficult, I may say, cruel
test. He must overcome something that he has vainly fought for years--
something that has crushed many of the greatest intellects the world
has known."

"The more reason for me to save Genevieve from ruin. From what you
say, I imply that it is a hopeless case of degeneracy."

"Not hopeless; and degenerate in that respect alone--if you must
insist on the term."

"I do insist."

"What if he should succeed in overcoming it?"

"He cannot. Even should he seem to, there will always be a weakness to
be feared."

"Is that just?"

"It is just to Genevieve."

"Everything for Vievie, coronet included!" called Dolores over her
shoulder.

Mrs. Gantry's English complexion deepened to the purple of
mortification. The frank smile that told of his lordship's enjoyment
of her discomfiture was the last straw. She rose in her stateliest
manner.

"I shall leave you a few moments to be entertained by the dear child,
since you find her so amusing," she said. "Genevieve must not be
permitted to remain too long in the close hot air of the palm room."

"There's some hot air outside the conservatory, mamma," remarked
Dolores.

But Mrs. Gantry sailed majestically from the room, without deigning to
heed the pleasantry.

Lord James sauntered across to the window and perched himself on a
chair arm close before the girl.

"When do you begin?" he asked. "Your mamma said you were to entertain
me."

"Best possible reason why I shouldn't," she snapped, staring hard out
of the window.

"What if I should try to entertain you?"

"You wouldn't succeed. I wanted to talk to a man. It's too bad! Simply
because you asked me to, I was silly enough to tease Vievie into
coming over this afternoon--and the minute he comes, she rushes him
off to the conservatory."

"Believe me, I regret quite as keenly that she did not take me
instead."

"That's complimentary--to me!"

"Can you blame me for agreeing, when you express a preference for the
man instead of the mere son of a duke?"

"Perhaps you're a man yourself. Who knows?"

"Quien sabe, Senorita Dolores?" he rallied her. "Tell me how to prove
it."

She flashed him a glance of naive coquetry. "You ask how? If I were my
great grandmother, you might try to kiss me, and chance a stiletto
thrust in return."

"Your great grandmother was an Italian?"

The girl's red lips curled disdainfully. "No, she was Spanish. Though
she lived in Mexico, her family were Castilian and related to the
royal Valois family of France. So you see how far back it goes. We
have the journal of her husband. She married Dr. Robinson, who
accompanied Lieutenant Pike on his famous expedition."

"Pike? Leftenant Pike?"

"No, he wasn't 'left.' He came back and became the General Pike who
died at the moment of his glorious victory over the English, in the
War of 1812."

"Ah, come to think--Pike of Pike's Peak. Never heard of the battle you
mention; but as an explorer--So one of his companions married your
ancestress?"

"Yes. He must have been another such man as Mr. Blake."

"The kind to risk stiletto thrusts for kisses?"

"Yes. I know I must be exactly like her--that haughty Senorita
Alisanda."

"Indeed, yes. I can almost see her dagger up your sleeve."

The girl's black eyes flashed fire. "If it _was_ there, you'd get
a good scratch!"

"Believe me," he apologized, "you quite failed to take me."

"It's no question of taking you. I prefer heroes."

"Can't say I blame you. You've all the fire and charm of a Spanish
girl, and, permit me to add, the far greater charm of an American
girl."

She looked to see if he was mocking her. Finding him unaffectedly
sincere, she promptly melted into a most amiable and vivacious though
unconventional debutante.




CHAPTER XVI

THE AMARYLLIS


The constraint between Blake and Genevieve had rather increased than
lessened when they left the others. Neither spoke until they had
passed through the outer conservatory into the tropical heat of the
palm room. But there the first whiff of the odor from the moist warm
mould brought with it a flood of pungent memories.

"The river jungle," muttered Blake, sniffing. "Air was drier out under
the cocoanut palms."

"That first night, in the tree!" murmured Genevieve. "How easily you
hauled us up with the vine rope! Ah, then--and now!"

Blake drew away from her, his face darkening. "Hope you don't think I
expected to see you here? If Jimmy knew, he didn't tell me."

"How could he know? Dolores did not phone to me until mid-afternoon.
But even had you been told, I see no reason why you shouldn't have
come."

"You don't?" he asked, his face brightening. "I was afraid you might
think I was trying to dodge your conditions. Besides, I had promised
myself not to call on you till I thought I saw a way to work out a big
piece of engineering that I'm on."

"Then you have a good position? I'm so glad!"

"Not a regular position. But I've been given work and a chance at one
of the biggest things in hydraulics--the Zariba Dam, out in Arizona."

"You're not going away?" Calmly as she tried to speak, she could not
entirely repress an under-note of apprehension. Slight as was the
betrayal of feeling, it enheartened him immensely. He beamed up at the
palm crests that brushed the glazed dome.

"Looks like they're going to raise the roof, doesn't it?" he said.
"Feel that way myself. Your father unloaded the Zariba project onto
the Coville Construction Company, and they've offered a cool fifty
thousand dollars to the man that figures out a feasible way to
construct the dam. I spoke about it before, you may remember; but this
bonus wasn't up then. If I put it through, I'll be recognized as a
first-class engineer."

"You will succeed, of course," said Genevieve with perfect confidence
in his ability to overcome such a relatively easy difficulty.

"Hope so," responded Blake. "I'm still tunnelling in the dark, though.
Not a glimmer of a hole out."

"That is of small concern."

"Isn't it, though? I'm counting on that to boost me along on the other
thing. Nothing like a little good luck to keep a fellow braced up."

"But I'm sure you have some Dutch blood,--and you know the Dutch never
fight harder than when the odds are against them."

"Then it's too bad I'm not Hans Van Amsterdam. He'd have the scrap of
his life."

"Do you mean that the odds are so greatly against you?" asked
Genevieve, with sudden gravity.

"What's the use of talking about it?" said Blake, almost brusquely.
"If I win, I win; and I'm supposed to believe that is all it means. If
I lose, you're rid of me for good."

Genevieve bit her lip and turned her head to hide her starting tears.

"I did not think you would be so bitter over it!" she half sobbed.

"Can't you take a joke?" he demanded. "Great joke!--me thinking I've a
ghost of a show of winning you! No; the laugh's on me, all right. Idea
of me dreaming I can down that damnable thirst!"

"Tom, you'll not give up--you'll not!" she cried with a fierceness
that shook him out of his bitter despondency.

"Give up?" he rejoined. "What d' you take me for? I'll fight--course
I'll fight, till I'm down and out. People don't much believe in hell
nowadays, Jenny. I do. I've been there. I'm bound to go there again, I
don't know how soon. Don't think I'm begging for help or whining.
Nobody goes to hell that hasn't got hell in him. He always gets just
what's coming to him."

"No, no! It's not fair. I can't bear to hear you blame yourself.
There's no justice in it. Both heredity and environment have been
against you."

"Justice?" he repeated. He shook his head, with rather a grim smile.
"Told you once I worked in a pottery. Supposing the clay of a piece
wasn't mixed right, it wasn't the dish's fault if it cracked in the
firing. Just the same, it got heaved on the scrap-heap."

Genevieve looked down at her clasped hands and whispered: "May not
even a flawed piece prove so unique, so valuable in other respects,
that it is cemented and kept?"

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