Man on the Box by Harold MacGrath (ebook offline TXT) 📖

of the Mississippi, and who had often vowed that he knew his subalterns so well that he could always successfully prescribe for their livers!

"I was just about to turn into the club for my mail," declared the colonel. "It was very good of you to stop me. I'll wager you've been speculating in the shops,"-touching the bundles with his cane. "You win," laughed Betty. "But I'll give you a hundred guesses in which to find out what any of these packages contains."

"Guessing is a bad business. Whatever these things are, they can add but little to the beauty of those who will wear them; for I presume Mrs. Chadwick has some claim upon these bundles."

"Very adroitly worded," smiled Mrs. Chadwick, who loved a silken phrase.

"We shall see you at dinner to-night?"

"All the battalions of England could not keep me away from that festive board," the colonel vowed. (Another spasm for the groom!) "And how is that good father of yours?"

"As kind and loving as ever."

"I wish you could have seen him in the old days in Virginia," said the colonel, who, like all old men, continually fell back upon the reminiscent. "Handsomest man in the brigade, and a fight made him as happy as a bull-pup. I was with him the day he first met your mother,"-softly. "How she humiliated him because he wore the blue! She was obliged to feed him-fortunes of war; but I could see that she hoped each mouthful would choke him."

"What! My mother wished that?"

Mrs. Chadwick laughed. The groom's chin sank into his collar.

"Wait a moment! She wasn't in love with him then. We were camped on that beautiful Virginian home of yours for nearly a month. You know how courtly he always was and is. Well, to every rebuff he replied with a smile and some trifling favor. She never had to lift her finger about the house. But one thing he was firm in: she should sit at the same table during the meals. And when Johnston came thundering down that memorable day, and your father was shot in the lungs and fell with a dozen saber cuts besides, you should have seen the change! He was the prisoner now, she the jailer. In her own white bed she had him placed, and for two months she nursed him. Ah, that was the prettiest love affair the world ever saw."

"And why have you not followed his example?" asked Mrs. Chadwick.

The colonel gazed thoughtfully at his old comrade's daughter, and he saw pity and unbounded respect in her eyes. "They say that for every heart there is a mate, but I do not believe it. Sometimes there are two hearts that seek the same mate. One or the other must win or lose. You will play for me to-night?"

"As often and as long as you please,"-graciously. She was very fond of this upright old soldier, whom she had known since babyhood.

It was now that the colonel casually turned his attention to the groom, He observed him. First, his gray eyebrows arched abruptly in surprise, then sank in puzzlement.

"What is it?" inquired Betty, noting these signs.

"Nothing; nothing of importance," answered the colonel, growing violently red.

It would not be exaggerating to say that if the colonel turned red, his one-time orderly grew purple, only this purple faded quickly into a chalky pallor.

"Well, perhaps I am keeping you," remarked the colonel, soberly, "I shall hold you to your promise about the music."

"We are to have plenty of music. There will foe a famous singer and a fine pianist."

"You will play that what-d'-ye-call-it from Schumann I like so well. I shall want you to play that I want something in the way of memory to take back West with me. Good-by, then, till to-night."

"Good-by. All right, James; home," said the girl. James relievedly touched his horses.

The colonel remained standing at the curb till the victoria disappeared. Of what he was thinking I don't know; but he finally muttered "James?" in an inquiring way, and made for the club, shaking his head, as if suddenly confronted by a remarkably abstruse problem.

Further on I shall tell you how he solved it.


XV

RETROSPECTIVE


Show me those invisible, imperceptible steps by which a man's honor first descends; show me the way back to the serene altitude of clean conscience, and I will undertake to enlighten you upon the secret of every great historical event, tragic or otherwise. If you will search history carefully, you will note that the basic cause of all great events, such as revolutions, civil strifes, political assassinations, foreign wars, and race oppressions, lay not in men's honor so much as in some one man's dishonor. A man, having committed a dishonorable act, may reestablish himself in the eyes of his fellow-beings, but ever and ever he silently mocks himself and dares not look into the mirror of his conscience.

Honor is comparative, as every one will agree. It is only in the highly developed mind that it reaches its superlative state. Either this man becomes impregnable to the assaults of the angel of the pitch robes, or he boldly plunges into the frightful blackness which surrounds her. The great greed of power, the great greed of wealth, the great greed of hate, the great greed of jealousy, and the great greed of love, only these tempt him.

Now, of dishonors, which does man hold in the greatest abhorrence? This question needs no pondering. It may be answered simply. The murderer, the thief, and the rogue-we look upon these callously. But Judas! Treachery to our country! This is the nadir of dishonor; nothing could be blacker. We never stop to look into the causes, nor does history, that most upright and impartial of judges; we brand instantly. Who can tell the truth about Judas Iscariot, and Benedict Arnold, and the host of others? I can almost tolerate a Judas who betrays for a great love. There seems to be a stupendous elimination of self in the man who betrays for those he loves, braving the consequences, the ignominy, the dishonor, the wretchedness; otherwise I should not have undertaken to write this bit of history.

To betray a friend, that is bad; to betray a woman, that is still worse; but to betray one's country!-to commit an act which shall place her at the mercy of her enemies! Ah, the ignoble deaths of the men who were guilty of this crime! And if men have souls, as we are told they have, how the souls of these men must writhe as they look into the minds of living men and behold the horror and contempt in which each traitor's name is held there!

Have you ever thought of the legion of men who have been thrust back from the very foot of this precipice, either by circumstances or by the revolt of conscience? These are the men who reestablish themselves in the eyes of their fellow-beings, but who for ever silently mock themselves and dare not look into the mirror of their consciences.

In this world motive is everything. A bad thing may be done for a good purpose, or, the other way around. This is the story of a crime, the motive of which was good.

Once upon a time there lived a soldier, a gentleman born, a courtier, a man of fine senses, of high integrity, of tenderness, of courage; he possessed a splendid physical beauty, besides estates, and a comfortable revenue, or rather, he presided over one. Above all this, he was the father of a girl who worshiped him, and not without reason. What mysterious causes should set to work to ruin this man, to thrust him from light into darkness? What step led him to attempt to betray his country, even in times of peace, to dishonor his name, a name his honesty had placed high on the rolls of glory? What defense can he offer? Well, I shall undertake to defend him; let yours be the verdict.

Enforced idleness makes a criminal of a poor man; it urges the man of means to travel. Having seen his native land, it was only natural that my defendant should desire to see foreign countries. So, accompanied by his child, he went abroad, visited the famous capitals, and was the guest of honor at his country's embassies. It was a delightful period. Both were as happy as fate ever allows a human being to be. The father had received his honorable discharge, and till recently had held a responsible position in the War Department. His knowledge had proved of no small value to the government, for he was a born strategist, and his hobby was the coast defenses. He never beheld a plan that he did not reproduce it on the back of an envelope, on any handy scrap of paper, and then pore over it through the night. He had committed to memory the smallest details, the ammunition supplies of each fort, the number of guns, the garrison, the pregnable and impregnable sides. He knew the resource of each, too; that is to say, how quickly aid could be secured, the nearest transportation routes, what forage might be had. He had even submitted plans for a siege gun.

One day, in the course of their travels, the father and daughter stopped at Monte Carlo. Who hasn't heard of that city of fever? Who that has seen it can easily forget its gay harbor, its beautiful walks, its crowds, its music, its hotels, its white temple of fortune? Now, my defendant had hitherto ignored the principality of Monaco. The tales of terror which had reached his ears did not prepossess him in its favor. But his daughter had friends there, and she wanted to see them. There would be dances on the private yacht, and dinners, and teas, and fireworks. On the third night of his arrival he was joined by the owner of the yacht, a millionaire banker whose son was doing the honors as host. I believe that there was a musicale on board that night, and as the banker wasn't particularly fond of this sort of entertainment, he inveigled his soldier friend to accompany him on a sight-seeing trip. At midnight they entered the temple of fortune. At first the soldier demurred; but the banker told him that he hadn't seen Monte Carlo unless he saw the wheel go around. So, laughing, they entered the halls.

The passion for gaming is born in us all, man and woman alike, and is conceded by wise analysts to be the most furious of all passions and the most lasting. In some, happily, the serpent sleeps for ever, the fire is for ever banked. But it needs only the opportunity to rouse the dull ember into flame, to stir the venom of the serpent. It seems a simple thing to toss a coin on the roulette boards. Sometimes the act is done contemptuously, sometimes indifferently, sometimes in the spirit of fun and curiosity; but the result is always the same.

The banker played for a while, won and lost, lost and won. The soldier put his hand into a pocket and drew forth a five-franc piece. He placed it on a number. The angel in the pitch robes is always lying in wait for man to make his first bad step; so she urged fortune to let this man win. It is an unwritten law, high up on Olympus, that the gods must give to the gods; only the prayers of the mortals go unanswered.

So my defendant won. He laughed like a boy