THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT by EMILIE BAKER LORING (top reads .txt) 📖

to do with Uncle Nick's will, you probably know about it. Steve will take Tommy Benson into partnership and he will be manager-in-chief. It's a great chance for Tommy. He is the poor-man-with-a-future type. He's super-sensitive about his lack of money, though. Bruce Greyson brought a perfectly stunning man to call the other day, heir to a fortune. Of course I had to be nice to him. Ye gods! You should have seen Tommy while he was here. After the plutocrat had departed I asked him why he had looked as though he could have crunched mountain lion in the raw. He just glowered and quoted:

"'O what a world of vile, ill favoured faults Looks handsome in three thousand pounds a year.'

"From my window I can see Sandy's flivver in the distance; that means that I must wind up this letter--pronto. That carrier is the funniest sight. He wears a tall white hat and a linen duster and looks for all the world like the Mad Hatter in 'Alice.' I almost expect to hear him snap when he sees me coming, 'Your hair needs cutting,' the way the Hatter does in the story. Heaps of love,

"PEG.

"P.S. Praise be! Careful Cosmetics has departed. That's what I call the Denbigh woman."

Glamorgan removed his glasses and threw back his head with a chuckling laugh. Courtlandt laughed with him.

"Peggy certainly wields a facile pen. I--I am glad of what she writes about Steve and Jerry. I confess that I feared----"

"I want to talk to you about that, Courtlandt," interrupted Glamorgan eagerly. "It has taken all my strength of will and then some, not to take you into my confidence but--but I promised your brother-in-law that----"

"Nicholas Fairfax!"

"I don't wonder you are astonished. You see, from the moment I saw him I fell for him. I'd known a lot of men like him. Chestnut burrs outside but sound and sweet in their hearts. He must have felt that I understood him for he hadn't been at the Manor long before he confided his doubts and hopes to me. Old Nick was keener than you or I. He hadn't been here twenty-four hours before he had sized up the situation between Jerry and Steve. He realized that they were heading straight for the matrimonial reefs where so many of their friends had come to grief. I guess he realized also that I was a little more anxious for that marriage to turn out a success than even he was. The Lord only knows the burden of guilt I would have carried the rest of my life if it hadn't."

"You wouldn't have been the only one."

"I know that, Courtlandt. Nick realized that he hadn't long to live. He felt sure of Jerry's loyalty, that all that was needed to right matters between the two was to give Steve money and make the girl dependent on him. He knew the boy well enough to know that his pride would stand between them as long as Jerry was spending my money. That was where I came in. He had me cast for the stern parent act. I was to oppose Jerry's going to the ranch. Opposition, he figured, would steel her determination to go with her husband, if she was tempted to waver. I knew my girl better. I knew that she would keep the covenant but I consented to please Old Nick. I almost caved in the day she went away, when I saw her watch the gate wistfully until the train started, but I kept out of sight."

"Who would have believed to have seen Nick in those last days that he was planning so shrewdly."

"That wasn't all he planned. He had the dickens of a time with Greyson. He wanted him to invite Mrs. Denbigh to the X Y Z for the summer as a sort of acid test for Steve."

"What a diabolical idea."

"I'm not so sure of that. His argument was that if the woman had the slightest lure for Steve----"

"But she hadn't," Courtlandt denied sharply.

"I couldn't see how she could have, but then vamps aren't in my line. Nick was possessed by the idea. Greyson kicked like a steer against it but finally gave in. You can't tell. Fairfax may have had other reasons up his sleeve. Denbigh was at the Bear Creek ranch. He might have thought, have hoped, that he and Felice would come together again. In spite of his ill-health and absorption in his ranch, your brother-in-law was a profound thinker on social and economic questions. I spent hours arguing with him. He contended that the great weakness of the American people lay in their lack of stability, that they could be swept along on a wave of enthusiasm but that when it came to the steady tide of determination they wouldn't even tread water; that lack of stability was at the root of the divorce habit, which if it wasn't checked would insidiously undermine the character of the nation."

"He was right, but," with a profound sigh of relief, "it looks as though Jerry and Steve had escaped the reefs, doesn't it?"

"I'll say it does," with a reminiscent chuckle. "Now you know why I gloated over that letter of Peg's. The child didn't realize how she was easing my mind. Do you know, I like what she writes about that Benson boy. Next to a man with family background I have a deep and abiding respect for a man who has the best in literature at his tongue's end. He's a rare bird these days."

"Then you wouldn't object if Peg and Tommy--he hasn't the kind of family you want behind him."

"I don't care who Peggy marries if he is clean and upstanding, with self-respect and love for my girl. I'm through meddling, though I'm not sorry for what I did with Jerry. She stood nine chances out of ten of marrying a fortune-hunter; Steve wasn't that; he had to be forcibly fed with money. In spite of that fact I haven't drawn an easy breath since Nick told me his suspicions, until now." He glanced at the letter. "I think I'll send that Alexandrite as a sort of peace offering."

"You're too late. Steve wired to me to have it sent."

"He did! Then you knew all I have been telling you?"

"No. I only put two and two together when I got Steve's message."

Glamorgan rose, shook himself like a bear and extended one hand to his host. His voice was curiously rough as he laid the other on his shoulder and confided awkwardly:

"Good-night! I--I hope they'll name the first son Peter, Courtlandt."

Courtlandt put his free hand on the big man's shoulder. His laugh was unsteady but his voice was vibrant with feeling as he countered:

"And I--I hope they'll name the second one--Dan. Good-night." They stood shaking hands furiously, laughing boyishly, and patting one another's shoulders as the lights flashed up on the river and night rang down the curtain of dusk.

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Publication Date: 10-13-2014

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