The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FOUR SPEEDS FOR FOREST HILL. The details of the scene were lost in the : presence of the vision of his duty to him- self and his greater duty to the girl. “Vou help her,’”’ he spoke in a tone of quick command to her father. “I must tell these people the truth.” CHAPTER XXII. MILITARY PARK. RTON steadied himself for the ordeal of confession, then swept the group with his eyes and rested them, not wholly with- out an effort, upon Mrs. Polhemus’s still flushed face. Then he smiled a little. “Mrs. Polhemus has told you the truth,” he said lightly. ‘I might as well tell you the rest of the story.” Briefly, swiftly, he recounted the whole adventure, her method of getting him to Madison without telling him the wages she would pay, of Mr. Polhemus’s promises and forgetfulness in fulfilling the one about making up the deficit in his salary, of the wife’s plan to modify fifteen dollars a week to sixty a month, of her deferring to pay him until four days after his first week was ended, of the dollar subtracted for the win- dow broken in cleaning her dirty cellar. “T’m sorry now that I doubted Mr. Pol- hemus’s good intentions,” he said. ‘“ As for leaving Mrs. Polhemus in the woods a mile from her home—um-m-m— Yes, I’m sorry _ that I’m still vulgarly rude enough to feel that it gave me the best money’s worth I ever had for the seven or eight dollars she owed me at the time.” Arlene had refused mutely but firrhly to leave the room. Her father had got her seated in a corner of the library near a window. She was so far revived that she took the chance of shutting off her breath with a handkerchief as she watched the flustered face of her lover’s accuser. Her shoulders were shaking with a laugh of un- holy joy at Mrs. Polhemus’s confusion. Even her father hid a grin behind his fingers. Mr. Polhemus was the only per- son beside his wife who looked unhappy; and he looked as if his unhappiness lay largely in not daring to laugh with the rest. Then Orton changed his tone. “Tt don’t know as I would bother you with that sort of petty quarrel. I have a more serious apology to make to you for such part as I may have had in bringing this unfortunate evening to pass. — 637 “Certainly some of you know that the engagement that was to have been an- nounced to-night is not entirely new. When it was made I believed I had good grounds for expecting to be in a position to marry and to support such a lady as Miss Ather- ton. f “The fault for which I now make apology has been caused by my unwillingness to surrender the hope of being able to carry out the engagement. That fault had been the maintaining of that engagement when the only ground for hoping to fulfil it was an idiotically cheerful disposition and the attempt to deceive Miss Atherton and her father into the belief that the hope had more definitely tangible grounds. “For that I cannot make amends. I can only apologize, only express utter regret. I do not even ask forgiveness. To have let this evening be possible was something for which I deserve:no forgiveness. “There is only one thing for me to do, without any asking for sympathy, compas- sion, or pardon. That thing I am going to do now. I am going out of this house, ‘to the hospitality of which I have not any claim. I am going-out of your lives and hers. All I ask is that all of you do what you can to help her forget that she ever knew any one so unworthy of her love as I am.” : He crossed the room unceremoniously and unhindered by the astonished company. As he reached the door he was aware, though he did not glance back to see, that .Arlene had arisen to her feet, was calling his name, and that her father drew her back to her seat. As he picked his hat and coat from the hall-rack he heard Atherton’s voice: ‘“‘He’s a lot more of a man than I thought he was. If I had known I’d never have done this. But even now he does not know what is his real lack. The thing about him that drove me to desperate measures is his inability to stick to any one thing long enough to get a result out of it.” As he descended the steps and moved down the carefully trimmed walk to the street Orton thought, with a shrug, that Atherton might be right about it. It could make no difference now at any rate. He was done. The inspiration of ambition and hope was gone; gone the cause for the desire of suc- cess. He had always enjoyed living well, dressing well, holding his place amongst S EOLMICLOOW (E@)