The scene which opened upon Reuben’s eyes was like a vista of fairyland. The dark panelled room, with its dim suggestions of gold frames and heavy curtains, and its background of palms and oleanders, contributed with the reticence of richness to the glowing splendor of the table in its centre. Here all light was concentrated—light which fell from beneath ruby shades at the summits of tall candles, and softened the dazzling whiteness of the linen, mellowed the burnished gleam of the silver plate, reflected itself in tender, prismatic hues from the facets of the cut-glass decanters. There were flowers here which gave forth still the blended fragrance of their hot-house home, and fragile, painted china, and all the nameless things of luxury which can make the breaking of bread a poem.
Reuben had seen something dimly resembling this in New York once or twice at semi-public dinners. The thought that this higher marvel was in his honor intoxicated his reason. The other thought—that conceivably his future might lie all in this flower-strewn, daintily lighted path—was too heady, too full of threatened delirium, to be even entertained. With an anxious hold upon himself, he felt his way forward to self-possession. It came sooner than he had imagined it would, and thereafter everything belonged to a dream of delight.
The ladies were all dressed more elaborately than he had observed them to be on any previous occasion, and, at the outset, there was something disconcerting in this. Speedily enough, though, there came the reflection that his clothes were those in which he had raced breathlessly from the farm, in which he had faced and won the crowd outside, and then, all at once, he was at perfect ease.
He told them—addressing his talk chiefly to Mrs. Minster, who sat at the head of the table, to his left—the story of Jessica’s ride, of her fainting on her arrival, and of the furious homeward drive. From this he drifted to the final proofs which had been procured at Cadmus—he had sent Gedney home with the horses, and was to see him early in the morning—and then to the steps toward a criminal prosecution which he would summarily take.
“So far as I can see, Mrs. Minster,” he concluded, when the servant had again left the room, “no real loss will result from this whole imbroglio. It may even show a net gain, when everything is cleared up; for your big loan must really give you control of the Thessaly Manufacturing Company, in law. These fellows staked their majority interest in that concern to win your whole property in the game. They have lost, and the proceeds must go to you. Of course, it is not entirely clear how the matter will shape itself; but my notion is that you will come out winner.”
Mrs. Minster smiled complacently. “My daughters thought that I knew nothing about business!” she said, with an air of easy triumph.
The daughters displayed great eagerness to leave this branch of the matter undiscussed.
“And will it really be necessary to prosecute these men?” asked Ethel, from Reuben’s right.
The lawyer realized, even before he spoke, that not a little of his bitterness had evaporated. “Men ought to be punished for such a crime as they committed,” he said. “If only as a duty to the public, they should be prosecuted.”
He was looking at Kate as he spoke, and in her glance, as their eyes met, he read something which prompted him hastily to add:
“Of course, I am in your hands in the matter. I have committed myself with the crowd outside to the statement that they should be punished. I was full, then, of angry feelings; and I still think that they ought to be punished. But it is really your question, not mine. And I may even tell you that there would probably be a considerable financial advantage in settling the thing with them, instead of taking it before the grand jury.”
“That is a consideration which we won’t discuss,” said Kate. “If my mind were clear as to the necessity of a prosecution, I would not alter the decision for any amount of money. But my sister and I have been talking a great deal about this matter, and we feel—You know that Mr. Boyce was, for a time, on quite a friendly footing in this house.”
“Yes; I know.” Reuben bowed his head gravely.
“Well, you yourself said that if one was prosecuted, they all must be.”
“No doubt. Wendover and Tenney were smart enough to put the credulous youngster in the very forefront of everything. Until these affidavits came to hand to-day, it would have been far easier to convict him than them.”
“Precisely,” urged Kate. “Credulous is just the word. He was weak, foolish, vain—whatever you like. They led him into the thing. But I don’t believe that at the outset, or, indeed, till very recently, he had any idea of being a party to a plan to plunder us. There are reasons,” the girl blushed a little, and hesitated, “to be frank, there are reasons for my thinking so.”
Reuben, noting the faint flush of embarrassment, catching the doubtful inflection of the words, felt that he comprehended everything, and mirrored that feeling in his glance.
“I quite follow you,” he said. “It is my notion that he was deceived, at the beginning.”
“Others deceived him, and still more he deceived himself,” responded Kate.
“And that is why,” put in Ethel, “we feel like asking you not to take the matter into the courts—I mean so as to put him in prison. It would be too dreadful to think of—to take a man who had dined at your house, and been boating with you, and had driven with you all over the Orange Mountains, picking wild-flowers for you and all that, and put him into prison, where he would have his hair shaved off, and tramp up and down on a treadmill. No; we mustn’t do that, Mr. Tracy.”
Kate added musingly: “He has lost so much, we can afford to be generous, can we not?”
Then Reuben felt that there could be no answer possible except “yes.” His heart pleaded with his brain for a lover’s interpretation of this speech; and his tongue, to evade the issue, framed some halting words about allowing him to go over the whole case to-morrow, and postponing a final decision until that had been done.
The consent of silence was accorded to this, and everybody at the table knew that there would be no prosecutions. Upon the instant the atmosphere grew lighter.
“And now for the real thing,” said Kate, gayly. “I am commissioned on behalf of the entire family to formally thank you for coming to our rescue tonight. Mamma did not hear your speech—she resolutely sat in the library, pretending to read, during the whole rumpus, and we were in such a hurry to get up-stairs that we didn’t tell her when you began—but she couldn’t help hearing the horns, and she is as much obliged to you as we are; and that is very, very, very much indeed!”
“Yes, indeed,” assented Mrs. Minster. “I don’t know where the police were, at all.”
“The police could have done next to nothing, if they had been here,” said Reuben. “The visit of the crowd was annoying enough, and discreditable in its way, but I don’t really imagine there was ever any actual danger. The men felt disagreeable about the closing of the works and the importation of the French Canadians, and I don’t blame them; but as a body they never had any idea of molesting you. My own notion is that the mob was organized by outsiders—by men who had an end to serve in frightening you—and that after the crowd got here it didn&rsq............