Chapter 8 THE THRUST

The "Farm," as the Country-Club was popularly known to its habitués, was a long, three-storied structure of red brick on the selvedge of the southern suburb, set in a grove of maple trees facing a lake whose still depths were stirred by budding water-lilies, like the breasts of young girls.

With its golf-links, and tennis-courts and its ball-room which formed an L at one side, its white, balustraded verandahs, it was the favoured resort of both the frivolous and athletic; its monthly dances were the gayest of the season's informal functions and on Saturday evenings its row of little dining-rooms, that looked out on a gentle slope of shrubbery and gravelled walks pricked out with paper lanterns, were favourite resorts for small dinner-parties.

Mrs. Spottiswoode's dinners were apt to have a pleasurable sprinkling of youth and sobriety and to-night the dozen of the younger set found sufficient foil in the fashionable rector of St. Andrews in clerical dress relieved only by the tiny amethyst cross that swung upon his waistcoat-in Senator Peyton, party-whip at Washington and one of the state's distinguished citizens, with piercing sword-grey eyes under brows as black as midnight-and finally in Cameron Craig.

As Echo Allen had said to her father, the latter was not "one of them." The phrase to her had been an instinctive expression of that subtle sense of caste that had been born in her, springing from long lines of gentle ancestors that linked back beyond the days of the Old Dominion. But the distinction lay deep in the mental formula of the man: it was not to be perceived in externals. To-night, in his faultless evening-dress, with his keen, strong face and assured manner, he had an air even of distinction that well became him, and the instant's painful embarrassment that Echo felt as her hand touched his in their first greeting yielded quickly to an unwilling admiration of his poise and control. If that flare of passion in the garden had left its traces, they had been successfully covered. He was once more the Cameron Craig she had known-till yesterday.

But beneath that unruffled exterior Craig's every pulse was in tumult. At table he found himself opposite Echo. The decorations were red roses and in a ruby gown with a single rose in the coil of her tawny hair, she seemed to him an inherent part of the scheme, a ruby pendent to the rich, shimmering setting. There had been many women to whom he had been passingly attracted-his tastes had been catholic enough in that regard! But he had never seen one whom he had wished to marry. He had spoken truly when he said that the women he had known had really meant nothing to him. His licenses had been but incidents after all. They had not ministered to the mental side of his nature, whereas this passion had taken swift and complete possession. As he saw her now, her cheeks flushing to the glow of the candles and her eyes like softly lighted sapphires, he felt open wide within him an abyss that thronged thick with distempered imaginings. There was another man! She had not denied it. And with the thought there grew in him a slow, cold hatred and determination.

Yet his face, as Echo glanced across the roses, betrayed no sign of disquiet. He was apparently listening amusedly to the small-talk of his partner, Nancy Langham, in a gown of pale gauze that made her look like a small, eager tiger-lily caught in a hampering cloud. In the interstices of conversation Echo could catch whiffs of her laughing nonsense:

"Isn't Dr. Custis quite wickedly handsome for a rector! I've been instructed not to ask him if he is related to Martha Washington. The man across from Mrs. Spottiswoode is Richard Brent, he is 'The Herald,' and a power in the community, I believe. Our hostess is wearing the new wave; it costs a lot, but they say it's guaranteed to last six months. And to think," she sighed, "that Melissa, my maid, spends a dollar a week trying to have her wool ironed straight! The man with the goatee, who looks so Spanishy, is Mr. Horace Leighton, the New York artist who is doing the mural paintings for the new City Hall here."

"So there isn't any one here who isn't anybody!" Craig observed.

"Only me," she said. "The reason I'm asked is because I'm frivolous. I'm supposed to offset the feast of reason with bubbles and froth."

"At any rate," remarked the senator, "seriousness is not to fall in arrears. Down at the other end they have actually got to politics."

Echo's glance followed his. Their hostess was holding a glass of wine between her eye and the candle-light, which splashed a bright crimson ray on her pretty face. It was the rector who was speaking:

"As for myself, I'm afraid I'm a friend to all the old, hackneyed arguments. 'If meat maketh my brother to offend,' you know." He pointed to his wine-glass, which, with the arrival of the soup, he had turned upside-down. "You see I am consistent."

"Politics?" queried Echo. "It seems to be only teetotalism."

"Ah," the senator answered, "but it's coming to be the same thing nowadays."

"One understands the individual objection on moral grounds," said Mrs. Spottiswoode. "That's a matter of personal belief and conscience. And the Church must be above criticism-must take the sterner course. But for those of us who don't think it wrong, the other arguments seem so-so local. I suppose drinking does keep the negroes from doing as much work as they might, but it's hard on the rest of us to have to cut our cloth by the farmer's pattern! We here, for example, at this table, are to go without our sauterne because he has trouble in getting in his tobacco."

"Exactly," agreed the churchman. "The greatest good of the greatest number. And isn't that true democracy, after all? But of course the agricultural problem is the least of it-there are the figures of poverty and crime. The two are twin-brothers, of course. And drink is the father of them both. Will, character, determination-a man with these may overcome the habit. But these are just the qualities that men in the mass lack. When a weak man falls our system keeps him down. I once heard Thomas Malcolm-every one here knows of him and his work, I presume-say that for the average drunkard to reform with a saloon on every corner is about as easy as to hoist one's-self out of hell by one's boot-straps. I'm inclined to think he is right. And I never saw a drunkard yet-a real Simon-pure drunkard, I mean; not a mere sophomoric tippler-who wouldn't jump at the chance to reform if he could. But he has no more chance of winning out now than a gambler against loaded dice." He paused, with a little gesture. "But then," he added, "the modern political movement for prohibition has made every one familiar with the basic arguments."

Treadwell, spruce young corporation attorney and cotillon leader, looked up interestedly from the other end of the table; the hostess's fan had begun to flutter-a sign of agitation. For Cameron Craig's affiliations with the great Trust were well-known, though presumably not to the clergyman, who had met him for the first time that evening. Craig, however, seemed quite unconscious of personal implications.

"Do you seriously think, sir," he asked, with the faintest trace of irony, "that the statistics of crime would be materially lowered in your state if it went 'dry' next year?"

"I do," replied the rector with emphasis. "And not only lowered. They would be practically wiped out. There wouldn't be enough left to constitute an item in the appropriation for public printing."

"Naturally, however," Craig observed, "as the state has always been 'wet,' exact data is lacking to assist one's speculations."

"On the contrary," said the other. "Every jail furnishes them. I think," he went on, turning now to Treadwell, "that it is the experience of every criminal lawyer that liquor, in some phase or other, has been back of the larger proportion of cases he is called on to defend."

The young man nodded. "I never had any experience in criminal cases," he said, "but I should think you were not far wrong. What do you say, Brent?"

"I agree with you," the journalist answered, "but my view of course is a superficial one. It is a pity that Harry Sevier isn't here; we should have got a valuable opinion."

"You may be gratified then," said the hostess. "Though Mr. Sevier couldn't come to dinner, he will be here for the dancing."

The senator spoke. "Sevier! I heard him in court yesterday."

"So did I," commented Nancy, aside. "I gave up an auction-bridge for it, and I wish I hadn't. It wasn't exciting at all."

Mrs. Spottiswoode looked relief-at last the talk had shifted to safe ground. "He lost the case, I hear," she said. "I wonder what was the matter. Wasn't he in good form?"

The senator looked thoughtful. "In one way, yes," he replied judicially. "I confess, though, I had rather expected something different, but just what I scarcely know."

Nancy turned her small, piquant face. "I know. We all expected Mr. Sevier to do what he has done so often-but didn't to-day. Oh," she exclaimed almost angrily, "while he was talking along, like a machine, I could have shaken him!"

"That would have furnished the sensation!" said Treadwell. "And I should think it might have had its effect on the jury, too. Juries can be intimidated. I wish you had tried it."

She made a little face at him across the nodding roses, then turned more earnestly to her partner. "I don't know anything about court matters or criminal trials, but from where I sat I could see the man he was defending. He looked so hopeless and-scared! I wanted to stand up and scream across the room: Can't you see? Look at the poor thing there! Make the jury feel! You were thinking the same thing too, Echo, I could see it in your face."

Echo lifted her eyes. In the candle-light her cheek held a rising flush. She looked across at the rector. "What do you think, Dr. Custis?" she asked, evenly.

He responded promptly. "Perhaps the explanation isn't so far afield. I presume the man had confessed to him and Sevier knew he was guilty."

Echo was conscious of a wave of relief at an explanation so simple and credible. It had never occurred to her to question the accuracy of other verdicts Harry had won in the past. Each had seemed to her the triumph of a just cause over a baleful combination of circumstance, the brilliant freeing of truth and innocence from entangling error and maleficent scheming. But if this man was guilty and Harry had known it beyond question, what other outcome had been possible? At the moment she saw in that even, cold presentation of the court-room only the conscientious determination of the lawyer, who, as the law prescribed, stood by his client to demand that justice, if she must exact her penalty, prove conclusively every jot and tittle of her ground.

Craig's eyes had been regarding her steadily. With the spreading of that flush upon her cheeks a covert, laughing allusion that had come to his ear on the court-house steps on the day of the trial darted to his mind. A cool, keen certainty rushed through him. Sevier! Fool that he was not to have thought of him before! This young flaneur-and drunkard!-this petty trifler with his profession! Was that white indignation of the garden, this vivid flush, for him? He leaned forward, his heavy voice, intense and well modulated, addressed the clergyman:

"An interesting hypothesis, but the implication seems hardly safe. A lawyer's responsibility to his client is a very grave one. He owes none toward the commonwealth-the state's attorney takes care of that. Any less conventional view should appeal to a lawyer, I think, as dangerous and uncalled-for."

"What do you fancy was responsible for Sevier's method of defence in this case?" asked the rector.

There was an instant of blank silence. The conversation had absorbed the lesser talk and other voices were hushed. Craig's look was set upon the long oval damask with its glistening silver and baskets of brilliant fruit, its leaf thin glasses with languid beads rising in their liquid amber, its knots of fern and bonbons. His big fingers were twisting the stem of a goblet. When he spoke it was as though he had not heard the question.

"I attended a trial once," he said, "at a frontier town in the far southwest, a border community where procedure is very primitive. The man was charged with murder. He was a school-master, I believe, and in a quarrel with some local bully or other, had killed him. I was in the place on some land-business and went to the trial for mere amusement. The whole neighbourhood was there. Both men, it appeared, had been in their cups, and self-defence seemed an adequate plea. Acquittal was regarded as fairly certain-the more so as the District Attorney was the bosom-friend of the accused man, and everybody knew it. There was almost no attempt at evidence, which didn't seem surprising under the circumstances, and the state made the baldest farce of its cross-examination. The real interest came after a rather long recess that preceded the final speeches. The prisoner's counsel was a young man with a rough, direct address that caught the people. He had them pretty well with him, too, and when he sat down there seemed very little reason why the jury should even leave the box. The speech had been a fairly long one and as it had grown dark, candles had been brought in and set about-two on the judge's desk and some on the tables."

Echo repressed a start. It had come to her suddenly that there was a significance in what he was saying-a suggestion that a quick clairvoyant sense told her was principally for her. In the few words he had, with apparent unintention, sketched the actual scene in the court-room of the day before, and while reversing its elements, was picturing, in unfamiliar guise, its identical situation. She felt her face slowly harden, and turned her profile toward him, her hand playing with a spray of fern beside her plate.

"During the whole speech the District Attorney had sat in his chair, with his chin in his collar and his eyes closed, never moving. When his turn came he didn't rise; in fact, it was clear that he had been asleep. A laugh went round and the sheriff put a hand on his shoulder and shook him. He got up, looking confused, and while he blinked at the candles, some one in the audience called out, 'Never mind, old man. If you can't make a speech, recite a poem.' It was curious, but the remark seemed to give him a clue, and he began to recite Hood's Eugene Aram."

Craig paused a moment and sipped from his wine-glass. All at the table were leaning forward intently. Treadwell was frowning at his plate. No one spoke; only a fork, dropped from Nancy Langham's fingers, rattled against the cloth.

"It was a strange sight," went on Craig, "and one I have always remembered. You must picture the crowded court-room, the gloom, the flaring candles, and the whole uncanny episode, to realise the effect that was produced. The man was by nature a marvellous actor-he would have made his fortune on any stage. At first it seemed as if he didn't know quite where he was, but then the ballad itself gripped him and he rendered it, acting each line, as I never heard it before or since. I had never realised what was in that poem. Very few there, I suppose, had ever heard it in their lives, and they listened in a fascinated silence while he rolled it out to the last line.

"'Two hard-faced men set out from Lynn,

Through the rain and heavy mist,

And Eugene Aram walked between

With gyves upon his wrist.'"

He paused again. "Oh, finish!" gasped Nancy Langham. "I don't like that story. What then?"

"When he ended he walked out of the court-room without waiting for the verdict."

Echo's head turned toward him. "They found him guilty!" exclaimed Mrs. Spottiswode.

"Yes."

"And you say the District Attorney was his best friend?" asked the artist.

"So I was told."

"And yet wanted to convict him?"

Craig shook his head. "No, I didn't say that."

"Then what," inquired the rector, "do you take it, inspired him to such an extraordinary action?"

"Oh," said Craig, and as he spoke, for the first time he looked full at Echo. "It all came out afterward. He didn't realise what he was doing. He was drunk."

For an instant Echo's breath stopped. In the unexpected dénouement she had guessed, as at a lightning-flash, Craig's real purpose. Sharply, baldly introduced, the tale stood forth intrusive and malicious, an implied slur upon a man who was not present to refute it. Her whole being flooded with fierce resentment, mingled with an angry amaze that of all there no one else seemed to have caught the insinuation. To the rest it had been at most a gaucherie, a parallel which, if perhaps not felicitous, had been without significance and would be readily forgotten. Therein lay the added sting, that Craig had so accurately judged the outcome. He had guessed how it stood with her and Harry Sevier, and counting on her keener sensitiveness where the latter was concerned, had barbed his shaft for her alone!

The next instant, however, the tension broke with every one talking at once. From this babble the senator emerged with a negro story about a trial with "exterminatin' circumstances," which brought a ripple of laughter, and presently the hostess gave the rising signal.

The room opened upon the ball-room from whose further end already came the squeak of tuned catgut, and beyond this spread the invitingly cool verandas, now beginning to fill with filmy gowns that showed pallidly against the evening dusk, where the bouquet of masculine segars mingled with the dewed scent of shrubbery. Here in the increasing numbers, unobserved as she thought, Echo stepped down onto the cool dark turf and following one of the little meandering bush-bordered paths, came to a rustic bench over which a paper lantern threw flickering rose-coloured shadows. On this she sat down, struggling to regain her lost composure and grateful for the sense of quiet and the cool inspiration of the water, over whose margin the moonbeams danced in elfish ecstasy.

In another moment, however, the silence was broken. A step sounded on the path, and she looked up to see Craig standing before her.