II
Ranken Townsend had arranged a sitting with Madame Mascheri, the famous opera singer, at eleven o'clock. He entered his studio at ten, and the first thing he did was to ring up one of his best friends and get into a quarrel with him. He had already so surprised his old servant at breakfast that she had retired to the kitchen in tears. He was angry and sore and there was likely to be a nice clash in the studio when he said sharp things to the spoiled lady who considered that all men were in their proper places only when they were at her feet.
Ranken Townsend was more than angry. He was disappointed—mentally sick—completely out of gear. He had seen Peter Guthrie—and there was no argument about the fact—come out of a notorious house, dishevelled and apparently drunk. It was a sad blow to him. A bad shock. The effects of it had kept him awake nearly all night. Betty was the apple of his eye. He was going to protect her at all costs, and he knew that in doing so he must bring great unhappiness into her life. He had believed in Peter Guthrie. He had seemed to him to be a big, strong, clean, honest, simple, true fellow who had gone straight and who meant to continue to go straight. It meant a tremendous amount, an altogether incalculable amount to him as a father to have found that his estimate was wrong. He realized perfectly well that his words had been harsh the night before. He detested to have been obliged to say them; but, for the sake of his little girl, he was not going back on them. The evidence was too strong.
The telephone bell rang. He stalked across to it. "Well?" he said. "What's that? Who did you say? Send him up at once." And then, with his jaw set and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he took up a stand in the middle of the studio and waited.
It was Peter. He came in quietly and looked very tired. "Good morning, Mr. Townsend," he said.
The answer was sharp and antagonistic. "I don't agree with you."
Peter put down his hat and stick, went up to the artist and stood in front of him squarely and without fear. "You're going to withdraw what you said last night."
"You think so?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it was unjust and no man is hanged in these times before he's given a chance to defend himself."
"No one is going to hang you, Peter Guthrie. You've hanged yourself."
"No, no," said Peter, "that won't do. It isn't like you to adopt this attitude and I must ask you to treat me properly."
Townsend shot out a short laugh. "There's no need for you to ask me to do that. My treatment of you is going to be so proper that this is going to be the last time you'll come into this studio. I've done with you. So far as I'm concerned you're over. Betty isn't going to see you or hear from you again. I consider that it was a mighty good accident that took me into Fortieth Street last night. That's all I have to say."
Peter didn't budge. He just squared his shoulders and tilted his chin a little more. "I don't think that's all you've got to say," he said. "I quite understand that you had a bad shock when you saw me coming out of that place last night. If I were in your shoes I should say just what you're saying now."
"It's something to win your approval," said Townsend, sarcastically, "and I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you for coming down town to give me your praise."
"Oh, don't talk like that," said Peter. "It doesn't do any good and it doesn't help to clear things up."
"You can't clear things up. Neither of us can. You began by lying to me when you said you had a business engagement, and you wound up by coming out drunk of the rottenest house in this city. And, see here! I don't like your tone. I'm not standing here to be reproved by you for my attitude in this matter. I might be more inclined to give you a chance if you made a clean breast of it."
"I wish I could," said Peter, "but I can't. All I can tell you is that I had to go to that place last night for a very good reason. I'd never been there before and I shall never go there again. I hadn't even heard of the place until a few days ago. You've got to accept my word of honour that I went there with a friend of mine to get a man who means a very great deal to me out of bad trouble."
"It's taken you sometime to think that out," said Townsend, brutally.
Peter winced as if he had been struck. He had gone to the studio under the belief that everything would be quite easy. He was honest. His conscience was clear. He was not a liar. Surely his word would be accepted. Whatever happened he wasn't going to be disloyal to his brother. Apart from the fact that he had sworn not to give Graham away, he wasn't the kind that blabbed. He tried again, still keeping himself well under control, although he was unable to hide the fact that Ranken Townsend's utter disbelief in him hurt deeply.
"Mr. Townsend," he said, "I don't want to do anything to make you more angry than you are. It's perfectly simple for you to say that you won't have me marry Betty. But remember this: I've only got to go to Betty and ask her to marry me, with or without your consent, and she will. If you don't believe me, you don't know Betty."
"Ah! but that's exactly where you make your mistake," said Townsend. "I do know Betty. And let me tell you this, Peter Guthrie: My girl has been brought up. She hasn't been dragged up or allowed to bring herself up. The consequence is that she's not among the army of present-day girls who look upon their fathers and mothers as any old trash to be swept aside and over-ridden whenever it suits them to do so. I'm the man to whom she owes all the happiness and comfort that she's known. I'm the man who's proud to be responsible for her, to whom she belongs and who knows a wide stretch more of life and its troubles than she does,—and, not being an empty-headed, individualistic, precocious little fool, she knows it too. She belongs to a past decade—to an old-fashioned family. Therefore, what I say goes; and if I tell her that, for a very good reason, I don't want her to have anything to do with you, she will be desperately unhappy, but she'll not question my authority or my right to say so. These are facts, however absurd and strange they may appear to you. I think it would be a damned good thing if other fathers took the trouble to get on the same footing with their daughters. There'd be less unhappiness and fewer grave mistakes if they did." He was almost on the verge of adding, "Look at your sister Belle if you don't believe me."
Peter had nothing to say.
The two men stood facing one another, gravely, in silence. They were both moved and stirred. And then Peter nodded. "I'm glad you're Betty's father," he said at last. "She owes you more than she can ever pay back. I give you my word that I shan't attempt to dispute your authority. I respect you, Mr. Townsend, and when I marry Betty I want to have your consent and approval. I also give you my word that it was absolutely necessary for me to go to Papowsky's last night, without any explanation whatever. Are you going to take it?"
"No," said Townsend; "I'm not. Even if I'd known you for years what you ask is too much for me to swallow. Good Lord, man! can't you see that I'm protecting my daughter—the one person I love in this world—the one person whose happiness means more to me than anything on earth? Why should I believe that you're different from other young men,—the average young man whom I see every day, who no more cares about going clean to the woman he is going to marry than he does for running straight afterwards? I don't know you and hitherto I've accepted you on your face value. When it comes to the question of a man's trusting his daughter to the first person who comes and asks him for her, he's got to be pretty sure of what he's doing. In any case, I don't hold with the old saying that 'young men will be young men.' You may sow your wild oats if you like, but they're not going to blossom in the garden of a little girl who belongs to me. In that respect I'm as narrow-minded as a Quaker. And let me tell you this finally: I know the sort of place that Papowsky's is. I know what goes on there and the sort of people who frequent it. To my mind any man who's seen coming out of it does for himself as the future husband of any good girl. If you have, as you say, a good reason for going there, tell it to me. If not, get out."
The artist had said these things with intense feeling. Hard as they were, Peter had to acknowledge that they were right. Just for one instant he wavered. He was on the point of giving the whole story away. Then his loyalty to his brother came back to him. He would rather be shot than go back on the man who had trusted him and with whom he had grown up with such deep affection. "Very well," he said, "that settles it. I've nothing more to say. But one of these days I'll prove that my word of honor was worth taking. In the meantime, you can't stop me from loving Betty and you'll never be able to stop Betty from loving me."
He turned on his heel, took up his hat and stick and went out.