XI
It was in Dalton, the nearest large city to Skinner Valley, that Hustler Joe began his career as a rich man.
He built him a house—a house so rare and costly that people came from miles around to stare and wonder. Society not only opened its doors to him, but reached out persuasive hands and displayed its most alluring charms. She demanded but one thing—a new name: “Hustler Joe” could scarcely be tolerated in the aristocratic drawing-rooms of the inner circle! He gave her “Westbrook,” and thenceforth “Mr. Joseph Westbrook” was a power in the city.
He was petted by maneuvering mamas, flattered by doting papas, and beamed upon by aspiring daughters; yet the firm lips seldom relaxed in a smile, and his groom told of long night rides when the master would come home in the gray of the morning with his horse covered with mud and foam. But society cared not. Society loves a Mystery—if the Mystery be rich.
When Joseph Westbrook’s mansion was finished and furnished from cellar to garret and placed in the hands of a dignified, black-robed housekeeper at the head of a corps of servants, and when his stables were filled with thoroughbreds and equipped with all things needful, from a gold-tipped whip to a liveried coachman, Mr. Joseph Westbrook himself was as restless and ill at ease as Hustler Joe had been in the renovated shanty on the hillside.
The balls and the dinners—invitations to which poured in upon him—he attended in much the same spirit that Hustler Joe had displayed in loitering in Pedler Jim’s “Emporium”—anywhere to get rid of himself. But if the inner man was the same, the outer certainly was not; and the well-groomed gentleman of leisure bore little resemblance to the miner of a year before.
On the night of the Charity Ball Westbrook had been almost rude in his evasion of various unwelcome advances, and he now stood in the solitude for which he had striven, watching the dancers with sombre eyes. Suddenly his face lighted up; but the flame that leaped to his eyes was instantly quenched by the look of indifference he threw into his countenance. Coming toward him was Ethel Barrington, leaning on the arm of her father.
“Mr. Westbrook,” said the old gentleman genially, “my little girl says she is sure she has seen your face somewhere, so I have brought her over to renew old acquaintance.”
Someone spoke to John Barrington then, and he turned aside, while Westbrook found himself once more clasping a slim firm hand, and looking into a well-remembered pair of blue eyes.
“You are——?”
“Hustler Joe,” he supplied quietly, his eyes never leaving her face.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed, her pleasure frankly shown. “I never could forget your face,” she added impulsively, then colored in confusion as she realized the force of her words.
But his tactful reply put her immediately at ease and they were soon chatting merrily together, closely watched by many curious eyes. Society never had seen Mr. Joseph Westbrook in just this mood before.
“Father did not recognize you,” said Ethel, after a time.
“No; I was introduced to Mr. Barrington at the Essex Club a week ago. I hardly thought he would remember Hustler Joe. You have just returned, Miss Barrington?”
“A month ago—from Europe, I mean; mother is there yet. America looks wonderfully good to me—I have been away from it the greater part of the last two years, you know. When I came home to Dalton I found the name of Mr. Joseph Westbrook on every lip. You seem to be a very important personage, sir,” she laughed.
“A little gilding goes a long way, sometimes,” he replied, with a bitter smile.
“But there must have been something to gild!” she challenged. “Mr. Westbrook, for the last two weeks I have been at The Maples—have you been down to Skinner Valley lately?” she asked, with peculiar abruptness.
“Not for some months.”
“There are some changes in the village.”
“Yes?”
“That poor little deformed storekeeper has bought the Rotalick house and has turned it into the dearest little convalescents’ home imaginable.”
“Is that so?” murmured Westbrook, meeting Miss Barrington’s gaze with a face that was innocently noncommittal. “Pedler Jim always was kind to the boys.”
“So it would seem; still—someone must have helped him in this,” she suggested, her eyes on his again.
“Do you think so? Possibly! I am wondering, Miss Barrington, if we might not find it cooler over there by the window. Will you allow me to escort you?”
“Perhaps we might,” she smilingly assented. “Perhaps we could find some subject of conversation other than Hustler Joe’s generosity to Pedler Jim, too—we might try!” She threw him a merry glance, which he answered with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Indeed, Miss Barrington, you quite overestimate anything I may have had to do in the matter. It was entirely Pedler Jim’s idea. How about the reading-room?” he suddenly asked, mentioning Miss Barrington’s latest gift to the miners, “and the kindergarten class, and the——”
“Ah—please!” interrupted the girl, with hand upraised in laughing protest. “I acknowledge myself vanquished at my own game. I’ll talk about—the weather, now, if you like,” she finished dutifully.
Westbrook laughed, but before he could reply Miss Barrington was claimed by a tall young fellow for the next dance.
“I wonder,” he mused as he saw them glide gracefully into the waltz—“I wonder if dancing belongs to those things one never forgets. I’ll have to brush up my old steps—and learn some new ones,” he added, after a pause.
From the night of the Charity Ball the world appeared in new colors for Westbrook. He did not stop to question the cause of all this change. If wealth were lifting her disguise and showing a glimpse of peace, he was too rejoiced to care to ask the reason.
“I wish you’d come up to the house some time,” said John Barrington to Westbrook one evening soon after the Charity Ball. “I’d like to talk with you—we can’t make any headway in this infernal racket!”—the “infernal racket” in question being the high C’s and low G’s of some world-famous singers at a particularly exclusive musical.
Westbrook smiled.
“Thank you; I should be only too happy.”
“Then call it tomorrow night—to dinner. Seven o’clock.”
“I will—and thank you,” said Westbrook after a momentary hesitation.
To his daughter John Barrington said a little later:
“Oh, I’ve invited Mr. Westbrook up to dinner tomorrow night.”
“Mr. Westbrook!”
“Why, yes—why not? You seem surprised.”
“Gilding does count, doesn’t it, father dear?”
“Eh? Gilding? My dear, I don’t know what you mean. I know he’s rich as mud—if that’s what you’re talking about; but he’s got more than money—he’s got brains. He knows as much about mines as I do! I like him—he’s worth a dozen of the youths that usually flutter about you.”
“Perhaps he is,” laughed Ethel, the color in her cheeks deepening.
That was but the first of many visits. Barrington was urgent, Ethel charmingly cordial—and Westbrook, nothing loth.