The words went over my soul like the teeth of a harrow. Was it my work?
“No, Chief!” continued Gothecore, more calmly, and as though in answer to both himself and me, “it's the work of neither of us. You think that what I said killed her. That may be as it may. Every word, however, was true. I but handed her th' straight goods.”
The Widow Van Flange was dead; and the thought of her son was in her heart and on her lips as her soul passed. And the son, bleared and drunken, gambled on in the Barclay Street den, untouched. The counters did not shake in his hand, nor did the blood run chill in his veins, as he continued to stake her fortune and his own in sottish ignorance.
One morning, when the first snow of winter was beating in gusty swirls against the panes, Morton walked in upon me. I had not seen that middle-aged fop since the day when I laid out my social hopes and fears for Blossom. It being broad September at the time, Morton had pointed out how nothing might be done before the snows.
“For our society people,” observed Morton, on that September occasion, “are migratory, like the wild geese they so much resemble. At this time they are leaving Newport for the country, don't y' know. They will not be found in town until the frost.”
Now, when the snow and Morton appeared together, I recalled our conversation. I at once concluded that his visit had somewhat to do with our drawing-room designs. Nor was I in the wrong.
“But first,” said he, when in response to my question he had confessed as much, “let us decide another matter. Business before pleasure; the getting of money should have precedence over its dissipation; it should, really! I am about to build a conduit, don't y' know, the whole length of Mulberry, and I desire you to ask your street department to take no invidious notice of the enterprise. You might tell your fellows that it wouldn't be good form.”
“But your franchise does not call for a conduit.”
“We will put it on the ground that Mulberry intends a change to the underground trolley—really! That will give us the argument; and I think, if needs press, your Corporation Counsel can read the law that way. He seems such a clever beggar, don't y' know!”
“But what do you want the conduit for?”