The receipt of this letter from Tyler threw John back into his old state of anxiety and restlessness. He absented himself from the office and spent the time alone in his study brooding over what he should do.
His business associates could not understand him. They had begun to admire the young man, and had thought him a chip of the old block. He had taken the reins with masterly hands and had proved himself a worthy successor to the old man. But this sudden change puzzled them.
With the approach of Easter Mrs. Morton and Ruth returned and John joined them in a quiet hotel on the avenue. The first breath of spring brought him the news that Helène had been in Hanover, but had left quite suddenly, no one knew where. Mr. Tyler, who sent the information, wound up his letter by advising John to give up troubling himself about the girl. “It is evident,” he wrote, “that she doesn’t want you to find her. Give up this useless hunt and sit down calmly and wait until she fulfills her promise to write to you.”
John smiled sadly as he read the well-meant advice. It was all very easy to write those words, but to act on them was not quite so simple. However, he made up his mind.
That evening he dined at his club and utterly surprised his friends by his liveliness and change of manner. They didn’t recognize the Morton who chatted to them in this free and easy way and told amusing stories with the rest. It was his first plunge into a sea of dissipation in which he swam as the mood seized him, which it not unfrequently did. In a short time, he was eagerly welcomed as “a sport” by those who considered themselves of that select order of beings. He went in for horses and fine carriages; gave sumptuous dinners, attended race meetings, and became the envy of the idle and the admiration of the foolish. Well might his business friends wonder what had come over John R. Morton!
His mother and sister were among the first to notice the alteration in him. It distressed them deeply. The two held a council of war and came to the conclusion that John needed a change. Mrs. Morton suggested a trip to Japan or papa’s hobby to convert the home on the Hudson into a Versailles, or a yacht.
But Ruth, with the wisdom that comes early to American maids, pursed her pretty lips and turned up her impudent little nose at her mother’s ideas.
“No, dear mamma, none of those things will do,” she said decidedly. “John is in love. If he isn’t, he ought to be. What we must do is to get him married.”
Mrs. Morton opened her eyes wide at her daughter’s plain-spoken words. The precocity of the chicken was amusing and yet, it seemed to her, on second thought, that it hit the bull’s eye. The suggestion appealed to her strongly, and the woman in the mother could not resist the prospect of the peculiar pleasure of match-making. Besides, it was time John married. He was the head of the house.
Thus was formed the conspiracy in which two loving women sought to undo all that the object of their affection had been living for. Against such a combination, the strongest man must of necessity be helpless.