“He couldn’t acknowledge her. It would er given the other children too big a black eye. But it seemed like he wanted to square things up when he was taken off suddent like that.”
He paused. The other, smoking, with frowning brows and wide eyes, made no response, his own thoughts holding him in tense immobility.
“And the other wife wouldn’t er stood it, anyway. She’s a pretty competent woman, I guess. Oh, he couldn’t have acknowledged her, nohow. But she’s his legitimate daughter, all right. She’s the lawful heir to—most er them—millions. She’s—”
His voice broke and trailed off into silence, which was suddenly interrupted by a guttural snort and then heavy, regular breathing. Essex rose, and, going to the window, opened it. A keen-edged breeze of air entered, seeming all the fresher from the dense atmosphere of the room. Its hurried entrance sent the smoke wreaths scurrying about in fantastic whorls and curls. The dying fire threw out a frightened flame.
Essex moved toward it, saying as he approached:
“Yes; it’s a good story. You ought to be a novelist, Harney.”
There was no answer, and, looking into the chair, he saw that Harney had fallen into a sodden sleep, curled against the chair-back, his chin sunk on his breast, the hollows in his face looking black in the hard light of the gas. The younger man gazed at him for a moment with an expression of slight, cold disgust, then turned back to the table and sat down.
He wrote no more, but sat motionless, his eyes fixed on vacancy, the thick, curling smoke oozing from the bowl of his pipe and issuing from between his lips. His thoughts reviewed every part of the story he had heard. He felt certain of its truth. The drunken job-printer had never imagined it.
It explained many things that before had puzzled him. Why the Moreaus, even in the days of their affluence, had lived in such uneventful quietude, bringing up their beautiful and talented daughter in a jealous and unusual seclusion. It explained Shackleton’s interest in the girl. He even saw now, recalling the two faces, the likeness that the father himself had seen in Mariposa’s firmly-modeled jaw and chin, which did not belong to the soft, feminine prettiness of Lucy.
It must be true.