His old friends and associates did not realize it at first, thought he was gone on one of his short trips, or had taken on a new operation of some sort. Nobody ever seemed to know just what Darcy’s business was, only that nobody ever spoke of him as one who had no business. He was one who kept his mouth shut about his own affairs, and much as his friends would have liked to ask him questions, they seldom did. If they did they were surprised to find that, although he answered them pleasantly, they had gained very little real knowledge of what they had started out to investigate.
People talked about him, as people always will talk about those they do not understand, and they said a great many things about him that were not true, while things that they did not say or think about him, things that were, some of them, worse than those they did think, were very often true.
Darcy had a strange code of honor and of life.
He was the product of a naturally loving disposition left to come up without much training, left to experiment with life for himself, and to search out his own view of the universe and his own doctrines of right and wrong. There were certain things he would not do though heaven and hell were against him, because he had decided in his heart that they were not right—not “square,” he called it. One was that he never would harm a woman or a child in any way, directly or indirectly, if he knew it; and another was that he must always help the downtrodden, sometimes without regard to whether their cause was right or wrong, according to law and public opinion.
With all this he had the unusual combination of being both extremely clever as a business man, and entirely unselfish in his personal life. Strong beyond most, he could walk among pitch when he liked without being soiled, yet he often chose to play with that pitch and minded not if others saw it on his hands, or misunderstood his actions. Beautiful as the devil must have been before he fell, with dark eyes, bronze-gold hair, inclined to curl, and a smile of more than ordinary beauty, yet sad, too, with the sadness of the lost sometimes. Nobody quite knew what it was about Darcy Sherwood that made them like him so, or just what they so utterly disapproved of. And he went his way without seeming to care which they did. Only little children and old women saw the real Darcy, and won his rare confidence.
Darcy had a brother-in-law after his own heart, who knew how to keep his mouth shut—not as clever as Darcy, not always so good, but much richer in respectability, and most kind to Darcy’s sister, a good dull girl who loved Darcy devotedly, but who never understood him. Sharp little Lib was a product of this home and her uncle’s training. Where she got her sharpness was always a problem to Darcy. Certainly not from her simple-minded mother, nor yet from her somewhat commonplace father. Yet Darcy was fond of them both, and respected their ability to keep their mouths shut. It was something that Darcy had always taught everybody, sooner or later, with whom he came in contact.
And now Darcy was gone.
“I’ll be away for awhile, I don’t know how long. Business trip. All you know about it, Mase, see?”
Mason Knox nodded.
“I getcha!” he said, and went on cleaning the carburetor of his car.