The Debtor: A Novel

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

Shortly after Captain Carroll started upon his search for his missing son, Randolph Anderson, sitting peacefully in his back office, by the riverward window, was rudely interrupted. He was mounting some new specimens. Before him the great tiger cat lay blissfully on his red cushion. He was not asleep, but was purring loudly in what resembled a human day-dream. His claws luxuriously pricked through the velvet of his paws, which were extended in such a way that he might have served as a model for a bas-relief of a cat running a race. Now and then the tip of his tail curled and uncurled with an indescribable effect of sensuousness. The green things in the window-box had grown luxuriantly, and now and then trailing vines tossed up past the window in the infrequent puffs of wind. The afternoon was very warm. The temperature had risen rapidly since noon. Down below the wide window ran the river, unseen except for a subtle, scarcely perceptible glow of the brilliant sunlight upon the water. It was a rather muddy stream, but at certain times it caught the sunlight and tossed it back as from the facets of brown jewels.

The murmur of the river was plainly audible in the room. It was very loud, for the stream's current was still high with the spring rains. The rustle of the trees which grew on the river-bank was also discernible, and might have been the rustle of the garments of nymphs tossed about their supple limbs by the warm breeze. In fact, a like fancy occurred to Anderson as he sat there mounting his butterflies.

“I don't wonder those old Greeks had their tales about nymphs closeted in trees,” he thought, for the rustle of the green boughs had suggested the rustle of women's draperies.

Then he remembered how Charlotte Carroll's skirts had rustled as she went out of the store that last afternoon when he had spoken to her. There was a soft crispness of ruffling lawns and laces, a most delicate sound, a maidenly sound which had not been unlike the sound of the young leaves of the willows overfolding and interlacing with one another when the soft breeze swelled high. Now and then all the afternoon came a slow, soft wave of warm wind out of the west, and all sounds deepened before it, even the purring song of the cat seemed to increase, and possibly did, from the unconscious assertion of his own voice in the peaceful and somnolent chorus of nature. It was only spring as yet, but the effect was as of a long summer afternoon. Anderson, who was always keenly sensitive to all phases of nature and all atmospheric conditions, was affected by it. He realized himself sunken in drowsy, unspeculative contentment. Even the strange, emotional unrest and effervescence, which had been more or less over him since he had seen Charlotte Carroll, was in abeyance. After all, he was not a passionate man, and he was not very young. The young girl seemed to become merely a part of the gracious harmony which was lulling his soul and his senses to content and peace. He was conscious of wondering what a man could want more than he had, as if he had suspected himself of guilt in that direction.

Then, suddenly, pell-mell into the office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll. The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small body seemed on a twitch with the restrained impulse of flight.

“Well,” said Anderson, finally, “what's the trouble, sir?”

Then the boy found his tongue. He came close to the man.

“Say,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “jest let a feller stay in here a minute, will you?”

Anderson nodded readily. He understood, or thought he did. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that the teasing boys were at work again. He felt a little astonished at this headlong flight to cover of the boy who had so manfully stood at bay a few hours before. However, he was a little fellow, and there had been a good many of his opponents. He felt a pleasant thrill of fatherliness and protection. He looked kindly into the little, pink-flushed face. “Very well, my son,” said he. “Stay as long as you like. Take a seat.” The boy sat down. His legs were too short for his feet to touch the floor, so he swung them. He gazed ingratiatingly at Anderson, and now and then cast an apprehensive glance towards the door of the office. Anderson continued mounting his butterflies, and paid no attention to him, and the boy seemed to respect his silence. Presently the great cat emerged quite boldly from his refuge under the table, crouched, calculated the distance, and leaped softly back to his red cushion. The boy hitched his chair nearer, and began stroking the cat gently and lovingly with his little boy-hand, hardened with climbing and playing. The cat stretched himself luxuriously, pricked his claws in and out, shut his eyes, and purred again quite loudly. Again the little room sang with the song of the river, the wind in the trees, and the cat's somnolent note. The afternoon light rippled full of green reflections through the room. The boy's small head appeared in it like a flower. He smiled tenderly at the cat. Anderson, glancing at him over his butterflies, thought what an angelic aspect he had. He looked a darling of a boy.

The boy, stroking the cat, met the man's kindly approving eyes, and he smiled a smile of utter confidence and trust, which conveyed delicious flattery. Then suddenly the hand stroking the cat desisted and made a dive into a small jacket-pocket and emerged with a treasure. It was a great butterfly, much dilapidated as to its gorgeous wings, but the boy looked gloatingly from it to the man.