He had more substantial troubles, including a wound which would probably make him limp through life and possibly retire him from service at fifty. It had given him a six months’ sick leave (which he had not wanted), and after spending a month on the Atlantic coast, he was going for the spring to the Pacific. Haley, whose own term of service had expired, had not reënlisted, but had followed him, Mrs. Haley and the baby uncomplainingly bringing up the rear. It was not fair to Haley nor to Mrs. Haley, the colonel felt. He had told Haley so; he had found a good situation for the man, and he had added the deed for a little house in the suburbs of Chicago.
If Haley wouldn’t reënlist—there never was a better soldier since he had downed a foolish young hankering for wild times and whisky—if he wouldn’t go back to the army, where he belonged, let him settle down, take up the honest carpenter’s trade that he had abandoned, be a good citizen and marry little Nora to some classmate in the high school, who might make a fortune and build her a Colonial mansion, should the Colonial still obtain in the twentieth century.
The colonel had spread a grand prospect before Haley, who listened unresponsively, a dumb pain in his wide blue Irish eyes. The colonel hated it; but, somehow, he hated worse the limp look of Haley’s back as he watched it dwindle down Michigan Avenue.
However, Mrs. Haley had been more satisfactory, if none the less bewildering. She seemed very grateful over the house and the three hundred dollars for its furnishing. A birthday present, he had termed it, with a flicker of humor because the day was his own birthday. His fiftieth birthday it happened to be, and it occurred to him that a man ought to do something a little notable on such an anniversary. This rounding of the half-century had attributes apart; it was no mere annual birthday; it marked the last vanishing flutter of the gilded draperies of youth; the withering of the garlands; the fading tinkle of the light music of hope. It should mark a man’s solid achievements. Once, not so long ago, Winter had believed that his fiftieth birthday would see wide and beneficent and far-reaching results in the province where he ruled. That dream was shattered. He was generous of nature, and he could have been content to behold another reap the fields which he had sown and tilled; it was the harvest, whether his or another’s, for which he worked; but his had been the bitter office to have to stand aside, with no right to protest, and see his work go to waste because his successor had a feeble brain and a pusillanimous caution in place of his own dogged will. For all these reasons, as well as others, the colonel found no zest in his fiftieth birthday; and his reverie drifted dismally from one somber reflection to another until it brought up at the latest wound to his heart—his favorite brother’s death.
There had been three Winter brothers—Rupert, Melville and Thomas. During the past year both Thomas Winter and his wife had died, leaving one child, a boy of fourteen, named Archibald after his father’s uncle. Rupert Winter and the boy’s great-aunt, the widow of the great-uncle for whom he had been named, were appointed joint guardians of the young Archie. To-night, in his jaded mood, he was assailed by reproaches because he had not seen more of his ward. Why, he hadn’t so much as looked the little chap up when he passed through Fairport—merely had sent him a letter and some truck from the Philippines; nice guardian he was! By a natural enough transition, his thoughts swerved to his own brief and not altogether happy married life. He thought of the graves in Arizona where he had left his wife and his two children, and his heart felt heavy. To escape musings which grew drearier every second, he cast his eyes about the motley crowd shuffling over the tiled floors or resting in the massive dark oaken seats. And it was then that he saw Cary Mercer. At first he did not recognize the face. He only gazed indifferently at two well-dressed men who sat some paces away from him in the shadow of a great tiled column similar to his own. There was this difference, it happened: the mission lantern with its electric bulbs above the two men was flashing brightly, and by some accident that above the colonel was dark. He could see the men, himself in the shadow.
The men were rather striking in appearance; they were evidently gentlemen; the taller one was young, well set-up, clean-shaven and quietly but most correctly dressed. His light brown hair showed a slight curl in its closely clipped locks; his gray-blue eyes had long lashes of brown darker than his hair; his teeth were very white, and there was a dimple in his cheek, plain when he smiled. Had his nose been straight he would have been as handsome as a Greek god, but the nose was only an ordinary American nose, rather too broad at the base; moreover, his jaw was a little too square for classic lines. Nevertheless, he was good to look upon, as well as strong and clean and wholesome, and when his gray-blue eyes strayed about the room the dimple dented his cheek and his white teeth gleamed in a kind of merry good-nature pleasant to see. But it was the other man who held the colonel’s eye. This man was double the young man’s age, or near that; he was shorter, although still of fair stature, and slim of build. His face was oval in contour and delicate of feature. Although he wore no glasses, his brow had the far pucker of a near-sighted man. There was a mole on his cheek-bone and another just below his ear. Both were small, rather than large, and in no sense disfiguring; but the colonel noted them absently, being in the habit of photographing a man in a glance. The face had beauty, distinction even, yet about it hung some association, sinister as a poison label.
“Now, where,” said the colonel to himself, “where have I seen that man?” Almost instantly the clue came to him. “By Jove, it’s the brother!” he exclaimed. Three years ago, and he had almost forgotten; but here was Cary Mercer—the name came to him after a little groping—here he was again; but who was the pleasant youngster with him? And what were they discussing with so little apparent and so much real earnestness?
One of the colonel’s physical gifts was an extraordinary acuteness of hearing. It passed the mark of a faculty and became a marvel. Part of this uncanny power was really due, not to hearing alone, but to an alliance with another sense, because Winter had learned the lip language in his youth; he heard with his eyes as well as his ears. This combination had made an unintentional and embarrassed eavesdropper out of an honest gentleman a number of times. To set off such evil tricks it had saved his life once on the plains and had rescued his whole command another time in the Philippines. While he studied the two faces a sentence from the younger man gripped his attention. It was: “I don’t mind the risk, but I hate taking such an old woman’s money.”
“She has a heap,” answered the other man carelessly; “besides—” He added something with averted head and in too low a voice to reach the listener unassisted. But it was convincing, evidently, since the young man’s face grew both grave and stern. He nodded, muttering: “Oh, I understand; I wasn’t backing water; I know we have lost the right to be squeamish. But I say, old chap, how long since Mrs. Winter has seen you? Would she recognize you?”
The colonel, who had been about to abandon his espionage as unbecoming a soldier and a gentleman, stowed away all his scruples at the mention of the name. He pricked up his ears and sharpened his eyes, but was careful lest they should catch his glance. The next sentence, owing to the speaker’s position, was inaudible and invisible; but he clearly caught the young man’s response: