The Force of Circumstance
BY CHAUNCEY C. HOTCHKISS
THEY came up to me, he and his daughter, as I was sitting on the half-deserted piazza of the hotel. His soft felt hat had been replaced by a tall one, and there was no suggestion of his former outing costume in the stiff linen and conventionally cut clothing he wore. His daughter stood by his side, her hand within his arm, a little impatient pout on her lips and a petulant wrinkle on her fine brows, as fair a specimen of the typical American girl, in beauty of face and form and taste in dress, as one could find or wish for.
“Ah, Alan, my boy!” said he heartily. “I’m off—quite suddenly. Some plaguy business in town, you know. Sorry, but can’t help it! Wish you were going along! Will be back tomorrow night—I think.” And here he gave me a decided wink with the eye farthest from his daughter. The girl twisted him about to see his face, as though suspicious of his honesty.
“Why must you go, papa? And why won’t you take me? Aunt Margaret and her rheumatism are poor company!”
“No, no, little woman—not this time! Force of circumstances, you know. Mustn’t leave your aunt alone—not for the world! Have many things to see to in town. How’s your arm, Alan? Better? That’s good! There’s the stage, by Jove! Keep her out of mischief, my boy. Kiss your dad, puss. Good-bye, Alan!”
As I looked at this fine specimen of metropolitan growth while he clambered into the ramshackle stage that ran to the station, I felt pretty sure that his conscience was not quite easy in thus hurrying to town and leaving his daughter to her own devices. That the easy-going, retired lawyer, whose hardest work consisted in killing time, had no such pressing matters on hand as he had intimated, I was certain, and had small doubt that visions of the stock-ticker, cool cocktails and club cronies were the “plaguy business” which demanded his attention. Nor did I blame him, for had it not been for the young girl who was now looking blankly at the rapidly retreating vehicle my own place at the table of the hotel would have been vacated days before.
A broken arm just cut of its sling and still almost useless was my ostensible reason for lingering. It served me as an excuse for protracting the pleasures of the broad Sound and stunted but picturesque woods, though it did not blind me to the fact that I was playing with fire by remaining. I was not born with a great deal of conceit and am too well acquainted with the times to have faith in the infallibility of love as a leveling power when applied to cash considerations. In finances the girl was an aristocrat and I a plebeian. My meditations were to myself, but the young lady gave vent to hers.
“Very good, sir! I’ll pay you well for this,” she said, shaking her finger in the direction of the vanished stage. “You wouldn’t take me with you! Well, you’ll wish you had!” Then she turned to me. “Why did he go, Mr. Alan?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Force of circumstances, he said.”