Books › The Red Book 1908-02: Vol 10 Iss 4, 1908 › scan 43
Scan 43
The Red Book 1908-02: Vol 10 Iss 4, 1908
50 lines. Read by computer on 14 September 2026. Printed page 476. See the scan on archive.org.
1bition, fostered by her father, would never allow her to return. Opposed by those two obstacles, he would be helpless.
3At eight o'clock he was leaning against a tree in a little park near the building in which Herr Prochonowick had his piano-studio. The tall, square structure was, to Carlton's fancy, menacing and formidable as a prison-house of the Inquisition. Theodora, entering the dim and cavernous vestibule with her father, might have been a victim brought to the ordeal and the sentence.
5Mr. Galbraith wore a flashy long overcoat and carried the violin-case. In the door-way he halted, spoke to his daughter, and then, almost at a run, disappeared around the corner of the street. Alone in the vestibule, the girl seemed to hesitate. Carlton could not resist crossing to her.
7"Stephen, how nervous you look!" said Miss Galbraith, with an obvious effort to speak lightly. "Everybody appears to be nervous to-night. I never knew father to be in such a state. He left his purse in a drug-store, and has gone after it, and he's lugged off my violin! It's uncanny. Do you wish me good luck, Stephen?"
9"Yes," he said. "I shall always wish you the best of everything. But—is this the best, Theodora? Is this the best life has in store for men and women—for you and for me?"
11Passionate words trembled on his lips. As if the unspoken words were to her visible things, her eyes quivered with distress.
13"Don't ask me, Stephen," she entreated, laying her hand softly on his arm. "I must go now. I must not keep them waiting—"
15Carlton laid himself a course. A walk of forty blocks up the avenue and forty down again would bring him back in an hour. He swung along viciously, but the keen pace was no relief. What did the hearing matter, after all? She had refused him. What chance had he against Moses and the violin? Nine o'clock found him glaring once more at the malevolent building. A carriage piled with luggage stood at the curb. Rugini was evidently to drive to his steamer when the contracts were signed.
17Morosely Carlton eyed the dark shrubbery in the little park. From a secluded bench a match gleamed, lighting up a grotesque overcoat and a pudgy face—the face of old Galbraith. Every now and then Moses would jump to his feet and trot briskly up and down the path, puffing a cigar.
19"No wonder the wretch is troubled," commented Stephen.
21His sense of desperate helplessness suddenly overcame the distaste for Galbraith, which hitherto had prevented Carlton from speaking plainly to him. Stephen formed a hot resolve to tell this selfish father what he thought, and he strode to the bench with his mouth set.
23Moses gasped and started, as if he saw a ghost.
25"Did Theo send you for me, Carlton?" he stammered. "Did you come from the Dutchman's?"
27"No," said the lawyer and sat down.
29He decided quickly that Galbraith had been drinking. The old man's fingers shook and his voice cracked.
31"I've—I've had a fall in the street, Carlton," he whined. "My foot—I can't walk."
33"You were walking well enough a moment ago," observed Stephen, not concealing his disgust.
35Galbraith leaned back, with a silly laugh of resignation.
37"I guess you're on," he said. "It's no use. I guess you're on to me—I guess you'll tell Theo."
39His maudlin utterance of the name was to Carlton something vaguely resembling sacrilege.
41"Theo!" repeated Carlton sternly. "You leave her to play up there for that man while you dive into a rum-hole! She's playing up there now—tired, ill—working for her fame and your pocket—while you, you drunken—"
43"That's not true—" interrupted Moses.
45"What's not true?"
47"What you said about—about me. I'm not a drinker. You ought to know that, Carlton."
49"Then I beg your pardon," Stephen apologized curtly. "But as for Theodora's work—I mean to talk to you about that, very seriously, to-night."
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