Chapter XX

_Peter Parker of Pasadena is less of a fool than has been popularly supposed, and the golden legend is discovered to be tarnished brass._

THE junior partner of the Altonia caused his nurse and his mother a good deal of anxiety that late afternoon and evening, and when he announced his intention of going to the mill at two in the morning they spoke darkly of using force. In the end, however, as had been the case for twenty-two years, he had his own way. Hopkins more nearly carried him to and from the machine than he had in the afternoon, when Miss Ada was so dewily moved, and the nurse, a plain and middle-aged person with a fancy for saving her patients, went doggedly with him, in spite of pointed remarks as to the inadvisability of such action, and Mrs. Parker added herself firmly to the party.

“You girls spoil the picture for me,” he fretted. “I don’t expect--I don’t ask--to look like Hawkshaw, but I can’t even _feel_ like him when you personally conduct me in this fashion. Mr. Heminway,” he greeted the stoop-shouldered, pessimistic-looking person who was waiting for him in the office, “you will pardon the intrusion of these extremely superfluous but thoroughly well-meaning ladies? They have sworn by the Nine Gods that they will sit quietly in dim corners and blend with the shadows while we are busy, and we shall be busy, I fancy, until the black east pales to pearl, for this may be the only time for a week when the night shift is not working.”

Mr. Heminway, who wore a green shade over his eyes and an alpaca office coat which hung very badly in the back, owing to the stooped shoulders, and looked as if nothing unpleasant could ever surprise him again, coughed apologetically.

“I took the liberty of finishing up without you, Mr. Parker,” he said. “I had two of my staff helping me--they’ve just gone home. I don’t think you’ll need to stay much longer than it takes you to run over these figures. As a matter of fact,” he took in the presence of the nurse and the president with some perturbation, “you might just as well go now, and take these papers with you.”

“There is no possible doubt, then?”

Mr. Heminway made a sort of clucking sound. “No possible doubt,” he stated heavily. “I am amazed, and I am shocked, beyond words,” and he clucked again, expressing amazement and shock very graphically.

“And old Ben--what’s his name?”

“Birdsall.”

“Old Ben Birdsall is cleared?”

“Absolutely, sir!”

“Well, I believe that’ll be a comfort to my senior partner,” said Peter. “He has moaned over Birdsall every time he’s mentioned him.”

Mr. Heminway shook his head. “He will be glad, yes; Ben was a faithful old soul. But this--_Manders_--” he clucked again--“this will be a blow, sir, a blow!”

“Well, I’m counting on your help in letting him down just as easily as possible,” said Peter, pocketing the sheaf of papers as his mother and his nurse closed in on him from either side. “I will meet you here to-morrow at--shall we say three o’clock?”

“Three, sir,” Mr. Heminway agreed, and went away, stooping, and clucking mournfully to himself.

They managed to keep Peter in bed until ten the next morning but only after his mother had promised to deliver two ladies to him at eleven and eleven-thirty--Mrs. Bob Lee Tenafee and Miss Ada. Mrs. Parker had better luck with them than with the doctor’s daughter; they came on the dot, willingly and cordially and curiously.

With Miss Ada, who had the earlier appointment, Peter Parker was very gentle and very brief. “Will you give Glen a message for me at lunch, Miss Ada?”

“Oh, indeed I _will_, Mr. Parker,” the spinster assured him fervently.

“It’s very simple; you will just say, please, that I want _her_ to know from me, first, that I have proved it.”

Mystified but obedient, she repeated it carefully--“You want _her_ to know from you, first, that you have proved it.” She rose from her chair and smoothed her shabby gloves. “Very well, Mr. Parker. I have a good memory, and I shall not forget a syllable. I will bid you good day,” she smiled a little wistfully.

Peter, not quite steadily, hurried to open the door for her. “Thank you, and forgive the silly secrecy. I want her to know first, but--you will be glad for us--and with us, when you know, too!” He lifted her hand to his lips, and she flushed to a delicate old rose. “And you _will_ let me take you to call upon my Cousin Amos Tenafee?” she fluttered.

“The very day I am presentable,” he assured her, a finger on his helmet of bandaging.

He was rather more expansive with Mary-Lou Tenafee, though he gave her the facts of the case very simply and swiftly.

“Well,” said Bob Lee’s widow, shaking her smartly sleek head, “I’m surprised--and I’m not! It always did worry me to have Cousin ’Gene push and pull that wild mountain boy into such speedy promotion. He’s a baa-lamb, my poor Cousin ’Gene. Goodness, if I ran Beulah-land the way he runs his mill--_your_ mill, too, I’m sorry to remember, Peter,” she gave him her pretty, comradely smile.

He liked Mary-Lou Tenafee enormously; she seemed to him with her beauty and grace and charm, her firmly and capably run plantation, her sweetly and sternly reared little son, Bob Lee, II, her keen, sane interest in the affairs of her own small world and the big one beyond, a symbol of the New South. “The least jiggle, and I’d have been in love with her,” he reflected now.

“That’s perfectly all right; I want to tear the Altonia down and rebuild, anyway. And I’ll want your help, Mary-Lou.”

“You’ll have it, Peter Piper!”

“About part-time schools and playgrounds and all that stuff, getting the right people interested, I mean.”

“The right people are interested already, Peter,” she said loyally. “Don’t think we’re proud of mills like the Altonia! The leaven’s working, I promise you! Well, but--you’ve told me this about Luke Manders so I can break it to Cousin ’Gene?” She made a rueful face.

“No,” he shook his head, “that wasn’t exactly my idea. You see Heminway--the shark from the bank--will tell him, and show him all the figures, and make it a lot clearer than I could. But I thought, perhaps, if you could just drop a hint to Nancy--” He colored suddenly and the effect was startling in his very pale face.

Mrs. Bob Lee blushed as hotly as he did and caught her full lower lip between her teeth. “Then--you’ve noticed, too,” she said unhappily. “It wasn’t just my imagination.”

“Girls,” Peter stated sapiently, looking away, “girls get silly little crushes ... don’t amount to anything, of course ... get over ’em just as fast....”

Mary-Lou got up from her chair and came to stand beside his, and when he rose she put her tanned, beautiful hand on his arm. “Peter, you’re a dear. But Nancy’s a dear, too! She’s absolutely sweet, Peter--innocent--why, she’s a hold-over from the befo’ the wah days. They aren’t making that model any more, in girls!”

“You said something!” he agreed heartily.

“And she’s awfully pretty, don’t you think?”

“Melt-in-the-mouth!”

“And this--this little infatuation--no, that’s too grave a word, Peter--fancy, that’s all it is, silly little crush, as you said, just as a girl might have for a man in the movies, _you_ know----”

“Of course.”

“It won’t last, Peter; you just said so yourself, and especially now, when she knows he’s a thieving rascal. Peter, couldn’t _you_? I’d like mighty well to have you for a cousin! She’d make you the most adorable wife!”

“Mary-Lou Tenafee,” said Peter Parker soberly, “knowing your tribal standards, I’ll say that’s just about the handsomest thing that ever happened to me! But there are two reasons why I can’t manage it! You, yourself, are one, my dear. I’d be head over heels this minute, if I weren’t fathoms deep in love with Glen Darrow.”

“_Glen Darrow!_” She gave a little gasp and stared at him.

“Glen Darrow. From the first moment, almost.”

Mrs. Bob Lee sighed. “Well, of course--she’s a mighty fine person, I reckon! I’ve heard Cousin ’Gene Carey say wonderful things about her, and Cousin Ada’s devoted to her. But, Peter--it _would_ be a lot more suitable; you know that. And we certainly would love to have you in our family.”

Peter leaned suddenly nearer and kissed her enjoyingly. “Mary-Lou,” he said softly, “your Bob Lee must have hated to die and leave you!”

She accepted the kiss without surprise and returned it amiably but absently. “I reckon he did, Peter Piper.” Tears glittered suddenly on her dark lashes. “I reckon he did,” she said again and slipped away.

At four o’clock that afternoon she came into Mr. Carey’s office where Peter had just preceded her, and where the senior partner had been closeted for a devastating hour with Heminway. She ran to her Cousin ’Gene and put an arm about his neck, and laid her warm cheek against his.

“You--you know about this, Mary-Lou?” he blinked at her, stammering, dazed.

She nodded. “Yes, honey; Peter told me. But we’re not going to fret about it. Good riddance to bad rubbish, Cousin ’Gene--and we’ve got Peter!”

Mr. Carey got heavily to his feet. “Poor white trash!” he said thickly. “A lying, thieving knave. I shall shoot him down like a yellow cur!” Dark blood suffused his face.

“No, Cousin ’Gene, _no_! You can’t do that!” Mary-Lou soothed. “He isn’t worth the mess it would make you, Cousin ’Gene, honey. Now, just sit down, and we’ll talk it over!” She pushed him gently back in his chair, crossed to a window and opened it wider.

Peter followed her. “Did you tell her?” He whispered it.

“Peter, I couldn’t; she hasn’t been home all day. But I’m going right back there now, and wait for her. I thought she might have come here for Cousin ’Gene.”

“Like a yellow cur,” the old gentleman was repeating. “I shall shoot him like a yellow cur.”

“He deserves it, sir,” said Heminway clucking, and lifting his green shade to fix his mournful eyes on the senior partner. “He deserves it.”

“But I think we won’t, just the same, for several reasons, and the best of them is that he won’t be within range. I told him our findings early this morning--sent him a note--and I expect he has, by this time, gone extremely hence.” Peter Parker smiled cheerfully at them. “It seemed to me much the simplest and pleasantest way to handle the situation.”

Mr. Carey struggled to his feet again with a roar of baffled rage, just as the superintendent’s assistant came into the room. “Confound you, sir,” he shouted, “what right had you----”

Heminway coughed apologetically. “I took the liberty, gentlemen, of having him shadowed, ever since we began our investigations. There need be no publicity, in case you decide not to prosecute, but I felt it well to--to control the situation in the meantime.” He wetted his lips. “I think you will find he has not left town.”

Glen Darrow stepped forward. “He is here, now,” she said. “Luke Manders is coming down the hall.” She spoke very clearly and steadily, and Peter fixed anxious eyes upon her.

She met his look gravely. There was no color in her golden-olive cheeks, and there was an air of shock about her, of bewilderment, but there were no tears in her eyes and it seemed to him that the horror was overlaid with gladness.

Mr. ’Gene Carey wrenched open a drawer in his desk but Peter Parker was quicker and cleverer, and slipped the pistol into his own pocket. “Steady,” he warned.

The door opened gently and Nancy Carey came in, with Luke Manders close behind her, and made a little soft rush toward her father. She was all in pale pink, with a babyish pink silk hat.

“Lady-bird,” he said sternly, “this is no place for you. Mary-Lou--Glen, will you take her away?”

But his daughter fluttered closer to him until she seemed fairly to melt against his breast. “This is my place, Dad, dear,” she murmured, lifting her mild and tender gaze. “And I’ve come to beg you not to be hard on Luke.... I know he’s made bad mistakes, but he’s sorry, and you _mustn’t_ be harsh, Dad, dear ... you _can’t_, because I love him ... because he’s my husband.”