Chapter 4. Kisses And Kleptomania

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER IV. KISSES AND KLEPTOMANIA

"Hello, Dad!"

After the attorney's departure, Gilder had been rather fussily going over some of the papers on his desk. He was experiencing a vague feeling of injury on account of the lawyer's ill-veiled efforts to arouse his sympathy in behalf of the accused girl. In the instinct of strengthening himself against the possibility of yielding to what he deemed weakness, the magnate rehearsed the facts that justified his intolerance, and, indeed, soon came to gloating over the admirable manner in which righteousness thrives in the world. And it was then that an interruption came in the utterance of two words, words of affection, of love, cried out in the one voice he most longed to hear--for the voice was that of his son. Yet, he did not look up. The thing was altogether impossible! The boy was philandering, junketing, somewhere on the Riviera. His first intimation as to the exact place would come in the form of a cable asking for money. Somehow, his feelings had been unduly stirred that morning; he had grown sentimental, dreaming of pleasant things.... All this in a second. Then, he looked up. Why, it was true! It was Dick's face there, smiling in the doorway. Yes, it was Dick, it was Dick himself! Gilder sprang to his feet, his face suddenly grown younger, radiant.

"Dick!" The big voice was softened to exquisite tenderness.

As the eyes of the two met, the boy rushed forward, and in the next moment the hands of father and son clasped firmly. They were silent in the first emotion of their greeting. Presently, Gilder spoke, with an effort toward harshness in his voice to mask how much he was shaken. But the tones rang more kindly than any he had used for many a day, tremulous with affection.

"What brought you back?" he demanded.

Dick, too, had felt the tension of an emotion far beyond that of the usual things. He was forced to clear his throat before he answered with that assumption of nonchalance which he regarded as befitting the occasion.

"Why, I just wanted to come back home," he said; lightly. A sudden recollection came to give him poise in this time of emotional disturbance, and he added hastily: "And, for the love of heaven, give Sadie five dollars. I borrowed it from her to pay the taxi'. You see, Dad, I'm broke."

"Of course!" With the saying, Edward Gilder roared Gargantuan laughter. In the burst of merriment, his pent feelings found their vent. He was still chuckling when he spoke, sage from much experience of ocean travel. "Poker on the ship, I suppose."

The young man, too, smiled reminiscently as he answered:

"No, not that, though I did have a little run in at Monte Carlo. But it was the ship that finished me, at that. You see, Dad, they hired Captain Kidd and a bunch of pirates as stewards, and what they did to little Richard was something fierce. And yet, that wasn't the real trouble, either. The fact is, I just naturally went broke. Not a hard thing to do on the other side."

"Nor on this," the father interjected, dryly.

"Anyhow, it doesn't matter much," Dick replied, quite unabashed. "Tell me, Dad, how goes it?"

Gilder settled himself again in his chair, and gazed benignantly on his son.

"Pretty well," he said contentedly; "pretty well, son. I'm glad to see you home again, my boy." There was a great tenderness in the usually rather cold gray eyes.

The young man answered promptly, with delight in his manner of speech, and a sincerity that revealed the underlying merit of his nature.

"And I'm glad to be home, Dad, to be"--there was again that clearing of the throat, but he finished bravely--"with you."

The father avoided a threatening display of emotion by an abrupt change of subject to the trite.

"Have a good time?" he inquired casually, while fumbling with the papers on the desk.

Dick's face broke in a smile of reminiscent happiness.

"The time of my young life!" He paused, and the smile broadened. There was a mighty enthusiasm in his voice as he continued: "I tell you, Dad, it's a fact that I did almost break the bank at Monte Carlo. I'd have done it sure, if only my money had held out."

"It seems to me that I've heard something of the sort before," was Gilder's caustic comment. But his smile was still wholly sympathetic. He took a curious vicarious delight in the escapades of his son, probably because he himself had committed no follies in his callow days. "Why didn't you cable me?" he asked, puzzled at such restraint on the part of his son.

Dick answered with simple sincerity.

"Because it gave me a capital excuse for coming home."

It was Sarah who afforded a diversion. She had known Dick while he was yet a child, had bought him candy, had felt toward him a maternal liking that increased rather than diminished as he grew to manhood. Now, her face lighted at sight of him, and she smiled a welcome.

"I see you have found him," she said, with a ripple of laughter.

Dick welcomed this interruption of the graver mood.

"Sadie," he said, with a manner of the utmost seriousness, "you are looking finer than ever. And how thin you have grown!"

The girl, eager with fond fancies toward the slender ideal, accepted the compliment literally.

"Oh, Mr. Dick!" she exclaimed, rapturously. "How much do you think I have lost?"

The whimsical heir of the house of Gilder surveyed his victim critically, then spoke with judicial solemnity.

"About two ounces, Sadie."

There came a look of deep hurt on Sadie's face at the flippant jest, which Dick himself was quick to note.

He had not guessed she was thus acutely sensitive concerning her plumpness. Instantly, he was all contrition over his unwitting offense inflicted on her womanly vanity.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sadie," he exclaimed penitently. "Please don't be really angry with me. Of course, I didn't mean----"

"To twit on facts!" the secretary interrupted, bitterly.

"Pooh!" Dick cried, craftily. "You aren't plump enough to be sensitive about it. Why, you're just right." There was something very boyish about his manner, as he caught at the girl's arm. A memory of the days when she had cuddled him caused him to speak warmly, forgetting the presence of his father. "Now, don't be angry, Sadie. Just give me a little kiss, as you used to do." He swept her into his arms, and his lips met hers in a hearty caress. "There!" he cried. "Just to show there's no ill feeling."

The girl was completely mollified, though in much embarrassment.

"Why, Mr. Dick!" she stammered, in confusion. "Why, Mr. Dick!"

Gilder, who had watched the scene in great astonishment, now interposed to end it.

"Stop, Dick!" he commanded, crisply. "You are actually making Sarah blush. I think that's about enough, son."

But a sudden unaccustomed gust of affection swirled in the breast of the lad. Plain Anglo-Saxon as he was, with all that implies as to the avoidance of displays of emotion, nevertheless he had been for a long time in lands far from home, where the habits of impulsive and affectionate peoples were radically unlike our own austerer forms. So now, under the spur of an impulse suggested by the dalliance with the buxom secretary, he grinned widely and went to his father.

"A little kiss never hurts any one," he declared, blithely. Then he added vivaciously: "Here, I'll show you!"

With the words, he clasped his arms around his father's neck, and, before that amazed gentleman could understand his purpose, he had kissed soundly first the one cheek and then the other, each with a hearty, wholesome smack of filial piety. This done, he stood back, still beaming happily, while the astounded Sarah tittered bewilderedly. For his own part, Dick was quite unashamed. He loved his father. For once, he had expressed that fondness in a primitive fashion, and he was glad.

The older man withdrew a step, and there rested motionless, under the sway of an emotion akin to dismay. He stood staring intently at his son with a perplexity in his expression that was almost ludicrous. When, at last, he spoke, his voice was a rumble of strangely shy pleasure.

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, violently. Then he raised a hand, and rubbed first one cheek, and after it its fellow, with a gentleness that was significant. The feeling provoked by the embrace showed plainly in his next words. "Why, that's the first time you have kissed me, Dick, since you were a little boy. God bless my soul!" he repeated. And now there was a note of jubilation.

The son, somewhat disturbed by this emotion he had aroused, nevertheless answered frankly with the expression of his own feeling, as he advanced and laid a hand on his father's shoulder.

"The fact is, Dad," he said quietly, with a smile that was good to see, "I am awfully glad to see you again."

"Are you, son?" the father cried happily. Then, abruptly his manner changed, for he felt himself perilously close to the maudlin in this new yielding to sentimentality. Such kisses of tenderness, however agreeable in themselves, were hardly fitting to one of his dignity. "You clear out of here, boy," he commanded, brusquely. "I'm a working man. But here, wait a minute," he added. He brought forth from a pocket a neat sheaf of banknotes, which he held out. "There's carfare for you," he said with a chuckle. "And now clear out. I'll see you at dinner."

Dick bestowed the money in his pocket, and again turned toward the door.

"You can always get rid of me on the same terms," he remarked slyly. And then the young man gave evidence that he, too, had some of his father's ability in things financial. For, in the doorway he turned with a final speech, which was uttered in splendid disregard for the packet of money he had just received--perhaps, rather, in a splendid regard for it. "Oh, Dad, please don't forget to give Sadie that five dollars I borrowed from her for the taxi'." And with that impertinent reminder he was gone.

The owner of the store returned to his labors with a new zest, for the meeting with his son had put him in high spirits. Perhaps it might have been better for Mary Turner had she come to him just then, while he was yet in this softened mood. But fate had ordained that other events should restore him to his usual harder self before their interview. The effect was, indeed, presently accomplished by the advent of Smithson into the office. He entered with an expression of discomfiture on his rather vacuous countenance. He walked almost nimbly to the desk and spoke with evident distress, as his employer looked up interrogatively.

"McCracken has detained--er--a--lady, sir," he said, feebly. "She has been searched, and we have found about a hundred dollars worth of laces on her."

"Well?" Gilder demanded, impatiently. Such affairs were too common in the store to make necessary this intrusion of the matter on him. "Why did you come to me about it?" His staff knew just what to do with shoplifters.

At once, Smithson became apologetic, while refusing to retreat.

"I'm very sorry, sir," he said haltingly, "but I thought it wiser, sir, to--er--to bring the matter to your personal attention."

"Quite unnecessary, Smithson," Gilder returned, with asperity. "You know my views on the subject of property. Tell McCracken to have the thief arrested."

Smithson cleared his throat doubtfully, and in his stress of feeling he even relaxed a trifle that majestical erectness of carriage that had made him so valuable as a floor-walker.

"She's not exactly a--er--a thief," he ventured.

"You are trifling, Smithson," the owner of the store exclaimed, in high exasperation. "Not a thief! And you caught her with a hundred dollars worth of laces that she hadn't bought. Not a thief! What in heaven's name do you call her, then?"

"A kleptomaniac," Smithson explained, retaining his manner of mild insistence. "You see, sir, it's this way. The lady happens to be the wife of J. W. Gaskell, the banker, you know."

Yes, Gilder did know. The mention of the name was like a spell in the effect it wrought on the attitude of the irritated owner of the store. Instantly, his expression changed. While before his features had been set grimly, while his eyes had flashed wrathfully, there was now only annoyance over an event markedly unfortunate.

"How extremely awkward!" he cried; and there was a very real concern in his voice. He regarded Smithson kindly, whereat that rather puling gentleman once again assumed his martial bearing. "You were quite right in coming to me." For a moment he was silent, plunged in thought. Finally he spoke with the decisiveness characteristic of him. "Of course, there's nothing we can do. Just put the stuff back on the counter, and let her go."

But Smithson had not yet wholly unburdened himself. Instead of immediately leaving the room in pursuance of the succinct instructions given him, he again cleared his throat nervously, and made known a further aggravating factor in the situation.

"She's very angry, Mr. Gilder," he announced, timidly. "She--er--she demands an--er--an apology."

The owner of the store half-rose from his chair, then threw himself back with an exclamation of disgust. He again ejaculated the words with which he had greeted his son's unexpected kisses, but now there was a vast difference in the intonation.

"God bless my soul!" he cried. From his expression, it was clear that a pious aspiration was farthest from his thought. On the contrary! Again, he fell silent, considering the situation which Smithson had presented, and, as he reflected, his frown betrayed the emotion natural enough under the circumstances. At last, however, he mastered his irritation to some degree, and spoke his command briefly. "Well, Smithson, apologize to her. It can't be helped." Then his face lighted with a sardonic amusement. "And, Smithson," he went on with a sort of elephantine playfulness, "I shall take it as a personal favor if you will tactfully advise the lady that the goods at Altman and Stern's are really even finer than ours."

When Smithson had left the office, Gilder turned to his secretary.

"Take this," he directed, and he forthwith dictated the following letter to the husband of the lady who was not a thief, as Smithson had so painstakingly pointed out:

"J. W. GASKELL, ESQ.,

"Central National Bank, New York.

"MY DEAR Mr. GASKELL: I feel that I should be doing less than my duty as a man if I did not let you know at once that Mrs. Gaskell is in urgent need of medical attention. She came into our store to-day, and----"

He paused for a moment. "No, put it this way," he said finally:

"We found her wandering about our store to-day in a very nervous condition. In her excitement, she carried away about one hundred dollars' worth of rare laces. Not recognizing her, our store detective detained her for a short time. Fortunately for us all, Mrs. Gaskell was able to explain who she was, and she has just gone to her home. Hoping for Mrs. Gaskell's speedy recovery, and with all good wishes, I am,

"Yours very truly."

Yet, though he had completed the letter, Gilder did not at once take up another detail of his business. Instead, he remained plunged in thought, and now his frown was one of simple bewilderment. A number of minutes passed before he spoke, and then his words revealed distinctly what had been his train of meditation.

"Sadie," he said in a voice of entire sincerity, "I can't understand theft. It's a thing absolutely beyond my comprehension."

On the heels of this ingenuous declaration, Smithson entered the office, and that excellent gentleman appeared even more perturbed than before.

"What on earth is the matter now?" Gilder spluttered, suspiciously.

"It's Mrs. Gaskell still," Smithson replied in great trepidation. "She wants you personally, Mr. Gilder, to apologize to her. She says that the action taken against her is an outrage, and she is not satisfied with the apologies of all the rest of us. She says you must make one, too, and that the store detective must be discharged for intolerable insolence."

Gilder bounced up from his chair angrily.

"I'll be damned if I'll discharge McCracken," he vociferated, glaring on Smithson, who shrank visibly.

But that mild and meek man had a certain strength of pertinacity. Besides, in this case, he had been having multitudinous troubles of his own, which could be ended only by his employer's placating of the offended kleptomaniac.

"But about the apology, Mr. Gilder," he reminded, speaking very deferentially, yet with insistence.

Business instinct triumphed over the magnate's irritation, and his face cleared.

"Oh, I'll apologize," he said with a wry smile of discomfiture. "I'll make things even up a bit when I get an apology from Gaskell. I shrewdly suspect that that estimable gentleman is going to eat humble pie, of my baking, from his wife's recipe. And his will be an honest apology--which mine won't, not by a damned sight!" With the words, he left the room, in his wake a hugely relieved Smithson.

Alone in the office, Sarah neglected her work for a few minutes to brood over the startling contrast of events that had just forced itself on her attention. She was not a girl given to the analysis of either persons or things, but in this instance the movement of affairs had come close to her, and she was compelled to some depth of feeling by the two aspects of life on which to-day she looked. In the one case, as she knew it, a girl under the urge of poverty had stolen. That thief had been promptly arrested, finally she had been tried, had been convicted, had been sentenced to three years in prison. In the other case, a woman of wealth had stolen. There had been no punishment. A euphemism of kleptomania had been offered and accepted as sufficient excuse for her crime. A polite lie had been written to her husband, a banker of power in the city. To her, the proprietor of the store was even now apologizing in courteous phrases of regret.... And Mary Turner had been sentenced to three years in prison. Sadie shook her head in dolorous doubt, as she again bent over the keys of her typewriter. Certainly, some happenings in this world of ours did not seem quite fair. _

Read next: Chapter 5. The Victim Of The Law

Read previous: Chapter 3. Only Three Years

Table of content of Within the Law: From the Play of Bayard Veiller


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book