He had no such foolish idea that he could change Maggie by exposing her. At best he would merely render her incapable5 of continuing this particular course; he would increase her bitterness and hostility6 to him. Anyhow, according to the remnants of his old code, that wouldn't be playing fair—particularly after her aiding his escape when he had been trapped.
Upon only one point was he clear, and on this he became more settled with every hour: whatever he did he must do with the idea of a fundamental awakening7 in Maggie. Merely to foil her in this one scheme would be to solve the lesser8 part of his problem; Maggie would be left unchanged, or if changed at all the change would be toward a greater hardness, and his major problem would be made more difficult of solution.
He considered many ways. He thought of seeing Maggie again, and once more appealing to her. That he vetoed, not because of the danger to himself, but because he knew Maggie would not see him; and if he again did break in upon her unexpectedly, in her obstinate9 pride she would heed10 nothing he said. He thought of seeing Barney and Old Jimmie and somehow so throwing the fear of God into that pair that they would withdraw Maggie from the present enterprise; but even if he succeeded in so hazardous11 an undertaking12, again Maggie would be left unchanged. He thought of showing Miss Sherwood the hidden portrait of Maggie, of telling her all and asking her aid; but this he also vetoed, for it seemed a betrayal of Maggie.
He kept going back to one plan: not a plan exactly, but the idea upon which the right plan might be based. If only he could adroitly13, with his hand remaining unseen, place Maggie in a situation where circumstances would appeal conqueringly to her best self, to her latent sense of honor—that was the idea! But cudgel his brain as he would, Larry could not just then develop a working plan whose foundation was that idea.
But even if Larry had had a brilliant plan it would hardly have been possible for him to have devoted14 himself to its execution, for two days after his visit to Maggie at the Grantham, the Sherwoods moved out to their summer place some forty miles from the city on the North Shore of Long Island; and Larry was so occupied with routine duties pertaining15 to this migration16 that at the moment he had time for little else. Cedar17 Crest18 was individual yet typical of the better class of Long Island summer residences. It was a long white building of many piazzas19 and many wings, set on a bluff20 looking over the Sound, with a broad stretch of silken lawn, and about it gardens in their June glory, and behind the house a couple of hundred acres of scrub pine.
On the following day, according to a plan that had been worked out between Larry and Miss Sherwood, Joe Ellison appeared at Cedar Crest and was given the assistant gardener's cottage which stood apart on the bluff some three hundred yards east of the house. He was a tall, slightly bent21, white-haired man, apparently22 once a man of physical strength and dominance of character and with the outer markings of a gentleman, but now seemingly a mere4 shadow of the forceful man of his prime. As a matter of fact, Joe Ellison had barely escaped that greatest of prison scourges23, tuberculosis24.
The roses were given over to his care. For a few brief years during the height of his prosperity he had owned a small place in New Jersey25 and during that period had seemingly been the country gentleman. Flowers had been his hobby; so that now he could have had no work which would have more suited him than this guardianship26 of the roses. For himself he desired no better thing than to spend what remained of his life in this sunlit privacy and communion with growing things.
He gripped Larry's hand when they were first alone in the little cottage. “Thanks, Larry; I'll not forget this,” he said. He said little else. He did not refer to his prison life, or what had gone before it. He had never asked Larry, even while in prison together, about Larry's previous activities and associates; and he asked no questions now. Apparently it was the desire of this silent man to have the bones of his own past remain buried, and to leave undisturbed the graves of others' mistakes.
A retiring, unobtrusive figure, he settled quickly to his work. He seemed content, even happy; and at times there was a far-away, exultant28 look in his gray eyes. Miss Sherwood caught this on several occasions; it puzzled her, and she spoke29 of it to Larry. Larry understood what lay behind Joe's bearing, and since the thing had never been told to him as a secret he retold that portion of Joe's history he had recited to the Duchess: of a child who had been brought up among honorable people, protected from the knowledge that her father was a convict—a child Joe never expected to see and did not even know how to find.
Joe Ellison became a figure that moved Miss Sherwood deeply: content to busy himself in his earthly obscurity, ever dreaming and gloating over his one great sustaining thought—that he had given his child the best chance which circumstances permitted; that he had removed himself from his child's life; that some unknown where out in the world his child was growing to maturity30 among clean, wholesome31 people; that he never expected to make himself known to his child. The situation also moved Larry profoundly whenever he looked at his old friend, merging32 into a kindly33 fellowship with the earth.
But while busy with new affairs at Cedar Crest, Larry was all the while thinking of Maggie, and particularly of his own dilemma regarding Maggie and Dick. But the right plan still refused to take form in his brain. However, one important detail occurred to him which required immediate34 attention. If his procedure in regard to Hunt's pictures succeeded in drawing the painter from his hermitage, nothing was more likely than that Hunt unexpectedly would happen upon Maggie in the company of Dick Sherwood. That might be a catastrophe35 to Larry's unformed plan; it had to be forestalled36 if possible. Such a matter could not be handled in a letter, with the police opening all mail coming to the Duchess's house. So once more he decided37 upon a secret visit to the Duchess's house. He figured that such a visit would be comparatively without risk, since the police and Barney Palmer and the gangsters38 Barney had put upon his trail all still believed him somewhere in the West.
Accordingly, a few nights after they had settled at Cedar Crest, he motored into New York in a roadster Miss Sherwood had placed at his disposal, and after the necessary precautions he entered Hunt's studio. The room was dismantled39, and Hunt sat among his packed belongings40 smoking his pipe.
“Well, young fellow,” growled41 Hunt after they had shaken hands, “you see you've driven me from my happy home.”
“Then Mr. Graham has been to see you?”
“Yes. And he put up to me your suggestion about a private exhibition. And I fell for it. And I've got to go back among the people I used to know. And wear good clothes and put on a set of standardized42 good manners. Hell!”
“You don't like it?”
“I suppose, if the exhibition is a go, I'll like grinning at the bunch that thought I couldn't paint. You bet I'll like that! You, young fellow—I suppose you're here to gloat over me and to try to collect your five thousand.”
“I never gloat over doing such an easy job as that was. And I'm not here to collect my bet. As far as money is concerned, I'm here to give you some.” And he handed Hunt the check made out to “cash” which Mr. Graham had sent him for the Italian mother.
“Better keep that on account of what I owe you,” advised Hunt.
“I'd rather you'd hold it for me. And better still, I'd rather call the bet off in favor of a new bargain.”
“What's the new proposition for swindling me?”
“You need a business nursemaid. What commission do you pay dealers43?”
“Been paying those burglars forty per cent.”
“That's too much for doing nothing. Here's my proposition. Give me ten per cent to act as your personal agent, and I'll guarantee that your total percentage for commissions will be less than at present, and that your prices will be doubled. Of course I can't do much while the police and others are so darned interested in me, so if you accept we'll just date the agreement from the time I'm cleared.”
“You're on, son—and we'll just date the agreement from the present moment, A.D.” Again Hunt gripped Larry's hand. “You're all to the good, Larry—and I'm not giving you half enough.”
That provided Larry with the opening he had desired. “You can make it up to me.”
“How?”
“By helping44 me out with a proposition of my own. To come straight to the point, it's Maggie.”
“Maggie?”
“I guess you know how I feel there. She's got a wrong set of ideas, and she's fixed45 in them—and you know how high-spirited she is. She's out in the world now, trying to put something crooked46 over which she thinks is big. I know what it is. I want to stop her, and change her. That's my big aim—to change her. The only way I can at this moment stop what she is now doing is by exposing her. And mighty47 few people with a wrong twist are ever set right by merely being exposed.”
“I guess you're right there, Larry.”
“What I want is a chance to try another method on Maggie. If she's handled right I think she may turn out a very different person from what she seems to be—something that may surprise both of us.”
Hunt nodded. “That was why I painted her picture. Since I first saw her I've been interested in how she was going to come out. She might become anything. But where do I fit in?”
“She's flying in high company. It occurred to me that, when you got back to your own world, you might meet her, and in your surprise you might speak to her in a manner which would be equivalent in its effect to an intentional48 exposure. I wanted to put you on your guard and to ask you to treat her as a stranger.”
“That's promised. I won't know her.”
“Don't promise till you know the rest.”
“What else is there to know?”
“Who the sucker is they're trying to trim.” Larry regarded the other steadily49. “You know him. He's Dick Sherwood.”
“Dick Sherwood!” exploded Hunt. “Are you sure about that?”
“I was with Maggie the other night when Dick came to have supper with her; he didn't see me. Besides, Dick has told me about her.”
“How did they ever get hold of Dick?”
“Dick's the easiest kind of fish for two such smooth men as Barney and Old Jimmie when they've got a clever, good-looking girl as bait, and when they know how to use her. He's generous, easily impressed, thinks he is a wise man of the world and is really very gullible50.”
“Have they got him hooked?”
“Hard and fast. It won't be his fault if they don't land him.”
The painter gazed at Larry with a hard look. Then he demanded abruptly51:
“Show Miss Sherwood that picture of Maggie I painted?”
“No. I had my reasons.”
“What you going to do with it?”
“Keep it, and pay you your top price for it when I've got the money.”
“H'm! Told Miss Sherwood what's doing about Dick?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I thought of doing it, then I decided against it. For the same reason I just gave you—that it might lead to exposure, and that exposure would defeat my plans.”
“You seem to be forgetting that your plan leaves Dick in danger. Dick deserves some consideration.”
“And I'm giving it to him,” argued Larry. “I'm thinking of him as much as of Maggie. Or almost as much. His sister and friends have pulled him out of a lot of scrapes. He's not a bit wiser or better for that kind of help. And it's not going to do him any good whatever to have some one step in and take care of him again. He's been a good friend to me, but he's a dear fool. I want to handle this so he'll get a jolt52 that will waken him up—make him take his responsibilities more seriously—make him able to take care of himself.”
“Huh!” grunted53 Hunt. “You've certainly picked out a few man-sized jobs for yourself: to make a success of the straight life for yourself—to come out ahead of the police and your old pals—to make Maggie love the Ten Commandments—to put me across—to make Dick into a level-headed citizen. Any other little item you'd like to take on?”
Larry ignored the irony54 of the question. “Some of those things I'm going to do,” he said confidently. “And any I see I'm going to fail in, I'll get warning to the people involved. But to come back to your promise: are you willing to give your promise now that you know all the facts?”
Hunt pulled for a long moment at his pipe. Then he said almost gruffly:
“I guess you've guessed that Isabel Sherwood is about the most important person in the world to me?”
That was the nearest Hunt had ever come to telling that he loved Miss Sherwood. Larry nodded.
“I'm in bad there already. Suppose your foot slips and everything about Dick goes wrong. What'll be my situation when she learns I've known all along and have just stood by quietly and let things happen? See what I'll be letting myself in for?”
“I do,” said Larry, his spirits sinking. “And of course I can understand your decision not to give your promise.”
“Who said I wouldn't give my promise?” demanded Hunt. “Of course I give my promise! All I said was that the weather bureau of my bad toe predicts that there's likely to be a storm because of this—and I want you to use your brain, son, I want you to use your brain!”
He upreared his big, shag-haired figure and gripped Larry's hand. “You're all right, Larry—and here's wishing you luck! Now get to hell out of here before Gavegan and Casey drop in for a cup of tea, or your old friends begin target practice with their hip27 artillery55. I want a little quiet in which to finish my packing.
“And say, son,” he added, as he pushed Larry through the door, “don't fall dead at the sight of me when you see me next, for I'm likely to be walking around inside all the finery and vanity of Fifth Avenue.”
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1
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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balk
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| n.大方木料；v.妨碍；不愿前进或从事某事 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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7
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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adroitly
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| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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15
pertaining
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| 与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to) | |
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migration
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| n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙 | |
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cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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piazzas
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| n.广场，市场( piazza的名词复数 ) | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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scourges
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| 带来灾难的人或东西，祸害( scourge的名词复数 )； 鞭子 | |
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tuberculosis
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| n.结核病，肺结核 | |
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jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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guardianship
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| n. 监护, 保护, 守护 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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30
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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merging
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| 合并（分类） | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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forestalled
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| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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gangsters
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| 匪徒，歹徒( gangster的名词复数 ) | |
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dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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41
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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42
standardized
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| adj.标准化的 | |
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dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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45
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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46
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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48
intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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49
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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50
gullible
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| adj.易受骗的；轻信的 | |
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51
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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52
jolt
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| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
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53
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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54
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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55
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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