Read Ebook: Thirty by O Brien Howard Vincent Amick Robert Wesley Illustrator

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Ebook has 1988 lines and 71652 words, and 40 pages

"This is my brother. Anything that concerns me will concern him."

The stranger's demeanour was unruffled.

"I see. And I am very glad. What I have to say does concern your brother quite as much as it concerns yourself."

"Fire away!" interrupted Roger. Curiosity is by no means a distinctively feminine weakness.

The occupant of the shabby brown suit removed his almost equally brown straw hat and laid it on the grass.

"It's hot, isn't it," he smiled. It was difficult to resist that smile. Judith invited him to be seated. And although she herself remained standing, he accepted the invitation with alacrity. She marked that against him, although his next remark appeased her somewhat.

"It's a long walk up from the station," he said, carefully removing the abundant perspiration from his craggy forehead. "Pretty road, though," he added.

Judith was content to let him take his own time. But Roger was more impatient.

"You have something to say to us?"

"Yes," he admitted, "I have."

"Well...?"

Mr. Good looked from brother to sister. An expression of half-humorous dismay crossed his face, an expression which both of them caught, but neither understood. Then he drew a long breath and carefully folded his handkerchief. One long, lean forefinger shot out suddenly toward Judith, and the quizzical little smile vanished from his lips.

"You know, Miss Wynrod, of the terrible situation down in the Algoma mines. You know of the bloodshed, the pitched battles between strikers and mine-guards. And worst of all,"--With a rapid gesture, contrasting strongly with the languorous slowness of his movements before, he drew a folded newspaper from one of his bulging pockets--"You must have read this morning of the burning to death of twenty-two women and children--the families of the striking miners."

Judith had read the story. That is, she had glanced at the headlines, and realising the horror of their import, and at the same time feeling that there was no particular interest for her, had passed on to closer and less unpleasant interests. She remained silent before the tall stranger's accusing finger. Her curiosity was more piqued than ever. But Roger was angered.

"Well--and what of it?" he demanded with ill-concealed truculence.

The tall man turned his serious gaze on Roger.

"I suppose you are familiar with this terrible situation, too," he said, half interrogatively.

"Suppose I am. What of it. I say?" Roger knew nothing whatever about it, of course, and from the other man's sudden, half-veiled smile, it was perfectly obvious that he knew that he did not. He turned suddenly from Roger with a faint gesture of his long hand that seemed to sweep that young man totally out of the discussion.

Then Judith, offended, although Roger himself was hardly conscious of the rebuff, spoke for him.

"Yes," she said with deliberate coldness. "We know all about it. But what of it?"

"Simply this, Miss Wynrod," said Good crisply, and with a hint of hostility in his manner. "You are a large stockholder in several of the Algoma mines. The blood of those murdered miners is on your head--and those innocent women and children burned to death by your hirelings. Whether you know it or not, you have a responsibility for the situation, and I have come here to-day to find out what you are going to do about it all?"

"Do about it?" cried Judith, amazed by the suddenness of his attack. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

The stranger's mood softened and his voice became quieter.

Judith could have laughed aloud at the irony of the question which this uncouth stranger was putting to her. It was, almost to the words, the same question she had put to her brother not half an hour before. What did she think about things? Why were people suddenly so interested in what other people thought?

But the similarity was not apparent to Roger. The question caused him no introspection: only anger.

"What right have you to put such impudent questions to us, anyway," he demanded hotly. "Who the devil are you to intrude on us in this fashion? You'd best get out before I have you put out."

The tall man made no move to rise from his chair as Roger stood threateningly above him. He merely turned his hands up in a quaint gesture of deprecation.

"Newspaper!" sneered Roger. "Do you call that anarchist rag a newspaper?"

"Well, and what right has the public to come prying into our private affairs?" interrupted Roger again. "It's none of their business. This is supposed to be a free country. Why don't you give law-abiding private citizens a little freedom and privacy? You force your way in where you aren't wanted and insult us and then say it's because the public wants to know. What business is it of the public's what we do and what we think?"

The stranger smiled benignly.

"My dear young man," he said calmly, as he folded up his newspaper and fitted it into his pocket. "That's old, old stuff. You're 'way behind the times. That rode into the discard on the tumbrels of the Revolution. As an individual, nobody cares a rap about you. As the possessor of a great fortune, the public is very keenly interested in your lightest thought. But I'm not going to attempt to give you a lesson in elementary history. Your sister can, I am sure, do that for me."

He turned to her with the same galling indifference that had so offended Roger before. She could not but admire the assurance of his manner in the face of such open hostility.

"Miss Wynrod," he went on calmly, "I do hope you will talk to me frankly. Won't you tell me what you honestly think of your relations, first to this business at Algoma, and then ..."

"Don't say a word," interrupted Roger. "Remember the sheet he represents."

Judith did remember, and the recollection made her angry. She smarted still at the cartoons and denunciatory editorials in which she had so frequently been singled out for attack.

"Don't you think it's just a little curious, Mr. Good," she asked quietly, "that you should come to me in this way when you must know how your own paper has treated me?"

A pained expression crossed his eyes.

"It is a little queer," he admitted. "And honestly I don't like the roasts they give you any better than you do. But don't you see that in a way you're responsible for them? You never come back. You just hide. People don't know what you think. All they see is the results--what you do--or what they think you do ... and that amounts to the same thing, doesn't it? Now if you'd just discuss the Algoma situation, and give me some idea of what you think its causes are, and what part you think you ought to play in making things better, it'll go a long way toward making the public understand you better and sympathise with you. They think that life's a rose garden to you, you know. They never dream that you have troubles, too. You never tell them. All you show is the contented side of your life, the luxury, the pleasure, the idleness. Why not take them into your confidence?"

Of the shabby stranger's earnestness there could be no doubt. His long arms waved and the perspiration welled out on his cheeks as he strove to present his arguments. At intervals Roger sneered audibly, though Judith listened attentively. But when he paused for breath, she shook her head.

"I sympathise with your point of view," she said with an effort at finality. "But I have nothing to say."

But he refused to be put off. "But Miss Wynrod, can't you see what an opportunity I'm giving? Here's a chance for you to set yourself right with the people. They think you live for nothing but money. They think you could fix everything up into an imitation of Heaven if you only weren't greedy. Why don't you show them that you are doing all you can, that you're thinking about things, that you're not the heartless, selfish, narrow, stupid creature they think you are. This is an opportunity to make yourself loved instead of hated. Why, Miss Wynrod, if you'll make a statement, I'll bring the proofs to you to correct. I won't put a comma in that you don't want. Wouldn't that be better than to go back and write a story and say that when I asked you what you thought about the burning to death of twenty-two women and children in one of your own mines, by your own hirelings, you replied that you had nothing to say?"

Roger was speechless with wrath at this torrent of what he thought was abuse, failing to distinguish between the general and the specific. It was only by an effort of will that he restrained himself from laying violent hands on this threadbare creature with the eloquent tongue, who, it appeared to him, was deliberately insulting his sister. But Judith herself felt no rancour. Indeed she felt the magnetism of the reporter more strongly with each word, and it never occurred to impugn the sincerity of his outburst--nor its justice. Her face struggled painfully in an effort to be cold and impassive as she barely whispered again her refusal to speak.

Good studied her for a moment. Then he smiled, quite cheerfully. All his hot tensity vanished suddenly.

"I think I understand," he said quietly. "It isn't that you won't talk to me--but you can't. You can't tell me what you think about these things--because you haven't thought about them. But you're going to, Miss Wynrod, you're going to. Some day I shall come back, and then you will talk to me. Perhaps you will even ask me to come back."

Roger laughed at that, but Judith was silent. She had a curious and not at all pleasant sense that this curious, contradictory, talkative stranger, with his grotesque form and clothes, and bad manners, not to say impudence, knew her better than she knew herself. He was perfectly right. She tried to tell herself that her refusal to talk to him was dictated by a finely conscious dignity. But she knew very well that such was not the case. He had indeed spoken truly when he said that she could not talk because she had not thought. She had not. And she was not at all incredulous at his prophecy that she might one day call him back. She would think more about these matters--she had begun, perforce but none the less certainly, to think about them already.

The reporter, still studying her quizzically, and so intently as to make her consciously uncomfortable, rose slowly.

"I'm sorry, Miss Wynrod. I've had a wasted trip--and yet I haven't. You're beginning to think. Some day you will talk. Perhaps I shall be present. I am glad we have become friends--you, too, Mr. Wynrod. Good morning."

In spite of his awkwardness, his movements were rapid. It seemed almost like a fairy disappearance, so quickly was he out of sight behind the hedge. Only his dilapidated straw hat could be seen bobbing rhythmically out of view.

"Well, of all cranks," laughed Roger. "And the nerve of him. Did you hear his calm assumption that we have now become fast friends? Can you beat it?"

But Judith said: "It's a long road to the station. I should have sent the car." And then, suddenly feeling an unaccountable distaste for her brother's society, she went thoughtfully into the house.

In the hall she encountered Faxon, in search of her. He had to make the 10.46, and had none too much time to get to the station.

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