The Lost Road, etc.

R >> Richard Harding Davis >> The Lost Road, etc.

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Aintree laughed angrily.

"Drink has no hold on me," he protested. "It affects me as much as the
lights and the music affect a girl at her first dance, and no more. But,
if you ask me to stop--"

"I do not!" said the girl. "If you stop, you'll stop not because
I have any influence over you, but because you don't need my
influence. If it's wrong, if it's hurting you, if it's taking away
your usefulness and your power for good, that's why you'll stop.
Not because a girl begs you. Or you're not the man I think you."

Aintree retorted warmly. "I'm enough of a man for this," he
protested: "I'm enough of a man not to confess I can't drink
without making a beast of myself. It's easy not to drink at all.
But to stop altogether is a confession of weakness. I'd look on
my doing that as cowardly. I give you my word--not that I'll swear
off, that I'll never do--but I promise you you'll have no further
reason to be what you call humiliated, or ashamed. You have my
word for it."

A week later Aintree rode his pony into a railway cutting and
rolled with it to the tracks below, and, if at the time he had
not been extremely drunk, would have been killed. The pony,
being quite sober, broke a leg and was destroyed.

When word of this came to Helen she was too sick at heart to see
Aintree, and by others it was made known to him that on the first
steamer Miss Scott would return North. Aintree knew why she was
going, knew she had lost faith and patience, knew the woman he
loved had broken with him and put him out of her life. Appalled
at this calamity, he proceeded to get drunk in earnest.

The night was very hot and the humidity very heavy, and at Las
Palmas inside the bungalow that served as a police-station the
lamps on either side of the lieutenant's desk burned like tiny
furnaces. Between them, panting in the moist heat and with the
sweat from his forehead and hand dripping upon an otherwise
immaculate report, sat Standish. Two weeks before, the chief had
made him one of his six lieutenants. With the force the promotion
had been most popular.

Since his promotion Standish had been in charge of the police-
station at Las Palmas and daily had seen Aintree as, on his way
down the hill from the barracks to the railroad, the hero of
Batangas passed the door of the station-house. Also, on the
morning Aintree had jumped his horse over the embankment,
Standish had seen him carried up the hill on a stretcher. At the
sight the lieutenant of police had taken from his pocket a notebook,
and on a flyleaf made a cross. On the flyleaf were many other dates
and opposite each a cross. It was Aintree's record and as the number
of black crosses grew, the greater had grown the resentment of Standish,
the more greatly it had increased his anger against the man who had put
this affront upon the army, the greater became his desire to punish.

In police circles the night had been quiet, the cells in the yard
were empty, the telephone at his elbow had remained silent, and
Standish, alone in the station-house, had employed himself in
cramming "Moss's Manual for Subalterns." He found it a fascinating
exercise. The hope that soon he might himself be a subaltern
always burned brightly, and to be prepared seemed to make the
coming of that day more certain. It was ten o'clock and Las Palmas
lay sunk in slumber, and after the down train which was now due
had passed, there was nothing likely to disturb her slumber until
at sunrise the great army of dirt-diggers with shrieks of whistles,
with roars of dynamite, with the rumbling of dirt-trains and
steam-shovels, again sprang to the attack. Down the hill, a
hundred yards below Standish, the night train halted at the
station, with creakings and groanings continued toward Colon,
and again Las Palmas returned to sleep.

And, then, quickly and viciously, like the crack of a mule-whip,
came the reports of a pistol; and once more the hot and dripping
silence.

On post at the railroad-station, whence the shots came, was Meehan,
one of the Zone police, an ex-sergeant of marines. On top of the hill,
outside the infantry barracks, was another policeman, Bullard, once a
cowboy.

Standish ran to the veranda and heard the pebbles scattering as
Bullard leaped down the hill, and when, in the light from the
open door, he passed, the lieutenant shouted at him to find Meehan
and report back. Then the desk telephone rang, and Standish
returned to his chair.

"This is Meehan," said a voice. "Those shots just now were fired
by Major Aintree. He came down on the night train and jumped off
after the train was pulling out and stumbled into a negro, and
fell. He's been drinking and he swore the nigger pushed him; and
the man called Aintree a liar. Aintree pulled his gun and the
nigger ran. Aintree fired twice; then I got to him and knocked
the gun out of his hand with my nightstick."

There was a pause. Until he was sure his voice would be steady
and official, the boy lieutenant did not speak.

"Did he hit the negro?" he asked.

"I don't know," Meehan answered. "The man jumped for the darkest
spot he could find." The voice of Meehan lost its professional
calm and became personal and aggrieved.

"Aintree's on his way to see you now, lieutenant. He's going to
report me."

"For what?"

The voice over the telephone rose indignantly.

"For knocking the gun out of his hand. He says it's an assault.
He's going to break me!"

Standish made no comment.

"Report here," he ordered.

He heard Bullard hurrying up the hill and met him at the foot of
the steps.

"There's a nigger," began Bullard, "lying under some bushes--"

"Hush!" commanded Standish.

From the path below came the sound of footsteps approaching
unsteadily, and the voice of a man swearing and muttering to
himself. Standish pulled the ex-cowboy into the shadow of the
darkness and spoke in eager whispers.

"You understand," he concluded, "you will not report until you
see me pick up a cigar from the desk and light it. You will wait
out here in the darkness. When you see me light the cigar, you
will come in and report."

The cowboy policeman nodded, but without enthusiasm. "I
understand, lieutenant," he said, "but," he shook his head doubtfully,
"it sizes up to me like what those police up in New York call a
'frame-up.'"

Standish exclaimed impatiently.

"It's not my frame-up!" he said. "The man's framed himself up.
All I'm going to do is to nail him to the wall!"

Standish had only time to return to his desk when Aintree stumbled
up the path and into the station-house. He was "fighting drunk,"
ugly, offensive, all but incoherent with anger.

"You in charge?" he demanded. He did not wait for an answer.
"I've been 'saulted!" he shouted. "'Saulted by one of your damned
policemen. He struck me--struck me when I was protecting myself.
He had a nigger with him. First the nigger tripped me; then, when
I tried to protect myself, this thug of yours hits me, clubs me, you
unnerstan', clubs me! I want him--"

He was interrupted by the entrance of Meehan, who moved into the
light from the lamps and saluted his lieutenant.

"That's the man!" roared Aintree. The sight of Meehan whipped him
into greater fury.

"I want that man broke. I want to see you strip his shield off
him--now, you unnerstan', now--for 'saulting me, for 'saulting an
officer in the United States army. And, if you don't," he threw
himself into a position of the prize-ring, "I'll beat him up and
you, too." Through want of breath, he stopped, and panted. Again
his voice broke forth hysterically. "I'm not afraid of your damned
night-sticks," he taunted. "I got five hundred men on top this hill,
all I've got to do is to say the word, and they'll rough-house this
place and throw it into the cut--and you with it."

Standish rose to his feet, and across the desk looked steadily at
Aintree. To Aintree the steadiness of his eyes and the quietness
of his voice were an added aggravation.

"Suppose you did," said Standish, "that would not save you."

"From what?" roared Aintree. "Think I'm afraid of your night-
sticks?"

"From arrest!"

"Arrest me!" yelled Aintree. "Do you know who's talking to you?
Do you know who I am? I'm Major Aintree, damn you, commanding
the infantry. An' I'm here to charge that thug--"

"You are here because you are under arrest," said Standish. "You
are arrested for threatening the police, drunkenness, and assaulting
a citizen with intent to kill--" The voice of the young man turned shrill
and rasping. "And if the man should die--"

Aintree burst into a bellow of mocking laughter.

Standish struck the desk with his open palm.

"Silence!" he commanded.

"Silence to me!" roared Aintree, "you impertinent pup!" He flung
himself forward, shaking his fist. "I'm Major Aintree. I'm your
superior officer. I'm an officer an' a gentleman--"

"You are not!" replied Standish. "You are a drunken loafer!"

Aintree could not break the silence. Amazement, rage, stupefaction
held him in incredulous wonder. Even Meehan moved uneasily.
Between the officer commanding the infantry and an officer of
police, he feared the lieutenant would not survive.

But he heard the voice of his lieutenant continuing, evenly,
coldly, like the voice of a judge delivering sentence.

"You are a drunken loafer," repeated the boy. "And you know it.
And I mean that to-morrow morning every one on the Zone shall know
it. And I mean to-morrow night every one in the States shall know
it. You've killed a man, or tried to, and I'm going to break you."
With his arm he pointed to Meehan. "Break that man?" he demanded.
"For doing his duty, for trying to stop a murder? Strip him of his
shield?" The boy laughed savagely. "It's you I am going to strip,
Aintree," he cried, "you 'hero of Batangas'; I'm going to strip you
naked. I'm going to 'cut the buttons off your coat, and tear the stripes
away.' I'm going to degrade you and disgrace you, and drive you out
of the army!" He threw his note-book on the table. "There's your dossier,
Aintree," he said. "For three months you've been drunk, and there's your
record. The police got it for me; it's written there with dates and the names
of witnesses. I'll swear to it. I've been after you to get you, and I've got
you.
With that book, with what you did to-night, you'll leave the army. You
may resign, you may be court-martialled, you may be hung. I don't
give a damn what they do to you, but you will leave the army!"

He turned to Meehan, and with a jerk of the hand signified Aintree.

"Put him in a cell," he said. "If he resists--"

Aintree gave no sign of resisting. He stood motionless, his arms
hanging limp, his eyes protruding. The liquor had died in him, and
his anger had turned chill. He tried to moisten his lips to speak,
but his throat was baked, and no sound issued. He tried to focus
his eyes upon the menacing little figure behind the desk, but
between the two lamps it swayed, and shrank and swelled. Of one
thing only was he sure, that some grave disaster had overtaken
him, something that when he came fully to his senses still would
overwhelm him, something he could not conquer with his fists.
His brain, even befuddled as it was, told him he had been caught
by the heels, that he was in a trap, that smashing this boy who
threatened him could not set him free. He recognized, and it was
this knowledge that stirred him with alarm, that this was no
ordinary officer of justice, but a personal enemy, an avenging
spirit who, for some unknown reason, had spread a trap; who, for
some private purpose of revenge, would drag him down.

Frowning painfully, he waved Meehan from him.

"Wait," he commanded. "I don' unnerstan'. What good's it goin' to
do you to lock me up an' disgrace me? What harm have I done you?
Who asked you to run the army, anyway? Who are you?"

"My name is Standish," said the lieutenant. "My father was colonel
of the Thirty-third when you first joined it from the Academy."

Aintree exclaimed with surprise and enlightenment. He broke into
hurried speech, but Standish cut him short.

"And General Standish of the Mexican War," he continued, "was my
grandfather. Since Washington all my people have been officers of
the regular army, and I'd been one, too, if I'd been bright enough.
That's why I respect the army. That's why I'm going to throw you
out of it. You've done harm fifty men as good as you can't undo.
You've made drunkards of a whole battalion. You've taught boys
who looked up to you, as I looked up to you once, to laugh at
discipline, to make swine of themselves. You've set them an example.
I'm going to make an example of you. That's all there is to this. I've
got no grudge against you. I'm not vindictive; I'm sorry for you. But,"
he paused and pointed his hand at Aintree as though it held a gun,
"you are going to leave the army!"

Like a man coming out of an ugly dream, Aintree opened and shut
his eyes, shivered, and stretched his great muscles. They watched
him with an effort of the will force himself back to consciousness.
When again he spoke, his tone was sane.

"See here, Standish," he began, "I'll not beg of you or any man.
I only ask you to think what you're doing. This means my finish.
If you force this through to-night it means court-martial, it means
I lose my commission, I lose--lose things you know nothing about.
And, if I've got a record for drinking, I've got a record for other
things, too. Don't forget that!"

Standish shook his head. "I didn't forget it," he said.

"Well, suppose I did," demanded Aintree. "Suppose I did go on
the loose, just to pass the time, just because I'm sick of this damned
ditch? Is it fair to wipe out all that went before, for that? I'm the
youngest major in the army, I served in three campaigns, I'm a
medal-of-honor man, I've got a career ahead of me, and--and I'm
going to be married. If you give me a chance-"

Standish struck the table with his fist.

"I will give you a chance," he cried. "If you'll give your word to this
man and to me, that, so help you God, you'll never drink again--I'll
let you go."

If what Standish proposed had been something base, Aintree could
not have accepted it with more contempt.

"I'll see you in hell first," he said.

As though the interview was at an end, Standish dropped into his
chair and leaning forward, from the table picked up a cigar. As
he lit it, he motioned Meehan toward his prisoner, but before the
policeman could advance the sound of footsteps halted him.

Bullard, his eyes filled with concern, leaped up the steps, and
ran to the desk.

"Lieutenant!" he stammered, "that man--the nigger that officer
shot--he's dead!"

Aintree gave a gasp that was partly a groan, partly a cry of
protest, and Bullard, as though for the first time aware of his
presence, sprang back to the open door and placed himself between
it and Aintree.

"It's murder!" he said.

None of the three men spoke; and when Meehan crossed to where
Aintree stood, staring fearfully at nothing, he had only to touch
his sleeve, and Aintree, still staring, fell into step beside him.

From the yard outside Standish heard the iron door of the cell
swing shut, heard the key grate in the lock, and the footsteps of
Meehan returning.

Meehan laid the key upon the desk, and with Bullard stood at
attention, waiting.

"Give him time," whispered Standish. "Let it sink in!"

At the end of half an hour Standish heard Aintree calling, and,
with Meehan carrying a lantern, stepped into the yard and stopped
at the cell door.

Aintree was quite sober. His face was set and white, his voice
was dull with suffering. He stood erect, clasping the bars in his
hands.

"Standish," he said, "you gave me a chance a while ago, and I
refused it. I was rough about it. I'm sorry. It made me hot
because I thought you were forcing my hand, blackmailing me into
doing something I ought to do as a free agent. Now, I am a free
agent. You couldn't give me a chance now, you couldn't let me go
now, not if I swore on a thousand Bibles. I don't know what
they'll give me--Leavenworth for life, or hanging, or just dismissal.
But, you've got what you wanted--I'm leaving the army!" Between
the bars he stretched out his arms and held a hand toward Meehan
and Standish. In the same dull, numbed voice he continued.

"So, now," he went on, "that I've nothing to gain by it, I want
to swear to you and to this man here, that whether I hang, or go
to jail, or am turned loose, I will never, so help me God, take
another drink."

Standish was holding the hand of the man who once had been his
hero. He clutched it tight.

"Aintree," he cried, "suppose I could work a miracle; suppose I've
played a trick on you, to show you your danger, to show you what
might come to you any day--does that oath still stand?"

The hand that held his ground the bones together.

"I've given my word!" cried Aintree. "For the love of God, don't
torture me. Is the man alive?"

As Standish swung open the cell door, the hero of Batangas,
he who could thrash any man on the isthmus, crumpled up
like a child upon his shoulder.

And Meehan, as he ran for water, shouted joyfully.

"That nigger," he called to Bullard, "can go home now. The lieutenant
don't want him no more.
"

EVIL TO HIM WHO EVIL THINKS

As a rule, the instant the season closed Aline Proctor sailed on
the first steamer for London, where awaited her many friends,
both English and American--and to Paris, where she selected those
gowns that on and off the stage helped to make her famous. But
this particular summer she had spent with the Endicotts at Bar
Harbor, and it was at their house Herbert Nelson met her. After
Herbert met her very few other men enjoyed that privilege. This
was her wish as well as his.

They behaved disgracefully. Every morning after breakfast they
disappeared and spent the day at opposite ends of a canoe. She,
knowing nothing of a canoe, was happy in stabbing the waters with
her paddle while he told her how he loved her and at the same
time, with anxious eyes on his own paddle, skilfully frustrated
her efforts to drown them both. While the affair lasted it was
ideal and beautiful, but unfortunately it lasted only two months.

Then Lord Albany, temporarily in America as honorary attache to
the British embassy, his adoring glances, his accent, and the way
he brushed his hair, proved too much for the susceptible heart of
Aline, and she chucked Herbert and asked herself how a woman of
her age could have seriously considered marrying a youth just out
of Harvard! At that time she was a woman of nineteen; but, as she
had been before the public ever since she was eleven, the women
declared she was not a day under twenty-six; and the men knew she
could not possibly be over sixteen!

Aline's own idea of herself was that without some one in love
with her she could not exist--that, unless she knew some man cared
for her and for her alone, she would wither and die. As a matter
of fact, whether any one loved her or not did not in the least
interest her. There were several dozen men who could testify to
that. They knew! What she really wanted was to be head over ears
in love--to adore some one, to worship him, to imagine herself
starving for him and making sacrifice hits for him; but when the
moment came to make the sacrifice hit and marry the man, she
invariably found that a greater, truer love had arisen--for some
one else.

This greater and truer love always made her behave abominably to
the youth she had just jilted. She wasted no time on post-mortems.
She was so eager to show her absolute loyalty to the new monarch
that she grudged every thought she ever had given the one she had
cast into exile. She resented him bitterly. She could not forgive him
for having allowed her to be desperately in love with him. He should
have known he was not worthy of such a love as hers. He should have
known that the real prince was waiting only just round the corner.

As a rule the rejected ones behaved well. Each decided Aline was much
too wonderful a creature for him, and continued to love her cautiously
and from a distance. None of them ever spoke or thought ill of her and
would gladly have punched any one who did. It was only the women
whose young men Aline had temporarily confiscated, and then returned
saddened and chastened, who were spiteful. And they dared say no more
than that Aline would probably have known her mind better if she had
had a mother to look after her. This, coming to the ears of Aline,
caused her to reply that a girl who could not keep straight herself,
but needed a mother to help her, would not keep straight had she a
dozen mothers. As she put it cheerfully, a girl who goes wrong and
then pleads "no mother to guide her" is like a jockey who pulls a race
and then blames the horse.

Each of the young men Aline rejected married some one else and,
except when the name of Aline Proctor in the theatrical
advertisements or in electric lights on Broadway gave him a
start, forgot that for a month her name and his own had been
linked together from Portland to San Francisco. But the girl he
married did not forget. She never understood what the public saw
in Aline Proctor. That Aline was the queen of musical comedy she
attributed to the fact that Aline knew the right people and got
herself written about in the right way. But that she could sing,
dance, act; that she possessed compelling charm; that she "got
across" not only to the tired business man, the wine agent, the
college boy, but also to the children and the old ladies, was to
her never apparent.

Just as Aline could not forgive the rejected suitor for allowing
her to love him, so the girl he married never forgave Aline for
having loved her husband. Least of all could Sally Winthrop, who
two years after the summer at Bar Harbor married Herbert Nelson,
forgive her. And she let Herbert know it. Herbert was properly
in love with Sally Winthrop, but he liked to think that his
engagement to Aline, though brief and abruptly terminated, had
proved him to be a man fatally attractive to all women. And
though he was hypnotizing himself into believing that his feeling
for Aline had been the grand passion, the truth was that all that
kept her in his thoughts was his own vanity. He was not
discontented with his lot--his lot being Sally Winthrop, her
millions, and her estate of three hundred acres near Westbury.
Nor was he still longing for Aline. It was only that his vanity
was flattered by the recollection that one of the young women
most beloved by the public had once loved him.

"I once was a king in Babylon," he used to misquote to himself,
"and she was a Christian slave."

He was as young as that.

Had he been content in secret to assure himself that he once had
been a reigning monarch, his vanity would have harmed no one;
but, unfortunately, he possessed certain documentary evidence to
that fact. And he was sufficiently foolish not to wish to destroy
it. The evidence consisted of a dozen photographs he had snapped
of Aline during the happy days at Bar Harbor, and on which she
had written phrases somewhat exuberant and sentimental.

From these photographs Nelson was loath to part--especially with
one that showed Aline seated on a rock that ran into the waters of
the harbor, and on which she had written: "As long as this rock
lasts!" Each time she was in love Aline believed it would last.
That in the past it never had lasted did not discourage her.

What to do with these photographs that so vividly recalled the
most tumultuous period of his life Nelson could not decide. If he
hid them away and Sally found them, he knew she would make his
life miserable. If he died and Sally then found them, when he no
longer was able to explain that they meant nothing to him, she
would believe he always had loved the other woman, and it would
make her miserable. He felt he could not safely keep them in his
own house; his vanity did not permit him to burn them, and,
accordingly, he decided to unload them on some one else.

The young man to whom he confided his collection was Charles
Cochran. Cochran was a charming person from the West. He had
studied in the Beaux Arts and on foot had travelled over England
and Europe, preparing himself to try his fortune in New York as
an architect. He was now in the office of the architects Post &
Constant, and lived alone in a tiny farmhouse he had made over
for himself near Herbert Nelson, at Westbury, Long Island.

Post & Constant were a fashionable firm and were responsible for
many of the French chateaux and English country houses that were
rising near Westbury, Hempstead, and Roslyn; and it was Cochran's
duty to drive over that territory in his runabout, keep an eye on
the contractors, and dissuade clients from grafting mansard roofs
on Italian villas. He had built the summer home of the Herbert
Nelsons, and Herbert and Charles were very warm friends. Charles
was of the same lack of years as was Herbert, of an enthusiastic
and sentimental nature; and, like many other young men, the story
of his life also was the lovely and much-desired Aline Proctor.
It was this coincidence that had made them friends and that had
led Herbert to select Charles as the custodian of his treasure.
As a custodian and confidant Charles especially appealed to his
new friend, because, except upon the stage and in restaurants,
Charles had never seen Aline Proctor, did not know her--and
considered her so far above him, so unattainable, that he had no
wish to seek her out. Unknown, he preferred to worship at a
distance. In this determination Herbert strongly encouraged him.

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