“But he must be cautious, for these men have power. He need not be afraid of them, but he must watch carefully. You tell him that they want to make out bad things about him so that they can print them in the papers and hurt the cause he is working for. Can you remember?”
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle! I never forget anything what may be for his good. I will tell him.”
She hesitated for a long time and stared wistfully at the old man. She started to go away and then returned to the fence, plainly mustering her courage.
“Do you know whether there is anything--about him--which wicked men can use to hurt him?” she stammered.
“I only know about him what I know, ma'm'selle,” he replied, with a gentle smile nestling in the wrinkles of his withered face.
“Could you tell me some of the things you know?” she asked, after much effort, striving to make her voice calmly inquiring.
Old Etienne set the rake and the pike-pole against the fence. “I will be quick in what I tell you, ma'm'selle, for I have no place to ask you to take the seat. But I'm sure you will listen very well to this what I say.”
And he told her the story of Rosemarie.
But he did not go back as far as the pitiful figure on the canal bank, he made no mention of the water-soaked wad of paper which bore a mother's appeal to the world, he did not mention the key to Block Ten. He told the story of Walker Farr's devotion to a child. He did not dare to reveal to this stranger the identity of that child, because the telltale letter had been hidden from the coroner, and old Etienne stood in awe of the curt and domineering men who enforced the laws. But with simple earnestness and in halting speech he revealed the tenderness of Farr's nature and gave further testimony to her woman's understanding that this man who had come into her life possessed depths which she longed to probe.
“But the child!” she ventured, after Etienne had finished the story of how the two of them, voices in the wilderness of careless greed, had faced the masters of the city in the _hotel de ville_; “it seems strange that a man--that anybody should take a child and--” She hesitated.
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle, it seemed strange,” agreed the old man, studying her with sharp glance of suspicion--a gaze so strange that she shifted her eyes uneasily.
Ah, Etienne told himself, the law sometimes sent queer emissaries to probe for it--and he feared the law very much.
He must be very careful how he told any of the secrets which might trouble his good friend, who was now such a friend of the mighty folks; as for himself--well, he would willingly be a martyr if the law demanded--but he did fear that law!
“But he loved the child very much,” she hinted.
“So much that he will fight them because they have poisoned her--he will fight them and not be scare.”
“It is strange!” she repeated.
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle,” he said, regarding her with still more suspicion.
“But before that morning--when you found them here under the tree! He told you--”
“He walk the street with her in his arm. I don't tell you some more about dat t'ing what I do not know!”
But she knew that he was withholding something from her. She mustered her courage.
“Mr. Provancher, the bad men are making threats that they will print stories about the child--and its mamma--to hurt your friend. And the stories will make the mamma very sad.”
“No stories can make her sad,” said old Etienne, solemnly. But he did not say that he had raked the mother from the canal. The law must not know!
“But I have heard about her,” she insisted.
The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. “What you hear?” he faltered.
“Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the grave.”
“_Oui_,” admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this opportunity. “She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma.”
“And her name is Zelie Dionne?” she asked, her face growing white in the dusk.
“_Oui_, ma'm'selle--she live across in the little house where there are plant in the window--she live with the good Mother Maillet what I told you about.” He pointed to the cottage. “You go some time and talk with her--but not now,” he added, his fears flaming. He was anxious to be the first to talk to Zelie Dionne, in order that she might help him to protect their friend. “You shall talk with her--soon--p'raps. I will tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie.”
She bowed and hurried away.
And before her tear-wet eyes the words “play-mamma” danced in letters of fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.
But she remembered the face of Walker Farr, and in her heart she wondered why she still refused to condemn him.
XXVI
THE DRIVEN BARGAIN
The Honorable Daniel Breed, “sipping” his thin lips and propping his coat-tails on his gaunt fingers, patrolled the lobby of the National Hotel and his complacency was not a whit disturbed when Richard Dodd passed in front of him and sneered in his face.
“Keep on practising making up faces,” advised the old man, amiably. “Perhaps in the course of time your uncle will give you a job making up faces as his understudy, seeing that his physog is getting so tough he can't manage it very well these days.”
Young Dodd whirled on his heel and returned. “We've got a line on you and your amateur angels, Breed.”
“Don't consider me an amateur, do you?” asked the old politician, smacking his lips complacently.
“You're a has-been.”
“Sure thing!” agreed Mr. Breed. “The state committee told me so, and the state committee never made a mistake.”
“We've got so much of a line on your crowd that my uncle has called off the organizers. There's no need of our wasting money in this campaign. You're that!” He clacked a finger smartly into his palm.
“Oh yes! You're right! Some snap to us.”
“I mean you're nothing.”
“Run in and take another drink, sonny,” advised Breed, giving slow cant of his head to denote the baize door through which Dodd had emerged. “What you have had up to date seems to be making you optimistic--and there's nothing like being optimistic in politics. I'm always optimistic--but naturally so. Don't need torching!”
“Look here, Breed, we've got enough dope on that ex-hobo who is doing your errand-boy work--we know enough about him to kill your whole sorehead proposition. But I don't believe my uncle will even use it. No need of it.”
“Probably not,” said Mr. Breed, without resentment. “And I wouldn't if I were he.”
“We won't descend to it. Now that we have got rid of a lot of old battle-axes of politicians--and I'm calling no names--we can conduct a campaign with dignity.”
“So do! So do! And it will save a lot of trouble, son; that's why the newspapers wouldn't print that stuff about Mr. Farr after your uncle got it ready. Libel cases make a lot of trouble.”
Dodd grew red and scowled. “Look here, Breed, you're licked before the start, and as a good politician you know you are. My uncle wants you to drop in and see him. He told me to tell you so. This is no official order, you understand. Just drop in informally, and he'll probably have something interesting to say to you.”
“I'm terribly rushed up--shall be till after convention,” averred Mr. Breed, piercing the end of a cigar with a peg he had whittled from a match.
“What's the good of your being a fool any longer?”
“Always have been, so I've found out from that state committee who never told a lie--and it's comfortable to keep on being one,” he said, with great serenity.
“You don't think for a minute that you are going to get control of the next legislature, do you?”
“How much money have you got--your own money, I mean?” inquired Mr. Breed, guilelessly, his eyes centered carefully on the lighted tip of his cigar.
“Say--you--you--What do you mean by that?” rasped Dodd, putting the cracker of a good round oath on the question.
“I meant that I wanted to bet something--and I wouldn't want you to go out and borrow money--or--or--anything else.” From the cavernous depths where his eyes were set Mr. Breed turned a slow and solemn stare on the enraged chief clerk of the state treasury.
“What do you want to bet?”
“Any amount in reason that after the first of next January there'll be a fresh deal in the way of state officers in every department in the Capitol. Arguing futures don't get you anywhere, son. If you've got money to back that opinion you just gave me it will express your notions without any more talk. But don't go borrow--or--or anything else.”
Dodd stared at the shrewd old political manipulator for a long time.
“You have money to bet, have you?” he asked.
Mr. Breed languidly drew forth a wallet which would make a valise for some men and carelessly displayed a thick packet of bills.
“There it is,” he said, “and I earned it myself and so I ain't poking it down any rat-hole without being condemned sure that I'll be able to pull it all back again with just as much more sticking to it. That wouldn't be sooavable--and from what you know of me I'm always sooavable.”
Dodd looked at the bills, carefully straightened in their packet, and giving every evidence of having been hoarded with an old man's caution.