Show the man nobody knew by HOLWORTHY HALL copyright by doald atad ft co inc CHAPTER X continued II 11 tin sorry business worries hy ln a way yes the doctor achieved a perfect circlet and beald at 11 something else A good deal else said ab tr acted bat no reason for me to bother you with it I 1 dlan t know it was so apparent silence its not my habit said the doctor presently to offer any advice unless im asked for it gratuitous advice never did anybody any good and nobody takes it unless it costs some thing and not often then and im neither your regular physician ator your confessor but if I 1 bad mo la a diagnosis at this present alnut id say that you need a preacher a reat deal more than you do a 1 I I 1 do said julard JT lard look ing up sharply only its out of the question just personal things doctor nothing I 1 can ery well talk about your trouble said doctor durant physical as much as it Is spar igual its nothing but taut nerves it s nothing but your struggle against the restraints you put upon yourself now do I 1 know you ve told me so very time lie seen you its in your ilace my boy its in your eyes con Bt antly and it looks as though the conference Is about over because if that carol coming up the steps my ears arent halt as good as they used to be both men were on their feet as she came in swirling obi she cried to milliard 1 I know you were coming up to light 1 suppose I 1 d missed you I 1 he merely smiled and made no an nor did he speak to her until after the doctor protesting a sudden desire for solitude had waved them hospitably out of the study into the living room carol was in the old fa comer of the sofa Hlll lard was by the fireplace peering flown into the empty grate he coughed harshly and an expression of utter hopelessness crept into his aies lie turned abruptly well he said just how much would you have cared it you had there was a stately old lamp stand ing at height behind the sofa its were gracious and its light as it crept through a shade of painted vellum touched carol softly in a delicacy of radiance which was bitely caressing her hands were lying ale in her lap she bent her head and viewed them studiously why I 1 should have cared a great deal she said im always disappointed when I 1 miss seeing a friend of mine what makes you so pessimistic all of a sudden fillhard reddened and his eyes grew brighter friendship I 1 he said tardily what an sort of thing that Is I 1 why mr her tone was at the same time interrogatory and reproachful ful oh fm not speaking of you he eald only of the tiling itself its big or little close or distant and it anything to say about it you 11 have to excuse me I 1 was thinking out loud dol she said you were on the way to be interesting think oot loud some more glanced sharply at her dont laugh at mel he said almost roughly for heavens sake dont you know that the one time you laugh at a man Is when he deserves deo erves it mr carols attitude was vaguely less suggestive of baw I 1 laughing at you she said truly but what you said was so so OD yes Hlll lard s accent was atry fiat 1 I suppose it was it must hae been I 1 always seem to be more or leis up in the air when I 1 come to se you don t I 1 the last time we talked about friendship bot that was at least a month ago she fluid hastily and in the meantime youve been just as nice and cheerful as anybody I 1 thought you were nil over your troubles cheerfulness what you asked for hill lard swallowed hard 1 I I 1 came up here miss du rant to have a really serious talk with you really serious its been delayed loo long already it took me two solid days to get my courage up to it and and now I 1 m here I 1 dont even know how to begin he scowled heavily into the vacant fireplace and held out his palms with a mechanic gesture as though to warm them at an imaginary blaze you know be said absently your father Is a ery extraordinary man very the compliment to the doctor had its invariable effect upon her she glowed under it I 1 ve always known that I 1 m glad you realize it too he stood erect and faced her 1 I ilo it came to me when I 1 was to him what a great privilege A roust be for you to have his advice big sympathy when you need it and there are so few so in credibly few people who malae you feel like that one in a thousand or one in en thousand people who lift you clear of your trivial little self and make you think in terms of pran caplea and not of your own selfish ideas and still dont preach it be a privilege it afat only for me she said he has enough sympathy for anyone who asks for it he very worldly oue noticed that lie can t believe that anybody ani body or anything Is really bad and perhaps why people come to him BO of course it may be that just because hes my fa ther I 1 so hilleard HIll lard shook alg head I 1 ve seen a good many fathers and next to mine my own was a wonderful man too but I 1 never appreciated precia ted bilm and seeing the doctor has made me wish oh it a too childish to talk about I 1 if ou were really as old as you try to be she said gently know eliat it ever childish to be serious about such things as that on the contrary and yet there was a time when you wanted me to think you were well ocr thirty why mr Hlll lard youie a boyl nevertheless she regarded him not as one would regard a mere youth but with appreciably more uncertainty had flushed warmly that was when I 1 wanted you to think a good many things that true about yon her inflection was an invitation to further confidences and it drew incontinently along the edth he had planned and feared to take some of them he admitted and soiree were about you the tact Is I 1 ive come on a peculiar errand he cleared hla throat violently his eyes suddenly adored her ive come to straighten all that out please dont imagine ive suddenly gone crazy or or anything and please dont take anything I 1 say tonight to mean weakness because honestly ive thought about this so much that its rather disintegrated me but ive got to tell you some things I 1 dont want to ills shoulders squared in resolution and at the look of pain in his ees of pain and despair her whole womanliness went out to him and had to be crushed because she was after all a woman her look to him was first of astonishment at bis surrender and after that of swift ineffable pity for the unnamed forces which were influencing him womanliness hung in the balance and then in a flash of perfect comprehension of his plight she knew that she could speak to him without reserve he had passed beyond the bounds of conventionality she put herself mentally at his side if it hurts you to say it she said ive cnown youve been fond of me how could I 1 help it and why you have the right to think of it why you have the right to be yourself why t you have the right to talk to me and to expect me to hear you and try to understand you haven t thought that my father Is the only one of us to do that have you the reproof was exquisite ever since that day the time you played to me he said ive fought against it fought like the very devil and ive known that too and youve come to see me eo seldom id hoped at least that give yourself the chance yon said you wanted he stiffened heroically you forget there waa a condition an imperative condition and its only fair to you to tell you that ats a condition I 1 cant ever meet ever why im here I 1 had to tell you there waa a profound stillness cant you explain phe said at laal 1 I wish you would youre mak ing me feel very bad mr lou owe it to me lie had to exert bis utmost will to make the beginning all I 1 can explain Is that ive made another mis take after the first great effort the words came tumbling passionately unchecked it would have been so infinitely belter for both of us it I 1 d never met you at all my life has been a whole series of mistakes this Is the worst the worst i of course it would be absurdly alm pie if I 1 were going away from syracuse it t were going to leave you here and go but I 1 m not I 1 m going to stay here and I 1 cant think its decent not to tell you now that if you knew all I 1 know what ive been what le done you wouldn t marry me if J were the last man left to ask you I 1 he gestured am pat leally were childishly hopeful all of us hoping for what we know Is impossible what we know always will be impossible I 1 ve been like that and what I 1 hoped was that you could take me on the basis of what ive been for the last few months since july because the way I 1 take myself just a man a man like jack armstrong I 1 hoped we could simply eliminate the past and I 1 cant gei away from it its on my heels every minute its what I 1 am now but it I 1 went much further back than that you and the doctor would both think just what I 1 do about mi self and id have to say goodby to you anyway just as I 1 m doing tonight I 1 hope you can see that I 1 m not telling all this to you from any other motive except to be quite honest with you quite honest tor once I 1 care too much about you to let you live another day without knowing that I 1 cant go on its over im not fit to be even your friend all she sat motionless millard had turned back to the fireplace were you as bad as that she whispered once he said bitterly over his shoulder 1 I used to be a gentleman but that was n long time ago she raised her head nothing could ever make me believe she said that you haven t always been just as ive known you since july nothing can and nothing will what you may think about yourself makes no differ ence to me I 1 dont I 1 he said and his tone was agonized dont you see I 1 dont believe you she said steadily voice was unstable with his great bitterness of failure you flatter me he said harshly and besides youre wrong she was up end beside him smiling bravely into his eyes and he was flog gang his will to keep his hungry arms from snatching her from sweeping her close io him and what do you think women are she demanded with sweet imperious ness nothing but marble statues or putty ones just made to stand around and let the world go past without having anything to say about it he retreated to the wall in self defense dont I 1 doltl im the one chos driven myself into tah corner not you 1 but you don t have to stay in it always do you he stared at her in mystification don t be silly she said and don t be unreasonable im not I 1 she touched his sleeve his expression was unchanged dont make me think you are unreasonable I 1 she said compas slona tely it youre not satisfied why cant you make yourself what you want to be instead of brooding over the past that you cant help why don t you think about things you can help living Is about all there Is to live tor it he drew in his breath perilously but im letting you go he said dazed she stamped her foot la tremulous severity no youre not I 1 wont allow it I 1 cant you see why do I 1 have to tell you that well because I 1 want you for a friend even it you dont want me want youl he cried and remembered himself and froze to immobility oh as a friend I 1 surely as a friend what else did you think I 1 meant the young man shook his head I 1 dont know only I 1 came up here to tell you I 1 any right to your friendship I 1 cant tell you why I 1 haven t as much callousness as all that but it I 1 did tell you your abbt atom of faith in roe would be gone and you cant afford to have me even tor a friend now that ive said that can you yes she said steadfastly 1 I can afford it when when ive told you his alpa were parted in his eyes roved dully 1 I can t under im telling you im not worth the powder to blow me to hades lie laughed oddly proved already over and over again dont you understand carol ills voice broke why carol I 1 m not fit to talk to i co proved too im proving it now I 1 I 1 m saying it dont you hear me tm saying it now and you he put his hand to bis forehead and brushed back his hair which was strangely wet 1 I cant make it any plainer he said with helpless finality no matter weats happened she said earnestly 1 I cant believe it coming out all right go if just keep on living and working and trying and here her ees were so appealing that his own dimmed to behold them and you been so ery dreadful after all have you Hlll lard retreated once again not trusting those hungry lawless arms of his im just wondering he said with n terrible smile which was entirely devoid of mirth it a man happens to doltl doltl be in a a sort of transition period you know halfway between I 1 wonder coming to him I 1 wonder what Is coming to him I 1 wonder if the whirlwind get him both ways after the street door had closed be hind him carol went slowly along the corridor to the doctors study and knocked out of sheer habit his pleasant baritone came to her reassuringly yes are you busy dear few men on hearing her voice with that suggestive catch in it would have confessed to a previous engagement not when youre around said the doctor appearing on the threshold his tone altered suddenly wrong he said daddy said carol hes gone you saw him too what Is it what Is it she was trembling violently the big doctor gathered her up in his arms without ceremony and carried her over to his favorite leather chair fires burning said doctor du rant quietly burning and burning and burning like tha ones youve seen down in the blast furnaces hot and crucible steel comes out of them strong enough to make permanent things out of he smoothed her hair and she sighed and lay still and the steel lasts ten thousand times as long as the fires that made it I 1 dont know blowing the flames dear but he 11 do he it do CHAPTER XI halfway down james street hll hard driving his runabout in utter als regard of the traffic rules was reliving moment by moment and word by word the conversations of the earlier evening he had gone to carol with the sturdy intention of betraying himself manfully and in datnall but in the doctors study he had perce ved an other and what seemed to him a more unselfish method of achieving the same end he had fancied that if he could preserve intact the memory of dicky morgan if he could prevent the world and especially that part of it personal to the cullens and durants from knowing what a despicable thing it was that dick morgan had done he could save a modicum of pain tor those who would otherwise be most affected this conception had inter to make his talk with carol somewhat aimless he had been under the dual necessity of damn ing billiard without implicating morgan and how bunglingly he bad accomplished complis hed how inefficiently how unsuccessfully I 1 on impulse he checked the speed of the car and swerved to the left he was actuated by a sudden desire to run over to the university club and see armstrong ho bad no definite plan as to what he should say or do he coved to meet his rival ance to face and leave it out with him man to man and this time there should be no bungling mr armstrong it seiad se iad was in the library and would conic down directly indeed he followed almost on the heels of the messenger why hello Hlll lard he bild rather stiltedly did you want to see me that s too bad I 1 ve got to leave liere in just a couple of seconds to catch my train I 1 m going west tonight III tale you over said shortly that 11 save you a minute or two and ghe us almo to chat my cars outside why under the circumstances armstrongs glance was diverted 1 I dont think I 1 can let you do that take me over I 1 mean im going west on a business trip and I 1 don t it would be ery appropriate for you to oh you are billiard felt streaks of ice coursing along his spine how tar west armstrong consulted his watch nervously Hlll lard he said 1 I like to do things out in the open there are just two reasons why I 1 dont think you really want to invite me to ride down to alie station with you if I 1 m wrong its up to you to say so one of cm Is that bufus W arang has asked me to stop off at butte im going a good deal further than that and look up some matters for him I 1 guess you know as |