Robert Ames Bennet

“ Vievie! I've been waiting for this. Do you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to give you a piece of my mind."
"Please, dear!" begged Genevieve.
"No. I'll not please! You deserve a good beating, and I'm going to give it to you. That poor Mr. Blake! Aren't you 'shamed of yourself? Breaking his big noble heart!"
"Dolores! I must ask you—"
"No, you mustn't! You've got to listen to me, you know you have. To think that you, who've always pretended to be so kind and considerate, should be a regular cat!"
"You foolish dear!" murmured Genevieve. ”

“ Blake saw only the glass and the bottle. He glared at them, his face convulsed with fierce craving. Then he forced himself to avert his gaze. But as he started to turn aside, his jaw clenched and his eyes burned with a sudden desperate resolve. He stopped and waited, his face as hard as a granite mask. Dolores did not see his expression. She was eying Ashton, whom she sought to crush with her scorn.
"Ho!" she jeered. "So you're going to drown your sorrows in the flowing bowl. You ought to've remembered that absence makes the heart grow fonder." ”

“ Dolores affected a coquettish air. "Oh, Mr. Brice-Ashton! I do believe you want to get him out of the way."
"I? No, no!" he protested, with an uneasy, furtive glance at Blake.
"Don't try to fool me," she insisted. "I know your scheme. But it's of no use. If she doesn't take the hero, she'll accept the earl. Ah, me! To think you're still scheming to get Vievie, when all the evening you've pretended it was I!"
In the reaction from his fright, he sprang up and advanced on her ardently. "It is you, Dodie! you know it is. Own up, now—we're just suited to each other. It's a case of soul-mates!" ”

“ Gantry. "Genevieve, call back your father. If the man really is violent, as Lafayette says—"
"Aunt Amice!" remonstrated Genevieve. "Can you believe this miserable creature for an instant?"
"But it's true—it is true!" gasped Ashton.
"Mrs. Gantry, dear, dear Mrs. Gantry, you'll believe me! He will kill me! Take me aboard the car! Please, please take me aboard the car and hide me!"
"My dear Genevieve," said Mrs. Gantry, "the poor boy is really terrified."
"Take him to the car, if you wish," replied Genevieve. "He can leave it at the junction." ”

“ Almost all the area of the bridge flooring, which had been completed to beyond the centre of the cantilever, was covered with stacked lumber and piles of structural steel and rails, and kegs of nails, rivets, and bolts.
Here every chink and crevice was packed with snow and ice. But all the titanic steel structure above and the unfloored bottom-chords and girders of the outer, or extension, arm of the cantilever had been swept bare of snow by the winter gales and left glistening with the glaze of the last shower of sleet.
Blake swung steadily along after the others, his face impassive. ”

“ Gantry. "Be thankful it happened before the sailors had time to put you in the same boat. Better still, my dear, do not permit yourself to think of it at all. Put all that dreadful experience out of your mind."
"But you do not understand, Aunt Amice. I fear you never will. Except for that—for poor Lady Bayrose—I've told you, I do not wish to forget it."
"My dear!" protested Mrs. Gantry, "cannot you realize how very improper—? That man! What if he should talk?"
"Is there anything to be concealed?" asked Genevieve, with quiet dignity.
"You know how people misconstrue things," insisted her aunt. ”

“ He hurried on to where, under the smaller traveller, the uncompleted south part of the central, or suspension, span poised dizzily in space, over-arching the abyss. Many yards of gap still yawned between its tip and the tip of the sections that strained out to meet it from the end of the north cantilever.
The sections built on to the southern part of the central span had brought the overhang still more dizzily out over the broad strait. The wonder was that men could be found who were willing to work day after day in a position of such real peril. ”

“ Don't think I blame her. I don't. She's right. If I can't stand up and fight it out and win, without being propped up by my friends, I ought to lose out. I'm not fit to marry any woman—much less her."
Lord James tugged and twisted at his mustache, and at last brought out his reply: "Now, I—I say, you look here, old chap, you've got to win this time. It means her, y'know. You must win."
"Jimmy," stated Blake, his eyes softening, "you're the limit!"
"You're not!" flashed back his friend. "There's no limit to you—to what you can do."
"Heap of good it does—your saying it," grumbled Blake. ”

“ Ashton's look of relief indicated that he mistook the other's profound contempt for stupid carelessness. To one of his nature, the fact that Blake had not at once denounced him as a thief seemed proof positive that the sick man had failed to recognize in the bridge structure the embodiment of his stolen plans.
He turned from Blake to Lord James. "Ah, my dear earl, this has been such a pleasure—such a delight! You cannot imagine how intolerable it is to be cut off from the world in this dreary hole—deprived of all society and compelled to associate, if at all, with, these common brutes!" ”

“ Dolores whirled about and saw him with the glass of sparkling wine outreached to Blake, who was eying it with a peculiar oblique gaze.
"Lafayette Ashton!" she cried. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?—aren't you ashamed?"
Ashton shrugged cynically, and urged the wine on Blake. "Come on! One glass wouldn't hurt a fly. I've heard of your wonderful success with the Zariba Dam. I want to congratulate you."
"Congratulate—that's it!" replied Blake, in a harsh, strained voice. "Best man wins. Loser gets out of the way. ”

“ What if the dragon does have rather a frosty stare for you? She said I might bring you to call. Seriously, Tom, you must learn to meet her without showing that her manner flecks you. Best kind of training for society. As I said just now, you owe it to Miss Genevieve."
"Well—long as you put it that way," muttered Blake.
"You'll get along famously with Miss Dolores, I'm sure," said Lord James. "She's quite a charming girl,—vivacious and all that, you know. She's taken quite a fancy to you. The mother is one of those silly climbers who never look below the surface. ”

“ When he came out again, he headed straight across the tracks for the office of the Resident Engineer. He smiled ironically as he noted the green and white paint and the trimmings of the verandahs with which Ashton had endeavored to give a bungalow effect to the shack-like structure. But as he swung up the steps into the front verandah, the grimness of his look increased and the humor vanished. His heavy tread through the weather vestibule announced his entrance into the office. He took no pains to walk softly. ”

“ Lord James drew in a deep breath, and his gray eyes glowed with hope. Here was evidence that not all aboard the wrecked or foundered Impala had been lost.
"Meggs," he cried, "you're the one and only skipper! It must be their signal—it is their signal! But which of them?—who went under and who escaped!—Miss Genevieve? Tom?"
"This Mr. Blake?" ventured Meggs. "I take it, he's some relation to your lordship."
"No; chum—American engineer. Gad! if he went down! But it's impossible—Most resourceful man I ever knew. He must have won ashore with the others. And the women—a British captain! ”

“ Gantry, greatly shocked.
"Papa! Papa!" urged Genevieve, running to grasp her father's arm. "You can't believe him! If Tom said the bridge was in danger—We stand here doing nothing! Send some one! If the bridge should fall—"
"Fall?" sneered Ashton. "I tell you it's safe, safe as a rock. Look for yourselves. It's still standing."
"Then he has saved it," snapped Mr. Leslie. "He's saved my bridge—his bridge! While you, you skulking thief—"
Ashton cringed back as if struck. But Genevieve dragged her father about from him. "Don't mind him, papa! What does that matter now? Send some one at once!" ”

“ Look here, Jimmy, you're clean off. You don't savvy a little bit. Don't you see the point? I can't let her commit herself now—here! You know I can't. It wouldn't be fair to her, and you know it."
Lord James met his look with a clear and unfaltering gaze, and answered steadily: "That all depends on one thing, Tom. If she really loves you—"
"D'you think she's the kind to do it, if she didn't?" demanded Blake. "No, that's not the point, at all. I've tried to be square, so far. ”

“ Griffith took out his pipe and fixed an earnest gaze on Blake. "I'm not one to slop over. You know that. I can put it all over you in mathematics—in everything that's in the books. So can a hundred or more men in this country. Just the same, there's something—you've got something in you that ain't in the books."
"Whiskey?" suggested Blake, with bitter self-derision.
"Tom!" protested Lord James.
"What's the use of lying about it?" muttered Blake.
"You've no whiskey in you now," rejoined Griffith. "I'm talking about what you are now,—what you've got in your head. It's brains." ”

“ Ashton glanced up to be certain that both Griffith and Blake had passed on into the car.
"Your lordship hasn't quite caught the point," he said. "One may have the brains—the intellect—necessary to create such a bridge as this, without having to lower himself into the herd of common workers."
"Ah, really," drawled the Englishman, swinging up the car steps.
Ashton raised his hat and bowed. "Au revoir, Earl. Your visit has been both a delight and an honor. I shall hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing you in town."
"Yes?" murmured Lord James with a rising inflection. "Good-day." ”

“ Do you wonder? I've been in hell again—where I belong."
"Tom! oh, Tom!—no, no!" she whispered, and she averted her face, unable to endure the black despair that she saw in his unflinching eyes.
"Jimmy and old Grif, between them, managed to catch me when I was under full headway," he explained. "They stopped me and took me up to the Michamac Bridge. I'm on my feet again now. Just the same, I went under, and if it hadn't been for them, I'd be beastly, roaring drunk this minute."
"No, Tom! It's impossible—impossible! I can't believe it!" ”

“ Good old Grif—Griffith, you know—has given me a shy at a peach of a proposition—toughest problem I was ever up against. It's a big irrigation dam that has feazed half a dozen good engineers."
"But you'll solve the problem! You can do anything!"
"I'm not so sure, Jenny. I've only begun to dig into the field books. Even if I do make a go of it in the end, chances are I'll have to work like—like blazes to get there. But that'll help me on this other fight—help choke down the craving when it comes. A whole lot turns on that dam. If I make good on it, I'm made myself. ”

“ You must flaunt your shame in my face!"
"I told you I meant to slip out unseen," he mumbled, for the moment weakening in his determination to vilify himself. "Didn't think you'd give me the gaff—when it was all for you."
"For me!" she cried, in a storm of hysteria—"for me! Oh! To destroy all my love for you—my trust in the courage, the strength, the heroism I thought was yours! Oh! And to prove yourself a brute, a mere brute!—here in my own house!—my guest! Oh! oh! I hate you! I hate you!" ”

“ Then you at last realize what sort of a man he is."
"Vievie knows he is a man—which is more than can be said of some of them," thrust Dolores, with a mocking glance at Lord James.
"My dear," urged Mrs. Gantry, "give no heed to that silly chit. I wish to commend your stand against the fatal attraction of mere brute efficiency."
"Oh, I say!" put in Lord James. "It's this I must protest against, Miss Leslie—this talk of his brute qualities—when it's only the lack of polish. You should know that. He's a thistle, prickly without, but within soft as silk." ”

“ I can still go you one better, young man. I'll soon be thawing out in Florida, while you'll be trotting back here to boss the completion of T. Blake's cantilever—largest suspension span cantilever in the world."
"God!" whispered Blake, staring incredulously at the titanic structure born of his brain. "But it's mine—it is mine!... I sweat blood over those plans!"
"Doggone you, Tommy, you're no engineer—you're an inventor, Class A-1!" exulted Griffith. "First this; then the Zariba Dam. After that, the Lord only knows what! Trouble with you, you're a genius." ”

“ But I won't risk my daughter's happiness—supposing you had so much as a shadow of a chance of winning her. No! You saved her life. You shall have no chance whatever to make her miserable. But I'll give you opportunities—I'll put you on the road to making your own millions."
Blake raised his cigar and flecked off the ash. "That for your damned millions!" he swore.
Mr. Leslie stared and muttered to himself: "Might have known it! Man of that kind. Crazy fool!"
"Fool?" repeated Blake contemptuously. "Just because money is your god, you needn't think it's everybody else's. You—money—hog! ”

“ Blake waved them about.
"Bridge in danger!" he shouted. "Volunteers to clear material."
Few of the carpenters and none of the chattering Slovaks and Italians caught anything except the word "danger." But zeal and fearlessness are sometimes as contagious as fear. A half-dozen or so drew aside to slink on shoreward. All the others joined the silent eager crowd behind Blake. Before they had gone a hundred feet every man in the crowd knew that at any moment the huge cantilever might crash down with them to certain destruction in the chasm, yet not one turned back. ”

“ Vievie merely wrote that he died during the second cyclone."
"What an experience!—and for a girl like Genevieve!"
"She, of all girls!" chimed in Dolores enviously. "You remember she never went in for sports of any kind, not even riding. And for her to be flung out that way into the tropical jungles, among lions and crocodiles and snakes and things! Why can't I ever have romantic adventures?"
"You wouldn't give the man a chance to prove himself a hero," objected
Ashton. "You'd shoot the lions yourself."
"I am good at archery. A bow and arrows, you know, were all that Mr.
Blake had." ”