Ridgway of Montana (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) by William MacLeod Raine
CHAPTER 20. A LITTLE LUNCH AT APHONSE'S
It chanced that Ridgway, through the swinging door of a departmentstore, caught a glimpse of Miss Balfour as he was striding along thestreet. He bethought him that it was the hour of luncheon, and that shewas no end better company than the revamped noon edition of the morningpaper. Wherefore he wheeled into the store and interrupted herinspection of gloves.
"I know the bulliest little French restaurant tucked away in a sidestreet just three blocks from here. The happiness disseminated in thisworld by that chef's salads will some day carry him past St. Peter withno questions asked."
"You believe in salvation by works?" she parried, while she consideredhis invitation.
"So will you after a trial of Alphonse's salad."
"Am I to understand that I am being invited to a theological discussionof a heavenly salad concocted by Father Alphonse?"
"That is about the specifications."
"Then I accept. For a week my conscience has condemned me for excess offrivolity. You offer me a chance to expiate without discomfort. That ismy idea of heaven. I have always believed it a place where one pasturesin rich meadows of pleasure, with penalties and consciences allexcluded from its domains."
"You should start a church," he laughed. "It would have a greatfollowing--especially if you could operate your heaven this side of theStyx."
She found his restaurant all he had claimed, and more. The littlecorner of old Paris set her eyes shining. The fittings were Parisian tothe least detail. Even the waiter spoke no English.
"But I don't see how they make it pay. How did he happen to come here?Are there enough people that appreciate this kind of thing in Mesa tosupport it?"
He smiled at her enthusiasm. "Hardly. The place has a scarce dozen ofregular patrons. Hobart comes here a good deal. So does Eaton. But itdoesn't pay financially. You see, I know because I happen to own it. Iused to eat at Alphonse's restaurant in Paris. So I sent for him. Itdoesn't follow that one has to be less a slave to the artificialcomforts of a supercivilized world because one lives at Mesa."
"I see it doesn't. You are certainly a wonderful man."
"Name anything you like. I'll warrant Alphonse can make good if it isnot outside of his national cuisine," he boasted.
She did not try his capacity to the limit, but the oysters, the salad,the chicken soup were delicious, with the ultimate perfection thatcomes only out of Gaul.
They made a delightfully gay and intimate hour of it, and were stilllingering over their demi-tasse when Yesler's name was mentioned.
"Isn't it splendid that he's doing so well?" cried the girl withenthusiasm. "The doctor says that if the bullet had gone a fraction ofan inch lower, he would have died. Most men would have died anyhow,they say. It was his clean outdoor life and magnificent constitutionthat saved him."
"That's what pulled him through," he nodded. "It would have done hisheart good to see how many friends he had. His recovery was acontinuous performance ovation. It would have been a poorer world for alot of people if Sam Yesler had crossed the divide."
"Yes. It would have been a very much poorer one for several I know."
He glanced shrewdly at her. "I've learned to look for a particularapplication when you wear that particularly sapient air of mystery."
Her laugh admitted his hit. "Well, I was thinking of Laska. I begin tothink HER fair prince has come."
"Meaning Yesler?"
"Yes. She hasn't found it out herself yet. She only knows she istremendously interested."
"He's a prince all right, though he isn't quite a fairy. The woman thatgets him will be lucky.
"The man that gets Laska will be more than lucky," she protestedloyally.
"I dare say," he agreed carelessly. "But, then, good women are not sorare as good men. There are still enough of them left to save theworld. But when it comes to men like Sam--well, it would take aDiogenes to find another."
"I don't see how even Mr. Pelton, angry as he was, dared shoot him."
"He had been drinking hard for a week. That will explain anything whenyou add it to his temperament. I never liked the fellow."
"I suppose that is why you saved his life when the miners took him andwere going to lynch him?"
"I would not have lifted a hand for him. That's the bald truth. But Icouldn't let the boys spoil the moral effect of their victory by sogross a mistake. It would have been playing right into Harley's hands."
"Can a man get over being drunk in five minutes? I never saw anybodymore sober than Mr. Pelton when the mob were crying for vengeance andyou were fighting them back."
"A great shock will sober a man. Pelton is an errant coward, and he hadpretty good reason to think he had come to the end of the passage. Theboys weren't playing. They meant business."
"They would not have listened to another man in the world except you,"she told him proudly.
"It was really Sam they listened to--when he sent out the messageasking them to let the law have its way."
"No, I think it was the way you handled the message. You're a wizard ata speech, you know."
"Thanks."
He glanced up, for Alphonse was waiting at his elbow.
"You're wanted on the telephone, monsieur."
"You can't get away from business even for an hour, can you?" sherallied. "My heaven wouldn't suit you at all, unless I smuggled in atrust for you to fight."
"I expect it is Eaton," he explained. "Steve phoned down to the officethat he isn't feeling well to-day. I asked him to have me called uphere. If he isn't better, I'm going to drop round and see him."
But when she caught sight of his face as he returned she knew it wasserious.
"What's the matter? Is it Mr. Eaton? Is he very ill?" she cried.
His face was set like broken ice refrozen. "Yes, it's Eaton. Theysay--but it can't be true!"
She had never seen him so moved. "What is it, Waring?"
"The boy has sold me out. He is at the courthouse now, undoing mywork--the Judas!"
The angry blood swept imperiously into her cheeks. "Don't waste anymore time with me, Waring. Go--go and save yourself from the traitor.Perhaps it is not too late yet."
He flung her a grateful look. "You're true blue, Virginia. Come! I'llleave you at the store as we pass."
The defection of Eaton bit his chief to the quick. The force of theblow itself was heavy--how heavy he could not tell till he could takestock of the situation. He could see that he would be thrown out ofcourt in the matter of the Consolidated Supply Company receivership,since Eaton's stock would now be in the hands of the enemy. But whatwas of more importance was the fact that Eaton's interest in the MesaOre-producing Company now belonged to Harley, who could work any amountof mischief with it as a lever for litigation.
The effect, too, of the man's desertion upon the morale of the M. O. P.forces must be considered and counteracted, if possible. He fancied hecould see his subordinates looking shiftyeyed at each other andwondering who would slip away next.
If it had been anybody but Steve! He would as soon have distrusted hisright hand as Steve Eaton. Why, he had made the man, had picked him outwhen he was a mere clerk, and tied him to himself by a hundred favors.Up on the Snake River he had saved Steve's life once when he wasdrowning. The boy had always been as close to him as a brother. ThatSteve should turn traitor was not conceivable. He knew all his intimateplans, stood second to himself in the company. Oh, it was a numbingblow! Ridgway's sense of personal loss and outrage almost obliteratedfor the moment his appreciation of the business loss.
The motion to revoke the receivership of the Supply Company was beingargued when Ridgway entered the court-room. Within a few minutes thenews had spread like wild-fire that Eaton was lined up with theConsolidated, and already the paltry dozen of loafers in the court-roomhad swelled into hundreds, all of them eager for any sensation thatmight develop.
Ridgway's broad shoulders flung aside the crowd and opened a way to thevacant chair waiting for him. One o
Eaton sat beside Mott, dry-lipped and pallid, his set eyes staringvacantly into space. Once or twice he flung a furtive glance about him.His stripped and naked soul was enduring a foretaste of the JudgmentDay. The whip of scorn with which the lawyer lashed him cut into hisshrinking sensibilities, and left him a welter of raw and livid wales.Good God! why had he not known it would be like this? He was paying forhis treachery and usury, and it was being burnt into him that as theyears passed he must continue to pay in self-contempt and the distrustof his fellows.
The case had come to a hearing before Judge Hughes, who was not one ofRidgway's creatures. That on its merits it would be decided in favor ofthe Consolidated was a foregone conclusion. It was after the judge hadrendered the expected decision that the dramatic moment of the day cameto gratify the seasoned court frequenters.
Eaton, trying to slip as quietly as possible from the room, came faceto face with his former chief. For an interminable instant the man hehad betrayed, blocking the way squarely, held the trembling wretch inthe blaze of his scorn. Ridgway's contemptuous eyes sifted to theingrate's soul until it shriveled. Then he stood disdainfully to oneside so that the man might not touch him as he passed.
Some one in the back of the room broke the tense silence and hissed:"The damned Judas!" Instantly echoes of "Judas! Judas!" filled theroom, and pursued Eaton to his cab. It would be many years before hecould recall without scalding shame that moment when the finger ofpublic scorn was pointed at him in execration.