CHAPTER ELEVEN THE RENDEZVOUS

PAUL VENIZA, pacing restlessly about the room, glanced surreptitiously at his watch, and then glanced anxiously at John Bruce.

John Bruce in turn stole a look at Claire. His lips tightened a little. Since she had been told nothing, she was quite unconscious, of course, that it mattered at all because it was already long after eight o'clock; that Hawkins in particular, or any one else in general, was expected to join the little evening circle here in what he, John Bruce, had by now almost come to call his room. His forehead gathered in a frown. What was it that was keeping Hawkins?

Claire's face was full in the light, and as she sat there at the table, busy with some sewing, it seemed to John Bruce that, due perhaps to the perspective of what he now knew, he detected a weariness in her eyes and in sharp lines around her mouth, that he had not noticed before. It was Crang, of course; but perhaps he too—what he had said to her that afternoon—his love—had not made it any easier for her.

Paul Veniza continued his restless pacing about the room.

“Father, do sit down!” said Claire suddenly. “What makes you so nervous to-night? Is anything the matter?”

“The matter? No! No, no; of course not!” said Paul Veniza hurriedly.

“But I'm sure there is,” said Claire, with a positive' little nod of her head. “With both of you, for that matter. Mr. Bruce has done nothing but fidget with the tassel of that dressing gown for the last half hour.”

John Bruce let the tassel fall as though it had suddenly burned his fingers.

“I? Not at all!” he denied stoutly.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Claire, with mock plaintiveness. “What bores you two men are, then! I wish I could send out—what do you call it?—a thought wave, and inspire some one, and most of all Hawkins, to come over here this evening. He, at least, is never deadly dull.”

Neither of the two men spoke.

“You don't know Hawkins, do you, Mr. Bruce?” Claire went on. She was smiling now as she looked at John Bruce. “I mean really know him, of course. He's a dear, quaint, lovable soul, and I'm so fond of him.”

“I'm sure he is,” said John Bruce heartily. “Even from the little I've seen of him I'd trust him with—well, you know”—John Bruce coughed as his words stumbled—“I mean, I'd take his word for anything.”

“Of course, you would!” asserted Claire. “You couldn't think of doing anything else—nobody could. He's just as honest as—as—well, as father there, and I don't know any one more honest.” She smiled at Paul Veniza, and then her face grew very earnest. “I'm going to tell you something about Hawkins, and something that even you never knew, father. Ever since I was old enough to remember any one, I remember Hawkins. And when I got old enough to understand at all, though I could never get him to talk about it, I knew his life wasn't a very happy one, and perhaps I loved him all the more for that reason. Hawkins used to drink a great deal. Everybody knew it. I—I never felt I had the right to speak to him about it, though it made me feel terribly, until—until mother died.”

Claire had dropped her sewing in her lap, and now she picked it up again and fumbled with it nervously.

“I spoke to him then,” she said in a low voice. “I told him how much you needed him, father; and how glad and happy it would make me. And—and I remember so well his words: 'I promise, Claire. I promise, so help me, God, that I will never drink another drop.'” Claire looked up, her face aglow “And I know, no matter what anybody says, that from that day to this, he never has.”

Paul Veniza, motionless now in the center of the room, was staring at her in a sort of numbed fascination.

John Bruce was staring at the door. He had heard, he thought, a step in the outer room.

The door opened. Hawkins stood there. He plucked at his frayed, black cravat, which was awry. He lurched against the jamb, and in groping unsteadily for support his hat fell from his other hand and rolled across the floor.

Hawkins reeled into the room.

“Good—hic!—good-evenin',” said Hawkins thickly.

Claire alone moved. She rose to her feet, but as though her weight were too heavy for her limbs. Her lips quivered.

“Oh, Hawkins!” she cried out pitifully—and burst into tears, and ran from the room.

It seemed to John Bruce that for a moment the room swirled around before his eyes; and then over him swept an uncontrollable desire to get his hands upon this maudlin, lurching creature. Rage, disgust, a bitter resentment, a mad hunger for reprisal possessed him; Claire's future, her faith which she had but a moment gone so proudly vaunted, were all shattered, swept to the winds, by this seedy, dissolute wreck. Her father! No, her shame! Thank God she did not know!

“You drunken beast!” he gritted in merciless fury, and stepped suddenly forward.

But halfway across the room he halted as though turned to stone. Hawkins wasn't lurching any more. Hawkins had turned and closed the door; and Hawkins now, with his face white and drawn, a look in his old blue eyes that mingled agony and an utter hopelessness, sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

It was Paul Veniza who moved now. He went and stood behind the old cabman.

Hawkins looked up.

“You are sober. What does this mean?” Paul Veniza asked heavily.

Hawkins shook his head.

“I couldn't do it,” he said in a broken voice. “And—and I've settled it once for all now. I got to thinking as I came along to-night, and I found out that it wasn't any good for me to swear I wasn't going to touch anything any more. I'm afraid of myself. I—I came near going into the saloon. It—it taught me something, that did; because the only way I could get by was to promise myself I'd go back there after I'd been here.”

Hawkins paused. A flush dyed his cheeks. He turned around and looked at Paul Veniza again, and then at John Bruce.

“You don't understand—neither of you understand. Once I promised Claire that I'd stop, and—and until just now she believed me. And I've hurt her. But I ain't broken her heart. It was only old Hawkins, just Hawkins, who promised her then; it would have been her father who promised her to-night, and—and it ain't any good, I'd have broken that promise, I know it now—and she ain't ever going to share that shame.”

Hawkins brushed his hands across his eyes.

“And then,” he went on, A sudden fierceness in his voice, “suppose she'd had that on top of Crang, 'cause it ain't sure that knowing who I am would have saved her from him! Oh, my God, she'd better be dead! I'd rather see her dead. You're wrong, John Bruce! It wasn't the way. You meant right, and God bless you; but it wasn't the way. I saw it all so clearly after—after I'd got past that saloon; and—and then it was all right for me to promise myself that I'd go back. It wouldn't hurt her none then.”

John Bruce cleared his throat.

“I don't quite understand what you mean by that, Hawkins,” he said a little huskily.

Hawkins rose slowly to his feet.

“I dressed all up for this,” said Hawkins, with a wan smile; “but something's snapped here—inside here.” His hand felt a little aimlessly over his heart. “I know now that I ain't ever going to be worthy; and I know now that she ain't ever to know that I—that I—I'm her old daddy. And so I—I've fixed it just now like you saw so there ain't no going back on it. But I ain't throwing my little girl down. It ain't Claire that's got to be made change her mind—it's Crang.” He raised a clenched fist. “And Crang's going to change it! I can swear to that and know I'll keep it, so—so help me, God! And when she's rid of him, she ain't going to have no shame and sorrow from me. That's what I meant.”

“Yes,” said John Bruce mechanically.

“I'm going now,” said Hawkins in a low voice. “Around by the other way,” said Paul Veniza softly. “And I'll go with you, old friend.”

For a moment Hawkins hesitated, and then he nodded his head.

No one spoke. Paul Veniza's arm was around Hawkins' shoulders as they left the room. The door closed behind them. John Bruce sat down on the edge of his bed.