"You--you have seen the papers--the accounts of--?"

"I don"t see how I could very well help seeing them," she said smiling. "He began his battle with the world bravely at least."

"My only hope is that you haven"t misjudged him in that affair. All his life he has cared for boxing--"

"I can"t see what difference my judgment of him can make one way or the other. He has done much, is doing much for the people I"m interested in. Of course, you know of that. But as to his private life--that is something with which, of course, I can have no concern."

"I am sorry to hear you say that. I thought perhaps that as a friend--"

"Mr. Benham understands my interest in him, I think," she paused and averted her head, one small foot tapping the floor impatiently. "I cannot see where this conversation is leading us. I beg that you will be explicit."

"I was counting on your interest, for he values your good opinion more I think than that of anyone in the world."

Her foot ceased tapping and she bent forward, one elbow on her knee, her head lowered thoughtfully.

"What do you want, Mr. Canby?" she asked abruptly.

"Your help."

"Mine!"

"Yes, your help. Jerry needs it--"

"He did not ask--?"

"No. I haven"t consulted Jerry--"

"Then I--"

"Please listen. If Jerry"s future means anything to you, you will do what you can. Jerry has--has gotten into bad company--he is slipping, Miss Habberton--slipping down. I don"t know whose the fault is, his father"s for his idealism, or mine for my selfish delight in the experiment of his education, but Jerry is failing us. You see, I"m telling you all. I have given up. A dream, you have called it. It was a dream; but I can"t see him fail without an effort to help him. When a man centers all his hopes in life on one ambition, its failure is tragic. You see I"m humble. It has cost me something to come to you. I hope you understand what it means."

My appeal had reached her, for I think she realized how seldom such a person as I could be moved to emotion.

"But I--how can I help?" she asked.

"Will you listen and not think me visionary? Jerry cares for you. To him you have made a different appeal from that of any other woman in the world. You were the first. You stirred him. You may not be aware.

In his mind you stand for everything that is clean and n.o.ble. In his heart, I know--I have not studied Jerry all these years for nothing--he has a shrine there--for you, Miss Habberton. You will always be Una, the first. I hope you will forgive me and believe me.

It is necessary that you should."

She smiled at me gently.

"You are very much in earnest, Mr. Canby. I can forgive much to one of your sincerity. But doesn"t it seem to you a curious conversation?"

"I had hoped you cared enough--"

"And if I did, do you think anything would give you the right to come to me without Mr. Benham"s permission and speak of--"

"You must let me finish," I demanded. "You are kind, charitable.

Trying to save people from themselves is your life work. I merely bring you a soul to save, a friend in danger. Can you refuse, refuse him? Jerry is drinking. It has not been for long, but he is in trouble. He has gotten beyond his depth--a woman--Oh, don"t misunderstand me! It is mental, a strange attraction, weird, Jerry doesn"t understand at all. He"s bewitched, but she is slowly brutalizing him, his mind I mean. Don"t you understand?"

"Yes, I think so," she muttered. "It is not a new situation. But I--no friend, man or girl, could avail in a case like that." She paused a moment clasping and unclasping her hands. I waited.

"Who is this--this woman?" she blurted out at last.

I hesitated.

"A lady. You--you put me at a disadvantage."

"What is her name?" she insisted.

"Marcia Van Wyck," I muttered.

"Marcia! Surely--" She stopped. A look of bewilderment came over her face, ending with a frown of perplexity.

"No," she murmured. "He wouldn"t understand Marcia. I--" And then with a gasp, "And you want _me_ to interfere? Mr. Canby, I--"

"Just a moment, please. I ask nothing that you cannot do. I have thought of a plan. We are alone at the Manor. I ask you to meet Jerry as you met him there last summer along by the Sweet.w.a.ter. I am going to arrange to have him fish up the stream on Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Will you come, Miss Habberton, come to the wall and meet him there inside the broken grille? I know his mind. It is curiously affected by facts of a.s.sociation. It is the only thing. I have--"

The words died on my lips as she rose, her slim figure straight in its sudden dignity, and I knew that I had failed.

"Your proposal is preposterous, Mr. Canby," she said coolly, moving toward the door.

"You refuse?"

"Of course. I am sorry if Mr. Benham has failed, is failing his friends, but the thing that you suggest is impossible." She put out her hand in token of dismissal.

"And you won"t reconsider? Let me come to see you tomorrow, the next day. Is it so much that I ask?"

"Good night, Mr. Canby."

"You do not care enough?"

"Good night."

I bowed over her fingers silently.

Then I took up my hat. There was nothing left to do.

CHAPTER XIX

THE PATH IN THE WOOD

Had I not been obsessed with the desire at all costs to divert the unhappy tide of Jerry"s infatuation, I must have known that no girl such as Una Habberton could lend herself as accessory to a plan like mine. I had had evidence enough that she cared for Jerry in a tender, almost a motherly way, and while I had been unsuccessful in my mission, I now saw no reason to change my opinion. Indeed, in my hotel room that night, the more I thought of the interview the more convinced I was that whatever modesty deterred her, it was the very fact of her caring so much that made the thing impossible to her. Her air of indifference, carefully a.s.sumed, had not hidden the rapid rise and fall of her breast at the confession of my fears. The inquietude of her manner, the curiosity which had permitted me to finish my story, were proof convincing that her interests in Jerry were more than ordinarily involved, and the more I thought of her att.i.tude the more I wondered at my own temerity.