LAPHAM'S strenuous face was broken up with the emotions that had forced him to this question: shame, fear of the things that must have been thought of him, mixed with a faint hope that he might be mistaken, which died out at the shocked and pitying look in Corey's eyes.
"Was I drunk?" he repeated."I ask you, because I was never touched by drink in my life before, and I don't know."He stood with his huge hands trembling on the back of his chair, and his dry lips apart, as he stared at Corey.
"That is what every one understood, Colonel Lapham,"said the young man."Every one saw how it was.
Don't----"
"Did they talk it over after I left?" asked Lapham vulgarly.
"Excuse me," said Corey, blushing, "my father doesn't talk his guests over with one another." He added, with youthful superfluity, "You were among gentlemen.""I was the only one that wasn't a gentleman there!"lamented Lapham."I disgraced you! I disgraced my family! Imortified your father before his friends!" His head dropped.
"I showed that I wasn't fit to go with you.I'm not fit for any decent place.What did I say? What did I do?"he asked, suddenly lifting his head and confronting Corey.
"Out with it! If you could bear to see it and hear it, I had ought to bear to know it!""There was nothing--really nothing," said Corey.
"Beyond the fact that you were not quite yourself, there was nothing whatever.My father DID speak of it to me," he confessed, "when we were alone.He said that he was afraid we had not been thoughtful of you, if you were in the habit of taking only water; I told him I had not seen wine at your table.The others said nothing about you.""Ah, but what did they think?"
"Probably what we did: that it was purely a misfortune--an accident."
"I wasn't fit to be there," persisted Lapham."Do you want to leave?" he asked, with savage abruptness.
"Leave?" faltered the young man.
"Yes; quit the business? Cut the whole connection?""I haven't the remotest idea of it!" cried Corey in amazement.
"Why in the world should I?" "Because you're a gentleman, and I'm not, and it ain't right I should be over you.
If you want to go, I know some parties that would be glad to get you.I will give you up if you want to go before anything worse happens, and I shan't blame you.
I can help you to something better than I can offer you here, and I will.""There's no question of my going, unless you wish it,"said Corey."If you do----"
"Will you tell your father," interrupted Lapham, "that I had a notion all the time that I was acting the drunken blackguard, and that I've suffered for it all day? Will you tell him I don't want him to notice me if we ever meet, and that I know I'm not fit to associate with gentlemen in anything but a business way, if I am that?""Certainly I shall do nothing of the kind," retorted Corey.
"I can't listen to you any longer.What you say is shocking to me--shocking in a way you can't think.""Why, man!" exclaimed Lapham, with astonishment; "if Ican stand it, YOU can!"
"No," said Corey, with a sick look, "that doesn't follow.
You may denounce yourself, if you will; but I have my reasons for refusing to hear you--my reasons why I CAN'T hear you.
If you say another word I must go away."
"I don't understand you," faltered Lapham, in bewilderment, which absorbed even his shame.
"You exaggerate the effect of what has happened,"said the young man."It's enough, more than enough, for you to have mentioned the matter to me, and I think it's unbecoming in me to hear you."He made a movement toward the door, but Lapham stopped him with the tragic humility of his appeal."Don't go yet! I can't let you.I've disgusted you,--I see that;but I didn't mean to.I--I take it back.""Oh, there's nothing to take back," said Corey, with a repressed shudder for the abasement which he had seen.
"But let us say no more about it--think no more.
There wasn't one of the gentlemen present last night who didn't understand the matter precisely as my father and I did, and that fact must end it between us two."He went out into the larger office beyond, leaving Lapham helpless to prevent his going.It had become a vital necessity with him to think the best of Lapham, but his mind was in a whirl of whatever thoughts were most injurious.
