Part 20

Scarborough caught him up as if he had been a child and pinned him against the wall. "Take that back," he said, "or I'll kill you." His tone was as colorless as his face.

"Kill and be damned," replied Pierson, cool and disdainful. "You're a coward."

Scarborough's fingers closed on Pierson's throat. Then flashed into his mind that warning which demands and gets a hearing in the wildest tempest of passion before an irrevocable act can be done. It came to him in the form of a reminder of his laughing remark to Pauline when he told her of the traditions of murder in his family. He released Pierson and fled from the apartment.

Half an hour later Pierson was reading a note from him:

"I've invited some friends this evening. I trust it will be convenient for you to absent yourself. They'll be out by eleven, and then, if you return, we can decide which is to stay in the apartment and which to leave."

Pierson went away to his fraternity house and at half-past eight Scarborough, Chalmers, Jack Wilton and Brigham sat down to a game of poker. They had played about an hour, the cards steadily against Chalmers and Brigham--the cards were usually against Brigham. He was a mere boy, with passionate aspirations to be considered a sport. He had been going a rapid gait for a year. He had lost to Scarborough alone as much as he had expected to spend on the year's education.

Toward ten o'clock there was a jack-pot with forty-three dollars in it and Brigham was betting wildly, his hands and his voice trembling, his lips shriveled. With a sudden gesture Chalmers caught the ends of the table and jerked it back. There--in Brigham's lap--were two cards.

"I thought so!" exclaimed Chalmers. "You dirty little cheat! I've been watching you."

The boy looked piteously at Chalmers' sneering face, at the faces of the others. The tears rolled down his cheeks. "For God's sake, boys," he moaned, "don't be hard on me. I was desperate. I've lost everything, and my father can't give me any more. He's a poor man, and he and mother have been economizing and sacrificing to send me here. And when I saw I was ruined--God knows, I didn't think what I was doing." He buried his face in his hands. "Don't be hard on me," he sobbed. "Any one of you might have done the same if he was in my fix."

"You sniveling cur," said Chalmers, high and virtuous, "how dare you say such a thing! You forget you're among gentlemen----"

"None of that, Chalmers," interrupted Scarborough. "The boy's telling the truth. And nobody knows it better than YOU." This with a significant look into Chalmers' eyes. They shifted and he colored.

"I agree with Scarborough," said Wilton. "We oughtn't to have let the boy into our games. We must never mention what has happened here this evening."

"But we can't allow a card sharp to masquerade as a gentleman," objected Chalmers. "I confess, Scarborough, I don't understand how you can be so easy-going in a matter of honor."

"You think I must have a fellow-feeling for dishonor, eh?" Scarborough smiled satirically. "I suppose because I was sympathetic enough with you to overlook the fact that you were shy on your share of our Chicago trip."

"What do you mean?"

"The three hundred you borrowed of Pierson when you thought he was too far gone to know what he was doing. My back was turned--but there was the mirror."

Chalmers' sullen, red face confirmed Scarborough's charge.

"No," continued Scarborough, "we GENTLEMEN ought to be charitable toward one another's DISCOVERED lapses." He seated himself at his desk and wrote rapidly:

We, the undersigned, exonerate Edwin Brigham of cheating in the poker game in Hampden Scarborough's rooms on Saturday evening, February 20, 18--. And we pledge ourselves never to speak of the matter either to each other or to any one else.

"I've signed first," said Scarborough, rising and holding the pen toward Chalmers. "Now, you fellows sign. Chalmers!"

Chalmers signed, and then Wilton.

"Take Chalmers away with you," said Scarborough to Wilton in an undertone. "I've something to say to Brigham."

When they were gone he again seated himself at his desk and, taking his check-book, wrote a check and tore it out.

"Now, listen to me, Brig," he said friendlily to Brigham, who seemed to be in a stupor. "I've won about six hundred dollars from you, first and last--more, rather than less. Will that amount put you in the way of getting straight?"

"Yes," said Brigham, dully.

"Then here's a check for it. And here's the paper exonerating you. And--I guess you won't play again soon."

The boy choked back his sobs.

"I don't know how I ever came to do it, Scarborough. Oh, I'm a dog, a dog! When I started to come here my mother took me up to her bedroom and opened the drawer of her bureau and took out a savings-bank book--it had a credit of twelve hundred dollars. 'Do you see that?' she said. 'When you were born I began to put by as soon as I was able--every cent I could from the butter and the eggs--to educate my boy. And now it's all coming true,' she said, Scarborough, and we cried together. And----" Brigham burst into a storm of tears and sobs. "Oh, how could I do it!" he said. "How COULD I!"