Chapter 26 - Page 2

faces about him that the others were pleased. His own gaunt features turned more sallow than ever. The memory of what he had heard on the porch of his own house a few afternoons ago, of what he had seen at other times, of his wife's telltale behavior on this very evening, swept over him, fanning anew the sullen emotions he had cherished all these months. How far would this fellow dare to go, he wondered? What motive inspired him thus to pose before his friends, and openly goad his victim under the cloak of modesty and gratitude? Was he enhancing his triumph by jeering at the husband of whom he had made a fool? He dropped his eyes to hide the fury in them.

"I want to give you a little remembrance of my own." Anthony was speaking directly to him. "It isn't much, but it means a good deal to me, and I hope it will have some sort of personal association for you, Mr. Cortlandt." He drew from his pocket a plush case and took from it a very handsome thin Swiss watch with the letters "S. C." artfully enamelled upon the back. Runnels, who knew the local shops, wondered how it had been procured in Panama. The others openly expressed their admiration.

Cortlandt accepted the gift mechanically; then, as it touched his flesh, a sudden color mounted to his cheeks, only to recede, leaving them bloodless again. He stared at it uncertainly, then looked up and ran his eyes slowly around the table. They came to rest at last upon the broad frame of the giver, crowned with its handsome, sun-tanned face and close-cropped shock of yellow hair. Anthony was all that he was not--the very embodiment of youth, vigor, and confidence, while he was prematurely aged, worn, and impotent.

They noted how ill he appeared, as if he had suffered from a jungle fever, how his well-cut evening clothes refused to conceal the frail lines of his figure, and how the hollows in his cheeks added to his age. But for the first time since they had known him they saw that his eyes were alive and burning dully.

"I really didn't expect this," he began, slowly, as he rose. "Anthony exaggerates; he is too kind. But since he has chosen to publicly call attention to our relations, I will confess that what he tells you is all true. He was everything he says when he first came to Panama. He did get into trouble, and I helped him out; he had no money, and I put him up as my guest; he needed work, and I helped to place him. Through my assistance--partly, at any rate-- he has made a man of himself. He has been welcome at my house, at my table; he has come and gone as he pleased, like one of the family, you might say. But those are little things; they count for nothing." He smiled in a way that seemed ironical, his lips writhed away from his teeth until his visage resembled a death- head. His tone had gripped his hearers, and Anthony stirred uneasily, thinking this an odd way of accepting a gift.

Unclasping