Seed on the Wind

After they had gone, Lora, seated before the fire, waiting, found herself entertaining the echo of an old regret. She wished she had the wristwatch she had found on her pillow that day twelve years before. She had once spent a good deal of time, with the help of Max Kadish, trying to trace it, but it had long since been disposed of by the jeweler to whom she had sold it in the necessity created by Steve Adams’s departure, and the man who had bought it from him could not be found. The one she now wore, given to her by Lewis on Julian’s first anniversary, was an altogether different sort of affair — it was much smaller, with a platinum case, and was engraved with her initials. She had another one too, a large silver one, which she wore when working in the garden or generally out of doors. She had not thought of that old one for a long while, not for years; now she wished she had it, but frowned the wish away.

When finally around half-past nine she heard the car turn in at the driveway and pass the house on its way to the back yard, she did not move from her chair. She could not keep her heart from beating faster, but she could sit still. Her ears waited for the sound of the back door opening, but it did not come. Instead, after an interval there was the faint shuffle of footsteps on the flagstone terrace in front, and the doorbell rang. Ha, she thought, as she crossed to open the door, everything is to be proper tonight, one uses the front door and rings the bell; I should have had Lillian down, with a clean cap and apron, to let them in. Or Stan in a uniform — that would have been swell. She swung the door open.

Lewis stood back to let the other precede him. “Hello,” Lora said, with a smile, without any pretense of surprise, and gave her hand to Pete. Then she took Lewis in completely with a glance, as he took her hand in turn. They left their overcoats, and Lewis his hat, in the vestibule, and followed her into the living room. She had resumed her chair, and as they entered she invited them to two other chairs nearby, facing the fire. Lewis took the one nearest her; Pete stood close to the fire, warming his hands.

“I suppose I ought to get some gloves,” he said, “but I hate the damn things.” His eyes were on Lora. “You must be your own daughter,” he declared. “You can’t be a day over nineteen. That was it, wasn’t it? Nearly twenty; I remember you said you’d be twenty before — by a certain day.”

“You haven’t changed much yourself,” said Lora. “Yes, you have though, you’re a good deal older, but you look just the same.”

Lewis Kane had been silent since his first greeting. Now he looked at Lora and said briefly:

“You do know him then.”

Lora took hold of herself. Had she already made a misstep? There was nothing to be afraid of, nothing she had any reason to conceal, and yet... With men it was best to let them do the talking. Both of these men could be depended on for that. What did they think they were going to do to her? Bah, of course she knew Pete Halliday, why shouldn’t she say so? Did she know Pete Halliday!

She smiled not at Lewis, but at Pete.

“I think we’ve been introduced, haven’t we?”

“Never to my knowledge,” he replied promptly. “I forget who it was told me your name that night.”

“Stubby Mallinson.”

“Sure!” he grinned. “So it was. Thirteen years ago; I’ll bet he’s a stinking millionaire.” He nodded affably at Lewis, “No offense.”

“Not at all,” said Lewis drily. He turned to Lora. “You haven’t seen him for thirteen years?”

She nodded. “Thirteen... twelve...”

“I don’t suppose he had already entered the profession of blackmailer?”

Pete intervened. “Come, no use forgetting our manners,” he protested. “I’m here, ask me.” He bowed ironically, with so perfect a reproduction of the well-remembered blending of clumsiness and grace that Lora caught her breath. “At the time of my previous acquaintanceship with Miss Winter I was a student of philosophy; and having just discovered that all optimism comes from arrested development and all pessimism from a belly-ache, I was in the act of joining the Canadian army on the off chance that I might get a crack at a few descendants of Kant or Hegel or— Oh, you know.”

With a shrug of his shoulders Lewis turned to Lora:

“In a word, Mr. Halliday asks to be paid fifty thousand dollars to refrain from printing pictures of you and me and your children and your house and garden in a tabloid newspaper.”

Lora stared at him, and at Pete, and back again at Lewis. In her breast relief was rising. She had no idea what she had feared, but if this was all... Well. He wanted money. Nothing startling about that.

Pete had hunched up his shoulders and spread out his hands as if to say, there, that’s putting it neatly for you; but when he spoke it was to enter an objection:

“Really, that’s a little too bald, don’t you think? Oversimplification, let’s call it. I represent the press—”