Then the excellent dinner was served, further strengthening his faith in money and its powers. Caspar roused himself to be agreeable and fall in with her "prejudices," as he called them.
Janet from her humble position as servant was in and out, bringing dishes and messages to Tabor from the cook; and Caspar chatted on, asking questions about their old school friends, exhibiting a wider knowledge of some of their moves than even were known by Eden, who had lived near them while he was away.
"Cassie Howard got married and then got herself divorced, didn't she?"
"Oh," said Eden thoughtfully, "did she? I didn't know. I never knew Cassie very well, you know."
"Oh, well, you didn't miss much, I guess. You see, her first husband was in my regiment, and he had all kinds of tales to tell me, including some pretty rotten facts about the fellow she married next. You know, he was a bomber and was killed in a crash. Nobody knows what Cassie will do next. She's pretty thick now with a married man. Rich, he is, too, and not much reputation."
"Oh," said Eden with a shiver. "What terrible things are happening!"
"Well," said Caspar with a careless shrug, "that's war for you. When you see people getting killed on every side you think, 'To heck with right living! Tomorrow we die! Why not have a good time while we're at it?' It really has that effect on you a lot."
Eden gave him a troubled searching look.
"I know people it has not affected in that way," she said shyly.
"Then they were softies, I'll bet!" said the young soldier.
"No," said Eden, "they weren't softies. One was a man with all kinds of wonderful citations to his credit. Another had completed a long list of missions and wore a silver star and a medal for special bravery. He told me himself that the whole thing gave him a different view of life, and he felt life was more serious than he had ever thought."
Caspar's lips went up in a sneer, and for a moment he forgot that he had planned to agree with her.
"Not me!" he said, shaking his head. "You'll find all that talk some of those would-be heroes give you is just a line they see is popular with some of their home folks, so they are working it for all they are worth. I say they are softies when they talk that way. I say live like a sport and die like a hero. That's all there is to it."
Eden looked at him aghast.
"Why, Caspar! You talk like an unbeliever. Didn't you join the church when I did? You believe in God and Christian standards, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, I joined church. But it's all a lot of poppycock. Kid stuff, you know. Nobody believes that line today. We've wised up. Science has taught us a lot. We've worked out a better line of behavior today, more fitted to the times. We've left the days of self-sacrifice behind and have come to the time when it's every man for himself, and the best man wins the race. How else would you think they would have got us fellows to go out and fight if it hadn't been for that? I tell you times have changed, Edie, and you'd better get wise to it, or you'll be good and left behind. It's time for you to get busy and have some fun before you get old. You've got a good complexion and a pretty face, and if you'll just drop your traditions, put on some makeup, and get into things, we could team up and have a great life. How about it, girl? I'm for it if you are!"
He had almost finished his dessert now and was about to ask if he might have another piece of pie, as he would have done in the days that were gone. But Eden was not eating hers. She had scarcely taken a bite. She was watching her former playmate in consternation. And as he finished his extraordinary proposal she stiffened in a kind of fury.
"Stop!" she said. "Don't speak another word like that. If you feel that way, you are no friend of mine. You are despising all our beliefs of the past. You are trampling on God! I am ashamed of you. God who has brought you through the war unscathed."
"Not on yer life, He didn't," said Caspar with a sneer. "I brought myself through. What did God have to do with it? If I hadn't been courageous and gone out to kill and not to be killed, if I hadn't studied out ways to find easy street when I was sent on a mission, and let the other fellow take the raps, do you think I'd have been here today? How about all those others that got killed? What did God do for them?"
"Stop!" said Eden, rising excitedly. "You shall not talk that way about God in this house. If my father were here, he would put you out for that, and I will not hear another word. Go away! I don't want ever to see you again, not unless you find out how terrible you are and go to God and apologize. Get down on your knees and tell God you are ashamed and sorry. I don't see how I can ever forget what you have said, or count you as my friend. I think you are awful!"
Eden was very beautiful as she stood there in her righteous anger and flashed her lovely eyes at her former friend. And Caspar was suddenly realizing what a fool he had been to let her see what he felt so early in the game. He rose with a wistful look toward his empty pie plate and realized that he must placate this angry girl, or his plans for the evening would be all upset. So he put on a wheedling tone, the tone by which he always used to be able to coax her to do anything for him.
"Aw, Eden, forget it! I didn't mean all that stuff, of course. I just want you to see you're getting hayseeds in your hair, and it isn't done today. Your father didn't realize he was making you an old woman before your time by feeding you such antediluvian ideas as he did. Of course, a lot of people believed that way when he was young, but he was sick and getting old, and he didn't see how the modern successes were growing away from all those fool ideas. Of course, those things are very becoming in a lady if she does not carry them too far. Eden darling, forget what I said. I love you, Eden, can't you see that? And I want you to be just perfect. Darling!" The young man came quickly near to her and, letting his arm steal about her softly, put his clean-shaven cheek close to hers in a loving embrace, with intent to kiss her in a regular way that she would not forget.
They were standing in the hall doorway now, and Eden, startled, furious, gasping, struggled away from him, even as she brought her right hand about in a quick swing and dealt him a ringing slap across his amorous mouth, followed by another stinging blow across his eyes. Then turning, she flew across the hall and up the stairs as if on wings, calling back from the head of the stairs to the young soldier below her who was bent in pain and struggling to overcome the effect of the blinding blows she had dealt him.
"Go away!" she called. "And never come back again!"
Then she went into her room, shut the door sharply, and turned the key in the lock.
Both Janet and Tabor were nearby, having heard it all of course, though discreetly in the background. Now Tabor came forward with the young man's cap and coat in his hands.
"You'd best be going!" he advised in his most severe and unfriendly tone and helped Caspar on with his coat, handed him his hat, and opened the front door for him.
So Caspar Carvel staggered blindly down the steps, pausing a moment at the walk, with his hand over his eyes, to recover his poise and self-assurance, and then vanished down the street and around the corner.
Upstairs Eden in her quiet room threw herself on her bed, weeping her heart out for an old friend who she felt was utterly unworthy and had gone out of her life forever.
In an interval as her sobs subsided, Eden heard Janet's gentle step and then a soft tap on the door.
"Yes?" she said. "Who is it?"
"It's juist old Janet, my leddy. I merely wanted to inquire ef you would want the perlice sent for again."
"The police?" said Eden, opening the door and presenting an astonished face. "Come in, Janet. What do you mean?"
"Wull," said Janet as Eden let her in, "I thought as ye had throwed out two young gentlemen, mebbe ye was expectin' a third yet, the night?"
Then suddenly Eden went off into a peal of laughter.
Chapter 6
But tears and laughter did not entirely banish the trouble from Eden's thoughts. She kept going over and over what Caspar had said. Did he really mean all those terrible things? And how h
ad she answered him? Was it right to send him away like that, never to return?
But, of course, it was enough to raise her righteous wrath, just the way he had spoken of her father. Her wonderful father! Even if Mr. Thurston had been old-fashioned, which he wasn't in the least, Caspar had no right, just after death had taken her father away, to come into the home where he had always been welcomed and bring him into scorn before his own daughter. She was right to feel it was outrageous. She was right to rebuke him for that. But when he not only did that but brought her father's God into contempt also, what could she do but strike? Send him away?
And now there came to her the memory of other days. Why? Caspar had been as earnest as any of the others in their young people's meeting that they all attended. He even made good speeches and sometimes led in prayer. She always used to be so proud of him for he had a way about him when he was president of their society and said so many good things, so fitting to the subject. Was it possible that he had so utterly changed? It almost seemed to her that he must have been drinking, or he never would have talked like that, though the Caspar of old never drank. Had he learned to do that, too, as well as to despise holy things?
Not that Eden herself had ever been particularly spiritual, but she had been regular in her church attendance, conforming always to the lines laid down by their church and the requests of their nice old pastor, being most active in all the activities of the church. But now it suddenly occurred to her that here was something more than mere church activity required to meet a situation in which God Himself had been challenged, and somehow she felt she didn't have it. At least, she didn't know how to answer one who talked as Caspar had done. Somehow she must find out what to say if anybody ever talked like that again in her presence. She just couldn't stand it. There must be an answer to such blasphemies, or her father, her good, wise father, would never have believed. It wasn't thinkable that such triflers as Caspar could actually dare to flout the tenets of the Christian religion. Oh, she had of course heard of unbelief before, but she had always thought of unbelievers as low-down, vicious people who had not culture or education.
So carefully her father had guarded her that she had been sent to schools that did not spend their time in breaking down respectable religious beliefs that had carried generations of good people along in a placid faith and trust. So now Eden was bewildered that her old playmate, who had been brought up in what she had always thought was a respectable way, had gone back on basic doctrines and beliefs. Somewhere she would have to find a way to answer this if he ever came back to discuss the matter with her--or if anybody else from such a war experience as Caspar had had should come her way. Probably her father knew ways to answer such things and bring unbelievers to see the right, but she couldn't recall that he had ever given her proofs to store in her mind. Yet she was sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that her father had believed in God and had gone to heaven, trusting in the blood of Christ. She was sure he was expecting to go straight to God in heaven when he said good-bye to her and that her dear mother would be there also. She knew from her mother's letters that her father and mother had often talked these things over and agreed and were expecting to be together for all eternity in the presence of God. That wasn't enough to help her tell other people about it. She had to know why wise Christian ministers and saints believed these things. It had never troubled her before. It was the accepted belief of her family, her church, her Christian friends.
But now a new group had come to her knowledge. Not just unbelievers in far foreign lands, nor even gangsters who had never wanted to be good, but a group of whom Caspar, at present, was a representative--a group of young fellows, who, before they went to war, worked in churches, made speeches, and prayed in meetings. And now that they had come back from facing death, they had come to the belief that there was no God, no salvation, no right; that it was all a line of talk. She hadn't talked with others who said so, but Caspar seemed to take it for granted that she knew that all who were not softies felt that way about religion now, and she had to know. She had to know for sure how to prove that God was still God and could save, and heaven was real, or else she could not go on even for herself. And how else could she help others to find the way back to right living? How could she ever help Caspar, supposing he never came back again after the way she had treated him? There must be a way to find out why reasonable people believed all that.
She decided finally that she would go to church next Sunday and see if anything was said that would bring her light on the problem. And if she couldn't get anything out of the church, she would go to the minister and ask him questions.
It was not that her own faith in God was shaken. She believed in her father's God too much to be troubled on her own account, but now that the question had been brought up, she felt she must understand it. It was doubtless true that her father had talked about such things long ago, when she was very young, and had merely supposed that she had understood it and so said nothing more. Just as a teacher would not be continually harping on the alphabet after one had learned to read.
So thinking it out, Eden went back to the book she had been idly looking through, the book that had come to her father since his death, evidently ordered by him from the publisher.
And now she noticed for the first time the subject of this book, whose perusal Caspar's entrance had interrupted; it was religious. Ah, perhaps this was just what she was looking for. Perhaps this would give proofs and arguments that there was a God, arguments that she could use if she ever had to talk again with Caspar. Eagerly she began to read and was amazed at the simplicity of the wording and the startling truths that were set down as facts. For the first time in her life, although she had gone to Sunday school since she was a little child and to church every Sunday--sometimes twice or three times a day--she began to take it in that God considered everyone a sinner. Of course, she had heard about sinners, but she had never realized that people like her father classed in such a category. For the first time she took in the great thought that ever since Adam's sin, everybody was born with a dead spiritual nature. That all of Adam's children had inherited a tendency to sin and that Satan was using that sinful tendency of mankind to turn men, even Christians, against the Son, Jesus Christ. And where he failed to turn them actually against Christ, he was engaged in trying to make it appear that he was doing Christ's work, or more subtle still, trying to make the world believe there was no devil and no sin.
Eden read on, fascinated, because the book was written most simply and originally, yet it touched on themes she had never before heard discussed, or if she had, she had never taken any notice of them. There was "original sin" that seemed to belong to everybody. She had never thought of herself as a sinner. She had always tried to do right, to please her father and mother, and do the things that were expected of her, yet here was this strange book saying "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Emphasizing it, as if this not only was meant for gangsters and low-down people, but as if it might have some kind of meaning for good, right-living people. And another phrase, "Ye must be born again." But surely that did not mean church members! Strange! What was this doctrine, anyway? Why did her father send for this book? Or was it just sent to him to advertise it? Yet she couldn't lay it down, and kept on reading till, little by little, she began to wonder if all this could be true.
What was being "born again," anyway? There had been a Sunday school lesson long ago in her childhood about a man who came to Jesus and wanted to know how to be saved, and He had told him that he must be born again. But she had always supposed that the man had been a very wicked person, so wicked that Jesus saw he had just to begin all over again. And wasn't he wealthy, too? It seemed she remembered that about him. She had never thought of this advice as applying to good, right-minded people. She couldn't help feeling a little outraged that anyone should think she herself--well, at least her father, anyway--needed to be born again. Perhaps this was some sort of heretical book that she ought not to b
other with. Yet because it had been sent to her father, she felt she must know more about it. Besides, the book itself was intriguing. It seemed to speak to her very soul, to make her suspect things in her heart that she did not know were there, that she had never dreamed were objectionable to God.
So she went on reading until suddenly Janet knocked at the door.
"Are ye asleep, Miss Eden? I'm sorry to disturb ye, but a mon downstairs seems tae think he ought tae see ye richt away. It's that lawyer mon from the bank, and he says there's something important ye ought to know at oncet. Could ye coom doon juist a meenit? He says he wouldna keep ye lang."
"Why, of course, Janet. No, I wasn't asleep. I was just reading one of Daddy's books."
Eden jumped up, her finger in the page where she had been reading, and hurried down the stairs.
The young man was standing in the hall, glancing at his watch.
"I hope I haven't disturbed you, Miss Thurston. Mr. Worden has telephoned again, and he wanted me to get in touch with you and tell you what has been discovered so far."
"Oh, you haven't disturbed me," said Eden pleasantly. "I was only reading. Come into the living room and sit down. Of course, I'm anxious to know if there are any new developments."
"Well, yes, there are," said the young man. "They've found some more jewels sewed quite neatly in the lining of the young man's coat. Also several concealed in the woman's hat, and even some jewelry fastened into her clothing. They were so cleverly concealed that they were not discovered at first and so have just come to light. Of course, the woman claims that you gave them to her, but in view of the fact that you knew nothing about some of the other things she said you gave her, we felt you should see them at once. Also most of these things answer to the description of the articles in the bank list as from the secret compartment. Now, will you look at them? See, I have put them out there on the piano. Here's the diamond bracelet. Do you remember ever seeing it before?