HONOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 3671, 22 July 1924, Page 74

HONOR.

By L. G. Moberly. Author of “The Better Man,” “But 1 Say Unto You,” “ A Desirable Calamity,” Etc., Etc. (Copyright.—For the Witness.) “Honor by name—honour by nature.' That was what Honor Leslie’s brothers were fond of saying in the days when she, and they played together in the old Rectory garden where the big cedar tree threw shadows over the daisy-starred lawn, and the thrushes sang in springtime on the pear tree by the gate. “ Honor knows how to play the game as well as any fellow you could meet in a day’s march,” was another of the sayings of Honor’s brothers; and thus the one girl in a family of boys received from them her hallmark of all that their code of straight dealing required, and stamped with their hallmark she went out into the world hy-and-by to join the great army of workers away from the sheltering walls of homo. Three years later she stood in the ; . 1 • - f the well-known financier, Miles Kr-m. ,t on. amdving for a post as liis secretary, and feeling just a little daunted by he look, half of scorn, half of amusement., which gleamed in the big man’s e5 r es as be stood by the fireplace facing her. “ I advertised for a secretary—yes, he said, glancing from her to her testimonials which ho he'd in his hand. “ But 1 never intended to have a woman secretary. I don’t intend to have one now.”

He spoke curtly, almost rudely, and folded the papers in his hand with a certain finality which implied a dismissal of the subject. Why do you say that?’ Honor questioned, her grey eyes meeting fully those sarcastic blue ones. “I know my work. I have already been doing a great deal which has given me. a small insight into questions of finance. I can do shorthand and typewriting, and I have good testimonials. Why do you dismiss me at once? ”

Miles Frampton lifted his eyebrows. He was quite unused to contradiction or argument from those in a subordinate position. He was accustomed to meekness and rather excessive deference from those who served him, and this young woman’s quiet questioning of his decision, combined with her fearless bearing and the straightforward glance of her eyes, gave him an odd and most unusual sensation.

“ I am not accustomed to being called to account for refusing a particular secretary,” he said. “ Nor do 1 think it necessary to give reasons for my refusal. But ”

“But?” Honor repeated softly when he paused. “ But—as you are so pressing,” he went on with a sarcasm which passed harmlessly over his listener’s head, “1 may tell you that my business transactions are far too delicate and important to be trusted to a woman. They can only be dealt with by, someone absolutely trustworthy.” The colour wavered over Honor's face; a Hash of anger leaped into her eyes, but her voice was almost ominously quiet. “And you think no woman ris trustworthy?” “No woman,” lie replied tersely, _ his eyes looking with a sort of challenge into her defiant eyes.

“I wonder ivhy you say that?” She spoke musingly, her glance never leaving his face. “You must have been badly let down by some woman. ’

She had said the words impulsively, merely with the thought that he had at. some time employed a woman clerk or secretary who had betrayed his trust. But his face flushed darkly, and the fierce expression in his eyes startled her. “I have no faith in women,” he said sternly. “None at all. Therefore I am afraid your errand this morning is quite useless. Here are your very excellent testimonials. No doubt you will get work elsewhere.”

The steriq sarcastic tones roused all Honor's spirit of opposition, and although she took the papers from his hand, she did not at once accept her dismissal. “No doubt I could get work elsewhere,” she said. “But—will you forgive me for being persistent? It would be a most tremendous help to my future work if I could say I had been your secretary even for a time. A testimonial, from you would be worth all these put together. Will you reconsider your decision? Will you let me”—a sudden inspiration came to her—“will you let me look after your correspondence whilst you are away? The papers say you are going to- America before very long.” “You must be a direct descendant of the widow of Scripture, who would not be daunted even by the unjust judge,” Frampton said drily. “It is quite true I am going to America in two months’ time, and I shall be obliged to get somebody to open and answer my letters during my absence, but” He hesitated, and the proverbial lot of the man who hesitates was his.

“But you did not mean to let a woman touch the letters?” Honor broke in, a smile on her lips, a mischievous light in her eyes. “Please let me come just on trial, Mr Frampton. Let me come for the two months before you go to America, and if I work as you like, let me look after your letters whilst you are away. After that—if I have been a failure—dismiss me, Let me come now —unless you have other applicants with much better testimonials than mine,” she added demurely. Now Miles Frampton had had no testimonials approaching to hers in goodness, and he knew it- He knew, too, because he was no mean judge of human nature, that this girl of the fearless bearing and straightforward grey eye, this girl who was so persistent, had great capabilities, and because of all these things, or because of some compelling quality in her smile, he yielded. But he did not yield gracefully. * “Very well,” he said, abruptly. “Mind, I am acting against my better judgment, and I shall probably find I have been a fool for my pains. But, as it happens, the other applicants for my secretary’s post did not bring first-class testimonials. I’ll give you a trial. Understand, it is only a trial—l make no further promises. You can come for a time.”

For years now—more years than he cared to count —he had told himself he was a woman-hater, that he hated the sound of a woman’s light footstep, the sight of a woman’s face; and for the first few days of Honor’s work for him he behaved—as she said to herself—-very much like a bear with a sore head. She worked in a small room adjourning his study, and where he cut as short as possible the moments she spent with him taking down his letters for dictation. He entirely forbore from offering her any small courtesies, and treated her as much as he would have treated a machine. But Honor appeared quite unconscious of any omissions. She did her work in quiet, businesslike fashion, behaving always courteously to her employer, but treating him as if lie, too, were a mere machine like .himself, and in no sense a human man.

Reluctantly Frampton was obliged to own to himself that his work had never been so well down. Very much against the grain, he had, in all honesty, to confess in his innermost mind that the girl with the grey eyes and cold, fearless manner was one in a thousand as a secretary ; and he began to wonder whether he had been a particularly foolish kind of fool in insisting so firmly upon engaging her only on trial. But he showed none of these thoughts to his secretary, and she went serenely on her way, quite

unaware of the revolution slowly taking place in the mind of her autocratic employer.

“I think you can manage my correspondence for me whilst 1 am away,” he said rather ungraciously, on the eve of his departure for America. “And I suppose I need not remind you that all my business letters must be treated as absolutely confidential? The slightest leakage of any sort would probably mean grave difficulties, if not disasters. I conclude I can trust you?’’ Into his eyes there came again the same mocking glance which had been there on the day of her first visit to him. His little sarcastic smile maddened her.

“You ought to know by now whether you can trust me or not,” she answered, with a curtness to match his own.

“Please do not leave me in charge of your letters unless you feel I am trustworthy.” Her head was held very high; her eyes were very bright and angry; the colour came and went on her face in soft, swift flushes.

He grew suddenly grave. For a second his hand rested on her shoulder. “ I trut&t you absolutely,” he said quietly. 'I trust you absolutely.”

Dear Honor, —I suppose you wouldn't wish me luck. I’ve struck oil—only it isn’t oil, it’s mineral ore! I’m putting every halfpenny I possess into the Dophango Mines. They are paying weO, and are going to be magnificent by-and-by. This means that Grace and I can be married almost at once. Wish us both luck.—Your loving brother, Hal.

Honor smiled over the boyish letter — smiled at the vision it called up of her handsome eager brother, and of his small, dainty sweetheart, Grace Debenham. It was good to hear that Hal, after many vicissitudes, many ups and downs, had at last turned luck’s corner. It gladdened her heart to know that after their long waiting, after the weary time ot liopo deferred, he and Grace would at last have their hearts’ desire.

The smile brought there by her brother’s letter still lingered on her lips when she reached Miles Frampton’s door, and was admitted to his library by the rather severe-looking parlourmaid. During Frampton’s absence Honor worked in the big library itself, and she found a pile of letters waiting for her on this April morning, when the lilac bush in the back garden was opening spikes of purple flowers, and from the mews across the way a caged blackbird fluted of spring and happiness. Honor’s own heart was singing—partly because of her brother’s joy, partly because, as she put it to herself, spring had got into her head, and she found herself actually humming a gay little tune as she opened letter after letter and sorted them methodically.

Spring’s at the heart of the world. —she sang under her breath as she opened the last letter in the pile, and then all at once her singing was silenced, and the smile died from her lips. She sat there as if something had turned her into stone, the letter held rigidly in her hand, the words upon the paper burning themselves into her brain.

Dear Frampton,—Strictly and entirely between you and me Dophango Mines are rotten. If you have anything in them, get it out post haste. The whole concern is on the verge of a smash, and the smash is very near.—Yours, M. Stanley.

Dophango Mines ! The mines into which Hal had put everything in the confident hope that he had “struck oil”—the mines which were- to do so well that he and Grace could be married almost at once. Oh, she must tell Hal this dreadful news directly. There was not a momeent to be lost. Before anything else Hal must be told to take out of these horrible mines all that he had put in. At any cost she must save her brother from disaster.

The thought went at racing speed through Honor’s brain, leaving no room for any consideration but the overpowering one that, whatever happened, she must let Hal know, and know at once, that the Dophango Mines were rotten. The word printed itself in every direction—“rotten—rotten—rotten.” The mines were rotten, and ITal had put everything into them—his little everything, upon which hung his whole future, his whole happiness Her hands shaking with anxiety, she drew a sheet of paper towards her and began to write feverishly. She was conversant enough by now with financial affairs to realise that the man who signed himself M. Stanley was an unimpeachable authority. If she quoted him to her brother, Hal would understand the vital importance of his information. “Dearest Hal,” —she wrote —“Take every penny you have put into the Dophango Mines out of them at once. They are on the verge of a smash. I have Mr M. Stanley’s authority for saying so.—Your loving sister, “Honor Leslie.” Honor—“ Honor by name and honour by nature.” Back into her mind flashed her brother’s old saying about her. “Honor by name —honour by nature. Honor knows how to play the game.” Did she know how to play the game.” She sat staring down at the paper upon which the ink was still wet, and the old words swung to and fro in her heart in a wearisome refrain : “Honor knows how to play the game. Honor knows how to play the game.” But—was it playing the game to send this letter to Hal? Miles Frampton’s strongly-emphasised words came to join that wearisome refrain in her head. “I trust you absolutely,” he had said—“l trust you absolutely.” The information about the Dophango Mines was private and confidential, and her employer trusted her absolutely. If she passed on the information to her brother, would she have fulfilled her trust? Ah, but, of course, she would only tell

Hal in the strictest confidence; he must know that what she told him must under no circumstances be repeated to a living soul. She could not—no, she could not stand aside and see her brother’s life and happiness ruined when a word from her could save him. It was absurd to think of such a thing. No one could expect it of her, not even Miles Frampton, with the mocking blue eyes and sarcastic smile.

“I trust you absolutely.” He had said that. The man who had once declared that no woman was worthy of trust had said he trusted her absolutely. And now—for Hal’s sake—-she was going to prove that such absolute trust was mistaken.

Her lips tightened in a- determined line Hal should be saved at all costs.

She drew an envelope from the case on the table and addressed it to her brother. Certainly Hal must be saved. She would be unworthy of the name of sister if, through any false sense of honour, she allowed him to be ruined. False sense of honour? Was there a false sense of honour? Were there not just those two things—honour and dishonour—playing the game or not playing the game? Was there any middle course? She put the letter into its envelope, and fastened the envelope down. Quite deliberately she stuck a stamp upon it, then rose and pushed back her chair. “ I shall go and post it at once,” she said aloud, as though tlve sound of her own voice would fortify her decision ; and she pinned on her hat and went out of the door with a certain grim determination and a curiously hard look in her grey eyes.

It was only a few paces along the street to the nearest pillar-box. She walked quickly, as if she did not wish to give herself any more time to think. But when she reached the box she paused with the letter poised in her hand. “ Honor by name—honour by nature.’ “ I trust vou absolutely.”

Her brain seemed empty of everything excepting those two sentences. She lifted her hand, her lips settin-j more grimly, but before she had slipped the letter into the box she withdrew her hand again. “I trust you absolutely, ’ she said under her breath: and without another moment of hesitation she tore her letter across and across into the minutest pieces, and crumpling them in her hand, almost ran back to Frampton’s house and thrust them into the hottest part of the fire that glowed in the grate.

“ You were right, and was wrong Women are not trustworthy.”

Honor stood very upright beside the table, her grey eyes looking straight into Frampton’s blue ones, the colour waving over her face. “At least,” she amended, “one woman is not trustworthy. I am not.”

Having made her confession, thp two remained very still, but the man who watched her saw that her hands were tightly clasped together as though she were controlling herself with difficulty. “You are not trustworthy? In what way?” he answered sharply. " The news about the Dophango Mines, which Mr Stanley sent, would have saved my brother from ruin if he had known it, and so I wrote it all in a letter to my brother.*’

“You.—what?” Frampton exclaimed slowly, and he rose from his chair as he spoke and towered above her, his massive hulk giving him a curiously menacing appearance. His eyes blazed, and he laughed shortly, a laugh of contemptuous derision. “ You gave your brother information from a confidential letter? Well, so I was not wrong after all in my original estimate of women? Yet”.—he paused and looked at her strangely—“vet I would have staked my own honour on your trustworthiness.” “Would you?” There was a little eager note in her voice. “Then you meant it when you said you trusted me absolutely ?”

“I meant it—more fool I,” he answered roughly. “But my trust was evidently misplaced. I was idiot enough to- believe vou were different.—hut it seems you are like all the rest.” And he shrugged his shoulders with a contemptuous movement which stabbed Honor with a pain that surprised herself. “I wanted to tell you what I had done.” she said, her voice very shaky. “It was a most tremendous temptation, because my brother wrote and told me he had put everything he possessed into the Dophango, and was going to be married on the strength of its certain success. I know it is no excuse, hut the temptation was tremendous.” “A woman’s honour is a curious thing,” he said with a slow, sarcastic smile. “But please don’t apologise any more. Perhaps at this point we might consider the matter closed.” “Of course, this is the end,” she murmured verv low. “I only came on trial, and now the trial is over. You wouldn’t trust me a.gain. even though ” “Even though what?” he questioned when she paused. “Even though I tore up the letter to my brother before I posted it.” was the oir’et reply ip a voice that still shook pitifully. “You didn’t send the letter?” he asked with an odd breathlessness. “Why didn’t vou send it?” And suddenly he caught her hands in his and held them in a grasp that hurt her, while it quickened her heart-beats.

“T had to plav the game,” she answered and I remembered what you said.” “What I said?”

“‘ I trust you absolutely.’ You said that to me. and I couldn’t forget it. I tore up the letter and burnt it.”

“Then your brother still knows nothing about any disaster to the Dophango ‘Mines?”

“Nothing.” Honor’s voice faltered. Even now it was hard to remember that Hal’s future and Hal’s happiness were ruined.

“Then,” Frampton said with emphasis, “you were absolutely trustworthy after ail?”

His eyes shone down into hers with a strange new light, and because of that something strange and new in his eyes, Honor's own eyes fell. She tried to draw her hands from his that still held them closely. “No, don’t try to get away from me—listen!” lie said masterfully. “Seven years ago a woman broke up my life. I vowed then I would never trust a woman again. And when you came to me first, I—well, you know how I treated you.” She lifted her eyes with a smile, but the glance in his sent the colour flaming anew over her face.

“And now I know”—he repeated the words slowly—“I know you have given me back my faith in a woman’s honour.” “Oh, I am glad !” she exclaimed, under her breath.

“But I don’t want you as my secretary any more,” he went on abruptly, and she looked up at him again with startled eyes. “I want you for my wife. Could you some day care for a rough brute like me?” he. added, a strange wistfulness in his voice.’’ « “Your—wife?”

“My wife,” he repeated slowly. “I watched you all the weeks before I went away. I began to know then that I wanted you as something better than my secretary, and when I was away 1 knew that I couldn’t do without you. Some day will you give me what I want?” Again his masterful tones grew wistful.

“Some day—perhaps,” she answered mischievously; but her eyes must have said more than her words, for he caught her in his arms and kissed her face. “And, by the way, about the Dophango Mines,” he said carelessly, after a few moments. “Stanley was over-anxious. The mines are going along ouite all right. Your brother has a sound investment, and the best thing he can do is to marry straight away, as I mean to do.” “Oh, do you?” Honor flashed back at him, with a whimsical glance and a laugh of perfect happiness.