The Devil To Pay Read Online Free PDF Page A

Solly, “you’ve been drawing these filthy cartoons in that Red rag you work for. Oh, I’ve been saving ’em! You’ve drawn me as—”
    “Not you—the stinking system you stand for!”
    “A rat, a vulture, a wolf, a shark, an octopus!”
    “If the shoe pinches—”
    Solly hurled the clippings into the fire. “I’ve given you your way too much! I let you pick your own vocation, childish as it is, let you brand me publicly as a damned menagerie. … I warn you, Walter! If you don’t stop this nonsense right now—”
    Walter said in a strained voice: “Put that money back into the plants.”
    “If you don’t forget this ridiculous idea of marrying a pauper—”
    “Next week East Lynne ”
    “You’ll marry money!”
    “Now you’re thinking in terms of dynasties. Have you got the royal sow picked out yet, your Majesty?”
    “By God, Walter,” shrieked Solly, “if—you—don’t—!” He stopped. Their eyes locked. Val held her breath. Solly snatched the telephone and shouted a number. Walter waited grimly. “Ruhig! Give me Ruhig, you fool!” Spaeth glared at his son. “I’ll show you . I’ve had a bellyful of— Ruhig?… No, no, stop babbling! Ruhig, you come right over here with a couple of witnesses. … For what? To draw up a new will, that’s for what!” He hung up, panting, and adjusted his glasses with shaking fingers.
    “I suppose,” laughed Walter, “you think you’ve dealt me the mortal blow.”
    “You’ll never get your hands on my money, damn you!”
    Walter walked over to the glass doors in silence. Val got up, holding her throat. But then he went back, passed his father’s desk, and opened the study door. Winni Moon almost fell into his arms; there was a silly smile on her face. Walter brushed by her without a glance, and she disappeared. Spaeth sat down, breathing heavily through his mouth. Val, on the terrace, felt completely numb.
    A few moments later she heard Walter returning. She looked, and saw a valise in one hand and a drawing board in the other. “I’ll call for the rest of my stuff tomorrow,” said Walter coldly. His father did not reply.
    “And this isn’t the end of it, either,” continued Walter in the same bleak way. “That money goes back to the people you took it from, do you understand? I don’t know how I’ll do it”—he opened the glass doors—“but by God, I’ll do it.”
    Solly Spaeth sat still, only his head bobbing a little. Walter went out onto the terrace. He nudged Val’s soaked shoulders with the edge of the drawing board. “Could you put me up tonight, Val? I can’t start looking for a place until tomorrow.”
    Val looped her arms around his neck and clung. “Walter. Darling. Marry me.”
    She felt him stiffen. Then he said lightly: “I’d rather live with you in sin.”
    “Walter—dearest. I’m mad about you. I don’t care what your father’s done. We’ll manage somehow. Don’t keep hauling the burdens of the world around on your shoulders. Forget what’s happened—”
    Walter said in a gay voice: “Come on, let’s run for it. You’ve just about ruined that precious croquignole bob of yours as it is.”
    Val’s arms fell. “But, Walter. I asked you to marry me.”
    “No, Val,” he said gently.
    “But, Walter!”
    “Not yet,” said Walter; and there was something in the way he said it that turned the rain down her back to ice-water.
3. Design for Leaving
    A G REAT flood rushed down upon Sans Souci in the middle of the night, and Walter and Val and Winni Moon and Jo-Jo and Pink and Rhys Jardin clung shivering to the highest gable of the roof in the darkness, hearing the water gurgle hungrily as it rose. Suddenly there was a moon, and the man in it bore the ruddy features of Solomon Spaeth. Then the moon went down into the black waters and was drowned, still leering, and the gray day began to dawn; and Val saw nothing but water, water everywhere, and she felt terribly thirsty, and she awoke with her tongue