diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:50:24 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:50:24 -0700 |
| commit | 9ad8af3462e4dd90ab14ae538dd0308dc5785dcc (patch) | |
| tree | 96adf4c19a8400c078ae381bd75e5160c625232c /17141-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '17141-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 17141-h/17141-h.htm | 14193 |
1 files changed, 14193 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/17141-h/17141-h.htm b/17141-h/17141-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d47df2f --- /dev/null +++ b/17141-h/17141-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14193 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Destiny, by Charles Neville Buck</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .padtop {margin-top: 2em;} + .padtoplots {margin-top: 4em;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + .heavy {font-weight: bold;} + .noin {text-indent: 0;} + + .dropcap {font-size: 200%; float: left; padding-right: 0.1em; } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + pre {font-size: 75%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Destiny, by Charles Neville Buck</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Destiny</p> +<p>Author: Charles Neville Buck</p> +<p>Release Date: November 23, 2005 [eBook #17141]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESTINY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by David Garcia, Stacy Brown Thellend,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="https://www.pgdp.net/">https://www.pgdp.net/</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by the<br /> + <a href="http://kdl.kyvl.org/">Kentuckiana Digital Library</a></h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ccccff;"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through the Electronic + Text Collection of the Kentuckiana Digital Library. See + <a href="http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;xc=1&idno=B92-178-30418584&view=toc"> + http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;xc=1&idno=B92-178-30418584&view=toc</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h1 class="padtop">DESTINY</h1> +<h3 class="padtop">BY</h3> +<h2>CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK</h2> + +<h3 class="padtoplots">AUTHOR OF<br /> +THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS, ETC.</h3> + +<h3 style="margin-bottom: .3em;">NEW YORK</h3> +<h2 style="margin-bottom: .3em; margin-top: .3em;">GROSSET & DUNLAP</h2> +<h3 style="margin-top: .3em;">PUBLISHERS</h3> + + + +<p class="center padtoplots"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span><br /> +Copyright, 1916, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">W. J. Watt & Company</span></p> + +<table class="center" summary="others" style="border: 2px solid black"> +<tr><td> +<i>OTHER BOOKS BY</i><br /> +<span class="u">CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK</span><br /> +<br /> +THE KEY TO YESTERDAY<br /> +THE LIGHTED MATCH<br /> +THE PORTAL OF DREAMS<br /> +THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS<br /> +THE BATTLE CRY<br /> +THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS<br /> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>Table of Contents</h2> + +<table class="center" summary="toc"> +<tbody> +<tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#Part_I">CHAPTER I</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#Part_II">CHAPTER V</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a> </td><td class="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="left"> </td><td class="left"><a href="#Part_III">CHAPTER XXXV</a></td> +</tr></tbody> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" class="padtop" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="DESTINY" id="DESTINY"></a>DESTINY</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 30%;" /> +<h3><a name="Part_I" id="Part_I"></a><span class="smcap">Part</span> I</h3> + +<h2><i>THE LAND OF PROMISE</i></h2> + + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">O</span><span class="heavy">UTSIDE</span> the subtle clarion of autumn's dying glory flamed in the torches +of the maples and smoldered in the burgundy of the oaks. It trailed a +veil of rose-ash and mystery along the slopes of the White Mountains, +and inside the crumbling school-house the children droned sleepily over +their books like prisoners in a lethargic mutiny.</p> + +<p>Frost had brought the chestnuts rattling down in the open woods, and +foraging squirrels were scampering among the fallen leaves.</p> + +<p>Brooding at one of the front desks, sat a boy, slender and undersized +for his thirteen years. The ill-fitting crudity of his neatly patched +clothes gave him a certain uniformity with his fellows, yet left him as +unlike them as all things else could conspire to make him. The long hair +that hung untrimmed over his face seemed a black emphasis for the cameo +delicacy of his features, lending them a wan note of pathos. On his +thin temples, bluish veins traced the hall-mark <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>of an over-sensitive +nature, and eyes that were deep pools of somberness gazed out with the +dreamer's unrest.</p> + +<p>Occasionally, he shot a furtively terrified glance across the aisle +where another boy with a mop of red hair, a freckled face and a mouth +that seemed overcrowded with teeth, made faces at him and conveyed in +eloquent gestures threats of future violence. At these menacing +pantomimes, the slighter lad trembled under his bulging coat, and he sat +as one under sentence.</p> + +<p>Had any means of escape offered itself, Paul Burton would have embraced +it without thought of the honors of war. He had no wish to stand upon +the order of his going. He earnestly desired to go at once. But under +what semblance of excuse could he cover his retreat? Suddenly his +necessity fathered a crafty subterfuge. The bucket of drinking water +stood near his desk—and it was well-nigh empty. Becoming violently +thirsty, he sought permission to carry it to the spring for refilling, +and his heart leaped hopefully when the tired-eyed teacher indifferently +nodded her assent. He meant to carry the pail to the spring. He even +meant to fill it for the sake of technical obedience. Later, some one +else could go out and fetch it back.</p> + +<p>Paul's object would be served when once he was safe from the stored-up +wrath of the Marquess kid. As he carried the empty bucket down the +aisle, he felt upon him the derisive gaze of a pair of blue eyes +entirely surrounded by freckles, and his own eyes drooped before their +challenge and contempt. They drooped also as he met the questioning gaze +of his elder brother, Ham, whose seat was just at the door. Ham had a +disquieting capacity for reading Paul's thoughts, and an equally +disquieting scorn of cowardice. But Paul <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>closed the door behind him, +and, in the freedom of the outer air, set his lips to whistling a casual +tune. He could never be for a moment alone without breaking into some +form of music. It was his nature's language and his soul's soliloquy.</p> + +<p>Of course tomorrow would bring a reckoning for truancy and a probable +renewal of his danger, but tomorrow is after all another day and for +this afternoon at least he felt safe.</p> + +<p>But Ham Burton's uncanny powers of divination were at work, and out of +his seat he slipped unobserved. Through the door he flitted shadow-like +and strolled along in the wake of his younger brother.</p> + +<p>Down where the spring crooned softly over its mossy rocks and where +young brook trout darted in phantom flashes, Ham Burton found Paul with +his face tight-clasped in his nervous hands. Back there in the +school-house had been only terror, but out here was something else. A +specter of self-contempt had risen to contend with physical trepidation. +The song of the water and the rustle of the leaves where the breeze +harped among the platinum shafts of the birches were pleading with this +child-dreamer, and in his mind a conflict swept backward and forward. +Paul did not at once see his brother, and the older boy stood over him +in silence, watching the mental fight; watching until he knew that it +was lost and that timidity had overpowered shame. His own eyes at first +held only scorn for such a poltroon attitude, but suddenly there leaped +into them a fierce glow of tenderness, which he as quickly masked. At +the end of his silent contemplation he brusquely demanded, "Well, Paul, +how long is it going to take you to fill that bucket with water?"</p> + +<p>The younger lad started violently and stammered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Chagrined tears welled +into his deep eyes, and a flush spread over his thin cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I just—just got to thinkin'," he exculpated lamely, "an' I fogot to +hurry. Listen at that water singin', Ham!" His voice took on a rapt +eagerness. "An' them leaves rustlin'. It's all like some kind of music +that nobody's ever played an' nobody ever can play."</p> + +<p>Ham's face, looking down from the commanding height of his sixteen +years, hardened.</p> + +<p>"Do you figure that Pap sends you to school to set out here and listen +at the leaves rattlin'?" was the dry inquiry. "To hear you talk a +feller'd think there ain't anything in the world but funny noises. What +do they get you?"</p> + +<p>"Noises!" the slight lad's voice filled and thrilled with remonstrance, +"Can't you ever understand music, Ham? There's all the world of +difference between music an' noise. Music's what the Bible says the +angels love more'n anything."</p> + +<p>Ham's lips set themselves sternly. He was not one to be turned aside +with quibbles.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Paul," he accused, "you didn't come out here to get water +and you didn't come to listen to the fishes singin' songs either. You +sneaked out to run away because you're scared of Jimmy Marquess an' +because you know he's goin' to punch your face after school."</p> + +<p>The younger lad flushed crimson and he began an unconvincing denial. "I +ain't—I ain't afraid of him, neither," he protested. "That ain't the +truth, Ham."</p> + +<p>"All right then." The elder boy filled the bucket and straightened up +with business-like alacrity. "If you ain't scared of him we might as +well go on back there an' tell him so. He thinks you are."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>Instinctively Paul flinched and turned pallid. He gazed about him like +a trapped rabbit, but his brother caught him roughly by the shoulder and +wheeled him toward the school-house.</p> + +<p>"But—Ham—but—" The younger brother's voice faltered and again tears +came to his eyes. "But I don't b'lieve in fightin'. I think it's +wicked."</p> + +<p>"Paul," announced the other relentlessly, "you're a coward. Maybe it +ain't exactly your fault, but one thing's dead certain. There's just one +kind of feller that can't afford to run away—an' that's a coward, like +you. Everybody picks on a kid that's yeller. You've got to have one good +fight to save a lot of others an' this is the day you're goin' to have +it. After school you've got to smash Jimmy Marquess a wallop on his +front teeth an' if you don't shake 'em plumb loose I'm goin' to take you +back in the woods an' give you a revelation in lickin's that'll linger +with you for years." Ham paused and then added ominously, "Now you can +do just exactly as you like. I don't want to try to influence you, but +that Marquess kid is your softest pickin'."</p> + +<p>Facing the dread consequences of such a dilemma, Paul went slowly and +falteringly forward with the unhappy consciousness of his brother +following warily at his heels.</p> + +<p>"Come to think of it," suggested Ham casually, "I guess you'd better +write a note before we go in—it seems a kind of shame to treat Jimmy +like that without givin' him any warnin'." He set the bucket in the path +and fumbled in his pocket for a scrap of paper. "I'll just help you +out," he volunteered graciously. "Start with his name—like this—'James +Marquess; Sir—.'"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>Paul hesitated, and Ham took a step forward with a cool glint in his +eyes before which the other quailed. "I'll write it, Ham," he hastily +whimpered.</p> + +<div class="blockquot padtop"><p>"James Marquess; Sir—" continued the laconic voice of the +directing mind. "If you think I am afraid of you, you have erred in +judgment. I don't like you and I don't care for your personal +appearance. If you so much as squint at me after school today I +intend to change the general appearance of your face. It won't be +handsome when I get through, but I guess it will be an improvement, +at that.</p> + +<p>"Respectfully,</p> +<p style="text-align: right;">"<span class="smcap">Paul Burton</span>."</p> +</div> + +<p class="padtop">The coerced writer groaned deeply as he scrawled the signature which +pledged him so irretrievably to battle. He felt that his autograph to +such a missive was distinctly inappropriate, and invited sure calamity. +Ham, however, only nodded approval as he commanded, "When you take the +bucket up, lay that on his desk and be sure he gets it."</p> + +<p>Yet as Paul plodded on, a piteous little shape of quaking terror, Ham +let the glance of militant tenderness flash once more into his eyes, and +his voice came in sympathetic timbre.</p> + +<p>"Paul, I can't always do your fightin' for you. If I could I wouldn't +make <i>you</i> do it—but you've got to learn how to stand on your own legs. +It ain't only the Marquess kid you're fightin'. You've got to lick the +yeller streak out of yourself before it ruins you." He paused, then +magnanimously added, "If you trim him down good and proper, I'll get you +a new violin string in place of the one you busted."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>It was a very unmilitary shape that huddled in its seat, watching his +adversary read the ultimatum. As for the heir of the house of Marquess, +he allowed his freckled face for a moment to pucker in blank +astonishment, then a smile of beatitude enveloped it. It was such +beatitude as might appear on the visage of a cat who has unexpectedly +received a challenge to mortal combat from a mouse.</p> + +<p>An hour of the afternoon session yet intervened between the present and +the awful future and upon Paul Burton it rested with its incubus of dire +suspense. It was an hour which the Marquess kid employed congenially +across the aisle. Whenever the tired eyes of the teacher were not upon +him he gave elaborate pantomimes wherein he felt the swelling biceps of +his right arm, and made as if to spit belligerently upon his doubled +fist. Sometimes his left hand seemed struggling to restrain the deadly +right, lest it leap forth untimely in its hunger for smiting. These +wordless pleasantries were in no wise lost on the shrinking Paul in +whose slight body slept the spirit of the artist unfortified with +martial iron of combat.</p> + +<p>The world of boyhood has little understanding or sympathy for a soul +like Paul's; a soul woven of dreams and harmonies which knows no means +of attuning itself to the material. This lad walked with his head in the +clouds and his thoughts in visions. His playmates were invisible to +human eyes and he heard the crashing of vast symphonies where others +felt only the silences. Now in a little while he was to have his face +punched by a material and normal young savage whose very freckles shone +with anticipation.</p> + +<p>Ham Burton, looking on from his desk, recognized that in the frail lad +who "wouldn't stick up for him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>self" burned the thin hot fire of genius +without the stamina that alone could fan it into effective blaze. For +Ham, whose face revealed as little of what went on back of his eyes as +an Indian's, was the dreamer, too, though his dreams were cut to a +different pattern. As he dealt in visions, so William the Conqueror may +have dealt when a boy in his father's bakeshop; so Napoleon may have +dreamed before the world had heard his name. The younger lad dreamed as +the hasheesh-eater, for the vague and iridescent glory of visioning, but +the elder dreamed otherwise, in preface to achievement.</p> + +<p>The teacher rose at length to dismiss the classes, and as the children +piled out into the crisp air, the Marquess kid was first on the +hard-trodden soil of the school-yard—for there triumph awaited his +coming. Paul was less impulsive. He collected his books with the most +deliberate care, dusting them off with an unwonted solicitude. Then he +spent an indefinite period searching for a stub of slate-pencil, which +at another time would not have interested him. He hoped against hope +that Jimmy Marquess would not have time to wait for him.</p> + +<p>At last, the laggard in war felt Ham's strong hand on his coat-collar. +Vainly protesting and sniffling, he was hustled toward the rotting +threshold and catapulted upon his enemy so abruptly and skillfully that +to the casual eye he might have seemed bursting with impatience for +battle.</p> + +<p>And as he stumbled, willy-nilly, upon the Marquess kid, the Marquess kid +joyously gathered him in and began raining enthusiastic rights and lefts +upon the blanched and blue-veined face.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Paul Burton woke to the fact that at his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>back was an extremely +solid wall; on his right an equally impassable fence; on his left his +implacable brother and at his front—nothing but the Marquess kid.</p> + +<p>Of the four obstacles Jimmy seemed the most vulnerable, and upon him +Paul hurled himself with the exalted frenzy of a single idea: an idea of +boring his way out of an insupportable position. That Jimmy's blows hurt +him so little astonished him, and under the spur of fear he fought with +such abandon that to Ham's face came a slow grin of contentment and to +that of the Marquess kid an expression of pained amazement, followed by +one of sudden panic. Of this particular mouse, the cat had had enough +and amid jeers of derision the cat withdrew with more of haste than of +dignity in his departure.</p> + +<p>But five minutes later as Paul trudged along the forest path toward his +home, the unaccustomed light of battle that had momentarily kindled in +his eyes began to fade. There glowed in them no such lasting triumph as +should come from a boy's first victory. Instead, they wore again the +far-away look of dreamy pensiveness. Already, his thoughts were back in +their own world, a world peopled with fancies and panoplied with +imaginings. Suddenly he halted, and threw back his head, intently +listening. High and far away came the honking cry of wild geese in +flight; travelers of the upper air-paths, winging their way southward. +Distance softened the harshness of their journeying clamor into a note +of appealing wanderlust.</p> + +<p>Paul's lips were parted and his eyes aglow. The memory of the fight he +had dreaded was effaced; the bruises on his sensitive face were +forgotten. His heart was drinking an elixir through his ears, and at the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>sounds floating down from the heights new fancies leaped within him.</p> + +<p>Ham with his eyes shrewdly fixed upon his brother swung his books to his +other hand and shrugged his shoulders. He, too, was looking in fancy +beyond the misty hills, but not to the flight of geese. He saw cities +with shaft-like structures biting the sky and dark banners of smoke +floating above the clash of conflict. His heart was burning to be at the +center of that conflict.</p> + +<p>He, too, heard a song of sirens, but it was such a song as Richard +Whittington heard when bare-footed in Pauntley the notes of the Bow +bells stole out to him:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sang of a city that was blazoned like a missal-book,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Black with oaken gables, carven and inscrolled;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Every street a colored page, every sign a hieroglyph,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dusky with enchantments, a city paved with gold."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then he gazed about the desolate country where morning wore to night in +a sequence of hard chore upon hard chore, and he groaned between his set +teeth.</p> + +<p>Here and there along the way stood deserted houses where the wind +searched the interiors through the eyeless sockets of unglazed windows +and where the roof-trees were broken and twisted. They were blighting +symbols of this soul-breaking existence in a land of abandoned farms +where Opportunity never came. They were mutely eloquent of surrender +after struggle. They summed up the hazard of life where to abate the +fight and rest meant to lose the fight and starve.</p> + +<p>His heart told him that no other battle-field was hard enough or +desperate enough to spell his defeat. The world was his if he could go +out into the world to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>claim it, but here in this meager land of +barrenness his soul would strangle without a fight. The things that had +long flamed in his heart had flamed secretly, like a smothered blaze +which gnaws the vitals out of a ship whose hatches are battened down. +He, too, had kept the hatches of silence battened. But through many +wakeful nights the voice that speaks to those whom the gods have chosen +cried to him with the certainty of a herald's bugle. "What the greatest +have been, you can be! Of the few to whom impossibility is a jest, you +are one! Nothing can halt your onward march save—want of opportunity. +You have kinship with the world's mightiest, but you must go out into +the world and claim your own." For that was how Ham Burton dreamed.</p> + +<p>As the Burton boys came to the farm-house where they had been born, the +sun was sinking behind the ragged spears of the mountain-top, and its +last fires were mirrored in the lake whose name was like an epitome of +their lives—Forsaken.</p> + +<p>The house seemed to huddle in the gathering shadows with melancholic +despair. Its walls looked out over the unproductive acres around it as +grimly as a fortress overlooks a hostile territory, and its occupants +lived with as defensive a frugality as if they were in fact a +beleaguered garrison cut off from fresh supplies. This was the prison in +which Ham Burton must serve his life sentence—unless he responded to +that urgent call which he heard when the others slept. Tonight he must +share with his father the raw chores of the farm, and, when his studies +were done, he must go to his bed, exhausted in body and mind, to be +awakened at sunrise and retread the cheerless round of drudgery. Every +other tomorrow while life fettered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>him here held a repetition of just +that and nothing more.</p> + +<p>The white fire of rebellion leaped mutinously up in Ham's heart. He +would go away. He would answer the loud clarion that called to him from +beyond the horizons. The first line of hills should no longer be his +remotest frontier. And if he did that—a whispering voice of loyalty and +conscience argued insistently—who would wear the heavy harness here at +home? His father would never leave, and upon his father the infirmities +of age would some day come creeping. There was Paul—but, at the thought +of Paul with his strong imagination and his weak muscles, Ham laughed. +If he went away he must go without consent or parental blessing; he must +slip away in the night with his few possessions packed in his battered +bag. Very well; if that were the only way, it must be his way. The +voices were calling—always calling—and it might as well be tonight. +Destiny is impatient of temporizing. Yes, tonight he would start out +there, somewhere, where the battles were a man's battles, and the +rewards a man's rewards.</p> + +<p>But at the door his mother met him. There was a moisture of unshed tears +in her eyes, and she spoke in the appeal of dependence—dependence upon +her eldest son who had never failed her.</p> + +<p>"Son, your father's in bed—he's had some sort of stroke. He's feelin' +mighty low in his mind, an' he says he's played out with the fight of +all these years. I told him that he needn't fret himself because we have +you. You've always been so strong an' manly—even when you were a little +feller. You'd better see him, Ham, an' cheer him up. Tell him you can +take right hold an' run the farm."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>Ham turned away a face suddenly drawn. A lemon afterglow hung above the +hills, and where it darkened into the evening sky, a single star shone +in a feeble point of light. It was setting—not rising—and to the boy +it seemed to be his star.</p> + +<p>"I'll go in and see him," he said curtly.</p> + +<p>Thomas Burton lay on his bed with his face turned to the wall. When his +son entered, he raised it and shifted it so that the yellow light of an +oil lamp shone on it above the faded quilt.</p> + +<p>It was a hopeless, beaten face, and for the first time in his life Ham +saw the calloused hand which crept out to his own shake feebly.</p> + +<p>He took it, and the father said slowly:</p> + +<p>"Ham, somehow I feel like an old hoss that just goes as long as he can +an' then lays down. Right often he don't get up no more. It's a hard +fight for a boy to take up, this fight with rocks and poor soil, but I +guess you'll have to tackle it. I didn't quit so long as I could keep +goin'."</p> + +<p>The boy nodded. He composed his face and answered steadily: "I guess you +can depend on me."</p> + +<p>But outside by the barn fence he set down his milk-pail a few minutes +later and in the coming night his face twitched and blackened.</p> + +<p>"So after all," Ham told himself bitterly, "I've got to stay."</p> + +<p>He reached out mechanically and began loosing the top bar from its +sockets, while he called in the cows to be milked. So many times had he +taken down and put up that panel of bars that his hands knew from habit +every roughness and knot in every rail.</p> + +<p>"Mornin' an' evenin' for three hundred and sixty-five days a year;" the +boy said to himself in a low and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>very bitter voice. "That makes seven +hundred and thirty times a year I do this same, identical thing. I ain't +nothin' more than servant to a couple of cows." He stood and watched the +two heifers trot through the opening to the water-trough by the pump. +"By the time I'm thirty-five," he continued, "I'll do it fourteen +thousand and six hundred times more—When Napoleon was thirty-five—" +But there he broke off with an inarticulate sound in his browned young +throat that was very like a groan.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">M</span><span class="heavy">ARY</span> Burton was eleven. Of late, thoughts which had heretofore not +disturbed her had insistently crept into the limelight of consciousness. +One morning as she stood, dish-towel in hand, over the kitchen table, +her eyes stole ever and anon to the cracked mirror that hung against the +wall, and after each glance she turned defiantly away with something +like sullenness about her lips. Elizabeth Burton, the mother, and Hannah +Burton, the spinster aunt, went about their accustomed tasks with no +thought more worldly than the duties of the moment. It never occurred to +Aunt Hannah to complain of anything that was. If her life spelled +unrelieved drudgery she accepted it as the station to which it had +pleased God to call her, and conceived that complaint would be a form of +blasphemy. Now as she wielded her broom, her angular shoulders ached +with rheumatism, and, in a voice as creaking as her joints, she sang, +"For the Master said there is work to do!" Such was Aunt Hannah's creed, +and it pleased her while she moiled over the work to announce in song +that she acted upon divine command. To Aunt Hannah's mind, this lent an +august dignity to a dust-rag.</p> + +<p>When Mary savagely threw down her dish-towel and burst unaccountably +into tears, both women looked up, startled. Mary was normally a sunny +child and one not given to weeping.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>"For the name of goodness!" exclaimed the mother in bewilderment. "What +in the world can have struck the child?" It was to Aunt Hannah that she +put the question, but it was Mary who answered, and answered with a +sudden flow of vehemence:</p> + +<p>"Why didn't God make me pretty?" demanded the girl in an impassioned +voice. "They call me spindle-legs at school, and yesterday Jimmy +Marquess said,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'If I had a sister Mary that had eyes like that,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'd put her out of pain with a baseball bat.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"It ain't fair that I've got to be ugly."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton, confronted with a situation she had not anticipated, found +herself unequipped with a reply, but Aunt Hannah's face became severe.</p> + +<p>"You are as God made you, child," she announced in a tone of finality, +"and it's sinful to be dissatisfied."</p> + +<p>But, if dissatisfaction was wicked, Mary was resolved upon sin. For the +first time in her eleven years of life she stood forth mutinous. Her +eyes blazed, and she trembled passionately through her slender +child-body, with her hands clenched into tight little fists.</p> + +<p>"If God made me this way on purpose, He didn't treat me fair," she +rebelliously flamed out. "What good can it do God to have me skinny and +white, with eyes that don't even match?"</p> + +<p>Aunt Hannah's face paled as though she feared that she must fall an +innocent victim to the avenging bolt which might momentarily be expected +to crash through the roof.</p> + +<p>"Elizabeth," she gasped, "stop the child! Don't let her invite the wrath +of the Almighty like that! Tell <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>her how wicked it is to complain an' +rebel against Infinite Wisdom."</p> + +<p>They heard a low, rather contemptuous laugh, and saw Ham standing in the +door. His coarse lumberman's socks were pulled up over his trousers' +legs and splashed with mud of the stable lot.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Hannah, what gave you the notion that there's anything wrong about +complainin'?" he demanded shortly, and Mary knew that she had acquired a +champion.</p> + +<p>"Complainin' against God's will is a sin. Every person knows that." Aunt +Hannah spoke with the aggrieved uncertainty of one unexpectedly called +upon to defend an axiom. "An' for a girl to fret about her looks is +worldly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," the boy nodded slowly, but his voice was insurgent. "I +guess you think Almighty God wants the creatures He made to sit around +and sing about there bein' work to do. I wonder you don't feel afraid to +eat buckwheat cakes that He doesn't send down to you by an angel with +His compliments. My idea is that He wants folks to do things for +themselves and not to sing about it. As for being discontented, that's +the one thing that drives the world around. I think God made discontent +just for that."</p> + +<p>Aunt Hannah moistened her lips. For decades she had been the member of a +God-fearing, toiling family whose righteousness was the righteousness of +stagnation. Now she stood face to face with radical heresy.</p> + +<p>"But," she argued with some dumb feeling that she was defending +Divinity, "the Scriptures teach contentment an' it's worldly to be +vain."</p> + +<p>"Why not be worldly?" flared the boy with a new and indomitable light in +his eyes. "As for me I'm <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>sick of this life in a place that's +dry-rotting. What I want is the world—the whole of it, good an' bad. I +want what you can win out of fighting. Mary wants to be pretty. Why +shouldn't she? What does any woman get out of life except what men give +her—and what man gives much to the ugly ones?"</p> + +<p>"It ain't what men give that's to be counted a prize," came the pious +rejoinder. "It's what heaven gives."</p> + +<p>"Heaven gave you a dust-rag and rheumatism. If they suit you, all well +and good. I'm going to see that the world gives Mary what she wants. If +a girl can be made pretty Mary's going to be pretty. It's what a woman's +got a right to want and I'm going to get it for her."</p> + +<p>With a violent gesture the boy flung himself from the room and slammed +the door behind him.</p> + +<p>Because it was Saturday and there was no school that day, Ham left the +house and turned into the woods. He tramped with his brow drawn and a +hundred insurgent thoughts swirling in his brain.</p> + +<p>He passed across hills holding to their final flare of color, where +leaves were drifting down from trees of yellow and crimson. He threaded +alder thickets and passed through groves of silver birches that shivered +fastidiously in the breeze. Wild apple trees raised gnarled branches +under which the "punches" of hooves told of deer that had been feeding. +At last, he came to a clearing where fire had eaten its way and charred +the ruins of the forest. There a large buck lifted its antlered head +among the berry bushes and stood for a moment at startled gaze. But Ham +made no movement to raise the rifle that swung at his side, and as the +red-brown shape disappeared with a soft clatter, the boy did not even +throw a glance after it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> He was saying to himself: "William the +Conqueror was a baker's son; Napoleon was the friend of a washer-woman; +Cecil Rhodes was a poor boy—but they didn't stay tied down too long."</p> + +<p>Now and again, a rabbit scuttled off to cover, and often with the whir +of drumming wings a grouse rose noisily and lumbered away with spread +tail into the painted foliage. But all the beauty of it was a beauty of +wildness and of nature's victory over man. For such beauty Ham felt no +answer of pulse or heart.</p> + +<p>Of the cabins he passed, most were empty and those quiet vandals, +Weather and Decay, were noiselessly at work wrecking them. Here a door +swung askew; there a chimney teetered. Every such tenantless lodging was +an outpost surrendered on a field scarred with human defeat; a place +where a family had fought poverty and been put to flight. Once he paused +and looked down a long slope to a habitation by the roadside. The +miserable battle was just ending there, and, though he stood a quarter +of a mile away, he stopped to watch the final act. The family that had +dwelt there for two generations was leaving behind everything that it +had known. John Marrow was at that moment nailing a padlock to the front +door, a lock at which the quiet vandals would laugh silently.</p> + +<p>In a farm wagon was heaped the litter of household effects. These people +were whipped, starved out, beaten. Ham Burton turned on his heel and +trudged away. His father's farm was little more productive than this +one, but his father had that uncompromising iron in his blood that comes +from Pilgrim forebears. He would hold on to the end—but to what end and +how long?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>That Saturday afternoon, Mary was walking along the sandy road that led +to the village. She had no purpose, except to be alone, and she carried +an old fashion paper which she meant to con. This newly discovered +necessity of beauty was a very serious affair, and since she meant to +devote herself to its study she conceived that these pages should give +tidings from the fountain head.</p> + +<p>She did not expect to meet anyone, and she was quite content to spend +that Indian-summer afternoon with her companions of the printed page. +These were beautiful ladies, appareled in the splendid vogues of Paris +and Vienna. There were delightful bits of information concerning some +mysterious thing called the <i>haute monde</i> and likewise pictures that +instructed one how to dress one's hair and adorn the coiffure with +circlets of pearls. Mary's sheer delight in such mysteries was not +marred by any suspicion that the text she devoured told of fashions long +extinct and supplanted by newer edicts.</p> + +<p>On the great rock which jutted out from the wooded tangle into the +margin of Lake Forsaken, with lesser sentinel rocks about it, she sat +cross-legged until she glanced up at last to see that the west was +kindling, and that she must start back to the duller realities of home. +She had been interrupted by no break in the silence except the little +forest twitter of birds and now and then the cool splash where a bass +leaped in the lake.</p> + +<p>But as she made her way along the twisting road she heard the rattle of +wheels on the rocks and turned to see a vehicle driven by a man who +obviously had no kinship with stony farms or lumber camps. She paused, +and the buggy came up. Its driver drew his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>horse down, and in a +singularly pleasing and friendly voice inquired:</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me, little sister, how I can get to Middle Fork?"</p> + +<p>Middle Fork was the village at the end of the six-mile mountain descent, +and Mary, who knew every trail and woodland path, told him, not only of +the road, but of a passable short-cut.</p> + +<p>The girl had come to judge human faces through the eyes of her own +circumstance, and those of the men and women about her wore for the most +part the resignation of surrender and hardship, but this man's face was +different. He was a man to her eleven years, though a more experienced +eye would have seen that he was hardly more than a prematurely old boy. +Lines traced a network around his eyes, but they were whimsical lines +such as come from persistent laughter—the sort of laughter that insists +on expressing itself even in the face of misfortune. His open mackinaw +collar revealed a carelessly knotted scarf decorated with a large black +pearl, and as he drew off a glove she noticed that his brown hand was +slender and that one finger wore a heavily carved ring, from whose +quaint setting glowed the cool, bright light of an emerald. Her frank +curiosity showed so plainly in her face that the fine wrinkles about the +young man's eyes became little radiants of amusement centering around +gray pupils and his lips parted in a smile over very even teeth.</p> + +<p>There are a few men in the world whom we feel that we have always known, +when once we have seen them, and upon whom we find ourselves bestowing +confidences as soon as we have said, "Good-day." Perhaps they are the +isolated survivors of knight-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>errant days, whose business it is to +listen to the troubles of others.</p> + +<p>It was only the matter of minutes before Mary was chatting artlessly +with this traveler of the mountain road, and since she was a child she +was talking of herself, while he nodded gravely and listened with a +deference of attention that was to her new and disarmingly charming.</p> + +<p>He, too, was just now an exile here in the hills, he explained, but +before he came he had lived all over the world. He had studied under +tutors while traveling about the Continent, and being prepared to take +up his work in the banking house which his grandfather had established +and his father had extended in scope. Then it had happened.</p> + +<p>"What happened?" The child of Lake Forsaken put the question eagerly, +and his reply was laconic, though he smiled down from the buggy seat +with a peculiarly naïve twist of his lips. "Bugs," he told her.</p> + +<p>"What kind of bugs?" It seemed strange to Mary that a man would let such +small creatures as flies or spiders or even big beetles stand between +himself and a great bank.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he laughed. "I forgot that you lived in a world +unsullied by such argot. You know what a lunger is?"</p> + +<p>That she did know. It is a term familiar enough in the mountains to +which come refugees from the white plague, seeking in the tonic air a +healing for their sickened lungs.</p> + +<p>"And so you see," said the strange young man, "I have built me a log +shack back in the hills where I amuse myself writing verses—which, +fortunately, no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>one reads—and doing equally inconsequential things. +Now I'm going down for a few days in the city. I can only go when the +weather is fine and when winter sets in, I must come back and bury +myself with no companions except some books and a pair of snowshoes."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to die?" she asked him in large-eyed concern.</p> + +<p>"Some day I am," he laughed. "But I'm rather stubborn. I'm going to +postpone that as long as possible. Several doctors tell me that I have +an even chance. It seems to be a sort of fifty-fifty bet between the +bugs and me. I suppose a fellow oughtn't to ask more than an even +break."</p> + +<p>She stood regarding him with vast interest. She had never known a man +before who chatted so casually about the probable necessity of dying. He +grew as she watched him to very interesting and romantic proportions.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"My last name's Edwardes," he told her. And it was only her own +out-of-the-world ignorance that kept her from recognizing in the name a +synonym for titanic finance. "In front of that they put a number of +ridiculous prefixes when I was quite young and helpless. There is +Jefferson and Doorland and others. At college they called me Pup."</p> + +<p>In return for his confidence, the girl told him who she was and where +she lived and how old she was.</p> + +<p>"You say your name is Mary Burton? I must remember that because in, say +ten years, provided I last that long, I expect to hear of you."</p> + +<p>"Hear of me? Why?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>The stranger bent forward and coughed, and when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>the paroxysm had ended +he smiled whimsically again.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you a secret, though God knows it's a perilous thing to feed +a woman's vanity—even a woman of eleven. Did anyone ever tell you that +you are possessed of a marvelous pair of eyes?"</p> + +<p>Instinctively little Mary Burton flinched as though she had been struck +and she raised one hand to her face to touch her long lashes. Silent +tears welled up; tears of indignant pain because she thought she was +being cruelly ridiculed.</p> + +<p>But the stranger had no such thought. If to the uneducated opinion of +Lake Forsaken, Mary's face was a matter for jest and libel, the +impression made on the young man who had been reared in the capitals of +Europe was quite different. He had been sent, on the verge of manhood, +into the hermit's seclusion with the hermit's opportunity of reflecting +on all he had seen, and digesting his experience into a philosophy +beyond his years.</p> + +<p>Perhaps had Mary been born into her own Puritan environment two +centuries earlier, she might have faced even sterner criticism, for +there was without doubt a strange uncommonplaceness about her which the +thought of that day might have charged to the attendance of witches +about her birth. The promise of beauty she had, but a beauty unlike that +of common standards. It was a quality that at first caught the beholder +like the shock of a plunge into cold water, and then set him tingling +through his pulses—also like a plunge into an icy pool.</p> + +<p>To the farmer folk Mary was merely "queer," but as the man in the buggy +sat looking down at her he realized the promise of something strangely +gorgeous. As she shifted her position a shaft of mellow sunlight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>struck +her face and it was as though her witch—or fairy—godmother had +switched on a blaze of color.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't making fun of you," declared the stranger; and his voice held +so simple and courteous a note that Mary smiled again and was reassured.</p> + +<p>The child was still thin and awkward and undeveloped of line or +proportion, but color, which many painters will tell you is the +soul-essence of all beauty, she had in the same wasteful splendor that +the autumn woods had it in their carnival abundance.</p> + +<p>Her hair was heavy, and its gold was of the lustrous and burnished sort +that seems to tangle in its meshes a captive fire glowing between the +extremes of amber and tawny copper. Yet hair and cheeks and lips were +only the minors of her color scheme. The eyes were regnantly dominant +and it was here that the surprising witch-like quality held sway. The +school-children had said they did not match, and they did not, for with +the sun shining on her the man in the buggy realized that the right one +was a rich brown like illuminated agate with a fleck or two of jet +across the iris, while the left, its twin, was of a colorful violet and +deeply vivid. Young Edwardes had read of the weird beauty of such +mismated eyes, but had never before seen them.</p> + +<p>"Jove!" he exclaimed, and he let the reins hang on his knees as he bent +forward and talked enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>"There are eyes and eyes," he smiled down. "Some are merely lenses to +see with and some are stars. Of the star kind, a few are lustrous and +miraculous, and control destinies. I think yours are like that. One can +flash lambent fire and the other can soften like the petals of a black +pansy—it has just that touch of inky purple—and in their range are +many possibilities."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>"But—but," she stammered for a moment, irresolute and almost tearful, +"they aren't even mates and anyway eyes aren't all." For a moment she +hesitated, then with childish abandon confided, "I'd give anything in +the world to be pretty."</p> + +<p>The stranger threw back his head and laughed. "And when they are misty, +let men beware," he commented half-aloud, then he went on: "What makes +you think you'll be ugly?"</p> + +<p>"They call me spindle-legs at school and—and—" she broke off, failing +to particularize further.</p> + +<p>The man glanced smilingly down at the slight figure.</p> + +<p>"Well, now," he conceded, "in general effect you are a bit chippendale, +aren't you? But that can be outgrown. The rarest beauty isn't that which +comes before the 'teens. If you never have anything else, be grateful +for your eyes—and remember this afterward. Be merciful with them, +because unless I'm a poor prophet there will come times when you will do +well to remember that."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to tell the boys and girls at school that I'm not ugly after +all." She spoke with no trace of vanity, merely with a frankness which +had yet to learn the arts of coyness.</p> + +<p>"No," counseled her new adviser, "don't do anything of the sort. Simply +wait and after awhile everyone will be telling you."</p> + +<p>"But nobody ever told me before that having eyes that didn't match was +pretty," she argued.</p> + +<p>"Some day, if you happen to live where men make fine phrases, which +after all may not be such a blessing," he assured her, "they will +whisper to you that you are a miraculous color-scheme. It's a bit hard +to express, but I can give you examples—" He broke off <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>suddenly and +laughed at himself. "After all," he began again in a different voice, +"what's the use? I forgot that the things I should compare you with are +all things you haven't seen. They would mean nothing."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, anyhow," she commanded.</p> + +<p>"Very well. There is a style of architecture in the Orient: The Temple +of Omar at Jerusalem has it. The Taj Mahal has it. Interiors crusted +with the color of gems and mosaics and rich inlay; the Italian +renaissance has it; splashed from a palette that knew no stint—no +economy. It's a brilliant, triumphant sort of pæan in which the notes +are all notes of color. You have it, too—and now I'm going to drive on. +But don't forget that it's easier to be kind when people call you +spindle-legs than it will be when they come with offerings of flattery."</p> + +<p>"You must have seen a lot of things." Mary Burton's voice was that of +admiring wonder, and the young man's face became grave, almost pained +for an instant.</p> + +<p>"In a way," he answered, "I have. But I may not see much more. Most men +look back on life when they are old and wise, but I am doing it while +still young and perhaps the backward glance is the same in age or youth. +It's a summary."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand half of what you are saying," she confessed a little +regretfully. It seemed to her from what she did grasp that the rest +would be well worth while.</p> + +<p>"If it were otherwise," he laughed with a return of the whimsical glint +to his pupils and the little wrinkles about the corners of his eyes, "I +should not have said half of it. A good part of my conversation has been +in the manner of soliloquy. Hermits often talk to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>themselves. I shall +now say something else you won't understand. Wield leniently the +dangerous gift of your witchcraft—the freakish beauty of your perfect +unmatched eyes."</p> + +<p>And all the way home Mary Burton walked on air, and the lonely woods +seemed to have grown of a sudden spicy and glorious. When she stole up +to the room under the eaves and looked again into the little mirror, she +did not turn away so unhappy as she had been. The brown eye dared to +meet the brown eye in the glass—and the violet eye, the violet.</p> + +<p>Under her breath she repeated over and over, lest she forget some of its +polysyllables, a sentence which was half-incomprehensible to her, yet +which was sonorous enough and grandiloquent enough to impress her +deeply. At last, also lest memory prove illusive, she wrote the sentence +down: "Wield leniently the dangerous gift of your witchcraft—the +freakish beauty of your perfect unmatched eyes."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Down the road, two miles from the Burton home, was the wayside church +with its small and unpretentious organ, and this afternoon Paul had been +pumping its wheezy bellows while the young woman who contributed the +Sabbath music practised. As he came out of the small building and took +his way across the hills, Paul was exalted as he always was by music.</p> + +<p>Once he had passed through the gates of dream, which swung wide to a key +of sound, he wandered on, fancy led, until some actuality broke the +spell, bringing him back with a shock and an inward sigh for the +awakening.</p> + +<p>But when he drew near the house, a footstep crackled in the underbrush, +and Ham emerged from the woods.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> As the elder boy came up, Paul, roused +out of his dreams, gave a start and then fell into step.</p> + +<p>"Been out there listenin' to the leaves fallin' again?" inquired Ham +shortly.</p> + +<p>"I've been pumping the organ." Paul's reply was half-apologetic.</p> + +<p>"You don't think about much except music, do you, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't music all right?" For once the lad spoke almost aggressively in +defense of his single enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't exactly finding fault, Paul. Only, I don't see much hope for a +feller in this country that doesn't think about anything else. You're in +pretty much the same fix as an Esquimo that can't be happy without +flowers. Grand opera doesn't come as often as the circus, and some years +the circus doesn't come. Listen!" He put one hand into his trousers' +pockets, and noisily rattled a handful of coins. "<i>That</i> music is +understood everywhere. Even in this God-forsaken place, they know how to +dance to its tune."</p> + +<p>"Where did you get it?" For an instant Paul halted in his tracks and +forgot his air-castles. Money was so rare a thing in their narrow little +world that even to his impracticability it partook of magic.</p> + +<p>Yesterday Ham's pockets had been as empty as his own and today there +emanated from them the clash of silver—not the tinkle of light nickels +and dimes, but the substantial clatter of halves and dollars.</p> + +<p>"I sold some lambs to Slivers Martin," was the succinct reply, "and I +got ten dollars for 'em."</p> + +<p>"Some lambs?" Paul's face puckered with perplexity. "But, Ham, you +haven't got any lambs."</p> + +<p>Ham laughed with a debonair indulgence. "Sure I haven't," he cheerfully +acquiesced, "but I've got the ten."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Paul shook his head, baffled. "I don't see," he persisted, "how you +could sell something you didn't have." They were drawing near the house +now, and Ham stopped him in the road.</p> + +<p>"Who sells more wheat than all us farmers, Paul? Men in Wall street, +don't they? And how much wheat do you suppose those fellers have got +amongst the lot of them? Not enough to feed a sick pigeon with. I sold +these lambs first—for ten dollars. Then I bought them off of Bill +Heffers, an' Henry Berry an' Ben Best—for seven dollars."</p> + +<p>He paused a moment, then added, while a grin of satisfaction spread over +his face: "What's more, Slivers Martin had to go an' get 'em, an' he had +to go in three directions. If he'd had sense enough, he could have got +'em himself in the first place for seven instead of ten. The three +dollars I got clear was my margin of profit, Paul, an' a margin of +profit is what a feller gets by turnin' his margin of brain into money."</p> + +<p>The younger lad looked up with a mist of perplexity in his deep eyes. He +realized vaguely that Ham had accomplished a feat somehow savoring of +business acumen, which was a matter he could not hope to comprehend. Yet +some comment seemed expected of him, so out of a slack interest he +inquired, "Were they good lambs, Ham? What were they like?"</p> + +<p>The embryonic speculator favored his brother with an indulgent laugh. "I +guess they were all right," he enlightened casually. "As for me, I +didn't see 'em—any more than the Wall-street men see the wheat they buy +an' sell."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The little boy with the cameo face found himself still more at +sea. For a while they trudged <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>along in silence; then, with an +impulsive, almost impassioned gesture, Ham clapped his hand on the +other's shoulder and halted. Paul, too, stopped, and, looking up, was +startled to behold features set in a rapt expression and dominated by +eyes glowing with an inward ardor.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Paul," began Ham in a voice which carried an electric +thrill into the dreamy soul of the listener. "You love music and you +live in a place where they don't know the difference between Tannhäuser +and a tom-tom. Mary would like to be pretty and she lives in a place +where if she was as beautiful as Cinderella, nobody but a bunch of +hill-bullies would ever see her. I want power, power that the world's +got to bow down to and acknowledge—and I might just as well be locked +up in somebody' hen-house. Well, maybe it's enough for you only to dream +about the music you don't ever expect to hear, but as for me, I dream, +too, and a dream ain't much use to me unless I can turn it into facts. +I'm going to make your dreams come true—every one of 'em. I'm going to +make Mary's dreams come true. There ain't no better blood in the world, +Paul, than you an' me have got in our veins an' I'm goin' to see that we +get what we're entitled to."</p> + +<p>Paul's pale cheeks colored for an instant and something deep within him +stirred in response to the trumpet-like confidence of the voice which +spoke with such assurance of the absurdly impossible. Suddenly he awoke +to the innate music of the inspired human tongue, and there was that in +the face and figure of the taller stripling which abashed him, as though +he had intruded on a prophet in his moment of exaltation. Ham was +listening to voices silent to other ears, and in his eyes glowed such +resolve and invincible purpose as must <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>have characterized the minute +men when they steeled their hearts to meet and conquer the seemingly +unconquerable.</p> + +<p>"Out there beyond them piled-up rocks and God-forsaken fields," swept on +the other, "there's a <i>real</i> world where the tides are tides of gold, +an' for me they are goin' to sweep in with a plunder of riches an' power +that all hell can't stop! Out yonder there are cities where men are +doing things an' ships are lyin' at the wharves with stuff that comes +from the ends of the earth—an' those ships are goin' to go an' come +when and where I tell 'em! They're goin' to carry cargoes at my biddin' +an' my people are goin' to have what they want. Instead of a wheezy +little bellows organ that acts like it had the asthma and cracked voices +singin' hymns out of tune, you're goin' to listen to operas, an' Mary's +goin' to have men that the world knows come courtin' her—in the place +of ignorant lumber-jacks." The young speaker paused for breath, and when +he spoke again it was in a voice that defied contradiction or doubt. +"I'm goin' to make the name of Hamilton Montagu Burton the best-known +name in the United States of America!"</p> + +<p>"How do you know you can do all them things, Ham?" The question stole +from lips that trembled excitedly under the hypnotic spell of the +announcement, and the answer came quickly, unfalteringly, gravely.</p> + +<p>"I know it by something that tells me. It don't say 'maybe you can': it +says 'there isn't power enough between heaven an' hell to stop you.'"</p> + +<p>Paul's eyes were large, but as his brother paused he timidly inquired: +"Where did the Montagu come from, Ham? I didn't know you had any middle +name."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>"I took it," announced Ham imperiously. "I took it because it's the +name of one of the biggest financiers the world ever knew, but not as +big as I'm goin' to be. I took it because I'm a brother to men like +that—but I'm going to go beyond 'em all, an' I'll carry the name +further than it was ever carried before. I haven't ever talked about +this to any livin' soul else. Folks wouldn't understand. First of all, +I'm goin' to leave this country an' get out into the world."</p> + +<p>"Will Pap let you go?"</p> + +<p>Ham laughed again. "Pap can't stop me. Nobody can't ever stop me. You +can't hold a river back from the ocean. That's the difference between a +river an' a pond. It's the difference between followin' a star of +destiny an' just goin' on livin' the same as an animal in a God-forsaken +country like this."</p> + +<p>"This ain't such a bad country, Ham," argued Paul weakly, with the timid +demurrer of one who sees only the difficulties. "There are some +mighty-good people here, an' out there in the big cities a feller's got +to fight mighty hard to get along, I guess."</p> + +<p>"It's a good country to come from," was the swift and contemptuous +rejoinder, "and a damn' poor one to stay in. They've got raw material +here that's all right—like us—but you've got to take it away to finish +it up. As for the hard fight you talk about, Paul, that's what I'm +huntin' for. No man's ever lived that had it in him to be greater than +me."</p> + +<p>Upon Paul, with his measureless faith in his brother and his passion for +dreams, the mad arrogance of the declaration was lost. The ecstasy with +which Ham spoke tinged the promise with a fire of conviction—so that +Paul wondered and believed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="heavy">N</span> the Burton household that fall, a leaven was working. Mary's +mismatched eyes held a tranquillity of quiet self-satisfaction. She had +found somewhere a second fashion magazine and often when she was alone +in the little room under the eaves she snipped industriously away at the +imaginary patterns of gorgeous gowns, or listened to the fervent +pleadings of make-believe suitors.</p> + +<p>But the secret was all her own of how something in her had awakened. +This little girl would never again be precisely the same Mary Burton who +had started out that Saturday afternoon with a heart full of rebellion +and who had come back appeased.</p> + +<p>And Ham, his mother feared, was finding his burdens too heavy for young +shoulders. He had made no complaint, but an expression of settled +abstraction had come into his face and at home he was always silent.</p> + +<p>After the falling of the first heavy snow neither Paul nor Mary ventured +out to school, but Ham's avid hunger for education lost no coveted day +of the term. When his morning work was ended, wrapped in patched +mackinaw and traveling on snowshoes, he made the trip across the white +slopes, where only the pines were green, and came back at the day's end +for his evening chores. The trip was a bit shortened now because the +lake was ice-locked and he could cross between the flag-marked holes of +the pickerel-fishers. He had been afraid to speak of those things which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>were burning consumingly in his mind; afraid that if once he let slip +the leash of restraint he would be carried away on a tide of passion. +But some day he must speak, and, strangely enough, the match that +lighted the train of powder was the second coming of the young man who +had met Mary on the road.</p> + +<p>He came near nightfall, on snowshoes, and when he knocked it was the +girl who opened the door. At first, she did not recognize him because +the mountain tan had given way to a pallor of recent illness and the +face was very thin. But as soon as he smiled, the whimsical eyes +proclaimed him.</p> + +<p>"You—you haven't died yet," Mary Burton spoke instinctively, and stood +holding the door open to the blustering of the sharp wind, quite +forgetful that she was barring his way. But the young man who had come +out of the thickening twilight laughed. He shook the snow off his +mackinaw, for a fresh downfall was making the air almost as white as the +drifts below.</p> + +<p>"Not yet," he assured her, "but unless you let me come in out of the +cold I shall probably perish on your doorstep."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton, the father, sat gazing at the stove in the center of the +room. He was propped in a heavy chair with cushions about him, and he, +too, had grown thinner and rawer of joint. He had been for some time +thus silently staring ahead with a pipe long forgotten and dead of ash +in his hand and an old newspaper—so old as to be no longer a +newspaper—lying where it had dropped near his side. A painter might +have seen in the pose a picture of the felled and beaten fighter; the +burden-bearer chafing under enforced idleness and the imprisonment of an +irritable convalescence.</p> + +<p>"Yes, come in, or go out, whoever you are—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> <i>shut the door</i>!" There +was no hospitality in the irascible greeting of the manor's lord, and +the face he half-turned to inspect the stranger was devoid of welcome. +It was mirthless from its deep eyes to the lips and chin that were +hidden in a patriarchal spread of beard.</p> + +<p>Mary for some reason flushed deeply as she stood aside and timidly +smiled as though in amends of courtesy.</p> + +<p>The young man went straight to the stove and began loosening the collar +of his heavy mackinaw. For a moment, without rising or taking any notice +beyond a curt nod, old Tom Burton bent upon him eyes of incurious +gravity.</p> + +<p>"I take it you are Thomas S. Burton," began the young stranger. "My +name's Edwardes and I have a shack back in the hills. The snowstorm has +delayed me and I must throw myself on your hospitality for the night."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Thomas Burton spoke slowly and dully, and this, too, was a result +of his illness, for in past days his voice had rung stentorian above the +blows of axes in the timber. "Yes, I've heard of you. You're the +millionaire hobo. When a man's got plenty of money and chooses to live +alone in a country that 'most everybody else is leavin', he's tolerable +apt to be heard of."</p> + +<p>The comment was not softened with the modification of banter, but rasped +with the twang of suspicion as though the speaker expected to give +offense—and did not care. Young Edwardes received it with a peal of +laughter so infectious that the man in the chair looked up, surprised.</p> + +<p>"So that's how they figure me out, is it?" inquired the traveler. "I +suppose though," he added as if in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>answer to his own question, "no man +knows what portrait public opinion paints of him. At all events I'm a +harmless hobo and quite willing to pay when I put my fellow-man to +inconvenience. I live in the mountains by the sentence of my doctors."</p> + +<p>"Lunger, eh?" Burton nodded his head comprehensively, but quite without +sympathy; and the guest bowed his assent.</p> + +<p>"Some folks turns lungers away," commented the host reflectively, "but +that's only in the summertime when the vacation boarders kicks on 'em. +As for me, I don't take in boarders summer <i>nor</i> winter, but when the +snow drives a man in I don't drive him out."</p> + +<p>"So they accept us in the winter, do they, and cast us out in the summer +when the ribbon-clerks come?" Edwardes spoke musingly, yet amusedly, and +in his accustomed manner of self-communion. "After all, men are much +alike everywhere, aren't they? The lepers must not walk the streets of +Jerusalem, but they may sit in full concourse at the Jaffa and Damascus +gates where their wrappings are brushed by every caravan that goes in or +out."</p> + +<p>Ham, who was just entering, stood on the kitchen threshold in time to +hear a man, whom he had never seen before, talking casually of the world +beyond the seas. Perhaps this man knew, too, the cities that brought +conquerors as well as prophets into their own; perhaps to him the +sepia-tinted monuments of Rome and the great tomb in the Place des +Invalides were familiar spots! And the man was young himself—almost a +boy. For an instant, Ham stood there while his eyes traveled around the +room, contemptuously taking in the cheap lithographs and offensive +ornaments which he knew so well and hated so sincerely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> He straightened +resolutely, and his hands clenched. There would be a time when the +earth's greatest artists should contribute paintings for his walls, and +palaces give up to him their bronzes and tapestries.</p> + +<p>When a half-hour later Ham Burton was alone with the stranger he found +himself asking and answering many questions. He had not meant to impart +his secret of discontent, but just as Mary had confided her troubles at +the roadside, so Ham told his as he sat on the edge of the bed in the +chilly attic-room of the farm-house. Perhaps it was because this man had +actually seen the things that existed beyond the sky-line, and had +walked through the veil of mystery which the boy himself so burned to +penetrate. At all events it transpired. Ham had shown his little store +of greedily conned books and had bared to the gaze of the other his +naked and scorching torture of ambition. The lad knew something of the +men who had made themselves masters of the world and wished to know +more. Edwardes had not even laughed when Ham declared with naïve +conviction: "None of them men ever did anything I couldn't do, if I got +the chance." It was impossible to laugh, though listening to such +boundless egotism, in the face of so deep a sincerity and such an +implicit self-belief as shone from those young eyes.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes the great man knows his greatness in advance," said the +visitor gravely. "Sometimes it surprises himself. But most of the +mightiest <i>made</i> their own chance."</p> + +<p>"I know that. I'm going to make mine. Power is what I want an' it's what +I'm goin' to have. But I've got to get away from here. Julius Cæsar +couldn't do nothin' here."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>When Jefferson Edwardes came down stairs Mary, who had slipped timidly +away, edged into the room, bashful and adorned. She had put on her best +dress, and her lustrous hair was braided and coiled on her head, after +the instruction of one of her fashion plates. As the visitor saw her he +once more checked his inclination to laugh, for the marvelous mismated +eyes were fixed on his face and they held an almost passionate anxiety +to be approved by the man who had prophesied her beauty. The thin child +with her hair so inappropriately dressed in the style of her fashionable +elders—or what she fondly believed to be their style—would have been a +ludicrous little figure had she not been, in her eagerness, too serious +for humor. The one detail in which she thought she could follow the +dictates of Fashion's decree was this arrangement of her hair, and that +she had attempted. Now she stood first on one foot then on the other, +watching in suspense to see if she had succeeded.</p> + +<p>So the stranger slipped over unobserved and with a courtier's smile +raised a tiny hand to his lips.</p> + +<p>"I am a good prophet," he assured her, and now he let the suppressed +merriment dance at will in his pupils, "but don't forget that a queen's +queenliest necessity is—kindness."</p> + +<p>And so, while Mrs. Burton and the elderly aunt busied themselves over +the stove and the father napped restlessly, the sleeping thing that had +not heretofore given warning was ripening for its outburst.</p> + +<p>When the evening meal was finished and the family sat listening to the +stranger's talk, Thomas Burton suddenly demanded: "Are they still +quittin' over your way?"</p> + +<p>Young Edwardes nodded.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>"Except for one or two shiftless fellows like myself," he responded, +"my immediate section is deserted. A half-dozen families moved out this +fall. The general verdict seems to be that the fight's not worth while."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton growled deeply. "The country mayn't be much," he grudgingly +admitted, "but how do these fellers that are leavin' all they own behind +'em expect to better themselves? Ain't a few rocky acres better'n none +at all? That's what I asks 'em and they ain't got no answer to give me. +Ain't a little bit better than nothin' whatsoever?"</p> + +<p>The visitor did not immediately reply. He seemed to be reflecting, and, +when his answer came, Ham straightened himself in his seat and sat rigid +as if struggling to fix a seal on his own lips and remain a silent +listener.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so and perhaps not," suggested Edwardes. "The open sea doesn't +offer much prospect in a storm, but it may be better than a sinking +ship."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton's eyes lighted with the same stubborn glint that had given +his Pilgrim forefathers kinship with the granite of their shores.</p> + +<p>"My ancestors have lived here since they ran the Indians out," he said +quietly. "They're buried here an' they fought for this country an' won +it. I guess what they bled for is worth holdin'."</p> + +<p>"Your forefathers fought for the whole land, not only this section of +it," suggested Edwardes mildly. "Right here the acres are stony and +unproductive. You can't hope to compete with the farmer whose crops grow +near arteries of transportation."</p> + +<p>"All we need is roads—an' aqueducts—an' some day they'll come."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>"Perhaps," admitted the younger man. "The question is how many can hold +out till then?"</p> + +<p>Tom Burton looked up and for an instant his eyes blazed. "Well, for one, +I can! By God, I don't mean to be run away from my home by a panicky +notion of hard times. I can stay here an' fight to a finish—an' when +I'm licked, my boys can go on fightin'."</p> + +<p>His eldest son rose and paced the floor with the restlessness of a caged +leopard. At the black window he halted to gaze out on the bitterness of +the night. The ultimatum of his father's obstinacy galled him beyond +endurance. He heard himself pledged to the emptiness and futility of a +life-sentence which he loathed; from which he was seeking escape and his +soul clamored to rise in its vehement repudiation. Yet he felt that just +now his heart was in too hot a conflagration to make speech safe. If he +spoke at this moment he must speak in violent passion and bitter +denunciation, and so with his hands tautly clutched at his back he held +his counsel and paced the floor. Old Tom Burton's unaccustomed hours in +the confinement of convalescence had left him petulant. The courtesy of +the stranger's argument was lost upon him. All he saw was that it was +argument, and he was in a condition to be irritated by little things.</p> + +<p>For a while he watched the restless wanderings of his son from window to +stove and from stove back to window, then his voice broke out sharply in +dictatorial peevishness.</p> + +<p>"What ails you, boy?" he demanded. "Have you got St. Vitus' dance? Sit +down an' quit frettin' people with your eternal trampin' about."</p> + +<p>Even then, though his face was white with sup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>pressed feeling, Ham held +hard to the curb of silence and took a chair, apart, where he sat rigid.</p> + +<p>"It's them that sticks to their guns that wins out," declared the +bearded man, looking around as if challenging contradiction, and, when +none came, frowning on in silence. Then suddenly his eyes fell on the +figure of little Mary, who sat behind the table with her thin face +resting in her hands and her eyes burning with thoughts of that great +wonder-world which their visitor knew so well. His presence in the room +seemed to the child to bring its marvels almost within touch. For the +first time the father recognized the ludicrous massing of coils on the +top of the little head instead of the simple braids that should be +falling over her shoulders, and, in his mood of irritation, the +affectation of grown-up adornment angered him inordinately.</p> + +<p>"What damned foolishness is that?" he demanded. "What started you to +putting on a lot of new airs all of a sudden? Do you think you're the +Queen of Sheba?"</p> + +<p>The girl shrank back into the shadows at the edge of the room, and, as +young Edwardes glanced that way, he heard a muffled sob and knew that +she had fled up the stairs in chagrin, a pitiful little would-be +princess whose dream splendor had been shattered with a reprimand. His +intuition told him that she already lay curled up on her bed, sobbing +bitterly against the pillow where the coiled hair—now angrily torn down +from its burnished coronal—lay heaped and tangled about her head.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," volunteered the guest with deep embarrassment, "I'm to +blame. I met Mary on the roadside once as I went down to the city, and +she told me how the children had been teasing her because she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>n't +pretty, I tried to comfort her with a prophecy that her wonderful eyes +and hair would establish her claims to beauty."</p> + +<p>"So it was you, was it?" demanded Tom Burton shortly, "that set her +thoughts upon vanity—well, I don't thank you."</p> + +<p>The boy, sitting with every nerve under painful control, felt his breath +come quick and deep until his chest heaved, and words leaped to his lips +which, with a supreme effort, he bit back. This whole intolerable +fallacy of outgrown and hard-shelled narrow-mindedness was spurring him +to outbreak, yet for a moment more he held himself in check.</p> + +<p>But to the father the incident of Mary's offending was closed, his mind +was already back with his problem and his next words were a stubborn +reiteration: "Yes, sir, me an' my boys will fight it out here where we +belong."</p> + +<p>Suddenly spots of orange and red swam before Ham's eyes. Deep in his +being something snapped, and, as a fuse spark reaches and ignites its +charge, so something fired the eruption that broke volcanically in each +nerve.</p> + +<p>He rose suddenly and stood before his father, and his words came with +the molten heat of overflowing lava.</p> + +<p>"An' when you've fought yourself to death an' I've fought myself to +death, an' we're both licked, what in hell have we been fightin' for?"</p> + +<p>The passionate question fell with the sudden violence of a bursting +bomb, and the father's jaw stiffened. For an instant, amazement stood +out large-writ in every feature. Ham had thought much, but, in his home, +he had never before voiced a syllable of his fevered restlessness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>"We're fightin' for our rights. We're fightin' for what the men that +came in the <i>Mayflower</i> fought for," said Tom Burton gravely. "Our homes +an' our rightful claim to live by the soil we till." Strangely enough, +for the moment, the older man's voice held no excitement.</p> + +<p>"That may suit you." Now the boy's vehemence was fully unleashed. "You +may be willin' to die fightin' for a couple of cows and a few hundred +rocks that you bump your knees on when you try to plow. As for me, I +ain't! When I fight, I want it to be a fight that counts, for a reward +that's worth winnin'."</p> + +<p>The bearded face darkened with the hard intolerance of the patriarchal +order; an order which brooks no insubordination. But the lad spoke +before the words of discipline found utterance.</p> + +<p>"Let me finish, father, before you say anything. What I've got to say is +somethin' that ain't just come into my mind. It's somethin' that's kept +me awake of nights an' I've got to say it. I've sat here an' listened, +an' I ain't put in my oar, but I can't be muzzled, an' you might as well +hear me out—because there ain't power enough in the world to stop me."</p> + +<p>"An' supposin'—" Tom Burton spoke brusquely, yet with something more +like amusement in his eyes than had previously shown there—"supposin' I +ain't inclined to listen to you?"</p> + +<p>"Then you'll just force me to leave you here—an' you can't hardly get +on without me."</p> + +<p>"You mean you'd run away?"</p> + +<p>"I'd hate to, but once I was going to. I stayed because you needed me."</p> + +<p>"I guess I could keep a watch on you, if I had to," announced the father +shortly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>"You couldn't keep a ball an' chain on me," retorted the son. "I +wouldn't be much use that way about the farm."</p> + +<p>The elder Burton very deliberately lighted his pipe. Like many men who +fly suddenly into passions at nothing, he had the surprising faculty of +remaining calm when anger might be expected. Now he said only, "Let's +hear your notion, son. What's been keepin' you awake of nights?"</p> + +<p>"It hasn't been just thinkin' about myself that's done it," began Ham, +steadying his voice, though it still held a throb of fervor which +neither his father nor mother had ever heard before. "I've been thinkin' +about all of you. You an' mother are workin' your fingers to the bone +an' your hearts to the breakin' point—for what? Just now you sent Mary +away cryin' to bed because she wanted to be pretty. Why shouldn't she +want to be? Isn't it part of a woman's mission? You call a thing vanity +that's just havin' some life an' ambition in her heart. What's life got +in store here for Mary or for Paul or for me? We're startin'—not endin' +up. We have our ambitions. If we stay here Mary will be drudgin' till +she dies. Paul's got the soul of a great musician, an' he might as well +be dead right now as to stay here, an' as for me I'd a heap rather be +dead."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," commented Tom Burton very drily. "You figure that it'll be +pleasanter for us to move into a palace somewhere, an' have a dozen or +two servants waitin' on us. All right, where's the palace comin' from?"</p> + +<p>Ham spoke in absolute confidence. "I'll get it for you—as many palaces +as you want," he declared with steady-eyed effrontery; "if only you give +me the chance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> All I ask is this. For God's sake, take the chain off +me—let me get into the fight."</p> + +<p>Ham Burton was a tall and well-thewed lad for his age. His muscle fiber +had drawn strength from the ax and the log-pole, but as yet it had not +become heavy with decades of hard labor. He still stood slender and +gracefully tapering from shoulders to waist and just now there was +something trance-like in his earnestness which made wild prophecies seem +almost inspired. The hard-headed father eyed him with good-humored +irony.</p> + +<p>"And how do you figure to get us all these things, son?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you," came the quick and undoubting response. "All I want you +to do is to leave this place and educate me. Every year you stay here +you're spending part of what you've laid by, an' none of it ever comes +back. Gamble it on me, an' I'll attend to all the rest."</p> + +<p>At that the bearded farmer broke into a loud laugh.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you're fixed to give me a written guarantee, ain't you?" he +demanded. "But maybe just for the sake of makin' talk you'd better tell +how you know you can swing such a man-sized contract."</p> + +<p>"I know"—the lad's voice mounted into a positive crescendo of +conviction—"I know by somethin' that tells me, an' it's somethin' that +can't lie. The prophets knew that God had picked 'em out because He told +'em so in visions. I haven't just heard voices in dreams I've had the +voice in me and I know—<i>know</i> I tell you—that, with a chance, I can be +as great a man as any man ever was. I'm not guessin' or deludin' myself. +I tell you, I <i>know</i>! I've always known."</p> + +<p>"I reckon, Ham," said the father gravely, "I can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>tell you the name of +this thing that's been informin' you how great a man you can get to be. +It ain't nothin' under God's heaven but self-conceit."</p> + +<p>But the boy swept on. "Napoleon's first friends were folks that ran a +laundry, but afterward kings couldn't talk to him unless he gave 'em +permission. John Hayes Hammond, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Frick, were all +poor boys. None of those men had any better blood in their veins than +I've got in mine, an' if you want to call it that, none of 'em had more +self-conceit."</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've got good enough blood to have better sense," observed +the father shortly. Then with a very human inconsistency he added, "I +don't often brag about it, but my middle name is Standish and Miles +Standish was an ancestor of mine."</p> + +<p>"And my name," retorted the boy, "is Hamilton, and Alexander Hamilton's +family were ancestors of my mother's. I reckon neither of those men +would feel very proud to see us settin' down here, wearin' our lives +away in a country where the ends won't meet."</p> + +<p>"This damned foolishness has gone far enough," ruled the elder in a +voice of finality, his amusement suddenly giving way once more to +sternness. "I've listened to you because you seemed to be full of talk +an' I was willin' to let you get it off your chest, but I don't need +counsel from any cub of a boy. I'm nigh onto fifty years old an' I've +run my family all these years. I had enough brains to get on with before +you was born an' if you've got all the sense you think you've got, you +got it from me an' your mother. Until you get to be twenty-one, you'll +do what I bid you. Heretofore you've done it willin'ly. I hope you'll go +on doin' it that way—but if you don't, I guess I'm <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>still man enough to +make you. Now go to bed—an' go quick."</p> + +<p>The lad flushed to his cheekbones and for a moment he made no move to +obey. Under the tyrannizing manner of his father's voice his spirit rose +in rebellion. Tom Burton strode over and his attitude was threatening. +"Did you hear what I said to you?" he inquired. "Are you going by +yourself, or have I got to take you upstairs?"</p> + +<p>Slowly and with a strong self-mastery, Ham came to his feet. "I'll go to +bed now," he replied quietly, "because it would be a pity for us to +quarrel—but I've got a few more things to say, and, after awhile, I +guess you'll have to listen to 'em. We'll talk about this thing some +more."</p> + +<p>"We'll talk about it some more—when I get good an' ready—if I ever +do—an' if I don't we won't never talk about it any more. Go to bed!"</p> + +<p>When the lad disappeared up the stairway, he left a long and constrained +silence behind him. From the mother's chair came a sound that hinted at +secret weeping, and at last Tom Burton straightened his hunched +shoulders and gazed across at young Edwardes, whose eyes were no longer +smiling, but very sober.</p> + +<p>"I hope you're satisfied now," said the host bitterly. "You've played +merry hell with this family. Yesterday my son did my bidding without +question. My daughter was an obedient child an' a natural one without +foolishness. You've been under my roof three hours an' my house rises +rebellious against me in my old age. And you bear a name that's always +stood for order an' wisdom—not for stirrin' up trouble. I reckon I +ought to turn you out in the snow, but I won't—I only hope you're +satisfied."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>"Mr. Burton," answered the young millionaire quietly, "I should be +sorry to have you think that. If I have kindled a spark in little Mary +that you never saw before it is nothing of which either you or she need +feel ashamed. As for the boy, it was not I who incited him. He has been +suppressing thoughts until now that reached the point of eruption, +that's all." He paused, then added very thoughtfully: "Even if I did +influence them both, it was as the unconscious tool upon which the hand +of Destiny chanced to fall. The boy only seeks fulfilment; fulfilment +that will make life better for all of you—if he succeeds."</p> + +<p>"Yes—if he succeeds. All he's got to do is to start out empty-handed +and lick the world to a frazzle. All I've got to do is to gamble the +little savings of twenty-five years of frugal living on his being able +to do it."</p> + +<p>"That," said Edwardes, "was hardly what I meant. If you'll let me make +one suggestion, since you credit me with already having done so much, it +is this. That boy may be, or may not be, the genius he thinks himself, +but he's got a brain that drives and torments him. He <i>thinks</i>! If you +will treat him as a counsellor and argue with him without sternness it +will pay you. The final decision will rest with you, but let him argue. +Don't choke him off and make a vassal of him instead of a son. His type +of brain can't be leashed."</p> + +<p>The father sat moody and did not at once reply. Finally he shook himself +out of his reverie and repeated: "Argue with him? How can a man argue +with a boy that thinks he's a genius and a miracle-worker? Besides, +while he's gabbin' nonsense he can look at you with somethin' in his +eyes that makes you feel like a fool."</p> + +<p>"Let me remind you of one thing." The young <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>man from the outer world +spoke very quietly. "The chapters of history that stand out in boldest +relief are chapters dealing with men who <i>were</i> miracle-workers, men who +had something in their eyes that dominated other men. I have been reared +close enough to the center of financial achievement to have seen +something of that. Perhaps that boy of yours is born with the stamp of +victory upon him—who knows? Given the chance, he may fulfill his own +visions. Both of your sons are dreamers, but the elder may be a doer of +dreams as well as a dreamer of dreams. He's an unquenchable flame. Don't +force him to smolder until he bursts into blaze. Give him a chance to +talk. Give him a safety-valve."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton drew his brows close over perplexed and baffled eyes; eyes +full of foreboding and anxiety. His voice was full of bewilderment. +"What does it all mean?" he murmured half-aloud. "What's the cause of +all these voices an' protests where everything's been quiet an' +peaceable up to now? Why ain't we never heard nothin' about all this +before if it's such a big thing an' a thing that the Lord intended?" He +gazed about him helplessly and with the face of one who sees omens and +cannot construe them, but who feels a nameless fear of their portent.</p> + +<p>"At all events," reiterated the guest, "you will do well to hear what +the boy wants to say, and now I will bid you good-night."</p> + +<p>When he had gone, the older man sat in thought for awhile, and, when +next his voice broke the silence, it was in a much softened timbre, a +voice tinged with tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Mother," he called in an undertone, and the woman who had borne his +children and stood shoulder to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>shoulder with him through the years of +fight, came over and knelt at his knee. He took her hand and held it for +a while in silence, and then he said a little brokenly: "Mother, when we +first came here from the little church down there, this house looked +pretty good to us, didn't it?"</p> + +<p>"To me, Tom," she said softly, "it has always looked good."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember," he went on irrelevantly, "when we brought that slip +of vine from the mountain and planted it by the porch? It's over the +roof now."</p> + +<p>The woman only pressed his hand; and after a moment he went on.</p> + +<p>"There are a couple of graves out there in the churchyard that I'd hate +mightily to leave."</p> + +<p>"The two we lost," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"An' yet maybe if we stay here we'll lose 'em all." Tom Burton was +making a decided effort to hold his voice steady.</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't, Tom," protested the woman.</p> + +<p>"When you married me, Elizabeth," he went on with the air of one +resolved to take full account, "I reckon you could have done a good deal +better, it's been a long fight here an' a hard one."</p> + +<p>"I've been happy," she told him.</p> + +<p>"Your hand was right slim then, an' now it's hard from work. To me, +there ain't no other hand as beautiful, mother, but there's no use +denying that we can't hold out much longer, unless the children stand by +an' help us."</p> + +<p>"They will, Tom. They will. Ham may talk, but he won't desert."</p> + +<p>"I know that, but the question is, have we got the right to hold them +here? Is Ham raving, or is he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>right? That's the question you an' me +have got to decide, mother."</p> + +<p>"Do you think, Tom," she demanded, rising and anxiously looking at him, +"do you think that even if we had all the things money could give +us—we'd be any happier in the long run? Life's been hard with us, but +it's always been wholesome."</p> + +<p>"I'm contented, mother, but what does well enough for old blood may not +satisfy the young. It ain't the first time I've thought about this +thing. They're quittin' all round us, an' they're quittin' because +they're beat. I've always thought this country could be redeemed. If +boys like Ham thought so, too, it might be done, but it takes young +blood, and if a feller's heart ain't in it, he can't do it."</p> + +<p>Her only answer was a sigh, and he continued: "We've still got enough +laid by in the bank to live somewhere for a few years an' give the +children decent educations. If we stay here too long maybe we can't even +do that. What shall we do?"</p> + +<p>For a while they sat without talk, and then the mother brokenly +suggested: "Let's hear what Ham says an' let's make up our minds slow."</p> + +<p>Together they rose, and, blowing out the lamp, went up the stairs. As +they passed Ham's door they paused, and the father whispered, "I don't +want the boy to think I'm hard on him."</p> + +<p>Inside, there was no light, but they could hear the eldest son thrashing +restlessly about in his bed, and they knew that he was not sleeping.</p> + +<p>Outside the snow was still falling with quiet relentlessness. It was +wrapping deeper and deeper the white slopes of the mountains and piling +feathery drifts against the windward sides of the sighing pines. Here +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>and there a burdened branch creaked under its travail. Now and then the +wind that drove the snow rose to a gusty whisper, and a stark limb +scraped the eaves of the house with grating, lifeless fingers. But +between the occasional stress-cries of the storm, there came the low, +dirge-like monotony of the sifting snowfall. And as always in old houses +there were the little voices and the minute nameless stirrings of the +night. The ghost-moan of drafty chimneys and the creak of warped timbers +became audible accentuators of the silence.</p> + +<p>Ham heard them all and to him they were like the wretched echoes of a +jail where the small clicking night-sounds creep into dreams and poison +them with reminders of confinement. His brain was hot with a fever of +restiveness and beyond his cell-like room he saw the world from which he +was barred: the world which the tongueless voice in his heart kept +heralding to him as his own world to conquer.</p> + +<p>In another bed across the carpetless floor rose and fell the even breath +of Edwardes, who was sleeping as a man sleeps after fighting a blizzard. +Under the boy's own hot cheek was the roughness of a slipless pillow and +his limbs thrashed between coarse sheets that covered a lumpy mattress.</p> + +<p>Out beyond the barriers of the snow-stifled mountains stretched endless +continents and seas inviting his soul. Men of alien races and alien +thought trod lands where palm trees nodded along white beaches and where +the sea was blue as sapphire. Thousands of miles away were deserts +agleam with gold and caravans swinging between the burning arch of the +sky and the scorching sands. Great cities rose before his eyes, +beckoning him, calling to him: brooding cities of gray turrets and foggy +streets; strange cities lit with sunset <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>fires on domes and minarets; +laughing cities gay with festivals. All these things he was hungry to +see; to see as a master of the world walking its varied ways, achieving +its affairs. Through his waking dreams marched a parade of great +figures, Hannibal, Cæsar the Corsican, Talleyrand, Disraeli, Montagu, +Pitt, the men with whom this tongueless voice proclaimed his +brotherhood; the men who had found life's granite as hard as that which +lay heaped about him, who had conquered it and chiseled it into +monuments of history. His hand slipped under his pillow and closed on +the dollars he had made. His troubled face smoothed into a smile.</p> + +<p>"Slivers Martin paid me ten dollars," he murmured to himself, "an' I +bought the lot of 'em for seven."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">W</span><span class="heavy">HEN</span> young Jefferson Edwardes set out the next morning for his winter's +imprisonment in the shack where he must fight the white specter of slow +death, amid the white isolation of the snow, he left behind him a +household to all outward seeming as quiet as it had ever been. But all +that morning and afternoon while Ham was away at school, Tom Burton sat +deeply engrossed in calculations involving scraps of paper upon which he +was laboriously figuring, and frequent consultation of a slender +bank-book. And Ham, as he trudged back across the snow, came with a face +set for combat. Hitherto he had obeyed and now the time had come when +his inherent power of leadership must assert itself. If the world could +not conquer him—and he was utterly certain it could not—he must not +flinch from the task of riding down the first opposition he met—even +though it be the opposition of his own blood. Afterward his family +should know only tenderness and ease and luxury, but now they must +acknowledge his mastery.</p> + +<p>Of the possibility of failure he never dreamed. His star was in the +heavens and Destiny had spoken. Just as the cork plunged to the bottom +of the pail must inevitably rise to the top, so he must rise. He was of +the oligarchy of the great, of the chosen of the gods, and now the +voices of Destiny were calling him to the undertaking of his mission. +Tonight the question must be thrashed out, yet when he arrived at the +house he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>went quietly about the round of monotonous chores and after +that sat through the evening meal with no mention of the things in his +heart. It was his father who first broached the subject and he broached +it bluntly while the family sat about him, in the spirit of the +primitive family council.</p> + +<p>"Ham," he said slowly, "I've been sittin' here all day turnin' your +notions over in my mind. You want to go away from here and to abandon +this place where you was born; where your mother and me started +housekeepin'; where we've lived for twenty years. If we decided to do +that—an' it wouldn't be no easy thing for either your mother or +me—what plans would you aim to carry out?"</p> + +<p>The boy shook his head. He did not shake it in the abashed fashion of +one confronted with a question for which he has no answer, but with the +frank manner of one brushing aside a trivial and irrelevant question.</p> + +<p>"I don't know yet. First I've got to have an education, then I'll decide +what I'm going to do, and when I decide I'll succeed."</p> + +<p>The father's brows knitted themselves gravely and with displeasure. +"Then, after all your talk and bragging, you haven't got no definite +plan. All you argue for is cutting loose from the roof over us an' +livin' up our little savin's."</p> + +<p>"I know that I can give you big things in the place of little things." +The lad's voice again mounted and into his face came the flush of +assured inspiration. "The thing that tells me is something you wouldn't +understand. I can't any more put it into words for you than I can tell +you why the moon swings the tides, but it's just as dead sure as that +an' I can feel it here." He clapped his hands over his heart and went on +with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>quiet certainty: "I don't know no name to call it by except a +feelin' of power. There's only one thing in God's whole world that can +stop me, an' that's ignorance and lonesomeness. You call it all +dreamin'—well, give me a chance and I'll make it all so real that you +can't have any more doubts."</p> + +<p>"I thought," said Tom Burton a bit wearily, "that maybe you might have +some sensible argument, but all you've got is moonshine. I've been +settin' here figurin' all day so that, if you could convince me, I'd +know where I stood with the bank, but it don't hardly seem worth talkin' +about."</p> + +<p>"I can't make you understand," declared the boy unwaveringly, "because +you're thinkin' in hundreds where I'm thinkin' in millions. You ask me +about details. All I know is that I've got a destiny to be as great as +any man can be an' that success is goin' to be my slave. I don't know +what I'm going to do because I haven't seen yet what battle-field is +best worth winnin'. When I see what's the biggest—I'll win it."</p> + +<p>"So you want us to take what we've saved and gamble it all on your good +opinion of yourself. Do you realize, my son, that we ain't got much and +that we've saved what we have got by goin' without all our lives? When +that's gone, we won't have nothin' left to gamble with a second time. +Ain't it a good deal to pay for learnin' the folly of self-conceit?"</p> + +<p>The boy's answer was direct and swift and confident. "One chance is all +I need. It's only a coward that wants a guarantee of more chances, if he +fails once. What sort of a farmer do you think Paul will ever make? He +couldn't heft a second-growth log of timber. But out there in the world +where a man's rated higher than a mule maybe Paul's got it in him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>to be +great. Some day Mary's goin' to be a woman and a beautiful woman. She's +got a right to life. Don't you ever see the difference between life an' +just livin'? It's the difference between havin' a soul and havin' +nothin' but a belly."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose"—the father spoke petulantly despite his resolution to +hear his son to the end—"do you suppose we've always been poor because +we liked it?"</p> + +<p>"If you stay poor," came the prompt retort, "it's because you won't let +me change it. We're stayin' here an' slowly starvin' our hearts an' +brains an' souls because Money's got us bluffed. I'm goin' to make money +my slave an' not my master—an' if you'll trust me you can have it to +play with."</p> + +<p>"You tell me that you are one of the almightiest great men that was ever +born, an' that somethin' keeps on tellin' you so. You tell me that I +can't understand the voice you hear," said Tom Burton slowly. "Don't you +know that all the lunatic asylums are full of Emperors of Germany and +Kings of England—an' they all hear them same kind of voices? That's why +they're there."</p> + +<p>"But there's one Emperor of Germany and one King of England outside them +places—an' they're on thrones. All the masters of the world have felt +their power an' folks have laughed at 'em—at first." Ham spoke with +desperate seriousness that made his eyes glow steadily and forcefully. +"And yet the big things have been done by those men, and from the first +<i>they</i> knew that they were different. You say I've been braggin'. Did +you ever hear me say one word before yesterday about bein' different +from any other boy? I'm sayin' it now because there isn't any use in +lyin'.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> I <i>know</i> just as well as if I'd already done it, that I can look +down on other successful men as far as a mountain-top looks down on a +little hill. I've done my work here on this farm, an' I haven't ever +shirked. Now I want my chance—an' I don't want my family to go to seed. +I want the blood of the Standishes and the Hamiltons to climb up and not +to run down hill and die out in a rotting puddle at the bottom. I want +these things and I'm goin' to have 'em—This farm an' you have fought +for a lifetime an' the farm's whipped you. I tell you there is just one +thing in God Almighty's world that can whip me—just one thing that I'm +afraid of—an' it's this farm. If you stay here I reckon I can't hardly +desert you, but I'd rather you'd kill me outright. That's all I've got +to say."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton rose from his chair and took two or three turns across the +frayed strips of carpet. His eyes were no longer the eyes of a father +irritated by the insubordinate fret of a fledgling son begging +permission to test his wings. His bearded face bore the seamed +uncertainty of his deeply vexed spirit. Perhaps in that moment there +came to him some sense of conversion to the prophet-like assurance of +his son. Perhaps he felt the dread of transplanting and a vague wonder +whether the gifts of wealth, if they came, might not bring disaster in +their wake. At last he turned, cramming his hands into his trousers' +pockets, and swept the little family circle with eyes in which flashed +something of patriarchal fire.</p> + +<p>"Mother," he demanded, "you have heard what the boy says. Does it sound +like reason to you, or is it just a stripling's restlessness?"</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Burton looked from her husband's face to that of her eldest +child. It seemed to her that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>father's eyes were wistful and sorely +distressed, and that the son's face was tightly drawn with a feverish +burning of the eyes. Suddenly she felt like an arbiter called to judge +between them. Her boy with his Cæsar's ambition was breaking his heart +to go. Her husband, with much of life behind, could only yield with +something like a break in his own. Her eyes moistened.</p> + +<p>"If he feels called into the world, Tom—" she began, then halted. The +husband waited, and she went on again. "If he feels it so strong, maybe +it must mean something. It's mighty hard to say. But, Tom, I know Ham +better than anybody else does. He's not the kind of boy to leave us +alone. If we need him he'll stay."</p> + +<p>"That's not the question, mother." The father who had yesterday been +dictatorial and intolerant was now the just judge who refused to be +beguiled by personal preferences. Only his pupils betrayed the pathos of +his inward suffering. "It's a right hard question as I see it. This +place means home to me, but I'm about played out. If we stay it's Ham +that's got to wear the harness, an' I know just how heavy the harness +is. It would gall him an' blister him even if he wasn't already chafin' +with discontent. It seems like he can't do it willin'ly. Can we let him +do it any other way? We're lookin' back, mother, but I reckon life runs +forward."</p> + +<p>"It ain't just my life I'm thinkin' about—" broke in Ham's voice, but +his father stopped him with an uplifted hand.</p> + +<p>"You've had your say, son, for the present," he reminded; and the boy +fell silent.</p> + +<p>Tom Burton turned to the maiden aunt who sat under the lamplight with +her sewing on her lap. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>saw that her lips were intolerantly +compressed and that her needle came and went in protesting little jabs. +"Hannah," he quietly inquired, "what do you think?"</p> + +<p>The elderly woman whose sternness of view had been tempered by neither +maternity nor breadth of experience shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I'm called on to express what I think, Tom," she +replied with cold disapproval. "I've always held that it's a sinful +thing to be dissatisfied with what God wills. He put us here an' I +reckon if He hadn't meant us to live here He'd have put us somewhere +else."</p> + +<p>"I guess, Hannah—" Tom Burton's eyes for just a moment lighted into a +humorous smile—"we couldn't hardly expect God to move us bodily. But if +we do go away from here you can have the comfort of figuring that if He +hadn't wanted us to go there we wouldn't be there." He looked over at +little Mary, who alone had not spoken.</p> + +<p>"Daughter," he suggested, "you're too young to have to decide such +things, but you might as well speak up, too. It looks like the day has +come for children to lay down the law to their elders. What do you think +about leavin' the old home, the only home we've ever known?"</p> + +<p>The child, surprised at being called into the council, dropped her eyes, +then, suddenly glancing up and meeting Ham's gaze, she felt a courage +beyond her own, and stammered: "I'd like to see the world +and—and—well, just to see all the wonderful things—and to know +everything."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton's lips stiffened. "A long time ago a couple of people lived +in the Garden of Eden," he said shortly. "And I reckon what Eve said +wasn't much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>diff'rent from that. Well, they moved away all right."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence in the room, and the father at last broke it +with his eyes fixed on his eldest son.</p> + +<p>"Those great men you talk about, Ham—" he spoke with deliberate +gravity—"them fellers you seem to think are sort of brothers of +yours—most of them came to times when they saw things topplin' down all +round 'em. They sent your Napoleon to St. Helena an' a lot of others +didn't do much better in the long run. Julius Cæsar was pretty great an' +pretty ambitious. He fell. There's a heap to be said fer livin' straight +an' simple. We're self-respectin' men an' women with clean blood in our +veins that don't have to bow down to no man. We've lived honest an' +worked hard, but sometimes when spring comes on an' I'm followin' the +plow an' the blackbirds are followin' me along the furrow, I feel like +God ain't so far away. When they buries me out there amongst those I've +loved an' been true to, I reckon I'll rest."</p> + +<p>"Your father," the son reminded him, "wasn't a young feller when Lincoln +called for volunteers, but he didn't stay here because he wanted to +rest. He went, an' now he's restin' down there at Shiloh. I want to +answer my call. I'm willin' to take my chance of restin' where death +finds me."</p> + +<p>Outside, across the ice-locked lake and through the snow-burdened forest +swept the wolf-like howl of the wind.</p> + +<p>Inside, there was the silence of a deeply troubled indecision. At last, +Tom Burton said:</p> + +<p>"It's a right-hard thing to stake the welfare of a family on a boy's +notion of his own greatness—a notion that ain't never been tried out. +There's just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>one thing you've convinced me of, and it's this: You may +not be able to do anything worth-while in the world outside. You may be +a failure there, but I'm pretty sure, in your frame of mind, you'll be a +failure here. The man that makes a fight here has got to have his heart +in it an' he's got to love the soil. That don't fit your case! I ain't +ready to admit yet that I ain't the head of my own family. I ain't made +up my mind yet what we'll do. Maybe we'll stay right here an' maybe +we'll go away." The father ran one hand wearily through the thick hair +on his forehead and shook his head. "I've heard you out, an' we'll all +think on it an' dream on it. I've found right often when a feller's +perplexed an' can't reach a conclusion, he goes to sleep an' wakes up +with a clearer judgment. Once a mistake is made, it can't be unmade; but +I don't want you to think that I ain't ponderin' this question."</p> + +<p>Ahead of him Ham saw Paul and Mary slip up the stairway and his aunt +rise, with the stiff disapproval of silence, and leave the room. He +himself remained only a few minutes longer and then with a low-voiced +good-night he pressed his father's hand, and felt the grip of stern +affection on his own. He took up and lighted the small lamp that was to +light him to bed, and as he climbed the boxed-in stairway, the shadows +wavered on the walls at each side, and he heard the wail of the wind +around the eaves.</p> + +<p>When he set the lamp down and began undressing he realized for the first +time the gnawing weariness of muscles that the day had taxed with chores +and tramping. Tomorrow morning he must rise while the windows still let +in only the chilling gray of dawn. Yet he stopped with half his clothes +removed, and, going <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>to an improvised shelf in the corner, took down a +battered volume. It was not until the lamp warned him of the spent hours +with its dying sputter that he laid aside the resonant sentences in +which Carlyle had been talking to him of heroes and their worship. In +another room across the hall he had heard stirrings for an hour after +the silence of sleep had fallen on the rest of the house.</p> + +<p>There Mary, unable to compose herself at once, had been snipping at the +pattern of a gown with which, in her fancy, she was to charm those men +who did not wear lumbermen's socks and neglect their razors. But now +even Mary was asleep. It was cold in the room, and outside the world was +bitter, but Ham was far from sleep. In his mind still worked and seethed +the unresting ferment which had become a torment. The annals of the +great had fired him to passion. The littleness of his room and of his +life stifled him. He wanted to breathe freer, and, drawing on his +mackinaw, he tiptoed noiselessly down the stairs and let himself out +into the night.</p> + +<p>There he found a frozen world, shut in by low-drifting clouds and +swallowed in a smother of darkness. Even the snow was gray, but at least +there he could look out across space.</p> + +<p>As though his eyes followed a compass needle, he slowly swung them until +his gaze set toward his desire, and because vaguely he thought of New +York as the center of the great outer world, his face was to the south.</p> + +<p>The wind moaned about him and somewhere far off he heard the ripping +groan of an overladen tree giving way under its paralysis of sleet. In +himself he felt something also breaking away from its old place. He +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>felt forces rending their bonds and straining for freedom, and it +almost seemed to his burning eyes that while he gazed toward that spot +hundreds of miles away which he had never seen, there slowly kindled in +the sky a pale and luminous aura, such as hangs over the spires and +shafts of a giant city. His fancy pictured the unsainted halo that +gleams above thronged and never-sleeping streets: streets that always +beckon. Vague echoes of sounds came toward him, warring in the teeth of +the wind; sounds of the many voices and the many clamors that merge into +one dull, insistent roar: the voice of the city.</p> + +<p>So he stood there shivering and not realizing that the frost was +shrewdly biting him. His spirit was the spirit of a hatching eaglet +impatiently rapping at the shell which too slowly opens to give it +freedom.</p> + +<p>"What I did to Slivers Martin," he told himself, "I can do to the rest +of them. There ain't much difference between doin' big things an' little +things, except that you've got to be where there are big things to do +an' you've got to <i>know</i> you can do 'em."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="Part_II" id="Part_II"></a><span class="smcap">Part II</span></h3> + +<h2><i>THE BOOK OF LIFE</i><br /><br /> +IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN</h2> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="heavy">T</span> was eight o'clock, and the year as well as the day was in its +morning. The watch which young Carl Bristoll drew from his pocket was +very thin and exquisite, and he did not look at its face. Instead he +touched a delicate spring with his finger-nail and listened to the +tinkle of its low, silvery chime. This watch might have spoken the hour +to a blind man as well as to eyes as clear and engaging as those of its +present possessor.</p> + +<p>In some Swiss shop, where for generations an hereditary skill of adept +fingers had come down from father to son, a master of his craft had +toiled long and lovingly over this thin disc of gold which epitomized in +its small circumference a perfection of accuracy and beauty. Because it +was a prince's plaything and because the young Titan of finance who +employed Carl Bristoll as his confidential secretary had brought it back +by way of an affectionate gift from his last trip to the Continent, the +lad prized it above other possessions. To young Bristoll, who was no +unwilling wage-earner, but a hero-worshiper in all the intensity of +strong youth, it had been as if an emperor had pinned on his breast the +insignia of personal regard.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>He put the trinket back into his waistcoat pocket, and strolled to the +windows that gave off over the Drive and the Hudson. The softly arching +sky found its color echo in the blue of broad waters and beyond them the +Palisades were already beginning to show tenderly green and alluring in +spring's resurrection. Out in midstream lay the crouching hulk of a +battleship, and its somber gray was the one note that contradicted the +softness of the morning.</p> + +<p>Bristoll turned his face again to the interior, where a flood of sun +from the broad window at the back filled the place with eastern light. +He never tired of that room, the library where his chief dispatched +those matters of more urgent business that pursued him even to his home. +It was a room that might have served a potentate as a council-chamber +with its treasury of almost priceless art, yet it reflected everywhere +the quiet of faultless taste and the elegance born of a restrained and +sure discernment.</p> + +<p>"And all of it," Carl Bristoll murmured to himself, as he awaited the +coming of its master, "he made for himself in a scant ten years, and he +stands only at the threshold of his career!" That often repeated formula +was a sort of daily tonic with which his ambition reminded itself that +life holds no prize locked behind impossible barriers for him who has +the courage and resolution to grasp it. Yet had he been older he would +have added, "The impossible is only possible to the child of Destiny."</p> + +<p>He heard a quiet movement behind him, and turned to find the butler +standing at his elbow with a tray of early mail, into which the +secretary plunged, separating the purely personal from those letters +which the great man saw only through his subordinate's eyes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>"I'm not at all sure, Mr. Bristoll, that the master will rise early," +volunteered the servant. "He was with his sister until midnight, and +after that Mr. Paul came in and I heard him playing the piano, sir, as +late as three o'clock."</p> + +<p>Carl laughed. "I had a call from him on the 'phone an hour ago," he +answered. "He spoke of a busy day ahead, and suggested an early start. +There are some men, Harrow, who find rest simply in changing the brain's +occupation."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, quite so," admitted the butler dubiously. "Still, as the poet +says, sir, it's sleep that 'knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,' sir. +Sometimes I have apprehensions that the master will overtax his +strength."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know, Harrow," smiled the secretary, "that you were a disciple +of the poets."</p> + +<p>"Only, sir, in an unostentatious way," deprecated the man. "It has been +my good fortune to serve in families where such niceties have been +highly regarded, sir, and, I take it, advantageous associations reflect +themselves in one's tastes, sir. But—" he dropped his voice, and came a +step nearer—"but, sir, if you will pardon me, sir, I should like to ask +a question. You know, of course, that the master's sister arrived last +night from Europe?"</p> + +<p>Bristoll nodded. He himself had not yet had the privilege of seeing the +young woman, the fame of whose loveliness had preceded her: a loveliness +which had enthralled men from the Irish Sea to Suez.</p> + +<p>"Of course, sir, it's not for me to entertain opinions, but—" The +butler paused in evident embarrassment, and the secretary's eyes +narrowed a little.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>"You are quite right, Harrow," he asserted shortly. "I can't see that +you are required to express any opinion."</p> + +<p>"Of course, sir, I was only going to say—"</p> + +<p>"Well—don't say it."</p> + +<p>But, for all his obsequiousness, the admirable Harrow was a persistent +diplomat.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, of course I sha'n't. I was only going to ask you—"</p> + +<p>The secretary looked up with an impatient frown on a forehead shaped for +resolution.</p> + +<p>"All right. Ask me and have it over."</p> + +<p>"I was going to inquire, sir, whether you regard it likely that the new +mistress would—as I might say, sir—institute any sweeping changes of +régime in our <i>milieu</i>? Things have gone on very well, sir, as they +were." The interrogation carried a note of sharp anxiety: the +apprehension of a petty monarch who might face the fate of being +deposed.</p> + +<p>"I don't know." The reply was curt, and Harrow with a bow said only, +"Yes, sir, thank you. I was just speculating on the possibilities, sir."</p> + +<p>For a while there was silence in the library as Bristoll ran through +letter after letter, his hand racing over the stenographer's pad upon +which he reduced their purport to succinct notes. He always enjoyed +these responsible mornings with his chief because they were times of +intimate association with a mind that directed colossal operations, and +they savored almost of the importance of cabinet meetings.</p> + +<p>Often, as he read the fluctuations of the ticker tape or glanced at +financial scareheads in the evening papers, he smiled knowingly with the +memory of a sentence spoken at the breakfast-table or an edict <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>uttered +in this library, which had been the motive power behind the news; and +which to the world at large remained an unseen impulse.</p> + +<p>Now Bristoll heard a quick step coming down the stairs with a +schoolboy's buoyant lightness and the whistling of a popular air. It +might have been a college sophomore arriving light-heartedly from his +cold plunge, rather than the Titan whose word in the Street was already +a thing which no one of the older money-kings could ignore.</p> + +<p>Carl Bristoll rose, and Hamilton Burton broke off his whistling to smile +gaily as he clapped the younger man on the shoulder and inquired with a +voice remarkably soft and musical, "Well, how is our young Minister of +Finance this morning?"</p> + +<p>Hamilton Montagu Burton stood an even six feet, and from a generous +breadth of shoulders, swung back in free erectness, he tapered to a trim +slenderness of waist and thigh. In the immaculate elegance of his dress +he justified his reputation as the best-clothed man in New York, even +while he retained the grace of a seeming carelessness. His eyes, though +he had slept a scant four hours, looked out clear-pupiled and tireless, +but it was the shape and carriage of the head that proclaimed mastery. +The pattern of brow and jaw and clean-cut lip and indomitable eye gave +that head an alert power which made it the head of one born to command. +The illuminating smile could give way to a sternness and a decision that +became ruthless in its dominance, and the eyes could harden like +diamonds as swiftly as they could melt.</p> + +<p>Carl Bristoll laughed, and after the custom of badinage that had grown +up between them he made a bow of mock ceremony as he replied.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>"Quite fit, Sire, and your Majesty's appearance proclaims you equally +so."</p> + +<p>It was hardly the sort of greeting that the outsider might have +expected, but neither financier nor secretary was an ordinary type and +between them throve an excellent understanding.</p> + +<p>As Bristoll read from his notes Hamilton Burton's face lost its smile +and became instantly attentive while his questions snapped out +clear-clipped and comprehensive.</p> + +<p>It seemed that the brain was separated into many zones, each carrying +forward its separate functions without interference or confusion. +Through the channels of vision, hearing and quick independent thought, +varied propositions were at one time being absorbed while the master +instinct of coördination was weighing all and planning yet other +affairs.</p> + +<p>"And now," announced the financier, when the stenographic notes had been +read and others written in swift adjudication of their problems, "the +rest can wait till we get down-town. There's Harrow calling us to +breakfast—and breakfast is an institution I particularly venerate." The +master of the establishment turned to the butler and inquired, "Hasn't +Miss Burton come down?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Burton, sir," replied the man with a shade of uneasiness in his +voice, "sent word by her maid that she would breakfast in her room."</p> + +<p>The naïve smile faded from Hamilton Burton's face and for an instant it +took on something of that aggressive set which men in the Stock-Exchange +had come to recognize as precursor of a frenzied day.</p> + +<p>"Send word to my sister," he directed quietly, "that I insistently +request her to join us at breakfast. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>must see her before I leave the +house." He strode with a resilient step about the room, pausing idly +before a favorite landscape here and prized bronze there. Patience was +one quality which Hamilton Burton had not spent great effort in +acquiring. It was his custom to let others adapt themselves to his +convenience, yet his eyes were unruffled as he smilingly turned to his +secretary. "'Serene I wait—with folded hands,'" he murmured.</p> + +<p>But when Harrow returned it was as bearer of a message which marred the +serenity of this waiting.</p> + +<p>"Miss Burton sends word, sir, that she will receive you in her boudoir +in a half-hour. She does not find it convenient to come down to +breakfast."</p> + +<p>For a moment, Hamilton Burton remained standing and his gray eyes +flashed forebodingly, though the line of his lips was not deflected. +Then he led the way to the breakfast-room.</p> + +<p>"Tell Miss Burton," he ordered shortly, "that we are awaiting her in the +breakfast-room. Say to her that I trust she will make the delay short." +Then as the butler turned, the master halted him again. "No," he +amended, "I'll send a note—give me a sheet of paper."</p> + +<p>As the embarrassed servant laid a note-card by his plate, he hastily +scribbled:</p> + +<p>"Dear Mary, While you are mistress of my house I shall expect you to +appear at the breakfast-table. The rest of the day is yours. This is +final. Mr. Bristoll and I are waiting and my time is not to be valued +lightly. Please do not tax my patience longer."</p> + +<p>When Harrow had gone, Burton turned again to Bristoll, and with that +systematic quality which made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>his brain so versatile he dismissed the +annoyance for another matter.</p> + +<p>"I want your opinion on the coffee," he said lightly. "It came from the +Jungus valley in Bolivia. Men who have drunk it there are not satisfied +with any other. In the local market it is costly and as an export it is +unattainable."</p> + +<p>"Yet you have obtained it," smiled the secretary. "How?"</p> + +<p>Burton laughed. "I wanted it," he announced briefly. "So I got it."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Burton," the younger man spoke hesitantly, "you look very fit and +seem absolutely on edge, but I'm afraid you're rather overdoing things. +I don't mean any impertinence of suggestion, but the trout are jumping +in the mountain brooks just now. Can't you drop things for a few days +and climb into a flannel shirt—and rest? You could go somewhere where +the leaves are rustling in the woods and things are as God made them, +close to His immortal granite. I don't want to see you break yourself +down."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton was looking at the percolator in which the Bolivian +coffee was bubbling as restively as the fires of the volcano at whose +base it grew from berry to lush plant and came again to berry. He was +balancing a spoon on his forefinger, and smiling with quiet amusement.</p> + +<p>"Now that's very thoughtful of our young Minister of Finance." He spoke +softly as the fugitive smile played around the corners of his lips. +"Very thoughtful indeed, but the suggestion is, after all, unavailable." +He paused, and the smile died. "I don't think I've ever become +autobiographical with you, have I, Carl?"</p> + +<p>The secretary shook his head. "But, of course, you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>know I should feel +honored at any time you did," he declared with whole-hearted and boyish +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Very well. Until I was sixteen years old I lived very close to +mountains built of God's immortal granite. Whenever I went out to do my +chores I barked my shins on God's immortal granite. Whenever I plowed I +had to do acrobatics to save as much of the plowshare as possible from +God's immortal granite. It's all very pastoral to talk about milk fresh +from the sweet-breathed cow, but for ten years I was lady's maid to two +singularly repulsive cows—and in time they cloyed upon me. Whenever +those Juno-eyed kine lowed for a drink of water, it was up to me to +hustle out and serve them—and I never got a tip for my service. To this +good day, Carl, the sight of a cow gives me cramps in the fingers and +melancholy in the soul. Henceforth I'll take my milk in hermetically +sealed jars from one of my own model dairies—and I'll try to forget +that its origin is—cows. That cream in the pitcher there came from a +farm of mine up in Westchester. Bulk for bulk, it costs me about the +same as old champagne, but it's mighty cheap compared to what that other +milk came to." He paused and gazed at the spoon balanced on a steady +forefinger.</p> + +<p>"As for the whisper of the breeze through the silver birches, I've heard +it with chilblains on my feet and bruises on my heart and henceforth +when I want to see the shadows fall, I'll go and stand under Cheops' +pyramid or the Coliseum at Rome or some other edifice reared with human +hands as the monument to human achievement that helped to build the +world. When I die they'll once more lay me close to Nature's breast, +and, being dead, I sha'n't object—but until that time I'll stay +away—as far away as possible."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>The financier ended his good-humored tirade and glanced up to meet the +frankly alarmed gaze of Harrow, who at that moment reappeared in the +door.</p> + +<p>"Miss Burton says," announced the butler, his usual suavity shaken +beyond control, "that there is no answer to your note. She says you +already have her reply."</p> + +<p>The coffee in the percolator was bubbling furiously, and the ice about +the grape-fruit was beginning to melt. Hamilton Burton rose abruptly +from his chair. "Please excuse me for a moment, Carl," he said in a low +voice. "I will go up and bring my sister down to breakfast."</p> + +<p>The furnishing and decorating of Mary Burton's apartments had engrossed +her brother's interest for some weeks prior to her arrival and when in +answer to his rap a silvery voice said, "Come in," he stood on the +threshold of a boudoir as richly and tastefully detailed as a princess +of the blood royal could have asked.</p> + +<p>But the girl, who sat indolently before her mirror, clad in a morning +negligée of exquisite delicacy, was so like a colorful and lustrous +pearl that one forgot her surroundings. Hamilton's eyes, the eyes that +could change so swiftly from implacability to disarming softness, +flashed into pride as he looked at her.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he amiably began, "I think there must be some misunderstanding. +I asked you to come down."</p> + +<p>The girl looked up with a serene smile. "Did they not then give you my +message?" she inquired softly. "I told them to say that I would +breakfast here."</p> + +<p>The man's eyes narrowed and darkened. Something in his domineering +spirit bristled, as it always bristled under questioning or opposition.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>"Why? You are fully dressed, are you not?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly."</p> + +<p>"Then what reason can you have for refusing to come when I ask it? Is it +simply that you wish to defy me? I am not accustomed to being +disobeyed."</p> + +<p>"Are you then so sure of obedience, <i>mon cher</i>?" She raised her gorgeous +eyes and laughed up at him with indulgent amusement. Her manner was that +of a young empress who regards any criticism of herself as an audacious +jest, so unprecedented as to be diverting. "Are you sure that you have +nothing yet to learn? I said I should not come down to the +breakfast-room—because I did not wish to come."</p> + +<p>"You mean that you still refuse?"</p> + +<p>"If you desire to call it that. I would not seem ungracious.... I should +prefer the word 'decline.'"</p> + +<p>"Then that is reason enough why you <i>are</i> coming."</p> + +<p>Mary lifted her brows in incredulous amusement, but Hamilton Burton did +not smile in response. He came a step nearer her chair and said very +quietly: "While you are in my house I wish you to appear at the +breakfast-table. This morning is a good time to begin. Will you +accompany me on your own feet, or will you make your initial appearance +kicking those same feet, while I carry you down like a child in a +tantrum? There are about five seconds available for you to give the +question mature deliberation."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, <i>cheri</i>." Her mirthful pupils were not flecked with +annoyance. "Five seconds are four seconds more than I need. I shall not +go either way."</p> + +<p>Hamilton made no further comment. With the apparent ease of one taking +up a child from its cradle, he bent down and gathered her slender figure +in his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>arms, then, lifting her bodily from her chair, he turned toward +the door.</p> + +<p>For an instant, she lay against his shoulder, too astounded for protest. +Then her satin slippers began beating a furious tattoo and her small +fists pummeling him as her cheeks flamed and her mismatched eyes burst +into indignant fire. These demonstrations her brother ignored as he +carried her in effortless fashion out into the broad hall and half-way +down the stairs. She had ceased to struggle by that time and was gasping +in wordless wrath. But at the turn of the stairway into the lower hall +he paused and stood still, while their eyes met and locked in a brief, +hot duel of wills.</p> + +<p>"Now," he inquired calmly, "shall this be the manner of your first +appearance before my secretary and butler, or will you make the rest of +the journey on your own power?"</p> + +<p>For the first time she recovered her voice. It was a wild mingling of +frustrated wrath and outraged dignity, and for once she found that her +fluency had forsaken her. She had been taught—Hamilton had seen to +that—that when she spoke others should obey. She had not yet learned to +bow to even his autocracy.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ham!</i>" she exclaimed tensely, though even now she spoke in a cautious +voice so that no echo might reach other ears. "Put me down! How dare +you?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer the question; instead he asked another.</p> + +<p>"Will you enter as mistress of the house or will you go in kicking?"</p> + +<p>During a long defiant pause, their eyes held, both pairs unwavering; +then the girl said quietly: "I'll go in myself."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">H</span><span class="heavy">ARROW</span> had not overstated the facts when he said that it had been his +privilege to serve in families "where niceties were highly regarded." He +was the accomplished servant, seeing and hearing only such things as his +betters intended for his eyes and ears. If he had human emotions he +ordinarily revealed them only when his livery was doffed. Yet even the +impeccably correct serving man has his moments of weakness, and, as +Hamilton Burton left the room, he muttered low, but quite audibly, "My +God!" Then, feeling Carl Bristoll's chilling glance upon him, he sought +to cover his indiscretion in an apologetic cough.</p> + +<p>But the secretary himself felt the disturbing uneasiness that had +prompted that exclamation. Hamilton Burton had been defied, and when +that occurred peace fled and punishment fell.</p> + +<p>Evidently the girl upstairs, the girl just returned from years of study +and travel in Europe, had something of that same spirit which made her +brother's will a thing of adamant, but she had not done well to begin +her new life by measuring lances with the autocratic Hamilton. Probably +at the moment she was being reprimanded, perhaps rebuked into tears +which, since she was young and beautiful, became a disquieting thought. +Carl Bristoll felt the discomfort of the outsider in the shadow of a +family scene.</p> + +<p>He would now have to meet Mary Burton under the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>most inauspicious +circumstances, and she would always remember that he had first seen her +with tear-stained eyes at a moment of humiliation and defeat. It was too +much to expect that a woman could forget this, and the young secretary +had the wish that it should be otherwise. So he sat rather moodily +contemplating his plate and when he heard steps on the stairs he was +surprised at the brevity of the interval. Hamilton Burton had evidently +subdued this insurrection in his household with the same whirlwind +swiftness that he employed toward enemies beyond his walls.</p> + +<p>Bristoll saw the young financier draw back the portières and he himself +rose hastily and came forward, but he halted half-way and stood +transfixed. He had been told that he was to expect beauty, and he had +expected it, yet now for the moment he found himself standing +astonished, and as devoid as a raw schoolboy of his usually +imperturbable poise. From this trance-like condition he was recalled by +the quizzical amusement of his employer and, bowing from the hips, he +found himself murmuring some well-bred inanity.</p> + +<p>The girl standing there in the door was a sight to make men gasp and +lose their tongues, and because this was not the first who had done so, +her own perfect lips curved into a smile of purest graciousness, and in +her voice as she spoke was a quality of zylophone music made the more +charming by that slight French accent which years abroad had given her. +Beauty is so variant of type, so often vaunted and so rarely found in +true perfectness, that Carl Bristoll had accepted the newspaper reports +of this girl's loveliness with a discounted credence. Now he was +convinced. The quality of her coloring and expression would have made +her face beautiful even had it lacked its allurement of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>line and +delicacy of proportion; even had the chin tilted less regally and the +eyes looked out under their long lashes with less serene queenliness, +though ready to twinkle at the instant into the merriment of a +mischief-loving child.</p> + +<p>She was tall, but not too tall, lithe and slim and sinuous as a mermaid, +yet well enough rounded to make each delicate curve a charm, not merely +of promise but of fulfilment. She wore a flowing morning-gown that made +negligée seem to the suddenly intoxicated secretary the glorified +costume for a woman. It was a richly embroidered thing from China and on +her head was a crown of lace. Bristoll knew that its material name would +be a boudoir cap, but on her head it became a crown—no, it was too +filmy and ethereal for that: rather it was a sort of halo. Beneath it, +and imprisoning pale fire in its amber softness, escaped a truant mass +of curls. From the cap to the foamy whiteness of a lacy petticoat that +peeped out just above the silk-clad ankles, she was exquisite. And all +these things stamped themselves on young Carl Bristoll's brain as he +bowed. Then he realized the delicate white-and-pink glow of her +complexion and a marvelous pair of mismated eyes.</p> + +<p>Later when trying to defend to his own sophisticated mind his +unaccountable loss of poise, he assured himself that it was these eyes. +They should have spoiled her beauty, just as any other thing that +destroyed symmetry of balance in form or color would have marred the +effect. Yet, on the contrary, they were gorgeous and wonderful, and when +he looked at them he felt as if he had plunged into some icy pool and +come out glowing.</p> + +<p>"It is a pleasure indeed, Mr. Bristoll," she smiled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>when he had been +presented. "You see we must be good and informal friends since the—" +she shrugged her slim shoulders and quite unconsciously fell into French +idiom as she continued—"since the so great impatience of my big brother +compels me to meet you like this—all untidy and unprepared." She made a +little gesture with both hands and her rippling laugh seemed to envelop +the young secretary with a deep sense of obligation for her +graciousness. "I have been so long from America, and I have not yet come +back to the American ways. In France they do not so rush from their beds +to their business. In France they take the time to live."</p> + +<p>In Hamilton Burton's face there remained no echo of the impatience of a +few minutes past. In his serene eyes was no hint of remembered +annoyance. As he drew back his sister's chair, one saw in his masterful +face only the satisfied pride of a man fastidious of taste in all things +from neck-scarfs to women.</p> + +<p>"I'm truly sorry, Mary," he declared, "to have inconvenienced you, but +you must let me be a little selfish. The only time I can be sure of +seeing you will be across the breakfast-table, and that privilege you +must grant—because you are too delectable a sister to do without."</p> + +<p>"Ah," she laughed, "but I did not know that here in America the men knew +how to say the pretty things—and to their own sisters, too! But it is +for me to apologize. It is I who let the coffee grow cold. I have been +spoiled abroad where people are very lazy." Under her smiling eyes the +two men sat content while she made of serving the Bolivian coffee a +ceremonial as pretty as a fête.</p> + +<p>Young Bristoll, usually loquacious enough, was not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>talkative this +morning. What had happened to more hardened philanderers abroad was +happening to him, and the shield which he had always succeeded in +holding safely before his heart was being lowered under the bright +archery of Mary Burton's eyes.</p> + +<p>At last he rose, and his chief said quietly, "Carl, I shall be an hour +late. Will you run down to the office and sit on the lid until I get +there?"</p> + +<p>The secretary's brows went up. "You were to meet several of the +directors of the Inter-Ocean Coal and Ore at ten-fifteen," he reminded.</p> + +<p>"Let them wait," retorted Burton placidly. "I'm usually punctual +enough."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" exclaimed Mary with an adorable show of penitence, "and it is I +who am causing Monsieur Coal and Monsieur Ore to wait—I am so sorry!"</p> + +<p>But, when Bristoll had gone and Hamilton had led the way into the +library, safe from the overhearing of the servants, the girl's manner +abruptly changed. She stood by the broad desk, resting her slender +fingers lightly on the mahogany top, and turned to her brother. Her +attitude was very straight and regal, and her voice, though still soft +and musical, had in it the quiet ring of defiance.</p> + +<p>"So!" she said. "So, in my brother's house I come and go under orders? +So, I rise when he commands it and go to bed at his direction."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton paused with his fingers on the knob of a wall-safe from +which he had meant to take a package that he had placed there as a gift +in celebration of her home-coming. It had pleased him, as he was shown +that rope of splendidly matched pearls in the establishment of the +continent's premier jeweller, that he was able to buy such gifts. Of the +twenty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>millions of families in America, nineteen million would have +regarded their cost as a large fortune upon whose income they could live +at ease while life lasted. But Hamilton Burton had been even prouder +that on his sister's throat their beauty would after all be the +secondary beauty, and with the eye of the connoisseur he had rejected +several of the graduated gems and demanded that in their place more +perfect ones be substituted. Agents of the great house, skilled in the +nuances of selection, had sought far to better them until the result was +satisfactory to the exacting taste of the purchaser.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton was spoken of as a woman-hater. Society saw him rarely. +Power was his mistress and success his passion. His egotism, centering +on no deep love of his own and too fastidious for mere "affairs," left +him opportunity for an exaggerated family pride.</p> + +<p>Now he halted with his fingers on the combination knob of the safe and +straightened up. The sun fell upon a face very attractive and winning, +and a figure very strong and graceful, but at the same moment the +features hardened and the eyes wore their fighting glint.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he said very slowly, "I thought that you understood. I thought +from the way you spoke in there that you realized it was you who had +acted like a very lovely and a very selfish little pig."</p> + +<p>"Did you suppose then," she queried as her chin went a shade higher and +the long lashes dropped a little over the vivid eyes, "that I should +make a scene before your servants?"</p> + +<p>"If you include Mr. Bristoll in that category, I must ask you to correct +your impression. Carl is my closest friend. A man who happens to stand +on an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>eminence has few such friends and he values those he has."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Bristoll seemed to me"—she shrugged her shoulders and spread her +palms—"what shall I say—a nice boy? Yet I should hardly have discussed +in his presence such matters as we have now to discuss. It seems, <i>mon +cher</i>, that we do not yet quite understand each other. Is it not so?"</p> + +<p>She seated herself and glanced up at him with a half-challenge in her +eyes, even though her lips smiled charmingly.</p> + +<p>"Mary"—the voice was now hard and the face was very fixed—"there is +very little to understand and I have very little time for discussion. +You have been abroad, enjoying every human advantage that money could +buy you. When you were a little kid washing dishes in the White +Mountains you cried to be pretty. If you had cried for the moon I'd have +tried to get it for you. If I'd failed it would have been my first +failure. The beauty I didn't give you. God had already done that, but +everything that can enhance beauty, I did give you—education, culture, +social standing of the highest. You have come back home with every +exquisite accomplishment that a woman can have. I'm willing to admit +that from my point of view you've been a good investment. You have +instinctively the perfection that most women only strive after. I'm so +proud of you that I've chosen to make you the mistress of my house. What +you want you have only to ask for, but you will please remember that I +am head of my family. I shall make few demands—and those must be +complied with. That is all there is to understand."</p> + +<p>"I had understood," she answered very quietly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> "that I was to regard +this house as my own and that I was to be mistress here. That, you +pointed out in your letters, was why I should find it preferable to +going to my mother's. Was it not so?"</p> + +<p>"If you had gone to mother's, would you have expected to upset the +entire schedule of family affairs?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>In reply she rose and stood drumming lightly with her fingers on the +table-top.</p> + +<p>"'Daughter am I in my mother's house, but Mistress in mine own,'" she +quoted.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton took several turns back and forth across the floor. The +whole situation was surprising and intolerable. Never had son or brother +been more lavish in waving the magician's wand for the pleasure of his +family, but never had any other member forgotten for an instant the +obedience they owed to his paramount genius. Men who fought him, he +could crush, and did crush ruthlessly and with no afterthought, but his +own sister, crossing his will, became a problem of more difficult +solution.</p> + +<p>"It is a trifle whether you breakfast in bed or not," he said suddenly, +halting in his walk and standing before her. "It is vital that you +remember that you are a girl and that I am the head of this family, +whose right and duty it is to direct you. It was I who brought this +family out of obscurity and drudgery. But for me you would now be +mending some lumberjack's socks and washing his dishes and living in the +gray monotony of unvaried days. There has been only one productive +member in our household and that is myself. There has been just one who +could, with no outside aid, meet the world and conquer it, and the +family which I have brought up with me from an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>abandoned farm to the +high places of success must regard my wishes."</p> + +<p>"You have summarized with the modesty of a tyrant and a czar," she +replied as her eyes suddenly broke into an unexpected fire and her +uptilted chin set itself defiantly, "the many favors that your hand of +self-made royalty has conferred upon your suppliant family." Her musical +voice took on a deeper thrill. "You have reminded me that my father and +mother, my brother and myself, are all but parasites that feed upon your +so-great powers of achievement. <i>Eh bien</i>, you have made a mistake. My +mother is a saint—"</p> + +<p>"If any one dared to contradict that—" interrupted Hamilton hotly, but +she halted him with an imperious wave of her hand.</p> + +<p>"If my czar-like brother will permit his sister to address his throne," +she said with quiet sarcasm, "I shall esteem it a gracious favor. Let us +be frank with each other. My mother is a saint and my father a good man. +My brother, Paul, is a genius in music—and a weakling—but, as you say, +each of them is without power. Each of them is a parasite and you are +the oak upon which they grow and bloom. But as for me—" She stopped and +laughed, and suddenly Hamilton Burton realized that his sister Mary was +not the child he had always regarded her: not the slip of a girl that +had been sent away in the infancy of his fortune to be educated abroad, +but a woman of twenty-five, and an unusual woman.</p> + +<p>"As for me," she continued slowly, "I think you have made a mistake. +Whence, <i>mon cher</i>, came this fire in your soul which told you back +there in the barren hills that you were not like little men? May it not +be that this genius came to you from some remote <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>ancestor? May it not +be that also into my veins crept some of that fire? <i>Alors!</i> Whether +that be true or no, this I do of a certainty believe. The spirit of +fight that is in you, is likewise in me. You will not find in me the +<i>jeune fille</i> who shall obey without knowing why. My feet are small—for +which I thank <i>le bon Dieu</i>—but I can stand quite stanchly upon them. +You boast of the princely gifts that you have bestowed upon me. For +those I am not unthankful, but I shall not regard them as the price of +blind obedience. If they have been given in that spirit, you have done +for me nothing more than other men have done for—for their mistresses."</p> + +<p>She ended and stood very calm in her anger while the brother who had +never before been successfully defied gazed into her face with an +expression of amazement. Then slowly there came over his own a glow of +keen admiration.</p> + +<p>He came over and bowed with almost courtly ceremony, then he laughed.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he exclaimed, "we shall fight, you and I, but we shall reign +together. By God, you are my sister! Not just by coincidence of birth, +but by the deeper kinship of our two souls. Great heavens, girl, since I +came here to fight and to win, I've been lonely. It's not egotism but +truth that makes me say this. I have been a conqueror—and all +conquerors are lonely. You are mistress here. Do as you wish." He went +back to the safe, but he looked up and laughed in a naïve and winning +fashion that was quite irresistible.</p> + +<p>"By the way," he suggested, "are you going to do me the honor to +breakfast with me hereafter?"</p> + +<p>The girl laughed, too, and her eyes were as serenely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>gracious as a +queen's may afford to be when, of her own will, she makes a royal +concession.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I shall breakfast with you, <i>mon cher</i> brother," she replied. Then +she added with perfect mimicry of his own overbearing voice, "It's a +trifle whether I breakfast in bed or not. It is vital that you remember +who is mistress of this house. <i>C'est moi!</i>"</p> + +<p>A moment later, the man whose frown carried punishment for his +adversaries and whose smile was so frank and winning for his friends, +stood before his sister, watching her eyes as eagerly as a schoolboy +while he opened the satin case and held out to her the string of pearls.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he said simply, "I'm not a man that curries favor with women. +Paul looks after that gentle art for this family. You are the only girl +I care about. When I give presents to a woman, it will be to you. There +is no other woman in New York who could wear that rope of pearls and not +look as if the pearls were wearing her. On your throat they are what +jewels should always be—a subordinate decoration; partly eclipsed +stars. I thought you might like them."</p> + +<p>She took the gift and raised it to the light, while her eyes kindled and +her lips parted in delight, and as she looked at the pearls, her brother +looked at her.</p> + +<p>"They are beautiful, aren't they?" she exclaimed and as she gazed at +their well-matched perfection a glow kindled in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"With such gifts," she murmured softly, "you could buy the souls of many +women, <i>mon cher</i>. If you insist on being a master, at least, you are a +generous one."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>Possibly at that moment, back of her delight, there rose a little +ghost-like doubt. He had said, "We shall fight—but we shall reign +together." She wondered vaguely how complete would be her participation +in that reign. So far as they had fought, each had won a victory and he +had paid a handsome indemnity—in future how would it be? Then he took +the thing from her and fastened it around her neck and led her very +gently to one of the great mirrors, standing at her shoulder and gazing +at her through the glass.</p> + +<p>"So," she exclaimed, turning and laying her hands on his shoulders while +her eyes twinkled with merriment, "they tell me that you compel men to +wear your collar. Already, I, too, am wearing it."</p> + +<p>"At least," he laughed back at her, "you will always find it as light +and pleasant to wear as pearls."</p> + +<p>At the door he paused and spoke, with no trace of his former dictatorial +authority. His tone was very pleasant and unassuming. "May I make +another suggestion?" he asked, and the girl nodded with smiling eyes.</p> + +<p>"You are too fine a woman to need theatric affectations, Mary. I am +proudest of all that we are unalloyed American in blood. Be American. +Cut out the pidgin English and the interlarding of French idiom and +phrases, won't you?"</p> + +<p>She raised her brows, and after a moment's pause said, "Certainly. I +have no wish to appear affected. It seemed natural. The habit had grown +on me, but I shall accept that advice, my dear brother."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">E</span><span class="heavy">VEN</span> in the days of his first, forced marches toward fortune, when +besides his unshakable plunger's nerve he stood almost without an asset, +Hamilton Burton's policy had been that the limelight paid, and as he had +mounted from moderate success into the millionaire class, and thence +into the division rated in a plurality of millions, he had always +adhered to the plan of letting nothing which reflected his personality +fall below the standards of superlative worth and cost.</p> + +<p>At first, he thought of the conspicuousness of wealth as a credential +tending to enlarge the scope and standing of its possessor. In a city +whose public is surfeited with a show of splendor, the man who would +find himself underscored must pitch such conspicuousness to a scale of +rajah-like magnificence.</p> + +<p>With a thoroughness born of gigantic gambling instinct Hamilton Burton +directed his policy of the outward show and trappings of wealth through +every artery of his life and the lives of his family. Yet, because his +taste was discriminating and sound, he was able to combine the maximum +effect of expenditure with the simplicity of the artistic and to shun +the pitfall of the offensive.</p> + +<p>In those earlier days when the family was fresh from the frugality of +the hills, its elder members had constantly been appalled by the youth's +extravagance. Yet, even then, he had overruled them with an auto<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>cratic +assurance, which knew no doubt. It had not at first been easy for the +gentle mother, whose hands were red from decades of tub and dishpan, and +the father whose fingers had gripped the plow, to adapt themselves to +the idle and effortless régime of this new order.</p> + +<p>It had for a long while been impossible for them to escape the fear of a +crash in which all this iridescent and artificial seeming must collapse. +But his attitude remained unaltered. "I do not mean to let money be my +master," he had obstinately reiterated. "To me it shall be a slave. +Money conquers the man who fears it. It is an insolent, inanimate +underling, which, if not treated with contempt, becomes a tyrant. Scorn +it and it serves you blindly. I must <i>seem</i> a rich man before I can +become one. It is my wish that my family appear the family of a rich +man. Economies that are apparent are confessions of failure."</p> + +<p>In the first chapters they protested, but Ham swept their protests +intolerantly aside, and as the years went on he piled miracle upon +miracle until every promise of his unsupported egotism had become an +accomplished and undeniable reality. Then they ceased to fear and +trusted implicitly in the star that led him. Gradually they yielded to +the blandishments of the new life and drifted pleasantly before the +breezes of luxury. The man who had been a bearded and Calvinistic +countryman for almost a half-century became in less than a decade an +ease-loving and slothful old gentleman, dapper of appearance, rosy of +face and inclining toward <i>embonpoint</i>.</p> + +<p>Now it is fundamentally written in the edicts of Truth that a man must +go forward or back, and if his hands hang idle at his sides, he will not +advance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Thomas Standish Burton was born to buffet the storms of his +mountains, and as long as he followed his destiny he could look his +fellow-man in the face with the level eyes of independence. Within his +limitations, he could think wholesomely and soundly. But here he was a +different man, a Samson shorn, and the things which he had first +contemptuously waved aside or accepted with a growl in his throat, he +now welcomed. The hard brown face was rounded and pink and where there +had been rawhide muscles on his torso there was now soft and fatty +flesh; for Tom Burton whom men had accounted a giant of immovable +resolution back there among the forests was, in these days, a gentleman +and wore a gardenia or a carnation in his lapel. It was not originally +his fault. The process of becoming a gentleman had pained and irked him, +but he had a masterful son who could not afford that his father should +wear a shaggy bark, and that masterful son had been suffocating him with +opulence until his powers of resistance had become atrophied.</p> + +<p>And the mother, too, had altered, though, in her, the change had been a +sweeter thing. The making of a lady of this remote descendant of +Alexander Hamilton's blood had not been difficult.</p> + +<p>Some strains of heredity can awaken from the submerged sleep of relapse +as quickly and keenly as a woodsman throws off the mists of slumber.</p> + +<p>Ham had never feared that his mother would reveal the taint of the +parvenue when she faced the batteries of criticism which guard the +outposts of the social world to which his own prominence gave the +entrée. And Paul, with his gentle love of comfort and his thoughts that +strayed into dreams and music, found the perfumed atmosphere of a +drawing-room very con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>genial. He breathed the incense of praise from +women who were enraptured as his long fingers stole over the piano keys. +Had his road to artistic recognition lain along the broken trail of +struggle, Paul would have fainted, undiscovered, by the wayside, but +with every difficulty made smooth before his feet and every puddle +carpeted by Hamilton's cloth of gold, he found himself the lionized pet +of inner circles and the favorite of the elect.</p> + +<p>Of these things Hamilton Burton was thinking as he left his door for the +car that awaited him. From the start he had never deviated from his +well-laid course of determination. Power was his goal and by power he +meant no mean modicum, but limitless strength. He had picked finance as +his field of endeavor because in this day the scepter that sways affairs +must be the scepter of gold. But Hamilton Burton knew that he was only +starting and his plans ran to the future. As he looked ahead he never +forgot that the fighter must be well conditioned. With the discipline of +the boxer in training, he regulated his habits of personal life and held +his splendid nerves steady and above par. No man had ever seen the +dimming cloud of dissipation in his eye nor any gossip-monger whispered +of unwise indulgence. He was spoken of as fastidiously clean of life, +and yet it is doubtful whether any shadow of self-illusion found harbor +in his own mind. In morals as a code inspired of conscience he had no +interest; in rigid self-restraint from all that might impair the highest +efficiency of nerve and brain he was as unyielding as a Trappist. To the +mandate of his single deity, Ambition, he clove with unswerving +sternness. His lavish generosity to his family was a strong and clannish +passion—yet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>even that was a sort of greater selfishness and all the +world outside he held in ruthless disregard—a realm to conquer. That +one may conquer, many must fall—and to conquer was his one resolve.</p> + +<p>Even now, awaited by several men who were not accustomed to cooling +their heels in anterooms, he halted at the curb, when he saw another +automobile draw up and recognized his brother Paul.</p> + +<p>The younger Burton was not so greatly changed. On his cameo features +still lingered the delicate hall-mark of the over-sensitive and about +his lips played the petulant expression of one who could not cope with +the material. His eyes were still pools of brooding darkness, and as he +glanced up and met his brother's smile his expression of pleasure was +boyish and spontaneous.</p> + +<p>"I came in for a moment to see Mary," he explained as he took his older +brother's hand. "How is she this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Have your car follow, and drive down-town with me. I want a word with +you and I'm more than an hour late now. You can see Mary afterward." +Ham's suggestions were always couched in mandatory terms, and Paul with +a nod gave the necessary instructions to his own driver. When he was +seated his elder brother inquired with a keen glance of appraisal, +"What's the matter with you, Paul? You look tired."</p> + +<p>"I am a bit fagged." The answer was almost plaintive. "After I went to +bed last night, or this morning, the scheme of an aria began running +through my head and I couldn't sleep. I had to get up and work it out on +the piano. Listen—it goes like this." Forgetful of time and place, the +musician began whistling the opening bars of his latest composition.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>Hamilton Burton gazed at the dreamy and fatigued eyes of the other for +a moment before he broke out bluntly: "For heaven's sake, spare me! At +least save it for some more suitable time. Can't you fix it to do some +of your dreaming while you sleep? It seems to me that for a man who has +nothing to do you keep yourself unnecessarily exhausted. Why the devil +aren't you in bed now if you haven't slept during the night?"</p> + +<p>"I had an appointment for breakfast at twelve."</p> + +<p>"With some woman, I suppose: some woman who wants to break it to you +gently that when she hears your music a realization steals over her that +she has a soul; that, listening to you, she knows that life holds higher +and nobler things. That sort of appointment, eh?"</p> + +<p>The younger man flushed deeply. "In point of fact, it is with a lady," +he admitted.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton frowned. The car was turning into the avenue and the +traffic officer saluted in recognition of the familiar figure, while the +financier with a smile waved one gloved hand. Then the smile disappeared +and the frown returned.</p> + +<p>"You say you are tired, Paul, and sometimes—I might as well +confess—you make me tired. Your trouble is that you are stifled with +boudoir perfume and suffocated by over-petting. Why don't you try +breathing outdoors sometime? You might like it if you ever made the +experiment."</p> + +<p>Paul only shook his head. He could never argue with Hamilton and yet on +one or two subjects he was gently and immovably stubborn. So the older +brother shrugged his shoulders and changed the subject.</p> + +<p>"What progress with the new organ?" he inquired.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>The responsive face lighted and weariness gave place to the glow of +enthusiasm. Hamilton was installing at the younger man's quarters a +splendid music-room with such an organ as might have graced a cathedral. +There the ardent composer might shut himself off with the swelling +strains of his own music and fare out on the far tide of his dreams.</p> + +<p>At Madison square the car swung to the left of the Flatiron's sharp prow +and took its course down Broadway, and when it reached Union square the +spring sunlight was shining softly on the spot which has often served as +the people's forum. At the north end a crowd had gathered and from a +drygoods box a speaker was haranguing them. From the violence of the +gestures and the truculence of the voice whose words did not reach him, +Hamilton Burton knew that it was an agitator whose burden was the +hardness of the times and the inequality of living conditions. His lips +shaped themselves for an instant into a smile of satirical amusement. +One who held his fingers so constantly on the pulse of finance was not +in ignorance of the feverish heat that burned through the nation's +arteries. He knew that a rumble of protest was rising from the Battery +to the Golden Gate and that this rumble might be the warning thunder +that runs ahead of a panic's hurricane.</p> + +<p>But, as his car was passing the crowd, he found himself looking out +across the near heads of the listeners, and upon all the faces he read a +sullen discontent. Some of those men, he surmised, had waited their +turns in the bread line. Some of them came from lodgings where larders +were empty.</p> + +<p>The chauffeur had swung east to take the more open way and even here he +had to throttle down his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>gas because of the scattered loungers who had +overflowed the curb. One man of tramp-like appearance stepped directly +in front of the radiator and at the warning of the horn made no effort +to seek safety. He swaggered along with insolent manner at snail's pace, +so that the driver, with a muttered imprecation, brought the car to a +jerking halt, and even then almost grazed with his fender the frayed +sleeve of the trouble-maker.</p> + +<p>In Union square, as on Riverside Drive, the foliage was tenderly green +and the sunlight was a golden smile. Pushcarts freighted with potted +plants and fruit gave scraps of festal color, and a stand canopied with +a yellow-and-blue umbrella offered pies and sandwiches for sale.</p> + +<p>But the crowd itself was colorless and somber of mood, and as the car +stopped the speaker pointed to it with a passion-shaken hand, so that +its principal occupant knew that he was recognized and being made the +target of a verbal onslaught. Those men standing nearest turned and +gazed at him with an idle curiosity. They were seeing a +multi-millionaire at close range. But from a few near the center of the +throng came jeers and shouts of insult for the man whom they chose to +regard as a representative of Capital's tyranny. A black-visaged +malcontent of humorless eyes made his way to the margin of the gathering +and, with a pie for which he neglected to pay, opened a fusillade upon +the rich man's car. After that came an orange or two contributed by some +one whose position was strategically close to the fruit-vender's cart +and at last a sounder missile struck and shivered the wind-shield.</p> + +<p>For just a moment the situation had a precarious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>seeming for the +reviled young master of finance, and Paul's delicate face blanched a +little. Hamilton Burton regarded himself as the brother of monarchs and +it devolves upon the Crown to face the envious animosity of groundlings.</p> + +<p>He leaned forward and said quietly to the chauffeur, "Swing around into +the open and drive on."</p> + +<p>But recognition of the often-photographed face was not confined to the +assailants and instantly the focused humanity was being broken into +scattering factors by police officers who had not hitherto been visible. +The capitalist saw two struggling offenders being roughly hustled away +in the custody of uniformed captors and a patrolman swung to the running +board of the car and remained there as it rounded the square, with his +loosened club swinging ready for service in his right hand.</p> + +<p>"You weren't struck, were you, Mr. Burton?" he asked in the tone of +solicitude to which Hamilton had grown accustomed, and which he accepted +as a part of his right.</p> + +<p>He smiled. "No harm done but a broken glass—and the less noise made +about the incident the better I'll be pleased."</p> + +<p>The car had now reached the south end of the area, where the bronze +Washington stands with his hand raised as if in dignified rebuke for the +noisy demonstrations he so often looks down upon, and where the Marquis +de Lafayette turns his back on the square and gazes at the +moving-picture posters of Fourteenth street.</p> + +<p>For a minute or two the younger brother sat in nervous silence, and, +when he spoke, he put his ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>tion in a voice of anxious concern. +"Aren't you alarmed, Hamilton?"</p> + +<p>"Alarmed?" The other raised his brows and smiled. His face was placid. +"Don't you remember, Paul, what Charles Fox once had to say on the +subject? At least he got the credit for saying it, which comes to the +same thing. 'A man of power has no other such luxury as being mobbed in +his carriage.'"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't thinking of just that. I know you aren't afraid of any +physical attack. I was wondering what it all prophesies. We musicians +can feel the crescendo coming from the first mounting bars. Everywhere +there is a spirit of unrest; of revolution. Doesn't it mean a crash—a +panic?"</p> + +<p>Again the man whose brain had turned the base metal of poverty into the +gold of Crœsus smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a betting man, Paul, but I'd be willing to lay a moderate wager +that within the next year or two we shall see a panic that will leave +many scars and not a few wrecks."</p> + +<p>"And that conviction doesn't alarm you?" The musician let his features +mirror his nervous surprise. If the principal had no fear, at least the +dependent was in terror.</p> + +<p>The amusement left Hamilton Burton's eyes and into them came the harder +gleam. "Paul, you know as little about finance as I know about music. +I've done what I've done by following one law: the leashing of forces. +Electricity is force, but electricity unharnessed is lightning which +devastates. Fire, uncontrolled, ravages, but, held in check, makes +power. Every force in a man's nature that is not curbed becomes a +weakness. The only difference between success and failure is the twist +given to the initial <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>impulse. Every danger and peril, if foreseen and +met, becomes opportunity."</p> + +<p>Paul shook his head. "As you say," he admitted, "I don't understand +these things. I thought panics were hurricanes that swept fortunes +away."</p> + +<p>The elder brother laid an immaculately gloved hand on the coat-sleeve of +the younger.</p> + +<p>"It's a thing I wouldn't confide to any one else, but I trust you even +if I don't give a damn for your judgment. As you say, hurricanes mean +ruin—for the unprepared, but there are also men to whom hurricanes +mean—salvage."</p> + +<p>For an instant, the hard fire of ruthless conquest burned so fiercely in +Hamilton Burton's eyes that Paul drew back and shuddered, then he heard +the quiet voice continuing. "I am now rated among the first few in the +world of American finance. There are others above me. I am one of twelve +or fifteen. When this storm has taken its toll and spent its rage—then +I shall be one of one, and above me there will be—no other man."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At the same time, though the twenty-four figured dials of Italian clocks +recorded a later hour, a young man of more than ordinarily likable +appearance sat alone at a terrace table of a Capri inn. Near by a +company of sashed and spangled peasants danced to the accompaniment of +guitars and mandolins, but he did not seem to see them and when they +presented their tambourines for largesse, he roused himself almost with +a start to search his pockets for <i>lire</i>.</p> + +<p>Behind him were the colorful and steep vistas that lay along the zig-zag +roads where ramshackle victorias clattered at crazy speed. Below him was +the world's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>most vivid spread of sun-kissed color; the Bay of Naples +curving nobly from his point of view to Ischia's misty bulwark, in a +glistening spread of sapphire. Standing guard over the picture was the +great cone of Vesuvius. But of these things also the solitary young man +seemed oblivious.</p> + +<p>Against his wicker-bound carafe of pale Capri wine stood propped an old +Paris edition of the <i>New York Herald</i>. It was folded so that a portrait +of a woman could be seen to the best advantage, and to the exclusion of +flagstoned courtyards and trellised, overhanging vines; to the exclusion +of the bay's great jewel of beauty, this picture held the eyes of the +man who lunched alone. They were good eyes, of the sort that look life +straight in the face, and their pupils were such as impress the beholder +with a conviction of fearless integrity. Now they were preoccupied, and +a little annoyed. Even in the lifelessness of black and white the face +he studied was one of remarkable beauty, and it pleased him to imagine +the wonderful difference and illumination which color and swift play of +expression would bring to its features.</p> + +<p>For several reasons, the face was of more than commonplace interest to +him. Years ago he had seen it by a roadside in the White Mountains, and +often since he had thought of it until the thought had taken deep root +in his mind and become one of the pleasant dreams of his life. But Fate +had further spurred his curiosity by a series of mischances which had +prevented his meeting this girl, though often in his travels his +arrivals had followed close enough on her departures to permit his +hearing talk of her great charm and her many conquests.</p> + +<p>For several years Jefferson Edwardes had been in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>control of that branch +of his firm's business which operated from St. Petersburg. Now he was +returning to New York to take up larger affairs. An uncle's death had +necessitated his personal supervision of the home office.</p> + +<p>He had heard that Mary Burton was in Naples and had decided to break his +own journey there in the hope of meeting her—and perhaps returning on +the same steamer. Now he learned that once more he was too late.</p> + +<p>But what annoyed the young millionaire more poignantly was the thinly +veiled hint that the Duke de Metuan had also sailed for America as one +of her fellow-passengers.</p> + +<p>The whimsical little laughter wrinkles about Edwardes' eyes radiated +from twinkling pupils as he calmly asked himself what concern this was +of his; this news of a woman he had never known except once long ago in +a world of abandoned farms. But the laughter died quickly, because, +absurd as it was by all practical standards, he knew that he had let his +dream become too important for abandonment without the test of renewed +acquaintanceship. He resented the Duke de Metuan. He was not unfamiliar +with Continental affairs and some of the nobleman's financial troubles +had sought solution through his banking house. Of course, the Mary +Burton of his dreams might have no existence in reality. This woman had +had ample opportunity to be spoiled—but if she had not been—There he +broke off and took a long breath. If the girl's heart had worthy kinship +with her beauty, she would be a miracle worth following over seas. At +all events, he was sailing tomorrow and her world would also be his. It +would not be difficult to learn the truth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">W</span><span class="heavy">HEN</span> he had stepped from the car to the sidewalk, Hamilton Burton stood +there for a while in apparent abstraction. A private policeman in cadet +gray waited deferentially with his hand on the knob of the grilled +bronze door which gave entrance to the office building. Burton's eyes +were resting on Paul's face, but the pupils were focused for no such +circumscribed range. Their vistas were of the future and empire-wide. +The fire that had wakened in them with the pronunciamento, "Above me +there shall be no one," lingered and the smile which hovered on the lips +held a certain grimness in its curve. It was not a reassuring smile for +such interests as ran counter to his own. A passing reporter who fancied +himself wise in the lore of the Street, halted to observe, and muttered +to himself, "Ursus Major wearing his fighting face! This may prove a day +worth watching."</p> + +<p>A floor representative of a brokerage office caught the expression, too, +and into his memory came flooding the events of another day when this +same man, wearing the same smile, hurled himself upon the +Stock-Exchange, in a bear raid which had cost bull millions.</p> + +<p>"The Great Bear, damn him!" he exclaimed with savage vehemence. "The +buccaneer's got some fresh piracy on foot if I know that sardonic grin." +Within the half-hour a mysteriously fathered rumor passed from mouth to +mouth on the floor of the Exchange, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>that Hamilton Burton was drawing +his battle-lines and that somewhere his bolt would fall. Because the +report was untraceable it was the more disquieting, and the +Stock-Exchange is ever ready to rock to an alarm. Yet just now, the man +whose silent smile could give birth to such sweeping potentialities did +nothing more significant than gaze absently at the tide of life which +eddied through Broadway's cañon and at the disintegrating tombstones +which spoke of death in the shadow of Trinity.</p> + +<p>There was something of tawny and tigerish splendor about this young man +who had sprung with mushroom swiftness from nowhere into the fierce +eminence of a financial conqueror. The supple grace of his movements +attested ready power. The immaculate elegance of his apparel challenged +notice by a flawlessness which went beyond the art of the tailor who +clothed him and assumed a distinction as though it had been the belted +uniform of a field marshal. Though pronounced the best-dressed man in +New York, he escaped all seeming of foppishness. Each small detail, from +the flower in his lapel to his gloves and shoes, seemed a significant +touch.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton lent qualities from himself to everything that marked +him—and these qualities seemed to go like heralds at his front, +proclaiming, "This man is led by a star—his head overlooks the crowd!"</p> + +<p>Men and women staring out from a sight-seeing car turned their heads +with a common accord, their attention arrested by something intangible.</p> + +<p>Then as the megaphone operator lowered his voice it became pregnant with +importance. To visitors from Paris, Kentucky, Berlin, Iowa, and Cairo,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +Illinois, he confided, "The gentleman by the car with the broken +wind-shield is Hamilton Burton." It was enough. It conjured up to memory +newspaper stories of a genie to whose wand fabulous tides of gold +responded. These sight-seers were beholding a man credited with the +power to cause or avert panics; one of the most lauded, the most hated +and the most feared men in finance, and, for some inexplicable reason, +after they looked at him it was no longer difficult to believe the +stories of his wizardry.</p> + +<p>He nodded to Paul and turned toward the door. Once more he repeated, +"Then above me there shall be—no other man," and though he said it with +all the arrogant and ruthless spirit of a tyrant who would take no count +of razed cities as he rode to his victory, yet he said it in a low and +pleasant voice; a voice even tinged with musical gentleness.</p> + +<p>At the twentieth floor where the elevator stopped to let him alight, +Hamilton's eyes were aglow with the reflected light of his thoughts. He +was still young and before him lay conquests that should dwarf those of +the past. Posterity should link his name with achievements so titanic +that history would be beggared for a precedent. Kingdoms would be his +clients and kings his vassals.</p> + +<p>Of late, a persistent idea had been creeping into his thoughts. The +world was to know him as one of its mightiest rulers—so mighty that for +him a crown would be too tawdry a toy—but some day he must die. Who +then, demanded his sublimely arrogant self-appraisement, would carry on +the work that had called him on to conquest from hills where the burned +stumps stood up stark and black in the forest? It is the hallucination +of superlative egotism to imagine <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>that the world demands of her great +sons—a succession.</p> + +<p>Whatever gods looked on must have laughed as they read the vast audacity +of this man's conceit. Never had it occurred to him that such an +ambition as his own meant a mere greed for power—that no great cause or +motive impelled him forward. Never had a whisper come to his soul that +power is a trust which should make its recipient a crusader. The world +thought of him as a man of great potentiality. He thought of himself +grown to the proportions and stature of his dreams—the financial Titan +expanded to the <i>n</i>^th power. There must be an heir to this empire of +his building.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I could marry any woman in the world I wanted," he reflected +as he strode along the hall to the door of his office suite, "but the +devil of it is I don't want any of them." A fresh thought brought to his +face an expression a shade saner and less self-centered. "Mary is as +beautiful and as charming as I am efficient, moreover she has brains," +he soliloquized. "Mary must marry brilliantly and her son shall be my +successor."</p> + +<p>In a sort of audience hall waited the Coal and Ore directors who had +been burning up valuable time and burning up as well a patience +unschooled to such delays, but as the door opened and the young field +marshal of great business appeared on the threshold, they masked their +irritation in smiles. These men were neither sycophants nor fawning +suppliants. Each of them held high prominence in the aristocracy of +wealth, but Hamilton Burton topped them—and the singular power upon +which he had risen was one-half pure charm and hypnotism of personality. +Men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>might swear at the Hamilton Burton who kept them twiddling their +thumbs until he came, yet <i>when</i> he came it seemed that the sunlight +came with him and the mists of impatience were dissipated. A half-hour +later he bowed them out, and they went smiling and telling one another +as they left, "Remarkable fellow, Burton! Absolutely surmounts ordinary +rules and ordinary difficulties. Most remarkable and able man!"</p> + +<p>He next passed through the outer offices to the door marked "private," +and there, near the window of his sanctum, sat a stout and elderly +gentleman. In the unsparing revelation of the morning sunshine the +visitor's face declared all its wrinkles. The whitening hair, growing +sparse, was carefully combed across an arid patch of scalp. Hamilton +Burton's smile died and his face grew for a moment solicitous as he read +his father's troubled eyes. Old Thomas Burton was shaven and manicured +and betailored into a model of well-nourished—possibly +over-nourished—senectitude. His mustaches and beard were waxed and +pointed. Once he had deplored the necessity and trouble of the Sabbath +shave—and his hair had known no law of shears or shampoo. In his lapel +a gardenia was carefully placed so that it should not obscure the button +which proclaimed him a Son of the American Revolution. He restlessly +tapped his gaitered boots with a stick upon whose gold head was carven +the Burton crest.</p> + +<p>As Hamilton came forward the elder man rose and turned with some +embarrassment. In his movements the son read with a pang of sudden +realization the approaching atrophy of age. "I'm sorry to intrude on +your office hours, Hamilton," began the father, "but the fact +is—I—er—I—" he broke off confusedly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>Tom Burton was mightily changed, but now and again an echo of the old +self harassed his reincarnation. He had never learned to beg for money +with the unabashed ease of an aristocratic parasite. While it was in his +pocket he could top the extravagance of a drunken sailor, but when its +lack drove him again to his bountiful son he came haltingly—covered +with confusion.</p> + +<p>"What is it, father?" Hamilton clapped the old gentleman on the shoulder +and declared, "When you come others can wait."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton flushed deeply. "I—er—well, I've had a notice of over-draft +from my bank."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton's brows contracted.</p> + +<p>"Did they keep you sitting here, cooling your heels like a book-agent +until I arrived? Why didn't you go direct to Corbin? He has <i>carte +blanche</i> to accommodate you in every demand you choose to make."</p> + +<p>Again Tom Burton spoke hesitantly.</p> + +<p>"I did—er—mention it to Mr. Corbin. He was very polite, but he +suggested that, unless I was in urgent haste, I'd better wait until you +came in.... He reminded me that—er—that I'd made rather heavy demands +of late, and I'm bound to say it's true."</p> + +<p>The young financier threw back his head and his eyes burst into a blaze +of white-hot anger.</p> + +<p>"Hell-fire and damnation!" he stormed. "Is my money my own or is it to +be doled out by parsimonious hirelings? Must I beg my servants' consent +to supply my family with funds?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Corbin was very courteous," placated the old man in a mild voice.</p> + +<p>"Courteous!" The word crackled like a mule whip.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> "Who is Corbin to be +patronizingly courteous to my father? Are you to approach me only +through a cordon of lackeys?" He broke off and started to slam his palm +down on a table-bell that should bring the too-careful subordinate face +to face with his anger, but he stayed his hand half-way, and began +talking again.</p> + +<p>"Back there in those damned hills, when I begged you to gamble on me, +didn't I tell you that I meant to give you more than you could ever +want? Didn't I tell you that it would be my pride to anticipate and +outdo your whims—to dwarf them with bigger things? You <i>did</i> gamble on +me, when a little money was a frail barrier between you and the wolf—you +gambled to go stark-broke." He was pacing the room now as he talked, +and his voice mounted. "To me money is a passionless slave, the eunuch +that serves my bidding, and serves blindly. Cash has been my watchword. +There is not outside the United States Treasury another sum of +unencumbered cash equal to that which I command. Any part of it is yours +at any time; how much do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Why—er—a few thousand for the present."</p> + +<p>"Just state your figure and I'll triple it. You don't have to make +explanations—or apologies." Then with a rather grim smile Ham added: +"That's for Corbin to do."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton carefully drew down his waistcoat over his rotund middle and +settled his hat on his head at an exact angle. His son accompanied him +to the elevator with an arm about his shoulder and as he returned to the +outer office he directed curtly, "Carl, come into my room. I want to see +you."</p> + +<p>Inside he pointed to the bell. "I had my hand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>three inches from that +button a few minutes back to call Corbin in here and fire him. I think I +meant to sack everybody in this damned office—except yourself, Carl. +I'm sick of these economists that hedge me round with unsolicited +safeguards and try to defend me against myself and my family."</p> + +<p>"If Mr. Burton had come to me—" began the secretary, but Hamilton +Burton interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Have I failed to make myself entirely clear to my employees?" he +inquired. "Do I have to tell them every day that they need not be so +damned economical with my money? Haven't I ordered that my father and my +brother shall always be accommodated without question?" Bristoll nodded, +but made no comment.</p> + +<p>"Carl, please try once more to make Corbin understand that one of the +things I pay him for is to obey orders. Please make it plain beyond +cavil that one of my most explicit orders is this: When the Governor +comes for money, his job is to begin digging. Find out how much the +Governor wants and give him some more."</p> + +<p>The secretary was valuable in part because he was frank and because in +his sincere loyalty dwelt no taint of sycophant fawning.</p> + +<p>"To be entirely just, sir, I think Corbin does understand you, but a +cashier who gives out money with no check on disbursements feels the +burden of his responsibility. Any item that your father forgot would +leave Corbin unpleasantly close to seeming a thief. Of late, your +father's demands have been heavy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I know about all that." A sudden change of mood brought a +twinkle to the financier's eyes. "My father has been under very heavy +ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>penses of late, Carl. If you had known him as I knew him—back there +close to 'God's immortal granite,' as you so aptly phrased it, you would +agree with me that the humor of the situation is worth whatever it +costs. He had to count the pennies, Carl, and when one threatened to get +away he had to chase around it and head it off. He led the simple life +and though his middle name was Standish, he regarded it as a sinful +vanity to think of his ancestors."</p> + +<p>Hamilton's smile was one of whimsical and naïve humor as he fished from +a desk drawer a thick sheaf of papers and laid them before the other.</p> + +<p>"Times have changed. Cast your eye on those. They represent some of the +Governor's expenses. They are bills from the Anglo-Saxon Bureau of +Genealogy."</p> + +<p>"What is this bureau?" inquired Carl, and Burton raised his brows.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know? Why, it's a concern that outfits one with a full line +of ancestors. My father is now prominent in many orders predicated on +ancestors. His mail runs over with epistles beginning, 'Dear Sir and +Compatriot.' Such excavating of tombs and catacombs is costly." The +young money baron paused and grinned.</p> + +<p>"Once the old gentleman got warmed up, he went the full route and took +all the jumps, Carl. He started out modestly enough to establish his +descent from Miles Standish, but when they had run the Plymouth captain +to earth, the trail was hot and their appetites were whetted. They had +tasted blue blood. Now they've worked back to a king or two, and the +Governor spoke recently of going to England to consult cathedral +records. I believe he secretly covets William the Conqueror."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>Hamilton shook his head and added sadly, "I hate to think how Corbin +will grieve when he learns what William the Conqueror costs. Also, +father has a beautiful family crest—you may have noticed it on his +walking stick. I haven't yet mastered the niceties of heraldry so I +can't properly describe it, but, to me, it looks like a rabbit leaping +over an Edam cheese with sprigs of lettuce on either side. A +delicatessen shop will steal it some day and father's heart will break."</p> + +<p>Carl Bristoll filled and lighted a pipe and Hamilton Burton seated +himself on the edge of the desk with his eyes fixed on a swinging foot.</p> + +<p>"We all have our vanities," he mused. "I named myself +Montagu—arbitrarily and of my own unbiased will. I nominated and +elected myself a Montagu, Carl, and I had an equal right to be a +Capulet."</p> + +<p>"I call that a moderately innocent offense," admitted the secretary. +There were moments when these two came near forgetting the relationship +of chief and lieutenant, meeting on the level of a joint affection.</p> + +<p>"But that is not all. My father has other even more burdensome expenses +at the present time," continued the elder young man. "He is deeply +interested in charity."</p> + +<p>"Really?" The inquiry was courteously vague, and Ham's nod of response +was solemn.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. There are various sorts of charities, Carl. Some folks send +silk hats and neckties to the heathen in their blindness, and some found +hospitals for three-legged dogs. My father does none of these +impractical things. He has dedicated himself to establishing a fund for +supplying Havana cigars and motor cars to the Idle Rich. Each day finds +him waiting for a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>quorum up at the National Union Club. When enough are +gathered together for a rubber he makes it royal and doubles until +everyone save his partner feels a warm glow of wealth stealing +gratefully through his arteries." Hamilton broke off and smiled, shaking +his head. "Far be it from me to criticize my father," he declared with +mock plaintiveness, "but I sometimes wonder why the devil he doesn't +learn to play bridge or stop trying."</p> + +<p>Then the April change of mood came once more and his eyes darkened into +seriousness. "Well, if it amuses him, why not?" he demanded, almost as +fiercely as though someone had contradicted old Tom Burton's right to +mellow into a self-indulgent decay.</p> + +<p>"All his hard life until ten years ago he sweated and toiled for those +he loved. I thought recently it might amuse him to take charge of one of +my country places—to try farming with no hardships. He was as much good +there as an armless man in a billiard tournament. All his farming had +been done with calloused hands on the plowshare. All he knew of dairies +was nestling his head against the flank of a flea-bitten cow. Let him +take his pleasure as he fancies. Thank God he can."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">A</span><span class="heavy">N</span> imagination verging toward the figurative finds on entering the New +York Stock-Exchange a strong suggestion of having penetrated a die with +which Giants have been casting lots. The first impression is one of +cubical dimensions—and unless the curb be drawn, a fancy so spurred +will plunge to yet other conceits that bring home the cynical parallel.</p> + +<p>On the particular morning when Hamilton Burton's car had been pelted by +agitators in Union square the opening gong sounded from the president's +gallery on every promise of a quiet day. Here in Money's cardinal +nerve-center there had been inevitable rumblings of future eruptions +from pent-up apprehensions of panic, but this morning the spring sun +came laughing through the great windows at the east and the idle brokers +laughed back.</p> + +<p>The psychology of this mart where the world trades with neither counter +nor show-case nor tangible wares is fitful. It responds nervously and +swiftly to the gloom of fog or the smile of sun, as well as to the +pulse-beat of the telegraph. Around the sixteen "posts" where the little +army of operators drifted as idly as though they met there by chance, no +urgency of business manifested itself. But back of this tricky calm hung +a cloud of anxiety. A sense of delicate balance, which a gust might +capsize, lay at the back of each mind, troubling it with vague +forebodings. Con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>ditions were ripe for sudden hysteria. Meanwhile +well-groomed young men in pongee office coats and their equally sleek +elders killed time with newspapers or resumed threads of conversation +broken off at parting last night in drawing-room or theater-foyer. The +circular benches around the posts blossomed with magazines and a group +formed about two brokers who gravely fought out chess problems on a +pocket board. Noise of a sort there was, for on the floor of the +Exchange a "quiet" day is not as a quiet day elsewhere. Unimportant bids +and sales elicited sporadic shouts and clamor, but for the most part +these demonstrations were tinged with laughter and badinage. Seemingly +the membership of Finance's College of Cardinals was skylarking with +indecorous levity. Activity of a sort there was, too, as the litter of +torn-up slips and memoranda on the floor attested. Yet the silent goings +and comings of the floor attendants in their cadet-gray livery were +placid, and for that environment unhurried. Around none of the posts +surged the pandemonium of real activity and the two great blackboards +that break the marble whiteness of the walls at the north and south +twinkled no feverish signals from brokerage offices to floor operators.</p> + +<p>But within two hours the smile of the spring sun died behind a cloud and +a rumor insinuatingly whispered itself about the floor. Magnet-wise it +drew men from scattered points into focal groups and panic-wise it +stamped a growing apprehension on faces that had been expressionless.</p> + +<p>"Where did this ridiculous canard originate?" demanded a pompous and +elderly gentleman as he tugged at his closely cropped mustache with a +nervousness belying his scepticism. His vis-à-vis shook a dubious head.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>"All I get is that Hamilton Burton is out in war paint for a bear +raid—damn him!"</p> + +<p>"And why not?" a third broker truculently demanded. "He brought on the +'little panic' of two years ago and mopped up enough to double his +fortune. House after house went to the wall that day, but it was a +glorious victory for him. History repeats, gentlemen."</p> + +<p>"Where will he be most likely to hit?" The question came nervously from +a thin man who chewed at a pencil. About his inquiring eyes were the +harassed little crow-feet of anxiety.</p> + +<p>"When he smashes us, we'll know all right. There's nothing ambiguous +about his wallops. I hoped the damned pirate was satisfied. He ought to +be."</p> + +<p>"Vat you mean, sadisfied?" A passing figure with a strong Teutonic +countenance halted at the edge of the crowd and glared—but his hatred +was for Hamilton Burton. "Sadisfied—not till der American toller and +der sovereign and der louis d'or vear his portrait vill he pe +sadisfied."</p> + +<p>"There's one comfort," hazarded a lone optimist, "Hamilton Burton +recognizes no conventions of finance; he heeds no laws. He's the most +brilliant brigand in the Street—and every hand is against him. He's +always just one jump behind a billion dollars—but also he may find +himself just one jump ahead of the wolf."</p> + +<p>But for one optimist there were scores of pessimists and disquiet +mounted like a fever. The floor was nervous.</p> + +<p>Across from the president's gallery is another balcony like it, for in +all but its processes of business this is a temple of justly balanced +symmetry and proportion.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>There sits an operator, controlling an electric switchboard provided +with one button for each floor member. When one of these buttons is +pressed a flap swings down on the great wall blackboards and a white +number flashes into sight. It stands for a while, then twinkles again +into blackness, but in the meantime it has summoned its man to telephone +communication with his office. In periods of stress these imperative +signals register the rise and fall of anxiety's barometer.</p> + +<p>Now the quiet boards began to break into a sudden epidemic of appearing +and vanishing numerals and men hurried to the booths where wires linked +the central floor with outlying offices. Each line buzzed to the same +portent.</p> + +<p>"Rumor credits Burton with plans for a bear raid. Watch him. Send word +of his first move. The time is ripe for an avalanche."</p> + +<p>Suddenly around one post voices rose. They went from calm to shouts, +from shouts to yells, then broke in a crescendo of turmoil. Collars came +loose and voices grew hoarse. The restrained anxiety had swept into an +open furore of fear. It looked as if the bottom were dropping out of +Coal Tar Products. At once a dozen operators raced for their telephones. +Hamilton Burton had struck, and his first blow was on Coal Tars! That +was the whispered word that ran like wild fire.</p> + +<p>While this turbulence was going forward, Hamilton Burton sat in his +twentieth-floor office, gazing fixedly up at a portrait of Napoleon. +About the walls were several other portraits of the emperor. Busts in +bronze and marble gazed down with those same inscrutable eyes. One +important likeness was missing. It was that which shows the face of a +man broken in defeat—the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>wistful St. Helena eyes that seem always +brooding out over the ruins of mighty dreams.</p> + +<p>Carl Bristoll opened the door, and the musing face turned with the +impatient frown of a broken revery.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Malone's secretary on the 'phone," announced the young man. "Mr. +Malone wants to know if you can come at once to his office."</p> + +<p>"Tell Mr. Malone"—Burton snapped his words out irritably—"that if he +wants to find me I will be here in my own office for just thirty +minutes."</p> + +<p>The employee hesitated in momentary embarrassment, then he added:</p> + +<p>"Of course, you know that I mean J. J. Malone himself, sir?"</p> + +<p>Burton laughed. "In the world of finance, Carl, I didn't know there +<i>was</i> more than one Malone."</p> + +<p>Also, reflected the secretary as he closed the door behind him, there +was in the world of finance only one who would care to ignore a summons +from that source.</p> + +<p>A few minutes afterward the door opened again, opened to frame the bulky +figure of a man who had swept by those who sought to announce his +coming. The heavy brows of J. J. Malone were contracted over smoldering +gray eyes which many men feared and all but a few obeyed. At his elbow +followed the slight wiry figure of a companion with nervous eyes, and a +cigar which was always chewed and never lighted. This man had come, as +Ham had come, from the hardness of some barren farm and had obdurately +hammered his path by the sheer insistence of his brain into the inner +circle of an oligarchy. These two greatest of America's money barons +ignored the gesture with which the younger Warwick invited them to be +seated. In the brief silence that followed upon their entrance was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>the +portent of a brewing tempest. At last Malone said crisply:</p> + +<p>"I sent for you, Mr. Burton. Most men come to me when I send for them."</p> + +<p>"In several respects I differ from most men." The reply was too quiet to +ring flippant. It was merely the assurance of invincible self-faith, and +for an instant the man who had not in years been compelled to soften the +iron grip of his mastery gazed his astonishment.</p> + +<p>Then Malone burst into an oriflamme of anger. He was a whirlwind of fury +before whose raging any small or timid man must have shriveled. The eyes +that shone out under the heavy lashes as he paced the place, with +clenched hands, were batteries raining shrapnel of wrath.</p> + +<p>From their gray depths they blackened into ink, across which shot the +red and yellow flocks of a fiery and passionate autocracy. The iron jaw, +inherited from seafaring forefathers, snapped on words of threat, +rebuke, and invective. He wore his sixty-five years as lightly as +foliage, standing straight and strong like a poplar tree, save as he +bent to the gusts of his own passion. Where his clenched fist fell upon +desk or table the furniture trembled. Through the frosted glass of the +door Hamilton Burton saw the shadows of hurrying figures and knew that +the secretaries and stenographers out there were in a flutter of uneasy +excitement. Wall street knew what it meant when the "old man" was on the +rampage.</p> + +<p>While this tempest endured the nervous-looking man took a chair and sat +silent. His attitude was hunched up and he chewed on his unlighted +cigar, while his restless gaze traveled here, there, everywhere. On +casual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>glance one might have overlooked him as negligible, thereby +falling gravely into error. The giant and the slight man had this +kinship, that in the workings of great finance they were mainspring and +balance wheel, and at their prompting many divisions of the world's +industrial armies marched or marked time.</p> + +<p>Suddenly J. J. Malone fell silent, and then Hamilton Burton spoke. He +spoke with a surprising calm for one of his uncompromising arrogance. +Perhaps it accorded with his whim to chill his words with icy insolence +that they might cut the more and point the greater contrast when he +chose to unleash his own hot wrath.</p> + +<p>"You sent for me, Malone. I declined to come to you. Then you came to +me. As yet you have shown no reason for the visit except to swear around +my office like a drunken and abusive pirate. If you have nothing for +temperate discussion, I will now say good-day to you. Take with you the +honors of war, sir. You have outcussed me. I acknowledge your +superiority in billingsgate—"—he paused and for an instant his voice +mounted, as he added—"and in nothing else!"</p> + +<p>"Have you reached so secure a stage, then, that you can defy and insult +Harrison and myself? Are you prepared to declare war on the entire world +of finance?" Now Malone spoke with regained composure, but an ominous +undernote of threat. "Let's have done with pretense. In so far as any +individuals can make or break—we can. When you came, an unlicked cub, +into the world of large affairs it was through us you made the alliances +upon which your success is built. However great you conceive yourself to +be, 'Consolidated' still recognizes in us its active heads."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton replied with a smile of unruffled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>calm. "You say I came +to you. Many men have come to you, only to go away again with empty +hands."</p> + +<p>"You did not."</p> + +<p>"No. You took me to your hearts—but why? Was it because you pitied me? +Has pity or gentle courtesy ever yet prevented 'Consolidated' from +crucifying a victim? You conceded me my seat at your directorates only +because you were compelled to recognize my value there. You lifted me +from the ranks to the general staff of finance because of unescapable +conviction that I inherently belonged among you; that I should take my +place there as an ally or an enemy. You had a suspicion then of what I +<i>knew</i> before I ever saw a city—that I could not be stopped."</p> + +<p>"Grant for the sake of brevity that Genius and Destiny are your +handmaidens." Malone leaned across the table, resting his weight on his +planted knuckles. Under his shaggy brows his eyes burned deeply and +satirically. Across from him Hamilton Burton stood, younger, slenderer +and more pliant of pose; his eyes meeting those of his protagonist, +level and unwavering. "Grant that all your self-adulation is +warrantable. Now that you have attained this place in the councils of +the few, do you mean to become only a wrecker and a spoiler? Do you +recognize no rules of war? Do you adhere to no principles of loyalty? +Are you merely a breeder of storms and a maker of panics? Because if you +are, by the Eternal God, I think we are yet strong enough to stamp you +out—to utterly obliterate you!"</p> + +<p>"So"—the younger man's lips twisted in a smile of cool irony—"you have +come as the guardians of conservatism to admonish me, the fractious +child of the Dollar family. It is delightful, gentlemen, to encounter +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>in actual life so humorous a situation." Then the mouth line grew set +again and the voice hardened. "Well, I make you no pledges. I say to +you, to hell with the laws you draw for your own advantage and break +when it suits your profit. I acknowledge no vested right in you to +assail me as a wrecker—you who have risen on wreckage. You will not +obliterate me. You will not even try."</p> + +<p>Harrison from his chair gazed thoughtfully and silently out of the +window. He watched a gull dip over the East River. He shifted the cigar +to the other side of his mouth and across his gray eyes flickered a +ghost of amusement. After a long pause he inquired in an impassive +voice:</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because just as you at first accepted me for my usefulness, so you will +again come to me when you need me, and you know you will need me. We are +playing the same game and it's no child's kissing game. When you have +both the wish and power to crush me, I shall expect no kindly warning at +your hands. When you need me, you will let no dislike bar my door to +your coming. By the way, why did you come?"</p> + +<p>"Your ticker isn't silent out there. It's not your custom to be +uninformed." It was Malone who spoke. "You know that the floor is +seething—and why!"</p> + +<p>"I know that the market opened quiet and that later Coal Tars broke and +there is a flurry—a panicky feeling perhaps. It doesn't surprise me."</p> + +<p>For an instant Malone regarded his former protegé across the table. +Hamilton Burton's fingers had fallen on a small bronze paper-weight. It +was an eagle with spread wings, not the bird of freedom, but the eagle +of the emperor's standards.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>"You perplex me," admitted the elder financier shortly. "You make great +pretense of open frankness; brazen defiance even, and yet you choose to +cloak every attack and to move by stealth. You know that just now such a +flurry may precipitate a general panic that will shake and waste the +nation like a fever in its marrow. Apparently you are deliberately +breaking the market, yet you speak innocently of the matter as of +something with which you have no concern."</p> + +<p>For an instant it was Burton who laughed.</p> + +<p>"And even yet, gentlemen, you have for active business men, bent on +stemming a tide of disaster, spent much time in generalities and little +on any concrete suggestion."</p> + +<p>"We acted before we began to talk," said J. J. Malone; "we have taken +steps to support Coal Tars, but the times are parlous. The tidal wave of +a panic mounts rapidly. If you insist on forcing us into a duel on the +floor of the Stock-Exchange today, the pillars of public confidence may +be seriously shaken. By two o'clock this afternoon the president's gavel +will be falling to announce failures. The disaster that we have feared +will come. In the end we shall beat you, but all of us will have wasted +ourselves in an exhausting struggle. There will be wreckage strewn from +ocean to ocean. We have come to remonstrate. We have come to urge peace +among ourselves and to warn you that a war between us is hardly a thing +for you to court."</p> + +<p>"In short," Burton's words came with a snap that his eyes, too, +reflected, "you charge this flurry to my authorship. You come urging +peace with threats. Almost, gentlemen, you tempt me to do what you +charge me with doing. Threats have never seemed to me a persuasive +argument for peace." He paused and then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>laughed. "Go hack to your +respective sanctums of righteousness and plunder and you will see that +this tide will soon turn. It is not in my plans that this day shall go +down in Exchange history as a bear day. When I resolve on that, your +threats will hardly alter me. This is not that day. The rumor of my +attack is absurd. My brokers will be found bracing the market. The next +time that you feel an itch to coerce me, regard my answer as given in +advance. It is that you may go to hell. Good-day."</p> + +<p>When they had gone Burton sent for Carl Bristoll and smilingly nodded +toward the outer door.</p> + +<p>"The folks out there seemed excited," he commented drily. "Kindly +suggest to them that it's unnecessary for them to advertise their lack +of confidence in their chief by scurrying about during my interviews +like chickens when a hawk hovers overhead." Then he recounted what had +occurred—for this was one of the matters in which the secretary might +be admitted to his confidence. At the end of the recital Carl shook his +head. "I think you were magnanimous, sir. Though you didn't start it you +might have taken toll of the downward movement and lived up to your name +of the Great Bear. They were playing into your hands, I should say."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton laughed.</p> + +<p>"Carl, you are young. A man can fork Hades up from its bottom-most +clinkers only once in so often. I don't butcher my swine until I have +fattened them. When the day comes, be assured they won't call me off, +but until I am ready I don't strike." He took a turn or two across the +floor and halted at the center of the room. His eyes were burning now +with an intense fire of egotism.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>"Their anger—their threats: it's all incense they burn to my power, +but, good God, Carl, how they hate me!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As the ship which was bringing Jefferson Edwardes back to his native +shores drew near enough for the Navesink light to wink its welcome, the +banker found himself in a pensive mood. The last evening of the voyage +was being celebrated with a dance on deck, but Edwardes, who had +remained somewhat of a recluse during the passage over, was content to +play the part of the onlooker.</p> + +<p>The expectant spirit of home-coming lent a cheery animation to the +rhythmic swaying of the dancing figures and brought a light to their +eyes. Jefferson Edwardes realized that his own mood was difficult to +analyze. His childhood had been spent in world-wandering and his youth +in the exile of a battle for life in the mountains. His later young +manhood had found its setting in such capitals as St. Petersburg and +Berlin. It had been a life full of activity, yet strangely solitary and +dominated by dreams and imagination. Now he realized that the most +tangible thing to which he looked forward at home was a meeting with +Mary Burton, and with the thought that tomorrow morning would bring the +sky-line of Manhattan into view, a decided misgiving possessed him. He +had heretofore treated the thing half-humorously—as a pleasant, but +vague, dream. It could no longer remain so. He realized that it had been +a definite enough dream to keep the door of his heart closed upon other +women. He must see her and if, after seeing her, his dream could no +longer exist he knew that it would be to him and his life a serious +matter. A chance acquaintance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>of the voyage had known her and spoken of +her. He was an Englishman of title and a thoroughly likable fellow. +Somehow Edwardes fancied that this man's own heart carried a scar and +that he had sought to be more than a casual friend to Mary Burton—and +had failed. So the American felt a delicacy in asking those questions +which might have enlightened him. Yet the talk that had passed between +them had heightened his already keen impatience to see the girl with +whom he had so strangely and intangibly fallen into an attitude which, +in his own thoughts, was not unlike that of a lover.</p> + +<p>For a time he would be very busy. His duties as head of the banking +house which had for generations borne a high and honorable name in large +affairs would occupy him with strenuous activities. The house of +Edwardes and Edwardes stood as a pillar of conservatism in finance. He +meant that its splendid record should under his guidance suffer no loss +of prestige or confidence.</p> + +<p>Unlike the tigerish methods of the more modern school, from which sprang +such spectacular figures as Hamilton Burton, there was in the older days +a different conception of business—and of that conception the firm of +Edwardes and Edwardes was a worthy example.</p> + +<p>The men who had founded it had recognized ideals and grave +responsibilities beyond the importance of mere profits. A deep pride in +the honor upon which they had based their upbuilding had actuated them, +and in none of the line was that pride stronger than in this new head +who feared nothing save dishonor and prized nothing above integrity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">M</span><span class="heavy">ARY</span> Burton had not long been back from Europe when sealed windows and +boarded entrances began to give a sepulchral blankness to the houses of +the rich. Society was leaving town, and for Mary Burton to remain when +her set had gone would have been like reigning in an empty court, for +already she had entered upon her dominion and her triumph was secure. +New York society had at first received the over-seas report of her great +charm and loveliness with such sceptical indulgence as New York accords +to any excellence alien to the purlieus of her own boroughs.</p> + +<p>Now New York had seen her, claimed her as its own—and capitulated.</p> + +<p>Judged by every ordinary standard, Mary Burton should have been a very +happy young woman, sitting crowned and in state, while before her Life +passed in review. This afternoon, however, certain reflections brought +the harassment of unrest to her eyes and a droop of wistfulness to the +curve of her lips.</p> + +<p>Self-analysis, that rude guest who comes sometimes, as unbidden and +unwelcome as a constable, to set all one's favorite vanities out of +doors and evict one's self-complacency, had intruded upon her thoughts. +Though she had the amelioration of a pier glass which gave her a view of +all her beauty, from the coronal of burnished hair to the satin points +of small slippers, she did not seem quite happy. Mary was discovering +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>that nature had endowed her with a brain which refused to accept longer +its heretofore placid function of augmenting her physical allurements +with its cleverness and its power of charm. Now it was in insurrection. +Vassal no longer to the sense-thrilling appeal of eyes and lips and +color and delicate curves, it was turning its batteries inward and +preying upon itself.</p> + +<p>Self-accusation had come to dispossess self-adulation.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the silent voices of the mountains were in part responsible. +Haverly Lodge lay in acres not only smooth, but elaborately beautified, +yet the margins of the estate met and merged with nature's ragged +fringe. Metaled roads ran out in lumber trails where the Adirondacks +reared turrets of granite and primal forests. In summer, ease-loving +guests took their pleasure here, but when winter held the hills, wild +deer came down and gingerly picked their way close to the sundials and +marble basins of the sunken gardens. Foxes, too, stole on cushioned feet +across the terraces at the end of the pergola.</p> + +<p>The master of Haverly Lodge was the great little man who chewed always +at an unlighted cigar and built industries as a child rears houses of +blocks. This Adirondack "camp" was one of H. A. Harrison's favorite +playthings. Here alone the nervous restlessness that drove him gave +place to something like peace. Among the guests now gathered there was +Mary Burton. Hamilton Burton was absent, as he was always absent from +the purely social side of the world into whose center he had forced his +way. For such diversions he had neither time nor taste, but like a +general who, under the dim light of his tent lantern, sticks <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>pins into +a war map, it pleased him to have his sister take her triumphant place +among the court idlers whom he scorned.</p> + +<p>Now she sat in her room overlooking the terraces and gardens at the side +of the mansion. Just outside her window was a small gallery over whose +wide coping clambered a profusion of flowering vines. Through half-drawn +curtains as she lay in a long reclining chair she could see the purple +veil of the young summer draped along the distance where rosy fires +burned in the wake of day—or she could turn her eyes inward and have +the other picture which the mirror offered. Her slender hands lay +inertly quiet in her lap, holding an envelope.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she turned her head and spoke to the only other occupant of the +room—her maid.</p> + +<p>"Julie," she said, almost sharply, "you may go. Come back in half an +hour."</p> + +<p>"But, mademoiselle," exclaimed the little French woman who had put by +dreams of a small millinery shop in Paris to come with her mistress to +America, "dinner is not far off, and you are not yet dressed."</p> + +<p>Mary Burton did not answer. Her thoughts were elsewhere and after a +moment's hesitation Julie went out and closed the door quietly behind +her. The pearls lying near the mirror caught the light and echoed it in +their soft shimmer.</p> + +<p>"Hamilton Burton's collar," she murmured.</p> + +<p>Then she slowly drew from the envelope in her lap a letter.</p> + +<p>Its writer subscribed himself with many adoring superlatives, "Thy +Carlos," but that was an abbreviated signature. In Andalusia, where his +estates lay, his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>prerogative was to sign himself Juan Carlos Matisto y +Carolla, Duke de Metuan.</p> + +<p>She read the letter and let it fall from her listless fingers. Her eyes +went again to the portrait in the glass. Very slowly she rose and +studied herself standing. The lacy softness of her negligée fell away +from her slenderly rounded throat. The creamy whiteness of arms and +shoulders and bosom was touched with the rosiness of blossom petals.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she said with a short laugh, "I suppose—as men's ideas of +women go—I'm worth possessing." Then she turned impatiently to the +window and stood with one arm high above her head, resting on the white +woodwork of its frame. While her eyes went off to the sunset, they +became hungry for something she did not have, she who had so much.</p> + +<p>In a few days, unless she forbade it, the duke would arrive, this note +from his New York hotel announced. There had been also a brief +communication from Hamilton, which she had angrily torn into small bits. +The duke had called on him, said her brother, and craved permission to +pay his addresses to Mary. Hamilton Burton had granted the boon with the +manner of a king contemplating a noble alliance in his family. Mary +Burton did not care for the manner.</p> + +<p>It complicated matters, she admitted, that she herself had not precisely +discouraged the duke over there in Cairo and in Nice. He had fitted +rather comfortably into the artificial life she had been living, which +she had not then begun to question with analysis. As she looked back she +could not recall that she had definitely discouraged any of those titled +suitors. Now that her brain had turned on her, forcing her to take stock +of her life, many shapes and colors changed, as the light <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>of day alters +the aspect of gas and bares its deceit. The idea of meeting Carlos de +Metuan brought a shiver of personal distaste.</p> + +<p>"I never knew but one real man," she told herself bitterly. "I don't +even know that he was a real man. I wonder if he is still alive." Once +more she was in fancy a little girl, shyly twisting the toe of a rough +shoe in the dust of the mountain roadside. Once more she saw a pair of +eyes that won the heart with their honesty and seemed willing to have +other eyes look through them into a soul concealing nothing. Though +Jefferson Edwardes had been her first flatterer, he had flattered +without ulterior motive. She was a ragged child and he a rich young man +who might have to die. Suddenly she felt that the little girl who was +once herself had been more admirable in every way than this polished +woman who had succeeded her: the woman who was everything that little +girl had yearned to be and who stood self-revealed as brilliant and hard +as one of her own purely decorative diamonds.</p> + +<p>A small clock chimed, and, with a somewhat weary step, Mary Burton +crossed the room and rang for her maid.</p> + +<p>At dinner and later when the moon had risen and the guests danced on the +smooth mosaic floor of an outdoor pavilion cunningly fashioned in the +semblance of a Greek theater, her eyes were pools of laughter and her +repartee was like wine sparkle—for at least she had learned to act with +the empty bravery of her world.</p> + +<p>In the constant attendance of men who chattered compliments she felt a +haunting sense of pursuit and a secret impulse for flight, so that at +the first opportunity she slipped away for the relief of solitude.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>There were many vine-embowered retreats about the place where those who +did not wish to dance might talk softly in the blue shadows of Grecian +urns with star-shine and moon-mist for their tête-à-têtes. In such a +place sat Mary Burton, alone—looking about her for a means of more +secure escape. Her imagination kept disturbing her with the figure of a +small girl whose home was a soon-to-be-abandoned farm. A yearning +possessed her for the one thing which she could not command, the sort of +romance that sweeps one away like a torrent. That little girl had +yearned for the gifts of the world, for experience, wealth and +adulation, because she fancied that out of these things came romance and +its prize of happiness. The woman had them all—except the end of them +all for which she had wanted them. They were dulled and tarnished by +satiety and she still craved the coming of a lover whose forceful wooing +should frighten and dominate her. Never in her life had she known any +man upon whom she could not, with her trained self-reliance, set her own +metes and bounds. Surely somewhere in the world there must be the sort +of love-making that wrenches a woman out of her perfect self-composure +and bears her away on its flood tide of power and passion. Perhaps she +had been schooled and "finished" until humanity and its wonderful +reality had, for her, ceased to exist. Suddenly she felt an upflaming of +resentment against the generosity of her Napoleonic brother. In exchange +for life's golden chance of romance she had been given a wonderful +veneer of hard brilliancy—and she hated it! After a few moments of +rebellious introspection she shook her head and rose from her seat, +slipping behind the tall marble urn that rose from the end of the bench +into the enveloping shadows. She was seek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>ing a refuge where she might +hide and hear the music softened by the distance and she kept walking, +lured on by the wildness of the surrounding hills which just now better +suited her mood than the clipped hedges.</p> + +<p>She found a place at last from which, as one apart, she could look up at +the stars and down at the dancers.</p> + +<p>There was a larger crowd dancing now than there had been. Evidently new +guests had arrived since dinner. She was beginning to feel the solace of +her escape from other human beings when she became conscious of a +white-clad figure approaching her, and gave a low exclamation of +annoyance. Yet something in the manner of the man's movement indicated +that he was, like herself, finding greater pleasure in solitude than in +the dance. It was only when he was almost upon her that she stood out +visible in the depth of the shadow. He halted then and bowed his +apology.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said a voice which struck a vaguely familiar chord +of memory. "I didn't mean to intrude. I was just hunting for a spot +where I could watch things without having to talk to anyone."</p> + +<p>Mary Burton laughed.</p> + +<p>"You don't have to talk to me," she assured him, "because, as it +happens, that's why I'm here myself."</p> + +<p>It was too dark for recognition of features, but there was a silvery +quality in the girl's voice which piqued the interest of the newcomer +and caused him to deviate from his avowed purpose of self-withdrawal. It +seemed to him that music sounded across a space of years—music +remembered and longed for.</p> + +<p>"The dismissal is unmistakable in its terms," he answered. "Yet, since I +have come a long way, may I not sit here for a moment of rest—provided +I am very silent?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>Mary smiled and then quite unpremeditatedly she found herself +inquiring, "A long way? Where do you come from then?"</p> + +<p>"From St. Petersburg," he enlightened in a casual fashion, and after a +moment he added, "to see you!"</p> + +<p>"You just said you were seeking a place to be alone and why should you +look for me whom you never saw before and whom you can't see now, for +the dark? You don't even know what I'm like."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Miss Burton.—There, you see I know your name."</p> + +<p>The tantalizingly familiar note in his voice puzzled and interested her +with a cumulative force. "I have a very definite idea what you are like. +Not being a poet, I'm afraid I can't put it into words."</p> + +<p>"But you haven't seen me!" Her speech became for an instant +mischievously whimsical. "Of course, if you have a burglar's lantern +about you—or a match I suppose you might."</p> + +<p>The man drew a small case from his pocket and struck a wax match, +holding it close.</p> + +<p>She met his gaze, and he stood motionless until the tiny blaze traveled +down the length of the shaft and burned his fingers. His eyes never left +her face. In those eyes she felt a strange power of magnetism, for they +did not burn as other eyes had burned. They did not shift or waver. When +the match fell he spoke quietly. "You are as beautiful as starlight on +water and I am a true prophet."</p> + +<p>In the brief and limited illumination she had recognized him, too, and +she bent impulsively toward him. In his coming just now as though in +answer to her thoughts there seemed something almost occult.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>"Then you didn't die? You won your fight with your even chance? Oh, I +am so glad!"</p> + +<p>"Thank you," answered Jefferson Edwardes gravely. "That's worth refusing +to die for."</p> + +<p>"It's strange, Mr. Edwardes," she spoke almost dreamily. "Perhaps it's +because I've been listening to the voice of the hills, but I have been +sitting here alone—hiding—and while I've been here I've been thinking +of you—wondering where you were."</p> + +<p>"For that, too, I thank 'whatever gods there be,'" he assured her. "It +has been a long time since we met and I was afraid you had forgotten. Of +course, I've read of you and I knew that my prophecy was being +fulfilled. Twice I planned to leave St. Petersburg and pursue you to +London or Paris, but each time business matters intervened with their +relentless demands."</p> + +<p>"What made you think of me?" An eager sincerity sounded through the +question. She was weary of compliments, but Jefferson Edwardes had a +manner of simple speech which gave worth to his utterances.</p> + +<p>"Once upon a time," he began with a low laugh, "there lived a singularly +sickening little prig of a kid, pampered and spoiled to his selfish +marrow. Though I hate to roast a small boy, I am bound to say that this +one was pretty nearly a total loss—and he was I. He threatened to grow +into a more odious man, but Providence intervened in his behalf—with +disguised kindness. Providence threw him out by the scruff of his +arrogant neck to fight for his life or to die—which was what he needed. +He went to your mountains to scrap with microbes—and he had leisure to +discover what a microbe he was himself."</p> + +<p>The girl's laugh was a peal of silvery music in the dark. "Were you a +microbe?" she demanded. "All <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>these years I've thought you a fairy +prince." With a sudden gravity she added, "To one small girl, you opened +a gate of dreams, and brought her contentment—" she broke off and the +final words were almost whispered—"so long as they remained dreams."</p> + +<p>"And now—" he took her up with grave and earnest interest—"now that +they have become realities, what of them?"</p> + +<p>"That comes later," she reminded him. "We aren't through yet with the +little boy who won out with his fighting chance."</p> + +<p>"When you knew him your hills had done something for him. They had +humanized him. He went as one goes to exile, full of bitterness. Your +hills were a miracle of wholesomeness. They cleansed and restored him +with the song of their high-riding winds and the whispers of their +pines. They confided to him those things that God only says to man in +His own out-of-doors. Your mountains were good to me. I became something +of a dreamer there, and in those dreams you have always stood as the +personal incarnation of those hills. That is why I have thought of you +unendingly ever since."</p> + +<p>Mary Burton's answer was to shake her head and declare wistfully:</p> + +<p>"I almost wish you hadn't seen me again. It would have been better if +the illusion could have lasted."</p> + +<p>"Since then," he went on, "the little girl has grown up and been +crowned, but I shall prefer to think of her as she was before she knew +she was to wear Cinderella's slipper."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she murmured, "if you can."</p> + +<p>For a time they were silent while the dance music <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>reached them softened +by the distance, and then he inquired in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"Do you by any miracle of chance remember an injunction I laid upon you +one afternoon by the roadside?"</p> + +<p>Mary Burton looked up and answered with a nod of her head. "Does any +woman ever forget her first compliment?"</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"'Wield leniently the dangerous gift of your witchcraft—the—'" She +abruptly broke off in the quotation and found herself coloring like a +schoolgirl, so Jefferson Edwardes took up the injunction where she had +left it incomplete. "The freakish beauty of your perfect, unmatched +eyes," he prompted.</p> + +<p>The girl felt a strange flutter in her breast. Just now she had blushed. +What had happened to the poise of her usual self-command? Some influence +was abroad tonight or some hypnotism in those steady eyes that gave her +a sense of vague apprehension. It was an apprehension though that +thrilled her strangely with a welcome fear—and a promise. Tides were +stirring that were all new tides. It was as though marvels were +possible. She heard him saying again as he had said once before, "You +are as beautiful as starlight on water."</p> + +<p>"So was Cleopatra, my friend. So was Helen of Troy. So were ... Circe +and Faustina."</p> + +<p>"But they," he laughed, "did not wield kindly the power of their eyes."</p> + +<p>Mary Burton winced, then she turned and faced him. Her voice trembled.</p> + +<p>"Why did I have to meet you tonight? It isn't fair! They have schooled +my brain into every useless vanity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> They have fed my selfishness until +it has strangled my heart. Never until today did I face the truth. All +afternoon I've been sitting alone—hating myself. I am nothing but an +artificial little flirt, and I have not obeyed your injunction." She +paused, then hurried on with the forced manner of one resolved upon full +confession! "Perhaps so far I've hurt only myself—but I've done +that—mortally. Then you come and I learn that you've woven an illusion +about me—and I destroy it."</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes smiled in the dark, but spoke gravely.</p> + +<p>"You call yourself an artificial little flirt. You haven't flirted with +me. Why?"</p> + +<p>"With you I have talked ten minutes." She laughed suddenly as though at +some absurd thought. "Besides, did any woman ever flirt with you? Can +one lie to eyes that see through one?"</p> + +<p>"My eyes do see something," he said. "They see that you have never had a +chance to be your real self. You have been surrounded by flatterers and +sycophants, when you needed sincere and truthful friends."</p> + +<p>"Truthful friends!" She repeated the words after him incredulously. "I +wonder if such things exist."</p> + +<p>"I am one," he announced bluntly. "I am going to give back to you the +message your hills gave me—without flattery and without adjectives."</p> + +<p>He came a step nearer and an unaccountable wave of attraction and fear +thrilled her—flooded her heart until her temples burned. She had been +wishing for the coming of a man who would not be clay in her hands. To +Circe all men must have been swine, from the start, save the man who +could pass by. Now, of a sudden, every wile of coquetry became a lost +art to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Mary Burton. She felt like an accomplished and intriguing +diplomat, facing an adversary who has no secrets to conceal and no +interest in the evasions of others. He roused a new eagerness because +she knew intuitively that to mere fascination he would surrender no +principle. With the realization came a sense of surprise and exaltation +and timidity, and she spoke slowly with an interval between her words.</p> + +<p>"Why—will—you—assume this rôle?"</p> + +<p>"Because—" his voice was confident and inspired a responsive +confidence—"there is such a thing as a chemistry of souls. Life is a +laboratory where Destiny experiments with test-tubes and reagents. +Powerful ingredients may be mixed without result because they hold in +common no element of reaction. Other ingredients at the instant of +mingling turn violet or crimson or explode or burst into flame—because +they were meant to mingle to that end. Nature says so. Does the reason +matter?"</p> + +<p>She asked another question, rather faintly, because she felt herself +startlingly lifted on a tide against which it was a useless thing to +struggle. Something in her wanted to sing, and something else wanted to +cry.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid chemistry is one of the things they didn't teach me much +about. Probably because it was useful. Can you put it in words of one +syllable?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." He was standing close, but he bent nearer and his voice filled +and amplified the brevity of his monosyllables. "In three. I love you."</p> + +<p>Mary Burton started back, and a low exclamation broke incoherently from +her lips.</p> + +<p>The man caught both her hands and spoke with tense eagerness.</p> + +<p>"You say I have met you in the dark for a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>minutes. True. I have +looked on your face while one match burned out ... but I have dreamed of +you ever since I shrined you in my heart—back there—long ago by the +roadside. If you are not the woman of my visions, you can be, and I mean +that you shall be. You are a woman trained in the ways of your world. If +you could help it, you would not let a man take your hands in his, like +this, at a first meeting—would you?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head, but her hands lay as motionless as though their +nerves were dead. She could feel the throbbing pulses of his fingers and +suddenly he bent forward and pressed his lips to hers, while she stood +amazed and unresisting. "Or kiss your lips—like this—would you? With +women I am timid, because I have never before been a lover. I could not +do what I am doing unless something stronger than myself were acting +through me. It is the chemistry of souls. It is written." He let his +arms fall at his sides.</p> + +<p>Mary Burton pressed her temples with her fingers. Her knees felt weak +and she stood unsteadily on her feet. The man passed a supporting arm +about her waist. Finally, she drew herself up and laughed with a +nervousness that bordered on the hysterical.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she said brokenly; and paused only to repeat again: "I +wonder whether it's the great adventure I've dreamed of—or just +moon-madness? Ought I to be very angry?"</p> + +<p>"You will have time to decide," he told her. "What I have said and done +I shall say and do again—often."</p> + +<p>"It's strange," she murmured as though talking to herself. "I thought I +understood men. I'm not a schoolgirl any more. Yet I'm as bewildered as +though you were the first man who ever said, 'I love you.'"</p> + +<p>"Thank God for that."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>She turned and laid a hand on his arm. Her voice came with a musical +vehemence.</p> + +<p>"If I do come to love you, I think it will be heaven or hell to me. I'm +not going to be angry until I've thought about it—and thought hard, and +I'm not going to love you unless you make me. Come, let's go back."</p> + +<p>As they turned into the path toward the house, she broke irrelevantly +into laughter.</p> + +<p>"When you lighted your match—and burned your fingers—what did you +think of my pearls?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see them," he promptly replied. "Were you wearing pearls?"</p> + +<p>Confused by the sudden and marvelous consciousness of all life being +changed at a stroke, of doors that had swung wide between all the old +and all the new, Mary Burton walked as in a daze, her fingers toying +with the gems about her neck. But before she had taken many steps the +man laid a hand on her arm and halted her. When she turned he caught her +by her shoulders and his words came tumultuously and with an impassioned +earnestness.</p> + +<p>"You must not deny me the chance to say something more," he declared. +"What I have said is either too much or too little. You ask me whether I +saw your pearls. When I first spoke to you—a child with all autumn's +glory blazing at your back, did I have eyes for trees and skies and +landscapes; though they were splendid and profligate in their beauty? +No. I saw you—only you! If you had stood against a drab curtain it +would have been the same. You were a child, too young to stir an adult +heart to love or passion.... What was it then that fixed you from that +moment in my heart?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>She looked back at him and asked faintly, "What was it?"</p> + +<p>"That same chemistry of souls," he declared. "That same writing of our +futures in one horoscope; a voice that decreed: 'You shall wait for +her,' though I did not understand its message—until now. And now that I +have seen you, how can I think of pearls?"</p> + +<p>To hear words of love spoken in a wild onrush of feeling was no new +experience to Mary Burton, yet it was as though she had never heard them +before. In the past her ears had heard, but now her heart was listening, +and her heart pounded in her breast as it drank in what the man said. He +talked fast, with his eyes on her eyes, and his hands grasping her white +shoulders. His heart, too, rather than his tongue, was speaking.</p> + +<p>"You will read in every book," he declared, "that such things as this +are impossible. Give our lives the chance to write their own pages and +you will know that they are true and inevitable. To me you have been a +dream—I have told myself over and over again that it was only a dream, +the whimsical imagination of a man who has lived too much to +himself—who was abnormal. Now I have seen you. Had I seen you every day +since that first day it could mean no more to me. At the first syllable +of your voice—I <i>knew</i>. I need no further test."</p> + +<p>"But I—?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"You shall take all the time you need. I told you that you had stood in +my mind as the spirit of the hills that gave me back my life. I told you +what I have been telling myself. Now I know better. From that first +instant my life has been molded—for this. Though I did not then know +it, I lived because I <i>had</i> to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>live. I had to live because it was +written that my life should complete itself by loving you. It was not +your hills that gave me health again—it was yourself. You do not +personify the hills, but the hills personify you. My dream is no longer +a dream, it is a reality. I love you."</p> + +<p>"But I have told you," she persisted, "that I am not what you think."</p> + +<p>"You are what I know. I love you."</p> + +<p>She stood tremblingly before him, and her words came with a whispered +wonderment.</p> + +<p>"Things like this don't happen," she said. Then she added, "All the +things you tell me are such things as life laughs at, and yet there is +another side—my side. I have yearned to feel something that had the +power to lift me out of myself and make me gloriously helpless, +something big enough to set my heart beating beyond control—and I never +have felt it—till now. I—I am not the same girl. I don't know +myself.... You have come and I am suddenly different."</p> + +<p>"Love's chemistry," he assured her. "The Mary Burton of this moment is +to be the Mary Burton of always, until she becomes Mary Edwardes."</p> + +<p>"At all events, I must be alone—to think," she told him. "You can go +and dance, if you like. I've been here two days and I know all the +secret passages. I'm going to slip into my room by a back stairway and +think hard about how angry I am to be with you tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"And I," he answered, "shall not dance. I am going to sequester myself +in the woods and pray the gods of fair auspices that you won't be too +angry."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">M</span><span class="heavy">ARY</span> Burton made her way between tall hedgerows of box where an alley of +shade ran to a side terrace, and when she had gained her own room her +eyes were aglow with a new and rather radiant sort of smile, that also +crept to the corners of her lips and hovered happily. It was a vague +smile, but if the man who had enticed it there had seen it, he would +have felt reassured. The threat of tomorrow's wrath would not have +troubled him.</p> + +<p>When Mary Burton, changed into bedroom attire, had dismissed her maid +for the night, she still moved about with a restlessness which did not +at once yield to the composure needed for the rigid self-analysis upon +which she was resolved. She stood before the mirror and looked gravely +into the glass.</p> + +<p>With the lustrous masses of hair falling braided over her shoulders and +the new glow of discovery in her eyes she might have been a girl just +budding into womanhood. She seemed in the last hour to have slipped back +into the blossom time of her beauty—and though it was a beauty which +she had always realized she now felt a new happiness in its possession. +Heretofore her pride had been such as one feels for a means of conquest.</p> + +<p>Now it was different. Her breast rose suddenly and fell to the +excitement of a subtly powerful emotion. This beauty had a new value. It +might be a prize worth surrendering proudly and as a gift to a man of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>her choosing. If this rainbow of promised love proved real she would +wish herself even lovelier—for his pleasure. It was of course too soon +to feel sure—and at that thought a sudden gasp of fear rose in her +throat. At all events it was not too early to hope that the night had +brought her the thing for which she had yearned—brought the +commencement. She gave to the face in the mirror a friendly smile. "This +afternoon I rather hated you," she announced gravely. "I gazed at you +and a soulless little pig stared back ... but who knows? Maybe down +under your vanity and selfishness you have after all the cobwebbed +little germ of a soul. If so we must dig it out and brush it off and put +it to work."</p> + +<p>Then she turned out the lights and sank down dreamily in the broad +window seat. The moon rode high and bathed the hills in its limpid yet +elusive wash of silver and blue and dove grays. Far off like a +brush-stroke from a dream palette ran the horizon's margin of hills and +nearer at hand tapering poplars stood up like dark sentinels. The lights +and music told of the dance still in progress and strolling figures +occasionally crossed the silver patches between the shadows.</p> + +<p>In her own mind she was reviewing all the men who with her had sought to +throw off the mantle of the Platonic and invest themselves in the more +romantic habiliments of courtship. One lesson had been taught her from +the first, and she had learned it thoroughly—too thoroughly! She was no +ordinary girl to give way to unwise throbbing of the pulses. Her future +must run side by side with brilliant things and brilliant men.</p> + +<p>It takes experience to teach distrust to those frolic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>some playmates, +Youth and Buoyancy. She had met with that experience and had learned +that fortune-hunters are by no means mythical or extinct. When to the +honey-pot of wealth is added the lure of beauty, how can one be sure +that any proffered love is free from the taint of greed? Her brother was +one of America's most brilliant money-getters. He gathered in and +disbursed with a lavish magnificence. She had been called the most +beautiful woman in Europe and her gem-like brilliancy had been set in +Life's gold and platinum of environment. When Cupid came to her what +bill of health could he produce to prove that he was not a sneak-thief +in disguise? She had accepted the cynical conclusion that she might +never be sure of any man's love and the tenderer little heart-nerves +which govern impulse were growing numb. Under a naïve freshness and +girlish fragrance of personality, lay masked batteries of distrust and +hardness. The Duke de Metuan fancied himself genuinely in love with her. +Of that she was sure, but should the Duke de Metuan learn tomorrow +morning that she had overnight become penniless—she broke off and +laughed.</p> + +<p>And tonight had come the unwarned tumult of feeling against which she +possessed no argument. Jefferson Edwardes had looked at her and his eyes +were a guarantee of honesty beyond question. She did not even ask to see +the Love God's passport. This man was a member of a great family of +bankers; a family that had stood for generations among the richest in +the country. Ham's magic control of the money tides could not even +subconsciously influence his decisions.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful to sit there in the window, adrift on a tide of +elation, and to know that the numbness of her heart was not a permanent +paralysis—that she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>had a soul. It was absurdedly delightful, too, to +reflect upon the illogical swiftness with which it had all happened.</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow," she announced to herself, nodding her head very decisively, +"I shall be furious with him. I shall refuse to speak to him. I shall +let him realize that such lordly assumption brings swift retribution." +Then, low and gaily, she laughed. "After I've punished him I'll be very +nice to him, unless—" her lips tightened as she added—"unless he says +he's sorry he did it and apologizes. If he does that I'll never speak to +him again."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>While Mary was spending so comfortable and pleasing an hour with her +reflections and while Jefferson Edwardes was tramping the hills several +miles away, a small number of unattached men lingered near the +punch-bowl and cigars in the huge living-room of the lodge.</p> + +<p>One of these refugees from the zone of dancing activities was of more +than ordinarily striking appearance. When he stood he towered and even +when he sat, as now, morosely lounging and taciturn, he bulked large and +wore a countenance of such strength and determination as suited his +giant body. In spite of his great physique he carried no superfluous +flesh, but tapered to the waist and, notwithstanding his present +detachment and a seriousness that verged on sullenness, the face seemed +more patterned by nature for the broad grin of good fellowship and clean +mirthfulness.</p> + +<p>Quite obviously Len Haswell, whose laugh ordinarily rang like a fog-horn +over the chorus of conversation, would just now have preferred being +elsewhere. When their customary joviality left those gray eyes, the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>man's immensity took on something of an ogre's power. He tinkled the +ice in his high-ball glass—a process to which he had devoted himself +with unaccustomed repetition this evening and, instead of mellowing into +conviviality under his libations, his eyes narrowed a little and the +small frowning line between his brows deepened.</p> + +<p>"The Big Fellow's having a grouch, eh, what? He's getting a bit squiffy, +if you ask me," suggested Norvil Thayre to the group centered where the +punch-bowl was being administered. Norvil Thayre was not having a +grouch. If he had ever had a grouch he had kept his secret well. An +American by adoption, he was still aggressively British in speech, dress +and eccentricity.</p> + +<p>Norvil Thayre's chest was always thrust out as cheerily and confidently +as a cock-robin's, and his step was as elastic as though he had just +come, freshly galvanized, from some electric source of exuberant energy. +His clothing escaped the extremes of fashion by the narrowest margin of +good taste, and his mustache ends bristled up toward the laughing +wrinkles about his wide-awake eyes like exclamation points of alertness.</p> + +<p>"And," went on Mr. Thayre amiably, "if he hungers for solitude I'm the +last chap in the world to intrude on his meditations. I jolly well know +myself what it means to hang precariously on the fringe of plutocracy +with only a beastly whisper of an income—and by the Lord Harry I'm a +bachelor." Several auditors nodded their sympathetic understanding, but +a tall youth with viking blond hair and vacant eyes which seemed to +proclaim, "I am looking, but I see not," was less judicious. He lounged +over and dropped into a chair at Haswell's side.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>"That singularly frightful little ass, Larry Kirk, is going to cheer +him up now," smiled Thayre. "Trust him to make himself a nuisance."</p> + +<p>"Not dancing much this evening, Len?" suggested Kirk by way of opening +the conversation with the silent one.</p> + +<p>"No." The reply was curt.</p> + +<p>"I've been wanting to dance with your wife," persisted the other, "but +she's as illusive as a wraith."</p> + +<p>This time Haswell did not vouchsafe even a monosyllable in reply, and +the tactless Kirk assumed the double burden of the conversation.</p> + +<p>"I call it rough treatment when the two truly beautiful women in society +come to a dance and proceed, to all intents and purposes, to evaporate. +Miss Burton, too, seems to have been converted into thin air. What's the +use of struggling to keep up with new steps?"</p> + +<p>Len Haswell rose stiffly from his chair, and, tossing his cigar through +the open window, stalked silently from the room.</p> + +<p>The blond young man glanced uncomprehendingly after him, and Thayre's +laugh broke in a booming peal.</p> + +<p>"Rather gratuitous, son, wasn't it?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Larry Kirk put his question blankly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, except that you know Len or ought to. He's the present-day +Othello, sulking because he can't get a dance with his wife. It's barely +conceivable that he's not aching to have it rubbed in."</p> + +<p>"Can't get a dance?" repeated the empty-eyed youth perplexedly. "Why?"</p> + +<p>Thayre snorted. "What chance has he—or any one else when Ham Burton's +gifted pomeranian sequesters <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>her in some shaded nook and whispers +musical nonsense into her coral ear?"</p> + +<p>"You mean Paul Burton? Gifted pomeranian fits him nicely ... but why +should any man be jealous of—him?"</p> + +<p>"A man may be jealous of any creature that all women pet. Paul Burton +can play to them until their golden souls come soaring out to be +playmates with his golden soul. You and I, having no wives, may be able +to laugh at such things—but Len Haswell has a devilish pretty one—and +a devilish foolish one."</p> + +<p>To young Mr. Kirk the situation seemed simple.</p> + +<p>"Why doesn't Len just take this pleasing minstrel by the scruff of his +neck and say to him, 'Nice little doggy, run away'?"</p> + +<p>"For two reasons. First, behind the pleasing minstrel stands the +Emperor—damn his magnificently audacious soul! Secondly, when you chase +a man who has access to the treasure of the Incas ... you take a fairish +chance of chasing the lady along with him."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I made Len sore." The blond man spoke contritely. Then his +voice snapped into animosity. "He's worth a dozen Paul Burtons, the +vapid little piano-player."</p> + +<p>"Right-o!" Thayre stood with his feet well apart and his baldish head +thrown back. "Even that profound gift for reading human nature, which it +pleased a Divine Providence to bestow upon me, could hardly have hit +more jolly well on the peg." He paused, then added, "But be that as it +may—in the habit which has become so prevalent among us money-changers +in the temple, of damning the soul of Hamilton Burton—when he is +absent—I think we overlook a few patent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>truths. We hate the man and +all his breed simply because he outclasses us at our own game."</p> + +<p>"You mean he outplunders us," contradicted Kirk.</p> + +<p>"It comes to much the same thing, young son, though High Finance is a +prettier name for the pastime. He gathers in millions to our thousands +not only because he is a naughty, wicked man, but because of his greater +caliber and range. Brother Paul shines by some of this reflected +glory—so it has become the fashion to damn Brother Paul, too."</p> + +<p>It began to dawn on the fair-haired young man that he was being chaffed. +His reply came sulkily.</p> + +<p>"To my mind Paul Burton is nothing but a hanger-on."</p> + +<p>"Quite true. So am I. So are you. So are all of us who produce nothing +tangible. Paul is a hanger-on by better right than many others who +depend directly or indirectly on the energies of this great producing +pirate."</p> + +<p>Kirk had exhausted his line of argument and fell silent, but Jack +Staples stepped into the breach. Staples himself was no mean type of +financier, holding as he did a commission as one of Malone's chief +lieutenants. He was a striking man with a lower jaw which thrust itself +aggressively forward and a single white lock over his forehead, though +except for that the blackness of his hair bore no touch of gray even at +the temples.</p> + +<p>"I hate the lot of them!" he announced vehemently. "I hate this upstart +Cyclops and his conscienceless power. I hate the pampered brother—but +Thayre is right. Great God in heaven, gentlemen, it is a family of +geniuses. Stop and reflect. Fifteen years ago they were +bare-footed—ragged—half-starved, the whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>brood. Now consider them. +Hamilton is magnificent, ruthless, but almost omnipotent. He is one of +the world's few blazing and dazzling figures. As for Paul, in spite of +his weakness, he's inspirational. His genius is no less intrinsic. I'm +not emotional, but I've heard them all play and that boy can carry me +out of myself as can no other artist, professional or amateur, to whom +I've ever listened. He is a gifted troubadour. His fingers control the +magic of harmony as his brother's control the magic of money. For my +part I'd rather be Paul than Hamilton. Hamilton will be hated to +death—by men, but Paul will be loved to death—by women."</p> + +<p>"Well," suggested another member of the group drily, "when one New York +family can move as stolid an old cynic as Staples to eulogy, it must be +some family."</p> + +<p>"I tell you," protested Staples hotly, "I hate them, but we gain nothing +by belittling our enemies. It sets a man's imagination afire to see a +strain of remarkable blood proclaiming itself in so diverse a fashion +through members of one household; a household that has come from the +pinch of want. Take the girl. Leave her beauty out of the question, +because beauty is not genius. But her mind is as trenchant as her +brother's. She could reign on any throne in Europe and stand out as +conspicuous in brilliant contrast to that colorless royalty as a torch +flaming among candles. I'll wager that her courage is as unflinching as +his and her gifts as varied and remarkable. Why, even old Tom, the +father, is, for all his seeming of pompous emptiness, the craftiest and +cagiest old chap in the National Union Club. He plays rotten bridge, but +he still has a brain in his old head."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>"I suppose as far as that goes," commented Mr. Kirk, fortified by the +entry of a new disputant into the argument, "that even Nero had his +attractive angles of personality."</p> + +<p>Thayre laughed and lighted a cigarette. Then as he inhaled deeply he +nodded and replied.</p> + +<p>"I hold no brief for Nero, but I dare say he was a bit misunderstood."</p> + +<p>"Since you've undertaken the modern Nero's defense, suppose you +catalogue <i>his</i> good points—aside from a conceded brilliancy in +finance," suggested another member of the group.</p> + +<p>The Englishman nodded, and began his summary.</p> + +<p>"An unswerving loyalty to his friends—until they are guilty of <i>lèse +majesté</i>; a personal integrity which no man questions; a wit that makes +him in his lighter moments a rare companion; a generosity as broad as +his fighting ruthlessness is deep; and, finally, a lion-like courage. To +me, my lads, those assets seem worth a moment's consideration."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The gardens and grounds of Haverly Lodge were that night such a terrain +as best suits the ambuscading warfare of the small god with the bow and +darts.</p> + +<p>Loraine Haswell was thinking something of the sort as she strolled with +Paul Burton away from the dancers, leaving their destination to chance. +Kirk had hardly exaggerated when he bracketed the name of this slender +and graceful wife of the gigantic broker with that of Mary Burton as the +two most beautiful women in society.</p> + +<p>They were opposite types, for while Mary was a glowing incarnation of +color, rich as a golden morning in blossom-time, Loraine, with heavy +masses of softly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>spun jet coiled above her brow, looking out from eyes +that were pools of liquid darkness, might have been the queen of night. +But her mouth was a carmine blossom. This evening she wore a gown almost +barbaric in its richness of color and pattern, and when she walked ahead +of Paul Burton where the path narrowed, it seemed to him that some slim +and lithe Cleopatra was preceding him. The waltz music came across the +short distance, and Loraine Haswell went with a step that captured the +rhythm of the measure. When they had come to a corner of the garden +where a fountain tinkled in shadow and only a lacey strand or two of +moonlight fell on the grass, she halted with her outstretched arms +resting lightly on the tall basin, and let her fingers dip into the +clear water while she turned to smile on him.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Mrs. Haswell," Paul spoke low and with a musical thrill in +his voice, "you are the loveliest creature in captivity tonight? Your +loveliness is to a man's imagination what Wilde said white hyacinths are +to the soul—worth going without bread for."</p> + +<p>She laughed, but into her mirth there crept, or was injected as the case +may be, a note of wistfulness.</p> + +<p>"In captivity," she repeated, slowly. "I am always in captivity."</p> + +<p>With most men Paul was diffident and prone to silence, but something in +his effete nature gave him confidence with women. He had been flattered +into a sort of assurance that they found him irresistible. They thought +him clairvoyantly sympathetic—and he was by the very over-refinement of +his music and dream-fed temperament.</p> + +<p>"The other evening when I left you, I went home and closed my eyes and +sat alone—thinking of you," he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>told her. "To me all that is fine +beyond words I try to translate into music. Where words—even +poetry—fail, notes begin. So at the piano I tried to express something +like a portrayal of you—to myself."</p> + +<p>She seated herself on a stone bench while he stood looking down at her. +Her head was for a moment bent and something in the droop of her +shoulders intimated unhappiness.</p> + +<p>"Does my improvising music about you offend?" He put the question very +gently. "You know that I go to the piano as another man might go to his +prayers."</p> + +<p>She looked up and shook her head. Then she said softly. "Offend me? No, +it makes me very proud.... I was just thinking of something else—that +troubled me."</p> + +<p>"Of what?" Into the two short words Paul Burton put such a sympathy as +only voices of women and partly feminine men can express.</p> + +<p>"Of the word you used just now ... captivity."</p> + +<p>He seated himself at her side and his hand fell to the edge of the stone +bench—where her own fingers lightly rested. The cool satiny touch of +the hand his own encountered, which she made no effort to withdraw, +affected him as though a clear and silvery note had sounded near him.</p> + +<p>Paul was one whose senses were exquisitely attuned.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Haswell—Loraine," he said, and his voice was seductively tender, +"you are unhappy."</p> + +<p>Slowly she nodded her dark head and her voice was a whisper. "Yes.... +Paul, I'm afraid I am just that."</p> + +<p>It was the first time they had called each other by their first names. +It was the first time that the gradu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>ally ripening intimacy between them +had had a more propitious setting than a table at Sherry's. Paul Burton +had awaited this moment patiently, knowing that it must sometime come. +Now he bent toward her until her hair brushed his face.</p> + +<p>"It is your right to find life a thing of joy," he whispered. "Your soul +is a flower. It should have the fulness and radiance of sunshine."</p> + +<p>"Our rights," she said slowly, "are not always the things we get."</p> + +<p>"But just why are you unhappy?" he insisted.</p> + +<p>"I guess you summed it up in that one word, Paul ... captivity."</p> + +<p>Paul Burton, the easily swayed, the facilely led, rose and paced up and +down, and after a few moments he halted before her.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he—your jailer—appreciate you, Loraine?"</p> + +<p>She shrugged her lovely shoulders and looked up at him, smiling through +lashes that glistened a little.</p> + +<p>"As much, I suppose, as a man can appreciate a woman whom he fails to +understand. It's not his fault."</p> + +<p>"Of course he—cares for you?"</p> + +<p>Loraine Haswell shot him a quick inquiring glance. "Yes," she smiled, +"he cares enough to persecute me with little jealousies. He cares enough +to want me to make love to him when—" she halted and put both hands +over her face; through her slight figure ran a faint shudder—"when I +can't."</p> + +<p>The man pressed his tapering fingers to his temples. He must seem +agitated and his emotions lay so ready to call that seeming so was +almost being so. Yet in the back of his mind was the thought: "She will +be in my arms in five minutes."</p> + +<p>Suddenly she rose from her seat. "I oughtn't to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>say such things to +you," she declared in a voice freighted with self-accusation. "Please +forget it, Paul. But it's a thing you can understand. You know the +emptiness of a life that deals only with material things."</p> + +<p>He leaned forward with one knee on the bench and one hand on the +fountain basin. She was beautiful and his heart responded to her +beauty's challenge.</p> + +<p>"To me you can say anything. In me you will always find one who has no +interest above your interests." He stopped and took her hands, but she +shook her head in gentle negation, and, as he obeyed the unuttered +mandate and let his own arms fall at his sides, she rewarded him with a +smile that thrilled him like an embrace.</p> + +<p>"Len is fine and big and everybody likes him," went on the wife as +though bent on being fair at all costs. "Sometimes I think that's the +trouble. It's like being married to a standing army. In times of peace +one doesn't need a standing army and in times of war it's me that he +makes war on."</p> + +<p>Loraine rose and started toward the house. Paul followed, her, +appraising her beauty with eyes into which a new interest had come. In a +moment she turned and halted so suddenly that the man found her face +close to his as she spoke. "I don't know what's the matter with me +tonight. I feel faint and giddy—and full of undefined longings. I +sha'n't sleep—unless—" she looked questioningly up at him—"unless you +will play for me, Paul. Will you?"</p> + +<p>Then she put out both hands and swayed unsteadily. Paul caught her in +his arms and pressed her to him. The fragrance of her breath and the +velvet coolness of the cheek he found himself kissing were details that +brought an exquisite responsiveness to his senses. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>did not know +whether she had fainted or was still conscious, for she rested there in +his embrace limp and unresisting and wordless.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, dearest?" he whispered, when the first flush of +exultation had passed. "What is the matter?"</p> + +<p>Slowly the dark fringe of lashes flickered up and the jet eyes gazed +languorously into his own. The blossom lips parted over the flashing +whiteness of a smile. Still she did not move except to close both her +hands tightly on the arms that circled her.</p> + +<p>"Paul," she told him, "I ought to be unconscious or—or break away, but +I'm just—just forgetting my captivity." Her eyes held his, drawing them +hypnotically nearer and he lowered his face till his lips met hers and +received from them the answer to his kiss.</p> + +<p>Then Loraine Haswell drew away and straightened up. She was a very +lovely picture of contrite confusion as she put up both gleaming arms +and rearranged the dark hair he had rumpled. All the way to the house +she was silent.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">A</span><span class="heavy">N</span> hour later Mrs. Haswell sat before the cheval glass of her +dressing-table. Her dark hair, loosened now from its coils, cascaded +abundantly over her white shoulders. She was thinking, and the +charmingly chiseled lips and brow here in the privacy of her own room +wore a rather calculating and somewhat satisfied smile. No note of +contrition or self-accusation marred their serenity. A knock on the door +interrupted her reverie and with a smothered exclamation of annoyance +she glanced at the clock and rose.</p> + +<p>"May I come in a moment?" Her husband's voice was a shade thicker than +usual and his face still wore the somber expression which seemed so out +of place there.</p> + +<p>"It's almost two o'clock, Len." There was an uninviting coolness in the +quality of Loraine's tone—almost a protest. "Won't tomorrow do?" She +stood still, holding the door only a few inches ajar.</p> + +<p>"I won't keep you up long," he assured her.</p> + +<p>"I'm very tired."</p> + +<p>Len Haswell laid his hand on the knob and opened the door in spite of +her unwelcome. "If you please," he said quietly. He came in and lighted +a cigarette, then he inquired with an unaccustomed irony: "What tired +you, Loraine? You didn't seem to be dancing much."</p> + +<p>His wife shrugged her shoulders. Beyond that she failed to reply.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>The big man came over and took both her hands in his own with a +half-savage affection. "Loraine," he said pleadingly, "I wanted to dance +with you tonight. I searched high and low, but I couldn't find you. For +my part I have spent a very dreary evening."</p> + +<p>"You know, Len," she casually reminded him, "you and I can't dance +together. I'm a fair dancer and you are a very good one, but together we +can't manage it. There were plenty of other girls, weren't there?"</p> + +<p>The man's face for an instant worked spasmodically and in pain, then it +grew dark. "For me, Loraine, there is never any other girl. You know +that. Why do you avoid me as if I were a pestilence? Why can't you +sometimes be the girl you used to be? Presumably you married me because +you wanted to. You had better offers, richer lovers. Have I changed so +much in five years—and if not, what in God's name has changed you?"</p> + +<p>She withdrew her hands from his and sat again in the chair before the +mirror. "Len," she said with a touch of petulance in her voice, "you get +into grouches and spur your imagination to all sorts of absurdities. I'm +very sleepy. Why can't you reserve your fault-finding until tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>Len Haswell answered quietly, but obdurately. "For two reasons. In the +first place I sha'n't be able to sleep unless you answer me. In the +second place I shall probably see as much of you tomorrow as I have +today—which is nothing." His tone hardened. "You are too tired to give +me a few minutes, but you found it both possible and agreeable to give +Paul Burton the entire evening."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she laughed easily and with well-simulated amusement, "I should +fancy from the contemptuous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>things I have heard you men say about Paul, +you would regard him as quite harmless."</p> + +<p>"Paul!" repeated the man accusingly. "When did you begin calling him by +his first name? Does he call you Loraine, too?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? We are friends." She looked up at her husband's face with an +air of injured innocence and he paced a turn or two across the floor +before he halted before her.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would see less of him. I don't talk business to you often. +It bores you, but you know that we are always strained to hold the pace +that richer members of our set cut out. We have to pay very high for a +privilege which has no value to me except that you like it."</p> + +<p>Loraine Haswell sighed—and masked a yawn behind a small uplifted hand. +"I wonder," she mused as though to herself, yet quite loud enough to be +heard, "why some men find it so hard to make money, and to others it +seems so easy."</p> + +<p>Len Haswell flushed brick red to his cheekbones. He bit his lip and +forced himself to remain silent for a moment, then he spoke gently. "I'm +sorry I am not as brilliant a financier as some others. Nature doesn't +endow us all alike. A good many people would regard me as fairly +successful, I dare say. For myself a small house on the Sound would be +good enough, if you were there—"</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she answered with deliberate cruelty, "I don't think I'd +care for that."</p> + +<p>The man's scowl became ominously black. The hands at his side twitched, +and the temper with which few credited him because of his perpetual +control, flared out.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>"No, by the Almighty, you would rather prefer to be where the gods of +life are pleasure and extravagance and selfish indulgence! Where the +loyal love of a husband means less than the flatteries of a tame +cat...." As suddenly as the eruption had come it subsided. He raised +both hands. "Forgive me," he implored, "I didn't mean that. But I am +distraught and financial affairs are very precarious, Loraine. We may +stand on the brink of a disastrous panic. It lies in Hamilton Burton's +power to make me or break me—absolutely. Don't you see what that +means?"</p> + +<p>His wife shook her head, "I'm afraid I don't understand the intricacies +of finance." Her tone added that neither was she extravagantly +interested in them.</p> + +<p>"It means this," Haswell spoke gravely. "You have been seen with Paul +Burton more perhaps than is advisable. Paul Burton is Hamilton Burton's +brother ... he is the one man with whom I can't afford to quarrel."</p> + +<p>"I haven't suggested your quarreling with him."</p> + +<p>"Then please don't drive me to it."</p> + +<p>"Again I say that you are letting your imagination make you the victim +of absurdities. Of just what are you accusing me?"</p> + +<p>He came over and took her hand. "I am not accusing you of anything. I am +willing to let my honor rest in your hands, but I am warning you against +innocent mistakes."</p> + +<p>He sought to put an arm about her, but she slipped from his grasp, and +after a moment he said "Good-night" with a sort of sullen resignation, +and went out, closing the door noiselessly after him.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes had tramped far. When Mary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> Burton had gone to her +own room, he had plunged into the thicketed slopes of the hills and +walked for hours. Since his long exile in the White Mountains he had +always held to the idea that a man can think more clearly close to the +rocks and under open skies. Just now he wanted an untinged clarity to +attend his thoughts.</p> + +<p>Although the occurrences of the evening had possessed an Arabian Night's +quality of unreality, he felt no misgivings for the love he had +announced and pledged. It was not as though he looked back on a record +of broken promises. He had no troubling memories to sweep from his +conscience before his heart should be clear for a new entry. He had come +away from the mountains with something hermit-like in his nature and +much of the idealistic. It had been a pleasanter thing to him to keep +unsullied the more important dreams of life than to endanger them with +the transitory pleasures of the philanderer. The Mary Burton he had +known in the dilapidated farm-house had of course been nothing more than +a picturesque little waif of the country-side. Yet she had been a memory +that remained distinct through years in New York and Russia; a memory +which his imagination had quickened into life. Of Hamilton's spectacular +successes his world of banking and finance had given him cognizance, but +only such interest as one accedes to matters of impersonal news.</p> + +<p>So a curiosity had arisen in his mind to see this young woman to whom he +had once played the fairy prince, and since he was a whimsical man, that +curiosity had woven and twisted itself into a dream. A dream long +entertained may become something more than a dream. Perhaps it may be a +menace. About their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>meeting tonight had been so much of the fortuitous +that he might regard the whole affair as one operated from the knees of +the gods—and disclaim responsibility.</p> + +<p>The house windows had darkened one by one by the time his tramp ended +again at Haverly Lodge. The moon was near the western timber fringe of +the mountains, but Mary Burton, still wide-eyed and wakeful, had slipped +out of her room to the balcony by her window.</p> + +<p>The stone coping where she sat was partly black with shadow and partly +platinum gray with the last of the moonlight. Her hair, falling in two +heavy braids, caught the glistening light and her lips were parted in a +smile. "It is strange," she told herself, "that once before he came +along—and waked me into a new self. His second coming is stranger +still. It would almost seem that there is no chance about it. It would +almost seem that it has been definitely planned." Then she laughed low +to herself. "And if that's true I have no responsibility in the matter +at all. Nothing I do about it is my fault—and I needn't be very angry +about his kissing me before he was introduced to me."</p> + +<p>Then she saw a figure leave the shadow of the hedges and cross the +moonlit lawn with a confident stride. Mary Burton leaned a little +forward, resting on her hands, and her lips remained parted.</p> + +<p>"He seems just about as shameless about the whole affair as I am," she +reflected, and when he was directly below she accosted him in a careful +voice: "Halt, Restless Stranger. Does a disturbed conscience send you +out to wander in the night mists?"</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes obeyed the command and raised his eyes to the +commanding voice. "Perhaps," he announced in a guarded tone, "it is, in +a fashion, dread <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>of the wrath to come—though my conscience is clear. +But you"—in his half-whisper she caught an eager note of hope—"why +aren't you asleep?" She shook her head and in the moon-bath her face +flashed into a luminous smile. "I am working up that wrath," she assured +him. "I am preparing to be terribly angry with you tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"And until tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>"Until tomorrow I am very happy. Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow is always—tomorrow, dearest—" he said, "Good-night."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A many-sided man was J. J. Malone, with a nature as brilliant and as +capable of flashing varying lights from its facets as a diamond—and +when need be as hard as a diamond. Had he lived in feudal times other +barons would have said, "Where Malone sits there is the head of the +table," and the monarch himself would have taken thought before +provoking his wrath. In these days of alleged intolerance for tyrants he +dispensed with the fanfare of trumpets and the tossing of flambeaux. The +door of his office in a gray shaft-like building down-town bore the +simple inscription, "American Transportation Co., President's Office."</p> + +<p>Many men to whom the mighty money leverage of "Consolidated" was a +familiar story had heard of J. J. Malone only in the casual sense. Yet +the oligarchy had been built and rendered, supposedly, impregnable from +the conceptions of his constructive brain. Concentration of power into +one vast unit had been "Consolidated's" triumph—and his realized dream. +Always the master tactician had been he who unobtrusively wore the title +of president of "American Transportation." To others he had relinquished +title rôles, but, unseen, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>he had set and managed the stage. Hamilton +Burton had been taught at Malone's knee, but Hamilton Burton was young +and hot with vitality, aflame with ambition. From Malone himself he had +absorbed the principle, "Never forget that today's ally may be +tomorrow's enemy. Be prepared to use him—or crush him." In secret +Burton had been building to that end, and only he himself knew the full +reserve force of his resources.</p> + +<p>"You are about the only man in the Street, sir," declared young Bristoll +one morning, in a burst of admiration, as he and his chief sat together +over their coffee, "to whom J. J. Malone seems willing to grant an +equality of status."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton smiled.</p> + +<p>"That is true just now, Carl," he replied. "It can not always remain +true."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Our young Minister of Finance sees the present in just proportions," +laughed Burton. "But his vision has not yet mastered the horizons of the +future."</p> + +<p>Carl flushed. He knew that for all the flattering confidence to which he +was admitted, many broadly conceived pictures moved across the screen of +his employer's mind of which he was vouchsafed no intimation.</p> + +<p>"I'll elucidate, Carl, though it's scarcely a matter for advertisement," +went on the other. "Hasn't it occurred to you that Malone and I started +life in very similar fashion? Each of us came raw and uninitiated from +the country. Each of us brought rugged physiques and fairly alert minds +to our tasks. Each of us has, I think, been fairly successful." Hamilton +Burton paused to laugh frankly at his own modesty of expression.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>"Each of us has been a little swifter than the generality in reading +signs; a little bolder in conception and execution. If you read the +papers you will gather that each of us is, in private life, impeccable, +and each of us is, in business, as merciless as an epidemic."</p> + +<p>"That is the voice of envy," protested the younger man with heat.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I am grateful for the acquittal. There is room for only one +absolute master. Only one side of a coin can lie face up at the same +time. Heads or tails must be turned down."</p> + +<p>To the front of Malone's mind a train of dispassionate logic had forced +a similar conviction. As between himself and this rising sun of finance +it was a matter of heads or tails. In consequence, on a certain June +afternoon his yacht, <i>Albatross</i>, cleared from its slip in the Hudson +and stood out toward midstream with her prow pointed toward the bay and +the narrows.</p> + +<p>It was a sparkling day, warm enough to make the breeze agreeable as it +fanned the faces of the loungers on the white deck. J. J. Malone himself +was seemingly nothing more formidable than the unexcelled host. As he +leaned, bareheaded, on the rail of the forward deck the river breath +stirred his iron-gray hair and his changeful eyes were kindly and +atwinkle. Yet the party had not been wholly devised for purposes of +pleasuring. There were no ladies on board and only four men exclusive of +the crew. These four could swing directorates controlling the major +interests of Consolidated. For this twenty-four hours of cruising, one +had come down from Newport, one had delayed his sailing date to Europe +and the third, H. A. Harrison, had left the entertainment of his guests +at Haverly Lodge in the hands of others.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>Dinner passed with no reference to business. Anecdote and repartee held +the right of way, but later when the myriad lights of lower Manhattan +glowed out like the fire-spray of a thousand arrested rockets, cigars +were lighted and the flanneled quartette settled back into their four +deck-chairs. Then it was that Harrison gave the cue with a terse +question: "Well, why are we here?" Instantly Malone's face altered.</p> + +<p>"To consider a method for clipping Burton's claws," he announced with +decisive brevity.</p> + +<p>"Why not let sleeping dogs lie?" The inquiry came thoughtfully from +Meegan of the Cosmopolitan Bank.</p> + +<p>Malone's voice rang like steel on flint. "Gentlemen, this man is a +charlatan. As his power grows his menace increases. Consolidated has +never brooked disobedience nor insolence. It has been our policy to +reward the faithful servant and punish the unfaithful." He glanced +around the group, then continued in the manner of one issuing an edict. +"Heretofore we have not waited until the refractory child grew too big +to punish. We should not do so now."</p> + +<p>"For my part," suggested Harrison with a quiet twinkle in his eyes, "I'm +just as willing to let someone else take this child out to the woodshed +now."</p> + +<p>"Hamilton Burton is outgrowing restraint." Malone was snapping out his +words with categorical crispness. "Do you realize the perilous scope of +his dream? His overvaulting ambition looks to a one-man power of +finance; a power vested solely in himself. We are rearing a +Frankenstein, gentlemen. To overlook it means our ultimate ruin—and, +what is more, a national cataclysm."</p> + +<p>"And yet," interposed Harrison quietly, "his power is largely of our +making. We took him to our hearts."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>J. J. Malone admitted the statement with a grave nod.</p> + +<p>"Up to the point where arrogance became a mania, he was a most valuable +lieutenant. I select men for efficiency. When they seek to become +usurpers, I endeavor to halt them."</p> + +<p>The Honorable S. T. Browne, as general counsel for many Consolidated +interests, had evolved the theorem that from every statute there is an +escape. Now he inquired, "How did he gain his seat in the saddle? +Sudden, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"He came into my office one day only a few years ago," answered the +chief baron. "Twice I refused to see him, but he meant to see me—and he +did. More than that, he fascinated me. I knew that I was talking with a +genius and a man of dauntless mind. Such minds I can use. I used his."</p> + +<p>Meegan knocked the ash from his cigar and laughed. "Burton has a certain +hypnotic quality of address," he conceded.</p> + +<p>"It is not address—it is genius. This man held me with his eye and +forced me to listen. He came with no apology and no misgiving. He knew +himself for a child of Destiny, and within ten minutes I knew it, too. +What is the biggest accomplishment, gentlemen, that stands to the credit +of Consolidated in the past ten years?"</p> + +<p>"The merging of Inter-ocean Coal and Ore." Meegan gave the response +without hesitation, and no one contradicted him.</p> + +<p>"That," asserted Malone, "was the wild scheme which Hamilton Burton +brought to me as his letter of introduction. I found no flaw in his +plan—aside from its stupendous audacity. You ask me why I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>put him in a +position of power. He rode in on his own usefulness—led by his +intrinsic self-faith."</p> + +<p>"So far as you have gone," suggested Harrison drily, "you have +summarized several fairly solid reasons for keeping him with us."</p> + +<p>"Quite true. I concede him a Napoleonic caliber and I recognize his +Napoleonic effrontery. His conscienceless lust for power has unbalanced +him. He seeks to sack the world. He must be stopped."</p> + +<p>"So you suggest—?" Browne left his question unfinished save for the +interrogation of his lifted brows.</p> + +<p>"He sits in seven of our directorates. You know how Consolidated has +sought to avoid the appearance of too narrow a domination. You know, +too, that we have avoided directors who were obviously pure dummies. For +several weeks I have been tracing out the holdings in Coal and Ore +stock. Hamilton Burton with his following looms too large. Left to his +own devices, he may outgrow control."</p> + +<p>Meegan studied his cigar with attentively knit brows before he inquired: +"Does Burton assume such proportions in Coal and Ore as to suggest +turning the balance of control? Is that what you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet." Malone drew from his pocket a small note-book and consulted +its pages. "We hold a safe balance in our own hands, barring treachery, +but we have let him gain a stronger nucleus than now seems advisable. +You gentlemen know that we have always held out the impression that only +a small amount of Consolidated stock is offered the general public."</p> + +<p>"As we also know," amended Harrison bluntly, "that in fact a large +proportion of it is in the hands of the casual investor. Still another +fact is sure. Burton's sobriquet of the Great Bear was not gratuitously +be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>stowed. If we read him out of meeting he will bring a panic about our +cars."</p> + +<p>Malone puffed for a space at his cigar in silence. The quiet drone of +the engines came up from below, and the moonlight fell in a broad band +of radiance on the foaming ribbon of the wake.</p> + +<p>"I have also considered that point," he said at last. "Burton has two +cardinal maxims of finance. One is that Securities are usually sold +above their intrinsic worth. The other is that Cash alone is an +absolutely stable form of property. Acting on these two principles, he +is doubtless building to the logical end. Some day he will make another +raid—and, if he is allowed to select the day and the conditions, it +will be a panic-making raid. If an enemy's attack is inevitable the best +defense is offense. There is no wisdom in giving him time to prepare. +Every day we stand idle his power grows. We must show enough strength at +the next meeting of our stock-holders to reorganize the Coal and Ore +directorate."</p> + +<p>Harrison rose and walked to the rail. He stood for a moment looking out, +then came back and spoke quickly.</p> + +<p>"If this is to be done we should let no more time slip by. It's a safe +bet that he isn't wasting days."</p> + +<p>Malone's fist crashed down on the arm of his chair. He rose, too, and +paced backward and forward, talking as he walked.</p> + +<p>"Waste time! By heaven, we must waste no minute. We must go after him +and bring in his pelt. We must treat him like a wolf prowling around our +sheep-folds. There can be no peace for any of us until he is destroyed +... and, damn him, I mean to see that it's done!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>The others watched the broad shoulders of the head baron and the +resolute carriage of the head, thrown back as if in challenge. He paused +once to relight the cigar which in his vehemence he had let die, and as +the match flared they saw that his eyes blazed and his features were set +in that wrath which the Street feared.</p> + +<p>"By heaven," exclaimed Malone fiercely, "we've got to smash him—damn +him!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">M</span><span class="heavy">ARY</span> Burton was discovering some things about June. She had often +watched lovers leaning silently on a deck-rail, with eyes fixed on a +moonlit wake and hands that crept surreptitiously together. She had +envied the credulity of these people and turned away with an ache and +emptiness in her own heart.</p> + +<p>Now at twenty-five she awoke each morning with a smile for the sunlight +and a proprietary joy in the blue of the skies and a delight for the +roses whose hearts were no younger than her own had become. +Bridge-tables and tennis courts saw little of her, because the woods +were waiting and Jefferson Edwardes was there to tramp and ride and fish +and be companion and guide.</p> + +<p>It was most beautiful far back from the oiled roads and trimmed hedges, +for here were only woodland voices and languorous forest fragrances. +Here, too, hid all those wild flowers that in childhood she had known +and fancifully christened—and since forgotten, and here two people with +the lilt of this abundant June song in their hearts could leave a few of +their years by the roadside and forget them. To Mary Burton it was all a +rediscovery and a miracle. He had promised to give her back the message +of her hills. He was giving her back the joy of life.</p> + +<p>One afternoon she and Jefferson Edwardes were tramping toward a brook +where the trout would be flashing like phantom darts, and as he led the +way <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>along a narrow trail she followed him with a smile on her lips.</p> + +<p>At a sheer twist around the hill's shoulder he stopped and pointed his +hand. The view from there was almost county-wide, billowing away across +heights and depths to a blue merging of hill and sky.</p> + +<p>As she stood by his side her eyes and parted lips spoke her unworded +appreciation and the man's gaze came back from the broad picture and +dwelt upon her.</p> + +<p>"It's strange," she said finally with a vaguely puzzled expression, +"that I who was born in just such hills as these should now be realizing +their wonder for the first time."</p> + +<p>But her companion laughed at her seriousness. "When you knew them +first," he reminded her, "you had nothing else with which to compare +them. It is one who comes from the north who finds a marvel in the +bigness and softness of southern stars. Now you have been away—and have +come home, dearest."</p> + +<p>She was standing very lancelike and straight by the slender bole of a +silver birch. A golden sun flooded richly through the greenery. Overhead +was a tunefully unflecked sky and into the shadows crept a richness of +furtively underlying color and echoes of color. It was all vivid and +beautiful and the girl standing there seemed to dominate its vividness +and its beauty. But her eyes were grave, even when a shaft of the +radiance struck her delicately blossoming cheeks and played upon the +escaping locks with which the breeze played, too.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I suppose in a way I ought to hate you?" she told the man, +and he swiftly demanded:</p> + +<p>"Hate me? In heaven's name, why?"</p> + +<p>"When a woman has been deluded into believing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>herself a bird of +paradise ... and has been content with her feathers, it doesn't +precisely help to discover that—" her voice grew +self-contemptuous—"that after all she has only lived the life of a +Strassburg goose and has been fed to death until she is no earthly good +for anything except to be some glutton's delicacy—"</p> + +<p>"Strassburg geese don't search their consciences," he smiled. "They are +too busy being fed to death. If you had lost your soul I should help you +find it—thank God, you don't need my guidance."</p> + +<p>"Yet your coming crystallized all the self-accusations that had begun to +stir in me. It made me feel my utter emptiness."</p> + +<p>"Which only means realizing—that you might have become empty and have +not." He came close and bent upon her the eyes whose honesty was so +convincing and whose fealty was so clearly writ. In a voice that lost a +little of its steadiness he demanded tensely, "Do you hate me?"</p> + +<p>Mary Burton stood motionless, almost rigid, but some heart-wave welled +up until she felt physically weak yet spiritually stronger than she had +ever felt. Her two hands clutched tautly at his shoulders and her eyes +gazed into his. Slowly they widened until they had unmasked all their +depths and shown what was in her heart. Then as the man's pulses leaped +to the elation of what he read there, he heard her shaken whisper +inviting him very softly, "Look at me—and answer for yourself. Do I +hate you?"</p> + +<p>With sudden self-recovery, as he sought to take her in his arms, she +slipped aside and after a short space the same voice that had just now +been tense rippled into whimsical laughter. "No," she commanded. "It +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>mustn't become a habit." The laugh died and her words and pupils were +grave once more. "Why should I lie to you, dear? It's no use trying. I'm +absurdly mad about you—but I've doubted my power of really loving so +long that we must both be content to put it to the test of time. It's +too new to trust. I can't tell how much of it is my own heart and how +much is your hypnotism."</p> + +<p>"I have come a long way," he said quietly. "I have waited a long while. +I can wait longer, if that's the edict, but not as he waits who fears +the issue. You are going to love me and marry me."</p> + +<p>"I hope so. I pray so." Her answer was vibrantly eager. "I have longed +vainly for a day that should make my heart leap beyond control. You +brought the day—and if, between us, we can keep it—"</p> + +<p>She broke off, and he took both her hands in both of his.</p> + +<p>"You are going to marry me," he repeated. "Don't make me wait too long, +my sweetheart and comrade. Life is all too short to waste when it can be +happy."</p> + +<p>"Are we wasting it?" she demanded; then she smiled at him and added: +"Thank you, for introducing me to the wonderful originality of being +natural. On the whole I don't think I hate you—much."</p> + +<p>All that afternoon her eyes held a starry happiness and sometimes they +twinkled with a mischievous ripple.</p> + +<p>Once she demanded, "Suppose Hamilton were to go broke tomorrow. Stony, +flat, hopelessly broke. Would you still want me?" And before he could +answer she broke into a merry peal of laughter. "Don't trouble to answer +that question," she commanded. "I already know—and I'm fairly +contented."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>The Duke de Metuan had come and gone back—with his answer, and Paul, +too, had left Haverly Lodge. For Paul's return there were two reasons. +The music-room which Hamilton had built as a gift to his brother was +nearing completion, and the finishing touches demanded personal +supervision. As the heart of a high priest turns to his temple, so +turned Paul Burton's heart to this spot at this time. It was a temple, +but decidedly a pagan temple. Porphyry columns went up from a mosaic +floor to a richly encrusted ceiling, and in conception and detail it was +lavishly beautiful and perfect. Hamilton had conceived and planned the +structure with a very ferocity of tense interest: though to Hamilton a +music-room was in itself about as absorbing as a steam laundry.</p> + +<p>In the undertaking he saw a monument to a dream and the fulfilment of a +promise that one ragged boy had made to another ragged boy standing by a +panel of broken fence. Hamilton had never forgotten that moment when +first his pent-up ambitions had broken into fiery utterance while his +little brother listened with eyes wide and wondering—yet full of faith. +Then he had promised Paul an organ in a cathedral of dreams, where the +imaginary self which was his greater self might find expression.</p> + +<p>This was to be the worthy realization of that boast.</p> + +<p>The second reason for the younger Burton's withdrawal from the house +party was the departure of Loraine Haswell.</p> + +<p>Now, finding himself in town, he had accepted one of those invitations +which meant the acknowledgment of his lionizing in Fashion's world of +music. Paul had little in common with those struggling men whose passion +for violin or piano leads them through poverty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>and hunger in pursuit of +their bays. But to face and stir with his art's hypnosis an audience of +the smartest men and women in town, was meat and drink to his soul—was +his soul's vanity. Of all his vanities it was the least weak—because +the most sincere.</p> + +<p>To see faces awaken from ennui and kindle into attentiveness, then +soulfulness as he swayed them with the touch of his fingers on the keys +was no mean triumph. To draw men out of lolling ease into tense and +unconsidered attitudes; to cause women's lips to part and their pupils +to grow misty as he carried them with him,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the land where the dead dreams go"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—these were his delights. There are meaner pleasures.</p> + +<p>But when he had played a little while, the composite pattern of faces +always faded and darkened into a blur and he forgot them: forgot +himself, forgot everything except the instrument that had become the +mouthpiece of his soul. Then he, like his audience, was swept away into +an impalpable world where nothing remained save the marvelous cascading +and crushing tides which were the tides of golden sound. At such moments +Paul Burton was almost a master.</p> + +<p>This evening it was a benefit recital at the Plaza. He did not recall +precisely to what worthy cause he was dedicating his gifted services, +but that did not matter. He was bowing with a winning and boyish smile +on his cameo features. Such fashionables as lingered in town so late as +June were there to do homage; and other anonymous human units drawn from +the millions followed where the fashionables led.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>As Paul Burton looked out over the seated humanity, secretly searching +for Loraine Haswell, he became conscious of another face near the front. +It was that of a woman, who seemed quite alone and who was simply +dressed. Paul wondered why the features held his interest. It was not +precisely a beautiful face, but in its gray-green eyes dwelt a +distinctive quality and as some thought parted the lips in a smile there +came a sudden flooding of light which was better than ordinary beauty. +This girl was frankly looking forward to the evening, for her expression +mirrored that rapt anticipation which comes only to the eyes of the true +music-lover. The small head under its brown hair was modeled as though a +sculptor had spent loving care upon it, and Paul Burton thought that she +was inwardly purring with the expectation of pleasure. A responsive glow +at once awakened in him. He was subtly flattered because he recognized +in that attitude of mind a tribute to his art for its own sake.</p> + +<p>Then he began, and as the tide of his emotion swelled and lifted him out +of himself, individual countenances grew misty—yet, for some reason +this face stood out clear and single for a moment or two after the rest +had faded.</p> + +<p>Afterward he was told that even he had not played so well before.</p> + +<p>As he turned from a congratulatory group when the recital was ended, one +of the women whom he knew only by reason of her activity in arranging +the entertainment, stopped him. "Mr. Burton," she said, "I want you to +meet Miss Terroll." It was a general form of introduction and the man +turned to bow—and recognized the face that had been the last to fade. +The girl gave him a small and well-gloved hand. She <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>smiled, but said +nothing, and her sponsor talked on rapidly.</p> + +<p>"I was in the midst of a heated suffrage discussion when you began," she +declared. "But of course it was forgotten—at once."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," laughed Paul Burton, "if I broke up a good argument."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she assured him with a prepared quotation, "'I can always leave +off talking, when I hear a master play.'"</p> + +<p>When Paul Burton reached the street most of the private motors had been +summoned and dispatched by the starter. He stood for a little while +looking up at the stars and breathing deeply the grateful night air. The +moon-mist made a shadowy lacework of the trees in the park, and the dark +contours of the avenue's mansions were silhouetted beyond the lights of +the Savoy and Netherland. The expenditure of so much of his emotional +self always left him strangely restless, and made him crave a brief +aftermath of solitude. So he sent his car away and turned down the +avenue.</p> + +<p>But at Fifty-eighth street, under one of the light-clusters, he +encountered a slender and solitary figure, and as he approached, he +recognized the girl to whom he had so recently been introduced. The +pianist had just been thinking of her, pondering why her face had stood +out in the mist, when other faces had been swallowed, and why, although +her eyes had confessed the delight of anticipation, she had later +vouchsafed no word of commendation. Surely he had not played badly +tonight and he was accustomed to ready praise. When the older woman who +had presented him had spoken of him as a master he had laughed +deprecatingly, but his eyes had gone half-questioningly to the girl, as +if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>seeking corroboration there, and the girl had met them with only an +impersonal and non-committal smile.</p> + +<p>Paul had drunk enough of flattery to feel piqued at its withholding. Now +to see the figure of her who had withheld appear there quite +unaccompanied, as though rising in response to his meditations, almost +startled him. She did not see him until he reached her side and lifted +his hat; not even then, for she was looking across the avenue with +something of absorption in her manner, until he spoke her name.</p> + +<p>Even as he murmured, "Miss Terroll," the inflection of surprise remained +in his voice. It was well after ten o'clock and in those circles of +society where he was received the system of chaperonage was rigid enough +to fail of understanding for the women who dared the streets at night +unescorted. He knew ladies who went to their several rostrums to sound +the clarion of sex equality and who went at night, but they did not go +uncavaliered. And under the lights this slim figure, with its easy, +almost boyish independence, seemed very young, almost childish.</p> + +<p>She turned, at his greeting, and her eyes must have read his thoughts, +for once more they smiled and in the smile was an amused twinkle. This +time, though, it was also a smile of the lips, revealing a row of teeth +so small and white that they accentuated her seeming of childishness. +She must be about twenty-two or twenty-three he thought.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Burton," she laughed, "you spoke my name then almost as though I +had astonished or startled you. I was scrutinizing the house across the +way rather intently, but honestly there was no burglary in my thoughts."</p> + +<p>"I'm rather sorry to hear that," he countered with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>a simulation of +disappointment. "I've never burgled—and I had begun to hope you'd +initiate me and let me share the adventure." She said nothing for a +moment, and he bluntly demanded, "I was wondering what was in your +thoughts just then."</p> + +<p>Miss Terroll bent forward to look up the avenue before she answered. The +'buses were not running close together at this hour and the lamps of the +nearest were still two blocks away.</p> + +<p>"If I tell you, will you tell me why you spoke my name so chidingly?"</p> + +<p>"It seems on its face a fair bargain." He spoke with a pretendedly grave +consideration of the subject. Then added, "Yes, I will."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of music."</p> + +<p>"What music?"</p> + +<p>"Just music as music. Music as the one art which needs no background +because every listening human being supplies one. That is where it +succeeds where sculpture, for instance, fails. Music is a sort of +panacea."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" His monosyllable was a trifle disappointed. With such a cue she +might at least have admitted his music into the summary.</p> + +<p>The light from the overhead lamps fell in a circle of comparative +radiance and he had time to note the charming modeling of her throat and +a certain delicate nobility in the curve of her brow, where the soft +hair merged with the dark shadowing of her hat brim.</p> + +<p>"You haven't carried out your part of the contract yet," she reminded +him. "I've told you what, but you haven't told me why."</p> + +<p>"I mean to. Are you waiting for some one?"</p> + +<p>"I am waiting for a 'bus to take me home."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>"Where are you going to let it take you? Where is your home, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"The Square," she answered, "and there is the 'bus coming, to gather me +in, and you still haven't told me why I shocked your voice into that +undernote of astonishment."</p> + +<p>Paul Burton smiled, and did not yet enlighten her. Instead he went on +stubbornly questioning. "The Square does not mean Madison or Union. I +have deductive genius enough to infer that, because they're not places +of homes. Is it Gramercy or Washington?"</p> + +<p>The girl flashed her smile on him again and replied lightly.</p> + +<p>"One enters my square under a marble arch and we who live there always +think of it as the Square."</p> + +<p>"But Washington square is a long way," he remonstrated. "It's a far +journey to take alone."</p> + +<p>The girl had stepped out beyond the curb and signaled, then as the 'bus +drew over and came to a stop, she nodded to the man as she started up +the stair to the roof. "Good-night, Mr. Burton," she called over her +shoulder. "You are a good custodian of secrets."</p> + +<p>But the musician was climbing up after her and when she seated herself +at the front he took his place beside her. "I am going to answer all +questions put to me on the way down to the Square," he announced.</p> + +<p>"But you have just complained that it's a far journey."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon. I said it was a far journey to take alone."</p> + +<p>She turned in her seat and looked at him. The lips and brow were +reserved, even grave, but in the green-gray eyes danced a truant +twinkle. As the heavy vehicle rumbled and lurched along the way where +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>asphalt fell into shadow she became a graceful silhouette of +slenderness, but as they passed through the brighter zones about the +great opals swung from the lamp pillars, the dimpled little chin and +small nose revealed themselves in a sort of baffling warfare of +sauciness and dignity. Paul knew that there were well-held frontiers of +reserve and self-containment in this woman's nature, but that back of it +lay an alluring playground of mischief.</p> + +<p>"And yet we are told," she was saying in a low voice, whose music +suddenly impressed the musician, "that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He travels the fastest, who travels alone.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Just at the moment we are not bound for either of those places," he +assured her. "We are going to the Square."</p> + +<p>"Why was it?" she demanded suddenly. For a few minutes they had been +silent, and Paul had revised his estimate. She could hardly be as old as +twenty two. Perhaps she might be twenty.</p> + +<p>"Really you are exaggerating," he laughed. "I was neither astonished nor +shocked. I was only surprised, and when I tell you why I shall no longer +be a man of mystery, consequently I shall no longer be a man of +interest."</p> + +<p>"But my curiosity will be satisfied. Isn't that quite as important?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. His own curiosity was far from satisfied. He was +still wondering why she had no kind word to say for his music.</p> + +<p>"I was just surprised to find you there—alone," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>Until the 'bus swung into view of the Metropolitan tower neither of +them spoke, and then the man turned to look at his companion and found +her smiling to herself. It struck him that if she would only laugh +aloud, it would be worth hearing. But of that, at that moment, he said +nothing.</p> + +<p>"Won't you share the joke with me?" he smiled, and she said:</p> + +<p>"I was just thinking of your solicitude about my being alone on Fifth +avenue, after all the formidable places where I've been alone—in +one-night stands."</p> + +<p>"One-night stands?" he repeated vaguely after her and she replied only +with a matter-of-fact nod, then, for his further enlightenment:</p> + +<p>"You see I am an actress and most of my work has been on the road."</p> + +<p>Paul Burton's face did not succeed in masking his surprise at the +announcement.</p> + +<p>"Have I shocked you again?" she demurely inquired.</p> + +<p>"Shocked me, no." He disavowed with an almost confused haste. "I suppose +I was surprised because the few actresses I have known have all been so +unlike you."</p> + +<p>"You mean," she amplified, "because I don't make up for the street?"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have said that," he laughed, then added: "Now if you had +told me you were playing truant from a young ladies' seminary, I would +have found it quite natural. I saw you out front just before I began +playing. Somehow the simple directness of your expression—I hoped it +was anticipation—didn't seem to me characteristic of the stage. I +fancied that professional people were usually chary of enthusiasm."</p> + +<p>"There are at least several sorts of stage people, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>they're not all +gutter-children," she answered. "And then I haven't always been an +actress. It was thrust upon me—by necessity."</p> + +<p>"When I play," the man assured her, "the faces out front always grow +vague to me. Tonight I saw yours when the others had gone. Then I lost +yours, too. I hope I didn't disappoint you."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No," she said, but to the simple negative she added +nothing affirmative.</p> + +<p>Paul Burton remained silent, half-piqued, and she, divining his thought, +smiled quietly to herself at his petulance, but finally she spoke slowly +and gravely: "You are an artist and until tonight you didn't know of my +existence. Anything I might say would mean little to you."</p> + +<p>"Even," he impulsively demanded, "if it came from the last face that +faded?"</p> + +<p>"If that is true," she responded, "I don't need to say anything, do I?"</p> + +<p>To Paul's subtly attuned nature many things came in intuitive +impressions. Now he was keenly interested because this woman whom he had +met that night had told him only one thing about herself, that she +belonged to a world of which, in the personal sense, his world touched +only the least creditable segments. He felt that she would not, without +a much riper acquaintanceship, tell him anything more. Yet he felt with +conviction that her refinement was not only innate and true, but that of +an aristocrat; that her mind was not only quick, but cultivated. As +though dropping thoughtlessly into a more musical tongue he spoke next +in French, and she replied in that tongue as unconsciously as though she +had not noticed his change of language. But though he questioned +per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>sistently and skilfully until the 'bus rolled under the arch, he +drew no further information from her as to herself, save that at present +she was unemployed, and that her days were filled with that most +cheerless of tasks, calling on managers.</p> + +<p>He gathered that the distinguishing difference between triumph and +struggle on the stage was that the managers sent for the triumphant and +the struggling called uninvited.</p> + +<p>As Paul helped Miss Terroll out of the 'bus and walked at her side the +short distance between the terminal of its route and the south side of +the Square he said abruptly:</p> + +<p>"Some day I want you to do something for me."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"To laugh aloud. I suppose you sometimes do laugh aloud, don't you?"</p> + +<p>Her response was to break unconsciously into a peal of mirth that held +in it a tinkle of soft music and spontaneity.</p> + +<p>"I can be provoked," she admitted and to that confession she added the +inquiry, "Why do you want to hear me laugh?"</p> + +<p>"I did want to hear you laugh because some instinct told me there would +be music in it," he assured her. "Now I do want to hear you laugh again, +and often, because I know it."</p> + +<p>When he had said good-night at her door and had walked across to the +Brevoort cab-stand at Eighth street, he took a taxi'. During the drive +home he thought only once of Loraine Haswell. "I must see more of Miss +Terroll," he informed himself. "She is decidedly interesting."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>Hamilton Burton shoved back a mass of papers and smiled across his desk +at his secretary.</p> + +<p>"Carl, do you chance to recall what General Forrest of the late +Confederate States of America had to say on the subject of strategy?" +Bristoll stretched his arms above his head and leaned back in his chair, +grateful for a moment of relaxation after two hours of application.</p> + +<p>"I believe he reduced military science to the simple proposition of +'gettin' thar fust with the most men,' didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"That was his correct formula—and finance has its points of +similarity."</p> + +<p>"Is the comment general, or has it a specific bearing?"</p> + +<p>"Quite specific. Do you remember my prophecy a short while back? I +reminded you that the coin of big business bore on one face the image +and superscription of Cæsar Augustus Malone—and on the reverse my own +poor stamp."</p> + +<p>The secretary nodded.</p> + +<p>"The time, dear boy, is at hand when one side or the other must be +turned down."</p> + +<p>"What has happened?" The younger man's voice was tinged with alarm. This +child of Destiny might be immune from fear, but those who stood near his +person could not always accept without question the talisman of his +limitless self-faith. Malone's might was theoretically invincible. +Hamilton recognized the undernote of apprehension with a laugh of frank +amusement; a laugh which brought to his eyes their most winning sparkle.</p> + +<p>"The august over-lord of all the robber barons regards our reign as +tributary to his own. He fancies that our loyal respect is thinly +spread. We make too <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>little obeisance. Too rarely we 'crook the pregnant +hinges of the knee.' Therefore we must be crushed—if possible."</p> + +<p>"You mean—"</p> + +<p>"I mean that it is in the mind of this generalissimo, to call me before +his staff and 'break' me in full view of his halted ranks."</p> + +<p>The cheerful grin on the face of the prospective victim was so +infectious and reassuring that his secretary laughed with revitalized +confidence.</p> + +<p>"But how did you learn of this conspiracy, sir?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"The throne which lacks its <i>cabinet noir</i>, Carl, is a very precarious +one to sit upon." The "Great Bear" spoke casually. "Our secret service +is fairly satisfactory. Also, we have a brain which, at times, +prognosticates."</p> + +<p>"There have been new developments, then?"</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"The stock-holders' meeting of Coal and Ore isn't far distant. After it +comes the annual election of officers. I fancy Malone may know of a man +who might grace the directorate with a more deferential humility than I +show—when he speaks Jove-like from the head of the table."</p> + +<p>"To be ousted from that board would mean to wear the brand of defeat."</p> + +<p>"If Mr. Malone wants to put some one else in my place he can do it—the +chair I occupy faces the window. Sometimes the glare hurts my eyes."</p> + +<p>Carl Bristoll thought he knew his chief. Such docile acceptance of +reduction to the ranks astounded him and his blank amazement stamped +itself on his face. When the elder man had enjoyed it for the space of a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>long silence he rose suddenly and his voice rang out like a command for +a bayonet charge:</p> + +<p>"Yes, Malone can have my chair. I mean to take his—at the head of the +table."</p> + +<p>The secretary started violently. He could never quite accustom himself +to the dauntless fashion with which his chief essayed the +impossible—and accomplished it. Hamilton Burton's fist came down +savagely on the mahogany. The smiling features of a moment ago had +vanished and Bristoll was looking up into eyes that rained immeasurable +wrath.</p> + +<p>"They hate me, because they fear me!" The voice was not loud, but it was +terrific in its intensity of anger. "By the Almighty God in heaven, I +mean to give them cause to hate me. I mean to crush them to a pulp until +nothing remains except the stench of their unmourned memory!" ... Once +more the timbre changed and with startling abruptness became quietly +declarative.</p> + +<p>"This morning, I received a confidential note from Carton."</p> + +<p>"The secretary of Coal and Ore?"</p> + +<p>"The same. I put him where he is—he's a valuable man—and incidentally +a member of my secret service. Malone is calling in all the proxies he +can control; he and his myrmidons. He has not taken me into his +confidence. How would you construe that?"</p> + +<p>"As you do. He means to oust you."</p> + +<p>Burton nodded, then a naïve smile twinkled in his eyes. "What he is now +beginning to do, I went to work on ten minutes after he left my office +last spring. Many transactions, some of them of huge proportions, which +you did not understand, have since been completed in preparation for +this moment. On the floor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>of the Exchange my brokers have been +ostentatiously idle, but others, not known to act for me, have been +buying Coal and Ore. They have pretty well gathered in the floating +supply."</p> + +<p>"Hasn't that been reported to Malone?"</p> + +<p>The financier shook his head. "Trading of that character is difficult to +trace and is usually presumed to be marginal trading. To disarm possible +suspicion my recognized brokers have sold large blocks of Coal and +Ore—to my unrecognized brokers. I seem to have been unloading—while I +was doing the reverse. When the psychological moment comes, there will +be a surprise—and a raid upon the control."</p> + +<p>"Then you are ready for the issue."</p> + +<p>"No, not quite." Burton rose and took a turn or two across the floor. He +stopped before a small painting and spoke irrelevantly. "I always liked +Corot. The man could paint, Carl. He understood values." After this art +criticism he returned to the desk and sat down again. "No, I'm not ready +yet. I've done all that I could do by quiet preparation. The issue now +narrows to the hair balance which makes all fights crucial—and +interesting. There's a member of the state senate who holds a block I +need, and there are two banks in town that hold others. When I have that +stock I shall be master of the situation—and of Consolidated—and +Malone must take his orders from me."</p> + +<p>"And if you fail to get it?"</p> + +<p>"I would still be plowing rocks and milking cows, Carl, if I +acknowledged the possibility of failing in what I resolve on."</p> + +<p>"Yet they may refuse to sell."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton smiled. "That would be regret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>table," he said, and his +voice was full of sympathetic softness. "Because in that event an +elderly and respected member of the senate will have to reside for a +time at Sing Sing and a couple of widely trusted banks will go to the +wall."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">F</span><span class="heavy">ROM</span> the Plaza upward, the blank stare of the avenue was awakening into +renewed signs of habitation. Burglar-proof doors had come down and +boarded windows had yielded to curtained sashes. Already in the park the +trees were turning. Banners of crimson, yellow and burgundy flaunted +where the foliage had been sunburned and heat-corroded. The walks and +Mall had for scorching weeks been a breathing refuge, and the +sheep-pasture a sleeping place, for shirt-sleeved men who panted like +dogs. Haggard women and sunken-cheeked children—all heat-fagged and +exhausted—had held possession; but now the bridle-path echoed to +hoof-beats, and smartly togged equestrians galloped there, while along +the driveways droned a purr of motors.</p> + +<p>The sun, which had assaulted, blighted and killed, now caressed a +revived city, for autumn had come with her clarifying elixirs and her +fever-cooling frosts.</p> + +<p>Shop windows, freshly decked, tempted the passerby with foretastes of +the season's styles in gowns and hats and furs. All was color and +sparkle and activity. Soft tones awoke at sunset on old and seasoned +walls. Gilt street signs blazed and shaft-like buildings stood out in +splintered strips of a dozen hues against skies that were unsullied +turquoise.</p> + +<p>In the veins of Hamilton Burton, as he motored up-town, a heady +exhilaration mounted like wine. As his car bowled up the avenue he +watched the human <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>mosaic, and the drive seemed a progress through +Bagdad. He was finding it all the city of his dreams:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"—a city blazoned like a missal book,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black with oaken gables, carven and enscrolled.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Every street a colored page: every sign a hieroglyph,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dusky with enchantments: a city paved with gold."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then as he entered his own house he remembered. Tonight he must go to +the opera and the prospect bored him. To Paul, of course, it was as wine +to the drunkard, but to Hamilton it meant a tedious evening. It was in a +way a duty and one of his few concessions to Society's requirements. Had +it not been written of another great figure, "the Emperor sat in his box +that night?" He would leave early and later in the evening he could +console himself with a matter of greater importance.</p> + +<p>Yet when he arrived at the Metropolitan he forgot to be bored—until the +overture ended, and Music was enthroned in the place of Fashion.</p> + +<p>Here at the opera each moment, so long as the house-lights blazed, +brought its own tribute of flattery to the Titan of the Street. The men +and women from whom these tributes came were the men and women whom the +world envied, and cursed—and worshiped. Hamilton Burton realized, as he +passed easily from box to box, chatting with this multi-millionaire and +that jewelled lady, that no single figure was more often signaled out by +pointing and envious fingers than his own. When he handed Mary out of +her limousine the street policeman had made the passage clear before +him. Ushers had kowtowed and the heads of fashionable women had nodded +and smiled. His way had been a march of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>triumph. To Hamilton Burton it +was all like the sniffing of frankincense and myrrh. His inner emotions +were those of a great tiger, purring like a house-cat.</p> + +<p>That at his back, when he had passed on, these immaculately clad +gentlemen muttered derogatory oaths only flattered him further; their +hate, too, was a tribute to his power.</p> + +<p>He came into Society's world as a monarch walks among the proletariat, +to receive homage and return to places where a monarch has better things +to do.</p> + +<p>But at last the overture ended and the curtain rose. The opera had +begun.</p> + +<p>For Paul the evening was just beginning, but for Hamilton it was done. +He stifled a yawn and rose from his seat, effecting his escape +unobserved from the box. From that point on his mind shook off the +lethargy of the incensed atmosphere and became dynamic. He looked at his +watch and found that his next appointment gave him an hour's leisure.</p> + +<p>To his chauffeur he said, "Drive me to my mother's house."</p> + +<p>Hannah Burton would be the only member of the household at home and with +her nephew would spend this leisure hour. He knew she would be there +because she was rarely elsewhere. The man who flashed the searchlight of +his thought into so many places at such broad angles smiled as he +thought of his Aunt Hannah, but it was a tender smile. He had +transplanted and remodeled his family—but Aunt Hannah he had been +powerless to alter.</p> + +<p>The room where she received him was an anomalous hermitage, for in spite +of the generous comfort it reflected, there broke out here and there +jarring notes from many survivals of the old order; things from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>which +she refused to be parted. Upon a mantel over which hung a Gobelin +tapestry stood a tin alarm clock. It was an old companion which had once +shrilly announced that it was time to drag her rheumatic bones from bed +and take up her daily round of dusting and sweeping. Among carefully +chosen paintings a screaming chromo issued by the Middle Fork general +store proclaimed the superior quality of its staple and fancy groceries, +hardware, queensware and feed.</p> + +<p>The old lady herself, though silk-gowned, wore her white hair drawn +severely back over parchment temples, as though repudiating the pomps +and vanities of this wicked world.</p> + +<p>It was Ham's time-honored custom to tease his aunt, and while she +snorted and sniffed, she enjoyed it, for whatever she thought of a +Babylonian life, she secretly worshiped this brilliant young nephew who +so well fitted its stress and turmoil.</p> + +<p>"Were you down-stairs at dinner tonight, flirting with the grand dukes +and big-wigs?" he demanded as he kissed her pale cheek.</p> + +<p>"As if you didn't know," she austerely rebuked, "that, when company +comes, I always have supper right here in my own room."</p> + +<p>It would have been a surrender of principle for Hannah Burton to call +"company" guests, or the evening meal "dinner."</p> + +<p>"There were some very smart people down-stairs, I'm told," the man +heckled with twinkling eyes. "Divorcées in numbers and affinities +galore."</p> + +<p>The old lady shuddered.</p> + +<p>"Ham, I wish you wouldn't run on in that ungodly fashion. I'm sure it's +no laughing matter. I pray for you day and night, but when a body's +blinded by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>wealth and imagining vain things they're in mortal danger."</p> + +<p>Her nephew's face softened. "As long as you're praying for me, Aunt +Hannah," he assured her, "I still have a fighting chance."</p> + +<p>"Ham," she said suddenly with a shadow of deep anxiety in her eyes, +"ain't your father playing cards more than's good for him? I've worried +considerable about that here of late. He used to read his Scriptures +regular. Now he don't do it. Instead he gambles."</p> + +<p>"Father only plays in amiable little games, for the sake of charity, +Aunt Hannah." Hamilton smiled indulgently as he enlightened her. "You +could hardly call it gambling. In gambling there is an element of +chance. Father merely contributes."</p> + +<p>The old lady shook her head. "This town ain't much different from Tyre +and Sidon and Babylon, so far as I can see," she mournfully asserted.</p> + +<p>"They were said to be live towns in their day," he admitted.</p> + +<p>Then for the rest of his spare hour he chatted with her and teased her +solemnity into laughter, and before he left, because she asked it and +complained that her eyes were poor, he read to her a chapter from the +New Testament and kissed her good-night. Ten minutes later he was in his +own library and was directing that two gentlemen, whom he was expecting, +be ushered there to talk business.</p> + +<p>The two were alike only in that each had a versatile and executive +brain. One was elderly and stout, and, though two decades of established +success had polished his original crudity into a certain dignity, there +survived in his eyes the darting shiftiness of glance that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>had settled +there in days when his one asset was an almost diabolical cleverness as +a criminal lawyer.</p> + +<p>An old trick of badgering witnesses with a brow-beating stare from +half-closed lids clung unpleasantly to him, discounting his acquired +distinction of bearing. This was Isaac Ruferton, of the firm of Ruferton +and Willow. From criminal lawyer to corporation-scourge and from +corporation-scourge to corporation counsel are logical stages of +development. From clients who need, and can pay for, a mind of unusual +resource, as formerly from vagabond's in police-court cages, he earned +what he was paid.</p> + +<p>The second visitor was younger. Mr. Tarring was also a specialist in +ideas and from his confidence of bearing one seemed to derive a snap of +electric energy. In many ways Hamilton Burton found him serviceable and +on the smaller scale of his delegated functions he operated as Hamilton +himself did along the broader front; with dash, determination and the +belief that nothing is impossible.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," began Burton crisply, when the three were seated, "I sent +for you this evening to outline a simple matter—but one calling for a +nicety of execution. It can neither afford delay nor premature +undertaking. It must be done at its own instant. When the stock-holders' +meeting of Coal and Ore is called to order I must be in a position to +assume control."</p> + +<p>Tarring leaned forward in his chair and fixed his gaze on a bronze +statuette. This casual announcement meant nothing less than a making +over of a map: the map of High Finance. Ruferton was never surprised. He +twirled his shell-rimmed glasses at the end of their broad tape and +nodded. "And you find <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>yourself at this juncture short of just the +requisite balance—though you know where it is held?" Mr. Ruferton +always made a point of anticipating his client's next statement—if +possible. It was a small thing, but at times valuable. It indicated that +he was keeping not only abreast, but a step ahead of what was being told +him. Hamilton smiled.</p> + +<p>"I still need a block held by Henry of the Deposit Savings and a block +held by Fairley of the Metallic National. These gentlemen think they +won't turn loose. To see that they do so is Tarring's work. It must be +accomplished by tomorrow evening."</p> + +<p>Tarring said nothing. Under his imperturbable guise he found himself +stunned.</p> + +<p>Burton turned to the attorney. "You know G. K. Hendricks?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Ruferton's answer followed the question with no margin of a pause. +"State senator for three terms. At present candidate for the appellate +bench; Tammany's choice. Was very valuable when the charter of Coal and +Ore was before the assembly. Has increased his stock-holdings since he +acquired his first block as—er—the reward of merit."</p> + +<p>For an instant Hamilton Burton eyed the lawyer keenly.</p> + +<p>"I must also have his proxy by tomorrow evening. That, Ruferton, is your +work."</p> + +<p>"Then you didn't know that Hendricks is up-state? He's out at his farm +on a narrow-gage branch that runs a train a day from Barry Spa. You are +cutting it fine, Mr. Burton. Too fine, perhaps."</p> + +<p>The announcement brought to the eyes of the planning strategist a +nonplused shadow, but it lingered briefly.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>"I have already told you that the moment had to be precisely timed. +Hendricks might run to Malone if given a margin of leisure. You can go +home and change your evening-clothes. Meantime I shall arrange for a +special train. Your instructions are to get that stock or the proxy. If +you can't handle him bring him to me; have him in this room at this hour +tomorrow evening."</p> + +<p>Mr. Isaac Ruferton rose from his chair, and stood looking into the face +of his employer as though searching for some indication of incipient +lunacy. What he read was inflexible command.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Burton," he said slowly, "I'm where I am in life because I have +been willing to undertake various things at various times. Other men +would have shied at some of them, and even I have my limits. Will you +suggest to me how I am, within twenty-four hours, to travel twenty hours +by rail, and compel an unwilling man to deliver, merely because you +order it, stock which he has no wish to sell?"</p> + +<p>Burton's answer rose to anger as he spoke. "If you can't trade with +him—and I have given you <i>carte blanche</i>—I have already told you to +bring him here. I'll do the rest."</p> + +<p>"In God's name, how? Can I drag him out of his own house and load him +like a trussed pig in a railway car?"</p> + +<p>"The details are up to you. You are supposed to be a clever lawyer. The +man is in a political campaign and you know enough of his record to give +weight to your suggestions. You say he doesn't want to sell—make him +want to! My plans are rather too large to admit of 'buts' and 'ifs.' +Presumably I employ men who can override them."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>Ruferton continued to stare blankly. "But—surely—"</p> + +<p>Hamilton had already turned to Tarring and he wheeled with a snap in his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Ruferton," he exclaimed, "in a moment more you will irritate me. I said +get his Coal and Ore, or get him. I don't give a damn how you do it. +Tell him, if you like that all Tammany can't boost him on to the +appellate bench if I go after him. If you prefer, gag him and drag him +here. Do what you like—except waste time by gaping at me. Succeed and +name your reward. Fail and—" Hamilton Burton shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>Slowly a light crept into the resourceful eyes of Mr. Ruferton, driving +out the vacancy. The matter by its very desperateness began to appeal to +him, and already a formula of campaign was shaping itself in his +constructive mind. This extraordinary man's hypnotic dominance of +personality had carried other audacious days and now it swept the lawyer +with its tide of confidence. Mr. Ruferton became at once the man who +recognizes the value of seconds and minutes. "I will be here tomorrow +evening at this hour," he categorically announced. "And I shall bring +with me a proxy or a senator—or his remains. Kindly arrange for my +train. I go direct to the Grand Central."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton smiled at the door through which his emissary had +departed.</p> + +<p>"He made as much furore about it as though I had required him to do +something really difficult," he commented to the lieutenant who still +awaited his orders. "Now for your part.... The Metallic National and the +Deposit Savings." Between sentences he picked up the desk-telephone and +called a private number.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>"I want to talk to Mr. Carter.... Not at home! Where is he?... Doesn't +want to be disturbed—he's got to be.... Yes, this is Hamilton +Burton.... At the opera, you say? Thank you."</p> + +<p>The snap of the receiver under his finger was abrupt and decisive as he +again called central, and while he waited he talked to Tarring.</p> + +<p>"What funds have we in those banks?... Hello! I want Bryant 1146, yes, +the Metropolitan Opera.... Hello! Please have Mr. Carter brought from +his box to the 'phone. This is Hamilton Burton, talking ... a matter +that can't wait.... Tarring, I must have the stock those banks hold. You +must have them here tomorrow night.... Hello, is that you Carter? I need +a special train for Barry Spa in thirty minutes, and another to meet it +there for Lake Mosoc."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence, then Burton's voice came with violent +explosiveness.</p> + +<p>"Impossible? It seems to me that every man I talk to prates vacantly +about impossibilities. Damn it, when I need a train I need a train.... +You understand me, don't you, Carter?"</p> + +<p>Again there was the interruption of the voice at the further end. As +Burton listened his eyes kindled afresh under blackly drawn brows, but +when he spoke it was in a clear and cold voice, more unpleasant to hear +than a tirade of passion.</p> + +<p>"To hell with explanations, Carter! I want action. Do I get my train? +You are burning time.... Kindly listen because I mean this to the last +syllable.... Unless you can achieve this highly impossible matter of +accommodation—" suddenly the voice leaped to a higher scale and shot +out its ultimatum like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>canister—"I will throw you out of the +presidency and the damned road-bed into the river and the shops into the +junk heap.... All right, please hurry." He clapped down the receiver, +then resumed his second thread of thought as though there had been no +interruption.</p> + +<p>"I want those bankers here. That is your job, Tarring. They need know +only that it is of vital importance and that our meeting must be +attended with the strictest confidence. Intimate that my object is the +averting of ruinous runs which must follow unless we stop them—and +worse disasters."</p> + +<p>Tarring rose. His task, as compared with the other he had seen assigned, +appeared easy. "Shall I come with them?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>Burton nodded. "You are a notary. It may be necessary for you to take +acknowledgments."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">W</span><span class="heavy">HEN</span> the two emissaries had left the library Hamilton Burton sat before +his hearth and shook loose the reins of imagination. He burned driftwood +in this room and as his eyes dwelt on the shooting tongues of blue flame +that licked around the logs his dreams absorbed him. Yamuro, his +Japanese valet, slipped in to see if his master required him—but his +footfall was noiseless, and when he had tiptoed close enough to study +the face, he departed without speaking. The lips in the yellow face +parted in a grin that bared a spread of strong, white teeth. The eyes +between high cheekbones glistened in dark slits and in his throat, too +low to be heard, a little grunt voiced Yamuro's fanatical admiration. +Had Hamilton Burton been an emperor in the field Yamuro would have asked +no greater privilege than to interpose his body between his idolized +master and all danger. Such was the power of this wholly selfish but +dominant personality. Outside the Oriental chuckled to himself, "No +worry.... Him got great thoughts."</p> + +<p>Yet Hamilton was after all only planning an entertainment. When he had +captured the control of Coal and Ore he would stand within grasping +distance of his ideal of one-man power. He would have rocked the temple +of money and snatched out of Malone's teeth Consolidated's marrow bone. +That would be a time for celebration. It would be vastly amusing to +shake the hands of the vanquished and see them bite <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>back the curses +that were welling up from their hearts. While seeming only the host he +would in reality be the victor—exacting tribute.</p> + +<p>That his victory depended on undertakings yet to be accomplished and +beset with gigantic hazards did not disquiet him. Over him shone his +Star!</p> + +<p>His revery snapped like a punctured balloon at the sound of the +door-bell and when Harrow ushered in his father, Hamilton rose with a +smile of welcome on his lips.</p> + +<p>The elder Burton entered with a heightened flush on his full cheeks and +the son for just an instant studied him with a shrewd appraisement. A +man who has, by the custom of decades, spent each day from sunrise to +sunset at hard labor cannot find himself idle without seeking an outlet +of some description.</p> + +<p>If Tom Burton were to decay here in inactivity, he might as well decay +genially, taking his pleasure by the way. He was doing it. Like a +gentleman and an officer he tippled the evenings out. Rarely was he +drunk beyond a genteel limitation—and after an advanced hour he was +rarely less so. In slow and mellow fashion he was ripening into slothful +and comfortable atrophy. His well-shaven face was beginning to reveal +those small discolored spots that are the subtle brands of Bacchus. +Under the eyes that had once been like the eyes of a hawk, small and +puffy sacks were discernible.</p> + +<p>"Well, damn it," Hamilton exculpated to himself, "it was a long time +before he had any fun." Then aloud he inquired, "Whose coffers did you +fill this evening?"</p> + +<p>Tom Burton straightened up a shade pompously.</p> + +<p>"I think my game is—er—on a par with that of others—but luck can +hardly be controlled."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>"The question is," suggested the son, "whether you enjoyed yourself."</p> + +<p>"Reasonably well, thank you." The elder man looked about the room and +spoke complainingly. "I don't see any whiskey and soda about. Will you +please ring for some, Hamilton? I'm thirsty."</p> + +<p>"It's there on the side-table." Hamilton followed the other with his +eyes and noted the greedy unsteadiness of the fingers that grasped the +decanter.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you need that drink, father?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>The elder man glanced up while the liquor spilled out of the poised +bottle—and missed the glass. "Why not?" he demanded. "It's about time +for a nightcap. I haven't had anything to speak of this evening."</p> + +<p>Hamilton nodded with a shrug, but his brows drew themselves in a pained +wrinkle. He would not willingly admit doubt of his father's +truthfulness, yet the statement lacked all quality of conviction.</p> + +<p>The son did not reflect that of the dry rot in old Tom's soul this +deception was a typical symptom. He knew that in the old days Tom +Burton's word had been a synonym for inflexible honesty; that it was as +good as collateral at the bank.</p> + +<p>Then, sitting at ease, the well-groomed old gentleman held his glass +before him and gazed at the colors which the firelight wakened in its +amber contents. His face wore the contentment of one whose mood has been +artificially mellowed and whose thoughts are more glowing than reliable. +He cleared his throat and began to speak importantly.</p> + +<p>"My boy, a great idea has come to me—a splendid conception, I may say. +I have for all these years been of very little service to you, but I now +see the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>way to make amends ... to, as I might say, become an asset +rather than a liability—a sharer in your activities."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton was standing by the table, studying the face of his +father, and at the words his eyes darkened. His question was by no means +freighted with pleasure or expectancy as he coolly inquired, "Indeed?"</p> + +<p>Tom Burton nodded with much gravity.</p> + +<p>"Yes. The other day you were relating to me some matters of business +which were quite—er—interesting. I have since given them mature +thought and I find that I have evolved a method by which you may, with +my suggestions, even improve on your original plan of procedure."</p> + +<p>"Stop!" The son wheeled and faced the elder man with a face grown +suddenly wrathful. As Tom Burton looked up in surprise, Hamilton went on +rapidly and dictatorially. "I never quarrel with my family. It is my +pleasure to regard them first in all things, but one thing I will not +permit even from them. It is the first time it has ever become necessary +to say this to you, sir. I hope it will be the last."</p> + +<p>"Why, what's the matter, my son? I was only about to suggest that—"</p> + +<p>"Well, don't do it. The one thing I will not permit is business +interference. I need no collaborator. Once—just once Paul made that +same mistake. He presumed to offer a suggestion, Paul—who couldn't +figure compound interest—offered me, Hamilton Burton, a financial +suggestion! I told him then as I tell you now that any human hand which +sticks itself into my affairs will be promptly broken off at the +wrist—no matter whose hand it is. That is the one possible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>thing that +could drive me to unkindness to any one of my own blood. In that I am +unshakable. I will have no interference. <i>I</i> am the one financier in +this family, and I will submit to no trespassing upon my own field of +empire. Let's have that plainly understood."</p> + +<p>He ended, and Tom Burton gazed dumbfounded at the anger which was slowly +dying out of his son's pupils and which had rung through his son's +words.</p> + +<p>"You astonish me," he said slowly. "I had no idea of trespass—only of +assistance."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I have never yet felt the need of any man's assistance. In +my own jurisdiction, I admit no peers. I am sorry you forced me to speak +so strongly, but candor is best. Until I ask it no human being must +volunteer advice or criticism. Go on and play cards and amuse yourself +and spend what you like in doing it—but don't annoy me by trying to +make money. I won't have it. No—leave that whiskey alone—" He +peremptorily stretched out his hand, as his father reached again for the +decanter. "You've had enough for this evening. In another moment you +will be tendering additional useless information."</p> + +<p>Again the bell rang, and in the library door he saw Mary Burton, radiant +in evening-dress, and the ermine of a long opera-cloak. Her smile was as +luminous as sunshine. Behind her—it suddenly struck Hamilton that the +sight of that particular face across her shoulder was becoming a chronic +accompaniment—stood Jefferson Edwardes.</p> + +<p>Both of them were laughing—with a note of mutual understanding.</p> + +<p>"Mary," announced her brother, "I want to have a dinner and a dance next +week. I want it to be the most memorable affair of the season. Are you +in for it?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>She looked at him with sudden amazement, and then her merriment broke +out in a series of silvery peals. She turned to Edwardes and repeated in +a mockery of awed surprise.</p> + +<p>"He wants to have a dance! Do my ears deceive me? Hamilton whom we can't +drag to a party with a truant officer wants a dance."</p> + +<p>Edwardes smilingly lifted the cloak from her shoulders and held out his +hand. "Good-night. Try to get me an invitation," he begged. "Mr. Burton, +can't I drop you at your house?"</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind." The elderly gentleman rose and made his way toward +the hall, with a step that wavered from the line. When they had gone, +Hamilton accompanied his sister to the stairs, with an arm about her +waist.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he suggested, "a question has just occurred to me. What has +become of your duke?"</p> + +<p>She turned on the landing and laughed.</p> + +<p>"When I came back from abroad, you begged me to rid myself of foreign +affectations," she announced. "He was one of them and I took your +advice."</p> + +<p>"I only begged you to drop your affectations of speech. What I called +your pidgin English," he assured her. "I didn't seek to hamper your +young affections."</p> + +<p>"Then I will reply to your question in very colloquial American," she +retorted. "As to the duke—I tied a can to him." She turned and ran +lightly up the stairs.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Paul had sat through the opera that evening with his customary intensity +of interest—but the chatter in the box had irritated him. He had been, +of late, seeing a great deal of Loraine Haswell, and he thought she at +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>least might have sympathized with his mood and refrained from +disconcerting small talk. Their intimacy had so ripened that she should +have understood how the things he had to say in their tête-à-têtes could +not be uttered in company. So when she invited him to join her +supper-party he declined with a poor grace.</p> + +<p>Paul Burton took the opera seriously, almost religiously, and as he +strolled in the foyer during an entr'acte, his annoyance grew. Was there +no place where one could enjoy the art of fellow-artists without having +one's spirit jarred out of all receptiveness?</p> + +<p>Then he remembered the high perches of the less-fashionable devotees. He +had never been up there, but he had heard that the occupants of these +upper galleries frowned on noise and even refrained from applause, +drinking in the music as though it were too sacred a thing to treat as a +mere evening's entertainment. Following a momentary whim, he went out to +the box-office and bought a fresh ticket. Holding it in his hand, he +mounted above the parterre boxes and the grand-tier boxes, to the +highest and cheapest of the galleries where silence and an almost awed +concentration reigned. And there, when the lights came on again, he saw +a slender figure in a chair near him, leaning forward with her chin +resting on her hand, in an absolute fervor of interest. It was Miss +Terroll and again she was alone. Once more she impressed him as someone +purring with pleasure, and when the performance ended he found himself +on the sidewalk whimsically waiting for her to come down from her dollar +seat, among the gallery gods.</p> + +<p>When he caught sight of her, she was slipping as quietly and +unobtrusively through the crowds of jewelled and fur-wrapped women and +men in evening-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>dress as though she were a mouse vanishing from a hall +of banqueting, to which she had surreptitiously crept for her crumb. She +did not look at the people about her. She did not seem to see them, for +her eyes were still languorous with memories of Tristan and Isolde. As +Paul touched her arm, she started and he hastened to say: "My car is +here. Won't you let me drive you down-town?"</p> + +<p>She let him lead her to his machine and lay back dreamily against the +cushions, as they shot down the avenue between twin threads of electric +opals.</p> + +<p>For a while they talked of the opera, of the music and the voices, and +the musician found himself expanding with a warmth of appreciative +contentment, because he had a companion whose understanding and +enthusiasm kept step with his own, and a step like that of a classic +dance, attuned to harmonies.</p> + +<p>He found himself often coming with a sort of start to the realization of +a discovery under whose influence he tingled. Theoretically he knew that +in this city, in whose varying meeting places of extremes the unexpected +was to be expected, one should never be astonished. He knew there were +artists who shunned Bohemia, and once he had met a barber whose +enthusiasms were all for cuneiform inscriptions. He had heard in a club +of a hobo whose nails were clean, whose address was elegant and who had +confounded surgeons on surgery, artists on art, poets on verse and +theologues on theology. He knew that the circles which had soothed his +artistic snobbery with an admiration as grateful as soft fingers on a +cat's back held no letters patent on charm or cultivation and yet his +own mind had catalogued women of the stage, off-stage, under a general +heading, in some way associated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>with cabaret places and false gaiety. +Here was one who called upon him to discard preconceived ideas and begin +anew. On every topic he broached he encountered intelligent discussion +and untrammeled originality of thought. In the back of his brain lurked +the feeling that when he had broached all the topics upon which he could +talk, he would still have touched on only a part of those at her +command.</p> + +<p>But between these moments of surprise were others of restful delight +when she made him forget everything except that he was talking with a +charming woman who saw in the opera a pleasure equal to his own.</p> + +<p>And though he did not know it, Marcia Terroll, even this soon, saw in +him a nature full of tuneful sweetness, but very weak, and realized that +he was an instrument upon which a strong hand could play to an end of +harmony or discord—an instrument upon which his great brother had +already played, and which his great brother did not in the least +comprehend. Paul's frequent allusions, tinged with hero-worship, had +given her that understanding.</p> + +<p>"I saw you in your box," she told him with a smile.</p> + +<p>"And I saw you in yours," he laughed back at her.</p> + +<p>The girl raised her brows, and he explained. "I ran away from the +chatterboxes and came up to your gallery." They had almost reached the +arch when he earnestly asked: "I wonder if you will go to the opera with +me some evening? It would be wonderful to have someone who really cared +for it."</p> + +<p>Once more she laughed, but this time it was rather seriously. "We +inhabit rather different worlds, you and I."</p> + +<p>"I want you to let me be an explorer into yours—and your guide into +mine," he declared. After a mo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>ment's hesitation she gravely answered: +"It might not hurt you to know something of my world after all. It's +rather humanizing for an artist to free himself from a single +environment. It is possible to suffocate on incense."</p> + +<p>Paul Burton smiled. "But you know," he said, "until I was twelve I never +wore a pair of trousers that hadn't been bequeathed to me by my older +brother—and when they reached me they were always liberally patched."</p> + +<p>She was alighting from his car and her smile flashed on him as she held +out a small, white-gloved hand. "And I," she retorted, "at that age was +being tricked out in Paris finery. Time brings changes, doesn't it?" It +was the first flash of self-revelation she had given him. But after that +Paul Burton saw Marcia Terroll more than occasionally, and admitted to +himself an interest which he did not seek to analyze.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>J. J. Malone returned from the opera that evening for a consultation in +his study with Harrison and Meegan.</p> + +<p>"On the day after tomorrow," he reminded them, "the stock-holders' +meeting of Coal and Ore is held. By use of the cumulative system of +balloting we can concentrate our fire on Burton."</p> + +<p>"Do you gather," questioned Meegan anxiously, "that our fears of a +Burton raid are founded in fact?"</p> + +<p>The elder chief spread before his associates several sheets of closely +written paper.</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I gather that Burton has not selected this time for +his <i>coup</i>. I fancy we have forestalled him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>"Yet," suggested Meegan anxiously, "we want to feel sure."</p> + +<p>Malone nodded. "Unless several men whom we trust prove traitors, we may +feel sure. Gentlemen, I think we have soon enough, but none too soon, +safeguarded ourselves against piracy. I hardly believe that what Gates +did to L. and N. will be done to us by Burton.... I have been very busy +and for some reason I do not feel quite myself. I think I shall now beg +you to excuse me." The man of mighty resource rose smilingly from the +table and then suddenly rested both hands on its polished surface. His +ruddy face became pallid and he lifted one hand with a bewildered +gesture to his brow.</p> + +<p>Harrison and Meegan sprang with a common impulse to his side.</p> + +<p>As they helped him to a chair, his step was unsteady. "It will pass," +Malone assured them. "It is an attack of indigestion." Yet within the +half-hour his powerful frame was being racked by convulsions and two +hours later specialists at St. Luke's were making those preparations +which precede an operation for appendicitis. Tomorrow when the +Stock-Exchange opened the newspapers would spread the news that J. J. +Malone was out of the game and Wall street would once more mirror an +anxiety which any small thing might convert into a parlous situation.</p> + +<p>At the same hour a special train with a guaranteed right of way was +thundering along its road-bed with a wake of red cinders and black smoke +trailing from its stack and a single passenger in its single coach. The +Honorable Mr. Ruferton was going to call on the Honorable Mr. Hendricks.</p> + +<p>In ignorance of what the morrow held, the Honor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>able Mr. Hendricks was +meanwhile sleeping peacefully in the quiet of his country house.</p> + +<p>Shafts of sunlight came pleasantly through the dining-room windows on +the following morning as he breakfasted alone, and still in ignorance. +The forests were decked with the first coloring of an early frost, and +Mr. Hendricks strolled out for a cigar in the crisp air of his woodland. +Physically he was fit and his conscience did not trouble him; since his +conscience was both lenient and practical.</p> + +<p>Then as he took pleasure in his life and his Havana, he saw a +dilapidated buckboard laboring up the rutty trail. It halted at his gate +to let out a man of whom chance had, on more than one occasion, made a +colleague, and occasionally an adversary.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Ruferton," he shouted amiably, "what brings you here?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Ruferton's face wore an expression of deep concern. He consulted his +watch. "I came on a special train, Hendricks," he bluntly declared, "and +it's waiting to take us both back to New York."</p> + +<p>Hendricks laughed. "My dear fellow, I've been speech-making until my +throat is raw. The final days before election mean more hard work. +Meantime I am resting. It's the doctor's stern command."</p> + +<p>Ruferton stood at the gate and faced his host. He spoke impressively. +"An election-eve scandal threatens you which will probably involve a +grand-jury investigation. If that is a matter of indifference, stay +here, by all means, but if your future is in any degree important to +you, pack your bag and pack it quick."</p> + +<p>For an instant the former state senator and present candidate stood +bewildered. What traitor had betrayed a false step? His tracks were all +well covered, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>he thought. At last he found his tongue. "In God's name, +what are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Ruferton held his portfolio tightly grasped in his hand. In it there +were documents to which the other could hardly be indifferent—but +unless all other arguments failed, he preferred reserving them for +future use. He met the stupefied gaze of his protagonist with one of +serious apprehension.</p> + +<p>"I might as well be entirely candid with you, Hendricks. I don't know. I +was sent by Hamilton Burton to bring you back to New York; with specific +orders that you were to be at his house not later than nine-thirty this +evening. There he will tell you what you should learn. I have come in +person because he did not care to trust to such a message as could be +telephoned or telegraphed."</p> + +<p>"Hamilton Burton?" The Honorable Hendricks was more than ever at sea. "I +have had many dealings with Mr. Burton, but wherefore this sudden and +absorbing interest in my welfare?"</p> + +<p>Ruferton smiled. "My dear fellow, perhaps you had better go and ask him. +If Hamilton Burton has turned things topsy-turvy to act as your savior +in an eleventh-hour crisis, common sense compels me to infer that he has +a reason too interesting to ignore."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hendricks paced the path for a few minutes in the disquiet of +intense nervousness, then he spoke with sharp accusation and distrust.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what this matter is! You have come here by special train +to warn me that I face ruin; and you pretend to have no inkling of the +nature of my peril! You speak of veiled threats. Are you lying to me, +Ruferton?"</p> + +<p>"Draw your own conclusions." The time had come <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>for playing the card of +offended sensibilities and Mr. Ruferton turned promptly on his heel. +"Stay where you are and—read the newspapers. Burton's instructions were +to bring you back, but I don't suppose he expected me to kidnap you in +your own behalf. I presume he anticipated your sane realization that he +didn't send for you to smoke a cigar with him. He presumed you were +interested in avoiding disgrace."</p> + +<p>"Don't you understand," demanded Hendricks blankly, "how inconceivable +it is that you should come on a mission like this without knowing its +exact nature?"</p> + +<p>The other nodded. "Burton didn't know that you were out of town. When +last night, quite late, he learned of this matter he sent me to find +you. There was no time for discussion or explanation."</p> + +<p>"Wait until I pack my bag." The Honorable Hendricks, whose dignity on +the bench would so honor the judicial ermine, rushed wildly into the +house while Hamilton Burton's envoy stood outside contemplatively +kicking about among the fallen leaves.</p> + +<p>With the flaming of that morning's headlines announcing J. J. Malone's +illness a spirit of nervousness began stalking in the Street. Of this +restlessness Hamilton Burton was duly apprised and while he scornfully +laughed at blind luck he acknowledged the power of his Star, and gave +thanks to his own unnamed gods.</p> + +<p>His eye was brilliantly clear and his step resilient, but Paul, whose +delicate nature possessed a quality approaching the clairvoyant, divined +that his great brother was exalted by some prospect of portentous +moment, and that it might mean triumph—or reverse. Timidly the younger +questioned the elder.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>That afternoon while Hamilton was outlining future and audacious +strokes of finance Paul was with him. For hours they sat together, the +younger man at the piano and the older listening, being soothed and +softened by the magic touch upon the keys.</p> + +<p>This was their custom when momentous affairs were brewing. At last +Hamilton interrupted. "Paul," he questioned slowly, "can't you give me +something that has the crashing of bugles in it; something like a hymn +before action?" Abruptly his voice mounted and he threw back his head. +"By God, little brother, I want the sort of music that goes before the +charge of an irresistible phalanx!"</p> + +<p>The musician wheeled on the piano bench and his fingers left the keys. +He rose impulsively and came over to where Hamilton stood with an +unquenchable light blazing in the eyes. The dreamer laid a hand on each +of the achiever's strong shoulders and gazed long and searchingly into +the confident face. Hamilton read a fear in that gaze and affectionately +smiled back his reassurance.</p> + +<p>"What is it, little brother?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Hamilton," began the other in an awkward, diffident fashion, "you are +planning something a little vaster than usual. I am frightened. +Sometimes the end of empire is—St. Helena."</p> + +<p>The financier laughed.</p> + +<p>"It is not written that I can fail, Paul. It's not in my horoscope. You +are right. I am planning something broader than I have done before." He +paused only to add in a vibrant voice: "I told you that the day would +come when above me there would be no man. That day will be tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Is there no chance of defeat?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>"I admit none. To me the influx of gold, and that attendant power which +is its only worth, have become a tidal wave. Nothing can check it."</p> + +<p>"And the end of it all?" questioned the other.</p> + +<p>"While there is a game to play, Paul, no man has won enough. It's the +splendid sense of growing power. It's the thirst that grows with the +wine you drink. It's fighting and conquering. It is the magnificent +dream of world-mastery. The money itself!" He spread his hands +contemptuously. "That is a beggar's reward—it's the symbol of Might +that counts."</p> + +<p>Their mother entered the room as he spoke and paused at the threshold. +Her two sons went forward to meet her, and for a moment, she stood +looking into Hamilton's eyes. Under her gaze their lust of conquest +softened into tenderness and she brushed back the hair from his forehead +as she shook her head and her eyes became misty.</p> + +<p>"My egotistical boy," she said in a low voice. "My dear, egotistical +boy!"</p> + +<p>Yamuro appeared in the door, bearing a telegram, and swiftly Hamilton +Burton tore the envelope.</p> + +<p>"I am bringing in the pelt," were the highly informative words. +"Hendricks accompanies me, Ruferton."</p> + +<p>The financier crumpled the slip in his hand and smiled.</p> + +<p>"It's fortunate," he murmured half-aloud, "very fortunate—for +Ruferton—that he didn't fail."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">W</span><span class="heavy">HEN</span> Mr. Ruferton and Mr. Hendricks presented themselves at the door of +Hamilton Burton's house the clock was striking nine. After divesting +himself of his overcoat the politician stood waiting before the open +fire with the manner of one who faces a doubtful half-hour and who faces +it with grave anxiety.</p> + +<p>Ruferton meanwhile made opportunity to slip his portfolio to the butler +with the request that Mr. Burton should run through its contents before +he came down-stairs and that was a request with which his employer fully +complied.</p> + +<p>Yet within a few minutes the financier entered the library, his face lit +with a sunny smile of cordiality. Hendricks took a hasty step forward. +"Mr. Burton," he questioned tensely, "in heaven's name, what is this +menace of which you sent me warning?"</p> + +<p>"It is grave enough," came the prompt response, "to warrant my asking +you to come—at whatever inconvenience. But, first, may I put to you a +brief question? Will you sell to me your holdings of Coal and Ore +stock—at a price well above the market?" The question came casually at +a moment when Hendricks burned for personal information and it took him +off his feet. Incidentally it informed him subtly that whatever Hamilton +Burton was willing to do for him would be predicated on what he was +willing to do for Hamilton Burton. Burton bargains were rarely +charities.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>"My Coal and Ore is not for sale," he answered vaguely.</p> + +<p>"Though I offer your own price?"</p> + +<p>"No. The question is not one of price, but of loyalty."</p> + +<p>"Loyalty to Malone and Harrison?"</p> + +<p>"Among others, yes. To the heads of the Consolidated group. Now will you +please give me the news for which I have come a long distance?"</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton's eyes grew flinty. "Do you not recognize in me one of +the heads of Consolidated?" he curtly inquired.</p> + +<p>Already the active mind of this successful and tricky manipulator of +politics was piecing together fragments and glimpsing the connection +between the threatened scandal and Burton's anxiety to buy. He became +wary, covering himself with an assumption of boldness.</p> + +<p>"To be candid, Mr. Burton, your effort to augment your holdings so +largely and suddenly on the eve of the annual meeting might indicate +that the interests of yourself and Malone run counter each to each. Why +should I antagonize those in supreme power?"</p> + +<p>"I shall be equally frank." Hamilton Burton came closer and his lips +drew themselves in a taut line. "Tomorrow I shall wrest from the Malone +gang this supreme power of which you speak. I mean to force Malone and +Harrison to their knees and to assume complete mastery."</p> + +<p>The state senator lifted his brows ironically. "It's a large contract," +he commented. "So you call on me to slip you the ace you need to fill. +Well, I can't see it."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll assist you. I expect you to remain, as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>you have shown +yourself in the past, a practical man. I expect you to realize that you +have more to gain by allying yourself with a victorious leader than in +walking the plank at the heels of Malone and Harrison."</p> + +<p>"I am so practical," the other reminded him, "that I want stronger +evidence than mere assertion that you can overthrow these men."</p> + +<p>"At all events I can overthrow you." The words were suddenly fierce.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton spread on the table several sheets of paper, drawn from +the breast-pocket of his evening-coat and previously from Ruferton's +portfolio. "That memoranda in the hands of certain civic-reform +societies would sound the death knell of your political future. You talk +of what evidence you want—that would satisfy a grand jury."</p> + +<p>The master schemer glanced hurriedly at the too-familiar contents of the +typed pages and gasped.</p> + +<p>"A half-million dollars!" he exclaimed weakly.</p> + +<p>"Incontrovertible evidence," Hamilton assured him, "as to how you, while +a member of the state senate, spent five hundred thousand dollars to +secure the Coal and Ore charter. Malfeasance, bribery—you know the +legal terms in which such conduct might be defined better than I."</p> + +<p>For a moment Hendricks laughed—then with a well-simulated coolness he +retorted. "A weapon hardly available to your hand, Mr. Burton. You will +recall that I acted for you. To accuse me as agent would be to convict +yourself as principal."</p> + +<p>But Hamilton's laugh was the more confident.</p> + +<p>"Think again. I may have erred in granting you too free a hand as an +agent, but I left the details to you. My only offense was +over-confidence in you. It was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>not I who debauched a senate. Moreover, +this accusation will not come from me—ostensibly. It will come through +the press tomorrow morning—and come hot."</p> + +<p>Hendricks drew back a step and his face paled.</p> + +<p>"By God!" he exclaimed in a voice of betrayed bitterness. "There is only +one name for this—sheer blackmail."</p> + +<p>"In that case," warned Burton ominously, "I would, in your position, +refrain from using any name. I have neither the time to bargain nor the +inclination to plead. The bull that charges my railroad train must take +his chance. The engine will not stop. You can rise with me to power and +rely on my stanch friendship, or—well, there won't be much left to go +down with Malone."</p> + +<p>The two men stood facing each other, one implacably resolute, the other +in a torture of quandary. At last, Burton added:</p> + +<p>"You may believe me when I tell you that I cannot be legally touched in +this matter and that you can be sent to Sing Sing. Choose your +course—and choose quickly. I offer you a fair chance between uniting +your fortunes with a rising dynasty and shackling them to one which is +tottering."</p> + +<p>Hendricks took a step in the direction of the door. "From here," he +said, "I go direct to the district attorney."</p> + +<p>Burton stretched a hand toward the telephone and smiled as he suggested. +"Whom you will find so busy with preparations for prosecuting you that +he will not at once find leisure to prosecute for you."</p> + +<p>Hendricks sought to veil his terror under a seeming of bluster.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>"Will you buy the district attorney, too? Some men are not +purchasable."</p> + +<p>"That may resolve itself into a matter of price. I am not shopping in +ten-cent stores, Mr. Hendricks."</p> + +<p>The politician had been thinking fast as he talked. Suppose Burton had +the strength of which he boasted? His own interest was to stand with +winners, not losers, but before he changed flags he wished to be sure +that he jumped toward victory. That determined, the rest was expediency.</p> + +<p>"Let's come to a decision." Hamilton Burton showed just a glow of brick +red on his cheekbones that argued an early break in his over-strained +temper.</p> + +<p>"If I am a tyrant at least I do not call myself a lord-protector. Will +you sell at your own price and go with me to the top—or refuse and take +your chances on substituting the state-prison for the bench?"</p> + +<p>An abrupt change came over Mr. Hendricks. He smiled through his pallor. +"Are you prepared to show me that if I make common cause with you, there +is no chance of defeat?"</p> + +<p>"I offer you my personal and positive assurance—and access to my papers +within an hour—during which time you will not be bound." The reply was +prompt; the voice hypnotic in its persuasiveness.</p> + +<p>Hendricks lighted a cigar, and nodded. "Very well," he announced slowly. +"But understand this. If I jump to you I jump with all four feet. It +happens that certain other proxies have been put into my hands—by +Malone interests. Had I not come to town I should have mailed them +today—as it is I still have them. I shall vote them as you direct."</p> + +<p>With this chameleon turn of complexion, the astute contriver realized +that he had scored. To Hamilton<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Burton's eyes came a quick flash of +gratification and he held out his hand. "If I can be implacable in +battle," he said quietly, "I can also be a friend to my friends. I told +you that in an hour I could guarantee victory—or release you. I am +awaiting two men with whom I have yet to deal. Will you also wait?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Hendricks bowed. "This—this evidence—" he questioned suddenly. +"Has any other possible enemy access to it?"</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton smiled as he shook his head. "No, it is in my sole +keeping. I shall not surrender it to other 'possible enemies.'"</p> + +<p>With the two bankers, whom Tarring shortly ushered in, Hamilton came +even more promptly to conclusions.</p> + +<p>"Malone is ill," he began. "Any alarms thrown into the Street just now +would start pandemonium. If tomorrow should bring such conditions, would +your banks suffer?"</p> + +<p>Fairley of the Metallic shook his head gravely. "If a panic developed +just now many institutions would go to the wall. As to how many or which +ones, I could not answer off-hand."</p> + +<p>Henry of the Deposit supplemented with added detail. "The national mind +is hysterical beyond the usual and this is a time of heightened danger. +It's the period when $200,000,000 are needed for crop-transportation and +delivery. That means financial equinox."</p> + +<p>The young Titan glanced seriously from one to the other. "I know of +influences coming to a head tomorrow which are calculated to throw the +Street and Exchange into panic condition—unless we devise means of +averting that catastrophe. For that reason I asked you to come here +tonight."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>The bankers stood silent, but upon their faces was stamped the shock of +the news. Coming from so authoritative a source, it required no actual +proof.</p> + +<p>"We may gather then," suggested Henry at last, "that you stand with us +in our desire to avert this calamity?"</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," Burton's voice again became compelling and crisp—but very +hard, "on certain conditions I shall avert this panic—on others I shall +cause it. The alternative is for your decision."</p> + +<p>Fairley and Henry drew a little closer together by common impulse as if +for alliance in danger. A long silence, freighted with tensity, followed +until Fairley inquired in a stunned voice: "Please explain."</p> + +<p>With the crisp impersonality of a prosecutor Hamilton Burton talked. He +outlined his plans, gave a glimpse of his tremendous levers of power; +let them see what engines of destruction he controlled and finally made +his demand. When he was through neither of his visitors could doubt his +might or his intent. At the end he said:</p> + +<p>"You hold among the securities of your two banks just the margin of Coal +and Ore which I need for complete safety. Turn your proxies over to me +tonight and tomorrow will pass quietly. I will support every market +depression caused by Malone's illness. There will be no panic. Fail to +do that and ten minutes after the gong sounds on the floor, I shall be +ripping the entrails out of the Street! Full-page advertisements in +every paper in town will feed the general uneasiness into an orgy of +terror. Frightened mobs will clamor about the doors of your banks. Other +things will happen which it is not now necessary to enumerate. It will +be the blackest day in Exchange <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>history and one that will reflect +itself in all the bourses of Europe."</p> + +<p>After eleven o'clock, when Mary Burton and Jefferson Edwardes returned +from the theater, the girl caught a glimpse of a strange picture as she +paused in the hall.</p> + +<p>Six silent men stood or sat about the brightly lighted library with blue +wreaths of cigar smoke drifting upward above them. It was plain that +this silence had fallen upon them only as they heard the door slam, and +that, like their attitudes, it was strained and artificial.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton stood before the hearth with his face set as unyielding +and immobile as chiseled granite. Ruferton eyed the two bankers with a +sidewise stare between drooping lids, and Hendricks, at the window, +presented to view only his back. But the features of the bankers +themselves were haggard and miserable; like the faces of men making a +last desperate stand, yet fronting inevitable defeat. Such faces one +might imagine in a nightmare, staring on a passerby and failing to see +him, from a rack of torture.</p> + +<p>Mary Burton shuddered a little, though she did not know why, and the +lips of Jefferson Edwardes compressed themselves as he followed her to +the music-room on the second floor. He had caught the tigerish cruelty +and power-lust in the eyes of Mary's brother, and he knew that for their +satisfaction someone must pay very dear.</p> + +<p>Paul sat at the piano as they entered the music-room and the emotions +which he expressed upon the keys were emotions of deep unrest. They ran +in strains of folklore plaintiveness and rhythmic sobs of wailing +cadences. When Mary spoke the musician turned with a start. He had not +heard their entrance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>"I didn't know we should find you here, Paul."</p> + +<p>He nodded as he rose from the instrument. "Hamilton asked me to wait," +he explained. "He's having some tremendously important conference—and +after a trying fight he always likes me to play for him."</p> + +<p>The three sat for a time unaccustomedly silent. Mary could not forget +the impression of those conquered faces, and Edwardes, with the same +thought, forebore from comment. Within a half-hour Hamilton himself +joined them. His eyes were glowing beacons of triumph and his lips wore +a smile of victory.</p> + +<p>"Tonight I have met and defeated Malone's attempt to crush me," he +announced with a half-savage elation. "Tomorrow the financial world will +recognize in me the actual and unchallenged head of Coal and Ore." Then, +turning to Jefferson, he added: "You know what that signifies, +Edwardes."</p> + +<p>The visitor nodded, but no words of enthusiastic congratulation came to +his tongue. "It means," he replied slowly, "that you hold a mightier +financial power than any other business man in New York."</p> + +<p>"And now that you have all that," Mary put the question slowly and +gravely, "to what use will you put it?"</p> + +<p>Hamilton bent upon her a gaze of tense visioning and his answer came in +rapt eagerness: "To build a greater structure of power than any man +before me has ever reared."</p> + +<p>After a moment's pause he went on: "Edwardes, have you no word of +congratulation? It was you who first kindled my dreams into a blaze, you +know."</p> + +<p>The visitor spoke with his eyes fixed on those of the man who had +outgrown him in financial stature and become a Colossus.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>"I was thinking of that," he responded, "and I was wondering at what +cost you had won this victory."</p> + +<p>"Conquest," retorted Hamilton Burton shortly, "can take no thought of +cost."</p> + +<p>"I wonder!" Edwardes spoke reflectively; then with a straightforward +honesty he went on: "It rather seems to me that once in a great while +there rises in the world a marvel-man. To such a spirit the impossible +is possible and opportunity is pliant. He may become the greatest boon +or the greatest scourge of his generation. Such a man uses or +prostitutes his great gifts in just so far as he uses, or fails to use, +a conscience."</p> + +<p>For an instant Hamilton's cheeks flamed, then he laughed:</p> + +<p>"A very pretty golden rule of finance, Edwardes," he observed quietly, +"and since I suppose you feel in a way responsible for me it's a homily +you have the right to read. Does it carry a personal implication?"</p> + +<p>Edwardes smiled and held out his hand. "You are the best judge of that," +he replied. "Good-night."</p> + +<p>But as the door closed upon him the smile died on the guest's lips, and +a premonition of evil settled upon his mind. No one had ever defied this +man and come through unscathed. His power held leashed lightnings that +might destroy, and Edwardes had been frank to a point which might stir +that wrath. To his direct manner of thinking his answer had been +unavoidable, yet to put Hamilton Burton among his enemies was a +dangerous thing. His love for Mary and the very endurance of the +business which had stood so long in honor and prosperity might have to +suffer for the over-frankness of his words. For a moment before entering +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>his car he stood on the curb and looked back at the house he had just +left.</p> + +<p>"The man is a tyrant—and conscienceless," he exclaimed. "He is as +destructive as a sawed-off shotgun!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="heavy">F</span> Hamilton Burton had been one of the most picturesque figures in +finance before, he was now a flaming meteor of public interest. He had +come out of the dark and raided the directorate of a giant corporation, +gathering into his strong hands reins that the world believed to be held +beyond the possibility of filching. Moreover, this corporation was the +keystone and crowning pride in the firmly cemented arch of +Consolidated's power.</p> + +<p>The world of business was stunned. It went to bed one night, believing +certain forces immutable, and awoke to find them overthrown and a +ministry changed. Along the chasms and cañons that debouch from lower +Broadway one question was insistently asked—and went unanswered: "What +will he do next?" Perhaps the nearest approach to a reply was the +prophecy of a cynical curb-broker—"Whatever he damn pleases." One thing +was definite. While Hamilton Burton had forced the admiration of his +world, he had forced it by the audacity of a strong grip on its throat +and by bending it to its knees.</p> + +<p>Such admiration is accorded a tyrant and carries scant love. When the +gong sounded in the Stock-Exchange it was an alarm and the faces on the +floor were faces that mirrored fear of the day. Yet the first +transactions showed Hamilton Burton's brokers standing like pillars +under the shaky market. As the day wore on these same lieutenants met +and stemmed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>every tendency toward receding prices. Several banks +announced incipient runs and at once from the Burton treasury came a +tide of gold, so that reassured depositors turned away smiling.</p> + +<p>When the actual meeting of Coal and Ore stock-holders was called to +order both Burton and Harrison were present in person.</p> + +<p>"Before this vote is taken," said Harrison, rising with a face upon +which was indelibly stamped the grim determination of one so long +victorious that defeat was unspeakably bitter, "I wish to be heard. +Though the registry of transfers tells the story in advance, I know as +Hamilton Burton knows, that it is a victory for traitors. If there is a +chance that some of these may yet turn back from their treason, I want +them to listen to me."</p> + +<p>Burton glanced about the table, where the mastery was his own.</p> + +<p>"When I attend a meeting of this character," he curtly announced, "we +vote first, and whoever wishes to can talk after I have gone."</p> + +<p>Outside, as the two men left the room, waited the batteries of +reporters. On the threshold, the appearance of each was noted and +flashed in first-page stories wherever news went. The new One-man-power +stood slender and strong, and tigerish; an incarnation of dominant youth +and triumph. Harrison might have been passing into exile, but he walked +with his head high and eyes that met every questioning gaze with the +forbidding glitter of a newly trapped and caged lion. There was +something about the man so suggestive of a broken warrior that the +scribes whose duty was to interrogate refrained and stood respectfully +silent as he passed between them.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>But they questioned Burton and Burton smiled. "Gentlemen," he said in +that velvety voice that fitted in so charmingly with the winning quality +of his smile, "you know my rule. I am never interviewed—but you may +announce that the Coal and Ore directorate will be reorganized."</p> + +<p>At the curb Paul was waiting in the car, and around it pressed an +inquisitive mob, which the police were already beginning to push back +and stir into motion. As they cleared a path for him through the idle +humanity the man who had come from the abandoned farm went to his +machine with an unconcern which took no note of their interest. To his +brother he commented in a low and musical voice. "They aren't so +different from Slivers Martin. I bought those lambs for seven and sold +them for ten. But it's only the first transaction, Paul, that gives one +the real thrill."</p> + +<p>When he reached his library he found Mary there. "I have been reading +the papers, Hamilton," she said quietly. "As near as I can make it all +out, 'it was a famous victory,' but why do the papers all call it a +raid?" Her brother looked at her and a flash of pride kindled fondly in +his eyes for the face which a shaft of the sun lighted into vivid +beauty.</p> + +<p>"I told you once," he said, "that we should reign together. This is for +me a victorious day. I am glad that you are the woman to whom I come +fresh from the field I have won and the frontier I have pushed forward." +He turned away from her and stood for a moment at the window in a flood +of yellow radiance. The clarity of his eyes and luster of his dark hair +and the hue of his cheeks were all declarations of gladiatorial +perfection of condition. His brow was unclouded.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>He began to speak, at first with a modulated voice that mounted with +his words to a fiery eloquence:</p> + +<p>"Many marches follow, Mary ... toward vaster victories. To me a certain +memory lives clear in every detail. I see a small girl with her thin +little body shaking with sobs ... because her life seemed doomed to +drudgery and emptiness. I see my mother and my aunt and my father +suffering like beasts of burden under the goad and yoke of poverty. I +see a boy, ragged and rebellious, declaring war on the world and +swearing to wrest from it every good thing that those he loved might +ever covet—and for himself unparalleled power." He paused and spread +his hands apart with a gesture of dismissing the abstract. "I have +proven myself able to realize my dreams. I shall go on. My aspirations +of empire look far ahead: my horizons are limitless. There are few +people to whom I can express my ambitions. But you—" He came across and +took her hand. "You can understand. Tell me, Mary, is there anything in +the world you want? Because, by heaven, if there is it shall be yours."</p> + +<p>The girl's eyes, as she met his gaze, were deeply grave.</p> + +<p>"In all this dream of power, Hamilton," she said softly, "you have never +spoken of any sense of trust or stewardship, and what you call a +victory, the papers call a raid. Has it ever occurred to you, my dear +brother, that perhaps your dream is, after all, one of colossal +selfishness?"</p> + +<p>The rippling ease of his muscles stiffened and his smile faded.</p> + +<p>"Is it selfishness to give back to those one loves the things of which +life has robbed them?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>She shook her head. "No—but there is such a thing as suffocating the +souls in them with material kindness and bodily luxuries," she answered.</p> + +<p>"You have been spending a great deal of time of late with Jefferson +Edwardes." The manner of the man underwent one of its swift changes and +grew cool and acid. "Perhaps he has been talking to you as he undertook +to talk to me last night."</p> + +<p>A light as dominant as that in her brother's came to Mary Burton's +pupils.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," she replied.</p> + +<p>"I'm not at all sure that I care for this intimate association with Mr. +Edwardes," he curtly announced. "I am not enamored of the vaporings of +visionary and self-ordained preachers."</p> + +<p>"Possibly it is not necessary that you should be," the girl suggested. +"Maybe for the purpose of my own friendships, it is enough that I like +him. I hardly think you would understand his type, Hamilton."</p> + +<p>Her brother's face reddened dangerously.</p> + +<p>"I should call my intelligence human," he declared. "I've been able to +make certain use of it."</p> + +<p>"Call it superhuman if you like—or inhuman, yet I hardly think it can +truly gage that type of gallant gentleman who has kept his dreams +untainted and his ideals clean."</p> + +<p>The man who had found the world a thing upon which he could stamp his +hall-mark stood for a while without speaking; then his voice came keyed +to a satirical coldness.</p> + +<p>"Whatever your estimate may be of my ability to understand this peerless +gentleman and chevalier, one thing I can do. I can crush him into pulp. +If he has poisoned against me the minds of my own family,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> I swear to +you that I both can and will nail him to the cross of utter ruin. You +had better warn your knightly friend, Mary, that the days of +grail-seeking are ended."</p> + +<p>The girl came to her feet and her eyes were stars of scorn as she faced +the man whose sudden anger had brought out the arteries corded on his +temples.</p> + +<p>"Such talk," she said, "belongs to the shambles of your cut-throat +finance. I have no wish to listen to it." Gradually the scornful light +in Mary's pupils hardened and brightened into the fighting fire that +might come into those of a tigress whose den has been threatened. Her +delicate nostrils quivered and her cheeks flamed.</p> + +<p>"Five minutes ago you were inquiring what costly gifts my heart desired, +that you might buy them for me with your money. Well, there is something +I want that I haven't got—and your millions can't buy it. I want decent +love. You had me schooled into a Circe and you almost killed my soul. +Thank God, some one came in time, some one whose thoughts are above +sordid conquest. Some one who wanted to save me from the legalized +prostitution of a loveless marriage. And because he has said to your +face what all men say in your absence, you talk of crucifying him." She +broke off and her breath came fast.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton gazed silently for a moment, then he said shortly:</p> + +<p>"I'm not such a damn' fool as to try to argue with a woman in a rage. +You have too much brain, Mary, and at times you irritate me. Paul is the +only one in this family who soothes me. I'll go to him."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she retorted contemptuously, "Paul will burn incense to your +vanity. Go to him."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>She turned to leave the room, but at the door she paused. "Jefferson +Edwardes will dine here this evening," she volunteered. "Any discourtesy +to him will be an insult to me."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A little strange it was, perhaps, and yet true, that Hamilton Burton, +who feared no man and showed consideration to few, discovered himself +standing in something like awe of his imperious sister. At all events +his outbreak of wrath subsided and that evening he gave to the man who +had aroused it no intimation of its recent upflaming.</p> + +<p>But in the days and weeks that followed, Hamilton Burton saw much of +Edwardes and that very directness of gaze, that level glance which +concealed nothing and evaded nothing became to him at first a small +annoyance, and then a constantly aggravated irritation. His star of +Destiny rode at its zenith. Every venture turned under his Midas hand to +gold and increased power. He mounted to succeeding heights until it +seemed that like Alexander he must soon brood over the smallness of the +world's opportunity. Colossal mergers grouped themselves into structures +of stupendous strength. His pride was bloated with successes, yet all +the while across his own table he must encounter eyes that withheld +reverence and politely masked something like contempt. Some day he knew +those clean-souled eyes would goad him to an outbreak.</p> + +<p>But impulse is the menace to a strong man's strength, and no one save +Hamilton Burton himself suspected that this antipathy was growing into +an obsession.</p> + +<p>Besides, there were more important matters to consider, and a hundred +active enemies to watch. Any such moment of relaxed vigilance as he +himself had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>seized to overthrow the preëminence of others would be used +to overthrow his own.</p> + +<p>While he rode on the highest crest of Fortune's wave the one member of +his family who had remained unchanged fell ill. For a week all else was +forgotten while the Burton family waited the outcome in Aunt Hannah's +bedroom.</p> + +<p>That austere old spinster talked in her delirium of other days and +denied that they had altered. In broken rambling words she took them all +back with her to a life they had put behind them. The names of cows and +horses in whose care Hamilton had so many hundred times taken down and +put up the panel of stable-lot bars dwelt on her trembling lips and she +smiled contentedly over simple things. Finally, she told them that she +was sleepy and would talk no longer, because tomorrow morning she must +be up early and give the house a thorough cleaning. With that +announcement she turned her seamed face to the wall and slept. It was a +placid sleep which no clamor of an alarm clock would ever disturb.</p> + +<p>Because she had always insisted upon it with the childish pertinacity of +the simple-souled, the Burton family went back with her to the ragged +slopes of the White Mountains. They saw again, for the first time since +they had turned away from their padlocked door, the hills and rocks and +rutted roads that had once been their own country.</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes went with them, and when the funeral was ended and +the little cortège left the churchyard, he and Mary Burton remained a +while among the graves. Most of the trees were stark and naked, but to +one or two still clung shreds of departed autumn brilliancy. A maple +still boasted a few scarlet tatters <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>of the banner with which it had +done honor to the Frost King. By the decaying wall of the little church +a scrub oak rattled its tenacious leafage of russet brown.</p> + +<p>About the two tilted and careened the neglected tombstones of those who +slept humbly but restfully here. The gaunt hills, too, tilted and +careened in heaped-up barriers of dilapidation to the distance where the +autumn veiled them in a smoky purple. But above them was the glow of +crimson and rose-ash, where the sunset burned.</p> + +<p>Mary's beautiful eyes were bright with tears and as she stood there slim +and straight, the man came close and his arm slipped about her. For a +moment she seemed unconscious of his presence, then she turned and her +eyes looked steadfastly into his, and, as they looked, they smiled +through their mistiness.</p> + +<p>"Thank God," she said in a low voice into which a tremor stole; "thank +God, you came to me and woke me up—in time."</p> + +<p>After a little she spoke again hastily as though in fright.</p> + +<p>"Dearest," she declared tensely, "as I stood here today a fear came over +me: a fear and a premonition. It seemed to me that every hill and every +tree was accusing us. Silent voices were calling out, 'Why did you go +away?'" She broke off, and then, as though from the strength of his +embrace, she drew reassurance, she went on: "Suppose it was all a +ghastly mistake? Suppose Hamilton's overvaulting ambition with all its +vast egotism should totter and fall? What would become of us in that +world down there? I have, since we left here, seen only one look of +serene and utterly calm peace on any face in our family. It was her +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>face—" The girl nodded toward the grave and shivered.</p> + +<p>The man drew her closer.</p> + +<p>"Loved faces in death always wear a peace that life does not know," he +told her. Then whimsically he smiled as he voiced a fantastic +suggestion:</p> + +<p>"Maybe, dearest, there's some land beyond the stars where all the +mistakes we make here can be remedied ... where we can take up our +marred lives and live them afresh, as we have dreamed them. Perhaps in +that other world we can go back to the turning of the road where we lost +our ways ... and choose the other path."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Constancy and fixedness belong to strong characters. The granite crag +stands unchanging, but the waters at its base lash themselves into a +thousand shapes and colors and semblances. Hamilton had in him the +firmness of the hills, but Paul's nature was as fluid as the waters that +whirl or lilt along the easiest channels, and that turn aside to avoid +obstacles. On his table stood a photograph of Loraine Haswell in a gold +frame. It was a photograph of which there was no duplicate, and one +which her husband had not seen. When it had been taken the sitter had +selected a pose of graceful ease, as though the photographer had +ambushed her and caught her in a moment of almost sacred privacy, a +moment when she had relaxed into an attitude of intimate and somewhat +melancholy thought.</p> + +<p>The slender hands rested with fingers loosely interlocked in her lap, +holding a drooping rose. The splendid slenderness of her figure was +enhanced by the veiling of delicate negligée, and the face under its +night-dark profusion of hair looked out wistfully with a sad <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>half-smile +on something that her heart chose to hold before her gaze. Certainly, +had it not been that such excellence of the photographer's craft could +only have been attained by careful posing, one might have said that he +had taken an unfair advantage and had permitted his lens to spy upon a +lovely lady in the secrecy of her boudoir, whose sole companions were +emotions which must remain locked in her beautiful breast.</p> + +<p>She had told Paul when she gave him the picture, and the same ghost of +pathos had flickered into her eyes and the droop of her lips, that the +flower was one from a box of his giving, and that she had been thinking +of him when the camera clicked, forgetting for a moment the pose she had +meant to assume. Often, she whispered, she sat like that thinking of +him.</p> + +<p>So Paul kept flowers on each side of the frame, and made of it a sort of +shrine.</p> + +<p>And yet, sometimes, when he had said good-bye to her after a luncheon or +tea together, he would turn his car southward and find himself driving +down the avenue to Washington square and the old house on the south +side, to invite Marcia Terroll for a spin beside him. And sometimes he +would call her on the telephone and they would meet for a walk.</p> + +<p>To himself alone, he confessed his love for Loraine, for a specter of +timidity rose often and marred their meetings. How was it to end? He +could no more escape the realization of the husband's existence and +possible ire than can the quail in the open grain-field forget the +shadow of a soaring hawk. And Paul was not the most daring cock quail in +the stubble. He saw shadows of proprietary wings where the sky held only +wisps of fleecy cloud.</p> + +<p>With Marcia, there was the security of safe <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>companionship, and a +combination of stimulus and soothing.</p> + +<p>That this interest was tinctured with an essence of the enthusiastic, +which to other eyes than his own—even to her eyes—might seem to hold a +stronger personal note, he did not admit to himself. That would have +meant another complication and a fresh alarm, so if the idea came he +laughed it away as preposterous. But in a fashion those were very good +days. He was discovering New York.</p> + +<p>There are quaint places about the square, where insurgency reigns and +finds expression, where existing conditions are denounced, where freedom +is verbally fought for and capital and conventions are vocally +annihilated. In some of them food is served at prices which astonished +his training at the expensive restaurants. There the musician and the +girl went, he as explorer, fastidiously critical, yet enduring what he +regarded as squalor and anarchy, for the new experience of feeling that +he was penetrating Bohemia.</p> + +<p>She acted as guide, and since she knew the world of ease and the world +of necessity and could walk alike with the aristocratic and the +commonalty—and remain equally herself—she sat amused, watching him as +he watched the rest. The twinkle that sought to flash into her eye +flashed only in her mind, but the play of keen humor and wit quaintly +expressed sparkled through her conversation, so that when they were +together they laughed a great deal.</p> + +<p>Acquaintanceship which is nourished in the sunlight of laughter blooms +rapidly into intimacy, and Paul Burton would have been surprised had he +known how often his eyes wakened into a tell-tale glow of delight and +admiration, and how easily any one looking on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>might have fallen into +the egregious error of construing his attitude into one distinctly +loverlike. All this while she continued to pique his curiosity by a +sustained reserve as to herself.</p> + +<p>She spoke quite frankly of her failures to get employment, making +deliciously laughable stories out of disappointing and disheartening +experiences, but it was only in incidental comments that she referred to +things in the past which made him know that her life had once held in +abundance those things which it now lacked.</p> + +<p>One day when Paul had selected with great care a mass of roses of a new +and particularly exotic variety to be sent to Loraine, the florist +inquired, "Will that be all today, Mr. Burton?"</p> + +<p>The musician had nodded, then suddenly he said, "No, I think there is +something else I want." It suddenly came to him that he had never given +Marcia any sort of present. Of course she would have no use for a small +cart-load of expensive flowers. One had to send gifts of that sort to +Loraine, because she was herself so gorgeously expensive, but Marcia +might like some violets. Violets would look rather well on the blue suit +she most often wore. He was to meet her in a half-hour, though he had +not mentioned the appointment to Loraine. So he had the violets wrapped +up, feeling somehow a sort of diffidence such as he had never felt +before when giving flowers to women, and took them with him.</p> + +<p>It was crisp afternoon and as he reached the square a small hand waved +to him and he saw her walking briskly along by the arch, so he ordered +the car stopped, and jumped out.</p> + +<p>"I was just coming over for you," he said. "It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>would have been a +disaster to have missed you. Barola is giving a violin recital at +Carnegie Hall. Shall we run up? There's just time."</p> + +<p>"You weren't going to miss me," she laughed. "I had no intention of +letting you, but the afternoon was too utterly delectable to stay +indoors, so I waylaid you here." Then after a moment, as she stepped +lightly through the car door which he had opened, she added delightedly, +"Barola! And I was just crying for some music. Did you hear my wails +from the Flatiron building down?"</p> + +<p>"I was too busy crying to see you," he laughed back. "My agonized sobs +drowned the traffic whistles."</p> + +<p>As the car turned, he held out the box, which proclaimed its contents, +as violet boxes always do. A man may have a bottle of rum or a chest of +stolen gold wrapped up so it looks as innocent as a pair of socks, but +no swain bearing violets can deceive the eye of the most casual +observer. Marcia was not deceived.</p> + +<p>"Violets!" she exclaimed. "Do you mean they are for me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," he answered, and, for no reason at all, colored like a +schoolboy.</p> + +<p>Marcia opened the box and sat gazing at the flowers.</p> + +<p>Into her face came a sudden gravity and the delicate features seemed +almost sad. She said, "Thank you," in a low voice and continued to gaze +at her gift. Then she buried her face in their fragrance and for a +moment held it there. When she raised it to him again it was smiling, +though still gravely.</p> + +<p>"They are lovely," she told him. "I'm glad you thought of them."</p> + +<p>"You seemed almost sad," Paul spoke with a voice of deep solicitude. +"Did I make a mistake? Do vio<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>lets stand for something you don't want to +be reminded of?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head and laughed, and this time with the old note of +merriment.</p> + +<p>"Violets stand for everything that's nice," she assured him. "It was +just that—I hardly know—just that it suddenly occurred to me how long +a time it's been since anyone gave me flowers."</p> + +<p>"Someone is going to—often," the words came quickly, and impulsively he +laid his hand over hers for just a moment.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, I have the instincts of a sybarite?" she informed him. +"When I go to sleep tonight, I shall put these violets near the head of +my bed, and whenever I wake up I'll smell them."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Despite his strong defensive preparations and his almost clairvoyant +foresight, in Hamilton Burton an insidious change was taking place and +the brain which so astutely coördinated many things was totally +unconscious of its own transitions. Egotism had made him. A self-faith +which took no account of difficulties, had carried him to the apex of +his ambitions. Now it was blinding him with its own brilliance. Hamilton +Burton was drunk, drunk to the core of his soul, with the strong +intoxicant of self-confidence. He looked on life through a mirror—and +saw only himself.</p> + +<p>So, while he intrenched and safeguarded his destiny, he failed to +realize that he was being lulled into a reckless faith in the star he +believed shone over him and for him. He did not pause to reflect that +the wolf, gaunt and powerful, who by the courage in his shaggy breast +and the strength of his fanged jaws, runs unchallenged at the pack head, +may change.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>He took no account of the fact that the wolf gorged is the wolf +weakened.</p> + +<p>As his plans grew his methods became more unscrupulous and his scorn for +forms of law increased.</p> + +<p>One day he sat in his mother's house showing her, with the enthusiastic +glee of a child for new toys, several freshly acquired miniatures of the +First Napoleon.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burton turned one of the priceless trinkets over in her hand and +gazed at it wonderingly. It was a small thing, wrought on ivory by Jean +Baptiste Jacques Augustin and framed in pearls. She thought she had seen +more flattering portrayals of the round head which stared out from the +jewelled circlet.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she said with such a sigh as mothers utter when they fail +to understand with full sympathy the enthusiasms of their children, "I +ought to rave over this. From your eyes I realize that it is +treasure-trove and yet to me it is meaningless. Of course," she naïvely +added, "the pearls are very pretty."</p> + +<p>Tenderly, Hamilton stooped and kissed her forehead, then he took the +miniature from her hand and stood looking at the painted face. He stood +straight and lithe, and he spoke slowly:</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I wonder if the belief in reincarnation is not the truest +faith, mother. Sometimes, I seem to look back on the career of this man +as on something in an unforgotten past. To me it is all more vital than +history; more real than chronicle. It is memory!" He paused and his eyes +were altogether grave.</p> + +<p>"As I reflect on Austerlitz, I find myself saying, 'I did well there,' +and for Waterloo and St. Helena my chagrin and misery are personal. Why +should I doubt that once my own spirit dwelt in another body—in his, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>perhaps?" His voice mounted, and he continued, "But this time the +spirit must go further. It must never taste defeat. Its triumph must +grow to the end, and surrender its scepter and baton only to Death."</p> + +<p>The mother looked up at the exalted fantasy which glowed in her son's +face and her head shook uncomprehendingly. "It seems only yesterday," +she said "that I held you, a soft little morsel of pink flesh, close to +my breast. I dreamed of no great triumphs for you. Only goodness and +health. Perhaps it was as well that way. I sometimes wonder if any woman +could face her responsibilities if she knew she was giving birth to one +of the masters of the world. My only vanity was to name you Hamilton. +And Paul I named for the great apostle." She laughed very low—and her +son knelt beside her chair and drew her into his embrace.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">P</span><span class="heavy">AUL</span>, who was named for the apostle, and Loraine Haswell had drifted +further into midstream than either realized. Less keen observers than +Norvil Thayre now spoke of their frequent meetings. Club conversation +intimated that not only financial stress was responsible for the +silencing of Len Haswell's jovial laughter.</p> + +<p>Loraine's point of view was shifting dangerously. Paul had at first been +a pleasing playmate and a celebrity whose devotion was flattering as a +tribute to her charm and beauty. Now a constant comparison asserted +itself to her mind between her husband's financial limitations and the +pleasing scope of Paul's access to Hamilton's treasury. Discontent had +entered her Eden—and it was no longer an Eden.</p> + +<p>One morning Paul's telephone rang before he was out of bed.</p> + +<p>"I must see you," announced Loraine, and the familiar voice was +excitedly urgent. "Len has been odious and I—I want your advice. +There's no one else that I can talk to."</p> + +<p>Paul Burton hesitated. His timidity balked at facing a moment which +might call upon him to take a courageous stand or one fronting possible +reprisals. Over his face crept a terror very much like that which had +blanched it years ago when the Marquess kid threatened him with grimaces +across the school aisle. He divined the subject which she wished to +discuss and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>dreaded the interview. The ethical side of the matter gave +him no concern; but the same lack of stamina which caused him to shrink +made it impossible for him to refuse.</p> + +<p>"Where shall I meet you?" he hesitantly inquired, "at Sherry's as +usual?"</p> + +<p>"No," she hastily objected. "That has become rather too usual." She +named a place in lower Fifth avenue which Fashion regards as +delightfully Bohemian and Bohemia considers alluringly fashionable. She +named an hour when the place would be empty enough for an undisturbed +rendezvous.</p> + +<p>Now, as Paul Burton sat opposite Loraine Haswell at one of the small and +snowy tables, he sought to cloak his nervousness under a guise of +debonair ease and soon the woman was embarked upon the recital of her +grievances.</p> + +<p>"Len has had an utterly intolerable fit of jealousy," she confided; then +fell silent while she nibbled at a melon. But her dark eyes were full of +beauty's appeal and injured distress. "It's reached a point, Paul—" her +voice became very soft, almost tearful—"where I'm afraid I must make a +decision: the sort of decision that it's very hard for a woman to make."</p> + +<p>"Was he unkind to you?" Her companion sought to speak with indignation, +but a note sounded through his voice which punctured the assumption with +falsity. It was occurring to him that Len Haswell might be particularly +unkind to him.</p> + +<p>She leaned far over the table and spoke guardedly.</p> + +<p>"He has made me promise that I sha'n't see you again, except where we +meet by accident; that all our innocent little parties must end."</p> + +<p>"And you promised?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>Slowly and reluctantly she nodded her head. "It was that or—" she +broke off.</p> + +<p>"Or what?"</p> + +<p>"Or a separation. He said I must choose definitely between you." Paul +Burton studied his plate in the silence of indecision, and she went on +rather haltingly. "When marriage reaches the ultimatum stage, it doesn't +offer much chance for happiness, does it?" Then after a pause she added +thoughtfully, "It's not as though there were children to consider."</p> + +<p>Her voice trembled with a seeming of repressed emotion of suffering +under injustice and of bearing, with fortitude, a life of cumulative +injury. Had Paul been bent on persuading her to remedy her alleged +mistake, he could hardly have asked a more propitious opportunity.</p> + +<p>But this man was capable of no swift and positive decisions. It was not +his to cut Gordian knots. Never before had the woman across from him +seemed so alluring, so desirable. Never had she so fully stirred his +susceptible senses to intoxication as she did at this moment, and never +had he felt his fondness for her so genuine. Yet, when she seemed almost +to offer him herself and her life—if only he would stretch out his arm +and lift her across the stream of dilemma—he could not urge, but sat +tongue-tied. He could think only of the difficulties; and the thought of +them staggered and blinded him. This was not the indecision of a man +weighing the responsibilities of a step which might ruin the life of +another man; it was merely the futility of "the unlit lamp and the +ungirt loin."</p> + +<p>"If your husband should hear of this meeting, after your promise of this +morning," suggested Paul, "it might have serious results—I mean for +you."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>She shuddered a little at the thought. "I believe he would become a +maniac," she answered, "but this place is safe enough. He would never +think of our coming here. It's too far down-town."</p> + +<p>"Too far for calling or shopping," Paul reminded her. "So entirely out +of your accustomed orbit that if he learned of this, he could construe +it only one way—as a clandestine conference."</p> + +<p>"But, Paul," she declared, with deep self-pity and a strong appeal to +his instincts of knight-errantry, "I had to talk with you—at any risk. +If—if—it does come to a separation, I shall have absolutely nothing." +Her voice was pathetic. "I suppose I should have to go to work."</p> + +<p>She looked sadly at him and shook her dark head until he hated himself +for not assuring her that she would not have to "go to work," yet he +could say nothing.</p> + +<p>Then as they sat there in an embarrassed silence, the tall figure of Len +Haswell appeared in the door and the many mirrors of the wall panels +multiplied him into a seeming army of giants.</p> + +<p>With him was Norvil Thayre. For such a development Paul Burton found +himself totally unprepared. No ready phrases came to his lips and his +sudden pallor was a seeming confession of guilt. The husband stood for a +moment in the door and his face, too, paled, but that was only +momentary. At once it became fixed in a resolute determination to remain +expressionless. The alert mind of Thayre, grasping the situation, +addressed itself to averting its awkwardness with artless and +inconsequential small talk. He came over to the table and shook hands, +while Len Haswell stood at his elbow, saying nothing. Paul instinctively +offered his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>hand, but Len ignored it. He heard Loraine declaring with a +charmingly assumed innocence, "Chance brings us into quite a little +party. First I happen on Mr. Burton, then on you two."</p> + +<p>Suddenly an idea of escape struck Paul, as it had struck him at the +school. He, too, laughed, turning to Loraine. "And since you are in +better hands, I'll run along. I have an appointment at a studio on the +square."</p> + +<p>Len Haswell favored him with a satirical glance. "You seem," he +suggested coolly, "to be only beginning your meal. We are here on +business, and won't interrupt." The big man turned on his heel, and, +followed by his companion, went into the adjoining dining-room. Loraine +Haswell laughed nervously, but Paul's face clouded with deep anxiety.</p> + +<p>After he had put Loraine into a taxi' the cloud deepened. The same +self-accusations that had tortured his childhood with the suffering of +self-contempt after each act of cowardice had him again by the throat. +Never had it been his plan to urge this woman toward divorce. He had +simply drifted with pleasant tides and now he found himself washed +seaward with a dragging anchor. It was small compensation to reflect +that his fault was less vicious than craven.</p> + +<p>The square was bathed in a radiance of frosty sunlight, and the +buildings at the south stood diamond-clear under a flawless sky. The +monument to the man whose courage and decision had cradled a nation's +birth gleamed in its granite whiteness. But Paul Burton felt small, +afraid and besmirched of soul. He hurried to his own house and shut +himself in with a thousand weak misgivings, until finally an idea +formu<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>lated itself. He would go to Hamilton for counsel and strength.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As far as the clean sweep of mountain winds differ from the suffocation +of a miasma, so far did the thoughts of Mary Burton differ from those of +Paul that afternoon.</p> + +<p>She and Jefferson Edwardes had been riding in the park, and though their +horses had only cantered their hearts had ridden madly and on winged +steeds. Now, with twilight stealing in and softly blotting out the +angles of the room, they sat together, still in saddle-togs, before the +great, carven mantel which Hamilton had brought back from a European +castle where once Napoleon passed a night. A brave glare from roaring +logs of driftwood cheerily flooded with light the hearth and the huge +polar bear skin stretched before it. Mary Burton sat in a big chair, +also castle-ravished, which swallowed her like a cavern, and as +Jefferson Edwardes knelt on the rug beside her, and watched the flames +caress into gorgeous vividness the color of her eyes and lips and cheeks +and hair, it pleased him to think of her as seated on a throne, and of +himself as at her feet.</p> + +<p>They had no light but the firelight and needed none, for they had +captured the brightness and joyousness and warmth of June and meant to +carry it with them wheresoever they went and through all the meaner +months.</p> + +<p>Mary's right hand was still gloved, but the left was bare and she kept +turning it this way and that, watching with engrossed fascination a +diamond on one finger that caught and splintered the firelight. It was +the jewel which proclaimed that Mary Burton was to be Mary Edwardes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>When her companion spoke, his voice was softened by a very tender +triumph.</p> + +<p>"Who am I," he asked wonderingly and humbly, "that life should be so +lavish and generous with me? Mary, Mary, I told you once that you were +as beautiful as starlight on water, but you are more than that. That is +only a beauty to the eye, and you are a miracle to the heart and soul as +well."</p> + +<p>"Once," she said while her voice trembled happily, "I was satisfied with +what beauty I had." She bent forward with a sudden gesture of possession +and tenderness, as she caught his head between her two hands. "That was +when it was my own. Now that it's yours I wish it were a hundred times +greater."</p> + +<p>"And you are the girl," he smiled, "who once pretended to think she had +no soul, and very little heart."</p> + +<p>"If I have either, dearest," she declared, "I owe it to you. You found a +poor little spark of soul and fanned it into life—but a heart I have, +and it's ablaze and it's yours to keep!" Her voice thrilled as she +added: "If I had the world to give, it should all be yours, too—all of +it."</p> + +<p>"I feel," he assured her, "as though you have given me the universe."</p> + +<p>For a while they sat silent; then the girl's eyes danced into sudden +mischief as she reminded him, "We have still an ordeal ahead, you know. +We have to tell Hamilton."</p> + +<p>"A love that feared ordeals," he laughed easily, "would hardly be worth +offering you. Does he still dislike me?"</p> + +<p>The girl nodded. "He isn't exactly as mad about you as I am," she +confessed. "But," her head came up and the regnant pride that seemed +inherent there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>shone from her eyes, "my life is mine to use as I wish, +and I have no use for it, dear heart, save to give it to you—for +always!"</p> + +<p>They heard the door open and close, then Hamilton's clear voice came +from the hallway.</p> + +<p>"You are a fool, Paul," it announced in a tone which blended irritation +and indulgence. "This is the maddest sort of whim; nevertheless, if it +appeals to you—all right." The two did not at once come into the +library, but talked in the hall.</p> + +<p>Paul answered nervously.</p> + +<p>"How can you help me, Hamilton? She's married—it would be impossible."</p> + +<p>"Impossibilities are my specialties. You say you want this adorable +lady?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." The response was faint.</p> + +<p>"Very well," came the laconic announcement. "You shall have her, though +you are, as I said, a fool. Loraine Haswell is a pretty and an +empty-headed doll—"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" Paul protested quickly, yet even in defending his lady's name, +his voice carried more of weak appeal than command. "You mustn't say +that!"</p> + +<p>"I repeat, she is an empty-headed doll—but since she's not going to be +my doll I shall dismiss that feature from consideration."</p> + +<p>The colloquy had been so rapid that, as Hamilton and Paul showed +themselves in the door, the two unwilling eaves-droppers came to their +feet, startled.</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes turned toward the fire and stood silent, but his +momentary expression of disgust had not escaped the financier and +instantly all Hamilton's cumulative dislike burst into passion. From the +threshold he demanded, "So you listened, did you?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>The visitor replied slowly and with a level voice: "We had not meant to +overhear a private conversation—but we did hear."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you realize that what you heard in no way concerns you?" The +voice was surcharged with challenge, and under its sting Edwardes found +self-composure a difficult matter. He had no habit of turning aside from +quarrels which were seemingly thrust upon him, yet he realized that at +this juncture he must govern his temper. For the moment he ignored the +question and, with a gaze that met that of the other man in undeviating +directness, he responded:</p> + +<p>"I was waiting here to see you, Burton, on a mission which in every way +concerns me." He raised the girl's hand to his lips and let his gesture +explain his purpose.</p> + +<p>But the pent-up animosity of Hamilton Burton could remember only the +contemptuous curl he had recognized on the other man's lips. He came +forward until he stood confronting Edwardes and as he was about to speak +Mary interrupted him. Her voice was vibrant with anger and scorn. "If +any one should feel called upon to make explanations and apologies, +Hamilton, it is yourself ... after what we have just heard. It was +monstrous." She shuddered.</p> + +<p>Hamilton refused to be turned aside. In a tense voice he demanded of the +girl's fiancé: "Do you add your self-righteous approval to that +sentiment?"</p> + +<p>A sense of being intolerably bullied seized Edwardes and made red spots +of anger dance before his eyes. His fists clenched and he took a forward +step, then with tensed muscles he halted and stood there so close to the +other that their eyes locked at a range of inches. Very deliberately he +inquired: "Are you determined <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>to force me into a quarrel, Burton? I'm +seeking to avoid it."</p> + +<p>"I am asking you a question and I demand an answer."</p> + +<p>Edwardes' voice rang out passionately. "I am no prig who supplies +unasked codes of conduct to others—even when they need it as badly as +you do. But since you ask—yes, I agree fully, and I add this to boot. +You are the most appallingly irresponsible man whose hands have ever +grasped power. You are maddened with egotism until you are a more +malignant pestilence than famine or flame. Now you have asked my opinion +and in part you have it."</p> + +<p>For an instant Mary Burton thought her brother would spring upon her +lover in a tigerish abandon of fury, and she knew from the fighting +flame in the other's eyes that he would be met half-way. Paul had +dropped into a chair, where he sat as one stunned.</p> + +<p>Burton returned the gaze which had never dropped from its inflexible +directness; and his own voice was changed to a key of satirical quiet.</p> + +<p>"If I am all the things you charge," he suggested, "it's a pretty full +indictment and may warrant some discussion in passing. Paul," he added +with a curt gesture of dismissal, "I hardly think this conversation will +amuse you." The younger Burton rose and left the room, and as he went +Mary took her place at the side of the man she had promised to marry and +stood there as straight and unflinching as himself.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Edwardes," Hamilton began, "years ago I was a country boy, not yet +fully able to translate the voices that spoke to me from within: voices +that told me I was a son of Destiny. In a fashion, I owe you something +as an interpreter of those voices. You have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>just spoken more bitterly +than it is easy for me to forgive. Yet, I am anxious to talk +temperately—and God knows it will require an effort. Will you meet me +half-way?"</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes had not moved. He was still white with anger, but the +tempest that had brought his eruption of denunciation had passed, and he +gravely bowed his head in assent.</p> + +<p>"Very well. We seem to hold standards of conduct irreconcilably +divergent. To my thinking you are a self-righteous and tedious dreamer +and an impertinent preacher."</p> + +<p>Edwardes nodded and his answer was composed. "We are all dreamers of +varied sorts. You are yourself the mightiest of dreamers: because you +make your visions realities. Paul is a lesser dreamer—almost a +sleep-walker through life. As for Mary—" his voice grew suddenly +tender—"why, I first saw her in the sun and dust of a mountain +roadside, dreaming of fairy princes. I come last, but I'm a dreamer, +too. All my visions are simple, but I've tried to keep them compatible +with honest ideals."</p> + +<p>"At least, you have hardly succeeded in keeping them to yourself." +Hamilton Burton's voice was still controlled, but it was witheringly +bitter. "Let me make myself clear. In an unhappy marriage I see a fact +where you see a gauzy sacrament. I have become what I am, because to me +the broad canvas alone is interesting, and picayunish prejudices are +contemptible. You bring into my house a visage of disapproval, and when +you overhear private talk permit yourself to sneer. It is intolerable."</p> + +<p>There was such a ring of sincerity in the voicing of this distorted +reasoning that Edwardes almost smiled.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>"And yet," he answered, "until questioned I said nothing when I heard +you offering to buy, as your brother's plaything, the wife of another +man—a man who has served you with loyalty."</p> + +<p>"You sneered. You allowed your sanctimonious lips to curl. Had you +dared, you would have rebuked me out of your cramped virtue."</p> + +<p>"Dared!" Once more Edwardes found his words leaping in fierce and +uncontrolled anger. His hand had been almost drawn back to strike the +man who stood there treating him as an emperor might have treated a +corporal, but as the curb slipped from his cruelly reined temper, he +felt the girl's hand on his arm, and stepped back, with every muscle in +his body cramped under the tensity of his effort. Yet his words were +hardly less an assault than blows.</p> + +<p>"Had I dared!" he laughed ironically. "I dare to tell you now to your +face what all men say of you in your absence. They believe you to +be—and rightly—a conscienceless pirate. You are a scathe and a blight; +a pestilential ogre, drunk with self-worship. When first I saw you, you +were gloating over having bought lambs that you had never seen for seven +dollars which you sold, still unseen, for ten. Since then you have +simply amplified, on the scale of a Colossus, that single cheap ideal. +You have exalted vandalism and rechristened it Conquest."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton's face worked in a paroxysm of wrath and his words +hurled out fury to meet fury.</p> + +<p>"By Almighty God! I have listened to your damned insolence. Now you +shall listen to me! I had meant to retire soon from the world of active +business. I was almost satisfied. You have altered my plans. Just once +again I shall return to the arena and I shall never <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>leave it again, +until I have accomplished my single purpose." He halted with eyes +burning like those of a maniac, and the fever of passion shaking him. +Words poured torrent-wise.</p> + +<p>"I will go back into the Street. If need be I will tumble the entire +structure of finance into ruins, but under it I will bury you! I will +bury you deep beyond salvation! As there is a God in heaven, I will do +that. I will neither rest nor abate my warfare until I have utterly +ruined you! You and your self-righteous virtue shall become a jest to +the world. From now on until you walk the streets, disgraced and +penniless, I wholly dedicate myself to your destruction!"</p> + +<p>He paused, panting, and wild of glance, with his fists clenched and his +temples pulsing, and when he fell silent, Edwardes spoke slowly, almost +as in soliloquy: "I was not mistaken in you. You are the pirate and no +more. I will not call your boast empty. I have seen your power. You are +willing to bury in general ruin all those innocent persons whom you must +overthrow before you can reach me. Very well, you will find me fighting +when you come after me."</p> + +<p>"I am after you now," shouted the other. "I would wreck all New York to +smash you. To me it will be worth the price, and, by God, I'll do it!"</p> + +<p>Edwardes turned and held out his hand to Mary Burton. "Good-night, +dear," he said. His voice was weary and, as he looked at her, a deep +shadow of longing crossed his face.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" she commanded—in a tone which neither of them had ever heard +before, "I am going with you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">M</span><span class="heavy">ARY</span> Burton's usually colorful cheeks were now as pale as ivory. Her +attitude and expression declared a total dedication to one idea: war +upon the brother who could see in her entire future only a house of +cards to be swept down because it had not been reared in harmony with +his requirements. As she took a step toward the door Hamilton stepped +between, barring her way. His outburst of infuriated words had left him +breathing fast, and he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and passed it +across his brow.</p> + +<p>"Mary!" he exclaimed. "Are you mad?"</p> + +<p>"I am so sane," she assured him, "that to your demented eyes I must seem +a very maniac. You turned me from a woman into a doll and this man +turned me from a doll into a woman again. I am his woman. He is my man, +and my place is with him."</p> + +<p>"That man," her brother pointed an outstretched finger to her fiancé, +"is going to have no place for you to share. My hand holds the power to +make and crush and I have stamped him for obliteration. He is doomed. +You are my sister, and you must hold loyalty above infatuation. You must +not give countenance to my enemies in time of war, Mary. That spells +treason."</p> + +<p>It was as though the three persons standing there had all passed, at a +single step, through the explosive phases of wrath to the colder, +steadier and deadlier zone of feeling where all their words came level, +and with an almost monotonous quiet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>"Loyalty!" Into her eyes came so splendid and serene a light that she +seemed transfigured. "I am ready to hold loyalty above life itself. If +Jefferson Edwardes goes to his execution, I shall go with him and I +shall be prouder to share his ruin than any other man's victory. I have +just promised to marry him...." Slowly she raised her hand and gazed at +the engagement ring. The ghost of a smile trembled about her lips, +though a sudden moisture dimmed her eyes. It was a mist of tenderness, +not fear. "That promise was not given lightly," she added. "It outweighs +even a Monte Cristo's arrogance."</p> + +<p>Edwardes shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I release you from that promise, dear," he told her. "It is to be war +now, and bitter war. Before he can hurt me he must ruin hundreds of +innocent noncombatants; must trample down scores of honorable +institutions; and because I am responsible to them I must fight their +fight to the end, asking no quarter." For just a moment his chin came up +and he spoke with pride. "Our concern is no weak one. It has foundations +in a nation's faith. Now it must meet the assaults of a Colossus running +amuck. Your brother or I must go down. If it is I, you mustn't go down +with me, dearest."</p> + +<p>Very gravely she shook her head, and, turning her back on Hamilton, +clasped her hands about her lover's neck.</p> + +<p>"That, dear," she told him, "isn't exactly my idea of loving. Whoever +fights you fights me as well. I am your mate. My brother has revealed +his monstrous malignity of nature today and to sleep one night more +under his roof would shrivel my soul. I'd rather walk the streets. I +accepted you without terms. Now I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>impose one condition. You must marry +me tonight. Take me away—make me anything but a Burton."</p> + +<p>Edwardes pressed her close and neither of them for the moment spoke to +Hamilton or looked at him. "It can't be too soon," fervently declared +the lover.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose," inquired Hamilton Burton, his eyes narrowing until +they held a homicidal gleam, "that I shall permit you to leave my +house—with <i>him</i>?"</p> + +<p>Mary laughed, then suddenly her voice rose fiercely, ignoring his +question. "You say, Hamilton, it is to be war. I shall start the +war—now. Jefferson, please find Len Haswell's telephone number. I'm +going to give him warning."</p> + +<p>With an exclamation of incoherent fury Hamilton Burton leaped for the +telephone and tore it loose from its wires. He hurled the broken +instrument clattering to the floor and the directory into the flames. +Then he stood above the wreckage with his feet apart and his hands +clenching and unclenching in a panting picture of demoniac rage.</p> + +<p>Mary laughed as one might laugh at the passion of a child. "After all +there are other telephones," she said, then added quietly: "You will +find in my rooms all the gifts you have loaded upon me. Unfortunately I +should have to go out of your house naked if I left behind me everything +that has come from you. Will you ring for my maid?"</p> + +<p>For a moment the financier stood glaring and silent; then with a +powerful struggle for self-mastery he went over and touched a bell. "I +can't use physical force against my sister," he said. "You are of age, +and your own mistress, but if you make common cause with my enemies, you +become my enemy yourself."</p> + +<p>When Harrow responded to the call, only the broken <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>telephone bore +evidence of the violence of the past few minutes.</p> + +<p>"Please ask Julie," instructed the girl quietly, "to pack a bag for me +and one for herself. I shall only need enough things for a day or two. +Ask her to hurry."</p> + +<p>For several minutes the three stood without further speech, and when the +brother broke the silence it was in an altered tone.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he said seriously, "your happiness is very dear to me. For +nothing else would I let any differences between us amount to an issue. +For God's sake, forego this mad idea. You are disrupting a family for +whose upbuilding I have fought with a very fierce singleness of +purpose."</p> + +<p>"And to what end?" she demanded, with blazing eyes. "Of my father you +have made an artificial gentleman—and once he was a real man. To my +mother you have given luxuries instead of life. Paul you have turned +into a society lap-dog, and now by adding your strength to his weakness +you are trying to make him a beast of prey."</p> + +<p>"Those are very bitter accusations," he answered gravely. His face was +set, but shame for his recent outburst safeguarded him for the moment +against a second.</p> + +<p>Harrow appeared after a short time to announce that the maid was ready, +and Mary rose from her seat. "Good-by, Hamilton," she said.</p> + +<p>"Will you at least go to my mother's house?" he questioned.</p> + +<p>"Mother's house is as much your house as this one. No, I shall go where +Jefferson Edwardes chooses to take me."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>"Then, by God Almighty, you will not go at all!"</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton took his place at the door, and stood barring their way +while a dangerous gleam came into Edwardes' eyes. Mary spoke very +coldly.</p> + +<p>"Hamilton, please let us pass. It would be a pity to edify your servants +with a physical collision."</p> + +<p>Over the taut whiteness of the brother's face went a wave of doubt. He +recognized confronting him a spirit as indomitable as his own. Somehow +his arrogance, under her gaze, withered and shrunk into a cheap bravado, +and he realized it as such. He spoke once more and his words came +slowly.</p> + +<p>"I shall not use force. It is, of course, for you to decide. I have +perhaps loved you better than any other member of my family. My pride in +you has been triumphant. That man who stands at your side came into my +house and poisoned your heart against me. He is a traitor and I have +marked him for ruin. Decide between us calmly, Mary, because when I +resolve I do not deviate."</p> + +<p>"I have already decided," she answered. "Please let us pass."</p> + +<p>He drew aside and stood there motionless as the street-door opened and +closed. Afterward he walked slowly back into the room and stood +restlessly on the great bear pelt, gazing into the cavernous hearth. +Then he dropped down into the tall Moorish chair where a little while +before his sister had been sitting, her eyes brimming with joy. He +leaned forward and his hands fell limp from the wrists that rested limp +on his knees. Something had gone suddenly out of Hamilton Burton. The +eyes that stared into the blaze wore, for the first time, a trace of +that fatigue and distress which portraits show in the eyes looking out +from St.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> Helena. Mary was gone; gone with his enemy to fight under his +enemy's colors! Her motive bewildered him. What was this love that so +powerfully impelled her to desert her own blood? Suddenly his mind +flashed back to a kitchen tableau of a small girl breaking into a sudden +tempest of tears, and a boy saying, "I mean to see that Mary gets +whatever she wants out of life." Then quite irrelevantly a fragment of +verse leaped into his memory and prickled it with irritation.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The Emperor there in his box of state, looked grave<br /></span> +<span class="i2">as though he had just then seen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The red flags fly from the city gates, where his eagles<br /></span> +<span class="i2">of bronze had been."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His gaze dropped to the white fur of the rug and abstractedly he picked +up his sister's riding-crop and one glove. She had dropped them when +Jefferson Edwardes placed the ring on her finger. Hamilton turned the +things over in his hand and a groan escaped him. Then suddenly that mood +vanished. He rose and paced the floor like a lion lashing itself into +fury, and his eyes were fiercely tawny as he paced.</p> + +<p>Well, she had chosen. One thing remained possible. The man responsible +for this greatest sorrow and humiliation with which he had ever been +visited should pay in full the score of reprisal.</p> + +<p>With an abrupt impulse he sent for Paul and he was still pacing the room +with quick, nervous strides when his brother arrived. The younger man's +face was haggard and he cast a quick glance of trepidation about the +room.</p> + +<p>"Where's Mary?" he demanded, and Hamilton wheeled on him with eyes that +were scarcely sane.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>"Gone!" he barked out. "Gone with that rat, Edwardes. That's one of the +things your whim has cost so far—your baby-doll—your toy-woman!"</p> + +<p>With a sudden cry that came from his heart, Paul dropped into a chair +and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders shook to his +convulsive sobbing, and after a moment Hamilton went over and laid a +hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, little brother," he said softly. "After all, Edwardes was +the real reason. Edwardes with his damned self-righteousness! Mary flew +virtuously to his standards. She is no longer my sister, Paul."</p> + +<p>But Paul rose with his face full of pleading. He talked rapidly, +excitedly, like a frightened child.</p> + +<p>"Hamilton, she <i>is</i> our sister. She loves him.... You promised her +happiness years ago.... You can't let her go like this. It will kill us +all."</p> + +<p>His elder brother thrust him back at arm's length and gazed into his +grief-stricken face. "It's not a question of letting her go. She went in +spite of me. She went to the enemy." The words came very bitterly and +for the first time in his life Paul saw tears in Hamilton's eyes.</p> + +<p>The musician rose and passed an unsteady hand over his brow. "I'm +thinking about mother," he said brokenly. "I must go up and be with her +when she learns."</p> + +<p>Hamilton wheeled, speaking quickly. "Yes, do. I shall follow you +shortly. Tell mother that I withheld my approval to this marriage, and +they took the bit in their teeth."</p> + +<p>Within the half-hour Carl Bristoll, Ruferton and Tarring were with their +chief and between them lay sheafs of memoranda and financial data, which +littered the table.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>"I want to know in exact detail," Hamilton Burton told them as his +glance burned into their faces, "everything that it is possible to learn +concerning the firm of Edwardes and Edwardes. Most particularly I want +to learn their points of greatest vulnerability. I must have lists of +those securities in which, directly or indirectly, they are most vitally +interested and the exact nature and extent of all their liabilities."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Outside, Jefferson Edwardes found his car waiting, and the realization +came ironically to his mind that it was precisely the hour he had +expected to leave Hamilton Burton's house—though his intention had been +to leave only long enough to change into evening-clothes and return for +dinner. To his chauffeur he said in a low voice, "Drive in the park +until I tell you to stop." Then as he took his seat beside the girl he +turned upon her very serious eyes and said resolutely, "I couldn't +debate it with you in his presence, Mary, but I can't marry you +tonight."</p> + +<p>She turned her face to him and the color left her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Not marry me?" she questioned in a dazed voice.</p> + +<p>"Not yet, dearest. Under other circumstances no time could be too soon, +but now—" He raised his hands in a gesture of weariness and sat looking +at her with a hunger of the heart.</p> + +<p>"Now what?" she prompted.</p> + +<p>"Now I am pledged to a life-and-death duel with your brother. Now I must +fight not only my fight, but that of many others. It is foolish to treat +lightly the threats of Hamilton Burton. His power is incalculable and +his implacability is absolute. I can't tear away every family tie that +is rooted in your life merely to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>make you my comrade in ruin. That is +not my idea of loving, dearest."</p> + +<p>"And if not that—what?" Her chin was raised and her lips parted. Her +voice was very soft, almost faint. Never, Edwardes thought, had she been +so beautiful. "I have left my brother's house to go with you. I shall +not return. Am I, then, to find myself like a beggar woman, with no +place to go except the streets of New York?"</p> + +<p>With a gasping exclamation of pain in his throat he bent forward and +seized her in his arms. The car was now in the park and between the +light globes were spaces of darkness.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake," he cried, "don't. It is because I love you so!"</p> + +<p>"I think, Jefferson," she answered as he held her close with his kisses +on her cheeks, "you need me as much as I need you."</p> + +<p>"Need you! Because I need you so much, I can't let you do this now."</p> + +<p>"You spoke just now," she said, "as though you had no hope of victory in +this warfare. If that is true you need me to help you fight. I have no +intention of tame submission. You must have a Burton to fight this +Burton."</p> + +<p>"If I spoke so," he declared, and his voice was far from submissive, "it +was because any chance of ruin is too great a chance to subject you to. +It is because I mean to defend myself and my clients and my honor to the +last breath that I say I can't marry you now. Certainly not until you +have gravely considered these new occurrences. I shall take small +pleasure in his overthrow, if I overthrow him, because he is your +brother."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>"I think," her eyes flashed into a fierce animosity, "I shall glory in +it. I know that I shall not go back to his support. I offer myself to +you. I cannot compel you."</p> + +<p>For a long while they talked, she resolved to fight his fight with him +or take off his ring; and he, in a torture of soul, refusing so great a +gift at so ruinous a cost to herself. At last it was arranged that she +should go to her mother's until she had made up her mind, and that they +should both accept an invitation for a week at the hunting-lodge of +friends in the Adirondacks. There, except for their host and hostess, +they would be alone and Edwardes might have a breathing space before his +battle.</p> + +<p>There they tramped together on snowshoes over white-mantled hills and +forgot that any shadow threatened their happiness. They drank deep of +air that was spicy with the fragrance of pines and because to them the +present seemed so perfect they refused to borrow fears from the future.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the man would see a vagrant shadow of foreboding steal into +the mismated eyes, but when Mary became aware of its recognition in his +own, it was always swiftly banished for one of serene happiness and +confidence.</p> + +<p>"Dearest," he told her at such a moment—it was the moment of +candle-lighting, when dusk brings shadows of fear, "why 'heed the rumble +of the distant drum'? We love each other, and when my fight is over no +one shall part us."</p> + +<p>And she in the circle of his arms looked up and laughed and they both +banished from their hearts all thought of Hamilton Burton.</p> + +<p>At her mother's house before she came away, Mary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>had talked to Paul, +and had won his weak promise that he would permit his brother to take no +dishonorable step toward freeing Loraine Haswell. So she had not kept +her threat of warning the husband, and after she had returned to town, +her mother fell ill, and in the first call of loyalty there Mary +remained with her. About this time she read that Loraine had gone to +Europe, and had gone alone.</p> + +<p>Days had passed into weeks and Hamilton Burton had struck no blow. Mary +had begun to believe that he meant to strike none, and her lover +encouraged that view, but he himself knew that it was a phantom hope. He +knew that the arch master of financial strategy was building and +strengthening every sinew of war, and that the crushing impact of his +attack would be only the more terrific because he had curbed his +impatience and held his hand until the exact fraction of the +psychological moment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">L</span><span class="heavy">EN</span> Haswell carried a stricken face about the clubs where once he had +been the center of jovial gatherings, when he appeared there—which was +not often. Old associates who read the signs avoided him out of +kindliness save those who like Thayre could be with him without +reminding him of his hurt. Thayre, with all his seeming of bluff and +noisy gaiety, had an underlying tenderness of heart and delicacy of +perception which made him a friend for troubled hours. He knew how to +remain silent as well as how to be loquacious and he could radiate an +unspoken sympathy.</p> + +<p>One evening the Englishman chanced on Haswell in the otherwise deserted +reading-room of the National Union Club. Because it was a club chiefly +dedicated to the elder generation Thayre came infrequently and it +surprised him to find the other there. The big man was sitting with an +unread paper on his knee and his eyes were brooding as he gazed out +through the Fifth-avenue window on the twilight tide of motors and +'buses and hansoms that passed in an endless and unresting flow.</p> + +<p>"I had the idea, Haswell," remarked Thayre as he plumped himself down on +the leather arm of the other's chair and grinned his greeting, "that you +came to this place once a year—when they held the annual meeting."</p> + +<p>"And you?" countered Len in a dull voice. "I didn't regard you as an +habitué either."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>"Right-o!" The Englishman stretched out one gaitered foot and lighted a +cigarette. "I'll tell you a secret. When I grow savage in mood—" his +clear-eyed smile belied that state of mind—"I just run in here for a +bit of bear-baiting—rather good sport—bear-baiting. This is a den of +bears you know. Oh, yes, rather! They are all elderly bears, very +crabbed and self-absorbed and very smart and immaculate—but bears none +the less. Each has his particular chair, which to his own self-centered +mind is his private pedestal. They sit here with their manicured hands +resting idly on their robust, waistcoated tummies and stare out on the +world like little clay gods." He saw that the other man was following +him with a forced and uninterested attention, yet he went on, not like +Larry Kirk, but because he was leading up to a purpose of friendship.</p> + +<p>"Well, old chap, I just pop in here and squat on one of these pedestals, +d'ye see? Presently its proper occupant comes in and glares at me from +the door, puffing with indignation. Inwardly he is saying, 'How dare you +trespass, you bally young cub?' and I pretend to be quite unconscious of +his baleful gaze. I know there's really nothing he can do about it. If +he were in London, I expect he'd write to the <i>Times</i>."</p> + +<p>Thayre glanced up and started to add: "There's one now glaring at you," +but he quickly bit off the words, for he recognized the stout +frock-coated figure of old Tom Burton. Old Tom was progressing, for now +before the lights were switched on something in his face told that the +afternoon rubbers had not progressed without their libations.</p> + +<p>After a long pause Haswell said in a heavy voice:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> "I come here because +I don't meet many men who insist on talking to me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I beg pardon, old chap," Thayre hastily rose. "I'm sure I didn't +mean—" But before he could finish the big fellow put out a hand and +gripped his arm until a pain shot to the elbow.</p> + +<p>"You are the one man I do want to see, Norvil. Even a miserable devil +like me can talk to you, and there's a thing I want you to do for me, if +you will."</p> + +<p>"Name it."</p> + +<p>Haswell glanced wearily about the big room and assured himself that no +one was near enough to overhear his unbosoming. He still spoke in the +dulled voice of a dulled heart. His utterance, like his movements, was +slow and labored.</p> + +<p>"There are times when you've got to talk—or get to feeling giddy and +wrong in the head. I've about cut most of my clubs, but I can't cut +meeting the men—down-town."</p> + +<p>The Englishman nodded, but he said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I'm getting rather sick of being asked—" Len halted, then forced the +words doggedly—"how Loraine is and when I expect her back. I—well, I +don't expect her back, and it hurts like hell to say so."</p> + +<p>Norvil met the other's eyes and read in them a fulness of dumb +suffering, such as might come into those of a great, faithful dog. His +own question followed with a softness of assured sympathy. "And, of +course, you want her back?"</p> + +<p>A paroxysm of pain distorted his companion's face and his head flinched +back as though it had been heavily struck.</p> + +<p>"God! yes, like a strangling man wants breath," he said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>It was a misery for which there was no aid, so Thayre satisfied himself +with the inquiry: "What is this thing you want me to do?"</p> + +<p>"Just intimate to these men that they stop asking those questions, +that's all."</p> + +<p>"Is there any one you particularly blame?"</p> + +<p>Haswell shook his head. "No. There was at first, but the principal point +is that she has decided she can't be happy with me. If I try to hold her +after knowing that I become her jailer. I treat her as my property. I +hope I'm not that sort. I had my chance and have failed."</p> + +<p>"I say, I don't want to be impertinent, you know." Thayre bent forward +and spoke earnestly. "There are things a man doesn't like to have put up +to him. But you aren't letting this knock you off your line, are you? +You aren't going to let it bowl you over?"</p> + +<p>Again the tall man shook his head. "No, I'm quite all right," he said. +"I'm going fairly straight—so far."</p> + +<p>Late that night a wet snow was falling and Madison square was almost +deserted. Here and there in the Metropolitan and Flatiron buildings +shone an isolated and belated window light. At the Garden a Wild West +show with rings and side performances had long ago disgorged its crowds +and quieted its pandemonium of brass bands. Len Haswell had been walking +with the aimlessness of insomnia, and asking himself over and over one +question: "What changed it all?" In answer he accused himself and argued +the case for the woman without whom he was too lonely to go home and +face an empty house.</p> + +<p>It was after one o'clock and the saloon doors were barred, but as he +passed a small place not far from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>the square, he saw a side door flap, +and he entered it. It was an unprepossessing door, outwardly labeled, +"ladies' entrance."</p> + +<p>Haswell called for whiskey, and was served by a waiter in a spotted +apron, whose dank hair fell over a sallow and oily face. Save for +himself, there were only four other customers. In a corner partition a +slovenly woman in bedraggled finery berated the man who sat with bloated +eyes across from her. The waiter looked on sardonically. At another +table were two derelicts from one of the Garden side shows. A truculent +and beady-eyed dwarf whose face hardly showed above the boards was +brow-beating a cringing giant of unbelievable immensity. "You crabbed my +act, you big stiff," shrilled the midget truculently—and his huge +vis-à-vis fell into a volume of excuse and apology.</p> + +<p>Haswell set down his glass half-empty. "No good," he muttered as he rose +and went out again into the streets. "One can't be alone." Yet he felt +very much alone.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In these days Paul Burton found his thoughts turning often to Marcia +Terroll and himself becoming more dependent on her companionship. In her +sunny courage and sparkle of repartee he found a tonic exhilaration for +his own jaded spirits and an antidote for growing morbidness. He knew +that her daily rounds of the managers' offices were fruitless, and that +she walked long distances to save nickels, and in his man's ignorance he +marveled because her white gloves were always spotless and her +appearance unmarked by poverty. With more money than he could use, his +impulse clamored to volunteer assistance—and his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>judgment forbade the +liberty. These days of growing intimacy were troubled days for him, too.</p> + +<p>Loraine Haswell was away and her letters kept him reminded that the +purpose of her exile was ridding herself of those encumbrances which +stood between them. Yet in her absence, there was also the absence of +her personal fascination, the daily renewal of her hold on his senses, +and, strangely enough, he began to feel that instead of having barriers +swept from the path of his love, he was being bound to a future marred +by intervals of clouded misgiving.</p> + +<p>The thought of Mary also brought him distress. There was no policy of +ostrich-blind self-comfort by which he could escape from the realization +that he was indirectly a party in responsibility for the destructive +menace that hung over her happiness. His few attempts to discuss the +subject with Hamilton had not been hopeful or pleasant, and he could not +doubt that Edwardes would ultimately be swept into a chaos of ruin +because he had opposed the irresistible onrush of his brother's power. +He sought to persuade himself of Hamilton's infallible wisdom and Mary's +folly of infatuation, but the only certain conviction was that of a +bruised and heavy heart in his own breast. Paul was pitiably weak, but, +also, he was sensitively tender. Love he gave and commanded with the +uncalculating quality of a child.</p> + +<p>To Marcia he had not confided any word of his status with Mrs. Haswell, +but her quick intuition told her he was deeply troubled—and her quicker +sympathy responded. Sometimes Paul longed to see Loraine, but after each +visit to the tiny apartment where Marcia Terroll and a girl who drew +fashion illustrations had set up their household gods, the vision of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>his far-away Cleopatra grew a shade dimmer and a trifle more +impersonal.</p> + +<p>Bit by bit he had pieced together a few sketchy fragments of Miss +Terroll's biography, just enough to make the wish for fuller knowledge +tantalizing. That was her maiden name, also used as a stage name, but +she had been married when just out of Wellesley. She spoke little of +that episode. Her girlhood was a pleasanter theme and its environment +had been that of his own world—full of the gaiety and sunshine that is +girlhood's inalienable right. All these scraps of personal history +filtered into their conversation; rather as incidentals than as direct +information. This young woman was not of the type that gratuitously +relates a life-story. That she had been left resourceless with a young +daughter and had fought the world unaided and unembittered, herself +retaining the seeming of a child, Paul now knew, but he knew all too +little to satisfy his interest. She had been secretary in a business +house and an interpreter of German and Spanish. Now she was the only +actress he knew—untypical and unemployed.</p> + +<p>Paul felt that in the presence of her superior mind and larger education +he ought to be abashed, yet he was not, because when she laughed it was +with the merriment of a gay child and when she was serious she was +sweetly grave. Sometimes he played for her and sometimes she sang for +him, and both did what they did so well that the critic in the other +found no disappointment.</p> + +<p>Unpremeditatedly and very naturally they had struck the basis of a +dependable comradeship. She saw the occasional flash of genius in his +musical creativeness and his need of practical attributes. To him she +was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>something of a mystery. To her, save for his well-kept secret of +loving Loraine, he was an easily read human document. She told him of +her broader experiences, always tinging them with a delicious humor in +the recital, which twisted into comedy what might have been related as +little tragedies, and because she had seen so much of life, where he had +seen so little, she was willing to recognize his lovable qualities and +overlook his weaknesses.</p> + +<p>But just as Paul did not talk much to her of his own affairs and the +people of his set, so he did not talk with them of her.</p> + +<p>At first she had interested him as an experiment; then as affording the +possibility for a new type of adventure in friendship, and when he came +to know her in that degree which represented their present association, +he ceased to ask why she interested him, and only knew that she did.</p> + +<p>Of late she had been unusually gay because of revival of hope. A part +which she knew she could play had been half-promised her which would +bring Broadway recognition and the chance to be judged on her merits. +More than that it would mean the possibility of bringing her small +daughter back from the relatives who were playing parents in these days +of uncertainty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">O</span><span class="heavy">NE</span> gray and penetrating afternoon laid its depressing fingers on Paul +Burton's heart with a heavier touch than usual. Even Hamilton was +wearing a frowning and unsympathetic brow these days, and when the +musician saw Mary, despite the inflexible courage of her eyes, there was +something in them that hurt him to the quick. He knew and shared his +mother's grief, but could not bear the trace of unshed tears in her +voice. So, seeking asylum from the anxious ghosts that stalked between +the walls of his house, he made his way down-town and rang the bell on +Marcia Terroll's door. There are women men go to in triumph and women +they go to when hurt. Often they are not the same women. It was a raw, +bleak afternoon of disheartening drizzle and a reek of fog which veiled +the tops of the taller buildings. As he waited for an answer to his +ring, he could hear the fog-horn voice groaning over river and bay as +though some huge monster were troubled in its sleep.</p> + +<p>Then Marcia opened the door and as he made his way along the four-foot +hall to the small living-room he discovered that she, too, was pale and +distraite.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he demanded with that sympathy which always lay close to +the surface of his nature. To his astonishment, the girl whose courage +and composure had become the reliance of his own weakness dropped on the +disguised cot and buried her face in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>her hands while her slim figure +shook to her sobbing, among the cushions.</p> + +<p>Paul stood embarrassed and perplexed. Then, moved by impulse, he crossed +to the lounge and his hand fell with a gently caressing touch upon her +arm. "Why, little girl," he remonstrated softly, "where is your gay +bravery—what has happened?"</p> + +<p>She sat up then and almost impatiently shook his hand away. After that +she rose to her feet.</p> + +<p>"That's just it," she declared, and for the first time in their +acquaintanceship her eyes shone with an angry gleam, which quickly faded +again into distress. Her tear-stained face confronted him accusingly +"Everybody talks about my intelligence—and my courage. That's not what +I want. I'm just human and I want a human chance."</p> + +<p>"What sort of chance?" he asked in that vague distress which confuses a +man and makes him stupid, at sight of a woman's tears.</p> + +<p>She lifted her head defiantly. "A chance to work and live and be happy," +she told him vehemently. "A chance to support my child and myself. They +all praise me, but no one will hire me. I'm tired of +fighting—unspeakably tired." Once more her face went into the support +of the two small hands and her body shook.</p> + +<p>"But your part in the new piece—don't you get it?" he questioned.</p> + +<p>"They gave it to another woman," she told him faintly between her +fingers. "A woman who—who is the friend of the author."</p> + +<p>Heretofore Paul had always felt a half-submerged diffidence with Marcia, +such a partially acknowledged deference as one accords to another who +has drunk <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>deeper of life and more extensively built wisdom from +experience. With her his easy pose of acknowledged genius that passed +current in the drawing-rooms lost its assurance, and with her he was at +his best because most natural. But this was a new Marcia, a Marcia whose +delicate, childlike face was stamped with grief; a child in distress and +a child who needed comforting. Just as once before, when there was no +escape, Paul had fought the Marquess kid and had been astonished at the +ease of battle, so now an impulse seized him and he found himself acting +without premeditation. He was the man looking on at the tears of a +woman, and a woman whose laughter had often been his comfort. +Instinctively he folded her in his arms and kissed the soft hair which +was all that showed itself of the bowed head and hidden face.</p> + +<p>Now when for the first time he held her close to him he felt a tremor of +sobs run through the slender figure. His pulses heightened their tempo +as he became conscious of the soft palpitation of her shoulders and +bosom.</p> + +<p>Sympathy, he thought, actuated him. He took the averted face between his +hands and raised it gently, but with a strong pressure until the +tear-stained eyes were looking into his own.</p> + +<p>Her lips were very petal-like and her eyes were very dewy and on each +cheek bloomed a spot of color heightened by the pallor of the moment.</p> + +<p>Paul Burton at the instant forgot Loraine Haswell, the prize of his +brother's grand larceny for his pleasure, forgot that this woman was no +more than his Platonic friend and remembered only that her chin rested +in his hand and that his arm encircled her, as he bent his head and +pressed his lips against the mouth that trembled.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>He did not think of the demonstration as necessarily loverlike. His +nature was instinctive, not analytical, but suddenly there swept into +the utterly lonely and battle-weary eyes of the woman, who was <i>not</i> a +child, a smile of happiness and comfort which parted her lips, so that +her face reminded him of sudden sunshine flashing into rainbow hope +through an April shower. He could feel the heart fluttering wildly in +her breast, and at once he knew that to her his kiss had meant an avowal +of love—that in her code there was no place for light or unmeaning +caresses.</p> + +<p>He rose and his face paled. The indecisiveness which never dared to +grasp the thistle firmly was troubling him with a new dilemma. Yet +something in Marcia Terroll made a call upon him which no other woman +had yet made—the call to be honest at all cost.</p> + +<p>With his averted face toward the window, in a forced and level voice, +not daring to meet her eyes, he told her almost all there was to tell +about Loraine Haswell. The new spark of manhood she had awakened in him +made him silent on one point. He said nothing of his own doubts; his own +wonder whether after all he loved or wanted Loraine. Just now he fancied +he wanted Marcia Terroll.</p> + +<p>When the recital reached its end he stood for a space gazing into the +fog which seemed an emblem of his own life. He was waiting for her to +speak, but the silence remained unbroken. At last he turned and saw her +sitting there no longer tearful, only a little stunned.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't lie to you," he protested in a hurried utterance as he came +over and knelt on the floor at her side. "Not to you.... Of course, you +know that I love you very dearly as a man loves his rarest friends.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>... +You know what our comradeship means to me—"</p> + +<p>With an impulsive forward sweep of her hands she interrupted him and her +voice was burdened with deep pain and heart-ache.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" she pleaded, and the monosyllable was like a cry. "Oh, don't!" +Then after a little while she went on slowly: "You are a romanticist, +Paul, and a dreamer. Some day you will wake up. We all do."</p> + +<p>"It was better to tell you, dear, wasn't it? It would have been +unfair—"</p> + +<p>She bowed her head wearily as though realizing the futility of expecting +him to understand. "Yes, I suppose so, only—"</p> + +<p>He waited a moment, then prompted:</p> + +<p>"Only what?"</p> + +<p>"Only perhaps a stronger man would have told me before he—kissed me."</p> + +<p>"Did that—make so much difference?"</p> + +<p>The green-gray eyes grew soft and the lips smiled wanly. "Yes—all the +difference," she said. "It made me think for a moment that—that +everything was different.... Ordinarily people don't—I mean men +don't—" She broke off and then explained a little laboriously. "To me +that sort of kiss must mean a very great deal to excuse itself."</p> + +<p>"But I did mean it," he fervently assured her. "Marcia, I have been +horribly unhappy and you have been lonely. We have seen so much of each +other because we wanted each other—needed each other."</p> + +<p>The girl rose and went quietly over to the window. Outside the murk of +the fog was raw and choking. The stertorous snore of the ferry whistles +was uneasy, ominous: the spirit of the town's myriad anxieties. She +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>began to speak with measured syllables and an averted face.</p> + +<p>"No, you don't need me, Paul. I hadn't understood before, but I do now. +I am this moment's whim, that's all. I don't need you either, I don't +need anyone." A trace of resolution and hurt pride tinged the voice, but +the resolution was predominant. "I've depended on myself for years and I +can go on. When you came today I wasn't myself. I was disappointed and +miserable and my misery made its appeal to your sympathy. You were +carried away because you're emotional, and it was all my fault. I'm +supposed to be practical and I let you do it. We must forget about it +now, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Some things—" his voice mounted to a thrill of feeling—"can't be +forgotten."</p> + +<p>"They must be."</p> + +<p>"I have made you angry," he said with deep contrition, "and it's the +last thing in the world I wanted to do."</p> + +<p>Marcia smiled again, as she might have smiled on a child who promises to +be good all its life, and who will in a forgetful half-hour be again +breaking all the laws and ordinances of the nursery.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not angry," she said thoughtfully. "One should not be angry +with a person of your exact sort, Paul. In another man the same thing +would have made me angry, but not in you. I am only sorry it happened. +Let's pretend it didn't."</p> + +<p>"Why," he inquired, puzzled, as he gazed at the face still moist with +its recent tears and now rather cryptic in its expression, "are your +laws of judgment different for me than for other men?"</p> + +<p>Marcia shook her head.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>"Perhaps just because you are yourself different from other men. Maybe +in the artist there is something of the woman and something of the +child, as well as something of the man. One doesn't grow angry with a +child."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The monosyllable came with an undernote of chagrin. "I'm not +exactly responsible. That's what you mean?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer in words, but her eyes as she looked off through the +drizzle with her fingers hanging limply motionless at her sides gave him +the affirmative reply, and he went on in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"Of course, that would make you hate me. It must make anyone hate me if +it's true."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence and he heard her laugh. It was a sound of a +single note and it was neither a laugh of amusement nor of ridicule. If +there was any betrayal of laughing at the expense of someone, the +someone was evidently herself, and Paul was not sure it was a laugh +after all. Possibly it was a single sob or half-sob and half-laugh. But +she went on in a voice flattened by weariness.</p> + +<p>"Life deals in paradoxes. Possibly that very thing might make one love +you."</p> + +<p>Paul stood in the small room, feeling himself very small and +contemptible. The face of Loraine rose before his memory, beautiful and +petulant, appealing and regal, features of ivory with poppy-like lips, +dominated by dusky eyes and night-black hair.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she seemed responsible for all his uncertainties. He saw her +just then as a Circe. He was a man, swung to an ebb and flow of mood by +influences outwardly as nebulous as moon-mists. Just now the influence +of Loraine Haswell was at ebb-tide. To<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>morrow it might run again to +flood, but Paul Burton obeyed the prompting of the present.</p> + +<p>With a low exclamation that was wordless and a face tense and white, he +was at the girl's side and his arms were again about her. She shook her +head and tried to draw away, but he only held her the more closely until +she raised her face and said patiently, "I'm very tired, don't make me +fight both myself and you."</p> + +<p>The musician shook his head and talked fast. "You said when I kissed you +that you thought it meant something very different. You could have meant +only that you thought I loved you. But that was not all. Thinking that I +loved you would have meant nothing to you if you hadn't loved me—if you +didn't love me now. You do. You have just said, 'Don't make me fight +myself.' There would be no fight with yourself—if you didn't love me."</p> + +<p>He paused and his arms held her very close, as he saw her turn away her +face and make an effort to release herself, but in the eyes that she +averted he read the cost of the effort.</p> + +<p>"Please let me go." The words came faintly.</p> + +<p>"Not until you answer me. I love you, Marcia. This time it means all +that you thought it meant before. I love you."</p> + +<p>Her eyes came around again and intently studied his own, then the voice +spoke in low tone:</p> + +<p>"No. You think you do—but it's only impulse."</p> + +<p>"I love you," he insisted, "and you love me. Your pupils confess it. Why +deny it with your lips? You love me."</p> + +<p>She gently disengaged herself and sat again on the lounge.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>"Very well," she told him as she looked at him with an honesty of +expression under which his own gaze fell discomforted, "suppose I do +confess it, what then? I hadn't ever meant to confess it, but perhaps +it's better that we understand things. We mustn't drift blindly. Just +now, Paul, when you declared your love you thought you meant it. For the +fleeting time it took to say it you did mean it. If you saw her tomorrow +you would tell her the same things, and you'd believe yourself honest. +If I loved you beyond all hope of forgetting you, it would only prove +that we had both made a mistake. We mustn't go on with it."</p> + +<p>As a wind may veer without warning, the current of Paul Burton's +emotions shifted. While wishing to deny and argue, he knew that what she +told him was true. He had entered the house with no thought of +love-making. Had she accepted his protestations at their face value, he +would have left it shaken with an agony of doubt and misgiving. After +all he had sworn his love first to Loraine. He had permitted her to +separate from her husband on the assumption that his own allegiance +would hold. Could a man truly love two women at the same time, he +wondered. Whatever he did he must appear a weak fool. The fact that this +phase of the matter presented itself for consideration at this time +proved only that it was Paul Burton who found himself in the situation.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to say," he admitted brokenly. "I know only that I +would like to be happy, if it's humanly possible, and I'd give anything +on earth to see you happy. At least you believe that much, dear, don't +you?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. "Yes," she said, "I believe—that much."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>Then after a few moments she continued seriously:</p> + +<p>"We have been trusting ourselves on quicksands, Paul, and between us +we've done one wise thing. We've discovered it in time. Maybe it would +be still wiser now to be really frank for once and then to be very +careful afterwards."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, exactly?"</p> + +<p>"I divined your unhappiness, and I knew my own—for a long time I've +known my own. You have been petted and praised by women—women of that +world which was once mine. You say I love you. Do you know why—?" She +wheeled suddenly and spoke without disguise. "Not because you are a +great musician or a celebrity. It is because I realize how weak and +foolish and helpless you are." The man winced, but she went on steadily. +"In all woman-love there is a ruling element of mother-love. I wanted to +take you into my heart and make you happy, to ... to give you all a +woman can give a man."</p> + +<p>He came forward and his words were unsteady.</p> + +<p>"You can at least let me be your best and closest friend—"</p> + +<p>"No. I doubt if men and women can really be friends. It comes to mean +too much—or too little."</p> + +<p>"But, Marcia—"</p> + +<p>Again she interrupted and again the voice was monotonous, almost +lifeless.</p> + +<p>"No, dear. All our silly little jokes—things that have come to be dear +little traditions between us—would be mockeries now." She raised her +chin, and said suddenly, with a forced laugh: "I don't often have these +brain-storms. They make me very foolish. We must see less of each other, +Paul."</p> + +<p>"And yet," he stubbornly argued, "it has been only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>an hour since the +basis of our comradeship was secure enough."</p> + +<p>"In that hour we have come a long way, dear. It's going to be hard +enough to get back as it is."</p> + +<p>She stood still and, after a brief silence, spoke once more.</p> + +<p>"I must brush these cobwebs away from my brain ... only—" suddenly her +eyes flooded and there was a gasping sob in her voice—"only they aren't +cobwebs—they are cables and chains! I was a fool to expect to be happy. +I haven't been happy for years. I've never had what I've wanted.... I +haven't even been able to have my baby with me." Marcia went slowly to a +chair and sat staring, wide-eyed, at the wall. At last she looked up and +commanded in a whisper. "You must go now—don't say good-by—just go!"</p> + +<p>Paul took up his hat and let himself out into the narrow hall.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="heavy">HE</span> illness of Elizabeth Burton proved tedious and perplexing to the +specialists who traced its origin beyond the purely physical to some +unconfessed thing gnawing at the peace of her brain. Accordingly they +did what they could and, having effected a temporary repair, fell back +on the customary prescription of change and travel.</p> + +<p>During these weeks Mary had been constantly with her mother—and when +she was even a short while away the elder woman anxiously called for +her. Sometimes she and Hamilton had met, but at these times there was no +syllable of surrender from the lips of either; only a tacit sort of +truce such as might have existed where two armies drawn tensely in +confronting battle-lines pause to care for the wounded in which both +have interest. But when the mandate came that Elizabeth Burton must go +abroad Mary Burton faced the sternest dilemma which had ever presented +itself for her decision. The mother refused absolutely to obey the +verdict unless her daughter accompanied her, and while Mary was abroad +she could only guess what crises her lover might be meeting at +home—because he was her lover.</p> + +<p>She and Edwardes were walking together one afternoon as they discussed +this new complication in their affairs. They had chosen for their tryst +neither the smooth stretch of the avenue nor the paths of the park, but +those tangled by-ways that thread the woods back of the Jersey +Palisades.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>It was a cold day with air as biting as a lash and as clear as crystal, +and since these woods were wild and desolate in spots though skirted by +smooth road-ways and flanked by handsome estates they had for the most +part uninterrupted solitude. Ragged outcroppings of rock stood baldly +etched against the brilliant sky and through the open spaces they +occasionally saw the Hudson and the contour of upper New York. Twice +they came upon rouged and powdered men and women with beaded lashes, but +these men and women were too busy doing varied things before cameras to +take notice of them, for their refuge was also the open-air workshop of +moving-picture folk.</p> + +<p>"Of course you must go," Edwardes seriously told her. "Your mother's +health—her life itself—may depend on it. You aren't the sort who can +hesitate to answer such a call and it won't be forever, you know."</p> + +<p>"And while I'm—over there—with an ocean between us"—she broke off and +her eyes darkened with terror—"you may be facing a decisive battle +here—a battle decisive for both of us. If you have to fight, it's my +right to be near you—to share your fortunes and your misfortunes. Our +love didn't begin as little loves do. It sha'n't end that way."</p> + +<p>"If I thought—" his voice was very deep in its earnestness—"that +anything could mean an end of our love, I couldn't make a fight whether +you were here or elsewhere. I think our love will outlast all battles. I +want you to go."</p> + +<p>"And if I do go," she demanded with a gaze of questioning which demanded +a truthful answer, "will you swear, by whatever is holiest and means +most to you, that you will cable me at the first intimation of storm?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>For a while he stood silent and his features were trouble-stamped; then +he took both her hands and their eyes met. Slowly he bowed his assent. +"I swear it," he told her, "by my love for you, but if I read the signs +aright the time is not quite that close at hand."</p> + +<p>In these days Hamilton Burton's secret service was preternaturally +active. Less of the Titan's affairs passed through the hands of Carl +Bristoll. He could be implicitly trusted, but called on only for honest +service. More went through Tarring and Ruferton and Hendricks—who +questioned no motives.</p> + +<p>After two months Mary returned, and when she met the gaze of Jefferson +Edwardes she read in it the struggle which his fight against his heart's +clamorous insistence had cost him. "I have thought of little else since +I went away," she told him, "and I have decided that either I am worthy +to stand with you in whatever comes to you, or I am not worthy to be +your wife at all. Hamilton hurled his threat at us and we, like a pair +of timid children, let him frighten us. In this as in everything else he +has had his way and we are paying the price—giving up our lives."</p> + +<p>"It's very hard," he answered, "to stand out against you, when only my +mind argues against you and my heart is so insistent on the other side. +You say you have thought of little else. I have thought of <i>nothing</i> +else. The clocks have chimed it—the bells have rung it—the voice of +the city has roared and echoed it. I want you so much, dear, that +without you I am starving. You pledged yourself to me and then came this +menace. I couldn't let you act blindly. Now if you are still resolute—"</p> + +<p>"I am more so," she declared. "My brother issued his challenge and we +accepted it. Yet we went abjectly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>away and obeyed him. If he means to +fight he must fight now. I am no less a Burton than himself and I am +tired of submission."</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes smiled. For the instant everything except her own +undaunted courage seemed to shrink into minor consideration.</p> + +<p>"You are right," he said, and he said it with a note of triumph. "We +shall announce our engagement and set a day—neither hastening it nor +delaying it—but acting precisely as you would act had he never opposed +us. If he thinks he can stop us let him try." He paused and his face +suddenly hardened as he added, "There have been moments when murder has +tempted me—when I wanted to go to Hamilton Burton and kill him with my +hands."</p> + +<p>Paul was commissioned by his mother to convey to Hamilton the news which +would on the following day appear in all the society columns, the +statement that in thirty days Miss Mary Burton would become the bride of +Mr. Jefferson Edwardes, head of Edwardes and Edwardes. At first Hamilton +said nothing. His face paled a little and he reached out and fingered a +paper-weight and a pen, with the gesture of one whose brain takes no +thought of what his hand does.</p> + +<p>Then slowly his eyes kindled into the tawny gleam of a tigerish light.</p> + +<p>"It was very good of them to wait so long," he said significantly. "I +think I am just about ready now."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Hamilton?" Paul bent forward and spoke with alarm.</p> + +<p>"Mean!" Hamilton came to his feet and his anger snapped across the table +like a powerful current leaping a broken wire. He took up a delicately +fashioned statuette of porcelain and tossed it to the stone flag<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>ging of +the hearth where it lay shivered. He walked over and contemptuously +kicked some of the fragments toward the open fire.</p> + +<p>"Mean! I mean that I shall treat him like that. What's left when I'm +through Mary can have—for a wedding or a funeral whichever seems most +suitable."</p> + +<p>For once in his life a flame of resistance and momentary courage leaped +up in Paul Burton.</p> + +<p>"You shall do nothing of the sort," he vehemently declared. "Mary is my +blood and your blood and my mother's blood. You sha'n't sacrifice her, +merely because she loves a man whom you hate."</p> + +<p>"Stop!" Hamilton raised his hands warningly. "Don't throw yourself to +the enemy, Paul. Don't make an irreconcilable breach between us. I don't +find fault with your sympathy. I should hate you if you didn't feel +it—but this man Edwardes is doomed. Nothing can save him. If heaven +itself fought for him, I would make war on heaven, whoever attempts to +thwart me—even if it be you, Paul, shall go with him to ruin. We won't +talk of this again."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mary Burton awoke one morning to see, through her window blinds, a +mixture of snow and rain falling from low-hanging clouds; yet her lips +parted in a smile. She glanced at the clock by her bed. It was eleven. +In just one week and sixty minutes she and Jefferson Edwardes would be +standing at the altar.</p> + +<p>She threw a dressing-gown about her, and, slipping her small pink feet +into small pink slippers, crossed idly to the window. Then with a face +that in an instant went white with a premonition of disaster, she +wheeled on Julie and her voice came in an agitated whisper.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>"What are they calling extras about? Get me a paper quick." When a few +minutes later a sheet still damp from the presses lay before her she +needed only the flaring headlines to corroborate her fears. With +throbbing temples she swayed unsteadily as she made her way to a chair +and sank down, gripping the paper tightly in a clenched fist. Four words +were hammering themselves into her brain and heart: "Stock-Exchange in +Frenzy." ... Her apathy of inactivity lasted only a few moments. Then +she came to her feet and, instead of panic, resolution sounded through +her voice. "Dress me, Julie," she commanded. "Dress me quickly. I must +be down-town at once. 'Phone for the car. Don't waste an instant." At +least she would be there—where battle was raging.</p> + +<p>"But, mademoiselle, in an hour you are due for a fitting—your +wedding-gown."</p> + +<p>"Don't stop to talk—hurry!"</p> + +<p>Her wedding-gown! She wondered if she would ever need it.</p> + +<p>As her car neared the business district she could feel in the air such +an electric tensity as one might expect to find at the verge of a +battle-field.</p> + +<p>At first it was only a spirit of heightened excitement in the street +crowds; and the way men ran to meet the newsboys half-way. Then it was +humanity jostling about the doors of a bank with the excitement of +swarming bees. Across City Hall park came a glimpse of surging throngs +at the bulletin boards, and the unpleasant chorus of voices as fresh +bulletins went up.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Hamilton Burton had reached his office that morning at eight-thirty and +was ready upon their arrival <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>to confer with those lieutenants whom he +had ordered to be with him at nine. Len Haswell appeared with the +lack-luster seeming of a jaded spirit and though Burton had on past +occasions chosen him as leader of every fierce assault on the floor, +because of his quick brain, his commanding physique and the voice that +could boom out like a heavy gun over the pandemonium of a frenzied +exchange, he now eyed his gigantic broker dubiously. This was no day for +his lieutenants to carry into that Gehenna which he meant to precipitate +senses dulled, or hearts cast down. This morning's work called for such +spirit as carries forward a tide of bayonets thirsting for blood back of +the trenches they charge. There must be the ferocity of barbarians +bearing knife and torch: of the hordes of the Huns and Vandals. There of +course was Hardinge, a man who, had he not been a broker, might have +made a headquarters detective, so hard and devoid of humanity was the +fashion in which he went about his work. His nature was that of a cock +tossed into the pit or a bull turned into the ring. Such men Hamilton +wanted now, for into the five hours of the Stock-Exchange day he meant +to crowd such a sum of mad disaster and panic conflagration that the +history of the Money World should be beggared for a comparison. They had +tauntingly named him the Great Bear, but this day should demonstrate +that heretofore he had been only a gentle and playful cub. Cash—cash, +cash! Such had been his watchword and he had stamped on the world of +finance a belief that his command of gold was endless. Even should he +reach the end of his resources with his task unfinished, he knew that +his tremendous nerve was in itself unlimited backing. The nature of the +trading on the floor precluded any discovery, dur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>ing the length of the +session, of a depleted treasury—and left open the path for onward +charges. But before his treasury was depleted the whole structure would +lie in ruins.</p> + +<p>He glanced out of his window and smiled. It was the sort of a day which +men in police circles describe as "suicide weather." Coroners will tell +you that on such days their calls are most numerous and history will +tell you that on such days the greatest financial disasters of the world +have visited stock-exchanges and bourses. Burton's jaws were set and his +eyes ablaze with a fiery tenseness which was hardly sane. His loins were +girded and to one focal object was every power dedicated. He was going +to mete out death and destruction. He would grapple with enemies who had +taught him the art of death and destruction. As he ended his +instructions to his brokers he looked at his watch; it was +nine-forty-five. "Cut loose!" he almost shouted. "Railway Generals +closed at 175. By noon I want them down to 50. When Malone's gang begin +pegging the market, break their pegs. Don't spare Coal and Ore. Keep +them too busy with self-preservation to let them think of rescuing +others. Give them slaughter—and unshirted hell!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The light that rains down from the ceiling of the Stock-Exchange is a +softened, benevolent light, even when the outer skies are lowering. The +gentlemen inside play their game in a well-appointed gambling parlor.</p> + +<p>It would not be fitting that they should seem pikers. Above them +stretches a ceiling of soft color scheme in delicate pink and blue and +from this canopy sixty-two ceiling lights shed down a tempered radiance +from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>globes suggestive of inverted golden blossoms. The great +bronze-framed windows, too, at the east and west make a greater part of +the wall area as receptive of brightness as does a studio skylight—for +the world's cleverest financiers must be cheered by brightness and +protected against gloom.</p> + +<p>Today the great interior cube of space needed all the light that could +flood the area between its marble walls—for despite the sixty-two +inverted blossoms it was to see black hours.</p> + +<p>Of that there was of course no suspicion at first.</p> + +<p>The assembled brokers chatted carelessly, and between them sedately +passed the floor employees in cadet gray, and boys carrying green +watering-pots with which, when many feet had pounded the boards into +dust, they would sprinkle this hot-house of Finance, as they might have +sprinkled a bed of thirsty geraniums.</p> + +<p>Then from the marble balcony, where is placed the president's chair, +sounded the clang of the opening gong. The session had begun.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton's lieutenants meant to waste no moment of the five-hour +session. Another day meant the drawing of new lines, and time for +tallying and rallying, but what was done today was immutably done. +Hardinge and Haswell stood near the post at whose head hung the sign, +"Railway Generals." About them lounged a handful of dilatory brokers. +Railway Generals had closed yesterday strong at 175, but quotations from +London, where by reason of difference in time there had already been +several hours of trading, reflected an unaccountable nervousness +over-seas. So the stock opened five points off.</p> + +<p>Every game has its traditional rules. It is a cardi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>nal by-law of the +Exchange that until the gong peals every man on the floor must maintain +an unruffled and blasé composure, though when the clamor of the big bell +unleashes their restraint whosoever chooses may leap into the frenzy of +a madhouse.</p> + +<p>A voice at the Railway-Generals post drawled out "170 for any part of +5,000 Generals," and on the instant Hardinge's deep basso boomed a +challenge and a battle cry as he yelled back, "Sold!"</p> + +<p>The bidder was Jack Staples, and he bore the credentials of J. J. Malone. +For just an instant he eyed his vis-à-vis and his prominent lower jaw +seemed to protrude more aggressively, as his indolent manner dropped +from him and his eyes kindled. He brushed back the white lock on his +forehead and defiantly shouted, "168 for any part of 10,000," but before +the words had come to conclusion on his lips, the rifle-like retort had +met him from the throat of Hardinge, "Sold!"</p> + +<p>"165 for any part of 10,000!"—"Sold!" This time the deep-lunged +monosyllable burst volcanically from the lips of Len Haswell, and it +rang across the floor and echoed between the walls like a thunderclap +between the cliffs of a mountain gorge.</p> + +<p>Instantly crowds surged forward and elbowed their ways to the Generals +post. Where five minutes back there had been scant dozens there were now +full hundreds who shouldered and shoved and fought, struck by a sudden +wild realization that a fight was on. At the center of the vortex they +could see the sandy head of Len Haswell high above the crowns of other +men and in his face they read the gage of battle. No longer was this the +heartsick face which of late had avoided the gaze of his fellows. It was +the fighting face of one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>who hurls himself into the thick of a +struggle, seeking forgetfulness in the ferocity of combat.</p> + +<p>"163 for any part of 10,000"—"SOLD!"</p> + +<p>With each repetition the unchanged formula took on an added ferocity—a +deeper meaning. It was a three-cornered duel. Jack Staples leaned +eagerly forward, his eyes burning and keen with aggressive alertness +like a boxer facing opponents in a battle royal. Len Haswell seemed +bending to meet him, his long arm raised and his face afire, while +Hardinge, whose place had been for the moment preëmpted, mopped his +brow, already perspiring, and smiled grimly like a relay racer waiting +his turn.</p> + +<p>But what gave an undercurrent of terrific force to the battle of these +three men was the thing which every broker present understood—that one +of them was the floor spokesman of Malone and Harrison and the old +invincible order of Consolidated—and that two voiced the message of the +new power and in the name of Hamilton Burton were declaring a war to the +death.</p> + +<p>"160 for any part of 20,000"—"SOLD!"</p> + +<p>Generals had broken fifteen points in ten minutes and were slumping as +though their foundations floated in thin air. A yell went up over the +floor through which sounded demoniac notes of panic and rage. Men surged +around the Generals post, struggling as cowards might struggle to leave +a burning theater, collars tore loose and eyes glittered like those of a +wolf-pack. The blackboards at north and south burst into a hysterical +flashing of white numbers, and a word went out which set the cylinders +of printing presses whirling. A Burton bear raid was on, and the Street +was in panic-making excitement!</p> + +<p>But close around the post three figures still domi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>nated the picture. +Staples with his tigerish teeth to the crowd fought the two men who +carried Burton's orders and who with implacable monosyllables still +hammered the market with sledges of mighty resource. What had been the +orderly floor of an artistically designed mart of trade was now a hell +of pandemonium. With the sweat pouring down his face, his hands clenched +above his head, and his deep voice strained into a hoarse bellow, Jack +Staples of Consolidated fought as a man fights death, to breast and stem +and turn the tidal wave of disaster.</p> + +<p>Other stocks followed suit, and while Haswell, forgetting in his +excitement that he had been officially superseded, crouched face to +face, battering his opponent, Hardinge fought his way like a madman out +of the maelstrom and declared war on Coal and Ore. Voices blended into a +frenzied Walpurgian uproar. Frantic telephone calls made the blackboard +one flickering, wavering, confusing area of black and white where no +spot was white for any consecutive minute and no spot black.</p> + +<p>For an hour it raged so, down!—down!—down!—with no moment of recovery +and no instant of changing tide. When now and again the din subsided for +a few moments of recovered breath, while traders "verified," faces +streaming sweat looked as haggard as though it was blood that was +pouring from them. Voices cracked with hoarseness as men stood panting +like dogs torn from the embrace of battle and waiting only for the leash +to loosen and free them again for renewed battle. Underfoot they trod +the confetti-like scraps of torn papers. Among them went the men with +green watering-pots. Outside newsboys called yet new extras. The market +had been open an hour <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>and the Street was seeing the most delirious day +of mania in its history. Then in one of the lulls came that sound which +between the hours of ten and three is never heard save as the clarion of +disaster. The great gong in the president's gallery sent out its +strident and metallic voice, and in the dead silence that followed its +command an announcement was made.</p> + +<p>"The Western Trust Company announces that it cannot meet its +obligations."</p> + +<p>The weakest barrier had fallen, and it was only the beginning.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">W</span><span class="heavy">HEN</span> Mary Burton presented herself in the anteroom of the suite whose +ground-glass doors bore the legend "Edwardes and Edwardes," and asked +for the banker, a man with a pale and demoralized face gazed at her +blankly. Could any one seek to claim, except on most urgent business, +one minute out of these crucially vital hours? They were hours when the +real target of the whole panic-making bombardment was striving to +compress into each relentless instant a separate struggle for survival.</p> + +<p>"I am Mary Burton," she said simply; and the man stood dubiously shaking +his head. His nerve-racked condition could only realize the name +Burton—and in these offices it was not just now a favored name.</p> + +<p>As he stood, barring the way to an inner room marked "private," the door +opened and Jefferson Edwardes came hurriedly out. He looked as she had +never seen him look before, for deep lines had seared themselves into +his face, aging it distressingly, and the mouth was drawn as that of a +man who has been called back from the margin of death. But his eyes held +an unwavering fire and his jaw was set in the pattern of battle. Mary +remembered a painting of a solitary and wounded artilleryman leaning +against a shattered field gun amid the bodies of his fallen comrades. +The painter had put sternly into the face an expression of one who +awaits death, but denies defeat. Here, too, was such a face. The man, +hastening out, halted sud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>denly. Then he stepped back into his own +office, silently motioning her to follow.</p> + +<p>"It has come," he told her quietly. "We should have expected it, yet we +were taken by surprise. Today tells a grim story."</p> + +<p>"What does it all mean?" she pleaded. She stood close with her face +almost as dead white as the ermine that fell softly about her shoulders. +"I read the papers—and I came at once—to be near you in these hours. +What does it mean?"</p> + +<p>"I can't explain now," he answered in the quick utterance of one to whom +time is invaluable. "Now every minute may mean millions—even human +lives and deaths. I told you that he must trample down the innocent and +the ignorant to come within striking distance of me. He is doing it. The +bottom has dropped out of everything—pandemonium reigns. Each minute is +beggaring hundreds—each half-hour is sending old houses to the wall and +shattering public confidence. By this afternoon the country will be in +the lockjaw paralysis of panic—unless we can stem the tide. Will you +wait here for me? I must go to Malone."</p> + +<p>"And there is nothing I can do—nothing?" Her voice was agonized and, +with his hand on the knob, he abruptly wheeled and came back. He caught +her fiercely in his arms and held her so smotheringly to his breast that +her breath came in gasps. She clung to him spasmodically and the lips +that met his were hot with a fever of fear and love. "Nothing I can do," +she whispered, "though I am—the Helen who brought on the war?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he spoke eagerly, passionately, and she could feel the muscles in +his tensed arms play like flexible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>steel as her hands dropped to rest +inertly upon them. "Yes, there is something you can do—something you +are doing! You are giving me a strength beyond my own strength to fling +myself on these wolves and beat them back. You are giving me a +battle-lust and a hope.... Now I must go."</p> + +<p>She released him and forced a smile for his departure, then sank into a +chair—his chair by a paper-littered desk—and her eyes, very wide and +fixed, gazed ahead—at first unseeing. Yet, after an interval they began +to take in this and that detail of the place, where she had never been +before.</p> + +<p>This was his office, the workshop in which he carried on his affairs and +the affairs of the concern which had its foundation in unshaken ideals +and high honor. In an intangible fashion its inanimate accessories +reflected something of himself. On one wall, from a generous spread of +moose antlers, hung a rifle and a pair of restrung snowshoes: reminders +of the open woods he loved. There were autographed portraits of many men +whose names were names of achievement, and one, in a morocco frame +surmounted by a gilt crown, attested the personal regard of a reigning +monarch. With clenched hands and a grim determination to divert her mind +from the danger of madness, she went about the walls, reading those +brief tributes to the man she loved. Then she came back and picked up a +gold frame which rested on his desk, where, as he worked, his eyes might +never be long without its view—and she was gazing into her own eyes. +She glanced out across the steep-walled, fog-reeking cañons where +Finance has its center and whence its myriad activities palpitate +through arteries of masonry and nerves of wire. He was out there +somewhere, in the maw of that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>incalculably destructive machine, +fighting its determination to grind him between its wheels and cogs and +teeth. Mary Burton shuddered and tried by the pressure of her fingers to +still the violent throbbing of her temples.</p> + +<p>Then her eyes began absently studying the inscriptions on the windows of +the next building, beyond an intervening court, and she smothered an +impulse to scream as a sign across several broad panes flared at her in +goldleaf.</p> + +<p>"Hamilton Montagu Burton." A bitter fascination held her gaze there. She +saw offices teeming with the fevered activity of a beehive—and another +window showed a room where the electric lamps shone on emptiness. After +she had watched it for a time a solitary figure came into view and stood +by the ledge looking out. It was her brother, and though, through the +gray fog, he was silhouetted there against the light at his back, +something in the posture revealed his mood of Napoleonic implacability. +It was as though he were, from an eminence, actually viewing the battle +whose secret springs his fingers controlled, and as though he were well +pleased.</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes had hurried out with a feeling of renewed strength. +It was to him as though a promise of hope had been vouchsafed in a +moment of despair. At Malone's office, he met Harrison, Meegan and +several others. The old lion of the Street himself was slamming down the +telephone as the newcomer entered.</p> + +<p>"I've been talking with Washington," he announced, and his voice was one +of steel coolness. At such an hour as this Malone wasted no minim of +strength in futile anger. That belonged to other moments. "We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>have done +what we could. It is not enough. We must do more. We have pegged those +stocks where the slump would be most demoralizing and already this +highbinder, Burton, has smashed those pegs like match-stems. We have +sent money to a dozen banks that seemed hardest pressed, and scores are +sending out calls for help. Good God, gentlemen, it's like sweeping back +the sea with brooms."</p> + +<p>"Why did you send for me?" demanded Edwardes, though he knew.</p> + +<p>"To ask your aid," came the crisp reply. "This is a general alarm. The +next few hours will roar to the continuous crash of falling banks—many +of them banks that have a close relationship to you, Edwardes. Once more +we must go to the rescue and it will take fifty additional millions. +Otherwise—panic unparalleled. We expect you to stand your pro rata."</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," said the latest comer bluntly, "this raid is primarily +aimed at me—its principal object is my destruction. Already I am hit +for millions. I, too, was about to call for help from you. When this +succession of crashes comes, Edwardes and Edwardes may be among the +ruins."</p> + +<p>The bushy brows of Malone came together in astonishment. "Great heavens, +man! Edwardes and Edwardes is a synonym for Gibraltar."</p> + +<p>"And under heavy enough artillery—" Edwardes spoke with bitter +calmness—"Gibraltar would be a synonym for scattered junk. What news +from Washington?"</p> + +<p>"Washington has called Burton on the telephone. The Secretary of the +Treasury has failed to connect with him. He does not acknowledge +telegrams. He is ignoring the government and treating the President +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>with contempt. He wants to have today for his massacre—and to talk +about it tomorrow. We have sent repeatedly to his office. He can't be +reached."</p> + +<p>"That effort may as well be dropped." Edwardes shrugged his shoulders +wearily. "He will have his day—and leave tomorrow to itself."</p> + +<p>"And by the Immortal!" For an instant a baleful fire leaped into +Malone's face. "We will have tomorrow! Every sinew of American finance +shall be strained against him. But tomorrow may be too late. Can you +hold out?"</p> + +<p>Edwardes smiled grimly. "I'm trying like all hell," he said. "I've not +laid down yet."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was two o'clock and the Stock-Exchange was a shambles. Every security +in the Street was down to panic figures and plunging plummet-like to +further depths. At shortening intervals over the hoarse shrieks of the +floor's tumult boomed the brazen hammer blows of the huge gong, which +should sound only twice each day. At every recurring announcement of +failure a wall-shaking howl went up and echoed among the sixty-two +inverted golden blossoms of the ceiling.</p> + +<p>The faces of the men to whom these cracked and hoarsened voices belonged +had become bestial and wolfish. Where the morning had seen well-groomed +representatives of Money's upper caste, the afternoon saw a seething +mass of human ragamuffins, torn of clothing, sweat-drenched and lost to +all senses save those twin emotions of ferocity and fear. Back and forth +they swirled and eddied, and howled like wild things about carrion. At +one side, panting, disheveled and bleeding from scratches incurred in +the mêlée, bulked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>the gigantic figure of Len Haswell. He had no need +now to bellow in a bull-like duel of voices and ferocity. The stampede +had been so well put into motion that the floor was doing for him his +deadly work of price-smashing. Telegraph wires were quivering from every +section of the United States to the tune of—"Sell—cut loose—throw +over!" A universal mania to get any price for anything was sweeping the +land like a conflagration. Tomorrow would bring those reflexes from +today when banks and trust companies from the Lakes to the Rio Grande +would topple in the wake of their metropolitan predecessors. Ruin sat +crowned and enthroned, monarch of the day and parent of a panic which +should close mills, and starve the poor and foster anarchy—but Hamilton +Burton's hand was nearer Edwardes' throat.</p> + +<p>Staples and his twenty coöperators fought on doggedly, grimly, to turn +the tide before the close, but the nation was mad, and the men who +fought and clamored here in this pit of its bowels were the most violent +maniacs.</p> + +<p>And while these things went forward Mary Burton still sat alone in the +private office of Jefferson Edwardes, waiting. Through century-long +hours she had in her ears only the din from the street and that +incessant ticking of the stock-tape at her elbow.</p> + +<p>Every few minutes she rose and anxiously ran through her fingers the +long thin coil of paper which it fed so endlessly into its tall wicker +basket. She could make little of those abbreviated letters and numbers, +though she realized that every succeeding glance showed a shrinkage of +each value. One thing she could read with a deadly clarity—those +hideous words that meant the falling of the outposts. "So and So +an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>nounce that they cannot meet their obligations." There were other +grim scraps of information, too, wedged between the hurried quotations +such as, "Police reserves called to quell riot at closed North Bank," +and finally, "Troops from Governor's Island to guard sub-treasury."</p> + +<p>Finally she went to the window and raised the sash to let the cold air +blow against her fevered cheeks, and as she did so she heard yells and +the gongs of patrol-wagons. The madness was spreading beyond the +confines of enclosing walls.</p> + +<p>Mary Burton turned, heavy-hearted, back to the room's interior and her +glance fell on the clock. It recorded two-forty. She wondered when +Edwardes would return. She had spent the day in his office because she +knew that when he came in, as he had done several times, only to hasten +out again, he found in her forced smile renewal of strength for his +combat, which enabled him to go out smiling through the drawn agony of +his harassment.</p> + +<p>The hateful ticker drew her back with its light clatter. Perhaps at last +it had good tidings to offer. Unless it brought them soon it would bring +them too late—like a reprieve after execution. She took the narrow +thread of paper in her hand and glanced at its latest entries. As she +watched the small type wheel revolve and stamp, it broke upon her that +the inanimate herald was spelling out, letter by letter, a familiar +name.</p> + +<p>"E-D-W-A-R-D-E-S A-N-D E-D-W-A-R-D-E-S."</p> + +<p>With a smothered shriek Mary Burton dropped the tape as though it had +scorched her fingers. She groped her way half-blindly to the chair by +Jefferson's desk, and, sinking into it, buried her face in her crossed +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>arms. She could not have shed a tear or uttered a word. She was +paralyzed in an icy terror. That was how all these other announcements +had begun: With the name of the failing firm. After what seemed a decade +she drew herself up and sat erect and white, trembling from her throat +to her feet. She forced her agonized features into a semblance of +artificial calm. Suppose he should return to her now, defeated, ruined, +crushed, and open his door on that picture of despair and surrender!</p> + +<p>The clock said two-fifty-five. So she had been sitting here ten minutes! +Grasping the arms of her chair and bracing herself, she rose with a +labored effort and went resolutely back to the ticker where, as one +draws aside a veil which may reveal tragedy, she picked up the tape +again. She saw no name this time, and suddenly it occurred to her that +the monstrous thing had passed callously on to other news—as though +there were other news!</p> + +<p>She dragged it out of its twisted coils in the basket and read in cold, +unpunctuated capitals, EDWARDES AND EDWARDES FAIL TO MEET OBLIGATIONS.</p> + +<p>The girl reeled and leaned limply against the wall, and, as she stood +there overpowered and dizzy, a low incoherent moan came up from her +throat. Then as she mechanically held the tenuous death-warrant in her +pulseless fingers, her eyes fell on an item just finished.</p> + +<p>MARKET TAKES TURN BURTON BROKERS BIDDING UP.</p> + +<p>A comprehension came to her and her brain reeled in fury and torture. +Now that his end was accomplished, the Great Bear had turned bull. He +would sell back on the rise what he had slaughtered on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>fall, and +when tomorrow's reaction came with its roster of deluded misery he would +harvest vast profits on his massacre.</p> + +<p>She heard a sound beyond the ground glass as though a hand groped before +its fingers found and closed upon the knob. Then slowly the door swung +inward, and Jefferson Edwardes entered. His overcoat hung over one arm, +and, as Mary saw his face, her hands clutched at her heart, but he did +not seem to see her—or to see anything. With a most careful +deliberation the ruined man closed the door silently behind him. He did +it as though he were entering a sick room where he must guard against +disturbing the patient with the slightest sound. Then he took a step or +two forward and halted to stand gazing straight ahead of him, while with +the sleeve of one arm he brushed at his forehead and moistened his lips +with the tip of his tongue.</p> + +<p>Mary wondered for an agonized instant whether the cord of his sanity had +snapped under the day's terrific ordeal, and she stood there still +leaning limp and pallid and wide-eyed against the wall, holding before +her the tape that had told her the story—and not realizing that she +held it. Then the man awoke from his sleep-walker's vacancy and realized +her presence. At the sight of her despairing eyes and inert figure +resting for support against the mahogany panels, his expression altered. +His eyes woke to life and, again moistening his lips, he forced the +ghost of a smile which at first succeeded only in being ghastly.</p> + +<p>"So you know?" he questioned.</p> + +<p>Mary Burton did not reply in words. She could not, but she nodded her +head and something between a groan and a sob came from her parted lips. +Then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>her voice returned and she murmured in heart-broken +self-accusation: "It was because of me."</p> + +<p>He stood shaking himself as a dog shakes off water. His drooped +shoulders came back with an abrupt snap and his head threw itself up and +his chest out. With a swift stride he had reached her and folded her +into his embrace. For once the regal confidence had left her and the +courage was dead in her heart. She lay in his arms a dead weight, which, +but for his supporting strength, would have crumbled to a limp mass on +the floor. But as he held her, fresh bravery flooded his arteries and +his voice came clear and untainted of weakness:</p> + +<p>"We still have each other," he told her passionately. "You once asked me +whether, if you were penniless, I should still want you. Today I am +penniless and owe millions—do you still want me?"</p> + +<p>Her arms clung to him more closely and the eyes that gazed into his +revealed, as they had on that first night, all that was in her soul. +Once more she answered him with a question: "Look at me—do I want you?"</p> + +<p>He swept her from her feet and carried her to a chair, where he put her +gently down, then he knelt by her side with her hands clasped +convulsively in his own. For a moment it is doubtful whether he realized +anything save her presence. His voice was the voice of the man who had +met her by the mountain road, of the man who had come to her in the +darkness at Haverly Lodge and claimed her without preamble.</p> + +<p>"The mountains still stand—and there are cottages there where even a +very poor man may find shelter. I would rather have it, with you, than +to own Manhattan Island without you."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>There was a knock at the door of the private office, and Edwardes, +rising from his knees, went to receive the message. He came back very +gravely.</p> + +<p>"I have to face an unpleasant interview, dearest," he said. "One of +those bankers who were crushed as incidents to my ruin—who was guilty +only of standing in your brother's path, is here. I'm told that he is +half-mad, and I must do what I can." He opened a door into a small +conference-room. "Will you wait for me—there?"</p> + +<p>With his arm around her he led her across the threshold, and then, +closing that door, he came back and opened the other.</p> + +<p>The man who half-stepped, half-stumbled in staggered to the desk chair +and dropped into it to raise a face in which the eyes burned wildly. The +whole figure shook in an ague of unnerved excitement. He spread two +trembling hands and tragically announced, "I'm ruined."</p> + +<p>Edwardes nodded gravely. "You need a physician, Fairley. You're +unstrung," he suggested. "Perhaps a drop of brandy would help. I think I +have some here."</p> + +<p>"No!" the reply was violent, and the President of the Metallic National +shook his head with the uncontrolled air of a man who is close to the +border of insanity. "No, by God, I'm past physicians. What I need next +is an undertaker." He dropped his head to the desk and broke into a +crazed storm of weak sobs.</p> + +<p>"There is no profit in wild talk," his host reminded him. "I'm ruined, +too. We must make a fresh start."</p> + +<p>"Fresh start, hell!" The words rang queerly through the accompaniment of +a bitter laugh. "Hamilton Burton took me and squeezed me dry. He put the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>thumbscrews on me and bled me of my Coal and Ore stock. He made me a +traitor to Malone and today when Malone might have saved me I had no +friends. Then because you sought to befriend me, Burton turned on me and +ruined me. My family will be in the streets. Now—" the voice rose into +a high treble of frenzy which penetrated to the room where Mary Burton +waited—"I'm going to kill Hamilton Burton first and myself next."</p> + +<p>With the wild threat the banker rose unsteadily and his palsied hand +went into his overcoat pocket, to come out clutching a magazine pistol +which he brandished before him.</p> + +<p>Edwardes' first thought was to seize the wrist, but the breadth of the +table intervened and he knew that he was dealing with a man of +temporarily dethroned reason. So he held the wild and shifting gaze, as +well as he could, with the cool steadiness of his own eyes and spoke in +a measured, soothing voice:</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't do that, Fairley. In the first place you don't know where +to find him. Your effort would probably fail and you would only be +locked up before you accomplished either purpose."</p> + +<p>The noise of the outer offices had drowned the visitor's excited tones +among the employees, but to Mary Burton, standing anxiously in the +conference-room, all the words were intelligible.</p> + +<p>Fairley leaned across the table, and for an instant left the weapon +unguarded. With a movement of cat-like swiftness Edwardes seized it, but +a wild snarl of rage burst from the other's lips and his fingers closed +vise-like over Jefferson's hand.</p> + +<p>"No—by God—you don't!" he screamed.</p> + +<p>Mary Burton threw open the door, and saw the two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>figures bent across +the table with four hands desperately gripped while between them glinted +the blued metal of the pistol, which the frustrated Fairley was striving +to turn upon his own breast and Edwardes struggled to divert.</p> + +<p>Before she could give outcry or reach them, there came an out-spitting +of fire from the ugly muzzle and a report which the confined space +magnified to a sullen roar. Edwardes lurched suddenly forward and +remained motionless with his face down and his arms outspread upon the +desk, while a tiny red puddle spread on the mahogany.</p> + +<p>Fairley had leaped back and cowered, suddenly sobered, against the wall +as the outer door opened and figures poured into the room.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">A</span><span class="heavy">FTER</span> the low scream that came moaningly up from her breast, which was +drowned in the echoes of the report, Mary Burton made no outcry. She no +longer leaned limp and nerveless against the support of the doorway. +Something had seemed to snap the cords of her paralysis and out of her +blanched face her eyes stared wide and piteous. As the older banker +staggered back she was quick to reach the motionless figure and to lift +its head to her breast. Yet she did not really have to look, something +fateful and unquestionable told her from the first instant that no human +aid could avail—and that he would not speak again or move a muscle in +life. His employees found her supporting the weight of his shoulders +against her bosom and seeking to staunch with her handkerchief the flow +of blood from the temple.</p> + +<p>In one trivial respect the cruelties of her day of cumulative tragedy +were abated. The steel-nosed bullet, even at that close range, had cut +clean and spared his face, save for the trickle of red and the smirch of +powder burn—such defacement as she could not have endured. The eyes, +not yet glazed, gazed out with their accustomed resolute calm and the +lips were firm, a little grim with the purpose of thwarting another's +death, but it was still, though lifeless, a face without surrender.</p> + +<p>The girl bent low, whispering into the ear which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>could not hear her, +and then she raised her eyes, still holding his head against her +shoulder, to see the little circle of stunned faces, and hear Fairley's +voice announcing in broken syllables, but very quietly, "I +was—attempting suicide—and he grappled with me."</p> + +<p>She knew even while she awaited the physicians that no spark of life +remained and that this was the last time her arms would ever be closed +around him in life or death, and as she stood there, for the time upheld +by a strength beyond her ordinary physical powers, strange +inconsequential little fragments of talk, things he had said to her and +she to him, were repeating themselves in her memory, and the exact +inflections of his voice were renewing themselves in her ears.</p> + +<p>Then as two physicians hurried in, closely heeled by two policemen, she +surrendered her beloved burden to stronger hands, and, as she moved back +with still no trace of tears in her wide eyes, the whole picture +darkened and out of muscle and nerve and brain-cell went every vestige +of autonomy and consciousness. They caught her as she fell and laid her +on a broad upholstered window seat. When her eyes next opened hot pains +were scorching her temples and her gaze turned instinctively toward the +desk. It was empty of its human burden, and, save for the clerk who had +that morning received her in the outer room and a physician, the private +office was empty, too.</p> + +<p>Following the hungry question of her mismated eyes, the doctor gravely +nodded his head.</p> + +<p>"It was instantaneous and painless," he said. Then he added, "We have +sent for your brother. He was not in his office, but—"</p> + +<p>With the startling ferocity of an aroused tigress, Mary strove to rise +and make her way to the door, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>but the physician restrained her. "Not +yet," he gently commanded. "You are hardly ready for exertion;" and even +before he had finished speaking her knees gave way and she sank back.</p> + +<p>"My brother!" she whispered, and her eyes burned feverishly. "It will +kill me to see him. I shall try to murder him—I—"</p> + +<p>She was interrupted by the noiseless opening of the door, and Hamilton +Burton stood across the threshold of the enemy whose life he had that +day broken.</p> + +<p>He was no longer the Napoleonic Burton. For the instant he was stunned +and pale. It was breaking on him that the price of conquest may be +excessive. Even before this staggering news had reached him he had seen +the headlines of the extras, had read his name coupled with the open and +bitter denunciation of public hate.</p> + +<p>At his shoulder stood young Carl Bristoll, as pallid as a specter. But +the brother came swiftly over, dropped to his knees by the girl's side. +At sight of her stricken face all the tenderness of family love leaped +into a freshly blazing power in his heart until for the time it burned +out the remembrance of every other thing. He thrust out his arms and +said in a shaken voice, "Little sister, little sister!"</p> + +<p>But with a cry as though for protection from the touch of something +unspeakably foul, she threw both arms across her face and turned, +shuddering, from his touch.</p> + +<p>"Doctor," she besought in a voice of supreme loathing, "in God's name +protect me from this murderer!"</p> + +<p>She struggled to her feet and stood with her back to the wall, her +breast heaving and her pupils blazing out of the death-like pallor of a +drawn face. Her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>hands lay flat against the wainscoting with spread +fingers that convulsively twitched as if she were seeking to press back +the solid partition and escape that way.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, or you will break my heart," pleaded Hamilton tensely. "I +thought it was a curable infatuation. If I had known you cared so +much—"</p> + +<p>"Break your heart! I wish to God I could, but you have no heart," she +screamed, and she swayed to the side until, had the doctor not supported +her shoulder, she would have fallen, but her words poured on in a fierce +torrent. "You have broken my heart, and you have killed him. You knew +how much I cared. You are a monster, but not an idiot. You have +sacrificed a country to your one unspeakable Moloch of a god—I hope +you—and your god—are satisfied."</p> + +<p>For an instant some echo of the old dominance flickered into the man's +face. "Edwardes fought and defied me," he said. "I punished—" But his +sister interrupted with a wrath which nothing could stem:</p> + +<p>"You have overreached yourself—you, too, will go down in this carnage. +I shall pray God that you do—my God who is over your god; my God and +his." Her voice became calmer, but her phrases were broken by gasping +pauses. She spoke as though her God had commanded her to read this +bitter indictment against her brother.</p> + +<p>"Because he shrined his honor above your insatiable greed you undertook +to doom him. You have written a page ... into history ... a page full of +horror ... you have made criminals of honest men ... and suicides of +brave ones. Now in the trail of your incendiary malice you cast his +life—" her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> voice fell in a tortured sob—"the life ... he so bravely +fought for there in the hills ... and after it you toss my heart."</p> + +<p>The financier moved a step forward and his lips opened, but the doctor +laid a hand on his arm. "You must leave her, sir," he said quietly, but +finally. "She is in no condition to stand more of this."</p> + +<p>"How can I leave her like this?" remonstrated Hamilton and once more the +physician raised his hand. "In such a case the doctor must be +obeyed—unless—" his own voice hardened—"you are anxious to add even +worse results to today's work."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton turned. "Do what you can," he said. "I will send Paul." +So he left the place, passing between the employees of the bankrupt firm +of Edwardes and Edwardes in the anterooms.</p> + +<p>At his elbow followed young Bristoll, but when they had reached the +ground floor the secretary halted his chief with an impetuous touch on +the arm.</p> + +<p>"It's no use, sir—we separate here," he said passionately. "I must give +you my resignation, at once."</p> + +<p>At another time such an announcement would have been greeted by this +imperious master with swift acceptance and quiet irony. This day he had +smitten his enemies and they had withered before his power. Results had +differed in no respect from the outlines of his preparations and yet so +poignantly personal had been the recoil that he found himself, when his +brain needed its most alert resourcefulness, inwardly admitting a new +and strange sense of uncertainty—almost of uneasiness.</p> + +<p>Once before for a weak moment he had felt that flagging of +confidence—when Mary had left his house, but he had swiftly conquered +it. He would as sum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>marily conquer its repetition. His nerves were not +such uncontrolled agents as to be shaken by the wild folly and accidents +that grew out of weaker natures. All battlefields leave black scars and +pictures which are not pretty pictures. To pause and surrender to +brooding over these details is to clip one's wings and dull one's +talons. He forced a smile.</p> + +<p>"As you please, Carl," he said. "Though I had made the mistake of +counting on your loyalty as dependable."</p> + +<p>The young man answered with an effort.</p> + +<p>"It's a hard thing to do. I haven't just worked for the salary. I have +made a hero of you, and been very proud of even my small part in your +career. It was as though I were a staff officer to a Man of Destiny."</p> + +<p>"And now," the voice was bitingly satirical, "finding that the Man of +Destiny can't always fight with confetti and the blowing of kisses, you +grow faint-hearted."</p> + +<p>"Put it as you like, Mr. Burton.... All I know is that, after today, I +should no longer feel proud.... I should feel like an accomplice in +crime."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton laughed. It was a short and not a pleasant laugh.</p> + +<p>"Please yourself. To me no man is indispensable. Good-night."</p> + +<p>Mary did not wait for Paul. As she drove up-town with the physician, she +had in her ears the shouts of newsboys heralding the death of Jefferson +Edwardes—and other deaths.</p> + +<p>When she was in her own bed they mercifully gave her something which +smoothed her brain into the black velvet softness of sleep. The future +must tell whether <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>her body and mind could ever be brought back to the +harbor of health.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Hamilton Burton's lights burned late that night in his office, and up to +them many baleful glances turned from the sidewalks below. The financier +told himself that he was the same man that he had been, safeguarded by +his star; but as he worked he found himself instinctively turning to the +chair where Carl Bristoll should be and where now sat a more inept +subordinate. Each such moment brought its tiny stab at his pride and +self-assurance, and the brain which he must concentrate kept straying to +the disquieting vision of a grief-maddened girl leaning against the +wall, with her fingers twitching in little groping gestures as her lips +rained accusation. Today he had made a panic, but between the opening +and closing peals of tomorrow's gong each hour must be filled with the +most exact and brilliant maneuverings.</p> + +<p>All day today he had borne down the market on a scale unprecedented. All +day tomorrow he must be in a position to reap the harvest he had +sown—else he might find himself the victim of a trap which he had +prepared, at a mighty cost, for others. No one knew so well as he how +even his colossal strength had been strained with the titanic effort of +pushing apart the masonry of the temple's pillars.</p> + +<p>He had no doubts of the morrow, but these troubling remembrances came +blurringly across the crystal of his brain.</p> + +<p>Abruptly he took up his telephone and rang his house number. "Yamuro," +he said when he heard the sibilant, quaintly distorted voice of the +Japanese from the other end, "ask Mr. Paul to wait for me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>there until I +come in." Paul's music should soothe him.</p> + +<p>"'Scuse, please," came the apologetic reply. "Mr. Paul, she no here. +When she come, Yamuro tell. Thanks."</p> + +<p>It was late when the financier left his car at his own door and demanded +of Harrow, "Where is my brother?"</p> + +<p>"In the music-room, I think, sir." Hamilton thought he detected in the +butler's voice a note of anxiety and for a moment he glanced with a keen +scrutiny into the servitor's eyes, and the eyes dropped under his gaze.</p> + +<p>"Very well, I sha'n't need you again tonight." The Titan turned and +climbed the stairs.</p> + +<p>The lights of the music-room were burning brilliantly and on a table +stood siphons and bottles and glasses. At the door Hamilton paused and +glanced uneasily about, then he saw Paul, and smiled. Weary with his +vigil Paul, the affectionate and faithful, had evidently fallen asleep +in his chair. Hamilton crossed and laid a hand on his brother's +shoulder. Then as quickly he withdrew it. Something unaccustomed in the +younger man's appearance arrested him and he stood gazing down.</p> + +<p>The musician sprawled in an attitude of demoralized inertia and over his +cameo face the dark hair hung disordered. His hands fell grotesquely and +his closed eyes were puffed. Hamilton bent down and with a low oath +studied his brother. His sleep was no natural napping. It was a drunken +stupor proclaiming itself in a stertorous and uneasy breathing.</p> + +<p>Angrily Hamilton shook the sagging shoulders until the sleeper's lids +opened heavily and the lips voiced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>some incoherent thing. Then Paul +attempted to turn his face away and go to sleep again.</p> + +<p>"So," exclaimed the elder as he dragged his brother to his feet and +restored him to a semblance of consciousness, "so this is the way you +waited for me?"</p> + +<p>Paul blinked owlishly through the stupidity of his condition, and upon +his delicate features the unaccustomed and swollen flush dwelt in a +disfiguring blot. He shook his head and informed thickly, "Jefferson +Edwardes's dead."</p> + +<p>"I know that—and you're drunk."</p> + +<p>The musician stupidly nodded his assent to so incontrovertible a +statement and as he gradually awoke to a fuller realization, he rose and +made his way unsteadily to the piano. But his fingers were stiff and +unresponsive, and after a brief effort he gave that up.</p> + +<p>Once more he looked up and an expression of deep terror spread over his +face. Tears welled into his eyes and he wept for awhile in silence as +Hamilton looked on.</p> + +<p>"Jeff'son Edwardes's dead," he reiterated with parrot-like singleness of +idea. "Mary's heart's broke.... I'm drunk." One hand waved broadly in an +oratorical gesture. After a moment he added in solemn afterthought, +"Father's drunk, too."</p> + +<p>Hamilton ground his teeth. "I suppose," he said bitterly, "you regard +the first two facts as justification for the others."</p> + +<p>Paul rose and through his condition something of his more normal self +asserted itself. He laid his hands on his brother's shoulders. +"Hamilton, I think my heart's broke, too. Mary's a sweet girl. I haven't +slept f'r a long, long time—been worrying—an' tonight I—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>"Never mind explaining." Out of the elder brother's voice the wrath had +died. "That won't help now. Come, I'll put you to bed."</p> + +<p>As he turned away from Paul's bedroom a half-hour later the face of +Hamilton Burton was not the face of the conqueror. In his own room he +went to a window and looked out. He saw a star and some fancy identified +it as the same star that had caught his eye that night when he came back +to the farm-house and found his father ill. Once more it was not in the +east riding toward the upper heavens, but in the west, setting beyond +the Palisades of Jersey—soon to drop from view.</p> + +<p>For a breathing-space Hamilton Burton felt faint and uncertain, as one +may feel in a dream which is half-wakefulness.</p> + +<p>Then he was conscious of his own voice speaking half-aloud:</p> + +<p>"Slivers Martin paid me ten for 'em an' I got 'em for seven—an' he had +to go after 'em."</p> + +<p>The words had come involuntarily—as from another personality speaking +with his tongue, and they startled him. With a fiercely impatient +gesture he brushed his hand across his forehead and picked up from a +table a new appreciation of the life and campaigns of Napoleon +Bonaparte.</p> + +<p>Yamuro slipped in with his cushioned tread and stood awaiting orders, +and after a while the master whose attention refused to remain fixed +even on Napoleon glanced up.</p> + +<p>"You may go, Yamuro," he said in a wearied voice, but the Japanese valet +did not go. Instead he approached and his face grew anxious as he noted +the confused and fatigued droop of his master's eyes and lips.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>"'Scuse, please," he hazarded as his white teeth flashed in an +apologetic grin. "You tired. You go down gymnasium—take ex'cise—one +half-hour. Yes, one half-hour and me rub you Japanese way; make you +sleep—yes, please."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton raised his head slowly. "Perhaps," he acceded in a dull +voice, "that mightn't be a bad idea. I do feel a bit fagged—for some +reason—and I need to be fit tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a decisive day."</p> + +<p>So with the narrow-eyed little servitor in whose breast beat a heart of +unquestioning loyalty, the untriumphant victor went down into the +basement of his house, where between marble slabs and porphyry columns +he had equipped a small gymnasium finished with the magnificence of a +Roman bath.</p> + +<p>Beyond an arched portal was another room where the basin of a +swimming-pool spread cool and inviting between mosaic floors.</p> + +<p>Here each morning Hamilton plunged into the icy water and came out with +a splendid vitality glowing on his firm flesh. But at night he used only +the warm shower and when they came into the gymnasium they did not touch +the switch which lighted the pool.</p> + +<p>Then Hamilton Burton stripped and attacked the punching bag until his +muscles glistened and shone as if they had been freshly oiled. Yamuro +stood looking on with sparkling eyes. Hamilton Burton stripped and in +action would have brought a glow of delight to the face of those +Hellenic masters of training who saw in the human body the most sacred +temple of the human soul, and paid tribute to physical perfection. The +flow and ripple of these strong, justly modeled sinews were like the +play of steel under satin and their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>smoothness was as rhythmic and full +of power as some young gladiator's, who might have stirred the +appreciation of Phidias or Praxiteles. When at last he had burned his +mental restlessness into physical weariness, Burton halted and stood +with his shoulders thrown back and his head erect, the breathing of +chest and abdomen as regular and deep as the sequence of waves at flood +tide. Yamuro went out into still another room for the accessories of his +Japanese art of muscle-kneading, and Hamilton turned idly toward the +darkened swimming pool. He strolled over to the edge of the marble basin +and walked out on the spring-board. It was all very dark in here, but +his feet were familiar with every foot of space.</p> + +<p>"I might as well cap it with a plunge," he told himself, and, lifting +his hands above his head, launched outward in a graceful arc.</p> + +<p>Yamuro came back a moment later and looked about the empty gymnasium. +His face suddenly went pale. "Mr. Burton—please!" he screamed, and in +his excitement his voice was more than ordinarily sibilant. Then he +turned on the pool light and rushed frantically back. It had not +occurred to him to warn his chief that that afternoon the basin had been +emptied and repaired, and that below the diving-board were only six +inches of water—just enough to give back, in semi-darkness, a liquid +reflection, and, beneath that, solid slabs of marble.</p> + +<p>Yamuro peered over the edge and a deep groan broke from him. At the +bottom lay the figure of Hamilton Burton, with its head bent to one +side. It lay very still, and the water was slowly coloring from a wound +in the scalp.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">H</span><span class="heavy">AMILTON</span> Burton had always denied with scorn the existence of blind luck +as an element in human greatness or failure. Now if he had leaped +head-foremost into an empty swimming pool, at the exact moment when he +stood midway of an enterprise which should crown him as omnipotent—or +ruin him, perhaps it was a thing beyond coincidence. Yesterday he had +aligned colossal forces for today's conflict—and taken his toll of +vengeance. Today he must turn to profit the chaos he had wrought to that +end through plans known only to himself—and today he lay with a +fractured skull, sleeping the sleep of unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>Today every hand in the world of finance was turned against him with the +desperation of a struggle for survival—save those of his own +lieutenants who were leaderless. All the way down the line from the +Department of Justice to the small sufferers of the provinces a slogan +of war without quarter sounded against the most hated man in America. +That such would be the case he had known yesterday, but he also knew—or +thought he did—that his directing hand would still be on the tiller and +his uncannily shrewd brain would be puzzling, bewildering and deluding +his enemies into unwittingly serving his ends.</p> + +<p>From the morning papers the secret of his accident had been successfully +withheld. So the press of the country sounded forth a united +thunder-peal of sting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>ing and bitter anathema, pillorying Hamilton M. +Burton as the most menacing of all public enemies and an ogre who had in +a single day fattened his already superlative wealth on the sufferings, +the starvation and the lives of his victims. Editorial pages from Park +row to a thousand main streets, double-leaded and double-columned their +clamorous demand that such a plunderer should be nailed to the cross of +punishment. Burton-phobia was epidemic. At first the physicians who +gathered in his darkened room would not commit themselves to any promise +of recovery. The skull was fractured. Ahead lay a long illness at +best—after that—but here they left off words and resorted to a +non-committal shrugging of frock-coated shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," Elizabeth Burton put the question with trembling lips and +chalk-white cheeks, "that perhaps—even if he gets physically well—" +She, too, broke off.</p> + +<p>"Frankness is best," responded the family physician, who feeling the +most personal responsibility, assumed the hard rôle of spokesman. +"Sometimes in cases of this sort the brain is left—with a permanent +scar upon its efficiency."</p> + +<p>The mother groaned. At her own house lay a daughter in that collapse +which had followed the overtaxed courage of the first shock. Here lay +Hamilton, her oldest; her Napoleonic boy for whose condign punishment a +nation's voice cried out. To her they were simply her children, equally +dear.</p> + +<p>Only one child was left her in his proper condition of mind and body. +He, because of his sensitive, almost clairvoyant nature, had always been +very close to her. Now she turned to Paul, and Paul, although his heart +was shaken with terror and distress, rose <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>for the time beyond his +weakness and was almost a man as he sought to brace his mother's need.</p> + +<p>From her first interview with the doctors she went to the music-room +and, pausing on the threshold, heard him at the piano. He was singing +very low.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"If I were hanged to the highest tree—Mother o' mine, Mother o' mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know whose prayers would come up to me—Mother o' mine."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She went in and Paul took her in his arms and helped her to a chair. +Then as he had used to do when a little boy he knelt down, gazing into +her face while she talked, and she reached out a hand which was much +thinner since her own late illness and ran it through the dark hair over +his white forehead. For a merciful little moment it seemed to this +grief-stricken woman that she was no longer white-haired and beautifully +gowned. In her fancy the fingers with their wealth of rings were again +red with the drudgery of the washtub and the head she caressed was the +head of a little boy, who, because he was delicate and shrinking, found +a greater delight here at her knee than in the rougher companionship of +playmates. Paul spoke softly.</p> + +<p>"Ham"—it had been a long time since he had used that abbreviated name. +Perhaps he, too, had slipped back into the past—"Ham will get well—and +work more miracles, mother. He won't surrender even to death. His +spirit, and his star, will bring him through."</p> + +<p>"I almost wish," her words were faint, "he had never had a star. I wish +that we were all back there, close <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>to the strength of the hills and the +graves of our dead."</p> + +<p>In these days Paul was very constantly with his mother, and by a +thousand little attentions made himself indispensable to her.</p> + +<p>It was a small thing, but costly to his feelings, since, for every one +of these moments redolent of suffering and sadness, his own soul fiber, +delicate and thin as a silk thread, must afterward pay in the reaction +of a deep depression. To him echoes meant more than positive sounds, and +the tears in his mother's voice, the unshed tears in her eyes, brought +him a suffering so intense and genuine that when he went out the thought +of returning to either of the stricken houses where she needed him was +like returning to a jail. Then, too, there was the unexpressed fear +which gnawed incessantly at his heart, that, in spite of his belief in +Hamilton, business disaster might lie ahead. He wrote less often and +with more effort to Loraine Haswell—and thought longingly of Marcia +Terroll, who had forbidden him to see her.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Such a pregnant item of news as Hamilton Burton's accident could not +long be kept from the Street and the public. On the morning following +the occurrence it burst into print—and for a time the chorus of +invective was silenced.</p> + +<p>But the hands that had been raised to pull him down could not be stayed. +He himself had never halted when the Gods of Chance had tossed into his +lap a mighty advantage. At the first announcement that "Ursus Major" lay +ill, perhaps mortally hurt, the trampled prices of securities began to +revive like dusty blossoms under a shower. Day long came damp extras +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>from the press heralding a bull day almost as wild and swift in its +price recovery as yesterday's bear day had been terrific in its +avalanche.</p> + +<p>From post to post the deep voice of Len Haswell and other Burton +lieutenants thundered in an effort to stem the altered tide—but they +were generals of brigade without their field marshal, guessing blindly +at a plan which had not been revealed by the master-tactician. Into the +eyes of Jack Staples stole a glitter of premonitory triumph as he met +them and beat them back. Burton millions were melting like hailstones +falling on hot metal, and when the session ended Len Haswell turned away +with an empty face. For two days he had almost forgotten, in his +battle-lust, his own heart-ache. Now it was over and because he had +followed Hamilton Burton with his own small fortunes as a camp-follower +trails an army corps, he knew that he was wiped out and ruined. Hamilton +might lose many millions, and "come back," but he and many like him were +irretrievably done for.</p> + +<p>One day when Hamilton had been ill for a week and had not yet emerged +from the distorted land of delirium, Tom Burton strolled, as immaculate +and well groomed as ever, into the National Union Club, and looked about +for a bridge quorum of his cronies. The doctors held out hope and the +father sought relaxation from anxiety. His face was flushed, for old +Thomas Burton, too, had felt sorely the strain of these days, and had +sought his own means of dulling apprehension's edge. His brain was not +versatile in such matters.</p> + +<p>General Penfrit occupied his customary chair by a Fifth-avenue window, +and the newcomer smiled with pleasure to find him there. General Penfrit +shared <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>many interests with him, and was willing to share as many more, +so long as Thomas Burton's bridge game continued to be of the +contributory type.</p> + +<p>Burton strolled over, swinging his stick, and nodded with a bland smile, +but to his dismay the general glanced up and acknowledged the greeting +without warmth. Perhaps his old friend was not feeling well today.</p> + +<p>"I was wondering," suggested Burton, "whether we couldn't arrange a +little rubber." He caught the eye of a waiter at the same moment and +beckoned. "What will yours be, general?" he genially inquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe I care to play." The voice was chilling at the start +and became more icy with each added syllable, "and I won't have anything +to drink."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton stood looking down somewhat blankly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing to drink?" he repeated in a perfectly warrantable astonishment. +His ears must have tricked him.</p> + +<p>The general rose stiffly. "With you—no," he spoke curtly, and took +himself away with a waddle of studied dignity. For a full minute +Hamilton Burton's father gazed vacantly out at the avenue, then he +turned on his heel. Henry O'Horrissy was just entering the door and with +him were two other members of a little group which had lunched and +chatted and played bridge inseparably for several years. Each knew all +the others' anecdotes and could laugh at the proper moments. They formed +one of those small cliques of intimates into which this club resolved +itself, and Tom Burton was of their valued brotherhood.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, gentlemen," accosted Burton. "How are you all today?"</p> + +<p>With three silent nods the trio at the door turned and drifted aimlessly +across to the billiard-room.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>Tom Burton went and sat alone by a window. Slowly a brick-like flush +spread and deepened on his full face. This club life had become very +important to him—even indispensable. There was nothing with which to +replace it. He wheeled his chair so that he might be plainly seen from +the door, and as man after man came in, with whom he had spent his time +and his son's money, men who had been pleased to court the father of the +great Hamilton Montagu Burton, he genially accosted them—and one after +another they returned greetings of frigid formality.</p> + +<p>Then he turned his chair with its back to the room and looked out and +the stubborn pride died in his eyes and his face grew old and pathetic. +There was no further room for doubt. He was tasting ostracism and being +included in this wave of hatred for his son, which he had regarded as +newspaper rubbish. He leaned forward with his gloved hands on his cane +and once or twice under his fastidiously trimmed beard, his lips +twitched painfully. Finally he rose, ordering his next cocktail over a +hotel bar, and though the stubbornness of pride forced him back on the +morrow to lunch at his accustomed club table, he lunched alone, and was +grateful for the solicitous courtesy of the negro who served him.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>One afternoon Paul made his way down Fifth avenue on foot.</p> + +<p>The sky was unbelievably blue and a flashing brilliancy sparkled in all +the splinters of color that embroidered themselves along the parquetry +of the street. The avenue has, at times, a magic of its own and today it +was a swiftly flowing stream of brilliancy and life and laughter. But +this was a mood to which Paul Bur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>ton found no response. His heart was +attuned to echoes of a more somber tone—and he was bound on a mission +which was, for him, a bold one. He was disobeying orders which until now +he had not ventured to disobey. Marcia Terroll had banished him from her +presence. Since that day in her apartment he had seen less of her than +before and for many weeks now nothing at all. Marcia, unlike Loraine +Haswell, recognized that they could not meet without dangerous drifting, +and that such drifting could end only in disaster, so at last she had +forbidden his visiting her even occasionally and to all his arguments +she had steadfastly shaken her head with gentle obduracy.</p> + +<p>For a time they had met as they might have met had the interview in her +apartment on the drizzly afternoon never occurred. She had torn that +page out of their chronicles of acquaintanceship, and assumed that it +had never been included. Her wit had sparkled for him and her individual +charm had blossomed as though her life had never known a season other +than spring and blossom-time. Sometimes he found himself wondering if +that afternoon had been actual.</p> + +<p>He discovered himself using quaint phrases of her invention as part of +his own conversational equipment, and often he found himself applauded +for some flash of repartee which he knew was only a quotation from her. +But also he found himself incapable of that continuous self-restraint +which she required of him under their agreement of a future basis. He +had his moments when he could no more avoid feeling and acting and +declaring himself her lover than he could avoid later regretting them, +and, for this inability, he had been exiled.</p> + +<p>"To you," she told him, "it means a minor thing—but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> it's not minor to +me. I have had unhappiness enough without risking more. We must not see +or write to each other." Paul knew nothing of what this decision cost +her or of the many letters she had written to him—and destroyed +unmailed.</p> + +<p>Now he was utterly miserable and his heart was aching for companionship +outside the two houses where the mildew of misery tainted even the +sunshine that came through the windows. He craved the cheer and strength +of a heart braver than his own, and in defiance of her orders he was +going to see the woman in whose presence he should find these things; +the woman whom he had not seen for months.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">A</span><span class="heavy">S</span> he reached Washington square it seemed that the quiet of the section +held a sort of benediction, and such peace as hangs between old walls, +where the fever of stress has passed and left in its wake a philosophy +and a contentment.</p> + +<p>But when he came to the house where he had visited her, he was told that +she no longer lived there. With a sudden pang it occurred to him that +once more she might have moved a step down the economic scale toward the +furnished room in one of those dingy lodging-houses which she had +dreaded; places where the heart sickens at the forlornness of its +environment.</p> + +<p>He inquired for the girl with whom Marcia had shared the little +apartment, and to his relief learned that she still had her abode here +and would receive him. As he opened the door, Dorothy Melliss was +bending over her drawing-board by a north window, rushing through some +fashion illustrations which must be delivered on the morrow. She greeted +Paul with a nod and went on with her work, while he explained his +mission.</p> + +<p>Dorothy was a wholesome young person of clear complexion and +straightforward eyes and she spoke with an independence of manner +amounting to slanginess. She was one of those girls whom an unaided life +in the city fosters. She could take care of herself—and did—but she +knew life and looked it in the face—and dispensed with anything like a +baby stare in doing so. Now she listened to Paul's talk, then suddenly +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>shoved back her India-ink bottle and wiped her pen, while her pupils +met his with directness.</p> + +<p>"Before I answer any of your questions, Mr. Burton, I've got a few to +ask you myself," she announced. "I might as well talk straight from the +shoulder. Just how anxious you are to see Marcia isn't going to make +such a great difference in my young life. Whether or not she wants you +to find her—does make a great deal of difference."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Miss Melliss?" Paul was genuinely puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I mean that of course I know her address—or addresses—because they +change every day. I also know that she gave me the most explicit orders +not to tell you where she could be found."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he exclaimed in disappointment, relinquishing his inquiry at the +first obstacle. "Then I suppose I may as well go."</p> + +<p>"Hold on," she commanded tersely. "I'm Marcia Terroll's friend. I think +I'm enough her friend to decide for myself whether I can help her most +by obeying or disobeying her. Sit down for five minutes and listen to +me. I feel like talking."</p> + +<p>He obeyed, and the young woman's face flushed with her interest as she +took a chair near him and lighted a cigarette. After that she sat for a +few moments reflectively silent.</p> + +<p>"I guess there isn't so much similarity between Marcia and me, but +there's one thing—and it's a bond of kinship in a way." She looked at +him unwaveringly. "We've both been on our own for some time in a town +where there are more Don Juans than Walter Raleighs—and we're both +straight. To the women of <i>your</i> protected set that wouldn't be so much +to brag of—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>about as much as for a millionaire to boast that he'd never +picked a pocket. None of those sheltered girls in your own world, where +women nibble at life like bon-bons, have anything on Marcia Terroll. In +brain and character and charm she has it over those female noncombatants +like a tent."</p> + +<p>"I know all that, Miss Melliss." His reply was vaguely apologetic.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you do, but I'm not through yet. She was cut to a delicate +pattern and meant for life's sunshine and God knows she's had plenty of +shadow. She's kept a smile on her lips and a laugh in her eyes through +things that would have crumpled up lots of those tender creatures you +know. You don't guess what it means to that sort of woman—well, to see +life from the angle we get on it, but Marcia knows. You came along and +she—" The young woman broke off in sudden silence.</p> + +<p>"She what?" Anxiety sounded through his question.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she never told me anything. It's not her fashion to tell such +things, but I have a pair of eyes myself. I figure that Marcia let +herself in for a danger she thought she had put behind her. She allowed +herself to have a dream." She paused and her gaze was almost accusing in +its directness. "From the look in her eyes before she went away I guess +she realized that it was a dream."</p> + +<p>Miss Melliss had eyes of a brown softness, but just now they flashed +hard as agate and her voice rose to a scornful indignation.</p> + +<p>"As if we haven't enough to handle with the facts of Life, without +hopeless dreams! I'm no anarchist railing at wealth and luxury ... but +you men <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>that want everything ... and give nothing—" She broke off and +abruptly demanded, "Well, when you think about it, what do you call it +to yourselves?"</p> + +<p>"Where is she?" demanded Paul.</p> + +<p>"She's out with a dinky, barnstorming company, playing one-night +stands—on a route of tank-towns and whistling stations. It was all she +could get. She's making early-morning jumps between shabby hotels with a +bunch of cheap actors and cheaper actresses that are just about as +congenial to her as a herd of goats." The voice vibrated with sincere +feeling.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to tell me where I can find her?"</p> + +<p>The girl studied her cigarette, drew a puff upon it and exhaled a cloud +of smoke before she answered. Then she spoke reflectively.</p> + +<p>"I'm just wondering whether I am or not. If you're going to follow her +up and make her dream again—only to wake up again, I certainly am not. +If you're going to be any comfort to her I am, because God knows she +needs some comfort. She is only going on her nerve."</p> + +<p>"Please tell me," he urged very persuasively. At that moment it was in +his mind to write a truthful letter to Loraine Haswell and go to Marcia +with a proposal of marriage. He felt only his need of her—and her +importance to himself. He failed to reckon on the thousand misgivings +and indecisions which would assail him between the moment of impulse and +that of execution. But his eyes were sincere and Dorothy believed them. +She went to her desk and brought back a sheet of paper.</p> + +<p>"That's the route for this week—and next," she said. "After that you +must either find out for yourself or go without knowing."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>That night with the holiday spirit of a lad let out of a cheerless +school Paul Burton walked along the principal street of a small New +England town where old-fashioned houses sprawled between stark elms. +When he reached the Palace Theater, the performance had begun, so he +hurriedly bought a ticket and found himself sitting near the front with +many empty seats about him. It was a cheap "follow up" company with an +old piece that had once been a Broadway hit. He had never seen Marcia +act. Now he was seeing her under the most inauspicious +circumstances—and he knew that only want of opportunity and the +uncompromising plane on which she had pitched her dealings in managerial +offices had balked her ambitions. She could act and was acting with a +force, intelligence and finesse that were wasted here, and as he watched +her suddenly their eyes met and across the blazing separation of the +"foots" she recognized him. For just an instant her pupils dilated and +she missed a cue. It looked as though she would "go up" in her lines, +but before the prompter could come to her aid she had recovered herself +and her performance went on unbroken. But during the following +intermission the women who dressed near by could hear her humming a gay +tune, and as she came out at her call they saw in her eyes a sparkle +that had not been there before.</p> + +<p>As Marcia sat in her dressing-room before the mirror which was fastened +against a brick wall, the squalidness of the cubbyhole ceased to depress +her. On the slab before her lay scattered the details of make-up, and +crowded into one corner stood her open wardrobe trunk. A placard near a +light-bulb read, "Please remember that YOU are here for a few days, but +we are here all the time. Do not deface our home," and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>under that +notice, probably tempted by it into irony, a former occupant had +scrawled in huge letters "Oh, you home!"</p> + +<p>But now the chilly little dressing-room was no longer a dingy cell. She +had recognized Paul Burton's face out in front, and, as she changed for +the next act, little snatches of song broke from her lips, and she +smiled at herself in the glass until the small, glistening teeth flashed +like those of a pleased child.</p> + +<p>Fate gives no guarantee of responsibility for the targeting of the +Love-God's darts. This whimsical deity seems to owe no duty to fitness +or consistency. He may choose to make a strong and excellent character +love one too weak to be worthy its thought and no higher power +intervenes. After all, Marcia had met Paul when she was lonely and they +had for a while comforted each other's unhappiness. When she had ordered +him to stay away the damage was already done, and since then she had +been infinitely more lonely—had craved more desperately companionship +with someone of the world from which her poverty had so long exiled her, +though its memories remained. Now he had disobeyed her and come to her. +He had sought her out contrary to command and that must mean that he had +found a new strength and would have something to say to her which a man +may worthily say to a woman. He had so thoroughly understood her edict +that his coming could have no other meaning. She could not know that he +was still actuated solely by his own selfish craving for comfort, nor +that he had occupied his time on the train countering and balancing +considerations until his sudden determination had oozed miserably out of +him. Although he could no longer awaken a throbbing of his pulses with +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>thought of Loraine Haswell, neither could he fortify his mind to +cut the tie and give her up.</p> + +<p>When the curtain rang down on the last act the door-man brought in his +card, and Marcia ran light-heartedly out to meet him.</p> + +<p>"You see, I disobeyed you," he announced, and she sought to reply with +great severity, but delight broke through that affectation and riddled +it with smiles.</p> + +<p>"Unless you are too tired," she suggested, "let's take a walk before we +go back to that desolate morgue they call a hotel."</p> + +<p>It was a cold and sparkling night and the old street, which was once a +post road, twisted between the elms under a moon that threw the rambling +houses into softened shapes and underscored them duskily with shadow. +They had walked perhaps a half-mile when they came upon a building that +had in its more prosperous years been a mansion of some pretense and +dignity. It sat back in its generous yard, with a cheery light blazing +at its lower windows, wearing an aspect of elderly and beneficent +reminiscence. An electric bulb by the gate lighted a small swinging sign +inscribed in antique type, "The Sign of the Tea-pot. Lunch, tea and +dancing."</p> + +<p>"Down-at-the-heels gentility gone into trade," smiled Marcia.</p> + +<p>Paul Burton halted and listened, but the dancing had ended and the old +house was silent.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he ventured, "if the tea-pot is still on duty."</p> + +<p>"By this time," she laughed, "it would have tucked its head under its +wing and gone to roost."</p> + +<p>"Let's try it, none the less," he challenged, and with the spirit of two +children on a lark they opened the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>creaking gate and traversed the +brick walk, arm in arm.</p> + +<p>In answer to their knock, which echoed through the place, there came +after a time a pleasant-faced elderly woman to the door. For a few +moments she reflected, then decided that, although it was a little late, +she would undertake to produce some sort of a supper—if they would make +allowances for its deficient quality.</p> + +<p>The scene seemed set for adventure, even romance. In a large, pleasantly +furnished room glowed a cheery fire, and as they waited they sat before +it, falling silent, and Marcia's face continued to smile. She had +learned to make the most of a pleasant moment while it lasted and to +leave regrets until they forced themselves.</p> + +<p>When they had finished an excellent supper and the woman had withdrawn +they asked and received permission to linger a while before the inviting +hearth.</p> + +<p>Abruptly Marcia looked up and announced, "I forgive you your +disobedience. I'm glad you came. You can't imagine how lonely it's +been." Her small nose puckered fastidiously as she added, "The company +is odious and I hate the play and the hotels provide unfinished +road-beds to sleep on and I've been headachy and altogether miserable." +Then she broke off and laughed again, "Which will be about enough +Jeremiad for the present. Have you missed me?"</p> + +<p>Paul Burton bent forward and studied the red tip of his cigar. It seemed +to him that he had missed her more than he had ever missed anyone else. +For the first time since the terrible day in the Street with its +battalion of misfortunes, his heart felt at rest and his nerves quiet.</p> + +<p>He tossed the cigar away and took her hands in his. Deep in her eyes +glowed a quiet tenderness and her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>breath quickened. The man seated +himself on the arm of her deep chair, passing one arm about her and +holding her two hands close to her breast. Her hat tilted back as he +stooped to kiss her, but she did not appear to resent that +disarrangement.</p> + +<p>"I have missed you terribly," he said and the glow in her pupils +heightened in brightness.</p> + +<p>Marcia was content. After all, her dream was coming true. Here in this +old room of an old house, where other generations had made courtly love, +he would tell her that resolution had come to his heart, driving out +weak vacillation, and resolution spelt her name. It was worth having +been lonely for. Here were just the two of them in the light of a fire +on a hearth—emblem of home.</p> + +<p>On their two faces, close together, the blaze threw warm little dashes +of its own color. Into the heart of Marcia Terroll stole belief once +more, and the cheer of the glowing coals.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">F</span><span class="heavy">OR</span> a while they were content to remain silent; and afterward the man +said, "I've been needing you, Marcia."</p> + +<p>The fingers that he held tightened a little on his own. Now she thought +he would tell her that he had given his problem the test of bold +reflection and could come to her with his mind made up—and the decision +was that he needed her. In the hope her loneliness saw an opening vista +of happiness, but his next words were not of that.</p> + +<p>"You have read the papers?" he questioned. "You know what has happened?"</p> + +<p>Of course she knew and her heart had been full of grief for him in these +days of distress. Had she not written him—and torn up unmailed—a score +of letters in which she had told him tenderly and unreservedly all she +felt? But when she had seen him tonight she had forgotten that, +remembering only that he had searched for her and found her and come to +her.</p> + +<p>Now that he spoke of misfortune to himself and his family she wanted to +give him only sympathy and comfort and love—yet coming like a sudden, +chilling draught, a conviction struck in upon her heart and left it +shuddering—with all its tender new hopes shattered.</p> + +<p>For as he spoke she realized with the finality of revelation that the +Paul Burton of whom she thought in her dreams had not come at all; only +the Paul Burton who, too weak to bear his own sorrows, came to share +them with her. He had not come offering her strength <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>and companionship +in loneliness—but asking them for himself. He had not come to offer +marriage. She had, in the face of the old warnings, dreamed +again—falsely idealized once more—and his mission was to waken in her +anew the dreary reality of her life. Yet that same maternal instinct +which made her love a thing more of giving than of asking endowed him +with a greater dearness, as she realized the truth.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," she said in a low voice, "I know—and I've been thinking of +you all the while."</p> + +<p>Then for a quarter of an hour he recited his griefs and forgot hers. She +was there near him; his arms were about her and she was comforting him. +That, for him, was all that was necessary. But at the end of it all she +rose and turned half from him and her face was pale.</p> + +<p>"If there was a single thing I could do," she said from her heart, "I +would do it at any cost—" Her voice questioned him tensely. "You know +that, don't you, dear? You believe it."</p> + +<p>"You are doing something now," he declared. "You are giving me your own +strength."</p> + +<p>To herself she said bitterly that to make a mistake once is an accident +with which life may ambush the most wary, but to walk twice into the +same snare stamps the victim as a fool. She was paying the price now of +that folly. She was indeed giving him, as he enthusiastically declared, +her own strength for his adversities, and he was accepting it, using it, +burning it up with no thought of how little of that particular capital +she had to squander in the sharing.</p> + +<p>Even at that moment with his self-pitying voice in her ears, reciting +his Iliad of reflected troubles, her mind found a whimsical parallel for +his self-absorp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>tion. He was like some unheroic wanderer in desert +places who had stumbled upon another equally unfortunate, but more +stalwart of heart. He had greedily fallen upon the depleted +water-supply, drinking deep and never pausing to consider that the +tongue of the wayfarer who offered him a flask was more parched than his +own. He was a minstrel and a troubadour who held himself immune from the +need of meeting stress with combat. His mission in life was to sing and +accept, and now it pleased him to sing sadly of himself.</p> + +<p>Yet the one way she could not go on helping him was the particular way +he elected to be helped. He chose to let himself drift and vacillate, +and the aid that he asked of her was that she should drift near enough +for him to have her companionship. He was like a wakeful child who +required that she, too, should be sleepless that he might escape +loneliness.</p> + +<p>"And so," she said, forcing a smile, which concealed all that was in her +heart, "you were lonely, and you came to me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear." His voice was eager. "I had to see you. To stay in exile +any longer was unendurable. I was thinking of you always, wanting you +always, and so I came. You forgive me, don't you?"</p> + +<p>Marcia laughed. "It's very nice to be wanted," she answered, "but sit +over there across the hearth and light your cigar. It's gone out."</p> + +<p>Paul looked down resentfully at the cigar and lifted his hand to toss it +away, but the girl laid her fingers on his wrist and laughed.</p> + +<p>"No," she commanded. "Smoke it. Tobacco is soothing and I like the +fragrance. It's a Romney panatella, isn't it?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>"How do you manage to remember details like that?" Paul inquired with +boyish pleasure. "Other women don't carry in mind the brand of tobacco +that a man prefers."</p> + +<p>"I'm not other women," she reminded him lightly. "I have a genius for +minute and trivial things. The others flatter you by burning incense to +your music—and I remember that you take two lumps of sugar in your +coffee and one slice of lemon in your tea and that you must have your +Martini extra dry."</p> + +<p>To herself she was saying, with a lump in her throat which waged war on +the bright smile in her eyes, "I hoped that he might have come +differently. I hoped that he might have made an end of vacillation. Now +it's all going to be harder. I must send him away again—"</p> + +<p>One hand which fell over the arm of her chair and which he could not see +clutched its fingers convulsively, squeezing the handkerchief it held +into a small wad of linen.</p> + +<p>"You are wonderful, Marcia," he told her softly as he comfortably +exhaled a cloud of blue smoke, and his delicate lips fell into a smile +of contentment. His troubles were for the moment being assuaged in the +effortless indolence of the lotus-eaters. He looked at her through +half-closed lids, studying the face that smiled at him. Yes, she was +giving him her strength. He would go back tomorrow appeased and soothed.</p> + +<p>Then he suggested with the suddenness of a newly discovered thought: +"But we've been talking about my troubles all the while. Tell me +something about yourself. It must be proving a hard trip, isn't it? A +bit of a trial at times?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>A hard trip! A bit of a trial at times! For an instant the smile died +and the lips stiffened. She wanted to answer him with a stormy burst of +words. She wanted to say that it had been sheer hell.</p> + +<p>In the face of such callous complacency an indignant anger stirred deep +in her breast. He had fled to her with his troubles, which after all +were only the shadows of deeper troubles, of which other members of his +household were bearing, unaided, the more direct brunt. He was asking +her, whose life had known chapters of tragedy, to give him such sympathy +as a woman has the right to give in exchange for a man's whole love. Had +he no sense of fairness, even the fairness of good sportsmanship? But +close on the heels of that realization came another which banished the +wrath. God had chosen to paint him in soft and tender colors. God had +given to his soul-pattern a certain beauty, and if there had gone into +the design no bold strokes, he himself was no more to blame than he +would have been for the failure to see, had he been born blind. His +weakness doubtless carried its own penalty of suffering. Perhaps had the +guidance been there, the wanted qualities might have been trained into +him. Hamilton had seen that, but Hamilton's hand had not had the light +touch for the delicacy of the task's beginnings.</p> + +<p>Her mind flashed back to her girlhood. She was standing at the paddock +fence of her grandfather's stock-farm in Kentucky.</p> + +<p>Even in her childish heart there had been a mighty pride for the old +gold and blue that were the colors of her grandfather's stables. They +were silks that raced true to tradition, for no mere gambler's +venturing, but for the gentleman's pride in his horse-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>flesh and his +inherent love of sport. Much of the stamina that had kept her heart from +breaking had been instilled in those lessons of the gallantry of the +long struggle and the endurance of the home-stretch.</p> + +<p>She remembered a certain chestnut colt whose name had gone down in turf +history. She had known that colt from a weanling and to her he had not +been an animal, but a personality.</p> + +<p>Yet that splendid-hearted creature which could out-game his fields in a +smothering drive when his heart was near bursting had been a +disappointment in two-year-old form because he had seemed to sulk and +falter and lack courage. Under the whip his speed died and his petulance +cropped out. It had only been when a jockey was found whose soft touch +of the reins nursed the head and held it up and encouraged, that the +horse had come in to his own and made his name great. Might it not be so +with a man as well as with a horse?</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "it has been a bit of a trial, but it has been funny, +too," and straightway she launched into a flow of anecdote that touched +up with whimsical and delightful humor every bit of poor comedy that had +tinged the days of the tour. And as she talked the man laughed with +sheer delight and amusement.</p> + +<p>But it was growing late, and Marcia was exhausted with the outflow of +spirits. He might be comforted, but tomorrow she must again take up the +dull thread of her routine. It would not be easier for tonight's +disappointment; for the coming of the rescuing knight who upon arrival +had only clamored mournfully for assistance.</p> + +<p>After all she could only stand so much, and just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>now she felt that the +margin of endurance was narrow. Yet there was to be said the most +important thing of all, and the most trying.</p> + +<p>"Paul," she began slowly, but in a voice of finality, "when you go back +tomorrow, you mustn't come to see me again. At least not for a long +while."</p> + +<p>His face became a mask of tragic disappointment, and his voice was +pleading.</p> + +<p>"You are not going to reinstate your sentence of banishment, Marcia? You +can't know what this evening has meant to me. A man must have in his +life that comfort that only a woman like you can give. Surely you will +give it."</p> + +<p>"But, Paul," she said as gently as she would have argued with a child, +"you must remember. There is a woman: a woman to whom you regard +yourself pledged. Are you being very loyal to her? Are you being very +loyal to either of us?"</p> + +<p>To herself she added: "A woman whom I have never seen and whose battles +I am called upon to fight."</p> + +<p>"She's in Europe." Paul spoke rather sullenly, and though he said no +more his voice intimated that so far as he was concerned she might +remain there.</p> + +<p>Marcia nodded her bend. "She is there to get a divorce—so that she can +marry you. No, Paul, you know why I sent you away in the first place. +Since then nothing has changed—unless it is that I see more clearly the +fatality of drifting. I can't do it."</p> + +<p>"And you—" he spoke somewhat brokenly—"doesn't it mean anything to +you?"</p> + +<p>Suddenly and momentarily her self-restraint broke.</p> + +<p>"Mean anything to me!" she exclaimed passionately as her eyes widened +and her whole attitude relaxed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>into a posture of collapse in her chair. +"Mean anything—!" Then suddenly she straightened up and passed a hand +across her brow as though to brush away a cloud that rested there. In a +composed voice she added: "It means so much that you must do as I say, +not merely until you feel like disobeying again, but always." After a +long silence she rose. "I must get up early," she said, remembering that +tomorrow brought its program of a train journey, a matinée and an +evening performance.</p> + +<p>"Paul," said Marcia as they walked back, "I have to leave a call for +seven and catch a train at eight-thirty. There's no use in your getting +up. No, please don't, and please don't hunt me out again." At the door +of the hotel she said enigmatically, "What a wonderful balance Nature +might have struck between your brother's strength and your—winning +personality. Good-night."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Duke de Metuan's failure to rehabilitate his impaired fortunes with +Burton gold had left a more durable scar upon his optimism than any of +the similar scars of the past. Mary Burton had been such a splendid +combination of charm and opulence that a marriage with her would have +made a pleasure of necessity. The Duke in his earlier stages of +disappointment had felt first the pangs of a lover, and only in +secondary degree the chagrin of a depleted exchequer. Several months had +found him inconsolable, and when desperation had closed upon him he had +wedded an estimable lady whose wealth was less dazzling than Mary's, but +ample none the less. Her personal paucity of allurement was a handicap +which his philosophy ignored as much as possible. In pri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>vate he +sometimes made a fastidious grimace, and accepted the inevitable.</p> + +<p>Yet the duke had long been an epicure in life's pleasures, and though he +must yield to the demands of his creditors, much as a young prince must +yield to the edicts of his chancellery in making a required marriage, he +did so with mental reservations. He had no intention of permitting that +necessity to cast a perpetual cloud over his days and nights.</p> + +<p>He had found it possible to leave his estate in Andalusia, where his +duchess elected to remain with an imaginary malady from which she +derived much melancholy pleasure, and in Nice he had been overjoyed to +meet a charming acquaintance in the person of Loraine Haswell.</p> + +<p>Loraine, too, was willing to have these hours which hung heavy +alleviated with companionship, and Nice is a place where hours lend +themselves to the process of being lightened.</p> + +<p>There was a waiter at one of the esplanade cafés where the tables look +out over the whiteness of the sea-front and the sapphire of the bay, who +regarded his grace and madame as his regular clients. He knew without +telling what <i>hors d'œuvres</i> and vintages the dark gentleman affected +and at what pastries the beautiful lady preferred to nibble. She nibbled +decoratively between peals of soft laughter and snatches of small talk.</p> + +<p>The garçon in question noted—and officially ignored—that the lady, who +had at first worn a preoccupied, almost troubled, expression about her +dark eyes, now smiled more often, and that into the black pupils of +Carlos de Metuan there came frequently a glow which was akin to ardor.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>In the same way he noticed that occasionally their hands met and +lingered, as the lady formed the habit of losing her handkerchief and +the gentleman habituated himself to its retrieving. A legal separation +cannot be established in a day, and if one must remain away from one's +friends at home, one may surely console oneself with friends abroad.</p> + +<p>The duke was lavish in his entertainment. His wife's fortune permitted +that, as well as his wife's ignorance of the disbursements, and of late +Loraine's supply of money from America had arrived on a scale of +diminuendo. Entertainment was welcome.</p> + +<p>Half-jokingly and veiled in phrases which she was at liberty to construe +as she wished, there had of late been an insidious vein of suggestion in +the duke's conversation.</p> + +<p>"Were I not married and were you not married and were I able to convince +you with an eloquence which I lack, I think I might be happy," he +informed her one night as he studied his cigarette end in the dark. Then +he laughed and his hand sought hers as he added: "Yet, thank God a +thousand times, we live in a day when friendship need not go shackled by +dark-age absurdities." That had been the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Friendship," she replied demurely, "has never had to be shackled, has +it?"</p> + +<p>He leaned forward and she caught the glint of his eyes and a flash of +white teeth, as he answered:</p> + +<p>"When friendship between man and woman is a feeble little fellow, he +goes free, but when he grows very strong, then his lot was not so easy +in other days. You understand me?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>"I'm sure I don't, but what matter?" she laughed. Carlos shrugged his +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Yes, what matter?" he murmured. "As long as we can be together, why +should we seek names for our companionship? It is—what it is."</p> + +<p>Yet Loraine, still sure of her future, spelling a congenial and +luxurious life with Paul, understood what she pretended not to +understand. The Duke de Metuan was not a riddle to her; not even a +figure tinged with mystery. His wife was an unlovely invalid. Her sole +value was monetary, and the duke's hints and thoughts had all to do with +an arrangement wherein life should yield him the compensating delights +which his family denied.</p> + +<p>Loraine's fastidiousness rather shuddered at this idea, yet perhaps a +certain sort of character disintegration had set in, with her first +cutting loose the moorings of preconceived standards. Possibly it was +working a more rapid atrophy than she knew. She told herself that, in +her exile, Carlos made a rather diverting companion, and that since she +understood his purpose she could with ease control the situation. He +should amuse and no more. If his hints became less ambiguous than she +found agreeable, she would send him packing, but meanwhile she would +permit his luncheons and his motors to serve her. The food and roads +about Nice are excellent—and expensive.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="heavy">HERE</span> is in the western hemisphere one town whose local news is national +news and international news. Its celebrities wear names which the nation +mouths over with gusto, and its own name was, until comparatively +recently, New Amsterdam. The country closely followed the first-column +stories with which the press sought to keep abreast of the affairs of +Hamilton Montagu Burton. It was interesting reading, for it dealt with a +late potentate of power untold; now an invalid whose brain slept like a +child taking its forenoon nap while his millions, counted in scores and +hundreds, went back to their sources as the sun draws water into the +clouds to spill it out again elsewhere. A giant of untold might had +kindled the fires that slept at the heart of a volcano—and then had +fallen asleep upon the slopes down which the lava must flow!</p> + +<p>While he slept, Ruin, spelling itself with a capital letter, had +signaled out the one pedestaled figure which had laughed at ruin, and +mocked its potency and bragged of a star which was above menace.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton lay for weeks in insensibility and delirium and when, in +returned consciousness, he realized his predicament he raved like a +madman against restraint, counting the precious moments, which were +being used against him, bleeding him of vital power. This very fretting +against the inevitable burdened him with a waste of nerve and brain +which should send <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>him forth, depleted in strength and weakened in +resistance, to meet his adversaries.</p> + +<p>Nor had the forces aligned against him marked time. When again he took +the field he must take it in a realm of altered and shrunken boundaries, +and the roll-call of his allies would show many missing—and many gone +over to the foe. But greater than all these things was the change in +himself. The cloyed wolf who had gorged too deep of success was no +longer the lean fighting beast with a ravenous light of conquest in his +eyes. That Burton might have met even the present and triumphed. This +was a wolf on the defensive, fating a pack which had turned upon his +leadership. His weakened fangs were against the jaws of all the +rest—and he came scarred and spent from days and nights of physical +feebleness.</p> + +<p>Paul sat beside Hamilton in his car as they drove down-town on that +first day when the financier defied the edicts of his physicians.</p> + +<p>"Hamilton," questioned the younger brother, voicing for the first time +that deep anxiety which had been clamoring within him for weeks, "will +you be able to drive back your assailants? The papers predict that your +reign is broken and your ruin near at hand."</p> + +<p>Hamilton raised his face and smiled. It was the old imperious smile, but +the face over which it spread was thinner and gaunter and between the +hollowed cheekbones the smile lost something of its wonted +illumination—failed somewhat of its old convincing force.</p> + +<p>"The papers have had their opportunity to prattle without check. Now I +am back again—we shall see." He broke off and laughed, then he rushed +on fiercely. "They call this St. Helena. They lie." In the weak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>ness +which was still upon him, he gasped a moment for breath. "When Napoleon +left Elba the papers of Paris raved about the escape of the unspeakable +tyrant. When he reached the borders of France they announced, without +comment, the approach of Napoleon Bonaparte, but when he was near the +gates they raised a pæan of triumphal welcome to the Emperor, who had +returned to make France more glorious than ever among nations! I shall +soon be at their city gates, Paul, and, while my star shines, no mortal +power can stop me or stay my progress."</p> + +<p>But the Napoleon of the later phases was not the Napoleon of Austerlitz. +Out of the great heart and brain some essential element had gone. +Burton, too, had tasted defeat and knew its bitterness. He was going +back to rally shrunken forces and lead a forlorn hope and his eyes were +grimly defiant—where once they had been regnantly confident. Perhaps +Hamilton Burton during those next few months was after all more worthy +of admiration than he had been since a boy whose dreams burned +city-ward. Feeling each day a day of adversity and giving no hint, he +recognized, yet refused to admit, the dawn of defeat when defeat was far +past its dawning. Upon the world of allied assailants that pressed him +back—back—ever back on dwindling millions and then shrinking hundreds +of thousands he turned a fierce and unsurrendering face. To himself he +said even now that his star was infallible.</p> + +<p>But in the privacy of his own bedroom, when no alien eye penetrated his +solitude, his bitterness was epic and terrible. In the consistency of +that egotism which had first made, then unmade him, there was no room +for remorse; no possibility of self-accusation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> If his star was to set +it would set on his last terrific stand against the squares of the +enemy, with the old guard about him ... and when the end came, like +another Antony, he would fall on his own sword.</p> + +<p>And always to the sunken-eyed anxiety of his mother, and the puffy-eyed +misgivings of his father and the quaking terror of his brother, he gave +back laughing assurances of his unquenchable power. To them he treated +as technicalities, which he would casually brush aside. Federal +prosecutions and Congressional investigations and the solid phalanx of +financial interests that constantly drew their strangling cordons around +him. He never admitted to others or to himself as a possibility the +reckoning which was sure beyond question. Yet except for a detail of +months—or weeks—he was as irremediably ruined as though already the +tape of the stock-ticker had spelled out its unemotional announcement, +"Hamilton Burton cannot meet his obligations." He had been wounded +through the one vulnerable joint of his armor: his great self-pride and +unquestioning assurance were struck to the quick of the heart. His day +was done.</p> + +<p>Since he had lost in dozens and scores of millions and could return to +his preëminence only by mighty leaps, he plunged again in dozens and +scores of millions, as befitted a mighty gambler. And in scores he lost +and in scores again he plunged—to his ruinous and total undoing.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As the Burton fortunes were dwindling, Loraine Haswell, who had come now +from the Riviera to Paris, found her state of mind reaching an anxiety +that threatened first her composure, then almost her reason. She knew of +her husband's ruin, and had written him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>a letter of condolence rather +more human than any of her other communications to him had been of late.</p> + +<p>But that the shattering of such a moderate financier as Len Haswell +should foreshadow the total ruin of a money czar like Hamilton Burton +and impoverish his parasite brother, was an idea too colossal to grasp +in its entirety. Yet in the news from America it slowly dawned. In the +Paris edition of the <i>Herald</i> it was convincingly chronicled, and the +beautiful dark-haired woman who had thrown away her husband began to see +that she had no reserve upon which to fall back. Had Len's modest +fortune survived that tempest, it would have been easy to put back into +port. A little contrition, a confession that she had tried living +without him and found it impossible, would have won his forgiveness, +because his heart had been too sore to calculate. But now Len was +bankrupt and Paul would be likewise.</p> + +<p>In these days Carlos de Metuan was no longer a speaker of veiled +phrases. He was playing the rôle of the generous Platonic friend, +watching her moods and seeking to comfort her.</p> + +<p>There was no strain of iron in this woman's soul, and that suited his +purpose. Just now he would gain more by merely standing by. Her +increasing alarm would one day turn to panic and she would lose her +head. For that day he could afford to wait.</p> + +<p>Loraine was undergoing an agony, and when the time came which the duke +regarded as the psychological moment, and he baldly offered her his +proposition, she made a lovely picture of a woman in distress converted +into a righteous fury.</p> + +<p>She sent him away with blazing eyes and words that should have scorched, +and he went with a shrug <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>of the shoulders and smiled when he was out of +sight. "It is not for long," he told himself.</p> + +<p>In that cynical conviction Carlos de Metuan was correct. Loraine tried +poverty and loneliness for a while in Paris, and because she was still a +creature of rare beauty, several other men with greater or less degree +of skilled language suggested similar solutions.</p> + +<p>At last she met the duke again. He had been in Andalusia and had +returned once more to Paris—alone. He was driving in a motor car and +came upon her walking near the Arc de Triomphe. He halted the car and +asked her to let him drive her home. At first she demurred, but in the +end consented to let him drop her at her <i>pension</i>, provided he would +promise to leave her immediately at her door.</p> + +<p>"Assuredly," agreed the man gravely. "But in return, you will do me a +favor also? You will let me call for you tonight and will dine with me?"</p> + +<p>For a moment Loraine hesitated, then she slowly nodded her head.</p> + +<p>Carlos de Metuan arrived promptly that evening.</p> + +<p>Loraine had made her fight and regarded herself as a defeated martyr. +The hour and a half before his coming she had not devoted to tears, but +to beautifying herself. She met him radiant, and from her eyes and lips +all the disfigurement of distress was banished. She laughed and chatted +throughout dinner, and over the coffee, leaning forward a little, she +asked, "Where do you mean to take me from here?"</p> + +<p>"To a comedy perhaps, wherever you like."</p> + +<p>There was a brief pause, then she looked up and put a second question. +She put it with the best nonchalance that she could assume. It did not +sound like unconditional surrender.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>"And after that?"</p> + +<p>Carlos de Metuan lighted a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"I have leased for you a very good apartment not far from the Champs +Elysées. I think you will find it comfortable."</p> + +<p>For an instant the woman's eyes hardened.</p> + +<p>"You appear to have taken matters rather much for granted, Carlos."</p> + +<p>He shook his head and smiled.</p> + +<p>"I merely hoped," he assured her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">P</span><span class="heavy">OSSIBLY</span> some day a historian versed in the intricacies of high—and +low—finance will record in detail, comprehensible and convincing to +those who thirst for statistical minutiæ, the last chapters of Hamilton +Burton's history. Here it will only be set baldly down that the weeks, +for him, went galloping toward and over the brink of things—until he +found his affairs still reckoned in many millions, but all in the +millions of liabilities.</p> + +<p>He was pointed out derisively in those expensive hotels where once every +head had bowed obsequiously at his coming. Then one night he went to his +office, carrying a leather portfolio in his hand. He still walked with +his head up and met the eye of every man who cared to gaze into his own. +About his neck was turned up the collar of a sable-lined overcoat—relic +of his days of splendor. As he walked down-town he met no one who knew +him, and this suited his plans. Lower Broadway after nightfall is as +murky and silent as upper Broadway is aflare and noisy. The steep +buildings are like cemetery shafts, save where belated clerks work over +their books and night watchmen guard their posts.</p> + +<p>Burton's offices, still his under a long-term lease, were denuded of +furniture and accessories—since the sheriff had already begun his +confiscations here.</p> + +<p>But tonight Hamilton Burton meant to use them for another, and a grimmer +purpose—in fact a final <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>one. The portfolio which he carried contained +a dilapidated old blank book, such as one buys in a crossroads store, a +volume of verse, and an automatic pistol, carefully loaded. When the now +inevitable moment came which should leave his family roofless—he would +not be there to see.</p> + +<p>There is no saying what small matter may, at a given crisis, bring +solace to a man who requires it. Now Hamilton Burton appeared to find +the necessary comfort in the boast which he nursed to his heart, that +his exit from the world, with which he had played ducks and drakes, was +to be entirely voluntary and in no wise forced: that though he was +closing life's door upon himself he was still crossing the Stygian +threshold the captain of his soul.</p> + +<p>His face was calm enough as he turned on the light and drew down the +blinds of his private office. He had no knowledge of another tall +figure, bearing abundant outward signs of adversity that, from the +opposite side of the street, halted to glance up just as he showed +himself there in the window.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton deliberately unlocked the morocco brief-case with its +gold clasp. First he took out the pistol and carefully examined it, +nodding his head in satisfaction. Since there was no table left, he laid +it on the window-sill near at hand. Next he withdrew the book of verses +and after that the country-store note-book with its dog-eared and +age-yellowed pages. These proceedings left the case empty save for a +note directed, "Coroner's Agent, City."</p> + +<p>In the days of his magnificence Hamilton Burton had regarded +life-insurance as a poor man's buffer between his heirs and want.</p> + +<p>For himself it had meant nothing and he had passed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>it by. Only since he +had secretly half-admitted his vulnerability, had he thrown such an +anchor to windward, and all his policies were new—too new to hold +validity against self-destruction.</p> + +<p>And yet the brain that had been so cool always, so logical, had of late +assumed a dozen unaccountable eccentricities. Through his thoughts with +the obstinacy of an obsession ran one refrain: "'Twas no foe-man's hand +that slew him: 'twas his own that struck the blow."</p> + +<p>Men must not think of him as one beaten and murdered. They must remember +him as his own executioner. Surely the lawyers would find a way. Surely +their cleverness would circumvent the restrictions framed by these +gamblers on the chances of life and death.</p> + +<p>He opened the poetry volume at a point where a page was turned down, +then, standing by the electric light, boldly straight and without the +air of a man who entertains fear of life or death, he read aloud and +with excellent elocutionary effect ...</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I only loved one country in my life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that was France: I saw her break her heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against the cruel squares: then the last order<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broke from my lips as coolly as a smile.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God! How they rode! All France was in that last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Charge; and France broke her heart for me...."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He paused and a deep melancholy spread over the features until the eyes +might truly have been those of broken dreams gazing seaward from the +rocks of St. Helena. He glanced again at the pages and quoted softly.</p> + +<p>"Ninette, Ninette, remember the Old Guard!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>After that he laid the book aside and turned the thumbed pages of the +blank book. These were pages scrawled across in a boy's round hand. The +man who had once been that boy stopped when he came to an entry written +long ago by lamplight in an unheated attic, with frozen branches +scraping the roof and the eaves.</p> + +<p>"There is something in me," he read, "that tells me no man was ever +greater than I've got it in me to be. John Hayes Hammond, Carnegie, +Rockefeller, Frick were all poor boys...." He paused once more and let +his eyes wander to the bottom of the page and dwell upon this addendum. +"P. S. I sold them to Slivers Martin for ten dollars ($10.00) and they +only cost me seven—and he had to go after them."</p> + +<p>As he held the book in his hand he was interrupted by a low knock on the +door. Perhaps the night watch-man had come up with a question. Hastily +laying the diary of his boyhood over the pistol so as to conceal it he +opened the door—and Len Haswell entered.</p> + +<p>The broker's ruin had been complete, and his dual troubles had evidently +driven him to demoralization of another sort. His face wore a set such +as artists give the features of Death—the pale implacability of doom. +He loomed there gigantic and silent; strangely altered by his chalky +pallor and the dark rings out of which his eyes burned. After a moment +Hamilton Burton inquired coolly, "Well, Haswell?"</p> + +<p>"You may recall," said the deep voice in a tone of menacing quiet, "that +during the two days when you scattered ruin broadcast—and ruined +yourself into the bargain—I led your forces on the floor of the +Exchange."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>"Perfectly," was the calm response. "I recall that you lost everything. +So did I. We seem to be fellow-unfortunates."</p> + +<p>"You say I lost everything." Haswell drew a step nearer and held out his +two mighty hands. "You are mistaken. I still have these."</p> + +<p>A trace of annoyance stole into the voice of the fallen Napoleon. It is +disconcerting to be interrupted during one's last moments of life.</p> + +<p>"And with them," he ironically questioned, "you mean to begin over and +make an honest living?"</p> + +<p>Haswell shook his head. His tone took on, in its level pitch of +implacability, a quality indescribably horrifying, "No—an honest +killing. I am going to kill you."</p> + +<p>"That," suggested Burton, "will not be necessary. I am on the point of +saving you the trouble—and personal danger. In my bag there is a note +stating that fact—and my reasons."</p> + +<p>Haswell held out a letter. "I am not complaining about my ruin in the +Street," he patiently explained. "I knew that game and took my chances +along with the rest. That isn't what has been driving me mad. I got this +letter a week ago."</p> + +<p>Hamilton glanced at the envelope.</p> + +<p>"From Loraine," went on Len Haswell in a voice of even deadlier quiet. +The voice and chalky face seemed twin notes of sound and color. "I +wouldn't care to tell you what happened to her—after she pinned her +faith on your promise to buy her freedom—from me—for your brother. She +lost out all around, you see. I wouldn't care to tell you about +that—and its consequences. But something's going to be paid on +account—here—tonight."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>After a moment Burton said slowly:</p> + +<p>"I am through. I'm just ending it."</p> + +<p>Once again the huge man shook his head. A strange and bitter smile +twisted his lips.</p> + +<p>"No," he persisted in that level intonation with which men sometimes +speak from the scaffold. "No, that won't do. You see I've whetted my +appetite on anticipation—ever since that letter came. I must have the +pleasure of killing you with my own hands; of seeing the breath go out +of your throat—afterward the suicide will be my own."</p> + +<p>To lay down one's life of one's own volition is one thing. To permit +another to take it in a fashion of his own arbitrary selection is quite +another. Hamilton Burton had never been submissive. He meant to die as +he had lived—"captain of his soul," and so he turned quietly toward the +window ledge where he had laid the automatic pistol. Perhaps some +clairvoyant sense, loaned by the closeness of death, gave Haswell an +intimation of the other's intent. He reached the window first—at a +bound—and stood before it. Then suddenly a hideous expression came into +his eyes until out of them shone the horror-worship that had obsessed +his soul; and the maniac's cunning for draining his greed of vengeance +to its dregs.</p> + +<p>He had jostled aside the blank book containing the diary and seen the +weapon, which he calmly slipped into his pocket. Then he raised the +window as far as it would go.</p> + +<p>"This is the twentieth floor," he commented with a ghastly significance. +"I know because I walked up. I didn't want to be stopped—too soon. It +won't take you so long to get down." As he spoke he jerked his head +toward the raised blind and sash. "It's rather <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>a symbolical finish for +you, Burton—you must confess as much—an idol hurled down from his high +place."</p> + +<p>One quality Hamilton Burton possessed. If he was to die he would leave +no satisfaction of final cowardice to comfort his assassin's +self-destruction. He would attack—but a sudden thought stayed him.</p> + +<p>"If we are to have a death struggle here," he asked with a strange +composure, "will you give me a moment—for a matter that had no bearing +on your determination?"</p> + +<p>Haswell yet again shook his head with his executioner's smile as he +sardonically inquired, "Time to get another gun?"</p> + +<p>"No. To tear up a note to the coroner—unless you will be good enough to +do it for me. If I am not to kill myself there is no advantage in an +ante-mortem confession!"</p> + +<p>"What difference does it make? To me it seems trivial."</p> + +<p>"Just this—that my family will save my insurance out of the wreck."</p> + +<p>"And Paul may once more sing golden songs to the wives of other men—not +that I so much resent Paul. Without you he would have been harmless +enough—but society's safer with him poor."</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton had caught a rift in the clouds and with this denial his +calmness deserted him for passion. The old family love, strong even +though he had himself so violated it, burst into flame in his heart. +Once more he would fight for those he was leaving. Why had he never +thought of the window himself? That might logically seem accidental, yet +his brain had not served him well of late. It had been clouded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>and +unresourceful—and he had invented no method of masking the authorship +of his death. His enemy had suggested it—but first there must be a +moment to destroy the confession which would rob his mother of the one +asset which might be saved to her. With an oath he leaped upon his +visitor, and fought tigerishly. But for all his superb physical fitness +and strength it was like a child leaping upon a powerful gladiator.</p> + +<p>With one mighty arm about his waist crushing him until his bones seemed +to crack and one huge hand cutting off the gasp of his throat, his body +was bent back in this gorilla embrace and a purple mist spread darkly +before his eyes. He had just enough tremor of consciousness left to know +that he hung limp and was being lifted and swung to and fro as one +swings a sack which he means to toss into a cart.</p> + +<p>A few moments later the giant stood panting from his exertion as he +stretched out a steady hand for the pistol which lay on the window +ledge.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="heavy">N</span> a certain dictionary appears this substantive and this definition. +"PARASITE (par'-a-sit), n. one who frequents the table of a rich man and +gains his favor by flattery; a hanger-on; an animal or plant nourished +by another to which it attaches itself. (Greek.)"</p> + +<p>If the animal or plant to which these other animals or plants attach +themselves goes first to its death, it is inevitable that its parasites +must speedily follow. There is no longer anything upon which to feed.</p> + +<p>Hamilton Burton was gone and his parasites were withering. His will +provided a princely fortune for each member of his family—save his +sister, for whom they would care. But a will presupposes an estate—here +were only enormous liabilities and vanished assets.</p> + +<p>This man's dream of power in a single hand—the hand that could +produce—had held so firm that he had never made any provision for their +independent fortunes while he lived and held at his finger ends the +touch of Midas.</p> + +<p>Now he was dead. The coroner said, after viewing the evidence, he had +killed Haswell first and himself next—so they added to all the sins of +his overcharged account the crowning infamy of murder.</p> + +<p>Those men who gather and print news have their fingers on the pulse-beat +of things and sometimes they develop an occult sense of prophecy.</p> + +<p>On the night of Hamilton's death, as a certain city <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>editor in Park row +read the proof of the "day's story," he called one of his reporters to +his desk and let him wait there while he himself rapidly penciled out +the "Stud-horse head" which should, tomorrow morning, shock many +breakfast-tables. Finally he glanced up, under a green eye-shade, and +shifted his dead cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.</p> + +<p>"Smitherton," he instructed, "from now on keep right after the Burton +story."</p> + +<p>Smitherton rolled a cigarette. "The follow-up tomorrow will be a big +one, too," he prophesied.</p> + +<p>"Sure, but I'm not only talking about the follow-up. As to that you +handle the introduction and general. I'll have the various other ends +covered. I refer to next week and next month and next year—"</p> + +<p>The staff man raised his brows, and, with an impatient and wearied +growl, his chief commented curtly: "Go, look up the word 'parasite' in +the dictionary. Maybe after that research you'll understand better what +I mean. There's copy in this for a long while. The branch is dead and +the leaves will be dropping."</p> + +<p>The stunned parents, the ashen-lipped brother and the sister, not yet +recovered from her collapse, had months for realization; nightmare +months during which hordes of creditors arose with legitimate, but +wolf-like, hunger from everywhere, and courts adjudicated and the world +learned that not a remnant of shredded fortune nor a ragged banknote +would remain to the family which had dazzled New York since its Monte +Cristo star rose on the horizon.</p> + +<p>While the wolves were picking the remains of the estate to its naked +bones, old Thomas Burton still went occasionally to his place in the +club and gazed out of the Fifth-avenue window. He wore a band of crêpe +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>around his sleeve, and a defiant glint in his eyes, and since he was +left much to himself, he drank alone. He was no longer the same portly +and immaculately fashionable man. His flesh had shrunk until his clothes +hung upon him in misfit. His face was seamed and his hair instead of +being gray and smooth was white and stringy. But no pride is so +inflexible as acquired pride, so he came to the club where he was +snubbed, because, "By Gad, sir, I have the right to come here. I am +Thomas Standish Burton, and I will not permit myself to be driven +away—even though adversities have befallen me!"</p> + +<p>He reflected upon "pursuits to which a gentleman of my age may, with +fitting dignity, apply himself," and his ideas were random and +impractical, but after a sufficient number of toddies they appeared to +himself feasible and meritorious. One day when he called for his first +afternoon drink the negro waiter shuffled uncomfortably, and said, "I'm +sorry, sir, but I was told I couldn't serve you."</p> + +<p>"Why?" demanded the member, stiffening with indignation.</p> + +<p>"Your name, sir, is posted on the suspended-credit list. That's my +orders, sir."</p> + +<p>Tom Burton rose and stalked very stiffly, though no longer with his old +time cock-sureness, for the last time out of the National Union Club, +and spent the afternoon in the rear room of a saloon further east.</p> + +<p>Paul, whose plight was as pitiable as that of a pet pomeranian turned +out of a perfumed and cushioned boudoir to hold his own among foraging +street curs, for a while bore up with an artificial courage. Under the +long strain of successive anxieties his mother had broken in body and +mind, and Paul was with her much, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>though sometimes she did not +recognize him, but called him Hamilton and begged him not to leave the +mountains, lest life in a new world should hold worse things than +poverty.</p> + +<p>Hamilton's dream-palace, with all its splendid plunder of art treasures, +had gone under the hammer in satisfaction of a court judgment. Next went +the house which his parents had occupied, and before that all the +servants had gone—save one. Yamuro's passion of devotion to Hamilton +had descended in a lesser degree to Paul and with the grave courtesy of +the Samurai he waved aside all discussion of wages. Had he not saved +much money for a Japanese boy who needed little? Already he could open a +small shop and sell kimonos and jade trinkets and embroideries ... but +that could wait until such time as his usefulness ended here.</p> + +<p>The final day came, and the shrunken household effects were removed to a +small apartment in Greenwich Village, so it was time for Paul to say +good-by to Yamuro. It was Yamuro who had found the flat and haggled +explosively over the terms of the lease. It had been Yamuro, too, who +had gone with Mary, when she carried her mother's jewels from place to +place, offering them for sale. The faithful little attendant knew that +what was salvaged from such bargaining must be the last resort and sole +capital of this shattered family. As the lady with the pale, but lovely, +face looking out from the shadow of her mourning veil went from dealer +to dealer, he followed a step behind her, watchful of eye, guarding her +remnant of treasure against possible mischance.</p> + +<p>Now he stood with Paul in the room which the musician would not again +occupy, and Paul's eyes sud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>denly filled with tears while the son of a +race called stoical turned away and occupied himself with a lump in his +throat.</p> + +<p>"Yamuro," began the musician in an unsteady voice, "you aren't a +servant, you are a friend; good-by and God bless you."</p> + +<p>The Jap caught the extended palm in his own two hands and bent over it. +He was not weeping and he was not talking, but he stood with his head +lowered until only the wiry black hair was visible, and in his throat +rose guttural and incoherent noises like groans.</p> + +<p>"I can't show my appreciation as I'd like," said Paul. "The day for that +is gone, but there are some clothes that I didn't pack. I left them for +you—" Even in an hour which called for defense of every penny, Paul was +still the impractical man whose open heart and affectionate nature +called for expression. "And this—" he put his hand in his pocket and +drew out a watch upon which any pawnbroker would have advanced a goodly +sum—"this was Hamilton's." His voice broke as he held it out. "I think +he would like you to have it. His will left you twenty thousand +dollars—but—well, you know."</p> + +<p>Yamuro straightened up. He raised both hands in a gesture of protest and +his words came fast and vehemently.</p> + +<p>"No, no! Thanks ver' mutch—no—no! You great artist—you not un'stand +making money. You need. Mother—sister—father all need. No—please!"</p> + +<p>He halted; then in a deep embarrassment, went on. "Me got money in bank. +Me not want be impert'nent, but—" He paused, seeking a disguised and +delicate fashion of volunteering aid and looked appealingly into the +other's face for assistance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>Fresh tears welled into Paul's eyes. "I understand you, Yamuro," he +said, laying a hand on the stocky shoulder. "No, Yamuro, you have done +enough—God bless you!" He could not trust himself further and so he +turned abruptly and left the room.</p> + +<p>These rooms in the twisting by-ways of picturesque old Greenwich Village +seemed mean and tawdry to their new tenants, but they were very good as +compared with what Mary knew must follow. The pitiful store of money +which her last-stand financiering had raked together would not be +renewed when spent, nor would it last long. It was only that they might +have a temporary refuge in which to think out the future that the girl +had chosen these quarters.</p> + +<p>Then very shortly came the day when the house that had been the home of +the elder Burtons also went under the hammer, and an unconquerable +magnetism drew Paul to the spot though he knew the place would be filled +with people who, to him, must seem pillagers. He had nerved himself to +ask a thing for which he had been longing ever since those doors had +closed upon him. In that house was the Pagan temple which his brother +had built for his shrine of dreams and the organ which might have graced +a cathedral. If they would allow him ten minutes there alone—ten +minutes to finger the keys for the last time—at least he meant to ask +it. It was a much changed man who presented himself diffidently at a +house to which the public had been invited by the commissioner's +advertisement. His clothes were already beginning to indicate his +deteriorated condition though, thanks to Mary's care, they were +scrupulously neat. The things to be sold this morning could find +purchasers only among the very rich, and for that precise reason the +occasion had at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>tracted a horde of people who came as they might have +gone to a fire or to a museum. Paul Burton found it easy enough to meet +these eyes. It was when he encountered the gaze of old associates that +he shrunk and trembled.</p> + +<p>The sale had not yet begun and the crowds were drifting hither and +thither, bent on preliminary inspection, jostling arms with the men from +the detective agencies assigned to the occasion.</p> + +<p>Paul found the person who seemed vested with authority and to him put +his request. The individual looked at this pale young man and recognized +him. There was a pathos in his face that could hardly be denied—and +there was no reason for denying him.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mr. Burton," he agreed. "I'll instruct the door-man not to +let any one else in—unless you have friends you'd like to take with +you."</p> + +<p>Paul shook his head. "I'd rather be alone," he said. But as the two +elbowed their way through the crowd he found himself face to face with a +dark-haired, deep-eyed woman in fashionable and becoming mourning, upon +whose fingers sparkled a number of rings. The musician halted in his +tracks and turned desperately pale. He had heard that Loraine Haswell +had returned from Europe—and he had heard vague rumors which had deeply +shocked him. If they were based on truth it seemed improbable that she +would care to risk meeting any of her old associates. Yet when his eyes +encountered hers he found her laughing gaily, and he realized that, +whatever else had happened to Loraine Haswell, she had lost none of her +beauty.</p> + +<p>"Loraine!" he exclaimed, his voice betraying his excitement, and she +responded calmly, but with no emotion, "Good-morning, Mr. Burton." It +was as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>though they had parted yesterday, but also as though they had +never met, save casually, before that parting; as though their lives had +never touched more intimately than in the brushing contact of +passers-by. To Paul it seemed very cruel and he was about to pass on +when she stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Burton," she suggested, in a cautiously guarded voice, "I wish you +would send back my letters. I'm stopping at the Plaza."</p> + +<p>The man was silent for a moment, then he said simply:</p> + +<p>"I have already burned them."</p> + +<p>She searched his eyes for a moment, and, seeming satisfied of their +truthfulness, smiled. "That will do just as well. Thank you. How silly +we were to write them, weren't we?"</p> + +<p>Paul hurried after his guide, who had been deferentially waiting a few +steps distant, but at the entrance of the music-room he halted +again—and this time his cheeks blanched with a greater astonishment. +There, standing within arm's reach, was Marcia Terroll, though her face +was averted and she did not see him.</p> + +<p>"What brings you here?" he asked in a low voice, and as she turned to +face him her hands went spasmodically to her breast.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know that you would be here," she said faintly, but she did +not tell him that she had come in response to the same instinct which +draws pilgrims to shrines hallowed by association; because this had been +the temple of his art.</p> + +<p>"They have promised," Paul told her, "to let me have fifteen minutes in +there undisturbed—to play my organ for the last time." His eyes met +hers and he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>added in an earnest undertone, "Won't you go with me, +Marcia?"</p> + +<p>The woman's lashes glistened with a sudden moisture. "Are you sure you +wouldn't rather be—quite alone? Isn't it rather sacred to you?"</p> + +<p>"That is why I want you," he eagerly declared. "It will be something to +remember afterward."</p> + +<p>They went in, and for a moment the girl stood there gasping at the +magnificence of this place, of which she had read descriptions, but +which she had never seen. Then her eyes flooded and, with a sense of +revelation, she forgave him every frailty and fault—even the isolated +horror of longing she had been carrying in her heart. So sensitive a +soul as his could not have been expected to stand out Spartan-bold +against the voluptuary blandishments of such surroundings—and such a +life. He looked at her for a long while and once, unseen by her, he put +out his arms, but caught them back again with a swift gesture and shook +his head. Now he knew in all bitterness what Loraine Haswell and his own +cowardice had cost him—and it was too late.</p> + +<p>Loraine Haswell and his own cowardice! He had not fully realized it +before, but from that episode when he fled to Hamilton from his lunch +with her had sprung the root of every succeeding chapter of tragedy—and +for her he had lost Marcia! Then he led her to a place of vantage and +went to the keyboard.</p> + +<p>Never had Paul Burton played like that before, for as the music swelled +and pealed through the place, his heart was singing its swan song. In a +moment of manhood beyond his moral stature he had drawn back arms that +were hungry for her—and he now knew, too late, that there was no one +else who counted. But the organ was not so repressive, and as she +listened she knew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>that the tragedy was not hers alone. While his +fingers strayed to the improvising of his yearning and despair the woman +sat spellbound, and finally he swung into that tritest of time-worn +airs, "Home, Sweet Home."</p> + +<p>A gasp came into Marcia's throat.</p> + +<p>As Paul Burton left his seat and came down to her, his face was drawn +and he said bluntly, "<i>She</i> is here today."</p> + +<p>She did not have to ask details or if it was ended. The music had told +her everything. In a sudden gust of feeling and wrath against this woman +who had stood between her and happiness, she wanted to say bitter +things—but she only nodded.</p> + +<p>"Now that matters have turned out as they have," the man spoke +deliberately, but tensely, "I sha'n't see you again. Now that I'm a +bankrupt and it's all over, Marcia, I want you to know that I love +you—that I love you without doubt or hesitation. In this world and +whatever other worlds there are, there is only you ... you whom I lost +because the coward <i>must</i> lose every good thing life holds." He broke +off and asked very humbly, "Just in farewell—may I kiss you—once +more?"</p> + +<p>With a torrent of sobs she came into his arms. "From the first," she +declared, "I've been just yours. I've never thought of myself except as +yours. Take me! Poverty doesn't frighten me. I've known it too +long—it's almost like an old friend. Let's fight our way back +together."</p> + +<p>There are moments which turn mice into lions and make heroes of the +craven. Unfortunately they are apt to be ephemeral. Paul Burton shook +his head as he looked into her eyes, and answered with an unwonted +resolution.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>"No," he said bitterly, "not now. Now I'm a bum."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be. You are young. You have genius. We can win out yet—and +win out big—and win out together."</p> + +<p>His lips twisted in a pallid smile of self-derision.</p> + +<p>"At all events for once I know myself. If I ever become a man, God knows +I'll come to you. But I haven't done it yet. I mustn't know where you +are, dear. I'm strong enough—just now, but in some dark, weak moment +I'll come hurrying to you, if I can find you—before I've proved +myself."</p> + +<p>"I'm going out—on the road—this afternoon," she spoke slowly. "I'm +going to wait, and for the first time, I'm really hoping."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the weeks that followed Paul made a resolute attempt to keep his +promise. For a while he played the piano in a restaurant, but his frail +constitution had been shattered by these late months and sickness +intervened. Mary, too, with her thoughts painfully bent upon the rapid +shrinkage of the little bank account, endlessly sought employment. +Because she was beautiful, and because even through these dark and +hopeless days she had brought with her a regal poise of her lovely head, +everyone to whom she applied gave audience—and little else.</p> + +<p>In appraising her business assets, she itemized her knowledge of several +languages, her excellent education and her willingness to work. She was +countered by the reminders that she did not know stenography, could not +use a typewriter and had no prior experience. Many business men listened +and took her address, but as the days wore on she discovered that the +only ones who ever referred again to those memoranda were such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>as +remembered her beauty, and insisted on discussing the possibilities in +cafés over a supper party for two.</p> + +<p>One item of regularity Mary found time for, between her exhausting +journeys of tracking down advertisements. She went often to the cemetery +where Jefferson Edwardes slept, and her single extravagance was the +purchase of a few inexpensive flowers to carry with her.</p> + +<p>On one of these occasions she happened upon a burial in a lot near that +she had just visited. The deceased had been a person of sufficient +consequence to warrant newspaper attention, and Mary, in passing the +spot from which the carriages were starting away, halted reverently. As +she went on again, someone overtook her and touched her arm. Turning her +head she recognized Smitherton. He had been the most courteous and +considerate of the newspaper men with whom her family's late affairs had +compelled her to have repeated meetings.</p> + +<p>The reporter looked her straightforwardly in the eyes and inquired +bluntly, "You were in the office yesterday, looking for employment, +weren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "They offered me a position—if I would write a +'heart-interest' story of my life—signing it and concealing nothing."</p> + +<p>The young man nodded. "I know and I saw your eyes as you refused. I'm +not talking as a reporter now, but as a human being. You won't make any +mistake by trusting me, Miss Burton. Is it so bad as all that with you? +Hunting a job?"</p> + +<p>The girl had by this time attained a certain reliance in her own +abilities of human appraisement. She believed what young Smitherton said +and she answered with equal frankness.</p> + +<p>"It is so bad that we face sheer starvation, that's all."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>After a keen glance at her he observed quietly: "At this moment you are +not overfed."</p> + +<p>"N—no." A faint amusement lighted her pupils as she answered, "I'm +not—well, exactly gorged."</p> + +<p>"Now I want to talk to you, and you needn't hesitate about telling me +things." There was a frank boyishness about this young man, and his +manner reminded her of Edwardes. She thought his eyes had something of +that same straight fearlessness and honesty. "You are going with me from +here to a little restaurant I know, near by, and you are going to hear +me out. I know that you're going through sheer hell, and I know a game +scrapper when I meet one whether it be a man or woman. This business +teaches a fellow several things."</p> + +<p>In the end she went.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">A</span><span class="heavy">N</span> hour later she felt as if she had known Smitherton for a long while +and could rely upon him. Then he lighted a cigar and said slowly: "I +have taken all this time and said nothing useful. I did it +deliberately—because what comes next will sound so cruel that I +wouldn't say it if the reason wasn't sufficient. I'm going to hurt +you—but only as the dentist or surgeon might hurt you. Shall I go on?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him across the table and since cowardice had no place in +her composition braced herself and nodded her acquiescence.</p> + +<p>"You don't get much help from your brother. It's not his fault, perhaps, +but it's true. You get none at all from your father. Your mother is in a +condition of mental derangement. It's up to you. You've walked your feet +sore seeking honest employment—and you've met with failure and affront. +Now I'm coming to it and I'm going to put it plain. In this town of New +York there is just one opening for you. One thing will bring you +handsome returns: nurses for your mother—comfort for your father—but +it will be an ordeal. You must capitalize your beauty and the publicity +that attaches to your name."</p> + +<p>Mary Burton's lovely face grew paler, and, fearing interruption, the man +rushed on. "I don't mean in the way the Sunday editor suggested. I mean +the stage. I eke out my revenue in Park row with some press-agent work, +and I happen to know what I'm talking about. Mary Burton is one of the +most adver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>tised names in the city. To a manager it would be worth +whatever it cost."</p> + +<p>"But"—her voice faltered—"but I can't act. I've been in amateur things +of course, but—"</p> + +<p>"You don't have to know how to act." His voice rose ironically. "Few +stars do—besides, I'm talking about vaudeville. The highest-priced +vaudeville headliner in America boasts that she can neither act, sing +nor dance."</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment, then, as she said nothing, proceeded gravely: +"Think that over, Miss Burton. New York pays for names and what New York +pays for the rest of the country accepts—at more than face value. I can +see to it that your contract is carefully drawn—and you needn't fear +the usual unpleasant features of visiting managers. They will come to +you. It's not what you would prefer—but if other things fail telephone +me."</p> + +<p>It was a small restaurant, very plain but neat, and at this hour of the +late afternoon the man from Park row and the woman who had once been the +toast of capitals from the Irish Sea to Suez sat across one of its small +tables undisturbed by other patrons. Only a waiter stood across the room +and a cat rubbed against his ankles.</p> + +<p>In her mourning she made a wonderfully appealing picture, as she gazed +down at her plate, even though her lowered lashes half-masked the +mismated beauty of her eyes. Suffering had laid a veil of transparent +pallor over the brilliant vividness of her coloring—a coloring that her +lover had once likened to the gorgeousness of the Mosque of Omar. Yet, +by this, her beauty was rather enhanced than lessened as though Nature, +the master-painter, had retouched a picture <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>already wondrous, softening +its colors with a tone more spiritual. Both face and figure had lost +something of roundness and the hand that lay on the table was slenderer +of finger and wrist, but Mary Burton had not been robbed of her beauty, +and when she spoke, very low and hesitantly, one realized that out of +her voice no single golden note was missing. She might still be +truthfully advertised as one of the world's rare beauties.</p> + +<p>"I know," she said softly, "that you make that suggestion in true +kindness—and I know how great my need is. If I am to save my mother and +father from starvation, I must do something, and yet—" She paused and +shuddered. "Maybe it's all foolish and over-fastidious, but your +suggestion sets every nerve in me on edge. It's not very different after +all from your Sunday editor's suggestion—except in the spirit of its +making."</p> + +<p>"Still, there is a difference," he assured her. "The footlights are +between and they give a sense of separation—and protection. Was +Herron—the Sunday man—particularly obnoxious? He's not human, you +know—he's just an efficient machine."</p> + +<p>The fingers of the hand that lay on the table trembled a little and +Mary's eyes as they met his were clouded with distress.</p> + +<p>"I hadn't supposed such things could be," she said. "He was very +impersonal about it all—and he grew enthusiastic as he outlined what he +wanted." Her words came slowly in a detached voice, though as she spoke +her delicate features responded to the shiver of disgust that ran +through her shoulders and at times her lips quivered. "He wanted me to +write it all—telling about every man abroad, especially with a title, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>who had ever—been nice to me. He wanted pictures of me; all sorts of +pictures, in evening-gowns, in polo togs—in bathing-suits. He wanted a +chapter on how much my clothes used to cost—all my clothes. He said the +women would 'eat that up.'" She stopped and a wan smile crept into her +eyes, as she added, "I am using his words, Mr. Smitherton. But I could +stand that. I sat through it. I couldn't afford to lose any chance if it +was a chance I might decently take. But it was when he wanted his +picture, too, Jefferson's—"</p> + +<p>She had to stop there for a moment and a mist came to her eyes which she +resolutely kept from overflowing in actual tears as she went on. "It was +when he wanted me to write down all his words and publish his letters +that I realized I couldn't fight even starvation that way."</p> + +<p>"The damned brute!" muttered Smitherton. "The unspeakable beast!"</p> + +<p>"To do him justice," admitted the girl generously, "I think he forgot, +in visualizing those pages which the women would 'eat up,' that it was +actually me he was talking to—it was just outlining work to a reporter. +He said something about 'sob-stuff,' too. To me, Mr. Smitherton, he +spoke of all these terrible, hideous things, that I lie awake +remembering, as 'sob-stuff'—and I knew that the worst of them were +times that made sobs impossible—when even tears wouldn't come."</p> + +<p>"I had no idea it had been that bad." Smitherton's sympathy was genuine +and spontaneous.</p> + +<p>"It was worse even," she went on. "He spoke of that—that afternoon when +I read the ticker tape—and knew what had happened. He said that, +properly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>colored, that would make a—a great scene. He said it had +drama." Her voice choked, then she added: "So you see your suggestion +will be a hard one for me to take. I should feel like—like Godiva +riding through the streets. And yet for her own people Judith went to +the tent of Holofernes. That wasn't easy, either."</p> + +<p>They rose from the table and went out, and the girl held out her hand. +"Please don't think that I am unappreciative," she pleaded. "I know how +kind you have been—and I don't know how much longer I can hold out. You +said I could trust you, and now I know it, too. If—" her voice broke, +but her chin came up—"if I'm driven to it, I'll let you know—and be +very grateful."</p> + +<p>"Don't let any one else talk to you," he cautioned. "Remember that this +is the capital of sharks. Now I'm going to call a taxi', and take you +home."</p> + +<p>But she shook her head. "It's good of you," she said and her cheeks +flushed. "But I'd rather you didn't. I'm going by the people's +chariot—the subway." She was not yet quite able to conquer the old +pride that remained from the old life. She shrunk from showing him the +meanness of her quarters; she who had reigned and been toasted and lived +in the exclusive aloofness of the favored few, and who now faced +starvation. So he parted from her at the nearest kiosk of the +underground.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It would be a pleasant thing to paint the rehabilitation of Paul Burton, +showing how the underlying qualities of manhood rose in adversity as +they had never risen in opulence, and how love transformed him from a +weakling into a hero. But veracity intervenes. In childhood his +character had lacked stamina, and in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>manhood a hot-house atmosphere had +stifled even what had been there in the beginning. For a short time +after he had seen Marcia Terroll he fought the world and his own +terrible weakness with such a resolution that he utterly burned up and +consumed what spirit of combat was left within him. Perhaps the +recording angel, counting not only results but handicaps, wrote on the +great ledger of human balances a generous merit mark for even that brief +struggle.</p> + +<p>Paul was like a weak swimmer in a strong undertow. He battled hard and +if he could not battle long it was because the measure of his strength +was not a matter of his own choosing. For a while he held a position as +organist in a church—and during those days he brought home the only +revenue which came in. But that did not last. The truth must be told. +Paul's fastidious spirit sickened at the sordid and tawdry, and when he +discovered one day, through the unkind offices of a vagabond violinist, +that it was possible to reconstruct a dream world, even in the midst of +want and poverty, his hunger for tranquillity triumphed over his +resolve. With a hypodermic needle he picked the lock—and threw open the +gate of dreams. To himself he said that it was only a temporary +indulgence, to be put aside when he had conquered the agonies of that +sleeplessness which had of late tortured him. Mary, deprived of his aid, +fought on alone, with all the fighting courage of the Burton blood at +its best—and fought hopelessly.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Burton could not be left alone. Her mind had crumbled into +such pitiful decay that her care chained the daughter in a rigorous +confinement. Now even the opportunity for seeking employment was denied +her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>The ruin of the Burton family was as total and complete as if fate were +bent on tallying measure for measure their past magnificence. The +quarters which Yamuro had chosen were given up and lodgings taken of a +far meaner sort.</p> + +<p>If Mary needed a final twisting of the knife in her wounded life it came +when there stood between them and the streets a single asset, and she +went to realize on that, haggling with a pawnbroker over her engagement +ring.</p> + +<p>Marcia Terroll came back to town for a brief stay between engagements +and stopped with Dorothy Melliss at their old rooms. She had not dared +to ask any question about Paul, and the other girl would have refrained +from volunteering information had she possessed it. Indeed, it would +have been unlikely that Dorothy would know anything of the submerged +Burtons in this city where lives may run out parallel spans almost door +to door, and never touch. But one evening as Marcia was crossing the +square, just after the lights began to glow, a human derelict sidled up +to her and accosted her with a mumbled petition for alms. The man was +old and his clothes though neatly patched were threadbare and worn. His +face, too, was seamed and his breath was alcoholic.</p> + +<p>"Madam," he said in a low voice as he fell into step with her, "I was +not always so unfortunate, nor am I responsible for my adversities. +Could you—"</p> + +<p>With a shudder of disgust Marcia quickened her pace, and the man, +fearful of the eye of police authority, dropped back. But Miss Terroll +could never bring herself without a struggle to ignore the plea of old +age. It struck her, too, that despite his panhandler's manner this man +was yet in a fashion different.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>There was evidently someone who sought to keep him neatly mended up, +for her woman's eye had caught that detail in a glance. Through his +inebriety lurked a ghost-like suggestion of past gentility. She turned +impulsively back, beckoning to him as she searched her purse. In it were +two quarters and one of them she gave him.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, madam," he began with a grotesque echo of the ancient +pompousness. "God knows I had never anticipated such a necessity."</p> + +<p>As she hurried on, he removed his hat and bowed with an attempt at +stateliness which held a pathos of burlesque.</p> + +<p>Marcia Terroll was spared the hurt of knowing that the panhandler with +whom she had divided the contents of her pocketbook, and whom she had +thus enabled to buy five greatly desired glasses of beer, was the father +of the man she loved.</p> + +<p>So, though Mary Burton did not know it, this was the way old Tom eked +out the very scant pin-money she could spare him for his own method of +drugging his sorrows.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">A</span><span class="heavy">N</span> old year was dying and a young year was about to be born. Along the +blazing stretch of Broadway from Thirtieth street to Columbus circle +seethed and sounded the noisy saturnalia of New Year's Eve.</p> + +<p>The street that never sleeps was tonight a human spill-way, churning in +freshet. Between its walls went up the clamor of human throats raised in +talk, in shouts, in song, in laughter and in contest with the blaring of +toy horns, the racket of rattlers and all those discordances that seek +to swell pandemonium to the bursting of ear-drums. Theaters were +disgorging their "big-night" audiences and pedestrians moved in a +congested mass which battalions of traffic officers herded slowly as +dogs herd crowded sheep.</p> + +<p>An endless procession was this, in which human entities were molecules, +that crept, elbowing, jamming, laughing along. Holly-wreathed windows +bore, in additional decoration, placards announcing, "This café is open +all night." For this was the city's wild occasion of suspended laws, +when two edicts only hold in the favored points of rendezvous, "Nothing +but wine," and, "Everything goes."</p> + +<p>Vendors of paper caps, false mustaches, confetti, balloons and all the +noise-swelling devices ever bred of deviltry, hawked their wares along +the curbs, and the furs of women glittered with atoms of colored paper.</p> + +<p>Within the restaurants and cabarets was added to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>the outer din a +popping of corks, a fanfare of orchestras and the songs of supper guests +at tables and dancers on the floors.</p> + +<p>Already a sequence of wild scenes telescoped themselves along the White +Way, but the evening was yet young and would ripen toward fulfilment as +the hours progressed. Its Bacchanalian zenith would be reached after the +million lights of these gilded places had died—like the snuffing of a +single candle—into the five minutes of darkness which heralds the +changing year.</p> + +<p>Along the uproarious sidewalks, pressing ragged shoulders to the +richness of ermine and seal, drifted many hopeless derelicts, but +tonight was to be a night of forgetting them, of forgetting everything +save that it was a "large evening" and that life held only the present +clarion of gaiety. The tragedy under this thin crust must be ignored. +Mirth must be crowned; laughter must be enthroned; glasses must sparkle +and clink and such individuals as elected to remain sober must look +indulgently and smilingly on scenes which, at another time, would +require a blush. To blush on Broadway on New Year's Eve would be a +misdemeanor. It doesn't happen.</p> + +<p>One splinter of human drift which was carried along on the tide gazed +about out of a chalky face—morphia-stamped. This chip on the churning +eddy bore the name of Paul Burton. He had of course no business there. +For him there was no reasonable prospect of a happy new year. There +still remained a roof—of a sort—to cover him when he went home, which +was not so often as it should be, and he still wore a suit of decent +cut, though of a past fashion, but in its pockets there was no jingle of +coins. Passively Paul had been drawn into the maelstrom of the marching +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>crowds, yet he was not of its membership. He could not turn in at any +of the doors that blazed with light and invitation. But he had certain +dreams which vaguely recompensed him—and in his pockets was a +hypodermic needle.</p> + +<p>At Longacre square, where the swirl and eddy of human currents met and +became a cauldron and whirlpool, he was held up at a crossing, while the +crowd shrunk back on itself, waiting the raised hand of the traffic +policeman.</p> + +<p>Finding himself jostled, he glanced languidly over his shoulder. The +needle makes for such languidness at times between its moments of +dreaming and its moments of jumping nerves.</p> + +<p>Several men in evening-dress and fur coats surrounded him, and he knew +them all. The face of Norvil Thayre was laughing into his, and he +recognized that an evening well started had painted its flush on the +cheeks of each of them.</p> + +<p>"My word, Burton!" laughed the Englishman. "I haven't seen you since the +war of the Roses. How goes it, lad?" Then, even in his heightened gaiety +of mood, Thayre recognized the want and distress which had left their +impress and pallor on this face, and his eyes sobered. With the other +rules of the season he felt that forgetfulness of the past accorded, so +he hastened to add, "You know these fellows. Fall in and hike along with +us. We have a table reserved at Kenley's and it's close to the platform. +I dare say we sha'n't miss many tricks."</p> + +<p>A deep embarrassment flooded the face of the outcast. He, who had once +numbered these men among his associates, felt sensitively the pinched +poverty of his present condition and its contrast with their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>Persian-lamb collars, otter-lined coats and their white shirt fronts of +evening-dress.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said gravely, "I'm afraid I can't. Your party is made up +and—and—"</p> + +<p>But as he stammered to a pause Thayre slapped him heartily on the back, +and the others, with voices of more advanced inebriety, made it a chorus +of insistence.</p> + +<p>"'Twill do you no harm, my lad," declared the Englishman. "'A little +nonsense now and then—' You know the old saw. A bite of mixed grill and +a beaker of bubbles will buck you up, no end."</p> + +<p>The musician hesitated, deeply tempted. To sit at table with white +damask and clear glass, and once more to eat such things as they serve +at Kenley's! The idea could not be lightly dismissed. Besides he felt +suddenly giddy and weak. He frequently felt so these days, and if he +accepted he could rest quietly until the vertigo passed.</p> + +<p>"I say—of course," Thayre leaned forward and explained in a lowered +voice, "you go as my guest. I'm giving the party tonight."</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later, retrieved from the street, Paul Burton sat near the +edge of the cabaret platform in a café where every table had been +reserved long in advance, and from whose doors many eager applicants +were being turned away.</p> + +<p>Nearby, too, was the space reserved for dancing, and as Paul drank his +first glass of champagne the bubbles rose and raced merrily through his +thin blood, lifting him out of his squalid reality into an echo world of +irresponsibility. The crowds on the floor were swirling to a delirious +dance tune while above their heads shot up the white arms of women and +the black <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>arms of men, to keep dozens of multi-colored toy balloons +afloat over them.</p> + +<p>Like glass balls on a fountain-spray, red and blue and purple spheres +drifted up and down, and confetti showered, and dancers snatched paper +caps from the heads of strangers, and crowned themselves therewith.</p> + +<p>Wilder groups danced, not in pairs, but in trios and quartettes with +arms locked around shoulders—and it wanted a half-hour of the changing +year.</p> + +<p>Thin ribbons of bright paper volleyed rocket-wise from table to table +and fell in festoons from overhead wires. Dancers forced their way +through showers of breaking strands, and swayed rhythmically on, +trailing broken shreds of kaleidoscopic color.</p> + +<p>Like punctuations of sound came the popping of balloons and corks.</p> + +<p>Paul Burton's hosts had arrived at the stage of mellow exhilaration, but +over Paul himself, as his eyes met the great clock which was to herald +the eventful moment, fell a sudden shadow of black depression. Another +year to face! He thought of what he had promised to do with this +one—and of what he had done! Those last moments in his music-room rose +to his memory and they carried a penalty which slugged his heart into an +intensity of shame and misery. Paul Burton, sitting there with this thin +semblance of merriment around him, saw himself once again very clearly +for what he was.</p> + +<p>Thayre leaned over. "I say, men," he suggested with the enthusiasm of a +new and bright idea sparkling in his eyes, "let's call the head waiter +and have Burton play for us. The management will be jolly well pleased +when they know they're getting the greatest instrumentalist in New +York."</p> + +<p>Paul protested, but Thayre was a man of quick <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>action, and a moment +later the waiter had brought the head waiter, and the head waiter had +gone for the manager.</p> + +<p>Such patrons as these the manager had every wish to oblige, and he was +by no means unwilling to utilise such an artist as Paul Burton when the +lights came on again and his patrons rose to their feet for the national +anthem.</p> + +<p>"Of course," cautioned Thayre, "Mr. Burton doesn't want his name +announced," and even to that restriction, limiting the value of his +extemporaneous "feature," the manager reluctantly acceded.</p> + +<p>To live for music and to have no instrument with which to express one's +emotions means a tortured privation of the spirit. Paul Burton, as he +took his seat at the piano, forgot that it was New Year's eve on +Broadway, forgot the lights, the confetti and the toy balloons. He +remembered only that here were keys which unlocked his dream-world of +music, and when he began to play the clamor of the place slowly and +quite unconsciously subsided, and quiet came—not at once, but as a +delirium may soften slowly into sleep under the stroke of a soothing +hand.</p> + +<p>When from an outlying table a woman, grown louder of laughter than she +realized, interrupted this quiet, a score of faces turned angrily in her +direction, rebuking her with their glances.</p> + +<p>But the music went on and the great crowd which had a few moments before +been abandoning itself to noise and riot now found itself +listening—listening in a sort of rapt trance—with its many gazes +converging on a slender young man. His pallid face and cameo features +seemed exalted and his eyes burned strangely under the dark locks that +fell across his forehead.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>They did not hear the first peal of the midnight clock, until the +sudden darkness which that stroke heralded reminded them of the hour.</p> + +<p>The place which had blazed with light was now as black as some sea-floor +cavern, and that should have been the signal for a hundred horns and +rattlers and shouts of greeting, and the reaching of hands to meet and +grasp other hands across the tables. But in Kenley's it was quiet except +for those peals of music that came from the platform. At last the +strains ended in silence, and a deep breath passed among the tables as +though from one composite pair of lungs. Then once more the instrument +spoke—spoke with a grotesque inappropriateness for a night that was not +to end till morning—for the notes that sounded across the place were +the opening bars of, "Home, Sweet Home."</p> + +<p>There were only a few bars—and after that a loud crash as though a +number of hands had simultaneously fallen, with violence, upon the +keys—and then the lights blazed again from all the opalescent +chandeliers and all the wall brackets.</p> + +<p>Instantly from tables near the center two young women, in paper caps, +leaped up from their seats and kissed the men and women of their party. +A wave of greetings swept the place.</p> + +<p>Across one end of the room gleamed a huge electric sign, "Happy New +Year"—and lying hunched forward with his face on the keyboard of the +instrument sagged the unmoving figure of Paul Burton.</p> + +<p>At once the lights went out again, leaving the place dark, and the voice +of the manager was heard from the platform, a little strained in tone as +he sought to conceal the tragedy which, should it become known, would +end the night's profit for his establishment.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>"Ladies and gentlemen," he lied resourcefully, "I hope you will all +keep your seats and indulge the management for a few moments. A fuse has +burned out, but it will at once be remedied. Our pianist, I will add, +has suffered a fainting spell, but is in no danger."</p> + +<p>When the lights came on again, the figure at the piano was no longer +there. Just back of the platform was a door used by the cabaret +performers, and through this he had been borne.</p> + +<p>But the faintness which had come upon Paul Burton was the faintness of +death, and there were those among the merry-makers who could not forget +the grotesque attitude of which they had caught a glimpse, and who found +subsequent merry-making impossible.</p> + +<p>"Notify the coroner," ordered the policeman who had come in from the +corner through a service entrance. "This is a case for him."</p> + +<p>The manager bent an ear toward the outer door and recognized that there +had been no resumption of the saturnalian chorus between his walls. "Mr. +Thayre," he commented bitterly to the guest who had followed into the +private room, "your friend there has put New Year's eve on the blink for +my place—this thing costs me thousands."</p> + +<p>"Who's the dead man?" demanded the officer bluntly, and when Thayre +replied with two words, "Paul Burton," he gave a long, low whistle of +astonishment. The name of Burton was not yet forgotten in New York.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">M</span><span class="heavy">ARY</span> Burton was returning from a Sixth-avenue delicatessen shop with the +bottle of milk and box of crackers which constituted the marketing for +tomorrow morning's breakfast. She felt very faint and unspeakably sick +at heart. There was no longer even a trivial thing with which to +interest the pawnbroker. She had had little sleep for many nights and +her temples throbbed with pain. She had been trying to think out some +way to mend their misfortunes, and each day brought her nearer the point +where the grinding struggle must end in starvation.</p> + +<p>"If it were only myself," she said bitterly as she turned the corner +under the superstructure of the Elevated, and shivered in the cutting +wind of the blizzard which was sweeping the city, "it would be simple." +She paused a moment later and halted against the wall of Jefferson +Market Court where a brick abutment broke the force of the bluster. Mary +was not so warmly clad as this rigorous weather warranted. The last +thing she had taken to the sign of the three balls was a heavy cloak.</p> + +<p>"For me," she said to herself as she bent her head into the smother of +wind-driven snow, "life ended there in that office—when he died. If I +had just myself to consider I don't think God would blame me much for +ending it."</p> + +<p>But it was not only herself she had to consider. The doctors told her +that her mother's tenuous life strand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>might snap at any time in sudden +death or might stretch indefinitely in helplessness and dethroned +reason. Even in the mean lodgings they occupied other tenants were +sometimes prone to the drawing of lines, and Mary knew that the landlord +did not regard it as helpful to his business to have "a crazy lady in +the house. Some guests objected." So when she began falling into arrears +she did not delude herself with false hopes of charitable indulgence. +Her father, too, though he had dropped down the scale of life to a +forlorn old man who loafed his hours away in saloons until he was turned +out, was still her father and while breath remained in his disreputable +body his stomach required food as well as drink.</p> + +<p>The girl went in at the dark door of the house, which was not greatly +different from a tenement, and climbed the double flight of stairs. From +a place by the window her mother looked up from her chair where she sat +incessantly rocking. She held in her lap an old blank book and her +expression was vacant.</p> + +<p>"I've just been reading Ham's diary," she querulously announced. Mary +shuddered. Of late her mother was always reading that old record of +boyhood ambitions, which to her was always new since no memory—save +those of other years—outlasted the hour.</p> + +<p>"Ham thinks he's going to be a great man some day and I hope he's right. +He's a good boy and a dutiful son and—"</p> + +<p>But the daughter was not listening. Her eyes had encountered an envelope +on the dresser mirror, and, as she tore the end of it, she felt a +premonition of its contents.</p> + +<p>"How about some money on account?" questioned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>the writer. "Unless I get +some by tomorrow, I want my rooms vacated."</p> + +<p>So the ultimatum had come. Mary Burton stood before the mirror for a +moment and out of her body all the strength seemed to flow. Her knees +shook, and her hands grew moist and chilly. Lest her sudden weakness be +apparent to her mother she turned and went wearily into the other room. +There she sat on the edge of her bed and tried to think.</p> + +<p>"Tomorrow!" She dully repeated. "Tomorrow we are put out—then a public +asylum for my mother—and the street or the almshouse for my father." +Even now she was not thinking of herself. If it came to that she still +believed God would not resent her opening for herself the single door of +escape.</p> + +<p>But these two old and helpless people! To Mary they were desperate +burdens, but perhaps that only made her love them the more, and fight +for them the more loyally.</p> + +<p>For a long while she sat there in silence, then she rose with a red spot +burning on each cheek and put on her hat again. At the lower landing she +encountered the landlord. He was not a prepossessing man at best, and +his face just now did not indicate that he was at his best.</p> + +<p>"You got my note?" he inquired bluntly, and the girl nodded.</p> + +<p>"I think," she faltered, "probably I can do something about the rent +tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"Thinking isn't going to satisfy me," he announced. "Tomorrow's the +limit of my patience."</p> + +<p>Mary suddenly remembered that to telephone costs a nickel, and that she +had none with her. For a moment she stood on the sidewalk before +climbing the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>two flights again to raid the little supply of her purse. +The endless anxiety and the unbroken strain of these calamitous months +had weakened her to the point of realizing that the stairs were steep. +Then she remembered that the Italian woman at the delicatessen shop was +her friend, and would trust her for the five cents. She fought her way +along to the store through a wind which threatened to sweep her off her +feet and which cut her like whiplashes.</p> + +<p>Her trembling fingers made a task of turning the pages of the directory +and finding the number of a newspaper on Park row, but at last she +succeeded.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Smitherton there?" she asked, and the curt direction came back, +"Hold the wire."</p> + +<p>Smitherton was sitting at a desk littered with newspaper clippings and +sheaves of copy-paper. His shirt-sleeves were rolled to the elbow and +the light of his desk bulb shone on his ruffled hair as the "copy-kid" +called out to him with that insouciant freshness which stamps his kind.</p> + +<p>"Dame wants you on the wire. Got a voice like a million-dollars worth of +peaches an' cream." Mary with the receiver to her ear heard the subtle +compliment of those mixed metaphors.</p> + +<p>Smitherton finished pasting a clipping into the blank place in a +type-written page and rose slowly.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he inquired shortly. "What is it? This is Smitherton."</p> + +<p>At once he recognized the voice which replied, and recognized that it +came faintly and full of indecision.</p> + +<p>"This is Mary Burton, Mr. Smitherton. Do you—do you think you could +still find me work in vaudeville?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The reporter's office brusqueness fell away, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>and his tone +changed. He knew that this was the girl's last stand, and that she had +not admitted its necessity until every other effort had failed, every +path of escape closed. "I don't think, Miss Burton," he assured her, "I +am certain."</p> + +<p>"Do you think—" the voice was even fainter—"it would be possible to +get just a little money—some sort of advance—soon—tomorrow?"</p> + +<p>"Leave that to me," he confidently commanded. "Just give me your +address—and I'll be at your place in the morning."</p> + +<p>Mary slept little that night. Against her windows screamed and whined +the wind, driving a swish of fine, hard snow in its breath. From two +rivers came the dull groaning of the fog horns. But the storm which kept +her eyes hot and sleepless was one within her own breast.</p> + +<p>Over and over again she told herself that the work for which she was +volunteering was in no wise disgraceful. Probably many women who were +her superiors were doing it with willingness, even with warrantable +pride. It would mean for her mother, as the reporter had reminded her, +comfort and competent nursing. Perhaps, in surroundings of greater ease, +her father might even yet rehabilitate himself into a manlier old age. +Save to serve them her own life was already lived out.</p> + +<p>But the shudder of disgust would return despite her efforts at its +banishment and shake her like a chill. In her case it was not +vaudeville—and it was only lying to herself to call it so. No manager +was considering the payment of a salary to her for anything she could +legitimately do. It was what Smitherton had described it, capitalizing +the publicity of a misfortune <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span>so sweeping as to possess a morbid public +interest. In whatever generosity of terms her contract was drawn its +essential meaning would be that in ten-and a hundred-fold it would come +back to the management for that one reason. It would so come because +people would flock in vulgar curiosity to see the woman who had reigned +in exclusive sets of society from which they were themselves barred; +whose brother had reigned as a magnificent dictator of dollars. They +would come because they had heard of this beauty, and had glutted +themselves with column upon column of yellow and sensational news +recording untold opulence, and afterward of tragedy building on tragedy +to this climax; herself standing there on exhibition in the pillory of +their gaze.</p> + +<p>Seats would be filled and applicants turned away from the box-office, +because a large part of the American public differs in no wise from that +of Rome when it gathered in the circus to see a captive princess thrown +to the beasts—or claimed as a captor's slave. Her value could be based +only on pandering to the mob spirit of gloating over the fall of the +great.</p> + +<p>They would warm over and republish all the sensational details which +time had cooled. The story she had refused to write, others would not +refuse to write—neither would they refuse to "color" certain scenes +into "drama."</p> + +<p>The girl, lying in her bed, pressed her fore-arms against her eyes and +struggled to shut out the pictures that rose as horrors in her mind—but +they passed and repassed with fiendish pertinacity. Nightmare shapes +leered at her from gargoyle features.</p> + +<p>To any human being a situation is what it seems to be.</p> + +<p>Had she actually, like the Lady Godiva, been called <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>upon to ride the +length of Broadway, clad only in her beautiful hair, and placarded +"Burton's Sister and Edwardes' Fiancée," it could have meant to her +delicacy of feeling no greater trial, no more truly the denuding of +herself to the public gaze.</p> + +<p>Had all this realization not been so keen and so poignant Mary Burton +would not have fought so long against the idea which seemed to open the +only way.</p> + +<p>Were there just herself she would, before considering such desecration +of every sacred memory, have preferred to stuff with paper the crannies +of that wind-rattled window and to turn on the gas. In comparison this +would have been easy.</p> + +<p>Easy! Suddenly the idea became a soul-clutching temptation. It offered +escape from the horror of decision and action; escape, too, from the +haunting of memory. The woman sat up in bed and her eyes gazed +feverishly ahead through the dark. She trembled violently and the plan +invitingly unfolded. Some unseen devil's advocate was urging her, for +the instant half-persuading her, insinuating and luring. Often as a very +little girl she had slept in a room as bare as this and listened +contentedly to the rattle of storm-shaken shutters. She had cuddled, a +warm, soft shape, under the blankets, and sunk sweetly, dreamily into +unconsciousness and happy dreams. It was so easy! There, in a drawer +where she had thrust it, with abhorrence for the emblem of a +contemptible weakness, was Paul's hypodermic needle. This very night she +could again drift, unresisting, into sleep, and while she slept the +gas-jet could flow free.</p> + +<p>The room was cold. Sitting upright in her bed, she shivered. Then, as +she realized how seriously she had yielded for a panic-ridden moment to +the temptation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>of turning her back on life's need of courage, the +shiver grew from a shudder of the flesh to a shudder of the soul. She +lay down again and hid her face in the pillow.</p> + +<p>From the next room she heard the heavy snore of her father and the +gentler sleeping breath of her mother. Personal preferences and +prejudices belonged to the past.</p> + +<p>Very well—she still had the flaming Burton courage. She would do this +hateful thing, and when she gazed on the eyes that glutted their +curiosity with staring, she would meet them serenely and give them no +sign that she was being tortured.</p> + +<p>And this thing Mary Burton did—did with that calm dignity which is +vouchsafed to those whose souls are of heroic quality.</p> + +<p>It was only when the day's work of rehearsal ended and she was locked +again in her own room that she sat dry-eyed and wretched, remembering a +dozen things which made her shudder. But as she walked along the streets +she kept her eyes to the front, because she could not tell from what +wall one of those blazing "three sheets" might confront her. They were +advertising her as Mary Hamilton Burton—that the value of those two +names might doubly pique the curiosity of the morbid.</p> + +<p>Also, she avoided as a pestilence the newspapers, and what they might +contain.</p> + +<p>Abey Lewis did not at all understand her, though he had handled a +variety of people during his long career as a purveyor of "refined +vaudeville" to the public. He confessed as much to Mr. Smitherton, with +whom, as Miss Burton's business manager, he came into constant +association.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>"I don't get her at all, Mr. Smitherton," he querulously complained. +"I've known most of the big-time artists that have come along in +vodeville, and she ain't like none of them I ever seen. I've made a lot +of head-liners, but this girl acts like it gives her a pain to talk to +me. She don't seem to take no interest in her act."</p> + +<p>The business manager chewed irritably on his cigar. They were sitting in +the darkened theater while Mary Burton was being rehearsed in the short +and dramatic sketch which Smitherton had secured for her.</p> + +<p>"Has it occurred to you, Lewis," he suggested, with a certain coolness +of manner, "that you wouldn't be paying Miss Burton the salary you are +if she was like anybody else you've known? Haven't you considered the +fact that this lady is going to pack your place to capacity because of +her difference?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe so. Maybe she's a big novelty, and I ain't kicking," assented the +other. "But it does seem to me she ought to be more grateful—for the +chance she's getting. She's a knock-out all right! Them eyes ought to +get the folks going—I wish she'd use 'em more."</p> + +<p>The two sat silent for a while with the empty chairs around them, then +Mr. Abey Lewis raised the megaphone with which he was directing and +spoke to the stage.</p> + +<p>"Daughter," he instructed, "you ain't quite got the psychology of the +part yet." Mary Burton came down toward the front of the stage, with her +fore-arm raised across her face to shut off the glare of the "foots," as +she listened. Mr. Lewis rose and walked thoughtfully down the aisle +toward her. It was Mr. Lewis' intent to handle very delicately this new +headliner whom he failed to comprehend, and of whom he stood in secret +awe.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>"Now you see, daughter," he went on, "this act gives you a great chance +for emotion, and I know, when you get the right angle on it, you'll eat +it up. You've just got wise there, where I broke in, to the fact that +your husband's a criminal. You ain't never suspected he was a crook +before. Now that calls for emotion.... Put more color into it.... Pound +it a little harder. When George ends his long speech and pauses, that +brings you across, see? It cues your reception of the news. It throws a +bomb under you. In times like them women get more hysterical. They ain't +quiet in grief, like men, so just cut loose a little more. Give us a +nice little scream."</p> + +<p>For once Mary Burton almost smiled, as she hearkened to this wise +dissertation on emotion, but she only bowed her head in assent, as the +director added: "Take the scene up again at George's entrance."</p> + +<p>When he sat down beside Smitherton, Abey Lewis shook his head. "I ain't +sure we didn't make a mistake in giving her a straight dramatic sketch," +he said dubiously. "She ain't got no emotion. She needs more pep. Now if +she had an act with lots of changes of costume—something that would +show her off better, it might go bigger."</p> + +<p>Smitherton growled.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and then you wouldn't have her at all," he retorted. "Get it +through your head that this whole thing is distasteful to Miss Burton. +It's bad enough as it is, without asking her to do a diving Venus."</p> + +<p>"She won't ever be an actor," commented Mr. Lewis, sagely, "but what the +hell's the difference? It's the name that's going to carry this act—and +it's going to be a knock-out."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">T</span><span class="heavy">HE</span> day of the ordeal arrived. Mary could not remember any occasion to +which she had gone with such a sense of terror and misgiving, but this +neither Mr. Lewis nor any of his subordinates suspected. It had pleased +the management to call a morning rehearsal, so Mary had not been able to +go home before her matinée début. Tomorrow, if all went well, she could +remove her parents to a greater comfort, so it was her affair to see +that all went well.</p> + +<p>Her mother had been less well than usual during these last few days and +Mary had impressed upon old Tom Burton the necessity of remaining on +watch during her own absence. But, out of the advance she had received, +Old Tom had drawn a small allowance, and it was remarkable how greatly +the manner of bartenders had changed for the better in the brief space +of a few days. By forenoon Thomas Standish Burton was more than tipsy, +and by two o'clock as he emerged from a side door his step was so +unsteady that he found the slippery footing a matter requiring studious +attention. Once he would have fallen had a policeman not caught his arm.</p> + +<p>"I thank you, sir," acknowledged the old man, "I am deeply gra'fle, +sir."</p> + +<p>"You're deeply loaded," replied the officer. "I ought to run you in for +your own protection."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure—" Burton's eyes were watery and his voice thick—"you +wouldn't do that. M' wife's sick an'—"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>"Well, get on back to her, and—if you want good advice—when you get +indoors, stay in." With a kindly tolerance the policeman assisted the +pedestrian across the street and watched him tack along until he was +lost to sight.</p> + +<p>It was a bad day for uncertain feet and legs. The town lay locked in a +grip of ice which sheeted streets and sidewalks with a treacherous +danger. Horses struggled with hooves that shot outward, and children +slid merrily and the elderly picked their way with a guarded caution.</p> + +<p>Old Tom Burton made the trip back to the lodging-house and up the double +flight of stairs in safety. One leg was a little painful, for in that +fine irony, which sometimes seems to prove Life a cynical humorist, +Thomas Standish Burton had been endowed with a single relic of wealth +and epicureanism—he suffered from gout. So, as he climbed, he +laboriously favored the crippled foot.</p> + +<p>Then he opened the door of his wife's room and entered. But after one +step he stood still, then he brushed a sleeve across his eyes to see +more clearly. Elizabeth Burton lay, full length, on the floor near her +chair—and she seemed unconscious. The old man hurried over to her and +succeeded in lifting her weight to the bed. She must have suffered a +heart-attack and fallen as she tried to cross the room alone. A great +fear seized upon his heart and in some degree sobered him. He listened +for the heart-beat and clasped shaking fingers to a wrist that at first +seemed pulseless. But at last he found a faint flutter of life in the +body he had thought lifeless—so faint and wavering a flutter that it +seemed only a whispered echo of a departed vitality.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>For a while he stood stupefied, then he thought of Mary. Of course, he +must send word to Mary. Perhaps, too, life could still be coaxed back, +if a doctor came quickly enough. Down the stairs he hobbled with a speed +that drove him into a sort of frantic and clumsy gallop. On the first +floor he knocked on the landlord's door and implored him to call a +physician at once, while he himself went out to the telephone.</p> + +<p>The nearest instrument was in a saloon and hither the old man hurried. +Mary had given him the number of the stage 'phone, and he called it. +Despite the coldness of the afternoon, perspiration burst out and beaded +his forehead as he waited—only to hear the exasperating voice of the +operator announce, "Busy." Three times this was repeated and while he +waited, pacing frenziedly back and forth, he sought, after each +successive failure, to allay the jump and tremor of his shocked nerves +with whiskey, and he poured generously.</p> + +<p>At last he had the theater number and was told that Miss Burton could +not answer just then, but a message would be delivered.</p> + +<p>"Tell her to come home at once," he shouted wildly into the receiver. +"Her mother's dying."</p> + +<p>"Wait," came the somewhat startled reply. Then after a moment a new and +truculent voice sounded in his ear.</p> + +<p>"What is this," it demanded, "a bum joke you're trying to put over, or +what? Come home at once!—Don't you know a packed house is waiting to +see Miss Burton in her act? What do ye mean, come home at once?"</p> + +<p>"But I tell you—"</p> + +<p>"Go tell it somewhere else." Thomas Burton did not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>know that it was +Abey Lewis himself who spoke. "I don't believe you—you're trying to +string somebody—and if the Queen of China was dying she couldn't come +now anyways."</p> + +<p>Slowly Abey Lewis turned from the receiver he had abruptly hung up and +beckoned the subordinate who had first taken the message.</p> + +<p>"Don't mention this to anybody," directed the chief tersely. "Do you get +me? The girl mustn't hear it—and if any telegrams or messages come, you +bring 'em to me, first, see?" Then to the stage door-man he gave a +similar command, and looked at his watch. It was two forty-five. Mary's +act, held for the latter part of the bill, was not due for an hour. For +just a moment Mr. Lewis considered the advisability of advancing it on +the program. That might be safer—but also it would mar the climacteric +effect and so offend his sense of artistic fitness. He thought that, +after all, he had safeguarded matters well enough.</p> + +<p>But Old Tom Burton had rushed out of the saloon and was hastening at his +awkward gallop to the Eighth-street station of the elevated. He was +going to tell Mary in person and to bring her home.</p> + +<p>Around the turn of the rails he saw a train coming, and, urged by his +obsession of haste, he strove for a greater speed. The top steps were +slippery, and Old Tom was giddy and his legs uncertain. His foot shot +sideways without warning, and his body went hurtling backward. He +clutched desperately for the hand-rail and missed it. Down the long +flight of iron-edged stairs, in a bundle of ragged old humanity, he +rolled limply, and lay shapeless on the pavement. At once, a rush of +feet brought a little crowd, and the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>policeman who had helped him +home earlier bent over him.</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" asked someone, and the officer shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Search me," he said. "He smells like a booze-barrel. I ought to have +locked him up the first time."</p> + +<p>An ambulance came with much clanging of its gong, and when they examined +him at Bellevue, searching his pockets, they found some letters and +Mary's memorandum. So they learned his identity, and sent a telephone +message to the theater—to be followed a half-hour later by a second +announcing that life was extinct.</p> + +<p>But while old Thomas was making his dash for the top of the stairs at +the elevated, the landlord, followed by a physician, tapped on the door +of the room Thomas Burton had left—and, receiving no response, the pair +went in. Swiftly the doctor labored, and as the powerful hypodermic +worked, the old woman rallied a little and her lids wavered and opened. +Her eyes wandered about the place and she spoke with a feeble voice.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"I am the doctor, but you mustn't try to talk," came the grave reply.</p> + +<p>"Where are my children—my boys and my girl?" Elizabeth Burton's face +suddenly became a face of terror and her eyes dilated. "Where are my +children?" she once more demanded.</p> + +<p>"There is no one here just now." The doctor spoke as soothingly as he +could. "You mustn't talk."</p> + +<p>A spark of returned sanity crept into the dying woman's pupils and she +groaned. "No one here! I remember," she said while she shook with a +sudden realization. "I remember—they're all gone." Her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>gaze traveled +around the squalid room, and realized what that meant, too. "Am I +dying?" she inquired. The physician murmured something evasive, and from +her thin lips broke a low, smothered outcry. "Yes," she said, striving +to rise and falling back, "I'm dying—alone—abandoned—by myself—in +this attic."</p> + +<p>Then her eyes closed. The physician bent over the bed with his fingers +on the pulse, and then bent his ear to the breast.</p> + +<p>"We have nothing more to do here," he announced briefly, "except to +notify her daughter and the coroner. Have you the young woman's 'phone +number?"</p> + +<p>The landlord nodded.</p> + +<p>All of these scraps of information were received by Mr. Abey Lewis. He +had taken his place near the 'phone and stood sentinel there. But when +the second communication arrived he procured a pair of clippers from the +stage carpenter and quietly cut the connecting wire close to the wall +where it would not show. He was taking no imprudent chances.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Smitherton reached the theater early and stood for a while at the elbow +of the ticket-taker, watching the throngs crowd in. But at the +commencement of the performance he went inside and sat near the back of +the house. It was only when he knew that Mary's act was due in a few +minutes that he went behind. She might want just a word or smile of +encouragement at the final moment.</p> + +<p>For Mary this had been a morning and afternoon of soul-trying torture +and she had been sustained only by the knowledge that she was doing what +she was doing not for herself—but for those helpless ones whom she +loved.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>As the moment drew nearer, she strained more tightly that elastic and +strong thread of courage which had so far held. As an antidote to the +increased loathing she fixed her mind on one supporting thought and +tried to hold it focused there. Tomorrow she could begin looking for +better quarters, and then the two old people should return, not to the +lavish wealth of former times, but to its more essential comfort.</p> + +<p>She heard the orchestra tuning for the overture, and shivered. She felt +much more like a victim waiting her turn to be thrown to the lions than +a young woman about to make her début as a "headliner." To herself she +kept repeating under her breath, "Tomorrow they will be comfortable +again." She did not know that already they were comfortable without her +assistance and that her ordeal was pitifully wasted.</p> + +<p>Her fortitude wavered momentarily as she looked at her watch—wavered, +but held, and at last she found herself on the stage with no concise +recollection of how she had reached it, beyond a shadowy memory of +Smitherton's smiling face in the wings. The curtain rose, and the +public—part of it was the rabble—fed its eyes on the beauty they had +paid to see—the beauty of a fallen royalty.</p> + +<p>There are times when vaudeville galleries are not excessively polite. +This was such a time. For a few moments Mary Burton had the stage to +herself, and her acting was in dumb-show. This was the author's device +for allowing the audience a full realization of her remarkable +beauty—and to the device the audience responded.</p> + +<p>From high up among the hoodlums Mary caught, quite distinctly, long low +whistles of very sensual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>admiration and such critical epigrams as +"Wow!" "Oi-yoi!"... "Me for that!" and "<i>Some</i> girl!"</p> + +<p>She felt for an instant that she was standing there wrapped in a blaze +of shame, bound to a stake of vulgar heckling. Then suddenly a scornful +fire mounted through her arteries and with that serene and regal dignity +that added majesty to her beauty she went on as though this stage were +her rightful throne and those people out there were gazing up at her +from a ground level.</p> + +<p>The act ran twenty-five minutes, during which time Mr. Lewis and Mr. +Smitherton stood together in the wings. Mr. Lewis rubbed his hands.</p> + +<p>"I ask you, Smitherton," he inquired, "could we have arranged it better +if we was running the world ... first-page stories again tomorrow in +every paper in town. We'll have to hire the Hippodrome."</p> + +<p>"First-page stories, what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Lewis looked at the young man and enlightened. "Oh, I forgot you didn't +know the latest. Well, the girl's mother is dead and the old man's just +followed suit in a pauper's cot in Bellevue. How's that for +heart-interest? You're a reporter. I ask you, will they feature that on +Park row? Will they give us space for <i>that</i> I ask you?"</p> + +<p>"And she went on ... my God!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course I ain't told her yet," Mr. Lewis hastened to add. "She +might have gone up."</p> + +<p>Smitherton caught him violently by the arm and backed him farther +against the wall. His own face was suddenly pale. "You withheld the news +and let her go on? You did that?"</p> + +<p>But the vaudeville manager only gazed blankly back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>into those indignant +eyes and his face was full of perplexity.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, Smitherton, what are you pulling all this tragedy stuff +about? Ain't you her manager? Did you want the whole act queered? Wasn't +the old woman nutty and the old man a bum, and weren't they dead-weight +for her to carry? Didn't they have to die sometime—and could they ever +have picked a luckier time to do it? I ask you now, could they?"</p> + +<p>"Great God!" exclaimed the reporter. But the manager went on.</p> + +<p>"I call it a miracle of luck. God's good to some folks! Here that girl +gets all her troubles settled at a single stroke—and tomorrow she's the +biggest headliner on Broadway ... and you, the feller that ought to be +out hustling her business interests, stand there gaping like you was +sore because she didn't fliver. I don't get you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lewis's voice was freighted with disgust, then, seeing that the +climax had been reached on the stage, he turned away and signaled to +ring down. "Take all the curtains you can get out of it," he instructed +the stage-manager—as he once more rubbed his hands.</p> + +<p>Smitherton stood silent, seeing the curtain descend, then rise and fall +time after time to a thunder of applause. He saw Mary Burton, with all +her distaste masked behind the regal tranquillity of her splendid eyes +and her cruelly wasted courage, bowing, not like an actress, but like an +empress. Then she passed them and closed the door of her dressing-room.</p> + +<p>Smitherton heard Lewis' voice once more, accompanied by something like a +sigh. "Now comes the tough part," said the manager. "I've got to go and +break <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>it to her. Of course, just at first she ain't likely to see the +lucky side of it."</p> + +<p>The reporter stopped him.</p> + +<p>"To hell with you!" he cried out fiercely. "I'll tell her myself—and if +you interrupt me or say a word to her—I'm going to hurt you."</p> + +<p>He went slowly to the door, but the manager had followed him with some +excitement, and with no realization that his voice was loud, as he +prompted.</p> + +<p>"Put it to her tactful. Remind her that she's made on Broadway, and, now +that the old man and old woman are both dead, she's free."</p> + +<p>The dressing-room door suddenly opened, and they saw the girl standing +there unsteadily, but as they approached she took a backward step and +leaned against the wall.</p> + +<p>Her eyes had slowly widened, as they had widened before under the +sickening and staggering blows of tragedy. Her lips moved to speak, but +for a while could shape no words. From her shaken bosom came a long and +pitiful moan, which was not loud, and then her voice returned, and she +said, "I heard you. They are—gone."</p> + +<p>Smitherton knew that words could hardly help. He closed the door again +and turned aside. Even Lewis moved away and stood silent.</p> + +<p>But a few minutes later the dressing-room door once more swung outward +and they saw her at the threshold. She had thrown a cloak around her. +The deadly pallor of her cheeks was grotesquely heightened by the +remnants of rouge which her shaking fingers had failed to completely +remove. Her eyes were wide and staring, gazing into the future or the +past ... into eternity it might have been.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>Mr. Abey Lewis laid a hand on her arm.</p> + +<p>"Miss Burton," he suggested, "you ain't quite got the paint off yet. It +needs a little more cold cream, still." But Mary did not hear him. She +heard nothing; saw nothing of these surroundings which stood for the +pitifully wasted crucifixion of all her instincts of delicacy.</p> + +<p>"This evening at eight," the manager reminded her. "Don't forget—and +maybe you'll feel better then."</p> + +<p>For a moment she halted. She had reached the stage-door, other +performers were leaving the theater. She gazed back into the face of Mr. +Abey Lewis, and said blankly, "This evening—what is this evening?"</p> + +<p>They sought to stop her, but there was something in those wide eyes that +petrified them all. For the time Mr. Lewis remained as one hypnotized. +The door-man was gazing at her with an expression of awe and wonderment.</p> + +<p>Mary herself stood there with the cloak falling open so that the +convulsive throbbing of her throat was laid bare. The two marvelous and +mismated eyes looked at them all and did not see them. The sister of +Hamilton Burton, the woman whom two continents had toasted, was seeing +other things. "Let me pass," she commanded, and they stood aside and saw +her go out into the gathering night and the blizzard.</p> + +<p>Smitherton rushed after her.</p> + +<p>"Let me at least put you in a taxi'," he pleaded, but she shook her +head.</p> + +<p>"You can do only one thing now," she said. "For God's sake, leave me +alone."</p> + +<p>Though he knew she was in no condition to be left to herself, the spell +of those eyes was upon him, too. It was impossible to disobey. He stood +there and saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>her turn the corner, buffeted by the wind, and disappear.</p> + +<p>Then he became conscious of a newsboy's shrieking: "Last 'dition—All +'bout the Burton trad-egy!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="Part_III" id="Part_III"></a><span class="smcap">Part III</span></h3> + +<h2><i>THE MOUNTAIN TOP</i><br /><br /> +THE STORY THAT WAS</h2> + +<h2 class="padtop">CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + + +<p class="noin"><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="heavy">T</span> was a June day with the sparkle and lilt of summer's brightest and +tunefulest mood in the sky and a softness and warmth in the air. The +most distant peaks of the mountains slept in a quiet and purple glory +and their nearer slopes still held a forest-freshness undulled by heat +and sunburn.</p> + +<p>Deep in the woods of the White Mountains the wild flowers were springing +joyously and the birds were pouring out the fulness of life and joy and +love from trilling throats.</p> + +<p>The waters of Lake Forsaken were like a mirror holding in their still +bosom all the vivid color which summer paints into its first and +sweetest days while an after-note of spring's youth still lingers. The +blue of the sky was broken only by white cloud-sails that rode high and +buoyant in the upper air currents, like galleons of dreams, and all +these things were given back in reflection from depths where the bass +leaped and the sun shimmered. On the lake's farther margin a red-brown +shape came down with careful feet gingerly lifted and set down, to raise +its antlered head. But the gentle eyes were not charged with fear, for +this was a season of security and truce with mankind.</p> + +<p>If the world held trouble anywhere, no shadow of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>its passing riffled or +marred the landscape here. And yet in this smile and song of nature, +there must be a certain disregard for human affairs, because the +movement which held the deer's gaze, as he stood there at the water's +edge, looking across the width of Lake Forsaken, was the movement of +human beings trailing along the road in a funeral cortège.</p> + +<p>The road along which it traveled was no longer a deeply scarred trail, +rutted through its clay surface by the hauling of lumber. It was metaled +and smooth. There were many changes in the character of things +hereabouts—all changes which attested that the curse of decay and +hopeless sterility had been lifted. Off through a rift in the hills +loomed the white concrete abutment of an aqueduct—and through the +valley wound a railroad. A man might have walked many miles and come +upon few deserted habitations, preyed upon by the twin vandals Time and +Decay and staring blankly out through unglazed windows. What had once +been a land of abandoned farms, a battle-ground where poverty had fought +and defeated humanity, was now a land redeemed. Honest thrift and +substantial comfort had crowned it with reclamation.</p> + +<p>The church to which the hearse was making its way had also changed in +aspect. The tumbledown building had become a more worthy house of +worship, unelaborate, but renewed. Its belfry stood upright and on the +Sabbath spoke out in the music of its chimes. Graves where once the +headstones had teetered in neglect lay now in rows of ordered care, and +those who slept in them no longer slept among the briars of over-grown +thickets.</p> + +<p>About the building, waiting for the coming of a new tenant in the acre +of the dead, were gathered a score <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span>or more of neighbors, because the +body which was to be laid to rest today had been, in life, the member of +a family which they delighted to honor and respect.</p> + +<p>Along the stone wall which skirted the road, and under the wild apple +trees, were hitched the wagons and buggies that had brought them from +many miles around, across the hills. Some of them came from houses far +back where roads narrowed and grew precipitous.</p> + +<p>Yet even among those who stood waiting in the churchyard near the +reminder of an open grave, the lyric tunefulness of this June morning +refused to surrender unconditionally to sadness. Off between the fence +and the rising slope of the nearest hill a ripple ran across a yellow +field of buckwheat and from a fence-post a golden-breasted lark sang +merrily.</p> + +<p>Those who had arrived earliest gossiped of such commonplace matters as +make the round of life where small things take the place of large +excitement, and their faces were not gloomy faces. Young men and girls +among them were strolling apart, and the smiles in their eyes told that +to them death was an incident, but June and love a nearer fact—a thing +closer to their youth.</p> + +<p>Then around the turn came the procession which they awaited—a hearse, +followed by several buck-boards and buggies.</p> + +<p>At the open gate it halted and the pall-bearers lifted down the casket +from its place, and bore it to the spot which had been prepared for its +reception. There were no formal designs from the shop of any florist, +but from every neighborhood garden had come contributions out of that +wealth which this golden month was squandering in blossom. Roses and +peonies and a brave display of those varied flowers that go in rows +about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>old-fashioned gardens had been gathered and brought by +sympathetic hands.</p> + +<p>But it was chiefly upon the woman who came here to bury the last of her +dead that the bared heads turned eyes of reverent interest. At her side +walked a young farmer, whose tanned face and curling hair and +straight-gazing gray eyes proclaimed a robust and simple manhood.</p> + +<p>The girl herself was well worth looking at, even had she not claimed +interest by reason of her bereavement. She walked straight and lithe and +upright with the free grace of some wild thing, as though she shared +with the deer which had looked across the lake the untrammeled strength +of the hills. She was slender, but the fine lines of her figure were +rounded to the fullness of perfect health, and the color of her cheeks, +though now paler than their wont, was like that of delicate rose-leaves, +and her lips were the curved petals of a deeper blossom. Her hair, under +a black mourning hat, tangled in the meshes of its heavy coils the glint +of sunlight on amber and brightened now and then into a hint of +burnished copper, but the features which must have challenged the gaze +of any observer not dead to a sense of color and beauty were the +marvelous and mismated eyes. One was a rich brown like illuminated agate +with a fleck or two of jet across the iris, while its twin was of a +colorful violet and deeply vivid. Now, of course, the heavy lashes were +wet with tears, but the gorgeous beauty of the eyes was not dimmed.</p> + +<p>She stood there by the open grave and the masses of simple flowers, with +summer and June and green hills and blue skies at her back; and, of all +their loveliness, she might have been a living impersonation.</p> + +<p>The preacher whose duty it was to give a rendering <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span>of the burial rites +had grown old in this pastorate, and to him all these people were his +children. He had been with many of them at baptism, he had married them +and buried their dead; they were his flock, and they listened to his +words as to one ripe in wisdom and sainted in his life.</p> + +<p>He looked about the little burial ground and his eyes took on an earnest +light and his voice a deep thrill as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"If," said he, "there is anywhere a spot which is hallowed ground it is +this spot where we are now laying to her eternal rest what yesterday was +mortal of Elizabeth Burton. She is, save her daughter, the last of the +name to be taken; and in that greater life to which she goes, she will +be reunited with those who loved her and who went before.</p> + +<p>"She will share with them—" the preacher paused for a moment then went +on—"the glory of reward which, I think, God loves best to bestow upon +those who, with steadfast unselfishness, have lived simple lives and +left their fellows better for having lived. I do not know how God +measures the deeds of men, or with what degrees of reward he fixes their +place in Paradise; but I feel that I stand on holy ground as my eyes +wander here and fall upon these graves where the Burtons sleep. I know +that once this was a land of want and misery; a country of abandoned +farms. Today I look about me, and, under skies that seem to sing, I see +a land redeemed. It was not redeemed by great wealth from without, but +by resolution and dauntless effort from within. I have spoken of the +headstones that mark these graves, but the Burtons have a nobler +monument. The roads and schools and the aqueduct—all the things that +transformed the land <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span>are memorials to the man who lies just there +beyond this grave where today we place his mother. On that slab we find +only the dates of birth and death and the name of Hamilton Burton; but +when I look at it, I seem to read a nobler epitaph in letters of bronze +which no weather can dim or tarnish. I seem to read—'Here lies one who +put aside a blazing dream to cast his lot into a life of humbler duty.' +If he who makes two blades of grass grow where one had grown before has +done a noble thing, then surely he who has turned a land of want into a +land of independence and made crops grow where none grew before has won +his place near the throne."</p> + +<p>Again the aged pastor paused and his eyes grew misty. With bared heads +bent and a stillness broken only by the rustle of the breeze through the +trees and the song of a bird, his listeners stood attentive, and he +resumed.</p> + +<p>"I need not tell you, for you know, what the energy and loyal +steadfastness of Hamilton Burton have done for these hills. What they +were when he came to manhood and what they are now is the answer to +that—an answer which needs no further eulogium. But there is a thing, +which you may not know, for I think—once his hard decision was made—he +never spoke of that again. Yet now I wish to speak of it. It is a thing +which should put the name of Hamilton Burton among those of the +great—the humble great. In his boyhood heart blazed a mighty vision. In +his brain burned a hunger for conquest. The man who dwelt so simply here +among us, working a regeneration, and who died among us, still young, +was gifted with a power which he might have put to more selfish uses. +Standing in the wintry loneliness of a mountain snowstorm, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>his eyes +could see visions of mighty things and his soul could dream unmeasured +dreams. His heart beat responsively to an inward voice which assured him +that he might equal and surpass the greatness of Destiny's greatest +sons. He fretted for a larger world, knowing that in it he could +conquer. In Hamilton Burton dwelt the soul of a Napoleon or a Cæsar ... +he might have built an empire."</p> + +<p>The voice had grown fervent as it rose with its words, then the speaker +let it fall again to quieter tones.</p> + +<p>"And these roads and schools and this aqueduct and these redeemed acres +are the monument to the sacrifice which turned its back on such a dream +as that. Hamilton Burton wrestled with his soul's hunger and conquered +it. He elected to remain here, fighting at the head of his own community +for his own land, and finding contentment in the realization that he had +done his duty. At one time—for his forcefulness was great—he had +persuaded his family to countenance his great adventure—and then he +dreamed. It seemed to him that he had looked ahead, and the whole great +panorama of the life which lay before him, should he take that turning +of the road, passed in review. Hamilton Burton did not take it. <i>He +remained here.</i> His work was the work of the sons of Martha.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'As in the thronged and the lightened ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wary and watchful all their days, that their brethren's days may be long in the land.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"If Hamilton Burton put aside such ambitions as most of us never know in +our dreams, and chose the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>humbler combat of a simple life, close to +God's immortal granite, you have all been sharers in the benefit of his +decision.</p> + +<p>"And as it was with him, so in a lesser way it was with those others who +sleep here close beside him.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The little tyrant of his fields withstood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the pause which followed a low breath of reverent surprise ran +through the crowd that stood about the speaker. They had lived day by +day with Hamilton Burton until his death, and none of them had, in the +shoulder-touch of life, ever suspected those deeper things of which now +for the first time they heard. They were hearing it all from lips which +were to them as the lips of a prophet. But the preacher was not through.</p> + +<p>"And there was Paul. You all knew him and loved him. A nature was given +him at birth almost too delicate for a world of hard affairs, but +fragrant with a tenderness of love for his fellow-men. He was attuned to +harmony and his heart was that of a troubadour.</p> + +<p>"Here in this little place of our worship, his fingers on the keys have +often led us nearer to God's presence than could the poor and broken +messages I tried to preach to you. For the other world was always close +to Paul Burton and there was a magic in his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span>minstrelsy, which was a +gift from God. I sometimes wonder if in a less simple world he could +have been so happy or if his life would have been so unmarred, away from +the songs of birds and the lilt of mountain breezes. But among us he, +too, lived and died—because Hamilton Burton turned his back on the lure +of the mirage his dreaming eyes had seen. Even now when Paul has gone, +those chimes, which you put there above our church in memory of him, +seem to sing of the things for which he stood. When their notes peal out +on the Sabbath and go softly across the valley, I like to imagine that, +through the nobler music which immortal ears may hear, he still catches +their echo.</p> + +<p>"There, close together, stand two more headstones, and beneath them +sleep the father and the aunt of these men. Thomas Burton, too, lived +out a life of stalwart worth. To all men, his fearless character and +unshakable integrity were precepts. He went his way and looked into +every eye that met his own. In the activities that have wrought these +changes, he was always the first and last to work with tireless zeal. +When the railroad came it was through his untiring effort. He held the +determination with fighting Burton courage that adversity should not +drive him from the land his forefathers had conquered.</p> + +<p>"In wondering what things would have befallen all these people had a +lad's ambition led them into a different life, I find myself treading +paths of doubt. Perhaps noble achievements might have resulted—but I +know that in remaining here they have made our land to blossom and to me +it seems enough. I can, for some reason, no more think of Thomas Burton +transplanted without hurt than I can think of some great patriarch of +the forest, which has buffeted storms and hail for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>decades, being +uprooted and planted anew in a trim garden and a different clime. Then +he died, too—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'And as he trod that day to God, so walked he from his birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In simpleness and gentleness and honor and clean mirth.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The speaker talked deliberately. At times his voice mounted into a sort +of oratorical fire. At times it fell until his listeners bent forward +that they might miss none of his words. Now and again he would stop +altogether and his eyes would turn to the blue skies, and when they did +a devout and intense light glowed in their pupils. His hearers were +simple and easily touched and an occasional sob came from the women.</p> + +<p>"I said that Hamilton Burton died young," he resumed. "He died almost a +boy with a boy's youthful heart beating in his bosom. If he could so +bring out of desolation a land like this, while yet he was hardly a man +in years, who can say that his dream of power was all a dream? If he who +never left these hills and never saw the world beyond save as he saw it +in the exaltation of his flaming imagination, could do such things, what +man can say that with maturity and opportunity he might not have become +a Cæsar? But the feet of these people never trod beyond the nearer ways +of a simple life. Hamilton Burton burned to go out and try the eagle's +wings of his life. He had won the acquiescence of his family. He did not +go. None of them went. They lived here and died here and they fought +discontent, and to my mind they were conquerors of the earth."</p> + +<p>Once more there was a pause and after it came other words.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>"I suppose that they all dreamed. After the stress of that hurricane of +powerful personality, with which the boy had won them to his heart's +desire, these people could never have again lived their simple lives +without dreams coming—and doubts. To say, 'God knows best,' meant to +repress the disturbing thoughts that must have often arisen.</p> + +<p>"In these hills boys become men, and one boy became something more. This +was a family of beautiful and devoted love. The brothers were what God +meant brothers to be, friends whose hearts were linked. For every member +of this little group of one blood, all the others felt a mighty bond of +affection. And here they stayed." The four words might have been the +text, and through the talk it ran with the insistence of a refrain, +until it sank into the brain of every man and every woman who listened.</p> + +<p>"Here they stayed, and if each one of them thought often of what may +have been given up by that decision, no one of them said so.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps Paul, with the golden pattern of his dreams, may often have +mused upon what the outer world could have given him. Perhaps he thought +of himself as swaying audiences with his fingers on the keys and dreamed +of lips that parted and eyes that grew misty—because they listened to +the voices he could send pealing to their hearts. But he stayed here and +the audiences that sat spellbound were those little neighborhood +audiences, who stood a long way off from a full understanding of his +soul's ethereal web and woof.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps Thomas Burton, whose hands were calloused with toil, sometimes +permitted himself to think, at the end of his day's labors, of the ease +and comfort <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>which might have come to him, had his son's great ambition +actually drawn him into mighty battles and victories instead of only +beckoning him.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the woman, who must have felt that her children were not +ordinary children, may have shed a tear at times, because she was denied +the triumph of beholding their triumph. <i>But they stayed</i>—and if their +peaceful lives were troubled with misgivings, at least they knew that +this was certain and that doubtful—and that, while they might miss much +of achievement, they also missed much of peril, for none can say what a +journey means along an untried road. Who knows what an epic their lives +might have spelled—or what tragedy? But they stayed.</p> + +<p>"And now we are gathered to do homage by the grave of the woman whose +quiet life ran its course with theirs—the woman who bore these children +and taught them, at her knee, those lessons which made them +benefactors—and although we stand in the presence of death, it seems to +me that we stand, too, in the presence and the glory of that life which +is above death—and we stand on hallowed ground."</p> + +<p>He ended, and about him was the solemnity of simple hearts, stirred and +responsive, and over him was the serenity of June, and the warmth of the +earth pregnant with fruitfulness.</p> + +<p>When it was over, the crowd scattered to their vehicles and the wheels +clattered over the metaled roads, but in the burial ground, when all the +rest were gone, two figures tarried.</p> + +<p>For a moment the minister also stayed after the crowd had left. He went +over to the girl and spoke softly, with a hand laid tenderly on her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"My daughter," he said simply, "you, too, have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>conquered. Every woman +has something of restless yearning in her eyes at some time. To a woman +with great charm and beauty the world sings a siren song. I saw this +thing in your eyes—and soul. I saw it come and go—and I knew that you +had won your fight, and won through to life's sweetest benison. You have +love. These lives are ended, but yours is beginning." Then he, too, +turned away, and only the girl and young man were left.</p> + +<p>Mary's beautiful eyes were bright with tears, and, as she stood there +slim and straight, her companion came close and his arm slipped about +her. For a moment she seemed unconscious of his presence, then she +turned and her eyes looked steadfastly into his, and as they looked they +smiled through their mistiness.</p> + +<p>"Mary"—the man's voice was earnest and very tender—"Mary, I know that +now you're thinking about other things and they're very sacred things. +Besides, my heart is overflowing and words don't give it enough power of +expression. Since I fell in love with you life has been all poetry to +me—but not a poetry of words.... You are thinking of them—" He paused +and his sober eyes took in the headstones, lingering for a moment on +this newest grave upon which the flowers were banked. They were fine +eyes, for in them dwelt an intrinsic honesty and courage, and, though it +was a moment of deep gravity, the little wrinkles that ran out from them +were assurances that they were often laughing eyes. This man seemed to +fit into the picture of the hills with the appropriateness of the +native-born. In his free-flung shoulders and broad chest was the health +of the open, but on one finger he wore a heavily carved ring from which +glowed the cool light of a large emerald, and in his scarf was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>a black +pearl, which hardly seemed characteristic of native wear. Then he went +on:</p> + +<p>"But, after all, Mary, they lived good lives and died good deaths, +and—" he hesitated, then said slowly—"and, after all, it's June, and +you and I are young. Can't it always be June for us, dear?"</p> + +<p>A bird from a great oak lifted its voice. It was a happy bird and would +tolerate no sadness. It caroled to its mate and to the sky and through +her tears Mary Burton smiled and the gorgeous vividness of her face was +illuminated.</p> + +<p>"While we've got each other," she said, "I guess it can be June."</p> + +<p>Suddenly she put out her slender, but strong, young hands and caught his +two arms, and stood there looking at him.</p> + +<p>"Once, dear," she said, "when I was a very little girl, I used to dream +of going out and seeing all the wonderful things beyond those hills. I +used to dream of having rich men and titled men come to me and make +love. I used to cry because I thought I was ugly—and then I met you by +the roadside—and you were my fairy prince—but I didn't guess you were +going to be my own—for always."</p> + +<p>Jefferson Edwardes smiled and into his eyes came a fervent glow.</p> + +<p>"I can see you now," he said, "as you stood that first day I ever saw +you, when I told you that your beauty would be the beauty of +gorgeousness—when I warned you that the only thing you need ever fear +was—the loss of your simplicity. The woods were flaming at your back, +but your loveliness outblazed their color, and then you were a thin +little girl—a trifle chippendale in plan."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span>In spite of her sadness a smile came to her lips.</p> + +<p>"And you were fighting your fight for life—with only an even chance. +Suppose—" she shuddered—"suppose you had lost it!"</p> + +<p>"I had too much to live for," he assured her. "I couldn't lose it. You +and your hills gave me life and a dream, and you and your hills laid +their claim upon me. How could I lose?"</p> + +<p>"I've lain awake at night," said Mary Burton, as her long lashes drooped +with the confession of her heart. "I've lain awake at night wondering +if—now that you don't have to stay—if your own world won't call you +back—away from me. I've thought of all it holds for you—and how little +these mountains hold. I've wondered if your heart didn't ache for +foreign lands and wonderful cities—and all those things. If it does, +dear—" she paused and said very seriously—"you mustn't let me keep you +here. I belong here, but you—" The words fell into a faint note and +died away unfinished.</p> + +<p>"How little these hills hold for me," he exclaimed in a dismayed voice, +"when they hold you!" Then he laughed and told her as his eyes dwelt +steadfastly and with worship on her face, "I belong here no less than +you. This has been the land of my salvation and of my love. For me it is +enough. I have traded the unrest of cities for the tranquillity of the +hills and the clamor of unhappy streets for the echoes of the woods, and +the woods sing of you as the streets could never sing. I have traded at +a splendid profit, dear."</p> + +<p>"And you won't tire of it—and of me?"</p> + +<p>"I wish life could be long enough to give me a fair test of that," he +smiled, and then he added in a serious voice, "It is in the cities that +men and women grow <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>tired. It is under artifice that the soul wearies. +That life I knew, and left with the bitterness of exile—but that was +long ago. When I go into it now, it shall be only for the joy of coming +back here again—of coming home."</p> + +<p>The girl looked up into his face, and the breeze fluttered a tendril of +curl against her temple.</p> + +<p>"You were the first person who ever called me pretty." Through the +sadness of her face came a glimmer of shy merriment. "You said I was—as +beautiful as starlight on water."</p> + +<p>"Mary, Mary!" The lover caught her slender figure in his strong arms and +held her so close that her breath came fragrantly against his tanned +cheek. "You <i>are</i> as beautiful as starlight on water, and to me you're +more beautiful. You're the sun and moon and stars and music—you're +everything that's fine and splendid!"</p> + +<p>"For your sake," she said shyly, "I wish I were much more beautiful."</p> + +<p>Even the near shadow of death cannot banish the god of love. Mary Burton +felt the arms of the man she loved about her, and her eyes as she looked +into his face unmasked their secrets until he could read her soul and +its message. For the moment they had forgotten all else. Then, quite +abruptly, her expression changed and became rapt, almost frightened.</p> + +<p>Slowly she straightened up and her pupils dilated as though they were +seeing something invisible to other eyes. Her lips parted and she drew +away from his grasp and stood gazing ahead. Then she brushed one arm +across her forehead. With instant alarm Edwardes caught her shoulders. +"What is it?" he demanded. "Is anything wrong?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head and spoke wonderingly with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span>far-away, detached sort +of utterance. "I don't know what it was—I guess I was a little faint." +But she still stood with an awed and bewildered fixity upon her face and +after a little while, he asked slowly:</p> + +<p>"Did you ever seem to see and hear something as though it had come out +of a different life; as though you were living it over again?"</p> + +<p>He smiled and shook his head. "I've often heard of such things," he +reassured. She had been nursing her mother through a long illness; +perhaps, he thought, the strain had left her nervous.</p> + +<p>"It was as real as if it had truly happened," she assured him as she put +up both hands and pressed her fingers against her temples. "You were +standing there—right where you are standing now, and you smiled—like +you smiled at me that day in the road.... There were little wrinkles +around your eyes."</p> + +<p>"That is all real enough," he laughed. "I was and am doing all those +things."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, but—" Once more she shook her head and her voice carried +the detached tone of a trance-like vagueness—"but somehow it was all +different. You were you—and I was I—and yet we were in another life +... we didn't seem to belong here ... and there seemed to be some +terrible danger hanging over us."</p> + +<p>"Did we seem to talk?" he asked her.</p> + +<p>"Yes." The girl's words came very low but with a tense emphasis. "You +said, <i>'Maybe there's some land beyond the stars where every mistake we +make here can be remedied ... where we can take up our marred lives and +live them afresh as we have dreamed them. Perhaps in that other world we +can go back to the turning of the road where we lost our ways and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +choose the other path.'</i> You said that and then after a moment you +smiled again."</p> + +<p>"It's strange," said the young man. He unconsciously took off his hat, +baring the curly hair over the tanned face. He was very wholesome and +honest and strong, and the girl's eyes lighted into a smile of pride and +love.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "It was you and me—in some other life. I don't know +what it means—but somehow it seems to—to guarantee everything."</p> + +<p>They turned and walked together to the last buggy hitched against the +stone wall under the wild apple trees.</p> + +<p>After a while she demanded—"After you got well—why did you stay here?" +and as promptly as an echo came his answer—</p> + +<p>"Because <i>you</i> stayed."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The moon was up early that night and it flooded the mountains with a +glory of silver mists. The shoulders of the peaks stood out in blue +barriers, strong, abiding, beautiful. In the valleys it was all a +nocturne of dove grays and dreamlike softness. The stars, too, shone +down in a million splinters of happy light, but the radiance of the moon +paled them.</p> + +<p>The vines which covered the walls of the Burton house hung out their +lacy tendrils and through the windows came the soft glow of lamplight.</p> + +<p>There was nothing dreary or poverty-stricken about the old farm-house +now. From its front, where every shutter, by day, shone in the healthy +trim of fresh paint, to the gate upon the road went rows of flowers, +nodding their bright heads above the waving grass.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> The barns at the +back stood substantial and in repair, and now out beyond the road, Lake +Forsaken mirrored the stars and broke in light when a fish leaped under +the moon.</p> + +<p>Mary Burton and her lover walked down to the gate, and he said simply:</p> + +<p>"Now, dear, there is nothing more to hold you here. If you still long to +see beyond the sky-line, I can take you wherever you want to go."</p> + +<p>But she wheeled and laid a hand in protest on his arm.</p> + +<p>"No!" she exclaimed tensely. "No, this is where I belong." After a +moment she went on. "Life holds enough for me here. This is home to me. +I don't want anything else."</p> + +<p>"I am glad. It's what I hoped to hear you say," he responded. "I don't +think somehow I could be as happy anywhere else, but the world's a big +place and you—you have the right to the best it holds—anywhere."</p> + +<p>"Once, dear, you know," she told him gravely, "we threshed that out and +we had almost made up our minds to leave here. We were almost +whipped—and Ham had his dreams. He wanted to go out and try life in a +bigger world—and you recognized his power. I wanted it all, too—but we +stayed. I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't, but I do +know—" she looked up into his face and smiled; into her eyes came a +regal serenity—"I do know that I don't have to go out and hunt for +life—life has come to me, and I'm happy."</p> + +<p>The man caught her to him and she clasped her hands behind his head. +Before them was June and starlight and youth and life—and love. He bent +his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>head and pressed his lips to hers and felt her heart beat against +his own.</p> + +<p>In the mirror of Lake Forsaken, back of her, gleamed the splintered +light of a thousand stars, and in his heart gleamed a million.</p> + +<p>"As beautiful as starlight on water," he whispered.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESTINY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 17141-h.txt or 17141-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/1/4/17141">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/1/4/17141</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +<a href="https://gutenberg.org/license">https://gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS,' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">https://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> |