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diff --git a/old/7832-h.htm.2021-01-26 b/old/7832-h.htm.2021-01-26 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8fa8636 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7832-h.htm.2021-01-26 @@ -0,0 +1,12559 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Deluge, by David Graham Phillips + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deluge, by David Graham Phillips + +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 + + +Title: The Deluge + +Author: David Graham Phillips + +Release Date: August 4, 2009 [EBook #7832] +Last Updated: March 16, 2018 + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DELUGE *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE DELUGE + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By David Graham Phillips + </h2> + <h4> + Author of The Cost, The Plum Tree, The Social Secretary, etc. + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h3> + Illustrations (not available here) By George Gibbs + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I. </a> MR. BLACKLOCK <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II. </a> IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III. </a> CAME A WOMAN + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV. </a> A CANDIDATE FOR + “RESPECTABILITY” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V. </a> DANGER + SIGNALS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI. </a> OF + “GENTLEMEN” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VII. </a> BLACKLOCK + GOES INTO TRAINING <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VIII. </a> ON + THE TRAIL OF LANGDON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> IX. </a> LANGDON + AT HOME <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> X. </a> TWO + “PILLARS OF SOCIETY” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> XI. </a> WHEN + A MAN IS NOT A MAN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XII. </a> ANITA + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XIII. </a> "UNTIL + TO-MORROW” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIV. </a> FRESH + AIR IN A GREENHOUSE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XV. </a> SOME + STRANGE LAPSES OF A LOVER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> XVI. </a> TRAPPED + AND TRIMMED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVII. </a> A + GENTEEL “HOLD-UP” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVIII. </a> ANITA + BEGINS TO BE HERSELF <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> XIX. </a> A + WINDFALL FROM “GENTLEMAN JOE” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> XX. + </a> A BREATHING SPELL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> + XXI. </a> MOST UNLADYLIKE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> + XXII. </a> MOST UNGENTLEMANLY <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0023"> XXIII. </a> "SHE HAS CHOSEN!” <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XXIV. </a> BLACKLOCK ATTENDS FAMILY + PRAYERS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXV. </a> "MY + WIFE MUST!” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> XXVI. </a> THE + WEAK STRAND <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXVII. </a> A + CONSPIRACY AGAINST ANITA <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXVIII. + </a> BLACKLOCK SEES A LIGHT <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0029"> XXIX. </a> A HOUSEWARMING <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> XXX. </a> BLACKLOCK OPENS FIRE + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XXXI. </a> ANITA'S + SECRET <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> XXXII. </a> LANGDON + COMES TO THE SURFACE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> XXXIII. </a> MRS. + LANGDON MAKES A CALL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> XXXIV. </a> "MY + RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> XXXV. </a> "WILD + WEEK” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> XXXVI. </a> "BLACK + MATT'S” TRIUMPH <br /><br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + I. MR. BLACKLOCK + </h2> + <p> + When Napoleon was about to crown himself—so I have somewhere read—they + submitted to him the royal genealogy they had faked up for him. He + crumpled the parchment and flung it in the face of the chief herald, or + whoever it was. “My line,” said he, “dates from Montenotte.” And so I say, + my line dates from the campaign that completed and established my fame—from + “Wild Week.” + </p> + <p> + I shall not pause to recite the details of the obscurity from which I + emerged. It would be an interesting, a romantic story; but it is a + familiar story, also, in this land which Lincoln so finely and so fully + described when he said: “The republic is opportunity.” + </p> + <p> + One fact only: <i>I did not take the name Blacklock</i>. + </p> + <p> + I was born Blacklock, and christened Matthew; and my hair's being very + black and growing so that a lock of it often falls down the middle of my + forehead is a coincidence. The malicious and insinuating story that I used + to go under another name arose, no doubt, from my having been a bootblack + in my early days, and having let my customers shorten my name into Matt + Black. But, as soon as I graduated from manual labor, I resumed my + rightful name and have borne it—I think I may say without vanity—in + honor to honor. + </p> + <p> + Some one has written: “It was a great day for fools when modesty was made + a virtue.” I heartily subscribe to that. Life means action; action means + self-assertion; self-assertion rouses all the small, colorless people to + the only sort of action of which they are capable—to sneering at the + doer as egotistical, vain, conceited, bumptious and the like. So be it! I + have an individuality, aggressive, restless and, like all such + individualities, necessarily in the lime-light; I have from the beginning + lost no opportunity to impress that individuality upon my time. Let those + who have nothing to advertise, and those less courageous and less + successful than I at advertisement, jeer and spit. I ignore them. I make + no apologies for egotism. I think, when my readers have finished, they + will demand none. They will see that I had work to do, and that I did it + in the only way an intelligent man ever tries to do his work—his own + way, the way natural to him! + </p> + <p> + Wild Week! Its cyclones, rising fury on fury to that historic climax of + chaos, sing their mad song in my ears again as I write. But I shall by no + means confine my narrative to business and finance. Take a cross-section + of life anywhere, and you have a tangled interweaving of the action and + reaction of men upon men, of women upon women, of men and women upon one + another. And this shall be a cross-section out of the very heart of our + life to-day, with its big and bold energies and passions—the + swiftest and intensest life ever lived by the human race. + </p> + <p> + To begin: + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS + </h2> + <p> + Imagine yourself back two years and a half before Wild Week, back at the + time when the kings of finance had just completed their apparently final + conquest of the industries of the country, when they were seating + themselves upon thrones encircled by vast armies of capital and brains, + when all the governments of the nation—national, state and city—were + prostrate under their iron heels. + </p> + <p> + You may remember that I was a not inconspicuous figure then. Of all their + financial agents, I was the best-known, the most trusted by them, the most + believed in by the people. I had a magnificent suite of offices in the + building that dominates Wall and Broad Streets. Boston claimed me also, + and Chicago; and in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco, + in the towns and rural districts tributary to the cities, thousands spoke + of Blacklock as their trusted adviser in matters of finance. My enemies—and + I had them, numerous and venomous enough to prove me a man worth while—my + enemies spoke of me as the “biggest bucket-shop gambler in the world.” + </p> + <p> + Gambler I was—like all the other manipulators of the markets. But + “bucket-shop” I never kept. As the kings of finance were the + representatives of the great merchants, manufacturers and investors, so + was I the representative of the masses, of those who wished their small + savings properly invested. The power of the big fellows was founded upon + wealth and the brains wealth buys or bullies or seduces into its service; + my power was founded upon the hearts and homes of the people, upon faith + in my frank honesty. + </p> + <p> + How had I built up my power? By recognizing the possibilities of + publicity, the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and + magazines put within the reach of the individual man to impress himself + upon the whole country, upon the whole civilized world. The kings of + finance relied upon the assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid agents, + operating through the stealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels for the + exercise of power. I relied only upon myself; I had to trust to no + fallible, perhaps traitorous, understrappers; through the megaphone of the + press I spoke directly to the people. + </p> + <p> + My enemies charge that I always have been unscrupulous and dishonest. So? + Then how have I lived and thrived all these years in the glare and blare + of publicity? + </p> + <p> + It is true, I have used the “methods of the charlatan” in bringing myself + into wide public notice. The just way to put it would be that I have used + for honest purposes the methods of publicity that charlatans have shrewdly + appropriated, because by those means the public can be most widely and + most quickly reached. Does good become evil because hypocrites use it as a + cloak? It is also true that I have been “undignified.” Let the stupid + cover their stupidity with “dignity.” Let the swindler hide his schemings + under “dignity.” I am a man of the people, not afraid to be seen as the + human being that I am. I laugh when I feel like it. I have no sense of jar + when people call me “Matt.” I have a good time, and I shall stay young as + long as I stay alive. Wealth hasn't made me a solemn ass, fenced in and + unapproachable. The custom of receiving obedience and flattery and + admiration has not made me a turkey-cock. Life is a joke; and when the + joke's on me, I laugh as heartily as when it's on the other fellow. + </p> + <p> + It is half-past three o'clock on a May afternoon; a dismal, dreary rain is + being whirled through the streets by as nasty a wind as ever blew out of + the east. You are in the private office of that “king of kings,” Henry J. + Roebuck, philanthropist, eminent churchman, leading citizen and—in + business—as corrupt a creature as ever used the domino of + respectability. That office is on the twelfth floor of the Power Trust + Building—and the Power Trust is Roebuck, and Roebuck is the Power + Trust. He is seated at his desk and, thinking I do not see him, is looking + at me with an expression of benevolent and melancholy pity—the look + with which he always regarded any one whom the Roebuck God Almighty had + commanded Roebuck to destroy. He and his God were in constant + communication; his God never did anything except for his benefit, he never + did anything except on the direct counsel or command of his God. Just now + his God is commanding him to destroy me, his confidential agent in shaping + many a vast industrial enterprise and in inducing the public to buy by the + million its bonds and stocks. + </p> + <p> + I invited the angry frown of the Roebuck God by saying: “And I bought in + the Manasquale mines on my own account.” + </p> + <p> + “On your own account!” said Roebuck. Then he hastily effaced his + involuntary air of the engineer startled by sight of an unexpected red + light. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” replied I, as calm as if I were not realizing the tremendous + significance of what I had announced. “I look to you to let me participate + on equal terms.” + </p> + <p> + That is, I had decided that the time had come for me to take my place + among the kings of finance. I had decided to promote myself from agent to + principal, from prime minister to king—I must, myself, promote + myself, for in this world all promotion that is solid comes from within. + And in furtherance of my object I had bought this group of mines, control + of which was vital to the Roebuck-Langdon-Melville combine for a monopoly + of the coal of the country. + </p> + <p> + “Did not Mr. Langdon commission you to buy them for him and his friends?” + inquired Roebuck, in that slow, placid tone which yet, for the attentive + ear, had a note in it like the scream of a jaguar that comes home and + finds its cub gone. + </p> + <p> + “But I couldn't get them for him,” I explained. “The owners wouldn't sell + until I engaged that the National Coal and Railway Company was not to have + them.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I see,” said Roebuck, sinking back relieved. “We must get Browne to + draw up some sort of perpetual, irrevocable power of attorney to us for + you to sign.” + </p> + <p> + “But I won't sign it,” said I. + </p> + <p> + Roebuck took up a sheet of paper and began to fold it upon itself with + great care to get the edges straight. He had grasped my meaning; he was + deliberating. + </p> + <p> + “For four years now,” I went on, “you people have been promising to take + me in as a principal in some one of your deals—to give me + recognition by making me president, or chairman of an executive or finance + committee. I am an impatient man, Mr. Roebuck. Life is short, and I have + much to do. So I have bought the Manasquale mines—and I shall hold + them.” + </p> + <p> + Roebuck continued to fold the paper upon itself until he had reduced it to + a short, thick strip. This he slowly twisted between his cruel fingers + until it was in two pieces. He dropped them, one at a time, into the + waste-basket, then smiled benevolently at me. “You are right,” he said. + “You shall have what you want. You have seemed such a mere boy to me that, + in spite of your giving again and again proof of what you are, I have been + putting you off. Then, too—” He halted, and his look was that of one + surveying delicate ground. + </p> + <p> + “The bucket-shop?” suggested I. + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” said he gratefully. “Your brokerage business has been + invaluable to us. But—well, I needn't tell you how people—the + men of standing—look on that sort of thing.” + </p> + <p> + “I never have paid any attention to pompous pretenses,” said I, “and I + never shall. My brokerage business must go on, and my daily letters to + investors. By advertising I rose; by advertising I am a power that even + you recognize; by advertising alone can I keep that power.” + </p> + <p> + “You forget that in the new circumstances, you won't need that sort of + power. Adapt yourself to your new surroundings. Overalls for the trench; a + business suit for the office.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall keep to my overalls for the present,” said I. “They're more + comfortable, and”—here I smiled significantly at him—“if I + shed them, I might have to go naked. The first principle of business is + never to give up what you have until your grip is tight on something + better.” + </p> + <p> + “No doubt you're right,” agreed the white-haired old scoundrel, giving no + sign that I had fathomed his motive for trying to “hint” me out of my + stronghold. “I will talk the matter over with Langdon and Melville. Rest + assured, my boy, that you will be satisfied.” He got up, put his arm + affectionately round my shoulders. “We all like you. I have a feeling + toward you as if you were my own son. I am getting old, and I like to see + young men about me, growing up to assume the responsibilities of the + Lord's work whenever He shall call me to my reward.” + </p> + <p> + It will seem incredible that a man of my shrewdness and experience could + be taken in by such slimy stuff as that—I who knew Roebuck as only a + few insiders knew him, I who had seen him at work, as devoid of heart as + an empty spider in an empty web. Yet I was taken in to the extent that I + thought he really purposed to recognize my services, to yield to the only + persuasion that could affect him—force. I fancied he was actually + about to put me where I could be of the highest usefulness to him and his + associates, as well as to myself. As if an old man ever yielded power or + permitted another to gain power, even though it were to his own great + advantage. The avarice of age is not open to reason. + </p> + <p> + It was with tears in my eyes that I shook hands with him, thanking him + emotionally. It was with a high chin and a proud heart that I went back to + my offices. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I was about to get my + deserts, was about to enter the charmed circle of “high finance.” + </p> + <p> + That small and exclusive circle, into which I was seeing myself admitted + without the usual arduous and unequal battle, was what may be called the + industrial ring—a loose, yet tight, combine of about a dozen men who + controlled in one way or another practically all the industries of the + country. They had no formal agreements; they held no official meetings. + They did not look upon themselves as an association. They often quarreled + among themselves, waged bitter wars upon each other over divisions of + power or plunder. But, in the broad sense, in the true sense, they were an + association—a band united by a common interest, to control finance, + commerce and therefore politics; a band united by a common purpose, to + keep that control in as few hands as possible. Whenever there was sign of + peril from without they flung away differences, pooled resources, marched + in full force to put down the insurrection. For they looked on any attempt + to interfere with them as a mutiny, as an outbreak of anarchy. This band + persisted, but membership in it changed, changed rapidly. Now, one would + be beaten to death and despoiled by a clique of fellows; again, weak or + rash ones would be cut off in strenuous battle. Often, most often, some + too-powerful or too-arrogant member would be secretly and stealthily + assassinated by a jealous associate or by a committee of internal safety. + Of course, I do not mean literally assassinated, but assassinated, cut + off, destroyed, in the sense that a man whose whole life is wealth and + power is dead when wealth and power are taken from him. + </p> + <p> + Actual assassination, the crime of murder—these “gentlemen” rarely + did anything which their lawyers did not advise them was legal or could be + made legal by bribery of one kind or another. Rarely, I say—not + never. You will see presently why I make that qualification. + </p> + <p> + I had my heart set upon membership in this band—and, as I confess + now with shame, my prejudices of self-interest had blinded me into + regarding it and its members as great and useful and honorable “captains + of industry.” Honorable in the main; for, not even my prejudice could + blind me to the almost hair-raising atrocity of some of their doings. + Still, morality is largely a question of environment. I had been bred in + that environment. Even the atrocities I excused on the ground that he who + goes forth to war must be prepared to do and to tolerate many acts the + church would have to strain a point to bless. What was Columbus but a + marauder, a buccaneer? Was not Drake, in law and in fact, a pirate; + Washington a traitor to his soldier's oath of allegiance to King George? I + had much to learn, and to unlearn. I was to find out that whenever a + Roebuck puts his arm round you, it is invariably to get within your guard + and nearer your fifth rib. I was to trace the ugliest deformities of that + conscience of his, hidden away down inside him like a dwarfed, starved + prisoner in an underground dungeon. I was to be astounded by revelations + of Langdon, who was not a believer, like Roebuck, and so was not under the + restraint of the feeling that he must keep some sort of conscience ledgers + against the inspection of the angelic auditing committee in the day of + wrath. + </p> + <p> + Much to learn—and to unlearn. It makes me laugh as I recall how, on + that May day, I looked into the first mirror I was alone with, smiled + delighted, as an idiot with myself and said: “Matt, you are of the kings + now. Your crown suits you and, as you've earned it, you know how to keep + it. Now for some fun with your subjects and your fellow sovereigns.” + </p> + <p> + A little premature, that preening! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. CAME A WOMAN + </h2> + <p> + In my suite in the Textile Building, just off the big main room with its + blackboards and tickers, I had a small office in which I spent a good deal + of time during Stock Exchange hours. It was there that Sam Ellersly found + me the next day but one after my talk with Roebuck. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to sell that Steel Common, Matt,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “It'll go several points higher,” said I. “Better let me hold it and use + my judgment on selling.” + </p> + <p> + “I need money—right away,” was his answer. + </p> + <p> + “That's all right,” said I. “Let me give you an order for what you need.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, thank you,” said he, so promptly that I knew I had done what + he had been hoping for, probably counting on. + </p> + <p> + I give this incident to show what our relations were. He was a young + fellow of good family, to whom I had taken a liking. He was a lazy dog, + and as out of place in business as a cat in a choir. I had been keeping + him going for four years at that time, by giving him tips on stocks and + protecting him against loss. This purely out of good nature and liking; + for I hadn't the remotest idea he could ever be of use to me beyond + helping to liven things up at a dinner or late supper, or down in the + country, or on the yacht. In fact, his principal use to me was that he + knew how to “beat the box” well enough to shake fairly good music out of + it—and I am so fond of music that I can fill in with my imagination + when the performer isn't too bad. + </p> + <p> + They have charged that I deliberately ruined him. Ruined! The first time I + gave him a tip—and that was the second or third time I ever saw him—he + burst into tears and said: “You've saved my life, Blacklock. I'll never + tell you how much this windfall means to me now.” Nor did I with deep and + dark design keep him along on the ragged edge. He kept himself there. How + could I build up such a man with his hundred ways of wasting money, + including throwing it away on his own opinions of stocks—for he + would gamble on his own account in the bucket-shops, though I had shown + him that the Wall Street game is played always with marked cards, and that + the only hope of winning is to get the confidence of the card-markers, + unless you are big enough to become a card-marker yourself. + </p> + <p> + As soon as he got the money from my teller that day, he was rushing away. + I followed him to the door—that part of my suite opened out on the + sidewalk, for the convenience of my crowds of customers. “I'm just going + to lunch,” said I. “Come with me.” + </p> + <p> + He looked uneasily toward a smart little one-horse brougham at the curb. + “Sorry—but I can't,” said he. “I've my sister with me. She brought + me down in her trap.” + </p> + <p> + “That's all right,” said I; “bring her along. We'll go to the Savarin.” + And I locked his arm in mine and started toward the brougham. + </p> + <p> + He was turning all kinds of colors, and was acting in a way that puzzled + me—then. Despite all my years in New York I was ignorant of the + elaborate social distinctions that had grown up in its Fifth Avenue + quarter. I knew, of course, that there was a fashionable society and that + some of the most conspicuous of those in it seemed unable to get used to + the idea of being rich and were in a state of great agitation over their + own importance. Important they might be, but not to me. I knew nothing of + their careful gradations of snobbism—the people to know socially, + the people to know in a business way, the people to know in ways religious + and philanthropic, the people to know for the fun to be got out of them, + the people to pride oneself on not knowing at all; the nervousness, the + hysteria about preserving these disgusting gradations. All this, I say, + was an undreamed-of mystery to me who gave and took liking in the + sensible, self-respecting American fashion. So I didn't understand why + Sam, as I almost dragged him along, was stammering: “Thank you—but—I—she—the + fact is, we really must get up-town.” + </p> + <p> + By this time I was where I could look into the brougham. A glance—I + can see much at a glance, as can any man who spends every day of every + year in an all-day fight for his purse and his life, with the blows coming + from all sides. I can see much at a glance; I often have seen much; I + never saw more than just then. Instantly, I made up my mind that the + Ellerslys would lunch with me. “You've got to eat somewhere,” said I, in a + tone that put an end to his attempts to manufacture excuses. “I'll be + delighted to have you. Don't make up any more yarns.” + </p> + <p> + He slowly opened the door. “Anita,” said he, “Mr. Blacklock. He's invited + us to lunch.” + </p> + <p> + I lifted my hat, and bowed. I kept my eyes straight upon hers. And it gave + me more pleasure to look into them than I had ever before got out of + looking into anybody's. I am passionately fond of flowers, and of + children; and her face reminded me of both. Or, rather, it seemed to me + that what I had seen, with delight and longing, incomplete in their + freshness and beauty and charm, was now before me in the fullness. I felt + like saying to her, “I have heard of you often. The children and the + flowers have told me you were coming.” Perhaps my eyes did say it. At any + rate, she looked as straight at me as I at her, and I noticed that she + paled a little and shrank—yet continued to look, as if I were + compelling her. But her voice, beautifully clear, and lingering in the + ears like the resonance of the violin after the bow has swept its strings + and lifted, was perfectly self-possessed, as she said to her brother: + “That will be delightful—if you think we have time.” + </p> + <p> + I saw that she, uncertain whether he wished to accept, was giving him a + chance to take either course. “He has time—nothing but time,” said + I. “His engagements are always with people who want to get something out + of him. And they can wait.” I pretended to think he was expecting me to + enter the trap; I got in, seated myself beside her, said to Sam: “I've + saved the little seat for you. Tell your man to take us to the Equitable + Building—Nassau Street entrance.” + </p> + <p> + I talked a good deal during the first half of the nearly two hours we were + together—partly because both Sam and his sister seemed under some + sort of strain, chiefly because I was determined to make a good + impression. I told her about myself, my horses, my house in the country, + my yacht. I tried to show her I wasn't an ignoramus as to books and art, + even if I hadn't been to college. She listened, while Sam sat embarrassed. + “You must bring your sister down to visit me,” I said finally. “I'll see + that you both have the time of your lives. Make up a party of your + friends, Sam, and come down—when shall we say? Next Sunday? You know + you were coming anyhow. I can change the rest of the party.” + </p> + <p> + Sam grew as red as if he were going into apoplexy. I thought then he was + afraid I'd blurt out something about who were in the party I was proposing + to change. I was soon to know better. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, Mr.—Blacklock,” said his sister. “But I have an + engagement next Sunday. I have a great many engagements just now. Without + looking at my book I couldn't say when I can go.” This easily and + naturally. In her set they certainly do learn thoroughly that branch of + tact which plain people call lying. + </p> + <p> + Sam gave her a grateful look, which he thought I didn't see, and which I + didn't rightly interpret—then. + </p> + <p> + “We'll fix it up later, Blacklock,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said I. And from that minute I was almost silent. It was + something in her tone and manner that silenced me. I suddenly realized + that I wasn't making as good an impression as I had been flattering + myself. + </p> + <p> + When a man has money and is willing to spend it, he can readily fool + himself into imagining he gets on grandly with women. But I had better + grounds than that for thinking myself not unattractive to them, as a rule. + Women had liked me when I had nothing; women had liked me when they didn't + know who I was. I felt that this woman did not like me. And yet, by the + way she looked at me in spite of her efforts not to do so, I could tell + that I had some sort of unusual interest for her. Why didn't she like me? + She made me feel the reason. I didn't belong to her world. My ways and my + looks offended her. She disliked me a good deal; she feared me a little. + She would have felt safer if she had been gratifying her curiosity, gazing + in at me through the bars of a cage. + </p> + <p> + Where I had been feeling and showing my usual assurance, I now became ill + at ease. I longed for them to be gone; at the same time I hated to let her + go—for, when and how would I see her again, would I get the chance + to remove her bad impression? It irritated me thus to be concerned about + the sister of a man into my liking for whom there was mixed much pity and + some contempt. But I am of the disposition that, whenever I see an + obstacle of whatever kind, I can not restrain myself from trying to jump + it. Here was an obstacle—a dislike. To clear it was of the smallest + importance in the world, was a silly waste of time. Yet I felt I could not + maintain with myself my boast that there were no obstacles I couldn't get + over, if I turned aside from this. + </p> + <p> + Sam—not without hesitation, as I recalled afterward—left me + with her, when I sent him to bring her brougham up to the Broadway + entrance. As she and I were standing there alone, waiting in silence, I + turned on her suddenly, and blurted out, “You don't like me.” + </p> + <p> + She reddened a little, smiled slightly. “What a quaint remark!” said she. + </p> + <p> + I looked straight at her. “But you shall.” + </p> + <p> + Our eyes met. Her chin came out a little, her eyebrows lifted. Then, in + scorn of herself as well as of me, she locked herself in behind a frozen + haughtiness that ignored me. “Ah, here is the carriage,” she said. I + followed her to the curb; she just touched my hand, just nodded her + fascinating little head. + </p> + <p> + “See you Saturday, old man,” called her brother friendlily. My lowering + face had alarmed him. + </p> + <p> + “That party is off,” said I curtly. And I lifted my hat and strode away. + </p> + <p> + As I had formed the habit of dismissing the disagreeable, I soon put her + out of my mind. But she took with her my joy in the taste of things. I + couldn't get back my former keen satisfaction in all I had done and was + doing. The luxury, the tangible evidences of my achievement, no longer + gave me pleasure; they seemed to add to my irritation. + </p> + <p> + That's the way it is in life. We load ourselves down with toys like so + many greedy children; then we see another toy and drop everything to be + free to seize it; and if we can not, we're wretched. + </p> + <p> + I worked myself up, or rather, down, to such a mood that when my office + boy told me Mr. Langdon would like me to come to his office as soon as it + was convenient, I snapped out: “The hell he does! Tell Mr. Langdon I'll be + glad to see him here whenever he calls.” That was stupidity, a premature + assertion of my right to be treated as an equal. I had always gone to + Langdon, and to any other of the rulers of finance, whenever I had got a + summons. For, while I was rich and powerful, I held both wealth and power, + in a sense, on sufferance; I knew that, so long as I had no absolute + control of any great department of industry, these rulers could destroy me + should they decide that they needed my holdings or were not satisfied with + my use of my power. There were a good many people who did not realize that + property rights had ceased to exist, that property had become a revocable + grant from the “plutocrats.” I was not of those misguided ones who had + failed to discover the new fact concealed in the old form. So I used to go + when I was summoned. + </p> + <p> + But not that day. However, no sooner was my boy gone than I repented the + imprudence, “But what of it?” said I to myself. “No matter how the thing + turns out, I shall be able to get some advantage.” For it was part of my + philosophy that a proper boat with proper sails and a proper steersman can + gain in any wind. I was surprised when Langdon appeared in my office a few + minutes later. + </p> + <p> + He was a tallish, slim man, carefully dressed, with a bored, weary look + and a slow, bored way of talking. I had always said that if I had not been + myself I should have wished to be Langdon. Men liked and admired him; + women loved and ran after him. Yet he exerted not the slightest effort to + please any one; on the contrary, he made it distinct and clear that he + didn't care a rap what any one thought of him or, for that matter, of + anybody or anything. He knew how to get, without sweat or snatching, all + the good there was in whatever fate threw in his way—and he was one + of those men into whose way fate seems to strive to put everything worth + having. His business judgment was shrewd, but he cared nothing for the big + game he was playing except as a game. Like myself, he was simply a + sportsman—and, I think, that is why we liked each other. He could + have trusted almost any one that came into contact with him; but he + trusted nobody, and frankly warned every one not to trust him—a safe + frankness, for his charm caused it to be forgotten or ignored. He would do + anything to gain an object, however trivial, which chanced to attract him; + once it was his, he would throw it aside as carelessly as an ill-fitting + collar. + </p> + <p> + His expression, as he came into my office, was one of cynical amusement, + as if he were saying to himself: “Our friend Blacklock has caught the + swollen head at last.” Not a suggestion of ill humor, of resentment at my + impertinence—for, in the circumstances, I had been guilty of an + impertinence. Just languid, amused patience with the frailty of a friend. + “I see,” said he, “that you have got Textile up to eighty-five.” + </p> + <p> + He was the head of the Textile Trust which had been built by his + brother-in-law and had fallen to him in the confusion following his + brother-in-law's death. As he was just then needing some money for his + share in the National Coal undertaking, he had directed me to push Textile + up toward par and unload him of two or three hundred thousand shares—he, + of course, to repurchase the shares after he had taken profits and Textile + had dropped back to its normal fifty. + </p> + <p> + “I'll have it up to ninety-eight by the middle of next month,” said I. + “And there I think we'd better stop.” + </p> + <p> + “Stop at about ninety,” said he. “That will give me all I find I'll need + for this Coal business. I don't want to be bothered with hunting up an + investment.” + </p> + <p> + I shook my head. “I must put it up to within a point or two of par,” I + declared. “In my public letter I've been saying it would go above + ninety-five, and I never deceive my public.” + </p> + <p> + He smiled—my notion of honesty always amused him. “As you please,” + he said with a shrug. Then I saw a serious look—just a fleeting + flash of warning—behind his smiling mask; and he added carelessly: + “Be careful about your own personal play. I doubt if Textile can be put + any higher.” + </p> + <p> + It must have been my mood that prevented those words from making the + impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at once + and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signal of + caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: “Something + doing? Something new?” + </p> + <p> + But he had already gone further than his notion of friendship warranted. + So he replied: “Oh, no. Simply that everything's uncertain nowadays.” + </p> + <p> + My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties. I + now said: “Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my own + account?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose meaning + came to me only when it was too late. “I think, Blacklock, you'd better + turn them over to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't,” I answered. “I gave my word.” + </p> + <p> + “As you please,” said he. + </p> + <p> + Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of the + performances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twenty + minutes or so, he drifted away. “I envy you your enthusiasm,” he said, + pausing in my doorway. “Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else. + Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you get + all this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?” + </p> + <p> + He didn't wait for a reply. + </p> + <p> + I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to my + country place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings, searching, + searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed me—what + the lack was that yawned so gloomily from everything I had once thought + beautiful, had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of the splendid, + terraced pansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I stopped short and + slapped my thigh. “A woman!” I exclaimed. “That's what I need. A woman—the + right sort of woman—a wife!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. A CANDIDATE FOR “RESPECTABILITY” + </h2> + <p> + To handle this new business properly I must put myself in position to look + the whole field over. I must get in line and in touch with + “respectability.” When Sam Ellersly came in for his “rations,” I said: + “Sam, I want you to put me up at the Travelers Club.” + </p> + <p> + “The Travelers!” echoed he, with a blank look. + </p> + <p> + “The Travelers,” said I. “It's about the best of the big clubs, isn't it? + And it has as members most of the men I do business with and most of those + I want to get into touch with.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed. “It can't be done.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—I don't know. You see—the fact is—well, they're a + lot of old fogies up there. You don't want to bother with that push, Matt. + Take my advice. Do business with them, but avoid them socially.” + </p> + <p> + “I want to go in there,” I insisted. “I have my own reasons. You put me + up.” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you, it'd be no use,” he replied, in a tone that implied he wished + to hear no more of the matter. + </p> + <p> + “You put me up,” I repeated. “And if you do your best, I'll get in all + right. I've got lots of friends there. And you've got three relatives in + the committee on membership.” + </p> + <p> + At this he gave me a queer, sharp glance—a little fright in it. + </p> + <p> + I laughed. “You see, I've been looking into it, Sam. I never take a jump + till I've measured it.” + </p> + <p> + “You'd better wait a few years, until—” he began, then stopped and + turned red. + </p> + <p> + “Until what?” said I. “I want you to speak frankly.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you've got a lot of enemies—a lot of fellows who've lost + money in deals you've engineered. And they'd say all sorts of things.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll take care of that,” said I, quite easy in mind. “Mowbray Langdon's + president, isn't he? Well, he's my closest friend.” I spoke quite + honestly. It shows how simple-minded I was in certain ways that I had + never once noted the important circumstance that this “closest friend” had + never invited me to his house, or anywhere where I'd meet his up-town + associates at introducing distance. + </p> + <p> + Sam looked surprised. “Oh, in that case,” he said, “I'll see what can be + done.” But his tone was not quite cordial enough to satisfy me. + </p> + <p> + To stimulate him and to give him an earnest of what I intended to do for + him, when our little social deal had been put through, I showed him how he + could win ten thousand dollars in the next three days. “And you needn't + bother about putting up margins,” said I, as I often had before. “I'll + take care of that.” + </p> + <p> + He stammered a refusal and went out; but he came back within an hour, and, + in a strained sort of way, accepted my tip and my offer. + </p> + <p> + “That's sensible,” said I. “When will you attend to the matter at the + Travelers? I want to be warned so I can pull my own set of wires in + concert.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll let you know,” he answered, hanging his head. + </p> + <p> + I didn't understand his queer actions then. Though I was an expert in + finance, I hadn't yet made a study of that other game—the game of + “gentleman.” And I didn't know how seriously the frauds and fakirs who + play it take it and themselves. I attributed his confusion to a ridiculous + mock modesty he had about accepting favors; it struck me as being + particularly silly on this occasion, because for once he was to give as + well as to take. + </p> + <p> + He didn't call for his profits, but wrote asking me to mail him the check + for them. I did so, putting in the envelop with it a little jog to his + memory on the club matter. I didn't see him again for nearly a month; and + though I searched and sent, I couldn't get his trail. On opening day at + Morris Park, I was going along the passage behind the boxes in the grand + stand, on my way to the paddock. I wanted to see my horse that was about + to run for the Salmagundi Sweepstakes, and to tell my jockey that I'd give + him fifteen thousand, instead of ten thousand, if he won—for I had + put quite a bunch down. I was a figure at the tracks in those days. I went + into racing on my customary generous scale. I liked horses, just as I + liked everything that belonged out under the big sky; also I liked the + advertising my string of thoroughbreds gave me. I was rich enough to be + beyond the stage at which a man excites suspicion by frequenting + race-tracks and gambling-houses; I was at the height where prodigalities + begin to be taken as evidences of abounding superfluity, not of a + dangerous profligacy. Jim Harkaway, who failed at playing the same game I + played and won, said to me with a sneer one day: “You certainly do know + how to get a dollar's worth of notoriety out of a dollar's worth of + advertising.” + </p> + <p> + “If I only knew that, Jim,” said I, “I'd have been long ago where you're + bound for. The trick is to get it back ten for one. The more <i>you</i> + advertise yourself, the more suspicious of you people become. The more + money I 'throw away' in advertising, the more convinced people are that I + can afford to do it.” + </p> + <p> + But, as I was about to say, in one of the boxes I spied my shy friend, + Sammy. He was looking better than I had ever seen him. Less heavy-eyed, + less pallid and pasty, less like a man who had been shirking bed and + keeping up on cocktails and cold baths. He was at the rear of the box, + talking with a lady and a gentleman. As soon as I saw that lady, I knew + what it was that had been hiding at the bottom of my mind and rankling + there. + </p> + <p> + Luckily I was alone; ever since that lunch I had been cutting loose from + the old crowd—from all its women, and from all its men except two or + three real friends who were good fellows straight through, in spite of + their having made the mistake of crossing the dead line between amateur + “sport” and professional. I leaned over and tapped Sammy on the shoulder. + </p> + <p> + He glanced round, and when he saw me, looked as if I were a policeman who + had caught him in the act. + </p> + <p> + “Howdy, Sam?” said I. “It's been so long since I've seen you that I + couldn't resist the temptation to interrupt. Hope your friends'll excuse + me. Howdy do, Miss Ellersly?” And I put out my hand. + </p> + <p> + She took it reluctantly. She was giving me a very unpleasant look—as + if she were seeing, not somebody, but some <i>thing</i> she didn't care to + see, or were seeing nothing at all. I liked that look; I liked the woman + who had it in her to give it. She made me feel that she was difficult and + therefore worth while, and that's what all we human beings are in business + for—to make each other feel that we're worth while. + </p> + <p> + “Just a moment,” said Sam, red as a cranberry and stuttering. And he made + a motion to come out of the box and join me. At the same time Miss Anita + and the other fellow began to turn away. + </p> + <p> + But I was not the man to be cheated in that fashion. I wanted to see <i>her</i>, + and I compelled her to see it and to feel it. “Don't let me take you from + your friends,” said I to Sammy. “Perhaps they'd like to come with you and + me down to look at my horse. I can give you a good tip—he's bound to + win. I've had my boys out on the rails every morning at the trials of all + the other possibilities. None of 'em's in it with Mowghli.” + </p> + <p> + “Mowghli!” said the young lady—she had begun to turn toward me as + soon as I spoke the magic word, “tip.” There may be men who can resist + that word “tip” at the race-track, but there never was a woman. + </p> + <p> + “My sister has to stay here,” said Sammy hurriedly. “I'll go with you, + Blacklock.” + </p> + <p> + All this time he was looking as if he were doing something he ought to be + ashamed of. I thought then he was ashamed because he, professing to be a + gentleman, had been neglecting his debt of honor. I now know he was + ashamed because he was responsible for his sister's being contaminated by + contact with such a man as I! I who hadn't a dollar that wasn't honestly + earned; I who had made a fortune by my own efforts, and was spending my + millions like a prince; I who had taste in art and music and in + architecture and furnishing and all the fine things of life. Above all, I + who had been his friend and benefactor. <i>He</i> knew I was more of a + gentleman than he could ever hope to be, he with no ability at anything + but spending money; he a sponge and a cadger, yes, and a welcher—for + wasn't he doing his best to welch me? But just because a lot of his + friends, jealous of my success and angry that I refused to truckle to them + and be like them instead of like myself, sneered at me—behind my + back—this poor-spirited creature was daring to pretend to himself + that I wasn't fit for the society of his sister! + </p> + <p> + “Mowghli!” said Miss Ellersly. “What a quaint name!” + </p> + <p> + “My trainer gave it,” said I. “I've got a second son of one of those + broken-down English noblemen at the head of my stables. He's trying to get + money enough together to be able to show up at Newport and take a shy at + an heiress.” + </p> + <p> + At this the fellow who was fourth in our party, and who had been giving me + a nasty, glassy stare, got as red as was Sammy. Then I noticed that he was + an Englishman, and I all but chuckled with delight. However, I said, “No + offense intended,” and clapped him on the shoulder with a friendly smile. + “He's a good fellow, my man Monson, and knows a lot about horses.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Ellersly bit her lip and colored, but I noticed also that her eyes + were dancing. + </p> + <p> + Sam introduced the Englishman to me—Lord Somebody-or-other, I forget + what, as I never saw him again. I turned like a bulldog from a toy terrier + and was at Miss Ellersly again. “Let me put a little something on Mowghli + for you,” said I. “You're bound to win—and I'll see that you don't + lose. I know how you ladies hate to lose.” + </p> + <p> + That was a bit stiff, as I know well enough now. Indeed, my instinct would + have told me better then, if I hadn't been so used to the sort of women + that jump at such an offer, and if I hadn't been casting about so + desperately and in such confusion for some way to please her. At any rate, + I hardly deserved her sudden frozen look. “I beg pardon,” I stammered, and + I think my look at her must have been very humble—for me. + </p> + <p> + The others in the box were staring round at us. “Come on,” cried Sam, + dragging at my arm, “let's go.” + </p> + <p> + “Won't you come?” I said to his sister. I shouldn't have been able to keep + my state of mind out of my voice, if I had tried. And I didn't try. + </p> + <p> + Trust the right sort of woman to see the right sort of thing in a man + through any and all kinds of barriers of caste and manners and breeding. + Her voice was much softer as she said: “I think I must stay here. Thank + you, just the same.” + </p> + <p> + As soon as Sam and I were alone, I apologized. “I hope you'll tell your + sister I'm sorry for that break,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, that's all right,” he answered, easy again, now that we were away + from the others. “You meant well—and motive's the thing.” + </p> + <p> + “Motive—hell!” cried I in my anger at myself. “Nobody but a man's + God knows his motives; he doesn't even know them himself. I judge others + by what they do, and I expect to be judged in the same way. I see I've got + a lot to learn.” Then I suddenly remembered the Travelers Club, and asked + him what he'd done about it. + </p> + <p> + “I—I've been—thinking it over,” said he. “Are you <i>sure</i> + you want to run the risk of an ugly cropper, Matt?” + </p> + <p> + I turned him round so that we were facing each other. “Do you want to do + me that favor, or don't you?” I demanded. + </p> + <p> + “I'll do whatever you say,” he replied. “I'm thinking only of your + interests.” + </p> + <p> + “Let <i>me</i> take care of <i>them</i>,” said I. “You put me up at that + club to-morrow. I'll send you the name of a seconder not later than noon.” + </p> + <p> + “Up goes your name,” he said. “But don't blame me for the consequences.” + </p> + <p> + And my name went up, with Mowbray Langdon's brother, Tom, as seconder. + Every newspaper in town published the fact, most of them under big black + headlines. “The fun's about to begin,” thought I, as I read. And I was + right, though I hadn't the remotest idea how big a ball I had opened. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. DANGER SIGNALS + </h2> + <p> + At that time I did not myself go over the bills before the legislatures of + those states in which I had interests. I trusted that work to my lawyers—and, + like every man who ever absolutely trusted an important division of his + affairs to another, I was severely punished. One morning my eye happened + to light upon a minor paragraph in a newspaper—a list of the “small + bills yesterday approved by the governor.” In the list was one “defining + the power of sundry commissions.” Those words seemed to me somehow to + spell “joker.” But why did I call up my lawyers to ask them about it? It's + a mystery to me. All I know is that, busy as I was, something inside me + compelled me to drop everything else and hunt that “joker” down. + </p> + <p> + I got Saxe—then senior partner in Browne, Saxe and Einstein—on + the 'phone, and said: “Just see and tell me, will you, what is the 'bill + defining the power of sundry commissions'—the bill the governor + signed yesterday?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, Mr. Blacklock,” came the answer. My nerves are, and always + have been, on the watchout for the looks and the tones and the gestures + that are just a shade off the natural; and I feel that I do Saxe no + injustice when I say his tone was, not a shade, but a full color, off the + natural. So I was prepared for what he said when he returned to the + telephone. “I'm sorry, Mr. Blacklock, but we seem unable to lay our hands + on that bill at this moment.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” said I, in the tone that makes an employee jump as if a + whip-lash had cut him on the calves. + </p> + <p> + He had jumped all right, as his voice showed. “It's not in our file,” said + he. “It's House Bill No. 427, and it's apparently not here.” + </p> + <p> + “The hell you say!” I exclaimed. “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “I really can't explain,” he pleaded, and the frightened whine confirmed + my suspicion. + </p> + <p> + “I guess not,” said I, making the words significant and suggestive. “And + you're in my pay to look after such matters! But you'll have to explain, + if this turns out to be serious.” + </p> + <p> + “Apparently our file of bills is complete except that one,” he went on. “I + suppose it was lost in the mail, and I very stupidly didn't notice the gap + in the numbers.” + </p> + <p> + “Stupid isn't the word I'd use,” said I, with a laugh that wasn't of the + kind that cheers. And I rang off and asked for the state capitol on the + “long distance.” + </p> + <p> + Before I got my connection Saxe, whose office was only two blocks away, + came flustering in. “The boy has been discharged, Mr. Blacklock,” he + began. + </p> + <p> + “What boy?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “The boy in charge of the bill file—the boy whose business it was to + keep the file complete.” + </p> + <p> + “Send him to me, you damned scoundrel,” said I. “I'll give him a job. What + do you take me for, anyway? And what kind of a cowardly hound are you to + disgrace an innocent boy as a cover for your own crooked work?” + </p> + <p> + “Really, Mr. Blacklock, this is most extraordinary,” he expostulated. + </p> + <p> + “Extraordinary? I call it criminal,” I retorted. “Listen to me. You look + after the legislation calendars for me, and for Langdon, and for Roebuck, + and for Melville, and for half a dozen others of the biggest financiers in + the country. It's the most important work you do for us. Yet you, as + shrewd and careful a lawyer as there is at the bar, want me to believe you + trusted that work to a boy! If you did, you're a damn fool. If you didn't, + you're a damn scoundrel. There's no more doubt in my mind than in yours + which of those horns has you sticking on it.” + </p> + <p> + “You are letting your quick temper get away with you, Mr. Blacklock,” he + deprecated. + </p> + <p> + “Stop lying!” I shouted, “I knew you had been doing some skulduggery when + I first heard your voice on the telephone. And if I needed any proof, the + meek way you've taken my abuse would furnish it, and to spare.” + </p> + <p> + Just then the telephone bell rang and I got the right department and asked + the clerk to read House Bill 427. It contained five short paragraphs. The + “joker” was in the third, which gave the State Canal Commission the right + “to institute condemnation proceedings, and to condemn, and to abolish, + any canal not exceeding thirty miles in length and not a part of the + connected canal system of the state.” + </p> + <p> + When I hung up the receiver I was so absorbed that I had forgotten Saxe + was waiting. He made some slight sound. I wheeled on him. I needed a vent. + If he hadn't been there I should have smashed a chair. But there was he—and + I kicked him out of my private office and would have kicked him out + through the anteroom into the outer hall, had he not gathered himself + together and run like a jack-rabbit. + </p> + <p> + Since that day I have done my own calendar watching. + </p> + <p> + By this incident I do not mean to suggest that there are not honorable men + in the legal profession. Most of them are men of the highest honor, as are + most business men, most persons of consequence in every department of + life. But you don't look for character in the proprietors, servants, + customers and hangers-on of dives. No more ought you to look for honor + among any of the people that have to do with the big gilded dive of the + dollarocracy. They are there to gamble, and to prostitute themselves. The + fact that they look like gentlemen and have the manners and the language + of gentlemen ought to deceive nobody but the callow chaps of the sort that + believes the swell gambler is “an honest fellow” and a “perfect gentleman + otherwise,” because he wears a dress suit in the evening and is a judge of + books and pictures. Lawyers are the doorkeepers and the messengers of the + big dive; and these lawyers, though they stand the highest and get the + biggest fees, are just what you would expect human beings to be who expose + themselves to such temptations, and yield whenever they get an + opportunity, as eager and as compliant as a <i>cocotte</i>. + </p> + <p> + My lawyers had sold me out; I, fool that I was, had not guarded the only + weak plate in my armor against my companions—the plate over my back, + to shed assassin thrusts. Roebuck and Langdon between them owned the + governor; he owned the Canal Commission; my canal, which gave me access to + tide-water for the product of my Manasquale mines, was as good as closed. + I no longer had the whip-hand in National Coal. The others could sell me + out and take two-thirds of my fortune, whenever they liked—for of + what use were my mines with no outlet now to any market, except the + outlets the coal crowd owned? + </p> + <p> + As soon as I had thought the situation out in all its bearings, I realized + that there was no escape for me now, that whatever chance to escape I + might have had was closed by my uncovering to Saxe and kicking him. But I + did not regret; it was worth the money it would cost me. Besides, I + thought I saw how I could later on turn it to good account. A sensible man + never makes fatal errors. Whatever he does is at least experience, and can + also be used to advantage. If Napoleon hadn't been half dead at Waterloo, + I don't doubt he would have used its disaster as a means to a greater + victory. + </p> + <p> + Was I downcast by the discovery that those bandits had me apparently at + their mercy? Not a bit. Never in my life have I been downcast over money + matters more than a few minutes. Why should I be? Why should any man be + who has made himself all that he is? As long as his brain is sound, his + capital is unimpaired. When I walked into Mowbray Langdon's office, I was + like a thoroughbred exercising on a clear frosty morning; and my smile was + as fresh as the flower in my buttonhole. I thrust out my hand at him. “I + congratulate you,” said I. + </p> + <p> + He took the proffered hand with a questioning look. + </p> + <p> + “On what?” said he. It is hard to tell from his face what is going on in + his head, but I think I guessed right when I decided that Saxe hadn't yet + warned him. + </p> + <p> + “I have just found out from Saxe,” I pursued, “about the Canal Bill.” + </p> + <p> + “What Canal Bill?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “That puzzled look was a mistake, Langdon,” said I, laughing at him. “When + you don't know anything about a matter, you look merely blank. You overdid + it; you've given yourself away.” + </p> + <p> + He shrugged his shoulders. “As you please,” said he. As you please was his + favorite expression; a stereotyped irony, for in dealing with him, things + were never as <i>you</i> pleased, but always as <i>he</i> pleased. + </p> + <p> + “Next time you want to dig a mine under anybody,” I went on, “don't hire + Saxe. Really I feel sorry for you—to have such a clever scheme + messed by such an ass.” + </p> + <p> + “If you don't mind, I'd like to know what you're talking about,” said he, + with his patient, bored look. + </p> + <p> + “As you and Roebuck own the governor, I know your little law ends my + little canal.” + </p> + <p> + “Still I don't know what you're talking about,” drawled he. “You are + always suspecting everybody of double-dealing. I gather that this is + another instance of your infirmity. Really, Blacklock, the world isn't + wholly made up of scoundrels.” + </p> + <p> + “I know that,” said I. “And I will even admit that its scoundrels are + seldom made up wholly of scoundrelism. Even Roebuck would rather do the + decent thing, if he can do it without endangering his personal interests. + As for you—I regard you as one of the decentest men I ever knew—outside + of business. And even there, I believe you'd keep your word, as long as + the other fellow kept his.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said he, bowing ironically. “This flattery makes me suspect + you've come to get something.” + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary,” said I. “I want to give something. I want to give you + my coal mines.” + </p> + <p> + “I thought you'd see that our offer was fair,” said he. “And I'm glad you + have changed your mind about quarreling with your best friends. We can be + useful to you, you to us. A break would be silly.” + </p> + <p> + “That's the way it looks to me,” I assented. And I decided that my sharp + talk to Roebuck had set them to estimating my value to them. + </p> + <p> + “Sam Ellersly,” Langdon presently remarked, “tells me he's campaigning + hard for you at the Travelers. I hope you'll make it. We're rather a slow + crowd; a few men like you might stir things up.” + </p> + <p> + I am always more than willing to give others credit for good sense and + good motives. It was not vanity, but this disposition to credit others + with sincerity and sense, that led me to believe him, both as to the Coal + matter and as to the Travelers Club. “Thanks, Langdon,” I said; and that + he might look no further for my motive, I added: “I want to get into that + club much as the winner of a race wants the medal that belongs to him. + I've built myself up into a rich man, into one of the powers in finance, + and I feel I'm entitled to recognition.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't quite follow you,” he said. “I can't see that you'll be either + better or worse for getting into the Travelers.” + </p> + <p> + “No more I shall,” replied I. “No more is the winner of the race the + better or the worse for having the medal. But he wants it.” + </p> + <p> + He had a queer expression. I suppose he regarded it as a joke, my + attaching apparently so much importance to a thing he cared nothing about. + “You've always had that sort of thing,” said I, “and so you don't + appreciate it. You're like a respectable woman. She can't imagine what all + the fuss over women keeping a good reputation is about. Well, just let her + lose it!” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “And,” I went on, “you can have the rule about the waiting list suspended, + and can move me up and get me in at once.” + </p> + <p> + “We don't do things in quite such a hurry at the Travelers,” said he, + laughing. “However, we'll try to comply with your commands.” + </p> + <p> + His generous, cordial offer made me half ashamed of the plot I had + underneath my submission about the coal mines—a plot to get into the + coal combine in order to gather the means to destroy it, and perhaps + reconstruct it with myself in control. I made up my mind that, if he + continued to act squarely, I would alter those plans. + </p> + <p> + “If you don't mind,” Langdon was going on, “I'll make a suggestion—merely + a suggestion. It might not be a bad idea for you to arrange to—to + eliminate some of the—the popular features from your—brokerage + business. There are several influential members of the Travelers who have + a—a prejudice—” + </p> + <p> + “I understand,” I interposed, to spare him the necessity of saying things + he thought I might regard as impertinent. “They look on me as a keeper of + a high-class bucket-shop.” “That's about the way they'd put it.” + </p> + <p> + “But the things they object to are, unfortunately, my 'strong hold,'” I + explained. “You other big fellows gather in the big investors by simply + announcing your projects in a dignified way. I haven't got the ear of that + class of people. I have to send out my letters, have to advertise in all + the cities and towns, have to catch the little fellows. You can afford to + send out engraved invitations; I have to gather in my people with brass + bands and megaphones. Don't forget that my people count in the totals + bigger than yours. And what's my chief value to you? Why, when you want to + unload, I furnish the crowd to unload on, the crowd that gives you and + your big customers cash for your water and wind. I don't see my way to + letting go of what I've got until I get hold of what I'm reaching for.” + All this with not a suspicion in my mind that he was at the same game that + had caused Roebuck to “hint” that same proposal. What a “con man” high + finance got when Mowbray Langdon became active down town! + </p> + <p> + “That's true,” he admitted, with a great air of frankness. “But the cry + that you're not a financier, but a bucket-shop man, might be fatal at the + Travelers. Of course, the sacrifice would be large for such a small + object. Still, you might have to make it—if you really want to get + in.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll think it over,” said I. He thought I meant that I'd think over + dropping my power—thought I was as big a snob as he and his friends + of the Travelers, willing to make any sacrifice to be “in the push.” But, + while Matthew Blacklock has the streak of snob in him that's natural to + all human beings and to most animals, he is not quite insane. No, the + thing I intended to think over was how to stay in the “bucket-shop” + business, but wash myself of its odium. Bucket-shop! What snobbery! Yet + it's human nature, too. The wholesale merchant looks down on the retailer, + the big retailer on the little; the burglar despises the pickpocket; the + financier, the small promoter; the man who works with his brain, the man + who works with his hands. A silly lot we are—silly to look down, + sillier to feel badly when we're looked down upon. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. OF “GENTLEMEN” + </h2> + <p> + When I got back to my office and was settling in to the proofs of the + “Letter to Investors,” which I published in sixty newspapers throughout + the country and which daily reached upward of five million people, Sam + Ellersly came in. His manner was certainly different from what it had ever + been before; a difference so subtle that I couldn't describe it more + nearly than to say it made me feel as if he had not until then been + treating me as of the same class with himself. I smiled to myself and made + an entry in my mental ledger to the credit of Mowbray Langdon. + </p> + <p> + “That club business is going nicely,” said Sam. “Langdon is enthusiastic, + and I find you've got good friends on the committee.” + </p> + <p> + I knew that well enough. Hadn't I been carrying them on my books at a good + round loss for two years? + </p> + <p> + “If it wasn't for—for some features of this business of yours,” he + went on, “I'd say there wouldn't be the slightest trouble.” + </p> + <p> + “Bucket-shop?” said I with an easy laugh, though this nagging was + beginning to get on my nerves. + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” said he. “And, you know, you advertise yourself like—like—” + </p> + <p> + “Like everybody else, only more successfully than most,” said I. + “Everybody advertises, each one adapting his advertising to the needs of + his enterprises, as far as he knows how.” + </p> + <p> + “That's true enough,” he confessed. “But there are enterprises and + enterprises, you know.” + </p> + <p> + “You can tell 'em, Sam,” said I, “that I never put out a statement I don't + believe to be true, and that when any of my followers lose on one of my + tips, I've lost on it, too. For I play my own tips—and that's more + than can be said of any 'financier' in this town.” + </p> + <p> + “It'd be no use to tell 'em that,” said he. “Character's something of a + consideration in social matters, of course. But it isn't the chief + consideration by a long shot, and the absence of it isn't necessarily + fatal.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm the biggest single operator in the country,” I went on. “And it's my + methods that give me success—because I know how to advertise—how + to keep my name before the country, and how to make men say, whenever they + hear it: 'There's a shrewd, honest fellow.' That and the people it brings + me, in flocks, are my stock in trade. Honesty's a bluff with most of the + big respectables; under cover of their respectability, of their 'old and + honored names,' of their social connections, of their church-going and + that, they do all sorts of queer work.” + </p> + <p> + “To hear you talk,” put in Sam, with a grin, “one would think you didn't + shove off millions of dollars of suspicious stuff on the public through + those damn clever letters of yours.” + </p> + <p> + “There's where you didn't stop to think, Sam,” said I. “When I say a + stock's going to rise, it rises. When I stop talking about it, it may go + on rising or it may fall. But I never advise anybody to buy except when I + have every reason to believe it's a good thing. If they hold on too long, + that's their own lookout.” + </p> + <p> + “But they invest—” + </p> + <p> + “You use words too carelessly,” I said. “When I say buy, I don't mean <i>invest</i>. + When I mean invest, I say invest.” There I laughed. “It's a word I don't + often use.” + </p> + <p> + “And that's what you call honesty!” jeered he. + </p> + <p> + “That's what I call honesty,” I retorted, “and that <i>is</i> honesty.” + And I thought so then. + </p> + <p> + “Well—every man has a right to his own notion of what's honest,” he + said. “But no man's got a right to complain if a fellow with a different + notion criticizes him.” + </p> + <p> + “None in the world,” I assented. “Do <i>you</i> criticize me?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no, indeed!” he answered, nervous, and taking seriously what I + had intended as a joke. + </p> + <p> + After a while I dragged in <i>the</i> subject. “One thing I can and will + do to get myself in line for that club,” I said, like a seal on promenade. + “I'm sick of the crowd I travel with—the men and the women. I feel + it's about time I settled down. I've got a fortune and establishment that + needs a woman to set it off. I can make some woman happy. You don't happen + to know any nice girls—the right sort, I mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Not many.” said Sam. “You'd better go back to the country where you came + from, and get her there. She'd be eternally grateful, and her head + wouldn't be full of mercenary nonsense.” + </p> + <p> + “Excuse me!” exclaimed I. “It'd turn her head. She'd go clean crazy. She'd + plunge in up to her neck—and not being used to these waters, she'd + make a show of herself, and probably drown, dragging me down with her, if + possible.” + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed. “Keep out of marriage, Matt,” he advised, not so obtuse to my + real point as he wanted me to believe. “I know the kind of girl you've got + in mind. She'd marry you for your money, and she'd never appreciate you. + She'd see in you only the lack of the things she's been taught to lay + stress on.” + </p> + <p> + “For instance?” + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't tell you any more than I could enable you to recognize a + person you'd never seen by describing him.” + </p> + <p> + “Ain't I a gentleman?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + He laughed, as if the idea tickled him. “Of course,” he said. “Of course.” + </p> + <p> + “Ain't I got as proper a country place as there is a-going? Ain't my + apartment in the Willoughby a peach? Don't I give as elegant dinners as + you ever sat down to? Don't I dress right up to the Piccadilly latest? + Don't I act all right—know enough to keep my feet off the table and + my knife out of my mouth?” All true enough; and I so crude then that I + hadn't a suspicion what a flat contradiction of my pretensions and beliefs + about myself the very words and phrases were. + </p> + <p> + “You're right in it, Matt,” said Sam. “But—well—you haven't + traveled with our crowd, and they're shy of strangers, especially as—as + energetic a sort of stranger as you are. You're too sudden, Matt—too + dazzling—too—” + </p> + <p> + “Too shiny and new?” said I, beginning to catch his drift. “That'll be + looked after. What I want is you to take me round a bit.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't ask you to people's houses,” protested he, knowing I'd not + realize what a flimsy pretense that was. + </p> + <p> + While we were talking I had been thinking—working out the + proposition along lines he had indicated to me without knowing it. “Look + here, Sam,” I said. “You imagine I'm trying to butt in with a lot of + people that don't know me and don't want to know me. But that ain't my + point of view. Those people can be useful to me. I need 'em. What do I + care whether they want to be useful to me or not? The machine'd have run + down and rusted out long ago if you and your friends' idea of a gentleman + had been taken seriously by anybody who had anything to do and knew how to + do it. In this world you've got to <i>make</i> people do what's for your + good and their own. Your idea of a gentleman was put forward by lazy + fakirs who were living off of what their ungentlemanly ancestors had + annexed, and who didn't want to be disturbed. So they 'fixed' the game by + passing these rules you and your kind are fools enough to abide by—that + is, you are fools, unless you haven't got brains enough to get on in a + free-and-fair-for-all.” + </p> + <p> + Sam laughed.. “There's a lot of truth in what you say,” he admitted. + </p> + <p> + “However,” I ended, “my plans don't call for hurry just there. When I get + ready to go round, I'll let you know.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII. BLACKLOCK GOES INTO TRAINING + </h2> + <p> + This brings me to the ugliest story my enemies have concocted against me. + No one appreciates more thoroughly than I that, to rise high, a man must + have his own efforts seconded by the flood of vituperation that his + enemies send to overwhelm him, and which washes him far higher than he + could hope to lift himself. So I do not here refer to any attack on me in + the public prints; I think of them only with amusement and gratitude. The + story that rankles is the one these foes of mine set creeping, like a + snake under the fallen leaves, everywhere, anywhere, unseen, without a + trail. It has been whispered into every ear—and it is, no doubt, + widely believed—that I deliberately put old Bromwell Ellersly “in a + hole,” and there tortured him until he consented to try to compel his + daughter to marry me. + </p> + <p> + It is possible that, if I had thought of such a devilish device, I might + have tried it—is not all fair in love? But there was no need for my + cudgeling my brains to carry that particular fortification on my way to + what I had fixed my will upon. <i>Bromwell Ellersly came to me of his own + accord</i>. + </p> + <p> + I suppose the Ellerslys must have talked me over in the family circle. + However this may be, my acquaintance with her father began with Sam's + asking me to lunch with him. “The governor has heard me talk of you so + much,” said he, “that he is anxious to meet you.” + </p> + <p> + I found him a dried-up, conventional old gentleman, very proud of his + ancestors, none of whom I had ever heard of, and very positive that a + great deal of deference was due him—though on what grounds I could + not then, and can not now, make out. I soon discovered that it was the + scent of my stock-tip generosity, wafted to him by Sammy, that had put him + hot upon my trail. I hadn't gone far into his affairs before I learned + that he had been speculating, mortgaging, kiting notes, doing what he + called, and thought, “business” on a large scale. He regarded business as + beneath the dignity and the intellect of a “gentleman”—how my gorge + does rise at that word! So he put his great mind on it only for a few + hours now and then; he reserved the rest of his time for what he regarded + as the proper concerns of a gentleman—attending to social “duties,” + reading pretentious books, looking at the pictures and listening to the + music decreed fashionable. + </p> + <p> + They charge that I put him “in a hole.” In fact, I found him at the bottom + of a deep pit he had dug for himself; and when he first met me he was, + without having the sense to realize it, just about to go smash, with not a + penny for his old age. As soon as I had got this fact clear of the tangle, + I showed it to him. + </p> + <p> + “My God, what is to become of <i>me</i>?” he said, That was his only + thought—not, what is to become of my wife and daughter; but, what is + to become of “<i>me</i>!” I do not blame him for this. Naturally enough, + people who have always been used to everything become, unconsciously, + monsters of egotism and selfishness; it is natural, too, that they should + imagine themselves liberal and generous if they give away occasionally + something that costs them, at most, nothing more serious than the + foregoing of some extravagant luxury or other. I recite his remark simply + to show what manner of man he was, what sort of creature I had to deal + with. + </p> + <p> + I offered to help him, and I did help him. Is there any one, knowing + anything of the facts of life, who will censure me when I admit that I—with + deliberation—simply tided him over, did not make for him and present + to him a fortune? What chance should I have had, if I had been so absurdly + generous to a man who deserved nothing but punishment for his selfish and + bigoted mode of life? I took away his worst burdens; but I left him more + than he could carry without my help. And it was not until he had appealed, + in vain to all his social friends to relieve him of the necessity of my + aid, not until he realized that I was his only hope of escaping a sharp + comedown from luxury to very modest comfort in a flat somewhere—not + until then did his wife send me an invitation to dinner. And I had not so + much as hinted that I wanted it. + </p> + <p> + I shall never forget the smallest detail of that dinner—it was a + purely “family” affair, only the Ellerslys and I. I can feel now the + oppressive atmosphere, the look as of impending sacrilege upon the faces + of the old servants; I can see Mrs. Ellersly trying to condescend to be + “gracious,” and treating me as if I were some sort of museum freak or + menagerie exhibit. I can see Anita. She was like a statue of snow; she + spoke not a word; if she lifted her eyes, I failed to note it. And when I + was leaving—I with my collar wilted from the fierce, nervous strain + I had been enduring—Mrs. Ellersly, in that voice of hers into which + I don't believe any shade of a real human emotion ever penetrated, said: + “You must come to see us, Mr. Blacklock. We are always at home after + five.” + </p> + <p> + I looked at Miss Ellersly. She was white to the lips now, and the spangles + on her white dress seemed bits of ice glittering there. She said nothing; + but I knew she felt my look, and that it froze the ice the more closely in + around her heart. “Thank you,” I muttered. + </p> + <p> + I stumbled in the hall; I almost fell down the broad steps. I stopped at + the first bar and took three drinks in quick succession. I went on down + the avenue, breathing like an exhausted swimmer. “I'll give her up!” I + cried aloud, so upset was I. + </p> + <p> + I am a man of impulse; but I have trained myself not to be a <i>creature</i> + of impulse, at least not in matters of importance. Without that patient + and painful schooling, I shouldn't have got where I now am; probably I'd + still be blacking boots, or sheet-writing for some bookmaker, or clerking + it for some broker. Before I got to my rooms, the night air and my habit + of the “sober second thought” had cooled me back to rationality. + </p> + <p> + “I want her, I need her,” I was saying to myself. “I am worthier of her + than are those mincing manikins she has been bred to regard as men. She is + for me—she belongs to me. I'll abandon her to no smirking puppet + who'd wear her as a donkey would a diamond. Why should I do myself and her + an injury simply because she has been too badly brought up to know her own + interest?” + </p> + <p> + And now I see all the smooth frauds, all the weak people who never have + purposes or passions worthy of the name, all the finicky, finger-dusting + gentry with the “fine souls,” who flatter themselves that their timidity + is the squeamishness of superior sensibilities—I see all these + feeble folk fluttering their feeble fingers in horror of me. “The brute!” + they cry; “the bounder!” Well, I accept the names quite cheerfully. Those + are the epithets the wishy-washy always hurl at the strong; they put me in + the small and truly aristocratic class of men who <i>do</i>. I proudly + avow myself no subscriber to the code that was made by the shearers to + encourage the sheep to keep on being nice docile animals, trotting meekly + up to be shorn or slaughtered as their masters may decide. I harm no man, + and no woman; but neither do I pause to weep over any man or any woman who + flings himself or herself upon my steady spear. I try to be courteous and + considerate to all; but I do not stop when some fellow who has something + that belongs to me shouts “Rude!” at me to sheer me off. + </p> + <p> + At the same time, her delicate beauty, her quiet, distinctive, high-bred + manner, had thrust it home to me that in certain respects I was ignorant + and crude—as who would not have been, brought up as was I? I knew + there was, somewhere between my roughness of the uncut individuality and + the smoothness of the planed and sand-papered nonentity of her “set,” a + mean, better than either, better because more efficient. + </p> + <p> + When this was clear to me I sent for my trainer. He was one of those + spare, wiry Englishmen, with skin like tanned and painted hide—brown + except where the bones seem about to push their sharp angles through, and + there a frosty, winter-apple red. He dressed like a Deadwood gambler, he + talked like a stable boy; but for all that, you couldn't fail to see he + was a gentleman born and bred. Yes, he was a gentleman, though he mixed + profanity into his ordinary flow of conversation more liberally than did I + when in a rage. + </p> + <p> + I stood up before him, threw my coat back, thrust my thumbs into my + trousers pockets and slowly turned about like a ready-made tailor's dummy. + “Monson,” said I, “what do you think of me?” + </p> + <p> + He looked me over as if I were a horse he was about to buy. “Sound, I'd + say,” was his verdict. “Good wind—uncommon good wind. A goer, and a + stayer. Not a lump. Not a hair out of place.” He laughed. “Action a bit + high perhaps—for the track. But a grand reach.” + </p> + <p> + “I know all that,” said I. “You miss my point. Suppose you wanted to enter + me for—say, the Society Sweepstakes—what then?” + </p> + <p> + “Um—um,” he muttered reflectively. “That's different.” + </p> + <p> + “Don't I look—sort of—new—as if the varnish was still + sticky and might come off on the ladies' dresses and on the fine + furniture?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—that!” said he dubiously. “But all those kinds of things are + matters of taste.” + </p> + <p> + “Out with it!” I commanded. “Don't be afraid. I'm not one of those damn + fools that ask for criticism when they want only flattery, as you ought to + know by this time. I'm aware of my good points, know how good they are + better than anybody else in the world. And I suspect my weak points—always + did. I've got on chiefly because I made people tell me to my face what + they'd rather have grinned over behind my back.” + </p> + <p> + “What's your game?” asked Monson. “I'm in the dark.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you, Monson. I hired you to train horses. Now I want to hire + you to train me, too. As it's double work, it's double pay.” + </p> + <p> + “Say on,” said he, “and say it slow.” + </p> + <p> + “I want to marry,” I explained. “I want to inspect all the offerings + before I decide. You are to train me so that I can go among the herds + that'd shy off from me if I wasn't on to their little ways.” + </p> + <p> + He looked suspiciously at me, doubtless thinking this some new development + of “American humor.” + </p> + <p> + “I mean it,” I assured him. “I'm going to train, and train hard. I've got + no time to lose. I must be on my way down the aisle inside of three + months. I give you a free hand. I'll do just what you say.” + </p> + <p> + “The job's out of my line,” he protested. + </p> + <p> + “I know better,” said I. “I've always seen the parlor under the stable in + you. We'll begin right away. What do you think of these clothes?” + </p> + <p> + “Well—they're not exactly noisy,” he said. “But—they're far + from silent. That waistcoat—” He stopped and gave me another + nervous, timid look. He found it hard to believe a man of my sort, so + self-assured, would stand the truth from a man of his second-fiddle sort. + </p> + <p> + “Go on!” I commanded. “Speak out! Mowbray Langdon had on one twice as loud + the other day at the track.” + </p> + <p> + “But, perhaps you'll remember, it was only his waistcoat that was loud—not + he himself. Now, a man of your manner and voice and—you've got a + look out of the eyes that'd wake the dead all by itself. People can feel + you coming before they hear you. When they feel and hear and see all + together—it's like a brass band in scarlet uniform, with a + seven-foot, sky-blue drum major. If your hair wasn't so black and your + eyes so steel-blue and sharp, and your teeth so big and strong and white, + and your jaw such a—such a—<i>jaw</i>—” + </p> + <p> + “I see the point,” said I. And I did. “You'll find you won't need to tell + me many things twice. I've got a busy day before me here; so we'll have to + suspend this until you come to dine with me at eight—at my rooms. I + want you to put in the time well. Go to my house in the country and then + up to my apartment; take my valet with you; look through all my belongings—shirts, + ties, socks, trousers, waistcoats, clothes of every kind. Throw out every + rag you think doesn't fit in with what I want to be. How's my grammar?” + </p> + <p> + I was proud of it; I had been taking more or less pains with my mode of + speech for a dozen years. “Rather too good,” said he. “But that's better + than making the breaks that aren't regarded as good form.” + </p> + <p> + “Good form!” I exclaimed. “That's it! That's what I want! What does 'good + form' mean?” + </p> + <p> + He laughed. “You can search me,” said he. “I could easier tell you—anything + else. It's what everybody recognizes on sight, and nobody knows how to + describe. It's like the difference between a cultivated 'jimson' weed and + a wild one.” + </p> + <p> + “Like the difference between Mowbray Langdon and me,” I suggested + good-naturedly. “How about my manners?” + </p> + <p> + “Not so bad,” said he. “Not so rotten bad. But—when you're polite, + you're a little too polite; when you're not polite, you—” + </p> + <p> + “Show where I came from too plainly?” said I. “Speak right out—hit + good and hard. Am I too frank for 'good form'?” + </p> + <p> + “You needn't bother about that,” he assured me. “Say whatever comes into + your head—only, be sure the right sort of thing comes into your + head. Don't talk too much about yourself, for instance. It's good form to + think about yourself all the time; it's bad form to let people see it—in + your talk. Say as little as possible about your business and about what + you've got. Don't be lavish with the I's and the my's.” + </p> + <p> + “That's harder,” said I. “I'm a man who has always minded his own + business, and cared for nothing else. What could I talk about, except + myself?” + </p> + <p> + “Blest if I know,” replied he. “Where you want to go, the last thing + people mind is their own business—in talk, at least. But you'll get + on all right if you don't worry too much about it. You've got natural + independence, and an original way of putting things, and common sense. + Don't be afraid.” + </p> + <p> + “Afraid!” said I. “I never knew what it was to be afraid.” + </p> + <p> + “Your nerve'll carry you through,” he assured me. “Nerve'll take a man + anywhere.” + </p> + <p> + “You never said a truer thing in your life,” said I. “It'll take him + wherever he wants, and, after he's there, it'll get him whatever he + wants.” + </p> + <p> + And with that, I, thinking of my plans and of how sure I was of success, + began to march up and down the office with my chest thrown out—until + I caught myself at it. That stopped me, set me off in a laugh at my own + expense, he joining in with a kind of heartiness I did not like, though I + did not venture to check him. + </p> + <p> + So ended the first lesson—the first of a long series. I soon saw + that Monson was being most useful to me—far more useful than if he + were a “perfect gentleman” with nothing of the track and stable and back + stairs about him. Being a sort of betwixt and between, he could appreciate + my needs as they could not have been appreciated by a fellow who had never + lived in the rough-and-tumble I had fought my way up through. And being at + bottom a real gentleman, and not one of those nervous, snobbish + make-believes, he wasn't so busy trying to hide his own deficiencies from + me that he couldn't teach me anything. He wasn't afraid of being found + out, as Sam—or perhaps, even Langdon—would have been in the + same circumstances. I wonder if there is another country where so many + gentlemen and ladies are born, or another where so many of them have their + natural gentility educated out of them. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII. ON THE TRAIL OF LANGDON + </h2> + <p> + I had Monson with me twice each week-day—early in the morning and + again after business hours until bed-time. Also he spent the whole of + every Saturday and Sunday with me. He developed astonishing dexterity as a + teacher, and as soon as he realized that I had no false pride and was + thoroughly in earnest, he handled me without gloves—like a boxing + teacher who finds that his pupil has the grit of a professional. It was + easy enough for me to grasp the theory of my new business—it was + nothing more than “Be natural.” But the rub came in making myself + naturally of the right sort. I had—as I suppose every man of + intelligence and decent instincts has—a disposition to be friendly + and simple. But my manner was by nature what you might call abrupt. My not + very easy task was to learn the subtle difference between the abrupt that + injects a tonic into social intercourse, and the abrupt that makes the + other person shut up with a feeling of having been insulted. + </p> + <p> + Then, there was the matter of good taste in conversation. Monson found, as + I soon saw, that my everlasting self-assertiveness was beyond cure. As I + said to him: “I'm afraid you might easier succeed in reducing my chest + measure.” But we worked away at it, and perhaps my readers may discover + even in this narrative, though it is necessarily egotistic, evidence of at + least an honest effort not to be baldly boastful. Monson would have liked + to make of me a self-deprecating sort of person—such as he was + himself, with the result that the other fellow always got the prize and he + got left. But I would have none of it. + </p> + <p> + “How are people to know about you, if you don't tell 'em?” I argued. + “Don't you yourself admit that men take a man at his own valuation less a + slight discount, and that women take him at his own valuation plus an + allowance for his supposed modesty?” + </p> + <p> + “Cracking yourself up is vulgar, nevertheless,” declared the Englishman. + “It's the chief reason why we on the other side look on you Americans as a + lot of vulgarians—” + </p> + <p> + “And are in awe of our superior cleverness,” I put in. + </p> + <p> + He laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Well, do the best you can,” said he. “Only, you really must not brag and + swagger, and you must get out of the habit of talking louder than any one + else.” + </p> + <p> + In the matter of dress, our task was easy. I had a fancy for bright colors + and for strong contrasts; but I know I never indulged in clashes and + discords. It was simply that in clothes I had the same taste as in + pictures—the taste that made me prefer Rubens to Rembrandt. We cast + out of my wardrobe everything in the least doubtful; and I gave away my + jeweled canes, my pins and links and buttons for shirts and waistcoats + except plain gold and pearls. I even left off the magnificent diamond I + had worn for years on my little finger—but I didn't give away that + stone; I put it by for resetting into an engagement ring. However, when I + was as quietly dressed as it was possible for a gentleman to be, he still + studied me dubiously, when he thought I wasn't seeing him. And I recall + that he said once: “It's your face, Blacklock. If you could only manage to + look less like a Spanish bull dashing into the ring, gazing joyfully about + for somebody to gore and toss!” + </p> + <p> + “But I can't,” said I. “And I wouldn't if I could—because that's <i>me</i>!” + </p> + <p> + One Saturday he brought a dancing master down to my country place—Dawn + Hill, which I bought of the Dumont estate and completely remodeled. I saw + what the man's business was the instant I looked at him. I left him in the + hall and took Monson into my den. + </p> + <p> + “Not for me!” I protested. “There's where I draw the line.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't understand,” he urged. “This fellow, this Alphonse Lynch, out + in the hall there, isn't going to teach you dancing so that you may dance, + but so that you shall be less awkward in strange company.” + </p> + <p> + “My walk suits me,” said I. “And I don't fall over furniture or trip + people up.” + </p> + <p> + “True enough,” he answered. “But you haven't the complete control of your + body that'll make you unconscious of it when you're suddenly shot by a + butler into a room full of people you suspect of being unfriendly and + critical.” + </p> + <p> + Not until he used his authority as trainer-in-full-charge, did I yield. It + may seem absurd to some for a serious man like me solemnly to caper about + in imitation of a scraping, grimacing French-Irishman; but Monson was + right, and I haven't in the least minded the ridicule he has brought on me + by tattling this and the other things everywhere, since he turned against + me. It's nothing new under the sun for the crowds of chuckleheads to laugh + where they ought to applaud; their habit is to laugh and to applaud in the + wrong places. There's no part of my career that I'm prouder of than the + whole of this thorough course of education in the trifles that are yet not + trifles. To have been ignorant is no disgrace; the disgrace comes when one + persists in ignorance and glories in it. + </p> + <p> + Yet those who make the most pretensions in this topsy-turvy of a world + regard it as a disgrace to have been obscure and ignorant, and pride + themselves upon their persistence in their own kind of obscurity and + ignorance! No wonder the few strong men do about as they please with such + a race of nincompoopery. If they didn't grow old and tired, what would + they not do? + </p> + <p> + All this time I was giving myself—or thought I was giving myself—chiefly + to my business, as usual. I know now that the new interests had in fact + crowded the things down town far into the background, had impaired my + judgment, had suspended my common sense; but I had no inkling of this + then, The most important matter that was occupying me down town was + pushing Textile up toward par. Langdon's doubts, little though they + influenced me, still made enough of an impression to cause me to test the + market. I sold for him at ninety, as he had directed; I sold in quantity + every day. But no matter how much I unloaded, the price showed no tendency + to break. + </p> + <p> + “This,” said I to myself, “is a testimonial to the skill with which I + prepared for my bull campaign.” And that seemed to me—all + unsuspicious as I then was—a sufficient explanation of the + steadiness of the stock which I had worked to establish in the public + confidence. + </p> + <p> + I felt that, if my matrimonial plans should turn out as I confidently + expected, I should need a much larger fortune than I had—for I was + determined that my wife should have an establishment second to none. + Accordingly, I enlarged my original plan. I had intended to keep close to + Langdon in that plunge; I believed I controlled the market, but I hadn't + been in Wall Street twenty years without learning that the worst + thunderbolts fall from cloudless skies. Without being in the least + suspicious of Langdon, and simply acting on the general principle that + surprise and treachery are part of the code of high finance, I had + prepared to guard, first, against being taken in the rear by a secret + change of plan on Langdon's part, and second, against being involved and + overwhelmed by a sudden secret attack on him from some associate of his + who might think he had laid himself open to successful raiding. + </p> + <p> + The market is especially dangerous toward Christmas and in the spring—toward + Christmas the big fellows often juggle the stocks to get the money for + their big Christmas gifts and alms; toward spring the motive is, of + course, the extra summer expenses of their families and the commencement + gifts to colleges. It was now late in the spring. + </p> + <p> + I say, I had intended to be cautious. I abandoned caution and rushed in + boldly, feeling that the market was, in general, safe and that Textile was + under my control—and that I was one of the kings of high finance, + with my lucky star in the zenith. I decided to continue my bull campaign + on my own account for two weeks after I had unloaded for Langdon, to + continue it until the stock was at par. I had no difficulty in pushing it + to ninety-seven, and I was not alarmed when I found myself loaded up with + it, quoted at ninety-eight for the preferred and thirty for the common. I + assumed that I was practically its only supporter and that it would slowly + settle back as I slowly withdrew my support. + </p> + <p> + To my surprise, the stock did not yield immediately under my efforts to + depress it. I sold more heavily; Textile continued to show a tendency to + rise. I sold still more heavily; it broke a point or two, then steadied + and rose again. Instead of sending out along my secret lines for inside + information, as I should have done, and would have done had I not been in + a state of hypnotized judgment—I went to Langdon! I who had been + studying those scoundrels for twenty-odd years, and dealing directly with + and for them for ten years! + </p> + <p> + He wasn't at his office; they told me there that they didn't know whether + he was at his town house or at his place in the country—“probably in + the country,” said his down-town secretary, with elaborate carelessness. + “He wouldn't be likely to stay away from the office or not to send for me, + if he were in town, would he?” + </p> + <p> + It takes an uncommon good liar to lie to me when I'm on the alert. As I + was determined to see Langdon, I was in so far on the alert. And I felt + the fellow was lying. “That's reasonable,” said I. “Call me up, if you + hear from him. I want to see him—important, but not immediate.” And + I went away, having left the impression that I would make no further + effort. + </p> + <p> + Incredible though it may seem, especially to those who know how careful I + am to guard every point and to see in every friend a possible foe, I still + did not suspect that smooth, that profound scoundrel. I do not use these + epithets with heat. I flatter myself I am a connoisseur of finesse and can + look even at my own affairs with judicial impartiality. And Langdon was, + and is now, such a past master of finesse that he compels the admiration + even of his victims. He's like one of those fabled Damascus blades. When + he takes a leg off, the victim forgets to suffer in his amazement at the + cleanness of the wound, in his incredulity that the leg is no longer part + of him. “Langdon,” said I to myself, “is a sly dog. No doubt he's busy + about some woman, and has covered his tracks.” Yet I ought, in the + circumstances, instantly to have suspected that I was the person he was + dodging. + </p> + <p> + I went up to his house. You, no doubt, have often seen and often admired + its beautiful façade, so simple that it hides its own magnificence from + all but experienced eyes, so perfect in its proportions that it hides the + vastness of the palace of which it is the face. I have heard men say: “I'd + like to have a house—a moderate-sized house—one about the size + of Mowbray Langdon's—though perhaps a little more elegant, not so + plain.” + </p> + <p> + That's typical of the man. You have to look closely at him, to study him, + before you appreciate how he has combined a thousand details of manner and + dress into an appearance which, while it can not but impress the ordinary + man with its distinction, suggests to all but the very observant the most + modest plainness and simplicity. How few realize that simplicity must be + profound, complex, studied, not to be and to appear crude and coarse. In + those days that truth had just begun to dawn on me. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Langdon isn't at home,” said the servant. + </p> + <p> + I had been at his house once before; I knew he occupied the left side—the + whole of the second floor, so shut off that it not only had a separate + entrance, but also could not be reached by those in the right side of the + house without descending to the entrance hall and ascending the left + stairway. + </p> + <p> + “Just take my card to his private secretary, to Mr. Rathburn,” said I. + “Mr. Langdon has doubtless left a message for me.” + </p> + <p> + The butler hesitated, yielded, showed me into the reception-room off the + entrance hall. I waited a few seconds, then adventured the stairway to the + left, up which he had disappeared. I entered the small salon in which + Langdon had received me on my other visit. From the direction of an open + door, I heard his voice—he was saying: “I am not at home. There's no + message.” + </p> + <p> + And still I did not realize that it was I he was avoiding! + </p> + <p> + “It's no use now, Langdon,” I called cheerfully. “Beg pardon for seeming + to intrude. I misunderstood—or didn't hear where the servant said I + was to wait. However, no harm done. So long! I'm off.” But I made no move + toward the door by which I had entered; instead, I advanced a few feet + nearer the door from which his voice had come. + </p> + <p> + After a brief—a very brief—pause, there came in Langdon's + voice—laughing, not a trace of annoyance: “I might have known! Come + in, Matt!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX. LANGDON AT HOME + </h2> + <p> + I entered, with an amused glance at the butler, who was giving over his + heavy countenance to a delightful exhibition of disgust and discomfiture. + It was Langdon's sitting-room. He had had the carved antique oak interior + of a room in an old French palace torn out and transported to New York and + set up for him. I had made a study of that sort of thing, and at Dawn Hill + had done something toward realizing my own ideas of the splendid. But a + glance showed me that I was far surpassed. What I had done seemed in + comparison like the composition of a school-boy beside an essay by + Goldsmith or Hazlitt. + </p> + <p> + And in the midst of this quiet splendor sat, or rather lounged, Langdon, + reading the newspapers. He was dressed in a dark blue velvet house-suit + with facings and cords of blue silk a shade or so lighter than the suit. I + had always thought him handsome; he looked now like a god. He was smoking + a cigarette in an oriental holder nearly a foot long; but the air of the + room, so perfect was the ventilation, instead of being scented with + tobacco, had the odor of some fresh, clean, slightly saline perfume. + </p> + <p> + I think what was in my mind must have shown in my face, must have subtly + flattered him, for, when I looked at him, he was giving me a look of + genuine friendly kindliness. “This is—perfect, Langdon,” said I. + “And I think I'm a judge.” + </p> + <p> + “Glad you like it,” said he, trying to dissemble his satisfaction in so + strongly impressing me. + </p> + <p> + “You must take me through your house sometime,” I went on. “I'm going to + build soon. No—don't be afraid I'll imitate. I'm too vain for that. + But I want suggestions. I'm not ashamed to go to school to a master—to + anybody, for that matter.” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you build?” said he. “A town house is a nuisance. If I could + induce my wife to take the children to the country to live, I'd dispose of + this.” + </p> + <p> + “That's it—the wife,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “But you have no wife. At least—” + </p> + <p> + “No,” I replied with a laugh. “Not yet. But I'm going to have.” + </p> + <p> + I interpreted his expression then as amused cynicism. But I see a + different meaning in it now. And I can recall his tone, can find a + strained note which then escaped me in his usual mocking drawl. + </p> + <p> + “To marry?” said he. “I haven't heard of that.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor no one else,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Except her,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “Not even except her,” said I. “But I've got my eye on her—and you + know what that means with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I know,” drawled he. Then he added, with a curious twinkle which I + do not now misunderstand: “We have somewhat the same weakness.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn't call it a weakness,” said I. “It's the quality that makes the + chief difference between us and the common run—the fellows that have + no purposes beyond getting comfortably through each day—” + </p> + <p> + “And getting real happiness,” he interrupted, with just a tinge of + bitterness. + </p> + <p> + “We wouldn't think it happiness,” was my answer. + </p> + <p> + “The worse for us,” he replied. “We're under the tyranny of to-morrow—and + happiness is impossible.” + </p> + <p> + “May I look at your bedroom?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” he assented. + </p> + <p> + I pushed open the door he indicated. At first glimpse I was disappointed. + The big room looked like a section of a hospital ward. It wasn't until I + had taken a second and very careful look at the tiled floor, walls, + ceiling, that I noted that those plain smooth tiles were of the very + finest, were probably of his own designing, certainly had been imported + from some great Dutch or German kiln. Not an inch of drapery, not a + picture, nothing that could hold dust or germs anywhere; a square of + sanitary matting by the bed; another square opposite an elaborate + exercising machine. The bed was of the simplest metallic construction—but + I noted that the metal was the finest bronze. On it was a thin, hard + mattress. You could wash the big room down and out with the hose, without + doing any damage. + </p> + <p> + “Quite a contrast,” said I, glancing from the one room to the other. + </p> + <p> + “My architect is a crank on sanitation,” he explained, from his lounge. + </p> + <p> + I noted that the windows were huge—to admit floods of light—and + that they were hermetically sealed so that the air should be only the pure + air supplied from the ventilating apparatus. To many people that room + would have seemed a cheaply got together cell; to me, once I had examined + it, it was evidently built at enormous cost and represented an + extravagance of common-sense luxury which was more than princely or royal. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly my mind reverted to my business. “How do you account for the + steadiness of Textile, Langdon?” I asked, returning to the carved + sitting-room and trying to put those surroundings out of my mind. + </p> + <p> + “I don't account for it,” was his languid, uninterested reply. + </p> + <p> + “Any of your people under the market?” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't to my interest to have it supported, is it?” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “I know that,” I admitted. “But why doesn't it drop?” + </p> + <p> + “Those letters of yours may have overeducated the public in confidence,” + suggested he. “Your followers have the habit of believing implicitly + whatever you say.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but I haven't written a line about Textile for nearly a month now,” + I pretended to object, my vanity fairly purring with pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “That's the only reason I can give,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “You are sure none of your people is supporting the stock?” I asked, as a + form and not for information; for I thought I knew they weren't—I + trusted him to have seen to that. + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to get my holdings back,” said he. “I can't buy until it's down. + And I know none of my people would dare support it.” + </p> + <p> + You will notice he did not say directly that he was not himself supporting + the market; he simply so answered me that I, not suspecting him, would + think he reassured me. There is another of those mysteries of conscience. + Had it been necessary, Langdon would have told me the lie flat and direct, + would have told it without a tremor of the voice or a blink of the eye, + would have lied to me as I have heard him, and almost all the big fellows, + lie under oath before courts and legislative committees; yet, so long as + it was possible, he would thus lie to me with lies that were not lies. As + if negative lies are not falser and more cowardly than positive lies, + because securer and more deceptive. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, the price must break,” said I, “It won't be many days before + the public begins to realize that there isn't anybody under Textile.” + </p> + <p> + “No sharp break!” he said carelessly. “No panic!” + </p> + <p> + “I'll see to that,” replied I, with not a shadow of a notion of the + subtlety behind his warning. + </p> + <p> + “I hope it will break soon,” he then said, adding in his friendliest voice + with what I now know was malignant treachery: “You owe it to me to bring + it down.” That meant that he wished me to increase my already far too + heavy and dangerous line of shorts. + </p> + <p> + Just then a voice—a woman's voice—came from the salon. “May I + come in? Do I interrupt?” it said, and its tone struck me as having in it + something of plaintive appeal. + </p> + <p> + “Excuse me a moment, Blacklock,” said he, rising with what was for him + haste. + </p> + <p> + But he was too late. The woman entered, searching the room with a + piercing, suspicious gaze. At once I saw, behind that look, a jealousy + that pounced on every object that came into its view, and studied it with + a hope that feared and a fear that hoped. When her eyes had toured the + room, they paused upon him, seemed to be saying: “You've baffled me again, + but I'm not discouraged. I shall catch you yet.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, my dear?” said Langdon, whom she seemed faintly to amuse. “It's + only Mr. Blacklock. Mr. Blacklock, my wife.” + </p> + <p> + I bowed; she looked coldly at me, and her slight nod was more than a hint + that she wished to be left alone with her husband. + </p> + <p> + I said to him: “Well, I'll be off. Thank you for—” + </p> + <p> + “One moment,” he interrupted. Then to his wife: “Anything special?” + </p> + <p> + She flushed. “No—nothing special. I just came to see you. But if I + am disturbing you—as usual—” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” said he. “When Blacklock and I have finished, I'll come to + you. It won't be longer than an hour—or so.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that all?” she said almost savagely. Evidently she was one of those + women who dare not make “scenes” with their husbands in private and so are + compelled to take advantage of the presence of strangers to ease their + minds. She was an extremely pretty woman, would have been beautiful but + for the worn, strained, nervous look that probably came from her jealousy. + She was small in stature; her figure was approaching that stage at which a + woman is called “well rounded” by the charitable, fat by the frank and + accurate. A few years more and she would be hunting down and destroying + early photographs. There was in the arrangement of her hair and in the + details of her toilet—as well as in her giving way to her tendency + to fat—that carelessness that so many women allow themselves, once + they are safely married to a man they care for. + </p> + <p> + “Curious,” thought I, “that being married to him should make her feel + secure enough of him to let herself go, although her instinct is warning + her all the time that she isn't in the least sure of him. Her laziness + must be stronger than her love—her laziness or her vanity.” + </p> + <p> + While I was thus sizing her up, she was reluctantly leaving. She didn't + even give me the courtesy of a bow—whether from self-absorption or + from haughtiness I don't know; probably from both. She was a Western + woman, and when those Western women do become perverts to New York's + gospel of snobbishness, they are the worst snobs in the push. Langdon, + regardless of my presence, looked after her with a faintly amused, faintly + contemptuous expression that—well, it didn't fit in with <i>my</i> + notion of what constitutes a gentleman. In fact, I didn't know which of + them had come off the worse in that brief encounter in my presence. It was + my first glimpse of a fashionable behind-the-scenes, and it made a + profound impression upon me—an impression that has grown deeper as I + have learned how much of the typical there was in it. Dirt looks worse in + the midst of finery than where one naturally expects to find it—looks + worse, and is worse. + </p> + <p> + When we were seated again, Langdon, after a few reflective puffs at his + cigarette, said: “So you're about to marry?” + </p> + <p> + “I hope so,” said I. “But as I haven't asked her yet, I can't be quite + sure.” For obvious reasons I wasn't so enamored of the idea of matrimony + as I had been a few minutes before. + </p> + <p> + “I trust you're making a sensible marriage,” said he. “If the part that + may be glamour should by chance rub clean away, there ought to be + something to make one feel he wasn't wholly an ass.” + </p> + <p> + “Very sensible,” I replied with emphasis. “I want the woman. I need her.” + </p> + <p> + He inspected the coal of his cigarette, lifting his eyebrows at it. + Presently he said: “And she?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know how she feels about it—as I told you,” I replied + curtly. In spite of myself, my eyes shifted and my skin began to burn. “By + the way, Langdon, what's the name of your architect?” + </p> + <p> + “Wilder and Marcy,” said he. “They're fairly satisfactory, if you tell 'em + exactly what you want and watch 'em all the time. They're perfectly + conventional and so can't distinguish between originality that's artistic + and originality that's only bizarre. They're like most people—they + keep to the beaten track and fight tooth and nail against being drawn out + of it and against those who do go out of it.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll have a talk with Marcy this very day,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, you're in a hurry!” He laughed. “And you haven't asked her. You + remind me of that Greek philosopher who was in love with Lais. They asked + him: 'But does she love you?' And he said: 'One does not inquire of the + fish one likes whether it likes one.'” + </p> + <p> + I flushed. “You'll pardon me, Langdon,” said I, “but I don't like that. It + isn't my attitude at all toward—the right sort of women.” + </p> + <p> + He looked half-quizzical, half-apologetic. “Ah, to be sure,” said he. “I + forgot you weren't a married man.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't think I'll ever lose the belief that there's a quality in a good + woman for a man to—to respect and look up to.” + </p> + <p> + “I envy you,” said he, but his eyes were mocking still. I saw he was a + little disdainful of my rebuking <i>him</i>—and angry at me, too. + </p> + <p> + “Woman's a subject of conversation that men ought to avoid,” said I easily—for, + having set myself right, I felt I could afford to smooth him down. + </p> + <p> + “Well, good-by—good luck—or, if I may be permitted to say it + to one so touchy, the kind of luck you're bent on having, whether it's + good or bad.” + </p> + <p> + “If my luck ain't good, I'll make it good,” said I with a laugh. + </p> + <p> + And so I left him, with a look in his eyes that came back to me long + afterward when I realized the full meaning of that apparently almost + commonplace interview. + </p> + <p> + That same day I began to plunge on Textile, watching the market closely, + that I might go more slowly should there be signs of a dangerous break—for + no more than Langdon did I want a sudden panicky slump. The price held + steady, however; but I, fool that I was, certain the fall must come, + plunged on, digging the pit for my own destruction deeper and deeper. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X. TWO “PILLARS OF SOCIETY” + </h2> + <p> + I was neither seeing nor hearing from the Ellerslys, father or son; but, + as I knew why, I was not disquieted. I had made them temporarily easy in + their finances just before that dinner, and they, being fatuous, incurable + optimists, were probably imagining they would never need me again. I did + not disturb them until Monson and I had got my education so well under way + that even I, always severe in self-criticism and now merciless, was + compelled to admit to myself a distinct change for the better. You know + how it is with a boy at the “growing age”—how he bursts out of + clothes and ideas of life almost as fast as they are supplied him, so + swiftly is he transforming into a man. Well, I think it is much that way + with us Americans all our lives; we continue on and on at the growing age. + And if one of us puts his or her mind hard upon growth in some particular + direction, you see almost overnight a development fledged to the last + tail-feathers and tip of top-knot where there was nothing at all. What + miracles can be wrought by an open mind and a keen sense of the cumulative + power of the unwasted minute! All this apropos of a very trivial matter, + you may be thinking. But, be careful how you judge what is trivial and + what important in a universe built up of atoms. + </p> + <p> + However—When my education seemed far enough advanced, I sent for + Sam. He, after his footless fashion, didn't bother to acknowledge my note. + His margin account with me was at the moment straight; I turned to his + father. I had my cashier send him a formal, type-written letter signed + Blacklock & Co., informing him that his account was overdrawn and that + we “would be obliged if he would give the matter his immediate attention.” + The note must have reached him the following morning; but he did not come + until, after waiting three days, “we” sent him a sharp demand for a check + for the balance due us. + </p> + <p> + A pleasing, aristocratic-looking figure he made as he entered my office, + with his air of the man whose hands have never known the stains of toil, + with his manner of having always received deferential treatment. There was + no pretense in my curt greeting, my tone of “despatch your business, sir, + and be gone”; for I was both busy and much irritated against him. “I guess + you want to see our cashier,” said I, after giving him a hasty, + absent-minded hand-shake. “My boy out there will take you to him.” + </p> + <p> + The old do-nothing's face lost its confident, condescending expression. + His lip quivered, and I think there were tears in his bad, dim, gray-green + eyes. I suppose he thought his a profoundly pathetic case; no doubt he + hadn't the remotest conception what he really was—and no doubt, + also, there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that + he was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight + inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when + suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon + themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get a + sympathy that is withheld from those of the honest human rank and file + falling into far more real misfortunes not of their own making. + </p> + <p> + “No, my dear Blacklock,” said he, cringing now as easily as he had + condescended—how to cringe and how to condescend are taught at the + same school, the one he had gone to all his life. “It is you I want to + talk with. And, first, I owe you my apologies. I know you'll make + allowances for one who was never trained to business methods. I've always + been like a child in those matters.” + </p> + <p> + “You frighten me,” said I. “The last 'gentleman' who came throwing me off + my guard with that plea was shrewd enough to get away with a very large + sum of my hard-earned money. Besides”—and I was laughing, though not + too good-naturedly—“I've noticed that you 'gentlemen' become vague + about business only when the balance is against you. When it's in your + favor, you manage to get your minds on business long enough to collect to + the last fraction of a cent.” + </p> + <p> + He heartily echoed my laugh. “I only wish I <i>were</i> clever,” said he. + “However, I've come to ask your indulgence. I'd have been here before, but + those who owe me have been putting me off. And they're of the sort of + people whom it's impossible to press.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to accommodate you further,” said I, shedding that last little + hint as a cliff sheds rain, “but your account has been in an + unsatisfactory state for nearly a month now.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure you'll give me a few days longer,” was his easy reply, as if we + were discussing a trifle. “By the way, you haven't been to see us yet. + Only this morning my wife was wondering when you'd come. You quite + captivated her, Blacklock. Can't you dine with us to-morrow night—no, + Sunday—at eight? We're having in a few people I think you'd like to + meet.” + </p> + <p> + If any one imagines that this bald, businesslike way of putting it set my + teeth on edge, let him dismiss the idea; my nerves had been too long + accustomed to the feel of the harsh facts of life. It is evidence of the + shrewdness of the old fellow at character-reading that he wasted none of + his silk and velvet pretenses upon me, and so saved his time and mine. + Probably he wished me to see that I need have no timidity or false shame + in dealing with him, that when the time came to talk business I was free + to talk it in my own straight fashion. + </p> + <p> + “Glad to come,” said I, wishing to be rid of him, now that my point was + gained. “We'll let the account stand open for the present—I rather + think your stocks are going up. Give my regards to—the ladies, + please, especially to Miss Anita.” + </p> + <p> + He winced, but thanked me graciously; gave me his soft, fine hand to shake + and departed, as eager to be off as I to be rid of him. “Sunday next—at + eight,” were his last words. “Don't fail us”—that in the tone of a + king addressing some obscure person whom he had commanded to court. It may + be that old Ellersly was wholly unconscious of his superciliousness, + fancied he was treating me as if I were almost an equal; but I suspect he + rather accentuated his natural manner, with the idea of impressing upon me + that in our deal he was giving at least as much as I. + </p> + <p> + I recall that I thought about him for several minutes after he was gone—philosophized + on the folly of a man's deliberately weaving a net to entangle himself. As + if any man was ever caught in any net not of his own weaving and setting; + as if I myself were not just then working at the last row of meshes of a + net in which I was to ensnare myself. + </p> + <p> + My petty and inevitable success with that helpless creature added + amazingly, ludicrously, to that dangerous elation which, as I can now see, + had been growing in me ever since the day Roebuck yielded so readily to my + demands as to National Coal. The whole trouble with me was that up to that + time I had won all my victories by the plainest kind of straightaway hard + work. I was imagining myself victor in contests of wit against wit, when, + in fact, no one with any especial equipment of brains had ever opposed me; + all the really strong men had been helping me because they found me + useful. Too easy success—there is the clue to the wild folly of my + performances in those days, a folly that seems utterly inconsistent with + the reputation for shrewdness I had, and seemed to have earned. + </p> + <p> + I can find a certain small amount of legitimate excuse for my falling + under Langdon's spell. He had, and has, fascinations, through personal + magnetism, which it is hardly in human nature to resist. But for my + self-hypnotism in the case of Roebuck, I find no excuse whatever for + myself. + </p> + <p> + He sent for me and told me what share in National Coal they had decided to + give me for my Manasquale mines. “Langdon and Melville,” said he, “think + me too liberal; far too liberal, my boy. But I insisted—in your case + I felt we could afford to be generous as well as just.” All this with an + air that was a combination of the pastor and the parent. + </p> + <p> + I can't even offer the excuse of not having seen that he was a hypocrite. + I felt his hypocrisy at once, and my first impulse was to jump for my + breastworks. But instantly my vanity got behind me, held me in the open, + pushed me on toward him. If you will notice, almost all “confidence” games + rely for success chiefly upon enlisting a man's vanity to play the traitor + to his judgment. So, instead of reading his liberality as plain proof of + intended treachery, I read it as plain proof of my own greatness, and of + the fear it had inspired in old Roebuck. Laugh <i>with</i> me if you like; + but, before you laugh <i>at</i> me, think carefully—those of you who + have ever put yourselves to the test on the field of action—think + carefully whether you have never found that your head decoration which you + thought a crown was in reality the peaked and belled cap of the fool. + </p> + <p> + But my vanity was not done with me. Led on by it, I proceeded to have one + of those ridiculous “generous impulses”—I persuaded myself that + there must be some decency in this liberality, in addition to the prudence + which I flattered myself was the chief cause. “I have been unjust to + Roebuck,” I thought. “I have been misjudging his character.” And + incredible though it seems, I said to him with a good deal of genuine + emotion: “I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Roebuck. And, instead of + trying, I want to apologize to you. I have thought many hard things + against you; have spoken some of them. I had better have been attending to + my own conscience, instead of criticizing yours.” + </p> + <p> + I had often thought his face about the most repulsive, hypocrisy-glozed + concourse of evil passions that ever fronted a fiend in the flesh. It had + seemed to me the fitting result of a long career which, according to + common report, was stained with murder, with rapacity and heartless + cruelty, with the most brutal secret sensuality, and which had left in its + wake the ruins of lives and hearts and fortunes innumerable. I had looked + on the vast wealth he had heaped mountain high as a monument to + devil-daring—other men had, no doubt, dreamed of doing the ferocious + things he had done, but their weak, human hearts failed when it came to + executing such horrible acts, and they had to be content with smaller + fortunes, with the comparatively small fruits of their comparatively small + infamies. He had dared all, had won; the most powerful bowed with quaking + knees before him, and trembled lest they might, by a blundering look or + word, excite his anger and cause him to snatch their possessions from + them. + </p> + <p> + Thus I had regarded him, accepting the universal judgment, believing the + thousand and one stories. But as his eyes, softened by his hugely generous + act, beamed upon me now, I was amazed that I had so misjudged him. In that + face which I had thought frightful there was, to my hypnotized gaze, the + look of strong, sincere—yes, holy—beauty and power—the + look of an archangel. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, Blacklock,” said he, in a voice that made me feel as if I were + a little boy in the crossroads church, believing I could almost see the + angels floating above the heads of the singers in the choir behind the + preacher. “Thank you. I am not surprised that you have misjudged me. God + has given me a great work to do, and those who do His will in this wicked + world must expect martyrdom. I should never have had the courage to do + what I have done, what He has done through me, had He not guided my every + step. You are not a religious man?” + </p> + <p> + “I try to do what's square,” said I. “But I'd prefer not to talk about + it.” + </p> + <p> + “That's right! That's right!” he approved earnestly. “A man's religion is + a matter between himself and his God. But I hope, Matthew, you will never + forget that, unless you have daily, hourly communion with Almighty God, + you will never be able to bear the great burdens, to do the great work + fearlessly, disregarding the lies of the wicked, and, hardest of all to + endure, the honestly-mistaken judgments of honest men.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll look into it,” said I. And I don't know to what lengths of foolish + speech I should have gone had I not been saved by an office boy + interrupting with a card for him. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, here's Walters now,” said he. Then to the boy: “Bring him in when I + ring.” + </p> + <p> + I rose to go. + </p> + <p> + “No, sit down, Blacklock,” he insisted. “You are in with us now, and you + may learn something by seeing how I deal with the larger problems that + face men in these large undertakings, the problems that have faced me in + each new enterprise I have inaugurated to the glory of God.” + </p> + <p> + Naturally, I accepted with enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + You would not believe what a mood I had by this time been worked into by + my rampant and raging vanity and emotionalism and by his snake-like + charming. “Thank you,” I said, with an energetic warmth that must have + secretly amused him mightily. + </p> + <p> + “When my reorganization of the iron industry proved such a great success, + and God rewarded my labors with large returns,” he went on, “I looked + about me to see what new work He wished me to undertake, how He wished me + to invest His profits. And I saw the coal industry and the coal-carrying + railroads in confusion, with waste on every side, and godless competition. + Thousands of widows and orphans who had invested in coal railways and + mines were getting no returns. Labor was fitfully employed, owing to + alternations of over-production and no production at all. I saw my work + ready for my hand. And now we are bringing order out of chaos. This man + Walters, useful up to a certain point, has become insolent, corrupt, a + stumbling-block in our way.” Here he pressed the button of his electric + bell. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI. WHEN A MAN IS NOT A MAN + </h2> + <p> + Walters entered. He was one of the great railway presidents, was + universally regarded as a power, though I, of course, knew that he, like + so many other presidents of railways, of individual corporations, of + banks, of insurance companies, and high political officials in cities, + states and the nation, was little more than a figurehead put up and used + by the inside financial ring. As he shifted from leg to leg, holding his + hat and trying to steady his twitching upper lip, he looked as one of his + smallest section-bosses would have looked, if called up for a wigging. + </p> + <p> + Roebuck shook hands cordially with him, responded to his nervous glance at + me with: + </p> + <p> + “Blacklock is practically in our directory.” We all sat, then Roebuck + began in his kindliest tone: + </p> + <p> + “We have decided, Walters, that we must give your place to a stronger man. + Your gross receipts, outside of coal, have fallen rapidly and steadily for + the past three quarters. You were put into the presidency to bring them + up. They have shown no change beyond what might have been expected in the + natural fluctuations of freight. We calculated on resuming dividends a + year ago. We have barely been able to meet the interest on our bonds.” + </p> + <p> + “But, Mr. Roebuck,” pleaded Walters, “you doubled the bonded indebtedness + of the road just before I took charge.” + </p> + <p> + “The money went into improvements, into increasing your facilities, did it + not?” inquired Roebuck, his paw as soft as a playful tiger's. + </p> + <p> + “Part of it,” said Walters. “But you remember the reorganizing syndicate + got five millions, and then the contracts for the new work had to be given + to construction companies in which directors of the road were silent + partners. Then they are interested in the supply companies from which I + must buy. You know what all that means, Mr. Roebuck.” + </p> + <p> + “No doubt,” said Roebuck, still smooth and soft. “But if there was waste, + you should have reported—” + </p> + <p> + “To whom?” demanded Walters. “Every one of our directors, including + yourself, Mr. Roebuck, is a stock-holder—a large stock-holder—in + one or more of those companies.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you proof of this, Walters?” asked Roebuck, looking profoundly + shocked. “It's a very grave charge—a criminal charge.” + </p> + <p> + “Proof?” said Walters, “You know how that is. The real books of all big + companies are kept in the memories of the directors—and mighty + treacherous memories they are.” This with a nervous laugh. “As for the + holdings of directors in construction and supply companies—most of + those holdings are in other names—all of them are disguised where + the connection is direct.” + </p> + <p> + Roebuck shook his head sadly. “You admit, then, that you have allowed + millions of the road's money to be wasted, that you made no complaint, no + effort to stop the waste; and your only defense is that you <i>suspect</i> + the directors of fraud. And you accuse them to excuse yourself—accuse + them with no proof. Were you in any of those companies, Walters?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, his eyes shifting. + </p> + <p> + Roebuck's face grew stern. “You bought two hundred thousand dollars of the + last issue of government bonds, they tell me, with your two years' profits + from the Western Railway Construction Company.” + </p> + <p> + “I bought no bonds,” blustered Walters. “What money I have I made out of + speculating in the stock of my road—on legitimate inside + information.” + </p> + <p> + “Your uncle in Wilkesbarre, I meant,” pursued Roebuck. + </p> + <p> + Walters reddened, looked straight at Roebuck without speaking. + </p> + <p> + “Do you still deny?” demanded Roebuck. + </p> + <p> + “I saw everybody—<i>everybody</i>—grafting,” said Walters + boldly, “and I thought I might as well take my share. It's part of the + business.” Then he added cynically: “That's the way it is nowadays. The + lower ones see the higher ones raking off, and they rake off, too—down + to conductors and brakemen. We caught some trackwalkers in a conspiracy to + dispose of the discarded ties and rails the other day.” He laughed. “We + jailed <i>them</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “If you can show that any director has taken anything that did not belong + to him, if you can show that a single contract you let to a construction + or a supply company—except, of course, the contracts you let to + yourself—of them I know nothing, suspect much—if you can show + one instance of these criminal doings, Mr. Walters, I shall back you up + with all my power in prosecution.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course I can't show it,” cried Walters. “If I tried, wouldn't they + ruin and disgrace me, perhaps send me to the penitentiary? Wasn't I the + one that passed on and signed their contracts? And wouldn't they—wouldn't + you, Mr. Roebuck—have fired me if I had refused to sign?” + </p> + <p> + “Excuses, excuses, Walters,” was Roebuck's answer, with a sad, + disappointed look, as if he had hoped Walters would make a brighter + showing for himself. “How many times have you yourself talked to me of + this eternal excuse habit of men who fail? And if I expended my limited + brain-power in looking into all the excuses and explanations, what energy + or time would I have for constructive work? All I can do is to select a + man for a position and to judge him by results. You were put in charge to + produce dividends. You haven't produced them. I'm sorry, and I venture to + hope that things are not so bad as you make out in your eagerness to + excuse yourself. For the sake of old times, Tom, I ignore your angry + insinuations against me. I try to be just, and to be just one must always + be impersonal.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Walters with an air of desperation, “give me another year, + Mr. Roebuck, and I'll produce results all right. I'll break the agreements + and cut rates. I'll freeze out the branch roads and our minority + stock-holders, I'll keep the books so that all the expert accountants in + New York couldn't untangle them. I'll wink at and commit and order + committed all the necessary crimes. I don't know why I've been so + squeamish, when there were so many penitentiary offenses that I did + consent to, and, for that matter, commit, without a quiver. I thought I + ought to draw the line somewhere—and I drew it at keeping my + personal word and at keeping the books reasonably straight. But I'll go + the limit.” + </p> + <p> + I'll never forget Roebuck's expression; it was perfect, simply perfect—a + great and good man outraged beyond endurance, but a Christian still. “You + have made it impossible for me to temper justice with mercy, Walters,” + said he. “If it were not for the long years of association, for the + affection for you which has grown up in me, I should hand you over to the + fate you have earned. You tell me you have been committing crimes in my + service. You tell me you will commit more and greater crimes. I can + scarcely believe my own ears.” + </p> + <p> + Walters laughed scornfully—the reckless laugh of a man who suddenly + sees that he is cornered and must fight for his life. “Rot!” he jeered. + “Rot! You always have been a wonder at juggling with your conscience. But + do you expect me to believe you think yourself innocent because you do not + yourself execute the orders you issue—orders that can be carried out + only by committing crimes?” Walters was now beside himself with rage. He + gave the reins to that high horse he had been riding ever since he was + promoted to the presidency of the great coal road. He began to lay on whip + and spur. “Do you think,” he cried to Roebuck, “the blood of those five + hundred men drowned in the Pequot mine is not on <i>your</i> hands—<i>your</i> + head? You, who ordered John Wilkinson to suppress the competition the + Pequot was giving you, ordered him in such a way that he knew the + alternative was his own ruin? He shot himself—yet he had as good an + excuse as you, for he, too, passed on the order until it got to the poor + fireman—that wretched fellow they sent to the penitentiary for life? + And as sure as there is a God in Heaven, you will some day do a long, long + sentence in whatever hell there is, for letting that wretch rot in prison—yes, + and for John Wilkinson's suicide, and for the lives of those five hundred + drowned. Your pensions to the widows and orphans can't save you.” + </p> + <p> + I listened to this tirade astounded. Used as I was to men losing their + heads through vanity, I could not credit my own ears and eyes when they + reported to me this insane exhibition. I looked at Roebuck. He was wearing + an expression of beatific patience; he would have made a fine study for a + picture of the martyr at the stake. + </p> + <p> + “I forgive you, Tom,” he said, when Walters stopped for breath. “Your own + sinful heart makes you see the black of sin upon everything. I had heard + that you were going about making loud boasts of your power over your + employers, but I tried not to believe it. I see now that you have, indeed, + lost your senses. Your prosperity has been too much for your good sense.” + He sighed mournfully. “I shall not interfere to prevent your getting a + position elsewhere,” he continued. “But after what you have confessed, + after your slanders, how can I put you back in your old place out West, as + I intended? How can I continue the interest in you and care for your + career that I have had, in spite of all your shortcomings? I who raised + you up from a clerk.” + </p> + <p> + “Raised me up as you fellows always raise men up—because you find + them clever at doing your dirty work. I was a decent, honest fellow when + you first took notice of me and tempted me. But, by God, Mr. Roebuck, if + I've sold out beyond hope of living decent again, I'll have my price—to + the last cent. You've got to leave me where I am or give me a place and + salary equally as good.” This Walters said blusteringly, but beneath I + could detect the beginnings of a whine. + </p> + <p> + “You are angry, Tom,” said Roebuck soothingly. “I have hurt your vanity—it + is one of the heaviest crosses I have to bear, that I must be continually + hurting the vanity of men. Go away and—and calm down. Think the + situation over coolly; then come and apologize to me, and I will do what I + can to help you. As for your threats—when you are calm, you will see + how idle they are.” + </p> + <p> + Walters gave a sort of groan; and though I, blinded by my prejudices in + favor of Roebuck and of the crowd with whom my interests lay, had been + feeling that he was an impudent and crazy ingrate, I pitied him. + </p> + <p> + “What proofs have I got?” he said desperately. “If I show up the things I + know about, I show up myself, and everybody will say I'm lying about you + and the others in the effort to save myself. The newspapers would denounce + me as a treacherous liar—you fellows own or control or foozle them + in one way and another. And if I was believed, who'd prosecute you and + what court'd condemn you? Don't you own both political parties and make + all the tickets, and can't you ruin any office-holders who lifted a finger + against you? What a hell of a state of affairs!” + </p> + <p> + A swifter or a weaker descent I never witnessed. My pity changed to + contempt. “This fellow, with his great reputation,” thought I, “is a fool + and a knave, and a weak one at that.” + </p> + <p> + “Go away now, Tom,” said Roebuck. + </p> + <p> + “When you're master of yourself again, come to see me.” + </p> + <p> + “Master of myself!” cried Walters bitterly. “Who that's got anything to + lose is master of himself in this country?” With shoulders sagging and a + sort of stumble in his gait, he went toward the door. He paused there to + say: “I've served too long, Mr. Roebuck. There's no fight in me. I thought + there was, but there ain't. Do the best you can for me.” And he took + himself out of our sight. + </p> + <p> + You will wonder how I was ever able to blind myself to the reality of this + frightful scene. But please remember that in this world every thought and + every act is a mixture of the good and the bad; and the one or the other + shows the more prominently according to one's point of view. There + probably isn't a criminal in any cell, anywhere, no matter what he may say + in sniveling pretense in the hope of lighter sentence, who doesn't at the + bottom of his heart believe his crime or crimes somehow justifiable—and + who couldn't make out a plausible case for himself. + </p> + <p> + At that time I was stuffed with the arrogance of my fancied membership in + the caste of directing financial geniuses; I was looking at everything + from the viewpoint of the brotherhood of which Roebuck was the strongest + brother, and of which I imagined myself a full and equal member. I did + not, I could not, blind myself to the vivid reminders of his + relentlessness; but I knew too well how necessary the iron hand and the + fixed purpose are to great affairs to judge him as infuriated Walters, + with his vanity savagely wounded, was judging him. I'd as soon have + thought of describing General Grant as a murderer, because he ordered the + battles in which men were killed or because he planned and led the + campaigns in which subordinates committed rapine and pillage and + assassination. I did not then see the radical difference—did not + realize that while Grant's work was at the command of patriotism and + necessity, there was no necessity whatever for Roebuck's getting rich but + the command of his own greedy and cruel appetites. + </p> + <p> + Don't misunderstand me. My morals are practical, not theoretical. Men must + die, old customs embodied in law must be broken, the venal must be bribed + and the weak cowed and compelled, in order that civilization may advance. + You can't establish a railway or a great industrial system by rose-water + morality. But I shall show, before I finish, that Roebuck and his gang of + so-called “organizers of industry” bear about the same relation to + industry that the boll weevil bears to the cotton crop. + </p> + <p> + I'll withdraw this, if any one can show me that, as the result of the + activities of those parasites, anybody anywhere is using or is able to use + a single pound or bushel or yard more of any commodity whatsoever. I'll + withdraw it, if I can not show that but for those parasites, bearing + precisely the same relation to our society that the kings and nobles and + priests bore to France before the Revolution, everybody except them would + have more goods and more money than they have under the system that + enables these parasites to overshadow the highways of commerce with their + strongholds and to clog them with their toll-gates. They know little about + producing, about manufacturing, about distributing, about any process of + industry. Their skill is in temptation, in trickery and in terror. + </p> + <p> + On that day, however, I sided—honestly, as I thought—with + Roebuck. What I saw and heard increased my admiration of the man, my + already profound respect for his master mind. And when, just after Walters + went out, he leaned back in his chair and sat silent with closed eyes and + moving lips, I—yes, I, Matt Blacklock, “Black Matt,” as they call me—was + awed in the presence of this great and good man at prayer! + </p> + <p> + How he and that God of his must have laughed at me! So infatuated was I + that, clear as it is that he'd never have let me be present at such a + scene without a strong ulterior motive, not until he himself long + afterward made it impossible for me to deceive myself did I penetrate to + his real purpose—that he wished to fill me with a prudent dread and + fear of him, with a sense of the absoluteness of his power and of the + hopelessness of trying to combat it. But at the time I thought—imbecile + that my vanity had made me—at the time I thought he had let me be + present because he genuinely liked, admired and trusted me! + </p> + <p> + Is it not amazing that one who could fall into such colossal blunders + should survive to tell of them? I would not have survived had not Roebuck + and his crowd been at the same time making an even more colossal + misestimate of me than I was making of them. My attack of vanity was + violent, but temporary; theirs was equally violent, and chronic and + incurable to boot. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII. ANITA + </h2> + <p> + On my first day in long trousers I may have been more ill at ease than I + was that Sunday evening at the Ellerslys'; but I doubt it. + </p> + <p> + When I came into their big drawing-room and took a look round at the + assembled guests, I never felt more at home in my life. “Yes,” said I to + myself, as Mrs. Ellersly was greeting me and as I noted the friendly + interest in the glances of the women, “this is where I belong. I'm + beginning to come into my own.” + </p> + <p> + As I look back on it now, I can't refrain from smiling at my own + simplicity—and snobbishness. For, so determined was I to believe + what I was working for was worth while, that I actually fancied there were + upon these in reality ordinary people, ordinary in looks, ordinary in + intelligence, some subtle marks of superiority, that made them at a glance + superior to the common run. This ecstasy of snobbishness deluded me as to + the women only—for, as I looked at the men, I at once felt myself + their superior. They were an inconsequential, patterned lot. I even was + better dressed than any of them, except possibly Mowbray Langdon; and, if + he showed to more advantage than I, it was because of his manner, which, + as I have probably said before, is superior to that of any human being + I've ever seen—man or woman. + </p> + <p> + “You are to take Anita in,” said Mrs. Ellersly. With a laughable sense + that I was doing myself proud, I crossed the room easily and took my stand + in front of her. She shook hands with me politely enough. Langdon was + sitting beside her; I had interrupted their conversation. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, Blacklock!” said Langdon, with a quizzical, satirical smile with + the eyes only. “It seems strange to see you at such peaceful pursuits.” + His glance traveled over me critically—and that was the beginning of + my trouble. Presently, he rose, left me alone with her. + </p> + <p> + “You know Mr. Langdon?” she said, obviously because she felt she must say + something. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes,” I replied. “We are old friends. What a tremendous swell he is—really + a swell.” This with enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + She made no comment. I debated with myself whether to go on talking of + Langdon. I decided against it because all I knew of him had to do with + matters down town—and Monson had impressed it upon me that down town + was taboo in the drawing-room. I rummaged my brain in vain for another and + suitable topic. + </p> + <p> + She sat, and I stood—she tranquil and beautiful and cold, I every + instant more miserably self-conscious. When the start for the dining-room + was made I offered her my left arm, though I had carefully planned + beforehand just what I would do. She—without hesitation and, as I + know now, out of sympathy for me in my suffering—was taking my wrong + arm, when it flashed on me like a blinding blow in the face that I ought + to be on the other side of her. I got red, tripped in the far-sprawling + train of Mrs. Langdon, tore it slightly, tried to get to the other side of + Miss Ellersly by walking in front of her, recovered myself somehow, + stumbled round behind her, walked on her train and finally arrived at her + left side, conscious in every red-hot atom of me that I was making a + spectacle of myself and that the whole company was enjoying it. I must + have seemed to them an ignorant boor; in fact, I had been about a great + deal among people who knew how to behave, and had I never given the matter + of how to conduct myself on that particular occasion an instant's thought, + I should have got on without the least trouble. + </p> + <p> + It was with a sigh of profound relief that I sank upon the chair between + Miss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon, safe from danger of making “breaks,” so I + hoped, for the rest of the evening. But within a very few minutes I + realized that my little misadventure had unnerved me. My hands were + trembling so that I could scarcely lift the soup spoon to my lips, and my + throat had got so far beyond control that I had difficulty in swallowing. + Miss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon were each busy with the man on the other + side of her; I was left to my own reflections, and I was not sure whether + this made me more or less uncomfortable. To add to my torment, I grew + angry, furiously angry, with myself. I looked up and down and across the + big table noted all these self-satisfied people perfectly at their ease; + and I said to myself: “What's the matter with you, Matt? They're only men + and women, and by no means the best specimens of the breed. You've got + more brains than all of 'em put together, probably; is there one of the + lot that could get a job at good wages if thrown on the world? What do you + care what they think of you? It's a damn sight more important what you + think of them; as it won't be many years before you'll hold everything + they value, everything that makes them of consequence, in the hollow of + your hand.” + </p> + <p> + But it was of no use. When Miss Ellersly finally turned her face toward me + to indicate that she would be graciously pleased to listen if I had + anything to communicate, I felt as if I were slowly wilting, felt my + throat contracting into a dry twist. What was the matter with me? Partly, + of course, my own snobbishness, which led me to attach the same importance + to those people that the snobbishness of the small and silly had got them + in the way of attaching to themselves. But the chief cause of my inability + was Monson and his lessons. I had thought I was estimating at its proper + value what he was teaching. But so earnest and serious am I by nature, and + so earnest and serious was he about those trivialities that he had been + brought up to regard as the whole of life, that I had unconsciously + absorbed his attitude; I was like a fellow who, after cramming hard for an + examination, finds that all the questions put to him are on things he + hasn't looked at. I had been making an ass of myself, and that evening I + got the first instalment of my sound and just punishment. I who had prided + myself on being ready for anything or anybody, I who had laughed + contemptuously when I read how men and women, presented at European + courts, made fools of themselves—I was made ridiculous by these + people who, as I well know, had nothing to back their pretensions to + superiority but a barefaced bluff. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps, had I thought this out at the table, I should have got back to + myself and my normal ease; but I didn't, and that long and terrible dinner + was one long and terrible agony of stage fright. When the ladies withdrew, + the other men drew together, talking of people I did not know and of + things I did not care about—I thought then that they were avoiding + me deliberately as a flock of tame ducks avoids a wild one that some wind + has accidentally blown down among them. I know now that my forbidding + aspect must have been responsible for my isolations, However, I sat alone, + sullenly resisting old Ellersly's constrained efforts to get me into the + conversation, and angrily suspicious that Langdon was enjoying my + discomfiture more than the cigarette he was apparently absorbed in. + </p> + <p> + Old Ellersly, growing more and more nervous before my dark and sullen + look, finally seated himself beside me. “I hope you'll stay after the + others have gone,” said he. “They'll leave early, and we can have a quiet + smoke and talk.” + </p> + <p> + All unstrung though I was, I yet had the desperate courage to resolve that + I'd not leave, defeated in the eyes of the one person whose opinion I + really cared about. “Very well,” said I, in reply to him. + </p> + <p> + He and I did not follow the others to the drawing-room, but turned into + the library adjoining. From where I seated myself I could see part of the + drawing-room—saw the others leaving, saw Langdon lingering, ignoring + the impatient glances of his wife, while he talked on and on with Miss + Ellersly. Her face was full toward me; she was not aware that I was + looking at her, I am sure, for she did not once lift her eyes. As I sat + studying her, everything else was crowded out of my mind. She was indeed + wonderful—too wonderful and fine and fragile, it seemed to me at + that moment, for one so plain and rough as I. “Incredible,” thought I, + “that she is the child of such a pair as Ellersly and his wife—but + again, has she any less in common with them than she'd have with any other + pair of human creatures?” Her slender white arms, her slender white + shoulders, the bloom on her skin, the graceful, careless way her hair grew + round her forehead and at the nape of her neck, the rather haughty + expression of her small face softened into sweetness and even tenderness, + now that she was talking at her ease with one whom she regarded as of her + own kind—“but he isn't!” I protested to myself. “Langdon—none + of these men—none of these women, is fit to associate with her. They + can't appreciate her. She belongs to me who can.” And I had a mad impulse + then and there to seize her and bear her away—home—to the home + she could make for me out of what I would shower upon her. + </p> + <p> + At last Langdon rose. It irritated me to see her color under that + indifferent fascinating smile of his. It irritated me to note that he held + her hand all the time he was saying good-by, and the fact that he held it + as if he'd as lief not be holding it hardly lessened my longing to rush in + and knock him down. What he did was all in the way of perfect good + manners, and would have jarred no one not supersensitive, like me—and + like his wife. I saw that she, too, was frowning. She looked beautiful + that evening, in spite of her too great breadth for her height—her + stoutness was not altogether a defect when she was wearing evening dress. + While she seemed friendly and smiling to Miss Ellersly, I saw, whether + others saw it or not, that she quivered with apprehension at his mildly + flirtatious ways. He acted toward any and every attractive woman as if he + were free and were regarding her as a possibility, and didn't mind if she + flattered herself that he regarded her as a probability. + </p> + <p> + In an aimless sort of way Miss Ellersly, after the Langdons had + disappeared, left the drawing-room by the same door. Still aimlessly + wandering, she drifted into the library by the hall door. As I rose, she + lifted her eyes, saw me, and drove away the frown of annoyance which came + over her face like the faintest haze. In fact, it may have existed only in + my imagination. She opened a large, square silver box on the table, took + out a cigarette, lighted it and holding it, with the smoke lazily curling + up from it, between the long slender first and second fingers of her white + hand, stood idly turning the leaves of a magazine. I threw my cigar into + the fireplace. The slight sound as it struck made her jump, and I saw + that, underneath her surface of perfect calm, she was in a nervous state + full as tense as my own. + </p> + <p> + “You smoke?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes,” she replied. “It is soothing and distracting. I don't know + how it is with others, but when I smoke, my mind is quite empty.” + </p> + <p> + “It's a nasty habit—smoking,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think so?” said she, with the slightest lift to her tone and her + eyebrows. + </p> + <p> + “Especially for a woman,” I went on, because I could think of nothing else + to say, and would not, at any cost, let this conversation, so hard to + begin, die out. + </p> + <p> + “You are one of those men who have one code for themselves and another for + women,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + “I'm a man,” said I. “All men have the two codes.” + </p> + <p> + “Not all,” said she after a pause. + </p> + <p> + “All men of decent ideas,” said I with emphasis. + </p> + <p> + “Really?” said she, in a tone that irritated me by suggesting that what I + said was both absurd and unimportant. + </p> + <p> + “It is the first time I've ever seen a respectable woman smoke,” I went + on, powerless to change the subject, though conscious I was getting + tedious. “I've read of such things, but I didn't believe.” + </p> + <p> + “That is interesting,” said she, her tone suggesting the reverse. + </p> + <p> + “I've offended you by saying frankly what I think,” said I. “Of course, + it's none of my business.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, no,” replied she carelessly. “I'm not in the least offended. + Prejudices always interest me.” + </p> + <p> + I saw Ellersly and his wife sitting in the drawing-room, pretending to + talk to each other. I understood that they were leaving me alone with her + deliberately, and I began to suspect she was in the plot. I smiled, and my + courage and self-possession returned as summarily as they had fled. + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad of this chance to get better acquainted with you,” said I. “I've + wanted it ever since I first saw you.” + </p> + <p> + As I put this to her directly, she dropped her eyes and murmured something + she probably wished me to think vaguely pleasant. + </p> + <p> + “You are the first woman I ever knew,” I went on, “with whom it was hard + for me to get on any sort of terms. I suppose it's my fault. I don't know + this game yet. But I'll learn it, if you'll be a little patient; and when + I do, I think I'll be able to keep up my end.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me—just looked. I couldn't begin to guess what was + going on in that gracefully-poised head of hers. + </p> + <p> + “Will you try to be friends with me?” said I with directness. + </p> + <p> + She continued to look at me in that same steady, puzzling way. + </p> + <p> + “Will you?” I repeated. + </p> + <p> + “I have no choice,” said she slowly. + </p> + <p> + I flushed. “What does that mean?” I demanded. + </p> + <p> + She threw a hurried and, it seemed to me, frightened glance toward the + drawing-room. “I didn't intend to offend you,” she said in a low voice. + “You have been such a good friend to papa—I've no right to feel + anything but friendship for you.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad to hear you say that,” said I. And I was; for those words of + hers were the first expression of appreciation and gratitude I had ever + got from any member of that family which I was holding up from ruin. I put + out my hand, and she laid hers in it. + </p> + <p> + “There isn't anything I wouldn't do to earn your friendship, Miss Anita,” + I said, holding her hand tightly, feeling how lifeless it was, yet + feeling, too, as if a flaming torch were being borne through me, were + lighting a fire in every vein. + </p> + <p> + The scarlet poured into her face and neck, wave on wave, until I thought + it would never cease to come. She snatched her hand away and from her face + streamed proud resentment. God, how I loved her at that moment! + </p> + <p> + “Anita! Mr. Blacklock!” came from the other room, in her mother's voice. + “Come in here and save us old people from boring each other to sleep.” + </p> + <p> + She turned swiftly and went into the other room, I following. There were a + few minutes of conversation—a monologue by her mother. Then I ceased + to disregard Ellersly's less and less covert yawns, and rose to take + leave. I could not look directly at Anita, but I was seeing that her eyes + were fixed on me, as if by some compulsion, some sinister compulsion. I + left in high spirits. “No matter why or how she looks at you,” said I to + myself. “All that is necessary is to get yourself noticed. After that, the + rest is easy. You must keep cool enough always to remember that under this + glamour that intoxicates you, she's a woman, just a woman, waiting for a + man.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII. “UNTIL TO-MORROW” + </h2> + <p> + On the following Tuesday afternoon, toward five o'clock, I descended from + my apartment on my way to my brougham. In the entrance hall I met Monson + coming in. + </p> + <p> + “Hello, you!” said he. “Slipping away to get married?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I'm only making a call,” replied I, taking alarm instantly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, is <i>that</i> all?” said he with a sly grin. “It must be a mighty + serious matter.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm in no hurry,” said I. “Come up with me for a few minutes.” + </p> + <p> + As soon as we were alone in my sitting-room, I demanded: “What's wrong + with me?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing—not a thing,” was his answer, in a tone I had a struggle + with myself not to resent. “I've never seen any one quite so grand—top + hat, latest style, long coat ditto, white buckskin waistcoat, + twenty-thousand-dollar pearl in pale blue scarf, white spats, spotless + varnish boots just from the varnishers, cream-colored gloves. You <i>will</i> + make a hit! My eye, I'll bet she won't be able to resist you.” + </p> + <p> + I began to shed my plumage. “I thought this was the thing when you're + calling on people you hardly know.” + </p> + <p> + “I should say you'd have to know 'em uncommon well to give 'em such a + treat. Rather!” + </p> + <p> + “What shall I wear?” I asked. “You certainly told me the other day that + this was proper.” + </p> + <p> + “Proper—so it is—too damn proper,” was his answer. “That'd be + all right for a bridegroom or a best man or an usher—or perhaps for + a wedding guest. It wouldn't do any particular harm even to call in it, if + the people were used to you. But—” + </p> + <p> + “I look dressed up?” + </p> + <p> + “Like a fashion plate—like a tailor—like a society actor.” + </p> + <p> + “What shall I wear?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, just throw yourself together any old way. Business suit's good + enough.” + </p> + <p> + “But I barely know these people—socially. I never called there,” I + objected. + </p> + <p> + “Then don't call,” he advised. “Send your valet in a cab to leave a card + at the door. Calling has gone clean out—unless a man's got something + very especial in mind. Never show that you're eager. Keep your hand hid.” + </p> + <p> + “They'd know I had something especial in mind if I called?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly, and if you'd gone in those togs, they'd have assumed you had + come to—to ask the old man for his daughter—or something like + that.” + </p> + <p> + I lost no time in getting back into a business suit. + </p> + <p> + A week passed and, just as I was within sight of my limit of patience, + Bromwell Ellersly appeared at my office. “I can't put my hand on the + necessary cash, Mr. Blacklock—at least, not for a few days. Can I + count on your further indulgence?” This in his best exhibit of + old-fashioned courtliness—the “gentleman” through and through, + ignorant of anything useful. + </p> + <p> + “Don't let that matter worry you, Ellersly,” said I, friendly, for I + wanted to be on a somewhat less business-like basis with that family. “The + market's steady, and will go up before it goes down.” + </p> + <p> + “Good!” said he. “By the way, you haven't kept your promise to call.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm a busy man,” said I. “You must make my excuses to your wife. But—in + the evenings. Couldn't we get up a little theater-party—Mrs. + Ellersly and your daughter and you and I—Sam, too, if he cares to + come?” + </p> + <p> + “Delightful!” cried he. + </p> + <p> + “Whichever one of the next five evenings you say,” I said. “Let me know by + to-morrow morning, will you?” And we talked no more of the neglected + margins; we understood each other. When he left he had negotiated a three + months' loan of twenty thousand dollars. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + They were so surprised that they couldn't conceal it, when they were + ushered into my apartment on the Wednesday evening they had fixed upon. If + my taste in dress was somewhat too pronounced, my taste in my surroundings + was not. I suppose the same instinct that made me like the music and the + pictures and the books that were the products of superior minds had guided + me right in architecture, decoration and furniture. I know I am one of + those who are born with the instinct for the best. Once Monson got in the + way of free criticism, he indulged himself without stint, after the + customary human fashion; in fact, so free did he become that had I not + feared to frighten him and so bring about the defeat of my purposes, I + should have sat on him hard very soon after we made our bargain. As it + was, I stood his worst impudences without flinching, and partly consoled + myself with the amusement I got out of watching his vanity lead him on + into thinking his knowledge the most vital matter in the world—just + as you sometimes see a waiter or a clerk with the air of sharing the care + of the universe with the Almighty. + </p> + <p> + But even Monson could find nothing to criticize either in my apartment or + in my country house. And, by the way, he showed his limitations by + remarking, after he had inspected: “I must say, Blacklock, your architects + and decorators have done well by you.” As if a man's surroundings were not + the unfailing index to himself, no matter how much money he spends or how + good architects and the like he hires. As if a man could ever buy good + taste. + </p> + <p> + I was pleased out of all proportion to its value by what Ellersly and his + wife looked and said. But, though I watched Miss Ellersly closely, though + I tried to draw from her some comment on my belongings—on my + pictures, on my superb tapestries, on the beautiful carving of my + furniture—I got nothing from her beyond that first look of surprise + and pleasure. Her face resumed its statuelike calm, her eyes did not + wander; her lips, like a crimson bow painted upon her clear, white skin, + remained closed. She spoke only when she was spoken to, and then as + briefly as possible. The dinner—and a mighty good dinner it was—would + have been memorable for strain and silence had not Mrs. Ellersly kept up + her incessant chatter. I can't recall a word she said, but I admired her + for being able to talk at all. I knew she was in the same state as the + rest of us, yet she acted perfectly at her ease; and not until I thought + it over afterward did I realize that she had done all the talking, except + answers to her occasional and cleverly-sprinkled direct questions. + </p> + <p> + Ellersly sat opposite me, and I was irritated, and thrown into confusion, + too, every time I lifted my eyes, by the crushed, criminal expression of + his face. He ate and drank hugely—and extremely bad manners it would + have been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted such + quantities at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony he + managed somehow to maintain that hang-dog air—like a thief who has + gone through the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with + the sack of plunder beside him, to gorge himself. + </p> + <p> + I looked at Anita several times, each time with a carefully-framed remark + ready; each time I found her gaze on me—and I could say nothing, + could only look away in a sort of panic. Her eyes were strangely variable. + I have seen them of a gray, so pale that it was almost silver—like + the steely light of the snow-line at the edge of the horizon; again, and + they were so that evening, they shone with the deepest, softest blue, and + made one think, as one looked at her, of a fresh violet frozen in a block + of clear ice. + </p> + <p> + I sat behind her in the box at the theater. During the first and second + intermissions several men dropped in to speak to her mother and her—fellows + who didn't ever come down town, but I could tell they knew who I was by + the way they ignored me. It exasperated me to a pitch of fury, that coldly + insolent air of theirs—a jerky nod at me without so much as a + glance, and no notice of me when they were leaving <i>my</i> box beyond a + faint, supercilious smile as they passed with eyes straight ahead. I knew + what it meant, what they were thinking—that the “Bucket-Shop King,” + as the newspapers had dubbed me, was trying to use old Ellersly's + necessities as a “jimmy” and “break into society.” When the curtain went + down for the last intermission, two young men appeared; I did not get up + as I had before, but stuck to my seat—I had reached that point at + which courtesy has become cowardice. + </p> + <p> + They craned and strained at her round me and over me, presently gave up + and retired, disguising their anger as contempt for the bad manners of a + bounder. But that disturbed me not a ripple, the more as I was delighting + in a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with these + young men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant and + only politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice might + thicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about women to know + that, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, + she is also the most constant. “Once she thaws toward me!” I said to + myself. + </p> + <p> + When the young men had gone, I leaned forward until my head was close to + hers, to her hair—fine, soft, abundant, electric hair. Like the + infatuated fool that I was, I tore out all the pigeon-holes of my brain in + search of something to say to her, something that would start her to + thinking well of me. She must have felt my breath upon her neck, for she + moved away slightly, and it seemed to me a shiver visibly passed over that + wonderful white skin of hers. + </p> + <p> + I drew back and involuntarily said, “Beg pardon.” I glanced at her mother + and it was my turn to shudder. I can't hope to give an accurate impression + of that stony, mercenary, mean face. There are looks that paint upon the + human countenance the whole of a life, as a flash of lightning paints upon + the blackness of the night miles on miles of landscape. That look of Mrs. + Ellersly's—stern disapproval at her daughter, stern command that she + be more civil, that she unbend—showed me the old woman's soul. And I + say that no old harpy presiding over a dive is more full of the venom of + the hideous calculations of the market for flesh and blood than is a woman + whose life is wrapped up in wealth and show. + </p> + <p> + “If you wish it,” I said, on impulse, to Miss Ellersly in a low voice, “I + shall never try to see you again.” + </p> + <p> + I could feel rather than see the blood suddenly beating in her skin, and + there was in her voice a nervousness very like fright as she answered: + “I'm sure mama and I shall be glad to see you whenever you come.” + </p> + <p> + “You?” I persisted. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, after a brief hesitation. + </p> + <p> + “Glad?” I persisted. + </p> + <p> + She smiled—the faintest change in the perfect curve of her lips. + “You are very persistent, aren't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Very,” I answered. “That is why I have always got whatever I wanted.” + </p> + <p> + “I admire it,” said she. + </p> + <p> + “No, you don't,” I replied. “You think it is vulgar, and you think I am + vulgar because I have that quality—that and some others.” + </p> + <p> + She did not contradict me. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I <i>am</i> vulgar—from your standpoint,” I went on. “I have + purposes and passions. And I pursue them. For instance, you.” + </p> + <p> + “I?” she said tranquilly. + </p> + <p> + “You,” I repeated. “I made up my mind the first day I saw you that I'd + make you like me. And—you will.” + </p> + <p> + “That is very flattering,” said she. “And a little terrifying. For”—she + faltered, then went bravely on—“I suppose there isn't anything you'd + stop at in order to gain your end.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” said I, and I compelled her to meet my gaze. + </p> + <p> + She drew a long breath, and I thought there was a sob in it—like a + frightened child. + </p> + <p> + “But I repeat,” I went on, “that if you wish it, I shall never try to see + you again. Do you wish it?” + </p> + <p> + “I—don't—know,” she answered slowly. “I think—not.” + </p> + <p> + As she spoke the last word, she lifted her eyes to mine with a look of + forced friendliness in them that I'd rather not have seen there. I wished + to be blind to her defects, to the stains and smutches with which her + surroundings must have sullied her. And that friendly look seemed to me an + unmistakable hypocrisy in obedience to her mother. However, it had the + effect of bringing her nearer to my own earthy level, of putting me at + ease with her; and for the few remaining minutes we talked freely, I + indifferent whether my manners and conversation were correct. As I helped + her into their carriage, I pressed her arm slightly, and said in a voice + for her only, “Until to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV. FRESH AIR IN A GREENHOUSE + </h2> + <p> + At five the next day I rang the Ellerslys' bell, was taken through the + drawing-room into that same library. The curtains over the double doorway + between the two rooms were almost drawn. She presently entered from the + hall. I admired the picture she made in the doorway—her big hat, her + embroidered dress of white cloth, and that small, sweet, cold face of + hers. And as I looked, I knew that nothing, nothing—no, not even her + wish, her command—could stop me from trying to make her my own. That + resolve must have shown in my face—it or the passion that inspired + it—for she paused and paled. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” I asked. “Are you afraid of me?” + </p> + <p> + She came forward proudly, a fine scorn in her eyes. “No,” she said. “But + if you knew, you might be afraid of me.” + </p> + <p> + “I am,” I confessed. “I am afraid of you because you inspire in me a + feeling that is beyond my control. I've committed many follies in my life—I + have moods in which it amuses me to defy fate. But those follies have + always been of my own willing. You”—I laughed—“you are a folly + for me. But one that compels me.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled—not discouragingly—and seated herself on a tiny + sofa in the corner, a curiously impregnable intrenchment, as I noted—for + my impulse was to carry her by storm. I was astonished at my own audacity; + I was wondering where my fear of her had gone, my awe of her superior + fineness and breeding. “Mama will be down in a few minutes,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't come to see your mother,” replied I. “I came to see you.” + </p> + <p> + She flushed, then froze—and I thought I had once more “got upon” her + nerves with my rude directness. How eagerly sensitive our nerves are to + bad impressions of one we don't like, and how coarsely insensible to bad + impressions of one we do like! + </p> + <p> + “I see I've offended again, as usual,” said I. “You attach so much + importance to petty little dancing-master tricks and caperings. You live—always + have lived—in an artificial atmosphere. Real things act on you like + fresh air on a hothouse flower.” + </p> + <p> + “You are—fresh air?” she inquired, with laughing sarcasm. + </p> + <p> + “I am that,” retorted I. “And good for you—as you'll find when you + get used to me.” + </p> + <p> + I heard voices in the next room—her mother's and some man's. We + waited until it was evident we were not to be disturbed. As I realized + that fact and surmised its meaning, I looked triumphantly at her. She drew + further back into her corner, and the almost stern firmness of her contour + told me she had set her teeth. + </p> + <p> + “I see you are nerving yourself,” said I with a laugh. “You are perfectly + certain I am going to propose to you.” + </p> + <p> + She flamed scarlet and half-started up. + </p> + <p> + “Your mother—in the next room—expects it, too,” I went on, + laughing even more disagreeably. “Your parents need money—they have + decided to sell you, their only large income-producing asset. And I am + willing to buy. What do you say?” + </p> + <p> + I was blocking her way out of the room. She was standing, her breath + coming fast, her eyes blazing. “You are—<i>frightful</i>!” she + exclaimed in a low voice. + </p> + <p> + “Because I am frank, because I am honest? Because I want to put things on + a sound basis? I suppose, if I came lying and pretending, and let you lie + and pretend, and let your parents and Sam lie and pretend, you would find + me—almost tolerable. Well, I'm not that kind. When there's no + especial reason one way or the other, I'm willing to smirk and grimace and + dodder and drivel, like the rest of your friends, those ladies and + gentlemen. But when there's business to be transacted, I am business-like. + Let's not begin with your thinking you are deceiving me, and so hating me + and despising me and trying to keep up the deception. Let's begin right.” + </p> + <p> + She was listening; she was no longer longing to fly from the room; she was + curious. I knew I had scored. + </p> + <p> + “In any event,” I continued, “you would have married for money. You've + been brought up to it, like all these girls of your set. You'd be + miserable without luxury. If you had your choice between love without + luxury and luxury without love, it'd be as easy to foretell which you'd do + as to foretell how a starving poet would choose between a loaf of bread + and a volume of poems. You may love love; but you love life—your + kind of life—better!” + </p> + <p> + She lowered her head. “It is true,” she said. “It is low and vile, but it + is true.” + </p> + <p> + “Your parents need money—” I began. + </p> + <p> + She stopped me with a gesture. “Don't blame them,” she pleaded. “I am more + guilty than they.” + </p> + <p> + I was proud of her as she made that confession. “You have the making of a + real woman in you,” said I. “I should have wanted you even if you hadn't. + But what I now see makes what I thought a folly of mine look more like + wisdom.” + </p> + <p> + “I must warn you,” she said, and now she was looking directly at me, “I + shall never love you.” + </p> + <p> + “Never is a long time,” replied I. “I'm old enough to be cynical about + prophecy.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall never love you,” she repeated. “For many reasons you wouldn't + understand. For one you will understand.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand the 'many reasons' you say are beyond me,” said I. “For, + dear young lady, under this coarse exterior I assure you there's hidden a + rather sharp outlook on human nature—and—well, nerves that + respond to the faintest changes in you as do mine can't be altogether + without sensitiveness. What's the other reason—<i>the</i> reason? + That you think you love some one else?” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you for saying it for me,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + You can't imagine how pleased I was at having earned her gratitude, even + in so little a matter. “I have thought of that,” said I. “It is of no + consequence.” + </p> + <p> + “But you don't understand,” she pleaded earnestly. + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary, I understand perfectly,” I assured her. “And the reason + I am not disturbed is—you are here, you are not with him.” + </p> + <p> + She lowered her head so that I had no view of her face. + </p> + <p> + “You and he do not marry,” I went on, “because you are both poor?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + “Because he does not care for you?” + </p> + <p> + “No—not that,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Because you thought he hadn't enough for two?” + </p> + <p> + A long pause, then—very faintly: “No—not that.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it must be because he hasn't as much money as he'd like, and must + find a girl who'll bring him—what he <i>most</i> wants.” + </p> + <p> + She was silent. + </p> + <p> + “That is, while he loves you dearly, he loves money more. And he's willing + to see you go to another man, be the wife of another man, be—everything + to another man.” I laughed. “I'll take my chances against love of that + sort.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't understand,” she murmured. “You don't realize—there are + many things that mean nothing to you and that mean—oh, so much to + people brought up as we are.” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense!” said I. “What do you mean by 'we'? Nature has been bringing us + up for a thousand thousand years. A few years of silly false training + doesn't undo her work. If you and he had cared for each other, you + wouldn't be here, apologizing for his selfish vanity.” + </p> + <p> + “No matter about him,” she cried impatiently, lifting her head haughtily. + “The point is, I love him—and always shall. I warn you.” + </p> + <p> + “And I take you at my own risk?” + </p> + <p> + Her look answered “Yes!” + </p> + <p> + “Well,”—and I took her hand—“then, we are engaged.” + </p> + <p> + Her whole body grew tense, and her hand chilled as it lay in mine. “Don't—please + don't,” I said gently. “I'm not so bad as all that. If you will be as + generous with me as I shall be with you, neither of us will ever regret + this.” + </p> + <p> + There were tears on her cheeks as I slowly released her hand. + </p> + <p> + “I shall ask nothing of you that you are not ready freely to give,” I + said. + </p> + <p> + Impulsively she stood and put out her hand, and the eyes she lifted to + mine were shining and friendly. I caught her in my arms and kissed her—not + once but many times. And it was not until the chill of her ice-like face + had cooled me that I released her, drew back red and ashamed and + stammering apologies. But her impulse of friendliness had been killed; she + once more, as I saw only too plainly, felt for me that sense of repulsion, + felt for herself that sense of self-degradation. + </p> + <p> + “I <i>can not</i> marry you!” she muttered. + </p> + <p> + “You can—and will—and must,” I cried, infuriated by her look. + </p> + <p> + There was a long silence. I could easily guess what was being fought out + in her mind. At last she slowly drew herself up. “I can not refuse,” she + said, and her eyes sparkled with defiance that had hate in it. “You have + the power to compel me. Use it, like the brute you refuse to let me forget + that you are.” She looked so young, so beautiful, so angry—and so + tempting. + </p> + <p> + “So I shall!” I answered. “Children have to be taught what is good for + them. Call in your mother, and we'll tell her the news.” + </p> + <p> + Instead, she went into the next room. I followed, saw Mrs. Ellersly seated + at the tea-table in the corner farthest from the library where her + daughter and I had been negotiating. She was reading a letter, holding her + lorgnon up to her painted eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Won't you give us tea, mother?” said Anita, on her surface not a trace of + the cyclone that must still have been raging hi her. + </p> + <p> + “Congratulate me, Mrs. Ellersly,” said I. “Your daughter has consented to + marry me.” + </p> + <p> + Instead of speaking, Mrs. Ellersly began to cry—real tears. And for + a moment I thought there was a real heart inside of her somewhere. But + when she spoke, that delusion vanished. + </p> + <p> + “You must forgive me, Mr. Blacklock,” she said in her hard, smooth, + politic voice. “It is the shock of realizing I'm about to lose my + daughter.” And I knew that her tears were from joy and relief—Anita + had “come up to the scratch;” the hideous menace of “genteel poverty” had + been averted. + </p> + <p> + “Do give us tea, mama,” said Anita. Her cold, sarcastic tone cut my nerves + and her mother's like a razor blade. I looked sharply at her, and wondered + whether I was not making a bargain vastly different from that my passion + was picturing. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV. SOME STRANGE LAPSES OF A LOVER + </h2> + <p> + But before there was time for me to get a distinct impression, that ugly + shape of cynicism had disappeared. + </p> + <p> + “It was a shadow I myself cast upon her,” I assured myself; and once more + she seemed to me like a clear, calm lake of melted snow from the + mountains. “I can see to the pure white sand of the very bottom,” thought + I. Mystery there was, but only the mystery of wonder at the apparition of + such beauty and purity in such a world as mine. True, from time to time, + there showed at the surface or vaguely outlined in the depths, forms + strangely out of place in those unsullied waters. But I either refused to + see or refused to trust my senses. I had a fixed ideal of what a woman + should be; this girl embodied that ideal. + </p> + <p> + “If you'd only give up your cigarettes,” I remember saying to her when we + were a little better acquainted, “you'd be perfect.” + </p> + <p> + She made an impatient gesture. “Don't!” she commanded almost angrily. “You + make me feel like a hypocrite. You tempt me to be a hypocrite. Why not be + content with woman as she is—a human being? And—how could I—any + woman not an idiot—be alive for twenty-five years without learning—a + thing or two? Why should any man want it?” + </p> + <p> + “Because to know is to be spattered and stained,” said I. “I get enough of + people who know, down-town. Up-town—I want a change of air. Of + course, you think you know the world, but you haven't the remotest + conception of what it's really like. Sometimes when I'm with you, I begin + to feel mean and—and unclean. And the feeling grows on me until it's + all I can do to restrain myself from rushing away.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me critically. + </p> + <p> + “You've never had much to do with women, have you?” she finally said + slowly in a musing tone. + </p> + <p> + “I wish that were true—almost,” replied I, on my mettle as a man, + and resisting not without effort the impulse to make some vague + “confessions”—boastings disguised as penitential admissions—after + the customary masculine fashion. + </p> + <p> + She smiled—and one of those disquieting shapes seemed to me to be + floating lazily and repellently downward, out of sight. “A man and a woman + can be a great deal to each other, I believe,” said she; “can be—married, + and all that—and remain as strange to each other as if they had + never met—more hopelessly strangers.” + </p> + <p> + “There's always a sort of mystery,” I conceded. “I suppose that's one of + the things that keep married people interested.” + </p> + <p> + She shrugged her shoulders—she was in evening dress, I recall, and + there was on her white skin that intense, transparent, bluish tinge one + sees on the new snow when the sun comes out. + </p> + <p> + “Mystery!” she said impatiently. “There's no mystery except what we + ourselves make. It's useless—perfectly useless,” she went on + absently. “You're the sort of man who, if a woman cared for him, or even + showed friendship for him by being frank and human and natural with him, + he'd punish her for it by—by despising her.” + </p> + <p> + I smiled, much as one smiles at the efforts of a precocious child to prove + that it is a Methuselah in experience. + </p> + <p> + “If you weren't like an angel in comparison with the others I've known,” + said I, “do you suppose I could care for you as I do?” + </p> + <p> + I saw my remark irritated her, and I fancied it was her vanity that was + offended by my disbelief in her knowledge of life. I hadn't a suspicion + that I had hurt and alienated her by slamming in her very face the door of + friendship and frankness her honesty was forcing her to try to open for + me. + </p> + <p> + In my stupidity of imagining her not human like the other women and the + men I had known, but a creature apart and in a class apart, I stood day + after day gaping at that very door, and wondering how I could open it, how + penetrate even to the courtyard of that vestal citadel. So long as my + old-fashioned belief that good women were more than human and bad women + less than human had influenced me only to a sharper lookout in dealing + with the one species of woman I then came in contact with, no harm to me + resulted, but on the contrary good—whoever got into trouble through + walking the world with sword and sword arm free? But when, under the spell + of Anita Ellersly, I dragged the “superhuman goodness” part of my theory + down out of the clouds and made it my guardian and guide—really, + it's a miracle that I escaped from the pit into which that lunacy pitched + me headlong. I was not content with idealizing only her; I went on to + seeing good, and only good, in everybody! The millennium was at hand; all + Wall Street was my friend; whatever I wanted would happen. And when + Roebuck, with an air like a benediction from a bishop backed by a + cathedral organ and full choir, gave me the tip to buy coal stocks, I + canonized him on the spot. Never did a Jersey “jay” in Sunday clothes and + tallowed boots respond to a bunco steerer's greeting with a gladder smile + than mine to that pious old past-master of craft. + </p> + <p> + I will say, in justice to myself, though it is also in excuse, that if I + had known him intimately a few years earlier, I should have found it all + but impossible to fool myself. For he had not long been in a position + where he could keep wholly detached from the crimes committed for his + benefit and by his order, and where he could disclaim responsibility and + even knowledge. The great lawyers of the country have been most ingenious + in developing corporate law in the direction of making the corporation a + complete and secure shield between the beneficiary of a crime and its + consequences; but before a great financier can use this shield perfectly, + he must build up a system—he must find lieutenants with the + necessary coolness, courage and cunning; he must teach them to understand + his hints; he must educate them, not to point out to him the disagreeable + things involved in his orders, but to execute unquestioningly, to efface + completely the trail between him and them, whether or not they succeed in + covering the roundabout and faint trail between themselves and the tools + that nominally commit the crimes. + </p> + <p> + As nearly as I can get at it, when Roebuck was luring me into National + Coal he had not for nine years been open to attack, but had so far hedged + himself in that, had his closest lieutenants been trapped and frightened + into “squealing,” he would not have been involved; without fear of + exposure and with a clear conscience he could—and would!—have + joined in the denunciation of the man who had been caught, and could—and + would!—have helped send him to the penitentiary or to the scaffold. + With the security of an honest man and the serenity of a Christian he + planned his colossal thefts and reaped their benefits; and whenever he was + accused, he could have explained everything, could have got his accuser's + sympathy and admiration. I say, could have explained; but he would not. + Early in his career, he had learned the first principle of successful + crime—silence. No matter what the provocation or the seeming + advantage, he uttered only a few generous general phrases, such as “those + misguided men,” or “the Master teaches us to bear with meekness the + calumnies of the wicked,” or “let him that is without sin cast the first + stone.” As to the crime itself—silence, and the dividends. + </p> + <p> + A great man, Roebuck! I doff my hat to him. Of all the dealers in stolen + goods under police protection, who so shrewd as he? + </p> + <p> + Wilmot was the instrument he employed to put the coal industry into + condition for “reorganization.” He bought control of one of the coal + railroads and made Wilmot president of it. Wilmot, taught by twenty years + of his service, knew what was expected of him, and proceeded to do it. He + put in a “loyal” general freight agent who also needed no instructions, + but busied himself at destroying his own and all the other coal roads by a + system of secret rebates and rate cuttings. As the other roads, one by + one, descended toward bankruptcy, Roebuck bought the comparatively small + blocks of stock necessary to give him control of them. When he had power + over enough of them to establish a partial monopoly of transportation in + and out of the coal districts, he was ready for his lieutenant to attack + the mining properties. Probably his orders to Wilmot were nothing more + definite or less innocent than: “Wilmot, my boy, don't you think you and I + and some others of our friends ought to buy some of those mines, if they + come on the market at a fair price? Let me know when you hear of any + attractive investments of that sort.” + </p> + <p> + That would have been quite enough to “tip it off” to Wilmot that the time + had come for reaching out from control of railway to control of mine. He + lost no time; he easily forced one mining property after another into a + position where its owners were glad—were eager—to sell all or + part of the wreck of it “at a fair price” to him and Roebuck and “our + friends.” It was as the result of one of these moves that the great + Manasquale mines were so hemmed in by ruinous freight rates, by strike + troubles, by floods from broken machinery and mysteriously leaky dams, + that I was able to buy them “at a fair price”—that is, at less than + one-fifth their value. But at the time—and for a long time afterward—I + did not know, on my honor did not suspect, what was the cause, the sole + cause, of the change of the coal region from a place of peaceful industry, + content with fair profits, to an industrial chaos with ruin impending. + </p> + <p> + Once the railways and mining companies were all on the verge of + bankruptcy, Roebuck and his “friends” were ready to buy, here control for + purposes of speculation, there ownership for purposes of permanent + investment. This is what is known as the reorganizing stage. The processes + of high finance are very simple—first, buy the comparatively small + holdings necessary to create confusion and disaster; second, create + confusion and disaster, buying up more and more wreckage; third, + reorganize; fourth, offer the new stocks and bonds to the public with a + mighty blare of trumpets which produces a boom market; fifth, unload on + the public, pass dividends, issue unfavorable statements, depress prices, + buy back cheap what you have sold dear. Repeat ad infinitum, for the law + is for the laughter of the strong, and the public is an eager ass. To keep + up the fiction of “respectability,” the inside ring divides into two + parties for its campaigns—one party to break down, the other to + build up. One takes the profits from destruction and departs, perhaps to + construct elsewhere; the other takes the profits from construction and + departs, perhaps to destroy elsewhere. As their collusion is merely tacit, + no conscience need twitch. I must add that, at the time of which I am + writing, I did not realize the existence of this conspiracy. I knew, of + course, that many lawless and savage things were done, that there were + rascals among the high financiers, and that almost all financiers now and + then did things that were more or less rascally; but I did not know, did + not suspect, that high finance was through and through brigandage, and + that the high financier, by long and unmolested practice of brigandage, + had come to look on it as legitimate, lawful business, and on laws + forbidding or hampering it as outrageous, socialistic, anarchistic, + “attacks upon the social order!” + </p> + <p> + I was sufficiently infected with the spirit of the financier, I frankly + confess, to look on the public as a sort of cow to milk and send out to + grass that it might get itself ready to be driven in and milked again. + Does not the cow produce milk not for her own use but for the use of him + who looks after her, provides her with pasturage and shelter and saves her + from the calamities in which her lack of foresight and of other + intelligence would involve her, were she not looked after? And is not the + fact that the public—beg pardon, the cow—meekly and even + cheerfully submits to the milking proof that God intended her to be the + servant of the Roebucks—beg pardon again, of man? + </p> + <p> + Plausible, isn't it? + </p> + <p> + Roebuck had given me the impression that it would be six months, at least, + before what I was in those fatuous days thinking of as “<i>our</i>” plan + for “putting the coal industry on a sound business basis” would be ready + for the public. So, when he sent for me shortly after I became engaged to + Miss Ellersly, and said: “Melville will publish the plan on the first of + next month and will open the subscription books on the third—a + Thursday,” I was taken by surprise and was anything but pleased. His words + meant that, if I wished to make a great fortune, now was the time to buy + coal stocks, and buy heavily—for on the very day of the publication + of the plan every coal stock would surely soar. Buy I must; not to buy was + to throw away a fortune. Yet how could I buy when I was gambling in + Textile up to my limit of safety, if not beyond? + </p> + <p> + I did not dare confess to Roebuck what I was doing in Textile. He was + bitterly opposed to stock gambling, denouncing it as both immoral and + unbusinesslike. No gambling for him! When his business sagacity and + foresight(?) informed him a certain stock was going to be worth a great + deal more than it was then quoted at, he would buy outright in large + quantities; when that same sagacity and foresight of the fellow who has + himself marked the cards warned him that a stock was about to fall, he + sold outright. But gamble—never! And I felt that, if he should learn + that I had staked a large part of my entire fortune on a single gambling + operation, he would straightway cut me off from his confidence, would look + on me as too deeply tainted by my long career as a “bucket-shop” man to be + worthy of full rank and power as a financier. Financiers do not gamble. + Their only vice is grand larceny. + </p> + <p> + All this was flashing through my mind while I was thanking him. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad to have such a long forewarning,” I was saying. “Can I be of + use to you? You know my machinery is perfect—I can buy anything and + in any quantity without starting rumors and drawing the crowd.” + </p> + <p> + “No thank you, Matthew,” was his answer. “I have all of those stocks I + wish—at present.” + </p> + <p> + Whether it is peculiar to me, I don't know—probably not—but my + memory is so constituted that it takes an indelible and complete + impression of whatever is sent to it by my eyes and ears; and just as by + looking closely you can find in a photographic plate a hundred details + that escape your glance, so on those memory plates of mine I often find + long afterward many and many a detail that escaped me when my eyes and + ears were taking the impression. On my memory plate of that moment in my + interview with Roebuck, I find details so significant that my failing to + note them at the time shows how unfit I then was to guard my interests. + For instance, I find that just before he spoke those words declining my + assistance and implying that he had already increased his holdings, he + opened and closed his hands several times, finally closed and clinched + them—a sure sign of energetic nervous action, and in that particular + instance a sign of deception, because there was no energy in his remark + and no reason for energy. I am not superstitious, but I believe in + palmistry to a certain extent. Even more than the face are the hands a + sensitive recorder of what is passing in the mind. + </p> + <p> + But I was then too intent upon my dilemma carefully to study a man who had + already lulled me into absolute confidence in him. I left him as soon as + he would let me go. His last words were, “No gambling, Matthew! No abuse + of the opportunity God is giving us. Be content with the just profits from + investment. I have seen gamblers come and go, many of them able men—very + able men. But they have melted away, and where are they? And I have + remained and have increased, blessed be God who has saved me from the + temptations to try to reap where I had not sown! I feel that I can trust + you. You began as a speculator, but success has steadied you, and you have + put yourself on the firm ground where we see the solid men into whose + hands God has given the development of the abounding resources of this + beloved country of ours.” + </p> + <p> + Do you wonder that I went away with a heart full of shame for the gambling + projects my head was planning upon the information that good man had given + me? + </p> + <p> + I shut myself in my private office for several hours of hard thinking—as + I can now see, the first real attention I had given my business in two + months. It soon became clear enough that my Textile plunge was a folly; + but it was too late to retrace. The only question was, could and should I + assume additional burdens? I looked at the National Coal problem from + every standpoint—so I thought. And I could see no possible risk. Did + not Roebuck's statement make it certain as sunrise that, as soon as the + reorganization was announced, all coal stocks would rise? Yes, I should be + risking nothing; I could with absolute safety stake my credit; to make + contracts to buy coal stocks at present prices for future delivery was no + more of a gamble than depositing cash in the United States Treasury. + </p> + <p> + “You've gone back to gambling lately, Matt,” said I to myself. “You've + been on a bender, with your head afire. You must get out of this Textile + business as soon as possible. But it's good sound sense to plunge on the + coal stocks. In fact, your profits there would save you if by some + mischance Textile should rise instead of fall. Acting on Roebuck's tip + isn't gambling, it's insurance.” + </p> + <p> + I emerged to issue orders that soon threw into the National Coal venture + all I had not staked on a falling market for Textiles. I was not content—as + the pious gambling-hater, Roebuck, had begged me to be—with buying + only what stock I could pay for; I went plunging on, contracting for many + times the amount I could have bought outright. + </p> + <p> + The next time I saw Langdon I was full of enthusiasm for Roebuck. I can + see his smile as he listened. + </p> + <p> + “I had no idea you were an expert on the trumpets of praise, Blacklock,” + said he finally. “A very showy accomplishment,” he added, “but rather + dangerous, don't you think? The player may become enchanted by his own + music.” + </p> + <p> + “I try to look on the bright side of things.” said I, “even of human + nature.” + </p> + <p> + “Since when?” drawled he. + </p> + <p> + I laughed—a good, hearty laugh, for this shy reference to my affair + of the heart tickled me. I enjoyed to the full only in long retrospect the + look he gave me. + </p> + <p> + “As soon as a man falls in love,” said he, “trustees should be appointed + to take charge of his estate.” + </p> + <p> + “You're wrong there, old man,” I replied. “I've never worked harder or + with a clearer head than since I learned that there are”—I + hesitated, and ended lamely—“other things in life.” + </p> + <p> + Langdon's handsome face suddenly darkened, and I thought I saw in his eyes + a look of savage pain. “I envy you,” said he with an effort at his wonted + lightness and cynicism. But that look touched my heart; I talked no more + of my own happiness. To do so, I felt would be like bringing laughter into + the house of grief. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVI. TRAPPED AND TRIMMED + </h2> + <p> + There are two kinds of dangerous temptations—those that tempt us, + and those that don't. Those that don't, give us a false notion of our + resisting power, and so make us easy victims to the others. I thought I + knew myself pretty thoroughly, and I believed there was nothing that could + tempt me to neglect my business. With this delusion of my strength firmly + in mind, when Anita became a temptation to neglect business, I said to + myself: “To go up-town during business hours for long lunches, to spend + the mornings selecting flowers and presents for her—these things <i>look</i> + like neglect of business, and would be so in some men. But <i>I</i> + couldn't neglect business. I do them because my affairs are so well + ordered that a few hours of absence now and then make no difference—probably + send me back fresher and clearer.” + </p> + <p> + When I left the office at half-past twelve on that fateful Wednesday in + June, my business was never in better shape. Textile Common had dropped a + point and a quarter in two days—evidently it was at last on its way + slowly down toward where I could free myself and take profits. As for the + Coal enterprise nothing could possibly happen to disturb it; I was all + ready for the first of July announcement and boom. Never did I have a + lighter heart than when I joined Anita and her friends at Sherry's. It + seemed to me her friendliness was less perfunctory, less a matter of + appearances. And the sun was bright, the air delicious, my health perfect. + It took all the strength of all the straps Monson had put on my natural + spirits to keep me from being exuberant. + </p> + <p> + I had fully intended to be back at my office half an hour before the + Exchange closed—this in addition to the obvious precaution of + leaving orders that they were to telephone me if anything should occur + about which they had the least doubt. But so comfortable did my vanity + make me that I forgot to look at my watch until a quarter to three. I had + a momentary qualm; then, reassured, I asked Anita to take a walk with me. + Before we set out I telephoned my right-hand man and partner, Ball. As I + had thought, everything was quiet; the Exchange was closing with Textile + sluggish and down a quarter. Anita and I took a car to the park. + </p> + <p> + As we strolled about there, it seemed to me I was making more headway with + her than in all the times I had seen her since we became engaged. At each + meeting I had had to begin at the beginning once more, almost as if we had + never met; for I found that she had in the meanwhile taken on all, or + almost all, her original reserve. It was as if she forgot me the instant I + left her—not very flattering, that! + </p> + <p> + “You accuse me of refusing to get acquainted with you,” said I, “of + refusing to see that you're a different person from what I imagine. But + how about you? Why do you still stick to your first notion of me? Whatever + I am or am not, I'm not the person you condemned on sight.” + </p> + <p> + “You <i>have</i> changed,” she conceded. “The way you dress—and + sometimes the way you act. Or, is it because I'm getting used to you?” + </p> + <p> + “No—it's—” I began, but stopped there. Some day I would + confess about Monson, but not yet. Also, I hoped the change wasn't + altogether due to Monson and the dancing-master and my imitation of the + tricks of speech and manner of the people in her set. + </p> + <p> + She did not notice my abrupt halt. Indeed, I often caught her at not + listening to me. I saw that she wasn't listening now. + </p> + <p> + “You didn't hear what I said,” I accused somewhat sharply, for I was + irritated—as who would not have been? + </p> + <p> + She started, gave me that hurried, apologetic look that was bitterer to me + than the most savage insult would have been. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon,” she said. “We were talking of—of changes, + weren't we?” + </p> + <p> + “We were talking of <i>me</i>” I answered. “Of the subject that interests + you not at all.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me in a forlorn sort of way that softened my irritation with + sympathy. “I've told you how it is with me,” she said. “I do my best to + please you. I—” + </p> + <p> + “Damn your best!” I cried. “Don't try to please <i>me</i>. Be yourself. + I'm no slave-driver. I don't have to be conciliated. Can't you ever see + that I'm not your tyrant? Do I treat you as any other man would feel he + had the right to treat the girl who had engaged herself to him? Do I ever + thrust my feelings or wishes—or—longings on you? And do you + think repression easy for a man of my temperament?” + </p> + <p> + “You have been very good,” she said humbly. + </p> + <p> + “Don't you ever say that to me again,” I half commanded, half pleaded. “I + won't have you always putting me in the position of a kind and indulgent + master.” + </p> + <p> + She halted and faced me. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you want me, anyhow?” she cried. Then she noticed several loungers + on a bench staring at us and grinning; she flushed and walked on. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know,” said I. “Because I'm a fool, probably. My common sense + tells me I can't hope to break through that shell of self-complacence + you've been cased in by your family and your associates. Sometimes I think + I'm mistaken in you, think there isn't any real, human blood left in your + veins, that you're like the rest of them—a human body whose heart + and mind have been taken out and a machine substituted—a machine + that can say and do only a narrow little range of conventional things—like + one of those French dolls.” + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't blame me for that,” she said gently. “I realize it, too—and + I'm ashamed of it. But—if you could know how I've been educated. + They've treated me as the Flathead Indian women treat their babies—keep + their skulls in a press—isn't that it?—until their heads and + brains grow of the Flathead pattern. Only, somehow, in my case—the + process wasn't quite complete. And so, instead of being contented like the + other Flathead girls, I'm—almost a rebel, at times. I'm neither the + one thing nor the other—not natural and not Flathead, not enough + natural to grow away from Flathead, not enough Flathead to get rid of the + natural.” + </p> + <p> + “I take back what I said about not knowing why I—I want you, Anita,” + I said. “I do know why—and—well, as I told you before, you'll + never regret marrying me.” + </p> + <p> + “If you won't misunderstand me,” she answered, “I'll confess to you my + instinct has been telling me that, too. I'm not so bad as you must think. + I did bargain to sell myself, but I'd have thrown up the bargain if you + had been as—as you seemed at first.” For some reason—perhaps + it was her dress, or hat—she was looking particularly girlish that + day, and her skin was even more transparent than usual. “You're different + from the men I've been used to all my life,” she went on, and—smiling + in a friendly way—“you often give me a terrifying sense of your + being a—a wild man on his good behavior. But I've come to feel that + you're generous and unselfish and that you'll be kind to me—won't + you? And I must make a life for myself—I must—I must! Oh, I + can't explain to you, but—” She turned her little head toward me, + and I was looking into those eyes that the flowers were like. + </p> + <p> + I thought she meant her home life. “You needn't tell me,” I said, and I'll + have to confess my voice was anything but steady. “And, I repeat, you'll + never regret.” + </p> + <p> + She evidently feared that she had said too much, for she lapsed into + silence, and when I tried to resume the subject of ourselves, she answered + me with painful constraint. I respected her nervousness and soon began to + talk of things not so personal to us. Again, my mistake of treating her as + if she were marked “Fragile. Handle with care.” I know now that she, like + all women, had the plain, tough, durable human fibre under that exterior + of delicacy and fragility, and that my overconsideration caused her to + exaggerate to herself her own preposterous notions of her superior + fineness. We walked for an hour, talking—with less constraint and + more friendliness than ever before, and when I left her I, for the first + time, felt that I had left a good impression. + </p> + <p> + When I entered my offices, I, from force of habit, mechanically went + direct to the ticker—and dropped all in an instant from the pinnacle + of Heaven into a boiling inferno. For the ticker was just spelling out + these words: “Mowbray Langdon, president of the Textile Association, + sailed unexpectedly on the <i>Kaiser Wilhelm</i> at noon. A two per cent. + raise of the dividend rate of Textile Common, from the present four per + cent, to six, has been determined upon.” + </p> + <p> + And I had staked up to, perhaps beyond, my limit of safety that Textile + would fall! + </p> + <p> + Ball was watching narrowly for some sign that the news was as bad as he + feared. But it cost me no effort to keep my face expressionless; I was + like a man who has been killed by lightning and lies dead with the look on + his face that he had just before the bolt struck him. + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't you tell me this,” said I to Ball, “when I had you on the + 'phone?” My tone was quiet enough, but the very question ought to have + shown him that my brain was like a schooner in a cyclone. + </p> + <p> + “We heard it just after you rang off,” was his reply. “We've been trying + to get you ever since. I've gone everywhere after Textile stock. Very few + will sell, or even lend, and they ask—the best price was ten points + above to-day's closing. A strong tip's out that Textiles are to be + rocketed.” + </p> + <p> + Ten points up already—on the mere rumor! Already ten dollars to pay + on every share I was “short”—and I short more than two hundred + thousand! I felt the claws of the fiend Ruin sink into the flesh of my + shoulders. “Ball doesn't know how I'm fixed,” I remember I thought, “and + he mustn't know.” + </p> + <p> + I lit a cigar with a steady hand and waited for Joe's next words. + </p> + <p> + “I went to see Jenkins at once,” he went on. Jenkins was then first + vice-president of the Textile Trust. “He's all cut up because the news got + out—says Langdon and he were the only ones who knew, so he supposed—says + the announcement wasn't to have been made for a month—not till + Langdon returned. He has had to confirm it, though. That was the only way + to free his crowd from suspicion of intending to rig the market.” + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Have you seen the afternoon paper?” he asked. As he held it out to me, my + eye caught big Textile head-lines, then flashed to some others—something + about my going to marry Miss Ellersly. + </p> + <p> + “All right,” said I, and with the paper in my hand, went to my outside + office. I kept on toward my inner office, saying over my shoulder—to + the stenographer: “Don't let anybody interrupt me.” Behind the closed and + locked door my body ventured to come to life again and my face to reflect + as much as it could of the chaos that was heaving in me like ten thousand + warring devils. + </p> + <p> + Three months before, in the same situation, my gambler's instinct would + probably have helped me out. For I had not been gambling in the great + American Monte Carlo all those years without getting used to the downs as + well as to the ups. I had not—and have not—anything of the + business man in my composition. To me, it was wholly finance, wholly a + game, with excitement the chief factor and the sure winning, whether the + little ball rolled my way or not. I was the financier, the gambler and + adventurer; and that had been my principal asset. For, the man who wins in + the long run at any of the great games of life—and they are all + alike—is the man with the cool head; and the only man whose head is + cool is he who plays for the game's sake, not caring greatly whether he + wins or loses on any one play, because he feels that if he wins to-day, he + will lose to-morrow; if he loses to-day, he will win to-morrow. But now a + new factor had come into the game. I spread out the paper and stared at + the head-lines: “Black Matt To Wed Society Belle—The Bucket-Shop + King Will Lead Anita Ellersly To The Altar.” I tried to read the vulgar + article under these vulgar lines, but I could not. I was sick, sick in + body and in mind. My “nerve” was gone. I was no longer the free lance; I + had responsibilities. + </p> + <p> + That thought dragged another in its train, an ugly, grinning imp that + leered at me and sneered: “<i>But she won't have you now</i>!” + </p> + <p> + “She will! She must!” I cried aloud, starting up. And then the storm burst—I + raged up and down the floor, shaking my clinched fists, gnashing my teeth, + muttering all kinds of furious commands and threats—a truly + ridiculous exhibition of impotent rage. For through it all I saw clearly + enough that she wouldn't have me, that all these people I'd been trying to + climb up among would kick loose my clinging hands and laugh as they + watched me disappear. They who were none too gentle and slow in + disengaging themselves from those of their own lifelong associates who had + reverses of fortune—what consideration could “Black Matt” expect + from them? And she—The necessity and the ability to deceive myself + had gone, now that I could not pay the purchase price for her. The full + hideousness of my bargain for her dropped its veil and stood naked before + me. + </p> + <p> + At last, disgusted and exhausted, I flung myself down again, and dumbly + and helplessly inspected the ruins of my projects—or, rather, the + ruin of the one project upon which I had my heart set. I had known I cared + for her, but it had seemed to me she was simply one more, the latest, of + the objects on which I was in the habit of fixing my will from time to + time to make the game more deeply interesting. I now saw that never before + had I really been in earnest about anything, that on winning her I had + staked myself, and that myself was a wholly different person from what I + had been imagining. In a word, I sat face to face with that unfathomable + mystery of sex-affinity that every man laughs at and mocks another man for + believing in, until he has himself felt it drawing him against will, + against reason, and sense, and interest, over the brink of destruction + yawning before his eyes—drawing him as the magnet-mountain drew + Sindbad and his ship. And I say to you that those who can defy and resist + that compulsion are not more, but less, than man or woman; and their + fancied strength is in reality a deficiency. Looking calmly back upon my + follies under her spell, I think the better of myself for them. It is the + splendid follies of life that redeem it from vulgarity. + </p> + <p> + But—it is not in me to despair. There never yet was an impenetrable + siege line; to escape, it is only necessary by craft or by chance to hit + upon the moment and the spot for the sortie. “Ruined!” I said aloud. + “Trapped and trimmed like the stupidest sucker that ever wandered into + Wall Street! A dead one, no doubt; but I'll see to it that they don't + enjoy my funeral.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVII. A GENTEEL “HOLD-UP” + </h2> + <p> + In my childhood at home, my father was often away for a week or longer, + working or looking for work. My mother had a notion that a boy should be + punished only by his father; so, whenever she caught me in what she + regarded as a serious transgression, she used to say: “You will get a good + whipping for this, when your father comes home.” At first I used to wait + passively, suffering the torments of ten thrashings before the “good + whipping” came to pass. But soon my mind began to employ the interval more + profitably. I would scheme to escape execution of sentence; and, though my + mother was a determined woman, many's the time I contrived to change her + mind. I am not recommending to parents the system of delay in execution of + sentence; but I must say that in my case it was responsible for an + invaluable discipline. For example, the Textile tangle. + </p> + <p> + I knew I was in all human probability doomed to go down before the Stock + Exchange had been open an hour the next morning. All Textile stocks must + start many points higher than they had been at the close, must go steadily + and swiftly up. Entangled as my reserve resources were in the Coal deal, I + should have no chance to cover my shorts on any terms less than the loss + of all I had. At most, I could hope only to save myself from criminal + bankruptcy. + </p> + <p> + And now my early training in coolly and calmly studying how to avert + execution of sentence came into play. There is a kind of cornered-rat, + hit-or-miss, last-ditch fight that any creature will make in such + circumstances as mine then were, and the inspirations of despair sometimes + happen to be lucky. But I prefer the reasoned-out plan. + </p> + <p> + There was no signal of distress in my voice as I telephoned Corey, + president of the Interstate Trust Company, to stay at his office until I + came; there was no signal of distress in my manner as I sallied forth and + went down to the Power Trust Building; nor did I show or suggest that I + had heard the “shot-at-sunrise” sentence, as I strode into Roebuck's + presence and greeted him. I was assuming, by way of precaution, that some + rumor about me either had reached him or would soon reach him. I knew he + had an eye in every secret of finance and industry, and, while I believed + my secret was wholly my own, I had too much at stake with him to bank on + that, when I could, as I thought, so easily reassure him. + </p> + <p> + “I've come to suggest, Mr. Roebuck,” said I, “that you let my house—Blacklock + and Company—announce the Coal reorganization plan. It would give me + a great lift, and Melville and his bank don't need prestige. My daily + letters to the public on investments have, as you know, got me a big + following that would help me make the flotation an even bigger success + than it's bound to be, no matter who announces it and invites + subscriptions.” + </p> + <p> + As I thus proposed that I be in a jiffy caught up from the extremely + humble level of reputed bucket-shop dealer into the highest heaven of high + finance, that I be made the official spokesman of the financial gods, his + expression was so ludicrous that I almost lost my gravity. I suspect, for + a moment he thought I had gone mad. His manner, when he recovered himself + sufficiently to speak, was certainly not unlike what it would have been + had he found himself alone before a dangerous lunatic who was armed with a + bomb. + </p> + <p> + “You know how anxious I am to help you, to further your interests, + Matthew,” said he wheedlingly. “I know no man who has a brighter future. + But—not so fast, not so fast, young man. Of course, you will appear + as one of the reorganizing committee—but we could not afford to have + the announcement come through any less strong and old established house + than the National Industrial Bank.” + </p> + <p> + “At least, you can make me joint announcer with them,” I urged. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps—yes—possibly—we'll see,” said he soothingly. + “There is plenty of time.” + </p> + <p> + “Plenty of time,” I assented, as if quite content. “I only wanted to put + the matter before you.” And I rose to go. + </p> + <p> + “Have you heard the news of Textile Common?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said I carelessly. Then, all in an instant, a plan took shape in my + mind. “I own a good deal of the stock, and I must say, I don't like this + raise.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” he inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Because I'm sure it's a stock-jobbing scheme,” replied I boldly. “I know + the dividend wasn't earned. I don't like that sort of thing, Mr. Roebuck. + Not because it's unlawful—the laws are so clumsy that a practical + man often must disregard them. But because it is tampering with the + reputation and the stability of a great enterprise for the sake of a few + millions of dishonest profit. I'm surprised at Langdon.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you're wrong, Matthew,” was Roebuck's only comment. He questioned + me no further, and I went away, confident that, when the crash came in the + morning, if come it must, there would be no more astonished man in Wall + Street than Henry J. Roebuck. How he must have laughed; or, rather, would + have laughed, if his sort of human hyena expressed its emotions in the + human way. + </p> + <p> + From him, straight to my lawyers, Whitehouse and Fisher, in the Mills + Building. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to send for the newspaper reporters at once,” said I to + Fisher, “and tell them that in my behalf you are going to apply for an + injunction against the Textile Trust, forbidding them to take any further + steps toward that increase of dividend. Tell them I, as a large + stock-holder, and representing a group of large stock-holders, purpose to + stop the paying of unearned dividends.” + </p> + <p> + Fisher knew how closely connected my house and the Textile Trust had been; + but he showed, and probably felt no astonishment. He was too experienced + in the ways of finance and financiers. It was a matter of indifference to + him whether I was trying to assassinate my friend and ally, or was + feinting at Langdon, to lure the public within reach so that we might, + together, fall upon it and make a battue. Your lawyer is your true + mercenary. Under his code honor consists in making the best possible fight + in exchange for the biggest possible fee. He is frankly for sale to the + highest bidder. At least so it is with those that lead the profession + nowadays, give it what is called “character” and “tone.” + </p> + <p> + Not without some regret did I thus arrange to attack my friend in his + absence. “Still,” I reasoned, “his blunder in trusting some leaky person + with his secret is the cause of my peril—and I'll not have to + justify myself to him for trying to save myself.” What effect my + injunction would have I could not foresee. Certainly it could not save me + from the loss of my fortune; but, possibly, it might check the upward + course of the stock long enough to enable me to snatch myself from ruin, + and to cling to firm ground until the Coal deal drew me up to safety. + </p> + <p> + My next call was at the Interstate Trust Company. I found Corey waiting + for me in a most uneasy state of mind. + </p> + <p> + “Is there any truth in this story about you?” was the question he plumped + at me. + </p> + <p> + “What story?” said I, and a hard fight I had to keep my confusion and + alarm from the surface. For, apparently, my secret was out. + </p> + <p> + “That you're on the wrong side of the Textile.” + </p> + <p> + So it was out! “Some truth,” I admitted, since denial would have been + useless here. “And I've come to you for the money to tide me over.” + </p> + <p> + He grew white, a sickly white, and into his eyes came a horrible, drowning + look. + </p> + <p> + “I owe a lot to you, Matt,” he pleaded. “But I've done you a great many + favors, haven't I?” + </p> + <p> + “That you have Bob,” I cordially agreed. “But this isn't a favor. It's + business.” + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't ask it, Blacklock,” he cried. “I've loaned you more money now + than the law allows. And I can't let you have any more.” + </p> + <p> + “Some one has been lying to you, and you've been believing him,” said I. + “When I say my request isn't a favor, but business, I mean it.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't let you have any more,” he repeated. “I can't!” And down came his + fist in a weak-violent gesture. + </p> + <p> + I leaned forward and laid my hand strongly on his arm. + </p> + <p> + “In addition to the stock of this concern that I hold in my own name,” + said I, “I hold five shares in the name of a man whom nobody knows that I + even know. If you don't let me have the money, that man goes to the + district attorney with information that lands you in the penitentiary, + that puts your company out of business and into bankruptcy before + to-morrow noon. I saved you three years ago, and got you this job against + just such an emergency as this, Bob Corey. And, by God, you'll toe the + mark!” + </p> + <p> + “But we haven't done anything that every bank in town doesn't do every day—doesn't + have to do. If we didn't lend money to dummy borrowers and over-certify + accounts, our customers would go where they could get accommodations.” + </p> + <p> + “That's true enough,” said I. “But I'm in a position for the moment where + I need my friends—and they've got to come to time. If I don't get + the money from you, I'll get it elsewhere—but over the cliff with + you and your bank! The laws you've been violating may be bad for the + practical banking business, but they're mighty good for punishing + ingratitude and treachery.” + </p> + <p> + He sat there, yellow and pinched, and shivering every now and then. He + made no reply. He was one of those shells of men that are conspicuous as + figureheads in every department of active life—fellows with + well-shaped, white-haired or prematurely bald heads, and grave, + respectable faces; they look dignified and substantial, and the soul of + uprightness; they coin their looks into good salaries by selling + themselves as covers for operations of the financiers. And how those + operations, in the nude, as it were, would terrify the plodders that save + up and deposit or invest the money the financiers gamble with on the big + green tables! + </p> + <p> + Presently I shook his arm impatiently. His eyes met mine, and I fixed + them. + </p> + <p> + “I'm going to pull through,” said I. “But if I weren't, I'd see to it that + you were protected. Come, what's your answer? Friend or traitor?” + </p> + <p> + “Can't you give me any security—any collateral?” + </p> + <p> + “No more than I took from you when I saved you as you were going down with + the rest in the Dumont smash. My word—that's all. I borrow on the + same terms you've given me before, the same you're giving four of your + heaviest borrowers right now.” + </p> + <p> + He winced as I thus reminded him how minute my knowledge was of the + workings of his bank. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't think this of you, Matt,” he whined. “I believed you above such + hold-up methods.” + </p> + <p> + “I suit my methods to the men I'm dealing with,” was my answer. “These + fellows are trying to push me off the life raft. I fight with every weapon + I can lay hands on. And I know as well as you do that, if you get into + serious trouble through this loan, at least five men we could both name + would have to step in and save the bank and cover up the scandal. You'll + blackmail them, just as you've blackmailed them before, and they you. + Blackmail's a legitimate part of the game. Nobody appreciates that better + than you.” It was no time for the smug hypocrisies under which we people + down town usually conduct our business—just as the desperadoes used + to patrol the highways disguised as peaceful merchants. + </p> + <p> + “Send round in the morning and get the money,” said he, putting on a + resigned, hopeless look. + </p> + <p> + I laughed. “I'll feel easier if I take it now,” I replied. “We'll fix up + the notes and checks at once.” + </p> + <p> + He reddened, but after a brief hesitation busied himself. When the papers + were all made up and signed, and I had the certified checks in my pocket, + I said: “Wait here, Bob, until the National Industrial people call you up. + I'll ask them to do it, so they can get your personal assurance that + everything's all right. And I'll stop there until they tell me they've + talked with you.” + </p> + <p> + “But it's too late,” he said. “You can't deposit to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “I've a special arrangement with them,” I replied. + </p> + <p> + His face betrayed him. I saw that at no stage of that proceeding had I + been wiser than in shutting off his last chance to evade. What scheme he + had in mind I don't know, and can't imagine. But he had thought out + something, probably something foolish that would have given me trouble + without saving him. A foolish man in a tight place is as foolish as ever, + and Corey was a foolish man—only a fool commits crimes that put him + in the power of others. The crimes of the really big captains of industry + and generals of finance are of the kind that puts others in their power. + </p> + <p> + “Buck up, Corey,” said I. “Do you think I'm the man to shut a friend in + the hold of a sinking ship? Tell me, who told you I was short on Textile?” + </p> + <p> + “One of my men,” he slowly replied, as he braced himself together. + </p> + <p> + “Which one? Who?” I persisted. For I wanted to know just how far the news + was likely to spread. + </p> + <p> + He seemed to be thinking out a lie. + </p> + <p> + “The truth!” I commanded. “I know it couldn't have been one of your men. + Who was it? I'll not give you away.” + </p> + <p> + “It was Tom Langdon,” he finally said. + </p> + <p> + I checked an exclamation of amazement. I had been assuming that I had been + betrayed by some one of those tiny mischances that so often throw the best + plans into confusion. + </p> + <p> + “Tom Langdon,” I said satirically. “It was he that warned you against me?” + </p> + <p> + “It was a friendly act,” said Corey. “He and I are very intimate. And he + doesn't know how close you and I are.” + </p> + <p> + “Suggested that you call my loans, did he?” I went on. + </p> + <p> + “You mustn't blame him, Blacklock; really you mustn't,” said Corey + earnestly, for he was a pretty good friend to those he liked, as + friendship goes in finance. “He happened to hear. You know the Langdons + keep a sharp watch on operations in their stock. And he dropped in to warn + me as a friend. You'd do the same thing in the same circumstances. He + didn't say a word about my calling your loans. I—to be frank—I + instantly thought of it myself. I intended to do it when you came, but”—a + sickly smile—“you anticipated me.” + </p> + <p> + “I understand,” said I good-humoredly. “I don't blame him.” And I didn't + then. + </p> + <p> + After I had completed my business at the National Industrial, I went back + to my office and gathered together the threads of my web of defense. Then + I wrote and sent out to all my newspapers and all my agents a broadside + against the management of the Textile Trust—it would be published in + the morning, in good time for the opening of the Stock Exchange. Before + the first quotation of Textile could be made, thousands on thousands of + investors and speculators throughout the country would have read my + letter, would be believing that Matthew Blacklock had detected the Textile + Trust in a stock-jobbing swindle, and had promptly turned against it, + preferring to keep faith with his customers and with the public. As I read + over my pronunciamiento aloud before sending it out, I found in it a note + of confidence that cheered me mightily. “I'm even stronger than I + thought,” said I. And I felt stronger still as I went on to picture the + thousands on thousands throughout the land rallying at my call to give + battle. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XVIII. ANITA BEGINS TO BE HERSELF + </h2> + <p> + I had asked Sam Ellersly to dine with me; so preoccupied was I that not + until ten minutes before the hour set did he come into my mind—he or + any of his family, even his sister. My first impulse was to send word that + I couldn't keep the engagement. “But I must dine somewhere,” I reflected, + “and there's no reason why I shouldn't dine with him, since I've done + everything that can be done.” In my office suite I had a bath and + dressing-room, with a complete wardrobe. Thus, by hurrying a little over + my toilet, and by making my chauffeur crowd the speed limit, I was at + Delmonico's only twenty minutes late. + </p> + <p> + Sam, who had been late also, as usual, was having a cocktail and was + ordering the dinner. I smoked a cigarette and watched him. At business or + at anything serious his mind was all but useless; but at ordering dinner + and things of that sort, he shone. Those small accomplishments of his had + often moved me to a sort of pitying contempt, as if one saw a man of + talent devoting himself to engraving the Lord's Prayer on gold dollars. + That evening, however, as I saw how comfortable and contented he looked, + with not a care in the world, since he was to have a good dinner and a + good cigar afterward; as I saw how much genuine pleasure he was getting + out of selecting the dishes and giving the waiter minute directions for + the chef, I envied him. + </p> + <p> + What Langdon had once said came back to me: “We are under the tyranny of + to-morrow, and happiness is impossible.” And I thought how true that was. + But, for the Sammys, high and low, there is no to-morrow. He was somehow + impressing me with a sense that he was my superior. His face was weak, + and, in a weak way, bad; but there was a certain fineness of quality in + it, a sort of hothouse look, as if he had been sheltered all his life, and + brought up on especially selected food. “Men like me,” thought I with a + certain envy, “rise and fall. But his sort of men have got something that + can't be taken away, that enables them to carry off with grace, poverty or + the degradation of being spongers and beggars.” + </p> + <p> + This shows how far I had let that attack of snobbishness eat into me. I + glanced down at my hands. No delicateness there; certainly those fingers, + though white enough nowadays, and long enough, too, were not made for + fancy work and parlor tricks. They would have looked in place round the + handle of a spade or the throttle of an engine, while Sam's seemed made + for the keyboard of a piano. + </p> + <p> + “You must come over to my rooms after dinner, and give me some music,” + said I. + </p> + <p> + “Thanks,” he replied, “but I've promised to go home and play bridge. + Mother's got a few in to dinner, and more are coming afterward, I + believe.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I'll go with you, and talk to your sister—she doesn't play.” + </p> + <p> + He glanced at me in a way that made me pass my hand over my face. I + learned at least part of the reason for my feeling at disadvantage before + him. I had forgotten to shave; and as my beard is heavy and black, it has + to be looked after twice a day. “Oh, I can stop at my rooms and get my + face into condition in a few minutes,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “And put on evening dress, too,” he suggested. “You wouldn't want to go in + a dinner jacket.” + </p> + <p> + I can't say why this was the “last straw,” but it was. + </p> + <p> + “Bother!” said I, my common sense smashing the spell of snobbishness that + had begun to reassert itself as soon as I got into his unnatural, + unhealthy atmosphere. “I'll go as I am, beard and all. I only make myself + ridiculous, trying to be a sheep. I'm a goat, and a goat I'll stay.” + </p> + <p> + That shut him into himself. When he re-emerged, it was to say: “Something + doing down town to-day, eh?” + </p> + <p> + A sharpness in his voice and in his eyes, too, made me put my mind on him + more closely, and then I saw what I should have seen before—that he + was moody and slightly distant. + </p> + <p> + “Seen Tom Langdon this afternoon?” I asked carelessly. + </p> + <p> + He colored. “Yes—had lunch with him,” was his answer. + </p> + <p> + I smiled—for his benefit. “Aha!” thought I. “So Tom Langdon has been + fool enough to take this paroquet into his confidence.” Then I said to + him: “Is Tom making the rounds, warning the rats to leave the sinking + ship?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean, Matt?” he demanded, as if I had accused him. + </p> + <p> + I looked steadily at him, and I imagine my unshaven jaw did not make my + aspect alluring. + </p> + <p> + “That I'm thinking of driving the rats overboard,” replied I. “The ship's + sound, but it would be sounder if there were fewer of them.” + </p> + <p> + “You don't imagine anything Tom could say would change my feelings toward + you?” he pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “I don't know, and I don't care a damn,” replied I coolly. “But I do know, + before the Langdons or anybody else can have Blacklock pie, they'll have + first to catch their Blacklock.” + </p> + <p> + I saw Langdon had made him uneasy, despite his belief in my strength. And + he was groping for confirmation or reassurance. “But,” thought I, “if he + thinks I may be going up the spout, why isn't he more upset? He probably + hates me because I've befriended him, but no matter how much he hated me, + wouldn't his fear of being cut off from supplies drive him almost crazy?” + I studied him in vain for sign of deep anxiety. Either Tom didn't tell him + much, I decided, or he didn't believe Tom knew what he was talking about. + </p> + <p> + “What did Tom say about me?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, almost nothing. We were talking chiefly of—of club matters,” he + answered, in a fair imitation of his usual offhand manner. + </p> + <p> + “When does my name come up there?” said I. + </p> + <p> + He flushed and shifted. “I was just about to tell you,” he stammered. “But + perhaps you know?” + </p> + <p> + “Know what?” + </p> + <p> + “That—Hasn't Tom told you? He has withdrawn—and—you'll + have to get another second—if you think—that is—unless + you—I suppose you'd have told me, if you'd changed your mind?” + </p> + <p> + Since I had become so deeply interested in Anita, my ambition—ambition!—to + join the Travelers had all but dropped out of my mind. + </p> + <p> + “I had forgotten about it,” said I. “But, now that you remind me, I want + my name withdrawn. It was a passing fancy. It was part and parcel of a lot + of damn foolishness I've been indulging in for the last few months. But + I've come to my senses—and it's 'me to the wild,' where I belong, + Sammy, from this time on.” + </p> + <p> + He looked tremendously relieved, and a little puzzled, too. I thought I + was reading him like an illuminated sign. “He's eager to keep friends with + me,” thought I, “until he's absolutely sure there's nothing more in it for + him and his people.” And that guess was a pretty good one. It is not to + the discredit of my shrewdness that I didn't see it was not hope, but + fear, that made him try to placate me. I could not have possibly known + then what the Langdons had done. But—Sammy was saying, in his + friendliest tone: + </p> + <p> + “What's the matter, old man? You're sour to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “Never in a better humor,” I assured him, and as I spoke the words they + came true. What I had been saying about the Travelers and all it + represented—all the snobbery, and smirking, and rotten pretense—my + final and absolute renunciation of it all—acted on me as I've seen + religion act on the fellows that used to go up to the mourners' bench at + the revivals. I felt as if I had suddenly emerged from the parlor of a + dive and its stench of sickening perfumes, into the pure air of God's + Heaven. + </p> + <p> + I signed the bill, and we went afoot up the avenue. Sam, as I saw with a + good deal of amusement, was trying to devise some subtle, tactful way of + attaching his poor, clumsy little suction-pump to the well of my secret + thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “What is it, Sammy?” said I at last. “What do you want to know that you're + afraid to ask me?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing,” he said hastily. “I'm only a bit worried about—about you + and Textile. Matt,”—this in the tone of deep emotion we reserve for + the attempt to lure our friends into confiding that about themselves which + will give us the opportunity to pity them, and, if necessary, to sheer off + from them—“Matt, I do hope you haven't been hard hit?” + </p> + <p> + “Not yet,” said I easily. “Dry your tears and put away your black clothes. + Your friend, Tom Langdon, was a little premature.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm afraid I've given you a false impression,” Sam continued, with an + overeagerness to convince me that did not attract my attention at the + time. “Tom merely said, 'I hear Blacklock is loaded up with Textile + shorts,'—that was all. A careless remark. I really didn't think of + it again until I saw you looking so black and glum.” + </p> + <p> + That seemed natural enough, so I changed the subject. As we entered his + house, I said: + </p> + <p> + “I'll not go up to the drawing-room. Make my excuses to your mother, will + you? I'll turn into the little smoking-room here. Tell your sister—and + say I'm going to stop only a moment.” + </p> + <p> + Sam had just left me when the butler came. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ball—I think that was the name, sir—wishes to speak to + you on the telephone.” + </p> + <p> + I had given Ellerslys' as one of the places at which I might be found, + should it be necessary to consult me. I followed the butler to the + telephone closet under the main stairway. As soon as Ball made sure it was + I, he began: + </p> + <p> + “I'll use the code words. I've just seen Fearless, as you told me to.” + </p> + <p> + Fearless—that was Mitchell, my spy in the employ of Tavistock, who + was my principal rival in the business of confidential brokerage for the + high financiers. “Yes,” said I. “What does he say?” + </p> + <p> + “There has been a great deal of heavy buying for a month past.” + </p> + <p> + Then my dread was well-founded—Textiles were to be deliberately + rocketed. “Who's been doing it?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “He found out only this afternoon. It's been kept unusually dark. It—” + </p> + <p> + “Who? Who?” I demanded. + </p> + <p> + “Intrepid,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + Intrepid—that is, Langdon—Mowbray Langdon! + </p> + <p> + “The whole thing—was planned carefully,” continued Ball, “and is + coming off according to schedule. Fearless overheard a final message + Intrepid's brother brought from him to-day.” + </p> + <p> + So it was no mischance—it was an assassination. Mowbray Langdon had + stabbed me in the back and fled. + </p> + <p> + “Did you hear what I said?” asked Ball. “Is that you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I replied. + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” came in a relieved tone from the other end of the wire. “You were so + long in answering that I thought I'd been cut off. Any instructions?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I. “Good-by.” + </p> + <p> + I heard him ring off, but I sat there for several minutes, the receiver + still to my ear. I was muttering: “Langdon, Langdon—why—why—why?” + again and again. Why had he turned against me? Why had he plotted to + destroy me—one of those plots so frequent in Wall Street—where + the assassin steals up, delivers the mortal blow, and steals away without + ever being detected or even suspected? I saw the whole plot now—I + understood Tom Langdon's activities, I recalled Mowbray Langdon's curious + phrases and looks and tones. But—why—why—why? How was I + in his way? + </p> + <p> + It was all dark to me—pitch-dark. I returned to the smoking-room, + lighted a cigar, sat fumbling at the new situation. I was in no worse + plight than before—what did it matter who was attacking me? In the + circumstances, a novice could now destroy me as easily as a Langdon. + Still, Ball's news seemed to take away my courage. I reminded myself that + I was used to treachery of this sort, that I deserved what I was getting + because I had, like a fool, dropped my guard in the fight that is always + an every-man-for-himself. But I reminded myself in vain. Langdon's smiling + treachery made me heart-sick. + </p> + <p> + Soon Anita appeared—preceded and heralded by a faint rustling from + soft and clinging skirts, that swept my nerves like a love-tune. I suppose + for all men there is a charm, a spell, beyond expression, in the sight of + a delicate beautiful young woman, especially if she be dressed in those + fine fabrics that look as if only a fairy loom could have woven them; and + when a man loves the woman who bursts upon his vision, that spell must + overwhelm him, especially if he be such a man as was I—a product of + life's roughest factories, hard and harsh, an elbower and a trampler, a + hustler and a bluffer. Then, you must also consider the exact + circumstances—I standing there, with destruction hanging over me, + with the sense that within a few hours I should be a pariah to her, a + masquerader stripped of his disguise and cast out from the ball where he + had been making so merry and so free. Only a few hours more! Perhaps now + was the last time I should ever stand so near to her! The full realization + of all this swallowed me up as in a great, thick, black mist. And my arms + strained to escape from my tightly-locked hands, strained to seize her, to + snatch from her, reluctant though she might be, at least some part of the + happiness that was to be denied me. + </p> + <p> + I think my torment must have somehow penetrated to her. For she was sweet + and friendly—and she could not have hurt me worse! If I had followed + my impulse I should have fallen at her feet and buried my face, scorching, + in the folds of that pale blue, faintly-shimmering robe of hers. + </p> + <p> + “Do throw away that huge, hideous cigar,” she said, laughing. And she took + two cigarettes from the box, put both between her lips, lit them, held one + toward me. I looked at her face, and along her smooth, bare, outstretched + arm, and at the pink, slender fingers holding the cigarette. I took it as + if I were afraid the spell would be broken, should my fingers touch hers. + Afraid—that's it! That's why I didn't pour out all that was in my + heart. I deserved to lose her. + </p> + <p> + “I'm taking you away from the others,” I said. We could hear the murmur of + many voices and of music. In fancy I could see them assembled round the + little card-tables—the well-fed bodies, the well-cared-for skins, + the elaborate toilets, the useless jeweled hands—comfortable, + secure, self-satisfied, idle, always idle, always playing at the imitation + games—like their own pampered children, to be sheltered in the + nurseries of wealth their whole lives through. And not at all in + bitterness, but wholly in sadness, a sense of the injustice, the + unfairness of it all—a sense that had been strong in me in my youth + but blunted during the years of my busy prosperity—returned for a + moment. For a moment only; my mind was soon back to realities—to her + and me—to “us.” How soon it would never be “us” again! + </p> + <p> + “They're mama's friends,” Anita was answering. “Oldish and tiresome. When + you leave I shall go straight on up to bed.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd like to—to see your room—where you live,” said I, more to + myself than to her. + </p> + <p> + “I sleep in a bare little box,” she replied with a laugh. “It's like a + cell. A friend of ours who has the anti-germ fad insisted on it. But my + sitting-room isn't so bad.” + </p> + <p> + “Langdon has the anti-germ fad,” said I. She answered “Yes” after a pause, + and in such a strained voice that I looked at her. A flush was just dying + out of her face. “He was the friend I spoke of,” she went on. + </p> + <p> + “You know him very well?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “We've known him—always,” said she. “I think he's one of my earliest + recollections. His father's summer place and ours adjoin. And once—I + guess it's the first time I remember seeing him—he was a freshman at + Harvard, and he came along on a horse past the pony cart in which a groom + was driving me. And I—I was very little then—I begged him to + take me up, and he did. I thought he was the greatest, most wonderful man + that ever lived.” She laughed queerly. “When I said my prayers, I used to + imagine a god that looked like him to say them to.” + </p> + <p> + I echoed her laugh heartily. The idea of Mowbray Langdon as a god struck + me as peculiarly funny, though natural enough, too. + </p> + <p> + “Absurd, wasn't it?” said she. But her face was grave, and she let her + cigarette die out. + </p> + <p> + “I guess you know him better than that now?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—better,” she answered, slowly and absently. “He's—anything + but a god!” + </p> + <p> + “And the more fascinating on that account,” said I. “I wonder why women + like best the really bad, dangerous sort of man, who hasn't any respect + for them, or for anything.” + </p> + <p> + I said this that she might protest, at least for herself. But her answer + was a vague, musing, “I wonder—I wonder.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure <i>you</i> wouldn't,” I protested earnestly, for her. + </p> + <p> + She looked at me queerly. + </p> + <p> + “Can I never convince you that I'm just a woman?” said she mockingly. + “Just a woman, and one a man with your ideas of women would fly from.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish you were!” I exclaimed. “Then—I'd not find it so—so + impossible to give you up.” + </p> + <p> + She rose and made a slow tour of the room, halting on the rug before the + closed fireplace a few feet from me. I sat looking at her. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to give you up,” I said at last. + </p> + <p> + Her eyes, staring into vacancy, grew larger and intenser with each long, + deep breath she took. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't intend to say what I'm about to say—at least, not this + evening,” I went on, and to me it seemed to be some other than myself who + was speaking. “Certain things happened down town to-day that have set me + to thinking. And—I shall do whatever I can for your brother and your + father. But you—you are free!” + </p> + <p> + She went to the table, stood there in profile to me, straight and slender + as a sunflower stalk. She traced the silver chasings in the lid of the + cigarette box with her forefinger; then she took a cigarette and began + rolling it slowly and absently. + </p> + <p> + “Please don't scent and stain your fingers with that filthy tobacco,” said + I rather harshly. + </p> + <p> + “And only this afternoon you were saying you had become reconciled to my + vice—that you had canonized it along with me—wasn't that your + phrase?” This indifferently, without turning toward me, and as if she were + thinking of something else. + </p> + <p> + “So I have,” retorted I. “But my mood—please oblige me this once.” + </p> + <p> + She let the cigarette fall into the box, closed the lid gently, leaned + against the table, folded her arms upon her bosom and looked full at me. I + was as acutely conscious of her every movement, of the very coming and + going of the breath at her nostrils, as a man on the operating-table is + conscious of the slightest gesture of the surgeon. + </p> + <p> + “You are—suffering!” she said, and her voice was like the flow of + oil upon a burn. “I have never seen you like this. I didn't believe you + capable of—of much feeling.” + </p> + <p> + I could not trust myself to speak. If Bob Corey could have looked in on + that scene, could have understood it, how amazed he would have been! + </p> + <p> + “What happened down town to-day?” she went on. “Tell me, if I may know.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you what I didn't think, ten minutes ago, I'd tell any human + being,” said I. “They've got me strapped down in the press. At ten o'clock + in the morning—precisely at ten—they're going to put on the + screws.” I laughed. “I guess they'll have me squeezed pretty dry before + noon.” + </p> + <p> + She shivered. + </p> + <p> + “So, you see,” I continued, “I don't deserve any credit for giving you up. + I only anticipate you by about twenty-four hours. Mine's a deathbed + repentance.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd thought of that,” said she reflectively. Presently she added: “Then, + it is true.” And I knew Sammy had given her some hint that prepared her + for my confession. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—I can't go blustering through the matrimonial market,” replied + I. “I've been thrown out. I'm a beggar at the gates.” + </p> + <p> + “A beggar at the gates,” she murmured. + </p> + <p> + I got up and stood looking down at her. + </p> + <p> + “Don't <i>pity</i> me!” I said. “My remark was a figure of speech. I want + no alms. I wouldn't take even you as alms. They'll probably get me down, + and stamp the life out of me—nearly. But not quite—don't you + lose sight of that. They can't kill me, and they can't tame me. I'll + recover, and I'll strew the Street with their blood and broken bones.” + </p> + <p> + She drew in her breath sharply. + </p> + <p> + “And a minute ago I was almost liking you!” she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + I retreated to my chair and gave her a smile that must have been grim. + </p> + <p> + “Your ideas of life and of men are like a cloistered nun's,” said I. “If + there are any real men among your acquaintances, you may find out some day + that they're not so much like lapdogs as they pretend—and that you + wouldn't like them, if they were.” + </p> + <p> + “What—just what—happened to you down town to-day—after + you left me?” + </p> + <p> + “A friend of mine has been luring me into a trap—why, I can't quite + fathom. To-day he sprang the trap and ran away.” + </p> + <p> + “A friend of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “The man we were talking about—your ex-god—Langdon.” + </p> + <p> + “Langdon,” she repeated, and her tone told me that Sammy knew and had + hinted to her more than I suspected him of knowing. And, with her arms + still folded, she paced up and down the room. I watched her slender feet + in pale blue slippers appear and disappear—first one, then the other—at + the edge of her trailing skirt. + </p> + <p> + Presently she stopped in front of me. Her eyes were gazing past me. + </p> + <p> + “You are sure it was he?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + I could not answer immediately, so amazed was I at her expression. I had + been regarding her as a being above and apart, an incarnation of youth and + innocence; with a shock it now came to me that she was experienced, + intelligent, that she understood the whole of life, the dark as fully as + the light, and that she was capable to live it, too. It was not a girl + that was questioning me there; it was a woman. + </p> + <p> + “Yes—Langdon,” I replied. “But I've no quarrel with him. My reverse + is nothing but the fortune of war. I assure you, when I see him again, + I'll be as friendly as ever—only a bit less of a trusting ass, I + fancy. We're a lot of free lances down in the Street. We fight now on one + side, now on the other. We change sides whenever it's expedient; and under + the code it's not necessary to give warning. To-day, before I knew he was + the assassin, I had made my plans to try to save myself at his expense, + though I believed him to be the best friend I had down town. No doubt he's + got some good reason for creeping up on me in the dark.” + </p> + <p> + “You are sure it was he?” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + “He, and nobody else,” replied I. “He decided to do me up—and I + guess he'll succeed. He's not the man to lift his gun unless he's sure the + bird will fall.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really not care any more than you show?” she asked. “Or is your + manner only bravado—to show off before me?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care a damn, since I'm to lose you,” said I. “It'll be a godsend + to have a hard row to hoe the next few months or years.” + </p> + <p> + She went back to leaning against the table, her arms folded as before. I + saw she was thinking out something. Finally she said: + </p> + <p> + “I have decided not to accept your release.” + </p> + <p> + I sprang to my feet. + </p> + <p> + “Anita!” I cried, my arms stretched toward her. + </p> + <p> + But she only looked coldly at me, folded her arms the more tightly and + said: + </p> + <p> + “Do not misunderstand me. The bargain is the same as before. If you want + me on those terms, I must—give myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + A faint smile, with no mirth in it, drifted round the corners of her + mouth. + </p> + <p> + “An impulse,” she said. “I don't quite understand it myself. An impulse + from—from—” Her eyes and her thoughts were far away, and her + expression was the one that made it hardest for me to believe she was a + child of those parents of hers. “An impulse from a sense of justice—of + decency. I am the cause of your trouble, and I daren't be a coward and a + cheat.” She repeated the last words. “A coward—a cheat! We—I—have + taken much from you, more than you know. It must be repaid. If you still + wish, I will—will keep to my bargain.” + </p> + <p> + “It's true, I'd not have got into the mess,” said I, “if I'd been + attending to business instead of dangling after you. But you're not + responsible for that folly.” + </p> + <p> + She tried to speak several times, before she finally succeeded in saying: + </p> + <p> + “It's my fault. I mustn't shirk.” + </p> + <p> + I studied her, but I couldn't puzzle her out. + </p> + <p> + “I've been thinking all along that you were simple and transparent,” I + said. “Now, I see you are a mystery. What are you hiding from me?” + </p> + <p> + Her smile was almost coquettish as she replied: + </p> + <p> + “When a woman makes a mystery of herself to a man, it's for the man's + good.” + </p> + <p> + I took her hand—almost timidly. + </p> + <p> + “Anita,” I said, “do you still—dislike me?” + </p> + <p> + “I do not—and shall not—love you,” she answered. “But you are—” + </p> + <p> + “More endurable?” I suggested, as she hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “Less unendurable,” she said with raillery. Then she added, “Less + unendurable than profiting by a-creeping up in the dark.” + </p> + <p> + I thought I understood her better than she understood herself. And + suddenly my passion melted in a tenderness I would have said was as + foreign to me as rain to a desert. I noticed that she had a haggard look. + “You are very tired, child,” said I. “Good night. I am a different man + from what I was when I came in here.” + </p> + <p> + “And I a different woman,” said she, a beauty shining from her that was as + far beyond her physical beauty as—as love is beyond passion. + </p> + <p> + “A nobler, better woman,” I exclaimed, kissing her hand. + </p> + <p> + She snatched it away. + </p> + <p> + “If you only knew!” she cried. “It seems to me, as I realize what sort of + woman I am, that I am almost worthy of <i>you</i>!” And she blazed a look + at me that left me rooted there, astounded. + </p> + <p> + But I went down the avenue with a light heart. “Just like a woman,” I was + saying to myself cheerfully, “not to know her own mind.” + </p> + <p> + A few blocks, and I stopped and laughed outright—at Langdon's + treachery, at my own credulity. “What an ass I've been making of myself!” + said I to myself. And I could see myself as I really had been during those + months of social struggling—an ass, braying and gamboling in a + lion's skin—to impress the ladies! + </p> + <p> + “But not wholly to no purpose,” I reflected, again all in a glow at + thought of Anita. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIX. A WINDFALL FROM “GENTLEMAN JOE” + </h2> + <p> + I went to my rooms, purposing to go straight to bed, and get a good sleep. + I did make a start toward undressing; then I realized that I should only + lie awake with my brain wearing me out, spinning crazy thoughts and + schemes hour after hour—for my imagination rarely lets it do any + effective thinking after the lights are out and the limitations of + material things are wiped away by the darkness. I put on a dressing-gown + and seated myself to smoke and to read. + </p> + <p> + When I was very young, new to New York, in with the Tenderloin crowd and + up to all sorts of pranks, I once tried opium smoking. I don't think I + ever heard of anything in those days without giving it a try. Usually, I + believe, opium makes the smoker ill the first time or two; but it had no + such effect on me, nor did it fill my mind with fantastic visions. On the + contrary, it made everything around me intensely real—that is, it + enormously stimulated my dominant characteristic of accurate observation. + I noticed the slightest details—such things as the slight difference + in the length of the arms of the Chinaman who kept the “joint,” the number + of buttons down the front of the waist of the girl in the bunk opposite + mine, across the dingy, little, sweet-scented room. Nothing escaped me, + and also I was conscious of each passing second, or, rather, fraction of a + second. + </p> + <p> + As a rule, time and events, even when one is quietest, go with such a rush + that one notes almost nothing of what is passing. The opium seemed to + compel the kaleidoscope of life to turn more slowly; in fact, it sharpened + my senses so that they unconsciously took impressions many times more + quickly and easily and accurately. As I sat there that night after leaving + Anita, forcing my mind to follow the printed lines, I found I was in + exactly the state in which I had been during my one experiment with opium. + It seemed to me that as many days as there had been hours must have + elapsed since I got the news of the raised Textile dividend. Days—yes, + weeks, even months, of thought and action seemed to have been compressed + into those six hours—for, as I sat there, it was not yet eleven + o'clock. + </p> + <p> + And then I realized that this notion was not of the moment, but that I had + been as if under the influence of some powerful nerve stimulant since my + brain began to recover from the shock of that thunderbolt. Only, where + nerve stimulants often make the mind passive and disinclined to take part + in the drama so vividly enacting before it, this opening of my reservoirs + of reserve nervous energy had multiplied my power to act as well as my + power to observe. “I wonder how long it will last,” thought I. And it made + me uneasy, this unnatural alertness, unaccompanied by any feverishness or + sense of strain. “Is this the way madness begins?” + </p> + <p> + I dressed myself again and went out—went up to Joe Healey's gambling + place in Forty-fourth Street. Most of the well-known gamblers up town, as + well as their “respectable” down town fellow members of the fraternity, + were old acquaintances of mine; Joe Healey was as close a friend as I had. + He had great fame for squareness—and, in a sense, deserved it. With + his fellow gamblers he was straight as a string at all times—to be + otherwise would have meant that when he went broke he would stay broke, + because none of the fraternity would “stake” him. But with his patrons—being + regarded by them as a pariah, he acted toward them like a pariah—a + prudent pariah. He fooled them with a frank show of gentlemanliness, of + honesty to his own hurt; under that cover he fleeced them well, but always + judiciously. + </p> + <p> + That night, I recall, Joe's guests were several young fellows of the + fashionable set, rich men's sons and their parasites, a few of the big + down town operators who hadn't yet got hipped on “respectability”—they + playing poker in a private room—and a couple of flush-faced, + flush-pursed chaps from out of town, for whom one of Joe's men was dealing + faro from what looked to my experienced and accurate eye like a “brace” + box. + </p> + <p> + Joe, very elegant, too elegant in fact, in evening dress, was showing a + new piece of statuary to the oldest son of Melville, of the National + Industrial Bank. Joe knew a little something about art—he was much + like the art dealers who, as a matter of business, learn the difference + between good things and bad, but in their hearts wonder and laugh at + people willing to part with large sums of money for a little paint or + marble or the like. + </p> + <p> + As soon as Joe thought he had sufficiently impressed young Melville, he + drifted him to a roulette table, left him there and joined me. + </p> + <p> + “Come to my office,” said he. “I want to see you.” + </p> + <p> + He led the way down the richly-carpeted marble stairway as far as the + landing at the turn. There, on a sort of mezzanine, he had a gorgeous + little suite. The principal object in the sitting-room or office was a + huge safe. He closed and locked the outside door behind us. + </p> + <p> + “Take a seat,” said he. “You'll like the cigars in the second box on my + desk—the long one.” And he began turning the combination lock. “You + haven't dropped in on us for the past three or four months,” he went on. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I, getting a great deal of pleasure out of seeing again, and + thus intimately, his round, ruddy face—like a yachtman's, not like a + drinker's—and his shifty, laughing brown eyes. “The game down town + has given me enough excitement. I haven't had to continue it up town to + keep my hand in.” + </p> + <p> + In fact, I had, as I have already said, been breaking off with my former + friends because, while many of the most reputable and reliable financiers + down town go in for high play occasionally at the gambling houses, it + isn't wise for the man trying to establish himself as a strictly + legitimate financier. I had been playing as much as ever, but only in + games in my own rooms and at the rooms of other bankers, brokers and + commercial leaders. The passion for high play is a craving that gnaws at a + man all the time, and he must always be feeding it one way or another. + </p> + <p> + “I've noticed that you are getting too swell to patronize us fellows,” + said he, his shrewd smile showing that my polite excuse had not fooled + him. “Well, Matt, you're right—you always did have good sound sense + and a steady eye for the main chance. I used to think the women'd ruin + you, they were so crazy about that handsome mug and figure of yours. But + when I saw you knew exactly when to let go, I knew nothing could stop + you.” + </p> + <p> + By this time he had the safe open, disclosing several compartments and a + small, inside safe. He worked away at the second combination lock, and + presently exposed the interior of the little safe. It was filled with a + great roll of bills. He pried this out, brought it over to the desk and + began wrapping it up. “I want you to take this with you when you go,” said + he. “I've made several big killings lately, and I'm going to get you to + invest the proceeds.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't take that big bundle along with me, Joe,” said I. “Besides, it + ain't safe. Put it in the bank and send me a check.” + </p> + <p> + “Not on your life,” replied Healey with a laugh. “The suckers we trimmed + gave checks, and I turned 'em into cash as soon as the banks opened. I + wasn't any too spry, either. Two of the damned sneaks consulted lawyers as + soon as they sobered off, and tried to stop payment on their checks. + They're threatening proceedings. You must take the dough away with you, + and I don't want a receipt.” + </p> + <p> + “Trimming suckers, eh?” said I, not able to decide what to do. + </p> + <p> + “Their fathers stole it from the public,” he explained. “They're drunken + little snobs, not fit to have money. I'm doing a public service by + relieving them of it. If I'd 'a' got more, I'd feel that much more”—he + vented his light, cool, sarcastic laugh—“more patriotic.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't take it,” said I, feeling that, in my present condition, to take + it would be very near to betraying the confidence of my old friend. + </p> + <p> + “They lost it in a straight game,” he hastened to assure me. “I haven't + had a 'brace' box or crooked wheel for four years.” This with a sober face + and a twinkle in his eye. “But even if I had helped chance to do the good + work of teaching them to take care of their money, you'd not refuse me. Up + town and down town, and all over the place, what's business, when you come + to look at it sensibly, but trading in stolen goods? Do you know a man who + could honestly earn more than ten or twenty thousand a year—good + clean money by good clean work?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, for that matter, your money's as clean as anybody's,” said I. “But, + you know, I'm a speculator, Joe. I have my downs—and this happens to + be a stormy time for me. If I take your money, I mayn't be able to account + for it or even to pay dividends on it for—maybe a year or so.” + </p> + <p> + “It's all right, old man. I'll never give it a thought till you remind me + of it. Use it as you'd use your own. I've got to put it behind somebody's + luck—why not yours?” + </p> + <p> + He finished doing up the package, then he seated himself, and we both + looked at it through the smoke of our cigars. + </p> + <p> + “It's just as easy to deal in big sums as in little, in large matters as + in small, isn't it, Joe,” said I, “once one gets in the way of it?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember—away back there—the morning,” he asked + musingly—“the last morning—you and I got up from the straw in + the stables over at Jerome Park—the stables they let us sleep in?” + </p> + <p> + “And went out in the dawn to roost on the rails and spy on the speed + trials of old Revell's horses?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” said Joe, and we looked at each other and laughed. “We in rags—gosh, + how chilly it was that morning! Do you remember what we talked about?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I, though I did. + </p> + <p> + “I was proposing to turn a crooked trick—and you wouldn't have it. + You persuaded me to keep straight, Matt. I've never forgotten it. You kept + me straight—showed me what a damn fool a man was to load himself + down with a petty larceny record. You made a man of me, Matt. And then + those good looks of yours caught the eye of that bookmaker's girl, and he + gave you a job at writing sheet—and you worked me in with you.” + </p> + <p> + So long ago it seemed, yet near and real, too, as I sat there, conscious + of every sound and motion, even of the fantastic shapes taken by our + upcurling smoke. How far I was from the “rail bird” of those + happy-go-lucky years, when a meal meant quite as much to me as does a + million now—how far from all that, yet how near, too. For was I not + still facing life with the same careless courage, forgetting each + yesterday in the eager excitement of each new day with its new deal? We + went on in our reminiscences for a while; then, as Joe had a little work + to do, I drifted out into the house, took a bite of supper with young + Melville, had a little go at the tiger, and toward five in the clear June + morning emerged into the broad day of the streets, with the precious + bundle under my arms and a five hundred-dollar bill in my waistcoat + pocket. + </p> + <p> + “Give my win to me in a single bill,” I said to the banker, “and blow + yourself off with the change.” + </p> + <p> + Joe walked down the street with me—for companionship and a little + air before turning in, he said, but I imagine a desire to keep his eye on + his treasure a while longer had something to do with his taking that early + morning stroll. We passed several of those forlorn figures that hurry + through the slowly-awakening streets to bed or to work. Finally, there + came by an old, old woman—a scrubwoman, I guess, on her way home + from cleaning some office building. Beside her was a thin little boy, + hopping along on a crutch. I stopped them. + </p> + <p> + “Hold out your hand,” said I to the boy, and he did. I laid the five + hundred-dollar bill in it. “Now, shut your fingers tight over that,” said + I, “and don't open them till you get home. Then tell your mother to do + what she likes with it.” And we left them gaping after us, speechless + before this fairy story come true. + </p> + <p> + “You must be looking hard for luck to-day,” said Joe, who understood this + transaction where another might have thought it a showy and not very wise + charity. “They'll stop in at the church and pray for you, and burn a + candle.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope so,” said I, “for God knows I need it.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XX. A BREATHING SPELL. + </h2> + <p> + Langdon, after several years of effort, had got recognition for Textile in + London, but that was about all. He hadn't succeeded in unloading any great + amount of it on the English. So it was rather because I neglected nothing + than because I was hopeful of results that I had made a point of + telegraphing to London news of my proposed suit. The result was a little + trading in Textiles over there and a slight decline in the price. This + fact was telegraphed to all the financial centers on this side of the + water, and reinforced the impression my lawyers' announcement and my own + “bear” letter were making. + </p> + <p> + Still, this was nothing, or next to it. What could I hope to avail against + Langdon's agents with almost unlimited capital, putting their whole energy + under the stock to raise it? In the same newspapers that published my bear + attack, in the same columns and under the same head-lines, were official + denials from the Textile Trust and the figures of enormous increase of + business as proof positive that the denials were honest. If the public had + not been burned so many times by “industrials,” if it had not learned by + bitter experience that practically none of the leaders of finance and + industry were above lying to make or save a few dollars, if Textiles had + not been manipulated so often, first by Dumont and since his death by his + brother-in-law and successor, this suave and cynical Langdon, my desperate + attack would have been without effect. As it was— + </p> + <p> + Four months before, in the same situation, had I seen Textiles stagger as + they staggered in the first hour of business on the Stock Exchange that + morning, I'd have sounded the charge, clapped spurs to my charger, and + borne down upon them. But—I had my new-born yearning for + “respectability”; I had my new-born squeamishness, which led me to fear + risking Bob Corey and his bank and the money of my old friend Healey; + finally, there was Anita—the longing for her that made me prefer a + narrow and uncertain foothold to the bold leap that would land me either + in wealth and power or in the bottomless abyss. + </p> + <p> + Instead of continuing to sell Textiles, I covered as far as I could; and I + bought so eagerly and so heavily that, more than Langdon's corps of + rocketers, I was responsible for the stock's rally and start upward. When + I say “eagerly” and “heavily,” I do not mean that I acted openly or + without regard to common sense. I mean simply that I made no attempt to + back up my followers in the selling campaign I had urged them into; on the + contrary, I bought as they sold. That does not sound well, and it is no + better than it sounds. I shall not dispute with any one who finds this + action of mine a betrayal of my clients to save myself. All I shall say is + that it was business, that in such extreme and dire compulsion as was + mine, it was—and is—right under the code, the private and real + Wall Street code. + </p> + <p> + You can imagine the confused mass of transactions in which I was involved + before the Stock Exchange had been open long. There was the stock we had + been able to buy or get options on at various prices, between the closing + of the Exchange the previous day and that morning's opening—stock + from all parts of this country and in England. There was the stock I had + been buying since the Exchange opened—buying at figures ranging from + one-eighth above last night's closing price to fourteen points above it. + And, on the debit side, there were the “short” transactions extending over + a period of nearly two months—“sellings” of blocks large and small + at a hundred different prices. + </p> + <p> + An inextricable tangle, you will say, one it would be impossible for a man + to unravel quickly and in the frantic chaos of a wild Stock Exchange day. + Yet the influence of the mysterious state of my nerves, which I have + described above, was so marvelous that, incredible though it seems, the + moment the Exchange closed, I knew exactly, where I stood. + </p> + <p> + Like a mechanical lightning calculator, my mind threw up before me the net + result of these selling and buying transactions. Textile Common closed + eighteen points above the closing quotation of the previous day; if + Langdon's brother had not been just a little indiscreet, I should have + been as hopeless a bankrupt in reputation and in fortune as ever was + ripped up by the bulls of Wall Street. + </p> + <p> + As it was, I believed that, by keeping a bold front, I might extricate and + free myself when the Coal reorganization was announced. The rise of Coal + stocks would square my debts—and, as I was apparently untouched by + the Textile flurry, so far as even Ball, my nominal partner and chief + lieutenant, knew, I need not fear pressure from creditors that I could not + withstand. + </p> + <p> + I could not breathe freely, but I could breathe. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXI. MOST UNLADYLIKE + </h2> + <p> + When I saw I was to have a respite of a month or so, I went over to the + National Industrial Bank with Healey's roll, which my tellers had counted + and prepared for deposit. I finished my business with the receiving teller + of the National Industrial, and dropped in on my friend Lewis, the first + vice-president. I did not need to pretend coolness and confidence; my + nerves were still in that curious state of tranquil exhilaration, and I + felt master of myself and of the situation. Just as I was leaving, in came + Tom Langdon with Sam Ellersly. + </p> + <p> + Tom's face was a laughable exhibit of embarrassment. Sam—really, I + felt sorry for him. There was no reason on earth why he shouldn't be with + Tom Langdon; yet he acted as if I had caught him “with the goods on him.” + He stammered and stuttered, clasped my hand eagerly, dropped it as if it + had stung him; he jerked out a string of hysterical nonsense, ending with + a laugh so crazy that the sound of it disconcerted him. Drink was the + explanation that drifted through my mind; but in fact I thought little + about it, so full was I of other matters. + </p> + <p> + “When is your brother returning?” said I to Tom. + </p> + <p> + “On the next steamer, I believe,” he replied. “He went only for the rest + and the bath of sea air.” With an effort he collected himself, drew me + aside and said: “I owe you an apology, Mr. Blacklock. I went to the + steamer with Mowbray to see him off, and he asked me to tell you about our + new dividend rate—though it was not to be made public for some time. + Anyhow, he told me to go straight to you—and I—frankly, I + forgot it.” Then, with the winning, candid Langdon smile, he added, + ingenuously: “The best excuse in the world—yet the one nobody ever + accepts.” + </p> + <p> + “No apology necessary,” said I with the utmost good nature. “I've no + personal interest in Textile. My house deals on commission only, you know—never + on margins for myself. I'm a banker and broker, not a gambler. Some of our + customers were alarmed by the news of the big increase, and insisted on + bringing suit to stop it. But I'm going to urge them now to let the matter + drop.” + </p> + <p> + Tom tried to look natural, and as he is an apt pupil of his brother's, he + succeeded fairly well. His glance, however, wouldn't fix steadily on my + gaze, but circled round and round it like a bat at an electric light. “To + tell you the truth,” said he, “I'm extremely nervous as to what my brother + will say—and do—to me, when I tell him. I hope no harm came to + you through my forgetfulness.” + </p> + <p> + “None in the world,” I assured him. Then I turned on Sam. “What are you + doing down town to-day?” said I. “Are you on your way to see me?” + </p> + <p> + He flushed with angry shame, reading an insinuation into my careless + remark, when I had not the remotest intention of reminding him that his + customary object in coming down town was to play the parasite and the + sponge at my expense. I ought to have guessed at once that there was some + good reason for his recovery of his refined, high-bred, gentlemanly + super-sensibilities; but I was not in the mood to analyze trifles, though + my nerves were taking careful record of them. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I was just calling on Tom,” he replied rather haughtily. + </p> + <p> + Then Melville himself came in, brushing back his white tufted burnsides + and licking his lips and blinking his eyes—looking for all the world + like a cat at its toilet. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! ah! Blacklock!” he exclaimed, with purring cordiality—and I + knew he had heard of the big deposit I was making. “Come into my office on + your way out—nothing especial—only because it's always a + pleasure to talk with you.” + </p> + <p> + I saw that his effusive friendliness confirmed Tom Langdon's fear that I + had escaped from his brother's toils. He stared sullenly at the carpet + until he caught me looking at him with twinkling eyes. He made a valiant + effort to return my smile and succeeded in twisting his face into a knot + that seemed to hurt him as much as it amused me. + </p> + <p> + “Well, good-by, Tom,” said I. “Give my regards to your brother when he + lands, and tell him his going away was a mistake. A man can't afford to + trust his important business to understrappers.” This with a face free + from any suggestion of intending a shot at him. Then to Sam: “See you + to-night, old man,” and I went away, leaving Lewis looking from one to the + other as if he felt that there was dynamite about, but couldn't locate it. + I stopped with Melville to talk Coal for a few minutes—at my ease, + and the last man on earth to be suspected of hanging by the crook of one + finger from the edge of the precipice. + </p> + <p> + I rang the Ellerslys' bell at half-past nine that evening. The butler + faced me with eyes not down, as they should have been, but on mine, and + full of the servile insolence to which he had been prompted by what he had + overheard in the family. + </p> + <p> + “Not at home, sir,” he said, though I had not spoken. + </p> + <p> + I was preoccupied and not expecting that statement; neither had I skill, + nor desire to acquire skill, in reading family barometers in the faces of + servants. So, I was for brushing past him and entering where I felt I had + as much right as in my own places. He barred the way. + </p> + <p> + “Beg pardon, sir. Mrs. Ellersly instructed me to say no one was at home.” + </p> + <p> + I halted, but only like an oncoming bear at the prick of an arrow. + </p> + <p> + “What the hell does this mean?” I exclaimed, waving him aside. At that + instant Anita appeared from the little reception-room a few feet away. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—come in!” she said cordially. “I was expecting you. Burroughs, + please take Mr. Blacklock's hat.” + </p> + <p> + I followed her into the reception-room, thinking the butler had made some + sort of mistake. + </p> + <p> + “How did you come out?” she asked eagerly, facing me. “You look your + natural self—not tired or worried—so it must have been not so + bad as you feared.” + </p> + <p> + “If our friend Langdon hadn't slipped away, I might not look and feel so + comfortable,” said I. “His brother blundered, and there was no one to + checkmate my moves.” She seemed nearer to me, more in sympathy with me + than ever before. + </p> + <p> + “I can't tell you how glad I am!” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes were wide and bright, as from some great excitement, and her + color was high. Once my attention was on it, I knew instantly that only + some extraordinary upheaval in that household could have produced the + fever that was blazing in her. Never had I seen her in any such mood as + this. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” I asked. “What has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “If anything disagreeable should be said or done this evening here,” she + said, “I want you to promise me that you'll restrain yourself, and not say + or do any of those things that make me—that jar on me. You + understand?” + </p> + <p> + “I am always myself,” replied I. “I can't be anybody else.” + </p> + <p> + “But you are—several different kinds of self,” she insisted. “And + please—this evening don't be <i>that</i> kind. It's coming into your + eyes and chin now.” + </p> + <p> + I had lifted my head and looked round, probably much like the leader of a + horned herd at the scent of danger. + </p> + <p> + “Is this better?” said I, trying to look the thoughts I had no difficulty + in getting to the fore whenever my eyes were on her. + </p> + <p> + Her smile rewarded me. But it disappeared, gave place to a look of nervous + alarm, of terror even, at the rustling, or, rather, bustling, of skirts in + the hall—there was war in the very sound, and I felt it. Mrs. + Ellersly appeared, bearing her husband as a dejected trailer invisibly but + firmly coupled. She acknowledged my salutation with a stiff-necked nod, + ignored my extended hand. I saw that she wished to impress upon me that + she was a very grand lady indeed; but, while my ideas of what constitutes + a lady were at that time somewhat befogged by my snobbishness, she failed + dismally. She looked just what she was—a mean, bad-tempered woman, + in a towering rage. + </p> + <p> + “You have forced me, Mr. Blacklock,” said she, and then I knew for just + what purpose that voice of hers was best adapted—“to say to you what + I should have preferred to write. Mr. Ellersly has had brought to his ears + matters in connection with your private life that make it imperative that + you discontinue your calls here.” + </p> + <p> + “My private life, ma'am?” I repeated. “I was not aware that I had a + private life.” + </p> + <p> + “Anita, leave us alone with Mr. Blacklock,” commanded her mother. + </p> + <p> + The girl hesitated, bent her head, and with a cowed look went slowly + toward the door. There she paused, and, with what seemed a great effort, + lifted her head and gazed at me. How I ever came rightly to interpret her + look I don't know, but I said: “Miss Ellersly, I've the right to insist + that you stay.” I saw she was going to obey me, and before Mrs. Ellersly + could repeat her order I said: “Now, madam, if any one accuses me of + having done anything that would cause you to exclude a man from your + house, I am ready for the liar and his lie.” + </p> + <p> + As I spoke I was searching the weak, bad old face of her husband for an + explanation. Their pretense of outraged morality I rejected at once—it + was absurd. Neither up town nor down, nor anywhere else, had I done + anything that any one could regard as a breach of the code of a man of the + world. Then, reasoned I, they must have found some one else to help them + out of their financial troubles—some one who, perhaps, has made this + insult to me the price, or part of the price, of his generosity. Who? Who + hates me? In instant answer, up before my mind flashed a picture of Tom + Langdon and Sam Ellersly arm in arm entering Lewis' office. Tom Langdon + wishes to marry her; and her parents wish it, too; he is the man she was + confessing to me about—these were my swift conclusions. + </p> + <p> + “We do not care to discuss the matter, sir,” Mrs. Ellersly was replying, + her tone indicating that it was not fit to discuss. And this was the woman + I had hardly been able to treat civilly, so nauseating were her fawnings + and flatterings! + </p> + <p> + “So!” I said, ignoring her and opening my batteries full upon the old man. + “You are taking orders from Mowbray Langdon now. Why?” + </p> + <p> + As I spoke, I was conscious that there had been some change in Anita. I + looked at her. With startled eyes and lips apart, she was advancing toward + me. + </p> + <p> + “Anita, leave the room!” cried Mrs. Ellersly harshly, panic under the + command in her tones. + </p> + <p> + I felt rather than saw my advantage, and pressed it. + </p> + <p> + “You see what they are doing, Miss Ellersly,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She passed her hands over her eyes, let her face appear again. In it there + was an energy of repulsion that ought to have seemed exaggerated to me + then, knowing really nothing of the true situation. “I understand now!” + said she. “Oh—it is—loathsome!” And her eyes blazed upon her + mother. + </p> + <p> + “Loathsome,” I echoed, dashing at my opportunity. “If you are not merely a + chattel and a decoy, if there is any womanhood, any self-respect in you, + you will keep faith with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Anita!” cried Mrs. Ellersly. “Go to your room!” + </p> + <p> + I had, once or twice before, heard a tone as repulsive—a female + dive-keeper hectoring her wretched white slaves. I looked at Anita. I + expected to see her erect, defiant. Instead, she was again wearing that + cowed look. + </p> + <p> + “Don't judge me too harshly,” she said pleadingly to me. “I know what is + right and decent—God planted that too deep in me for them to be able + to uproot it. But—oh, they have broken my will! They have broken my + will! They have made me a coward, a thing!” And she hid her face in her + hands and sobbed. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ellersly was about to speak. I could not offer better proof of my own + strength of will than the fact that I, with a look and a gesture, put her + down. Then I said to the girl: + </p> + <p> + “You must choose now! Woman or thing—which shall it be? If it is + woman, then you have me behind you and in front of you and around you. If + it is thing—God have mercy on you! Your self-respect, your pride are + gone—for ever. You will be like the carpet under his feet to the man + whose creature you become.” + </p> + <p> + She came and stood by me, with her back to them. + </p> + <p> + “If you will take me with you now,” she said, “I will go. If I delay, I am + lost. I shall not have the courage. And I am sick, sick to death of this + life here, of this hideous wait for the highest bidder.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice gained strength and her manner courage as she spoke; at the end + she was meeting her mother's gaze without flinching. My eyes had followed + hers, and my look was taking in both her mother and her father. I had long + since measured them, yet I could scarcely credit the confirmation of my + judgment. Had life been smooth and comfortable for that old couple, as it + was for most of their acquaintances and friends, they would have lived and + died regarding themselves, and regarded, as well-bred, kindly people, of + the finest instincts and tastes. But calamity was putting to the test the + system on which they had molded their apparently elegant, graceful lives. + The storm had ripped off the attractive covering; the framework, the + reality of that system, was revealed, naked and frightful. + </p> + <p> + “Anita, go to your room!” almost screamed the old woman, her fury tearing + away the last shreds of her cloak of manners. + </p> + <p> + “Your daughter is of age, madam,” said I. “She will go where she pleases. + And I warn you that you are deceived by the Langdons. I am not powerless, + and”—here I let her have a full look into my red-hot furnaces of + wrath—“I stop at nothing in pursuing those who oppose me—at + nothing!” + </p> + <p> + Anita, staring at her mother's awful face, was shrinking and trembling as + if before the wicked, pale-yellow eyes and quivering, outstretched + tentacles of a devil-fish. Clinging to my arm, she let me guide her to the + door. Her mother recovered speech. “Anita!” she cried. “What are you + doing? Are you mad?” + </p> + <p> + “I think I must be out of my mind,” said Anita. “But, if you try to keep + me here, I shall tell him all—<i>all</i>.” + </p> + <p> + Her voice suggested that she was about to go into hysterics. I gently + urged her forward. There was some sort of woman's wrap in the hall. I put + it round her. Before she—or I—realized it, she was in my + waiting electric. + </p> + <p> + “Up town,” I said to my man. + </p> + <p> + She tried to get out. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, what have I done! What am I doing!” she cried, her courage oozing + away. “Let me out—please!” + </p> + <p> + “You are going with me,” said I, entering and closing the door. I saw the + door of the Ellersly mansion opening, saw old Ellersly, bareheaded and + distracted, scuttling down the steps. + </p> + <p> + “Go ahead—fast!” I called to my man. + </p> + <p> + And the electric was rushing up the avenue, with the bell ringing for + crossings incessantly. She huddled away from me into the corner of the + seat, sobbing hysterically. I knew that to touch her would be fatal—or + to speak. So I waited. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXII. MOST UNGENTLEMANLY + </h2> + <p> + As we neared the upper end of the park, I told my chauffeur, through the + tube, to enter and go slowly. Whenever a lamp flashed in at us, I had a + glimpse of her progress toward composure—now she was drying her eyes + with the bit of lace she called a handkerchief; now her bare arms were up, + and with graceful fingers she was arranging her hair; now she was straight + and still, the soft, fluffy material with which her wrap was edged drawn + close about her throat. I shifted to the opposite seat, for my nerves + warned me that I could not long control myself, if I stayed on where her + garments were touching me. + </p> + <p> + I looked away from her for the pleasure of looking at her again, of + realizing that my overwrought senses were not cheating me. Yes, there she + was, in all the luster of that magnetic beauty I can not think of even now + without an upblazing of the fire which is to the heart what the sun is to + a blind man dreaming of sight. There she was on my side of the chasm that + had separated us—alone with me—mine—mine! And my heart + dilated with pride. But a moment later came a sense of humility. Her + beauty intoxicated me, but her youth, her fineness, so fragile for such + rough hands as mine, awed and humbled me. + </p> + <p> + “I must be very gentle,” said I to myself. “I have promised that she shall + never regret. God help me to keep my promise! She is mine, but only to + preserve and protect.” + </p> + <p> + And that idea of <i>responsibility in possession</i> was new to me—was + to have far-reaching consequences. Now that I think of it, I believe it + changed the whole course of my life. + </p> + <p> + She was leaning forward, her elbow on the casement of the open window of + the brougham, her cheek against her hand; the moonlight was glistening on + her round, firm forearm and on her serious face. “How far, far away from—everything + it seems here!” she said, her voice tuned to that soft, clear light, “and + how beautiful it is!” Then, addressing the moon and the shadows of the + trees rather than me: “I wish I could go on and on—and never return + to—to the world.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish we could,” said I. + </p> + <p> + My tone was low, but she started, drew back into the brougham, became an + outline in the deep shadow. In another mood that might have angered me. + Just then it hurt me so deeply that to remember it to-day is to feel a + faint ache in the scar of the long-healed wound. My face was not hidden as + was hers; so, perhaps, she saw. At any rate, her voice tried to be + friendly as she said: “Well—I have crossed the Rubicon. And I don't + regret. It was silly of me to cry. I thought I had been through so much + that I was beyond such weakness. But you will find me calm from now on, + and reasonable.” + </p> + <p> + “Not too reasonable, please,” said I, with an attempt at her lightness. “A + reasonable woman is as trying as an unreasonable man.” + </p> + <p> + “But we are going to be sensible with each other,” she urged, “like two + friends. Aren't we?” + </p> + <p> + “We are going to be what we are going to be,” said I. “We'll have to take + life as it comes.” + </p> + <p> + That clumsy reminder set her to thinking, stirred her vague uneasiness in + those strange circumstances to active alarm. For presently she said, in a + tone that was not so matter-of-course as she had tried to make it: “We'll + go now to my Uncle Frank's. He's a brother of my father's. I always used + to like him best—and still do. But he married a woman mama thought—queer. + They hadn't much, so he lives away up on the West Side—One Hundred + and Twenty-seventh Street.” + </p> + <p> + “The wise plan, the only wise plan,” said I, not so calm as she must have + thought me, “is to go to my partner's house and send for a minister.” + </p> + <p> + “Not to-night,” she replied nervously. “Take me to Uncle Frank's, and + to-morrow we can discuss what to do and how to do it.” + </p> + <p> + “To-night,” I persisted. “We must be married to-night. No more uncertainty + and indecision and weakness. Let us begin bravely, Anita!” + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow,” she said. “But not to-night. I must think it over.” + </p> + <p> + “To-night,” I repeated. “To-morrow will be full of its own problems. This + is to-night's.” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head, and I saw that the struggle between us had begun—the + struggle against her timidity and conventionality. “No, not tonight.” This + in her tone for finality. + </p> + <p> + To argue with any woman in such circumstances would be dangerous; to argue + with her would have been fatal. To reason with a woman is to flatter her + into suspecting you of weakness and herself of strength. I told the + chauffeur to turn about and go slowly up town. She settled back into her + corner of the brougham. Neither of us spoke until we were passing Grant's + Tomb. Then she started out of her secure confidence in my obedience, and + exclaimed: “This is not the way!” And her voice had in it the hasty + call-to-arms. + </p> + <p> + “No,” I replied, determined to push the panic into a rout. “As I told you, + our future shall be settled to-night.” That in <i>my</i> tone for + finality. + </p> + <p> + A pause, then: “It <i>has</i> been settled,” she said, like a child that + feels, yet denies, its impotence as it struggles in the compelling arms of + its father. “I thought until a few minutes ago that I really intended to + marry you. Now I see that I didn't.” + </p> + <p> + “Another reason why we're not going to your uncle's,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She leaned forward so that I could see her face. “I can not marry you,” + she said. “I feel humble toward you, for having misled you. But it is + better that you—and I—should have found out now than too + late.” + </p> + <p> + “It is too late—too late to go back.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you wish to marry a woman who does not love you, who loves some one + else, and who tells you so and refuses to marry you?” She had tried to + concentrate enough scorn into her voice to hide her fear. + </p> + <p> + “I would,” said I. “And I shall. I'll not desert you, Anita, when your + courage and strength shall fail. I will carry you on to safety.” + </p> + <p> + “I tell you I can not marry you,” she cried, between appeal and command. + “There are reasons—I may not tell you. But if I might, you would—would + take me to my uncle's. I can not marry you!” + </p> + <p> + “That is what conventionality bids you say now,” I replied. And then I + gathered myself together and in a tone that made me hate myself as I heard + it, I added slowly, each word sharp and distinct: “But what will + conventionality bid you say to-morrow morning, as we drive down crowded + Fifth Avenue, after a night in this brougham?” + </p> + <p> + I could not see her, for she fell back into the darkness as sharply as if + I had struck her with all my force full in the face. But I could feel the + effect of my words upon her. I paused, not because I expected or wished an + answer, but because I had to steady myself—myself, not my purpose; + my purpose was inflexible. I would put through what we had begun, just as + I would have held her and cut off her arm with my pocket-knife if we had + been cast away alone, and I had had to do it to save her life. She was not + competent to decide for herself. Every problem that had ever faced her had + been decided by others for her. Who but me could decide for her now? I + longed to plead with her, longed to let her see that I was not + hard-hearted, was thinking of her, was acting for her sake as much as for + my own. But I dared not. “She would misunderstand,” said I to myself. “She + would think you were weakening.” + </p> + <p> + Full fifteen minutes of that frightful silence before she said: “I will go + where you wish.” And she said it in a tone that makes me wince as I recall + it. + </p> + <p> + I called my partner's address up through the tube. Again that frightful + silence, then she was trying to choke back the sobs. A few words I caught: + “They have broken my will—they have broken my will.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + My partner lived in a big, gray-stone house that stood apart and commanded + a noble view of the Hudson and the Palisades. It was, in the main, a + reproduction of a French château, and such changes as the architect had + made in his model were not positively disfiguring, though amusing. There + should have been trees and shrubbery about it, but—“As Mrs. B. + says,” Joe had explained to me, “what's the use of sinking a lot of cash + in a house people can't see?” So there was not a bush, not a flower. + Inside—One day Ball took me on a tour of the art shops. “I've got a + dozen corners and other big bare spots to fill,” said he. “Mrs. B. hates + to give up money, haggles over every article. I'm going to put the job + through in business style.” I soon discovered that I had been brought + along to admire his “business style,” not to suggest. After two hours, in + which he bought in small lots several tons of statuary, paintings, vases + and rugs, he said, “This is too slow.” He pointed his stick at a crowded + corner of the shop. “How much for that bunch of stuff?” he demanded. The + proprietor gave him a figure. “I'll close,” said Joe, “if you'll give + fifteen off for cash.” The proprietor agreed. “Now we're done,” said Joe + to me. “Let's go down town, and maybe I can pick up what I've dropped.” + </p> + <p> + You can imagine that interior. But don't picture it as notably worse than + the interior of the average New York palace. It was, if anything, better + than those houses, where people who deceive themselves about their lack of + taste have taken great pains to prevent any one else from being deceived. + One could hardly move in Joe's big rooms for the litter of gilded and + tapestried furniture, and their crowded walls made the eyes ache. + </p> + <p> + The appearance of the man who opened the door for Anita and me suggested + that our ring had roused him from a bed where he had deposited himself + without bothering to take off his clothes. At the sound of my voice, Ball + peered out of his private smoking-room, at the far end of the hall. He + started forward; then, seeing how I was accompanied, stopped with mouth + ajar. He had on a ragged smoking-jacket, a pair of shapeless old Romeo + slippers, his ordinary business waistcoat and trousers. He was wearing + neither tie nor collar, and a short, black pipe was between his fingers. + We had evidently caught the household stripped of “lugs,” and sunk in the + down-at-the-heel slovenliness which it called “comfort.” Joe was crimson + with confusion, and was using his free hand to stroke, alternately, his + shiny bald head and his heavy brown mustache. He got himself together + sufficiently, after a few seconds, to disappear into his den. When he came + out again, pipe and ragged jacket were gone, and he rushed for us in a + gorgeous velvet jacket with dark red facings, and a showy pair of + slippers. + </p> + <p> + “Glad to see you, Mr. Blacklock”—in his own home he always addressed + every man as Mister, just as “Mrs. B.” always called him “Mister Ball,” + and he called her “Missus Ball” before “company.” “Come right into the + front parlor. Billy, turn on the electric lights.” + </p> + <p> + Anita had been standing with her head down. She now looked round with + shame and terror in those expressive blue-gray eyes of hers; her delicate + nostrils were quivering. I hastened to introduce Ball to her. Her impulse + to fly passed; her lifelong training in doing the conventional thing + asserted itself. She lowered her head again, murmured an inaudible + acknowledgment of Joe's greeting. + </p> + <p> + “Your wife is at home?” said I. If one was at home in the evening, the + other was also, and both were always there, unless they were at some + theater—except on Sunday night, when they dined at Sherry's, because + many fashionable people did it. They had no friends and few acquaintances. + In their humbler and happy days they had had many friends, but had lost + them when they moved away from Brooklyn and went to live, like uneasy, + out-of-place visitors, in their grand house, pretending to be what they + longed to be, longing to be what they pretended to be, and as discontented + as they deserved. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, Mrs. B.'s at home,” Joe answered. “I guess she and Alva were—about + to go to bed.” Alva was their one child. She had been christened Malvina, + after Joe's mother; but when the Balls “blossomed out” they renamed her + Alva, which they somehow had got the impression was “smarter.” + </p> + <p> + At Joe's blundering confession that the females of the family were in no + condition to receive, Anita said to me in a low voice: “Let us go.” + </p> + <p> + I pretended not to hear. “Rout 'em out,” said I to Joe. “Then, take my + electric and bring the nearest parson. There's going to be a wedding—right + here.” And I looked round the long salon, with everything draped for the + summer departure. Joe whisked the cover off one chair, his man took off + another. “I'll have the women-folks down in two minutes,” he cried. Then + to the man: “Get a move on you, Billy. Stir 'em up in the kitchen. Do the + best you can about supper—and put a lot of champagne on the ice. + That's the main thing at a wedding.” + </p> + <p> + Anita had seated herself listlessly in one of the uncovered chairs. The + wrap slipped back from her shoulders and—how proud I was of her! Joe + gazed, took advantage of her not looking up to slap me on the back and to + jerk his head in enthusiastic approval. Then he, too, disappeared. + </p> + <p> + A wait followed, during which we could hear, through the silence, excited + undertones from the upper floors. The words were indistinct until Joe's + heavy voice sent down to us an angry “No damn nonsense, I tell you. + Allie's got to come, too. She's not such a fool as you think. Bad example—bosh!” + </p> + <p> + Anita started up. “Oh—please—please!” she cried. “Take me away—anywhere! + This is dreadful.” + </p> + <p> + It was, indeed, dreadful. If I could have had my way at just that moment, + it would have gone hard with “Mrs. B.” and “Allie”—and heavy-voiced + Joe, too. But I hid my feelings. + </p> + <p> + “There's nowhere else to go,” said I, “except the brougham.” + </p> + <p> + She sank into her chair. + </p> + <p> + A few minutes more of silence, and there was a rustling on the stairs. She + started up, trembling, looked round, as if seeking some way of escape or + some place to hide. Joe was in the doorway holding aside one of the + curtains. There entered in a beribboned and beflounced tea-gown, a pretty, + if rather ordinary, woman of forty, with a petulant baby face. She was + trying to look reserved and severe. She hardly glanced at me before + fastening sharp, suspicious eyes on Anita. + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Ball,” said I, “this is Miss Ellersly.” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Ellersly!” she exclaimed, her face changing. And she advanced and + took both Anita's hands. “Mr. Ball is so stupid,” she went on, with that + amusingly affected accent which is the “Sunday clothes” of speech. + </p> + <p> + “I didn't catch the name, my dear,” Joe stammered. + </p> + <p> + “Be off,” said I, aside, to him. “Get the nearest preacher, and hustle him + here with his tools.” + </p> + <p> + I had one eye on Anita all the time, and I saw her gaze follow Joe as he + hurried out; and her expression made my heart ache. I heard him saying in + the hall, “Go in, Allie. It's O K”; heard the door slam, knew we should + soon have some sort of minister with us. + </p> + <p> + “Allie” entered the drawing-room. I had not seen her in six years. I + remembered her unpleasantly as a great, bony, florid child, unable to + stand still or to sit still, or to keep her tongue still, full of aimless + questions and giggles and silly remarks that she and her mother thought + funny. I saw her now, grown into a handsome young woman, with enough + beauty points for an honorable mention, if not for a prize—straight + and strong and rounded, with a brow and a keen look out of the eyes which + it seemed a pity should be wasted on a woman. Her mother's looks, her + father's good sense, a personality apparently got from neither, but all + her own, and unusual and interesting. No wonder the Balls felt toward her + much as a pair of barn-swallows would feel if they were to hatch out an + eaglet. These quiet, tame American parents that are always finding their + suppressed selves, the bold, fantastic, unadmitted dreams of their youth + startlingly confronting them in the flesh as their own children! + </p> + <p> + “From what Mr. Ball said,”—Mrs. Ball was gushing affectedly to + Anita,—“I got an idea that—well, really, I didn't know <i>what</i> + to think.” + </p> + <p> + Anita looked as if she were about to suffocate. Allie came to the rescue. + “Not very complimentary to Mr. Blacklock, mother,” said she + good-humoredly. Then to Anita, with a simple friendliness there was no + resisting: “Wouldn't you like to come up to my room for a few minutes?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, thank you!” responded Anita, after a quick, but thorough inspection + of Alva's face, to make sure she was like her voice. I had not counted on + this; I had been assuming that Anita would not be out of my sight until we + were married. It was on the tip of my tongue to interfere when she looked + at me—for permission to go! + </p> + <p> + “Don't keep her too long,” said I to Alva, and they were gone. + </p> + <p> + “You can't blame me—really you can't, Mr. Blacklock,” Mrs. Ball + began to plead for herself, as soon as they were safely out of hearing. + “After some things—mere hints, you understand—for I'm careful + what I permit Mr. Ball to say before <i>me</i>. I think married people can + not be too respectful of each other. I <i>never</i> tolerate <i>vulgarity</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “No doubt, Joe has made me out a very vulgar person,” said I, forgetting + her lack of humor. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, not at all, not at all, Mr. Blacklock,” she protested, in a panic + lest she had done her husband damage with me. “I understand, men will be + men, though as a pure-minded woman, I'm sure I can't imagine why they + should be.” + </p> + <p> + “How far off is the nearest church?” I cut in. + </p> + <p> + “Only two blocks—that is, the Methodist church,” she replied. “But I + know Mr. Ball will bring an Episcopalian.” + </p> + <p> + “Why, I thought you were a devoted Presbyterian,” said I, recalling how in + their Brooklyn days she used to insist on Joe's going twice every Sunday + to sleep through long sermons. + </p> + <p> + She looked uncomfortable. “I was reared Presbyterian,” she explained + confusedly, “but you know how it is in New York. And when we came to live + here, we got out of the habit of church-going. And all Alva's little + friends were Episcopalians. So I drifted toward that church. I find the + service so satisfying—so—elegant. And—one sees there the + people one sees socially.” + </p> + <p> + “How is your culture class?” I inquired, deliberately malicious, in my + impatience and nervousness. “And do you still take conversation lessons?” + </p> + <p> + She was furiously annoyed. “Oh, those old jokes of Joe's,” she said, + affecting disdainful amusement. + </p> + <p> + In fact, they were anything but jokes. On Mondays and Thursdays she used + to attend a class for women who, like herself, wished to be “up-to-date on + culture and all that sort of thing.” They hired a teacher to cram them + with odds and ends about art and politics and the “latest literature, + heavy and light.” On Tuesdays and Fridays she had an “indigent + gentlewoman,” whatever that may be, come to her to teach her how to + converse and otherwise conduct herself according to the “standards of + polite society.” + </p> + <p> + Joe used to give imitations of those conversation lessons that raised + roars of laughter round the poker table, the louder because so many of the + other men had wives with the same ambitions and the same methods of + attaining them. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Ball came back to the subject of Anita. + </p> + <p> + “I am glad you are going to settle with such a charming girl. She comes of + such a charming family. I have never happened to meet any of them. We are + in the West Side set, you know, while they move in the East Side set, and + New York is so large that one almost never meets any one outside one's own + set.” This smooth snobbishness, said in the affected “society” tone, was + as out of place in her as rouge and hair-dye in a wholesome, honest old + grandmother. + </p> + <p> + I began to pace the floor. “Can it be,” I fretted aloud, “that Joe's + racing round looking for an Episcopalian preacher, when there was a + Methodist at hand?” + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure he wouldn't bring anything but a Church of England priest,” Mrs. + Ball assured me loftily. “Why, Miss Ellersly wouldn't think she was + married, if she hadn't a priest of her own church.” + </p> + <p> + My temper got the bit in its teeth. I stopped before her, and fixed her + with an eye that must have had some fire in it. “I'm not marrying a fool, + Mrs. Ball,” said I. “You mustn't judge her by her bringing-up—by her + family. Children have a way of bringing themselves up, in spite of damn + fool parents.” + </p> + <p> + She weakened so promptly that I was ashamed of myself. My only apology for + getting out of patience with her is that I had seen her seldom in the last + few years, had forgotten how matter-of-surface her affectation and + snobbery were, and how little they interfered with her being a good mother + and a good wife, up to the limits of her brain capacity. + </p> + <p> + “I'm sure, Mr. Blacklock,” she said plaintively, “I only wished to say + what was pleasant and nice about your fiancée. I know she's a lovely girl. + I've often admired her at the opera. She goes a great deal in Mrs. + Langdon's box, and Mrs. Langdon and I are together on the board of + managers of the Magdalene Home, and also on the board of the Hospital for + Unfortunate Gentlefolk.” And so on, and on. + </p> + <p> + I walked up and down among those wrapped-up, ghostly chairs and tables and + cabinets and statues many times before Joe arrived with the minister—and + he was a Methodist, McCabe by name. You should have seen Mrs. Ball's look + as he advanced his portly form and round face with its shaven upper lip + into the drawing-room. She tried to be cordial, but she couldn't—her + mind was on Anita, and the horror that would fill her when she discovered + that she was to be married by a preacher of a sect unknown to fashionable + circles. + </p> + <p> + “All I ask of you,” said I to him, “is that you cut it as short as + possible. Miss Ellersly is tired and nervous.” This while we were shaking + hands after Joe's introduction. + </p> + <p> + “You can count on me, sir,” said McCabe, giving my hand an extra shake + before dropping it. “I've no doubt, from what my young neighbor here tells + me, that your marriage is already made in your hearts and with all + solemnity. The form is an incident—important, but only an incident.” + </p> + <p> + I liked that, and I liked his unaffected way of saying it. His voice had + more of the homely, homelike, rural twang in it than I had heard in New + York in many a day. I mentally doubled the fee I had intended to give him. + And now Alva and she were coming down the stairway. I was amazed at sight + of her. Her evening dress had given place to a pretty blue street suit + with a short skirt—white showing at her wrists, at her neck and + through slashings in the coat over her bosom; and on her head was a hat to + match. I looked at her feet—the slippers had been replaced by boots. + “And they're just right for her,” said Alva, who was following my glance, + “though I'm not so tall as she.” + </p> + <p> + But what amazed me most, and delighted me, was that she seemed to be + almost in good spirits. It was evident she had formed with Joe's daughter + one of those sudden friendships so great and so vivid that they rarely + lived long after the passing of the heat of the emergency that bred them. + Mrs. Ball saw it, also, and was straightway giddied into a sort of + ecstasy. You can imagine the visions it conjured. I've no doubt she talked + house on the east side of the park to Joe that very night, before she let + him sleep. However, Anita's face was serious enough when we took our + places before the minister, with his little, black-bound book open. And as + he read in a voice that was genuinely impressive those words that no voice + could make unimpressive, I saw her paleness blanch into pallor, saw the + dusk creep round her eyes until they were like stars waning somberly + before the gray face of dawn. When they closed and her head began to sway, + I steadied her with my arm. And so we stood, I with my arm round her, she + leaning lightly against my shoulder. Her answers were mere movements of + the lips. + </p> + <p> + At the end, when I kissed her cheek, she said: “Is it over?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” McCabe answered—she was looking at him. “And I wish you all + happiness, Mrs. Blacklock.” + </p> + <p> + At that name, her new name, she stared at him with great wondering eyes; + then her form relaxed. I carried her to a chair. Joe came with a glass of + champagne; she drank some of it, and it brought life back to her face, and + some color. With a naturalness that deceived even me for the moment, she + smiled up at Joe as she handed him the glass. “Is it bad luck,” she asked, + “for me to be the first to drink my own health?” And she stood, looking + tranquilly at every one—except me. + </p> + <p> + I took McCabe into the hall and paid him off. + </p> + <p> + When we came back, I said: “Now we must be going.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but surely you'll stay for supper!” cried Joe's wife. + </p> + <p> + “No,” replied I, in a tone that made it impossible to insist. “We + appreciate your kindness, but we've imposed on it enough.” And I shook + hands with her and with Allie and the minister, and, linking Joe's arm in + mine, made for the door. I gave the necessary directions to my chauffeur + while we were waiting for Anita to come down the steps. Joe's daughter was + close beside her, and they kissed each other good-by, Alva on the verge of + tears, Anita not suggesting any emotion of any sort. “To-morrow—sure,” + Anita said to her. And she answered: “Yes, indeed—as soon as you + telephone me.” And so we were off, a shower of rice rattling on the roof + of the brougham—the slatternly man-servant had thrown it from the + midst of the group of servants. + </p> + <p> + Neither of us spoke. I watched her face without seeming to do so, and by + the light of occasional street lamps saw her studying me furtively. At + last she said: “I wish to go to my uncle's now.” + </p> + <p> + “We are going home,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “But the house will be shut up,” said she, “and every one will be in bed. + It's nearly midnight. Besides, they might not—” She came to a full + stop. + </p> + <p> + “We are going—home,” I repeated. “To the Willoughby.” + </p> + <p> + She gave me a look that was meant to scorch—and it did. But I showed + at the surface no sign of how I was wincing and shrinking. + </p> + <p> + She drew farther into her corner, and out of its darkness came, in a low + voice: “How I <i>hate</i> you!” like the whisper of a bullet. + </p> + <p> + I kept silent until I had control of myself. Then, as if talking—of + a matter that had been finally and amicably settled, I began: “The + apartment isn't exactly ready for us, but Joe's just about now telephoning + my man that we are coming, and telephoning your people to send your maid + down there.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish to go to my uncle's,” she repeated. + </p> + <p> + “My wife will go with me,” said I quietly and gently. “I am considerate of + <i>her</i>, not of her unwise impulses.” + </p> + <p> + A long pause, then from her, in icy calmness: “I am in your power just + now. But I warn you that, if you do not take me to my uncle's, you will + wish you had never seen me.” + </p> + <p> + “I've wished that many times already,” said I sadly. “I've wished it from + the bottom of my heart this whole evening, when step by step fate has been + forcing me on to do things that are even more hateful to me than to you. + For they not only make me hate myself, but make you hate me, too.” I laid + my hand on her arm and held it there, though she tried to draw away. + “Anita,” I said, “I would do anything for you—live for you, die for + you. But there's that something inside me—you've felt it; and when + it says 'must,' I can't disobey—you know I can't. And, though you + might break my heart, you could not break that will. It's as much my + master as it is yours.” + </p> + <p> + “We shall see—to-morrow,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Do not put me to the test,” I pleaded. Then I added what I knew to be + true: “But you will not. You know it would take some one stronger than + your uncle, stronger than your parents, to swerve me from what I believe + right for you and for me.” I had no fear for “to-morrow.” The hour when + she could defy me had passed. + </p> + <p> + A long, long silence, the electric speeding southward under the arching + trees of the West Drive. I remember it was as we skirted the lower end of + the Mall that she said evenly: “You have made me hate you so that it + terrifies me. I am afraid of the consequences that must come to you and to + me.” + </p> + <p> + “And well you may be,” I answered gently. “For you've seen enough of me to + get at least a hint of what I would do, if goaded to it. Hate is terrible, + Anita, but love can be more terrible.” + </p> + <p> + At the Willoughby she let me help her descend from the electric, waited + until I sent it away, walked beside me into the building. My man, Sanders, + had evidently been listening for the elevator; the door opened without my + ringing, and there he was, bowing low. She acknowledged his welcome with + that regard for “appearances” that training had made instinctive. In the + center of my—our—drawing-room table was a mass of fresh white + roses. “Where did you get 'em?” I asked him, in an aside. + </p> + <p> + “The elevator boy's brother, sir,” he replied, “works in the florist's + shop just across the street, next to the church. He happened to be down + stairs when I got your message, sir. So I was able to get a few flowers. + I'm sorry, sir, I hadn't a little more time.” + </p> + <p> + “You've done noble,” said I, and I shook hands with him warmly. + </p> + <p> + Anita was greeting those flowers as if they were a friend suddenly + appearing in a time of need. She turned now and beamed on Sanders. “Thank + you,” she said; “thank you.” And Sanders was hers. + </p> + <p> + “Anything I can do—ma'am—sir?” asked Sanders. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing—except send my maid as soon as she comes,” she replied. + </p> + <p> + “I shan't need you,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Monson is still here,” he said, lingering. “Shall I send him away, + sir, or do you wish to see him?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll speak to him myself in a moment,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + When Sanders was gone, she seated herself and absently played with the + buttons of her glove. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I bring Monson?” I asked. “You know, he's my—factotum.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>I</i> do not wish to see him,” she answered. + </p> + <p> + “You do not like him?” + </p> + <p> + After a brief hesitation she answered, “No.” Not for worlds would she just + then have admitted, even to herself, that the cause of her dislike was her + knowledge of his habit of tattling, with suitable embroideries, his + lessons to me. + </p> + <p> + I restrained a strong impulse to ask her why, for instinct told me she had + some especial reason that somehow concerned me. I said merely: “Then I + shall get rid of him.” + </p> + <p> + “Not on my account,” she replied indifferently. “I care nothing about him + one way or the other.” + </p> + <p> + “He goes at the end of his month,” said I. + </p> + <p> + She was now taking off her gloves. “Before your maid comes,” I went on, + “let me explain about the apartment. This room and the two leading out of + it are yours. My own suite is on the other side of our private hall + there.” + </p> + <p> + She colored high, paled. I saw that she did not intend to speak. + </p> + <p> + I stood awkwardly, waiting for something further to come into my own head. + “Good night,” said I finally, as if I were taking leave of a formal + acquaintance at the end of a formal call. + </p> + <p> + She did not answer. I left the room, closing the door behind me. I paused + an instant, heard the key click in the lock. And I burned in a hot flush + of shame that she should be thinking thus basely of me—and with good + cause. How could she know, how appreciate even if she had known? “You've + had to cut deep,” said I to myself. “But the wounds'll heal, though it may + take long—very long.” And I went on my way, not wholly downcast. + </p> + <p> + I joined Monson in my little smoking-room. “Congratulate you,” he began, + with his nasty, supercilious grin, which of late had been getting on my + nerves severely. + </p> + <p> + “Thanks,” I replied curtly, paying no attention to his outstretched hand. + “I want you to put a notice of the marriage in to-morrow morning's <i>Herald</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “Give me the facts—clergyman's name—place, and so on,” said + he. + </p> + <p> + “Unnecessary,” I answered. “Just our names and the date—that's all. + You'd better step lively. It's late, and it'll be too late if you delay.” + </p> + <p> + With an irritating show of deliberation he lit a fresh cigarette before + setting out. I heard her maid come. After about an hour I went into the + hall—no light through the transoms of her suite. I returned to my + own part of the flat and went to bed in the spare room to which Sanders + had moved my personal belongings. That day which began in disaster—in + what a blaze of triumph it had ended! Anita—my wife, and under my + roof! I slept with good conscience. I had earned sleep. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIII. “SHE HAS CHOSEN!” + </h2> + <p> + Joe got to the office rather later than usual the next morning. They told + him I was already there, but he wouldn't believe it until he had come into + my private den and with his own eyes had seen me. “Well, I'm jiggered!” + said he. “It seems to have made less impression on you than it did on us. + My missus and the little un wouldn't let me go to bed till after two. They + sat on and on, questioning and discussing.” + </p> + <p> + I laughed—partly because I knew that Joe, like most men, was as full + of gossip and as eager for it as a convalescent old maid, and that, + whoever might have been the first at his house to make the break for bed, + he was the last to leave off talking. But the chief reason for my laugh + was that, just before he came in on me, I was almost pinching myself to + see whether I was dreaming it all, and he had made me feel how vividly + true it was. + </p> + <p> + “Why don't you ease down, Blacklock?” he went on. “Everything's smooth. + The business—at least, my end of it, and I suppose your end, too—was + never better, never growing so fast. You could go off for a week or two, + just as well as not. I don't know of a thing that can prevent you.” + </p> + <p> + And he honestly thought it, so little did I let him know about the larger + enterprises of Blacklock and Company. I could have spoken a dozen words, + and he would have been floundering like a caught fish in a basket. There + are men—a very few—who work more swiftly and more surely when + they know they're on the brink of ruin; but not Joe. One glimpse of our + real National Coal account, and all my power over him couldn't have kept + him from showing the whole Street that Blacklock and Company was shaky. + And whenever the Street begins to think a man is shaky, he must be strong + indeed to escape the fate of the wolf that stumbles as it runs with the + pack. + </p> + <p> + “No holiday at present, Joe,” was my reply to his suggestion. “Perhaps the + second week in July; but our marriage was so sudden that we haven't had + the time to get ready for a trip.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—it <i>was</i> sudden, wasn't it?” said Joe, curiosity twitching + his nose like a dog's at scent of a rabbit. “How <i>did</i> it happen?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'll tell you sometime,” replied I. “I must work now.” + </p> + <p> + And work a-plenty there was. Before me rose a sheaf of clamorous telegrams + from our out-of-town customers and our agents; and soon my anteroom was + crowded with my local following, sore and shorn. I suppose a score or more + of the habitual heavy plungers on my tips were ruined and hundreds of + others were thousands and tens of thousands out of pocket. “Do you want me + to talk to these people?” inquired Joe, with the kindly intention of + giving me a chance to shift the unpleasant duty to him. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not,” said I. “When the place is jammed, let me know. I'll jack + 'em up.” + </p> + <p> + It made Joe uneasy for me even to talk of using my “language”—he + would have crawled from the Battery to Harlem to keep me from using it on + him. So he silently left me alone. My system of dealing face to face with + the speculating and investing public had many great advantages over that + of all the other big operators—their system of hiding behind + cleverly-contrived screens and slaughtering the decoyed public without + showing so much as the tip of a gun or nose that could be identified. But + to my method there was a disadvantage that made men, who happened to have + more hypocrisy and less nerve than I, shrink from it. When one of my tips + miscarried, down upon me would swoop the bad losers in a body to give me a + turbulent quarter of an hour. + </p> + <p> + Toward ten o'clock, my boy came in and said: “Mr. Ball thinks it's about + time for you to see some of these people.” + </p> + <p> + I went into the main room, where the tickers and blackboards were. As I + approached through my outer office I could hear the noise the crowd was + making—as they cursed me. If you want to rile the true inmost soul + of the average human being, don't take his reputation or his wife; just + cause him to lose money. There were among my speculating customers many + with the even-tenored sporting instinct. These were bearing their losses + with philosophy—none of them had swooped on me. Of the perhaps three + hundred who had come to ease their anguish by tongue-lashing me, every one + was a bad loser and was mad through and through—those who had lost a + few hundred dollars were as infuriated as those whom my misleading tip had + cost thousands and tens of thousands; those whom I had helped to win all + they had in the world were more savage than those new to my following. + </p> + <p> + I took my stand in the doorway, a step up from the floor of the main room. + I looked all round until I had met each pair of angry eyes. They say I can + give my face an expression that is anything but agreeable; such talent as + I have in that direction I exerted then. The instant I appeared a silence + fell; but I waited until the last pair of claws drew in. Then I said, in + the quiet tone the army officer uses when he tells the mob that the + machine guns will open up in two minutes by the watch: “Gentlemen, in the + effort to counteract my warning to the public, the Textile crowd rocketed + the stock yesterday. Those who heeded my warning and sold got excellent + prices. Those who did not should sell to-day. Not even the powerful + interests behind Textile can long maintain yesterday's prices.” + </p> + <p> + A wave of restlessness passed over the crowd. Many shifted their eyes from + me and began to murmur. + </p> + <p> + I raised my voice slightly as I went on: “The speculators, the gamblers, + are the only people who were hurt. Those who sold what they didn't have + are paying for their folly. I have no sympathy for them. Blacklock and + Company wishes none such in its following, and seizes every opportunity to + weed them out. We are in business only for the bona fide investing public, + and we are stronger with that public to-day than we have ever been.” + </p> + <p> + Again I looked from coward to coward of that mob, changed from three + hundred strong to three hundred weak. Then I bowed and withdrew, leaving + them to mutter and disperse. I felt well content with the trend of events—I + who wished to impress the public and the financiers that I had broken with + speculation and speculators, could I have had a better than this + unexpected opportunity sharply to define my new course? And as Textiles, + unsupported, fell toward the close of the day, my content rose toward my + normal high spirits. There was no whisper in the Street that I was in + trouble; on the contrary, the idea was gaining ground that I had really + long ceased to be a stock gambler and deserved a much better reputation + than I had. Reputation is a matter of diplomacy rather than of desert. In + all my career I was never less entitled to a good reputation than in those + June days; yet the disastrous gambling follies, yes, and worse, I then + committed, formed the secure foundation of my reputation for conservatism + and square dealing. From that time dates the decline of the habit the + newspapers had of speaking of me as “Black Matt” or “Matt” Blacklock. In + them, and therefore in the public mind, I began to figure as “Mr. + Blacklock, a recognized authority on finance,” and such information as I + gave out ceased to be described as “tips” and was respectfully referred to + as “indications.” + </p> + <p> + No doubt, my marriage had something to do with this. Probably one couldn't + borrow any great amount of money in New York directly and solely on the + strength of a fashionable marriage; but, so all-pervading is the + snobbishness there, one can get, by making a fashionable marriage, any + quantity of that deferential respect from rich people which is, in some + circumstances, easily convertible into cash and credit. + </p> + <p> + I searched with a good deal of anxiety, as you may imagine, the early + editions of the afternoon papers. The first article my eye chanced upon + was a mere wordy elaboration of the brief and vague announcement Monson + had put in the <i>Herald</i>. Later came an interview with old Ellersly. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all mysterious,” he had said to the reporters. “Mr. Blacklock + found he would have to go abroad on business soon—he didn't know + just when. On the spur of the moment they decided to marry.” A good enough + story, and I confirmed it when I admitted the reporters. I read their + estimates of my fortune and of Anita's with rather bitter amusement—she + whose father was living from hand to mouth; I who could not have emerged + from a forced settlement with enough to enable me to keep a trap. Still, + when one is rich, the reputation of being rich is heavily expensive; but + when one is poor the reputation of being rich can be made a wealth-giving + asset. + </p> + <p> + Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk + before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs—a + memorandum made by myself for my own eyes, and to be burned as soon as I + mastered it. On the face of the figures the balance against me was + appalling. My chief asset, indeed my only asset that measured up toward my + debts, was my Coal stocks, those bought and those contracted for; and, + while their par value far exceeded my liabilities, they had to appear in + my memorandum at their actual market value on that day. I looked at the + calendar—seventeen days until the reorganization scheme would be + announced, only seventeen days! + </p> + <p> + Less than three business weeks, and I should be out of the storm and + sailing safer and smoother seas than I had ever known. “To indulge in + vague <i>hopes</i> is bad,” thought I, “but not to indulge in <i>a</i> + hope, especially when one has only it between him and the pit.” And I + proceeded to plan on the not unwarranted assumption that my Coal hope was + a present reality. Indeed, what alternative had I? To put it among the + future's uncertainties was to put myself among the utterly ruined. Using + as collateral the Coal stocks I had bought outright, I borrowed more + money, and with it went still deeper into the Coal venture. Everything or + nothing!—since the chances in my favor were a thousand, to + practically none against me. Everything or nothing!—since only by + staking everything could I possibly save anything at all. + </p> + <p> + The morality of these and many of my other doings in those days will no + doubt be condemned. By no one more severely than by myself—now that + the necessities which then compelled me have passed. There is no subject + on which men talk and think, more humbug than on that subject of morality. + As a matter of fact, except in those personal relations that are governed + by the affections, what is morality but the mandate of policy, and what is + policy but the mandate of necessity? My criticism of Roebuck and the other + “high financiers” is not upon their morality, but upon their policy, which + is short-sighted and stupid and base. The moral difference between me and + them is that, while I merely assert and maintain my right to live, they + deny the right of any but themselves to live. I say I criticize them; but + that does not mean that I sympathize with the public at large in its + complainings against them. The public, its stupidity and cupidity, creates + the conditions that breed and foster these men. A rotten cheese reviling + the maggots it has bred! + </p> + <p> + In those very hours when I was obeying the imperative law of + self-preservation, was clutching at every log that floated by me + regardless of whether it was my property or not so long as it would help + me keep my head above water—what was going on all round me? In every + office of the down town district—merchant, banker, broker, lawyer, + man of commerce or finance—was not every busy brain plotting, not + self-preservation but pillage and sack—plotting to increase the cost + of living for the masses of men by slipping a little tax here and a little + tax there on to everything by which men live? All along the line between + the farm or mine or shop and the market, at every one of the toll-gates + for the collection of <i>just</i> charges, these big financiers, backed up + by the big lawyers and the rascally public officials, had an agent in + charge to collect on each passing article more than was honestly due. A + thousand subtle ways of levying, all combining to pour in upon the few the + torrents of unjust wealth. I laugh when I read of laboring men striking + for higher wages. Poor, ignorant fools—they almost deserve their + fate. They had better be concerning themselves with a huge, universal + strike at the polls for lower prices. What will it avail to get higher + wages, as long as the masters control and recoup on the prices of all the + things for which those wages must be spent? + </p> + <p> + I lived in Wall Street, in its atmosphere of the practical morality of + “finance.” On every side swindling operations, great and small; operations + regarded as right through long-established custom; dishonest or doubtful + operations on the way to becoming established by custom as “respectable.” + No man's title to anything conceded unless he had the brains to defend it. + There was a time when it would have been regarded as wildly preposterous + and viciously immoral to deny property rights in human beings. There may + come a time—who knows?—when “high finance's” denial of a moral + right to property of any kind may cease to be regarded as wicked; may + become a generally accepted canon, as our Socialist friends predict. + However, I attempt no excuses for myself; I need them no more than a judge + in the Dark Ages needed to apologize for ordering a witch to the stake. I + could no more have done differently than a fish could breathe on land or a + man under water. I did as all the others did—and I had the + justification of necessity. Right of might being the prevailing code, when + men set upon me with pistols, I met them with pistols, not with the + discarded and antiquated weapons of sermon and prayer and the law. + </p> + <p> + And I thought extremely well of myself and of my pistols that June + afternoon, as I was hurrying up town the moment the day's settlement on + 'Change was finished. I had sent out my daily letter to investors, and its + tone of confidence was genuine—I knew that hundreds of customers of + a better class would soon be flocking in to take the places of those I had + been compelled to teach a lesson in the vicissitudes of gambling. With a + light heart and the physical feeling of a football player in training, I + sped toward home. + </p> + <p> + Home! For the first time since I was a squat little slip of a shaver the + word had a personal meaning for me. Perhaps, if the only other home of + mine had been less uninviting, I should not have looked forward with such + high beating of the heart to that cold home Anita was making for me. No, I + withdraw that. It is fellows like me, to whom kindly looks and unsought + attentions are as unfamiliar as flowers to the Arctic—it is men like + me that appreciate and treasure and warm up under the faintest show or + shadowy suggestion of the sunshine of sentiment. I'd be a little ashamed + to say how much money I handed out to beggars and street gamins that day. + I had a home to go to! + </p> + <p> + As my electric drew up at the Willoughby, a carriage backed to make room + for it. I recognized the horses and the coachman and the crest. + </p> + <p> + “How long has Mrs. Ellersly been with my wife?” I asked the elevator boy, + as he was taking me up. + </p> + <p> + “About half an hour, sir,” he answered. “But Mr. Ellersly—I took up + his card before lunch, and he's still there.” + </p> + <p> + Instead of using my key, I rang the bell, and when Sanders opened, I said: + “Is Mrs. Blacklock in?” in a voice loud enough to penetrate to the + drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + As I had hoped, Anita appeared. Her dress told me that her trunks had come—she + had sent for her trunks! “Mother and father are here,” said she, without + looking at me. + </p> + <p> + I followed her into the drawing-room and, for the benefit of the servants, + Mr. and Mrs. Ellersly and I greeted each other courteously, though Mrs. + Ellersly's eyes and mine met in a glance like the flash of steel on steel. + “We were just going,” said she, and then I felt that I had arrived in the + midst of a tempest of uncommon fury. + </p> + <p> + “You must stop and make <i>me</i> a visit,” protested I, with elaborate + politeness. To myself I was assuming that they had come to “make up and be + friends”—and resume their places at the trough. + </p> + <p> + She was moving toward the door, the old man in her wake. Neither of them + offered to shake hands with me; neither made pretense of saying good-by to + Anita, standing by the window like a pillar of ice. I had closed the + drawing-room door behind me, as I entered. I was about to open it for them + when I was restrained by what I saw working in the old woman's face. She + had set her will on escaping from my loathed presence without a “scene;” + but her rage at having been outgeneraled was too fractious for her will. + </p> + <p> + “You scoundrel!” she hissed, her whole body shaking and her + carefully-cultivated appearance of the gracious evening of youth swallowed + up in a black cyclone of hate. “You gutter-plant! God will punish you for + the shame you have brought upon us!” + </p> + <p> + I opened the door and bowed, without a word, without even the desire to + return insult for insult—had not Anita evidently again and finally + rejected them and chosen me? As they passed into the private hall I rang + for Sanders to come and let them out. When I turned back into the + drawing-room, Anita was seated, was reading a book. I waited until I saw + she was not going to speak. Then I said: “What time will you have dinner?” + But my face must have been expressing some of the joy and gratitude that + filled me. “She has chosen!” I was saying to myself over and over. + </p> + <p> + “Whenever you usually have it,” she replied, without looking up. + </p> + <p> + “At seven o'clock, then. You had better tell Sanders.” + </p> + <p> + I rang for him and went into my little smoking-room. She had resisted her + parents' final appeal to her to return to them. She had cast in her lot + with me. “The rest can be left to time,” said I to myself. And, reviewing + all that had happened, I let a wild hope send tenacious roots deep into + me. How often ignorance is a blessing; how often knowledge would make the + step falter and the heart quail! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIV. BLACKLOCK ATTENDS FAMILY PRAYERS + </h2> + <p> + During dinner I bore the whole burden of conversation—though burden + I did not find it. Like most close-mouthed men, I am extremely talkative. + Silence sets people to wondering and prying; he hides his secrets best who + hides them at the bottom of a river of words. If my spirits are high, I + often talk aloud to myself when there is no one convenient. And how could + my spirits be anything but high, with her sitting there opposite me, mine, + mine for better or for worse, through good and evil report—my wife! + </p> + <p> + She was only formally responsive, reluctant and brief in answers, + volunteering nothing. The servants waiting on us no doubt laid her manner + to shyness; I understood it, or thought I did—but I was not + troubled. It is as natural for me to hope as to breathe; and with my + knowledge of character, how could I take seriously the moods and impulses + of one whom I regarded as a childlike girl, trained to false pride and + false ideals? “She has chosen to stay with me,” said I to myself. “Actions + count, not words or manner. A few days or weeks, and she will be herself, + and mine.” And I went gaily on with my efforts to interest her, to make + her smile and forget the role she had commanded herself to play. Nor was I + wholly unsuccessful. Again and again I thought I saw a gleam of interest + in her eyes or the beginnings of a smile about that sweet mouth of hers. I + was careful not to overdo my part. + </p> + <p> + As soon as we finished dessert I said: “You loathe cigar smoke, so I'll + hide myself in my den. Sanders will bring you the cigarettes.” I had + myself telephoned for a supply of her kind early in the day. + </p> + <p> + She made a polite protest for the benefit of the servants; but I was firm, + and left her free to think things over alone in the drawing-room—“your + sitting-room,” I called it, I had not finished a small cigar when there + came a timid knock at my door. I threw away the cigar and opened. “I + thought it was you,” said I. “I'm familiar with the knocks of all the + others. And this was new—like a summer wind tapping with a flower + for admission at a closed window.” And I laughed with a little raillery, + and she smiled, colored, tried to seem cold and hostile again. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I go with you to your sitting-room?” I went on. “Perhaps the cigar + smoke here—” + </p> + <p> + “No, no,” she interrupted; “I don't really mind cigars—and the + windows are wide open. Besides, I came for only a moment—just to say—” + </p> + <p> + As she cast about for words to carry her on, I drew up a chair for her. + She looked at it uncertainly, seated herself. “When mama was here—this + afternoon,” she went on, “she was urging me to—to do what she + wished. And after she had used several arguments, she said something I—I've + been thinking it over, and it seemed I ought in fairness to tell you.” + </p> + <p> + I waited. + </p> + <p> + “She said: 'In a few days more he'—that meant you—'he will be + ruined. He imagines the worst is over for him, when in fact they've only + begun.'” + </p> + <p> + “They!” I repeated. “Who are 'they'? The Langdons?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so,” she replied with an effort. “She did not say—I've told + you her exact words—as far as I can.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said I, “and why didn't you go?” + </p> + <p> + She pressed her lips firmly together. Finally, with a straight look into + my eyes, she replied: “I shall not discuss that. You probably + misunderstand, but that is your own affair.” + </p> + <p> + “You believed what she said about me, of course,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I neither believed nor disbelieved,” she answered indifferently, as she + rose to go. “It does not interest me.” + </p> + <p> + “Come here,” said I. + </p> + <p> + I waited until she reluctantly joined me at the window. I pointed to the + steeple of the church across the way. “You could as easily throw down that + steeple by pushing against it with your bare hands,” I said to her, “as + 'they,' whoever they are, could put me down. They might take away my + money. But if they did, they would only be giving me a lesson that would + teach me how more easily to get it back. I am not a bundle of stock + certificates or a bag of money. I am—here,” and I tapped my + forehead. + </p> + <p> + She forced a faint, scornful smile. She did not wish me to see her belief + of what I said. + </p> + <p> + “You may think that is vanity,” I went on. “But you will learn, sooner or + later, the difference between boasting and simple statement of fact. You + will learn that I do not boast. What I said is no more a boast than for a + man with legs to say, 'I can walk.' Because you have known only legless + men, you exaggerate the difficulty of walking. It's as easy for me to make + money as it is for some people to spend it.” + </p> + <p> + It is hardly necessary for me to say I was not insinuating anything + against her people. But she was just then supersensitive on the subject, + though I did not suspect it. She flushed hotly. “You will not have any + cause to sneer at my people on that account hereafter,” she said. “I + settled <i>that</i> to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “I was not sneering at them,” I protested. “I wasn't even thinking of + them. And—you must know that it's a favor to me for anybody to ask + me to do anything that will please you—Anita!” + </p> + <p> + She made a gesture of impatience. “I see I'd better tell you why I did not + go with them to-day. I insisted that they give back all they have taken + from you. And when they refused, I refused to go.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care why you refused, or imagined you refused,” said I. “I am + content with the fact that you are here.” + </p> + <p> + “But you misunderstand it,” she answered coldly. + </p> + <p> + “I don't understand it, I don't misunderstand it,” was my reply. “I accept + it.” + </p> + <p> + She turned away from the window, drifted out of the room—you, who + love or at least have loved, can imagine how it made me feel to see <i>Her</i> + moving about in those rooms of mine. + </p> + <p> + While the surface of my mind was taken up with her, I must have been + thinking, underneath, of the warning she had brought; for, perhaps half or + three-quarters of an hour after she left, I was suddenly whirled out of my + reverie at the window by a thought like a pistol thrust into my face. + “What if 'they' should include Roebuck!” And just as a man begins to + defend himself from a sudden danger before he clearly sees what the danger + is, so I began to act before I even questioned whether my suspicion was + plausible or absurd. I went into the hall, rang the bell, slipped a + light-weight coat over my evening dress and put on a hat. When Sanders + appeared, I said: “I'm going out for a few minutes—perhaps an hour—if + any one should ask.” A moment later I was in a hansom and on the way to + Roebuck's. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + When Roebuck lived near Chicago, he had a huge house, a sort of crude + palace such as so many of our millionaires built for themselves in the + first excitement of their new wealth—a house with porches and + balconies and towers and minarets and all sorts of gingerbread effects to + compel the eye of the passer-by. But when he became enormously rich, so + rich that his name was one of the synonyms for wealth, so rich that people + said “rich as Roebuck” where they used to say “rich as Croesus,” he cut + away every kind of ostentation, and avoided attention. + </p> + <p> + He took advantage of his having to remove to New York where his vast + interests centered; he bought a small and commonplace and, for a rich man, + even mean house in East Fifty-Second Street—one of a row, and an + almost dingy looking row at that. There he had an establishment a man with + one-fiftieth of his fortune would have felt like apologizing for. To his + few intimates who were intimate enough to question him about his come-down + from his Chicago splendors he explained that he was seeing with clearer + eyes his responsibilities as a steward of the Lord, that luxury was + sinful, that no man had a right to waste the Lord's money. + </p> + <p> + The general theory about him was that advancing years had developed his + natural closeness into the stingiest avariciousness. But my notion is he + was impelled by the fear of exciting envy, by the fear of assassination—the + fear that made his eyes roam restlessly whenever strangers were near him, + and so dried up the inside of his body that his dry tongue was constantly + sliding along his dry lips. I have seen a convict stand in the door of his + cell and, though it was impossible that any one could be behind him, look + nervously over his shoulder every moment or so. Roebuck had the same trick—only + his dread, I suspect, was not the officers of the law, even of the divine + law, but the many, many victims of his merciless execution of “the Lord's + will.” + </p> + <p> + This state of mind is not uncommon among the very rich men, especially + those who have come up from poverty. Those who have inherited great + wealth, and have always been used to it, get into the habit of looking + upon the mass of mankind as inferiors, and move about with no greater + sense of peril than a man has in venturing among a lot of dogs with tails + wagging. But those who were born poor and have risen under the stimulus of + a furious envy of the comfortable and the rich, fancy that everybody who + isn't rich has the same savage hunger that they themselves had, and is + ready to use similar desperate methods in gratifying it. Thus, where the + rich of the Langdon sort are supercilious, the rich of the Roebuck sort + are nervous and often become morbid on the subject of assassination as + they grow richer and richer. + </p> + <p> + The door of Roebuck's house was opened for me by a maid—a + man-servant would have been a “sinful” luxury, a man-servant might be the + hireling of plotters against his life. I may add that she looked the cheap + maid-of-all-work, and her manners were of the free and fresh sort that + indicates a feeling that as high, or higher, wages, and less to do could + be got elsewhere. + </p> + <p> + “I don't think you can see Mr. Roebuck,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Take my card to him,” I ordered, “and I'll wait in the parlor.” + </p> + <p> + “Parlor's in use,” she retorted with a sarcastic grin, which I was soon to + understand. + </p> + <p> + So I stood by the old-fashioned coat and hat rack while she went in at the + hall door of the back parlor. Soon Roebuck himself came out, his glasses + on his nose, a family Bible under his arm. “Glad to see you, Matthew,” + said he with saintly kindliness, giving me a friendly hand. “We are just + about to offer up our evening prayer. Come right in.” + </p> + <p> + I followed him into the back parlor. Both it and the front parlor were + lighted; in a sort of circle extending into both rooms were all the + Roebucks and the four servants. “This is my friend, Matthew Blacklock,” + said he, and the Roebucks in the circle gravely bowed. He drew up a chair + for me, and we seated ourselves. Amid a solemn hush, he read a chapter + from the big Bible spread out upon his lean lap. My glance wandered from + face to face of the Roebucks, as plainly dressed as were their servants. I + was able to look freely, mine being the only eyes not bent upon the floor. + </p> + <p> + It was the first time in my life that I had witnessed family prayers. When + I was a boy at home, my mother had taken literally the Scriptural + injunction to pray in secret—in a closet, I think the passage of the + Bible said. Many times each day she used to retire to a closet under the + stairway and spend from one to twenty minutes shut in there. But we had no + family prayers. I was therefore deeply interested in what was going on in + those countrified parlors of one of the richest and most powerful men in + the world—and this right in the heart of that district of New York + where palaces stand in rows and in blocks, and where such few churches as + there are resemble social clubs for snubbing climbers and patronizing the + poor. + </p> + <p> + It was astonishing how much every Roebuck in that circle, even the old + lady, looked like Roebuck himself—the same smug piety, the same + underfed appearance that, by the way, more often indicates a starved soul + than a starved body. One difference—where his face had the look of + power that compels respect and, to the shrewd, reveals relentless strength + relentlessly used, the expressions of the others were simply small and + mean and frost-nipped. And that is the rule—the second generation of + a plutocrat inherits, with his money, the meanness that enabled him to + hoard it, but not the scope that enabled him to make it. + </p> + <p> + So absorbed was I in the study of the influence of his terrible + master-character upon those closest to it, that I started when he said: + “Let us pray.” I followed the example of the others, and knelt. The + audible prayer was offered up by his oldest daughter, Mrs. Wheeler, a + widow. Roebuck punctuated each paragraph in her series of petitions with a + loudly-whispered amen. When she prayed for “the stranger whom Thou has led + seemingly by chance into our little circle,” he whispered the amen more + fervently and repeated it. And well he might, the old robber and assassin + by proxy! The prayer ended and, us on our feet, the servants withdrew; + then, awkwardly, all the family except Roebuck. That is, they closed the + doors between the two rooms and left him and me alone in the front parlor. + </p> + <p> + “I shall not detain you long, Mr. Roebuck,” said I. “A report reached me + this evening that sent me to you at once.” + </p> + <p> + “If possible, Matthew,” said he, and he could not hide his uneasiness, + “put off business until to-morrow. My mind—yours, too, I trust—is + not in the frame for that kind of thoughts now.” + </p> + <p> + “Is the Coal organization to be announced the first of July?” I demanded. + It has always been, and always shall be, my method to fight in the open. + This, not from principle, but from expediency. Some men fight best in the + brush; I don't. So I always begin battle by shelling the woods. + </p> + <p> + “No,” he said, amazing me by his instant frankness. “The announcement has + been postponed.” + </p> + <p> + Why did he not lie to me? Why did he not put me off the scent, as he might + easily have done, with some shrewd evasion? I suspected I owed it to my + luck in catching him at family prayers. For I know that the general + impression of him is erroneous; he is not merely a hypocrite before the + world, but also a hypocrite before himself. A more profoundly, piously + conscientious man never lived. Never was there a truer epitaph than the + one implied in the sentence carved over his niche in the magnificent + mausoleum he built: “Fear naught but the Lord.” + </p> + <p> + “When will the reorganization be announced?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I can not say,” he answered. “Some difficulties—chiefly labor + difficulties—have arisen. Until they are settled, nothing can be + done. Come to me to-morrow, and we'll talk about it.” + </p> + <p> + “That is all I wished to know,” said I, with a friendly, easy smile. “Good + night.” + </p> + <p> + It was his turn to be astonished—and he showed it, where I had given + not a sign. “What was the report you heard?” he asked, to detain me. + </p> + <p> + “That you and Mowbray Langdon had conspired to ruin me,” said I, laughing. + </p> + <p> + He echoed my laugh rather hollowly. “It was hardly necessary for you to + come to me about such a—a statement.” + </p> + <p> + “Hardly,” I answered dryly. Hardly, indeed! For I was seeing now all that + I had been hiding from myself since I became infatuated with Anita and + made marrying her my only real business in life. + </p> + <p> + We faced each other, each measuring the other. And as his glance quailed + before mine, I turned away to conceal my exultation. In a comparison of + resources this man who had plotted to crush me was to me as giant to + midget. But I had the joy of realizing that man to man, I was the + stronger. He had craft, but I had daring. His vast wealth aggravated his + natural cowardice—crafty men are invariably cowards, and their + audacities under the compulsion of their ravenous greed are like a + starving jackal's dashes into danger for food. My wealth belonged to me, + not I to it; and, stripped of it, I would be like the prize-fighter + stripped for the fight. Finally, he was old, I young. And there was the + chief reason for his quailing. He knew that he must die long before me, + that my turn must come, that I could dance upon his grave. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXV. “MY WIFE MUST!” + </h2> + <p> + As I drove away, I was proud of myself. I had listened to my death + sentence with a face so smiling that he must almost have believed me + unconscious; and also, it had not even entered my head, as I listened, to + beg for mercy. Not that there would have been the least use in begging; as + well try to pray a statue into life, as try to soften that set will and + purpose. Still, many a man would have weakened—and I had not + weakened. But when I was once more in my apartment—in our apartment—perhaps + I did show that there was a weak streak through me. I fought against the + impulse to see her once more that night; but I fought in vain. I knocked + at the door of her sitting-room—a timid knock, for me. No answer. I + knocked again, more loudly—then a third time, still more loudly. The + door opened and she stood there, like one of the angels that guarded the + gates of Eden after the fall. Only, instead of a flaming sword, hers was + of ice. She was in a dressing-gown or tea-gown, white and clinging and + full of intoxicating hints and glimpses of all the beauties of her figure. + Her face softened as she continued to look at me, and I entered. + </p> + <p> + “No—please don't turn on any more lights,” I said, as she moved + toward the electric buttons. “I just came in to—to see if I could do + anything for you.” In fact, I had come, longing for her to do something + for me, to show in look or tone or act some sympathy for me in my + loneliness and trouble. + </p> + <p> + “No, thank you,” she said. Her voice seemed that of a stranger who wished + to remain a stranger. And she was evidently waiting for me to go. You will + see what a mood I was in when I say I felt as I had not since I, a very + small boy indeed, ran away from home; I came back through the chilly night + to take one last glimpse of the family that would soon be realizing how + foolishly and wickedly unappreciative they had been of such a treasure as + I; and when I saw them sitting about the big fire in the lamp-light, + heartlessly comfortable and unconcerned, it was all I could do to keep + back the tears of strong self-pity—and I never saw them again. + </p> + <p> + “I've seen Roebuck,” said I to Anita, because I must say something, if I + was to stay on. + </p> + <p> + “Roebuck?” she inquired. Her tone reminded me that his name conveyed + nothing to her. + </p> + <p> + “He and I are in an enterprise together,” I explained. “He is the one man + who could seriously cripple me.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” she said, and her indifference, forced though I thought it, wounded. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said I, “your mother was right.” + </p> + <p> + She turned full toward me, and even in the dimness I saw her quick + sympathy—an impulsive flash instantly gone. But it had been there! + </p> + <p> + “I came in here,” I went on, “to say that—Anita, it doesn't in the + least matter. No one in this world, no one and nothing, could hurt me + except through you. So long as I have <i>you</i>, they—the rest—all + of them together—can't touch me.” + </p> + <p> + We were both silent for several minutes. Then she said, and her voice was + like the smooth surface of the river where the boiling rapids run deep: + “But you <i>haven't</i> me—and never <i>shall</i> have. I've told + you that. I warned you long ago. No doubt you will pretend, and people + will say, that I left you because you lost your money. But it won't be + so.” + </p> + <p> + I was beside her instantly, was looking into her face. “What do you mean?” + I asked, and I did not speak gently. + </p> + <p> + She gazed at me without flinching. “And I suppose,” she said satirically, + “you wonder why I—why you are repellent to me. Haven't you learned + that, though I may have been made into a moral coward, I'm not a physical + coward? Don't bully and threaten. It's useless.” + </p> + <p> + I put my hand strongly on her shoulder—taunts and jeers do not turn + me aside. “What did you mean?” I repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Take your hand off me,” she commanded. + </p> + <p> + “What did you mean?” I repeated sternly. “Don't be afraid to answer.” + </p> + <p> + She was very young—so the taunt stung her. “I was about to tell + you,” said she, “when you began to make it impossible.” + </p> + <p> + I took advantage of this to extricate myself from the awkward position in + which she had put me—I took my hand from her shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to leave you,” she announced. + </p> + <p> + “You forget that you are my wife,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I am not your wife,” was her answer, and if she had not looked so + childlike, there in the moonlight all in white, I could not have held + myself in check, so insolent was the tone and so helpless of ever being + able to win her did she make me feel. + </p> + <p> + “You are my wife and you will stay here with me,” I reiterated, my brain + on fire. + </p> + <p> + “I am my own, and I shall go where I please, and do what I please,” was + her contemptuous retort. “Why won't you be reasonable? Why won't you see + how utterly unsuited we are? I don't ask you to be a gentleman—but + just a man, and be ashamed even to wish to detain a woman against her + will.” + </p> + <p> + I drew up a chair so close to her that to retreat, she was forced to sit + in the broad window-seat. Then I seated myself. “By all means, let us be + reasonable,” said I. “Now, let me explain my position. I have heard you + and your friends discussing the views of marriage you've just been + expressing. Their views may be right, may be more civilized, more + 'advanced' than mine. No matter. They are not mine. I hold by the old + standards—and you are my wife—mine. Do you understand?” All + this as tranquilly as if we were discussing fair weather. “And you will + live up to the obligation which the marriage service has put upon you.” + </p> + <p> + She might have been a marble statue pedestaled in that window seat. + </p> + <p> + “You married me of your own free will—for you could have protested + to the preacher and he would have sustained you. You tacitly put certain + conditions on our marriage. I assented to them. I have respected them. I + shall continue to respect them. But—when you married me, you didn't + marry a dawdling dude chattering 'advanced ideas' with his head full of + libertinism. You married a man. And that man is your husband.” + </p> + <p> + I waited, but she made no comment—not even by gesture or movement. + She simply sat, her hands interlaced in her lap, her eyes straight upon + mine. + </p> + <p> + “You say let us be reasonable,” I went on. “Well, let us be reasonable. + There may come a time when woman can be free and independent, but that + time is a long way off yet. The world is organized on the basis of every + woman's having a protector—of every decent woman's having a husband, + unless she remains in the home of some of her blood-relations. There may + be women strong enough to set the world at defiance. But you are not one + of them—and you know it. You have shown it to yourself again and + again in the last forty-eight hours. Your bringing-up has kept you a child + in real knowledge of real life, as distinguished from the life in that + fashionable hothouse. If you tried to assert your so-called independence, + you would be the easy prey of a scoundrel or scoundrels. When I, who have + lived in the thick of the fight all my life, who have learned by many a + surprise and defeat never to sleep except with the sword and gun in hand, + and one eye open—when I have been trapped as Roebuck and Langdon + have just trapped me—what chance would a woman like you have?” + </p> + <p> + She did not answer or change expression. + </p> + <p> + “Is what I say reasonable or unreasonable?” I asked gently. + </p> + <p> + “Reasonable—from <i>your</i> standpoint,” she said. + </p> + <p> + She gazed out into the moonlight, up into the sky. And at the look in her + face, the primeval savage in me strained to close round that slender white + throat of hers and crush and crush until it had killed in her the thought + of that other man which was transforming her from marble to flesh that + glowed and blood that surged. I pushed back my chair with a sudden noise; + by the way she trembled I gaged how tense her nerves must be. I rose and, + in a fairly calm tone, said: “We understand each other?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she answered. “As before.” + </p> + <p> + I ignored this. “Think it over, Anita,” I urged—she seemed to me so + like a sweet, spoiled child again. I longed to go straight at her about + that other man. I stood for a moment with Tom Langdon's name on my lips, + but I could not trust myself. I went away to my own rooms. + </p> + <p> + I thrust thoughts of her from my mind. I spent the night gnawing upon the + ropes with which Mowbray Langdon and Roebuck had bound me, hand and foot. + I now saw they were ropes of steel—and it had long been broad day + before I found that weak strand which is in every rope of human make. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVI. THE WEAK STRAND + </h2> + <p> + No sane creature, not even a sane bulldog, will fight simply from love of + fighting. When a man is attacked, he may be sure he has excited either + fear or cupidity, or both. As far as I could see, it was absurd that + cupidity was inciting Langdon and Roebuck against me. I hadn't enough to + tempt them. Thus, I was forced to conclude that I must possess a strength + of which I was unaware, and which stirred even Roebuck's fears. But what + could it be? + </p> + <p> + Besides Langdon and Roebuck and me there were six principals in the + proposed Coal combine, three of them richer and more influential in + finance than even Langdon, all of them except possibly Dykeman, the lawyer + or navigating officer of the combine, more formidable figures than I. Yet + none of these men was being assailed. “Why am I singled out?” I asked + myself, and I felt that if I could answer, I should find I had the means + wholly or partly to defeat them. But I could not explain to my + satisfaction even Langdon's activities against me. I felt that Anita was + somehow, in part at least, the cause; but, even so, how had he succeeded + in convincing Roebuck that I must be clipped and plucked into a + groundling? + </p> + <p> + “It must have something to do with the Manasquale mines,” I decided. “I + thought I had given over my control of them, but somehow I must still have + a control that makes me too powerful for Roebuck to be at ease so long as + I am afoot and armed.” And I resolved to take my lawyers and search the + whole Manasquale transaction—to explore it from attic to underneath + the cellar flooring. “We'll go through it,” said I, “like ferrets through + a ship's hold.” + </p> + <p> + As I was finishing breakfast, Anita came in. She had evidently slept well, + and I regarded that as ominous. At her age, a crisis means little sleep + until a decision has been reached. I rose, but her manner warned me not to + advance and try to shake hands with her. + </p> + <p> + “I have asked Alva to stop with me here for a few days,” she said + formally. + </p> + <p> + “Alva!” said I, much surprised. She had not asked one of her own friends; + she had asked a girl she had met less than two days before, and that girl + my partner's daughter. + </p> + <p> + “She was here yesterday morning,” Anita explained. And I now wondered how + much Alva there was in Anita's firm stand against her parents. + </p> + <p> + “Why don't you take her down to our place on Long Island?” said I, most + carefully concealing my delight—for Alva near her meant a friend of + mine and an advocate and example of real womanhood near her. “Everything's + ready for you there, and I'm going to be busy the next few days—busy + day and night.” + </p> + <p> + She reflected. “Very well,” she assented presently. And she gave me a + puzzled glance she thought I did not see—as if she were wondering + whether the enemy was not hiding new and deeper guile under an apparently + harmless suggestion. + </p> + <p> + “Then I'll not see you again for several days,” said I, most businesslike. + “If you want anything, there will be Monson out at the stables where he + can't annoy you. Or you can get me on the 'long distance.' Good-by. Good + luck.” + </p> + <p> + And I nodded carelessly and friendlily to her, and went away, enjoying the + pleasure of having startled her into visible astonishment. “There's a + better game than icy hostility, you very young, young lady,” said I to + myself, “and that game is friendly indifference.” + </p> + <p> + Alva would be with her. So she was secure for the present and my mind was + free for “finance.” + </p> + <p> + At that time the two most powerful men in finance were Galloway and + Roebuck. In Spain I once saw a fight between a bull and a tiger—or, + rather the beginning of a fight. They were released into a huge iron cage. + After circling it several times in the same direction, searching for a way + out, they came face to face. The bull tossed the tiger; the tiger clawed + the bull. The bull roared; the tiger screamed. Each retreated to his own + side of the cage. The bull pawed and snorted as if he could hardly wait to + get at the tiger; the tiger crouched and quivered and glared murderously, + as if he were going instantly to spring upon the bull. But the bull did + not rush, neither did the tiger spring. That was the Roebuck-Galloway + situation. + </p> + <p> + How to bait Tiger Galloway to attack Bull Roebuck—that was the + problem I must solve, and solve straightway. If I could bring about war + between the giants, spreading confusion over the whole field of finance + and filling all men with dread and fear, there was a chance, a bare + chance, that in the confusion I might bear off part of my fortune. + Certainly, conditions would result in which I could more easily get myself + intrenched again; then, too, there would be a by no means small + satisfaction in seeing Roebuck clawed and bitten in punishment for having + plotted against me. + </p> + <p> + Mutual fear had kept these two at peace for five years, and most + considerate and polite about each other's “rights.” But while our + country's industrial territory is vast, the interests of the few great + controllers who determine wages and prices for all are equally vast, and + each plutocrat is tormented incessantly by jealousy and suspicion; not a + day passes without conflicts of interest that adroit diplomacy could turn + into ferocious warfare. And in this matter of monopolizing the coal, + despite Roebuck's earnest assurances to Galloway that the combine was + purely defensive, and was really concerned only with the labor question, + Galloway, a great manufacturer, or, rather, a huge levier of the taxes of + dividends and interest upon manufacturing enterprises, could not but be + uneasy. + </p> + <p> + Before I rose that morning I had a tentative plan for stirring him to + action. I was elaborating it on the way down town in my electric. It shows + how badly Anita was crippling my brain, that not until I was almost at my + office did it occur to me: “That was a tremendous luxury Roebuck indulged + his conscience in last night. It isn't like him to forewarn a man, even + when he's sure he can't escape. Though his prayers were hot in his mouth, + still, it's strange he didn't try to fool me. In fact, it's suspicious. In + fact—” + </p> + <p> + Suspicious? The instant the idea was fairly before my mind, I knew I had + let his canting fool me once more. I entered my offices, feeling that the + blow had already fallen; and I was surprised, but not relieved, when I + found everything calm. “But fall it will within an hour or so—before + I can move to avert it,” said I to myself. + </p> + <p> + And fall it did. At eleven o'clock, just as I was setting out to make my + first move toward heating old Galloway's heels for the war-path, Joe came + in with the news: “A general lockout's declared in the coal regions. The + operators have stolen a march on the men who, so they allege, were + secretly getting ready to strike. By night every coal road will be tied up + and every mine shut down.” + </p> + <p> + Joe knew our coal interests were heavy, but he did not dream his news + meant that before the day was over we would be bankrupt and not able to + pay fifteen cents on the dollar. However, he knew enough to throw him into + a fever of fright. He watched my calmness with terror. “Coal stocks are + dropping like a thermometer in a cold wave,” he said, like a fireman at a + sleeper in a burning house. + </p> + <p> + “Naturally,” said I, unruffled, apparently. “What can we do about it?” + </p> + <p> + “We must do something!” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, we must,” I admitted. “For instance, we must keep cool, especially + when two or three dozen people are watching us. Also, you must attend to + your usual routine.” + </p> + <p> + “What are you going to do?” he cried. “For God's sake, Matt, don't keep me + in suspense!” + </p> + <p> + “Go to your desk,” I commanded. And he quieted down and went. I hadn't + been schooling him in the fire-drill for fifteen years in vain. + </p> + <p> + I went up the street and into the great banking and brokerage house of + Galloway and Company. I made my way through the small army of guards, + behind which the old beast of prey was intrenched, and into his private + den. There he sat, at a small, plain table, in the middle of the room + without any article of furniture in it but his table and his chair. On the + table was a small inkstand, perfectly clean, a steel pen equally clean, on + the rest attached to it. And that was all—not a letter, not a scrap + of paper, not a sign of work or of intention to work. It might have been + the desk of a man who did nothing; in fact, it was the desk of a man who + had so much to do that his only hope of escape from being overwhelmed was + to despatch and clear away each matter the instant it was presented to + him. Many things could be read from the powerful form, bolt upright in + that stiff chair, and from the cynical, masterful old face. But to me the + chief quality there revealed was that quality of qualities, decision—the + greatest power a man can have, except only courage. And old James Galloway + had both. + </p> + <p> + He respected Roebuck; Roebuck feared him. Roebuck did have some sort of + conscience, distorted though it was, and the dictator of savageries + Galloway would have scorned to commit. Galloway had no professions of + conscience—beyond such small glozing of hypocrisy as any man must + put on if he wishes to be intrusted with the money of a public that + associates professions of religion and appearances of respectability with + honesty. Roebuck's passion was wealth—to see the millions heap up + and up. Galloway had that passion, too—I have yet to meet a + multi-millionaire who isn't avaricious and even stingy. But Galloway's + chief passion was power—to handle men as a junk merchant handles + rags, to plan and lead campaigns of conquest with his golden legions, and + to distribute the spoils like an autocrat who is careless how they are + divided, since all belongs to him, whenever he wishes to claim it. + </p> + <p> + He pierced me with his blue eyes, keen as a youth's, though his face was + seamed with scars of seventy tumultuous years. He extended toward me over + the table his broad, stubby white hand—the hand of a builder, of a + constructive genius. “How are you, Blacklock?” said he. “What can I do for + you?” He just touched my hand before dropping it, and resumed that + idol-like pose. But although there was only repose and deliberation in his + manner, and not a suggestion of haste, I, like every one who came into + that room and that presence, had a sense of an interminable procession + behind me, a procession of men who must be seen by this master-mover, that + they might submit important and pressing affairs to him for decision. It + was unnecessary for him to tell any one to be brief and pointed. + </p> + <p> + “I shall have to go to the wall to-day,” said I, taking a paper from my + pocket, “unless you save me. Here is a statement of my assets and + liabilities. I call to your attention my Coal holdings. I was one of the + eight men whom Roebuck got round him for the new combine—it is a + secret, but I assume you know all about it.” + </p> + <p> + He laid the paper before him, put on his nose-glasses and looked at it. + </p> + <p> + “If you will save me,” I continued, “I will transfer to you, in a block, + all my Coal holdings. They will be worth double my total liabilities + within three months—as soon as the reorganization is announced. I + leave it entirely to your sense of justice whether I shall have any part + of them back when this storm blows over.” + </p> + <p> + “Why didn't you go to Roebuck?” he asked without looking up. + </p> + <p> + “Because it is he that has stuck the knife into me.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't know. I suspect the Manasquale properties, which I brought into + the combine, have some value, which no one but Roebuck, and perhaps + Langdon, knows about—and that I in some way was dangerous to them + through that fact. They haven't given me time to look into it.” + </p> + <p> + A grim smile flitted over his face. “You've been too busy getting married, + eh?” + </p> + <p> + “Exactly,” said I. “It's another case of unbuckling for the wedding-feast + and getting assassinated as a penalty. Do you wish me to explain anything + on that list—do you want any details of the combine—of the + Coal stocks there?” + </p> + <p> + “Not necessary,” he replied. As I had thought, with that enormous machine + of his for drawing in information, and with that enormous memory of his + for details, he probably knew more about the combine and its properties + than I did. + </p> + <p> + “You have heard of the lockout?” I inquired—for I wished him to know + I had no intention of deceiving him as to the present market value of + those stocks. + </p> + <p> + “Roebuck has been commanded by his God,” he said, “to eject the free + American labor from the coal regions and to substitute importations of + coolie Huns and Bohemians. Thus, the wicked American laborers will be + chastened for trying to get higher wages and cut down a pious man's + dividends; and the downtrodden coolies will be brought where they can + enjoy the blessings of liberty and of the preaching of Roebuck's + missionaries.” + </p> + <p> + I laughed, though he had not smiled, but had spoken as if stating + colorless facts. “And righteousness and Roebuck will prevail,” said I. + </p> + <p> + He frowned slightly, a sardonic grin breaking the straight, thin, cruel + line of his lips. He opened his table's one shallow drawer, and took out a + pad and a pencil. He wrote a few words on the lowest part of the top + sheet, folded it, tore off the part he had scribbled on, returned the pad + and pencil to the drawer, handed the scrap of paper to me. “I will do it,” + he said. “Give this to Mr. Farquhar, second door to the left. Good + morning.” And in that atmosphere of vast affairs speedily despatched his + consent without argument seemed, and was, the matter-of-course. + </p> + <p> + I bowed. Though he had not saved me as a favor to me, but because it + fitted in with his plans, whatever they were, my eyes dimmed. “I shan't + forget this,” said I, my voice not quite steady. + </p> + <p> + “I know it,” said he curtly. “I know you.” I saw that his mind had already + turned me out. I said no more, and withdrew. When I left the room it was + precisely as it had been when I entered it—except the bit of paper + torn from the pad. But what a difference to me, to the thousands, the + hundreds of thousands directly and indirectly interested in the Coal + combine and its strike and its products, was represented by those few, + almost illegible scrawlings on that scrap of paper. + </p> + <p> + Not until I had gone over the situation with Farquhar, and we had signed + and exchanged the necessary papers, did I begin to relax from the strain—how + great that strain was I realized a few weeks later, when the gray appeared + thick at my temples and there was in my crown what was, for such a shock + as mine, a thin spot. “I am saved!” said I to myself, venturing a long + breath, as I stood on the steps of Galloway's establishment, where hourly + was transacted business vitally affecting the welfare of scores of + millions of human beings, with James Galloway's personal interest as the + sole guiding principle. “Saved!” I repeated, and not until then did it + flash before me, “I must have paid a frightful price. He would never have + consented to interfere with Roebuck as soon as I asked him to do it, + unless there had been some powerful motive. If I had had my wits about me, + I could have made far better terms.” Why hadn't I my wits about me? + “Anita” was my instant answer to my own question. “Anita again. I had a + bad attack of family man's panic.” And thus it came about that I went back + to my own office, feeling as if I had suffered a severe defeat, instead of + jubilant over my narrow escape. + </p> + <p> + Joe followed me into my den. “What luck?” asked he, in the tone of a + mother waylaying the doctor as he issues from the sick-room. + </p> + <p> + “Luck?” said I, gazing blankly at him. + </p> + <p> + “You've seen the latest quotation, haven't you?” In his nervousness his + temper was on a fine edge. + </p> + <p> + “No,” replied I indifferently. I sat down at my desk and began to busy + myself. Then I added: “We're out of the Coal combine. I've transferred our + holdings. Look after these things, please.” And I gave him the checks, + notes and memoranda of agreement. + </p> + <p> + “Galloway!” he exclaimed. And then his eye fell on the totals of the stock + I had been carrying. “Good God, Matt!” he gasped. “Ruined!” + </p> + <p> + And he sat down, and buried his face and cried like a child—it was + then that I measured the full depth of the chasm I had escaped. I made no + such exhibition of myself, but when I tried to relight my cigar my hand + trembled so that the flame scorched my lips. + </p> + <p> + “Ruined?” I said to Joe, easily enough. “Not at all. We're back in the + road, going smoothly ahead—only, at a bit less stiff a pace. Think, + Joe, of all those poor devils down in the mining districts. They're out—clear + out—and thousands of 'em don't know where their families will get + bread. And though they haven't found it out yet, they've got to leave the + place where they've lived all their lives, and their fathers before them—have + got to go wandering about in a world that's as strange to them as the + surface of the moon, and as bare for them as the Sahara desert.” + </p> + <p> + “That's so,” said Joe. “It's hard luck.” But I saw he was thinking only of + himself and his narrow escape from having to give up his big house and all + the rest of it; that, soft-hearted and generous though he was, to those + poor chaps and their wives and children he wasn't giving a thought. + </p> + <p> + Wall Street never does—they're too remote, too vague. It deals with + columns of figures and slips of paper. It never thinks of those + abstractions as standing for so many hearts and so many mouths, just as + the bank clerk never thinks of the bits of metal he counts so swiftly as + money with which things and men could be bought. I read somewhere once + that Voltaire—I think it was Voltaire—asked a man what he + would do if, by pressing a button on his table, he would be enormously + rich and at the same time would cause the death of a person away off at + the other side of the earth, unknown to him, and probably no more worthy + to live, and with no greater expectation of life or of happiness than the + average sinful, short-lived human being. I've often thought of that as + I've watched our great “captains of industry.” Voltaire's dilemma is + theirs. And they don't hesitate; they press the button. I leave the + morality of the performance to moralists; to me, its chief feature is its + cowardice, its sneaking, slimy cowardice. + </p> + <p> + “You've done a grand two hours' work,” said Joe. + </p> + <p> + “Grander than you think,” replied I. “I've set the tiger on to fight the + bull.” + </p> + <p> + “Galloway and Roebuck?” + </p> + <p> + “Just that,” said I. And I laughed, started up, sat down again. “No, I'll + put off the pleasure,” said I. “I'll let Roebuck find out, when the claws + catch in that tough old hide of his.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVII. A CONSPIRACY AGAINST ANITA + </h2> + <p> + On about the hottest afternoon of that summer I had the yacht take me down + the Sound to a point on the Connecticut shore within sight of Dawn Hill, + but seven miles farther from New York. I landed at the private pier of + Howard Forrester, the only brother of Anita's mother. As I stepped upon + the pier I saw a fine-looking old man in the pavilion overhanging the + water. He was dressed all in white except a sky-blue tie that harmonized + with the color of his eyes. He was neither fat nor lean, and his smooth + skin was protesting ruddily against the age proclaimed by his wool-white + hair. He rose as I came toward him, and, while I was still several yards + away, showed unmistakably that he knew who I was and that he was anything + but glad to see me. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Forrester?” I asked + </p> + <p> + He grew purple to the line of his thick white hair. “It is, Mr. + Blacklock,” said he. “I have the honor to wish you good day, sir.” And + with that he turned his back on me and gazed out toward Long Island. + </p> + <p> + “I have come to ask a favor of you, sir,” said I, as polite to that + hostile back as if I had been addressing a cordial face. And I waited. + </p> + <p> + He wheeled round, looked at me from head to foot. I withstood the + inspection calmly; when it was ended I noted that in spite of himself he + was somewhat relaxed from the opinion of me he had formed upon what he had + heard and read. But he said: “I do not know you, sir, and I do not wish to + know you.” + </p> + <p> + “You have made me painfully aware of that,” replied I. “But I have learned + not to take snap judgments too seriously. I never go to a man unless I + have something to say to him, and I never leave until I have said it.” + </p> + <p> + “I perceive, sir,” retorted he, “you have the thick skin necessary to + living up to that rule.” And the twinkle in his eyes betrayed the man who + delights to exercise a real or imaginary talent for caustic wit. Such men + are like nettles—dangerous only to the timid touch. + </p> + <p> + “On the contrary,” replied I, easy in mind now, though I did not anger him + by showing it, “I am most sensitive to insults—insults to myself. + But you are not insulting <i>me</i>. You are insulting a purely imaginary, + hearsay person who is, I venture to assure you, utterly unlike me, and who + doubtless deserves to be insulted.” + </p> + <p> + His purple had now faded. In a far different tone he said: “If your + business in any way relates to the family into which you have married, I + do not wish to hear it. Spare my patience and your time, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “It does not,” was my answer. “It relates to my own family—to my + wife and myself. As you may have heard, she is no longer a member of the + Ellersly family. And I have come to you chiefly because I happen to know + your sentiment toward the Ellerslys.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no sentiment toward them, sir!” he exclaimed. “They are + non-existent, sir—nonexistent! Your wife's mother ceased to be a + Forrester when she married that scoundrel. Your wife is still less a + Forrester.” + </p> + <p> + “True,” said I. “She is a Blacklock.” + </p> + <p> + He winced, and it reminded me of the night of my marriage and Anita's + expression when the preacher called her by her new name. But I held his + gaze, and we looked each at the other fixedly for, it must have been, full + half a minute. Then he said courteously: “What do you wish?” + </p> + <p> + I went straight to the point. My color may have been high, but my voice + did not hesitate as I explained: “I wish to make my wife financially + independent. I wish to settle on her a sum of money sufficient to give her + an income that will enable her to live as she has been accustomed. I know + she would not take it from me. So, I have come to ask you to pretend to + give it to her—I, of course, giving it to you to give.” + </p> + <p> + Again—we looked full and fixedly each at the other. “Come to the + house, Blacklock,” he said at last in a tone that was the subtlest of + compliments. And he linked his arm in mine. Halfway to the rambling stone + house, severe in its lines, yet fine and homelike, quaintly resembling its + owner, as a man's house always should, he paused. “I owe you an apology,” + said he. “After all my experience of this world of envy and malice, I + should have recognized the man even in the caricatures of his enemies. And + you brought the best possible credentials—you are well hated. To be + well hated by the human race and by the creatures mounted on its back is a + distinction, sir. It is the crown of the true kings of this world.” + </p> + <p> + We seated ourselves on the wide veranda; he had champagne and water + brought, and cigars; and we proceeded to get acquainted—nothing + promotes cordiality and sympathy like an initial misunderstanding. It was + a good hour before this kind-hearted, hard-soft, typical old-fashioned New + Englander reverted to the object of my visit. Said he: “And now, young + man, may I venture to ask some extremely personal questions?” + </p> + <p> + “In the circumstances,” replied I, “you have the right to know everything. + I did not come to you without first making sure what manner of man I was + to find.” At this he blushed, pleased as a girl at her first beau's first + compliment. “And you, Mr. Forrester, can not be expected to embark in the + little adventure I propose, until you have satisfied yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “First, the why of your plan.” + </p> + <p> + “I am in active business,” replied I, “and I shall be still more active. + That means financial uncertainty.” + </p> + <p> + His suspicion of me started up from its doze and rubbed its eyes. “Ah! You + wish to insure yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” was my answer, “but not in the way you hint. It takes away a man's + courage just when he needs it most, to feel that his family is involved in + his venture.” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you not make the settlement direct?” he asked, partly reassured. + </p> + <p> + “Because I wish her to feel that it is her own, that I have no right over + it whatever.” + </p> + <p> + He thought about this. His eyes were keen as he said, “Is that your real + reason?” + </p> + <p> + I saw I must be unreserved with him. “Part of it,” I replied. “The rest is—she + would not take it from me.” + </p> + <p> + The old man smiled cynically. “Have you tried?” he inquired. + </p> + <p> + “If I had tried and failed, she would have been on the alert for an + indirect attempt.” + </p> + <p> + “Try her, young man,” said he, laughing. “In this day there are few people + anywhere who'd refuse any sum from anybody for anything. And a woman—and + a New York woman—and a New York fashionable woman—and a + daughter of old Ellersly—she'll take it as a baby takes the breast.” + </p> + <p> + “She would not take it,” said I. + </p> + <p> + My tone, though I strove to keep angry protest out of it, because I needed + him, caused him to draw back instantly. “I beg your pardon,” said he. “I + forgot for the moment that I was talking to a man young enough still to + have youth's delusions about women. You'll learn that they're human, that + it's from them we men inherit our weaknesses. However, let's assume that + she won't take it: <i>Why</i> won't she take your money? What is there + about it that repels Ellersly's daughter, brought up in the sewers of + fashionable New York—the sewers, sir!” + </p> + <p> + “She does not love me,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + “I have hurt you,” he said quickly, in great distress at having compelled + me to expose my secret wound. + </p> + <p> + “The wound does not ache the worse,” said I, “for my showing it—to + <i>you</i>.” And that was the truth. I looked over toward Dawn Hill whose + towers could just be seen. “We live there.” I pointed. “She is—like + a guest in my house.” + </p> + <p> + When I glanced at him again, his face betrayed a feeling of which I doubt + if any one had thought him capable in many a year. “I see that you love + her,” he said, gently as a mother. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I replied. And presently I went on: “The idea of any one I love + being dependent on me in a sordid way is most distasteful to me. And since + she does not love me, does not even like me, it is doubly necessary that + she be independent.” + </p> + <p> + “I confess I do not quite follow you” said he. + </p> + <p> + “How can she accept anything from me? If she should finally be compelled + by necessity to do it, what hope could I have of her ever feeling toward + me as a wife should feel toward her husband?” + </p> + <p> + At this explanation of mine his eyes sparkled with anger—and I could + not but suspect that he had at one time in his life been faced with a + problem like mine, and had settled it the other way. My suspicion was not + weakened when he went on to say: + </p> + <p> + “Boyish motives again! They show you do not know women. Don't be deceived + by their delicate exterior, by their pretenses of super-refinement. They + affect to be what passion deludes us into thinking them. But they're clay, + sir, just clay, and far less sensitive than we men. Don't you see, young + man, that by making her independent you're throwing away your best chance + of winning her? Women are like dogs—like dogs, sir! They lick the + hand that feeds 'em—lick it, and like it.” + </p> + <p> + “Possibly,” said I, with no disposition to combat views based on I knew + not what painful experience. “But I don't care for that sort of liking—from + a woman, or from a dog.” + </p> + <p> + “It's the only kind you'll get,” retorted he, trying to control his + agitation. “I'm an old man. I know human nature—that's why I live + alone. You'll take that kind of liking, or do without.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I'll do without,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “Give her an income, and she'll go. I see it all. You've flattered her + vanity by showing your love for her—that's the way with women. They + go crazy about themselves, and forget all about the man. Give her an + income and she'll go.” + </p> + <p> + “I doubt it,” said I. “And you would, if you knew her. But, even so, I + shall lose her in any event. For, unless she is made independent, she'll + certainly go with the last of the little money she has, the remnant of a + small legacy.” + </p> + <p> + The old man argued with me, the more vigorously, I suspect, because he + found me resolute. When he could think of no new way of stating his case—his + case against Anita—he said: “You are a fool, young man—that's + clear. I wonder such a fool was ever able to get together as much property + as report credits you with. But—you're the kind of fool I like.” + </p> + <p> + “Then—you'll indulge my folly?” said I, smiling. + </p> + <p> + He threw up his arms in a gesture of mock despair. “If you will have it + so,” he replied. “I am curious about this niece of mine. I want to see + her. I want to see the woman who can resist <i>you</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “Her mind and her heart are closed against me,” said I. “And it is my own + fault—I closed them.” + </p> + <p> + “Put her out of your head,” he advised. “No woman is worth a serious man's + while.” + </p> + <p> + “I have few wants, few purposes,” said I. “But those few I pursue to the + end. Even though she were not worth while, even though I wholly lost hope, + still I'd not give her up. I couldn't—that's my nature. But—<i>she</i> + is worth while.” And I could see her, slim and graceful, the curves in her + face and figure that made my heart leap, the azure sheen upon her + petal-like skin, the mystery of the soul luring from her eyes. + </p> + <p> + After we had arranged the business—or, rather, arranged to have it + arranged through our lawyers—he walked down to the pier with me. At + the gangway he gave me another searching look from head to foot—but + vastly different from the inspection with which our interview had begun. + “You are a devilish handsome young fellow,” said he. “Your pictures don't + do you justice. And I shouldn't have believed any man could overcome in + one brief sitting such a prejudice as I had against you. On second + thought, I don't care to see her. She must be even below the average.” + </p> + <p> + “Or far above it,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose I'll have to ask her over to visit me,” he went on. “A fine + hypocrite I'll feel.” + </p> + <p> + “You can make it one of the conditions of your gift that she is not to + thank you or speak of it,” said I. “I fear your face would betray us, if + she ever did.” + </p> + <p> + “An excellent idea!” he exclaimed. Then, as he shook hands with me in + farewell: “You will win her yet—if you care to.” + </p> + <p> + As I steamed up the Sound, I was tempted to put in at Dawn Hill's harbor. + Through my glass I could see Anita and Alva and several others, men and + women, having tea on the lawn under a red and white awning. I could see + her dress—a violet suit with a big violet hat to match. I knew that + costume. Like everything she wore, it was both beautiful in itself and + most becoming to her. I could see her face, could almost make out its + expression—did I see, or did I imagine, a cruel contrast to what I + always saw when she knew I was looking? + </p> + <p> + I gazed until the trees hid lawn and gay awning, and that lively company + and her. In my bitterness I was full of resentment against her, full of + self-pity. I quite forgot, for that moment, <i>her</i> side of the story. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXVIII. BLACKLOCK SEES A LIGHT + </h2> + <p> + It was next day, I think, that I met Mowbray Langdon and his brother Tom + in the entrance of the Textile Building. Mowbray was back only a week from + his summer abroad; but Tom I had seen and nodded to every day, often + several times in the same day, as he went to and fro about his + “respectable” dirty work for the Roebuck-Langdon clique. He was one of + their most frequently used stool-pigeon directors in banks and insurance + companies whose funds they staked in their big gambling operations, they + taking almost all the profits and the depositors and policy holders taking + almost all the risk. It had never once occurred to me to have any feeling + of any kind about Tom, or in any way to take him into my calculations as + to Anita. He was, to my eyes, too obviously a pale understudy of his + powerful and fascinating brother. Whenever I thought of him as the man + Anita fancied she loved, I put it aside instantly. “The kind of man a + woman <i>really</i> cares for,” I would say to myself, “is the measure of + her true self. But not the kind of man she <i>imagines</i> she cares for.” + </p> + <p> + Tom went on; Mowbray stopped. We shook hands, and exchanged commonplaces + in the friendliest way—I was harboring no resentment against him, + and I wished him to realize that his assault had bothered me no more than + the buzzing and battering of a summer fly. “I've been trying to get in to + see you,” said he. “I wanted to explain about that unfortunate Textile + deal.” + </p> + <p> + This, when the assault on me had burst out with fresh energy the day after + he landed from Europe! I could scarcely believe that his vanity, his + confidence in his own skill at underground work could so delude him. + “Don't bother,” said I. “All that's ancient history.” + </p> + <p> + But he had thought out some lies he regarded as particularly creditable to + his ingenuity; he was not to be deprived of the pleasure of telling them. + So I was compelled to listen; and, being in an indulgent mood, I did not + spoil his pleasure by letting him see or suspect my unbelief. If he could + have looked into my mind, as I stood there in an attitude of patient + attention, I think even his self-complacence would have been put out of + countenance. You may admire the exploits of a “gentleman” cracksman or + pickpocket, if you hear or read them with only their ingenuity put before + you. But <i>see</i> a “gentleman” liar or thief at his sneaking, cowardly + work, and admiration is impossible. As Langdon lied on, as I studied his + cheap, vulgar exhibition of himself, he all unconscious, I thought: + “Beneath that very thin surface of yours, you're a poor cowardly creature—you, + and all your fellow bandits. No; bandit is too grand a word to apply to + this game of 'high finance.' It's really on the level with the game of the + fellow that waits for a dark night, slips into the barn-yard, poisons the + watch-dog, bores an auger-hole in the granary, and takes to his heels at a + suspicious sound.” + </p> + <p> + With his first full stop, I said: “I understand perfectly, Langdon. But I + haven't the slightest interest in crooked enterprises now. I'm clear out + of all you fellows' stocks. I've reinvested my property so that not even a + panic would trouble me.” + </p> + <p> + “That's good,” he drawled. I saw he did not believe me—which was + natural, as he knew nothing of my arrangement with Galloway and assumed I + was laboring in heavy weather, with a bad cargo of Coal stocks and + contracts. “Come to lunch with me. I've got some interesting things to + tell you about my trip.” + </p> + <p> + A few months before, I should have accepted with alacrity. But I had lost + interest in him. He had not changed; if anything, he was more dazzling + than ever in the ways that had once dazzled me. It was I that had changed—my + ideals, my point of view. I had no desire to feed my new-sprung contempt + by watching him pump in vain for information to be used in his secret + campaign against me. “No, thanks. Another day,” I replied, and left him + with a curt nod. I noted that he had failed to speak of my marriage, + though he had not seen me since. “A sore subject with all the Langdons,” + thought I. “It must be very sore, indeed, to make a man who is all + manners, neglect them.” + </p> + <p> + My whole life had been a series of transformations so continuous that I + had noted little about my advance, beyond its direction—like a man + hurrying up a steep that keeps him bent, eyes down. But, as I turned away + from Langdon, I caught myself in the very act of transformation. No doubt, + the new view had long been there, its horizon expanding with every step of + my ascent; but not until that talk with him did I see it. I looked about + me in Wall Street; in my mind's eye I all in an instant saw my world as it + really was. I saw the great rascals of “high finance,” their + respectability stripped from them; saw them gathering in the spoils which + their cleverly-trained agents, commercial and political and legal, filched + with light fingers from the pockets of the crowd, saw the crowd looking up + to these trainers and employers of pickpockets, hailing them “captains of + industry”! They reaped only where and what others had sown; they touched + industry only to plunder and to blight it; they organized it only that its + profits might go to those who did not toil and who despised those who did. + “Have I gone mad in the midst of sane men?” I asked myself. “Or have I + been mad, and have I suddenly become sane in a lunatic world?” + </p> + <p> + I did not linger on that problem. For me action remained the essential of + life, whether I was sane or insane. I resolved then and there to map a new + course. By toiling like a sailor at the pump of a sinking ship, I had + taken advantage to the uttermost of the respite Galloway's help had given + me. My property was no longer in more or less insecure speculative + “securities,” but was, as I had told Langdon, in forms that would + withstand the worst shocks. The attacks of my enemies, directed partly at + my fortune, or, rather, at the stocks in which they imagined it was still + invested, and partly at my personal character, were doing me good instead + of harm. Hatred always forgets that its shafts, falling round its intended + victim, spring up as legions of supporters for him. My business was + growing rapidly; my daily letter to investors was read by hundreds of + thousands where tens of thousands had read it before the Roebuck-Langdon + clique began to make me famous by trying to make me infamous. + </p> + <p> + “I am strong and secure,” said I to myself as I strode through the + wonderful canyon of Broadway, whose walls are those mighty palaces of + finance and commerce from which business men have been ousted by cormorant + “captains of industry.” I must <i>use</i> my strength. How could I better + use it than by fluttering these vultures on their roosts, and perhaps + bringing down a bird or two? + </p> + <p> + I decided, however, that it was better to wait until they had stopped + rattling their beaks and claws on my shell in futile attack. “Meanwhile,” + I reasoned carefully, “I can be getting good and ready.” + </p> + <p> + Their first new move, after my little talk with Langdon, was intended as a + mortal blow to my credit Melville requested me to withdraw mine and + Blacklock and Company's accounts from the National Industrial Bank; and + the fact that this huge and powerful institution had thus branded me was + slyly given to the financial reporters of the newspapers. Far and wide it + was published; and the public was expected to believe that this was one + more and drastic measure in the “campaign of the honorable men of finance + to clean the Augean Stables of Wall Street.” My daily letter to investors + next morning led off with this paragraph—the first notice I had + taken publicly of their attacks on me: + </p> + <p> + “In the effort to discredit the only remaining uncontrolled source of + financial truth, the big bandits have ordered my accounts out of their + chief gambling-house. I have transferred the accounts to the Discount and + Deposit National, where Leonidas Thornley stands guard against the new + order that seeks to make business a synonym for crime.” + </p> + <p> + Thornley was of the type that was dominant in our commercial life before + the “financiers” came—just as song birds were common in our trees + until the noisy, brawling, thieving sparrows drove them out. His oldest + son was about to marry Joe's daughter—Alva. Many a Sunday I have + spent at his place near Morristown—a charming combination of city + comfort with farm freedom and fresh air. I remember, one Sunday, saying to + him, after he had seen his wife and daughters off to church: “Why haven't + you got rich? Why haven't you looked out for establishing these boys and + girls of yours?” + </p> + <p> + “I don't want my girls to be sought for money,” said he, “I don't want my + boys to rely on money. Perhaps I've seen too much of wealth, and have come + to have a prejudice against it. Then, too, I've never had the chance to + get rich.” + </p> + <p> + I showed that I thought that he was simply jesting. + </p> + <p> + “I mean it,” said he, looking at me with eyes as straight as a + well-brought-up girl's. “How could my mind be judicial if I were + personally interested in the enterprises people look to me for advice + about?” + </p> + <p> + And not only did he keep himself clear and his mind judicial but also he + was, like all really good people, exceedingly slow to believe others + guilty of the things he would as soon have thought of doing as he would + have thought of slipping into the teller's cage during the lunch hour and + pocketing a package of bank-notes. He gave me his motto—a curious + one: “Believe in everybody; trust in nobody.” + </p> + <p> + “Only a thief wishes to be trusted,” he explained, “and only a fool + trusts. I let no one trust me; I trust no one. But I believe evil of no + man. Even when he has been convicted, I see the mitigating circumstances.” + </p> + <p> + How Thornley did stand by me! And for no reason except that it was as + necessary for him to be fair and just as to breathe. I shall not say he + resisted the attempts to compel him to desert me—they simply made no + impression on him. I remember, when Roebuck himself, a large stock-holder + in the bank, left cover far enough personally to urge him to throw me + over, he replied steadfastly: + </p> + <p> + “If Mr. Blacklock is guilty of circulating false stories against + commercial enterprises, as his enemies allege, the penal code can be used + to stop him. But as long as I stay at the head of this bank, no man shall + use it for personal vengeance. It is a chartered public institution, and + all have equal rights to its facilities. I would lend money to my worst + enemy, if he came for it with the proper security. I would refuse my best + friend, if he could not give security. The funds of a bank are a trust + fund, and my duty is to see that they are employed to the best advantage. + If you wish other principles to prevail here, you must get another + president.” + </p> + <p> + That settled it. No one appreciated more keenly than did Roebuck that + character is as indispensable in its place as is craft where the situation + demands craft—and is far harder to get. + </p> + <p> + I shall not relate in detail that campaign against me. It failed not so + much because I was strong as because it was weak. Perhaps, if Roebuck and + Langdon could have directed it in person, or had had the time to advise + with their agents before and after each move, it might have succeeded. + They would not have let exaggeration dominate it and venom show upon its + surface; they would not have neglected to follow up advantages, would not + have persisted in lines of attack that created public sympathy for me. + They would not have so crudely exploited my unconventional marriage and my + financial relations with old Ellersly. But they dared not go near the + battle-field; they had to trust to agents whom their orders and + suggestions reached by the most roundabout ways; and they were busier with + their enterprises that involved immediate and great gain or loss of money. + </p> + <p> + When Galloway died, they learned that the Coal stocks with which they + thought I was loaded down were part of his estate. They satisfied + themselves that I was in fact as impregnable as I had warned Langdon. They + reversed tactics; Roebuck tried to make it up with me. “If he wants to see + me,” was my invariable answer to the intimations of his emissaries, “let + him come to my office, just as I would go to his, if I wished to see him.” + </p> + <p> + “He is a big man—a dangerous big man,” cautioned Joe. + </p> + <p> + “Big—yes. But strong only against his own kind,” replied I. “One + mouse can make a whole herd of elephants squeal for mercy.” + </p> + <p> + “It isn't prudent, it isn't prudent,” persisted Joe. + </p> + <p> + “It is not,” replied I. “Thank God, I'm at last in the position I've been + toiling to achieve. I don't have to be prudent. I can say and do what I + please, without fear of the consequences. I can freely indulge in the + luxury of being a man. That's costly, Joe, but it's worth all it could + cost.” + </p> + <p> + Joe didn't understand me—he rarely did. “I'm a hen. You're an + eagle,” said he. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXIX. A HOUSEWARMING + </h2> + <p> + Joe's daughter, staying on and on at Dawn Hill, was chief lieutenant, if + not principal, in my conspiracy to drift Anita day by day further and + further into the routine of the new life. Yet neither of us had shown by + word or look that a thorough understanding existed between us. My part was + to be unobtrusive, friendly, neither indifferent nor eager, and I held to + it by taking care never to be left alone with Anita; Alva's part was to be + herself—simple and natural and sensible, full of life and laughter, + mocking at those moods that betray us into the absurdity of taking + ourselves too seriously. + </p> + <p> + I was getting ready a new house in town as a surprise to Anita, and I took + Alva into my plot. “I wish Anita's part of the house to be exactly to her + liking,” said I. “Can't you set her to dreaming aloud what kind of place + she would like to live in, what she would like to open her eyes on in the + morning, what surroundings she'd like to dress in and read in, and all + that?” + </p> + <p> + Alva had no difficulty in carrying out the suggestions. And by harassing + Westlake incessantly, I succeeded in realizing her report of Anita's dream + to the exact shade of the draperies and the silk that covered the walls. + By pushing the work, I got the house done just as Alva was warning me that + she could not remain longer at Dawn Hill, but must go home and get ready + for her wedding. When I went down to arrange with her the last details of + the surprise, who should meet me at the station but Anita herself? I took + one glance at her serious face and, much disquieted, seated myself beside + her in the little trap. Instead of following the usual route to the house, + she turned her horse into the bay-shore road. + </p> + <p> + “Several days ago,” she began, as the bend hid the station, “I got a + letter from some lawyers, saying that an uncle of mine had given me a + large sum of money—a very large sum. I have been inquiring about it, + and find it is mine absolutely.” + </p> + <p> + I braced myself against the worst. “She is about to tell me that she is + leaving,” thought I. But I managed to say: “I'm glad to hear of your + luck,” though I fear my tone was not especially joyous. + </p> + <p> + “So,” she went on, “I am in a position to pay back to you, I think, what + my father and Sam took from you. It won't be enough, I'm afraid, to pay + what you lost indirectly. But I have told the lawyers to make it all over + to you.” + </p> + <p> + I could have laughed aloud. It was too ridiculous, this situation into + which I had got myself. I did not know what to say. I could hardly keep + out of my face how foolish this collapse of my crafty conspiracy made me + feel. And then the full meaning of what she was doing came over me—the + revelation of her character. I trusted myself to steal a glance at her; + and for the first time I didn't see the thrilling azure sheen over her + smooth white skin, though all her beauty was before me, as dazzling as + when it compelled me to resolve to win her. No; I saw her, herself—the + woman within. I had known from the outset that there was an altar of love + within my temple of passion. I think that was my first real visit to it. + </p> + <p> + “Anita!” I said unsteadily. “Anita!” + </p> + <p> + The color flamed in her cheeks; we were silent for a long time. + </p> + <p> + “You—your people owe me nothing” I at length found voice to say. + “Even if they did, I couldn't and wouldn't take <i>your</i> money. But, + believe me, they owe me nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “You can not mislead me,” she answered. “When they asked me to become + engaged to you, they told me about it.” + </p> + <p> + I had forgotten. The whole repulsive, rotten business came back to me. + And, changed man that I had become in the last six months, I saw myself as + I had been. I felt that she was looking at me, was reading the degrading + confession in my telltale features. + </p> + <p> + “I will tell you the whole truth,” said I. “I did use your father's and + your brother's debts to me as a means of getting <i>to</i> you. But, + before God, Anita, I swear I was honest with you when I said to you I + never hoped or wished to win you in that way!” + </p> + <p> + “I believe you,” she replied, and her tone and expression made my heart + leap with indescribable joy. + </p> + <p> + Love is sometimes most unwise in his use of the reins he puts on passion. + Instead of acting as impulse commanded, I said clumsily, “And I am very + different to-day from what I was last spring.” It never occurred to me how + she might interpret those words. + </p> + <p> + “I know,” she replied. She waited several seconds before adding: “I, too, + have changed. I see that I was far more guilty than you. There is no + excuse for me. I was badly brought up, as you used to say, but—” + </p> + <p> + “No—no,” I began to protest. + </p> + <p> + She cut me short with a sad: “You need not be polite and spare my + feelings. Let's not talk of it. Let us go back to the object I had in + coming for you to-day.” + </p> + <p> + “You owe me nothing,” I repeated. “Your brother and your father settled + long ago. I lost nothing through them. And I've learned that if I had + never known you, Roebuck and Langdon would still have attacked me.” + </p> + <p> + “What my uncle gave me has been transferred to you,” said she, woman + fashion, not hearing what she did not care to heed. “I can't make you + accept it; but there it is, and there it stays.” + </p> + <p> + “I can not take it,” said I. “If you insist on leaving it in my name, I + shall simply return it to your uncle.” + </p> + <p> + “I wrote him what I had done,” she rejoined. “His answer came yesterday. + He approves it.” + </p> + <p> + “Approves it!” I exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “You do not know how eccentric he is,” she explained, naturally + misunderstanding my astonishment. She took a letter from her bosom and + handed it to me. I read: + </p> + <p> + “DEAR MADAM: It was yours to do with as you pleased. If you ever find + yourself in the mood to visit, Gull House is open to you, provided you + bring no maid. I will not have female servants about. + </p> + <p> + “Yours truly, + </p> + <p> + “HOWARD FORRESTER.” + </p> + <p> + “You will consent now, will you not?” she asked, as I lifted my eyes from + this characteristic note. + </p> + <p> + I saw that her peace of mind was at stake. “Yes—I consent.” + </p> + <p> + She gave a great sigh as at the laying down of a heavy burden. “Thank + you,” was all she said, but she put a world of meaning into the words. She + took the first homeward turning. We were nearly at the house before I + found words that would pave the way toward expressing my thoughts—my + longings and hopes. + </p> + <p> + “You say you have forgiven me,” said I. “Then we can be—friends?” + </p> + <p> + She was silent, and I took her somber expression to mean that she feared I + was hiding some subtlety. + </p> + <p> + “I mean just what I say, Anita,” I hastened to explain. “Friends—simply + friends.” And my manner fitted my words. + </p> + <p> + She looked strangely at me. “You would be content with that?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + I answered what I thought would please her. “Let us make the best of our + bad bargain,” said I. “You can trust me now, don't you think you can?” + </p> + <p> + She nodded without speaking; we were at the door, and the servants were + hastening out to receive us. Always the servants between us. Servants + indoors, servants outdoors; morning, noon and night, from waking to + sleeping, these servants to whom we are slaves. As those interrupting + servants sent us each a separate way, her to her maid, me to my valet, I + was depressed with the chill that the opportunity that has not been seen + leaves behind it as it departs. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said I to myself by way of consolation, as I was dressing for + dinner, “she is certainly softening toward you, and when she sees the new + house you will be still better friends.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + But, when the great day came, I was not so sure. Alva went for a “private + view” with young Thornley; out of her enthusiasm she telephoned me from + the very midst of the surroundings she found “<i>so</i> wonderful and <i>so</i> + beautiful”—thus she assured me, and her voice made it impossible to + doubt. And, the evening before the great day, I, going for a final look + round, could find no flaw serious enough to justify the sinking feeling + that came over me every time I thought of what Anita would think when she + saw my efforts to realize her dream. I set out for “home” half a dozen + times at least, that afternoon, before I pulled myself together, called + myself an ass, and, with a pause at Delmonico's for a drink, which I + ordered and then rejected, finally pushed myself in at the door. What, a + state my nerves were in! + </p> + <p> + Alva had departed; Anita was waiting for me in her sitting-room. When she + heard me in the hall, just outside, she stood in the doorway. “Come in,” + she said to me, who did not dare so much as a glance at her. + </p> + <p> + I entered. I must have looked as I felt—like a boy, summoned before + the teacher to be whipped in presence of the entire school. Then I was + conscious that she had my hand—how she had got it, I don't know—and + that she was murmuring, with tears of happiness in her voice: “Oh, I can't + <i>say</i> it!” + </p> + <p> + “Glad you like your own taste,” said I awkwardly. “You know, Alva told + me.” + </p> + <p> + “But it's one thing to dream, and a very different thing to do,” she + answered. Then, with smiling reproach: “And I've been thinking all summer + that you were ruined! I've been expecting to hear every day that you had + had to give up the fight.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh—that passed long ago,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “But you never told me,” she reminded me. “And I'm glad you didn't,” she + added. “Not knowing saved me from doing something very foolish.” She + reddened a little, smiled a great deal, dazzlingly, was altogether + different from the ice-locked Anita of a short time before, different as + June from January. And her hand—so intensely alive—seemed + extremely comfortable in mine. + </p> + <p> + Even as my blood responded to that electric touch, I had a twinge of + cynical bitterness. Yes, apparently I was at last getting what I had so + long, so vainly, and, latterly, so hopelessly craved. But—<i>why</i> + was she giving it? Why had she withheld herself until this moment of + material happiness? “I have to pay the rich man's price,” thought I, with + a sigh. + </p> + <p> + It was in reaching out for some sweetness to take away this bitter taste + in my honey that I said to her, “When you gave me that money from your + uncle, you did it to help me out?” + </p> + <p> + She colored deeply. “How silly you must have thought me!” she answered. + </p> + <p> + I took her other hand. As I was drawing her toward me, the sudden pallor + of her face and chill of her hands halted me once more, brought + sickeningly before me the early days of my courtship when she had + infuriated my pride by trying to be “submissive.” I looked round the room—that + room into which I had put so much thought—and money. Money! “The + rich man's price!” those delicately brocaded walls shimmered mockingly at + me. + </p> + <p> + “Anita,” said I, “do you <i>care</i> for me?” + </p> + <p> + She murmured inaudibly. Evasion! thought I, and suspicion sprang on guard, + bristling. + </p> + <p> + “Anita,” I repeated sternly, “do you care for <i>me</i>?” + </p> + <p> + “I am your wife,” she replied, her head drooping still lower. And + hesitatingly she drew away from me. That seemed confirmation of my doubt + and I said to her satirically, “You are willing to be my wife out of + gratitude, to put it politely?” + </p> + <p> + She looked straight into my eyes and answered, “I can only say there is no + one I like so well, and—I will give you all I have to give.” + </p> + <p> + “Like!” I exclaimed contemptuously, my nerves giving way altogether. “And + you would be my <i>wife</i>! Do you want me to <i>despise</i> you?” I + struck dead my poor, feeble hope that had been all but still-born. I + rushed from the room, closing the door violently between us. + </p> + <p> + Such was our housewarming. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXX. BLACKLOCK OPENS FIRE + </h2> + <p> + For what I proceeded to do, all sorts of motives, from the highest to the + basest, have been attributed to me. Here is the truth: I had already + pushed the medicine of hard work to its limit. It was as powerless against + this new development as water against a drunkard's thirst. I must find + some new, some compelling drug—some frenzy of activity that would + swallow up my self as the battle makes the soldier forget his toothache. + This confession may chagrin many who have believed in me. My enemies will + hasten to say: “Aha, his motive was even more selfish and petty than we + alleged.” But those who look at human nature honestly, and from the + inside, will understand how I can concede that a selfish reason moved me + to draw my sword, and still can claim a higher motive. In such straits as + were mine, some men of my all-or-none temperament debauch themselves; + others thresh about blindly, reckless whether they strike innocent or + guilty. I did neither. + </p> + <p> + Probably many will recall that long before the “securities” of the + reorganized coal combine were issued, I had in my daily letter to + investors been preparing the public to give them a fitting reception. A + few days after my whole being burst into flames of resentment against + Anita, out came the new array of new stocks and bonds. Roebuck and Langdon + arranged with the under writers for a “fake” four times over-subscription, + indorsed by the two greatest banking houses in the Street. Despite this + often-tried and always-good trick, the public refused to buy. I felt I had + not been overestimating my power. But I made no move until the + “securities” began to go up, and the financial reporters—under the + influence where not actually in the pay of the Roebuck-Langdon clique—shouted + that, “in spite of the malicious attacks from the gambling element, the + new securities are being absorbed by the public at prices approximating + their value.” Then—But I shall quote my investors' letter the + following morning: + </p> + <p> + “At half-past nine yesterday—nine-twenty-eight, to be exact—President + Melville, of the National Industrial Bank, loaned six hundred thousand + dollars. He loaned it to Bill Van Nest, an ex-gambler and proprietor of + pool rooms, now silent partner in Hoe & Wittekind, brokers, on the New + York Stock Exchange, and also in Filbert & Jonas, curb brokers. He + loaned it to Van Nest without security. + </p> + <p> + “Van Nest used the money yesterday to push up the price of the new coal + securities by 'wash sales'—which means, by making false purchases + and sales of the stock in order to give the public the impression of eager + buying. Van Nest sold to himself and bought from himself 347,060 of the + 352,681 shares traded in. + </p> + <p> + “Melville, in addition to being president of one of the largest banks in + the world, is a director in no less than seventy-three great industrial + enterprises, including railways, telegraph companies, <i>savings-banks and + life-insurance companies</i>. Bill Van Nest has done time in the Nevada + State Penitentiary for horse-stealing.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + That was all. And it was enough—quite enough. I was a national + figure, as much so as if I had tried to assassinate the president. Indeed, + I had exploded a bomb under a greater than the president—under the + chiefs of the real government of the United States, the government that + levied daily upon every citizen, and that had state and national and the + principal municipal governments in its strong box. + </p> + <p> + I confess I was as much astounded at the effect of my bomb as old Melville + must have been. I felt that I had been obscure, as I looked at the + newspapers, with Matthew Blacklock appropriating almost the entire front + page of each. I was the isolated, the conspicuous figure, standing alone + upon the steps of the temple of Mammon, where mankind daily and devoutly + comes to offer worship. + </p> + <p> + Not that the newspapers praised me. I recall none that spoke well of me. + The nearest approach to praise was the “Blacklock squeals on the Wall + Street gang” in one of the sensational penny sheets that strengthen the + plutocracy by lying about it. Some of the papers insinuated that I had + gone mad; others that I had been bought up by a rival gang to the + Roebuck-Langdon clique; still others thought I was simply hunting + notoriety. All were inclined to accept as a sufficient denial of my + charges Melville's dignified refusal “to notice any attack from a quarter + so discredited.” + </p> + <p> + As my electric whirled into Wall Street, I saw the crowd in front of the + Textile Building, a dozen policemen keeping it in order. I descended amid + cheers, and entered my offices through a mob struggling to shake hands + with me—and, in my ignorance of mob mind, I was delighted and + inspired! Just why a man who knows men, knows how wishy-washy they are as + individuals, should be influenced by a demonstration from a mass of them, + is hard to understand. But the fact is indisputable. They fooled me then; + they could fool me again, in spite of all I have been through. There + probably wasn't one in that mob for whose opinion I would have had the + slightest respect had he come to me alone; yet as I listened to those + shallow cheers and those worthless assurances of “the people are behind + you, Blacklock,” I felt that I was a man with a mission! + </p> + <p> + Our main office was full, literally full, of newspaper men—reporters + from morning papers, from afternoon papers, from out-of-town and foreign + papers. I pushed through them, saying as I went: “My letter speaks for me, + gentlemen, and will continue to speak for me. I have nothing to say except + through it.” + </p> + <p> + “But the public—” urged one. + </p> + <p> + “It doesn't interest me,” said I, on my guard against the temptation to + cant. “I am a banker and investment broker. I am interested only in my + customers.” + </p> + <p> + And I shut myself in, giving strict orders to Joe that there was to be no + talking about me or my campaign. “I don't purpose to let the newspapers + make us cheap and notorious,” said I. “We must profit by the warning in + the fate of all the other fellows who have sprung into notice by attacking + these bandits.” + </p> + <p> + The first news I got was that Bill Van Nest had disappeared. As soon as + the Stock Exchange opened, National Coal became the feature. But, instead + of “wash sales,” Roebuck, Langdon and Melville were themselves, through + various brokers, buying the stocks in large quantities to keep the prices + up. My next letter was as brief as my first philippic: + </p> + <p> + “Bill Van Nest is at the Hotel Frankfort, Newark, under the name of Thomas + Lowry. He was in telephonic communication with President Melville, of the + National Industrial Bank, twice yesterday. + </p> + <p> + “The underwriters of the National Coal Company's new issues, frightened by + yesterday's exposure, have compelled Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Mowbray Langdon and + Mr. Melville themselves to buy. So, yesterday, those three gentlemen + bought with real money, with their own money, large quantities of stocks + which are worth less than half what they paid for them. + </p> + <p> + “They will continue to buy these stocks so long as the public holds aloof. + They dare not let the prices slump. They hope that this storm will blow + over, and that then the investing public will forget and will relieve them + of their load.” + </p> + <p> + I had added: “But this storm won't blow over. It will become a cyclone.” I + struck that out. “No prophecy,” said I to myself. “Your rule, iron-clad, + must be—facts, always facts; only facts.” + </p> + <p> + The gambling section of the public took my hint and rushed into the + market; the burden of protecting the underwriters was doubled, and more + and more of the hoarded loot was disgorged. That must have been a costly + day—for, ten minutes after the Stock Exchange closed, Roebuck sent + for me. + </p> + <p> + “My compliments to him,” said I to his messenger, “but I am too busy. I'll + be glad to see him here, however.” + </p> + <p> + “You know he dares not come to you,” said the messenger, Schilling, + president of the National Manufactured Food Company, sometimes called the + Poison Trust. “If he did, and it were to get out, there'd be a panic.” + </p> + <p> + “Probably,” replied I with a shrug. “That's no affair of mine. I'm not + responsible for the rotten conditions which these so-called financiers + have produced, and I shall not be disturbed by the crash which must come.” + </p> + <p> + Schilling gave me a genuine look of mingled pity and admiration. “I + suppose you know what you're about,” said he, “but I think you're making a + mistake.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks, Ned,” said I—he had been my head clerk a few years before, + and I had got him the chance with Roebuck which he had improved so well. + “I'm going to have some fun. Can't live but once.” + </p> + <p> + “I know some people,” said he significantly, “who would go to <i>any</i> + lengths to get an enemy out of the way.” He had lived close enough to + Roebuck to peer into the black shadows of that satanic mind, and dimly to + see the dread shapes that lurked there. + </p> + <p> + “I'm the safest man on Manhattan Island for the present,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “You remember Woodrow? I've always believed that he was murdered, and that + the pistol they found beside him was a 'plant.'” + </p> + <p> + “You'd kill me yourself, if you got the orders, wouldn't you?” said I + good-humoredly. + </p> + <p> + “Not personally,” replied he in the same spirit, yet serious, too, at + bottom. “Inspector Bradlaugh was telling me, the other night, that there + were easily a thousand men in the slums of the East Side who could be + hired to kill a man for five hundred dollars.” + </p> + <p> + I suppose Schilling, as the directing spirit of a corporation that hid + poison by the hogshead in low-priced foods of various kinds, was + responsible for hundreds of deaths annually, and for misery of sickness + beyond calculation among the poor of the tenements and cheap + boarding-houses. Yet a better husband, father and friend never lived. He, + personally, wouldn't have harmed a fly; but he was a wholesale poisoner + for dividends. + </p> + <p> + Murder for dividends. Poison for dividends. Starve and freeze and maim for + dividends. Drive parents to suicide, and sons and daughters to crime and + prostitution—for dividends. Not fair competition, in which the + stronger and better would survive, but cheating and swindling, lying and + pilfering and bribing, so that the honest and the decent go down before + the dishonest and the depraved. And the custom of doing these things so + “respectable,” the applause for “success” so undiscriminating, and men so + unthinking in the rush of business activity, that criticism is regarded as + a mixture of envy and idealism. And it usually is, I must admit. + </p> + <p> + Schilling lingered. “I hope you won't blame me for lining up against you, + Matt,” said he. “I don't want to, but I've got to.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “You know what'd become of me if I didn't.” + </p> + <p> + “You might become an honest man and get self-respect,” I suggested with + friendly satire. + </p> + <p> + “That's all very well for you to say,” was his laughing retort. “You've + made yourself tight and tidy for the blow. But I've a family, and a damned + expensive one, too. And if I didn't stand by this gang, they'd take + everything I've got away from me. No, Matt, each of us to his own game. + What <i>is</i> your game, anyhow?” + </p> + <p> + “Fun—just fun. Playing the pipe to see the big fellows dance.” + </p> + <p> + But he didn't believe it. And no one has believed it—not even my + most devoted followers. To this day Joe Ball more than half suspects that + my real objective was huge personal gain. That any rich man should do + anything except for the purpose of growing richer seems incredible. That + any rich man should retain or regain the sympathies and viewpoint of the + class from which he sprang, and should become a “traitor” to the class to + which he belongs, seems preposterous. I confess I don't fully understand + my own case. Who ever does? + </p> + <p> + My “daily letters” had now ceased to be advertisements, had become news, + sought by all the newspapers of this country and of the big cities in + Great Britain. I could have made a large saving by no longer paying my + sixty-odd regular papers for inserting them. But I was looking too far + ahead to blunder into that fatal mistake. Instead, I signed a year's + contract with each of my papers, they guaranteeing to print my + advertisements, I guaranteeing to protect them against loss on libel + suits. I organized a dummy news bureau, and through it got contracts with + the telegraph companies. Thus insured against the cutting of my + communications with the public, I was ready for the real campaign. + </p> + <p> + It began with my “History of the National Coal Company.” I need not repeat + that famous history here. I need recall only the main points—how I + proved that the common stock was actually worth less than two dollars a + share, that the bonds were worth less than twenty-five dollars in the + hundred, that both stock and bonds were illegal; my detailed recital of + the crimes of Roebuck, Melville and Langdon in wrecking mining properties, + in wrecking coal railways, in ejecting American labor and substituting + helots from eastern Europe; how they had swindled and lied and bribed; how + they had twisted the books of the companies, how they were planning to + unload the mass of almost worthless securities at high prices, then to get + from under the market and let the bonds and stocks drop down to where they + could buy them in on terms that would yield them more than two hundred and + fifty per cent, on the actual capital invested. Less and dearer coal; + lower wages and more ignorant laborers; enormous profits absorbed without + mercy into a few pockets. + </p> + <p> + On the day the seventh chapter of this history appeared, the telegraph + companies notified me that they would transmit no more of my matter. They + feared the consequences in libel suits, explained Moseby, general manager + of one of the companies. + </p> + <p> + “But I guarantee to protect you,” said I. “I will give bond in any amount + you ask.” + </p> + <p> + “We can't take the risk, Mr. Blacklock,” replied he. The twinkle in his + eye told me why, and also that he, like every one else in the country + except the clique, was in sympathy with me. + </p> + <p> + My lawyers found an honest judge, and I got an injunction that compelled + the companies to transmit under my contracts. I suspended the “History” + for one day, and sent out in place of it an account of this attempt to + shut me off from the public. “Hereafter,” said I, in the last paragraph in + my letter, “I shall end each day's chapter with a forecast of what the + next day's chapter is to be. If for any reason it fails to appear, the + public will know that somebody has been coerced by Roebuck, Melville & + Co.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXI. ANITA'S SECRET + </h2> + <p> + That afternoon—or, was it the next?—I happened to go home + early. I have never been able to keep alive anger against any one. My + anger against Anita had long ago died away, had been succeeded by regret + and remorse that I had let my nerves, or whatever the accursed cause was, + whirl me into such an outburst. Not that I regretted having rejected what + I still felt was insulting to me and degrading to her; simply that my + manner should have been different. There was no necessity or excuse for + violence in showing her that I would not, could not, accept from gratitude + what only love has the right to give. And I had long been casting about + for some way to apologize—not easy to do, when her distant manner + toward me made it difficult for me to find even the necessary commonplaces + to “keep up appearances” before the servants on the few occasions on which + we accidentally met. + </p> + <p> + But, as I was saying, I came up from the office and stretched myself on—the + lounge in my private room adjoining the library. I had read myself into a + doze, when a servant brought me a card. I glanced at it as it lay upon his + extended tray. “Gerald Monson,” I read aloud. “What does the damned rascal + want?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + The servant smiled. He knew as well as I how Monson, after I dismissed him + with a present of six months' pay, had given the newspapers the story—or, + rather, his version of the story—of my efforts to educate myself in + the “arts and graces of a gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Monson says he wishes to see you particular, sir,” said he. + </p> + <p> + “Well—I'll see him,” said I. I despised him too much to dislike him, + and I thought he might possibly be in want. But that notion vanished the + instant I set eyes upon him. He was obviously at the very top of the wave. + “Hello, Monson,” was my greeting, in it no reminder of his treachery. + </p> + <p> + “Howdy, Blacklock,” said he. “I've come on a little errand for Mrs. + Langdon.” Then, with that nasty grin of his: “You know, I'm looking after + things for her since the bust-up.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I didn't—know,” said I curtly, suppressing my instant + curiosity. “What does Mrs. Langdon want?” + </p> + <p> + “To see you—for just a few minutes—whenever it is convenient.” + </p> + <p> + “If Mrs. Langdon has business with me, I'll see her at my office,” said I. + She was one of the fashionables that had got herself into my black books + by her treatment of Anita since the break with the Ellerslys. + </p> + <p> + “She wishes to come to you here—this afternoon, if you are to be at + home. She asked me to say that her business is important—and very + private.” + </p> + <p> + I hesitated, but I could think of no good excuse for refusing. “I'll be + here an hour,” said I. “Good day.” + </p> + <p> + He gave me no time to change my mind. + </p> + <p> + Something—perhaps it was his curious expression as he took himself + off—made me begin to regret. The more I thought of the matter, the + less I thought of my having made any civil concession to a woman who had + acted so badly toward Anita and myself. He had not been gone a quarter of + an hour before I went to Anita in her sitting-room. Always, the instant I + entered the outer door of her part of our house, that powerful, + intoxicating fascination that she had for me began to take possession of + my senses. It was in every garment she wore. It seemed to linger in any + place where she had been, for a long time after she left it. She was at a + small desk by the window, was writing letters. + </p> + <p> + “May I interrupt?” said I. “Monson was here a few minutes ago—from + Mrs. Langdon. She wants to see me. I told him I would see her here. Then + it occurred to me that perhaps I had been too good-natured. What do you + think?” + </p> + <p> + I could not see her face, but only the back of her head, and the loose + coils of magnetic hair and the white nape of her graceful neck. As I began + to speak, she stopped writing, her pen suspended over the sheet of paper. + After I ended there was a long silence. + </p> + <p> + “I'll not see her,” said I. “I don't quite understand why I yielded.” And + I turned to go. + </p> + <p> + “Wait—please,” came from her abruptly. + </p> + <p> + Another long silence. Then I: “If she comes here, I think the only person + who can properly receive her is you.” + </p> + <p> + “No—you must see her,” said Anita at last. And she turned round in + her chair until she was facing me. Her expression—I can not describe + it. I can only say that it gave me a sense of impending calamity. + </p> + <p> + “I'd rather not—much rather not,” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I particularly wish you to see her,” she replied, and she turned back to + her writing. I saw her pen poised as if she were about to begin; but she + did not begin—and I felt that she would not. With my mind shadowed + with vague dread, I left that mysterious stillness, and went back to the + library. + </p> + <p> + It was not long before Mrs. Langdon was announced. There are some women to + whom a haggard look is becoming; she is one of them. She was much thinner + than when I last saw her; instead of her former restless, petulant, + suspicious expression, she now looked tragically sad. “May I trouble you + to close the door?” said she, when the servant had withdrawn. + </p> + <p> + I closed the door. + </p> + <p> + “I've come,” she began, without seating herself, “to make you as unhappy, + I fear, as I am. I've hesitated long before coming. But I am desperate. + The one hope I have left is that you and I between us may be able to—to—that + you and I may be able to help each other.” + </p> + <p> + I waited. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose there are people,” she went on, “who have never known what it + was to—really to care for some one else. They would despise me for + clinging to a man after he has shown me that—that his love has + ceased.” + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me, Mrs. Langdon,” I interrupted. “You apparently think your + husband and I are intimate friends. Before you go any further, I must + disabuse you of that idea.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me in open astonishment. “You do not know why my husband has + left me?” + </p> + <p> + “Until a few minutes ago, I did not know that he had left you,” I said. + “And I do not wish to know why.” + </p> + <p> + Her expression of astonishment changed to mockery. “Oh!” she sneered. + “Your wife has fooled you into thinking it a one-sided affair. Well, I + tell you, she is as much to blame as he—more. For he did love me + when he married me; did love me until she got him under her spell again.” + </p> + <p> + I thought I understood. “You have been misled, Mrs. Langdon,” said I + gently, pitying her as the victim of her insane jealousy. “You have—” + </p> + <p> + “Ask your wife,” she interrupted angrily. “Hereafter, you can't pretend + ignorance. For I'll at least be revenged. She failed utterly to trap him + into marriage when she was a poor girl, and—” + </p> + <p> + “Before you go any further,” said I coldly, “let me set you right. My wife + was at one time engaged to your husband's brother, but—” + </p> + <p> + “Tom?” she interrupted. And her laugh made me bite my lip. “So she told + you that! I don't see how she dared. Why, everybody knows that she and + Mowbray were engaged, and that he broke it off to marry me.” + </p> + <p> + All in an instant everything that had been confused in my affairs at home + and down town became clear. I understood why I had been pursued + relentlessly in Wall Street; why I had been unable to make the least + impression on the barriers between Anita and myself. You will imagine that + some terrible emotion at once dominated me. But this is not a romance; + only the veracious chronicle of certain human beings. My first emotion was—relief + that it was not Tom Langdon. “I ought to have known she couldn't care for + <i>him</i>,” said I to myself. I, contending with Tom Langdon for a + woman's love had always made me shrink. But Mowbray—that was vastly + different. My respect for myself and for Anita rose. + </p> + <p> + “No,” said I to Mrs. Langdon, “my wife did not tell me, never spoke of it. + What I said to you was purely a guess of my own. I had no interest in the + matter—and haven't. I have absolute confidence in my wife. I feel + ashamed that you have provoked me into saying so.” I opened the door. + </p> + <p> + “I am not going yet,” said she angrily. “Yesterday morning Mowbray and she + were riding together in the Riverside Drive. Ask her groom.” + </p> + <p> + “What of it?” said I. Then, as she did not rise, I rang the bell. When the + servant came, I said: “Please tell Mrs. Blacklock that Mrs. Langdon is in + the library—and that I am here, and gave you the message.” + </p> + <p> + As soon as the servant was gone, she said: “No doubt she'll lie to you. + These women that steal other women's property are usually clever at + fooling their own silly husbands.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not intend to ask her,” I replied. “To ask her would be an insult.” + </p> + <p> + She made no comment beyond a scornful toss of the head. We both had our + gaze fixed upon the door through which Anita would enter. When she finally + did appear, I, after one glance at her, turned—it must have been + triumphantly—upon her accuser. I had not doubted, but where is the + faith that is not the stronger for confirmation? And confirmation there + was in the very atmosphere round that stately, still figure. She looked + calmly, first at Mrs. Langdon, then at me. + </p> + <p> + “I sent for you,” said I, “because I thought that you, rather than I, + should request Mrs. Langdon to leave your house.” + </p> + <p> + At that Mrs. Langdon was on her feet, and blazing. “Fool!” she flared at + me. “Oh, the fools women make of men!” Then to Anita: “You—you—But + no, I must not permit you to drag me down to your level. Tell your husband—tell + him that you were riding with my husband in the Riverside Drive + yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + I stepped between her and Anita. “My wife will not answer you,” said I. “I + hope, Madam, you will spare us the necessity of a painful scene. But leave + you must—at once.” + </p> + <p> + She looked wildly round, clasped her hands, suddenly burst into tears. If + she had but known, she could have had her own way after that, without any + attempt from me to oppose her. For she was evidently unutterably wretched—and + no one knew better than I the sufferings of unreturned love. But she had + given me up; slowly, sobbing, she left the room, I opening the door for + her and closing it behind her. + </p> + <p> + “I almost broke down myself,” said I to Anita. “Poor woman! How can you be + so calm? You women in your relations with each other are—a mystery.” + </p> + <p> + “I have only contempt for a woman who tries to hold a man when he wishes + to go,” said Anita, with quiet but energetic bitterness. “Besides”—she + hesitated an instant before going on—“Gladys deserves her fate. She + doesn't really care for him. She's only jealous of him. She never did love + him.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you know?” said I sharply, trying to persuade myself it was not an + ugly suspicion in me that lifted its head and shot out that question. + </p> + <p> + “Because he never loved her,” she replied. “The feeling a woman has for a + man or a man for a woman, without any response, isn't love, isn't worthy + the name of love. It's a sort of baffled covetousness. Love means + generosity, not greediness.” Then—“Why do you not ask me whether + what she said is true?” + </p> + <p> + The change in her tone with that last sentence, the strange, ominous note + in it, startled me, + </p> + <p> + “Because,” replied I, “as I said to her, to ask my wife such a question + would be to insult her. If you were riding with him, it was an accident.” + As if my rude repulse of her overtures and my keeping away from her ever + since would not have justified her in almost anything. + </p> + <p> + She flushed the dark red of shame, but her gaze held steady and + unflinching upon mine. “It was not altogether by accident,” she said. And + I think she expected me to kill her. + </p> + <p> + When a man admits and respects a woman's rights where he is himself + concerned, he either is no longer interested in her or has begun to love + her so well that he can control the savage and selfish instincts of + passion. If Mowbray Langdon had been there, I might have killed them both; + but he was not there, and she, facing me without fear, was not the woman + to be suspected of the stealthy and traitorous. + </p> + <p> + “It was he that you meant when you warned me you cared for another man?” + said I, so quietly that I wondered at myself; wondered what had become of + the “Black Matt” who had used his fists almost as much as his brains in + fighting his way up. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, her head down now. + </p> + <p> + A long pause. + </p> + <p> + “You wish to be free?” I asked, and my tone must have been gentle. + </p> + <p> + “I wish to free you,” she replied slowly and deliberately. + </p> + <p> + There was a long silence. Then I said: “I must think it all out. I once + told you how I felt about these matters. I've greatly changed my mind + since our talk that night in the Willoughby; but my prejudices are still + with me. Perhaps you will not be surprised at that—you whose + prejudices have cost me so dear.” + </p> + <p> + I thought she was going to speak. Instead she turned away, so that I could + no longer see her face. + </p> + <p> + “Our marriage was a miserable mistake,” I went on, struggling to be just + and judicial, and to seem calm. “I admit it now. Fortunately, we are both + still young—you very young. Mistakes in youth are never fatal. But, + Anita, do not blunder out of one mistake into another. You are no longer a + child, as you were when I married you. You will be careful not to let + judgments formed of him long ago decide you for him as they decided you + against me.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish to be free,” she said, each word coming with an effort, “as much + on your account as on my own.” Then, and it seemed to me merely a truly + feminine attempt to shirk responsibility, she added, “I am glad my going + will be a relief to you.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it will be a relief,” I confessed. “Our situation has become + intolerable.” I had reached my limit of self-control. I put out my hand. + “Good-by,” I said. + </p> + <p> + If she had wept, it might have modified my conviction that everything was + at an end between us. But she did not weep. “Can you ever forgive me?” she + asked. + </p> + <p> + “Let's not talk of forgiveness,” said I, and I fear my voice and manner + were gruff, as I strove not to break down. “Let's try to forget.” And I + touched her hand and hastened away. + </p> + <p> + When two human beings set out to misunderstand each other, how fast and + far they go! How shut-in we are from each other, with only halting means + of communication that break down under the slightest strain! + </p> + <p> + As I was leaving the house next morning, I gave Sanders this note for her: + </p> + <p> + “I have gone to live at the Downtown Hotel. When you have decided what + course to take, let me know. If my 'rights' ever had any substance, they + have starved away to such weak things that they collapse even as I try to + set them up. I hope your freedom will give you happiness, and me peace.” + </p> + <p> + “You are ill, sir?” asked my old servant, my old friend, as he took the + note. + </p> + <p> + “Stay with her, Sanders, as long as she wishes,” said I, ignoring his + question. “Then come to me.” + </p> + <p> + His look made me shake hands with him. As I did it, we both remembered the + last time we had shaken hands—when he had the roses for my + home-coming with my bride. It seemed to me I could smell those roses. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXII. LANGDON COMES TO THE SURFACE + </h2> + <p> + I shall not estimate the vast sums it cost the Roebuck-Langdon clique to + maintain the prices of National Coal, and so give plausibility to the + fiction that the public was buying eagerly. In the third week of my + campaign, Melville was so deeply involved that he had to let the two + others take the whole burden upon themselves. + </p> + <p> + In the fourth week, Langdon came to me. + </p> + <p> + The interval between his card and himself gave me a chance to recover from + my amazement. When he entered he found me busily writing. Though I had + nerved myself, it was several seconds before I ventured to look at him. + There he stood, probably as handsome, as fascinating as ever, certainly as + self-assured. But I could now, beneath that manner I had once envied, see + the puny soul, with its brassy glitter of the vanity of luxury and show. I + had been somewhat afraid of myself—afraid the sight of him would + stir up in me a tempest of jealousy and hate; as I looked, I realized that + I did not know my own nature. “She does not love this man,” I thought. “If + she did or could, she would not be the woman I love. He deceived her + inexperience as he deceived mine.” + </p> + <p> + “What can I do for you?” said I to him politely, much as if he were a + stranger making an untimely interruption. + </p> + <p> + My look had disconcerted him; my tone threw him into confusion. “You keep + out of the way, now that you've become famous,” he began, with a halting + but heroic attempt at his customary easy superiority. “Are you living up + in Connecticut, too? Sam Ellersly tells me your wife is stopping there + with old Howard Forrester. Sam wants me to use my good offices in making + it up between you two and her family.” + </p> + <p> + I was completely taken aback by this cool ignoring of the real situation + between him and me. Impudence or ignorance?—I could not decide. It + seemed impossible that Anita had not told him; yet it seemed impossible, + too, that he would come to me if she had told him. “Have you any <i>business</i> + with me?” said I. + </p> + <p> + His eyelids twitched nervously, and he adjusted his lips several times + before he was able to say: + </p> + <p> + “You and your wife don't care to make it up with the Ellerslys? I fancied + so, and told Sam you'd simply think me meddlesome. The other matter is the + Travelers Club. I've smoothed things out there. I'm going to put you up + and rush you through.” + </p> + <p> + “No, thanks,” said I. It seemed incredible to me that I had ever cared + about that club and the things it represented, as I could remember I + undoubtedly did care. It was like looking at an outgrown toy and trying to + feel again the emotions it once excited. + </p> + <p> + “I assure you, Matt, there won't be the slightest difficulty.” His manner + was that of a man playing the trump card in a desperate game—he + feels it can not lose, yet the stake is so big that he can not but be a + little nervous. + </p> + <p> + “I do not care to join the Travelers Club,” said I, rising. “I must ask + you to excuse me. I am exceedingly busy.” + </p> + <p> + A flush appeared in his cheeks and deepened and spread until his whole + body must have been afire. He seated himself. “You know what I've come + for,” he said sullenly, and humbly, too. + </p> + <p> + All his life he had been enthroned upon his wealth. Without realizing it, + he had claimed and had received deference solely because he was rich. He + had thought himself, in his own person, most superior; now, he found that + like a silly child he had been standing on a chair and crying: “See how + tall I am.” And the airs, the cynicism, the graceful condescension, which + had been so becoming to him, were now as out of place as crown and robes + on a king taking a swimming lesson. + </p> + <p> + “What are your terms, Blacklock? Don't be too hard on an old friend,” said + he, trying to carry off his frank plea for mercy with a smile. + </p> + <p> + I should have thought he would cut his throat and jump off the Battery + wall before he would get on his knees to any man for any reason. And he + was doing it for mere money—to try to save, not his fortune, but + only an imperiled part of it. “If Anita could see him now!” I thought. + </p> + <p> + To him I said, the more coldly because I did not wish to add to his + humiliation by showing him that I pitied him: “I can only repeat, Mr. + Langdon, you will have to excuse me. I have given you all the time I can + spare.” + </p> + <p> + His eyes were shifting and his hands trembling as he said: “I will + transfer control of the Coal combine to you.” + </p> + <p> + His tones, shameful as the offer they carried, made me ashamed for him. + For money—just for money! And I had thought him a man. If he had + been a self-deceiving hypocrite like Roebuck, or a frank believer in the + right of might, like Updegraff, I might possibly, in the circumstances, + have tried to release him from my net. But he had never for an instant + deceived himself as to the real nature of the enterprises he plotted, + promoted and profited by; he thought it “smart” to be bad, and he + delighted in making the most cynical epigrams on the black deeds of + himself and his associates. + </p> + <p> + “Better sell out to Roebuck,” I suggested. “I control all the Coal stock I + need.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't care to have anything further to do with Roebuck,” Langdon + answered. “I've broken with him.” + </p> + <p> + “When a man lies to me,” said I, “he gives me the chance to see just how + much of a fool he thinks I am, and also the chance to see just how much of + a fool he is. I hesitate to think so poorly of you as your attempt to fool + me seems to compel.” + </p> + <p> + But he was unconvinced. “I've found he intends to abandon the ship and + leave me to go down with it,” he persisted. “He believes he can escape and + denounce me as the arch rascal who planned the combine, and can convince + people that I foozled him into it.” + </p> + <p> + Ingenious; but I happened to know that it was false. “Pardon me, Mr. + Langdon,” said I with stiff courtesy. “I repeat, I can do nothing for you. + Good morning.” And I went at my work as if he were already gone. + </p> + <p> + Had I been vindictive, I would have led him on to humiliate himself more + deeply, if greater depths of humiliation there are than those to which he + voluntarily descended. But I wished to spare him; I let him see the + uselessness of his mission. He looked at me in silence—the look of + hate that can come only from a creature weak as well as wicked. I think it + was all his keen sense of humor could do to save him from a melodramatic + outbreak. He slipped into his habitual pose, rose and withdrew without + another word. All this fright and groveling and treachery for plunder, the + loss of which would not impair his fortune—plunder he had stolen + with many a jest and gibe at his helpless victims. Like most of our + debonair dollar chasers, he was a good sportsman only when the game was + with him. + </p> + <p> + That afternoon he threw his Coal holdings on the market in great blocks. + His treachery took Roebuck completely by surprise—for Roebuck + believed in this fair-weather “gentleman,” foul-weather coward, and + neglected to allow for that quicksand that is always under the foundation + of the man who has inherited, not earned, his wealth. But for the + blundering credulity of rascals, would honest men ever get their dues? + Roebuck's brokers had bought many thousands of Langdon's shares at the + high artificial price before Roebuck grasped the situation—that it + was not my followers recklessly gambling to break the prices, but Langdon + unloading on his “pal.” As soon as he saw, he abruptly withdrew from the + market. When the Stock Exchange closed, National Coal securities were + offered at prices ranging from eleven for the bonds to two for the common + and three for the preferred—offered, and no takers. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you've done it,” said Joe, coming with the news that Thornley, of + the Discount and Deposit Bank, had been appointed receiver. + </p> + <p> + “I've made a beginning,” replied I. And the last sentence of my next + morning's “letter” was: + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow the first chapter of the History of the Industrial National + Bank.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + “I have felt for two years,” said Roebuck to Schilling, who repeated it to + me soon afterward, “that Blacklock was about the most dangerous fellow in + the country. The first time I set eyes on him, I saw he was a born + iconoclast. And I've known for a year that some day he would use that + engine of publicity of his to cannonade the foundations of society.” + </p> + <p> + “He knew me better than I knew myself,” was my comment to Schilling. And I + meant it—for I had not finished the demolition of the Coal combine + when I began to realize that, whatever I might have thought of my own + ambitions, I could never have tamed myself or been tamed into a devotee of + dollars and of respectability. I simply had been keeping quiet until my + tools were sharp and fate spun my opportunity within reach. But I must, in + fairness, add, it was lucky for me that, when the hour struck, Roebuck was + not twenty years younger and one-twentieth as rich. It's a heavy enough + handicap, under the best of circumstances, to go to war burdened with + years; add the burden of a monster fortune, and it isn't in human nature + to fight well. Youth and a light knapsack! + </p> + <p> + But—to my fight on the big bank. + </p> + <p> + Until I opened fire, the public thought, in a general way, that a bank was + an institution like Thornley's Discount and Deposit National—a place + for the safe-keeping of money and for accommodating business men with + loans to be used in carrying on and extending legitimate and useful + enterprises. And there were many such banks. But the real object of the + banking business, as exploited by the big bandits who controlled it and + all industry, was to draw into a mass the money of the country that they + might use it to manipulate the markets, to wreck and reorganize industries + and wreck them again, to work off inflated bonds and stocks upon the + public at inflated prices, to fight among themselves for rights to + despoil, making the people pay the war budgets—in a word, to finance + the thousand and one schemes whereby they and their friends and relatives, + who neither produce nor help to produce, appropriate the bulk of all that + is produced. + </p> + <p> + And before I finished with the National Industrial Bank, I had shown that + it and several similar institutions in the big cities throughout the + country were, in fact, so many dens to which rich and poor were lured for + spoliation. I then took up the Universal Life, as a type. I showed how + insuring was, with the companies controlled by the bandits, simply the + decoy; that the real object was the same as the real object of the big + bandit banks. When I had finished my series on the Universal Life I had + named and pilloried Roebuck, Langdon, Melville, Wainwright, Updegraff, Van + Steen, Epstein—the seven men of enormous wealth, leaders of the + seven cliques that had the political and industrial United States at their + mercy, and were plucking the people through an ever-increasing army of + agents. The agents kept some of the feathers—“The Seven” could + afford to pay liberally. But the bulk of the feather crop was passed on to + “The Seven.” + </p> + <p> + I shall answer in a paragraph the principal charges that were made against + me. They say I bribed employees on the telegraph companies, and so got + possession of incriminating telegrams that had been sent by “The Seven” in + the course of their worst campaigns. I admit the charge. They say I bribed + some of their confidential men to give me transcripts and photographs of + secret ledgers and reports. I admit the charge. They say I bought + translations of stenographic notes taken by eavesdroppers on certain + important secret meetings. I admit the charge. But what was the chief + element in my success in thus getting proofs of their crimes? Not the + bribery, but the hatred that all the servants of such men have for them. I + tempted no one to betray them. <i>Every item, of information I got was + offered to me</i>. And I shall add these facts: + </p> + <p> + First, in not a single case did they suspect and discharge the “guilty” + persons. + </p> + <p> + Second, I have to-day as good means of access to their secrets as I ever + had—and, if they discharged all who now serve them, I should be able + soon to reestablish my lines; men of their stripe can not hope to be + served faithfully. + </p> + <p> + Third, I had offers from all but three of “The Seven” to “peach” on the + others in return for immunity. There may be honor among some thieves, but + not among “respectable” thieves. Hypocrisy and honor will be found in the + same character when the sun shines at night—not before. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was the sardonic humor of fate that Langdon, for all his desire to keep + out of my way, should have compelled me to center my fire upon him; that + I, who wished to spare him, if possible, should have been compelled to + make of him my first “awful example.” + </p> + <p> + I had decided to concentrate upon Roebuck, because he was the richest and + most powerful of “The Seven.” For, in my pictures of the three main phases + of “finance”—the industrial, the life-insurance and the banking—he, + as arch plotter in every kind of respectable skulduggery, was necessarily + in the foreground. My original intention was to demolish the Power Trust—or, + at least, to compel him to buy back all of its stock which he had worked + off on the public. I had collected many interesting facts about it, facts + typical of the conditions that “finance” has established in so many of our + industries. + </p> + <p> + For instance, I was prepared to show that the actual earnings of the Power + Trust were two and a half times what its reports to stock-holders alleged; + that the concealed profits were diverted into the pockets of Roebuck, his + sons, eleven other relatives and four of “The Seven,” the lion's share + going, of course, to the lion. Like almost all the great industrial + enterprises, too strong for the law and too remote for the supervision of + their stock-holders, it gathered in enormous revenues to disburse them + chiefly in salaries and commissions and rake-offs on contracts to + favorites. I had proof that in one year it had “written off” twelve + millions of profit and loss, ten millions of which had found its way to + Roebuck's pocket. That pocket! That “treasury of the Lord”! + </p> + <p> + Dishonest? Roebuck and most of the other leaders of the various gangs, + comprising, with all their ramifications, the principal figures in + religious, philanthropic, fashionable society, did not for an instant + think their doings dishonest. They had no sense of trusteeship for this + money intrusted to them as captains of industry bankers, life-insurance + directors. They felt that it was theirs to do with as they pleased. + </p> + <p> + And they felt that their superiority in rank and in brains entitled them + to whatever remuneration they could assign to themselves without rousing + the wrath of a public too envious to admit the just claims of the “upper + classes.” They convinced themselves that without them crops would cease to + grow, sellers and buyers would be unable to find their way to market, + barbarism would spread its rank and choking weeds over the whole garden of + civilization. And, so brainless is the parrot public, they have succeeded + in creating a very widespread conviction that their own high opinion of + their services is not too high, and that some dire calamity would come if + they were swept from between producer and consumer! True, thieves are + found only where there is property; but who but a chucklebrain would think + the thieves made the property? + </p> + <p> + Roebuck was the keystone of the arch that sustained the structure of + chicane. To dislodge him was the direct way to collapse it. I was about to + set to work when Langdon, feeling that he ought to have a large supply of + cash in the troublous times I was creating, increased the capital stock of + his already enormously overcapitalized Textile Trust and offered the new + issue to the public. As the Textile Trust was even better bulwarked, + politically, than the Power Trust, it was easily able to declare tempting + dividends out of its lootings. So the new stock could not be attacked in + the one way that would make the public instantly shun it—I could not + truthfully charge that it would not pay the promised dividends. Yet attack + I must—for that issue was, in effect, a bold challenge of my charges + against “The Seven.” From all parts of the country inquiries poured in + upon me: “What do you think of the new Textile issue? Shall we invest? Is + the Textile Company sound?” + </p> + <p> + I had no choice. I must turn aside from Roebuck; I must first show that, + while Textile was, in a sense, sound just at that time, it had been + unsound, and would be unsound again as soon as Langdon had gathered in a + sufficient number of lambs to make a battue worth the while of a man + dealing in nothing less than seven figures. I proceeded to do so. + </p> + <p> + The market yielded slowly. Under my first day's attack Textile preferred + fell six points, Textile common three. While I was in the midst of + dictating my letter for the second day's attack, I suddenly came to a full + stop. I found across my way this thought: “Isn't it strange that Langdon, + after humbling himself to you, should make this bold challenge? It's a + trap!” + </p> + <p> + “No more at present,” said I, to my stenographer. “And don't write out + what I've already dictated.” + </p> + <p> + I shut myself in and busied myself at the telephone. Half an hour after I + set my secret machinery in motion, a messenger brought me an envelop, the + address type-written. It contained a sheet of paper on which appeared, in + type-writing; these words, and nothing more: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “He is heavily short of Textiles.” + </pre> + <p> + It was indeed a trap. The new issue was a blind. He had challenged me to + attack his stock, and as soon as I did, he had begun secretly to sell it + for a fall. I worked at this new situation until midnight, trying to get + together the proofs. At that hour—for I could delay no longer, and + my proofs were not quite complete—I sent my newspapers two + sentences: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “To-morrow I shall make a disclosure that will + send Textiles up. Do not sell Textiles!” + </pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIII. MRS. LANGDON MAKES A CALL. + </h2> + <p> + Next day Langdon's stocks wavered, going up a little, going down a little, + closing at practically the same figures at which they had opened. Then I + sprang my sensation—that Langdon and his particular clique, though + they controlled the Textile Trust, did not own so much as one-fiftieth of + its voting stock. True “captains of industry” that they were, they made + their profits not out of dividends, but out of side schemes that absorbed + about two-thirds of the earnings of the Trust, and out of gambling in its + bonds and stocks. I said in conclusion: + </p> + <p> + “The largest owner of the stock is Walter G. Edmunds, of Chicago—an + honest man. Send your voting proxies to him, and he can take the Textile + Company away from those now plundering it.” + </p> + <p> + As the annual election of the Trust was only six weeks away, Langdon and + his clique were in a panic. They rushed into the market and bought + frantically, the public bidding against them. Langdon himself went to + Chicago to reason with Edmunds—that is, to try to find out at what + figure he could be bought. And so on, day after day, I faithfully + reporting to the public the main occurrences behind the scenes. The + Langdon attempt to regain control by purchases of stock failed. He and his + allies made what must have been to them appalling sacrifices; but even at + the high prices they offered, comparatively little of the stock appeared. + </p> + <p> + “I've caught them,” said I to Joe—the first time, and the last, + during that campaign that I indulged in a boast. + </p> + <p> + “If Edmunds sticks to you,” replied cautious Joe. + </p> + <p> + But Edmunds did not. I do not know at what price he sold himself. Probably + it was pitifully small; cupidity usually snatches the instant bait tickles + its nose. But I do know that my faith in human nature got its severest + shock. + </p> + <p> + “You are down this morning,” said Thornley, when I looked in on him at his + bank. “I don't think I ever before saw you show that you were in low + spirits.” + </p> + <p> + “I've found out a man with whom I'd have trusted my life,” said I. + “Sometimes I think all men are dishonest. I've tried to be an optimist + like you, and have told myself that most men must be honest or ninety-five + per cent. of the business couldn't be done on credit as it is.” + </p> + <p> + Thornley smiled, like an old man at the enthusiasm of a youngster. “That + proves nothing as to honesty,” said he. “It simply shows that men can be + counted on to do what it is to their plain interest to do. The truth is—and + a fine truth, too—most men wish and try to be honest. Give 'em a + chance to resist their own weaknesses. Don't trust them. Trust—that's + the making of false friends and the filling of jails.” + </p> + <p> + “And palaces,” I added. + </p> + <p> + “And palaces,” assented he. “Every vast fortune is a monument to the + credulity of man. Instead of getting after these heavy-laden rascals, + Matthew, you'd better have turned your attention to the public that has + made rascals of them by leaving its property unguarded.” + </p> + <p> + Fortunately, Edmunds had held out, or, rather, Langdon had delayed + approaching him, long enough for me to gain my main point. The uproar over + the Textile Trust had become so great that the national Department of + Commerce dared not refuse an investigation; and I straightway began to + spread out in my daily letters the facts of the Trust's enormous earnings + and of the shameful sources of those earnings. Thanks to Langdon's + political pull, the president appointed as investigator one of those + rascals who carefully build themselves good reputations to enable them to + charge higher prices for dirty work. But, with my facts before the people, + whitewash was impossible. + </p> + <p> + I was expecting emissaries from Langdon, for I knew he must now be + actually in straits. Even the Universal Life didn't dare lend him money; + and was trying to call in the millions it had loaned him. But I was + astounded when my private door opened and Mrs. Langdon ushered herself in. + </p> + <p> + “Don't blame your boy, Mr. Blacklock,” cried she gaily, exasperatingly + confident that I was as delighted with her as she was with herself. “I + told him you were expecting me and didn't give him a chance to stop me.” + </p> + <p> + I assumed she had come to give me wholly undeserved thanks for revenging + her upon her recreant husband. I tried to look civil and courteous, but I + felt that my face was darkening—her very presence forced forward + things I had been keeping in the far background of my mind, “How can I be + of service to you, Madam?” said I. + </p> + <p> + “I bring you good news,” she replied—and I noted that she no longer + looked haggard and wretched, that her beauty was once more smiling with a + certain girlishness, like a young widow's when she finds her consolation. + “Mowbray and I have made it up,” she explained. + </p> + <p> + I simply listened, probably looking as grim as I felt. + </p> + <p> + “I knew you would be interested,” she went on. “Indeed, it means almost as + much to you as to me. It brings peace to <i>two</i> families.” + </p> + <p> + Still I did not relax. + </p> + <p> + “And so,” she continued, a little uneasy, “I came to you immediately.” + </p> + <p> + I continued to listen, as if I were waiting for her to finish and depart. + </p> + <p> + “If you want, I'll go to Anita.” Natural feminine tact would have saved + her from this rawness; but, convinced that she was a “great lady” by the + flattery of servants and shopkeepers and sensational newspapers and social + climbers, she had discarded tact as worthy only of the lowly and of the + aspiring before they “arrive.” + </p> + <p> + “You are too kind,” said I. “Mrs. Blacklock and I feel competent to take + care of our own affairs.” + </p> + <p> + “Please, Mr. Blacklock,” she said, realizing that she had blundered, + “don't take my directness the wrong way. Life is too short for pose and + pretense about the few things that really matter. Why shouldn't we be + frank with each other?” + </p> + <p> + “I trust you will excuse me,” said I, moving toward the door—I had + not seated myself when she did. “I think I have made it clear that we have + nothing to discuss.” + </p> + <p> + “You have the reputation of being generous and too big for hatred. That is + why I have come to you,” said she, her expression confirming my suspicion + of the real and only reason for her visit. “Mowbray and I are completely + reconciled—<i>completely</i>, you understand. And I want you to be + generous, and not keep on with this attack. I am involved even more than + he. He has used up his fortune in defending mine. Now, you are simply + trying to ruin me—not him, but <i>me</i>. The president is a friend + of Mowbray's, and he'll call off this horrid investigation, and + everything'll be all right, if you'll only stop.” + </p> + <p> + “Who sent you here?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I came of my own accord,” she protested. Then, realizing from the sound + of her voice that she could not have convinced me with a tone so + unconvincing, she hedged with: “It was my own suggestion, really it was.” + </p> + <p> + “Your husband permitted <i>you</i> to come—and to <i>me</i>?” + </p> + <p> + She flushed. + </p> + <p> + “And you have accepted his overtures when you knew he made them only + because he needed your money?” + </p> + <p> + She hung her head. “I love him,” she said simply. Then she looked straight + at me and I liked her expression. “A woman has no false pride when love is + at stake,” she said. “We leave that to you men.” + </p> + <p> + “Love!” I retorted, rather satirically, I imagine. “How much had your own + imperiled fortune to do with your being so forgiving?” + </p> + <p> + “Something,” she admitted. “You must remember I have children. I must + think of their future. I don't want them to be poor. I want them to have + the station they were born to.” She went to one of the windows overlooking + the street. “Look here!” she said. + </p> + <p> + I stood beside her. The window was not far above the street level. Just + below us was a handsome victoria, coachman, harness, horses, all most + proper, a footman rigid at the step. A crowd had gathered round—in + those stirring days when I was the chief subject of conversation wherever + men were interested in money—and where are they not?—there was + almost always a crowd before my offices. In the carriage sat two children, + a boy and a girl, hardly more than babies. They were gorgeously + overdressed, after the vulgar fashion of aristocrats and apers of + aristocracy. They sat stiffly, like little scions of royalty, with that + expression of complacent superiority which one so often sees on the faces + of the little children of the very rich—and some not so little, too. + The thronging loungers, most of them either immigrant peasants from + European caste countries or the un-disinfected sons of peasants, were + gaping in true New York “lower class” awe; the children were literally + swelling with delighted vanity. If they had been pampered pet dogs, one + would have laughed. As they were human beings, it filled me with sadness + and pity. What ignorance, what stupidity to bring up children thus in + democratic America—democratic to-day, inevitably more democratic + to-morrow! What a turning away from the light! What a crime against the + children! + </p> + <p> + “For their sake, Mr. Blacklock,” she pleaded, her mother love wholly + hiding from her the features of the spectacle that for me shrieked like + scarlet against a white background. + </p> + <p> + “Your husband has deceived you about your fortune, Mrs. Langdon,” I said + gently, for there is to me something pathetic in ignorance and I was not + blaming her for her folly and her crime against her children. “You can + tell him what I am about to say, or not, as you please. But my advice is + that you keep it to yourself. Even if the present situation develops as + seems probable, develops as Mr. Langdon fears, you will not be left + without a fortune—a very large fortune, most people would think. But + Mr. Langdon will have little or nothing—indeed, I think he is + practically dependent on you now.” + </p> + <p> + “What I have is his,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “That is generous,” replied I, not especially impressed by a sentiment, + the very uttering of which raised a strong doubt of its truth. “But is it + prudent? You wish to keep him—securely. Don't tempt him by a + generosity he would only abuse.” + </p> + <p> + She thought it over. “The idea of holding a man in that way is repellent + to me,” said she, now obviously posing. + </p> + <p> + “If the man happens to be one that can be held in no other way,” said I, + moving significantly toward the door, “one must overcome one's repugnance—or + be despoiled and abandoned.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” she said, giving me her hand. “Thank you—more than I + can say.” She had forgotten entirely that she came to plead for her + husband. “And I hope you will soon be as happy as I am.” That last in New + York's funniest “great lady” style. + </p> + <p> + I bowed, and when there was the closed door between us, I laughed, not at + all pleasantly. “This New York!” I said aloud. “This New York that dabbles + its slime of sordidness and snobbishness on every flower in the garden of + human nature. New York that destroys pride and substitutes vanity for it. + New York with its petty, mischievous class-makers, the pattern for the + rich and the 'smarties' throughout the country. These 'cut-out' minds and + hearts, the best of them incapable of growth and calloused wherever the + scissors of conventionality have snipped.” + </p> + <p> + I took from my pocket the picture of Anita I always carried. “Are <i>you</i> + like that?” I demanded of it. And it seemed to answer: “Yes,—I am.” + Did I tear the picture up? No. I kissed it as if it were the magnetic + reality. “I don't care what you are!” I cried. “I want you! I want you!” + </p> + <p> + “Fool!” you are saying. Precisely what I called myself. And you? Is it the + one you <i>ought</i> to love that you give your heart to? Is it the one + that understands you and sympathizes with you? Or is it the one whose + presence gives you visions of paradise and whose absence blots out the + light? + </p> + <p> + I loved her. Yet I will say this much for myself: I still would not have + taken her on any terms that did not make her really mine. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXIV. “MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME” + </h2> + <p> + Now that Updegraff is dead, I am free to tell of our relations. + </p> + <p> + My acquaintance with him was more casual than with any other of “The + Seven.” From the outset of my career I made it a rule never to deal with + understrappers, always to get in touch with the man who had the final say. + Thus, as the years went by, I grew into intimacy with the great men of + finance where many with better natural facilities for knowing them + remained in an outer circle. But with Updegraff, interested only in + enterprises west of the Mississippi and keeping Denver as his legal + residence and exploiting himself as a Western man who hated Wall Street, I + had a mere bowing acquaintance. This was unimportant, however, as each + knew the other well by reputation. Our common intimacies made us intimates + for all practical purposes. + </p> + <p> + Our connection was established soon after the development of my campaign + against the Textile Trust had shown that I was after a big bag of the + biggest game. We happened to have the same secret broker; and I suppose it + was in his crafty brain that the idea of bringing us together was born. Be + that as it may, he by gradual stages intimated to me that Updegraff would + convey me secrets of “The Seven” in exchange for a guarantee that I would + not attack his interests. I do not know what his motive in this treachery + was—probably a desire to curb the power of his associates in + industrial despotism. + </p> + <p> + Each of “The Seven” hated and feared and suspected the other six with far + more than the ordinary and proverbial rich man's jealous dislike of other + rich men. There was not one of them that did not bear the ever-smarting + scars of vicious wounds, front and back, received from his fellows; there + was not one that did not cherish the hope of overthrowing the rule of + Seven and establishing the rule of One. At any rate, I accepted + Updegraff's proposition; henceforth, though he stopped speaking to me when + we happened to meet, as did all the other big bandits and most of their + parasites and procurers, he kept me informed of every act “The Seven” + resolved upon. + </p> + <p> + Thus I knew all about their “gentlemen's agreement” to support the stock + market, and that they had made Tavistock their agent for resisting any and + all attempts to lower prices, and had given him practically unlimited + funds to draw upon as he needed. I had Tavistock sounded on every side, + but found no weak spot. There was no rascality he would not perpetrate for + whoever employed him; but to his employer he was as loyal as a woman to a + bad man. And for a time it looked as if “The Seven” had checkmated me. + Those outsiders who had invested heavily in the great enterprises through + which “The Seven” ruled were disposing of their holdings—cautiously, + through fear of breaking the market. Money would pile up in the banks—money + paid out by “The Seven” for their bonds and stocks, of which the people + had become deeply suspicious. Then these deposits would be withdrawn—and + I knew they were going into real estate investments, because news of booms + in real estate and in building was coming in from everywhere. But prices + on the Stock Exchange continued to advance. + </p> + <p> + “They are too strong for you,” said Joe. “They will hold the market up + until the public loses faith in you. Then they will sell out at top-notch + prices as the people rush in to buy.” + </p> + <p> + I might have wavered had I not been seeing Tavistock every day. He + continued to wear his devil-may-care air; but I observed that he was aging + swiftly—and I knew what that meant. Fighting all day to prevent + breaks in the crucial stocks; planning most of the night how to prevent + breaks the next day; watching the reserve resources of “The Seven” melt + away. Those reserves were vast; also, “The Seven” controlled the United + States Treasury, and were using its resources as their own; they were + buying securities that would be almost worthless if they lost, but if they + won, would be rebought by the public at the old swindling prices, when + “confidence” was restored. But there was I, cannonading incessantly from + my impregnable position; as fast as they repaired breaches in their walls, + my big guns of publicity tore new breaches. No wonder Tavistock had + thinner hair and wrinkles and a drawn look about the eyes, nose and mouth. + </p> + <p> + With the battle thus raging all along the line, on the one side “The + Seven” and their armies of money and mercenaries and impressed slaves, on + the other side the public, I in command, you will say that my yearning for + distraction must have been gratified. If the road from his cell were long + enough, the condemned man would be fretting less about the gallows than + about the tight shoe that was making him limp and wince at every step. + Besides, in human affairs it is the personal, always the personal. I soon + got used to the crowds, to the big head-lines in the newspapers, to the + routine of cannonade and reply. + </p> + <p> + But the old thorn, pressing persistently—I could not get used to + that. In the midst of the adulation, of the blares upon the trumpets of + fame that saluted my waking and were wafted to me as I fell asleep at + night—in the midst of all the turmoil, I was often in a great and + brooding silence, longing for her, now with the imperious energy of + passion, and now with the sad ache of love. What was she doing? What was + she thinking? Now that Langdon had again played her false for the old + price, with what eyes was she looking into the future? + </p> + <p> + Alva, settled in a West Side apartment not far from the ancestral white + elephant, telephoned, asking me to come. I went, because she could and + would give me news of Anita. But as I entered her little drawing-room, I + said: “It was curiosity that brought me. I wished to see how you were + installed.” + </p> + <p> + “Isn't it nice and small?” cried she. “Billy and I haven't the slightest + difficulty in finding each other—as people so often have in the big + houses.” And it was Billy this and Billy that, and what Billy said and + thought and felt—and before they were married, she had called him + William, and had declared “Billy” to be the most offensive combination of + letters that ever fell from human lips. + </p> + <p> + “I needn't ask if <i>you</i> are happy,” said I presently, with a dismal + failure at looking cheerful. “I can't stay but a moment,” I added, and if + I had obeyed my feelings, I'd have risen up and taken myself and my pain + away from surroundings as hateful to me as a summer sunrise in a + death-chamber. + </p> + <p> + “Oh!” she exclaimed, in some confusion. “Then excuse me.” And she hastened + from the room. + </p> + <p> + I thought she had gone to order, or perhaps to bring, the tea. The long + minutes dragged away until ten had passed. Hearing a rustling in the hall, + I rose, intending to take leave the instant she appeared. The rustling + stopped just outside. I waited a few seconds, cried, “Well, I'm off. Next + time I want to be alone, I'll know where to come,” and advanced to the + door. It was not Alva hesitating there; it was Anita. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon,” said I coldly. + </p> + <p> + If there had been room to pass I should have gone. What devil possessed + me? Certainly in all our relations I had found her direct and frank, if + anything, too frank. Doubtless it was the influence of my associations + down town, where for so many months I had been dealing with the + “short-card” crowd of high finance, who would hardly play the game + straight even when that was the easy way to win. My long, steady stretch + in that stealthy and sinuous company had put me in the state of mind in + which it is impossible to credit any human being with a motive that is + decent or an action that is not a dead-fall. Thus the obvious + transformation in her made no impression on me. Her haughtiness, her + coldness, were gone, and with them had gone all that had been least like + her natural self, most like the repellent conventional pattern to which + her mother and her associates had molded her. But I was saying to myself: + “A trap! Langdon has gone back to his wife. She turns to me.” And I loved + her and hated her. “Never,” thought I, “has she shown so poor an opinion + of me as now.” + </p> + <p> + “My uncle told me day before yesterday that it was not he but you,” she + said, lifting her eyes to mine. It is inconceivable to me now that I could + have misread their honest story; yet I did. + </p> + <p> + “I had no idea your uncle's notion of honor was also eccentric,” said I, + with a satirical smile that made the blood rush to her face. + </p> + <p> + “That is unjust to him,” she replied earnestly. + </p> + <p> + “He says he made you no promise of secrecy. And he confessed to me only + because he wished to convince me that he had good reason for his high + opinion of you.” + </p> + <p> + “Really!” said I ironically. “And no doubt he found you open wide to + conviction—<i>now</i>.” This a subtlety to let her know that I + understood why she was seeking me. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she answered, lowering her eyes. “I knew—better than he.” + </p> + <p> + For an instant this, spoken in a voice I had long given up hope of ever + hearing from her, staggered my cynical conviction. But—“Possibly she + thinks she is sincere,” reasoned my head with my heart; “even the + sincerest women, brought up as was she, always have the calculator + underneath; they deny it, they don't know it often, but there it is; with + them, calculation is as involuntary and automatic as their pulse.” So, I + said to her, mockingly: “Doubtless your opinion of me has been improving + steadily ever since you heard that Mrs. Langdon had recovered her + husband.” + </p> + <p> + She winced, as if I had struck her. “Oh!” she murmured. If she had been + the ordinary woman, who in every crisis with man instinctively resorts to + weakness' strongest weakness, tears, I might have a different story to + tell. But she fought back the tears in which her eyes were swimming and + gathered herself together. “That is brutal,” she said, with not a touch of + haughtiness, but not humbly, either. “But I deserve it.” + </p> + <p> + “There was a time,” I went on, swept in a swift current of cold rage, + “there was a time when I would have taken you on almost any terms. A man + never makes a complete fool of himself about a woman but once in his life, + they say. I have done my stretch—and it is over.” + </p> + <p> + She sighed wearily. “Langdon came to see me soon after I left your house, + and went to my uncle,” she said. “I will tell you what happened.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not wish to hear,” replied I, adding pointedly, “I have been waiting + ever since you left for news of your plans.” + </p> + <p> + She grew white, and my heart smote me. She came into the room and seated + herself. “Won't you stop, please, for a moment longer?” she said. “I hope + that, at, least, we can part without bitterness. I understand now that + everything is over between us. A woman's vanity makes her belief that a + man cares for her die hard. I am convinced now—I assure you, I am. I + shall trouble you no more about the past. But I have the right to ask you + to hear me when I say that Langdon came, and that I myself sent him away; + sent him back to his wife.” + </p> + <p> + “Touching self-sacrifice,” said I ironically. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she replied. “I can not claim any credit. I sent him away only + because you and Alva had taught me how to judge him better. I do not + despise him as do you; I know too well what has made him what he is. But I + had to send him away.” + </p> + <p> + My comment was an incredulous look and shrug. “I must be going,” I said. + </p> + <p> + “You do not believe me?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “In my place, would you believe?” replied I. “You say I have taught you. + Well, you have taught me, too—for instance, that the years you've + spent on your knees in the musty temple of conventionality before false + gods have made you—fit only for the Langdon sort of thing. You can't + learn how to stand erect, and your eyes can not bear the light.” + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry,” she said slowly, hesitatingly, “that your faith in me died + just when I might, perhaps, have justified it. Ours has been a pitiful + series of misunderstandings.” + </p> + <p> + “A trap! A trap!” I was warning myself. “You've been a fool long enough, + Blacklock.” And aloud I said: “Well, Anita, the series is ended now. + There's no longer any occasion for our lying or posing to each other. Any + arrangements your uncle's lawyers suggest will be made.” + </p> + <p> + I was bowing, to leave without shaking hands with her. But she would not + have it so. “Please!” she said, stretching out her long, slender arm and + offering me her hand. + </p> + <p> + What a devil possessed me that day! With every atom of me longing for her, + I yet was able to take her hand and say, with a smile, that was, I doubt + not, as mocking as my tone: “By all means let us be friends. And I trust + you will not think me discourteous if I say that I shall feel safer in our + friendship when we are both on neutral ground.” + </p> + <p> + As I was turning away, her look, my own heart, made me turn again. I + caught her by the shoulders. I gazed into her eyes. “If I could only trust + you, could only believe you!” I cried. + </p> + <p> + “You cared for me when I wasn't worth it,” she said. “Now that I am more + like what you once imagined me, you do not care.” + </p> + <p> + Up between us rose Langdon's face—cynical, mocking, contemptuous. + “Your heart is <i>his</i>! You told me so! Don't <i>lie</i> to me!” I + exclaimed. And before she could reply, I was gone. + </p> + <p> + Out from under the spell of her presence, back among the tricksters and + assassins, the traps and ambushes of Wall Street, I believed again; + believed firmly the promptings of the devil that possessed me. “She would + have given you a brief fool's paradise,” said that devil. “Then what a + hideous awakening!” And I cursed the day when New York's insidious + snobbishness had tempted my vanity into starting me on that degrading + chase after “respectability.” + </p> + <p> + “If she does not move to free herself soon,” said I to myself, “I will put + my own lawyer to work. My right eye offends me. I will pluck it out.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXV. “WILD WEEK” + </h2> + <p> + “The Seven” made their fatal move on treacherous Updegraff's treacherous + advice, I suspect. But they would not have adopted his suggestion had it + not been so exactly congenial to their own temper of arrogance and tyranny + and contempt for the people who meekly, year after year, presented + themselves for the shearing with fatuous bleats of enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + “The Seven,” of course, controlled directly, or indirectly, all but a few + of the newspapers with which I had advertising contracts. They also + controlled the main sources through which the press was supplied with news—and + often and well they had used this control, and surprisingly cautious had + they been not so to abuse it that the editors and the public would become + suspicious. When my war was at its height, when I was beginning to + congratulate myself that the huge magazines of “The Seven” were empty + almost to the point at which they must sue for peace on my own terms, all + in four days forty-three of my sixty-seven newspapers—and they the + most important—notified me that they would no longer carry out their + contracts to publish my daily letter. They gave as their reason, not the + real one, fear of “The Seven,” but fear that I would involve them in + ruinous libel suits. I who had <i>legal</i> proof for every statement I + made; I who was always careful to understate! Next, one press association + after another ceased to send out my letter as news, though they had been + doing so regularly for months. The public had grown tired of the + “sensation,” they said. + </p> + <p> + I countered with a telegram to one or more newspapers in every city and + large town in the United States: + </p> + <p> + “'The Seven' are trying to cut the wires between the truth and the public. + If you wish my daily letter, telegraph me direct and I will send it at my + expense.” + </p> + <p> + The response should have warned “The Seven.” But it did not. Under their + orders the telegraph companies refused to transmit the letter. I got an + injunction. It was obeyed in typical, corrupt corporation fashion—they + sent my matter, but so garbled that it was unintelligible. I appealed to + the courts. In vain. + </p> + <p> + To me, it was clear as sun in cloudless noonday sky that there could be + but one result of this insolent and despotic denial of my rights and the + rights of the people, this public confession of the truth of my charges. I + turned everything salable or mortgageable into cash, locked the cash up in + my private vaults, and waited for the cataclysm. + </p> + <p> + Thursday—Friday—Saturday. Apparently all was tranquil; + apparently the people accepted the Wall Street theory that I was an + “exploded sensation.” “The Seven” began to preen themselves; the strain + upon them to maintain prices, if no less than for three months past, was + not notably greater; the crisis would pass, I and my exposures would be + forgotten, the routine of reaping the harvests and leaving only the + gleanings for the sowers would soon be placidly resumed. + </p> + <p> + Sunday. Roebuck, taken ill as he was passing the basket in the church of + which he was the shining light, died at midnight—a beautiful, + peaceful death, they say, with his daughter reading the Bible aloud, and + his lips moving in prayer. Some hold that, had he lived, the tranquillity + would have continued; but this is the view of those who can not realize + that the tide of affairs is no more controlled by the “great men” than is + the river led down to the sea by its surface flotsam, by which we measure + the speed and direction of its current. Under that terrific tension, which + to the shallow seemed a calm, something had to give way. If the dam had + not yielded where Roebuck stood guard, it must have yielded somewhere + else, or might have gone all in one grand crash. + </p> + <p> + Monday. You know the story of the artist and his Statue of Grief—how + he molded the features a hundred times, always failing, always getting an + anti-climax, until at last in despair he gave up the impossible and + finished the statue with a veil over the face. I have tried again and + again to assemble words that would give some not too inadequate impression + of that tremendous week in which, with a succession of explosions, each + like the crack of doom, the financial structure that housed eighty + millions of people burst, collapsed, was engulfed. I can not. I must leave + it to your memory or your imagination. + </p> + <p> + For years the financial leaders, crazed by the excess of power which the + people had in ignorance and over-confidence and slovenly good-nature + permitted them to acquire, had been tearing out the honest foundations on + which alone so vast a structure can hope to rest solid and secure. They + had been substituting rotten beams painted to look like stone and iron. + The crash had to come; the sooner, the better—when a thing is wrong, + each day's delay compounds the cost of righting it. So, with all the + horrors of “Wild Week” in mind, all its physical and mental suffering, all + its ruin and rioting and bloodshed, I still can insist that I am justly + proud of my share in bringing it about. The blame and the shame are wholly + upon those who made “Wild Week” necessary and inevitable. + </p> + <p> + In catastrophes, the cry is “Each for himself!” But in a cataclysm, the + obvious wise selfishness is generosity, and the cry is, “Stand together, + for, singly, we perish.” This was a cataclysm. No one could save himself, + except the few who, taking my often-urged advice and following my example, + had entered the ark of ready money. Farmer and artisan and professional + man and laborer owed merchant; merchant owed banker; banker owed + depositor. No one could pay because no one could get what was due him or + could realize upon his property. The endless chain of credit that binds + together the whole of modern society had snapped in a thousand places. It + must be repaired, instantly and securely. But how—and by whom? + </p> + <p> + I issued a clear statement of the situation; I showed in minute detail how + the people standing together under the leadership of the honest men of + property could easily force the big bandits to consent to an honest, just, + rock-founded, iron-built reconstruction. My statement appeared in all the + morning papers throughout the land. Turn back to it; read it. You will say + that I was right. Well— + </p> + <p> + Toward two o'clock Inspector Crawford came into my private office, + escorted by Joe. I saw in Joe's seamed, green-gray face that some new + danger had arisen. “You've got to get out of this,” said he. “The mob in + front of our place fills the three streets. It's made up of crowds turned + away from the suspended banks.” + </p> + <p> + I remembered the sullen faces and the hisses as I entered the office that + morning earlier than usual. My windows were closed to keep out the street + noises; but now that my mind was up from the work in which I had been + absorbed, I could hear the sounds of many voices, even through the thick + plate glass. + </p> + <p> + “We've got two hundred policemen here,” said the inspector. “Five hundred + more are on the way. But—really, Mr. Blacklock, unless we can get + you away, there'll be serious trouble. Those damn newspapers! Every one of + them denounced you this morning, and the people are in a fury against + you.” + </p> + <p> + I went toward the door. + </p> + <p> + “Hold on, Matt!” cried Joe, springing at me and seizing me, “Where are you + going?” + </p> + <p> + “To tell them what I think of them,” replied I, sweeping him aside. For my + blood was up, and I was enraged against the poor cowardly fools. + </p> + <p> + “For God's sake don't show yourself!” he begged. “If you don't care for + your own life, think of the rest of us. We've fixed a route through + buildings and under streets up to Broadway. Your electric is waiting for + you there.” + </p> + <p> + “It won't do,” I said. “I'll face 'em—it's the only way.” + </p> + <p> + I went to the window, and was about to throw up one of the sunblinds for a + look at them; Crawford stopped me. “They'll stone the building and then + storm it,” said he. “You must go at once, by the route we've arranged.” + </p> + <p> + “Even if you tell them I'm gone, they won't believe it,” replied I. + </p> + <p> + “We can look out for that,” said Joe, eager to save me, and caring nothing + about consequences to himself. But I had unsettled the inspector. + </p> + <p> + “Send for my electric to come down here,” said I. “I'll go out alone and + get in it and drive away.” + </p> + <p> + “That'll never do!” cried Joe. + </p> + <p> + But the inspector said: “You're right, Mr. Blacklock. It's a bare chance. + You may take 'em by surprise. Again, some fellow may yell and throw a + stone and—” He did not need to finish. + </p> + <p> + Joe looked wildly at me. “You mustn't do it, Matt!” he exclaimed. “You'll + precipitate a riot, Crawford, if you permit this.” + </p> + <p> + But the inspector was telephoning for my electric. Then he went into the + adjoining room, where he commanded a view of the entrance. Silence between + Joe and me until he returned. + </p> + <p> + “The electric is coming down the street,” said he. + </p> + <p> + I rose. “Good,” said I. “I'm ready.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait until the other police get here,” advised Crawford. + </p> + <p> + “If the mob is in the temper you describe,” said I, “the less that's done + to irritate it the better. I must go out as if I hadn't a suspicion of + danger.” + </p> + <p> + The inspector eyed me with an expression that was highly flattering to my + vanity. + </p> + <p> + “I'll go with you,” said Joe, starting up from his stupor. + </p> + <p> + “No,” I replied. “You and the other fellows can take the underground + route, if it's necessary.” + </p> + <p> + “It won't be necessary,” put in the inspector. “As soon as I'm rid of you + and have my additional force, I'll clear the streets.” He went to the + door. “Wait, Mr. Blacklock, until I've had time to get out to my men.” + </p> + <p> + Perhaps ten seconds after he disappeared, I, without further words, put on + my hat, lit a cigar, shook Joe's wet, trembling hand, left in it my + private keys and the memorandum of the combination of my private vault. + Then I sallied forth. + </p> + <p> + I had always had a ravenous appetite for excitement, and I had been in + many a tight place; but for the first time there seemed to me to be an + equilibrium between my internal energy and the outside situation. As I + stepped from my street door and glanced about me, I had no feeling of + danger. The whole situation seemed so simple. There stood the electric, + just across the narrow stretch of sidewalk; there were the two hundred + police, under Crawford's orders, scattered everywhere through the crowd, + and good-naturedly jostling and pushing to create distraction. Without + haste, I got into my machine. I calmly met the gaze of those thousands, + quiet as so many barrels of gunpowder before the explosion. The chauffeur + turned the machine. + </p> + <p> + “Go slow,” I called to him. “You might hurt somebody.” + </p> + <p> + But he had his orders from the inspector. He suddenly darted ahead at full + speed. The mob scattered in every direction, and we were in Broadway, + bound up town full-tilt, before I or the mob realized what he was about. + </p> + <p> + I called to him to slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I + leaned from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur; it + was a man who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks of the + plain-clothes policeman. + </p> + <p> + “Where are you going?” I shouted. + </p> + <p> + “You'll find out when we arrive,” he shouted back, grinning. + </p> + <p> + I settled myself and waited—what else was there to do? Soon I + guessed we were headed for the pier off which my yacht was anchored. As we + dashed on to it, I saw that it was filled with police, both in uniform and + in plain clothes. I descended. A detective sergeant stepped up to me. “We + are here to help you to your yacht,” he explained. “You wouldn't be safe + anywhere in New York—no more would the place that harbored you.” + </p> + <p> + He had both common sense and force on his side. I got into the launch. + Four detective sergeants accompanied me and went aboard with me. “Go + ahead,” said one of them to my captain. He looked at me for orders. + </p> + <p> + “We are in the hands of our guests,” said I. “Let them have their way.” + </p> + <p> + We steamed down the bay and out to sea. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + From Maine to Texas the cry rose and swelled: + </p> + <p> + “Blacklock is responsible! What does it matter whether he lied or told the + truth? See the results of his crusade! He ought to be pilloried! He ought + to be killed! He is the enemy of the human race. He has almost plunged the + whole civilized world into bankruptcy and civil war.” And they turned + eagerly to the very autocrats who had been oppressing them. “You have the + genius for finance and industry. Save us!” + </p> + <p> + If you did not know, you could guess how those patriots with the “genius + for finance and industry” responded. When they had done, when their + program was in effect, Langdon, Melville and Updegraff were the three + richest men in the country, and as powerful as Octavius, Antony and + Lepidus after Philippi. They had saddled upon the reorganized finance and + industry of the nation heavier taxes than ever, and a vaster and more + expensive and more luxurious army of their parasites. + </p> + <p> + The people had risen for financial and industrial freedom; they had paid + its fearful price; then, in senseless panic and terror, they flung it + away. I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo's temple at + Delphi was, “Man, the fool of the farce.” Truly, the gods must have + created us for their amusement; and when Olympus palls, they ring up the + curtain on some such screaming comedy as was that. It “makes the fancy + chuckle, while the heart doth ache.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XXXVI. “BLACK MATT'S” TRIUMPH + </h2> + <p> + My enemies caused it to be widely believed that “Wild Week” was my + deliberate contrivance for the sole purpose of enriching myself. Thus they + got me a reputation for almost superhuman daring, for satanic astuteness + at cold-blooded calculation. I do not deserve the admiration and respect + that my success-worshiping fellow countrymen lay at my feet. True, I did + greatly enrich myself; but <i>not until the Monday after Wild Week</i>. + </p> + <p> + Not until I had pondered on men and events with the assistance of the + newspapers my detective protectors and jailers permitted to be brought + aboard—not until the last hope of turning Wild Week to the immediate + public advantage had sputtered out like a lost man's last match, did I + think of benefiting myself, of seizing the opportunity to strengthen + myself for the future. On Monday morning, I said to Sergeant Mulholland: + “I want to go ashore at once and send some telegrams.” + </p> + <p> + The sergeant is one of the detective bureau's “dress-suit men.” He is by + nature phlegmatic and cynical. His experience has put over that a veneer + of weary politeness. We had become great friends during our enforced + inseparable companionship. For Joe, who looked on me somewhat as a mother + looks on a brilliant but erratic son, had, as I soon discovered, + elaborated a wonderful program for me. It included a watch on me day and + night, lest, through rage or despondency, I should try to do violence to + myself. A fine character, that Joe! But, to return, Mulholland answered my + request for shore-leave with a soothing smile. “Can't do it, Mr. + Blacklock,” he said. “Our orders are positive. But when we put in at New + London and send ashore for further instructions, and for the papers, you + can send in your messages.” + </p> + <p> + “As you please,” said I. And I gave him a cipher telegram to Joe—an + order to invest my store of cash, which meant practically my whole + fortune, in the gilt-edged securities that were to be had for cash at a + small fraction of their value. + </p> + <p> + This on the Monday after Wild Week, please note. I would have helped the + people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would + not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in + spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded + multitude of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to + all those weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on “The + Seven,” who would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have + been bribed to desist. But, when I was compelled to admit that I had + overestimated my fellow men, that the people wear the yoke because they + have not yet become intelligent and competent enough to be free, then and + not until then did I abandon the hopeless struggle. + </p> + <p> + And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own neglected + personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal triumph. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief in the + value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won—and in my humble + opinion never have been won—in the graveyards. Alive and afoot and + armed, and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic and + respectable robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs killing me + and the bandits dividing my estate? + </p> + <p> + But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the opinion + of my fellow men. They sought my life when they should have been hailing + me as a deliverer; now, they look up to me because they falsely believe me + guilty of an infamy. + </p> + <p> + My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what + Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have me + detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Saturday afternoon + we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the shore. When the + launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me, lounging aft in a + mass of cushions under the awning. “We are going ashore,” said he. “The + order has come.” + </p> + <p> + I had a sudden sense of loneliness. “I'll take you down to New York,” said + I. “I prefer to land my guests where I shipped them.” + </p> + <p> + As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was rapidly + readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the upheaval. + The “financiers”—the same old gang, except for a few of the weaker + brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders, who had slipped in during the + confusion—were employing all the old, familiar devices for deceiving + and robbing the people. The upset milking-stool was righted, and the + milker was seated again and busy, the good old cow standing without so + much as shake of horn or switch of tail. “Mulholland,” said I, “what do + you think of this business of living?” + </p> + <p> + “I'll tell you, Mr. Blacklock,” said he. “I used to fuss and fret a good + deal about it. But I don't any more. I've got a house up in the Bronx, and + a bit of land round it. And there's Mrs. Mulholland and four little + Mulhollands and me—that's my country and my party and my religion. + The rest is off my beat, and I don't give a damn for it. I don't care + which fakir gets to be president, or which swindler gets to be rich. + Everything works out somehow, and the best any man can do is to mind his + own business.” + </p> + <p> + “Mulholland—Mrs. Mulholland—four little Mulhollands,” said I + reflectively. “That's about as much as one man could attend to properly. + And—you are 'on the level,' aren't you?” + </p> + <p> + “Some say honesty's the best policy,” replied he. “Some say it isn't. I + don't know, and I don't care, whether it is or it isn't. It's <i>my</i> + policy. And we six seem to have got along on it so far.” + </p> + <p> + I sent my “guests” ashore the next morning. + </p> + <p> + “No, I'll stay aboard,” said I to Mulholland, as he stood aside for me to + precede him down the gangway from the launch. I went into the watch-pocket + of my trousers and drew out the folded two one-thousand-dollar bills I + always carried—it was a habit formed in my youthful, gambling days. + I handed him one of the bills. He hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “For the four little Mulhollands,” I urged. + </p> + <p> + He put it in his pocket. I watched him and his men depart with a heavy + heart. I felt alone, horribly alone, without a tie or an interest. Some of + the morning papers spoke respectfully of me as one of the strong men who + had ridden the flood and had been landed by it on the heights of wealth + and power. Admiration and envy lurked even in sneers at my “unscrupulous + plotting.” Since I had wealth, plenty of wealth, I did not need character. + Of what use was character in such a world except as a commodity to + exchange for wealth? + </p> + <p> + “Any orders, sir?” interrupted my captain. + </p> + <p> + I looked round that vast and vivid scene of sea and land activities. I + looked along the city's titanic sky-line—the mighty fortresses of + trade and commerce piercing the heavens and flinging to the wind their + black banners of defiance. I felt that I was under the walls of hell + itself. + </p> + <p> + “To get away from this,” replied I to the waiting captain. “Go back down + the Sound—to Dawn Hill.” + </p> + <p> + Yes, I would go to the peaceful, soothing country, to my dogs and horses + and those faithful servants bound to me by our common love for the same + animals. “Men to cross swords with, to amuse oneself with,” I mused; “but + dogs and horses to live with.” I pictured myself at the kennels—the + joyful uproar the instant instinct warned the dogs of my coming; how they + would leap and bark and tremble in a very ecstasy of delight as I stood + among them; how jealous all the others would be, as I selected one to + caress. + </p> + <p> + “Send her ahead as fast as she'll go,” I called to the captain. + </p> + <p> + As the <i>Albatross</i> steamed into the little harbor, I saw Mowbray + Langdon's <i>Indolence</i> at anchor. I glanced toward Steuben Point—where + his cousins, the Vivians, lived—and thought I recognized his launch + at their pier. We saluted the <i>Indolence</i>; the <i>Indolence</i> + saluted us. My launch was piped away and took me ashore. I strolled along + the path that wound round the base of the hill toward the kennels. At the + crossing of the path down from the house, I paused and lingered on the + glimpse of one of the corner towers of the great showy palace. I was + muttering something—I listened to myself. It was: “Mulholland, Mrs. + Mulholland and the four little Mulhollands.” And I felt like laughing + aloud, such a joke was it that I should be envying a policeman his potato + patch and his fat wife and his four brats, and that he should be in a + position to pity me. + </p> + <p> + You may be imagining that, through all, Anita had been dominating my mind. + That is the way it is in the romances; but not in life. No doubt there are + men who brood upon the impossible, and moon and maunder away their lives + over the grave of a dead love; no doubt there are people who will say + that, because I did not shoot Langdon or her, or myself, or fly to a + desert or pose in the crowded places of the world as the last scene of a + tragedy, I therefore cared little about her. I offer them this suggestion: + A man strong enough to give a love worth a woman's while is strong enough + to live on without her when he finds he may not live with her. + </p> + <p> + As I stood there that summer day, looking toward the crest of the hill, at + the mocking mausoleum of my dead dream, I realized what the incessant + battle of the Street had meant to me. “There is peace for me only in the + storm,” said I. “But, thank God, there is peace for me somewhere.” + </p> + <p> + Through the foliage I had glimpses of some one coming slowly down the + zigzag path. Presently, at one of the turnings half-way up the hill, + appeared Mowbray Langdon. “What is he doing here,” thought I, scarcely + able to believe my eyes. “Here of all places!” And then I forgot the + strangeness of his being at Dawn Hill in the strangeness of his + expression. For it was apparent, even at the distance which separated us, + that he was suffering from some great and recent blow. He looked old and + haggard; he walked like a man who neither knows nor cares where he is + going. + </p> + <p> + He had not seen me, and my impulse was to avoid him by continuing on + toward the kennels. I had no especial feeling against him; I had not lost + Anita because she cared for him or he for her, but because she did not + care for me—simply that to meet would be awkward, disagreeable for + us both. At the slight noise of my movement to go on, he halted, glanced + round eagerly, as if he hoped the sound had been made by some one he + wished to see. His glance fell on me. He stopped short, was for an instant + disconcerted; then his face lighted up with devilish joy. “You!” he cried. + “Just the man!” And he descended more rapidly. + </p> + <p> + At first I could make nothing of this remark. But as he drew nearer and + nearer, and his ugly mood became more and more apparent, I felt that he + was looking forward to provoking me into giving him a distraction from + whatever was tormenting him. I waited. A few minutes and we were face to + face, I outwardly calm, but my anger slowly lighting up as he deliberately + applied to it the torch of his insolent eyes. He was wearing his old + familiar air of cynical assurance. Evidently, with his recovered fortune, + he had recovered his conviction of his great superiority to the rest of + the human race—the child had climbed back on the chair that made it + tall and had forgotten its tumble. And I was wondering again that I, so + short a time before, had been crude enough to be fascinated and fooled by + those tawdry posings and pretenses. For the man, as I now saw him, was + obviously shallow and vain, a slave to those poor “man-of-the-world” + passions—ostentation and cynicism and skill at vices old as mankind + and tedious as a treadmill, the commonplace routine of the idle and + foolish and purposeless. A clever, handsome fellow, but the more pitiful + that he was by nature above the uses to which he prostituted himself. + </p> + <p> + He fought hard to keep his eyes steadily on mine; but they would waver and + shift. Not, however, before I had found deep down in them the beginnings + of fear. “You see, you were mistaken,” said I. “You have nothing to say to + me—or I to you.” + </p> + <p> + He knew I had looked straight to the bottom of his real self, and had seen + the coward that is in every man who has been bred to appearances only. Up + rose his vanity, the coward's substitute for courage. + </p> + <p> + “You think I am afraid of you?” he sneered, bluffing and blustering like + the school bully. + </p> + <p> + “I don't in the least care whether you are or not,” replied I. “What are + you doing here, anyhow?” + </p> + <p> + It was as if I had thrown off the cover of a furnace. “I came to get the + woman I love,” he cried. “You stole her from me! You tricked me! But, by + God, Blacklock, I'll never pause until I get her back and punish you!” He + was brave enough now, drunk with the fumes from his brave words. “All my + life,” he raged arrogantly on, “I've had whatever I wanted. I've let + nothing interfere—nothing and nobody. I've been too forbearing with + you—first, because I knew she could never care for you, and, then, + because I rather admired your pluck and impudence. I like to see fellows + kick their way up among us from the common people.” + </p> + <p> + I put my hand on his shoulder. No doubt the fiend that rose within me, as + from the dead, looked at him from my eyes. He has great physical strength, + but he winced under that weight and grip, and across his face flitted the + terror that must come to any man at first sense of being in the angry + clutch of one stronger than he. I slowly released him—I had tested + and realized my physical superiority; to use it would be cheap and + cowardly. + </p> + <p> + “You can't provoke me to descend to your level,” said I, with the easy + philosophy of him who clearly has the better of the argument. + </p> + <p> + He was shaking from head to foot, not with terror, but with impotent rage. + How much we owe to accident! The mere accident of my physical superiority + had put him at hopeless disadvantage; had made him feel inferior to me as + no victory of mental or moral superiority could possibly have done. And I + myself felt a greater contempt for him than the discovery of his treachery + and his shallowness had together inspired. + </p> + <p> + “I shan't indulge in flapdoodle,” I went on. “I'll be frank. A year ago, + if any man had faced me with a claim upon a woman who was married to me, + I'd probably have dealt with him as your vanity and what you call 'honor' + would force you to try to deal with a similar situation. But I live to + learn, and I'm, fortunately, not afraid to follow a new light. There is + the vanity of so-called honor; there as also the demand of justice—of + fair play. As I have told her, so I now tell you—she is free to go. + But I shall say one thing to you that I did not say to her. If you do not + deal fairly with her, I shall see to it that there are ten thorns to every + rose in that bed of roses on which you lie. You are contemptible in many + ways—perhaps that's why women like you. But there must be some good + in you, or possibilities of good, or you could not have won and kept her + love.” + </p> + <p> + He was staring at me with a dazed expression. I rather expected him to + show some of that amused contempt with which men of his sort always + receive a new idea that is beyond the range of their narrow, conventional + minds. For I did not expect him to understand why I was not only willing, + but even eager, to relinquish a woman whom I could hold only by asserting + a property right in her. And I do not think he did understand me, though + his manner changed to a sort of grudging respect. He was, I believe, about + to make some impulsive, generous speech, when we heard the quick strokes + of iron-shod hoofs on the path from the kennels and the stables—is + there any sound more arresting? Past us at a gallop swept a horse, on his + back—Anita. She was not in riding-habit; the wind fluttered the + sleeves of her blouse, blew her uncovered hair this way and that about her + beautiful face. She sped on toward the landing, though I fancied she had + seen us. + </p> + <p> + Anita at Dawn Hill—Langdon, in a furious temper, descending from the + house toward the landing—Anita presently, riding like mad—“to + overtake him,” thought I. And I read confirmation in his triumphant eyes. + In another mood, I suppose my fury would have been beyond my power to + restrain it. Just then—the day grew dark for me, and I wanted to + hide away somewhere. Heart-sick, I was ashamed for her, hated myself for + having blundered into surprising her. + </p> + <p> + She reappeared at the turn round which she had vanished. I now tooted that + she was riding without saddle or bridle, with only a halter round the + horse's neck—then she had seen us, had stopped and come back as soon + as she could. She dropped from the horse, looked swiftly at me, at him, at + me again, with intense anxiety. + </p> + <p> + “I saw your yacht in the harbor only a moment ago,” she said to me. She + was almost panting. “I feared you might meet him. So I came.” + </p> + <p> + “As you see, he is quite—intact,” said I. “I must ask that you and + he leave the place at once.” And I went rapidly along the path toward the + kennels. + </p> + <p> + An exclamation from Langdon forced me to turn in spite of myself. He was + half-kneeling, was holding her in his arms. At that sight, the savage in + me shook himself free. I dashed toward them with I knew not what curses + bursting from me. Langdon, intent upon her, did not realize until I sent + him reeling backward to the earth and snatched her up. Her white face, her + closed eyes, her limp form made my fury instantly collapse. In my + confusion I thought that she was dead. I laid her gently on the grass and + supported her head, so small, so gloriously crowned, the face so still and + sweet and white, like the stainless entrance to a stainless shrine. How + that horrible fear changed my whole way of looking at her, at him, at her + and him, at everything! + </p> + <p> + Her eyelids were quivering—her eyes were opening—her bosom was + rising and falling slowly as she drew long, uncertain breaths. She + shuddered, sat up, started up. “Go! go!” she cried. “Bring him back! Bring + him back! Bring him—” + </p> + <p> + There she recognized me. “Oh,” she said, and gave a great sigh of relief. + She leaned against a tree and looked at Langdon. “You are still here? Then + tell him.” + </p> + <p> + Langdon gazed sullenly at the ground. “I can't,” he answered. “I don't + believe it. Besides—he has given you to me. Let us go. Let me take + you to the Vivians.” He threw out his arms in a wild, passionate gesture; + he was utterly unlike himself. His emotion burst through and shattered + pose and cynicism and hard crust of selfishness like the exploding powder + bursting the shell. “I can't give you up, Anita!” he exclaimed in a tone + of utter desperation. “I can't! I can't!” + </p> + <p> + But her gaze was all this time steadily on me, as if she feared I would + go, should she look away. “I will tell you myself,” she said rapidly, to + me. “We—uncle Howard and I—read in the papers how they had all + turned against you, and he brought me over here. He has been telegraphing + for you. This morning he went to town to search for you. About an hour ago + Langdon came. I refused to see him, as I have ever since the time I told + you about at Alva's. He persisted, until at last I had the servant request + him to leave the house.” + </p> + <p> + “But <i>now</i> there's no longer any reason for your staying, Anita,” he + pleaded. “He has said you are free. Why stay when <i>you</i> would really + no more be here than if you were to go, leaving one of your empty + dresses?” + </p> + <p> + She had not for an instant taken her gaze from me; and so strange were her + eyes, so compelling, that I seemed unable to move or speak. + </p> + <p> + But now she released me to blaze upon him—and never shall I forget + any detail of her face or voice as she said to him: “That is false, + Mowbray Langdon. I told you the truth when I told you I loved him!” + </p> + <p> + So violent was her emotion that she had to pause for self-control. And I? + I was overwhelmed, dazed, stunned. When she went on, she was looking at + neither of us. “Yes, I loved him, almost from the first—from the day + he came to the box at the races. I was ashamed, poor creature that my + parents had made me! I was ashamed of it. And I tried to hate him, and + thought I did. And when he showed me that he no longer cared, my pride + goaded me into the folly of trying to listen to you. But I loved him more + than ever. And as you and he stand here, I am ashamed again—ashamed + that I was ever so blind and ignorant and prejudiced as to compare him + with”—she looked at Langdon—“with you. Do you believe me now—now + that I humble myself before him here in your presence?” + </p> + <p> + I should have had no heart at all if I had not felt pity for him. His face + was gray, and on it were those signs of age that strong emotion brings to + the surface after forty. “You could have convinced me in no other way,” he + replied, after a silence, and in a voice I should not have recognized. + </p> + <p> + Silence again. Presently he raised his head, and with something of his old + cynicism bowed to her. + </p> + <p> + “You have avenged much and many,” said he. “I have often had a + presentiment that my day of wrath would come.” + </p> + <p> + He lifted his hat, bowed to me without looking at me, and, drawing the + tatters of his pose still further over his wounds, moved away toward the + landing. + </p> + <p> + I, still in a stupor, watched him until he had disappeared. When I turned + to her, she dropped her eyes. “Uncle Howard will be back this afternoon,” + said she. “If I may, I'll stay at the house until he comes to take me.” + </p> + <p> + A weary, half-suppressed sigh escaped from her. I knew how she must be + reading my silence, but I was still unable to speak. She went to the + horse, browsing near by; she stroked his muzzle. Lingeringly she twined + her fingers in his mane, as if about to spring to his back! That reminded + me of a thousand and one changes in her—little changes, each a + trifle in itself, yet, taken all together, making a complete + transformation. + </p> + <p> + “Let me help you,” I managed to say. And I bent, and made a step of my + hand. + </p> + <p> + She touched her fingers to my shoulder, set her narrow, graceful foot upon + my palm. But she did not rise. I glanced up; she was gazing wistfully down + at me. + </p> + <p> + “Women have to learn by experience just as do men,” said she forlornly. + “Yet men will not tolerate it.” + </p> + <p> + I suppose I must suddenly have looked what I was unable to put into words—for + her eyes grew very wide, and, with a cry that was a sigh and a sob, and a + laugh and a caress all in one, she slid into my arms and her face was + burning against mine. + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember the night at the theater,” she murmured, “when your lips + almost touched my neck?—I loved you then—Black Matt—<i>Black + Matt</i>!” + </p> + <p> + And I found voice; and the horse wandered away. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + What more? + </p> + <p> + How Langdon eased his pain and soothed his vanity? Whenever an old + Babylonian nobleman had a misfortune, he used to order all his slaves to + be lashed, that their shrieks and moans might join his in appeasing the + god who was punishing him. Langdon went back to Wall Street, and for + months he made all within his power suffer; in his fury he smashed + fortunes, lowered wages, raised prices, reveled in the blasts of a storm + of impotent curses. But you do not care to hear about that. + </p> + <p> + As for myself, what could I tell that you do not know or guess? Now that + all men, even the rich, even the parasites of the bandits, groan under + their tyranny and their taxes, is it strange that the resentment against + me has disappeared, that my warnings are remembered, that I am popular? I + might forecast what I purpose to do when the time is ripe. But I am not + given to prophecy. I will only say that I think I shall, in due season, go + into action again—profiting by my experience in the futility of + trying to hasten evolution by revolution. Meanwhile— + </p> + <p> + As I write, I can look up from the paper, and out upon the lawn, at a + woman—what a woman!—teaching a baby to walk. And, assisting + her, there is a boy, himself not yet an expert at walking. I doubt if + you'd have to glance twice at that boy to know he is my son. Well—I + have borrowed a leaf from Mulholland's philosophy. I commend it to you. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Deluge, by David Graham Phillips + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DELUGE *** + +***** This file should be named 7832-h.htm or 7832-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/8/3/7832/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +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. 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Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Deluge + +Author: DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS + +Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7832] +[This file was first posted on May 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE DELUGE *** + + + + +THE DULUGE + +BY + +DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS + +_Author of_ +The Cost, The Plum Tree, The Social Secretary, etc. + + + + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +GEORGE GIBBS + + +[Illustration] + + + +CONTENTS + + I MR. BLACKLOCK + II IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS + III CAME A WOMAN + IV A CANDIDATE FOR "RESPECTABILITY" + V DANGER SIGNALS + VI OF "GENTLEMEN" + VII BLACKLOCK GOES INTO TRAINING + VIII ON THE TRAIL OF LANGDON + IX LANGDON AT HOME + X TWO "PILLARS OF SOCIETY" + XI WHEN A MAN IS NOT A MAN + XII ANITA + XIII "UNTIL TO-MORROW" + XIV FRESH AIR IN A GREENHOUSE + XV SOME STRANGE LAPSES OF A LOVER + XVI TRAPPED AND TRIMMED + XVII A GENTEEL "HOLD-UP" + XVIII ANITA BEGINS TO BE HERSELF + XIX A WINDFALL FROM "GENTLEMAN JOE" + XX A BREATHING SPELL + XXI MOST UNLADYLIKE + XXII MOST UNGENTLEMANLY + XXIII "SHE HAS CHOSEN" + XXIV BLACKLOCK ATTENDS FAMILY PRAYERS + XXV "MY WIFE MUST" + XXVI THE WEAK STRAND + XXVII A CONSPIRACY AGAINST ANITA +XXVIII BLACKLOCK SEES A LIGHT + XXIX A HOUSEWARMING + XXX BLACKLOCK OPENS FIRE + XXXI ANITA'S SECRET + XXXII LANGDON COMES TO THE SURFACE +XXXIII MRS. LANGDON MAKES A CALL + XXXIV "MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME" + XXXV "WILD WEEK" + XXXVI "BLACK MATT'S" TRIUMPH + + + + +I + +MR. BLACKLOCK + + +When Napoleon was about to crown himself--so I have somewhere read--they +submitted to him the royal genealogy they had faked up for him. He crumpled +the parchment and flung it in the face of the chief herald, or whoever it +was. "My line," said he, "dates from Montenotte." And so I say, my line +dates from the campaign that completed and established my fame--from "Wild +Week." + +I shall not pause to recite the details of the obscurity from which I +emerged. It would be an interesting, a romantic story; but it is a familiar +story, also, in this land which Lincoln so finely and so fully described +when he said: "The republic is opportunity." + +One fact only: _I did not take the name Blacklock_. + +I was born Blacklock, and christened Matthew; and my hair's being very +black and growing so that a lock of it often falls down the middle of my +forehead is a coincidence. The malicious and insinuating story that I used +to go under another name arose, no doubt, from my having been a bootblack +in my early days, and having let my customers shorten my name into Matt +Black. But, as soon as I graduated from manual labor, I resumed my rightful +name and have borne it--I think I may say without vanity--in honor to +honor. + +Some one has written: "It was a great day for fools when modesty was made +a virtue." I heartily subscribe to that. Life means action; action means +self-assertion; self-assertion rouses all the small, colorless people to +the only sort of action of which they are capable--to sneering at the doer +as egotistical, vain, conceited, bumptious and the like. So be it! I have +an individuality, aggressive, restless and, like all such individualities, +necessarily in the lime-light; I have from the beginning lost no +opportunity to impress that individuality upon my time. Let those who have +nothing to advertise, and those less courageous and less successful than +I at advertisement, jeer and spit. I ignore them. I make no apologies for +egotism. I think, when my readers have finished, they will demand none. +They will see that I had work to do, and that I did it in the only way an +intelligent man ever tries to do his work--his own way, the way natural to +him! + +Wild Week! Its cyclones, rising fury on fury to that historic climax of +chaos, sing their mad song in my ears again as I write. But I shall by no +means confine my narrative to business and finance. Take a cross-section +of life anywhere, and you have a tangled interweaving of the action and +reaction of men upon men, of women upon women, of men and women upon one +another. And this shall be a cross-section out of the very heart of our +life to-day, with its big and bold energies and passions--the swiftest and +intensest life ever lived by the human race. + +To begin: + + + + +II + +IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS + + +Imagine yourself back two years and a half before Wild Week, back at +the time when the kings of finance had just completed their apparently +final conquest of the industries of the country, when they were seating +themselves upon thrones encircled by vast armies of capital and brains, +when all the governments of the nation--national, state and city--were +prostrate under their iron heels. + +You may remember that I was a not inconspicuous figure then. Of all their +financial agents, I was the best-known, the most trusted by them, the most +believed in by the people. I had a magnificent suite of offices in the +building that dominates Wall and Broad Streets. Boston claimed me also, and +Chicago; and in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco, in +the towns and rural districts tributary to the cities, thousands spoke of +Blacklock as their trusted adviser in matters of finance. My enemies--and +I had them, numerous and venomous enough to prove me a man worth while--my +enemies spoke of me as the "biggest bucket-shop gambler in the world." + +Gambler I was--like all the other manipulators of the markets. +But "bucket-shop" I never kept. As the kings of finance were the +representatives of the great merchants, manufacturers and investors, so was +I the representative of the masses, of those who wished their small savings +properly invested. The power of the big fellows was founded upon wealth and +the brains wealth buys or bullies or seduces into its service; my power was +founded upon the hearts and homes of the people, upon faith in my frank +honesty. + +How had I built up my power? By recognizing the possibilities of publicity, +the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and magazines put +within the reach of the individual man to impress himself upon the whole +country, upon the whole civilized world. The kings of finance relied upon +the assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid agents, operating through the +stealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels for the exercise of power. I +relied only upon myself; I had to trust to no fallible, perhaps traitorous, +understrappers; through the megaphone of the press I spoke directly to the +people. + +My enemies charge that I always have been unscrupulous and dishonest. So? +Then how have I lived and thrived all these years in the glare and blare of +publicity? + +It is true, I have used the "methods of the charlatan" in bringing myself +into wide public notice. The just way to put it would be that I have used +for honest purposes the methods of publicity that charlatans have shrewdly +appropriated, because by those means the public can be most widely and +most quickly reached. Does good become evil because hypocrites use it as a +cloak? It is also true that I have been "undignified." Let the stupid cover +their stupidity with "dignity." Let the swindler hide his schemings under +"dignity." I am a man of the people, not afraid to be seen as the human +being that I am. I laugh when I feel like it. I have no sense of jar +when people call me "Matt." I have a good time, and I shall stay young +as long as I stay alive. Wealth hasn't made me a solemn ass, fenced in +and unapproachable. The custom of receiving obedience and flattery and +admiration has not made me a turkey-cock. Life is a joke; and when the +joke's on me, I laugh as heartily as when it's on the other fellow. + +It is half-past three o'clock on a May afternoon; a dismal, dreary rain +is being whirled through the streets by as nasty a wind as ever blew out +of the east. You are in the private office of that "king of kings," Henry +J. Roebuck, philanthropist, eminent churchman, leading citizen and--in +business--as corrupt a creature as ever used the domino of respectability. +That office is on the twelfth floor of the Power Trust Building--and the +Power Trust is Roebuck, and Roebuck is the Power Trust. He is seated at his +desk and, thinking I do not see him, is looking at me with an expression of +benevolent and melancholy pity--the look with which he always regarded any +one whom the Roebuck God Almighty had commanded Roebuck to destroy. He and +his God were in constant communication; his God never did anything except +for his benefit, he never did anything except on the direct counsel or +command of his God. Just now his God is commanding him to destroy me, his +confidential agent in shaping many a vast industrial enterprise and in +inducing the public to buy by the million its bonds and stocks. + +I invited the angry frown of the Roebuck God by saying: "And I bought in +the Manasquale mines on my own account." + +"On your own account!" said Roebuck. Then he hastily effaced his +involuntary air of the engineer startled by sight of an unexpected red +light. + +"Yes," replied I, as calm as if I were not realizing the tremendous +significance of what I had announced. "I look to you to let me participate +on equal terms." + +That is, I had decided that the time had come for me to take my place +among the kings of finance. I had decided to promote myself from agent to +principal, from prime minister to king--I must, myself, promote myself, +for in this world all promotion that is solid comes from within. And in +furtherance of my object I had bought this group of mines, control of which +was vital to the Roebuck-Langdon-Melville combine for a monopoly of the +coal of the country. + +"Did not Mr. Langdon commission you to buy them for him and his friends?" +inquired Roebuck, in that slow, placid tone which yet, for the attentive +ear, had a note in it like the scream of a jaguar that comes home and finds +its cub gone. + +"But I couldn't get them for him," I explained. "The owners wouldn't sell +until I engaged that the National Coal and Railway Company was not to have +them." + +"Oh, I see," said Roebuck, sinking back relieved. "We must get Browne to +draw up some sort of perpetual, irrevocable power of attorney to us for you +to sign." + +"But I won't sign it," said I. + +Roebuck took up a sheet of paper and began to fold it upon itself with +great care to get the edges straight. He had grasped my meaning; he was +deliberating. + +"For four years now," I went on, "you people have been promising to take +me in as a principal in some one of your deals--to give me recognition by +making me president, or chairman of an executive or finance committee. I am +an impatient man, Mr. Roebuck. Life is short, and I have much to do. So I +have bought the Manasquale mines--and I shall hold them." + +Roebuck continued to fold the paper upon itself until he had reduced it +to a short, thick strip. This he slowly twisted between his cruel fingers +until it was in two pieces. He dropped them, one at a time, into the +waste-basket, then smiled benevolently at me. "You are right," he said. +"You shall have what you want. You have seemed such a mere boy to me that, +in spite of your giving again and again proof of what you are, I have been +putting you off. Then, too--" He halted, and his look was that of one +surveying delicate ground. + +"The bucket-shop?" suggested I. + +"Exactly," said he gratefully. "Your brokerage business has been invaluable +to us. But--well, I needn't tell you how people--the men of standing--look +on that sort of thing." + +"I never have paid any attention to pompous pretenses," said I, "and I +never shall. My brokerage business must go on, and my daily letters to +investors. By advertising I rose; by advertising I am a power that even you +recognize; by advertising alone can I keep that power." + +"You forget that in the new circumstances, you won't need that sort of +power. Adapt yourself to your new surroundings. Overalls for the trench; a +business suit for the office." + +"I shall keep to my overalls for the present," said I. "They're more +comfortable, and"--here I smiled significantly at him--"if I shed them, I +might have to go naked. The first principle of business is never to give up +what you have until your grip is tight on something better." + +"No doubt you're right," agreed the white-haired old scoundrel, giving +no sign that I had fathomed his motive for trying to "hint" me out of my +stronghold. "I will talk the matter over with Langdon and Melville. Rest +assured, my boy, that you will be satisfied." He got up, put his arm +affectionately round my shoulders. "We all like you. I have a feeling +toward you as if you were my own son. I am getting old, and I like to see +young men about me, growing up to assume the responsibilities of the Lord's +work whenever He shall call me to my reward." + +It will seem incredible that a man of my shrewdness and experience could +be taken in by such slimy stuff as that--I who knew Roebuck as only a +few insiders knew him, I who had seen him at work, as devoid of heart as +an empty spider in an empty web. Yet I was taken in to the extent that +I thought he really purposed to recognize my services, to yield to the +only persuasion that could affect him--force. I fancied he was actually +about to put me where I could be of the highest usefulness to him and his +associates, as well as to myself. As if an old man ever yielded power or +permitted another to gain power, even though it were to his own great +advantage. The avarice of age is not open to reason. + +It was with tears in my eyes that I shook hands with him, thanking him +emotionally. It was with a high chin and a proud heart that I went back +to my offices. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I was about to get my +deserts, was about to enter the charmed circle of "high finance." + +That small and exclusive circle, into which I was seeing myself admitted +without the usual arduous and unequal battle, was what may be called the +industrial ring--a loose, yet tight, combine of about a dozen men who +controlled in one way or another practically all the industries of the +country. They had no formal agreements; they held no official meetings. +They did not look upon themselves as an association. They often quarreled +among themselves, waged bitter wars upon each other over divisions of +power or plunder. But, in the broad sense, in the true sense, they were +an association--a band united by a common interest, to control finance, +commerce and therefore politics; a band united by a common purpose, to keep +that control in as few hands as possible. Whenever there was sign of peril +from without they flung away differences, pooled resources, marched in +full force to put down the insurrection. For they looked on any attempt +to interfere with them as a mutiny, as an outbreak of anarchy. This band +persisted, but membership in it changed, changed rapidly. Now, one would +be beaten to death and despoiled by a clique of fellows; again, weak or +rash ones would be cut off in strenuous battle. Often, most often, some +too-powerful or too-arrogant member would be secretly and stealthily +assassinated by a jealous associate or by a committee of internal safety. +Of course, I do not mean literally assassinated, but assassinated, cut off, +destroyed, in the sense that a man whose whole life is wealth and power is +dead when wealth and power are taken from him. + +Actual assassination, the crime of murder--these "gentlemen" rarely did +anything which their lawyers did not advise them was legal or could be made +legal by bribery of one kind or another. Rarely, I say--not never. You will +see presently why I make that qualification. + +I had my heart set upon membership in this band--and, as I confess now with +shame, my prejudices of self-interest had blinded me into regarding it +and its members as great and useful and honorable "captains of industry." +Honorable in the main; for, not even my prejudice could blind me to the +almost hair-raising atrocity of some of their doings. Still, morality is +largely a question of environment. I had been bred in that environment. +Even the atrocities I excused on the ground that he who goes forth to war +must be prepared to do and to tolerate many acts the church would have to +strain a point to bless. What was Columbus but a marauder, a buccaneer? +Was not Drake, in law and in fact, a pirate; Washington a traitor to his +soldier's oath of allegiance to King George? I had much to learn, and to +unlearn. I was to find out that whenever a Roebuck puts his arm round you, +it is invariably to get within your guard and nearer your fifth rib. I was +to trace the ugliest deformities of that conscience of his, hidden away +down inside him like a dwarfed, starved prisoner in an underground dungeon. +I was to be astounded by revelations of Langdon, who was not a believer, +like Roebuck, and so was not under the restraint of the feeling that he +must keep some sort of conscience ledgers against the inspection of the +angelic auditing committee in the day of wrath. + +Much to learn--and to unlearn. It makes me laugh as I recall how, on that +May day, I looked into the first mirror I was alone with, smiled delighted, +as an idiot with myself and said: "Matt, you are of the kings now. Your +crown suits you and, as you've earned it, you know how to keep it. Now for +some fun with your subjects and your fellow sovereigns." + +A little premature, that preening! + + + + +III + +CAME A WOMAN + + +In my suite in the Textile Building, just off the big main room with its +blackboards and tickers, I had a small office in which I spent a good deal +of time during Stock Exchange hours. It was there that Sam Ellersly found +me the next day but one after my talk with Roebuck. + +"I want you to sell that Steel Common, Matt," said he. + +"It'll go several points higher," said I. "Better let me hold it and use my +judgment on selling." + +"I need money--right away," was his answer. + +"That's all right," said I. "Let me give you an order for what you need." + +"Thank you, thank you," said he, so promptly that I knew I had done what he +had been hoping for, probably counting on. + +I give this incident to show what our relations were. He was a young fellow +of good family, to whom I had taken a liking. He was a lazy dog, and as out +of place in business as a cat in a choir. I had been keeping him going for +four years at that time, by giving him tips on stocks and protecting him +against loss. This purely out of good nature and liking; for I hadn't the +remotest idea he could ever be of use to me beyond helping to liven things +up at a dinner or late supper, or down in the country, or on the yacht. In +fact, his principal use to me was that he knew how to "beat the box" well +enough to shake fairly good music out of it--and I am so fond of music that +I can fill in with my imagination when the performer isn't too bad. + +They have charged that I deliberately ruined him. Ruined! The first time I +gave him a tip--and that was the second or third time I ever saw him--he +burst into tears and said: "You've saved my life, Blacklock. I'll never +tell you how much this windfall means to me now." Nor did I with deep and +dark design keep him along on the ragged edge. He kept himself there. +How could I build up such a man with his hundred ways of wasting money, +including throwing it away on his own opinions of stocks--for he would +gamble on his own account in the bucket-shops, though I had shown him that +the Wall Street game is played always with marked cards, and that the only +hope of winning is to get the confidence of the card-markers, unless you +are big enough to become a card-marker yourself. + +As soon as he got the money from my teller that day, he was rushing away. I +followed him to the door--that part of my suite opened out on the sidewalk, +for the convenience of my crowds of customers. "I'm just going to lunch," +said I. "Come with me." + +He looked uneasily toward a smart little one-horse brougham at the curb. +"Sorry--but I can't," said he. "I've my sister with me. She brought me down +in her trap." + +"That's all right," said I; "bring her along. We'll go to the Savarin." And +I locked his arm in mine and started toward the brougham. + +[Illustration] + +He was turning all kinds of colors, and was acting in a way that puzzled +me--then. Despite all my years in New York I was ignorant of the elaborate +social distinctions that had grown up in its Fifth Avenue quarter. I knew, +of course, that there was a fashionable society and that some of the most +conspicuous of those in it seemed unable to get used to the idea of being +rich and were in a state of great agitation over their own importance. +Important they might be, but not to me. I knew nothing of their careful +gradations of snobbism--the people to know socially, the people to know in +a business way, the people to know in ways religious and philanthropic, +the people to know for the fun to be got out of them, the people to +pride oneself on not knowing at all; the nervousness, the hysteria +about preserving these disgusting gradations. All this, I say, was an +undreamed-of mystery to me who gave and took liking in the sensible, +self-respecting American fashion. So I didn't understand why Sam, as I +almost dragged him along, was stammering: "Thank you--but--I--she--the fact +is, we really must get up-town." + +By this time I was where I could look into the brougham. A glance--I can +see much at a glance, as can any man who spends every day of every year in +an all-day fight for his purse and his life, with the blows coming from all +sides. I can see much at a glance; I often have seen much; I never saw more +than just then. Instantly, I made up my mind that the Ellerslys would lunch +with me. "You've got to eat somewhere," said I, in a tone that put an end +to his attempts to manufacture excuses. "I'll be delighted to have you. +Don't make up any more yarns." + +He slowly opened the door. "Anita," said he, "Mr. Blacklock. He's invited +us to lunch." + +I lifted my hat, and bowed. I kept my eyes straight upon hers. And it +gave me more pleasure to look into them than I had ever before got out of +looking into anybody's. I am passionately fond of flowers, and of children; +and her face reminded me of both. Or, rather, it seemed to me that what +I had seen, with delight and longing, incomplete in their freshness and +beauty and charm, was now before me in the fullness. I felt like saying to +her, "I have heard of you often. The children and the flowers have told +me you were coming." Perhaps my eyes did say it. At any rate, she looked +as straight at me as I at her, and I noticed that she paled a little and +shrank--yet continued to look, as if I were compelling her. But her voice, +beautifully clear, and lingering in the ears like the resonance of the +violin after the bow has swept its strings and lifted, was perfectly +self-possessed, as she said to her brother: "That will be delightful--if +you think we have time." + +I saw that she, uncertain whether he wished to accept, was giving him a +chance to take either course. "He has time--nothing but time," said I. "His +engagements are always with people who want to get something out of him. +And they can wait." I pretended to think he was expecting me to enter +the trap; I got in, seated myself beside her, said to Sam: "I've saved +the little seat for you. Tell your man to take us to the Equitable +Building--Nassau Street entrance." + +I talked a good deal during the first half of the nearly two hours we were +together--partly because both Sam and his sister seemed under some sort of +strain, chiefly because I was determined to make a good impression. I told +her about myself, my horses, my house in the country, my yacht. I tried to +show her I wasn't an ignoramus as to books and art, even if I hadn't been +to college. She listened, while Sam sat embarrassed. "You must bring your +sister down to visit me," I said finally. "I'll see that you both have +the time of your lives. Make up a party of your friends, Sam, and come +down--when shall we say? Next Sunday? You know you were coming anyhow. I +can change the rest of the party." + +Sam grew as red as if he were going into apoplexy. I thought then he was +afraid I'd blurt out something about who were in the party I was proposing +to change. I was soon to know better. + +"Thank you, Mr.--Blacklock," said his sister. "But I have an engagement +next Sunday. I have a great many engagements just now. Without looking at +my book I couldn't say when I can go." This easily and naturally. In her +set they certainly do learn thoroughly that branch of tact which plain +people call lying. + +Sam gave her a grateful look, which he thought I didn't see, and which I +didn't rightly interpret--then. + +"We'll fix it up later, Blacklock," said he. + +"All right," said I. And from that minute I was almost silent. It was +something in her tone and manner that silenced me. I suddenly realized that +I wasn't making as good an impression as I had been flattering myself. + +When a man has money and is willing to spend it, he can readily fool +himself into imagining he gets on grandly with women. But I had better +grounds than that for thinking myself not unattractive to them, as a rule. +Women had liked me when I had nothing; women had liked me when they didn't +know who I was. I felt that this woman did not like me. And yet, by the way +she looked at me in spite of her efforts not to do so, I could tell that +I had some sort of unusual interest for her. Why didn't she like me? She +made me feel the reason. I didn't belong to her world. My ways and my looks +offended her. She disliked me a good deal; she feared me a little. She +would have felt safer if she had been gratifying her curiosity, gazing in +at me through the bars of a cage. + +Where I had been feeling and showing my usual assurance, I now became ill +at ease. I longed for them to be gone; at the same time I hated to let her +go--for, when and how would I see her again, would I get the chance to +remove her bad impression? It irritated me thus to be concerned about the +sister of a man into my liking for whom there was mixed much pity and some +contempt. But I am of the disposition that, whenever I see an obstacle of +whatever kind, I can not restrain myself from trying to jump it. Here was +an obstacle--a dislike. To clear it was of the smallest importance in the +world, was a silly waste of time. Yet I felt I could not maintain with +myself my boast that there were no obstacles I couldn't get over, if I +turned aside from this. + +Sam--not without hesitation, as I recalled afterward--left me with her, +when I sent him to bring her brougham up to the Broadway entrance. As she +and I were standing there alone, waiting in silence, I turned on her +suddenly, and blurted out, "You don't like me." + +She reddened a little, smiled slightly. "What a quaint remark!" said she. + +I looked straight at her. "But you shall." + +Our eyes met. Her chin came out a little, her eyebrows lifted. Then, in +scorn of herself as well as of me, she locked herself in behind a frozen +haughtiness that ignored me. "Ah, here is the carriage," she said. I +followed her to the curb; she just touched my hand, just nodded her +fascinating little head. + +"See you Saturday, old man," called her brother friendlily. My lowering +face had alarmed him. + +"That party is off," said I curtly. And I lifted my hat and strode away. + +As I had formed the habit of dismissing the disagreeable, I soon put her +out of my mind. But she took with her my joy in the taste of things. I +couldn't get back my former keen satisfaction in all I had done and was +doing. The luxury, the tangible evidences of my achievement, no longer gave +me pleasure; they seemed to add to my irritation. + +That's the way it is in life. We load ourselves down with toys like so many +greedy children; then we see another toy and drop everything to be free to +seize it; and if we can not, we're wretched. + +I worked myself up, or rather, down, to such a mood that when my office boy +told me Mr. Langdon would like me to come to his office as soon as it was +convenient, I snapped out: "The hell he does! Tell Mr. Langdon I'll be +glad to see him here whenever he calls." That was stupidity, a premature +assertion of my right to be treated as an equal. I had always gone to +Langdon, and to any other of the rulers of finance, whenever I had got a +summons. For, while I was rich and powerful, I held both wealth and power, +in a sense, on sufferance; I knew that, so long as I had no absolute +control of any great department of industry, these rulers could destroy me +should they decide that they needed my holdings or were not satisfied with +my use of my power. There were a good many people who did not realize that +property rights had ceased to exist, that property had become a revocable +grant from the "plutocrats." I was not of those misguided ones who had +failed to discover the new fact concealed in the old form. So I used to go +when I was summoned. + +But not that day. However, no sooner was my boy gone than I repented the +imprudence, "But what of it?" said I to myself. "No matter how the thing +turns out, I shall be able to get some advantage." For it was part of my +philosophy that a proper boat with proper sails and a proper steersman can +gain in any wind. I was surprised when Langdon appeared in my office a few +minutes later. + +He was a tallish, slim man, carefully dressed, with a bored, weary look +and a slow, bored way of talking. I had always said that if I had not been +myself I should have wished to be Langdon. Men liked and admired him; women +loved and ran after him. Yet he exerted not the slightest effort to please +any one; on the contrary, he made it distinct and clear that he didn't +care a rap what any one thought of him or, for that matter, of anybody or +anything. He knew how to get, without sweat or snatching, all the good +there was in whatever fate threw in his way--and he was one of those men +into whose way fate seems to strive to put everything worth having. His +business judgment was shrewd, but he cared nothing for the big game he was +playing except as a game. Like myself, he was simply a sportsman--and, I +think, that is why we liked each other. He could have trusted almost any +one that came into contact with him; but he trusted nobody, and frankly +warned every one not to trust him--a safe frankness, for his charm caused +it to be forgotten or ignored. He would do anything to gain an object, +however trivial, which chanced to attract him; once it was his, he would +throw it aside as carelessly as an ill-fitting collar. + +His expression, as he came into my office, was one of cynical amusement, +as if he were saying to himself: "Our friend Blacklock has caught the +swollen head at last." Not a suggestion of ill humor, of resentment +at my impertinence--for, in the circumstances, I had been guilty of an +impertinence. Just languid, amused patience with the frailty of a friend. +"I see," said he, "that you have got Textile up to eighty-five." + +He was the head of the Textile Trust which had been built by his +brother-in-law and had fallen to him in the confusion following his +brother-in-law's death. As he was just then needing some money for his +share in the National Coal undertaking, he had directed me to push Textile +up toward par and unload him of two or three hundred thousand shares--he, +of course, to repurchase the shares after he had taken profits and Textile +had dropped back to its normal fifty. + +"I'll have it up to ninety-eight by the middle of next month," said I. "And +there I think we'd better stop." + +"Stop at about ninety," said he. "That will give me all I find I'll need +for this Coal business. I don't want to be bothered with hunting up an +investment." + +I shook my head. "I must put it up to within a point or two of par," I +declared. "In my public letter I've been saying it would go above +ninety-five, and I never deceive my public." + +He smiled--my notion of honesty always amused him. "As you please," he +said with a shrug. Then I saw a serious look--just a fleeting flash of +warning--behind his smiling mask; and he added carelessly: "Be careful +about your own personal play. I doubt if Textile can be put any higher." + +It must have been my mood that prevented those words from making the +impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at once +and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signal +of caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: "Something +doing? Something new?" + +But he had already gone further than his notion of friendship warranted. So +he replied: "Oh, no. Simply that everything's uncertain nowadays." + +My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties. I now +said: "Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my own +account?" + +"Yes," he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose meaning +came to me only when it was too late. "I think, Blacklock, you'd better +turn them over to me." + +"I can't," I answered. "I gave my word." + +"As you please," said he. + +Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of the +performances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twenty +minutes or so, he drifted away. "I envy you your enthusiasm," he said, +pausing in my doorway. "Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else. +Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you get +all this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?" + +He didn't wait for a reply. + +I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to my +country place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings, searching, +searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed me--what the lack +was that yawned so gloomily from everything I had once thought beautiful, +had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of the splendid, terraced +pansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I stopped short and slapped my +thigh. "A woman!" I exclaimed. "That's what I need. A woman--the right sort +of woman--a wife!" + + + + +IV + +A CANDIDATE FOR "RESPECTABILITY" + + +To handle this new business properly I must put myself in position +to look the whole field over. I must get in line and in touch with +"respectability." When Sam Ellersly came in for his "rations," I said: +"Sam, I want you to put me up at the Travelers Club." + +"The Travelers!" echoed he, with a blank look. + +"The Travelers," said I. "It's about the best of the big clubs, isn't it? +And it has as members most of the men I do business with and most of those +I want to get into touch with." + +He laughed. "It can't be done." + +"Why not?" I asked. + +"Oh--I don't know. You see--the fact is--well, they're a lot of old fogies +up there. You don't want to bother with that push, Matt. Take my advice. Do +business with them, but avoid them socially." + +"I want to go in there," I insisted. "I have my own reasons. You put me +up." + +"I tell you, it'd be no use," he replied, in a tone that implied he wished +to hear no more of the matter. + +"You put me up," I repeated. "And if you do your best, I'll get in all +right. I've got lots of friends there. And you've got three relatives in +the committee on membership." + +At this he gave me a queer, sharp glance--a little fright in it. + +I laughed. "You see, I've been looking into it, Sam. I never take a jump +till I've measured it." + +"You'd better wait a few years, until--" he began, then stopped and turned +red. + +"Until what?" said I. "I want you to speak frankly." + +"Well, you've got a lot of enemies--a lot of fellows who've lost money in +deals you've engineered. And they'd say all sorts of things." + +"I'll take care of that," said I, quite easy in mind. "Mowbray Langdon's +president, isn't he? Well, he's my closest friend." I spoke quite honestly. +It shows how simple-minded I was in certain ways that I had never once +noted the important circumstance that this "closest friend" had never +invited me to his house, or anywhere where I'd meet his up-town associates +at introducing distance. + +Sam looked surprised. "Oh, in that case," he said, "I'll see what can be +done." But his tone was not quite cordial enough to satisfy me. + +To stimulate him and to give him an earnest of what I intended to do for +him, when our little social deal had been put through, I showed him how he +could win ten thousand dollars in the next three days. "And you needn't +bother about putting up margins," said I, as I often had before. "I'll take +care of that." + +He stammered a refusal and went out; but he came back within an hour, and, +in a strained sort of way, accepted my tip and my offer. + +"That's sensible," said I. "When will you attend to the matter at the +Travelers? I want to be warned so I can pull my own set of wires in +concert." + +"I'll let you know," he answered, hanging his head. + +I didn't understand his queer actions then. Though I was an expert in +finance, I hadn't yet made a study of that other game--the game of +"gentleman." And I didn't know how seriously the frauds and fakirs who play +it take it and themselves. I attributed his confusion to a ridiculous mock +modesty he had about accepting favors; it struck me as being particularly +silly on this occasion, because for once he was to give as well as to take. + +He didn't call for his profits, but wrote asking me to mail him the check +for them. I did so, putting in the envelop with it a little jog to his +memory on the club matter. I didn't see him again for nearly a month; and +though I searched and sent, I couldn't get his trail. On opening day at +Morris Park, I was going along the passage behind the boxes in the grand +stand, on my way to the paddock. I wanted to see my horse that was about to +run for the Salmagundi Sweepstakes, and to tell my jockey that I'd give him +fifteen thousand, instead of ten thousand, if he won--for I had put quite a +bunch down. I was a figure at the tracks in those days. I went into racing +on my customary generous scale. I liked horses, just as I liked everything +that belonged out under the big sky; also I liked the advertising my string +of thoroughbreds gave me. I was rich enough to be beyond the stage at which +a man excites suspicion by frequenting race-tracks and gambling-houses; I +was at the height where prodigalities begin to be taken as evidences of +abounding superfluity, not of a dangerous profligacy. Jim Harkaway, who +failed at playing the same game I played and won, said to me with a sneer +one day: "You certainly do know how to get a dollar's worth of notoriety +out of a dollar's worth of advertising." + +"If I only knew that, Jim," said I, "I'd have been long ago where you're +bound for. The trick is to get it back ten for one. The more _you_ +advertise yourself, the more suspicious of you people become. The more +money I 'throw away' in advertising, the more convinced people are that I +can afford to do it." + +But, as I was about to say, in one of the boxes I spied my shy friend, +Sammy. He was looking better than I had ever seen him. Less heavy-eyed, +less pallid and pasty, less like a man who had been shirking bed and +keeping up on cocktails and cold baths. He was at the rear of the box, +talking with a lady and a gentleman. As soon as I saw that lady, I knew +what it was that had been hiding at the bottom of my mind and rankling +there. + +Luckily I was alone; ever since that lunch I had been cutting loose from +the old crowd--from all its women, and from all its men except two or three +real friends who were good fellows straight through, in spite of their +having made the mistake of crossing the dead line between amateur "sport" +and professional. I leaned over and tapped Sammy on the shoulder. + +He glanced round, and when he saw me, looked as if I were a policeman who +had caught him in the act. + +"Howdy, Sam?" said I. "It's been so long since I've seen you that I +couldn't resist the temptation to interrupt. Hope your friends'll excuse +me. Howdy do, Miss Ellersly?" And I put out my hand. + +She took it reluctantly. She was giving me a very unpleasant look--as if +she were seeing, not somebody, but some _thing_ she didn't care to +see, or were seeing nothing at all. I liked that look; I liked the woman +who had it in her to give it. She made me feel that she was difficult and +therefore worth while, and that's what alt we human beings are in business +for--to make each other feel that we're worth while. + +"Just a moment," said Sam, red as a cranberry and stuttering. And he made a +motion to come out of the box and join me. At the same time Miss Anita and +the other fellow began to turn away. + +But I was not the man to be cheated in that fashion. I wanted to see +_her_, and I compelled her to see it and to feel it. "Don't let me +take you from your friends," said I to Sammy. "Perhaps they'd like to come +with you and me down to look at my horse. I can give you a good tip--he's +bound to win. I've had my boys out on the rails every morning at the trials +of all the other possibilities. None of 'em's in it with Mowghli." + +"Mowghli!" said the young lady--she had begun to turn toward me as soon as +I spoke the magic word, "tip." There may be men who can resist that word +"tip" at the race-track, but there never was a woman. + +"My sister has to stay here," said Sammy hurriedly. "I'll go with you, +Blacklock." + +All this time he was looking as if he were doing something he ought to be +ashamed of. I thought then he was ashamed because he, professing to be a +gentleman, had been neglecting his debt of honor. I now know he was ashamed +because he was responsible for his sister's being contaminated by contact +with such a man as I! I who hadn't a dollar that wasn't honestly earned; +I who had made a fortune by my own efforts, and was spending my millions +like a prince; I who had taste in art and music and in architecture and +furnishing and all the fine things of life. Above all, I who had been his +friend and benefactor. _He_ knew I was more of a gentleman than he +could ever hope to be, he with no ability at anything but spending money; +he a sponge and a cadger, yes, and a welcher--for wasn't he doing his best +to welch me? But just because a lot of his friends, jealous of my success +and angry that I refused to truckle to them and be like them instead of +like myself, sneered at me--behind my back--this poor-spirited creature +was daring to pretend to himself that I wasn't fit for the society of his +sister! + +"Mowghli!" said Miss Ellersly. "What a quaint name!" + +"My trainer gave it," said I. "I've got a second son of one of those +broken-down English noblemen at the head of my stables. He's trying to get +money enough together to be able to show up at Newport and take a shy at an +heiress." + +At this the fellow who was fourth in our party, and who had been giving me +a nasty, glassy stare, got as red as was Sammy. Then I noticed that he was +an Englishman, and I all but chuckled with delight. However, I said, "No +offense intended," and clapped him on the shoulder with a friendly smile. +"He's a good fellow, my man Monson, and knows a lot about horses." + +Miss Ellersly bit her lip and colored, but I noticed also that her eyes +were dancing. + +Sam introduced the Englishman to me--Lord Somebody-or-other, I forget what, +as I never saw him again. I turned like a bulldog from a toy terrier and +was at Miss Ellersly again. "Let me put a little something on Mowghli for +you," said I. "You're bound to win--and I'll see that you don't lose. I +know how you ladies hate to lose." + +That was a bit stiff, as I know well enough now. Indeed, my instinct +would have told me better then, if I hadn't been so used to the sort of +women that jump at such an offer, and if I hadn't been casting about so +desperately and in such confusion for some way to please her. At any rate, +I hardly deserved her sudden frozen look. "I beg pardon," I stammered, and +I think my look at her must have been very humble--for me. + +The others in the box were staring round at us. "Come on," cried Sam, +dragging at my arm, "let's go." + +"Won't you come?" I said to his sister. I shouldn't have been able to keep +my state of mind out of my voice, if I had tried. And I didn't try. + +Trust the right sort of woman to see the right sort of thing in a man +through any and all kinds of barriers of caste and manners and breeding. +Her voice was much softer as she said: "I think I must stay here. Thank +you, just the same." + +As soon as Sam and I were alone, I apologized. "I hope you'll tell your +sister I'm sorry for that break," said I. + +"Oh, that's all right," he answered, easy again, now that we were away from +the others. "You meant well--and motive's the thing." + +"Motive--hell!" cried I in my anger at myself. "Nobody but a man's God +knows his motives; he doesn't even know them himself. I judge others by +what they do, and I expect to be judged in the same way. I see I've got a +lot to learn." Then I suddenly remembered the Travelers Club, and asked him +what he'd done about it. + +"I--I've been--thinking it over," said he. "Are you _sure_ you want to +run the risk of an ugly cropper, Matt?" + +I turned him round so that we were facing each other. "Do you want to do me +that favor, or don't you?" I demanded. + +"I'll do whatever you say," he replied. "I'm thinking only of your +interests." + +"Let _me_ take care of _them_," said I. "You put me up at that +club to-morrow. I'll send you the name of a seconder not later than noon." + +"Up goes your name," he said. "But don't blame me for the consequences." + +And my name went up, with Mowbray Langdon's brother, Tom, as seconder. +Every newspaper in town published the fact, most of them under big black +headlines. "The fun's about to begin," thought I, as I read. And I was +right, though I hadn't the remotest idea how big a ball I had opened. + + + + +V + +DANGER SIGNALS + + +At that time I did not myself go over the bills before the legislatures +of those states in which I had interests. I trusted that work to my +lawyers--and, like every man who ever absolutely trusted an important +division of his affairs to another, I was severely punished. One morning +my eye happened to light upon a minor paragraph in a newspaper--a list +of the "small bills yesterday approved by the governor." In the list was +one "defining the power of sundry commissions." Those words seemed to +me somehow to spell "joker." But why did I call up my lawyers to ask +them about it? It's a mystery to me. All I know is that, busy as I was, +something inside me compelled me to drop everything else and hunt that +"joker" down. + +I got Saxe--then senior partner in Browne, Saxe and Einstein--on the +'phone, and said: "Just see and tell me, will you, what is the 'bill +defining the power of sundry commissions'--the bill the governor signed +yesterday?" + +"Certainly, Mr. Blacklock," came the answer. My nerves are, and always have +been, on the watchout for the looks and the tones and the gestures that are +just a shade off the natural; and I feel that I do Saxe no injustice when I +say his tone was, not a shade, but a full color, off the natural. So I was +prepared for what he said when he returned to the telephone. "I'm sorry, +Mr. Blacklock, but we seem unable to lay our hands on that bill at this +moment." + +"Why not?" said I, in the tone that makes an employee jump as if a +whip-lash had cut him on the calves. + +He had jumped all right, as his voice showed. "It's not in our file," said +he. "It's House Bill No. 427, and it's apparently not here." + +"The hell you say!" I exclaimed. "Why?" + +"I really can't explain," he pleaded, and the frightened whine confirmed my +suspicion. + +"I guess not," said I, making the words significant and suggestive. "And +you're in my pay to look after such matters! But you'll have to explain, if +this turns out to be serious." + +"Apparently our file of bills is complete except that one," he went on. "I +suppose it was lost in the mail, and I very stupidly didn't notice the gap +in the numbers." + +"Stupid isn't the word I'd use," said I, with a laugh that wasn't of the +kind that cheers. And I rang off and asked for the state capitol on the +"long distance." + +Before I got my connection Saxe, whose office was only two blocks away, +came flustering in. "The boy has been discharged, Mr. Blacklock," he began. + +"What boy?" said I. + +"The boy in charge of the bill file--the boy whose business it was to keep +the file complete." + +"Send him to me, you damned scoundrel," said I. "I'll give him a job. What +do you take me for, anyway? And what kind of a cowardly hound are you to +disgrace an innocent boy as a cover for your own crooked work?" + +"Really, Mr. Blacklock, this is most extraordinary," he expostulated. + +"Extraordinary? I call it criminal," I retorted. "Listen to me. You look +after the legislation calendars for me, and for Langdon, and for Roebuck, +and for Melville, and for half a dozen others of the biggest financiers in +the country. It's the most important work you do for us. Yet you, as shrewd +and careful a lawyer as there is at the bar, want me to believe you trusted +that work to a boy! If you did, you're a damn fool. If you didn't, you're +a damn scoundrel. There's no more doubt in my mind than in yours which of +those horns has you sticking on it." + +"You are letting your quick temper get away with you, Mr. Blacklock," he +deprecated. + +"Stop lying!" I shouted, "I knew you had been doing some skulduggery when +I first heard your voice on the telephone. And if I needed any proof, the +meek way you've taken my abuse would furnish it, and to spare." + +Just then the telephone bell rang and I got the right department and asked +the clerk to read House Bill 427. It contained five short paragraphs. The +"joker" was in the third, which gave the State Canal Commission the right +"to institute condemnation proceedings, and to condemn, and to abolish, any +canal not exceeding thirty miles in length and not a part of the connected +canal system of the state." + +When I hung up the receiver I was so absorbed that I had forgotten Saxe was +waiting. He made some slight sound. I wheeled on him. I needed a vent. If +he hadn't been there I should have smashed a chair. But there was he--and I +kicked him out of my private office and would have kicked him out through +the anteroom into the outer hall, had he not gathered himself together and +run like a jack-rabbit. + +Since that day I have done my own calendar watching. + +By this incident I do not mean to suggest that there are not honorable men +in the legal profession. Most of them are men of the highest honor, as are +most business men, most persons of consequence in every department of life. +But you don't look for character in the proprietors, servants, customers +and hangers-on of dives. No more ought you to look for honor among any of +the people that have to do with the big gilded dive of the dollarocracy. +They are there to gamble, and to prostitute themselves. The fact that they +look like gentlemen and have the manners and the language of gentlemen +ought to deceive nobody but the callow chaps of the sort that believes the +swell gambler is "an honest fellow" and a "perfect gentleman otherwise," +because he wears a dress suit in the evening and is a judge of books and +pictures. Lawyers are the doorkeepers and the messengers of the big dive; +and these lawyers, though they stand the highest and get the biggest fees, +are just what you would expect human beings to be who expose themselves to +such temptations, and yield whenever they get an opportunity, as eager and +as compliant as a _cocotte_. + +My lawyers had sold me out; I, fool that I was, had not guarded the only +weak plate in my armor against my companions--the plate over my back, to +shed assassin thrusts. Roebuck and Langdon between them owned the governor; +he owned the Canal Commission; my canal, which gave me access to tide-water +for the product of my Manasquale mines, was as good as closed. I no longer +had the whip-hand in National Coal. The others could sell me out and take +two-thirds of my fortune, whenever they liked--for of what use were my +mines with no outlet now to any market, except the outlets the coal crowd +owned? + +As soon as I had thought the situation out in all its bearings, I realized +that there was no escape for me now, that whatever chance to escape I might +have had was closed by my uncovering to Saxe and kicking him. But I did not +regret; it was worth the money it would cost me. Besides, I thought I saw +how I could later on turn it to good account. A sensible man never makes +fatal errors. Whatever he does is at least experience, and can also be used +to advantage. If Napoleon hadn't been half dead at Waterloo, I don't doubt +he would have used its disaster as a means to a greater victory. + +Was I downcast by the discovery that those bandits had me apparently at +their mercy? Not a bit. Never in my life have I been downcast over money +matters more than a few minutes. Why should I be? Why should any man be who +has made himself all that he is? As long as his brain is sound, his capital +is unimpaired. When I walked into Mowbray Langdon's office, I was like a +thoroughbred exercising on a clear frosty morning; and my smile was as +fresh as the flower in my buttonhole. I thrust out my hand at him. "I +congratulate you," said I. + +He took the proffered hand with a questioning look. + +"On what?" said he. It is hard to tell from his face what is going on in +his head, but I think I guessed right when I decided that Saxe hadn't yet +warned him. + +"I have just found out from Saxe," I pursued, "about the Canal Bill." + +"What Canal Bill?" he asked. + +"That puzzled look was a mistake, Langdon," said I, laughing at him. "When +you don't know anything about a matter, you look merely blank. You overdid +it; you've given yourself away." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," said he. As you please was his +favorite expression; a stereotyped irony, for in dealing with him, things +were never as _you_ pleased, but always as _he_ pleased. + +"Next time you want to dig a mine under anybody," I went on, "don't hire +Saxe. Really I feel sorry for you--to have such a clever scheme messed by +such an ass." + +"If you don't mind, I'd like to know what you're talking about," said he, +with his patient, bored look. + +"As you and Roebuck own the governor, I know your little law ends my little +canal." + +"Still I don't know what you're talking about," drawled he. "You are always +suspecting everybody of double-dealing. I gather that this is another +instance of your infirmity. Really, Blacklock, the world isn't wholly made +up of scoundrels." + +"I know that," said I. "And I will even admit that its scoundrels are +seldom made up wholly of scoundrelism. Even Roebuck would rather do the +decent thing, if he can do it without endangering his personal interests. +As for you--I regard you as one of the decentest men I ever knew--outside +of business. And even there, I believe you'd keep your word, as long as the +other fellow kept his." + +"Thank you," said he, bowing ironically. "This flattery makes me suspect +you've come to get something." + +"On the contrary," said I. "I want to give something. I want to give you my +coal mines." + +"I thought you'd see that our offer was fair," said he. "And I'm glad you +have changed your mind about quarreling with your best friends. We can be +useful to you, you to us. A break would be silly." + +"That's the way it looks to me," I assented. And I decided that my sharp +talk to Roebuck had set them to estimating my value to them. + +"Sam Ellersly," Langdon presently remarked, "tells me he's campaigning hard +for you at the Travelers. I hope you'll make it. We're rather a slow crowd; +a few men like you might stir things up." + +I am always more than willing to give others credit for good sense and good +motives. It was not vanity, but this disposition to credit others with +sincerity and sense, that led me to believe him, both as to the Coal matter +and as to the Travelers Club. "Thanks, Langdon," I said; and that he might +look no further for my motive, I added: "I want to get into that club much +as the winner of a race wants the medal that belongs to him. I've built +myself up into a rich man, into one of the powers in finance, and I feel +I'm entitled to recognition." + +"I don't quite follow you," he said. "I can't see that you'll be either +better or worse for getting into the Travelers." + +"No more I shall," replied I. "No more is the winner of the race the better +or the worse for having the medal. But he wants it." + +He had a queer expression. I suppose he regarded it as a joke, my attaching +apparently so much importance to a thing he cared nothing about. "You've +always had that sort of thing," said I, "and so you don't appreciate it. +You're like a respectable woman. She can't imagine what all the fuss over +women keeping a good reputation is about. Well, just let her lose it!" + +"Perhaps," said he. + +"And," I went on, "you can have the rule about the waiting list suspended, +and can move me up and get me in at once." + +"We don't do things in quite such a hurry at the Travelers," said he, +laughing. "However, we'll try to comply with your commands." + +His generous, cordial offer made me half ashamed of the plot I had +underneath my submission about the coal mines--a plot to get into the coal +combine in order to gather the means to destroy it, and perhaps reconstruct +it with myself in control. I made up my mind that, if he continued to act +squarely, I would alter those plans. + +"If you don't mind," Langdon was going on, "I'll make a suggestion--merely +a suggestion. It might not be a bad idea for you to arrange to--to +eliminate some of the--the popular features from your--brokerage business. +There are several influential members of the Travelers who have a--a +prejudice--" + +"I understand," I interposed, to spare him the necessity of saying things +he thought I might regard as impertinent. "They look on me as a keeper of a +high-class bucket-shop." "That's about the way they'd put it." + +"But the things they object to are, unfortunately, my 'strong hold,'" I +explained. "You other big fellows gather in the big investors by simply +announcing your projects in a dignified way. I haven't got the ear of that +class of people. I have to send out my letters, have to advertise in all +the cities and towns, have to catch the little fellows. You can afford to +send out engraved invitations; I have to gather in my people with brass +bands and megaphones. Don't forget that my people count in the totals +bigger than yours. And what's my chief value to you? Why, when you want to +unload, I furnish the crowd to unload on, the crowd that gives you and your +big customers cash for your water and wind. I don't see my way to letting +go of what I've got until I get hold of what I'm reaching for." All this +with not a suspicion in my mind that he was at the same game that had +caused Roebuck to "hint" that same proposal. What a "con man" high finance +got when Mowbray Langdon became active down town! + +"That's true," he admitted, with a great air of frankness. "But the cry +that you're not a financier, but a bucket-shop man, might be fatal at the +Travelers. Of course, the sacrifice would be large for such a small object. +Still, you might have to make it--if you really want to get in." + +"I'll think it over," said I. He thought I meant that I'd think over +dropping my power--thought I was as big a snob as he and his friends of the +Travelers, willing to make any sacrifice to be "in the push." But, while +Matthew Blacklock has the streak of snob in him that's natural to all +human beings and to most animals, he is not quite insane. No, the thing +I intended to think over was how to stay in the "bucket-shop" business, +but wash myself of its odium. Bucket-shop! What snobbery! Yet it's human +nature, too. The wholesale merchant looks down on the retailer, the big +retailer on the little; the burglar despises the pickpocket; the financier, +the small promoter; the man who works with his brain, the man who works +with his hands. A silly lot we are--silly to look down, sillier to feel +badly when we're looked down upon. + + + + +VI + +OF "GENTLEMEN" + + +When I got back to my office and was settling I to the proofs of the +"Letter to Investors," which I published in sixty newspapers throughout the +country and which daily reached upward of five million people, Sam Ellersly +came in. His manner was certainly different from what it had ever been +before; a difference so subtle that I couldn't describe it more nearly than +to say it made me feel as if he had not until then been treating me as of +the same class with himself. I smiled to myself and made an entry in my +mental ledger to the credit of Mowbray Langdon. + +"That club business is going nicely," said Sam. "Langdon is enthusiastic, +and I find you've got good friends on the committee." + +I knew that well enough. Hadn't I been carrying them on my books at a good +round loss for two years? + +"If it wasn't for--for some features of this business of yours," he went +on, "I'd say there wouldn't be the slightest trouble." + +"Bucket-shop?" said I with an easy laugh, though this nagging was beginning +to get on my nerves. + +"Exactly," said he. "And, you know, you advertise yourself like--like--" + +"Like everybody else, only more successfully than most," said I. "Everybody +advertises, each one adapting his advertising to the needs of his +enterprises, as far as he knows how." + +"That's true enough," he confessed. "But there are enterprises and +enterprises, you know." + +"You can tell 'em, Sam," said I, "that I never put out a statement I don't +believe to be true, and that when any of my followers lose on one of my +tips, I've lost on it, too. For I play my own tips--and that's more than +can be said of any 'financier' in this town." + +"It'd be no use to tell 'em that," said he. "Character's something of +a consideration in social matters, of course. But it isn't the chief +consideration by a long shot, and the absence of it isn't necessarily +fatal." + +"I'm the biggest single operator in the country," I went on. "And it's my +methods that give me success--because I know how to advertise--how to keep +my name before the country, and how to make men say, whenever they hear +it: 'There's a shrewd, honest fellow.' That and the people it brings me, +in flocks, are my stock in trade. Honesty's a bluff with most of the big +respectables; under cover of their respectability, of their 'old and +honored names,' of their social connections, of their church-going and +that, they do all sorts of queer work." + +"To hear you talk," put in Sam, with a grin, "one would think you didn't +shove off millions of dollars of suspicious stuff on the public through +those damn clever letters of yours." + +"There's where you didn't stop to think, Sam," said I. "When I say a +stock's going to rise, it rises. When I stop talking about it, it may go on +rising or it may fall. But I never advise anybody to buy except when I have +every reason to believe it's a good thing. If they hold on too long, that's +their own lookout." + +"But they invest--" + +"You use words too carelessly," I said. "When I say buy, I don't mean +_invest_. When I mean invest, I say invest." There I laughed. "It's a +word I don't often use." + +"And that's what you call honesty!" jeered he. + +"That's what I call honesty," I retorted, "and that _is_ honesty." And +I thought so then. + +"Well--every man has a right to his own notion of what's honest," he said. +"But no man's got a right to complain if a fellow with a different notion +criticizes him." + +"None in the world," I assented. "Do _you_ criticize me?" + +"No, no, no, indeed!" he answered, nervous, and taking seriously what I had +intended as a joke. + +After a while I dragged in _the_ subject. "One thing I can and will +do to get myself in line for that club," I said, like a seal on promenade. +"I'm sick of the crowd I travel with--the men and the women. I feel it's +about time I settled down. I've got a fortune and establishment that needs +a woman to set it off. I can make some woman happy. You don't happen to +know any nice girls--the right sort, I mean?" + +"Not many." said Sam. "You'd better go back to the country where you came +from, and get her there. She'd be eternally grateful, and her head wouldn't +be full of mercenary nonsense." + +"Excuse me!" exclaimed I. "It'd turn her head. She'd go clean crazy. She'd +plunge in up to her neck--and not being used to these waters, she'd make +a show of herself, and probably drown, dragging me down with her, if +possible." + +Sam laughed. "Keep out of marriage, Matt," he advised, not so obtuse to my +real point as he wanted me to believe. "I know the kind of girl you've got +in mind. She'd marry you for your money, and she'd never appreciate you. +She'd see in you only the lack of the things she's been taught to lay +stress on." + +"For instance?" + +"I couldn't tell you any more than I could enable you to recognize a person +you'd never seen by describing him." + +"Ain't I a gentleman?" I inquired. + +He laughed, as if the idea tickled him. "Of course," he said. "Of course." + +"Ain't I got as proper a country place as there is a-going? Ain't my +apartment in the Willoughby a peach? Don't I give as elegant dinners as you +ever sat down to? Don't I dress right up to the Piccadilly latest? Don't +I act all right--know enough to keep my feet off the table and my knife +out of my mouth?" All true enough; and I so crude then that I hadn't a +suspicion what a flat contradiction of my pretensions and beliefs about +myself the very words and phrases were. + +"You're right in it, Matt," said Sam. "But--well--you haven't traveled with +our crowd, and they're shy of strangers, especially as--as energetic a sort +of stranger as you are. You're too sudden, Matt--too dazzling--too--" + +"Too shiny and new?" said I, beginning to catch his drift. "That'll be +looked after. What I want is you to take me round a bit." + +"I can't ask you to people's houses," protested he, knowing I'd not realize +what a flimsy pretense that was. + +While we were talking I had been thinking--working out the proposition +along lines he had indicated to me without knowing it. "Look here, Sam," I +said. "You imagine I'm trying to butt in with a lot of people that don't +know me and don't want to know me. But that ain't my point of view. Those +people can be useful to me. I need 'em. What do I care whether they want to +be useful to me or not? The machine'd have run down and rusted out long ago +if you and your friends' idea of a gentleman had been taken seriously by +anybody who had anything to do and knew how to do it. In this world you've +got to _make_ people do what's for your good and their own. Your +idea of a gentleman was put forward by lazy fakirs who were living off of +what their ungentlemanly ancestors had annexed, and who didn't want to be +disturbed. So they 'fixed' the game by passing these rules you and your +kind are fools enough to abide by--that is, you are fools, unless you +haven't got brains enough to get on in a free-and-fair-for-all." + +Sam laughed.. "There's a lot of truth in what you say," he admitted. + +"However," I ended, "my plans don't call for hurry just there. When I get +ready to go round, I'll let you know." + + + + +VII + +BLACKLOCK GOES INTO TRAINING + + +This brings me to the ugliest story my enemies have concocted against me. +No one appreciates more thoroughly than I that, to rise high, a man must +have his own efforts seconded by the flood of vituperation that his enemies +send to overwhelm him, and which washes him far higher than he could hope +to lift himself. So I do not here refer to any attack on me in the public +prints; I think of them only with amusement and gratitude. The story that +rankles is the one these foes of mine set creeping, like a snake under the +fallen leaves, everywhere, anywhere, unseen, without a trail. It has been +whispered into every ear--and it is, no doubt, widely believed--that I +deliberately put old Bromwell Ellersly "in a hole," and there tortured him +until he consented to try to compel his daughter to marry me. + +It is possible that, if I had thought of such a devilish device, I might +have tried it--is not all fair in love? But there was no need for my +cudgeling my brains to carry that particular fortification on my way to +what I had fixed my will upon. _Bromwell Ellersly came to me of his own +accord_. + +I suppose the Ellerslys must have talked me over in the family circle. +However this may be, my acquaintance with her father began with Sam's +asking me to lunch with him. "The governor has heard me talk of you so +much," said he, "that he is anxious to meet you." + +I found him a dried-up, conventional old gentleman, very proud of his +ancestors, none of whom I had ever heard of, and very positive that a great +deal of deference was due him--though on what grounds I could not then, +and can not now, make out. I soon discovered that it was the scent of my +stock-tip generosity, wafted to him by Sammy, that had put him hot upon my +trail. I hadn't gone far into his affairs before I learned that he had been +speculating, mortgaging, kiting notes, doing what he called, and thought, +"business" on a large scale. He regarded business as beneath the dignity +and the intellect of a "gentleman"--how my gorge does rise at that word! So +he put his great mind on it only for a few hours now and then; he reserved +the rest of his time for what he regarded as the proper concerns of a +gentleman--attending to social "duties," reading pretentious books, looking +at the pictures and listening to the music decreed fashionable. + +They charge that I put him "in a hole." In fact, I found him at the bottom +of a deep pit he had dug for himself; and when he first met me he was, +without having the sense to realize it, just about to go smash, with not a +penny for his old age. As soon as I had got this fact clear of the tangle, +I showed it to him. + +"My God, what is to become of _me_?" he said, That was his only +thought--not, what is to become of my wife and daughter; but, what is to +become of "_me_!" I do not blame him for this. Naturally enough, +people who have always been used to everything become, unconsciously, +monsters of egotism and selfishness; it is natural, too, that they should +imagine themselves liberal and generous if they give away occasionally +something that costs them, at most, nothing more serious than the foregoing +of some extravagant luxury or other. I recite his remark simply to show +what manner of man he was, what sort of creature I had to deal with. + +I offered to help him, and I did help him. Is there any one, knowing +anything of the facts of life, who will censure me when I admit that +I--with deliberation--simply tided him over, did not make for him and +present to him a fortune? What chance should I have had, if I had been so +absurdly generous to a man who deserved nothing but punishment for his +selfish and bigoted mode of life? I took away his worst burdens; but I left +him more than he could carry without my help. And it was not until he had +appealed, in vain to all his social friends to relieve him of the necessity +of my aid, not until he realized that I was his only hope of escaping a +sharp comedown from luxury to very modest comfort in a flat somewhere--not +until then did his wife send me an invitation to dinner. And I had not so +much as hinted that I wanted it. + +I shall never forget the smallest detail of that dinner--it was a purely +"family" affair, only the Ellerslys and I. I can feel now the oppressive +atmosphere, the look as of impending sacrilege upon the faces of the old +servants; I can see Mrs. Ellersly trying to condescend to be "gracious," +and treating me as if I were some sort of museum freak or menagerie +exhibit. I can see Anita. She was like a statue of snow; she spoke not +a word; if she lifted her eyes, I failed to note it. And when I was +leaving--I with my collar wilted from the fierce, nervous strain I had been +enduring--Mrs. Ellersly, in that voice of hers into which I don't believe +any shade of a real human emotion ever penetrated, said: "You must come to +see us, Mr. Blacklock. We are always at home after five." + +I looked at Miss Ellersly. She was white to the lips now, and the spangles +on her white dress seemed bits of ice glittering there. She said nothing; +but I knew she felt my look, and that it froze the ice the more closely in +around her heart. "Thank you," I muttered. + +I stumbled in the hall; I almost fell down the broad steps. I stopped at +the first bar and took three drinks in quick succession. I went on down the +avenue, breathing like an exhausted swimmer. "I'll give her up!" I cried +aloud, so upset was I. + +I am a man of impulse; but I have trained myself not to be a +_creature_ of impulse, at least not in matters of importance. Without +that patient and painful schooling, I shouldn't have got where I now am; +probably I'd still be blacking boots, or sheet-writing for some bookmaker, +or clerking it for some broker. Before I got to my rooms, the night air and +my habit of the "sober second thought" had cooled me back to rationality. + +"I want her, I need her," I was saying to myself. "I am worthier of her +than are those mincing manikins she has been bred to regard as men. She is +for me--she belongs to me. I'll abandon her to no smirking puppet who'd +wear her as a donkey would a diamond. Why should I do myself and her an +injury simply because she has been too badly brought up to know her own +interest?" + +And now I see all the smooth frauds, all the weak people who never have +purposes or passions worthy of the name, all the finicky, finger-dusting +gentry with the "fine souls," who flatter themselves that their timidity is +the squeamishness of superior sensibilities--I see all these feeble folk +fluttering their feeble fingers in horror of me. "The brute!" they cry; +"the bounder!" Well, I accept the names quite cheerfully. Those are the +epithets the wishy-washy always hurl at the strong; they put me in the +small and truly aristocratic class of men who _do_. I proudly avow +myself no subscriber to the code that was made by the shearers to encourage +the sheep to keep on being nice docile animals, trotting meekly up to +be shorn or slaughtered as their masters may decide. I harm no man, and +no woman; but neither do I pause to weep over any man or any woman who +flings himself or herself upon my steady spear. I try to be courteous and +considerate to all; but I do not stop when some fellow who has something +that belongs to me shouts "Rude!" at me to sheer me off. + +At the same time, her delicate beauty, her quiet, distinctive, high-bred +manner, had thrust it home to me that in certain respects I was ignorant +and crude--as who would not have been, brought up as was I? I knew there +was, somewhere between my roughness of the uncut individuality and the +smoothness of the planed and sand-papered nonentity of her "set," a mean, +better than either, better because more efficient. + +When this was clear to me I sent for my trainer. He was one of those spare, +wiry Englishmen, with skin like tanned and painted hide--brown except +where the bones seem about to push their sharp angles through, and there +a frosty, winter-apple red. He dressed like a Deadwood gambler, he talked +like a stable boy; but for all that, you couldn't fail to see he was a +gentleman born and bred. Yes, he was a gentleman, though he mixed profanity +into his ordinary flow of conversation more liberally than did I when in a +rage. + +I stood up before him, threw my coat back, thrust my thumbs into my +trousers pockets and slowly turned about like a ready-made tailor's dummy. +"Monson," said I, "what do you think of me?" + +He looked me over as if I were a horse he was about to buy. "Sound, I'd +say," was his verdict. "Good wind--uncommon good wind. A goer, and a +stayer. Not a lump. Not a hair out of place." He laughed. "Action a bit +high perhaps--for the track. But a grand reach." + +"I know all that," said I. "You miss my point. Suppose you wanted to enter +me for--say, the Society Sweepstakes--what then?" + +"Um--um," he muttered reflectively. "That's different." + +"Don't I look--sort of--new--as if the varnish was still sticky and might +come off on the ladies' dresses and on the fine furniture?" + +"Oh--that!" said he dubiously. "But all those kinds of things are matters +of taste." + +"Out with it!" I commanded. "Don't be afraid. I'm not one of those damn +fools that ask for criticism when they want only flattery, as you ought +to know by this time. I'm aware of my good points, know how good they are +better than anybody else in the world. And I suspect my weak points--always +did. I've got on chiefly because I made people tell me to my face what +they'd rather have grinned over behind my back." + +"What's your game?" asked Monson. "I'm in the dark." + +"I'll tell you, Monson. I hired you to train horses. Now I want to hire you +to train me, too. As it's double work, it's double pay." + +"Say on," said he, "and say it slow." + +"I want to marry," I explained. "I want to inspect all the offerings before +I decide. You are to train me so that I can go among the herds that'd shy +off from me if I wasn't on to their little ways." + +He looked suspiciously at me, doubtless thinking this some new development +of "American humor." + +"I mean it," I assured him. "I'm going to train, and train hard. I've got +no time to lose. I must be on my way down the aisle inside of three months. +I give you a free hand. I'll do just what you say." + +"The job's out of my line," he protested. + +"I know better," said I. "I've always seen the parlor under the stable in +you. We'll begin right away. What do you think of these clothes?" + +"Well--they're not exactly noisy," he said. "But--they're far from silent. +That waistcoat--" He stopped and gave me another nervous, timid look. He +found it hard to believe a man of my sort, so self-assured, would stand the +truth from a man of his second-fiddle sort. + +"Go on!" I commanded. "Speak out! Mowbray Langdon had on one twice as loud +the other day at the track." + +"But, perhaps you'll remember, it was only his waistcoat that was loud--not +he himself. Now, a man of your manner and voice and--you've got a look out +of the eyes that'd wake the dead all by itself. People can feel you coming +before they hear you. When they feel and hear and see all together--it's +like a brass band in scarlet uniform, with a seven-foot, sky-blue drum +major. If your hair wasn't so black and your eyes so steel-blue and sharp, +and your teeth so big and strong and white, and your jaw such a--such +a--_jaw_--" + +"I see the point," said I. And I did. "You'll find you won't need to tell +me many things twice. I've got a busy day before me here; so we'll have +to suspend this until you come to dine with me at eight--at my rooms. +I want you to put in the time well. Go to my house in the country and +then up to my apartment; take my valet with you; look through all my +belongings--shirts, ties, socks, trousers, waistcoats, clothes of every +kind. Throw out every rag you think doesn't fit in with what I want to be. +How's my grammar?" + +I was proud of it; I had been taking more or less pains with my mode of +speech for a dozen years. "Rather too good," said he. "But that's better +than making the breaks that aren't regarded as good form." + +"Good form!" I exclaimed. "That's it! That's what I want! What does 'good +form' mean?" + +He laughed. "You can search me," said he. "I could easier tell +you--anything else. It's what everybody recognizes on sight, and nobody +knows how to describe. It's like the difference between a cultivated +'jimson' weed and a wild one." + +"Like the difference between Mowbray Langdon and me," I suggested +good-naturedly. "How about my manners?" + +"Not so bad," said he. "Not so rotten bad. But--when you're polite, you're +a little too polite; when you're not polite, you--" + +"Show where I came from too plainly?" said I. "Speak right out--hit good +and hard. Am I too frank for 'good form'?" + +"You needn't bother about that," he assured me. "Say whatever comes into +your head--only, be sure the right sort of thing comes into your head. +Don't talk too much about yourself, for instance. It's good form to think +about yourself all the time; it's bad form to let people see it--in your +talk. Say as little as possible about your business and about what you've +got. Don't be lavish with the I's and the my's." + +"That's harder," said I. "I'm a man who has always minded his own business, +and cared for nothing else. What could I talk about, except myself?" + +"Blest if I know," replied he. "Where you want to go, the last thing people +mind is their own business--in talk, at least. But you'll get on all right +if you don't worry too much about it. You've got natural independence, and +an original way of putting things, and common sense. Don't be afraid." + +"Afraid!" said I. "I never knew what it was to be afraid." + +"Your nerve'll carry you through," he assured me. "Nerve'll take a man +anywhere." + +"You never said a truer thing in your life," said I. "It'll take him +wherever he wants, and, after he's there, it'll get him whatever he wants." + +And with that, I, thinking of my plans and of how sure I was of success, +began to march up and down the office with my chest thrown out--until I +caught myself at it. That stopped me, set me off in a laugh at my own +expense, he joining in with a kind of heartiness I did not like, though I +did not venture to check him. + +So ended the first lesson--the first of a long series. I soon saw that +Monson was being most useful to me--far more useful than if he were a +"perfect gentleman" with nothing of the track and stable and back stairs +about him. Being a sort of betwixt and between, he could appreciate my +needs as they could not have been appreciated by a fellow who had never +lived in the rough-and-tumble I had fought my way up through. And being +at bottom a real gentleman, and not one of those nervous, snobbish +make-believes, he wasn't so busy trying to hide his own deficiencies +from me that he couldn't teach me anything. He wasn't afraid of being +found out, as Sam--or perhaps, even Langdon--would have been in the same +circumstances. I wonder if there is another country where so many gentlemen +and ladies are born, or another where so many of them have their natural +gentility educated out of them. + + + + +VIII + +ON THE TRAIL OF LANGDON + + +I had Monson with me twice each week-day--early in the morning and again +after business hours until bed-time. Also he spent the whole of every +Saturday and Sunday with me. He developed astonishing dexterity as a +teacher, and as soon as he realized that I had no false pride and was +thoroughly in earnest, he handled me without gloves--like a boxing teacher +who finds that his pupil has the grit of a professional. It was easy enough +for me to grasp the theory of my new business--it was nothing more than "Be +natural." But the rub came in making myself naturally of the right sort. +I had--as I suppose every man of intelligence and decent instincts has--a +disposition to be friendly and simple. But my manner was by nature what you +might call abrupt. My not very easy task was to learn the subtle difference +between the abrupt that injects a tonic into social intercourse, and the +abrupt that makes the other person shut up with a feeling of having been +insulted. + +Then, there was the matter of good taste in conversation. Monson found, +as I soon saw, that my everlasting self-assertiveness was beyond cure. As +I said to him: "I'm afraid you might easier succeed in reducing my chest +measure." But we worked away at it, and perhaps my readers may discover +even in this narrative, though it is necessarily egotistic, evidence of at +least an honest effort not to be baldly boastful. Monson would have liked +to make of me a self-deprecating sort of person--such as he was himself, +with the result that the other fellow always got the prize and he got left. +But I would have none of it. + +"How are people to know about you, if you don't tell 'em?" I argued. "Don't +you yourself admit that men take a man at his own valuation less a slight +discount, and that women take him at his own valuation plus an allowance +for his supposed modesty?" + +"Cracking yourself up is vulgar, nevertheless," declared the Englishman. +"It's the chief reason why we on the other side look on you Americans as a +lot of vulgarians--" + +"And are in awe of our superior cleverness," I put in. + +He laughed. + +"Well, do the best you can," said he. "Only, you really must not brag and +swagger, and you must get out of the habit of talking louder than any one +else." + +In the matter of dress, our task was easy. I had a fancy for bright +colors and for strong contrasts; but I know I never indulged in clashes +and discords. It was simply that in clothes I had the same taste as in +pictures--the taste that made me prefer Rubens to Rembrandt. We cast out of +my wardrobe everything in the least doubtful; and I gave away my jeweled +canes, my pins and links and buttons for shirts and waistcoats except plain +gold and pearls. I even left off the magnificent diamond I had worn for +years on my little finger--but I didn't give away that stone; I put it +by for resetting into an engagement ring. However, when I was as quietly +dressed as it was possible for a gentleman to be, he still studied me +dubiously, when he thought I wasn't seeing him. And I recall that he said +once: "It's your face, Blacklock. If you could only manage to look less +like a Spanish bull dashing into the ring, gazing joyfully about for +somebody to gore and toss!" + +"But I can't," said I. "And I wouldn't if I could--because that's +_me_!" + +One Saturday he brought a dancing master down to my country place--Dawn +Hill, which I bought of the Dumont estate and completely remodeled. I saw +what the man's business was the instant I looked at him. I left him in the +hall and took Monson into my den. + +"Not for me!" I protested. "There's where I draw the line." + +"You don't understand," he urged. "This fellow, this Alphonse Lynch, out in +the hall there, isn't going to teach you dancing so that you may dance, but +so that you shall be less awkward in strange company." + +"My walk suits me," said I. "And I don't fall over furniture or trip people +up." + +"True enough," he answered. "But you haven't the complete control of your +body that'll make you unconscious of it when you're suddenly shot by a +butler into a room full of people you suspect of being unfriendly and +critical." + +Not until he used his authority as trainer-in-full-charge, did I yield. It +may seem absurd to some for a serious man like me solemnly to caper about +in imitation of a scraping, grimacing French-Irishman; but Monson was +right, and I haven't in the least minded the ridicule he has brought on me +by tattling this and the other things everywhere, since he turned against +me. It's nothing new under the sun for the crowds of chuckleheads to laugh +where they ought to applaud; their habit is to laugh and to applaud in the +wrong places. There's no part of my career that I'm prouder of than the +whole of this thorough course of education in the trifles that are yet not +trifles. To have been ignorant is no disgrace; the disgrace comes when one +persists in ignorance and glories in it. + +Yet those who make the most pretensions in this topsy-turvy of a world +regard it as a disgrace to have been obscure and ignorant, and pride +themselves upon their persistence in their own kind of obscurity and +ignorance! No wonder the few strong men do about as they please with such a +race of nincompoopery. If they didn't grow old and tired, what would they +not do? + +All this time I was giving myself--or thought I was giving myself--chiefly +to my business, as usual. I know now that the new interests had in fact +crowded the things down town far into the background, had impaired my +judgment, had suspended my common sense; but I had no inkling of this then, +The most important matter that was occupying me down town was pushing +Textile up toward par. Langdon's doubts, little though they influenced me, +still made enough of an impression to cause me to test the market. I sold +for him at ninety, as he had directed; I sold in quantity every day. But no +matter how much I unloaded, the price showed no tendency to break. + +"This," said I to myself, "is a testimonial to the skill with which I +prepared for my bull campaign." And that seemed to me--all unsuspicious as +I then was--a sufficient explanation of the steadiness of the stock which I +had worked to establish in the public confidence. + +I felt that, if my matrimonial plans should turn out as I confidently +expected, I should need a much larger fortune than I had--for I was +determined that my wife should have an establishment second to none. +Accordingly, I enlarged my original plan. I had intended to keep close +to Langdon in that plunge; I believed I controlled the market, but I +hadn't been in Wall Street twenty years without learning that the worst +thunderbolts fall from cloudless skies. Without being in the least +suspicious of Langdon, and simply acting on the general principle that +surprise and treachery are part of the code of high finance, I had prepared +to guard, first, against being taken in the rear by a secret change of plan +on Langdon's part, and second, against being involved and overwhelmed by a +sudden secret attack on him from some associate of his who might think he +had laid himself open to successful raiding. + +The market is especially dangerous toward Christmas and in the +spring--toward Christmas the big fellows often juggle the stocks to get the +money for their big Christmas gifts and alms; toward spring the motive is, +of course, the extra summer expenses of their families and the commencement +gifts to colleges. It was now late in the spring. + +I say, I had intended to be cautious. I abandoned caution and rushed in +boldly, feeling that the market was, in general, safe and that Textile was +under my control--and that I was one of the kings of high finance, with +my lucky star in the zenith. I decided to continue my bull campaign on my +own account for two weeks after I had unloaded for Langdon, to continue +it until the stock was at par. I had no difficulty in pushing it to +ninety-seven, and I was not alarmed when I found myself loaded up with +it, quoted at ninety-eight for the preferred and thirty for the common. I +assumed that I was practically its only supporter and that it would slowly +settle back as I slowly withdrew my support. + +To my surprise, the stock did not yield immediately under my efforts to +depress it. I sold more heavily; Textile continued to show a tendency to +rise. I sold still more heavily; it broke a point or two, then steadied +and rose again. Instead of sending out along my secret lines for inside +information, as I should have done, and would have done had I not been in +a state of hypnotized judgment--I went to Langdon! I who had been studying +those scoundrels for twenty-odd years, and dealing directly with and for +them for ten years! + +He wasn't at his office; they told me there that they didn't know whether +he was at his town house or at his place in the country--"probably in the +country," said his down-town secretary, with elaborate carelessness. "He +wouldn't be likely to stay away from the office or not to send for me, if +he were in town, would he?" + +It takes an uncommon good liar to lie to me when I'm on the alert. As I was +determined to see Langdon, I was in so far on the alert. And I felt the +fellow was lying. "That's reasonable," said I. "Call me up, if you hear +from him. I want to see him--important, but not immediate." And I went +away, having left the impression that I would make no further effort. + +Incredible though it may seem, especially to those who know how careful I +am to guard every point and to see in every friend a possible foe, I still +did not suspect that smooth, that profound scoundrel. I do not use these +epithets with heat. I flatter myself I am a connoisseur of finesse and can +look even at my own affairs with judicial impartiality. And Langdon was, +and is now, such a past master of finesse that he compels the admiration +even of his victims. He's like one of those fabled Damascus blades. When +he takes a leg off, the victim forgets to suffer in his amazement at the +cleanness of the wound, in his incredulity that the leg is no longer +part of him. "Langdon," said I to myself, "is a sly dog. No doubt he's +busy about some woman, and has covered his tracks." Yet I ought, in the +circumstances, instantly to have suspected that I was the person he was +dodging. + +I went up to his house. You, no doubt, have often seen and often admired +its beautiful facade, so simple that it hides its own magnificence from +all but experienced eyes, so perfect in its proportions that it hides the +vastness of the palace of which it is the face. I have heard men say: "I'd +like to have a house--a moderate-sized house--one about the size of Mowbray +Langdon's--though perhaps a little more elegant, not so plain." + +That's typical of the man. You have to look closely at him, to study him, +before you appreciate how he has combined a thousand details of manner and +dress into an appearance which, while it can not but impress the ordinary +man with its distinction, suggests to all but the very observant the most +modest plainness and simplicity. How few realize that simplicity must be +profound, complex, studied, not to be and to appear crude and coarse. In +those days that truth had just begun to dawn on me. + +"Mr. Langdon isn't at home," said the servant. + +I had been at his house once before; I knew he occupied the left side--the +whole of the second floor, so shut off that it not only had a separate +entrance, but also could not be reached by those in the right side of +the house without descending to the entrance hall and ascending the left +stairway. + +"Just take my card to his private secretary, to Mr. Rathburn," said I. "Mr. +Langdon has doubtless left a message for me." + +The butler hesitated, yielded, showed me into the reception-room off the +entrance hall. I waited a few seconds, then adventured the stairway to +the left, up which he had disappeared. I entered the small salon in which +Langdon had received me on my other visit. From the direction of an open +door, I heard his voice--he was saying: "I am not at home. There's no +message." + +And still I did not realize that it was I he was avoiding! + +"It's no use now, Langdon," I called cheerfully. "Beg pardon for seeming to +intrude. I misunderstood--or didn't hear where the servant said I was to +wait. However, no harm done. So long! I'm off." But I made no move toward +the door by which I had entered; instead, I advanced a few feet nearer the +door from which his voice had come. + +After a brief--a very brief--pause, there came in Langdon's +voice--laughing, not a trace of annoyance: "I might have known! Come in, +Matt!" + + + + +IX + +LANGDON AT HOME + + +I entered, with an amused glance at the butler, who was giving over his +heavy countenance to a delightful exhibition of disgust and discomfiture. +It was Langdon's sitting-room. He had had the carved antique oak interior +of a room in an old French palace torn out and transported to New York +and set up for him. I had made a study of that sort of thing, and at Dawn +Hill had done something toward realizing my own ideas of the splendid. +But a glance showed me that I was far surpassed. What I had done seemed +in comparison like the composition of a school-boy beside an essay by +Goldsmith or Hazlitt. + +And in the midst of this quiet splendor sat, or rather lounged, Langdon, +reading the newspapers. He was dressed in a dark blue velvet house-suit +with facings and cords of blue silk a shade or so lighter than the suit. I +had always thought him handsome; he looked now like a god. He was smoking +a cigarette in an oriental holder nearly a foot long; but the air of +the room, so perfect was the ventilation, instead of being scented with +tobacco, had the odor of some fresh, clean, slightly saline perfume. + +I think what was in my mind must have shown in my face, must have subtly +flattered him, for, when I looked at him, he was giving me a look of +genuine friendly kindliness. "This is--perfect, Langdon," said I. "And I +think I'm a judge." + +"Glad you like it," said he, trying to dissemble his satisfaction in so +strongly impressing me. + +"You must take me through your house sometime," I went on. "I'm going to +build soon. No--don't be afraid I'll imitate. I'm too vain for that. But I +want suggestions. I'm not ashamed to go to school to a master--to anybody, +for that matter." + +"Why do you build?" said he. "A town house is a nuisance. If I could induce +my wife to take the children to the country to live, I'd dispose of this." + +"That's it--the wife," said I. + +"But you have no wife. At least--" + +"No," I replied with a laugh. "Not yet. But I'm going to have." + +I interpreted his expression then as amused cynicism. But I see a different +meaning in it now. And I can recall his tone, can find a strained note +which then escaped me in his usual mocking drawl. + +"To marry?" said he. "I haven't heard of that." + +"Nor no one else," said I. + +"Except her," said he. + +"Not even except her," said I. "But I've got my eye on her--and you know +what that means with me." + +"Yes, I know," drawled he. Then he added, with a curious twinkle which I do +not now misunderstand: "We have somewhat the same weakness." + +"I shouldn't call it a weakness," said I. "It's the quality that makes the +chief difference between us and the common run--the fellows that have no +purposes beyond getting comfortably through each day--" + +"And getting real happiness," he interrupted, with just a tinge of +bitterness. + +"We wouldn't think it happiness," was my answer. + +"The worse for us," he replied. "We're under the tyranny of to-morrow--and +happiness is impossible." + +"May I look at your bedroom?" I asked. + +"Certainly," he assented. + +I pushed open the door he indicated. At first glimpse I was disappointed. +The big room looked like a section of a hospital ward. It wasn't until +I had taken a second and very careful look at the tiled floor, walls, +ceiling, that I noted that those plain smooth tiles were of the very +finest, were probably of his own designing, certainly had been imported +from some great Dutch or German kiln. Not an inch of drapery, not a +picture, nothing that could hold dust or germs anywhere; a square of +sanitary matting by the bed; another square opposite an elaborate +exercising machine. The bed was of the simplest metallic construction--but +I noted that the metal was the finest bronze. On it was a thin, hard +mattress. You could wash the big room down and out with the hose, without +doing any damage. + +"Quite a contrast," said I, glancing from the one room to the other. + +"My architect is a crank on sanitation," he explained, from his lounge. + +I noted that the windows were huge--to admit floods of light--and that +they were hermetically sealed so that the air should be only the pure air +supplied from the ventilating apparatus. To many people that room would +have seemed a cheaply got together cell; to me, once I had examined it, it +was evidently built at enormous cost and represented an extravagance of +common-sense luxury which was more than princely or royal. + +Suddenly my mind reverted to my business. "How do you account for the +steadiness of Textile, Langdon?" I asked, returning to the carved +sitting-room and trying to put those surroundings out of my mind. + +"I don't account for it," was his languid, uninterested reply. + +"Any of your people under the market?" + +"It isn't to my interest to have it supported, is it?" he replied. + +"I know that," I admitted. "But why doesn't it drop?" + +"Those letters of yours may have overeducated the public in confidence," +suggested he. "Your followers have the habit of believing implicitly +whatever you say." + +"Yes, but I haven't written a line about Textile for nearly a month now," I +pretended to object, my vanity fairly purring with pleasure. + +"That's the only reason I can give," said he. + +"You are sure none of your people is supporting the stock?" I asked, as a +form and not for information; for I thought I knew they weren't--I trusted +him to have seen to that. + +"I'd like to get my holdings back," said he. "I can't buy until it's down. +And I know none of my people would dare support it." + +You will notice he did not say directly that he was not himself supporting +the market; he simply so answered me that I, not suspecting him, would +think he reassured me. There is another of those mysteries of conscience. +Had it been necessary, Langdon would have told me the lie flat and direct, +would have told it without a tremor of the voice or a blink of the eye, +would have lied to me as I have heard him, and almost all the big fellows, +lie under oath before courts and legislative committees; yet, so long as it +was possible, he would thus lie to me with lies that were not lies. As if +negative lies are not falser and more cowardly than positive lies, because +securer and more deceptive. + +"Well, then, the price must break," said I, "It won't be many days before +the public begins to realize that there isn't anybody under Textile." + +"No sharp break!" he said carelessly. "No panic!" + +"I'll see to that," replied I, with not a shadow of a notion of the +subtlety behind his warning. + +"I hope it will break soon," he then said, adding in his friendliest voice +with what I now know was malignant treachery: "You owe it to me to bring it +down." That meant that he wished me to increase my already far too heavy +and dangerous line of shorts. + +Just then a voice--a woman's voice--came from the salon. "May I come in? Do +I interrupt?" it said, and its tone struck me as having in it something of +plaintive appeal. + +"Excuse me a moment, Blacklock," said he, rising with what was for him +haste. + +But he was too late. The woman entered, searching the room with a piercing, +suspicious gaze. At once I saw, behind that look, a jealousy that pounced +on every object that came into its view, and studied it with a hope that +feared and a fear that hoped. When her eyes had toured the room, they +paused upon him, seemed to be saying: "You've baffled me again, but I'm not +discouraged. I shall catch you yet." + +"Well, my dear?" said Langdon, whom she seemed faintly to amuse. "It's only +Mr. Blacklock. Mr. Blacklock, my wife." + +I bowed; she looked coldly at me, and her slight nod was more than a hint +that she wished to be left alone with her husband. + +I said to him: "Well, I'll be off. Thank you for--" + +"One moment," he interrupted. Then to his wife: "Anything special?" + +She flushed. "No--nothing special. I just came to see you. But if I am +disturbing you--as usual--" + +"Not at all," said he. "When Blacklock and I have finished, I'll come to +you. It won't be longer than an hour--or so." + +"Is that all?" she said almost savagely. Evidently she was one of those +women who dare not make "scenes" with their husbands in private and so are +compelled to take advantage of the presence of strangers to ease their +minds. She was an extremely pretty woman, would have been beautiful but for +the worn, strained, nervous look that probably came from her jealousy. She +was small in stature; her figure was approaching that stage at which a +woman is called "well rounded" by the charitable, fat by the frank and +accurate. A few years more and she would be hunting down and destroying +early photographs. There was in the arrangement of her hair and in the +details of her toilet--as well as in her giving way to her tendency to +fat--that carelessness that so many women allow themselves, once they are +safely married to a man they care for. + +"Curious," thought I, "that being married to him should make her feel +secure enough of him to let herself go, although her instinct is warning +her all the time that she isn't in the least sure of him. Her laziness must +be stronger than her love--her laziness or her vanity." + +While I was thus sizing her up, she was reluctantly leaving. She didn't +even give me the courtesy of a bow--whether from self-absorption or from +haughtiness I don't know; probably from both. She was a Western woman, +and when those Western women do become perverts to New York's gospel of +snobbishness, they are the worst snobs in the push. Langdon, regardless of +my presence, looked after her with a faintly amused, faintly contemptuous +expression that--well, it didn't fit in with _my_ notion of what +constitutes a gentleman. In fact, I didn't know which of them had come off +the worse in that brief encounter in my presence. It was my first glimpse +of a fashionable behind-the-scenes, and it made a profound impression upon +me--an impression that has grown deeper as I have learned how much of the +typical there was in it. Dirt looks worse in the midst of finery than where +one naturally expects to find it--looks worse, and is worse. + +When we were seated again, Langdon, after a few reflective puffs at his +cigarette, said: "So you're about to marry?" + +"I hope so," said I. "But as I haven't asked her yet, I can't be quite +sure." For obvious reasons I wasn't so enamored of the idea of matrimony as +I had been a few minutes before. + +"I trust you're making a sensible marriage," said he. "If the part that may +be glamour should by chance rub clean away, there ought to be something to +make one feel he wasn't wholly an ass." + +"Very sensible," I replied with emphasis. "I want the woman. I need her." + +He inspected the coal of his cigarette, lifting his eyebrows at it. +Presently he said: "And she?" + +"I don't know how she feels about it--as I told you," I replied curtly. In +spite of myself, my eyes shifted and my skin began to burn. "By the way, +Langdon, what's the name of your architect?" + +"Wilder and Marcy," said he. "They're fairly satisfactory, if you tell +'em exactly what you want and watch 'em all the time. They're perfectly +conventional and so can't distinguish between originality that's artistic +and originality that's only bizarre. They're like most people--they keep to +the beaten track and fight tooth and nail against being drawn out of it and +against those who do go out of it." + +"I'll have a talk with Marcy this very day," said I. + +"Oh, you're in a hurry!" He laughed. "And you haven't asked her. You remind +me of that Greek philosopher who was in love with Lais. They asked him: +'But does she love you?' And he said: 'One does not inquire of the fish one +likes whether it likes one.'" + +I flushed. "You'll pardon me, Langdon," said I, "but I don't like that. It +isn't my attitude at all toward--the right sort of women." + +He looked half-quizzical, half-apologetic. "Ah, to be sure," said he. "I +forgot you weren't a married man." + +"I don't think I'll ever lose the belief that there's a quality in a good +woman for a man to--to respect and look up to." + +"I envy you," said he, but his eyes were mocking still. I saw he was a +little disdainful of my rebuking _him_--and angry at me, too. + +"Woman's a subject of conversation that men ought to avoid," said I +easily--for, having set myself right, I felt I could afford to smooth him +down. + +"Well, good-by--good luck--or, if I may be permitted to say it to one so +touchy, the kind of luck you're bent on having, whether it's good or bad." + +"If my luck ain't good, I'll make it good," said I with a laugh. + +And so I left him, with a look in his eyes that came back to me long +afterward when I realized the full meaning of that apparently almost +commonplace interview. + +That same day I began to plunge on Textile, watching the market closely, +that I might go more slowly should there be signs of a dangerous break--for +no more than Langdon did I want a sudden panicky slump. The price held +steady, however; but I, fool that I was, certain the fall must come, +plunged on, digging the pit for my own destruction deeper and deeper. + + + + +X + +TWO "PILLARS OF SOCIETY" + + +I was neither seeing nor hearing from the Ellerslys, father or son; but, +as I knew why, I was not disquieted. I had made them temporarily easy in +their finances just before that dinner, and they, being fatuous, incurable +optimists, were probably imagining they would never need me again. I did +not disturb them until Monson and I had got my education so well under +way that even I, always severe in self-criticism and now merciless, was +compelled to admit to myself a distinct change for the better. You know +how it is with a boy at the "growing age"--how he bursts out of clothes +and ideas of life almost as fast as they are supplied him, so swiftly is +he transforming into a man. Well, I think it is much that way with us +Americans all our lives; we continue on and on at the growing age. And +if one of us puts his or her mind hard upon growth in some particular +direction, you see almost overnight a development fledged to the last +tail-feathers and tip of top-knot where there was nothing at all. What +miracles can be wrought by an open mind and a keen sense of the cumulative +power of the unwasted minute! All this apropos of a very trivial matter, +you may be thinking. But, be careful how you judge what is trivial and what +important in a universe built up of atoms. + +However-- When my education seemed far enough advanced, I sent for Sam. +He, after his footless fashion, didn't bother to acknowledge my note. His +margin account with me was at the moment straight; I turned to his father. +I had my cashier send him a formal, type-written letter signed Blacklock & +Co., informing him that his account was overdrawn and that we "would be +obliged if he would give the matter his immediate attention." The note must +have reached him the following morning; but he did not come until, after +waiting three days, "we" sent him a sharp demand for a check for the +balance due us. + +A pleasing, aristocratic-looking figure he made as he entered my office, +with his air of the man whose hands have never known the stains of toil, +with his manner of having always received deferential treatment. There +was no pretense in my curt greeting, my tone of "despatch your business, +sir, and be gone"; for I was both busy and much irritated against him. +"I guess you want to see our cashier," said I, after giving him a hasty, +absent-minded hand-shake. "My boy out there will take you to him." + +The old do-nothing's face lost its confident, condescending expression. His +lip quivered, and I think there were tears in his bad, dim, gray-green +eyes. I suppose he thought his a profoundly pathetic case; no doubt he +hadn't the remotest conception what he really was--and no doubt, also, +there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that he +was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight +inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when +suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon +themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get +a sympathy that is withheld from those of the honest human rank and file +falling into far more real misfortunes not of their own making. + +"No, my dear Blacklock," said he, cringing now as easily as he had +condescended--how to cringe and how to condescend are taught at the same +school, the one he had gone to all his life. "It is you I want to talk +with. And, first, I owe you my apologies. I know you'll make allowances +for one who was never trained to business methods. I've always been like a +child in those matters." + +"You frighten me," said I. "The last 'gentleman' who came throwing me off +my guard with that plea was shrewd enough to get away with a very large +sum of my hard-earned money. Besides"--and I was laughing, though not too +good-naturedly--"I've noticed that you 'gentlemen' become vague about +business only when the balance is against you. When it's in your favor, you +manage to get your minds on business long enough to collect to the last +fraction of a cent." + +He heartily echoed my laugh. "I only wish I _were_ clever," said he. +"However, I've come to ask your indulgence. I'd have been here before, +but those who owe me have been putting me off. And they're of the sort of +people whom it's impossible to press." + +"I'd like to accommodate you further," said I, shedding that last little +hint as a cliff sheds rain, "but your account has been in an unsatisfactory +state for nearly a month now." + +"I'm sure you'll give me a few days longer," was his easy reply, as if we +were discussing a trifle. "By the way, you haven't been to see us yet. Only +this morning my wife was wondering when you'd come. You quite captivated +her, Blacklock. Can't you dine with us to-morrow night--no, Sunday--at +eight? We're having in a few people I think you'd like to meet." + +If any one imagines that this bald, businesslike way of putting it set +my teeth on edge, let him dismiss the idea; my nerves had been too long +accustomed to the feel of the harsh facts of life. It is evidence of the +shrewdness of the old fellow at character-reading that he wasted none of +his silk and velvet pretenses upon me, and so saved his time and mine. +Probably he wished me to see that I need have no timidity or false shame in +dealing with him, that when the time came to talk business I was free to +talk it in my own straight fashion. + +"Glad to come," said I, wishing to be rid of him, now that my point was +gained. "We'll let the account stand open for the present--I rather think +your stocks are going up. Give my regards to--the ladies, please, +especially to Miss Anita." + +He winced, but thanked me graciously; gave me his soft, fine hand to shake +and departed, as eager to be off as I to be rid of him. "Sunday next--at +eight," were his last words. "Don't fail us"--that in the tone of a king +addressing some obscure person whom he had commanded to court. It may be +that old Ellersly was wholly unconscious of his superciliousness, fancied +he was treating me as if I were almost an equal; but I suspect he rather +accentuated his natural manner, with the idea of impressing upon me that +in our deal he was giving at least as much as I. + +I recall that I thought about him for several minutes after he was +gone--philosophized on the folly of a man's deliberately weaving a net to +entangle himself. As if any man was ever caught in any net not of his own +weaving and setting; as if I myself were not just then working at the last +row of meshes of a net in which I was to ensnare myself. + +My petty and inevitable success with that helpless creature added +amazingly, ludicrously, to that dangerous elation which, as I can now see, +had been growing in me ever since the day Roebuck yielded so readily to my +demands as to National Coal. The whole trouble with me was that up to that +time I had won all my victories by the plainest kind of straightaway hard +work. I was imagining myself victor in contests of wit against wit, when, +in fact, no one with any especial equipment of brains had ever opposed me; +all the really strong men had been helping me because they found me useful. +Too easy success--there is the clue to the wild folly of my performances in +those days, a folly that seems utterly inconsistent with the reputation for +shrewdness I had, and seemed to have earned. + +I can find a certain small amount of legitimate excuse for my falling under +Langdon's spell. He had, and has, fascinations, through personal magnetism, +which it is hardly in human nature to resist. But for my self-hypnotism in +the case of Roebuck, I find no excuse whatever for myself. + +He sent for me and told me what share in National Coal they had decided to +give me for my Manasquale mines. "Langdon and Melville," said he, "think me +too liberal; far too liberal, my boy. But I insisted--in your case I felt +we could afford to be generous as well as just." All this with an air that +was a combination of the pastor and the parent. + +I can't even offer the excuse of not having seen that he was a hypocrite. +I felt his hypocrisy at once, and my first impulse was to jump for my +breastworks. But instantly my vanity got behind me, held me in the open, +pushed me on toward him. If you will notice, almost all "confidence" games +rely for success chiefly upon enlisting a man's vanity to play the traitor +to his judgment. So, instead of reading his liberality as plain proof of +intended treachery, I read it as plain proof of my own greatness, and of +the fear it had inspired in old Roebuck. Laugh _with_ me if you like; +but, before you laugh _at_ me, think carefully--those of you who have +ever put yourselves to the test on the field of action--think carefully +whether you have never found that your head decoration which you thought a +crown was in reality the peaked and belled cap of the fool. + +But my vanity was not done with me. Led on by it, I proceeded to have one +of those ridiculous "generous impulses"--I persuaded myself that there must +be some decency in this liberality, in addition to the prudence which I +flattered myself was the chief cause. "I have been unjust to Roebuck," I +thought. "I have been misjudging his character." And incredible though it +seems, I said to him with a good deal of genuine emotion: "I don't know +how to thank you, Mr. Roebuck. And, instead of trying, I want to apologize +to you. I have thought many hard things against you; have spoken some of +them. I had better have been attending to my own conscience, instead of +criticizing yours." + +I had often thought his face about the most repulsive, hypocrisy-glozed +concourse of evil passions that ever fronted a fiend in the flesh. It had +seemed to me the fitting result of a long career which, according to common +report, was stained with murder, with rapacity and heartless cruelty, with +the most brutal secret sensuality, and which had left in its wake the ruins +of lives and hearts and fortunes innumerable. I had looked on the vast +wealth he had heaped mountain high as a monument to devil-daring--other men +had, no doubt, dreamed of doing the ferocious things he had done, but their +weak, human hearts failed when it came to executing such horrible acts, and +they had to be content with smaller fortunes, with the comparatively small +fruits of their comparatively small infamies. He had dared all, had won; +the most powerful bowed with quaking knees before him, and trembled lest +they might, by a blundering look or word, excite his anger and cause him to +snatch their possessions from them. + +Thus I had regarded him, accepting the universal judgment, believing the +thousand and one stories. But as his eyes, softened by his hugely generous +act, beamed upon me now, I was amazed that I had so misjudged him. In that +face which I had thought frightful there was, to my hypnotized gaze, the +look of strong, sincere--yes, holy--beauty and power--the look of an +archangel. + +"Thank you, Blacklock," said he, in a voice that made me feel as if I were +a little boy in the crossroads church, believing I could almost see the +angels floating above the heads of the singers in the choir behind the +preacher. "Thank you. I am not surprised that you have misjudged me. God +has given me a great work to do, and those who do His will in this wicked +world must expect martyrdom. I should never have had the courage to do what +I have done, what He has done through me, had He not guided my every step. +You are not a religious man?" + +"I try to do what's square," said I. "But I'd prefer not to talk about it." + +"That's right! That's right!" he approved earnestly. "A man's religion is +a matter between himself and his God. But I hope, Matthew, you will never +forget that, unless you have daily, hourly communion with Almighty God, +you will never be able to bear the great burdens, to do the great work +fearlessly, disregarding the lies of the wicked, and, hardest of all to +endure, the honestly-mistaken judgments of honest men." + +"I'll look into it," said I. And I don't know to what lengths of foolish +speech I should have gone had I not been saved by an office boy +interrupting with a card for him. + +"Ah, here's Walters now," said he. Then to the boy: "Bring him in when I +ring." + +I rose to go. + +"No, sit down, Blacklock," he insisted. "You are in with us now, and you +may learn something by seeing how I deal with the larger problems that face +men in these large undertakings, the problems that have faced me in each +new enterprise I have inaugurated to the glory of God." + +Naturally, I accepted with enthusiasm. + +You would not believe what a mood I had by this time been worked into by my +rampant and raging vanity and emotionalism and by his snake-like charming. +"Thank you," I said, with an energetic warmth that must have secretly +amused him mightily. + +"When my reorganization of the iron industry proved such a great success, +and God rewarded my labors with large returns," he went on, "I looked +about me to see what new work He wished me to undertake, how He wished me +to invest His profits. And I saw the coal industry and the coal-carrying +railroads in confusion, with waste on every side, and godless competition. +Thousands of widows and orphans who had invested in coal railways and mines +were getting no returns. Labor was fitfully employed, owing to alternations +of over-production and no production at all. I saw my work ready for my +hand. And now we are bringing order out of chaos. This man Walters, useful +up to a certain point, has become insolent, corrupt, a stumbling-block in +our way." Here he pressed the button of his electric bell. + + + + +XI + +WHEN A MAN IS NOT A MAN + + +Walters entered. He was one of the great railway presidents, was +universally regarded as a power, though I, of course, knew that he, like so +many other presidents of railways, of individual corporations, of banks, +of insurance companies, and high political officials in cities, states +and the nation, was little more than a figurehead put up and used by the +inside financial ring. As he shifted from leg to leg, holding his hat and +trying to steady his twitching upper lip, he looked as one of his smallest +section-bosses would have looked, if called up for a wigging. + +Roebuck shook hands cordially with him, responded to his nervous glance at +me with: + +"Blacklock is practically in our directory." We all sat, then Roebuck began +in his kindliest tone: + +"We have decided, Walters, that we must give your place to a stronger man. +Your gross receipts, outside of coal, have fallen rapidly and steadily for +the past three quarters. You were put into the presidency to bring them +up. They have shown no change beyond what might have been expected in the +natural fluctuations of freight. We calculated on resuming dividends a year +ago. We have barely been able to meet the interest on our bonds." + +"But, Mr. Roebuck," pleaded Walters, "you doubled the bonded indebtedness +of the road just before I took charge." + +"The money went into improvements, into increasing your facilities, did it +not?" inquired Roebuck, his paw as soft as a playful tiger's. + +"Part of it," said Walters. "But you remember the reorganizing syndicate +got five millions, and then the contracts for the new work had to be given +to construction companies in which directors of the road were silent +partners. Then they are interested in the supply companies from which I +must buy. You know what all that means, Mr. Roebuck." + +"No doubt," said Roebuck, still smooth and soft. "But if there was waste, +you should have reported--" + +"To whom?" demanded Walters. "Every one of our directors, including +yourself, Mr. Roebuck, is a stock-holder--a large stock-holder--in one or +more of those companies." + +"Have you proof of this, Walters?" asked Roebuck, looking profoundly +shocked. "It's a very grave charge--a criminal charge." + +"Proof?" said Walters, "You know how that is. The real books of all big +companies are kept in the memories of the directors--and mighty treacherous +memories they are." This with a nervous laugh. "As for the holdings of +directors in construction and supply companies--most of those holdings are +in other names--all of them are disguised where the connection is direct." + +Roebuck shook his head sadly. "You admit, then, that you have allowed +millions of the road's money to be wasted, that you made no complaint, no +effort to stop the waste; and your only defense is that you _suspect_ +the directors of fraud. And you accuse them to excuse yourself--accuse them +with no proof. Were you in any of those companies, Walters?" + +"No," he said, his eyes shifting. + +Roebuck's face grew stern. "You bought two hundred thousand dollars of the +last issue of government bonds, they tell me, with your two years' profits +from the Western Railway Construction Company." + +"I bought no bonds," blustered Walters. "What money I have I made out of +speculating in the stock of my road--on legitimate inside information." + +"Your uncle in Wilkesbarre, I meant," pursued Roebuck. + +Walters reddened, looked straight at Roebuck without speaking. + +"Do you still deny?" demanded Roebuck. + +"I saw everybody--_everybody_--grafting," said Walters boldly, "and +I thought I might as well take my share. It's part of the business." Then +he added cynically: "That's the way it is nowadays. The lower ones see +the higher ones raking off, and they rake off, too--down to conductors +and brakemen. We caught some trackwalkers in a conspiracy to dispose +of the discarded ties and rails the other day." He laughed. "We jailed +_them_." + +"If you can show that any director has taken anything that did not belong +to him, if you can show that a single contract you let to a construction or +a supply company--except, of course, the contracts you let to yourself--of +them I know nothing, suspect much--if you can show one instance of these +criminal doings, Mr. Walters, I shall back you up with all my power in +prosecution." + +"Of course I can't show it," cried Walters. "If I tried, wouldn't they ruin +and disgrace me, perhaps send me to the penitentiary? Wasn't I the one that +passed on and signed their contracts? And wouldn't they--wouldn't you, Mr. +Roebuck--have fired me if I had refused to sign?" + +"Excuses, excuses, Walters," was Roebuck's answer, with a sad, disappointed +look, as if he had hoped Walters would make a brighter showing for himself. +"How many times have you yourself talked to me of this eternal excuse habit +of men who fail? And if I expended my limited brain-power in looking into +all the excuses and explanations, what energy or time would I have for +constructive work? All I can do is to select a man for a position and to +judge him by results. You were put in charge to produce dividends. You +haven't produced them. I'm sorry, and I venture to hope that things are not +so bad as you make out in your eagerness to excuse yourself. For the sake +of old times, Tom, I ignore your angry insinuations against me. I try to be +just, and to be just one must always be impersonal." + +"Well," said Walters with an air of desperation, "give me another year, Mr. +Roebuck, and I'll produce results all right. I'll break the agreements and +cut rates. I'll freeze out the branch roads and our minority stock-holders, +I'll keep the books so that all the expert accountants in New York couldn't +untangle them. I'll wink at and commit and order committed all the +necessary crimes. I don't know why I've been so squeamish, when there were +so many penitentiary offenses that I did consent to, and, for that matter, +commit, without a quiver. I thought I ought to draw the line somewhere--and +I drew it at keeping my personal word and at keeping the books reasonably +straight. But I'll go the limit." + +I'll never forget Roebuck's expression; it was perfect, simply perfect--a +great and good man outraged beyond endurance, but a Christian still. "You +have made it impossible for me to temper justice with mercy, Walters," said +he. "If it were not for the long years of association, for the affection +for you which has grown up in me, I should hand you over to the fate you +have earned. You tell me you have been committing crimes in my service. You +tell me you will commit more and greater crimes. I can scarcely believe my +own ears." + +Walters laughed scornfully--the reckless laugh of a man who suddenly sees +that he is cornered and must fight for his life. "Rot!" he jeered. "Rot! +You always have been a wonder at juggling with your conscience. But do +you expect me to believe you think yourself innocent because you do not +yourself execute the orders you issue--orders that can be carried out only +by committing crimes?" Walters was now beside himself with rage. He gave +the reins to that high horse he had been riding ever since he was promoted +to the presidency of the great coal road. He began to lay on whip and spur. +"Do you think," he cried to Roebuck, "the blood of those five hundred men +drowned in the Pequot mine is not on _your_ hands--_your_ head? +You, who ordered John Wilkinson to suppress the competition the Pequot was +giving you, ordered him in such a way that he knew the alternative was his +own ruin? He shot himself--yet he had as good an excuse as you, for he, +too, passed on the order until it got to the poor fireman--that wretched +fellow they sent to the penitentiary for life? And as sure as there is +a God in Heaven, you will some day do a long, long sentence in whatever +hell there is, for letting that wretch rot in prison--yes, and for John +Wilkinson's suicide, and for the lives of those five hundred drowned. Your +pensions to the widows and orphans can't save you." + +I listened to this tirade astounded. Used as I was to men losing their +heads through vanity, I could not credit my own ears and eyes when they +reported to me this insane exhibition. I looked at Roebuck. He was wearing +an expression of beatific patience; he would have made a fine study for a +picture of the martyr at the stake. + +"I forgive you, Tom," he said, when Walters stopped for breath. "Your own +sinful heart makes you see the black of sin upon everything. I had heard +that you were going about making loud boasts of your power over your +employers, but I tried not to believe it. I see now that you have, indeed, +lost your senses. Your prosperity has been too much for your good sense." +He sighed mournfully. "I shall not interfere to prevent your getting a +position elsewhere," he continued. "But after what you have confessed, +after your slanders, how can I put you back in your old place out West, as +I intended? How can I continue the interest in you and care for your career +that I have had, in spite of all your shortcomings? I who raised you up +from a clerk." + +"Raised me up as you fellows always raise men up--because you find them +clever at doing your dirty work. I was a decent, honest fellow when you +first took notice of me and tempted me. But, by God, Mr. Roebuck, if I've +sold out beyond hope of living decent again, I'll have my price--to the +last cent. You've got to leave me where I am or give me a place and salary +equally as good." This Walters said blusteringly, but beneath I could +detect the beginnings of a whine. + +"You are angry, Tom," said Roebuck soothingly. "I have hurt your vanity--it +is one of the heaviest crosses I have to bear, that I must be continually +hurting the vanity of men. Go away and--and calm down. Think the situation +over coolly; then come and apologize to me, and I will do what I can to +help you. As for your threats--when you are calm, you will see how idle +they are." + +Walters gave a sort of groan; and though I, blinded by my prejudices in +favor of Roebuck and of the crowd with whom my interests lay, had been +feeling that he was an impudent and crazy ingrate, I pitied him. + +"What proofs have I got?" he said desperately. "If I show up the things I +know about, I show up myself, and everybody will say I'm lying about you +and the others in the effort to save myself. The newspapers would denounce +me as a treacherous liar--you fellows own or control or foozle them in +one way and another. And if I was believed, who'd prosecute you and what +court'd condemn you? Don't you own both political parties and make all the +tickets, and can't you ruin any office-holders who lifted a finger against +you? What a hell of a state of affairs!" + +A swifter or a weaker descent I never witnessed. My pity changed to +contempt. "This fellow, with his great reputation," thought I, "is a fool +and a knave, and a weak one at that." + +"Go away now, Tom," said Roebuck. + +"When you're master of yourself again, come to see me." + +"Master of myself!" cried Walters bitterly. "Who that's got anything to +lose is master of himself in this country?" With shoulders sagging and a +sort of stumble in his gait, he went toward the door. He paused there to +say: "I've served too long, Mr. Roebuck. There's no fight in me. I thought +there was, but there ain't. Do the best you can for me." And he took +himself out of our sight. + +You will wonder how I was ever able to blind myself to the reality of this +frightful scene. But please remember that in this world every thought and +every act is a mixture of the good and the bad; and the one or the other +shows the more prominently according to one's point of view. There probably +isn't a criminal in any cell, anywhere, no matter what he may say in +sniveling pretense in the hope of lighter sentence, who doesn't at the +bottom of his heart believe his crime or crimes somehow justifiable--and +who couldn't make out a plausible case for himself. + +At that time I was stuffed with the arrogance of my fancied membership in +the caste of directing financial geniuses; I was looking at everything +from the viewpoint of the brotherhood of which Roebuck was the strongest +brother, and of which I imagined myself a full and equal member. I did not, +I could not, blind myself to the vivid reminders of his relentlessness; but +I knew too well how necessary the iron hand and the fixed purpose are to +great affairs to judge him as infuriated Walters, with his vanity savagely +wounded, was judging him. I'd as soon have thought of describing General +Grant as a murderer, because he ordered the battles in which men were +killed or because he planned and led the campaigns in which subordinates +committed rapine and pillage and assassination. I did not then see the +radical difference--did not realize that while Grant's work was at the +command of patriotism and necessity, there was no necessity whatever +for Roebuck's getting rich but the command of his own greedy and cruel +appetites. + +Don't misunderstand me. My morals are practical, not theoretical. Men must +die, old customs embodied in law must be broken, the venal must be bribed +and the weak cowed and compelled, in order that civilization may advance. +You can't establish a railway or a great industrial system by rose-water +morality. But I shall show, before I finish, that Roebuck and his gang of +so-called "organizers of industry" bear about the same relation to industry +that the boll weevil bears to the cotton crop. + +I'll withdraw this, if any one can show me that, as the result of the +activities of those parasites, anybody anywhere is using or is able to +use a single pound or bushel or yard more of any commodity whatsoever. +I'll withdraw it, if I can not show that but for those parasites, bearing +precisely the same relation to our society that the kings and nobles +and priests bore to France before the Revolution, everybody except them +would have more goods and more money than they have under the system that +enables these parasites to overshadow the highways of commerce with their +strongholds and to clog them with their toll-gates. They know little about +producing, about manufacturing, about distributing, about any process of +industry. Their skill is in temptation, in trickery and in terror. + +On that day, however, I sided--honestly, as I thought--with Roebuck. What +I saw and heard increased my admiration of the man, my already profound +respect for his master mind. And when, just after Walters went out, he +leaned back in his chair and sat silent with closed eyes and moving lips, +I--yes, I, Matt Blacklock, "Black Matt," as they call me--was awed in the +presence of this great and good man at prayer! + +How he and that God of his must have laughed at me! So infatuated was I +that, clear as it is that he'd never have let me be present at such a scene +without a strong ulterior motive, not until he himself long afterward +made it impossible for me to deceive myself did I penetrate to his real +purpose--that he wished to fill me with a prudent dread and fear of him, +with a sense of the absoluteness of his power and of the hopelessness of +trying to combat it. But at the time I thought--imbecile that my vanity +had made me--at the time I thought he had let me be present because he +genuinely liked, admired and trusted me! + +Is it not amazing that one who could fall into such colossal blunders +should survive to tell of them? I would not have survived had not Roebuck +and his crowd been at the same time making an even more colossal +misestimate of me than I was making of them. My attack of vanity was +violent, but temporary; theirs was equally violent, and chronic and +incurable to boot. + + + + +XII + +ANITA + + +On my first day in long trousers I may have been more ill at ease than I +was that Sunday evening at the Ellerslys'; but I doubt it. + +When I came into their big drawing-room and took a look round at the +assembled guests, I never felt more at home in my life. "Yes," said I +to myself, as Mrs. Ellersly was greeting me and as I noted the friendly +interest in the glances of the women, "this is where I belong. I'm +beginning to come into my own." + +As I look back on it now, I can't refrain from smiling at my own +simplicity--and snobbishness. For, so determined was I to believe what +I was working for was worth while, that I actually fancied there were +upon these in reality ordinary people, ordinary in looks, ordinary in +intelligence, some subtle marks of superiority, that made them at a glance +superior to the common run. This ecstasy of snobbishness deluded me as to +the women only--for, as I looked at the men, I at once felt myself their +superior. They were an inconsequential, patterned lot. I even was better +dressed than any of them, except possibly Mowbray Langdon; and, if he +showed to more advantage than I, it was because of his manner, which, as I +have probably said before, is superior to that of any human being I've ever +seen--man or woman. + +"You are to take Anita in," said Mrs. Ellersly. With a laughable sense that +I was doing myself proud, I crossed the room easily and took my stand in +front of her. She shook hands with me politely enough. Langdon was sitting +beside her; I had interrupted their conversation. + +"Hello, Blacklock!" said Langdon, with a quizzical, satirical smile with +the eyes only. "It seems strange to see you at such peaceful pursuits." +His glance traveled over me critically--and that was the beginning of my +trouble. Presently, he rose, left me alone with her. + +"You know Mr. Langdon?" she said, obviously because she felt she must say +something. + +"Oh, yes," I replied. "We are old friends. What a tremendous swell he +is--really a swell." This with enthusiasm. + +She made no comment. I debated with myself whether to go on talking of +Langdon. I decided against it because all I knew of him had to do with +matters down town--and Monson had impressed it upon me that down town was +taboo in the drawing-room. I rummaged my brain in vain for another and +suitable topic. + +She sat, and I stood--she tranquil and beautiful and cold, I every instant +more miserably self-conscious. When the start for the dining-room was +made I offered her my left arm, though I had carefully planned beforehand +just what I would do. She--without hesitation and, as I know now, out of +sympathy for me in my suffering--was taking my wrong arm, when it flashed +on me like a blinding blow in the face that I ought to be on the other side +of her. I got red, tripped in the far-sprawling train of Mrs. Langdon, tore +it slightly, tried to get to the other side of Miss Ellersly by walking in +front of her, recovered myself somehow, stumbled round behind her, walked +on her train and finally arrived at her left side, conscious in every +red-hot atom of me that I was making a spectacle of myself and that the +whole company was enjoying it. I must have seemed to them an ignorant +boor; in fact, I had been about a great deal among people who knew how to +behave, and had I never given the matter of how to conduct myself on that +particular occasion an instant's thought, I should have got on without the +least trouble. + +It was with a sigh of profound relief that I sank upon the chair between +Miss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon, safe from danger of making "breaks," +so I hoped, for the rest of the evening. But within a very few minutes +I realized that my little misadventure had unnerved me. My hands were +trembling so that I could scarcely lift the soup spoon to my lips, and my +throat had got so far beyond control that I had difficulty in swallowing. +Miss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon were each busy with the man on the other +side of her; I was left to my own reflections, and I was not sure whether +this made me more or less uncomfortable. To add to my torment, I grew +angry, furiously angry, with myself. I looked up and down and across the +big table noted all these self-satisfied people perfectly at their ease; +and I said to myself: "What's the matter with you, Matt? They're only men +and women, and by no means the best specimens of the breed. You've got more +brains than all of 'em put together, probably; is there one of the lot that +could get a job at good wages if thrown on the world? What do you care +what they think of you? It's a damn sight more important what you think of +them; as it won't be many years before you'll hold everything they value, +everything that makes them of consequence, in the hollow of your hand." + +But it was of no use. When Miss Ellersly finally turned her face toward +me to indicate that she would be graciously pleased to listen if I had +anything to communicate, I felt as if I were slowly wilting, felt my throat +contracting into a dry twist. What was the matter with me? Partly, of +course, my own snobbishness, which led me to attach the same importance to +those people that the snobbishness of the small and silly had got them in +the way of attaching to themselves. But the chief cause of my inabilit + was Monson and his lessons. I had thought I was estimating at its proper +value what he was teaching. But so earnest and serious am I by nature, +and so earnest and serious was he about those trivialities that he had +been brought up to regard as the whole of life, that I had unconsciously +absorbed his attitude; I was like a fellow who, after cramming hard for +an examination, finds that all the questions put to him are on things he +hasn't looked at. I had been making an ass of myself, and that evening +I got the first instalment of my sound and just punishment. I who had +prided myself on being ready for anything or anybody, I who had laughed +contemptuously when I read how men and women, presented at European courts, +made fools of themselves--I was made ridiculous by these people who, as I +well know, had nothing to back their pretensions to superiority but a +barefaced bluff. + +Perhaps, had I thought this out at the table, I should have got back to +myself and my normal ease; but I didn't, and that long and terrible dinner +was one long and terrible agony of stage fright. When the ladies withdrew, +the other men drew together, talking of people I did not know and of +things I did not care about--I thought then that they were avoiding me +deliberately as a flock of tame ducks avoids a wild one that some wind has +accidentally blown down among them. I know now that my forbidding aspect +must have been responsible for my isolations, However, I sat alone, +sullenly resisting old Ellersly's constrained efforts to get me into +the conversation, and angrily suspicious that Langdon was enjoying my +discomfiture more than the cigarette he was apparently absorbed in. + +Old Ellersly, growing more and more nervous before my dark and sullen look, +finally seated himself beside me. "I hope you'll stay after the others have +gone," said he. "They'll leave early, and we can have a quiet smoke and +talk." + +All unstrung though I was, I yet had the desperate courage to resolve that +I'd not leave, defeated in the eyes of the one person whose opinion I +really cared about. "Very well," said I, in reply to him. + +He and I did not follow the others to the drawing-room, but turned into +the library adjoining. From where I seated myself I could see part of the +drawing-room--saw the others leaving, saw Langdon lingering, ignoring +the impatient glances of his wife, while he talked on and on with Miss +Ellersly. Her face was full toward me; she was not aware that I was +looking at her, I am sure, for she did not once lift her eyes. As I sat +studying her, everything else was crowded out of my mind. She was indeed +wonderful--too wonderful and fine and fragile, it seemed to me at that +moment, for one so plain and rough as I. "Incredible," thought I, "that she +is the child of such a pair as Ellersly and his wife--but again, has she +any less in common with them than she'd have with any other pair of human +creatures?" Her slender white arms, her slender white shoulders, the bloom +on her skin, the graceful, careless way her hair grew round her forehead +and at the nape of her neck, the rather haughty expression of her small +face softened into sweetness and even tenderness, now that she was talking +at her ease with one whom she regarded as of her own kind--"but he isn't!" +I protested to myself. "Langdon--none of these men--none of these women, +is fit to associate with her. They can't appreciate her. She belongs to me +who can." And I had a mad impulse then and there to seize her and bear her +away--home--to the home she could make for me out of what I would shower +upon her. + +At last Langdon rose. It irritated me to see her color under that +indifferent fascinating smile of his. It irritated me to note that he held +her hand all the time he was saying good-by, and the fact that he held it +as if he'd as lief not be holding it hardly lessened my longing to rush in +and knock him down. What he did was all in the way of perfect good manners, +and would have jarred no one not supersensitive, like me--and like his +wife. I saw that she, too, was frowning. She looked beautiful that evening, +in spite of her too great breadth for her height--her stoutness was not +altogether a defect when she was wearing evening dress. While she seemed +friendly and smiling to Miss Ellersly, I saw, whether others saw it or not, +that she quivered with apprehension at his mildly flirtatious ways. He +acted toward any and every attractive woman as if he were free and were +regarding her as a possibility, and didn't mind if she flattered herself +that he regarded her as a probability. + +In an aimless sort of way Miss Ellersly, after the Langdons had +disappeared, left the drawing-room by the same door. Still aimlessly +wandering, she drifted into the library by the hall door. As I rose, she +lifted her eyes, saw me, and drove away the frown of annoyance which came +over her face like the faintest haze. In fact, it may have existed only in +my imagination. She opened a large, square silver box on the table, took +out a cigarette, lighted it and holding it, with the smoke lazily curling +up from it, between the long slender first and second fingers of her white +hand, stood idly turning the leaves of a magazine. I threw my cigar into +the fireplace. The slight sound as it struck made her jump, and I saw that, +underneath her surface of perfect calm, she was in a nervous state full as +tense as my own. + +"You smoke?" said I. + +"Sometimes," she replied. "It is soothing and distracting. I don't know how +it is with others, but when I smoke, my mind is quite empty." + +"It's a nasty habit--smoking," said I. + +"Do you think so?" said she, with the slightest lift to her tone and her +eyebrows. + +"Especially for a woman," I went on, because I could think of nothing else +to say, and would not, at any cost, let this conversation, so hard to +begin, die out. + +"You are one of those men who have one code for themselves and another for +women," she replied. + +"I'm a man," said I. "All men have the two codes." + +"Not all," said she after a pause. + +"All men of decent ideas," said I with emphasis. + +"Really?" said she, in a tone that irritated me by suggesting that what I +said was both absurd and unimportant. + +"It is the first time I've ever seen a respectable woman smoke," I went on, +powerless to change the subject, though conscious I was getting tedious. +"I've read of such things, but I didn't believe." + +"That is interesting," said she, her tone suggesting the reverse. + +"I've offended you by saying frankly what I think," said I. "Of course, +it's none of my business." + +"Oh, no," replied she carelessly. "I'm not in the least offended. +Prejudices always interest me." + +I saw Ellersly and his wife sitting in the drawing-room, pretending to +talk to each other. I understood that they were leaving me alone with her +deliberately, and I began to suspect she was in the plot. I smiled, and my +courage and self-possession returned as summarily as they had fled. + +"I'm glad of this chance to get better acquainted with you," said I. "I've +wanted it ever since I first saw you." + +As I put this to her directly, she dropped her eyes and murmured something +she probably wished me to think vaguely pleasant. + +"You are the first woman I ever knew," I went on, "with whom it was hard +for me to get on any sort of terms. I suppose it's my fault. I don't know +this game yet. But I'll learn it, if you'll be a little patient; and when I +do, I think I'll be able to keep up my end." + +She looked at me--just looked. I couldn't begin to guess what was going on +in that gracefully-poised head of hers. + +"Will you try to be friends with me?" said I with directness. + +She continued to look at me in that same steady, puzzling way. + +"Will you?" I repeated. + +"I have no choice," said she slowly. + +I flushed. "What does that mean?" I demanded. + +She threw a hurried and, it seemed to me, frightened glance toward the +drawing-room. "I didn't intend to offend you," she said in a low voice. +"You have been such a good friend to papa--I've no right to feel anything +but friendship for you." + +"I'm glad to hear you say that," said I. And I was; for those words of hers +were the first expression of appreciation and gratitude I had ever got from +any member of that family which I was holding up from ruin. I put out my +hand, and she laid hers in it. + +"There isn't anything I wouldn't do to earn your friendship, Miss Anita," I +said, holding her hand tightly, feeling how lifeless it was, yet feeling, +too, as if a flaming torch were being borne through me, were lighting a +fire in every vein. + +The scarlet poured into her face and neck, wave on wave, until I thought +it would never cease to come. She snatched her hand away and from her face +streamed proud resentment. God, how I loved her at that moment! + +"Anita! Mr. Blacklock!" came from the other room, in her mother's voice. +"Come in here and save us old people from boring each other to sleep." + +She turned swiftly and went into the other room, I following. There were a +few minutes of conversation--a monologue by her mother. Then I ceased to +disregard Ellersly's less and less covert yawns, and rose to take leave. I +could not look directly at Anita, but I was seeing that her eyes were fixed +on me, as if by some compulsion, some sinister compulsion. I left in high +spirits. "No matter why or how she looks at you," said I to myself. "All +that is necessary is to get yourself noticed. After that, the rest is easy. +You must keep cool enough always to remember that under this glamour that +intoxicates you, she's a woman, just a woman, waiting for a man." + + + + +XIII + +"UNTIL TO-MORROW" + + +On the following Tuesday afternoon, toward five o'clock, I descended from +my apartment on my way to my brougham. In the entrance hall I met Monson +coming in. + +"Hello, you!" said he. "Slipping away to get married?" + +"No, I'm only making a call," replied I, taking alarm instantly. + +"Oh, is _that_ all?" said he with a sly grin. "It must be a mighty +serious matter." + +"I'm in no hurry," said I. "Come up with me for a few minutes." + +As soon as we were alone in my sitting-room, I demanded: "What's wrong with +me?" + +"Nothing--not a thing," was his answer, in a tone I had a struggle with +myself not to resent. "I've never seen any one quite so grand--top +hat, latest style, long coat ditto, white buckskin waistcoat, +twenty-thousand-dollar pearl in pale blue scarf, white spats, spotless +varnish boots just from the varnishers, cream-colored gloves. You +_will_ make a hit! My eye, I'll bet she won't be able to resist you." + +I began to shed my plumage. "I thought this was the thing when you're +calling on people you hardly know." + +"I should say you'd have to know 'em uncommon well to give 'em such a +treat. Rather!" + +"What shall I wear?" I asked. "You certainly told me the other day that +this was proper." + +"Proper--so it is--too damn proper," was his answer. "That'd be all right +for a bridegroom or a best man or an usher--or perhaps for a wedding guest. +It wouldn't do any particular harm even to call in it, if the people were +used to you. But--" + +"I look dressed up?" + +"Like a fashion plate--like a tailor--like a society actor." + +"What shall I wear?" + +"Oh, just throw yourself together any old way. Business suit's good +enough." + +"But I barely know these people--socially. I never called there," I +objected. + +"Then don't call," he advised. "Send your valet in a cab to leave a card +at the door. Calling has gone clean out--unless a man's got something very +especial in mind. Never show that you're eager. Keep your hand hid." + +"They'd know I had something especial in mind if I called?" + +"Certainly, and if you'd gone in those togs, they'd have assumed you had +come to--to ask the old man for his daughter--or something like that." + +I lost no time in getting back into a business suit. + +A week passed and, just as I was within sight of my limit of patience, +Bromwell Ellersly appeared at my office. "I can't put my hand on the +necessary cash, Mr. Blacklock--at least, not for a few days. Can I count +on your further indulgence?" This in his best exhibit of old-fashioned +courtliness--the "gentleman" through and through, ignorant of anything +useful. + +"Don't let that matter worry you, Ellersly," said I, friendly, for I wanted +to be on a somewhat less business-like basis with that family. "The +market's steady, and will go up before it goes down." + +"Good!" said he. "By the way, you haven't kept your promise to call." + +"I'm a busy man," said I. "You must make my excuses to your wife. But--in +the evenings. Couldn't we get up a little theater-party--Mrs. Ellersly and +your daughter and you and I--Sam, too, if he cares to come?" + +"Delightful!" cried he. + +"Whichever one of the next five evenings you say," I said. "Let me know +by to-morrow morning, will you?" And we talked no more of the neglected +margins; we understood each other. When he left he had negotiated a three +months' loan of twenty thousand dollars. + + * * * * * + +They were so surprised that they couldn't conceal it, when they were +ushered into my apartment on the Wednesday evening they had fixed upon. If +my taste in dress was somewhat too pronounced, my taste in my surroundings +was not. I suppose the same instinct that made me like the music and the +pictures and the books that were the products of superior minds had guided +me right in architecture, decoration and furniture. I know I am one of +those who are born with the instinct for the best. Once Monson got in +the way of free criticism, he indulged himself without stint, after the +customary human fashion; in fact, so free did he become that had I not +feared to frighten him and so bring about the defeat of my purposes, I +should have sat on him hard very soon after we made our bargain. As it was, +I stood his worst impudences without flinching, and partly consoled myself +with the amusement I got out of watching his vanity lead him on into +thinking his knowledge the most vital matter in the world--just as you +sometimes see a waiter or a clerk with the air of sharing the care of the +universe with the Almighty. + +But even Monson could find nothing to criticize either in my apartment +or in my country house. And, by the way, he showed his limitations by +remarking, after he had inspected: "I must say, Blacklock, your architects +and decorators have done well by you." As if a man's surroundings were not +the unfailing index to himself, no matter how much money he spends or how +good architects and the like he hires. As if a man could ever buy good +taste. + +I was pleased out of all proportion to its value by what Ellersly and his +wife looked and said. But, though I watched Miss Ellersly closely, though I +tried to draw from her some comment on my belongings--on my pictures, on my +superb tapestries, on the beautiful carving of my furniture--I got nothing +from her beyond that first look of surprise and pleasure. Her face resumed +its statuelike calm, her eyes did not wander; her lips, like a crimson bow +painted upon her clear, white skin, remained closed. She spoke only when +she was spoken to, and then as briefly as possible. The dinner--and a +mighty good dinner it was--would have been memorable for strain and silence +had not Mrs. Ellersly kept up her incessant chatter. I can't recall a word +she said, but I admired her for being able to talk at all. I knew she was +in the same state as the rest of us, yet she acted perfectly at her ease; +and not until I thought it over afterward did I realize that she had done +all the talking, except answers to her occasional and cleverly-sprinkled +direct questions. + +Ellersly sat opposite me, and I was irritated, and thrown into confusion, +too, every time I lifted my eyes, by the crushed, criminal expression of +his face. He ate and drank hugely--and extremely bad manners it would +have been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted such +quantities at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony he +managed somehow to maintain that hang-dog air--like a thief who has gone +through the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with the +sack of plunder beside him, to gorge himself. + +I looked at Anita several times, each time with a carefully-framed remark +ready; each time I found her gaze on me--and I could say nothing, could +only look away in a sort of panic. Her eyes were strangely variable. I have +seen them of a gray, so pale that it was almost silver--like the steely +light of the snow-line at the edge of the horizon; again, and they were +so that evening, they shone with the deepest, softest blue, and made one +think, as one looked at her, of a fresh violet frozen in a block of clear +ice. + +I sat behind her in the box at the theater. During the first and +second intermissions several men dropped in to speak to her mother and +her--fellows who didn't ever come down town, but I could tell they knew who +I was by the way they ignored me. It exasperated me to a pitch of fury, +that coldly insolent air of theirs--a jerky nod at me without so much as a +glance, and no notice of me when they were leaving _my_ box beyond a +faint, supercilious smile as they passed with eyes straight ahead. I knew +what it meant, what they were thinking--that the "Bucket-Shop King," as the +newspapers had dubbed me, was trying to use old Ellersly's necessities as a +"jimmy" and "break into society." When the curtain went down for the last +intermission, two young men appeared; I did not get up as I had before, but +stuck to my seat--I had reached that point at which courtesy has become +cowardice. + +They craned and strained at her round me and over me, presently gave up +and retired, disguising their anger as contempt for the bad manners of a +bounder. But that disturbed me not a ripple, the more as I was delighting +in a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with these +young men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant and +only politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice might +thicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about women to know +that, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, she +is also the most constant. "Once she thaws toward me!" I said to myself. + +When the young men had gone, I leaned forward until my head was close to +hers, to her hair--fine, soft, abundant, electric hair. Like the infatuated +fool that I was, I tore out all the pigeon-holes of my brain in search of +something to say to her, something that would start her to thinking well +of me. She must have felt my breath upon her neck, for she moved away +slightly, and it seemed to me a shiver visibly passed over that wonderful +white skin of hers. + +I drew back and involuntarily said, "Beg pardon." I glanced at her mother +and it was my turn to shudder. I can't hope to give an accurate impression +of that stony, mercenary, mean face. There are looks that paint upon the +human countenance the whole of a life, as a flash of lightning paints upon +the blackness of the night miles on miles of landscape. That look of Mrs. +Ellersly's--stern disapproval at her daughter, stern command that she be +more civil, that she unbend--showed me the old woman's soul. And I say that +no old harpy presiding over a dive is more full of the venom of the hideous +calculations of the market for flesh and blood than is a woman whose life +is wrapped up in wealth and show. + +"If you wish it," I said, on impulse, to Miss Ellersly in a low voice, "I +shall never try to see you again." + +I could feel rather than see the blood suddenly beating in her skin, and +there was in her voice a nervousness very like fright as she answered: "I'm +sure mama and I shall be glad to see you whenever you come." + +"You?" I persisted. + +"Yes," she said, after a brief hesitation. + +"Glad?" I persisted. + +She smiled--the faintest change in the perfect curve of her lips. "You are +very persistent, aren't you?" + +"Very," I answered. "That is why I have always got whatever I wanted." + +"I admire it," said she. + +"No, you don't," I replied. "You think it is vulgar, and you think I am +vulgar because I have that quality--that and some others." + +She did not contradict me. + +"Well, I _am_ vulgar--from your standpoint," I went on. "I have +purposes and passions. And I pursue them. For instance, you." + +"I?" she said tranquilly. + +"You," I repeated. "I made up my mind the first day I saw you that I'd make +you like me. And--you will." + +"That is very flattering," said she. "And a little terrifying. For"--she +faltered, then went bravely on--"I suppose there isn't anything you'd stop +at in order to gain your end." + +"Nothing," said I, and I compelled her to meet my gaze. + +She drew a long breath, and I thought there was a sob in it--like a +frightened child. + +"But I repeat," I went on, "that if you wish it, I shall never try to see +you again. Do you wish it?" + +"I--don't--know," she answered slowly. "I think--not." + +As she spoke the last word, she lifted her eyes to mine with a look of +forced friendliness in them that I'd rather not have seen there. I wished +to be blind to her defects, to the stains and smutches with which her +surroundings must have sullied her. And that friendly look seemed to me +an unmistakable hypocrisy in obedience to her mother. However, it had the +effect of bringing her nearer to my own earthy level, of putting me at ease +with her; and for the few remaining minutes we talked freely, I indifferent +whether my manners and conversation were correct. As I helped her into +their carriage, I pressed her arm slightly, and said in a voice for her +only, "Until to-morrow." + + + + +XIV + +FRESH AIR IN A GREENHOUSE + + +At five the next day I rang the Ellerslys' bell, was taken through the +drawing-room into that same library. The curtains over the double doorway +between the two rooms were almost drawn. She presently entered from the +hall. I admired the picture she made in the doorway--her big hat, her +embroidered dress of white cloth, and that small, sweet, cold face of hers. +And as I looked, I knew that nothing, nothing--no, not even her wish, her +command--could stop me from trying to make her my own. That resolve must +have shown in my face--it or the passion that inspired it--for she paused +and paled. + +"What is it?" I asked. "Are you afraid of me?" + +She came forward proudly, a fine scorn in her eyes. "No," she said. "But if +you knew, you might be afraid of me." + +"I am," I confessed. "I am afraid of you because you inspire in me a +feeling that is beyond my control. I've committed many follies in my +life--I have moods in which it amuses me to defy fate. But those follies +have always been of my own willing. You"--I laughed--"you are a folly for +me. But one that compels me." + +She smiled--not discouragingly--and seated herself on a tiny sofa in the +corner, a curiously impregnable intrenchment, as I noted--for my impulse +was to carry her by storm. I was astonished at my own audacity; I was +wondering where my fear of her had gone, my awe of her superior fineness +and breeding. "Mama will be down in a few minutes," she said. + +"I didn't come to see your mother," replied I. "I came to see you." + +She flushed, then froze--and I thought I had once more "got upon" her +nerves with my rude directness. How eagerly sensitive our nerves are to bad +impressions of one we don't like, and how coarsely insensible to bad +impressions of one we do like! + +[Illustration] + +"I see I've offended again, as usual," said I. "You attach so much +importance to petty little dancing-master tricks and caperings. You +live--always have lived--in an artificial atmosphere. Real things act on +you like fresh air on a hothouse flower." + +"You are--fresh air?" she inquired, with laughing sarcasm. + +"I am that," retorted I. "And good for you--as you'll find when you get +used to me." + +I heard voices in the next room--her mother's and some man's. We waited +until it was evident we were not to be disturbed. As I realized that fact +and surmised its meaning, I looked triumphantly at her. She drew further +back into her corner, and the almost stern firmness of her contour told me +she had set her teeth. + +"I see you are nerving yourself," said I with a laugh. "You are perfectly +certain I am going to propose to you." + +She flamed scarlet and half-started up. + +"Your mother--in the next room--expects it, too," I went on, laughing even +more disagreeably. "Your parents need money--they have decided to sell you, +their only large income-producing asset. And I am willing to buy. What do +you say?" + +I was blocking her way out of the room. She was standing, her breath coming +fast, her eyes blazing. "You are--_frightful_!" she exclaimed in a low +voice. + +"Because I am frank, because I am honest? Because I want to put things on +a sound basis? I suppose, if I came lying and pretending, and let you lie +and pretend, and let your parents and Sam lie and pretend, you would find +me--almost tolerable. Well, I'm not that kind. When there's no especial +reason one way or the other, I'm willing to smirk and grimace and dodder +and drivel, like the rest of your friends, those ladies and gentlemen. But +when there's business to be transacted, I am business-like. Let's not begin +with your thinking you are deceiving me, and so hating me and despising me +and trying to keep up the deception. Let's begin right." + +She was listening; she was no longer longing to fly from the room; she was +curious. I knew I had scored. + +"In any event," I continued, "you would have married for money. You've been +brought up to it, like all these girls of your set. You'd be miserable +without luxury. If you had your choice between love without luxury and +luxury without love, it'd be as easy to foretell which you'd do as to +foretell how a starving poet would choose between a loaf of bread and a +volume of poems. You may love love; but you love life--your kind of +life--better!" + +She lowered her head. "It is true," she said. "It is low and vile, but it +is true." + +"Your parents need money--" I began. + +She stopped me with a gesture. "Don't blame them," she pleaded. "I am more +guilty than they." + +I was proud of her as she made that confession. "You have the making of a +real woman in you," said I. "I should have wanted you even if you hadn't. +But what I now see makes what I thought a folly of mine look more like +wisdom." + +"I must warn you," she said, and now she was looking directly at me, "I +shall never love you." + +"Never is a long time," replied I. "I'm old enough to be cynical about +prophecy." + +"I shall never love you," she repeated. "For many reasons you wouldn't +understand. For one you will understand." + +"I understand the 'many reasons' you say are beyond me," said I. "For, +dear young lady, under this coarse exterior I assure you there's hidden +a rather sharp outlook on human nature--and--well, nerves that respond +to the faintest changes in you as do mine can't be altogether without +sensitiveness. What's the other reason--_the_ reason? That you think +you love some one else?" + +"Thank you for saying it for me," she replied. + +You can't imagine how pleased I was at having earned her gratitude, even +in so little a matter. "I have thought of that," said I. "It is of no +consequence." + +"But you don't understand," she pleaded earnestly. + +"On the contrary, I understand perfectly," I assured her. "And the reason I +am not disturbed is--you are here, you are not with him." + +She lowered her head so that I had no view of her face. + +"You and he do not marry," I went on, "because you are both poor?" + +"No," she replied. + +"Because he does not care for you?" + +"No--not that," she said. + +"Because you thought he hadn't enough for two?" + +A long pause, then--very faintly: "No--not that." + +"Then it must be because he hasn't as much money as he'd like, and must +find a girl who'll bring him--what he _most_ wants." + +She was silent. + +"That is, while he loves you dearly, he loves money more. And he's willing +to see you go to another man, be the wife of another man, be--everything to +another man." I laughed. "I'll take my chances against love of that sort." + +"You don't understand," she murmured. "You don't realize--there are many +things that mean nothing to you and that mean--oh, so much to people +brought up as we are." + +"Nonsense!" said I. "What do you mean by 'we'? Nature has been bringing +us up for a thousand thousand years. A few years of silly false training +doesn't undo her work. If you and he had cared for each other, you wouldn't +be here, apologizing for his selfish vanity." + +"No matter about him," she cried impatiently, lifting her head haughtily. +"The point is, I love him--and always shall. I warn you." + +"And I take you at my own risk?" + +Her look answered "Yes!" + +"Well,"--and I took her hand--"then, we are engaged." + +Her whole body grew tense, and her hand chilled as it lay in mine. +"Don't--please don't," I said gently. "I'm not so bad as all that. If you +will be as generous with me as I shall be with you, neither of us will ever +regret this." + +There were tears on her cheeks as I slowly released her hand. + +"I shall ask nothing of you that you are not ready freely to give," I said. + +Impulsively she stood and put out her hand, and the eyes she lifted to mine +were shining and friendly. I caught her in my arms and kissed her--not once +but many times. And it was not until the chill of her ice-like face had +cooled me that I released her, drew back red and ashamed and stammering +apologies. But her impulse of friendliness had been killed; she once more, +as I saw only too plainly, felt for me that sense of repulsion, felt for +herself that sense of self-degradation. + +"I _can not_ marry you!" she muttered. + +"You can--and will--and must," I cried, infuriated by her look. + +There was a long silence. I could easily guess what was being fought out in +her mind. At last she slowly drew herself up. "I can not refuse," she said, +and her eyes sparkled with defiance that had hate in it. "You have the +power to compel me. Use it, like the brute you refuse to let me forget that +you are." She looked so young, so beautiful, so angry--and so tempting. + +"So I shall!" I answered. "Children have to be taught what is good for +them. Call in your mother, and we'll tell her the news." + +Instead, she went into the next room. I followed, saw Mrs. Ellersly seated +at the tea-table in the corner farthest from the library where her daughter +and I had been negotiating. She was reading a letter, holding her lorgnon +up to her painted eyes. + +"Won't you give us tea, mother?" said Anita, on her surface not a trace of +the cyclone that must still have been raging hi her. + +"Congratulate me, Mrs. Ellersly," said I. "Your daughter has consented to +marry me." + +Instead of speaking, Mrs. Ellersly began to cry--real tears. And for a +moment I thought there was a real heart inside of her somewhere. But when +she spoke, that delusion vanished. + +"You must forgive me, Mr. Blacklock," she said in her hard, smooth, politic +voice. "It is the shock of realizing I'm about to lose my daughter." And +I knew that her tears were from joy and relief--Anita had "come up to the +scratch;" the hideous menace of "genteel poverty" had been averted. + +"Do give us tea, mama," said Anita. Her cold, sarcastic tone cut my nerves +and her mother's like a razor blade. I looked sharply at her, and wondered +whether I was not making a bargain vastly different from that my passion +was picturing. + + + + +XV + +SOME STRANGE LAPSES OF A LOVER + + +But before there was time for me to get a distinct impression, that ugly +shape of cynicism had disappeared. + +"It was a shadow I myself cast upon her," I assured myself; and once more +she seemed to me like a clear, calm lake of melted snow from the mountains. +"I can see to the pure white sand of the very bottom," thought I. Mystery +there was, but only the mystery of wonder at the apparition of such beauty +and purity in such a world as mine. True, from time to time, there showed +at the surface or vaguely outlined in the depths, forms strangely out of +place in those unsullied waters. But I either refused to see or refused to +trust my senses. I had a fixed ideal of what a woman should be; this girl +embodied that ideal. + +"If you'd only give up your cigarettes," I remember saying to her when we +were a little better acquainted, "you'd be perfect." + +She made an impatient gesture. "Don't!" she commanded almost angrily. "You +make me feel like a hypocrite. You tempt me to be a hypocrite. Why not be +content with woman as she is--a human being? And--how could I--any woman +not an idiot--be alive for twenty-five years without learning--a thing or +two? Why should any man want it?" + +"Because to know is to be spattered and stained," said I. "I get enough of +people who know, down-town. Up-town--I want a change of air. Of course, +you think you know the world, but you haven't the remotest conception of +what it's really like. Sometimes when I'm with you, I begin to feel mean +and--and unclean. And the feeling grows on me until it's all I can do to +restrain myself from rushing away." + +She looked at me critically. + +"You've never had much to do with women, have you?" she finally said slowly +in a musing tone. + +"I wish that were true--almost," replied I, on my mettle as a man, and +resisting not without effort the impulse to make some vague +"confessions"--boastings disguised as penitential admissions--after the +customary masculine fashion. + +She smiled--and one of those disquieting shapes seemed to me to be floating +lazily and repellently downward, out of sight. "A man and a woman can be a +great deal to each other, I believe," said she; "can be--married, and all +that--and remain as strange to each other as if they had never met--more +hopelessly strangers." + +"There's always a sort of mystery," I conceded. "I suppose that's one of +the things that keep married people interested." + +She shrugged her shoulders--she was in evening dress, I recall, and there +was on her white skin that intense, transparent, bluish tinge one sees on +the new snow when the sun comes out. + +"Mystery!" she said impatiently. "There's no mystery except what we +ourselves make. It's useless--perfectly useless," she went on absently. +"You're the sort of man who, if a woman cared for him, or even showed +friendship for him by being frank and human and natural with him, he'd +punish her for it by--by despising her." + +I smiled, much as one smiles at the efforts of a precocious child to prove +that it is a Methuselah in experience. + +"If you weren't like an angel in comparison with the others I've known," +said I, "do you suppose I could care for you as I do?" + +I saw my remark irritated her, and I fancied it was her vanity that was +offended by my disbelief in her knowledge of life. I hadn't a suspicion +that I had hurt and alienated her by slamming in her very face the door of +friendship and frankness her honesty was forcing her to try to open for me. + +In my stupidity of imagining her not human like the other women and the +men I had known, but a creature apart and in a class apart, I stood day +after day gaping at that very door, and wondering how I could open it, +how penetrate even to the courtyard of that vestal citadel. So long as my +old-fashioned belief that good women were more than human and bad women +less than human had influenced me only to a sharper lookout in dealing +with the one species of woman I then came in contact with, no harm to me +resulted, but on the contrary good--whoever got into trouble through +walking the world with sword and sword arm free? But when, under the spell +of Anita Ellersly, I dragged the "superhuman goodness" part of my theory +down out of the clouds and made it my guardian and guide--really, it's a +miracle that I escaped from the pit into which that lunacy pitched me +headlong. I was not content with idealizing only her; I went on to seeing +good, and only good, in everybody! The millennium was at hand; all Wall +Street was my friend; whatever I wanted would happen. And when Roebuck, +with an air like a benediction from a bishop backed by a cathedral organ +and full choir, gave me the tip to buy coal stocks, I canonized him on the +spot. Never did a Jersey "jay" in Sunday clothes and tallowed boots respond +to a bunco steerer's greeting with a gladder smile than mine to that pious +old past-master of craft. + +I will say, in justice to myself, though it is also in excuse, that if I +had known him intimately a few years earlier, I should have found it all +but impossible to fool myself. For he had not long been in a position where +he could keep wholly detached from the crimes committed for his benefit +and by his order, and where he could disclaim responsibility and even +knowledge. The great lawyers of the country have been most ingenious in +developing corporate law in the direction of making the corporation a +complete and secure shield between the beneficiary of a crime and its +consequences; but before a great financier can use this shield perfectly, +he must build up a system--he must find lieutenants with the necessary +coolness, courage and cunning; he must teach them to understand his hints; +he must educate them, not to point out to him the disagreeable things +involved in his orders, but to execute unquestioningly, to efface +completely the trail between him and them, whether or not they succeed in +covering the roundabout and faint trail between themselves and the tools +that nominally commit the crimes. + +As nearly as I can get at it, when Roebuck was luring me into National Coal +he had not for nine years been open to attack, but had so far hedged +himself in that, had his closest lieutenants been trapped and frightened +into "squealing," he would not have been involved; without fear of exposure +and with a clear conscience he could--and would!--have joined in the +denunciation of the man who had been caught, and could--and would!--have +helped send him to the penitentiary or to the scaffold. With the security +of an honest man and the serenity of a Christian he planned his colossal +thefts and reaped their benefits; and whenever he was accused, he could +have explained everything, could have got his accuser's sympathy and +admiration. I say, could have explained; but he would not. Early in his +career, he had learned the first principle of successful crime--silence. No +matter what the provocation or the seeming advantage, he uttered only a few +generous general phrases, such as "those misguided men," or "the Master +teaches us to bear with meekness the calumnies of the wicked," or "let him +that is without sin cast the first stone." As to the crime itself--silence, +and the dividends. + +A great man, Roebuck! I doff my hat to him. Of all the dealers in stolen +goods under police protection, who so shrewd as he? + +Wilmot was the instrument he employed to put the coal industry into +condition for "reorganization." He bought control of one of the coal +railroads and made Wilmot president of it. Wilmot, taught by twenty years +of his service, knew what was expected of him, and proceeded to do it. He +put in a "loyal" general freight agent who also needed no instructions, +but busied himself at destroying his own and all the other coal roads by a +system of secret rebates and rate cuttings. As the other roads, one by one, +descended toward bankruptcy, Roebuck bought the comparatively small blocks +of stock necessary to give him control of them. When he had power over +enough of them to establish a partial monopoly of transportation in and out +of the coal districts, he was ready for his lieutenant to attack the mining +properties. Probably his orders to Wilmot were nothing more definite or +less innocent than: "Wilmot, my boy, don't you think you and I and some +others of our friends ought to buy some of those mines, if they come on the +market at a fair price? Let me know when you hear of any attractive +investments of that sort." + +That would have been quite enough to "tip it off" to Wilmot that the time +had come for reaching out from control of railway to control of mine. He +lost no time; he easily forced one mining property after another into a +position where its owners were glad--were eager--to sell all or part of the +wreck of it "at a fair price" to him and Roebuck and "our friends." It was +as the result of one of these moves that the great Manasquale mines were +so hemmed in by ruinous freight rates, by strike troubles, by floods from +broken machinery and mysteriously leaky dams, that I was able to buy them +"at a fair price"--that is, at less than one-fifth their value. But at the +time--and for a long time afterward--I did not know, on my honor did not +suspect, what was the cause, the sole cause, of the change of the coal +region from a place of peaceful industry, content with fair profits, to an +industrial chaos with ruin impending. + +Once the railways and mining companies were all on the verge of bankruptcy, +Roebuck and his "friends" were ready to buy, here control for purposes of +speculation, there ownership for purposes of permanent investment. This +is what is known as the reorganizing stage. The processes of high finance +are very simple--first, buy the comparatively small holdings necessary +to create confusion and disaster; second, create confusion and disaster, +buying up more and more wreckage; third, reorganize; fourth, offer the +new stocks and bonds to the public with a mighty blare of trumpets which +produces a boom market; fifth, unload on the public, pass dividends, issue +unfavorable statements, depress prices, buy back cheap what you have sold +dear. Repeat ad infinitum, for the law is for the laughter of the strong, +and the public is an eager ass. To keep up the fiction of "respectability," +the inside ring divides into two parties for its campaigns--one party to +break down, the other to build up. One takes the profits from destruction +and departs, perhaps to construct elsewhere; the other takes the profits +from construction and departs, perhaps to destroy elsewhere. As their +collusion is merely tacit, no conscience need twitch. I must add that, at +the time of which I am writing, I did not realize the existence of this +conspiracy. I knew, of course, that many lawless and savage things were +done, that there were rascals among the high financiers, and that almost +all financiers now and then did things that were more or less rascally; but +I did not know, did not suspect, that high finance was through and through +brigandage, and that the high financier, by long and unmolested practice of +brigandage, had come to look on it as legitimate, lawful business, and on +laws forbidding or hampering it as outrageous, socialistic, anarchistic, +"attacks upon the social order!" + +I was sufficiently infected with the spirit of the financier, I frankly +confess, to look on the public as a sort of cow to milk and send out to +grass that it might get itself ready to be driven in and milked again. Does +not the cow produce milk not for her own use but for the use of him who +looks after her, provides her with pasturage and shelter and saves her from +the calamities in which her lack of foresight and of other intelligence +would involve her, were she not looked after? And is not the fact that the +public--beg pardon, the cow--meekly and even cheerfully submits to the +milking proof that God intended her to be the servant of the Roebucks--beg +pardon again, of man? + +Plausible, isn't it? + +Roebuck had given me the impression that it would be six months, at least, +before what I was in those fatuous days thinking of as "_our_" plan +for "putting the coal industry on a sound business basis" would be ready +for the public. So, when he sent for me shortly after I became engaged to +Miss Ellersly, and said: "Melville will publish the plan on the first of +next month and will open the subscription books on the third--a Thursday," +I was taken by surprise and was anything but pleased. His words meant that, +if I wished to make a great fortune, now was the time to buy coal stocks, +and buy heavily--for on the very day of the publication of the plan every +coal stock would surely soar. Buy I must; not to buy was to throw away a +fortune. Yet how could I buy when I was gambling in Textile up to my limit +of safety, if not beyond? + +I did not dare confess to Roebuck what I was doing in Textile. He was +bitterly opposed to stock gambling, denouncing it as both immoral and +unbusinesslike. No gambling for him! When his business sagacity and +foresight(?) informed him a certain stock was going to be worth a great +deal more than it was then quoted at, he would buy outright in large +quantities; when that same sagacity and foresight of the fellow who has +himself marked the cards warned him that a stock was about to fall, he sold +outright. But gamble--never! And I felt that, if he should learn that I had +staked a large part of my entire fortune on a single gambling operation, he +would straightway cut me off from his confidence, would look on me as too +deeply tainted by my long career as a "bucket-shop" man to be worthy of +full rank and power as a financier. Financiers do not gamble. Their only +vice is grand larceny. + +All this was flashing through my mind while I was thanking him. + +"I am glad to have such a long forewarning," I was saying. "Can I be of use +to you? You know my machinery is perfect--I can buy anything and in any +quantity without starting rumors and drawing the crowd." + +"No thank you, Matthew," was his answer. "I have all of those stocks I +wish--at present." + +Whether it is peculiar to me, I don't know--probably not--but my memory +is so constituted that it takes an indelible and complete impression of +whatever is sent to it by my eyes and ears; and just as by looking closely +you can find in a photographic plate a hundred details that escape your +glance, so on those memory plates of mine I often find long afterward many +and many a detail that escaped me when my eyes and ears were taking the +impression. On my memory plate of that moment in my interview with Roebuck, +I find details so significant that my failing to note them at the time +shows how unfit I then was to guard my interests. For instance, I find +that just before he spoke those words declining my assistance and implying +that he had already increased his holdings, he opened and closed his hands +several times, finally closed and clinched them--a sure sign of energetic +nervous action, and in that particular instance a sign of deception, +because there was no energy in his remark and no reason for energy. I am +not superstitious, but I believe in palmistry to a certain extent. Even +more than the face are the hands a sensitive recorder of what is passing in +the mind. + +But I was then too intent upon my dilemma carefully to study a man who had +already lulled me into absolute confidence in him. I left him as soon as +he would let me go. His last words were, "No gambling, Matthew! No abuse +of the opportunity God is giving us. Be content with the just profits from +investment. I have seen gamblers come and go, many of them able men--very +able men. But they have melted away, and where are they? And I have +remained and have increased, blessed be God who has saved me from the +temptations to try to reap where I had not sown! I feel that I can trust +you. You began as a speculator, but success has steadied you, and you have +put yourself on the firm ground where we see the solid men into whose hands +God has given the development of the abounding resources of this beloved +country of ours." + +Do you wonder that I went away with a heart full of shame for the gambling +projects my head was planning upon the information that good man had given +me? + +I shut myself in my private office for several hours of hard thinking--as +I can now see, the first real attention I had given my business in two +months. It soon became clear enough that my Textile plunge was a folly; +but it was too late to retrace. The only question was, could and should I +assume additional burdens? I looked at the National Coal problem from +every standpoint--so I thought. And I could see no possible risk. Did not +Roebuck's statement make it certain as sunrise that, as soon as the +reorganization was announced, all coal stocks would rise? Yes, I should +be risking nothing; I could with absolute safety stake my credit; to make +contracts to buy coal stocks at present prices for future delivery was no +more of a gamble than depositing cash in the United States Treasury. + +"You've gone back to gambling lately, Matt," said I to myself. "You've +been on a bender, with your head afire. You must get out of this Textile +business as soon as possible. But it's good sound sense to plunge on +the coal stocks. In fact, your profits there would save you if by some +mischance Textile should rise instead of fall. Acting on Roebuck's tip +isn't gambling, it's insurance." + +I emerged to issue orders that soon threw into the National Coal venture +all I had not staked on a falling market for Textiles. I was not +content--as the pious gambling-hater, Roebuck, had begged me to be--with +buying only what stock I could pay for; I went plunging on, contracting for +many times the amount I could have bought outright. + +The next time I saw Langdon I was full of enthusiasm for Roebuck. I can see +his smile as he listened. + +"I had no idea you were an expert on the trumpets of praise, Blacklock," +said he finally. "A very showy accomplishment," he added, "but rather +dangerous, don't you think? The player may become enchanted by his own +music." + +"I try to look on the bright side of things." said I, "even of human +nature." + +"Since when?" drawled he. + +I laughed--a good, hearty laugh, for this shy reference to my affair of the +heart tickled me. I enjoyed to the full only in long retrospect the look he +gave me. + +"As soon as a man falls in love," said he, "trustees should be appointed to +take charge of his estate." + +"You're wrong there, old man," I replied. "I've never worked harder or with +a clearer head than since I learned that there are"--I hesitated, and ended +lamely--"other things in life." + +Langdon's handsome face suddenly darkened, and I thought I saw in his eyes +a look of savage pain. "I envy you," said he with an effort at his wonted +lightness and cynicism. But that look touched my heart; I talked no more of +my own happiness. To do so, I felt would be like bringing laughter into the +house of grief. + + + + +XVI + +TRAPPED AND TRIMMED + + +There are two kinds of dangerous temptations--those that tempt us, and +those that don't. Those that don't, give us a false notion of our resisting +power, and so make us easy victims to the others. I thought I knew myself +pretty thoroughly, and I believed there was nothing that could tempt me +to neglect my business. With this delusion of my strength firmly in mind, +when Anita became a temptation to neglect business, I said to myself: "To +go up-town during business hours for long lunches, to spend the mornings +selecting flowers and presents for her--these things _look_ like +neglect of business, and would be so in some men. But _I_ couldn't +neglect business. I do them because my affairs are so well ordered that a +few hours of absence now and then make no difference--probably send me back +fresher and clearer." + +When I left the office at half-past twelve on that fateful Wednesday in +June, my business was never in better shape. Textile Common had dropped a +point and a quarter in two days--evidently it was at last on its way slowly +down toward where I could free myself and take profits. As for the Coal +enterprise nothing could possibly happen to disturb it; I was all ready for +the first of July announcement and boom. Never did I have a lighter heart +than when I joined Anita and her friends at Sherry's. It seemed to me her +friendliness was less perfunctory, less a matter of appearances. And the +sun was bright, the air delicious, my health perfect. It took all the +strength of all the straps Monson had put on my natural spirits to keep me +from being exuberant. + +I had fully intended to be back at my office half an hour before the +Exchange closed--this in addition to the obvious precaution of leaving +orders that they were to telephone me if anything should occur about which +they had the least doubt. But so comfortable did my vanity make me that +I forgot to look at my watch until a quarter to three. I had a momentary +qualm; then, reassured, I asked Anita to take a walk with me. Before we set +out I telephoned my right-hand man and partner, Ball. As I had thought, +everything was quiet; the Exchange was closing with Textile sluggish and +down a quarter. Anita and I took a car to the park. + +As we strolled about there, it seemed to me I was making more headway with +her than in all the times I had seen her since we became engaged. At each +meeting I had had to begin at the beginning once more, almost as if we +had never met; for I found that she had in the meanwhile taken on all, or +almost all, her original reserve. It was as if she forgot me the instant I +left her--not very flattering, that! + +"You accuse me of refusing to get acquainted with you," said I, "of +refusing to see that you're a different person from what I imagine. But how +about you? Why do you still stick to your first notion of me? Whatever I am +or am not, I'm not the person you condemned on sight." + +"You _have_ changed," she conceded. "The way you dress--and sometimes +the way you act. Or, is it because I'm getting used to you?" + +"No--it's--" I began, but stopped there. Some day I would confess about +Monson, but not yet. Also, I hoped the change wasn't altogether due to +Monson and the dancing-master and my imitation of the tricks of speech and +manner of the people in her set. + +She did not notice my abrupt halt. Indeed, I often caught her at not +listening to me. I saw that she wasn't listening now. + +"You didn't hear what I said," I accused somewhat sharply, for I was +irritated--as who would not have been? + +She started, gave me that hurried, apologetic look that was bitterer to me +than the most savage insult would have been. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. "We were talking of--of changes, weren't +we?" + +"We were talking of _me_" I answered. "Of the subject that interests +you not at all." + +She looked at me in a forlorn sort of way that softened my irritation with +sympathy. "I've told you how it is with me," she said. "I do my best to +please you. I--" + +"Damn your best!" I cried. "Don't try to please _me_. Be yourself. I'm +no slave-driver. I don't have to be conciliated. Can't you ever see that +I'm not your tyrant? Do I treat you as any other man would feel he had the +right to treat the girl who had engaged herself to him? Do I ever thrust my +feelings or wishes--or--longings on you? And do you think repression easy +for a man of my temperament?" + +"You have been very good," she said humbly. + +"Don't you ever say that to me again," I half commanded, half pleaded. "I +won't have you always putting me in the position of a kind and indulgent +master." + +She halted and faced me. + +"Why do you want me, anyhow?" she cried. Then she noticed several loungers +on a bench staring at us and grinning; she flushed and walked on. + +"I don't know," said I. "Because I'm a fool, probably. My common sense +tells me I can't hope to break through that shell of self-complacence +you've been cased in by your family and your associates. Sometimes I think +I'm mistaken in you, think there isn't any real, human blood left in your +veins, that you're like the rest of them--a human body whose heart and mind +have been taken out and a machine substituted--a machine that can say and +do only a narrow little range of conventional things--like one of those +French dolls." + +"You mustn't blame me for that," she said gently. "I realize it, too--and +I'm ashamed of it. But--if you could know how I've been educated. They've +treated me as the Flathead Indian women treat their babies--keep their +skulls in a press--isn't that it?--until their heads and brains grow of +the Flathead pattern. Only, somehow, in my case--the process wasn't quite +complete. And so, instead of being contented like the other Flathead girls, +I'm--almost a rebel, at times. I'm neither the one thing nor the other--not +natural and not Flathead, not enough natural to grow away from Flathead, +not enough Flathead to get rid of the natural." + +"I take back what I said about not knowing why I--I want you, Anita," I +said. "I do know why--and--well, as I told you before, you'll never regret +marrying me." + +"If you won't misunderstand me," she answered, "I'll confess to you my +instinct has been telling me that, too. I'm not so bad as you must think. +I did bargain to sell myself, but I'd have thrown up the bargain if you +had been as--as you seemed at first." For some reason--perhaps it was her +dress, or hat--she was looking particularly girlish that day, and her +skin was even more transparent than usual. "You're different from the men +I've been used to all my life," she went on, and--smiling in a friendly +way--"you often give me a terrifying sense of your being a--a wild man on +his good behavior. But I've come to feel that you're generous and unselfish +and that you'll be kind to me--won't you? And I must make a life for +myself--I must--I must! Oh, I can't explain to you, but--" She turned her +little head toward me, and I was looking into those eyes that the flowers +were like. + +I thought she meant her home life. "You needn't tell me," I said, and I'll +have to confess my voice was anything but steady. "And, I repeat, you'll +never regret." + +She evidently feared that she had said too much, for she lapsed into +silence, and when I tried to resume the subject of ourselves, she answered +me with painful constraint. I respected her nervousness and soon began to +talk of things not so personal to us. Again, my mistake of treating her as +if she were marked "Fragile. Handle with care." I know now that she, like +all women, had the plain, tough, durable human fibre under that exterior +of delicacy and fragility, and that my overconsideration caused her to +exaggerate to herself her own preposterous notions of her superior +fineness. We walked for an hour, talking--with less constraint and more +friendliness than ever before, and when I left her I, for the first time, +felt that I had left a good impression. + +When I entered my offices, I, from force of habit, mechanically went direct +to the ticker--and dropped all in an instant from the pinnacle of Heaven +into a boiling inferno. For the ticker was just spelling out these words: +"Mowbray Langdon, president of the Textile Association, sailed unexpectedly +on the _Kaiser Wilhelm_ at noon. A two per cent. raise of the dividend +rate of Textile Common, from the present four per cent, to six, has been +determined upon." + +And I had staked up to, perhaps beyond, my limit of safety that Textile +would fall! + +Ball was watching narrowly for some sign that the news was as bad as he +feared. But it cost me no effort to keep my face expressionless; I was like +a man who has been killed by lightning and lies dead with the look on his +face that he had just before the bolt struck him. + +"Why didn't you tell me this," said I to Ball, "when I had you on the +'phone?" My tone was quiet enough, but the very question ought to have +shown him that my brain was like a schooner in a cyclone. + +"We heard it just after you rang off," was his reply. "We've been trying +to get you ever since. I've gone everywhere after Textile stock. Very few +will sell, or even lend, and they ask--the best price was ten points above +to-day's closing. A strong tip's out that Textiles are to be rocketed." + +Ten points up already--on the mere rumor! Already ten dollars to pay on +every share I was "short"--and I short more than two hundred thousand! I +felt the claws of the fiend Ruin sink into the flesh of my shoulders. "Ball +doesn't know how I'm fixed," I remember I thought, "and he mustn't know." + +I lit a cigar with a steady hand and waited for Joe's next words. + +"I went to see Jenkins at once," he went on. Jenkins was then first +vice-president of the Textile Trust. "He's all cut up because the news got +out--says Langdon and he were the only ones who knew, so he supposed--says +the announcement wasn't to have been made for a month--not till Langdon +returned. He has had to confirm it, though. That was the only way to free +his crowd from suspicion of intending to rig the market." + +"All right," said I. + +"Have you seen the afternoon paper?" he asked. As he held it out to me, my +eye caught big Textile head-lines, then flashed to some others--something +about my going to marry Miss Ellersly. + +"All right," said I, and with the paper in my hand, went to my outside +office. I kept on toward my inner office, saying over my shoulder--to the +stenographer: "Don't let anybody interrupt me." Behind the closed and +locked door my body ventured to come to life again and my face to reflect +as much as it could of the chaos that was heaving in me like ten thousand +warring devils. + +Three months before, in the same situation, my gambler's instinct would +probably have helped me out. For I had not been gambling in the great +American Monte Carlo all those years without getting used to the downs +as well as to the ups. I had not--and have not--anything of the business +man in my composition. To me, it was wholly finance, wholly a game, with +excitement the chief factor and the sure winning, whether the little ball +rolled my way or not. I was the financier, the gambler and adventurer; and +that had been my principal asset. For, the man who wins in the long run at +any of the great games of life--and they are all alike--is the man with +the cool head; and the only man whose head is cool is he who plays for the +game's sake, not caring greatly whether he wins or loses on any one play, +because he feels that if he wins to-day, he will lose to-morrow; if he +loses to-day, he will win to-morrow. But now a new factor had come into the +game. I spread out the paper and stared at the head-lines: "Black Matt To +Wed Society Belle--The Bucket-Shop King Will Lead Anita Ellersly To The +Altar." I tried to read the vulgar article under these vulgar lines, but I +could not. I was sick, sick in body and in mind. My "nerve" was gone. I was +no longer the free lance; I had responsibilities. + +That thought dragged another in its train, an ugly, grinning imp that +leered at me and sneered: "_But she won't have you now_!" + +"She will! She must!" I cried aloud, starting up. And then the storm +burst--I raged up and down the floor, shaking my clinched fists, gnashing +my teeth, muttering all kinds of furious commands and threats--a truly +ridiculous exhibition of impotent rage. For through it all I saw clearly +enough that she wouldn't have me, that all these people I'd been trying +to climb up among would kick loose my clinging hands and laugh as they +watched me disappear. They who were none too gentle and slow in disengaging +themselves from those of their own lifelong associates who had reverses +of fortune--what consideration could "Black Matt" expect from them? And +she--The necessity and the ability to deceive myself had gone, now that I +could not pay the purchase price for her. The full hideousness of my +bargain for her dropped its veil and stood naked before me. + +At last, disgusted and exhausted, I flung myself down again, and dumbly and +helplessly inspected the ruins of my projects--or, rather, the ruin of the +one project upon which I had my heart set. I had known I cared for her, but +it had seemed to me she was simply one more, the latest, of the objects on +which I was in the habit of fixing my will from time to time to make the +game more deeply interesting. I now saw that never before had I really been +in earnest about anything, that on winning her I had staked myself, and +that myself was a wholly different person from what I had been imagining. +In a word, I sat face to face with that unfathomable mystery of +sex-affinity that every man laughs at and mocks another man for believing +in, until he has himself felt it drawing him against will, against reason, +and sense, and interest, over the brink of destruction yawning before his +eyes--drawing him as the magnet-mountain drew Sindbad and his ship. And I +say to you that those who can defy and resist that compulsion are not more, +but less, than man or woman; and their fancied strength is in reality a +deficiency. Looking calmly back upon my follies under her spell, I think +the better of myself for them. It is the splendid follies of life that +redeem it from vulgarity. + +But--it is not in me to despair. There never yet was an impenetrable siege +line; to escape, it is only necessary by craft or by chance to hit upon the +moment and the spot for the sortie. "Ruined!" I said aloud. "Trapped and +trimmed like the stupidest sucker that ever wandered into Wall Street! A +dead one, no doubt; but I'll see to it that they don't enjoy my funeral." + + + + +XVII + +A GENTEEL "HOLD-UP" + + +In my childhood at home, my father was often away for a week or longer, +working or looking for work. My mother had a notion that a boy should +be punished only by his father; so, whenever she caught me in what she +regarded as a serious transgression, she used to say: "You will get a +good whipping for this, when your father comes home." At first I used to +wait passively, suffering the torments of ten thrashings before the "good +whipping" came to pass. But soon my mind began to employ the interval more +profitably. I would scheme to escape execution of sentence; and, though my +mother was a determined woman, many's the time I contrived to change her +mind. I am not recommending to parents the system of delay in execution +of sentence; but I must say that in my case it was responsible for an +invaluable discipline. For example, the Textile tangle. + +I knew I was in all human probability doomed to go down before the Stock +Exchange had been open an hour the next morning. All Textile stocks must +start many points higher than they had been at the close, must go steadily +and swiftly up. Entangled as my reserve resources were in the Coal deal, I +should have no chance to cover my shorts on any terms less than the loss +of all I had. At most, I could hope only to save myself from criminal +bankruptcy. + +And now my early training in coolly and calmly studying how to avert +execution of sentence came into play. There is a kind of cornered-rat, +hit-or-miss, last-ditch fight that any creature will make in such +circumstances as mine then were, and the inspirations of despair sometimes +happen to be lucky. But I prefer the reasoned-out plan. + +There was no signal of distress in my voice as I telephoned Corey, +president of the Interstate Trust Company, to stay at his office until I +came; there was no signal of distress in my manner as I sallied forth and +went down to the Power Trust Building; nor did I show or suggest that I had +heard the "shot-at-sunrise" sentence, as I strode into Roebuck's presence +and greeted him. I was assuming, by way of precaution, that some rumor +about me either had reached him or would soon reach him. I knew he had +an eye in every secret of finance and industry, and, while I believed my +secret was wholly my own, I had too much at stake with him to bank on that, +when I could, as I thought, so easily reassure him. + +"I've come to suggest, Mr. Roebuck," said I, "that you let my +house--Blacklock and Company--announce the Coal reorganization plan. It +would give me a great lift, and Melville and his bank don't need prestige. +My daily letters to the public on investments have, as you know, got me +a big following that would help me make the flotation an even bigger +success than it's bound to be, no matter who announces it and invites +subscriptions." + +As I thus proposed that I be in a jiffy caught up from the extremely +humble level of reputed bucket-shop dealer into the highest heaven of high +finance, that I be made the official spokesman of the financial gods, his +expression was so ludicrous that I almost lost my gravity. I suspect, for +a moment he thought I had gone mad. His manner, when he recovered himself +sufficiently to speak, was certainly not unlike what it would have been +had he found himself alone before a dangerous lunatic who was armed with a +bomb. + +"You know how anxious I am to help you, to further your interests, +Matthew," said he wheedlingly. "I know no man who has a brighter future. +But--not so fast, not so fast, young man. Of course, you will appear as +one of the reorganizing committee--but we could not afford to have the +announcement come through any less strong and old established house than +the National Industrial Bank." + +"At least, you can make me joint announcer with them," I urged. + +"Perhaps--yes--possibly--we'll see," said he soothingly. "There is plenty +of time." + +"Plenty of time," I assented, as if quite content. "I only wanted to put +the matter before you." And I rose to go. + +"Have you heard the news of Textile Common?" he asked. + +"Yes," said I carelessly. Then, all in an instant, a plan took shape in my +mind. "I own a good deal of the stock, and I must say, I don't like this +raise." + +"Why?" he inquired. + +"Because I'm sure it's a stock-jobbing scheme," replied I boldly. "I know +the dividend wasn't earned. I don't like that sort of thing, Mr. Roebuck. +Not because it's unlawful--the laws are so clumsy that a practical man +often must disregard them. But because it is tampering with the reputation +and the stability of a great enterprise for the sake of a few millions of +dishonest profit. I'm surprised at Langdon." + +"I hope you're wrong, Matthew," was Roebuck's only comment. He questioned +me no further, and I went away, confident that, when the crash came in the +morning, if come it must, there would be no more astonished man in Wall +Street than Henry J. Roebuck. How he must have laughed; or, rather, would +have laughed, if his sort of human hyena expressed its emotions in the +human way. + +From him, straight to my lawyers, Whitehouse and Fisher, in the Mills +Building. + +"I want you to send for the newspaper reporters at once," said I to Fisher, +"and tell them that in my behalf you are going to apply for an injunction +against the Textile Trust, forbidding them to take any further steps toward +that increase of dividend. Tell them I, as a large stock-holder, and +representing a group of large stock-holders, purpose to stop the paying of +unearned dividends." + +Fisher knew how closely connected my house and the Textile Trust had been; +but he showed, and probably felt no astonishment. He was too experienced in +the ways of finance and financiers. It was a matter of indifference to him +whether I was trying to assassinate my friend and ally, or was feinting at +Langdon, to lure the public within reach so that we might, together, fall +upon it and make a battue. Your lawyer is your true mercenary. Under his +code honor consists in making the best possible fight in exchange for the +biggest possible fee. He is frankly for sale to the highest bidder. At +least so it is with those that lead the profession nowadays, give it what +is called "character" and "tone." + +Not without some regret did I thus arrange to attack my friend in his +absence. "Still," I reasoned, "his blunder in trusting some leaky person +with his secret is the cause of my peril--and I'll not have to justify +myself to him for trying to save myself." What effect my injunction would +have I could not foresee. Certainly it could not save me from the loss of +my fortune; but, possibly, it might check the upward course of the stock +long enough to enable me to snatch myself from ruin, and to cling to firm +ground until the Coal deal drew me up to safety. + +My next call was at the Interstate Trust Company. I found Corey waiting for +me in a most uneasy state of mind. + +"Is there any truth in this story about you?" was the question he plumped +at me. + +"What story?" said I, and a hard fight I had to keep my confusion and alarm +from the surface. For, apparently, my secret was out. + +"That you're on the wrong side of the Textile." + +So it was out! "Some truth," I admitted, since denial would have been +useless here. "And I've come to you for the money to tide me over." + +He grew white, a sickly white, and into his eyes came a horrible, drowning +look. + +"I owe a lot to you, Matt," he pleaded. "But I've done you a great many +favors, haven't I?" + +"That you have Bob," I cordially agreed. "But this isn't a favor. It's +business." + +"You mustn't ask it, Blacklock," he cried. "I've loaned you more money now +than the law allows. And I can't let you have any more." + +"Some one has been lying to you, and you've been believing him," said I. +"When I say my request isn't a favor, but business, I mean it." + +"I can't let you have any more," he repeated. "I can't!" And down came his +fist in a weak-violent gesture. + +I leaned forward and laid my hand strongly on his arm. + +"In addition to the stock of this concern that I hold in my own name," said +I, "I hold five shares in the name of a man whom nobody knows that I even +know. If you don't let me have the money, that man goes to the district +attorney with information that lands you in the penitentiary, that puts +your company out of business and into bankruptcy before to-morrow noon. +I saved you three years ago, and got you this job against just such an +emergency as this, Bob Corey. And, by God, you'll toe the mark!" + +"But we haven't done anything that every bank in town doesn't do every +day--doesn't have to do. If we didn't lend money to dummy borrowers +and over-certify accounts, our customers would go where they could get +accommodations." + +"That's true enough," said I. "But I'm in a position for the moment where I +need my friends--and they've got to come to time. If I don't get the money +from you, I'll get it elsewhere--but over the cliff with you and your +bank! The laws you've been violating may be bad for the practical banking +business, but they're mighty good for punishing ingratitude and treachery." + +He sat there, yellow and pinched, and shivering every now and then. He +made no reply. He was one of those shells of men that are conspicuous as +figureheads in every department of active life--fellows with well-shaped, +white-haired or prematurely bald heads, and grave, respectable faces; +they look dignified and substantial, and the soul of uprightness; they +coin their looks into good salaries by selling themselves as covers for +operations of the financiers. And how those operations, in the nude, as it +were, would terrify the plodders that save up and deposit or invest the +money the financiers gamble with on the big green tables! + +Presently I shook his arm impatiently. His eyes met mine, and I fixed them. + +"I'm going to pull through," said I. "But if I weren't, I'd see to it that +you were protected. Come, what's your answer? Friend or traitor?" + +"Can't you give me any security--any collateral?" + +"No more than I took from you when I saved you as you were going down with +the rest in the Dumont smash. My word--that's all. I borrow on the same +terms you've given me before, the same you're giving four of your heaviest +borrowers right now." + +He winced as I thus reminded him how minute my knowledge was of the +workings of his bank. + +"I didn't think this of you, Matt," he whined. "I believed you above such +hold-up methods." + +"I suit my methods to the men I'm dealing with," was my answer. "These +fellows are trying to push me off the life raft. I fight with every weapon +I can lay hands on. And I know as well as you do that, if you get into +serious trouble through this loan, at least five men we could both name +would have to step in and save the bank and cover up the scandal. You'll +blackmail them, just as you've blackmailed them before, and they you. +Blackmail's a legitimate part of the game. Nobody appreciates that better +than you." It was no time for the smug hypocrisies under which we people +down town usually conduct our business--just as the desperadoes used to +patrol the highways disguised as peaceful merchants. + +"Send round in the morning and get the money," said he, putting on a +resigned, hopeless look. + +I laughed. "I'll feel easier if I take it now," I replied. "We'll fix up +the notes and checks at once." + +He reddened, but after a brief hesitation busied himself. When the papers +were all made up and signed, and I had the certified checks in my pocket, +I said: "Wait here, Bob, until the National Industrial people call you +up. I'll ask them to do it, so they can get your personal assurance that +everything's all right. And I'll stop there until they tell me they've +talked with you." + +"But it's too late," he said. "You can't deposit to-day." + +"I've a special arrangement with them," I replied. + +His face betrayed him. I saw that at no stage of that proceeding had I been +wiser than in shutting off his last chance to evade. What scheme he had in +mind I don't know, and can't imagine. But he had thought out something, +probably something foolish that would have given me trouble without saving +him. A foolish man in a tight place is as foolish as ever, and Corey was +a foolish man--only a fool commits crimes that put him in the power of +others. The crimes of the really big captains of industry and generals of +finance are of the kind that puts others in their power. + +"Buck up, Corey," said I. "Do you think I'm the man to shut a friend in the +hold of a sinking ship? Tell me, who told you I was short on Textile?" + +"One of my men," he slowly replied, as he braced himself together. + +"Which one? Who?" I persisted. For I wanted to know just how far the news +was likely to spread. + +He seemed to be thinking out a lie. + +"The truth!" I commanded. "I know it couldn't have been one of your men. +Who was it? I'll not give you away." + +"It was Tom Langdon," he finally said. + +I checked an exclamation of amazement. I had been assuming that I had been +betrayed by some one of those tiny mischances that so often throw the best +plans into confusion. + +"Tom Langdon," I said satirically. "It was he that warned you against me?" + +"It was a friendly act," said Corey. "He and I are very intimate. And he +doesn't know how close you and I are." + +"Suggested that you call my loans, did he?" I went on. + +"You mustn't blame him, Blacklock; really you mustn't," said Corey +earnestly, for he was a pretty good friend to those he liked, as friendship +goes in finance. "He happened to hear. You know the Langdons keep a sharp +watch on operations in their stock. And he dropped in to warn me as a +friend. You'd do the same thing in the same circumstances. He didn't say a +word about my calling your loans. I--to be frank--I instantly thought of it +myself. I intended to do it when you came, but"--a sickly smile--"you +anticipated me." + +"I understand," said I good-humoredly. "I don't blame him." And I didn't +then. + +After I had completed my business at the National Industrial, I went back +to my office and gathered together the threads of my web of defense. Then +I wrote and sent out to all my newspapers and all my agents a broadside +against the management of the Textile Trust--it would be published in +the morning, in good time for the opening of the Stock Exchange. Before +the first quotation of Textile could be made, thousands on thousands of +investors and speculators throughout the country would have read my letter, +would be believing that Matthew Blacklock had detected the Textile Trust +in a stock-jobbing swindle, and had promptly turned against it, preferring +to keep faith with his customers and with the public. As I read over my +pronunciamiento aloud before sending it out, I found in it a note of +confidence that cheered me mightily. "I'm even stronger than I thought," +said I. And I felt stronger still as I went on to picture the thousands on +thousands throughout the land rallying at my call to give battle. + + + + +XVIII + +ANITA BEGINS TO BE HERSELF + + +I had asked Sam Ellersly to dine with me; so preoccupied was I that not +until ten minutes before the hour set did he come into my mind--he or any +of his family, even his sister. My first impulse was to send word that I +couldn't keep the engagement. "But I must dine somewhere," I reflected, +"and there's no reason why I shouldn't dine with him, since I've done +everything that can be done." In my office suite I had a bath and +dressing-room, with a complete wardrobe. Thus, by hurrying a little over +my toilet, and by making my chauffeur crowd the speed limit, I was at +Delmonico's only twenty minutes late. + +Sam, who had been late also, as usual, was having a cocktail and was +ordering the dinner. I smoked a cigarette and watched him. At business or +at anything serious his mind was all but useless; but at ordering dinner +and things of that sort, he shone. Those small accomplishments of his had +often moved me to a sort of pitying contempt, as if one saw a man of talent +devoting himself to engraving the Lord's Prayer on gold dollars. That +evening, however, as I saw how comfortable and contented he looked, with +not a care in the world, since he was to have a good dinner and a good +cigar afterward; as I saw how much genuine pleasure he was getting out of +selecting the dishes and giving the waiter minute directions for the chef, +I envied him. + +What Langdon had once said came back to me: "We are under the tyranny of +to-morrow, and happiness is impossible." And I thought how true that was. +But, for the Sammys, high and low, there is no to-morrow. He was somehow +impressing me with a sense that he was my superior. His face was weak, and, +in a weak way, bad; but there was a certain fineness of quality in it, +a sort of hothouse look, as if he had been sheltered all his life, and +brought up on especially selected food. "Men like me," thought I with a +certain envy, "rise and fall. But his sort of men have got something that +can't be taken away, that enables them to carry off with grace, poverty or +the degradation of being spongers and beggars." + +This shows how far I had let that attack of snobbishness eat into me. I +glanced down at my hands. No delicateness there; certainly those fingers, +though white enough nowadays, and long enough, too, were not made for fancy +work and parlor tricks. They would have looked in place round the handle +of a spade or the throttle of an engine, while Sam's seemed made for the +keyboard of a piano. + +"You must come over to my rooms after dinner, and give me some music," said +I. + +"Thanks," he replied, "but I've promised to go home and play bridge. +Mother's got a few in to dinner, and more are coming afterward, I believe." + +"Then I'll go with you, and talk to your sister--she doesn't play." + +He glanced at me in a way that made me pass my hand over my face. I learned +at least part of the reason for my feeling at disadvantage before him. I +had forgotten to shave; and as my beard is heavy and black, it has to be +looked after twice a day. "Oh, I can stop at my rooms and get my face into +condition in a few minutes," said I. + +"And put on evening dress, too," he suggested. "You wouldn't want to go in +a dinner jacket." + +I can't say why this was the "last straw," but it was. + +"Bother!" said I, my common sense smashing the spell of snobbishness that +had begun to reassert itself as soon as I got into his unnatural, unhealthy +atmosphere. "I'll go as I am, beard and all. I only make myself ridiculous, +trying to be a sheep. I'm a goat, and a goat I'll stay." + +That shut him into himself. When he re-emerged, it was to say: "Something +doing down town to-day, eh?" + +A sharpness in his voice and in his eyes, too, made me put my mind on him +more closely, and then I saw what I should have seen before--that he was +moody and slightly distant. + +"Seen Tom Langdon this afternoon?" I asked carelessly. + +He colored. "Yes--had lunch with him," was his answer. + +I smiled--for his benefit. "Aha!" thought I. "So Tom Langdon has been fool +enough to take this paroquet into his confidence." Then I said to him: "Is +Tom making the rounds, warning the rats to leave the sinking ship?" + +"What do you mean, Matt?" he demanded, as if I had accused him. + +I looked steadily at him, and I imagine my unshaven jaw did not make my +aspect alluring. + +"That I'm thinking of driving the rats overboard," replied I. "The ship's +sound, but it would be sounder if there were fewer of them." + +"You don't imagine anything Tom could say would change my feelings toward +you?" he pleaded. + +"I don't know, and I don't care a damn," replied I coolly. "But I do know, +before the Langdons or anybody else can have Blacklock pie, they'll have +first to catch their Blacklock." + +I saw Langdon had made him uneasy, despite his belief in my strength. And +he was groping for confirmation or reassurance. "But," thought I, "if he +thinks I may be going up the spout, why isn't he more upset? He probably +hates me because I've befriended him, but no matter how much he hated me, +wouldn't his fear of being cut off from supplies drive him almost crazy?" I +studied him in vain for sign of deep anxiety. Either Tom didn't tell him +much, I decided, or he didn't believe Tom knew what he was talking about. + +"What did Tom say about me?" I inquired. + +"Oh, almost nothing. We were talking chiefly of--of club matters," he +answered, in a fair imitation of his usual offhand manner. + +"When does my name come up there?" said I. + +He flushed and shifted. "I was just about to tell you," he stammered. "But +perhaps you know?" + +"Know what?" + +"That-- Hasn't Tom told you? He has withdrawn--and--you'll have to get +another second--if you think--that is--unless you--I suppose you'd have +told me, if you'd changed your mind?" + +Since I had become so deeply interested in Anita, my +ambition--ambition!--to join the Travelers had all but dropped out of my +mind. + +"I had forgotten about it," said I. "But, now that you remind me, I want my +name withdrawn. It was a passing fancy. It was part and parcel of a lot of +damn foolishness I've been indulging in for the last few months. But I've +come to my senses--and it's 'me to the wild,' where I belong, Sammy, from +this time on." + +He looked tremendously relieved, and a little puzzled, too. I thought I was +reading him like an illuminated sign. "He's eager to keep friends with me," +thought I, "until he's absolutely sure there's nothing more in it for him +and his people." And that guess was a pretty good one. It is not to the +discredit of my shrewdness that I didn't see it was not hope, but fear, +that made him try to placate me. I could not have possibly known then what +the Langdons had done. But-- Sammy was saying, in his friendliest tone: + +"What's the matter, old man? You're sour to-night." + +"Never in a better humor," I assured him, and as I spoke the words +they came true. What I had been saying about the Travelers and all it +represented--all the snobbery, and smirking, and rotten pretense--my final +and absolute renunciation of it all--acted on me as I've seen religion act +on the fellows that used to go up to the mourners' bench at the revivals. I +felt as if I had suddenly emerged from the parlor of a dive and its stench +of sickening perfumes, into the pure air of God's Heaven. + +I signed the bill, and we went afoot up the avenue. Sam, as I saw with a +good deal of amusement, was trying to devise some subtle, tactful way of +attaching his poor, clumsy little suction-pump to the well of my secret +thoughts. + +"What is it, Sammy?" said I at last. "What do you want to know that you're +afraid to ask me?" + +"Nothing," he said hastily. "I'm only a bit worried about--about you and +Textile. Matt,"--this in the tone of deep emotion we reserve for the +attempt to lure our friends into confiding that about themselves which will +give us the opportunity to pity them, and, if necessary, to sheer off from +them--"Matt, I do hope you haven't been hard hit?" + +"Not yet," said I easily. "Dry your tears and put away your black clothes. +Your friend, Tom Langdon, was a little premature." + +"I'm afraid I've given you a false impression," Sam continued, with +an overeagerness to convince me that did not attract my attention at +the time. "Tom merely said, 'I hear Blacklock is loaded up with Textile +shorts,'--that was all. A careless remark. I really didn't think of it +again until I saw you looking so black and glum." + +That seemed natural enough, so I changed the subject. As we entered his +house, I said: + +"I'll not go up to the drawing-room. Make my excuses to your mother, will +you? I'll turn into the little smoking-room here. Tell your sister--and say +I'm going to stop only a moment." + +Sam had just left me when the butler came. + +"Mr. Ball--I think that was the name, sir--wishes to speak to you on the +telephone." + +I had given Ellerslys' as one of the places at which I might be found, +should it be necessary to consult me. I followed the butler to the +telephone closet under the main stairway. As soon as Ball made sure it was +I, he began: + +"I'll use the code words. I've just seen Fearless, as you told me to." + +Fearless--that was Mitchell, my spy in the employ of Tavistock, who was +my principal rival in the business of confidential brokerage for the high +financiers. "Yes," said I. "What does he say?" + +"There has been a great deal of heavy buying for a month past." + +Then my dread was well-founded--Textiles were to be deliberately rocketed. +"Who's been doing it?" I asked. + +"He found out only this afternoon. It's been kept unusually dark. It--" + +"Who? Who?" I demanded. + +"Intrepid," he answered. + +Intrepid--that is, Langdon--Mowbray Langdon! + +"The whole thing--was planned carefully," continued Ball, "and is coming +off according to schedule. Fearless overheard a final message Intrepid's +brother brought from him to-day." + +So it was no mischance--it was an assassination. Mowbray Langdon had +stabbed me in the back and fled. + +"Did you hear what I said?" asked Ball. "Is that you?" + +"Yes," I replied. + +"Oh," came in a relieved tone from the other end of the wire. "You were so +long in answering that I thought I'd been cut off. Any instructions?" + +"No," said I. "Good-by." + +I heard him ring off, but I sat there for several minutes, the receiver +still to my ear. I was muttering: "Langdon, Langdon--why--why--why?" again +and again. Why had he turned against me? Why had he plotted to destroy +me--one of those plots so frequent in Wall Street--where the assassin +steals up, delivers the mortal blow, and steals away without ever being +detected or even suspected? I saw the whole plot now--I understood Tom +Langdon's activities, I recalled Mowbray Langdon's curious phrases and +looks and tones. But--why--why--why? How was I in his way? + +It was all dark to me--pitch-dark. I returned to the smoking-room, lighted +a cigar, sat fumbling at the new situation. I was in no worse plight than +before--what did it matter who was attacking me? In the circumstances, +a novice could now destroy me as easily as a Langdon. Still, Ball's +news seemed to take away my courage. I reminded myself that I was used +to treachery of this sort, that I deserved what I was getting because +I had, like a fool, dropped my guard in the fight that is always an +every-man-for-himself. But I reminded myself in vain. Langdon's smiling +treachery made me heart-sick. + +Soon Anita appeared--preceded and heralded by a faint rustling from soft +and clinging skirts, that swept my nerves like a love-tune. I suppose for +all men there is a charm, a spell, beyond expression, in the sight of a +delicate beautiful young woman, especially if she be dressed in those fine +fabrics that look as if only a fairy loom could have woven them; and when a +man loves the woman who bursts upon his vision, that spell must overwhelm +him, especially if he be such a man as was I--a product of life's roughest +factories, hard and harsh, an elbower and a trampler, a hustler and a +bluffer. Then, you must also consider the exact circumstances--I standing +there, with destruction hanging over me, with the sense that within a few +hours I should be a pariah to her, a masquerader stripped of his disguise +and cast out from the ball where he had been making so merry and so free. +Only a few hours more! Perhaps now was the last time I should ever stand +so near to her! The full realization of all this swallowed me up as +in a great, thick, black mist. And my arms strained to escape from my +tightly-locked hands, strained to seize her, to snatch from her, reluctant +though she might be, at least some part of the happiness that was to be +denied me. + +I think my torment must have somehow penetrated to her. For she was sweet +and friendly--and she could not have hurt me worse! If I had followed my +impulse I should have fallen at her feet and buried my face, scorching, in +the folds of that pale blue, faintly-shimmering robe of hers. + +"Do throw away that huge, hideous cigar," she said, laughing. And she took +two cigarettes from the box, put both between her lips, lit them, held one +toward me. I looked at her face, and along her smooth, bare, outstretched +arm, and at the pink, slender fingers holding the cigarette. I took it as +if I were afraid the spell would be broken, should my fingers touch hers. +Afraid--that's it! That's why I didn't pour out all that was in my heart. I +deserved to lose her. + +"I'm taking you away from the others," I said. We could hear the murmur +of many voices and of music. In fancy I could see them assembled round +the little card-tables--the well-fed bodies, the well-cared-for skins, +the elaborate toilets, the useless jeweled hands--comfortable, secure, +self-satisfied, idle, always idle, always playing at the imitation +games--like their own pampered children, to be sheltered in the nurseries +of wealth their whole lives through. And not at all in bitterness, but +wholly in sadness, a sense of the injustice, the unfairness of it all--a +sense that had been strong in me in my youth but blunted during the years +of my busy prosperity--returned for a moment. For a moment only; my mind +was soon back to realities--to her and me--to "us." How soon it would never +be "us" again! + +"They're mama's friends," Anita was answering. "Oldish and tiresome. When +you leave I shall go straight on up to bed." + +"I'd like to--to see your room--where you live," said I, more to myself +than to her. + +"I sleep in a bare little box," she replied with a laugh. "It's like a +cell. A friend of ours who has the anti-germ fad insisted on it. But my +sitting-room isn't so bad." + +"Langdon has the anti-germ fad," said I. She answered "Yes" after a pause, +and in such a strained voice that I looked at her. A flush was just dying +out of her face. "He was the friend I spoke of," she went on. + +"You know him very well?" I asked. + +"We've known him--always," said she. "I think he's one of my earliest +recollections. His father's summer place and ours adjoin. And once--I guess +it's the first time I remember seeing him--he was a freshman at Harvard, +and he came along on a horse past the pony cart in which a groom was +driving me. And I--I was very little then--I begged him to take me up, and +he did. I thought he was the greatest, most wonderful man that ever lived." +She laughed queerly. "When I said my prayers, I used to imagine a god that +looked like him to say them to." + +I echoed her laugh heartily. The idea of Mowbray Langdon as a god struck me +as peculiarly funny, though natural enough, too. + +"Absurd, wasn't it?" said she. But her face was grave, and she let her +cigarette die out. + +"I guess you know him better than that now?" + +"Yes--better," she answered, slowly and absently. "He's--anything but a +god!" + +"And the more fascinating on that account," said I. "I wonder why women +like best the really bad, dangerous sort of man, who hasn't any respect for +them, or for anything." + +I said this that she might protest, at least for herself. But her answer +was a vague, musing, "I wonder--I wonder." + +"I'm sure _you_ wouldn't," I protested earnestly, for her. + +She looked at me queerly. + +"Can I never convince you that I'm just a woman?" said she mockingly. "Just +a woman, and one a man with your ideas of women would fly from." + +"I wish you were!" I exclaimed. "Then--I'd not find it so--so impossible to +give you up." + +She rose and made a slow tour of the room, halting on the rug before the +closed fireplace a few feet from me. I sat looking at her. + +"I am going to give you up," I said at last. + +Her eyes, staring into vacancy, grew larger and intenser with each long, +deep breath she took. + +"I didn't intend to say what I'm about to say--at least, not this evening," +I went on, and to me it seemed to be some other than myself who was +speaking. "Certain things happened down town to-day that have set me to +thinking. And--I shall do whatever I can for your brother and your father. +But you--you are free!" + +She went to the table, stood there in profile to me, straight and slender +as a sunflower stalk. She traced the silver chasings in the lid of the +cigarette box with her forefinger; then she took a cigarette and began +rolling it slowly and absently. + +"Please don't scent and stain your fingers with that filthy tobacco," said +I rather harshly. + +"And only this afternoon you were saying you had become reconciled to my +vice--that you had canonized it along with me--wasn't that your phrase?" +This indifferently, without turning toward me, and as if she were thinking +of something else. + +"So I have," retorted I. "But my mood--please oblige me this once." + +She let the cigarette fall into the box, closed the lid gently, leaned +against the table, folded her arms upon her bosom and looked full at me. +I was as acutely conscious of her every movement, of the very coming and +going of the breath at her nostrils, as a man on the operating-table is +conscious of the slightest gesture of the surgeon. + +"You are--suffering!" she said, and her voice was like the flow of oil upon +a burn. "I have never seen you like this. I didn't believe you capable +of--of much feeling." + +I could not trust myself to speak. If Bob Corey could have looked in on +that scene, could have understood it, how amazed he would have been! + +"What happened down town to-day?" she went on. "Tell me, if I may know." + +"I'll tell you what I didn't think, ten minutes ago, I'd tell any human +being," said I. "They've got me strapped down in the press. At ten o'clock +in the morning--precisely at ten--they're going to put on the screws." I +laughed. "I guess they'll have me squeezed pretty dry before noon." + +She shivered. + +"So, you see," I continued, "I don't deserve any credit for giving you up. +I only anticipate you by about twenty-four hours. Mine's a deathbed +repentance." + +"I'd thought of that," said she reflectively. Presently she added: "Then, +it is true." And I knew Sammy had given her some hint that prepared her for +my confession. + +"Yes--I can't go blustering through the matrimonial market," replied I. +"I've been thrown out. I'm a beggar at the gates." + +"A beggar at the gates," she murmured. + +I got up and stood looking down at her. + +"Don't _pity_ me!" I said. "My remark was a figure of speech. I want +no alms. I wouldn't take even you as alms. They'll probably get me down, +and stamp the life out of me--nearly. But not quite--don't you lose sight +of that. They can't kill me, and they can't tame me. I'll recover, and I'll +strew the Street with their blood and broken bones." + +She drew in her breath sharply. + +"And a minute ago I was almost liking you!" she exclaimed. + +I retreated to my chair and gave her a smile that must have been grim. + +"Your ideas of life and of men are like a cloistered nun's," said I. "If +there are any real men among your acquaintances, you may find out some +day that they're not so much like lapdogs as they pretend--and that you +wouldn't like them, if they were." + +"What--just what--happened to you down town to-day--after you left me?" + +"A friend of mine has been luring me into a trap--why, I can't quite +fathom. To-day he sprang the trap and ran away." + +"A friend of yours?" + +"The man we were talking about--your ex-god--Langdon." + +"Langdon," she repeated, and her tone told me that Sammy knew and had +hinted to her more than I suspected him of knowing. And, with her arms +still folded, she paced up and down the room. I watched her slender feet in +pale blue slippers appear and disappear--first one, then the other--at the +edge of her trailing skirt. + +Presently she stopped in front of me. Her eyes were gazing past me. + +"You are sure it was he?" she asked. + +I could not answer immediately, so amazed was I at her expression. I had +been regarding her as a being above and apart, an incarnation of youth +and innocence; with a shock it now came to me that she was experienced, +intelligent, that she understood the whole of life, the dark as fully as +the light, and that she was capable to live it, too. It was not a girl that +was questioning me there; it was a woman. + +"Yes--Langdon," I replied. "But I've no quarrel with him. My reverse is +nothing but the fortune of war. I assure you, when I see him again, I'll be +as friendly as ever--only a bit less of a trusting ass, I fancy. We're a +lot of free lances down in the Street. We fight now on one side, now on the +other. We change sides whenever it's expedient; and under the code it's not +necessary to give warning. To-day, before I knew he was the assassin, I had +made my plans to try to save myself at his expense, though I believed him +to be the best friend I had down town. No doubt he's got some good reason +for creeping up on me in the dark." + +"You are sure it was he?" she repeated. + +"He, and nobody else," replied I. "He decided to do me up--and I guess +he'll succeed. He's not the man to lift his gun unless he's sure the bird +will fall." + +"Do you really not care any more than you show?" she asked. "Or is your +manner only bravado--to show off before me?" + +"I don't care a damn, since I'm to lose you," said I. "It'll be a godsend +to have a hard row to hoe the next few months or years." + +She went back to leaning against the table, her arms folded as before. I +saw she was thinking out something. Finally she said: + +"I have decided not to accept your release." + +I sprang to my feet. + +"Anita!" I cried, my arms stretched toward her. + +But she only looked coldly at me, folded her arms the more tightly and +said: + +"Do not misunderstand me. The bargain is the same as before. If you want me +on those terms, I must--give myself." + +"Why?" I asked. + +A faint smile, with no mirth in it, drifted round the corners of her mouth. + +"An impulse," she said. "I don't quite understand it myself. An impulse +from--from--" Her eyes and her thoughts were far away, and her expression +was the one that made it hardest for me to believe she was a child of those +parents of hers. "An impulse from a sense of justice--of decency. I am the +cause of your trouble, and I daren't be a coward and a cheat." She repeated +the last words. "A coward--a cheat! We--I--have taken much from you, more +than you know. It must be repaid. If you still wish, I will--will keep to +my bargain." + +"It's true, I'd not have got into the mess," said I, "if I'd been attending +to business instead of dangling after you. But you're not responsible for +that folly." + +She tried to speak several times, before she finally succeeded in saying: + +"It's my fault. I mustn't shirk." + +I studied her, but I couldn't puzzle her out. + +"I've been thinking all along that you were simple and transparent," I +said. "Now, I see you are a mystery. What are you hiding from me?" + +Her smile was almost coquettish as she replied: + +"When a woman makes a mystery of herself to a man, it's for the man's +good." + +I took her hand--almost timidly. + +"Anita," I said, "do you still--dislike me?" + +"I do not--and shall not--love you," she answered. "But you are--" + +"More endurable?" I suggested, as she hesitated. + +"Less unendurable," she said with raillery. Then she added, "Less +unendurable than profiting by a-creeping up in the dark." + +I thought I understood her better than she understood herself. And suddenly +my passion melted in a tenderness I would have said was as foreign to me +as rain to a desert. I noticed that she had a haggard look. "You are very +tired, child," said I. "Good night. I am a different man from what I was +when I came in here." + +"And I a different woman," said she, a beauty shining from her that was as +far beyond her physical beauty as--as love is beyond passion. + +"A nobler, better woman," I exclaimed, kissing her hand. + +She snatched it away. + +"If you only knew!" she cried. "It seems to me, as I realize what sort of +woman I am, that I am almost worthy of _you_!" And she blazed a look +at me that left me rooted there, astounded. + +But I went down the avenue with a light heart. "Just like a woman," I was +saying to myself cheerfully, "not to know her own mind." + +A few blocks, and I stopped and laughed outright--at Langdon's treachery, +at my own credulity. "What an ass I've been making of myself!" said I to +myself. And I could see myself as I really had been during those months +of social struggling--an ass, braying and gamboling in a lion's skin--to +impress the ladies! + +"But not wholly to no purpose," I reflected, again all in a glow at thought +of Anita. + + + + +XIX + +A WINDFALL FROM "GENTLEMAN JOE" + + +I went to my rooms, purposing to go straight to bed, and get a good sleep. +I did make a start toward undressing; then I realized that I should only +lie awake with my brain wearing me out, spinning crazy thoughts and schemes +hour after hour--for my imagination rarely lets it do any effective +thinking after the lights are out and the limitations of material things +are wiped away by the darkness. I put on a dressing-gown and seated myself +to smoke and to read. + +When I was very young, new to New York, in with the Tenderloin crowd and +up to all sorts of pranks, I once tried opium smoking. I don't think I +ever heard of anything in those days without giving it a try. Usually, I +believe, opium makes the smoker ill the first time or two; but it had no +such effect on me, nor did it fill my mind with fantastic visions. On +the contrary, it made everything around me intensely real--that is, it +enormously stimulated my dominant characteristic of accurate observation. +I noticed the slightest details--such things as the slight difference in +the length of the arms of the Chinaman who kept the "joint," the number of +buttons down the front of the waist of the girl in the bunk opposite mine, +across the dingy, little, sweet-scented room. Nothing escaped me, and also +I was conscious of each passing second, or, rather, fraction of a second. + +As a rule, time and events, even when one is quietest, go with such a rush +that one notes almost nothing of what is passing. The opium seemed to +compel the kaleidoscope of life to turn more slowly; in fact, it sharpened +my senses so that they unconsciously took impressions many times more +quickly and easily and accurately. As I sat there that night after leaving +Anita, forcing my mind to follow the printed lines, I found I was in +exactly the state in which I had been during my one experiment with opium. +It seemed to me that as many days as there had been hours must have elapsed +since I got the news of the raised Textile dividend. Days--yes, weeks, even +months, of thought and action seemed to have been compressed into those six +hours--for, as I sat there, it was not yet eleven o'clock. + +And then I realized that this notion was not of the moment, but that I had +been as if under the influence of some powerful nerve stimulant since my +brain began to recover from the shock of that thunderbolt. Only, where +nerve stimulants often make the mind passive and disinclined to take part +in the drama so vividly enacting before it, this opening of my reservoirs +of reserve nervous energy had multiplied my power to act as well as my +power to observe. "I wonder how long it will last," thought I. And it made +me uneasy, this unnatural alertness, unaccompanied by any feverishness or +sense of strain. "Is this the way madness begins?" + +I dressed myself again and went out--went up to Joe Healey's gambling place +in Forty-fourth Street. Most of the well-known gamblers up town, as well as +their "respectable" down town fellow members of the fraternity, were old +acquaintances of mine; Joe Healey was as close a friend as I had. He had +great fame far squareness--and, in a sense, deserved it. With his fellow +gamblers he was straight as a string at all times--to be otherwise would +have meant that when he went broke he would stay broke, because none of +the fraternity would "stake" him. But with his patrons--being regarded by +them as a pariah, he acted toward them like a pariah--a prudent pariah. He +fooled them with a frank show of gentlemanliness, of honesty to his own +hurt; under that cover he fleeced them well, but always judiciously. + +That night, I recall, Joe's guests were several young fellows of the +fashionable set, rich men's sons and their parasites, a few of the big down +town operators who hadn't yet got hipped on "respectability"--they playing +poker in a private room--and a couple of flush-faced, flush-pursed chaps +from out of town, for whom one of Joe's men was dealing faro from what +looked to my experienced and accurate eye like a "brace" box. + +Joe, very elegant, too elegant in fact, in evening dress, was showing a new +piece of statuary to the oldest son of Melville, of the National Industrial +Bank. Joe knew a little something about art--he was much like the art +dealers who, as a matter of business, learn the difference between good +things and bad, but in their hearts wonder and laugh at people willing to +part with large sums of money for a little paint or marble or the like. + +As soon as Joe thought he had sufficiently impressed young Melville, he +drifted him to a roulette table, left him there and joined me. + +"Come to my office," said he. "I want to see you." + +He led the way down the richly-carpeted marble stairway as far as the +landing at the turn. There, on a sort of mezzanine, he had a gorgeous +little suite. The principal object in the sitting-room or office was a huge +safe. He closed and locked the outside door behind us. + +"Take a seat," said he. "You'll like the cigars in the second box on my +desk--the long one." And he began turning the combination lock. "You +haven't dropped in on us for the past three or four months," he went on. + +"No," said I, getting a great deal of pleasure out of seeing again, and +thus intimately, his round, ruddy face--like a yachtman's, not like a +drinker's--and his shifty, laughing brown eyes. "The game down town has +given me enough excitement. I haven't had to continue it up town to keep +my hand in." + +In fact, I had, as I have already said, been breaking off with my former +friends because, while many of the most reputable and reliable financiers +down town go in for high play occasionally at the gambling houses, it isn't +wise for the man trying to establish himself as a strictly legitimate +financier. I had been playing as much as ever, but only in games in my own +rooms and at the rooms of other bankers, brokers and commercial leaders. +The passion for high play is a craving that gnaws at a man all the time, +and he must always be feeding it one way or another. + +"I've noticed that you are getting too swell to patronize us fellows," said +he, his shrewd smile showing that my polite excuse had not fooled him. +"Well, Matt, you're right--you always did have good sound sense and a +steady eye for the main chance. I used to think the women'd ruin you, they +were so crazy about that handsome mug and figure of yours. But when I saw +you knew exactly when to let go, I knew nothing could stop you." + +By this time he had the safe open, disclosing several compartments and a +small, inside safe. He worked away at the second combination lock, and +presently exposed the interior of the little safe. It was filled with a +great roll of bills. He pried this out, brought it over to the desk and +began wrapping it up. "I want you to take this with you when you go," said +he. "I've made several big killings lately, and I'm going to get you to +invest the proceeds." + +"I can't take that big bundle along with me, Joe," said I. "Besides, it +ain't safe. Put it in the bank and send me a check." + +"Not on your life," replied Healey with a laugh. "The suckers we trimmed +gave checks, and I turned 'em into cash as soon as the banks opened. I +wasn't any too spry, either. Two of the damned sneaks consulted lawyers +as soon as they sobered off, and tried to stop payment on their checks. +They're threatening proceedings. You must take the dough away with you, and +I don't want a receipt." + +"Trimming suckers, eh?" said I, not able to decide what to do. + +"Their fathers stole it from the public," he explained. "They're drunken +little snobs, not fit to have money. I'm doing a public service by +relieving them of it. If I'd 'a' got more, I'd feel that much more"--he +vented his light, cool, sarcastic laugh--"more patriotic." + +"I can't take it," said I, feeling that, in my present condition, to take +it would be very near to betraying the confidence of my old friend. + +"They lost it in a straight game," he hastened to assure me. "I haven't had +a 'brace' box or crooked wheel for four years." This with a sober face and +a twinkle in his eye. "But even if I had helped chance to do the good work +of teaching them to take care of their money, you'd not refuse me. Up town +and down town, and all over the place, what's business, when you come to +look at it sensibly, but trading in stolen goods? Do you know a man who +could honestly earn more than ten or twenty thousand a year--good clean +money by good clean work?" + +"Oh, for that matter, your money's as clean as anybody's," said I. "But, +you know, I'm a speculator, Joe. I have my downs--and this happens to be a +stormy time for me. If I take your money, I mayn't be able to account for +it or even to pay dividends on it for--maybe a year or so." + +"It's all right, old man. I'll never give it a thought till you remind me +of it. Use it as you'd use your own. I've got to put it behind somebody's +luck--why not yours?" + +He finished doing up the package, then he seated himself, and we both +looked at it through the smoke of our cigars. + +"It's just as easy to deal in big sums as in little, in large matters as in +small, isn't it, Joe," said I, "once one gets in the way of it?" + +"Do you remember--away back there--the morning," he asked musingly--"the +last morning--you and I got up from the straw in the stables over at Jerome +Park--the stables they let us sleep in?" + +"And went out in the dawn to roost on the rails and spy on the speed trials +of old Revell's horses?" + +"Exactly," said Joe, and we looked at each other and laughed. "We in +rags--gosh, how chilly it was that morning! Do you remember what we talked +about?" + +"No," said I, though I did. + +"I was proposing to turn a crooked trick--and you wouldn't have it. You +persuaded me to keep straight, Matt. I've never forgotten it. You kept me +straight--showed me what a damn fool a man was to load himself down with a +petty larceny record. You made a man of me, Matt. And then those good looks +of yours caught the eye of that bookmaker's girl, and he gave you a job at +writing sheet--and you worked me in with you." + +So long ago it seemed, yet near and real, too, as I sat there, conscious of +every sound and motion, even of the fantastic shapes taken by our upcurling +smoke. How far I was from the "rail bird" of those happy-go-lucky years, +when a meal meant quite as much to me as does a million now--how far from +all that, yet how near, too. For was I not still facing life with the same +careless courage, forgetting each yesterday in the eager excitement of each +new day with its new deal? We went on in our reminiscences for a while; +then, as Joe had a little work to do, I drifted out into the house, took +a bite of supper with young Melville, had a little go at the tiger, and +toward five in the clear June morning emerged into the broad day of the +streets, with the precious bundle under my arms and a five hundred-dollar +bill in my waistcoat pocket. + +"Give my win to me in a single bill," I said to the banker, "and blow +yourself off with the change." + +Joe walked down the street with me--for companionship and a little air +before turning in, he said, but I imagine a desire to keep his eye on his +treasure a while longer had something to do with his taking that early +morning stroll. We passed several of those forlorn figures that hurry +through the slowly-awakening streets to bed or to work. Finally, there came +by an old, old woman--a scrubwoman, I guess, on her way home from cleaning +some office building. Beside her was a thin little boy, hopping along on a +crutch. I stopped them. + +"Hold out your hand," said I to the boy, and he did. I laid the five +hundred-dollar bill in it. "Now, shut your fingers tight over that," said +I, "and don't open them till you get home. Then tell your mother to do what +she likes with it." And we left them gaping after us, speechless before +this fairy story come true. + +"You must be looking hard for luck to-day," said Joe, who understood this +transaction where another might have thought it a showy and not very wise +charity. "They'll stop in at the church and pray for you, and burn a +candle." + +"I hope so," said I, "for God knows I need it." + + + + +XX + +A BREATHING SPELL + + +Langdon, after several years of effort, had got recognition for Textile +in London, but that was about all. He hadn't succeeded in unloading any +great amount of it on the English. So it was rather because I neglected +nothing than because I was hopeful of results that I had made a point of +telegraphing to London news of my proposed suit. The result was a little +trading in Textiles over there and a slight decline in the price. This fact +was telegraphed to all the financial centers on this side of the water, and +reinforced the impression my lawyers' announcement and my own "bear" letter +were making. + +Still, this was nothing, or next to it. What could I hope to avail against +Langdon's agents with almost unlimited capital, putting their whole energy +under the stock to raise it? In the same newspapers that published my bear +attack, in the same columns and under the same head-lines, were official +denials from the Textile Trust and the figures of enormous increase of +business as proof positive that the denials were honest. If the public +had not been burned so many times by "industrials," if it had not learned +by bitter experience that practically none of the leaders of finance and +industry were above lying to make or save a few dollars, if Textiles had +not been manipulated so often, first by Dumont and since his death by his +brother-in-law and successor, this suave and cynical Langdon, my desperate +attack would have been without effect. As it was-- + +Four months before, in the same situation, had I seen Textiles stagger as +they staggered in the first hour of business on the Stock Exchange that +morning, I'd have sounded the charge, clapped spurs to my charger, and +borne down upon them. But--I had my new-born yearning for "respectability"; +I had my new-born squeamishness, which led me to fear risking Bob Corey +and his bank and the money of my old friend Healey; finally, there was +Anita--the longing for her that made me prefer a narrow and uncertain +foothold to the bold leap that would land me either in wealth and power +or in the bottomless abyss. + +Instead of continuing to sell Textiles, I covered as far as I could; and +I bought so eagerly and so heavily that, more than Langdon's corps of +rocketers, I was responsible for the stock's rally and start upward. When I +say "eagerly" and "heavily," I do not mean that I acted openly or without +regard to common sense. I mean simply that I made no attempt to back up my +followers in the selling campaign I had urged them into; on the contrary, +I bought as they sold. That does not sound well, and it is no better than +it sounds. I shall not dispute with any one who finds this action of mine +a betrayal of my clients to save myself. All I shall say is that it was +business, that in such extreme and dire compulsion as was mine, it was--and +is--right under the code, the private and real Wall Street code. + +You can imagine the confused mass of transactions in which I was involved +before the Stock Exchange had been open long. There was the stock we had +been able to buy or get options on at various prices, between the closing +of the Exchange the previous day and that morning's opening--stock from all +parts of this country and in England. There was the stock I had been buying +since the Exchange opened--buying at figures ranging from one-eighth above +last night's closing price to fourteen points above it. And, on the debit +side, there were the "short" transactions extending over a period of nearly +two months--"sellings" of blocks large and small at a hundred different +prices. + +An inextricable tangle, you will say, one it would be impossible for a +man to unravel quickly and in the frantic chaos of a wild Stock Exchange +day. Yet the influence of the mysterious state of my nerves, which I have +described above, was so marvelous that, incredible though it seems, the +moment the Exchange closed, I knew exactly, where I stood. + +Like a mechanical lightning calculator, my mind threw up before me the net +result of these selling and buying transactions. Textile Common closed +eighteen points above the closing quotation of the previous day; if +Langdon's brother had not been just a little indiscreet, I should have been +as hopeless a bankrupt in reputation and in fortune as ever was ripped up +by the bulls of Wall Street. + +As it was, I believed that, by keeping a bold front, I might extricate and +free myself when the Coal reorganization was announced. The rise of Coal +stocks would square my debts--and, as I was apparently untouched by +the Textile flurry, so far as even Ball, my nominal partner and chief +lieutenant, knew, I need not fear pressure from creditors that I could +not withstand. + +I could not breathe freely, but I could breathe. + + + + +XXI + +MOST UNLADYLIKE + + +When I saw I was to have a respite of a month or so, I went over to the +National Industrial Bank with Healey's roll, which my tellers had counted +and prepared for deposit. I finished my business with the receiving teller +of the National Industrial, and dropped in on my friend Lewis, the first +vice-president. I did not need to pretend coolness and confidence; my +nerves were still in that curious state of tranquil exhilaration, and I +felt master of myself and of the situation. Just as I was leaving, in came +Tom Langdon with Sam Ellersly. + +Tom's face was a laughable exhibit of embarrassment. Sam--really, I felt +sorry for him. There was no reason on earth why he shouldn't be with Tom +Langdon; yet he acted as if I had caught him "with the goods on him." He +stammered and stuttered, clasped my hand eagerly, dropped it as if it had +stung him; he jerked out a string of hysterical nonsense, ending with +a laugh so crazy that the sound of it disconcerted him. Drink was the +explanation that drifted through my mind; but in fact I thought little +about it, so full was I of other matters. + +"When is your brother returning?" said I to Tom. + +"On the next steamer, I believe," he replied. "He went only for the rest +and the bath of sea air." With an effort he collected himself, drew me +aside and said: "I owe you an apology, Mr. Blacklock. I went to the steamer +with Mowbray to see him off, and he asked me to tell you about our new +dividend rate--though it was not to be made public for some time. Anyhow, +he told me to go straight to you--and I--frankly, I forgot it." Then, with +the winning, candid Langdon smile, he added, ingenuously: "The best excuse +in the world--yet the one nobody ever accepts." + +"No apology necessary," said I with the utmost good nature. "I've no +personal interest in Textile. My house deals on commission only, you +know--never on margins for myself. I'm a banker and broker, not a gambler. +Some of our customers were alarmed by the news of the big increase, and +insisted on bringing suit to stop it. But I'm going to urge them now to let +the matter drop." + +Tom tried to look natural, and as he is an apt pupil of his brother's, he +succeeded fairly well. His glance, however, wouldn't fix steadily on my +gaze, but circled round and round it like a bat at an electric light. "To +tell you the truth," said he, "I'm extremely nervous as to what my brother +will say--and do--to me, when I tell him. I hope no harm came to you +through my forgetfulness." + +"None in the world," I assured him. Then I turned on Sam. "What are you +doing down town to-day?" said I. "Are you on your way to see me?" + +He flushed with angry shame, reading an insinuation into my careless +remark, when I had not the remotest intention of reminding him that his +customary object in coming down town was to play the parasite and the +sponge at my expense. I ought to have guessed at once that there was +some good reason for his recovery of his refined, high-bred, gentlemanly +super-sensibilities; but I was not in the mood to analyze trifles, though +my nerves were taking careful record of them. + +"Oh, I was just calling on Tom," he replied rather haughtily. + +Then Melville himself came in, brushing back his white tufted burnsides and +licking his lips and blinking his eyes--looking for all the world like a +cat at its toilet. + +"Oh! ah! Blacklock!" he exclaimed, with purring cordiality--and I knew he +had heard of the big deposit I was making. "Come into my office on your way +out--nothing especial--only because it's always a pleasure to talk with +you." + +I saw that his effusive friendliness confirmed Tom Langdon's fear that I +had escaped from his brother's toils. He stared sullenly at the carpet +until he caught me looking at him with twinkling eyes. He made a valiant +effort to return my smile and succeeded in twisting his face into a knot +that seemed to hurt him as much as it amused me. + +"Well, good-by, Tom," said I. "Give my regards to your brother when he +lands, and tell him his going away was a mistake. A man can't afford to +trust his important business to understrappers." This with a face free from +any suggestion of intending a shot at him. Then to Sam: "See you to-night, +old man," and I went away, leaving Lewis looking from one to the other as +if he felt that there was dynamite about, but couldn't locate it. I stopped +with Melville to talk Coal for a few minutes--at my ease, and the last man +on earth to be suspected of hanging by the crook of one finger from the +edge of the precipice. + +I rang the Ellerslys' bell at half-past nine that evening. The butler faced +me with eyes not down, as they should have been, but on mine, and full +of the servile insolence to which he had been prompted by what he had +overheard in the family. + +"Not at home, sir," he said, though I had not spoken. + +I was preoccupied and not expecting that statement; neither had I skill, +nor desire to acquire skill, in reading family barometers in the faces of +servants. So, I was for brushing past him and entering where I felt I had +as much right as in my own places. He barred the way. + +"Beg pardon, sir. Mrs. Ellersly instructed me to say no one was at home." + +I halted, but only like an oncoming bear at the prick of an arrow. + +"What the hell does this mean?" I exclaimed, waving him aside. At that +instant Anita appeared from the little reception-room a few feet away. + +"Oh--come in!" she said cordially. "I was expecting you. Burroughs, please +take Mr. Blacklock's hat." + +I followed her into the reception-room, thinking the butler had made some +sort of mistake. + +"How did you come out?" she asked eagerly, facing me. "You look your +natural self--not tired or worried--so it must have been not so bad as you +feared." + +"If our friend Langdon hadn't slipped away, I might not look and feel so +comfortable," said I. "His brother blundered, and there was no one to +checkmate my moves." She seemed nearer to me, more in sympathy with me than +ever before. + +"I can't tell you how glad I am!" + +Her eyes were wide and bright, as from some great excitement, and her color +was high. Once my attention was on it, I knew instantly that only some +extraordinary upheaval in that household could have produced the fever that +was blazing in her. Never had I seen her in any such mood as this. + +"What is it?" I asked. "What has happened?" + +"If anything disagreeable should be said or done this evening here," she +said, "I want you to promise me that you'll restrain yourself, and not say +or do any of those things that make me--that jar on me. You understand?" + +"I am always myself," replied I. "I can't be anybody else." + +"But you are--several different kinds of self," she insisted. "And +please--this evening don't be _that_ kind. It's coming into your eyes +and chin now." + +I had lifted my head and looked round, probably much like the leader of a +horned herd at the scent of danger. + +"Is this better?" said I, trying to look the thoughts I had no difficulty +in getting to the fore whenever my eyes were on her. + +Her smile rewarded me. But it disappeared, gave place to a look of nervous +alarm, of terror even, at the rustling, or, rather, bustling, of skirts in +the hall--there was war in the very sound, and I felt it. Mrs. Ellersly +appeared, bearing her husband as a dejected trailer invisibly but firmly +coupled. She acknowledged my salutation with a stiff-necked nod, ignored my +extended hand. I saw that she wished to impress upon me that she was a very +grand lady indeed; but, while my ideas of what constitutes a lady were at +that time somewhat befogged by my snobbishness, she failed dismally. She +looked just what she was--a mean, bad-tempered woman, in a towering rage. + +"You have forced me, Mr. Blacklock," said she, and then I knew for just +what purpose that voice of hers was best adapted--"to say to you what I +should have preferred to write. Mr. Ellersly has had brought to his ears +matters in connection with your private life that make it imperative that +you discontinue your calls here." + +"My private life, ma'am?" I repeated. "I was not aware that I had a private +life." + +"Anita, leave us alone with Mr. Blacklock," commanded her mother. + +The girl hesitated, bent her head, and with a cowed look went slowly toward +the door. There she paused, and, with what seemed a great effort, lifted +her head and gazed at me. How I ever came rightly to interpret her look +I don't know, but I said: "Miss Ellersly, I've the right to insist that +you stay." I saw she was going to obey me, and before Mrs. Ellersly could +repeat her order I said: "Now, madam, if any one accuses me of having done +anything that would cause you to exclude a man from your house, I am ready +for the liar and his lie." + +As I spoke I was searching the weak, bad old face of her husband for an +explanation. Their pretense of outraged morality I rejected at once--it was +absurd. Neither up town nor down, nor anywhere else, had I done anything +that any one could regard as a breach of the code of a man of the world. +Then, reasoned I, they must have found some one else to help them out of +their financial troubles--some one who, perhaps, has made this insult to me +the price, or part of the price, of his generosity. Who? Who hates me? In +instant answer, up before my mind flashed a picture of Tom Langdon and Sam +Ellersly arm in arm entering Lewis' office. Tom Langdon wishes to marry +her; and her parents wish it, too; he is the man she was confessing to me +about--these were my swift conclusions. + +"We do not care to discuss the matter, sir," Mrs. Ellersly was replying, +her tone indicating that it was not fit to discuss. And this was the woman +I had hardly been able to treat civilly, so nauseating were her fawnings +and flatterings! + +"So!" I said, ignoring her and opening my batteries full upon the old man. +"You are taking orders from Mowbray Langdon now. Why?" + +As I spoke, I was conscious that there had been some change in Anita. I +looked at her. With startled eyes and lips apart, she was advancing toward +me. + +"Anita, leave the room!" cried Mrs. Ellersly harshly, panic under the +command in her tones. + +I felt rather than saw my advantage, and pressed it. + +"You see what they are doing, Miss Ellersly," said I. + +She passed her hands over her eyes, let her face appear again. In it there +was an energy of repulsion that ought to have seemed exaggerated to me +then, knowing really nothing of the true situation. "I understand now!" +said she. "Oh--it is--loathsome!" And her eyes blazed upon her mother. + +"Loathsome," I echoed, dashing at my opportunity. "If you are not merely a +chattel and a decoy, if there is any womanhood, any self-respect in you, +you will keep faith with me." + +"Anita!" cried Mrs. Ellersly. "Go to your room!" + +I had, once or twice before, heard a tone as repulsive--a female +dive-keeper hectoring her wretched white slaves. I looked at Anita. I +expected to see her erect, defiant. Instead, she was again wearing that +cowed look. + +"Don't judge me too harshly," she said pleadingly to me. "I know what is +right and decent--God planted that too deep in me for them to be able to +uproot it. But--oh, they have broken my will! They have broken my will! +They have made me a coward, a thing!" And she hid her face in her hands and +sobbed. + +Mrs. Ellersly was about to speak. I could not offer better proof of my own +strength of will than the fact that I, with a look and a gesture, put her +down. Then I said to the girl: + +"You must choose now! Woman or thing--which shall it be? If it is woman, +then you have me behind you and in front of you and around you. If it is +thing--God have mercy on you! Your self-respect, your pride are gone--for +ever. You will be like the carpet under his feet to the man whose creature +you become." + +She came and stood by me, with her back to them. + +"If you will take me with you now," she said, "I will go. If I delay, I am +lost. I shall not have the courage. And I am sick, sick to death of this +life here, of this hideous wait for the highest bidder." + +Her voice gained strength and her manner courage as she spoke; at the end +she was meeting her mother's gaze without flinching. My eyes had followed +hers, and my look was taking in both her mother and her father. I had long +since measured them, yet I could scarcely credit the confirmation of my +judgment. Had life been smooth and comfortable for that old couple, as it +was for most of their acquaintances and friends, they would have lived and +died regarding themselves, and regarded, as well-bred, kindly people, of +the finest instincts and tastes. But calamity was putting to the test the +system on which they had molded their apparently elegant, graceful lives. +The storm had ripped off the attractive covering; the framework, the +reality of that system, was revealed, naked and frightful. + +"Anita, go to your room!" almost screamed the old woman, her fury tearing +away the last shreds of her cloak of manners. + +"Your daughter is of age, madam," said I. "She will go where she pleases. +And I warn you that you are deceived by the Langdons. I am not powerless, +and"--here I let her have a full look into my red-hot furnaces of wrath--"I +stop at nothing in pursuing those who oppose me--at nothing!" + +Anita, staring at her mother's awful face, was shrinking and trembling +as if before the wicked, pale-yellow eyes and quivering, outstretched +tentacles of a devil-fish. Clinging to my arm, she let me guide her to the +door. Her mother recovered speech. "Anita!" she cried. "What are you doing? +Are you mad?" + +"I think I must be out of my mind," said Anita. "But, if you try to keep me +here, I shall tell him all--_all_." + +Her voice suggested that she was about to go into hysterics. I gently urged +her forward. There was some sort of woman's wrap in the hall. I put it +round her. Before she--or I--realized it, she was in my waiting electric. + +"Up town," I said to my man. + +She tried to get out. + +"Oh, what have I done! What am I doing!" she cried, her courage oozing +away. "Let me out--please!" + +"You are going with me," said I, entering and closing the door. I saw the +door of the Ellersly mansion opening, saw old Ellersly, bareheaded and +distracted, scuttling down the steps. + +"Go ahead--fast!" I called to my man. + +And the electric was rushing up the avenue, with the bell ringing for +crossings incessantly. She huddled away from me into the corner of the +seat, sobbing hysterically. I knew that to touch her would be fatal--or +to speak. So I waited. + + + + +XXII + +MOST UNGENTLEMANLY + + +As we neared the upper end of the park, I told my chauffeur, through the +tube, to enter and go slowly. Whenever a lamp flashed in at us, I had a +glimpse of her progress toward composure--now she was drying her eyes with +the bit of lace she called a handkerchief; now her bare arms were up, and +with graceful fingers she was arranging her hair; now she was straight and +still, the soft, fluffy material with which her wrap was edged drawn close +about her throat. I shifted to the opposite seat, for my nerves warned me +that I could not long control myself, if I stayed on where her garments +were touching me. + +I looked away from her for the pleasure of looking at her again, of +realizing that my overwrought senses were not cheating me. Yes, there she +was, in all the luster of that magnetic beauty I can not think of even now +without an upblazing of the fire which is to the heart what the sun is to a +blind man dreaming of sight. There she was on my side of the chasm that had +separated us--alone with me--mine--mine! And my heart dilated with pride. +But a moment later came a sense of humility. Her beauty intoxicated me, but +her youth, her fineness, so fragile for such rough hands as mine, awed and +humbled me. + +"I must be very gentle," said I to myself. "I have promised that she shall +never regret. God help me to keep my promise! She is mine, but only to +preserve and protect." + +And that idea of _responsibility in possession_ was new to me--was +to have far-reaching consequences. Now that I think of it, I believe it +changed the whole course of my life. + +She was leaning forward, her elbow on the casement of the open window of +the brougham, her cheek against her hand; the moonlight was glistening +on her round, firm forearm and on her serious face. "How far, far away +from--everything it seems here!" she said, her voice tuned to that soft, +clear light, "and how beautiful it is!" Then, addressing the moon and the +shadows of the trees rather than me: "I wish I could go on and on--and +never return to--to the world." + +"I wish we could," said I. + +My tone was low, but she started, drew back into the brougham, became an +outline in the deep shadow. In another mood that might have angered me. +Just then it hurt me so deeply that to remember it to-day is to feel a +faint ache in the scar of the long-healed wound. My face was not hidden as +was hers; so, perhaps, she saw. At any rate, her voice tried to be friendly +as she said: "Well--I have crossed the Rubicon. And I don't regret. It was +silly of me to cry. I thought I had been through so much that I was beyond +such weakness. But you will find me calm from now on, and reasonable." + +"Not too reasonable, please," said I, with an attempt at her lightness. "A +reasonable woman is as trying as an unreasonable man." + +"But we are going to be sensible with each other," she urged, "like two +friends. Aren't we?" + +"We are going to be what we are going to be," said I. "We'll have to take +life as it comes." + +That clumsy reminder set her to thinking, stirred her vague uneasiness in +those strange circumstances to active alarm. For presently she said, in a +tone that was not so matter-of-course as she had tried to make it: "We'll +go now to my Uncle Frank's. He's a brother of my father's. I always used to +like him best--and still do. But he married a woman mama thought--queer. +They hadn't much, so he lives away up on the West Side--One Hundred and +Twenty-seventh Street." + +"The wise plan, the only wise plan," said I, not so calm as she must have +thought me, "is to go to my partner's house and send for a minister." + +"Not to-night," she replied nervously. "Take me to Uncle Frank's, and +to-morrow we can discuss what to do and how to do it." + +"To-night," I persisted. "We must be married to-night. No more uncertainty +and indecision and weakness. Let us begin bravely, Anita!" + +"To-morrow," she said. "But not to-night. I must think it over." + +"To-night," I repeated. "To-morrow will be full of its own problems. This +is to-night's." + +She shook her head, and I saw that the struggle between us had begun--the +struggle against her timidity and conventionality. "No, not tonight." This +in her tone for finality. + +To argue with any woman in such circumstances would be dangerous; to argue +with her would have been fatal. To reason with a woman is to flatter +her into suspecting you of weakness and herself of strength. I told the +chauffeur to turn about and go slowly up town. She settled back into her +corner of the brougham. Neither of us spoke until we were passing Grant's +Tomb. Then she started out of her secure confidence in my obedience, and +exclaimed: "This is not the way!" And her voice had in it the hasty +call-to-arms. + +"No," I replied, determined to push the panic into a rout. "As I told you, +our future shall be settled to-night." That in _my_ tone for finality. + +A pause, then: "It _has_ been settled," she said, like a child that +feels, yet denies, its impotence as it struggles in the compelling arms of +its father. "I thought until a few minutes ago that I really intended to +marry you. Now I see that I didn't." + +"Another reason why we're not going to your uncle's," said I. + +She leaned forward so that I could see her face. "I can not marry you," she +said. "I feel humble toward you, for having misled you. But it is better +that you--and I--should have found out now than too late." + +"It is too late--too late to go back." + +"Would you wish to marry a woman who does not love you, who loves some one +else, and who tells you so and refuses to marry you?" She had tried to +concentrate enough scorn into her voice to hide her fear. + +"I would," said I. "And I shall. I'll not desert you, Anita, when your +courage and strength shall fail. I will carry you on to safety." + +"I tell you I can not marry you," she cried, between appeal and command. +"There are reasons--I may not tell you. But if I might, you would--would +take me to my uncle's. I can not marry you!" + +"That is what conventionality bids you say now," I replied. And then I +gathered myself together and in a tone that made me hate myself as I +heard it, I added slowly, each word sharp and distinct: "But what will +conventionality bid you say to-morrow morning, as we drive down crowded +Fifth Avenue, after a night in this brougham?" + +I could not see her, for she fell back into the darkness as sharply as if +I had struck her with all my force full in the face. But I could feel the +effect of my words upon her. I paused, not because I expected or wished +an answer, but because I had to steady myself--myself, not my purpose; my +purpose was inflexible. I would put through what we had begun, just as I +would have held her and cut off her arm with my pocket-knife if we had +been cast away alone, and I had had to do it to save her life. She was +not competent to decide for herself. Every problem that had ever faced +her had been decided by others for her. Who but me could decide for her +now? I longed to plead with her, longed to let her see that I was not +hard-hearted, was thinking of her, was acting for her sake as much as for +my own. But I dared not. "She would misunderstand," said I to myself. "She +would think you were weakening." + +Full fifteen minutes of that frightful silence before she said: "I will go +where you wish." And she said it in a tone that makes me wince as I recall +it. + +I called my partner's address up through the tube. Again that frightful +silence, then she was trying to choke back the sobs. A few words I caught: +"They have broken my will--they have broken my will." + + * * * * * + +My partner lived in a big, gray-stone house that stood apart and commanded +a noble view of the Hudson and the Palisades. It was, in the main, a +reproduction of a French chateau, and such changes as the architect had +made in his model were not positively disfiguring, though amusing. There +should have been trees and shrubbery about it, but--"As Mrs. B. says," Joe +had explained to me, "what's the use of sinking a lot of cash in a house +people can't see?" So there was not a bush, not a flower. Inside--One day +Ball took me on a tour of the art shops. "I've got a dozen corners and +other big bare spots to fill," said he. "Mrs. B. hates to give up money, +haggles over every article. I'm going to put the job through in business +style." I soon discovered that I had been brought along to admire his +"business style," not to suggest. After two hours, in which he bought in +small lots several tons of statuary, paintings, vases and rugs, he said, +"This is too slow." He pointed his stick at a crowded corner of the shop. +"How much for that bunch of stuff?" he demanded. The proprietor gave him a +figure. "I'll close," said Joe, "if you'll give fifteen off for cash." The +proprietor agreed. "Now we're done," said Joe to me. "Let's go down town, +and maybe I can pick up what I've dropped." + +You can imagine that interior. But don't picture it as notably worse than +the interior of the average New York palace. It was, if anything, better +than those houses, where people who deceive themselves about their lack of +taste have taken great pains to prevent any one else from being deceived. +One could hardly move in Joe's big rooms for the litter of gilded and +tapestried furniture, and their crowded walls made the eyes ache. + +The appearance of the man who opened the door for Anita and me suggested +that our ring had roused him from a bed where he had deposited himself +without bothering to take off his clothes. At the sound of my voice, Ball +peered out of his private smoking-room, at the far end of the hall. He +started forward; then, seeing how I was accompanied, stopped with mouth +ajar. He had on a ragged smoking-jacket, a pair of shapeless old Romeo +slippers, his ordinary business waistcoat and trousers. He was wearing +neither tie nor collar, and a short, black pipe was between his fingers. +We had evidently caught the household stripped of "lugs," and sunk in the +down-at-the-heel slovenliness which it called "comfort." Joe was crimson +with confusion, and was using his free hand to stroke, alternately, his +shiny bald head and his heavy brown mustache. He got himself together +sufficiently, after a few seconds, to disappear into his den. When he came +out again, pipe and ragged jacket were gone, and he rushed for us in a +gorgeous velvet jacket with dark red facings, and a showy pair of slippers. + +"Glad to see you, Mr. Blacklock"--in his own home he always addressed every +man as Mister, just as "Mrs. B." always called him "Mister Ball," and he +called her "Missus Ball" before "company." "Come right into the front +parlor. Billy, turn on the electric lights." + +Anita had been standing with her head down. She now looked round with +shame and terror in those expressive blue-gray eyes of hers; her delicate +nostrils were quivering. I hastened to introduce Ball to her. Her impulse +to fly passed; her lifelong training in doing the conventional thing +asserted itself. She lowered her head again, murmured an inaudible +acknowledgment of Joe's greeting. + +"Your wife is at home?" said I. If one was at home in the evening, the +other was also, and both were always there, unless they were at some +theater--except on Sunday night, when they dined at Sherry's, because many +fashionable people did it. They had no friends and few acquaintances. +In their humbler and happy days they had had many friends, but had lost +them when they moved away from Brooklyn and went to live, like uneasy, +out-of-place visitors, in their grand house, pretending to be what they +longed to be, longing to be what they pretended to be, and as discontented +as they deserved. + +"Oh, yes, Mrs. B.'s at home," Joe answered. "I guess she and Alva +were--about to go to bed." Alva was their one child. She had been +christened Malvina, after Joe's mother; but when the Balls "blossomed out" +they renamed her Alva, which they somehow had got the impression was +"smarter." + +At Joe's blundering confession that the females of the family were in no +condition to receive, Anita said to me in a low voice: "Let us go." + +I pretended not to hear. "Rout 'em out," said I to Joe. "Then, take my +electric and bring the nearest parson. There's going to be a wedding--right +here." And I looked round the long salon, with everything draped for the +summer departure. Joe whisked the cover off one chair, his man took off +another. "I'll have the women-folks down in two minutes," he cried. Then to +the man: "Get a move on you, Billy. Stir 'em up in the kitchen. Do the best +you can about supper--and put a lot of champagne on the ice. That's the +main thing at a wedding." + +Anita had seated herself listlessly in one of the uncovered chairs. The +wrap slipped back from her shoulders and--how proud I was of her! Joe +gazed, took advantage of her not looking up to slap me on the back and to +jerk his head in enthusiastic approval. Then he, too, disappeared. + +A wait followed, during which we could hear, through the silence, excited +undertones from the upper floors. The words were indistinct until Joe's +heavy voice sent down to us an angry "No damn nonsense, I tell you. Allie's +got to come, too. She's not such a fool as you think. Bad example--bosh!" + +Anita started up. "Oh--please--please!" she cried. "Take me away--anywhere! +This is dreadful." + +It was, indeed, dreadful. If I could have had my way at just that moment, +it would have gone hard with "Mrs. B." and "Allie"--and heavy-voiced Joe, +too. But I hid my feelings. + +"There's nowhere else to go," said I, "except the brougham." + +She sank into her chair. + +A few minutes more of silence, and there was a rustling on the stairs. +She started up, trembling, looked round, as if seeking some way of escape +or some place to hide. Joe was in the doorway holding aside one of the +curtains. There entered in a beribboned and beflounced tea-gown, a pretty, +if rather ordinary, woman of forty, with a petulant baby face. She was +trying to look reserved and severe. She hardly glanced at me before +fastening sharp, suspicious eyes on Anita. + +"Mrs. Ball," said I, "this is Miss Ellersly," + +"Miss Ellersly!" she exclaimed, her face changing. And she advanced and +took both Anita's hands. "Mr. Ball is so stupid," she went on, with that +amusingly affected accent which is the "Sunday clothes" of speech. + +"I didn't catch the name, my dear," Joe stammered. + +"Be off," said I, aside, to him. "Get the nearest preacher, and hustle him +here with his tools." + +I had one eye on Anita all the time, and I saw her gaze follow Joe as he +hurried out; and her expression made my heart ache. I heard him saying in +the hall, "Go in, Allie. It's O K"; heard the door slam, knew we should +soon have some sort of minister with us. + +"Allie" entered the drawing-room. I had not seen her in six years. I +remembered her unpleasantly as a great, bony, florid child, unable to +stand still or to sit still, or to keep her tongue still, full of aimless +questions and giggles and silly remarks that she and her mother thought +funny. I saw her now, grown into a handsome young woman, with enough beauty +points for an honorable mention, if not for a prize--straight and strong +and rounded, with a brow and a keen look out of the eyes which it seemed +a pity should be wasted on a woman. Her mother's looks, her father's good +sense, a personality apparently got from neither, but all her own, and +unusual and interesting. No wonder the Balls felt toward her much as a pair +of barn-swallows would feel if they were to hatch out an eaglet. These +quiet, tame American parents that are always finding their suppressed +selves, the bold, fantastic, unadmitted dreams of their youth startlingly +confronting them in the flesh as their own children! + +"From what Mr. Ball said,"--Mrs. Ball was gushing affectedly to Anita,--"I +got an idea that--well, really, I didn't know _what_ to think." + +Anita looked as if she were about to suffocate. Allie came to the rescue. +"Not very complimentary to Mr. Blacklock, mother," said she good-humoredly. +Then to Anita, with a simple friendliness there was no resisting: "Wouldn't +you like to come up to my room for a few minutes?" + +"Oh, thank you!" responded Anita, after a quick, but thorough inspection +of Alva's face, to make sure she was like her voice. I had not counted on +this; I had been assuming that Anita would not be out of my sight until we +were married. It was on the tip of my tongue to interfere when she looked +at me--for permission to go! + +"Don't keep her too long," said I to Alva, and they were gone. + +"You can't blame me--really you can't, Mr. Blacklock," Mrs. Ball began to +plead for herself, as soon as they were safely out of hearing. "After some +things--mere hints, you understand--for I'm careful what I permit Mr. Ball +to say before _me_. I think married people can not be too respectful of +each other. I _never_ tolerate _vulgarity_." + +"No doubt, Joe has made me out a very vulgar person," said I, forgetting +her lack of humor. + +"Oh, not at all, not at all, Mr. Blacklock," she protested, in a panic lest +she had done her husband damage with me. "I understand, men will be men, +though as a pure-minded woman, I'm sure I can't imagine why they should +be." + +"How far off is the nearest church?" I cut in. + +"Only two blocks--that is, the Methodist church," she replied. "But I know +Mr. Ball will bring an Episcopalian." + +"Why, I thought you were a devoted Presbyterian," said I, recalling how in +their Brooklyn days she used to insist on Joe's going twice every Sunday to +sleep through long sermons. + +She looked uncomfortable. "I was reared Presbyterian," she explained +confusedly, "but you know how it is in New York. And when we came to live +here, we got out of the habit of church-going. And all Alva's little +friends were Episcopalians. So I drifted toward that church. I find the +service so satisfying--so--elegant. And--one sees there the people one sees +socially." + +"How is your culture class?" I inquired, deliberately malicious, in my +impatience and nervousness. "And do you still take conversation lessons?" + +She was furiously annoyed. "Oh, those old jokes of Joe's," she said, +affecting disdainful amusement. + +In fact, they were anything but jokes. On Mondays and Thursdays she used +to attend a class for women who, like herself, wished to be "up-to-date on +culture and all that sort of thing." They hired a teacher to cram them with +odds and ends about art and politics and the "latest literature, heavy and +light." On Tuesdays and Fridays she had an "indigent gentlewoman," whatever +that may be, come to her to teach her how to converse and otherwise conduct +herself according to the "standards of polite society." + +Joe used to give imitations of those conversation lessons that raised roars +of laughter round the poker table, the louder because so many of the other +men had wives with the same ambitions and the same methods of attaining +them. + +Mrs. Ball came back to the subject of Anita. + +"I am glad you are going to settle with such a charming girl. She comes of +such a charming family. I have never happened to meet any of them. We are +in the West Side set, you know, while they move in the East Side set, and +New York is so large that one almost never meets any one outside one's own +set." This smooth snobbishness, said in the affected "society" tone, was +as out of place in her as rouge and hair-dye in a wholesome, honest old +grandmother. + +I began to pace the floor. "Can it be," I fretted aloud, "that Joe's racing +round looking for an Episcopalian preacher, when there was a Methodist at +hand?" + +"I'm sure he wouldn't bring anything but a Church of England priest," +Mrs. Ball assured me loftily. "Why, Miss Ellersly wouldn't think she was +married, if she hadn't a priest of her own church." + +My temper got the bit in its teeth. I stopped before her, and fixed her +with an eye that must have had some fire in it. "I'm not marrying a fool, +Mrs. Ball," said I. "You mustn't judge her by her bringing-up--by her +family. Children have a way of bringing themselves up, in spite of damn +fool parents." + +She weakened so promptly that I was ashamed of myself. My only apology for +getting out of patience with her is that I had seen her seldom in the last +few years, had forgotten how matter-of-surface her affectation and snobbery +were, and how little they interfered with her being a good mother and a +good wife, up to the limits of her brain capacity. + +"I'm sure, Mr. Blacklock," she said plaintively, "I only wished to say what +was pleasant and nice about your fiancee. I know she's a lovely girl. I've +often admired her at the opera. She goes a great deal in Mrs. Langdon's +box, and Mrs. Langdon and I are together on the board of managers of the +Magdalene Home, and also on the board of the Hospital for Unfortunate +Gentlefolk." And so on, and on. + +I walked up and down among those wrapped-up, ghostly chairs and tables and +cabinets and statues many times before Joe arrived with the minister--and +he was a Methodist, McCabe by name. You should have seen Mrs. Ball's look +as he advanced his portly form and round face with its shaven upper lip +into the drawing-room. She tried to be cordial, but she couldn't--her mind +was on Anita, and the horror that would fill her when she discovered that +she was to be married by a preacher of a sect unknown to fashionable +circles. + +"All I ask of you," said I to him, "is that you cut it as short as +possible. Miss Ellersly is tired and nervous." This while we were shaking +hands after Joe's introduction. + +"You can count on me, sir," said McCabe, giving my hand an extra shake +before dropping it. "I've no doubt, from what my young neighbor here +tells me, that your marriage is already made in your hearts and with all +solemnity. The form is an incident--important, but only an incident." + +I liked that, and I liked his unaffected way of saying it. His voice had +more of the homely, homelike, rural twang in it than I had heard in New +York in many a day. I mentally doubled the fee I had intended to give him. +And now Alva and she were coming down the stairway. I was amazed at sight +of her. Her evening dress had given place to a pretty blue street suit +with a short skirt--white showing at her wrists, at her neck and through +slashings in the coat over her bosom; and on her head was a hat to match. I +looked at her feet--the slippers had been replaced by boots. "And they're +just right for her," said Alva, who was following my glance, "though I'm +not so tall as she." + +But what amazed me most, and delighted me, was that she seemed to be almost +in good spirits. It was evident she had formed with Joe's daughter one of +those sudden friendships so great and so vivid that they rarely lived long +after the passing of the heat of the emergency that bred them. Mrs. Ball +saw it, also, and was straightway giddied into a sort of ecstasy. You can +imagine the visions it conjured. I've no doubt she talked house on the +east side of the park to Joe that very night, before she let him sleep. +However, Anita's face was serious enough when we took our places before +the minister, with his little, black-bound book open. And as he read in a +voice that was genuinely impressive those words that no voice could make +unimpressive, I saw her paleness blanch into pallor, saw the dusk creep +round her eyes until they were like stars waning somberly before the gray +face of dawn. When they closed and her head began to sway, I steadied her +with my arm. And so we stood, I with my arm round her, she leaning lightly +against my shoulder. Her answers were mere movements of the lips. + +At the end, when I kissed her cheek, she said: "Is it over?" + +"Yes," McCabe answered--she was looking at him. "And I wish you all +happiness, Mrs. Blacklock." + +At that name, her new name, she stared at him with great wondering eyes; +then her form relaxed. I carried her to a chair. Joe came with a glass of +champagne; she drank some of it, and it brought life back to her face, and +some color. With a naturalness that deceived even me for the moment, she +smiled up at Joe as she handed him the glass. "Is it bad luck," she asked, +"for me to be the first to drink my own health?" And she stood, looking +tranquilly at every one--except me. + +I took McCabe into the hall and paid him off. + +When we came back, I said: "Now we must be going." + +"Oh, but surely you'll stay for supper!" cried Joe's wife. + +"No," replied I, in a tone that made it impossible to insist. "We +appreciate your kindness, but we've imposed on it enough." And I shook +hands with her and with Allie and the minister, and, linking Joe's arm in +mine, made for the door. I gave the necessary directions to my chauffeur +while we were waiting for Anita to come down the steps. Joe's daughter was +close beside her, and they kissed each other good-by, Alva on the verge of +tears, Anita not suggesting any emotion of any sort. "To-morrow--sure," +Anita said to her. And she answered: "Yes, indeed--as soon as you telephone +me." And so we were off, a shower of rice rattling on the roof of the +brougham--the slatternly man-servant had thrown it from the midst of the +group of servants. + +Neither of us spoke. I watched her face without seeming to do so, and by +the light of occasional street lamps saw her studying me furtively. At last +she said: "I wish to go to my uncle's now." + +"We are going home," said I. + +"But the house will be shut up," said she, "and every one will be in bed. +It's nearly midnight. Besides, they might not--" She came to a full stop. + +"We are going--home," I repeated. "To the Willoughby." + +She gave me a look that was meant to scorch--and it did. But I showed at +the surface no sign of how I was wincing and shrinking. + +She drew farther into her corner, and out of its darkness came, in a low +voice: "How I _hate_ you!" like the whisper of a bullet. + +I kept silent until I had control of myself. Then, as if talking--of a +matter that had been finally and amicably settled, I began: "The apartment +isn't exactly ready for us, but Joe's just about now telephoning my man +that we are coming, and telephoning your people to send your maid down +there." + +"I wish to go to my uncle's," she repeated. + +"My wife will go with me," said I quietly and gently. "I am considerate of +_her_, not of her unwise impulses." + +A long pause, then from her, in icy calmness: "I am in your power just now. +But I warn you that, if you do not take me to my uncle's, you will wish you +had never seen me." + +"I've wished that many times already," said I sadly. "I've wished it from +the bottom of my heart this whole evening, when step by step fate has been +forcing me on to do things that are even more hateful to me than to you. +For they not only make me hate myself, but make you hate me, too." I laid +my hand on her arm and held it there, though she tried to draw away. +"Anita," I said, "I would do anything for you--live for you, die for you. +But there's that something inside me--you've felt it; and when it says +'must,' I can't disobey--you know I can't. And, though you might break +my heart, you could not break that will. It's as much my master as it is +yours." + +"We shall see--to-morrow," she said. + +"Do not put me to the test," I pleaded. Then I added what I knew to be +true: "But you will not. You know it would take some one stronger than your +uncle, stronger than your parents, to swerve me from what I believe right +for you and for me." I had no fear for "to-morrow." The hour when she could +defy me had passed. + +A long, long silence, the electric speeding southward under the arching +trees of the West Drive. I remember it was as we skirted the lower end +of the Mall that she said evenly: "You have made me hate you so that it +terrifies me. I am afraid of the consequences that must come to you and +to me." + +"And well you may be," I answered gently. "For you've seen enough of me to +get at least a hint of what I would do, if goaded to it. Hate is terrible, +Anita, but love can be more terrible." + +At the Willoughby she let me help her descend from the electric, waited +until I sent it away, walked beside me into the building. My man, Sanders, +had evidently been listening for the elevator; the door opened without my +ringing, and there he was, bowing low. She acknowledged his welcome with +that regard for "appearances" that training had made instinctive. In the +center of my--our--drawing-room table was a mass of fresh white roses. +"Where did you get 'em?" I asked him, in an aside. + +"The elevator boy's brother, sir," he replied, "works in the florist's shop +just across the street, next to the church. He happened to be down stairs +when I got your message, sir. So I was able to get a few flowers. I'm +sorry, sir, I hadn't a little more time." + +"You've done noble," said I, and I shook hands with him warmly. + +Anita was greeting those flowers as if they were a friend suddenly +appearing in a time of need. She turned now and beamed on Sanders. "Thank +you," she said; "thank you." And Sanders was hers. + +"Anything I can do--ma'am--sir?" asked Sanders. + +"Nothing--except send my maid as soon as she comes," she replied. + +"I shan't need you," said I. + +"Mr. Monson is still here," he said, lingering. "Shall I send him away, +sir, or do you wish to see him?" + +"I'll speak to him myself in a moment," I answered. + +When Sanders was gone, she seated herself and absently played with the +buttons of her glove. + +"Shall I bring Monson?" I asked. "You know, he's my--factotum." + +"_I_ do not wish to see him," she answered. + +"You do not like him?" + +After a brief hesitation she answered, "No." Not for worlds would she just +then have admitted, even to herself, that the cause of her dislike was her +knowledge of his habit of tattling, with suitable embroideries, his lessons +to me. + +I restrained a strong impulse to ask her why, for instinct told me she had +some especial reason that somehow concerned me. I said merely: "Then I +shall get rid of him." + +"Not on my account," she replied indifferently. "I care nothing about him +one way or the other." + +"He goes at the end of his month," said I. + +She was now taking off her gloves. "Before your maid comes," I went on, +"let me explain about the apartment. This room and the two leading out of +it are yours. My own suite is on the other side of our private hall there." + +She colored high, paled. I saw that she did not intend to speak. + +I stood awkwardly, waiting for something further to come into my own head. +"Good night," said I finally, as if I were taking leave of a formal +acquaintance at the end of a formal call. + +She did not answer. I left the room, closing the door behind me. I paused +an instant, heard the key click in the lock. And I burned in a hot flush of +shame that she should be thinking thus basely of me--and with good cause. +How could she know, how appreciate even if she had known? "You've had to +cut deep," said I to myself. "But the wounds'll heal, though it may take +long--very long." And I went on my way, not wholly downcast. + +I joined Monson in my little smoking-room. "Congratulate you," he began, +with his nasty, supercilious grin, which of late had been getting on my +nerves severely. + +"Thanks," I replied curtly, paying no attention to his outstretched hand. +"I want you to put a notice of the marriage in to-morrow morning's +_Herald_." + +"Give me the facts--clergyman's name--place, and so on," said he. + +"Unnecessary," I answered. "Just our names and the date--that's all. You'd +better step lively. It's late, and it'll be too late if you delay." + +With an irritating show of deliberation he lit a fresh cigarette before +setting out. I heard her maid come. After about an hour I went into the +hall--no light through the transoms of her suite. I returned to my own part +of the flat and went to bed in the spare room to which Sanders had moved my +personal belongings. That day which began in disaster--in what a blaze of +triumph it had ended! Anita--my wife, and under my roof! I slept with good +conscience. I had earned sleep. + + + + +XXIII + +"SHE HAS CHOSEN!" + + +Joe got to the office rather later than usual the next morning. They told +him I was already there, but he wouldn't believe it until he had come into +my private den and with his own eyes had seen me. "Well, I'm jiggered!" +said he. "It seems to have made less impression on you than it did on us. +My missus and the little un wouldn't let me go to bed till after two. They +sat on and on, questioning and discussing." + +I laughed--partly because I knew that Joe, like most men, was as full of +gossip and as eager for it as a convalescent old maid, and that, whoever +might have been the first at his house to make the break for bed, he was +the last to leave off talking. But the chief reason for my laugh was that, +just before he came in on me, I was almost pinching myself to see whether I +was dreaming it all, and he had made me feel how vividly true it was. + +"Why don't you ease down, Blacklock?" he went on. "Everything's smooth. The +business--at least, my end of it, and I suppose your end, too--was never +better, never growing so fast. You could go off for a week or two, just as +well as not. I don't know of a thing that can prevent you." + +And he honestly thought it, so little did I let him know about the larger +enterprises of Blacklock and Company. I could have spoken a dozen words, +and he would have been floundering like a caught fish in a basket. There +are men--a very few--who work more swiftly and more surely when they know +they're on the brink of ruin; but not Joe. One glimpse of our real National +Coal account, and all my power over him couldn't have kept him from showing +the whole Street that Blacklock and Company was shaky. And whenever the +Street begins to think a man is shaky, he must be strong indeed to escape +the fate of the wolf that stumbles as it runs with the pack. + +"No holiday at present, Joe," was my reply to his suggestion. "Perhaps the +second week in July; but our marriage was so sudden that we haven't had the +time to get ready for a trip." + +"Yes--it _was_ sudden, wasn't it?" said Joe, curiosity twitching his +nose like a dog's at scent of a rabbit. "How _did_ it happen?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you sometime," replied I. "I must work now." + +And work a-plenty there was. Before me rose a sheaf of clamorous telegrams +from our out-of-town customers and our agents; and soon my anteroom was +crowded with my local following, sore and shorn. I suppose a score or more +of the habitual heavy plungers on my tips were ruined and hundreds of +others were thousands and tens of thousands out of pocket. "Do you want me +to talk to these people?" inquired Joe, with the kindly intention of giving +me a chance to shift the unpleasant duty to him. + +"Certainly not," said I. "When the place is jammed, let me know. I'll jack +'em up." + +It made Joe uneasy for me even to talk of using my "language"--he would +have crawled from the Battery to Harlem to keep me from using it on him. +So he silently left me alone. My system of dealing face to face with the +speculating and investing public had many great advantages over that of all +the other big operators--their system of hiding behind cleverly-contrived +screens and slaughtering the decoyed public without showing so much as the +tip of a gun or nose that could be identified. But to my method there was +a disadvantage that made men, who happened to have more hypocrisy and less +nerve than I, shrink from it. When one of my tips miscarried, down upon me +would swoop the bad losers in a body to give me a turbulent quarter of an +hour. + +Toward ten o'clock, my boy came in and said: "Mr. Ball thinks it's about +time for you to see some of these people." + +I went into the main room, where the tickers and blackboards were. As I +approached through my outer office I could hear the noise the crowd was +making--as they cursed me. If you want to rile the true inmost soul of the +average human being, don't take his reputation or his wife; just cause +him to lose money. There were among my speculating customers many with +the even-tenored sporting instinct. These were bearing their losses with +philosophy--none of them had swooped on me. Of the perhaps three hundred +who had come to ease their anguish by tongue-lashing me, every one was +a bad loser and was mad through and through--those who had lost a few +hundred dollars were as infuriated as those whom my misleading tip had cost +thousands and tens of thousands; those whom I had helped to win all they +had in the world were more savage than those new to my following. + +I took my stand in the doorway, a step up from the floor of the main room. +I looked all round until I had met each pair of angry eyes. They say I can +give my face an expression that is anything but agreeable; such talent as +I have in that direction I exerted then. The instant I appeared a silence +fell; but I waited until the last pair of claws drew in. Then I said, in +the quiet tone the army officer uses when he tells the mob that the machine +guns will open up in two minutes by the watch: "Gentlemen, in the effort to +counteract my warning to the public, the Textile crowd rocketed the stock +yesterday. Those who heeded my warning and sold got excellent prices. Those +who did not should sell to-day. Not even the powerful interests behind +Textile can long maintain yesterday's prices." + +A wave of restlessness passed over the crowd. Many shifted their eyes from +me and began to murmur. + +I raised my voice slightly as I went on: "The speculators, the gamblers, +are the only people who were hurt. Those who sold what they didn't have are +paying for their folly. I have no sympathy for them. Blacklock and Company +wishes none such in its following, and seizes every opportunity to weed +them out. We are in business only for the bona fide investing public, and +we are stronger with that public to-day than we have ever been." + +Again I looked from coward to coward of that mob, changed from three +hundred strong to three hundred weak. Then I bowed and withdrew, leaving +them to mutter and disperse. I felt well content with the trend of +events--I who wished to impress the public and the financiers that I had +broken with speculation and speculators, could I have had a better than +this unexpected opportunity sharply to define my new course? And as +Textiles, unsupported, fell toward the close of the day, my content rose +toward my normal high spirits. There was no whisper in the Street that +I was in trouble; on the contrary, the idea was gaining ground that I +had really long ceased to be a stock gambler and deserved a much better +reputation than I had. Reputation is a matter of diplomacy rather than of +desert. In all my career I was never less entitled to a good reputation +than in those June days; yet the disastrous gambling follies, yes, and +worse, I then committed, formed the secure foundation of my reputation +for conservatism and square dealing. From that time dates the decline of +the habit the newspapers had of speaking of me as "Black Matt" or "Matt" +Blacklock. In them, and therefore in the public mind, I began to figure as +"Mr. Blacklock, a recognized authority on finance," and such information as +I gave out ceased to be described as "tips" and was respectfully referred +to as "indications." + +No doubt, my marriage had something to do with this. Probably one couldn't +borrow any great amount of money in New York directly and solely on +the strength of a fashionable marriage; but, so all-pervading is the +snobbishness there, one can get, by making a fashionable marriage, any +quantity of that deferential respect from rich people which is, in some +circumstances, easily convertible into cash and credit. + +I searched with a good deal of anxiety, as you may imagine, the early +editions of the afternoon papers. The first article my eye chanced upon was +a mere wordy elaboration of the brief and vague announcement Monson had put +in the _Herald_. Later came an interview with old Ellersly. + +"Not at all mysterious," he had said to the reporters. "Mr. Blacklock found +he would have to go abroad on business soon--he didn't know just when. On +the spur of the moment they decided to marry." A good enough story, and +I confirmed it when I admitted the reporters. I read their estimates of +my fortune and of Anita's with rather bitter amusement--she whose father +was living from hand to mouth; I who could not have emerged from a forced +settlement with enough to enable me to keep a trap. Still, when one is +rich, the reputation of being rich is heavily expensive; but when one is +poor the reputation of being rich can be made a wealth-giving asset. + +Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk +before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs--a memorandum made +by myself for my own eyes, and to be burned as soon as I mastered it. On +the face of the figures the balance against me was appalling. My chief +asset, indeed my only asset that measured up toward my debts, was my Coal +stocks, those bought and those contracted for; and, while their par value +far exceeded my liabilities, they had to appear in my memorandum at their +actual market value on that day. I looked at the calendar--seventeen days +until the reorganization scheme would be announced, only seventeen days! + +Less than three business weeks, and I should be out of the storm and +sailing safer and smoother seas than I had ever known. "To indulge in vague +_hopes_ is bad," thought I, "but not to indulge in _a_ hope, especially +when one has only it between him and the pit." And I proceeded to plan on +the not unwarranted assumption that my Coal hope was a present reality. +Indeed, what alternative had I? To put it among the future's uncertainties +was to put myself among the utterly ruined. Using as collateral the Coal +stocks I had bought outright, I borrowed more money, and with it went still +deeper into the Coal venture. Everything or nothing!--since the chances in +my favor were a thousand, to practically none against me. Everything or +nothing!--since only by staking everything could I possibly save anything +at all. + +The morality of these and many of my other doings in those days will no +doubt be condemned. By no one more severely than by myself--now that the +necessities which then compelled me have passed. There is no subject on +which men talk and think, more humbug than on that subject of morality. As +a matter of fact, except in those personal relations that are governed by +the affections, what is morality but the mandate of policy, and what is +policy but the mandate of necessity? My criticism of Roebuck and the other +"high financiers" is not upon their morality, but upon their policy, which +is short-sighted and stupid and base. The moral difference between me and +them is that, white I merely assert and maintain my right to live, they +deny the right of any but themselves to live. I say I criticize them; +but that does not mean that I sympathize with the public at large in its +complainings against them. The public, its stupidity and cupidity, creates +the conditions that breed and foster these men. A rotten cheese reviling +the maggots it has bred! + +In those very hours when I was obeying the imperative law of +self-preservation, was clutching at every log that floated by me regardless +of whether it was my property or not so long as it would help me keep my +head above water--what was going on all round me? In every office of the +down town district--merchant, banker, broker, lawyer, man of commerce or +finance--was not every busy brain plotting, not self-preservation but +pillage and sack--plotting to increase the cost of living for the masses of +men by slipping a little tax here and a little tax there on to everything +by which men live? All along the line between the farm or mine or shop +and the market, at every one of the toll-gates for the collection of +_just_ charges, these big financiers, backed up by the big lawyers and +the rascally public officials, had an agent in charge to collect on each +passing article more than was honestly due. A thousand subtle ways of +levying, all combining to pour in upon the few the torrents of unjust +wealth. I laugh when I read of laboring men striking for higher wages. +Poor, ignorant fools--they almost deserve their fate. They had better be +concerning themselves with a huge, universal strike at the polls for lower +prices. What will it avail to get higher wages, as long as the masters +control and recoup on the prices of all the things for which those wages +must be spent? + +I lived in Wall Street, in its atmosphere of the practical morality of +"finance." On every side swindling operations, great and small; operations +regarded as right through long-established custom; dishonest or doubtful +operations on the way to becoming established by custom as "respectable." +No man's title to anything conceded unless he had the brains to defend it. +There was a time when it would have been regarded as wildly preposterous +and viciously immoral to deny property rights in human beings. There may +come a time--who knows?--when "high finance's" denial of a moral right +to property of any kind may cease to be regarded as wicked; may become a +generally accepted canon, as our Socialist friends predict. However, I +attempt no excuses for myself; I need them no more than a judge in the Dark +Ages needed to apologize for ordering a witch to the stake. I could no +more have done differently than a fish could breathe on land or a man +under water. I did as all the others did--and I had the justification of +necessity. Right of might being the prevailing code, when men set upon +me with pistols, I met them with pistols, not with the discarded and +antiquated weapons of sermon and prayer and the law. + +And I thought extremely well of myself and of my pistols that June +afternoon, as I was hurrying up town the moment the day's settlement on +'Change was finished. I had sent out my daily letter to investors, and its +tone of confidence was genuine--I knew that hundreds of customers of a +better class would soon be flocking in to take the places of those I had +been compelled to teach a lesson in the vicissitudes of gambling. With a +light heart and the physical feeling of a football player in training, I +sped toward home. + +Home! For the first time since I was a squat little slip of a shaver the +word had a personal meaning for me. Perhaps, if the only other home of mine +had been less uninviting, I should not have looked forward with such high +beating of the heart to that cold home Anita was making for me. No, I +withdraw that. It is fellows like me, to whom kindly looks and unsought +attentions are as unfamiliar as flowers to the Arctic--it is men like me +that appreciate and treasure and warm up under the faintest show or shadowy +suggestion of the sunshine of sentiment. I'd be a little ashamed to say how +much money I handed out to beggars and street gamins that day. I had a home +to go to! + +As my electric drew up at the Willoughby, a carriage backed to make room +for it. I recognized the horses and the coachman and the crest. + +"How long has Mrs. Ellersly been with my wife?" I asked the elevator boy, +as he was taking me up. + +"About half an hour, sir," he answered. "But Mr. Ellersly--I took up his +card before lunch, and he's still there." + +Instead of using my key, I rang the bell, and when Sanders opened, I said: +"Is Mrs. Blacklock in?" in a voice loud enough to penetrate to the +drawing-room. + +As I had hoped, Anita appeared. Her dress told me that her trunks had +come--she had sent for her trunks! "Mother and father are here," said she, +without looking at me. + +I followed her into the drawing-room and, for the benefit of the servants, +Mr. and Mrs. Ellersly and I greeted each other courteously, though Mrs. +Ellersly's eyes and mine met in a glance like the flash of steel on steel. +"We were just going," said she, and then I felt that I had arrived in the +midst of a tempest of uncommon fury. + +"You must stop and make _me_ a visit," protested I, with elaborate +politeness. To myself I was assuming that they had come to "make up and be +friends"--and resume their places at the trough. + +She was moving toward the door, the old man in her wake. Neither of them +offered to shake hands with me; neither made pretense of saying good-by +to Anita, standing by the window like a pillar of ice. I had closed the +drawing-room door behind me, as I entered. I was about to open it for them +when I was restrained by what I saw working in the old woman's face. She +had set her will on escaping from my loathed presence without a "scene;" +but her rage at having been outgeneraled was too fractious for her will. + +"You scoundrel!" she hissed, her whole body shaking and her +carefully-cultivated appearance of the gracious evening of youth swallowed +up in a black cyclone of hate. "You gutter-plant! God will punish you for +the shame you have brought upon us!" + +I opened the door and bowed, without a word, without even the desire to +return insult for insult--had not Anita evidently again and finally +rejected them and chosen me? As they passed into the private hall I +rang for Sanders to come and let them out. When I turned back into the +drawing-room, Anita was seated, was reading a book. I waited until I saw +she was not going to speak. Then I said: "What time will you have dinner?" +But my face must have been expressing some of the joy and gratitude that +filled me. "She has chosen!" I was saying to myself over and over. + +"Whenever you usually have it," she replied, without looking up. + +"At seven o'clock, then. You had better tell Sanders." + +I rang for him and went into my little smoking-room. She had resisted her +parents' final appeal to her to return to them. She had cast in her lot +with me. "The rest can be left to time," said I to myself. And, reviewing +all that had happened, I let a wild hope send tenacious roots deep into me. +How often ignorance is a blessing; how often knowledge would make the step +falter and the heart quail! + + + + +XXIV + +BLACKLOCK ATTENDS FAMILY PRAYERS + + +During dinner I bore the whole burden of conversation--though burden I did +not find it. Like most close-mouthed men, I am extremely talkative. Silence +sets people to wondering and prying; he hides his secrets best who hides +them at the bottom of a river of words. If my spirits are high, I often +talk aloud to myself when there is no one convenient. And how could my +spirits be anything but high, with her sitting there opposite me, mine, +mine for better or for worse, through good and evil report--my wife! + +She was only formally responsive, reluctant and brief in answers, +volunteering nothing. The servants waiting on us no doubt laid her manner +to shyness; I understood it, or thought I did--but I was not troubled. +It is as natural for me to hope as to breathe; and with my knowledge of +character, how could I take seriously the moods and impulses of one whom I +regarded as a childlike girl, trained to false pride and false ideals? "She +has chosen to stay with me," said I to myself. "Actions count, not words or +manner. A few days or weeks, and she will be herself, and mine." And I went +gaily on with my efforts to interest her, to make her smile and forget the +role she had commanded herself to play. Nor was I wholly unsuccessful. +Again and again I thought I saw a gleam of interest in her eyes or the +beginnings of a smile about that sweet mouth of hers. I was careful not to +overdo my part. + +As soon as we finished dessert I said: "You loathe cigar smoke, so I'll +hide myself in my den. Sanders will bring you the cigarettes." I had myself +telephoned for a supply of her kind early in the day. + +She made a polite protest for the benefit of the servants; but I was firm, +and left her free to think things over alone in the drawing-room--"your +sitting-room," I called it, I had not finished a small cigar when there +came a timid knock at my door. I threw away the cigar and opened. "I +thought it was you," said I. "I'm familiar with the knocks of all the +others. And this was new--like a summer wind tapping with a flower for +admission at a closed window." And I laughed with a little raillery, and +she smiled, colored, tried to seem cold and hostile again. + +"Shall I go with you to your sitting-room?" I went on. "Perhaps the cigar +smoke here--" + +"No, no," she interrupted; "I don't really mind cigars--and the windows are +wide open. Besides, I came for only a moment--just to say--" + +As she cast about for words to carry her on, I drew up a chair for her. +She looked at it uncertainly, seated herself. "When mama was here--this +afternoon," she went on, "she was urging me to--to do what she wished. +And after she had used several arguments, she said something I--I've been +thinking it over, and it seemed I ought in fairness to tell you." + +I waited. + +"She said: 'In a few days more he'--that meant you--'he will be ruined. He +imagines the worst is over for him, when in fact they've only begun.'" + +"They!" I repeated. "Who are 'they'? The Langdons?" + +"I think so," she replied with an effort. "She did not say--I've told you +her exact words--as far as I can." + +"Well," said I, "and why didn't you go?" + +She pressed her lips firmly together. Finally, with a straight look into my +eyes, she replied: "I shall not discuss that. You probably misunderstand, +but that is your own affair." + +"You believed what she said about me, of course," said I. + +"I neither believed nor disbelieved," she answered indifferently, as she +rose to go. "It does not interest me." + +"Come here," said I. + +I waited until she reluctantly joined me at the window. I pointed to the +steeple of the church across the way. "You could as easily throw down that +steeple by pushing against it with your bare hands," I said to her, "as +'they,' whoever they are, could put me down. They might take away my money. +But if they did, they would only be giving me a lesson that would teach me +how more easily to get it back. I am not a bundle of stock certificates or +a bag of money. I am--here," and I tapped my forehead. + +She forced a faint, scornful smile. She did not wish me to see her belief +of what I said. + +"You may think that is vanity," I went on. "But you will learn, sooner or +later, the difference between boasting and simple statement of fact. You +will learn that I do not boast. What I said is no more a boast than for a +man with legs to say, 'I can walk.' Because you have known only legless +men, you exaggerate the difficulty of walking. It's as easy for me to make +money as it is for some people to spend it." + +It is hardly necessary for me to say I was not insinuating anything against +her people. But she was just then supersensitive on the subject, though +I did not suspect it. She flushed hotly. "You will not have any cause to +sneer at my people on that account hereafter," she said. "I settled +_that_ to-day." + +"I was not sneering at them," I protested. "I wasn't even thinking of them. +And--you must know that it's a favor to me for anybody to ask me to do +anything that will please you--Anita!" + +She made a gesture of impatience. "I see I'd better tell you why I did not +go with them to-day. I insisted that they give back all they have taken +from you. And when they refused, I refused to go." + +"I don't care why you refused, or imagined you refused," said I. "I am +content with the fact that you are here." + +"But you misunderstand it," she answered coldly. + +"I don't understand it, I don't misunderstand it," was my reply. "I accept +it." + +She turned away from the window, drifted out of the room--you, who love or +at least have loved, can imagine how it made me feel to see _Her_ +moving about in those rooms of mine. + +While the surface of my mind was taken up with her, I must have been +thinking, underneath, of the warning she had brought; for, perhaps half or +three-quarters of an hour after she left, I was suddenly whirled out of +my reverie at the window by a thought like a pistol thrust into my face. +"What if 'they' should include Roebuck!" And just as a man begins to defend +himself from a sudden danger before he clearly sees what the danger is, so +I began to act before I even questioned whether my suspicion was plausible +or absurd. I went into the hall, rang the bell, slipped a light-weight coat +over my evening dress and put on a hat. When Sanders appeared, I said: "I'm +going out for a few minutes--perhaps an hour--if any one should ask." A +moment later I was in a hansom and on the way to Roebuck's. + + * * * * * + +When Roebuck lived near Chicago, he had a huge house, a sort of crude +palace such as so many of our millionaires built for themselves in the +first excitement of their new wealth--a house with porches and balconies +and towers and minarets and all sorts of gingerbread effects to compel the +eye of the passer-by. But when he became enormously rich, so rich that his +name was one of the synonyms for wealth, so rich that people said "rich as +Roebuck" where they used to say "rich as Croesus," he cut away every kind +of ostentation, and avoided attention. + +He took advantage of his having to remove to New York where his vast +interests centered; he bought a small and commonplace and, far a rich man, +even mean house in East Fifty-Second Street--one of a raw, and an almost +dingy looking row at that. There he had an establishment a man with +one-fiftieth of his fortune would have felt like apologizing for. To his +few intimates who were intimate enough to question him about his come-down +from his Chicago splendors he explained that he was seeing with clearer +eyes his responsibilities as a steward of the Lord, that luxury was sinful, +that no man had a right to waste the Lord's money. + +The general theory about him was that advancing years had developed +his natural closeness into the stingiest avariciousness. But my notion +is he was impelled by the fear of exciting envy, by the fear of +assassination--the fear that made his eyes roam restlessly whenever +strangers were near him, and so dried up the inside of his body that his +dry tongue was constantly sliding along his dry lips. I have seen a convict +stand in the door of his cell and, though it was impossible that any one +could be behind him, look nervously over his shoulder every moment or so. +Roebuck had the same trick--only his dread, I suspect, was not the officers +of the law, even of the divine law, but the many, many victims of his +merciless execution of "the Lord's will." + +This state of mind is not uncommon among the very rich men, especially +those who have come up from poverty. Those who have inherited great wealth, +and have always been used to it, get into the habit of looking upon the +mass of mankind as inferiors, and move about with no greater sense of peril +than a man has in venturing among a lot of dogs with tails wagging. But +those who were born poor and have risen under the stimulus of a furious +envy of the comfortable and the rich, fancy that everybody who isn't rich +has the same savage hunger that they themselves had, and is ready to use +similar desperate methods in gratifying it. Thus, where the rich of the +Langdon sort are supercilious, the rich of the Roebuck sort are nervous and +often become morbid on the subject of assassination as they grow richer and +richer. + +The door of Roebuck's house was opened for me by a maid--a man-servant +would have been a "sinful" luxury, a man-servant might be the hireling +of plotters against his life. I may add that she looked the cheap +maid-of-all-work, and her manners were of the free and fresh sort that +indicates a feeling that as high, or higher, wages, and less to do could +be got elsewhere. + +"I don't think you can see Mr. Roebuck," she said. + +"Take my card to him," I ordered, "and I'll wait in the parlor." + +"Parlor's in use," she retorted with a sarcastic grin, which I was soon to +understand. + +So I stood by the old-fashioned coat and hat rack while she went in at the +hall door of the back parlor. Soon Roebuck himself came out, his glasses on +his nose, a family Bible under his arm. "Glad to see you, Matthew," said he +with saintly kindliness, giving me a friendly hand. "We are just about to +offer up our evening prayer. Come right in." + +I followed him into the back parlor. Both it and the front parlor were +lighted; in a sort of circle extending into both rooms were all the +Roebucks and the four servants. "This is my friend, Matthew Blacklock," +said he, and the Roebucks in the circle gravely bowed. He drew up a chair +for me, and we seated ourselves. Amid a solemn hush, he read a chapter from +the big Bible spread out upon his lean lap. My glance wandered from face to +face of the Roebucks, as plainly dressed as were their servants. I was able +to look freely, mine being the only eyes not bent upon the floor. + +It was the first time in my life that I had witnessed family prayers. +When I was a boy at home, my mother had taken literally the Scriptural +injunction to pray in secret--in a closet, I think the passage of the Bible +said. Many times each day she used to retire to a closet under the stairway +and spend from one to twenty minutes shut in there. But we had no family +prayers. I was therefore deeply interested in what was going on in those +countrified parlors of one of the richest and most powerful men in the +world--and this right in the heart of that district of New York where +palaces stand in rows and in blocks, and where such few churches as there +are resemble social clubs for snubbing climbers and patronizing the poor. + +It was astonishing how much every Roebuck in that circle, even the old +lady, looked like Roebuck himself--the same smug piety, the same underfed +appearance that, by the way, more often indicates a starved soul than +a starved body. One difference--where his face had the look of power +that compels respect and, to the shrewd, reveals relentless strength +relentlessly used, the expressions of the others were simply small and +mean and frost-nipped. And that is the rule--the second generation of a +plutocrat inherits, with his money, the meanness that enabled him to hoard +it, but not the scope that enabled him to make it. + +So absorbed was I in the study of the influence of his terrible +master-character upon those closest to it, that I started when he said: +"Let us pray." I followed the example of the others, and knelt. The audible +prayer was offered up by his oldest daughter, Mrs. Wheeler, a widow. +Roebuck punctuated each paragraph in her series of petitions with a +loudly-whispered amen. When she prayed for "the stranger whom Thou has led +seemingly by chance into our little circle," he whispered the amen more +fervently and repeated it. And well he might, the old robber and assassin +by proxy! The prayer ended and, us on our feet, the servants withdrew; +then, awkwardly, all the family except Roebuck. That is, they closed the +doors between the two rooms and left him and me alone in the front parlor. + +"I shall not detain you long, Mr. Roebuck," said I. "A report reached me +this evening that sent me to you at once." + +"If possible, Matthew," said he, and he could not hide his uneasiness, "put +off business until to-morrow. My mind--yours, too, I trust--is not in the +frame for that kind of thoughts now." + +"Is the Coal organization to be announced the first of July?" I demanded. +It has always been, and always shall be, my method to fight in the open. +This, not from principle, but from expediency. Some men fight best in the +brush; I don't. So I always begin battle by shelling the woods. + +"No," he said, amazing me by his instant frankness. "The announcement has +been postponed." + +Why did he not lie to me? Why did he not put me off the scent, as he might +easily have done, with some shrewd evasion? I suspected I owed it to +my luck in catching him at family prayers. For I know that the general +impression of him is erroneous; he is not merely a hypocrite before the +world, but also a hypocrite before himself. A more profoundly, piously +conscientious man never lived. Never was there a truer epitaph than the one +implied in the sentence carved over his niche in the magnificent mausoleum +he built: "Fear naught but the Lord." + +"When will the reorganization be announced?" I asked. + +"I can not say," he answered. "Some difficulties--chiefly labor +difficulties--have arisen. Until they are settled, nothing can be done. +Come to me to-morrow, and we'll talk about it." + +"That is all I wished to know," said I, with a friendly, easy smile. "Good +night." + +It was his turn to be astonished--and he showed it, where I had given not a +sign. "What was the report you heard?" he asked, to detain me. + +"That you and Mowbray Langdon had conspired to ruin me," said I, laughing. + +He echoed my laugh rather hollowly. "It was hardly necessary for you to +come to me about such a--a statement." + +"Hardly," I answered dryly. Hardly, indeed! For I was seeing now all that I +had been hiding from myself since I became infatuated with Anita and made +marrying her my only real business in life. + +We faced each other, each measuring the other. And as his glance quailed +before mine, I turned away to conceal my exultation. In a comparison of +resources this man who had plotted to crush me was to me as giant to +midget. But I had the joy of realizing that man to man, I was the stronger. +He had craft, but I had daring. His vast wealth aggravated his natural +cowardice--crafty men are invariably cowards, and their audacities under +the compulsion of their ravenous greed are like a starving jackal's dashes +into danger for food. My wealth belonged to me, not I to it; and, stripped +of it, I would be like the prize-fighter stripped for the fight. Finally, +he was old, I young. And there was the chief reason for his quailing. He +knew that he must die long before me, that my turn must come, that I could +dance upon his grave. + + + + +XXV + +"MY WIFE MUST!" + + +As I drove away, I was proud of myself. I had listened to my death sentence +with a face so smiling that he must almost have believed me unconscious; +and also, it had not even entered my head, as I listened, to beg for mercy. +Not that there would have been the least use in begging; as well try to +pray a statue into life, as try to soften that set will and purpose. Still, +many a man would have weakened--and I had not weakened. But when I was +once more in my apartment--in our apartment--perhaps I did show that there +was a weak streak through me. I fought against the impulse to see her +once more that night; but I fought in vain. I knocked at the door of her +sitting-room--a timid knock, for me. No answer. I knocked again, more +loudly--then a third time, still more loudly. The door opened and she stood +there, like one of the angels that guarded the gates of Eden after the +fall. Only, instead of a flaming sword, hers was of ice. She was in a +dressing-gown or tea-gown, white and clinging and full of intoxicating +hints and glimpses of all the beauties of her figure. Her face softened as +she continued to look at me, and I entered. + +"No--please don't turn on any more lights," I said, as she moved toward the +electric buttons. "I just came in to--to see if I could do anything for +you." In fact, I had come, longing for her to do something for me, to show +in look or tone or act some sympathy for me in my loneliness and trouble. + +"No, thank you," she said. Her voice seemed that of a stranger who wished +to remain a stranger. And she was evidently waiting for me to go. You will +see what a mood I was in when I say I felt as I had not since I, a very +small boy indeed, ran away from home; I came back through the chilly night +to take one last glimpse of the family that would soon be realizing how +foolishly and wickedly unappreciative they had been of such a treasure +as I; and when I saw them sitting about the big fire in the lamp-light, +heartlessly comfortable and unconcerned, it was all I could do to keep back +the tears of strong self-pity--and I never saw them again. + +"I've seen Roebuck," said I to Anita, because I must say something, if I +was to stay on. + +"Roebuck?" she inquired. Her tone reminded me that his name conveyed +nothing to her. + +"He and I are in an enterprise together," I explained. "He is the one man +who could seriously cripple me." + +"Oh," she said, and her indifference, forced though I thought it, wounded. + +"Well," said I, "your mother was right." + +She turned full toward me, and even in the dimness I saw her quick +sympathy--an impulsive flash instantly gone. But it had been there! + +"I came in here," I went on, "to say that--Anita, it doesn't in the least +matter. No one in this world, no one and nothing, could hurt me except +through you. So long as I have _you_, they--the rest--all of them +together--can't touch me." + +We were both silent for several minutes. Then she said, and her voice was +like the smooth surface of the river where the boiling rapids run deep: +"But you _haven't_ me--and never _shall_ have. I've told you +that. I warned you long ago. No doubt you will pretend, and people will +say, that I left you because you lost your money. But it won't be so." + +I was beside her instantly, was looking into her face. "What do you mean?" +I asked, and I did not speak gently. + +She gazed at me without flinching. "And I suppose," she said satirically, +"you wonder why I--why you are repellent to me. Haven't you learned that, +though I may have been made into a moral coward, I'm not a physical coward? +Don't bully and threaten. It's useless." + +I put my hand strongly on her shoulder--taunts and jeers do not turn me +aside. "What did you mean?" I repeated. + +"Take your hand off me," she commanded. + +"What did you mean?" I repeated sternly. "Don't be afraid to answer." + +She was very young--so the taunt stung her. "I was about to tell you," said +she, "when you began to make it impossible." + +I took advantage of this to extricate myself from the awkward position in +which she had put me--I took my hand from her shoulder. + +"I am going to leave you," she announced. + +"You forget that you are my wife," said I. + +"I am not your wife," was her answer, and if she had not looked so +childlike, there in the moonlight all in white, I could not have held +myself in check, so insolent was the tone and so helpless of ever being +able to win her did she make me feel. + +"You are my wife and you will stay here with me," I reiterated, my brain on +fire. + +"I am my own, and I shall go where I please, and do what I please," was her +contemptuous retort. "Why won't you be reasonable? Why won't you see how +utterly unsuited we are? I don't ask you to be a gentleman--but just a man, +and be ashamed even to wish to detain a woman against her will." + +I drew up a chair so close to her that to retreat, she was forced to sit +in the broad window-seat. Then I seated myself. "By all means, let us be +reasonable," said I. "Now, let me explain my position. I have heard you and +your friends discussing the views of marriage you've just been expressing. +Their views may be right, may be more civilized, more 'advanced' than mine. +No matter. They are not mine. I hold by the old standards--and you are +my wife--mine. Do you understand?" All this as tranquilly as if we were +discussing fair weather. "And you will live up to the obligation which the +marriage service has put upon you." + +She might have been a marble statue pedestaled in that window seat. + +"You married me of your own free will--for you could have protested to +the preacher and he would have sustained you. You tacitly put certain +conditions on our marriage. I assented to them. I have respected them. +I shall continue to respect them. But--when you married me, you didn't +marry a dawdling dude chattering 'advanced ideas' with his head full of +libertinism. You married a man. And that man is your husband." + +I waited, but she made no comment--not even by gesture or movement. She +simply sat, her hands interlaced in her lap, her eyes straight upon mine. + +"You say let us be reasonable," I went on. "Well, let us be reasonable. +There may come a time when woman can be free and independent, but that time +is a long way off yet. The world is organized on the basis of every woman's +having a protector--of every decent woman's having a husband, unless she +remains in the home of some of her blood-relations. There may be women +strong enough to set the world at defiance. But you are not one of +them--and you know it. You have shown it to yourself again and again in +the last forty-eight hours. Your bringing-up has kept you a child in real +knowledge of real life, as distinguished from the life in that fashionable +hothouse. If you tried to assert your so-called independence, you would be +the easy prey of a scoundrel or scoundrels. When I, who have lived in the +thick of the fight all my life, who have learned by many a surprise and +defeat never to sleep except with the sword and gun in hand, and one eye +open--when I have been trapped as Roebuck and Langdon have just trapped +me--what chance would a woman like you have?" + +She did not answer or change expression. + +"Is what I say reasonable or unreasonable?" I asked gently. + +"Reasonable--from _your_ standpoint," she said. + +She gazed out into the moonlight, up into the sky. And at the look in her +face, the primeval savage in me strained to close round that slender white +throat of hers and crush and crush until it had killed in her the thought +of that other man which was transforming her from marble to flesh that +glowed and blood that surged. I pushed back my chair with a sudden noise; +by the way she trembled I gaged how tense her nerves must be. I rose and, +in a fairly calm tone, said: "We understand each other?" + +"Yes," she answered. "As before." + +I ignored this. "Think it over, Anita," I urged--she seemed to me so like a +sweet, spoiled child again. I longed to go straight at her about that other +man. I stood for a moment with Tom Langdon's name on my lips, but I could +not trust myself. I went away to my own rooms. + +I thrust thoughts of her from my mind. I spent the night gnawing upon the +ropes with which Mowbray Langdon and Roebuck had bound me, hand and foot. I +now saw they were ropes of steel--and it had long been broad day before I +found that weak strand which is in every rope of human make. + + + + +XXVI + +THE WEAK STRAND + + +No sane creature, not even a sane bulldog, will fight simply from love of +fighting. When a man is attacked, he may be sure he has excited either fear +or cupidity, or both. As far as I could see, it was absurd that cupidity +was inciting Langdon and Roebuck against me. I hadn't enough to tempt them. +Thus, I was forced to conclude that I must possess a strength of which I +was unaware, and which stirred even Roebuck's fears. But what could it be? + +Besides Langdon and Roebuck and me there were six principals in the +proposed Coal combine, three of them richer and more influential in finance +than even Langdon, all of them except possibly Dykeman, the lawyer or +navigating officer of the combine, more formidable figures than I. Yet none +of these men was being assailed. "Why am I singled out?" I asked myself, +and I felt that if I could answer, I should find I had the means wholly +or partly to defeat them. But I could not explain to my satisfaction even +Langdon's activities against me. I felt that Anita was somehow, in part at +least, the cause; but, even so, how had he succeeded in convincing Roebuck +that I must be clipped and plucked into a groundling? + +"It must have something to do with the Manasquale mines," I decided. "I +thought I had given over my control of them, but somehow I must still have +a control that makes me too powerful for Roebuck to be at ease so long as I +am afoot and armed." And I resolved to take my lawyers and search the whole +Manasquale transaction--to explore it from attic to underneath the cellar +flooring. "We'll go through it," said I, "like ferrets through a ship's +hold." + +As I was finishing breakfast, Anita came in. She had evidently slept well, +and I regarded that as ominous. At her age, a crisis means little sleep +until a decision has been reached. I rose, but her manner warned me not to +advance and try to shake hands with her. + +"I have asked Alva to stop with me here for a few days," she said formally. + +"Alva!" said I, much surprised. She had not asked one of her own friends; +she had asked a girl she had met less than two days before, and that girl +my partner's daughter. + +"She was here yesterday morning," Anita explained. And I now wondered how +much Alva there was in Anita's firm stand against her parents. + +"Why don't you take her down to our place on Long Island?" said I, most +carefully concealing my delight--for Alva near her meant a friend of mine +and an advocate and example of real womanhood near her. "Everything's ready +for you there, and I'm going to be busy the next few days--busy day and +night." + +She reflected. "Very well," she assented presently. And she gave me a +puzzled glance she thought I did not see--as if she were wondering whether +the enemy was not hiding new and deeper guile under an apparently harmless +suggestion. + +"Then I'll not see you again for several days," said I, most businesslike. +"If you want anything, there will be Monson out at the stables where he +can't annoy you. Or you can get me on the 'long distance.' Good-by. Good +luck." + +And I nodded carelessly and friendlily to her, and went away, enjoying +the pleasure of having startled her into visible astonishment. "There's +a better game than icy hostility, you very young, young lady," said I to +myself, "and that game is friendly indifference." + +Alva would be with her. So she was secure for the present and my mind was +free for "finance." + +At that time the two most powerful men in finance were Galloway and +Roebuck. In Spain I once saw a fight between a bull and a tiger--or, rather +the beginning of a fight. They were released into a huge iron cage. After +circling it several times in the same direction, searching for a way out, +they came face to face. The bull tossed the tiger; the tiger clawed the +bull. The bull roared; the tiger screamed. Each retreated to his own side +of the cage. The bull pawed and snorted as if he could hardly wait to get +at the tiger; the tiger crouched and quivered and glared murderously, as if +he were going instantly to spring upon the bull. But the bull did not rush, +neither did the tiger spring. That was the Roebuck-Galloway situation. + +How to bait Tiger Galloway to attack Bull Roebuck--that was the problem I +must solve, and solve straightway. If I could bring about war between the +giants, spreading confusion over the whole field of finance and filling all +men with dread and fear, there was a chance, a bare chance, that in the +confusion I might bear off part of my fortune. Certainly, conditions would +result in which I could more easily get myself intrenched again; then, too, +there would be a by no means small satisfaction in seeing Roebuck clawed +and bitten in punishment for having plotted against me. + +Mutual fear had kept these two at peace for five years, and most +considerate and polite about each other's "rights." But while our country's +industrial territory is vast, the interests of the few great controllers +who determine wages and prices for all are equally vast, and each plutocrat +is tormented incessantly by jealousy and suspicion; not a day passes +without conflicts of interest that adroit diplomacy could turn into +ferocious warfare. And in this matter of monopolizing the coal, despite +Roebuck's earnest assurances to Galloway that the combine was purely +defensive, and was really concerned only with the labor question, Galloway, +a great manufacturer, or, rather, a huge levier of the taxes of dividends +and interest upon manufacturing enterprises, could not but be uneasy. + +Before I rose that morning I had a tentative plan for stirring him to +action. I was elaborating it on the way down town in my electric. It shows +how badly Anita was crippling my brain, that not until I was almost at my +office did it occur to me: "That was a tremendous luxury Roebuck indulged +his conscience in last night. It isn't like him to forewarn a man, even +when he's sure he can't escape. Though his prayers were hot in his mouth, +still, it's strange he didn't try to fool me. In fact, it's suspicious. In +fact--" + +Suspicious? The instant the idea was fairly before my mind, I knew I had +let his canting fool me once more. I entered my offices, feeling that the +blow had already fallen; and I was surprised, but not relieved, when I +found everything calm. "But fall it will within an hour or so--before I can +move to avert it," said I to myself. + +And fall it did. At eleven o'clock, just as I was setting out to make my +first move toward heating old Galloway's heels for the war-path, Joe came +in with the news: "A general lockout's declared in the coal regions. The +operators have stolen a march on the men who, so they allege, were secretly +getting ready to strike. By night every coal road will be tied up and every +mine shut down." + +Joe knew our coal interests were heavy, but he did not dream his news meant +that before the day was over we would be bankrupt and not able to pay +fifteen cents on the dollar. However, he knew enough to throw him into +a fever of fright. He watched my calmness with terror. "Coal stocks are +dropping like a thermometer in a cold wave," he said, like a fireman at a +sleeper in a burning house. + +"Naturally," said I, unruffled, apparently. "What can we do about it?" + +"We must do something!" he exclaimed. + +"Yes, we must," I admitted. "For instance, we must keep cool, especially +when two or three dozen people are watching us. Also, you must attend to +your usual routine." + +"What are you going to do?" he cried. "For God's sake, Matt, don't keep me +in suspense!" + +"Go to your desk," I commanded. And he quieted down and went. I hadn't been +schooling him in the fire-drill for fifteen years in vain. + +I went up the street and into the great banking and brokerage house of +Galloway and Company. I made my way through the small army of guards, +behind which the old beast of prey was intrenched, and into his private +den. There he sat, at a small, plain table, in the middle of the room +without any article of furniture in it but his table and his chair. On the +table was a small inkstand, perfectly clean, a steel pen equally clean, on +the rest attached to it. And that was all--not a letter, not a scrap of +paper, not a sign of work or of intention to work. It might have been the +desk of a man who did nothing; in fact, it was the desk of a man who had +so much to do that his only hope of escape from being overwhelmed was to +despatch and clear away each matter the instant it was presented to him. +Many things could be read from the powerful form, bolt upright in that +stiff chair, and from the cynical, masterful old face. But to me the +chief quality there revealed was that quality of qualities, decision--the +greatest power a man can have, except only courage. And old James Galloway +had both. + +He respected Roebuck; Roebuck feared him. Roebuck did have some sort +of conscience, distorted though it was, and the dictator of savageries +Galloway would have scorned to commit. Galloway had no professions of +conscience--beyond such small glozing of hypocrisy as any man must put on +if he wishes to be intrusted with the money of a public that associates +professions of religion and appearances of respectability with honesty. +Roebuck's passion was wealth--to see the millions heap up and up. Galloway +had that passion, too--I have yet to meet a multi-millionaire who isn't +avaricious and even stingy. But Galloway's chief passion was power--to +handle men as a junk merchant handles rags, to plan and lead campaigns of +conquest with his golden legions, and to distribute the spoils like an +autocrat who is careless how they are divided, since all belongs to him, +whenever he wishes to claim it. + +He pierced me with his blue eyes, keen as a youth's, though his face was +seamed with scars of seventy tumultuous years. He extended toward me +over the table his broad, stubby white hand--the hand of a builder, of a +constructive genius. "How are you, Blacklock?" said he. "What can I do +for you?" He just touched my hand before dropping it, and resumed that +idol-like pose. But although there was only repose and deliberation in his +manner, and not a suggestion of haste, I, like every one who came into that +room and that presence, had a sense of an interminable procession behind +me, a procession of men who must be seen by this master-mover, that they +might submit important and pressing affairs to him for decision. It was +unnecessary for him to tell any one to be brief and pointed. + +"I shall have to go to the wall to-day," said I, taking a paper from +my pocket, "unless you save me. Here is a statement of my assets and +liabilities. I call to your attention my Coal holdings. I was one of the +eight men whom Roebuck got round him for the new combine--it is a secret, +but I assume you know all about it." + +He laid the paper before him, put on his nose-glasses and looked at it. + +"If you will save me," I continued, "I will transfer to you, in a block, +all my Coal holdings. They will be worth double my total liabilities within +three months--as soon as the reorganization is announced. I leave it +entirely to your sense of justice whether I shall have any part of them +back when this storm blows over." + +"Why didn't you go to Roebuck?" he asked without looking up. + +"Because it is he that has stuck the knife into me." + +"Why?" + +"I don't know. I suspect the Manasquale properties, which I brought into +the combine, have some value, which no one but Roebuck, and perhaps +Langdon, knows about--and that I in some way was dangerous to them through +that fact. They haven't given me time to look into it." + +A grim smile flitted over his face. "You've been too busy getting married, +eh?" + +"Exactly," said I. "It's another case of unbuckling for the wedding-feast +and getting assassinated as a penalty. Do you wish me to explain anything +on that list--do you want any details of the combine--of the Coal stocks +there?" + +"Not necessary," he replied. As I had thought, with that enormous machine +of his for drawing in information, and with that enormous memory of his for +details, he probably knew more about the combine and its properties than I +did. + +"You have heard of the lockout?" I inquired--for I wished him to know I +had no intention of deceiving him as to the present market value of those +stocks. + +"Roebuck has been commanded by his God," he said, "to eject the free +American labor from the coal regions and to substitute importations of +coolie Huns and Bohemians. Thus, the wicked American laborers will be +chastened for trying to get higher wages and cut down a pious man's +dividends; and the downtrodden coolies will be brought where they can enjoy +the blessings of liberty and of the preaching of Roebuck's missionaries." + +I laughed, though he had not smiled, but had spoken as if stating colorless +facts. "And righteousness and Roebuck will prevail," said I. + +He frowned slightly, a sardonic grin breaking the straight, thin, cruel +line of his lips. He opened his table's one shallow drawer, and took out a +pad and a pencil. He wrote a few words on the lowest part of the top sheet, +folded it, tore off the part he had scribbled on, returned the pad and +pencil to the drawer, handed the scrap of paper to me. "I will do it," he +said. "Give this to Mr. Farquhar, second door to the left. Good morning." +And in that atmosphere of vast affairs speedily despatched his consent +without argument seemed, and was, the matter-of-course. + +I bowed. Though he had not saved me as a favor to me, but because it fitted +in with his plans, whatever they were, my eyes dimmed. "I shan't forget +this," said I, my voice not quite steady. + +"I know it," said he curtly. "I know you." I saw that his mind had already +turned me out. I said no more, and withdrew. When I left the room it was +precisely as it had been when I entered it--except the bit of paper torn +from the pad. But what a difference to me, to the thousands, the hundreds +of thousands directly and indirectly interested in the Coal combine and its +strike and its products, was represented by those few, almost illegible +scrawlings on that scrap of paper. + +Not until I had gone over the situation with Farquhar, and we had signed +and exchanged the necessary papers, did I begin to relax from the +strain--how great that strain was I realized a few weeks later, when +the gray appeared thick at my temples and there was in my crown what +was, for such a shock as mine, a thin spot. "I am saved!" said I to +myself, venturing a long breath, as I stood on the steps of Galloway's +establishment, where hourly was transacted business vitally affecting +the welfare of scores of millions of human beings, with James Galloway's +personal interest as the sole guiding principle. "Saved!" I repeated, and +not until then did it flash before me, "I must have paid a frightful price. +He would never have consented to interfere with Roebuck as soon as I asked +him to do it, unless there had been some powerful motive. If I had had my +wits about me, I could have made far better terms." Why hadn't I my wits +about me? "Anita" was my instant answer to my own question. "Anita again. +I had a bad attack of family man's panic." And thus it came about that I +went back to my own office, feeling as if I had suffered a severe defeat, +instead of jubilant over my narrow escape. + +Joe followed me into my den. "What luck?" asked he, in the tone of a mother +waylaying the doctor as he issues from the sick-room. + +"Luck?" said I, gazing blankly at him. + +"You've seen the latest quotation, haven't you?" In his nervousness his +temper was on a fine edge, + +"No," replied I indifferently. I sat down at my desk and began to busy +myself. Then I added: "We're out of the Coal combine. I've transferred our +holdings. Look after these things, please." And I gave him the checks, +notes and memoranda of agreement. + +"Galloway!" he exclaimed. And then his eye fell on the totals of the stock +I had been carrying. "Good God, Matt!" he gasped. "Ruined!" + +And he sat down, and buried his face and cried like a child--it was then +that I measured the full depth of the chasm I had escaped. I made no such +exhibition of myself, but when I tried to relight my cigar my hand trembled +so that the flame scorched my lips. + +"Ruined?" I said to Joe, easily enough. "Not at all. We're back in the +road, going smoothly ahead--only, at a bit less stiff a pace. Think, Joe, +of all those poor devils down in the mining districts. They're out--clear +out--and thousands of 'em don't know where their families will get bread. +And though they haven't found it out yet, they've got to leave the place +where they've lived all their lives, and their fathers before them--have +got to go wandering about in a world that's as strange to them as the +surface of the moon, and as bare for them as the Sahara desert." + +"That's so," said Joe. "It's hard luck." But I saw he was thinking only of +himself and his narrow escape from having to give up his big house and all +the rest of it; that, soft-hearted and generous though he was, to those +poor chaps and their wives and children he wasn't giving a thought. + +Wall Street never does--they're too remote, too vague. It deals with +columns of figures and slips of paper. It never thinks of those +abstractions as standing for so many hearts and so many mouths, just as the +bank clerk never thinks of the bits of metal he counts so swiftly as money +with which things and men could be bought. I read somewhere once that +Voltaire--I think it was Voltaire--asked a man what he would do if, by +pressing a button on his table, he would be enormously rich and at the +same time would cause the death of a person away off at the other side of +the earth, unknown to him, and probably no more worthy to live, and with +no greater expectation of life or of happiness than the average sinful, +short-lived human being. I've often thought of that as I've watched our +great "captains of industry." Voltaire's dilemma is theirs. And they don't +hesitate; they press the button. I leave the morality of the performance to +moralists; to me, its chief feature is its cowardice, its sneaking, slimy +cowardice. + +"You've done a grand two hours' work," said Joe. + +"Grander than you think," replied I. "I've set the tiger on to fight the +bull." + +"Galloway and Roebuck?" + +"Just that," said I. And I laughed, started up, sat down again. "No, I'll +put off the pleasure," said I. "I'll let Roebuck find out, when the claws +catch in that tough old hide of his." + + + + +XXVII + +A CONSPIRACY AGAINST ANITA + + +On about the hottest afternoon of that summer I had the yacht take me down +the Sound to a point on the Connecticut shore within sight of Dawn Hill, +but seven miles farther from New York. I landed at the private pier of +Howard Forrester, the only brother of Anita's mother. As I stepped upon the +pier I saw a fine-looking old man in the pavilion overhanging the water. He +was dressed all in white except a sky-blue tie that harmonized with the +color of his eyes. He was neither fat nor lean, and his smooth skirt was +protesting ruddily against the age proclaimed by his wool-white hair. He +rose as I came toward him, and, while I was still several yards away, +showed unmistakably that he knew who I was and that he was anything but +glad to see me. + +"Mr. Forrester?" I asked + +He grew purple to the line of his thick white hair. "It is, Mr. Blacklock," +said he. "I have the honor to wish you good day, sir." And with that he +turned his back on me and gazed out toward Long Island. + +"I have come to ask a favor of you, sir," said I, as polite to that hostile +back as if I had been addressing a cordial face. And I waited. + +He wheeled round, looked at me from head to foot. I withstood the +inspection calmly; when it was ended I noted that in spite of himself he +was somewhat relaxed from the opinion of me he had formed upon what he had +heard and read. But he said: "I do not know you, sir, and I do not wish to +know you." + +"You have made me painfully aware of that," replied I. "But I have learned +not to take snap judgments too seriously. I never go to a man unless I have +something to say to him, and I never leave until I have said it." + +"I perceive, sir," retorted he, "you have the thick skin necessary to +living up to that rule." And the twinkle in his eyes betrayed the man who +delights to exercise a real or imaginary talent for caustic wit. Such men +are like nettles--dangerous only to the timid touch. + +"On the contrary," replied I, easy in mind now, though I did not anger him +by showing it, "I am most sensitive to insults--insults to myself. But you +are not insulting _me_. You are insulting a purely imaginary, hearsay +person who is, I venture to assure you, utterly unlike me, and who +doubtless deserves to be insulted." + +His purple had now faded. In a far different tone he said: "If your +business in any way relates to the family into which you have married, I do +not wish to hear it. Spare my patience and your time, sir." + +"It does not," was my answer. "It relates to my own family--to my wife and +myself. As you may have heard, she is no longer a member of the Ellersly +family. And I have come to you chiefly because I happen to know your +sentiment toward the Ellerslys." + +"I have no sentiment toward them, sir!" he exclaimed. "They are +non-existent, sir--nonexistent! Your wife's mother ceased to be a Forrester +when she married that scoundrel. Your wife is still less a Forrester." + +"True," said I. "She is a Blacklock." + +He winced, and it reminded me of the night of my marriage and Anita's +expression when the preacher called her by her new name. But I held his +gaze, and we looked each at the other fixedly for, it must have been, full +half a minute. Then he said courteously: "What do you wish?" + +I went straight to the point. My color may have been high, but my voice +did not hesitate as I explained: "I wish to make my wife financially +independent. I wish to settle on her a sum of money sufficient to give her +an income that will enable her to live as she has been accustomed. I know +she would not take it from me. So, I have come to ask you to pretend to +give it to her--I, of course, giving it to you to give." + +Again--we looked full and fixedly each at the other. "Come to the house, +Blacklock," he said at last in a tone that was the subtlest of compliments. +And he linked his arm in mine. Halfway to the rambling stone house, severe +in its lines, yet fine and homelike, quaintly resembling its owner, as a +man's house always should, he paused. "I owe you an apology," said he. +"After all my experience of this world of envy and malice, I should have +recognized the man even in the caricatures of his enemies. And you brought +the best possible credentials--you are well hated. To be well hated by the +human race and by the creatures mounted on its back is a distinction, sir. +It is the crown of the true kings of this world." + +We seated ourselves on the wide veranda; he had champagne and water +brought, and cigars; and we proceeded to get acquainted--nothing promotes +cordiality and sympathy like an initial misunderstanding. It was a good +hour before this kind-hearted, hard-soft, typical old-fashioned New +Englander reverted to the object of my visit. Said he: "And now, young man, +may I venture to ask some extremely personal questions?" + +"In the circumstances," replied I, "you have the right to know everything. +I did not come to you without first making sure what manner of man I was +to find." At this he blushed, pleased as a girl at her first beau's first +compliment. "And you, Mr. Forrester, can not be expected to embark in the +little adventure I propose, until you have satisfied yourself." + +"First, the why of your plan." + +"I am in active business," replied I, "and I shall be still more active. +That means financial uncertainty." + +His suspicion of me started up from its doze and rubbed its eyes. "Ah! You +wish to insure yourself." + +"Yes," was my answer, "but not in the way you hint. It takes away a man's +courage just when he needs it most, to feel that his family is involved in +his venture." + +"Why do you not make the settlement direct?" he asked, partly reassured. + +"Because I wish her to feel that it is her own, that I have no right over +it whatever." + +He thought about this. His eyes were keen as he said, "Is that your real +reason?" + +I saw I must be unreserved with him. "Part of it," I replied. "The rest +is--she would not take it from me." + +The old man smiled cynically. "Have you tried?" he inquired. + +"If I had tried and failed, she would have been on the alert for an +indirect attempt." + +"Try her, young man," said he, laughing. "In this day there are few people +anywhere who'd refuse any sum from anybody for anything. And a woman--and a +New York woman--and a New York fashionable woman--and a daughter of old +Ellersly--she'll take it as a baby takes the breast." + +"She would not take it," said I. + +My tone, though I strove to keep angry protest out of it, because I needed +him, caused him to draw back instantly. "I beg your pardon," said he. "I +forgot for the moment that I was talking to a man young enough still to +have youth's delusions about women. You'll learn that they're human, that +it's from them we men inherit our weaknesses. However, let's assume that +she won't take it: _Why_ won't she take your money? What is there +about it that repels Ellersly's daughter, brought up in the sewers of +fashionable New York--the sewers, sir!" + +"She does not love me," I answered. + +"I have hurt you," he said quickly, in great distress at having compelled +me to expose my secret wound. + +"The wound does not ache the worse," said I, "for my showing it--to +_you_." And that was the truth. I looked over toward Dawn Hill whose +towers could just be seen. "We live there." I pointed. "She is--like a +guest in my house." + +When I glanced at him again, his face betrayed a feeling of which I doubt +if any one had thought him capable in many a year. "I see that you love +her," he said, gently as a mother. + +"Yes," I replied. And presently I went on: "The idea of any one I love +being dependent on me in a sordid way is most distasteful to me. And since +she does not love me, does not even like me, it is doubly necessary that +she be independent." + +"I confess I do not quite follow you" said he. + +"How can she accept anything from me? If she should finally be compelled by +necessity to do it, what hope could I have of her ever feeling toward me as +a wife should feel toward her husband?" + +At this explanation of mine his eyes sparkled with anger--and I could not +but suspect that he had at one time in his life been faced with a problem +like mine, and had settled it the other way. My suspicion was not weakened +when he went on to say: + +"Boyish motives again! They show you do not know women. Don't be deceived +by their delicate exterior, by their pretenses of super-refinement. They +affect to be what passion deludes us into thinking them. But they're clay, +sir, just clay, and far less sensitive than we men. Don't you see, young +man, that by making her independent you're throwing away your best chance +of winning her? Women are like dogs--like dogs, sir! They lick the hand +that feeds 'em--lick it, and like it." + +"Possibly," said I, with no disposition to combat views based on I knew not +what painful experience. "But I don't care for that sort of liking--from a +woman, or from a dog." + +"It's the only kind you'll get," retorted he, trying to control his +agitation. "I'm an old man. I know human nature--that's why I live alone. +You'll take that kind of liking, or do without." + +"Then I'll do without," said I. + +"Give her an income, and she'll go. I see it all. You've flattered her +vanity by showing your love for her--that's the way with women. They go +crazy about themselves, and forget all about the man. Give her an income +and she'll go." + +"I doubt it," said I. "And you would, if you knew her. But, even so, I +shall lose her in any event. For, unless she is made independent, she'll +certainly go with the last of the little money she has, the remnant of a +small legacy." + +The old man argued with me, the more vigorously, I suspect, because he +found me resolute. When he could think of no new way of stating his +case--his case against Anita--he said: "You are a fool, young man--that's +clear. I wonder such a fool was ever able to get together as much property +as report credits you with. But--you're the kind of fool I like." + +"Then--you'll indulge my folly?" said I, smiling. + +He threw up his arms in a gesture of mock despair. "If you will have it +so," he replied. "I am curious about this niece of mine. I want to see her. +I want to see the woman who can resist _you_." + +"Her mind and her heart are closed against me," said I. "And it is my own +fault--I closed them." + +"Put her out of your head," he advised. "No woman is worth a serious man's +while." + +"I have few wants, few purposes," said I. "But those few I pursue to the +end. Even though she were not worth while, even though I wholly lost hope, +still I'd not give her up. I couldn't--that's my nature. But--_she_ is +worth while." And I could see her, slim and graceful, the curves in her +face and figure that made my heart leap, the azure sheen upon her +petal-like skin, the mystery of the soul luring from her eyes. + +After we had arranged the business--or, rather, arranged to have it +arranged through our lawyers--he walked down to the pier with me. At the +gangway he gave me another searching look from head to foot--but vastly +different from the inspection with which our interview had begun. "You are +a devilish handsome young fellow," said he. "Your pictures don't do you +justice. And I shouldn't have believed any man could overcome in one brief +sitting such a prejudice as I had against you. On second thought, I don't +care to see her. She must be even below the average." + +"Or far above it," I suggested. + +"I suppose I'll have to ask her over to visit me," he went on. "A fine +hypocrite I'll feel." + +"You can make it one of the conditions of your gift that she is not to +thank you or speak of it," said I. "I fear your face would betray us, if +she ever did." + +"An excellent idea!" he exclaimed. Then, as he shook hands with me in +farewell: "You will win her yet--if you care to." + +As I steamed up the Sound, I was tempted to put in at Dawn Hill's harbor. +Through my glass I could see Anita and Alva and several others, men and +women, having tea on the lawn under a red and white awning. I could see her +dress--a violet suit with a big violet hat to match. I knew that costume. +Like everything she wore, it was both beautiful in itself and most becoming +to her. I could see her face, could almost make out its expression--did I +see, or did I imagine, a cruel contrast to what I always saw when she knew +I was looking? + +I gazed until the trees hid lawn and gay awning, and that lively company +and her. In my bitterness I was full of resentment against her, full of +self-pity. I quite forgot, for that moment, _her_ side of the story. + + + + +XXVIII + +BLACKLOCK SEES A LIGHT + + +It was next day, I think, that I met Mowbray Langdon and his brother Tom in +the entrance of the Textile Building. Mowbray was back only a week from his +summer abroad; but Tom I had seen and nodded to every day, often several +times in the same day, as he went to and fro about his "respectable" dirty +work for the Roebuck-Langdon clique. He was one of their most frequently +used stool-pigeon directors in banks and insurance companies whose funds +they staked in their big gambling operations, they taking almost all the +profits and the depositors and policy holders taking almost all the risk. +It had never once occurred to me to have any feeling of any kind about Tom, +or in any way to take him into my calculations as to Anita. He was, to +my eyes, too obviously a pale understudy of his powerful and fascinating +brother. Whenever I thought of him as the man Anita fancied she loved, I +put it aside instantly. "The kind of man a woman _really_ cares for," +I would say to myself, "is the measure of her true self. But not the kind +of man she _imagines_ she cares for." + +Tom went on; Mowbray stopped. We shook hands, and exchanged commonplaces +in the friendliest way--I was harboring no resentment against him, and I +wished him to realize that his assault had bothered me no more than the +buzzing and battering of a summer fly. "I've been trying to get in to see +you," said he. "I wanted to explain about that unfortunate Textile deal." + +This, when the assault on me had burst out with fresh energy the day after +he landed from Europe! I could scarcely believe that his vanity, his +confidence in his own skill at underground work could so delude him. "Don't +bother," said I. "All that's ancient history." + +But he had thought out some lies he regarded as particularly creditable to +his ingenuity; he was not to be deprived of the pleasure of telling them. +So I was compelled to listen; and, being in an indulgent mood, I did not +spoil his pleasure by letting him see or suspect my unbelief. If he could +have looked into my mind, as I stood there in an attitude of patient +attention, I think even his self-complacence would have been put out of +countenance. You may admire the exploits of a "gentleman" cracksman or +pickpocket, if you hear or read them with only their ingenuity put before +you. But _see_ a "gentleman" liar or thief at his sneaking, cowardly +work, and admiration is impossible. As Langdon lied on, as I studied +his cheap, vulgar exhibition of himself, he all unconscious, I thought: +"Beneath that very thin surface of yours, you're a poor cowardly +creature--you, and all your fellow bandits. No; bandit is too grand a word +to apply to this game of 'high finance.' It's really on the level with the +game of the fellow that waits for a dark night, slips into the barn-yard, +poisons the watch-dog, bores an auger-hole in the granary, and takes to his +heels at a suspicious sound." + +With his first full stop, I said: "I understand perfectly, Langdon. But I +haven't the slightest interest in crooked enterprises now. I'm clear out +of all you fellows' stocks. I've reinvested my property so that not even a +panic would trouble me." + +"That's good," he drawled. I saw he did not believe me--which was natural, +as he knew nothing of my arrangement with Galloway and assumed I was +laboring in heavy weather, with a bad cargo of Coal stocks and contracts. +"Come to lunch with me. I've got some interesting things to tell you about +my trip." + +A few months before, I should have accepted with alacrity. But I had lost +interest in him. He had not changed; if anything, he was more dazzling than +ever in the ways that had once dazzled me. It was I that had changed--my +ideals, my point of view. I had no desire to feed my new-sprung contempt by +watching him pump in vain for information to be used in his secret campaign +against me. "No, thanks. Another day," I replied, and left him with a curt +nod. I noted that he had failed to speak of my marriage, though he had not +seen me since. "A sore subject with all the Langdons," thought I. "It must +be very sore, indeed, to make a man who is all manners, neglect them." + +My whole life had been a series of transformations so continuous that I had +noted little about my advance, beyond its direction--like a man hurrying up +a steep that keeps him bent, eyes down. But, as I turned away from Langdon, +I caught myself in the very act of transformation. No doubt, the new view +had long been there, its horizon expanding with every step of my ascent; +but not until that talk with him did I see it. I looked about me in Wall +Street; in my mind's eye I all in an instant saw my world as it really was. +I saw the great rascals of "high finance," their respectability stripped +from them; saw them gathering in the spoils which their cleverly-trained +agents, commercial and political and legal, filched with light fingers from +the pockets of the crowd, saw the crowd looking up to these trainers and +employers of pickpockets, hailing them "captains of industry"! They reaped +only where and what others had sown; they touched industry only to plunder +and to blight it; they organized it only that its profits might go to +those who did not toil and who despised those who did. "Have I gone mad in +the midst of sane men?" I asked myself. "Or have I been mad, and have I +suddenly become sane in a lunatic world?" + +I did not linger on that problem. For me action remained the essential of +life, whether I was sane or insane. I resolved then and there to map a new +course. By toiling like a sailor at the pump of a sinking ship, I had taken +advantage to the uttermost of the respite Galloway's help had given me. My +property was no longer in more or less insecure speculative "securities," +but was, as I had told Langdon, in forms that would withstand the worst +shocks. The attacks of my enemies, directed partly at my fortune, or, +rather, at the stocks in which they imagined it was still invested, and +partly at my personal character, were doing me good instead of harm. Hatred +always forgets that its shafts, falling round its intended victim, spring +up as legions of supporters for him. My business was growing rapidly; my +daily letter to investors was read by hundreds of thousands where tens of +thousands had read it before the Roebuck-Langdon clique began to make me +famous by trying to make me infamous. + +"I am strong and secure," said I to myself as I strode through the +wonderful canyon of Broadway, whose walls are those mighty palaces of +finance and commerce from which business men have been ousted by cormorant +"captains of industry." I must _use_ my strength. How could I better +use it than by fluttering these vultures on their roosts, and perhaps +bringing down a bird or two? + +I decided, however, that it was better to wait until they had stopped +rattling their beaks and claws on my shell in futile attack. "Meanwhile," I +reasoned carefully, "I can be getting good and ready." + +Their first new move, after my little talk with Langdon, was intended +as a mortal blow to my credit Melville requested me to withdraw mine and +Blacklock and Company's accounts from the National Industrial Bank; and the +fact that this huge and powerful institution had thus branded me was slyly +given to the financial reporters of the newspapers. Far and wide it was +published; and the public was expected to believe that this was one more +and drastic measure in the "campaign of the honorable men of finance to +clean the Augean Stables of Wall Street." My daily letter to investors next +morning led off with this paragraph--the first notice I had taken publicly +of their attacks on me: + +"In the effort to discredit the only remaining uncontrolled source of +financial truth, the big bandits have ordered my accounts out of their +chief gambling-house. I have transferred the accounts to the Discount and +Deposit National, where Leonidas Thornley stands guard against the new +order that seeks to make business a synonym for crime." + +Thornley was of the type that was dominant in our commercial life before +the "financiers" came--just as song birds were common in our trees until +the noisy, brawling, thieving sparrows drove them out. His oldest son was +about to marry Joe's daughter--Alva. Many a Sunday I have spent at his +place near Morristown--a charming combination of city comfort with farm +freedom and fresh air. I remember, one Sunday, saying to him, after he had +seen his wife and daughters off to church: "Why haven't you got rich? Why +haven't you looked out for establishing these boys and girls of yours?" + +"I don't want my girls to be sought for money," said he, "I don't want my +boys to rely on money. Perhaps I've seen too much of wealth, and have come +to have a prejudice against it. Then, too, I've never had the chance to get +rich." + +I showed that I thought that he was simply jesting. + +"I mean it," said he, looking at me with eyes as straight as a +well-brought-up girl's. "How could my mind be judicial if I were personally +interested in the enterprises people look to me for advice about?" + +And not only did he keep himself clear and his mind judicial but also +he was, like all really good people, exceedingly slow to believe others +guilty of the things he would as soon have thought of doing as he would +have thought of slipping into the teller's cage during the lunch hour and +pocketing a package of bank-notes. He gave me his motto--a curious one: +"Believe in everybody; trust in nobody." + +"Only a thief wishes to be trusted," he explained, "and only a fool trusts. +I let no one trust me; I trust no one. But I believe evil of no man. Even +when he has been convicted, I see the mitigating circumstances." + +How Thornley did stand by me! And for no reason except that it was as +necessary for him to be fair and just as to breathe. I shall not say he +resisted the attempts to compel him to desert me--they simply made no +impression on him. I remember, when Roebuck himself, a large stock-holder +in the bank, left cover far enough personally to urge him to throw me over, +he replied steadfastly: + +"If Mr. Blacklock is guilty of circulating false stories against commercial +enterprises, as his enemies allege, the penal code can be used to stop him. +But as long as I stay at the head of this bank, no man shall use it for +personal vengeance. It is a chartered public institution, and all have +equal rights to its facilities. I would lend money to my worst enemy, if he +came for it with the proper security. I would refuse my best friend, if he +could not give security. The funds of a bank are a trust fund, and my duty +is to see that they are employed to the best advantage. If you wish other +principles to prevail here, you must get another president." + +That settled it. No one appreciated more keenly than did Roebuck that +character is as indispensable in its place as is craft where the situation +demands craft--and is far harder to get. + +I shall not relate in detail that campaign against me. It failed not so +much because I was strong as because it was weak. Perhaps, if Roebuck and +Langdon could have directed it in person, or had had the time to advise +with their agents before and after each move, it might have succeeded. +They would not have let exaggeration dominate it and venom show upon its +surface; they would not have neglected to follow up advantages, would not +have persisted in lines of attack that created public sympathy for me. +They would not have so crudely exploited my unconventional marriage and +my financial relations with old Ellersly. But they dared not go near the +battle-field; they had to trust to agents whom their orders and suggestions +reached by the most roundabout ways; and they were busier with their +enterprises that involved immediate and great gain or loss of money. + +When Galloway died, they learned that the Coal stocks with which they +thought I was loaded down were part of his estate. They satisfied +themselves that I was in fact as impregnable as I had warned Langdon. They +reversed tactics; Roebuck tried to make it up with me. "If he wants to see +me," was my invariable answer to the intimations of his emissaries, "let +him come to my office, just as I would go to his, if I wished to see him." + +"He is a big man--a dangerous big man," cautioned Joe. + +"Big--yes. But strong only against his own kind," replied I. "One mouse can +make a whole herd of elephants squeal for mercy." + +"It isn't prudent, it isn't prudent," persisted Joe. + +"It is not," replied I. "Thank God, I'm at last in the position I've been +toiling to achieve. I don't have to be prudent. I can say and do what I +please, without fear of the consequences. I can freely indulge in the +luxury of being a man. That's costly, Joe, but it's worth all it could +cost." + +Joe didn't understand me--he rarely did. "I'm a hen. You're an eagle," said +he. + + + + +XXIX + +A HOUSEWARMING + + +Joe's daughter, staying on and on at Dawn Hill, was chief lieutenant, if +not principal, in my conspiracy to drift Anita day by day further and +further into the routine of the new life. Yet neither of us had shown by +word or look that a thorough understanding existed between us. My part was +to be unobtrusive, friendly, neither indifferent nor eager, and I held to +it by taking care never to be left alone with Anita; Alva's part was to +be herself--simple and natural and sensible, full of life and laughter, +mocking at those moods that betray us into the absurdity of taking +ourselves too seriously. + +I was getting ready a new house in town as a surprise to Anita, and I took +Alva into my plot. "I wish Anita's part of the house to be exactly to her +liking," said I. "Can't you set her to dreaming aloud what kind of place +she would like to live in, what she would like to open her eyes on in the +morning, what surroundings she'd like to dress in and read in, and all +that?" + +Alva had no difficulty in carrying out the suggestions. And by harassing +Westlake incessantly, I succeeded in realizing her report of Anita's dream +to the exact shade of the draperies and the silk that covered the walls. By +pushing the work, I got the house done just as Alva was warning me that she +could not remain longer at Dawn Hill, but must go home and get ready for +her wedding. When I went down to arrange with her the last details of the +surprise, who should meet me at the station but Anita herself? I took one +glance at her serious face and, much disquieted, seated myself beside her +in the little trap. Instead of following the usual route to the house, she +turned her horse into the bay-shore road. + +"Several days ago," she began, as the bend hid the station, "I got a letter +from some lawyers, saying that an uncle of mine had given me a large sum +of money--a very large sum. I have been inquiring about it, and find it is +mine absolutely." + +I braced myself against the worst. "She is about to tell me that she is +leaving," thought I. But I managed to say: "I'm glad to hear of your luck," +though I fear my tone was not especially joyous. + +"So," she went on, "I am in a position to pay back to you, I think, what my +father and Sam took from you. It won't be enough, I'm afraid, to pay what +you lost indirectly. But I have told the lawyers to make it all over to +you." + +I could have laughed aloud. It was too ridiculous, this situation into +which I had got myself. I did not know what to say. I could hardly keep +out of my face how foolish this collapse of my crafty conspiracy made me +feel. And then the full meaning of what she was doing came over me--the +revelation of her character. I trusted myself to steal a glance at her; and +for the first time I didn't see the thrilling azure sheen over her smooth +white skin, though all her beauty was before me, as dazzling as when it +compelled me to resolve to win her. No; I saw her, herself--the woman +within. I had known from the outset that there was an altar of love within +my temple of passion. I think that was my first real visit to it. + +"Anita!" I said unsteadily. "Anita!" + +The color flamed in her cheeks; we were silent for a long time. + +"You--your people owe me nothing" I at length found voice to say. "Even if +they did, I couldn't and wouldn't take _your_ money. But, believe me, +they owe me nothing." + +"You can not mislead me," she answered. "When they asked me to become +engaged to you, they told me about it." + +I had forgotten. The whole repulsive, rotten business came back to me. And, +changed man that I had become in the last six months, I saw myself as I had +been. I felt that she was looking at me, was reading the degrading +confession in my telltale features. + +"I will tell you the whole truth," said I. "I did use your father's and +your brother's debts to me as a means of getting _to_ you. But, before +God, Anita, I swear I was honest with you when I said to you I never hoped +or wished to win you in that way!" + +"I believe you," she replied, and her tone and expression made my heart +leap with indescribable joy. + +Love is sometimes most unwise in his use of the reins he puts on passion. +Instead of acting as impulse commanded, I said clumsily, "And I am very +different to-day from what I was last spring." It never occurred to me how +she might interpret those words. + +"I know," she replied. She waited several seconds before adding: "I, too, +have changed. I see that I was far more guilty than you. There is no excuse +for me. I was badly brought up, as you used to say, but--" + +"No--no," I began to protest. + +She cut me short with a sad: "You need not be polite and spare my feelings. +Let's not talk of it. Let us go back to the object I had in coming for you +to-day." + +"You owe me nothing," I repeated. "Your brother and your father settled +long ago. I lost nothing through them. And I've learned that if I had never +known you, Roebuck and Langdon would still have attacked me." + +"What my uncle gave me has been transferred to you," said she, woman +fashion, not hearing what she did not care to heed. "I can't make you +accept it; but there it is, and there it stays." + +"I can not take it," said I. "If you insist on leaving it in my name, I +shall simply return it to your uncle." + +"I wrote him what I had done," she rejoined. "His answer came yesterday. He +approves it." + +"Approves it!" I exclaimed. + +"You do not know how eccentric he is," she explained, naturally +misunderstanding my astonishment. She took a letter from her bosom and +handed it to me. I read: + +"DEAR MADAM: It was yours to do with as you pleased. If you ever find +yourself in the mood to visit, Gull House is open to you, provided you +bring no maid. I will not have female servants about. + +"Yours truly, + +"HOWARD FORRESTER." + +"You will consent now, will you not?" she asked, as I lifted my eyes from +this characteristic note. + +I saw that her peace of mind was at stake. "Yes--I consent." + +She gave a great sigh as at the laying down of a heavy burden. "Thank you," +was all she said, but she put a world of meaning into the words. She took +the first homeward turning. We were nearly at the house before I found +words that would pave the way toward expressing my thoughts--my longings +and hopes. + +"You say you have forgiven me," said I. "Then we can be--friends?" + +She was silent, and I took her somber expression to mean that she feared I +was hiding some subtlety. + +"I mean just what I say, Anita," I hastened to explain. "Friends--simply +friends." And my manner fitted my words. + +She looked strangely at me. "You would be content with that?" she asked. + +I answered what I thought would please her. "Let us make the best of our +bad bargain," said I. "You can trust me now, don't you think you can?" + +She nodded without speaking; we were at the door, and the servants were +hastening out to receive us. Always the servants between us. Servants +indoors, servants outdoors; morning, noon and night, from waking to +sleeping, these servants to whom we are slaves. As those interrupting +servants sent us each a separate way, her to her maid, me to my valet, I +was depressed with the chill that the opportunity that has not been seen +leaves behind it as it departs. + +"Well," said I to myself by way of consolation, as I was dressing for +dinner, "she is certainly softening toward you, and when she sees the new +house you will be still better friends." + + * * * * * + +But, when the great day came, I was not so sure. Alva went for a "private +view" with young Thornley; out of her enthusiasm she telephoned me from the +very midst of the surroundings she found "_so_ wonderful and _so_ +beautiful"--thus she assured me, and her voice made it impossible to doubt. +And, the evening before the great day, I, going for a final look round, +could find no flaw serious enough to justify the sinking feeling that came +over me every time I thought of what Anita would think when she saw my +efforts to realize her dream. I set out for "home" half a dozen times at +least, that afternoon, before I pulled myself together, called myself an +ass, and, with a pause at Delmonico's for a drink, which I ordered and then +rejected, finally pushed myself in at the door. What, a state my nerves +were in! + +Alva had departed; Anita was waiting for me in her sitting-room. When she +heard me in the hall, just outside, she stood in the doorway. "Come in," +she said to me, who did not dare so much as a glance at her. + +I entered. I must have looked as I felt--like a boy, summoned before +the teacher to be whipped in presence of the entire school. Then I was +conscious that she had my hand--how she had got it, I don't know--and that +she was murmuring, with tears of happiness in her voice: "Oh, I can't +_say_ it!" + +"Glad you like your own taste," said I awkwardly. "You know, Alva told me." + +"But it's one thing to dream, and a very different thing to do," she +answered. Then, with smiling reproach: "And I've been thinking all summer +that you were ruined! I've been expecting to hear every day that you had +had to give up the fight." + +"Oh--that passed long ago," said I. + +"But you never told me," she reminded me. "And I'm glad you didn't," +she added. "Not knowing saved me from doing something very foolish." +She reddened a little, smiled a great deal, dazzlingly, was altogether +different from the ice-locked Anita of a short time before, different as +June from January. And her hand--so intensely alive--seemed extremely +comfortable in mine. + +Even as my blood responded to that electric touch, I had a twinge of +cynical bitterness. Yes, apparently I was at last getting what I had so +long, so vainly, and, latterly, so hopelessly craved. But--_why_ was +she giving it? Why had she withheld herself until this moment of material +happiness? "I have to pay the rich man's price," thought I, with a sigh. + +It was in reaching out for some sweetness to take away this bitter taste in +my honey that I said to her, "When you gave me that money from your uncle, +you did it to help me out?" + +She colored deeply. "How silly you must have thought me!" she answered. + +I took her other hand. As I was drawing her toward me, the sudden pallor of +her face and chill of her hands halted me once more, brought sickeningly +before me the early days of my courtship when she had infuriated my pride +by trying to be "submissive." I looked round the room--that room into which +I had put so much thought--and money. Money! "The rich man's price!" those +delicately brocaded walls shimmered mockingly at me. + +"Anita," said I, "do you _care_ for me?" + +She murmured inaudibly. Evasion! thought I, and suspicion sprang on guard, +bristling. + +"Anita," I repeated sternly, "do you care for _me_?" + +"I am your wife," she replied, her head drooping still lower. And +hesitatingly she drew away from me. That seemed confirmation of my doubt +and I said to her satirically, "You are willing to be my wife out of +gratitude, to put it politely?" + +She looked straight into my eyes and answered, "I can only say there is no +one I like so well, and--I will give you all I have to give." + +"Like!" I exclaimed contemptuously, my nerves giving way altogether. "And +you would be my _wife_! Do you want me to _despise_ you?" I +struck dead my poor, feeble hope that had been all but still-born. I rushed +from the room, closing the door violently between us. + +Such was our housewarming. + + + + +XXX + +BLACKLOCK OPENS FIRE + + +For what I proceeded to do, all sorts of motives, from the highest to the +basest, have been attributed to me. Here is the truth: I had already pushed +the medicine of hard work to its limit. It was as powerless against this +new development as water against a drunkard's thirst. I must find some new, +some compelling drug--some frenzy of activity that would swallow up my self +as the battle makes the soldier forget his toothache. This confession may +chagrin many who have believed in me. My enemies will hasten to say: "Aha, +his motive was even more selfish and petty than we alleged." But those who +look at human nature honestly, and from the inside, will understand how I +can concede that a selfish reason moved me to draw my sword, and still +can claim a higher motive. In such straits as were mine, some men of my +all-or-none temperament debauch themselves; others thresh about blindly, +reckless whether they strike innocent or guilty. I did neither. + +Probably many will recall that long before the "securities" of the +reorganized coal combine were issued, I had in my daily letter to investors +been preparing the public to give them a fitting reception. A few days +after my whole being burst into flames of resentment against Anita, out +came the new array of new stocks and bonds. Roebuck and Langdon arranged +with the under writers for a "fake" four times over-subscription, indorsed +by the two greatest banking houses in the Street. Despite this often-tried +and always-good trick, the public refused to buy. I felt I had not been +overestimating my power. But I made no move until the "securities" began to +go up, and the financial reporters--under the influence where not actually +in the pay of the Roebuck-Langdon clique--shouted that, "in spite of the +malicious attacks from the gambling element, the new securities are being +absorbed by the public at prices approximating their value." Then--But I +shall quote my investors' letter the following morning: + +"At half-past nine yesterday--nine-twenty-eight, to be exact--President +Melville, of the National Industrial Bank, loaned six hundred thousand +dollars. He loaned it to Bill Van Nest, an ex-gambler and proprietor of +pool rooms, now silent partner in Hoe & Wittekind, brokers, on the New York +Stock Exchange, and also in Filbert & Jonas, curb brokers. He loaned it to +Van Nest without security. + +"Van Nest used the money yesterday to push up the price of the new coal +securities by 'wash sales'--which means, by making false purchases and +sales of the stock in order to give the public the impression of eager +buying. Van Nest sold to himself and bought from himself 347,060 of the +352,681 shares traded in. + +"Melville, in addition to being president of one of the largest banks in +the world, is a director in no less than seventy-three great industrial +enterprises, including railways, telegraph companies, _savings-banks and +life-insurance companies_. Bill Van Nest has done time in the Nevada +State Penitentiary for horse-stealing." + + * * * * * + +That was all. And it was enough--quite enough. I was a national figure, +as much so as if I had tried to assassinate the president. Indeed, I had +exploded a bomb under a greater than the president--under the chiefs of the +real government of the United States, the government that levied daily upon +every citizen, and that had state and national and the principal municipal +governments in its strong box. + +I confess I was as much astounded at the effect of my bomb as old Melville +must have been. I felt that I had been obscure, as I looked at the +newspapers, with Matthew Blacklock appropriating almost the entire front +page of each. I was the isolated, the conspicuous figure, standing alone +upon the steps of the temple of Mammon, where mankind daily and devoutly +comes to offer worship. + +Not that the newspapers praised me. I recall none that spoke well of me. +The nearest approach to praise was the "Blacklock squeals on the Wall +Street gang" in one of the sensational penny sheets that strengthen +the plutocracy by lying about it. Some of the papers insinuated that +I had gone mad; others that I had been bought up by a rival gang to +the Roebuck-Langdon clique; still others thought I was simply hunting +notoriety. All were inclined to accept as a sufficient denial of my +charges Melville's dignified refusal "to notice any attack from a quarter +so discredited." + +As my electric whirled into Wall Street, I saw the crowd in front of the +Textile Building, a dozen policemen keeping it in order. I descended amid +cheers, and entered my offices through a mob struggling to shake hands with +me--and, in my ignorance of mob mind, I was delighted and inspired! Just +why a man who knows men, knows how wishy-washy they are as individuals, +should be influenced by a demonstration from a mass of them, is hard to +understand. But the fact is indisputable. They fooled me then; they could +fool me again, in spite of all I have been through. There probably wasn't +one in that mob for whose opinion I would have had the slightest respect +had he come to me alone; yet as I listened to those shallow cheers and +those worthless assurances of "the people are behind you, Blacklock," I +felt that I was a man with a mission! + +Our main office was full, literally full, of newspaper men--reporters +from morning papers, from afternoon papers, from out-of-town and foreign +papers. I pushed through them, saying as I went: "My letter speaks for me, +gentlemen, and will continue to speak for me. I have nothing to say except +through it." + +"But the public--" urged one. + +"It doesn't interest me," said I, on my guard against the temptation to +cant. "I am a banker and investment broker. I am interested only in my +customers." + +And I shut myself in, giving strict orders to Joe that there was to be no +talking about me or my campaign. "I don't purpose to let the newspapers +make us cheap and notorious," said I. "We must profit by the warning in +the fate of all the other fellows who have sprung into notice by attacking +these bandits." + +The first news I got was that Bill Van Nest had disappeared. As soon as +the Stock Exchange opened, National Coal became the feature. But, instead +of "wash sales," Roebuck, Langdon and Melville were themselves, through +various brokers, buying the stocks in large quantities to keep the prices +up. My next letter was as brief as my first philippic: + +"Bill Van Nest is at the Hotel Frankfort, Newark, under the name of Thomas +Lowry. He was in telephonic communication with President Melville, of the +National Industrial Bank, twice yesterday. + +"The underwriters of the National Coal Company's new issues, frightened by +yesterday's exposure, have compelled Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Mowbray Langdon and +Mr. Melville themselves to buy. So, yesterday, those three gentlemen bought +with real money, with their own money, large quantities of stocks which are +worth less than half what they paid for them. + +"They will continue to buy these stocks so long as the public holds aloof. +They dare not let the prices slump. They hope that this storm will blow +over, and that then the investing public will forget and will relieve them +of their load." + +I had added: "But this storm won't blow over. It will become a cyclone." I +struck that out. "No prophecy," said I to myself. "Your rule, iron-clad, +must be--facts, always facts; only facts." + +The gambling section of the public took my hint and rushed into the market; +the burden of protecting the underwriters was doubled, and more and more of +the hoarded loot was disgorged. That must have been a costly day--for, ten +minutes after the Stock Exchange closed, Roebuck sent for me. + +"My compliments to him," said I to his messenger, "but I am too busy. I'll +be glad to see him here, however." + +"You know he dares not come to you," said the messenger, Schilling, +president of the National Manufactured Food Company, sometimes called the +Poison Trust. "If he did, and it were to get out, there'd be a panic." + +"Probably," replied I with a shrug. "That's no affair of mine. I'm not +responsible for the rotten conditions which these so-called financiers have +produced, and I shall not be disturbed by the crash which must come." + +Schilling gave me a genuine look of mingled pity and admiration. "I suppose +you know what you're about," said he, "but I think you're making a +mistake." + +"Thanks, Ned," said I--he had been my head clerk a few years before, and I +had got him the chance with Roebuck which he had improved so well. "I'm +going to have some fun. Can't live but once." + +"I know some people," said he significantly, "who would go to _any_ +lengths to get an enemy out of the way." He had lived close enough to +Roebuck to peer into the black shadows of that satanic mind, and dimly to +see the dread shapes that lurked there. + +"I'm the safest man on Manhattan Island for the present," said I. + +"You remember Woodrow? I've always believed that he was murdered, and that +the pistol they found beside him was a 'plant.'" + +"You'd kill me yourself, if you got the orders, wouldn't you?" said I +good-humoredly. + +"Not personally," replied he in the same spirit, yet serious, too, at +bottom. "Inspector Bradlaugh was telling me, the other night, that there +were easily a thousand men in the slums of the East Side who could be hired +to kill a man for five hundred dollars." + +I suppose Schilling, as the directing spirit of a corporation that +hid poison by the hogshead in low-priced foods of various kinds, +was responsible for hundreds of deaths annually, and for misery of +sickness beyond calculation among the poor of the tenements and cheap +boarding-houses. Yet a better husband, father and friend never lived. He, +personally, wouldn't have harmed a fly; but he was a wholesale poisoner for +dividends. + +Murder for dividends. Poison for dividends. Starve and freeze and maim for +dividends. Drive parents to suicide, and sons and daughters to crime and +prostitution--for dividends. Not fair competition, in which the stronger +and better would survive, but cheating and swindling, lying and pilfering +and bribing, so that the honest and the decent go down before the dishonest +and the depraved. And the custom of doing these things so "respectable," +the applause for "success" so undiscriminating, and men so unthinking in +the rush of business activity, that criticism is regarded as a mixture of +envy and idealism. And it usually is, I must admit. + +Schilling lingered. "I hope you won't blame me for lining up against you, +Matt," said he. "I don't want to, but I've got to." + +"Why?" + +"You know what'd become of me if I didn't." + +"You might become an honest man and get self-respect," I suggested with +friendly satire. + +"That's all very well for you to say," was his laughing retort. "You've +made yourself tight and tidy for the blow. But I've a family, and a damned +expensive one, too. And if I didn't stand by this gang, they'd take +everything I've got away from me. No, Matt, each of us to his own game. +What _is_ your game, anyhow?" + +"Fun--just fun. Playing the pipe to see the big fellows dance." + +But he didn't believe it. And no one has believed it--not even my most +devoted followers. To this day Joe Ball more than half suspects that my +real objective was huge personal gain. That any rich man should do anything +except for the purpose of growing richer seems incredible. That any rich +man should retain or regain the sympathies and viewpoint of the class from +which he sprang, and should become a "traitor" to the class to which he +belongs, seems preposterous. I confess I don't fully understand my own +case. Who ever does? + +My "daily letters" had now ceased to be advertisements, had become news, +sought by all the newspapers of this country and of the big cities in Great +Britain. I could have made a large saving by no longer paying my sixty-odd +regular papers for inserting them. But I was looking too far ahead to +blunder into that fatal mistake. Instead, I signed a year's contract +with each of my papers, they guaranteeing to print my advertisements, I +guaranteeing to protect them against loss on libel suits. I organized +a dummy news bureau, and through it got contracts with the telegraph +companies. Thus insured against the cutting of my communications with the +public, I was ready for the real campaign. + +It began with my "History of the National Coal Company." I need not repeat +that famous history here. I need recall only the main points--how I proved +that the common stock was actually worth less than two dollars a share, +that the bonds were worth less than twenty-five dollars in the hundred, +that both stock and bonds were illegal; my detailed recital of the crimes +of Roebuck, Melville and Langdon in wrecking mining properties, in wrecking +coal railways, in ejecting American labor and substituting helots from +eastern Europe; how they had swindled and lied and bribed; how they had +twisted the books of the companies, how they were planning to unload the +mass of almost worthless securities at high prices, then to get from under +the market and let the bonds and stocks drop down to where they could buy +them in on terms that would yield them more than two hundred and fifty per +cent, on the actual capital invested. Less and dearer coal; lower wages and +more ignorant laborers; enormous profits absorbed without mercy into a few +pockets. + +On the day the seventh chapter of this history appeared, the telegraph +companies notified me that they would transmit no more of my matter. They +feared the consequences in libel suits, explained Moseby, general manager +of one of the companies. + +"But I guarantee to protect you," said I. "I will give bond in any amount +you ask." + +"We can't take the risk, Mr. Blacklock," replied he. The twinkle in his eye +told me why, and also that he, like every one else in the country except +the clique, was in sympathy with me. + +My lawyers found an honest judge, and I got an injunction that compelled +the companies to transmit under my contracts. I suspended the "History" for +one day, and sent out in place of it an account of this attempt to shut +me off from the public. "Hereafter," said I, in the last paragraph in my +letter, "I shall end each day's chapter with a forecast of what the next +day's chapter is to be. If for any reason it fails to appear, the public +will know that somebody has been coerced by Roebuck, Melville & Co." + + + + +XXXI + +ANITA'S SECRET + + +That afternoon--or, was it the next?--I happened to go home early. I have +never been able to keep alive anger against any one. My anger against Anita +had long ago died away, had been succeeded by regret and remorse that I +had let my nerves, or whatever the accursed cause was, whirl me into such +an outburst. Not that I regretted having rejected what I still felt was +insulting to me and degrading to her; simply that my manner should have +been different. There was no necessity or excuse for violence in showing +her that I would not, could not, accept from gratitude what only love +has the right to give. And I had long been casting about for some way +to apologize--not easy to do, when her distant manner toward me made +it difficult for me to find even the necessary commonplaces to "keep +up appearances" before the servants on the few occasions on which we +accidentally met. + +But, as I was saying, I came up from the office and stretched myself +on--the lounge in my private room adjoining the library. I had read myself +into a doze, when a servant brought me a card. I glanced at it as it lay +upon his extended tray. "Gerald Monson," I read aloud. "What does the +damned rascal want?" I asked. + +The servant smiled. He knew as well as I how Monson, after I dismissed him +with a present of six months' pay, had given the newspapers the story--or, +rather, his version of the story--of my efforts to educate myself in the +"arts and graces of a gentleman." + +"Mr. Monson says he wishes to see you particular, sir," said he. + +"Well--I'll see him," said I. I despised him too much to dislike him, and I +thought he might possibly be in want. But that notion vanished the instant +I set eyes upon him. He was obviously at the very top of the wave. "Hello, +Monson," was my greeting, in it no reminder of his treachery. + +"Howdy, Blacklock," said he. "I've come on a little errand for Mrs. +Langdon." Then, with that nasty grin of his: "You know, I'm looking after +things for her since the bust-up." + +"No, I didn't--know," said I curtly, suppressing my instant curiosity. +"What does Mrs. Langdon want?" + +"To see you--for just a few minutes--whenever it is convenient." + +"If Mrs. Langdon has business with me, I'll see her at my office," said I. +She was one of the fashionables that had got herself into my black books by +her treatment of Anita since the break with the Ellerslys. + +"She wishes to come to you here--this afternoon, if you are to be at home. +She asked me to say that her business is important--and very private." + +I hesitated, but I could think of no good excuse for refusing. "I'll be +here an hour," said I. "Good day." + +He gave me no time to change my mind. + +Something--perhaps it was his curious expression as he took himself +off--made me begin to regret. The more I thought of the matter, the less I +thought of my having made any civil concession to a woman who had acted so +badly toward Anita and myself. He had not been gone a quarter of an hour +before I went to Anita in her sitting-room. Always, the instant I entered +the outer door of her part of our house, that powerful, intoxicating +fascination that she had for me began to take possession of my senses. It +was in every garment she wore. It seemed to linger in any place where she +had been, for a long time after she left it. She was at a small desk by the +window, was writing letters. + +"May I interrupt?" said I. "Monson was here a few minutes ago--from Mrs. +Langdon. She wants to see me. I told him I would see her here. Then it +occurred to me that perhaps I had been too good-natured. What do you +think?" + +I could not see her face, but only the back of her head, and the loose +coils of magnetic hair and the white nape of her graceful neck. As I began +to speak, she stopped writing, her pen suspended over the sheet of paper. +After I ended there was a long silence. + +"I'll not see her," said I. "I don't quite understand why I yielded." And I +turned to go. + +"Wait--please," came from her abruptly. + +Another long silence. Then I: "If she comes here, I think the only person +who can properly receive her is you." + +"No--you must see her," said Anita at last. And she turned round in her +chair until she was facing me. Her expression--I can not describe it. I can +only say that it gave me a sense of impending calamity. + +"I'd rather not--much rather not," said I. + +"I particularly wish you to see her," she replied, and she turned back to +her writing. I saw her pen poised as if she were about to begin; but she +did not begin--and I felt that she would not. With my mind shadowed with +vague dread, I left that mysterious stillness, and went back to the +library. + +It was not long before Mrs. Langdon was announced. There are some women +to whom a haggard look is becoming; she is one of them. She was much +thinner than when I last saw her; instead of her former restless, petulant, +suspicious expression, she now looked tragically sad. "May I trouble you to +close the door?" said she, when the servant had withdrawn. + +I closed the door. + +"I've come," she began, without seating herself, "to make you as unhappy, I +fear, as I am. I've hesitated long before coming. But I am desperate. The +one hope I have left is that you and I between us may be able to--to--that +you and I may be able to help each other." + +I waited. + +"I suppose there are people," she went on, "who have never known what it +was to--really to care for some one else. They would despise me for +clinging to a man after he has shown me that--that his love has ceased." + +"Pardon me, Mrs. Langdon," I interrupted. "You apparently think your +husband and I are intimate friends. Before you go any further, I must +disabuse you of that idea." + +She looked at me in open astonishment. "You do not know why my husband has +left me?" + +"Until a few minutes ago, I did not know that he had left you," I said. +"And I do not wish to know why." + +Her expression of astonishment changed to mockery. "Oh!" she sneered. "Your +wife has fooled you into thinking it a one-sided affair. Well, I tell you, +she is as much to blame as he--more. For he did love me when he married me; +did love me until she got him under her spell again." + +I thought I understood. "You have been misled, Mrs. Langdon," said I +gently, pitying her as the victim of her insane jealousy. "You have--" + +"Ask your wife," she interrupted angrily. "Hereafter, you can't pretend +ignorance. For I'll at least be revenged. She failed utterly to trap him +into marriage when she was a poor girl, and--" + +"Before you go any further," said I coldly, "let me set you right. My wife +was at one time engaged to your husband's brother, but--" + +"Tom?" she interrupted. And her laugh made me bite my lip. "So she told you +that! I don't see how she dared. Why, everybody knows that she and Mowbray +were engaged, and that he broke it off to marry me." + +All in an instant everything that had been confused in my affairs at +home and down town became clear. I understood why I had been pursued +relentlessly in Wall Street; why I had been unable to make the least +impression on the barriers between Anita and myself. You will imagine that +some terrible emotion at once dominated me. But this is not a romance; +only the veracious chronicle of certain human beings. My first emotion +was--relief that it was not Tom Langdon. "I ought to have known she +couldn't care for _him_," said I to myself. I, contending with Tom +Langdon for a woman's love had always made me shrink. But Mowbray--that +was vastly different. My respect for myself and for Anita rose. + +"No," said I to Mrs. Langdon, "my wife did not tell me, never spoke of it. +What I said to you was purely a guess of my own. I had no interest in the +matter--and haven't. I have absolute confidence in my wife. I feel ashamed +that you have provoked me into saying so." I opened the door. + +"I am not going yet," said she angrily. "Yesterday morning Mowbray and she +were riding together in the Riverside Drive. Ask her groom." + +"What of it?" said I. Then, as she did not rise, I rang the bell. When the +servant came, I said: "Please tell Mrs. Blacklock that Mrs. Langdon is in +the library--and that I am here, and gave you the message." + +As soon as the servant was gone, she said: "No doubt she'll lie to you. +These women that steal other women's property are usually clever at fooling +their own silly husbands." + +"I do not intend to ask her," I replied. "To ask her would be an insult." + +She made no comment beyond a scornful toss of the head. We both had +our gaze fixed upon the door through which Anita would enter. When she +finally did appear, I, after one glance at her, turned--it must have been +triumphantly--upon her accuser. I had not doubted, but where is the faith +that is not the stronger for confirmation? And confirmation there was in +the very atmosphere round that stately, still figure. She looked calmly, +first at Mrs. Langdon, then at me. + +"I sent for you," said I, "because I thought that you, rather than I, +should request Mrs. Langdon to leave your house." + +At that Mrs. Langdon was on her feet, and blazing. "Fool!" she flared at +me. "Oh, the fools women make of men!" Then to Anita: "You--you--But no, I +must not permit you to drag me down to your level. Tell your husband--tell +him that you were riding with my husband in the Riverside Drive yesterday." + +I stepped between her and Anita. "My wife will not answer you," said I. "I +hope, Madam, you will spare us the necessity of a painful scene. But leave +you must--at once." + +She looked wildly round, clasped her hands, suddenly burst into tears. +If she had but known, she could have had her own way after that, without +any attempt from me to oppose her. For she was evidently unutterably +wretched--and no one knew better than I the sufferings of unreturned love. +But she had given me up; slowly, sobbing, she left the room, I opening the +door for her and closing it behind her. + +"I almost broke down myself," said I to Anita. "Poor woman! How can you be +so calm? You women in your relations with each other are--a mystery." + +"I have only contempt for a woman who tries to hold a man when he wishes +to go," said Anita, with quiet but energetic bitterness. "Besides"--she +hesitated an instant before going on--"Gladys deserves her fate. She +doesn't really care for him. She's only jealous of him. She never did love +him." + +"How do you know?" said I sharply, trying to persuade myself it was not an +ugly suspicion in me that lifted its head and shot out that question. + +"Because he never loved her," she replied. "The feeling a woman has for +a man or a man for a woman, without any response, isn't love, isn't +worthy the name of love. It's a sort of baffled covetousness. Love means +generosity, not greediness." Then--"Why do you not ask me whether what she +said is true?" + +The change in her tone with that last sentence, the strange, ominous note +in it, startled me, + +"Because," replied I, "as I said to her, to ask my wife such a question +would be to insult her. If you were riding with him, it was an accident." +As if my rude repulse of her overtures and my keeping away from her ever +since would not have justified her in almost anything. + +She flushed the dark red of shame, but her gaze held steady and unflinching +upon mine. "It was not altogether by accident," she said. And I think she +expected me to kill her. + +When a man admits and respects a woman's rights where he is himself +concerned, he either is no longer interested in her or has begun to love +her so well that he can control the savage and selfish instincts of +passion. If Mowbray Langdon had been there, I might have killed them both; +but he was not there, and she, facing me without fear, was not the woman to +be suspected of the stealthy and traitorous. + +"It was he that you meant when you warned me you cared for another man?" +said I, so quietly that I wondered at myself; wondered what had become of +the "Black Matt" who had used his fists almost as much as his brains in +fighting his way up. + +"Yes," she said, her head down now. + +A long pause. + +"You wish to be free?" I asked, and my tone must have been gentle. + +"I wish to free you," she replied slowly and deliberately. + +There was a long silence. Then I said: "I must think it all out. I once +told you how I felt about these matters. I've greatly changed my mind since +our talk that night in the Willoughby; but my prejudices are still with me. +Perhaps you will not be surprised at that--you whose prejudices have cost +me so dear." + +I thought she was going to speak. Instead she turned away, so that I could +no longer see her face. + +"Our marriage was a miserable mistake," I went on, struggling to be just +and judicial, and to seem calm. "I admit it now. Fortunately, we are both +still young--you very young. Mistakes in youth are never fatal. But, Anita, +do not blunder out of one mistake into another. You are no longer a child, +as you were when I married you. You will be careful not to let judgments +formed of him long ago decide you for him as they decided you against me." + +"I wish to be free," she said, each word coming with an effort, "as much +on your account as on my own." Then, and it seemed to me merely a truly +feminine attempt to shirk responsibility, she added, "I am glad my going +will be a relief to you." + +"Yes, it will be a relief," I confessed. "Our situation has become +intolerable." I had reached my limit of self-control. I put out my hand. +"Good-by," I said. + +If she had wept, it might have modified my conviction that everything was +at an end between us. But she did not weep. "Can you ever forgive me?" she +asked. + +"Let's not talk of forgiveness," said I, and I fear my voice and manner +were gruff, as I strove not to break down. "Let's try to forget." And I +touched her hand and hastened away. + +When two human beings set out to misunderstand each other, how fast and far +they go! How shut-in we are from each other, with only halting means of +communication that break down under the slightest strain! + +As I was leaving the house next morning, I gave Sanders this note for her: + +"I have gone to live at the Downtown Hotel. When you have decided what +course to take, let me know. If my 'rights' ever had any substance, they +have starved away to such weak things that they collapse even as I try to +set them up. I hope your freedom will give you happiness, and me peace." + +"You are ill, sir?" asked my old servant, my old friend, as he took the +note. + +"Stay with her, Sanders, as long as she wishes," said I, ignoring his +question. "Then come to me." + +His look made me shake hands with him. As I did it, we both remembered the +last time we had shaken hands--when he had the roses for my home-coming +with my bride. It seemed to me I could smell those roses. + + + + +XXXII + +LANGDON COMES TO THE SURFACE + + +I shall not estimate the vast sums it cost the Roebuck-Langdon clique +to maintain the prices of National Coal, and so give plausibility to +the fiction that the public was buying eagerly. In the third week of my +campaign, Melville was so deeply involved that he had to let the two others +take the whole burden upon themselves. + +In the fourth week, Langdon came to me. + +The interval between his card and himself gave me a chance to recover from +my amazement. When he entered he found me busily writing. Though I had +nerved myself, it was several seconds before I ventured to look at him. +There he stood, probably as handsome, as fascinating as ever, certainly as +self-assured. But I could now, beneath that manner I had once envied, see +the puny soul, with its brassy glitter of the vanity of luxury and show. +I had been somewhat afraid of myself--afraid the sight of him would stir +up in me a tempest of jealousy and hate; as I looked, I realized that +I did not know my own nature. "She does not love this man," I thought. +"If she did or could, she would not be the woman I love. He deceived her +inexperience as he deceived mine." + +"What can I do for you?" said I to him politely, much as if he were a +stranger making an untimely interruption. + +My look had disconcerted him; my tone threw him into confusion. "You keep +out of the way, now that you've become famous," he began, with a halting +but heroic attempt at his customary easy superiority. "Are you living up in +Connecticut, too? Sam Ellersly tells me your wife is stopping there with +old Howard Forrester. Sam wants me to use my good offices in making it up +between you two and her family." + +I was completely taken aback by this cool ignoring of the real situation +between him and me. Impudence or ignorance?--I could not decide. It seemed +impossible that Anita had not told him; yet it seemed impossible, too, that +he would come to me if she had told him. "Have you any _business_ with +me?" said I. + +His eyelids twitched nervously, and he adjusted his lips several times +before he was able to say: + +"You and your wife don't care to make it up with the Ellerslys? I fancied +so, and told Sam you'd simply think me meddlesome. The other matter is the +Travelers Club. I've smoothed things out there. I'm going to put you up and +rush you through." + +"No, thanks," said I. It seemed incredible to me that I had ever cared +about that club and the things it represented, as I could remember I +undoubtedly did care. It was like looking at an outgrown toy and trying +to feel again the emotions it once excited. + +"I assure you, Matt, there won't be the slightest difficulty." His manner +was that of a man playing the trump card in a desperate game--he feels it +can not lose, yet the stake is so big that he can not but be a little +nervous. + +"I do not care to join the Travelers Club," said I, rising. "I must ask you +to excuse me. I am exceedingly busy." + +A flush appeared in his cheeks and deepened and spread until his whole body +must have been afire. He seated himself. "You know what I've come for," he +said sullenly, and humbly, too. + +All his life he had been enthroned upon his wealth. Without realizing it, +he had claimed and had received deference solely because he was rich. He +had thought himself, in his own person, most superior; now, he found that +like a silly child he had been standing on a chair and crying: "See how +tall I am." And the airs, the cynicism, the graceful condescension, which +had been so becoming to him, were now as out of place as crown and robes on +a king taking a swimming lesson. + +"What are your terms, Blacklock? Don't be too hard on an old friend," said +he, trying to carry off his frank plea for mercy with a smile. + +I should have thought he would cut his throat and jump off the Battery wall +before he would get on his knees to any man for any reason. And he was +doing it for mere money--to try to save, not his fortune, but only an +imperiled part of it. "If Anita could see him now!" I thought. + +To him I said, the more coldly because I did not wish to add to his +humiliation by showing him that I pitied him: "I can only repeat, Mr. +Langdon, you will have to excuse me. I have given you all the time I can +spare." + +His eyes were shifting and his hands trembling as he said: "I will transfer +control of the Coal combine to you." + +His tones, shameful as the offer they carried, made me ashamed for him. +For money--just for money! And I had thought him a man. If he had been a +self-deceiving hypocrite like Roebuck, or a frank believer in the right of +might, like Updegraff, I might possibly, in the circumstances, have tried +to release him from my net. But he had never for an instant deceived +himself as to the real nature of the enterprises he plotted, promoted and +profited by; he thought it "smart" to be bad, and he delighted in making +the most cynical epigrams on the black deeds of himself and his associates. + +"Better sell out to Roebuck," I suggested. "I control all the Coal stock I +need." + +"I don't care to have anything further to do with Roebuck," Langdon +answered. "I've broken with him." + +"When a man lies to me," said I, "he gives me the chance to see just how +much of a fool he thinks I am, and also the chance to see just how much of +a fool he is. I hesitate to think so poorly of you as your attempt to fool +me seems to compel." + +But he was unconvinced. "I've found he intends to abandon the ship and +leave me to go down with it," he persisted. "He believes he can escape and +denounce me as the arch rascal who planned the combine, and can convince +people that I foozled him into it." + +Ingenious; but I happened to know that it was false. "Pardon me, Mr. +Langdon," said I with stiff courtesy. "I repeat, I can do nothing for you. +Good morning." And I went at my work as if he were already gone. + +Had I been vindictive, I would have led him on to humiliate himself more +deeply, if greater depths of humiliation there are than those to which +he voluntarily descended. But I wished to spare him; I let him see the +uselessness of his mission. He looked at me in silence--the look of hate +that can come only from a creature weak as well as wicked. I think it +was all his keen sense of humor could do to save him from a melodramatic +outbreak. He slipped into his habitual pose, rose and withdrew without +another word. All this fright and groveling and treachery for plunder, the +loss of which would not impair his fortune--plunder he had stolen with many +a jest and gibe at his helpless victims. Like most of our debonair dollar +chasers, he was a good sportsman only when the game was with him. + +That afternoon he threw his Coal holdings on the market in great blocks. +His treachery took Roebuck completely by surprise--for Roebuck believed in +this fair-weather "gentleman," foul-weather coward, and neglected to allow +for that quicksand that is always under the foundation of the man who has +inherited, not earned, his wealth. But for the blundering credulity of +rascals, would honest men ever get their dues? Roebuck's brokers had bought +many thousands of Langdon's shares at the high artificial price before +Roebuck grasped the situation--that it was not my followers recklessly +gambling to break the prices, but Langdon unloading on his "pal." As soon +as he saw, he abruptly withdrew from the market. When the Stock Exchange +closed, National Coal securities were offered at prices ranging from eleven +for the bonds to two for the common and three for the preferred--offered, +and no takers. + +"Well, you've done it," said Joe, coming with the news that Thornley, of +the Discount and Deposit Bank, had been appointed receiver. + +"I've made a beginning," replied I. And the last sentence of my next +morning's "letter" was: + +"To-morrow the first chapter of the History of the Industrial National +Bank." + + * * * * * + +"I have felt for two years," said Roebuck to Schilling, who repeated it to +me soon afterward, "that Blacklock was about the most dangerous fellow in +the country. The first time I set eyes on him, I saw he was a born +iconoclast. And I've known for a year that some day he would use that +engine of publicity of his to cannonade the foundations of society." + +"He knew me better than I knew myself," was my comment to Schilling. And I +meant it--for I had not finished the demolition of the Coal combine when I +began to realize that, whatever I might have thought of my own ambitions, +I could never have tamed myself or been tamed into a devotee of dollars +and of respectability. I simply had been keeping quiet until my tools were +sharp and fate spun my opportunity within reach. But I must, in fairness, +add, it was lucky for me that, when the hour struck, Roebuck was not twenty +years younger and one-twentieth as rich. It's a heavy enough handicap, +under the best of circumstances, to go to war burdened with years; add the +burden of a monster fortune, and it isn't in human nature to fight well. +Youth and a light knapsack! + +But--to my fight on the big bank. + +Until I opened fire, the public thought, in a general way, that a bank was +an institution like Thornley's Discount and Deposit National--a place for +the safe-keeping of money and for accommodating business men with loans to +be used in carrying on and extending legitimate and useful enterprises. And +there were many such banks. But the real object of the banking business, +as exploited by the big bandits who controlled it and all industry, was +to draw into a mass the money of the country that they might use it to +manipulate the markets, to wreck and reorganize industries and wreck them +again, to work off inflated bonds and stocks upon the public at inflated +prices, to fight among themselves for rights to despoil, making the people +pay the war budgets--in a word, to finance the thousand and one schemes +whereby they and their friends and relatives, who neither produce nor help +to produce, appropriate the bulk of all that is produced. + +And before I finished with the National Industrial Bank, I had shown that +it and several similar institutions in the big cities throughout the +country were, in fact, so many dens to which rich and poor were lured for +spoliation. I then took up the Universal Life, as a type. I showed how +insuring was, with the companies controlled by the bandits, simply the +decoy; that the real object was the same as the real object of the big +bandit banks. When I had finished my series on the Universal Life I had +named and pilloried Roebuck, Langdon, Melville, Wainwright, Updegraff, Van +Steen, Epstein--the seven men of enormous wealth, leaders of the seven +cliques that had the political and industrial United States at their mercy, +and were plucking the people through an ever-increasing army of agents. +The agents kept some of the feathers--"The Seven" could afford to pay +liberally. But the bulk of the feather crop was passed on to "The Seven." + +I shall answer in a paragraph the principal charges that were made against +me. They say I bribed employees on the telegraph companies, and so got +possession of incriminating telegrams that had been sent by "The Seven" in +the course of their worst campaigns. I admit the charge. They say I bribed +some of their confidential men to give me transcripts and photographs +of secret ledgers and reports. I admit the charge. They say I bought +translations of stenographic notes taken by eavesdroppers on certain +important secret meetings. I admit the charge. But what was the chief +element in my success in thus getting proofs of their crimes? Not the +bribery, but the hatred that all the servants of such men have for them. I +tempted no one to betray them. _Every item, of information I got was +offered to me_. And I shall add these facts: + +First, in not a single case did they suspect and discharge the "guilty" +persons. + +Second, I have to-day as good means of access to their secrets as I ever +had--and, if they discharged all who now serve them, I should be able soon +to reestablish my lines; men of their stripe can not hope to be served +faithfully. + +Third, I had offers from all but three of "The Seven" to "peach" on the +others in return for immunity. There may be honor among some thieves, but +not among "respectable" thieves. Hypocrisy and honor will be found in the +same character when the sun shines at night--not before. + + * * * * * + +It was the sardonic humor of fate that Langdon, for all his desire to keep +out of my way, should have compelled me to center my fire upon him; that I, +who wished to spare him, if possible, should have been compelled to make of +him my first "awful example." + +I had decided to concentrate upon Roebuck, because he was the richest and +most powerful of "The Seven." For, in my pictures of the three main phases +of "finance"--the industrial, the life-insurance and the banking--he, as +arch plotter in every kind of respectable skulduggery, was necessarily in +the foreground. My original intention was to demolish the Power Trust--or, +at least, to compel him to buy back all of its stock which he had worked +off on the public. I had collected many interesting facts about it, facts +typical of the conditions that "finance" has established in so many of our +industries. + +For instance, I was prepared to show that the actual earnings of the Power +Trust were two and a half times what its reports to stock-holders alleged; +that the concealed profits were diverted into the pockets of Roebuck, his +sons, eleven other relatives and four of "The Seven," the lion's share +going, of course, to the lion. Like almost all the great industrial +enterprises, too strong for the law and too remote for the supervision +of their stock-holders, it gathered in enormous revenues to disburse +them chiefly in salaries and commissions and rake-offs on contracts to +favorites. I had proof that in one year it had "written off" twelve +millions of profit and loss, ten millions of which had found its way to +Roebuck's pocket. That pocket! That "treasury of the Lord"! + +Dishonest? Roebuck and most of the other leaders of the various gangs, +comprising, with all their ramifications, the principal figures in +religious, philanthropic, fashionable society, did not for an instant +think their doings dishonest. They had no sense of trusteeship for this +money intrusted to them as captains of industry bankers, life-insurance +directors. They felt that it was theirs to do with as they pleased. + +And they felt that their superiority in rank and in brains entitled them +to whatever remuneration they could assign to themselves without rousing +the wrath of a public too envious to admit the just claims of the "upper +classes." They convinced themselves that without them crops would cease +to grow, sellers and buyers would be unable to find their way to market, +barbarism would spread its rank and choking weeds over the whole garden of +civilization. And, so brainless is the parrot public, they have succeeded +in creating a very widespread conviction that their own high opinion of +their services is not too high, and that some dire calamity would come if +they were swept from between producer and consumer! True, thieves are found +only where there is property; but who but a chucklebrain would think the +thieves made the property? + +Roebuck was the keystone of the arch that sustained the structure of +chicane. To dislodge him was the direct way to collapse it. I was about to +set to work when Langdon, feeling that he ought to have a large supply of +cash in the troublous times I was creating, increased the capital stock +of his already enormously overcapitalized Textile Trust and offered the +new issue to the public. As the Textile Trust was even better bulwarked, +politically, than the Power Trust, it was easily able to declare tempting +dividends out of its lootings. So the new stock could not be attacked in +the one way that would make the public instantly shun it--I could not +truthfully charge that it would not pay the promised dividends. Yet attack +I must--for that issue was, in effect, a bold challenge of my charges +against "The Seven." From all parts of the country inquiries poured in upon +me: "What do you think of the new Textile issue? Shall we invest? Is the +Textile Company sound?" + +I had no choice. I must turn aside from Roebuck; I must first show that, +while Textile was, in a sense, sound just at that time, it had been +unsound, and would be unsound again as soon as Langdon had gathered in +a sufficient number of lambs to make a battue worth the while of a man +dealing in nothing less than seven figures. I proceeded to do so. + +The market yielded slowly. Under my first day's attack Textile preferred +fell six points, Textile common three. While I was in the midst of +dictating my letter for the second day's attack, I suddenly came to a full +stop. I found across my way this thought: "Isn't it strange that Langdon, +after humbling himself to you, should make this bold challenge? It's a +trap!" + +"No more at present," said I, to my stenographer. "And don't write out what +I've already dictated." + +I shut myself in and busied myself at the telephone. Half an hour after I +set my secret machinery in motion, a messenger brought me an envelop, the +address type-written. It contained a sheet of paper on which appeared, in +type-writing; these words, and nothing more: + + "He is heavily short of Textiles." + +It was indeed a trap. The new issue was a blind. He had challenged me to +attack his stock, and as soon as I did, he had begun secretly to sell it +for a fall. I worked at this new situation until midnight, trying to get +together the proofs. At that hour--for I could delay no longer, and my +proofs were not quite complete--I sent my newspapers two sentences: + + "To-morrow I shall make a disclosure that will + send Textiles up. Do not sell Textiles!" + + + + +XXXIII + +MRS. LANGDON MAKES A CALL + + +Next day Langdon's stocks wavered, going up a little, going down a little, +closing at practically the same figures at which they had opened. Then I +sprang my sensation--that Langdon and his particular clique, though they +controlled the Textile Trust, did not own so much as one-fiftieth of its +voting stock. True "captains of industry" that they were, they made their +profits not out of dividends, but out of side schemes that absorbed about +two-thirds of the earnings of the Trust, and out of gambling in its bonds +and stocks. I said in conclusion: + +"The largest owner of the stock is Walter G. Edmunds, of Chicago--an honest +man. Send your voting proxies to him, and he can take the Textile Company +away from those now plundering it." + +As the annual election of the Trust was only six weeks away, Langdon +and his clique were in a panic. They rushed into the market and bought +frantically, the public bidding against them. Langdon himself went to +Chicago to reason with Edmunds--that is, to try to find out at what figure +he could be bought. And so on, day after day, I faithfully reporting to +the public the main occurrences behind the scenes. The Langdon attempt to +regain control by purchases of stock failed. He and his allies made what +must have been to them appalling sacrifices; but even at the high prices +they offered, comparatively little of the stock appeared. + +"I've caught them," said I to Joe--the first time, and the last, during +that campaign that I indulged in a boast. + +"If Edmunds sticks to you," replied cautious Joe. + +But Edmunds did not. I do not know at what price he sold himself. Probably +it was pitifully small; cupidity usually snatches the instant bait tickles +its nose. But I do know that my faith in human nature got its severest +shock. + +"You are down this morning," said Thornley, when I looked in on him at his +bank. "I don't think I ever before saw you show that you were in low +spirits." + +"I've found out a man with whom I'd have trusted my life," said I. +"Sometimes I think all men are dishonest. I've tried to be an optimist like +you, and have told myself that most men must be honest or ninety-five per +cent. of the business couldn't be done on credit as it is." + +Thornley smiled, like an old man at the enthusiasm of a youngster. "That +proves nothing as to honesty," said he. "It simply shows that men can +be counted on to do what it is to their plain interest to do. The truth +is--and a fine truth, too--most men wish and try to be honest. Give 'em a +chance to resist their own weaknesses. Don't trust them. Trust--that's the +making of false friends and the filling of jails." + +"And palaces," I added. + +"And palaces," assented he. "Every vast fortune is a monument to the +credulity of man. Instead of getting after these heavy-laden rascals, +Matthew, you'd better have turned your attention to the public that has +made rascals of them by leaving its property unguarded." + +Fortunately, Edmunds had held out, or, rather, Langdon had delayed +approaching him, long enough for me to gain my main point. The uproar +over the Textile Trust had become so great that the national Department +of Commerce dared not refuse an investigation; and I straightway began to +spread out in my daily letters the facts of the Trust's enormous earnings +and of the shameful sources of those earnings. Thanks to Langdon's +political pull, the president appointed as investigator one of those +rascals who carefully build themselves good reputations to enable them to +charge higher prices for dirty work. But, with my facts before the people, +whitewash was impossible. + +I was expecting emissaries from Langdon, for I knew he must now be actually +in straits. Even the Universal Life didn't dare lend him money; and was +trying to call in the millions it had loaned him. But I was astounded when +my private door opened and Mrs. Langdon ushered herself in. + +"Don't blame your boy, Mr. Blacklock," cried she gaily, exasperatingly +confident that I was as delighted with her as she was with herself. "I told +him you were expecting me and didn't give him a chance to stop me." + +I assumed she had come to give me wholly undeserved thanks for revenging +her upon her recreant husband. I tried to look civil and courteous, but I +felt that my face was darkening--her very presence forced forward things I +had been keeping in the far background of my mind, "How can I be of service +to you, Madam?" said I. + +"I bring you good news," she replied--and I noted that she no longer looked +haggard and wretched, that her beauty was once more smiling with a certain +girlishness, like a young widow's when she finds her consolation. "Mowbray +and I have made it up," she explained. + +I simply listened, probably looking as grim as I felt. + +"I knew you would be interested," she went on. "Indeed, it means almost as +much to you as to me. It brings peace to _two_ families." + +Still I did not relax. + +"And so," she continued, a little uneasy, "I came to you immediately." + +I continued to listen, as if I were waiting for her to finish and depart. + +"If you want, I'll go to Anita." Natural feminine tact would have saved her +from this rawness; but, convinced that she was a "great lady" by the +flattery of servants and shopkeepers and sensational newspapers and social +climbers, she had discarded tact as worthy only of the lowly and of the +aspiring before they "arrive." + +"You are too kind," said I. "Mrs. Blacklock and I feel competent to take +care of our own affairs." + +"Please, Mr. Blacklock," she said, realizing that she had blundered, "don't +take my directness the wrong way. Life is too short for pose and pretense +about the few things that really matter. Why shouldn't we be frank with +each other?" + +"I trust you will excuse me," said I, moving toward the door--I had not +seated myself when she did. "I think I have made it clear that we have +nothing to discuss." + +"You have the reputation of being generous and too big for hatred. That is +why I have come to you," said she, her expression confirming my suspicion +of the real and only reason for her visit. "Mowbray and I are completely +reconciled--_completely_, you understand. And I want you to be +generous, and not keep on with this attack. I am involved even more than +he. He has used up his fortune in defending mine. Now, you are simply +trying to ruin me--not him, but _me_. The president is a friend of +Mowbray's, and he'll call off this horrid investigation, and everything'll +be all right, if you'll only stop." + +"Who sent you here?" I asked. + +"I came of my own accord," she protested. Then, realizing from the sound of +her voice that she could not have convinced me with a tone so unconvincing, +she hedged with: "It was my own suggestion, really it was." + +"Your husband permitted _you_ to come--and to _me_?" + +She flushed. + +"And you have accepted his overtures when you knew he made them only +because he needed your money?" + +She hung her head. "I love him," she said simply. Then she looked straight +at me and I liked her expression. "A woman has no false pride when love is +at stake," she said. "We leave that to you men." + +"Love!" I retorted, rather satirically, I imagine. "How much had your own +imperiled fortune to do with your being so forgiving?" + +"Something," she admitted. "You must remember I have children. I must think +of their future. I don't want them to be poor. I want them to have the +station they were born to." She went to one of the windows overlooking the +street. "Look here!" she said. + +I stood beside her. The window was not far above the street level. Just +below us was a handsome victoria, coachman, harness, horses, all most +proper, a footman rigid at the step. A crowd had gathered round--in those +stirring days when I was the chief subject of conversation wherever men +were interested in money--and where are they not?--there was almost always +a crowd before my offices. In the carriage sat two children, a boy and a +girl, hardly more than babies. They were gorgeously overdressed, after +the vulgar fashion of aristocrats and apers of aristocracy. They sat +stiffly, like little scions of royalty, with that expression of complacent +superiority which one so often sees on the faces of the little children of +the very rich--and some not so little, too. The thronging loungers, most +of them either immigrant peasants from European caste countries or the +un-disinfected sons of peasants, were gaping in true New York "lower class" +awe; the children were literally swelling with delighted vanity. If they +had been pampered pet dogs, one would have laughed. As they were human +beings, it filled me with sadness and pity. What ignorance, what stupidity +to bring up children thus in democratic America--democratic to-day, +inevitably more democratic to-morrow! What a turning away from the light! +What a crime against the children! + +"For their sake, Mr. Blacklock," she pleaded, her mother love wholly hiding +from her the features of the spectacle that for me shrieked like scarlet +against a white background. + +"Your husband has deceived you about your fortune, Mrs. Langdon," I said +gently, for there is to me something pathetic in ignorance and I was not +blaming her for her folly and her crime against her children. "You can tell +him what I am about to say, or not, as you please. But my advice is that +you keep it to yourself. Even if the present situation develops as seems +probable, develops as Mr. Langdon fears, you will not be left without a +fortune--a very large fortune, most people would think. But Mr. Langdon +will have little or nothing--indeed, I think he is practically dependent +on you now." + +"What I have is his," she said. + +"That is generous," replied I, not especially impressed by a sentiment, the +very uttering of which raised a strong doubt of its truth. "But is it +prudent? You wish to keep him--securely. Don't tempt him by a generosity he +would only abuse." + +She thought it over. "The idea of holding a man in that way is repellent to +me," said she, now obviously posing. + +"If the man happens to be one that can be held in no other way," said I, +moving significantly toward the door, "one must overcome one's +repugnance--or be despoiled and abandoned." + +"Thank you," she said, giving me her hand. "Thank you--more than I can +say." She had forgotten entirely that she came to plead for her husband. +"And I hope you will soon be as happy as I am." That last in New York's +funniest "great lady" style. + +I bowed, and when there was the closed door between us, I laughed, not at +all pleasantly. "This New York!" I said aloud. "This New York that dabbles +its slime of sordidness and snobbishness on every flower in the garden of +human nature. New York that destroys pride and substitutes vanity for it. +New York with its petty, mischievous class-makers, the pattern for the +rich and the 'smarties' throughout the country. These 'cut-out' minds and +hearts, the best of them incapable of growth and calloused wherever the +scissors of conventionality have snipped." + +I took from my pocket the picture of Anita I always carried. "Are +_you_ like that?" I demanded of it. And it seemed to answer: "Yes,--I +am." Did I tear the picture up? No. I kissed it as if it were the magnetic +reality. "I don't care what you are!" I cried. "I want you! I want you!" + +"Fool!" you are saying. Precisely what I called myself. And you? Is it +the one you _ought_ to love that you give your heart to? Is it the +one that understands you and sympathizes with you? Or is it the one whose +presence gives you visions of paradise and whose absence blots out the +light? + +I loved her. Yet I will say this much for myself: I still would not have +taken her on any terms that did not make her really mine. + + + + +XXXIV + +"MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME" + + +Now that Updegraff is dead, I am free to tell of our relations. + +My acquaintance with him was more casual than with any other of "The +Seven." From the outset of my career I made it a rule never to deal with +understrappers, always to get in touch with the man who had the final say. +Thus, as the years went by, I grew into intimacy with the great men of +finance where many with better natural facilities for knowing them remained +in an outer circle. But with Updegraff, interested only in enterprises west +of the Mississippi and keeping Denver as his legal residence and exploiting +himself as a Western man who hated Wall Street, I had a mere bowing +acquaintance. This was unimportant, however, as each knew the other well +by reputation. Our common intimacies made us intimates for all practical +purposes. + +Our connection was established soon after the development of my campaign +against the Textile Trust had shown that I was after a big bag of the +biggest game. We happened to have the same secret broker; and I suppose it +was in his crafty brain that the idea of bringing us together was born. Be +that as it may, he by gradual stages intimated to me that Updegraff would +convey me secrets of "The Seven" in exchange for a guarantee that I would +not attack his interests. I do not know what his motive in this treachery +was--probably a desire to curb the power of his associates in industrial +despotism. + +Each of "The Seven" hated and feared and suspected the other six with far +more than the ordinary and proverbial rich man's jealous dislike of other +rich men. There was not one of them that did not bear the ever-smarting +scars of vicious wounds, front and back, received from his fellows; there +was not one that did not cherish the hope of overthrowing the rule of Seven +and establishing the rule of One. At any rate, I accepted Updegraff's +proposition; henceforth, though he stopped speaking to me when we happened +to meet, as did all the other big bandits and most of their parasites and +procurers, he kept me informed of every act "The Seven" resolved upon. + +Thus I knew all about their "gentlemen's agreement" to support the stock +market, and that they had made Tavistock their agent for resisting any and +all attempts to lower prices, and had given him practically unlimited funds +to draw upon as he needed. I had Tavistock sounded on every side, but found +no weak spot. There was no rascality he would not perpetrate for whoever +employed him; but to his employer he was as loyal as a woman to a bad +man. And for a time it looked as if "The Seven" had checkmated me. Those +outsiders who had invested heavily in the great enterprises through which +"The Seven" ruled were disposing of their holdings--cautiously, through +fear of breaking the market. Money would pile up in the banks--money paid +out by "The Seven" for their bonds and stocks, of which the people had +become deeply suspicious. Then these deposits would be withdrawn--and I +knew they were going into real estate investments, because news of booms +in real estate and in building was coming in from everywhere. But prices +on the Stock Exchange continued to advance. + +"They are too strong for you," said Joe. "They will hold the market up +until the public loses faith in you. Then they will sell out at top-notch +prices as the people rush in to buy." + +I might have wavered had I not been seeing Tavistock every day. He +continued to wear his devil-may-care air; but I observed that he was aging +swiftly--and I knew what that meant. Fighting all day to prevent breaks +in the crucial stocks; planning most of the night how to prevent breaks +the next day; watching the reserve resources of "The Seven" melt away. +Those reserves were vast; also, "The Seven" controlled the United States +Treasury, and were using its resources as their own; they were buying +securities that would be almost worthless if they lost, but if they +won, would be rebought by the public at the old swindling prices, when +"confidence" was restored. But there was I, cannonading incessantly from my +impregnable position; as fast as they repaired breaches in their walls, my +big guns of publicity tore new breaches. No wonder Tavistock had thinner +hair and wrinkles and a drawn look about the eyes, nose and mouth. + +With the battle thus raging all along the line, on the one side "The Seven" +and their armies of money and mercenaries and impressed slaves, on the +other side the public, I in command, you will say that my yearning for +distraction must have been gratified. If the road from his cell were long +enough, the condemned man would be fretting less about the gallows than +about the tight shoe that was making him limp and wince at every step. +Besides, in human affairs it is the personal, always the personal. I soon +got used to the crowds, to the big head-lines in the newspapers, to the +routine of cannonade and reply. + +But the old thorn, pressing persistently--I could not get used to that. In +the midst of the adulation, of the blares upon the trumpets of fame that +saluted my waking and were wafted to me as I fell asleep at night--in the +midst of all the turmoil, I was often in a great and brooding silence, +longing for her, now with the imperious energy of passion, and now with +the sad ache of love. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Now that +Langdon had again played her false for the old price, with what eyes was +she looking into the future? + +Alva, settled in a West Side apartment not far from the ancestral white +elephant, telephoned, asking me to come. I went, because she could and +would give me news of Anita. But as I entered her little drawing-room, +I said: "It was curiosity that brought me. I wished to see how you were +installed." + +"Isn't it nice and small?" cried she. "Billy and I haven't the slightest +difficulty in finding each other--as people so often have in the big +houses." And it was Billy this and Billy that, and what Billy said and +thought and felt--and before they were married, she had called him William, +and had declared "Billy" to be the most offensive combination of letters +that ever fell from human lips. + +"I needn't ask if _you_ are happy," said I presently, with a dismal +failure at looking cheerful. "I can't stay but a moment," I added, and if I +had obeyed my feelings, I'd have risen up and taken myself and my pain away +from surroundings as hateful to me as a summer sunrise in a death-chamber. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, in some confusion. "Then excuse me." And she hastened +from the room. + +I thought she had gone to order, or perhaps to bring, the tea. The long +minutes dragged away until ten had passed. Hearing a rustling in the hall, +I rose, intending to take leave the instant she appeared. The rustling +stopped just outside. I waited a few seconds, cried, "Well, I'm off. Next +time I want to be alone, I'll know where to come," and advanced to the +door. It was not Alva hesitating there; it was Anita. + +"I beg your pardon," said I coldly. + +If there had been room to pass I should have gone. What devil possessed +me? Certainly in all our relations I had found her direct and frank, if +anything, too frank. Doubtless it was the influence of my associations down +town, where for so many months I had been dealing with the "short-card" +crowd of high finance, who would hardly play the game straight even when +that was the easy way to win. My long, steady stretch in that stealthy and +sinuous company had put me in the state of mind in which it is impossible +to credit any human being with a motive that is decent or an action that is +not a dead-fall. Thus the obvious transformation in her made no impression +on me. Her haughtiness, her coldness, were gone, and with them had gone +all that had been least like her natural self, most like the repellent +conventional pattern to which her mother and her associates had molded her. +But I was saying to myself: "A trap! Langdon has gone back to his wife. She +turns to me." And I loved her and hated her. "Never," thought I, "has she +shown so poor an opinion of me as now." + +"My uncle told me day before yesterday that it was not he but you," she +said, lifting her eyes to mine. It is inconceivable to me now that I could +have misread their honest story; yet I did. + +"I had no idea your uncle's notion of honor was also eccentric," said I, +with a satirical smile that made the blood rush to her face. + +"That is unjust to him," she replied earnestly. + +"He says he made you no promise of secrecy. And he confessed to me only +because he wished to convince me that he had good reason for his high +opinion of you." + +"Really!" said I ironically. "And no doubt he found you open wide to +conviction--_now_." This a subtlety to let her know that I understood +why she was seeking me. + +"No," she answered, lowering her eyes. "I knew--better than he." + +For an instant this, spoken in a voice I had long given up hope of ever +hearing from her, staggered my cynical conviction. But-- "Possibly she +thinks she is sincere," reasoned my head with my heart; "even the sincerest +women, brought up as was she, always have the calculator underneath; they +deny it, they don't know it often, but there it is; with them, calculation +is as involuntary and automatic as their pulse." So, I said to her, +mockingly: "Doubtless your opinion of me has been improving steadily ever +since you heard that Mrs. Langdon had recovered her husband." + +She winced, as if I had struck her. "Oh!" she murmured. If she had been +the ordinary woman, who in every crisis with man instinctively resorts to +weakness' strongest weakness, tears, I might have a different story to +tell. But she fought back the tears in which her eyes were swimming and +gathered herself together. "That is brutal," she said, with not a touch of +haughtiness, but not humbly, either. "But I deserve it." + +"There was a time," I went on, swept in a swift current of cold rage, +"there was a time when I would have taken you on almost any terms. A man +never makes a complete fool of himself about a woman but once in his life, +they say. I have done my stretch--and it is over." + +She sighed wearily. "Langdon came to see me soon after I left your house, +and went to my uncle," she said. "I will tell you what happened." + +"I do not wish to hear," replied I, adding pointedly, "I have been waiting +ever since you left for news of your plans." + +She grew white, and my heart smote me. She came into the room and seated +herself. "Won't you stop, please, for a moment longer?" she said. "I hope +that, at, least, we can part without bitterness. I understand now that +everything is over between us. A woman's vanity makes her belief that a man +cares for her die hard. I am convinced now--I assure you, I am. I shall +trouble you no more about the past. But I have the right to ask you to hear +me when I say that Langdon came, and that I myself sent him away; sent him +back to his wife." + +"Touching self-sacrifice," said I ironically. + +"No," she replied. "I can not claim any credit. I sent him away only +because you and Alva had taught me how to judge him better. I do not +despise him as do you; I know too well what has made him what he is. But +I had to send him away." + +My comment was an incredulous look and shrug. "I must be going," I said. + +"You do not believe me?" she asked. + +"In my place, would you believe?" replied I. "You say I have taught you. +Well, you have taught me, too--for instance, that the years you've spent on +your knees in the musty temple of conventionality before false gods have +made you--fit only for the Langdon sort of thing. You can't learn how to +stand erect, and your eyes can not bear the light." + +"I am sorry," she said slowly, hesitatingly, "that your faith in me died +just when I might, perhaps, have justified it. Ours has been a pitiful +series of misunderstandings." + +"A trap! A trap!" I was warning myself. "You've been a fool long enough, +Blacklock." And aloud I said: "Well, Anita, the series is ended now. +There's no longer any occasion for our lying or posing to each other. +Any arrangements your uncle's lawyers suggest will be made." + +I was bowing, to leave without shaking hands with her. But she would not +have it so. "Please!" she said, stretching out her long, slender arm and +offering me her hand. + +What a devil possessed me that day! With every atom of me longing for her, +I yet was able to take her hand and say, with a smile, that was, I doubt +not, as mocking as my tone: "By all means let us be friends. And I trust +you will not think me discourteous if I say that I shall feel safer in our +friendship when we are both on neutral ground." + +As I was turning away, her look, my own heart, made me turn again. I caught +her by the shoulders. I gazed into her eyes. "If I could only trust you, +could only believe you!" I cried. + +"You cared for me when I wasn't worth it," she said. "Now that I am more +like what you once imagined me, you do not care." + +Up between us rose Langdon's face--cynical, mocking, contemptuous. "Your +heart is _his_! You told me so! Don't _lie_ to me!" I exclaimed. +And before she could reply, I was gone. + +Out from under the spell of her presence, back among the tricksters and +assassins, the traps and ambushes of Wall Street, I believed again; +believed firmly the promptings of the devil that possessed me. "She would +have given you a brief fool's paradise," said that devil. "Then what +a hideous awakening!" And I cursed the day when New York's insidious +snobbishness had tempted my vanity into starting me on that degrading chase +after "respectability." + +"If she does not move to free herself soon," said I to myself, "I will put +my own lawyer to work. My right eye offends me. I will pluck it out." + + + + +XXXV + +"WILD WEEK" + + +"The Seven" made their fatal move on treacherous Updegraff's treacherous +advice, I suspect. But they would not have adopted his suggestion had +it not been so exactly congenial to their own temper of arrogance and +tyranny and contempt for the people who meekly, year after year, presented +themselves for the shearing with fatuous bleats of enthusiasm. + +"The Seven," of course, controlled directly, or indirectly, all but a +few of the newspapers with which I had advertising contracts. They also +controlled the main sources through which the press was supplied with +news--and often and well they had used this control, and surprisingly +cautious had they been not so to abuse it that the editors and the public +would become suspicious. When my war was at its height, when I was +beginning to congratulate myself that the huge magazines of "The Seven" +were empty almost to the point at which they must sue for peace on my own +terms, all in four days forty-three of my sixty-seven newspapers--and they +the most important--notified me that they would no longer carry out their +contracts to publish my daily letter. They gave as their reason, not the +real one, fear of "The Seven," but fear that I would involve them in +ruinous libel suits. I who had _legal_ proof for every statement I +made; I who was always careful to understate! Next, one press association +after another ceased to send out my letter as news, though they had been +doing so regularly for months. The public had grown tired of the +"sensation," they said. + +I countered with a telegram to one or more newspapers in every city and +large town in the United States: + +"'The Seven' are trying to cut the wires between the truth and the public. +If you wish my daily letter, telegraph me direct and I will send it at my +expense." + +The response should have warned "The Seven." But it did not. Under their +orders the telegraph companies refused to transmit the letter. I got an +injunction. It was obeyed in typical, corrupt corporation fashion--they +sent my matter, but so garbled that it was unintelligible. I appealed to +the courts. In vain. + +To me, it was clear as sun in cloudless noonday sky that there could be but +one result of this insolent and despotic denial of my rights and the rights +of the people, this public confession of the truth of my charges. I turned +everything salable or mortgageable into cash, locked the cash up in my +private vaults, and waited for the cataclysm. + +Thursday--Friday--Saturday. Apparently all was tranquil; apparently the +people accepted the Wall Street theory that I was an "exploded sensation." +"The Seven" began to preen themselves; the strain upon them to maintain +prices, if no less than for three months past, was not notably greater; the +crisis would pass, I and my exposures would be forgotten, the routine of +reaping the harvests and leaving only the gleanings for the sowers would +soon be placidly resumed. + +Sunday. Roebuck, taken ill as he was passing the basket in the church of +which he was the shining light, died at midnight--a beautiful, peaceful +death, they say, with his daughter reading the Bible aloud, and his lips +moving in prayer. Some hold that, had he lived, the tranquillity would have +continued; but this is the view of those who can not realize that the tide +of affairs is no more controlled by the "great men" than is the river led +down to the sea by its surface flotsam, by which we measure the speed and +direction of its current. Under that terrific tension, which to the shallow +seemed a calm, something had to give way. If the dam had not yielded where +Roebuck stood guard, it must have yielded somewhere else, or might have +gone all in one grand crash. + +Monday. You know the story of the artist and his Statue of Grief--how +he molded the features a hundred times, always failing, always getting +an anti-climax, until at last in despair he gave up the impossible and +finished the statue with a veil over the face. I have tried again and again +to assemble words that would give some not too inadequate impression of +that tremendous week in which, with a succession of explosions, each like +the crack of doom, the financial structure that housed eighty millions of +people burst, collapsed, was engulfed. I can not. I must leave it to your +memory or your imagination. + +For years the financial leaders, crazed by the excess of power which the +people had in ignorance and over-confidence and slovenly good-nature +permitted them to acquire, had been tearing out the honest foundations on +which alone so vast a structure can hope to rest solid and secure. They +had been substituting rotten beams painted to look like stone and iron. +The crash had to come; the sooner, the better--when a thing is wrong, each +day's delay compounds the cost of righting it. So, with all the horrors of +"Wild Week" in mind, all its physical and mental suffering, all its ruin +and rioting and bloodshed, I still can insist that I am justly proud of my +share in bringing it about. The blame and the shame are wholly upon those +who made "Wild Week" necessary and inevitable. + +In catastrophes, the cry is "Each for himself!" But in a cataclysm, the +obvious wise selfishness is generosity, and the cry is, "Stand together, +for, singly, we perish." This was a cataclysm. No one could save himself, +except the few who, taking my often-urged advice and following my example, +had entered the ark of ready money. Farmer and artisan and professional man +and laborer owed merchant; merchant owed banker; banker owed depositor. No +one could pay because no one could get what was due him or could realize +upon his property. The endless chain of credit that binds together the +whole of modern society had snapped in a thousand places. It must be +repaired, instantly and securely. But how--and by whom? + +I issued a clear statement of the situation; I showed in minute detail how +the people standing together under the leadership of the honest men of +property could easily force the big bandits to consent to an honest, just, +rock-founded, iron-built reconstruction. My statement appeared in all the +morning papers throughout the land. Turn back to it; read it. You will say +that I was right. Well-- + +Toward two o'clock Inspector Crawford came into my private office, escorted +by Joe. I saw in Joe's seamed, green-gray face that some new danger had +arisen. "You've got to get out of this," said he. "The mob in front of our +place fills the three streets. It's made up of crowds turned away from the +suspended banks." + +I remembered the sullen faces and the hisses as I entered the office that +morning earlier than usual. My windows were closed to keep out the street +noises; but now that my mind was up from the work in which I had been +absorbed, I could hear the sounds of many voices, even through the thick +plate glass. + +"We've got two hundred policemen here," said the inspector. "Five hundred +more are on the way. But--really, Mr. Blacklock, unless we can get you +away, there'll be serious trouble. Those damn newspapers! Every one of them +denounced you this morning, and the people are in a fury against you." + +I went toward the door. + +"Hold on, Matt!" cried Joe, springing at me and seizing me, "Where are you +going?" + +"To tell them what I think of them," replied I, sweeping him aside. For my +blood was up, and I was enraged against the poor cowardly fools. + +"For God's sake don't show yourself!" he begged. "If you don't care for +your own life, think of the rest of us. We've fixed a route through +buildings and under streets up to Broadway. Your electric is waiting for +you there." + +"It won't do," I said. "I'll face 'em--it's the only way." + +I went to the window, and was about to throw up one of the sunblinds for +a look at them; Crawford stopped me. "They'll stone the building and then +storm it," said he. "You must go at once, by the route we've arranged." + +"Even if you tell them I'm gone, they won't believe it," replied I. + +"We can look out for that," said Joe, eager to save me, and caring nothing +about consequences to himself. But I had unsettled the inspector. + +"Send for my electric to come down here," said I. "I'll go out alone and +get in it and drive away." + +"That'll never do!" cried Joe. + +But the inspector said: "You're right, Mr. Blacklock. It's a bare chance. +You may take 'em by surprise. Again, some fellow may yell and throw a stone +and--" He did not need to finish. + +Joe looked wildly at me. "You mustn't do it, Matt!" he exclaimed. "You'll +precipitate a riot, Crawford, if you permit this." + +But the inspector was telephoning for my electric. Then he went into the +adjoining room, where he commanded a view of the entrance. Silence between +Joe and me until he returned. + +"The electric is coming down the street," said he. + +I rose. "Good," said I. "I'm ready." + +"Wait until the other police get here," advised Crawford. + +"If the mob is in the temper you describe," said I, "the less that's done +to irritate it the better. I must go out as if I hadn't a suspicion of +danger." + +The inspector eyed me with an expression that was highly flattering to my +vanity. + +"I'll go with you," said Joe, starting up from his stupor. + +"No," I replied. "You and the other fellows can take the underground route, +if it's necessary." + +"It won't be necessary," put in the inspector. "As soon as I'm rid of you +and have my additional force, I'll clear the streets." He went to the door. +"Wait, Mr. Blacklock, until I've had time to get out to my men." + +Perhaps ten seconds after he disappeared, I, without further words, put on +my hat, lit a cigar, shook Joe's wet, trembling hand, left in it my private +keys and the memorandum of the combination of my private vault. Then I +sallied forth. + +I had always had a ravenous appetite for excitement, and I had been in +many a tight place; but for the first time there seemed to me to be an +equilibrium between my internal energy and the outside situation. As I +stepped from my street door and glanced about me, I had no feeling of +danger. The whole situation seemed so simple. There stood the electric, +just across the narrow stretch of sidewalk; there were the two hundred +police, under Crawford's orders, scattered everywhere through the crowd, +and good-naturedly jostling and pushing to create distraction. Without +haste, I got into my machine. I calmly met the gaze of those thousands, +quiet as so many barrels of gunpowder before the explosion. The chauffeur +turned the machine. + +"Go slow," I called to him. "You might hurt somebody." + +But he had his orders from the inspector. He suddenly darted ahead at full +speed. The mob scattered in every direction, and we were in Broadway, bound +up town full-tilt, before I or the mob realized what he was about. + +I called to him to slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I leaned +from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur; it was a man +who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks of the plain-clothes +policeman. + +"Where are you going?" I shouted. + +"You'll find out when we arrive," he shouted back, grinning. + +I settled myself and waited--what else was there to do? Soon I guessed we +were headed for the pier off which my yacht was anchored. As we dashed on +to it, I saw that it was filled with police, both in uniform and in plain +clothes. I descended. A detective sergeant stepped up to me. "We are here +to help you to your yacht," he explained. "You wouldn't be safe anywhere in +New York--no more would the place that harbored you." + +He had both common sense and force on his side. I got into the launch. Four +detective sergeants accompanied me and went aboard with me. "Go ahead," +said one of them to my captain. He looked at me for orders. + +"We are in the hands of our guests," said I. "Let them have their way." + +We steamed down the bay and out to sea. + + * * * * * + +From Maine to Texas the cry rose and swelled: + +"Blacklock is responsible! What does it matter whether he lied or told the +truth? See the results of his crusade! He ought to be pilloried! He ought +to be killed! He is the enemy of the human race. He has almost plunged +the whole civilized world into bankruptcy and civil war." And they turned +eagerly to the very autocrats who had been oppressing them. "You have the +genius for finance and industry. Save us!" + +If you did not know, you could guess how those patriots with the "genius +for finance and industry" responded. When they had done, when their program +was in effect, Langdon, Melville and Updegraff were the three richest men +in the country, and as powerful as Octavius, Antony and Lepidus after +Philippi. They had saddled upon the reorganized finance and industry of the +nation heavier taxes than ever, and a vaster and more expensive and more +luxurious army of their parasites. + +The people had risen for financial and industrial freedom; they had paid +its fearful price; then, in senseless panic and terror, they flung it away. +I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo's temple at Delphi was, +"Man, the fool of the farce." Truly, the gods must have created us for +their amusement; and when Olympus palls, they ring up the curtain on some +such screaming comedy as was that. It "makes the fancy chuckle, while the +heart doth ache." + + + + +XXXVI + +"BLACK MATT'S" TRIUMPH + + +My enemies caused it to be widely believed that "Wild Week" was my +deliberate contrivance for the sole purpose of enriching myself. Thus they +got me a reputation for almost superhuman daring, for satanic astuteness at +cold-blooded calculation. I do not deserve the admiration and respect that +my success-worshiping fellow countrymen lay at my feet. True, I did greatly +enrich myself; but _not until the Monday after Wild Week_. + +Not until I had pondered on men and events with the assistance of the +newspapers my detective protectors and jailers permitted to be brought +aboard--not until the last hope of turning Wild Week to the immediate +public advantage had sputtered out like a lost man's last match, did I +think of benefiting myself, of seizing the opportunity to strengthen myself +for the future. On Monday morning, I said to Sergeant Mulholland: "I want +to go ashore at once and send some telegrams." + +The sergeant is one of the detective bureau's "dress-suit men." He is by +nature phlegmatic and cynical. His experience has put over that a veneer +of weary politeness. We had become great friends during our enforced +inseparable companionship. For Joe, who looked on me somewhat as a mother +looks on a brilliant but erratic son, had, as I soon discovered, elaborated +a wonderful program for me. It included a watch on me day and night, lest, +through rage or despondency, I should try to do violence to myself. A fine +character, that Joe! But, to return, Mulholland answered my request for +shore-leave with a soothing smile. "Can't do it, Mr. Blacklock," he said. +"Our orders are positive. But when we put in at New London and send ashore +for further instructions, and for the papers, you can send in your +messages." + +"As you please," said I. And I gave him a cipher telegram to Joe--an order +to invest my store of cash, which meant practically my whole fortune, in +the gilt-edged securities that were to be had for cash at a small fraction +of their value. + +This on the Monday after Wild Week, please note. I would have helped the +people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would +not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in +spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded multitude +of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to all those +weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on "The Seven," who +would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have been bribed +to desist. But, when I was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my +fellow men, that the people wear the yoke because they have not yet become +intelligent and competent enough to be free, then and not until then did I +abandon the hopeless struggle. + +And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own neglected +personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal triumph. + +There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief in +the value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won--and in my humble +opinion never have been won--in the graveyards. Alive and afoot and armed, +and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic and respectable +robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs killing me and the +bandits dividing my estate? + +But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the opinion +of my fellow men. They sought my life when they should have been hailing me +as a deliverer; now, they look up to me because they falsely believe me +guilty of an infamy. + +My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what +Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have me +detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Saturday afternoon +we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the shore. When the +launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me, lounging aft in a +mass of cushions under the awning. "We are going ashore," said he. "The +order has come." + +I had a sudden sense of loneliness. "I'll take you down to New York," said +I. "I prefer to land my guests where I shipped them." + +As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was rapidly +readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the upheaval. +The "financiers"--the same old gang, except for a few of the weaker +brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders, who had slipped in during the +confusion--were employing all the old, familiar devices for deceiving and +robbing the people. The upset milking-stool was righted, and the milker was +seated again and busy, the good old cow standing without so much as shake +of horn or switch of tail. "Mulholland," said I, "what do you think of this +business of living?" + +"I'll tell you, Mr. Blacklock," said he. "I used to fuss and fret a good +deal about it. But I don't any more. I've got a house up in the Bronx, +and a bit of land round it. And there's Mrs. Mulholland and four little +Mulhollands and me--that's my country and my party and my religion. The +rest is off my beat, and I don't give a damn for it. I don't care which +fakir gets to be president, or which swindler gets to be rich. Everything +works out somehow, and the best any man can do is to mind his own +business." + +"Mulholland--Mrs. Mulholland--four little Mulhollands," said I +reflectively. "That's about as much as one man could attend to properly. +And--you are 'on the level,' aren't you?" + +"Some say honesty's the best policy," replied he. "Some say it isn't. I +don't know, and I don't care, whether it is or it isn't. It's _my_ +policy. And we six seem to have got along on it so far." + +I sent my "guests" ashore the next morning. + +"No, I'll stay aboard," said I to Mulholland, as he stood aside for me to +precede him down the gangway from the launch. I went into the watch-pocket +of my trousers and drew out the folded two one-thousand-dollar bills I +always carried--it was a habit formed in my youthful, gambling days. I +handed him one of the bills. He hesitated. + +"For the four little Mulhollands," I urged. + +He put it in his pocket. I watched him and his men depart with a heavy +heart. I felt alone, horribly alone, without a tie or an interest. Some of +the morning papers spoke respectfully of me as one of the strong men who +had ridden the flood and had been landed by it on the heights of wealth +and power. Admiration and envy lurked even in sneers at my "unscrupulous +plotting." Since I had wealth, plenty of wealth, I did not need character. +Of what use was character in such a world except as a commodity to exchange +for wealth? + +"Any orders, sir?" interrupted my captain. + +I looked round that vast and vivid scene of sea and land activities. I +looked along the city's titanic sky-line--the mighty fortresses of trade +and commerce piercing the heavens and flinging to the wind their black +banners of defiance. I felt that I was under the walls of hell itself. + +"To get away from this," replied I to the waiting captain. "Go back down +the Sound--to Dawn Hill." + +Yes, I would go to the peaceful, soothing country, to my dogs and horses +and those faithful servants bound to me by our common love for the same +animals. "Men to cross swords with, to amuse oneself with," I mused; "but +dogs and horses to live with." I pictured myself at the kennels--the joyful +uproar the instant instinct warned the dogs of my coming; how they would +leap and bark and tremble in a very ecstasy of delight as I stood among +them; how jealous all the others would be, as I selected one to caress. + +"Send her ahead as fast as she'll go," I called to the captain. + +As the _Albatross_ steamed into the little harbor, I saw Mowbray +Langdon's _Indolence_ at anchor. I glanced toward Steuben Point--where +his cousins, the Vivians, lived--and thought I recognized his launch at +their pier. We saluted the _Indolence_; the _Indolence_ saluted +us. My launch was piped away and took me ashore. I strolled along the path +that wound round the base of the hill toward the kennels. At the crossing +of the path down from the house, I paused and lingered on the glimpse +of one of the corner towers of the great showy palace. I was muttering +something--I listened to myself. It was: "Mulholland, Mrs. Mulholland and +the four little Mulhollands." And I felt like laughing aloud, such a joke +was it that I should be envying a policeman his potato patch and his fat +wife and his four brats, and that he should be in a position to pity me. + +You may be imagining that, through all, Anita had been dominating my mind. +That is the way it is in the romances; but not in life. No doubt there are +men who brood upon the impossible, and moon and maunder away their lives +over the grave of a dead love; no doubt there are people who will say that, +because I did not shoot Langdon or her, or myself, or fly to a desert or +pose in the crowded places of the world as the last scene of a tragedy, +I therefore cared little about her. I offer them this suggestion: A man +strong enough to give a love worth a woman's while is strong enough to live +on without her when he finds he may not live with her. + +As I stood there that summer day, looking toward the crest of the hill, +at the mocking mausoleum of my dead dream, I realized what the incessant +battle of the Street had meant to me. "There is peace for me only in the +storm," said I. "But, thank God, there is peace for me somewhere." + +Through the foliage I had glimpses of some one coming slowly down the +zigzag path. Presently, at one of the turnings half-way up the hill, +appeared Mowbray Langdon. "What is he doing here," thought I, scarcely able +to believe my eyes. "Here of all places!" And then I forgot the strangeness +of his being at Dawn Hill in the strangeness of his expression. For it was +apparent, even at the distance which separated us, that he was suffering +from some great and recent blow. He looked old and haggard; he walked like +a man who neither knows nor cares where he is going. + +He had not seen me, and my impulse was to avoid him by continuing on toward +the kennels. I had no especial feeling against him; I had not lost Anita +because she cared for him or he for her, but because she did not care for +me--simply that to meet would be awkward, disagreeable for us both. At the +slight noise of my movement to go on, he halted, glanced round eagerly, +as if he hoped the sound had been made by some one he wished to see. His +glance fell on me. He stopped short, was for an instant disconcerted; then +his face lighted up with devilish joy. "You!" he cried. "Just the man!" And +he descended more rapidly. + +At first I could make nothing of this remark. But as he drew nearer and +nearer, and his ugly mood became more and more apparent, I felt that he was +looking forward to provoking me into giving him a distraction from whatever +was tormenting him. I waited. A few minutes and we were face to face, I +outwardly calm, but my anger slowly lighting up as he deliberately applied +to it the torch of his insolent eyes. He was wearing his old familiar +air of cynical assurance. Evidently, with his recovered fortune, he had +recovered his conviction of his great superiority to the rest of the human +race--the child had climbed back on the chair that made it tall and had +forgotten its tumble. And I was wondering again that I, so short a time +before, had been crude enough to be fascinated and fooled by those tawdry +posings and pretenses. For the man, as I now saw him, was obviously shallow +and vain, a slave to those poor "man-of-the-world" passions--ostentation +and cynicism and skill at vices old as mankind and tedious as a treadmill, +the commonplace routine of the idle and foolish and purposeless. A clever, +handsome fellow, but the more pitiful that he was by nature above the uses +to which he prostituted himself. + +He fought hard to keep his eyes steadily on mine; but they would waver and +shift. Not, however, before I had found deep down in them the beginnings +of fear. "You see, you were mistaken," said I. "You have nothing to say to +me--or I to you." + +He knew I had looked straight to the bottom of his real self, and had seen +the coward that is in every man who has been bred to appearances only. Up +rose his vanity, the coward's substitute for courage. + +"You think I am afraid of you?" he sneered, bluffing and blustering like +the school bully. + +"I don't in the least care whether you are or not," replied I. "What are +you doing here, anyhow?" + +It was as if I had thrown off the cover of a furnace. "I came to get the +woman I love," he cried. "You stole her from me! You tricked me! But, by +God, Blacklock, I'll never pause until I get her back and punish you!" +He was brave enough now, drunk with the fumes from his brave words. "All +my life," he raged arrogantly on, "I've had whatever I wanted. I've let +nothing interfere--nothing and nobody. I've been too forbearing with +you--first, because I knew she could never care for you, and, then, because +I rather admired your pluck and impudence. I like to see fellows kick their +way up among us from the common people." + +I put my hand on his shoulder. No doubt the fiend that rose within me, as +from the dead, looked at him from my eyes. He has great physical strength, +but he winced under that weight and grip, and across his face flitted the +terror that must come to any man at first sense of being in the angry +clutch of one stronger than he. I slowly released him--I had tested and +realized my physical superiority; to use it would be cheap and cowardly. + +"You can't provoke me to descend to your level," said I, with the easy +philosophy of him who clearly has the better of the argument. + +He was shaking from head to foot, not with terror, but with impotent rage. +How much we owe to accident! The mere accident of my physical superiority +had put him at hopeless disadvantage; had made him feel inferior to me as +no victory of mental or moral superiority could possibly have done. And I +myself felt a greater contempt for him than the discovery of his treachery +and his shallowness had together inspired. + +"I shan't indulge in flapdoodle," I went on. "I'll be frank. A year ago, if +any man had faced me with a claim upon a woman who was married to me, I'd +probably have dealt with him as your vanity and what you call 'honor' would +force you to try to deal with a similar situation. But I live to learn, and +I'm, fortunately, not afraid to follow a new light. There is the vanity of +so-called honor; there as also the demand of justice--of fair play. As I +have told her, so I now tell you--she is free to go. But I shall say one +thing to you that I did not say to her. If you do not deal fairly with her, +I shall see to it that there are ten thorns to every rose in that bed of +roses on which you lie. You are contemptible in many ways--perhaps that's +why women like you. But there must be some good in you, or possibilities of +good, or you could not have won and kept her love." + +He was staring at me with a dazed expression. I rather expected him to show +some of that amused contempt with which men of his sort always receive a +new idea that is beyond the range of their narrow, conventional minds. For +I did not expect him to understand why I was not only willing, but even +eager, to relinquish a woman whom I could hold only by asserting a property +right in her. And I do not think he did understand me, though his manner +changed to a sort of grudging respect. He was, I believe, about to make +some impulsive, generous speech, when we heard the quick strokes of +iron-shod hoofs on the path from the kennels and the stables--is there +any sound more arresting? Past us at a gallop swept a horse, on his +back--Anita. She was not in riding-habit; the wind fluttered the sleeves of +her blouse, blew her uncovered hair this way and that about her beautiful +face. She sped on toward the landing, though I fancied she had seen us. + +Anita at Dawn Hill--Langdon, in a furious temper, descending from the house +toward the landing--Anita presently, riding like mad--"to overtake him," +thought I. And I read confirmation in his triumphant eyes. In another +mood, I suppose my fury would have been beyond my power to restrain it. +Just then--the day grew dark for me, and I wanted to hide away somewhere. +Heart-sick, I was ashamed for her, hated myself for having blundered into +surprising her. + +She reappeared at the turn round which she had vanished. I now tooted that +she was riding without saddle or bridle, with only a halter round the +horse's neck--then she had seen us, had stopped and come back as soon as +she could. She dropped from the horse, looked swiftly at me, at him, at me +again, with intense anxiety. + +"I saw your yacht in the harbor only a moment ago," she said to me. She was +almost panting. "I feared you might meet him. So I came." + +"As you see, he is quite--intact," said I. "I must ask that you and he +leave the place at once." And I went rapidly along the path toward the +kennels. + +An exclamation from Langdon forced me to turn in spite of myself. He was +half-kneeling, was holding her in his arms. At that sight, the savage in +me shook himself free. I dashed toward them with I knew not what curses +bursting from me. Langdon, intent upon her, did not realize until I sent +him reeling backward to the earth and snatched her up. Her white face, her +closed eyes, her limp form made my fury instantly collapse. In my confusion +I thought that she was dead. I laid her gently on the grass and supported +her head, so small, so gloriously crowned, the face so still and sweet and +white, like the stainless entrance to a stainless shrine. How that horrible +fear changed my whole way of looking at her, at him, at her and him, at +everything! + +Her eyelids were quivering--her eyes were opening--her bosom was rising and +falling slowly as she drew long, uncertain breaths. She shuddered, sat up, +started up. "Go! go!" she cried. "Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring +him--" + +There she recognized me. "Oh," she said, and gave a great sigh of relief. +She leaned against a tree and looked at Langdon. "You are still here? Then +tell him." + +Langdon gazed sullenly at the ground. "I can't," he answered. "I don't +believe it. Besides--he has given you to me. Let us go. Let me take you to +the Vivians." He threw out his arms in a wild, passionate gesture; he was +utterly unlike himself. His emotion burst through and shattered pose and +cynicism and hard crust of selfishness like the exploding powder bursting +the shell. "I can't give you up, Anita!" he exclaimed in a tone of utter +desperation. "I can't! I can't!" + +But her gaze was all this time steadily on me, as if she feared I would go, +should she look away. "I will tell you myself," she said rapidly, to me. +"We--uncle Howard and I--read in the papers how they had all turned against +you, and he brought me over here. He has been telegraphing for you. This +morning he went to town to search for you. About an hour ago Langdon came. +I refused to see him, as I have ever since the time I told you about at +Alva's. He persisted, until at last I had the servant request him to leave +the house." + +"But _now_ there's no longer any reason for your staying, Anita," he +pleaded. "He has said you are free. Why stay when _you_ would really +no more be here than if you were to go, leaving one of your empty dresses?" + +She had not for an instant taken her gaze from me; and so strange were her +eyes, so compelling, that I seemed unable to move or speak. + +But now she released me to blaze upon him--and never shall I forget any +detail of her face or voice as she said to him: "That is false, Mowbray +Langdon. I told you the truth when I told you I loved him!" + +So violent was her emotion that she had to pause for self-control. And I? +I was overwhelmed, dazed, stunned. When she went on, she was looking at +neither of us. "Yes, I loved him, almost from the first--from the day he +came to the box at the races. I was ashamed, poor creature that my parents +had made me! I was ashamed of it. And I tried to hate him, and thought I +did. And when he showed me that he no longer cared, my pride goaded me into +the folly of trying to listen to you. But I loved him more than ever. And +as you and he stand here, I am ashamed again--ashamed that I was ever so +blind and ignorant and prejudiced as to compare him with"--she looked at +Langdon--"with you. Do you believe me now--now that I humble myself before +him here in your presence?" + +I should have had no heart at all if I had not felt pity for him. His face +was gray, and on it were those signs of age that strong emotion brings to +the surface after forty. "You could have convinced me in no other way," he +replied, after a silence, and in a voice I should not have recognized. + +Silence again. Presently he raised his head, and with something of his old +cynicism bowed to her. + +"You have avenged much and many," said he. "I have often had a presentiment +that my day of wrath would come." + +He lifted his hat, bowed to me without looking at me, and, drawing the +tatters of his pose still further over his wounds, moved away toward the +landing. + +I, still in a stupor, watched him until he had disappeared. When I turned +to her, she dropped her eyes. "Uncle Howard will be back this afternoon," +said she. "If I may, I'll stay at the house until he comes to take me." + +A weary, half-suppressed sigh escaped from her. I knew how she must be +reading my silence, but I was still unable to speak. She went to the horse, +browsing near by; she stroked his muzzle. Lingeringly she twined her +fingers in his mane, as if about to spring to his back! That reminded me of +a thousand and one changes in her--little changes, each a trifle in itself, +yet, taken all together, making a complete transformation. + +"Let me help you," I managed to say. And I bent, and made a step of my +hand. + +She touched her fingers to my shoulder, set her narrow, graceful foot upon +my palm. But she did not rise. I glanced up; she was gazing wistfully down +at me. + +"Women have to learn by experience just as do men," said she forlornly. +"Yet men will not tolerate it." + +I suppose I must suddenly have looked what I was unable to put into +words--for her eyes grew very wide, and, with a cry that was a sigh and a +sob, and a laugh and a caress all in one, she slid into my arms and her +face was burning against mine. + +"Do you remember the night at the theater," she murmured, "when your lips +almost touched my neck?--I loved you then--Black Matt--_Black Matt_!" + +And I found voice; and the horse wandered away. + + * * * * * + +What more? + +How Langdon eased his pain and soothed his vanity? Whenever an old +Babylonian nobleman had a misfortune, he used to order all his slaves to be +lashed, that their shrieks and moans might join his in appeasing the god +who was punishing him. Langdon went back to Wall Street, and for months he +made all within his power suffer; in his fury he smashed fortunes, lowered +wages, raised prices, reveled in the blasts of a storm of impotent curses. +But you do not care to hear about that. + +As for myself, what could I tell that you do not know or guess? Now that +all men, even the rich, even the parasites of the bandits, groan under +their tyranny and their taxes, is it strange that the resentment against me +has disappeared, that my warnings are remembered, that I am popular? I +might forecast what I purpose to do when the time is ripe. But I am not +given to prophecy. I will only say that I think I shall, in due season, go +into action again--profiting by my experience in the futility of trying to +hasten evolution by revolution. Meanwhile-- + +As I write, I can look up from the paper, and out upon the lawn, at a +woman--what a woman!--teaching a baby to walk. And, assisting her, there +is a boy, himself not yet an expert at walking. I doubt if you'd have to +glance twice at that boy to know he is my son. Well--I have borrowed a leaf +from Mulholland's philosophy. I commend it to you. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE DELUGE *** + +This file should be named 7dlug10.txt or 7dlug10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7dlug11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7dlug10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Deluge + +Author: DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS + +Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7832] +[This file was first posted on May 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE DELUGE *** + + + + +THE DULUGE + +BY + +DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS + +_Author of_ +The Cost, The Plum Tree, The Social Secretary, etc. + + + + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +GEORGE GIBBS + + +[Illustration] + + + +CONTENTS + + I MR. BLACKLOCK + II IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS + III CAME A WOMAN + IV A CANDIDATE FOR "RESPECTABILITY" + V DANGER SIGNALS + VI OF "GENTLEMEN" + VII BLACKLOCK GOES INTO TRAINING + VIII ON THE TRAIL OF LANGDON + IX LANGDON AT HOME + X TWO "PILLARS OF SOCIETY" + XI WHEN A MAN IS NOT A MAN + XII ANITA + XIII "UNTIL TO-MORROW" + XIV FRESH AIR IN A GREENHOUSE + XV SOME STRANGE LAPSES OF A LOVER + XVI TRAPPED AND TRIMMED + XVII A GENTEEL "HOLD-UP" + XVIII ANITA BEGINS TO BE HERSELF + XIX A WINDFALL FROM "GENTLEMAN JOE" + XX A BREATHING SPELL + XXI MOST UNLADYLIKE + XXII MOST UNGENTLEMANLY + XXIII "SHE HAS CHOSEN" + XXIV BLACKLOCK ATTENDS FAMILY PRAYERS + XXV "MY WIFE MUST" + XXVI THE WEAK STRAND + XXVII A CONSPIRACY AGAINST ANITA +XXVIII BLACKLOCK SEES A LIGHT + XXIX A HOUSEWARMING + XXX BLACKLOCK OPENS FIRE + XXXI ANITA'S SECRET + XXXII LANGDON COMES TO THE SURFACE +XXXIII MRS. LANGDON MAKES A CALL + XXXIV "MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME" + XXXV "WILD WEEK" + XXXVI "BLACK MATT'S" TRIUMPH + + + + +I + +MR. BLACKLOCK + + +When Napoleon was about to crown himself--so I have somewhere read--they +submitted to him the royal genealogy they had faked up for him. He crumpled +the parchment and flung it in the face of the chief herald, or whoever it +was. "My line," said he, "dates from Montenotte." And so I say, my line +dates from the campaign that completed and established my fame--from "Wild +Week." + +I shall not pause to recite the details of the obscurity from which I +emerged. It would be an interesting, a romantic story; but it is a familiar +story, also, in this land which Lincoln so finely and so fully described +when he said: "The republic is opportunity." + +One fact only: _I did not take the name Blacklock_. + +I was born Blacklock, and christened Matthew; and my hair's being very +black and growing so that a lock of it often falls down the middle of my +forehead is a coincidence. The malicious and insinuating story that I used +to go under another name arose, no doubt, from my having been a bootblack +in my early days, and having let my customers shorten my name into Matt +Black. But, as soon as I graduated from manual labor, I resumed my rightful +name and have borne it--I think I may say without vanity--in honor to +honor. + +Some one has written: "It was a great day for fools when modesty was made +a virtue." I heartily subscribe to that. Life means action; action means +self-assertion; self-assertion rouses all the small, colorless people to +the only sort of action of which they are capable--to sneering at the doer +as egotistical, vain, conceited, bumptious and the like. So be it! I have +an individuality, aggressive, restless and, like all such individualities, +necessarily in the lime-light; I have from the beginning lost no +opportunity to impress that individuality upon my time. Let those who have +nothing to advertise, and those less courageous and less successful than +I at advertisement, jeer and spit. I ignore them. I make no apologies for +egotism. I think, when my readers have finished, they will demand none. +They will see that I had work to do, and that I did it in the only way an +intelligent man ever tries to do his work--his own way, the way natural to +him! + +Wild Week! Its cyclones, rising fury on fury to that historic climax of +chaos, sing their mad song in my ears again as I write. But I shall by no +means confine my narrative to business and finance. Take a cross-section +of life anywhere, and you have a tangled interweaving of the action and +reaction of men upon men, of women upon women, of men and women upon one +another. And this shall be a cross-section out of the very heart of our +life to-day, with its big and bold energies and passions--the swiftest and +intensest life ever lived by the human race. + +To begin: + + + + +II + +IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS + + +Imagine yourself back two years and a half before Wild Week, back at +the time when the kings of finance had just completed their apparently +final conquest of the industries of the country, when they were seating +themselves upon thrones encircled by vast armies of capital and brains, +when all the governments of the nation--national, state and city--were +prostrate under their iron heels. + +You may remember that I was a not inconspicuous figure then. Of all their +financial agents, I was the best-known, the most trusted by them, the most +believed in by the people. I had a magnificent suite of offices in the +building that dominates Wall and Broad Streets. Boston claimed me also, and +Chicago; and in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco, in +the towns and rural districts tributary to the cities, thousands spoke of +Blacklock as their trusted adviser in matters of finance. My enemies--and +I had them, numerous and venomous enough to prove me a man worth while--my +enemies spoke of me as the "biggest bucket-shop gambler in the world." + +Gambler I was--like all the other manipulators of the markets. +But "bucket-shop" I never kept. As the kings of finance were the +representatives of the great merchants, manufacturers and investors, so was +I the representative of the masses, of those who wished their small savings +properly invested. The power of the big fellows was founded upon wealth and +the brains wealth buys or bullies or seduces into its service; my power was +founded upon the hearts and homes of the people, upon faith in my frank +honesty. + +How had I built up my power? By recognizing the possibilities of publicity, +the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and magazines put +within the reach of the individual man to impress himself upon the whole +country, upon the whole civilized world. The kings of finance relied upon +the assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid agents, operating through the +stealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels for the exercise of power. I +relied only upon myself; I had to trust to no fallible, perhaps traitorous, +understrappers; through the megaphone of the press I spoke directly to the +people. + +My enemies charge that I always have been unscrupulous and dishonest. So? +Then how have I lived and thrived all these years in the glare and blare of +publicity? + +It is true, I have used the "methods of the charlatan" in bringing myself +into wide public notice. The just way to put it would be that I have used +for honest purposes the methods of publicity that charlatans have shrewdly +appropriated, because by those means the public can be most widely and +most quickly reached. Does good become evil because hypocrites use it as a +cloak? It is also true that I have been "undignified." Let the stupid cover +their stupidity with "dignity." Let the swindler hide his schemings under +"dignity." I am a man of the people, not afraid to be seen as the human +being that I am. I laugh when I feel like it. I have no sense of jar +when people call me "Matt." I have a good time, and I shall stay young +as long as I stay alive. Wealth hasn't made me a solemn ass, fenced in +and unapproachable. The custom of receiving obedience and flattery and +admiration has not made me a turkey-cock. Life is a joke; and when the +joke's on me, I laugh as heartily as when it's on the other fellow. + +It is half-past three o'clock on a May afternoon; a dismal, dreary rain +is being whirled through the streets by as nasty a wind as ever blew out +of the east. You are in the private office of that "king of kings," Henry +J. Roebuck, philanthropist, eminent churchman, leading citizen and--in +business--as corrupt a creature as ever used the domino of respectability. +That office is on the twelfth floor of the Power Trust Building--and the +Power Trust is Roebuck, and Roebuck is the Power Trust. He is seated at his +desk and, thinking I do not see him, is looking at me with an expression of +benevolent and melancholy pity--the look with which he always regarded any +one whom the Roebuck God Almighty had commanded Roebuck to destroy. He and +his God were in constant communication; his God never did anything except +for his benefit, he never did anything except on the direct counsel or +command of his God. Just now his God is commanding him to destroy me, his +confidential agent in shaping many a vast industrial enterprise and in +inducing the public to buy by the million its bonds and stocks. + +I invited the angry frown of the Roebuck God by saying: "And I bought in +the Manasquale mines on my own account." + +"On your own account!" said Roebuck. Then he hastily effaced his +involuntary air of the engineer startled by sight of an unexpected red +light. + +"Yes," replied I, as calm as if I were not realizing the tremendous +significance of what I had announced. "I look to you to let me participate +on equal terms." + +That is, I had decided that the time had come for me to take my place +among the kings of finance. I had decided to promote myself from agent to +principal, from prime minister to king--I must, myself, promote myself, +for in this world all promotion that is solid comes from within. And in +furtherance of my object I had bought this group of mines, control of which +was vital to the Roebuck-Langdon-Melville combine for a monopoly of the +coal of the country. + +"Did not Mr. Langdon commission you to buy them for him and his friends?" +inquired Roebuck, in that slow, placid tone which yet, for the attentive +ear, had a note in it like the scream of a jaguar that comes home and finds +its cub gone. + +"But I couldn't get them for him," I explained. "The owners wouldn't sell +until I engaged that the National Coal and Railway Company was not to have +them." + +"Oh, I see," said Roebuck, sinking back relieved. "We must get Browne to +draw up some sort of perpetual, irrevocable power of attorney to us for you +to sign." + +"But I won't sign it," said I. + +Roebuck took up a sheet of paper and began to fold it upon itself with +great care to get the edges straight. He had grasped my meaning; he was +deliberating. + +"For four years now," I went on, "you people have been promising to take +me in as a principal in some one of your deals--to give me recognition by +making me president, or chairman of an executive or finance committee. I am +an impatient man, Mr. Roebuck. Life is short, and I have much to do. So I +have bought the Manasquale mines--and I shall hold them." + +Roebuck continued to fold the paper upon itself until he had reduced it +to a short, thick strip. This he slowly twisted between his cruel fingers +until it was in two pieces. He dropped them, one at a time, into the +waste-basket, then smiled benevolently at me. "You are right," he said. +"You shall have what you want. You have seemed such a mere boy to me that, +in spite of your giving again and again proof of what you are, I have been +putting you off. Then, too--" He halted, and his look was that of one +surveying delicate ground. + +"The bucket-shop?" suggested I. + +"Exactly," said he gratefully. "Your brokerage business has been invaluable +to us. But--well, I needn't tell you how people--the men of standing--look +on that sort of thing." + +"I never have paid any attention to pompous pretenses," said I, "and I +never shall. My brokerage business must go on, and my daily letters to +investors. By advertising I rose; by advertising I am a power that even you +recognize; by advertising alone can I keep that power." + +"You forget that in the new circumstances, you won't need that sort of +power. Adapt yourself to your new surroundings. Overalls for the trench; a +business suit for the office." + +"I shall keep to my overalls for the present," said I. "They're more +comfortable, and"--here I smiled significantly at him--"if I shed them, I +might have to go naked. The first principle of business is never to give up +what you have until your grip is tight on something better." + +"No doubt you're right," agreed the white-haired old scoundrel, giving +no sign that I had fathomed his motive for trying to "hint" me out of my +stronghold. "I will talk the matter over with Langdon and Melville. Rest +assured, my boy, that you will be satisfied." He got up, put his arm +affectionately round my shoulders. "We all like you. I have a feeling +toward you as if you were my own son. I am getting old, and I like to see +young men about me, growing up to assume the responsibilities of the Lord's +work whenever He shall call me to my reward." + +It will seem incredible that a man of my shrewdness and experience could +be taken in by such slimy stuff as that--I who knew Roebuck as only a +few insiders knew him, I who had seen him at work, as devoid of heart as +an empty spider in an empty web. Yet I was taken in to the extent that +I thought he really purposed to recognize my services, to yield to the +only persuasion that could affect him--force. I fancied he was actually +about to put me where I could be of the highest usefulness to him and his +associates, as well as to myself. As if an old man ever yielded power or +permitted another to gain power, even though it were to his own great +advantage. The avarice of age is not open to reason. + +It was with tears in my eyes that I shook hands with him, thanking him +emotionally. It was with a high chin and a proud heart that I went back +to my offices. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I was about to get my +deserts, was about to enter the charmed circle of "high finance." + +That small and exclusive circle, into which I was seeing myself admitted +without the usual arduous and unequal battle, was what may be called the +industrial ring--a loose, yet tight, combine of about a dozen men who +controlled in one way or another practically all the industries of the +country. They had no formal agreements; they held no official meetings. +They did not look upon themselves as an association. They often quarreled +among themselves, waged bitter wars upon each other over divisions of +power or plunder. But, in the broad sense, in the true sense, they were +an association--a band united by a common interest, to control finance, +commerce and therefore politics; a band united by a common purpose, to keep +that control in as few hands as possible. Whenever there was sign of peril +from without they flung away differences, pooled resources, marched in +full force to put down the insurrection. For they looked on any attempt +to interfere with them as a mutiny, as an outbreak of anarchy. This band +persisted, but membership in it changed, changed rapidly. Now, one would +be beaten to death and despoiled by a clique of fellows; again, weak or +rash ones would be cut off in strenuous battle. Often, most often, some +too-powerful or too-arrogant member would be secretly and stealthily +assassinated by a jealous associate or by a committee of internal safety. +Of course, I do not mean literally assassinated, but assassinated, cut off, +destroyed, in the sense that a man whose whole life is wealth and power is +dead when wealth and power are taken from him. + +Actual assassination, the crime of murder--these "gentlemen" rarely did +anything which their lawyers did not advise them was legal or could be made +legal by bribery of one kind or another. Rarely, I say--not never. You will +see presently why I make that qualification. + +I had my heart set upon membership in this band--and, as I confess now with +shame, my prejudices of self-interest had blinded me into regarding it +and its members as great and useful and honorable "captains of industry." +Honorable in the main; for, not even my prejudice could blind me to the +almost hair-raising atrocity of some of their doings. Still, morality is +largely a question of environment. I had been bred in that environment. +Even the atrocities I excused on the ground that he who goes forth to war +must be prepared to do and to tolerate many acts the church would have to +strain a point to bless. What was Columbus but a marauder, a buccaneer? +Was not Drake, in law and in fact, a pirate; Washington a traitor to his +soldier's oath of allegiance to King George? I had much to learn, and to +unlearn. I was to find out that whenever a Roebuck puts his arm round you, +it is invariably to get within your guard and nearer your fifth rib. I was +to trace the ugliest deformities of that conscience of his, hidden away +down inside him like a dwarfed, starved prisoner in an underground dungeon. +I was to be astounded by revelations of Langdon, who was not a believer, +like Roebuck, and so was not under the restraint of the feeling that he +must keep some sort of conscience ledgers against the inspection of the +angelic auditing committee in the day of wrath. + +Much to learn--and to unlearn. It makes me laugh as I recall how, on that +May day, I looked into the first mirror I was alone with, smiled delighted, +as an idiot with myself and said: "Matt, you are of the kings now. Your +crown suits you and, as you've earned it, you know how to keep it. Now for +some fun with your subjects and your fellow sovereigns." + +A little premature, that preening! + + + + +III + +CAME A WOMAN + + +In my suite in the Textile Building, just off the big main room with its +blackboards and tickers, I had a small office in which I spent a good deal +of time during Stock Exchange hours. It was there that Sam Ellersly found +me the next day but one after my talk with Roebuck. + +"I want you to sell that Steel Common, Matt," said he. + +"It'll go several points higher," said I. "Better let me hold it and use my +judgment on selling." + +"I need money--right away," was his answer. + +"That's all right," said I. "Let me give you an order for what you need." + +"Thank you, thank you," said he, so promptly that I knew I had done what he +had been hoping for, probably counting on. + +I give this incident to show what our relations were. He was a young fellow +of good family, to whom I had taken a liking. He was a lazy dog, and as out +of place in business as a cat in a choir. I had been keeping him going for +four years at that time, by giving him tips on stocks and protecting him +against loss. This purely out of good nature and liking; for I hadn't the +remotest idea he could ever be of use to me beyond helping to liven things +up at a dinner or late supper, or down in the country, or on the yacht. In +fact, his principal use to me was that he knew how to "beat the box" well +enough to shake fairly good music out of it--and I am so fond of music that +I can fill in with my imagination when the performer isn't too bad. + +They have charged that I deliberately ruined him. Ruined! The first time I +gave him a tip--and that was the second or third time I ever saw him--he +burst into tears and said: "You've saved my life, Blacklock. I'll never +tell you how much this windfall means to me now." Nor did I with deep and +dark design keep him along on the ragged edge. He kept himself there. +How could I build up such a man with his hundred ways of wasting money, +including throwing it away on his own opinions of stocks--for he would +gamble on his own account in the bucket-shops, though I had shown him that +the Wall Street game is played always with marked cards, and that the only +hope of winning is to get the confidence of the card-markers, unless you +are big enough to become a card-marker yourself. + +As soon as he got the money from my teller that day, he was rushing away. I +followed him to the door--that part of my suite opened out on the sidewalk, +for the convenience of my crowds of customers. "I'm just going to lunch," +said I. "Come with me." + +He looked uneasily toward a smart little one-horse brougham at the curb. +"Sorry--but I can't," said he. "I've my sister with me. She brought me down +in her trap." + +"That's all right," said I; "bring her along. We'll go to the Savarin." And +I locked his arm in mine and started toward the brougham. + +[Illustration] + +He was turning all kinds of colors, and was acting in a way that puzzled +me--then. Despite all my years in New York I was ignorant of the elaborate +social distinctions that had grown up in its Fifth Avenue quarter. I knew, +of course, that there was a fashionable society and that some of the most +conspicuous of those in it seemed unable to get used to the idea of being +rich and were in a state of great agitation over their own importance. +Important they might be, but not to me. I knew nothing of their careful +gradations of snobbism--the people to know socially, the people to know in +a business way, the people to know in ways religious and philanthropic, +the people to know for the fun to be got out of them, the people to +pride oneself on not knowing at all; the nervousness, the hysteria +about preserving these disgusting gradations. All this, I say, was an +undreamed-of mystery to me who gave and took liking in the sensible, +self-respecting American fashion. So I didn't understand why Sam, as I +almost dragged him along, was stammering: "Thank you--but--I--she--the fact +is, we really must get up-town." + +By this time I was where I could look into the brougham. A glance--I can +see much at a glance, as can any man who spends every day of every year in +an all-day fight for his purse and his life, with the blows coming from all +sides. I can see much at a glance; I often have seen much; I never saw more +than just then. Instantly, I made up my mind that the Ellerslys would lunch +with me. "You've got to eat somewhere," said I, in a tone that put an end +to his attempts to manufacture excuses. "I'll be delighted to have you. +Don't make up any more yarns." + +He slowly opened the door. "Anita," said he, "Mr. Blacklock. He's invited +us to lunch." + +I lifted my hat, and bowed. I kept my eyes straight upon hers. And it +gave me more pleasure to look into them than I had ever before got out of +looking into anybody's. I am passionately fond of flowers, and of children; +and her face reminded me of both. Or, rather, it seemed to me that what +I had seen, with delight and longing, incomplete in their freshness and +beauty and charm, was now before me in the fullness. I felt like saying to +her, "I have heard of you often. The children and the flowers have told +me you were coming." Perhaps my eyes did say it. At any rate, she looked +as straight at me as I at her, and I noticed that she paled a little and +shrank--yet continued to look, as if I were compelling her. But her voice, +beautifully clear, and lingering in the ears like the resonance of the +violin after the bow has swept its strings and lifted, was perfectly +self-possessed, as she said to her brother: "That will be delightful--if +you think we have time." + +I saw that she, uncertain whether he wished to accept, was giving him a +chance to take either course. "He has time--nothing but time," said I. "His +engagements are always with people who want to get something out of him. +And they can wait." I pretended to think he was expecting me to enter +the trap; I got in, seated myself beside her, said to Sam: "I've saved +the little seat for you. Tell your man to take us to the Equitable +Building--Nassau Street entrance." + +I talked a good deal during the first half of the nearly two hours we were +together--partly because both Sam and his sister seemed under some sort of +strain, chiefly because I was determined to make a good impression. I told +her about myself, my horses, my house in the country, my yacht. I tried to +show her I wasn't an ignoramus as to books and art, even if I hadn't been +to college. She listened, while Sam sat embarrassed. "You must bring your +sister down to visit me," I said finally. "I'll see that you both have +the time of your lives. Make up a party of your friends, Sam, and come +down--when shall we say? Next Sunday? You know you were coming anyhow. I +can change the rest of the party." + +Sam grew as red as if he were going into apoplexy. I thought then he was +afraid I'd blurt out something about who were in the party I was proposing +to change. I was soon to know better. + +"Thank you, Mr.--Blacklock," said his sister. "But I have an engagement +next Sunday. I have a great many engagements just now. Without looking at +my book I couldn't say when I can go." This easily and naturally. In her +set they certainly do learn thoroughly that branch of tact which plain +people call lying. + +Sam gave her a grateful look, which he thought I didn't see, and which I +didn't rightly interpret--then. + +"We'll fix it up later, Blacklock," said he. + +"All right," said I. And from that minute I was almost silent. It was +something in her tone and manner that silenced me. I suddenly realized that +I wasn't making as good an impression as I had been flattering myself. + +When a man has money and is willing to spend it, he can readily fool +himself into imagining he gets on grandly with women. But I had better +grounds than that for thinking myself not unattractive to them, as a rule. +Women had liked me when I had nothing; women had liked me when they didn't +know who I was. I felt that this woman did not like me. And yet, by the way +she looked at me in spite of her efforts not to do so, I could tell that +I had some sort of unusual interest for her. Why didn't she like me? She +made me feel the reason. I didn't belong to her world. My ways and my looks +offended her. She disliked me a good deal; she feared me a little. She +would have felt safer if she had been gratifying her curiosity, gazing in +at me through the bars of a cage. + +Where I had been feeling and showing my usual assurance, I now became ill +at ease. I longed for them to be gone; at the same time I hated to let her +go--for, when and how would I see her again, would I get the chance to +remove her bad impression? It irritated me thus to be concerned about the +sister of a man into my liking for whom there was mixed much pity and some +contempt. But I am of the disposition that, whenever I see an obstacle of +whatever kind, I can not restrain myself from trying to jump it. Here was +an obstacle--a dislike. To clear it was of the smallest importance in the +world, was a silly waste of time. Yet I felt I could not maintain with +myself my boast that there were no obstacles I couldn't get over, if I +turned aside from this. + +Sam--not without hesitation, as I recalled afterward--left me with her, +when I sent him to bring her brougham up to the Broadway entrance. As she +and I were standing there alone, waiting in silence, I turned on her +suddenly, and blurted out, "You don't like me." + +She reddened a little, smiled slightly. "What a quaint remark!" said she. + +I looked straight at her. "But you shall." + +Our eyes met. Her chin came out a little, her eyebrows lifted. Then, in +scorn of herself as well as of me, she locked herself in behind a frozen +haughtiness that ignored me. "Ah, here is the carriage," she said. I +followed her to the curb; she just touched my hand, just nodded her +fascinating little head. + +"See you Saturday, old man," called her brother friendlily. My lowering +face had alarmed him. + +"That party is off," said I curtly. And I lifted my hat and strode away. + +As I had formed the habit of dismissing the disagreeable, I soon put her +out of my mind. But she took with her my joy in the taste of things. I +couldn't get back my former keen satisfaction in all I had done and was +doing. The luxury, the tangible evidences of my achievement, no longer gave +me pleasure; they seemed to add to my irritation. + +That's the way it is in life. We load ourselves down with toys like so many +greedy children; then we see another toy and drop everything to be free to +seize it; and if we can not, we're wretched. + +I worked myself up, or rather, down, to such a mood that when my office boy +told me Mr. Langdon would like me to come to his office as soon as it was +convenient, I snapped out: "The hell he does! Tell Mr. Langdon I'll be +glad to see him here whenever he calls." That was stupidity, a premature +assertion of my right to be treated as an equal. I had always gone to +Langdon, and to any other of the rulers of finance, whenever I had got a +summons. For, while I was rich and powerful, I held both wealth and power, +in a sense, on sufferance; I knew that, so long as I had no absolute +control of any great department of industry, these rulers could destroy me +should they decide that they needed my holdings or were not satisfied with +my use of my power. There were a good many people who did not realize that +property rights had ceased to exist, that property had become a revocable +grant from the "plutocrats." I was not of those misguided ones who had +failed to discover the new fact concealed in the old form. So I used to go +when I was summoned. + +But not that day. However, no sooner was my boy gone than I repented the +imprudence, "But what of it?" said I to myself. "No matter how the thing +turns out, I shall be able to get some advantage." For it was part of my +philosophy that a proper boat with proper sails and a proper steersman can +gain in any wind. I was surprised when Langdon appeared in my office a few +minutes later. + +He was a tallish, slim man, carefully dressed, with a bored, weary look +and a slow, bored way of talking. I had always said that if I had not been +myself I should have wished to be Langdon. Men liked and admired him; women +loved and ran after him. Yet he exerted not the slightest effort to please +any one; on the contrary, he made it distinct and clear that he didn't +care a rap what any one thought of him or, for that matter, of anybody or +anything. He knew how to get, without sweat or snatching, all the good +there was in whatever fate threw in his way--and he was one of those men +into whose way fate seems to strive to put everything worth having. His +business judgment was shrewd, but he cared nothing for the big game he was +playing except as a game. Like myself, he was simply a sportsman--and, I +think, that is why we liked each other. He could have trusted almost any +one that came into contact with him; but he trusted nobody, and frankly +warned every one not to trust him--a safe frankness, for his charm caused +it to be forgotten or ignored. He would do anything to gain an object, +however trivial, which chanced to attract him; once it was his, he would +throw it aside as carelessly as an ill-fitting collar. + +His expression, as he came into my office, was one of cynical amusement, +as if he were saying to himself: "Our friend Blacklock has caught the +swollen head at last." Not a suggestion of ill humor, of resentment +at my impertinence--for, in the circumstances, I had been guilty of an +impertinence. Just languid, amused patience with the frailty of a friend. +"I see," said he, "that you have got Textile up to eighty-five." + +He was the head of the Textile Trust which had been built by his +brother-in-law and had fallen to him in the confusion following his +brother-in-law's death. As he was just then needing some money for his +share in the National Coal undertaking, he had directed me to push Textile +up toward par and unload him of two or three hundred thousand shares--he, +of course, to repurchase the shares after he had taken profits and Textile +had dropped back to its normal fifty. + +"I'll have it up to ninety-eight by the middle of next month," said I. "And +there I think we'd better stop." + +"Stop at about ninety," said he. "That will give me all I find I'll need +for this Coal business. I don't want to be bothered with hunting up an +investment." + +I shook my head. "I must put it up to within a point or two of par," I +declared. "In my public letter I've been saying it would go above +ninety-five, and I never deceive my public." + +He smiled--my notion of honesty always amused him. "As you please," he +said with a shrug. Then I saw a serious look--just a fleeting flash of +warning--behind his smiling mask; and he added carelessly: "Be careful +about your own personal play. I doubt if Textile can be put any higher." + +It must have been my mood that prevented those words from making the +impression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at once +and at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signal +of caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: "Something +doing? Something new?" + +But he had already gone further than his notion of friendship warranted. So +he replied: "Oh, no. Simply that everything's uncertain nowadays." + +My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties. I now +said: "Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my own +account?" + +"Yes," he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose meaning +came to me only when it was too late. "I think, Blacklock, you'd better +turn them over to me." + +"I can't," I answered. "I gave my word." + +"As you please," said he. + +Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of the +performances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twenty +minutes or so, he drifted away. "I envy you your enthusiasm," he said, +pausing in my doorway. "Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else. +Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you get +all this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?" + +He didn't wait for a reply. + +I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to my +country place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings, searching, +searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed me--what the lack +was that yawned so gloomily from everything I had once thought beautiful, +had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of the splendid, terraced +pansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I stopped short and slapped my +thigh. "A woman!" I exclaimed. "That's what I need. A woman--the right sort +of woman--a wife!" + + + + +IV + +A CANDIDATE FOR "RESPECTABILITY" + + +To handle this new business properly I must put myself in position +to look the whole field over. I must get in line and in touch with +"respectability." When Sam Ellersly came in for his "rations," I said: +"Sam, I want you to put me up at the Travelers Club." + +"The Travelers!" echoed he, with a blank look. + +"The Travelers," said I. "It's about the best of the big clubs, isn't it? +And it has as members most of the men I do business with and most of those +I want to get into touch with." + +He laughed. "It can't be done." + +"Why not?" I asked. + +"Oh--I don't know. You see--the fact is--well, they're a lot of old fogies +up there. You don't want to bother with that push, Matt. Take my advice. Do +business with them, but avoid them socially." + +"I want to go in there," I insisted. "I have my own reasons. You put me +up." + +"I tell you, it'd be no use," he replied, in a tone that implied he wished +to hear no more of the matter. + +"You put me up," I repeated. "And if you do your best, I'll get in all +right. I've got lots of friends there. And you've got three relatives in +the committee on membership." + +At this he gave me a queer, sharp glance--a little fright in it. + +I laughed. "You see, I've been looking into it, Sam. I never take a jump +till I've measured it." + +"You'd better wait a few years, until--" he began, then stopped and turned +red. + +"Until what?" said I. "I want you to speak frankly." + +"Well, you've got a lot of enemies--a lot of fellows who've lost money in +deals you've engineered. And they'd say all sorts of things." + +"I'll take care of that," said I, quite easy in mind. "Mowbray Langdon's +president, isn't he? Well, he's my closest friend." I spoke quite honestly. +It shows how simple-minded I was in certain ways that I had never once +noted the important circumstance that this "closest friend" had never +invited me to his house, or anywhere where I'd meet his up-town associates +at introducing distance. + +Sam looked surprised. "Oh, in that case," he said, "I'll see what can be +done." But his tone was not quite cordial enough to satisfy me. + +To stimulate him and to give him an earnest of what I intended to do for +him, when our little social deal had been put through, I showed him how he +could win ten thousand dollars in the next three days. "And you needn't +bother about putting up margins," said I, as I often had before. "I'll take +care of that." + +He stammered a refusal and went out; but he came back within an hour, and, +in a strained sort of way, accepted my tip and my offer. + +"That's sensible," said I. "When will you attend to the matter at the +Travelers? I want to be warned so I can pull my own set of wires in +concert." + +"I'll let you know," he answered, hanging his head. + +I didn't understand his queer actions then. Though I was an expert in +finance, I hadn't yet made a study of that other game--the game of +"gentleman." And I didn't know how seriously the frauds and fakirs who play +it take it and themselves. I attributed his confusion to a ridiculous mock +modesty he had about accepting favors; it struck me as being particularly +silly on this occasion, because for once he was to give as well as to take. + +He didn't call for his profits, but wrote asking me to mail him the check +for them. I did so, putting in the envelop with it a little jog to his +memory on the club matter. I didn't see him again for nearly a month; and +though I searched and sent, I couldn't get his trail. On opening day at +Morris Park, I was going along the passage behind the boxes in the grand +stand, on my way to the paddock. I wanted to see my horse that was about to +run for the Salmagundi Sweepstakes, and to tell my jockey that I'd give him +fifteen thousand, instead of ten thousand, if he won--for I had put quite a +bunch down. I was a figure at the tracks in those days. I went into racing +on my customary generous scale. I liked horses, just as I liked everything +that belonged out under the big sky; also I liked the advertising my string +of thoroughbreds gave me. I was rich enough to be beyond the stage at which +a man excites suspicion by frequenting race-tracks and gambling-houses; I +was at the height where prodigalities begin to be taken as evidences of +abounding superfluity, not of a dangerous profligacy. Jim Harkaway, who +failed at playing the same game I played and won, said to me with a sneer +one day: "You certainly do know how to get a dollar's worth of notoriety +out of a dollar's worth of advertising." + +"If I only knew that, Jim," said I, "I'd have been long ago where you're +bound for. The trick is to get it back ten for one. The more _you_ +advertise yourself, the more suspicious of you people become. The more +money I 'throw away' in advertising, the more convinced people are that I +can afford to do it." + +But, as I was about to say, in one of the boxes I spied my shy friend, +Sammy. He was looking better than I had ever seen him. Less heavy-eyed, +less pallid and pasty, less like a man who had been shirking bed and +keeping up on cocktails and cold baths. He was at the rear of the box, +talking with a lady and a gentleman. As soon as I saw that lady, I knew +what it was that had been hiding at the bottom of my mind and rankling +there. + +Luckily I was alone; ever since that lunch I had been cutting loose from +the old crowd--from all its women, and from all its men except two or three +real friends who were good fellows straight through, in spite of their +having made the mistake of crossing the dead line between amateur "sport" +and professional. I leaned over and tapped Sammy on the shoulder. + +He glanced round, and when he saw me, looked as if I were a policeman who +had caught him in the act. + +"Howdy, Sam?" said I. "It's been so long since I've seen you that I +couldn't resist the temptation to interrupt. Hope your friends'll excuse +me. Howdy do, Miss Ellersly?" And I put out my hand. + +She took it reluctantly. She was giving me a very unpleasant look--as if +she were seeing, not somebody, but some _thing_ she didn't care to +see, or were seeing nothing at all. I liked that look; I liked the woman +who had it in her to give it. She made me feel that she was difficult and +therefore worth while, and that's what alt we human beings are in business +for--to make each other feel that we're worth while. + +"Just a moment," said Sam, red as a cranberry and stuttering. And he made a +motion to come out of the box and join me. At the same time Miss Anita and +the other fellow began to turn away. + +But I was not the man to be cheated in that fashion. I wanted to see +_her_, and I compelled her to see it and to feel it. "Don't let me +take you from your friends," said I to Sammy. "Perhaps they'd like to come +with you and me down to look at my horse. I can give you a good tip--he's +bound to win. I've had my boys out on the rails every morning at the trials +of all the other possibilities. None of 'em's in it with Mowghli." + +"Mowghli!" said the young lady--she had begun to turn toward me as soon as +I spoke the magic word, "tip." There may be men who can resist that word +"tip" at the race-track, but there never was a woman. + +"My sister has to stay here," said Sammy hurriedly. "I'll go with you, +Blacklock." + +All this time he was looking as if he were doing something he ought to be +ashamed of. I thought then he was ashamed because he, professing to be a +gentleman, had been neglecting his debt of honor. I now know he was ashamed +because he was responsible for his sister's being contaminated by contact +with such a man as I! I who hadn't a dollar that wasn't honestly earned; +I who had made a fortune by my own efforts, and was spending my millions +like a prince; I who had taste in art and music and in architecture and +furnishing and all the fine things of life. Above all, I who had been his +friend and benefactor. _He_ knew I was more of a gentleman than he +could ever hope to be, he with no ability at anything but spending money; +he a sponge and a cadger, yes, and a welcher--for wasn't he doing his best +to welch me? But just because a lot of his friends, jealous of my success +and angry that I refused to truckle to them and be like them instead of +like myself, sneered at me--behind my back--this poor-spirited creature +was daring to pretend to himself that I wasn't fit for the society of his +sister! + +"Mowghli!" said Miss Ellersly. "What a quaint name!" + +"My trainer gave it," said I. "I've got a second son of one of those +broken-down English noblemen at the head of my stables. He's trying to get +money enough together to be able to show up at Newport and take a shy at an +heiress." + +At this the fellow who was fourth in our party, and who had been giving me +a nasty, glassy stare, got as red as was Sammy. Then I noticed that he was +an Englishman, and I all but chuckled with delight. However, I said, "No +offense intended," and clapped him on the shoulder with a friendly smile. +"He's a good fellow, my man Monson, and knows a lot about horses." + +Miss Ellersly bit her lip and colored, but I noticed also that her eyes +were dancing. + +Sam introduced the Englishman to me--Lord Somebody-or-other, I forget what, +as I never saw him again. I turned like a bulldog from a toy terrier and +was at Miss Ellersly again. "Let me put a little something on Mowghli for +you," said I. "You're bound to win--and I'll see that you don't lose. I +know how you ladies hate to lose." + +That was a bit stiff, as I know well enough now. Indeed, my instinct +would have told me better then, if I hadn't been so used to the sort of +women that jump at such an offer, and if I hadn't been casting about so +desperately and in such confusion for some way to please her. At any rate, +I hardly deserved her sudden frozen look. "I beg pardon," I stammered, and +I think my look at her must have been very humble--for me. + +The others in the box were staring round at us. "Come on," cried Sam, +dragging at my arm, "let's go." + +"Won't you come?" I said to his sister. I shouldn't have been able to keep +my state of mind out of my voice, if I had tried. And I didn't try. + +Trust the right sort of woman to see the right sort of thing in a man +through any and all kinds of barriers of caste and manners and breeding. +Her voice was much softer as she said: "I think I must stay here. Thank +you, just the same." + +As soon as Sam and I were alone, I apologized. "I hope you'll tell your +sister I'm sorry for that break," said I. + +"Oh, that's all right," he answered, easy again, now that we were away from +the others. "You meant well--and motive's the thing." + +"Motive--hell!" cried I in my anger at myself. "Nobody but a man's God +knows his motives; he doesn't even know them himself. I judge others by +what they do, and I expect to be judged in the same way. I see I've got a +lot to learn." Then I suddenly remembered the Travelers Club, and asked him +what he'd done about it. + +"I--I've been--thinking it over," said he. "Are you _sure_ you want to +run the risk of an ugly cropper, Matt?" + +I turned him round so that we were facing each other. "Do you want to do me +that favor, or don't you?" I demanded. + +"I'll do whatever you say," he replied. "I'm thinking only of your +interests." + +"Let _me_ take care of _them_," said I. "You put me up at that +club to-morrow. I'll send you the name of a seconder not later than noon." + +"Up goes your name," he said. "But don't blame me for the consequences." + +And my name went up, with Mowbray Langdon's brother, Tom, as seconder. +Every newspaper in town published the fact, most of them under big black +headlines. "The fun's about to begin," thought I, as I read. And I was +right, though I hadn't the remotest idea how big a ball I had opened. + + + + +V + +DANGER SIGNALS + + +At that time I did not myself go over the bills before the legislatures +of those states in which I had interests. I trusted that work to my +lawyers--and, like every man who ever absolutely trusted an important +division of his affairs to another, I was severely punished. One morning +my eye happened to light upon a minor paragraph in a newspaper--a list +of the "small bills yesterday approved by the governor." In the list was +one "defining the power of sundry commissions." Those words seemed to +me somehow to spell "joker." But why did I call up my lawyers to ask +them about it? It's a mystery to me. All I know is that, busy as I was, +something inside me compelled me to drop everything else and hunt that +"joker" down. + +I got Saxe--then senior partner in Browne, Saxe and Einstein--on the +'phone, and said: "Just see and tell me, will you, what is the 'bill +defining the power of sundry commissions'--the bill the governor signed +yesterday?" + +"Certainly, Mr. Blacklock," came the answer. My nerves are, and always have +been, on the watchout for the looks and the tones and the gestures that are +just a shade off the natural; and I feel that I do Saxe no injustice when I +say his tone was, not a shade, but a full color, off the natural. So I was +prepared for what he said when he returned to the telephone. "I'm sorry, +Mr. Blacklock, but we seem unable to lay our hands on that bill at this +moment." + +"Why not?" said I, in the tone that makes an employee jump as if a +whip-lash had cut him on the calves. + +He had jumped all right, as his voice showed. "It's not in our file," said +he. "It's House Bill No. 427, and it's apparently not here." + +"The hell you say!" I exclaimed. "Why?" + +"I really can't explain," he pleaded, and the frightened whine confirmed my +suspicion. + +"I guess not," said I, making the words significant and suggestive. "And +you're in my pay to look after such matters! But you'll have to explain, if +this turns out to be serious." + +"Apparently our file of bills is complete except that one," he went on. "I +suppose it was lost in the mail, and I very stupidly didn't notice the gap +in the numbers." + +"Stupid isn't the word I'd use," said I, with a laugh that wasn't of the +kind that cheers. And I rang off and asked for the state capitol on the +"long distance." + +Before I got my connection Saxe, whose office was only two blocks away, +came flustering in. "The boy has been discharged, Mr. Blacklock," he began. + +"What boy?" said I. + +"The boy in charge of the bill file--the boy whose business it was to keep +the file complete." + +"Send him to me, you damned scoundrel," said I. "I'll give him a job. What +do you take me for, anyway? And what kind of a cowardly hound are you to +disgrace an innocent boy as a cover for your own crooked work?" + +"Really, Mr. Blacklock, this is most extraordinary," he expostulated. + +"Extraordinary? I call it criminal," I retorted. "Listen to me. You look +after the legislation calendars for me, and for Langdon, and for Roebuck, +and for Melville, and for half a dozen others of the biggest financiers in +the country. It's the most important work you do for us. Yet you, as shrewd +and careful a lawyer as there is at the bar, want me to believe you trusted +that work to a boy! If you did, you're a damn fool. If you didn't, you're +a damn scoundrel. There's no more doubt in my mind than in yours which of +those horns has you sticking on it." + +"You are letting your quick temper get away with you, Mr. Blacklock," he +deprecated. + +"Stop lying!" I shouted, "I knew you had been doing some skulduggery when +I first heard your voice on the telephone. And if I needed any proof, the +meek way you've taken my abuse would furnish it, and to spare." + +Just then the telephone bell rang and I got the right department and asked +the clerk to read House Bill 427. It contained five short paragraphs. The +"joker" was in the third, which gave the State Canal Commission the right +"to institute condemnation proceedings, and to condemn, and to abolish, any +canal not exceeding thirty miles in length and not a part of the connected +canal system of the state." + +When I hung up the receiver I was so absorbed that I had forgotten Saxe was +waiting. He made some slight sound. I wheeled on him. I needed a vent. If +he hadn't been there I should have smashed a chair. But there was he--and I +kicked him out of my private office and would have kicked him out through +the anteroom into the outer hall, had he not gathered himself together and +run like a jack-rabbit. + +Since that day I have done my own calendar watching. + +By this incident I do not mean to suggest that there are not honorable men +in the legal profession. Most of them are men of the highest honor, as are +most business men, most persons of consequence in every department of life. +But you don't look for character in the proprietors, servants, customers +and hangers-on of dives. No more ought you to look for honor among any of +the people that have to do with the big gilded dive of the dollarocracy. +They are there to gamble, and to prostitute themselves. The fact that they +look like gentlemen and have the manners and the language of gentlemen +ought to deceive nobody but the callow chaps of the sort that believes the +swell gambler is "an honest fellow" and a "perfect gentleman otherwise," +because he wears a dress suit in the evening and is a judge of books and +pictures. Lawyers are the doorkeepers and the messengers of the big dive; +and these lawyers, though they stand the highest and get the biggest fees, +are just what you would expect human beings to be who expose themselves to +such temptations, and yield whenever they get an opportunity, as eager and +as compliant as a _cocotte_. + +My lawyers had sold me out; I, fool that I was, had not guarded the only +weak plate in my armor against my companions--the plate over my back, to +shed assassin thrusts. Roebuck and Langdon between them owned the governor; +he owned the Canal Commission; my canal, which gave me access to tide-water +for the product of my Manasquale mines, was as good as closed. I no longer +had the whip-hand in National Coal. The others could sell me out and take +two-thirds of my fortune, whenever they liked--for of what use were my +mines with no outlet now to any market, except the outlets the coal crowd +owned? + +As soon as I had thought the situation out in all its bearings, I realized +that there was no escape for me now, that whatever chance to escape I might +have had was closed by my uncovering to Saxe and kicking him. But I did not +regret; it was worth the money it would cost me. Besides, I thought I saw +how I could later on turn it to good account. A sensible man never makes +fatal errors. Whatever he does is at least experience, and can also be used +to advantage. If Napoleon hadn't been half dead at Waterloo, I don't doubt +he would have used its disaster as a means to a greater victory. + +Was I downcast by the discovery that those bandits had me apparently at +their mercy? Not a bit. Never in my life have I been downcast over money +matters more than a few minutes. Why should I be? Why should any man be who +has made himself all that he is? As long as his brain is sound, his capital +is unimpaired. When I walked into Mowbray Langdon's office, I was like a +thoroughbred exercising on a clear frosty morning; and my smile was as +fresh as the flower in my buttonhole. I thrust out my hand at him. "I +congratulate you," said I. + +He took the proffered hand with a questioning look. + +"On what?" said he. It is hard to tell from his face what is going on in +his head, but I think I guessed right when I decided that Saxe hadn't yet +warned him. + +"I have just found out from Saxe," I pursued, "about the Canal Bill." + +"What Canal Bill?" he asked. + +"That puzzled look was a mistake, Langdon," said I, laughing at him. "When +you don't know anything about a matter, you look merely blank. You overdid +it; you've given yourself away." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," said he. As you please was his +favorite expression; a stereotyped irony, for in dealing with him, things +were never as _you_ pleased, but always as _he_ pleased. + +"Next time you want to dig a mine under anybody," I went on, "don't hire +Saxe. Really I feel sorry for you--to have such a clever scheme messed by +such an ass." + +"If you don't mind, I'd like to know what you're talking about," said he, +with his patient, bored look. + +"As you and Roebuck own the governor, I know your little law ends my little +canal." + +"Still I don't know what you're talking about," drawled he. "You are always +suspecting everybody of double-dealing. I gather that this is another +instance of your infirmity. Really, Blacklock, the world isn't wholly made +up of scoundrels." + +"I know that," said I. "And I will even admit that its scoundrels are +seldom made up wholly of scoundrelism. Even Roebuck would rather do the +decent thing, if he can do it without endangering his personal interests. +As for you--I regard you as one of the decentest men I ever knew--outside +of business. And even there, I believe you'd keep your word, as long as the +other fellow kept his." + +"Thank you," said he, bowing ironically. "This flattery makes me suspect +you've come to get something." + +"On the contrary," said I. "I want to give something. I want to give you my +coal mines." + +"I thought you'd see that our offer was fair," said he. "And I'm glad you +have changed your mind about quarreling with your best friends. We can be +useful to you, you to us. A break would be silly." + +"That's the way it looks to me," I assented. And I decided that my sharp +talk to Roebuck had set them to estimating my value to them. + +"Sam Ellersly," Langdon presently remarked, "tells me he's campaigning hard +for you at the Travelers. I hope you'll make it. We're rather a slow crowd; +a few men like you might stir things up." + +I am always more than willing to give others credit for good sense and good +motives. It was not vanity, but this disposition to credit others with +sincerity and sense, that led me to believe him, both as to the Coal matter +and as to the Travelers Club. "Thanks, Langdon," I said; and that he might +look no further for my motive, I added: "I want to get into that club much +as the winner of a race wants the medal that belongs to him. I've built +myself up into a rich man, into one of the powers in finance, and I feel +I'm entitled to recognition." + +"I don't quite follow you," he said. "I can't see that you'll be either +better or worse for getting into the Travelers." + +"No more I shall," replied I. "No more is the winner of the race the better +or the worse for having the medal. But he wants it." + +He had a queer expression. I suppose he regarded it as a joke, my attaching +apparently so much importance to a thing he cared nothing about. "You've +always had that sort of thing," said I, "and so you don't appreciate it. +You're like a respectable woman. She can't imagine what all the fuss over +women keeping a good reputation is about. Well, just let her lose it!" + +"Perhaps," said he. + +"And," I went on, "you can have the rule about the waiting list suspended, +and can move me up and get me in at once." + +"We don't do things in quite such a hurry at the Travelers," said he, +laughing. "However, we'll try to comply with your commands." + +His generous, cordial offer made me half ashamed of the plot I had +underneath my submission about the coal mines--a plot to get into the coal +combine in order to gather the means to destroy it, and perhaps reconstruct +it with myself in control. I made up my mind that, if he continued to act +squarely, I would alter those plans. + +"If you don't mind," Langdon was going on, "I'll make a suggestion--merely +a suggestion. It might not be a bad idea for you to arrange to--to +eliminate some of the--the popular features from your--brokerage business. +There are several influential members of the Travelers who have a--a +prejudice--" + +"I understand," I interposed, to spare him the necessity of saying things +he thought I might regard as impertinent. "They look on me as a keeper of a +high-class bucket-shop." "That's about the way they'd put it." + +"But the things they object to are, unfortunately, my 'strong hold,'" I +explained. "You other big fellows gather in the big investors by simply +announcing your projects in a dignified way. I haven't got the ear of that +class of people. I have to send out my letters, have to advertise in all +the cities and towns, have to catch the little fellows. You can afford to +send out engraved invitations; I have to gather in my people with brass +bands and megaphones. Don't forget that my people count in the totals +bigger than yours. And what's my chief value to you? Why, when you want to +unload, I furnish the crowd to unload on, the crowd that gives you and your +big customers cash for your water and wind. I don't see my way to letting +go of what I've got until I get hold of what I'm reaching for." All this +with not a suspicion in my mind that he was at the same game that had +caused Roebuck to "hint" that same proposal. What a "con man" high finance +got when Mowbray Langdon became active down town! + +"That's true," he admitted, with a great air of frankness. "But the cry +that you're not a financier, but a bucket-shop man, might be fatal at the +Travelers. Of course, the sacrifice would be large for such a small object. +Still, you might have to make it--if you really want to get in." + +"I'll think it over," said I. He thought I meant that I'd think over +dropping my power--thought I was as big a snob as he and his friends of the +Travelers, willing to make any sacrifice to be "in the push." But, while +Matthew Blacklock has the streak of snob in him that's natural to all +human beings and to most animals, he is not quite insane. No, the thing +I intended to think over was how to stay in the "bucket-shop" business, +but wash myself of its odium. Bucket-shop! What snobbery! Yet it's human +nature, too. The wholesale merchant looks down on the retailer, the big +retailer on the little; the burglar despises the pickpocket; the financier, +the small promoter; the man who works with his brain, the man who works +with his hands. A silly lot we are--silly to look down, sillier to feel +badly when we're looked down upon. + + + + +VI + +OF "GENTLEMEN" + + +When I got back to my office and was settling I to the proofs of the +"Letter to Investors," which I published in sixty newspapers throughout the +country and which daily reached upward of five million people, Sam Ellersly +came in. His manner was certainly different from what it had ever been +before; a difference so subtle that I couldn't describe it more nearly than +to say it made me feel as if he had not until then been treating me as of +the same class with himself. I smiled to myself and made an entry in my +mental ledger to the credit of Mowbray Langdon. + +"That club business is going nicely," said Sam. "Langdon is enthusiastic, +and I find you've got good friends on the committee." + +I knew that well enough. Hadn't I been carrying them on my books at a good +round loss for two years? + +"If it wasn't for--for some features of this business of yours," he went +on, "I'd say there wouldn't be the slightest trouble." + +"Bucket-shop?" said I with an easy laugh, though this nagging was beginning +to get on my nerves. + +"Exactly," said he. "And, you know, you advertise yourself like--like--" + +"Like everybody else, only more successfully than most," said I. "Everybody +advertises, each one adapting his advertising to the needs of his +enterprises, as far as he knows how." + +"That's true enough," he confessed. "But there are enterprises and +enterprises, you know." + +"You can tell 'em, Sam," said I, "that I never put out a statement I don't +believe to be true, and that when any of my followers lose on one of my +tips, I've lost on it, too. For I play my own tips--and that's more than +can be said of any 'financier' in this town." + +"It'd be no use to tell 'em that," said he. "Character's something of +a consideration in social matters, of course. But it isn't the chief +consideration by a long shot, and the absence of it isn't necessarily +fatal." + +"I'm the biggest single operator in the country," I went on. "And it's my +methods that give me success--because I know how to advertise--how to keep +my name before the country, and how to make men say, whenever they hear +it: 'There's a shrewd, honest fellow.' That and the people it brings me, +in flocks, are my stock in trade. Honesty's a bluff with most of the big +respectables; under cover of their respectability, of their 'old and +honored names,' of their social connections, of their church-going and +that, they do all sorts of queer work." + +"To hear you talk," put in Sam, with a grin, "one would think you didn't +shove off millions of dollars of suspicious stuff on the public through +those damn clever letters of yours." + +"There's where you didn't stop to think, Sam," said I. "When I say a +stock's going to rise, it rises. When I stop talking about it, it may go on +rising or it may fall. But I never advise anybody to buy except when I have +every reason to believe it's a good thing. If they hold on too long, that's +their own lookout." + +"But they invest--" + +"You use words too carelessly," I said. "When I say buy, I don't mean +_invest_. When I mean invest, I say invest." There I laughed. "It's a +word I don't often use." + +"And that's what you call honesty!" jeered he. + +"That's what I call honesty," I retorted, "and that _is_ honesty." And +I thought so then. + +"Well--every man has a right to his own notion of what's honest," he said. +"But no man's got a right to complain if a fellow with a different notion +criticizes him." + +"None in the world," I assented. "Do _you_ criticize me?" + +"No, no, no, indeed!" he answered, nervous, and taking seriously what I had +intended as a joke. + +After a while I dragged in _the_ subject. "One thing I can and will +do to get myself in line for that club," I said, like a seal on promenade. +"I'm sick of the crowd I travel with--the men and the women. I feel it's +about time I settled down. I've got a fortune and establishment that needs +a woman to set it off. I can make some woman happy. You don't happen to +know any nice girls--the right sort, I mean?" + +"Not many." said Sam. "You'd better go back to the country where you came +from, and get her there. She'd be eternally grateful, and her head wouldn't +be full of mercenary nonsense." + +"Excuse me!" exclaimed I. "It'd turn her head. She'd go clean crazy. She'd +plunge in up to her neck--and not being used to these waters, she'd make +a show of herself, and probably drown, dragging me down with her, if +possible." + +Sam laughed. "Keep out of marriage, Matt," he advised, not so obtuse to my +real point as he wanted me to believe. "I know the kind of girl you've got +in mind. She'd marry you for your money, and she'd never appreciate you. +She'd see in you only the lack of the things she's been taught to lay +stress on." + +"For instance?" + +"I couldn't tell you any more than I could enable you to recognize a person +you'd never seen by describing him." + +"Ain't I a gentleman?" I inquired. + +He laughed, as if the idea tickled him. "Of course," he said. "Of course." + +"Ain't I got as proper a country place as there is a-going? Ain't my +apartment in the Willoughby a peach? Don't I give as elegant dinners as you +ever sat down to? Don't I dress right up to the Piccadilly latest? Don't +I act all right--know enough to keep my feet off the table and my knife +out of my mouth?" All true enough; and I so crude then that I hadn't a +suspicion what a flat contradiction of my pretensions and beliefs about +myself the very words and phrases were. + +"You're right in it, Matt," said Sam. "But--well--you haven't traveled with +our crowd, and they're shy of strangers, especially as--as energetic a sort +of stranger as you are. You're too sudden, Matt--too dazzling--too--" + +"Too shiny and new?" said I, beginning to catch his drift. "That'll be +looked after. What I want is you to take me round a bit." + +"I can't ask you to people's houses," protested he, knowing I'd not realize +what a flimsy pretense that was. + +While we were talking I had been thinking--working out the proposition +along lines he had indicated to me without knowing it. "Look here, Sam," I +said. "You imagine I'm trying to butt in with a lot of people that don't +know me and don't want to know me. But that ain't my point of view. Those +people can be useful to me. I need 'em. What do I care whether they want to +be useful to me or not? The machine'd have run down and rusted out long ago +if you and your friends' idea of a gentleman had been taken seriously by +anybody who had anything to do and knew how to do it. In this world you've +got to _make_ people do what's for your good and their own. Your +idea of a gentleman was put forward by lazy fakirs who were living off of +what their ungentlemanly ancestors had annexed, and who didn't want to be +disturbed. So they 'fixed' the game by passing these rules you and your +kind are fools enough to abide by--that is, you are fools, unless you +haven't got brains enough to get on in a free-and-fair-for-all." + +Sam laughed.. "There's a lot of truth in what you say," he admitted. + +"However," I ended, "my plans don't call for hurry just there. When I get +ready to go round, I'll let you know." + + + + +VII + +BLACKLOCK GOES INTO TRAINING + + +This brings me to the ugliest story my enemies have concocted against me. +No one appreciates more thoroughly than I that, to rise high, a man must +have his own efforts seconded by the flood of vituperation that his enemies +send to overwhelm him, and which washes him far higher than he could hope +to lift himself. So I do not here refer to any attack on me in the public +prints; I think of them only with amusement and gratitude. The story that +rankles is the one these foes of mine set creeping, like a snake under the +fallen leaves, everywhere, anywhere, unseen, without a trail. It has been +whispered into every ear--and it is, no doubt, widely believed--that I +deliberately put old Bromwell Ellersly "in a hole," and there tortured him +until he consented to try to compel his daughter to marry me. + +It is possible that, if I had thought of such a devilish device, I might +have tried it--is not all fair in love? But there was no need for my +cudgeling my brains to carry that particular fortification on my way to +what I had fixed my will upon. _Bromwell Ellersly came to me of his own +accord_. + +I suppose the Ellerslys must have talked me over in the family circle. +However this may be, my acquaintance with her father began with Sam's +asking me to lunch with him. "The governor has heard me talk of you so +much," said he, "that he is anxious to meet you." + +I found him a dried-up, conventional old gentleman, very proud of his +ancestors, none of whom I had ever heard of, and very positive that a great +deal of deference was due him--though on what grounds I could not then, +and can not now, make out. I soon discovered that it was the scent of my +stock-tip generosity, wafted to him by Sammy, that had put him hot upon my +trail. I hadn't gone far into his affairs before I learned that he had been +speculating, mortgaging, kiting notes, doing what he called, and thought, +"business" on a large scale. He regarded business as beneath the dignity +and the intellect of a "gentleman"--how my gorge does rise at that word! So +he put his great mind on it only for a few hours now and then; he reserved +the rest of his time for what he regarded as the proper concerns of a +gentleman--attending to social "duties," reading pretentious books, looking +at the pictures and listening to the music decreed fashionable. + +They charge that I put him "in a hole." In fact, I found him at the bottom +of a deep pit he had dug for himself; and when he first met me he was, +without having the sense to realize it, just about to go smash, with not a +penny for his old age. As soon as I had got this fact clear of the tangle, +I showed it to him. + +"My God, what is to become of _me_?" he said, That was his only +thought--not, what is to become of my wife and daughter; but, what is to +become of "_me_!" I do not blame him for this. Naturally enough, +people who have always been used to everything become, unconsciously, +monsters of egotism and selfishness; it is natural, too, that they should +imagine themselves liberal and generous if they give away occasionally +something that costs them, at most, nothing more serious than the foregoing +of some extravagant luxury or other. I recite his remark simply to show +what manner of man he was, what sort of creature I had to deal with. + +I offered to help him, and I did help him. Is there any one, knowing +anything of the facts of life, who will censure me when I admit that +I--with deliberation--simply tided him over, did not make for him and +present to him a fortune? What chance should I have had, if I had been so +absurdly generous to a man who deserved nothing but punishment for his +selfish and bigoted mode of life? I took away his worst burdens; but I left +him more than he could carry without my help. And it was not until he had +appealed, in vain to all his social friends to relieve him of the necessity +of my aid, not until he realized that I was his only hope of escaping a +sharp comedown from luxury to very modest comfort in a flat somewhere--not +until then did his wife send me an invitation to dinner. And I had not so +much as hinted that I wanted it. + +I shall never forget the smallest detail of that dinner--it was a purely +"family" affair, only the Ellerslys and I. I can feel now the oppressive +atmosphere, the look as of impending sacrilege upon the faces of the old +servants; I can see Mrs. Ellersly trying to condescend to be "gracious," +and treating me as if I were some sort of museum freak or menagerie +exhibit. I can see Anita. She was like a statue of snow; she spoke not +a word; if she lifted her eyes, I failed to note it. And when I was +leaving--I with my collar wilted from the fierce, nervous strain I had been +enduring--Mrs. Ellersly, in that voice of hers into which I don't believe +any shade of a real human emotion ever penetrated, said: "You must come to +see us, Mr. Blacklock. We are always at home after five." + +I looked at Miss Ellersly. She was white to the lips now, and the spangles +on her white dress seemed bits of ice glittering there. She said nothing; +but I knew she felt my look, and that it froze the ice the more closely in +around her heart. "Thank you," I muttered. + +I stumbled in the hall; I almost fell down the broad steps. I stopped at +the first bar and took three drinks in quick succession. I went on down the +avenue, breathing like an exhausted swimmer. "I'll give her up!" I cried +aloud, so upset was I. + +I am a man of impulse; but I have trained myself not to be a +_creature_ of impulse, at least not in matters of importance. Without +that patient and painful schooling, I shouldn't have got where I now am; +probably I'd still be blacking boots, or sheet-writing for some bookmaker, +or clerking it for some broker. Before I got to my rooms, the night air and +my habit of the "sober second thought" had cooled me back to rationality. + +"I want her, I need her," I was saying to myself. "I am worthier of her +than are those mincing manikins she has been bred to regard as men. She is +for me--she belongs to me. I'll abandon her to no smirking puppet who'd +wear her as a donkey would a diamond. Why should I do myself and her an +injury simply because she has been too badly brought up to know her own +interest?" + +And now I see all the smooth frauds, all the weak people who never have +purposes or passions worthy of the name, all the finicky, finger-dusting +gentry with the "fine souls," who flatter themselves that their timidity is +the squeamishness of superior sensibilities--I see all these feeble folk +fluttering their feeble fingers in horror of me. "The brute!" they cry; +"the bounder!" Well, I accept the names quite cheerfully. Those are the +epithets the wishy-washy always hurl at the strong; they put me in the +small and truly aristocratic class of men who _do_. I proudly avow +myself no subscriber to the code that was made by the shearers to encourage +the sheep to keep on being nice docile animals, trotting meekly up to +be shorn or slaughtered as their masters may decide. I harm no man, and +no woman; but neither do I pause to weep over any man or any woman who +flings himself or herself upon my steady spear. I try to be courteous and +considerate to all; but I do not stop when some fellow who has something +that belongs to me shouts "Rude!" at me to sheer me off. + +At the same time, her delicate beauty, her quiet, distinctive, high-bred +manner, had thrust it home to me that in certain respects I was ignorant +and crude--as who would not have been, brought up as was I? I knew there +was, somewhere between my roughness of the uncut individuality and the +smoothness of the planed and sand-papered nonentity of her "set," a mean, +better than either, better because more efficient. + +When this was clear to me I sent for my trainer. He was one of those spare, +wiry Englishmen, with skin like tanned and painted hide--brown except +where the bones seem about to push their sharp angles through, and there +a frosty, winter-apple red. He dressed like a Deadwood gambler, he talked +like a stable boy; but for all that, you couldn't fail to see he was a +gentleman born and bred. Yes, he was a gentleman, though he mixed profanity +into his ordinary flow of conversation more liberally than did I when in a +rage. + +I stood up before him, threw my coat back, thrust my thumbs into my +trousers pockets and slowly turned about like a ready-made tailor's dummy. +"Monson," said I, "what do you think of me?" + +He looked me over as if I were a horse he was about to buy. "Sound, I'd +say," was his verdict. "Good wind--uncommon good wind. A goer, and a +stayer. Not a lump. Not a hair out of place." He laughed. "Action a bit +high perhaps--for the track. But a grand reach." + +"I know all that," said I. "You miss my point. Suppose you wanted to enter +me for--say, the Society Sweepstakes--what then?" + +"Um--um," he muttered reflectively. "That's different." + +"Don't I look--sort of--new--as if the varnish was still sticky and might +come off on the ladies' dresses and on the fine furniture?" + +"Oh--that!" said he dubiously. "But all those kinds of things are matters +of taste." + +"Out with it!" I commanded. "Don't be afraid. I'm not one of those damn +fools that ask for criticism when they want only flattery, as you ought +to know by this time. I'm aware of my good points, know how good they are +better than anybody else in the world. And I suspect my weak points--always +did. I've got on chiefly because I made people tell me to my face what +they'd rather have grinned over behind my back." + +"What's your game?" asked Monson. "I'm in the dark." + +"I'll tell you, Monson. I hired you to train horses. Now I want to hire you +to train me, too. As it's double work, it's double pay." + +"Say on," said he, "and say it slow." + +"I want to marry," I explained. "I want to inspect all the offerings before +I decide. You are to train me so that I can go among the herds that'd shy +off from me if I wasn't on to their little ways." + +He looked suspiciously at me, doubtless thinking this some new development +of "American humor." + +"I mean it," I assured him. "I'm going to train, and train hard. I've got +no time to lose. I must be on my way down the aisle inside of three months. +I give you a free hand. I'll do just what you say." + +"The job's out of my line," he protested. + +"I know better," said I. "I've always seen the parlor under the stable in +you. We'll begin right away. What do you think of these clothes?" + +"Well--they're not exactly noisy," he said. "But--they're far from silent. +That waistcoat--" He stopped and gave me another nervous, timid look. He +found it hard to believe a man of my sort, so self-assured, would stand the +truth from a man of his second-fiddle sort. + +"Go on!" I commanded. "Speak out! Mowbray Langdon had on one twice as loud +the other day at the track." + +"But, perhaps you'll remember, it was only his waistcoat that was loud--not +he himself. Now, a man of your manner and voice and--you've got a look out +of the eyes that'd wake the dead all by itself. People can feel you coming +before they hear you. When they feel and hear and see all together--it's +like a brass band in scarlet uniform, with a seven-foot, sky-blue drum +major. If your hair wasn't so black and your eyes so steel-blue and sharp, +and your teeth so big and strong and white, and your jaw such a--such +a--_jaw_--" + +"I see the point," said I. And I did. "You'll find you won't need to tell +me many things twice. I've got a busy day before me here; so we'll have +to suspend this until you come to dine with me at eight--at my rooms. +I want you to put in the time well. Go to my house in the country and +then up to my apartment; take my valet with you; look through all my +belongings--shirts, ties, socks, trousers, waistcoats, clothes of every +kind. Throw out every rag you think doesn't fit in with what I want to be. +How's my grammar?" + +I was proud of it; I had been taking more or less pains with my mode of +speech for a dozen years. "Rather too good," said he. "But that's better +than making the breaks that aren't regarded as good form." + +"Good form!" I exclaimed. "That's it! That's what I want! What does 'good +form' mean?" + +He laughed. "You can search me," said he. "I could easier tell +you--anything else. It's what everybody recognizes on sight, and nobody +knows how to describe. It's like the difference between a cultivated +'jimson' weed and a wild one." + +"Like the difference between Mowbray Langdon and me," I suggested +good-naturedly. "How about my manners?" + +"Not so bad," said he. "Not so rotten bad. But--when you're polite, you're +a little too polite; when you're not polite, you--" + +"Show where I came from too plainly?" said I. "Speak right out--hit good +and hard. Am I too frank for 'good form'?" + +"You needn't bother about that," he assured me. "Say whatever comes into +your head--only, be sure the right sort of thing comes into your head. +Don't talk too much about yourself, for instance. It's good form to think +about yourself all the time; it's bad form to let people see it--in your +talk. Say as little as possible about your business and about what you've +got. Don't be lavish with the I's and the my's." + +"That's harder," said I. "I'm a man who has always minded his own business, +and cared for nothing else. What could I talk about, except myself?" + +"Blest if I know," replied he. "Where you want to go, the last thing people +mind is their own business--in talk, at least. But you'll get on all right +if you don't worry too much about it. You've got natural independence, and +an original way of putting things, and common sense. Don't be afraid." + +"Afraid!" said I. "I never knew what it was to be afraid." + +"Your nerve'll carry you through," he assured me. "Nerve'll take a man +anywhere." + +"You never said a truer thing in your life," said I. "It'll take him +wherever he wants, and, after he's there, it'll get him whatever he wants." + +And with that, I, thinking of my plans and of how sure I was of success, +began to march up and down the office with my chest thrown out--until I +caught myself at it. That stopped me, set me off in a laugh at my own +expense, he joining in with a kind of heartiness I did not like, though I +did not venture to check him. + +So ended the first lesson--the first of a long series. I soon saw that +Monson was being most useful to me--far more useful than if he were a +"perfect gentleman" with nothing of the track and stable and back stairs +about him. Being a sort of betwixt and between, he could appreciate my +needs as they could not have been appreciated by a fellow who had never +lived in the rough-and-tumble I had fought my way up through. And being +at bottom a real gentleman, and not one of those nervous, snobbish +make-believes, he wasn't so busy trying to hide his own deficiencies +from me that he couldn't teach me anything. He wasn't afraid of being +found out, as Sam--or perhaps, even Langdon--would have been in the same +circumstances. I wonder if there is another country where so many gentlemen +and ladies are born, or another where so many of them have their natural +gentility educated out of them. + + + + +VIII + +ON THE TRAIL OF LANGDON + + +I had Monson with me twice each week-day--early in the morning and again +after business hours until bed-time. Also he spent the whole of every +Saturday and Sunday with me. He developed astonishing dexterity as a +teacher, and as soon as he realized that I had no false pride and was +thoroughly in earnest, he handled me without gloves--like a boxing teacher +who finds that his pupil has the grit of a professional. It was easy enough +for me to grasp the theory of my new business--it was nothing more than "Be +natural." But the rub came in making myself naturally of the right sort. +I had--as I suppose every man of intelligence and decent instincts has--a +disposition to be friendly and simple. But my manner was by nature what you +might call abrupt. My not very easy task was to learn the subtle difference +between the abrupt that injects a tonic into social intercourse, and the +abrupt that makes the other person shut up with a feeling of having been +insulted. + +Then, there was the matter of good taste in conversation. Monson found, +as I soon saw, that my everlasting self-assertiveness was beyond cure. As +I said to him: "I'm afraid you might easier succeed in reducing my chest +measure." But we worked away at it, and perhaps my readers may discover +even in this narrative, though it is necessarily egotistic, evidence of at +least an honest effort not to be baldly boastful. Monson would have liked +to make of me a self-deprecating sort of person--such as he was himself, +with the result that the other fellow always got the prize and he got left. +But I would have none of it. + +"How are people to know about you, if you don't tell 'em?" I argued. "Don't +you yourself admit that men take a man at his own valuation less a slight +discount, and that women take him at his own valuation plus an allowance +for his supposed modesty?" + +"Cracking yourself up is vulgar, nevertheless," declared the Englishman. +"It's the chief reason why we on the other side look on you Americans as a +lot of vulgarians--" + +"And are in awe of our superior cleverness," I put in. + +He laughed. + +"Well, do the best you can," said he. "Only, you really must not brag and +swagger, and you must get out of the habit of talking louder than any one +else." + +In the matter of dress, our task was easy. I had a fancy for bright +colors and for strong contrasts; but I know I never indulged in clashes +and discords. It was simply that in clothes I had the same taste as in +pictures--the taste that made me prefer Rubens to Rembrandt. We cast out of +my wardrobe everything in the least doubtful; and I gave away my jeweled +canes, my pins and links and buttons for shirts and waistcoats except plain +gold and pearls. I even left off the magnificent diamond I had worn for +years on my little finger--but I didn't give away that stone; I put it +by for resetting into an engagement ring. However, when I was as quietly +dressed as it was possible for a gentleman to be, he still studied me +dubiously, when he thought I wasn't seeing him. And I recall that he said +once: "It's your face, Blacklock. If you could only manage to look less +like a Spanish bull dashing into the ring, gazing joyfully about for +somebody to gore and toss!" + +"But I can't," said I. "And I wouldn't if I could--because that's +_me_!" + +One Saturday he brought a dancing master down to my country place--Dawn +Hill, which I bought of the Dumont estate and completely remodeled. I saw +what the man's business was the instant I looked at him. I left him in the +hall and took Monson into my den. + +"Not for me!" I protested. "There's where I draw the line." + +"You don't understand," he urged. "This fellow, this Alphonse Lynch, out in +the hall there, isn't going to teach you dancing so that you may dance, but +so that you shall be less awkward in strange company." + +"My walk suits me," said I. "And I don't fall over furniture or trip people +up." + +"True enough," he answered. "But you haven't the complete control of your +body that'll make you unconscious of it when you're suddenly shot by a +butler into a room full of people you suspect of being unfriendly and +critical." + +Not until he used his authority as trainer-in-full-charge, did I yield. It +may seem absurd to some for a serious man like me solemnly to caper about +in imitation of a scraping, grimacing French-Irishman; but Monson was +right, and I haven't in the least minded the ridicule he has brought on me +by tattling this and the other things everywhere, since he turned against +me. It's nothing new under the sun for the crowds of chuckleheads to laugh +where they ought to applaud; their habit is to laugh and to applaud in the +wrong places. There's no part of my career that I'm prouder of than the +whole of this thorough course of education in the trifles that are yet not +trifles. To have been ignorant is no disgrace; the disgrace comes when one +persists in ignorance and glories in it. + +Yet those who make the most pretensions in this topsy-turvy of a world +regard it as a disgrace to have been obscure and ignorant, and pride +themselves upon their persistence in their own kind of obscurity and +ignorance! No wonder the few strong men do about as they please with such a +race of nincompoopery. If they didn't grow old and tired, what would they +not do? + +All this time I was giving myself--or thought I was giving myself--chiefly +to my business, as usual. I know now that the new interests had in fact +crowded the things down town far into the background, had impaired my +judgment, had suspended my common sense; but I had no inkling of this then, +The most important matter that was occupying me down town was pushing +Textile up toward par. Langdon's doubts, little though they influenced me, +still made enough of an impression to cause me to test the market. I sold +for him at ninety, as he had directed; I sold in quantity every day. But no +matter how much I unloaded, the price showed no tendency to break. + +"This," said I to myself, "is a testimonial to the skill with which I +prepared for my bull campaign." And that seemed to me--all unsuspicious as +I then was--a sufficient explanation of the steadiness of the stock which I +had worked to establish in the public confidence. + +I felt that, if my matrimonial plans should turn out as I confidently +expected, I should need a much larger fortune than I had--for I was +determined that my wife should have an establishment second to none. +Accordingly, I enlarged my original plan. I had intended to keep close +to Langdon in that plunge; I believed I controlled the market, but I +hadn't been in Wall Street twenty years without learning that the worst +thunderbolts fall from cloudless skies. Without being in the least +suspicious of Langdon, and simply acting on the general principle that +surprise and treachery are part of the code of high finance, I had prepared +to guard, first, against being taken in the rear by a secret change of plan +on Langdon's part, and second, against being involved and overwhelmed by a +sudden secret attack on him from some associate of his who might think he +had laid himself open to successful raiding. + +The market is especially dangerous toward Christmas and in the +spring--toward Christmas the big fellows often juggle the stocks to get the +money for their big Christmas gifts and alms; toward spring the motive is, +of course, the extra summer expenses of their families and the commencement +gifts to colleges. It was now late in the spring. + +I say, I had intended to be cautious. I abandoned caution and rushed in +boldly, feeling that the market was, in general, safe and that Textile was +under my control--and that I was one of the kings of high finance, with +my lucky star in the zenith. I decided to continue my bull campaign on my +own account for two weeks after I had unloaded for Langdon, to continue +it until the stock was at par. I had no difficulty in pushing it to +ninety-seven, and I was not alarmed when I found myself loaded up with +it, quoted at ninety-eight for the preferred and thirty for the common. I +assumed that I was practically its only supporter and that it would slowly +settle back as I slowly withdrew my support. + +To my surprise, the stock did not yield immediately under my efforts to +depress it. I sold more heavily; Textile continued to show a tendency to +rise. I sold still more heavily; it broke a point or two, then steadied +and rose again. Instead of sending out along my secret lines for inside +information, as I should have done, and would have done had I not been in +a state of hypnotized judgment--I went to Langdon! I who had been studying +those scoundrels for twenty-odd years, and dealing directly with and for +them for ten years! + +He wasn't at his office; they told me there that they didn't know whether +he was at his town house or at his place in the country--"probably in the +country," said his down-town secretary, with elaborate carelessness. "He +wouldn't be likely to stay away from the office or not to send for me, if +he were in town, would he?" + +It takes an uncommon good liar to lie to me when I'm on the alert. As I was +determined to see Langdon, I was in so far on the alert. And I felt the +fellow was lying. "That's reasonable," said I. "Call me up, if you hear +from him. I want to see him--important, but not immediate." And I went +away, having left the impression that I would make no further effort. + +Incredible though it may seem, especially to those who know how careful I +am to guard every point and to see in every friend a possible foe, I still +did not suspect that smooth, that profound scoundrel. I do not use these +epithets with heat. I flatter myself I am a connoisseur of finesse and can +look even at my own affairs with judicial impartiality. And Langdon was, +and is now, such a past master of finesse that he compels the admiration +even of his victims. He's like one of those fabled Damascus blades. When +he takes a leg off, the victim forgets to suffer in his amazement at the +cleanness of the wound, in his incredulity that the leg is no longer +part of him. "Langdon," said I to myself, "is a sly dog. No doubt he's +busy about some woman, and has covered his tracks." Yet I ought, in the +circumstances, instantly to have suspected that I was the person he was +dodging. + +I went up to his house. You, no doubt, have often seen and often admired +its beautiful façade, so simple that it hides its own magnificence from +all but experienced eyes, so perfect in its proportions that it hides the +vastness of the palace of which it is the face. I have heard men say: "I'd +like to have a house--a moderate-sized house--one about the size of Mowbray +Langdon's--though perhaps a little more elegant, not so plain." + +That's typical of the man. You have to look closely at him, to study him, +before you appreciate how he has combined a thousand details of manner and +dress into an appearance which, while it can not but impress the ordinary +man with its distinction, suggests to all but the very observant the most +modest plainness and simplicity. How few realize that simplicity must be +profound, complex, studied, not to be and to appear crude and coarse. In +those days that truth had just begun to dawn on me. + +"Mr. Langdon isn't at home," said the servant. + +I had been at his house once before; I knew he occupied the left side--the +whole of the second floor, so shut off that it not only had a separate +entrance, but also could not be reached by those in the right side of +the house without descending to the entrance hall and ascending the left +stairway. + +"Just take my card to his private secretary, to Mr. Rathburn," said I. "Mr. +Langdon has doubtless left a message for me." + +The butler hesitated, yielded, showed me into the reception-room off the +entrance hall. I waited a few seconds, then adventured the stairway to +the left, up which he had disappeared. I entered the small salon in which +Langdon had received me on my other visit. From the direction of an open +door, I heard his voice--he was saying: "I am not at home. There's no +message." + +And still I did not realize that it was I he was avoiding! + +"It's no use now, Langdon," I called cheerfully. "Beg pardon for seeming to +intrude. I misunderstood--or didn't hear where the servant said I was to +wait. However, no harm done. So long! I'm off." But I made no move toward +the door by which I had entered; instead, I advanced a few feet nearer the +door from which his voice had come. + +After a brief--a very brief--pause, there came in Langdon's +voice--laughing, not a trace of annoyance: "I might have known! Come in, +Matt!" + + + + +IX + +LANGDON AT HOME + + +I entered, with an amused glance at the butler, who was giving over his +heavy countenance to a delightful exhibition of disgust and discomfiture. +It was Langdon's sitting-room. He had had the carved antique oak interior +of a room in an old French palace torn out and transported to New York +and set up for him. I had made a study of that sort of thing, and at Dawn +Hill had done something toward realizing my own ideas of the splendid. +But a glance showed me that I was far surpassed. What I had done seemed +in comparison like the composition of a school-boy beside an essay by +Goldsmith or Hazlitt. + +And in the midst of this quiet splendor sat, or rather lounged, Langdon, +reading the newspapers. He was dressed in a dark blue velvet house-suit +with facings and cords of blue silk a shade or so lighter than the suit. I +had always thought him handsome; he looked now like a god. He was smoking +a cigarette in an oriental holder nearly a foot long; but the air of +the room, so perfect was the ventilation, instead of being scented with +tobacco, had the odor of some fresh, clean, slightly saline perfume. + +I think what was in my mind must have shown in my face, must have subtly +flattered him, for, when I looked at him, he was giving me a look of +genuine friendly kindliness. "This is--perfect, Langdon," said I. "And I +think I'm a judge." + +"Glad you like it," said he, trying to dissemble his satisfaction in so +strongly impressing me. + +"You must take me through your house sometime," I went on. "I'm going to +build soon. No--don't be afraid I'll imitate. I'm too vain for that. But I +want suggestions. I'm not ashamed to go to school to a master--to anybody, +for that matter." + +"Why do you build?" said he. "A town house is a nuisance. If I could induce +my wife to take the children to the country to live, I'd dispose of this." + +"That's it--the wife," said I. + +"But you have no wife. At least--" + +"No," I replied with a laugh. "Not yet. But I'm going to have." + +I interpreted his expression then as amused cynicism. But I see a different +meaning in it now. And I can recall his tone, can find a strained note +which then escaped me in his usual mocking drawl. + +"To marry?" said he. "I haven't heard of that." + +"Nor no one else," said I. + +"Except her," said he. + +"Not even except her," said I. "But I've got my eye on her--and you know +what that means with me." + +"Yes, I know," drawled he. Then he added, with a curious twinkle which I do +not now misunderstand: "We have somewhat the same weakness." + +"I shouldn't call it a weakness," said I. "It's the quality that makes the +chief difference between us and the common run--the fellows that have no +purposes beyond getting comfortably through each day--" + +"And getting real happiness," he interrupted, with just a tinge of +bitterness. + +"We wouldn't think it happiness," was my answer. + +"The worse for us," he replied. "We're under the tyranny of to-morrow--and +happiness is impossible." + +"May I look at your bedroom?" I asked. + +"Certainly," he assented. + +I pushed open the door he indicated. At first glimpse I was disappointed. +The big room looked like a section of a hospital ward. It wasn't until +I had taken a second and very careful look at the tiled floor, walls, +ceiling, that I noted that those plain smooth tiles were of the very +finest, were probably of his own designing, certainly had been imported +from some great Dutch or German kiln. Not an inch of drapery, not a +picture, nothing that could hold dust or germs anywhere; a square of +sanitary matting by the bed; another square opposite an elaborate +exercising machine. The bed was of the simplest metallic construction--but +I noted that the metal was the finest bronze. On it was a thin, hard +mattress. You could wash the big room down and out with the hose, without +doing any damage. + +"Quite a contrast," said I, glancing from the one room to the other. + +"My architect is a crank on sanitation," he explained, from his lounge. + +I noted that the windows were huge--to admit floods of light--and that +they were hermetically sealed so that the air should be only the pure air +supplied from the ventilating apparatus. To many people that room would +have seemed a cheaply got together cell; to me, once I had examined it, it +was evidently built at enormous cost and represented an extravagance of +common-sense luxury which was more than princely or royal. + +Suddenly my mind reverted to my business. "How do you account for the +steadiness of Textile, Langdon?" I asked, returning to the carved +sitting-room and trying to put those surroundings out of my mind. + +"I don't account for it," was his languid, uninterested reply. + +"Any of your people under the market?" + +"It isn't to my interest to have it supported, is it?" he replied. + +"I know that," I admitted. "But why doesn't it drop?" + +"Those letters of yours may have overeducated the public in confidence," +suggested he. "Your followers have the habit of believing implicitly +whatever you say." + +"Yes, but I haven't written a line about Textile for nearly a month now," I +pretended to object, my vanity fairly purring with pleasure. + +"That's the only reason I can give," said he. + +"You are sure none of your people is supporting the stock?" I asked, as a +form and not for information; for I thought I knew they weren't--I trusted +him to have seen to that. + +"I'd like to get my holdings back," said he. "I can't buy until it's down. +And I know none of my people would dare support it." + +You will notice he did not say directly that he was not himself supporting +the market; he simply so answered me that I, not suspecting him, would +think he reassured me. There is another of those mysteries of conscience. +Had it been necessary, Langdon would have told me the lie flat and direct, +would have told it without a tremor of the voice or a blink of the eye, +would have lied to me as I have heard him, and almost all the big fellows, +lie under oath before courts and legislative committees; yet, so long as it +was possible, he would thus lie to me with lies that were not lies. As if +negative lies are not falser and more cowardly than positive lies, because +securer and more deceptive. + +"Well, then, the price must break," said I, "It won't be many days before +the public begins to realize that there isn't anybody under Textile." + +"No sharp break!" he said carelessly. "No panic!" + +"I'll see to that," replied I, with not a shadow of a notion of the +subtlety behind his warning. + +"I hope it will break soon," he then said, adding in his friendliest voice +with what I now know was malignant treachery: "You owe it to me to bring it +down." That meant that he wished me to increase my already far too heavy +and dangerous line of shorts. + +Just then a voice--a woman's voice--came from the salon. "May I come in? Do +I interrupt?" it said, and its tone struck me as having in it something of +plaintive appeal. + +"Excuse me a moment, Blacklock," said he, rising with what was for him +haste. + +But he was too late. The woman entered, searching the room with a piercing, +suspicious gaze. At once I saw, behind that look, a jealousy that pounced +on every object that came into its view, and studied it with a hope that +feared and a fear that hoped. When her eyes had toured the room, they +paused upon him, seemed to be saying: "You've baffled me again, but I'm not +discouraged. I shall catch you yet." + +"Well, my dear?" said Langdon, whom she seemed faintly to amuse. "It's only +Mr. Blacklock. Mr. Blacklock, my wife." + +I bowed; she looked coldly at me, and her slight nod was more than a hint +that she wished to be left alone with her husband. + +I said to him: "Well, I'll be off. Thank you for--" + +"One moment," he interrupted. Then to his wife: "Anything special?" + +She flushed. "No--nothing special. I just came to see you. But if I am +disturbing you--as usual--" + +"Not at all," said he. "When Blacklock and I have finished, I'll come to +you. It won't be longer than an hour--or so." + +"Is that all?" she said almost savagely. Evidently she was one of those +women who dare not make "scenes" with their husbands in private and so are +compelled to take advantage of the presence of strangers to ease their +minds. She was an extremely pretty woman, would have been beautiful but for +the worn, strained, nervous look that probably came from her jealousy. She +was small in stature; her figure was approaching that stage at which a +woman is called "well rounded" by the charitable, fat by the frank and +accurate. A few years more and she would be hunting down and destroying +early photographs. There was in the arrangement of her hair and in the +details of her toilet--as well as in her giving way to her tendency to +fat--that carelessness that so many women allow themselves, once they are +safely married to a man they care for. + +"Curious," thought I, "that being married to him should make her feel +secure enough of him to let herself go, although her instinct is warning +her all the time that she isn't in the least sure of him. Her laziness must +be stronger than her love--her laziness or her vanity." + +While I was thus sizing her up, she was reluctantly leaving. She didn't +even give me the courtesy of a bow--whether from self-absorption or from +haughtiness I don't know; probably from both. She was a Western woman, +and when those Western women do become perverts to New York's gospel of +snobbishness, they are the worst snobs in the push. Langdon, regardless of +my presence, looked after her with a faintly amused, faintly contemptuous +expression that--well, it didn't fit in with _my_ notion of what +constitutes a gentleman. In fact, I didn't know which of them had come off +the worse in that brief encounter in my presence. It was my first glimpse +of a fashionable behind-the-scenes, and it made a profound impression upon +me--an impression that has grown deeper as I have learned how much of the +typical there was in it. Dirt looks worse in the midst of finery than where +one naturally expects to find it--looks worse, and is worse. + +When we were seated again, Langdon, after a few reflective puffs at his +cigarette, said: "So you're about to marry?" + +"I hope so," said I. "But as I haven't asked her yet, I can't be quite +sure." For obvious reasons I wasn't so enamored of the idea of matrimony as +I had been a few minutes before. + +"I trust you're making a sensible marriage," said he. "If the part that may +be glamour should by chance rub clean away, there ought to be something to +make one feel he wasn't wholly an ass." + +"Very sensible," I replied with emphasis. "I want the woman. I need her." + +He inspected the coal of his cigarette, lifting his eyebrows at it. +Presently he said: "And she?" + +"I don't know how she feels about it--as I told you," I replied curtly. In +spite of myself, my eyes shifted and my skin began to burn. "By the way, +Langdon, what's the name of your architect?" + +"Wilder and Marcy," said he. "They're fairly satisfactory, if you tell +'em exactly what you want and watch 'em all the time. They're perfectly +conventional and so can't distinguish between originality that's artistic +and originality that's only bizarre. They're like most people--they keep to +the beaten track and fight tooth and nail against being drawn out of it and +against those who do go out of it." + +"I'll have a talk with Marcy this very day," said I. + +"Oh, you're in a hurry!" He laughed. "And you haven't asked her. You remind +me of that Greek philosopher who was in love with Lais. They asked him: +'But does she love you?' And he said: 'One does not inquire of the fish one +likes whether it likes one.'" + +I flushed. "You'll pardon me, Langdon," said I, "but I don't like that. It +isn't my attitude at all toward--the right sort of women." + +He looked half-quizzical, half-apologetic. "Ah, to be sure," said he. "I +forgot you weren't a married man." + +"I don't think I'll ever lose the belief that there's a quality in a good +woman for a man to--to respect and look up to." + +"I envy you," said he, but his eyes were mocking still. I saw he was a +little disdainful of my rebuking _him_--and angry at me, too. + +"Woman's a subject of conversation that men ought to avoid," said I +easily--for, having set myself right, I felt I could afford to smooth him +down. + +"Well, good-by--good luck--or, if I may be permitted to say it to one so +touchy, the kind of luck you're bent on having, whether it's good or bad." + +"If my luck ain't good, I'll make it good," said I with a laugh. + +And so I left him, with a look in his eyes that came back to me long +afterward when I realized the full meaning of that apparently almost +commonplace interview. + +That same day I began to plunge on Textile, watching the market closely, +that I might go more slowly should there be signs of a dangerous break--for +no more than Langdon did I want a sudden panicky slump. The price held +steady, however; but I, fool that I was, certain the fall must come, +plunged on, digging the pit for my own destruction deeper and deeper. + + + + +X + +TWO "PILLARS OF SOCIETY" + + +I was neither seeing nor hearing from the Ellerslys, father or son; but, +as I knew why, I was not disquieted. I had made them temporarily easy in +their finances just before that dinner, and they, being fatuous, incurable +optimists, were probably imagining they would never need me again. I did +not disturb them until Monson and I had got my education so well under +way that even I, always severe in self-criticism and now merciless, was +compelled to admit to myself a distinct change for the better. You know +how it is with a boy at the "growing age"--how he bursts out of clothes +and ideas of life almost as fast as they are supplied him, so swiftly is +he transforming into a man. Well, I think it is much that way with us +Americans all our lives; we continue on and on at the growing age. And +if one of us puts his or her mind hard upon growth in some particular +direction, you see almost overnight a development fledged to the last +tail-feathers and tip of top-knot where there was nothing at all. What +miracles can be wrought by an open mind and a keen sense of the cumulative +power of the unwasted minute! All this apropos of a very trivial matter, +you may be thinking. But, be careful how you judge what is trivial and what +important in a universe built up of atoms. + +However-- When my education seemed far enough advanced, I sent for Sam. +He, after his footless fashion, didn't bother to acknowledge my note. His +margin account with me was at the moment straight; I turned to his father. +I had my cashier send him a formal, type-written letter signed Blacklock & +Co., informing him that his account was overdrawn and that we "would be +obliged if he would give the matter his immediate attention." The note must +have reached him the following morning; but he did not come until, after +waiting three days, "we" sent him a sharp demand for a check for the +balance due us. + +A pleasing, aristocratic-looking figure he made as he entered my office, +with his air of the man whose hands have never known the stains of toil, +with his manner of having always received deferential treatment. There +was no pretense in my curt greeting, my tone of "despatch your business, +sir, and be gone"; for I was both busy and much irritated against him. +"I guess you want to see our cashier," said I, after giving him a hasty, +absent-minded hand-shake. "My boy out there will take you to him." + +The old do-nothing's face lost its confident, condescending expression. His +lip quivered, and I think there were tears in his bad, dim, gray-green +eyes. I suppose he thought his a profoundly pathetic case; no doubt he +hadn't the remotest conception what he really was--and no doubt, also, +there are many who would honestly take his view. As if the fact that he +was born with all possible advantages did not make him and his plight +inexcusable. It passes my comprehension why people of his sort, when +suffering from the calamities they have deliberately brought upon +themselves by laziness and self-indulgence and extravagance, should get +a sympathy that is withheld from those of the honest human rank and file +falling into far more real misfortunes not of their own making. + +"No, my dear Blacklock," said he, cringing now as easily as he had +condescended--how to cringe and how to condescend are taught at the same +school, the one he had gone to all his life. "It is you I want to talk +with. And, first, I owe you my apologies. I know you'll make allowances +for one who was never trained to business methods. I've always been like a +child in those matters." + +"You frighten me," said I. "The last 'gentleman' who came throwing me off +my guard with that plea was shrewd enough to get away with a very large +sum of my hard-earned money. Besides"--and I was laughing, though not too +good-naturedly--"I've noticed that you 'gentlemen' become vague about +business only when the balance is against you. When it's in your favor, you +manage to get your minds on business long enough to collect to the last +fraction of a cent." + +He heartily echoed my laugh. "I only wish I _were_ clever," said he. +"However, I've come to ask your indulgence. I'd have been here before, +but those who owe me have been putting me off. And they're of the sort of +people whom it's impossible to press." + +"I'd like to accommodate you further," said I, shedding that last little +hint as a cliff sheds rain, "but your account has been in an unsatisfactory +state for nearly a month now." + +"I'm sure you'll give me a few days longer," was his easy reply, as if we +were discussing a trifle. "By the way, you haven't been to see us yet. Only +this morning my wife was wondering when you'd come. You quite captivated +her, Blacklock. Can't you dine with us to-morrow night--no, Sunday--at +eight? We're having in a few people I think you'd like to meet." + +If any one imagines that this bald, businesslike way of putting it set +my teeth on edge, let him dismiss the idea; my nerves had been too long +accustomed to the feel of the harsh facts of life. It is evidence of the +shrewdness of the old fellow at character-reading that he wasted none of +his silk and velvet pretenses upon me, and so saved his time and mine. +Probably he wished me to see that I need have no timidity or false shame in +dealing with him, that when the time came to talk business I was free to +talk it in my own straight fashion. + +"Glad to come," said I, wishing to be rid of him, now that my point was +gained. "We'll let the account stand open for the present--I rather think +your stocks are going up. Give my regards to--the ladies, please, +especially to Miss Anita." + +He winced, but thanked me graciously; gave me his soft, fine hand to shake +and departed, as eager to be off as I to be rid of him. "Sunday next--at +eight," were his last words. "Don't fail us"--that in the tone of a king +addressing some obscure person whom he had commanded to court. It may be +that old Ellersly was wholly unconscious of his superciliousness, fancied +he was treating me as if I were almost an equal; but I suspect he rather +accentuated his natural manner, with the idea of impressing upon me that +in our deal he was giving at least as much as I. + +I recall that I thought about him for several minutes after he was +gone--philosophized on the folly of a man's deliberately weaving a net to +entangle himself. As if any man was ever caught in any net not of his own +weaving and setting; as if I myself were not just then working at the last +row of meshes of a net in which I was to ensnare myself. + +My petty and inevitable success with that helpless creature added +amazingly, ludicrously, to that dangerous elation which, as I can now see, +had been growing in me ever since the day Roebuck yielded so readily to my +demands as to National Coal. The whole trouble with me was that up to that +time I had won all my victories by the plainest kind of straightaway hard +work. I was imagining myself victor in contests of wit against wit, when, +in fact, no one with any especial equipment of brains had ever opposed me; +all the really strong men had been helping me because they found me useful. +Too easy success--there is the clue to the wild folly of my performances in +those days, a folly that seems utterly inconsistent with the reputation for +shrewdness I had, and seemed to have earned. + +I can find a certain small amount of legitimate excuse for my falling under +Langdon's spell. He had, and has, fascinations, through personal magnetism, +which it is hardly in human nature to resist. But for my self-hypnotism in +the case of Roebuck, I find no excuse whatever for myself. + +He sent for me and told me what share in National Coal they had decided to +give me for my Manasquale mines. "Langdon and Melville," said he, "think me +too liberal; far too liberal, my boy. But I insisted--in your case I felt +we could afford to be generous as well as just." All this with an air that +was a combination of the pastor and the parent. + +I can't even offer the excuse of not having seen that he was a hypocrite. +I felt his hypocrisy at once, and my first impulse was to jump for my +breastworks. But instantly my vanity got behind me, held me in the open, +pushed me on toward him. If you will notice, almost all "confidence" games +rely for success chiefly upon enlisting a man's vanity to play the traitor +to his judgment. So, instead of reading his liberality as plain proof of +intended treachery, I read it as plain proof of my own greatness, and of +the fear it had inspired in old Roebuck. Laugh _with_ me if you like; +but, before you laugh _at_ me, think carefully--those of you who have +ever put yourselves to the test on the field of action--think carefully +whether you have never found that your head decoration which you thought a +crown was in reality the peaked and belled cap of the fool. + +But my vanity was not done with me. Led on by it, I proceeded to have one +of those ridiculous "generous impulses"--I persuaded myself that there must +be some decency in this liberality, in addition to the prudence which I +flattered myself was the chief cause. "I have been unjust to Roebuck," I +thought. "I have been misjudging his character." And incredible though it +seems, I said to him with a good deal of genuine emotion: "I don't know +how to thank you, Mr. Roebuck. And, instead of trying, I want to apologize +to you. I have thought many hard things against you; have spoken some of +them. I had better have been attending to my own conscience, instead of +criticizing yours." + +I had often thought his face about the most repulsive, hypocrisy-glozed +concourse of evil passions that ever fronted a fiend in the flesh. It had +seemed to me the fitting result of a long career which, according to common +report, was stained with murder, with rapacity and heartless cruelty, with +the most brutal secret sensuality, and which had left in its wake the ruins +of lives and hearts and fortunes innumerable. I had looked on the vast +wealth he had heaped mountain high as a monument to devil-daring--other men +had, no doubt, dreamed of doing the ferocious things he had done, but their +weak, human hearts failed when it came to executing such horrible acts, and +they had to be content with smaller fortunes, with the comparatively small +fruits of their comparatively small infamies. He had dared all, had won; +the most powerful bowed with quaking knees before him, and trembled lest +they might, by a blundering look or word, excite his anger and cause him to +snatch their possessions from them. + +Thus I had regarded him, accepting the universal judgment, believing the +thousand and one stories. But as his eyes, softened by his hugely generous +act, beamed upon me now, I was amazed that I had so misjudged him. In that +face which I had thought frightful there was, to my hypnotized gaze, the +look of strong, sincere--yes, holy--beauty and power--the look of an +archangel. + +"Thank you, Blacklock," said he, in a voice that made me feel as if I were +a little boy in the crossroads church, believing I could almost see the +angels floating above the heads of the singers in the choir behind the +preacher. "Thank you. I am not surprised that you have misjudged me. God +has given me a great work to do, and those who do His will in this wicked +world must expect martyrdom. I should never have had the courage to do what +I have done, what He has done through me, had He not guided my every step. +You are not a religious man?" + +"I try to do what's square," said I. "But I'd prefer not to talk about it." + +"That's right! That's right!" he approved earnestly. "A man's religion is +a matter between himself and his God. But I hope, Matthew, you will never +forget that, unless you have daily, hourly communion with Almighty God, +you will never be able to bear the great burdens, to do the great work +fearlessly, disregarding the lies of the wicked, and, hardest of all to +endure, the honestly-mistaken judgments of honest men." + +"I'll look into it," said I. And I don't know to what lengths of foolish +speech I should have gone had I not been saved by an office boy +interrupting with a card for him. + +"Ah, here's Walters now," said he. Then to the boy: "Bring him in when I +ring." + +I rose to go. + +"No, sit down, Blacklock," he insisted. "You are in with us now, and you +may learn something by seeing how I deal with the larger problems that face +men in these large undertakings, the problems that have faced me in each +new enterprise I have inaugurated to the glory of God." + +Naturally, I accepted with enthusiasm. + +You would not believe what a mood I had by this time been worked into by my +rampant and raging vanity and emotionalism and by his snake-like charming. +"Thank you," I said, with an energetic warmth that must have secretly +amused him mightily. + +"When my reorganization of the iron industry proved such a great success, +and God rewarded my labors with large returns," he went on, "I looked +about me to see what new work He wished me to undertake, how He wished me +to invest His profits. And I saw the coal industry and the coal-carrying +railroads in confusion, with waste on every side, and godless competition. +Thousands of widows and orphans who had invested in coal railways and mines +were getting no returns. Labor was fitfully employed, owing to alternations +of over-production and no production at all. I saw my work ready for my +hand. And now we are bringing order out of chaos. This man Walters, useful +up to a certain point, has become insolent, corrupt, a stumbling-block in +our way." Here he pressed the button of his electric bell. + + + + +XI + +WHEN A MAN IS NOT A MAN + + +Walters entered. He was one of the great railway presidents, was +universally regarded as a power, though I, of course, knew that he, like so +many other presidents of railways, of individual corporations, of banks, +of insurance companies, and high political officials in cities, states +and the nation, was little more than a figurehead put up and used by the +inside financial ring. As he shifted from leg to leg, holding his hat and +trying to steady his twitching upper lip, he looked as one of his smallest +section-bosses would have looked, if called up for a wigging. + +Roebuck shook hands cordially with him, responded to his nervous glance at +me with: + +"Blacklock is practically in our directory." We all sat, then Roebuck began +in his kindliest tone: + +"We have decided, Walters, that we must give your place to a stronger man. +Your gross receipts, outside of coal, have fallen rapidly and steadily for +the past three quarters. You were put into the presidency to bring them +up. They have shown no change beyond what might have been expected in the +natural fluctuations of freight. We calculated on resuming dividends a year +ago. We have barely been able to meet the interest on our bonds." + +"But, Mr. Roebuck," pleaded Walters, "you doubled the bonded indebtedness +of the road just before I took charge." + +"The money went into improvements, into increasing your facilities, did it +not?" inquired Roebuck, his paw as soft as a playful tiger's. + +"Part of it," said Walters. "But you remember the reorganizing syndicate +got five millions, and then the contracts for the new work had to be given +to construction companies in which directors of the road were silent +partners. Then they are interested in the supply companies from which I +must buy. You know what all that means, Mr. Roebuck." + +"No doubt," said Roebuck, still smooth and soft. "But if there was waste, +you should have reported--" + +"To whom?" demanded Walters. "Every one of our directors, including +yourself, Mr. Roebuck, is a stock-holder--a large stock-holder--in one or +more of those companies." + +"Have you proof of this, Walters?" asked Roebuck, looking profoundly +shocked. "It's a very grave charge--a criminal charge." + +"Proof?" said Walters, "You know how that is. The real books of all big +companies are kept in the memories of the directors--and mighty treacherous +memories they are." This with a nervous laugh. "As for the holdings of +directors in construction and supply companies--most of those holdings are +in other names--all of them are disguised where the connection is direct." + +Roebuck shook his head sadly. "You admit, then, that you have allowed +millions of the road's money to be wasted, that you made no complaint, no +effort to stop the waste; and your only defense is that you _suspect_ +the directors of fraud. And you accuse them to excuse yourself--accuse them +with no proof. Were you in any of those companies, Walters?" + +"No," he said, his eyes shifting. + +Roebuck's face grew stern. "You bought two hundred thousand dollars of the +last issue of government bonds, they tell me, with your two years' profits +from the Western Railway Construction Company." + +"I bought no bonds," blustered Walters. "What money I have I made out of +speculating in the stock of my road--on legitimate inside information." + +"Your uncle in Wilkesbarre, I meant," pursued Roebuck. + +Walters reddened, looked straight at Roebuck without speaking. + +"Do you still deny?" demanded Roebuck. + +"I saw everybody--_everybody_--grafting," said Walters boldly, "and +I thought I might as well take my share. It's part of the business." Then +he added cynically: "That's the way it is nowadays. The lower ones see +the higher ones raking off, and they rake off, too--down to conductors +and brakemen. We caught some trackwalkers in a conspiracy to dispose +of the discarded ties and rails the other day." He laughed. "We jailed +_them_." + +"If you can show that any director has taken anything that did not belong +to him, if you can show that a single contract you let to a construction or +a supply company--except, of course, the contracts you let to yourself--of +them I know nothing, suspect much--if you can show one instance of these +criminal doings, Mr. Walters, I shall back you up with all my power in +prosecution." + +"Of course I can't show it," cried Walters. "If I tried, wouldn't they ruin +and disgrace me, perhaps send me to the penitentiary? Wasn't I the one that +passed on and signed their contracts? And wouldn't they--wouldn't you, Mr. +Roebuck--have fired me if I had refused to sign?" + +"Excuses, excuses, Walters," was Roebuck's answer, with a sad, disappointed +look, as if he had hoped Walters would make a brighter showing for himself. +"How many times have you yourself talked to me of this eternal excuse habit +of men who fail? And if I expended my limited brain-power in looking into +all the excuses and explanations, what energy or time would I have for +constructive work? All I can do is to select a man for a position and to +judge him by results. You were put in charge to produce dividends. You +haven't produced them. I'm sorry, and I venture to hope that things are not +so bad as you make out in your eagerness to excuse yourself. For the sake +of old times, Tom, I ignore your angry insinuations against me. I try to be +just, and to be just one must always be impersonal." + +"Well," said Walters with an air of desperation, "give me another year, Mr. +Roebuck, and I'll produce results all right. I'll break the agreements and +cut rates. I'll freeze out the branch roads and our minority stock-holders, +I'll keep the books so that all the expert accountants in New York couldn't +untangle them. I'll wink at and commit and order committed all the +necessary crimes. I don't know why I've been so squeamish, when there were +so many penitentiary offenses that I did consent to, and, for that matter, +commit, without a quiver. I thought I ought to draw the line somewhere--and +I drew it at keeping my personal word and at keeping the books reasonably +straight. But I'll go the limit." + +I'll never forget Roebuck's expression; it was perfect, simply perfect--a +great and good man outraged beyond endurance, but a Christian still. "You +have made it impossible for me to temper justice with mercy, Walters," said +he. "If it were not for the long years of association, for the affection +for you which has grown up in me, I should hand you over to the fate you +have earned. You tell me you have been committing crimes in my service. You +tell me you will commit more and greater crimes. I can scarcely believe my +own ears." + +Walters laughed scornfully--the reckless laugh of a man who suddenly sees +that he is cornered and must fight for his life. "Rot!" he jeered. "Rot! +You always have been a wonder at juggling with your conscience. But do +you expect me to believe you think yourself innocent because you do not +yourself execute the orders you issue--orders that can be carried out only +by committing crimes?" Walters was now beside himself with rage. He gave +the reins to that high horse he had been riding ever since he was promoted +to the presidency of the great coal road. He began to lay on whip and spur. +"Do you think," he cried to Roebuck, "the blood of those five hundred men +drowned in the Pequot mine is not on _your_ hands--_your_ head? +You, who ordered John Wilkinson to suppress the competition the Pequot was +giving you, ordered him in such a way that he knew the alternative was his +own ruin? He shot himself--yet he had as good an excuse as you, for he, +too, passed on the order until it got to the poor fireman--that wretched +fellow they sent to the penitentiary for life? And as sure as there is +a God in Heaven, you will some day do a long, long sentence in whatever +hell there is, for letting that wretch rot in prison--yes, and for John +Wilkinson's suicide, and for the lives of those five hundred drowned. Your +pensions to the widows and orphans can't save you." + +I listened to this tirade astounded. Used as I was to men losing their +heads through vanity, I could not credit my own ears and eyes when they +reported to me this insane exhibition. I looked at Roebuck. He was wearing +an expression of beatific patience; he would have made a fine study for a +picture of the martyr at the stake. + +"I forgive you, Tom," he said, when Walters stopped for breath. "Your own +sinful heart makes you see the black of sin upon everything. I had heard +that you were going about making loud boasts of your power over your +employers, but I tried not to believe it. I see now that you have, indeed, +lost your senses. Your prosperity has been too much for your good sense." +He sighed mournfully. "I shall not interfere to prevent your getting a +position elsewhere," he continued. "But after what you have confessed, +after your slanders, how can I put you back in your old place out West, as +I intended? How can I continue the interest in you and care for your career +that I have had, in spite of all your shortcomings? I who raised you up +from a clerk." + +"Raised me up as you fellows always raise men up--because you find them +clever at doing your dirty work. I was a decent, honest fellow when you +first took notice of me and tempted me. But, by God, Mr. Roebuck, if I've +sold out beyond hope of living decent again, I'll have my price--to the +last cent. You've got to leave me where I am or give me a place and salary +equally as good." This Walters said blusteringly, but beneath I could +detect the beginnings of a whine. + +"You are angry, Tom," said Roebuck soothingly. "I have hurt your vanity--it +is one of the heaviest crosses I have to bear, that I must be continually +hurting the vanity of men. Go away and--and calm down. Think the situation +over coolly; then come and apologize to me, and I will do what I can to +help you. As for your threats--when you are calm, you will see how idle +they are." + +Walters gave a sort of groan; and though I, blinded by my prejudices in +favor of Roebuck and of the crowd with whom my interests lay, had been +feeling that he was an impudent and crazy ingrate, I pitied him. + +"What proofs have I got?" he said desperately. "If I show up the things I +know about, I show up myself, and everybody will say I'm lying about you +and the others in the effort to save myself. The newspapers would denounce +me as a treacherous liar--you fellows own or control or foozle them in +one way and another. And if I was believed, who'd prosecute you and what +court'd condemn you? Don't you own both political parties and make all the +tickets, and can't you ruin any office-holders who lifted a finger against +you? What a hell of a state of affairs!" + +A swifter or a weaker descent I never witnessed. My pity changed to +contempt. "This fellow, with his great reputation," thought I, "is a fool +and a knave, and a weak one at that." + +"Go away now, Tom," said Roebuck. + +"When you're master of yourself again, come to see me." + +"Master of myself!" cried Walters bitterly. "Who that's got anything to +lose is master of himself in this country?" With shoulders sagging and a +sort of stumble in his gait, he went toward the door. He paused there to +say: "I've served too long, Mr. Roebuck. There's no fight in me. I thought +there was, but there ain't. Do the best you can for me." And he took +himself out of our sight. + +You will wonder how I was ever able to blind myself to the reality of this +frightful scene. But please remember that in this world every thought and +every act is a mixture of the good and the bad; and the one or the other +shows the more prominently according to one's point of view. There probably +isn't a criminal in any cell, anywhere, no matter what he may say in +sniveling pretense in the hope of lighter sentence, who doesn't at the +bottom of his heart believe his crime or crimes somehow justifiable--and +who couldn't make out a plausible case for himself. + +At that time I was stuffed with the arrogance of my fancied membership in +the caste of directing financial geniuses; I was looking at everything +from the viewpoint of the brotherhood of which Roebuck was the strongest +brother, and of which I imagined myself a full and equal member. I did not, +I could not, blind myself to the vivid reminders of his relentlessness; but +I knew too well how necessary the iron hand and the fixed purpose are to +great affairs to judge him as infuriated Walters, with his vanity savagely +wounded, was judging him. I'd as soon have thought of describing General +Grant as a murderer, because he ordered the battles in which men were +killed or because he planned and led the campaigns in which subordinates +committed rapine and pillage and assassination. I did not then see the +radical difference--did not realize that while Grant's work was at the +command of patriotism and necessity, there was no necessity whatever +for Roebuck's getting rich but the command of his own greedy and cruel +appetites. + +Don't misunderstand me. My morals are practical, not theoretical. Men must +die, old customs embodied in law must be broken, the venal must be bribed +and the weak cowed and compelled, in order that civilization may advance. +You can't establish a railway or a great industrial system by rose-water +morality. But I shall show, before I finish, that Roebuck and his gang of +so-called "organizers of industry" bear about the same relation to industry +that the boll weevil bears to the cotton crop. + +I'll withdraw this, if any one can show me that, as the result of the +activities of those parasites, anybody anywhere is using or is able to +use a single pound or bushel or yard more of any commodity whatsoever. +I'll withdraw it, if I can not show that but for those parasites, bearing +precisely the same relation to our society that the kings and nobles +and priests bore to France before the Revolution, everybody except them +would have more goods and more money than they have under the system that +enables these parasites to overshadow the highways of commerce with their +strongholds and to clog them with their toll-gates. They know little about +producing, about manufacturing, about distributing, about any process of +industry. Their skill is in temptation, in trickery and in terror. + +On that day, however, I sided--honestly, as I thought--with Roebuck. What +I saw and heard increased my admiration of the man, my already profound +respect for his master mind. And when, just after Walters went out, he +leaned back in his chair and sat silent with closed eyes and moving lips, +I--yes, I, Matt Blacklock, "Black Matt," as they call me--was awed in the +presence of this great and good man at prayer! + +How he and that God of his must have laughed at me! So infatuated was I +that, clear as it is that he'd never have let me be present at such a scene +without a strong ulterior motive, not until he himself long afterward +made it impossible for me to deceive myself did I penetrate to his real +purpose--that he wished to fill me with a prudent dread and fear of him, +with a sense of the absoluteness of his power and of the hopelessness of +trying to combat it. But at the time I thought--imbecile that my vanity +had made me--at the time I thought he had let me be present because he +genuinely liked, admired and trusted me! + +Is it not amazing that one who could fall into such colossal blunders +should survive to tell of them? I would not have survived had not Roebuck +and his crowd been at the same time making an even more colossal +misestimate of me than I was making of them. My attack of vanity was +violent, but temporary; theirs was equally violent, and chronic and +incurable to boot. + + + + +XII + +ANITA + + +On my first day in long trousers I may have been more ill at ease than I +was that Sunday evening at the Ellerslys'; but I doubt it. + +When I came into their big drawing-room and took a look round at the +assembled guests, I never felt more at home in my life. "Yes," said I +to myself, as Mrs. Ellersly was greeting me and as I noted the friendly +interest in the glances of the women, "this is where I belong. I'm +beginning to come into my own." + +As I look back on it now, I can't refrain from smiling at my own +simplicity--and snobbishness. For, so determined was I to believe what +I was working for was worth while, that I actually fancied there were +upon these in reality ordinary people, ordinary in looks, ordinary in +intelligence, some subtle marks of superiority, that made them at a glance +superior to the common run. This ecstasy of snobbishness deluded me as to +the women only--for, as I looked at the men, I at once felt myself their +superior. They were an inconsequential, patterned lot. I even was better +dressed than any of them, except possibly Mowbray Langdon; and, if he +showed to more advantage than I, it was because of his manner, which, as I +have probably said before, is superior to that of any human being I've ever +seen--man or woman. + +"You are to take Anita in," said Mrs. Ellersly. With a laughable sense that +I was doing myself proud, I crossed the room easily and took my stand in +front of her. She shook hands with me politely enough. Langdon was sitting +beside her; I had interrupted their conversation. + +"Hello, Blacklock!" said Langdon, with a quizzical, satirical smile with +the eyes only. "It seems strange to see you at such peaceful pursuits." +His glance traveled over me critically--and that was the beginning of my +trouble. Presently, he rose, left me alone with her. + +"You know Mr. Langdon?" she said, obviously because she felt she must say +something. + +"Oh, yes," I replied. "We are old friends. What a tremendous swell he +is--really a swell." This with enthusiasm. + +She made no comment. I debated with myself whether to go on talking of +Langdon. I decided against it because all I knew of him had to do with +matters down town--and Monson had impressed it upon me that down town was +taboo in the drawing-room. I rummaged my brain in vain for another and +suitable topic. + +She sat, and I stood--she tranquil and beautiful and cold, I every instant +more miserably self-conscious. When the start for the dining-room was +made I offered her my left arm, though I had carefully planned beforehand +just what I would do. She--without hesitation and, as I know now, out of +sympathy for me in my suffering--was taking my wrong arm, when it flashed +on me like a blinding blow in the face that I ought to be on the other side +of her. I got red, tripped in the far-sprawling train of Mrs. Langdon, tore +it slightly, tried to get to the other side of Miss Ellersly by walking in +front of her, recovered myself somehow, stumbled round behind her, walked +on her train and finally arrived at her left side, conscious in every +red-hot atom of me that I was making a spectacle of myself and that the +whole company was enjoying it. I must have seemed to them an ignorant +boor; in fact, I had been about a great deal among people who knew how to +behave, and had I never given the matter of how to conduct myself on that +particular occasion an instant's thought, I should have got on without the +least trouble. + +It was with a sigh of profound relief that I sank upon the chair between +Miss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon, safe from danger of making "breaks," +so I hoped, for the rest of the evening. But within a very few minutes +I realized that my little misadventure had unnerved me. My hands were +trembling so that I could scarcely lift the soup spoon to my lips, and my +throat had got so far beyond control that I had difficulty in swallowing. +Miss Ellersly and Mrs. Langdon were each busy with the man on the other +side of her; I was left to my own reflections, and I was not sure whether +this made me more or less uncomfortable. To add to my torment, I grew +angry, furiously angry, with myself. I looked up and down and across the +big table noted all these self-satisfied people perfectly at their ease; +and I said to myself: "What's the matter with you, Matt? They're only men +and women, and by no means the best specimens of the breed. You've got more +brains than all of 'em put together, probably; is there one of the lot that +could get a job at good wages if thrown on the world? What do you care +what they think of you? It's a damn sight more important what you think of +them; as it won't be many years before you'll hold everything they value, +everything that makes them of consequence, in the hollow of your hand." + +But it was of no use. When Miss Ellersly finally turned her face toward +me to indicate that she would be graciously pleased to listen if I had +anything to communicate, I felt as if I were slowly wilting, felt my throat +contracting into a dry twist. What was the matter with me? Partly, of +course, my own snobbishness, which led me to attach the same importance to +those people that the snobbishness of the small and silly had got them in +the way of attaching to themselves. But the chief cause of my inabilit + was Monson and his lessons. I had thought I was estimating at its proper +value what he was teaching. But so earnest and serious am I by nature, +and so earnest and serious was he about those trivialities that he had +been brought up to regard as the whole of life, that I had unconsciously +absorbed his attitude; I was like a fellow who, after cramming hard for +an examination, finds that all the questions put to him are on things he +hasn't looked at. I had been making an ass of myself, and that evening +I got the first instalment of my sound and just punishment. I who had +prided myself on being ready for anything or anybody, I who had laughed +contemptuously when I read how men and women, presented at European courts, +made fools of themselves--I was made ridiculous by these people who, as I +well know, had nothing to back their pretensions to superiority but a +barefaced bluff. + +Perhaps, had I thought this out at the table, I should have got back to +myself and my normal ease; but I didn't, and that long and terrible dinner +was one long and terrible agony of stage fright. When the ladies withdrew, +the other men drew together, talking of people I did not know and of +things I did not care about--I thought then that they were avoiding me +deliberately as a flock of tame ducks avoids a wild one that some wind has +accidentally blown down among them. I know now that my forbidding aspect +must have been responsible for my isolations, However, I sat alone, +sullenly resisting old Ellersly's constrained efforts to get me into +the conversation, and angrily suspicious that Langdon was enjoying my +discomfiture more than the cigarette he was apparently absorbed in. + +Old Ellersly, growing more and more nervous before my dark and sullen look, +finally seated himself beside me. "I hope you'll stay after the others have +gone," said he. "They'll leave early, and we can have a quiet smoke and +talk." + +All unstrung though I was, I yet had the desperate courage to resolve that +I'd not leave, defeated in the eyes of the one person whose opinion I +really cared about. "Very well," said I, in reply to him. + +He and I did not follow the others to the drawing-room, but turned into +the library adjoining. From where I seated myself I could see part of the +drawing-room--saw the others leaving, saw Langdon lingering, ignoring +the impatient glances of his wife, while he talked on and on with Miss +Ellersly. Her face was full toward me; she was not aware that I was +looking at her, I am sure, for she did not once lift her eyes. As I sat +studying her, everything else was crowded out of my mind. She was indeed +wonderful--too wonderful and fine and fragile, it seemed to me at that +moment, for one so plain and rough as I. "Incredible," thought I, "that she +is the child of such a pair as Ellersly and his wife--but again, has she +any less in common with them than she'd have with any other pair of human +creatures?" Her slender white arms, her slender white shoulders, the bloom +on her skin, the graceful, careless way her hair grew round her forehead +and at the nape of her neck, the rather haughty expression of her small +face softened into sweetness and even tenderness, now that she was talking +at her ease with one whom she regarded as of her own kind--"but he isn't!" +I protested to myself. "Langdon--none of these men--none of these women, +is fit to associate with her. They can't appreciate her. She belongs to me +who can." And I had a mad impulse then and there to seize her and bear her +away--home--to the home she could make for me out of what I would shower +upon her. + +At last Langdon rose. It irritated me to see her color under that +indifferent fascinating smile of his. It irritated me to note that he held +her hand all the time he was saying good-by, and the fact that he held it +as if he'd as lief not be holding it hardly lessened my longing to rush in +and knock him down. What he did was all in the way of perfect good manners, +and would have jarred no one not supersensitive, like me--and like his +wife. I saw that she, too, was frowning. She looked beautiful that evening, +in spite of her too great breadth for her height--her stoutness was not +altogether a defect when she was wearing evening dress. While she seemed +friendly and smiling to Miss Ellersly, I saw, whether others saw it or not, +that she quivered with apprehension at his mildly flirtatious ways. He +acted toward any and every attractive woman as if he were free and were +regarding her as a possibility, and didn't mind if she flattered herself +that he regarded her as a probability. + +In an aimless sort of way Miss Ellersly, after the Langdons had +disappeared, left the drawing-room by the same door. Still aimlessly +wandering, she drifted into the library by the hall door. As I rose, she +lifted her eyes, saw me, and drove away the frown of annoyance which came +over her face like the faintest haze. In fact, it may have existed only in +my imagination. She opened a large, square silver box on the table, took +out a cigarette, lighted it and holding it, with the smoke lazily curling +up from it, between the long slender first and second fingers of her white +hand, stood idly turning the leaves of a magazine. I threw my cigar into +the fireplace. The slight sound as it struck made her jump, and I saw that, +underneath her surface of perfect calm, she was in a nervous state full as +tense as my own. + +"You smoke?" said I. + +"Sometimes," she replied. "It is soothing and distracting. I don't know how +it is with others, but when I smoke, my mind is quite empty." + +"It's a nasty habit--smoking," said I. + +"Do you think so?" said she, with the slightest lift to her tone and her +eyebrows. + +"Especially for a woman," I went on, because I could think of nothing else +to say, and would not, at any cost, let this conversation, so hard to +begin, die out. + +"You are one of those men who have one code for themselves and another for +women," she replied. + +"I'm a man," said I. "All men have the two codes." + +"Not all," said she after a pause. + +"All men of decent ideas," said I with emphasis. + +"Really?" said she, in a tone that irritated me by suggesting that what I +said was both absurd and unimportant. + +"It is the first time I've ever seen a respectable woman smoke," I went on, +powerless to change the subject, though conscious I was getting tedious. +"I've read of such things, but I didn't believe." + +"That is interesting," said she, her tone suggesting the reverse. + +"I've offended you by saying frankly what I think," said I. "Of course, +it's none of my business." + +"Oh, no," replied she carelessly. "I'm not in the least offended. +Prejudices always interest me." + +I saw Ellersly and his wife sitting in the drawing-room, pretending to +talk to each other. I understood that they were leaving me alone with her +deliberately, and I began to suspect she was in the plot. I smiled, and my +courage and self-possession returned as summarily as they had fled. + +"I'm glad of this chance to get better acquainted with you," said I. "I've +wanted it ever since I first saw you." + +As I put this to her directly, she dropped her eyes and murmured something +she probably wished me to think vaguely pleasant. + +"You are the first woman I ever knew," I went on, "with whom it was hard +for me to get on any sort of terms. I suppose it's my fault. I don't know +this game yet. But I'll learn it, if you'll be a little patient; and when I +do, I think I'll be able to keep up my end." + +She looked at me--just looked. I couldn't begin to guess what was going on +in that gracefully-poised head of hers. + +"Will you try to be friends with me?" said I with directness. + +She continued to look at me in that same steady, puzzling way. + +"Will you?" I repeated. + +"I have no choice," said she slowly. + +I flushed. "What does that mean?" I demanded. + +She threw a hurried and, it seemed to me, frightened glance toward the +drawing-room. "I didn't intend to offend you," she said in a low voice. +"You have been such a good friend to papa--I've no right to feel anything +but friendship for you." + +"I'm glad to hear you say that," said I. And I was; for those words of hers +were the first expression of appreciation and gratitude I had ever got from +any member of that family which I was holding up from ruin. I put out my +hand, and she laid hers in it. + +"There isn't anything I wouldn't do to earn your friendship, Miss Anita," I +said, holding her hand tightly, feeling how lifeless it was, yet feeling, +too, as if a flaming torch were being borne through me, were lighting a +fire in every vein. + +The scarlet poured into her face and neck, wave on wave, until I thought +it would never cease to come. She snatched her hand away and from her face +streamed proud resentment. God, how I loved her at that moment! + +"Anita! Mr. Blacklock!" came from the other room, in her mother's voice. +"Come in here and save us old people from boring each other to sleep." + +She turned swiftly and went into the other room, I following. There were a +few minutes of conversation--a monologue by her mother. Then I ceased to +disregard Ellersly's less and less covert yawns, and rose to take leave. I +could not look directly at Anita, but I was seeing that her eyes were fixed +on me, as if by some compulsion, some sinister compulsion. I left in high +spirits. "No matter why or how she looks at you," said I to myself. "All +that is necessary is to get yourself noticed. After that, the rest is easy. +You must keep cool enough always to remember that under this glamour that +intoxicates you, she's a woman, just a woman, waiting for a man." + + + + +XIII + +"UNTIL TO-MORROW" + + +On the following Tuesday afternoon, toward five o'clock, I descended from +my apartment on my way to my brougham. In the entrance hall I met Monson +coming in. + +"Hello, you!" said he. "Slipping away to get married?" + +"No, I'm only making a call," replied I, taking alarm instantly. + +"Oh, is _that_ all?" said he with a sly grin. "It must be a mighty +serious matter." + +"I'm in no hurry," said I. "Come up with me for a few minutes." + +As soon as we were alone in my sitting-room, I demanded: "What's wrong with +me?" + +"Nothing--not a thing," was his answer, in a tone I had a struggle with +myself not to resent. "I've never seen any one quite so grand--top +hat, latest style, long coat ditto, white buckskin waistcoat, +twenty-thousand-dollar pearl in pale blue scarf, white spats, spotless +varnish boots just from the varnishers, cream-colored gloves. You +_will_ make a hit! My eye, I'll bet she won't be able to resist you." + +I began to shed my plumage. "I thought this was the thing when you're +calling on people you hardly know." + +"I should say you'd have to know 'em uncommon well to give 'em such a +treat. Rather!" + +"What shall I wear?" I asked. "You certainly told me the other day that +this was proper." + +"Proper--so it is--too damn proper," was his answer. "That'd be all right +for a bridegroom or a best man or an usher--or perhaps for a wedding guest. +It wouldn't do any particular harm even to call in it, if the people were +used to you. But--" + +"I look dressed up?" + +"Like a fashion plate--like a tailor--like a society actor." + +"What shall I wear?" + +"Oh, just throw yourself together any old way. Business suit's good +enough." + +"But I barely know these people--socially. I never called there," I +objected. + +"Then don't call," he advised. "Send your valet in a cab to leave a card +at the door. Calling has gone clean out--unless a man's got something very +especial in mind. Never show that you're eager. Keep your hand hid." + +"They'd know I had something especial in mind if I called?" + +"Certainly, and if you'd gone in those togs, they'd have assumed you had +come to--to ask the old man for his daughter--or something like that." + +I lost no time in getting back into a business suit. + +A week passed and, just as I was within sight of my limit of patience, +Bromwell Ellersly appeared at my office. "I can't put my hand on the +necessary cash, Mr. Blacklock--at least, not for a few days. Can I count +on your further indulgence?" This in his best exhibit of old-fashioned +courtliness--the "gentleman" through and through, ignorant of anything +useful. + +"Don't let that matter worry you, Ellersly," said I, friendly, for I wanted +to be on a somewhat less business-like basis with that family. "The +market's steady, and will go up before it goes down." + +"Good!" said he. "By the way, you haven't kept your promise to call." + +"I'm a busy man," said I. "You must make my excuses to your wife. But--in +the evenings. Couldn't we get up a little theater-party--Mrs. Ellersly and +your daughter and you and I--Sam, too, if he cares to come?" + +"Delightful!" cried he. + +"Whichever one of the next five evenings you say," I said. "Let me know +by to-morrow morning, will you?" And we talked no more of the neglected +margins; we understood each other. When he left he had negotiated a three +months' loan of twenty thousand dollars. + + * * * * * + +They were so surprised that they couldn't conceal it, when they were +ushered into my apartment on the Wednesday evening they had fixed upon. If +my taste in dress was somewhat too pronounced, my taste in my surroundings +was not. I suppose the same instinct that made me like the music and the +pictures and the books that were the products of superior minds had guided +me right in architecture, decoration and furniture. I know I am one of +those who are born with the instinct for the best. Once Monson got in +the way of free criticism, he indulged himself without stint, after the +customary human fashion; in fact, so free did he become that had I not +feared to frighten him and so bring about the defeat of my purposes, I +should have sat on him hard very soon after we made our bargain. As it was, +I stood his worst impudences without flinching, and partly consoled myself +with the amusement I got out of watching his vanity lead him on into +thinking his knowledge the most vital matter in the world--just as you +sometimes see a waiter or a clerk with the air of sharing the care of the +universe with the Almighty. + +But even Monson could find nothing to criticize either in my apartment +or in my country house. And, by the way, he showed his limitations by +remarking, after he had inspected: "I must say, Blacklock, your architects +and decorators have done well by you." As if a man's surroundings were not +the unfailing index to himself, no matter how much money he spends or how +good architects and the like he hires. As if a man could ever buy good +taste. + +I was pleased out of all proportion to its value by what Ellersly and his +wife looked and said. But, though I watched Miss Ellersly closely, though I +tried to draw from her some comment on my belongings--on my pictures, on my +superb tapestries, on the beautiful carving of my furniture--I got nothing +from her beyond that first look of surprise and pleasure. Her face resumed +its statuelike calm, her eyes did not wander; her lips, like a crimson bow +painted upon her clear, white skin, remained closed. She spoke only when +she was spoken to, and then as briefly as possible. The dinner--and a +mighty good dinner it was--would have been memorable for strain and silence +had not Mrs. Ellersly kept up her incessant chatter. I can't recall a word +she said, but I admired her for being able to talk at all. I knew she was +in the same state as the rest of us, yet she acted perfectly at her ease; +and not until I thought it over afterward did I realize that she had done +all the talking, except answers to her occasional and cleverly-sprinkled +direct questions. + +Ellersly sat opposite me, and I was irritated, and thrown into confusion, +too, every time I lifted my eyes, by the crushed, criminal expression of +his face. He ate and drank hugely--and extremely bad manners it would +have been regarded in me had I made as much noise as he, or lifted such +quantities at a time into my mouth. But through his noisy gluttony he +managed somehow to maintain that hang-dog air--like a thief who has gone +through the house and, on his way out, has paused at the pantry, with the +sack of plunder beside him, to gorge himself. + +I looked at Anita several times, each time with a carefully-framed remark +ready; each time I found her gaze on me--and I could say nothing, could +only look away in a sort of panic. Her eyes were strangely variable. I have +seen them of a gray, so pale that it was almost silver--like the steely +light of the snow-line at the edge of the horizon; again, and they were +so that evening, they shone with the deepest, softest blue, and made one +think, as one looked at her, of a fresh violet frozen in a block of clear +ice. + +I sat behind her in the box at the theater. During the first and +second intermissions several men dropped in to speak to her mother and +her--fellows who didn't ever come down town, but I could tell they knew who +I was by the way they ignored me. It exasperated me to a pitch of fury, +that coldly insolent air of theirs--a jerky nod at me without so much as a +glance, and no notice of me when they were leaving _my_ box beyond a +faint, supercilious smile as they passed with eyes straight ahead. I knew +what it meant, what they were thinking--that the "Bucket-Shop King," as the +newspapers had dubbed me, was trying to use old Ellersly's necessities as a +"jimmy" and "break into society." When the curtain went down for the last +intermission, two young men appeared; I did not get up as I had before, but +stuck to my seat--I had reached that point at which courtesy has become +cowardice. + +They craned and strained at her round me and over me, presently gave up +and retired, disguising their anger as contempt for the bad manners of a +bounder. But that disturbed me not a ripple, the more as I was delighting +in a consoling discovery. Listening and watching as she talked with these +young men, whom she evidently knew well, I noted that she was distant and +only politely friendly in manner habitually, that while the ice might +thicken for me, it was there always. I knew enough about women to know +that, if the woman who can thaw only for one man is the most difficult, she +is also the most constant. "Once she thaws toward me!" I said to myself. + +When the young men had gone, I leaned forward until my head was close to +hers, to her hair--fine, soft, abundant, electric hair. Like the infatuated +fool that I was, I tore out all the pigeon-holes of my brain in search of +something to say to her, something that would start her to thinking well +of me. She must have felt my breath upon her neck, for she moved away +slightly, and it seemed to me a shiver visibly passed over that wonderful +white skin of hers. + +I drew back and involuntarily said, "Beg pardon." I glanced at her mother +and it was my turn to shudder. I can't hope to give an accurate impression +of that stony, mercenary, mean face. There are looks that paint upon the +human countenance the whole of a life, as a flash of lightning paints upon +the blackness of the night miles on miles of landscape. That look of Mrs. +Ellersly's--stern disapproval at her daughter, stern command that she be +more civil, that she unbend--showed me the old woman's soul. And I say that +no old harpy presiding over a dive is more full of the venom of the hideous +calculations of the market for flesh and blood than is a woman whose life +is wrapped up in wealth and show. + +"If you wish it," I said, on impulse, to Miss Ellersly in a low voice, "I +shall never try to see you again." + +I could feel rather than see the blood suddenly beating in her skin, and +there was in her voice a nervousness very like fright as she answered: "I'm +sure mama and I shall be glad to see you whenever you come." + +"You?" I persisted. + +"Yes," she said, after a brief hesitation. + +"Glad?" I persisted. + +She smiled--the faintest change in the perfect curve of her lips. "You are +very persistent, aren't you?" + +"Very," I answered. "That is why I have always got whatever I wanted." + +"I admire it," said she. + +"No, you don't," I replied. "You think it is vulgar, and you think I am +vulgar because I have that quality--that and some others." + +She did not contradict me. + +"Well, I _am_ vulgar--from your standpoint," I went on. "I have +purposes and passions. And I pursue them. For instance, you." + +"I?" she said tranquilly. + +"You," I repeated. "I made up my mind the first day I saw you that I'd make +you like me. And--you will." + +"That is very flattering," said she. "And a little terrifying. For"--she +faltered, then went bravely on--"I suppose there isn't anything you'd stop +at in order to gain your end." + +"Nothing," said I, and I compelled her to meet my gaze. + +She drew a long breath, and I thought there was a sob in it--like a +frightened child. + +"But I repeat," I went on, "that if you wish it, I shall never try to see +you again. Do you wish it?" + +"I--don't--know," she answered slowly. "I think--not." + +As she spoke the last word, she lifted her eyes to mine with a look of +forced friendliness in them that I'd rather not have seen there. I wished +to be blind to her defects, to the stains and smutches with which her +surroundings must have sullied her. And that friendly look seemed to me +an unmistakable hypocrisy in obedience to her mother. However, it had the +effect of bringing her nearer to my own earthy level, of putting me at ease +with her; and for the few remaining minutes we talked freely, I indifferent +whether my manners and conversation were correct. As I helped her into +their carriage, I pressed her arm slightly, and said in a voice for her +only, "Until to-morrow." + + + + +XIV + +FRESH AIR IN A GREENHOUSE + + +At five the next day I rang the Ellerslys' bell, was taken through the +drawing-room into that same library. The curtains over the double doorway +between the two rooms were almost drawn. She presently entered from the +hall. I admired the picture she made in the doorway--her big hat, her +embroidered dress of white cloth, and that small, sweet, cold face of hers. +And as I looked, I knew that nothing, nothing--no, not even her wish, her +command--could stop me from trying to make her my own. That resolve must +have shown in my face--it or the passion that inspired it--for she paused +and paled. + +"What is it?" I asked. "Are you afraid of me?" + +She came forward proudly, a fine scorn in her eyes. "No," she said. "But if +you knew, you might be afraid of me." + +"I am," I confessed. "I am afraid of you because you inspire in me a +feeling that is beyond my control. I've committed many follies in my +life--I have moods in which it amuses me to defy fate. But those follies +have always been of my own willing. You"--I laughed--"you are a folly for +me. But one that compels me." + +She smiled--not discouragingly--and seated herself on a tiny sofa in the +corner, a curiously impregnable intrenchment, as I noted--for my impulse +was to carry her by storm. I was astonished at my own audacity; I was +wondering where my fear of her had gone, my awe of her superior fineness +and breeding. "Mama will be down in a few minutes," she said. + +"I didn't come to see your mother," replied I. "I came to see you." + +She flushed, then froze--and I thought I had once more "got upon" her +nerves with my rude directness. How eagerly sensitive our nerves are to bad +impressions of one we don't like, and how coarsely insensible to bad +impressions of one we do like! + +[Illustration] + +"I see I've offended again, as usual," said I. "You attach so much +importance to petty little dancing-master tricks and caperings. You +live--always have lived--in an artificial atmosphere. Real things act on +you like fresh air on a hothouse flower." + +"You are--fresh air?" she inquired, with laughing sarcasm. + +"I am that," retorted I. "And good for you--as you'll find when you get +used to me." + +I heard voices in the next room--her mother's and some man's. We waited +until it was evident we were not to be disturbed. As I realized that fact +and surmised its meaning, I looked triumphantly at her. She drew further +back into her corner, and the almost stern firmness of her contour told me +she had set her teeth. + +"I see you are nerving yourself," said I with a laugh. "You are perfectly +certain I am going to propose to you." + +She flamed scarlet and half-started up. + +"Your mother--in the next room--expects it, too," I went on, laughing even +more disagreeably. "Your parents need money--they have decided to sell you, +their only large income-producing asset. And I am willing to buy. What do +you say?" + +I was blocking her way out of the room. She was standing, her breath coming +fast, her eyes blazing. "You are--_frightful_!" she exclaimed in a low +voice. + +"Because I am frank, because I am honest? Because I want to put things on +a sound basis? I suppose, if I came lying and pretending, and let you lie +and pretend, and let your parents and Sam lie and pretend, you would find +me--almost tolerable. Well, I'm not that kind. When there's no especial +reason one way or the other, I'm willing to smirk and grimace and dodder +and drivel, like the rest of your friends, those ladies and gentlemen. But +when there's business to be transacted, I am business-like. Let's not begin +with your thinking you are deceiving me, and so hating me and despising me +and trying to keep up the deception. Let's begin right." + +She was listening; she was no longer longing to fly from the room; she was +curious. I knew I had scored. + +"In any event," I continued, "you would have married for money. You've been +brought up to it, like all these girls of your set. You'd be miserable +without luxury. If you had your choice between love without luxury and +luxury without love, it'd be as easy to foretell which you'd do as to +foretell how a starving poet would choose between a loaf of bread and a +volume of poems. You may love love; but you love life--your kind of +life--better!" + +She lowered her head. "It is true," she said. "It is low and vile, but it +is true." + +"Your parents need money--" I began. + +She stopped me with a gesture. "Don't blame them," she pleaded. "I am more +guilty than they." + +I was proud of her as she made that confession. "You have the making of a +real woman in you," said I. "I should have wanted you even if you hadn't. +But what I now see makes what I thought a folly of mine look more like +wisdom." + +"I must warn you," she said, and now she was looking directly at me, "I +shall never love you." + +"Never is a long time," replied I. "I'm old enough to be cynical about +prophecy." + +"I shall never love you," she repeated. "For many reasons you wouldn't +understand. For one you will understand." + +"I understand the 'many reasons' you say are beyond me," said I. "For, +dear young lady, under this coarse exterior I assure you there's hidden +a rather sharp outlook on human nature--and--well, nerves that respond +to the faintest changes in you as do mine can't be altogether without +sensitiveness. What's the other reason--_the_ reason? That you think +you love some one else?" + +"Thank you for saying it for me," she replied. + +You can't imagine how pleased I was at having earned her gratitude, even +in so little a matter. "I have thought of that," said I. "It is of no +consequence." + +"But you don't understand," she pleaded earnestly. + +"On the contrary, I understand perfectly," I assured her. "And the reason I +am not disturbed is--you are here, you are not with him." + +She lowered her head so that I had no view of her face. + +"You and he do not marry," I went on, "because you are both poor?" + +"No," she replied. + +"Because he does not care for you?" + +"No--not that," she said. + +"Because you thought he hadn't enough for two?" + +A long pause, then--very faintly: "No--not that." + +"Then it must be because he hasn't as much money as he'd like, and must +find a girl who'll bring him--what he _most_ wants." + +She was silent. + +"That is, while he loves you dearly, he loves money more. And he's willing +to see you go to another man, be the wife of another man, be--everything to +another man." I laughed. "I'll take my chances against love of that sort." + +"You don't understand," she murmured. "You don't realize--there are many +things that mean nothing to you and that mean--oh, so much to people +brought up as we are." + +"Nonsense!" said I. "What do you mean by 'we'? Nature has been bringing +us up for a thousand thousand years. A few years of silly false training +doesn't undo her work. If you and he had cared for each other, you wouldn't +be here, apologizing for his selfish vanity." + +"No matter about him," she cried impatiently, lifting her head haughtily. +"The point is, I love him--and always shall. I warn you." + +"And I take you at my own risk?" + +Her look answered "Yes!" + +"Well,"--and I took her hand--"then, we are engaged." + +Her whole body grew tense, and her hand chilled as it lay in mine. +"Don't--please don't," I said gently. "I'm not so bad as all that. If you +will be as generous with me as I shall be with you, neither of us will ever +regret this." + +There were tears on her cheeks as I slowly released her hand. + +"I shall ask nothing of you that you are not ready freely to give," I said. + +Impulsively she stood and put out her hand, and the eyes she lifted to mine +were shining and friendly. I caught her in my arms and kissed her--not once +but many times. And it was not until the chill of her ice-like face had +cooled me that I released her, drew back red and ashamed and stammering +apologies. But her impulse of friendliness had been killed; she once more, +as I saw only too plainly, felt for me that sense of repulsion, felt for +herself that sense of self-degradation. + +"I _can not_ marry you!" she muttered. + +"You can--and will--and must," I cried, infuriated by her look. + +There was a long silence. I could easily guess what was being fought out in +her mind. At last she slowly drew herself up. "I can not refuse," she said, +and her eyes sparkled with defiance that had hate in it. "You have the +power to compel me. Use it, like the brute you refuse to let me forget that +you are." She looked so young, so beautiful, so angry--and so tempting. + +"So I shall!" I answered. "Children have to be taught what is good for +them. Call in your mother, and we'll tell her the news." + +Instead, she went into the next room. I followed, saw Mrs. Ellersly seated +at the tea-table in the corner farthest from the library where her daughter +and I had been negotiating. She was reading a letter, holding her lorgnon +up to her painted eyes. + +"Won't you give us tea, mother?" said Anita, on her surface not a trace of +the cyclone that must still have been raging hi her. + +"Congratulate me, Mrs. Ellersly," said I. "Your daughter has consented to +marry me." + +Instead of speaking, Mrs. Ellersly began to cry--real tears. And for a +moment I thought there was a real heart inside of her somewhere. But when +she spoke, that delusion vanished. + +"You must forgive me, Mr. Blacklock," she said in her hard, smooth, politic +voice. "It is the shock of realizing I'm about to lose my daughter." And +I knew that her tears were from joy and relief--Anita had "come up to the +scratch;" the hideous menace of "genteel poverty" had been averted. + +"Do give us tea, mama," said Anita. Her cold, sarcastic tone cut my nerves +and her mother's like a razor blade. I looked sharply at her, and wondered +whether I was not making a bargain vastly different from that my passion +was picturing. + + + + +XV + +SOME STRANGE LAPSES OF A LOVER + + +But before there was time for me to get a distinct impression, that ugly +shape of cynicism had disappeared. + +"It was a shadow I myself cast upon her," I assured myself; and once more +she seemed to me like a clear, calm lake of melted snow from the mountains. +"I can see to the pure white sand of the very bottom," thought I. Mystery +there was, but only the mystery of wonder at the apparition of such beauty +and purity in such a world as mine. True, from time to time, there showed +at the surface or vaguely outlined in the depths, forms strangely out of +place in those unsullied waters. But I either refused to see or refused to +trust my senses. I had a fixed ideal of what a woman should be; this girl +embodied that ideal. + +"If you'd only give up your cigarettes," I remember saying to her when we +were a little better acquainted, "you'd be perfect." + +She made an impatient gesture. "Don't!" she commanded almost angrily. "You +make me feel like a hypocrite. You tempt me to be a hypocrite. Why not be +content with woman as she is--a human being? And--how could I--any woman +not an idiot--be alive for twenty-five years without learning--a thing or +two? Why should any man want it?" + +"Because to know is to be spattered and stained," said I. "I get enough of +people who know, down-town. Up-town--I want a change of air. Of course, +you think you know the world, but you haven't the remotest conception of +what it's really like. Sometimes when I'm with you, I begin to feel mean +and--and unclean. And the feeling grows on me until it's all I can do to +restrain myself from rushing away." + +She looked at me critically. + +"You've never had much to do with women, have you?" she finally said slowly +in a musing tone. + +"I wish that were true--almost," replied I, on my mettle as a man, and +resisting not without effort the impulse to make some vague +"confessions"--boastings disguised as penitential admissions--after the +customary masculine fashion. + +She smiled--and one of those disquieting shapes seemed to me to be floating +lazily and repellently downward, out of sight. "A man and a woman can be a +great deal to each other, I believe," said she; "can be--married, and all +that--and remain as strange to each other as if they had never met--more +hopelessly strangers." + +"There's always a sort of mystery," I conceded. "I suppose that's one of +the things that keep married people interested." + +She shrugged her shoulders--she was in evening dress, I recall, and there +was on her white skin that intense, transparent, bluish tinge one sees on +the new snow when the sun comes out. + +"Mystery!" she said impatiently. "There's no mystery except what we +ourselves make. It's useless--perfectly useless," she went on absently. +"You're the sort of man who, if a woman cared for him, or even showed +friendship for him by being frank and human and natural with him, he'd +punish her for it by--by despising her." + +I smiled, much as one smiles at the efforts of a precocious child to prove +that it is a Methuselah in experience. + +"If you weren't like an angel in comparison with the others I've known," +said I, "do you suppose I could care for you as I do?" + +I saw my remark irritated her, and I fancied it was her vanity that was +offended by my disbelief in her knowledge of life. I hadn't a suspicion +that I had hurt and alienated her by slamming in her very face the door of +friendship and frankness her honesty was forcing her to try to open for me. + +In my stupidity of imagining her not human like the other women and the +men I had known, but a creature apart and in a class apart, I stood day +after day gaping at that very door, and wondering how I could open it, +how penetrate even to the courtyard of that vestal citadel. So long as my +old-fashioned belief that good women were more than human and bad women +less than human had influenced me only to a sharper lookout in dealing +with the one species of woman I then came in contact with, no harm to me +resulted, but on the contrary good--whoever got into trouble through +walking the world with sword and sword arm free? But when, under the spell +of Anita Ellersly, I dragged the "superhuman goodness" part of my theory +down out of the clouds and made it my guardian and guide--really, it's a +miracle that I escaped from the pit into which that lunacy pitched me +headlong. I was not content with idealizing only her; I went on to seeing +good, and only good, in everybody! The millennium was at hand; all Wall +Street was my friend; whatever I wanted would happen. And when Roebuck, +with an air like a benediction from a bishop backed by a cathedral organ +and full choir, gave me the tip to buy coal stocks, I canonized him on the +spot. Never did a Jersey "jay" in Sunday clothes and tallowed boots respond +to a bunco steerer's greeting with a gladder smile than mine to that pious +old past-master of craft. + +I will say, in justice to myself, though it is also in excuse, that if I +had known him intimately a few years earlier, I should have found it all +but impossible to fool myself. For he had not long been in a position where +he could keep wholly detached from the crimes committed for his benefit +and by his order, and where he could disclaim responsibility and even +knowledge. The great lawyers of the country have been most ingenious in +developing corporate law in the direction of making the corporation a +complete and secure shield between the beneficiary of a crime and its +consequences; but before a great financier can use this shield perfectly, +he must build up a system--he must find lieutenants with the necessary +coolness, courage and cunning; he must teach them to understand his hints; +he must educate them, not to point out to him the disagreeable things +involved in his orders, but to execute unquestioningly, to efface +completely the trail between him and them, whether or not they succeed in +covering the roundabout and faint trail between themselves and the tools +that nominally commit the crimes. + +As nearly as I can get at it, when Roebuck was luring me into National Coal +he had not for nine years been open to attack, but had so far hedged +himself in that, had his closest lieutenants been trapped and frightened +into "squealing," he would not have been involved; without fear of exposure +and with a clear conscience he could--and would!--have joined in the +denunciation of the man who had been caught, and could--and would!--have +helped send him to the penitentiary or to the scaffold. With the security +of an honest man and the serenity of a Christian he planned his colossal +thefts and reaped their benefits; and whenever he was accused, he could +have explained everything, could have got his accuser's sympathy and +admiration. I say, could have explained; but he would not. Early in his +career, he had learned the first principle of successful crime--silence. No +matter what the provocation or the seeming advantage, he uttered only a few +generous general phrases, such as "those misguided men," or "the Master +teaches us to bear with meekness the calumnies of the wicked," or "let him +that is without sin cast the first stone." As to the crime itself--silence, +and the dividends. + +A great man, Roebuck! I doff my hat to him. Of all the dealers in stolen +goods under police protection, who so shrewd as he? + +Wilmot was the instrument he employed to put the coal industry into +condition for "reorganization." He bought control of one of the coal +railroads and made Wilmot president of it. Wilmot, taught by twenty years +of his service, knew what was expected of him, and proceeded to do it. He +put in a "loyal" general freight agent who also needed no instructions, +but busied himself at destroying his own and all the other coal roads by a +system of secret rebates and rate cuttings. As the other roads, one by one, +descended toward bankruptcy, Roebuck bought the comparatively small blocks +of stock necessary to give him control of them. When he had power over +enough of them to establish a partial monopoly of transportation in and out +of the coal districts, he was ready for his lieutenant to attack the mining +properties. Probably his orders to Wilmot were nothing more definite or +less innocent than: "Wilmot, my boy, don't you think you and I and some +others of our friends ought to buy some of those mines, if they come on the +market at a fair price? Let me know when you hear of any attractive +investments of that sort." + +That would have been quite enough to "tip it off" to Wilmot that the time +had come for reaching out from control of railway to control of mine. He +lost no time; he easily forced one mining property after another into a +position where its owners were glad--were eager--to sell all or part of the +wreck of it "at a fair price" to him and Roebuck and "our friends." It was +as the result of one of these moves that the great Manasquale mines were +so hemmed in by ruinous freight rates, by strike troubles, by floods from +broken machinery and mysteriously leaky dams, that I was able to buy them +"at a fair price"--that is, at less than one-fifth their value. But at the +time--and for a long time afterward--I did not know, on my honor did not +suspect, what was the cause, the sole cause, of the change of the coal +region from a place of peaceful industry, content with fair profits, to an +industrial chaos with ruin impending. + +Once the railways and mining companies were all on the verge of bankruptcy, +Roebuck and his "friends" were ready to buy, here control for purposes of +speculation, there ownership for purposes of permanent investment. This +is what is known as the reorganizing stage. The processes of high finance +are very simple--first, buy the comparatively small holdings necessary +to create confusion and disaster; second, create confusion and disaster, +buying up more and more wreckage; third, reorganize; fourth, offer the +new stocks and bonds to the public with a mighty blare of trumpets which +produces a boom market; fifth, unload on the public, pass dividends, issue +unfavorable statements, depress prices, buy back cheap what you have sold +dear. Repeat ad infinitum, for the law is for the laughter of the strong, +and the public is an eager ass. To keep up the fiction of "respectability," +the inside ring divides into two parties for its campaigns--one party to +break down, the other to build up. One takes the profits from destruction +and departs, perhaps to construct elsewhere; the other takes the profits +from construction and departs, perhaps to destroy elsewhere. As their +collusion is merely tacit, no conscience need twitch. I must add that, at +the time of which I am writing, I did not realize the existence of this +conspiracy. I knew, of course, that many lawless and savage things were +done, that there were rascals among the high financiers, and that almost +all financiers now and then did things that were more or less rascally; but +I did not know, did not suspect, that high finance was through and through +brigandage, and that the high financier, by long and unmolested practice of +brigandage, had come to look on it as legitimate, lawful business, and on +laws forbidding or hampering it as outrageous, socialistic, anarchistic, +"attacks upon the social order!" + +I was sufficiently infected with the spirit of the financier, I frankly +confess, to look on the public as a sort of cow to milk and send out to +grass that it might get itself ready to be driven in and milked again. Does +not the cow produce milk not for her own use but for the use of him who +looks after her, provides her with pasturage and shelter and saves her from +the calamities in which her lack of foresight and of other intelligence +would involve her, were she not looked after? And is not the fact that the +public--beg pardon, the cow--meekly and even cheerfully submits to the +milking proof that God intended her to be the servant of the Roebucks--beg +pardon again, of man? + +Plausible, isn't it? + +Roebuck had given me the impression that it would be six months, at least, +before what I was in those fatuous days thinking of as "_our_" plan +for "putting the coal industry on a sound business basis" would be ready +for the public. So, when he sent for me shortly after I became engaged to +Miss Ellersly, and said: "Melville will publish the plan on the first of +next month and will open the subscription books on the third--a Thursday," +I was taken by surprise and was anything but pleased. His words meant that, +if I wished to make a great fortune, now was the time to buy coal stocks, +and buy heavily--for on the very day of the publication of the plan every +coal stock would surely soar. Buy I must; not to buy was to throw away a +fortune. Yet how could I buy when I was gambling in Textile up to my limit +of safety, if not beyond? + +I did not dare confess to Roebuck what I was doing in Textile. He was +bitterly opposed to stock gambling, denouncing it as both immoral and +unbusinesslike. No gambling for him! When his business sagacity and +foresight(?) informed him a certain stock was going to be worth a great +deal more than it was then quoted at, he would buy outright in large +quantities; when that same sagacity and foresight of the fellow who has +himself marked the cards warned him that a stock was about to fall, he sold +outright. But gamble--never! And I felt that, if he should learn that I had +staked a large part of my entire fortune on a single gambling operation, he +would straightway cut me off from his confidence, would look on me as too +deeply tainted by my long career as a "bucket-shop" man to be worthy of +full rank and power as a financier. Financiers do not gamble. Their only +vice is grand larceny. + +All this was flashing through my mind while I was thanking him. + +"I am glad to have such a long forewarning," I was saying. "Can I be of use +to you? You know my machinery is perfect--I can buy anything and in any +quantity without starting rumors and drawing the crowd." + +"No thank you, Matthew," was his answer. "I have all of those stocks I +wish--at present." + +Whether it is peculiar to me, I don't know--probably not--but my memory +is so constituted that it takes an indelible and complete impression of +whatever is sent to it by my eyes and ears; and just as by looking closely +you can find in a photographic plate a hundred details that escape your +glance, so on those memory plates of mine I often find long afterward many +and many a detail that escaped me when my eyes and ears were taking the +impression. On my memory plate of that moment in my interview with Roebuck, +I find details so significant that my failing to note them at the time +shows how unfit I then was to guard my interests. For instance, I find +that just before he spoke those words declining my assistance and implying +that he had already increased his holdings, he opened and closed his hands +several times, finally closed and clinched them--a sure sign of energetic +nervous action, and in that particular instance a sign of deception, +because there was no energy in his remark and no reason for energy. I am +not superstitious, but I believe in palmistry to a certain extent. Even +more than the face are the hands a sensitive recorder of what is passing in +the mind. + +But I was then too intent upon my dilemma carefully to study a man who had +already lulled me into absolute confidence in him. I left him as soon as +he would let me go. His last words were, "No gambling, Matthew! No abuse +of the opportunity God is giving us. Be content with the just profits from +investment. I have seen gamblers come and go, many of them able men--very +able men. But they have melted away, and where are they? And I have +remained and have increased, blessed be God who has saved me from the +temptations to try to reap where I had not sown! I feel that I can trust +you. You began as a speculator, but success has steadied you, and you have +put yourself on the firm ground where we see the solid men into whose hands +God has given the development of the abounding resources of this beloved +country of ours." + +Do you wonder that I went away with a heart full of shame for the gambling +projects my head was planning upon the information that good man had given +me? + +I shut myself in my private office for several hours of hard thinking--as +I can now see, the first real attention I had given my business in two +months. It soon became clear enough that my Textile plunge was a folly; +but it was too late to retrace. The only question was, could and should I +assume additional burdens? I looked at the National Coal problem from +every standpoint--so I thought. And I could see no possible risk. Did not +Roebuck's statement make it certain as sunrise that, as soon as the +reorganization was announced, all coal stocks would rise? Yes, I should +be risking nothing; I could with absolute safety stake my credit; to make +contracts to buy coal stocks at present prices for future delivery was no +more of a gamble than depositing cash in the United States Treasury. + +"You've gone back to gambling lately, Matt," said I to myself. "You've +been on a bender, with your head afire. You must get out of this Textile +business as soon as possible. But it's good sound sense to plunge on +the coal stocks. In fact, your profits there would save you if by some +mischance Textile should rise instead of fall. Acting on Roebuck's tip +isn't gambling, it's insurance." + +I emerged to issue orders that soon threw into the National Coal venture +all I had not staked on a falling market for Textiles. I was not +content--as the pious gambling-hater, Roebuck, had begged me to be--with +buying only what stock I could pay for; I went plunging on, contracting for +many times the amount I could have bought outright. + +The next time I saw Langdon I was full of enthusiasm for Roebuck. I can see +his smile as he listened. + +"I had no idea you were an expert on the trumpets of praise, Blacklock," +said he finally. "A very showy accomplishment," he added, "but rather +dangerous, don't you think? The player may become enchanted by his own +music." + +"I try to look on the bright side of things." said I, "even of human +nature." + +"Since when?" drawled he. + +I laughed--a good, hearty laugh, for this shy reference to my affair of the +heart tickled me. I enjoyed to the full only in long retrospect the look he +gave me. + +"As soon as a man falls in love," said he, "trustees should be appointed to +take charge of his estate." + +"You're wrong there, old man," I replied. "I've never worked harder or with +a clearer head than since I learned that there are"--I hesitated, and ended +lamely--"other things in life." + +Langdon's handsome face suddenly darkened, and I thought I saw in his eyes +a look of savage pain. "I envy you," said he with an effort at his wonted +lightness and cynicism. But that look touched my heart; I talked no more of +my own happiness. To do so, I felt would be like bringing laughter into the +house of grief. + + + + +XVI + +TRAPPED AND TRIMMED + + +There are two kinds of dangerous temptations--those that tempt us, and +those that don't. Those that don't, give us a false notion of our resisting +power, and so make us easy victims to the others. I thought I knew myself +pretty thoroughly, and I believed there was nothing that could tempt me +to neglect my business. With this delusion of my strength firmly in mind, +when Anita became a temptation to neglect business, I said to myself: "To +go up-town during business hours for long lunches, to spend the mornings +selecting flowers and presents for her--these things _look_ like +neglect of business, and would be so in some men. But _I_ couldn't +neglect business. I do them because my affairs are so well ordered that a +few hours of absence now and then make no difference--probably send me back +fresher and clearer." + +When I left the office at half-past twelve on that fateful Wednesday in +June, my business was never in better shape. Textile Common had dropped a +point and a quarter in two days--evidently it was at last on its way slowly +down toward where I could free myself and take profits. As for the Coal +enterprise nothing could possibly happen to disturb it; I was all ready for +the first of July announcement and boom. Never did I have a lighter heart +than when I joined Anita and her friends at Sherry's. It seemed to me her +friendliness was less perfunctory, less a matter of appearances. And the +sun was bright, the air delicious, my health perfect. It took all the +strength of all the straps Monson had put on my natural spirits to keep me +from being exuberant. + +I had fully intended to be back at my office half an hour before the +Exchange closed--this in addition to the obvious precaution of leaving +orders that they were to telephone me if anything should occur about which +they had the least doubt. But so comfortable did my vanity make me that +I forgot to look at my watch until a quarter to three. I had a momentary +qualm; then, reassured, I asked Anita to take a walk with me. Before we set +out I telephoned my right-hand man and partner, Ball. As I had thought, +everything was quiet; the Exchange was closing with Textile sluggish and +down a quarter. Anita and I took a car to the park. + +As we strolled about there, it seemed to me I was making more headway with +her than in all the times I had seen her since we became engaged. At each +meeting I had had to begin at the beginning once more, almost as if we +had never met; for I found that she had in the meanwhile taken on all, or +almost all, her original reserve. It was as if she forgot me the instant I +left her--not very flattering, that! + +"You accuse me of refusing to get acquainted with you," said I, "of +refusing to see that you're a different person from what I imagine. But how +about you? Why do you still stick to your first notion of me? Whatever I am +or am not, I'm not the person you condemned on sight." + +"You _have_ changed," she conceded. "The way you dress--and sometimes +the way you act. Or, is it because I'm getting used to you?" + +"No--it's--" I began, but stopped there. Some day I would confess about +Monson, but not yet. Also, I hoped the change wasn't altogether due to +Monson and the dancing-master and my imitation of the tricks of speech and +manner of the people in her set. + +She did not notice my abrupt halt. Indeed, I often caught her at not +listening to me. I saw that she wasn't listening now. + +"You didn't hear what I said," I accused somewhat sharply, for I was +irritated--as who would not have been? + +She started, gave me that hurried, apologetic look that was bitterer to me +than the most savage insult would have been. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. "We were talking of--of changes, weren't +we?" + +"We were talking of _me_" I answered. "Of the subject that interests +you not at all." + +She looked at me in a forlorn sort of way that softened my irritation with +sympathy. "I've told you how it is with me," she said. "I do my best to +please you. I--" + +"Damn your best!" I cried. "Don't try to please _me_. Be yourself. I'm +no slave-driver. I don't have to be conciliated. Can't you ever see that +I'm not your tyrant? Do I treat you as any other man would feel he had the +right to treat the girl who had engaged herself to him? Do I ever thrust my +feelings or wishes--or--longings on you? And do you think repression easy +for a man of my temperament?" + +"You have been very good," she said humbly. + +"Don't you ever say that to me again," I half commanded, half pleaded. "I +won't have you always putting me in the position of a kind and indulgent +master." + +She halted and faced me. + +"Why do you want me, anyhow?" she cried. Then she noticed several loungers +on a bench staring at us and grinning; she flushed and walked on. + +"I don't know," said I. "Because I'm a fool, probably. My common sense +tells me I can't hope to break through that shell of self-complacence +you've been cased in by your family and your associates. Sometimes I think +I'm mistaken in you, think there isn't any real, human blood left in your +veins, that you're like the rest of them--a human body whose heart and mind +have been taken out and a machine substituted--a machine that can say and +do only a narrow little range of conventional things--like one of those +French dolls." + +"You mustn't blame me for that," she said gently. "I realize it, too--and +I'm ashamed of it. But--if you could know how I've been educated. They've +treated me as the Flathead Indian women treat their babies--keep their +skulls in a press--isn't that it?--until their heads and brains grow of +the Flathead pattern. Only, somehow, in my case--the process wasn't quite +complete. And so, instead of being contented like the other Flathead girls, +I'm--almost a rebel, at times. I'm neither the one thing nor the other--not +natural and not Flathead, not enough natural to grow away from Flathead, +not enough Flathead to get rid of the natural." + +"I take back what I said about not knowing why I--I want you, Anita," I +said. "I do know why--and--well, as I told you before, you'll never regret +marrying me." + +"If you won't misunderstand me," she answered, "I'll confess to you my +instinct has been telling me that, too. I'm not so bad as you must think. +I did bargain to sell myself, but I'd have thrown up the bargain if you +had been as--as you seemed at first." For some reason--perhaps it was her +dress, or hat--she was looking particularly girlish that day, and her +skin was even more transparent than usual. "You're different from the men +I've been used to all my life," she went on, and--smiling in a friendly +way--"you often give me a terrifying sense of your being a--a wild man on +his good behavior. But I've come to feel that you're generous and unselfish +and that you'll be kind to me--won't you? And I must make a life for +myself--I must--I must! Oh, I can't explain to you, but--" She turned her +little head toward me, and I was looking into those eyes that the flowers +were like. + +I thought she meant her home life. "You needn't tell me," I said, and I'll +have to confess my voice was anything but steady. "And, I repeat, you'll +never regret." + +She evidently feared that she had said too much, for she lapsed into +silence, and when I tried to resume the subject of ourselves, she answered +me with painful constraint. I respected her nervousness and soon began to +talk of things not so personal to us. Again, my mistake of treating her as +if she were marked "Fragile. Handle with care." I know now that she, like +all women, had the plain, tough, durable human fibre under that exterior +of delicacy and fragility, and that my overconsideration caused her to +exaggerate to herself her own preposterous notions of her superior +fineness. We walked for an hour, talking--with less constraint and more +friendliness than ever before, and when I left her I, for the first time, +felt that I had left a good impression. + +When I entered my offices, I, from force of habit, mechanically went direct +to the ticker--and dropped all in an instant from the pinnacle of Heaven +into a boiling inferno. For the ticker was just spelling out these words: +"Mowbray Langdon, president of the Textile Association, sailed unexpectedly +on the _Kaiser Wilhelm_ at noon. A two per cent. raise of the dividend +rate of Textile Common, from the present four per cent, to six, has been +determined upon." + +And I had staked up to, perhaps beyond, my limit of safety that Textile +would fall! + +Ball was watching narrowly for some sign that the news was as bad as he +feared. But it cost me no effort to keep my face expressionless; I was like +a man who has been killed by lightning and lies dead with the look on his +face that he had just before the bolt struck him. + +"Why didn't you tell me this," said I to Ball, "when I had you on the +'phone?" My tone was quiet enough, but the very question ought to have +shown him that my brain was like a schooner in a cyclone. + +"We heard it just after you rang off," was his reply. "We've been trying +to get you ever since. I've gone everywhere after Textile stock. Very few +will sell, or even lend, and they ask--the best price was ten points above +to-day's closing. A strong tip's out that Textiles are to be rocketed." + +Ten points up already--on the mere rumor! Already ten dollars to pay on +every share I was "short"--and I short more than two hundred thousand! I +felt the claws of the fiend Ruin sink into the flesh of my shoulders. "Ball +doesn't know how I'm fixed," I remember I thought, "and he mustn't know." + +I lit a cigar with a steady hand and waited for Joe's next words. + +"I went to see Jenkins at once," he went on. Jenkins was then first +vice-president of the Textile Trust. "He's all cut up because the news got +out--says Langdon and he were the only ones who knew, so he supposed--says +the announcement wasn't to have been made for a month--not till Langdon +returned. He has had to confirm it, though. That was the only way to free +his crowd from suspicion of intending to rig the market." + +"All right," said I. + +"Have you seen the afternoon paper?" he asked. As he held it out to me, my +eye caught big Textile head-lines, then flashed to some others--something +about my going to marry Miss Ellersly. + +"All right," said I, and with the paper in my hand, went to my outside +office. I kept on toward my inner office, saying over my shoulder--to the +stenographer: "Don't let anybody interrupt me." Behind the closed and +locked door my body ventured to come to life again and my face to reflect +as much as it could of the chaos that was heaving in me like ten thousand +warring devils. + +Three months before, in the same situation, my gambler's instinct would +probably have helped me out. For I had not been gambling in the great +American Monte Carlo all those years without getting used to the downs +as well as to the ups. I had not--and have not--anything of the business +man in my composition. To me, it was wholly finance, wholly a game, with +excitement the chief factor and the sure winning, whether the little ball +rolled my way or not. I was the financier, the gambler and adventurer; and +that had been my principal asset. For, the man who wins in the long run at +any of the great games of life--and they are all alike--is the man with +the cool head; and the only man whose head is cool is he who plays for the +game's sake, not caring greatly whether he wins or loses on any one play, +because he feels that if he wins to-day, he will lose to-morrow; if he +loses to-day, he will win to-morrow. But now a new factor had come into the +game. I spread out the paper and stared at the head-lines: "Black Matt To +Wed Society Belle--The Bucket-Shop King Will Lead Anita Ellersly To The +Altar." I tried to read the vulgar article under these vulgar lines, but I +could not. I was sick, sick in body and in mind. My "nerve" was gone. I was +no longer the free lance; I had responsibilities. + +That thought dragged another in its train, an ugly, grinning imp that +leered at me and sneered: "_But she won't have you now_!" + +"She will! She must!" I cried aloud, starting up. And then the storm +burst--I raged up and down the floor, shaking my clinched fists, gnashing +my teeth, muttering all kinds of furious commands and threats--a truly +ridiculous exhibition of impotent rage. For through it all I saw clearly +enough that she wouldn't have me, that all these people I'd been trying +to climb up among would kick loose my clinging hands and laugh as they +watched me disappear. They who were none too gentle and slow in disengaging +themselves from those of their own lifelong associates who had reverses +of fortune--what consideration could "Black Matt" expect from them? And +she--The necessity and the ability to deceive myself had gone, now that I +could not pay the purchase price for her. The full hideousness of my +bargain for her dropped its veil and stood naked before me. + +At last, disgusted and exhausted, I flung myself down again, and dumbly and +helplessly inspected the ruins of my projects--or, rather, the ruin of the +one project upon which I had my heart set. I had known I cared for her, but +it had seemed to me she was simply one more, the latest, of the objects on +which I was in the habit of fixing my will from time to time to make the +game more deeply interesting. I now saw that never before had I really been +in earnest about anything, that on winning her I had staked myself, and +that myself was a wholly different person from what I had been imagining. +In a word, I sat face to face with that unfathomable mystery of +sex-affinity that every man laughs at and mocks another man for believing +in, until he has himself felt it drawing him against will, against reason, +and sense, and interest, over the brink of destruction yawning before his +eyes--drawing him as the magnet-mountain drew Sindbad and his ship. And I +say to you that those who can defy and resist that compulsion are not more, +but less, than man or woman; and their fancied strength is in reality a +deficiency. Looking calmly back upon my follies under her spell, I think +the better of myself for them. It is the splendid follies of life that +redeem it from vulgarity. + +But--it is not in me to despair. There never yet was an impenetrable siege +line; to escape, it is only necessary by craft or by chance to hit upon the +moment and the spot for the sortie. "Ruined!" I said aloud. "Trapped and +trimmed like the stupidest sucker that ever wandered into Wall Street! A +dead one, no doubt; but I'll see to it that they don't enjoy my funeral." + + + + +XVII + +A GENTEEL "HOLD-UP" + + +In my childhood at home, my father was often away for a week or longer, +working or looking for work. My mother had a notion that a boy should +be punished only by his father; so, whenever she caught me in what she +regarded as a serious transgression, she used to say: "You will get a +good whipping for this, when your father comes home." At first I used to +wait passively, suffering the torments of ten thrashings before the "good +whipping" came to pass. But soon my mind began to employ the interval more +profitably. I would scheme to escape execution of sentence; and, though my +mother was a determined woman, many's the time I contrived to change her +mind. I am not recommending to parents the system of delay in execution +of sentence; but I must say that in my case it was responsible for an +invaluable discipline. For example, the Textile tangle. + +I knew I was in all human probability doomed to go down before the Stock +Exchange had been open an hour the next morning. All Textile stocks must +start many points higher than they had been at the close, must go steadily +and swiftly up. Entangled as my reserve resources were in the Coal deal, I +should have no chance to cover my shorts on any terms less than the loss +of all I had. At most, I could hope only to save myself from criminal +bankruptcy. + +And now my early training in coolly and calmly studying how to avert +execution of sentence came into play. There is a kind of cornered-rat, +hit-or-miss, last-ditch fight that any creature will make in such +circumstances as mine then were, and the inspirations of despair sometimes +happen to be lucky. But I prefer the reasoned-out plan. + +There was no signal of distress in my voice as I telephoned Corey, +president of the Interstate Trust Company, to stay at his office until I +came; there was no signal of distress in my manner as I sallied forth and +went down to the Power Trust Building; nor did I show or suggest that I had +heard the "shot-at-sunrise" sentence, as I strode into Roebuck's presence +and greeted him. I was assuming, by way of precaution, that some rumor +about me either had reached him or would soon reach him. I knew he had +an eye in every secret of finance and industry, and, while I believed my +secret was wholly my own, I had too much at stake with him to bank on that, +when I could, as I thought, so easily reassure him. + +"I've come to suggest, Mr. Roebuck," said I, "that you let my +house--Blacklock and Company--announce the Coal reorganization plan. It +would give me a great lift, and Melville and his bank don't need prestige. +My daily letters to the public on investments have, as you know, got me +a big following that would help me make the flotation an even bigger +success than it's bound to be, no matter who announces it and invites +subscriptions." + +As I thus proposed that I be in a jiffy caught up from the extremely +humble level of reputed bucket-shop dealer into the highest heaven of high +finance, that I be made the official spokesman of the financial gods, his +expression was so ludicrous that I almost lost my gravity. I suspect, for +a moment he thought I had gone mad. His manner, when he recovered himself +sufficiently to speak, was certainly not unlike what it would have been +had he found himself alone before a dangerous lunatic who was armed with a +bomb. + +"You know how anxious I am to help you, to further your interests, +Matthew," said he wheedlingly. "I know no man who has a brighter future. +But--not so fast, not so fast, young man. Of course, you will appear as +one of the reorganizing committee--but we could not afford to have the +announcement come through any less strong and old established house than +the National Industrial Bank." + +"At least, you can make me joint announcer with them," I urged. + +"Perhaps--yes--possibly--we'll see," said he soothingly. "There is plenty +of time." + +"Plenty of time," I assented, as if quite content. "I only wanted to put +the matter before you." And I rose to go. + +"Have you heard the news of Textile Common?" he asked. + +"Yes," said I carelessly. Then, all in an instant, a plan took shape in my +mind. "I own a good deal of the stock, and I must say, I don't like this +raise." + +"Why?" he inquired. + +"Because I'm sure it's a stock-jobbing scheme," replied I boldly. "I know +the dividend wasn't earned. I don't like that sort of thing, Mr. Roebuck. +Not because it's unlawful--the laws are so clumsy that a practical man +often must disregard them. But because it is tampering with the reputation +and the stability of a great enterprise for the sake of a few millions of +dishonest profit. I'm surprised at Langdon." + +"I hope you're wrong, Matthew," was Roebuck's only comment. He questioned +me no further, and I went away, confident that, when the crash came in the +morning, if come it must, there would be no more astonished man in Wall +Street than Henry J. Roebuck. How he must have laughed; or, rather, would +have laughed, if his sort of human hyena expressed its emotions in the +human way. + +From him, straight to my lawyers, Whitehouse and Fisher, in the Mills +Building. + +"I want you to send for the newspaper reporters at once," said I to Fisher, +"and tell them that in my behalf you are going to apply for an injunction +against the Textile Trust, forbidding them to take any further steps toward +that increase of dividend. Tell them I, as a large stock-holder, and +representing a group of large stock-holders, purpose to stop the paying of +unearned dividends." + +Fisher knew how closely connected my house and the Textile Trust had been; +but he showed, and probably felt no astonishment. He was too experienced in +the ways of finance and financiers. It was a matter of indifference to him +whether I was trying to assassinate my friend and ally, or was feinting at +Langdon, to lure the public within reach so that we might, together, fall +upon it and make a battue. Your lawyer is your true mercenary. Under his +code honor consists in making the best possible fight in exchange for the +biggest possible fee. He is frankly for sale to the highest bidder. At +least so it is with those that lead the profession nowadays, give it what +is called "character" and "tone." + +Not without some regret did I thus arrange to attack my friend in his +absence. "Still," I reasoned, "his blunder in trusting some leaky person +with his secret is the cause of my peril--and I'll not have to justify +myself to him for trying to save myself." What effect my injunction would +have I could not foresee. Certainly it could not save me from the loss of +my fortune; but, possibly, it might check the upward course of the stock +long enough to enable me to snatch myself from ruin, and to cling to firm +ground until the Coal deal drew me up to safety. + +My next call was at the Interstate Trust Company. I found Corey waiting for +me in a most uneasy state of mind. + +"Is there any truth in this story about you?" was the question he plumped +at me. + +"What story?" said I, and a hard fight I had to keep my confusion and alarm +from the surface. For, apparently, my secret was out. + +"That you're on the wrong side of the Textile." + +So it was out! "Some truth," I admitted, since denial would have been +useless here. "And I've come to you for the money to tide me over." + +He grew white, a sickly white, and into his eyes came a horrible, drowning +look. + +"I owe a lot to you, Matt," he pleaded. "But I've done you a great many +favors, haven't I?" + +"That you have Bob," I cordially agreed. "But this isn't a favor. It's +business." + +"You mustn't ask it, Blacklock," he cried. "I've loaned you more money now +than the law allows. And I can't let you have any more." + +"Some one has been lying to you, and you've been believing him," said I. +"When I say my request isn't a favor, but business, I mean it." + +"I can't let you have any more," he repeated. "I can't!" And down came his +fist in a weak-violent gesture. + +I leaned forward and laid my hand strongly on his arm. + +"In addition to the stock of this concern that I hold in my own name," said +I, "I hold five shares in the name of a man whom nobody knows that I even +know. If you don't let me have the money, that man goes to the district +attorney with information that lands you in the penitentiary, that puts +your company out of business and into bankruptcy before to-morrow noon. +I saved you three years ago, and got you this job against just such an +emergency as this, Bob Corey. And, by God, you'll toe the mark!" + +"But we haven't done anything that every bank in town doesn't do every +day--doesn't have to do. If we didn't lend money to dummy borrowers +and over-certify accounts, our customers would go where they could get +accommodations." + +"That's true enough," said I. "But I'm in a position for the moment where I +need my friends--and they've got to come to time. If I don't get the money +from you, I'll get it elsewhere--but over the cliff with you and your +bank! The laws you've been violating may be bad for the practical banking +business, but they're mighty good for punishing ingratitude and treachery." + +He sat there, yellow and pinched, and shivering every now and then. He +made no reply. He was one of those shells of men that are conspicuous as +figureheads in every department of active life--fellows with well-shaped, +white-haired or prematurely bald heads, and grave, respectable faces; +they look dignified and substantial, and the soul of uprightness; they +coin their looks into good salaries by selling themselves as covers for +operations of the financiers. And how those operations, in the nude, as it +were, would terrify the plodders that save up and deposit or invest the +money the financiers gamble with on the big green tables! + +Presently I shook his arm impatiently. His eyes met mine, and I fixed them. + +"I'm going to pull through," said I. "But if I weren't, I'd see to it that +you were protected. Come, what's your answer? Friend or traitor?" + +"Can't you give me any security--any collateral?" + +"No more than I took from you when I saved you as you were going down with +the rest in the Dumont smash. My word--that's all. I borrow on the same +terms you've given me before, the same you're giving four of your heaviest +borrowers right now." + +He winced as I thus reminded him how minute my knowledge was of the +workings of his bank. + +"I didn't think this of you, Matt," he whined. "I believed you above such +hold-up methods." + +"I suit my methods to the men I'm dealing with," was my answer. "These +fellows are trying to push me off the life raft. I fight with every weapon +I can lay hands on. And I know as well as you do that, if you get into +serious trouble through this loan, at least five men we could both name +would have to step in and save the bank and cover up the scandal. You'll +blackmail them, just as you've blackmailed them before, and they you. +Blackmail's a legitimate part of the game. Nobody appreciates that better +than you." It was no time for the smug hypocrisies under which we people +down town usually conduct our business--just as the desperadoes used to +patrol the highways disguised as peaceful merchants. + +"Send round in the morning and get the money," said he, putting on a +resigned, hopeless look. + +I laughed. "I'll feel easier if I take it now," I replied. "We'll fix up +the notes and checks at once." + +He reddened, but after a brief hesitation busied himself. When the papers +were all made up and signed, and I had the certified checks in my pocket, +I said: "Wait here, Bob, until the National Industrial people call you +up. I'll ask them to do it, so they can get your personal assurance that +everything's all right. And I'll stop there until they tell me they've +talked with you." + +"But it's too late," he said. "You can't deposit to-day." + +"I've a special arrangement with them," I replied. + +His face betrayed him. I saw that at no stage of that proceeding had I been +wiser than in shutting off his last chance to evade. What scheme he had in +mind I don't know, and can't imagine. But he had thought out something, +probably something foolish that would have given me trouble without saving +him. A foolish man in a tight place is as foolish as ever, and Corey was +a foolish man--only a fool commits crimes that put him in the power of +others. The crimes of the really big captains of industry and generals of +finance are of the kind that puts others in their power. + +"Buck up, Corey," said I. "Do you think I'm the man to shut a friend in the +hold of a sinking ship? Tell me, who told you I was short on Textile?" + +"One of my men," he slowly replied, as he braced himself together. + +"Which one? Who?" I persisted. For I wanted to know just how far the news +was likely to spread. + +He seemed to be thinking out a lie. + +"The truth!" I commanded. "I know it couldn't have been one of your men. +Who was it? I'll not give you away." + +"It was Tom Langdon," he finally said. + +I checked an exclamation of amazement. I had been assuming that I had been +betrayed by some one of those tiny mischances that so often throw the best +plans into confusion. + +"Tom Langdon," I said satirically. "It was he that warned you against me?" + +"It was a friendly act," said Corey. "He and I are very intimate. And he +doesn't know how close you and I are." + +"Suggested that you call my loans, did he?" I went on. + +"You mustn't blame him, Blacklock; really you mustn't," said Corey +earnestly, for he was a pretty good friend to those he liked, as friendship +goes in finance. "He happened to hear. You know the Langdons keep a sharp +watch on operations in their stock. And he dropped in to warn me as a +friend. You'd do the same thing in the same circumstances. He didn't say a +word about my calling your loans. I--to be frank--I instantly thought of it +myself. I intended to do it when you came, but"--a sickly smile--"you +anticipated me." + +"I understand," said I good-humoredly. "I don't blame him." And I didn't +then. + +After I had completed my business at the National Industrial, I went back +to my office and gathered together the threads of my web of defense. Then +I wrote and sent out to all my newspapers and all my agents a broadside +against the management of the Textile Trust--it would be published in +the morning, in good time for the opening of the Stock Exchange. Before +the first quotation of Textile could be made, thousands on thousands of +investors and speculators throughout the country would have read my letter, +would be believing that Matthew Blacklock had detected the Textile Trust +in a stock-jobbing swindle, and had promptly turned against it, preferring +to keep faith with his customers and with the public. As I read over my +pronunciamiento aloud before sending it out, I found in it a note of +confidence that cheered me mightily. "I'm even stronger than I thought," +said I. And I felt stronger still as I went on to picture the thousands on +thousands throughout the land rallying at my call to give battle. + + + + +XVIII + +ANITA BEGINS TO BE HERSELF + + +I had asked Sam Ellersly to dine with me; so preoccupied was I that not +until ten minutes before the hour set did he come into my mind--he or any +of his family, even his sister. My first impulse was to send word that I +couldn't keep the engagement. "But I must dine somewhere," I reflected, +"and there's no reason why I shouldn't dine with him, since I've done +everything that can be done." In my office suite I had a bath and +dressing-room, with a complete wardrobe. Thus, by hurrying a little over +my toilet, and by making my chauffeur crowd the speed limit, I was at +Delmonico's only twenty minutes late. + +Sam, who had been late also, as usual, was having a cocktail and was +ordering the dinner. I smoked a cigarette and watched him. At business or +at anything serious his mind was all but useless; but at ordering dinner +and things of that sort, he shone. Those small accomplishments of his had +often moved me to a sort of pitying contempt, as if one saw a man of talent +devoting himself to engraving the Lord's Prayer on gold dollars. That +evening, however, as I saw how comfortable and contented he looked, with +not a care in the world, since he was to have a good dinner and a good +cigar afterward; as I saw how much genuine pleasure he was getting out of +selecting the dishes and giving the waiter minute directions for the chef, +I envied him. + +What Langdon had once said came back to me: "We are under the tyranny of +to-morrow, and happiness is impossible." And I thought how true that was. +But, for the Sammys, high and low, there is no to-morrow. He was somehow +impressing me with a sense that he was my superior. His face was weak, and, +in a weak way, bad; but there was a certain fineness of quality in it, +a sort of hothouse look, as if he had been sheltered all his life, and +brought up on especially selected food. "Men like me," thought I with a +certain envy, "rise and fall. But his sort of men have got something that +can't be taken away, that enables them to carry off with grace, poverty or +the degradation of being spongers and beggars." + +This shows how far I had let that attack of snobbishness eat into me. I +glanced down at my hands. No delicateness there; certainly those fingers, +though white enough nowadays, and long enough, too, were not made for fancy +work and parlor tricks. They would have looked in place round the handle +of a spade or the throttle of an engine, while Sam's seemed made for the +keyboard of a piano. + +"You must come over to my rooms after dinner, and give me some music," said +I. + +"Thanks," he replied, "but I've promised to go home and play bridge. +Mother's got a few in to dinner, and more are coming afterward, I believe." + +"Then I'll go with you, and talk to your sister--she doesn't play." + +He glanced at me in a way that made me pass my hand over my face. I learned +at least part of the reason for my feeling at disadvantage before him. I +had forgotten to shave; and as my beard is heavy and black, it has to be +looked after twice a day. "Oh, I can stop at my rooms and get my face into +condition in a few minutes," said I. + +"And put on evening dress, too," he suggested. "You wouldn't want to go in +a dinner jacket." + +I can't say why this was the "last straw," but it was. + +"Bother!" said I, my common sense smashing the spell of snobbishness that +had begun to reassert itself as soon as I got into his unnatural, unhealthy +atmosphere. "I'll go as I am, beard and all. I only make myself ridiculous, +trying to be a sheep. I'm a goat, and a goat I'll stay." + +That shut him into himself. When he re-emerged, it was to say: "Something +doing down town to-day, eh?" + +A sharpness in his voice and in his eyes, too, made me put my mind on him +more closely, and then I saw what I should have seen before--that he was +moody and slightly distant. + +"Seen Tom Langdon this afternoon?" I asked carelessly. + +He colored. "Yes--had lunch with him," was his answer. + +I smiled--for his benefit. "Aha!" thought I. "So Tom Langdon has been fool +enough to take this paroquet into his confidence." Then I said to him: "Is +Tom making the rounds, warning the rats to leave the sinking ship?" + +"What do you mean, Matt?" he demanded, as if I had accused him. + +I looked steadily at him, and I imagine my unshaven jaw did not make my +aspect alluring. + +"That I'm thinking of driving the rats overboard," replied I. "The ship's +sound, but it would be sounder if there were fewer of them." + +"You don't imagine anything Tom could say would change my feelings toward +you?" he pleaded. + +"I don't know, and I don't care a damn," replied I coolly. "But I do know, +before the Langdons or anybody else can have Blacklock pie, they'll have +first to catch their Blacklock." + +I saw Langdon had made him uneasy, despite his belief in my strength. And +he was groping for confirmation or reassurance. "But," thought I, "if he +thinks I may be going up the spout, why isn't he more upset? He probably +hates me because I've befriended him, but no matter how much he hated me, +wouldn't his fear of being cut off from supplies drive him almost crazy?" I +studied him in vain for sign of deep anxiety. Either Tom didn't tell him +much, I decided, or he didn't believe Tom knew what he was talking about. + +"What did Tom say about me?" I inquired. + +"Oh, almost nothing. We were talking chiefly of--of club matters," he +answered, in a fair imitation of his usual offhand manner. + +"When does my name come up there?" said I. + +He flushed and shifted. "I was just about to tell you," he stammered. "But +perhaps you know?" + +"Know what?" + +"That-- Hasn't Tom told you? He has withdrawn--and--you'll have to get +another second--if you think--that is--unless you--I suppose you'd have +told me, if you'd changed your mind?" + +Since I had become so deeply interested in Anita, my +ambition--ambition!--to join the Travelers had all but dropped out of my +mind. + +"I had forgotten about it," said I. "But, now that you remind me, I want my +name withdrawn. It was a passing fancy. It was part and parcel of a lot of +damn foolishness I've been indulging in for the last few months. But I've +come to my senses--and it's 'me to the wild,' where I belong, Sammy, from +this time on." + +He looked tremendously relieved, and a little puzzled, too. I thought I was +reading him like an illuminated sign. "He's eager to keep friends with me," +thought I, "until he's absolutely sure there's nothing more in it for him +and his people." And that guess was a pretty good one. It is not to the +discredit of my shrewdness that I didn't see it was not hope, but fear, +that made him try to placate me. I could not have possibly known then what +the Langdons had done. But-- Sammy was saying, in his friendliest tone: + +"What's the matter, old man? You're sour to-night." + +"Never in a better humor," I assured him, and as I spoke the words +they came true. What I had been saying about the Travelers and all it +represented--all the snobbery, and smirking, and rotten pretense--my final +and absolute renunciation of it all--acted on me as I've seen religion act +on the fellows that used to go up to the mourners' bench at the revivals. I +felt as if I had suddenly emerged from the parlor of a dive and its stench +of sickening perfumes, into the pure air of God's Heaven. + +I signed the bill, and we went afoot up the avenue. Sam, as I saw with a +good deal of amusement, was trying to devise some subtle, tactful way of +attaching his poor, clumsy little suction-pump to the well of my secret +thoughts. + +"What is it, Sammy?" said I at last. "What do you want to know that you're +afraid to ask me?" + +"Nothing," he said hastily. "I'm only a bit worried about--about you and +Textile. Matt,"--this in the tone of deep emotion we reserve for the +attempt to lure our friends into confiding that about themselves which will +give us the opportunity to pity them, and, if necessary, to sheer off from +them--"Matt, I do hope you haven't been hard hit?" + +"Not yet," said I easily. "Dry your tears and put away your black clothes. +Your friend, Tom Langdon, was a little premature." + +"I'm afraid I've given you a false impression," Sam continued, with +an overeagerness to convince me that did not attract my attention at +the time. "Tom merely said, 'I hear Blacklock is loaded up with Textile +shorts,'--that was all. A careless remark. I really didn't think of it +again until I saw you looking so black and glum." + +That seemed natural enough, so I changed the subject. As we entered his +house, I said: + +"I'll not go up to the drawing-room. Make my excuses to your mother, will +you? I'll turn into the little smoking-room here. Tell your sister--and say +I'm going to stop only a moment." + +Sam had just left me when the butler came. + +"Mr. Ball--I think that was the name, sir--wishes to speak to you on the +telephone." + +I had given Ellerslys' as one of the places at which I might be found, +should it be necessary to consult me. I followed the butler to the +telephone closet under the main stairway. As soon as Ball made sure it was +I, he began: + +"I'll use the code words. I've just seen Fearless, as you told me to." + +Fearless--that was Mitchell, my spy in the employ of Tavistock, who was +my principal rival in the business of confidential brokerage for the high +financiers. "Yes," said I. "What does he say?" + +"There has been a great deal of heavy buying for a month past." + +Then my dread was well-founded--Textiles were to be deliberately rocketed. +"Who's been doing it?" I asked. + +"He found out only this afternoon. It's been kept unusually dark. It--" + +"Who? Who?" I demanded. + +"Intrepid," he answered. + +Intrepid--that is, Langdon--Mowbray Langdon! + +"The whole thing--was planned carefully," continued Ball, "and is coming +off according to schedule. Fearless overheard a final message Intrepid's +brother brought from him to-day." + +So it was no mischance--it was an assassination. Mowbray Langdon had +stabbed me in the back and fled. + +"Did you hear what I said?" asked Ball. "Is that you?" + +"Yes," I replied. + +"Oh," came in a relieved tone from the other end of the wire. "You were so +long in answering that I thought I'd been cut off. Any instructions?" + +"No," said I. "Good-by." + +I heard him ring off, but I sat there for several minutes, the receiver +still to my ear. I was muttering: "Langdon, Langdon--why--why--why?" again +and again. Why had he turned against me? Why had he plotted to destroy +me--one of those plots so frequent in Wall Street--where the assassin +steals up, delivers the mortal blow, and steals away without ever being +detected or even suspected? I saw the whole plot now--I understood Tom +Langdon's activities, I recalled Mowbray Langdon's curious phrases and +looks and tones. But--why--why--why? How was I in his way? + +It was all dark to me--pitch-dark. I returned to the smoking-room, lighted +a cigar, sat fumbling at the new situation. I was in no worse plight than +before--what did it matter who was attacking me? In the circumstances, +a novice could now destroy me as easily as a Langdon. Still, Ball's +news seemed to take away my courage. I reminded myself that I was used +to treachery of this sort, that I deserved what I was getting because +I had, like a fool, dropped my guard in the fight that is always an +every-man-for-himself. But I reminded myself in vain. Langdon's smiling +treachery made me heart-sick. + +Soon Anita appeared--preceded and heralded by a faint rustling from soft +and clinging skirts, that swept my nerves like a love-tune. I suppose for +all men there is a charm, a spell, beyond expression, in the sight of a +delicate beautiful young woman, especially if she be dressed in those fine +fabrics that look as if only a fairy loom could have woven them; and when a +man loves the woman who bursts upon his vision, that spell must overwhelm +him, especially if he be such a man as was I--a product of life's roughest +factories, hard and harsh, an elbower and a trampler, a hustler and a +bluffer. Then, you must also consider the exact circumstances--I standing +there, with destruction hanging over me, with the sense that within a few +hours I should be a pariah to her, a masquerader stripped of his disguise +and cast out from the ball where he had been making so merry and so free. +Only a few hours more! Perhaps now was the last time I should ever stand +so near to her! The full realization of all this swallowed me up as +in a great, thick, black mist. And my arms strained to escape from my +tightly-locked hands, strained to seize her, to snatch from her, reluctant +though she might be, at least some part of the happiness that was to be +denied me. + +I think my torment must have somehow penetrated to her. For she was sweet +and friendly--and she could not have hurt me worse! If I had followed my +impulse I should have fallen at her feet and buried my face, scorching, in +the folds of that pale blue, faintly-shimmering robe of hers. + +"Do throw away that huge, hideous cigar," she said, laughing. And she took +two cigarettes from the box, put both between her lips, lit them, held one +toward me. I looked at her face, and along her smooth, bare, outstretched +arm, and at the pink, slender fingers holding the cigarette. I took it as +if I were afraid the spell would be broken, should my fingers touch hers. +Afraid--that's it! That's why I didn't pour out all that was in my heart. I +deserved to lose her. + +"I'm taking you away from the others," I said. We could hear the murmur +of many voices and of music. In fancy I could see them assembled round +the little card-tables--the well-fed bodies, the well-cared-for skins, +the elaborate toilets, the useless jeweled hands--comfortable, secure, +self-satisfied, idle, always idle, always playing at the imitation +games--like their own pampered children, to be sheltered in the nurseries +of wealth their whole lives through. And not at all in bitterness, but +wholly in sadness, a sense of the injustice, the unfairness of it all--a +sense that had been strong in me in my youth but blunted during the years +of my busy prosperity--returned for a moment. For a moment only; my mind +was soon back to realities--to her and me--to "us." How soon it would never +be "us" again! + +"They're mama's friends," Anita was answering. "Oldish and tiresome. When +you leave I shall go straight on up to bed." + +"I'd like to--to see your room--where you live," said I, more to myself +than to her. + +"I sleep in a bare little box," she replied with a laugh. "It's like a +cell. A friend of ours who has the anti-germ fad insisted on it. But my +sitting-room isn't so bad." + +"Langdon has the anti-germ fad," said I. She answered "Yes" after a pause, +and in such a strained voice that I looked at her. A flush was just dying +out of her face. "He was the friend I spoke of," she went on. + +"You know him very well?" I asked. + +"We've known him--always," said she. "I think he's one of my earliest +recollections. His father's summer place and ours adjoin. And once--I guess +it's the first time I remember seeing him--he was a freshman at Harvard, +and he came along on a horse past the pony cart in which a groom was +driving me. And I--I was very little then--I begged him to take me up, and +he did. I thought he was the greatest, most wonderful man that ever lived." +She laughed queerly. "When I said my prayers, I used to imagine a god that +looked like him to say them to." + +I echoed her laugh heartily. The idea of Mowbray Langdon as a god struck me +as peculiarly funny, though natural enough, too. + +"Absurd, wasn't it?" said she. But her face was grave, and she let her +cigarette die out. + +"I guess you know him better than that now?" + +"Yes--better," she answered, slowly and absently. "He's--anything but a +god!" + +"And the more fascinating on that account," said I. "I wonder why women +like best the really bad, dangerous sort of man, who hasn't any respect for +them, or for anything." + +I said this that she might protest, at least for herself. But her answer +was a vague, musing, "I wonder--I wonder." + +"I'm sure _you_ wouldn't," I protested earnestly, for her. + +She looked at me queerly. + +"Can I never convince you that I'm just a woman?" said she mockingly. "Just +a woman, and one a man with your ideas of women would fly from." + +"I wish you were!" I exclaimed. "Then--I'd not find it so--so impossible to +give you up." + +She rose and made a slow tour of the room, halting on the rug before the +closed fireplace a few feet from me. I sat looking at her. + +"I am going to give you up," I said at last. + +Her eyes, staring into vacancy, grew larger and intenser with each long, +deep breath she took. + +"I didn't intend to say what I'm about to say--at least, not this evening," +I went on, and to me it seemed to be some other than myself who was +speaking. "Certain things happened down town to-day that have set me to +thinking. And--I shall do whatever I can for your brother and your father. +But you--you are free!" + +She went to the table, stood there in profile to me, straight and slender +as a sunflower stalk. She traced the silver chasings in the lid of the +cigarette box with her forefinger; then she took a cigarette and began +rolling it slowly and absently. + +"Please don't scent and stain your fingers with that filthy tobacco," said +I rather harshly. + +"And only this afternoon you were saying you had become reconciled to my +vice--that you had canonized it along with me--wasn't that your phrase?" +This indifferently, without turning toward me, and as if she were thinking +of something else. + +"So I have," retorted I. "But my mood--please oblige me this once." + +She let the cigarette fall into the box, closed the lid gently, leaned +against the table, folded her arms upon her bosom and looked full at me. +I was as acutely conscious of her every movement, of the very coming and +going of the breath at her nostrils, as a man on the operating-table is +conscious of the slightest gesture of the surgeon. + +"You are--suffering!" she said, and her voice was like the flow of oil upon +a burn. "I have never seen you like this. I didn't believe you capable +of--of much feeling." + +I could not trust myself to speak. If Bob Corey could have looked in on +that scene, could have understood it, how amazed he would have been! + +"What happened down town to-day?" she went on. "Tell me, if I may know." + +"I'll tell you what I didn't think, ten minutes ago, I'd tell any human +being," said I. "They've got me strapped down in the press. At ten o'clock +in the morning--precisely at ten--they're going to put on the screws." I +laughed. "I guess they'll have me squeezed pretty dry before noon." + +She shivered. + +"So, you see," I continued, "I don't deserve any credit for giving you up. +I only anticipate you by about twenty-four hours. Mine's a deathbed +repentance." + +"I'd thought of that," said she reflectively. Presently she added: "Then, +it is true." And I knew Sammy had given her some hint that prepared her for +my confession. + +"Yes--I can't go blustering through the matrimonial market," replied I. +"I've been thrown out. I'm a beggar at the gates." + +"A beggar at the gates," she murmured. + +I got up and stood looking down at her. + +"Don't _pity_ me!" I said. "My remark was a figure of speech. I want +no alms. I wouldn't take even you as alms. They'll probably get me down, +and stamp the life out of me--nearly. But not quite--don't you lose sight +of that. They can't kill me, and they can't tame me. I'll recover, and I'll +strew the Street with their blood and broken bones." + +She drew in her breath sharply. + +"And a minute ago I was almost liking you!" she exclaimed. + +I retreated to my chair and gave her a smile that must have been grim. + +"Your ideas of life and of men are like a cloistered nun's," said I. "If +there are any real men among your acquaintances, you may find out some +day that they're not so much like lapdogs as they pretend--and that you +wouldn't like them, if they were." + +"What--just what--happened to you down town to-day--after you left me?" + +"A friend of mine has been luring me into a trap--why, I can't quite +fathom. To-day he sprang the trap and ran away." + +"A friend of yours?" + +"The man we were talking about--your ex-god--Langdon." + +"Langdon," she repeated, and her tone told me that Sammy knew and had +hinted to her more than I suspected him of knowing. And, with her arms +still folded, she paced up and down the room. I watched her slender feet in +pale blue slippers appear and disappear--first one, then the other--at the +edge of her trailing skirt. + +Presently she stopped in front of me. Her eyes were gazing past me. + +"You are sure it was he?" she asked. + +I could not answer immediately, so amazed was I at her expression. I had +been regarding her as a being above and apart, an incarnation of youth +and innocence; with a shock it now came to me that she was experienced, +intelligent, that she understood the whole of life, the dark as fully as +the light, and that she was capable to live it, too. It was not a girl that +was questioning me there; it was a woman. + +"Yes--Langdon," I replied. "But I've no quarrel with him. My reverse is +nothing but the fortune of war. I assure you, when I see him again, I'll be +as friendly as ever--only a bit less of a trusting ass, I fancy. We're a +lot of free lances down in the Street. We fight now on one side, now on the +other. We change sides whenever it's expedient; and under the code it's not +necessary to give warning. To-day, before I knew he was the assassin, I had +made my plans to try to save myself at his expense, though I believed him +to be the best friend I had down town. No doubt he's got some good reason +for creeping up on me in the dark." + +"You are sure it was he?" she repeated. + +"He, and nobody else," replied I. "He decided to do me up--and I guess +he'll succeed. He's not the man to lift his gun unless he's sure the bird +will fall." + +"Do you really not care any more than you show?" she asked. "Or is your +manner only bravado--to show off before me?" + +"I don't care a damn, since I'm to lose you," said I. "It'll be a godsend +to have a hard row to hoe the next few months or years." + +She went back to leaning against the table, her arms folded as before. I +saw she was thinking out something. Finally she said: + +"I have decided not to accept your release." + +I sprang to my feet. + +"Anita!" I cried, my arms stretched toward her. + +But she only looked coldly at me, folded her arms the more tightly and +said: + +"Do not misunderstand me. The bargain is the same as before. If you want me +on those terms, I must--give myself." + +"Why?" I asked. + +A faint smile, with no mirth in it, drifted round the corners of her mouth. + +"An impulse," she said. "I don't quite understand it myself. An impulse +from--from--" Her eyes and her thoughts were far away, and her expression +was the one that made it hardest for me to believe she was a child of those +parents of hers. "An impulse from a sense of justice--of decency. I am the +cause of your trouble, and I daren't be a coward and a cheat." She repeated +the last words. "A coward--a cheat! We--I--have taken much from you, more +than you know. It must be repaid. If you still wish, I will--will keep to +my bargain." + +"It's true, I'd not have got into the mess," said I, "if I'd been attending +to business instead of dangling after you. But you're not responsible for +that folly." + +She tried to speak several times, before she finally succeeded in saying: + +"It's my fault. I mustn't shirk." + +I studied her, but I couldn't puzzle her out. + +"I've been thinking all along that you were simple and transparent," I +said. "Now, I see you are a mystery. What are you hiding from me?" + +Her smile was almost coquettish as she replied: + +"When a woman makes a mystery of herself to a man, it's for the man's +good." + +I took her hand--almost timidly. + +"Anita," I said, "do you still--dislike me?" + +"I do not--and shall not--love you," she answered. "But you are--" + +"More endurable?" I suggested, as she hesitated. + +"Less unendurable," she said with raillery. Then she added, "Less +unendurable than profiting by a-creeping up in the dark." + +I thought I understood her better than she understood herself. And suddenly +my passion melted in a tenderness I would have said was as foreign to me +as rain to a desert. I noticed that she had a haggard look. "You are very +tired, child," said I. "Good night. I am a different man from what I was +when I came in here." + +"And I a different woman," said she, a beauty shining from her that was as +far beyond her physical beauty as--as love is beyond passion. + +"A nobler, better woman," I exclaimed, kissing her hand. + +She snatched it away. + +"If you only knew!" she cried. "It seems to me, as I realize what sort of +woman I am, that I am almost worthy of _you_!" And she blazed a look +at me that left me rooted there, astounded. + +But I went down the avenue with a light heart. "Just like a woman," I was +saying to myself cheerfully, "not to know her own mind." + +A few blocks, and I stopped and laughed outright--at Langdon's treachery, +at my own credulity. "What an ass I've been making of myself!" said I to +myself. And I could see myself as I really had been during those months +of social struggling--an ass, braying and gamboling in a lion's skin--to +impress the ladies! + +"But not wholly to no purpose," I reflected, again all in a glow at thought +of Anita. + + + + +XIX + +A WINDFALL FROM "GENTLEMAN JOE" + + +I went to my rooms, purposing to go straight to bed, and get a good sleep. +I did make a start toward undressing; then I realized that I should only +lie awake with my brain wearing me out, spinning crazy thoughts and schemes +hour after hour--for my imagination rarely lets it do any effective +thinking after the lights are out and the limitations of material things +are wiped away by the darkness. I put on a dressing-gown and seated myself +to smoke and to read. + +When I was very young, new to New York, in with the Tenderloin crowd and +up to all sorts of pranks, I once tried opium smoking. I don't think I +ever heard of anything in those days without giving it a try. Usually, I +believe, opium makes the smoker ill the first time or two; but it had no +such effect on me, nor did it fill my mind with fantastic visions. On +the contrary, it made everything around me intensely real--that is, it +enormously stimulated my dominant characteristic of accurate observation. +I noticed the slightest details--such things as the slight difference in +the length of the arms of the Chinaman who kept the "joint," the number of +buttons down the front of the waist of the girl in the bunk opposite mine, +across the dingy, little, sweet-scented room. Nothing escaped me, and also +I was conscious of each passing second, or, rather, fraction of a second. + +As a rule, time and events, even when one is quietest, go with such a rush +that one notes almost nothing of what is passing. The opium seemed to +compel the kaleidoscope of life to turn more slowly; in fact, it sharpened +my senses so that they unconsciously took impressions many times more +quickly and easily and accurately. As I sat there that night after leaving +Anita, forcing my mind to follow the printed lines, I found I was in +exactly the state in which I had been during my one experiment with opium. +It seemed to me that as many days as there had been hours must have elapsed +since I got the news of the raised Textile dividend. Days--yes, weeks, even +months, of thought and action seemed to have been compressed into those six +hours--for, as I sat there, it was not yet eleven o'clock. + +And then I realized that this notion was not of the moment, but that I had +been as if under the influence of some powerful nerve stimulant since my +brain began to recover from the shock of that thunderbolt. Only, where +nerve stimulants often make the mind passive and disinclined to take part +in the drama so vividly enacting before it, this opening of my reservoirs +of reserve nervous energy had multiplied my power to act as well as my +power to observe. "I wonder how long it will last," thought I. And it made +me uneasy, this unnatural alertness, unaccompanied by any feverishness or +sense of strain. "Is this the way madness begins?" + +I dressed myself again and went out--went up to Joe Healey's gambling place +in Forty-fourth Street. Most of the well-known gamblers up town, as well as +their "respectable" down town fellow members of the fraternity, were old +acquaintances of mine; Joe Healey was as close a friend as I had. He had +great fame far squareness--and, in a sense, deserved it. With his fellow +gamblers he was straight as a string at all times--to be otherwise would +have meant that when he went broke he would stay broke, because none of +the fraternity would "stake" him. But with his patrons--being regarded by +them as a pariah, he acted toward them like a pariah--a prudent pariah. He +fooled them with a frank show of gentlemanliness, of honesty to his own +hurt; under that cover he fleeced them well, but always judiciously. + +That night, I recall, Joe's guests were several young fellows of the +fashionable set, rich men's sons and their parasites, a few of the big down +town operators who hadn't yet got hipped on "respectability"--they playing +poker in a private room--and a couple of flush-faced, flush-pursed chaps +from out of town, for whom one of Joe's men was dealing faro from what +looked to my experienced and accurate eye like a "brace" box. + +Joe, very elegant, too elegant in fact, in evening dress, was showing a new +piece of statuary to the oldest son of Melville, of the National Industrial +Bank. Joe knew a little something about art--he was much like the art +dealers who, as a matter of business, learn the difference between good +things and bad, but in their hearts wonder and laugh at people willing to +part with large sums of money for a little paint or marble or the like. + +As soon as Joe thought he had sufficiently impressed young Melville, he +drifted him to a roulette table, left him there and joined me. + +"Come to my office," said he. "I want to see you." + +He led the way down the richly-carpeted marble stairway as far as the +landing at the turn. There, on a sort of mezzanine, he had a gorgeous +little suite. The principal object in the sitting-room or office was a huge +safe. He closed and locked the outside door behind us. + +"Take a seat," said he. "You'll like the cigars in the second box on my +desk--the long one." And he began turning the combination lock. "You +haven't dropped in on us for the past three or four months," he went on. + +"No," said I, getting a great deal of pleasure out of seeing again, and +thus intimately, his round, ruddy face--like a yachtman's, not like a +drinker's--and his shifty, laughing brown eyes. "The game down town has +given me enough excitement. I haven't had to continue it up town to keep +my hand in." + +In fact, I had, as I have already said, been breaking off with my former +friends because, while many of the most reputable and reliable financiers +down town go in for high play occasionally at the gambling houses, it isn't +wise for the man trying to establish himself as a strictly legitimate +financier. I had been playing as much as ever, but only in games in my own +rooms and at the rooms of other bankers, brokers and commercial leaders. +The passion for high play is a craving that gnaws at a man all the time, +and he must always be feeding it one way or another. + +"I've noticed that you are getting too swell to patronize us fellows," said +he, his shrewd smile showing that my polite excuse had not fooled him. +"Well, Matt, you're right--you always did have good sound sense and a +steady eye for the main chance. I used to think the women'd ruin you, they +were so crazy about that handsome mug and figure of yours. But when I saw +you knew exactly when to let go, I knew nothing could stop you." + +By this time he had the safe open, disclosing several compartments and a +small, inside safe. He worked away at the second combination lock, and +presently exposed the interior of the little safe. It was filled with a +great roll of bills. He pried this out, brought it over to the desk and +began wrapping it up. "I want you to take this with you when you go," said +he. "I've made several big killings lately, and I'm going to get you to +invest the proceeds." + +"I can't take that big bundle along with me, Joe," said I. "Besides, it +ain't safe. Put it in the bank and send me a check." + +"Not on your life," replied Healey with a laugh. "The suckers we trimmed +gave checks, and I turned 'em into cash as soon as the banks opened. I +wasn't any too spry, either. Two of the damned sneaks consulted lawyers +as soon as they sobered off, and tried to stop payment on their checks. +They're threatening proceedings. You must take the dough away with you, and +I don't want a receipt." + +"Trimming suckers, eh?" said I, not able to decide what to do. + +"Their fathers stole it from the public," he explained. "They're drunken +little snobs, not fit to have money. I'm doing a public service by +relieving them of it. If I'd 'a' got more, I'd feel that much more"--he +vented his light, cool, sarcastic laugh--"more patriotic." + +"I can't take it," said I, feeling that, in my present condition, to take +it would be very near to betraying the confidence of my old friend. + +"They lost it in a straight game," he hastened to assure me. "I haven't had +a 'brace' box or crooked wheel for four years." This with a sober face and +a twinkle in his eye. "But even if I had helped chance to do the good work +of teaching them to take care of their money, you'd not refuse me. Up town +and down town, and all over the place, what's business, when you come to +look at it sensibly, but trading in stolen goods? Do you know a man who +could honestly earn more than ten or twenty thousand a year--good clean +money by good clean work?" + +"Oh, for that matter, your money's as clean as anybody's," said I. "But, +you know, I'm a speculator, Joe. I have my downs--and this happens to be a +stormy time for me. If I take your money, I mayn't be able to account for +it or even to pay dividends on it for--maybe a year or so." + +"It's all right, old man. I'll never give it a thought till you remind me +of it. Use it as you'd use your own. I've got to put it behind somebody's +luck--why not yours?" + +He finished doing up the package, then he seated himself, and we both +looked at it through the smoke of our cigars. + +"It's just as easy to deal in big sums as in little, in large matters as in +small, isn't it, Joe," said I, "once one gets in the way of it?" + +"Do you remember--away back there--the morning," he asked musingly--"the +last morning--you and I got up from the straw in the stables over at Jerome +Park--the stables they let us sleep in?" + +"And went out in the dawn to roost on the rails and spy on the speed trials +of old Revell's horses?" + +"Exactly," said Joe, and we looked at each other and laughed. "We in +rags--gosh, how chilly it was that morning! Do you remember what we talked +about?" + +"No," said I, though I did. + +"I was proposing to turn a crooked trick--and you wouldn't have it. You +persuaded me to keep straight, Matt. I've never forgotten it. You kept me +straight--showed me what a damn fool a man was to load himself down with a +petty larceny record. You made a man of me, Matt. And then those good looks +of yours caught the eye of that bookmaker's girl, and he gave you a job at +writing sheet--and you worked me in with you." + +So long ago it seemed, yet near and real, too, as I sat there, conscious of +every sound and motion, even of the fantastic shapes taken by our upcurling +smoke. How far I was from the "rail bird" of those happy-go-lucky years, +when a meal meant quite as much to me as does a million now--how far from +all that, yet how near, too. For was I not still facing life with the same +careless courage, forgetting each yesterday in the eager excitement of each +new day with its new deal? We went on in our reminiscences for a while; +then, as Joe had a little work to do, I drifted out into the house, took +a bite of supper with young Melville, had a little go at the tiger, and +toward five in the clear June morning emerged into the broad day of the +streets, with the precious bundle under my arms and a five hundred-dollar +bill in my waistcoat pocket. + +"Give my win to me in a single bill," I said to the banker, "and blow +yourself off with the change." + +Joe walked down the street with me--for companionship and a little air +before turning in, he said, but I imagine a desire to keep his eye on his +treasure a while longer had something to do with his taking that early +morning stroll. We passed several of those forlorn figures that hurry +through the slowly-awakening streets to bed or to work. Finally, there came +by an old, old woman--a scrubwoman, I guess, on her way home from cleaning +some office building. Beside her was a thin little boy, hopping along on a +crutch. I stopped them. + +"Hold out your hand," said I to the boy, and he did. I laid the five +hundred-dollar bill in it. "Now, shut your fingers tight over that," said +I, "and don't open them till you get home. Then tell your mother to do what +she likes with it." And we left them gaping after us, speechless before +this fairy story come true. + +"You must be looking hard for luck to-day," said Joe, who understood this +transaction where another might have thought it a showy and not very wise +charity. "They'll stop in at the church and pray for you, and burn a +candle." + +"I hope so," said I, "for God knows I need it." + + + + +XX + +A BREATHING SPELL + + +Langdon, after several years of effort, had got recognition for Textile +in London, but that was about all. He hadn't succeeded in unloading any +great amount of it on the English. So it was rather because I neglected +nothing than because I was hopeful of results that I had made a point of +telegraphing to London news of my proposed suit. The result was a little +trading in Textiles over there and a slight decline in the price. This fact +was telegraphed to all the financial centers on this side of the water, and +reinforced the impression my lawyers' announcement and my own "bear" letter +were making. + +Still, this was nothing, or next to it. What could I hope to avail against +Langdon's agents with almost unlimited capital, putting their whole energy +under the stock to raise it? In the same newspapers that published my bear +attack, in the same columns and under the same head-lines, were official +denials from the Textile Trust and the figures of enormous increase of +business as proof positive that the denials were honest. If the public +had not been burned so many times by "industrials," if it had not learned +by bitter experience that practically none of the leaders of finance and +industry were above lying to make or save a few dollars, if Textiles had +not been manipulated so often, first by Dumont and since his death by his +brother-in-law and successor, this suave and cynical Langdon, my desperate +attack would have been without effect. As it was-- + +Four months before, in the same situation, had I seen Textiles stagger as +they staggered in the first hour of business on the Stock Exchange that +morning, I'd have sounded the charge, clapped spurs to my charger, and +borne down upon them. But--I had my new-born yearning for "respectability"; +I had my new-born squeamishness, which led me to fear risking Bob Corey +and his bank and the money of my old friend Healey; finally, there was +Anita--the longing for her that made me prefer a narrow and uncertain +foothold to the bold leap that would land me either in wealth and power +or in the bottomless abyss. + +Instead of continuing to sell Textiles, I covered as far as I could; and +I bought so eagerly and so heavily that, more than Langdon's corps of +rocketers, I was responsible for the stock's rally and start upward. When I +say "eagerly" and "heavily," I do not mean that I acted openly or without +regard to common sense. I mean simply that I made no attempt to back up my +followers in the selling campaign I had urged them into; on the contrary, +I bought as they sold. That does not sound well, and it is no better than +it sounds. I shall not dispute with any one who finds this action of mine +a betrayal of my clients to save myself. All I shall say is that it was +business, that in such extreme and dire compulsion as was mine, it was--and +is--right under the code, the private and real Wall Street code. + +You can imagine the confused mass of transactions in which I was involved +before the Stock Exchange had been open long. There was the stock we had +been able to buy or get options on at various prices, between the closing +of the Exchange the previous day and that morning's opening--stock from all +parts of this country and in England. There was the stock I had been buying +since the Exchange opened--buying at figures ranging from one-eighth above +last night's closing price to fourteen points above it. And, on the debit +side, there were the "short" transactions extending over a period of nearly +two months--"sellings" of blocks large and small at a hundred different +prices. + +An inextricable tangle, you will say, one it would be impossible for a +man to unravel quickly and in the frantic chaos of a wild Stock Exchange +day. Yet the influence of the mysterious state of my nerves, which I have +described above, was so marvelous that, incredible though it seems, the +moment the Exchange closed, I knew exactly, where I stood. + +Like a mechanical lightning calculator, my mind threw up before me the net +result of these selling and buying transactions. Textile Common closed +eighteen points above the closing quotation of the previous day; if +Langdon's brother had not been just a little indiscreet, I should have been +as hopeless a bankrupt in reputation and in fortune as ever was ripped up +by the bulls of Wall Street. + +As it was, I believed that, by keeping a bold front, I might extricate and +free myself when the Coal reorganization was announced. The rise of Coal +stocks would square my debts--and, as I was apparently untouched by +the Textile flurry, so far as even Ball, my nominal partner and chief +lieutenant, knew, I need not fear pressure from creditors that I could +not withstand. + +I could not breathe freely, but I could breathe. + + + + +XXI + +MOST UNLADYLIKE + + +When I saw I was to have a respite of a month or so, I went over to the +National Industrial Bank with Healey's roll, which my tellers had counted +and prepared for deposit. I finished my business with the receiving teller +of the National Industrial, and dropped in on my friend Lewis, the first +vice-president. I did not need to pretend coolness and confidence; my +nerves were still in that curious state of tranquil exhilaration, and I +felt master of myself and of the situation. Just as I was leaving, in came +Tom Langdon with Sam Ellersly. + +Tom's face was a laughable exhibit of embarrassment. Sam--really, I felt +sorry for him. There was no reason on earth why he shouldn't be with Tom +Langdon; yet he acted as if I had caught him "with the goods on him." He +stammered and stuttered, clasped my hand eagerly, dropped it as if it had +stung him; he jerked out a string of hysterical nonsense, ending with +a laugh so crazy that the sound of it disconcerted him. Drink was the +explanation that drifted through my mind; but in fact I thought little +about it, so full was I of other matters. + +"When is your brother returning?" said I to Tom. + +"On the next steamer, I believe," he replied. "He went only for the rest +and the bath of sea air." With an effort he collected himself, drew me +aside and said: "I owe you an apology, Mr. Blacklock. I went to the steamer +with Mowbray to see him off, and he asked me to tell you about our new +dividend rate--though it was not to be made public for some time. Anyhow, +he told me to go straight to you--and I--frankly, I forgot it." Then, with +the winning, candid Langdon smile, he added, ingenuously: "The best excuse +in the world--yet the one nobody ever accepts." + +"No apology necessary," said I with the utmost good nature. "I've no +personal interest in Textile. My house deals on commission only, you +know--never on margins for myself. I'm a banker and broker, not a gambler. +Some of our customers were alarmed by the news of the big increase, and +insisted on bringing suit to stop it. But I'm going to urge them now to let +the matter drop." + +Tom tried to look natural, and as he is an apt pupil of his brother's, he +succeeded fairly well. His glance, however, wouldn't fix steadily on my +gaze, but circled round and round it like a bat at an electric light. "To +tell you the truth," said he, "I'm extremely nervous as to what my brother +will say--and do--to me, when I tell him. I hope no harm came to you +through my forgetfulness." + +"None in the world," I assured him. Then I turned on Sam. "What are you +doing down town to-day?" said I. "Are you on your way to see me?" + +He flushed with angry shame, reading an insinuation into my careless +remark, when I had not the remotest intention of reminding him that his +customary object in coming down town was to play the parasite and the +sponge at my expense. I ought to have guessed at once that there was +some good reason for his recovery of his refined, high-bred, gentlemanly +super-sensibilities; but I was not in the mood to analyze trifles, though +my nerves were taking careful record of them. + +"Oh, I was just calling on Tom," he replied rather haughtily. + +Then Melville himself came in, brushing back his white tufted burnsides and +licking his lips and blinking his eyes--looking for all the world like a +cat at its toilet. + +"Oh! ah! Blacklock!" he exclaimed, with purring cordiality--and I knew he +had heard of the big deposit I was making. "Come into my office on your way +out--nothing especial--only because it's always a pleasure to talk with +you." + +I saw that his effusive friendliness confirmed Tom Langdon's fear that I +had escaped from his brother's toils. He stared sullenly at the carpet +until he caught me looking at him with twinkling eyes. He made a valiant +effort to return my smile and succeeded in twisting his face into a knot +that seemed to hurt him as much as it amused me. + +"Well, good-by, Tom," said I. "Give my regards to your brother when he +lands, and tell him his going away was a mistake. A man can't afford to +trust his important business to understrappers." This with a face free from +any suggestion of intending a shot at him. Then to Sam: "See you to-night, +old man," and I went away, leaving Lewis looking from one to the other as +if he felt that there was dynamite about, but couldn't locate it. I stopped +with Melville to talk Coal for a few minutes--at my ease, and the last man +on earth to be suspected of hanging by the crook of one finger from the +edge of the precipice. + +I rang the Ellerslys' bell at half-past nine that evening. The butler faced +me with eyes not down, as they should have been, but on mine, and full +of the servile insolence to which he had been prompted by what he had +overheard in the family. + +"Not at home, sir," he said, though I had not spoken. + +I was preoccupied and not expecting that statement; neither had I skill, +nor desire to acquire skill, in reading family barometers in the faces of +servants. So, I was for brushing past him and entering where I felt I had +as much right as in my own places. He barred the way. + +"Beg pardon, sir. Mrs. Ellersly instructed me to say no one was at home." + +I halted, but only like an oncoming bear at the prick of an arrow. + +"What the hell does this mean?" I exclaimed, waving him aside. At that +instant Anita appeared from the little reception-room a few feet away. + +"Oh--come in!" she said cordially. "I was expecting you. Burroughs, please +take Mr. Blacklock's hat." + +I followed her into the reception-room, thinking the butler had made some +sort of mistake. + +"How did you come out?" she asked eagerly, facing me. "You look your +natural self--not tired or worried--so it must have been not so bad as you +feared." + +"If our friend Langdon hadn't slipped away, I might not look and feel so +comfortable," said I. "His brother blundered, and there was no one to +checkmate my moves." She seemed nearer to me, more in sympathy with me than +ever before. + +"I can't tell you how glad I am!" + +Her eyes were wide and bright, as from some great excitement, and her color +was high. Once my attention was on it, I knew instantly that only some +extraordinary upheaval in that household could have produced the fever that +was blazing in her. Never had I seen her in any such mood as this. + +"What is it?" I asked. "What has happened?" + +"If anything disagreeable should be said or done this evening here," she +said, "I want you to promise me that you'll restrain yourself, and not say +or do any of those things that make me--that jar on me. You understand?" + +"I am always myself," replied I. "I can't be anybody else." + +"But you are--several different kinds of self," she insisted. "And +please--this evening don't be _that_ kind. It's coming into your eyes +and chin now." + +I had lifted my head and looked round, probably much like the leader of a +horned herd at the scent of danger. + +"Is this better?" said I, trying to look the thoughts I had no difficulty +in getting to the fore whenever my eyes were on her. + +Her smile rewarded me. But it disappeared, gave place to a look of nervous +alarm, of terror even, at the rustling, or, rather, bustling, of skirts in +the hall--there was war in the very sound, and I felt it. Mrs. Ellersly +appeared, bearing her husband as a dejected trailer invisibly but firmly +coupled. She acknowledged my salutation with a stiff-necked nod, ignored my +extended hand. I saw that she wished to impress upon me that she was a very +grand lady indeed; but, while my ideas of what constitutes a lady were at +that time somewhat befogged by my snobbishness, she failed dismally. She +looked just what she was--a mean, bad-tempered woman, in a towering rage. + +"You have forced me, Mr. Blacklock," said she, and then I knew for just +what purpose that voice of hers was best adapted--"to say to you what I +should have preferred to write. Mr. Ellersly has had brought to his ears +matters in connection with your private life that make it imperative that +you discontinue your calls here." + +"My private life, ma'am?" I repeated. "I was not aware that I had a private +life." + +"Anita, leave us alone with Mr. Blacklock," commanded her mother. + +The girl hesitated, bent her head, and with a cowed look went slowly toward +the door. There she paused, and, with what seemed a great effort, lifted +her head and gazed at me. How I ever came rightly to interpret her look +I don't know, but I said: "Miss Ellersly, I've the right to insist that +you stay." I saw she was going to obey me, and before Mrs. Ellersly could +repeat her order I said: "Now, madam, if any one accuses me of having done +anything that would cause you to exclude a man from your house, I am ready +for the liar and his lie." + +As I spoke I was searching the weak, bad old face of her husband for an +explanation. Their pretense of outraged morality I rejected at once--it was +absurd. Neither up town nor down, nor anywhere else, had I done anything +that any one could regard as a breach of the code of a man of the world. +Then, reasoned I, they must have found some one else to help them out of +their financial troubles--some one who, perhaps, has made this insult to me +the price, or part of the price, of his generosity. Who? Who hates me? In +instant answer, up before my mind flashed a picture of Tom Langdon and Sam +Ellersly arm in arm entering Lewis' office. Tom Langdon wishes to marry +her; and her parents wish it, too; he is the man she was confessing to me +about--these were my swift conclusions. + +"We do not care to discuss the matter, sir," Mrs. Ellersly was replying, +her tone indicating that it was not fit to discuss. And this was the woman +I had hardly been able to treat civilly, so nauseating were her fawnings +and flatterings! + +"So!" I said, ignoring her and opening my batteries full upon the old man. +"You are taking orders from Mowbray Langdon now. Why?" + +As I spoke, I was conscious that there had been some change in Anita. I +looked at her. With startled eyes and lips apart, she was advancing toward +me. + +"Anita, leave the room!" cried Mrs. Ellersly harshly, panic under the +command in her tones. + +I felt rather than saw my advantage, and pressed it. + +"You see what they are doing, Miss Ellersly," said I. + +She passed her hands over her eyes, let her face appear again. In it there +was an energy of repulsion that ought to have seemed exaggerated to me +then, knowing really nothing of the true situation. "I understand now!" +said she. "Oh--it is--loathsome!" And her eyes blazed upon her mother. + +"Loathsome," I echoed, dashing at my opportunity. "If you are not merely a +chattel and a decoy, if there is any womanhood, any self-respect in you, +you will keep faith with me." + +"Anita!" cried Mrs. Ellersly. "Go to your room!" + +I had, once or twice before, heard a tone as repulsive--a female +dive-keeper hectoring her wretched white slaves. I looked at Anita. I +expected to see her erect, defiant. Instead, she was again wearing that +cowed look. + +"Don't judge me too harshly," she said pleadingly to me. "I know what is +right and decent--God planted that too deep in me for them to be able to +uproot it. But--oh, they have broken my will! They have broken my will! +They have made me a coward, a thing!" And she hid her face in her hands and +sobbed. + +Mrs. Ellersly was about to speak. I could not offer better proof of my own +strength of will than the fact that I, with a look and a gesture, put her +down. Then I said to the girl: + +"You must choose now! Woman or thing--which shall it be? If it is woman, +then you have me behind you and in front of you and around you. If it is +thing--God have mercy on you! Your self-respect, your pride are gone--for +ever. You will be like the carpet under his feet to the man whose creature +you become." + +She came and stood by me, with her back to them. + +"If you will take me with you now," she said, "I will go. If I delay, I am +lost. I shall not have the courage. And I am sick, sick to death of this +life here, of this hideous wait for the highest bidder." + +Her voice gained strength and her manner courage as she spoke; at the end +she was meeting her mother's gaze without flinching. My eyes had followed +hers, and my look was taking in both her mother and her father. I had long +since measured them, yet I could scarcely credit the confirmation of my +judgment. Had life been smooth and comfortable for that old couple, as it +was for most of their acquaintances and friends, they would have lived and +died regarding themselves, and regarded, as well-bred, kindly people, of +the finest instincts and tastes. But calamity was putting to the test the +system on which they had molded their apparently elegant, graceful lives. +The storm had ripped off the attractive covering; the framework, the +reality of that system, was revealed, naked and frightful. + +"Anita, go to your room!" almost screamed the old woman, her fury tearing +away the last shreds of her cloak of manners. + +"Your daughter is of age, madam," said I. "She will go where she pleases. +And I warn you that you are deceived by the Langdons. I am not powerless, +and"--here I let her have a full look into my red-hot furnaces of wrath--"I +stop at nothing in pursuing those who oppose me--at nothing!" + +Anita, staring at her mother's awful face, was shrinking and trembling +as if before the wicked, pale-yellow eyes and quivering, outstretched +tentacles of a devil-fish. Clinging to my arm, she let me guide her to the +door. Her mother recovered speech. "Anita!" she cried. "What are you doing? +Are you mad?" + +"I think I must be out of my mind," said Anita. "But, if you try to keep me +here, I shall tell him all--_all_." + +Her voice suggested that she was about to go into hysterics. I gently urged +her forward. There was some sort of woman's wrap in the hall. I put it +round her. Before she--or I--realized it, she was in my waiting electric. + +"Up town," I said to my man. + +She tried to get out. + +"Oh, what have I done! What am I doing!" she cried, her courage oozing +away. "Let me out--please!" + +"You are going with me," said I, entering and closing the door. I saw the +door of the Ellersly mansion opening, saw old Ellersly, bareheaded and +distracted, scuttling down the steps. + +"Go ahead--fast!" I called to my man. + +And the electric was rushing up the avenue, with the bell ringing for +crossings incessantly. She huddled away from me into the corner of the +seat, sobbing hysterically. I knew that to touch her would be fatal--or +to speak. So I waited. + + + + +XXII + +MOST UNGENTLEMANLY + + +As we neared the upper end of the park, I told my chauffeur, through the +tube, to enter and go slowly. Whenever a lamp flashed in at us, I had a +glimpse of her progress toward composure--now she was drying her eyes with +the bit of lace she called a handkerchief; now her bare arms were up, and +with graceful fingers she was arranging her hair; now she was straight and +still, the soft, fluffy material with which her wrap was edged drawn close +about her throat. I shifted to the opposite seat, for my nerves warned me +that I could not long control myself, if I stayed on where her garments +were touching me. + +I looked away from her for the pleasure of looking at her again, of +realizing that my overwrought senses were not cheating me. Yes, there she +was, in all the luster of that magnetic beauty I can not think of even now +without an upblazing of the fire which is to the heart what the sun is to a +blind man dreaming of sight. There she was on my side of the chasm that had +separated us--alone with me--mine--mine! And my heart dilated with pride. +But a moment later came a sense of humility. Her beauty intoxicated me, but +her youth, her fineness, so fragile for such rough hands as mine, awed and +humbled me. + +"I must be very gentle," said I to myself. "I have promised that she shall +never regret. God help me to keep my promise! She is mine, but only to +preserve and protect." + +And that idea of _responsibility in possession_ was new to me--was +to have far-reaching consequences. Now that I think of it, I believe it +changed the whole course of my life. + +She was leaning forward, her elbow on the casement of the open window of +the brougham, her cheek against her hand; the moonlight was glistening +on her round, firm forearm and on her serious face. "How far, far away +from--everything it seems here!" she said, her voice tuned to that soft, +clear light, "and how beautiful it is!" Then, addressing the moon and the +shadows of the trees rather than me: "I wish I could go on and on--and +never return to--to the world." + +"I wish we could," said I. + +My tone was low, but she started, drew back into the brougham, became an +outline in the deep shadow. In another mood that might have angered me. +Just then it hurt me so deeply that to remember it to-day is to feel a +faint ache in the scar of the long-healed wound. My face was not hidden as +was hers; so, perhaps, she saw. At any rate, her voice tried to be friendly +as she said: "Well--I have crossed the Rubicon. And I don't regret. It was +silly of me to cry. I thought I had been through so much that I was beyond +such weakness. But you will find me calm from now on, and reasonable." + +"Not too reasonable, please," said I, with an attempt at her lightness. "A +reasonable woman is as trying as an unreasonable man." + +"But we are going to be sensible with each other," she urged, "like two +friends. Aren't we?" + +"We are going to be what we are going to be," said I. "We'll have to take +life as it comes." + +That clumsy reminder set her to thinking, stirred her vague uneasiness in +those strange circumstances to active alarm. For presently she said, in a +tone that was not so matter-of-course as she had tried to make it: "We'll +go now to my Uncle Frank's. He's a brother of my father's. I always used to +like him best--and still do. But he married a woman mama thought--queer. +They hadn't much, so he lives away up on the West Side--One Hundred and +Twenty-seventh Street." + +"The wise plan, the only wise plan," said I, not so calm as she must have +thought me, "is to go to my partner's house and send for a minister." + +"Not to-night," she replied nervously. "Take me to Uncle Frank's, and +to-morrow we can discuss what to do and how to do it." + +"To-night," I persisted. "We must be married to-night. No more uncertainty +and indecision and weakness. Let us begin bravely, Anita!" + +"To-morrow," she said. "But not to-night. I must think it over." + +"To-night," I repeated. "To-morrow will be full of its own problems. This +is to-night's." + +She shook her head, and I saw that the struggle between us had begun--the +struggle against her timidity and conventionality. "No, not tonight." This +in her tone for finality. + +To argue with any woman in such circumstances would be dangerous; to argue +with her would have been fatal. To reason with a woman is to flatter +her into suspecting you of weakness and herself of strength. I told the +chauffeur to turn about and go slowly up town. She settled back into her +corner of the brougham. Neither of us spoke until we were passing Grant's +Tomb. Then she started out of her secure confidence in my obedience, and +exclaimed: "This is not the way!" And her voice had in it the hasty +call-to-arms. + +"No," I replied, determined to push the panic into a rout. "As I told you, +our future shall be settled to-night." That in _my_ tone for finality. + +A pause, then: "It _has_ been settled," she said, like a child that +feels, yet denies, its impotence as it struggles in the compelling arms of +its father. "I thought until a few minutes ago that I really intended to +marry you. Now I see that I didn't." + +"Another reason why we're not going to your uncle's," said I. + +She leaned forward so that I could see her face. "I can not marry you," she +said. "I feel humble toward you, for having misled you. But it is better +that you--and I--should have found out now than too late." + +"It is too late--too late to go back." + +"Would you wish to marry a woman who does not love you, who loves some one +else, and who tells you so and refuses to marry you?" She had tried to +concentrate enough scorn into her voice to hide her fear. + +"I would," said I. "And I shall. I'll not desert you, Anita, when your +courage and strength shall fail. I will carry you on to safety." + +"I tell you I can not marry you," she cried, between appeal and command. +"There are reasons--I may not tell you. But if I might, you would--would +take me to my uncle's. I can not marry you!" + +"That is what conventionality bids you say now," I replied. And then I +gathered myself together and in a tone that made me hate myself as I +heard it, I added slowly, each word sharp and distinct: "But what will +conventionality bid you say to-morrow morning, as we drive down crowded +Fifth Avenue, after a night in this brougham?" + +I could not see her, for she fell back into the darkness as sharply as if +I had struck her with all my force full in the face. But I could feel the +effect of my words upon her. I paused, not because I expected or wished +an answer, but because I had to steady myself--myself, not my purpose; my +purpose was inflexible. I would put through what we had begun, just as I +would have held her and cut off her arm with my pocket-knife if we had +been cast away alone, and I had had to do it to save her life. She was +not competent to decide for herself. Every problem that had ever faced +her had been decided by others for her. Who but me could decide for her +now? I longed to plead with her, longed to let her see that I was not +hard-hearted, was thinking of her, was acting for her sake as much as for +my own. But I dared not. "She would misunderstand," said I to myself. "She +would think you were weakening." + +Full fifteen minutes of that frightful silence before she said: "I will go +where you wish." And she said it in a tone that makes me wince as I recall +it. + +I called my partner's address up through the tube. Again that frightful +silence, then she was trying to choke back the sobs. A few words I caught: +"They have broken my will--they have broken my will." + + * * * * * + +My partner lived in a big, gray-stone house that stood apart and commanded +a noble view of the Hudson and the Palisades. It was, in the main, a +reproduction of a French château, and such changes as the architect had +made in his model were not positively disfiguring, though amusing. There +should have been trees and shrubbery about it, but--"As Mrs. B. says," Joe +had explained to me, "what's the use of sinking a lot of cash in a house +people can't see?" So there was not a bush, not a flower. Inside--One day +Ball took me on a tour of the art shops. "I've got a dozen corners and +other big bare spots to fill," said he. "Mrs. B. hates to give up money, +haggles over every article. I'm going to put the job through in business +style." I soon discovered that I had been brought along to admire his +"business style," not to suggest. After two hours, in which he bought in +small lots several tons of statuary, paintings, vases and rugs, he said, +"This is too slow." He pointed his stick at a crowded corner of the shop. +"How much for that bunch of stuff?" he demanded. The proprietor gave him a +figure. "I'll close," said Joe, "if you'll give fifteen off for cash." The +proprietor agreed. "Now we're done," said Joe to me. "Let's go down town, +and maybe I can pick up what I've dropped." + +You can imagine that interior. But don't picture it as notably worse than +the interior of the average New York palace. It was, if anything, better +than those houses, where people who deceive themselves about their lack of +taste have taken great pains to prevent any one else from being deceived. +One could hardly move in Joe's big rooms for the litter of gilded and +tapestried furniture, and their crowded walls made the eyes ache. + +The appearance of the man who opened the door for Anita and me suggested +that our ring had roused him from a bed where he had deposited himself +without bothering to take off his clothes. At the sound of my voice, Ball +peered out of his private smoking-room, at the far end of the hall. He +started forward; then, seeing how I was accompanied, stopped with mouth +ajar. He had on a ragged smoking-jacket, a pair of shapeless old Romeo +slippers, his ordinary business waistcoat and trousers. He was wearing +neither tie nor collar, and a short, black pipe was between his fingers. +We had evidently caught the household stripped of "lugs," and sunk in the +down-at-the-heel slovenliness which it called "comfort." Joe was crimson +with confusion, and was using his free hand to stroke, alternately, his +shiny bald head and his heavy brown mustache. He got himself together +sufficiently, after a few seconds, to disappear into his den. When he came +out again, pipe and ragged jacket were gone, and he rushed for us in a +gorgeous velvet jacket with dark red facings, and a showy pair of slippers. + +"Glad to see you, Mr. Blacklock"--in his own home he always addressed every +man as Mister, just as "Mrs. B." always called him "Mister Ball," and he +called her "Missus Ball" before "company." "Come right into the front +parlor. Billy, turn on the electric lights." + +Anita had been standing with her head down. She now looked round with +shame and terror in those expressive blue-gray eyes of hers; her delicate +nostrils were quivering. I hastened to introduce Ball to her. Her impulse +to fly passed; her lifelong training in doing the conventional thing +asserted itself. She lowered her head again, murmured an inaudible +acknowledgment of Joe's greeting. + +"Your wife is at home?" said I. If one was at home in the evening, the +other was also, and both were always there, unless they were at some +theater--except on Sunday night, when they dined at Sherry's, because many +fashionable people did it. They had no friends and few acquaintances. +In their humbler and happy days they had had many friends, but had lost +them when they moved away from Brooklyn and went to live, like uneasy, +out-of-place visitors, in their grand house, pretending to be what they +longed to be, longing to be what they pretended to be, and as discontented +as they deserved. + +"Oh, yes, Mrs. B.'s at home," Joe answered. "I guess she and Alva +were--about to go to bed." Alva was their one child. She had been +christened Malvina, after Joe's mother; but when the Balls "blossomed out" +they renamed her Alva, which they somehow had got the impression was +"smarter." + +At Joe's blundering confession that the females of the family were in no +condition to receive, Anita said to me in a low voice: "Let us go." + +I pretended not to hear. "Rout 'em out," said I to Joe. "Then, take my +electric and bring the nearest parson. There's going to be a wedding--right +here." And I looked round the long salon, with everything draped for the +summer departure. Joe whisked the cover off one chair, his man took off +another. "I'll have the women-folks down in two minutes," he cried. Then to +the man: "Get a move on you, Billy. Stir 'em up in the kitchen. Do the best +you can about supper--and put a lot of champagne on the ice. That's the +main thing at a wedding." + +Anita had seated herself listlessly in one of the uncovered chairs. The +wrap slipped back from her shoulders and--how proud I was of her! Joe +gazed, took advantage of her not looking up to slap me on the back and to +jerk his head in enthusiastic approval. Then he, too, disappeared. + +A wait followed, during which we could hear, through the silence, excited +undertones from the upper floors. The words were indistinct until Joe's +heavy voice sent down to us an angry "No damn nonsense, I tell you. Allie's +got to come, too. She's not such a fool as you think. Bad example--bosh!" + +Anita started up. "Oh--please--please!" she cried. "Take me away--anywhere! +This is dreadful." + +It was, indeed, dreadful. If I could have had my way at just that moment, +it would have gone hard with "Mrs. B." and "Allie"--and heavy-voiced Joe, +too. But I hid my feelings. + +"There's nowhere else to go," said I, "except the brougham." + +She sank into her chair. + +A few minutes more of silence, and there was a rustling on the stairs. +She started up, trembling, looked round, as if seeking some way of escape +or some place to hide. Joe was in the doorway holding aside one of the +curtains. There entered in a beribboned and beflounced tea-gown, a pretty, +if rather ordinary, woman of forty, with a petulant baby face. She was +trying to look reserved and severe. She hardly glanced at me before +fastening sharp, suspicious eyes on Anita. + +"Mrs. Ball," said I, "this is Miss Ellersly," + +"Miss Ellersly!" she exclaimed, her face changing. And she advanced and +took both Anita's hands. "Mr. Ball is so stupid," she went on, with that +amusingly affected accent which is the "Sunday clothes" of speech. + +"I didn't catch the name, my dear," Joe stammered. + +"Be off," said I, aside, to him. "Get the nearest preacher, and hustle him +here with his tools." + +I had one eye on Anita all the time, and I saw her gaze follow Joe as he +hurried out; and her expression made my heart ache. I heard him saying in +the hall, "Go in, Allie. It's O K"; heard the door slam, knew we should +soon have some sort of minister with us. + +"Allie" entered the drawing-room. I had not seen her in six years. I +remembered her unpleasantly as a great, bony, florid child, unable to +stand still or to sit still, or to keep her tongue still, full of aimless +questions and giggles and silly remarks that she and her mother thought +funny. I saw her now, grown into a handsome young woman, with enough beauty +points for an honorable mention, if not for a prize--straight and strong +and rounded, with a brow and a keen look out of the eyes which it seemed +a pity should be wasted on a woman. Her mother's looks, her father's good +sense, a personality apparently got from neither, but all her own, and +unusual and interesting. No wonder the Balls felt toward her much as a pair +of barn-swallows would feel if they were to hatch out an eaglet. These +quiet, tame American parents that are always finding their suppressed +selves, the bold, fantastic, unadmitted dreams of their youth startlingly +confronting them in the flesh as their own children! + +"From what Mr. Ball said,"--Mrs. Ball was gushing affectedly to Anita,--"I +got an idea that--well, really, I didn't know _what_ to think." + +Anita looked as if she were about to suffocate. Allie came to the rescue. +"Not very complimentary to Mr. Blacklock, mother," said she good-humoredly. +Then to Anita, with a simple friendliness there was no resisting: "Wouldn't +you like to come up to my room for a few minutes?" + +"Oh, thank you!" responded Anita, after a quick, but thorough inspection +of Alva's face, to make sure she was like her voice. I had not counted on +this; I had been assuming that Anita would not be out of my sight until we +were married. It was on the tip of my tongue to interfere when she looked +at me--for permission to go! + +"Don't keep her too long," said I to Alva, and they were gone. + +"You can't blame me--really you can't, Mr. Blacklock," Mrs. Ball began to +plead for herself, as soon as they were safely out of hearing. "After some +things--mere hints, you understand--for I'm careful what I permit Mr. Ball +to say before _me_. I think married people can not be too respectful of +each other. I _never_ tolerate _vulgarity_." + +"No doubt, Joe has made me out a very vulgar person," said I, forgetting +her lack of humor. + +"Oh, not at all, not at all, Mr. Blacklock," she protested, in a panic lest +she had done her husband damage with me. "I understand, men will be men, +though as a pure-minded woman, I'm sure I can't imagine why they should +be." + +"How far off is the nearest church?" I cut in. + +"Only two blocks--that is, the Methodist church," she replied. "But I know +Mr. Ball will bring an Episcopalian." + +"Why, I thought you were a devoted Presbyterian," said I, recalling how in +their Brooklyn days she used to insist on Joe's going twice every Sunday to +sleep through long sermons. + +She looked uncomfortable. "I was reared Presbyterian," she explained +confusedly, "but you know how it is in New York. And when we came to live +here, we got out of the habit of church-going. And all Alva's little +friends were Episcopalians. So I drifted toward that church. I find the +service so satisfying--so--elegant. And--one sees there the people one sees +socially." + +"How is your culture class?" I inquired, deliberately malicious, in my +impatience and nervousness. "And do you still take conversation lessons?" + +She was furiously annoyed. "Oh, those old jokes of Joe's," she said, +affecting disdainful amusement. + +In fact, they were anything but jokes. On Mondays and Thursdays she used +to attend a class for women who, like herself, wished to be "up-to-date on +culture and all that sort of thing." They hired a teacher to cram them with +odds and ends about art and politics and the "latest literature, heavy and +light." On Tuesdays and Fridays she had an "indigent gentlewoman," whatever +that may be, come to her to teach her how to converse and otherwise conduct +herself according to the "standards of polite society." + +Joe used to give imitations of those conversation lessons that raised roars +of laughter round the poker table, the louder because so many of the other +men had wives with the same ambitions and the same methods of attaining +them. + +Mrs. Ball came back to the subject of Anita. + +"I am glad you are going to settle with such a charming girl. She comes of +such a charming family. I have never happened to meet any of them. We are +in the West Side set, you know, while they move in the East Side set, and +New York is so large that one almost never meets any one outside one's own +set." This smooth snobbishness, said in the affected "society" tone, was +as out of place in her as rouge and hair-dye in a wholesome, honest old +grandmother. + +I began to pace the floor. "Can it be," I fretted aloud, "that Joe's racing +round looking for an Episcopalian preacher, when there was a Methodist at +hand?" + +"I'm sure he wouldn't bring anything but a Church of England priest," +Mrs. Ball assured me loftily. "Why, Miss Ellersly wouldn't think she was +married, if she hadn't a priest of her own church." + +My temper got the bit in its teeth. I stopped before her, and fixed her +with an eye that must have had some fire in it. "I'm not marrying a fool, +Mrs. Ball," said I. "You mustn't judge her by her bringing-up--by her +family. Children have a way of bringing themselves up, in spite of damn +fool parents." + +She weakened so promptly that I was ashamed of myself. My only apology for +getting out of patience with her is that I had seen her seldom in the last +few years, had forgotten how matter-of-surface her affectation and snobbery +were, and how little they interfered with her being a good mother and a +good wife, up to the limits of her brain capacity. + +"I'm sure, Mr. Blacklock," she said plaintively, "I only wished to say what +was pleasant and nice about your fiancée. I know she's a lovely girl. I've +often admired her at the opera. She goes a great deal in Mrs. Langdon's +box, and Mrs. Langdon and I are together on the board of managers of the +Magdalene Home, and also on the board of the Hospital for Unfortunate +Gentlefolk." And so on, and on. + +I walked up and down among those wrapped-up, ghostly chairs and tables and +cabinets and statues many times before Joe arrived with the minister--and +he was a Methodist, McCabe by name. You should have seen Mrs. Ball's look +as he advanced his portly form and round face with its shaven upper lip +into the drawing-room. She tried to be cordial, but she couldn't--her mind +was on Anita, and the horror that would fill her when she discovered that +she was to be married by a preacher of a sect unknown to fashionable +circles. + +"All I ask of you," said I to him, "is that you cut it as short as +possible. Miss Ellersly is tired and nervous." This while we were shaking +hands after Joe's introduction. + +"You can count on me, sir," said McCabe, giving my hand an extra shake +before dropping it. "I've no doubt, from what my young neighbor here +tells me, that your marriage is already made in your hearts and with all +solemnity. The form is an incident--important, but only an incident." + +I liked that, and I liked his unaffected way of saying it. His voice had +more of the homely, homelike, rural twang in it than I had heard in New +York in many a day. I mentally doubled the fee I had intended to give him. +And now Alva and she were coming down the stairway. I was amazed at sight +of her. Her evening dress had given place to a pretty blue street suit +with a short skirt--white showing at her wrists, at her neck and through +slashings in the coat over her bosom; and on her head was a hat to match. I +looked at her feet--the slippers had been replaced by boots. "And they're +just right for her," said Alva, who was following my glance, "though I'm +not so tall as she." + +But what amazed me most, and delighted me, was that she seemed to be almost +in good spirits. It was evident she had formed with Joe's daughter one of +those sudden friendships so great and so vivid that they rarely lived long +after the passing of the heat of the emergency that bred them. Mrs. Ball +saw it, also, and was straightway giddied into a sort of ecstasy. You can +imagine the visions it conjured. I've no doubt she talked house on the +east side of the park to Joe that very night, before she let him sleep. +However, Anita's face was serious enough when we took our places before +the minister, with his little, black-bound book open. And as he read in a +voice that was genuinely impressive those words that no voice could make +unimpressive, I saw her paleness blanch into pallor, saw the dusk creep +round her eyes until they were like stars waning somberly before the gray +face of dawn. When they closed and her head began to sway, I steadied her +with my arm. And so we stood, I with my arm round her, she leaning lightly +against my shoulder. Her answers were mere movements of the lips. + +At the end, when I kissed her cheek, she said: "Is it over?" + +"Yes," McCabe answered--she was looking at him. "And I wish you all +happiness, Mrs. Blacklock." + +At that name, her new name, she stared at him with great wondering eyes; +then her form relaxed. I carried her to a chair. Joe came with a glass of +champagne; she drank some of it, and it brought life back to her face, and +some color. With a naturalness that deceived even me for the moment, she +smiled up at Joe as she handed him the glass. "Is it bad luck," she asked, +"for me to be the first to drink my own health?" And she stood, looking +tranquilly at every one--except me. + +I took McCabe into the hall and paid him off. + +When we came back, I said: "Now we must be going." + +"Oh, but surely you'll stay for supper!" cried Joe's wife. + +"No," replied I, in a tone that made it impossible to insist. "We +appreciate your kindness, but we've imposed on it enough." And I shook +hands with her and with Allie and the minister, and, linking Joe's arm in +mine, made for the door. I gave the necessary directions to my chauffeur +while we were waiting for Anita to come down the steps. Joe's daughter was +close beside her, and they kissed each other good-by, Alva on the verge of +tears, Anita not suggesting any emotion of any sort. "To-morrow--sure," +Anita said to her. And she answered: "Yes, indeed--as soon as you telephone +me." And so we were off, a shower of rice rattling on the roof of the +brougham--the slatternly man-servant had thrown it from the midst of the +group of servants. + +Neither of us spoke. I watched her face without seeming to do so, and by +the light of occasional street lamps saw her studying me furtively. At last +she said: "I wish to go to my uncle's now." + +"We are going home," said I. + +"But the house will be shut up," said she, "and every one will be in bed. +It's nearly midnight. Besides, they might not--" She came to a full stop. + +"We are going--home," I repeated. "To the Willoughby." + +She gave me a look that was meant to scorch--and it did. But I showed at +the surface no sign of how I was wincing and shrinking. + +She drew farther into her corner, and out of its darkness came, in a low +voice: "How I _hate_ you!" like the whisper of a bullet. + +I kept silent until I had control of myself. Then, as if talking--of a +matter that had been finally and amicably settled, I began: "The apartment +isn't exactly ready for us, but Joe's just about now telephoning my man +that we are coming, and telephoning your people to send your maid down +there." + +"I wish to go to my uncle's," she repeated. + +"My wife will go with me," said I quietly and gently. "I am considerate of +_her_, not of her unwise impulses." + +A long pause, then from her, in icy calmness: "I am in your power just now. +But I warn you that, if you do not take me to my uncle's, you will wish you +had never seen me." + +"I've wished that many times already," said I sadly. "I've wished it from +the bottom of my heart this whole evening, when step by step fate has been +forcing me on to do things that are even more hateful to me than to you. +For they not only make me hate myself, but make you hate me, too." I laid +my hand on her arm and held it there, though she tried to draw away. +"Anita," I said, "I would do anything for you--live for you, die for you. +But there's that something inside me--you've felt it; and when it says +'must,' I can't disobey--you know I can't. And, though you might break +my heart, you could not break that will. It's as much my master as it is +yours." + +"We shall see--to-morrow," she said. + +"Do not put me to the test," I pleaded. Then I added what I knew to be +true: "But you will not. You know it would take some one stronger than your +uncle, stronger than your parents, to swerve me from what I believe right +for you and for me." I had no fear for "to-morrow." The hour when she could +defy me had passed. + +A long, long silence, the electric speeding southward under the arching +trees of the West Drive. I remember it was as we skirted the lower end +of the Mall that she said evenly: "You have made me hate you so that it +terrifies me. I am afraid of the consequences that must come to you and +to me." + +"And well you may be," I answered gently. "For you've seen enough of me to +get at least a hint of what I would do, if goaded to it. Hate is terrible, +Anita, but love can be more terrible." + +At the Willoughby she let me help her descend from the electric, waited +until I sent it away, walked beside me into the building. My man, Sanders, +had evidently been listening for the elevator; the door opened without my +ringing, and there he was, bowing low. She acknowledged his welcome with +that regard for "appearances" that training had made instinctive. In the +center of my--our--drawing-room table was a mass of fresh white roses. +"Where did you get 'em?" I asked him, in an aside. + +"The elevator boy's brother, sir," he replied, "works in the florist's shop +just across the street, next to the church. He happened to be down stairs +when I got your message, sir. So I was able to get a few flowers. I'm +sorry, sir, I hadn't a little more time." + +"You've done noble," said I, and I shook hands with him warmly. + +Anita was greeting those flowers as if they were a friend suddenly +appearing in a time of need. She turned now and beamed on Sanders. "Thank +you," she said; "thank you." And Sanders was hers. + +"Anything I can do--ma'am--sir?" asked Sanders. + +"Nothing--except send my maid as soon as she comes," she replied. + +"I shan't need you," said I. + +"Mr. Monson is still here," he said, lingering. "Shall I send him away, +sir, or do you wish to see him?" + +"I'll speak to him myself in a moment," I answered. + +When Sanders was gone, she seated herself and absently played with the +buttons of her glove. + +"Shall I bring Monson?" I asked. "You know, he's my--factotum." + +"_I_ do not wish to see him," she answered. + +"You do not like him?" + +After a brief hesitation she answered, "No." Not for worlds would she just +then have admitted, even to herself, that the cause of her dislike was her +knowledge of his habit of tattling, with suitable embroideries, his lessons +to me. + +I restrained a strong impulse to ask her why, for instinct told me she had +some especial reason that somehow concerned me. I said merely: "Then I +shall get rid of him." + +"Not on my account," she replied indifferently. "I care nothing about him +one way or the other." + +"He goes at the end of his month," said I. + +She was now taking off her gloves. "Before your maid comes," I went on, +"let me explain about the apartment. This room and the two leading out of +it are yours. My own suite is on the other side of our private hall there." + +She colored high, paled. I saw that she did not intend to speak. + +I stood awkwardly, waiting for something further to come into my own head. +"Good night," said I finally, as if I were taking leave of a formal +acquaintance at the end of a formal call. + +She did not answer. I left the room, closing the door behind me. I paused +an instant, heard the key click in the lock. And I burned in a hot flush of +shame that she should be thinking thus basely of me--and with good cause. +How could she know, how appreciate even if she had known? "You've had to +cut deep," said I to myself. "But the wounds'll heal, though it may take +long--very long." And I went on my way, not wholly downcast. + +I joined Monson in my little smoking-room. "Congratulate you," he began, +with his nasty, supercilious grin, which of late had been getting on my +nerves severely. + +"Thanks," I replied curtly, paying no attention to his outstretched hand. +"I want you to put a notice of the marriage in to-morrow morning's +_Herald_." + +"Give me the facts--clergyman's name--place, and so on," said he. + +"Unnecessary," I answered. "Just our names and the date--that's all. You'd +better step lively. It's late, and it'll be too late if you delay." + +With an irritating show of deliberation he lit a fresh cigarette before +setting out. I heard her maid come. After about an hour I went into the +hall--no light through the transoms of her suite. I returned to my own part +of the flat and went to bed in the spare room to which Sanders had moved my +personal belongings. That day which began in disaster--in what a blaze of +triumph it had ended! Anita--my wife, and under my roof! I slept with good +conscience. I had earned sleep. + + + + +XXIII + +"SHE HAS CHOSEN!" + + +Joe got to the office rather later than usual the next morning. They told +him I was already there, but he wouldn't believe it until he had come into +my private den and with his own eyes had seen me. "Well, I'm jiggered!" +said he. "It seems to have made less impression on you than it did on us. +My missus and the little un wouldn't let me go to bed till after two. They +sat on and on, questioning and discussing." + +I laughed--partly because I knew that Joe, like most men, was as full of +gossip and as eager for it as a convalescent old maid, and that, whoever +might have been the first at his house to make the break for bed, he was +the last to leave off talking. But the chief reason for my laugh was that, +just before he came in on me, I was almost pinching myself to see whether I +was dreaming it all, and he had made me feel how vividly true it was. + +"Why don't you ease down, Blacklock?" he went on. "Everything's smooth. The +business--at least, my end of it, and I suppose your end, too--was never +better, never growing so fast. You could go off for a week or two, just as +well as not. I don't know of a thing that can prevent you." + +And he honestly thought it, so little did I let him know about the larger +enterprises of Blacklock and Company. I could have spoken a dozen words, +and he would have been floundering like a caught fish in a basket. There +are men--a very few--who work more swiftly and more surely when they know +they're on the brink of ruin; but not Joe. One glimpse of our real National +Coal account, and all my power over him couldn't have kept him from showing +the whole Street that Blacklock and Company was shaky. And whenever the +Street begins to think a man is shaky, he must be strong indeed to escape +the fate of the wolf that stumbles as it runs with the pack. + +"No holiday at present, Joe," was my reply to his suggestion. "Perhaps the +second week in July; but our marriage was so sudden that we haven't had the +time to get ready for a trip." + +"Yes--it _was_ sudden, wasn't it?" said Joe, curiosity twitching his +nose like a dog's at scent of a rabbit. "How _did_ it happen?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you sometime," replied I. "I must work now." + +And work a-plenty there was. Before me rose a sheaf of clamorous telegrams +from our out-of-town customers and our agents; and soon my anteroom was +crowded with my local following, sore and shorn. I suppose a score or more +of the habitual heavy plungers on my tips were ruined and hundreds of +others were thousands and tens of thousands out of pocket. "Do you want me +to talk to these people?" inquired Joe, with the kindly intention of giving +me a chance to shift the unpleasant duty to him. + +"Certainly not," said I. "When the place is jammed, let me know. I'll jack +'em up." + +It made Joe uneasy for me even to talk of using my "language"--he would +have crawled from the Battery to Harlem to keep me from using it on him. +So he silently left me alone. My system of dealing face to face with the +speculating and investing public had many great advantages over that of all +the other big operators--their system of hiding behind cleverly-contrived +screens and slaughtering the decoyed public without showing so much as the +tip of a gun or nose that could be identified. But to my method there was +a disadvantage that made men, who happened to have more hypocrisy and less +nerve than I, shrink from it. When one of my tips miscarried, down upon me +would swoop the bad losers in a body to give me a turbulent quarter of an +hour. + +Toward ten o'clock, my boy came in and said: "Mr. Ball thinks it's about +time for you to see some of these people." + +I went into the main room, where the tickers and blackboards were. As I +approached through my outer office I could hear the noise the crowd was +making--as they cursed me. If you want to rile the true inmost soul of the +average human being, don't take his reputation or his wife; just cause +him to lose money. There were among my speculating customers many with +the even-tenored sporting instinct. These were bearing their losses with +philosophy--none of them had swooped on me. Of the perhaps three hundred +who had come to ease their anguish by tongue-lashing me, every one was +a bad loser and was mad through and through--those who had lost a few +hundred dollars were as infuriated as those whom my misleading tip had cost +thousands and tens of thousands; those whom I had helped to win all they +had in the world were more savage than those new to my following. + +I took my stand in the doorway, a step up from the floor of the main room. +I looked all round until I had met each pair of angry eyes. They say I can +give my face an expression that is anything but agreeable; such talent as +I have in that direction I exerted then. The instant I appeared a silence +fell; but I waited until the last pair of claws drew in. Then I said, in +the quiet tone the army officer uses when he tells the mob that the machine +guns will open up in two minutes by the watch: "Gentlemen, in the effort to +counteract my warning to the public, the Textile crowd rocketed the stock +yesterday. Those who heeded my warning and sold got excellent prices. Those +who did not should sell to-day. Not even the powerful interests behind +Textile can long maintain yesterday's prices." + +A wave of restlessness passed over the crowd. Many shifted their eyes from +me and began to murmur. + +I raised my voice slightly as I went on: "The speculators, the gamblers, +are the only people who were hurt. Those who sold what they didn't have are +paying for their folly. I have no sympathy for them. Blacklock and Company +wishes none such in its following, and seizes every opportunity to weed +them out. We are in business only for the bona fide investing public, and +we are stronger with that public to-day than we have ever been." + +Again I looked from coward to coward of that mob, changed from three +hundred strong to three hundred weak. Then I bowed and withdrew, leaving +them to mutter and disperse. I felt well content with the trend of +events--I who wished to impress the public and the financiers that I had +broken with speculation and speculators, could I have had a better than +this unexpected opportunity sharply to define my new course? And as +Textiles, unsupported, fell toward the close of the day, my content rose +toward my normal high spirits. There was no whisper in the Street that +I was in trouble; on the contrary, the idea was gaining ground that I +had really long ceased to be a stock gambler and deserved a much better +reputation than I had. Reputation is a matter of diplomacy rather than of +desert. In all my career I was never less entitled to a good reputation +than in those June days; yet the disastrous gambling follies, yes, and +worse, I then committed, formed the secure foundation of my reputation +for conservatism and square dealing. From that time dates the decline of +the habit the newspapers had of speaking of me as "Black Matt" or "Matt" +Blacklock. In them, and therefore in the public mind, I began to figure as +"Mr. Blacklock, a recognized authority on finance," and such information as +I gave out ceased to be described as "tips" and was respectfully referred +to as "indications." + +No doubt, my marriage had something to do with this. Probably one couldn't +borrow any great amount of money in New York directly and solely on +the strength of a fashionable marriage; but, so all-pervading is the +snobbishness there, one can get, by making a fashionable marriage, any +quantity of that deferential respect from rich people which is, in some +circumstances, easily convertible into cash and credit. + +I searched with a good deal of anxiety, as you may imagine, the early +editions of the afternoon papers. The first article my eye chanced upon was +a mere wordy elaboration of the brief and vague announcement Monson had put +in the _Herald_. Later came an interview with old Ellersly. + +"Not at all mysterious," he had said to the reporters. "Mr. Blacklock found +he would have to go abroad on business soon--he didn't know just when. On +the spur of the moment they decided to marry." A good enough story, and +I confirmed it when I admitted the reporters. I read their estimates of +my fortune and of Anita's with rather bitter amusement--she whose father +was living from hand to mouth; I who could not have emerged from a forced +settlement with enough to enable me to keep a trap. Still, when one is +rich, the reputation of being rich is heavily expensive; but when one is +poor the reputation of being rich can be made a wealth-giving asset. + +Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk +before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs--a memorandum made +by myself for my own eyes, and to be burned as soon as I mastered it. On +the face of the figures the balance against me was appalling. My chief +asset, indeed my only asset that measured up toward my debts, was my Coal +stocks, those bought and those contracted for; and, while their par value +far exceeded my liabilities, they had to appear in my memorandum at their +actual market value on that day. I looked at the calendar--seventeen days +until the reorganization scheme would be announced, only seventeen days! + +Less than three business weeks, and I should be out of the storm and +sailing safer and smoother seas than I had ever known. "To indulge in vague +_hopes_ is bad," thought I, "but not to indulge in _a_ hope, especially +when one has only it between him and the pit." And I proceeded to plan on +the not unwarranted assumption that my Coal hope was a present reality. +Indeed, what alternative had I? To put it among the future's uncertainties +was to put myself among the utterly ruined. Using as collateral the Coal +stocks I had bought outright, I borrowed more money, and with it went still +deeper into the Coal venture. Everything or nothing!--since the chances in +my favor were a thousand, to practically none against me. Everything or +nothing!--since only by staking everything could I possibly save anything +at all. + +The morality of these and many of my other doings in those days will no +doubt be condemned. By no one more severely than by myself--now that the +necessities which then compelled me have passed. There is no subject on +which men talk and think, more humbug than on that subject of morality. As +a matter of fact, except in those personal relations that are governed by +the affections, what is morality but the mandate of policy, and what is +policy but the mandate of necessity? My criticism of Roebuck and the other +"high financiers" is not upon their morality, but upon their policy, which +is short-sighted and stupid and base. The moral difference between me and +them is that, white I merely assert and maintain my right to live, they +deny the right of any but themselves to live. I say I criticize them; +but that does not mean that I sympathize with the public at large in its +complainings against them. The public, its stupidity and cupidity, creates +the conditions that breed and foster these men. A rotten cheese reviling +the maggots it has bred! + +In those very hours when I was obeying the imperative law of +self-preservation, was clutching at every log that floated by me regardless +of whether it was my property or not so long as it would help me keep my +head above water--what was going on all round me? In every office of the +down town district--merchant, banker, broker, lawyer, man of commerce or +finance--was not every busy brain plotting, not self-preservation but +pillage and sack--plotting to increase the cost of living for the masses of +men by slipping a little tax here and a little tax there on to everything +by which men live? All along the line between the farm or mine or shop +and the market, at every one of the toll-gates for the collection of +_just_ charges, these big financiers, backed up by the big lawyers and +the rascally public officials, had an agent in charge to collect on each +passing article more than was honestly due. A thousand subtle ways of +levying, all combining to pour in upon the few the torrents of unjust +wealth. I laugh when I read of laboring men striking for higher wages. +Poor, ignorant fools--they almost deserve their fate. They had better be +concerning themselves with a huge, universal strike at the polls for lower +prices. What will it avail to get higher wages, as long as the masters +control and recoup on the prices of all the things for which those wages +must be spent? + +I lived in Wall Street, in its atmosphere of the practical morality of +"finance." On every side swindling operations, great and small; operations +regarded as right through long-established custom; dishonest or doubtful +operations on the way to becoming established by custom as "respectable." +No man's title to anything conceded unless he had the brains to defend it. +There was a time when it would have been regarded as wildly preposterous +and viciously immoral to deny property rights in human beings. There may +come a time--who knows?--when "high finance's" denial of a moral right +to property of any kind may cease to be regarded as wicked; may become a +generally accepted canon, as our Socialist friends predict. However, I +attempt no excuses for myself; I need them no more than a judge in the Dark +Ages needed to apologize for ordering a witch to the stake. I could no +more have done differently than a fish could breathe on land or a man +under water. I did as all the others did--and I had the justification of +necessity. Right of might being the prevailing code, when men set upon +me with pistols, I met them with pistols, not with the discarded and +antiquated weapons of sermon and prayer and the law. + +And I thought extremely well of myself and of my pistols that June +afternoon, as I was hurrying up town the moment the day's settlement on +'Change was finished. I had sent out my daily letter to investors, and its +tone of confidence was genuine--I knew that hundreds of customers of a +better class would soon be flocking in to take the places of those I had +been compelled to teach a lesson in the vicissitudes of gambling. With a +light heart and the physical feeling of a football player in training, I +sped toward home. + +Home! For the first time since I was a squat little slip of a shaver the +word had a personal meaning for me. Perhaps, if the only other home of mine +had been less uninviting, I should not have looked forward with such high +beating of the heart to that cold home Anita was making for me. No, I +withdraw that. It is fellows like me, to whom kindly looks and unsought +attentions are as unfamiliar as flowers to the Arctic--it is men like me +that appreciate and treasure and warm up under the faintest show or shadowy +suggestion of the sunshine of sentiment. I'd be a little ashamed to say how +much money I handed out to beggars and street gamins that day. I had a home +to go to! + +As my electric drew up at the Willoughby, a carriage backed to make room +for it. I recognized the horses and the coachman and the crest. + +"How long has Mrs. Ellersly been with my wife?" I asked the elevator boy, +as he was taking me up. + +"About half an hour, sir," he answered. "But Mr. Ellersly--I took up his +card before lunch, and he's still there." + +Instead of using my key, I rang the bell, and when Sanders opened, I said: +"Is Mrs. Blacklock in?" in a voice loud enough to penetrate to the +drawing-room. + +As I had hoped, Anita appeared. Her dress told me that her trunks had +come--she had sent for her trunks! "Mother and father are here," said she, +without looking at me. + +I followed her into the drawing-room and, for the benefit of the servants, +Mr. and Mrs. Ellersly and I greeted each other courteously, though Mrs. +Ellersly's eyes and mine met in a glance like the flash of steel on steel. +"We were just going," said she, and then I felt that I had arrived in the +midst of a tempest of uncommon fury. + +"You must stop and make _me_ a visit," protested I, with elaborate +politeness. To myself I was assuming that they had come to "make up and be +friends"--and resume their places at the trough. + +She was moving toward the door, the old man in her wake. Neither of them +offered to shake hands with me; neither made pretense of saying good-by +to Anita, standing by the window like a pillar of ice. I had closed the +drawing-room door behind me, as I entered. I was about to open it for them +when I was restrained by what I saw working in the old woman's face. She +had set her will on escaping from my loathed presence without a "scene;" +but her rage at having been outgeneraled was too fractious for her will. + +"You scoundrel!" she hissed, her whole body shaking and her +carefully-cultivated appearance of the gracious evening of youth swallowed +up in a black cyclone of hate. "You gutter-plant! God will punish you for +the shame you have brought upon us!" + +I opened the door and bowed, without a word, without even the desire to +return insult for insult--had not Anita evidently again and finally +rejected them and chosen me? As they passed into the private hall I +rang for Sanders to come and let them out. When I turned back into the +drawing-room, Anita was seated, was reading a book. I waited until I saw +she was not going to speak. Then I said: "What time will you have dinner?" +But my face must have been expressing some of the joy and gratitude that +filled me. "She has chosen!" I was saying to myself over and over. + +"Whenever you usually have it," she replied, without looking up. + +"At seven o'clock, then. You had better tell Sanders." + +I rang for him and went into my little smoking-room. She had resisted her +parents' final appeal to her to return to them. She had cast in her lot +with me. "The rest can be left to time," said I to myself. And, reviewing +all that had happened, I let a wild hope send tenacious roots deep into me. +How often ignorance is a blessing; how often knowledge would make the step +falter and the heart quail! + + + + +XXIV + +BLACKLOCK ATTENDS FAMILY PRAYERS + + +During dinner I bore the whole burden of conversation--though burden I did +not find it. Like most close-mouthed men, I am extremely talkative. Silence +sets people to wondering and prying; he hides his secrets best who hides +them at the bottom of a river of words. If my spirits are high, I often +talk aloud to myself when there is no one convenient. And how could my +spirits be anything but high, with her sitting there opposite me, mine, +mine for better or for worse, through good and evil report--my wife! + +She was only formally responsive, reluctant and brief in answers, +volunteering nothing. The servants waiting on us no doubt laid her manner +to shyness; I understood it, or thought I did--but I was not troubled. +It is as natural for me to hope as to breathe; and with my knowledge of +character, how could I take seriously the moods and impulses of one whom I +regarded as a childlike girl, trained to false pride and false ideals? "She +has chosen to stay with me," said I to myself. "Actions count, not words or +manner. A few days or weeks, and she will be herself, and mine." And I went +gaily on with my efforts to interest her, to make her smile and forget the +role she had commanded herself to play. Nor was I wholly unsuccessful. +Again and again I thought I saw a gleam of interest in her eyes or the +beginnings of a smile about that sweet mouth of hers. I was careful not to +overdo my part. + +As soon as we finished dessert I said: "You loathe cigar smoke, so I'll +hide myself in my den. Sanders will bring you the cigarettes." I had myself +telephoned for a supply of her kind early in the day. + +She made a polite protest for the benefit of the servants; but I was firm, +and left her free to think things over alone in the drawing-room--"your +sitting-room," I called it, I had not finished a small cigar when there +came a timid knock at my door. I threw away the cigar and opened. "I +thought it was you," said I. "I'm familiar with the knocks of all the +others. And this was new--like a summer wind tapping with a flower for +admission at a closed window." And I laughed with a little raillery, and +she smiled, colored, tried to seem cold and hostile again. + +"Shall I go with you to your sitting-room?" I went on. "Perhaps the cigar +smoke here--" + +"No, no," she interrupted; "I don't really mind cigars--and the windows are +wide open. Besides, I came for only a moment--just to say--" + +As she cast about for words to carry her on, I drew up a chair for her. +She looked at it uncertainly, seated herself. "When mama was here--this +afternoon," she went on, "she was urging me to--to do what she wished. +And after she had used several arguments, she said something I--I've been +thinking it over, and it seemed I ought in fairness to tell you." + +I waited. + +"She said: 'In a few days more he'--that meant you--'he will be ruined. He +imagines the worst is over for him, when in fact they've only begun.'" + +"They!" I repeated. "Who are 'they'? The Langdons?" + +"I think so," she replied with an effort. "She did not say--I've told you +her exact words--as far as I can." + +"Well," said I, "and why didn't you go?" + +She pressed her lips firmly together. Finally, with a straight look into my +eyes, she replied: "I shall not discuss that. You probably misunderstand, +but that is your own affair." + +"You believed what she said about me, of course," said I. + +"I neither believed nor disbelieved," she answered indifferently, as she +rose to go. "It does not interest me." + +"Come here," said I. + +I waited until she reluctantly joined me at the window. I pointed to the +steeple of the church across the way. "You could as easily throw down that +steeple by pushing against it with your bare hands," I said to her, "as +'they,' whoever they are, could put me down. They might take away my money. +But if they did, they would only be giving me a lesson that would teach me +how more easily to get it back. I am not a bundle of stock certificates or +a bag of money. I am--here," and I tapped my forehead. + +She forced a faint, scornful smile. She did not wish me to see her belief +of what I said. + +"You may think that is vanity," I went on. "But you will learn, sooner or +later, the difference between boasting and simple statement of fact. You +will learn that I do not boast. What I said is no more a boast than for a +man with legs to say, 'I can walk.' Because you have known only legless +men, you exaggerate the difficulty of walking. It's as easy for me to make +money as it is for some people to spend it." + +It is hardly necessary for me to say I was not insinuating anything against +her people. But she was just then supersensitive on the subject, though +I did not suspect it. She flushed hotly. "You will not have any cause to +sneer at my people on that account hereafter," she said. "I settled +_that_ to-day." + +"I was not sneering at them," I protested. "I wasn't even thinking of them. +And--you must know that it's a favor to me for anybody to ask me to do +anything that will please you--Anita!" + +She made a gesture of impatience. "I see I'd better tell you why I did not +go with them to-day. I insisted that they give back all they have taken +from you. And when they refused, I refused to go." + +"I don't care why you refused, or imagined you refused," said I. "I am +content with the fact that you are here." + +"But you misunderstand it," she answered coldly. + +"I don't understand it, I don't misunderstand it," was my reply. "I accept +it." + +She turned away from the window, drifted out of the room--you, who love or +at least have loved, can imagine how it made me feel to see _Her_ +moving about in those rooms of mine. + +While the surface of my mind was taken up with her, I must have been +thinking, underneath, of the warning she had brought; for, perhaps half or +three-quarters of an hour after she left, I was suddenly whirled out of +my reverie at the window by a thought like a pistol thrust into my face. +"What if 'they' should include Roebuck!" And just as a man begins to defend +himself from a sudden danger before he clearly sees what the danger is, so +I began to act before I even questioned whether my suspicion was plausible +or absurd. I went into the hall, rang the bell, slipped a light-weight coat +over my evening dress and put on a hat. When Sanders appeared, I said: "I'm +going out for a few minutes--perhaps an hour--if any one should ask." A +moment later I was in a hansom and on the way to Roebuck's. + + * * * * * + +When Roebuck lived near Chicago, he had a huge house, a sort of crude +palace such as so many of our millionaires built for themselves in the +first excitement of their new wealth--a house with porches and balconies +and towers and minarets and all sorts of gingerbread effects to compel the +eye of the passer-by. But when he became enormously rich, so rich that his +name was one of the synonyms for wealth, so rich that people said "rich as +Roebuck" where they used to say "rich as Croesus," he cut away every kind +of ostentation, and avoided attention. + +He took advantage of his having to remove to New York where his vast +interests centered; he bought a small and commonplace and, far a rich man, +even mean house in East Fifty-Second Street--one of a raw, and an almost +dingy looking row at that. There he had an establishment a man with +one-fiftieth of his fortune would have felt like apologizing for. To his +few intimates who were intimate enough to question him about his come-down +from his Chicago splendors he explained that he was seeing with clearer +eyes his responsibilities as a steward of the Lord, that luxury was sinful, +that no man had a right to waste the Lord's money. + +The general theory about him was that advancing years had developed +his natural closeness into the stingiest avariciousness. But my notion +is he was impelled by the fear of exciting envy, by the fear of +assassination--the fear that made his eyes roam restlessly whenever +strangers were near him, and so dried up the inside of his body that his +dry tongue was constantly sliding along his dry lips. I have seen a convict +stand in the door of his cell and, though it was impossible that any one +could be behind him, look nervously over his shoulder every moment or so. +Roebuck had the same trick--only his dread, I suspect, was not the officers +of the law, even of the divine law, but the many, many victims of his +merciless execution of "the Lord's will." + +This state of mind is not uncommon among the very rich men, especially +those who have come up from poverty. Those who have inherited great wealth, +and have always been used to it, get into the habit of looking upon the +mass of mankind as inferiors, and move about with no greater sense of peril +than a man has in venturing among a lot of dogs with tails wagging. But +those who were born poor and have risen under the stimulus of a furious +envy of the comfortable and the rich, fancy that everybody who isn't rich +has the same savage hunger that they themselves had, and is ready to use +similar desperate methods in gratifying it. Thus, where the rich of the +Langdon sort are supercilious, the rich of the Roebuck sort are nervous and +often become morbid on the subject of assassination as they grow richer and +richer. + +The door of Roebuck's house was opened for me by a maid--a man-servant +would have been a "sinful" luxury, a man-servant might be the hireling +of plotters against his life. I may add that she looked the cheap +maid-of-all-work, and her manners were of the free and fresh sort that +indicates a feeling that as high, or higher, wages, and less to do could +be got elsewhere. + +"I don't think you can see Mr. Roebuck," she said. + +"Take my card to him," I ordered, "and I'll wait in the parlor." + +"Parlor's in use," she retorted with a sarcastic grin, which I was soon to +understand. + +So I stood by the old-fashioned coat and hat rack while she went in at the +hall door of the back parlor. Soon Roebuck himself came out, his glasses on +his nose, a family Bible under his arm. "Glad to see you, Matthew," said he +with saintly kindliness, giving me a friendly hand. "We are just about to +offer up our evening prayer. Come right in." + +I followed him into the back parlor. Both it and the front parlor were +lighted; in a sort of circle extending into both rooms were all the +Roebucks and the four servants. "This is my friend, Matthew Blacklock," +said he, and the Roebucks in the circle gravely bowed. He drew up a chair +for me, and we seated ourselves. Amid a solemn hush, he read a chapter from +the big Bible spread out upon his lean lap. My glance wandered from face to +face of the Roebucks, as plainly dressed as were their servants. I was able +to look freely, mine being the only eyes not bent upon the floor. + +It was the first time in my life that I had witnessed family prayers. +When I was a boy at home, my mother had taken literally the Scriptural +injunction to pray in secret--in a closet, I think the passage of the Bible +said. Many times each day she used to retire to a closet under the stairway +and spend from one to twenty minutes shut in there. But we had no family +prayers. I was therefore deeply interested in what was going on in those +countrified parlors of one of the richest and most powerful men in the +world--and this right in the heart of that district of New York where +palaces stand in rows and in blocks, and where such few churches as there +are resemble social clubs for snubbing climbers and patronizing the poor. + +It was astonishing how much every Roebuck in that circle, even the old +lady, looked like Roebuck himself--the same smug piety, the same underfed +appearance that, by the way, more often indicates a starved soul than +a starved body. One difference--where his face had the look of power +that compels respect and, to the shrewd, reveals relentless strength +relentlessly used, the expressions of the others were simply small and +mean and frost-nipped. And that is the rule--the second generation of a +plutocrat inherits, with his money, the meanness that enabled him to hoard +it, but not the scope that enabled him to make it. + +So absorbed was I in the study of the influence of his terrible +master-character upon those closest to it, that I started when he said: +"Let us pray." I followed the example of the others, and knelt. The audible +prayer was offered up by his oldest daughter, Mrs. Wheeler, a widow. +Roebuck punctuated each paragraph in her series of petitions with a +loudly-whispered amen. When she prayed for "the stranger whom Thou has led +seemingly by chance into our little circle," he whispered the amen more +fervently and repeated it. And well he might, the old robber and assassin +by proxy! The prayer ended and, us on our feet, the servants withdrew; +then, awkwardly, all the family except Roebuck. That is, they closed the +doors between the two rooms and left him and me alone in the front parlor. + +"I shall not detain you long, Mr. Roebuck," said I. "A report reached me +this evening that sent me to you at once." + +"If possible, Matthew," said he, and he could not hide his uneasiness, "put +off business until to-morrow. My mind--yours, too, I trust--is not in the +frame for that kind of thoughts now." + +"Is the Coal organization to be announced the first of July?" I demanded. +It has always been, and always shall be, my method to fight in the open. +This, not from principle, but from expediency. Some men fight best in the +brush; I don't. So I always begin battle by shelling the woods. + +"No," he said, amazing me by his instant frankness. "The announcement has +been postponed." + +Why did he not lie to me? Why did he not put me off the scent, as he might +easily have done, with some shrewd evasion? I suspected I owed it to +my luck in catching him at family prayers. For I know that the general +impression of him is erroneous; he is not merely a hypocrite before the +world, but also a hypocrite before himself. A more profoundly, piously +conscientious man never lived. Never was there a truer epitaph than the one +implied in the sentence carved over his niche in the magnificent mausoleum +he built: "Fear naught but the Lord." + +"When will the reorganization be announced?" I asked. + +"I can not say," he answered. "Some difficulties--chiefly labor +difficulties--have arisen. Until they are settled, nothing can be done. +Come to me to-morrow, and we'll talk about it." + +"That is all I wished to know," said I, with a friendly, easy smile. "Good +night." + +It was his turn to be astonished--and he showed it, where I had given not a +sign. "What was the report you heard?" he asked, to detain me. + +"That you and Mowbray Langdon had conspired to ruin me," said I, laughing. + +He echoed my laugh rather hollowly. "It was hardly necessary for you to +come to me about such a--a statement." + +"Hardly," I answered dryly. Hardly, indeed! For I was seeing now all that I +had been hiding from myself since I became infatuated with Anita and made +marrying her my only real business in life. + +We faced each other, each measuring the other. And as his glance quailed +before mine, I turned away to conceal my exultation. In a comparison of +resources this man who had plotted to crush me was to me as giant to +midget. But I had the joy of realizing that man to man, I was the stronger. +He had craft, but I had daring. His vast wealth aggravated his natural +cowardice--crafty men are invariably cowards, and their audacities under +the compulsion of their ravenous greed are like a starving jackal's dashes +into danger for food. My wealth belonged to me, not I to it; and, stripped +of it, I would be like the prize-fighter stripped for the fight. Finally, +he was old, I young. And there was the chief reason for his quailing. He +knew that he must die long before me, that my turn must come, that I could +dance upon his grave. + + + + +XXV + +"MY WIFE MUST!" + + +As I drove away, I was proud of myself. I had listened to my death sentence +with a face so smiling that he must almost have believed me unconscious; +and also, it had not even entered my head, as I listened, to beg for mercy. +Not that there would have been the least use in begging; as well try to +pray a statue into life, as try to soften that set will and purpose. Still, +many a man would have weakened--and I had not weakened. But when I was +once more in my apartment--in our apartment--perhaps I did show that there +was a weak streak through me. I fought against the impulse to see her +once more that night; but I fought in vain. I knocked at the door of her +sitting-room--a timid knock, for me. No answer. I knocked again, more +loudly--then a third time, still more loudly. The door opened and she stood +there, like one of the angels that guarded the gates of Eden after the +fall. Only, instead of a flaming sword, hers was of ice. She was in a +dressing-gown or tea-gown, white and clinging and full of intoxicating +hints and glimpses of all the beauties of her figure. Her face softened as +she continued to look at me, and I entered. + +"No--please don't turn on any more lights," I said, as she moved toward the +electric buttons. "I just came in to--to see if I could do anything for +you." In fact, I had come, longing for her to do something for me, to show +in look or tone or act some sympathy for me in my loneliness and trouble. + +"No, thank you," she said. Her voice seemed that of a stranger who wished +to remain a stranger. And she was evidently waiting for me to go. You will +see what a mood I was in when I say I felt as I had not since I, a very +small boy indeed, ran away from home; I came back through the chilly night +to take one last glimpse of the family that would soon be realizing how +foolishly and wickedly unappreciative they had been of such a treasure +as I; and when I saw them sitting about the big fire in the lamp-light, +heartlessly comfortable and unconcerned, it was all I could do to keep back +the tears of strong self-pity--and I never saw them again. + +"I've seen Roebuck," said I to Anita, because I must say something, if I +was to stay on. + +"Roebuck?" she inquired. Her tone reminded me that his name conveyed +nothing to her. + +"He and I are in an enterprise together," I explained. "He is the one man +who could seriously cripple me." + +"Oh," she said, and her indifference, forced though I thought it, wounded. + +"Well," said I, "your mother was right." + +She turned full toward me, and even in the dimness I saw her quick +sympathy--an impulsive flash instantly gone. But it had been there! + +"I came in here," I went on, "to say that--Anita, it doesn't in the least +matter. No one in this world, no one and nothing, could hurt me except +through you. So long as I have _you_, they--the rest--all of them +together--can't touch me." + +We were both silent for several minutes. Then she said, and her voice was +like the smooth surface of the river where the boiling rapids run deep: +"But you _haven't_ me--and never _shall_ have. I've told you +that. I warned you long ago. No doubt you will pretend, and people will +say, that I left you because you lost your money. But it won't be so." + +I was beside her instantly, was looking into her face. "What do you mean?" +I asked, and I did not speak gently. + +She gazed at me without flinching. "And I suppose," she said satirically, +"you wonder why I--why you are repellent to me. Haven't you learned that, +though I may have been made into a moral coward, I'm not a physical coward? +Don't bully and threaten. It's useless." + +I put my hand strongly on her shoulder--taunts and jeers do not turn me +aside. "What did you mean?" I repeated. + +"Take your hand off me," she commanded. + +"What did you mean?" I repeated sternly. "Don't be afraid to answer." + +She was very young--so the taunt stung her. "I was about to tell you," said +she, "when you began to make it impossible." + +I took advantage of this to extricate myself from the awkward position in +which she had put me--I took my hand from her shoulder. + +"I am going to leave you," she announced. + +"You forget that you are my wife," said I. + +"I am not your wife," was her answer, and if she had not looked so +childlike, there in the moonlight all in white, I could not have held +myself in check, so insolent was the tone and so helpless of ever being +able to win her did she make me feel. + +"You are my wife and you will stay here with me," I reiterated, my brain on +fire. + +"I am my own, and I shall go where I please, and do what I please," was her +contemptuous retort. "Why won't you be reasonable? Why won't you see how +utterly unsuited we are? I don't ask you to be a gentleman--but just a man, +and be ashamed even to wish to detain a woman against her will." + +I drew up a chair so close to her that to retreat, she was forced to sit +in the broad window-seat. Then I seated myself. "By all means, let us be +reasonable," said I. "Now, let me explain my position. I have heard you and +your friends discussing the views of marriage you've just been expressing. +Their views may be right, may be more civilized, more 'advanced' than mine. +No matter. They are not mine. I hold by the old standards--and you are +my wife--mine. Do you understand?" All this as tranquilly as if we were +discussing fair weather. "And you will live up to the obligation which the +marriage service has put upon you." + +She might have been a marble statue pedestaled in that window seat. + +"You married me of your own free will--for you could have protested to +the preacher and he would have sustained you. You tacitly put certain +conditions on our marriage. I assented to them. I have respected them. +I shall continue to respect them. But--when you married me, you didn't +marry a dawdling dude chattering 'advanced ideas' with his head full of +libertinism. You married a man. And that man is your husband." + +I waited, but she made no comment--not even by gesture or movement. She +simply sat, her hands interlaced in her lap, her eyes straight upon mine. + +"You say let us be reasonable," I went on. "Well, let us be reasonable. +There may come a time when woman can be free and independent, but that time +is a long way off yet. The world is organized on the basis of every woman's +having a protector--of every decent woman's having a husband, unless she +remains in the home of some of her blood-relations. There may be women +strong enough to set the world at defiance. But you are not one of +them--and you know it. You have shown it to yourself again and again in +the last forty-eight hours. Your bringing-up has kept you a child in real +knowledge of real life, as distinguished from the life in that fashionable +hothouse. If you tried to assert your so-called independence, you would be +the easy prey of a scoundrel or scoundrels. When I, who have lived in the +thick of the fight all my life, who have learned by many a surprise and +defeat never to sleep except with the sword and gun in hand, and one eye +open--when I have been trapped as Roebuck and Langdon have just trapped +me--what chance would a woman like you have?" + +She did not answer or change expression. + +"Is what I say reasonable or unreasonable?" I asked gently. + +"Reasonable--from _your_ standpoint," she said. + +She gazed out into the moonlight, up into the sky. And at the look in her +face, the primeval savage in me strained to close round that slender white +throat of hers and crush and crush until it had killed in her the thought +of that other man which was transforming her from marble to flesh that +glowed and blood that surged. I pushed back my chair with a sudden noise; +by the way she trembled I gaged how tense her nerves must be. I rose and, +in a fairly calm tone, said: "We understand each other?" + +"Yes," she answered. "As before." + +I ignored this. "Think it over, Anita," I urged--she seemed to me so like a +sweet, spoiled child again. I longed to go straight at her about that other +man. I stood for a moment with Tom Langdon's name on my lips, but I could +not trust myself. I went away to my own rooms. + +I thrust thoughts of her from my mind. I spent the night gnawing upon the +ropes with which Mowbray Langdon and Roebuck had bound me, hand and foot. I +now saw they were ropes of steel--and it had long been broad day before I +found that weak strand which is in every rope of human make. + + + + +XXVI + +THE WEAK STRAND + + +No sane creature, not even a sane bulldog, will fight simply from love of +fighting. When a man is attacked, he may be sure he has excited either fear +or cupidity, or both. As far as I could see, it was absurd that cupidity +was inciting Langdon and Roebuck against me. I hadn't enough to tempt them. +Thus, I was forced to conclude that I must possess a strength of which I +was unaware, and which stirred even Roebuck's fears. But what could it be? + +Besides Langdon and Roebuck and me there were six principals in the +proposed Coal combine, three of them richer and more influential in finance +than even Langdon, all of them except possibly Dykeman, the lawyer or +navigating officer of the combine, more formidable figures than I. Yet none +of these men was being assailed. "Why am I singled out?" I asked myself, +and I felt that if I could answer, I should find I had the means wholly +or partly to defeat them. But I could not explain to my satisfaction even +Langdon's activities against me. I felt that Anita was somehow, in part at +least, the cause; but, even so, how had he succeeded in convincing Roebuck +that I must be clipped and plucked into a groundling? + +"It must have something to do with the Manasquale mines," I decided. "I +thought I had given over my control of them, but somehow I must still have +a control that makes me too powerful for Roebuck to be at ease so long as I +am afoot and armed." And I resolved to take my lawyers and search the whole +Manasquale transaction--to explore it from attic to underneath the cellar +flooring. "We'll go through it," said I, "like ferrets through a ship's +hold." + +As I was finishing breakfast, Anita came in. She had evidently slept well, +and I regarded that as ominous. At her age, a crisis means little sleep +until a decision has been reached. I rose, but her manner warned me not to +advance and try to shake hands with her. + +"I have asked Alva to stop with me here for a few days," she said formally. + +"Alva!" said I, much surprised. She had not asked one of her own friends; +she had asked a girl she had met less than two days before, and that girl +my partner's daughter. + +"She was here yesterday morning," Anita explained. And I now wondered how +much Alva there was in Anita's firm stand against her parents. + +"Why don't you take her down to our place on Long Island?" said I, most +carefully concealing my delight--for Alva near her meant a friend of mine +and an advocate and example of real womanhood near her. "Everything's ready +for you there, and I'm going to be busy the next few days--busy day and +night." + +She reflected. "Very well," she assented presently. And she gave me a +puzzled glance she thought I did not see--as if she were wondering whether +the enemy was not hiding new and deeper guile under an apparently harmless +suggestion. + +"Then I'll not see you again for several days," said I, most businesslike. +"If you want anything, there will be Monson out at the stables where he +can't annoy you. Or you can get me on the 'long distance.' Good-by. Good +luck." + +And I nodded carelessly and friendlily to her, and went away, enjoying +the pleasure of having startled her into visible astonishment. "There's +a better game than icy hostility, you very young, young lady," said I to +myself, "and that game is friendly indifference." + +Alva would be with her. So she was secure for the present and my mind was +free for "finance." + +At that time the two most powerful men in finance were Galloway and +Roebuck. In Spain I once saw a fight between a bull and a tiger--or, rather +the beginning of a fight. They were released into a huge iron cage. After +circling it several times in the same direction, searching for a way out, +they came face to face. The bull tossed the tiger; the tiger clawed the +bull. The bull roared; the tiger screamed. Each retreated to his own side +of the cage. The bull pawed and snorted as if he could hardly wait to get +at the tiger; the tiger crouched and quivered and glared murderously, as if +he were going instantly to spring upon the bull. But the bull did not rush, +neither did the tiger spring. That was the Roebuck-Galloway situation. + +How to bait Tiger Galloway to attack Bull Roebuck--that was the problem I +must solve, and solve straightway. If I could bring about war between the +giants, spreading confusion over the whole field of finance and filling all +men with dread and fear, there was a chance, a bare chance, that in the +confusion I might bear off part of my fortune. Certainly, conditions would +result in which I could more easily get myself intrenched again; then, too, +there would be a by no means small satisfaction in seeing Roebuck clawed +and bitten in punishment for having plotted against me. + +Mutual fear had kept these two at peace for five years, and most +considerate and polite about each other's "rights." But while our country's +industrial territory is vast, the interests of the few great controllers +who determine wages and prices for all are equally vast, and each plutocrat +is tormented incessantly by jealousy and suspicion; not a day passes +without conflicts of interest that adroit diplomacy could turn into +ferocious warfare. And in this matter of monopolizing the coal, despite +Roebuck's earnest assurances to Galloway that the combine was purely +defensive, and was really concerned only with the labor question, Galloway, +a great manufacturer, or, rather, a huge levier of the taxes of dividends +and interest upon manufacturing enterprises, could not but be uneasy. + +Before I rose that morning I had a tentative plan for stirring him to +action. I was elaborating it on the way down town in my electric. It shows +how badly Anita was crippling my brain, that not until I was almost at my +office did it occur to me: "That was a tremendous luxury Roebuck indulged +his conscience in last night. It isn't like him to forewarn a man, even +when he's sure he can't escape. Though his prayers were hot in his mouth, +still, it's strange he didn't try to fool me. In fact, it's suspicious. In +fact--" + +Suspicious? The instant the idea was fairly before my mind, I knew I had +let his canting fool me once more. I entered my offices, feeling that the +blow had already fallen; and I was surprised, but not relieved, when I +found everything calm. "But fall it will within an hour or so--before I can +move to avert it," said I to myself. + +And fall it did. At eleven o'clock, just as I was setting out to make my +first move toward heating old Galloway's heels for the war-path, Joe came +in with the news: "A general lockout's declared in the coal regions. The +operators have stolen a march on the men who, so they allege, were secretly +getting ready to strike. By night every coal road will be tied up and every +mine shut down." + +Joe knew our coal interests were heavy, but he did not dream his news meant +that before the day was over we would be bankrupt and not able to pay +fifteen cents on the dollar. However, he knew enough to throw him into +a fever of fright. He watched my calmness with terror. "Coal stocks are +dropping like a thermometer in a cold wave," he said, like a fireman at a +sleeper in a burning house. + +"Naturally," said I, unruffled, apparently. "What can we do about it?" + +"We must do something!" he exclaimed. + +"Yes, we must," I admitted. "For instance, we must keep cool, especially +when two or three dozen people are watching us. Also, you must attend to +your usual routine." + +"What are you going to do?" he cried. "For God's sake, Matt, don't keep me +in suspense!" + +"Go to your desk," I commanded. And he quieted down and went. I hadn't been +schooling him in the fire-drill for fifteen years in vain. + +I went up the street and into the great banking and brokerage house of +Galloway and Company. I made my way through the small army of guards, +behind which the old beast of prey was intrenched, and into his private +den. There he sat, at a small, plain table, in the middle of the room +without any article of furniture in it but his table and his chair. On the +table was a small inkstand, perfectly clean, a steel pen equally clean, on +the rest attached to it. And that was all--not a letter, not a scrap of +paper, not a sign of work or of intention to work. It might have been the +desk of a man who did nothing; in fact, it was the desk of a man who had +so much to do that his only hope of escape from being overwhelmed was to +despatch and clear away each matter the instant it was presented to him. +Many things could be read from the powerful form, bolt upright in that +stiff chair, and from the cynical, masterful old face. But to me the +chief quality there revealed was that quality of qualities, decision--the +greatest power a man can have, except only courage. And old James Galloway +had both. + +He respected Roebuck; Roebuck feared him. Roebuck did have some sort +of conscience, distorted though it was, and the dictator of savageries +Galloway would have scorned to commit. Galloway had no professions of +conscience--beyond such small glozing of hypocrisy as any man must put on +if he wishes to be intrusted with the money of a public that associates +professions of religion and appearances of respectability with honesty. +Roebuck's passion was wealth--to see the millions heap up and up. Galloway +had that passion, too--I have yet to meet a multi-millionaire who isn't +avaricious and even stingy. But Galloway's chief passion was power--to +handle men as a junk merchant handles rags, to plan and lead campaigns of +conquest with his golden legions, and to distribute the spoils like an +autocrat who is careless how they are divided, since all belongs to him, +whenever he wishes to claim it. + +He pierced me with his blue eyes, keen as a youth's, though his face was +seamed with scars of seventy tumultuous years. He extended toward me +over the table his broad, stubby white hand--the hand of a builder, of a +constructive genius. "How are you, Blacklock?" said he. "What can I do +for you?" He just touched my hand before dropping it, and resumed that +idol-like pose. But although there was only repose and deliberation in his +manner, and not a suggestion of haste, I, like every one who came into that +room and that presence, had a sense of an interminable procession behind +me, a procession of men who must be seen by this master-mover, that they +might submit important and pressing affairs to him for decision. It was +unnecessary for him to tell any one to be brief and pointed. + +"I shall have to go to the wall to-day," said I, taking a paper from +my pocket, "unless you save me. Here is a statement of my assets and +liabilities. I call to your attention my Coal holdings. I was one of the +eight men whom Roebuck got round him for the new combine--it is a secret, +but I assume you know all about it." + +He laid the paper before him, put on his nose-glasses and looked at it. + +"If you will save me," I continued, "I will transfer to you, in a block, +all my Coal holdings. They will be worth double my total liabilities within +three months--as soon as the reorganization is announced. I leave it +entirely to your sense of justice whether I shall have any part of them +back when this storm blows over." + +"Why didn't you go to Roebuck?" he asked without looking up. + +"Because it is he that has stuck the knife into me." + +"Why?" + +"I don't know. I suspect the Manasquale properties, which I brought into +the combine, have some value, which no one but Roebuck, and perhaps +Langdon, knows about--and that I in some way was dangerous to them through +that fact. They haven't given me time to look into it." + +A grim smile flitted over his face. "You've been too busy getting married, +eh?" + +"Exactly," said I. "It's another case of unbuckling for the wedding-feast +and getting assassinated as a penalty. Do you wish me to explain anything +on that list--do you want any details of the combine--of the Coal stocks +there?" + +"Not necessary," he replied. As I had thought, with that enormous machine +of his for drawing in information, and with that enormous memory of his for +details, he probably knew more about the combine and its properties than I +did. + +"You have heard of the lockout?" I inquired--for I wished him to know I +had no intention of deceiving him as to the present market value of those +stocks. + +"Roebuck has been commanded by his God," he said, "to eject the free +American labor from the coal regions and to substitute importations of +coolie Huns and Bohemians. Thus, the wicked American laborers will be +chastened for trying to get higher wages and cut down a pious man's +dividends; and the downtrodden coolies will be brought where they can enjoy +the blessings of liberty and of the preaching of Roebuck's missionaries." + +I laughed, though he had not smiled, but had spoken as if stating colorless +facts. "And righteousness and Roebuck will prevail," said I. + +He frowned slightly, a sardonic grin breaking the straight, thin, cruel +line of his lips. He opened his table's one shallow drawer, and took out a +pad and a pencil. He wrote a few words on the lowest part of the top sheet, +folded it, tore off the part he had scribbled on, returned the pad and +pencil to the drawer, handed the scrap of paper to me. "I will do it," he +said. "Give this to Mr. Farquhar, second door to the left. Good morning." +And in that atmosphere of vast affairs speedily despatched his consent +without argument seemed, and was, the matter-of-course. + +I bowed. Though he had not saved me as a favor to me, but because it fitted +in with his plans, whatever they were, my eyes dimmed. "I shan't forget +this," said I, my voice not quite steady. + +"I know it," said he curtly. "I know you." I saw that his mind had already +turned me out. I said no more, and withdrew. When I left the room it was +precisely as it had been when I entered it--except the bit of paper torn +from the pad. But what a difference to me, to the thousands, the hundreds +of thousands directly and indirectly interested in the Coal combine and its +strike and its products, was represented by those few, almost illegible +scrawlings on that scrap of paper. + +Not until I had gone over the situation with Farquhar, and we had signed +and exchanged the necessary papers, did I begin to relax from the +strain--how great that strain was I realized a few weeks later, when +the gray appeared thick at my temples and there was in my crown what +was, for such a shock as mine, a thin spot. "I am saved!" said I to +myself, venturing a long breath, as I stood on the steps of Galloway's +establishment, where hourly was transacted business vitally affecting +the welfare of scores of millions of human beings, with James Galloway's +personal interest as the sole guiding principle. "Saved!" I repeated, and +not until then did it flash before me, "I must have paid a frightful price. +He would never have consented to interfere with Roebuck as soon as I asked +him to do it, unless there had been some powerful motive. If I had had my +wits about me, I could have made far better terms." Why hadn't I my wits +about me? "Anita" was my instant answer to my own question. "Anita again. +I had a bad attack of family man's panic." And thus it came about that I +went back to my own office, feeling as if I had suffered a severe defeat, +instead of jubilant over my narrow escape. + +Joe followed me into my den. "What luck?" asked he, in the tone of a mother +waylaying the doctor as he issues from the sick-room. + +"Luck?" said I, gazing blankly at him. + +"You've seen the latest quotation, haven't you?" In his nervousness his +temper was on a fine edge, + +"No," replied I indifferently. I sat down at my desk and began to busy +myself. Then I added: "We're out of the Coal combine. I've transferred our +holdings. Look after these things, please." And I gave him the checks, +notes and memoranda of agreement. + +"Galloway!" he exclaimed. And then his eye fell on the totals of the stock +I had been carrying. "Good God, Matt!" he gasped. "Ruined!" + +And he sat down, and buried his face and cried like a child--it was then +that I measured the full depth of the chasm I had escaped. I made no such +exhibition of myself, but when I tried to relight my cigar my hand trembled +so that the flame scorched my lips. + +"Ruined?" I said to Joe, easily enough. "Not at all. We're back in the +road, going smoothly ahead--only, at a bit less stiff a pace. Think, Joe, +of all those poor devils down in the mining districts. They're out--clear +out--and thousands of 'em don't know where their families will get bread. +And though they haven't found it out yet, they've got to leave the place +where they've lived all their lives, and their fathers before them--have +got to go wandering about in a world that's as strange to them as the +surface of the moon, and as bare for them as the Sahara desert." + +"That's so," said Joe. "It's hard luck." But I saw he was thinking only of +himself and his narrow escape from having to give up his big house and all +the rest of it; that, soft-hearted and generous though he was, to those +poor chaps and their wives and children he wasn't giving a thought. + +Wall Street never does--they're too remote, too vague. It deals with +columns of figures and slips of paper. It never thinks of those +abstractions as standing for so many hearts and so many mouths, just as the +bank clerk never thinks of the bits of metal he counts so swiftly as money +with which things and men could be bought. I read somewhere once that +Voltaire--I think it was Voltaire--asked a man what he would do if, by +pressing a button on his table, he would be enormously rich and at the +same time would cause the death of a person away off at the other side of +the earth, unknown to him, and probably no more worthy to live, and with +no greater expectation of life or of happiness than the average sinful, +short-lived human being. I've often thought of that as I've watched our +great "captains of industry." Voltaire's dilemma is theirs. And they don't +hesitate; they press the button. I leave the morality of the performance to +moralists; to me, its chief feature is its cowardice, its sneaking, slimy +cowardice. + +"You've done a grand two hours' work," said Joe. + +"Grander than you think," replied I. "I've set the tiger on to fight the +bull." + +"Galloway and Roebuck?" + +"Just that," said I. And I laughed, started up, sat down again. "No, I'll +put off the pleasure," said I. "I'll let Roebuck find out, when the claws +catch in that tough old hide of his." + + + + +XXVII + +A CONSPIRACY AGAINST ANITA + + +On about the hottest afternoon of that summer I had the yacht take me down +the Sound to a point on the Connecticut shore within sight of Dawn Hill, +but seven miles farther from New York. I landed at the private pier of +Howard Forrester, the only brother of Anita's mother. As I stepped upon the +pier I saw a fine-looking old man in the pavilion overhanging the water. He +was dressed all in white except a sky-blue tie that harmonized with the +color of his eyes. He was neither fat nor lean, and his smooth skirt was +protesting ruddily against the age proclaimed by his wool-white hair. He +rose as I came toward him, and, while I was still several yards away, +showed unmistakably that he knew who I was and that he was anything but +glad to see me. + +"Mr. Forrester?" I asked + +He grew purple to the line of his thick white hair. "It is, Mr. Blacklock," +said he. "I have the honor to wish you good day, sir." And with that he +turned his back on me and gazed out toward Long Island. + +"I have come to ask a favor of you, sir," said I, as polite to that hostile +back as if I had been addressing a cordial face. And I waited. + +He wheeled round, looked at me from head to foot. I withstood the +inspection calmly; when it was ended I noted that in spite of himself he +was somewhat relaxed from the opinion of me he had formed upon what he had +heard and read. But he said: "I do not know you, sir, and I do not wish to +know you." + +"You have made me painfully aware of that," replied I. "But I have learned +not to take snap judgments too seriously. I never go to a man unless I have +something to say to him, and I never leave until I have said it." + +"I perceive, sir," retorted he, "you have the thick skin necessary to +living up to that rule." And the twinkle in his eyes betrayed the man who +delights to exercise a real or imaginary talent for caustic wit. Such men +are like nettles--dangerous only to the timid touch. + +"On the contrary," replied I, easy in mind now, though I did not anger him +by showing it, "I am most sensitive to insults--insults to myself. But you +are not insulting _me_. You are insulting a purely imaginary, hearsay +person who is, I venture to assure you, utterly unlike me, and who +doubtless deserves to be insulted." + +His purple had now faded. In a far different tone he said: "If your +business in any way relates to the family into which you have married, I do +not wish to hear it. Spare my patience and your time, sir." + +"It does not," was my answer. "It relates to my own family--to my wife and +myself. As you may have heard, she is no longer a member of the Ellersly +family. And I have come to you chiefly because I happen to know your +sentiment toward the Ellerslys." + +"I have no sentiment toward them, sir!" he exclaimed. "They are +non-existent, sir--nonexistent! Your wife's mother ceased to be a Forrester +when she married that scoundrel. Your wife is still less a Forrester." + +"True," said I. "She is a Blacklock." + +He winced, and it reminded me of the night of my marriage and Anita's +expression when the preacher called her by her new name. But I held his +gaze, and we looked each at the other fixedly for, it must have been, full +half a minute. Then he said courteously: "What do you wish?" + +I went straight to the point. My color may have been high, but my voice +did not hesitate as I explained: "I wish to make my wife financially +independent. I wish to settle on her a sum of money sufficient to give her +an income that will enable her to live as she has been accustomed. I know +she would not take it from me. So, I have come to ask you to pretend to +give it to her--I, of course, giving it to you to give." + +Again--we looked full and fixedly each at the other. "Come to the house, +Blacklock," he said at last in a tone that was the subtlest of compliments. +And he linked his arm in mine. Halfway to the rambling stone house, severe +in its lines, yet fine and homelike, quaintly resembling its owner, as a +man's house always should, he paused. "I owe you an apology," said he. +"After all my experience of this world of envy and malice, I should have +recognized the man even in the caricatures of his enemies. And you brought +the best possible credentials--you are well hated. To be well hated by the +human race and by the creatures mounted on its back is a distinction, sir. +It is the crown of the true kings of this world." + +We seated ourselves on the wide veranda; he had champagne and water +brought, and cigars; and we proceeded to get acquainted--nothing promotes +cordiality and sympathy like an initial misunderstanding. It was a good +hour before this kind-hearted, hard-soft, typical old-fashioned New +Englander reverted to the object of my visit. Said he: "And now, young man, +may I venture to ask some extremely personal questions?" + +"In the circumstances," replied I, "you have the right to know everything. +I did not come to you without first making sure what manner of man I was +to find." At this he blushed, pleased as a girl at her first beau's first +compliment. "And you, Mr. Forrester, can not be expected to embark in the +little adventure I propose, until you have satisfied yourself." + +"First, the why of your plan." + +"I am in active business," replied I, "and I shall be still more active. +That means financial uncertainty." + +His suspicion of me started up from its doze and rubbed its eyes. "Ah! You +wish to insure yourself." + +"Yes," was my answer, "but not in the way you hint. It takes away a man's +courage just when he needs it most, to feel that his family is involved in +his venture." + +"Why do you not make the settlement direct?" he asked, partly reassured. + +"Because I wish her to feel that it is her own, that I have no right over +it whatever." + +He thought about this. His eyes were keen as he said, "Is that your real +reason?" + +I saw I must be unreserved with him. "Part of it," I replied. "The rest +is--she would not take it from me." + +The old man smiled cynically. "Have you tried?" he inquired. + +"If I had tried and failed, she would have been on the alert for an +indirect attempt." + +"Try her, young man," said he, laughing. "In this day there are few people +anywhere who'd refuse any sum from anybody for anything. And a woman--and a +New York woman--and a New York fashionable woman--and a daughter of old +Ellersly--she'll take it as a baby takes the breast." + +"She would not take it," said I. + +My tone, though I strove to keep angry protest out of it, because I needed +him, caused him to draw back instantly. "I beg your pardon," said he. "I +forgot for the moment that I was talking to a man young enough still to +have youth's delusions about women. You'll learn that they're human, that +it's from them we men inherit our weaknesses. However, let's assume that +she won't take it: _Why_ won't she take your money? What is there +about it that repels Ellersly's daughter, brought up in the sewers of +fashionable New York--the sewers, sir!" + +"She does not love me," I answered. + +"I have hurt you," he said quickly, in great distress at having compelled +me to expose my secret wound. + +"The wound does not ache the worse," said I, "for my showing it--to +_you_." And that was the truth. I looked over toward Dawn Hill whose +towers could just be seen. "We live there." I pointed. "She is--like a +guest in my house." + +When I glanced at him again, his face betrayed a feeling of which I doubt +if any one had thought him capable in many a year. "I see that you love +her," he said, gently as a mother. + +"Yes," I replied. And presently I went on: "The idea of any one I love +being dependent on me in a sordid way is most distasteful to me. And since +she does not love me, does not even like me, it is doubly necessary that +she be independent." + +"I confess I do not quite follow you" said he. + +"How can she accept anything from me? If she should finally be compelled by +necessity to do it, what hope could I have of her ever feeling toward me as +a wife should feel toward her husband?" + +At this explanation of mine his eyes sparkled with anger--and I could not +but suspect that he had at one time in his life been faced with a problem +like mine, and had settled it the other way. My suspicion was not weakened +when he went on to say: + +"Boyish motives again! They show you do not know women. Don't be deceived +by their delicate exterior, by their pretenses of super-refinement. They +affect to be what passion deludes us into thinking them. But they're clay, +sir, just clay, and far less sensitive than we men. Don't you see, young +man, that by making her independent you're throwing away your best chance +of winning her? Women are like dogs--like dogs, sir! They lick the hand +that feeds 'em--lick it, and like it." + +"Possibly," said I, with no disposition to combat views based on I knew not +what painful experience. "But I don't care for that sort of liking--from a +woman, or from a dog." + +"It's the only kind you'll get," retorted he, trying to control his +agitation. "I'm an old man. I know human nature--that's why I live alone. +You'll take that kind of liking, or do without." + +"Then I'll do without," said I. + +"Give her an income, and she'll go. I see it all. You've flattered her +vanity by showing your love for her--that's the way with women. They go +crazy about themselves, and forget all about the man. Give her an income +and she'll go." + +"I doubt it," said I. "And you would, if you knew her. But, even so, I +shall lose her in any event. For, unless she is made independent, she'll +certainly go with the last of the little money she has, the remnant of a +small legacy." + +The old man argued with me, the more vigorously, I suspect, because he +found me resolute. When he could think of no new way of stating his +case--his case against Anita--he said: "You are a fool, young man--that's +clear. I wonder such a fool was ever able to get together as much property +as report credits you with. But--you're the kind of fool I like." + +"Then--you'll indulge my folly?" said I, smiling. + +He threw up his arms in a gesture of mock despair. "If you will have it +so," he replied. "I am curious about this niece of mine. I want to see her. +I want to see the woman who can resist _you_." + +"Her mind and her heart are closed against me," said I. "And it is my own +fault--I closed them." + +"Put her out of your head," he advised. "No woman is worth a serious man's +while." + +"I have few wants, few purposes," said I. "But those few I pursue to the +end. Even though she were not worth while, even though I wholly lost hope, +still I'd not give her up. I couldn't--that's my nature. But--_she_ is +worth while." And I could see her, slim and graceful, the curves in her +face and figure that made my heart leap, the azure sheen upon her +petal-like skin, the mystery of the soul luring from her eyes. + +After we had arranged the business--or, rather, arranged to have it +arranged through our lawyers--he walked down to the pier with me. At the +gangway he gave me another searching look from head to foot--but vastly +different from the inspection with which our interview had begun. "You are +a devilish handsome young fellow," said he. "Your pictures don't do you +justice. And I shouldn't have believed any man could overcome in one brief +sitting such a prejudice as I had against you. On second thought, I don't +care to see her. She must be even below the average." + +"Or far above it," I suggested. + +"I suppose I'll have to ask her over to visit me," he went on. "A fine +hypocrite I'll feel." + +"You can make it one of the conditions of your gift that she is not to +thank you or speak of it," said I. "I fear your face would betray us, if +she ever did." + +"An excellent idea!" he exclaimed. Then, as he shook hands with me in +farewell: "You will win her yet--if you care to." + +As I steamed up the Sound, I was tempted to put in at Dawn Hill's harbor. +Through my glass I could see Anita and Alva and several others, men and +women, having tea on the lawn under a red and white awning. I could see her +dress--a violet suit with a big violet hat to match. I knew that costume. +Like everything she wore, it was both beautiful in itself and most becoming +to her. I could see her face, could almost make out its expression--did I +see, or did I imagine, a cruel contrast to what I always saw when she knew +I was looking? + +I gazed until the trees hid lawn and gay awning, and that lively company +and her. In my bitterness I was full of resentment against her, full of +self-pity. I quite forgot, for that moment, _her_ side of the story. + + + + +XXVIII + +BLACKLOCK SEES A LIGHT + + +It was next day, I think, that I met Mowbray Langdon and his brother Tom in +the entrance of the Textile Building. Mowbray was back only a week from his +summer abroad; but Tom I had seen and nodded to every day, often several +times in the same day, as he went to and fro about his "respectable" dirty +work for the Roebuck-Langdon clique. He was one of their most frequently +used stool-pigeon directors in banks and insurance companies whose funds +they staked in their big gambling operations, they taking almost all the +profits and the depositors and policy holders taking almost all the risk. +It had never once occurred to me to have any feeling of any kind about Tom, +or in any way to take him into my calculations as to Anita. He was, to +my eyes, too obviously a pale understudy of his powerful and fascinating +brother. Whenever I thought of him as the man Anita fancied she loved, I +put it aside instantly. "The kind of man a woman _really_ cares for," +I would say to myself, "is the measure of her true self. But not the kind +of man she _imagines_ she cares for." + +Tom went on; Mowbray stopped. We shook hands, and exchanged commonplaces +in the friendliest way--I was harboring no resentment against him, and I +wished him to realize that his assault had bothered me no more than the +buzzing and battering of a summer fly. "I've been trying to get in to see +you," said he. "I wanted to explain about that unfortunate Textile deal." + +This, when the assault on me had burst out with fresh energy the day after +he landed from Europe! I could scarcely believe that his vanity, his +confidence in his own skill at underground work could so delude him. "Don't +bother," said I. "All that's ancient history." + +But he had thought out some lies he regarded as particularly creditable to +his ingenuity; he was not to be deprived of the pleasure of telling them. +So I was compelled to listen; and, being in an indulgent mood, I did not +spoil his pleasure by letting him see or suspect my unbelief. If he could +have looked into my mind, as I stood there in an attitude of patient +attention, I think even his self-complacence would have been put out of +countenance. You may admire the exploits of a "gentleman" cracksman or +pickpocket, if you hear or read them with only their ingenuity put before +you. But _see_ a "gentleman" liar or thief at his sneaking, cowardly +work, and admiration is impossible. As Langdon lied on, as I studied +his cheap, vulgar exhibition of himself, he all unconscious, I thought: +"Beneath that very thin surface of yours, you're a poor cowardly +creature--you, and all your fellow bandits. No; bandit is too grand a word +to apply to this game of 'high finance.' It's really on the level with the +game of the fellow that waits for a dark night, slips into the barn-yard, +poisons the watch-dog, bores an auger-hole in the granary, and takes to his +heels at a suspicious sound." + +With his first full stop, I said: "I understand perfectly, Langdon. But I +haven't the slightest interest in crooked enterprises now. I'm clear out +of all you fellows' stocks. I've reinvested my property so that not even a +panic would trouble me." + +"That's good," he drawled. I saw he did not believe me--which was natural, +as he knew nothing of my arrangement with Galloway and assumed I was +laboring in heavy weather, with a bad cargo of Coal stocks and contracts. +"Come to lunch with me. I've got some interesting things to tell you about +my trip." + +A few months before, I should have accepted with alacrity. But I had lost +interest in him. He had not changed; if anything, he was more dazzling than +ever in the ways that had once dazzled me. It was I that had changed--my +ideals, my point of view. I had no desire to feed my new-sprung contempt by +watching him pump in vain for information to be used in his secret campaign +against me. "No, thanks. Another day," I replied, and left him with a curt +nod. I noted that he had failed to speak of my marriage, though he had not +seen me since. "A sore subject with all the Langdons," thought I. "It must +be very sore, indeed, to make a man who is all manners, neglect them." + +My whole life had been a series of transformations so continuous that I had +noted little about my advance, beyond its direction--like a man hurrying up +a steep that keeps him bent, eyes down. But, as I turned away from Langdon, +I caught myself in the very act of transformation. No doubt, the new view +had long been there, its horizon expanding with every step of my ascent; +but not until that talk with him did I see it. I looked about me in Wall +Street; in my mind's eye I all in an instant saw my world as it really was. +I saw the great rascals of "high finance," their respectability stripped +from them; saw them gathering in the spoils which their cleverly-trained +agents, commercial and political and legal, filched with light fingers from +the pockets of the crowd, saw the crowd looking up to these trainers and +employers of pickpockets, hailing them "captains of industry"! They reaped +only where and what others had sown; they touched industry only to plunder +and to blight it; they organized it only that its profits might go to +those who did not toil and who despised those who did. "Have I gone mad in +the midst of sane men?" I asked myself. "Or have I been mad, and have I +suddenly become sane in a lunatic world?" + +I did not linger on that problem. For me action remained the essential of +life, whether I was sane or insane. I resolved then and there to map a new +course. By toiling like a sailor at the pump of a sinking ship, I had taken +advantage to the uttermost of the respite Galloway's help had given me. My +property was no longer in more or less insecure speculative "securities," +but was, as I had told Langdon, in forms that would withstand the worst +shocks. The attacks of my enemies, directed partly at my fortune, or, +rather, at the stocks in which they imagined it was still invested, and +partly at my personal character, were doing me good instead of harm. Hatred +always forgets that its shafts, falling round its intended victim, spring +up as legions of supporters for him. My business was growing rapidly; my +daily letter to investors was read by hundreds of thousands where tens of +thousands had read it before the Roebuck-Langdon clique began to make me +famous by trying to make me infamous. + +"I am strong and secure," said I to myself as I strode through the +wonderful canyon of Broadway, whose walls are those mighty palaces of +finance and commerce from which business men have been ousted by cormorant +"captains of industry." I must _use_ my strength. How could I better +use it than by fluttering these vultures on their roosts, and perhaps +bringing down a bird or two? + +I decided, however, that it was better to wait until they had stopped +rattling their beaks and claws on my shell in futile attack. "Meanwhile," I +reasoned carefully, "I can be getting good and ready." + +Their first new move, after my little talk with Langdon, was intended +as a mortal blow to my credit Melville requested me to withdraw mine and +Blacklock and Company's accounts from the National Industrial Bank; and the +fact that this huge and powerful institution had thus branded me was slyly +given to the financial reporters of the newspapers. Far and wide it was +published; and the public was expected to believe that this was one more +and drastic measure in the "campaign of the honorable men of finance to +clean the Augean Stables of Wall Street." My daily letter to investors next +morning led off with this paragraph--the first notice I had taken publicly +of their attacks on me: + +"In the effort to discredit the only remaining uncontrolled source of +financial truth, the big bandits have ordered my accounts out of their +chief gambling-house. I have transferred the accounts to the Discount and +Deposit National, where Leonidas Thornley stands guard against the new +order that seeks to make business a synonym for crime." + +Thornley was of the type that was dominant in our commercial life before +the "financiers" came--just as song birds were common in our trees until +the noisy, brawling, thieving sparrows drove them out. His oldest son was +about to marry Joe's daughter--Alva. Many a Sunday I have spent at his +place near Morristown--a charming combination of city comfort with farm +freedom and fresh air. I remember, one Sunday, saying to him, after he had +seen his wife and daughters off to church: "Why haven't you got rich? Why +haven't you looked out for establishing these boys and girls of yours?" + +"I don't want my girls to be sought for money," said he, "I don't want my +boys to rely on money. Perhaps I've seen too much of wealth, and have come +to have a prejudice against it. Then, too, I've never had the chance to get +rich." + +I showed that I thought that he was simply jesting. + +"I mean it," said he, looking at me with eyes as straight as a +well-brought-up girl's. "How could my mind be judicial if I were personally +interested in the enterprises people look to me for advice about?" + +And not only did he keep himself clear and his mind judicial but also +he was, like all really good people, exceedingly slow to believe others +guilty of the things he would as soon have thought of doing as he would +have thought of slipping into the teller's cage during the lunch hour and +pocketing a package of bank-notes. He gave me his motto--a curious one: +"Believe in everybody; trust in nobody." + +"Only a thief wishes to be trusted," he explained, "and only a fool trusts. +I let no one trust me; I trust no one. But I believe evil of no man. Even +when he has been convicted, I see the mitigating circumstances." + +How Thornley did stand by me! And for no reason except that it was as +necessary for him to be fair and just as to breathe. I shall not say he +resisted the attempts to compel him to desert me--they simply made no +impression on him. I remember, when Roebuck himself, a large stock-holder +in the bank, left cover far enough personally to urge him to throw me over, +he replied steadfastly: + +"If Mr. Blacklock is guilty of circulating false stories against commercial +enterprises, as his enemies allege, the penal code can be used to stop him. +But as long as I stay at the head of this bank, no man shall use it for +personal vengeance. It is a chartered public institution, and all have +equal rights to its facilities. I would lend money to my worst enemy, if he +came for it with the proper security. I would refuse my best friend, if he +could not give security. The funds of a bank are a trust fund, and my duty +is to see that they are employed to the best advantage. If you wish other +principles to prevail here, you must get another president." + +That settled it. No one appreciated more keenly than did Roebuck that +character is as indispensable in its place as is craft where the situation +demands craft--and is far harder to get. + +I shall not relate in detail that campaign against me. It failed not so +much because I was strong as because it was weak. Perhaps, if Roebuck and +Langdon could have directed it in person, or had had the time to advise +with their agents before and after each move, it might have succeeded. +They would not have let exaggeration dominate it and venom show upon its +surface; they would not have neglected to follow up advantages, would not +have persisted in lines of attack that created public sympathy for me. +They would not have so crudely exploited my unconventional marriage and +my financial relations with old Ellersly. But they dared not go near the +battle-field; they had to trust to agents whom their orders and suggestions +reached by the most roundabout ways; and they were busier with their +enterprises that involved immediate and great gain or loss of money. + +When Galloway died, they learned that the Coal stocks with which they +thought I was loaded down were part of his estate. They satisfied +themselves that I was in fact as impregnable as I had warned Langdon. They +reversed tactics; Roebuck tried to make it up with me. "If he wants to see +me," was my invariable answer to the intimations of his emissaries, "let +him come to my office, just as I would go to his, if I wished to see him." + +"He is a big man--a dangerous big man," cautioned Joe. + +"Big--yes. But strong only against his own kind," replied I. "One mouse can +make a whole herd of elephants squeal for mercy." + +"It isn't prudent, it isn't prudent," persisted Joe. + +"It is not," replied I. "Thank God, I'm at last in the position I've been +toiling to achieve. I don't have to be prudent. I can say and do what I +please, without fear of the consequences. I can freely indulge in the +luxury of being a man. That's costly, Joe, but it's worth all it could +cost." + +Joe didn't understand me--he rarely did. "I'm a hen. You're an eagle," said +he. + + + + +XXIX + +A HOUSEWARMING + + +Joe's daughter, staying on and on at Dawn Hill, was chief lieutenant, if +not principal, in my conspiracy to drift Anita day by day further and +further into the routine of the new life. Yet neither of us had shown by +word or look that a thorough understanding existed between us. My part was +to be unobtrusive, friendly, neither indifferent nor eager, and I held to +it by taking care never to be left alone with Anita; Alva's part was to +be herself--simple and natural and sensible, full of life and laughter, +mocking at those moods that betray us into the absurdity of taking +ourselves too seriously. + +I was getting ready a new house in town as a surprise to Anita, and I took +Alva into my plot. "I wish Anita's part of the house to be exactly to her +liking," said I. "Can't you set her to dreaming aloud what kind of place +she would like to live in, what she would like to open her eyes on in the +morning, what surroundings she'd like to dress in and read in, and all +that?" + +Alva had no difficulty in carrying out the suggestions. And by harassing +Westlake incessantly, I succeeded in realizing her report of Anita's dream +to the exact shade of the draperies and the silk that covered the walls. By +pushing the work, I got the house done just as Alva was warning me that she +could not remain longer at Dawn Hill, but must go home and get ready for +her wedding. When I went down to arrange with her the last details of the +surprise, who should meet me at the station but Anita herself? I took one +glance at her serious face and, much disquieted, seated myself beside her +in the little trap. Instead of following the usual route to the house, she +turned her horse into the bay-shore road. + +"Several days ago," she began, as the bend hid the station, "I got a letter +from some lawyers, saying that an uncle of mine had given me a large sum +of money--a very large sum. I have been inquiring about it, and find it is +mine absolutely." + +I braced myself against the worst. "She is about to tell me that she is +leaving," thought I. But I managed to say: "I'm glad to hear of your luck," +though I fear my tone was not especially joyous. + +"So," she went on, "I am in a position to pay back to you, I think, what my +father and Sam took from you. It won't be enough, I'm afraid, to pay what +you lost indirectly. But I have told the lawyers to make it all over to +you." + +I could have laughed aloud. It was too ridiculous, this situation into +which I had got myself. I did not know what to say. I could hardly keep +out of my face how foolish this collapse of my crafty conspiracy made me +feel. And then the full meaning of what she was doing came over me--the +revelation of her character. I trusted myself to steal a glance at her; and +for the first time I didn't see the thrilling azure sheen over her smooth +white skin, though all her beauty was before me, as dazzling as when it +compelled me to resolve to win her. No; I saw her, herself--the woman +within. I had known from the outset that there was an altar of love within +my temple of passion. I think that was my first real visit to it. + +"Anita!" I said unsteadily. "Anita!" + +The color flamed in her cheeks; we were silent for a long time. + +"You--your people owe me nothing" I at length found voice to say. "Even if +they did, I couldn't and wouldn't take _your_ money. But, believe me, +they owe me nothing." + +"You can not mislead me," she answered. "When they asked me to become +engaged to you, they told me about it." + +I had forgotten. The whole repulsive, rotten business came back to me. And, +changed man that I had become in the last six months, I saw myself as I had +been. I felt that she was looking at me, was reading the degrading +confession in my telltale features. + +"I will tell you the whole truth," said I. "I did use your father's and +your brother's debts to me as a means of getting _to_ you. But, before +God, Anita, I swear I was honest with you when I said to you I never hoped +or wished to win you in that way!" + +"I believe you," she replied, and her tone and expression made my heart +leap with indescribable joy. + +Love is sometimes most unwise in his use of the reins he puts on passion. +Instead of acting as impulse commanded, I said clumsily, "And I am very +different to-day from what I was last spring." It never occurred to me how +she might interpret those words. + +"I know," she replied. She waited several seconds before adding: "I, too, +have changed. I see that I was far more guilty than you. There is no excuse +for me. I was badly brought up, as you used to say, but--" + +"No--no," I began to protest. + +She cut me short with a sad: "You need not be polite and spare my feelings. +Let's not talk of it. Let us go back to the object I had in coming for you +to-day." + +"You owe me nothing," I repeated. "Your brother and your father settled +long ago. I lost nothing through them. And I've learned that if I had never +known you, Roebuck and Langdon would still have attacked me." + +"What my uncle gave me has been transferred to you," said she, woman +fashion, not hearing what she did not care to heed. "I can't make you +accept it; but there it is, and there it stays." + +"I can not take it," said I. "If you insist on leaving it in my name, I +shall simply return it to your uncle." + +"I wrote him what I had done," she rejoined. "His answer came yesterday. He +approves it." + +"Approves it!" I exclaimed. + +"You do not know how eccentric he is," she explained, naturally +misunderstanding my astonishment. She took a letter from her bosom and +handed it to me. I read: + +"DEAR MADAM: It was yours to do with as you pleased. If you ever find +yourself in the mood to visit, Gull House is open to you, provided you +bring no maid. I will not have female servants about. + +"Yours truly, + +"HOWARD FORRESTER." + +"You will consent now, will you not?" she asked, as I lifted my eyes from +this characteristic note. + +I saw that her peace of mind was at stake. "Yes--I consent." + +She gave a great sigh as at the laying down of a heavy burden. "Thank you," +was all she said, but she put a world of meaning into the words. She took +the first homeward turning. We were nearly at the house before I found +words that would pave the way toward expressing my thoughts--my longings +and hopes. + +"You say you have forgiven me," said I. "Then we can be--friends?" + +She was silent, and I took her somber expression to mean that she feared I +was hiding some subtlety. + +"I mean just what I say, Anita," I hastened to explain. "Friends--simply +friends." And my manner fitted my words. + +She looked strangely at me. "You would be content with that?" she asked. + +I answered what I thought would please her. "Let us make the best of our +bad bargain," said I. "You can trust me now, don't you think you can?" + +She nodded without speaking; we were at the door, and the servants were +hastening out to receive us. Always the servants between us. Servants +indoors, servants outdoors; morning, noon and night, from waking to +sleeping, these servants to whom we are slaves. As those interrupting +servants sent us each a separate way, her to her maid, me to my valet, I +was depressed with the chill that the opportunity that has not been seen +leaves behind it as it departs. + +"Well," said I to myself by way of consolation, as I was dressing for +dinner, "she is certainly softening toward you, and when she sees the new +house you will be still better friends." + + * * * * * + +But, when the great day came, I was not so sure. Alva went for a "private +view" with young Thornley; out of her enthusiasm she telephoned me from the +very midst of the surroundings she found "_so_ wonderful and _so_ +beautiful"--thus she assured me, and her voice made it impossible to doubt. +And, the evening before the great day, I, going for a final look round, +could find no flaw serious enough to justify the sinking feeling that came +over me every time I thought of what Anita would think when she saw my +efforts to realize her dream. I set out for "home" half a dozen times at +least, that afternoon, before I pulled myself together, called myself an +ass, and, with a pause at Delmonico's for a drink, which I ordered and then +rejected, finally pushed myself in at the door. What, a state my nerves +were in! + +Alva had departed; Anita was waiting for me in her sitting-room. When she +heard me in the hall, just outside, she stood in the doorway. "Come in," +she said to me, who did not dare so much as a glance at her. + +I entered. I must have looked as I felt--like a boy, summoned before +the teacher to be whipped in presence of the entire school. Then I was +conscious that she had my hand--how she had got it, I don't know--and that +she was murmuring, with tears of happiness in her voice: "Oh, I can't +_say_ it!" + +"Glad you like your own taste," said I awkwardly. "You know, Alva told me." + +"But it's one thing to dream, and a very different thing to do," she +answered. Then, with smiling reproach: "And I've been thinking all summer +that you were ruined! I've been expecting to hear every day that you had +had to give up the fight." + +"Oh--that passed long ago," said I. + +"But you never told me," she reminded me. "And I'm glad you didn't," +she added. "Not knowing saved me from doing something very foolish." +She reddened a little, smiled a great deal, dazzlingly, was altogether +different from the ice-locked Anita of a short time before, different as +June from January. And her hand--so intensely alive--seemed extremely +comfortable in mine. + +Even as my blood responded to that electric touch, I had a twinge of +cynical bitterness. Yes, apparently I was at last getting what I had so +long, so vainly, and, latterly, so hopelessly craved. But--_why_ was +she giving it? Why had she withheld herself until this moment of material +happiness? "I have to pay the rich man's price," thought I, with a sigh. + +It was in reaching out for some sweetness to take away this bitter taste in +my honey that I said to her, "When you gave me that money from your uncle, +you did it to help me out?" + +She colored deeply. "How silly you must have thought me!" she answered. + +I took her other hand. As I was drawing her toward me, the sudden pallor of +her face and chill of her hands halted me once more, brought sickeningly +before me the early days of my courtship when she had infuriated my pride +by trying to be "submissive." I looked round the room--that room into which +I had put so much thought--and money. Money! "The rich man's price!" those +delicately brocaded walls shimmered mockingly at me. + +"Anita," said I, "do you _care_ for me?" + +She murmured inaudibly. Evasion! thought I, and suspicion sprang on guard, +bristling. + +"Anita," I repeated sternly, "do you care for _me_?" + +"I am your wife," she replied, her head drooping still lower. And +hesitatingly she drew away from me. That seemed confirmation of my doubt +and I said to her satirically, "You are willing to be my wife out of +gratitude, to put it politely?" + +She looked straight into my eyes and answered, "I can only say there is no +one I like so well, and--I will give you all I have to give." + +"Like!" I exclaimed contemptuously, my nerves giving way altogether. "And +you would be my _wife_! Do you want me to _despise_ you?" I +struck dead my poor, feeble hope that had been all but still-born. I rushed +from the room, closing the door violently between us. + +Such was our housewarming. + + + + +XXX + +BLACKLOCK OPENS FIRE + + +For what I proceeded to do, all sorts of motives, from the highest to the +basest, have been attributed to me. Here is the truth: I had already pushed +the medicine of hard work to its limit. It was as powerless against this +new development as water against a drunkard's thirst. I must find some new, +some compelling drug--some frenzy of activity that would swallow up my self +as the battle makes the soldier forget his toothache. This confession may +chagrin many who have believed in me. My enemies will hasten to say: "Aha, +his motive was even more selfish and petty than we alleged." But those who +look at human nature honestly, and from the inside, will understand how I +can concede that a selfish reason moved me to draw my sword, and still +can claim a higher motive. In such straits as were mine, some men of my +all-or-none temperament debauch themselves; others thresh about blindly, +reckless whether they strike innocent or guilty. I did neither. + +Probably many will recall that long before the "securities" of the +reorganized coal combine were issued, I had in my daily letter to investors +been preparing the public to give them a fitting reception. A few days +after my whole being burst into flames of resentment against Anita, out +came the new array of new stocks and bonds. Roebuck and Langdon arranged +with the under writers for a "fake" four times over-subscription, indorsed +by the two greatest banking houses in the Street. Despite this often-tried +and always-good trick, the public refused to buy. I felt I had not been +overestimating my power. But I made no move until the "securities" began to +go up, and the financial reporters--under the influence where not actually +in the pay of the Roebuck-Langdon clique--shouted that, "in spite of the +malicious attacks from the gambling element, the new securities are being +absorbed by the public at prices approximating their value." Then--But I +shall quote my investors' letter the following morning: + +"At half-past nine yesterday--nine-twenty-eight, to be exact--President +Melville, of the National Industrial Bank, loaned six hundred thousand +dollars. He loaned it to Bill Van Nest, an ex-gambler and proprietor of +pool rooms, now silent partner in Hoe & Wittekind, brokers, on the New York +Stock Exchange, and also in Filbert & Jonas, curb brokers. He loaned it to +Van Nest without security. + +"Van Nest used the money yesterday to push up the price of the new coal +securities by 'wash sales'--which means, by making false purchases and +sales of the stock in order to give the public the impression of eager +buying. Van Nest sold to himself and bought from himself 347,060 of the +352,681 shares traded in. + +"Melville, in addition to being president of one of the largest banks in +the world, is a director in no less than seventy-three great industrial +enterprises, including railways, telegraph companies, _savings-banks and +life-insurance companies_. Bill Van Nest has done time in the Nevada +State Penitentiary for horse-stealing." + + * * * * * + +That was all. And it was enough--quite enough. I was a national figure, +as much so as if I had tried to assassinate the president. Indeed, I had +exploded a bomb under a greater than the president--under the chiefs of the +real government of the United States, the government that levied daily upon +every citizen, and that had state and national and the principal municipal +governments in its strong box. + +I confess I was as much astounded at the effect of my bomb as old Melville +must have been. I felt that I had been obscure, as I looked at the +newspapers, with Matthew Blacklock appropriating almost the entire front +page of each. I was the isolated, the conspicuous figure, standing alone +upon the steps of the temple of Mammon, where mankind daily and devoutly +comes to offer worship. + +Not that the newspapers praised me. I recall none that spoke well of me. +The nearest approach to praise was the "Blacklock squeals on the Wall +Street gang" in one of the sensational penny sheets that strengthen +the plutocracy by lying about it. Some of the papers insinuated that +I had gone mad; others that I had been bought up by a rival gang to +the Roebuck-Langdon clique; still others thought I was simply hunting +notoriety. All were inclined to accept as a sufficient denial of my +charges Melville's dignified refusal "to notice any attack from a quarter +so discredited." + +As my electric whirled into Wall Street, I saw the crowd in front of the +Textile Building, a dozen policemen keeping it in order. I descended amid +cheers, and entered my offices through a mob struggling to shake hands with +me--and, in my ignorance of mob mind, I was delighted and inspired! Just +why a man who knows men, knows how wishy-washy they are as individuals, +should be influenced by a demonstration from a mass of them, is hard to +understand. But the fact is indisputable. They fooled me then; they could +fool me again, in spite of all I have been through. There probably wasn't +one in that mob for whose opinion I would have had the slightest respect +had he come to me alone; yet as I listened to those shallow cheers and +those worthless assurances of "the people are behind you, Blacklock," I +felt that I was a man with a mission! + +Our main office was full, literally full, of newspaper men--reporters +from morning papers, from afternoon papers, from out-of-town and foreign +papers. I pushed through them, saying as I went: "My letter speaks for me, +gentlemen, and will continue to speak for me. I have nothing to say except +through it." + +"But the public--" urged one. + +"It doesn't interest me," said I, on my guard against the temptation to +cant. "I am a banker and investment broker. I am interested only in my +customers." + +And I shut myself in, giving strict orders to Joe that there was to be no +talking about me or my campaign. "I don't purpose to let the newspapers +make us cheap and notorious," said I. "We must profit by the warning in +the fate of all the other fellows who have sprung into notice by attacking +these bandits." + +The first news I got was that Bill Van Nest had disappeared. As soon as +the Stock Exchange opened, National Coal became the feature. But, instead +of "wash sales," Roebuck, Langdon and Melville were themselves, through +various brokers, buying the stocks in large quantities to keep the prices +up. My next letter was as brief as my first philippic: + +"Bill Van Nest is at the Hotel Frankfort, Newark, under the name of Thomas +Lowry. He was in telephonic communication with President Melville, of the +National Industrial Bank, twice yesterday. + +"The underwriters of the National Coal Company's new issues, frightened by +yesterday's exposure, have compelled Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Mowbray Langdon and +Mr. Melville themselves to buy. So, yesterday, those three gentlemen bought +with real money, with their own money, large quantities of stocks which are +worth less than half what they paid for them. + +"They will continue to buy these stocks so long as the public holds aloof. +They dare not let the prices slump. They hope that this storm will blow +over, and that then the investing public will forget and will relieve them +of their load." + +I had added: "But this storm won't blow over. It will become a cyclone." I +struck that out. "No prophecy," said I to myself. "Your rule, iron-clad, +must be--facts, always facts; only facts." + +The gambling section of the public took my hint and rushed into the market; +the burden of protecting the underwriters was doubled, and more and more of +the hoarded loot was disgorged. That must have been a costly day--for, ten +minutes after the Stock Exchange closed, Roebuck sent for me. + +"My compliments to him," said I to his messenger, "but I am too busy. I'll +be glad to see him here, however." + +"You know he dares not come to you," said the messenger, Schilling, +president of the National Manufactured Food Company, sometimes called the +Poison Trust. "If he did, and it were to get out, there'd be a panic." + +"Probably," replied I with a shrug. "That's no affair of mine. I'm not +responsible for the rotten conditions which these so-called financiers have +produced, and I shall not be disturbed by the crash which must come." + +Schilling gave me a genuine look of mingled pity and admiration. "I suppose +you know what you're about," said he, "but I think you're making a +mistake." + +"Thanks, Ned," said I--he had been my head clerk a few years before, and I +had got him the chance with Roebuck which he had improved so well. "I'm +going to have some fun. Can't live but once." + +"I know some people," said he significantly, "who would go to _any_ +lengths to get an enemy out of the way." He had lived close enough to +Roebuck to peer into the black shadows of that satanic mind, and dimly to +see the dread shapes that lurked there. + +"I'm the safest man on Manhattan Island for the present," said I. + +"You remember Woodrow? I've always believed that he was murdered, and that +the pistol they found beside him was a 'plant.'" + +"You'd kill me yourself, if you got the orders, wouldn't you?" said I +good-humoredly. + +"Not personally," replied he in the same spirit, yet serious, too, at +bottom. "Inspector Bradlaugh was telling me, the other night, that there +were easily a thousand men in the slums of the East Side who could be hired +to kill a man for five hundred dollars." + +I suppose Schilling, as the directing spirit of a corporation that +hid poison by the hogshead in low-priced foods of various kinds, +was responsible for hundreds of deaths annually, and for misery of +sickness beyond calculation among the poor of the tenements and cheap +boarding-houses. Yet a better husband, father and friend never lived. He, +personally, wouldn't have harmed a fly; but he was a wholesale poisoner for +dividends. + +Murder for dividends. Poison for dividends. Starve and freeze and maim for +dividends. Drive parents to suicide, and sons and daughters to crime and +prostitution--for dividends. Not fair competition, in which the stronger +and better would survive, but cheating and swindling, lying and pilfering +and bribing, so that the honest and the decent go down before the dishonest +and the depraved. And the custom of doing these things so "respectable," +the applause for "success" so undiscriminating, and men so unthinking in +the rush of business activity, that criticism is regarded as a mixture of +envy and idealism. And it usually is, I must admit. + +Schilling lingered. "I hope you won't blame me for lining up against you, +Matt," said he. "I don't want to, but I've got to." + +"Why?" + +"You know what'd become of me if I didn't." + +"You might become an honest man and get self-respect," I suggested with +friendly satire. + +"That's all very well for you to say," was his laughing retort. "You've +made yourself tight and tidy for the blow. But I've a family, and a damned +expensive one, too. And if I didn't stand by this gang, they'd take +everything I've got away from me. No, Matt, each of us to his own game. +What _is_ your game, anyhow?" + +"Fun--just fun. Playing the pipe to see the big fellows dance." + +But he didn't believe it. And no one has believed it--not even my most +devoted followers. To this day Joe Ball more than half suspects that my +real objective was huge personal gain. That any rich man should do anything +except for the purpose of growing richer seems incredible. That any rich +man should retain or regain the sympathies and viewpoint of the class from +which he sprang, and should become a "traitor" to the class to which he +belongs, seems preposterous. I confess I don't fully understand my own +case. Who ever does? + +My "daily letters" had now ceased to be advertisements, had become news, +sought by all the newspapers of this country and of the big cities in Great +Britain. I could have made a large saving by no longer paying my sixty-odd +regular papers for inserting them. But I was looking too far ahead to +blunder into that fatal mistake. Instead, I signed a year's contract +with each of my papers, they guaranteeing to print my advertisements, I +guaranteeing to protect them against loss on libel suits. I organized +a dummy news bureau, and through it got contracts with the telegraph +companies. Thus insured against the cutting of my communications with the +public, I was ready for the real campaign. + +It began with my "History of the National Coal Company." I need not repeat +that famous history here. I need recall only the main points--how I proved +that the common stock was actually worth less than two dollars a share, +that the bonds were worth less than twenty-five dollars in the hundred, +that both stock and bonds were illegal; my detailed recital of the crimes +of Roebuck, Melville and Langdon in wrecking mining properties, in wrecking +coal railways, in ejecting American labor and substituting helots from +eastern Europe; how they had swindled and lied and bribed; how they had +twisted the books of the companies, how they were planning to unload the +mass of almost worthless securities at high prices, then to get from under +the market and let the bonds and stocks drop down to where they could buy +them in on terms that would yield them more than two hundred and fifty per +cent, on the actual capital invested. Less and dearer coal; lower wages and +more ignorant laborers; enormous profits absorbed without mercy into a few +pockets. + +On the day the seventh chapter of this history appeared, the telegraph +companies notified me that they would transmit no more of my matter. They +feared the consequences in libel suits, explained Moseby, general manager +of one of the companies. + +"But I guarantee to protect you," said I. "I will give bond in any amount +you ask." + +"We can't take the risk, Mr. Blacklock," replied he. The twinkle in his eye +told me why, and also that he, like every one else in the country except +the clique, was in sympathy with me. + +My lawyers found an honest judge, and I got an injunction that compelled +the companies to transmit under my contracts. I suspended the "History" for +one day, and sent out in place of it an account of this attempt to shut +me off from the public. "Hereafter," said I, in the last paragraph in my +letter, "I shall end each day's chapter with a forecast of what the next +day's chapter is to be. If for any reason it fails to appear, the public +will know that somebody has been coerced by Roebuck, Melville & Co." + + + + +XXXI + +ANITA'S SECRET + + +That afternoon--or, was it the next?--I happened to go home early. I have +never been able to keep alive anger against any one. My anger against Anita +had long ago died away, had been succeeded by regret and remorse that I +had let my nerves, or whatever the accursed cause was, whirl me into such +an outburst. Not that I regretted having rejected what I still felt was +insulting to me and degrading to her; simply that my manner should have +been different. There was no necessity or excuse for violence in showing +her that I would not, could not, accept from gratitude what only love +has the right to give. And I had long been casting about for some way +to apologize--not easy to do, when her distant manner toward me made +it difficult for me to find even the necessary commonplaces to "keep +up appearances" before the servants on the few occasions on which we +accidentally met. + +But, as I was saying, I came up from the office and stretched myself +on--the lounge in my private room adjoining the library. I had read myself +into a doze, when a servant brought me a card. I glanced at it as it lay +upon his extended tray. "Gerald Monson," I read aloud. "What does the +damned rascal want?" I asked. + +The servant smiled. He knew as well as I how Monson, after I dismissed him +with a present of six months' pay, had given the newspapers the story--or, +rather, his version of the story--of my efforts to educate myself in the +"arts and graces of a gentleman." + +"Mr. Monson says he wishes to see you particular, sir," said he. + +"Well--I'll see him," said I. I despised him too much to dislike him, and I +thought he might possibly be in want. But that notion vanished the instant +I set eyes upon him. He was obviously at the very top of the wave. "Hello, +Monson," was my greeting, in it no reminder of his treachery. + +"Howdy, Blacklock," said he. "I've come on a little errand for Mrs. +Langdon." Then, with that nasty grin of his: "You know, I'm looking after +things for her since the bust-up." + +"No, I didn't--know," said I curtly, suppressing my instant curiosity. +"What does Mrs. Langdon want?" + +"To see you--for just a few minutes--whenever it is convenient." + +"If Mrs. Langdon has business with me, I'll see her at my office," said I. +She was one of the fashionables that had got herself into my black books by +her treatment of Anita since the break with the Ellerslys. + +"She wishes to come to you here--this afternoon, if you are to be at home. +She asked me to say that her business is important--and very private." + +I hesitated, but I could think of no good excuse for refusing. "I'll be +here an hour," said I. "Good day." + +He gave me no time to change my mind. + +Something--perhaps it was his curious expression as he took himself +off--made me begin to regret. The more I thought of the matter, the less I +thought of my having made any civil concession to a woman who had acted so +badly toward Anita and myself. He had not been gone a quarter of an hour +before I went to Anita in her sitting-room. Always, the instant I entered +the outer door of her part of our house, that powerful, intoxicating +fascination that she had for me began to take possession of my senses. It +was in every garment she wore. It seemed to linger in any place where she +had been, for a long time after she left it. She was at a small desk by the +window, was writing letters. + +"May I interrupt?" said I. "Monson was here a few minutes ago--from Mrs. +Langdon. She wants to see me. I told him I would see her here. Then it +occurred to me that perhaps I had been too good-natured. What do you +think?" + +I could not see her face, but only the back of her head, and the loose +coils of magnetic hair and the white nape of her graceful neck. As I began +to speak, she stopped writing, her pen suspended over the sheet of paper. +After I ended there was a long silence. + +"I'll not see her," said I. "I don't quite understand why I yielded." And I +turned to go. + +"Wait--please," came from her abruptly. + +Another long silence. Then I: "If she comes here, I think the only person +who can properly receive her is you." + +"No--you must see her," said Anita at last. And she turned round in her +chair until she was facing me. Her expression--I can not describe it. I can +only say that it gave me a sense of impending calamity. + +"I'd rather not--much rather not," said I. + +"I particularly wish you to see her," she replied, and she turned back to +her writing. I saw her pen poised as if she were about to begin; but she +did not begin--and I felt that she would not. With my mind shadowed with +vague dread, I left that mysterious stillness, and went back to the +library. + +It was not long before Mrs. Langdon was announced. There are some women +to whom a haggard look is becoming; she is one of them. She was much +thinner than when I last saw her; instead of her former restless, petulant, +suspicious expression, she now looked tragically sad. "May I trouble you to +close the door?" said she, when the servant had withdrawn. + +I closed the door. + +"I've come," she began, without seating herself, "to make you as unhappy, I +fear, as I am. I've hesitated long before coming. But I am desperate. The +one hope I have left is that you and I between us may be able to--to--that +you and I may be able to help each other." + +I waited. + +"I suppose there are people," she went on, "who have never known what it +was to--really to care for some one else. They would despise me for +clinging to a man after he has shown me that--that his love has ceased." + +"Pardon me, Mrs. Langdon," I interrupted. "You apparently think your +husband and I are intimate friends. Before you go any further, I must +disabuse you of that idea." + +She looked at me in open astonishment. "You do not know why my husband has +left me?" + +"Until a few minutes ago, I did not know that he had left you," I said. +"And I do not wish to know why." + +Her expression of astonishment changed to mockery. "Oh!" she sneered. "Your +wife has fooled you into thinking it a one-sided affair. Well, I tell you, +she is as much to blame as he--more. For he did love me when he married me; +did love me until she got him under her spell again." + +I thought I understood. "You have been misled, Mrs. Langdon," said I +gently, pitying her as the victim of her insane jealousy. "You have--" + +"Ask your wife," she interrupted angrily. "Hereafter, you can't pretend +ignorance. For I'll at least be revenged. She failed utterly to trap him +into marriage when she was a poor girl, and--" + +"Before you go any further," said I coldly, "let me set you right. My wife +was at one time engaged to your husband's brother, but--" + +"Tom?" she interrupted. And her laugh made me bite my lip. "So she told you +that! I don't see how she dared. Why, everybody knows that she and Mowbray +were engaged, and that he broke it off to marry me." + +All in an instant everything that had been confused in my affairs at +home and down town became clear. I understood why I had been pursued +relentlessly in Wall Street; why I had been unable to make the least +impression on the barriers between Anita and myself. You will imagine that +some terrible emotion at once dominated me. But this is not a romance; +only the veracious chronicle of certain human beings. My first emotion +was--relief that it was not Tom Langdon. "I ought to have known she +couldn't care for _him_," said I to myself. I, contending with Tom +Langdon for a woman's love had always made me shrink. But Mowbray--that +was vastly different. My respect for myself and for Anita rose. + +"No," said I to Mrs. Langdon, "my wife did not tell me, never spoke of it. +What I said to you was purely a guess of my own. I had no interest in the +matter--and haven't. I have absolute confidence in my wife. I feel ashamed +that you have provoked me into saying so." I opened the door. + +"I am not going yet," said she angrily. "Yesterday morning Mowbray and she +were riding together in the Riverside Drive. Ask her groom." + +"What of it?" said I. Then, as she did not rise, I rang the bell. When the +servant came, I said: "Please tell Mrs. Blacklock that Mrs. Langdon is in +the library--and that I am here, and gave you the message." + +As soon as the servant was gone, she said: "No doubt she'll lie to you. +These women that steal other women's property are usually clever at fooling +their own silly husbands." + +"I do not intend to ask her," I replied. "To ask her would be an insult." + +She made no comment beyond a scornful toss of the head. We both had +our gaze fixed upon the door through which Anita would enter. When she +finally did appear, I, after one glance at her, turned--it must have been +triumphantly--upon her accuser. I had not doubted, but where is the faith +that is not the stronger for confirmation? And confirmation there was in +the very atmosphere round that stately, still figure. She looked calmly, +first at Mrs. Langdon, then at me. + +"I sent for you," said I, "because I thought that you, rather than I, +should request Mrs. Langdon to leave your house." + +At that Mrs. Langdon was on her feet, and blazing. "Fool!" she flared at +me. "Oh, the fools women make of men!" Then to Anita: "You--you--But no, I +must not permit you to drag me down to your level. Tell your husband--tell +him that you were riding with my husband in the Riverside Drive yesterday." + +I stepped between her and Anita. "My wife will not answer you," said I. "I +hope, Madam, you will spare us the necessity of a painful scene. But leave +you must--at once." + +She looked wildly round, clasped her hands, suddenly burst into tears. +If she had but known, she could have had her own way after that, without +any attempt from me to oppose her. For she was evidently unutterably +wretched--and no one knew better than I the sufferings of unreturned love. +But she had given me up; slowly, sobbing, she left the room, I opening the +door for her and closing it behind her. + +"I almost broke down myself," said I to Anita. "Poor woman! How can you be +so calm? You women in your relations with each other are--a mystery." + +"I have only contempt for a woman who tries to hold a man when he wishes +to go," said Anita, with quiet but energetic bitterness. "Besides"--she +hesitated an instant before going on--"Gladys deserves her fate. She +doesn't really care for him. She's only jealous of him. She never did love +him." + +"How do you know?" said I sharply, trying to persuade myself it was not an +ugly suspicion in me that lifted its head and shot out that question. + +"Because he never loved her," she replied. "The feeling a woman has for +a man or a man for a woman, without any response, isn't love, isn't +worthy the name of love. It's a sort of baffled covetousness. Love means +generosity, not greediness." Then--"Why do you not ask me whether what she +said is true?" + +The change in her tone with that last sentence, the strange, ominous note +in it, startled me, + +"Because," replied I, "as I said to her, to ask my wife such a question +would be to insult her. If you were riding with him, it was an accident." +As if my rude repulse of her overtures and my keeping away from her ever +since would not have justified her in almost anything. + +She flushed the dark red of shame, but her gaze held steady and unflinching +upon mine. "It was not altogether by accident," she said. And I think she +expected me to kill her. + +When a man admits and respects a woman's rights where he is himself +concerned, he either is no longer interested in her or has begun to love +her so well that he can control the savage and selfish instincts of +passion. If Mowbray Langdon had been there, I might have killed them both; +but he was not there, and she, facing me without fear, was not the woman to +be suspected of the stealthy and traitorous. + +"It was he that you meant when you warned me you cared for another man?" +said I, so quietly that I wondered at myself; wondered what had become of +the "Black Matt" who had used his fists almost as much as his brains in +fighting his way up. + +"Yes," she said, her head down now. + +A long pause. + +"You wish to be free?" I asked, and my tone must have been gentle. + +"I wish to free you," she replied slowly and deliberately. + +There was a long silence. Then I said: "I must think it all out. I once +told you how I felt about these matters. I've greatly changed my mind since +our talk that night in the Willoughby; but my prejudices are still with me. +Perhaps you will not be surprised at that--you whose prejudices have cost +me so dear." + +I thought she was going to speak. Instead she turned away, so that I could +no longer see her face. + +"Our marriage was a miserable mistake," I went on, struggling to be just +and judicial, and to seem calm. "I admit it now. Fortunately, we are both +still young--you very young. Mistakes in youth are never fatal. But, Anita, +do not blunder out of one mistake into another. You are no longer a child, +as you were when I married you. You will be careful not to let judgments +formed of him long ago decide you for him as they decided you against me." + +"I wish to be free," she said, each word coming with an effort, "as much +on your account as on my own." Then, and it seemed to me merely a truly +feminine attempt to shirk responsibility, she added, "I am glad my going +will be a relief to you." + +"Yes, it will be a relief," I confessed. "Our situation has become +intolerable." I had reached my limit of self-control. I put out my hand. +"Good-by," I said. + +If she had wept, it might have modified my conviction that everything was +at an end between us. But she did not weep. "Can you ever forgive me?" she +asked. + +"Let's not talk of forgiveness," said I, and I fear my voice and manner +were gruff, as I strove not to break down. "Let's try to forget." And I +touched her hand and hastened away. + +When two human beings set out to misunderstand each other, how fast and far +they go! How shut-in we are from each other, with only halting means of +communication that break down under the slightest strain! + +As I was leaving the house next morning, I gave Sanders this note for her: + +"I have gone to live at the Downtown Hotel. When you have decided what +course to take, let me know. If my 'rights' ever had any substance, they +have starved away to such weak things that they collapse even as I try to +set them up. I hope your freedom will give you happiness, and me peace." + +"You are ill, sir?" asked my old servant, my old friend, as he took the +note. + +"Stay with her, Sanders, as long as she wishes," said I, ignoring his +question. "Then come to me." + +His look made me shake hands with him. As I did it, we both remembered the +last time we had shaken hands--when he had the roses for my home-coming +with my bride. It seemed to me I could smell those roses. + + + + +XXXII + +LANGDON COMES TO THE SURFACE + + +I shall not estimate the vast sums it cost the Roebuck-Langdon clique +to maintain the prices of National Coal, and so give plausibility to +the fiction that the public was buying eagerly. In the third week of my +campaign, Melville was so deeply involved that he had to let the two others +take the whole burden upon themselves. + +In the fourth week, Langdon came to me. + +The interval between his card and himself gave me a chance to recover from +my amazement. When he entered he found me busily writing. Though I had +nerved myself, it was several seconds before I ventured to look at him. +There he stood, probably as handsome, as fascinating as ever, certainly as +self-assured. But I could now, beneath that manner I had once envied, see +the puny soul, with its brassy glitter of the vanity of luxury and show. +I had been somewhat afraid of myself--afraid the sight of him would stir +up in me a tempest of jealousy and hate; as I looked, I realized that +I did not know my own nature. "She does not love this man," I thought. +"If she did or could, she would not be the woman I love. He deceived her +inexperience as he deceived mine." + +"What can I do for you?" said I to him politely, much as if he were a +stranger making an untimely interruption. + +My look had disconcerted him; my tone threw him into confusion. "You keep +out of the way, now that you've become famous," he began, with a halting +but heroic attempt at his customary easy superiority. "Are you living up in +Connecticut, too? Sam Ellersly tells me your wife is stopping there with +old Howard Forrester. Sam wants me to use my good offices in making it up +between you two and her family." + +I was completely taken aback by this cool ignoring of the real situation +between him and me. Impudence or ignorance?--I could not decide. It seemed +impossible that Anita had not told him; yet it seemed impossible, too, that +he would come to me if she had told him. "Have you any _business_ with +me?" said I. + +His eyelids twitched nervously, and he adjusted his lips several times +before he was able to say: + +"You and your wife don't care to make it up with the Ellerslys? I fancied +so, and told Sam you'd simply think me meddlesome. The other matter is the +Travelers Club. I've smoothed things out there. I'm going to put you up and +rush you through." + +"No, thanks," said I. It seemed incredible to me that I had ever cared +about that club and the things it represented, as I could remember I +undoubtedly did care. It was like looking at an outgrown toy and trying +to feel again the emotions it once excited. + +"I assure you, Matt, there won't be the slightest difficulty." His manner +was that of a man playing the trump card in a desperate game--he feels it +can not lose, yet the stake is so big that he can not but be a little +nervous. + +"I do not care to join the Travelers Club," said I, rising. "I must ask you +to excuse me. I am exceedingly busy." + +A flush appeared in his cheeks and deepened and spread until his whole body +must have been afire. He seated himself. "You know what I've come for," he +said sullenly, and humbly, too. + +All his life he had been enthroned upon his wealth. Without realizing it, +he had claimed and had received deference solely because he was rich. He +had thought himself, in his own person, most superior; now, he found that +like a silly child he had been standing on a chair and crying: "See how +tall I am." And the airs, the cynicism, the graceful condescension, which +had been so becoming to him, were now as out of place as crown and robes on +a king taking a swimming lesson. + +"What are your terms, Blacklock? Don't be too hard on an old friend," said +he, trying to carry off his frank plea for mercy with a smile. + +I should have thought he would cut his throat and jump off the Battery wall +before he would get on his knees to any man for any reason. And he was +doing it for mere money--to try to save, not his fortune, but only an +imperiled part of it. "If Anita could see him now!" I thought. + +To him I said, the more coldly because I did not wish to add to his +humiliation by showing him that I pitied him: "I can only repeat, Mr. +Langdon, you will have to excuse me. I have given you all the time I can +spare." + +His eyes were shifting and his hands trembling as he said: "I will transfer +control of the Coal combine to you." + +His tones, shameful as the offer they carried, made me ashamed for him. +For money--just for money! And I had thought him a man. If he had been a +self-deceiving hypocrite like Roebuck, or a frank believer in the right of +might, like Updegraff, I might possibly, in the circumstances, have tried +to release him from my net. But he had never for an instant deceived +himself as to the real nature of the enterprises he plotted, promoted and +profited by; he thought it "smart" to be bad, and he delighted in making +the most cynical epigrams on the black deeds of himself and his associates. + +"Better sell out to Roebuck," I suggested. "I control all the Coal stock I +need." + +"I don't care to have anything further to do with Roebuck," Langdon +answered. "I've broken with him." + +"When a man lies to me," said I, "he gives me the chance to see just how +much of a fool he thinks I am, and also the chance to see just how much of +a fool he is. I hesitate to think so poorly of you as your attempt to fool +me seems to compel." + +But he was unconvinced. "I've found he intends to abandon the ship and +leave me to go down with it," he persisted. "He believes he can escape and +denounce me as the arch rascal who planned the combine, and can convince +people that I foozled him into it." + +Ingenious; but I happened to know that it was false. "Pardon me, Mr. +Langdon," said I with stiff courtesy. "I repeat, I can do nothing for you. +Good morning." And I went at my work as if he were already gone. + +Had I been vindictive, I would have led him on to humiliate himself more +deeply, if greater depths of humiliation there are than those to which +he voluntarily descended. But I wished to spare him; I let him see the +uselessness of his mission. He looked at me in silence--the look of hate +that can come only from a creature weak as well as wicked. I think it +was all his keen sense of humor could do to save him from a melodramatic +outbreak. He slipped into his habitual pose, rose and withdrew without +another word. All this fright and groveling and treachery for plunder, the +loss of which would not impair his fortune--plunder he had stolen with many +a jest and gibe at his helpless victims. Like most of our debonair dollar +chasers, he was a good sportsman only when the game was with him. + +That afternoon he threw his Coal holdings on the market in great blocks. +His treachery took Roebuck completely by surprise--for Roebuck believed in +this fair-weather "gentleman," foul-weather coward, and neglected to allow +for that quicksand that is always under the foundation of the man who has +inherited, not earned, his wealth. But for the blundering credulity of +rascals, would honest men ever get their dues? Roebuck's brokers had bought +many thousands of Langdon's shares at the high artificial price before +Roebuck grasped the situation--that it was not my followers recklessly +gambling to break the prices, but Langdon unloading on his "pal." As soon +as he saw, he abruptly withdrew from the market. When the Stock Exchange +closed, National Coal securities were offered at prices ranging from eleven +for the bonds to two for the common and three for the preferred--offered, +and no takers. + +"Well, you've done it," said Joe, coming with the news that Thornley, of +the Discount and Deposit Bank, had been appointed receiver. + +"I've made a beginning," replied I. And the last sentence of my next +morning's "letter" was: + +"To-morrow the first chapter of the History of the Industrial National +Bank." + + * * * * * + +"I have felt for two years," said Roebuck to Schilling, who repeated it to +me soon afterward, "that Blacklock was about the most dangerous fellow in +the country. The first time I set eyes on him, I saw he was a born +iconoclast. And I've known for a year that some day he would use that +engine of publicity of his to cannonade the foundations of society." + +"He knew me better than I knew myself," was my comment to Schilling. And I +meant it--for I had not finished the demolition of the Coal combine when I +began to realize that, whatever I might have thought of my own ambitions, +I could never have tamed myself or been tamed into a devotee of dollars +and of respectability. I simply had been keeping quiet until my tools were +sharp and fate spun my opportunity within reach. But I must, in fairness, +add, it was lucky for me that, when the hour struck, Roebuck was not twenty +years younger and one-twentieth as rich. It's a heavy enough handicap, +under the best of circumstances, to go to war burdened with years; add the +burden of a monster fortune, and it isn't in human nature to fight well. +Youth and a light knapsack! + +But--to my fight on the big bank. + +Until I opened fire, the public thought, in a general way, that a bank was +an institution like Thornley's Discount and Deposit National--a place for +the safe-keeping of money and for accommodating business men with loans to +be used in carrying on and extending legitimate and useful enterprises. And +there were many such banks. But the real object of the banking business, +as exploited by the big bandits who controlled it and all industry, was +to draw into a mass the money of the country that they might use it to +manipulate the markets, to wreck and reorganize industries and wreck them +again, to work off inflated bonds and stocks upon the public at inflated +prices, to fight among themselves for rights to despoil, making the people +pay the war budgets--in a word, to finance the thousand and one schemes +whereby they and their friends and relatives, who neither produce nor help +to produce, appropriate the bulk of all that is produced. + +And before I finished with the National Industrial Bank, I had shown that +it and several similar institutions in the big cities throughout the +country were, in fact, so many dens to which rich and poor were lured for +spoliation. I then took up the Universal Life, as a type. I showed how +insuring was, with the companies controlled by the bandits, simply the +decoy; that the real object was the same as the real object of the big +bandit banks. When I had finished my series on the Universal Life I had +named and pilloried Roebuck, Langdon, Melville, Wainwright, Updegraff, Van +Steen, Epstein--the seven men of enormous wealth, leaders of the seven +cliques that had the political and industrial United States at their mercy, +and were plucking the people through an ever-increasing army of agents. +The agents kept some of the feathers--"The Seven" could afford to pay +liberally. But the bulk of the feather crop was passed on to "The Seven." + +I shall answer in a paragraph the principal charges that were made against +me. They say I bribed employees on the telegraph companies, and so got +possession of incriminating telegrams that had been sent by "The Seven" in +the course of their worst campaigns. I admit the charge. They say I bribed +some of their confidential men to give me transcripts and photographs +of secret ledgers and reports. I admit the charge. They say I bought +translations of stenographic notes taken by eavesdroppers on certain +important secret meetings. I admit the charge. But what was the chief +element in my success in thus getting proofs of their crimes? Not the +bribery, but the hatred that all the servants of such men have for them. I +tempted no one to betray them. _Every item, of information I got was +offered to me_. And I shall add these facts: + +First, in not a single case did they suspect and discharge the "guilty" +persons. + +Second, I have to-day as good means of access to their secrets as I ever +had--and, if they discharged all who now serve them, I should be able soon +to reestablish my lines; men of their stripe can not hope to be served +faithfully. + +Third, I had offers from all but three of "The Seven" to "peach" on the +others in return for immunity. There may be honor among some thieves, but +not among "respectable" thieves. Hypocrisy and honor will be found in the +same character when the sun shines at night--not before. + + * * * * * + +It was the sardonic humor of fate that Langdon, for all his desire to keep +out of my way, should have compelled me to center my fire upon him; that I, +who wished to spare him, if possible, should have been compelled to make of +him my first "awful example." + +I had decided to concentrate upon Roebuck, because he was the richest and +most powerful of "The Seven." For, in my pictures of the three main phases +of "finance"--the industrial, the life-insurance and the banking--he, as +arch plotter in every kind of respectable skulduggery, was necessarily in +the foreground. My original intention was to demolish the Power Trust--or, +at least, to compel him to buy back all of its stock which he had worked +off on the public. I had collected many interesting facts about it, facts +typical of the conditions that "finance" has established in so many of our +industries. + +For instance, I was prepared to show that the actual earnings of the Power +Trust were two and a half times what its reports to stock-holders alleged; +that the concealed profits were diverted into the pockets of Roebuck, his +sons, eleven other relatives and four of "The Seven," the lion's share +going, of course, to the lion. Like almost all the great industrial +enterprises, too strong for the law and too remote for the supervision +of their stock-holders, it gathered in enormous revenues to disburse +them chiefly in salaries and commissions and rake-offs on contracts to +favorites. I had proof that in one year it had "written off" twelve +millions of profit and loss, ten millions of which had found its way to +Roebuck's pocket. That pocket! That "treasury of the Lord"! + +Dishonest? Roebuck and most of the other leaders of the various gangs, +comprising, with all their ramifications, the principal figures in +religious, philanthropic, fashionable society, did not for an instant +think their doings dishonest. They had no sense of trusteeship for this +money intrusted to them as captains of industry bankers, life-insurance +directors. They felt that it was theirs to do with as they pleased. + +And they felt that their superiority in rank and in brains entitled them +to whatever remuneration they could assign to themselves without rousing +the wrath of a public too envious to admit the just claims of the "upper +classes." They convinced themselves that without them crops would cease +to grow, sellers and buyers would be unable to find their way to market, +barbarism would spread its rank and choking weeds over the whole garden of +civilization. And, so brainless is the parrot public, they have succeeded +in creating a very widespread conviction that their own high opinion of +their services is not too high, and that some dire calamity would come if +they were swept from between producer and consumer! True, thieves are found +only where there is property; but who but a chucklebrain would think the +thieves made the property? + +Roebuck was the keystone of the arch that sustained the structure of +chicane. To dislodge him was the direct way to collapse it. I was about to +set to work when Langdon, feeling that he ought to have a large supply of +cash in the troublous times I was creating, increased the capital stock +of his already enormously overcapitalized Textile Trust and offered the +new issue to the public. As the Textile Trust was even better bulwarked, +politically, than the Power Trust, it was easily able to declare tempting +dividends out of its lootings. So the new stock could not be attacked in +the one way that would make the public instantly shun it--I could not +truthfully charge that it would not pay the promised dividends. Yet attack +I must--for that issue was, in effect, a bold challenge of my charges +against "The Seven." From all parts of the country inquiries poured in upon +me: "What do you think of the new Textile issue? Shall we invest? Is the +Textile Company sound?" + +I had no choice. I must turn aside from Roebuck; I must first show that, +while Textile was, in a sense, sound just at that time, it had been +unsound, and would be unsound again as soon as Langdon had gathered in +a sufficient number of lambs to make a battue worth the while of a man +dealing in nothing less than seven figures. I proceeded to do so. + +The market yielded slowly. Under my first day's attack Textile preferred +fell six points, Textile common three. While I was in the midst of +dictating my letter for the second day's attack, I suddenly came to a full +stop. I found across my way this thought: "Isn't it strange that Langdon, +after humbling himself to you, should make this bold challenge? It's a +trap!" + +"No more at present," said I, to my stenographer. "And don't write out what +I've already dictated." + +I shut myself in and busied myself at the telephone. Half an hour after I +set my secret machinery in motion, a messenger brought me an envelop, the +address type-written. It contained a sheet of paper on which appeared, in +type-writing; these words, and nothing more: + + "He is heavily short of Textiles." + +It was indeed a trap. The new issue was a blind. He had challenged me to +attack his stock, and as soon as I did, he had begun secretly to sell it +for a fall. I worked at this new situation until midnight, trying to get +together the proofs. At that hour--for I could delay no longer, and my +proofs were not quite complete--I sent my newspapers two sentences: + + "To-morrow I shall make a disclosure that will + send Textiles up. Do not sell Textiles!" + + + + +XXXIII + +MRS. LANGDON MAKES A CALL + + +Next day Langdon's stocks wavered, going up a little, going down a little, +closing at practically the same figures at which they had opened. Then I +sprang my sensation--that Langdon and his particular clique, though they +controlled the Textile Trust, did not own so much as one-fiftieth of its +voting stock. True "captains of industry" that they were, they made their +profits not out of dividends, but out of side schemes that absorbed about +two-thirds of the earnings of the Trust, and out of gambling in its bonds +and stocks. I said in conclusion: + +"The largest owner of the stock is Walter G. Edmunds, of Chicago--an honest +man. Send your voting proxies to him, and he can take the Textile Company +away from those now plundering it." + +As the annual election of the Trust was only six weeks away, Langdon +and his clique were in a panic. They rushed into the market and bought +frantically, the public bidding against them. Langdon himself went to +Chicago to reason with Edmunds--that is, to try to find out at what figure +he could be bought. And so on, day after day, I faithfully reporting to +the public the main occurrences behind the scenes. The Langdon attempt to +regain control by purchases of stock failed. He and his allies made what +must have been to them appalling sacrifices; but even at the high prices +they offered, comparatively little of the stock appeared. + +"I've caught them," said I to Joe--the first time, and the last, during +that campaign that I indulged in a boast. + +"If Edmunds sticks to you," replied cautious Joe. + +But Edmunds did not. I do not know at what price he sold himself. Probably +it was pitifully small; cupidity usually snatches the instant bait tickles +its nose. But I do know that my faith in human nature got its severest +shock. + +"You are down this morning," said Thornley, when I looked in on him at his +bank. "I don't think I ever before saw you show that you were in low +spirits." + +"I've found out a man with whom I'd have trusted my life," said I. +"Sometimes I think all men are dishonest. I've tried to be an optimist like +you, and have told myself that most men must be honest or ninety-five per +cent. of the business couldn't be done on credit as it is." + +Thornley smiled, like an old man at the enthusiasm of a youngster. "That +proves nothing as to honesty," said he. "It simply shows that men can +be counted on to do what it is to their plain interest to do. The truth +is--and a fine truth, too--most men wish and try to be honest. Give 'em a +chance to resist their own weaknesses. Don't trust them. Trust--that's the +making of false friends and the filling of jails." + +"And palaces," I added. + +"And palaces," assented he. "Every vast fortune is a monument to the +credulity of man. Instead of getting after these heavy-laden rascals, +Matthew, you'd better have turned your attention to the public that has +made rascals of them by leaving its property unguarded." + +Fortunately, Edmunds had held out, or, rather, Langdon had delayed +approaching him, long enough for me to gain my main point. The uproar +over the Textile Trust had become so great that the national Department +of Commerce dared not refuse an investigation; and I straightway began to +spread out in my daily letters the facts of the Trust's enormous earnings +and of the shameful sources of those earnings. Thanks to Langdon's +political pull, the president appointed as investigator one of those +rascals who carefully build themselves good reputations to enable them to +charge higher prices for dirty work. But, with my facts before the people, +whitewash was impossible. + +I was expecting emissaries from Langdon, for I knew he must now be actually +in straits. Even the Universal Life didn't dare lend him money; and was +trying to call in the millions it had loaned him. But I was astounded when +my private door opened and Mrs. Langdon ushered herself in. + +"Don't blame your boy, Mr. Blacklock," cried she gaily, exasperatingly +confident that I was as delighted with her as she was with herself. "I told +him you were expecting me and didn't give him a chance to stop me." + +I assumed she had come to give me wholly undeserved thanks for revenging +her upon her recreant husband. I tried to look civil and courteous, but I +felt that my face was darkening--her very presence forced forward things I +had been keeping in the far background of my mind, "How can I be of service +to you, Madam?" said I. + +"I bring you good news," she replied--and I noted that she no longer looked +haggard and wretched, that her beauty was once more smiling with a certain +girlishness, like a young widow's when she finds her consolation. "Mowbray +and I have made it up," she explained. + +I simply listened, probably looking as grim as I felt. + +"I knew you would be interested," she went on. "Indeed, it means almost as +much to you as to me. It brings peace to _two_ families." + +Still I did not relax. + +"And so," she continued, a little uneasy, "I came to you immediately." + +I continued to listen, as if I were waiting for her to finish and depart. + +"If you want, I'll go to Anita." Natural feminine tact would have saved her +from this rawness; but, convinced that she was a "great lady" by the +flattery of servants and shopkeepers and sensational newspapers and social +climbers, she had discarded tact as worthy only of the lowly and of the +aspiring before they "arrive." + +"You are too kind," said I. "Mrs. Blacklock and I feel competent to take +care of our own affairs." + +"Please, Mr. Blacklock," she said, realizing that she had blundered, "don't +take my directness the wrong way. Life is too short for pose and pretense +about the few things that really matter. Why shouldn't we be frank with +each other?" + +"I trust you will excuse me," said I, moving toward the door--I had not +seated myself when she did. "I think I have made it clear that we have +nothing to discuss." + +"You have the reputation of being generous and too big for hatred. That is +why I have come to you," said she, her expression confirming my suspicion +of the real and only reason for her visit. "Mowbray and I are completely +reconciled--_completely_, you understand. And I want you to be +generous, and not keep on with this attack. I am involved even more than +he. He has used up his fortune in defending mine. Now, you are simply +trying to ruin me--not him, but _me_. The president is a friend of +Mowbray's, and he'll call off this horrid investigation, and everything'll +be all right, if you'll only stop." + +"Who sent you here?" I asked. + +"I came of my own accord," she protested. Then, realizing from the sound of +her voice that she could not have convinced me with a tone so unconvincing, +she hedged with: "It was my own suggestion, really it was." + +"Your husband permitted _you_ to come--and to _me_?" + +She flushed. + +"And you have accepted his overtures when you knew he made them only +because he needed your money?" + +She hung her head. "I love him," she said simply. Then she looked straight +at me and I liked her expression. "A woman has no false pride when love is +at stake," she said. "We leave that to you men." + +"Love!" I retorted, rather satirically, I imagine. "How much had your own +imperiled fortune to do with your being so forgiving?" + +"Something," she admitted. "You must remember I have children. I must think +of their future. I don't want them to be poor. I want them to have the +station they were born to." She went to one of the windows overlooking the +street. "Look here!" she said. + +I stood beside her. The window was not far above the street level. Just +below us was a handsome victoria, coachman, harness, horses, all most +proper, a footman rigid at the step. A crowd had gathered round--in those +stirring days when I was the chief subject of conversation wherever men +were interested in money--and where are they not?--there was almost always +a crowd before my offices. In the carriage sat two children, a boy and a +girl, hardly more than babies. They were gorgeously overdressed, after +the vulgar fashion of aristocrats and apers of aristocracy. They sat +stiffly, like little scions of royalty, with that expression of complacent +superiority which one so often sees on the faces of the little children of +the very rich--and some not so little, too. The thronging loungers, most +of them either immigrant peasants from European caste countries or the +un-disinfected sons of peasants, were gaping in true New York "lower class" +awe; the children were literally swelling with delighted vanity. If they +had been pampered pet dogs, one would have laughed. As they were human +beings, it filled me with sadness and pity. What ignorance, what stupidity +to bring up children thus in democratic America--democratic to-day, +inevitably more democratic to-morrow! What a turning away from the light! +What a crime against the children! + +"For their sake, Mr. Blacklock," she pleaded, her mother love wholly hiding +from her the features of the spectacle that for me shrieked like scarlet +against a white background. + +"Your husband has deceived you about your fortune, Mrs. Langdon," I said +gently, for there is to me something pathetic in ignorance and I was not +blaming her for her folly and her crime against her children. "You can tell +him what I am about to say, or not, as you please. But my advice is that +you keep it to yourself. Even if the present situation develops as seems +probable, develops as Mr. Langdon fears, you will not be left without a +fortune--a very large fortune, most people would think. But Mr. Langdon +will have little or nothing--indeed, I think he is practically dependent +on you now." + +"What I have is his," she said. + +"That is generous," replied I, not especially impressed by a sentiment, the +very uttering of which raised a strong doubt of its truth. "But is it +prudent? You wish to keep him--securely. Don't tempt him by a generosity he +would only abuse." + +She thought it over. "The idea of holding a man in that way is repellent to +me," said she, now obviously posing. + +"If the man happens to be one that can be held in no other way," said I, +moving significantly toward the door, "one must overcome one's +repugnance--or be despoiled and abandoned." + +"Thank you," she said, giving me her hand. "Thank you--more than I can +say." She had forgotten entirely that she came to plead for her husband. +"And I hope you will soon be as happy as I am." That last in New York's +funniest "great lady" style. + +I bowed, and when there was the closed door between us, I laughed, not at +all pleasantly. "This New York!" I said aloud. "This New York that dabbles +its slime of sordidness and snobbishness on every flower in the garden of +human nature. New York that destroys pride and substitutes vanity for it. +New York with its petty, mischievous class-makers, the pattern for the +rich and the 'smarties' throughout the country. These 'cut-out' minds and +hearts, the best of them incapable of growth and calloused wherever the +scissors of conventionality have snipped." + +I took from my pocket the picture of Anita I always carried. "Are +_you_ like that?" I demanded of it. And it seemed to answer: "Yes,--I +am." Did I tear the picture up? No. I kissed it as if it were the magnetic +reality. "I don't care what you are!" I cried. "I want you! I want you!" + +"Fool!" you are saying. Precisely what I called myself. And you? Is it +the one you _ought_ to love that you give your heart to? Is it the +one that understands you and sympathizes with you? Or is it the one whose +presence gives you visions of paradise and whose absence blots out the +light? + +I loved her. Yet I will say this much for myself: I still would not have +taken her on any terms that did not make her really mine. + + + + +XXXIV + +"MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME" + + +Now that Updegraff is dead, I am free to tell of our relations. + +My acquaintance with him was more casual than with any other of "The +Seven." From the outset of my career I made it a rule never to deal with +understrappers, always to get in touch with the man who had the final say. +Thus, as the years went by, I grew into intimacy with the great men of +finance where many with better natural facilities for knowing them remained +in an outer circle. But with Updegraff, interested only in enterprises west +of the Mississippi and keeping Denver as his legal residence and exploiting +himself as a Western man who hated Wall Street, I had a mere bowing +acquaintance. This was unimportant, however, as each knew the other well +by reputation. Our common intimacies made us intimates for all practical +purposes. + +Our connection was established soon after the development of my campaign +against the Textile Trust had shown that I was after a big bag of the +biggest game. We happened to have the same secret broker; and I suppose it +was in his crafty brain that the idea of bringing us together was born. Be +that as it may, he by gradual stages intimated to me that Updegraff would +convey me secrets of "The Seven" in exchange for a guarantee that I would +not attack his interests. I do not know what his motive in this treachery +was--probably a desire to curb the power of his associates in industrial +despotism. + +Each of "The Seven" hated and feared and suspected the other six with far +more than the ordinary and proverbial rich man's jealous dislike of other +rich men. There was not one of them that did not bear the ever-smarting +scars of vicious wounds, front and back, received from his fellows; there +was not one that did not cherish the hope of overthrowing the rule of Seven +and establishing the rule of One. At any rate, I accepted Updegraff's +proposition; henceforth, though he stopped speaking to me when we happened +to meet, as did all the other big bandits and most of their parasites and +procurers, he kept me informed of every act "The Seven" resolved upon. + +Thus I knew all about their "gentlemen's agreement" to support the stock +market, and that they had made Tavistock their agent for resisting any and +all attempts to lower prices, and had given him practically unlimited funds +to draw upon as he needed. I had Tavistock sounded on every side, but found +no weak spot. There was no rascality he would not perpetrate for whoever +employed him; but to his employer he was as loyal as a woman to a bad +man. And for a time it looked as if "The Seven" had checkmated me. Those +outsiders who had invested heavily in the great enterprises through which +"The Seven" ruled were disposing of their holdings--cautiously, through +fear of breaking the market. Money would pile up in the banks--money paid +out by "The Seven" for their bonds and stocks, of which the people had +become deeply suspicious. Then these deposits would be withdrawn--and I +knew they were going into real estate investments, because news of booms +in real estate and in building was coming in from everywhere. But prices +on the Stock Exchange continued to advance. + +"They are too strong for you," said Joe. "They will hold the market up +until the public loses faith in you. Then they will sell out at top-notch +prices as the people rush in to buy." + +I might have wavered had I not been seeing Tavistock every day. He +continued to wear his devil-may-care air; but I observed that he was aging +swiftly--and I knew what that meant. Fighting all day to prevent breaks +in the crucial stocks; planning most of the night how to prevent breaks +the next day; watching the reserve resources of "The Seven" melt away. +Those reserves were vast; also, "The Seven" controlled the United States +Treasury, and were using its resources as their own; they were buying +securities that would be almost worthless if they lost, but if they +won, would be rebought by the public at the old swindling prices, when +"confidence" was restored. But there was I, cannonading incessantly from my +impregnable position; as fast as they repaired breaches in their walls, my +big guns of publicity tore new breaches. No wonder Tavistock had thinner +hair and wrinkles and a drawn look about the eyes, nose and mouth. + +With the battle thus raging all along the line, on the one side "The Seven" +and their armies of money and mercenaries and impressed slaves, on the +other side the public, I in command, you will say that my yearning for +distraction must have been gratified. If the road from his cell were long +enough, the condemned man would be fretting less about the gallows than +about the tight shoe that was making him limp and wince at every step. +Besides, in human affairs it is the personal, always the personal. I soon +got used to the crowds, to the big head-lines in the newspapers, to the +routine of cannonade and reply. + +But the old thorn, pressing persistently--I could not get used to that. In +the midst of the adulation, of the blares upon the trumpets of fame that +saluted my waking and were wafted to me as I fell asleep at night--in the +midst of all the turmoil, I was often in a great and brooding silence, +longing for her, now with the imperious energy of passion, and now with +the sad ache of love. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Now that +Langdon had again played her false for the old price, with what eyes was +she looking into the future? + +Alva, settled in a West Side apartment not far from the ancestral white +elephant, telephoned, asking me to come. I went, because she could and +would give me news of Anita. But as I entered her little drawing-room, +I said: "It was curiosity that brought me. I wished to see how you were +installed." + +"Isn't it nice and small?" cried she. "Billy and I haven't the slightest +difficulty in finding each other--as people so often have in the big +houses." And it was Billy this and Billy that, and what Billy said and +thought and felt--and before they were married, she had called him William, +and had declared "Billy" to be the most offensive combination of letters +that ever fell from human lips. + +"I needn't ask if _you_ are happy," said I presently, with a dismal +failure at looking cheerful. "I can't stay but a moment," I added, and if I +had obeyed my feelings, I'd have risen up and taken myself and my pain away +from surroundings as hateful to me as a summer sunrise in a death-chamber. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, in some confusion. "Then excuse me." And she hastened +from the room. + +I thought she had gone to order, or perhaps to bring, the tea. The long +minutes dragged away until ten had passed. Hearing a rustling in the hall, +I rose, intending to take leave the instant she appeared. The rustling +stopped just outside. I waited a few seconds, cried, "Well, I'm off. Next +time I want to be alone, I'll know where to come," and advanced to the +door. It was not Alva hesitating there; it was Anita. + +"I beg your pardon," said I coldly. + +If there had been room to pass I should have gone. What devil possessed +me? Certainly in all our relations I had found her direct and frank, if +anything, too frank. Doubtless it was the influence of my associations down +town, where for so many months I had been dealing with the "short-card" +crowd of high finance, who would hardly play the game straight even when +that was the easy way to win. My long, steady stretch in that stealthy and +sinuous company had put me in the state of mind in which it is impossible +to credit any human being with a motive that is decent or an action that is +not a dead-fall. Thus the obvious transformation in her made no impression +on me. Her haughtiness, her coldness, were gone, and with them had gone +all that had been least like her natural self, most like the repellent +conventional pattern to which her mother and her associates had molded her. +But I was saying to myself: "A trap! Langdon has gone back to his wife. She +turns to me." And I loved her and hated her. "Never," thought I, "has she +shown so poor an opinion of me as now." + +"My uncle told me day before yesterday that it was not he but you," she +said, lifting her eyes to mine. It is inconceivable to me now that I could +have misread their honest story; yet I did. + +"I had no idea your uncle's notion of honor was also eccentric," said I, +with a satirical smile that made the blood rush to her face. + +"That is unjust to him," she replied earnestly. + +"He says he made you no promise of secrecy. And he confessed to me only +because he wished to convince me that he had good reason for his high +opinion of you." + +"Really!" said I ironically. "And no doubt he found you open wide to +conviction--_now_." This a subtlety to let her know that I understood +why she was seeking me. + +"No," she answered, lowering her eyes. "I knew--better than he." + +For an instant this, spoken in a voice I had long given up hope of ever +hearing from her, staggered my cynical conviction. But-- "Possibly she +thinks she is sincere," reasoned my head with my heart; "even the sincerest +women, brought up as was she, always have the calculator underneath; they +deny it, they don't know it often, but there it is; with them, calculation +is as involuntary and automatic as their pulse." So, I said to her, +mockingly: "Doubtless your opinion of me has been improving steadily ever +since you heard that Mrs. Langdon had recovered her husband." + +She winced, as if I had struck her. "Oh!" she murmured. If she had been +the ordinary woman, who in every crisis with man instinctively resorts to +weakness' strongest weakness, tears, I might have a different story to +tell. But she fought back the tears in which her eyes were swimming and +gathered herself together. "That is brutal," she said, with not a touch of +haughtiness, but not humbly, either. "But I deserve it." + +"There was a time," I went on, swept in a swift current of cold rage, +"there was a time when I would have taken you on almost any terms. A man +never makes a complete fool of himself about a woman but once in his life, +they say. I have done my stretch--and it is over." + +She sighed wearily. "Langdon came to see me soon after I left your house, +and went to my uncle," she said. "I will tell you what happened." + +"I do not wish to hear," replied I, adding pointedly, "I have been waiting +ever since you left for news of your plans." + +She grew white, and my heart smote me. She came into the room and seated +herself. "Won't you stop, please, for a moment longer?" she said. "I hope +that, at, least, we can part without bitterness. I understand now that +everything is over between us. A woman's vanity makes her belief that a man +cares for her die hard. I am convinced now--I assure you, I am. I shall +trouble you no more about the past. But I have the right to ask you to hear +me when I say that Langdon came, and that I myself sent him away; sent him +back to his wife." + +"Touching self-sacrifice," said I ironically. + +"No," she replied. "I can not claim any credit. I sent him away only +because you and Alva had taught me how to judge him better. I do not +despise him as do you; I know too well what has made him what he is. But +I had to send him away." + +My comment was an incredulous look and shrug. "I must be going," I said. + +"You do not believe me?" she asked. + +"In my place, would you believe?" replied I. "You say I have taught you. +Well, you have taught me, too--for instance, that the years you've spent on +your knees in the musty temple of conventionality before false gods have +made you--fit only for the Langdon sort of thing. You can't learn how to +stand erect, and your eyes can not bear the light." + +"I am sorry," she said slowly, hesitatingly, "that your faith in me died +just when I might, perhaps, have justified it. Ours has been a pitiful +series of misunderstandings." + +"A trap! A trap!" I was warning myself. "You've been a fool long enough, +Blacklock." And aloud I said: "Well, Anita, the series is ended now. +There's no longer any occasion for our lying or posing to each other. +Any arrangements your uncle's lawyers suggest will be made." + +I was bowing, to leave without shaking hands with her. But she would not +have it so. "Please!" she said, stretching out her long, slender arm and +offering me her hand. + +What a devil possessed me that day! With every atom of me longing for her, +I yet was able to take her hand and say, with a smile, that was, I doubt +not, as mocking as my tone: "By all means let us be friends. And I trust +you will not think me discourteous if I say that I shall feel safer in our +friendship when we are both on neutral ground." + +As I was turning away, her look, my own heart, made me turn again. I caught +her by the shoulders. I gazed into her eyes. "If I could only trust you, +could only believe you!" I cried. + +"You cared for me when I wasn't worth it," she said. "Now that I am more +like what you once imagined me, you do not care." + +Up between us rose Langdon's face--cynical, mocking, contemptuous. "Your +heart is _his_! You told me so! Don't _lie_ to me!" I exclaimed. +And before she could reply, I was gone. + +Out from under the spell of her presence, back among the tricksters and +assassins, the traps and ambushes of Wall Street, I believed again; +believed firmly the promptings of the devil that possessed me. "She would +have given you a brief fool's paradise," said that devil. "Then what +a hideous awakening!" And I cursed the day when New York's insidious +snobbishness had tempted my vanity into starting me on that degrading chase +after "respectability." + +"If she does not move to free herself soon," said I to myself, "I will put +my own lawyer to work. My right eye offends me. I will pluck it out." + + + + +XXXV + +"WILD WEEK" + + +"The Seven" made their fatal move on treacherous Updegraff's treacherous +advice, I suspect. But they would not have adopted his suggestion had +it not been so exactly congenial to their own temper of arrogance and +tyranny and contempt for the people who meekly, year after year, presented +themselves for the shearing with fatuous bleats of enthusiasm. + +"The Seven," of course, controlled directly, or indirectly, all but a +few of the newspapers with which I had advertising contracts. They also +controlled the main sources through which the press was supplied with +news--and often and well they had used this control, and surprisingly +cautious had they been not so to abuse it that the editors and the public +would become suspicious. When my war was at its height, when I was +beginning to congratulate myself that the huge magazines of "The Seven" +were empty almost to the point at which they must sue for peace on my own +terms, all in four days forty-three of my sixty-seven newspapers--and they +the most important--notified me that they would no longer carry out their +contracts to publish my daily letter. They gave as their reason, not the +real one, fear of "The Seven," but fear that I would involve them in +ruinous libel suits. I who had _legal_ proof for every statement I +made; I who was always careful to understate! Next, one press association +after another ceased to send out my letter as news, though they had been +doing so regularly for months. The public had grown tired of the +"sensation," they said. + +I countered with a telegram to one or more newspapers in every city and +large town in the United States: + +"'The Seven' are trying to cut the wires between the truth and the public. +If you wish my daily letter, telegraph me direct and I will send it at my +expense." + +The response should have warned "The Seven." But it did not. Under their +orders the telegraph companies refused to transmit the letter. I got an +injunction. It was obeyed in typical, corrupt corporation fashion--they +sent my matter, but so garbled that it was unintelligible. I appealed to +the courts. In vain. + +To me, it was clear as sun in cloudless noonday sky that there could be but +one result of this insolent and despotic denial of my rights and the rights +of the people, this public confession of the truth of my charges. I turned +everything salable or mortgageable into cash, locked the cash up in my +private vaults, and waited for the cataclysm. + +Thursday--Friday--Saturday. Apparently all was tranquil; apparently the +people accepted the Wall Street theory that I was an "exploded sensation." +"The Seven" began to preen themselves; the strain upon them to maintain +prices, if no less than for three months past, was not notably greater; the +crisis would pass, I and my exposures would be forgotten, the routine of +reaping the harvests and leaving only the gleanings for the sowers would +soon be placidly resumed. + +Sunday. Roebuck, taken ill as he was passing the basket in the church of +which he was the shining light, died at midnight--a beautiful, peaceful +death, they say, with his daughter reading the Bible aloud, and his lips +moving in prayer. Some hold that, had he lived, the tranquillity would have +continued; but this is the view of those who can not realize that the tide +of affairs is no more controlled by the "great men" than is the river led +down to the sea by its surface flotsam, by which we measure the speed and +direction of its current. Under that terrific tension, which to the shallow +seemed a calm, something had to give way. If the dam had not yielded where +Roebuck stood guard, it must have yielded somewhere else, or might have +gone all in one grand crash. + +Monday. You know the story of the artist and his Statue of Grief--how +he molded the features a hundred times, always failing, always getting +an anti-climax, until at last in despair he gave up the impossible and +finished the statue with a veil over the face. I have tried again and again +to assemble words that would give some not too inadequate impression of +that tremendous week in which, with a succession of explosions, each like +the crack of doom, the financial structure that housed eighty millions of +people burst, collapsed, was engulfed. I can not. I must leave it to your +memory or your imagination. + +For years the financial leaders, crazed by the excess of power which the +people had in ignorance and over-confidence and slovenly good-nature +permitted them to acquire, had been tearing out the honest foundations on +which alone so vast a structure can hope to rest solid and secure. They +had been substituting rotten beams painted to look like stone and iron. +The crash had to come; the sooner, the better--when a thing is wrong, each +day's delay compounds the cost of righting it. So, with all the horrors of +"Wild Week" in mind, all its physical and mental suffering, all its ruin +and rioting and bloodshed, I still can insist that I am justly proud of my +share in bringing it about. The blame and the shame are wholly upon those +who made "Wild Week" necessary and inevitable. + +In catastrophes, the cry is "Each for himself!" But in a cataclysm, the +obvious wise selfishness is generosity, and the cry is, "Stand together, +for, singly, we perish." This was a cataclysm. No one could save himself, +except the few who, taking my often-urged advice and following my example, +had entered the ark of ready money. Farmer and artisan and professional man +and laborer owed merchant; merchant owed banker; banker owed depositor. No +one could pay because no one could get what was due him or could realize +upon his property. The endless chain of credit that binds together the +whole of modern society had snapped in a thousand places. It must be +repaired, instantly and securely. But how--and by whom? + +I issued a clear statement of the situation; I showed in minute detail how +the people standing together under the leadership of the honest men of +property could easily force the big bandits to consent to an honest, just, +rock-founded, iron-built reconstruction. My statement appeared in all the +morning papers throughout the land. Turn back to it; read it. You will say +that I was right. Well-- + +Toward two o'clock Inspector Crawford came into my private office, escorted +by Joe. I saw in Joe's seamed, green-gray face that some new danger had +arisen. "You've got to get out of this," said he. "The mob in front of our +place fills the three streets. It's made up of crowds turned away from the +suspended banks." + +I remembered the sullen faces and the hisses as I entered the office that +morning earlier than usual. My windows were closed to keep out the street +noises; but now that my mind was up from the work in which I had been +absorbed, I could hear the sounds of many voices, even through the thick +plate glass. + +"We've got two hundred policemen here," said the inspector. "Five hundred +more are on the way. But--really, Mr. Blacklock, unless we can get you +away, there'll be serious trouble. Those damn newspapers! Every one of them +denounced you this morning, and the people are in a fury against you." + +I went toward the door. + +"Hold on, Matt!" cried Joe, springing at me and seizing me, "Where are you +going?" + +"To tell them what I think of them," replied I, sweeping him aside. For my +blood was up, and I was enraged against the poor cowardly fools. + +"For God's sake don't show yourself!" he begged. "If you don't care for +your own life, think of the rest of us. We've fixed a route through +buildings and under streets up to Broadway. Your electric is waiting for +you there." + +"It won't do," I said. "I'll face 'em--it's the only way." + +I went to the window, and was about to throw up one of the sunblinds for +a look at them; Crawford stopped me. "They'll stone the building and then +storm it," said he. "You must go at once, by the route we've arranged." + +"Even if you tell them I'm gone, they won't believe it," replied I. + +"We can look out for that," said Joe, eager to save me, and caring nothing +about consequences to himself. But I had unsettled the inspector. + +"Send for my electric to come down here," said I. "I'll go out alone and +get in it and drive away." + +"That'll never do!" cried Joe. + +But the inspector said: "You're right, Mr. Blacklock. It's a bare chance. +You may take 'em by surprise. Again, some fellow may yell and throw a stone +and--" He did not need to finish. + +Joe looked wildly at me. "You mustn't do it, Matt!" he exclaimed. "You'll +precipitate a riot, Crawford, if you permit this." + +But the inspector was telephoning for my electric. Then he went into the +adjoining room, where he commanded a view of the entrance. Silence between +Joe and me until he returned. + +"The electric is coming down the street," said he. + +I rose. "Good," said I. "I'm ready." + +"Wait until the other police get here," advised Crawford. + +"If the mob is in the temper you describe," said I, "the less that's done +to irritate it the better. I must go out as if I hadn't a suspicion of +danger." + +The inspector eyed me with an expression that was highly flattering to my +vanity. + +"I'll go with you," said Joe, starting up from his stupor. + +"No," I replied. "You and the other fellows can take the underground route, +if it's necessary." + +"It won't be necessary," put in the inspector. "As soon as I'm rid of you +and have my additional force, I'll clear the streets." He went to the door. +"Wait, Mr. Blacklock, until I've had time to get out to my men." + +Perhaps ten seconds after he disappeared, I, without further words, put on +my hat, lit a cigar, shook Joe's wet, trembling hand, left in it my private +keys and the memorandum of the combination of my private vault. Then I +sallied forth. + +I had always had a ravenous appetite for excitement, and I had been in +many a tight place; but for the first time there seemed to me to be an +equilibrium between my internal energy and the outside situation. As I +stepped from my street door and glanced about me, I had no feeling of +danger. The whole situation seemed so simple. There stood the electric, +just across the narrow stretch of sidewalk; there were the two hundred +police, under Crawford's orders, scattered everywhere through the crowd, +and good-naturedly jostling and pushing to create distraction. Without +haste, I got into my machine. I calmly met the gaze of those thousands, +quiet as so many barrels of gunpowder before the explosion. The chauffeur +turned the machine. + +"Go slow," I called to him. "You might hurt somebody." + +But he had his orders from the inspector. He suddenly darted ahead at full +speed. The mob scattered in every direction, and we were in Broadway, bound +up town full-tilt, before I or the mob realized what he was about. + +I called to him to slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I leaned +from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur; it was a man +who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks of the plain-clothes +policeman. + +"Where are you going?" I shouted. + +"You'll find out when we arrive," he shouted back, grinning. + +I settled myself and waited--what else was there to do? Soon I guessed we +were headed for the pier off which my yacht was anchored. As we dashed on +to it, I saw that it was filled with police, both in uniform and in plain +clothes. I descended. A detective sergeant stepped up to me. "We are here +to help you to your yacht," he explained. "You wouldn't be safe anywhere in +New York--no more would the place that harbored you." + +He had both common sense and force on his side. I got into the launch. Four +detective sergeants accompanied me and went aboard with me. "Go ahead," +said one of them to my captain. He looked at me for orders. + +"We are in the hands of our guests," said I. "Let them have their way." + +We steamed down the bay and out to sea. + + * * * * * + +From Maine to Texas the cry rose and swelled: + +"Blacklock is responsible! What does it matter whether he lied or told the +truth? See the results of his crusade! He ought to be pilloried! He ought +to be killed! He is the enemy of the human race. He has almost plunged +the whole civilized world into bankruptcy and civil war." And they turned +eagerly to the very autocrats who had been oppressing them. "You have the +genius for finance and industry. Save us!" + +If you did not know, you could guess how those patriots with the "genius +for finance and industry" responded. When they had done, when their program +was in effect, Langdon, Melville and Updegraff were the three richest men +in the country, and as powerful as Octavius, Antony and Lepidus after +Philippi. They had saddled upon the reorganized finance and industry of the +nation heavier taxes than ever, and a vaster and more expensive and more +luxurious army of their parasites. + +The people had risen for financial and industrial freedom; they had paid +its fearful price; then, in senseless panic and terror, they flung it away. +I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo's temple at Delphi was, +"Man, the fool of the farce." Truly, the gods must have created us for +their amusement; and when Olympus palls, they ring up the curtain on some +such screaming comedy as was that. It "makes the fancy chuckle, while the +heart doth ache." + + + + +XXXVI + +"BLACK MATT'S" TRIUMPH + + +My enemies caused it to be widely believed that "Wild Week" was my +deliberate contrivance for the sole purpose of enriching myself. Thus they +got me a reputation for almost superhuman daring, for satanic astuteness at +cold-blooded calculation. I do not deserve the admiration and respect that +my success-worshiping fellow countrymen lay at my feet. True, I did greatly +enrich myself; but _not until the Monday after Wild Week_. + +Not until I had pondered on men and events with the assistance of the +newspapers my detective protectors and jailers permitted to be brought +aboard--not until the last hope of turning Wild Week to the immediate +public advantage had sputtered out like a lost man's last match, did I +think of benefiting myself, of seizing the opportunity to strengthen myself +for the future. On Monday morning, I said to Sergeant Mulholland: "I want +to go ashore at once and send some telegrams." + +The sergeant is one of the detective bureau's "dress-suit men." He is by +nature phlegmatic and cynical. His experience has put over that a veneer +of weary politeness. We had become great friends during our enforced +inseparable companionship. For Joe, who looked on me somewhat as a mother +looks on a brilliant but erratic son, had, as I soon discovered, elaborated +a wonderful program for me. It included a watch on me day and night, lest, +through rage or despondency, I should try to do violence to myself. A fine +character, that Joe! But, to return, Mulholland answered my request for +shore-leave with a soothing smile. "Can't do it, Mr. Blacklock," he said. +"Our orders are positive. But when we put in at New London and send ashore +for further instructions, and for the papers, you can send in your +messages." + +"As you please," said I. And I gave him a cipher telegram to Joe--an order +to invest my store of cash, which meant practically my whole fortune, in +the gilt-edged securities that were to be had for cash at a small fraction +of their value. + +This on the Monday after Wild Week, please note. I would have helped the +people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would +not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in +spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded multitude +of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to all those +weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on "The Seven," who +would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have been bribed +to desist. But, when I was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my +fellow men, that the people wear the yoke because they have not yet become +intelligent and competent enough to be free, then and not until then did I +abandon the hopeless struggle. + +And I did not go over to the bandits; I simply resumed my own neglected +personal affairs and made Wild Week at least a personal triumph. + +There is nothing of the spectacular in my make-up. I have no belief in +the value of martyrs and martyrdom. Causes are not won--and in my humble +opinion never have been won--in the graveyards. Alive and afoot and armed, +and true to my cause, I am the dreaded menace to systematic and respectable +robbery. What possible good could have come of mobs killing me and the +bandits dividing my estate? + +But why should I seek to justify myself? I care not a rap for the opinion +of my fellow men. They sought my life when they should have been hailing me +as a deliverer; now, they look up to me because they falsely believe me +guilty of an infamy. + +My guards expected to be recalled on Tuesday. But Melville heard what +Crawford had done about me, and straightway used his influence to have me +detained until the new grip of the old gang was secure. Saturday afternoon +we put in at Newport for the daily communication with the shore. When the +launch returned, Mulholland brought the papers to me, lounging aft in a +mass of cushions under the awning. "We are going ashore," said he. "The +order has come." + +I had a sudden sense of loneliness. "I'll take you down to New York," said +I. "I prefer to land my guests where I shipped them." + +As we steamed slowly westward I read the papers. The country was rapidly +readjusting itself, was returning to the conditions before the upheaval. +The "financiers"--the same old gang, except for a few of the weaker +brethren ruined and a few strong outsiders, who had slipped in during the +confusion--were employing all the old, familiar devices for deceiving and +robbing the people. The upset milking-stool was righted, and the milker was +seated again and busy, the good old cow standing without so much as shake +of horn or switch of tail. "Mulholland," said I, "what do you think of this +business of living?" + +"I'll tell you, Mr. Blacklock," said he. "I used to fuss and fret a good +deal about it. But I don't any more. I've got a house up in the Bronx, +and a bit of land round it. And there's Mrs. Mulholland and four little +Mulhollands and me--that's my country and my party and my religion. The +rest is off my beat, and I don't give a damn for it. I don't care which +fakir gets to be president, or which swindler gets to be rich. Everything +works out somehow, and the best any man can do is to mind his own +business." + +"Mulholland--Mrs. Mulholland--four little Mulhollands," said I +reflectively. "That's about as much as one man could attend to properly. +And--you are 'on the level,' aren't you?" + +"Some say honesty's the best policy," replied he. "Some say it isn't. I +don't know, and I don't care, whether it is or it isn't. It's _my_ +policy. And we six seem to have got along on it so far." + +I sent my "guests" ashore the next morning. + +"No, I'll stay aboard," said I to Mulholland, as he stood aside for me to +precede him down the gangway from the launch. I went into the watch-pocket +of my trousers and drew out the folded two one-thousand-dollar bills I +always carried--it was a habit formed in my youthful, gambling days. I +handed him one of the bills. He hesitated. + +"For the four little Mulhollands," I urged. + +He put it in his pocket. I watched him and his men depart with a heavy +heart. I felt alone, horribly alone, without a tie or an interest. Some of +the morning papers spoke respectfully of me as one of the strong men who +had ridden the flood and had been landed by it on the heights of wealth +and power. Admiration and envy lurked even in sneers at my "unscrupulous +plotting." Since I had wealth, plenty of wealth, I did not need character. +Of what use was character in such a world except as a commodity to exchange +for wealth? + +"Any orders, sir?" interrupted my captain. + +I looked round that vast and vivid scene of sea and land activities. I +looked along the city's titanic sky-line--the mighty fortresses of trade +and commerce piercing the heavens and flinging to the wind their black +banners of defiance. I felt that I was under the walls of hell itself. + +"To get away from this," replied I to the waiting captain. "Go back down +the Sound--to Dawn Hill." + +Yes, I would go to the peaceful, soothing country, to my dogs and horses +and those faithful servants bound to me by our common love for the same +animals. "Men to cross swords with, to amuse oneself with," I mused; "but +dogs and horses to live with." I pictured myself at the kennels--the joyful +uproar the instant instinct warned the dogs of my coming; how they would +leap and bark and tremble in a very ecstasy of delight as I stood among +them; how jealous all the others would be, as I selected one to caress. + +"Send her ahead as fast as she'll go," I called to the captain. + +As the _Albatross_ steamed into the little harbor, I saw Mowbray +Langdon's _Indolence_ at anchor. I glanced toward Steuben Point--where +his cousins, the Vivians, lived--and thought I recognized his launch at +their pier. We saluted the _Indolence_; the _Indolence_ saluted +us. My launch was piped away and took me ashore. I strolled along the path +that wound round the base of the hill toward the kennels. At the crossing +of the path down from the house, I paused and lingered on the glimpse +of one of the corner towers of the great showy palace. I was muttering +something--I listened to myself. It was: "Mulholland, Mrs. Mulholland and +the four little Mulhollands." And I felt like laughing aloud, such a joke +was it that I should be envying a policeman his potato patch and his fat +wife and his four brats, and that he should be in a position to pity me. + +You may be imagining that, through all, Anita had been dominating my mind. +That is the way it is in the romances; but not in life. No doubt there are +men who brood upon the impossible, and moon and maunder away their lives +over the grave of a dead love; no doubt there are people who will say that, +because I did not shoot Langdon or her, or myself, or fly to a desert or +pose in the crowded places of the world as the last scene of a tragedy, +I therefore cared little about her. I offer them this suggestion: A man +strong enough to give a love worth a woman's while is strong enough to live +on without her when he finds he may not live with her. + +As I stood there that summer day, looking toward the crest of the hill, +at the mocking mausoleum of my dead dream, I realized what the incessant +battle of the Street had meant to me. "There is peace for me only in the +storm," said I. "But, thank God, there is peace for me somewhere." + +Through the foliage I had glimpses of some one coming slowly down the +zigzag path. Presently, at one of the turnings half-way up the hill, +appeared Mowbray Langdon. "What is he doing here," thought I, scarcely able +to believe my eyes. "Here of all places!" And then I forgot the strangeness +of his being at Dawn Hill in the strangeness of his expression. For it was +apparent, even at the distance which separated us, that he was suffering +from some great and recent blow. He looked old and haggard; he walked like +a man who neither knows nor cares where he is going. + +He had not seen me, and my impulse was to avoid him by continuing on toward +the kennels. I had no especial feeling against him; I had not lost Anita +because she cared for him or he for her, but because she did not care for +me--simply that to meet would be awkward, disagreeable for us both. At the +slight noise of my movement to go on, he halted, glanced round eagerly, +as if he hoped the sound had been made by some one he wished to see. His +glance fell on me. He stopped short, was for an instant disconcerted; then +his face lighted up with devilish joy. "You!" he cried. "Just the man!" And +he descended more rapidly. + +At first I could make nothing of this remark. But as he drew nearer and +nearer, and his ugly mood became more and more apparent, I felt that he was +looking forward to provoking me into giving him a distraction from whatever +was tormenting him. I waited. A few minutes and we were face to face, I +outwardly calm, but my anger slowly lighting up as he deliberately applied +to it the torch of his insolent eyes. He was wearing his old familiar +air of cynical assurance. Evidently, with his recovered fortune, he had +recovered his conviction of his great superiority to the rest of the human +race--the child had climbed back on the chair that made it tall and had +forgotten its tumble. And I was wondering again that I, so short a time +before, had been crude enough to be fascinated and fooled by those tawdry +posings and pretenses. For the man, as I now saw him, was obviously shallow +and vain, a slave to those poor "man-of-the-world" passions--ostentation +and cynicism and skill at vices old as mankind and tedious as a treadmill, +the commonplace routine of the idle and foolish and purposeless. A clever, +handsome fellow, but the more pitiful that he was by nature above the uses +to which he prostituted himself. + +He fought hard to keep his eyes steadily on mine; but they would waver and +shift. Not, however, before I had found deep down in them the beginnings +of fear. "You see, you were mistaken," said I. "You have nothing to say to +me--or I to you." + +He knew I had looked straight to the bottom of his real self, and had seen +the coward that is in every man who has been bred to appearances only. Up +rose his vanity, the coward's substitute for courage. + +"You think I am afraid of you?" he sneered, bluffing and blustering like +the school bully. + +"I don't in the least care whether you are or not," replied I. "What are +you doing here, anyhow?" + +It was as if I had thrown off the cover of a furnace. "I came to get the +woman I love," he cried. "You stole her from me! You tricked me! But, by +God, Blacklock, I'll never pause until I get her back and punish you!" +He was brave enough now, drunk with the fumes from his brave words. "All +my life," he raged arrogantly on, "I've had whatever I wanted. I've let +nothing interfere--nothing and nobody. I've been too forbearing with +you--first, because I knew she could never care for you, and, then, because +I rather admired your pluck and impudence. I like to see fellows kick their +way up among us from the common people." + +I put my hand on his shoulder. No doubt the fiend that rose within me, as +from the dead, looked at him from my eyes. He has great physical strength, +but he winced under that weight and grip, and across his face flitted the +terror that must come to any man at first sense of being in the angry +clutch of one stronger than he. I slowly released him--I had tested and +realized my physical superiority; to use it would be cheap and cowardly. + +"You can't provoke me to descend to your level," said I, with the easy +philosophy of him who clearly has the better of the argument. + +He was shaking from head to foot, not with terror, but with impotent rage. +How much we owe to accident! The mere accident of my physical superiority +had put him at hopeless disadvantage; had made him feel inferior to me as +no victory of mental or moral superiority could possibly have done. And I +myself felt a greater contempt for him than the discovery of his treachery +and his shallowness had together inspired. + +"I shan't indulge in flapdoodle," I went on. "I'll be frank. A year ago, if +any man had faced me with a claim upon a woman who was married to me, I'd +probably have dealt with him as your vanity and what you call 'honor' would +force you to try to deal with a similar situation. But I live to learn, and +I'm, fortunately, not afraid to follow a new light. There is the vanity of +so-called honor; there as also the demand of justice--of fair play. As I +have told her, so I now tell you--she is free to go. But I shall say one +thing to you that I did not say to her. If you do not deal fairly with her, +I shall see to it that there are ten thorns to every rose in that bed of +roses on which you lie. You are contemptible in many ways--perhaps that's +why women like you. But there must be some good in you, or possibilities of +good, or you could not have won and kept her love." + +He was staring at me with a dazed expression. I rather expected him to show +some of that amused contempt with which men of his sort always receive a +new idea that is beyond the range of their narrow, conventional minds. For +I did not expect him to understand why I was not only willing, but even +eager, to relinquish a woman whom I could hold only by asserting a property +right in her. And I do not think he did understand me, though his manner +changed to a sort of grudging respect. He was, I believe, about to make +some impulsive, generous speech, when we heard the quick strokes of +iron-shod hoofs on the path from the kennels and the stables--is there +any sound more arresting? Past us at a gallop swept a horse, on his +back--Anita. She was not in riding-habit; the wind fluttered the sleeves of +her blouse, blew her uncovered hair this way and that about her beautiful +face. She sped on toward the landing, though I fancied she had seen us. + +Anita at Dawn Hill--Langdon, in a furious temper, descending from the house +toward the landing--Anita presently, riding like mad--"to overtake him," +thought I. And I read confirmation in his triumphant eyes. In another +mood, I suppose my fury would have been beyond my power to restrain it. +Just then--the day grew dark for me, and I wanted to hide away somewhere. +Heart-sick, I was ashamed for her, hated myself for having blundered into +surprising her. + +She reappeared at the turn round which she had vanished. I now tooted that +she was riding without saddle or bridle, with only a halter round the +horse's neck--then she had seen us, had stopped and come back as soon as +she could. She dropped from the horse, looked swiftly at me, at him, at me +again, with intense anxiety. + +"I saw your yacht in the harbor only a moment ago," she said to me. She was +almost panting. "I feared you might meet him. So I came." + +"As you see, he is quite--intact," said I. "I must ask that you and he +leave the place at once." And I went rapidly along the path toward the +kennels. + +An exclamation from Langdon forced me to turn in spite of myself. He was +half-kneeling, was holding her in his arms. At that sight, the savage in +me shook himself free. I dashed toward them with I knew not what curses +bursting from me. Langdon, intent upon her, did not realize until I sent +him reeling backward to the earth and snatched her up. Her white face, her +closed eyes, her limp form made my fury instantly collapse. In my confusion +I thought that she was dead. I laid her gently on the grass and supported +her head, so small, so gloriously crowned, the face so still and sweet and +white, like the stainless entrance to a stainless shrine. How that horrible +fear changed my whole way of looking at her, at him, at her and him, at +everything! + +Her eyelids were quivering--her eyes were opening--her bosom was rising and +falling slowly as she drew long, uncertain breaths. She shuddered, sat up, +started up. "Go! go!" she cried. "Bring him back! Bring him back! Bring +him--" + +There she recognized me. "Oh," she said, and gave a great sigh of relief. +She leaned against a tree and looked at Langdon. "You are still here? Then +tell him." + +Langdon gazed sullenly at the ground. "I can't," he answered. "I don't +believe it. Besides--he has given you to me. Let us go. Let me take you to +the Vivians." He threw out his arms in a wild, passionate gesture; he was +utterly unlike himself. His emotion burst through and shattered pose and +cynicism and hard crust of selfishness like the exploding powder bursting +the shell. "I can't give you up, Anita!" he exclaimed in a tone of utter +desperation. "I can't! I can't!" + +But her gaze was all this time steadily on me, as if she feared I would go, +should she look away. "I will tell you myself," she said rapidly, to me. +"We--uncle Howard and I--read in the papers how they had all turned against +you, and he brought me over here. He has been telegraphing for you. This +morning he went to town to search for you. About an hour ago Langdon came. +I refused to see him, as I have ever since the time I told you about at +Alva's. He persisted, until at last I had the servant request him to leave +the house." + +"But _now_ there's no longer any reason for your staying, Anita," he +pleaded. "He has said you are free. Why stay when _you_ would really +no more be here than if you were to go, leaving one of your empty dresses?" + +She had not for an instant taken her gaze from me; and so strange were her +eyes, so compelling, that I seemed unable to move or speak. + +But now she released me to blaze upon him--and never shall I forget any +detail of her face or voice as she said to him: "That is false, Mowbray +Langdon. I told you the truth when I told you I loved him!" + +So violent was her emotion that she had to pause for self-control. And I? +I was overwhelmed, dazed, stunned. When she went on, she was looking at +neither of us. "Yes, I loved him, almost from the first--from the day he +came to the box at the races. I was ashamed, poor creature that my parents +had made me! I was ashamed of it. And I tried to hate him, and thought I +did. And when he showed me that he no longer cared, my pride goaded me into +the folly of trying to listen to you. But I loved him more than ever. And +as you and he stand here, I am ashamed again--ashamed that I was ever so +blind and ignorant and prejudiced as to compare him with"--she looked at +Langdon--"with you. Do you believe me now--now that I humble myself before +him here in your presence?" + +I should have had no heart at all if I had not felt pity for him. His face +was gray, and on it were those signs of age that strong emotion brings to +the surface after forty. "You could have convinced me in no other way," he +replied, after a silence, and in a voice I should not have recognized. + +Silence again. Presently he raised his head, and with something of his old +cynicism bowed to her. + +"You have avenged much and many," said he. "I have often had a presentiment +that my day of wrath would come." + +He lifted his hat, bowed to me without looking at me, and, drawing the +tatters of his pose still further over his wounds, moved away toward the +landing. + +I, still in a stupor, watched him until he had disappeared. When I turned +to her, she dropped her eyes. "Uncle Howard will be back this afternoon," +said she. "If I may, I'll stay at the house until he comes to take me." + +A weary, half-suppressed sigh escaped from her. I knew how she must be +reading my silence, but I was still unable to speak. She went to the horse, +browsing near by; she stroked his muzzle. Lingeringly she twined her +fingers in his mane, as if about to spring to his back! That reminded me of +a thousand and one changes in her--little changes, each a trifle in itself, +yet, taken all together, making a complete transformation. + +"Let me help you," I managed to say. And I bent, and made a step of my +hand. + +She touched her fingers to my shoulder, set her narrow, graceful foot upon +my palm. But she did not rise. I glanced up; she was gazing wistfully down +at me. + +"Women have to learn by experience just as do men," said she forlornly. +"Yet men will not tolerate it." + +I suppose I must suddenly have looked what I was unable to put into +words--for her eyes grew very wide, and, with a cry that was a sigh and a +sob, and a laugh and a caress all in one, she slid into my arms and her +face was burning against mine. + +"Do you remember the night at the theater," she murmured, "when your lips +almost touched my neck?--I loved you then--Black Matt--_Black Matt_!" + +And I found voice; and the horse wandered away. + + * * * * * + +What more? + +How Langdon eased his pain and soothed his vanity? Whenever an old +Babylonian nobleman had a misfortune, he used to order all his slaves to be +lashed, that their shrieks and moans might join his in appeasing the god +who was punishing him. Langdon went back to Wall Street, and for months he +made all within his power suffer; in his fury he smashed fortunes, lowered +wages, raised prices, reveled in the blasts of a storm of impotent curses. +But you do not care to hear about that. + +As for myself, what could I tell that you do not know or guess? Now that +all men, even the rich, even the parasites of the bandits, groan under +their tyranny and their taxes, is it strange that the resentment against me +has disappeared, that my warnings are remembered, that I am popular? I +might forecast what I purpose to do when the time is ripe. But I am not +given to prophecy. I will only say that I think I shall, in due season, go +into action again--profiting by my experience in the futility of trying to +hasten evolution by revolution. Meanwhile-- + +As I write, I can look up from the paper, and out upon the lawn, at a +woman--what a woman!--teaching a baby to walk. And, assisting her, there +is a boy, himself not yet an expert at walking. I doubt if you'd have to +glance twice at that boy to know he is my son. Well--I have borrowed a leaf +from Mulholland's philosophy. I commend it to you. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE DELUGE *** + +This file should be named 8dlug10.txt or 8dlug10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8dlug11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8dlug10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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