Mr. Margehad breathed a gentle sigh of relief when he heard of Philip Hayn’s sudden departure from the metropolis: had he known the cause of the young man’s exit he would in gratitude have given a fine dinner to the male gossip who had said in Phil’s hearing that Marge was to marry Lucia. Not knowing of this rumor, he called at the Tramlay abode, ostensibly to invite Lucia and her mother to the theatre, and from the manner of the ladies he assumed that Phil, with the over-confidence of youth, had proposed and been rejected. Marge’s curiosity as to what the head of the family could want of the young man was allayed by Mrs. Tramlay’s statement that the visit was due wholly to her husband’s ridiculous manner of inviting each country acquaintance to come and see him if he ever reached New York; his subsequent hospitality to Philip was only for the purpose of keeping on good terms with some old-fashioned people who might some day again be useful as hosts, and who could not be managed exactly as professional keepers of boarding-houses.
But Marge’s curiosity was rearoused the very day after he received this quieting information, for hechanced to meet the merchant with the young man’s father, and was introduced to the latter.
Instantly the old question returned to his lips, “What can Tramlay want of that fellow?” Again his curiosity subsided, when he learned of the cottage-city project, and, while agreeing to assume a quarter of the expense of the enterprise, he complimented Tramlay on his ability to find something to profit by, even while ostensibly enjoying an occasional day’s rest in the country. But when, a day or two later, Phil reappeared and was presented to him as the old farmer’s representative,—as the real holder, in fact, of a full quarter of the company’s stock,—Marge looked suspiciously at the merchant, and asked himself,—
“What can Tramlay want of that fellow?”
Reasoning according to the principles on which many small real-estate companies or corporations developing a patent are formed, Marge soon informed himself that Tramlay, whose shrewdness he had always held in high respect, preferred the son to the father, as being the easier victim of the two. The processes of frightening out or “freezing out” an inventor or farmer who had put his property in the hands of a stock company were not entirely unknown to Marge, and he naturally assumed that they would be easier of application to a green young man like Philip than to a clear-headed old man, as farmer Hayn seemed to be. But if the rural element of the company was to be despoiled of its own, Marge proposed to see that not all the spoils should go to the merchant. How better could he improve his ownposition with Tramlay than by making himself the merchant’s superior in finesse? He would have the advantage of being able to watch Phil closely, and of knowing first when he might be inclined to sell out at a sacrifice: should the young man, like most of his age and extraction, develop an insatiable appetite for city joys that cost money, he, Marge, would cheerfully supply him with money from time to time, taking his stock as security, and some day the merchant would suddenly find himself beaten at his own game. The mere thought of such a triumph impelled the deliberate Marge to take a small bottle of champagne with his mid-day luncheon,—a luxury which he usually reserved until evening, at the club.
But again he was startled when a light-headed friend complained that, although the said friend’s father had been promised a place for his son in Tramlay’s office when the iron trade should look up, Tramlay had taken in a countryman instead. His own eyes soon confirmed the intelligence, and, as Tramlay made no explanation or even mention of the fact, Marge again found himself asking,—
“What can Tramlay want of that fellow?”
Evidently it meant either business or Lucia. Perhaps the merchant during the long depression of the iron trade had borrowed money of the young man’s father, or was now borrowing of him, to avail himself of his increasing opportunities. (Marge had the city man’s customary but erroneous impression as to the bank-surplus of the average “well-to-do” farmer.) If Tramlay were merely a borrower, except against notes and bills receivable, iron had not looked upenough to justify a prudent man in becoming the merchant’s son-in-law. If there had been such transactions, perhaps a share of the business was to pay for them. Inquiries of his banking-acquaintances did not make the matter clearer to Marge; so he resolved to devote himself to the new clerk, as he could safely do in his capacity of co-director of the Improvement Company. The young man had considerable self-possession, Marge admitted to himself; but what would it avail against the fine methods of a man of twice his years, all spent among men who considered it legitimate business to pry into the business-affairs of others?
So Marge began operations at once; no time was to be lost. He had no difficulty in making his approaches, and his courtesies were so deftly offered that Phil could not help accepting many of them and feeling grateful for kindness rendered. The young man’s suspicions were soon disarmed, for, like honorable natures in general, he abhorred suspicion. That there was a purpose in all of Marge’s actions Phil could not avoid believing, but little by little he reached the conclusion that it was simply to forward the Improvement Company’s prospects. As Marge himself said, Phil knew the company’s land thoroughly, and was the only person who could talk of it intelligently. Any vestiges of distrust that remained were swept away when Marge succeeded in having the privileges of his club extended to Phil for three months, pending application for admission. It was a small club, and exclusive; Phil heard it named almost reverently by some young men who longedto pass its portals, and among its members were a few men of a social set more prominent than that in which the Tramlays moved.
To Marge’s delight, Phil began to spend money freely at the club: Marge had seen other young men do likewise, and there was but one end to be expected if their parents are not rich. Phil drank no wine, smoked no cigars, yet when he thought it proper to give a little dinner the best that the club’s caterer could supply was on the table. He did not seem to have any other expensive habits, except that he dressed so carefully that his tailor’s bill must be large; still, a man who gives dinners at clubs must have plenty of money. From being a source of gratification, Phil’s free use of money began gradually to cause Marge dismay. Where did it all come from? He could scarcely be earning it in his capacity of junior clerk in an iron-house. Could it be that Tramlay had him in training for the position of son-in-law, and was paying the cost of introducing him favorably to the notice of some sets of New York society to whom he could not present him at his own house? Such a course would be quite judicious in a father desiring wider acquaintance for his daughter when she should become a bride; but, if it really were being pursued, would he, Marge, ever hear the end of the rallying to which his own part in the programme would subject him?
There was more torment in this view of the case than Marge had ever experienced in his life before, and it robbed him at times of his habitual expression to an extent that was noticeable and made him thesubject of some club chat. No matter how exclusive a club may be, no matter how careful in the selection of its members that none but gentlemen may be upon its list, it cannot prevent a small, gradual, but distinct and persistent aggregation of gossips,—fellows whose energies, such as they are, tend solely to investigation of the affairs of their acquaintances. There was not an hour of the day or night when several of these fellows could not be found at Marge’s club, lounging as listlessly and inconspicuously as so many incurables at a hospital, but Marge knew by experience that these were the only fellows worth going to if he wanted to know all that was being said about a member, particularly if it was uncomplimentary. And now, confound them, possibly they were talking about him, and intimating that he was being used to improve the standing of his own rival!
Still, as he informed himself, all his annoyance came from a mere supposition, which might be entirely without foundation. Perhaps the young man had means of his own; he had not looked like it when he first appeared in New York, but appearances sometimes were deceitful. Marge had heard Tramlay allude to Phil’s father as an honest old farmer to whom fortune had not been any too generous; but perhaps he had been estimating the old man’s possessions only by New York standards: was it not the farming-class that originally took up the greater part of the government’s great issues of bonds?
And, yet, if the young man had money of his own or of his father’s, where did he keep it? Had he ever displayed a check, to indicate his banking-place,Marge would have found ways of ascertaining the size and nature of his account. But, though he had several times seen Phil pay bills which were rather large, the settlements were always made with currency. Was it possible, Marge asked himself, that the traditional old stocking was still the favorite bank of deposit for the rural community? It might have relieved his mind to know that the countryman’s customary method, when he has money, is to carry a great deal of currency, and that instead of making payments by check he draws bank-notes with which to pay.
And so the weeks went on, and Marge did not accomplish anything that he had intended when he began to devote himself to the young man from the country. Phil borrowed no money, squandered none at cards, did not run into dissipation, offered no confidences, and, although entirely approachable, was as secretive about his personal affairs as if he had been sworn to silence. Even on the subject of Lucia, which Marge had cautiously approached several times, he talked with a calmness that made Marge doubt the evidence of his own senses. Phil did not even wince when Marge reminded him of the horse he knew of that would match Marge’s own, the reason assigned being that the sleighing-season was coming and he would be likely to frequently take the ladies of the Tramlay family out behind two horses. On the contrary, Phil had the horse found and sent to New York at his own expense, saying he could make himself even by selling, in case the animal did not please Marge.
The horse arrived; he pleased Marge, who was delighted with the impression the new team made upon the family and his acquaintances generally, Phil included. Marge was not equally pleased, however, when within a few days farmer Hayn sent his son a pair of black horses which, though of no blood in particular, had a quality of spirit and style not to be expected of high-born animals long accustomed to city pavements and restricted to the funereal gait prescribed by Park Commissioners’ regulations. With their equally untamed country-bred owner to drive them, the span created quite a sensation, and, to Marge’s disgust, the Tramlays seemed to prefer them to the pair on which he had incurred extra expense for the sake of Lucia and her mother.
His plans foiled, his wonderings unanswered, his direct questions evaded, his enemy persisting in acting only as a friend might act, and the father of his intended avoiding mention of Phil so carefully as to excite suspicion, yet inviting Marge to his house as freely as ever, the man of the world was unable to reach any fixed decision, and was obliged again and again to repeat to himself the question,—
“What can Tramlay want of that fellow?”
Oneof the blissful possessions of the man of mature years is the self-control which spares its possessor the necessity of consuming time and vitality in profitless excitement. Farmer Hayn, returning to his native village, had a great deal more on his mind than Phil when that youth preceded him a few days before. It is true that Phil was bemoaning what he believed to be the loss of a sweetheart, but the old man’s thoughts were equally full of the possible gain of a daughter,—an earthly possession he had longed for through many years but been denied. He had also a large and promising land-speculation to engage his thoughts,—a speculation which, apparently, would bring the family more gain in a year than three generations of Hayns had accumulated in a century. He was planning more enjoyments for his gray-haired, somewhat wrinkled old wife, should the Improvement Company’s plans succeed, than any happy youth ever devised for his bride, and he knew exactly how they would affect the good woman,—a privilege which is frequently denied the newly-made husband.
And yet his mind and countenance were as serene and undisturbed as if he were merely looking forwardto the peaceable humdrum of a farmer’s winter. The appearance of fields and forests past which the train hurried him did not depress him as they did his son; a shabby farm-house merely made him thank heaven that his own was more sightly and comfortable; a bit of pine-barren or scrub-oak reminded him, to his great satisfaction, that his own woodland could be trusted to pay some profit, to say nothing of taxes and interest. Even swampy lowlands caused his heart to warm with pride that his strong arm and stronger will had transformed similar bogs into ground more fertile than some to which nature had been kinder.
Nor did he lose his serenity when the natives came down on him, like a famished horde of locusts, and demanded news of what was going on in the city. He cheerfully told them nearly everything he knew, and parried undesirable questions without losing his temper. He pointed with pride to his sub-soil plough and his wife’s new bread-pan, and told how the lenses in his new spectacles had been made to equalize the strength of his eyes, instead of being both alike, as in the glasses at the village stores. He had heard all the great preachers, had a good square talk with the commission-merchant to whom most Haynton farm-products went, seen everything that the newspapers advertised as wonderfully cheap, bought some seed oats larger than any ever seen in Haynton, got a Sunday hat which was neither too large nor too small, too young nor too old, and added to the family collection of pictures a photograph of the Washington monument and an engraving of the “Death of President Garfield.”
Haynton and its environs simply quivered with excitement over all the news and personal property which the farmer brought back; but it experienced deeper thrills when the old man told his neighbors that he knew of a plan by which they might get rid of their ridge-land for an amount of money the mere interest of which would bring them more profit than the crops coaxed from that thin soil. The plan would benefit them still more should the buyer’s project succeed, for a lot of cottagers would make a brisk cash market for the vegetables which Haynton ground produced so easily, and which Haynton farmers moaned over because they could not at present sell the surplus at any price, much less at the figures which their agricultural newspapers told them were to be obtained in large cities.
Would they take ten dollars per acre for their ridge-land, the money to be forfeited unless the remainder of two hundred per acre were paid within a year? Would they? Well, they consented with such alacrity that the farmer soon had to write to New York for more currency. Before Thanksgiving Day the Haynton Bay Improvement Company controlled a full mile of shore front, and there was more money in circulation in the village than could be remembered except by the oldest inhabitant, who was reminded of the good old times when in 1813 a privateer, built and manned in Haynton’s little bay, had carried a rich prize into New York and come home to spend the proceeds. Small mortgages were paid off, dingy houses appeared in new suits of paint, several mothers in Israel bought new Sundaydresses, two or three farmers gave their old horses and some money for better ones, the aisle of one church was carpeted and another church obtained the bell that for years had been longed for, a veteran pastor had fifty dollars added to his salary of four hundred a year, and got the money, too, several families began to buy parlor-organs, on the instalment plan, one farmer indulged in the previously unheard-of extravagance of taking his family, consisting of his wife and himself, to New York to spend the winter, and another dedicated his newly-found money and his winter-enforced leisure to the reprehensible work of drinking himself to death.
“An’ it’s all on account of a gal,” farmer Hayn would remark to his wife whenever he heard of any new movement that could be traced to the ease of the local money market. “If our Phil hadn’t got that Tramlay gal on the brain last summer, he wouldn’t have gone to New York to visit; then I wouldn’t have gone to look for him, and the Improvement Company wouldn’t have been got up, an’ Phil wouldn’t have hatched the brilliant idee of buyin’—what did he call ’em?—oh, yes; options—buyin’ options on the rest of the ridge, an’ there would have been no refreshin’ shower of greenbacks fallin’ like the rain from heaven on the just an’ unjust alike. It reminds me of the muss that folks got into in the old country over that woman Helen, whose last name I never could find out. You remember it?—’twas in the book that young minister we had on trial, an’ didn’t exactly like, left at our house. It’s just another such case, only a good deal more proper,this not bein’ a heathen land. All on account of a gal!”
“If it is,” Mrs. Hayn replied on one occasion, as she took her hands from the dough she was kneading, “an’ it certainly looks as if it was, don’t you think it might be only fair to allude to her more respectful? I don’t like to hear a young woman that our Phil’s likely to marry spoke of as just ‘that Tramlay gal.’ ”
“S’pose, then, I mention her as your daughter-in-law? But ain’t it odd that all the changes that’s come to pass in the last month or two wouldn’t have happened at all if it hadn’t been for Phil’s bein’ smitten by that gal? As the Scripture says, ‘Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth.’ For ‘fire’ read ‘spark,’ or sparkin’, an’ the text——”
“Reuben!” exclaimed Mrs. Hayn, “don’t take liberties with the Word.”
“It ain’t no liberty,” said the old man. “Like enough it’ll read ‘spark’ in the Revised Edition.”
“Then wait till it does, or until you’re one of the revisers,” said the wife.
“All right; mebbe it would be as well,” the husband admitted. “Meanwhile, I don’t mind turnin’ it off an’ comparin’ it with another text: ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, but thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.’ The startin’ up of Haynton an’ of Phil’s attachment is a good deal like——”
“I don’t know that that’s exactly reverent, either,” said Mrs. Hayn, “considerin’ what follers in the Book. An’ what’s goin’ on in the neighborhood don’t interest me as much as what’s goin’ on in myown family. I’d like to know when things is comin’ to a head. Phil ain’t married, nor even engaged, that we know of; there ain’t no lots bein’ sold by the company, or if there are we don’t hear about it.”
“An’ there’s never any bread bein’ baked while you’re kneadin’ the dough, old lady. You remember the passage, ‘first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear’? Mustn’t look for fruit in blossomin’-time: even Jesus didn’t find that when he looked for it on a fig-tree ahead of time, you know.”
“ ‘Pears to me you run to Scripture more than usual this mornin’,” said Mrs. Hayn, after putting her pans of dough into the oven. “What’s started you?”
“Oh, only a little kind of awakenin’, I s’pose,” said the old man. “I can’t keep my mind off of what’s goin’ on right under my eyes, an’ it’s so unlike what anybody would have expected that I can’t help goin’ behind the returns, as they used to say in politics. An’ when I do that there’s only one way of seein’ ’em, an’ I’m glad I’ve got the eyes to see ’em in that light.”
“So am I,” said Mrs. Hayn, gently but successfully putting a floury impression of four fingers and a thumb on her husband’s head. “I s’pose it’s ’cause I’m so tired of waitin’ that I don’t look at things just as you do. ’Pears to me there’s nothin’ that comes up, an’ that our hearts get set on, but what we’ve got to wait for. It gets to be awful tiresome, after you’ve been at it thirty or forty years. I think Phil might hurry up matters a little.”
“Mebbe ’tisn’t Phil’s fault,” suggested the farmer.
“Well,” said Mrs. Hayn, with a flash behind herglasses, “I don’t see why any gal should keepthatboy a-waitin’, if that’s what you mean.”
“Don’t, eh?” drawled the old man, with a queer smile and a quizzical look. “Well, I s’pose heisa good deal more takin’ than his father was.”
“No such thing,” said the old lady.
“Much obliged: I’m a good deal too polite to contradict,—when you’re so much in earnest, you know,” the old man replied. “But if it’s so, what’s the reason that you kepthimwaitin’?”
“Why, I—it was—you see, I—’twas—the way of it was—sho!” And Mrs. Hayn suddenly noticed that a potted geranium in the kitchen window needed a dead leaf removed from its base.
“Yes,” said her husband, following her with his eyes. “An’ I suppose that’s just about what Phil’s gal would say, if any one was to ask her. But the longer you waited the surer I was of you, wasn’t I?”
“Oh, don’t ask questions when you know the answer as well as I do,” said the old lady. “I want to see things come to a head; that’s all.”
“They’ll come; they’ll come,” said the old man. “It’s tryin’ to wait, I know, seein’ I’m doin’ some of the waitin’ myself; but ‘the tryin’ of your faith worketh patience,’ an’ ‘let patience have her perfect work,’ you remember.”
“More Scripture!” sighed the wife. “You’re gettin’ through a powerful sight of New Testament this mornin’, Reuben, an’ I s’pose I deserve it, seein’ the way I feel like fightin’ it. But s’pose this company speculation don’t come to anythin’? then Phil’ll be a good deal wuss off than he is now, won’t he?You remember the awful trouble Deacon Trewk got into by bein’ the head of that new-fangled stump-and-stone-puller company, that didn’t pull any to speak of. Everybody came down on him, an’ called him all sorts of names, an’ said he’d lied to ’em, an’ they would go to the poor-house because of the money they’d put in it on his advice, an’——”
“Phil won’t have any such trouble,” said the farmer, “for nobody took stock on his advice. Tramlay got up the company, before we knew anythin’ about it, an’ all the puffin’ of the land was done by him. Besides, there’s nobody in it that’ll suffer much, even if things come to the wust. Except one or two dummies,—clerks of Tramlay’s,—who were let in for a share or two, just to make up a Board of Directors to the legal size, what shares ain’t held by Phil and Tramlay an’ that feller Marge belongs to a gal.”
“What? Lucia?”
“No, no,—another gal: mebbe I ought to call her a woman, seein’ she’s putty well along, although mighty handsome an’ smart. Her name’s Dinon, an’ Tramlay joked Phil about her once or twice, makin’ out she was struck by him, but of course that’s all nonsense. She’s rich, an’ got money to invest every once in a while, an’ Tramlay put her up to this little operation.”
“You’re sure she ain’t interested in Phil?” asked Mrs. Hayn. “I’ve seen no end of trouble made between young folks by gals that’s old enough to know their own minds an’ smart enough to use ’em.”
“For goodness’ sake, Lou Ann!” exclaimed the old farmer. “To hear you talk, anybody would s’posethat in the big city of New York, where over a million people live and a million more come in from diff’rent places every week, there wasn’t any young man for folks to get interested in but our Phil. Reelly, old lady, I’m beginnin’ to be troubled about you; that sort of feelin’ that’s croppin’ out all the time in you makes me afeard that you’ve got a kind o’ pride that’s got to have a fall,—a pride in our son, settin’ him above all other mortal bein’s, so far as anythin’s concerned that can make a young man interestin’.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Hayn, after apparently thinking the matter over, “if it’s so I reckon it’ll have to stay so. I don’t b’lieve there’s any hope of forgiveness for anythin’ if heaven’s goin’ to hold an old woman to account for seein’ all the good there is in her first-born. I hain’t been down to York myself, but some of York’s young sprigs have been down here, one time an’ another, an’ if they’re fair samples of the hull lot, I should think a sight of our Phil would be to all the city gals like the shadder of a great rock in a weary land.”
“Who’s a-droppin’ into Scripture now?” asked the old farmer, moving to where he could look his wife full in the face.
“Scripture ain’t a bit too strong to use freely about our Phil,—my Phil,” said the old woman, pushing her spectacles to the top of her head and beginning to walk the kitchen floor. “All the hopin’, an’ fearin’, an’ waitin’, an’ nursin’, an’ teachin’, an’ thinkin’, an’ prayin’, that that boy has cost comes hurryin’ into my mind when I think about him. Ifthere’s anythin’ he ought to be an’ isn’t, I don’t see what it is, an’ I can’t see where his mother’s to blame for it. Whatever good there is in me I’ve tried to put into him, an’ whatever I was lackin’ in I’ve tried to get for him elsewhere. You’ve been to him ev’rythin’ a father should, an’ he never could have got along without you. You’ve been lots to him that I never could be, he bein’ a boy, an’ I never cease thankin’ heaven for it; but whenever my mind gets on a strain about him I kind o’ get us mixed up, an’ feel as if ’twas me instead of him that was takin’ whatever happened, an’ the longer it lasts the less I can think of him any other way. There!”
The old farmer rose to his feet while this speech was under way; then he removed his hat, which he seldom did after coming into the house, unless reminded. When his wife concluded, he took both her hands and dropped upon his knees; he had often done it before,—years before, when overcome by her young beauty,—but never before had he done it with so much of reverence.
Asthe season hurried toward the Christmas holidays, there came to Philip Hayn the impression that he was being seen so much in public with Lucia, never against that young lady’s inclination, that perhaps some people were believing him engaged to her, or sure to be. This impression became more distinct when some of his new business-acquaintances rallied or complimented him, and when he occasionally declined an invitation, givenviva voce, by explaining that he had promised to escort Miss Tramlay somewhere that evening. If this explanation were made to a lady, as was usually the case, a knowing smile, or at least a significant look, was almost sure to follow: it began to seem to Phil that the faces of the young women of New York said a great deal more than their tongues, and said it in a way that could not be answered, which was quite annoying. If he was to seem engaged, he would prefer that appearances might not be deceitful. Again and again he was on the point of asking the question which he little doubted would be favorably answered, but he always restrained himself by the reminder that he was only a clerk on a salary that could not support a wife, bred like Lucia, in NewYork, and that villa plots at Haynton Bay were not selling as rapidly as they should if he were to become well-to-do; indeed, they scarcely were selling at all. Who could be expected to become interested in building-sites on the sea-shore when even in the sheltered streets of the city the wind was piercing the thickest overcoats? And who could propose to a girl while another man, even were he that stick Marge, was offering her numerous attentions, all of which she accepted?—confound Marge and his money!
That Marge also was jealous was inevitable. Highly as he valued himself, he knew womankind well enough to imagine that a handsome young fellow just past his majority might be more gratifying to the eye, at least, than a man who had reached—well, who had not mentioned his age since he passed his thirty-fifth birthday. He had in his favor all the prestige of a good record in society, of large acquaintance and aristocratic extraction, but he could not blind himself to the fact that the young women who were most estimable did not greet him as effusively and confidentially as they did Phil. His hair was provokingly thin on the top of his head, and farther back there was a tell-tale spot that resembled a tonsure; he could not quickly enter, like Phil, into the spirit of some silly, innocent frolic, and although he insisted that his horses were as good as Phil’s, he could not bring himself to extending an invitation for a morning dash through the Park, as Phil did once or twice a week. So he frequently said to himself, Confound the country habit of early rising, which his rival had evidently mastered.
As for Lucia, except for the few happy hours she spent with Phil, and the rather more numerous hours devoted to day-dreams regarding her youthful swain, she was really miserable in her uncertain condition. Other girls were getting engaged, on shorter acquaintance, and ten times as many girls were tormenting her with questions as to which of the two was to be the happy man. She devoutly wished that Phil would speak quickly, and finally, after a long and serious consultation with Margie, she determined to adopt toward Phil the tactics which only two or three months before she had tried on Marge: she would encourage his rival. With Marge it had had the unexpected effect of making her yield her heart to Phil; on the other hand, it had perceptibly quickened Marge’s interest in her: would not a reversal of the factors have a corresponding result?
She had but one fear, but that was growing intense. Agnes Dinon continued to be fond of Phil; there was no other man to whom she ever saw Agnes appear so cheerful and unconstrained. Could it be that the heiress was playing a deep game for the prize that to Lucia seemed the only one in view? She had seen wonderful successes made by girls as old as Agnes, when they had any money as a reserve force, and she trembled as she thought of the possibilities. Agnes was old,—dreadfully old,—it seemed to Lucia, but she was undeniably handsome, her manners were charming, and she was smart beyond compare. She had declared that her interest in Phil was only in his position as Lucia’s admirer; but—people did not always tell the truth when they were in love. Luciaherself had told a number of lies—the very whitest of white lies—about her own regard for Phil: suppose Agnes were doing likewise? If she were—— Lucia’s little finger-nails made deep prints on the palms of her hands as she thought of it.
She told herself, in her calmer moments, that such a thought was unworthy of her and insulting to Agnes, who really had been friendly and even affectionate to her. In wakeful hours at night, however, or in some idle hours during the day, she fell into jealousy, and each successive tumble made her thraldom the more hopeless. She tried to escape by rallying Phil about Agnes, but the young man, supposing her to be merely playful in her teasing, did his best to continue the joke, and was utterly blind to the results.
At last there came an explosion. At a party which was to Lucia unspeakably stupid, there being no dancing, Miss Dinon monopolized Phil for a full hour,—a thousand hours, it seemed to Lucia,—and they sat on a sofa, too, that was far retired, in an end of a room which once had been a conservatory. Lucia watched for an opportunity to demand an explanation: it seemed it never would come, but finally an old lady who was the head and front of a small local missionary effort in the South called the young man aside. In an instant Lucia seated herself beside Agnes Dinon, saying, as she gave her fan a vicious twitch,—
“You seem to find Mr. Hayn very entertaining?”
“Indeed I do,” said Miss Dinon, “I haven’t spent so pleasant an hour this season, until this evening.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lucia, and the unoffending fan flew into two pieces.
“My dear girl!” exclaimed Agnes, picking up one of the fragments. “It’s really wicked to be so careless.”
“Thank you,” said Lucia, with a grand air—for so small a woman. “I thought it was about time for an apology.”
Miss Dinon looked sidewise in amazement.
“The subject of conversation must have been delightful,” Lucia continued.
“Indeed it was,” said Agnes.
Lucia looked up quickly. Fortunately for Miss Dinon, the artificial light about them was dim.
“You told me once,” said Lucia, collecting her strength for a grand effort, “that——”
“Yes?”
“That—that——”
“You dear little thing,” said Agnes, suddenly putting her arm about Lucia and pressing her closely as a mother might seize a baby, “what we were talking of was you. Can’t you understand, now, why I enjoyed it so much?”
There was a tremor and a convulsive movement within the older woman’s arm, and Lucia seemed to be crying.
“Darling little girl,” murmured Agnes, kissing the top of Lucia’s head; “I ought to be killed for teasing you, even for a moment, but how could you be jealous of me? Your lover has been a great deal more appreciative: he has done me the honor to make me his confidante, and again I say it was delightful.”
“I’m awfully mean,” sobbed Lucia.
“Stop crying—at once,” whispered Agnes. “How will your eyes look? Oh, Lu, what a lucky girl you are!”
“For crying?” said Lucia, after a little choke.
“For having such a man to adore you. Why, he thinks no such woman ever walked the earth before. He worships the floor you tread, the air you breathe, the rustle of your dress, the bend of your little finger, the——”
The list of adorable qualities might have been prolonged had not a little arm suddenly encircled Miss Dinon’s waist so tightly that further utterance was suspended. Then Lucia murmured,—
“The silly fellow! I’m not half good enough for him.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Indeed I do; I do, really.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say so,” said the older girl, “for, honestly, Lu, Mr. Hayn has so much head and heart that he deserves the best woman alive.”
“It’s such a comfort to be told so!” murmured the younger girl.
“One would suppose you had doubted it, and needed to be assured,” said Agnes, with a quizzical smile.
“Oh, no! ’twasn’t that,” said Lucia, hurriedly. “How could you think of such a thing? But—— Oh, Agnes, you can’t understand, not having been in love yourself.”
Miss Dinon looked grave for an instant, but was quickly herself again, and replied, with a laugh, and a pinch bestowed upon the tip of Lucia’s little ear,—
“True; true. What depths of ignorance we poor old maids are obliged to grope in!”
“Now, Agnes!” pleaded Lucia. “You know I didn’t mean to be offensive. All I meant was that you—that I—— Oh, I think he’s all goodness and sense and brightness and everything that’s nice, but—and so, I mean, I like to hear about it from everybody. I want to hear him talked of all the while; and you won’t think me silly for it, will you? Because he really deserves it. I don’t believe there’s his equal on the face of the earth!”
“I’ve heard other girls talk that way about their lovers,” said Agnes, “and I’ve been obliged to hope their eyes might never be opened; but about the young man who is so fond of you I don’t differ with you in the least. He ought to marry the very best woman alive.”
“Don’t say that, or I shall become jealous again. He ought to find some one like you; while I’m nothing in the world but a well-meaning little goose.”
“The daughter of your parents can’t be anything so dreadful, even if she tries; and all young girls seem to try, you know. But you really aren’t going to be satisfied to marry Philip Hayn and be nothing but a plaything and a pretty little tease to him, are you? It’s so easy to stop at that; so many girls whom I know have ceased to grow or improve in any way after marriage. They’ve been so anxious to be cunning little things that they’ve never become even women. It makes one almost able to forgive the ancients for polygamy, to see——”
“Agnes Dinon! How can you be so dreadful?”
“To see wives go on year after year, persisting in being as childish as before they were married, while their husbands are acquiring better sense and taste every year.”
Lucia was sober and silent for a moment; then she said,—
“Do you know, Agnes,—I wouldn’t dare to say it to any other girl,—do you know there are times when I’m positively afraid of Phil? He does know so much. I find him delightful company,—stop smiling in that astonished way, you dear old hypocrite!—I mean I find him delightful company even when he’s talking to me about things I never was much interested in. And what else is there for him to talk about? He’s never proposed, you know, and, though I can’t help seeing he is very fond of me, he doesn’t even talk about love. But it is when he and papa get together and talk about what is going on in the world that I get frightened; for he does know so much. It isn’t only I that think so, you know: papa himself says so: he says he finds it pays better to chat with Phil than to read the newspapers. Now, you know, the idea of marrying a—a sort of condensed newspaper would be just too dreadful.”
“Husbands who love their wives are not likely to be condensed newspapers,—not while they are at home: but do train yourself to be able to talk to your husband of something besides the petty affairs of all of your mutual acquaintances. I have met some persons of the masculine persuasion who were so redolent of the affairs of the day as to be dreadful bores: if they wearied me in half an hour, what musttheir poor wives endure? But don’t imagine that men are the only sinners in this respect. There isn’t in existence a more detestable, unendurable, condensed newspaper—thank you for the expression—than the young wife who in calling and receiving calls absorbs all the small gossip and scandal of a large circle, and unloads it at night upon a husband who is too courteous to protest and too loyal, or perhaps merely too weary, to run away. I don’t wonder that a great many married men frequently spend evenings at the clubs: even the Southern slaves used to have two half-holidays a week, besides Sunday.”
“Agnes Dinon! To hear you talk, one would suppose you were going to cut off your hair and write dreadful novels under a mannish name.”
“On the contrary, I’m very proud of my long hair and of everything else womanly, especially in sweet girls who are in love. As for writing novels, I’m afraid, from the way I’ve been going on for the past few moments, that sermonizing, or perhaps lecturing, would be more in the line of my gifts. And the company are going down to the dining-room: there’s a march playing, and I see Phil struggling toward you. You’re a dear little thing to listen to me so patiently, but you’ll be dearer yet if you’ll remember all I’ve said. You’re going to have a noble husband; do prepare yourself to be his companion and equal, so he may never tire of you. Hosts of husbands weary of wives who are nothing but sweet. Even girls can’t exist on candy alone, you know.”
Wheniron looked up, as recorded elsewhere in this narrative, there was at the same time much looking up done or attempted by various railroad-companies. To some of them the improved prospects of iron were due; others were merely hopeful and venturesome; but that portion of the general public which regards a railroad only as a basis for the issue of stock in which men can speculate did not distinguish between the two.
Like iron and railroads, stocks also began to look up, and Mr. Marge devoted himself more closely than ever to the quotations which followed each other moment by moment on the tape of the stock-ticker. It seemed never safe for him to be out of hearing of the instrument, for figures changed so suddenly and unexpectedly; shares in some solid old roads about which everybody knew everything remained at their old figures, while some concerns that had only just been introduced in Wall Street, and were as problematic as new acquaintances in general, figured largely in the daily reports of Stock Exchange transactions.
Mr. Marge remembered previous occasions of similar character: during the first of them he had been a “lamb,” and was sheared so closely and rudely thathe afterward took great interest in the shearing process, perhaps to improve and reform it. He was not at all misled by the operations on the street at the period with which this story concerns itself; he knew that some of the new securities were selling for more than they were worth, that the prices of others, and the great volume of transactions in them, were made wholly by brokers whose business it was to keep them before the people. Others, which seemed promising, could fulfil their hopes only on certain contingencies.
Yet Marge, cool and prudent though he was, took no interest whatever in “securities” that deserved their name; he devoted all his attention to such stocks as fluctuated wildly,—stocks about which conflicting rumors, both good and bad, came day by day, sometimes hour by hour. He did not hesitate to inform himself that he was simply a gambler, at the only gentlemanly game which the law did not make disreputable, and that the place for his wits and money was among the stocks which most indulged in “quick turns” and to which the outside public—the great flock of lambs—would be most attracted.
After a careful survey of the market, and several chats, apparently by chance, with alleged authorities of the street, he determined to confine his operations to the stock of “The Eastern and Western Consolidated Railway Company,” better known on the street and the stock-tickers’ tapes as “E. & W.” This stock had every feature that could make any alleged security attractive to operators, for there was a great deal of it, the company was formed by theconsolidation, under the guise of leasing, of the property of several other companies, it was steadily picking up small feeders and incorporating them with the main line, it held some land-grants of possible value, and, lastly, some of the managers were so brilliant, daring, and unscrupulous that startling changes in the quotations might occur at any time at very short notice. Could a gambler ask for a more promising game?
E. & W. soon began to justify Marge in his choice. For the first few days after he ventured into it the stock crept up by fractions and points so that by selling out and promptly re-purchasing Marge was able to double his investment, “on a margin,” from his profits alone. A temporary break frightened him a little, but on a rumor that the company was obtaining a lease of an important connecting link he borrowed enough money to buy more instead of selling, and as—for a wonder—the rumor proved true, he “realized” enough to take a couple of hundred shares more. Success began to manifest itself in his countenance and his manner, and to his great satisfaction he once heard his name coupled with that of one of the prominent operators in the stock.
His success had also the effect of making his plans more expansive and aspiring. Should E. & W. go on as it was going, he must within half a year become quite well off,—almost rich, in fact. Such being the case, might it not be a mistake for him to attach as much importance as he had done to the iron-business and its possible effect upon the dower of Miss Tramlay? She was a charming girl, but money ought tomarry money, and what would be a share of the forty or fifty thousand a year that Tramlay might make in a business which, after all, could have but the small margin of profit which active competition would allow? There were rich families toward whose daughters he had not previously dared to raise his eyes, for their heads would have demanded a fuller financial exhibit than he cared to make on the basis of the few thousands of dollars which he had invested in profitable tenement-house property. As a large holder of E. & W. his position would be different; for were not the heads of these various families operating in E. & W. themselves?
Little by little he lessened his attentions to Lucia, and his visits to the house became fewer. To Phil, who did not know the cause, the result was quickly visible, and delightful as well. The only disquieting effect was that Mrs. Tramlay’s manner perceptibly changed to an undesirable degree. That prudent lady continued to inform her husband that there seemed to be no movement in Haynton Bay villa plots, and that the persistency of the young man from the country seemed to have the effect of discouraging Mr. Marge, who really had some financial standing.
The change in Marge’s manner was perceptible throughout the Tramlay family. Even Margie experienced a sense of relief, and she said one evening to Lucia,—
“Isn’t it lovely that your old beau is so busy in Wall Street nowadays? He doesn’t come here half as much as he used to, and I don’t have to be boredby him while you’re talking to Phil. You ought to fit up a room especially for me in your new house, Lu, for I’ve endured a dreadful lot for your sake.”
“You silly child,” Lucia replied, “you might catch Mr. Marge yourself, if you liked. Mamma seems to want to have him in the family.”
“Thank you for the ‘if,’ ” Margie retorted, “but I don’t care for a husband almost old enough to be my grandfather, after being accustomed to seeing a real nice, handsome young man about the house.”
“He has money,” said Lucia, “and that is what most girls are dying to marry. Papa says he is making a fortune if he is as deep in the market as some folks say.”
“I hope he is,” said Margie. “He ought to have something besides a wooden face, and a bald head, and the same set of speeches and manners for all occasions. What a splendid sphinx he would make, or an old monument! Maybe he isn’t quite antique enough, but for vivacity he isn’t any more remarkable than a stone statue. Just think of what Phil has saved us from!”
And still E. & W. went up. The discovery of valuable mineral deposits on the line of one of its branches sent the stock flying up several points in a single day, and soon afterward a diversion of some large grain-shipments from a parallel line helped it still further. That the grain was carried at a loss did not trouble any one,—probably because only the directors knew it, and it was not their business to make such facts public. And with each rise of the stock Marge sold out, so as to have a larger margin with which to operate.
At the first of the year E. & W. declared a dividend so large, for a security that had been far below par, that even prudent investors began to crowd to the street and buy the stock to put into their safes. The effect of this was to send shares up so rapidly and steadily that Marge had difficulty in re-purchasing at the price at which he sold; but he did so well that more than six thousand shares now stood in his name on the books of his broker. Six thousand shares represented about half a million dollars, at the price which E. & W. commanded. Marge admitted to himself that it did not mean so much to him, for he had not a single certificate in his pocket or anywhere else. But what were stock certificates to a man who operated on a margin? They were good enough for widows and orphans and other people incapable or unwilling to watch the market and who were satisfied to draw annually whatever dividends might chance to be declared. To Marge the stock as it appeared on his broker’s books signified that he had cleared nearly fifty thousand dollars on it within two months; and all this money was reinvested—on margin—in the same stock, with the probability of doubling itself every month until E. & W. should go quite a way beyond par. Were it to creep up only five per cent, a month—it had been doing more than twice as well—he could figure up a cool million of gain before the summer dulness should strike the market. Then he would sell out, run over to Europe, and take a rest: he felt that he would have earned it by that time.
Of course there was no danger that E. & W. would go down. Smart, who, in the parlance of the street,was “taking care of it,” had publicly said, again and again, that E. & W. would reach one hundred and fifty before summer; and, although Smart was one of the younger men in the street, he had engineered two or three other things in a manner which had made older operators open their eyes and checkbooks. Smart’s very name seemed to breed luck, his prophecies about other movements had been fulfilled, he evidently had his own fortune largely invested in E. & W., so what more could any operator ask? Even now the stock was hard to get; investors who wanted small quantities had generally to bid above the market-quotations; and even when a large block changed hands it depressed quotations only a fraction, which would be more than recovered within twenty-four hours. Marge’s margin was large enough to protect him against loss, even should a temporary panic strike the market and depress everything by sympathy: indeed, some conservative brokers told Marge that he could safely carry the stock on a much smaller margin.
Better men have had their heads turned by less success, and forgotten not only tender sentiments but tender vows: so it is no wonder that, as his financial standing improved daily, Marge’s interest in Lucia weakened. The countryman might have her; there was as good fish in the sea as that he had hoped to catch,—not only as good, but a great deal better. He would not break old friendships, he really esteemed the Tramlays, but—friendship was a near enough relationship.
“Well, my dear,” said Tramlay to his wife one evening in late winter, “the spell is broken. Three different people have bought building-sites of the Haynton Bay Company, and a number of others seem interested. There’s been a good deal of money made this winter, and now people seem anxious to spend it. It’s about time for us to be considering plans for our villa,—eh?”
“Not until we are sure we shall have more than three neighbors,” said Mrs. Tramlay. “Besides, I would first like to have some certainty as to how large our family will be this summer.”
“How large? Why, the same size as usual, I suppose. Why shouldn’t it be?”
“Edgar,” said Mrs. Tramlay, impatiently, “for a man who has a business reputation for quick wits, I think you’re in some things the stupidest person who ever drew breath.”
Tramlay seemed puzzled. His wife finally came to his aid, and continued:
“I should like to know if Lucia’s affair is to dawdle along as it has been doing. June is as late in the season as is fashionable for weddings, and an engagement——”
“Oh!” interrupted the merchant, with a gesture of annoyance, “I’ve heard the customary talk about mother-love, and believed it, up to date, but I can’t possibly bring myself to be as anxious as you to get rid of our blessed first-born.”
“It is because I love her that I am so desirous of seeing her happy and settled,—not to get rid of her.”
“Yes, I suppose so; and I’m a brute,” said the husband. “Well, if Phil has been waiting until he should be certain about his own condition financially, he will not need to wait much longer. I don’t know whether it’s through brains, or tact, or what’s called lover’s luck, but he’s been doing so well among railroad-people that in common decency I must either raise his salary largely or give him an interest in the business.”
“Well, really, you speak as if the business depended upon him.”
“For a month or two he’s been taking all the orders; I’ve been simply a sort of clerk, to distribute them among mills, or find out where iron could be had for those who wanted it in haste. He’s after an order now—from the Lake and Gulfside Road—that I let him attempt at first merely to keep him from growing conceited. It seemed too great and difficult a job to place any hope on; but I am beginning to half believe he’ll succeed. If he does, I’ll simply be compelled to give him an interest in the business: if I don’t, some of my competitors will coax him away from me.”
“What! after all you have done for him?”
“Tut! tut! the favor is entirely on the other side. Had some outsider brought me the orders which that boy has taken, I would have had to pay twenty times as much in commissions as Phil’s salary has amounted to. What do you think of ‘Edgar Tramlay & Co.’ for a business sign, or even ‘Tramlay & Hayn’?”
“I suppose it will have to be,” said the lady, without any indication of gratification, “and, if it must be, the sooner the better, for it can’t help making Lucia’s position more certain. If it doesn’t do so at once, I shall believe it my duty to speak to the young man.”
“Don’t! don’t, I implore!” exclaimed the merchant. “He will think——”
“What he may think is of no consequence,” said Mrs. Tramlay. “It is time that he should know what city etiquette demands.”
“But it isn’t necessary, is it, that he should know how matter-of-fact and cold-hearted we city people can be about matters which country-people think should be approached with the utmost heart and delicacy? Don’t let him know what a mercenary, self-serving lot of wretches we are, until he is so fixed that he can’t run away.”
“Edgar, the subject is not one to be joked about, I assure you.”
“And I assure you, my dear, that I’m not more than half joking,—not a bit more.”
“I shall not say more than thousands of the most loving and discreet mothers have been obliged to say in similar circumstances,” said Mrs. Tramlay. “Ifyou cannot trust me to discharge this duty delicately, perhaps you will have the kindness to undertake it yourself.”
“The very thing!” said Tramlay. “If he must have unpleasant recollections of one of us, I would rather it wouldn’t be his mother-in-law. The weight of precedent is against you, don’t you know?—though not through any fault of yours.”
“Will you seriously promise to speak to him? At once?—this very week?”
“I promise,” said Tramlay, solemnly, at the same time wickedly making a number of mental reservations.
“Then if there should be any mistake it will not be too late to recall poor Mr. Marge,” said Mrs. Tramlay.
“My dear wife,” said Tramlay, tenderly, “I know Marge has some good qualities, but I beg you to remember that by the time our daughter ought to be in the very prime of her beauty and spirits, unless her health fails, Marge will be nearly seventy years old. I can’t bear the thought of our darling being doomed to be nurse to an old man just when she will be most fit for the companionship and sympathy of a husband. Suppose that ten years ago, when you boasted you didn’t feel a day older than when you were twenty, I had been twenty years older than I am now, and hanging like a dead weight about your neck? Between us we have had enough to do in bringing up our children properly: what would you have done had all the responsibility come upon you alone? And you certainly don’t care to think of theprobability of Lu being left a widow before she fairly reaches middle age?”
“Handsome widows frequently marry again, especially if their first husbands were well off.”
“Wife!”
Mrs. Tramlay looked guilty, and avoided her husband’s eye. She could not avoid his encircling arm, though, nor the meaning of his voice as he said,—
“Is there no God but society?”
“I didn’t mean to,” whispered Mrs. Tramlay. “All mothers are looking out for their daughters; I don’t think fathers understand how necessary it is. If you had shown more interest in Lucia’s future I might not have been so anxious. Fathers never seem to think that their daughters ought to have husbands.”
“Fathers don’t like girls to marry before they are women,” said Tramlay. “Even now I wish Lu might not marry until she is several years older.”
“Mercy!” exclaimed Mrs. Tramlay. “Would you want the poor child to go through several more years of late parties, and dancing, and dressing? Why, she’d become desperate, and want to go into a nunnery or become a novelist, or reformer, or something.”
“What? Is society really so dreadful to a young girl?” asked the husband.
“It’s the most tiresome thing in the world after the novelty wears off,” said Mrs. Tramlay, “unless she is fond of flirting, or gets into one of the prosy sets where they talk about nothing but books and music and pictures and blue china and such things.”
“ ‘Live and learn,’ ” quoted the merchant. “Next time I become a young man and marry I’ll bring upmy family in the country. My sisters had at least horses and trees and birds and flowers and chickens to amuse them, and not one of them married until she was twenty-five.”
Mrs. Tramlay maintained a discreet silence, for, except their admiration for their brother, Mrs. Tramlay had never been able to find a point of contact in her sisters-in-law. Tramlay slowly left the room and went to his club, informing himself, as he walked, that there were times in which a man really needed the society of men.
Meanwhile, Phil had for the twentieth time been closeted with the purchasing officials of the Lake and Gulfside Railroad,—as disagreeable and suspicious a couple as he had ever found among Haynton’s assortment of expert grumblers. Had he been more experienced in business he would have been less hopeful, for, as everybody who was anybody in the iron trade knew the Lake and Gulfside had planned a branch nearly two hundred miles long, and there would be forty or fifty thousand tons of rails needed, everybody who was anybody in the iron trade was trying to secure at least a portion of the order. Phil’s suggestion that Tramlay should try to secure the contract had affected the merchant about as a proposition of a child to build a house might have done; but, to avoid depressing the young man’s spirits, he had consented, and had himself gone so far as to get terms, for portions of the possible order, from men who were looking for encouragement to open their long-closed mills. Unknown to the merchant, and fortunately for Phil, one of the Lake and Gulfside purchasingagents had years before chanced to be a director in a company that placed a small order with Tramlay, and, remembering and liking the way in which it had been filled, was predisposed toward the house’s new representative from the first. But Tramlay, not knowing this, laid everything to Phil’s luck when the young man invaded the whist-room of the club, called Tramlay away from a table just as cards had been dealt, and exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper,—
“I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” asked the merchant, not over-pleased at the interruption. Phil stared so wildly that his employer continued, “Not the smallpox, I trust. What is it? Can’t you speak?”
“I should think you’d know,” said the young man, looking somewhat aggrieved.
“Not Lake and Gulfside?”
“Exactly that,” said Phil, removing his hat and holding it just as he remembered to have seen a conqueror’s hat held in a colored print of “General Scott entering the City of Mexico.”
“Hurrah!” shouted the merchant, dashing to the floor the cards he held. This movement eliciting an angry protest from the table, Tramlay picked up the cards, thrust them into the hand of a lounger, said, “Play my hand for me.—Gentlemen, I must beg you to excuse me: sudden and important business,” seized his hat, and hurried Phil to the street, exclaiming,—
“Sure there is no mistake about it? It seems too good to be true.”
“There’s no mistake about this,” Phil replied,taking a letter from his pocket. The merchant hurried to the nearest street-lamp, looked at the written order, and said,—
“My boy, your fortune is made. Do you realize what a great stroke of business this is?”
“I hope so,” said Phil.
“What do you want me to do for you? Name your terms or figures.”
Phil was silent, for the very good reason that he did not know how to say what was in his heart.
“Suppose I alter my sign to Tramlay & Hayn, and make you my equal partner?”
Still Phil was silent.
“Well,” said the merchant, “it seemed to me that was a fair offer; but if it doesn’t meet your views, speak out and say what you prefer.”
“Mr. Tramlay,” said the young man, trying to speak calmly, but failing most lamentably, “they say a countryman never is satisfied in a trade unless he gets something to boot.”
“Very well. What shall it be?”
“Millions,—everything; that is, I wish you’d give me your daughter too.”
The merchant laughed softly and shook his head. Phil started, and his heart fell.
“I don’t see how I can do that,” said Tramlay; “for, unless my eyes deceive me, you already have her.”
“Thank heaven!” exclaimed Phil, devoutly.
“So say I,” the merchant responded.