XXVTWO WOMEN INTERVENE"If I could find some way of detaching Trafford from Atwater," Armstrong had said to her as he was explaining. "But," he had added, "that's hopeless. He's more afraid of Atwater than of anybody or anything on earth—and well he may be." Neva seized upon the chance remark, without saying anything to him. She knew the Traffords well, knew therefore that there was one person of whom his fear was greater than of Atwater, and whose influence over him was absolute. Early the following morning she called the Traffords on the telephone. Mrs. Trafford was in the country, she learned, but would be home in the afternoon. Neva left a message that she wished particularly to see her; at five o'clock she was shown into the truly palatial room in which Mrs. Trafford always had tea."Narcisse has just left," said Mrs. Trafford. "She's been rummaging for me in Letty Morris's rag bag—you know, my husband bought it. She has found a few things, but not much. Still, Letty wasn't cheated any worse than most people. The trash! The trash!"Neva was too intent upon her purpose to think of her surroundings that day; but she had often before been moved to a variety of emotions, none of them approaching admiration or approval or even tolerance, by Mrs. Trafford's procession of halls and rooms in gilt and carving and brocade, by the preposterous paintings, the glaring proclamation from every wall and every floor and every ceiling of the alternately arid and atrocious taste of the fashionable architects and connoisseurs to whom Mrs. Trafford had trusted. As in all great houses, the beauties were incidental and isolated, deformed by the general effect of coarse appeal to barbaric love of the thing that is gaudy and looks costly."You aren't going to move into Letty's house?" said Neva absently. She was casting about for some not too abrupt beginning."Heavens, no!" protested Mrs. Trafford, in horror and indignation. "John bought it—some time ago. I don't know why." She laughed. "But I do know he wishes he hadn't now. He wouldn't tell me the price he paid. I suspect he found out that he had made a bad bargain as soon as it was too late. There's some mystery about his buying that house. I don't—" Mrs. Trafford broke off. Well as she knew Neva, and intimate and confidential though she was with her, despite Neva's reserve—indeed, perhaps because of it—still, she was careful about Trafford's business. And Neva and Letty were cousins—not intimates or especially friendly, but nevertheless blood relations. "I suppose he's ashamed of not having consulted me," she ended."How is Mr. Trafford?" asked Neva. "I haven't seen him for months. He must be working very hard?""Hethinkshe is. But, my dear, I found the men out long, long ago, in their pretense of hard work. They talk a great deal downtown, and smoke and eat a great deal. But they work very little—even those that have the reputation of working the hardest. Business—with the upper class men—is a good deal like fishing, I guess. They spread their nets or drop their hooks and wait for fish. My husband is killing himself, eating directors' lunches. You know, they provide a lunch for the directors, for those that meet every day—and give them a ten- or twenty-dollar gold piece for eating it. It's a huge dinner—a banquet, and all that have any digestion left stuff themselves. No wonder the women hold together so much better than the men. If the men had to wear our clothes, what sights they would be!"Neva returned to the business about which she had come. "They're having an investigating committee down there now, aren't they?""Not to investigate their diet," said Mrs. Trafford. "There'd be some sense in that. I suppose it's another of those schemes of the people who haven't anything, to throw discredit on the men who do the work of the world. Universal suffrage is a great mistake. Only the propertied class ought to be allowed to vote, don't you think so? Mr. Trafford says it's getting positively dreadful, the corruption good men have to resort to, with the legislatures and with buying elections, all because everybody can vote.""I've not given the subject much thought," said Neva. "I heard— Some one was talking about the investigating committee—and said it was the beginning of another war downtown."Mrs. Trafford looked amused. "I didn't dream you had any interest in that sort of thing. I don't see how you can be interested. I never let my husband talk business to me.""Usually I'm not interested," said Neva, now fairly embarked and at ease. "But this particular thing was—different. It seems, there are two factions fighting for control of some insurance companies, and each is getting ready to accuse the other of the most dreadful things. Mr. Atwater's faction is going to expose Mr. Fosdick's, and Mr. Fosdick's is going to expose Mr. Atwater's."Mrs. Trafford's expression had changed. "Neva, you've got a reason for telling me this," said she."Yes," frankly admitted Neva."Why?""Because I thought you—Mr. Trafford—ought to be warned of what's coming.""Whatiscoming?""I don't know all the details. But, among other things, there's to be a frightful personal attack on Mr. Trafford because he is one of Mr. Atwater's allies. Mr. Atwater thinks, or pretends, he can prevent it; but he can't. The attack is sure to come.""They couldn't truthfully say anything against Mr. Trafford," said his wife, with a heat that was genuine, yet perfunctory, too. "He's human, of course. But I who have lived with him all these years can honestly say that he spends his whole life in trying to do good. He slaves for the poor people who have their little all invested with his company." Neva had not smiled, but Mrs. Trafford went on, as if she had: "I suppose you're thinking that sounds familiar. Oh, I know every man downtown pretends he is working only for the good of others, to keep business going, and to give labor steady employment, when of course he's really working to get rich, and— Well,somebodymust be losing all this money that's piling up in the hands of a few people who spend it in silly, wicked luxury. Now, we have always frowned on that sort of thing. We—Mr. Trafford and I—set our faces against extravagance and simply live comfortably. He often says, 'I don't know what the country's coming to. The men downtown, the leaders, seem to have gone mad. They have no sense of responsibility. They aren't content with legitimate profits, but grab, grab, until I wonder people don't rise up.' And he says they will, though, of course, that wouldn't do any good, as things'd just settle back and the same old round would begin all over again. If people won't look after their own property, they can't expect to keep it, can they?""No," assented Neva. "Still—I sometimes wonder that the robbing should be done by the class of men that does it. One would think he wouldn't need to protect himself against those who claim to be the leaders in honesty and honor. It's as if one should have to lock up all the valuables if the bishop came to spend the night.""There's the shame of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Trafford. "Sometimes Trafford tells me about the men that come here, the really fine, distinguished, gentlemanly ones—well, if I could repeat some of the things to you!""I should think," suggested Neva, "it would be dangerous to have business dealings with such men. If trouble came, people might not discriminate."Mrs. Trafford caught the under-meaning in Neva's words and tone. She reflected a moment—thoughts that made her curiously serious—before replying, "Sometimes I'm afraid my husband will get himself into just that sort of miserable mess. He is so generous and confiding, and he believes so implicitly in some of those men whom I don't believe in at all. Tell me, Neva, are you sure—about that attack, and about Mr. Atwater's being mistaken?""There isn't a doubt of it," replied Neva. "Mr. Trafford ought not to let anything anyone says to the contrary influence him." And Mrs. Trafford's opinion of her directness and honesty gave her words the greatest possible weight."I'm ever so much obliged to you, dear," said she. "It isn't often one gets a proof of real friendship in this walk of life.""I didn't do it altogether for your sake," replied Neva. "It seemed to me, from what I heard, that the men downtown were rushing on to do things that would result in no good and much harm and—unhappiness. I suppose, if evil has been done, it ought to be exposed; but I think, too, that no good comes of malicious and vengeful exposures.""Especially exposures that tend to make the lower classes suspicious and unruly," said Mrs. Trafford.Neva colored and glanced at the two strapping men-servants who were removing the tea table. But Mrs. Trafford was quite unconscious. A few years before, when the English foreign habit of thinking and talking about "lower classes" was first introduced, she had indulged in it sparingly and nervously. But, falling in with the fashion of her set, she had become as bold as the rest of these spoiled children of democracy in spitting upon the parents and grandparents. It no longer ever occurred to her to question the meaning of the glib, smug, ignorant phrase; and, like the rest, she did not even restrain herself before the "lower classes" themselves. It was a settled conviction with her that she was of different clay from the working people, the doers of manual labor, that their very minds and souls were different; the fact that they seemed to think and act in much the same way as the "upper classes" would have struck her, had she thought about it at all, as a phenomenon not unlike the almost human performances of a well-trained, unusually intelligent monkey. Indeed, she often said, without being aware of the full implication of the speech, "In how many ways our servants are like us!"Neva went away, dissatisfied, depressed, as if she were retreating in defeat. She felt that she had gained her point; she understood Mrs. Trafford, knew that her dominant passion of spotless respectability had been touched, that the fears which would stir her most deeply had been aroused; Mrs. Trafford, worldly shrewd, would put her husband through a cross-examination which would reveal to her the truth, and would result in her bringing to bear all her authority over him. And she knew that Mrs. Trafford could compel her husband, where no force which Armstrong could have brought to bear downtown would have the least effect upon him. "I think I've won," Neva said to herself; but her spirits continued to descend. Before the victory, she had thought only about winning, not at all about what she was struggling for. Now she could think only of that—the essential.Like almost all women and all but a few men, Neva was densely ignorant of and wholly uninterested in business—the force that has within a few decades become titanic and has revolutionized the internal as well as the external basis of life as completely as if we had been whisked away to another planet. She still talked and tried to think in the old traditional lines in which the books, grave and light, are still written and education is still restricted—although those lines have as absolutely ceased to bear upon our real life as have the gods of the classic world. It had never occurred to her that what the men did when they went to their offices involved the whole of society in all its relations, touched her life more intimately than even her painting. But, without her realizing it, the idea had gradually formed in her mind that the proceedings downtown were morally not unlike the occupation of coal-heaver or scavenger physically. How strong this impression was she did not know until she had almost reached home, revolving the whole way the thoughts that had started as Trafford's bronze doors closed behind her.She recalled all Armstrong and others had told her about the sources of Trafford's wealth—Trafford, with his smooth, plausible personality that left upon the educated palate an after taste like machine oil. From Trafford her thoughts hastened on to hover and cluster about the real perplexity—Armstrong himself—what he had confessed to her; worse still, what he had told her as matter-of-course, had even boasted as evidence of his ability at this game which more and more clearly appeared to her as a combination of sneak-thieving and burglary. And heavier and heavier grew her heart. "I have done a shameful thing," she said to herself, as the whole repulsive panorama unrolled before her.She was in the studio building, was going up in the elevator. Just as it was approaching her landing, Thomas, the elevator boy, gave a sigh so penetrating that she was roused to look at him, to note his expression."What is it, Thomas?" she asked. "Can I do anything for you?""Nothing—nothing—thank you," said Thomas. "It's all over now. I was just thinking back over it."She saw a band of crape round his sleeve. "You have lost some one?" she said gently."My father," replied the boy. "He died day before yesterday. And we had to have the money for the funeral. We're all insured to provide for that. And my mother went down to collect father's insurance. It was for a hundred and twenty-five dollars. We'd paid in a hundred and forty on the policy, it had been running so long. And when my mother went to collect, they told her they couldn't get it through and pay it for about three weeks—and she had to have the money right away. So, they told her to go down to some offices on the floor below—it was a firm that's in cahoots with them insurance sharks. And she went, and they give her eighty-two dollars for the policy—and she had to take it because we had to bury father right away. Only, they didn't give her cash. They gave her a credit with an undertaker—he's in cahoots, too. And it took all the eighty-two dollars, and father was buried like a pauper, at that. I tell you, Miss Carlin, it's mighty hard." His voice broke. "Them rich people make a fellow pay for being poor and having no pull. That's the way we get it soaked to us, right and left, especially in sickness or hard luck or death."Neva lingered, though she could not trust herself to speak."You wouldn't think," Thomas went on, "that such things'd be done by such a company as——""Don't!" cried Neva, pressing her hands hysterically to her ears. "I mustn't hear what company it was!"And she rushed from the car and fled into her apartment, all unstrung. At last, at last, she not merely knew but felt, and felt with all her sensitive heart, the miseries of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, out of which those "great men" wrought their careers—those "great men" of whom her friend Armstrong was one!Trafford reached home at half past six and, following his custom, went directly to his dressing room. Instead of his valet, he found his wife—seated before the fire, evidently waiting for him. "Is the door closed?" she said. "And you'd better draw the curtain over it.""Well, well," he cried, all cheerfulness. "What now? Have the servants left in a body?" It had been a banner day downtown, with several big nets he had helped to set filled to overflowing, and the fish running well at all his nets, seines, lines, and trap-ponds. He felt the jolly fisherman, at peace with God and man, brimming generosity."I want to talk to you about that investigation," said his wife in a tone that cleared his face instantly of all its sparkling good humor."Whatever started you in that direction?" he exclaimed. "Don't bother your head about it, my dear. There'll be no investigation. Not that I was afraid of it. Thank God, I've always tried to live as if each moment were to be my last.""Mr. Atwater is going to attack Mr. Fosdick, isn't he?"Trafford showed his amazement. "Why, where did you hearthat?""And he thinks Mr. Fosdick and his friends won't be able to retort," continued Mrs. Trafford. "Well, he's mistaken. They are going to retort. And you are the man they'll attack the most furiously."Trafford sat down abruptly. All the men who are able to declare for themselves and their families such splendid dividends in cash upon a life of self-sacrifice to humanity, are easily perturbed by question or threat of question. Trafford, with about as much courage as a white rabbit, had only to imagine the possibility of being looked at sharply, to be thrown into inward tremors like the beginnings of sea-sickness."It don't matter," continued his wife, "whether you are innocent or not. They are going to hold you up to public shame.""Who told you this?""Neva.""She must have got it from the Morrises—or Armstrong.""She came here especially to tell me, and she would not have come if she did not know it was serious.""They sent her here to frighten me," said Trafford. "Yes, that's it!" And he rose and paced the floor, repeating now aloud and now to himself, "That's it! That's undoubtedly it.""Tell me the whole story," commanded his wife, when the limit of her patience with his childishness had been reached. "You need an outside point of view."She had told Neva she never permitted Trafford to talk business with her. In fact, he consulted her at every crisis, both to get courage and to get advice. He now hastened to comply. "It's very simple. Some time ago, a few of us who like to see things run on safe, conservative lines, decided that Fosdick's and Armstrong's management of the O.A.D. was a menace to stability. Armstrong and Fosdick had quarreled. It was Armstrong who came to us and suggested our interfering. I thought the man was honest, and I did everything I could to help him and Morris.""Including buying Morris's house," interjected Mrs. Trafford, to prevent him from so covering the truth with cant that it would be invisible to her."That did figure in it," admitted Trafford, in some confusion. "Then, we found out they were simply using us to get control of the O.A.D. for themselves. So we—Atwater and Langdon and I—arranged quietly to drop them into their own trap. We've done it—that's all. Next week we're going to expose them and their false committee; and the policy holders of the O.A.D. will be glad to put their interests in the hands of men we can keep in order. Fosdick and Armstrong can't retaliate. We've got the press with us, and have made every arrangement. Anything they say will be branded at once as malicious lies.""What kind of malicious lies will they tell?""How should I know?" And Trafford preened, with his small, precisely clad figure at its straightest."But you do know," said Mrs. Trafford slowly and with acidlike significance.Trafford made no reply in words. His face, however, was eloquent."You've been hypnotized by Atwater," pursued Mrs. Trafford. "You think him more powerful than he is. And—he isn't in any insurance company directly, is he?""No.""Mr. Langdon?""No—they keep in the background." Trafford's upper lip was trembling so that she could see it despite his mustache."Then you'll be right out in front of the guns. You—alone.""There aren't any guns.""I'm surprised at you!" exclaimed his wife. "Don't you know Horace Armstrong better than that!""The treacherous hound!""He has his bad side, I suppose, like everybody else," said Mrs. Trafford, who felt that it was not wise to humor him in his prejudices that evening. "His character isn't important just now. It's his ability you've got to consider.""Atwater's got him helpless.""Impossible!" declared Mrs. Trafford, in a voice that would have been convincing to him, had her words and his own doubts been far less strong. "You may count on it that there's to be a frightful attack on you next week. Neva Carlin knew what she was about.""There's nothing they can say—nothing that anybody'd believe." His whiskers and his hair were combed to give him a resolute, courageous air. The contrast between this artificial bold front and the look and voice now issuing from it was ludicrous and pitiful.Mrs. Trafford flashed scorn at him. "What nonsense!" she exclaimed. "I never heard of a big business that could stand it to have the doors thrown open and the public invited to look where it pleased. I doubt if yours is an exception, whatever you may think.""But the doors won't be thrown open," he pleaded rather than protested. "Our private business will remain private.""Armstrong is going to attack you, I tell you. He's not the man to fire unless he has a shot in his gun—and powder behind it.""But he can't. He knows nothing against me." And Trafford seated himself as if he were squelching his own doubts and fears."He knows as much about the inside of your company as you know about the inside of his. You can assume that."Trafford shifted miserably in his chair."What reason have you to suppose that as keen a man as he is would not make it his business to find out all about his rivals?""What if he does know?" blustered Trafford. "To hear you talk, my dear, you'd think I ran some sort of—of a"—with a nervous little laugh—"an unlawful resort.""I know you wouldn't do anything you thought was wrong," replied his wife, in a strained, insincere voice. "But—sometimes the public doesn't judge things fairly.""People who have risen to our position must expect calumny." He was of the color of fear and his fingers and his mouth and his eyelids were twitching."What difference would it make to Atwater and Langdon, if you were disgraced?" she urged. "Mightn't they even profit by it?"At this he jumped up, and began to pace the floor. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he cried. "To put suspicion in my head against these honorable men!""I want you to protect yourself and your family," she retorted crushingly. "The temptation to make a little more money, or a good deal more, ought not to lead you to risk your reputation. Look at the men that were disgraced by that last investigation.""But they had done wrong.""They don't think so, do they? How do you know what some of the things you've done will look like when they're blazoned in the newspapers?""I'm not afraid!" declaimed Trafford, fright in his eyes and in his noisy voice."No," said his wife soothingly. "Of course, you've done nothing wrong. You needn't tellmethat. But it's just as bad to be misunderstood as to be guilty."During the silence which fell he paced the floor like a man running away, and she gazed thoughtfully into the fire. When she spoke again it was with a subdued, nervous manner and as if she were telling him something which she wished him to think she did not understand. "One day I was driving in the East Side, looking after some of my poor. There was a block—in the Hester Street market. A crowd got around the carriage, and a man—a dreadful, dirty, crazy-eyed creature—called out, 'There's the wife of the blood-sucker Trafford, that swindles the poor on burial insurance!' And the crowd hissed and hooted at me, and shook their fists. And a woman spat into the carriage." Mrs. Trafford paused before going on: "I get a great many anonymous letters. I never have worried you about these things. You have your troubles, and I knew it was all false. But——"Her voice ceased. For several minutes, oppressive and menacing silence brooded over that ostentatious room. Its costly comforts and costlier luxuries weighed upon the husband and wife, so far removed from the squalor of those whose earnings had been filched to create this pitiful, yet admired, flaunting of vanity. Finally he said, speaking almost under his breath, "What would you advise me to do?"Although she had long had ready her answer to that inevitable question, she waited before replying. "Not to pull Atwater's chestnuts out of the fire for him," said she slowly. "Stop the attack. I've an instinct that evil will come of it—evil to us. Let Armstrong alone. If he's not managing his business right, what concern is it of yours? And if you try to get it, what if, instead of making money, you lose your reputation—maybe, more? What does Atwater risk? Nothing. What does Langdon risk? Nothing. What do you risk? Everything. That's not sensible, is it?""But I can't go back on Atwater," he objected in the tone that begs to be overruled. "Armstrong would attack me, anyhow, and I'd simply have both sides against me."She turned upon him, amazed, terrified. "Do you mean to say you've got no hold on Atwater?" she exclaimed."I am a gentleman, dealing with gentlemen," said he, with dignity.She made a gesture of contempt. "But suppose Atwater should prove not to be a gentleman—what then?""He'd hesitate to play fast and loose with me," Trafford now confessed. "He owes our allied institutions too many millions.""Oh," she said, relieved. Then—"And what precaution has he taken against your deserting him?""None, so far as I know, except that he would probably join in Armstrong's attack. But, my dear, you entirely misunderstand. Atwater and I have the same interests. We——""I know, I know," she interrupted impatiently. "What I'm trying to get at is how you can induce him to come to an agreement with Armstrong. Can you think of no way?""I had never contemplated this emergency," he replied apologetically. His conduct now seemed to him to have been headlong, imbecile."You must do something this very night," said his wife. "There might be a change of plan on one side or the other. You must see that your position, unprotected among these howling beasts, is perilous."At that, Trafford fell to trembling so violently that, ashamed though he was to have any human being, even his wife, see the coward in him, he yet could not steady himself. "I can offer Armstrong peace and a voice in our company. If he accepts, I can stop Atwater. I can frankly show him that I am not prepared to withstand an attack and that it is surely coming. He will not refuse. He won't dare. Besides—" He stopped suddenly."Besides—what?""It is upon me—upon my men—that Atwater relies to make the attack. He hasn't the necessary information—at least, I don't think he has."Mrs. Trafford gave a long sigh of relief. "Why didn't you say that at first?" she cried. "All you have to do is to put Atwater off and make terms with Armstrong.""Atwater is a very dangerous man to have as an enemy.""But he's not a fool. He'll never blame you for saving yourself from destruction."Neither seemed to realize how much of their secret thought—thought not clearly admitted even to their secret selves—was revealed in her using that terrible word, and in his accepting it.He glanced at his watch. "I think I'll go now.""Yes, indeed," said she. "This is the best time to catch them. They'll be dressing for dinner."And he hurried away.XXVITRAFFORD AS DOVE OF PEACEAs Trafford sprang from his cab at Armstrong's hotel, Armstrong was just entering the door. "Mr. Armstrong! Mr. Armstrong!" he cried, hastening after him.The big, easy-going-looking Westerner—still the Westerner, though his surface was thoroughly Easternized—turned and glanced quizzically down at the small, prim-looking Trafford. "Hello! What do you want?""To see you for a few minutes, if it is quite convenient," replied Trafford, still more nervous before Armstrong's good-natured contempt."A very few minutes," conceded the big man. "I've a pressing engagement."They went up to his apartment. As he opened the door, he saw a note on the threshold. "Excuse me," he said, picking it up, and so precipitate that he did not stand aside to let Trafford enter first. In the sitting room he turned on the light, tore open the note and read; and Trafford noted with dismay that, as he read, his face darkened. It was a note from Neva, saying that she had just got a telegram from home, that her father was ill; she had scrawled the note as she and Molly were rushing away to catch the train. He glanced up, saw Trafford. "Oh—beg pardon—sit down." And he read the note again; and again his mind wandered away into the gloom. Once more, after a moment or two, his eyes reminded him of Trafford. "Beg pardon—a most annoying message— Do sit down. Have a cigar?""Not at present, thank you," said Trafford in his precise way, reminiscent of the far days when he had taught school."Well—what can I do for you?" inquired Armstrong, adding to himself, "This is Atwater's first move." But he was not interested; his mind was on Neva, on the note that had chilled him—"unreasonably," he muttered, "yet, she might have put in just the one word—or something."Trafford saw that he had no part of Armstrong's attention. He coughed."If you can give me—" he began."Yes, yes," said Armstrong impatiently. "What is it? You can't expect me to be enthusiastic, exactly, about you, you know. I didn't expect anything of the others; but I was idiot enough to think you weren't altogether shameless—you, the principal owner of the Hearth and Home!" Armstrong's sarcasm was savage."You are evidently laboring under some misapprehension, Mr. Armstrong," cried Trafford, pulling at his neat little beard, while one of his neat little feet tapped the carpet agitatedly."Bosh!" said Armstrong. "I know all about you. Don't lie to me. What do you want? Come to the point!"There was a pink spot in each of Trafford's cheeks. "I have been much distressed," said he, "at the confusion downtown, at the strained relations between interests that ought to be working together in harmony for the general good." Armstrong's frown hastened him. "I have come to see if it isn't possible to bring about good feeling and peace.""You come from Atwater?""No—that is—Frankly, no."Armstrong rose with a gesture of dismissal. "We're wasting time. Atwater is the man. Unless you have some authority from him, I'll not detain you.""But, my dear sir," cried Trafford, in a ferment to the very depths now, because convinced by Armstrong's manner that he was not dealing with a beaten man but with one champing for the fray. "You do not seem to hear me," he implored. "I tell you I can make terms. In this matter Atwater is dependent upon me.""You've come about the attack he's going to make on the O.A.D.?""Precisely. I've come to arrange to stop it, to say I wish to make no attack.""You mean, you don't wish to be attacked," rejoined Armstrong with a cold laugh that made Trafford's flesh creep. "By the time Morris gets through with you, I don't see how you can possibly be kept out of the penitentiary. He has all the necessary facts. I think he can compel you to disgorge at least two thirds of what you've stolen and salted away. I don't see where you got the courage to go into a fight, when you're such an easy target. The wonder is you weren't caught and sent up years ago.""This is strange language, very strange language," said Trafford in an injured tone, and not daring to pretend or to feel insulted. "I am surprised, Mr. Armstrong, that you should use it in your own house.""I didn't ask you here. You thrust yourself in," Armstrong reminded him, but his manner was less savage."True, I did come of my own accord. And I still venture to hope that you will see the advantages of a peaceful solution.""What do you propose?—in as few words as possible," said Armstrong, still believing Trafford was trying to trifle with him, for some hidden purpose."To call off our attack," Trafford answered, "provided you will agree to call off yours. To give you a liberal representation in our board of directors, including a member of the executive committee."Armstrong was astounded. He could not believe that Trafford's humble, eager manner was simulated. Yet, these terms, this humiliating surrender of assured victory—it was incredible. "You will have to explain just how you happened to come here," said he, "or I shall be unable to believe you."The pink spots which had faded from Trafford's cheeks reappeared. "It was my wife," he replied. "She heard there was to be a scandal. She has a horror of notoriety—you know how refined and sensitive she is. She would not let me rest until I had promised to do what I could to bring about peace."Armstrong was secretly scorning his own stupidity. He had spent days, weeks on just this problem of breaking up the combination against him, of separating Trafford or Langdon from Atwater; and the simple, easy, obvious way to do it had never occurred to him, who dealt only with the men and disregarded the women as negligible factors in affairs. To Trafford he said, "You've not seen Atwater?""No, but I shall go to him as soon as I have some assurance from you."Atwater—there was the rub. Armstrong felt that the time to hope had not yet come. Still he would not discourage Trafford. He simply said, "I can't give any assurance until I consult Morris.""But, as I understand it—at least, his original motive was simply a political ambition. We can easily gratify that.""He wants fireworks—something that'll make the popular heart warm up to him. He has a long head. He wants some basis, at least, in popularity, so that he won't be quite at the mercy of you gentlemen, should you turn against him.""I see—I see," said Trafford. "He was counting on the reputation he would make as an inquisitor. Yes, that would give him quite a push. But—there ought to be plenty of other matters he might safely and even, perhaps, beneficially, inquire into. For instance, there is the Bee Hive Mutual—a really infamous swindle. I've had dealings with many unattractive characters in the course of my long business career, Mr. Armstrong, but with none so repellent in every way as Dillworthy. He has made that huge institution a private graft for himself and his family. He is shocking, even in this day of loose conceptions of honesty and responsibility.""Have you any facts?""Some, and they are at Mr. Morris's disposal. But all he needs to do is to send for the books of the Bee Hive. I am credibly informed—you can rely on it—that the Dillworthys have got so bold that they do not even look to the books. The grafting in that company is quite as extensive and as open as in our large industrial and railway corporations—and, you know, they haven't profited by the lesson we in the insurance companies had in the great investigation.""Your proposal will content Morris, I think," Armstrong now said. "As the Dillworthys aren't entangled with any of the other large interests, showing them up will not cause a spreading agitation." He laughed. "There's a sermon against selfishness! If old Dillworthy hadn't been so greedy, so determined to keep it all in the family, he wouldn't be in this position.""There will be general satisfaction over his exposure," replied Trafford. "And it will greatly benefit, tone up, the whole business world.""Really, it's our Christian duty to concentrate on the Busy Bee, isn't it?" said Armstrong sardonically. "Well— Can you see Atwater to-night?""I'm going direct to his house. But where shall I find you? You said you had an engagement."Armstrong winced as if a wound had been roughly set to aching. "I'll be here," he said gruffly."We might dine together, perhaps? Atwater may be able to come, too.""No—can't do it," was Armstrong's reply. "But I'll be here from half past eight on."Trafford, so much encouraged that he was almost serene again, sped away to Atwater's palace in Madison Avenue. The palace was a concession to Mrs. Atwater and the daughters. They loved display and had the tastes that always accompany that passion; they, therefore, lived in the unimaginative and uncomfortable splendor of the upper class heaven that is provided by the makers of houses and furniture, whose one thought, naturally, is to pile on the cost and thus multiply the profits.But Atwater had part of the house set aside for and dedicated to his own personal satisfaction. With the same sense of surprise that one has at the abrupt transition of a dream from one phantasy to another resembling it in no way except as there is a resemblance in flat contradictions, one passed out of the great, garish, price-encrusted entrance hall, through a door to the left into a series of really beautiful rooms—spacious, simple, solidly furnished; with quiet harmonies of color, with no suggestions of mere ornamentation anywhere. The Siersdorfs had built and furnished the whole house, and its double triumph was their first success. With the palace part they had pleased the Atwater women and the crowd of rich eager to display; with the part sacred to Atwater, they had delighted him and such people as formed their ideas of beauty upon beauty itself and not upon fashion or tradition or outlay. Trafford was shown into a music room where Atwater was playing on the piano, as he did almost every evening for an hour before dinner. It was a vast room, walls and ceilings paneled in rosewood; there were no hangings, except at the windows valances of velvet of a rosewood tint, relieved by a broad, dull gold stripe; a few simple articles of furniture; Boris Raphael's famous "Music" on the wall opposite the piano, and no other picture; a huge vase of red and gold chrysanthemums at the opposite side of the room to balance the painting; Atwater at the piano, in a dark red, velvet house suit, over it a silk robe of a somewhat lighter shade of red, as the room was not heated."Business?" he said, pausing in his playing, with a careless, unfriendly glance at Trafford."I'll only trouble you a moment," apologized the intruder. His prim, strait-laced appearance gave those surroundings, made sensuous by Boris's intoxicatingly sensuous picture, an air of impropriety, of immorality—like a woman in Quaker dress among the bare shoulders, backs, and bosoms of a ballroom."Business!" exclaimed Atwater, rising. "Not in this room, if you please."He led the way to a smaller room with a billiard table in the center and great leather seats and benches round the walls. "Do you play, Trafford? Music, I mean.""I regret to say, I do not," replied Trafford."Then you ought to get a mechanical piano. Music in the evening is like a bath after a day in the trenches. Try it. It'll soothe you, put you into a better condition for the next day's bout. What can I do for you?""I've come about the O.A.D. matter. Atwater, don't you think we might lose more than we stand to gain?"Atwater concealed his satisfaction. Since his talk with Armstrong, he had been remeasuring with more care that young man's character, and had come to the conclusion that he was entering upon a much stiffer campaign than he had anticipated. Atwater's dealings were, and for years had been, with men of large fortune—industrial "kings," great bankers, huge investors. Such men are as timid as a hen with a brood. They will fight fiercely—if they must—for their brood of millions. But they would rather run than fight, and much rather go clucking and strutting along peacefully with their brood securely about them. To manage such men, after one has shown he knows where the worms are and how they may be got, all that is necessary is inflexible, tyrannical firmness. Their minds, their hearts, their all, is centered in the brood; personal emotions, they have none—that is, none that need be taken into account. Atwater ruled, autocratic, undisputed. Who would dare quarrel with such a liberal provider of the best worms?But Armstrong's personality presented another proposition. Here was a man with no fortune, not even enough to have roused into a fierce passion the universal craving for wealth. He had a will, a brain, courage—and nothing to lose. And he, still comparatively poor, had succeeded in lifting himself to a position of not merely nominal but actual power. The misgivings of Atwater had been growing steadily. The price of pulling down this man might too easily be far, far beyond its profits. "We shall have to come together for a finish fight sooner or later—if I live," reasoned Atwater. "But this is not the best time I could have chosen. He isn't deeply enough involved. He isn't helpless enough. I'm breaking my rule never to fight until I'm ready and the other fellow isn't."Instead of answering Trafford's pointed and anxious question, Atwater was humming softly. "I can't get that movement out of my head," he broke off to explain. "I'm very fond of Grieg—aren't you?""I know about music only in the most general way. My wife——""You let your women attend to the family culture, eh?" interrupted Atwater. "You originally suggested this war on Fosdick and Armstrong. By the way, you heard the news this afternoon? Armstrong has thrown out the whole executive staff of the O.A.D.—at one swoop—and has put in his own crowd."Trafford leaped in the great leather chair in which his small body was all but swallowed up. "Impossible!" he cried. "Why, such a thing would be illegal.""Undoubtedly. But—how many years would it be before a court can pass on it—pass on it finally? Meanwhile, Armstrong is in possession.""That completely alters the situation," said Trafford, in dismay. "Atwater, it would be folly—madness!—for us to go on, if we could make a treaty with Armstrong.""I don't agree with you," said Atwater, with perfect assurance now that he saw that Trafford would not call his bluff by acquiescing. "Trafford, I'm surprised; you're losing your nerve.""Using sound business judgment is not cowardice," retorted Trafford. "I owe it to my family, to the stability of business, not to encourage a senseless, a calamitous war."Atwater shrugged his shoulders. "As you please. I feel that, in this affair, your wishes are paramount. But, at the same time, Trafford, I tell you frankly, I don't like to be trifled with. Nor does Langdon.""Perhaps Morris and Armstrong might be induced to turn their attention elsewhere—say, to the Busy Bee. Would you not feel compensated by getting control there?""Not a bad idea," mused Atwater aloud. "Not by any means a bad idea." He reflected in silence. "If you could arrange that, it would be even better than the plan you ask me to abandon at the eleventh hour.""Then you agree?" said Trafford, quivering with eagerness."If we can get the Busy Bee. I've had an eye on that chap Dillworthy, for some time.""I am much relieved," said Trafford, rising. His face was beaming; there was once more harmony between his expression and the aggressive, unbending cut of his hair and whiskers.Atwater looked at him sharply. "You've seen Armstrong," he jerked out.Trafford hesitated. "I thought," he said apologetically, "it would be best to have a general talk with Armstrong first—just to sound him.""I understand." Atwater laughed sarcastically. "And may I ask, if it wasn't the news of the upset in the O.A.D., what was it that set you to running about so excitedly?"Trafford gave a nervous cough. "My wife—you know how refined and sensitive she is— She got wind of the impending scandal, and, being very tender-hearted and also having a horror of notoriety, she urged me to try to find a peaceful way out.""Petticoats!" said Atwater, with derision, but tolerant."Not that I would have—" Trafford began to protest."No apology necessary. I comprehend. I've got them in the house."Trafford laughed, relieved. "The ladies are difficult at times," said he, "but, how would we do without them?""I don't know, I'm sure," said Atwater dryly. "I never had the good fortune of the opportunity to try it. What did Armstrong say, when you sounded him? I believe you called it 'sounding,' though I suspect— No matter. What did he say?""I think you may safely assume the matter is settled. In fact, Armstrong has shown a willingness to make peace.""Rather!" said Atwater, edging his visitor toward the door. "Good night," he added in the same breath; and he was rid of Trafford. He went slowly back to the piano, and resumed the interrupted symphony softly, saying every now and then, in a half sympathetic, half cynical undertone, "Poor Dillworthy! Poor devil!"
XXV
TWO WOMEN INTERVENE
"If I could find some way of detaching Trafford from Atwater," Armstrong had said to her as he was explaining. "But," he had added, "that's hopeless. He's more afraid of Atwater than of anybody or anything on earth—and well he may be." Neva seized upon the chance remark, without saying anything to him. She knew the Traffords well, knew therefore that there was one person of whom his fear was greater than of Atwater, and whose influence over him was absolute. Early the following morning she called the Traffords on the telephone. Mrs. Trafford was in the country, she learned, but would be home in the afternoon. Neva left a message that she wished particularly to see her; at five o'clock she was shown into the truly palatial room in which Mrs. Trafford always had tea.
"Narcisse has just left," said Mrs. Trafford. "She's been rummaging for me in Letty Morris's rag bag—you know, my husband bought it. She has found a few things, but not much. Still, Letty wasn't cheated any worse than most people. The trash! The trash!"
Neva was too intent upon her purpose to think of her surroundings that day; but she had often before been moved to a variety of emotions, none of them approaching admiration or approval or even tolerance, by Mrs. Trafford's procession of halls and rooms in gilt and carving and brocade, by the preposterous paintings, the glaring proclamation from every wall and every floor and every ceiling of the alternately arid and atrocious taste of the fashionable architects and connoisseurs to whom Mrs. Trafford had trusted. As in all great houses, the beauties were incidental and isolated, deformed by the general effect of coarse appeal to barbaric love of the thing that is gaudy and looks costly.
"You aren't going to move into Letty's house?" said Neva absently. She was casting about for some not too abrupt beginning.
"Heavens, no!" protested Mrs. Trafford, in horror and indignation. "John bought it—some time ago. I don't know why." She laughed. "But I do know he wishes he hadn't now. He wouldn't tell me the price he paid. I suspect he found out that he had made a bad bargain as soon as it was too late. There's some mystery about his buying that house. I don't—" Mrs. Trafford broke off. Well as she knew Neva, and intimate and confidential though she was with her, despite Neva's reserve—indeed, perhaps because of it—still, she was careful about Trafford's business. And Neva and Letty were cousins—not intimates or especially friendly, but nevertheless blood relations. "I suppose he's ashamed of not having consulted me," she ended.
"How is Mr. Trafford?" asked Neva. "I haven't seen him for months. He must be working very hard?"
"Hethinkshe is. But, my dear, I found the men out long, long ago, in their pretense of hard work. They talk a great deal downtown, and smoke and eat a great deal. But they work very little—even those that have the reputation of working the hardest. Business—with the upper class men—is a good deal like fishing, I guess. They spread their nets or drop their hooks and wait for fish. My husband is killing himself, eating directors' lunches. You know, they provide a lunch for the directors, for those that meet every day—and give them a ten- or twenty-dollar gold piece for eating it. It's a huge dinner—a banquet, and all that have any digestion left stuff themselves. No wonder the women hold together so much better than the men. If the men had to wear our clothes, what sights they would be!"
Neva returned to the business about which she had come. "They're having an investigating committee down there now, aren't they?"
"Not to investigate their diet," said Mrs. Trafford. "There'd be some sense in that. I suppose it's another of those schemes of the people who haven't anything, to throw discredit on the men who do the work of the world. Universal suffrage is a great mistake. Only the propertied class ought to be allowed to vote, don't you think so? Mr. Trafford says it's getting positively dreadful, the corruption good men have to resort to, with the legislatures and with buying elections, all because everybody can vote."
"I've not given the subject much thought," said Neva. "I heard— Some one was talking about the investigating committee—and said it was the beginning of another war downtown."
Mrs. Trafford looked amused. "I didn't dream you had any interest in that sort of thing. I don't see how you can be interested. I never let my husband talk business to me."
"Usually I'm not interested," said Neva, now fairly embarked and at ease. "But this particular thing was—different. It seems, there are two factions fighting for control of some insurance companies, and each is getting ready to accuse the other of the most dreadful things. Mr. Atwater's faction is going to expose Mr. Fosdick's, and Mr. Fosdick's is going to expose Mr. Atwater's."
Mrs. Trafford's expression had changed. "Neva, you've got a reason for telling me this," said she.
"Yes," frankly admitted Neva.
"Why?"
"Because I thought you—Mr. Trafford—ought to be warned of what's coming."
"Whatiscoming?"
"I don't know all the details. But, among other things, there's to be a frightful personal attack on Mr. Trafford because he is one of Mr. Atwater's allies. Mr. Atwater thinks, or pretends, he can prevent it; but he can't. The attack is sure to come."
"They couldn't truthfully say anything against Mr. Trafford," said his wife, with a heat that was genuine, yet perfunctory, too. "He's human, of course. But I who have lived with him all these years can honestly say that he spends his whole life in trying to do good. He slaves for the poor people who have their little all invested with his company." Neva had not smiled, but Mrs. Trafford went on, as if she had: "I suppose you're thinking that sounds familiar. Oh, I know every man downtown pretends he is working only for the good of others, to keep business going, and to give labor steady employment, when of course he's really working to get rich, and— Well,somebodymust be losing all this money that's piling up in the hands of a few people who spend it in silly, wicked luxury. Now, we have always frowned on that sort of thing. We—Mr. Trafford and I—set our faces against extravagance and simply live comfortably. He often says, 'I don't know what the country's coming to. The men downtown, the leaders, seem to have gone mad. They have no sense of responsibility. They aren't content with legitimate profits, but grab, grab, until I wonder people don't rise up.' And he says they will, though, of course, that wouldn't do any good, as things'd just settle back and the same old round would begin all over again. If people won't look after their own property, they can't expect to keep it, can they?"
"No," assented Neva. "Still—I sometimes wonder that the robbing should be done by the class of men that does it. One would think he wouldn't need to protect himself against those who claim to be the leaders in honesty and honor. It's as if one should have to lock up all the valuables if the bishop came to spend the night."
"There's the shame of it!" exclaimed Mrs. Trafford. "Sometimes Trafford tells me about the men that come here, the really fine, distinguished, gentlemanly ones—well, if I could repeat some of the things to you!"
"I should think," suggested Neva, "it would be dangerous to have business dealings with such men. If trouble came, people might not discriminate."
Mrs. Trafford caught the under-meaning in Neva's words and tone. She reflected a moment—thoughts that made her curiously serious—before replying, "Sometimes I'm afraid my husband will get himself into just that sort of miserable mess. He is so generous and confiding, and he believes so implicitly in some of those men whom I don't believe in at all. Tell me, Neva, are you sure—about that attack, and about Mr. Atwater's being mistaken?"
"There isn't a doubt of it," replied Neva. "Mr. Trafford ought not to let anything anyone says to the contrary influence him." And Mrs. Trafford's opinion of her directness and honesty gave her words the greatest possible weight.
"I'm ever so much obliged to you, dear," said she. "It isn't often one gets a proof of real friendship in this walk of life."
"I didn't do it altogether for your sake," replied Neva. "It seemed to me, from what I heard, that the men downtown were rushing on to do things that would result in no good and much harm and—unhappiness. I suppose, if evil has been done, it ought to be exposed; but I think, too, that no good comes of malicious and vengeful exposures."
"Especially exposures that tend to make the lower classes suspicious and unruly," said Mrs. Trafford.
Neva colored and glanced at the two strapping men-servants who were removing the tea table. But Mrs. Trafford was quite unconscious. A few years before, when the English foreign habit of thinking and talking about "lower classes" was first introduced, she had indulged in it sparingly and nervously. But, falling in with the fashion of her set, she had become as bold as the rest of these spoiled children of democracy in spitting upon the parents and grandparents. It no longer ever occurred to her to question the meaning of the glib, smug, ignorant phrase; and, like the rest, she did not even restrain herself before the "lower classes" themselves. It was a settled conviction with her that she was of different clay from the working people, the doers of manual labor, that their very minds and souls were different; the fact that they seemed to think and act in much the same way as the "upper classes" would have struck her, had she thought about it at all, as a phenomenon not unlike the almost human performances of a well-trained, unusually intelligent monkey. Indeed, she often said, without being aware of the full implication of the speech, "In how many ways our servants are like us!"
Neva went away, dissatisfied, depressed, as if she were retreating in defeat. She felt that she had gained her point; she understood Mrs. Trafford, knew that her dominant passion of spotless respectability had been touched, that the fears which would stir her most deeply had been aroused; Mrs. Trafford, worldly shrewd, would put her husband through a cross-examination which would reveal to her the truth, and would result in her bringing to bear all her authority over him. And she knew that Mrs. Trafford could compel her husband, where no force which Armstrong could have brought to bear downtown would have the least effect upon him. "I think I've won," Neva said to herself; but her spirits continued to descend. Before the victory, she had thought only about winning, not at all about what she was struggling for. Now she could think only of that—the essential.
Like almost all women and all but a few men, Neva was densely ignorant of and wholly uninterested in business—the force that has within a few decades become titanic and has revolutionized the internal as well as the external basis of life as completely as if we had been whisked away to another planet. She still talked and tried to think in the old traditional lines in which the books, grave and light, are still written and education is still restricted—although those lines have as absolutely ceased to bear upon our real life as have the gods of the classic world. It had never occurred to her that what the men did when they went to their offices involved the whole of society in all its relations, touched her life more intimately than even her painting. But, without her realizing it, the idea had gradually formed in her mind that the proceedings downtown were morally not unlike the occupation of coal-heaver or scavenger physically. How strong this impression was she did not know until she had almost reached home, revolving the whole way the thoughts that had started as Trafford's bronze doors closed behind her.
She recalled all Armstrong and others had told her about the sources of Trafford's wealth—Trafford, with his smooth, plausible personality that left upon the educated palate an after taste like machine oil. From Trafford her thoughts hastened on to hover and cluster about the real perplexity—Armstrong himself—what he had confessed to her; worse still, what he had told her as matter-of-course, had even boasted as evidence of his ability at this game which more and more clearly appeared to her as a combination of sneak-thieving and burglary. And heavier and heavier grew her heart. "I have done a shameful thing," she said to herself, as the whole repulsive panorama unrolled before her.
She was in the studio building, was going up in the elevator. Just as it was approaching her landing, Thomas, the elevator boy, gave a sigh so penetrating that she was roused to look at him, to note his expression.
"What is it, Thomas?" she asked. "Can I do anything for you?"
"Nothing—nothing—thank you," said Thomas. "It's all over now. I was just thinking back over it."
She saw a band of crape round his sleeve. "You have lost some one?" she said gently.
"My father," replied the boy. "He died day before yesterday. And we had to have the money for the funeral. We're all insured to provide for that. And my mother went down to collect father's insurance. It was for a hundred and twenty-five dollars. We'd paid in a hundred and forty on the policy, it had been running so long. And when my mother went to collect, they told her they couldn't get it through and pay it for about three weeks—and she had to have the money right away. So, they told her to go down to some offices on the floor below—it was a firm that's in cahoots with them insurance sharks. And she went, and they give her eighty-two dollars for the policy—and she had to take it because we had to bury father right away. Only, they didn't give her cash. They gave her a credit with an undertaker—he's in cahoots, too. And it took all the eighty-two dollars, and father was buried like a pauper, at that. I tell you, Miss Carlin, it's mighty hard." His voice broke. "Them rich people make a fellow pay for being poor and having no pull. That's the way we get it soaked to us, right and left, especially in sickness or hard luck or death."
Neva lingered, though she could not trust herself to speak.
"You wouldn't think," Thomas went on, "that such things'd be done by such a company as——"
"Don't!" cried Neva, pressing her hands hysterically to her ears. "I mustn't hear what company it was!"
And she rushed from the car and fled into her apartment, all unstrung. At last, at last, she not merely knew but felt, and felt with all her sensitive heart, the miseries of thousands, of hundreds of thousands, out of which those "great men" wrought their careers—those "great men" of whom her friend Armstrong was one!
Trafford reached home at half past six and, following his custom, went directly to his dressing room. Instead of his valet, he found his wife—seated before the fire, evidently waiting for him. "Is the door closed?" she said. "And you'd better draw the curtain over it."
"Well, well," he cried, all cheerfulness. "What now? Have the servants left in a body?" It had been a banner day downtown, with several big nets he had helped to set filled to overflowing, and the fish running well at all his nets, seines, lines, and trap-ponds. He felt the jolly fisherman, at peace with God and man, brimming generosity.
"I want to talk to you about that investigation," said his wife in a tone that cleared his face instantly of all its sparkling good humor.
"Whatever started you in that direction?" he exclaimed. "Don't bother your head about it, my dear. There'll be no investigation. Not that I was afraid of it. Thank God, I've always tried to live as if each moment were to be my last."
"Mr. Atwater is going to attack Mr. Fosdick, isn't he?"
Trafford showed his amazement. "Why, where did you hearthat?"
"And he thinks Mr. Fosdick and his friends won't be able to retort," continued Mrs. Trafford. "Well, he's mistaken. They are going to retort. And you are the man they'll attack the most furiously."
Trafford sat down abruptly. All the men who are able to declare for themselves and their families such splendid dividends in cash upon a life of self-sacrifice to humanity, are easily perturbed by question or threat of question. Trafford, with about as much courage as a white rabbit, had only to imagine the possibility of being looked at sharply, to be thrown into inward tremors like the beginnings of sea-sickness.
"It don't matter," continued his wife, "whether you are innocent or not. They are going to hold you up to public shame."
"Who told you this?"
"Neva."
"She must have got it from the Morrises—or Armstrong."
"She came here especially to tell me, and she would not have come if she did not know it was serious."
"They sent her here to frighten me," said Trafford. "Yes, that's it!" And he rose and paced the floor, repeating now aloud and now to himself, "That's it! That's undoubtedly it."
"Tell me the whole story," commanded his wife, when the limit of her patience with his childishness had been reached. "You need an outside point of view."
She had told Neva she never permitted Trafford to talk business with her. In fact, he consulted her at every crisis, both to get courage and to get advice. He now hastened to comply. "It's very simple. Some time ago, a few of us who like to see things run on safe, conservative lines, decided that Fosdick's and Armstrong's management of the O.A.D. was a menace to stability. Armstrong and Fosdick had quarreled. It was Armstrong who came to us and suggested our interfering. I thought the man was honest, and I did everything I could to help him and Morris."
"Including buying Morris's house," interjected Mrs. Trafford, to prevent him from so covering the truth with cant that it would be invisible to her.
"That did figure in it," admitted Trafford, in some confusion. "Then, we found out they were simply using us to get control of the O.A.D. for themselves. So we—Atwater and Langdon and I—arranged quietly to drop them into their own trap. We've done it—that's all. Next week we're going to expose them and their false committee; and the policy holders of the O.A.D. will be glad to put their interests in the hands of men we can keep in order. Fosdick and Armstrong can't retaliate. We've got the press with us, and have made every arrangement. Anything they say will be branded at once as malicious lies."
"What kind of malicious lies will they tell?"
"How should I know?" And Trafford preened, with his small, precisely clad figure at its straightest.
"But you do know," said Mrs. Trafford slowly and with acidlike significance.
Trafford made no reply in words. His face, however, was eloquent.
"You've been hypnotized by Atwater," pursued Mrs. Trafford. "You think him more powerful than he is. And—he isn't in any insurance company directly, is he?"
"No."
"Mr. Langdon?"
"No—they keep in the background." Trafford's upper lip was trembling so that she could see it despite his mustache.
"Then you'll be right out in front of the guns. You—alone."
"There aren't any guns."
"I'm surprised at you!" exclaimed his wife. "Don't you know Horace Armstrong better than that!"
"The treacherous hound!"
"He has his bad side, I suppose, like everybody else," said Mrs. Trafford, who felt that it was not wise to humor him in his prejudices that evening. "His character isn't important just now. It's his ability you've got to consider."
"Atwater's got him helpless."
"Impossible!" declared Mrs. Trafford, in a voice that would have been convincing to him, had her words and his own doubts been far less strong. "You may count on it that there's to be a frightful attack on you next week. Neva Carlin knew what she was about."
"There's nothing they can say—nothing that anybody'd believe." His whiskers and his hair were combed to give him a resolute, courageous air. The contrast between this artificial bold front and the look and voice now issuing from it was ludicrous and pitiful.
Mrs. Trafford flashed scorn at him. "What nonsense!" she exclaimed. "I never heard of a big business that could stand it to have the doors thrown open and the public invited to look where it pleased. I doubt if yours is an exception, whatever you may think."
"But the doors won't be thrown open," he pleaded rather than protested. "Our private business will remain private."
"Armstrong is going to attack you, I tell you. He's not the man to fire unless he has a shot in his gun—and powder behind it."
"But he can't. He knows nothing against me." And Trafford seated himself as if he were squelching his own doubts and fears.
"He knows as much about the inside of your company as you know about the inside of his. You can assume that."
Trafford shifted miserably in his chair.
"What reason have you to suppose that as keen a man as he is would not make it his business to find out all about his rivals?"
"What if he does know?" blustered Trafford. "To hear you talk, my dear, you'd think I ran some sort of—of a"—with a nervous little laugh—"an unlawful resort."
"I know you wouldn't do anything you thought was wrong," replied his wife, in a strained, insincere voice. "But—sometimes the public doesn't judge things fairly."
"People who have risen to our position must expect calumny." He was of the color of fear and his fingers and his mouth and his eyelids were twitching.
"What difference would it make to Atwater and Langdon, if you were disgraced?" she urged. "Mightn't they even profit by it?"
At this he jumped up, and began to pace the floor. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he cried. "To put suspicion in my head against these honorable men!"
"I want you to protect yourself and your family," she retorted crushingly. "The temptation to make a little more money, or a good deal more, ought not to lead you to risk your reputation. Look at the men that were disgraced by that last investigation."
"But they had done wrong."
"They don't think so, do they? How do you know what some of the things you've done will look like when they're blazoned in the newspapers?"
"I'm not afraid!" declaimed Trafford, fright in his eyes and in his noisy voice.
"No," said his wife soothingly. "Of course, you've done nothing wrong. You needn't tellmethat. But it's just as bad to be misunderstood as to be guilty."
During the silence which fell he paced the floor like a man running away, and she gazed thoughtfully into the fire. When she spoke again it was with a subdued, nervous manner and as if she were telling him something which she wished him to think she did not understand. "One day I was driving in the East Side, looking after some of my poor. There was a block—in the Hester Street market. A crowd got around the carriage, and a man—a dreadful, dirty, crazy-eyed creature—called out, 'There's the wife of the blood-sucker Trafford, that swindles the poor on burial insurance!' And the crowd hissed and hooted at me, and shook their fists. And a woman spat into the carriage." Mrs. Trafford paused before going on: "I get a great many anonymous letters. I never have worried you about these things. You have your troubles, and I knew it was all false. But——"
Her voice ceased. For several minutes, oppressive and menacing silence brooded over that ostentatious room. Its costly comforts and costlier luxuries weighed upon the husband and wife, so far removed from the squalor of those whose earnings had been filched to create this pitiful, yet admired, flaunting of vanity. Finally he said, speaking almost under his breath, "What would you advise me to do?"
Although she had long had ready her answer to that inevitable question, she waited before replying. "Not to pull Atwater's chestnuts out of the fire for him," said she slowly. "Stop the attack. I've an instinct that evil will come of it—evil to us. Let Armstrong alone. If he's not managing his business right, what concern is it of yours? And if you try to get it, what if, instead of making money, you lose your reputation—maybe, more? What does Atwater risk? Nothing. What does Langdon risk? Nothing. What do you risk? Everything. That's not sensible, is it?"
"But I can't go back on Atwater," he objected in the tone that begs to be overruled. "Armstrong would attack me, anyhow, and I'd simply have both sides against me."
She turned upon him, amazed, terrified. "Do you mean to say you've got no hold on Atwater?" she exclaimed.
"I am a gentleman, dealing with gentlemen," said he, with dignity.
She made a gesture of contempt. "But suppose Atwater should prove not to be a gentleman—what then?"
"He'd hesitate to play fast and loose with me," Trafford now confessed. "He owes our allied institutions too many millions."
"Oh," she said, relieved. Then—"And what precaution has he taken against your deserting him?"
"None, so far as I know, except that he would probably join in Armstrong's attack. But, my dear, you entirely misunderstand. Atwater and I have the same interests. We——"
"I know, I know," she interrupted impatiently. "What I'm trying to get at is how you can induce him to come to an agreement with Armstrong. Can you think of no way?"
"I had never contemplated this emergency," he replied apologetically. His conduct now seemed to him to have been headlong, imbecile.
"You must do something this very night," said his wife. "There might be a change of plan on one side or the other. You must see that your position, unprotected among these howling beasts, is perilous."
At that, Trafford fell to trembling so violently that, ashamed though he was to have any human being, even his wife, see the coward in him, he yet could not steady himself. "I can offer Armstrong peace and a voice in our company. If he accepts, I can stop Atwater. I can frankly show him that I am not prepared to withstand an attack and that it is surely coming. He will not refuse. He won't dare. Besides—" He stopped suddenly.
"Besides—what?"
"It is upon me—upon my men—that Atwater relies to make the attack. He hasn't the necessary information—at least, I don't think he has."
Mrs. Trafford gave a long sigh of relief. "Why didn't you say that at first?" she cried. "All you have to do is to put Atwater off and make terms with Armstrong."
"Atwater is a very dangerous man to have as an enemy."
"But he's not a fool. He'll never blame you for saving yourself from destruction."
Neither seemed to realize how much of their secret thought—thought not clearly admitted even to their secret selves—was revealed in her using that terrible word, and in his accepting it.
He glanced at his watch. "I think I'll go now."
"Yes, indeed," said she. "This is the best time to catch them. They'll be dressing for dinner."
And he hurried away.
XXVI
TRAFFORD AS DOVE OF PEACE
As Trafford sprang from his cab at Armstrong's hotel, Armstrong was just entering the door. "Mr. Armstrong! Mr. Armstrong!" he cried, hastening after him.
The big, easy-going-looking Westerner—still the Westerner, though his surface was thoroughly Easternized—turned and glanced quizzically down at the small, prim-looking Trafford. "Hello! What do you want?"
"To see you for a few minutes, if it is quite convenient," replied Trafford, still more nervous before Armstrong's good-natured contempt.
"A very few minutes," conceded the big man. "I've a pressing engagement."
They went up to his apartment. As he opened the door, he saw a note on the threshold. "Excuse me," he said, picking it up, and so precipitate that he did not stand aside to let Trafford enter first. In the sitting room he turned on the light, tore open the note and read; and Trafford noted with dismay that, as he read, his face darkened. It was a note from Neva, saying that she had just got a telegram from home, that her father was ill; she had scrawled the note as she and Molly were rushing away to catch the train. He glanced up, saw Trafford. "Oh—beg pardon—sit down." And he read the note again; and again his mind wandered away into the gloom. Once more, after a moment or two, his eyes reminded him of Trafford. "Beg pardon—a most annoying message— Do sit down. Have a cigar?"
"Not at present, thank you," said Trafford in his precise way, reminiscent of the far days when he had taught school.
"Well—what can I do for you?" inquired Armstrong, adding to himself, "This is Atwater's first move." But he was not interested; his mind was on Neva, on the note that had chilled him—"unreasonably," he muttered, "yet, she might have put in just the one word—or something."
Trafford saw that he had no part of Armstrong's attention. He coughed.
"If you can give me—" he began.
"Yes, yes," said Armstrong impatiently. "What is it? You can't expect me to be enthusiastic, exactly, about you, you know. I didn't expect anything of the others; but I was idiot enough to think you weren't altogether shameless—you, the principal owner of the Hearth and Home!" Armstrong's sarcasm was savage.
"You are evidently laboring under some misapprehension, Mr. Armstrong," cried Trafford, pulling at his neat little beard, while one of his neat little feet tapped the carpet agitatedly.
"Bosh!" said Armstrong. "I know all about you. Don't lie to me. What do you want? Come to the point!"
There was a pink spot in each of Trafford's cheeks. "I have been much distressed," said he, "at the confusion downtown, at the strained relations between interests that ought to be working together in harmony for the general good." Armstrong's frown hastened him. "I have come to see if it isn't possible to bring about good feeling and peace."
"You come from Atwater?"
"No—that is—Frankly, no."
Armstrong rose with a gesture of dismissal. "We're wasting time. Atwater is the man. Unless you have some authority from him, I'll not detain you."
"But, my dear sir," cried Trafford, in a ferment to the very depths now, because convinced by Armstrong's manner that he was not dealing with a beaten man but with one champing for the fray. "You do not seem to hear me," he implored. "I tell you I can make terms. In this matter Atwater is dependent upon me."
"You've come about the attack he's going to make on the O.A.D.?"
"Precisely. I've come to arrange to stop it, to say I wish to make no attack."
"You mean, you don't wish to be attacked," rejoined Armstrong with a cold laugh that made Trafford's flesh creep. "By the time Morris gets through with you, I don't see how you can possibly be kept out of the penitentiary. He has all the necessary facts. I think he can compel you to disgorge at least two thirds of what you've stolen and salted away. I don't see where you got the courage to go into a fight, when you're such an easy target. The wonder is you weren't caught and sent up years ago."
"This is strange language, very strange language," said Trafford in an injured tone, and not daring to pretend or to feel insulted. "I am surprised, Mr. Armstrong, that you should use it in your own house."
"I didn't ask you here. You thrust yourself in," Armstrong reminded him, but his manner was less savage.
"True, I did come of my own accord. And I still venture to hope that you will see the advantages of a peaceful solution."
"What do you propose?—in as few words as possible," said Armstrong, still believing Trafford was trying to trifle with him, for some hidden purpose.
"To call off our attack," Trafford answered, "provided you will agree to call off yours. To give you a liberal representation in our board of directors, including a member of the executive committee."
Armstrong was astounded. He could not believe that Trafford's humble, eager manner was simulated. Yet, these terms, this humiliating surrender of assured victory—it was incredible. "You will have to explain just how you happened to come here," said he, "or I shall be unable to believe you."
The pink spots which had faded from Trafford's cheeks reappeared. "It was my wife," he replied. "She heard there was to be a scandal. She has a horror of notoriety—you know how refined and sensitive she is. She would not let me rest until I had promised to do what I could to bring about peace."
Armstrong was secretly scorning his own stupidity. He had spent days, weeks on just this problem of breaking up the combination against him, of separating Trafford or Langdon from Atwater; and the simple, easy, obvious way to do it had never occurred to him, who dealt only with the men and disregarded the women as negligible factors in affairs. To Trafford he said, "You've not seen Atwater?"
"No, but I shall go to him as soon as I have some assurance from you."
Atwater—there was the rub. Armstrong felt that the time to hope had not yet come. Still he would not discourage Trafford. He simply said, "I can't give any assurance until I consult Morris."
"But, as I understand it—at least, his original motive was simply a political ambition. We can easily gratify that."
"He wants fireworks—something that'll make the popular heart warm up to him. He has a long head. He wants some basis, at least, in popularity, so that he won't be quite at the mercy of you gentlemen, should you turn against him."
"I see—I see," said Trafford. "He was counting on the reputation he would make as an inquisitor. Yes, that would give him quite a push. But—there ought to be plenty of other matters he might safely and even, perhaps, beneficially, inquire into. For instance, there is the Bee Hive Mutual—a really infamous swindle. I've had dealings with many unattractive characters in the course of my long business career, Mr. Armstrong, but with none so repellent in every way as Dillworthy. He has made that huge institution a private graft for himself and his family. He is shocking, even in this day of loose conceptions of honesty and responsibility."
"Have you any facts?"
"Some, and they are at Mr. Morris's disposal. But all he needs to do is to send for the books of the Bee Hive. I am credibly informed—you can rely on it—that the Dillworthys have got so bold that they do not even look to the books. The grafting in that company is quite as extensive and as open as in our large industrial and railway corporations—and, you know, they haven't profited by the lesson we in the insurance companies had in the great investigation."
"Your proposal will content Morris, I think," Armstrong now said. "As the Dillworthys aren't entangled with any of the other large interests, showing them up will not cause a spreading agitation." He laughed. "There's a sermon against selfishness! If old Dillworthy hadn't been so greedy, so determined to keep it all in the family, he wouldn't be in this position."
"There will be general satisfaction over his exposure," replied Trafford. "And it will greatly benefit, tone up, the whole business world."
"Really, it's our Christian duty to concentrate on the Busy Bee, isn't it?" said Armstrong sardonically. "Well— Can you see Atwater to-night?"
"I'm going direct to his house. But where shall I find you? You said you had an engagement."
Armstrong winced as if a wound had been roughly set to aching. "I'll be here," he said gruffly.
"We might dine together, perhaps? Atwater may be able to come, too."
"No—can't do it," was Armstrong's reply. "But I'll be here from half past eight on."
Trafford, so much encouraged that he was almost serene again, sped away to Atwater's palace in Madison Avenue. The palace was a concession to Mrs. Atwater and the daughters. They loved display and had the tastes that always accompany that passion; they, therefore, lived in the unimaginative and uncomfortable splendor of the upper class heaven that is provided by the makers of houses and furniture, whose one thought, naturally, is to pile on the cost and thus multiply the profits.
But Atwater had part of the house set aside for and dedicated to his own personal satisfaction. With the same sense of surprise that one has at the abrupt transition of a dream from one phantasy to another resembling it in no way except as there is a resemblance in flat contradictions, one passed out of the great, garish, price-encrusted entrance hall, through a door to the left into a series of really beautiful rooms—spacious, simple, solidly furnished; with quiet harmonies of color, with no suggestions of mere ornamentation anywhere. The Siersdorfs had built and furnished the whole house, and its double triumph was their first success. With the palace part they had pleased the Atwater women and the crowd of rich eager to display; with the part sacred to Atwater, they had delighted him and such people as formed their ideas of beauty upon beauty itself and not upon fashion or tradition or outlay. Trafford was shown into a music room where Atwater was playing on the piano, as he did almost every evening for an hour before dinner. It was a vast room, walls and ceilings paneled in rosewood; there were no hangings, except at the windows valances of velvet of a rosewood tint, relieved by a broad, dull gold stripe; a few simple articles of furniture; Boris Raphael's famous "Music" on the wall opposite the piano, and no other picture; a huge vase of red and gold chrysanthemums at the opposite side of the room to balance the painting; Atwater at the piano, in a dark red, velvet house suit, over it a silk robe of a somewhat lighter shade of red, as the room was not heated.
"Business?" he said, pausing in his playing, with a careless, unfriendly glance at Trafford.
"I'll only trouble you a moment," apologized the intruder. His prim, strait-laced appearance gave those surroundings, made sensuous by Boris's intoxicatingly sensuous picture, an air of impropriety, of immorality—like a woman in Quaker dress among the bare shoulders, backs, and bosoms of a ballroom.
"Business!" exclaimed Atwater, rising. "Not in this room, if you please."
He led the way to a smaller room with a billiard table in the center and great leather seats and benches round the walls. "Do you play, Trafford? Music, I mean."
"I regret to say, I do not," replied Trafford.
"Then you ought to get a mechanical piano. Music in the evening is like a bath after a day in the trenches. Try it. It'll soothe you, put you into a better condition for the next day's bout. What can I do for you?"
"I've come about the O.A.D. matter. Atwater, don't you think we might lose more than we stand to gain?"
Atwater concealed his satisfaction. Since his talk with Armstrong, he had been remeasuring with more care that young man's character, and had come to the conclusion that he was entering upon a much stiffer campaign than he had anticipated. Atwater's dealings were, and for years had been, with men of large fortune—industrial "kings," great bankers, huge investors. Such men are as timid as a hen with a brood. They will fight fiercely—if they must—for their brood of millions. But they would rather run than fight, and much rather go clucking and strutting along peacefully with their brood securely about them. To manage such men, after one has shown he knows where the worms are and how they may be got, all that is necessary is inflexible, tyrannical firmness. Their minds, their hearts, their all, is centered in the brood; personal emotions, they have none—that is, none that need be taken into account. Atwater ruled, autocratic, undisputed. Who would dare quarrel with such a liberal provider of the best worms?
But Armstrong's personality presented another proposition. Here was a man with no fortune, not even enough to have roused into a fierce passion the universal craving for wealth. He had a will, a brain, courage—and nothing to lose. And he, still comparatively poor, had succeeded in lifting himself to a position of not merely nominal but actual power. The misgivings of Atwater had been growing steadily. The price of pulling down this man might too easily be far, far beyond its profits. "We shall have to come together for a finish fight sooner or later—if I live," reasoned Atwater. "But this is not the best time I could have chosen. He isn't deeply enough involved. He isn't helpless enough. I'm breaking my rule never to fight until I'm ready and the other fellow isn't."
Instead of answering Trafford's pointed and anxious question, Atwater was humming softly. "I can't get that movement out of my head," he broke off to explain. "I'm very fond of Grieg—aren't you?"
"I know about music only in the most general way. My wife——"
"You let your women attend to the family culture, eh?" interrupted Atwater. "You originally suggested this war on Fosdick and Armstrong. By the way, you heard the news this afternoon? Armstrong has thrown out the whole executive staff of the O.A.D.—at one swoop—and has put in his own crowd."
Trafford leaped in the great leather chair in which his small body was all but swallowed up. "Impossible!" he cried. "Why, such a thing would be illegal."
"Undoubtedly. But—how many years would it be before a court can pass on it—pass on it finally? Meanwhile, Armstrong is in possession."
"That completely alters the situation," said Trafford, in dismay. "Atwater, it would be folly—madness!—for us to go on, if we could make a treaty with Armstrong."
"I don't agree with you," said Atwater, with perfect assurance now that he saw that Trafford would not call his bluff by acquiescing. "Trafford, I'm surprised; you're losing your nerve."
"Using sound business judgment is not cowardice," retorted Trafford. "I owe it to my family, to the stability of business, not to encourage a senseless, a calamitous war."
Atwater shrugged his shoulders. "As you please. I feel that, in this affair, your wishes are paramount. But, at the same time, Trafford, I tell you frankly, I don't like to be trifled with. Nor does Langdon."
"Perhaps Morris and Armstrong might be induced to turn their attention elsewhere—say, to the Busy Bee. Would you not feel compensated by getting control there?"
"Not a bad idea," mused Atwater aloud. "Not by any means a bad idea." He reflected in silence. "If you could arrange that, it would be even better than the plan you ask me to abandon at the eleventh hour."
"Then you agree?" said Trafford, quivering with eagerness.
"If we can get the Busy Bee. I've had an eye on that chap Dillworthy, for some time."
"I am much relieved," said Trafford, rising. His face was beaming; there was once more harmony between his expression and the aggressive, unbending cut of his hair and whiskers.
Atwater looked at him sharply. "You've seen Armstrong," he jerked out.
Trafford hesitated. "I thought," he said apologetically, "it would be best to have a general talk with Armstrong first—just to sound him."
"I understand." Atwater laughed sarcastically. "And may I ask, if it wasn't the news of the upset in the O.A.D., what was it that set you to running about so excitedly?"
Trafford gave a nervous cough. "My wife—you know how refined and sensitive she is— She got wind of the impending scandal, and, being very tender-hearted and also having a horror of notoriety, she urged me to try to find a peaceful way out."
"Petticoats!" said Atwater, with derision, but tolerant.
"Not that I would have—" Trafford began to protest.
"No apology necessary. I comprehend. I've got them in the house."
Trafford laughed, relieved. "The ladies are difficult at times," said he, "but, how would we do without them?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," said Atwater dryly. "I never had the good fortune of the opportunity to try it. What did Armstrong say, when you sounded him? I believe you called it 'sounding,' though I suspect— No matter. What did he say?"
"I think you may safely assume the matter is settled. In fact, Armstrong has shown a willingness to make peace."
"Rather!" said Atwater, edging his visitor toward the door. "Good night," he added in the same breath; and he was rid of Trafford. He went slowly back to the piano, and resumed the interrupted symphony softly, saying every now and then, in a half sympathetic, half cynical undertone, "Poor Dillworthy! Poor devil!"