PART SIXLOT & COMPANY: II
1
Bellairreached New York on a mid-May morning from the west, and walked up Seventh avenue to his old room. It was a time of day that he had seldom known the street and step. There was a different expression of daylight upon them. Of course, he had met these matters on many Sundays, but Sunday light and atmosphere was invariably different to his eyes—something foreign and false about it. He saw the old hall-mark, however, in the vestibule—the partial sweeping.... It had always been her way; all things a form. The vestibule and stone steps had to be swept—that was the law; to be swept with strength and thoroughness was secondary. He rang, and asked the servant for the woman of the house.
Waiting, he found himself in a singular depressionof mind. The City had cramped and bewildered him. A small oval of grey-white cloud appeared in the dark hall. It came nearer, and Bellair saw the face of dusty wax—smaller, a little lower from his eyes. It came very near, and was upturned. The vision was dim, and the memory; all the passages slow and cluttered.
“It is Mr. Bellair,” she said, without offering her hand.
“Yes. I’ve come back.”
“I haven’t a room—for you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“And about your things in storage—I would be glad for the space now. Could you take care of this to-day?’
“Yes,” he answered.
“I have the bill ready.”... She called the servant who came with the broom. “On my table among the papers you will find Mr. Bellair’s bill for storage. Please get it.”
Bellair heard the servant on the stairs, one, two, three flights; then a long silence. He had never been quite sure where the landlady slept, believing that she hovered from basement to sky-light according to the ebb and flow of the tenant tides. The double-doors from the hall to the lower front room were slightly ajar. This, the most expensive in the house, appeared to be vacant. The servant was gone a long time. The landlady did not leave him alone in the hall. They did not speak. Thedarkness crept upon Bellair as if he were in a tank that was slowly but surely being filled, and presently would cover him. The paper was brought, the charge for six months’ storage, meagre. Bellair paid it, and offered more. He thought of her hard life, but the extra money was passed back to him.
“I have that present in keeping,” she said.
“What present?”
“That you gave me the night you went away——”
“But I gave it to you. Would you not take a little gift from one who had been in your house five years?”
“Money easily got, goes the same,” she answered.
Then Bellair realised how stupid he had been. She had seen the newspapers. She had been afraid to trust him alone in that bare hall. The smell of carpets stifled him.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “But hold the present a little longer. Perhaps you will not always feel that it came so easily. I’ll send for my goods at once.... Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Bellair.”
He was ill. The side-door of a famous hotel yawned to him directly across the street from his step. He was not sure they would take him. Registering, he stopped to think where he was from, adding Auckland, N. Z.... Yes, his bagswould be brought from the station. They gave him a room, and Bellair stood in the centre of it.
For a few moments he actually weakened—limbs and mind. It wasn’t New York alone, nor the sordid incident across the street, reminding him so ruthlessly of Lot & Company and all that had been and was still to do; rather it was a giving way to a loneliness that had been rising for almost a month, wearing him to a shadow of himself, and giving him battle night and morning. Like many another solitary young man, he had brooded much upon what a certain woman might be. He had found that in those women he met, certain spaces must be filled in by his own compassion—and these spaces did not endure. Always in a test they separated from the reality. But the Faraway Woman day by day had fulfilled; even where his idealism failed, she completed the picture of the woman above him and of irresistible attraction.
She had come nearer and nearer. She was magic in this way. He had regarded her at first distantly and askance at the rail of theJade. A gasp now came from him. That was so impossible and long ago.... She had not called him any more than a peasant woman. And yet one after another her rarities had unfolded; it would always be so. She was the very fountain of romance to him; the essence of whose attraction is variablenessof days. Of all the days together, there had been no two alike—no two hours alike. He had watched her face under the light—never twice the same. The child, the maiden, the mother, the love-woman, the saint—lips passional, devotional ... then those wonder-moments when the old tragedies came back to her eyes.
They stirred him as if he had known her long ago; and yet nothing of this had come to him at first. How crude and coarse he had been not to see. Lot & Company and New York had covered her from his eyes. He had to fast and pray and concentrate upon her being, as a devotee upon the ball of crystal to begin upon her mysteries. Every man has his Lot & Company, his New York—the forces that bind him to the world. A man bound to the world can see but the body of a thing—the paint of a picture, just the outline and pigment of a picture or a bit of nature—just the body of a woman.
Something came to him that instant—of the perfect law of all things. Those caught in the body of events see but that, hear but that, anticipate but that—the very secret of all the misery and shortsightedness in the world. A man must rise, lift the centre of consciousness above the body of things, even to see physical matters in their true relation. It was all so thrillingly true to him in this glimpse—that a man can never see properly the sequence of his actions unless he can rise abovethem—that those in the ruck never know what they are about....
He tried to remember her face, as he stood in the hotel room. Failing, his mind returned to their days together. He was apart now and could view them, one by one, in their wonder and beauty. He was torn with them. At different times on the long voyage he had dwelt separately upon the episodes. Some had worn him to exhaustion. People on the ship had believed him a man with a great grief. At first, he looked about from face to face searching for some one whom he might tell, but there was no reception for his story. He had to stop and think that he was different and apart.... She had always been apart.
He had carried it alone, moving hushed and alone with his story; lying open-eyed in his berth through the hours of night, and often through the afternoons, an open book face downward upon his chest, his pipe cold ... living again the different moments in the rooms of the stone cottage, in the garden, on the shore; their journeys together, their breakfasts and luncheons and evenings together.
The boy was gone from him, from face and body. He did not know what had come instead, but he knew that he carried a creative image in his heart; something of the fragrance of her lingering about him. It had come to him at night alone on deck—the sweetness of her—on the wind. All that he wanted, all that he dreamed best of lifeand labour and love ... and yet after all, what had he to do with her in relation to these intimate things? Friend, companion, confidante—she was everything that a woman could be, except—— Had not the substance of that kind of giving died for her in the passing of the preacher?... Something of her story frightened him. She had learned the ultimate realness of loving. The man who entered her heart now would have to come with an immortal seal upon him. There was but one who could take up the fatherhood of the Gleam.... Bellair did not feel the man; did not know what she had given him; did not know what had come to him—to his face and carriage and voice. He had not yet lifted himself above so that he could see. Those whom he met, however, were struck with a different Bellair, and those who could not understand thought him touched a little queerly—as a man after sunstroke or any great light.
... It was now noon. He thought of his old friend, Broadwell, of the advertising-desk at Lot & Company. Perhaps Broadwell would dine with him. He called. The voice came back to him.... Yes, he would come at once. Bellair asked him to the hotel. In the interval he called the Trust company in whose keeping the thousand dollar surety had been, inquiring if Lot & Company had collected the amount. The answer was returned presently to the effect that Lot & Companyhad presented his release and collected the amount with interest four days after his departure.
Bellair hearkened to a faint singing somewhere within and found it had to do with Bessie. He called Brandt’s and ascertained that the same quartette was to sing there at nine in the evening. This was also one of the things he had come to do.
Broadwell was a trifle late, but all urbanity. There was something of the salesman’s manner and enunciation about him. Bellair fell away after the greeting, caught in a sort of mental flurry in which the picture of another luncheon engagement recurred to his mind—the day he had passed the desk and cage of Mr. Sproxley with the stranger named Filbrick, and his own telling of the cashier’s passionate honour.... When he came back to see clearly the face of Broadwell, he found that he personally was being scrutinised with odd intensity. Could it be that Broadwell had something more than a personal friendly interest? His questions did not seem adroit, and yet he wanted to know so much—of the ship, of Auckland, but especially of this long drive back to New York.
“Are you stopping here?” he asked.
“Yes. My old room was just opposite, but I was told that the house was full.”
“So you came here?”
“Yes.”
“And are you going to stay in New York?”
“I don’t know, Ben. There are a few things to see to.”
“Are you looking for a job?”
“Well, no. Not exactly, at least.”
Try as he might, Bellair could not feel free, as of old time. He felt the other wanted something, and this checked his every offering. He knew that Broadwell, at least six months before, could not have believed ill of Lot & Company, and there was no apparent change. The disclosure of the press must have righted itself in the office so far as he, Bellair, was concerned; surely Broadwell did not share the dread of him the landlady had shown; and yet, it was hard to broach these things. The advertising-man apparently had no intention of doing so.
“We’ve all missed you on the lower floor,” he said.
“Are there any changes?”
“Very few.”
“Who took my place?”
“Man from outside. Mr. Rawter brought in the man—middle-aged. Mr. Sproxley knew him, too.”
“Poor devil,” said Bellair, but not audibly. They had not dared to open the ledger revelations to any one in the office, but had found a man outside who was doubtless familiar withsuch books, doubtless one who had been deformed in the long, slow twistings of trade. Perhaps this one had children. Children were good for Lot & Company’s most trusted servants. It was well to have a number of children, like Mr. Sproxley—for their wants are many, and a man’s soul cannot breathe in the midst of many wants and small salary.
“Are you coming over to the office?”
“Yes, I find I have to. Some folks are taking the end Lot and Company gave the newspapers about my leaving. They were very much in a hurry about giving out that newspaper story—with the money in the vaults.”
Broadwell regarded him seriously. “I suppose they took the point of view that there could be but one motive for your leaving, without giving notice. Most firms would——”
“I wonder if most firms would?” Bellair asked. “Men have lapses other than falling into thievery. At least a firm should look up the facts in the case first. It’s a rather serious thing to charge a man with departure with funds. For instance, the public will glance through the details of such a charge, and miss entirely a denial afterward. Are you under bond?”
“No, I don’t handle company funds——”
“Suppose you were—and one night you came to the end of your rope—found you couldn’t go back—found it was a life or death matter of yoursoul, whether you went back or not. Still you had some salary coming and say a thousand dollars’ surety. You took this amount exactly—salary and bond and interest to the dollar, and left a note saying so, in place of the amount; also a note releasing to your firm the amount of the bond and interest, and stating clearly the item of salary—I say, would you expect to find yourself charged with embezzlement in next day’s paper?”
Broadwell’s shoulders straightened.
“Not in next day’s paper,” he said, with a smile.
Bellair did not miss the cut of this.
“You think that my case was not like that exactly?” he asked.
“I can’t see why a firm would give such a story to the press—unless they uncovered a loss,” Broadwell said slowly.
“Lot & Company couldn’t have uncovered a loss without looking in the very place where my note was, which proved there was no loss. Lot & Company couldn’t have collected my bond without proceedings—unless they found my release of it. And the bond was collected.”
“Then I can’t see any reason for incriminating—any one,” said Broadwell.
“Well, there was a reason—though the facts of my case are exactly as stated. Lot & Company had a reason. I haven’t decided whether itwill be necessary to make that known.... But I didn’t bring you here to discuss this affair. I wanted to seeyou——”
Just then Mr. Broadwell was paged. A messenger was said to be waiting for him in the lobby.
“Send him in,” Broadwell said thoughtlessly.
Davy Acton came, and Broadwell saw his error. Bellair perceived that his luncheon-companion had made known his engagement at the office before leaving....
“Sit down, Davy. I’m glad to see you——”
The boy had grown. Bellair noted that simple thing, as he noted the fact also that Davy was tortured with embarrassment, and had not meant to come in. He wriggled his hand forward to take Bellair’s, which was held toward his, and then looked down shamefacedly, as ifhehad been charged with theft. Bellair knew well that the boy’s trouble was how to meet him—formerly a friend, but now an outcast from the firm. A kind of darkness stole over him. He saw now that Broadwell believed him a thief, even as the landlady had believed; but in the case of neither of these did the dread finality come to him, as from the face of this stricken boy.
This was the thought that shot through Bellair’s mind, “No one liked Davy so well as I did; no one tried to help him as I did; and now he thinks my liking and my helping, a part ofthe looseness of character which made me a thief.”
The thought was strange, yet natural, too. It came into the darkness which had covered the abode of Bellair’s consciousness.
“A bit of copy—that I missed getting off,” Broadwell was saying. “I was excited when you called.... All right, Davy. I’ve told ’em where to find it on the back of the note.... And now Bellair—you were saying——”
2
Bellair watched for the turn on the part of Broadwell that would reveal the character of his message, for he did not believe the matter of the copy for the printer. The chill was thick between them, yet Bellair managed to say:
“I’m not here for reprisal or trouble-making. It’s rather a novelty to be innocent, yet charged with a thing; certainly one sees a look from the world that could come no other way. I want to see you again—soon. I’ve got a story to tell you. It was a big thing to me. We used to have things in common. I’d like to tell you the story and see how it strikes you——”
“Good. I’m to spare——”
“Suppose you come here to lunch to-morrow——”
“No, you come with me.”
“I’d prefer it the other way,” Bellair declared. “It’s my story you are to listen to.”
As they parted, there was just a trace of the old Broadwell, that left Bellair with a feeling of kindness.
“I’m interested to hear that story,” the advertising-man said. “It did something to you apparently. Pulled you down a lot—but that’s not all. I can’t make it out exactly—but you’ve got something, Bellair.”
That was a long afternoon.... He had been gone less than six months; and yet was as much a stranger, as a young man coming in from the West for the first time. The hours dragged. The City did not awe him, but so much of it struck him in places tender. He could give and give; there seemed no other way, no other thing to do. He sat on a bench in Union Square, and talked with an old man who needed money so badly that Bellair reflected for some time the best way to bestow it without shock. The old fellow looked so near gone, that one feared his heart would break under any undue pressure of excitement.
Bellair concluded he had better buy a stimulant first of all, so he led the way across the Square to Kiltie’s. They lined up against the bar, and warmed themselves, the idea in Bellair’s mind being to give something beside money. Now the old man (not in the least understanding more than it was the whim of the stranger to do somethingfor him), was so intent on what was to be done that he could not listen. Bellair had to come to the point. They went to a table for a bite of lunch, and the spectacle of a beggar’s mind opened—a story lacking imagination and told with the pitiful endeavour to fit into what was imagined to be the particular weakness of this listener.
For months, Bellair had not touched the little orbit of the trodden lives. The story was not true, for no single group of ten words hinged upon what had been said, or folded into the next statement. The old man was not simple, but his guile was simple, and the simplicity of that was obscene. Begging might be a fine art, but men chose or fell into their work without thought of making an art of it. The old man did not know his own tremendous drama. Had he dared plainly to be true, he would have captivated the world with his own poor faculties. Behind the affectations were glimpses of great realities—if only the fallen mind could accept his days and tell them as they came—just the imperishable fruits of his days. As it was, the whiskey swept them farther away, and the creature attempted to act; his pitiful conception of effects were called into being. The throb of it all was the way the world was brought back to Bellair. His whole past city life thronged into mind. This was but a shocking example of myriads of lives—trying to be what their undeveloped senses prompted for the moment, ratherthan to be themselves. This was the salesman’s voice and manner, he had seen in Broadwell.... He stopped his revery by handing over the present.
The old man’s eyes were wild now with hope and anguish to get away; a mingling of fear, too, lest the great sum of money in one piece be counterfeit; lest the stranger ask it back, or some one knock him down and take it away.
“I sat in a small boat,” Bellair was saying, “for ten days, with very little food and water. I saw one man die like a beast of thirst—or fear of thirst; and I saw another man master it—so that he died smiling—as only a man can die——”
Bellair did not finish. He had tried to catch the old man’s attention with this—to hold it an instant, thinking that some word would get home, something of the immortal facts in his heart, something greater than cash ... but the old man believed him insane, a liar, a fool or all three.
“Yes, yes,” he said, looking to the side, and to the door.
So he could listen, neither before nor afterward. Bellair eased his agony by letting him go—the money gripped in his hands, his limbs hastening, eyes darting to the right and left, as he sped through the swinging door.... For several moments, Bellair sat in the sorrow of it—lost in the grimmest of all tragedies—that here we are, ahuman family, all designed for lofty and majestic ends, yet having lost the power to articulate to each other. Suddenly Bellair remembered that the old face had looked into his for a swift second, when he was released—shaken, ashen, a murmur of something like “God thank you,” on the trembling lips. There was a bit of a ray in that.... Then he settled back into the tragedy again. It was this—that the old man had thought him insane for trying to help him; that he had seen something foreign and altogether amiss in the landlady’s eyes, in Ben Broadwell’s, and what was more touching to him, in Davy Acton’s.
Bellair straightened his shoulders. The misery of the thing oppressed him until he brought it to the laugh. Formerly he would have tried to escape. It was not his business if the old man would not be helped; he had tried. If a man can succeed in radiating good feelings and a spirit of helpfulness, he has done his part; the consequences are out of his hand. He saw that he had wanted to help; that what he had taken from the open boat and from the woman had brought this impulse to the fore in all his thinking. After that he must be an artist in the work; must become consummate; but having done his best—he must not spend energy in moods and personal depressions.... As for Lot & Company, he must meet them on their own footings—forgetting everything but their points of view. It was his businessnow to make a black spot clean, and it was an ugly material matter to be coped with as such, calling forth will-power and acumen of a world kind. He would see if he was to fail.
Bellair’s laugh was hard at first, from the tensity of the temptation to give up and let New York have its way in his case. Having whipped that (and it was a fair afternoon’s work) the smile softened a little, and he entered upon the task of the evening.
... Brandt’s was just as he had left it. The crowd increased; the quartette came. Bessie was lovely as ever; slightly different, since he had thought of her so much in the old hat. She did not see him, but her smile was like a flower of warmth and culture. A touch of the old excitement mounted in his breast, as they sang.... This was New York—among men—food and drink and warmth. This, too, was life; these were men who toil every day, who cannot take months to dream in, who cannot cross the sea and observe heroes and saints, but men who crowd and toil and fight, even expire, for their pleasures—such were the surgings of Bellair’s brain in the midst of the music. Bessie was the arch of it all—the arch of the old home, New York,—not this Bessie, but the Bessie that might be, the significant woman it was his work to make and mould. He was living his own thoughts, as much as listening. They vanished when the musicstopped.... He sent a waiter to her with this written on a blank card:
“Will you singMayingfor an old friend?”
... The song choked the wanderer, and this was the new mystery ofMaying—that it left him at the stone gate of a door-yard beyond windy Auckland....
He sent forward a gift of flowers, and was in a daze when she came to him and sat down.
“I have only a few minutes. We sing once more and then go. How dark and thin you look!”
He wanted to see her after her work was done, but dared not ask until other things were said.... There were words that left no impress, until he heard himself saying:
“I read the New York papers at sea——”
“... The reporters came to me. I had told some one of seeing you. It was just after I had read the news. It was new to me to have reporters come—and somehow they got what they wanted——”
“Oh, that didn’t matter. Only it was all unnecessary. My accounts there were never other than straight.”
She said she was glad. He saw she was more glad to drop the subject, and didn’t exactly believe him.
“And you’ve had luck away?”
“Yes, in several ways—beside money.”
It seemed necessary to add the last. He was struck with the shame and pity of it; yet it had to do with seeing her again.
“Are you going to be in New York long?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to talk with you to-night, after you are through. I might know better then—how long I am to stay.... Is it possible?”
“Yes—yes, I think so.”
“When?”
“After theCastle”
“Thank you.”
“I’m going to be given a chance—in two weeks—a real chance,” she declared. “I’ll tell you later.”
He tried to make himself believe that it was just as it had been; that Bessie was the same, the meaning of New York and the fortune that had come to him. How could she sing so, if it were not true?
“The formal try-out is two weeks from to-day,” she added. “The rest is done. It’s the chance for life—one of the leads with theKing Folliesfor next season. They’ve already heard me. I need to do no more, than has been done?”
“Just singing?”
“There are many lines and some dancing—oh, it’s a chance to storm the piece—if I can.”
She enlarged and detailed the promise; Bellair forgot many things he had to say.
“Is that all you want, Bessie?”
“What?”
“This chance.”
Her brows knit with irritation. It was her high tide, and he did not seem able to rise with it. Still she dared not be angry with him.
“Don’t you see—it’s everything?”
“A good salary, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes——”
“And you are all fixed for it?”
“All but clothes—the old struggle. You helped me wonderfully before.”
“Perhaps I could help you again?”
“Oh, could you?” She was joyousness aflame—her whole nature winging about him.
Deep within, he was empty and bleak and cold. He wanted to give her money, but somehow could not make it easy for her. It cheapened him in his own eyes.... He was silent—his thoughts having crossed the world. There is no one to explain the sentence that ran through his mind, “...who buys wine for the Japanese girls in Dunedin, since Norcross was conscripted in the service we all shall know?”
“... But what am I to do for you,” he heard the girl inquire, “since you are—not going away to-night?”
He quaked at the old recall. Perhaps he had forgotten a little how to be sharp and city-wise; at least, he did not make himself clear at once.
“You have your mornings, don’t you, Bessie?”
“Not if I’m to have new clothes. That’s morning work——”
“There’s so much to say. I’ve thought about you in a lot of strange places——”
She leaned forward and said with a pitiful quiet, “Once, you only wanted me to be good.”
Then it dawned on him. “Good God, Bessie,” he cried, “I don’t want you to be bad!”
She regarded him, playing with the stem of her glass, as of old time. A curious being he was to her, and quite inexplicable.
“You love me?” she asked.
The bass now beckoned, and she fled.
3
Bellair saw that one may have a gift from heaven, a superb singing-voice, for instance, but that one must also furnish the thought behind it. It was not that Bessie Brealt lacked ambition; in fact, she had plenty of that, but it was the sort that cannot wait for real results. She did not see the great singer; she had not a thought to give with her song. She had not the emotions upon which a great organ of inspiration might be built with the years. Already she was touched with the world; the world stirred her desires; matters of first importance in her mind were the things she wanted.
She was not different from the thousands, from the millions, in this. He had not altogether lostthe conviction that she might be made different. Already she was singing too much; her voice would never reach its full measure under these conditions. She would suffer the fate of the countless high-bred colts that are ruined by being raced too young, being denied the right to sound maturity. She should have been out of the life-struggle for years yet; in the country, in the perfect convent of natural life. She had not answered the true call, but meanwhile a call had come; its poison had entered. Bellair saw that the process before him, if any, was to break before building.... If consummate art were used, might not Bessie be helped to conceive the great career? Of course that thought must come first. However, he was far from believing that any art of his could be consummate.... Speaking that night of her new opportunity, he said:
“They will rehearse you a great deal—then performances twice a day—and you’re not more than twenty——”
“Just twenty——”
“You should be forty—before giving your voice so much work——”
She laughed. “Forty, I will doubtless be finished. Forty, and before, the fat comes——”
“People can forget fat—when a great voice is singing——”
“The great voices have sung from children,” she answered.
He believed this untrue; at least, he believed that with conservation, a more sumptuous power was attainable. “They have sung naturally perhaps, but not professionally. If they were called into the stress of life very young, any greatness afterward was in spite of the early struggle, not because of it. The voice is an organ that wears out. It is not the same as the character which improves through every test. If you were to spend ten years in study—ten years, not alone in vocal culture, but in life preparation and the culture of happiness——”
“I suppose you would have me give up this chance with theFollies?” she asked with the control that suggests imminent fracture.
“Yes. There is nothing that passes so quickly—as the voice of a season. It is the plaything of a people without memory. If you had ever listened to the best of the light opera singers, in contrast to a really developed talent——”
But this was not the way. Bellair finished the sentence vaguely, not with the sharpness of the idea that had come to him. She was nervous and irritable and tired. She was enduring him, much as one endures a brother from the country, for whom allowances must be made; also there was a deeper reason.
“Perhaps what I think of you,” he said, stirring to thrill her some way if possible, “is really a fiery thing, Bessie. I think of you singing greathordes of creatures into unity of idea that would lift them from beasts into men. The world is so full of sorrow and dulness of seeing; the world is in a cloud—I want you to sing the clouds away. If you could wait—just wait, as one holding a sure and perfect gift—until the real call comes to you, and then sing, knowing your part, not in pleasure and amusement, but in life, in the stirring centres of struggle and strife. If you would go forth singing that great song of yours—from your soul! It would be like a voice from the East—to bring the tatters of humanity together. I felt all this vaguely when I first heard you—six months ago. I have thought of it nights and days on the ocean—in times when we had to live on our thoughts, hold fast to them or go mad, for we had two days’ water for ten, and two days’ food for ten. Then I remembered how I came into Brandt’s, torn that night, not knowing what to do—dull-eyed and covered with wrongs. You sang me free. For the minute you sang me out of all that. I could not have freed myself perhaps—without that song. I know that there are thousands of men like me to be freed——”
Bellair felt on sure ground now. This was his particular manner and message—the finest and strangest thing about him—the fact that had always appeared, making him different even from Fleury and the woman,—the thought that he was average—and not more impressionable than themultitudes. If they could be reached, they would make the big turn that he had been shoved into.
“... Thousands just as I was that night, preyed upon by trade, dull-witted with the ways of trade, the smug, the bleak, the poisonous tricks of trade, born and bred—their real life softened and watered and wasted away ... thousands who could turn into men at the right song, the right word. I always thought of you, Bessie—as one of the great helpers. If you can wait, the way will come. I will help you to wait. I came back to New York to help you——”
She picked up his glass and smelled it, her eyes twinkling. “Splendid,” she said, “but are you quite sure you haven’t a stick in this ginger-ale?”
Bellair leaned back. He hadn’t touchedityet. Perhaps something would come, better than words. It was not straight-going—this work that he had dreamed; always a shock in bringing down dreams from Sinai; always something deadly in meeting the empirical. He smiled. “Just ginger-ale, Bessie, but you are a stimulant. You are more beautiful than before. Not quite so girlish, but there is something new that is very intense to me——”
She leaned toward him now, very eager.
“I wondered what you would see. The difference was plain at once in you.... Tell me what you see——”
“Just between the fold of the eye and the point of the chin——” he answered.... (Queerly now he imagined himself talking on the shore to the little Gleam; it gave him just the touch that helped.) “—a little straightening of the oval, and the little puff at the mouth-corners drawn out. Why, Bessie, it’s just the vanishing child. And you are taller. I’m almost afraid to speak—to try to put it into words, how pretty you are——”
She was elate and puzzled, too. “Where did you get anything like that?” she asked. “It’s what made me remember before. Always when you get through preaching—you pay for it——”
It was out before she thought—yet for once the exact unerring thing that was in her mind.
He treasured it; saw that his appeal was certain this way; that he must be of the world, and right glib to master her. The way of reality was slow; he must never fail to pay for preaching.... They laughed, and the weariness went from her eyes. The bloom of her health was at its height. Now as Bellair watched her, thinking of the world-ways, she suddenly swept home to him—the old forbidden adventure of her, the meaning of money and nights, her homelessness, the city, the song, the price she would pay if he demanded it.
The thing was upon him before he realised. Ithad all been the new Bellair until now. His body had lain as if in a vault of wax, its essential forces in suspension. Suddenly without warning, the wax had melted away. He did not instantly give battle to the gust of desire—met it eye-to-eye. Bellair felt his own will, and knew he would use it presently. He was rather amazed at the power of the thing as it struck him, and the nature of it, so utterly detached from the redolence and effulgence he had known in the Stone House. This was not the old Hunting Companion who had come with garlands; a minkish aborigine, this, who had come empty-handed, whose hands were out to be filled.
The meaning of all that Stackhouse had left in wallets and sea-girt archipelagoes was in this sullen-eyed entity—in theOformed of thirsting lips. Bellair tried to check it before it came—the thought that this was peculiarly a New York manifestation, one destined to be Bessie Brealt’s familiar in future years.... He did not have to use his will. He lost himself in thinking of her plight.
“... Please bring the coffee,” she was saying to the waiter, her hand lifted, as if she would touch his sleeve, the familiarity of one who had sung here many nights. “Yes, he will have coffee. He is merely away somewhere.... Yes, we will have it smoked with cognac—but here—do it here. I like to see it burn....”
“Very well, Miss Brealt——”
The lights had all come back to Bellair. He was miserable—the adventure palled. There had been no lift, nor tumultuous carrying away. The quick change chilled him. Her words one by one had chilled him.... At least, he had demanded a madness to-night. Bessie did not have the wine of madness in her veins. This much had been accomplished. He could not break training coldly.... And now he felt as if the day had drained him to the heart, as if the day had come to an end, and he must rest.
He turned to her. “I found a little check-book for you to-day, but you must go to the bank and give them your signature. It is made of leather, small enough for your purse almost. The bank-book is with it. You will find a little account started.... And now I will call a cab for you——”
“But your coffee——” she said.
“Yes, we will have that——”
He had to get away for a moment. His heart was desolate with hunger.... The smell of the kitchen made him think of the galley of a ship....
“Oh, what can I do for you?” Bessie asked, when he returned.
“It’s what you can do for yourself that interests me——”
“But I must go with theFollies—if I win. It’s the career—the beginning!”
“If you must.”
“And when shall I see you?”
“Here to-morrow night—if you will.”
“Yes,” she said eagerly.
4
On the way to Lot & Company’s the next morning Bellair smiled at the sense of personal injustice which had returned to him. He held fast to a sort of philosophical calm, but permitted his energy to be excited by a peculiar blending of contempt and desire to wring the truth from Lot & Company at any price.
Suddenly he stopped. Lot & Company was merely something to master. Lot & Company was but an organised bit of the world which he had met; all men had their own organisations to face, to comprehend the vileness and illusion of, and then to get underfoot, neck and other vitals.... Bessie had helped him. There was something in that.... He felt the fighting readiness within him, and an added warning not to raise his voice. He must deal with Lot & Company on the straight low plane of what-was-wanted. That was the single level of the firm’s understanding.
Davy Acton smiled at him shyly—the first face after the pale telephone-miss at the door.Davy was more at home in these halls and floors than in the hotel dining-room. Bellair heard the jovial voice of Mr. Rawter behind his partition. From the distance, Broadwell glanced up and waved at him. Mr. Sproxley’s black eyes were fixed in his direction from behind the grating of his cage. Mr. Sproxley came forward, greeted him and returned. Bellair had asked to see the elder Mr. Wetherbee, but it appeared that Mr. Seth was not in.
“I’ll speak with Mr. Nathan Lot,” said Bellair.
“Mr. Lot is occupied.”
“Mr. Jabez then.”
Mr. Jabez came forth presently.... He had been married in the interval, according to Broadwell; the fact had touched the wide, limp mouth. A very rich girl had joined pastures with Jabez; so that this coming forward was one of the richest young men in New York, representing the fortune of his mother which the dreaming Nathan had put into works; representing the fortune he had recently wedded with or without dreaming, and also the Lot & Company millions. Mr. Jabez also stood for the modern note of the firm; he was designed to bring the old and prosperous conservatism an additional new and up-to-the-hour force of suction.... Mr. Jabez smiled.
“Hello, Bellair,” he said with a careless regard,—doubtless part of the modern method, the laxityof new America which knows no caste. The thought had formed about him something to this effect: “What’s the use of me carrying it—you will not be able to forget you are talking to forty millions?”
“Come in,” he added and Bellair followed.
Mr. Nathan was beyond the partition. The atmosphere of the dreamer had looped over into the son’s sanctum.... Bellair began at the point of his handing the letter, addressed to Mr. Nathan, to the station-porter at the last moment from the platform of the Savannah Pullman.
“But mails don’t miscarry,” said Mr. Jabez, impatiently.
“That’s a fact. Perhaps mine wasn’t mailed. Of course,” he added quietly, “you didn’t require that letter. You had my note of release in the safe. They say at the Trust company that you collected the thousand dollars and interest within four days after I left.”
“Suppose every employé who has a deposit of faith—should tie us up that way?”
“It would be well to find out what he has done—before calling in the police.”
“What do you want, Bellair?”
Mr. Jabez could hold his temper, when its display was an inconvenience.
“I want a paper signed by you for Lot & Company, stating that you were in error when you charged me with absconding with company funds;that my accounts were afterward found to be entirely correct.”
Jabez Lot surveyed him. There was some change which he did not understand. The paper asked for, was a mere matter of dictation, a thing that might be forced from the firm. He believed, however, that Bellair wanted something else.
“I think the wisest plan for us will be to turn your case over to our attorney,” he said.
“Why?” Bellair asked. The full episode of the Nubian File and Mr. Prentidd passed through his mind.
“You see these affairs are adjusted better out of the office——”
“Why?”
“As a matter of fact, Bellair,” Mr. Jabez said patiently, “Lot & Company is eager to make amends for its mistake——”
There was a slow, quiet cough, the most natural and thoughtless sort of cough from the inner office. Bellair wondered if the modern method of Mr. Jabez was wearing a bit upon the dreamer, or if he were really lost in some inscrutable departure of mind.
“That would seem natural,” said he. “It would seem the direct, clear way. I am not boisterous; I threaten nothing.”
Bellair knew that this reminder of the Prentidd episode did not help his cause, but he wished nothing to be lost from the force he possessed.At the same time, he knew that it was the policy of Lot & Company to give nothing unforced. He was interested.
“We hadn’t thought of it, of course,” the future head now said, “but I have no doubt that Lot & Company has something as good for you as your old place, if you——”
“But I do not want a position,” said Bellair.
“What is it you want—again?”
“I want a paper, saying that I stole nothing, that Lot & Company was in error in charging me with taking funds——”
“A sort of explanation of our course?”
“Not exactly—a statement of your course, and that you incriminated me unjustly——” Bellair spoke with slow clearness.
“I really believe you had better see Mr. Jackson.”
“Why?”
“Because this is most unusual——”
Another cough was heard.
“Unusual—to straighten out a wrong that has hurt a man?”
“The way you ask it. Lot & Company is willing to take you back——”
“But I do not want to come back. You say that Lot & Company is eager to make amends——”
Davy Acton came in, saying that Mr. Jabez was called to the advertising department for amoment.... To Bellair this was like an interruption of an interesting story, but he did not wait long. The scene was merely shifted. He was in Mr. Nathan’s room. Mr. Rawter joined them and Mr. Jabez returned directly. The latter reopened the conversation by relating justly and patiently what Bellair asked.
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t have such a paper,” said Mr. Nathan, brushing his fingers through his hair, as if to force his thoughts down. He was not a whit older. The same identical dandruff was upon his shoulders.
Mr. Rawter laughed jovially: “Don’t you see? That’s just it. Individually, that is exactly the situation—but a big house—all its ramifications affected—and who’s to be responsible for Lot & Company as a whole?”
“It was Lot & Company that incriminated me,” said Bellair.
“I told Mr. Bellair——” Mr. Jabez began.
“Mr. Bellair had better come back to the House—that in itself is our acknowledgement,” interrupted his father. Evidently the son was not yet finished in training.
Bellair turned to Mr. Jabez, who explained the point of Bellair’s unwillingness to return. There was silence at this, as if it were entirely incomprehensible.
“Have you taken a position elsewhere in New York?” Mr. Nathan asked.
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“On that—I cannot be sure.”
Mr. Rawter now arose and came forward, placing his arm across Bellair’s shoulder. The latter winced, but not physically. For an instant it had fired and fogged him. “Bellair, my boy, on the face of it—this that you ask would seem very simple,” he began. “I would ask it in your case, but think of us. By misunderstanding, we let out the fact that you had gone with funds not your own.... You were away. We looked for you everywhere before this happened——”
“You let it out,” said Bellair. “It is very simple. Call it in again——”
“It isn’t so simple.”
“I might come back to work for you,” Bellair added, “and those who knew would say, ‘He hadn’t anything. Instead of locking him up, Lot & Company took him back to work out what he had taken——’”
“I might give you a personal letter, saying I was very sorry, that in the bewilderment of the moment, we jumped at the conclusion that you were identified with the missing funds——”
“But the funds were not missing. You could not look into the vault-box without finding my letter.”
“Our funds were not all in that box, Bellair.”
“They would know by next morning, if I had broken into your bank——”
Mr. Nathan appeared to be gone from them, his eyes softened with visions.
“Write him the letter, Mr. Rawter——” suggested Mr. Jabez.
It struck Bellair like a hated odour—this tool for unclean work, Rawter’s part in the establishment. He did not hasten now, though he knew they were waiting for his answer. The head of the sales resumed:
“Yes, I will do this gladly—in fact, it would relieve my mind to do this in the most cordial terms, but I would be interested first in learning just what disposition of it was intended——”
“It would be mine,” said Bellair. “Of course, I should use it as I thought fit.”
“I was thinking—in adjusting the tone of the letter, the wording, you know——”
“Adjust the tone—the wording—to the facts—that would seem best. But I would not accept such a letter from you personally. It would have to be written for Lot & Company——”
Mr. Nathan now showed signs of coming back.
“Let us have a day to think it over, Bellair,” he said.
“In that case—my part is finished. I have asked to be lifted out of a shameful position. You acknowledge that I have this lift coming.” Itwas at this point that an inspiration arrived. “All that there is left, naturally and equitably, is for you to do your part. A man’s name is of more importance than a firm’s name, and in any event, no man nor firm was ever hurt by squaring a crooked action.”
Mr. Nathan appeared to welcome the slight heat of this remark. It brought the moment nearer in which hands might be washed and the attorney summoned. But Bellair was not heated, Mr. Rawter fumed a little.
“What do you mean by a man’s name being more important than a firm’s name?” he demanded.
“A firm shares its responsibility. A man shoulders it alone.”
“And what do you mean by your part being finished?”
“I have worked in this office five years,” Bellair answered. “I never saw nor heard of a man in my position, or in a similar position of asking something, who profited by allowing delay. I will put the matter out of mind if the letter is not furnished to-day. Of course, I expect to get it. In fact, I have the pressure to force the issue—although it seems trivial for me to mention it.”
Bellair had thought of Mr. Prentidd again. There was doubtless a case of some kind pending on the matter of the Nubian File. Mr. Prentidd was no man to stop. It would not have been settledwithin six months. Lot & Company knew of his knowledge of this affair. Bellair plunged:
“In fact, there is a case against Lot & Company, to which I might add a singular weight of testimony. As for my own, it would go to the same counsel——”
Mr. Nathan ruffled his hair and the silent fall of grey white dust followed. Bellair felt pent. After so long a time at sea, it was hard for him to breathe in this place. He wearied now of the game, although Mr. Nathan was palpably down, present in the material plane.
“Bellair,” said he, turning about in his chair, “the added pressure of a discredited employé doesn’t count for much as testimony in any case——”
“I realised at once the reason why you discredited me—to cripple for the time being any knowledge I might care to use against you. However, you have all granted that I am not discredited. The only item mentioned in the charge was the item covered by the Trust company. You would have to work with Mr. Sproxley to show a deficit in the books having to do with my departure——”
“Bellair,” said Mr. Nathan, “a poor man can never win a suit against a strongly backed firm——”
“That is unfortunately true,” said Bellair, “but I am not poor. I came into an inheritance duringthe past six months. The fact is, I think I could spend as much money to buy justice as Lot & Company would be willing to spend to prevent it.”
“Bellair,” said Mr. Nathan, “you will find it impossible to move the press in your behalf against the firm of Lot & Company, with our advertising contracts among the valuable ones in the city lists——”
Knowledge now counted. “You do not advertise in theRecord,” he declared. “I have often heard from the advertising department that there is a rupture between this office and that paper, dating over a quarter of a century——”
Mr. Nathan touched a button for his stenographer. She lit upon the little chair beside him like a winged seed.
“To all Parties interested: Mr. Bellair left our employ suddenly and without furnishing customary warning,” the president dictated. “Finding a certain explanation in the vault, instead of a sum slightly over one thousand dollars belonging to this firm, we hastily assumed that his sudden departure was energised by the usual conditions. In fact, such a suspicion was stated to the press by this firm. We have since found Mr. Bellair’s accounts to be correct in every detail, and we furnish this letter to express in part our concern for Mr. Bellair’s character which our hasty conclusion impinged upon. Mr. Bellair left a letter of explanationin the vault, but his action in leaving abruptly and without explanation forced us on the spur of the moment to discredit it. However, the statement of his letter proved true, and the money taken by Mr. Bellair was the exact amount of his surety bond, with stipulated interest, and his salary to the hour of departure.”
“You have heard it?” Mr. Nathan inquired.
“Yes, it will do,” said Bellair.
The president nodded to his stenographer, who whisked out. “It will be ready in a moment,” he said. “I will sign it for Lot & Company.... Bellair, are you sure you don’t want your old desk back?”
“Quite sure,” said Bellair.
Mr. Jabez and Mr. Rawter had departed. Bellair glanced at his watch. It was a moment past the hour of Mr. Broadwell’s leaving for luncheon. The advertising-man, of course, was aware of his presence in the lower office. Bellair stepped out, however, to make sure of his appointment. Broadwell, hat in hand, was engaged in talk with Mr. Jabez. Bellair returned to the office of the president to wait for the stenographer. Not more than two minutes later, Davy Acton came in with this message: