Bojo dear:Whatever you do don't tell a soul. Dad questioned me terrifically and I told a little fib. How many shares did you buy? Dad made me promise to buy only five hundred, but I know it's all right from the way he acted. Oh, Bojo, I hope you make lots and lots of money! Wouldn't Dad be surprised? He asked me to-night in the funny gruff way he puts on, 'How's that young man of yours getting on? Have they got his hide yet?' Won't it be a joke on him? By the way, I dined with the Morrisons (she's an old school chum of mine) and put in my clever little oar. Don't be surprised if some one else calls you up soon to place a little order. I'm working in another direction too. Don't fail to come up for tea.
Bojo dear:
Whatever you do don't tell a soul. Dad questioned me terrifically and I told a little fib. How many shares did you buy? Dad made me promise to buy only five hundred, but I know it's all right from the way he acted. Oh, Bojo, I hope you make lots and lots of money! Wouldn't Dad be surprised? He asked me to-night in the funny gruff way he puts on, 'How's that young man of yours getting on? Have they got his hide yet?' Won't it be a joke on him? By the way, I dined with the Morrisons (she's an old school chum of mine) and put in my clever little oar. Don't be surprised if some one else calls you up soon to place a little order. I'm working in another direction too. Don't fail to come up for tea.
With much love,Doris.
P.S. The Tremaines areawfullyinfluential. Be sure and go to their dance.
P.S. The Tremaines areawfullyinfluential. Be sure and go to their dance.
He placed the letter in his pocket thoughtfully, not entirely happy. It was a fair sample of a score of letters—enthusiasm, solicitude, ambition, and clever worldly advice, but lacking the one note that something in him craved despite all the purely mental satisfaction the prospect held for him.
DeLancy continuing to loiter, he went out, alone, obsessed with the thought of the opening of the marketand the sound of the ticker, and caught the subway for Wall Street, preoccupied and serious.
It had been three months now since the day when he had first come downtown to take up service as a broker's runner, and much had changed within him during that time, much of which he himself was not aware. The first days he had been rather bewildered and resentful of the menial beginning. It did not seem quite a man's work—this messenger service, and the contemplation of those above him, the men at the sheets and the office clerks, inspired him with a distaste. Often he remembered his conversation with his father and talks with Granning, the matter-of-fact; comparing their outlook on the life with his associates much to the disadvantage of the curiously inconsequential throng of young men who, like himself, were willing to go scurrying in the rain and dark on servants' quests, in order to get a peek into the intricate mysteries of Wall Street that held sudden fortunes for those who could see.
He had come out of college with a love of manly qualities and the belief that it was a man's privilege to face difficult and laborious tasks, and the prevalent type among the beginners was not his type. Then, too, the magnitude of the Street overpowered him, the skyscrapers without tops dwarfed him, its jargon mystified him, as the colossal scale of the operations he saw seemed to rob him of the sense of his own individuality. But gradually, being possessed of shrewd native sense and persistence, he began to distinguish in the mob types and among the types figures that stood out in bold relief. He began to see those who would pass and those who would persist.
He began to meet the more rugged type, schooledin earlier tests, shrewd, cautious, and resolved, self-made men who had abrupt ways of speaking their thoughts, who frankly classed him with other fortunate youths and assured him that they were there by right, to take away from them what had been foolishly given and pay them back in experience. He took their chaffing in good humor, seeking their companionship and their points of view by preference, gradually disarming their criticism, secretly resolved that whatever might be the common fate at least he would not prove a foolish lamb for the shearing.
Steeled in this resolution, he began by setting his face against speculation, investing his money temporarily in irreproachable bonds, refusing to listen to all the tips, whispered or openly proffered, which assailed his ears from morning until night, until the day when he should know of his own knowledge of men and things. He worked hard, following Drake's advice, seeking information from men rather than from books, checking up what each told him by what the next man had to say of his last informant, mystified often by the glib psychology of finance, slowly rating men at their just value, no longer lending credulous ear to the frayed prophets of New Street or thrilling with the excitement of a thrice confidential tip.
He had advanced rapidly, but underneath all his delight there was an abiding suspicion that his progress had not been entirely due to his own glaring accomplishments, but that the name of Crocker, senior, his bank account, and the magic touch of Daniel Drake had been for much.
During the last month he had had several tentative approaches from Weldon Forshay, who was what DeLancy called the social scavenger of the firm, a club man irreproachably connected, amiable and winning in his ways, who received uptown clients in the outer office, went out to lunch with the riding set, who lounged in toward midday for what they termed a whack at the market. Forshay was a thoroughly good fellow who gave his friends the best of advice, which was no advice at all, and left business details to his partners, Heinrich Flaspoller and Silas T. Hauk, shrewd, conservative, self-made men who exchanged one ceremonial family dinner party a year with their brilliant associate.
Forshay, who was no fool and neglected no detail of social connections, had been keen to perceive the advantages of an alliance with the prospective son-in-law of Daniel Drake, keeping in view the voluminous transactions that flowed monthly from the keys of that daring manipulator. The transactions of the last days had been noted with more than usual interest, and Bojo's announcement of the amount of collateral which he had to offer as security (he did not, naturally, give the impression that this was the sum of his holdings) had further increased the growingaffection of the firm for an industrious young man, of such excellent prospects.
When Crocker arrived, excited and keyed to the whirring sound of the ticker, Forshay, a splendid American imitation of an English aristocrat, drew him affably into an inner room.
"I say, Crocker," he said, "the firm's been thinking you over rather seriously. It isn't often a young fellow comes down here and makes his way as quickly as you. We like your methods, and I think we've been quick to recognize them—haven't we?"
"You certainly have," said Tom with real enthusiasm.
"You've brought us business and you'll bring us more. Now some evening soon I want you to come up to the club and sit down over a little dinner and discuss the whole prospect." He looked at him benignly and added: "I don't see why an ambitious man like you who has got what you have ahead of you shouldn't fit into this firm before very long."
"Provided I marry Miss Doris Drake," thought Bojo to himself. The cool way in which he received the news made a distinct impression on Forshay, who went a little further. "We realize that with the friends and backing you've got you're not on the lookout to stay forever on a salary. What you want is to get a fair share of the business you can swing, and the only way is to join some firm. Well, I won't say any more now. You know what we're thinking. We'll foregather later."
"You're very kind, indeed, Mr. Forshay," said Bojo, delightfully flustered.
"Not at all. You're the kind that goes ahead.Oh, by the way, the firm wants me to tell you that from next week your salary will be seventy-five dollars."
This time Bojo gulped down his surprise and shook hands in boyish delight.
"Mighty glad to give it to you," said Forshay, laughing. "I see you think well of Indiana Smelter. Now I don't want you to betray any confidences, but of course I know how you stand in certain quarters. There is no harm in my saying that, is there? I've watched you. You haven't been running after every rumor on the block. You're shrewd. You're too conservative to invest without some pretty solid reason or to let your friends in unless you're pretty sure."
"I am pretty sure," said Crocker solemnly.
"I thought so," said Forshay meditatively. "I'm rather tempted to try the thing myself. I've sort of a hunch about you. I liked you, Tom, from the first. Hope you hit it hard." He glanced in the direction of the senior partners and lowered his voice confidentially. "Then it's good to see one of our own kind make good—you understand?"
In five minutes Bojo had told him in the strictest confidence all he knew. Forshay received the news with thoughtful deliberation.
"I'd like it better if Dan Drake had said it direct to you," he said, frowning. "Still, it's valuable. There may be a good deal in it. I think I can get a line on it myself. Jimmie Boskirk is a good pal of mine and he'll know. You keep me informed and I'll let you know what I find out. Go a little slow. Dan Drake is up to a good many tricks. He's fooled thetalent many a time before. Suppose we say Friday night for our little confab. Good."
The mention of Jimmie Boskirk cast a damper over the delights the interview had brought Bojo. He did not at once realize how easily Forshay had played him for the information he desired and how really valuable he believed it. He was lost in a new irritation. Young Boskirk had been conspicuously assiduous in his attentions to Doris; and, while this fact aroused in him no jealousy, he had an uncomfortable feeling that Boskirk was in fact the source of her information.
But the opening of the market completely drove all other thoughts out of his mind. For the first time he came under the poignant tyranny of the flowing tape. Do what he would he could not keep away from it. Indiana Smelter opened at 104½, went off the fraction, and then advanced to 106 on moderate strength in buying orders.
"A point and a half—$1500—I've made $1500—just like that," he said to himself, stupefied. He went to his desk, but ten minutes later on the pretext of getting a glass of water he returned to the tape to make sure that his eyes had not deceived him. There it was again and no mistake—200 Indiana Smelter, 106. He sat down at his desk in a turmoil. Fifteen hundred dollars! Five times what he had made in three months. If he had bought two thousand shares, as he could have easily, at a safe twenty per cent. margin, he would have made three thousand. He felt angry at himself, defrauded, and, drawing a paper before him, he began to figure out his profitsif the stock should go to 140 or 150, as every one said it must if the combination went through.
Then, in order to realize himself his colossal earnings, he called up Doris on the telephone to hear the sound of such figures. At one, when he went out to snatch a mouthful at a standing lunch, he consulted three tickers, impatient that no further sales had been recorded. When Ricketts, who was still on the sheets, came up to him with his daily budget of gossip, he listened avidly. Every tip interested him, fraught with a new dramatic significance. He felt like taking him aside and whispering in his ear:
"Listen, Ricketts, if you want a good thing buy Indiana Smelter: it'll go to 140. I've made fifteen hundred dollars on it in a couple of hours."
But he did nothing of the sort. He looked very wise and bored, feeling immensely superior as a capitalist and future member of the firm of Hauk, Flaspoller and Forshay, over Ricketts, who had started when he had started and was still on the sheets at fifteen dollars a week. "Whispering Bill" Golightly, who had the hypnotic art of inducing clients to buy and sell and buy again all in the same day, on artfully fluctuating rumors (to no disparagement of his commission account), came sidling up, and he hailed him regally.
"Hello, Bill, what do you know?"
"Buy Redding," said Golightly softly, with a confidential flutter of the near eyelid.
"You're 'way behind. I know something better than that. Come around next week."
He left Golightly smiling incredulously and ambledslowly through the motley group of New Street, that tragic anteroom to Wall Street, where fallen kings of finance retell the glories of the past and wager a few miserable dollars on a fugitive whisper.
"If they only knew what I know," he said to himself, smiling as he passed on in confident youth, through these wearied old men who in their misfortune still preferred to be last in the Street if only to be near Rome. At the offices, high on Exchange Place, looking down on the huddled group of the curb below in sheepskins and mufflers, flinging fingered signals in the air to waiting figures in windows above, he found a new order from Roscoe Marsh and hurriedly had it executed. He felt like calling up all his friends and asking them to follow his lead blindly.
He wanted every one to be making money as easily as he could. Before the market closed Indiana Smelter receded to 105¼ and he felt as though some one had bodily lifted $500 from his pocket. Still he had made a thousand dollars for the day. He caught the subway with the crowd of stockbrokers who came romping out of the stock exchange like released schoolboys after the day's tension, pommeling and shoving each other with released glee. His first action was to turn to the financial columns of his newspaper, to make sure there had been no error, to see in cold print that he had actually made no mistake. During the week Indiana Smelter climbed irregularly to 111¼, broke three points, and ended at 109 amid a sudden concentration of public interest.
On Saturday, when he came back to his blazing windows in the mellow half-lights of the court, preparatory to dressing for a party in the wake of FredDeLancy, he took the flight two steps at a time, bursting with the need of pouring out his tale of good fortune to responsive ears. He found only George Granning, snug in the big armchair, sunk in the beatific contemplation of an immense ledger.
"What the deuce are you grinning at, you old rhinoceros?" said Bojo, stopping surprised.
"I'm casting up accounts," said Granning. "I'm twelve hundred and forty-two dollars ahead of the game. To-morrow you can buy me my first bond and make me a capitalist. Bojo, congratulate me. I've got my raise—forty a week from now on—assistant superintendent! What do you think of that?"
"No!" exclaimed Bojo, who had been dreaming in hundreds of thousands. He shook hands with all the enthusiasm he could force. Then a genuine pity seized him for the inequalities of opportunity. He seized a chair and drew it excitedly near his friend. "Granny, listen to me. Do you know what I have made in ten days? Almost five thousand dollars! Now you know nothing in this world would let me get you in wrong, unless I knew. Well, Granny, I know! I'll guarantee you—do you understand—that if you'll let me take your thousand and invest it as I want, I'll double your capital in a month."
"Thank you, no," said Granning in a way that admitted no discussion. "The gilt-edged kind is my ambition. Look here, how much money have you put up?"
"Only twenty thousand."
"Then give me the rest and let me bury it for you."
"I tell you I can sell it now and make $4500. What do you say to that?"
"I'm damned sorry to hear it."
"You're a nice friend."
"Lecturing isn't my strong point," said Granning imperturbably, "but since you insist, the first lesson in life to my mind is a wholesome respect for the difficulty of making money."
"You act as though you think I've robbed some old widow, you anarchist!"
"Twelve times 30 is 360, add 12 times 150 times 30," said Granning, taking up his pencil.
"What the deuce are you figuring out?"
"I'm calculating that at the rate I'm living I can buy another bond in about ten and three quarter months," said Granning blissfully.
"Oh, go to the devil," said Bojo, retreating into his room.
As he started to dress for the evening he began to moralize, glancing out at Granning, who continued his figuring, a picture of rugged happiness.
"Suppose he's thinking of that forty-five dollar a year income now," thought Bojo, who began to indulge in many worldly speculations of which he would have been incapable three months before. After all, if some people only knew it, it was just as easy to make a hundred thousand as a thousand. All it required was to recognize that the world was unequal and always would remain unequal, and toward the top of society, when one had the opportunity of course, it was all a question of knowledge and influence.
"Poor old Granny," he said, shaking his head. "In four years I'll be worth a million and he'll beplodding on, working like a slave, gloating over a ten-dollar raise." But as he was withal honest in his values he added: "And the old fellow's worth ten times what I am too!" He remembered his own raise in salary, but for certain reasons determined not to risk an ethical comparison.
"Well, Capitalist, good night," he said, arrayed in top hat, fur coat, and glowing linen.
Granning grunted complacently and called him back as he was disappearing.
"Hi, there!"
"What?"
"Come over to the factory with me some day and see what real work is."
Bojo slammed the door and went laughing down the stairs.
The buying orders multiplied in Indiana Smelter, the air was full of rumors, the financial columns accepted as a fact that the combination was decided, and the stock went soaring in the third week, despite one day of horrible uncertainty, when the report was spread that all negotiations were off and Indiana Smelter dropped twelve points. When 135 was reached, Bojo became bewildered. In less than a month he had cleared over thirty thousand dollars. He could not believe his own reason. Where had it come from? Did it actually exist or would he wake up some morning and find it evaporated?
The spinning tack-tack of the ticker was always in his ears. At night when he started to go to sleep, the room was always full of diabolical instruments, and great curling streams of thin paper fell over hisbed and Indiana Smelter was kiting up into impossible figures or abruptly crumbling to nothing. One morning the necessity of actually holding in his own hands these enormous sums which he had been incredulously contemplating all these weeks was so imperious that he sold out as the stock reached 138¼.
For a day a feeling of sublime liberation came to him, as though the clicking tyranny were forever vanished from his ears. In his pocket was certainty, incredible but tangible, a check to his order for over thirty-three thousand dollars. When once this certainty had impressed itself upon him he had a quick revulsion. It seemed to him that what he had done was grossly immoral, as though he had thrown his money on a gambling table and won fabulously with a beginner's luck. Some providence must have protected him, but he resolved firmly never to repeat the test.
He informed Granny of this decision, admitting frankly all the appetite for gain, the reckless, dangerous excitement it had roused in him. He spoke with such profound conviction, being for the moment convinced himself, that Granny's skepticism was conquered, and they shook hands upon Bojo's sudden enlightenment.
But the next day, when he had gone up to the Drakes and exhibited the check for the delectation of Doris, his good intentions began to waver in the flush of triumph.
"Now, aren't you glad you listened to a wise little person who is going to make your fortune?" she said, thrilled at the sight of the check.
"Who gave you the tip, Doris?" he said uneasily. "You can tell me now."
"Ask me no questions—"
"A man or a woman?" he persisted, seeking a subterfuge, for the thought of asking pointblank if he owed his fortune to Boskirk was repugnant.
She hesitated a moment, divining his qualms.
"Promise to ask no more questions."
"If you'll tell me."
"A woman, then."
He pretended to himself a great satisfaction, immensely relieved in his pride, willing to be convinced. Dan Drake came in and Doris, glad of the interruption, displayed the check in triumph.
"So that's it, is it?" said Drake, glancing up at Bojo, who looked sheepishly happy. And assuming an angry air, he caught Doris by the ear. "A traitor in my own household, eh?"
"What do you mean?" she said, defending herself.
"I mean the next time you wheedle such inside information out, just remember you've got a daddy."
"Now, Dad, don't be horrid and take away all my fun. Isn't it glorious!"
"Very," said Drake with a grimace. "I congratulate you, young scamps. Your getting in and spreading the good news among the bosom friends—" he glanced at Bojo, who flushed—"cost me a couple of hundred thousand more than I intended to pay. I guess, young man, it'll be cheaper for me to have you inside my office than out!"
"I didn't realize, sir—"
"No reason you should, but I want to tell you and your General Manager so that you won't get any mistaken ideas of your Napoleonic talents, that there was a moment ten days ago when the whole combination came near a cropper, wherever you got your information." He stopped, looked at his daughter severely, and said: "By the way, wheredidyou get your information, young lady?"
Doris laughed mischievously, not at all deceived by his assumed anger.
"I have my own sources of information," she said, imitating his manner.
The father looked at her shrewdly, amused at the intrigue he divined.
"Well, this is my guess—"
But Doris, flinging herself, laughing, at him, closed his lips with her pretty hand.
"She used Boskirk to help me," thought Bojo, perceiving her start of fear and the shrewd smile on the face of the father.
He did not pursue the matter, but the conviction remained with him.
Despite his new-found resolutions he was surprised to find that the obsession of the ticker still held him. With the announcement of the completion of the Smelter merger, Indiana Smelter rose as high as 142¾, and the thought of these thousands which he might have had as easily as not began to annoy him. He forgot that he had condemned speculation in the contemplation of what might have been.
Looking back, it seemed to him that what he had made was ridiculously small. If he had played the stock as other resolute spirits conducting such campaignsfor fortune, he should have thrown the rest of his capital behind the venture once he was playing on velvet. He figured out a dozen ways by which he might have achieved a master stroke and trebled, even quadrupled, his profits, and the more his mind dwelt upon it the more eager he became to embark into a fresh venture. Dan Drake had hinted at taking him into his office. He began to long for the time when the proposition would be again offered to him, to accept, to be privileged to play the game as others played it—with marked cards.
During this time Bojo had seen much of life. Marsh was too busily occupied in the detailed exploration of the machinery and organization of his paper to be often available, and Bojo's time was pretty evenly divided between the formal evenings in Doris's set and the excursions with Fred DeLancy into regions not quite so orthodox. He began to see a good deal behind the scenes, to marvel at the unbending of big men of a certain suddenly enriched type, at their gullibility and curious vanities of display. He himself had an innate love of refinement and an olden touch of chivalry in his attitude toward women, and went through what he saw without more harm than disillusionment, wiser for the lesson.
To his surprise he found, that what DeLancy had estimated of his social values was quite true. Fred was in great demand at quiet dances in discreet salons at Tenafly's and Lazare's, where curious elements combined to distract the adventurer, rich at forty-five, who, after a life of Spartan routine, awoke to the call of pleasure and curiosity at an age when other men have solved their attitude. Fred was looked upon as a sort ofenfant gâtéto be rewarded after a gay night with an easily tossed off order for a thousand shares of this or that to make his commission. It did not take Bojo long to perceive theinherent weakness in DeLancy's lovable but pleasure-running character, nor to speculate upon his future with some apprehension, despite all Fred's protestations that he was shrewd as they are made, and jolly well alive to the main chance every minute of the day.
Bojo had been admitted far enough into his confidence to know that there was already some one in the practical background, a Miss Gladys Stone, financially a prize who had been caught with the volatile gaiety and amusing tricks of Fred DeLancy. DeLancy in fact, in moments of serious intimacy, openly avowed his intention of settling down within a year or two at the most, and Bojo, with the memory of riotous nights from which he had with difficulty extracted the popular Fred, owned to himself that the sooner this occurred the better he would be suited.
He had met Gladys Stone once when he had dropped in on Doris, and he had a blurred recollection of a thin, blond girl, who giggled and chattered a great deal and spoke several times of being bored by this or that, by the opera where there was nothing new, by dinner parties where it was such a bore to talk bridge, by Palm Beach, which was getting to be a bore because cheaper hotels had gone up and every one was being let in, but who would go off into peals of laughter the moment Fred DeLancy struck a chord on the piano and imitated a German ballade.
"Gladys is a good soul at bottom. She's crazy about Fred and he can marry her any day he wants her," said Doris, sitting in judgment.
"Do you think it would turn out well?" he said.
"Why not? Gladys hasn't a thought in her head. She'll be a splendid audience for Fred. He isn't the sort of a person ever to fall desperately in love."
"I don't know about that," said Bojo, with an uneasy recollection of a certain alluring but rather obvious little actress, respectable but entirely too calculating to his way of thinking, whom Fred had been seeing entirely too much.
"Nonsense! That sort of person is always thinking of the crowd. Besides Gladys is too stupid to be jealous. It's a splendid match. She'll get a husband that'll save her house from being a bore, and he'll get a pile of money: just what each needs."
He saw Doris three or four times a week. She had become a very busy lady, constantly complaining of the fatigues of a social season. Fred DeLancy, who, with Marsh, had been admitted to intimacy, made fun of her to her face in his impudent way, pretending a deep solicitude for the overburdened rich.
"But it's true," said Doris indignantly. "I haven't a minute to myself. I'm going from morning to night. You haven't an idea how exacting our lives are."
"Tell me," said DeLancy, assuming a countenance of commiseration, while Bojo laughed.
"Horrid beast!" said Doris, pouting. "And then there's charity; you've no idea how much time charity takes. I'm on three committees and we have to meet once a week for luncheon. Then I'm in the show for the benefit of some hospital or other, and now they want us to come to morning rehearsals. Then there's the afternoon bridge class until four, and half a dozen teas to go through, and back to be dressedand curled and start out for dinner and a dance, night after night. And now there's Dolly's wedding coming on, and the dressmaker and the shopping. I tell you I'm beginning to look old already!"
She glanced at the clock and went off with a sigh to be decked out for another social struggle, as Mrs. Drake entered. The young men excused themselves. Bojo never felt quite comfortable under the scrutiny of the mother's menacing lorgnette. She was a frail, uneasy little woman, who dressed too young for her age, whose ready tears had won down the opposition of her husband, much as the steady drip of a tiny rivulet bores its way through granite surfaces. She did not approve of Bojo—a fact of which he was well aware—and was resolved when her first ambition had been gratified by Dolly's coming marriage to turn her forces on Doris.
At present she was too much occupied, for there were weak moments when Dolly, for all her foreign education, rose up in revolt, and others when Mr. Drake, incensed at the cold-blooded conduct of the pre-nuptial business arrangements, had threatened to send the whole pack of impudent lawyers flying. Patsie had been packed off on a visit to a cousin after a series of indiscretions, culminating in a demand to know from the Duke what the French meant by amariage de convenance—a request which fell like a bombshell in a sudden silence of the family dinner.
It was a week before the wedding, as Bojo was swinging up the Avenue past the Park on his way to Doris, that he suddenly became aware of a young lady in white fur cap and black velvets skipping toward him, pursued by a terrier that had a familiarair, while from the attendant automobile a tall and scrawny spinster was gesticulating violently and unheeded. The next moment Patsie had run up to him, her arm through his, Romp leaning against him in recognition, while she exclaimed:
"Bojo, thank Heaven! Save me from this awful woman!"
"What's wrong, what's the matter?" he said, laughing, feeling all at once a delightful glow at the sight of her snapping eyes and breathless, parted lips.
"They've brought me back and tied a dragon to me," she cried indignantly. "I won't stand it. I won't go parading up and down with a keeper, just like an animal in a zoo. It's all mother's doings, and Dolly's, because I miffed her old duke. Send the dragon away, please, Bojo, please."
"What's her name?" he said, with an eye to the approaching car.
"Mlle. du Something or other—how do I know?"
The frantic companion now bearing down, with the chauffeur set to a grin, Bojo explained his right to act as Miss Drina's escort, and the matter was adjusted by thedemoiselle de compagniepromising to keep a block behind until they neared home.
Patsie waxed indignant. "Wait till I get hold of Dad! I'll fix her! The idea! I'm eighteen— I guess I can take care of myself. I say, let's give them the slip. No? Oh, dear, it would be such fun. I'm crazy to slip off and get some skating. What do you think? Can't even do that. Too vulgar!"
"What did you say to the Duke that raised such a row?" said Bojo, pleasantly conscious of the light weight on his arm.
"Nothing at all," said Patsie, with an innocent face; but there was a twinkle in the eyes. "I simply asked what thismariage de convenancewas I heard them all talking about, and when he started in to make some long-winded speech I cut in and asked him if it wasn't when people didn't love each other but married to pay the bills. Then every one talked out loud and mother looked at me through her telescope."
"You knew, of course," said Bojo reprovingly.
Drina laughed a guilty laugh.
"I don't think Dolly wants to marry him a bit," she declared. "It's all mother. Catch me marrying like that."
"And how are you going to marry?"
"When I marry, it'll be because I'm so doggoned in love I'd be sitting out on the top step waiting for him to come round. If I were engaged to a man I'd hook him tight and I wouldn't let go of him either, no matter who was looking on. What sort of a love is it when you sit six feet apart and try to look bored when some one rattles a door!"
"Patsie—you're very romantic, I'm afraid."
She nodded her head energetically, rattling on: "Moonlight, shifting clouds, heavily scented flowers, and all that sort of thing. Never mind, they'd better look out. I'm not going to stand this sort of treatment. I'll elope."
"You wouldn't do that, Patsie."
"Yes, I would. I say, when you and Doris marry will you let me come and stay with you?"
"We certainly will," he said enthusiastically.
"Then what are you waiting for?"
"I'm waiting," said Bojo dryly, after a pause, "until I have made enough money of my own."
"Good for you," she said, as if immensely relieved. "I knew you were that sort."
"And when are you coming out?" he asked, to turn the conversation.
"The night before the wedding. Isn't it awful?"
"You'll have lots of men hanging about you—crazy about you," he said abruptly.
"Pooh!"
"Never mind, I shall watch over you carefully and keep the wrong ones away."
"Will you?"
He nodded, looking into her eyes.
"Good for you. I'll come to you for advice."
They were at the house, the lemon livery of the footmen showing behind the glass doors.
"I say," said Patsie, with a sudden mischievous smile, "meet me at the corner to-morrow at four and we'll go off skating."
He shook his head sternly.
"Bojo, please—just for a lark!"
"I will call for you in a proper social manner perhaps."
"Will Doris have to be along?" she asked, thoughtfully.
"I shall of course ask Doris."
"On second thoughts, no, thank you. I think I shall go to my dressmaker's," she said, with a perfect imitation of his formal tone—and disappeared with a final burst of laughter.
He went in to see Doris with a sudden determinationto clear up certain matters which had been on his conscience. As luck would have it, as he entered the great anteroom Mr. James Boskirk was departing. He was a painstaking, rather obvious young man of irreproachable industry and habits, a little over serious, rated already as one of the solid young men of the younger generation of financiers, who made no secret of the fact that he had arrived at a deliberate decision to invite Miss Doris Drake into the new firm which he had determined to found for the establishment of his home and the perpetuation of his name.
It seemed to Bojo, in the perfunctory greeting which they exchanged as civilized savages, that there was a look of derogatory accusation in Boskirk's eyes, and, infuriated, he determined to bring up the subject of Indiana Smelter again and force the truth from Doris.
He came in with a well-assumed air of amusement, adopting a sarcastic tone, which he knew she particularly dreaded.
"See here, Miss General Manager, this'll never do," he said lightly. "I thought you were cleverer than that."
"What do you mean?" she said, instantly scenting danger.
"Letting your visits overlap. I only hope you had time to manage all Mr. Boskirk's affairs. Only, for Heaven's sake, Doris, now that you've got him in hand, get him to change his style of collar and cuffs. He looks like the head of an undertakers' trust."
The idea that he might be jealous pleased her.
"Poor Mr. Boskirk," she said, smiling. "He's a very straightforward, simple fellow."
"Very simple," he said dryly. "Well, what more information has he been giving you?"
"He does not give me any information."
"You know perfectly well, Doris, that he gave you the tip on Indiana Smelter," he said furiously, "and that you denied because you knew I would never have approved."
"You are perfectly horrid, Bojo," she said, going to the fireplace and stirring up the logs. "I don't care to discuss it with you."
"I'm sorry," he said, "but you've hurt my pride."
"How?"
"Good heavens, can't you see! Haven't you women any sense of fitness? Don't you know that some things are done and some things are not done?"
She came to him contritely and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Bojo, why do you reproach me? Because I am only thinking of your success, all the time, every day? Is that what you are angry about?"
He felt like blurting out that there was something in that too, that he wanted the privilege of feeling that he was winning his own way; but instead he said:
"So it was Boskirk."
She looked at him, hesitated, and answered:
"No, it wasn't. But if it had been why should you hold it against me? Why don't you want me to help?—for you don't!"
He resolved to be blunt.
"If you would only do something that is not reasonable, not calculated, Doris! But everything youdo is so well considered. You didn't use to be this way. I can't help thinking you care more about your life in society than you do me. It's the worldly part of you I'm afraid about."
She looked into his eyes steadily a moment and then turned her head away and nodded, smiling in assent.
"Heavens, Doris, if you want to do like Dolly, if you want a position, or a title, say so and let's be honest."
"But I don't— I don't," she cried impetuously. "You don t know how I have fought—" she stopped, not wishing to mention her mother and, lifting her glance to him anxiously, said: "Bojo, what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to do something uncalculated," he burst out—"mad, impulsive, as persons do who are wild in love with each other. I want you to marry me now."
"Now!"
"Listen: With what I've got and my salary I can scrape up ten thousand—no, don't spoil it— I don't want any money from you. Will you take your chances and marry me on my own basis now?"
She caught her breath and finally said, marking each word:
"Yes—I—will—marry—you—now!"
He burst out laughing at the look of terror in her eyes at the thought of facing life on ten thousand a year.
"Don't worry, Doris," he said, taking her in his arms. "I wouldn't be so cruel. I only wanted to hear you say it."
"But I did—I will—if you ask it," she said quickly.
He shook his head.
"If you'd only said it differently. Don't mind me—I'm an idiot—and you don't understand."
What he meant was that he was an idiot, when he was getting so much that other men coveted, to insist on what was not in her charming, facile self to give him. An hour later, after an interview with Daniel Drake, he was ready to wonder what had made him flare up so quickly—Boskirk's presence perhaps, or something impulsive which had awakened within him when Drina had flushed while describing her distinct ideas upon the subject of the sentiments.
But a new exhilaration effectively drove away all other emotions—the delirious appetite for gain which had come irresistibly and tyrannically into his life with the dramatic intensity of his first speculation. In the interim in Daniel Drake's library, with Doris perched excitedly on the arm of his chair, several things had been decided. A great operation was under way which promised an unusual profit. Bojo was to place $50,000 in the pool which was to be used to operate in the stocks of a certain Southern railroad long suspected to be on the verge of a receivership, at the end of which campaign he was to enter Mr. Drake's service in the rôle of a private secretary.
Meanwhile he was to continue in the employ of Hauk, Flaspoller and Forshay, the better to figure in the mixed scheme of manipulation which would be necessary. He was so seized with the drama of the opportunity, so keen over the thought of being oncemore a part of all the whirling, hurtling machinery of speculation that he did not remember even for a passing thought, the horror which had come over him at his first incredible success.
The wedding of Miss Dolly Drake to the Duke of Polin-Crecy was the event of the season. It was preceded by a ball which marked the definite surrender of the last recalcitrant members of New York society to the ambitions of Mrs. Drake. Such events have a more or less public quality, like a performance for charity or a private view at an important auction. Every one who could wheedle an invitation by hook or crook, arrived with the rolling crowd that blocked the avenue and side streets and necessitated a special detachment of the police to prevent the mob of enthusiastic democrats from precipitating themselves on the ducal carriage and tearing the ducal garments in shreds in the quest of souvenirs.
The three young men from Ali Baba Court arrived together, abandoning their taxicab and forcing their way on foot to the front. Marsh, who was always moved to sarcasm by such occasions, kept up a running comment.
"Marvelous exhibition! Every one who's gunning for Drake is here to-night. There's old Borneman. He's been laying for a chance to catch Daniel D. on the wrong side of the market ever since Drake trimmed him in a wheat corner in Chicago. By Jove, the Fontaines and the Gunthers. They're going tothis as to a circus. Why the deuce didn't the cards read Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Drake invite you to meet their enemies!"
"Never mind," said Bojo, laughing. "It's Mrs. Drake's night—she'll be in her glory, you can bet."
"Oh, you'll be as bad as the rest," said Marsh, who spoke his mind. "Tom, you're doomed. I can see that. You've got a feminine will to contend with, so make your mind up to the inevitable. There's Haggerdy's party now—every bandit in Wall Street'll be here figuring up how they can get at their host. Well, Bojo, you're lost to us already."
"How so?"
"In this game, you never pay attention to your friends—you've got to entertain those who dislike you, to make sure they'll have to invite you to some function or other where everybody must be seen. Well, I know what I'll do, I'll get hold of the youngest sister, who is a trump, and play around with her."
Bojo looked at him uneasily; even this casual interest in Patsie affected him disagreeably. DeLancy had deserted them to rush over to the assistance of the Stones, who were just arriving.
"I hope he gets her," said Marsh, studying the blond profile of Miss Gladys Stone.
"I believe there's some sort of an understanding."
"The sooner the better—for Freddie," said Marsh, with a shake of his head. "The trouble with Fred is he thinks he's a cold thinking machine, and he's putty in the hands of any woman who comes along."
"I'm worried about a certain person myself," said Bojo.
But at this moment Thornton, one of Mr. Drake's secretaries, touched him on the arm.
"Will you please come to the library, Mr. Crocker? Mr. Drake has been asking for you to witness some papers."
In the library off in a quiet wing he found a party of five gathered about the table desk, lawyers verifying the securities for the marriage settlement, Maître Vondin, a stubby, black-bearded Frenchman imported for the occasion, coldly incredulous and suavely insistent, the storm center of an excited group who had been arguing since dinner. Drake, by the fireplace, was pacing up and down, swearing audibly.
"Is thegentlemannow quite satisfied?" he said angrily.
Maître Vondrin smiled in the affirmative.
Drake sat down at the table with the gesture of brushing away a swarm of flies and signed his name to a document that was placed before him, nodding to Bojo to add his signature as a witness.
"Pity some of our corporations couldn't employ Vondrin," said Drake, rising angrily. "There wouldn't be enough money left to keep a savings bank."
Other signatures were attached and the party broke up, Maître Vondrin, punctilious and unruffled, bowing to the master of the house and departing with the rest.
Drake's anger immediately burst forth.
"Cussed little sharper! He was keen enough to save this until now. By heavens, if he'd sprung these tactics on me a week ago, his little Duke could have gone home on a borrowed ticket."
Bojo learned afterward that the lawyer for the noble family had refused to take Drake's word on a single item of the transfer of property, insisting on having every security placed before his eyes, personally examining them all, wrangling over values, compelling certain substitutes, even demanding a personal guarantee in one debated issue of bonds.
"God grant she doesn't come to regret it," said Drake, thinking of his wife. His anger made him careless of what he said. "Tom, mark my words, if ever this precious Duke comes to me for money—as, mark my words, he will—I'll make him get down on his knees for all his superciliousness, and turn somersaults like a trick dog. Yes, by heaven, I will!"
Bojo was silent, not knowing what to say, and Drake finally perceived it.
"It isn't Dolly's fault," he said apologetically. "She's a good sort. This isn't her doing. There was a time when her mother— Well, I'll say no more. Nasty business! Tom, I'll bless the day when I see Doris safe with you, married to a decent American." He took a turn or two and said abruptly, trying to convey more than he expressed: "Don't wait too long. It's a bad atmosphere, all this—there are influences—it isn't fair to the girl, to Doris. Money be damned! I'll see you never have to ask your wife for pocket money. No, I won't present it to you. We'll make it together. There are a lot of buzzards sitting around here to-night, calculating I'm loaded up to the brim and ready for a plucking. Well, Tom, I'm going to fool them. I'm going to make them pay for the wedding."
The idea struck him. He burst out laughing. His eyes snapped with a sudden project.
"Here," he said, clapping Bojo on the shoulder. "Forget what you've heard. Go in and take a look at Doris. She's a sight for tired eyes." He held his hand. "Are you willing to risk your money with me—go it blind, eh?"
"Every cent I have, Mr. Drake," said Bojo, drawn to him by the dramatic sympathies the older man knew how to arouse; "only I don't want any favors. If we lose I lose."
"We won't lose," said Drake and, drawing Bojo's arm under his, he added: "Come on. I've got to get a smile on my face. So here goes."
Bojo found Doris in the corner of the ballroom assiduously surrounded by a black-coated hedge of young men. He had a moment's thrill at the sight of her, radiant and dazzling with every art of dressmaker and hairdresser, revealed in a sinuous arrangement of black chiffon with mysterious sudden sheens of gold. She came to him at once, expectancy in her eyes; and the thought that this prize was his, that hundreds would watch them as they stood together, acknowledging his right, gave him a sudden swift sense of power and conquest.
"I was with your father," he said, in explanation, "to witness some papers. Say, Doris, how every woman here must hate you to-night!"
"It's all for you," she said, delighted. "Dance with me. Tell me what happened. There's been a dreadful row, I know, for days. Mother and father haven't spoken except in public, and Dolly's been moping."
"It was something about the settlements. Your father was white-hot all right."
"We won't have more than a round or two," she said. "I've kept what I could for you—the supper dance, of course. Every one is here!"
"I should say so. Your mother is smiling all over. She even favored me. Look out, though, Doris—she'll begin on you."