Dear Patsie:Did you get my letter of ten days ago, and won't you write me?
Dear Patsie:
Did you get my letter of ten days ago, and won't you write me?
Yours,Bojo.
Perhaps his first had miscarried. Such accidents were rare but yet they did occur. He calculated the shortest time she could receive his letter and answer it and waited expectantly all that day. Again a week passed and no word from her. What had happened? Had he really blundered in sending the first letter? Was her pride hurt, or what? A feeling of despair began to settle over him. He did not attempt a third letter, sick at heart. The thought that he might have wounded her—he always imagined her as a child—was unbearable. It hurt him as it had hurt him with a haunting sadness, the day after their wild toboggan ride, when he had seen the pain in her eyes—eyes that were yet too young for the knowledge ofthe sorrow and ugliness of the world. Finally, through a chance remark one day when he had dropped in to his club, he learned that she was to be present at a house party at Skeeter Stoughton's on Long Island. Overlooking the incident of his unsuccessful attempt to enter their employ, he took his friend into a half confidence and begged him to secure him an invitation for over Sunday.
When he was once on the train and he knew for certain that in a short two hours he would look into her eyes again, a feeling almost of panic seized him. When they were in the motor rushing over smooth white roads and he felt the lost distances melting away beneath him, this feeling became one of the acutest misery. All that he had carefully planned and rehearsed to say to her, suddenly deserted his mind.
"What shall I say? What shall I do?" he said to himself, cold with horror. There seemed to be nothing he could say or do. His very presence was an impertinence, which she must resent.
Luckily no one was in the house except their hostess and he had a short moment to reassemble his thoughts before they strolled down to join the party at the tennis courts. He was known to most of the crowd who greeted his appearance as the return of the prodigal. Patsie was on the courts, her back to him as they came up, Gladys Stone on the opposite side of the net. Some one called out joyfully, "Bojo Crocker!" and she turned with an involuntarily startled movement, then hastily controlling herself at the cry of her partner, drove the ball into the net for the loss of the point.
When next, ensconced under a red-and-white awning among the array of cool flannels and summery dresses, he sought her, she was seriously intent on her game, a little frown on her young forehead, her lips rebelliously set, the swirling white silk collar open at the browned throat, the sleeve rolled up above the firm slender forearm. She moved lightly as a young animal in slow, well calculated tripping movements or in rapid shifting springs. Her partner, a younger brother of Skeeter's, home on vacation, gathered in the balls and offered them to her with a solicitude that was quite evident. Bojo felt an instinctive antipathy watching their laughing intimacy. It seemed to him that they excluded him, that she was still a child unable to distinguish between a stripling and a man, still without need of any deeper emotions than a light-hearted romping comradeship.
With the ending of the set, greetings could no longer be avoided. As she came to him directly, holding out her hand in the most natural way, he felt as though he were going red to the ears, that every one must perceive his embarrassment before this girl still in her teens. He said stupidly, pretending amazement,
"You here? Well, this is a surprise!"
"Yes, isn't it?" she said with seeming unconsciousness.
That was all. The next moment she was in some new group, arranging another match. Short and circumstantial as her greeting had been, it left him with a sinking despair. He had hurt her irrevocably, she resented his presence—that was evident. His whole coming had been a dreadful mistake. Depressed, heturned to Gladys Stone to attempt the concealment from strange eyes of the disorder within himself. He was yet too inexperienced in the ways of the women of the world to even suspect the depth of resentment that could lie in her tortured heart.
"I'm awfully glad to see you—awfully," he said, committing the blunder of giving to his voice a note of discreet sympathy. It had been his distressing duty to bring her personally the little baggage of her sentimental voyage—letters, a token or two, several photographs—to witness with clouding eyes the spectacle of her complete breakdown.
She drew a little away at his words, straightening up and looking from him.
"Have you heard the date of the wedding, Doris's wedding?" she said coldly.
It was his time to wince, but he was incapable of returning the feminine attack.
"You should know better than I," he said quietly.
She looked at him with a perfect simulation of ignorance:
"You were rather well interested, weren't you?"
"More than that, as you know, Gladys," he said, looking directly in her eyes. A certain look she saw there caused her to make a sudden retreat into banality—
"Do you play?"
"Sometimes."
Miss Stoughton and others impatient of the rôle of spectators were organizing tables of auction inside the house. His reason told him that the best thing for him to do would be to join them and show a certain indifference, but the longing, miserable andunreasoning, within him to stay, to be where he could see her, filling his eyes, after all the long vacant summer, was too strong. He hesitated and remained, saying to himself—
"Suppose I am a fool. She'll think I haven't the nerve of a mouse."
He wanted to chatter, to laugh at the slightest pretext, to maintain an attitude of light inconsequential amusement, but the attempt failed. He remained moody and taciturn, his eyes irresistibly fastened on the young figure, so free and untamed, reveling in the excitement and hazards of the game, wondering to himself that this girl, who now seemed so calmly steeled against the display of the slightest interest in him, had once swayed against his shoulder, yielding to the enveloping sense of a moonlight night, loneliness and the invisible, inexplicable impulse toward each other. What had come to end all this and how was it possible for her to dissemble the emotion that she must feel, with the knowledge of his eyes steadily and moodily fixed upon her?
He was resolved to find a moment's isolation in which to speak to her directly and she just as determined to prevent it. As a consequence he felt himself circumvented at every move, without being able to say to himself that it had been done deliberately. The others who perhaps perceived his intention sought an instinctive distance, with that innate sympathy which goes out to lovers, but Patsie with a foreseeing eye called young Stoughton to her side and pretending a slightly wrenched ankle, leaned heavily on his arm. In which fashion they regained the house withoutBojo having been able by hook or crook to have gained a moment for a private word.
At dinner, where he had hoped that Skeeter Stoughton, in return for his half confidence, would have arranged so that he should sit next to her, he found Patsie on the opposite side of the table. An accusatory glance towards Skeeter was answered by one of mystification. Then he understood that she must have rearranged the cards herself. He was unskilled in the knowledge of the ways of young girls and their instinctive cruelty to those who love them and even those whom they themselves love. He was hurt, embarrassed, prey to idiotic suppositions that left him miserable and self-conscious. He was even ready to believe that she had taken the others into her confidence, that every one must be watching, smiling behind their correct masks. The dinner seemed interminable. He was too wretched to conceal his emotions, neglecting his neighbors shamefully until one, a débutante of the year, rallied him maliciously.
"Mr. Crocker, I believe you're in love!"
He glanced at Patsie, frightened lest the remark might have carried, but from her attitude he could divine nothing. She was rattling away, answering some lightly flung remark from down the table. He began to talk desperately in idiotic, meaningless sentences, aware that his neighbor was watching him with a mischievous smile.
"Are you really in love?" she said delightedly when he had run out of ideas.
He was struck by a sudden inspiration.
"If I confess will you help me?" he said in a whisper. Miss Hunter, enraptured with the idea of anything that bordered on the romantic, bobbed her head in enthusiastic response.
"Very well, after dinner," he said in the same low tone. He had a feeling that Patsie had been trying to listen and began to talk with a gaiety for which he found no reason in himself. Several times he glanced across the table and he felt—though their eyes never met—that her glance had but just left him, was on him the moment he turned away. He found her much changed. She was not yet a woman, by a certain veil of fragility and inconscient shyness, but the child was gone. Her glance was more sobered and more thoughtful as though the touch of some sadness had stolen the bubbling spirits of childhood and left a comprehension of deeper trials approaching. At times she assumed an attitude of great dignity, la grande manière, which was yet but assumed and made him smile.
Dinner over, dancing began. He made no attempt to seek out Patsie, putting off Miss Hunter too with evasive answers. He danced once or twice, but without enjoyment and finally, not to witness the spectacle of her dancing with other men, made the pretext of an evening cigar to seek the obliterating darkness of the verandah. Safely hidden in a favoring corner, he sat, moodily watching the occasional flitting of laughing couples silhouetted against the starry night. He was totally at loss to account for the reception. At times a suspicion passed through his mind that Doris might have given a different account of their parting scene than the facts warranted. Atothers, remembering details of romantic novels, he had devoured, he was willing to believe that his letter had not reached her, had been intercepted perhaps by Mrs. Drake. At the end of an hour, fearing to have made his absence too noticeable, he rose unwillingly to join the gay party within. Suddenly as he rounded the corner he came upon a couple separating, the man returning to the dance, the girl leaning against a pillar, plucking at invisible vines. Then she too turned, coming into a momentary reflection. It was Patsie.
She stopped short, divining who it was, and the instinctive step backward which she made brought an angry outburst to his lips.
"I beg your pardon," he said stiffly. "I didn't mean to annoy you. I had been finishing my smoke. I—" He paused, at his wits' end. At this moment if he had been called upon to recognize his true feelings, he would have sworn that he hated her bitterly with a fierce, unreasoning hatred.
"You do not annoy me," she said quietly.
"I was afraid so."
"No."
He hesitated a moment.
"Did you get my letters?"
"Yes."
"Did you answer them?" he said, with a last hope of some possible misunderstanding.
She shook her head.
He waited a moment for some explanation and as none came, he started to leave, saying,
"I don't understand at all—but—I don't suppose that matters—"
He went toward the door. Then stopped. Hethought he had heard her calling his name. He returned slowly.
"Did you call me?"
"No, no."
All at once he came to her tempestuously, catching her arm as he would a naughty child's.
"Drina, I won't be turned away like this. In heaven's name what have I done that you should treat me like this? At least tell me!"
She did not struggle against his hold, but turned away her head without answer.
"Was it my first letter? You didn't like me to write that way—so soon—so soon after breaking the engagement? Was that it? It was, wasn't it?"
It seemed to him, though he could not be sure, that her head made a little affirmative nod.
"But what was wrong?" he cried in dismay. "You wouldn't have me be insincere. You know and I know what you meant to me, you know that if I went on with Doris after—after that night, it was only from a sense of duty, of loyalty. Yes, because you yourself came to me and begged me to. If that's true, why not be open about—"
"Hush," she said hastily. "Some one will hear."
"I don't care if they all hear," he said recklessly. "Drina, what's the use of pretending. You know I've been in love with you, you and only you, from the first day I saw you."
She drew her arm from his grasp and turned on him defiantly—
"Thanks— I don't care to be second fiddle!" she said spitefully.
"Good heavens, that is it!"
"Yes, that is it," she cried out and breaking from him she fled around the corner of the verandah and it seemed to him that he had caught the sound of a sob.
He entered the house, a prey to conflicting emotions, perplexed, angry, inclined to laugh, with alternate flashes of hope and as sudden relapses into despair. Just as he had made up his mind that she had left for the night, she reappeared without a trace of concern. But try as he might he did not succeed in getting another opportunity to speak to her. She avoided him with a settled cold antagonism. The next day it was the same. It seemed that everything she did was calculated to wound him and display her hostility. He had neither the strength nor the wisdom to respond with indifference, suffering openly. At ten o'clock that night as he was miserably preparing to enter the automobile that was to take him to the station, Patsie came hurriedly down the steps, something white in her hand.
"Please do something for me," she said breathlessly.
"What is it?"
"A letter— I want you to mail this letter—it's important."
He turned, taking the letter and putting it in his pocket without noticing it.
She held out her hand. Surprised, he took it, yet without relenting.
"Good-by, Bojo," she said softly.
The next moment he was whirled away. When he reached the Court he remembered for the first timehis commission and, stopping at the desk, he handed the letter absent-mindedly to Della, saying,
"If you're going out, Della, mail this."
She burst out laughing, with her irresistible Irish smile.
"What are you laughing at?" he said, surprised.
"You're always up to tricks, Mr. Crocker," she said, looking at the inscription.
"What do you mean?" he asked, puzzled, and, perceiving the cause of her merriment, he snatched the envelope and glanced at it. It was addressed to him. Covered with confusion he fled up to his room in a fever of anticipation and wild hope.
Dear Bojo:Forgive me for being a horrid, spiteful little cat. I am sorry but you are very stupid—very! Please forgive me.
Dear Bojo:
Forgive me for being a horrid, spiteful little cat. I am sorry but you are very stupid—very! Please forgive me.
Patsie.
P.S. As soon as the wedding is over, we come to New York. Will you come and see me there—and I'll promise to behave.
P.S. As soon as the wedding is over, we come to New York. Will you come and see me there—and I'll promise to behave.
Drina.
He went to bed in the seventh heaven of delight, repeating to himself a hundred times every word of this letter, turning each phrase over and over for favorable interpretation. It seemed to him that never had he spent such deliciously happy days as the last two.
Meanwhile Fred and Louise returned. He went to see them at a fashionable hotel where they were staying temporarily. The great rooms and the large salon on the corner, overlooking the serried flight of houses and factories toward the river must have cost at least fifteen dollars a day. Louise went into the bedroom presently to her hairdresser, closing the door.
"Congratulations, Prince," said Bojo laughing, but with a certain intention to approach serious matters. "The royal suite is charming."
"Remember I'm a married man," said DeLancy, the incorrigible, with a laugh. "Aren't you ashamed to try and lecture me?"
"Have you discovered a gold mine?" said Bojo.
"Oh! I got in on two or three good things last Summer," said Fred, who broke off in some confusion at perceiving that he had just divulged to his friend that he had been trying his fortune again in Wall Street.
"So that's it," said Bojo grimly. "Thought you'd sworn off."
"I never did," said DeLancy obstinately.
"It's not my affair, Fred," said Bojo finally. "Only do go slow, old fellow; we're neither of usgreat manipulators and what comes slowly, goes with a rush."
"Honest, Bojo, I am careful," said Fred with a show of conviction. "No more ten per cent. margins and no more wild-cat chances. If I buy, it's on good information, no plunging."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh, absolutely! I take the solemn oath!" said Fred with a face to convince a meeting of theologians.
"And no margins?"
"Oh, conservative margins!"
"What do you call conservative?"
"Twenty-five points—twenty points naturally."
Bojo shook his head.
"What are you going to do, live here?"
"Of course not. We are looking around for an apartment for the Winter."
Bojo wanted to know what Louise intended, whether she had made up her mind to leave the stage or not, but he did not know quite how to approach the subject. As he studied DeLancy, he thought he looked irrepressibly happy and indifferent to what lay ahead. He wondered if Fred had made any approaches to his old friends with a view to their accepting his wife.
"Will Louise stay here too?" he asked finally.
"Naturally."
"Is—is she giving up her career?" he said hesitatingly.
DeLancy looked rather embarrassed. He did not reply at first.
"I have left that to Louise herself. It's her decision. For the present nothing is settled, not as yet."
Bojo felt the embarrassment that possessed him. He had come to ask a score of questions. He started to leave with the feeling that he had found out nothing. At the noise of his going, Louise came out of the room with her hair down. Probably she had been listening. She said good-by to him with extra cordiality, with an ironical look in her eyes.
"Mind you look us up after."
"Yes, yes."
Fred accompanied him to the elevator.
"As soon as we are settled we'll have a spree," he said with an attempt at the old gaiety.
"Of course."
Bojo went off shrugging his shoulders, saying to himself, "Where will it all end?"
During the Summer a marked change had come over industrial conditions, a feeling of something ominous was in the air, a vague and undefined threat impending. At the factory a fifth of the machines were idle and Garnett was moodily contemplating a general reduction in salaries. Bojo scarcely paid any attention to Wall Street matters now, but he knew that the movement downward of values had been slow and gradual and that prophecies of dark days were current. Matters with Marsh were going badly. Advertisers were deserting the paper, there had been several minor strikes with costly readjustments. Roscoe seemed to have lost his early enthusiasm, to be increasingly moody, impatient and quick to take offense. The reasons given for the business depression were many, over capitalization, timidity of the small investors due to the exposure of great corporations, distrust of radical political reforms. Whatever thecauses, the receding tide had come. People were apprehensive, dispirited, talking poverty. Granning held that the country was paying for the sins of the great financial adventurers and the cost of the giddy structures they had thrown up. Marsh from the knowledge of his newspaper world, held that below all was the coalescing power of great banking systems, arrayed against the government on one side and on the other, waiting their opportunity to crush the new-risen financial idea of the Trust Company organized to deal in speculative ventures denied to them. When Bojo in his simplicity asked why in a great growing nation of boundless resources, a panic should ever be necessary, each sought to explain with confusing logic which did not convince at all. Only from it he gathered that above the great productive mechanism of the nation was an artificial structure, in the possession of powerful groups able to control the sources of credit on which the sources of production depend.
Four days after he had read in the newspapers the account of Doris's wedding to Boskirk, about seven o'clock in the evening, while he was waiting for Roscoe to call for him to go out to dinner, Sweeney, the Jap, brought him a card.
It was from Patsie, hastily scribbled across, "I am outside. Can you come and see me?"
"Where is she? Outside?" he said all in a flutter. Sweeney informed him that she was waiting in an automobile.
He guessed that something serious must have happened and hurried down. Patsie's face was at the window, watching impatiently. When she saw him she relaxed momentarily with a sigh of relief.
"Why, Patsie, what's wrong?" he said instantly, taking her hand.
"You can come? It's important."
"Of course."
He jumped in and the car made off.
"Tell him to drive through the Park."
He transmitted the order. And then turned to look at her.
"I am so worried!" she said at once, gazing into his eyes, with eyes that held an indefinable fear.
He had not relinquished her hand since he had seated himself. He pressed it strongly, fighting back the desire to take her in his arms, that came to him with the spectacle of her misery. There flashed through his mind the details of his final parting with Doris and her ominous declaration of the ruin impending over her father. He had only half believed it then but now it flashed across his memory with instant conviction.
"Your father is in trouble—financial trouble!" he said suddenly.
"How do you know?" she said amazed.
"Doris told me."
"Doris? When?" she said. She stiffened at the name, though he did not notice the action.
"The last time I saw her—why, Drina, didn't you know? Why she came down, why she saw me and asked to be released—didn't you know her reason?"
"I know nothing. Do you mean to say that she—" she paused as though overwhelmed at the thought, "that then she knew Dad was facing ruin?"
"Knew? Why, your father told her!— Doris and your mother! You didn't know?"
"No."
"You weren't told afterward?"
"No, no—not a word."
Rapidly he recounted the details of the scene, failing in his excitement to notice how divided was her interest, between the knowledge of what was threatening her father, and what bore upon the situation between Doris and himself.
"Then it was Doris who broke it!" she said suddenly and a shudder went through her body.
He checked himself, saw clear and answered impetuously.
"Yes, she did—that's true. But let me tell the truth also. I never would have married her—never—never! I never in all my life felt such relief—yes, such absolute happiness as that night when I walked away free. I did not love her. I had not for a long, long time. I pitied her. I believed that through her love for me a great change was coming in her—for the best. And so it had. I pitied her. I was afraid of doing harm. That was all. She knew it, Drina. You can't believe I cared—you must have known!"
"And yet—yet," she began, hesitatingly, and stopped.
"Don't hold anything back," he said impulsively. "We mustn't let anything stand between us. Say anything you want. Better that."
"What I couldn't understand," she said at last, with an effort, in which her hurt pride was evident—"that afternoon—when you gave back the money to Dad—after what you said to me— Oh! how can I say it."
"You thought that I was going to tell the truth to Doris and break the engagement. That was it, wasn't it?"
"Yes," she said, covering her face, in terror that she could have said such a thing, and yet her whole being hanging on his answer—"I couldn't understand—afterwards."
"I came out of the library to make an end of everything and before I knew it, it was Doris who had changed everything. She had listened. She had heard all. She imagined she was in love for the first time. She begged me not to turn from her, to give her another chance. I was caught, what was I to do?"
"She loves you," she said breathlessly.
"She only imagines it. She only plays with that idea."
"No, no! she loves you," she said in a tone of great suffering.
"But, Drina," he said, aghast at her inconsistency, "it was you who came to me—who begged me to marry Doris—how can you forget that?"
She burst into tears.
"What! You are jealous!—jealous of her!" he cried with a great hope in his voice, his hand going out to her.
She stiffened suddenly and drew back, frightened into her corner.
"No, I'm not jealous," she said furiously. "Only hurt—terribly hurt."
This sudden change left him bewildered. He felt it unjustified, inconsistent and a reproach was on his lips.
In the end he quieted himself and said, forcing himself to speak like a stranger:
"This, I suppose, is not what you wanted to say to me?"
Instantly her alarm overcame her defiant attitude.
"No, no. I am terribly worried. I want your help, oh! so much."
She extended her hand timidly as though in apology, but still offended, he withdrew his, saying:
"Anything I can do and you need not fear that I'll take advantage of it!"
"Oh!" she shrank back and then in a moment said, "Bojo, forgive me— I am very cruel— I know it. Will you forgive me?"
"I forgive you," he said at last, trembling at the sweetness of her voice, resolved whatever the temptation, to show her that he could control himself.
"Bojo, everything is going against Dad—everything. Doris must come back and we must get word to Dolly. He needs all the help we can give him."
"Are you sure?" he said, amazed.
"Oh! I know."
"But your father has millions and in the Pittsburgh & New Orleans he made at least ten more. How can it be?"
"I overheard— I listened and then—then mother told me."
"When?"
"The night after the wedding—that in another month we might be ruined—that I—I ought to look to the future."
"Oh, like Doris!" he cried.
"Yes, that was what she meant," she said with ashudder. "Think of it, my mother, my own mother. Then I went to him—to Dad—but he would tell me nothing—only laughed and said everything was all right, but I knew! I don't know how or why, but I knew from the look in his eyes."
"Yet I can't believe it," he said incredulously.
"Oh! I feel so alone and so helpless," she cried, twisting her hands. "Something must be done and I don't know how to do it. Bojo, you must help me—you must tell me. It's money—he can't get money— I believe no one will lend it to him." Suddenly she turned on him, caught his arm,—"You say Doris knew, Dad told her—before the wedding!"
"Yes—because she told me."
"Oh! that is too terrible," she cried, "and knowing it she allowed him to make her a gift of half a million."
"He did that? You are certain?"
"Absolutely. I saw the bonds."
"But then that proves everything is all right," he cried joyfully.
"'He wants to see you now' she said""'He wants to see you now' she said"
"You don't know Dad," she said, shaking her head mournfully. "Bojo, we must get Doris back, she may do things for you that she won't do for any one else— Oh! yes, you don't know. Then I have something—a quarter of a million. I want to turn it into cash. He won't take it from me if he knew. But you might deposit it to his credit, make him believe some one did it anonymously—couldn't that be done?"
He raised her hand with a sudden swelling in his throat and kissed it, murmuring something incoherent.
"That is nothing to do, nothing," she said, shaking her head.
"I wish I could go to him," he said doubtfully.
"You can. You can. I know Dad believes you, trusts you. Oh! if you would.
"Of course I will and at once," he said joyfully. He leaned out the window and gave the order. "Heavens, child, we've forgotten all about dinner. I shall have to invite myself." He took her hand, patting it as though to calm her. "It may not be so bad as you imagine. We'll telegraph Doris to-night, the Boskirks can do a lot. Of course they'll help. Then there's your mother—she has money of her own, I know."
"That's what I'm afraid of—mother," she said in a whisper.
"What do you mean?"
She shook her head.
"Don't ask me. I shouldn't have said it. And yet—and yet—"
"We are almost there," he said hurriedly. He wanted to say something to her, revolting at the discipline he had imposed on himself, something from the heart and yet something at which she would not take offense. He hesitated and stammered—"Thank you for coming to me. You know—you understand, don't you?"
She turned, her glance rested on his a long moment, she started as though to say something, stopped and turned hurriedly away, but brief as the moment had been, a feeling of meltable content came over him. The next moment they came to a stop. In the vestibule she bade him wait in the little parlor andwent in ahead to the library. He had picked up a paper and paced up and down, scanning it anxiously, with brief glances down the wide luxurious salons and at the liveried servants who seemed to move nervously, all eyes and ears, scenting danger in the air. The accent of fear was in the headlines even. He was staring at a caption telling of rumored suspensions and prophecies of ill when Patsie came tripping back.
"It's all right. He wants to see you now," she said, happiness in her eyes, holding out her hand to lead him.
Drake was before the fireplace, moving or rather switching back and forth, and this unwonted nervousness seemed an evil augury to Bojo. However, at the slight rustle of the portières, Drake came forward with energetic strides, his hand flung out—
"Well, stranger, almost thought you'd fled the country. How are you? Glad, mighty glad, to see you." He stood with a smile, patting the shoulder of Patsie, who leaned against his side. "Let's see your hands, Tom. They tell me you've become quite a horny-handed son of toil."
"I'm mighty glad to seeyou," said Bojo, studying him anxiously. At first he felt reassured, the old self-possession and careless confidence were there in tone and gesture. It was only when he examined him more closely that his forebodings returned. About the eyes, not perceptible at first, but lurking in the depths was a hunted, restless look, which struck the young man at once.
"I wanted Bojo so to come," said Patsie breathlessly. "I thought—in some way—somehow he might be of help."
"I only wish I could," said Bojo instantly. "You know you can trust me."
"Yes, I know that," said Drake briefly with a suddenclouding over of his face. He added stubbornly, pulling his daughter's ear with a kindly look, "This young lady is all in a panic over nothing. Comes from talking business before them."
"Oh, Daddy, why not be truthful? Whatever comes we can face it. Only let us know," said Patsie with her large eyes fixed sadly on his face in unbelief.
"I'm in a fight—a big fight, Tom, that's all, a little tougher than other fights," he said loudly as though talking to himself. "If you want to see some ructions and learn a few things that may help you in dealing with certain brands of coyotes later, why come in—just possible you might fit in handy."
"Thank you, sir," said Bojo gratefully, exalted to the seventh Heaven by this permission, which seemed to bring him back the old intimacy. Patsie was looking at him with shining eyes.
"Yes, but how about your work—the factory?" said Drake.
"The factory be damned," said Bojo fervidly, with the American instinct for the fitness of the direct word. All broke out laughing at his impetuosity.
"Well, Tom, I always did want you in the family," said Drake, clapping him on the shoulder with a sly look at Patsie. "Have it as you wish. I'll be mighty glad to have you, though you did give me a pretty stiff lesson!"
At this moment when Patsie and Bojo did not dare to look at each other, the situation was luckily saved by the announcement of dinner.
In the dining-room they waited several moments for Mrs. Drake to appear until finally a footmanbrought the news that the mistress of the house was indisposed and begged them to sit down without her. Drake looked rather startled at this and went off into a moody abstraction for quite a while, during which Patsie exchanged solicitous glances with Bojo.
"It is more serious than he will admit," he thought. "I must get a chance to speak to him alone. He will never tell the truth before Drina."
Dinner over, a rather anxious meal partaken of in long silences with occasional bursts of forced conversation, Bojo found opportunity to whisper to Patsie as they returned towards the library.
"Make some excuse and leave us as soon as you can. I'll see you before I go."
She gave him a slight movement of her eyes to show she comprehended and went dancing in ahead.
"Now before you begin on business, let me make you both comfortable," she cried. She indicated chairs and pushed them into their seats, laughing. She brought the cigars and insisted on serving them with lights, while each watched her, charmed and soothed by the grace and youth of her spirits, though each knew the reason of her assuming. She camped finally on the arm of her father's chair, with a final enveloping hug, which under the appearance of exuberance, conveyed a deep solicitude.
"Shall I stay or do you want to talk alone?"
"Stay." Drake caught the hand which had stolen about his neck and patted it with rough tenderness. "Besides I want you to get certain false ideas out of your head. Well, Tom, I'll tell you the situation." He stopped a moment as though considering, before beginning again with an appearance of franknesswhich almost convinced the young man, though it failed before the alarmed instinct of his daughter. "Miss Patsie here is taking entirely too seriously something her mother repeated to her. I won't attempt to deny that the times are shaky. They are. They may become suddenly worse. That depends entirely on a certain group of men. But the strong point as well as the weak point in the present situation is that it can depend on a certain group. There will be no panic for the simple reason that in a panic this group will lose in the tens of millions where others lose thousands. Now this group in the past through their control direct or inter-related has been able to dominate the centers of credit, the money loaning institutions, such as the great banks and insurance companies. By this means they have been in a measure able to keep to themselves the great industrial exploitations dependent on the ability to finance in the hundreds of millions. More, they have been able to limit to narrow fields such men as myself and other newcomers, who wish to rise to the same financial advantage. Lately this supremacy has been threatened by the rise of a new financial idea, the Trust company. This new form of banking, due to the scope permitted under the present law, has been able to deal in business and to make loans on collateral which, while valid, is forbidden a bank under the statutes. The Trust companies, able to deal in more profitable business and to pay good interest consequently on deposits, have developed so enormously as to threaten to overshadow the banks. Back of all this the Trust companies have been developed and purchased by the younger generation of financiersin order to acquire the means of providing themselves with the credit necessary to develop their large schemes of industrial expansion, without being at the mercy of influences which can be controlled by others. From the moment the dominant group perceived this phase of the development of the Trust company, war was certain. That's where I come in. Pretty dry stuff. Can you get it?"
Patsie nodded, more interested perhaps in her father's manner than in what he said. Bojo listened with painful concentration.
"After my deal in Indiana Smelters and the turn in Pittsburgh & New Orleans I knew that the knives were out against me. I tried to make peace with Gunther but I might just as well have tried to sleep with the tiger. I saw that. There were several things I wanted to do—big things. I had to have credit. Where could I get it—dare to get it? So I went into the Trust companies. They want to get me and they want to get them." He stopped, rubbed his chin and said with a grin, "Perhaps they may sting me—good and hard—but at the worst we could worry along on eight or nine millions, couldn't we, living economically, Patsie?"
"Is that the worst it could mean?" she said, drawing off to look in his eyes.
He nodded, adding:
"Oh, it isn't pleasant to have fifteen to twenty millions clipped from your fleece, but still we can live—live comfortably."
She pretended to believe him, throwing herself in his arms.
"Oh! I'm so relieved."
His hand ran over her golden head in a gentle caress and his face, as Bojo saw it, was strained and grim, though his words were light:
"But I'm not going to lose those twenty millions, not if I can help it!"
Patsie sprang up laughing, caught Bojo's signal and ran out crying:
"Back in a moment. Must see how mother is."
When the curtains, billowing out at her tumultuous exit, had fluttered back to rest, Bojo said quietly:
"Mr. Drake, is that what you wish me to believe?"
"Eh, what's that?" said Drake, looking up.
"Am I to believe what you've just told?"
There was a long moment between them, while each studied the other.
"How far can I trust you?" said Drake slowly.
"What do you mean?"
"Can I have your word that you will not tell Patsie—or any one?"
Bojo reflected a moment, frowning.
"Is that absolutely necessary?"
"That's the condition."
"Very well, I shall tell her nothing more than she knows. Will that satisfy you?"
Drake nodded slowly, his eyes still on the young man as though finally considering the advisability of a confidence.
"That was partly true," he said slowly; "only partly. There's more to it. It's not a questionyetof being wiped out, but it may be a question. Tom, I'm not sure but what they've got me. It all dependson the Atlantic Trust. If they dare let it go to the wall—" He grinned, took a long whistle and threw up his arms.
"But surely not all—you don't mean wiped out?" said Bojo, aghast. "You must be worth twenty, twenty-two million."
"I am worth that and more," said Drake quietly. "On paper and not only on paper, under any other system of banking in the world, I would be worth twenty-seven millions of dollars. Every cent of it. Remember that afterward, Tom. You'll never see anything funnier. Twenty-seven millions and to-day I can't borrow five hundred thousand dollars on collateral worth forty times that. You don't understand it. I'll tell you."
Drake did not immediately proceed. Having impulsively expressed his intention to reveal his financial crisis, he hesitated as though regretting that impulse. He left the fireplace and went from door to door as though to assure himself against listeners, but aimlessly, rather from indecision than from any precaution. Returning, he flung away his cigar, though it was but half consumed, and took a fresh one, offering the box to Bojo without perceiving that he was in no need. So apparent was his disinclination, that Bojo felt impelled to say:
"Perhaps you would rather not tell me, sir!"
"I'd only be telling you what my enemies know," said Drake sharply, flinging himself down. "They know to a dollar what I've pledged and what I can draw on— Oh! trust them."
"Mr. Drake," said Bojo slowly, "I don't need to tell you, do I, that I would do anything in this world for Patsie, and that without knowing in the slightest what she feels toward me—believe me. I say this to you—because I want you to know that I've come only in the wildest hope that I might help in some way—some little way."
Drake shook his head.
"You can't, and yet—" He hesitated a last timeand then said, in a dreamy, indecisive way, so foreign to his nature that it showed the extent of the mental struggle through which he had passed, "and yet there are some things I'd be glad to have you know—to remember, Tom, after it's all over, particularly if you come into the family. For I don't think you quite understand my ways of fighting. You took a rather harsh view of certain things from your standpoint— I admit you had some cause."
"I didn't judge you," said Bojo hastily, blushing with embarrassment. "I was only judging myself, my own responsibility."
"Well, you judged me too," said Drake, smiling. "Yes—and I felt it, and I'll say now that I felt uncomfortable—damned uncomfortable. That's why I'm going to let you see that according to my ways of looking at things I play the game square. I'm going to let you overhear a certain very interesting little meeting that is going to take place" (he glanced at the clock) "in about half an hour. Mr. James H. Haggerdy is coming to make me a proposition from Gunther and Co. It'll interest you."
"Thank you," said Bojo simply.
"Now, here's the situation in a nutshell. If I could weather this depression a year, six months, or if there had been no depression, but normal times, I would be able to swing a deal and clear out at over one hundred millions— I gambled big. It was in me—fated— I had to sink or swim on a big stake. If I'd have won out, I'd have been among the kings of the country. That's what I wanted—not money. It's the poker in my blood. However. Here's the case: I made money, as you know—a great dealof money. I was worth considerable after the Indiana Smelters got going. I was worth ten millions more when I had sold back Pittsburgh & New Orleans. That was the crisis. I wanted to get in with the inner crowd—not simply to be a buccaneer, for that's about what I'd been. That's why they bought their old railroad back. I was rated a dangerous man. I was. So is every man dangerous till he gets what he wants. I went to Gunther and laid my cards on the table. Gunther's a big man, the only man I'd have done it to, but he has one fault—he can hate. The ideal master ought to have no friends and no enemies. I said to Gunther:
"'Gunther, let's talk straight. I want to come into the field—on your level—you know what that means. Your word and I'll be satisfied. Am I big enough yet? Do you want me inside or outside the breastworks? Say the word.'
"He sat there smiling, listening, gazing out the window.
"'I know what I'm asking's a big thing, to forget what I've cost you. Itisa lot to ask. But you're big enough to see beyond it. Say the word and I'm yours, through thick and thin, from now on, and I'll lay before you now a campaign as big as anything you handled so far. All I want is your word—is it peace or war!'
"That's where he played square.
"'I don't forget easily,' he said.
"'So that's the answer?' I said.
"He nodded.
"'I'm sorry. I came to you because you're the only man down here I'm willing to look up to,' I said,for I knew there was no use going on, but as I went out I plumped in a last shot: 'In a year from now I'm going to put the same offer to you, and when I do I'll carry a few more guns.'
"I went out and I got to work. As a matter of fact, I had already begun. I went in with Majendie of the Atlantic Trust, Ryerson of the Columbian, and Dryser of the Seaboard Trust. I bought my way in. I'd got a say in institutions able to lend millions on good collateral without having to duck at a bell pressed downtown. Then I started with a group of Middle-Westerners to make myself felt. There was only one big field left and it was a question how long that would be left alone. They had organized their steel industries and their railroads, they'd knocked out or digested competitors, controlled the field of production and had things sailing along gloriously, but they'd forgotten, or almost forgotten, one thing which they ought to have controlled the first, the iron to pour into their furnaces and the coke to keep them going. When they woke up, they found me in control of the Eastern Coke and Iron Company, holding about eighty million dollars worth of land in West Virginia and Virginia which they had to have sooner or later. Then they woke up with a vengeance. The first thing they did was to send word to me through Haggerdy to get out of the Seaboard Trust and be a good little boy and they'd let me come around and play. I laughed at that, though I knew it meant war to the knife. About ten weeks ago I got a taste of what they could do. Of course, to carry what I was carrying, I had need of big sums, and I had large blocks of Eastern Coke and Ironhypothecated not only among my Trust Company connections, but in banks around town, where it was upon good strong margins. Ten weeks ago, when I dropped in at a certain bank to renew my loan, I was told that they had decided on account of the business outlook, the downward trend of prices and what not, to call in their loans and proceed on a very conservative basis. Of course, under that rigamarole I knew what was doing—orders from headquarters—and more to follow. I placed the loan with the Atlantic Trust and waited. Last week another refusal. This time the warning was a little more pointed. The president himself looked with grave concern—that's always the expression—on the amount of Eastern C. and I. stock hypothecated at present. A collapse in the stock, which had been declining steadily, might seriously upset financial conditions all over the country, etc. Well, I weathered that and a couple others until I've got where I'm stumped. A bank has got the right to decide for itself what it wants to lend money on; it can decline a loan on any security or all securities offered, and what are you going to do about it? The trust companies are carrying all they can and besides they're being squeezed themselves. As a matter of fact, with solid properties worth to-day in the market from fifty-five to fifty-seven millions, of which we own sixty per cent., there isn't a bank in town will lend us a hundred thousand dollars. The word has been passed around and those who are independent don't dare. I need two million cash by day after to-morrow, absolutely must have it, and they know it and Haggerdy's coming here to look me over, examinemy pocketbook and say, 'What have you got that we want!'"
At this moment the butler came with a card.
"Did you say any one was here?" said Drake, studying the card.
"No, sir."
"Show Mr. Haggerdy in when I ring," said Drake, with a nod of dismissal. He rose and beckoning Bojo placed him in the embrosine of the window, where a slight recess hid him completely from the rest of the room.
"No need of a record; take it in just for your own curiosity," he said, returning to his desk.
Mr. James H. Haggerdy came in like a bulky animal emerging from a cage and blinking at the sun. He was not the man to beat about the bush, and in his own long and varied experience in Wall Street he had been called many names, but he had never been branded with anything petty, a fact which made a certain bond of sympathy between the two men.
"Hello, Dan!"
"Hello, Jim!"
Haggerdy moved to a chair, refused a cigar, and said directly:
"Well, Jim, I suppose you know what I've come for."
"Sure, to carry off the furniture and the silverware," said Drake, laughing.
"That's about it!" said Haggerdy, nodding with a grim twist of his lips. He had a sense of humor, though he seldom laughed. "Dan, they've got you."
"So they seem to think."
"And they want your Eastern C. and I. stock."
"That's quite evident. Will they accept it as a present or do they want me to pay them for taking it?" said Drake grimly.
"What's the use of faking," said Haggerdy. "Gunther wants the stock and is going to have it. Do you want to sell now or hand it over. You're a sensible man, Dan; you ought to know when you're beaten."
"I'm not sure I am a sensible man," said Drake facetiously.
"It's all in the game. You're not kicking because you've been caught, are you?" said Haggerdy, as though in surprise.
"No. If I were in Gunther's place I should do just what he's doing. Quite right. Only I'm not sure, Jim, he'd do what I do were conditions reversed."
"You paid around 79 for the stock. You've got a million shares you're carrying. The stock's to-day at 54. We'll buy you out at 55. Take it, Dan."
"Thanks for the advice, but my answer's No."
"Why?"
"That stock's going to be worth 150 in two years."
"Two years isn't to-day. You're facing conditions." He looked at him as though trying to understand his motive. "The old man isn't bargaining when he says 55; he means 55 and no more."
"I know that."
"Where are you going to raise two million dollars cash in forty-eight hours? You see, we are well informed."
Drake smiled as though this were the easiest matter in the world.
"Suppose the Clearing House refuses to clear for the Atlantic Trust to-morrow. What'll that mean?"
"A panic."
"And where would your Eastern Coke and Iron go then?"
"To 40 or 35, wherever you wanted it to go—possibly."
"And can't you take a hint?"
"Not when I know a stock that's worth over a hundred has been pushed down on purpose to freeze me out."
"You're not talking morality, Dan?"
"Oh, no! You think I'm beaten. I know I'm not."
"You're bluffing, Dan."
"Find out."
"To-morrow'll be too late."
"Possibly, but if Gunther can buy it at 40 or 35, why should he pay 55 to me?"
"I think he likes you, Dan," said Haggerdy slowly.
"No. He wants to make sure of getting the stock. He doesn't want a scramble for it," said Drake. "I'm surprised to hear you talking such nonsense."
Haggerdy rose, shaking his head impressively.
"A mistake, Dan—a mistake." He waited a moment and then played his last card. "Of course, if you sell out in this, it's understood Gunther'll see you through on the rest. And that may mean the question of the roof over your head."
"That means credit at the bank—that I'll be allowedto put up good collateral like a respectable member of the crowd?"
"Phrase it as you will, that's it. Gunther will buy out your Trust Company holdings for what you paid for them and he'll see you through on Indiana Smelters—that means something saved out of the wreck—and, Dan, there's a big smash up just over the horizon."
"I thought that was the proposition," said Drake, ruminating. "Well, Jim, it's more than ever no."
"Why more than ever?"
"Because this in good old-fashioned English means just one thing—getting out, saving my skin at the expense of others."
"Quite so—every man for himself."
"Not with me. I've given my word on the Coke and Iron deal. I'll see it through. Tell Gunther I'll sell out at 80 all or nothing, and give him twenty-four hours."
Haggerdy stretched out his hand in farewell.
"Are you sure of the other fellows, Dan?" he said slyly.
"I don't give a damn what the other fellows may do. I've given my word and I stand by that."
"I'm sorry for you, Dan," said Haggerdy, shaking his head ominously. "Telephone me if you change your mind."
"Thanks for your wishes, but don't lose any sleep—expecting," said Drake, laughing.
Bojo came out aghast.
"You don't mean to say the Atlantic Trust is in danger," he cried, foreseeing all in a glance the structures that would go toppling.
"It's in danger, all right," said Drake moodily, "but they won't—they don't dare let it close—impossible!"
"And if you can't raise two million?"
Drake shrugged his shoulders.
"But surely there's some way," Bojo cried helplessly, "some friends—there must be a way to raise it. This house surely is worth twice that—it isn't mortgaged, is it?"
"No, it's quite clear, but it belongs to my wife," said Drake, and again there came into his face that shadow of broken despair which Bojo had noticed a score of times.
"But then—does she realize—"
"Yes, she knows," said Drake to himself. It was easy to see that the interview with Haggerdy had profoundly convinced him. "Mrs. Drake's fortune outside of that is fully three millions, which I have given her—"
"But why haven't you told her and your daughter—they ought—" Suddenly he stopped short, his eyes met Drake's and a suspicion of the truth struck him. "You don't mean—"
"Don't," said Drake helplessly, and for the first time he caught a glimpse of the vastness of his inner suffering. The next minute he had hurriedly recovered his mask, saying: "Don't ask me about that— I can't— I must not tell you."
"Mrs. Drake has refused to help you!" exclaimed Bojo, carried away. "She has—she has. I see it by your face."
Drake walked to the fireplace and stood gazingdown. Presently he nodded as though talking to himself.
"Yes; my wife could come to my assistance. I have been forced to ask her. She won't. I have been living in a fool's paradise. That's what hurts!"