HESPERIDES.I.My feet, used to pine-needles, moss and turf,And the gray boulders at the lip o' the sea,Where the cold brine jets up its creamy surf,Now tread once more these city ways, unloved by me,Hateful and hot, gross with iniquity.And so I grieve,Grieve when I wake, or at high blinding noonOr when the moonMocks this sad Ninevah where the throngs weaveTheir jostling ways by day, their paths by night;Where darkness is not—where the streets burn brightWith hectic fevers, eloquent of death!I gasp for breath....Visions have I, visions! So sweet they seemThat from this welter of men and things I turn, to dreamOf the dim Wood-world, calling out to me.Where forest-virgins I half glimpse, half seeWith cool mysterious fingers beckoning!Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn,Or Dryads dance their mystic rounds and sing,Sing high, sing low, with magic cadencesThat once the wild oaks of Dodona heard;And every wood-note bids me burst asunderThe bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird.I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonderGrows, that there be who buy their wealth, their easeBy damning serfs to cities, hot and blurred,Far from thy golden quest, Hesperides!...II.I see this August sun againSheer up high heaven wheel his angry way;And hordes of menBleared with unrestful sleep rise up another day,Their bodies racked with aftermaths of toil.Over the city, in each gasping street,Shudders a haze of heat,Reverberant from pillar, span and plinth.Once more, cribbed in this monstrous labyrinthSacrificed to the Minotaur of GreedMen bear the turmoil, glare, sweat, brute inharmonies;Denial of each simplest human need,Loss of life's meaning as day lags on day;And my rebellious spirit rises, fliesIn dreams to the green quiet wood away,Away! Away!III.And now, and now...I feel the forest-moss...Come! On these moss-beds let me lie with Pan,Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrill'd curls,And I will hold all gold, that hampers man,Only the ashes of base, barren dross!On with the love-dance of the pagan girls!The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red,With breasts upgirt and foreheads garlanded,With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded!With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring!Now...let them sing,And I will pipe a tune that all may hear,To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme;To warn profaning feet lest they draw near.Away! Away! Beware these mystic trees!Who dares to quest you now, Hesperides?IV.Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows?Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold?Sing ye the hills, adown whose sides blue shadowsCreep when the westering day is growing old?Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallowsThe small fish dart and gleam?Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willowsThat stoop to kiss the stream?Or sing ye burning streets, foul with the breathOf sweatshop, tenement, where endlesslySpawned swarms of folk serve tyrant masters twain—Profit, and his twin-brother, grinning Death?Where millions toil, hedged off from aught save pain?Far from thee ever, O mine Arcady?...
HESPERIDES.
I.
My feet, used to pine-needles, moss and turf,And the gray boulders at the lip o' the sea,Where the cold brine jets up its creamy surf,Now tread once more these city ways, unloved by me,Hateful and hot, gross with iniquity.And so I grieve,Grieve when I wake, or at high blinding noonOr when the moonMocks this sad Ninevah where the throngs weaveTheir jostling ways by day, their paths by night;Where darkness is not—where the streets burn brightWith hectic fevers, eloquent of death!I gasp for breath....Visions have I, visions! So sweet they seemThat from this welter of men and things I turn, to dreamOf the dim Wood-world, calling out to me.Where forest-virgins I half glimpse, half seeWith cool mysterious fingers beckoning!Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn,Or Dryads dance their mystic rounds and sing,Sing high, sing low, with magic cadencesThat once the wild oaks of Dodona heard;And every wood-note bids me burst asunderThe bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird.I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonderGrows, that there be who buy their wealth, their easeBy damning serfs to cities, hot and blurred,Far from thy golden quest, Hesperides!...
II.
I see this August sun againSheer up high heaven wheel his angry way;And hordes of menBleared with unrestful sleep rise up another day,Their bodies racked with aftermaths of toil.Over the city, in each gasping street,Shudders a haze of heat,Reverberant from pillar, span and plinth.Once more, cribbed in this monstrous labyrinthSacrificed to the Minotaur of GreedMen bear the turmoil, glare, sweat, brute inharmonies;Denial of each simplest human need,Loss of life's meaning as day lags on day;And my rebellious spirit rises, fliesIn dreams to the green quiet wood away,Away! Away!
III.
And now, and now...I feel the forest-moss...Come! On these moss-beds let me lie with Pan,Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrill'd curls,And I will hold all gold, that hampers man,Only the ashes of base, barren dross!On with the love-dance of the pagan girls!The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red,With breasts upgirt and foreheads garlanded,With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded!With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring!Now...let them sing,And I will pipe a tune that all may hear,To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme;To warn profaning feet lest they draw near.Away! Away! Beware these mystic trees!Who dares to quest you now, Hesperides?
IV.
Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows?Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold?Sing ye the hills, adown whose sides blue shadowsCreep when the westering day is growing old?Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallowsThe small fish dart and gleam?Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willowsThat stoop to kiss the stream?Or sing ye burning streets, foul with the breathOf sweatshop, tenement, where endlesslySpawned swarms of folk serve tyrant masters twain—Profit, and his twin-brother, grinning Death?Where millions toil, hedged off from aught save pain?Far from thee ever, O mine Arcady?...
His voice ceased and silence fell between the man and woman in the old sugar-house. Gabriel sat there by the dying fire, which cast its ruddy light over his strongly virile face, and gazed into the coals. The girl, lying on the rude bed, her face eager, her slim strong hands tightly clasped, had almost forgotten to breathe.
At last she spoke.
"That—that is wonderful!" she cried, a tremor of enthusiasm in her voice.
He shook his head.
"No compliments, please," said he.
"I'm not complimenting you! I think itiswonderful. You're a true poet!"
"I wish I were—so I might use it all for Socialism!"
"You could make a fortune, if you'd work for somepaper or magazine—some regular one, I mean, not Socialist."
He shook his head.
"Dead sea fruit," he answered. "Fairy gold, fading in the clutch, worthless through and through. No, if my work has any merit, it's all for Socialism, now and ever!"
Silence again. Neither now found a word to say, but their eyes met and read each other; and a kind of solemn hush seemed to lie over their hearts.
Then, as they sat there, looking each at each—for now the girl had raised herself on the crude bed and was supporting herself with one hand—a sudden sound of a motor, on the road, awakened them from their musing.
Came the raucous wail of a siren. Then the engine-exhaust ceased; and a voice, raised in some annoyance, hailed loudly through the maple-grove:
"Hello! Hello? What's wrong here?"
Gabriel stepped to the sugar-house door:
"Here! Come here!" he shouted in a ringing voice that echoed wildly from between his hollowed palms.
As the motorist still sat there, uncomprehending, Gabriel made his way toward the road.
"Accident here," said he. "Girl in here, injured. Can you take her to the nearest town, at once? She needs a doctor."
Instantly the man was out of his car, and hastening toward Gabriel.
"Eh? What?" he asked. "Anything serious?"
In a few words, Gabriel told him the outlines of the tale.
"The quicker you get the girl to a town, and let herhave a doctor and communication with her family, the better," he concluded.
"Right! I'll do all in my power," said the other, a rather stout, well-to-do, vulgar-looking man.
"Good! This way, then!"
The man followed Gabriel to the sugar-house. They found the girl already on her feet, standing there a bit unsteadily, but with determination to be game, in every feature.
Five minutes later she was in the new-comer's car, which had been turned around and now was headed back toward Haverstraw. The shawl and robe serving her as wraps, she was made comfortable in the tonneau.
"Think you can stand it, all right?" asked Gabriel, as he took in his the hand she extended. "In half an hour, you'll be under a doctor's care, and your father will be on his way toward you."
She nodded, and for a second tightened the grasp of her hand.
"I—I'm not even going to know who you are?" she asked, a strange tone in her voice.
"No," he answered. "And now, good luck, and good-bye!"
"Good-bye," she echoed, her voice almost inaudible. "I—I won't forget you."
He made no answer, but only smiled in a peculiar way.
Then, as the car rolled slowly forward, their hands separated.
Gabriel, bareheaded and with level gaze, stood there in the middle of the great highway, looking after her. A minute, under the darkening arches of the forest road,he saw her, still. Then the car swung round a bend, and vanished.
Had she waved her hand at him? He could not tell. Motionless he stood, a while, then cleared away the barrier of branches that obstructed the road, took up his knapsack, and with slow steps returned to the sugar-house.
Almost on the threshold, a white something caught his eye. He picked it up. Her handkerchief! A moment he held the dainty, filmy thing in his rough hand. A vague perfume reached his nostrils, disquieting and seductive.
"More than eighteen dollars an ounce, perhaps!" he exclaimed, with sudden bitterness; but still he did not throw the handkerchief away. Instead, he looked at it more keenly. In one corner, the fading light just showed him some initials. He studied them, a moment.
"C. J. F." he read. Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, he folded the kerchief and put it in his pocket.
He entered the sugar-house, to make sure, before departing, that he had left no danger of fire behind him.
Another impulse bade him sit down on a rough box, there, before the dying embers. He gazed at the bed of leaves, a while, immersed in thought, then filled his pipe and lighted it with a glowing brand, and sat there—while the night came—smoking and musing, in a reverie.
The overpowering lure of the woman who had lain in his arms, as he had borne her thither; her breath upon his face; the perfume of her, even her blood that he had washed away—all these were working on his senses, still. But most of all he seemed to see her eyes, there in theember-lit gloom, and hear her voice, and feel her lithe young body and her breast against his breast.
For a long time he sat there, thinking, dreaming, smoking, till the last shred of tobacco was burned out in the heel of his briar; till the last ember had winked and died under the old sheet-iron stove.
At last, with a peculiar laugh, he rose, slung the knapsack once more on his shoulders, settled his cap upon his head, and made ready to depart.
But still, one moment, he lingered in the doorway. Lingered and looked back, as though in his mind's eye he would have borne the place away with him forever.
Suddenly he stooped, picked up a leaf from the bed where she had lain, and put that, too, in his pocket where the kerchief was.
Then, looking no more behind him, he strode off across the maple-grove, through which, now, the first pale stars were glimmering. He reached the road again, swung to the north, and, striking into his long marching stride, pushed onward northward, away and away into the soft June twilight.
Old Isaac Flint loved but two things in all this world—power, and his daughter Catherine.
I speak advisedly in putting "power" first. Much as he idolized the girl, much as she reminded him of the long-dead wife of his youth, he could have survived the loss of her. The loss of power would inevitably have crushed and broken him, stunned him, killed him. Yet, so far as human affection could still blossom in that withered heart, shrunk by cold scheming and the cruel piracies of many decades, he loved the girl.
And so it was that when the message came in, that evening, over the telephone, the news that Kate had been injured in an auto-accident which had entirely destroyed the machine and killed Herrick, he paled, trembled, and clutched the receiver, hardly able to hold it to his ear with his shaking hand.
"Here! You!" he cried. "She—she's not badly hurt? She's living? She's safe? No lies, now! The truth!"
"Your daughter is very much alive, and perfectly safe," a voice answered. "This is Doctor MacDougal, of Haverstraw, speaking. The patient is now having a superficial scalp wound dressed by my assistant. You can speak to her, in a few minutes, if you like."
"Now! For God's sake, let me speaknow!" entreatedthe Billionaire; but the doctor refused. Not all Flint's urging or bribing would turn him one hair's breadth.
"No," he insisted. "In ten minutes she can talk to you. Not now. But have no fear, sir. She is perfectly safe and—barring her wound, which will probably heal almost without a scar—is as well as ever. A little nervous and unstrung, of course, but that's to be expected."
"What happened, and how?" demanded Flint, in terrible agitation.
The doctor briefly gave him such facts as he knew, ending with the statement that a passing automobilist had brought the girl to him, and outlining the situation of the first-aid measures in the sugar-house. At the thought that Herrick, the drunken cause of it all, was dead and burned, Flint smiled with real satisfaction.
"Damn him! It's too good for the scum!" he muttered. Then, aloud, he asked over the wire:
"And who was the rescuer?"
"I don't know," MacDougal answered. "Your daughter didn't tell me. But from what I've learned, he must have been a man of rare strength and presence of mind. It may well be that you owe your daughter's life to his prompt work."
"I'll find him, yet. He'll be suitably rewarded," thought the Billionaire. "No matter what my enemies have called me, I'm not incapable of gratitude!"
Some few minutes later, having paced the library floor meanwhile, in great excitement, he called the doctor's house again by long-distance, and this time succeeded in having speech with his daughter. Her voice, though a little weak, vastly reassured him. Once more he askedfor the outline of the story. She told him all the essentials, and finished by:
"Now, come and get me, won't you, father dear? I want to go home. And the quicker you come for me, the happier I'll be."
"Bless your heart, Kate!" he exclaimed, deeply moved. "Nothing like the old man, after all, is there? Yes, I'll start at once. I've only been waiting here, to talk with you andknowyou're safe. In five minutes I'll be on my way, with the racing-car. And if I don't break a few records between here and Haverstraw, my name's not Isaac Flint!"
After an affectionate good-bye, the old man hung up, rang for Slawson, his private valet, and ordered the swiftest car in his garage made ready at once, for a quick run.
Two hours later, Doctor MacDougal had pocketed the largest fee he ever had received or ever would, again; and Kate was safe at home, in Idle Hour.
On the homeward journey, Flint learned every detail of the affair, from start to finish; and again grimly consigned the soul of the dead chauffeur to the nethermost pits of Hell. Yes, he realized, he must have the body brought in and decently buried, after the coroner's verdict had been rendered; but in his heart he knew that, save for the eye of public opinion and the law, he would let those charred remnants lie and rot there, by the river bank, under the twisted wreckage of the car—and revel in the thought of that last, barbarous revenge.
Arrived at home, Flint routed specialists out of their offices, and at a large expense satisfied himself the girl had really taken no serious harm. Next day, and thedays following, all that money and science could do to make the gash heal without a scar, was done. Waldron called, greatly unnerved and not at all himself; and Kate received him with amicable interest. She had not yet informed her father of the rupture between Waldron and herself, nor did he suspect it. As for "Tiger," he realized the time was inopportune for any statement of conditions, and held his peace. But once she should be well, again, he had savagely resolved this decision of hers should not stand.
"Damn it, it can't! It mustn't!" he reflected, as on the third evening he returned to his Fifth Avenue house. "Now that I'm really in danger of losing her, I'm just beginning to realize what an extraordinary woman she is! As a wife, the mistress of my establishment, a hostess, a social leader, what a figure she would make! And too, the alliance between Flint and myself simply must not be shattered. Kate is the only child. The old man's billion, or more, will surely come to her, practically every penny of it. Flint is more than sixty-three this very minute, he's a dope-fiend, and his heart's damned weak. He's liable to drop off, any moment. If I get Kate, and he dies, what a fortune! What a prize! Added to my interests, it will make me master of the world!
"Then, too, this new Air Trust scheme positively demands that Flint and I should be bound together by something closer than mere financial association. I've simply got to be one of the family. I've got to be his son-in-law. That's a positive necessity! God, what a fool I was at Longmeadow, to have taken those three drinks, and have been piqued at her beating me—to have let my tongue and temper slip—in short, to have acted like an ass!"
Ugly and grim, he puffed at his Londres. Vast schemes of finance and of conquest wove through his busy, plotting brain. Visions of the girl arose, too, tempting him still more, though his chill heart was powerless to feel the urge of any real, self-sacrificing or devoted love. Sensual passion he knew, and ambition, and the lust of power; nothing else. But these all opened his eyes to the vast blunder he had committed, and nerved him to reconquest of the ground that he had lost.
"I can win her, yet," reflected he, as his car swung into the long and brilliant night-vista of Fifth Avenue. "I know women, and I understand the game. Flowers, letters, telephone calls, attention every day—every hour, if need be—these are the artillery to batter down the strongest fortresses of indifference, even of dislike. And she shall have them all—all and more. Wally, old chap, you've never been beaten at any game, whether in the Street or in the pursuit of woman. You'll win yet; you're bound to win! And Kate shall yet open the door to you, toward wealth and power and position such as never yet were seen on earth!"
Thus fortified by his own determination, he slept more calmly that night. And, on the morrow, his campaign began.
It lasted but a week.
At the end of that time, a friendly little note from Idle Hour told him, frankly and in the kindest manner possible, that—much as she still liked and respected him—Catherine could not, now or ever, think of him in any other way than as a friend.
Stunned by this body-blow, "Tiger" first swore with hideous blasphemies that caused his valet to retreat precipitately from the famous, nymph-frieze bedchamber; then ordered drink, then walked the floor a while in a violent passion; and finally knit up his decision.
"By God!" he swore, shaking his fist in the direction of Englewood. "She's balky, eh? She won't, eh? ButIsay shewill!And if I can't make her, there's her father, who can. Together we can break this stiff-necked spirit and bring her to time. Hm! Fancy anybody or anything in this world setting up opposition to Flint and Waldron, combined! Just fancy it, that's all!
"So then, what's to do? This: See her father and have a heart-to-heart talk with him. It's obvious she hasn't told him, yet, the real state of affairs. I doubt if the old idiot has even noticed the absence of my ring from her finger. And if he has, she's been able to fool him, easily enough. But not much longer, so help me!
"No, this very morning he shall hear from me, the whole infernal story—he shall learn his daughter's unreasonable rebellion, the slight she's put upon me and her opposition to his will.Thenwe shall see—we shall see who's master in that family, he or the girl!"
With this strong determination in his superheated mind, Waldron rang up Flint, asked for a private talk, at eleven, in the Wall Street office, and made ready the mustering of his arguments; his self-defense; his appeals to Flint's every sense of interest and liking; his whole plea for the resumption of the broken betrothal.
And Catherine, all this time of convalescence—what were her thoughts, and whither were they straying? Not thoughts of Waldron, that is sure, despite his notes, his telephoning, his flowers, his visits. Not to him did they wander, as she sat in her sunny bedroom bay-window,looking out over the great, close cropped lawn, through the oaks and elms, to the Palisades and the sparkling Hudson beneath.
No, not to Waldron. Yet wander they did, despite her; and with persistence they followed channels till then quite unknown to her.
What might these channels be? And whither, I ask again, did the girl's memories and fancies, her wondering thoughts, her vague, half-formulated longings, lead?
You, perhaps, can answer, as well as I, if you but remember that—Billionaire's daughter though she was, and all unversed in the hard realities of life—she was, at heart and soul, very much a woman after all.
During the long days, the June days, of her convalescence, Catherine found herself involuntarily reverting, more often than she could understand, to thoughts of the inscrutable and unknown man who had in all probability saved her life.
"Had it not been for him," she reflected, as she sat there gazing out over the river, "I might not be here, this minute. Caught as I was, on the very brink of the precipice, I should almost certainly have slipped and fallen over, in my dazed condition, when I tried to get up. If I'd been alone, if he hadn't found me just when he did—!"
She shuddered at thought of what must almost inevitably have happened, and covered her face with both hands. Her cheeks burned; she knew emotion such as not once had Waldron's kiss ever been able to arouse in her. The memory of how she, half-unconscious, had lain in that stranger's arms, so powerful and tense; had been carried by him, as though she had been a child; had felt his breath upon her face and the quick, vigorous beating of his heart—all this, and more, dwelt in her soul, nor could she banish it.
Gratitude? Yes, and more. For the first time in her two-and-twenty years, Catherine had sensed the power, the virility of a real man—not of the make-believe, manicured and tailored parasites of her own class—and something elemental in her, some urge of primitive womanhood, grappled her to that memory and, all against her will, caused her to live and re-live those moments, time and time again, as the most strange and vital of her life.
Yet, it was not this physical call alone, in her, that had awakened her being. The man's eyes, and mouth and hair, true, all remained with her as a subtly compelling lure; his strength and straight directness seemed to conquer her and draw her to him; but beyond all this, something in his speech, in his ideas and the strange reticence that had so puzzled her, kept him even more constantly in her wondering thoughts.
"A workingman," she murmured to herself, in uncomprehending revery, "he said he was a workingman—and he knew that I was very, very rich. He knew my father would have rewarded him magnificently, given him money, work, anything he might have asked. And yet, and yet—he would not even tell his name. And he refused to know mine! He didn't want to know! His pride—why, in all my life, among all the proud, rich people that I've known, I've never found such pride as that!"
She reflected what would have happened had any man of the usual type rescued her, even a man of wealth and position. Of course, thought she, that man would have made himself known and would have called on her, ostensibly to inquire after her condition, yet really to ingratiate himself. At this reflection she shuddered again.
"Ugh!" she whispered. "He'd have tried to take liberties, any other man would. He'd have presumed on theaccident—he'd have been—oh, everything thatthatman was not, and could never be!"
Now her thoughts wandered to the brief talk they two had had there in the old sugar-house. Every word of it seemed graven on her memory. Disconnected bits of what he had told her, seemed to float before her mental vision—: "I? Oh, I'm just an out-of-work—don't ask me who I am; and I won't ask whoyouare. We're of different worlds, I guess—don't question me; I'd rather you wouldn't. Am I happy? Yes, in a way, or shall be, when I've done what I mean to do!"
Such were some of his phrases that kept coming back to her, as she sat there in that luxurious and beautiful room, her book lying unread in her lap, the scent of flowers everywhere, and, merely for her taking, all the world's treasures hers to command. Strange man, indeed, and stranger speech, to her! Never had she been thus spoken to. His every word and thought and point of view, commonplace enough, perhaps, seemed peculiarly stimulating to her, and wakened eager curiosity, and would not let her live in peace, as heretofore.
"He said he was a Socialist, too," she murmured, "whatever that may be. But he—he didn'tlookit! On the contrary, he looked remarkably clean and intelligent. And the words he used were the words of an educated man. Far better vocabulary than Waldron's, for example; and as for poor little Van Slyke, and that set, why this man's mind seems to have towered above them as the Palisades tower above the river!
"Happy? Rich? He said he was both—and all he had was eighteen dollars and his two big hands! Just fancy that, will you? He might as well have said eighteen cents; it would have been about as much! And I—what did I tell him? I told him I, with all my money and everything, was vacant, empty, futile! Just those words. And—God help me, I—I am!"
Suddenly, she felt her eyes were wet. What was the reason? Herself she knew not. All she knew was that with her beautiful and queenly head bowed on the arm of her Japanese silk morning gown, as its loose sleeves lay along the edge of the Chippendale table, she was crying like a child.
Crying bitterly; and yet in a kind of new, strange joy. Crying with tears so bitter-sweet that she, herself, could not half understand them; could not fathom the deeper meaning that lay hidden there.
"If!" she whispered to her heart. "If only I were of his class, or he of mine!"
And Gabriel, what of him?
As he swung north and westward, day by day, on the long hike toward Niagara, the memory of the girl went with him, and hour by hour bore him company.
He was not forgetting. Could he forget? Strive as he might, to thrust her out of his heart and soul, she still indwelt there.
Not all his philosophy, nor all his realization that this woman he had saved, this woman who had lain in his two arms and mingled her breath with his, belonged to another and an alien class, could banish her.
And as he strode along, swinging his knotted stick at the daisies and pondering on all that might have been and now could never be, a sudden, passionate longing burst over him, as a long sea-roller, hurled against a cliff, flings upward in vast tourbillions of spume.
Raising his face to the summer sky, his bare head high with emotion and his eyes wide with the thought of strange possibilities that shook and intoxicated him, he cried:
"Oh—would God she were an orphan and an outcast! Would God she had no penny in this world to call her own!"
"Tiger" Waldron's interview with old man Flint, regarding Catherine's breaking of the engagement, was particularly electric. Promptly at the appointed hour, Waldron appeared, shook hands with the older man, sat down and lighted a cigar, then proceeded to business.
"Flint," said he, without any ado, "I've come here to tell you some very unpleasant news and to ask your help. Can you stand the one, and give me the other?"
The Billionaire looked at him through his pince-nez, poised on that vulture-beak, with some astonishment. Then he smiled nervously, showing his gleaming tooth of gold, and answered:
"Yes, I guess so. What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? Everything! Catherine has broken our engagement!"
For a moment old Flint sat there motionless and staring. Then, moving his head forward with a peculiar, pecking twitch that still further enhanced his likeness to a buzzard, he stammered:
"You—you mean—?"
"I mean just what I say. Your daughter has severed the betrothal. Haven't you noticed my ring was gone from her finger?"
"Gone? Bless my soul, no—that is, yes—maybe. Idon't know. But—but at any rate, I thought nothing of it. So then, you say—she's broken it off? But, why? And when? And—and tell me, Wally, what's it all about?"
"Listen, and Iwilltell you," Tiger answered. "And I'll give it to you straight. I'm partly at fault. Mostly so, it may be. Let me assume all the blame, at any rate. I'm not sparing myself and have no intention of doing so. My conduct, I admit, was beastly. No excuses offered. All I want to do, now, is to make theamende honorable, be forgiven, and have the former status resumed."
Thus spoke Waldron. But all the time his soul lay hot within him, at having so to humble himself before Flint; at being thus obliged to eat crow, and fawn and feign and creep.
"If I didn't need your billion, old man," his secret thought was, as he eyed Flint with pretended humility, "you might go to Hell, for all of me—you and your daughter with you, damn you both!"
The Billionaire sat blinking, for a moment. Then, picking up a pencil and idly scrawling pothooks on the big clean sheet of blotting-paper that covered his reference-book table, beside which the men were sitting, he asked:
"Well, what's the trouble all about? What are the facts? I must have those, in full, before I can guarantee to do anything toward changing my daughter's opinion. Much as I deplore her action, Wally, I don't know whether she's right or wrong, till you tell me. Now, let's have it."
"I will," the other answered; and he was as good as his word. Realizing the prime futility of any subterfuge,or any misstatement of fact—which Catherine would surely discover and tell her father, and which would react against him—Waldron began at the beginning and narrated the entire affair, with every detail precisely accurate. Nay, he even exaggerated the offensiveness of his conduct, at the Longmeadow Club, and in various ways gave the Billionaire to understand that he was a more serious offender than in truth he really was. For, after all, the only real offense was the lack of any compatibility between the girl and himself—the total absence of love.
Flint listened carefully and with a judicial expression. If he blamed Waldron, he made no statement of that fact. A man himself, and one who viewed man's weaknesses and woman's foibles with a cynic eye, he could judge motives and weigh actions with considerable skill.
"I see, I see," he commented, when Waldron had quite done, and had poured forth a highly false declaration of his great love for the girl and his determination that this rupture should not be permanent. "I understand the case, I think. It all seems an unfortunate accident—just one of those unavoidable incidents which strike into and upset human calculations, against all expectation.
"You're not terribly guilty, Waldron. You acted inconsiderably. Irritatingly, perhaps, and not wholly like a gentleman—for which, blame the rotten Scotch theywillpersist in selling, out there at Longmeadow. But even that's not fatal. Many men have done worse and been forgiven. I'll have a talk with Catherine, inside a day or two, when the psychological moment offers. And you may be sure, if a father's advice and good offices are of any avail, this little quarrel will be all patched upbetween you two. Surely will be! I can almost positively promise you that!"
"Promise it?" asked Waldron, leaning eagerly forward, a strange light in those close-set, greenish eyes.
Flint nodded. "Yes," he answered. "I've never yet failed to bring Kate to reason and good common-sense, when I've set out to. This will be no exception. My word and my counsel possess the greatest weight with her. She'll listen and be advised, I'm sure. So have no uneasiness," he concluded, holding out his hand to his partner. "Leave everything to me. You'll see, it will all come right, in the end."
"Tiger" shook his hand, cordially.
"I haven't words to thank you!" he exclaimed, with as much emotion as he could simulate from a perfectly cold heart and calculating soul.
"Don't try to," the Billionaire replied, with seeming benevolence. "All the thanks I want, Wally, is to patch up this little difficulty and reunite two—that is—two loving, sympathetic hearts!"
"You old hypocrite!" Waldron thought, eyeing him. "Allyouwant of me, if anything, is to keep me as your partner, because you know you're growing old and losing your grip, and I'm still in the game with all four claws! Paternal philanthropistyouare—I don't think!"
Wally was dead right.
"I can't lose this man," the Billionaire was thinking. "Whether or no, Kate has got to marry him. This Air Trust business demands a strong, a quick, a perfectly unscrupulous hand. And no outsider will do. My partner has got to be my son-in-law. Love be damned! Romantic slush can go to Hell! Kate will marry him—she'sgotto—or I'll know the reason why!
"Though, after all," he soothed his conscience, as Waldron stood up, walked to the window and stood gazing out as he smoked, "after all, Wally will make her as happy, I fancy, as any man. He's a fine figure in the world, commanding, heavily propertied, energetic and successful, also of the finest family connections. Yes, a husband any woman might admire and be proud of. Certainly, the only son-in-law forme. Even if she can't idolize and worship him, as some fool women think they must, a man, she can respect and be respected with him. And with him she can take the highest position in the land, without a qualm as to his competence and manner. Beside all that, what's love? Love? Bah!"
With which philosophy, he too arose, went back into his own office, and returned to the dictating of some very private letters to Slade, the Cosmos Detective Agency manager,in rethe ferreting-out and jailing or deporting of all Socialists and labor leaders at Niagara. This preparatory work on the ground of the huge new Air Trust plant, he deemed most essential. The Cosmos people, scenting a big contract, had fostered his belief, and now, already, the work was well under way. Subterranean methods were still sufficing; but, should these fail, others lay in the background.
Flint smiled a grim, vulturine smile as he read over the finished letters of instruction, a few minutes later.
"And to think," he mused, as he finished them, "that these fanatics believe—really believe—they can make headway anywhere in this country, now! Ten years ago, yes, they might have. But that's not today. Then, publie opinion—stupid and futile as it was—could still be aroused. Then, there was a really effective labor and Socialist press. And the Limited Franchise Bill hadn't gone through. Neither had the enlarged Military Bill, the National Censorship nor even the Grays—the National Mounted Police. Whilenow—ah, thank Heaven, it's all so different and so easy that I call myself a fool, at times, for even giving these matters a single thought!
"Well," he concluded, handing the letters back to his confidential secretary, for mailing, "well, nowthat'sdone, at any rate. So then, to the S. & S. committee meeting. And tonight my little talk with Kate. I'll soon bring her to reason, I'm sure. There's nothing can't be accomplished by a little patience and persuasion."
The old Billionaire chose his time well, that night, for the vital interview with his daughter, who had so far rebelled against his authority as to break with the man most eminently acceptable to him. After a simple but exquisite dinner in the Venetian room, he asked the girl to play for him, which (he knew) always pleased her and put her in a receptive mood.
"Play for you, father?" she answered. "Of course I will, anything and as much as you like! What shall it be, tonight? Chopin, or Grieg, or—?"
"Anything that pleases you, suits me, my dear," he answered, smiling with satisfaction at his ruse. Never had he felt more masterful. He had allowed himself a trifle more morphia than usual that day, by reason of the approaching interview; and now the subtle drug filled him with well-being and seemed to enhance his self-control and power. Lighting a cigar—rare treat for him—he offered Kate his arm; and together, unattendedby any valet or domestic, they walked along the high, paneled hallway, hung with Gobelin tapestries, and so reached the magnificent music-room which Kate claimed, in a way, as her own special place at Idle Hour.
Here everything suggested harmony. The mahogany wainscotted walls were decked with fine portraits of the world's great masters of melody. Handsome cabinets contained costly and elaborate collections and folios of music, a complete library of the entire world's best productions. The girl's harp—a masterpiece by Pestalozzi of Venice—stood at one side; on the other, a five hundred dollar Victrola, with a wonderful repertoire of records. But the grand piano itself dominated all, especially made for Catherine by Durand Frères, in Paris, and imported on the Billionaire's own yacht, the "Bandit." A wondrous instrument, this, finer even than the pipe-organ in an alcove at the far end of the room. It summed up all that the world's masters knew of instrument-production; and its cost, from factory to its present place at Idle Hour, represented twenty years' wages, and more, of any of Flint's slaves in the West Virginia mines or the Glenn Pool oil-fields of Oklahoma.
At this magnificent piano the girl now seated herself, on a bench of polished teak, from Mindanao. And, turning to her father, who had sunk down in his favorite easy-chair of Russia leather, she asked with a smile:
"Well, daddy, what shall I play for you, to-night?"
He looked at her a minute, before replying. Never had she seemed to dear, so beautiful to him. The rose-tinted light that fell softly from a Bohemian chandelier over her head, flooded her coiled hair, her face, her hands, with soft warm color. The slight dressing thather wound now required was covered by a deft arrangement of her hair. She had regained her usual tint. Nothing now told of the accident, the close call she had had, from death, so short a time before. And old Flint smiled, as he answered her:
"What shall you play? Anything you like, my dear. You know best—only, don't make it too classical. Your old father isn't up to that ultra music, you know, and never will be!"
She smiled again with understanding, and turned to the keyboard. Then, without notes, and with a delicate touch of perfectly modulated interpretation, she began to render "Traümerei," as though she, too, had been dreaming of something that might have been.
Flint listened, with perfect content. The music soothed and quieted him. Even the foreknowledge of the difficult task that lay before him, the interview that he must have with his daughter, faded from his mind, a little, and left him wholly calm. Eyes closed, every sense intent on the delicious harmony, he followed the masterpiece to the end; and sighed when the last notes had died away, and kept silence.
Then Kate, still needing no music on the rack before her, played the "Miserere" from "Il Trovatore," a Hungarian "Czardas," Mendelssohn's "Frühlingslied" and the overture from "William Tell." She followed these with the "Intermezzo" and the "Pizzicato" from "Sylvia," and then with "Narcissus" and "Sans Souci." And at the end of this, she paused again; for now her father had arisen and come close to her. With a hand on her shoulder, looking down at her with stern yet kindly eyes, he said:
"'Sans Souci'? That means 'Without Care,' doesn't it, Kate?"
"Yes, Daddy. Why?" she answered.
"Oh, I was just thinking, that's all," said he. "It made me wishIhad no cares, no troubles, no sorrows."
"Sorrows, father? Why should you have sorrows?" she queried, turning to him and taking both his shriveled hands in her warm, strong ones.
"Sorrows? Why shouldn't I?" said he. "Every man of large affairs has them. Every father has them, too." And he bent over her and kissed her, with unusual emotion.
"Every father?" asked she. "What do you mean? AmIa sorrow to you?"
"A joy in many ways," he answered. "In some, a sorrow."
"In what ways?" she asked quickly, her eyes widening.
"In this way, most of all," he told her, as he took her left hand up, and pointed at the finger where Waldron's ring had been and now no longer was.
She looked at him a moment, hardly understanding; then bowed her head.
"Father," she whispered. "Forgive me—but I couldn't! I—I couldn't! No, not for the world!"
Flint's drug-contracted eyes hardened as he stood there gazing down at her. Once, twice he essayed to speak, but found no words. At last, however, blinking nervously, he said:
"This, Kate, is what I want to talk with you about, to-night. Will you hear me?"