Mr. Feuerstein's evening was even more successful than his afternoon. Brauner was still grumbling. Mr. Feuerstein could not possibly be adjusted in his mind to his beloved ideals, his religion of life—"Arbeit und Liebe und Heim." Still he was yielding and Hilda saw the signs of it. She knew he was practically won over and was secretly inclined to be proud that his daughter had made this exalted conquest. All men regard that which they do not know either with extravagant awe or with extravagant contempt. While Brauner had the universal human failing for attaching too much importance to the department of human knowledge in which he was thoroughly at home, he had the American admiration for learning, for literature, and instead of spelling them with a very small "l," as "practical" men sometimes do with age and increasing vanity, he spelled them with huge capitals, erecting them into a position out of all proportion to their relative importance in the life of the human animal.
Mr. Feuerstein had just enough knowledge to enable him to play upon this weakness, this universal human susceptibility to the poison of pretense. All doubt of success fled his mind, and he was free to indulge his vanity and his contempt for these simple, unpretending people. "So vulgar!" he said to himself, as he left their house that night—he who knew how to do nothing of use or value. "It is a great condescension for me. Working people—ugh!"
As he strolled up town he was spending in fancy the income from at least two, perhaps all three, flat-houses—"The shop's enough for the old people and that dumb ass of a brother. I'll elevate the family. Yes, I think I'll run away with Hilda to-morrow—that's the safest plan."
Otto had guessed close to the truth about Feuerstein's affairs. They were in a desperate tangle. He had been discharged from the stock company on Saturday night. He was worthless as an actor, and had the hostility of the management and of his associates. His landlady had got the news promptly from a boarder who paid in part by acting as a sort of mercantile agency for her in watching her very uncertain boarders. She had given him a week's notice, and had so arranged matters that if he fled he could not take his meager baggage. He was down to eighty-five cents of a borrowed dollar. He owed money everywhere in sums ranging from five dollars to twenty-five cents. The most of these debts were in the form of half-dollar borrowings. He had begun his New York career with loans of "five dollars until Thursday—I'm a little pressed." Soon it became impossible for him to get more than a dollar at a time even from the women, except an occasional windfall through a weak or ignorant new acquaintance. He clung tenaciously to the fifty-cent basis—to go lower would cheapen him. But for the last two weeks his regular levies had been of twenty-five cents, with not a few descents to ten and even five cents.
He reached Goerwitz's at ten o'clock and promenaded slowly through both rooms twice. Just as he was leaving he espied an acquaintance who was looking fiercely away from him as if saying: "I don't see you, and, damn you, don't you dare see me!" But Feuerstein advanced boldly. Twelve years of active membership in that band of "beats" which patrols every highway and byway and private way of civilization had thickened and toughened his skin into a hide. "Good evening, Albers," he said cordially, with a wave of the soft, light hat. "I see you have a vacant place in your little circle. Thank you!" He assumed that Albers had invited him, took a chair from another table and seated himself. Social courage is one of the rarest forms of courage. Albers grew red but did not dare insult such a fine-looking fellow who seemed so hearty and friendly. He surlily introduced Feuerstein to his friends—two women and two men. Feuerstein ordered a round of beer with the air of a prince and without the slightest intention of paying for it.
The young woman of the party was seated next to him. Even before he sat he recognized her as the daughter of Ganser, a rich brewer of the upper East Side. He had placed himself deliberately beside her, and he at once began advances. She showed at a glance that she was a silly, vain girl. Her face was fat and dull; she had thin, stringy hair. She was flabby and, in the lazy life to which the Gansers' wealth and the silly customs of prosperous people condemned her, was already beginning to expand in the places where she could least afford it.
He made amorous eyes at her. He laughed enthusiastically at her foolish speeches. He addressed his pompous platitudes exclusively to her. Within an hour he pressed her hand under the table and sighed dramatically. When she looked at him he started and rolled his great eyes dreamily away. Never before had she received attentions that were not of the frankest and crudest practical nature. She was all in a flutter at having thus unexpectedly come upon appreciation of the beauties and merits her mirror told her she possessed. When Mrs. Schoenberg, her aunt, rose to go, she gave Feuerstein a chance to say in a low aside: "My queen! To-morrow at eleven—at Bloomingdale's." Her blush and smile told him she would be there.
All left except Feuerstein and a youth he had been watching out of the corner of his eyes—young Dippel, son of the rich drug-store man. Feuerstein saw that Dippel was on the verge of collapse from too much drink. As he still had his eighty-five cents, he pressed Dippel to drink and, by paying, induced him to add four glasses of beer to his already top-heavy burden.
"Mus' go home," said Dippel at last, rising abruptly.
Feuerstein walked with him, taking his arm to steady him. "Let's have one more," he said, drawing him into a saloon, gently pushing him to a seat at a table and ordering whisky. After the third large drink, Dippel became helpless and maudlin and began to overflow with generous sentiments. "I love you, Finkelstern, ol' man," he declared tearfully. "They say you're a dead beat, but wha' d'I care?"
"Finkelstern," affecting drunkenness, shed tears on Dippel's shoulder, denied that he was a "beat" and swore that he loved Dippel like a brother. "You're my frien'," he said. "I know you'd trust me to any amount."
Dippel took from his trousers pocket a roll of bills several inches thick. Feuerstein thrilled and his eyes grew eloquent as he noted tens and twenties and at least one fifty. Slowly, and with exaggerated care, Dippel drew off a ten. "There y'are, ol' dead beat," he said. "I'll stake you a ten. Lots more where that came from—soda-fountain counter's reg'lar gol' mine."
In taking off the ten, he dropped a twenty. It fluttered to the floor and the soldier of fortune, the scorner of toil and toilers, slid his foot over it as swiftly and naturally as a true aristocrat always covers an opportunity to get something somebody else has earned. He put the ten in his pocket, when Dippel's eyes closed he stooped and retrieved the twenty with stealth—and skill. When the twenty was hidden, and the small but typical operation in high finance was complete, he shook Dippel. "I say, old man," he said, "hadn't you better let me keep your money for you? I'm afraid you'll lose it."
Dippel slowly unclosed one eye and gave him a look of glassy cunning. He again drew the roll from his pocket, and, clasping it tightly in his fist, waved it under Feuerstein's nose. As he did it, he vented a drunken chuckle. "Soda fountain's gol' mine, Fishenspiel," he said thickly. "No, you don't! I can watch my own roll." He winked and chuckled.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Fishy," he went on, with a leer. Then he took off another ten and handed it to Feuerstein. "Good fel', Fishy," he mumbled, "'f y' are a dead beat."
Feuerstein added the ten to the thirty and ordered more whisky. Dippel tried to doze, but he would not permit it. "He mustn't sleep any of it off," he thought.
When the whisky came Dippel shook himself together and started up. "G'-night," he said, trying to stand, look and talk straight. "Don't f'rget, y'owe me ten dollarses—no, two ten dollarses."
"Oh, sit down," coaxed Feuerstein, taking him by the arm. "It's early yet."
Dippel shook him off with much dignity. "Don' touch me!" he growled. "I know what I'm 'bout. I'm goin' home." Then to himself, but aloud: "Dippy, you're too full f'r utterance—you mus' shake this beat." Again to Feuerstein:
"G'night, Mr. Funkelshine—g'night. Sit there till I'm gone."
Feuerstein rose to follow and Dippel struck at him. The waiter seized each by the shoulder and flung them through the swinging doors. Dippel fell in a heap on the sidewalk, but Feuerstein succeeded in keeping to his feet. He went to the assistance of Dippel.
"Don't touch me," shouted Dippel.
"Police! Police!"
Feuerstein looked fearfully round, gave Dippel a kick and hurried away. When he glanced back from a safe distance Dippel was waving to and fro on his wobbling legs, talking to a cabman.
"Close-fisted devil," muttered Feuerstein. "He couldn't forget his money even when he was drunk. What good is money to a brute like him?" And he gave a sniff of contempt for the vulgarity and meanness of Dippel and his kind.
Early the next morning he established a modus vivendi with his landlady by giving her ten dollars on account. He had an elaborate breakfast at Terrace Garden and went to Bloomingdale's, arriving at eleven precisely. Lena Ganser was already there, pretending to shop at a counter in full view of the appointed place. They went to Terrace Garden and sat in the Stube. He at once opened up his sudden romantic passion. "All night I have walked the streets," he said, "dreaming of you." When he had fully informed her of the state of his love-maddened mind toward her, he went on to his most congenial topic—himself.
"You have heard of the Freiherr von Feuerstein, the great soldier?" he asked her.
Lena had never heard of him. But she did not know who was German Emperor or even who was President of the United States. She, therefore, had to be extremely cautious. She nodded assent.
"My uncle," said Feuerstein impressively. His eyes became reflective. "Strange!" he exclaimed in tender accents, soliloquizing—"strange where romance will lead us. Instead of remaining at home, in ease and luxury, here am I—an actor—a wanderer—roaming the earth in search of the heart that Heaven intended should be wedded to mine." He fixed his gaze upon Lena's fat face with the expression that had made Hilda's soul fall down and worship. "And—I have found it!" He drew in and expelled a vast breath. "At last! My soul is at rest."
Lena tried to look serious in imitation of him, but that was not her way of expressing emotion. She made a brief struggle, then collapsed into her own mode—a vain, delighted, giggling laugh.
"Why do you smile?" he asked sternly. He revolted from this discord to his symphony.
She sobered with a frightened, deprecating look. "Don't mind me," she pleaded. "Pa says I'm a fool. I was laughing because I'm happy. You're such a sweet, romantic dream of a man."
Feuerstein was not particular either as to the quality or as to the source of his vanity-food. He accepted Lena's offering with a condescending nod and smile. They talked, or, rather, he talked and she listened and giggled until lunch time. As the room began to fill, they left and he walked home with her.
"You can come in," she said. "Pa won't be home to lunch to-day and ma lets me do as I please."
The Gansers lived in East Eighty-first Street, in the regulation twenty-five-foot brownstone house. And within, also, it was of a familiar New York type. It was the home of the rich, vain ignoramus who has not taste enough to know that those to whom he has trusted for taste have shockingly betrayed him. Ganser had begun as a teamster for a brewery and had grown rapidly rich late in life. He happened to be elected president of a big Verein and so had got the notion that he was a person of importance and attainments beyond his fellows. Too coarse and narrow and ignorant to appreciate the elevated ideals of democracy, he reverted to the European vulgarities of rank and show. He decided that he owed it to himself and his family to live in the estate of "high folks." He bought a house in what was for him an ultra-fashionable quarter, and called for bids to furnish it in the latest style. The results were even more regardless of taste than of expense—carpets that fought with curtains, pictures that quarreled with their frames and with the walls, upholstery so bellicose that it seemed perilous to sit upon.
But Feuerstein was as impressed as the Gansers had been the first time they beheld the gorgeousness of their palace. He looked about with a proprietary sense—"I'll marry this little idiot," he said to himself. "Maybe my nest won't be downy, and maybe I won't lie at my ease in it!"
He met Mrs. Ganser and had the opportunity to see just what Lena would look and be twenty years thence. Mrs. Ganser moved with great reluctance and difficulty. She did not speak unless forced and then her voice seemed to have felt its way up feebly through a long and painfully narrow passage, emerging thin, low and fainting. When she sat—or, rather, AS she sat, for she was always sitting—her mountain of soft flesh seemed to be slowly collapsing upon and around the chair like a lump of dough on a mold. Her only interest in life was disclosed when she was settled and settling at the luncheon table. She used her knife more than her fork and her fingers more than either. Feuerstein left soon after luncheon, lingering only long enough to give Lena a theatrical embrace. "Well, I'll not spend much time with those women, once I'm married," he reflected as he went down the steps; and he thought of Hilda and sighed.
The next day but one he met Lena in the edge of the park and, after gloomy silence, shot with strange piercing looks that made her feel as if she were the heroine of a book, he burst forth with a demand for immediate marriage.
"Forty-eight hours of torment!" he cried. "I shall not leave you again until you are securely mine."
He proceeded to drop vague, adroit hints of the perils that beset a fascinating actor's life, of the women that had come and gone in his life. And Lena, all a-tremble with jealous anxiety, was in the parlor of a Lutheran parsonage, with the minister reading out of the black book, before she was quite aware that she and her cyclonic adorer were not still promenading near the green-house in the park. "Now," said Feuerstein briskly, as they were once more in the open air, "we'll go to your father."
"Goodness gracious, no," protested Lena. "You don't know him—he'll be crazy—just crazy! We must wait till he finds out about you—then he'll be very proud. He wanted a son-in-law of high social standing—a gentleman."
"We will go home, I tell you," replied Feuerstein firmly—his tone was now the tone of the master. All the sentiment was out of it and all the hardness in it.
Lena felt the change without understanding it. "I bet you, pa'll make you wish you'd taken my advice," she said sullenly.
But Feuerstein led her home. They went up stairs where Mrs. Ganser was seated, looking stupidly at a new bonnet as she turned it slowly round on one of her cushion-like hands. Feuerstein went to her and kissed her on the hang of her cheek. "Mother!" he said in a deep, moving voice.
Mrs. Ganser blinked and looked helplessly at Lena.
"I'm married, ma," explained Lena.
"It's Mr. Feuerstein." And she gave her silly laugh.
Mrs. Ganser grew slowly pale. "Your father," she at last succeeded in articulating. "Ach!" She lifted her arm, thick as a piano leg, and resumed the study of her new bonnet.
"Won't you welcome me, mother?" asked Feuerstein, his tone and attitude dignified appeal.
Mrs. Ganser shook her huge head vaguely. "See Peter," was all she said.
They went down stairs and waited, Lena silent, Feuerstein pacing the room and rehearsing, now aloud, now to himself, the scene he would enact with his father-in-law. Peter was in a frightful humor that evening. His only boy, who spent his mornings in sleep, his afternoons in speeding horses and his evenings in carousal, had come down upon him for ten thousand dollars to settle a gambling debt. Peter was willing that his son should be a gentleman and should conduct himself like one. But he had worked too hard for his money not to wince as a plain man at what he endured and even courted as a seeker after position for the house of Ganser. He had hoped to be free to vent his ill-humor at home. He was therefore irritated by the discovery that an outsider was there to check him. As he came in he gave Feuerstein a look which said plainly:
"And who are you, and how long are you going to intrude yourself?"
But Feuerstein, absorbed in the role he had so carefully thought out, did not note his unconscious father-in-law's face. He extended both his hands and advanced grandly upon fat, round Peter. "My father!" he exclaimed in his classic German. "Forgive my unseemly haste in plucking without your permission the beautiful flower I found within reach."
Peter stepped back and gave a hoarse grunt of astonishment. His red face became redder as he glared, first at Feuerstein, then at Lena. "What lunatic is this you've got here, daughter?" he demanded.
"My father!" repeated Feuerstein, drawing Lena to him.
Ganser's mouth opened and shut slowly several times and his whiskers bristled. "Is this fellow telling the truth?" he asked Lena in a tone that made her shiver and shrink away from her husband.
She began to cry. "He made me do it, pa," she whined. "I—I—"
"Go to your mother," shouted Ganser, pointing his pudgy finger tremulously toward the door. "Move!"
Lena, drying her eyes with her sleeve, fled. Feuerstein became a sickly white. When she had disappeared, Ganser looked at him with cruel little eyes that sparkled. Feuerstein quailed. It was full half a minute before Ganser spoke. Then he went up to Feuerstein, stood on tiptoe and, waving his arms frantically above his head, yelled into his face "Rindsvieh!"—as contemptuous an insult as one German can fling at another.
"She is my lawful wife," said Feuerstein with an attempt at his pose.
"Get the house aus—quick!—aus!—gleich!—Lump!—I call the police!"
"I demand my wife!" exclaimed Feuerstein.
Ganser ran to the front door and opened it. "Out!" he shrieked. "If you don't, I have you taken in when the police come the block down. This is my house! Rindsvieh!"
Feuerstein caught up his soft hat from the hall table and hurried out. As he passed, Ganser tried to kick him but failed ludicrously because his short, thick leg would not reach. At the bottom of the steps Feuerstein turned and waved his fists wildly. Ganser waved his fists at Feuerstein and, shaking his head so violently that his hanging cheeks flapped back and forth, bellowed:
"Rindsvieh! Dreck!"
Then he rushed in and slammed the door.
As Mr. Feuerstein left Hilda on the previous Sunday night he promised to meet her in Tompkins Square the next evening—at the band concert. She walked up and down with Sophie, her spirits gradually sinking after half-past eight and a feeling of impending misfortune settling in close. She was not conscious of the music, though the second part of the program contained the selections from Wagner which she loved best. She feverishly searched the crowd and the half-darkness beyond. She imagined that every approaching tall man was her lover. With the frankness to which she had been bred she made no concealment of her heart-sick anxiety.
"He may have to be at the theater," said Sophie, herself extremely uneasy. Partly through shrewdness, partly through her natural suspicion of strangers, she felt that Mr. Feuerstein, upon whom she was building, was not a rock.
"No," replied Hilda. "He told me he wouldn't be at the theater, but would surely come here." The fact that her lover had said so settled it to her mind.
They did not leave the Square until ten o'clock, when it was almost deserted and most of its throngs of an hour before were in bed sleeping soundly in the content that comes from a life of labor. And when she did get to bed she lay awake for nearly an hour, tired though she was. Without doubt some misfortune had befallen him—"He's been hurt or is ill," she decided. The next morning she stood in the door of the shop watching for the postman on his first round; as he turned the corner of Second Street, she could not restrain herself, but ran to meet him.
"Any letter for me?" she inquired in a voice that compelled him to feel personal guilt in having to say "No."
It was a day of mistakes in weights and in making up packages, a day of vain searching for some comforting explanation of Mr. Feuerstein's failure and silence. After supper Sophie came and they went to the Square, keeping to the center of it where the lights were brightest and the people fewest.
"I'm sure something's happened," said Sophie. "Maybe Otto has told him a story—or has—"
"No—not Otto." Hilda dismissed the suggestion as impossible. She had known Otto too long and too well to entertain for an instant the idea that he could be underhanded. "There's only one reason—he's sick, very sick—too sick to send word."
"Let's go and see," said Sophie, as if she had not planned it hours before.
Hilda hesitated. "It might look as if I—" She did not finish.
"But you needn't show yourself," replied Sophie. "You can wait down the street and I'll go up to the door and won't give my name."
Hilda clasped her arm more tightly about Sophie's waist and they set out. They walked more and more swiftly until toward the last they were almost running. At the corner of Fifteenth Street and First Avenue Hilda stopped. "I'll go through to Stuyvesant Square," she said, "and wait there on a bench near the Sixteenth Street entrance. You'll be quick, won't you?"
Sophie went to Mr. Feuerstein's number and rang. After a long wait a slovenly girl in a stained red wrapper, her hair in curl-papers and one stocking down about her high-heeled slipper, opened the door and said: "What do you want? I sent the maid for a pitcher of beer."
"I want to ask about Mr. Feuerstein," replied Sophie.
The girl's pert, prematurely-wrinkled face took on a quizzical smile. "Oh!" she said. "You can go up to his room. Third floor, back. Knock hard—he's a heavy sleeper."
Sophie climbed the stairs and knocked loudly. "Come!" was the answer in German, in Mr. Feuerstein's deep stage-voice.
She opened the door a few inches and said through the crack: "It's me, Mr. Feuerstein—Sophie Liebers—from down in Avenue A—Hilda's friend."
"Come in," was Mr. Feuerstein's reply, in a weary voice, after a pause. From Ganser's he had come straight home and had been sitting there ever since, depressed, angry, perplexed.
Sophie pushed the door wide and stood upon the threshold. "Hilda's over in Stuyvesant Square," she said. "She thought you might be sick, so we came. But if you go to her, you must pretend you came by accident and didn't see me."
Mr. Feuerstein reflected, but not so deeply that he neglected to pose before Sophie as a tragedy-king. And it called for little pretense, so desperate and forlorn was he feeling. Should he go or should he send Sophie about her business? There was no hope that the rich brewer would take him in; there was every reason to suspect that Peter would arrange to have the marriage quietly annulled. At most he could get a few thousands, perhaps only hundreds, by threatening a scandal. Yes, it would be wise, on the whole, to keep little Hilda on the string.
"I am very ill," he said gloomily, "but I will go."
Sophie felt hopeful and energetic again. "I won't come up to her till you leave her."
"You are a good girl—a noble creature." Mr. Feuerstein took her hand and pretended to be profoundly moved by her friendship.
Sophie gave him a look of simplicity and warm-heartedness. Her talent for acting had not been spoiled by a stage experience. "Hilda's my friend," she said earnestly. "And I want to see her happy."
"Noble creature!" exclaimed Mr. Feuerstein. "May God reward you!" And he dashed his hand across his eyes.
He went to the mirror on his bureau, carefully arranged the yellow aureole, carefully adjusted the soft light hat. Then with feeble step he descended the stairs. As he moved down the street his face was mournful and his shoulders were drooped—a stage invalid. When Hilda saw him coming she started up and gave a little cry of delight; but as she noted his woebegone appearance, a very real paleness came to her cheeks and very real tears to her great dark eyes.
Mr. Feuerstein sank slowly into the seat beside her. "Soul's wife," he murmured. "Ah—but I have been near to death. The strain of the interview with your father—the anguish—the hope—oh, what a curse it is to have a sensitive soul! And my old trouble"—he laid his hand upon his heart and slowly shook his head—"returned. It will end me some day."
Hilda was trembling with sympathy. She put her hand upon his. "If you had only sent word, dear," she said reproachfully, "I would have come. Oh—I do love you so, Carl! I could hardly eat or sleep—and—"
"The truth would have been worse than silence," he said in a hollow voice. He did not intend the double meaning of his remark; the Gansers were for the moment out of his mind, which was absorbed in his acting. "But it is over for the present—yes, over, my priceless pearl. I can come to see you soon. If I am worse I shall send you word."
"But can't I come to see you?"
"No, bride of my dreams. It would not be—suitable. We must respect the little conventions. You must wait until I come."
His tone was decided. She felt that he knew best. In a few minutes he rose. "I must return to my room," he said wearily. "Ah, heart's delight, it is terrible for a strong man to find himself thus weak. Pity me. Pray for me."
He noted with satisfaction her look of love and anxiety. It was some slight salve to his cruelly wounded vanity. He walked feebly away, but it was pure acting, as he no longer felt so downcast. He had soon put Hilda into the background and was busy with his plans for revenge upon Ganser—"a vulgar animal who insulted me when I honored him by marrying his ugly gosling." Before he fell asleep that night he had himself wrought up to a state of righteous indignation. Ganser had cheated, had outraged him—him, the great, the noble, the eminent.
Early the next morning he went down to a dingy frame building that cowered meanly in the shadow of the Criminal Court House. He mounted a creaking flight of stairs and went in at a low door on which "Loeb, Lynn, Levy and McCafferty" was painted in black letters. In the narrow entrance he brushed against a man on the way out, a man with a hangdog look and short bristling hair and the pastily-pallid skin that comes from living long away from the sunlight. Feuerstein shivered slightly—was it at the touch of such a creature or at the suggestions his appearance started? In front of him was a ground-glass partition with five doors in it. At a dirty greasy pine table sat a boy—one of those child veterans the big city develops. He had a long and extremely narrow head. His eyes were close together, sharp and shifty. His expression was sophisticated and cynical. "Well, sir!" he said with curt impudence, giving Feuerstein a gimlet-glance.
"I want to see Mr. Loeb." Feuerstein produced a card—it was one of his last remaining half-dozen and was pocket-worn.
The office boy took it with unveiled sarcasm in his eyes and in the corners of his mouth. He disappeared through one of the five doors, almost immediately reappeared at another, closed it mysteriously behind him and went to a third door. He threw it open and stood aside. "At the end of the hall," he said. "The door with Mr. Loeb's name on it. Knock and walk right in."
Feuerstein followed the directions and found himself in a dingy little room, smelling of mustiness and stale tobacco, and lined with law books, almost all on crime and divorce. Loeb, Lynn, Levy and McCafferty were lawyers to the lower grades of the criminal and shady only. They defended thieves and murderers; they prosecuted or defended scandalous divorce cases; they packed juries and suborned perjury and they tutored false witnesses in the way to withstand cross-examination. In private life they were four home-loving, law-abiding citizens.
Loeb looked up from his writing and said with contemptuous cordiality: "Oh—Mr. Feuerstein. Glad to see you—AGAIN. What's the trouble—NOW?"
At "again" and "now" Feuerstein winced slightly. He looked nervously at Loeb.
"It's been—let me see—at least seven years since I saw you," continued Loeb, who was proud of his amazing memory. He was a squat, fat man, with a coarse brown skin and heavy features. He was carefully groomed and villainously perfumed and his clothes were in the extreme of the loudest fashion. A diamond of great size was in his bright-blue scarf; another, its match, loaded down his fat little finger. Both could be unscrewed and set in a hair ornament which his wife wore at first nights or when they dined in state at Delmonico's. As he studied Feuerstein, his face had its famous smile, made by shutting his teeth together and drawing his puffy lips back tightly from them.
"That is all past and gone," said Feuerstein. "As a lad I was saved by you from the consequences of boyish folly. And now, a man grown, I come to you to enlist your aid in avenging an insult to my honor, an—"
"Be as brief as possible," cut in Loeb. "My time is much occupied. The bald facts, please—FACTS, and BALD."
Feuerstein settled himself and prepared to relate his story as if he were on the stage, with the orchestra playing low and sweet. "I met a woman and loved her," he began in a deep, intense voice with a passionate tremolo.
"A bad start," interrupted Loeb. "If you go on that way, we'll never get anywhere. You're a frightful fakir and liar, Feuerstein. You were, seven years ago; of course, the habit's grown on you. Speak out! What do you want? As your lawyer, I must know things exactly as they are."
"I ran away with a girl—the daughter of the brewer, Peter Ganser," said Feuerstein, sullen but terse. "And her father wouldn't receive me—shut her up—put me out."
"And you want your wife?"
"I want revenge."
"Of course—cash. Well, Ganser's a rich man. I should say he'd give up a good deal to get rid of YOU." Loeb gave that mirthless and mirth-strangling smile as he accented the "you."
"He's got to give up!" said Feuerstein fiercely.
"Slowly! Slowly!" Loeb leaned forward and looked into Feuerstein's face. "You mustn't forget."
Feuerstein's eyes shifted rapidly as he said in a false voice: "She got a divorce years ago."
"M-m-m," said Loeb.
"Anyhow, she's away off in Russia."
"I don't want you to confess a crime you haven't come to me about," said Loeb, adding with peculiar emphasis: "Of course, if we KNEW you were still married to the Mrs. Feuerstein of seven years ago we couldn't take the present case. As it is—the best way is to bluff the old brewer. He doesn't want publicity; neither do you. But you know he doesn't, and he doesn't know that you love quiet."
"Ganser treated me infamously. He must sweat for it. I'm nothing if not a good hater."
"No doubt," said Loeb dryly. "And you have rights which the law safeguards."
"What shall I do?"
"Leave that to us. How much do you want—how much damages?"
"He ought to pay at least twenty-five thousand."
Loeb shrugged his shoulders. "Ridiculous!" he said. "Possibly the five without the twenty. And how do you expect to pay us?"
"I'm somewhat pressed just at the moment. But I thought"—Feuerstein halted.
"That we'd take the case as a speculation? Well, to oblige an old client, we will. But you must agree to give us all we can get over and above five thousand—half what we get if it's below that."
"Those are hard terms," remonstrated Feuerstein. The more he had thought on his case, the larger his expectations had become.
"Very generous terms, in the circumstances. You can take it or leave it."
"I can't do anything without you. I accept."
"Very well." Loeb took up his pen, as if he were done with Feuerstein, but went on: "And you're SURE that the—the FORMER Mrs. Feuerstein is divorced—and won't turn up?"
"Absolutely. She swore she'd never enter any country where I was."
"Has she any friends who are likely to hear of this?"
"She knew no one here."
"All right. Go into the room to the left there. Mr. Travis or Mr. Gordon will take your statement of the facts—names, dates, all details. Good morning."
Feuerstein went to Travis, small and sleek, smooth and sly. When Travis had done with him, he showed him out. "Call day after to-morrow," he said, "and when you come, ask for me. Mr. Loeb never bothers with these small cases."
Travis reported to Loeb half an hour later, when Feuerstein's statement had been typewritten. Loeb read the statement through twice with great care.
"Most complete, Mr. Travis," was his comment. "You've done a good piece of work." He sat silent, drumming noiselessly on the table with his stumpy, hairy, fat fingers. At last he began: "It ought to be worth at least twenty thousand. Do you know Ganser?"
"Just a speaking acquaintance."
"Excellent. What kind of a man is he?"
"Stupid and ignorant, but not without a certain cunning. We can get at him all right, though. He's deadly afraid of social scandal. Wants to get into the German Club and become a howling swell. But he don't stand a chance, though he don't know it."
"You'd better go to see him yourself," said Loeb.
"I'll be glad to do it, Mr. Loeb. Isn't your man—this Feuerstein—a good bit to the queer?"
"A dead beat—one of the worst kind—the born gentleman. You've noticed, perhaps, that where a man or woman has been brought up to live without work, to live off other people's work, there's nothing they wouldn't stoop to, to keep on living that way. As for this chap, if he had got started right, he'd be operating up in the Fifth Avenue district. He used to have a wife. He SAYS he's divorced."
Loeb and Travis looked each at the other significantly. "I see," said Travis.
"Neither side wants scandal. Still, I think you're right, that Ganser's good for twenty thousand."
"You can judge better after you've felt him," replied Loeb. "You'd better go at once. Give him the tip that Feuerstein's about to force him to produce his daughter in court. But you understand. Try to induce him to go to Beck." Travis grinned and Loeb's eyes twinkled. "You might lay it on strong about Feuerstein's actor-craze for getting into the papers."
"That's a grand idea," exclaimed Travis. "I don't think I'll suggest any sum if he agrees to go to Beck. Beck can get at least five thousand more out of him than any other lawyer in town."
"Beck's the wonder," said Loeb.
"LOEB and Beck," corrected Travis in a flattering tone.
Loeb waved his hot, fat head gently to and fro as if a pleasant cooling stream were being played upon it. "I think I have got a 'pretty good nut on me,' as John L. used to say," he replied. "I think I do know a little about the law. And now hustle yourself, my boy. This case must be pushed. The less time Ganser has to look about, the better for—our client."
Travis found Ganser in his office at the brewery. The old man's face was red and troubled.
"I've come on very unpleasant business, Mr. Ganser," said Travis with deference. "As you know, I am with Loeb, Lynn, Levy and McCafferty. Our client, Mr. Feuerstein—"
Ganser leaped to his feet, apoplectic.
"Get out!" he shouted, "I don't speak with you!"
"As an officer of the court, Mr. Ganser," said Travis suavely, "it is my painful duty to insist upon a hearing. We lawyers can't select our clients. We must do our best for all comers. Our firm has sent me out of kindly feeling for you. We are all men of family, like yourself, and, when the case was forced on us, we at once tried to think how we could be of service to you—of course, while doing our full legal duty by our client. I've come in the hope of helping you to avoid the disgrace of publicity."
"Get out!" growled Peter. "I know lawyers—they're all thieves. Get out!" But Travis knew that Peter wished him to stay.
"I needn't enlarge on our client—Mr. Feuerstein. You know he's an actor. You know how they crave notoriety. You know how eager the newspapers are to take up and make a noise about matters of this kind."
Peter was sweating profusely, and had to seat himself. "It's outrageous!" he groaned in German.
"Feuerstein has ordered us to have your daughter brought into court at once—to-morrow. He's your daughter's lawful husband and she's well beyond the legal age. Of course, he can't compel her to live with him or you to support him. But he can force the courts to inquire publicly. And I'm sorry to say we'll not be able to restrain him or the press, once he gets the ball to rolling."
Peter felt it rolling over him, tons heavy. "What you talk about?" he said, on his guard but eager.
"It's an outrage that honest men should be thus laid open to attack," continued Travis in a sympathetic tone. "But if the law permits these outrages, it also provides remedies. Your daughter's mistake may cost you a little something, but there need be no scandal."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Ganser.
"Really, I've talked too much already, Mr. Ganser. I almost forgot, for the moment, that I'm representing Mr. Feuerstein. But, as between friends, I'd advise you to go to some good divorce lawyers—a firm that is reputable but understands the ins and outs of the business, some firm like Beck and Brown. They can tell you exactly what to do."
Ganser regarded his "friend" suspiciously but credulously. "I'll see," he said. "But I won't pay a cent."
"Right you are, sir! And there may be a way out of it without paying. But Beck can tell you." Travis made a motion toward the inside pocket of his coat, then pretended to change his mind. "I came here to serve the papers on you," he said apologetically. "But I'll take the responsibility of delaying—it can't make Feuerstein any less married, and your daughter's certainly safe in her father's care. I'll wait in the hope that YOU'LL take the first step."
Ganser lost no time in going to his own lawyers—Fisher, Windisch and Carteret, in the Postal Telegraph Building. He told Windisch the whole story. "And," he ended, "I've got a detective looking up the rascal. He's a wretch—a black wretch."
"We can't take your case, Mr. Ganser," said Windisch. "It's wholly out of our line. We don't do that kind of work. I should say Beck and Brown were your people. They stand well, and at the same time they know all the tricks."
"But they may play me the tricks."
"I think not. They stand well at the bar."
"Yes, yes," sneered Peter, who was never polite, was always insultingly frank to any one who served him for pay. "I know that bar."
"Well, Mr. Ganser," replied Windisch, angry but willing to take almost anything from a rich client, "I guess you can look out for yourself. Of course there's always danger, once you get outside the straight course of justice. As I understand it, your main point is no publicity?"
"That's right," replied Ganser. "No newspapers—no trial."
"Then Beck and Brown. Drive as close a bargain as you can. But you'll have to give up a few thousands, I'm afraid."
Ganser went over into Nassau Street and found Beck in his office. He gazed with melancholy misgivings at this lean man with hair and whiskers of a lifeless black. Beck suggested a starved black spider, especially when you were looking into his cold, amused, malignant black eyes. He made short work of the guileless brewer, who was dazed and frightened by the meshes in which he was enveloped. Staring at the horrid specter of publicity which these men of craft kept before him, he could not vigorously protest against extortion. Beck discovered that twenty thousand was his fighting limit.
"Leave the matter entirely in our hands," said Beck. "We'll make the best bargain we can. But Feuerstein has shrewd lawyers—none better. That man Loeb—" Beck threw up his arms. "Of course," he continued, "I had to know your limit. I'll try to make the business as cheap for you as possible."
"Put 'em off," said Ganser. "My Lena's sick."
His real reason was his hopes from the reports on Feuerstein's past, which his detective would make. But he thought it was not necessary to tell Beck about the detective.
After another talk with Travis, Feuerstein decided that he must give up Hilda entirely until this affair with the Gansers was settled. Afterward—well, there would be time to decide when he had his five thousand. He sent her a note, asking her to meet him in Tompkins Square on Friday evening. That afternoon he carefully prepared himself. He resolved that the scene between her and him should be, so far as his part was concerned, a masterpiece of that art of which he knew himself to be one of the greatest living exponents. Only his own elegant languor had prevented the universal recognition of this and his triumph over the envy of professionals and the venality of critics.
It was a concert night in Tompkins Square, and Hilda, off from her work for an hour, came alone through the crowds to meet him. She made no effort to control the delight in her eyes and in her voice. She loved him; he loved her. Why suppress and deny? Why not glory in the glorious truth? She loved him, not because he was her conquest, but because she was his.
Mr. Feuerstein was so absorbed in his impending "act" that he barely noted how pretty she was and how utterly in love—what was there remarkable in a woman being in love with him? "The women are all crazy about me," was his inward comment whenever a woman chanced to glance at him. As he took Hilda's hand he gave her a look of intense, yearning melancholy. He sighed deeply. "Let us go apart," he said. Then he glanced gloomily round and sighed again.
They seated themselves on a bench far away from the music and the crowds. He did not speak but repeated his deep sigh.
"Has it made you worse to come, dear?" Hilda asked anxiously. "Are you sick?"
"Sick?" he said in a hollow voice. "My soul is sick—dying. My God! My God!" An impressive pause. "Ah, child, you do not know what suffering is—you who have lived only in these simple, humble surroundings."
Hilda was trembling with apprehension. "What is it, Carl? You can tell me. Let me help you bear it."
"No! no! I must bear it alone. I must take my dark shadow from your young life. I ought not to have come. I should have fled. But love makes me a coward."
"But I love you, Carl," she said gently.
"And I have missed you—dreadfully, dreadfully!"
He rolled his eyes wildly. "You torture me!" he exclaimed, seizing her hand in a dead man's clutch. "How CAN I speak?"
Hilda's heart seemed to stand still. She was pale to the lips, and he could see, even in the darkness, her eyes grow and startle.
"What is it?" she murmured. "You know I—can bear anything for you."
"Not that tone," he groaned. "Reproach me! Revile me! Be harsh, scornful—but not those tender accents."
He felt her hand become cold and he saw terror in her eyes. "Forgive me," she said humbly. "I don't know what to say or do. I—you look so strange. It makes me feel all queer inside. Won't you tell me, please?"
He noted with artistic satisfaction that the band was playing passionate love-music with sobs and sad ecstasies of farewell embraces in it. He kissed her, then drew back. "No," he groaned. "Those lips are not for me, accursed that I am."
She was no longer looking at him, but sat gazing straight ahead, her shoulders bent as if she were crouching to receive a blow. He began in a low voice, and, as he spoke, it rose or fell as his words and the distant music prompted him. "Mine has been a luckless life," he said. "I have been a football of destiny, kicked and flung about, hither and yon. Again and again I have thought in my despair to lay me down and die. But something has urged me on, on, on. And at last I met you."
He paused and groaned—partly because it was the proper place, partly with vexation. Here was a speech to thrill, yet she sat there inert, her face a stupid blank. He was not even sure that she had heard.
"Are you listening?" he asked in a stern aside, a curious mingling of the actor and the stage manager.
"I—I don't know," she answered, startling. "I feel so—so—queer. I don't seem to be able to pay attention." She looked at him timidly and her chin quivered. "Don't you love me any more?"
"Love you? Would that I did not! But I must on—my time is short. How can you say I do not love you when my soul is like a raging fire?"
She shook her head slowly. "Your voice don't feel like it," she said. "What is it? What are you going to say?"
He sighed and looked away from her with an irritated expression. "Little stupid!" he muttered—she didn't appreciate him and he was a fool to expect it. But "art for art's sake"; and he went on in tones of gentle melancholy. "I love you, but fate has again caught me up. I am being whirled away. I stretch out my arms to you—in vain. Do you understand?" It exasperated him for her to be so still—why didn't she weep?
She shook her head and replied quietly:
"No—what is it? Don't you love me any more?"
"Love has nothing to do with it," he said, as gently as he could in the irritating circumstances. "My mysterious destiny has—"
"You said that before," she interrupted. "What is it? Can't you tell me so that I can understand?"
"You never loved me!" he cried bitterly.
"You know that isn't so," she answered. "Won't you tell me, Carl?"
"A specter has risen from my past—I must leave you—I may never return—"
She gave a low, wailing cry—it seemed like an echo of the music. Then she began to sob—not loudly, but in a subdued, despairing way. She was not conscious of her grief, but only of his words—of the dream vanished, the hopes shattered.
"Never?" she said brokenly.
"Never!" he replied in a hoarse whisper.
Mr. Feuerstein looked down at Hilda's quivering shoulders with satisfaction. "I thought I could make even her feel," he said to himself complacently. Then to her in the hoarse undertone: "And my heart is breaking."
She straightened and her tears seemed to dry with the flash of her eyes. "Don't say that—you mustn't!" She blazed out before his astonished eyes, a woman electric with disdain and anger. "It's false—false! I hate you—hate you—you never cared—you've made a fool of me—"
"Hilda!" He felt at home now and his voice became pleading and anguished. "You, too, desert me! Ah, God, whenever was there man so wretched as I?" He buried his face in his hands.
"Oh, you put it on well," she scoffed. "But I know what it all means."
Mr. Feuerstein rose wearily. "Farewell," he said in a broken voice. "At least I am glad you will be spared the suffering that is blasting my life. Thank God, she did not love me!"
The physical fact of his rising to go struck her courage full in the face.
"No—no," she urged hurriedly, "not yet—not just yet—wait a few minutes more—"
"No—I must go—farewell!" And he seated himself beside her, put his arm around her.
She lay still in his arms for a moment, then murmured: "Say it isn't so, Carl—dear!"
"I would say there is hope, heart's darling," he whispered, "but I have no right to blast your young life. And I may never return."
She started up, her face glowing.
"Then you WILL return?"
"It may be that I can," he answered. "But—"
"Then I'll wait—gladly. No matter how long it is, I'll wait. Why didn't you say at first, 'Hilda, something I can't tell you about has happened. I must go away. When I can, I'll come.' That would have been enough, because I—I love you!"
"What have I done to deserve such love as this!" he exclaimed, and for an instant he almost forgot himself in her beauty and sweetness and sincerity.
"Will it be long?" she asked after a while.
"I hope not, bride of my soul. But I can not—dare not say."
"Wherever you go, and no matter what happens, dear," she said softly, "you'll always know that I'm loving you, won't you?" And she looked at him with great, luminous, honest eyes.
He began to be uncomfortable. Her complete trust was producing an effect even upon his nature. The good that evil can never kill out of a man was rousing what was very like a sense of shame. "I must go now," he said with real gentleness in his voice and a look at her that had real longing in it. He went on: "I shall come as soon as the shadow passes—I shall come soon, Herzallerliebste!"
She was cheerful to the last. But after he had left she sat motionless, except for an occasional shiver. From the music-stand came a Waldteufel waltz, with its ecstatic throb and its long, dreamy swing, its mingling of joy with foreboding of sadness. The tears streamed down her cheeks. "He's gone," she said miserably. She rose and went through the crowd, stumbling against people, making the homeward journey by instinct alone. She seemed to be walking in her sleep. She entered the shop—it was crowded with customers, and her father, her mother and August were bustling about behind the counters. "Here, tie this up," said her father, thrusting into her hands a sheet of wrapping paper on which were piled a chicken, some sausages, a bottle of olives and a can of cherries. She laid the paper on the counter and went on through the parlor and up the stairs to her plain, neat, little bedroom. She threw herself on the bed, face downward. She fell at once into a deep sleep. When she awoke it was beginning to dawn. She remembered and began to moan. "He's gone! He's gone! He's gone!" she repeated over and over again. And she lay there, sobbing and calling to him.
When she faced the family there were black circles around her eyes. They were the eyes of a woman grown, and they looked out upon the world with sorrow in them for the first time.