Mr. Latimer and the others interested succeeded in keeping the truth hidden. Officially, even according to the account given by the sensational evening paper, the death was an accident—there had been burglaries, the times were unsafe, there was a wave of crime in Vernon, Marian had been placing a revolver in the drawer of her desk, and all the rest of it. Privately no one believed the story, and the various things that people did believe were too wild to deserve mention. But officially every one believed it. Officially every one in Vernon always believed what he should. This was Vernon’s great strength.
Stacey did not recover easily from the shock. Perhaps it even worked some permanent change in him. For it left him bruised, saddened, yet somehow calmer and cooler. He worked tremendously at the office, and in the days immediately following the tragedy did indeed value his work mostly as a means to temporary forgetfulness. He saw but few people, and only two or three of these willingly, for he found it hard to talk. He was glad enough to see Edwards now and then at the luncheon hour—at least after their first meeting, when, to excuse the manner he simply could not help, Stacey felt obliged to tell him, who came from an outside world, that Marian Price had been an old friend and that he was pretty cut up by her death; which was hard. Yet Edwards’ gruff awkward expression of sympathy was not unpleasant.
Stacey’s memory of Marian was as of something delicate, lovely and frustrated, and it was softened by that final unwonted touch of tenderness she had shown; but he could never quite forgive Marian what she had done to her mother. In this she had been her father’s daughter. Callous toward others, the Latimers! Hard, at bottom.
He went as often as he could to see Mrs. Latimer, or took her out with him into the park. She recovered from the terrible prostration of that first night, even quickly; she regained an adequate composure of manner; and her sensitive receptive mind was intact. She had always had the faculty of true intuition, which is (as opposed to the false intuition that means merely guessing) the faculty of thinking so swiftly that the logical steps along the way are barely brushed by the flying thought, and the conclusion is so quickly reached that to the breathless beholder it appears to have been attained at one leap. This faculty she did not lose. But in her own attitude toward the world she was sadly changed, no longer a strong flexible personality armed with a gentle irony, giving more than she took, unafraid of facts; she had become a weak shaken woman, with no shelter for her sensitive soul. Almost terrified she seemed at times. And it was Stacey who now tried to give her the support she had formerly tried to give him.
He noted one peculiarity that seemed rather horrible to him. For at least two months after Marian’s death Mrs. Latimer could not see her husband enter a room where she was without giving a shudder of revulsion at his presence.
One thing of good Stacey had gained from the tragedy. He knew Catherine now. Not entirely, by any means; but it was as though he had found a key to the locked door of her personality, and had opened the door and stepped inside just a little way. The intense shyness that wrapped her about had nothing to do with self-consciousness; he had always known that. Now he began to understand that the noble quality of her self lay in her very selflessness. She barely thought of herself consciously at all; and thus to have others do so disturbed her. She gave and gave and took nothing. It was through her immense capacity for pity—not a pity whimpering weakly over a wretched world, but a strong useful pity—that one got to know her. She had given so much of her selflessness to Stacey at the time of the catastrophe that she had given of herself, too; she could not now take back what she had given, even if she wished to do so. He was shocked and numbed by what had happened, and she continued instinctively to give him all the quiet lavish help she could. She was giving perhaps more than she knew.
One day she even brought him one of the articles she had written for a London weekly. She was humble about it, but at heart he was even humbler; for, simply worded, with no pretence at decoration, a brief, clearly stated apology for the “Let-us-eat-drink-and-be-merry” attitude of the day, it radiated a gentle warmth of feeling. Afterward she showed Stacey other articles.
Generally he trod very carefully, taking pains to say nothing that might drive this half-held prodigal friend back behind shadowy barriers of reserve. But one Sunday afternoon in October, when they had gone for a walk in the country, and the boys up ahead were plunging deliriously through heaps of dead leaves, he suddenly turned on her.
“Catherine,” he said, “you give so much—always! But you cannot be all selflessness. There must be a hidden self in you that could take a little.”
She gave him a startled look and did not speak. It was as though she had retreated to a great distance. Still she was there. He had thought she might vanish utterly.
“I think it’s a kind of shy maiden-self that you neglect,” he added. “You know next to nothing about it.”
“Oh,” she murmured, “I do take!”
But he was astonished and remorseful to perceive that her lips were trembling and her eyes moist.
“Did I shock you, Catherine?” he exclaimed. “Silly meddler I am! I’ve no business to bother you.”
“No, no,” she returned, “it’s not that! It’s only that you’re so kind.”
“I!” he cried in amazement.
“Yes,” she said, and then suddenly smiled at his expression.
“Well,” he remarked helplessly, “if prying into your thoughts can be called kindness . . .” and paused.
“The kindness is in what you do it for,” she said quietly, and they came up with the boys.
It was far closer than he had ever approached her before.
Stacey’s intimacy with his father, too, was closer since the tragedy. Mr. Carroll could hardly be expected to understand the strange relationship that had held Marian and Stacey together and apart; he did not even have the necessary facts to go on. But he saw with all his direct clearness the effect of Marian’s sudden death on his son, and was very kind, and tactful as well. He even took obvious pains to avoid discussion of subjects—such as Bolshevism, labor and the Republican Party—on which he perhaps fancied his son did not at heart agree with him. This touched Stacey, but was quite unnecessary. Stacey had no more interest in Bolshevism or the other things than in the Mabinogion.
In November a strike of the street-railway employees broke out. The company, which had applied for and obtained a seven-cent fare six months earlier, had now asked for the right to raise it to ten cents. The city council refused; whereupon the company, alleging its inability to carry on at even a modest profit under the existing costs, declared a twenty per cent. cut in wages, and the employees struck. The clash was fierce and there was much violence. The company imported strike-breakers from Chicago, they were mobbed, there were deaths, the militia was called out, and a few empty cars with shattered windows ran occasionally up and down the city streets.
Stacey was not particularly interested, having other things to think about. He barely glanced at the news headlines and smiled ironically as he did so, knowing that Colin Jeffries, who had a controlling interest in the stock of the street-railway company, also virtually owned the evening (Republican) paper and was engaged in many business enterprises with the owner of the morning (Democratic) paper. As for the editorials, he would no more have read them than he would have read the latest novel by Harold Bell Wright. But sometimes his father read them aloud at table in a tone of fierce assent, and thus Stacey learned that they were all about “one hundred per cent. Americanism” and the duty of labor to yield something, just as capital was yielding something.
However, one afternoon Edwards, whom Stacey had not seen for a week, suddenly entered the office.
“Hello!” cried Stacey cordially. “Come in. Where have you been?”—then broke off at sight of the other’s appearance.
Edwards was unshaven and rather dirty, and his eyes glowed darkly in his tense face. He shut the door behind him, then sat down opposite Stacey at the desk.
“I want to talk to you, Carroll,” he said. “It’s about the strike.”
“All right,” said Stacey. “I hardly know anything about it, haven’t followed it.”
Edwards’ eyes suddenly blazed. “No,” he cried, “of course not! What’s it all matter toyou?You’reall right!You’renot your brother’s keeper! It—”
“Now look here,” said Stacey, firmly but pleasantly enough, “cut out the class business, will you? You know that’s not the way you feel about me or you wouldn’t be coming here to see me. I haven’t a doubt but that the men are right in this strike, but the reason I’ve kept off the subject as much as possible is because I don’t see what in the world I can do about it, and I don’t know anything worse than futile sentimental sympathy.”
“I apologize, Carroll,” Edwards returned moodily. “I didn’t mean that, of course. And I’d probably better apologize in advance for anything else I may break loose and say. I haven’t had much sleep lately.”
“That’s all right,” Stacey replied. “Go as far as you like.”
“Carroll,” said Edwards painfully, “we’re beaten. I mean, on every big thing. There isn’t going to be any change in the rotten system, not for now. There isn’t going to be any revolution. There isn’t going to be a beginning of socialism, all men sharing tasks, each according to his capacity. There’s just going to be the same tyranny there’s always been, the same exploitation of a lot of men by a few. I tell you, I’m broken-hearted!” He paused, his face set.
“You must be,” said Stacey, “if you hoped for that.”
“Oh, I did and I didn’t! I thought maybe—but now this strike,” he went on sharply. “Six months ago there’d have been a general strike in sympathy. Every workman in the city would have downed tools. Not—now! We’re beaten, I tell you! There are thousands of unemployed, winter’s here, coal costs what you know, the men don’t dare. Beaten! You’ve heard what one of the big employers said openly—that pretty soon the men would be eating out of their hands! And here am I fighting for this puny little thing—that men be doled out enough to exist on! And fighting in vain!”
Stacey looked at him with silent sympathy.
“Here!” said Edwards, tearing papers from his pocket. “Here are the figures. Here’s what it costs a family of three to live—Government statistics. Here’s what the men were getting. Here’s what they’re to get now if they yield.” He pushed the papers across the table.
Stacey fingered them, but kept his eyes on his friend. “I know,” he said. “I can imagine without studying them. What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Edwards nervously. “I’d thought of two or three things. If you were to print the facts—just the facts—with your name signed to them, in one of the papers. . . .”
Stacey smiled bitterly. “Fat chance! How much of a power in this town do you think I am? Don’t you know that Colin Jeffries, who owns the street-railway, controls the papers?”
“Yes, I know that, damn him!” Edwards burst out. “He’s everywhere! You can’t get out from under his shadow.”
“And even if I could get such an article printed, what would it accomplish? When did the public ever budge? Inert mass of sheep! And all the time the papers harping on the idea that the street-railway company can’t pay its stock-holders even a nominal interest on their investment under current conditions.”
“Well,” Edwards fairly shouted, “and if they can’t! Do you know anything about that company? I do. I’ve looked into it with a lawyer. Way over-capitalized. Three millions of water, Carroll,—three cool millions into private pockets! So men must starve, must they, to pay interest on that stock?”
Stacey’s face was grim. “No,” he said shortly, “I hadn’t looked into it, but it doesn’t surprise me. I’ll tell you what Icoulddo,” he said hesitatingly after a moment. “I—er—the only available income I have is what I make here at the office. I could turn over—say two hundred and fifty dollars a month of it to the union. And I might—that is, I don’t know what my sister does with her income—gives most of it away, I fancy—but I dare say she’d put in as much more.”
Edwards stared. “Say,” he said shakily, “that’s decent! I thought you had—well, it’s none of my business. But it wouldn’t be any use, Carroll. Not a hundredth part enough. But—thanks!”
“Oh!” said Stacey deprecatingly, then fell to thinking. “Look here,” he remarked finally, “there’s only one thing I can think of, and it will have to be you to do it rather than I. Also it’s only a faint chance. Now my father is an honest man—set in his beliefs, but honest. And he’s also influential. Colin Jeffries probably defers as much to him as to any one living, because father’s very likely the only thoroughly honest, disinterested friend Jeffries has. Father believes in the principles Jeffries only exploits to make money out of. If you can get him—my father, I mean—on your side, he might take the matter up to Jeffries personally.”
Edwards’ face expressed extreme dislike of the suggestion. “Can’t say I care much for the idea—like begging for what you’ve a right to.”
“I didn’t suppose you would. But I estimate that what you’re out for is to save a living wage for these men—by any means.”
“Yes,” Edwards muttered, “I’d do anything. But how on earth could I swing your father into line?”
“Well,” said Stacey slowly, “come out to the house this evening at eight-fifteen, just when dinner’s over, and talk to him, always about the personal side, the facts of it, show him the figures,and keep away from all discussion of principles! Appeal to his sense of fair play to get him to go down with you to-morrow morning and see the men themselves.”
Edwards reflected. “All right,” he said sullenly, and rose.
“Mind now!” Stacey called after him, “no principles!”
Stacey made himself very agreeable at dinner that evening. He was keyed up by anticipation, his eyes glowed, and he looked younger. There was an added warmth in the harmony that had been lately achieved in the Carroll house. But Stacey saw Catherine glance at him wonderingly. It wasn’t possible to hide feelings from Catherine.
He caught her alone for a moment on the way to the library. “Now listen!” he said. “You stick by me. Don’t budge from the library. And support me in every way you can.”
Her dark eyes were curious, but her lips curved faintly into a smile—perhaps at his tone of command, that was so unlike his customary tone with her.
He would explain nothing, however; only marched her on down the hall. And a very few minutes later Parker came in to say that a Mr. Edwards had called.
“Oh, yes,” Stacey exclaimed, “he’s a friend of mine! Bring him in, Parker,—or, no, I’ll go get him myself,” and he went out. “Take it easy now, and no principles,” he growled to Edwards, as he piloted him in.
“Father,” Stacey remarked, “this is my friend, Edwards,—was commander of the Legion post, you know. Mrs. Blair, Mr. Edwards.”
“How do you do, sir?” said Mr. Carroll, shaking hands. His face had assumed its keen yet non-committal business-look. Mr. Carroll knew something about Edwards, of course, and disapproved of what he knew, but he was a courteous gentleman in his own house; such a man as Mr. Latimer, artistically conscious of every attitude, could not have expressed the situation more nicely.
“I wanted to say a few words to you, sir, about this strike,” Edwards began, sitting down awkwardly in the chair toward which Stacey had impelled him.
Mr. Carroll did not reply at once. He gnawed at his moustache, his eyes grew harder, and he shot one swift angry glance at Stacey.
Up to now Stacey had been rather pleased with himself; he thought he had engineered things well. It suddenly struck him that, instead, he had made a mess of them. His father was angry with him, and therefore more hostile to Edwards. And Edwards was nowhere near at his best; he was gauche, heavy, impressed by his surroundings—it had never occurred to Stacey that he might be,—and correspondingly resentful. Oh, Lord! Stacey looked across helplessly at Catherine.
She had poured out another cup of coffee and now handed it to the guest. “Will you have sugar, Mr. Edwards?” she asked.
“No—no, thank you!” he replied, startled, and took the cup gingerly. He looked as though he would much rather have refused it had he dared.
Mr. Carroll turned his eyes back to the young man. “I have no connection with the street-railway company, Mr. Edwards,” he said deliberately, choosing his words with care. “On the basis of such information as I have been able to obtain in regard to the strike my sympathies are with the company. I fail to see why capital should have to make all the sacrifices and labor none. But since you—and Stacey—wish it, I shall be glad to hear you state the men’s side of the case. I should think, however, that some official of the street-railway company would be the proper person to hear it.”
Edwards, who had flushed, made a quick angry gesture. But this almost upset the fragile cup that he held; so he was forced into restraint. He drank his coffee hastily before replying.
“Well, sir,” he began then, “Carroll—I mean Stacey—thought if I could give you the facts as I did to him you’d maybe see them our way. I don’t want to talk about principles, sir—”
“Why not?”
Edwards glanced wrathfully at Stacey. “Because we wouldn’t agree about them and there wouldn’t be any use in our trying to.” His hand trembled slightly, and the tiny silver spoon rattled against his coffee cup; so he rose and limped over to a table to rid himself of the nuisance once for all.
Catherine leaned forward. “Stacey told me you had been wounded in the war, Mr. Edwards,” she said softly.
He looked toward her. “Yes, ma’am,” he returned, “at Les Eparges. My right leg was rather shot to bits.”
Stacey drew a breath of relief. He hardly thought Catherine was being deliberately tactful; she had spoken impulsively. But the result was excellent. And Edwards in the tone with which he replied to Catherine revealed that old-fashioned attitude of deference toward women just as women, which was also Mr. Carroll’s attitude.
“I hope they fixed you up all right,” said Mr. Carroll gruffly.
“Pretty well, thanks. I happened to draw a good surgeon.”
As for Stacey, he said nothing at all. He had that much sense anyway, he told himself. He’d have to face his father later on; for the present he wanted to be as nearly forgotten as possible. So he sat still and commented silently on the shifting fortunes of the battle.
“Have a cigar, Edwards?” asked Mr. Carroll, holding out his case. (Good! There was a touch of something more personal in this.)
“No, thank you, sir.” (Oh, confound it! why didn’t he take one?).
Edwards drew his papers from his pocket. “Mr. Carroll,” he said, “I’m not going to talk to you at all about social theories or about what sort of stock it is that the street-railway company wants to pay dividends on.” (“Well, damn it, then, don’t!” cried Stacey internally.) “I only want to show you, in figures, the condition of the employees just as men; what they were getting, what they’re going to get if they accept this cut in wages, what it costs a family of three to live to-day.” And he began to read.
He did not read aloud very well. He stuttered a little over a word now and then. But there was an intensity in his deep voice that lent an odd warmth to the figures about groceries, fuel, wages, and the rest. Mr. Carroll must see that the man was in deadly earnest.
When he had finished reading he stretched out the papers. “Want to see them?” he demanded abruptly.
Mr. Carroll shook his head. He was frowning and chewing at the end of his cigar. “The trouble is,” he began, but with less than his usual firmness, “that you can’t separate facts from principles. Labor—”
“Oh,” cried Catherine suddenly, “you must!”
Two of the three men started and turned toward her; Stacey had been looking at her already.
But Catherine’s eyes were fixed now on the guest. “Do you mean, Mr. Edwards,” she asked, in a voice that revealed both compassion and scorn, “that the highest wage of any employee would be only forty cents an hour?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Edwards bitterly, “if they accept the cut in wages.”
“And are there many families of three?”
“Most are a good deal more than three,” he replied. “About twenty per cent. of the men are unmarried and perhaps bring the average down to three.”
Catherine’s face had an odd expression. Stacey thought she looked like a sorrowful goddess. “Before my husband died,” she said, “we were a family of four. We were living on two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and you thought, Mr. Carroll, that we had to live too sordidly. You will do something?”
He gazed at her kindly, but did not reply at once.
Stacey was touched by the mention of Phil. The thought of Phil was with him, almost like a gentle presence, very often. Catherine spoke of him seldom but, when she did so, quite simply and naturally, as now. She must miss him sadly, Stacey thought, and felt grieved for her. But, since it was his instinct to carry through unswervingly anything he had undertaken, he was also exultant, as well as faintly amused at his father, who was being swept away from principles at every turn, simply not permitted to play with them.
“I can’t say I like those statistics,” said Mr. Carroll at last, more to Catherine than to Edwards. Then he turned to the latter. “But I’d have to know more. I’d have to look into things. And then I don’t know what I could do about it; I might do something, I suppose. Confound it! sir,” he exclaimed impatiently, “why didn’t you take this up with some official of the company?”
“I want you to know more, sir,” Edwards returned eagerly. “I’d like it if you’d go down with me and see some of the strikers man to man, get their story.”
Mr. Carroll reflected, frowning. “All right,” he said sharply. “Come to my office to-morrow morning at nine.”
Catherine’s face fairly shone, and Mr. Carroll, looking back at her, relaxed his sternness and leaned over to pat her hand.
“May I go, too?” she asked of them both.
“Yes,ma’am!” said Edwards, getting up. “I’d like that.”
He made his adieux clumsily, with too much formality, and Stacey accompanied him down the hall to the door.
“Well,” Edwards remarked, “that’s something, I suppose,—thanks to Mrs. Blair. Precious little help you were, though, Carroll!”
“Oh, yes,” said Stacey cheerfully, “I messed things up properly. But then, look at you! What the devil do you mean by behaving like a resentful commoner at a court function? Go on home, you sulky snob!” he added with a laugh, and pushed his friend out of the door.
Then he returned to the library.
His father and Catherine were sitting there in silence, she gazing away with dark abstracted eyes, he frowning slightly and staring down at a closed magazine on which he tapped nervously with his fingers. He looked up and turned to Catherine as Stacey entered.
“You a member of this conspiracy, Catherine?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Stacey exclaimed promptly, “she wasn’t! Didn’t know a thing about it. It was all my damfoolishness.”
“I see,” said Mr. Carroll, and rose. “I’ll go to bed, I think. Good night.”
But Stacey set his back against the door. “No, sir,” he returned, “let’s have this out. I’ll concede that I was wrong to do this in this way. Now you go ahead and tell me some more things.”
His father stood there, looking at him keenly, antagonistically, judging him. Mr. Carroll’s upper lip was drawn in a little, and there was a harshness about his face. One could see that he had fought hard fights in life and that he was still an adversary to be reckoned with.
“I am not aware,” he began coldly, “of being in my dotage—yet. If anybody wants anything from me the thing for him to do is to come and ask me for it; then if I think he ought to have it he’ll get it. I’ll be damned if I’ll be cosseted and cajoled into a good humor so that something can be wormed out of me.”
Absolutely justified, his father was, Stacey thought helplessly. “You’re perfectly right, sir,” he said, “and I apologize, My only excuse for not being frank—and I admit it’s not good enough—is that I was so confoundedly anxious for you to hear Edwards’ story, and was fool enough to think you might refuse if I asked you to, point-blank.”
For just an instant Stacey glanced away to Catherine and saw with sharp regret that her eyes were full of pain. Why the devil had he let her in for this? Then he looked back at his father.
But Mr. Carroll’s wrath was not assuaged, and when he spoke again Stacey perceived that a long resentment, dangerously repressed, had burst loose finally.
“You take me for a damned fool,” Mr. Carroll went on angrily. “I’m a fool perhaps, but not a damned fool. Do you think I can’t see how you humor me?—the nice, kindly, tolerant spirit you show for my foibles, your ‘poor-dad-he’s-growing-old’ attitude! Superior, sir! Intolerably superior!”
This was pretty bad, and all the worse for the tiny element of truth it contained. “Now look here, dad!” Stacey pleaded. “That’s not so. There isn’t anybody in the world I respect more than I do you. Why—”
“Extraordinary method of showing it you take, then!” snapped his father. “Respect—nothing! At heart you’re a Bolshevist, sir. Well, then, if you are,beone! You’re not consistent. You’re a Bolshevist in theory” (“Oh, Lord! I haven’t got any theories!” Stacey thought, but did not try to say), “a millionaire in practice. I gave you a tidy fortune. You took it, didn’t you? You live here with me in a certain amount of luxury. Well, why do you? Why don’t you go and live in a hut?” He paused, out of breath, glaring at his son.
Stacey was pale; for this hurt. But he was further than before from losing his temper, since now the attack was unjust. To his amazement, and certainly to Mr. Carroll’s as well, it was Catherine who lost her temper—or almost.
“Mr. Carroll!” she cried—and both men, turning suddenly toward her, saw her standing erect, a slim firm figure with a face of angry beauty. “That’s unfair and cruel and not like you! I know that Stacey cares less for money than any one else in Vernon—and it is a shame that it should have to be I to say so. He lived for four years in mud and horror because he hoped it would do some good. It’s wonderful that when he came back and seemed to find that it hadn’t done any good he could keep his sanity. And still he’d go and live like that again if it were of any use. And you accuse him of living here because of the luxuries you give him! He lives here because of his affection for you and because of the affection he thought you had for him. It’s—shameful—what you said!” She ceased and sat down again, her breath coming fast, her lips quivering.
Stacey gazed at her, his heart beating rather quickly; he was overwhelmed with the number of his emotions. He was astounded at the brave magnificent way she had spoken, proud that it was in his cause, deeply touched, and somehow profoundly sad.
As for Mr. Carroll, he looked in a dazed way from Catherine to his son. “There is no excuse for what I—said to you, son,” he said at last. “I don’t suppose you can forgive me. Try to, if you are able.”
Stacey walked over and shook his hand. “Oh—er—shucks, dad!” he muttered. “It’s all right—forgotten.” It was the first time he had ever heard his father apologize to any one for anything.
Mr. Carroll gave his son a strange wistful look of gratitude, then went over to Catherine. “Are you going to let me sit down beside you, Catherine?” he asked. “You’re not going to pack up and leave the house just because your host’s an old fool?”
“No,” she said in a strangled voice, giving him her hand, but keeping her face averted, so that neither he nor Stacey could see it.
“I’m not altogether an old fool, my dear,” he added, patting her hand; then got up again. “Er—a game of pinochle, Stacey?” he suggested.
Stacey nodded, and moved to get the card table. “Sure! I’d like one. But you don’t really think you’ve any chance against me, do you, dad?” he said shakily.
At breakfast next morning no allusion was made to the promised excursion with Edwards, but Stacey was confident of its success. On this account, as well as on others, he was glad of last night’s storm. For he knew his father. Mr. Carroll might fancy that principles were the foundation of his life; they were not, they were mere dead wood. First and last it was by personal relationships that he was swayed. It was this that gave him his sweetness, his directness, his genius for holding friends, his absolute inability to be impartial. He would have made a very poor judge. As a result of the quarrel he would be unavoidably on Edwards’ side—because it was Stacey’s side.
Mr. Carroll was nearly always gay at breakfast; on this morning he was delightful. But he did not tease Catherine, as he often tried to do. Instead, he joked with the boys, with great detriment to their table manners, and reduced Jackie in particular to a condition that shocked even Carter.
As for Catherine, she seemed to Stacey shyer than usual, more withdrawn. This was natural, he thought. After that splendid outburst in defence of him she must of course retreat hurriedly into herself. Which was rather obtuse of Stacey, since he should surely have known by now that for Catherine giving was not logically followed by taking back, but by further giving. At any rate, despite her silence, he felt a closeness to her, a deep intimacy with her. There was a touch of melancholy at his heart, too; for he felt more than he cared to admit. He did not venture to speak much to Catherine—only a few matter-of-fact words. Ah, well, last evening’s scene had temporarily stripped off too many discreet veils, left emotions too naked; by to-night everything would have become normal again. Yet Stacey did not precisely envisage this certainty with satisfaction.
He motored into town with his father and Catherine, but left them at the door of the Carroll Building and went on to his own office.
He worked that morning with less complete absorption than usual, and at half past twelve went to the lunch-room, hoping to find Edwards.
Edwards was not there, but before Stacey had finished eating he came in, looking radiant. “It’s all right, Carroll,” he said gaily, limping over with a sandwich and coffee. “Your father saw things our way. There’s something pretty fine about him. You can’t help liking him. And then Mrs. Blair, well, she’s just a wonder—the real thing!”
Stacey was rather calmer. “What did father say he’d do?” he asked.
“Oh, he was non-committal, of course! Said he didn’t know whether he could do anything, but he’d try. Remarked that Colin Jeffries was a fair man, one of the fairest he knew, also a great citizen! And I was a lamb, Carroll, swallowed that without even a gulp! So it’s pretty clear he’s gone to take the thing up with Jeffries—or will go.”
Stacey considered his friend curiously. Extraordinary, this thinking in classes! Edwards did not think of capitalists as men; he thought of them as parts of a whole, which was capital. It was only capital he thought about really, as something with an existence of its own. So he took it for granted that if you swung over one capitalist to your side you could swing the whole, just as when you pulled back the lever of an engine you set the entire machine in motion. Neat, very,—but not true. Stacey himself, though he had suggested the scheme, was far from confident that his father could bring Colin Jeffries around, because Stacey saw the problem as a personal problem.
“Well,” he said soberly, “I hope father can pull it off. Come on up to the office.”
They sat in Stacey’s room and smoked silently.
“Mrs. Blair is a corker!” Edwards announced suddenly. “The best ever! Do you raise many like her in your caste?”
Stacey smiled. “Not so you’d notice it,” he returned drily.
“Well, I’m glad of that. I should hate to find some real reason for the existence of your plutocratic bunch.”
“Oh, you make me tired!” said Stacey wearily. “You talk like a child. At heart you have a kind of idea that the people I know are different from you. You resent it, but you have a secret feeling that they’re superior—Olympians. That’s because—”
But at this point in his attack the telephone bell rang and he lifted the receiver.
“That you, Stacey?” said his father’s voice, and Stacey knew at once that the attempt had failed. “I saw Colin Jeffries about that matter, had a long talk with him. But I couldn’t budge him. Said he’d do anything else in the world for me, but that in the matter of this strike he couldn’t even hear of a compromise. Said he’d be going back on every principle he had if he did. That it had come to a show-down. Was business to be run as an efficient competitive proposition with moderate financial reward, or was it to become a charitable institution with the investors as donators? He made a strong case for his stand—unanswerable logically. All the same . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well, I’ve heard those statistics from Edwards and I’ve seen some of the men. It’s not just that they should have to live like that.”
“What did Jeffries say when you pointed that out?”
“Said he was sorry for the men and their wives, very, but that he had to think of the stock-holders also. That they, too, were men and women, though you couldn’t get an employee to see it.”
“Neat point,” Stacey remarked. “Jeffries owns two-thirds of the common himself. I’ve seen the list of the other stock-holders. Thereisone widow among them. I’d be willing to defray her losses myself.”
“I’m sorry, son.” (Mr. Carroll’s voice was regretful.) “I’d like to have got this through for you—and because I think it’s right, though of course my convictions on the labor and capital situation in general remain unchanged.”
“Of course.”
“But I did what I could.”
“I know it, dad,” said Stacey. “Edwards will know that too. Thanks, just as much as if you’d brought it off. Good-bye. See you at dinner.”
He hung up the receiver, then looked across at Edwards. “Nothing doing,” he said, his face impassive.
Edwards’ face had flushed a dull crimson, and his jaw was set, so that there was an effect of massive squareness about his head. His eyes glowed.
“Yes,” he replied thickly, “so I judged. Bombs, Carroll, nice little hand-grenades,—that’s what’s wanted!”
“I agree,” said Stacey coolly. “It would be a pleasure to toss one at Jeffries; but that’s no use. Never was. The reaction swings you back to below where you started.”
“You’re so damned cold-blooded about it!” Edwards cried furiously. “Can’t you put yourself—”
“Shut up!” said Stacey harshly. “I’m twice as angry as you are—and I’m going to take a hand in this somehow.”
And, in truth, an observer studying the two men carefully would have ended by believing Stacey the more dangerous. With only a little extra tautness in the muscles of his face to alter his appearance, there was yet something hard and ruthless in his expression. It was quite clear that if, as Stacey had learned, nothing of his fanciful, fastidious, early self had really vanished, neither had anything vanished of that embittered, stony, cold-and-passionate self he had brought back from the war. This morning while he was at work his thoughts about the strike and about Mr. Carroll’s undertaking had been haphazard, interrupted by warm memories of the scene at home the night before. Now Stacey’s whole mind was concentrated in a kind of chilly fierceness on the single problem of how he could force Colin Jeffries to yield.
“It’s got to be personal fighting—no principles; they’re no good,” he thought. “Now what handle have I got? What do I know about Jeffries?”
In response to this way of putting it, a casual winter-night’s memory flashed into his mind. Of course! He threw up his head and laughed unpleasantly.
“I’ve got a sort of half-idea, Edwards,” he observed. “Maybe it will work out. Now you run along and let me think it over. See you to-morrow.”
Stacey sat there, reflecting intensely, for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Then he got up, went out, and walked over to the building in which Colin Jeffries had his office.
The millionaire’s large outer-office was full of men waiting. They sat singly or in groups and talked in low tones. Some of them, men prominent in one business or another, Stacey recognized and nodded to. He gave his card to a young man—some sort of secretary, probably—who promised to take it in to Mr. Jeffries but said he feared there wasn’t the slightest chance of seeing him this afternoon except by appointment.
“Take the card in, anyway,” Stacey remarked, and sat down.
Less than ten minutes later the secretary returned, obviously impressed, to say that Mr. Jeffries would see Mr. Carroll now; then conducted him to the financier’s private office.
“Come in, Stacey,” said Mr. Jeffries cordially, getting up to shake hands. “Sit down, won’t you?”
“Thanks,” said Stacey, and did so, across the table from the millionaire.
This being called by his first name amused him. It must be meant as a kingly compliment by Mr. Jeffries, since he and Stacey had not met above half a dozen times—or perhaps it was to aid in the effect of cordiality. But there were many other things besides amusement in Stacey’s mind. He was thinking swiftly, taking stock of his adversary, all in the brief interval while he accepted and lighted a courteously proferred cigarette.
This cordiality now,—it was not a warmth radiating from inner good will; it was external, a fire built on snow. He felt the man as cold—perhaps cruel, too. If so, cold even in his cruelty. Stacey felt aversion, something in that personality was rasping to him; but he was far from feeling contempt. He recognized that he was encountering a strong and steely character, not one—like most—only apparently strong. Not a touch here of the business-man as shown in romances or movies, no nervous movement of papers, no abstracted air of meditation on vast enterprises. Mr. Jeffries did not even say that he could spare Stacey a few minutes of his time; he was as leisurely as though he were lounging at a club. Yet the man was intensely busy from morning to night, and at this moment his outer-office was crowded with those waiting to see him.
“It was about the street-railway strikers that I wanted to speak to you, Mr. Jeffries,” said Stacey, blowing out his match. (There had only been that much of a pause.)
A look of regret came over the millionaire’s face. “I’m sorry, Stacey,” he replied, shaking his head slowly, “but there’s nothing I can do. I explained my position to your father this morning.”
“Yes, I know you did,” Stacey continued carefully. “But you and he are so much alike” (they were alike superficially; Stacey disclaimed almost passionately that there was any deep likeness) “that I feel sure you must both see this trouble as a matter of principle, as labor versus capital, as a strike,—not as men striking. The men can’t live on the wages you’re offering to pay them, Mr. Jeffries. Can’t—live.”
“And the company can’t live and give them any better ones,” returned Mr. Jeffries quietly.
Stacey did not express his opinion of the company’s right to life. He attended quietly to what Mr. Jeffries said. All this was no use, anyway.
“There’s more in this than you see, Stacey. It’s a test case—an unfortunate one, I grant you; test cases are rarely the ones a man would choose. It’s come to a question of whether business organized on private capital can exist at all. If it can’t we’d better know it at once; if it can then it will have to be run on the basis of a decent adjustment between receipts and disbursements.”
Stacey, quite unmoved by this, shook his head. “I don’t see how this can be a test case,” he observed. “Suppose you win,—it’s a paper victory only. Neither these men nor any others can work for you permanently at a wage that won’t support them and their families. Know what I think?” he demanded, gazing sharply at the older man, “I rather think the whole thing’s a threat held over the head of the city council.”
Mr. Jeffries laughed. “That’s shrewd of you, Stacey,” he remarked. “But, if so, you’ll admit it’s not very successful.”
Stacey, wary because of the note of flattery, continued to gaze at him. How keen the man was! Not once had he said: “You young men who’ve come back with socialistic ideas . . .” He had met Stacey with apparent candor and with no touch of tolerant superiority. His manner proclaimed equality,—but perhaps just faintly over-proclaimed it.
“You won’t even consider yielding,” Stacey asked, “so that these men can support their families—now—in winter?”
“I can’t, my boy. It’s to your credit, though, that you take the thing so much to heart. I admire you for it.”
The “my boy” and the admiration were under the circumstances a little too much for Stacey. The muscles of his face hardened almost imperceptibly, and he leaned back in his chair.
“Then, Mr. Jeffries, I’ve got to fight you,” he said coolly.
The other’s expression did not alter, no glint of amusement shone in his eyes; but he considered Stacey intently. “I’m sorry for that,” he returned after a moment, “but I guess I can only say: Go to it! I know it will be a fair fight, anyway.”
“No,” said Stacey, “it won’t be. I want to warn you.”
The other’s gaze sharpened. “Well?” he asked quietly.
“Mr. Jeffries,” Stacey inquired, “do you remember a young woman named Ethel Wyatt?”
“Yes,” replied the financier, his expression unchanged. “She was governess to our children for a time. There were reasons which made us let her go. Why?”
That last sentence was the only hint of weakness. Stacey felt an evil exultation. However, his face was impassive. “I was told in confidence,” he observed quietly, “that she left of her own accord because you hid in her bathroom and otherwise persecuted her.”
A faint color showed on Mr. Jeffries’ high cheek-bones, and his eyes hardened until they became like polished steel, but when he spoke his tone was quiet and firm, as before. Stacey reluctantly admired him.
“That’s not a pretty story,” he said. “I shan’t even trouble to deny it. May I ask why you repeat it to me?”
“Because I intend to use it against you.”
Mr. Jeffries considered him fixedly. “Thatseemedto be what you were driving at. I could hardly believe that I understood your meaning correctly. We’ll waive all the moral aspects of such blackmail—”
“Yes, let’s!” said Stacey calmly.
Mr. Jeffries frowned at the insolence of the interruption. Only from a certain tautness in his face could Stacey perceive that he was very angry, so well did he keep himself under control. “Do you really fancy,” he demanded, his words like sharp staccato taps of a hammer, “that any one, any one of any account, in this city is going to believe such a story?”
“Not officially, of course,” Stacey replied. “Being the power you are, Mr. Jeffries, you could go out in the street and commit publicly almost any crime short of murder, and officially even the witnesses wouldn’t admit that you’d done it. But privately most people will love to believe such a story.”
“Doyoubelieve it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Stacey indifferently, “or I wouldn’t use it. But, to tell you the truth, I haven’t the slightest interest in the story. It doesn’t even amuse me. I merely see it as a possible weapon.”
Mr. Jeffries continued to gaze at him sharply. “Do you know anything about this young woman, Ethel Wyatt?” he inquired presently, his voice frigid.
Stacey was wary. “A little,” he returned.
“Then you doubtless know the sort of person she has proved to be. She has been the mistress of Ames Price, among others.”
“Well?”
“You would take the word of a harlot in the matter of this libellous—”
“Oh,” Stacey exclaimed scornfully, “let’s not go in for rhetoric! There’s no dictograph in the room. Let’s not be benevolent millionaire and returned hero deserving well of his country!”
“Very well!” snapped Mr. Jeffries, his cheeks slightly flushed. “You’d take this girl’s word against mine?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Jeffries said nothing for a moment, merely regarding Stacey intently. “How you do dislike me, don’t you?” he asked then. He had quite recovered his calm.
Stacey raised his eyebrows. “That has nothing to do with it,” he remarked coldly.
“Hasn’t it? You can say that and still be ready to smirch my good name and make my wife miserable?”
Stacey drew himself up. “What’s a man’s smirched name or a weeping wife compared with a man who’s under-nourished and a wife who can’t buy proper clothes for her children?” he demanded bitterly. “It’s useless! Youcan’tsee why I’m doing this thing. For you I must have some other motive. Well, I haven’t.”
“And you’re going to use this story unless I give in on the strike—is that the idea?”
“Yes. I don’t say I’m going to throw it around broad-cast. Perhaps. I shall anyway tell it to my father. If you are a man and not just a popular legend, that ought to hit you almost as hard as the other thing. Because if I were you and had a friend like my father, I should want to keep him.”
For the first time Mr. Jeffries withdrew his eyes from his enemy and looked away, frowning. “You’ll hurt him a good deal,” he said quietly. “When are you going to tell him?”
“To-morrow morning. I won’t spoil his evening, anyway.” Stacey got up.
“Just a minute!” said the older man sharply. “I suppose you understand that you force me to play the same kind of game. I shall of course endeavor to learn where—and how—you have known this girl, since I’ve no doubt you got the story direct from her.”
“Oh, I should,” said Stacey indifferently. “It might prove discreditable. Also I should fancy that what I am doing is a criminal offence. I am really sorry for one thing,—to have taken up so much of your time,” he added sincerely.
Mr. Jeffries considered him grimly. “You have peculiar compunctions,” he observed.
Stacey went back to work. He was not particularly satisfied with the interview and he felt rather soiled mentally. The threat of the story, not the story itself, was what he had wanted to use. Once set going, the story would only be punishment, and he was not at all interested in punishment.
But that evening during dinner Mr. Carroll was called to the ’phone, and when he returned he was jubilant.
“Good news, Stacey!” he cried, slapping his son on the back. “Colin Jeffries has come around. Said you came up to see him and repeated the things I’d said, told him how strongly I felt about it (why didn’t you tell me?), and afterward he got to thinking things over till at last he said: ‘To hell with principles! It’s been my experience that if Edward Carroll wants a thing done the thing must be right.’ The strike’s off. It’ll be in the papers to-morrow.”
Mr. Carroll settled himself again in his chair and beamed. As for Catherine, she uttered a cry of joy, then suddenly looked across at Stacey. But he avoided her eyes. However, though he felt smirched, he also felt a fierce exultation.
Mr. Carroll leaned back in his chair. “Another thing Colin said, Stacey,” he remarked proudly, “was that you were wasted on a job like architecture, that you had—let’s see!—a concentrated directness of purpose that would have got you most anywhere in business. I was to be sure to tell you that.”
Stacey had looked up at this, startled. By Jove! the man was a good sport! Stacey was filled with admiration, and it struck him that he had been making Edwards’ mistake, had been seeing Colin Jeffries as a symbol, not just as an individual. Always this haze of legend hanging about everything! You had to tear it off.
Later, when he had gone upstairs to bed, he fell to meditating on the whole affair. How incongruously people and things were tangled! The great street-railway strike had come to an abrupt end because a year ago he, Stacey Carroll, had run off to a disreputable road-house with a strange reckless girl.
The entire front page of the paper next morning was occupied by Mr. Jeffries’ statement. It was a masterpiece. It began by recapitulating the facts—the doubled and tripled cost of material, the city council’s refusal to allow a ten-cent fare, the company’s dilemma,—to the accompaniment of persuasive figures. Thebeau gestethat followed was all the more effective for their convincingness. There were other things than gain in this world. There were human beings. We were our brothers’ keepers. (Stacey thought of Edwards’ remark, and grinned.) We owed them a right to a decent existence even at the cost of sacrifice to ourselves. A corporation was not a soulless machine. It had not, save in theory, any existence of its own. (Stacey nodded approval. Good point!) It was simply a group of individuals banded together, in accordance with the law, for the prosecution of a legitimate business and for the public service. The Vernon Street-Railway Company was such a group; and the members of this group now, after a careful investigation of conditions, made by themselves and by disinterested friends (here complimentary mention was made of Mr. Carroll’s generous initiative), felt that they could not at present, with harsh winter already here, require their employees to live on a reduced wage. This decision was taken though it meant not even a nominal profit but a considerable monthly deficit for the company. Every effort at retrenchment would be made. Economy would be rigid. The service might fall off slightly, but the public were prayed to be lenient, remembering that the company was failing in its business duty in order to accomplish a larger human duty.
There were also editorials.
Stacey felt no disdain,—only amusement and admiration. Mr. Jeffries’ telephoned message of last evening had revealed the man as not afraid to face the truth squarely. He might live in an atmosphere of magniloquent lies; that was because they served his purpose. At least, he was not himself deceived by them.
Edwards was waiting for Stacey at the office. “By the Lord!” he cried, waving the paper in one hand and wringing Stacey’s hand with the other, “you did it! Damned if you didn’t! Now tell me:whatdid you do?”
“Why, I just emphasized the things father had already said and pointed out how much my father’s loyalty to Jeffries meant,” said Stacey innocently.
Edwards stared at him. “The hell you did!” he exclaimed. “Carroll, you did some sort of dirty work—awfully dirty work, I’ll bet!” And he grinned with delight.
“Now look here, Edwards,” said Stacey soberly, “if you ever suggest that to any one else, or if you even let on that I had anything to do in this business at all, you’ll make things awfully unpleasant for me. Honestly! That’s all I can tell you.”
“Well, I won’t, then. You can take my word for it.”
“Sit down,” said Stacey, dropping into a chair and lighting a cigarette.
“Can’t. Can’t possibly. I’ve got to get to work. Precious little I’ve done these last days.”
Nevertheless, Edwards lingered. His jubilant mood had passed now, and he looked at Stacey with a kind of awkward wistfulness.
“I say, Carroll!” he blurted out finally, “you remember that night of the Legion meeting a year and more ago?” Stacey nodded. “Well, then I felt the better man of us two—no, I don’t mean better—saner, perhaps. You were”—he puzzled—“sort of twisted.”
(“Twisted,” thought Stacey. Again that word.)
Edwards continued after a moment, but with a shyness that in his rough rugged personality was appealing. “Now you’ve—got something, some solution for things. I don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s something. I just wanted you to know that I recognized it—that’s all.”
“That’s awfully decent of you,” returned Stacey quietly, “but I don’t think I’ve got anything really—any solution, I mean. Perhaps less than ever.”
Edwards shook his head. “Tell you what I think it is,” he observed. “You’ve come to see people as on a wrong track—struggling hard for things that don’t count, food and clothes more than they need, automobiles, fine houses, all things of existence that don’t get them anywhere,—totally without desire for life. That’s an easy enough point of view to take intellectually, but youfeelit, really live it yourself. You live in a palace, but you’d as soon live in a hut. Becauseyoudon’t care any more for those futile things. Except,” he added, “when they’re the bare essentials—as in this strike. Then you turn hard as flint in your will to get them—for other people. Thanks, you know. Thanks awfully! ’Bye!” He stumped out, waving his hand as though to ward off an answer.
Stacey was touched. Edwards was an idealist, for all his rude indomitable spirit and his contact with the rough working world; Stacey knew that. Yet it was pleasant to have a friend who thought better of you than you deserved.
There was one corollary to the strike. Four days later a grateful city council voted to allow a flat ten-cent fare. So now every one was satisfied—except the public, who had exactly what they merited, Stacey thought. He laughed heartily, wondering a little whether Colin Jeffries had not all along counted on this possibility.
Christmas a year ago had been a ghastly festival for Stacey, that he had gone through with somehow, his face stiffened into a fixed smile, his voice saying mechanical things, while within him only one emotion had been alive—the fierce, dizzy, dangerous craving to get away, from this, from everything and every one. And it could not have been much gayer for the others. Mr. Carroll had watched his son apprehensively, Jimmy Prout, too, had fallen below his customary debonair form, and even Julie, who, though more intelligent than people gave her credit for being, was not subtle, had a grave anxious air. Also the thought of Phil’s recent death and of Catherine grieving in that lonely squalid house hung over all of them. Only Junior had been quite himself. He had in truth been the life of the party.
Christmas this year was very different—Christmas Eve, especially. There was not quite the old exuberance; that could never return in this grayer sadder world,—or perhaps it was merely that Julie and Stacey and Jimmie were grown-up now. But there was a genial friendly warmth in the atmosphere. And then there were three children this year. They chattered and laughed and stamped impatiently in the long hall that led from the library to the big drawing-room where the tree was being prepared, and when at last the drawing-room doors were thrown open and the brilliant tree was displayed all three gave a howl of joy that would have satisfied even Dickens.
Mr. Carroll was extraordinarily good on such occasions. He delivered the presents—not too slowly, not too rapidly—from the great pile about the base of the tree, with a pleasant easy grace and sometimes a little speech. His own gifts he laid aside in a corner, to open later. They made an imposing heap, too; for many people outside of the family delighted to remember Mr. Carroll. Women, especially. He had great success with women and remained quite unspoiled by it, accepting it with apparent unconsciousness, or as a matter of course, as an aristocrat accepts his position. Old wives of old friends, young wives of friends’ sons, daughters of friends, spinsters to whom he had been kind,—he stirred all of them to liking. Perhaps it was Mr. Carroll’s good looks or his grace of manner or his goodness of heart or his youthful spirit or all of them together—Stacey did not know; but he recognized his father’s fascination and looked with affectionate amusement at the growing pile of prettily wrapped gifts. But it did not occur to Stacey that he himself had inherited that attractiveness to women; for he had inherited the unconsciousness of it along with the trait.
The three boys were making a tremendous racket, Julie was flushed and talkative, Jimmy Prout, a colored paper cap on his good-looking head, was lolling easily in his chair and drawing discordant wails from a toy accordion. Only Catherine seemed subdued. She sat near Julie, whom she liked warmly, and smiled and spoke quietly at times, but there was a faint tremulousness about her lips and a sensitiveness, as to pain, in the look of her eyes, that Stacey, who caught quickly the slightest change in Catherine, perceived clearly. Perhaps it was her shyness in all this confusion. Stacey did not know. She had not seemed quite herself of late.
The party broke up finally. Julie took her husband and her delirious son home, and Mr. Carroll and Stacey were left with Catherine and her two boys. Jackie, exhausted with happiness, sat on his mother’s lap and played sleepily with a mechanical mouse; Carter leaned against Stacey’s knee; Mr. Carroll sat, relaxed, in a chair near his gifts, which he showed no eagerness to open. The tree was lifeless, all its little colored candles extinguished, and the floor was strewn with ribbon and tissue-paper. The room held the quiet sadness that broods over a festival that is finished.
Catherine spoke first, setting Jackie on his feet and rising. “Thank you, Mr. Carroll, for everything,” she murmured. “I cannot—express how good you have been. And you, Stacey.”
The men had risen, too. “Why, my dear girl,” Mr. Carroll returned, “you’ve given us far more happiness than we you.”
She shook her head. “I must take the boys up now,” she said. “I’ve promised, as it’s Christmas Eve, to stay with them just for once while they undress.”
“You’ll come back, Catherine?” Stacey asked.
“Yes,” she replied, without looking at him, “I’ll come back.”
“Well, sir,” said Stacey gaily, when he was left with his father, “aren’t you going to open all those bundles?”
“Presently! Presently!” Mr. Carroll replied. “I’ll carry them up to my study.”
“Oh, I say!” Stacey protested, “I want to see what you’ve got.”
His father shook his head. “There’s something better than that waiting for us,” he remarked, with a smile. “In the dining-room. A bottle of Pol Roger and some sandwiches and so forth. Come along!”
“Well, rather!” Stacey exclaimed. “What a happy thought! I’m starved, too,—to say nothing of my thirst. You never eat anything at dinner in the excitement of this sort of thing.”
He wondered a bit that his father had not suggested their waiting for Catherine, then understood suddenly that this was a handsome tribute to himself, an effort to express wordlessly that they two, father and son, were close friends who needed no one else to help them achieve intimacy. But the first thing Mr. Carroll did was to prepare carefully and set aside a plate of good things to eat. “For Catherine,” he explained. Then, with a boyish smile at Stacey, he took the bottle from the cooler, uncorked it, and poured the hissing pale-gold wine into the delicate flaring glasses.
“Aren’t you ashamed to violate the laws of your country in this way?” asked Stacey.
“I’m not doing that,” Mr. Carroll returned. “When it comes to whiskey I do some considerable violating, but this champagne has been in my cellar for years. To your health, son!”
“To yours, sir!” Stacey replied cordially. They touched glasses and drank.
They talked, like the good friends they were, in an easy desultory way while they sipped the wine and ate a little. But all at once Mr. Carroll became silent, then suddenly looked across at his son.
“Stacey,” he said, “don’t be a fool!”
It was an odd speech, but the oddest thing about it was the tone, which was not rough like the words, but pleading, almost cajoling. Mr. Carroll might have been saying: “Do me a favor, won’t you?”
Stacey grinned. “Try not to,” he said. “Explain.”
But his father was filling Stacey’s glass, and, when he had finished doing this, took more time than seemed necessary to replace the bottle in the cooler and adjust the napkin about its neck. And even then he did not reply at once.
“Well,” he said at last, with an obvious effort, and not looking at his son, “I mean to say—why the devil don’t you ask Catherine to marry you?”
Stacey, who had lifted his glass, started so that some of the yellow liquid spilled over upon the table-cloth. He leaned back in his chair, amazed and shocked.
“Why, sir, I—” he stammered, then broke off helplessly.
“Where will you find any one who’s shown herself as good and sweet and courageous?” Mr. Carroll went on, almost belligerently, as though Catherine’s merits were in question.
“Nowhere,” Stacey replied soberly. It was abhorrent to him to see his deepest emotion, which he hardly admitted even to himself, spilled over the table, like the wine.
“Well, then?”
“There is—Phil,” Stacey muttered.
“Phil is dead,” Mr. Carroll answered gravely. “We have all felt his loss. He was a noble character. And you were his closest friend—”
“Just for that—”
“Just for that he would trust Catherine to you gladly. It would not be he to stand between you.”
“No,” Stacey said in a stifled voice, “I suppose not. It is not Phil, but— Please, sir!” he begged.
His father nodded. “Pretty cheeky of me, I admit, son,” he said gruffly. “Wouldn’t blame you if you’d grown angry, but you understand how I mean it—er—”
“That’s all right, dad. I know,” Stacey replied quickly.
They finished their supper in an awkward silence.
“Well,” said Mr. Carroll, rising, “I suppose I’d better get those presents of mine and open them. There’ll be a lot of notes to write in reply.”
Stacey followed him back to the littered drawing-room, mechanically almost, because he did not know what else to do. “Want any help, sir?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” said his father, his arms full of bundles. “I’ll be down again after a while.” And he went out.
Stacey, left alone, stared after him, then walked restlessly down the hall to the library. It was painful to him that his father should have divined his feelings. But this was not the worst. The worst was that, if his father had understood him, so, assuredly, had Catherine. This grieved Stacey deeply. He had been so careful, he thought; he had never meant to let her see what he felt for her. But she did know. Of course she knew! How stupid he had been! No wonder he found her changed! He could see it all now. His father, it seemed, believed that Catherine could care for Stacey as he for her; but Stacey knew better. She was shocked and saddened by her discovery, uncertain what to do—whether to go away or not, generously anxious not to give pain, all her peace of mind gone. Poor Catherine! Stacey was furious with himself. But this did no good—not the least bit. He shook off his anger impatiently. What was to be done about it? That was the point. How without putting things into words—which always made them worse—was he to let Catherine know that she could count on him, that he would be merely the friend she wanted him to be? He was puzzling over it when she entered the room.