"When a man comes out of the alley and puts a pistol in your face, and asks for all the money you have on you, you don't wait to see where you hit him, do you?"
"When a man comes out of the alley and puts a pistol in your face, and asks for all the money you have on you, you don't wait to see where you hit him, do you?"
But he did not laugh with me—instead, he shut up like a clam all at once. He finished his corned beef hash and tea, making a few remarks about the train service on the road he had come over. I asked him some questions about our railroad matters, but he merely mumbled "Um, um" to all I had to say. Finally he said with his usual calm courtesy that he had some letters to write, and as the train for the West he was to take did not leave for some time he would not detain me, but would go upstairs to the waiting-room and write his letters. So he seized his worn old grip and marched off.
"Cursed old Maine Yankee," I said to myself, and I repeated the remark over the telephone to Slocum, telling him the result of my luncheon with the banker.
"Maybe so," the lawyer telephoned back. "But we can't afford to let him get his back up."
"It's up already—he's been talking with Sloan, and I gather the judge didn't speak highly of you or me."
"I suppose not," came the answer over the wire, and Slocum's voice sounded dreary. "That kind of thing dies hard."
Itwasdying hard, and no doubt about it!
A SQUEEZE
The great fit of dumps—Keeping afloat—Interest on bonds—A sudden financial frost—Strauss shows his hand—I beard the lion in his den—He soars—I give him food for thought—The thermometer rises once more—They treat me with consideration at the bank
The great fit of dumps—Keeping afloat—Interest on bonds—A sudden financial frost—Strauss shows his hand—I beard the lion in his den—He soars—I give him food for thought—The thermometer rises once more—They treat me with consideration at the bank
As every one knows, the recovery of business from that awful fit of depression which followed '93 was slow. At times it would seem that the country was ready to throw off its fit of sickness and begin to grow again. Then there would come along some new set-back, and we were all in the dumps once more.
It had been a great fight to keep the Meat Products Company afloat during these hard times. It was all we could do to pay our fixed charges, which were heavy, as most of the concerns that formed the corporation had demanded bonds in payment for their properties before they would consent to join us. There was also, of course, a big issue of stock, preferred and common, which, by a mutual agreement, was not to be marketed for three years. We had not yet come in sight of a dividend on this stock; hence there were signs of dissatisfaction among the little fellows, who had expected wonders of the company. And the time was fast approaching whenthey would be at liberty to dump their stock on the market for what they could get for it.
The Strauss crowd, since their secret attempt through the tool Frost and his "syndicate" to thwart our plans, had kept their hands off us. They knew well enough what was our financial condition, and were biding their time to strike. But so far, clear down to the winter of '96, we had been able to meet all interest charges promptly, and had thus kept the corporation from foreclosure. That year as the time approached for the March payment of interest on the bonds and sinking-fund requirement, it became evident that our treasury would not be able to meet the sum required, and that it would be necessary for us to borrow for the immediate emergency. We already had a good deal of our paper out in Chicago, and so Slocum and I went East to raise what we needed. That was not so easy as it would have been in the days when we could rely on Farson's aid. But after considerable efforts we got together in New York what was needed for the emergency, and I left for home. That was the fourteenth of February. I congratulated myself that the danger was past, for I was sure that, with the opening of our new plant in Kansas City, and the constant improvement in our business, we ought to be beyond attack when the next payment was due in the fall. After that period we should be on the road to dividends.
I had been at home a couple of days, my attention given to other matters of importance, when one morning notice came from the Mercantile National Bank, where we did most of our business, that some large notes were called.We had over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in "call" loans due that bank, and though, during these uncertain times, we could not get any long paper, the management of the Mercantile had been friendly to us from the start, and I had no reason to anticipate trouble in that quarter. But when I went over to see the Mercantile people I met with only a polite and cool reception. The loans were called; they must be paid; money was hardening, and so on. It was a granite wall, with just as much human consideration in it as stone and steel—and back I went to my office to think.
There was more than the ordinary bankers' caution in this sudden financial frost; and, whatever was the power working against us, it was strong enough to close the doors of credit throughout the city. Wherever I went those dreary two days, from bank to bank, I was met with the same refusal: money was not to be had on any terms. The word had gone out that we were a doomed ship, and not a bank would touch our paper. After a second sleepless night I made up my mind to a desperate step, with the feeling that if it failed the game was up.
As soon as I reached my office on the last day of grace I got old Strauss himself on the telephone and asked for an appointment. He was gracious enough when I reached his office; it was the cordiality of a hungry eater before a good meal.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Harrington?" he purred.
I cut into the meat of the matter at once.
"What are your terms?"
"Do you mean that you wish to sell your property?" he asked indifferently.
"Not a bit of it."
"Then how can I help you, Mr. Harrington?" he inquired blandly.
"You can take your hand off the banks, and let us get a living."
He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly, as if I gave him credit for too much power, and we had it out at some length. He had no interest in the Meat Products Company. If the corporation went into the hands of a receiver, he and his friends might consider buying it up, and he was willing to discuss terms if we wished to deal in a friendly manner before it reached the courts. I rose from my chair as if to go.
"Very well, Mr. Strauss," I said dryly. "You have made it impossible for us to get any money in Chicago, but you don't own the earth. There is money in New York—about four hundred thousand dollars lying there for me at this moment."
"To pay the interest on your bonds!" he shot back, showing how closely he had followed us.
"Yes," I admitted, "to meet our March interest and sinking fund. But I am going across the street to the telegraph office to wire it out here and take up our paper."
He looked at me inquiringly, waiting for the next move.
"And the March interest?" he suggested.
"We shall default."
The old dog raised his eyebrows, as if to say that was what he had been waiting for all along.
"Of course," I went on, "that is what you have been working for, and that is why the Mercantile people come down on us at this moment. You think you have got us where you can squeeze the life out of us. Well, you have."
"You are a smart young man, Harrington," the great packer replied genially. "But you have got into a big game. You'd much better have listened to Carmichael when he offered you a chance with us."
"Only this," I said slowly, "I don't sell out to you."
"Only this," I said slowly, "I don't sell out to you."
"Thanks!" I said glumly.
"Now, why can't we avoid a fight and settle this matter between ourselves? There might be something good in it for you."
"I know the way you settle such matters."
"According to your own talk, there isn't much left for you folks."
"Only this," I said slowly, and I walked back to his desk and leaned over it: "I don't sell out to you. We default. The bonds will be foreclosed, and maybe your crowd will hold the majority of 'em. But when we get into the courts, Mr. Strauss, on a receivership, I go before the judge and tell the story. I have the papers, too. And part of that story will have to do with certain agreements which our company has made with you and the other packers. And more than that, behind these arrangements there are a lot more of the same kind in our safe that we got from Dround and others. Now, if you want the whole story of the packing business aired in court and in the papers throughout the country, you'll have your wish."
"Pshaw!" he said coolly, "you don't suppose that bluff counts! They can't do a thing to us."
"Maybe not," I replied. "Nothing more than a congressional investigation, perhaps. And that might block your little game."
"Go on, young feller!" he exclaimed contemptuously.
"That's all. I want you to know that I am in this fight to the end, and if it ruins me and my friends, I will see that it hurts you. Now, if you want to fight, let the bank call this money."
We had some more talk on the same subject, and, though the great packer maintained an air of indifference, I thought I had made some impression on him. Then we parted, and the old fellow paid me the compliment of seeing me as far as the door of his office.
From Strauss's place I went to the telegraph office,wired for the money in New York, and in due time presented myself at the Mercantile Bank ready to take up the notes, as I had told Strauss. The president of the bank was waiting for me with a flurried look on his face.
"You have come in to renew your paper, Mr. Harrington?" he remarked, as if there had been no trouble between us.
"No," I said; "I have come to pay what we owe. I don't do any more business with you."
"We have reconsidered the matter, and we shall be very glad to renew your paper."
Strauss had seen the point to my remarks, and concluded to retreat!
"Thank you, I don't care to get any more call money from you fellows," I said placidly. "You make too much trouble."
Well, when I left the president's room I had arranged for a loan of four hundred thousand dollars for six months. I had measured myself against the great Strauss, and never again would the big fellow seem to me so terrible. I judged that, for a time, the American Meat Products Company would be left to do business undisturbed....
On my desk, when I returned from the bank that afternoon, was a telegram from Mr. Dround from New York: "We arrived to-day—leaving for Chicago."
For once, Mr. Dround had made up his mind in a hurry.
JUDGMENTS
Mrs. Dround once more—The point of view—Reflections—A family discussion—May delivers her ultimatum—We part—The middle age of life
Mrs. Dround once more—The point of view—Reflections—A family discussion—May delivers her ultimatum—We part—The middle age of life
"In Rome you must do as the Romans, or be done!" I quoted jocularly.
Mrs. Dround smiled appreciatively.
"From all accounts you have been a tremendous Roman!"
"Well, at least I haven't been done—not yet."
Jane Dround smiled again and turned her face from the window of the library, through which could be seen dots of ice and snow sailing out on the blue lake. The years she had been gone in Europe had dealt lightly with her. She had grown a trifle stouter, and looked splendidly well—dark, and strong, and full of life.
"I did my best," she continued half humorously. "I tried to get lost in darkest Africa beyond the reach of telegrams and newspapers. But a party of Chicago people coming up the Nile crossed the path of our daha-biyeh, recognized us, came abroad—and brought the story. Cables wouldn't hold him then! We came as the crow flies; it was no use to plead sickness—he was ready to leave me behind in Paris!"
She laughed again genially.
"It was nothing much to get excited about," I replied a little impatiently; "and it has passed now, anyway, like a winter snow in the city—slush, water, nothing!"
"But the principle! You forget the principle!" she remonstrated dryly.
"I know—and he's going to resign from the presidency—that ought to satisfy his principle—but we must keep him on the board."
"It was a judge, too! A sworn officer of the law!" Mrs. Dround interrupted, quoting demurely from Henry I's remarks about the injunction scandal.
"Very well, he can make over his stock to you, then! It won't trouble you, and you can draw the big dividends we are going to pay soon. I don't want him to get out now, when the fruit is almost ripe to shake."
"Is that the only reason?" Mrs. Dround asked quickly.
"Of course, we don't want his stock coming on the market in a big block. It would break us all up. And it might easily get into the wrong hands."
For Mr. Dround, in the brief interview that we had had on his return, had intimated his desire not only to withdraw from the presidency of the corporation, which had been merely a nominal office, but to dispose of his stock as soon as the agreement expired in the fall, suggesting that I had best find some friendly hands to take his big holding. In his gentlemanly way he had told me that he had had enough of me and was quite ready to snow me under, if it could be done in a polite and friendly fashion.
"So you want him to wait?" Mrs. Dround suggested indifferently.
"Yes, until I am ready!"
She made no reply to this remark, and after a moment I said more lightly:—
"But I came to welcome you home,—I want you still to be my friend, my partner!"
"They say you are a dangerous partner," she retorted, looking closely at me,—"deep in all sorts of speculative schemes, and likely to slip. They say you are un—scrupulous"—she drawled the word mockingly—"and a lot more bad things. Do you think that is the right kind of partner for a simple woman?"
"If you've got the nerve!"
"Well, let me show you some of the new pictures we have bought." And she turned me off with a lot of talk about pictures and stuffs and stones, until I arose to leave.
Shortly afterwards my carriage took me back to the city, where I had to meet some gentlemen who were interested in my schemes for the development of the new Southwest. As I rode through the windy, dusty streets, my thoughts went back over the years since that time when at the suggestion of this woman I had just left, I had put my hand to building something large out of Henry I. Dround's tottering estate.
In a busy life like mine, one event shades into another. Each path to which a man sets his feet leads to some cross-roads, and from there any one of the branches willlead on to its own cross-roads. While the adventurer is on his way it is hard to tell why he takes one turning and not another, why he lays his course here and not there. Years later he may see it plotted plain, as I do to-day—plotted as on a map. Then the wanderer may try to explain what made him move this way or that. Yet the little determining causes that turned his mind at the moment of choice are forever forgotten. The big, permanent motive remains: there is the broad highroad—but why was it left, why this turn and double across the main track?
So it was with me. The main highroad of my ambition was almost lost in the thickets in which I found myself. Struggling day by day against the forces that opposed me, I had lost sight of direction. The words with Jane Dround, the flash of her dark eyes, pierced my obscurity, gave me again a view of the destiny to which I had set myself. Some fire in her fed me with courage, and made my spirit lighter than it had been for months....
When I reached home in the evening, I found Sarah ill with a nervous headache.
"Will is back!" she exclaimed on seeing me, and her tone scarcely concealed a meaning beyond her words.
"What's that? He didn't send me word that he was coming."
"May telephoned—he's just got in."
Something unexpected must have brought him suddenly all the way from Texas, where he was looking after our interests. The news was disturbing.
"I saw Jane Dround this afternoon," I remarked idly. "She's looking fine—never saw her better."
"Jane!" my wife said slowly. "So she's back once more." Then after a pause she exclaimed:—
"I don't like her!"
Sarah, who rarely said a bitter word about any one, spoke this harshly, and I looked at her in surprise.
"I don't trust that woman, Van! She is secret. And I believe she influenced you—that time about the judge."
It was the first time for months that Sarah had referred to this matter.
"I'll go and ring up May," I said, not caring to refute this wild accusation, "and ask them to come over to-night."
"I asked them for dinner, but she wouldn't come," Sarah remarked gloomily. "No one wants to come here but people like the Webbs and Coopers—people who think they can make something out of your schemes."
"Oh, I guess they aren't the only ones who are willing to come. And what's the matter with the Webbs and the Coopers? If the rest of your friends don't like us, we can get along without their society. I guess New York will stand us, and that's where we shall be before many years, if all goes well. This place is only a gossipy old village."
"I don't want to go to New York!" Sarah wailed.
When I had May at the telephone, she answered my invitation in a dry little voice:—
"Yes, we are coming over to see you about a matter. Will has something important to say to you."
By the tone of May's voice I judged that we should have a rather lively family party, and I was not mistaken. Sarah was still lying on the lounge in my study when Will and May came in after dinner. There was battle in May's eyes and in her tight-shut lips. It had been a long time since she had come to the house when I was at home. And to-night Will, too, was looking very pale and troubled.
"Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work but your own brother?"
"Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work but your own brother?"
"May," I said, "you look as if you had a gun trained on me. Fire away, only make it something new. I amtired of that old matter about the judge. 'Most everybody has forgotten all about that except you and Sarah."
"It's something new, fast enough, Van; but it isn't any better," she retorted. "Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work but your own brother?"
"What's the matter now?"
"Show him the article, Will."
Will unbuttoned his coat and reached for his inner pocket. From it he hauled out a bulky newspaper, which he handed me. It was a copy of the SundayTexas World, and a front page article was heavily pencilled.
"That's too much, Van," he protested solemnly, handing me the paper. "Read it."
"Yes, read it all!" May added. The three were silent while I ran through the article. It was the usual exaggerated sort of newspaper stuff purporting to describe the means used to secure a piece of railroad legislation, in which I and some New York men were interested. The sting lay in the last paragraph:—
"It is commonly understood that the lobby which has been working for the past winter in the interest of this rotten bill is maintained by a group of powerful capitalists, dominated by the head of a large Chicago packing company. This gentleman, who suddenly shot into publicity the past winter as the result of an unusually brazen attempt to corrupt a Chicago judge, has opened his office not three blocks from the state Capitol, and has put his brother in charge of the corruptionist forces.... Thedeserving legislators of our state may soon expect to reap a rich harvest!"
A few more generalities wound up the article. I folded the paper and handed it back to Will. No one said a word for a few moments, and then Will observed:—
"That isn't pleasant reading for an honorable man!"
"I don't see how it should trouble you, Will. You are down there to look after our interests in a legitimate way enough. If you don't like the job, though, I can get another man to take your place."
"Van," May interrupted, "don't try to squirm! You know that's true—what's written there! You didn't ask Will to use the bribe money, because you knew he wouldn't do anything dishonorable. But you let him take the blame, and sent some one else with the money, no doubt. What was that partner of Mr. Slocum's sent down there for?"
"Will,"—I turned to my brother,—"let us settle this by ourselves. It's a man's business, and the women won't help us."
"No, Van," May replied. "I guess we women are as much concerned as anybody. Where there's a question of my husband's honor, it's my business, too. I stay."
"Well, then, stay! And try to understand. This bill the paper rips up is all right. We must have it to put our road through to the Gulf, and if it were not for the money the Pacific Western road, which owns the state, is putting up against us we shouldn't have any trouble. They want to keep us out, and Strauss and his crowdwant to keep us out, too, so that they can have all the pie to themselves. I have been working at this thing for years in order that we can get an outlet to the seaboard, untouched by our rivals. They think to block us just at the end, but I guess they find out they are mistaken when the line comes next month. That's all!"
"Do you think that explanation is satisfactory? Of course, Van, you want the bill passed!" May said ironically.
"What does it mean—what has Van been doing?" Sarah asked for the first time, sitting up and looking from one to another in a puzzled way.
None of us answered, and finally Will said:—
"I guess, Van, you and I don't see things quite the same way. I know you wouldn't ask me to do what you thought was bad, but all the same there's too much that's true in that piece in the paper, and I don't want to have it said—there's things going on down there that aren't right—and May feels—I feel myself, that it ain't right. We don't think the same way, you and I. So we had better part now, before we have any bad feeling."
"All right! Did you come over here to-night to tell me that?"
"No, Van," May put in hastily, her voice trembling with feeling. "That wasn't all. Will and I came to ask you to give up the sort of business you are doing down there. We want you to turn back into the right road before it is too late. If you don't land in the penitentiary, Van Harrington, your money will do you no good. It will taste bad all your life!"
We were all pretty well stirred up by this time. I was weary of meeting these charges of dishonesty on all sides. This last was too much—to have my family accuse me of a crime, when I did not feel guilty, not for a minute!
"I don't see why you should say that, May!" Sarah suddenly bridled. "After all, it's only the newspapers, and no one believes them to-day."
This unexpected defence from Sarah aroused May afresh.
"Oh, he don't deny it! He can't. First it was a judge—he bought a judge and paid for him, and he never came out and denied it! Now it's worse even than that. It's the people of a whole state he's trying to buy through their representatives."
"Who are there for sale," I laughed.
"Does that make it any better?" she turned on me. "Seems to me, Van, you don't know any longer the difference between black and white!"
"We've got a perfect right to build that road, and build it we will—that's all there is to that matter!"
And so we argued for hours, May and I doing most of the talking. For I wanted her to understand just how the matter lay. No business in this large, modern world could be done on her plan of life. That beautiful scheme of things which the fathers of our country drew up in the stage-coach days had proved itself inadequate in a short century. We had to get along with it the best we could. But we men who did the work of the world, who developed the country, who were the life and force of the times,could not be held back by the swaddling-clothes of any political or moral theory. Results we must have: good results; and we worked with the tools we found at hand.
"It's no use your saying any more!" May exclaimed at last. "I understand just what you mean, Van Harrington. It's the same way it was with the judge's peaches. You wanted 'em, and you took 'em! What you want you think is good for every one, especially for Van Harrington. And you are so wise and strong you think you can breakthrough all laws because laws are made for small people, like Will and me, and you and your kind are Napoleons. You talk as if you were a part of God's destiny. And I say"—here her voice broke for a moment—"I say, Van, you are the devil's instrument! You and those like you—and there a good many of them—are just plain big rascals, only the laws can't get hold of you."
Her lips trembled and at the end broke into that little ironical smile which I knew so well, the smile she had when I used to get into some boyish scrape, and she was looking through me for the truth. But for all her hot words, I knew she had kindly feeling for me somewhere in her heart. Nevertheless, Sarah, who had been following our talk as well as she could, fired up at her accusations.
"I think, May," she remonstrated with all her dignity, "that you cannot say any more such things in my husband's house."
"Yes," I added, "we have had too much talk all around. You can't change my character any more than you canmake wheat grow in Arizona or sugar-cane in Dakota. And I don't want to change your views, either, May."
For though she made me pretty angry, I admired the way she stood to her guns. She was a fighter! And Will must act as she decided. Whoever travelled with her would have to travel by her star.
"Yes," my brother replied, "it's gone too far now to change. Words don't do any good. Come, wife, let us go."
"I am sorry for Sarah!" May said, taking Sarah's hands in hers. "She suffers for you, Van, and she will suffer for this all her life. But I am sorrier for you, Van, for you have gone too far to suffer!"
Thereupon she swept out of the room, her little figure swelling with dignity; and Will followed her, as the needle swings to its magnet, pausing only long enough to reach for my hand and press it. When the front door shut upon them the house seemed suddenly cold and empty. Sarah had slipped back to the lounge, and was staring up at the ceiling, a tear trickling across her face.
"I suppose May won't ever come back again. And we were planning to take that cottage this summer so that the children could be together."
That detail didn't seem to me very important, but it was the one that showed to Sarah the gulf which had opened between us. Sarah's little world, by that token, had suffered an earthquake.
"Oh," I said, trying to comfort her, "like as not this will blow over! May has disapproved of me before this."
But in my heart I felt there wasn't much likelihood that this breach would be healed. Knowing May as I did, I had no idea that she would let Will continue with me, even in another position. No compromise for her! To-morrow or next day Will would come into the office to take his leave....
Somehow years had gone by in that evening.
Somehow years had gone by in that evening.
"I guess, Van, I'll go to bed."
It was the first word Sarah had spoken for half an hour. The tears had dried on her face. She gave me a light kiss, and left me....
The house seemed cold and desolate, as if the pleasant kindliness of life had gone out of it when my brother and his wife had left. I made up the fire, lighted a fresh cigar, and sat down to think. Somehow years had gone by in that evening; I was heavy with the heaviness of middle life.
To take the other road, her road—that was what May demanded of me. How little she knew the situation! That would mean immediate ruin for me and mine, and for those men who had trusted me with theirmoney. The world that I had been building all these years would crumble and vanish like smoke into the void out of which I had made it! Not that May's talk had meaning or sense to it, either. Nor do men made as I am alter at the sound of words. We are as we are, and we grow with the power to do that which we must do. May was merely an unreasonable and narrow woman, who saw but one kind of good.
In all the forty years of my life there had been no evil as I know evil. No man could say that he had harm from me—unless it might be poor Ed Hostetter—and for thousands of such workers as live from day to day, depending on men like me to give them their chance to earn bread for their wives and children, I had made the world better rather than worse. Unthinking thousands lived and had children and got what good there was in life because of me and my will.
But to the others, the good ones, to Farson and Dround and May, I was but a common thief, a criminal, who fattened on the evil of the world. What had they done to make life? What was their virtue good for? They took the dainty paths and kept their clothes from the soil of the road. Yes, and what then? A renewed sense of irritation rose within me. Why should I be pestered like this, why should I lose my brother and May, why should Sarah be hurt, because they were too good to do as I had done?
So my brother and May went their way. They left me lonely. For the first time since the day, many years before, when I walked out of the police stationalone into the city, the loneliness of life came over me. To-morrow, in the daylight, in the fierce fight of the day, that weakness would go; but to-night there was no hand to reach, no voice to speak, from the multitude of the world. One person only of all would know, would place big and little side by side and reckon them rightly—would understand the ways I had followed to get my ends. Jane Dround would throw them all a smile of contempt, the little ones who weigh and hesitate!
There was the soul of the fighter.
HAPPINESS
I learn of Mr. Dround's intentions—A plea for myself—Despots—A woman's heart—The two in the world that are most near—Sarah's cry—Jane defends herself—To go away forever—Vows renewed
I learn of Mr. Dround's intentions—A plea for myself—Despots—A woman's heart—The two in the world that are most near—Sarah's cry—Jane defends herself—To go away forever—Vows renewed
"Henry is simply furious—thinks his name has been involved—and he means to sell every share of stock he holds as soon as the agreement expires."
"I knew that he would do just that!"
Mrs. Dround threw back her coat and looked up with a mischievous smile on her face. She was a very handsome woman these days, not a month older than when I saw her first. She had reached that point where Nature, having done her best for a woman, pauses before beginning the work of destruction.
She had come this afternoon to call on Sarah, and, having failed to find her at home, was writing a note at her desk, when I came in from the day's business, a little earlier than was my wont.
"It isn't just that matter of the injunction. You know, my friend, people here in the city—Henry's friends—say that you are engaged in dangerous enterprises—that you are a desperate man yourself! Are you?"
"You know better than most!" I answered lightly. "But I am getting tired of all this talk. I had a dose of it in the family the last time."
She nodded as I briefly related what had happened with Will and May.
"And, of course, Sarah feels pretty badly," I concluded.
"Poor child!" she murmured. "I wondered what was the matter with her these days. She will feel differently later. But your brother, that is another question."
"He and his wife will never feel differently."
She tossed aside the pen she held and rose to her feet.
"Never mind! I know you don't mind really—only it is too bad to have this annoyance just now, when you have much on your shoulders. I wish I coulddosomething! A woman's hands are always tied!"
She could say no more, and we sat for some time without further talk. I was thinking what would happen when Mr. Dround's stock was dumped on the market, to be snapped up by my enemies. Our company was very near the point of paying dividends, and with a friendly line of railroad giving us an outlet into the Southwest, the struggling venture would be in a powerful position.
"If he would wait but six months more!" I broke out at last.
She shook her head.
"Where a question of principle is involved,—"
Her lips curved ironically.
"What wouldyoudo, tell me, if a parcel of scamps were holding you up for the benefit of your enemies?Suppose you had a perfect right to do the business you had in hand. Would you put tail between legs and get out and leave your bone to the other dog?"
"If I wanted to starve, yes! I should deserve to."
"You and I think surprisingly alike very often!"
"I always liked despots," she replied. "And, as a matter of fact, despots—the strong ones—have always really done things. They do to-day—only we make a fuss about it and get preachy. No, my friend, don't hesitate! The scrupulous ones will bow to you in time."
"You would have made something of a man!"
She bowed her head mockingly.
"That is man's best compliment to poor, weak woman. But I am content, when I touch the driving hand, now and then."
After a time she added:—
"You will find the way. It is not the last ditch, far from it. A man like you cannot be killed with one blow!"
She had given the warning, done what she could, and now she trusted me to do the rest. Her will, her sympathy, were strong behind me. So when this moment was over, when she went her way and I mine, out into the world of cares and struggle, I might carry with me this bit of her courage, her sureness. I felt that, and I wanted to say it to her, to let her see that it was more herself than her good will or her help that I valued. But it was an awkward thing to say.
Her hands lay upon the desk between us. They were not beautiful hands, merely strong, close-knit—hands tohold with a grip of death. I looked at them, thinking that in her hands was the sign of her character. She raised her eyes and gazed at me steadily for several moments.
"You know how I feel?"
I nodded.
"You don't need a woman's sympathy—but I want you to know how I feel—for my own sake."
"Thank you for it. In this life a man must stand pretty much alone, win or lose. I have always found it so—except when you and I have talked things over. That hasn't been often. This is a tight place I find myself in now. But there is a way out, or if there isn't—well, I have played the game better than most."
"Even that thought doesn't give happiness," she mused. "I know, because, my friend, I, too, have stood alone all my life."
She gave me this confidence simply, as a man might.
"I suppose a woman counts on happiness," I said awkwardly in response. "But I have never counted much on that. There have always been many things to do, and I have done them, well or ill I can't say. But I have done them somehow."
It was a clumsy answer, but I could find no proper words for what I felt. Such things are not to be said. There followed another of those full silences which counted with this woman for so much more than words. Again it was she who broke it:—
"For once, only once, I want to speak out plainly! You are younger than I, my friend,—not so much inyears as in other things. Enough, so that I can look at you as—a friend. You understand?"
She spoke gently, with a little smile, as if, after all, all this must be taken between us for a joke.
"From the beginning, when you and Sarah first came into our lives, I saw the kind of man you were, and I admired you. I wanted to help you—yes, to help you."
"And that you did!"
"Not really. Perhaps no one could really help you. No one helps or hinders. You work out your fate from the inside, like all the powerful ones. You do what is in you to do, and never question. But I longed for the woman's satisfaction of being something to you,—of holding the sponge, as the boys say. But a mere woman, poor, weak creature, is tied with a short rope—do you know what that means? So the next best thing, if one can't live one's self, is to live in another—some strong one. When you are a woman and have reached my age, you know that you can't live for yourself. That chance has gone."
"I don't believe it," I protested. "You are just ready to live."
She gave me a smile for my compliment, and shook her head.
"No, I don't deceive myself. Most women do. I know when I have reached the end of my chapter.... So I have followed you, step by step—oh, you don't know how closely! And I have sucked in all the joy of your success, of your power, of you—a man! I have lived a man's life."
"But you went away?" I said accusingly.
"Yes, I went away—because that would help! It was the only thing I could do—I could go away."
For the first time her voice shook with passion. I was answered.
"Now I have come back to find that my hands are tied more than ever. I can help you no more. Believe me, that is the hardest thing yet. I can help you no more! My husband—you understand? No, you need not understand. A woman is bound back and across by a thousand threads, which do not always show to the eye.... I may yet keep my husband from throwing you over, but that is no matter—the truth is I count no longer to you. If the world had been other than it is, my friend, I should have been by your side, fighting it out daily for you, with you. As it is—"
She threw up her arms in a gesture of disgust and remained silent, brooding. It was not necessary to complete the words. Nor could I speak. Something very wonderful and precious was passing before my eyes for the last time, something that had been near was floating off, would never come back. And life was so made that it was vain, useless, to try to hold it, to cry out, to do anything except to be still and feel the loss. My hands fell beside hers upon the polished surface of the desk, and we sat looking into one another's eyes, without fear. She was feeling what I was feeling, but she was looking deeper into fate than I could look. For she was wiser as a woman than I was as a man. We were the two in the world most near, and between us there was a gulf that could not becrossed. The years that are to come, my heart said to me then, will be longer than those that have passed.
"Listen," she whispered, as though she were reading my thoughts. "We shall never need more than this. Remember! Nothing more than this. For I should be a hindrance, then, not a help. And that would be the end of me, indeed. You have your will to work, which is more than any woman could give you. And I have the thought of you. Now I must go away again—we have to live that way. It makes no difference: you and I think the same thoughts in the same way. What separation does a little distance put between you and me? I shall follow after you step by step, and when you have mounted to the broad level that comes after accomplishment, you will be glad that it has been as I say, not different. It is I that must long. For you need no woman to comfort and love you!"
It was finished, and we sat in the deepening twilight beyond words. The truth of what she had spoken filled my mind. There was nothing else for us two but what we had had: we had come to the top of ourselves to know this, to look it in the face, and to put it aside....
The twilight silence was broken sharp in two by a cry that rang across the room. We started from our dream together and looked around. Sarah was standing midway in the long room, steadying herself by a hand reached out to a chair. I ran to hold her from falling. She grasped my arm and walked on unsteadily toward Jane.
"I knew it! I knew it always!" she cried harshly.
"You tortuous woman—you are taking him from me! You did it from the first day! How I hate you!"