CHAPTER IV
MR. BIVENS CALLS
Stuart waked next morning with a sense of hopeless depression. He had intended to make an engagement with Nan to visit the little home. It was impossible to suggest it in the mood he had found her. What strange madness had come over the woman he loved? They had never discussed money before. Bivens was the only explanation.
He dressed himself mechanically and went down stairs. A letter was on the hall rack which had been sent by a messenger. He broke the seal with nervous haste. It was from Bivens asking him to call his office telephone at eleven o'clock.
He tore the note into tiny pieces, stepped into the parlour and threw them into the grate. He stood for a moment gazing into the glowing coals in brooding anger. Slowly he became conscious of music. Some one was playing an old-fashioned Southern melody, and the tenderest voice accompanied the piano. He walked to the door of the music-room.
It was Harriet.
As he listened, the frown died from his face and the anger melted out from his heart. The music ceased. Harriet looked up with a start.
"Oh, Jim, I didn't know you were there!"
"It was beautiful, little pal."
"Yes, I knew you'd like that piece. I heard you humming it one day. That's why I got it."
"What a sweet voice you have, child, so clear, so deep and rich and full of feeling. I didn't know you could sing."
"I didn't either until I tried."
"You must study music," he said, with enthusiasm.
The girl clapped her hands and leaped to her feet, exclaiming:
"Will you be proud of me, Jim, if I can sing?"
"Indeed I will," was the earnest answer.
The laughing eyes grew serious as she slowly said:
"Then, I'll do my level best. I'm off—good-bye."
With a wave of her hand she was gone, and Stuart hurried to his office, whistling the old tune she had just sung.
What curious, sensitive things—these souls of ours! An idea enters and blackens the sky, makes sick the body, kills hope and faith. The soft strains of an old piece of music steals into the darkened spirit, the shadows lift, the sun shines, the heart beats with life and the world is new again.
On reaching his office on lower Broadway, Stuart rang Bivens's telephone, and the president of the American Chemical Company made an engagement to call at once.
Stuart would not have stooped to the trick of keeping his young millionaire visitor waiting, on imaginary business, but he was grateful for the timely call of a client who kept him in consultation for fifteen minutes while Bivens patiently waited his turn in the reception-room, his wealth and prestige all lost on the imperturbable office boy, who sat silently chewing gum and reading a serial.
The first view of Bivens was always unimpressive. He was short, thin, and looked almost frail at first glance. A second look gave the impression of wiry reserve force in his compact frame. His hair was jet black and thinning slightly on top which gave him the appearance of much greater age than he could really claim. His thin features were regular, and his face was covered with a thick black beard which he kept trimmed to a keen point on the chin. His most striking features were a high massive forehead, abnormally long for the size of his body, and a pair of piercing, bead-like black eyes. These eyes were seldom still, but when they rested on an object they fairly bored through it with their penetrating light.
He rarely spoke except to a purpose, and his manners were quiet, almost furtive. He had thus early in his career gained a nickname that was peculiarly significant in Wall Street. He was known asThe Weasel.
His whole makeup, physical and mental, was curiously complex—a mixture of sobriety and greed, piety and cruelty, tenderness and indomitable will, simplicity of tastes with boundless ambition.
His friendship for Stuart and his deference to him personally and socially dated from their boyhood in North Carolina—and particularly from an incident which occurred in their college days. Bivens's father had been a notorious coward in the Confederate army and had at last deserted the service. A number of very funny stories about his actions in battle had become current everywhere. On Bivens's arrival at college, a particularly green freshman, Stuart had discovered a group of his classmates hazing him. They had forced the coward's son to mount a box and repeat to the crowd the funny stories about the "valour" of his father. The boy, scared half out of his wits, stood stammering and perspiring and choking with shame as he tried to obey his tormentors.
Stuart protested vigorously, and a fight ensued in which he was compelled to thrash the ring-leader and rescue the victim by force of arms. From that day Stuart was Bivens's beau-ideal of a gentleman. He had tolerated rather than enjoyed this friendship, but it was so genuine he couldn't ignore the little dark-eyed taciturn fellow who was destined to play so tremendous a rôle in his future life.
Bivens sat patiently waiting for the young lawyer, his black eyes gazing dreamily over the roofs of the houses. He was smoking a huge black cigar. He was always smoking. The brighter his eyes gleamed the harder he smoked until the fire-tipped tobacco seemed a spark from smouldering volcanoes somewhere below. The one overwhelming impression which Bivens's personality first gave was that he was made out of tobacco. His fingers were stained with nicotine, and his teeth yellow from it. He had smoked so fast and furiously the room was soon fog-bound. The boy looked up from his paper with a gasp and hastened inside to see if he could get rid of his obnoxious presence. In a moment he ushered out the client and showed Bivens into the office.
He shook hands quietly and took a seat beside Stuart's desk.
"Well?" said the lawyer at length.
"I've come to make you an important proposition, Jim," Bivens began slowly, while his restless eyes looked up at the ceiling, and he pulled at the point of his beard. "We need another attorney. The business of the company is increasing so rapidly our force can't handle it. I need a big man close to me. If you'll take the place I'll give you a salary that will ultimately be as big as the President gets in the White House. Twenty thousand to start with."
Stuart looked at his visitor curiously.
"Why do you want me, Cal? There are thousands of lawyers here who would jump at the chance. Many of them are better equipped for such work than I am."
"Because I know that you won't lie to me, you won't swindle or take advantage of me——"
"Why not?" Stuart asked with a smile. "Isn't that the game? Why shouldn't I learn the tricks?"
"Because it's not in you."
"I see. You want to capitalize my character and use me to ambush the other fellow?"
"That's one way to look at it—yes."
"But that's not the real reason you come to me to-day with this proposition—is it?"
"Not the only one. You know my friendship for you is genuine. You know there's not a man in New York for whom I'd do as much as I will for you if you'll let me. Isn't that true?"
"I believe it—yes. And yet—there must be another reason. What is it?"
"Does it matter? I've made you the offer. If the salary isn't enough, name your figure."
"You're not afraid of Woodman and wish to reach him through me?" Stuart continued, ignoring his last answer.
The ghost of a smile flitted around the shining little black eyes.
"Afraid?" he asked contemptuously. "I'm not even interested in him. The old fossil's a joke. He thinks he can stop the progress of the world to attend a case of measles in Mott Street."
The financier leisurely lifted his right hand, removed the cigar from his mouth, and struck the ashes lightly with his finger. Stuart noticed how small his hand, how delicately shaped, how smooth and careful its movements. Beyond a doubt it was the hand of an expert thief. And yet this man, by an accident of birth, was a devout member of the church and complied with the written laws of modern society.
Stuart was silent a moment, watching the dark masked face before him. At last he blurted out:
"Well, Cal, what's the real reason you make me this offer to-day?"
Bivens moved uneasily in his chair, fidgeted, hesitated and finally leaned close, speaking in a whisper:
"You can keep a little secret?"
"You ought to know that before making me such an offer."
"Yes. Yes, of course I know you will." Bivens paused and resumed his cigar. "The fact, is—Jim—I'm in love——"
Stuart cleared his throat to strangle an exclamation.
"In love?" he echoed in a tone of light banter.
"Hopelessly, desperately in love!"
"Then you need a minister, not a lawyer," Stuart said, with quiet sarcasm.
"It's no joke, old man," Bivens went on soberly. "It's the most serious thing I was ever up against. Fell in love at first sight."
"But where do I come into this affair?" Stuart interrupted, maintaining his self-control with an effort.
"Simple enough. The Primroses——"
"Oh, it's Miss Primrose?"
"Yes—Miss Nan. You see, they think the world of you. She said you grew up together in the same town. I was telling her about my business. I must have been bragging about what we were going to do. I was crazy, just looking at her. Her beauty made me drunk. I told her we needed a new attorney. She said you were the man. I told her I'd offer you the place. She seemed pleased. When I told her I was afraid you wouldn't take a place under my direction, she laughed at the idea—said she knew you would accept. And so you've got the whole truth now, Jim. You've got to accept, old man. I want to make her feel that her word is law with me. Don't you think that would please her?"
"It ought to please any woman," was the slow, thoughtful reply.
"Tell me, do you think I've got a chance with a girl like that? You know I've never gone with girls much. I'm timid and awkward. I don't know what to do or what to say. But my money will help, won't it?"
"Money always helps in this town, Cal."
"And it means so much to a woman too,—don't it?"
"Yes. Have you said anything to Miss Nan yet?"
"Lord, no! Haven't dared. Just get drunk looking at her every time I see her, but I couldn't open my mouth if I tried. I'm kinder shying up to the old lady to get her on my side. She seems awfully friendly. I think she likes me. Don't you think it a good plan to cultivate her?"
"By all means," was the dry reply.
"Say, for God's sake, Jim, help me. Take this attorneyship. It will please her and I'll make you rich. Come in with me and you'll never regret it. I know my folks were not your social equals in the old days down South. But you know as well as I do that money talks here. Have common sense. Look at things as they are. Come in with me and let's get at these Yankees. They left you and me cradles of poverty. They owe us something. Come in with me and we'll get it!"
There was no mistaking the genuineness of Bivens's feelings. Stuart knew that he felt deeply and sincerely every word that he uttered. The first rush of his anger had died away and he begun to realize the pathos of the little man's appeal. He forgot for the moment that he was a millionaire and had made his money by devious tricks with that smooth, delicately moulded hand. He only saw that Bivens, his old schoolmate, had unconsciously fallen into a trap. A word from him—the word he wished spoken, and the woman he loved would be lost. He had but to speak that word, accept the generous offer made in good faith, and every cloud between him and Nan would vanish! They could be married at once and the future was secure. All he had to do was to keep silent for the moment as to his real relations to Nan and compromise his sense of honour by accepting the wages of a man whose principles he despised. His decision was made without a moment's hesitation. It was yet the morning of life.
"I refuse the offer, Cal," he said firmly.
Bivens rose quickly and placed his smooth hand on his friend's.
"I won't take that answer now. Think it over. I'll see you again."
He turned and left the room before Stuart could reply.
The lawyer drew a photograph from his desk and looked at it, smiling tenderly.
"I wonder, Nan! I wonder!"
The smile slowly faded, and a frown clouded his brow. The lines of his mouth suddenly tightened.
"I'll settle it to-day," he said with decision, as he rose, took his hat and left for Gramercy Park.
CHAPTER V
AN ISSUE IS FORCED
It was noon when Stuart reached the Primrose house and Nan was again out. He received the announcement from her mother with a feeling of rage he could ill conceal.
"Where is she? I seem never to be able to find her at home."
"Now, don't be absurd, Jim. You know she would have broken any engagement to see you, had she known you were going to call to-day. She has only gone to the dressmaker's."
"How long will she be there?"
"Until four."
"Four hours at a dressmaker's——"
"And then she's going to the hair dressser's."
"And then?"
"She has an engagement for tea. I don't expect her home until seven. I'm awfully sorry."
"Of course, I understand, Mrs. Primrose," Stuart said with a light laugh, "I should have told her—but I didn't know until a few moments ago that I was coming."
"Nothing serious has happened, I hope?" she asked, with carefully modulated sympathy which said plainly that she hoped for the worst.
"No. Just say that I'll call after dinner."
"All right, Jim, dear," the mother purred. "I'll see that she's here if I have to lock the door."
Stuart smiled in spite of himself as he passed out murmuring:
"Thank you."
It was useless to try to work. His mind was in a tumult of passionate protest. He must have this thing out with Nan once for all. Their engagement must be announced immediately.
He went to the Players' Club and lunched alone in brooding silence. He tried to read and couldn't. He strolled out aimlessly and began to ramble without purpose. Somehow to-day everything on which his eye rested and every sound that struck his ear proclaimed the advent of the new power of which Bivens was the symbol—Bivens with his delicate, careful little hand, his bulging forehead, his dark keen eyes! An ice wagon dashed by. It belonged to the ice trust. A big coal cart blocked the sidewalk. The coal trust was one of the first. The street crossing at Broadway and Twenty-third Street was jammed with a string of delivery waggons from the department stores whose growth had crushed a hundred small trades. The clang of the cars proclaimed the Street Railway Merger and a skyscraper called "The Flatiron" was just raising its giant frame on the little triangle where a half-dozen old-fashioned buildings had stood for generations. Across Madison Square the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was tearing down a whole block, section by section, and a palace of white marble was slowly rearing its huge form. The passing of an era was plain. He could see the hand of the new mysterious power building a world before his very eyes. Strange he hadn't noticed it until Bivens's dark sneering face this morning, insolent in its conscious strength, had opened his eyes. What chance had his old friend Woodman against such forces?
Yet why should he resent them personally? He was young. The future was his—not the past. He didn't resent them. Of course not. What he did resent was the approach of the particular Juggernaut named John C. Calhoun Bivens toward the woman he loved. That Bivens should fall hopelessly and blindly in love with Nan at first sight was too stupefying to be grasped at once. She couldn't love such a man—and yet his millions and that slippery mother were a sinister combination. He congratulated himself that his interview with Bivens had put him in possession of a most important secret, and he would force the issue at once.
By evening he had thrown off his depression and met Nan with something of his old gaiety, to which she responded with a touch of coquetry.
"Tell me, Jim," she began with a smile of mischief in her eyes, "why you called at the remarkable hour of twelve noon, to-day? Am I becoming so resistless that work no longer has any charms? You must have something very important to say?" Her eyes danced with the consciousness of her advantage.
"Yes. I have, Nan," he answered soberly, taking her hand. "I want a public announcement of our engagement in to-morrow morning's papers."
"Jim!"
"I mean it."
"But why? You know the one concession, the only one I have ever made to my mother's hostility to you, is that our engagement shall be kept a secret until we are ready to marry. We must play fair."
"I will, we are ready now."
Nan's voice broke into a ripple of laughter.
"Oh, are we?—I didn't know it."
"Yes, that's what I came to tell you," Stuart went on, catching her spirit of fun and pressing her hand. "I've arranged a little trip to the country to-morrow, and I'm going to convince you before we return. You can go?"
"Of course, I'm open to conviction."
"And you consent to the announcement?"
"To-night?"
"Yes."
"No. You must convince me first. You've planned the trip for that purpose."
"Make the announcement to-night, dear! On my honour I promise to convince you to-morrow that we are ready. I've an argument that never fails—an argument no woman can resist."
"Not to-night, Jim," was the laughing reply.
"Can't you trust me, when I tell you that I've discovered something to-day that makes it necessary?"
The girl looked at him sharply.
"Now, I can't trust you at all! I've got to know the secret of your call this morning. What has happened since we parted last night?"
"I have seen Mr. Bivens."
Nan leaped to her feet, her face flushed, her voice ringing with triumph.
"And you did what I asked you—oh, you're a darling! Why did you tease me so last night? You accepted his offer?"
"You misunderstand, I didn't call on Bivens. He came to see me."
"And you refused! Oh, Jim, don't tell me you were so foolish!"
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, dear, but I had to—that's all."
The girl dropped into her seat with a sigh, while he went on:
"My interview with Bivens led to a most important and embarrassing discovery."
"Embarrassing—what do you mean? He offered you the position?"
"Yes, and finally confessed that he did it wholly to please you."
Nan's figure suddenly straightened.
"Indeed! I'm glad to hear that my wishes find favour somewhere!"
"Bivens further confided in me the fact that he is hopelessly and desperately in love with you."
A flash of anger mantled Nan's cheeks.
"That will do, Jim," she said in quiet cold tones. "Your joke has gone far enough."
"Joke! Do you think I could joke on such a subject?"
A smile began to play about the corners of the full lips.
"You don't mean it—really?"
"Certainly. He told me so in the plainest sort of blunt English. And you mean to say that you have not suspected it?"
"I never dreamed he was so easy!" Still smiling dreamily Nan crossed her hands over her knees and studied the pattern in the rug, ignoring the presence of her lover.
"Then you underestimate your powers."
"Evidently."
Her eyes were laughing again mischievously.
"Let's not joke, Nan. It's too serious."
"Serious! I fail to see it."
"Can't you see that we must at once announce our engagement?"
The girl's lips curled with the faintest suggestion of sarcasm.
"I don't see it at all. You may be a good lawyer, but I fail to follow your logic."
Stuart rose with a gesture of anger.
"Come to the point, Nan. Let's not beat the devil around the stump any longer. You know as well as I do that you've been trying to flirt with this little insect——"
"Trying to flirt?"
"Yes."
"Trying? Don't you think I could if I wished without bungling the effort? What a poor opinion you hold of my talent."
"You know in your heart of hearts you despise Bivens."
"On the contrary, I vastly admire him. The man who can enter with his handicap this big heartless city and successfully smash the giants who oppose him is not an insect. I'd rather call him a hero. All women admire success."
"I see," Stuart replied with suppressed fury, "you enjoy your conquest."
"And why not?" she drawled, with lazy indifference.
"It's disgusting!"
Nan fixed her dark eyes on Stuart.
"How dare you use such a word to me?"
"Because it's true and you know it."
"True or false, you can't say it"—she rose deliberately—"you may go now!"
"Forgive me, dear," Stuart stammered in a queer muffled voice. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I was mad with jealousy."
"You may go," was the hard even answer.
"I can't go like this, dearest," he pleaded. "You must forgive me—you must! Look at me!"
She turned slowly, stared him full in the face for a moment without the quiver of an eyelid, her fine figure tense, erect, cold, as she quietly said:
"You are tiring me, Jim."
For an instant an impulse of overwhelming anger mastered him. He returned her look with one of concentrated rage and their eyes met in the first supreme clash of wills. For a moment he saw the world red, and caught in its glare something he had never seen in Nan before, a conscious cruelty and a joy in her power that was evil—a cruelty that could spring only from the deepest and most merciless self-worship. For the first time he saw a cold-blooded calculation behind her beautiful eyes, caught its accent in the richly modulated voice, and felt it in the smile which showed the white teeth—the smile of a woman who would pause at nothing to get what she wanted. The old savage impulse to strangle surged through his veins, and he was startled into the consciousness of his situation by the fierce grip of his finger nails in his fists clinched so tight they began to cut the flesh.
A blush of shame tinged his face as he tremblingly said:
"Please, dear, let's not part like this! I've suffered enough to-day. You're only teasing me. And I've acted like a fool. Say that you forgive me!"
"Our engagement is at an end, Mr. Stuart," was the quiet answer.
"Nan——"
Before he could recover from the shock or utter a protest, she opened the door and he had passed out into the night.
CHAPTER VI
THE FORGOTTEN MAN
The suddenness of his dismissal broke the strain under which Stuart had been labouring for hours. It was ridiculous. He began to laugh at the silliness of the whole thing—what an idiotic performance anyhow—these lovers' quarrels! He saw the comedy of it, ate a hearty supper, and went to bed firm in the conviction that he would see Nan again the next day.
But the morning came with a sense of growing uncertainty. It was raining. He would have enjoyed a storm, but it was just a drizzle with a penetrating dampness that found the marrow of his bones. He called a messenger and sent a note to Nan asking her to forget the ugly memory of the night before and fulfill her promise to go to the country when the rain ceased. If it continued to rain he would call at eight. He told the boy to wait for an answer. The messenger returned promptly and handed back his note unopened.
Of course she was bluffing. She knew she had the whip hand for the moment and meant to use it.
"Well, two can play this game," he muttered. "We'll see who wins!"
He turned to his work with grim resolution.
For two weeks the battle between pride and love raged in silence. Each day he rose with the hope of some sign from Nan, and each day hope died in a more desperate and sullen despair. At last he began to question the wisdom of his course. Should he not fight his battle at closer range? What if he were in reality engaged in a mortal combat with Bivens's millions for Nan's soul and body! The idea was too hideous to be thinkable. In his anger he had accused her of flirting with Bivens, but in his heart he didn't believe it. The personality of the little money-grubber made the idea preposterous. He was not only frail, insignificant, and unattractive physically, but he had personal habits which were offensive to Nan's feelings of refinement. His excessive use of tobacco was one thing he knew she could not tolerate. Tobacco was her pet aversion.
And yet the more he thought of the scene of their parting, the more sickening became the conviction that her anger at his use of an ugly word was merely a subterfuge to break their engagement. The perfidy and cruelty of such an act was too hideous for belief—yet if the thing were possible! He had left her to struggle alone with the first great temptation of life, and he began to feel that it was cowardly. He should have stood his ground and fought for his love.
He made up his mind to go at once and fight for his old place beside her on any terms she would grant. He seized his hat and opened the door. To his amazement Bivens was leisurely ascending the steps.
What on earth could he want? Was he making a social call without announcement, as was the habit of his village days in the South? At this moment Bivens was the last man he wished to encounter, yet a meeting seemed inevitable. He stepped into the parlour and sat down with resignation to await his entrance.
To his amazement he heard the maid say:
"This way, sir, Dr. Woodman asks you to wait for him in the library."
So Bivens was calling on his arch enemy by appointment. Stuart replaced his hat on the rack and returned to his room, determined to await the outcome of this extraordinary visit. That its significance was sinister he couldn't doubt for a moment. Little could he dream how fateful for his future life was the message the little dark man bore. Stuart closed his door with a sensation of foreboding, sat down and tried to read.
On Dr. Woodman's entrance, Bivens rose to greet him with unusual animation and unmistakable good will.
When the doctor grasped the outstretched hand a more striking contrast could scarcely be imagined—the one big, bluff, jovial, sunny, powerful and straight of figure as he was always straight in speech and manners—the financier, small and weak in body, his movements sinuous, flexible, with eyes that never looked at the man he was talking to, yet always seemed to be taking in everything in the room—eyes unusually dark, yet seemingly full of piercing light as from hidden fires beneath.
"Well, Bivens, what can I do for you? I understand from your note that the matter is important."
"Of the gravest importance to us both, Doctor," he answered with a smile. "For a peculiar personal reason I want us to get together and settle our differences."
"Are there any differences between us? You go your way and I go mine. You run your business to suit yourself and I'll do the same. The world's big enough for us both——"
"That just the trouble," Bivens interrupted. "It isn't. We are entering a new era of combination, merger, coöperation."
"Compulsory coöperation!" the doctor laughed.
"It may be so at last," the little man said soberly. "Certainly the old idea of competition is played out. We no longer believe that business men should try to cut each other's throats."
"Oh, I see," sneered the doctor, "they should get together, corral their customers, and cut their throats. That certainly is better for business, but how about the customers?"
"Business is business," was the grim answer.
"For beasts of the field, yes—but for men?"
"Still, you must recognize the fact that the drug trade is a business enterprise, not a charity organization."
"Even so, still I happen to know that within a stone's throw of my store swarms a population of a quarter of a million human beings so poor that only three hundred of them ever have access to a bathroom. The death rate of the children is 254 in a thousand. It should be about 20 in a thousand, if normal. I don't want any higher profits out of my customers. If I've got to fight I'd rather fight the trade than fight the people. I choose the lesser evil."
"But I don't ask you to do evil."
"You ask me to enter with you into a criminal conspiracy to suppress freedom of trade, and use fraud and violence if necessary to win——"
"Fraud and violence?" Bivens interrupted, smilingly.
"Certainly. What sort of merchandise does the 'organizer' of modern industry bring to market? Tricks and subterfuges in the form of printed paper called stocks which represent no value. From the moment a financier once tastes this blood he becomes a beast. With the first fierce realization of the fact that under modern legal forms he can coin money out of nothing by binding the burdens of debt on the backs of helpless millions, he begins to laugh at the laws of man and God."
"Come, come, Doctor, you must realize the fact that in the drug business we are bringing order out of chaos and at last putting the trade on a paying basis."
"But at what a price! You have closed mills instead of opening them, thrown out of work thousands, lowered the price paid for raw material, bringing ruin to its producers, increased the price charged for your products to the ruin of the consumer, and saddled millions of fictitious debts on the backs of their children yet unborn. Combine, yes, but why not pay the people whose wages you have stolen as well as the owners whose mills you have closed? If combination is so extremely profitable, it should bring some benefit to the millions who are consumers—not merely make millionaires out of a few men. Who is bearing the burden of this enormous increase of fictitious wealth? The people. The price of living has been increasing steadily with the organization of each industry into a trust. Where will it end?"
Bivens's eyes narrowed to the merest points of concentrated light, while an amused smile played about them as he listened patiently to the doctor's tirade. When at last the big figure towering above him paused for breath, he remarked quietly:
"The trust is here to stay, Doctor. Legislation against it is as absurd and futile as a movement to stop the tides. We will never pull down these big department stores or go back to the little ones. The skyscraper will not come down from the heavens merely because a belated traveller rails that his view of the stars has been obscured. You cannot make economy a crime, progress a misdemeanour, or efficiency a felony! If so, you can destroy the trusts."
"I'm not clear yet how it is to be done," was the passionate answer—"but as sure as God lives we are going to dosomething. The spirit of America is progressive, up hill, not down hill, mind you. At present we are putting wreckers in charge of Organization and famine producers in charge of Production. It can't last. At no period of the world's history have the claims of tyranny been so quickly seen and dared, as here and now. Nowhere and in no age has tyranny confronted such a people as ours with life and culture and ideals as high—a people so in love with liberty, so disciplined in its struggles! When the day comes that we shall be confronted with death or degradation, the young American will know how to choose. Patriotism with me is not an empty word. It is one of the passions of my life. I believe in this Republic. For the moment the people are asleep. But time is slowly shaping the issue that will move the last laggard. We are beginning dimly to see that there is something more precious in our life than the mere tonnage of national wealth—the spirit of freedom and initiative in our people! Shall they become merely the hired men of a few monied kings? Or shall the avenues of industry and individual enterprise remain open to their children? Is it more important to grow men or make money? Shall we transform the Republic into a huge money-stamping machine and turn its freemen into slaves who tend this machine, at the command of a master? The people will answer these questions!"
Bivens gave a cynical little chuckle.
"Then I'm sure we'll get the wrong answer, Doctor," was the response.
"They will get it right bye and bye. The nation is young. You say you believe in God. Well, see to it—a thousand years are but a day to Him! Among the shadows of eternity He is laughing at your follies. Nature in her long, slow, patient process is always on the side of Justice."
Bivens rose with a movement of impatience.
"I'm sorry you can't see your way to listen to any proposition from me, Doctor. I'm a practical man. I wish to incorporate your business into the general organization of the American Chemical Company on terms that will satisfy you——"
"Such terms can't be made, Bivens," the doctor said impetuously. "Your purpose is to squeeze money out of the people—the last dollar the trade will bear. That is your motto. I simply refuse. I refuse to devote my life to gouging out my neighbours' eyes to increase the profits of my trade. I put myself in his place, the place of the forgotten man, the consumer, the man you are organizing to exploit. The strong and the cunning can always take advantage of the weak, the ignorant, the foolish and generous. I have an imagination which makes vivid the sense of fellowship. I meet, in the crowds I pass, thousands of friends I never speak to, but the world is brighter because I've seen them."
"But if I don't see them?" the little black eyes mildly asked.
"Certainly! You can't see them. To you the city is merely a big flock of sheep to be sheared, while to me its myriad sounds are the music of a divine oratorio, throbbing with tears and winged with laughter! To you, the crowd are so many fools who may be buncoed out of their goods; while to me, some of their eyes, seen but for a moment, look into mine with infinite hunger and yearning, asking for friendship, comradeship, and love. And so, I call them my neighbours—these hurrying throngs who pass me daily. Because they are my neighbours, they are my friends. Their rights are sacred. I will not rob, maim, or kill them, and I will defend them against those who would!"
With the last sentence the stalwart figure towered above the little financier in a moment of instinctive hostility.
Bivens merely shrugged his shoulders and answered in measured, careful tones:
"Then I suppose I'll have to fight you whether I wish it or not?"
"Yes, and you knew that before you came here to-night. Your generous impulse for a settlement on my own terms is a shallow trick and it comes too late. I'm not fighting my own battle merely. I'm fighting for the people. You have heard that I am beginning a suit for damages against your Company——"
Bivens laughed in spite of himself, bit his lips, and looked at the doctor.
"I assure you I had heard nothing of such a suit, and now that I have it does not even interest me."
"Then may I ask the real reason for this urgent call and request for a compromise of our differences?"
"You may," was the cheerful response. "And I will answer frankly. I am engaged to be married to Miss Nan Primrose. The wedding is to occur in a few weeks. In some way she has learned of a possible conflict between your interests and mine, and asked me to settle them."
"And, may I ask, why? I don't even know Miss Primrose!"
"A woman's whim, perhaps. Possibly because our mutual friend, Mr. Stuart, lives in your home, and she feared to lose his friendship in the conflict which might ensue."
The doctor was silent a moment and glared angrily at his visitor.
"Bivens, you're a liar," he cried in a sudden burst of rage.
The dark face flushed and the slim little hand began to tremble.
"I am your guest, Doctor——"
"I beg your pardon, I forgot myself."
"I assure you," the little financier continued smoothly, "that my intentions were friendly and generous. My only desire was to help you and make you rich."
Again the doctor's eyes blazed with wrath and he completely lost his self-control.
"Damn you, have I asked for your help or patronage? Its offer is an insult! I want you to remember, sir, that I picked you up out of the streets of New York, ill, hungry, out of work, friendless, and gave you your first job."
Bivens, breathing heavily, turned in silence and hurried to the door. The doctor followed.
With his hand on the knob, the financier turned, his face black with hate and slowly said:
"I'll make you live to regret this interview, Woodman!"
With a contemptuous grunt, the doctor closed the door.
CHAPTER VII
A VISION
When Stuart heard the door close and Bivens's step die away on the pavement below, he came down to see the doctor, haunted by a strange vision. Through every day of his subsequent life the most trivial details of that hour stood out in his memory with peculiar and terrible vividness. From every shadow he saw Nan's face looking into his. He was not superstitious; this impression he knew was simply a picture burned into his tired brain by days and nights of intense longing. But what increased the horror of the fancy was the fact that the picture changed in quick succession, from the face of the living to the face of the dead. He closed his eyes at last and in sheer desperation felt his way down the last flight of stairs. The fiercer the effort he made to shut out the picture, the more vivid it became until he found himself shivering over the last persistent outline which refused to vanish at any command of his will. It was the ghost of Nan's face—old, white, pulseless, terrible in its beauty, but dead.
"Of what curious stuff we're made!" he exclaimed, pressing his forehead as if to clear the brain of its horrible fancy. He paused in the lower hall and watched for a moment a scene between father and daughter through the open door of the library.
Harriet had just bounded into the room and stood beside the doctor's chair with an arm around his neck and the other hand gently smoothing his soft gray hair. She was crooning over his tired figure with the quaintest little mother touches.
"You look so worn out, Papa dear—what have you been doing?"
"Something very foolish, I'm afraid, Baby—I've just refused a fortune that might have been yours someday."
"Why did you refuse it?"
"Because I didn't believe it was clean and honest."
"Then I shouldn't want it. I'd rather be poor."
The doctor placed both hands on the fair young face, drew it very close and whispered:
"Had you, dearie?"
"Why, of course I had!"
The big hands drew the golden head closer still and pressed a kiss on the young forehead.
"My husband will love me, won't he? I shall not mind if I'm poor," she went on, laughing, as Stuart entered the room.
"See, boy, how's she's growing, this little baby of mine!" the doctor exclaimed, wheeling her about for Stuart's inspection. "It's a source of endless wonder to me, this miracle of growth—to watch this child—and see myself, a big brute of a man—growing, growing, slowly but surely into the tender glorious form of a living woman—that's God's greatest miracle! Run now, girlie, and go to bed. I want to talk to Jim."
She paused a moment, smiling into Stuart's face and softly said:
"Good-night, Jim—pleasant dreams!"
Through all the riot of emotions with which that night ended and through the years of bitter struggle which followed, that picture was the one ray of sunlight which never faded.
"Well, my boy, I've just done a thing which I know was inevitable, but now that it's done I'm afraid I may have made a tragic mistake. Tell me if it's so. There may be time to retract."
"Bivens has threatened to ruin your business?"
"On the other hand, he has just offered to buy it at my own price."
"And you refused?"
"To sell at any price—but it's not too late to change my mind. I can call him back now and apologize for my rudeness. Tell me, should I do it?"
"Do you doubt that you're right in the position you've taken?"
"Not for a moment. But the old question of expediency always bobs up. I'm getting older. I'm not as old as this white hair would make me, but I feel it. Perhaps I am out-of-date. Your eyes are young, boy; your soul fresh from God's heart. I'm just a little lonely and afraid to-night. See things for me—sit down a moment."
The doctor drew Stuart into a seat and rushed on impatiently.
"Listen, and then tell me if I should follow that little weasel and apologize. I'll do it if you say so—at least I think I would, for I'm afraid of myself." He paused, and a look of pain clouded his fine face as his eye rested on a portrait of Harriet on the table before him.
"There are several reasons why you couldn't have a more sympathetic listener to-night, Doctor—go on."
"Grant all their claims," he began impatiently, "for the Trust—its economy, its efficiency, its power, its success—this is a free country, isn't it?"
"Theoretically."
"Well, I wish to do business in my own way—not so big and successful a way perhaps as theirs, but my own. I express myself thus. When I hint at such a thing to your modern organizing friend, that these enormous profits for the few must be paid out of the poverty of the many—against whom the strong and cunning are thus combining—a simple answer is always ready, 'Business is business,' which translated is the old cry that the first murderer shrieked into the face of his questioner: 'Am I my brother's keeper?'
"That's why I'm afraid of these fellows. The unrestrained lust for money is always the essence of murder, and the man or woman who surrenders to its spell will kill when put to the test. The law which holds burglary constructive murder is founded on an elemental truth. The man who puts on a mask, arms himself with revolver, knife, and dark lantern and enters my house to rob me of my goods will not hesitate to kill if a human life stands in the way of his success."
"I should not put it quite so strongly of these men——"
"I do. And I know I'm right. I saw murder in those black bead eyes of Bivens's to-night. Do you think he would hesitate to close a factory to increase a dividend if he knew that act would result in the death of its employees from weakness and hunger? Not for a minute. He hesitates only at a violation of the letter of the criminal code. What, then, is the difference between a burglar and a modern organizer of industry? Absolutely none."
Stuart laughed.
"Understand me, boy, I'm not preaching any patent remedy for social ills. I'm not in a hurry. I can wait as God waits. But this question is with me a personal one. I simply hold the biggest thing on earth is not a pile of gold, stolen or honestly earned. The biggest thing on this earth is a man. Our nation is not rich by reason of its houses and lands, its gold or silver or copper or iron—but because of its men. I believe in improving this breed of men, not trying to destroy them. For that reason I refuse success that is not built on the success and happiness of others. I refuse to share in prosperity that is not the growth of prosperity."
"But if you sell your business to these men and retire, will you necessarily share in their wrong-doing?"
"In a very real and tragic sense, yes. I'm a coward. I give up the fight. I've been both a soldier and a merchant. Why does the world honour a soldier and despise a merchant? Because a soldier's business is to die for his country, and a merchant's habit is to lie for profit. Isn't old Ruskin right? Why should not trade have its heroes as well as war? Why shouldn't I be just as ready to die as a merchant for my people as I was on the field of battle?"
The doctor paused, and his eyes grew dim while Stuart bent closer and watched and listened as if in a spell. He realized that his old friend was not really asking advice, but that a great soul in a moment of utter loneliness was laid bare and crying for sympathy.
The doctor's voice took a tone of dreamy tenderness.
"I am just passing through this world once. I can't live a single day of it over again. There are some things I simply must do as I pass. They can't wait, and the thing that has begun to strangle me is this modern craze for money, money, money, at all hazards, by fair or foul means! In every walk of life I find this cancer eating the heart out of men. I must fight it! I must! Good food, decent clothes, a home, pure air, a great love—these are all any human being needs! No human being should have less. I will not strike down my fellow man to get more for myself while one human being on this earth wants as much."
Unconsciously the young man's hand was extended and grasped the doctor's.
"You'll never know," Stuart said with deep emotion, "how much I owe to you in my own life. You have always been an inspiration to me."
The patient gray eyes smiled.
"I'm glad to hear that to-night, my boy. For strange as it may seem to you, I've been whistling to keep up my courage. I'm going to make this fight for principle because I know I'm right, and yet somehow when I look into the face of my baby I'm a coward. I'm going to make this fight and I've a sickening foreboding of failure. But after all, can a man fail who is right?"
"I don't believe it!" was the ringing answer which leaped to Stuart's lips. "I've had to face a crisis like this recently. I was beginning to hesitate and think of a compromise. You've helped me."
"Good luck, my boy," was the cheery answer. "I was a poor soldier to-night myself until the little weasel told me an obvious lie and I took courage."
"Funny if Bivens should do anything obvious."
"Wasn't it? He pretended to have come in a mood of generosity—his offer of settlement inspired by love."
"The devil must have laughed."
"So did I—especially when he told me that he was engaged to be married."
"Engaged—to—be—married?" Stuart made a supreme effort to appear indifferent—"to whom?"
"To Miss Nan Primrose, a young lady I haven't the honour of knowing, and he had the lying audacity to say that he came at her suggestion."
Stuart tried to speak and his tongue refused to move.
"I was frank enough to inform him that he was a liar. For which, of course, I had to apologize. Well, you've helped me to-night, boy, more than I can tell you. It helps an old man to look into the eyes of youth and renew his faith. Good-night!"
The doctor began to lower the lights, and Stuart said mechanically:
"Good-night!"
In a stupor of blind despair he slowly fumbled his way up to his room, entered, and threw himself across the bed without undressing. It was one thing to preach, another to face the thing itself alone in the darkness.
Through the shadows of the long night he lay with wide staring eyes, gazing at the vision which would not vanish—the face of the woman he loved—cold, white, pulseless, terrible in its beauty, dead.