Bonbright dressed with a consciousness that he was to be on exhibition.
He wondered if the girl had done the same; if she, too, knew why she
was there and that it was her duty to make a favorable impression on
him, as it was his duty to attract her. It was embarrassing. For a
young man of twenty-three to realize that his family expects him to
make himself alluring to a desirable future wife whom he has never seen
is not calculated to soothe his nerves or mantle him with calmness. He
felt silly.
However, here HE was, and there SHE would be. There was nothing for it
but to put his best foot forward, now he was caught for the event, but
he vowed it would require more than ordinary skill to entrap him for
another similar occasion. It seemed to him at the moment that the main
object of his life thenceforward would be, as he expressed it, "to
duck" Miss Lightener.
When he went down the guests had arrived. His mother presented him,
using proudly her formula for such meetings, "Our son." Somehow it
always made him feel like an inanimate object of virtue--as if she had
said "our Rembrandt," or, "our Chippendale sideboard."
Mrs. Lightener did not impress him. Here was a quiet, motherly
personality, a personality to grow upon one through months and years.
At first meeting she seemed only a gray-haired, shy, silent sort of
person, not to be spoken of by herself as Mrs. Lightener, but in the
reflected rays of her husband, as Malcolm Lightener's wife.
But Malcolm Lightener--he dominated the room as the Laocoon group would
dominate a ten by twelve "parlor." His size was only a minor element in
that impression. True, he was as great in bulk as Bonbright and his
father rolled in one, towering inches above them, and they were tall
men. It was the jagged, dynamic, granite personality of him that jutted
out to meet one almost with physical impact. You were conscious of
meeting a force before you became conscious of meeting a man. And yet,
when you came to study his face you found it wonderfully human--even
with a trace of granite humor in it.
Bonbright was really curious to meet this man, whose story had reached
him even in Harvard University. Here was a man who, in ten years of
such dogged determination as affected one almost with awe, had turned a
vision into concrete reality. In a day when the only mechanical
vehicles upon our streets were trolley cars, he had seen those streets
thronged with "horseless carriages." He had seen streets packed from
curb to curb with endless moving processions of them. He had seen the
nation abandon its legs and take to motor-driven wheels. This had been
his vision, and he had made it reality.
From the place of a master mechanic, at four dollars a day, he had
followed his vision, until the world acknowledged him one of her
richest men, one of her greatest geniuses for organization. In ten
years, lifting himself by his boot straps, he had promoted himself from
earnings of twelve hundred dollars a year to twelve million dollars a
year.... He interested Bonbright as a great adventurer.
To Hilda Lightener he was presented last. He had expected, hoped, to be
unfavorably impressed; he had known he would be ill at ease, and that
any attempts he made at conversation would be stiff and stilted. ... It
was some moments after his presentation when he realized he felt none
of these unpleasant things. She had shaken hands with him boyishly; her
eyes had twinkled into his--and he was at his ease. Afterward he
studied over the thing, but could not comprehend it.... It had been as
if he were encountering, after a separation, a friend of years--not a
girl friend, but a friend with no complications of sex.
She was tall, nearly as tall as Bonbright, and she favored her father.
Not that the granite was there. She was not beautiful, not even
pretty--but you liked her looks. Bonbright liked her looks.
At table Bonbright was seated facing Hilda Lightener. His father at
once took charge of the conversation, giving the boy a breathing space
to collect and appraise his impressions. Presently Mr. Foote said,
impressively:
"This is an important day in our family, Lightener. My son entered the
business this morning."
Lightener turned his massive, immobile face toward the boy, his
expression not inviting, yet the seeing might have marked the ghost of
a twinkle in his gray eyes.
"Um.... Any corrections, amendments, or substitutions to offer?" he
demanded.
Bonbright looked at him, obviously not comprehending the sarcasm.
"Most young spriggins I take into MY business," said Lightener, "think
a whole day's experience equips them to take hold and make the whole
thing over.... They can show me where I'm all wrong."
Bonbright smiled, not happily. He was not accustomed to this sort of
humor, and did not know how to respond to it.
"It was so big," he said. "It sort of weighed me down--yet--somehow I
didn't get interested till after the whistle blew."
Lightener grunted.
"That's what interests most of 'em--getting out of the place after the
whistle blows."
"Dad!" said Hilda. "What was it interested you then, Mr. Foote?"
"The men," said Bonbright--"that great mob of men pouring out of the
gates and filling the street.... Somehow they seemed to stand for the
business more than all the buildings full of machinery.... I stood and
watched them."
Interest kindled in Lightener's eyes. "Yes?" he prompted.
"It never occurred to me before that being at the head of a business
meant--meant commanding so many men... meant exercising power over all
those lives.... Then there were the wives and children at home...."
Bonbright's father leaned forward icily. "Son," he said, coldly, "you
haven't been picking up any queer notions in college?"
"Queer notions?"
"Socialistic, anarchistic notions. That sort of thing."
"I don't believe," said Bonbright, with utter honesty, "that I ever
gave the workingman a thought till to-day.... That's why it hit me so
hard, probably."
"It hit you, eh?" said Lightener. He lifted his hand abruptly to motion
to silence Mr. Foote, who seemed about to interrupt. "Leave the boy
alone, Foote.... This is interesting. Never saw just this thing happen
before.... It hit you hard, eh?"
"It was the realization of the power of large employers of labor--like
father and yourself, sir."
"Was that all?"
"At first.... Then there was a fellow on a barrel making a speech about
us.... I listened, and found out the workingmen realize that we are
sort of czars or some such thing--and resent it. I supposed things were
different. This Dulac was sent here to organize our men into a
union--just why I didn't understand, but he promised to explain it to
me."
"WHAT?" demanded Bonbright Foote VI, approaching nearer than his wife
had ever seen him to losing his poise.
"You talked to him?" asked Hilda, leaning forward in her interest.
"I was introduced to him; I wanted to know.... He was a handsome
fellow. Not a gentleman, of course--"
"Oh!" Lightener pounced on that expression. "Not a gentleman, eh?...
Expect to find the Harvard manner in a man preaching riot from a potato
barrel?... Well, well, what did he say? How did HE affect you?"
"He seemed to think the men resented our power over them. Just how
correctly he stated their feeling I don't know, of course. They cheered
his speech, however.... He said father had the power to buy mother a
diamond necklace to-morrow, and cut their wages to pay for it--and they
couldn't help themselves."
"Well--could they?"
"I don't know. I didn't understand it all, but it didn't seem right
that those men should feel that way toward us. I want to talk to father
about it--have him explain it to me."
Lightener chuckled and turned to Mr. Foote. "I don't suppose you
appreciate the humor of that, Foote, the way I do. He's coming to you
for an unbiased explanation of why your employees--feel that way....
Young fellow," he turned to Bonbright again--"I could come closer to
doing it than your father--because I was one of them once. I used to
come home with grease on my hands and a smudge on my nose, smelling of
sweat." Mrs. Foote repressed a shudder and lowered her eyes. "But I
couldn't be fair about it. Your father has no more chance of explaining
the thing to you--than my wife has of explaining the theory of an
internal-combustion engine.... We employers can't do it. We're on the
other side. We can't see anything but our own side of it."
"Come now, Lightener, I'm fair-minded. I've even given some study to
the motives of men."
"And you're writing a book." He shrugged his shoulders. "The sort of
philosophical reflections that go in books aren't the sort to answer
when you're up against the real thing in social unrest.... In your
whole business life you've never really come into contact with your
men. Now be honest, have you?"
"I've always delegated that sort of thing to subordinates," said Mr.
Foote, stiffly.
"Which," retorted Mr. Lightener, "is one of the reasons for the
unrest.... That's it. We don't understand what they're up against, nor
what we do to aggravate them."
"It's the inevitable warfare between capital and labor," said Mr.
Foote. "Jealousy is at the root of it; unsound theories, like this of
socialism, and too much freedom of speech make it all but unbearable."
"Dulac said they must organize to be in condition to fight us."
"Organize," said Mr. Foote, contemptuously. "I'll have no unions in my
shop. There never have been unions and there never shall be. I'll put a
sudden stop to that.... Pretty idea, when the men I pay wages to, the
men I feed and clothe, can dictate to me how I shall conduct my
affairs."
"Yes," said Lightener, "we automobile fellows are non-union, but how
long we can maintain it I don't know. They have their eyes on us and
they're mighty hungry."
"To-morrow morning," said Mr. Foote, "notices will appear in every
department stating that any man who affiliates with a labor union will
be summarily dismissed."
"Maybe that will end the thing this time, Foote, but it'll be back. It
'll be back."
Hilda leaned forward again and whispered to Bonbright, "You're not
getting much enlightenment, are you?" Her eyes twinkled; it was like
her father's twinkle, but more charming.
"How," he asked, slowly, "are we ever to make anything of it if we, on
the employers' side, can't understand their point of view, and they
can't understand ours?"
Mrs. Foote arose. "Let's not take labor unions into the other room with
us," she said.
Bonbright and Hilda walked in together and immediately engaged in
comfortable conversation; not the sort of nonsense talk usually
resorted to by a young man and a young woman on their first meeting.
They had no awkwardness to overcome, nor was either striving to make an
impression on the other. Bonbright had forgotten who this girl was, and
why she was present, until he saw his mother and Mrs. Lightener
approach each other, cast covert glances in their direction, and then
observe something with evident pleasure.
"They seem attracted by each other," Mrs. Foote said.
"He's a nice boy," replied Mrs. Lightener. "I think you're right."
"An excellent beginning. Propinquity and opportunity ought to do the
rest.... We can see to that."
Bonbright understood what they were saying as if he had heard it; bit
his lips and looked ruefully from the mothers to Hilda. Her eyes had
just swung from the same point to HIS face, and there was a dancing,
quizzical light in them. SHE understood, too. Bonbright blushed at this
realization.
"Isn't it funny?" said Hilda, with a little chuckle. "Mothers are
always doing it, though."
"What?" he asked, fatuously.
"Rubbish!" she said. "Don't pretend not to understand. I knew YOU knew
what was up the moment you came into the room and looked at me. ...
You--dodged."
"I'm sure I didn't," he replied, thrown from his equilibrium by her
directness, her frankness, so like her father's landslide directness.
"Yes, you dodged. You had made up your mind never to be caught like
this again, hadn't you? To make it your life work to keep out of my
way?"
He dared to look at her directly, and was reassured.
"Something like that," he responded, with miraculous frankness for a
Foote.
"Just because they want us to we don't have to do it," she said,
reassuringly.
"I suppose not."
"Suppose?"
"I'm a Foote, you know, Bonbright Foote VII. I do things I'm told to
do. The last six generations have planned it all out for me.... We do
things according to inherited schedules.... Probably it sounds funny to
you, but you haven't any idea what pressure six generations can bring
to bear." He was talking jerkily, under stress of emotion. He had never
opened his mouth on this subject to a human being before, had not
believed it possible to be on such terms with anybody as to permit him
to unbosom himself. Yet here he was, baring his woes to a girl he had
known but an hour.
"Of course," she said, with her soft, throaty chuckle, "if you really
feel you have to.... But I haven't any six generations forcing ME. Or
do you think yours will take me in hand?"
"It isn't a joke to me," he said. "How would you like it if the
unexpected--chance--had been carefully weeded out of your future?... It
makes things mighty flat and uninteresting. I'm all wrapped up in
family traditions and precedents so I can't wriggle--like an Indian
baby.... Even THIS wouldn't be so rotten if it were myself they were
thinking about. But they're not. I'm only an incident in the family, so
far as this goes.... It's Bonbright Foote VIII they're fussing
about.... It's my duty to see to it there's a Bonbright Foote VIII
promptly."
She didn't sympathize with him, or call him "poor boy," as so many less
natural, less comprehending girls would have done.
"I haven't the least idea in the world," she said, "whether I'll ever
want to marry you or not--and you can't have a notion whether you'll
want me. Suppose we just don't bother about it? We can't avoid each
other--they'll see to that. We might as well be comfortably friendly,
and not go shying off from each other. If it should happen we do want
to marry each other--why, all right. But let's just forget it. I'm sure
I sha'n't marry you just because a lot of your ancestors want me to....
Folks don't fall in love to order--and you can put this away carefully
in your mind--when I marry it will be because I've fallen in love."
"You're very like your father," he said.
"Rushing in where angels fear to tread, you mean? Yes, dad's more
direct than diplomatic, and I inherit it.... Is it a bargain?"
"Bargain?"
"To be friends, and not let our mammas worry us.... I like you."
"Really?" he asked, diffidently.
"Really," she said.
"I like you, too," he said, boyishly.
"We'll take in our Keep Off the Grass signs, then," she said. "Mother
and father seem to be going." She stood up and extended her hand. "Good
night, chum," she said. To herself she was saying what she was too wise
to say aloud: "Poor kid! A chum is what he needs."