Lily Cardew inspected curiously the east side neighborhood through which
the taxi was passing. She knew vaguely that she was in the vicinity of
one of the Cardew mills, but she had never visited any of the Cardew
plants. She had never been permitted to do so. Perhaps the neighborhood
would have impressed her more had she not seen, in the camp, that life
can be stripped sometimes to its essentials, and still have lost very
little. But the dinginess depressed her. Smoke was in the atmosphere,
like a heavy fog. Soot lay on the window-sills, and mingled with street
dust to form little black whirlpools in the wind. Even the white river
steamers, guiding their heavy laden coal barges with the current, were
gray with soft coal smoke. The foam of the river falling in broken
cataracts from their stern wheels was oddly white in contrast.
Everywhere she began to see her own name. “Cardew” was on the ore hopper
cars that were moving slowly along a railroad spur. One of the steamers
bore “Anthony Cardew” in tall black letters on its side. There was a
narrow street called “Cardew Way.”
Aunt Elinor lived on Cardew Way. She wondered if Aunt Elinor found that
curious, as she did. Did she resent these ever-present reminders of her
lost family? Did she have any bitterness because the very grayness of
her skies was making her hard old father richer and more powerful?
Yet there was comfort, stability and a certain dignity about Aunt
Elinor's house when she reached it. It stood in the district, but not
of it, withdrawn from the street in a small open space which gave
indication of being a flower garden in summer. There were two large
gaunt trees on either side of a brick walk, and that walk had been swept
to the last degree of neatness. The steps were freshly scoured, and a
small brass door-plate, like a doctor's sign, was as bright as rubbing
could make it. “James Doyle,” she read.
Suddenly she was glad she had come. The little brick house looked
anything but tragic, with its shining windows, its white curtains
and its evenly drawn shades. Through the windows on the right came a
flickering light, warm and rosy. There must be a coal fire there. She
loved a coal fire.
She had braced herself to meet Aunt Elinor at the door, but an elderly
woman opened it.
“Mrs. Doyle is in,” she said; “just step inside.”
She did not ask Lily's name, but left her in the dark little hall and
creaked up the stairs. Lily hesitated. Then, feeling that Aunt Elinor
might not like to find her so unceremoniously received, she pushed open
a door which was only partly closed, and made a step into the room. Only
then did she see that it was occupied. A man sat by the fire, reading.
He was holding his book low, to get the light from the fire, and he
turned slowly to glance at Lily. He had clearly expected some one else.
Elinor, probably.
“I beg your pardon,” Lily said. “I am calling on Mrs. Doyle, and when I
saw the firelight--”
He stood up then, a tall, thin man, with close-cropped gray mustache and
heavy gray hair above a high, bulging forehead. She had never seen Jim
Doyle, but Mademoiselle had once said that he had pointed ears, like a
satyr. She had immediately recanted, on finding Lily searching in a book
for a picture of a satyr. This man had ears pointed at the top. Lily was
too startled then to analyze his face, but later on she was to know
well the high, intellectual forehead, the keen sunken eyes, the full
but firmly held mouth and pointed, satyr-like ears of that brilliant
Irishman, cynic and arch scoundrel, Jim Doyle.
He was inspecting her intently.
“Please come in,” he said. “Did the maid take your name?”
“No. I am Lily Cardew.”
“I see.” He stood quite still, eyeing her. “You are Anthony's
granddaughter?”
“Yes.”
“Just a moment.” He went out, closing the door behind him, and she
heard him going quickly up the stairs. A door closed above, and a weight
settled down on the girl's heart. He was not going to let her see Aunt
Elinor. She was frightened, but she was angry, too. She would not run
away. She would wait until he came down, and if he was insolent, well,
she could be haughty. She moved to the fire and stood there, slightly
flushed, but very straight.
She heard him coming down again almost immediately. He was outside the
door. But he did not come in at once. She had a sudden impression that
he was standing there, his hand on the knob, outlining what he meant
to say to her when he showed the door to a hated Cardew. Afterwards she
came to know how right that impression was. He was never spontaneous. He
was a man who debated everything, calculated everything beforehand.
When he came in it was slowly, and with his head bent, as though he
still debated within himself. Then:
“I think I have a right to ask what Anthony Cardew's granddaughter is
doing in my house.”
“Your wife's niece has come to call on her, Mr. Doyle.”
“Are you quite sure that is all?”
“I assure you that is all,” Lily said haughtily. “It had not occurred to
me that you would be here.”
“I dare say. Still, strangely enough, I do spend a certain amount of
time in my home.”
Lily picked up her muff.
“If you have forbidden her to come down, I shall go.”
“Wait,” he said slowly. “I haven't forbidden her to see you. I asked her
to wait. I wanted a few moments. You see, it is not often that I have a
Cardew in my house, and I am a selfish man.”
She hated him. She loathed his cold eyes, his long, slim white hands.
She hated him until he fascinated her.
“Sit down, and I will call Mrs. Doyle.”
He went out again, but this time it was the elderly maid who went up the
stairs. Doyle himself came back, and stood before her on the hearth rug.
He was slightly smiling, and the look of uncertainty was gone.
“Now that you've seen me, I'm not absolutely poisonous, am I, Miss Lily?
You don't mind my calling you that, do you? You are my niece. You have
been taught to hate me, of course.”
“Yes,” said Lily, coldly.
“By Jove, the truth from a Cardew!” Then: “That's an old habit of mine,
damning the Cardews. I'll have to try to get over it, if they are going
to reestablish family relations.” He was laughing at her, Lily knew, and
she flushed somewhat.
“I wouldn't make too great an effort, then,” she said.
He smiled again, this time not unpleasantly, and suddenly he threw into
his rich Irish voice an unexpected softness. No one knew better than Jim
Doyle the uses of the human voice.
“You mustn't mind me, Miss Lily. I have no reason to love your family,
but I am very happy that you came here to-day. My wife has missed her
people. If you'll run in like this now and then it will do her worlds of
good. And if my being here is going to keep you away I can clear out.”
She rather liked him for that speech. He was totally unlike what she had
been led to expect, and she felt a sort of resentment toward her family
for misleading her. He was a gentleman, on the surface at least. He
had not been over-cordial at first, but then who could have expected
cordiality under the circumstances? In Lily's defense it should be said
that the vicissitudes of Elinor's life with Doyle had been kept from her
always. She had but two facts to go on: he had beaten her grandfather as
a young man, for a cause, and he held views as to labor which conflicted
with those of her family.
Months later, when she learned all the truth, it was too late.
“Of course you're being here won't keep me away, if you care to have me
come.”
He was all dignity and charm then. They needed youth in that quiet
place. They ought all to be able to forget the past, which was done
with, anyhow. He showed the first genuine interest she had found in her
work at the camp, and before his unexpected geniality the girl opened
like a flower.
And all the time he was watching her with calculating eyes. He was a
gambler with life, and he rather suspected that he had just drawn a
valuable card.
“Thank you,” he said gravely, when she had finished. “You have done a
lot to bridge the gulf that lies--I am sure you have noticed it--between
the people who saw service in this war and those who stayed at home.”
Suddenly Lily saw that the gulf between her family and herself was just
that, which was what he had intended.
When Elinor came in they were absorbed in conversation, Lily flushed and
eager, and her husband smiling, urbane, and genial.
To Lily, Elinor Doyle had been for years a figure of mystery. She had
not seen her for many years, and she had, remembered a thin, girlish
figure, tragic-eyed, which eternally stood by a window in her room,
looking out. But here was a matronly woman, her face framed with soft,
dark hair, with eyes like her father's, with Howard Cardew's ease of
manner, too, but with a strange passivity, either of repression or of
fires early burned out and never renewed.
Lily was vaguely disappointed. Aunt Elinor, in soft gray silk, matronly,
assured, unenthusiastically pleased to see her; Doyle himself, cheerful
and suave; the neat servant; the fire lit, comfortable room,--there was
no drama in all that, no hint of mystery or tragedy. All the hatred at
home for an impulsive assault of years ago, and--this!
“Lily, dear!” Elinor said, and kissed her. “Why, Lily, you are a woman!”
“I am twenty, Aunt Elinor.”
“Yes, of course. I keep forgetting. I live so quietly here that the days
go by faster than I know.” She put Lily back in her chair, and glanced
at her husband.
“Is Louis coming to dinner, Jim?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you cannot stay, Lily?”
“I ought to tell you, Aunt Elinor. Only mother knows that I am here.”
Aunt Elinor smiled her quiet smile.
“I understand, dear. How are they all?”
“Grandfather is very well. Father looks tired. There is some trouble at
the mill, I think.”
Elinor glanced at Doyle, but he said nothing.
“And your mother?”
“She is well.”
Lily was commencing to have an odd conviction, which was that her Aunt
Elinor was less glad to have her there than was Jim Doyle. He seemed
inclined to make up for Elinor's lack of enthusiasm by his own. He built
up a larger fire, and moved her chair near it.
“Weather's raw,” he said. “Sure you are comfortable now? And why not
have dinner here? We have an interesting man coming, and we don't often
have the chance to offer our guests a charming young lady.”
“Lily only came home yesterday, Jim,” Elinor observed. “Her own people
will want to see something of her. Besides, they do no know she is
here.”
Lily felt slightly chilled. For years she had espoused her Aunt
Elinor's cause; in the early days she had painfully hemstitched a small
handkerchief each fall and had sent it, with much secrecy, to Aunt
Elinor's varying addresses at Christmas. She had felt a childish
resentment of Elinor Doyle's martyrdom. And now--
“Her father and grandfather are dining out to-night.” Had Lily looked up
she would have seen Doyle's eyes fixed on his wife, ugly and menacing.
“Dining out?” Lily glanced at him in surprise.
“There is a dinner to-night, for the--” He checked himself “The steel
manufacturers are having a meeting,” he finished. “I believe to discuss
me, among other things. Amazing the amount of discussion my simple
opinions bring about.”
Elinor Doyle, unseen, made a little gesture of despair and surrender.
“I hope you will stay, Lily,” she said. “You can telephone, if you like.
I don't see you often, and there is so much I want to ask you.”
In the end Lily agreed. She would find out from Grayson if the men were
really dining out, and if they were Grayson would notify her mother that
she was staying. She did not quite know herself why she had accepted,
unless it was because she was bored and restless at home. Perhaps, too,
the lure of doing a forbidden thing influenced her sub-consciously, the
thought that her grandfather would detest it. She had not forgiven him
for the night before.
Jim Doyle left her in the back hall at the telephone, and returned
to the sitting room, dosing the door behind him. His face was set and
angry.
“I thought I told you to be pleasant.”
“I tried, Jim. You must remember I hardly know her.” She got up and
placed her hand on his arm, but he shook it off. “I don't understand,
Jim, and I wish you wouldn't. What good is it?”
“I've told you what I want. I want that girl to come here, and to like
coming here. That's plain, isn't it? But if you're going to sit with a
frozen face--She'll be useful. Useful as hell to a preacher.”
“I can't use my family that way.”
“You and your family! Now listen, Elinor. This isn't a matter o the
Cardews and me. It may be nothing, but it may be a big thing. I hardly
know yet--” His voice trailed off; he stood with his head bent, lost in
those eternal calculations with which Elinor Doyle was so familiar.
The doorbell rang, and was immediately followed by the opening and
closing of the front door.
From her station at the telephone Lily Cardew saw a man come in, little
more than a huge black shadow, which placed a hat on the stand and then,
striking a match, lighted the gas overhead. In the illumination he stood
before the mirror, smoothing back his shining black hair. Then he saw
her, stared and retreated into the sitting room.
“Got company, I see.”
“My niece, Lily Cardew,” said Doyle, dryly.
The gentleman seemed highly amused. Evidently he considered Lily's
presence in the house in the nature of a huge joke. He was conveying
this by pantomime, in deference to the open door, when Doyle nodded
toward Elinor.
“It's customary to greet your hostess, Louis.”
“Easiest thing I do,” boasted the new arrival cheerily. “'Lo, Mrs.
Doyle. Is our niece going to dine with us?”
“I don't know yet, Mr. Akers,” she said, without warmth. Louis Akers
knew quite well that Elinor did not like him, and the thought amused
him, the more so since as a rule women liked him rather too well. Deep
in his heart he respected Jim Doyle's wife, and sometimes feared her. He
respected her because she had behind her traditions of birth and wealth,
things he professed to despise but secretly envied. He feared her
because he trusted no woman, and she knew too much.
She loved Jim Doyle, but he had watched her, and he knew that sometimes
she hated Doyle also. He knew that could be, because there had been
women he had both loved and hated himself.
Elinor had gone out, and Akers sat down.
“Well,” he said, in a lowered tone. “I've written it.”
Doyle closed the door, and stood again with his head lowered,
considering.
“You'd better look over it,” continued Lou. “I don't want to be jailed.
You're better at skating over thin ice than I am. And I've been thinking
over the Prohibition matter, Jim. In a sense you're right. It will make
them sullen and angry. But they won't go the limit without booze. I'd
advise cache-ing a lot of it somewhere, to be administered when needed.”
Doyle returned to his old place on the hearth-rug, still thoughtful. He
had paid no attention to Aker's views on Prohibition, nor to the paper
laid upon the desk in the center of the room.
“Do you know that that girl in the hall will be worth forty million
dollars some day?”
“Some money,” said Akers, calmly. “Which reminds me, Jim, that I've got
to have a raise. And pretty soon.”
“You get plenty, if you'd leave women alone.”
“Tell them to leave me alone, then,” said Akers, stretching out his long
legs. “All right. We'll talk about that, after dinner. What about this
forty millions?”
Doyle looked at him quickly. Akers' speech about women had crystallized
the vague plans which Lily's arrival had suddenly given rise to. He gave
the young man a careful scrutiny, from his handsome head to his feet,
and smiled. It had occurred to him that the Cardew family would loathe a
man of Louis Akers' type with an entire and whole-hearted loathing.
“You might try to make her have a pleasant evening,” he suggested dryly.
“And, to do that, it might be as well to remember a number of things,
one of which is that she is accustomed to the society of gentlemen.”
“All right, old dear,” said Akers, without resentment.
“She hates her grandfather like poison,” Doyle went on. “She doesn't
know it, but she does. A little education, and it is just possible--”
“Get Olga. I'm no kindergarten teacher.”
“You haven't seen her in the light yet.”
Louis Akers smiled and carefully settled his tie.
Like Doyle, Akers loved the game of life, and he liked playing for high
stakes. He had joined forces with Doyle because the game was dangerous
and exciting, rather than because of any real conviction. Doyle had
a fanatic faith, with all his calculation, but Louis Akers had
only calculation and ambition. A practicing attorney in the city, a
specialist in union law openly, a Red in secret, he played his triple
game shrewdly and with zest.
Doyle turned to go, then stopped and came back. “I was forgetting
something,” he said, slowly. “What possessed you to take that Boyd girl
to the Searing Building the other night?”
“Who told you that?”
“Woslosky saw you coming out.”
“I had left something there,” Akers said sullenly. “That's the truth,
whether you believe it or not. I wasn't there two minutes.”
“You're a fool, Louis,” Doyle said coldly. “You'll play that game once
too often. What happens to you is your own concern, but what may happen
to me is mine. And I'll take mighty good care it doesn't happen.”
Doyle was all unction and hospitality when he met Lily in the hall. At
dinner he was brilliant, witty, the gracious host. Akers played up to
him. At the foot of the table Elinor sat, outwardly passive, inwardly
puzzled, and watched Lily. She knew the contrast the girl must be
drawing, between the bright little meal, with its simple service and
clever talk, and those dreary formal dinners at home when old Anthony
sometimes never spoke at all, or again used his caustic tongue like a
scourge. Elinor did not hate her father; he was simply no longer her
father. As for Howard, she had had a childish affection for him, but he
had gone away early to school, and she hardly knew him. But she did
not want his child here, drinking in as she was, without clearly
understanding what they meant, Doyle's theories of unrest and
revolution.
“You will find that I am an idealist, in a way,” he was saying. “That
is, if you come often. I hope you will, by the way. I am perpetually
dissatisfied with things as they are, and wanting them changed. With
the single exception of my wife”--he bowed to Elinor, “and this little
party, which is delightful.”
“Are you a Socialist?” Lily demanded, in her direct way.
“Well, you might call it that. I go a bit further.”
“Don't talk politics, Jim,” Elinor hastily interposed. He caught her eye
and grinned.
“I'm not talking politics, my dear.” He turned to Lily, smiling.
“For one thing, I don't believe that any one should have a lot of
money, so that a taxicab could remain ticking away fabulous sums while a
charming young lady dines at her leisure.” He smiled again.
“Will it be a lot?” Lily asked. “I thought I'd better keep him,
because--” She hesitated.
“Because this neighborhood is unlikely to have a cab stand? You
were entirely right. But I can see that you won't like my idealistic
community. You see, in it everybody will have enough, and nobody will
have too much.”
“Don't take him too seriously, Miss Cardew,” said Akers, bending
forward. “You and I know that there isn't such a thing as too much.”
Elinor changed the subject; as a girl she had drawn rather well, and she
had retained her interest in that form of art. There was an exhibition
in town of colored drawings. Lily should see them. But Jim Doyle
countered her move.
“I forgot to mention,” he said, “that in this ideal world we were
discussing the arts will flourish. Not at once, of course, because the
artists will be fighting--”
“Fighting?”
“Per aspera ad astra,” put in Louis Akers. “You cannot change a world in
a day, without revolution--”
“But you don't believe that revolution is ever worth while, do you?”
“If it would drive starvation and wretchedness from the world, yes.”
Lily found Louis Akers interesting. Certainly he was very handsome. And
after all, why should there be misery and hunger in the world? There
must be enough for all. It was hardly fair, for instance, that she
should have so much, and others scarcely anything. Only it was like
thinking about religion; you didn't get anywhere with it. You wanted to
be good, and tried to be. And you wanted to love God, only He seemed so
far away, mostly. And even that was confusing, because you prayed to God
to be forgiven for wickedness, but it was to His Son our Lord one went
for help in trouble.
One could be sorry for the poor, and even give away all one had, but
that would only help a few. It would have to be that every one who had
too much would give up all but what he needed.
Lily tried to put that into words.
“Exactly,” said Jim Doyle. “Only in my new world we realize that there
would be a few craven spirits who might not willingly give up what they
have. In that case it would be taken from them.”
“And that is what you call revolution?”
“Precisely.”
“But that's not revolution. It is a sort of justice, isn't it?”
“You think very straight, young lady,” said Jim Doyle.
He had a fascinating theory of individualism, too; no man should impose
his will and no community its laws, on the individual. Laws were for
slaves. Ethics were better than laws, to control.
“Although,” he added, urbanely, “I daresay it might be difficult to
convert Mr. Anthony Cardew to such a belief.”
While Louis Akers saw Lily to her taxicab that night Doyle stood in the
hall, waiting. He was very content with his evening's work.
“Well?” he said, when Akers returned.
“Merry as a marriage bell. I'm to show her the Brunelleschi drawings
to-morrow.”
Slightly flushed, he smoothed his hair in front of the mirror over the
stand.
“She's a nice child,” he said. In his eyes was the look of the hunting
animal that scents food.