BARBARA'S LOVE FOR THE SEER.
Jefferson Worth had not proceeded far with the work before him after
James Greenfield left when he was again interrupted. This time it was
the voice of Barbara in the other room.
The banker lifted his head quickly. Again he pushed his papers from
him, but now the movement seemed to indicate weariness and uncertainty
rather than readiness for action. His head dropped forward, his thin
fingers nervously tapped the arms of his chair. When the girl's step
sounded at the door he looked up the fraction of a second before she
appeared.
"I don't want to disturb you, father, but they told me that that big,
fine-looking man just going out was Mr. Greenfield. Is he--did he come
all the way from New York to see you?"
"He came in here to see me," said Jefferson Worth exactly.
"And the work?"
"He says they have already started the wheels to moving."
"And you, daddy; you?"
Jefferson Worth arose and carefully closed the door. Then silently
indicating the chair at the end of his desk he resumed his seat.
As Barbara looked into that mask-like face, the eager expectant light
in her brown eyes died out and a look of questioning doubt came. She
seemed to shrink back from him almost as she had turned away that first
time in the desert.
If Jefferson Worth felt that look his face gave no sign; only those
thin, nervous fingers were lifted to caress his chin.
"Are you--are you going to help, daddy? Will you join Mr. Greenfield's
company?"
Still the man was silent, and the girl, watching, wondered what was
going on behind that gray mask, what questions were being weighed and
considered.
At last he spoke one cold word: "Why?"
Barbara flushed. "Because," she answered, carefully, "because it is
such a great work. You could do so much more than simply make money."
"That is as you and the Seer see it."
"But, father; it _is_ a great work, isn't it, to change the desert into
a land of farms and homes for thousands and thousands of people?"
"Do you think that Greenfield and his crowd are going into this scheme
because it is a great thing for the people?"
"But don't even capitalists sometimes undertake a great work just
because it is great and because thousands upon thousands of people,
through years and years to come, will be benefited even though the men
themselves do not make so awfully much money?"
If Jefferson Worth felt her unconscious insinuation his face gave no
sign. Carefully he listened with his manner of considering and weighing
every word, while to Barbara his mind seemed to be reaching out on
every side or running far into the future. When he answered his words
were carefully exact. "Capitalists, as individuals might and do, spend
millions in projects from which they, personally, expect no returns.
But _Capital_ doesn't do such things. Anything that Capital, as
_Capital_, goes into must be purely a business proposition. If anything
like sentiment entered into it that would be the end of the whole
matter."
Barbara moved uneasily. "I don't think I quite understand why," she
said.
There was a shade of color now in the banker's voice as he explained by
asking: "How long do you think this bank could exist if we made loans
to Tom, Dick and Harry because they needed help, or put money into this
and that scheme simply because it was a beneficial thing? How long
would it be before we went to smash?"
"But don't business men ever do anything except to make money? Doesn't
Capital, as you say, ever consider the people?"
"This bank is a very substantial benefit to the people. But it can only
benefit them by doing business on strictly business principles. As an
individual any officer or stock holder can do what he pleases for
whatever reason moves him. He can burn his money if he wants to. But as
officers and directors of this corporation we can't burn the capital of
the institution."
"But Mr. Greenfield and these New York men, who have organized the
company--are they not careful financiers?"
"Very."
"It seems to me that they must believe in the Seer and his work or they
wouldn't furnish him the money, would they?"
"They believe in the Seer and his work from their standpoint. Their
capital is invested for just one purpose--dividends."
Barbara sighed and moved impatiently. "You always make it so hard to
believe in men, father. I can't think that all business men--all
financiers, I mean,--are so cold and heartless."
Again if Jefferson Worth felt the unconscious implication in her words
he gave no sign. The banker was not ignorant of the public sentiment
toward himself and the men of his class in his profession. He had come
to accept it with the indifference of his exact, machine-like habit.
Barbara continued: "I feel sure that Mr. Greenfield and the men with
him are going to furnish the money for the Seer to do this work for
more than just what they will make out of it. I know that Mr. Holmes
does, and I had hoped that you"--her voice broke--"that you would--"
If only Jefferson Worth could have broken the habit of a lifetime. If
he could have laid aside that gray mask and permitted the girl to look
into his hidden life, perhaps--
His colorless voice broke the silence, coldly exact: "What do you
figure Willard Holmes is in this thing for?"
Barbara's face lighted up proudly. "He is in the work for the same
reason that the Seer and Abe are--because it is such a great work and
means so much to the world. I know, because since he returned he has
talked to me so much about it. When he first came out--just at
first--he didn't understand what the work really was. But now he
understands it as the Seer sees it."
"Did the Seer send him out here?"
"No, I believe Mr. Greenfield sent him."
"Why?"
"I suppose they wanted an eastern man, whom they knew better than they
knew the Seer, to represent them? It would be very natural, wouldn't
it?"
"Very natural," agreed Jefferson Worth.
"Have you given the Company your final answer, father?"
"Yes."
"And you--you won't have anything to do with the reclamation of my
Desert?"
"I declined to join the Company."
Blindly Barbara made her way out of the building. The place, with its
air of business and suggestions of wealth, was unbearably hateful to
her. At home she ordered her horse and started for the open country.
But she did not ride toward the Desert. She felt that she could not
bear the sight of The King's Basin that day.
In her father's attitude toward the Company Barbara saw only his
seeming desire for selfish gain. He had told her so often that only one
thing could justify an investment of capital. Evidently he did not
think The King's Basin project would pay. She felt ashamed for him; he
seemed so incapable of considering anything but profit. Nothing but
profit, the sure promise of gain, could move him. He believed in the
work; he had reported in favor of it to the Company. He knew that the
Company was going ahead. He was willing enough that others should do
the work, she thought bitterly. They might take the risk. It was even
likely that he had some way planned by which, without risking anything
himself, he would reap large returns through their efforts. She thought
proudly of the Seer, who had given so many unpaid years to the
Reclamation work; of Abe and his loyalty to the Seer; and of Willard
Holmes, who was going to give himself to the work.
Utterly sick at heart the girl did not meet her father at their evening
meal. She could not. Jefferson Worth ate alone and alone spent the
evening on the porch. On the way to his room he paused a moment at her
door. He knocked softly so as not to waken her if she was asleep. When
there was no answer he stole quietly away. But Barbara was not asleep.
For three days Mr. Greenfield remained in Rubio City, "on the business
of The King's Basin Land and Irrigation Company," the papers said in a
long article setting forth the greatness of the work that was to be
undertaken in the desert through the magnificent enterprise of these
mighty eastern capitalists.
During that time Barbara had not seen either the Seer, Holmes or Abe
Lee. She understood that they were engaged with Mr. Greenfield. She
read the glowing articles in the paper, the afternoon of Mr.
Greenfield's departure, with a thrill of pride. At last it had
come--the day for which the Seer had hoped all these years. The dear
old Seer! She was a little disappointed that the papers did not give
his name more prominence. It seemed to be all Greenfield and the
Company. But after all that did not matter. It was the Seer's work; the
Seer had brought it about.
The front gate clicked and Barbara looked up from her paper to see her
old friend coming up the walk. She saw at a glance that something was
wrong. She thought he was ill. The big form of the engineer drooped
with weakness, his head dropped forward, his eyes were fixed on the
ground and he walked slowly, dragging his feet as with great weariness.
With a startled cry she ran to meet him, and as he caught her hands in
both his own she saw his face drawn and haggard and his brown eyes
filled with hopeless pain. He did not speak.
Leading him to the shade of the porch she brought forward his favorite
chair. He sank into it as if overcome with exhaustion, but attempted to
smile his thanks.
"What is it? Are you ill? Let me call a doctor?"
"No, no, dear, I'm not sick. It's not that. I'm--I'm upset a bit,
that's all. I'll be all right in a little while. Only it was rather
unexpected." He turned his face away as though to hide something from
her.
"What is it? Can't you tell me? What is the matter?" Barbara had never
seen the Seer so hopeless.
"They have let me out."
She did not understand. "Let you out?"
He bowed his head slowly. "Yes; the Company, you know. They have
appointed Mr. Holmes chief engineer in my place."
She cried out in indignant dismay. "But how could they? It is your
work--all your work! You have given years to bring it before the world.
They never would have known of The King's Basin at all but for you. How
dare they? They have no right!"
The engineer smiled. "I was only an employe of Greenfield and the men
who organized the Company, you know. In their eyes my relation to the
work was the same as that of a Cocopah Indian laborer. Of course it was
understood in a general way that I was to have some stock in the
Company when it was organized, with the chief engineer's position at
least, but there was nothing settled. Nothing could be settled until
the actual completion of the survey, you know. I never dreamed of this.
I can see now that it was planned from the first and that this is what
Holmes came out here for. He is a great favorite of Greenfield's, and I
suppose they wanted a man of their own kind to look after their
interests. But it hurts, Barbara; it hurts."
For an hour he stayed with her and she helped him as such a woman
always helps. But when she would have kept him for supper he said: "No,
I must find Abe. I want to tell the boy and have it over. You can tell
your father."
When Jefferson Worth learned from his indignant daughter of the
Company's action he only said, in his precise way: "I figured that
would be their first move." There was no feeling in his voice or
manner. It was the simple verification of conclusions already reached
and considered.
"Father!" cried Barbara. "Do you mean that you expected the Company to
put that man Holmes in the Seer's place?"
"What reason was there to expect anything else?"
"But you never said anything all the time the Seer was--" She could not
continue. It was maddening to think that while she had been dreaming
and planning with the Seer, her father had foreseen that their dreams
would come to nought.
"If I had you would not have believed me." The words were merely a
calm, emotionless statement of fact. "I told you that the Company would
act only from a business standpoint."
Suddenly a new phase of the situation flashed upon Barbara. Controlling
her emotions and searching her father's face she asked: "Daddy, tell me
please: was it because you saw this that you refused to join the
Company?"
Jefferson Worth considered; then with marked caution answered: "That
was part of the reason."
"I think I begin to understand a little. I'm glad--glad that you would
have nothing to do with those men. It would have killed me if you had
had any part in this now."
Presently the banker asked: "Have you seen Abe Lee?"
"No, why? Do you think--have they discharged him, too? He wouldn't stay
anyway after their treatment of the Seer. I wouldn't want him to."
"They won't let him out if they can keep him. Holmes will need him,"
said Worth. They he added: "You'd better tell Abe to stay."
Barbara gasped. "What do you mean?"
"Tell him to stay," repeated Worth slowly.