"Because the picture is so--so impersonal." She laughed. "How angry it
would make him."
When Narcisse, after a long, intimacy-renewing, or, rather,
intimacy-beginning, stop, rose to go, she said, "I'm going to bring my
friend, Amy Fosdick, here some time soon. She has asked me and I've
promised her. She is very eager to meet you."
Instantly Neva made the first vivid show of her old-time shy constraint.
"I've a rule against meeting people," stammered she. "I don't wish to
seem ungracious, but----"
"Oh!" said Narcisse, embarrassed. "Very well."
An awkward silence; Narcisse moved toward the door. "I fear I've
offended you," Neva said wistfully.
"Not at all," replied Narcisse, and she honestly tried to be cordial in
accepting denial. "You've the right to do as you please, surely."
"In theory, yes," said Neva, with a faint melancholy smile. "But only
in theory."
Now unconsciously and now consciously we are constantly testing those
about us, especially our friends, to learn how far we can go in imposing
our ever aggressive wills upon them; and the stronger our own
personalities the more irritating it is to find ourselves flung back
from an unyielding surface where we had expected to advance easily. In
spite of her sense of justice, Narcisse was irritated against Neva for
refusing. But she also realized she must get over this irritation, must
accept and profit by this timely hint that Neva's will must be
respected. Most friendship is mere selfishness in masquerade--is mere
seeking of advantage through the supposedly blindly altruistic
affections of friends. Narcisse, having capacity for real friendship,
was eager for a real friend. She saw that Neva was worth the winning.
And now that Alois was breaking away-- Stretching out her hands
appealingly, she said, "Please, dear, don't draw away from me."
Neva understood, responded. Now that Narcisse was not by clouded face
and averted eye demanding explanation as a right, she felt free to give
it. "There's a reason, Narcisse," said she, "a good reason why I shan't
let Miss Fosdick come here and gratify her curiosity."
"Reason or no reason," exclaimed Narcisse, "forget my--my
impertinence.... I--I want--I need your friendship."
"Not more than I need yours," said Neva. "Not so much. You have your
brother, while I have no one."
"My brother!" Tears glistened in Narcisse's eyes. "Yes--until he
becomes some other woman's lover." She embraced Neva, and departed
hastily, ashamed of her unwonted show of emotion, but not regretting it.
*IX*
*MASTER AND MAN*
When Waller, the small, dark, discreet factotum to Fosdick, came to
Armstrong's office to ask him to go to Mr. Fosdick "as soon as you
conveniently can," Armstrong knew something unusual was astir.
Fosdick rarely interfered in the insurance department of the O.A.D.
Like all his fellow financiers bearing the courtesy title of "captains
of industry," he addressed himself entirely to so manipulating the sums
gathered in by his subordinates that he could retain as much of them and
their usufruct as his prudence, compromising with his greediness,
permitted. In the insurance department he as a rule merely noted
totals--results. If he had suggestion or criticism to make, he went to
Armstrong. That fitted in with the fiction that he was no more in the
O.A.D. than an influential director, that the Atlantic and Southwestern
Trunk Line was his chief occupation.
Armstrong descended to the third floor--occupied by the A.S.W.T.L. which
was supposed to have no connection with the purely philanthropic O.A.D.,
"sustainer of old age and defender of the widow and the orphan." He
went directly through the suite of offices there to Fosdick's own den.
Fosdick had four rooms. The outermost was for the reception of all
visitors and the final disposition of such of them as the underlings
there could attend to. Next came the office of the mysterious, gravely
smiling Waller, with his large white teeth and pretty mustache and the
folding picture frame containing photographs of wife and son and two
daughters on his desk before him--what an air of the home hovering over
and sanctifying the office diffused from that little panorama! Many
callers supposed that Waller's office was Fosdick's, that Fosdick almost
never came down there, that Waller was for all practical purposes
Fosdick. The third room was for those who, having convinced the outer
understrappers that they ought to be admitted as far as Waller,
succeeded in convincing Waller that they must be personally inspected
and heard by the great man himself. In this third room, there was no
article of furniture but a carpet. Waller would usher his visitor in
and leave him standing--standing, unless he chose to sit upon the floor;
for there was no chair to sit upon, no desk or projection from the wall
to lean against. Soon Fosdick would abruptly and hurriedly enter--the
man of pressing affairs, pausing on his way from one supremely important
matter to another. Fosdick calculated that this seatless private
reception room saved him as much time as the two outer visitor-sifters
together; for not a few of the men who had real business to bring before
him were garrulous; and to be received standing, to be talked with
standing, was a most effective encouragement to pointedness and brevity.
The fourth and innermost room was Fosdick's real office--luxurious,
magnificent even; the rugs and the desk and chairs had cost the policy
holders of the O.A.D. nearly a hundred thousand dollars; the pictures,
the marble bust of Fosdick himself, the statuary, the bookcases and
other furnishings had cost the shareholders of the A.S.W.T.L. almost as
much more.
Armstrong found Fosdick talking with Morris, Joe Morris, who was one of
his minor personal counsel, and was paid in part by a fixed annual
retainer from the A.S.W.T.L., in part from the elastic and generously
large legal fund of the O.A.D. As Armstrong entered, Fosdick said:
"Well, Joe, that's all. You understand?"
"Perfectly," said Morris. And he bowed distantly to Armstrong, bowed
obsequiously to his employer and departed.
"What's the matter between you and Joe Morris?" asked Fosdick, whose
quick eyes had noted the not at all obvious constraint.
"We know each other only slightly," replied Armstrong. Then he added,
"Mrs. Morris is a cousin of my former wife."
"Oh--beg pardon for intruding," said Fosdick carelessly. "Sit down,
Horace," and he leaned back in his chair and gazed reflectively out into
vacancy.
Armstrong seated himself and waited with the imperturbable, noncommittal
expression which had become habitual with him ever since his discovery
that he was Fosdick's prisoner, celled, sentenced, waiting to be led to
the block at Fosdick's good pleasure.
At last Fosdick broke the silence. "You were right about that
committee."
Apparently this did not interest Armstrong.
"That was a shrewd suspicion of yours," Fosdick went on. "And I ought
to have heeded it. How did you happen to hit on it?"
Armstrong shrugged his shoulders.
"Just a guess, eh? I thought maybe you knew who was back of these
fellows."
"Who is back of them?" asked Armstrong--a mere colorless, uninterested
inquiry.
"Our friends of the Universal Life," replied Fosdick, assuming that
Armstrong's question was an admission that he did not know. "They've
plotted with some of the old Galloway crowd in our directory to throw me
out and get control." Fosdick marched round and round the room, puffing
furiously at his cigar. "They think they've bought the governor away
from me," he presently resumed. "They think--and he thinks--he'll order
the attorney-general to entertain the complaints of that damned
committee." Here Fosdick paused and laughed--a harsh noise, a gleaming
of discolored, jagged teeth through heavy fringe of mustache. "I've
sent Morris up to Albany to see him. When he finds out I've got a
certain canceled check with his name on the back of it, I guess--I
_rather_ guess--he'll get down on that big belly of his and come
crawling back to me. I've sent Morris up there to show him the knout."
"Isn't that rather--raw?" said Armstrong, still stolid.
"Of course it's raw. But that's the way to deal with fellows like
him--with most fellows, nowadays." And Fosdick resumed his march.
Armstrong sat--stolid, waiting, matching the fingers of his big, ruddy
hands.
"Well, what do you think?" demanded his master, pausing, a note of
irritated command in his voice.
Armstrong shrugged his shoulders. A disinterested observer might have
begun to suspect that he was leading Fosdick on; but Fosdick, bent upon
the game, had no such suspicion.
"I want your opinion. That's why I sent for you," he cried impatiently.
"You've got your mind made up," said Armstrong. "I've nothing to say."
"Don't you think my move settles it?"
"No doubt, the governor'll squelch the investigation."
"_Certainly_ he will! And that means the end of those fellows' attempt
to make trouble for us through our own policy holders."
"Why?" said Armstrong.
"Don't you think so?" Fosdick dropped into his chair. "I'm not quite
satisfied," he said. "Give me your views."
"This committee has made a lot of public charges against the management
of the O.A.D. It may be that when you try to smother the investigation,
the demand will simply break out worse than ever."
"Pooh!" scoffed Fosdick. "That isn't worth talking about. I was
thinking only of what other moves that gang could make. The public
amounts to nothing. The rank and file of our policy holders is content.
What have these fellows charged? Why, that we've spent all kinds of
money in all kinds of ways to build up the company. Now, what does the
average investor say--not in public but to himself--when the management
of his company is attacked along that line? Why, he says to himself,
'Better let well enough alone. Maybe those fellows don't give me all my
share; but they do give me a good return for my money, as much as most
shareholders in most companies get.' No, my dear Horace, even a rotten
management needn't be afraid of its public so long as it gives the
returns its public expects. Trouble comes only when the public _gets
less than it expected_."
Armstrong did not withhold from this shrewdness the tribute of an
admiring look. "Still," he persisted, "the public seems bent on an
investigation."
"Mere clamor, and no backing from the press except those newspapers that
it ain't worth while to stop with a chunk of advertising. All the
reputable press is with us, is denouncing those blackmailers for
throwing mud at men of spotless reputation." Fosdick swelled his chest.
"The press, the public, know _us_, believe in _us_. Our directory reads
like a roll call of the best citizens in the land. And the poor results
from that last big tear-up are still fresh in everybody's mind. Nobody
wants another."
A pause, then Armstrong: "Still, it might be better to have an
investigation."
"What!" exclaimed Fosdick.
"You say we've nothing to conceal. Why not show the public so?"
"Of course we haven't got anything to conceal," cried Fosdick defiantly.
"At least, _I_ haven't."
"Why not have an investigation, then?"
That reiterated word "investigation" acted on the old financier like the
touch of a red-hot iron. "Because I don't want it!" he shouted. "Damn
it, man, ain't I above suspicion? Haven't I spent my life in serving
the public? Shall I degrade myself by noticing these lying, slandering
scoundrels? Shall I let 'em open up my private business to the mob that
would misunderstand? Shall I let them roll _me_ in the gutter?
No--sir--ree!"
"Then, you are against a policy of aggression? You intend simply to sit
back and content yourself with ignoring attacks."
Fosdick subsided, scowling.
"Suppose you allowed an investigation----"
"I don't want to hear that word again!" said Fosdick between his teeth.
Armstrong slowly rose. "Any further business?" he asked curtly.
"Sit down, Horace. Don't get touchy. Damn it, I want your advice."
"I haven't any to offer."
"What'd you do if you were in my place?"
This was as weak as it sounded. In human societies concentrations of
power are always accidental, in the sense that they do not result from
deliberation; thus, the men who happen to be in a position to seize and
wield the power are often ill-equipped to use it intelligently. Fosdick
had but one of the two qualities necessary to greatness--he could
attack. But he could not defend. So long as his career was dependent
for success upon aggression, he went steadily ahead. It is not so
difficult as some would have us believe to seize the belongings of
people who do not know their own rights and possessions, and live in the
habitual careless, unthinking human fashion. But now that his
accumulations were for the first time attracting the attention of
robbers as rich and as unscrupulous as himself, he was in a parlous
state. And, without admitting it to himself, he was prey to uneasiness
verging on terror. Our modern great thieves are true to the
characteristics of the thief class--they have courage only when all the
odds are in their favor; let them but doubt their absolute security, and
they lose their insolent courage and fall to quaking and to seeing
visions of poverty and prison.
"What would you do?" Fosdick repeated.
"What do your lawyers say?"
Fosdick sneered. "What do they always say? They echo _me_. I have to
tell them what to do--and, by God, I often have to show 'em how to do
it." The fact was that Fosdick, like almost all the admired "captains
of industry," was a mere helpless appetite with only the courage of an
insane and wholly unscrupulous hunger; but for the lawyers, he would not
have been able to gratify it. In modern industrialism the lawyer is the
honeybird that leads the strong but stupid bear to the forest hive--and
the honeybird gets as a reward only what the bear permits. "Give me
your best judgment, Horace," pursued Fosdick.
"In your place, I'd fight," said Armstrong.
"How?"
"I'd order the governor to appoint an investigating committee, made up
of _reliable_ men. I'd appoint one of my lawyers as attorney to
it--some chap who wasn't supposed to be my lawyer. I'd let it
investigate me, make it give me a _reasonably, plausibly_ clean bill of
health. Then, I'd set it on the other fellows, have it tear 'em to
pieces, make 'em too busy with home repairs to have time to stick their
noses over my back fence."
Fosdick listened, appreciated, and hated Armstrong for having thought of
that which was so obvious once it was stated and yet had never occurred
to him.
"Of course," said Armstrong carelessly, "there are risks in that course.
But I don't believe you can stop an investigation altogether. It's
choice among evils."
"Well, we'll see," said Fosdick. "There's no occasion for hurry. This
situation isn't as bad as you seem to think."
It had always been part of his basic policy to minimize the value of his
lieutenants--it kept them modest; it moderated their demands for bigger
pay and larger participation in profits; it enabled him to feel that he
was "the whole show" and to preen himself upon his liberality in giving
so much to men actually worth so little. He was finding it difficult to
apply this policy to Armstrong. For, the Westerner was of the sort of
man who not only makes it a point to be more necessary to those he deals
with than they are to him, but also makes it a point to force them to
see and to admit it. Armstrong's quiet insistence upon his own value
only roused Fosdick to greater efforts to convince him, and himself,
that Armstrong was a mere cog in the machine. He sent him away with a
touch of superciliousness. But--no sooner was he alone than he rang up
Morris.
"Come over at once," he ordered. "I've changed my mind. I've got
another message for you to take up there with you."
It would have exasperated him to see Armstrong as he returned to his own
offices. The Westerner had lost all in a moment that air of stolidity
under which he had been for several months masking his anxiety. He
moved along whistling softly; he joked with the elevator boy; he shut
himself in his private office, lit a cigar and lay back in his chair and
stared at the ceiling, his expression that of a man whose thoughts are
delightful company.
*X*
*AMY SWEET AND AMY SOUR*
Now that Fosdick saw how he could clear himself, and more, of those he
had been variously describing as pryers, peepers, ingrates, traitors and
blackmailers, he was chagrined that he had been so near to panic. He
couldn't understand it, so he assured himself; with nothing to conceal,
with hands absolutely clean, with not an act on the record that was not
legitimate, such as the most respectable men in the most respectable
circles not only approved but did--with these the conditions, how had he
been so upset?
"I suppose," he reflected, "as a man gets older, he becomes foolishly
sensitive about his reputation. Then, too, the world is eager to twist
evil into everything--and I have so many in my own class who are jealous
of me, of my standing."
The silliest thing he had done, he decided, was that talk with the
Siersdorfs. Why, if they were at all evil-minded, they might suspect he
was using those construction accounts for swindling purposes, instead of
making a perfectly legitimate convenience of them to adjust the
bookkeeping to the impossible requirements of law and public opinion.
"It's an outrage," he thought, "that we can't have the laws fixed so it
would be possible to carry on business without having to do things
liable to misconstruction, if made generally public. But we can't. As
it is, look at the swindlers who have taken advantage of the laws we
absolutely had to have the legislature make." Yes, it was a blunder to
take the Siersdorfs into his confidence--though the young man did show
that he had brains enough to understand the elements of large affairs.
Still, he might some time make improper use of the knowledge--unless----
Fosdick decided that thereafter the vouchers should pass through
Siersdorf's hands, should have Siersdorfs O.K. "Then, if any question
arises, it will be to his interest to treat confidential matters
confidentially. Or, if he should turn against me, he'd be unable to
throw mud without miring himself."
And now Fosdick saw why he had instantly jumped for the Siersdorfs.
They alone were not personally involved in any of the "private business"
of the O.A.D. All the directors, all the officials, all the important
agents, were involved, and therefore would not dare turn traitor if they
should be vile enough to contemplate it. But the Siersdorfs were
independent, yet perilously in possession of the means to make trouble.
"I must fix them," said Fosdick. "I must clinch them."
Thus it came about that within a week Alois was helping the directors of
the O.A.D. to keep their accounts "adjusted"--was signing vouchers for
many times the amounts that were being actually expended upon the
building. He hesitated before writing the firm name upon the first of
these documents. On the face of it, the act did look--peculiar. True,
it was a simple matter of bookkeeping; still, he'd rather not be
involved. There seemed no way out of it, however. To refuse was to
insult Fosdick--and that when Fosdick was showing his confidence in and
affection for him. Also, it meant putting in jeopardy three big orders
in hand--the two office buildings and Overlook.
"It'd break Narcisse's heart to have to give up doing Overlook," he said
to himself. Yes, he would sign the vouchers; now that he felt he was
acting, at least in large part, for his dear sister's sake, he had no
qualms. Having passed the line, he looked back with amusement. He
debating as a moral question a matter of business routine! A matter
approved by such a character, such a figure as Josiah Fosdick!
Some of these "technically inaccurate" vouchers were before him when
Narcisse happened into his office. Though there was "nothing wrong with
them--nothing whatever," and though she would not have known it if there
had been, he instinctively slipped the blotting pad over them.
"What are you hiding there?" she teased innocently. "A love letter?"
He frowned. "You've got that on the brain," he retorted, with a
constrained smile. "What do you want--now?"
"Amy's here. Have you time to go over the plans?"
"Yes--right away," said he, with quick complete change of manner.
She winced. So sensitive had she become on the subject of her brother
and her friend that she was hurt by the most casual suggestion from
either of interest in the other. Regarding her brother as irresistible,
she assumed that, should he ask Amy, he would be snapped in, like fly by
frog. "Yet," said she to herself, "they're utterly unsuited. He'd
realize it as soon as he was married to her. Why can't a man ever see
through a woman until he's had an affair with her and gotten over her?"
"Shall we look at the plans here or in your room?" he asked.
"I'll send her here.... It won't be necessary for me to come, will it?"
"No. We'll hardly get round to your part to-day," said Alois. And Amy
went in alone, and spent the entire afternoon with Alois. And most
attractive he made himself to Amy. In his profession, he had many
elements of strength; he hated shams, had a natural sense of the
beautiful, unspoiled by the conventionalities that reduce most
architects to slavish copyists. He did not think things fine simply
because they were old; neither did he think them ugly or stale for that
reason. He knew how to judge on merit alone; and he had educated Amy
Fosdick to the point where she at least appreciated his views and ideas.
When a man gets a woman trained to that point, he thinks her a marvel of
independent intellect, with germs of genius--if she is at all attractive
to him physically. He forgot that, until Amy had "taken up" the
Siersdorfs, she had been as enthusiastic about the barren and
conventional Whitbridge as she now was about them. Appreciation is one
of the most deceptive qualities in the world, where it is genuine.
Through it we are all constantly disguising from ourselves and from
others our own mental poverty.
Usually appreciation is little more than a liking for the person whose
ideas we think we understand and share. In Amy's case, there was a good
deal of real understanding. She had much natural good taste, enough to
learn to share in the amusement of Narcisse and Alois at the silly
imitations of old-world palaces her acquaintances were hastening to
house themselves in--palaces built for a forever departed era of the
human race, for a past people of a past and gone social order; she also
saw, when Alois pointed it out to her, the silliness of the mania for
antiques which in our day is doing so much to suffocate originality and
even good taste. She learned to loathe the musty, fusty rags and
worm-eaten woods the crafty European dealers manufacture, "plant," and
work off on those Americans who are bent upon the same snobbishness in
art education that they are determined to have in the other forms of
education. Encouraged by Narcisse and Alois, she came boldly out
against that which she had long in secret doubted and disliked. She was
more than willing that they should build her a house suitable as a
habitation for a human being in the twentieth century--a house that was
ventilated and convenient and scientific. And she was giving Alois a
free hand in planning surroundings of spontaneous beauty rather than of
the kind that pleased the narrower and more precise fancy of a narrower
age, to which the idea of freedom of any sort was unknown.
[Illustration: "She was giving Alois a free hand in planning
surroundings."]
"Gracious! It's after half past four!" she exclaimed, as if she had
just become conscious of the fact, when in truth she had been
impatiently watching the clock by way of a mirror for nearly an hour.
"So it is!" said Alois, immensely flattered by her unconsciousness of
time.
"I want to take these plans with me--to show them to some one."
Alois felt that the "some one" was a man, and a very particular
friend--else, she would have spoken the name. "Very well," he said,
faintly sullen.
"Don't be disturbed," was her absent reply. "I'll take good care of
them." She saw the change in him; but, not thinking of him as a man,
but as an intelligence only, she did not grasp the cause. "Thank you so
much," she went on, "for being so patient with me. How splendid it must
be to have always with one a mind like yours--or Narcisse's. Well,
until to-morrow, or next day." And, looking as charming as only a
pretty woman with a fortune can look to a man who wants both her and her
fortune, she left him desolate.
The "some one" was indeed a man. But he--Armstrong--did not arrive
until half an hour after the appointed time. She came into the small
salon into which he had been shown, her gloves, hat and wraps on and the
big roll of plans under her arm; and no one would have suspected that
she had been waiting for him since ten minutes before five and had spent
most of the time in primping. "I'm all blown to pieces," she
apologized, as she entered. "Have I kept you waiting? I really
couldn't help it."
"I just got here," said Armstrong. "I, too, was late--business, as
always." Which was true enough; but the whole truth would have been
that he forgot the appointment until its very hour. "I'll not keep you
long," he continued. "I've got to dress for an early dinner."
She was so disappointed that she did not dare speak, lest she should
show her ill humor--and she knew Armstrong detested a bad disposition in
a woman. She rang for tea; when the servants had brought it and were
gone, she began fussing with her coat. He, preoccupied, did not see her
hinted signals until she said, "Please, do help me."
As he drew off the coat there floated to him a delightful perfume, a
mingling of feminine and flowers, of freshness and delicacy, a
stimulating suggestion of the sensuous refinements which a woman with
taste and the means can employ as powerful allies in her siege of man.
She looked up at him--her eyes were, save her teeth, her best feature.
She just brushed his arm in one of those seemingly unconscious,
affectionate-friendly gestures which are intended to be encouraging
without being "unwomanly." "How is my friend to-day?" she inquired.
"So-so," replied he, taking her advances at their face value.
"You never come here unless I send for you, and you always have some
excuse for going soon."