"Does a thing have to be dishonorable and dishonest, to be practical?"
"From your standpoint, yes," he replied. "At this very moment Fosdick
is chuckling over the scheme he thinks will surely disgrace me forever!
And you are urging me to let him disgrace me. Is that what you call
friendship? Is that your idea of 'heart'?"
She flushed, but rejoined undaunted, "You can juggle with your
conscience all you please, Horace--just like the other men downtown.
But you know the truth, in the bottom of your heart, just as they do.
And if you rise by the way you've planned, you know that, when you've
risen, you'll do just as he was doing."
"Then," said he, "your test of me is whether I'll let you beg off this
old buzzard, Fosdick."
She made a gesture of denial and appeal. "On the contrary, I'd despise
a man who did for a woman what he wouldn't do for his own self-respect."
She was pale, but all the will in her character was showing itself in
her face. "What is Fosdick to me? Now that you've told me about him, I
think it's frightful to send men to jail for stealing bread, and leave
such a creature at large. But--as to you--" Her bosom was rising and
falling swiftly--"as to you, I'm not indifferent. You have stood for
strength and courage, for pride--for manliness. I thought you hard and
cold--but brave--really brave--too brave to steal, at least from the
helpless, or to assassinate even an assassin. Now, I see that you've
changed. Your ambition is dragging you down, as ambition always does.
And what an ambition! To be the best, the most successful, at cheating
the helpless, at robbing the dead!"
As she spoke, his expression of anger faded. When she ended, with
unsteady voice and fighting back the tears, he did not attempt to reply.
He had made of his face an impassive mask. They were still silent, he
standing at the window, she sitting and gazing into the fire, when Molly
entered to announce Raphael. He threw his coat over his arm, took up
his hat. She searched his face for some indication of his thoughts, but
could find none. He simply said, "I'll think it over."
*XIX*
*TWO TELEPHONE TALKS*
As Armstrong, at Fosdick's house, was waiting in a small reception room
just off the front hall, he heard the old man on the stairs, storming as
he descended. "It's a conspiracy," he was shouting. "You all want to
kill me. You've heard the doctor say I'll die if I don't stop driving,
and walk. Yet, there's that damned carriage always at the door. I
can't step out that it isn't waiting for me, and you know I can't resist
if I see it. It's murder, that's what it is."
"Shall I send the carriage away, sir?" Armstrong heard the butler say.
"No!" cried Fosdick, rapping the floor with his cane. "No! You know I
won't send it away. I've got to get some air, and it seems to me I
can't walk."
By this time he was at the door of the reception room. "Good morning,
Armstrong," he said with surly politeness. "I'm sick to-day. I suppose
you heard me talking to this butler here. I tell you, things to drive
in are the ruin of the prosperous classes. Sell that damn motor of
yours. Never take a cab, if you can help it. They're killing me with
that carriage of mine. Yes--and there's that infernal cook--chef, as
they call him. He's trying to earn his salary, and he's killing me
doing it. I eat the poison stuff--I can't get anything else. No wonder
I have indigestion and gout. No wonder my head feels as if it was on
fire every morning. And my temper--I used to have a good disposition.
I'm getting to be a devil. It's a conspiracy to murder me." There
Fosdick noted Armstrong's expression. He dropped his private woes
abruptly and said, with his wonted suavity, "But what can I do for you
to-day?"
"I came to ask you to do an act of justice," replied the Westerner,
looking even huger and more powerful than usual, in contrast with the
other, whom age and self-indulgence were rapidly shriveling.
Armstrong's calm was aggressive, would better have become a dictator
than a suitor. It was highly offensive to Fosdick, who was rapidly
reaching the state of mind in which obsequiousness alone is tolerable
and manliness seems insolence. But he reined in his temper and said,
smoothly enough, "You can always count on me to do justice."
"I want you to give me a letter, explaining that those three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars were drawn by me and paid over, at your order."
Fosdick stared blankly at him. "What three hundred and fifty thousand
dollars?"
Armstrong's big hands clenched into fists and he set his teeth together
sharply. Each man looked the other full in the eyes. Armstrong said,
"Will you give me the letter?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," replied Fosdick steadily.
"And don't explain. I can't talk business to-day."
"I've come to you, Mr. Fosdick," continued Armstrong, "not on my own
account, but on yours. I ask you to give me the letter, because, if you
do not, the consequences will be unfortunate--not for me, but for you."
"My dear Armstrong," said Fosdick, with wheedling familiarity of elder
to younger, "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't want to
know. Look at me, and spare me. Come for a drive. I'll set you down
anywhere you say. Don't be foolish, young man. Don't use language to
me that suggests threats."
"That is your final answer? Is it quite useless to discuss the matter
with you?"
"I'm too sick to wrangle with business to-day."
"Then you refuse to give me the letter?"
"If my doctor knew I had let anybody mention business to me, he'd desert
me."
Without a further word Armstrong turned, left the room and the house.
Fosdick did not follow immediately. Instead, he seated himself to
puzzle at this development. "Hugo stirred him up about that, and he's
simply trying to get ready for the committee," he decided. "If he knew,
or even suspected, he'd act very differently. He's having his heart
broken none too soon. I've never seen a worse case of swollen head. I
pushed him up too fast. I'm really to blame; I'm always doing hasty,
generous things, and getting myself into trouble, and those I meant to
help. Poor fool. I'm sorry for him. I suppose once I get him down in
his place, I'll be soft enough to relent and give him something. He's
got talent. I can use him, once I have him broken to the bit."
In came Amy, the color high in her cheeks from her morning walk. She
kissed him on both cheeks. "Well, well, what do _you_ want?" said he.
"How do you know I want anything?" she cried.
"In the first place, because nobody ever comes near me except to get
something."
"Just as you never go near anybody except to take something," she
retorted, with a pull at his mustache.
Fosdick was amused. "In the second place," he went on, "because you are
affectionate--which not only means that you want something, but also
that the something is a thing you feel I won't give. And you're no
doubt right."
"What are you in such a good humor about?" said she. "You were cross as
a bear in a swarm of bees, at breakfast."
"I'm not in a good humor," he protested. "I'm depressed. I'm looking
forward to doing a very unpleasant duty to-morrow."
His daughter laughed at him. "You may be trying to persuade yourself
it's unpleasant. But the truth is, you're delighted. Papa, I've been
thinking about the entrance."
"Keep on thinking, but don't speak about it," retorted he, frowning.
"Really--it's an eyesore--so small, so out of proportion, so cheap----"
"Cheap!" exclaimed Fosdick. "Why, those bronze doors alone cost
seventeen thousand dollars."
"Is _that_ all!" scoffed his daughter. "Trafford's cost forty
thousand."
"But I'm not a thief like Trafford. And let me tell you, my child,
seventeen thousand dollars at four per cent would produce each year a
larger sum than the income of the average American family."
"But I've often heard you say the common people have entirely too much
money, more than they know how to spend. Now--about the entrance.
Alois and I----"
"When you marry Fred Roebuck, I'll let you build yourself any kind of
town house you like," interrupted her father.
She perched on the arm of his chair. "Now, really, father, you know you
wouldn't let me marry a man it makes me shudder to shake hands with?"
"Nonsense--a mere notion. You try to feel that way because you know you
ought to marry him."
"Never--never--_never_!" cried Amy, kissing him at each "never."
"Besides, he's engaged to Sylvia Barrow. He got tired of waiting for
me."
Fosdick pushed away from her. "I'm bitterly disappointed in you," he
said, scowling at her. "I've been assuming that you would come to your
senses. What would become of you, if I had as little regard for your
wishes as you have for mine?"
"Fred Roebuck was a nobody," she pleaded. "You despised him yourself.
Now, papa dear, I'm thinking of marrying a somebody, a man who really
amounts to something in himself."
"Who?" demanded Fosdick, bristling for battle.
"Alois Siersdorf."
Fosdick sprang up, caught her roughly by the arm. "What!" he shouted.
"_What!_"
"A man you like and admire," Amy went on, getting her tears ready. "He
_looks_ distinguished, and he _is_ distinguished, and is certain to be
more so. Besides, what's the use of being rich, if one can't please
herself when it comes to taking a husband? I want somebody I won't be
ashamed of, somebody I can live near without shuddering." And the tears
descended in floods.
Her father turned his rage against Alois. "The impudence of a fellow
like that aspiring to a girl in your position."
"But he hasn't been impudent. He's been very humble and backward."