The illness of Elizabeth Burton proved tedious and perplexing to the
specialists who traced its origin beyond the purely physical to some
unconfessed thing gnawing at the peace of her brain. Accordingly they
did what they could and, having effected a temporary repair, fell back
on the customary prescription of change and travel.
During these weeks Mary had been constantly with her mother--and when
she was even a short while away the elder woman anxiously called for
her. Sometimes she and Hamilton had met, but at these times there was no
syllable of surrender from the lips of either; only a tacit sort of
truce such as might have existed where two armies drawn tensely in
confronting battle-lines pause to care for the wounded in which both
have interest. But when the mandate came that Elizabeth Burton must go
abroad Mary Burton faced the sternest dilemma which had ever presented
itself for her decision. The mother refused absolutely to obey the
verdict unless her daughter accompanied her, and while Mary was abroad
she could only guess what crises her lover might be meeting at
home--because he was her lover.
She and Edwardes were walking together one afternoon as they discussed
this new complication in their affairs. They had chosen for their tryst
neither the smooth stretch of the avenue nor the paths of the park, but
those tangled by-ways that thread the woods back of the Jersey
Palisades.
It was a cold day with air as biting as a lash and as clear as crystal,
and since these woods were wild and desolate in spots though skirted by
smooth road-ways and flanked by handsome estates they had for the most
part uninterrupted solitude. Ragged outcroppings of rock stood baldly
etched against the brilliant sky and through the open spaces they
occasionally saw the Hudson and the contour of upper New York. Twice
they came upon rouged and powdered men and women with beaded lashes, but
these men and women were too busy doing varied things before cameras to
take notice of them, for their refuge was also the open-air workshop of
moving-picture folk.
"Of course you must go," Edwardes seriously told her. "Your mother's
health--her life itself--may depend on it. You aren't the sort who can
hesitate to answer such a call and it won't be forever, you know."
"And while I'm--over there--with an ocean between us"--she broke off and
her eyes darkened with terror--"you may be facing a decisive battle
here--a battle decisive for both of us. If you have to fight, it's my
right to be near you--to share your fortunes and your misfortunes. Our
love didn't begin as little loves do. It sha'n't end that way."
"If I thought--" his voice was very deep in its earnestness--"that
anything could mean an end of our love, I couldn't make a fight whether
you were here or elsewhere. I think our love will outlast all battles. I
want you to go."
"And if I do go," she demanded with a gaze of questioning which demanded
a truthful answer, "will you swear, by whatever is holiest and means
most to you, that you will cable me at the first intimation of storm?"
For a while he stood silent and his features were trouble-stamped; then
he took both her hands and their eyes met. Slowly he bowed his assent.
"I swear it," he told her, "by my love for you, but if I read the signs
aright the time is not quite that close at hand."
In these days Hamilton Burton's secret service was preternaturally
active. Less of the Titan's affairs passed through the hands of Carl
Bristoll. He could be implicitly trusted, but called on only for honest
service. More went through Tarring and Ruferton and Hendricks--who
questioned no motives.
After two months Mary returned, and when she met the gaze of Jefferson
Edwardes she read in it the struggle which his fight against his heart's
clamorous insistence had cost him. "I have thought of little else since
I went away," she told him, "and I have decided that either I am worthy
to stand with you in whatever comes to you, or I am not worthy to be
your wife at all. Hamilton hurled his threat at us and we, like a pair
of timid children, let him frighten us. In this as in everything else he
has had his way and we are paying the price--giving up our lives."
"It's very hard," he answered, "to stand out against you, when only my
mind argues against you and my heart is so insistent on the other side.
You say you have thought of little else. I have thought of _nothing_
else. The clocks have chimed it--the bells have rung it--the voice of
the city has roared and echoed it. I want you so much, dear, that
without you I am starving. You pledged yourself to me and then came this
menace. I couldn't let you act blindly. Now if you are still resolute--"
"I am more so," she declared. "My brother issued his challenge and we
accepted it. Yet we went abjectly away and obeyed him. If he means to
fight he must fight now. I am no less a Burton than himself and I am
tired of submission."
Jefferson Edwardes smiled. For the instant everything except her own
undaunted courage seemed to shrink into minor consideration.
"You are right," he said, and he said it with a note of triumph. "We
shall announce our engagement and set a day--neither hastening it nor
delaying it--but acting precisely as you would act had he never opposed
us. If he thinks he can stop us let him try." He paused and his face
suddenly hardened as he added, "There have been moments when murder has
tempted me--when I wanted to go to Hamilton Burton and kill him with my
hands."
Paul was commissioned by his mother to convey to Hamilton the news which
would on the following day appear in all the society columns, the
statement that in thirty days Miss Mary Burton would become the bride of
Mr. Jefferson Edwardes, head of Edwardes and Edwardes. At first Hamilton
said nothing. His face paled a little and he reached out and fingered a
paper-weight and a pen, with the gesture of one whose brain takes no
thought of what his hand does.
Then slowly his eyes kindled into the tawny gleam of a tigerish light.
"It was very good of them to wait so long," he said significantly. "I
think I am just about ready now."
"What do you mean, Hamilton?" Paul bent forward and spoke with alarm.
"Mean!" Hamilton came to his feet and his anger snapped across the table
like a powerful current leaping a broken wire. He took up a delicately
fashioned statuette of porcelain and tossed it to the stone flagging of
the hearth where it lay shivered. He walked over and contemptuously
kicked some of the fragments toward the open fire.
"Mean! I mean that I shall treat him like that. What's left when I'm
through Mary can have--for a wedding or a funeral whichever seems most
suitable."
For once in his life a flame of resistance and momentary courage leaped
up in Paul Burton.
"You shall do nothing of the sort," he vehemently declared. "Mary is my
blood and your blood and my mother's blood. You sha'n't sacrifice her,
merely because she loves a man whom you hate."
"Stop!" Hamilton raised his hands warningly. "Don't throw yourself to
the enemy, Paul. Don't make an irreconcilable breach between us. I don't
find fault with your sympathy. I should hate you if you didn't feel
it--but this man Edwardes is doomed. Nothing can save him. If heaven
itself fought for him, I would make war on heaven, whoever attempts to
thwart me--even if it be you, Paul, shall go with him to ruin. We won't
talk of this again."
* * * * *
Mary Burton awoke one morning to see, through her window blinds, a
mixture of snow and rain falling from low-hanging clouds; yet her lips
parted in a smile. She glanced at the clock by her bed. It was eleven.
In just one week and sixty minutes she and Jefferson Edwardes would be
standing at the altar.
She threw a dressing-gown about her, and, slipping her small pink feet
into small pink slippers, crossed idly to the window. Then with a face
that in an instant went white with a premonition of disaster, she
wheeled on Julie and her voice came in an agitated whisper.
"What are they calling extras about? Get me a paper quick." When a few
minutes later a sheet still damp from the presses lay before her she
needed only the flaring headlines to corroborate her fears. With
throbbing temples she swayed unsteadily as she made her way to a chair
and sank down, gripping the paper tightly in a clenched fist. Four words
were hammering themselves into her brain and heart: "Stock-Exchange in
Frenzy." ... Her apathy of inactivity lasted only a few moments. Then
she came to her feet and, instead of panic, resolution sounded through
her voice. "Dress me, Julie," she commanded. "Dress me quickly. I must
be down-town at once. 'Phone for the car. Don't waste an instant." At
least she would be there--where battle was raging.
"But, mademoiselle, in an hour you are due for a fitting--your
wedding-gown."
"Don't stop to talk--hurry!"
Her wedding-gown! She wondered if she would ever need it.
As her car neared the business district she could feel in the air such
an electric tensity as one might expect to find at the verge of a
battle-field.
At first it was only a spirit of heightened excitement in the street
crowds; and the way men ran to meet the newsboys half-way. Then it was
humanity jostling about the doors of a bank with the excitement of
swarming bees. Across City Hall park came a glimpse of surging throngs
at the bulletin boards, and the unpleasant chorus of voices as fresh
bulletins went up.
* * * * *
Hamilton Burton had reached his office that morning at eight-thirty and
was ready upon their arrival to confer with those lieutenants whom he
had ordered to be with him at nine. Len Haswell appeared with the
lack-luster seeming of a jaded spirit and though Burton had on past
occasions chosen him as leader of every fierce assault on the floor,
because of his quick brain, his commanding physique and the voice that
could boom out like a heavy gun over the pandemonium of a frenzied
exchange, he now eyed his gigantic broker dubiously. This was no day for
his lieutenants to carry into that Gehenna which he meant to precipitate
senses dulled, or hearts cast down. This morning's work called for such
spirit as carries forward a tide of bayonets thirsting for blood back of
the trenches they charge. There must be the ferocity of barbarians
bearing knife and torch: of the hordes of the Huns and Vandals. There of
course was Hardinge, a man who, had he not been a broker, might have
made a headquarters detective, so hard and devoid of humanity was the
fashion in which he went about his work. His nature was that of a cock
tossed into the pit or a bull turned into the ring. Such men Hamilton
wanted now, for into the five hours of the Stock-Exchange day he meant
to crowd such a sum of mad disaster and panic conflagration that the
history of the Money World should be beggared for a comparison. They had
tauntingly named him the Great Bear, but this day should demonstrate
that heretofore he had been only a gentle and playful cub. Cash--cash,
cash! Such had been his watchword and he had stamped on the world of
finance a belief that his command of gold was endless. Even should he
reach the end of his resources with his task unfinished, he knew that
his tremendous nerve was in itself unlimited backing. The nature of the
trading on the floor precluded any discovery, during the length of the
session, of a depleted treasury--and left open the path for onward
charges. But before his treasury was depleted the whole structure would
lie in ruins.
He glanced out of his window and smiled. It was the sort of a day which
men in police circles describe as "suicide weather." Coroners will tell
you that on such days their calls are most numerous and history will
tell you that on such days the greatest financial disasters of the world
have visited stock-exchanges and bourses. Burton's jaws were set and his
eyes ablaze with a fiery tenseness which was hardly sane. His loins were
girded and to one focal object was every power dedicated. He was going
to mete out death and destruction. He would grapple with enemies who had
taught him the art of death and destruction. As he ended his
instructions to his brokers he looked at his watch; it was
nine-forty-five. "Cut loose!" he almost shouted. "Railway Generals
closed at 175. By noon I want them down to 50. When Malone's gang begin
pegging the market, break their pegs. Don't spare Coal and Ore. Keep
them too busy with self-preservation to let them think of rescuing
others. Give them slaughter--and unshirted hell!"
* * * * *
The light that rains down from the ceiling of the Stock-Exchange is a
softened, benevolent light, even when the outer skies are lowering. The
gentlemen inside play their game in a well-appointed gambling parlor.
It would not be fitting that they should seem pikers. Above them
stretches a ceiling of soft color scheme in delicate pink and blue and
from this canopy sixty-two ceiling lights shed down a tempered radiance
from globes suggestive of inverted golden blossoms. The great
bronze-framed windows, too, at the east and west make a greater part of
the wall area as receptive of brightness as does a studio skylight--for
the world's cleverest financiers must be cheered by brightness and
protected against gloom.
Today the great interior cube of space needed all the light that could
flood the area between its marble walls--for despite the sixty-two
inverted blossoms it was to see black hours.
Of that there was of course no suspicion at first.
The assembled brokers chatted carelessly, and between them sedately
passed the floor employees in cadet gray, and boys carrying green
watering-pots with which, when many feet had pounded the boards into
dust, they would sprinkle this hot-house of Finance, as they might have
sprinkled a bed of thirsty geraniums.
Then from the marble balcony, where is placed the president's chair,
sounded the clang of the opening gong. The session had begun.
Hamilton Burton's lieutenants meant to waste no moment of the five-hour
session. Another day meant the drawing of new lines, and time for
tallying and rallying, but what was done today was immutably done.
Hardinge and Haswell stood near the post at whose head hung the sign,
"Railway Generals." About them lounged a handful of dilatory brokers.
Railway Generals had closed yesterday strong at 175, but quotations from
London, where by reason of difference in time there had already been
several hours of trading, reflected an unaccountable nervousness
over-seas. So the stock opened five points off.
Every game has its traditional rules. It is a cardinal by-law of the
Exchange that until the gong peals every man on the floor must maintain
an unruffled and blasé composure, though when the clamor of the big bell
unleashes their restraint whosoever chooses may leap into the frenzy of
a madhouse.
A voice at the Railway-Generals post drawled out "170 for any part of
5,000 Generals," and on the instant Hardinge's deep basso boomed a
challenge and a battle cry as he yelled back, "Sold!"
The bidder was Jack Staples, and he bore the credentials of J.J. Malone.
For just an instant he eyed his vis-à-vis and his prominent lower jaw
seemed to protrude more aggressively, as his indolent manner dropped
from him and his eyes kindled. He brushed back the white lock on his
forehead and defiantly shouted, "168 for any part of 10,000," but before
the words had come to conclusion on his lips, the rifle-like retort had
met him from the throat of Hardinge, "Sold!"
"165 for any part of 10,000!"--"Sold!" This time the deep-lunged
monosyllable burst volcanically from the lips of Len Haswell, and it
rang across the floor and echoed between the walls like a thunderclap
between the cliffs of a mountain gorge.
Instantly crowds surged forward and elbowed their ways to the Generals
post. Where five minutes back there had been scant dozens there were now
full hundreds who shouldered and shoved and fought, struck by a sudden
wild realization that a fight was on. At the center of the vortex they
could see the sandy head of Len Haswell high above the crowns of other
men and in his face they read the gage of battle. No longer was this the
heartsick face which of late had avoided the gaze of his fellows. It was
the fighting face of one who hurls himself into the thick of a
struggle, seeking forgetfulness in the ferocity of combat.
"163 for any part of 10,000"--"SOLD!"
With each repetition the unchanged formula took on an added ferocity--a
deeper meaning. It was a three-cornered duel. Jack Staples leaned
eagerly forward, his eyes burning and keen with aggressive alertness
like a boxer facing opponents in a battle royal. Len Haswell seemed
bending to meet him, his long arm raised and his face afire, while
Hardinge, whose place had been for the moment preëmpted, mopped his
brow, already perspiring, and smiled grimly like a relay racer waiting
his turn.
But what gave an undercurrent of terrific force to the battle of these
three men was the thing which every broker present understood--that one
of them was the floor spokesman of Malone and Harrison and the old
invincible order of Consolidated--and that two voiced the message of the
new power and in the name of Hamilton Burton were declaring a war to the
death.
"160 for any part of 20,000"--"SOLD!"
Generals had broken fifteen points in ten minutes and were slumping as
though their foundations floated in thin air. A yell went up over the
floor through which sounded demoniac notes of panic and rage. Men surged
around the Generals post, struggling as cowards might struggle to leave
a burning theater, collars tore loose and eyes glittered like those of a
wolf-pack. The blackboards at north and south burst into a hysterical
flashing of white numbers, and a word went out which set the cylinders
of printing presses whirling. A Burton bear raid was on, and the Street
was in panic-making excitement!
But close around the post three figures still dominated the picture.
Staples with his tigerish teeth to the crowd fought the two men who
carried Burton's orders and who with implacable monosyllables still
hammered the market with sledges of mighty resource. What had been the
orderly floor of an artistically designed mart of trade was now a hell
of pandemonium. With the sweat pouring down his face, his hands clenched
above his head, and his deep voice strained into a hoarse bellow, Jack
Staples of Consolidated fought as a man fights death, to breast and stem
and turn the tidal wave of disaster.
Other stocks followed suit, and while Haswell, forgetting in his
excitement that he had been officially superseded, crouched face to
face, battering his opponent, Hardinge fought his way like a madman out
of the maelstrom and declared war on Coal and Ore. Voices blended into a
frenzied Walpurgian uproar. Frantic telephone calls made the blackboard
one flickering, wavering, confusing area of black and white where no
spot was white for any consecutive minute and no spot black.
For an hour it raged so, down!--down!--down!--with no moment of recovery
and no instant of changing tide. When now and again the din subsided for
a few moments of recovered breath, while traders "verified," faces
streaming sweat looked as haggard as though it was blood that was
pouring from them. Voices cracked with hoarseness as men stood panting
like dogs torn from the embrace of battle and waiting only for the leash
to loosen and free them again for renewed battle. Underfoot they trod
the confetti-like scraps of torn papers. Among them went the men with
green watering-pots. Outside newsboys called yet new extras. The market
had been open an hour and the Street was seeing the most delirious day
of mania in its history. Then in one of the lulls came that sound which
between the hours of ten and three is never heard save as the clarion of
disaster. The great gong in the president's gallery sent out its
strident and metallic voice, and in the dead silence that followed its
command an announcement was made.
"The Western Trust Company announces that it cannot meet its
obligations."
The weakest barrier had fallen, and it was only the beginning.