There are times and seasons which seem to be full of happenings,
followed by long stretches that have only the character of transition
from the former stage to something that is to come. Weeks and months
fly by us; we do not realize that they are here before they are gone,
there is so little to mark any day from its fellow. Yet we lay too
much stress on the power of separate and peculiar events to shape the
current of our lives, and do not take into account that drama which
never ceases to be acted, which knows no pause nor interim, and which
takes place within ourselves.
It was April once more before Dosia Linden came North again, after
extending months, in no day of which had her stay seemed anything but
temporary--a condition to be ended next week or the week after at
farthest. Her father's illness turned out to be a lingering one,
taking every last ounce of strength from his wife and his daughter;
and after his death the little stepmother had collapsed for a while,
with only Dosia to take the helm. Dosia had worked early and late,
nursing, looking after the children, cooking, sewing, and later on,
when sickness and death had taken nearly all the means of livelihood,
trying to earn money for the immediate needs by teaching the scales to
some of the temporary tribe at the hotel--an existence in which self
was submerged in loving care for those who clung to her; and to cling
to Dosia was always to receive from her. Sleep was the goal of the
day, and too much of a luxury to have any of its precious moments
wasted in wakeful dreaming; besides, there was nothing to dream about
any more. As she crept into her low bed, she turned away from the
moonlight, because there are times, when one is young, when moonlight
is very hard to bear.
The little family, bewildered and exhausted, had come to the end of
its resources, when Mrs. Linden's brother in San Francisco offered her
and her children a home with him--an offer which, naturally, did not
include Dosia. She was very glad for them, but, after all, though she
had worked so hard for them, they were not to belong to her for her
very own. The aunt whose generosity had given her the money for her
musical education had also died, leaving a small sum in trust for the
girl. It was that which furnished her with means when she went once
more to stay at the Alexanders'. Justin himself had written to see if
she could come.
There was another baby now, a couple of months old, and Lois needed
her. No fairy-story maiden this, going out to seek her fortune, who
took an uneventful train journey this time--only a very tired girl,
worn with work and worn with the sorrow of parting, yet thankful to
lean her head against the back of the car-seat and feel the burden of
anxiety and care slip from her for a little while.
Hard work alone is not ennobling, but drudgery for those whom we love
may have its uplifting trend. Dosia was pale and thin; the blue veins
on her temples showed more plainly. Her face was no longer the typical
white page, unwritten upon; that first freshness of youth and
inexperience had gone. Dosia had lived. Young as she was, she had
tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; she had known
suffering; she had faced shame and disappointment and--truth; yes,
through everything she had faced that--taken herself to account,
probed, condemned, renounced. What she had lost in youthfulness she
had gained in character. She had an innocent nobility of expression
that came from a light within, as of one ready to answer unwaveringly
wherever she might be called. Yet something in her soft eyes at times
trembled into being, indescribably gentle, intolerably sweet--the soul
of that Dosia who was made to be loved.
[Illustration: "MRS. LEVERICH BOWED INCIDENTALLY"]
If she had changed since that first journeying a year and a half ago,
so had the conditions changed in the household to which she went.
Justin had had the not unusual experience of the business man who has
achieved what he has set out to achieve without the expected result;
in the silting-pan which holds success some of the gold mysteriously
drops through. The Typometer Company was doing a very large business,
quadrupled since the day of its inception. The building was hardly big
enough now to hold the offices and manufacturing plant; the force had
been greatly increased, and an additional floor for storage had been
hired next door. The typometer had absorbed the output of two small
rival companies, one out West and one in a neighboring town--both
glad, in view of a losing game, to make terms with the successful
arbiter. Where one person used a typometer three years ago, it was in
request by fifty people now, for many things--for many more, indeed,
than had been thought of at first; every week plans in special
adjustments were made to fit the machine for different purposes. It
was undoubtedly not only a success in itself, but was destined to fit
into more and more of the needs of the working world as a standard
product.
Orders came in from all parts of the globe. Justin, as he hurried over
to his office or held important consultations with the men who wanted
to see him, was awarded the respect given to the head of a large and
successful concern. He was marked as a rising man. Yet, in spite of
all this real accomplishment of the Typometer Company, the net profits
had always fallen short of the mark set for them; the company was in
constant and growing need of money.
Prices of everything to do with manufacturing had increased--prices of
copper and steel, of machinery, of wages, in addition to the larger
number of hands employed, and the rent of the additional floor. It was
always necessary for one's peace of mind to go back to the value of
the material stock and the assets to be counted on in the future. The
steady branching out of the business in every direction was proof of
the fact that if it did not it must retrench; and to retrench meant
fewer orders, fewer opportunities--financial suicide.
It was the powerful shibboleth of the world of trade that one must be
seen to be doing business; only so could the doors of credit be
opened. If Cater came in with him now, as seemed at last to be
expected, the doors must open farther. No matter how one tries to see
all around the consequences of any change, any undertaking, there
always arise minor consequences which from their very nature must be
unforeseen, and yet which may turn out to be the really powerful
factors in the main issue; unimportant genii that, let out of their
bottle, swell immeasurably. The consequences of the fire, small as it
was, seemed never-ending. The defective bars had proved a disastrous
supply for the machine, in more ways than one.
Left by the Leverich-Martin combination to work his own retrieval, he
had borrowed the ten thousand from Lewiston, and had used part of the
money to pay the interest to the others; and later, in the flush of
reinstatement, he had borrowed another ten thousand from Leverich, a
loan to be called by him at any time. Lewiston's loan had seemed easy
of repayment at six months. Justin knew when the money was coming in,
but he had been obliged, after all, to anticipate, and get his bills
discounted before they came due for other purposes, often paying huge
tribute for the service. Lewiston had renewed the note for sixty days,
and then for sixty more, but with the proviso that this was the last
extension.
In short, the whole process of competently keeping afloat had been
gone through, with a definite aim of accomplishment. Cater's
cooperation, about which he had been so slow, would infuse new blood
into the business. It was maddening at times to have so many good uses
for money, and to be unable to command it at the crucial moment. He
had approached Eugene Larue on that past Sunday afternoon, only to
find him cautiously negative where once he had seemed friendlily
suggesting.
Such a process, to be successful, depends on the power of the man
behind it, which must not only comprehend and direct the larger
issues, but must be able to carry along smoothly all the easily
entangling threads of detail; he must not only have a capable brain,
but he must have the untiring nervous energy that can "hold out"
through any crisis. Such men may go to pieces after incredible effort,
but they are on the way to success first. Danger only quickens the
sure leap to safety.
[Illustration: "WITH EYES FOR NOBODY ELSE"]
Justin, preëminently clear-headed, had been conscious lately of two
phases--one an almost preternatural illumination of intellect, and the
other a sort of brain-inertia, more soul-and body-fatiguing than any
pain. There were seasons when he was obliged to think when he could
instead of when he would. He looked grave, alert, competent, but
underneath this demeanor there went an unceasing effort of computation
and reckoning to which the computation and reckoning on the first
night of his agreement with Leverich was as a child's play with toy
bricks is to the building of an edifice of stone.
[Illustration: "FLOWERS AND CHILDREN--CHILDREN AND FLOWERS!"]
The large business responsibilities now incurred clashed grotesquely
with the daily need of money at home for petty uses, a condition of
affairs which often happens at the birth of a child, when the
household is at loose ends, and the expenses are necessarily greater
in every direction, at the time when it seems most imperative to limit
them. He seemed never to have enough "change" in his pockets, no
matter how much he brought home.
[Illustration: "'THE LITTLE SPIDER WON'T HURT YOU'"]
In some men the business faculties become more and more self-sufficing
when there is no other passion to divide them--the nature grows all
one way; and there are others who seem independent, yet who are always
as dependent as children on the unnoticed, sustaining help of
affectionate love that makes the home a refuge from the provoking of
all men; that unreasonably, and at all times, hotly champions the
cause of the beloved against the world. No help-giving virtue had gone
out from this household in the last year; it had all been a dead lift.
Justin had never spoken of his affairs to Lois since that Sunday when
she had said that she hated them. When she had asked for money, she
had always added the proviso, "if he could afford it," and accepted
the fact either way without comment. He was, as time went on, more and
more affectionately solicitous for her welfare, even if he was, as she
keenly felt, less personally loving.
If she went to bed early in the evening, he took that opportunity to
go out; and if she stayed up, he remained at home and went to sleep on
the lounge, and the little touch that binds divergence with the inner
thread of sympathy was lacking.
Yet, strange as it might seem, while she consciously suffered far the
most, his loss was mysteriously the greater; the fire of love of which
she was by right high priestess still burned secretly for her tending
as she covered over the embers on the hearthstone, though he was cold
and chill for lack of that vital warmth.
There were moments when she felt that she could die gladly for him,
but always for that glory of self-triumphing in the end. Then that
which seemed as if it could never change began to change.
Before the child was born, and now since that, there was a difference.
Men and women who suffer most from imaginary wrongs may become sane
and heroic in times of real danger. Lois, noble, sweet, and brave,
thoughtful for Zaidee and Redge and Justin even while she trembled,
excited reverence and a deep and anxious tenderness in her husband.
Then, afterward, he was proud of his second son. When Justin came in
at the end of each day and sat down by her bedside, holding her
blue-veined hand while she smiled peacefully at him, there was a
sweet, sufficing pleasure about those few minutes, singularly
soothing, though the interim had no relation to actual living, except
in the fact that one anxiety had been lifted. While the expectant
birth of the child had been to her, as it is to almost every woman, a
separate and distinct calamitous illness to which she looked forward
as one might look forward to being taken with typhoid or diphtheria,
he considered it as a manifestation of nature, not in itself
dangerous, and her fear that of a child, to be soothed by reason.
Still, he had had his moments of a reluctant, twinging fear. One cause
for disquieting thought was removed. Now the helplessness of this
little family, for whom he was the provider, tugged at a swelling
heart.
As he walked toward his office to-day somewhat later than was his
wont, he diverged from his usual custom: instead of entering his own
doorway, he went across the street to Cater's after a moment's
hesitation. Now that Cater's coöperation was at the consummating
point, it was wiser not to run the risk of its sagging back. Leverich
and Martin were keenly for its success. Justin's credit would rise
immeasurably with it. The Typometer Company had absorbed the minor
machines with so little trouble that the unabsorbability of the
timoscript had seemed an unnecessary stumbling-block. Time and time
again Justin had sought Cater with tabulated figures and unanswerable
arguments. The combination, he firmly believed, would be highly
beneficial for both. The field was, in its way, too narrow to be
divided with the highest profit; together they could command the
trade.
[Illustration: "'NEVER LET HIM COME HERE AGAIN--NEVER, NEVER!'"]
Cater was opposed to all combinations as trusts,--a word against which
he was principled,--with obstinate refusal to differentiate as to
kind, quality, or intent. Like many men who are given to a far-seeing
philosophy in words, he was narrow-mindedly cautious when it came to
action, apt to be suspicious in the wrong place, and requiring to be
continually reassured about conditions which seemed the very a-b-c of
commerce. The rivalry between the two firms had been apparently
good-natured, yet a little of the sharp edge of competition had shown
signs of cutting through the bond.
The typometer had put its prices down, and the timoscript had cut
under; then the typometer had gone as low as was wise, and the
timoscript had begun to weaken in its defenses.
Cater was already at work at a big desk as Justin entered, but rose to
shake hands. There was a look of melancholy in his eyes, in spite of
his smile of greeting.
"Anything wrong with you?" asked Justin, instinctively noticing the
look rather than the smile.
"No," said Cater. He hooked his legs under his chair, and leaned back,
the light from the high unshaded window striking full on his lean
yellow countenance. "No, there's nothing wrong. Got some things off my
mind, things that have been bothering me for a long time, and I reckon
I don't feel quite easy without 'em."
"I think you're very lucky," said Justin. The light from the high
window fell on his face, too--on his brown hair, turning a little gray
at the temples, on the set lines of his face, in which his eyes, keen
and blue, looked intently at his friend. He was well dressed; the foot
that was crossed over his knee was excellently shod.
Cater shifted a little in his seat. "Well, I don't know. My experience
is some different from the usual run, I reckon. I never had any big
streak of luck that it didn't get back at me afterwards. There was my
marriage--I know it ain't the thing to talk about your marriage, but
you do sometimes. My wife's a fine woman,--yes, sir, I was mighty
lucky to get her,--but I didn't know how to live up to her family.
It's been that-a-way all my life. Sure's I get to ringin' the bells,
the floorin' caves in under me."
"We'll see that the flooring holds, now that you're coming in with
us," said Justin good-naturedly. "I've got some propositions to put up
to you to-day."
Cater shook his head. "There's no use of your putting up any
propositions. I've been drawin' on my well of thought so hard lately
that I reckon you could hear the pumps workin' plumb across the
street. I've been cipherin' down to the fact that I can't go it alone,
any more'n you,--there we agree; hold on, now!--but I can't combine."
"You can't!" cried Justin, with unusual violence. "Why not?"
"Well, you know my feelin's about trusts, and--I like you, Mr.
Alexander, you know that, mighty well, but I balk at your backin'. I
don't believe in it. It'll fail when you count on it most. It'll cramp
on you merciless if you come short of its expectations. Leverich isn't
so bad, but Martin cramps a hold of him, and I can't stand Martin
havin' a finger in any concern _I_ have a hold of."
"He's clever enough to make what he touches pay," said Justin.
Cater's eyebrows contracted. "You say he's clever; because he's
tricky--because he's sharp. He isn't clever enough to make money
honestly; he isn't big enough. You and me, we're honest, or try to be;
but we haven't the brain to give every man his just due, and get
ahead, too. It's the greatest game there is, but you got to be a
genius to play it. You and me, we can't do it; we ain't got the brain
and we ain't got the nerve. _I_ haven't. You've just everlastingly got
to do the best for yourself if you've got a family; the best _as_ you
see it."
"What's all this leading up to? What change have you been making,
Cater?" asked Justin, with stern abruptness.
"I've given the agency of the machine to Hardanger."
"Hardanger!" Justin's face flushed momentarily, then became set and
expressionless. To stand out on abstract questions of honor, and then
tacitly break all faith by going in with Hardanger!
"I shut down on part of my plant when I began figuring on this
change," continued Cater. "I've been getting the steel fittin's on
contract from Beuschoten again, as I did at first; it'll come cheaper
in the end. Gives us a pretty big stock to start off with. I was
sorry--I was sorry to have to turn off a dozen men, but what you going
to do? I've got to cut down on the manufacturing as close as I can
now."
"I suppose so."
"I wanted to tell you the first one," said Cater.
"Well, I congratulate you," said Justin formally, rising.
"This isn't going to make any difference in the friendship between me
and you, Mr. Alexander? I've thought a powerful lot of your
friendship. If I'd 'a' seen any way to have come in with you, I'd 'a'
done it. But business ain't going to interfere between two such good
friends as we are!"
"Why, no," said Justin, with the conventional answer to an appeal
which still pitifully claims for truth that which it has made false.
The handshake that followed was one in which all their friendship
seemed to dissolve and change its character, hardening into ice.
_Hardanger!_
Hardanger & Company represented one of the greatest factors in the
trade of two hemispheres. To say that a thing was taken up by
Hardanger meant its success. They took nothing that was not likely to
succeed; they _made_ it succeed--for them. Their agents in all parts
of the known world had easy access to firms and to opportunities hard
to be reached by those of lesser credit. Their reputation was
unassailed; they kept scrupulously to the terms agreed upon. The only
bar to putting an article into their hands was the fact that their
terms--except in the case of certain standard articles which they were
obliged to have--embraced nearly all the profits, only the very
narrowest margins coming to the original owners. Everything had to be
figured down, and still further and further down, by those owners, to
make that margin possible. It was cutthroat all the way through--a
policy that made for the rottenness of trade.
Justin and Leverich had once made tentative investigations as to
Hardanger, with the conclusion that there was far more money outside,
even if one must go a little more slowly. It was better to go a little
more slowly, for the sake of getting so much more out of it in the
end. Hardanger was to be kept as a last resort, if everything else
failed. Cater had expressed himself as feeling the same way; that was
the understanding between them. But now? Backed by this powerful
agency, the timoscript assumed disquieting proportions. In the
distance, a time not so very far distant either, Justin could see
himself squeezed to the wall, the output of his factory bought up by
Hardanger for the price of old iron--forced into it, whether he would
or no. Why had he been so short-sighted? Why hadn't he made terms
himself sooner? But Cater had been a fool to give in to those terms
when, by combining, they could have swung trade between them to their
own measure. Then Hardanger might have been obliged to seek _them_, to
take their price!--Hardanger, who could afford to laugh at his
pretensions now!
He thought of Cater without malice--with, instead, a shrewd, kind
philosophy, a sad, clear-visioned impulse of pity mixed with his
wonder. So that was the way a man was caught stumbling between the
meshes, blinded, dulled, unconsciously maimed of honor, while still
feeling himself erect and honest-eyed! There had been no written
agreement between them that either should consult the other before
seeking Hardanger; but some promises should be all the stronger for
not being written.
This thing _couldn't_ happen; in some way, he must get his foot inside
the door, so that it couldn't shut on him. There was that note of
Lewiston's, due in thirty days--no, twenty-five now. What about that?
Later in the day, after he had been seeing drayful after drayful of
boxes leave the factory opposite, Bullen, the foreman, came into the
office with some estimates, pointing out the figures with a small
strip of steel tubing held absently in his fingers.
While the clerks were all deferential, and those of foreign birth
obsequious, Bullen had an air that was more than sturdily
independent--the air and the eye of the skilled mechanic. On his own
ground he was master, and Justin, with a smile, deferred to him. But
Justin broke into Bullen's calculations abruptly, after a while, to
ask:
"What's that you've got there? It looks like one of those bars that
nearly smashed us."
"You've got a good eye, sir," said Bullen approvingly. "A year and a
half ago you'd not have seen any difference between one bit of steel
and another. But there's one thing I didn't see about it myself until
Venly--he's a new man we've taken on--pointed it out to me. He came
across a case of these to-day we'd thrown out in the waste-heap. We
thought our machine had jarred them out of shape, because they were a
fraction off size; well, so they were. But Venly he spotted them in a
minute, when he was out there, and he asked me if they weren't from
the Beuschoten factory--he was turned off from there last week;
they're cutting down the force; they always do, come spring. He said
they looked like part of a bum lot that had flaws in them. He got the
magnifying-glass and showed me, and, sure enough, 'twas right he was!
He says they've got piles of them they've been workin' off on the
trade at a cut price. Venly he said he didn't have any stomach for a
skin game like that."
"That's a pretty ruinous way to do business, isn't it?" asked Justin.
"Oh, they're going to sell out in July, so they don't care. I pity any
one that's counting on any sort of machine that's got these in 'em.
Would you take the glass and look for yourself, sir? Every one of 'em
is flawed!"