VIII

On that particular morning in April, the trading around the Wheat Pit

on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade began practically a full

five minutes ahead of the stroke of the gong; and the throng of brokers

and clerks that surged in and about the Pit itself was so great that it

overflowed and spread out over the floor between the wheat and corn

pits, ousting the traders in oats from their traditional ground. The

market had closed the day before with May wheat at ninety-eight and

five-eighths, and the Bulls had prophesied and promised that the magic

legend "Dollar wheat" would be on the Western Union wires before

another twenty-four hours.

The indications pointed to a lively morning's work. Never for an

instant during the past six weeks had the trading sagged or languished.

The air of the Pit was surcharged with a veritable electricity; it had

the effervescence of champagne, or of a mountain-top at sunrise. It was

buoyant, thrilling.

The "Unknown Bull" was to all appearance still in control; the whole

market hung upon his horns; and from time to time, one felt the sudden

upward thrust, powerful, tremendous, as he flung the wheat up another

notch. The "tailers"--the little Bulls--were radiant. In the dark, they

hung hard by their unseen and mysterious friend who daily, weekly, was

making them richer. The Bears were scarcely visible. The Great Bull in

a single superb rush had driven them nearly out of the Pit. Growling,

grumbling they had retreated, and only at distance dared so much as to

bare a claw. Just the formidable lowering of the Great Bull's frontlet

sufficed, so it seemed, to check their every move of aggression or

resistance. And all the while, Liverpool, Paris, Odessa, and Buda-Pesth

clamoured ever louder and louder for the grain that meant food to the

crowded streets and barren farms of Europe.

A few moments before the opening Charles Cressler was in the public

room, in the southeast corner of the building, where smoking was

allowed, finishing his morning's cigar. But as he heard the distant

striking of the gong, and the roar of the Pit as it began to get under

way, with a prolonged rumbling trepidation like the advancing of a

great flood, he threw his cigar away and stepped out from the public

room to the main floor, going on towards the front windows. At the

sample tables he filled his pockets with wheat, and once at the windows

raised the sash and spread the pigeons' breakfast on the granite ledge.

While he was watching the confused fluttering of flashing wings, that

on the instant filled the air in front of the window, he was all at

once surprised to hear a voice at his elbow, wishing him good morning.

"Seem to know you, don't they?"

Cressler turned about.

"Oh," he said. "Hullo, hullo--yes, they know me all right. Especially

that red and white hen. She's got a lame wing since yesterday, and if I

don't watch, the others would drive her off. The pouter brute yonder,

for instance. He's a regular pirate. Wants all the wheat himself. Don't

ever seem to get enough."

"Well," observed the newcomer, laconically, "there are others."

The man who spoke was about forty years of age. His name was Calvin

Hardy Crookes. He was very small and very slim. His hair was yet dark,

and his face--smooth-shaven and triangulated in shape, like a

cat's--was dark as well. The eyebrows were thin and black, and the lips

too were thin and were puckered a little, like the mouth of a

tight-shut sack. The face was secretive, impassive, and cold.

The man himself was dressed like a dandy. His coat and trousers were of

the very newest fashion. He wore a white waistcoat, drab gaiters, a

gold watch and chain, a jewelled scarf pin, and a seal ring. From the

top pocket of his coat protruded the finger tips of a pair of unworn

red gloves.

"Yes," continued Crookes, unfolding a brand-new pocket handkerchief as

he spoke. "There are others--who never know when they've got enough

wheat."

"Oh, you mean the 'Unknown Bull.'"

"I mean the unknown damned fool," returned Crookes placidly.

There was not a trace of the snob about Charles Cressler. No one could

be more democratic. But at the same time, as this interview proceeded,

he could not fight down nor altogether ignore a certain qualm of

gratified vanity. Had the matter risen to the realm of his

consciousness, he would have hated himself for this. But it went no

further than a vaguely felt increase of self-esteem. He seemed to feel

more important in his own eyes; he would have liked to have his friends

see him just now talking with this man. "Crookes was saying to-day--"

he would observe when next he met an acquaintance. For C. H. Crookes

was conceded to be the "biggest man" in La Salle Street. Not even the

growing importance of the new and mysterious Bull could quite make the

market forget the Great Bear. Inactive during all this trampling and

goring in the Pit, there were yet those who, even as they strove

against the Bull, cast uneasy glances over their shoulders, wondering

why the Bear did not come to the help of his own.

"Well, yes," admitted Cressler, combing his short beard, "yes, he is a

fool."

The contrast between the two men was extreme. Each was precisely what

the other was not. The one, long, angular, loose-jointed; the other,

tight, trim, small, and compact. The one osseous, the other sleek; the

one stoop-shouldered, the other erect as a corporal of infantry.

But as Cressler was about to continue Crookes put his chin in the air.

"Hark!" he said. "What's that?"

For from the direction of the Wheat Pit had come a sudden and vehement

renewal of tumult. The traders as one man were roaring in chorus. There

were cheers; hats went up into the air. On the floor by the lowest step

two brokers, their hands trumpet-wise to their mouths, shouted at top

voice to certain friends at a distance, while above them, on the

topmost step of the Pit, a half-dozen others, their arms at fullest

stretch, threw the hand signals that interpreted the fluctuations in

the price, to their associates in the various parts of the building.

Again and again the cheers rose, violent hip-hip-hurrahs and tigers,

while from all corners and parts of the floor men and boys came

scurrying up. Visitors in the gallery leaned eagerly upon the railing.

Over in the provision pit, trading ceased for the moment, and all heads

were turned towards the commotion of the wheat traders.

"Ah," commented Crookes, "they did get it there at last."

For the hand on the dial had suddenly jumped another degree, and not a

messenger boy, not a porter not a janitor, none whose work or life

brought him in touch with the Board of Trade, that did not feel the

thrill. The news flashed out to the world on a hundred telegraph wires;

it was called to a hundred offices across the telephone lines. From

every doorway, even, as it seemed, from every window of the building,

spreading thence all over the city, the State, the Northwest, the

entire nation, sped the magic words, "Dollar wheat."

Crookes turned to Cressler.

"Can you lunch with me to-day--at Kinsley's? I'd like to have a talk

with you."

And as soon as Cressler had accepted the invitation, Crookes, with a

succinct nod, turned upon his heel and walked away.

At Kinsley's that day, in a private room on the second floor, Cressler

met not only Crookes, but his associate Sweeny, and another gentleman

by the name of Freye, the latter one of his oldest and best-liked

friends.

Sweeny was an Irishman, florid, flamboyant, talkative, who spoke with a

faint brogue, and who tagged every observation, argument, or remark

with the phrase, "Do you understand me, gen'lemen?" Freye, a

German-American, was a quiet fellow, very handsome, with black side

whiskers and a humourous, twinkling eye. The three were members of the

Board of Trade, and were always associated with the Bear forces.

Indeed, they could be said to be its leaders. Between them, as Cressler

afterwards was accustomed to say, "They could have bought pretty much

all of the West Side."

And during the course of the luncheon these three, with a simplicity

and a directness that for the moment left Cressler breathless,

announced that they were preparing to drive the Unknown Bull out of the

Pit, and asked him to become one of the clique.

Crookes, whom Cressler intuitively singled out as the leader, did not

so much as open his mouth till Sweeny had talked himself breathless,

and all the preliminaries were out of the way. Then he remarked, his

eye as lifeless as the eye of a fish, his voice as expressionless as

the voice of Fate itself:

"I don't know who the big Bull is, and I don't care a curse. But he

don't suit my book. I want him out of the market. We've let him have

his way now for three or four months. We figured we'd let him run to

the dollar mark. The May option closed this morning at a dollar and an

eighth.... Now we take hold.

"But," Cressler hastened to object, "you forget--I'm not a speculator."

Freye smiled, and tapped his friend on the arm.

"I guess, Charlie," he said, "that there won't be much speculating

about this."

"Why, gen'lemen," cried Sweeny, brandishing a fork, "we're going to

sell him right out o' the market, so we are. Simply flood out the

son-of-a-gun--you understand me, gen'lemen?"

Cressler shook his head.

"No," he answered. "No, you must count me out. I quit speculating years

ago. And, besides, to sell short on this kind of market--I don't need

to tell you what you risk."

"Risk hell!" muttered Crookes.

"Well, now, I'll explain to you, Charlie," began Freye.

The other two withdrew a little from the conversation. Crookes, as ever

monosyllabic, took himself on in a little while, and Sweeny, his chair

tipped back against the wall, his hands clasped behind his head,

listened to Freye explaining to Cressler the plans of the proposed

clique and the lines of their attack.

He talked for nearly an hour and a half, at the end of which time the

lunch table was one litter of papers--letters, contracts, warehouse

receipts, tabulated statistics, and the like.

"Well," said Freye, at length, "well, Charlie, do you see the game?

What do you think of it?"

"It's about as ingenious a scheme as I ever heard of, Billy," answered

Cressler. "You can't lose, with Crookes back of it."

"Well, then, we can count you in, hey?"

"Count nothing," declared Cressler, stoutly. "I don't speculate."

"But have you thought of this?" urged Freye, and went over the entire

proposition, from a fresh point of view, winding up with the

exclamation: "Why, Charlie, we're going to make our everlasting

fortunes."

"I don't want any everlasting fortune, Billy Freye," protested

Cressler. "Look here, Billy. You must remember I'm a pretty old cock.

You boys are all youngsters. I've got a little money left and a little

business, and I want to grow old quiet-like. I had my fling, you know,

when you boys were in knickerbockers. Now you let me keep out of all

this. You get some one else."

"No, we'll be jiggered if we do," exclaimed Sweeny. "Say, are ye scared

we can't buy that trade journal? Why, we have it in our pocket, so we

have. D'ye think Crookes, now, couldn't make Bear sentiment with the

public, with just the lift o' one forefinger? Why, he owns most of the

commercial columns of the dailies already. D'ye think he couldn't swamp

that market with sellin' orders in the shorter end o' two days? D'ye

think we won't all hold together, now? Is that the bug in the butter?

Sure, now, listen. Let me tell you--"

"You can't tell me anything about this scheme that you've not told me

before," declared Cressler. "You'll win, of course. Crookes & Co. are

like Rothschild--earthquakes couldn't budge 'em. But I promised myself

years ago to keep out of the speculative market, and I mean to stick by

it."

"Oh, get on with you, Charlie," said Freye, good-humouredly, "you're

scared."

"Of what," asked Cressler, "speculating? You bet I am, and when you're

as old as I am, and have been through three panics, and have known what

it meant to have a corner bust under you, you'll be scared of

speculating too."

"But suppose we can prove to you," said Sweeny, all at once, "that

we're not speculating--that the other fellow, this fool Bull is doing

the speculating?"

"I'll go into anything in the way of legitimate trading," answered

Cressler, getting up from the table. "You convince me that your clique

is not a speculative clique, and I'll come in. But I don't see how your

deal can be anything else."

"Will you meet us here to-morrow?" asked Sweeny, as they got into their

overcoats.

"It won't do you any good," persisted Cressler.

"Well, will you meet us just the same?" the other insisted. And in the

end Cressler accepted.

On the steps of the restaurant they parted, and the two leaders watched

Cressler's broad, stooped shoulders disappear down the street.

"He's as good as in already," Sweeny declared. "I'll fix him to-morrow.

Once a speculator, always a speculator. He was the cock of the cow-yard

in his day, and the thing is in the blood. He gave himself clean, clean

away when he let out he was afraid o' speculating. You can't be afraid

of anything that ain't got a hold on you. Y' understand me now?"

"Well," observed Freye, "we've got to get him in."

"Talk to me about that now," Sweeny answered. "I'm new to some parts o'

this scheme o' yours yet. Why is Crookes so keen on having him in? I'm

not so keen. We could get along without him. He ain't so god-awful

rich, y' know."

"No, but he's a solid, conservative cash grain man," answered Freye,

"who hasn't been associated with speculating for years. Crookes has got

to have that element in the clique before we can approach Stires & Co.

We may have to get a pile of money from them, and they're apt to be

scary and cautious. Cressler being in, do you see, gives the clique a

substantial, conservative character. You let Crookes manage it. He

knows his business."

"Say," exclaimed Sweeny, an idea occurring to him, "I thought Crookes

was going to put us wise to-day. He must know by now who the Big Bull

is."

"No doubt he does know," answered the other. "He'll tell us when he's

ready. But I think I could copper the individual. There was a great big

jag of wheat sold to Liverpool a little while ago through Gretry,

Converse & Co., who've been acting for Curtis Jadwin for a good many

years."

"Oh, Jadwin, hey? Hi! we're after big game now, I'm thinking."

"But look here," warned Freye. "Here's a point. Cressler is not to know

by the longest kind of chalk; anyhow not until he's so far in, he can't

pull out. He and Jadwin are good friends, I'm told. Hello, it's raining

a little. Well, I've got to be moving. See you at lunch to-morrow."

As Cressler turned into La Salle Street the light sprinkle of rain

suddenly swelled to a deluge, and he had barely time to dodge into the

portico of the Illinois Trust to escape a drenching. All the passers-by

close at hand were making for the same shelter, and among these

Cressler was surprised to see Curtis Jadwin, who came running up the

narrow lane from the cafe entrance of the Grand Pacific Hotel.

"Hello! Hello, J.," he cried, when his friend came panting up the

steps, "as the whale said to Jonah, 'Come in out of the wet.'"

The two friends stood a moment under the portico, their coat collars

turned up, watching the scurrying in the street.

"Well," said Cressler, at last, "I see we got 'dollar wheat' this

morning."

"Yes," answered Jadwin, nodding, "'dollar wheat.'"

"I suppose," went on Cressler, "I suppose you are sorry, now that

you're not in it any more."

"Oh, no," replied Jadwin, nibbling off the end of a cigar. "No,

I'm--I'm just as well out of it."

"And it's for good and all this time, eh?"

"For good and all."

"Well," commented Cressler, "some one else has begun where you left

off, I guess. This Unknown Bull, I mean. All the boys are trying to

find out who he is. Crookes, though, was saying to me--Cal Crookes, you

know--he was saying he didn't care who he was. Crookes is out of the

market, too, I understand--and means to keep out, he says, till the Big

Bull gets tired. Wonder who the Big Bull is."

"Oh, there isn't any Big Bull," blustered Jadwin. "There's simply a lot

of heavy buying, or maybe there might be a ring of New York men

operating through Gretry. I don't know; and I guess I'm like Crookes, I

don't care--now that I'm out of the game. Real estate is too lively now

to think of anything else; keeps me on the keen jump early and late. I

tell you what, Charlie, this city isn't half grown yet. And do you

know, I've noticed another thing--cities grow to the westward. I've got

a building and loan association going, out in the suburbs on the West

Side, that's a dandy. Well, looks as though the rain had stopped.

Remember me to madam. So long, Charlie."

On leaving Cressler Jadwin went on to his offices in The Rookery, close

at hand. But he had no more than settled himself at his desk, when he

was called up on his telephone.

"Hello!" said a small, dry transformation of Gretry's voice. "Hello, is

that you, J.? Well, in the matter of that cash wheat in Duluth, I've

bought that for you."

"All right," answered Jadwin, then he added, "I guess we had better

have a long talk now."

"I was going to propose that," answered the broker. "Meet me this

evening at seven at the Grand Pacific. It's just as well that we're not

seen together nowadays. Don't ask for me. Go right into the

smoking-room. I'll be there. And, by the way, I shall expect a reply

from Minneapolis about half-past five this afternoon. I would like to

be able to get at you at once when that comes in. Can you wait down for

that?"

"Well, I was going home," objected Jadwin. "I wasn't home to dinner

last night, and Mrs. Jadwin--"

"This is pretty important, you know," warned the broker. "And if I call

you up on your residence telephone, there's always the chance of

somebody cutting in and overhearing us."

"Oh, very well, then," assented Jadwin. "I'll call it a day. I'll get

home for luncheon to-morrow. It can't be helped. By the way, I met

Cressler this afternoon, Sam, and he seemed sort of suspicious of

things, to me--as though he had an inkling."

"Better hang up," came back the broker's voice. "Better hang up, J.

There's big risk telephoning like this. I'll see you to-night. Good-by."

And so it was that about half an hour later Laura was called to the

telephone in the library.

"Oh, not coming home at all to-night?" she cried blankly in response to

Jadwin's message.

"It's just impossible, old girl," he answered.

"But why?" she insisted.

"Oh, business; this building and loan association of mine."

"Oh, I know it can't be that. Why don't you let Mr. Gretry manage

your--"

But at this point Jadwin, the warning of Gretry still fresh in his

mind, interrupted quickly:

"I must hang up now, Laura. Good-by. I'll see you to-morrow noon and

explain it all to you. Good-by.... Laura.... Hello! ... Are you there

yet? ... Hello, hello!"

But Jadwin had heard in the receiver the rattle and click as of a tiny

door closing. The receiver was silent and dead; and he knew that his

wife, disappointed and angry, had "hung up" without saying good-by.

The days passed. Soon another week had gone by. The wheat market

steadied down after the dollar mark was reached, and for a few days a

calmer period intervened. Down beneath the surface, below the ebb and

flow of the currents, the great forces were silently at work reshaping

the "situation." Millions of dollars were beginning to be set in motion

to govern the millions of bushels of wheat. At the end of the third

week of the month Freye reported to Crookes that Cressler was "in," and

promptly negotiations were opened between the clique and the great

banking house of the Stires. But meanwhile Jadwin and Gretry,

foreseeing no opposition, realising the incalculable advantage that

their knowledge of the possibility of a "corner" gave them, were,

quietly enough, gathering in the grain. As early as the end of March

Jadwin, as incidental to his contemplated corner of May wheat, had

bought up a full half of the small supply of cash wheat in Duluth,

Chicago, Liverpool and Paris--some twenty million bushels; and against

this had sold short an equal amount of the July option. Having the

actual wheat in hand he could not lose. If wheat went up, his twenty

million bushels were all the more valuable; if it went down, he covered

his short sales at a profit. And all the while, steadily, persistently,

he bought May wheat, till Gretry's book showed him to be possessed of

over twenty million bushels of the grain deliverable for that month.

But all this took not only his every minute of time, but his every

thought, his every consideration. He who had only so short a while

before considered the amount of five million bushels burdensome,

demanding careful attention, was now called upon to watch, govern, and

control the tremendous forces latent in a line of forty million. At

times he remembered the Curtis Jadwin of the spring before his

marriage, the Curtis Jadwin who had sold a pitiful million on the

strength of the news of the French import duty, and had considered the

deal "big." Well, he was a different man since that time. Then he had

been suspicious of speculation, had feared it even. Now he had

discovered that there were in him powers, capabilities, and a breadth

of grasp hitherto unsuspected. He could control the Chicago wheat

market, and the man who could do that might well call himself "great,"

without presumption. He knew that he overtopped them all--Gretry, the

Crookes gang, the arrogant, sneering Bears, all the men of the world of

the Board of Trade. He was stronger, bigger, shrewder than them all. A

few days now would show, when they would all wake to the fact that

wheat, which they had promised to deliver before they had it in hand,

was not to be got except from him--and at whatever price he chose to

impose. He could exact from them a hundred dollars a bushel if he

chose, and they must pay him the price or become bankrupts.

By now his mind was upon this one great fact--May Wheat--continually.

It was with him the instant he woke in the morning. It kept him company

during his hasty breakfast; in the rhythm of his horses' hoofs, as the

team carried him down town he heard, "Wheat--wheat--wheat,

wheat--wheat--wheat." No sooner did he enter La Salle Street, than the

roar of traffic came to his ears as the roar of the torrent of wheat

which drove through Chicago from the Western farms to the mills and

bakeshops of Europe. There at the foot of the street the torrent

swirled once upon itself, forty million strong, in the eddy which he

told himself he mastered. The afternoon waned, night came on. The day's

business was to be gone over; the morrow's campaign was to be planned;

little, unexpected side issues, a score of them, a hundred of them,

cropped out from hour to hour; new decisions had to be taken each

minute. At dinner time he left the office, and his horses carried him

home again, while again their hoofs upon the asphalt beat out

unceasingly the monotone of the one refrain, "Wheat--wheat--wheat,

wheat--wheat--wheat." At dinner table he could not eat. Between each

course he found himself going over the day's work, testing it,

questioning himself, "Was this rightly done?" "Was that particular

decision sound?" "Is there a loophole here?" "Just what was the meaning

of that despatch?" After the meal the papers, contracts, statistics and

reports which he had brought with him in his Gladstone bag were to be

studied. As often as not Gretry called, and the two, shut in the

library, talked, discussed, and planned till long after midnight.

Then at last, when he had shut the front door upon his lieutenant and

turned to face the empty, silent house, came the moment's reaction. The

tired brain flagged and drooped; exhaustion, like a weight of lead,

hung upon his heels. But somewhere a hall clock struck, a single,

booming note, like a gong--like the signal that would unchain the

tempest in the Pit to-morrow morning. Wheat--wheat--wheat,

wheat--wheat--wheat! Instantly the jaded senses braced again, instantly

the wearied mind sprang to its post. He turned out the lights, he

locked the front door. Long since the great house was asleep. In the

cold, dim silence of the earliest dawn Curtis Jadwin went to bed, only

to lie awake, staring up into the darkness, planning, devising new

measures, reviewing the day's doings, while the faint tides of blood

behind the eardrums murmured ceaselessly to the overdriven brain,

"Wheat--wheat--wheat, wheat--wheat--wheat. Forty million bushels, forty

million, forty million."

Whole days now went by when he saw his wife only at breakfast and at

dinner. At times she was angry, hurt, and grieved that he should leave

her so much alone. But there were moments when she was sorry for him.

She seemed to divine that he was not all to blame.

What Laura thought he could only guess. She no longer spoke of his

absorption in business. At times he thought he saw reproach and appeal

in her dark eyes, at times anger and a pride cruelly wounded. A few

months ago this would have touched him. But now he all at once broke

out vehemently:

"You think I am wilfully doing this! You don't know, you haven't a

guess. I corner the wheat! Great heavens, it is the wheat that has

cornered me! The corner made itself. I happened to stand between two

sets of circumstances, and they made me do what I've done. I couldn't

get out of it now, with all the good will in the world. Go to the

theatre to-night with you and the Cresslers? Why, old girl, you might

as well ask me to go to Jericho. Let that Mr. Corthell take my place."

And very naturally this is what was done. The artist sent a great bunch

of roses to Mrs. Jadwin upon the receipt of her invitation, and after

the play had the party to supper in his apartments, that overlooked the

Lake Front. Supper over, he escorted her, Mrs. Cressler, and Page back

to their respective homes.

By a coincidence that struck them all as very amusing, he was the only

man of the party. At the last moment Page had received a telegram from

Landry. He was, it appeared, sick, and in bed. The day's work on the

Board of Trade had quite used him up for the moment, and his doctor

forbade him to stir out of doors. Mrs. Cressler explained that Charlie

had something on his mind these days, that was making an old man of him.

"He don't ever talk shop with me," she said. "I'm sure he hasn't been

speculating, but he's worried and fidgety to beat all I ever saw, this

last week; and now this evening he had to take himself off to meet some

customer or other at the Palmer House."

They dropped Mrs. Cressler at the door of her home and then went on to

the Jadwins'.

"I remember," said Laura to Corthell, "that once before the three of us

came home this way. Remember? It was the night of the opera. That was

the night I first met Mr. Jadwin."

"It was the night of the Helmick failure," said Page, seriously, "and

the office buildings were all lit up. See," she added, as they drove up

to the house, "there's a light in the library, and it must be nearly

one o'clock. Mr. Jadwin is up yet."

Laura fell suddenly silent. When was it all going to end, and how?

Night after night her husband shut himself thus in the library, and

toiled on till early dawn. She enjoyed no companionship with him. Her

evenings were long, her time hung with insupportable heaviness upon her

hands.

"Shall you be at home?" inquired Corthell, as he held her hand a moment

at the door. "Shall you be at home to-morrow evening? May I come and

play to you again?"

"Yes, yes," she answered. "Yes, I shall be home. Yes, do come."

Laura's carriage drove the artist back to his apartments. All the way

he sat motionless in his place, looking out of the window with unseeing

eyes. His cigarette went out. He drew another from his case, but forgot

to light it.

Thoughtful and abstracted he slowly mounted the stairway--the elevator

having stopped for the night--to his studio, let himself in, and,

throwing aside his hat and coat, sat down without lighting the gas in

front of the fireplace, where (the weather being even yet sharp) an

armful of logs smouldered on the flagstones.

His man, Evans, came from out an inner room to ask if he wanted

anything. Corthell got out of his evening coat, and Evans brought him

his smoking-jacket and set the little table with its long tin box of

cigarettes and ash trays at his elbow. Then he lit the tall lamp of

corroded bronze, with its heavy silk shade, that stood on a table in

the angle of the room, drew the curtains, put a fresh log upon the

fire, held the tiny silver alcohol burner to Corthell while the latter

lighted a fresh cigarette, and then with a murmured "Good-night, sir,"

went out, closing the door with the precaution of a depredator.

This suite of rooms, facing the Lake Front, was what Corthell called

"home," Whenever he went away, he left it exactly as it was, in the

charge of the faithful Evans; and no mater how long he was absent, he

never returned thither without a sense of welcome and relief. Even now,

perplexed as he was, he was conscious of a feeling of comfort and

pleasure as he settled himself in his chair.

The lamp threw a dull illumination about the room. It was a picturesque

apartment, carefully planned. Not an object that had not been chosen

with care and the utmost discrimination. The walls had been treated

with copper leaf till they produced a sombre, iridescent effect of

green and faint gold, that suggested the depth of a forest glade shot

through with the sunset. Shelves bearing eighteenth-century books in

seal brown tree calf--Addison, the "Spectator," Junius and Racine,

Rochefoucauld and Pascal hung against it here and there. On every hand

the eye rested upon some small masterpiece of art or workmanship. Now

it was an antique portrait bust of the days of decadent Rome, black

marble with a bronze tiara; now a framed page of a fourteenth-century

version of "Li Quatres Filz d'Aymon," with an illuminated letter of

miraculous workmanship; or a Renaissance gonfalon of silk once white

but now brown with age, yet in the centre blazing with the escutcheon

and quarterings of a dead queen. Between the windows stood an ivory

statuette of the "Venus of the Heel," done in the days of the

magnificent Lorenzo. An original Cazin, and a chalk drawing by Baudry

hung against the wall close by together with a bronze tablet by Saint

Gaudens; while across the entire end of the room opposite the

fireplace, worked in the tapestry of the best period of the northern

French school, Halcyone, her arms already blossoming into wings,

hovered over the dead body of Ceyx, his long hair streaming like

seaweed in the blue waters of the AEgean.

For a long time Corthell sat motionless, looking into the fire. In an

adjoining room a clock chimed the half hour of one, and the artist

stirred, passing his long fingers across his eyes.

After a long while he rose, and going to the fireplace, leaned an arm

against the overhanging shelf, and resting his forehead against it,

remained in that position, looking down at the smouldering logs.

"She is unhappy," he murmured at length. "It is not difficult to see

that.... Unhappy and lonely. Oh, fool, fool to have left her when you

might have stayed! Oh, fool, fool, not to find the strength to leave

her now when you should not remain!"

The following evening Corthell called upon Mrs. Jadwin. She was alone,

as he usually found her. He had brought a book of poems with him, and

instead of passing the evening in the art gallery, as they had planned,

he read aloud to her from Rossetti. Nothing could have been more

conventional than their conversation, nothing more impersonal. But on

his way home one feature of their talk suddenly occurred to him. It

struck him as significant; but of what he did not care to put into

words. Neither he nor Laura had once spoken of Jadwin throughout the

entire evening.

Little by little the companionship grew. Corthell shut his eyes, his

ears. The thought of Laura, the recollection of their last evening

together, the anticipation of the next meeting filled all his waking

hours. He refused to think; he resigned himself to the drift of the

current. Jadwin he rarely saw. But on those few occasions when he and

Laura's husband met, he could detect no lack of cordiality in the

other's greeting. Once even Jadwin had remarked:

"I'm very glad you have come to see Mrs. Jadwin, Corthell. I have to be

away so much these days, I'm afraid she would be lonesome if it wasn't

for some one like you to drop in now and then and talk art to her."

By slow degrees the companionship trended toward intimacy. At the

various theatres and concerts he was her escort. He called upon her two

or three times each week. At his studio entertainments Laura was always

present. How--Corthell asked himself--did she regard the affair? She

gave him no sign; she never intimated that his presence was otherwise

than agreeable. Was this tacit acquiescence of hers an encouragement?

Was she willing to afficher herself, as a married woman, with a

cavalier? Her married life was intolerable, he was sure of that; her

husband uncongenial. He told himself that she detested him.

Once, however, this belief was rather shocked by an unexpected and (to

him) an inconsistent reaction on Laura's part. She had made an

engagement with him to spend an afternoon in the Art Institute, looking

over certain newly acquired canvases. But upon calling for her an hour

after luncheon he was informed that Mrs. Jadwin was not at home. When

next she saw him she told him that she had spent the entire day with

her husband. They had taken an early train and had gone up to Geneva

Lake to look over their country house, and to prepare for its opening,

later on in the spring. They had taken the decision so unexpectedly

that she had no time to tell him of the change in her plans. Corthell

wondered if she had--as a matter of fact--forgotten all about her

appointment with him. He never quite understood the incident, and

afterwards asked himself whether or no he could be so sure, after all,

of the estrangement between the husband and wife. He guessed it to be

possible that on this occasion Jadwin had suddenly decided to give

himself a holiday, and that Laura had been quick to take advantage of

it. Was it true, then, that Jadwin had but to speak the word to have

Laura forget all else? Was it true that the mere nod of his head was

enough to call her back to him? Corthell was puzzled. He would not

admit this to be true. She was, he was persuaded, a woman of more

spirit, of more pride than this would seem to indicate. Corthell ended

by believing that Jadwin had, in some way, coerced her; though he

fancied that for the few days immediately following the excursion Laura

had never been gayer, more alert, more radiant.

But the days went on, and it was easy to see that his business kept

Jadwin more and more from his wife. Often now, Corthell knew, he passed

the night down town, and upon those occasions when he managed to get

home after the day's work, he was exhausted, worn out, and went to bed

almost immediately after dinner. More than ever now the artist and Mrs.

Jadwin were thrown together.

On a certain Sunday evening, the first really hot day of the year,

Laura and Page went over to spend an hour with the Cresslers, and--as

they were all wont to do in the old days before Laura's marriage--the

party "sat out on the front stoop." For a wonder, Jadwin was able to be

present. Laura had prevailed upon him to give her this evening and the

evening of the following Wednesday--on which latter occasion she had

planned that they were to take a long drive in the park in the buggy,

just the two of them, as it had been in the days of their courtship.

Corthell came to the Cresslers quite as a matter of course. He had

dined with the Jadwins at the great North Avenue house and afterwards

the three, preferring to walk, had come down to the Cresslers on foot.

But evidently the artist was to see but little of Laura Jadwin that

evening. She contrived to keep by her husband continually. She even

managed to get him away from the others, and the two, leaving the rest

upon the steps, sat in the parlour of the Cresslers' house, talking.

By and by Laura, full of her projects, exclaimed:

"Where shall we go? I thought, perhaps, we would not have dinner at

home, but you could come back to the house just a little--a little

bit--early, and you could drive me out to the restaurant there in the

park, and we could have dinner there, just as though we weren't married

just as though we were sweethearts again. Oh, I do hope the weather

will be fine."

"Oh," answered Jadwin, "you mean Wednesday evening. Dear old girl,

honestly, I--I don't believe I can make it after all. You see,

Wednesday--"

Laura sat suddenly erect.

"But you said," she began, her voice faltering a little, "you said--"

"Honey, I know I did, but you must let me off this time again."

She did not answer. It was too dark for him to see her face; but,

uneasy at her silence, he began an elaborate explanation. Laura,

however, interrupted. Calmly enough, she said:

"Oh, that's all right. No, no, I don't mind. Of course, if you are

busy."

"Well, you see, don't you, old girl?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I see," she answered. She rose.

"I think," she said, "we had better be going home. Don't you?"

"Yes, I do," he assented. "I'm pretty tired myself. I've had a hard

day's work. I'm thirsty, too," he added, as he got up. "Would you like

to have a drink of water, too?"

She shook her head, and while he disappeared in the direction of the

Cresslers' dining-room, she stood alone a moment in the darkened room

looking out into the street. She felt that her cheeks were hot. Her

hands, hanging at her sides, shut themselves into tight fists.

"What, you are all alone?" said Corthell's voice, behind her.

She turned about quickly.

"I must be going," he said. "I came to say good night." He held out his

hand.

"Good night," she answered, as she gave him hers. Then all at once she

added:

"Come to see me again--soon, will you? Come Wednesday night."

And then, his heart leaping to his throat, Corthell felt her hand, as

it lay in his, close for an instant firmly about his fingers.

"I shall expect you Wednesday then?" she repeated.

He crushed her hand in his grip, and suddenly bent and kissed it.

"Good night," she said, quietly. Jadwin's step sounded at the doorway.

"Good night," he whispered, and in another moment was gone.

During these days Laura no longer knew herself. At every hour she

changed; her moods came and went with a rapidity that bewildered all

those who were around her. At times her gaiety filled the whole of her

beautiful house; at times she shut herself in her apartments, denying

herself to every one, and, her head bowed upon her folded arms, wept as

though her heart was breaking, without knowing why.

For a few days a veritable seizure of religious enthusiasm held sway

over her. She spoke of endowing a hospital, of doing church work among

the "slums" of the city. But no sooner had her friends readjusted their

points of view to suit this new development than she was off upon

another tangent, and was one afternoon seen at the races, with Mrs.

Gretry, in her showiest victoria, wearing a great flaring hat and a

bouquet of crimson flowers.

She never repeated this performance, however, for a new fad took

possession of her the very next day. She memorised the role of Lady

Macbeth, built a stage in the ballroom at the top of the house, and,

locking herself in, rehearsed the part, for three days uninterruptedly,

dressed in elaborate costume, declaiming in chest tones to the empty

room:

"'The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the entrance of Duncan under

my battlements.'"

Then, tiring of Lady Macbeth, she took up Juliet, Portia, and Ophelia;

each with appropriate costumes, studying with tireless avidity, and

frightening Aunt Wess' with her declaration that "she might go on the

stage after all." She even entertained the notion of having Sheldon

Corthell paint her portrait as Lady Macbeth.

As often as the thought of the artist presented itself to her she

fought to put it from her. Yes, yes, he came to see her often, very

often. Perhaps he loved her yet. Well, suppose he did? He had always

loved her. It was not wrong to have him love her, to have him with her.

Without his company, great heavens, her life would be lonely beyond

words and beyond endurance. Besides, was it to be thought, for an

instant, that she, she, Laura Jadwin, in her pitch of pride, with all

her beauty, with her quick, keen mind, was to pine, to droop to fade in

oblivion and neglect? Was she to blame? Let those who neglected her

look to it. Her youth was all with her yet, and all her power to

attract, to compel admiration.

When Corthell came to see her on the Wednesday evening in question,

Laura said to him, after a few moments, conversation in the

drawing-room:

"Oh, you remember the picture you taught me to appreciate--the picture

of the little pool in the art gallery, the one you called 'Despair'? I

have hung it in my own particular room upstairs--my sitting-room--so as

to have it where I can see it always. I love it now. But," she added,

"I am not sure about the light. I think it could be hung to better

advantage." She hesitated a moment, then, with a sudden, impulsive

movement, she turned to him.

"Won't you come up with me, and tell me where to hang it?"

They took the little elevator to the floor above, and Laura led the

artist to the room in question--her "sitting-room," a wide, airy place,

the polished floor covered with deep skins, the walls wainscotted half

way to the ceiling, in dull woods. Shelves of books were everywhere,

together with potted plants and tall brass lamps. A long "Madeira"

chair stood at the window which overlooked the park and lake, and near

to it a great round table of San Domingo mahogany, with tea things and

almost diaphanous china.

"What a beautiful room," murmured Corthell, as she touched the button

in the wall that opened the current, "and how much you have impressed

your individuality upon it. I should have known that you lived here. If

you were thousands of miles away and I had entered here, I should have

known it was yours--and loved it for such."

"Here is the picture," she said, indicating where it hung. "Doesn't it

seem to you that the light is bad?"

But he explained to her that it was not so, and that she had but to

incline the canvas a little more from the wall to get a good effect.

"Of course, of course," she assented, as he held the picture in place.

"Of course. I shall have it hung over again to-morrow."

For some moments they remained standing in the centre of the room,

looking at the picture and talking of it. And then, without remembering

just how it had happened, Laura found herself leaning back in the

Madeira chair, Corthell seated near at hand by the round table.

"I am glad you like my room," she said. "It is here that I spend most

of my time. Often lately I have had my dinner here. Page goes out a

great deal now, and so I am left alone occasionally. Last night I sat

here in the dark for a long time. The house was so still, everybody was

out--even some of the servants. It was so warm, I raised the windows

and I sat here for hours looking out over the lake. I could hear it

lapping and washing against the shore--almost like a sea. And it was so

still, so still; and I was thinking of the time when I was a little

girl back at Barrington, years and years ago, picking whortle-berries

down in the 'water lot,' and how I got lost once in the corn--the

stalks were away above my head--and how happy I was when my father

would take me up on the hay wagon. Ah, I was happy in those days--just

a freckled, black-haired slip of a little girl, with my frock torn and

my hands all scratched with the berry bushes."

She had begun by dramatising, but by now she was acting--acting with

all her histrionic power at fullest stretch, acting the part of a woman

unhappy amid luxuries, who looked back with regret and with longing

towards a joyous, simple childhood. She was sincere and she was not

sincere. Part of her--one of those two Laura Jadwins who at different

times, but with equal right called themselves "I," knew just what

effect her words, her pose, would have upon a man who sympathised with

her, who loved her. But the other Laura Jadwin would have resented as

petty, as even wrong, the insinuation that she was not wholly,

thoroughly sincere. All that she was saying was true. No one, so she

believed, ever was placed before as she was placed now. No one had ever

spoken as now she spoke. Her chin upon one slender finger, she went on,

her eyes growing wide:

"If I had only known then that those days were to be, the happiest of

my life.... This great house, all the beauty of it, and all this

wealth, what does it amount to?" Her voice was the voice of Phedre, and

the gesture of lassitude with which she let her arms fall into her lap

was precisely that which only the day before she had used to accompany

Portia's plaint of

--my little body is a-weary of this great world.

Yet, at the same time, Laura knew that her heart was genuinely aching

with real sadness, and that the tears which stood in her eyes were as

sincere as any she had ever shed.

"All this wealth," she continued, her head dropping back upon the

cushion of the chair as she spoke, "what does it matter; for what does

it compensate? Oh, I would give it all gladly, gladly, to be that

little black-haired girl again, back in Squire Dearborn's water lot;

with my hands stained with the whortle-berries and the nettles in my

fingers--and my little lover, who called me his beau-heart and bought

me a blue hair ribbon, and kissed me behind the pump house."

"Ah," said Corthell, quickly and earnestly, "that is the secret. It was

love--even the foolish boy and girl love--love that after all made your

life sweet then."

She let her hands fall into her lap, and, musing, turned the rings back

and forth upon her fingers.

"Don't you think so?" he asked, in a low voice.

She bent her head slowly, without replying. Then for a long moment

neither spoke. Laura played with her rings. The artist, leaning forward

in his chair, looked with vague eyes across the room. And no interval

of time since his return, no words that had ever passed between them,

had been so fraught with significance, so potent in drawing them

together as this brief, wordless moment.

At last Corthell turned towards her.

"You must not think," he murmured, "that your life is without love now.

I will not have you believe that."

But she made no answer.

"If you would only see," he went on. "If you would only condescend to

look, you would know that there is a love which has enfolded your life

for years. You have shut it out from you always. But it has been yours,

just the same; it has lain at your door, it has looked--oh, God knows

with what longing!--through your windows. You have never stirred abroad

that it has not followed you. Not a footprint of yours that it does not

know and cherish. Do you think that your life is without love? Why, it

is all around you--all around you but voiceless. It has no right to

speak, it only has the right to suffer."

Still Laura said no word. Her head turned from him, she looked out of

the window, and once more the seconds passed while neither spoke. The

clock on the table ticked steadily. In the distance, through the open

window, came the incessant, mournful wash of the lake. All around them

the house was still. At length Laura sat upright in her chair.

"I think I will have this room done over while we are away this

summer," she said. "Don't you think it would be effective if the

wainscotting went almost to the ceiling?"

He glanced critically about the room.

"Very," he answered, briskly. "There is no background so beautiful as

wood."

"And I might finish it off at the top with a narrow shelf."

"Provided you promised not to put brass 'plaques' or pewter kitchen

ware upon it."

"Do smoke," she urged him. "I know you want to. You will find matches

on the table."

But Corthell, as he lit his cigarette, produced his own match box. It

was a curious bit of antique silver, which he had bought in a Viennese

pawnshop, heart-shaped and topped with a small ducal coronet of worn

gold. On one side he had caused his name to be engraved in small

script. Now, as Laura admired it, he held it towards her.

"An old pouncet-box, I believe," he informed her, "or possibly it held

an ointment for her finger nails." He spilled the matches into his

hand. "You see the red stain still on the inside; and--smell," he

added, as she took it from him. "Even the odour of the sulphur matches

cannot smother the quaint old perfume, distilled perhaps three

centuries ago."

An hour later Corthell left her. She did not follow him further than

the threshold of the room, but let him find his way to the front door

alone.

When he had gone she returned to the room, and for a little while sat

in her accustomed place by the window overlooking the park and the

lake. Very soon after Corthell's departure she heard Page, Landry

Court, and Mrs. Wessels come in; then at length rousing from her

reverie she prepared for bed. But, as she passed the round mahogany

table, on her way to her bedroom, she was aware of a little object

lying upon it, near to where she had sat.

"Oh, he forgot it," she murmured, as she picked up Corthell's

heart-shaped match box. She glanced at it a moment, indifferently; but

her mind was full of other things. She laid it down again upon the

table, and going on to her own room, went to bed.

Jadwin did not come home that night, and in the morning Laura presided

at breakfast table in his place. Landry Court, Page, and Aunt Wess'

were there; for occasionally nowadays, when the trio went to one of

their interminable concerts or lectures, Landry stayed over night at

the house.

"Any message for your husband, Mrs. Jadwin?" inquired Landry, as he

prepared to go down town after breakfast. "I always see him in Mr.

Gretry's office the first thing. Any message for him?"

"No," answered Laura, simply.

"Oh, by the way," spoke up Aunt Wess', "we met that Mr. Corthell on the

corner last night, just as he was leaving. I was real sorry not to get

home here before he left. I've never heard him play on that big organ,

and I've been wanting to for ever so long. I hurried home last night,

hoping I might have caught him before he left. I was regularly

disappointed."

"That's too bad," murmured Laura, and then, for obscure reasons, she

had the stupidity to add: "And we were in the art gallery the whole

evening. He played beautifully."

Towards eleven o'clock that morning Laura took her usual ride, but she

had not been away from the house quite an hour before she turned back.

All at once she had remembered something. She returned homeward, now

urging Crusader to a flying gallop, now curbing him to his slowest

ambling walk. That which had so abruptly presented itself to her mind

was the fact that Corthell's match box--his name engraved across its

front--still lay in plain sight upon the table in her sitting-room--the

peculiar and particular place of her privacy.

It was so much her own, this room, that she had given orders that the

servants were to ignore it in their day's routine. She looked after its

order herself. Yet, for all that, the maids or the housekeeper often

passed through it, on their way to the suite beyond, and occasionally

Page or Aunt Wess' came there to read, in her absence. The family spoke

of the place sometimes as the "upstairs sitting-room," sometimes simply

as "Laura's room."

Now, as she cantered homeward, Laura had it vividly in her mind that

she had not so much as glanced at the room before leaving the house

that morning. The servants would not touch the place. But it was quite

possible that Aunt Wess' or Page--

Laura, the blood mounting to her forehead, struck the horse sharply

with her crop. The pettiness of the predicament, the small meanness of

her situation struck across her face like the flagellations of tiny

whips. That she should stoop to this! She who had held her head so high.

Abruptly she reined in the horse again. No, she would not hurry.

Exercising all her self-control, she went on her way with deliberate

slowness, so that it was past twelve o'clock when she dismounted under

the carriage porch.

Her fingers clutched tightly about her crop, she mounted to her

sitting-room and entered, closing the door behind her.

She went directly to the table, and then, catching her breath, with a

quick, apprehensive sinking of the heart, stopped short. The little

heart-shaped match box was gone, and on the couch in the corner of the

room Page, her book fallen to the floor beside her, lay curled up and

asleep.

A loop of her riding-habit over her arm, the toe of her boot tapping

the floor nervously, Laura stood motionless in the centre of the room,

her lips tight pressed, the fingers of one gloved hand drumming rapidly

upon her riding-crop. She was bewildered, and an anxiety cruelly

poignant, a dread of something she could not name, gripped suddenly at

her throat.

Could she have been mistaken? Was it upon the table that she had seen

the match box after all? If it lay elsewhere about the room, she must

find it at once. Never had she felt so degraded as now, when, moving

with such softness and swiftness as she could in her agitation command,

she went here and there about the room, peering into the corners of her

desk, searching upon the floor, upon the chairs, everywhere, anywhere;

her face crimson, her breath failing her, her hands opening and

shutting.

But the silver heart with its crown of worn gold was not to be found.

Laura, at the end of half an hour, was obliged to give over searching.

She was certain the match box lay upon the mahogany table when last she

left the room. It had not been mislaid; of that she was now persuaded.

But while she sat at the desk, still in habit and hat, rummaging for

the fourth time among the drawers and shelves, she was all at once

aware, even without turning around, that Page was awake and watching

her. Laura cleared her throat.

"Have you seen my blue note paper, Page?" she asked. "I want to drop a

note to Mrs. Cressler, right away."

"No," said Page, as she rose from the couch. "No, I haven't seen it."

She came towards her sister across the room. "I thought, maybe," she

added, gravely, as she drew the heart-shaped match box from her pocket,

"that you might be looking for this. I took it. I knew you wouldn't

care to have Mr. Jadwin find it here."

Laura struck the little silver heart from Page's hand, with a violence

that sent it spinning across the room, and sprang to her feet.

"You took it!" she cried. "You took it! How dare you! What do you mean?

What do I care if Curtis should find it here? What's it to me that he

should know that Mr. Corthell came up here? Of course he was here."

But Page, though very pale, was perfectly calm under her sister's

outburst.

"If you didn't care whether any one knew that Mr. Corthell came up

here," she said, quietly, "why did you tell us this morning at

breakfast that you and he were in the art gallery the whole evening? I

thought," she added, with elaborate blandness, "I thought I would be

doing you a service in hiding the match box."

"A service! You! What have I to hide?" cried Laura, almost

inarticulate. "Of course I said we were in the art gallery the whole

evening. So we were. We did--I do remember now--we did come up here for

an instant, to see how my picture hung. We went downstairs again at

once. We did not so much as sit down. He was not in the room two

minutes."

"He was here," returned Page, "long enough to smoke half a dozen

times." She pointed to a silver pen tray on the mahogany table, hidden

behind a book rack and littered with the ashes and charred stumps of

some five or six cigarettes.

"Really, Laura," Page remarked. "Really, you manage very awkwardly, it

seems to me."