"You're not," he assured her truthfully. "It's my impatience. Let me see
the pages you've finished."
With them he was able to concentrate his mind. When she laid the last
page beside his arm he was absorbed, did not look at her, did not think
of her. "Take the machine away," said he abruptly.
He was leaving for the day when he remembered her again. He sent for
her. "I forgot to thank you. It was good work. You will do well. All you
need is practice--and confidence. Especially confidence." He looked at
her. She seemed frail--touchingly frail. "You are not strong?"
She smiled, and in an instant the frailty seemed to have been mere
delicacy of build--the delicacy that goes with the strength of steel
wires, or rather of the spider's weaving thread which sustains weights
and shocks out of all proportion to its appearance. "I've never been ill
in my life," said she. "Not a day."
Again, because she was standing before him in full view, he noted the
peculiar construction of her frame--the beautiful lines of length so
dextrously combined that her figure as a whole was not tall. He said, "A
working woman--or man--needs health above all. Thank you again." And he
nodded a somewhat curt dismissal. When she glided away and he was alone
behind the closed door, he reflected for a moment upon the extraordinary
amount of thinking--and the extraordinary kind of thinking--into which
this poor little typewriter girl had beguiled him. He soon found the
explanation for this vagary into a realm so foreign to a man of his high
tastes and ambitions. "It's because I'm so in love with Josephine," he
decided. "I've fallen into the sentimental state of all lovers. The
whole sex becomes novel and interesting and worth while."
As he left the office, unusually late, he saw her still at work--no
doubt doing over again some bungled piece of copying. She had her normal
and natural look and air--the atomic little typewriter, unattractive and
uninteresting. With another smile for his romantic imaginings, he forgot
her. But when he reached the street he remembered her again. The
threatened blizzard had changed into a heavy rain. The swift and sudden
currents of air, that have made of New York a cave of the winds since
the coming of the skyscrapers, were darting round corners, turning
umbrellas inside out, tossing women's skirts about their heads, reducing
all who were abroad to the same level of drenched and sullen
wretchedness. Norman's limousine was waiting at the curb. He, pausing in
the doorway, glanced up and down the street, had an impulse to return
and take the girl home. Then he smiled satirically at himself. Her lot
condemned her to be out in all weathers. It would not be a kindness but
an exhibition of smug vanity to shelter her this one night; also, there
was the question of her reputation--and the possibility of turning her
head, perhaps just enough to cause her ruin. He sprang across the
wind-swept, rain-swept sidewalk and into the limousine whose door was
being held open by an obsequious attendant. "Home," he said, and the
door slammed.
Usually these journeys between office and home or club in the evening
gave Norman a chance for ten or fifteen minutes of sleep. He had
discovered that this brief dropping of the thread of consciousness gave
him a wonderful fresh grip upon the day, enabled him to work or play
until late into the night without fatigue. But that evening his mind was
wide awake. Nor could he fix it upon business. It would interest itself
only in the hurrying throngs of foot passengers and the ideas they
suggested: Here am I--so ran his thoughts--here am I, tucked away
comfortably while all those poor creatures have to plod along in the
storm. I could afford to be sick. They can't. And what have I done to
deserve this good fortune? Nothing. Worse than nothing. If I had made my
career along the lines of what is honest and right and beneficial to my
fellow men, I'd probably be plugging home under an umbrella--and to a
pretty poor excuse for a home. But I was too wise to do that. I've spent
this day, as I spend all my days, in helping the powerful rich to add to
their wealth and power, to add to the burdens those poor devils out
there in the rain must bear. And I'm rewarded with a limousine, and all
the rest of it.
These thoughts neither came from nor produced a mood of penitence, or of
regret even. Norman was simply indulging in his favorite
pastime--following without prejudice the leading of a chain of pure
logic. He despised self-deceivers. He always kept himself free from
prejudice and all its wiles. He took life as he found it; but he did not
excuse it and himself with the familiar hypocrisies that make the
comfortable classes preen themselves on being the guardians and saviours
of the ignorant, incapable masses. When old Lockyer said one day that
this was the function of the "upper classes," Norman retorted: "Perhaps.
But, if so, how do they perform it? Like the brutal old-fashioned farm
family that takes care of its insane member by keeping him chained in
filth in the cellar." And once at the Federal Club--By the way, Norman
had joined it, had compelled it to receive him just to show his
associates how a strong man could break even such a firmly established
tradition as that no one who amounted to anything could be elected to a
fashionable club in New York. Once at the Federal Club old Galloway
quoted with approval some essayist's remark that every clever human
being was looking after and holding above the waves at least fifteen of
his weaker fellows. Norman smiled satirically round at the complacently
nodding circle of gray heads and white heads. "My observation has been,"
said he, "that every clever chap is shrewd enough to compel at least
fifteen of his fellows to wait on him, to take care of him--do his
chores--and his dirty work." The nodding stopped. Scowls appeared,
except on the face of old Galloway. He grinned. He was one of the few
examples of a very rich man with a sense of humor. Norman always thought
it was this slight incident that led to his getting the extremely
profitable--and shady--Galloway business.
No, Norman's mood, as he watched the miserable crowds afoot and
reflected upon them, was neither remorseful nor triumphant. He simply
noted an interesting fact--a commonplace fact--of the methods of that
sardonic practical joker, Life. Because the scheme of things was unjust
and stupid, because others, most others, were uncomfortable or
worse--why should he make himself uncomfortable? It would be an
absurdity to get out of his limousine and trudge along in the wet and
the wind. It would be equally absurd to sit in his limousine and be
unhappy about the misery of the world. "I didn't create it, and I can't
recreate it. And if I'm helping to make it worse, I'm also hastening the
time when it'll be better. The Great Ass must have brains and spirit
kicked and cudgeled into it."
At his house in Madison Avenue, just at the crest of Murray Hill, there
was an awning from front door to curb and a carpet beneath it. He
passed, dry and comfortable, up the steps. A footman in quiet rich
livery was waiting to receive him. From rising until bedtime, up town
and down town, wherever he went and whatever he was about, every
possible menial detail of his life was done for him. He had nothing to
do but think about his own work and keep himself in health. Rarely did
he have even to open or to close a door. He used a pen only in signing
his name or marking a passage in a law book for some secretary to make a
typewritten copy.
Upon most human beings this sort of luxury, carried beyond the ordinary
and familiar uses of menial service, has a speedily enervating effect.
Thinking being the most onerous of all, they have it done, also. They
sink into silliness and moral and mental sloth. They pass the time at
foolish purposeless games indoors and out; or they wander aimlessly
about the earth chattering with similar mental decrepits, much like
monkeys adrift in the boughs of a tropical forest. But Norman had the
tenacity and strength to concentrate upon achievement all the powers
emancipated by the use of menials wherever menials could be used. He
employed to advantage the time saved in putting in shirt buttons and
lacing shoes and carrying books to and from shelves. In this lay one of
the important secrets of his success. "Never do for yourself what you
can get some one else to do for you as well. Save yourself for the
things only _you_ can do."
In his household there were three persons, and sixteen servants to wait
upon them. His sister--she and her husband, Clayton Fitzhugh, were the
other two persons--his sister was always complaining that there were not
enough servants, and Frederick, the most indulgent of brothers, was
always letting her add to the number. It seemed to him that the more
help there was, the less smoothly the household ran. But that did not
concern him; his mind was saved for more important matters. There was no
reason why it should concern him; could he not compel the dollars to
flood in faster than she could bail them out?
This brother and sister had come to New York fifteen years before, when
he was twenty-two and she nineteen. They were from Albany, where their
family had possessed some wealth and much social position for many
generations. There was the usual "queer streak" in the Norman family--an
intermittent but fixed habit of some one of them making a "low
marriage." One view of this aberration might have been that there was in
the Norman blood a tenacious instinct of sturdy and self-respecting
independence that caused a Norman occasionally to do as he pleased
instead of as he conventionally ought. Each time the thing occurred
there was a mighty and horrified hubbub throughout the connection. But
in the broad, as the custom is, the Normans were complacent about the
"queer streak." They thought it kept the family from rotting out and
running to seed. "Nothing like an occasional infusion of common blood,"
Aunt Ursula Van Bruyten (born Norman) used to say. For her Norman's
sister was named.
Norman's father had developed the "queer streak." Their mother was the
daughter of a small farmer and, when she met their father, was
chambermaid in a Troy hotel, Troy then being a largish village. As soon
as she found herself married and in a position with whose duties she was
unfamiliar, she set about fitting herself for them with the same
diligence and thoroughness which she had shown in learning chamber work
in a village hotel. She educated herself, selected not without
shrewdness and carefully put on an assortment of genteel airs, finally
contrived to make a most creditable appearance--was more aristocratic in
tastes and in talk than the high mightiest of her relatives by marriage.
But her son Fred was a Pinkey in character. In boyhood he was noted for
his rough and low associates. His bosom friends were the son of a Jewish
junk dealer, the son of a colored wash-woman, and the son of an Irish
day laborer. Also, the commonness persisted as he grew up. Instead of
seeking aristocratic ease, he aspired to a career. He had choice of
several rich and well-born girls; but he developed a strong distaste for
marriage of any sort and especially for a rich marriage. A fortune he
was resolved to have, but it should be one that belonged to him. When he
was about ready to enter a law office, his father and mother died
leaving less than ten thousand dollars in all for his sister and
himself. His sister hesitated, half inclined to marry a stupid second
cousin who had thirty thousand a year.
"Don't do it, Ursula," Fred advised. "If you must sell out, sell for
something worth while." He laughed in his frank, ironical way. "Fact is,
we've both made up our minds to sell. Let's go to the best market--New
York. If you don't like it, you can come back and marry that fat-wit any
time you please."
Ursula inspected herself in the glass, saw a face and form exceeding
fair to look upon; she decided to take her brother's advice. At twenty
she threw over a multi-millionaire and married Clayton Fitzhugh for
love--Clayton with only seventeen thousand a year. Of course, from the
standpoint of fashionable ambition, seventeen thousand a year in New
York is but one remove from tenement house poverty. As Clayton had no
more ability at making money than had Ursula herself, there was nothing
to do but live with Norman and "take care of him." But for this
self-sacrifice of sisterly affection Norman would have been rich at
thirty-seven. As he had to make her rich as well as himself, progress
toward luxurious independence was slower--and there was the house,
costing nearly fifty thousand a year to keep up.
There had been a time in Norman's career--a brief and very early
time--when, with the maternal peasant blood hot in his veins, he had
entertained the quixotic idea of going into politics on the poor or
people's side and fighting for glory only. The pressure of expensive
living had soon driven this notion clean off. Norman had almost
forgotten that he ever had it, was no longer aware how strong it had
been in the last year at law school. Young men of high intelligence and
ardent temperament always pass through this period. With some--a
few--its glory lingers long after the fire has flickered out before the
cool, steady breath of worldliness.
All this time Norman has been dressing for dinner. He now leaves the
third floor and descends toward the library, as it still lacks twenty
minutes of the dinner hour.
As he walked along the hall of the second floor a woman's voice called
to him, "That you, Fred?"
He turned in at his sister's sitting room. She was standing at a table
smoking a cigarette. Her tall, slim figure looked even taller and
slimmer in the tight-fitting black satin evening dress. Her features
faintly suggested her relationship to Norman. She was a handsome woman,
with a voluptuous discontented mouth.
"What are you worried about, sis?" inquired he.
"How did you know I was worried?" returned she.
"You always are."
"Oh!"
"But you're unusually worried to-night."
"How did you know that?"
"You never smoke just before dinner unless your nerves are ragged. . . .
What is it?"
"Money."
"Of course. No one in New York worries about anything else."
"But _this_ is serious," protested she. "I've been thinking--about your
marriage--and what'll become of Clayton and me?" She halted, red with
embarrassment.
Norman lit a cigarette himself. "I ought to have explained," said he.
"But I assumed you'd understand."
"Fred, you know Clayton can't make anything. And when you
marry--why--what _will_ become of us!"
"I've been taking care of Clayton's money--and of yours. I'll continue
to do it. I think you'll find you're not so badly of. You see, my
position enables me to compel a lot of the financiers to let me in on
the ground floor--and to warn me in good time before the house falls.
You'll not miss me, Ursula."
She showed her gratitude in her eyes, in a slight quiver of the lips, in
an unsteadiness of tone as she said, "You're the real thing, Freddie."
"You can go right on as you are now. Only--" He was looking at her with
meaning directness.
She moved uneasily, refused to meet his gaze. "Well?" she said, with a
suggestion of defiance.
"It's all very natural to get tired of Clayton," said her brother. "I
knew you would when you married him. But--Sis, I mind my own business.
Still--Why make a fool of yourself?"
"You don't understand," she exclaimed passionately. And the light in her
eyes, the color in her cheeks, restored to her for the moment the beauty
of her youth that was almost gone.
"Understand what?" inquired he in a tone of gentle mockery.
"Love. You are all ambition--all self control. You can be
affectionate--God knows, you have been to me, Fred. But love you know
nothing about--nothing."
His was the smile a man gives when in earnest and wishing to be thought
jesting--or when in jest and wishing to be thought in earnest.
"You mean Josephine? Oh, yes, I suppose you do care for her in a way--in
a nice, conventional way. She is a fine handsome piece--just the sort to
fill the position of wife to a man like you. She's sweet and charming,
she appreciates, she flatters you. I'm sure she loves you as much as a
_girl_ knows how to love. But it's all so conventional, so proper. Your
position--her money. You two are of the regulation type even in that
you're suited to each other in height and figure. Everybody'll say,
'What a fine couple--so well matched!'"
"Maybe _you_ don't understand," said Norman.
"If Josephine were poor and low-born--weren't one of us--and all
that--would you have her?"
"I'm sure I don't know," was his prompt and amused answer. "I can only
say that I know what I want, she being what she is."
Ursula shook her head. "I have only to see you and her together to know
that you at least don't understand love."
"It might be well if _you_ didn't," said Norman dryly. "You might be less
unhappy--and Clayton less uneasy."
"Ah, but I can't help myself. Don't you see it in me, Fred? I'm not a
fool. Yet see what a fool I act."
"Spoiled child--that's all. No self-control."
"You despise everyone who isn't as strong as you." She looked at him
intently. "I wonder if you _are_ as self-controlled as you imagine.
Sometimes I wish you'd get a lesson. Then you'd be more sympathetic. But
it isn't likely you will--not through a woman. Oh, they're such
pitifully easy game for a man like you. But then men are the same way
with you--quite as easy. You get anything you want. . . . You're really
going to stick to Josephine?"