"Yes."
"All over. And now we've got to beat the spears into plowshares, eh?"
"We have."
Mr. Shayne chuckled. "Some of my spears were already made into plows,
and it was a great season for the harvest, young man--a great season."
Hugo was still uncertain of Mr. Shayne's deepest viewpoint. His
uncertainty nettled him. "The grim reaper has done some harvesting on
his own account--" He spoke almost rudely.
Mr. Shayne frowned disapprovingly. "I made up my mind to forget, Danner.
To forget and to buckle down. And I've done both. You'll want to know
what happened to the funds I handled for you--"
"I wasn't particularly--"
The older man shook his head with grotesque coyness. "Not so fast, not
so fast. You were particularly eager to hear. We're getting honest about
our emotions in this day and place. You're eaten with impatience.
Well--I won't hold out. Danner, I've made you a million. A clean, cold
million."
Hugo had been struggling in a rising tide of incomprehension; that
statement engulfed him. "Me? A million?"
"In the bank in your name waiting for a blonde girl."
"I'm afraid I don't exactly understand, Mr. Shayne."
The banker readjusted his glasses and swallowed a cocktail by tipping
back his head. Then he rose, paced across the broad carpet, and faced
Hugo. "Of course you don't understand. Well, I'll tell you about it.
Once you did a favour for me which has no place in this conversation."
He hesitated; his face seemed to flinch and then to be jerked back to
its former expression. "In return I've done a little for you. And I want
to add a word to the gift of your bank book. You have, if you're
careful, leisure to enjoy life, freedom, the world at your feet. No
more strife for you, no worry, and no care. Take it. Be a hedonist.
There is nothing else. I've lain in bed nights enjoying the life that
lies ahead of you, my boy. Vicariously voluptuous. Catchy phrase, isn't
it? My own. I want to see you do it up brown."
Hugo rubbed his hand across his forehead. It was not long ago that this
same man had sat at an _estaminet_ and wept over snatches of a childhood
which death had made sacred. Here he stood now, asking that a life be
done up brown, and meaning cheap, obvious things. He wished that he had
never called on Tom's father.
"That wasn't my idea of living--" he said slowly.
"It will be. Forget the war. It was a dream. I realized it suddenly. If
I had not, I would still be--just a banker. Not a great banker. The
great banker. I saw, suddenly, that it was a dream. The world was mad.
So I took my profit from it, beginning on the day I saw."
"How, exactly?"
"Eh?"
"I mean--how did you profit by the war?"
Mr. Shayne smiled expansively. "What was in demand then, my boy? What
were the stupid, traduced, misguided people raising billions to get?
What? Why, shells, guns, foodstuffs. For six months I had a corner on
four chemicals vitally necessary to the government. And the government
got them--at my price. I owned a lot of steel. I mixed food and
diplomacy in equal parts--and when the pie was opened, it was full of
solid gold."