The news that Quin had broken through the Bartlett barrage afforded great
amusement to the Martels at breakfast next morning. Of course they were
sympathetic over Madam Bartlett's accident--the Martels' sympathy was
always on tap for friend or foe,--but that did not interfere with a frank
enjoyment of Quin's spirited account of her high-handed treatment of the
family, especially the incident of the smelling salts.
"She ought to belong to the Tank Brigade," said Rose. "'Treat 'em rough'
is her motto."
"I like the old girl, though," said Quin disrespectfully, "she's got so
much pep. And talk about your nerve! You should have seen her set her jaw
when I put the splint on!"
"Is the house very grand?" asked Myrna, hungering for luxurious details.
"No," Cass broke in scornfully. "I been in the hall twice. It looks like
a museum--big pictures and statuary, and everything dark and gloomy."
"Yes, and Miss Isobel and Miss Enid are the mummies," added Rose. "The
only nice one in the bunch besides Nell is Mr. Ranny, and he is hardly
ever sober."
"Well, I wouldn't be, either," said Cass, "if I'd been held down like he
has all his life. The Bartlett estate was left in trust to the old lady,
and she holds the purse-strings and has the say-so about everything."
Quin refrained from mentioning the fact that he had also met Mr. Ranny.
It was a point to his credit, for the story would have been received with
hilarity, and he particularly enjoyed making Rose laugh.
The entrance of Mr. Martel put an end to the discussion of the Bartletts.
Bitter as was his animosity toward the old lady, he would permit no
disrespect to be shown her or hers in his presence. In the garish light
of day he looked a trifle less imposing than he had on New Year's eve in
the firelight. His long white hair hung straight and dry about his face;
baggy wrinkles sagged under his eyes and under his chin. The shoulders
that once proudly carried Mark Antony's shining armor now supported a
faded velvet breakfast jacket that showed its original color only in
patches. But even in the intimacy of the breakfast hour Papa Claude
preserved his air of distinction, the gracious condescension of a
temporary sojourner in an environment from which he expected at any
moment to take flight.
When Cass had gone to work and the girls were busy cleaning up the
breakfast dishes, he linked his arm in Quin's and drew him into the
living-room.
"I have never allowed myself to submit to the tyranny of time!" he said.
"The wine of living should be tasted slowly. Pull up a chair, my boy; I
want to talk to you. You don't happen to have a cigar about you, do you?"
"Yes, sir. Here are two. Take 'em both. I got to cut out smoking; it
makes me cough."
Mr. Martel, protesting and accepting at the same time, sank into his
large chair and bade Quin pull up a rocker. In the Martels' living-room
all the chairs were rockers; so, in fact, were the table and the sofa,
owing to missing castors.
"I am going to talk to you quite confidentially," began Mr. Martel,
giving himself up to the enjoyment of the hour. "I am going to tell you
of a new and fascinating adventure upon which I am about to embark. You
have doubtless heard me speak of a very wealthy and talented young friend
of mine--Mr. Harold Phipps?"
Quin admitted without enthusiasm that he had, and that he also knew him.
"Well, Mr. Phipps,--or Captain, as you probably know him,--after a short
medical career has found it so totally distasteful that he is wisely
returning to an earlier love. As soon as he gets out of the army he and I
are going to collaborate on a play. Of course I have technic at my
finger-tips. Construction, dramatic suspense, climax are second nature to
me. But I confess I have a fatal handicap, one that has doubtless cost me
my place at the head of American dramatists to-day. I have never been
able to achieve colloquial dialogue! My style is too finished, you
understand, my diction too perfect. Manager after manager has been on the
verge of accepting a play, and been deterred solely on account of this
too literary quality. I suffer from the excess of my virtue; you see?"
Quin did not see. Mr. Martel's words conveyed but the vaguest meaning to
him. But it flattered his vanity to be the recipient of such a great
man's confidence.
"Well, here's my point," continued his host impressively. "Mr. Phipps
knows nothing of technic, of construction; but he has a sense for
character and dialogue that amounts to genius. Now, suppose I construct a
great plot, and he supplies great dialogue? What will be the inevitable
result? A masterpiece, a little modern masterpiece!"
Mr. Martel, soaring on the wings of his imagination, failed to observe
that his listener was not following.
"Does--does Miss Eleanor know about all this?" Quin asked.
"Alas, no. I had no opportunity to tell her. Ah, Mr. Graham, I must
confess, it hurts me, it hurts me here,"--he indicated a grease-spot just
below his vest pocket,--"to be separated from that dear child just when
she needs me most. She should be already embarked in her great career.
Ellen Terry, Bernhardt, Rachel, all began their training very early. If
she had been left to me she would be behind the footlights by now."
"They'll never stand for her going on the stage," said Quin
authoritatively. It was astonishing how intimate he felt with the
Bartletts since he had put two of them to bed.
"Ah, my friend," said Mr. Martel, shaking his head and smiling, "what can
be avoided whose end is purposed by the mighty gods? Eleanor will follow
her destiny. She has the temperament, the voice, the figure--a trifle
small, I grant you, but lithe, graceful, pliant as a reed."
"Yes, I know what you mean," Quin agreed ardently; "you can tell that in
her dancing."
"But more than all, she has the great ambition, the consuming desire for
self-expression, for----"
Quin's face clouded slightly and he again lost the thread of the
discourse.
"Lots of girls are stage-struck," he said presently, breaking in on Mr.
Martel's rhapsody. "Miss Eleanor's young yet. Don't you believe she will
get over it?"
"Young! Why, Mary Anderson was playing _Meg Merrilies_ when she was two
years younger than Eleanor. I tell you, Quinby--you'll forgive my
addressing you thus--I tell you, the girl will never get over it. She has
inherited the histrionic gift from her mother--from me. The Bartletts
have given her money, education, social position; but it remained for
me--the despised Claude Martel--to give her the soul of an artist. And
mark me,"--he paused effectively with a lifted forefinger,--"it will be
Claude Martel who gives her her heart's desire. For years I have fostered
in her a love for the drama. I have taken her to see great plays. I have
taught her to read great lines, and above all I have fed her ambition.
The time was limited--a night here, a day there; but I planted a seed
they cannot kill. It has grown, it will flower; no one can stop it now."
The subject was one upon which Quin would fain have discoursed
indefinitely, but a glance at his watch reminded him that the business of
the day did not admit of further delay. He not only had an important
errand to perform, but he must look for work. His exchequer, as usual,
was very low and the need for replenishing it was imperative.
When he reached Bartlett & Bangs' on the outskirts of the city, the big
manufacturing plant was ominously still. The only sign of life about the
place was at the wide entrance doors at the end of the yards, where a
group of men were talking and gesticulating excitedly.
"What's the shindy?" Quin asked a bystander.
"Union men trying to keep scabs from going to work," answered his
informant. "Somebody's fixin' to get hurt there in about two minutes."
Quin, to whom a scrap was always a pleasant diversion, ran forward and
craned his neck to see what was happening. Speeches were being made, hot
impassioned speeches, now in favor of the union, now against it, and
every moment the excitement increased. Quin listened with absorbed
attention, trying to get the straight of the matter.
Just now a sickly-looking man, with a piece of red flannel tied around
his throat, was standing on the steps, making a futile effort against the
noise to explain his return to work.
"I can't let 'em _starve_," he kept repeating in a hoarse, apologetic
voice. "When a man's got a sick wife and eight children, he ain't able to
do as he likes. I don't want to give in no more 'n you-all do. Neither
does Jim here, nor Tom Dawes. But what can we do?"
"Do like the rest of us!" shouted some one in the crowd, "Stick it out!
Learn 'em a lesson. They can't run their bloomin' old plant without us.
Pull him down off them steps, boys!"
"Naw, you don't!" cried another man, seizing a stick and jumping at the
steps. "We got a right to do as we like, same as you! Come on up, Tom
Dawes! We ain't going to let our families in for the Charity
Organization."
Quick cries of "Traitor!" "Scab!" "Pull 'em down!" were succeeded by a
lively scrimmage in which there was a rush for the steps.
Quin, from his place at the edge of the crowd, saw a dozen men surround
three. He saw the man with the red rag about his throat put up a feeble
defense against two assailants. Then he ceased to see and began only to
feel. Whatever the row was about, they weren't fighting fairly, and his
blood began to rise. He stood it as long as he could; then, with a cry of
protest, he plunged through the crowd. In his sternest top-sergeant voice
he issued orders, and enforced them with a brawny fist that was used to
handling men. A moment later he dragged a limp victim from under the
struggling group.
This unexpected interruption by an unknown man in uniform, together with
the appearance of a stern-faced man in spectacles at an upper window, had
an instant effect on the crowd. The strikers began to slink out of the
yards, while the three assaulted men dusted their clothes and entered the
factory.
Quin followed them in, and upon inquiring for the office was directed to
the second floor, where he followed devious ways until he reached the
door of a large room filled with desks in rows, at each of which sat a
clerk.
"Mr. Bangs?" repeated a red-nosed girl, in answer to his inquiry. "Got an
appointment?"
"No," said Quin; "but I've got a parcel that's to be delivered in
person."
The red-nosed one thereupon consulted the man at the next desk, and,
after some colloquy, conducted Quin to one of the small rooms at the rear
of the large one.
The next moment Quin found himself face to face with the stern-looking
personage whose mere appearance at the window a few minutes before had
had such a subduing effect on the crowd below.
As he listened to Quin's message he looked at him narrowly and
suspiciously with piercing black eyes that seemed intent on seeking out
the weakest spot of whatever they rested upon.
"When did Mr. Bartlett give you these letters?" he asked in a tone as
cold as the tinkle of ice against glass.
"I got 'em last night, sir."
"Where?"
"At his house, when I went to carry word about his mother's accident."
"Close that door back of you," said Mr. Bangs, with a jerk of his head;
then he went on, "So Mr. Bartlett was at home when you reached there last
night?"
"Oh, _yes_, sir!" Quin assured him with an emphasis that implied Mr.
Randolph Bartlett's unfailing presence at his own fireside on every
Sabbath evening.
"That is strange," Mr. Bangs commented dryly. "Miss Enid Bartlett
telephoned an hour ago that her brother and his wife were out of the
city."
Quin was visibly embarrassed. He was not used to treading the quicksands
of duplicity, and he felt himself sinking.
"Young man," said Mr. Bangs sternly, "I am inclined to think you are
deceiving me."
"No," said Quin with spirit, "I haven't deceived you; but I did lie to
Miss Eleanor's aunt over the telephone."
"What was your object?"
"Well, I couldn't tell her Mr. Bartlett was stewed, could I?"
Mr. Bangs gave a short, contemptuous laugh. "As I thought," he said.
"That will do."
But Quin had no intention of going until he had spoken a word in his own
behalf. The idea had just occurred to him that by obtaining a position
with Bartlett & Bangs he could add another link to the chain that was to
bind him to Eleanor.
"You don't happen to have a job for me?" he inquired of the back of Mr.
Bangs's bald, dome-like head.
"A job?" repeated Mr. Bangs, glancing over his shoulder at Quin's
uniform.
"Yes, sir. I'm out of the service now."
"What can you do?"
Quin looked at him quizzically. "I can receive and obey the orders of the
commanding officer," he said.
Mr. Bangs, being humor-proof, evidently considered this impertinent, and
repeated his question sharply.
"Oh, I'll do anything," said Quin rashly. "Soldiers can't be choosers
these days."
Mr. Bangs cast a critical eye on his strong, well built frame:
"We might use you in the factory," he said indifferently; "we need all
the strike-breakers we can get."
Quin's face fell. "I don't know about that," he said slowly. "I haven't
made up my mind yet about this union business."
"I thought you were helping the union men in the yard just now."
"I was helping that little Irishman that was getting the life choked out
of him."
Mr. Bangs's mouth became a hard, straight line.
"Then I take it you sympathize with the strikers?"
"I don't know whether I do or not," Quin declared stoutly. "I don't know
anything about it. But one thing's certain--I'm not going to take another
fellow's job, when he's holding out for better conditions, until I know
whether those better conditions are due him or not."
Mr. Bangs's fish eyes regarded him with glittering disfavor.
"Perhaps you would prefer an office job?" he suggested with cold
insolence. "I need some one to brush out in the morning and to wash
windows when necessary."
The erstwhile hero of the Sixth Field Artillery felt his heart thumping
madly under his distinguished-conduct medal; but he had declared that he
would accept any kind of work, and he was determined not to have his
bluff called.
"All right, sir," he said gamely; "I'll start at that if it will lead to
something better."
"That rests entirely with you," said Mr. Bangs. "Report for work in the
morning."
Quin got out of the office with a hot head, cold hands, and a terrible
sinking of the heart. He had forged the first link in his chain--he was
an employee of the great Bartlett & Bangs Company; but the gap between
himself and Eleanor seemed suddenly to have widened to infinity.