II

About a month after I sent James to my place on Long Island to be in

the custody of his mother, I was dining in my Fifth Avenue house with

only Burridge, my secretary, and Jack Ridley, who calls himself my

“court fool.”

Although my mind was crowded with large affairs involving great

properties and millions of capital, hardly a day had passed without my

thinking of James and of his infamous conduct toward me. But without

neglecting the duties which my position as a financial leader impose

upon me, it was impossible for me to take time to do my duty as a

parent. The duty which particularly pressed and absolutely prevented

me from attending to my son was that of overcoming difficulties I

had encountered in consolidating the three railways which I control

in the State. To achieve my purpose it was necessary that a somewhat

radical change be made in a certain law. I sent my agent to Boss ----

to arrange the matter. I learned that he refused to order the change

unless I would pay him three hundred thousand dollars in cash and would

give him the opportunity to buy to a like amount of the new stock at

par. He pleaded that the change would cause a tremendous outcry if it

were discovered, as it almost certainly would be, and that he must

be in a position to provide a correspondingly large campaign fund to

“carry the party” successfully through the next campaign. He said his

past favours to me had brought him to the verge of political ruin. In

a sentence, the miserable old blackmailer was trying to drive as hard

a bargain with me as if I had not been making stiff contributions to

what he calls his “campaign fund” for years with only trifling favours

in return. I was willing to pay what the change was worth, but I would

not be bled. I brought pressure to bear from the national organisation

of his party, and he came round--apparently.

Just as my bill was slipping quietly through the State Senate, having

passed the Lower House unobserved, the other boss raised a terrific

hullabaloo. Boss ---- denied to my people that he had “tipped off”

what was doing in order to revenge himself and get his blood-money in

another way; but I knew at once that the sanctimonious old thief had

outwitted me.

It looked as if I would have to yield. Of course I should have done

so in the last straits, for only a fool holds out for a principle

when holding out means no gain and a senseless and costly loss. But

the knowledge that a defeat would cost me dear in future transactions

of this kind made me struggle desperately. I sent for my lawyer,

Stratton--an able fellow, as lawyers go, but, like most of this stupid,

lazy human race, always ready to say “impossible” because saying so

saves labour. “Stratton,” I said, “there must be a way round--there

always is. Can’t I get what I want by an amendment to some other law

that can be slipped through by the lobby of some other corporation as

if for its benefit only? Take a week. Paw over the books and rake that

brain of yours! There’s a hundred and fifty thousand in it for you if

you find me the way round.”

“But the law--” he began.

I lost my temper--I always do when one of my men begins his reply

to an order I’ve given him with the word “But.” “Don’t ‘but’ me,

damn you,” said I. “I’m getting sick and tired of your eternal

opposition. Crawford”--Crawford was my lawyer until I put him into the

Senate--“used always to tell me how I could do what I wanted to do.

You’re always telling me that I can’t do what I want to do.”

“I’m sorry to displease you, sir, but----”

“‘But’ again!” I exclaimed, sarcastically.

“Then, however,” he went on, with a conciliatory smile, “I’m not a

legislator; I’m a lawyer.”

“Precisely,” said I. “And the only use I have for a lawyer is to show

me how to do as I please, in spite of these wretched demagogues and

blackmailers that control the statute-books. If you are as intelligent

as Crawford led me to believe and as my own observation of you

suggests, you’ll profit by this little talk we’ve had. Look round

you at the men who are making the big successes in your profession

nowadays--look at your predecessor, Crawford. Imitate them and stop

casting about for ways of interpreting the law against your employer’s

interest.”

Two days later he came to me in triumph. He had found the “way round.”

I had my law slipped through, signed by the Governor, and safely put on

the statute-book, the two bosses as unsuspicious as were the newspapers

and the public. Then I came out in a public disavowal of my original

purpose, denounced it as a crime against the people, and deplored that

my railroad corporation should be unjustly accused of promoting it. You

must fight the devil with fire.

Those two bosses--and the sensational newspapers that had been

attacking them and my corporations--were astounded, and haven’t

recovered yet. It will be six months before they realise that I have

accomplished my purpose; even then they won’t be sure that I planned

it, but will half believe it was my “luck.”

In passing, I may note that Stratton tells me I ought to pay him two

hundred and fifty thousand dollars instead of one hundred and fifty

thousand--for pulling me out of the hole! He has wholly forgotten

having said “can’t be done” and “impossible” to me so many times that

I finally had to stop him by cursing him violently. With their own

vanity and their women-folks’ flattery for ever conspiring to destroy

their judgment, it’s a wonder to me that men are able to get on at all.

Indeed, they wouldn’t if they didn’t have masters like me over them.

After I had got my little joke on the bosses and the impertinent public

safely on the statute-book, there remained the problem of how to take

advantage of it without stirring up the sensational newspapers and the

politicians, always ready to pander to the spirit of demagogy. I had

my rights safely embodied in the law; but in this lawless time that is

not enough. Instead of being respectful to the great natural leaders

and deferential to their larger vision and larger knowledge, the people

regard us with suspicion and overlook our services in their envy of the

trifling commissions we get--for, what is the wealth we reserve for

ourselves in comparison with the benefits we confer upon the country?

At this dinner which I have mentioned, both Burridge and Ridley were

silent, and so my thoughts had no distraction. As I know that it is

bad for my digestion to use my brain as I eat, I tried to start a

conversation.

“Have you seen Aurora to-day?” I asked Burridge. She is my eldest

daughter, just turned eighteen.

“She and Walter”--he is my second son, within a month or so of

twenty-two--“are dining out this evening; she at Carnarvon’s, he at

Longview’s. I think they meet at Mrs. Hollister’s dance and come home

together.”

This was agreeable news. The names told me that my wife was at

last succeeding in her social campaign, thanks to the irresistible

temptation to the narrow aristocrats of the inner circle in the

prospective fortunes of my children. While this social campaign of

ours has its vanity side--and I here admit that I am not insensible

to certain higher kinds of vanity--it also has a substantial business

side. The greatest disadvantage I have laboured under--and at times

it was serious--has been a certain suspicion of me as a newcomer and

an adventurer. Naturally this has not been lessened by the boldness

and swiftness of my operations. When I and my family are admitted on

terms of intimacy and perfect equality among the people of large and

old-established fortune, I shall be absolutely trusted in the financial

world and shall be secure in the position of leadership which my brains

have won for me and which I now maintain only by steady fighting.

“And Helen?” I went on. Helen is my other daughter, not yet twelve.

“She’s dining in her own sitting-room with her companion,” replied

Burridge.

“I haven’t seen her for a day or two,” I said.

“Two weeks to-morrow,” answered Burridge.

Jack Ridley laughed, and I frowned. It irritates me for Ridley to note

it whenever I am caught in seeming neglect of my children. He pretends

not to believe that it is my sense of duty that makes me deprive myself

of the family happiness of ordinary men for the sake of my larger

duties. But he must know at the bottom that all my self-sacrifice is

for my children, for my family, ultimately. I have the thankless,

misunderstood toil; they have the enjoyment.

“Two weeks!” I protested; “it can’t be!”

“She came to me for her allowance this morning,” he said, “and she

asked after you. She said your valet had told her you were staying here

and were well. She said she’d like to see you some time--if you ever

got round to it.”

This little picture of my domestic life did not tend to cheer me.

Naturally, I went on to think of Jim. Ridley interrupted my thoughts by

saying: “Have you been down on Long Island yet?”

This was going too far even for a “court fool”--his name for himself,

not mine. Ridley is my pensioner, confidant, listening machine,

and talking machine. He is of an old New York family, an honest,

intelligent fellow, with an extravagant stomach and back. My wife

engaged him, originally, to help her in her social campaigns. I saw

that I could use him to better advantage, and he has gradually grown

into my confidence.

In my lesser days, one of the things that most irritated me against

the very rich was their habit of buying human beings, body and soul,

to do all kinds of unmanly work, and I especially abhorred the

“parasites”--so I called them--who hung about rich men, entertaining

them, submitting to their humours, and bearing degradations and

humiliations in exchange for the privileges of eating at luxurious

tables, living in the colder corners of palaces, driving in the

carriages of their patrons, and being received nominally as their

social equals. But now I understand these matters better. It isn’t

given to many men to be independent. As for the “parasites,” how should

I do without Jack Ridley?

I can’t have friends. Friends take one’s time--they must be treated

with consideration, or they become dangerous enemies. Friends impose

upon one’s friendship--they demand inconvenient or improper, or, at

any rate, costly favours which it is difficult to refuse. I must

have companionship, and fate compels that my companion shall be my

dependant, one completely under my control--a Jack Ridley. I look after

his expensive stomach and back; he amuses me and keeps me informed as

to the trifling matters of art, literature, gossip, and so forth, which

I have no time to look up, yet must know if I am to make any sort of

appearance in company. Really, next to my gymnasium, I regard poor old

Jack as my most useful belonging, so far as my health and spirits are

concerned.

To his impertinent reminder of my neglected duty I made no reply beyond

a heavy frown. The rest of the dinner was eaten in oppressive silence,

I brooding over the absence of cheerfulness in my life. They say it is

my fault, but I know it is simply their stupidity in being unable to

understand how to deal with a superior personality. It is my fate to be

misunderstood, publicly and privately. The public grudgingly praises,

often even derides, my philanthropies; the members of my family laugh

at my generosities and self-sacrifices for them.

As I was going to my apartment and to bed, Ridley waylaid me. “You’re

offended with me, old man?” he asked, his eyes moist and his lips

trembling under his grey moustache. He weeps easily: at a glass of

especially fine wine; over a sentimental story in a paper or magazine;

if a grouse is cooked just right; when I am cross with him. And I think

all his emotions, whether of heart or of stomach, are genuine--and

probably about as valuable as most emotions.

“Not at all, not at all, Jack,” I said, reassuringly; “but you ought to

be careful when you see I’m low in my mind.”

“Do go down to see the boy,” he went on, earnestly. “He’s a good boy at

heart, as good as he is handsome and clever. Give him a little of your

precious time and he’ll be worth more to you than all your millions.”

“He’s a young scalawag,” said I, pretending to harden. “I’m almost

convinced that it’s my duty to drive him out and cut him off

altogether. After all I’ve done for him! After all the pains I’ve taken

with him!”

Ridley looked at me timidly, but found courage to say: “He told me he’d

never talked with you so much as sixty consecutive minutes in his whole

life!”

This touched me at the moment. I’m soft at times, where my family is

concerned. “I’ll see; I’ll see,” I said. “Perhaps I can go down to him

Sunday. But don’t annoy me about it again, Jack!” There’s a limit to my

good-nature, even with poor old well-meaning Ridley.

But other matters pressed in, and it was the following Monday and then

the following Saturday before I knew it. Then came the first Sunday in

the month, and Burridge, as usual, brought in the preceding month’s

domestic accounts as soon as I had settled myself at breakfast after

my run and swim and rubdown in my “gym” in the basement. As a rule,

at that time I’m in my best possible humour. My wife and children

know it and lie in wait then with any particularly impudent requests

for favours or particularly outrageous confessions that must be made.

But on the first Sunday in the month even my “gym” can’t put me in

good-humour. I am a liberal man. My large gifts to education and

charity and my generosity with my family prove it beyond a doubt. My

wife looks scornful when I speak of this. Her theory is that my public

gifts are an exhibition of my vanity, and that my establishments, my

yacht, etc., etc., are partly vanity, and partly my selfish passion

for my own comfort. She, however, never attributes a good motive or

instinct to me, or to any one else, nowadays. Really, the change in

her since our modest days is incredible. It is amazing how arrogant

affluence makes women.

But, as I was saying, my monthly bill-day is too much for my

good-humour. It is not the money going out that I mind so much, though

I’m not ashamed to admit that it is not so agreeable to me to see money

going out as it is to see money coming in. The real irritation is the

waste--the wanton, wicked, dangerous waste.

I can’t attend to details. I can’t visit kitchens, do marketing,

superintend housekeepers and butlers, oversee stables, and buy all the

various supplies. I can’t shop for furniture and clothing, and look

after the entertainments. All those things are my wife’s business and

duty. And she has a secretary, and a housekeeper, and Burridge, and

Ridley, to assist her. Yet the bills mount and mount; the waste grows

and grows. Extravagance for herself, extravagance for her children,

thousands thrown away with nothing whatever to show for it! The money

runs away like water at a left-on faucet.

The result is the almost complete estrangement between my wife and me.

Every month we have a fierce quarrel over the waste, often a quarrel

that lasts the month through and breaks out afresh every time we meet.

She denounces me as a miser, a vulgarian. She goads me into furious

outbursts before the children. What with my battles against stupidity

and insolence down-town, and my battles against waste in my family,

my life is one long contention. However, I suppose this is the lot of

all the great men who play large parts on the world’s stage. No wonder

those who fancy we are on earth to seek and find happiness regard life

as a ghastly fraud.

“What’s the demnition total, Burridge?” I asked, when he appeared with

his arms full of books and papers.

“Ninety-two thousand, four, twenty-six, fifty-one,” he answered, in a

tone of abject apology.

I could not restrain an indignant expostulation. “That’s seventy-three

hundred and four above last month. Impossible! You’ve made a mistake in

adding.”

He went over his figures nervously and flushed scarlet. “I beg your

pardon, sir,” he said, in a tone of terror. “The total is ninety-five

thousand instead of ninety-two.”

Ten thousand-odd above month before last! Eighty-nine hundred above the

same month last year! I had to restrain myself from physical violence

to Burridge. I ordered him out of the room--giving as my reason anger

at his mistake in addition. I wanted to hear no more, as I felt sure

the details of the shameful waste would put me in a rage which would

impair my health. The total was enough for my purpose--we were now

living at the rate of more than a million dollars a year! I took the

eleven o’clock train for my place on Long Island.

When I reached my railway station none of my traps was there. In

my angry preoccupation I had forgotten to telephone from the Fifth

Avenue house; and, of course, neither Pigott nor the butler nor

Burridge nor Ridley nor any of my herd of blockhead servants had had

the consideration to repair my oversight. Yet there are fools who say

money will buy everything. Sometimes I think it won’t buy anything but

annoyances.

So I had to go to my place in a rickety, smelly station-surrey--and

that did not soothe my rage. However, as I drove into and through my

grounds--there isn’t a finer park on Long Island--I began to feel

somewhat better. There is nothing like lands and houses to give one the

sensation of wealth, of possession. I have often gone into my vaults

and have looked at the big bundles and boxes of securities; and, by

setting my imagination to work, I have got some sort of notion how vast

my wealth and power are. But bits of paper supplemented by imagination

are not equal to the tangible, seeable things--just as a hundred-dollar

bill can’t give one the sensation in the fingers and in the eyes that

a ten-dollar gold piece gives. That is why I like my big houses and my

city lots and my parked acres in the country--yes, and my yacht and

carriages and furniture, my servants and horses and dogs, my family’s

jewels and finery.

But the instant I entered the house my spirits soured again, curdled

into an acid fury.

I had sent my son down there with his mother to await my sentence upon

him for his crimes--his insults to me, his waste of nearly a million

of my money, his violation of his word of honour, his forgery. I had

been assuming that in those five weeks of waiting he was suffering from

remorse and suspense, was thinking of his crimes against me and of my

anger and justice. As I entered the large drawing-room unannounced,

they were about to go in to luncheon. “They” means my wife and James,

and Walter and Aurora, who had gone down to the country for the

week-end. “They” means also ten others, six of whom were guests staying

in the house. As I stood dumfounded, five more who had been to church

came trooping in. I had gone, expecting a house of mourning. I had

found a revel.

At sight of me the laughter and conversation died. My wife coloured.

James looked abashed for a moment. Then--what a well-mannered,

self-possessed dog he is!--he burst out laughing. “Fairly trapped!” he

said. And he went on to explain to the others: “The governor and I had

a little fall-out, and he sent me down here to play with the ashes.

You’ve caught me with the goods on me, governor. It’s up to me--I’ve

got to square myself. So I’ll pay by giving you the two prettiest young

girls in the room to sit on either side of you at luncheon. Let’s go

in, for I’m half-starved.”

As all the women in the room except three--including Aurora--were

married, James’s remark was doubly adroit. What could I do but put

aside my wrath and set my guests at their ease?

This was the less difficult to do as Natalie Bradish and Horton Kirkby

were among the guests--and stopping in the house. I have long had my

eye on Miss Bradish as the proper wife for James or Walter--whichever

should commend himself to me as my fit successor at the head of the

family I purpose to found with the bulk of my wealth. She is a handsome

girl; she has a proud, distinguished look and manner; she will inherit

several millions some day that can’t be distant, as her father is

in hopelessly bad health; she comes of a splendid, widely connected

family, and is extremely ambitious and free from sentimental nonsense.

Young Kirkby is the very husband for Aurora. His great-grandfather

founded their family securely in city real estate and lived long enough

firmly to establish the tradition of giving the bulk of the fortune to

the eldest male heir. Kirkby is not brilliant; but Aurora has brains

enough for two, and he has a set of long, curved fingers that never

relax their hold upon what’s in them.

After luncheon I drew my wife away to the sitting-room for the plain

talk which was the object of my visit. As the presence of Miss Bradish

and Kirkby in the house had lessened my anger on the score of my wife

and son’s light-hearted way of looking at his crimes, I put forward the

matter of the expense accounts.

“Burridge tells me the total for last month is--” I began, and paused.

As I was speaking I was glancing round the room. I had not been in it

for several years. I had just noted the absence of a Corot I bought ten

years before and paid sixteen thousand dollars for. I don’t care for

pictures or that sort of thing, any more than I care for the glitter

of diamonds or the colours of gold and silver in themselves. I know

that most of this talk of “art” and the like is so much rubbish and

affectation. But works of art, like the precious stones and metals,

have come to be the conventionally accepted standards of luxury, the

everywhere recognised insignia of the aristocracy of wealth. So I have

them, and add to my collection steadily just as I add to my collection

of finely bound books that no one ever opens. What slaves of convention

and ostentation we are!

“What’s become of the Corot that used to hang there?” I asked,

suspiciously, because I had had so many experiences of my family’s

trifling with my possessions.

My wife smiled scornfully. “I believe you carry round in your head

an inventory of everything we’ve got, even to the last pot in the

kitchen,” she said. “The Corot is safe. It’s hanging in my bedroom.”

In her bedroom! A Corot I’ve been offered twenty-five thousand dollars

for, and she had hidden it away in her bedroom! I was irritated when

she put it in her sitting-room where few people came, for it should

have had a good place in our New York palace. But in her bedroom, where

no one but the servants would ever have a chance to look at it!

“Why didn’t you put it in the attic or the cellar?” I asked.

She lifted her eyebrows and gave me an affected, disdainful glance. “I

put it in my bedroom because I like to look at it,” she said.

I laughed. What nonsense! As if any sensible person--and she is

unquestionably shrewdly sensible--ever looks at those things except

when some one is by, noting their “devotion to art.” I said: “Certainly

my family has the most amazing disregard of money--of value. If it were

not----”

“You started to say something about last month’s accounts,” she

interrupted.

“The total was ninety-five thousand,” I said, looking sternly at her.

“You are now living at the rate of more than a million a year. In ten

years we have jumped from one hundred thousand a year to a million a

year. And this madness grows month by month.”

She--shrugged her shoulders!

“I came to say to you, madam--” I went on, furiously.

“Did you look at the items?” she cut in coldly.

“No,” I replied; “I could not trust myself to do it.”

“Twenty-seven thousand of last month’s expenses went toward paying a

small instalment on your little place for your own amusement in the

Adirondacks. I had nothing to do with it. None of us but you will ever

go there.”

This was most exasperating. I can’t account for my leaping into such

a trap, except on the theory that my preoccupation with the railway

matters must have made me forget ordering that item into my domestic

accounts instead of into my personal accounts down-town. Of course, my

contention of my family’s extravagance was sound. But I had seemed to

give the whole case away, had destroyed the effect of all I had said,

and, as I glanced at my wife, I saw a triumphant, contemptuous smile in

her eyes. “You are always trying to punish some one else for your own

sins,” she said. “The truth is that the only truly prodigal member of

the family is yourself.”

Me prodigal with my own wealth! But I did not answer her. One is

at a hopeless disadvantage in discussion with a woman. They are

insensible to reason and logic except when they can gain an advantage

by using them. It’s like having to keep to the rules in a game where

your antagonist keeps to them or makes his own rules as it suits him.

“Nevertheless,” I said, “the waste in my establishments must stop and

your son James must come to his senses. It was about him that I came.”

“Poor boy--he’s had such a bad example all his life!” she said. “My

dear, _we_ have no right to judge him.”

I knew that she, like him, was throwing up to me my transactions with

Judson. And like him, she was taking the petty, narrow view of them.

“Madam,” I said, “your son is a liar, forger, and thief.”

Just then there came a knock at the door and James’s voice called: “May

I come in, mother?”

“No, go away, Jim. Your father and I are busy,” she called in reply.

I went to the door and opened it, beside myself with fury. “Come in!” I

exclaimed. “It’s business that concerns you.”

He entered--tall and strong, his handsome face graver than I had ever

seen it before. He closed the door behind him and stood looking from

one to the other of us. “Well?” he said, “but--no abuse!”

Whenever James and I have come face to face in a crisis I have always

had the, to me, maddening feeling that a will as strong as my own

has been lifting its head defiantly against me. My wife and my son

Walter deal with me by evasion and slippery trickery. My daughter

Aurora wins from me, when I choose to let her, by cajolery or tears.

Little Helen has never yet had to do with me in a serious matter, and

I cannot remember her ever a me even the trifling favours which

most children seek from their parents. But James has always played the

high and haughty--and I am ashamed to think how often he has ridden

me down and defeated me and gained his object. As I have looked upon

him as entitled to peculiar consideration because I had planned for

him one day to wear my mantle, he has had me at a disadvantage. But my

indulgent conduct toward him only makes the blacker his conduct toward

me.

[Illustration: “_‘You liar--you forger!’_”]

As he stood there that day, looking so calm and superior, I can’t

describe the conflict of pride in him and hatred of him that surged up

in me. I lost control of myself. I clinched my fists and shook them in

his face. “You liar! You forger! You conscienceless----”

His mother rushed between us. “I knew it! I knew it!” she wailed. “Ever

since he was a baby, I knew this day would come. Oh, my God! James, my

husband--James, my son!”

James lowered the hand he had lifted to strike me. His face was pale

and his eyes were blazing hate at me--I saw his real feeling toward me

at last. How could I have overlooked it so long?

“Who would ever think you were my father?” he asked, in a voice

that sounded to me like an echo of my own. “You--with hate in your

face--hate for the son whom you poisoned before he was born, whom you

have been poisoning ever since with your example. _You_--my _father_!”

The young scoundrel had taunted me into that calm fury which is so

dreadful that I fear it myself--for, when I am possessed by it,

there is no length to which I would not go. Our wills had met in

final combat. I saw that I must crush him--the one human being who

dared to oppose me and defy me, and he my own child who should have

been deferential, grateful, obedient, unquestioning. “But I am _not_

your father,” I said. “In my will I had made you head of the family,

had given you two-thirds of my estate. I shall write a revocation

here--immediately. I shall make a new will to-morrow.”

If the blow crushed him, he did not show it. He did not even wince as

he saw forty millions swept away from him. “As you please,” he said,

putting scorn into his face and voice--as if I could be fooled by such

a pretence. The man never lived who could scorn a tenth, or even a

fortieth, of forty millions. “I came into this room,” he went on, “to

tell you how ashamed I was of what I have done--how vile and low I

have felt. I didn’t come to apologise to _you_, but to my--my mother

and to myself in your presence. I am still ashamed of what I did, of

what you made me do. Do you know why I did it? Because your money, your

millions, have changed you from a man into a monster. This wealth has

injured us all--yes, even mother, noble though she is. But you--it has

made you a fiend. Well, I wished to be independent of you. You have

brought me up so that I could not live without luxury. But you haven’t

destroyed in me the last spark of self-respect. And I decided to make

a play for a fortune of my own. I--broke my word and speculated. I

overreached--I saw my one hope of freeing myself from slavery to you

slipping from me. I--I--no matter. What _did_ matter after I’d broken

my word? And I was justly punished. I lost--everything.”

As he flung these frightful insults at me my calm fury grew cold as

well. “You will leave the house within an hour,” I said. “Your mother

will make your excuses to her guests--I shall spare you the humiliation

of a public disowning. During my lifetime you shall have nothing from

me--no, nor from your mother. I shall see to that. In my will I shall

leave you a trifling sum--enough to keep you alive. I am responsible to

society that you do not become a public charge. And you may from this

day continue on your way to the penitentiary without hindrance from

those who were your kin.”

As I finished, he smiled. His smile grew broader, and became a laugh.

“Very well, ex-father,” he said; “there’s one inheritance you can’t rob

me of--my mind. I’ll lop off its rotten spots, and I think what’s left

will enable me to stagger along.”

“You imagine I’ll relent,” I went on, “but my days of weakness with you

are over.”

“You--relent!” He smiled mockingly. “I’m not such a fool as to fancy

that. Even if you had a heart, your pride wouldn’t let you. And I’m not

sorry--just at this moment. Perhaps I shall be later--I’m fond of cash,

and your pot for me was a big one. But just now I feel as if you were

doing me a favour.” He drew a long breath. “God!” he exclaimed. “I’m

free! In spite of myself, I’m free! I’m a man at last!”

I did not care to listen to any more of the frothings of the silly

young fool. Already I was regarding him as a stranger, was turning to

his brother Walter as a possible successor to him and my principal

heir. I left the room and went for a walk with my daughter and Natalie

Bradish. When we returned he was gone. I sent for Walter and told him

the news.

“Your brother has forfeited everything,” I said, in conclusion. “It

remains for you to prove yourself worthy of the place I had designed

for him. In the will I shall make to-morrow my estate will be divided

equally among my three children, your mother getting her dower rights.

If you do not show the qualities I hope, the will shall stand. If you

do, I shall make another, giving you your own share plus what I had

intended for James.”

Walter is a square-shouldered youth of medium height, with irregular,

rather commonplace features, a rough skin, and an unpleasant habit

of shifting his eyes rapidly round and round yours as you talk with

him--I am as impartial a judge of my own family as a stranger would

be. Walter has been a good deal of a sneak all his life--at least, he

was up to the time when a man’s real character disappears behind the

pose he adopts to face and fool the world with. “I don’t know what to

say, sir,” he said to me now. “I’d plead for my brother, only that you

are just and must have done what was right. I don’t know how to thank

you for the chance you’re giving me. I can’t hope to come up to your

standards, but I’ll just keep on trying to do my best to please you and

show my gratitude to you. I always have been very proud of being your

son. It will make me doubly proud if I can win your confidence so that

you will select me as head of our family if it should ever need another

head. But all that’s too far away to think about.”

I was much pleased by the modesty and sound sense of what he said, and

from that moment have been taking a less unfavourable view of him.

Indeed, it seems to me that I was unjust to him in my partiality for

his brother. I exaggerated Jim’s impudence into courage, Walter’s

diplomacy into cringing cowardice. This is another illustration of how

careful a man should be not to let his hopes and desires blind him. I

had been refusing to see what a wretched, untrustworthy scoundrel James

was, all because I wished my elder son and namesake to be my principal

heir and had made up my mind that he must be worthy of the honour.

There was only one point left unguarded--lest his mother should, in her

weakness for her first-born, secretly supply him with money. I might

have been powerless to prevent this, though I had determined to take

from her all power over the domestic expenditures and put it in the

hands of Burridge, in order that she might have as few spare dollars

as possible. I knew I could count on her not sacrificing her personal

vanity to keep him in funds. But with characteristic folly James shut

his one door upon himself and spared me the trouble of watching his

mother.

She came to town Thursday last and sent for me. I went up to the house

for luncheon with her. As soon as she heard that I was there she joined

me in the library. Her face was stern and hard. “Read this,” she said,

handing me a letter. It was in James’s handwriting:

_Mother dear_: You don’t know Theodora, or you couldn’t have written

what you did about her. You will love her--no one can help loving her

who knows her. We were married this morning. When will you come and

let me show her what a beautiful, good mother I have? I know you’ll

come as soon as ever you can.

JIM.

“Theodora?” I said--I couldn’t imagine whom he had induced to share his

poverty.

“Theodora Glendenning,” she replied.

“The miserable boy!” I exclaimed, forgetting for an instant that he is

nothing to me. Theodora Glendenning was a widow, an adventuress from

heaven knows where. She had obtained a slight footing in fairly good

New York society a few years before, as a young girl, and had been

invited to one or two first-class houses. She was good-looking, had

the ways and voice of a siren, and a certain plausible sweetness and

gentleness. She trapped young Nick Glendenning. His family promptly

cast him off and they sank into obscurity, living on the income of the

few hundred thousands he had inherited from a grandaunt. Then he died.

We did not know where or how James met her.

“He wrote me on Tuesday,” said my wife, “that he’d been engaged to

Theodora for six months. It is infamous. I wrote him that, if he

sacrificed all his chances for position and recognition in New York by

marrying an adventuress, he needn’t expect me to do anything for him.”

“Now you realise that I knew what I was about when I shook him off,” I

said.

“Yes, James. And after all the care I gave him, after all I did for

him! To defy me, to trample on my love, and marry that worthless nobody

with her beggarly income! I had arranged for him to marry Natalie

Bradish. She’d have helped us with her splendid family.”

I smiled. “She wouldn’t have had him, my dear,” I said; “she will marry

Walter.”

“No--she would have married James. She was crazy about him.”

This amazed me--women are always thinking each other sentimental, yet

every woman ought to know that at bottom all women are sensible and

never take their eyes off the main chance. But I said nothing. I was

too well content with matters as they stood. Women are so perverse

that had I joined her just then in attacking James she might have

veered round to him again on impulse.

Now that he has thwarted her ambitions for him, and for herself through

him, she will be bitter in her hate where I shall be calm in mine.

She had her whole heart in the social strength she was to gain by his

making a brilliant marriage. He has crushed her heart, has killed the

affection she had for him. She would have forgiven him anything but a

wife offensive to her.

I don’t altogether like the idea of this sort of mother love. Men

should be just; but women should be merciful and loving. New York and

wealth and the social struggle have made her too hard. However, I’m not

quarrelling seriously with what works so admirably for my purpose as to

James. Our common disaster in him will draw us nearer together than we

have been for years--at least until the next wrangle over an expense

account. For years we have had opposite interests--I, to restrain her;

she, to outwit me. Now we again have a common interest, and it is

common interest that makes husband and wife live together in harmonious

peace.

Nothing happens with me as with ordinary human beings. What could be

stranger than that my new era of domestic quiet should be founded, not

upon love or affection or feelings of that sort, but upon hate--upon my

and her common hate for our unworthy elder son?