V
A curious kind of cowardice has been growing on me of late. Whenever I
feel the slightest pain or ache--a twinge I’d not have given a second
thought to a year or so ago--I send post-haste for my doctor, the
ridiculous, lying, flattering Hanbury. My intelligence forbids me to
put the least confidence in him. I know he’d no more tell me or any
other rich man a disagreeable truth than he’d tell one of his rich
old women that she was past the age of pleasing men. Yet I send for
Hanbury; and I swallow his lies about my health, and urge him on to
feed me lies about my youthful appearance that are even more absurd.
I’m thinking of employing him exclusively and keeping him by me--for
companionship. Cress is worse than worthless except for business, Jack
is getting stale and repetitive with age, and I badly need some one to
amuse me, to take my mind off myself and my affairs and my family.
At this moment I happen to be in my mood for mocking my fears and
follies about the end. The End!--I’m not afraid of what comes after.
All the horror I’m capable of feeling goes into the thought of giving
up my crown and my sceptre, my millions and my dominion over men and
affairs. The afterward? I’ve never had either the time or the mind for
the speculative and the intangible--at least not since I passed the
sentimental period of youth.
Each day my power grows--and my love of power and my impatience of
opposition. It seems to me sacrilege for any one to dare oppose me
when I have so completely vindicated my right to lead and to rule.
I understand those tyrants of history who used to be abhorrent to
me--much could be said in defence of them. Once the power I now wield
would have seemed tremendous. And it is tremendous. But I am so often
galled by its limitations, more often still by the absurd obstacles
that delay and fret me.
Early last month I found that down at Washington they were about to
pass a law “regulating” railway rates, which means, of course, lowering
them and cutting my dividends and disarranging my plans in general. I
telephoned Senator ----, whom we keep down there to see that that sort
of demagoguery is held in check, to come to me in New York at once. He
appeared at my house the same evening, full of excuses and apologies.
“The public clamour is so great,” said he, “and the arguments of the
opposition are so plausible, that we simply have to do something. This
bill is the least possible.”
I rarely argue with understrappers. I merely told him to go to my
lawyer’s house, get the bill I had ordered drawn, take it back to
Washington on the midnight train, and put it through. “You old women
down there,” said I, “seem incapable of learning that the mob isn’t
appeased, but is made hungrier, by getting what it wants. Humbug’s the
only dish for it. Fill it full of humbug and it gets indigestion and
wishes it had never asked for anything.”
My substitute was apparently more drastic than the other bill, but I
had ordered into it a clause that would send it into the courts where
we could keep it shuffling back and forth for years. To throw the
demagogues off the scent, Senator ---- had it introduced by one of
the leaders of the opposition--as clever a dealer in humbug as ever
took command of a mob in order to set it brawling with itself at the
critical moment. Our fellows pretended to yield with great reluctance
to this “sweeping and dangerous measure,” and it went through both
houses with a whirl.
The President was about to sign it when up started that scoundrel ----,
who owes his fortune to me and who got his place on the recommendation
of several of us who thought him a safe, loyal, honourable man. The
rascal pointed out the saving clause in my bill and made such a stir in
the newspapers that our scheme was apparently ruined.
I quietly took a regular express for Washington, keeping close to my
drawing-room. By roundabout orders from me a telegram had been sent to
a signal tower in the outskirts of Washington, and it halted the train.
In the darkness I slipped away, hailed a cab, and drove to ----’s
house. He was taken completely by surprise--I suppose he thought I’d be
afraid to come near him, or to try to reach him in any way with those
nosing newspapers watching every move. The only excuse he could make
for himself was a whine about “conscience.”
“I am taking the retaining fee of the people,” said he; “I must serve
their interests just as I served you when I took your retainers.” This
was his plea at the end of a two hours’ talk in which I had exhausted
argument and inducement. I felt that gentleness and diplomacy were in
vain. I released my temper--temper with me is not waste steam, but
powder to be saved until it can be exploded to some purpose.
“We put you in office, sir,” I replied, “and we will put you out. You
owe your honours to us, not to this mob you’re pandering to now in the
hope of getting something or other. We’ll punish you for your treachery
if you persist in it. We’ll drop you back into obscurity, and you’ll
see how soon your ‘people’ will forget you.”
He paled and quivered under the lash. “If the people were not so sane
and patient,” said he, “they’d act like another Samson. They’d pull the
palace down upon themselves for the pleasure of seeing you banqueting
Philistines get your deserts.”
“Don’t inflict a stump speech on me,” said I, going to the door--it
just occurred to me that he might publicly eject me from his house and
so make himself too strong to be dislodged immediately. “Within six
months you’ll be out of office--unless you come to your senses.”
So I left him. A greater fool I never knew. I can understand the
out-in-the-cold fellow snapping his fangs; but for the life of me
I can’t understand a man with even a job as waiter or crumb-scraper
at the banquet doing anything to get himself into trouble. He proved
not merely a fool, but a weak fool as well; for, after a few days
of thinking it over, he switched round, withdrew his objection, and
explained it away--and so my bill was signed. But we are done with him.
A man may be completely cured of an attack of insanity, but who would
ever give him a position of trust afterward? Not I, for one. Too many
men who have never gone crazy are waiting, eager to serve us.
Still, looking back over the incident, I am not satisfied with myself.
I won, but I played badly. I must be careful--I am becoming too
arrogant. If he had been a little stronger and cleverer, he would
have had me thrown out of his house, and I don’t care to think what
a position that would have put me in, not only then, but also for
the future. As long as I was engaged in hand-to-hand battle and had
personally to take what I got, it was well to have an outward bearing
that frightened the timid and made the easy-going anxious to conciliate
me. But, now that I employ others to retrieve the game I bring down, it
is wiser that I show courtesy and consideration. I get better service;
I cause less criticism. Enemies are indispensable to a rising man--they
put him on his mettle and make people look on him as important. But to
a risen man they are either valueless or a hindrance, and, at critical
moments, a danger.
It is one of the large ironies of life that when one has with infinite
effort gained power, one dares not indulge in the great pleasure of
openly exercising it, for fear of losing it. Not even I can eat my cake
and have it. Sometimes success seems to me to mean rising to a height
where one can more clearly see the things one cannot have.
And now luck, plus strong rowing and right steering, swept me on to
another success--this time a brilliant marriage. The element of luck
was particularly large in this instance, as in any matter where one of
the factors is feminine. Every wise planner reduces the human element
in his projects to the minimum, because human nature is as uncertain as
chance itself. But while one can always rely, to a certain extent, upon
the human element where it is masculine, where it is feminine there’s
absolutely no more foundation than in a quicksand. The women not only
unsettle the men, but they also unsettle themselves; and, acting always
upon impulse, they are as likely as not to fly straight in the face of
what is best for them. Women are incapable of cooperation. The only
business they understand or take a genuine interest in is the capture
of men--a business which each woman must pursue independently and alone.
Fortunately, Aurora, like most of the young women of our upper class,
had been thoroughly trained in correct ideas of self-interest.
She was born in the purple. When she came into the world I had been a
millionaire several years, and my wife and I had changed our point of
view on life from that of the lower middle class in which we were bred
(though we didn’t know it at the time, and thought ourselves “as good
as anybody”), to that of the upper class, to which my genius forced our
admission. Aurora was our first child to have a French nurse, the first
to have teachers at home--a French governess and a German one.
James had gone to the public school and then to Phillips Exeter;
Walter had gone to public school a little while, and then to ----,
where he was prepared for Harvard, not in a mixed and somewhat motley
crowd, as James was, but in a company made up exclusively of youths
of his own class, the sons of those who are aristocratic by birth or
by achievement. Aurora was even more exclusively educated. She--with
difficulty, as we were still new to our position--was got into a small
class of aristocratic children that met at the house of the parents
of two of them. Each day she went there in one of our carriages with
her French nursery governess, promoted to be her companion; and, when
the class was over for the day, the companion called for her in the
carriage and took her home.
All Aurora’s young friends were girls like herself, bred in the
strictest ideas of the responsibilities of their station, and intent
upon making a social success, and, of course, a successful marriage.
At the time, my wife, who had not then been completely turned by the
adulation my wealth had brought her, used to express to me her doubts
whether these children were not too sordid. I was half inclined to
agree with her, for it isn’t pleasant to hear mere babies talk of
nothing but dresses and jewels, palaces and liveries and carriages,
good “catches,” and social position. But I see now that there is
no choice between that sort of education and sheer sentimentalism.
It is far better that children who are to inherit millions and
the responsibilities of high station should be over-sordid than
over-sentimental. Sordidness will never lead them into the ruinous
mischief of prodigality and bad marriages; sentimentalism is almost
certain to do so.
My wife was extremely careful, as the mothers of our class must be, to
scan the young men who were permitted to talk with Aurora. Only the
eligible had the opportunity to get well acquainted with her--indeed, I
believe Horton Kirkby was the first man she really knew well.
It was a surprise to me when Kirkby began to show a preference for her.
His mother is one of the leaders of that inner circle of fashionable
society which still barred the doors haughtily against us, though
it admitted many who were glad to be our friends--perhaps I should
say _my_ friends. Kirkby himself keenly delighted in the power which
his combination of vast wealth, old family, and impregnable social
position gave him. Every one supposed he would marry in his own set.
But Aurora got a chance at him, and--well, Aurora inherits something
of my magnetism and luck. Kirkby’s coldness to me at the outset and
his mother’s deliberately snubbing us again and again make me think
his intentions were not then serious. But Aurora alternately fired and
froze him with such skill that she succeeded in raising in his mind
a doubt which had probably never entered it before--a doubt of his
ability to marry any woman he might choose. So, she triumphed.
But after they were engaged she continued to play fast and loose with
him. At first I thought this was only clever manœuvring on her part to
keep him uncertain and interested. But I presently began to be uneasy
and sent her mother to question her adroitly. “She says,” my wife
reported to me, “that she can’t take him and she can’t give him up. She
says there’s one thing she’d object to more than to marrying him, and
that is to seeing some other girl marry him.”
“What nonsense!” said I; “I thought she was too well brought up for
such folly.”
“You must admit Kirkby is--clammy,” replied my wife, always full of
excuses for her children.
Before I could move to bring Aurora to her senses, Kirkby did it--by
breaking off the engagement and transferring his attentions to Mary
Stuyvesant, poor as poverty but beautiful and well born. Within a week
Aurora had him back; within a fortnight she had the cards out for the
wedding.
The presents began to pour in; two rooms down-stairs were filling with
magnificence, and we had sent several van loads to the safety deposit
vaults. There must have been close upon half a million dollars’ worth,
including my gift of a forty-thousand-dollar tiara. Every one in the
house was agitated. I had given my wife and daughter _carte blanche_,
releasing Cress and Jack Ridley from attendance on me to assist them
and to see that extravagance did not spread into absolutely wanton
waste. But this does not mean that I was not in hearty sympathy with
my wife’s efforts to make the full realisation of our social ambition
a memorable occasion. On the contrary, I wanted precisely that; and
I knew the way to accomplish it was by getting five cents’ worth for
every five cents spent, not by imitating the wastefulness of the
ignorant poor. I was willing that the dollars should fly; but I was
determined that each one should hit the mark.
Jack Ridley said to me once: “Why, to you five hundred dollars is less
than one dollar would be to me.”
“Not at all,” I replied; “we cling to five cents more tightly than you
would to five dollars. We know the value of money because we have it;
you don’t know because you haven’t.”
But the happiest, most interested person in all the household was my
daughter Helen. She was to be maid of honour, and on the wedding day
was to make her first appearance in a long dress. It seemed to me that
she suddenly flashed out into wonderful beauty--a strange kind of
beauty, all in shades of golden brown and having an air of mystery that
moved even me to note and admire and be proud--and a little uneasy.
Obviously she would be able to make a magnificent marriage, if she
could be controlled. The greater the prize, the greater the anxiety
until it is grasped.
When she tried on that first long dress of hers she came in to show
herself off to me. She has never been in the least afraid of me--there
is a fine, utter courage looking from her eyes--an assurance that she
could not be afraid of any one or anything.
She turned round slowly, that I might get the full effect. “Well,
well!” said I, put into a tolerant mood by my pride in her. “Aurora had
better keep you out of Horton’s sight until after the ceremony.”
She tossed her head. “He’d be safe from me if there wasn’t another man
in the world,” she answered.
I frowned on this. “You’ll have a hard time making as good a marriage
as your sister, miss,” said I. “You’ll see, when we begin to look for a
husband for you.”
“I shall look for my own husband, thank you,” she replied, pertly.
But her smile was so bright that I only said, “We’ll cross that bridge,
miss, when we come to it--we’ll cross it together.”
There was an unpleasant silence--her expression made me feel more
strongly than ever before that she would be troublesome. I said: “How
old are you now?”
“Why, don’t you remember? I was sixteen last Wednesday. You gave me
_this_.” She touched a pearl brooch at her neck.
No, I didn’t remember--Ridley attends to all those little matters for
me. But I said, “To be sure,” and patted her on the shoulder--and let
her kiss me, and then sent her away. For a moment I envied the men
whose humble station enables them to enjoy more of such intercourse as
that. I confess I have my moments when all this striving and struggling
after money and power seems miserably unsatisfactory, and I picture
myself and my fellow strugglers as so many lunatics in a world full of
sane people whom we toil for and give a bad quarter of an hour now and
then as our lunacy becomes violent.
But that is a passing mood.
The next I heard of Helen she had set the whole house in an uproar. Two
days before the wedding she shut herself in her apartment and sent out
word by her maid that she would not be maid of honour--would not attend
the wedding. “I can do nothing with her,” said my wife; “she’s been
beyond my control for two years.”
“I’ll go to her,” I said. “We’ll see who’s master in this house.”
She herself opened her sitting-room door for me. She had a book in her
hand and was apparently calm and well prepared. The look in her eyes
made me think of what my wife had once said to me: “Be careful how you
try to bully her, James. She’s like you--and Jim.”
“What’s this I hear about you refusing to appear in your first long
dress?” I asked--a very different remark, I’ll admit, from the one I
intended to open with.
She smiled faintly, but did not take her serious eyes from mine. “I
can’t go to the wedding,” said she. “Please, father, don’t ask it! I--I
hoped they wouldn’t tell you. I told them they might say I was ill.”
I managed to look away from her and collect my thoughts. “You are the
youngest,” I began, “and we have been foolishly weak with you. But
the time has come to bring you under control and save you from your
own folly. Understand me! You will go to the wedding, and you will go
as maid of honour.” I was master of myself again and I spoke the last
words sternly, and was in the humour for a struggle. She had roused one
of my strongest passions--the passion for breaking wills that oppose
mine.
There was a long pause, and then she said, quietly: “Very well,
father. I shall obey you.”
I was like a man who has flung himself with all his might against
what he thinks is a powerful obstacle and finds himself sprawling
ridiculously upon vacancy. I lost my temper. “What do you mean,” I
exclaimed, angrily, “by making all this fuss about nothing? You will go
at once and apologise to your mother and sister.”
She sat silent, her eyes down.
“Do you hear?” I demanded.
She fixed her gaze steadily on mine. “Yes, sir,” she answered, “but I
cannot obey.”
“How dare you say that to me?” I said, so furious that I was calm. I
had a sense of impotence--as if the irresistible force had struck the
immovable body.
“Because what you ask isn’t right.”
“You forget that I am your father.”
“And you forget that I am”--she drew herself up proudly and looked at
me unafraid--“your daughter.”
There seems to be some sort of magic in her. I can’t understand it
myself, but her answer completely changed my feeling toward her. It
had never before occurred to me that the fact of her being my daughter
gave her rights and privileges which would be intolerable in another. I
saw family pride for the first time and instantly respected it. “If I
only had a son like you!” I said, on impulse, for the moment forgetting
everything else in this new conception of family line and its meaning.
The tears rushed to her eyes. She leaned forward in her eagerness. “You
_had_--you _have_,” she said. “Oh, father----”
“Not another word,” I said, sternly; “why did you refuse to go to
Aurora’s wedding?”
“Tuesday night she came into my room and got into my bed. She put her
arms round me and said, ‘Helen, I _can’t_ marry him! He’s--he’s just
_awful_! It makes me cold all over for him to touch me.’ We talked
nearly all night--and--I feel sorry for her--but I felt it would be
wrong for me to go to the wedding or have anything to do with it. She
wouldn’t break it off--she said she’d go on if it killed her. And
I begged her to go to you and ask you to stop it, but she said she
wanted to marry him or she wouldn’t. And--but when you said I must go,
it seemed to me it’d be wrong to disobey. Only--I can’t apologise to
them--I can’t--because--I’ve done nothing to apologise for.”
“Never mind, child,” I said--I felt thoroughly uncomfortable. It is
impossible clearly to explain many matters to an innocent mind. “You
need not apologise. But pay no attention to Aurora’s hysterics--and
enjoy yourself at the wedding. Girls always act absurdly when they’re
about to marry. Six months from now she’ll be the happiest woman in New
York, and if she didn’t marry him she’d be the most wretched.”
“Poor Aurora!” said Helen, with a long sigh.
But Helen could not have said “poor” Aurora on the great day at St.
Bartholomew’s. It was, indeed, an hour of triumph for us all. As she
and Kirkby came down from the altar, I glanced round the church and
had one of my moments of happiness. There they all were--all the pride
and fashion and established wealth of New York--all of them at my
feet. I, who had sprung from nothing; I, who had had to fight, fight,
fight, staking everything--yes, character, even liberty itself--here
was I, enthroned, equal to the highest, able to put my heel upon the
necks of those who had regarded me as part of the dirt under their
feet. I went down the aisle of the church, drunk with pride and joy.
I had not had such happiness since that day when, smarting under
Judson’s insults, I suddenly remembered that, if he had honour, I had
the million and was a millionaire. As my wife and I drove back to
the house for the reception, I caught myself muttering to the crowds
pushing indifferently along the sidewalks, intent upon their foolish
little business, “Bow! Bow! Don’t you know that one of your masters is
passing?”
Just as I was in the full swing of this ecstasy I happened to notice a
huge stain on the costly cream-coloured lining of the brougham--I was
in my wife’s carriage. “What’s that?” said I, pointing to it.
She told a silly story of how she had carelessly broken a bottle in the
carriage a few days before and had ruined a seven-hundred-dollar dress
and the carriage-lining.
Instantly the routine of my life claimed me--my happiness was over. I
made the natural comment upon such criminal indifference to the cost of
things; she retorted after her irrational, irresponsible fashion. We
were soon quarrelling fiercely upon the all-important subject, money,
which she persists in denouncing as vulgar. We could scarcely compose
our faces to leave the carriage and make a proper appearance before the
crowds without the house and the throngs within. As for me, my day was
ruined.
But the reception was, in fact, a failure, though it seemed a success.
Aurora, the excitement of the ceremony over, was looking wretched;
and, as she came down to go away, her face was tragical. I could feel
the hypocritical whisperings of my guests. Exasperated, I turned,
only to stumble on Helen, crying as if her heart were breaking. My new
son-in-law bade me good-bye with a cold, condescending shake of the
hand, and in a voice that made me long to strike him. It set me to
gnawing again on what Helen heard at the dancing class three years ago.
When every one had gone my wife came to me, her eyes sparkling with
anger.
“Did you see old Mrs. Kirkby leave?” she asked.
“No--she must have gone without speaking to me,” I replied.
“She left less than a minute after Aurora and Horton. When I put out
my hand to her she just touched it with the tips of her fingers, and
all she said was, ‘I hope we’ll run across each other at my son’s, some
time.’”
“They’ll change their tune when I get after them!” I exclaimed.
“What can _you_ do?” sneered my wife. “They know your money goes to
Walter. Besides, it’s all your fault.”
“_My_ fault?” I said, in disgust--everything is always my fault,
according to my wife.
“Yes--it’s your reputation,” she retorted, bitterly. “It’ll take two
generations of respectability to live it down.”
I left the room abruptly. The injustice of this was so hideous that
reply was impossible. After all my sacrifices, after all my stupendous
achievements, after lifting my family from obscurity to the highest
dignity--_this_ was my reward! Yes, the highest dignity. I know how
they sneer. I know how they whisper the ugly word that Helen heard at
the dancing class. I see it in their eyes when I take them unawares.
But--they cringe before me, they fear me, and they dare not offend me.
What more could I ask? What do I care about their cowardly mutterings
which they dare not let me hear?
In the upper hall I came upon Helen, sitting in the alcove, sobbing.
“Poor Aurora! Poor Aurora!” she said, when I paused before her.
“Poor Aurora!” I retorted, angrily. “Your sister is married to one of
the richest men in New York.”
“He tried to kiss me as they were leaving,” she went on, between sobs,
“and I drew away and slapped him. When Aurora hugged me she whispered,
‘I don’t blame you--I detest him!’ Poor Aurora!”
I went into my apartment and slammed the door. I knew how it would turn
out, and this hysterical nonsense infuriated me.
[Illustration: “_I came upon Helen, sitting in the alcove, sobbing._”]
When Aurora and Kirkby came back from their trip through the South
and burst in on us at lunch [it was a Sunday], probably I was the
only one at the table who wasn’t surprised by their looks. Helen, I
knew, had been expecting Aurora would return with a face like the
last scene of the last act of a tragedy. Instead she was radiant,
beautifully dressed, and with an assurance of manner that was immensely
becoming to her--the assurance of a woman who is conscious of having
married brilliantly and is determined to enjoy her good fortune to
the uttermost. It was plain that she was on the best possible terms
with Kirkby. As for him, he looked foolishly happy and was obviously
completely under her control, as I knew he would be. He is certainly in
himself not a dignified figure--short and fat and sallow and amazingly
ordinary-looking for a man of such birth and breeding. But the instant
people hear who he is, they forget his face, figure, and mind. In this
world, what things really are is not important; it’s altogether what
they seem to be, altogether the valuation agreed upon. I’ve sometimes
watched the children at their games, “playing” that pins and rags have
fantastic big values; and I’ve thought how ridiculous it was to smile
at them and keep serious faces over our own grown-up game of precisely
the same kind.
Aurora had been sending home the newspapers of every town in which
they had stopped, so we had a pretty good idea of the ovation they
had received. But as soon as she was alone with us she went over it
all--and we were as proud as was she. “I don’t think Horton liked it
particularly, but there wasn’t a place where they didn’t know more
about me than about him,” said she. “You noticed, didn’t you, that the
papers often said, ‘James Galloway’s daughter and her husband’? Horton
was awfully funny about the excitement over us. At first he kept up
the pretence with me that he thought it vulgar. But he soon cut that
out and fairly devoured the newspapers. Of course we didn’t drop our
exclusiveness before people--everywhere they talked about how anxious
we were to avoid notoriety. Whenever the reporters came near us, my!
but didn’t Horton sit on them.”
She made only one criticism of him--and that a laughing one. “You
thought,” said she, “that we started in a private car. Well, we didn’t.
When I got to Jersey City he put me into a stuffy old regular Pullman
with all sorts of people. And he said, with the grandest air, ‘I took
the drawing-room, as I thought you’d like privacy.’ I saw that it was
my time to assert myself.” She laughed. “We had a little talk,” she
went on, “and at Philadelphia he rushed round and got a private car.”
She soon brought his mother to terms. Mrs. Kirkby called on my wife
three days after they got back, and took her driving the following
afternoon. That drive is one of the important events in my career. It
marks the completion of my conquest of New York. Thinking it over, I
decided to double Aurora’s portion under my will. Next to Judson, she
has been the most useful person to me--no, not next to Judson, but
without exception. I should have got my million-dollar start somehow,
if I had never seen him; but I should have had some difficulty in
reaching my climax if I had not had Aurora.
My flood-tide of luck held through one more event--the settlement with
Natalie.
Naturally, I had put a good deal of thought upon this problem. The
longer I considered it the more clearly I realised that to give her
anything at all would be an act of sheer generosity, perhaps of
dangerous generosity. As I have said before, it did not take me long
to absolve myself from the impossible letter of my promise. If I had
been capable of keeping a promise to give six million dollars--the
sum necessary to produce “_an_ income of a quarter of a million”--to
a person whom it was absolutely vital to have financially dependent
upon me, I should have accomplished very little in the world. At first
my decision to keep the spirit of my promise by giving “_the_ income
of a quarter of a million” seemed as fair as it was liberal. But now
that she was safely married to my son, I began to see that to give her
anything would be to strike a blow at his domestic happiness, and that
would mean striking a blow at her own happiness. It could not fail
to unsettle her mind to find herself with an independent income of
ten or twelve thousand a year in addition to the five or six thousand
she already had. Nothing else is so certain to destroy a husband’s
influence or to unfit a wife contentedly to fill her proper place in
the family as for her to be financially independent.
I have never been lacking in the courage to do right, no matter what
moral quibble or personal unpleasantness has stood in the way. I
resolved not to give her anything outright, but, instead, to provide
for her in my will--the income of a quarter of a million, to be hers
for life, unless Walter should die and she marry again.
There now remained only the comparatively simple matter of reconciling
her to this arrangement when she was expecting at once to receive the
equivalent of six millions, free from conditions.
A weak man would have put off the issue until the last moment, through
dislike of disagreeable scenes. But I am not one of those who aggravate
difficulties by postponing them. The day after Walter and Natalie
sailed from the other side for the homeward journey, I sent for her
father. “Matt,” said I, “as you probably remember, I made up my mind
to do something for your daughter as soon as she decided to become my
daughter, too. I finally got round to it this morning. I thought I’d
tell you I had made the necessary changes in my will.”
He looked at me narrowly, with an expression between wonder and
suspicion. “I don’t understand,” said he.
“I promised your daughter she should have the income of a quarter of a
million,” I replied, “and this morning I put the necessary provision
into my will.”
His mouth dropped open. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief
several times. Then all of a sudden he flushed a violent red and struck
the table with his fist. “Why, damn it, Galloway,” he exclaimed, “you
promised her you’d settle _an_ income of a quarter of a million on her
at once.”
I looked at him as if I thought him crazy. “Where did you get that
notion?” said I. “I never heard of anything so preposterous. Did you
think I’d gone stark mad?” I let him see that I was getting angry.
“She told me so--told me within an hour of your promising it,” he
replied. “And, by heavens, you’ll stick to your promise!” He banged the
table with his fist again.
As I had made clear my intention--which was my only purpose for that
first interview--I rose. “I permit no man to talk to me in that
fashion,” said I; “not even an old friend who has apparently gone out
of his mind. I do not care to discuss the matter further.”
I went into my inner office and shut him out. I knew he was too
practical a man ever really to have believed that I intended to give
his daughter any such stupendous sum. I was certain he had pretended
to her that he believed it, because he was as eager for her to marry
Walter as I was. Assuming that he did believe it, he could not but see
there was nothing but disaster for him in offending me. Therefore, I
had not the slightest fear that he would persist in his anger; I knew
he would calm down, would at most cook up some scheme for trying to
frighten some sort of a settlement out of me, and would break the news
to his daughter at the first opportunity, so that he might caution her
against doing anything foolish on impulse.
I heard nothing from him and did not see him again until we all went
down to the dock to meet Walter and Natalie. The exchange of greetings
between the two families was far from cordial, her father and I barely
nodding at each other. Natalie and her mother and Walter went up-town
together. I saw that her mother could hardly wait to get her alone so
that she could tell her and coach her.
I did not permit her to see me in circumstances in which she could
have talked freely until nearly two weeks had passed. Then, her
friendly manner was rather strained, but she said nothing about her
settlement--and, of course, I’m not the one to poke a sleeping dog. I
was delighted to find such a striking confirmation of my good opinion
of her. Doubtless she doesn’t feel especially kindly toward me, but she
has given no sign--and that is the important fact. A less intelligent
woman would not have seen how useless it was to make a fight, or would
have given way to her temper just for the pleasure of relieving her
feelings.
To these two triumphs was now added a third, which, in its
many-sidedness, gave me more satisfaction than either of the others.
It came in the course of my campaign to push out of my industrial
combination the minor elements that had to be conciliated when I was
forming it. These were the little fellows who were the chief original
owners of the various concerns of which it was composed. They were no
longer of the slightest use to the industry; they were simply clinging
to it, mere parasites fattening upon my brains. I felt that the time
had come for shaking them off, and forcing them to give up their
holdings. I needed every share either for my own investment purposes or
to bind to me the men I had put in direct charge.
Having always had the shaking off of the parasites in mind, I had never
let the combination develop its full earning capacity. As my first
move toward complete possession, I caused it to be given out that I was
privately much disappointed with the outlook for the industry and for
the combination, and was thinking of disposing of my holdings quietly.
When this rumour that I was about to “unload” was brought to my
attention, I refused either to confirm or to deny it. I followed this
with some slight manipulations of rates, prices, and the stock market.
I was, of course, careful to do nothing violent. I never forget,
nowadays, that I am one of the bulwarks of conservatism and stability;
I and my fellow-occupants of the field of high finance sternly repress
all the stock-raiding moves of the little fellows who are struggling to
get together in a hurry the millions that would enable them to break
into our company.
My moves against my combination sent its stock slowly down. The
minority stockholders unloaded--the most timid upon the least timid;
then, as fear spread and infected the most hopeful among them, all
unloaded upon the public. Finally, I gave the stock a hard blow that
sent it tumbling--almost openly I sold ten thousand shares, and the
sale was regarded by the public as ominously significant, because
it was known that I no longer speculated, and that I frowned upon
speculation and speculators. When I had gathered in what I wanted, at
bottom prices, I came to the rescue, put up the price with a strong
hand, denounced those who had attacked it, expressed my great faith in
the future of the industry and of my combination--and caught in the
net, along with a lot of _bona fide_ sellers, a vast shoal of wriggling
and gasping speculators in “shorts.”
The one of these fish that peculiarly interested me was--my son Walter.
I knew he would be there, and had known it since the third week of my
campaign. As I have never permitted him to see into the machinery of my
financial plant, he fancied that he could operate without my finding
it out. But one of my spies had brought the news to my chief brokers
when he placed his second selling order. I was astonished that another
son of mine had gone into such low and stupid and even dishonourable
business--yes, dishonourable. My own speculative operations were never
of the petty character and for the petty purposes that constitute
gambling. I sent at once for a transcript of his bank account--a man
in my position must have at his command every possible source of
inside information and I have made getting at bank accounts one of
my specialties. My astonishment became amazement when I learned that
four cash items in that account, making in the total nearly the whole
of his gambling capital, were four checks for fifty thousand dollars
each--from his mother!
I had tried many times to get hold of her bank account; but she, partly
through craft, partly through the perversity of luck, did business with
one of the banks into whose secrets I had never been able to penetrate.
I understand at a glance where the two hundred thousand had come
from. They were her “commissions” got from me by stealth, by juggling
household and personal accounts. I saw that I had the opportunity to
give Walter a vivid lesson, to get back my money, and to reduce my wife
once more to a proper complete dependence. So I talked business with
Walter a great deal during those three months, taking always a gloomy
view of prospects of my combination. From time to time through my
spies I learned that he was eagerly taking advantage of these “tips,”
was plunging deeper and deeper in his betting that the stock of my
industrial would continue to fall. When I suddenly put up the price of
the stock, he was on the wrong side of the market to the extent of all
his cash, and, like scores of other fools, far beyond.
I went home to lunch on the day I hauled in my net, for I wished to be
where I could brand the lesson indelibly upon my wife. I had ordered
my men to give out my strong statement and to rocket the market not
earlier than a quarter past one and not later than half past--our lunch
hour. We had been at table about ten minutes when my wife was called
away to the telephone. She was in high good-humour as she left the
room; indeed, for nearly two months her confident hopes of profits that
would give her a million or more in her own right had made her almost
youthful in looks and in spirits. She was gone a long time, so long
that I was just sending for her when she entered. The change in her was
shocking. For a moment I was alarmed lest my lesson had been too severe.
Helen started up, upsetting her chair in her fright at her mother’s
grey old face. “Mother!” she exclaimed, “what is it?”
Her mother tried to smile, but gave me a frightened, cowed glance.
“I--I--I’m not well all of a sudden,” she said. Then she abruptly left
the room, Helen following her.
As I and Ridley and Cress were smoking our after-lunch cigars, she sent
for me. I found her alone in her darkened sitting-room, lying on the
lounge. She asked me to sit, and then she began: “I wish to speak to
you about--about Walter.”
“About his gambling?” said I.
She did not move or speak for fully a minute. It was so dark in her
corner that I could not see her distinctly; besides, when I spoke, she
had quickly covered her face. At length she said: “So you knew all the
time? You set this trap for----”
“Both of you,” I said, as I saw that she did not intend to complete her
sentence.
Presently she went on: “Then I needn’t explain. What I want to say
is--it’s all my fault that Walter did it. He’s down at your office
now. He didn’t have a chance to cover, the stock went up so fast. He’s
lost everything, and--but I suppose it’s to you that he’s in debt. I’m
sick--sick in body, and sick in mind. I give up. I’ve made my last
fight. All I ask is--don’t punish him for what’s all my fault.”
“Your fault?” said I, my curiosity roused.
“I wished to be free,” she replied. “I wished them to be free. I tried
through James when I saw how certain it was he could never get on with
you. Then I tried through Walter when I saw how you were crushing him
and Natalie.”
“So you set James to gambling?”
“Yes--and I’d have confessed, but there were the other children
just at the age when they most needed me to protect them from you.
And--I--I--couldn’t. Besides, he begged me not to--and there was his
forgery. I never thought he had it in him to do that.”
“But he was _your_ son,” said I, “and he had _your_ example. He knew
how you got the money you gave him----”
“Oh, don’t! don’t--please don’t!” she wailed, breaking down altogether.
“If you could see yourself as others, as my children and I see you,
you’d understand--No! No! I don’t mean that. Forgive me--and don’t
punish Walter for my sins.” She burst into such a wild passion of sobs
and tears that I rang for her maid, and, when she came, left to go
down-town.
In my office sat Walter, looking dejected, but far from the sorry
figure I had expected to see. He followed me into my inside room and
stood near my desk, his eyes down.
“Well, sir!” said I, sternly. In fact, I was not the least bit angry;
my complete victory, and the recovery of my control over my family had
put me in a serene frame of mind. “Your mother has told me everything,”
I added, not wishing him to irritate me with any lies.
“But she doesn’t know everything,” said he, “I risked half of Natalie’s
money--and--I--her father loaned me two hundred thousand.”
I frowned still more heavily to conceal the satisfaction this news
gave me. “Did Bradish know what you were going to do with the money?” I
demanded.
“Yes,” replied Walter, in a voice that must have come out of a
desert-dry throat. “He--he went twenty thousand shares short on his own
account.”
This was better and better. For the first time in years I felt like
laughing aloud. “You didn’t by any chance draw Kirkby in?” I asked,
with a pretence of sarcasm.
Walter shook his head. “No--Kirkby doesn’t care about stocks.”
That gave me a chance to laugh. But it wasn’t a kind of laughter that
Walter found contagious. If anything, he got a few shades whiter. “I’ve
known you were in this for two months and a half,” said I. “I wished
to give you an object-lesson that would make you appreciate why Kirkby
doesn’t care about stocks. I’ve known every move you made--we who rule
down here always know about the small people, about the idiots like
you. We are rarely able to fool each other; what chance have you and
your kind got? I told you all this, and now I’ve taught it to you. I’ve
not decided on your punishment yet. But one thing I can tell you: if
you ever go into the market again, you will--join your ex-brother!”
He was silent for a moment, then began: “Mother----”
“I know about her,” I interrupted. “I wish to hear nothing from you.”
He straightened himself and looked at me for the first time. “She
telephoned me she was going to take all the blame,” he said,
resolutely. “It isn’t true that she led me into this. I started with my
own money, then added Natalie’s, then some from Mr. Bradish, and it
wasn’t until then that I went to mother and induced her to risk her
money.”
I was astonished at the manliness of his look and tone--as unlike him
as possible. “Marriage seems to have improved you,” said I.
“Yes--it’s Natalie,” he replied, his face taking on the foolish look
a man gets when he is under the thumb of some woman. “She’s very
different from what we thought--or from what she thought herself. She’s
made me into a new sort of man.”
“A stock gambler?” said I.
He reddened, but knew better than to show his teeth at me, when he was,
if possible, more dependent than ever before.
“A fine story you tell for your mother,” I went on; “but she told me
everything--about James, too.”
“If she says she led James into speculating, that wasn’t so, either,”
he replied, and again his voice was honest. “Jim was deep in the hole,
and she tried to help him out.”
“And how do you happen to know so much about James and his
speculating?” I asked, sharply.
His eyes dropped and he began to shift from leg to leg in his old
despicable fashion. “I--know,” he said, doggedly.
But I wasn’t interested in James--or, for that matter, in the
comparative guilt of Walter and his mother. I had no more time to give
to the affair. I sent Walter away, after repeating my warning as to
the consequences of another lapse, and then I gave my whole attention
to business--to punishing the other wretched “shorts” and to putting
on full steam throughout my combination, mine now in its entirety and
therefore ready for the utmost development of its earning power.
Six months later--that is, last week--I doubled the outstanding
capital stock and at the same time increased the dividend from five per
cent. to six. It is now earning forty-two per cent. on my total actual
investment--a satisfactory property, quite up to my expectations.
My wife has gone abroad with Helen. Poor woman! She has never been the
same since her dream collapsed. However, she no longer irritates or
opposes me. And Natalie is the most satisfactory of daughters-in-law,
and Walter the most docile of sons. As for Aurora, I have been
unexpectedly able to get a hold upon her, and through her upon Kirkby.
She rules him in every matter except one. He keeps her on short,
absurdly short, supplies for the household and her personal expenses.
“When I found that he carried a change purse, I had a foreboding,”
said she to me the other day. “And when I saw how he looked as he
opened it, took a nickel out and closed it, I knew what I had to look
forward to.” I have raised her hopes for a large allowance from me in
the near future, and a fortune under my will. Presently, through my
efforts, combined with hers, I think I shall have Kirkby for a colossal
undertaking I am working out.
Altogether, my affairs are in a thoroughly satisfactory condition. If
it weren’t for old age, and certain pains at times in the back of my
head--though they may be largely imaginary. Then there is the matter of
sleep. I haven’t had a night’s sleep in seven years, and for the last
year I have had only three hours’, pieced out with a nap in my carriage
on the way up-town.
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” But--it wears a crown!