GREEN CHARTREUSE
There is a common law of character which is greater than the canons. It
fills many volumes of records in the high court of Experience, and we
add to it daily by our instinctive decisions in small matters; but only
the finer natures, highly endowed with discernment, master its
intricacies. The decalogue is a safe guidepost on the great highway of
life; but it does not avail the lost pilgrim who stumbles in remote
by-paths. The spirit is the only arbiter of the nicer distinctions
between right and wrong. James Wheaton did not steal; he would do no
murder; he was not even unusually covetous. If the tests which Destiny
applied to him had related to the great fundamentals of conduct, he
would not have been found wanting; but they were directed against
seemingly unimportant weaknesses, along the lines of his least
resistance to evil.
A week had passed since Saxton's appointment to the receivership and
Wheaton went to and from his work with many misgivings. Several of
Wheaton's friends had confided to him their belief that he ought to have
been appointed receiver instead of Saxton, and there was little that he
could say to this, except that he had no time for it. He had become
nervous and distraught, and was irritable under the jesting of his
associates at The Bachelors'. There was a good deal of joking at their
table for several days after Saxton's appointment over Margrave's
discomfiture, to which Wheaton contributed little. He felt decidedly ill
at ease under it. Thompson, the cashier, had come home, and Wheaton
found his presence irksome.
He had seen Margrave several times at the club since their last
interview at the bank and Margrave had nodded distantly, as if he hardly
remembered Wheaton. Wheaton assumed that sooner or later Margrave would
offer to pay him for his shares of Traction stock. But while the loss of
his own certificate, under all the circumstances, did not trouble him,
Margrave's appropriation of Evelyn Porter's shares was an unpleasant
fact that haunted all his waking hours.
One evening, a week after the receivership incident, he resolved to go
to Margrave and demand, at any hazard, the return of Evelyn's
certificate. The idea seized firm hold upon him, and he set out at once
for Margrave's house. He inquired for Margrave at the door, and the maid
asked him to go into the library. They were entertaining at dinner, she
told him, and he said he would wait. He walked nervously up and down in
the well-appointed library, where Warry Raridan's purchases looked out
at him from the solid mahogany bookcases. He heard the hum of voices
faintly from the dining-room.
He picked up a magazine and tried to read, but the printed pages did not
hold his eyes. He did not know how Margrave would treat him, and he
would have escaped from the house if he had dared. Margrave came in
presently, fat and ugly in his evening clothes. He welcomed Wheaton
noisily and introduced him to his guests, two directors of the
Transcontinental and their wives, who were passing through town on their
way to California.
Mrs. Margrave and Mabel greeted Wheaton cordially. Mabel was dressed to
impress the ladies from New York, and was succeeding. The colored butler
passed coffee and cigars and green chartreuse, and when Wheaton declined
a cigar, Mabel brought him a cigarette from the taboret from which "The
Men" were helped to such trifles. Mrs. Margrave was oppressed by the
presence in her home of so many millions and so much social distinction
as her guests represented, and she contributed only murmurs of assent to
the conversation which Mabel led with ease, discoursing in her most
Tyringhamesque manner of yacht races, horse shows and like matters of
metropolitan interest. Wheaton was glad now that he had come; Margrave's
guests were people worth meeting; he liked the talk, and the chartreuse
gave elegance to the occasion.
Margrave accommodated his heavy frame to the soft indulgence of a huge
leather chair and drained the liqueur from his glass at a gulp.
"Well, gentlemen, I'm glad Mr. Wheaton could drop in to-night. He's a
friend of the road and of ours. If everybody treated the
Transcontinental as well as he does,--well, a good many things would be
different!"
He looked at Wheaton admiringly, and his guests followed his gaze with
polite interest.
"Why, gentlemen," said Margrave, straining forward until his face was
purple, "Wheaton did his level best for me in that Traction deal; yes,
sir, he worked with us on that, and if it hadn't been for that fool
judge we'd have had it all fixed." He leaned back and nodded at Wheaton
benignantly.
Wheaton had merely murmured at intervals during this deliverance. He did
not know what Margrave meant. He moved over by Mrs. Margrave and tried
to make talk with her. As soon as he felt that he could go decently, he
rose and shook hands with the visiting gentlemen and bowed to the
ladies. Margrave took him by the arm with an air of great intimacy and
affection and walked with him to the hall, where he made much of helping
Wheaton into his overcoat.
"I wanted to see you on a business matter," Wheaton began, in a low
tone.
"Oh, yes," said Margrave loudly, "I forgot to mail you that check. I've
been terribly rushed lately; but in time, my boy, in time!"
The people in the library could hardly have failed to hear every word.
"Oh, not that, not that! I mean that other certificate." Wheaton was
trying to drop the conversation to a whispering basis as he drew on his
gloves. Margrave had again taken his arm and was walking with him toward
the front door, talking gustily all the while. He swung the door open
and followed Wheaton out upon the front step.
"A glorious night! glorious!" he ejaculated, puffing from his walk. His
hand wandered up Wheaton's arm until it reached his collar, and after he
had allowed his fingers to grasp this lingeringly, he gave Wheaton a
sudden push forward, still holding his collar, then raised his fat leg
and kicked him from the step.
"Come again, Jim?" he called pleasantly, as he backed within the door
and closed it to return to his guests.
Wheaton reached his room, filled with righteous indignation. He might
have known that a coarse fellow like Margrave cared only for people whom
he could control; and he decided after a night of reflection that he had
acted handsomely in saving Porter's package of securities from Margrave
the night of the encounter at the bank. The more he thought of it, the
more certain he grew that he could, if it became necessary to protect
himself in any way, turn the tables on Margrave. He called Margrave a
scoundrel in his thoughts, and was half persuaded to go at once to
Fenton and explain why Margrave had been at the bank on the night that
Fenton had found him there.
Wheaton continued to call at the Porters' daily to make inquiry for the
head of the house. On some of these occasions he saw Evelyn, but Mrs.
Whipple, whose staying qualities were born of a rigid military sense of
duty, was always there; and he had not seen Evelyn alone since she gave
him her father's key. Other young men, friends of Evelyn, called, he
found, just as he did, to make inquiry about Mr. Porter. Mrs. Whipple
had a way of saying very artlessly, and with a little sigh that carried
weight, that Mr. Raridan was so very kind. Wheaton wanted to be very
kind himself, but he never happened to be about when the servants were
busy and there were important prescriptions to be filled at the
apothecary's.
On the whole he was very miserable and when, one morning, while
Porter's condition was still precarious, he received a letter from
Snyder, postmarked Spokane, declaring that money was immediately
required to support him until he could find work, he closed that issue
finally in a brief letter which was not couched in diplomatic language.
The four days that were necessary for the delivery of this letter had
hardly passed before Wheaton received a telegram sharply demanding a
remittance by wire. This Wheaton did not answer; he had done all that he
intended to do for William Snyder, who was well out of the way, and much
more safely so if he had no money. The correspondence was not at an end,
however, for a threatening letter in Snyder's eccentric orthography
followed, and this, too, Wheaton dropped into his waste paper basket and
dismissed from his mind.