BOJO FACES THE TRUTH
The next days he spent aimlessly. He had a great decision to make, and
he acted as though he had not a thought in the world but to drift
indolently through life. He idled through breakfast, reading the morning
papers laboriously, and was amazed to find that with all his delay it
was only eleven o'clock, with an interminable interval to be filled in
before lunch. He began a dozen novels, seeking to lose himself in the
spell of other lands and other times; but as soon as he sallied out to
his club he had the feeling that the world had been turned inside out.
After luncheon he tried vainly to inveigle some acquaintance into an
afternoon's loafing, only to receive again that impression of strange
loneliness in a foreign land, as one after the other disappeared before
the call of work. He had nothing to do except the one thing which in the
end he knew had to be done, and the more he sought to put it from him,
idling in moving-picture halls or consuming long stretches of pavement
in exploring tramps, the more he felt something always back of his
shoulder, not to be denied.
He avoided the company of his chums, seeking other acquaintances with
whom to dine and take in a show. Something had fallen into the midst of
the old intimacy of Westover Court. There was a feeling of unease and
impending disruption. The passion for gain had passed among them at last
and the trail of disillusionment it had left could not be effaced. The
boyish delight, the frolicking with life had passed. They seemed to have
aged and sobered in a night. The morning breakfasts were constrained,
hurried affairs. There was not the old give-and-take spirit of horse
play. DeLancy was moody and evasive, Marsh silent, and Granning grim.
Bojo could not meet DeLancy's eyes, and with the others he felt that
though they would never express it, he had disappointed them, that in
some way they held him responsible for the changes which had come and
the loss of that complete and free spirit of comradeship which would
never return.
He had reached the point where he had decided on a full confession to
Drake and a certain restitution. But here he met the rock of his
indecision. What should he restore? After deducting the sums paid to
DeLancy and to the estate of Forshay, he had still almost one hundred
and sixty thousand dollars. Why should he not deduct his own losses,
amounting to over seventy thousand dollars incurred in the service of a
campaign which had netted millions?
His conscience, tortured by the tragic memory of Forshay and the feeling
of the spreading circles of panic and losses which had started from his
unwitting agency, had finally recoiled before the thought of making
profit of the desolation of others. But if he renounced the gain, was
there any reason why he should suffer loss; why Drake should not
reimburse him as he had reimbursed others? To accept this view meant
that he would still remain in possession of upwards of eighty-five
thousand dollars, producing a tidy income, able to hold up his own in
the society to which he had grown accustomed. To renounce the payment of
his losses meant not simply a blow to his pride in the acknowledgment
that in the first six months he had already lost two-thirds of what his
father had given him, but that his whole scheme of living would have to
be changed, while marriage with Doris became an impossibility.
Beyond the first letter he had written her in the first tragic reaction
on his return from the office, he had sent Doris no further word. What
he had to say was yet too undefined to express on paper. Too much
depended on her attitude when they met at last face to face. Her
letters, full of anxiety and demand for information, remained
unanswered. One afternoon on returning after a day's tramp on the East
Side, he found a telegram, which had been waiting hours.
Return this afternoon four-thirty most anxious meet me
station.
DORIS.
It was then almost six. Without waiting to telephone explanations he
jumped in a taxi and shot off uptown. At the Drakes' he sent up his name
by Thompson, learning with a sudden tightening of the heart that Drake
himself was home. He went into the quiet reception room, nervously
excited by the approaching crisis, resolved now that it was up, to push
it to its ultimate conclusion. As he whipped back and forth, fingering
impatiently the shining green leaves of the waxed rubber plant, all at
once, to his amazement, Patsie stood before him.
"You here?" he said, stopping short.
She nodded, red in her cheeks, looking quickly at him and away.
"Doris is changing her dress; she'll be down right away. Didn't you get
the telegram?"
"I'm sorry-- I was out all day."
He stopped and she was silent, both awkwardly conscious of the other.
Finally he stammered: "I asked Doris to thank you--for getting my bag
ready and--and your message."
"Oh, Bojo," she said impulsively and the spots of red on her cheek
spread like names, "I want to speak to you so much. I have been thinking
over so many things that I ought to say."
"You can say anything," he said gently.
"Bojo, you must marry Doris!" she said brokenly, joining her hands.
"Why?" he said, too startled to notice the absurdity of the question.
"She needs you. She loves you. If you could have seen her all Sunday
night when we--when she was afraid you had been ruined. You don't know
how she cares. I didn't. I was terribly mistaken--unjust. You mustn't
let her go off and marry some one she doesn't care about, like Boskirk,
the way Dolly did."
"But I must do what is right for me too," he said desperately, moved by
the radiance in her eyes that seemed to flow out and envelope him
irresistibly. "I have a right to love too, to find a woman who knows
what love means--"
"Don't--don't," she said, turning away miserably, too young to make the
pretense of not understanding him.
"Listen, Drina," he said, catching her hand. "I am up against a
decision, the greatest decision in my life, which means whether I am to
have the right to my own self-respect and yours and others. One way
means money, an easy way to everything people want in this world, and no
blame attached except what I myself might feel. The other means standing
on my own feet, no favors, taking a loss of thousands of dollars, and a
fight of perhaps five, ten years to get where I am now. Which would you
do? No, you don't even need to answer," he said joyfully, carried away
by the look in her eyes as she swung fearlessly around. "I know you."
In his fervor he caught her hand and pressed it against his heart.
"Drina dear, you ring true, true as a bell. You, I know, will understand
whatever I do." He was rushing on when suddenly a thought stopped him.
If he did what he had planned, what right would he have to hope of
marrying her even after years of toil? He dropped her hands, his face
going so blank that, forgetting the mingled joy and terror his words had
brought her, she cried:
"Bojo--what's wrong--what are you thinking of?"
He turned away, shaking his head, drawing a deep breath.
But at this moment, before Patsie could escape, Doris came down the
stairs and directly to him.
"Bojo--I've been so worried--why didn't you answer my letters? And _why_
didn't you meet me?"
She threw her arms about his neck, gazing anxiously into his eyes. He
had a blurred vision of Patsie, shrinking and white, turning from the
sight of the embrace, as he stammered explanations. Luckily Drake
himself broke the tension with an unexpected appearance and a bluff--
"Hello, Tom. Where have you been keeping yourself? Now that you're a
millionaire I expected you to come sailing in on a steam yacht! Well,
Doris, what do you think of your financier?"
"Mr. Drake, I've got something important I must talk over with you. Can
you see me for a few minutes now? It's very important. If you could--"
The tone in which he said these words, staring past them into the vista
of the salons, impressed each with the feeling of a crisis. Drake
halted, shot a quick glance from the young fellow to Doris, and said, as
he went out:
"Why, yes--of course. Come in now. Soon as you're ready. The
library--glad to see you."
At the same moment, with a last appealing glance, Patsie disappeared
behind the curtains. Doris came to him, startled and alarmed.
"You're not in trouble?" she said, wonder in her look. "Dad told me
you'd made a quarter of a million and that everything was all right.
That is true, isn't it?"
"Doris, everything is not all right," he said solemnly. "Whether I am to
keep my share or not depends on what answer your father gives to one
question I am going to ask him."
"What do you mean? You mean you would not accept--"
"Under certain circumstances I _can't_ accept this money--exactly that."
"But, Bojo, don't do anything rash--hastily," she said hurriedly. "Talk
it over with me first. Let me know."
"No," he said firmly. "This is my decision."
"At least let me come with you--let me hear!"
He shook his head. "No, Doris--not even that. This is between your
father and me."
"But our marriage," she said in desperation, following him to the door.
"Afterward--when I have seen your father, then we must talk of that."
The new decision in his voice and movement surprised and controlled her.
She raised her hand as though to speak, and found no word to utter in
her amazement. He went quickly through the salons, knocked, and went
into the library. Drake, with a premonition perhaps of what was coming,
was waiting impatiently, spinning the chain of his watch.
"Well, Tom, to the point. What is it?" he said imperiously.
"Mr. Drake," Bojo began carefully, "I have not been in to see you
because--because I did not know just what to say. Mr. Drake, I've been
terribly upset by this Pittsburgh & New Orleans deal!"
"What, upset by making a cool quarter of a million?"
"Yes, that's it," he said firmly, never losing an expression on the
older man's face. "You know, of course, that Forshay, who committed
suicide, was in my office."
"What, in your office?" said Drake, with a start. "No, I didn't know
that!"
"That's rather shaken me up. He ruined himself on Pittsburgh & New
Orleans. And then that night--when I got home one of my chums was pretty
close to the same thing."
"I told you not to take any one into your confidence, Tom," said Drake
quietly.
"That's true, you _told_ me that. Mr. Drake, answer me this, didn't you
expect me to tell--some one?"
Drake looked at him quickly, then down, drumming with his fingers.
"What's the point?"
Bojo had no longer any doubts. The transaction had been as he had
finally divined. Yet the words had not been spoken that meant to him the
renunciation of all the luxury and opportunity that surrounded him in
the tapestried wealth of the great room. He hesitated so long that Drake
looked up at him and frowned, repeating the question:
"What's the point, Tom?"
"Mr. Drake, you knew I would tell others to sell Pittsburgh & New
Orleans--you _intended_ I should, didn't you? That was part of your
plan--a necessary part, wasn't it?"
"Tom, I expressly told you not to jump to conclusions," said Drake,
rising and raising his voice. "I expressly told you not to let the cat
out of the bag."
"Won't you answer my question? Yes or no?" said the young fellow, very
quiet and quite colorless.
"I have answered that."
"Yes, you have answered," said Bojo slowly. "Now, Mr. Drake, I won't
press you any further. I know. I can't accept that money. It is not
mine."
"Can't accept? What's this nonsense?" said Drake, stopping short.
"I can't make money off the losings of my friends, whom I have ruined to
make your deal succeed."
"That's a hard word!"
"And there's another reason," said Bojo, ignoring his flash of anger. "I
was not honest with you. The night I came here I was ruined myself."
"I knew that."
"But you didn't know that I had used the fifty thousand dollars pledged
to your pool and that if you had been operating as I thought and wiped
out, I should have owed you thirty-five thousand dollars--pledged to
you--a debt which would mean dishonor to me."
"I didn't know that. No. How did that happen?" said Drake, sitting down
and gazing anxiously at him.
"I lost my head--absolutely--completely. I did just what Forshay and
DeLancy did--gambled with money that didn't belong to me. I lived in a
nightmare. Mr. Drake, I lost my bearings. Now I'm going to get them
back." He paused, drew breath, and continued earnestly: "Now you
understand why I don't deserve a cent of that money even if you could
swear to me you didn't use me purposely, which you can't! I pretty
nearly went over the line, Mr. Drake, and it wasn't my fault I didn't,
either. I guess I'm not built right for this sort of life--that's the
short of it."
"You are young, very young, Tom," said Drake slowly. "Young people look
at things through their emotions. That's what you're doing!"
"Thank God," said Bojo, and it seemed to him for the first time a
feeling of peace returned.
"What do you want to do?" said Drake, frowning and rising.
"I can not return you the two hundred thousand dollars," said Bojo
slowly. "I paid one friend thirty-eight thousand to cover his losses, to
save him from disgrace and dishonor in the eyes of a woman; another
friend refused to accept a cent. I paid to the estate of Forshay every
cent of indebtedness he owed the firm--fifty-two odd thousand dollars.
Forshay gambled because he thought I knew. That makes over ninety
thousand dollars. The rest--one hundred and fifty-nine thousand--I will
return to you."
"Good heavens, Tom, you did that?" said Drake, taking out his
handkerchief. He sat down in his chair, overcome. For a long interval no
one spoke, and then from the chair a voice came out that sounded not
like Drake but something bodiless. "That's awful--awful. From my point
of view I have played the game as others, as square as the squarest. I
have lost thousands of thousands sticking to a friend, thousands in
keeping to my word. This is not business, this is war. Those who go in,
who intend to gamble with life, to fight with thousands and millions,
must go in to take the consequences. If they ever get me it'll be
because some one has turned traitor, not because I've sold out or done
anything disreputable. If others were ruined in Pittsburgh & New
Orleans, that's because they were willing to make money by smashing up
some other person's property. It was their fault, not mine. If a man
can't control himself--his fault. If a man goes bankrupt and won't face
the world and work back instead of blowing his brains out--his fault.
"You think of the individual--men, friends, death. They move you,
they're closer to you than the big perspective. They don't count, no one
counts. If a man kills himself, he dies quicker than he would and is not
worth living, that's all. Sounds cold-blooded to you. Yes. But we're
dealing in movements, armies! Poverty, sorrow, disaster, death, they are
life--you can't get away from them. A great bridge is more important
than the lives of the men who build it, a great railroad is necessary,
not the question whether a few thousand people lose their fortunes, in
the operation which makes a great amalgamation possible. That's my point
of view. It's not yours. You're set on what you've made up your mind to
do. Your emotions have got you. Ten years from now you'll regret it."
"I hope not," said Bojo simply.
"What are you going to do? Well, come in here as my private secretary,"
said Drake, placing his hand on the young man's shoulder, and adding,
with that burst of human understanding which gave him a magnetic power
over men: "Tom, you're a ---- fool to do what you're doing, but, by
heaven, I love you for it!"
"Thank you," said Bojo, controlling his voice with difficulty.
"Will you come here?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Frankly, I want to do something by myself," said Bojo stubbornly. "I
don't want some one to take me by the collar and jack me up into
success."
"Think it over!"
"No, I'll stick to that. I want to get into a rational life. To live the
way I've been living is torture."
Drake hesitated, as though loathe to let him go, seeking some way out.
"Won't you let me make good your losses--at least that?"
"Not after the hole I got into, no."
"Damn it, Tom, won't you let me do something to help out?"
"No, not a thing." He went up and shook hands. "You don't know what it
means to be able to look you in the eyes again, sir. That's everything!"
"And Doris?" said Drake slowly, beaten at every point.
"Doris I am going to see now," he said.
He went to the door hastily to avoid sentimentalities, and on the other
side of the curtain, where she had been listening, he found Doris,
wide-eyed and thrilled, her finger on her lips.