VIII

One afternoon, some days after Philip's return from an inspection of

the mines of the Portage Copper Company, and an hour ahead of his

usual time, the velvet curtain was pushed aside and the young man

walked in. Not only did he move with his most important "bank

director's step," but he brought with him an air of responsibility

only seen in magnates who control the destinies of corporations and

the savings of their stockholders.

"What's the matter, Phil?" asked Adam with a laugh. "Have they made

you president of the Stock Exchange, or has the Government turned over

its deposits to your keeping, or has the wedding-day been set for

to-morrow?"

"Wedding-day's all right; closer than ever, but I've got something

that knocks being president of the Exchange cold. Our scheme is about

fixed up and it's to be floated next week--float anything on this

market--that's better than being president or anything else. Our

attorneys brought in the papers this morning, and they will be signed

at our office to-morrow at eleven-thirty. The Seaboard Trust Company

are going to take half the bonds and two out-of-town banks the

balance. That puts us on our legs and keeps us there, and I don't

mind telling you"--and he looked around as if fearing to be

overhead--"we've got to have this money or--Well, there's no use of my

going into that, because it's all over now, or will be when this

loan's floated. But I want to tell you that we've had some pretty

tough sledding lately--some that the old man doesn't know about."

Adam looked up; any danger that threatened Phil always enlisted his

sympathy.

"Tell me about it. I can't follow these operations. Most of them are

all Greek to me."

"Well, as I say, we've got to have money, a whole lot of it, or

there's no telling when Madeleine and I will ever be married. And the

Portage Company has got to have money; they have struck bottom so far

as their finances go and can't go on without help. God knows I've

worked hard enough over it--been doing nothing else for weeks."

"What do you float?" Adam was prepared to give him his best attention.

"One million refunding bonds--half to take up the old issue and the

balance for improvements. Our wedding comes in the 'improvements,'"

and Philip winked meaningly.

"Is there enough copper in the mine to warrant the issue?" Adam asked,

recalling Madeleine's remark about the deeper they went the less

copper there was in the mine.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything, I should think. You examined it--didn't you?--and should

know."

"Yes, but nobody has asked me for an opinion. The company's engineer

attends to that."

"What do you think yourself, Phil?"

"I don't think. I'm not paid to think. The other fellow does the

thinking and I do the selling."

"What does Mr. Eggleston say?"

"He doesn't say. He isn't paid for saying. What he wants is his six

per cent, and that's what we've got to earn. This new deal earns it."

"Does the trust company know anything about the mine?"

"Why, of course, everything. Those fellows don't need a guardian.

They've got the mining engineer's sworn certificate, and they trust to

that and----"

"And to the standing of your house," Adam interrupted.

"Certainly. Why not? That's what we're in business for."

"But what do you think of it--you, remember; you--Philip Colton--are

you willing to swear that the mine is worth the money the trust

company will lend on it?"

"I make an affidavit! Not much! What I _say_ is everybody's property;

what I _think_ is nobody's business but my own. The mine _may_ strike

virgin copper in chunks and it may not. That's where the gamble comes

in. If it does the bonus stock they get for nothing will be worth

par." He was a little ashamed as he said it. He was merely repeating

what he had told his customers in advance of the issue, but they had

not returned his gaze with Adam's eyes.

"But you in your heart, Phil, are convinced that it will _not_ strike

virgin copper, aren't you? So much so that you wouldn't take

Madeleine's money, or my money, to put into it." These search-lights

of Gregg's had a way of uncovering many secret places.

Philip turned in his chair and looked at Adam. What was the matter

with the dear fellow this afternoon, he said to himself.

"Certainly not--and for two reasons: first, you are not in the Street;

and second, because I never gamble with a friend's money."

"But you gamble with the money of the innocent men and women who

believe in your firm, and who in the end buy these bonds of the trust

company, don't you?"

"Well, but what have we got to do with the bonds after we sell them?

We are not running the mine, we're only getting money for them to run

it on, and incidentally our commissions," and he smiled knowingly.

"The trust company does the same thing. This widow-and-orphan business

is about played out in the Street. The shrewdest buyers we have are

just these people, and they get their cent per cent every time. Don't

you bother your dear old head over this matter; just be glad it's

coming out all right--I am, I tell you!"

Gregg had risen from his chair and was standing over Philip with a

troubled look on his face.

"Phil," he said slowly, "look at me. From what you tell me, you can't

issue these bonds! You can't afford to do it--no honest man can!"

The young financier lay back in his chair and broke out into laughter.

"Old Gentleman," he said, as he reached up his hand and laid it

affectionately on Gregg's waistcoat--it was a pet name of his--"you

just stick to your brushes and paints and I'll stick to my

commissions. If everybody in the Street had such old-fashioned notions

as you have we'd starve to death. We've got to take risks, everybody

has. You might as well say that when a stock is going up and against

us we shouldn't cover right away to save ourselves from further loss;

or that when it's going down we shouldn't sell and saddle the other

fellow with the slump while we get from under. Now I'm going home to

tell Madeleine the good news; she's been on pins and needles for a

week."

Gregg began pacing the floor, his hands behind his back. His movements

were so unusual and his face bore so troubled a look that Philip, who

had thrown away his cigar and had picked up his hat preparatory to

leaving the room, delayed his departure.

Adam halted in front of him and now stood gazing into his face, an

expression on his own that showed the younger man how keenly he had

taken the refusal.

"I know I'm old-fashioned, Phil--I have a right to be. I come of

old-fashioned stock--so do you. All that you tell me of your father

convinces me that he was an upright man. He was severe at times, and

dominating, but he was honest. Your mother's purity and goodness shine

out here," and he pointed to the portrait. "This is your heritage, and

your only heritage--something that millions of money cannot buy, and

which you cannot sell, no matter what price is paid you for it. You,

their son"--Gregg stopped and hesitated, the words seemed to clog in

his throat--"must not--_shall not_!" (the way was clear now) "commit a

crime which would bring a blush to their cheeks if they were alive

to-day. Don't, I beseech you, my boy, lend your young manhood to this

swindle. It is infamous, it is damnable. It shall not--_cannot_ be.

You love me too well to refuse; promise me you will stop this whole

business."

Colton was astounded. In all his intercourse with Gregg he had never

seen him moved like this. He knew what had caused it. Gregg's

sedentary life, his being so much away from the business side of

things had warped his judgment and upset his reasoning powers. Not to

make commissions on a loan that the first mining expert in the country

had declared good, and which the biggest trust company in the Street

and two outside banks were willing to underwrite! Gregg was crazy!

This came of talking business to such a man. He should have confined

himself to more restful topics--topics which he really loved best.

After all, it was his fault, not Adam's.

[Illustration: "Promise me that you will stop the whole business."]

"All right, old fellow; don't let us talk any more about it," he said

in the tone he would have used to pacify a woman who had lost her

temper. "Some other time when----"

Adam resumed his walk without listening further. He saw how futile had

been his appeal and the thought alarmed him all the more.

"Put down your hat, Phil." The calmness of his voice was singularly in

contrast to the tone of the outburst. "Take your seat again. Wait

until I lock the door. I have something to say to you and we must not

be interrupted."

He turned the key, drew the heavy curtains together, and dragging his

chair opposite Phil's so that he could look squarely in his eyes, sat

down in front of him.

"My son," he began, "I am going to tell you something which has been

locked in my own heart ever since you were a boy of five. Something I

have never told you before because it only brought sorrow and

suffering to me, and I wanted only the sunny side of life for you and

Madeleine, and so I have kept still. I tell you now in the hope that

it may save you from an act you will never cease to regret.

"There comes a time in every man's life when he meets the fork in the

road. This is his crisis. One path leads to destruction, the other,

perhaps, to misery--but a misery in which he can still look every man

in the face and his God as well. You have reached it. You may not

think so, but you have. Carry out what you have told me and you are no

longer an honest man. Don't be offended. Listen and don't interrupt

me. Nothing you could say to me would hurt my heart; nothing I shall

say to you should hurt yours. I love you with a love you know not of.

I loved you when you were no higher than my knee."

Phil looked at him in amazement, and was about to speak when Adam

waved his hand.

"No, don't speak. Hear me until I have finished. Only to save the boy

she loved would I lay bare my heart as I am going to do to you now.

Turn your head! Do you see that picture? I painted it some twenty-five

years ago; you were a child then, five years old. I was younger than

you are now; full of my art; full of the promise of life. Your

father's home was a revelation to me: the comfort of it, the servants,

the luxury, the warm welcome he gave me, the way he treated me, not as

a stranger, but as a son. A few days after I arrived he left me in

charge of his home. Your mother was three years younger than I was;

you were a little fellow tugging at her skirts.

"The four weeks that followed, while your father was away and I was

painting the portrait, were to me a dream. At the end of it I awoke in

torment. I had reached the fork in my road: one path lay to perdition,

the other to a suffering that has followed me all my life. Your father

was an austere man of about my own age now; it was not a happy

union--it was as if Madeleine and I should be married. Your mother,

girl as she was, respected and honored him and had no other thought

except her duty; I saw it and tried to comfort her. The day of your

father's return home he came up into the garret which had been turned

into a studio to see the portrait. The scene that followed has always

been to me a horror. He denounced her and me. He even went so far as

to say the picture was immodest because of the gown, and in his anger

turned it to the wall. You can see for yourself how unjust was that

criticism. He found out he was wrong and said so afterward, but it did

not heal the wound. Your mother was crushed and outraged.

"That night she came up to the studio and poured out her heart to me.

I won't go over it--I cannot. There was in her eyes something that

frightened me. Then my own were opened. Down in front of me lay an

abyss; around it were the two paths. All night I paced the floor; I

laid my soul bare; I pleaded; I argued with myself. I reasoned it out

with God; I urged her unhappiness--the difference in their ages; the

harshness of the older man; her patient submission. Then there rose up

before me the sterner law--my own responsibility; the trust placed in

my hands; her youth, my youth. Gradually the mist in my mind cleared

and I saw the path ahead. There was but one road: that I must take!

"When the dawn broke I lifted the portrait from where your father had

placed it with its face against the wall; kissed it with all the

reverence a boy's soul could have for his ideal, crept down the

stairs, saddled my horse and rode away.

"Ten years later--after your father's death--I again went to Derwood

Manor--in the autumn--in November. I wanted to look into her face once

more--even before I looked into my own father's--to see the brook we

loved, the hills we wandered over, the porch where we sat and talked.

I had heard nothing of the house being in ruins, or of your mother's

death. Everything was gone! Everything--everything!"

Adam rested his head in his hands, his fingers shielding his eyes.

Philip sat looking at him in silence, his face torn with conflicting

emotions--astonishment, sympathy, an intense love for the man

predominating. Adam continued, the words coming in half-muffled tones,

from behind his hands, as if he were talking to himself, with now and

then a pause.

"You wonder, Phil, why I live alone this way--you often ask me that

question. Do you know why? It is because I have never been able to

love any other woman. She set a standard for me that no other woman

has ever filled. All my young life was bound up in her long after I

left her. For years I thought of nothing else; my only hope was in

keeping away. I would not be responsible for myself or for her if we

ever met again. She wasn't mine; she was your father's. She couldn't

be mine as long as he was alive."

He raised his head and resumed his old position, his voice rising, his

earnest, determined manner dominating his words.

"I ask you now, Phil, what would have become of you if I had left

that stain upon his name and upon yours? Who brought me to myself? She

did! How? By her confidence in me; that gave me my strength. I knew

that night, as well as I know that I am sitting here, that we could

not go on the way we had been going with safety. I knew also that it

all rested with me. For me to unsettle her love for your father

during his lifetime would have been damnable. Only one thing was

left--flight--That I took and that you must take. Turn your eyes,

Phil, and look at her. She saved me from myself; she will save you

from yourself. Do you suppose that anything but purity, goodness, and

truth ever came from out those lips? Do you think she would be

satisfied with anything else in her boy? Be a man, my son! Strangle

this temptation that threatens to stain your soul. No matter what

comes--even if you beg your bread--put this thing under your feet.

Look your God in the face!"

During the long recital Phil's mind had gone back to his childhood's

days in confirmation of the strange story. As Adam talked on, his eyes

flashing, his voice tremulous with the pathos of the story he was

pouring into the young man's astonished ears, one picture after

another rose dimly out of the listener's past: The big lounge in the

garret where his mother held him in her arms; the high window with the

light flooding the floor of the room; the jar of blossoms into which

he had thrust his little face.

He did not move when Adam finished, nor for some minutes did he speak.

At last he said in a voice that showed how deeply he had been stirred:

"It's all true. It all comes back to me now. I must have been too

young to remember you, but I remember the picture. I looked for it

everywhere after she died, but I couldn't find it. Then came the fire

and everything was swept away. Some one must have stolen it while we

were in Baltimore. And you have loved my mother all these years,

Gregg, and never told me?"

He was on his feet now and had his arm around Adam's shoulder.

"Couldn't you trust me, Old Gentleman? Don't you know how close you

are to me? Did you think I wouldn't understand? What you tell me about

your leaving her is no surprise. You wouldn't--you couldn't do

anything else. That's because you are a man and a gentleman. You are

doing such things every day of your life; that's why everybody loves

you. As to what you want me to do, don't say any more to me"--the

tears he was hiding were choking him. "Let me go home. What you have

told me of my mother, of yourself--everything has knocked me out. My

judgment has gone--I must think it all over. I know every word you

have said about the loan is true; but I haven't told you all. The

situation is worse than you think. Everything depends on

it--Madeleine--her father--all of us. If I could have found some other

plan--if you had only talked to me this way before. But I've promised

them all--they expect it. No! Don't speak to me. Don't say another

word. Let me go home." And he flung himself from the room.

Adam sat still. The confession had wrung his soul; the pain seemed

unbearable. What the outcome would be God only knew. With a quick

movement, as if seeking relief, he rose to his feet and walked to the

portrait. Then lifting his hands above his head with the movement of a

despairing suppliant before the Madonna he cried out:

"Help him, my beloved. Help him as you did me."