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THE ROOT OF EVIL
A Novel
by
THOMAS DIXON
Author of
"The Leopard's Spots," "The Clansman," "The One Woman," Etc.
Illustrated by George Wright
[Illustration: "_He turned and saw Nan_"]
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1911
All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation
into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian
Copyright, 1911. by Thomas Dixon
Published, January, 1912
DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
THE REVEREND THOMAS DIXON
1820-1909
CONTENTS
BOOK I--THE SEED
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Star Boarder 3
II. Things Beyond Price 15
III. A Lovers' Quarrel 20
IV. Mr. Bivens Calls 33
V. An Issue is Forced 41
VI. The Forgotten Man 48
VII. A Vision 57
VIII. Struggle 64
IX. Despair 82
X. Groping 90
XI. Illumination 96
BOOK II--THE ROOT
I. An Old Perfume 110
II. An Intruder 123
III. A Straight Tip 127
IV. Every Man's Shadow 133
V. Gathering Clouds 143
VI. The Storm Breaks 153
VII. At the King's Command 162
VIII. A Ray of Sunlight 168
IX. Beneath the Skin 174
X. The Demigod 184
XI. The Lamp of Aladdin 187
XII. Temptation 201
XIII. The Forbidden Land 209
XIV. An Aftermath 221
XV. Confession 230
XVI. The Unbidden Guest 235
XVII. Some Inside Facts 242
XVIII. The Dance of Death 259
XIX. The Last Illusion 272
XX. The Parting of the Ways 287
XXI. A Plea for Justice 303
BOOK III--THE FLOWER
I. The Devil Smiles 315
II. Beside Beautiful Waters 321
III. The Tempter's Voice 333
IV. The Mockery of the Sun 348
V. A Trump Card 353
VI. Through Purple Curtains 366
VII. The Land of the Sky 374
VIII. The White Messenger 392
IX. The Eyes of Pity 402
X. An Epilogue 407
ILLUSTRATIONS
"He turned and saw Nan" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
"'I was seeing a vision, little pal'" 104
"He hurled him down the steps" 180
"'I must save her. I must be cunning'" 284
"Nan looked at him in despair" 386
THE ROOT OF EVIL
LEADING CHARACTERS OF THE STORY
_SCENE: New York and the Mountains of North Carolina_
_TIME: 1898 to 1907_
JAMES STUART, a young Southerner in New York.
NAN PRIMROSE, his fiancée.
MRS. PRIMROSE, her mother.
JOHN C. CALHOUN BIVENS, a millionaire.
DR. HENRY WOODMAN, who loves his neighbour.
HARRIET, his daughter.
HIS MAJESTY, the King of America.
THE ROOT OF EVIL
Book 1--The Seed
CHAPTER I
A STAR BOARDER
At the end of a warm spring day in New York, James Stuart sat in the
open window of his room on Washington Square, smiling. With a sense of
deep joy he watched the trees shake the raindrops from their new
emerald robes, and the flying clouds that flecked the Western sky melt
into seas of purple and gold.
A huckster turned into Fourth Street, crying:
"Straw--berries! Straw--berries!"
And the young lawyer laughed lazily.
The chatter of the sparrows, the shouts of children in the Square and
the huckster's drawling call seemed the subtones of a strangely
beautiful oratorio of nature into which every sound of earth had softly
melted. Even the roar of the elevated trains on Sixth Avenue and the
screech of their wheels as the cars turned the corner of the filthy
street in the rear were music. A secret joy filled the world. Nothing
could break its spell--not even the devilish incessant rattle of the
machine hammers flattening the heads of the rivets on the huge steel
warehouse of the American Chemical Company rising across the avenue.
The music he heard was from within, and the glory of life was shining
from his eyes.
Again the huckster's cry rang over the Square:
"Straw--berries! Straw--berries!"
The dreamer closed his eyes and smiled. A flood of tender memories
stole into his heart from the sunlit fields of the South. He had gone
hunting wild strawberries with Nan Primrose on the hills at home in
North Carolina the day he first knew that he loved her.
How beautiful she was that day in the plain blue cotton dress which
fitted her superb young figure to perfection! How well he remembered
every detail of that ramble over the red hills--he could hear now the
whistle of a bob white sitting on the fence near the spring where they
lunched, calling to his mate. As Nan nestled closer on the old stile,
they saw the little brown bird slip from her nest in a clump of straw,
lift her head, and softly answer.
"Look!" Nan had whispered excitedly. "There's her nest!"
He recalled distinctly his tremor of sympathetic excitement as her warm
hand drew him to the spot. With peculiar vividness he remembered the
extraordinary moisture of the palm of her hand trembling with eager
interest as he counted the eggs--twenty beauties. But above all
memories stood out one! As he bent close above her he caught for the
first time in his life the delicate perfume of her dark rich hair and
felt the thrill of its mystery.
"It's their little home, isn't it, Jim!" she exclaimed.
"I hope I can build as snug a nest for you some day, Nan!" he whispered
gravely.
And when she stood silent and blushing, he made the final plunge.
Looking straight into her dark eyes he had said:
"I love you, dear Nan!"
As she stood very still, looking down in silence, with a throb of fear
and aching tenderness he dared to slip his arm around her waist and
kiss the trembling lips. And then he noticed for the first time a deep
red strawberry stain in the corner of her mouth. In spite of her
struggles he laughingly insisted on kissing it away--a fact which led
to his first revelation of her character--could he ever forget the
glory and wonder of it! She had seized his arms, gasping for breath.
"Don't--don't, Jim--I can't stand that any more!" And then as a dreamy
smile stole into her face she suddenly threw her own arms around his
neck in passionate tenderness, returning with interest every kiss he
had taken--
"Straw--berries!"
The man looked up and drawled his familiar cry.
"Yes--Yes!" he shouted. "Two boxes. Put them on the stoop--and keep the
change!"
He threw the man a silver dollar, and the white teeth of the Italian
signalled a smile of thanks as he bowed low, lifting his dirty cap in
acknowledgment.
Nor was Nan's beauty merely a memory, it was the living presence, the
source of the joy that filled his soul to overflowing to-day, for she
had grown more beautiful than ever since her mother had moved to New
York.
He had always believed that the real reason in the back of Mrs.
Primrose's shallow head for this move to the North had been the
determination to break his engagement and make a more brilliant
marriage for Nan. And so when they left he followed.
The mother had always professed for him unbounded loyalty and
admiration. But he had never been deceived. He knew that Mrs. Primrose
lied as she breathed--politely, but continuously--by her involuntary
muscles. Day and night since they had reached New York she had schemed
for Nan. She had joined every society, club, and coterie into which she
could buy, push, or manoeuvre her way. She had used her Revolutionary
ancestry and high social standing in the old South as the entering
wedge and had finally succeeded in forcing her way into at least one
charmed circle of the rich and powerful through the Daughters of the
American Revolution.
She had leased a house in the fashionable neighbourhood of Gramercy
Park, and to meet the extraordinary expense, began a careful and
systematic search for rich young men to whom she could let two floors.
Stuart had seen through her scheme at once--especially as she had
insisted with increasing protestations of love that the engagement be
kept a secret until they were ready to marry.
He was sure in his heart that Nan had never joined in those plans of
her mother, though he had wished that she might have shown a little
more strength in resisting them. He trusted her implicitly, and yet she
was so beautiful he couldn't see how any man with red blood in his
veins could resist her. And he had spent two miserable years. Every
time her mother had come near, purring and smiling, he had always
expected to collide with a rival as he went out the door.
Well, he was going to win at last, and the world was full of music! He
had the biggest surprise of life in store for Nan--something no true
woman's heart could resist. He had succeeded after incredible
difficulties in secretly building a cottage by the sea in Brooklyn. Its
lawn sloped to the water's edge, and a trim boat lay nodding at the
dock. He had been out of town two weeks--ostensibly on law business in
Baltimore--in fact he had spent the time putting the finishing touches
on this home. He had planted hedges, fruit trees, vines and flowers,
and covered every bare inch of soil with fresh green sod. Neither Mrs.
Primrose nor Nan had the faintest suspicion of what he had been doing.
He had written several letters to Nan and a friend had mailed them in
Baltimore.
To-morrow he would lead his sweetheart into this holy of holies of
Life--the home Love had built. He could see now the smile of tenderness
break over her proud face as he should hand her the keys and ask her to
fix the wedding day.
No matter on what his eye rested, he could see only Beauty, Glory,
Sunlight!
An assortment of idlers, tramps, and thieves had drifted into the
Square and crowded its seats. A drunken woman, her slouchy black dress
bedraggled and drenched from the rain, lurched across the walk, dropped
on a bench and sat muttering curses at a carriage on the north side. He
had often looked at those flashing windows in the millionaire's row
beside Fifth Avenue and then at the grim figures of the human wolves
and reptiles that crawled into the Square from below Fourth Street, and
wondered what might happen if they should really meet. But to-day he
gazed with unseeing eyes. There was on all the earth no poverty, no
crime, no shame, no despair, no pain, no conflict. The splendour of the
sunset was in his soul and the world was athrob with joy.
His reveries were broken by a timid knock on the door and a faint call:
"Jim!"
"Come in!" he cried.
"You're not a bit glad to see me," the soft voice said. "I've been
standing out there for ages!"
"Forgive me, Sunshine, I must have been dreaming," Stuart pleaded,
leaping from his seat and seizing her hand. "I'm awfully glad to see
you!"
"Then, don't call me that name again," she pouted.
"Why not?"
"Because it's undignified. All nicknames are."
"But isn't it beautiful?"
"It would be if my hair wasn't red and I didn't have freckles and was
older," she protested, looking away to hide her emotion.
"But your hair isn't quite red. It's just the colour of the gold in
honeycomb," he answered, gently touching her dishevelled locks--"besides,
those few little freckles are becoming on your pink and white skin--and
you are nearly fifteen."
"Well, my hair is red enough to make me think you're teasing when you
call me Sunshine," she replied demurely.
"Then I won't call you that any more. I'll just say, little pal--how's
that?"
"That's better!" she said with a smile and sigh.
"Oh, Jim, I've been so dreadfully lonely since you were away! Where did
you go? And why did you stay so long? And why didn't you write me more
than one little letter? And why didn't you answer the one I wrote in
reply?--You know I'm almost an orphan anyhow. Papa spends nearly all
his time at the factory, the drug store, the dispensary, and visiting
his patients. I declare, Jim, I'll die if you go away again. I just
can't stand it." She dropped at last into a chair exhausted.
Stuart smilingly took her hand:
"Lonely, Miss Chatterbox--when that big father of yours worships the
very ground you walk on!"
"Yes, I know he does, Jim, and I love him, too, but you've no idea how
dreadfully still the house is when you are gone. Oh, say! I'll tell you
what I want--tell me you'll do what I ask--promise me! Say you will!"
"What is it?"
"I want you to be a real boarder, and eat with us! And when Papa's
gone, I'll sit at the head of the table, smile and pour your tea.
You'll do it, won't you? Say yes--of course you will!"
"But, my dear child, your father don't take boarders----"
"But he will if I ask him. I'll beg and tease him till he gives in."
"Oh, I couldn't think of letting you put him to all that trouble."
"But it wouldn't be any trouble. You see I'd keep house for you!"
"That would be very nice, dear, but I'm sure your father would draw the
line at a real boarder. I'd never have gotten this beautiful room with
that big old-fashioned open fireplace in your home if it hadn't
happened that our fathers fought each other in the war, and became
friends one day on a big battle-field. You see, my father took such a
liking to yours that I came straight to find him when I reached this
big town. It's been a second home to me."
"Be our boarder and I'll make it a real home for you, Jim!" she
pleaded.
"Ah!--you'll be making a real home some day for one of those boys I saw
at your birthday party--the tall dark one I think?"
"No. He doesn't measure up to my standard."
"What ails him?"
"He's a coward. My hero must be brave--for I'm timid."
"Then it will be that fat blond fellow with a jolly laugh?"
"No, he's a fibber. My Prince, when he comes, must be truthful. It's so
hard for me always to tell the truth."
"Then it will be that dreamy looking one of fifteen you danced with
twice?"
"No, he's too frail. My hero must be strong--for I am weak. And he must
have a big, noble ideal of life; for mine is very small--just a little
home nest, and a baby, and the love of one man!"
Stuart looked at her intently while a mist gathered in his eyes:
"I'm not sure about that being such a very small ideal, girlie!"
"But oh, my, I've forgotten what I came running home for! Papa sent me
to ask you to please come down to the factory right away. He wants to
see you on a very important matter. It must be awfully important. He
looked so worried. I don't think I ever saw him worried before."
"I'll go at once," Stuart said, closing the window and blowing a kiss
to the girl as he hurried down the stairs.
He strode rapidly across town toward the Bowery, through Fourth Street,
wondering what could have happened to break the accustomed good humour
of the doctor.
"Worry's something so utterly foreign to his character," the young
lawyer mused.
The doctor had long since retired from the practise of medicine as a
profession, and only used it now as his means of ministering to the
wants of his neighbours. His neighbours were a large tribe, however,
scattered all the way from the cellars and dives of Water Street to the
shanties and goat ranges of the Upper Harlem. Stuart had never met a
man so full of contagious health. He was a born physician. There was
healing in the touch of his big hand. Healing light streamed from his
brown eyes, and his iron-gray beard sparkled with it. His presence in a
sick-room seemed to fill it with waves of life, and his influence over
the patients to whom he ministered was little short of hypnotic.
"Christian Science is no new doctrine, my boy," he had said one day in
answer to a question about the new cult.
"I thought it was," Stuart answered in surprise.
"No. All successful physicians practise Christian Science. The doctor
must heal first the mind. I can kill a man with an idea. So often I
have cured him with an idea. If I can succeed with ideas, I do so. If
there's no mind to work on, why then I use pills."
The young man stopped impatiently at Broadway, unable to cross. A
little girl of ten, pale and weak and underfed, staggering under a load
of clothing from a sweatshop on the East Side, had been knocked down
trying to cross the street to deliver her burden to a Broadway
clothier. A long line of cars stood blocked for a quarter of a mile,
every car packed with human freight, every seat filled, every inch of
standing room jammed with men and women holding to straps. Tired office
boys even clung to the rear guards at the risk of death from a sudden
collision with the car behind.
They were always crowded so at this hour. And yet Stuart recalled with
a curious touch of irony the fate of the indomitable old man, Jake
Sharp, who had fought for years to force this franchise for a public
necessity through the city government. His reward was a suit of
stripes, shame, dishonour, death. No one knew, or cared, or remembered
it now. A new set of corrupt law makers took the place of the old ones,
their palms still itching for money, money, money, always more money.
"And men who seek to serve the people must grease their itching palms
or make way for those who will!" he muttered, fighting his way across.
"A tough town--this, for a young lawyer with ideals. I wonder how long
I'll hold out?"
Stuart found the doctor standing at the door of his factory, shaking
hands and chatting with his employees as they emerged from the building
at the close of a day's work. A plain old-fashioned brick structure
just off the Bowery was this factory, and across the front ran a
weatherbeaten sign which had not been changed for more than fifty years:
"HENRY WOODMAN, MANUFACTURING
CHEMIST"
The doctor's father had established the business fifty-two years ago,
and the son, who bore the father's name, had succeeded to its
management on his death, which occurred just after the return of the
younger man with his victorious regiment from their last campaign with
Grant before Petersburg and Appomattox.
He had given up the practise of medicine after the war, and devoted
himself to the business of which his father had been justly proud. The
house of Henry Woodman had been a pioneer in the establishing of a
trade in pure drugs. In the time of the elder Woodman, adulteration and
humbug were the rule, not the exception, in the business.
Woodman's stalwart figure towered in the doorway above his employees as
they passed into the street. For every man, boy, and girl he had a nod,
a smile, or a pleasant word. It was plain to see that the employer in
this case had made his business the way to the hearts of the people who
served him.
He took Stuart's hand in his big crushing grip and whispered:
"Have you any engagement this evening?"
Stuart smiled and hesitated.
"A girl--I see!" laughed the doctor. "Well, I'll get through by nine
o'clock. You can give me the three hours till then? It's a matter of
importance, and I want your advice."
"My advice--you!" Stuart exclaimed.
"Yes. You're the brightest young lawyer I know in town. I've gotten
along without lawyers so far, but I guess I'm in for it now. You can
come with me?"
"Of course," Stuart answered hurriedly. "Forgive my apparent
hesitation, doctor. I was just surprised at your worry. What's the
matter?"
The older man was silent a moment and then slowly said:
"I'll tell you later. I wish to show you something before I ask your
advice on a question of law; we must hurry. We will finish by nine and
you will be a little late for dinner. But if she loves you, you can
telephone and she will wait. It will be all right?"
Stuart coloured.
"Of course, it will be all right--besides, she doesn't know yet that
I've returned."
The doctor handed the young lawyer a letter which he opened and read
hastily.
NO. 60 GRAMERCY PARK.
TO DR. HENRY WOODMAN,
Dear Sir: I must have an answer to the proposition of the American
Chemical Company before noon to-morrow. After that hour the matter
will be definitely closed.
JNO. C. CALHOUN BIVENS.
April 2, 1898.
Still looking at the letter he asked:
"What does it mean?"
"An ultimatum from the Chemical Trust. I'll explain to you when you've
seen something of my work to-night. The first hour I want you to put in
with me at the dispensary."
Stuart's eye rested on the embossed heading of the letter, "No. 60
Gramercy Park," and he slowly crushed the paper. It was the Primrose
house, Nan's home! Her mother had succeeded.
Bivens, the new sensation in high finance, she had established as her
star boarder in his absence! Bivens, his schoolmate at college--Bivens,
the little razorback scion of poor white trash from the South who had
suddenly become a millionaire!
His blood boiled with rage. He could see the soft, cat-like movements
of Mrs. Primrose and hear her purring while she spun the web to
entangle him with Nan. As he turned and followed the doctor, he laughed
with sudden fierce determination.
CHAPTER II
THINGS BEYOND PRICE
The dispensary was Woodman's hobby. The old-fashioned drug store stood
on a corner of the Bowery, and in the rear extension which opened on
the side street, he had established what he had laughingly called his
"Life Line," a free dispensary where any man needing medicine or a
doctor's advice could have it without charge if unable to pay.
For ten years he had maintained the work at his own expense, out of the
profits of his store. The happiest hours of his life he had spent here
ministering to the wants of his neighbours. He had come to be more than
consulting physician at the dispensary. He had become the friend and
counsellor of thousands.
The waiting room was crowded, and the line extended into the street. On
the doctor's entrance the shadows suddenly lifted. Men and women smiled
and called his name. He waved a cheerful salutation and hurried to his
place beside the assistant.
For two hours Stuart saw him minister with patience and skill to the
friendless and the poor. For each a cheerful word, and the warm grasp
of his big hand with the prescription. The young lawyer watched with
curious interest the quickened step with which each one left. The
medicine had begun to work before the prescription was filled. Waves of
healing from a beautiful spirit had entered the soul, and drooping
heads were suddenly raised.
When the last applicant had gone, Stuart turned to the doctor:
"And what is the proposition which the distinguished young head of the
Chemical Trust has made you?"
"That I sell my business to them at their own valuation and come into
the Trust--or get off the earth."
"And you wish my advice?"
"Yes."
"What figure did he name?"
"More than its cash value."
"Then you will accept, of course?"
"I would if there were not some things that can't be reckoned in terms
of dollars and cents. If I take stock in the American Chemical Company
I am a party to their methods, an heir to their frauds."
"Isn't fraud a rather harsh word, Doctor?"
"No. It's the truth."
Stuart smiled good-naturedly.
"Yet isn't the old régime of the small manufacturer and the retailer
doomed? Isn't combination the new order of modern life? Will it pay you
to fight a losing battle?"
"The man who fights for the right can't lose."
"Unless they fight trusts!" Stuart said smilingly. "Bivens is not a man
of broad culture, but he is a very smooth young gentleman----"
"He's a contemptible little scamp!" snapped the older man. "When I took
him into my drug store six years ago, he didn't have a change of
clothes. Now he's a millionaire. How did he get it? He stole a formula
I had used to relieve nervous headaches, mixed it in water with a
little poisonous colouring matter, pushed it into the soda-fountain
trade, made his first half-million, organized the American Chemical
Company and blossomed into a magnate. And now this little soda-fountain
pip threatens me with ruin unless I join his gang and help him rob my
neighbours. It happens that I like my neighbours. And the more I see of
this city, the more thrilling its life becomes, the more wonderful its
opportunities. Opportunity means one thing to me--quite another to
Bivens. The world he lives in is a small one. I live in God's big
world. I belong to no class. I know them all from the lonely
multimillionaire on Murray Hill to his equally lonely brother thief who
crawls into his lair by the river. And I don't envy one more than
another. My business is to heal the sick, not merely to make money.
Thousands of children die at my very door every summer who could be
saved by a single prescription if they could get it. That's the thought
that grips me when I begin to figure the profits in this trade. I'm
making a fair living. I don't want any more out of my neighbours. I've
shown you some of them to-night."
"I'll never forget them," Stuart broke in.
"We used to cry over Uncle Tom's woes," the doctor continued. "And yet
there are more than five million white people in America to-day who are
the slaves of poverty, cruel and pitiless, who haven't enough clothes
to keep warm, enough food to eat, and are utterly helpless and forsaken
in illness. The black slave always had food and shelter, clothes and
medicine. My business is to heal the sick--mind you! Shall I give it up
to exploit them?"
"But could you not use your greater wealth for greater good if you
joined the trust?" the lawyer asked.
"No. What we need to-day is not merely more money given to charity. We
need more heart and soul, manhood and womanhood, given in heroic
service. We need leaders whose voice shall rouse the conscience of the
nation that Justice shall be done."
"But the point is, Doctor, are you sure that you are on the side of
Justice in this big business battle that's now on between competition
and combination?" asked the younger man, quietly.
"What do you mean?"
"Why, that your building over there has an honourable history, but it's
old, a little shabby, and, judged by the standards of the new steel
structures of the Trust that are rising over the city, out-of-date.
Won't they make drugs more economically than you do and drive you to
the wall at last? Isn't this new law of coöperation the law of
progress--in brief, the law of God?"
"That remains to be proven. I don't believe it."
"Well, I do, and I think that if you fight, it will be against the
stars in their courses----"
"I'm going to fight," was the firm response.
"And you wanted my advice," Stuart laughed.
The doctor smiled at his own inconsistency.
"Well, I know I'm right, and I wished you to back me up. The law is on
my side, isn't it?"
"The written law, yes. But you are facing a bigger question than one of
statutory law."
"So I am, boy, so I am! That's why I gave you a glimpse to-night of the
world in which I live and work and dream."
"Bivens has put up to you a cold-blooded business proposition----"
"Exactly. And there are things that can't be bought and sold. I am one
of them!" The stalwart figure rose in simple dignity, and there was a
deep tremor in his voice as he paused.
"But I'm keeping you. It's nine o'clock--and somebody's waiting--eh,
boy?"
"Yes," Stuart answered apologetically. "I'm afraid I've not been of
much use to you to-night."
The doctor bent closer, smiling:
"I understand--of course! The angels are singing in your heart this
evening the old song of life that always makes the world new and young
and beautiful. Over all ugliness the veil of the mystery of Love! The
only real things to-night for you--the throb of triumph within your
heart, the hovering presence of a woman's face, the tenderness of her
eyes, the tangled light in her hair, the smile on her lips, the thrill
of her voice, the pride of her step, the glory of her form----"
"Yes," Stuart echoed with elation.
"And yet--it couldn't be measured in terms of barter and sale--could
it?" The doctor gripped his hand tenderly in parting.
The smile died from the younger man's face and his answer was scarcely
audible:
"No!"
CHAPTER III
A LOVERS' QUARREL
It was half past ten before Stuart reached Gramercy Park. The wind had
shifted to the southeast and a cold, drizzling rain, mixed with fog
enveloped the city. Somehow the chill found his heart. The windows of
Nan's room were dark. For the first time in his life he had called and
found her out. He rang the door-bell in a stupor of disappointment. For
just a moment the sense of disaster was so complete it was ridiculous.
A maid answered at last and ushered him into the dimly lighted parlour.
"Miss Nan is at home, Berta?" he asked eagerly.
The little Danish maid smiled knowingly:
"Na, but Meesis Primrose----"
With a groan Stuart sank to a chair. The maid turned up the lights and
left the room. He looked about with astonishment. Things had been
happening with a vengeance during his absence. The entire house had
been redecorated. An oriental rug of dazzling medallion pattern was on
the newly polished floor. Instead of the set of Chippendale mahogany
the Primroses had brought from the South, a complete outfit of stately
gilded stuff filled the room, and heavy draperies to match hung from
the tall windows and folding doors.
On the table in the corner stood a vase filled with gorgeous red roses.
The air was heavy with their perfume. It made him sick. The mother's
velvet hand he saw at once. Of course she had not borrowed the money
from Bivens. She was too shrewd for that. But she had borrowed it
beyond a doubt, and she had evidently gone the limit of her credit
without a moment's hesitation. He wondered how far she had gotten with
Bivens. Could it be possible that Nan was with him to-night?
No--preposterous! He heard the rustle of Mrs. Primrose's dress and saw
the smile of treacherous joy slowly working into position on her
plausible face before she entered the room.
She greeted him with unusual effusion:
"Oh, Jim, this is such a glorious surprise! Nan didn't expect you till
morning and she will be heartbroken to have missed you even for a half
hour. My dear, dear boy, you have no idea how lonely both of us have
been without you the past two weeks."
"You missed me too, Mrs. Primrose?"
"Of course, I missed you, Jim! You've come to be like one of us."
She leaned close and purred the last sentence in the softest feline
accents. Stuart felt his nerves quiver as the imaginary claws sank into
his flesh, but he smiled back his grateful answer.
"It's so nice of you to say that."
"What's more natural? You know I've always loved you next to Nan."
She spoke with such fervour that Stuart shivered. It was sinister. She
evidently felt sure of his ruin. He was too much dazed to find a reply,
and she went on earnestly:
"We needed you here so much to help us fix up. We've had the good luck
to rent our second floor to a young millionaire----"
"Mr. Bivens, yes----"
"Why, how did you know?" she asked with a start.
"Dr. Woodman has just received an important letter from him dated here,
and he asked my advice about it."
"Oh----"
"Where's Nan?" Stuart asked, with sudden anger in spite of his effort
to keep cool.
"Why, she's giving a little box party at the theatre to-night----"
"And our mutual friend, Mr. John C. Calhoun Bivens, is presiding?"
"Why, Jim, how could you be so absurd," she protested indignantly.
"I've been saving money for a month to give Nan this chance to return
some courtesies she has received from rich friends. I need Mr. Bivens's
money to pay the rent of this big house. But any attention on his part
to Nan would be disgusting to me beyond measure."
"Yet he's the sensation in high finance just now," Stuart said, with an
unconscious sneer. "They say he's destined to become a multi-millionaire."
"Come, come, Jim, it's not like you to be nasty to me. You know as well
as I do his origin in North Carolina. His people are the veriest trash.
He was at college with you----"
"And how did you know that?"
"Not from you, of course. You've never mentioned his name in your life.
He told me."
"Oh, Bivens told you!"
"Yes, when I asked him if he knew you he told me with a touch of
genuine pride that you were friends. He thinks you are going to be the
greatest lawyer in New York. And I told him we'd known that for a long
time."
Stuart turned his head to hide a smile.
"But of course he's not in Nan's social set. I told her the day he came
that we would treat him politely but draw the line strictly on any
efforts he may make to pass the limits of acquaintance. The men who
associate with Nan must belong to her father's world--to your world,
Jim--the world of good breeding and culture. I've dinned this into
Nan's ears from babyhood. You know yourself it was the greatest joy of
my life the day she told me of your love."
By a supreme effort Stuart suppressed a laugh and answered seriously:
"Your approval has always been an inspiration to me, Mrs. Primrose. I
hope to prove myself worthy of it."
A carriage stopped at the door.
"There's Nan now!" the mother exclaimed, rising to go. "I'll leave you
to surprise her, Jim."
Stuart heard the carriage door slam, and in a moment the girl he loved
stood in the hall, the joy of an evening's perfect happiness shining in
her great dark eyes. He watched her a moment, unobserved, as she laid
aside her opera cloak and stood before the big mirror proudly and
calmly surveying her figure.
Never had her beauty seemed to him so dazzling. The cream-coloured
evening gown fitted her to perfection. She lifted her bare arms and
touched an old silver brooch that gleamed in the mass of black hair,
and smiled at the picture she saw reflected. The smile was one of
conscious power. The corners of the full sensuous lips curved the
slightest bit as the smile faded and a gleam of something like cruelty
flashed from the depths of her eyes, as her head lifted. She turned
sidewise to catch the full effect of the shining bare neck and
shoulders, and stood an instant with her beautiful bosom rising and
falling with conscious pride.
Stuart, unable to wait longer, was about to spring to her side when she
caught the flash of his laughing face in the mirror and turned.
"Oh! you rascal! To surprise me like this!" she cried, with joyous
laughter.
"In all your pride and vanity!"
"Well, need I apologize to-night, sir?" she asked, with a shrug of her
beautiful shoulders.
"No. You're glorious. I don't blame you."
She seized both his hands, still laughing.
"You know how it is yourself? You do the same thing when your door is
locked--now don't you?"
"Of course."
"You can't help being a little vain, Jim, any more than I can. You know
you're a stunning-looking fellow. These Yankee girls all love you at
first sight--the tall, straight, sinewy figure, strong and swift in
every movement, the finely chiselled face, the deep-set, dark brown
eyes under their heavy brows, that big masterful jaw and firm
mouth----"
Stuart suddenly took her in his arms and kissed her into silence.
"Hush, Nan. I don't like the way you say that!"
"Why? Am I too modest?"
"No, too deliberate and coldly mistress of yourself. I wish you loved
me a little more tumultuously, as I do you."
"Well, let me whisper then that your return to-night has made a perfect
ending to a perfect day. Oh, Jim, I've been so happy to-night! Seated
in that big stage box, I felt that I was somebody. This is the first
really decent dress I've ever had in my life."
"You were just as beautiful in that blue cotton one, the day I first
kissed you, Nan."
"I know you thought so, Jim. But the world wouldn't have said it----"
"And to-night?"
"They agreed with you. I could see it in the craning necks, the
glances, the whispered comments, and the stare of mannerless men."
"And you were proud and happy!"
"Proud for your sake, Jim,--yes--and happy in your love."
Stuart's face clouded and he turned away, startled for the first time
by a strange similarity in the tone of Nan's voice to her mother's.
The painful impression was suddenly broken by a quick touch of Nan's
hand on his arm.
"Oh, Jim, I'm glad you came a day earlier. I've something to tell you,
something wonderful--something that will bring our happiness near----"
Her voice sank to the tenderest accents.
"What on earth----"
"You know Mr. Bivens--John C. Calhoun Bivens?"
"Yes," Stuart answered evenly, controlling himself with an effort.
"Well, he has taken our second floor, I had a long talk with him last
week."
"Indeed!"
"But of course, goosie, it was business--all business. By the merest
accident I learned that his big Trust, the American Chemical Company,
needs another lawyer. They pay an enormous salary with all sorts of
chances to get rich. They are making millions on millions. I told him
that you were the very man for the place and that you were going to be
the greatest lawyer in New York. Imagine my joy--when he not only
agreed with me, but said he would double the salary if you would accept
it. He thought you wouldn't, merely because you lived in the house of
old Woodman with whom the Company may have a fight. I told him it was
nonsense--that I knew you would accept. Of course, Jim, dear, I
couldn't tell him why--I couldn't tell him what it meant to me, though
I felt like screaming it in his face. You'll accept, of course?"
"Emphatically no!"
"You can't be so absurd!"
"Yes I can."
"Why?"
Stuart looked away in moody silence.
"Have you been receiving the attentions of this distinguished young
millionaire, Nan?"
"I've been cultivating him."
"Cultivating?"
"Yes, for your sake only--you big, handsome, foolish, jealous boy! You
can't be in earnest when you say that you will refuse such an offer?"
"I am in earnest," was the grim reply.
"But why, why--why?"
"First, because I will not become the hireling of a corporation, to say
nothing of this particular one headed by Mr. Bivens."
"Nonsense, Jim. You wouldn't be a hireling. You would lay the law down
for them to follow."
"No. A modern corporation has no soul, and the man who serves this
master must sell both body and soul for the wages he receives. I am a
lawyer of the old school. My work is illumined by imagination. My
business is to enforce justice in the relations of men."
"But some of the greatest lawyers in America are corporation
attorneys----"
"All the reason more why I should keep clean. Lawyers once constituted
our aristocracy of brain and culture."
"But, Jim, you could prevent injustice by your will and ability!"
"Nonsense, Nan. It's the kind of work you have to do. The very nature
of it excludes an ideal. Its only standard is gold--hard, ringing
metallic gold! I can't prostitute my talents to a work I don't believe
in. A man's work is a revelation of what he is. And what he is will
depend at last on what he does."
A frown of impatience had steadily grown in the girl's face and the
curves of her lips hardened with sudden determination.
"But you mean to be rich and powerful, Jim?"
"If it comes with the growth of manhood and character, yes. But I will
not degrade myself with work I hate, or take orders from men I despise.
The world is already full of such slaves. I mean to make one less, not
one more of them."
"You know I don't wish you to be degraded," Nan broke in, earnestly. "I
want you to be great."
"Then, don't forget, sweetheart, that it's the great man who can be
content now with a fair share of money. It requires more stamina, more
character, more manhood to live a sane, decent life in this town to-day
than it does to become a millionaire."
"But I want you to be ambitious, Jim!" the girl exclaimed,
passionately.
"I am ambitious--for big things--the biggest things. For that reason it
will take more than a child's rattle to satisfy me, though it's made of
gold. I must have the real thing--the thing inside. I hope to have the
applause of the world, but the thing I must have is the approval of my
better self--can't you understand, Nan?"
Stuart paused and laid his hand gently on the girl's white round arm,
and she turned with a start.
"I didn't hear your last sentence, Jim----"
"Of what were you thinking?"
"Of what a woman is always thinking. Consciously or unconsciously, of
my home--whether it shall be a hovel or a palace."
"It all depends on whether Love is the builder----"
"It all depends on the man I marry," was the laughing answer. "I've
always dreamed of you as a man of wealth and power. Your splendid
talents mean this. When you came to New York I was more sure of you
than ever. You've simply got to make money, Jim! Nothing else counts in
the world to-day. I hate poverty--I fear it--I loathe it! Money is the
badge of success, the symbol of power. Nothing else counts."
"And yet," the lover said, drawing closer, "I hold the touch of your
little finger of greater value than all the gold on the earth or
beneath it."
"Don't interrupt me, please, with irrelevant remarks," Nan cried,
laughing in spite of herself. "Seriously, Jim--you must listen to me.
I'm in dead earnest. There's no virtue in riding behind a donkey if you
can own a carriage. There can be no virtue in shivering in a thin dress
if you can wear furs. Even the saints all dream of a Heaven with
streets of gold, chariots to ride in, and gleaming banquet halls! I'm
just a practical saint, Jim. I want mine here and now. You must have
money, if for no other reason, because I wish it!"
"Even if I enter a career of crime with Bivens as my master?"
"Come! Mr. Bivens is a devout member of the church. And you know that
he's in dead earnest----"
"About getting to Heaven? Of course. That's simply his insurance policy
against fire in the next world."
"Oh, don't talk nonsense, Jim. The possession of money is not a crime."
"No. Crime, Nan, is in the heart and its seed always springs from the
soul. Its roots must always strike one soil to live--_the selfish
will to have what one wants regardless of the cost to others_."
"Is it a crime," Nan asked, passionately, "to wish to live a life
that's worth the struggle? You must take conditions as you find them."
"That's just it. I won't. I'd rather create new conditions and mould
life. I'd rather lead, organize and inspire, than follow. I refuse to
become a mere money-grubber, because I'm in love with Life."
"And you would be willing," the girl said dreamily, "to sacrifice the
happiness of all those you love and all who love you to follow this
whim?"
"Sacrifice your happiness? Why, the one purpose of my life is to make
you happy----"
"Well, I can't be happy in poverty. The man I love must be rich. Oh,
Jim, you shall be! Wealth is the only road now from the vulgar
crowd--the only way to climb on top."
"But, suppose I don't wish to climb on the top of people?"
"You can't be such a fool!"
"But suppose I am? Money is the most obvious sign of success in a new
crude world. Ours is no longer new, no longer crude or isolated. True
civilization has always placed manhood above money. The only names in
our history worth remembering--are there, because they did something
else than make money. Washington was the richest man in America in his
day. But nobody remembers this--why? Because it is of no importance.
The men you call great would simply reduce life to the terms of a
commercial dividend. Yet nothing pays that's really worth while."
"Jim, are you crazy?"
"It's true, dear. The lover who watches by the side of a stricken loved
one and loses time and money--is he crazy? My father gave up his law
practice to bend over my mother's bedside for six months. He was a
giant in mind and body--she a poor little, broken, withered invalid. He
lost money and clients and never regained them. Did it pay? Does
anything that's born of love pay? Surely not children. I was always a
dead expense. The biggest fee I ever received as a lawyer in New York
was a shout of joy from a poor woman, whose boy I freed from a false
charge of crime. She fell sobbing before me and actually kissed my
feet."
"Oh, Jim, why can't you be practical? Why are you not willing to fight
for a fortune--as other men----"
"Because, dear," he answered quickly and tenderly, "we haven't
time--you and I. Life is too short. Love is too sweet. The fields are
too green. The birds sing too sweetly. The treasures of earth are
already mine, for Love has given me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a
heart to feel. Perhaps I'm just a little crazy by the standard of New
York, but, dear, I thought you were my mate! Have you forgotten our old
day dreams in the fields at home?"
"I've forgotten everything," she answered bitterly, "except that you
are failing me when put to the first test. And it would be such a
little thing for you to do."
"At the price of my self-respect--and you call this a little
thing--great God!"
Nan rose with a sudden gesture of impatience.
"You refuse absolutely to consider this generous offer?"
"Absolutely."
"And you are not willing to let these romantic fancies wait until
you've made your fortune?"
The girl spoke with cold deliberation.
"How can I wait to live? I'm twenty-six. I'll never have those glorious
days of my young manhood again. My ears will never be so keen again or
eyes so clear again. What is the use of years of preparation to live,
if at last you don't know how?"
"And you are willing that the woman you love shall live in poverty
while her more fortunate sisters laugh and dance in luxury?"
"The one joy of my life will be to gratify every reasonable wish of
your body and soul."
"Yet the first reasonable wish I express, you refuse to consider."
"It would be suicide----"
"Oh, Jim, don't talk like a fool! Mr. Bivens says he would make you a
millionaire in five years."
The blood suddenly rushed to Stuart's face, and the square jaws came
together with a snap.
"That's very kind of Mr. Bivens, I'm sure. When I need his patronage,
I'll take my place in line with other henchmen and ask for it. At
present I'm paddling my own canoe."
Nan suddenly extended her hand.
"Good-night."
He attempted to draw her into his arms.
"Not like that, Nan."
She repulsed him and repeated her cold dismissal:
"Good-night."
"Nan, dear," he pleaded, "we've never parted in anger before. Of all
the hours of my life this is one in which I--I--least dreamed of such a
thing."
Without a word, she turned toward the stairs.
"Nan!" he called tenderly.
The proud white figure slowly mounted the first step. He seized his hat
and coat and grasped the door, fumbling at the knob in rage.
A dress rustled and he turned, confronting Nan. Her face was scarlet
and two tears were creeping down her checks. With a sob she threw
herself into his arms.
"Forgive me, Jim!"
"Forgive me, dear, if I've seemed unreasonable," was the low answer.
"But you will think it over, won't you? just for my sake--just because
I ask it--won't you?"
"Just because you ask it--yes, I will, dearest!"
He kissed her tenderly and walked home with a great sickening fear
slowly creeping into his heart.
CHAPTER IV
MR. BIVENS CALLS
Stuart waked next morning with a sense of hopeless depression. He had
intended to make an engagement with Nan to visit the little home. It
was impossible to suggest it in the mood he had found her. What strange
madness had come over the woman he loved? They had never discussed
money before. Bivens was the only explanation.
He dressed himself mechanically and went down stairs. A letter was on
the hall rack which had been sent by a messenger. He broke the seal
with nervous haste. It was from Bivens asking him to call his office
telephone at eleven o'clock.
He tore the note into tiny pieces, stepped into the parlour and threw
them into the grate. He stood for a moment gazing into the glowing
coals in brooding anger. Slowly he became conscious of music. Some one
was playing an old-fashioned Southern melody, and the tenderest voice
accompanied the piano. He walked to the door of the music-room.
It was Harriet.
As he listened, the frown died from his face and the anger melted out
from his heart. The music ceased. Harriet looked up with a start.
"Oh, Jim, I didn't know you were there!"
"It was beautiful, little pal."
"Yes, I knew you'd like that piece. I heard you humming it one day.
That's why I got it."
"What a sweet voice you have, child, so clear, so deep and rich and
full of feeling. I didn't know you could sing."
"I didn't either until I tried."
"You must study music," he said, with enthusiasm.
The girl clapped her hands and leaped to her feet, exclaiming:
"Will you be proud of me, Jim, if I can sing?"
"Indeed I will," was the earnest answer.
The laughing eyes grew serious as she slowly said:
"Then, I'll do my level best. I'm off--good-bye."
With a wave of her hand she was gone, and Stuart hurried to his office,
whistling the old tune she had just sung.
What curious, sensitive things--these souls of ours! An idea enters and
blackens the sky, makes sick the body, kills hope and faith. The soft
strains of an old piece of music steals into the darkened spirit, the
shadows lift, the sun shines, the heart beats with life and the world
is new again.
On reaching his office on lower Broadway, Stuart rang Bivens's
telephone, and the president of the American Chemical Company made an
engagement to call at once.
Stuart would not have stooped to the trick of keeping his young
millionaire visitor waiting, on imaginary business, but he was grateful
for the timely call of a client who kept him in consultation for
fifteen minutes while Bivens patiently waited his turn in the
reception-room, his wealth and prestige all lost on the imperturbable
office boy, who sat silently chewing gum and reading a serial.
The first view of Bivens was always unimpressive. He was short, thin,
and looked almost frail at first glance. A second look gave the
impression of wiry reserve force in his compact frame. His hair was jet
black and thinning slightly on top which gave him the appearance of
much greater age than he could really claim. His thin features were
regular, and his face was covered with a thick black beard which he
kept trimmed to a keen point on the chin. His most striking features
were a high massive forehead, abnormally long for the size of his body,
and a pair of piercing, bead-like black eyes. These eyes were seldom
still, but when they rested on an object they fairly bored through it
with their penetrating light.
He rarely spoke except to a purpose, and his manners were quiet, almost
furtive. He had thus early in his career gained a nickname that was
peculiarly significant in Wall Street. He was known as _The Weasel_.
His whole makeup, physical and mental, was curiously complex--a mixture
of sobriety and greed, piety and cruelty, tenderness and indomitable
will, simplicity of tastes with boundless ambition.
His friendship for Stuart and his deference to him personally and
socially dated from their boyhood in North Carolina--and particularly
from an incident which occurred in their college days. Bivens's father
had been a notorious coward in the Confederate army and had at last
deserted the service. A number of very funny stories about his actions
in battle had become current everywhere. On Bivens's arrival at
college, a particularly green freshman, Stuart had discovered a group
of his classmates hazing him. They had forced the coward's son to mount
a box and repeat to the crowd the funny stories about the "valour" of
his father. The boy, scared half out of his wits, stood stammering and
perspiring and choking with shame as he tried to obey his tormentors.
Stuart protested vigorously, and a fight ensued in which he was
compelled to thrash the ring-leader and rescue the victim by force of
arms. From that day Stuart was Bivens's beau-ideal of a gentleman. He
had tolerated rather than enjoyed this friendship, but it was so
genuine he couldn't ignore the little dark-eyed taciturn fellow who was
destined to play so tremendous a rôle in his future life.
Bivens sat patiently waiting for the young lawyer, his black eyes
gazing dreamily over the roofs of the houses. He was smoking a huge
black cigar. He was always smoking. The brighter his eyes gleamed the
harder he smoked until the fire-tipped tobacco seemed a spark from
smouldering volcanoes somewhere below. The one overwhelming impression
which Bivens's personality first gave was that he was made out of
tobacco. His fingers were stained with nicotine, and his teeth yellow
from it. He had smoked so fast and furiously the room was soon
fog-bound. The boy looked up from his paper with a gasp and hastened
inside to see if he could get rid of his obnoxious presence. In a
moment he ushered out the client and showed Bivens into the office.
He shook hands quietly and took a seat beside Stuart's desk.
"Well?" said the lawyer at length.
"I've come to make you an important proposition, Jim," Bivens began
slowly, while his restless eyes looked up at the ceiling, and he pulled
at the point of his beard. "We need another attorney. The business of
the company is increasing so rapidly our force can't handle it. I need
a big man close to me. If you'll take the place I'll give you a salary
that will ultimately be as big as the President gets in the White
House. Twenty thousand to start with."
Stuart looked at his visitor curiously.
"Why do you want me, Cal? There are thousands of lawyers here who would
jump at the chance. Many of them are better equipped for such work than
I am."
"Because I know that you won't lie to me, you won't swindle or take
advantage of me----"
"Why not?" Stuart asked with a smile. "Isn't that the game? Why
shouldn't I learn the tricks?"
"Because it's not in you."
"I see. You want to capitalize my character and use me to ambush the
other fellow?"
"That's one way to look at it--yes."
"But that's not the real reason you come to me to-day with this
proposition--is it?"
"Not the only one. You know my friendship for you is genuine. You know
there's not a man in New York for whom I'd do as much as I will for you
if you'll let me. Isn't that true?"
"I believe it--yes. And yet--there must be another reason. What is it?"
"Does it matter? I've made you the offer. If the salary isn't enough,
name your figure."
"You're not afraid of Woodman and wish to reach him through me?" Stuart
continued, ignoring his last answer.
The ghost of a smile flitted around the shining little black eyes.
"Afraid?" he asked contemptuously. "I'm not even interested in him. The
old fossil's a joke. He thinks he can stop the progress of the world to
attend a case of measles in Mott Street."
The financier leisurely lifted his right hand, removed the cigar from
his mouth, and struck the ashes lightly with his finger. Stuart noticed
how small his hand, how delicately shaped, how smooth and careful its
movements. Beyond a doubt it was the hand of an expert thief. And yet
this man, by an accident of birth, was a devout member of the church
and complied with the written laws of modern society.
Stuart was silent a moment, watching the dark masked face before him.
At last he blurted out:
"Well, Cal, what's the real reason you make me this offer to-day?"
Bivens moved uneasily in his chair, fidgeted, hesitated and finally
leaned close, speaking in a whisper:
"You can keep a little secret?"
"You ought to know that before making me such an offer."
"Yes. Yes, of course I know you will." Bivens paused and resumed his
cigar. "The fact, is--Jim--I'm in love----"
Stuart cleared his throat to strangle an exclamation.
"In love?" he echoed in a tone of light banter.
"Hopelessly, desperately in love!"
"Then you need a minister, not a lawyer," Stuart said, with quiet
sarcasm.
"It's no joke, old man," Bivens went on soberly. "It's the most serious
thing I was ever up against. Fell in love at first sight."
"But where do I come into this affair?" Stuart interrupted, maintaining
his self-control with an effort.
"Simple enough. The Primroses----"
"Oh, it's Miss Primrose?"
"Yes--Miss Nan. You see, they think the world of you. She said you grew
up together in the same town. I was telling her about my business. I
must have been bragging about what we were going to do. I was crazy,
just looking at her. Her beauty made me drunk. I told her we needed a
new attorney. She said you were the man. I told her I'd offer you the
place. She seemed pleased. When I told her I was afraid you wouldn't
take a place under my direction, she laughed at the idea--said she knew
you would accept. And so you've got the whole truth now, Jim. You've
got to accept, old man. I want to make her feel that her word is law
with me. Don't you think that would please her?"
"It ought to please any woman," was the slow, thoughtful reply.
"Tell me, do you think I've got a chance with a girl like that? You
know I've never gone with girls much. I'm timid and awkward. I don't
know what to do or what to say. But my money will help, won't it?"
"Money always helps in this town, Cal."
"And it means so much to a woman too,--don't it?"
"Yes. Have you said anything to Miss Nan yet?"
"Lord, no! Haven't dared. Just get drunk looking at her every time I
see her, but I couldn't open my mouth if I tried. I'm kinder shying up
to the old lady to get her on my side. She seems awfully friendly. I
think she likes me. Don't you think it a good plan to cultivate her?"
"By all means," was the dry reply.
"Say, for God's sake, Jim, help me. Take this attorneyship. It will
please her and I'll make you rich. Come in with me and you'll never
regret it. I know my folks were not your social equals in the old days
down South. But you know as well as I do that money talks here. Have
common sense. Look at things as they are. Come in with me and let's get
at these Yankees. They left you and me cradles of poverty. They owe us
something. Come in with me and we'll get it!"
There was no mistaking the genuineness of Bivens's feelings. Stuart
knew that he felt deeply and sincerely every word that he uttered. The
first rush of his anger had died away and he begun to realize the
pathos of the little man's appeal. He forgot for the moment that he was
a millionaire and had made his money by devious tricks with that
smooth, delicately moulded hand. He only saw that Bivens, his old
schoolmate, had unconsciously fallen into a trap. A word from him--the
word he wished spoken, and the woman he loved would be lost. He had but
to speak that word, accept the generous offer made in good faith, and
every cloud between him and Nan would vanish! They could be married at
once and the future was secure. All he had to do was to keep silent for
the moment as to his real relations to Nan and compromise his sense of
honour by accepting the wages of a man whose principles he despised.
His decision was made without a moment's hesitation. It was yet the
morning of life.
"I refuse the offer, Cal," he said firmly.
Bivens rose quickly and placed his smooth hand on his friend's.
"I won't take that answer now. Think it over. I'll see you again."
He turned and left the room before Stuart could reply.
The lawyer drew a photograph from his desk and looked at it, smiling
tenderly.
"I wonder, Nan! I wonder!"
The smile slowly faded, and a frown clouded his brow. The lines of his
mouth suddenly tightened.
"I'll settle it to-day," he said with decision, as he rose, took his
hat and left for Gramercy Park.
CHAPTER V
AN ISSUE IS FORCED
It was noon when Stuart reached the Primrose house and Nan was again
out. He received the announcement from her mother with a feeling of
rage he could ill conceal.
"Where is she? I seem never to be able to find her at home."
"Now, don't be absurd, Jim. You know she would have broken any
engagement to see you, had she known you were going to call to-day. She
has only gone to the dressmaker's."
"How long will she be there?"
"Until four."
"Four hours at a dressmaker's----"
"And then she's going to the hair dressser's."
"And then?"
"She has an engagement for tea. I don't expect her home until seven.
I'm awfully sorry."
"Of course, I understand, Mrs. Primrose," Stuart said with a light
laugh, "I should have told her--but I didn't know until a few moments
ago that I was coming."
"Nothing serious has happened, I hope?" she asked, with carefully
modulated sympathy which said plainly that she hoped for the worst.
"No. Just say that I'll call after dinner."
"All right, Jim, dear," the mother purred. "I'll see that she's here if
I have to lock the door."
Stuart smiled in spite of himself as he passed out murmuring:
"Thank you."
It was useless to try to work. His mind was in a tumult of passionate
protest. He must have this thing out with Nan once for all. Their
engagement must be announced immediately.
He went to the Players' Club and lunched alone in brooding silence. He
tried to read and couldn't. He strolled out aimlessly and began to
ramble without purpose. Somehow to-day everything on which his eye
rested and every sound that struck his ear proclaimed the advent of the
new power of which Bivens was the symbol--Bivens with his delicate,
careful little hand, his bulging forehead, his dark keen eyes! An ice
wagon dashed by. It belonged to the ice trust. A big coal cart blocked
the sidewalk. The coal trust was one of the first. The street crossing
at Broadway and Twenty-third Street was jammed with a string of
delivery waggons from the department stores whose growth had crushed a
hundred small trades. The clang of the cars proclaimed the Street
Railway Merger and a skyscraper called "The Flatiron" was just raising
its giant frame on the little triangle where a half-dozen old-fashioned
buildings had stood for generations. Across Madison Square the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was tearing down a whole block,
section by section, and a palace of white marble was slowly rearing its
huge form. The passing of an era was plain. He could see the hand of
the new mysterious power building a world before his very eyes. Strange
he hadn't noticed it until Bivens's dark sneering face this morning,
insolent in its conscious strength, had opened his eyes. What chance
had his old friend Woodman against such forces?
Yet why should he resent them personally? He was young. The future was
his--not the past. He didn't resent them. Of course not. What he did
resent was the approach of the particular Juggernaut named John C.
Calhoun Bivens toward the woman he loved. That Bivens should fall
hopelessly and blindly in love with Nan at first sight was too
stupefying to be grasped at once. She couldn't love such a man--and yet
his millions and that slippery mother were a sinister combination. He
congratulated himself that his interview with Bivens had put him in
possession of a most important secret, and he would force the issue at
once.
By evening he had thrown off his depression and met Nan with something
of his old gaiety, to which she responded with a touch of coquetry.
"Tell me, Jim," she began with a smile of mischief in her eyes, "why
you called at the remarkable hour of twelve noon, to-day? Am I becoming
so resistless that work no longer has any charms? You must have
something very important to say?" Her eyes danced with the
consciousness of her advantage.
"Yes. I have, Nan," he answered soberly, taking her hand. "I want a
public announcement of our engagement in to-morrow morning's papers."
"Jim!"
"I mean it."
"But why? You know the one concession, the only one I have ever made to
my mother's hostility to you, is that our engagement shall be kept a
secret until we are ready to marry. We must play fair."
"I will, we are ready now."
Nan's voice broke into a ripple of laughter.
"Oh, are we?--I didn't know it."
"Yes, that's what I came to tell you," Stuart went on, catching her
spirit of fun and pressing her hand. "I've arranged a little trip to
the country to-morrow, and I'm going to convince you before we return.
You can go?"
"Of course, I'm open to conviction."
"And you consent to the announcement?"
"To-night?"
"Yes."
"No. You must convince me first. You've planned the trip for that
purpose."
"Make the announcement to-night, dear! On my honour I promise to
convince you to-morrow that we are ready. I've an argument that never
fails--an argument no woman can resist."
"Not to-night, Jim," was the laughing reply.
"Can't you trust me, when I tell you that I've discovered something
to-day that makes it necessary?"
The girl looked at him sharply.
"Now, I can't trust you at all! I've got to know the secret of your
call this morning. What has happened since we parted last night?"
"I have seen Mr. Bivens."
Nan leaped to her feet, her face flushed, her voice ringing with
triumph.
"And you did what I asked you--oh, you're a darling! Why did you tease
me so last night? You accepted his offer?"
"You misunderstand, I didn't call on Bivens. He came to see me."
"And you refused! Oh, Jim, don't tell me you were so foolish!"
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, dear, but I had to--that's all."
The girl dropped into her seat with a sigh, while he went on:
"My interview with Bivens led to a most important and embarrassing
discovery."
"Embarrassing--what do you mean? He offered you the position?"
"Yes, and finally confessed that he did it wholly to please you."
Nan's figure suddenly straightened.
"Indeed! I'm glad to hear that my wishes find favour somewhere!"
"Bivens further confided in me the fact that he is hopelessly and
desperately in love with you."
A flash of anger mantled Nan's cheeks.
"That will do, Jim," she said in quiet cold tones. "Your joke has gone
far enough."
"Joke! Do you think I could joke on such a subject?"
A smile began to play about the corners of the full lips.
"You don't mean it--really?"
"Certainly. He told me so in the plainest sort of blunt English. And
you mean to say that you have not suspected it?"
"I never dreamed he was so easy!" Still smiling dreamily Nan crossed
her hands over her knees and studied the pattern in the rug, ignoring
the presence of her lover.
"Then you underestimate your powers."
"Evidently."
Her eyes were laughing again mischievously.
"Let's not joke, Nan. It's too serious."
"Serious! I fail to see it."
"Can't you see that we must at once announce our engagement?"
The girl's lips curled with the faintest suggestion of sarcasm.
"I don't see it at all. You may be a good lawyer, but I fail to follow
your logic."
Stuart rose with a gesture of anger.
"Come to the point, Nan. Let's not beat the devil around the stump any
longer. You know as well as I do that you've been trying to flirt with
this little insect----"
"Trying to flirt?"
"Yes."
"Trying? Don't you think I could if I wished without bungling the
effort? What a poor opinion you hold of my talent."
"You know in your heart of hearts you despise Bivens."
"On the contrary, I vastly admire him. The man who can enter with his
handicap this big heartless city and successfully smash the giants who
oppose him is not an insect. I'd rather call him a hero. All women
admire success."
"I see," Stuart replied with suppressed fury, "you enjoy your
conquest."
"And why not?" she drawled, with lazy indifference.
"It's disgusting!"
Nan fixed her dark eyes on Stuart.
"How dare you use such a word to me?"
"Because it's true and you know it."
"True or false, you can't say it"--she rose deliberately--"you may go
now!"
"Forgive me, dear," Stuart stammered in a queer muffled voice. "I
didn't mean to hurt you. I was mad with jealousy."
"You may go," was the hard even answer.
"I can't go like this, dearest," he pleaded. "You must forgive me--you
must! Look at me!"
She turned slowly, stared him full in the face for a moment without the
quiver of an eyelid, her fine figure tense, erect, cold, as she quietly
said:
"You are tiring me, Jim."
For an instant an impulse of overwhelming anger mastered him. He
returned her look with one of concentrated rage and their eyes met in
the first supreme clash of wills. For a moment he saw the world red,
and caught in its glare something he had never seen in Nan before, a
conscious cruelty and a joy in her power that was evil--a cruelty that
could spring only from the deepest and most merciless self-worship. For
the first time he saw a cold-blooded calculation behind her beautiful
eyes, caught its accent in the richly modulated voice, and felt it in
the smile which showed the white teeth--the smile of a woman who would
pause at nothing to get what she wanted. The old savage impulse to
strangle surged through his veins, and he was startled into the
consciousness of his situation by the fierce grip of his finger nails
in his fists clinched so tight they began to cut the flesh.
A blush of shame tinged his face as he tremblingly said:
"Please, dear, let's not part like this! I've suffered enough to-day.
You're only teasing me. And I've acted like a fool. Say that you
forgive me!"
"Our engagement is at an end, Mr. Stuart," was the quiet answer.
"Nan----"
Before he could recover from the shock or utter a protest, she opened
the door and he had passed out into the night.
CHAPTER VI
THE FORGOTTEN MAN
The suddenness of his dismissal broke the strain under which Stuart had
been labouring for hours. It was ridiculous. He began to laugh at the
silliness of the whole thing--what an idiotic performance anyhow--these
lovers' quarrels! He saw the comedy of it, ate a hearty supper, and
went to bed firm in the conviction that he would see Nan again the next
day.
But the morning came with a sense of growing uncertainty. It was
raining. He would have enjoyed a storm, but it was just a drizzle with
a penetrating dampness that found the marrow of his bones. He called a
messenger and sent a note to Nan asking her to forget the ugly memory
of the night before and fulfill her promise to go to the country when
the rain ceased. If it continued to rain he would call at eight. He
told the boy to wait for an answer. The messenger returned promptly and
handed back his note unopened.
Of course she was bluffing. She knew she had the whip hand for the
moment and meant to use it.
"Well, two can play this game," he muttered. "We'll see who wins!"
He turned to his work with grim resolution.
For two weeks the battle between pride and love raged in silence. Each
day he rose with the hope of some sign from Nan, and each day hope died
in a more desperate and sullen despair. At last he began to question
the wisdom of his course. Should he not fight his battle at closer
range? What if he were in reality engaged in a mortal combat with
Bivens's millions for Nan's soul and body! The idea was too hideous to
be thinkable. In his anger he had accused her of flirting with Bivens,
but in his heart he didn't believe it. The personality of the little
money-grubber made the idea preposterous. He was not only frail,
insignificant, and unattractive physically, but he had personal habits
which were offensive to Nan's feelings of refinement. His excessive use
of tobacco was one thing he knew she could not tolerate. Tobacco was
her pet aversion.
And yet the more he thought of the scene of their parting, the more
sickening became the conviction that her anger at his use of an ugly
word was merely a subterfuge to break their engagement. The perfidy and
cruelty of such an act was too hideous for belief--yet if the thing
were possible! He had left her to struggle alone with the first great
temptation of life, and he began to feel that it was cowardly. He
should have stood his ground and fought for his love.
He made up his mind to go at once and fight for his old place beside
her on any terms she would grant. He seized his hat and opened the
door. To his amazement Bivens was leisurely ascending the steps.
What on earth could he want? Was he making a social call without
announcement, as was the habit of his village days in the South? At
this moment Bivens was the last man he wished to encounter, yet a
meeting seemed inevitable. He stepped into the parlour and sat down
with resignation to await his entrance.
To his amazement he heard the maid say:
"This way, sir, Dr. Woodman asks you to wait for him in the library."
So Bivens was calling on his arch enemy by appointment. Stuart replaced
his hat on the rack and returned to his room, determined to await the
outcome of this extraordinary visit. That its significance was sinister
he couldn't doubt for a moment. Little could he dream how fateful for
his future life was the message the little dark man bore. Stuart closed
his door with a sensation of foreboding, sat down and tried to read.
On Dr. Woodman's entrance, Bivens rose to greet him with unusual
animation and unmistakable good will.
When the doctor grasped the outstretched hand a more striking contrast
could scarcely be imagined--the one big, bluff, jovial, sunny, powerful
and straight of figure as he was always straight in speech and
manners--the financier, small and weak in body, his movements sinuous,
flexible, with eyes that never looked at the man he was talking to, yet
always seemed to be taking in everything in the room--eyes unusually
dark, yet seemingly full of piercing light as from hidden fires
beneath.
"Well, Bivens, what can I do for you? I understand from your note that
the matter is important."
"Of the gravest importance to us both, Doctor," he answered with a
smile. "For a peculiar personal reason I want us to get together and
settle our differences."
"Are there any differences between us? You go your way and I go mine.
You run your business to suit yourself and I'll do the same. The
world's big enough for us both----"
"That just the trouble," Bivens interrupted. "It isn't. We are entering
a new era of combination, merger, coöperation."
"Compulsory coöperation!" the doctor laughed.
"It may be so at last," the little man said soberly. "Certainly the old
idea of competition is played out. We no longer believe that business
men should try to cut each other's throats."
"Oh, I see," sneered the doctor, "they should get together, corral
their customers, and cut their throats. That certainly is better for
business, but how about the customers?"
"Business is business," was the grim answer.
"For beasts of the field, yes--but for men?"
"Still, you must recognize the fact that the drug trade is a business
enterprise, not a charity organization."
"Even so, still I happen to know that within a stone's throw of my
store swarms a population of a quarter of a million human beings so
poor that only three hundred of them ever have access to a bathroom.
The death rate of the children is 254 in a thousand. It should be about
20 in a thousand, if normal. I don't want any higher profits out of my
customers. If I've got to fight I'd rather fight the trade than fight
the people. I choose the lesser evil."
"But I don't ask you to do evil."
"You ask me to enter with you into a criminal conspiracy to suppress
freedom of trade, and use fraud and violence if necessary to win----"
"Fraud and violence?" Bivens interrupted, smilingly.
"Certainly. What sort of merchandise does the 'organizer' of modern
industry bring to market? Tricks and subterfuges in the form of printed
paper called stocks which represent no value. From the moment a
financier once tastes this blood he becomes a beast. With the first
fierce realization of the fact that under modern legal forms he can
coin money out of nothing by binding the burdens of debt on the backs
of helpless millions, he begins to laugh at the laws of man and God."
"Come, come, Doctor, you must realize the fact that in the drug
business we are bringing order out of chaos and at last putting the
trade on a paying basis."
"But at what a price! You have closed mills instead of opening them,
thrown out of work thousands, lowered the price paid for raw material,
bringing ruin to its producers, increased the price charged for your
products to the ruin of the consumer, and saddled millions of
fictitious debts on the backs of their children yet unborn. Combine,
yes, but why not pay the people whose wages you have stolen as well as
the owners whose mills you have closed? If combination is so extremely
profitable, it should bring some benefit to the millions who are
consumers--not merely make millionaires out of a few men. Who is
bearing the burden of this enormous increase of fictitious wealth? The
people. The price of living has been increasing steadily with the
organization of each industry into a trust. Where will it end?"
Bivens's eyes narrowed to the merest points of concentrated light,
while an amused smile played about them as he listened patiently to the
doctor's tirade. When at last the big figure towering above him paused
for breath, he remarked quietly:
"The trust is here to stay, Doctor. Legislation against it is as absurd
and futile as a movement to stop the tides. We will never pull down
these big department stores or go back to the little ones. The
skyscraper will not come down from the heavens merely because a belated
traveller rails that his view of the stars has been obscured. You
cannot make economy a crime, progress a misdemeanour, or efficiency a
felony! If so, you can destroy the trusts."
"I'm not clear yet how it is to be done," was the passionate answer--"but
as sure as God lives we are going to do _something_. The spirit of
America is progressive, up hill, not down hill, mind you. At present we
are putting wreckers in charge of Organization and famine producers in
charge of Production. It can't last. At no period of the world's
history have the claims of tyranny been so quickly seen and dared, as
here and now. Nowhere and in no age has tyranny confronted such a
people as ours with life and culture and ideals as high--a people so in
love with liberty, so disciplined in its struggles! When the day comes
that we shall be confronted with death or degradation, the young
American will know how to choose. Patriotism with me is not an empty
word. It is one of the passions of my life. I believe in this Republic.
For the moment the people are asleep. But time is slowly shaping the
issue that will move the last laggard. We are beginning dimly to see
that there is something more precious in our life than the mere tonnage
of national wealth--the spirit of freedom and initiative in our people!
Shall they become merely the hired men of a few monied kings? Or shall
the avenues of industry and individual enterprise remain open to their
children? Is it more important to grow men or make money? Shall we
transform the Republic into a huge money-stamping machine and turn its
freemen into slaves who tend this machine, at the command of a master?
The people will answer these questions!"
Bivens gave a cynical little chuckle.
"Then I'm sure we'll get the wrong answer, Doctor," was the response.
"They will get it right bye and bye. The nation is young. You say you
believe in God. Well, see to it--a thousand years are but a day to Him!
Among the shadows of eternity He is laughing at your follies. Nature in
her long, slow, patient process is always on the side of Justice."
Bivens rose with a movement of impatience.
"I'm sorry you can't see your way to listen to any proposition from me,
Doctor. I'm a practical man. I wish to incorporate your business into
the general organization of the American Chemical Company on terms that
will satisfy you----"
"Such terms can't be made, Bivens," the doctor said impetuously. "Your
purpose is to squeeze money out of the people--the last dollar the
trade will bear. That is your motto. I simply refuse. I refuse to
devote my life to gouging out my neighbours' eyes to increase the
profits of my trade. I put myself in his place, the place of the
forgotten man, the consumer, the man you are organizing to exploit. The
strong and the cunning can always take advantage of the weak, the
ignorant, the foolish and generous. I have an imagination which makes
vivid the sense of fellowship. I meet, in the crowds I pass, thousands
of friends I never speak to, but the world is brighter because I've
seen them."
"But if I don't see them?" the little black eyes mildly asked.
"Certainly! You can't see them. To you the city is merely a big flock
of sheep to be sheared, while to me its myriad sounds are the music of
a divine oratorio, throbbing with tears and winged with laughter! To
you, the crowd are so many fools who may be buncoed out of their goods;
while to me, some of their eyes, seen but for a moment, look into mine
with infinite hunger and yearning, asking for friendship, comradeship,
and love. And so, I call them my neighbours--these hurrying throngs who
pass me daily. Because they are my neighbours, they are my friends.
Their rights are sacred. I will not rob, maim, or kill them, and I will
defend them against those who would!"
With the last sentence the stalwart figure towered above the little
financier in a moment of instinctive hostility.
Bivens merely shrugged his shoulders and answered in measured, careful
tones:
"Then I suppose I'll have to fight you whether I wish it or not?"
"Yes, and you knew that before you came here to-night. Your generous
impulse for a settlement on my own terms is a shallow trick and it
comes too late. I'm not fighting my own battle merely. I'm fighting for
the people. You have heard that I am beginning a suit for damages
against your Company----"
Bivens laughed in spite of himself, bit his lips, and looked at the
doctor.
"I assure you I had heard nothing of such a suit, and now that I have
it does not even interest me."
"Then may I ask the real reason for this urgent call and request for a
compromise of our differences?"
"You may," was the cheerful response. "And I will answer frankly. I am
engaged to be married to Miss Nan Primrose. The wedding is to occur in
a few weeks. In some way she has learned of a possible conflict between
your interests and mine, and asked me to settle them."
"And, may I ask, why? I don't even know Miss Primrose!"
"A woman's whim, perhaps. Possibly because our mutual friend, Mr.
Stuart, lives in your home, and she feared to lose his friendship in
the conflict which might ensue."
The doctor was silent a moment and glared angrily at his visitor.
"Bivens, you're a liar," he cried in a sudden burst of rage.
The dark face flushed and the slim little hand began to tremble.
"I am your guest, Doctor----"
"I beg your pardon, I forgot myself."
"I assure you," the little financier continued smoothly, "that my
intentions were friendly and generous. My only desire was to help you
and make you rich."
Again the doctor's eyes blazed with wrath and he completely lost his
self-control.
"Damn you, have I asked for your help or patronage? Its offer is an
insult! I want you to remember, sir, that I picked you up out of the
streets of New York, ill, hungry, out of work, friendless, and gave you
your first job."
Bivens, breathing heavily, turned in silence and hurried to the door.
The doctor followed.
With his hand on the knob, the financier turned, his face black with
hate and slowly said:
"I'll make you live to regret this interview, Woodman!"
With a contemptuous grunt, the doctor closed the door.
CHAPTER VII
A VISION
When Stuart heard the door close and Bivens's step die away on the
pavement below, he came down to see the doctor, haunted by a strange
vision. Through every day of his subsequent life the most trivial
details of that hour stood out in his memory with peculiar and terrible
vividness. From every shadow he saw Nan's face looking into his. He was
not superstitious; this impression he knew was simply a picture burned
into his tired brain by days and nights of intense longing. But what
increased the horror of the fancy was the fact that the picture changed
in quick succession, from the face of the living to the face of the
dead. He closed his eyes at last and in sheer desperation felt his way
down the last flight of stairs. The fiercer the effort he made to shut
out the picture, the more vivid it became until he found himself
shivering over the last persistent outline which refused to vanish at
any command of his will. It was the ghost of Nan's face--old, white,
pulseless, terrible in its beauty, but dead.
"Of what curious stuff we're made!" he exclaimed, pressing his forehead
as if to clear the brain of its horrible fancy. He paused in the lower
hall and watched for a moment a scene between father and daughter
through the open door of the library.
Harriet had just bounded into the room and stood beside the doctor's
chair with an arm around his neck and the other hand gently smoothing
his soft gray hair. She was crooning over his tired figure with the
quaintest little mother touches.
"You look so worn out, Papa dear--what have you been doing?"
"Something very foolish, I'm afraid, Baby--I've just refused a fortune
that might have been yours someday."
"Why did you refuse it?"
"Because I didn't believe it was clean and honest."
"Then I shouldn't want it. I'd rather be poor."
The doctor placed both hands on the fair young face, drew it very close
and whispered:
"Had you, dearie?"
"Why, of course I had!"
The big hands drew the golden head closer still and pressed a kiss on
the young forehead.
"My husband will love me, won't he? I shall not mind if I'm poor," she
went on, laughing, as Stuart entered the room.
"See, boy, how's she's growing, this little baby of mine!" the doctor
exclaimed, wheeling her about for Stuart's inspection. "It's a source
of endless wonder to me, this miracle of growth--to watch this
child--and see myself, a big brute of a man--growing, growing, slowly
but surely into the tender glorious form of a living woman--that's
God's greatest miracle! Run now, girlie, and go to bed. I want to talk
to Jim."
She paused a moment, smiling into Stuart's face and softly said:
"Good-night, Jim--pleasant dreams!"
Through all the riot of emotions with which that night ended and
through the years of bitter struggle which followed, that picture was
the one ray of sunlight which never faded.
"Well, my boy, I've just done a thing which I know was inevitable, but
now that it's done I'm afraid I may have made a tragic mistake. Tell me
if it's so. There may be time to retract."
"Bivens has threatened to ruin your business?"
"On the other hand, he has just offered to buy it at my own price."
"And you refused?"
"To sell at any price--but it's not too late to change my mind. I can
call him back now and apologize for my rudeness. Tell me, should I do
it?"
"Do you doubt that you're right in the position you've taken?"
"Not for a moment. But the old question of expediency always bobs up.
I'm getting older. I'm not as old as this white hair would make me, but
I feel it. Perhaps I am out-of-date. Your eyes are young, boy; your
soul fresh from God's heart. I'm just a little lonely and afraid
to-night. See things for me--sit down a moment."
The doctor drew Stuart into a seat and rushed on impatiently.
"Listen, and then tell me if I should follow that little weasel and
apologize. I'll do it if you say so--at least I think I would, for I'm
afraid of myself." He paused, and a look of pain clouded his fine face
as his eye rested on a portrait of Harriet on the table before him.
"There are several reasons why you couldn't have a more sympathetic
listener to-night, Doctor--go on."
"Grant all their claims," he began impatiently, "for the Trust--its
economy, its efficiency, its power, its success--this is a free
country, isn't it?"
"Theoretically."
"Well, I wish to do business in my own way--not so big and successful a
way perhaps as theirs, but my own. I express myself thus. When I hint
at such a thing to your modern organizing friend, that these enormous
profits for the few must be paid out of the poverty of the
many--against whom the strong and cunning are thus combining--a simple
answer is always ready, 'Business is business,' which translated is the
old cry that the first murderer shrieked into the face of his
questioner: 'Am I my brother's keeper?'
"That's why I'm afraid of these fellows. The unrestrained lust for
money is always the essence of murder, and the man or woman who
surrenders to its spell will kill when put to the test. The law which
holds burglary constructive murder is founded on an elemental truth.
The man who puts on a mask, arms himself with revolver, knife, and dark
lantern and enters my house to rob me of my goods will not hesitate to
kill if a human life stands in the way of his success."
"I should not put it quite so strongly of these men----"
"I do. And I know I'm right. I saw murder in those black bead eyes of
Bivens's to-night. Do you think he would hesitate to close a factory to
increase a dividend if he knew that act would result in the death of
its employees from weakness and hunger? Not for a minute. He hesitates
only at a violation of the letter of the criminal code. What, then, is
the difference between a burglar and a modern organizer of industry?
Absolutely none."
Stuart laughed.
"Understand me, boy, I'm not preaching any patent remedy for social
ills. I'm not in a hurry. I can wait as God waits. But this question is
with me a personal one. I simply hold the biggest thing on earth is not
a pile of gold, stolen or honestly earned. The biggest thing on this
earth is a man. Our nation is not rich by reason of its houses and
lands, its gold or silver or copper or iron--but because of its men. I
believe in improving this breed of men, not trying to destroy them. For
that reason I refuse success that is not built on the success and
happiness of others. I refuse to share in prosperity that is not the
growth of prosperity."
"But if you sell your business to these men and retire, will you
necessarily share in their wrong-doing?"
"In a very real and tragic sense, yes. I'm a coward. I give up the
fight. I've been both a soldier and a merchant. Why does the world
honour a soldier and despise a merchant? Because a soldier's business
is to die for his country, and a merchant's habit is to lie for profit.
Isn't old Ruskin right? Why should not trade have its heroes as well as
war? Why shouldn't I be just as ready to die as a merchant for my
people as I was on the field of battle?"
The doctor paused, and his eyes grew dim while Stuart bent closer and
watched and listened as if in a spell. He realized that his old friend
was not really asking advice, but that a great soul in a moment of
utter loneliness was laid bare and crying for sympathy.
The doctor's voice took a tone of dreamy tenderness.
"I am just passing through this world once. I can't live a single day
of it over again. There are some things I simply must do as I pass.
They can't wait, and the thing that has begun to strangle me is this
modern craze for money, money, money, at all hazards, by fair or foul
means! In every walk of life I find this cancer eating the heart out of
men. I must fight it! I must! Good food, decent clothes, a home, pure
air, a great love--these are all any human being needs! No human being
should have less. I will not strike down my fellow man to get more for
myself while one human being on this earth wants as much."
Unconsciously the young man's hand was extended and grasped the
doctor's.
"You'll never know," Stuart said with deep emotion, "how much I owe to
you in my own life. You have always been an inspiration to me."
The patient gray eyes smiled.
"I'm glad to hear that to-night, my boy. For strange as it may seem to
you, I've been whistling to keep up my courage. I'm going to make this
fight for principle because I know I'm right, and yet somehow when I
look into the face of my baby I'm a coward. I'm going to make this
fight and I've a sickening foreboding of failure. But after all, can a
man fail who is right?"
"I don't believe it!" was the ringing answer which leaped to Stuart's
lips. "I've had to face a crisis like this recently. I was beginning to
hesitate and think of a compromise. You've helped me."
"Good luck, my boy," was the cheery answer. "I was a poor soldier
to-night myself until the little weasel told me an obvious lie and I
took courage."
"Funny if Bivens should do anything obvious."
"Wasn't it? He pretended to have come in a mood of generosity--his
offer of settlement inspired by love."
"The devil must have laughed."
"So did I--especially when he told me that he was engaged to be
married."
"Engaged--to--be--married?" Stuart made a supreme effort to appear
indifferent--"to whom?"
"To Miss Nan Primrose, a young lady I haven't the honour of knowing,
and he had the lying audacity to say that he came at her suggestion."
Stuart tried to speak and his tongue refused to move.
"I was frank enough to inform him that he was a liar. For which, of
course, I had to apologize. Well, you've helped me to-night, boy, more
than I can tell you. It helps an old man to look into the eyes of youth
and renew his faith. Good-night!"
The doctor began to lower the lights, and Stuart said mechanically:
"Good-night!"
In a stupor of blind despair he slowly fumbled his way up to his room,
entered, and threw himself across the bed without undressing. It was
one thing to preach, another to face the thing itself alone in the
darkness.
Through the shadows of the long night he lay with wide staring eyes,
gazing at the vision which would not vanish--the face of the woman he
loved--cold, white, pulseless, terrible in its beauty, dead.
CHAPTER VIII
STRUGGLE
The longer Stuart wrestled with the problem of Nan's yielding to the
lure of Bivens's gold the more hideous and hopeless it became. He
cursed her in one breath, and with the next stretched out his arms in
the darkness in desperate voiceless longing.
He rose at last and stood looking out his window on the moonlit Square.
He began to feel that he had been to blame. Why had he allowed the
foolish pride of a lovers' quarrel to keep them apart for two weeks? A
clock in a distant tower struck three. The radiance of the massed
lights of Broadway still glowed in the sky and dimmed the glory of the
moon. The roar of the elevated trains sounded unusually loud and
sinister. Perhaps because Bivens was on their board of directors. The
whistle of their air brakes seemed to hiss his name. A crowd of
revellers passed in a cab, with their feet out the windows, singing a
drunken song. There was something sickening in the thought of this
swiftly moving remorseless rush of a city's endless life. After all,
was Nan worse than others--thousands of others caught in the merciless
grip of its eternal spell?
The clock struck five, he looked out the window, startled by the first
soft light of the dawn.
He came downstairs, let himself out of the front door and began to walk
furiously. When at last he became conscious of his surroundings he had
reached Central Park and was seated in the little summer house on a big
pile of boulders near the Sixth Avenue entrance. The sun was rising. It
was the first sunrise he had ever seen in New York. The effect on his
imagination was startling. The red rays streaming through the park and
the chirp of birds in the bushes were magic touches that transformed
the world. He was back again in the South, where Nature is the one big
fact of life, and the memories of the girl he had learned to love
beside its beautiful waters again overwhelmed him.
He rose with a cry of pain, plunged into the crowds streaming downtown
to their work and, scarcely conscious of anything save the ache within,
found himself again in his room. He disarranged his bed that his
sleepless night might not excite comment. He was just a little ashamed
that his loss of poise had been so complete and overwhelming.
When he came downstairs he paused at the door. Harriet was playing and
singing again, and the soft tones of her voice were healing. He walked
gently to the door of the music-room, leaned against the panel, and
watched and listened.
She played, not as a schoolgirl practising a lesson, but with a
lingering touch of joy in her work caressing each note. The thrill of
hope and faith in her voice was soothing. It soothed the wounded soul
and slowly brought a smile to his face.
At last she stopped reluctantly, tipped her golden head sideways in a
coquettish little triumphant movement, and in the quaintest imitation
of a man's voice said:
"I congratulate you, Miss Harriet--I like that very much!"
"Do you, professor? Oh, I'm so glad to please you!"
She shook her curls with genuine delight, and played out the little
dialogue with vivid imaginary touches.
Stuart laughed.
The girl leaped to her feet, blushing scarlet, rushed to his side and
seized his hand.
"Did you see me, Jim? Was I very foolish?"
"Certainly not. I quite agree with the professor. You will some day
sing before kings and queens, little girl. You sing as the birds,
because it's in your soul. And I want to thank you, too. You've helped
me again. I had a hard day's work before me, and you've made it easy."
"Then I shall be very happy all day, Jim!"
"Thank you, little pal--_au revoir_----"
He left her waving and smiling to him from the steps. He walked with
new vigour and a deepening sense of gratitude.
Strange what a gracious influence the child had over him. She was
always a ray of sunlight. This morning the touch of her hand and the
thrill of her voice had brought his dead soul back to life again. His
breath deepened and his step grew firm and swift.
He would fight for his own! He would go straight to Nan and laugh at
this announcement. He would compel her to hear him. It was an absurd
hour to call, but all the better. The more absurd, the deeper
impression he would make and the more certain would be his success. He
had written a note before--she had easily returned it unopened. She
would find it a difficult undertaking to get him out of the house!
Mrs. Primrose's greeting was so cordial, so genuinely friendly, that
for a moment he was puzzled. Could it be possible he had misjudged her?
Could it be possible that her professions of love and admiration had
been genuine? His hunger for sympathy was so keen, his sense of
loneliness in his fight so utter, he could not help allowing himself
the luxury of a momentary doubt.
She pressed his hand warmly and lingeringly.
"Oh, Jim, I'm so glad you've come! Why have you stayed away so long? It
was so foolish of you. You gave up without a struggle. I'm shocked
beyond measure at Nan."
Stuart's heart gave a bound of hope and he looked with fierce
earnestness into the mother's face. It was only for an instant. Her
eyes roamed and shifted and her tongue went faster.
"I told her that his millions would never bring happiness unless her
heart went with them--that her love for you was a thing she couldn't
lay aside as a cloak she had worn."
When Mrs. Primrose's eyes blinked and turned away under Stuart's gaze,
he knew that she was lying again and ceased to listen.
"Well, I haven't given her up yet, Mrs. Primrose," he said bluntly.
"I knew you wouldn't, Jim. And I told Nan the day she promised to marry
Mr. Bivens that you were worth a dozen such men, no matter how many
millions he had. You have always been my choice--you know that. How she
could throw you over for a little scrap of a man like that is beyond
me."
Stuart could control himself no longer. He rose and faced Mrs. Primrose
with a look which brought her eloquence to an abrupt end.
"Mrs. Primrose, for once in my life I am going to tell you the truth."
"Why, you always do Jim," she feebly answered.
"I never do. Your example has been contagious. I've had to play out the
farce with you. To-day I won't play. I'm too hurt, angry, wounded,
sore. You have always been my bitterest foe. You brought Nan to New
York to get her away from me."
The mother's eyes blazed with honest wrath.
"Yes, I did--and I'm glad I did it--you ungrateful wretch!"
"And you have always been busy poisoning her mind against me and
corrupting her imagination with dreams of a life of luxury."
"And thank God I've succeeded at last in bringing her to her senses in
time to save her from throwing herself away on you, Jim Stuart!"
"Thank you, mother dear, we understand each other now----"
"Don't you dare call me mother, sir!"
"Why not? I'm going to win in the end, and you're on my side. You know
that I'm worth a dozen such fellows as the little scrap of a man on
whom she's about to throw herself away."
"How dare you, sir!"
"Because you've just told me. I'm only quoting your words."
As Mrs. Primrose left in speechless anger, Nan quietly entered the
room. Her face was set for battle in a proud defiant smile. She was
totally unprepared for the way in which Stuart met her.
With a quick step he was at her side, seized both her hands in a grip
of fierce tenderness and in low tones of vibrant passion said:
"This thing don't go with me, Nan. I won't accept it. I'm going to
fight--fight for my own--for you are mine--mine by every law of God and
man, and you are worth fighting for!"
The hard smile of defiance melted from the beautiful face, and a flush
of tenderness slowly overspread her cheeks. It was sweet to be loved
like that by a strong masterful man. One of the things that had stung
her pride deepest during the past weeks was the thought that after all
he didn't seem to care. Now that she knew how deeply he cared, her
heart went out to him in instinctive tender response.
"I suppose, then," she began slowly, "I've nothing to do but agree to
your plan of action?"
"That's it exactly," he replied firmly. "How could I dream that you
would regard our quarrel so seriously----"
She started to speak, and he raised his hand:
"I know, dear, you said our engagement was broken. I didn't believe you
meant it. I couldn't. I was hurt when you returned my note unopened,
but I watched and waited every hour of every day for a word. The news
of your engagement to Bivens came as a bolt out of the blue sky. I
refuse to accept such an act as final. You did it out of pique. You
don't mean it. You can't mean it!"
"And what are your plans?"
"I told you the other day I had a surprise for you--I have. It's worth
a day--you promised me one in the country before our foolish quarrel. I
want it now. You will come?"
She hesitated a moment and said:
"Yes."
Within an hour they had reached the hills overlooking Gravesend Bay,
and the magnificent sweep of water below the Narrows. Nan had scarcely
spoken on the way, answering Stuart's questions in friendly nods,
smiles, and monosyllables.
"Before we go farther," Stuart said when they had left the car, "I want
to show you a model home a friend of mine has built out here. It's my
ideal, and I think you'll like it."
Nan nodded and followed his long strides along the narrow path of a
single flagstone pavement to the crest of the hill which sloped to the
water's edge.
As they entered the gate, half hidden in the hedge, the girl exclaimed:
"What a lovely little place!"
A gardener who was watering some flowers, on a sign from Stuart
hastened up the gravel walk and opened the door.
Every window commanded entrancing views of the bay and ocean. Every
ship entering or leaving the harbour of New York must pass close and
could be seen for miles going to sea.
When Stuart finally led Nan out on the broad veranda of the second
floor, she was in a flutter of excitement over the perfection of its
details.
"I think it's wonderful, Jim!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm. "I'd like
to congratulate your friend on his good taste. And just look at those
dear little terraces which lead down to the boathouse--on one of them a
strawberry bed, on the other a garden, on the last a grape arbor, and
then the boathouse, the wharf--and look--a lovely little boat tied to
the float--it's just perfect!"
"And this outlook over bay and sea and towering hills--isn't it
wonderful?" he asked soberly--"the hills and sea with their song of the
infinite always ringing in one's soul!"
"It's glorious," she murmured. "I've never seen anything more nearly
perfect. Whose is it?"
Stuart looked into her dark eyes with desperate yearning.
"It's yours, Nan!"
"Mine?"
"Yes, dear, this is my secret. I've been building this home for you the
past year. I've put all the little money my father gave me with every
dollar I could save. It's paid for and here's the key. I meant to ask
you out here to fix our wedding day. I ask you now. Forget the
nightmare of the past two weeks and remember only that we love each
other!"
The girl's eyes grew dim for a moment and she turned away that the man
who watched might not know. Her lips quivered for just an instant, and
her hand gripped the rail of the veranda.
When she answered it was with a light banter in her tones that cut
Stuart's heart with cruel pain.
"If I'd seen it four weeks ago, Jim, I really don't see how I could
have resisted it--but now"--she shook her head and laughed--"now it's
too late!"
"My God, don't say that, Nan!" he pleaded. "It's never too late to do
right. You know that I love you. You know that you love me."
"But I've discovered," she went on with bantering, half challenging
frankness, "that I love luxury, too. I never knew how deeply and
passionately before--" she paused a moment, looking toward Sea-Gate.
"Isn't that the anchorage of the Atlantic Yacht Club?"
"Yes," he answered impatiently.
"Then that's Mr. Bivens's yacht--the big, ugly black one lying close
inshore with steam up. He told me he would send her into dry dock
to-day. He was talking last night of a wedding cruise in her to the
Mediterranean. I confess, Jim, that I want to shine, to succeed, and
dazzle, and reign. Every ambitious man has this desire. Why shouldn't
I? You say I have rare beauty. Well, I wish to express myself. It's a
question of common sense. Marriage is my only career. This man's
conquest was so easy it startled me and I came down out of the clouds.
I don't know a girl in New York to-day who has youth and beauty who
does not in her soul of souls aspire to the highest rank and the
greatest wealth. This is perhaps the one chance of my life----"
"Do you hold yourself so cheap?"
"You see I'm not so prejudiced an observer as you, Jim. I've looked the
facts squarely in the face. You can't realize how much the power of
millions means to a woman who chafes at the limitations the world puts
on her sex. My imagination has been set on fire by dreams of splendour
and power. It's too late----"
"Don't, don't say it, Nan!"
"Why not be frank? This little cottage is a gem, I admit. But I've seen
a splendid palace set in flowers and gleaming with subdued light. Soft
music steals through its halls mingled with the laughter of throngs who
love and admire me. Its banquet tables are laden with the costliest
delicacies, while liveried servants hurry to and fro with plates and
goblets of gold! And all this wild dream, Jim, seems real, a part of my
very life. Perhaps somewhere in another world my spirit lived in such
surroundings----"
"Perhaps," Stuart interrupted bitterly, "in the breast of a cruel,
merciless half-savage princess who killed her lover to win a
throne----"
Nan suddenly grasped his arm.
"What are you saying!"
"Only interpreting your dream."
"You mustn't say horrible things like that to me. It's bad enough, God
knows, when I face it. But at least I'm not a murderess."
"I'm not at all sure," he persisted, with desperation. "That a girl who
can deliberately kill the soul of the man who loves her, might not kill
his body if put to the test----"
"For heaven's sake, Jim, if you do love me don't say such things! I'll
never forget them! I can't help it--I've got to do this. The spell is
on me, and I must----"
Stuart seized her arm with fierce strength that hurt.
"Then I'll break the spell. You shall not do this hideous thing. You
are mine, I tell you, and I am bigger than money. I have the power to
think, to create ideas, to create beauty--the power that remakes the
world. I expect to have all the money we shall need. In the years to
come we shall be rich whether we seek it or not. But the sweetest days
of all life will be those in which we fight side by side the first
battles of life in youth and poverty when we shall count the pennies
and save with care for the little ones God may send us! With your sweet
face bending above me and the touch of your hand, the highest success
is sure. Marry me now. Here is your home. We don't need to be rich to
be happy--a loving heart, generous sympathies, comradeship, high
ambitions, strong young bodies and clean souls--and the angels will
envy us!"
"But life is short, Jim! I can have things now. He has already promised
them--a palace in town, another by the sea, a great castle in the heart
of the blue southern mountains we used to watch as children, and armies
of servants to do my bidding--I can live now!"
"And you call these trappings and tinsel life?"
"I want them."
"My God, Nan, haven't you a soul? Hasn't the life within no meaning for
you? To me such luxury is sheer insanity. The possibilities of personal
luxury have been exhausted thousands of years ago. It's commonplace,
vulgar, and contemptible. If you wish for power why choose the lowest
of all its forms? The way you are entering is worn bare by the feet of
millions of forgotten fools whose bodies worms have eaten. Not one of
them lives to-day even in a footnote of history. They sailed no unknown
seas. They conquered no new worlds. They merely got dollars, spent them
and died."
"And yet, Jim, you know as well as I do that money is the sign of
success and power; its absence, of failure and weakness."
"To those who see the surface of things only--oh, Nan, why have you let
this brood of black-winged bats build their nest in your heart?--this
greed, this avarice, this envy of the rich----"
The girl lifted her hand with a gesture of impatience.
"You persist in misunderstanding me. Why should your desire for power
be called high ambition, and mine a vulgar avarice? If you make a
mistake in your career, you can correct it and begin again. Being a
woman I cannot, for marriage is my only career. A mistake now would be
to me fatal."
"And you are making the one tragic mistake no repentance can undo. You
are choosing to commit the one unpardonable sin--the sin against the
Spirit."
"And what, pray, is that?"
"The deliberate choice of evil, knowing it to be evil. Your heart is
mine--mine, I tell you! Do you deny it?"
Again he seized her hand, gripped it fiercely, and looked into her eyes
with tender, searching gaze.
Nan looked away.
"Oh, Nan, dear, believe me," he pleaded. "You can't deny this voice
within the soul and live! Happiness is inside, not outside, dear. You
say you want to own a castle on a mountain side. You can't do it by
holding a deed and paying taxes on it. I can own it without a deed. I
haven't a million, but I own this great city. This mighty harbour is
mine. That's why I built our little home nest here on the hill
overlooking it. It's all mine--these miles of shining ocean sands, the
sea, and these landlocked waters. The great city that stretches
northward, its miles of gleaming lights that will come out to-night and
dim the stars, the hum and thrill of its life, the laughter and the
tears, the joys and the fears--are all mine because I see and hear and
feel and understand! Nor can the tax gatherer put his hand on my
wealth. It's beyond his touch."
The girl's spirit was caught at last in the grip of his passionate
appeal, and her rebellion ceased for the moment as she watched and
listened with increasing sympathy.
"Beauty is always a thing of the soul, Nan," he rushed on. "The things
we possess are signs of the spirit or we don't possess them--they
possess us. The dress you wear expresses something within you when it
fits your beautiful body so perfectly. The mere possession of houses
and lands and things has no meaning unless they reveal _us_. If they
merely express the labour of an ancestor, the mind of an architect or
the genius of a manager, we are only intruders on the scene, not the
creator and therefore the possessor of the beauty we aim at. A home, a
dress, are symbols, or nothing but goods and chattels. I have seen you
wear dresses made by your own hand that revealed a whole conception of
life and hats that were poems. The dress you wear to-day is perfect
because it expresses you. The clothes of a millionaire's wife have no
meaning except conformity to fashion and the expenditure of vast sums
of money. The poetic taste, the subtle mystery of personality which you
put into your dress have always been a joy to me."
In spite of her fierce determination to give no response to his appeal
her fingers instinctively tightened on the hand which had seized hers.
His own pressed with new courage and he went on.
"Bivens may think he owns that big black hulk lying out there belching
smoke from her huge funnels. But he only pays the bills to keep her
going. It takes fifty men to run her. I have a little sloop with a
cabin for two. She cost me fifteen hundred dollars and I own her,
because I dreamed every rib in her body, every rivet, every line of her
graceful form. I created her and gave her a soul. I feel the beat of
her proud little heart in the storm and the soft touch of her sleepy
wings in the calm. She is part of the rhythm of my life.
"It is not money that gives value or ownership to things. You can only
own that which expresses you. For that reason you cannot own the
palaces of which you dream. Their service will require a hundred
thieving hirelings whose very names you cannot know. This house is mine
because I have built it as a work of love and art and expressed myself
in it with infinite tenderness and infinite pains. It is not a palace
in size, but it is a palace, glorious and wonderful, in a deeper
spiritual sense, because it is a poem. Every spar of wood in it is
perfect of its kind. Every stone in it is a gem because it is the right
thing in the right place. There isn't a shoddy bit of material or a
slipshod piece of work from the green tile in its roof to the stone
boulders on which it rests. It will last our lives and generations to
follow. The very mortar between the bricks and the cement between the
stones are perfect because they were mixed with tears of joy that
bubbled from my heart as I stood here, watched and sang my love for
you----"
The lover paused a moment, overcome with his emotion, and he knew by
the quick rising and falling of the girl's breast that a battle was
raging.
Quick to see his advantage he drew her gently inside.
"See, Nan, there are no cheap imitations in here, no vulgar ornaments
which mean nothing. There has been no copying of models. These rooms I
planned with your spirit, dearest, hovering over me, and each one has
its little surprise--a nook, a turn, a window opening unexpectedly on
its entrancing view. The ornaments on its walls will grow as we
grow--pictures we shall find and always love, and tapestries your own
dear hands shall paint. This home will be a real one because it will
have a soul. There can be no coarse or menial tasks within its walls
because its work shall be glorified by the old immortal song of love
and life."
Stuart leaned close and spoke in a low tense voice:
"And it will always be beautiful, Nan, because it will be penetrated
with the touch of your hand. Every piece of furniture will glow with
that radiance. Gold and precious stones can have no such lustre. See,
here I have planned to place your piano. There will be no music on
earth like the songs those throbbing strings shall make to my soul when
they quiver beneath the touch of your hand. Here on this seat I shall
lie by the window, looking out over the sea, dream and think great
thoughts of life and death and immortality while you play for me. And
with each passing year, dearest, the songs that you sing will be deeper
and richer and more and more full of divine meaning."
The lover slipped his arm gently around the girl's yielding form, her
head drooped on his shoulder, the great dark eyes blinded with tears.
For a moment he held her in silence broken only by a deep sob. His hand
touched her hair with the tenderest gesture as he whispered:
"We can only know a few real friends in this world, dearest--but one
great love comes to any human soul, and life is all too short to lose a
single day----"
"Hush--hush! Jim," the girl cried in anguish, "don't say any more,
please!"
"Tell me that it's all right, dear," he urged. "You know you cannot
leave me now. You know that you love me and that your love is a
deathless thing."
"Yes, yes, I know," she gasped. "But I'm going to marry him! I can't
help it. The spell of his millions is on me and I can't shake it off!"
So sure was Stuart of victory, Nan's outburst made no impression on his
mind. He continued to soothe her as he would a tired child.
"Of course I know you don't mean that--you are only reproaching the
imaginary girl who betrayed her love for money. The real Nan is sobbing
here in my arms--mine forever----"
With a determined effort she drew herself from his embrace and in hard
cold tones said:
"No. Jim, you must face the truth. I am going to marry this man, and
the most horrible thing I can say about myself is that, deeply as I
love you, I know I shall be content with the splendid career that will
be mine. I shall never regret my marriage."
The lover looked at her in a dazed way as if unable to grasp the
meaning of her words.
"Nan," he cried at last, "you can't mean that!"
"I do."
"But you can't do this vile thing. Since the world began I know that
vain, weak, ignorant women have sold themselves to men they could not
love, for money, rank and luxury. But you are not of that breed, Nan.
You are not weak, you are not ignorant. You are strong in body and
soul, with high aims and the inheritance of rich blood in your veins.
"You are the typical American girl, the daughter of the line of men and
women who have made this Republic the glory of the world--women whose
hearts have been pure, whose lives have been clean, who have kept
burning in the hearts of men the great faiths of the soul. Respect for
this woman has been one of the foundations of our moral life. In the
worship I have paid you, there has been more than the charm of sex,
there has been always this instinctive recognition of the divine. Are
you going to kill my faith in God? The woman who sells herself to buy
bread, stands higher in the moral world than you----" He hesitated.
"Go on, Jim, say the worst. And still I'm going to do it."
"Knowing full well that no ceremony of Church or State, no words of
priest or judge, no pealing of organ, or pomp or pageantry can make
this thing a marriage? There is but one vile word in the English tongue
that fits the woman----"
Nan straightened her figure with a smile of defiance:
"Say it!"
The lover dropped in silence to the window seat and buried his face in
his hands in a paroxysm of emotion beyond control.
At length he rose and looked at the girl he loved long and tenderly.
"God in heaven! It's inconceivable, when I took into your beautiful
face! Have you no pity in your heart?"
The full lips smiled a cruel little smile.
"Men are strong, Jim. They can stand hard blows. You come of fighting
stock. I know that you will survive----"
"And the solemn pledge of love and loyalty we gave to each other--this
means nothing to you?"
"Our engagement was informal. The world knew nothing of it."
"No, but God knew, Nan, and our young souls were their own witness."
"I'm sorry to hurt you, Jim. But I must--it's fate; the big world, I
somehow feel I'm akin to, is calling me and I'm going----"
"And Bivens is this big world! If you will throw me over for money,
can't you wait until a real man goes with it? It wouldn't be so bad if
I felt you had chosen one who was my equal physically and mentally in
culture and breeding--but Bivens!"
"You underestimate his ability. You may hate him--but he is a man of
genius."
"He is everything you loathe, and yet you are going to marry him. Great
God! don't you understand what a close, intimate, personal thing
marriage is! You are the most fastidious girl I have ever known. The
ceremony with which you keep your beautiful body is a religion. Bivens
is physically everything you despise. His teeth are yellow with
nicotine, and his lips cracked and stained with tobacco. With every
quivering fibre of your delicate and sensitive being you know that you
loathe him. And yet you are going to give your body to be his--without
reserve--you, the delicate, the exquisite beauty--you who worship your
dainty body in a mirror daily. God--have you no real reverence for your
own being?"
"No, Jim," she interrupted at last, with deep pity in her heart for his
suffering, "I don't think I have, and it's better so after all. I'll
never love another, I shall not try."
"Then if you will sell yourself, Nan, dear, let's make a better
bargain--wait! You are giving up too easily. Bivens has only a couple
of millions, and he may lose them. Don't hold yourself so cheap. If you
were on the block for sale I'd give a million for each dimple in your
cheek. That pile of glorious black hair is worth a million--I'd give it
without haggling at the price! Come, let's have more bids! The smile
that plays about your lips should bring millions. The arch of your
proud young neck should add another--and your deep dark eyes, I swear
are worth a million each."
Stuart's voice had grown husky and sank into a sob as she placed her
hand on his arm and gently said:
"Hush, Jim, dear, we must go now. I can't stand any more. I've let you
go on like this and say anything you pleased because I'm heartsick to
see how cruelly I've hurt you--but there's a limit."
"Yes, I know, forgive me."
Without another word he led her from the place, closed the little gate
quietly and returned to her home.
Alone inside the parlour they stood in silence a moment and she took
his hand in hers.
"I'm sorry, but it must be good-bye. Your love has been a sweet and
wonderful thing in my life----"
"And you throw it aside as a worthless rag."
"No," she answered smiling. "It shall be mine always--good-bye."
She raised her lips to his in a cold kiss.
Dazed with anguish, he turned and left. The door closed on his
retreating figure, and Nan sank among the cushions and burst into a
flood of passionate tears.
CHAPTER IX
DESPAIR
To the very dawn of Nan's wedding day Stuart had refused to give up
hope.
The little financier had sent him an invitation, and worst of all had
called to ask that he act as his best man. He refused so curtly that
Bivens was deeply wounded. He hastened to soothe his feelings with a
plausible explanation.
"The fact is, Bivens, I've always hated church funerals and
weddings--of the two I prefer funerals----"
"Nonsense!"
"I assure you I'm not joking. Those long hideous veils and white
shroud-like dresses to me always symbolize Death. The pallor of the
bride's face perhaps adds to my delusion--but it's painfully real. I
never go to a church wedding. The apparition haunts me for days."
Bivens smiled wanly.
"But what will you do when your time comes, old man? You can't run away
then."
"That's just what I will do--run away and take my girl with me. We'll
elope and be married in street clothes. It's more human."
While he spoke, Stuart's eyes suddenly sparkled with the thought that
his words, spoken in jest, might be a prophecy of what could really
happen. It had happened again and again. The miracle might happen to
him.
"But I say, Jim, that's all rot. I want you to stand by me. I've always
taken as much of your friendship as you would give and been grateful
for it. I don't make new friends easily. I want you, and you've just
got to do it."
Stuart shook his head and firmly set his jaws. A grim temptation
flashed through his imagination. If he should accept, it might be the
one thing which would prevent Nan's betrayal of her love at the altar.
Might he not by the power of his personality, the hypnotic force of his
yearning passion and will, stop the ceremony? In the moment of
deathlike silence which should follow the minister's words asking if
there were any cause known why these two should not be made one, might
not a single movement of his body at that moment, a groan of pain, a
sob, a cry of agony in a supreme act of his will, cause the white
figure to reel and fall at his feet? It was possible.
But it would be too cheap. It would be a worthless victory, a victory
of the flesh without the spirit--and he refused to take the body
without the soul.
With a frown he turned to Bivens:
"It's no use talking, Cal, I've made up my mind. I won't do it."
"Well, if you won't, you won't," the little man said with a sigh. "At
least you'll come to the church. For God's sake let me get a glimpse of
one friendly face. I'll be scared to death. You know I'm not used to
this."
Stuart smiled:
"All right, I'll be there."
"And a seat, Jim, where I can see you. I want a friend near the door
when I start, or I'll never make it--I'll drop on the way. You won't
fail?"
"No. You can depend on me."
As Bivens closed the door the young lawyer threw himself back in his
chair with a bitter laugh.
"What a farce our lives become sometimes. If we could all see behind
the scenes would there be a single illusion left--I wonder?"
His memory rested with bitterness on the fact that he had feared to
lift the curtain on Nan's character at one point in their final
struggle over this marriage. He had fought with desperation to win and
hold her heart, but he had fought fairly. There had always been a
way--he might have won by the sacrifice of character. He had not
offered to yield his ideal, accept her views, and change his life
purpose. The act would have been dishonourable only to his own sense of
right. He would have done exactly what Bivens asked. He had never
questioned this decision to the day of her wedding. But when the
fateful morning came he was stunned by the feeling of incredible
despair which crept into his heart. The day was chill and damp. Dull,
grayish, half-black clouds rolled over the city from the sea--clouds
that hung low and wet over the cold pavements without breaking into
rain.
He knew that Nan was as superstitious as the old black mammy of the
South who had nursed her. Aunt Sallie had come to New York for the
wedding of her "baby," and Stuart could hear her now crooning over the
sayings of wedding days:
"Marry in May you'll rue the day; marry in Lent you'll live to
repent----"
"Monday for wealth, Tuesday for health, Wednesday best of all; Thursday
for crosses, Friday for losses, and Saturday no luck at all." It was
Monday, and Nan must have known it when she fixed the day--but there
was another important saying he recalled now:
"Happy is the bride the sun shines on----"
Perhaps these lowering clouds and the coming storm might cause her to
hesitate and postpone the marriage. All morning he sat brooding by his
window, watching the swaying branches of the trees in the Square--and
though he knew at best that he was a fool--confidently expecting the
miracle of a message. As the hour of noon approached, despair slowly
settled over his heart.
How could he reconcile himself to the horrible reality? This woman and
the dreams of her had become part of his very being. The memory of his
hopes began to strangle him--the wonderful life they were to live
together, whose pictured scenes stretched out now before him--of home,
of love, of motherhood and fatherhood hallowed by adoration, the pain,
the glory, the passion, the tenderness, the sanctity, the mystery of it
all--and this the end. A marriage sordid, cold, vulgar to such a
man--this little tobacco-stained, bead-eyed weasel.
And she had talked to him about her career. As if she didn't know that
the career of any woman was immeasurably grander than that of any
man--if she fulfil her destiny that links her to God in the creation of
a child--a being whose simple word may mould a million wills and change
the fate of centuries--and yet she had deliberately strangled her soul
and chosen this little pig, who rooted in the dirt for gold, to be the
father of her children.
He rose, breathing hard and brushed a tear from his eye--a tear that
had come unbidden in spite of his iron will.
He wished he had not made the foolish promise to Bivens. He knew now
that he had never really believed he would have to keep it. And yet the
day had come and the hour had struck, and no miracle had been wrought.
He walked with leaden steps through Tenth Street to Broadway, stopped
and gazed for a moment on the graceful spire of the church before whose
altar Nan would soon stand and perjure herself for money. How could
she! He had long felt that in every true man's religion was a supreme
belief in himself--in a woman's, faith in some one else. He knew that
she believed in him, not in the man to whom she was surrendering
herself. And yet she wished to consummate this act of blasphemy--in the
House of God before His high altar.
"Why? Why? Why?"
His heart fairly shrieked its cry of despair. He moved mechanically
toward the church and waked from his reverie to find himself jammed in
a solid mass of humanity. Never before had he realized the utter
vulgarity of a public wedding. Why should any one wish a crowd of
curious fools to witness even the happiest wedding? Its meaning is
surely frank enough without shouting it from the housetops. Should not
its joys and mystery be something too shy and sweet and holy for a
vulgar crowd of strangers to gaze on? And stripped of the sanctity of
love, this ceremony becomes merely a calling of a mob to witness the
sale of a woman's body. There could be no illusions about the fact and
it was hideous.
He forced his way into the side door and stood waiting the arrival of
the bride and groom. When Bivens came, the sight of him roused the
slumbering devil in Stuart. The excitement of his triumph had evidently
steadied the little man's nerves. His yellow teeth were shining in a
broad grin, and from his piercing eyes there flashed the conscious
success of the adventurer. His fine clothes and well-groomed body gave
him dignity. Never had his shrimp-like figure looked so slippery and
plausible.
He extended his slender hand and touched Stuart's in passing. To save
his life the lawyer could not repress a shudder. In that moment he
could have committed murder with joy. The agony of defeat was on him.
He knew he could beat this man in every fair fight with his bare hands
or with equal weapons. And yet there he was carrying off with a grin
before his very eyes the woman he loved. He felt in that moment his
kinship with all the rebels and disinherited of the earth.
At last the bride came and the surpliced choir moved slowly and
solemnly down the aisles through a sea of eager faces as the great
organ pealed forth the first bars of the wedding march from
"Lohengrin."
Nan was leaning on the arm of a stranger he had never seen before--an
uncle from the West. She was pale--deathly pale and walked with a
hesitating movement as though weak from illness. Suddenly his heart
went out to her in a flood of pity and tenderness. He tried to make her
feel this, but she passed without a glance. She had not seen him. The
procession moved slowly back to the altar, and a solemn hush fell on
the throng.
Stuart listened to the ceremony with a vague impersonal interest, as if
it were something going on in another world.
A single question was burning itself into his brain--the price of a
woman!
"Have we all our price?" he asked, searching deep into his own soul.
Something pathetic in the white face of the bride had touched the
deepest sources of his being.
"Have I, too, my price, oh, boastful soul?" he cried. "Would I sell my
honour for a million? No. For ten, fifty, a hundred millions? No--not
in the market place, no--but would I sell by a compromise of principle
in the secret conclave of my party--at a sale the world could never
know--would I sell for the Presidency of the Republic? Or would I sell
now to win this woman? Would I? Would I? If so, I should hold her
blameless. Have all men and all women a price if we but name it?
Answer! Answer!" And then from the depths of his being came the burning
words:
"No. By God, I swear it. No!"
He looked up with a start, wondering vaguely if the crowd had heard
this cry from something inside which he knew in that moment was bigger
than the world without.
No, they were intent on the drama at the altar. The minister was
saying:
"With this ring I thee wed----" he couldn't see, but he knew the ring
was being placed on the third finger of the left hand--chosen by
tradition because a vein of blood was supposed to run direct from that
finger to the heart--what a solemn farce!
And now he was saying:
"What God hath joined together--let not man put asunder----"
"'God!' Surely he didn't say 'God,'" Stuart brooded. "Does God, the
august, mysterious, awful creator of the universe, work like this? Did
not the God of heaven and earth give this woman to him beneath the
sunny skies of the South while their souls sang for joy?"
They were moving again down the aisle, the organ throbbing the
recessional from Mendelssohn. A wave of emotion swept the crowd inside
and they became a mob of vulgar, chattering, gossiping fools swarming
over the church as if it were the grandstand of a racecourse, without
hesitation tearing down and stealing its decorations for souvenirs.
When Stuart reached the door it was pouring rain. He was glad of it.
The splash of the rain in his face was refreshing and the breath of the
storm was good. He walked for an hour facing the wind, not knowing or
caring where it might lead.
By a curious law of reaction, all resentment and anger were gone, and
only a great pity for Nan began to fill his heart.
CHAPTER X
GROPING
Stuart reached home from his walk thoroughly tired and dropped into a
feverish sleep. A strange dream haunted this attempt to rest. He found
himself laughing and chatting with Bivens on terms of intimate
friendship. All feeling of resentment against him had gone. The little
man had grown to be a great figure and he was happy in remembering
their boyhood associations. And strangest of all, they had united in a
feeling of hatred for Nan. She was the common enemy of both, and not
only so, she was the enemy of all men. As she passed through the
street, crowds were hissing and insulting her, and as she was entering
her home they tried to kill her. A stone struck her beautiful forehead,
and the blood was trickling down the white drawn face. He was hurling
himself against the mob in a vain effort to reach her side, and while
the crowd laughed and mocked, an officer mounted the steps and, instead
of driving the mob back, began to strike her furiously with his club.
Stuart waked with a cry--pressed his head and looked about the room,
bewildered. The tip of a swinging limb was pounding against his window
pane.
He opened the window quickly and broke the twig.
"What a nightmare!" he exclaimed, with a shiver.
For hours its horror haunted his imagination.
He dressed and started to his club for dinner, changed his mind and
turned down Broadway for the old Café Boulevard on Second Avenue. He
stopped again in front of the dingy Bible House at the head of the
Bowery and watched the flood of shopgirls and clerks passing across the
street from the department stores. What an endless throng! Hundreds,
thousands, and tens of thousands, men and women, girls and boys,
hurrying homeward. He had never noticed them before--this mighty host
of three hundred thousand women and five hundred thousand men who rush
into these swarming hives every morning and stream out again in the
gathering dusk of spring and the deepening nights of winter.
For the first time they seemed human beings who might have hopes and
fears, joys and sorrows, even as he.
How strange the world began to look through the new eyes of pity a
great sorrow had given him. How worn the faces of these children. They
must be horribly overworked. What a pitiful, starved life for a child.
He thought of his own childhood, and saw himself with swift bare feet
roaming the open fields of the South.
He was struck with the wistful faces of the very young girls--eager and
wise beyond their years. What an incongruous thing this mingling of the
tense eagerness of young girlhood in the straight open stare of worldly
wisdom with which some of them looked at him, and, passing, turned to
look again. It made him shiver. They ought to be at school, these
children; why were they here, jostling, elbowing, and fighting their
way through this crowd? A floor walker passed, holding a pretty girl's
arm. His position was unmistakable. No other man strolls through the
world with just his step and just his elevation of chin--a chin that
will hold its angle in death. Among the hurrying throng that jostled by
were men and women with the deep cut lines of sorrow and tragedy in
faces that had seen better days, but had somehow lost their way.
Stuart's heart went out to the passing crowd in a throb of
sympathy--these slaves of the Modern Invisible Master without a
soul--who asked always and without comment for efficiency and economy.
They must make money for him or fall by the wayside, and, if they fell,
the master never knew and couldn't care.
He ate his dinner in a whirl of confused emotion and again found
himself on Broadway walking at a furious pace uptown. He had no idea
how furious the pace until he suddenly noticed that he was an object of
mild curiosity. He slackened his speed, conscious at last that big
forces were fighting within the first pitched battle for the mastery of
life.
Could high ideals survive the white heat of this furnace--the focus of
the modern world's fiercest desire to live and to will--the money
centre of the earth? Was not the whole structure of Society at last
thoroughly materialistic? Was not religion merely a tradition, honour
and virtue merely the themes of song and story? Had not self and
self-interest at last become the sole force behind all great deeds? It
looked that way. Then why should any man be a sentimental fool? Why not
grasp the main chance?
Why not turn now and beat Bivens at his own game? There was yet time to
accept his offer, join his powerful group of the exploiters of modern
industry, crush this little shrimp in the hollow of his fist at last,
and take the woman he loved from him by the law of might. Deep within
he felt throbbing forces of savage cruelty that in the centuries of the
past had given his ancestors the leadership of men before the finer
virtues of love and mercy which permitted a Bivens to exist had been
born. The big nostrils of his long straight nose dilated, the white
hard teeth of his strong jaw snapped, and his eyes flashed.
Why not?
Again and again these fierce questions surged within. The "Great White
Way" flashed its splendours of electric light. But there was no warmth
in it for his spirit. He noted to-night for the first time that the
lights were not hung on high for the joy of those who pass. They were
flames in the temple of the new god Mammon. They were the signs of
hucksters who had goods to sell to the crowds at a profit. The
profusion of light, the rush of eager throngs to the theatres, the
flash and clatter of passing carriages, the streets piled with débris,
the half-finished steel skyscraper whose black ribs stood out against
the stars, all brought to his imagination this evening the impression
of exhaustless power.
But what power?
Certainly not the power of love, pity, heroism, and unselfish devotion
to ideals. There could be but one answer. These flaming signs in the
sky were the signals of the advance skirmish line of a huge
host--growing in number and power each hour--the army of Mammon!
He paused before a theatre into which a stream of pleasure seekers were
pouring. The ticket speculators were yelling their wares on the
sidewalk. The play was a famous musical comedy. He knew to-night why
musical comedy had such vogue in the money centres of the world. It had
become the supreme expression of the utterly absurd--the reduction of
life to the terms of an absurdity expressed in rhythmic and sensuous
beauty. For men whose god was money, it would doubtless become
ultimately the only form of public entertainment.
He began to negotiate with one of the young Hebrew philanthropists of
the pavement for a ticket, but stopped in disgust and moved on. There
was something inside that hadn't surrendered. He began to be dimly
conscious of the fact that the real fight had scarcely begun. The
philanthropist's feelings were hurt by his abrupt departure. He
followed for half a block holding to Stuart's coat, protesting his
affectionate and earnest desire to promote his pleasure without a cent
of profit. He offered to cut the price of a seat to $3.50 and solemnly
swore that the unfeeling and unprincipled manager had made him pay
$3.00 for the ticket.
Stuart paused a moment, his imagination caught by the ravenous
eagerness of the man's face. Here surely was a true worshipper in the
modern temple.
The young lawyer smiled and said:
"I salute you, my brother--I'm thinking of joining you soon!"
The speculator suddenly let go his sleeve and hurried back to his
place, glancing over his shoulder with a vague fear that the lunatic
might follow him.
Stuart hurried on to one of the more dignified and serious theatres
just off Broadway. He bought a ticket and entered, wondering if he
would find the house empty. To his surprise it was full--orchestra,
balcony, and gallery. The play was a serious effort by a brilliant
young dramatist of the modern school of realism. In two minutes from
the rising of the curtain the play had gripped him with relentless
power. Slowly, remorseless as fate, he saw the purpose of the author
unfold itself in a series of tense and terrible scenes. The comedy over
which the crowd laughed with such contagious merriment was even more
sinister than the serious parts. No matter what the situation--whether
set to laughter, to terror, or to tears--beneath it all throbbed one
insistant question:
"Has the woman who sells herself for money a soul?"
With breathless interest he watched the cruel carving of her body into
tiny pieces. Without sniffling, whining, or apology, with arms bared
and gleaming scalpel firmly gripped in a hand that never quivered once,
the author dissected her. Always he could hear this white invisible
figure bending over each scene talking to the audience in his quiet
terrible way:
"Well, if be she has a soul, we shall find it. Perhaps it's here!" The
knife flashed and the crowd laughed. The result was so unexpected, yet
so remarkable they had to laugh.
"We'll try again!" the white figure said with a smile, "Perhaps we
should go deeper."
And then with firm strong hand the last secret of muscle and nerve and
bone was laid bare and the white face looked into the eyes of the
audience through a mist of tears.
"I'm sorry, my friends. But we must face the truth. It's better to know
the truth, however bitter, than to believe a lie. I do not dogmatize. I
do not draw conclusions. I merely show you the thing that is."
With a soft rush the big curtain came down in a silence that could be
felt. The dazed crowd waked from the spell and poured into the aisles,
while Stuart still sat gripping the arms of his seat with strangling
emotion.
At last he said to himself with choking emphasis:
"He was cruel, inhuman, unjust--I refuse to believe it--she has a
soul---- She has a soul!"
And yet a question had been raised in his mind that was destined to
change the whole motive and purpose of his life.
CHAPTER XI
ILLUMINATION
Stuart left the theatre with the mysterious conviction stirring within
him that only God could have directed his steps to that building. The
more overwhelming the author's argument the fiercer became his
rebellion and the higher rose this cry of his heart for a nobler faith
in the possibilities of humanity. He began dimly to feel that the
source of light and love might be very near if he but had eyes to see.
As yet he was in the dark, but he felt in a dim way that he was groping
toward the light and that suddenly his hand might touch the spring of a
hidden door which would open and reveal the shining face of God! How
strange that these old ideas of the religion of his childhood should
come surging back into his heart from the past in just this moment when
he was apparently fighting a losing battle to hold the last shred of
his faith in anything human or divine!
He went to bed in a calmer frame of mind than he had known for days.
His sleep was deep and refreshing and for the second time since he came
to New York he woke with the dawn. He watched the light of the coming
sun spread from the eastern horizon until its gray mantle covered the
world. And then came the first dim notes of the call of the morning to
the great city, and then the long dull roar along the line of battle
where millions were rising and girding themselves for the struggle of
life.
He drew a breath of gratitude for the dawn of a new day, God's miracle
of love--the old weariness gone, the loneliness and heartache easier to
bear because new thoughts and new hopes had begun dimly to stir and the
world was suddenly flooded with the glory of a new sun.
He went to his office with his mind keyed to a higher pitch of power.
He felt that he was on his mettle. The fight was not yet won, but this
morning he was winning. He plunged into his work with tireless zeal.
Everything he touched seemed illumined with a new light.
At the close of the day's work he was still conscious of an exhaustless
pity which had found no adequate expression in his labour on his
clients' cases. His mind wandered to the dark silent millions into
whose world the doctor had led him that night--millions who have no
voice in courts because they have no money to sustain a fight for the
enforcement of justice. He had never thought about these people before.
They were calling now for his help. Why? Because he had been endowed
with powers of head and heart which they did not possess. The
possession of these gifts carried a responsibility. He fell this very
dimly as yet, but still he felt it. Never before had he been conscious
of such an idea.
On reaching his club on Gramercy Park he saw that the Primrose house
was closed. Nan's mother had gone with the bridal party on Bivens's big
yacht for a cruise which would last through the summer. Somehow, for
all his brave talk he didn't feel equal to the task of seeing that
window of Nan's old home from his club. He was about to beat a retreat
when he stopped abruptly and the lines of his mouth tightened.
"What's the use of being a coward? I've got to get used to it--I'd as
well begin at once."
He deliberately took his seat on the little pillared balcony of the
clubhouse and watched the darkened window through the gathering
twilight. For the moment he gave up the fight--the devil had him by the
throat. He let the tears come without protest. He was alone and the
shadows were friendly.
He looked at his watch at last by the flickering light of the street
lamp and found to his surprise that it was nine o'clock. He had
forgotten to eat and felt no hunger. But he must do something. He might
get drunk and make a night of it. He couldn't feel any worse. He was in
hell anyway, and he had as well join the festivities for once.
He stepped inside, touched a bell and ordered a cocktail. He placed the
glass on the little table by his side, and looked at it. What an
asinine act, this pouring of poison into the stomach to cure a malady
of the soul! He smiled cynically and suddenly recalled something the
doctor was fond of repeating.
"My boy, I'm rich so long as there are millions of people in the world
poorer than I am."
Perhaps there was an antidote better than this poison. If he could lift
the curtain for a single moment in another life more hopeless and
wretched than his? It was worth trying.
He rose, left the liquor untouched, and in a few minutes was treading
his way through the throngs of the lower East Side. The pathetic figure
of a sleeping boy curled up beside a doorstep caught his eye--he
stopped and looked at him. Somewhere on this green earth a mother had
bent over the cradle of each of these little wild arabs and taught them
human speech at least! Now they were as the beasts of the field--and
worse--for the fields in which beasts roam at least are free. A great
wave of pity swept his heart and the hurt of his own tragedy began to
ease before the greater pain of the world. How happy his fate after
all--a sound mind in a sound body, youth, strength, power, friends,
culture, the inheritance of proud, untainted blood--what a fool he had
been an hour ago!
His eye caught the light streaming from a basement saloon on the
corner. Crowds of ugly looking wretches were hurrying down the rickety
stairs, and the sound of wheezy dance-hall music floated up from below.
He pulled his hat down over his eyes and entered.
The ceiling was low, and a crowd of more than fifty half-drunken men
and women, smoking and drinking stale beer, sat at the little tables
which were placed against the walls. The centre of the room was kept
clear for the dancers. He was amazed to find among them a lot of boys
and girls not out of their teens. Many of the dark-visaged brutes who
sat at the tables watching the dancers were beyond a doubt professional
thieves and crooks.
Here and there he saw one of them nod to a girl who was dancing with a
boy under age. He knew the meaning of that signal. She was his slave
and he lived on her wages. Was there no crime in all the catalogue of
human infamy to which man would not stoop for money!
The wheezy little orchestra of three pieces began a waltz, and the
dancers swung around the tobacco-fogged room. Stuart rose in disgust to
go, when he stopped near the door suddenly frozen to the spot. A fat
beastly Negro swept by encircling the frail figure of a while girl. Her
dress was ragged and filthy, but the delicate lines of her face, with
its pure Grecian profile, and high forehead bore the stamp of breeding
and distinction. Two red spots on her cheeks and the unnatural
brightness of her big blue eyes told only too plainly that Death had
marked her as his own.
To the young Southerner the sight was one of incredible horror. His
first impulse on recovery from this surprise was to rush in, knock this
Negro down and take the girl to a place of safety.
He looked about among all the men who filled the room, for a single
face in which was left a trace of human pride. With one to stand by
him, it could be done. He looked in vain. To strike alone in such a den
of beasts would be the act of a madman.
Quivering with rage he took a seat and watched the Negro send this girl
from side to side of the room to do his bidding. He made up his mind to
track the brute to his lair and tear her from his claws, no matter what
the cost. The Negro suddenly beckoned to the girl and she left with
him.
Stuart followed close on their heels. Two blocks from the place the
black figure stopped and demanded her money. She fumbled nervously in
the folds of her filthy skirt and drew from her pocket some small
coins. He turned it over in his greasy palm with a sneer.
"All right fur ez hit goes, but come over wid de res'."
"It's all I've got--I swear it is," she sobbed.
He glared at her with a savage growl.
"You're a liar!"
"It's true--I swear it's true!" the trembling voice pleaded.
"Didn't I tell ye las' night I'd kill ye if ye didn't do better
to-day?"
"Please, don't beat me again--I've done the best I could----"
Strangling and trembling with rage Stuart edged his way close, keeping
his form out of range of the Negro's eyes. The brute was looking
neither to the right or left now, his whole being absorbed in the cruel
joy of the torture he was about to inflict on the helpless, cringing
thing that clung to his arm sobbing and begging for mercy.
"Den ef you'se done de bes' you could--I'se gwine ter teach ye ter do
better!" His yellow teeth in their blue gums flashed in a devilish
smile. He gripped the slender little wrists in one of his claws and
doubled his fist to strike, as a blow from Stuart caught him in the
neck and laid him on the pavement. The young lawyer sprang on the
prostrate figure with fury. It was the joyous work of a minute to beat
and choke him into insensibility. He rose and gave the black form a
parting kick that rolled him into the gutter, turned to the crouching
white figure and said sharply:
"Come with me."
Without a word she followed timidly behind.
He stopped and spoke tenderly:
"Don't walk behind me."
"I'm not fit to walk beside you," she answered meekly.
"I'll be the judge of that. You're a woman. My mother was a woman. And
I'm a little bit ashamed of myself to-night for living in such a world
as this without having killed somebody."
She hung her head and tried to walk by his side, instinctively
shrinking back.
He stopped to ask an officer the way to the Crittenden Mission.
Somewhere he had read that a merchant by the name of Crittenden whose
heart was broken over the death of a little girl had given all he
possessed to found and endow missions for saving other men's daughters.
The girl heard his question and looked up into his face with a new
terror in her feverish eyes.
"Won't they lock me up?"
Stuart took the cold thin hand in his.
"Not unless they lock me up too, child. Don't worry. I'm a lawyer. I'll
see that no harm comes to you."
"All right. I'll do just as you say," she responded gratefully.
When the matron at the Mission had soothed away the poor creature's
last fear, Stuart turned to go.
The girl stepped quickly forward as he extended his hand.
"Good-bye, child, I hope you'll soon be better. If I can help you, let
me know. I'm glad to have had the chance to be of service to you
to-night. You have done more for me than I have for you. I am very
grateful."
The unnaturally bright eyes gazed into his as if they didn't quite
understand, and then through the tears she slowly said:
"You have saved me from hell. I'm afraid I haven't long to live. I'll
only ask God that it shall be long enough for me to show you how
grateful I am."
Stuart walked home with a sense of spiritual elation he had never felt
before. For the first time he had given himself utterly without the
hope of reward. A new joy filled his heart with a warm glow. Life began
to take a deep, new meaning. The boundaries of the world had been
extended to include millions whose existence he had ignored. How vast
and thrilling their life! As yet, no new purpose had shaped itself
within, but his soul was stirring with vague, mighty impulses.
When he reached the house on Washington Square it was yet early in the
evening. He longed for the sweet restfulness which Harriet's presence
always brought. He had often come home from a visit to Nan, which had
been a continuous torture, to find in her a grateful peace. How strange
that we so often love those who have the supreme faculty of torturing
instead of making us happy. He found Harriet reading in the library.
"Oh, Jim, dear, where on earth have you been for nearly two days?" she
cried. "I haven't seen you since the wedding----"
"Won't you sing for me?" he broke in.
A smile of pride made her face radiant.
"You want to hear me this late?"
"Yes--you'll not disturb anybody."
"All right----" she paused and suddenly clapped her hands. "I'll get my
mandolin. You've never heard me play that, have you? I've learned 'Way
down on the Swannee Ribber' on it. I know you'll like it."
She ran up the stairs and returned in a moment with the mandolin.
Softly touching a note, she seated herself and began to sing,
accompanying her song with the little half-doubtful touch on the
plaintive strings.
Stuart listened, entranced. He had heard that old song of the South a
hundred times. But she was singing it to-night with a strange new
power. Or was it his imagination? He listened with keen and more
critical ears. No. It was not his imagination. The change was in her
voice. He heard with increasing wonder. The quivering notes of
tenderness sought his inmost being and stirred the deepest emotion--not
with memories of his boyhood days in the South whose glory the song was
telling--but in visions of the future, thoughts of great deeds to be
done and heroic sacrifice to be endured.
How selfish his life had been after all. Every dream and struggle had
been for himself. A feeling of shame overspread his soul as he watched
the girl's soft little hand touch the strings, and he contrasted his
own life with the sweetness of her spirit. In all the years he had
known her he could not recall a single mean or selfish act. Her face
was not beautiful by the standard of artists, but the sunlight lingered
in her eyes, her hands were cunning, and her feet swift to serve those
she loved. For the last two years as she had blossomed into maidenhood,
a subtle fragrance had enveloped her being, making significant and
charming all she said or did, revealing new beauty and grace at every
turn.
From some shadowy memory of a Sunday's service in his boyhood came
floating into his heart the words "He that seeketh to save his life
shall lose it."
The groping hand that had been fumbling in the dark suddenly touched
the hidden spring, and the darkened soul was flooded with light. A
strange peace entered to abide forever. A man had been born again--of
the spirit, not the flesh.
The rapt look still held his face when the music had ceased, and
Harriet watched his expression for a moment in silence.
The girl leaned forward at last with eager interest and laid her
friendly hand on his. She had a trick of leaning forward like that when
talking to him that had always amused Stuart.
He watched the flashes of light in her eyes beneath their long lashes
and the quiver of the mobile mouth.
"Tell me what you are thinking about, Jim?" she said, a smile flitting
around her tender, expressive eyes.
Stuart noticed two dainty dimples come with the smile in the faintest
suggestion of coquetry.
"I was seeing a vision, little pal," he began slowly--"the vision of a
gala night of Grand opera. Broadway blazed with light and I was
fighting my way through the throng at the entrance to hear a great
singer whose voice had begun to thrill the world. At last amid a hush
of intense silence, she came before the footlights, saw and conquered.
The crowd went mad with enthusiasm. For once an American audience
forgot its cold self-possession. Men leaped on their seats, cheered and
shouted as Frenchmen or Italians. Women in resplendent gowns and jewels
rose in their boxes and split their gloves clapping their hands. And
through it all the singer stood bowing in simple dignity, looking over
the sea of faces as if in search of one she knew. I lifted my hat and
waved it on high until she saw. A beautiful smile lighted her face and
straight over the heads of the people she blew me a kiss----"
[Illustration: "'I was seeing a vision, little pal'"]
The tiniest frown clouded the girl's brow.
"Who was she, Jim?"
"One who shall yet sing before Kings and Princes--I call her
'Sunshine'--her name is Harriet Woodman."
With a sigh of relief she threw herself back in the big armchair in a
pose of natural grace, her lips twitched, the golden head tipped to one
side thoughtfully, and he waited for her to speak.
"But, Jim, suppose I'm not ambitious? Suppose I'm just a silly little
home body who only wishes to be loved?"
"And so you will be loved. They will come in troops--these
lovers--serious and gay, and fall at your feet----"
"But if I only want one--and he is not there--they will tire me, won't
they?"
"When I see those two dimples come into your cheeks now and then I
think you will enjoy it."
"Perhaps I would."
The head nodded in quick friendly understanding. She raised her arms
and touched the bow of ribbon on her luxuriant hair with another
suggestion of coquetry, quickly lowered them, drew the short skirt down
further over her knees, gazed thoughtfully at Stuart, and with a
quizzical look in her eyes asked:
"How old do you think a girl must be to really and deeply and truly
love, Jim?"
Stuart's brow contracted and he took her hand in his, stroked it
tenderly and studied the beautiful lines as they melted from the firmly
shaped wrist into the rounded arm and gracefully moulded body.
"I'm afraid you've asked a bigger question than I can answer, dear," he
said, with serious accent. "I've been wondering lately whether the
world hasn't lost the secret of happy mating and marrying. A more
beautiful even life I have never seen than the one in the home of my
childhood. Yet my mother was only fourteen and my father twenty-one
when they were married. You see, dear, that was in the old days when
boys and girls were not afraid--when love dared to laugh at cares about
houses and lands and goods and chattels, when Nature claimed her own,
when the voices of the deepest impulses of our bodies and souls were
heard first and the chatterings about careers and social triumphs were
left to settle themselves. Now folks only allow themselves to marry in
cold blood, calculating with accuracy their bank accounts. My mother
had been married six months at your age, and yet here I sit on a
pedestal and have the impudence to talk to you as a child----"
"But you're not impudent, Jim," she broke in eagerly, "and I
understand."
Her eyes were looking steadily into his.
"I'm beginning to wonder," Stuart continued, "whether Nature made a
mistake when she made woman as she is. I once knew a girl of fifteen to
whom I believe life was the deepest tragedy or the highest joy of which
her heart will ever be capable. Else why did the blood come and go so
quickly in her cheeks?"
A sudden flush mantled Harriet's face and she turned away that he might
not see.
"Why did she fuel the loud beating of her heart at the approach of the
man she imagined to be her hero? Why did she drop her eyes in
confusion----"
The deep brown eyes were looking into his now with a steady light. She
had mastered herself and he could not guess her secret. Her heart beat
so loudly she wondered if he could hear.
Stuart's voice had grown dreamy, as if a thousand tender memories were
trooping into his heart from the past and he was talking to himself.
"Why were her hands so moist and warm to the touch of the boy who held
them, and why did they tremble so violently? Why did she turn so
pale?--so pale and so suddenly, he thought she was about to faint? When
again in life can one see this moment of the blossoming of both soul
and body--this quivering readiness for the touch of the lover for whose
coming she waits with such frank and honest eagerness?"
Again the little figure bent forward with breathless interest as she
slowly asked:
"Oh, Jim, when did you see this?"
Stuart's head bent low and rested between his hands.
"I loved such a little girl once, dear----"
Harriet's face suddenly flushed with joy. It was too wonderful to be
true, but it was true! And he had chosen this curious way to tell her.
Her voice sank to the softest whisper as she bent closer:
"And you love her still, Jim?"
His head drooped lower as he sighed:
"I loved and lost her, little pal! She was married two days ago. God
called me in the morning of life to claim my own. But I wasn't bold
enough. I waited, and worldly wisdom, prudence, and common sense became
her tutors to make her wise. She came to the great city, learned its
ways and sold herself for gold. A priest of God standing before his
altar confirmed the sale while a crowd of fools looked on in awe----"
The colour had slowly returned to the little freckled face with its
crown of golden hair, and the deep brown eyes overflowed with tears for
just a moment. She brushed them away before he raised his head, so that
he never knew.
She put her hand on his head and stroked the dark hair tenderly.
"I'm so sorry, Jim," she said simply, "I understand now."
He raised his head and took her hand in his again.
"It's very sweet to have you share this ugly secret of my life, little
pal. It will help me."
"And you are sorry you ever knew her, Jim?"
"No, I'm not sorry. You see, dearie, there's just one thing even God
can't do--create a human character. He can only give us a will--the
spark from his own soul. We must do the rest. I've grown to see that
there's just one thing in the world that's really big--big as God is
big--the man who has attained a character. I haven't lived at all yet.
I'm just beginning to see what it means to live. Until now I've thought
only of myself. A new light has illumined the way. Now--I'm going to
live for others. From to-day I shall ask nothing for myself, and I can
never be disappointed again."
Harriet looked up quickly.
"Would it please you, Jim, if I should make a great singer?"
"More than I can tell you, dear. Your voice is a divine gift. I envy
you its power."
Her eyes were shining with a great purpose.
"I know that it means years and years of patient work--but I'll do it,"
she cried.
Stuart rose and pressed her hand to his lips. She wondered if he could
feel it tremble beneath the pounding of her heart.
When the last echo of his footstep in the hall above died away and his
door had closed, the little golden head bowed low in a passionate
tender prayer:
"God help me to keep my secret and yet to love and help him always!"
Book 2--The Root
CHAPTER I
AN OLD PERFUME
Stuart sat in his office holding a letter from Nan which was hard to
answer.
For nine years he had refused to see or speak to her. He met Bivens as
a matter of course, but always down town during business hours or at
one of his clubs. For the first year Nan had resented his attitude in
angry pride and remained silent. And then she began to do a curious
thing which had grown to be a part of his inmost life. For the past
eight years she had written a brief daily diary recording her doings,
thoughts and memories which she mailed to him every Sunday night. She
asked no reply and he gave none. No names appeared in its story and no
name was signed to the dainty sheets of paper which always bore the
perfume of wild strawberries.
But the man who read them in silence knew and understood.
The letter he held to-day was not an unsigned sheet of her diary--it
was a direct, personal appeal--tender and beautiful in its sincerity.
She begged him to forget the past, because she needed his friendship
and advice, and asked that he come to see her at once.
This letter was his first temptation to break the resolution by which
he had lived for years. He rose and paced the room with fury, as he
began to realize how desperate was his desire to go.
"Have I fought all these years for nothing?" he cried.
The thing that drew him with all but resistless power was the deeper
meaning between the lines. He knew that each day the incompleteness of
her life had been borne in upon her with crushing force. He knew that
the mad impulses which had expressed themselves in luxury, dress,
extravagance, balls and bizarre entertainments were but the strangled
cries of a sorrowing heart. And he knew that the fatuity of it all had
begun at last to terrify her. The more desperately he fought the
impulse to go the keener became his desire to see her again. And yet he
must not. He felt, by an instinct deeper than reason, that the day he
returned from his exile and touched her hand would mark the beginning
of a tragedy for both.
And yet the desire to go clamoured with increasing madness. The changes
that had come into his life counted for nothing--to-day only a great
passion remained--torturing, challenging, tempting. Could he never live
it down? He looked about his office, reminded himself of his dignity
and responsibility, and sought refuge in his sense of duty to the
people.
"I've done some things worth while!" he cried, with brooding pride.
And the record confirmed his boast.
In the past nine years he had thrown his life away only to find it in
greater power. He recalled it now with a renewed sense of gratitude.
The first year which he had given of unselfish devotion to the service
of the people had been a failure. He saw at the end of it that in
reaching an individual here and there he was merely trying to bale out
the ocean with a soup ladle. He saw that if he would serve the people
he must work through them. He must appeal to the masses, teach, lead,
uplift and inspire them to action. And he entered politics. Only
organic social action could get anywhere or accomplish anything worth
while. He joined the organization of the local Democracy in his
district and went to work.
It happened that he joined just before an exciting municipal election.
He threw himself into the campaign with the zeal of a crusader. The
people who crowded to hear him were not merely thrilled by the
eloquence of his impassioned speeches--they felt instinctively that the
heart of a real man was beating back of every word.
His advancement was remarkable. At the end of four years he was
nominated for District Attorney, and was swept into office by a large
majority.
Under his vigorous administration of this important and powerful office
the enforcement of justice ceased to be a joke and became a living
faith.
His work had stirred the State to a nobler and cleaner civic life.
During the past year he had become one of the foremost figures in
American Democracy--the best loved and the most hated and feared man in
public life in New York.
He remained alike indifferent to the cheers of his friends or the
threats of his enemies. He was the most powerful man who had ever held
such an office because he had no ambition beyond the highest service he
could render the people. He asked no favours--he sought no preferment.
To the men who secured his nomination and election he was an insolvable
mystery. He said he wanted nothing. They had taken that as a wise
saying of a very shrewd man. When he accepted the nomination, they
smiled knowingly. But when they demanded that he use his high office to
punish enemies and reward friends--and he politely refused--they served
notice on him of political death unless he yielded within a given
number of hours.
His answer was a laugh as he opened the door and pointed the way by
which the astonished delegation might find a safe and swift way of
exit. They passed out in speechless astonishment, and sent their big
chief to browbeat and bully the young upstart into submission. The
incredible swiftness with which he returned left the question open as
to how he got out of the District Attorney's office. He claimed to have
bowed himself politely out the door--but, from the condition of his
clothes and the rumpled state of his hair, his comrades cherished the
secret but sure conviction that he was kicked down the stairs. Be that
as it may, from that day Stuart was left to his own devices by the
professional politicians, who were loud in their accusations of
treachery and ingratitude. His political education was given up as
hopeless.
Yet in spite of their gloomy predictions of his speedy ruin, he had
steadily grown in power and influence.
The work on which he had just entered was an investigation before an
unusually intelligent Grand Jury of the criminal acts of a group of the
most daring and powerful financiers of the world. These men controlled
through their position as trustees of the treasuries of great
corporations more millions than the combined treasuries of the
governments of the Republic--State and National. The act was not only
daring, it was extremely dangerous. Under certain conditions it might
produce a panic--so daring and dangerous was the move that its first
announcement was received as a joke by the press. The idea of a young
upstart questioning the honesty and position of the men who controlled
the treasuries of the great insurance and trust companies was
ridiculous. When he realized the magnitude of the task he had
undertaken, he at once put his house in order for the supreme effort.
It was necessary that he give up every outside interest that might
distract his attention from the greater task.
The one matter of grave importance to which he was giving his time
outside his office was his position as advisory counsel to Dr. Woodman
in his suit for damages against the Chemical Trust, which had been
dragging its course through the courts for years. To his amazement he
had just received an offer from Bivens's attorneys to compromise this
suit for a hundred thousand dollars. He would of course advise the
doctor to accept it immediately. He had never believed he could win a
penny.
What could be Bivens's motive in making such an offer? It was
impossible that the shrewd little president of the American Chemical
Company had anything to fear personally from this attack. His fortune
was vast and beyond question. His wealth had grown in the past nine
years like magic. Everything his smooth little hand touched had turned
to gold. Wherever an industry could pay a dividend, his ferret eyes
found it. The process was always the same. He brought together its
rival houses, capitalized the new combine for ten times its actual
value and bound the burden of this enormous fictitious value as an
interest-bearing debt on the backs of the consumers of the goods. The
people and their children and their children's children would have to
pay it.
His fortune now could not be less than forty millions and the issue of
such a suit as the one Woodman had brought and on which he had spent so
much of his time and money was to Bivens a mere bagatelle.
The more Stuart pondered over this extraordinary offer, the more
completely he was puzzled. He sought for outside influences that might
move him to such an act. It might be Nan--it must be! Her letter surely
made the explanation reasonable. She knew this suit was an obstacle in
the way of their meeting. If she had made up her mind to remove that
obstacle, she would do it. Her will had grown in imperious power with
each indulgence.
During the past winter she had become the sensation of the metropolis.
Her wealth, her beauty, her palaces, and her entertainments had made
her the subject of endless comment. She had set a pace for extravagance
which made the old leaders stand aghast. And the one thing which made
her letter well nigh resistless was that he alone of all the world knew
the inner life of this beautiful woman whose name was on a thousand
lips. Her worldly wise mother might have guessed it but she had been
dead for the past five years, and the secret was his alone.
He read her letter over again and looked thoughtfully at the pile of
legal documents in the case of _Woodman against the American Chemical
Company_ lying on his desk.
"It's her work beyond a doubt!" he said at last, "and the doctor will
never believe it."
He was waiting the arrival of his old friend for a conference over
Bivens's offer of compromise and he dreaded the ordeal. If he should
refuse this final chance of settlement he would make a mistake that
could not be undone. The result was even worse than he could possibly
foresee.
"So the little weasel has offered to compromise my suit for half the
sum we named, eh?" the doctor asked in triumph.
"I assure you that if the case comes to its final test you are certain
to lose."
"So you have said again and again, my boy"--was the good-natured reply,
"but his sudden terror and this offer shows that we have won already
and he knows it. Greater thieves, who have ruined their competitors in
the same way, are urging him to settle this suit and prevent others
from being brought."
"I don't think so."
"It's as plain as daylight."
"There's another motive."
"Nonsense," persisted the doctor, his whole being aglow with
enthusiasm, "Bivens has seen the hand-writing on the wall. When the
American people are once aroused their wrath will sweep the Trusts into
the bottomless pit."
"Bivens isn't worrying about the people or their wrath."
"Then it's time he began!" the doctor cried. "Mark my word, the day of
the common people has dawned. This mudsill of the world has learned to
read and write and begun to think. He has tasted of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil and begins dimly to see his own nakedness.
He will never be content again until he turns the world upside down. My
country will lead the way as in the past."
"But if in the meantime you and yours go down in ruin?"
"I refuse to consider it. The cause of the people and their day has
come. I will stand or fall with them. Remember, my boy, that at last
the idea has been born that we are all--men! It's new--it's
revolutionary. A few centuries ago the people slept in ignorance. Of
the twenty-six barons who signed the Magna Charta only three could
write their names--the rest could only make their mark. The average
workingman of to-day is more cultured than the titled nobleman of
yesterday--the people once thoroughly aroused--let fools find shelter!"
"But you and I have both agreed, Doctor," Stuart interrupted with a
frown, "that Mr. Jno. C. Calhoun Bivens is not a fool. You must
consider this offer. You have too much at stake. Your factory has been
closed for five years. Your store has been sold--your business ruined
and you are fighting to pay the interest on your debts. I've seen you
growing poorer daily until you have turned your home into a lodging
house and filled it with strangers."
"I've enjoyed knowing them. My sympathies have been made larger."
"Yes, you won't even collect your rents."
"Still I've always managed to get along," was the cheerful answer.
"I've yet a roof over my head."
"But is this battle yours alone, Doctor? You are but one among
millions. You are trying to bear the burden of all--have you counted
the cost? Harriet's course in music will continue two years longer--the
last year she must spend abroad. Her expenses will be great. This
settlement is a generous one, no matter what Bivens's motive."
"I can't compromise with a man who has crushed my business by a
conspiracy of organized blackmail."
"Oh, come, come, Doctor, talk common sense. The American Chemical
Company has simply dispensed with the services of the jobber, and the
retailer. They manufacture the goods and sell them direct to the
consumer through their own stores. The day of the jobber and retailer
is done. They had to go. You were not ruined by blackmail, you were
crushed by a law of progress as resistless as the law of gravity."
The doctor's gray eyes flashed with sudden inspiration.
"If the law of gravity is unjust it will be abolished. If civilization
is unjust it must be put down. There can be no contradiction in life
when once we know the truth. I can't compromise with Bivens--I refuse
his generosity. I'll take only what the last tribunal of the people
shall give me--justice."
"The last tribunal of the people will give you nothing," the lawyer
said, emphatically.
"I'll stand or fall with it. I make common cause with the people. I
know that Bivens is a power now. He chooses judges, defies the law,
bribes legislatures and city councils and imagines that he rules the
nation. But the Napoleons of finance to-day will be wearing stripes in
Sing Sing to-morrow. We are merely passing through a period of
transition which brings suffering and confusion. The end is sure,
because evil carries within itself the seed of death. A despotism of
money cannot be fastened on the people of America."
"But, Doctor," Stuart interrupted persuasively, "he is not trying to
fasten a despotism on America, on you, or anybody else in this offer."
The older man ignored the interruption and continued with a dreamy
look:
"Only a few years ago a great millionaire who lived in a palace on
Fifth Avenue boldly said to a newspaper reporter: 'The public be
d----d!' Times have changed. The millionaires have begun to buy the
newspapers and beg for public favour. We are walking on the crust of
a volcano of public wrath."
"But how long must we wait for this volcanic outburst of public wrath?"
"It's of no importance. The big thing is that in America a new force
has appeared in the world, the common consciousness of a passion for
justice in the hearts of millions of enlightened freemen clothed with
power! Never before has manhood had this supreme opportunity. Under its
influence this insane passion for gold must slowly but surely be
transformed into a desire for real wealth of mind and soul. The evils
of our time are not so great as those of our fathers. We merely feel
them more keenly. The trouble is our faith grows dim in these moments
of stress. As for me I lift up my head and believe in my fellow-man. We
are just entering a new and wonderful era--the era of electricity and
mystery, of struggle, aspiration, the passion for the eternal. I am
content to live and fight for the right, win or lose, and play my
little part in this mighty drama!"
"I had hoped you were tired of fighting a losing battle."
"Tired of fighting a losing battle? You've forgotten, perhaps, that I'm
a veteran of the civil war. You know we were defeated year after year,
battle after battle, until it looked as if Lee was invincible. And then
a silent dark man with a big black cigar in his thoughtful mouth came
slowly out of the West and we commenced to move forward under his
leadership inch by inch. It was slow, and the dead lay ever in piles
around us--but still we moved--always forward, never backward. And when
at last the men saw it, they began to laugh at Death. Their eyes had
seen the first flash of the coming glory of the Lord!"
The doctor paused a moment and looked at Stuart with a curious
expression of pity shining through his gray eyes.
"What a wonderful old world this is, if we only lift up our heads and
see it. Across its fields and valleys armies have marched and
counter-marched for four thousand years, a world of tears and blood, of
tyranny and oppression, of envy and hate, of passion and sin--and yet
it has always been growing better, brighter and more beautiful. Wooden
shoes have always been ringing on stairs of gold as men from the depths
have climbed higher and higher. I'll fight this battle to a finish and
I'll win. If God lives I'll win--I'm so sure of it, my boy."
The doctor paused and his eyes flashed.
"I'm so sure of it, that I'm not only going to refuse this bribe from
Bivens, but my answer will be a harder blow. I'm going to begin another
bigger and more important suit for the dissolution of the American
Chemical Trust."
"You can't mean this!"
"I do!" was the firm response.
Stuart slipped his arm around the older man with a movement of
instinctive tenderness.
"Look here, Doctor, I've lived in your home for fourteen years and I've
grown to love you as my own father."
"I know, my boy."
"You must listen to me now!" the younger man insisted with deep
emotion. "I can give no time to your suit. I am just entering on a
great struggle for the people. Tremendous issues are at stake."
"And your own career hangs on the outcome, too?" the doctor
interrupted.
"Yes."
"You'll go down a wreck if you fail."
"Perhaps."
"And you're going to risk all without a moment's hesitation?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"It's my duty."
"Good boy!" the older man cried, seizing Stuart's hand. "You can't
fail. That's why I'm going to risk all in my fight."
"But the cases are not the same."
"No, I'm old and played out--my life's sands are nearly run, I haven't
much to risk--but such as I have I offer it freely to God and my
country. I envy you the opportunity to make a greater sacrifice--and
you advise me to compromise for a paltry sum of money a righteous cause
merely to save my own skin while you tell me in the same breath that
you are just entering the lists against the one unconquerable group of
financial buccaneers in America and that you've set your life on the
issue."
The doctor seized Stuart's hand, wrung it and laughed.
"Congratulations, my boy--I'm proud of you--proud that you live in my
house, proud that I've known and loved you, and tried to teach you the
joy and the foolishness of throwing your life away!"
With a wave of his hand the stalwart figure of the old man passed out
and left him brooding in sorrowful silence.
"If the doctor and Harriet were only out of this!" he exclaimed. "It
makes me sick to think of the future!"
He picked up Nan's unanswered letter and read it again and the faint
perfume of the delicate paper stole into his heart with a thousand
aching memories.
He seized his pen at last, set his face like flint and resolutely wrote
his answer:
Dear Nan:
Your letter is very kind. I'll be honest and tell you that it has
stirred memories I've tried to kill and can't. I hate to say no,
but I must.
Sincerely,
JIM.
As he drew down the door of the letter box on the corner to post this
reply he paused a moment. A wave of desperate longing swept his heart.
"My God! I must see her!" he cried in anguish.
And then the strong square jaw came together and the struggle was over.
He dropped the letter in the box, turned and walked slowly home.