BENEATH THE SKIN
Stuart rose next morning with a dull headache. The more he had puzzled
over the speech he should make to the mob besieging Bivens's bank the
more doubtful seemed the outcome. Still to remain silent longer, amid
the accusations which were being daily hurled at him, was intolerable.
He was possessed with a fierce desire to meet at least one of his foes
face to face.
He took his breakfast early and walked down town to his office through
the Bowery and Centre Street as he was in the habit of doing
occasionally. Everything rubbed him the wrong way this morning. Every
sight and sound of the city seemed to bruise and hurt. Never before had
the ugliness of the elevated railroad struck him with such crushing
hopelessness. He felt that its rusty hideous form, looming against the
sky line, was a crime. The crowded trolley cars, the rushing, rattling
lines of drays, the ugly, dirty, cheap-looking people hurrying past--it
was all horrible!
The sense of loneliness and isolation grew upon him--a sort of dumb
hatred of all these unthinking stolid beasts of burden who were bending
their backs daily to their stupid tasks, trampling each other to death,
too, in their own mad sordid scramble for money.
He paused at the Brooklyn Bridge and stood in silence while the black
torrent of unmeaning faces, whose expression this morning was
distinctly inhuman, rolled past and spread out into the square and
streets.
He was glad for the moment that not one of them knew him, though he was
daily giving his life to their service.
He turned and pushed his way through the throngs, crossed the City Hall
Square and in a few minutes reached the Broadway corner on which the
Bivens bank stood. Its magnificent marble façade, crowned with gilded
dome, gleamed white and solemn in the morning sun like some proud
temple man had built to the worship of God.
The crowd about its doors, which had not yet been opened, was unusually
large and turbulent. With the aid of two officers he pushed and fought
his way unrecognized through the mob and at last reached the side
entrance of the bank.
Bivens, watching from within, opened the door and he stepped inside.
"Jim, if you try to speak to that gang of madmen you're a fool," the
financier began, with a scowl. "What they need is not eloquence, they
need a club."
"You can't blame them for wanting their money, Cal, after all it's
theirs, not yours, you know."
"You're going to talk to them?"
"I'm going to try."
"It's a foolish and dangerous thing to do."
"Nonsense. They are at least human. They have reason."
A low howl of rage stirred the crowd without. A fight for place in the
line had broken out.
"Is that reason?" Bivens asked, cynically. "It's not even human. It's
the growl of the beast that always sleeps beneath the skin."
"I haven't lost faith in my fellow-men yet," was the dogged answer.
"All right, good luck. I know your intentions are the best. You think
it's your duty to yourself and the people. I'm sorry I can't stay to
hear you. I've an important meeting this morning. I must go at once.
I've instructed my detectives inside to stand by you if you need help."
"Thanks, I won't need them."
The little swarthy figure paused at the door.
"Don't fool yourself into believing anybody in that crowd cares about
the work you have done in their service. Scores of them are under deep
personal obligations to me. But I'm leaving this building by my
neighbour's roof this morning. You don't want to forget, Jim, that the
rabble for whom even Christ lived and died, shouted in his face at last
'Crucify him! Crucify him!'"
Stuart smiled at the incongruous farce of Bivens's familiarity with the
Bible--yet there was no mistaking the fact of his emotions and the
sincerity of his religious faith. The little financier had already
begun to pose to himself as a martyr and a public benefactor. In spite
of howling mobs and crushing markets he was busy now saving the credit
of the Nation! He was one of the group of the king's council engaged in
that important work. The "undesirable" had been eliminated and now a
vast pool was being formed to support the market and kindly hold the
securities until the people could get their breath and make money
enough to buy them back at a profit. In due time he knew that his name
would be enrolled with the king's as a patriot and public benefactor.
Bivens lingered a moment as if reluctant to give up dissuading Stuart,
waved him a friendly adieu at last, stepped into the elevator and left
by the roof.
It was yet fifteen minutes to ten, the hour for opening the bank's
doors, and Stuart decided to address the crowd immediately.
In accordance with Bivens's instructions the cashier opened the bronze
doors and squeezed through, admitting Stuart and two detectives. At the
sight of the cashier a thrill of horror swept the crowd--half-groan,
half-sigh, half-cry, inarticulate, inhuman, beastly in its grovelling
fear.
"Great God!"
"They're going to suspend!"
"It's all over!"
The groans melted into broken curses and exclamations and died into
silence as the cashier lifted his hand.
"I have the honour, gentlemen, of presenting this morning a
distinguished servant of the people who has a message for you, the man
whose unselfish devotion to the cause of Justice has earned him the
right to a hearing, the Honourable James Stuart, your District
Attorney."
The young lawyer stepped from the doorway in front of the cashier, who
retired.
A roar of rage swept the crowd. Howls, curses, catcalls, hisses, hoots
and yells were hurled into his face. It was a new experience in
Stuart's life. He flushed red, stood for a moment surveying the mob
with growing anger, and lifted his hand for silence.
The answer was a storm of hisses. Apparently he hadn't a friend in all
the swaying mass of howling maniacs. He drew his heavy brows down over
his eyes and the square jaws ground together with sullen determination.
He folded his arms deliberately and waited for silence. Evidently these
people had swallowed every lie his enemies had printed. It was
incredible that rational human beings should be such fools, but it was
true.
For a moment the hideous thought forced itself into his soul that a
life of unselfish public service was futile. In all this babel of
jangling cries and cat-calls not one voice was lifted in decent
protest. He felt that his work was a failure and he had been pitching
straws against the wind.
As wave after wave of idiotic hissing rose and fell only to swell again
into greater fury a feeling of blind rage filled his being. He
understood at last the persistence in the human mind of the doctrine of
hell. It was a necessity of the moral universe. God simply must consume
such trash. Nothing else could be done with it.
With a sudden impulse, he threw his right hand high above his head and
his voice boomed over the crowd in a peal of command. The effect was
electrical. A painful hush followed. The swaying mass stood rooted in
their tracks by the tones of authority his first word had expressed.
"Gentlemen!"
He paused and his next words were spoken in intense silence.
"My answer to the extraordinary greeting you have given me this morning
is simple. I am not working for your approval, I work for my own
approval, because I must in obedience to the call within me. Long ago
in my life I gave up ambition and ceased to ask anything for myself.
You cannot destroy my career because I cherish none. If I succeed in
the work to which I have been called it is well. If I fail, it is also
well. I have done my duty and obeyed the call to the service of my
fellow-man!"
Again he paused as his voice choked with deep emotion. The crowd stared
as if in a spell.
"The scene you are enacting here this morning is a disgrace to
humanity. You have surrendered to the unmeaning fear that drives a herd
of swine over a precipice. You have, by an act of your will, joined in
a movement to paralyze the motive power of the world--faith! There is
but one thing that runs this earth of ours for a single day--faith in
one another.
"You are scrambling here for a few dollars in this bank. What can you
do with it when you draw it out? There is not enough cash in the world
to transact a single day's business. Business is run on credit--faith.
"Faith is the sustaining force of all personal and social life; a panic
is its end--a lapse to the level of the beast of the field whose life
is ruled by fear.
"Banks were not made as strong boxes for the hoarding of money. Money
was hoarded in strong boxes centuries before banks were invented. Banks
are institutions of public credit, to facilitate the useful circulation
of money, not its withdrawal from use. The business of a bank is to
keep money moving and make it do the world's work. You are attempting
to stop the work by the destruction of its faith."
Suddenly a man who had quietly pushed his way through the crowd sprang
on the step before the speaker and thrust a revolver into his face.
A cry of horror swept the crowd, as Stuart paused, turned pale and
looked steadily down the flashing barrel into the madman's eyes.
"Who started this work of destruction?" he cried--"You--You---Do you
hear me? And I've been commanded by God Almighty to end this trouble
by ending you!"
As Stuart held the glittering eyes levelled at him across the
blue-black barrel he could see the man's nervous and uncertain finger
twitching at the trigger.
For the first time in his conscious existence he felt the stinging
anguish of physical fear. Never had life--life for its own sake with
strong sound limbs and alert mind--seemed so sweet. At the first touch
of fear his tall body had suddenly stiffened and the pallor of death
shrouded his face. The next instant came the conscious shame and horror
of the moment's cowardice. The crowd that watched the tragic situation
had not known, but he knew and it was enough. His face flushed red and
his deep set eyes began to sparkle with anger, the red animal-anger of
power wrought to insane fury. Every nerve and muscle and sinew quivered
with the desire to kill, a consuming passionate desperate lust! His
fingers closed involuntarily as the claws of a beast and he drew his
breath with trembling intensity.
For one brief instant he hated all men. Not merely the fool who had
shamed his soul with fear but all the mob of hissing howling brutes
that surged about him and all the millions like them that crawl over
the earth.
There was a pause of only a few seconds while these ideas flashed with
the vividness of lightning through his imagination. The crowd noted no
pause of any kind. His action seemed instantaneous.
With a sudden panther-like spring he leaped across the five feet which
separated him from the man who held the revolver. His left hand gripped
the weapon and threw it into the air as it was fired while his right
hand closed on the throat of his assailant. With his knee against the
man's breast he hurled him down the steps, wrenched the revolver from
his hand and with a single blow knocked him into insensibility.
[Illustration: "He hurled him down the steps"]
The spell was broken. The mob that hated him saw their chance. A yell
of rage swept them, and a dozen men sprang toward him with curses. For
a moment he held his own, when suddenly a well-directed blow from
behind knocked him down.
He sprang to his feet instantly, climbed on the shoulders of the mass
of enraged men who pressed on him from every direction and attempted to
walk on their heads toward the two detectives who were fighting their
way toward him. He made two successful leaps missed his foothold and
fell in the arms of his enemies. In blind fury he felt the smash of
blows on his face and head. A stream of blood was trickling down his
forehead and its salty taste penetrated his mouth. With a desperate
effort he freed his hands and knocked two men down.
A sudden crash from space seemed to send the world into a mass of
flaming splinters and the light faded. He heard the soft rustle of silk
and felt the pressure of a woman's lips on his. Surely he must be dead
was the first thought that flashed through his mind. And then from
somewhere far away in space came Nan's voice low and tense:
"Come back, Jim, dear, I've something to tell you. You can't die, you
shall not die until I've told you!"
A tear fell on his face and he knew no more until suddenly, into the
dark cave in which he lay dead a ray of sunlight flashed.
He opened his eyes and found Nan bending over him. His hand rested on
her soft arm and his head lay pillowed on her breast.
"Why, Nan, it's you."
Her lips quivered. She closed her eyes and murmured:
"Thank God, you're alive!"
"Why, yes," he said, slowly rising. "Very much alive; what's happened?"
She placed her finger on his lips.
"Oh, I remember now."
"You mustn't talk, Jim," she said, with quiet authority. "The doctor
will be here in a moment."
"Oh, I'm not hurt much, just a few scratches and bruises." He lifted
himself on his elbow. "Oh the snake that choked me! If I could only
have killed him I think I'd be happy."
He looked at Nan in a stupor.
"But what on earth are you doing here, Nan?"
He looked about the room and saw that he was in the inner office of the
president of the bank, alone with Bivens's wife. He was lying on the
big leather couch.
"I heard that you were going to speak this morning. I wanted to hear
you and came. I arrived just as you began and managed to get into the
bank. I saw that man try to kill you, Jim, and that crowd of wild
beasts trampling you to death. I saw you knock them down one at a time
while I watched you, paralyzed with fear. I wanted to rush out and
fight my way to your side--but I was a coward. I tried to go, but my
legs wouldn't move. I only stood there trembling and sobbing for some
one else to go. I'm afraid I'm not very heroic."
Stuart smiled feebly.
"I understand, Nan, I felt the same thing out there."
"The two detectives pulled you out and dragged you into the bank."
The doctor entered and quickly dressed Stuart's wounds, and turned to
Nan.
"He'll be all right in a week or so, Mrs. Bivens--provided he doesn't
insist on breaking the run on another bank by the spell of his
eloquence. I hope you can persuade him not to try that again."
"I think I'm fully persuaded, Doctor," Stuart answered grimly, "I've
seen a great light to-day."
When the doctor had gone and Nan was left alone with Stuart an
embarrassed silence fell between them.
She was quietly wondering if he were fully unconscious when she was
sobbing and saying some very foolish things. Above all she was
wondering whether he knew that she had kissed him.
And the man was wondering if the memory of the tear that fell on his
face and the pressure of a woman's lips were only a dream.
He scouted the idea of going to a hospital and Nan insisted on taking
him home.
When her car stopped at South Washington Square and Stuart insisted on
scrambling out alone, she held his hand tight a moment and spoke with
trembling earnestness:
"You will see me now, Jim, and be friends?"
He answered promptly.
"Yes, Nan, I will. The world is never going to be quite the same place
for me after to-day. There was one moment this morning in which I think
I lived a thousand years."
A hot flush stole over the woman's beautiful face as she looked
steadily into his eyes and quietly asked:
"What moment was that?"
"The moment I looked down that gun barrel, saw the stupid hate in that
fool's eyes and felt the throb of the insane desire to kill in the
people behind him, the people for whom I've been giving my life a
joyous sacrifice."
Nan smiled a sigh of relief.
"Oh! I see--well, you've made me very happy with your promise, I know
you'll keep your word."
Stuart looked at her a moment curiously. Was there a tear trembling in
the corner of her dark eyes as she spoke the last sentence, or was it
his imagination?
He pressed her hand firmly.
"You are more beautiful than ever, Nan. Yes, I'll keep my word.
Good-bye until I call."
And the woman smiled in triumph.