JUDGMENTS
_Mrs. Dround once more--The point of view--Reflections--A family
discussion--May delivers her ultimatum--We part--The middle age of
life_
"In Rome you must do as the Romans, or be done!" I quoted jocularly.
Mrs. Dround smiled appreciatively.
"From all accounts you have been a tremendous Roman!"
"Well, at least I haven't been done--not yet."
Jane Dround smiled again and turned her face from the window of the
library, through which could be seen dots of ice and snow sailing out on
the blue lake. The years she had been gone in Europe had dealt lightly
with her. She had grown a trifle stouter, and looked splendidly
well--dark, and strong, and full of life.
"I did my best," she continued half humorously. "I tried to get lost in
darkest Africa beyond the reach of telegrams and newspapers. But a party
of Chicago people coming up the Nile crossed the path of our daha-biyeh,
recognized us, came abroad--and brought the story. Cables wouldn't hold
him then! We came as the crow flies; it was no use to plead sickness--he
was ready to leave me behind in Paris!"
She laughed again genially.
"It was nothing much to get excited about," I replied a little
impatiently; "and it has passed now, anyway, like a winter snow in the
city--slush, water, nothing!"
"But the principle! You forget the principle!" she remonstrated dryly.
"I know--and he's going to resign from the presidency--that ought to
satisfy his principle--but we must keep him on the board."
"It was a judge, too! A sworn officer of the law!" Mrs. Dround
interrupted, quoting demurely from Henry I's remarks about the
injunction scandal.
"Very well, he can make over his stock to you, then! It won't trouble
you, and you can draw the big dividends we are going to pay soon. I
don't want him to get out now, when the fruit is almost ripe to shake."
"Is that the only reason?" Mrs. Dround asked quickly.
"Of course, we don't want his stock coming on the market in a big block.
It would break us all up. And it might easily get into the wrong hands."
For Mr. Dround, in the brief interview that we had had on his return,
had intimated his desire not only to withdraw from the presidency of the
corporation, which had been merely a nominal office, but to dispose of
his stock as soon as the agreement expired in the fall, suggesting that
I had best find some friendly hands to take his big holding. In his
gentlemanly way he had told me that he had had enough of me and was
quite ready to snow me under, if it could be done in a polite and
friendly fashion.
"So you want him to wait?" Mrs. Dround suggested indifferently.
"Yes, until I am ready!"
She made no reply to this remark, and after a moment I said more
lightly:--
"But I came to welcome you home,--I want you still to be my friend, my
partner!"
"They say you are a dangerous partner," she retorted, looking closely at
me,--"deep in all sorts of speculative schemes, and likely to slip. They
say you are un--scrupulous"--she drawled the word mockingly--"and a lot
more bad things. Do you think that is the right kind of partner for a
simple woman?"
"If you've got the nerve!"
"Well, let me show you some of the new pictures we have bought." And she
turned me off with a lot of talk about pictures and stuffs and stones,
until I arose to leave.
* * * * *
Shortly afterwards my carriage took me back to the city, where I had to
meet some gentlemen who were interested in my schemes for the
development of the new Southwest. As I rode through the windy, dusty
streets, my thoughts went back over the years since that time when at
the suggestion of this woman I had just left, I had put my hand to
building something large out of Henry I. Dround's tottering estate.
In a busy life like mine, one event shades into another. Each path to
which a man sets his feet leads to some cross-roads, and from there any
one of the branches will lead on to its own cross-roads. While the
adventurer is on his way it is hard to tell why he takes one turning and
not another, why he lays his course here and not there. Years later he
may see it plotted plain, as I do to-day--plotted as on a map. Then the
wanderer may try to explain what made him move this way or that. Yet the
little determining causes that turned his mind at the moment of choice
are forever forgotten. The big, permanent motive remains: there is the
broad highroad--but why was it left, why this turn and double across the
main track?
So it was with me. The main highroad of my ambition was almost lost in
the thickets in which I found myself. Struggling day by day against the
forces that opposed me, I had lost sight of direction. The words with
Jane Dround, the flash of her dark eyes, pierced my obscurity, gave me
again a view of the destiny to which I had set myself. Some fire in her
fed me with courage, and made my spirit lighter than it had been for
months....
When I reached home in the evening, I found Sarah ill with a nervous
headache.
"Will is back!" she exclaimed on seeing me, and her tone scarcely
concealed a meaning beyond her words.
"What's that? He didn't send me word that he was coming."
"May telephoned--he's just got in."
Something unexpected must have brought him suddenly all the way from
Texas, where he was looking after our interests. The news was
disturbing.
"I saw Jane Dround this afternoon," I remarked idly. "She's looking
fine--never saw her better."
"Jane!" my wife said slowly. "So she's back once more." Then after a
pause she exclaimed:--
"I don't like her!"
Sarah, who rarely said a bitter word about any one, spoke this harshly,
and I looked at her in surprise.
"I don't trust that woman, Van! She is secret. And I believe she
influenced you--that time about the judge."
It was the first time for months that Sarah had referred to this matter.
"I'll go and ring up May," I said, not caring to refute this wild
accusation, "and ask them to come over to-night."
"I asked them for dinner, but she wouldn't come," Sarah remarked
gloomily. "No one wants to come here but people like the Webbs and
Coopers--people who think they can make something out of your schemes."
"Oh, I guess they aren't the only ones who are willing to come. And
what's the matter with the Webbs and the Coopers? If the rest of your
friends don't like us, we can get along without their society. I guess
New York will stand us, and that's where we shall be before many years,
if all goes well. This place is only a gossipy old village."
"I don't want to go to New York!" Sarah wailed.
* * * * *
When I had May at the telephone, she answered my invitation in a dry
little voice:--
"Yes, we are coming over to see you about a matter. Will has something
important to say to you."
By the tone of May's voice I judged that we should have a rather lively
family party, and I was not mistaken. Sarah was still lying on the
lounge in my study when Will and May came in after dinner. There was
battle in May's eyes and in her tight-shut lips. It had been a long time
since she had come to the house when I was at home. And to-night Will,
too, was looking very pale and troubled.
[Illustration: "_Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work
but your own brother?_"]
"May," I said, "you look as if you had a gun trained on me. Fire away,
only make it something new. I am tired of that old matter about the
judge. 'Most everybody has forgotten all about that except you and
Sarah."
"It's something new, fast enough, Van; but it isn't any better," she
retorted. "Couldn't you find any one else to do your dirty work but your
own brother?"
"What's the matter now?"
"Show him the article, Will."
Will unbuttoned his coat and reached for his inner pocket. From it he
hauled out a bulky newspaper, which he handed me. It was a copy of the
Sunday _Texas World_, and a front page article was heavily pencilled.
"That's too much, Van," he protested solemnly, handing me the paper.
"Read it."
"Yes, read it all!" May added. The three were silent while I ran through
the article. It was the usual exaggerated sort of newspaper stuff
purporting to describe the means used to secure a piece of railroad
legislation, in which I and some New York men were interested. The sting
lay in the last paragraph:--
* * * * *
"It is commonly understood that the lobby which has been working for the
past winter in the interest of this rotten bill is maintained by a group
of powerful capitalists, dominated by the head of a large Chicago
packing company. This gentleman, who suddenly shot into publicity the
past winter as the result of an unusually brazen attempt to corrupt a
Chicago judge, has opened his office not three blocks from the state
Capitol, and has put his brother in charge of the corruptionist
forces.... The deserving legislators of our state may soon expect to
reap a rich harvest!"
* * * * *
A few more generalities wound up the article. I folded the paper and
handed it back to Will. No one said a word for a few moments, and then
Will observed:--
"That isn't pleasant reading for an honorable man!"
"I don't see how it should trouble you, Will. You are down there to look
after our interests in a legitimate way enough. If you don't like the
job, though, I can get another man to take your place."
"Van," May interrupted, "don't try to squirm! You know that's
true--what's written there! You didn't ask Will to use the bribe money,
because you knew he wouldn't do anything dishonorable. But you let him
take the blame, and sent some one else with the money, no doubt. What
was that partner of Mr. Slocum's sent down there for?"
"Will,"--I turned to my brother,--"let us settle this by ourselves. It's
a man's business, and the women won't help us."
"No, Van," May replied. "I guess we women are as much concerned as
anybody. Where there's a question of my husband's honor, it's my
business, too. I stay."
"Well, then, stay! And try to understand. This bill the paper rips up is
all right. We must have it to put our road through to the Gulf, and if
it were not for the money the Pacific Western road, which owns the
state, is putting up against us we shouldn't have any trouble. They want
to keep us out, and Strauss and his crowd want to keep us out, too, so
that they can have all the pie to themselves. I have been working at
this thing for years in order that we can get an outlet to the seaboard,
untouched by our rivals. They think to block us just at the end, but I
guess they find out they are mistaken when the line comes next month.
That's all!"
"Do you think that explanation is satisfactory? Of course, Van, you want
the bill passed!" May said ironically.
"What does it mean--what has Van been doing?" Sarah asked for the first
time, sitting up and looking from one to another in a puzzled way.
None of us answered, and finally Will said:--
"I guess, Van, you and I don't see things quite the same way. I know you
wouldn't ask me to do what you thought was bad, but all the same there's
too much that's true in that piece in the paper, and I don't want to
have it said--there's things going on down there that aren't right--and
May feels--I feel myself, that it ain't right. We don't think the same
way, you and I. So we had better part now, before we have any bad
feeling."
"All right! Did you come over here to-night to tell me that?"
"No, Van," May put in hastily, her voice trembling with feeling. "That
wasn't all. Will and I came to ask you to give up the sort of business
you are doing down there. We want you to turn back into the right road
before it is too late. If you don't land in the penitentiary, Van
Harrington, your money will do you no good. It will taste bad all your
life!"
We were all pretty well stirred up by this time. I was weary of meeting
these charges of dishonesty on all sides. This last was too much--to
have my family accuse me of a crime, when I did not feel guilty, not for
a minute!
"I don't see why you should say that, May!" Sarah suddenly bridled.
"After all, it's only the newspapers, and no one believes them to-day."
This unexpected defence from Sarah aroused May afresh.
"Oh, he don't deny it! He can't. First it was a judge--he bought a judge
and paid for him, and he never came out and denied it! Now it's worse
even than that. It's the people of a whole state he's trying to buy
through their representatives."
"Who are there for sale," I laughed.
"Does that make it any better?" she turned on me. "Seems to me, Van, you
don't know any longer the difference between black and white!"
"We've got a perfect right to build that road, and build it we
will--that's all there is to that matter!"
And so we argued for hours, May and I doing most of the talking. For I
wanted her to understand just how the matter lay. No business in this
large, modern world could be done on her plan of life. That beautiful
scheme of things which the fathers of our country drew up in the
stage-coach days had proved itself inadequate in a short century. We had
to get along with it the best we could. But we men who did the work of
the world, who developed the country, who were the life and force of the
times, could not be held back by the swaddling-clothes of any political
or moral theory. Results we must have: good results; and we worked with
the tools we found at hand.
"It's no use your saying any more!" May exclaimed at last. "I understand
just what you mean, Van Harrington. It's the same way it was with the
judge's peaches. You wanted 'em, and you took 'em! What you want you
think is good for every one, especially for Van Harrington. And you are
so wise and strong you think you can breakthrough all laws because laws
are made for small people, like Will and me, and you and your kind are
Napoleons. You talk as if you were a part of God's destiny. And I
say"--here her voice broke for a moment--"I say, Van, you are the
devil's instrument! You and those like you--and there a good many of
them--are just plain big rascals, only the laws can't get hold of you."
Her lips trembled and at the end broke into that little ironical smile
which I knew so well, the smile she had when I used to get into some
boyish scrape, and she was looking through me for the truth. But for all
her hot words, I knew she had kindly feeling for me somewhere in her
heart. Nevertheless, Sarah, who had been following our talk as well as
she could, fired up at her accusations.
"I think, May," she remonstrated with all her dignity, "that you cannot
say any more such things in my husband's house."
"Yes," I added, "we have had too much talk all around. You can't change
my character any more than you can make wheat grow in Arizona or
sugar-cane in Dakota. And I don't want to change your views, either,
May."
For though she made me pretty angry, I admired the way she stood to her
guns. She was a fighter! And Will must act as she decided. Whoever
travelled with her would have to travel by her star.
"Yes," my brother replied, "it's gone too far now to change. Words don't
do any good. Come, wife, let us go."
"I am sorry for Sarah!" May said, taking Sarah's hands in hers. "She
suffers for you, Van, and she will suffer for this all her life. But I
am sorrier for you, Van, for you have gone too far to suffer!"
Thereupon she swept out of the room, her little figure swelling with
dignity; and Will followed her, as the needle swings to its magnet,
pausing only long enough to reach for my hand and press it. When the
front door shut upon them the house seemed suddenly cold and empty.
Sarah had slipped back to the lounge, and was staring up at the ceiling,
a tear trickling across her face.
"I suppose May won't ever come back again. And we were planning to take
that cottage this summer so that the children could be together."
That detail didn't seem to me very important, but it was the one that
showed to Sarah the gulf which had opened between us. Sarah's little
world, by that token, had suffered an earthquake.
"Oh," I said, trying to comfort her, "like as not this will blow over!
May has disapproved of me before this."
But in my heart I felt there wasn't much likelihood that this breach
would be healed. Knowing May as I did, I had no idea that she would let
Will continue with me, even in another position. No compromise for her!
To-morrow or next day Will would come into the office to take his
leave....
[Illustration: _Somehow years had gone by in that evening._]
"I guess, Van, I'll go to bed."
It was the first word Sarah had spoken for half an hour. The tears had
dried on her face. She gave me a light kiss, and left me....
The house seemed cold and desolate, as if the pleasant kindliness of
life had gone out of it when my brother and his wife had left. I made up
the fire, lighted a fresh cigar, and sat down to think. Somehow years
had gone by in that evening; I was heavy with the heaviness of middle
life.
To take the other road, her road--that was what May demanded of me. How
little she knew the situation! That would mean immediate ruin for me and
mine, and for those men who had trusted me with their money. The world
that I had been building all these years would crumble and vanish like
smoke into the void out of which I had made it! Not that May's talk had
meaning or sense to it, either. Nor do men made as I am alter at the
sound of words. We are as we are, and we grow with the power to do that
which we must do. May was merely an unreasonable and narrow woman, who
saw but one kind of good.
In all the forty years of my life there had been no evil as I know evil.
No man could say that he had harm from me--unless it might be poor Ed
Hostetter--and for thousands of such workers as live from day to day,
depending on men like me to give them their chance to earn bread for
their wives and children, I had made the world better rather than worse.
Unthinking thousands lived and had children and got what good there was
in life because of me and my will.
But to the others, the good ones, to Farson and Dround and May, I was
but a common thief, a criminal, who fattened on the evil of the world.
What had they done to make life? What was their virtue good for? They
took the dainty paths and kept their clothes from the soil of the road.
Yes, and what then? A renewed sense of irritation rose within me. Why
should I be pestered like this, why should I lose my brother and May,
why should Sarah be hurt, because they were too good to do as I had
done?
So my brother and May went their way. They left me lonely. For the first
time since the day, many years before, when I walked out of the police
station alone into the city, the loneliness of life came over me.
To-morrow, in the daylight, in the fierce fight of the day, that
weakness would go; but to-night there was no hand to reach, no voice to
speak, from the multitude of the world. One person only of all would
know, would place big and little side by side and reckon them
rightly--would understand the ways I had followed to get my ends. Jane
Dround would throw them all a smile of contempt, the little ones who
weigh and hesitate!
There was the soul of the fighter.