Gay's course of action was exactly what his wife had prophesied. He
displayed all the proper symptoms of mourning and grief as far as his
clothing and stationery went. After a brief period of retirement
from the world, during which he chattered with fear when he wrapped
Trudy's gay little possessions in bundles and gave them away, he
emerged in the satisfactory role of a young widower on the loose
who feels that "Perhaps it was all for the best; an idyl of youth,
y'know; someone quite out of my sphere," and was welcomed by the
old set enthusiastically.
Beatrice particularly saw to it that he was petted and properly cared
for regarding invitations and dainties to eat and drink. In this new
role, with a well-established business and no shrewd red-haired wife
to point out his meannesses and try to make him go fifty-fifty with
the profits, Gay felt at peace with all the world.
He did not even miss Trudy's work after a little. The only thing that
bothered him was an occasional memory of the white, thin face and
those limp, red curls, the hacking cough and the way her big eyes had
stared at him that last night. He hated anything connected with
suffering of any kind, let alone death itself.
Before long Gay found himself back at the club and running a neat shop
on a prominent corner with deaf mutes from charity institutions
ensconced in the back rooms to do the work. Memories of Trudy and of
their life together became as remote as the menu of a dinner eaten
twelve months past.
He had her ring set over for himself, Mary never having mentioned the
matter. In fact, he avoided Mary as he avoided Steve, for it was Mary
who had spent the last moments with Trudy, and whatever was said
remained a most uncomfortable mystery, to Gay's way of thinking. She
had remained at the apartment to help Gay through his sorrow, looking
at him with brief scorn as he stammered inane thanks, scantily
concealing his impatience to sample a basket of wine just sent in.
As Easter Sunday came slipping into the calendar, with Mary and Luke
sightseeing in New York in plebeian fashion and not ashamed of it,
there came a great though not unexpected crash in Steve O'Valley's
fortunes. Steve's unreckoned-with enemies were about to have their
innings; they succeeded in bringing Steve down to the level of being
forced to ask his father-in-law for aid and admit that he could not
handle Constantine's affairs or what remained of them.
This was exactly what the enemies desired. A number of things combined
to make the crash a mighty one. Steve still speculated, secure, he
fancied, in his surplus savings; his speculations all ended
disastrously and his factories were no longer hustling places of
commerce. It was a case of keen competition for orders, and closing
round Steve relentlessly was a circle of enemies forming a gigantic
trust which played the big-fish-swallow-the-little-fish game. Knowing
of Steve's disaster on the stock exchange, as well as the thin ice on
which his industries were managing to survive, the trust now invited
him to become one of them--at a ridiculous figure--or else be squeezed
out of the game overnight.
Steve's first emotion upon receiving the offer was nonchalance and
determination to appear unconcerned and weather it through--so he held
out as long as he could, plunging in the stock market, with the result
that he was beaten as if he had been a street vendor whose wares were
confiscated by the police authorities.
It was not a time to do some new devil-may-care thing. Fortunes were
not achieved as they had been from 1914 to 1919, and Steve told
himself in vain that since it was luck that had made him it must be
luck that should again bring him out on top of the heap. All at once
luck seemed no jaunty chap with endless pockets of gold but rather a
disgruntled, threadbare old chap who said: "None of you ever treats me
rightly when I do smile on you; now go take care of yourselves any way
you like, for you have ruined me, too."
With this pleasant state of affairs Steve came home to the Villa Rosa
one April day, half of him wondering if Mary would let him come and
tell his story and the other half trying to hope that the news of his
failure would prove the saving grace between the Gorgeous Girl and
himself, that she would accept his plea of becoming "just folks" and
starting anew, her father's wealth in the background, entirely removed
from Steve's new field of endeavours.
[Illustration: "A get-rich-quick man always pays for his own speed"]
It did not take long to disillusion Steve as to this. Beatrice
accepted the news of the stock failure and the new trust so easily
that he saw she was incapable of changing her viewpoint.
"Why gamble so, my dear Stevuns?" she began, almost petulantly. "And
do you know that every time I make engagements for you you are late?
You are nearly a half hour late to-night."
"I am losing the factory as well. I'll have to sell out for a song. I
can't compete with cutthroats----"
"Are you going to hurry and dress so we can go?" She smiled her
prettiest.
At one time Steve would have noted only that white tulle and pearls
spun witchery, and her skirt possessed the charm of a Hawaiian girl's
dancing costume. Even at this juncture he recalled and smiled at past
blindness.
"You don't seem to understand what I am saying, and all that is
happening. First I played Arizona copper until they taught me not to
monkey with the band wagon; then I played Cobalt until the same thing
took place." He sank impolitely into an easy-chair. "Then I got the
chance to come in with the gang--an insulting proposition any way you
want to figure--a paltry sum for everything I have and the statement
in veiled terms that I need not expect to have that unless I did as
they dictate."
"Well--sell your business to someone else before this happens!"
"I couldn't even if I wished to cheat; it is quite the talk of the
town."
"Well--manage. Papa will tell you how. Why do you come running to me?
Goodness, don't stare like that. It's nothing unusual to manage! I
don't know about business--you made a lot of money once and I should
think you could do it again."
"It doesn't bother me as much as you think," he said, almost
breathlessly, eager to know the worst. "It means I am a poor man in
your estimation. I can sell out to these people, who have thrown a
steel ring round their game, so to speak, and had to do it until your
father was out of the running. I can never buck them--I'm not fool
enough to be goaded on to try. Your father could not win out the way
things are now--but he could have prevented their ever getting the
upper hand--because he knows every last turn of the wheel. They could
not have fooled him. I didn't know what was coming until it was too
late. A get-rich-quick man always pays for his own speed!"
"Stevuns, you'll make me so nervous I can't go to-night. It's a lovely
party. You stay home and tell papa all about it, but leave me in
peace."
"Thank you, I will. And is this the sympathy and the understanding you
give me when I say we are being ruined?"
"Don't keep saying it." She stamped her little foot. "Papa has lots of
money in English and Chinese securities and I don't know what-all.
Why, that factory of his was the least of his fortune."
"That is why your father deliberately lifted three fourths of his
money from the business just before he was taken ill. He was not going
to risk cutthroats getting together. He overestimated my ability to
keep clear of disaster. But after all, I'm not sorry--I don't want
anything more than I have earned. For you always pay for it in some
way. The world may not know but these snap-judgment profiteers, these
get-rich-quick phenomena, always have to pay. But you don't
understand," he added, gently, "do you? You must not be blamed for
not understanding anything unless it comprises a good time!"
"I shall not try," she said, petulantly, "and if you love me you will
hurry to change your things and tell papa briefly. To-morrow will be
time enough to go into detail and have him start you into something
new."
"I didn't take your father's money to marry you with, and even if I
stole it in a sense it was my own efforts that brought it to pass. I
took no help from him until I was established. And I shall not sneak
back to let my wife's father support me now. I'm going to drop out of
this game, Beatrice. It is for you to decide whether you go with me or
stay at the Villa Rosa." He stood up suddenly and came close to her,
looking down at her, in all her fragile loveliness, wondering, half
hoping, halfway expecting that a miracle might happen even as he had
hoped for the miracle of his fortune--that at this late hour she might
cease to be a mere Gorgeous Girl and understand.
Beatrice frowned, playing with her fan. "You look shabby and tired,"
she complained; "not my handsome Steve. You don't mean such things,
because you do love me and you know I could never be happy living any
other way. I'm all papa has and he wants me to have everything I want.
Of course I want this dear house and you and all that both of you
mean, so be a lamb and get dressed and papa will help you into some
nice safe business that can never fail."
She stood on her tiptoes, about to kiss him. But he pushed her away.
"You mean you won't begin with me, you won't take our one chance for
happiness? Just to begin together to learn and earn, be real? Do you
think for one instant I will be like Gay Vondeplosshe, subsisting on a
woman's bounty? No. I shall support my wife; it was never my wish that
we come here to live, and you insisted upon luxuries my purse could
not afford. In the main, to the outsider, I have supported you. But we
both know it is not true; I have merely been a needful accessory. From
now on I shall either support you or else not live with you. I ask you
to stop having a good time long enough to give me your decision."
"Oh, Stevuns--you funny old brutish dear!"
"If it were a direct loan of money from your father it would be a
different matter--but it is one of those intricate, involved deals
that mean more than you or I choose to admit. It means that I have
learned the hollow satisfaction in being a rich man and husband of a
Gorgeous Girl. I want to be a plain American with a wife who is
content with something else save a Villa Rosa and pound-and-a-half lap
dogs. I am going to be a mediocre failure in the eyes of your set,
since it is the only way in which I can start to be a true success in
other than dollar standards. The two elements that collect a crowd and
breed newspaper headlines are mystery and struggle; remove them and
you find yourself serene and secure. That is what I propose to do. I
ask if it is too late for you to come with me or are you going to
linger in the Villa Rosa? Answer me--I want something real, common,
definite--can't you understand?"
"If you ever dare treat me like this again----" she began, whimpering.
Steve brushed by her and up the stairs. He went into Constantine's
room, where the old man lay in helpless discontent, his dulling eyes
looking at the sunken gardens and the chattering peacocks and his
heart longing for Hannah and the early days together.
"Why, Steve," he said in a pleased tone, "you look as if they were
after you. Thought you'd forgotten me. That nurse Bea engaged has a
voice like a scissors grinder in action."
Briefly Steve told him what had taken place, not mentioning Beatrice's
name. It had an astonishing effect; as a mental tonic it was not to be
surpassed, for the fallen oak of a man throbbed anew with life, as
much as was possible, his hands twitching with rage, his teeth
grinding, and the dulled eyes bright with interest.
"The dogs! I knew it! Why didn't you tell me long before? Blocked 'em
off--snuffed 'em out. Meddling with wildcat stocks--asinine any way
you figure it! Well, I don't know that I blame you. The first success
was too sweet to leave untried again, eh?" He chuckled as if something
amused him. "We'll close out to 'em. We'll start again----"
"I don't want another fortune handed me," Steve interrupted. "I want
to earn it, if you please. I'm not a pauper in the true sense of the
word; I am merely trained down to the proper financial weight for a
man of my age and experience to carry, and I can now enter the ring
with good chances. The other way was as absurd as the four-year-old
prodigy who typewrites and is rather fond of Greek. But I loved your
daughter and I thought it quite the right thing to do. I asked your
daughter just now if she was willing to live with a poor man,
according to her standards, as your wife lived with you--to give me
her help and her faith in me.
"Do you know what she answered? She told me to come to you and truckle
for another big loan, which I am not capable of handling, to cheat
legally and never hint to the world the truth of the affair. She
hadn't the most remote idea that I was in earnest when I told her I
was going to be a failure in the eyes of the world--but I was not
going to have my wife's father support me. I'm not sorry this has
happened--feel as if the Old Man of the Sea had dropped off me. But
this is the thing: either my wife and I will live in a home of our
own, and such a home as I can provide, being an independent and proper
family and keeping our problems and responsibilities within our gates;
or else your daughter is going to stay with you and lose her one
chance of freedom while I leave town."
The Basque grandmother and the Celtic grandfather lent Steve all their
passionate determination and keenness of insight, as they once lent
him chivalry, humour, and charm. He stood before the old man taut with
excitement and flushed with sudden fury.
"It is you I blame," he added before Constantine could make answer.
"You kept her as useless as a china shepherdess; it is not her fault
if she fails to rise to the occasion now."
Constantine's face quivered; what the emotion was none but himself
knew.
"You poor fool boy!" he said, thickly. "Don't you know I made you a
rich man all along the line? You never did anything at all. It wasn't
luck on the stock exchange--it was Mark Constantine back of you. Gad,
to have made what you did in the time you did you'd have had to do
worse than dabble your hands in the mud. You'd have had to roll in
it--like I did." He gave a coarse laugh. "That was what I figured out
when you said you wanted Beatrice and what you were going to do to try
to get her. I liked you, I wanted you for her husband. I hated the
other puppies. So I wasn't going to have Beatrice's husband a
cutthroat and a highbinder as he would have to be if he had turned the
whole trick.
"You young fool, don't you suppose I made the stock exchange yield
you the sugarplums? Gad, I knew every cent you spent and made. It
was for my girl, my Gorgeous Girl, so why wouldn't I do it? I saved
your ideals and kept your hands white so that you would be good enough
for her; that was what I figured out the hour after you had told me
your intentions. I followed you like the fairy books tell of; I
brought you your fortune and your factory and scotched all the
enemies about you--and gave you the girl. And you thought you
killed the seven-headed dragon yourself.... I don't blame you for
the foozle, Steve; I cotton-woolled you all along--it was bound to
come. But, damme, you'll come down to brass tacks and take more of
my money now and keep her from being unhappy and stop this snivel
about earning what you get and needing responsibilities--or you'll
find you've put your foot into hell and you can't pull it out!"
White-heat anger enveloped Steve's very soul, yet strangely enough he
felt not like sinning but rather like Laertes crying out in mental
anguish: "Do you see this, O God?"