Of all the spots on this fair, broad earth where the jaded globe
wanderer, surfeited with hackneyed sight-seeing, may sit in perfect
peace and watch the world go by, there is none more fascinating nor one
presenting a more brilliant panorama of cosmopolitan life than that
famous corner on the Paris boulevards, formed by the angle of the
Boulevard des Capucines and the Place de l'Opera. Here, on the
"terrace" of the Cafe de la Paix, with its white and gold facade and
long French windows, and its innumerable little marble-topped tables
and rattan chairs, one may sit for hours at the trifling expense of a
few sous, undisturbed even by the tip-seeking garcon, and, if one
happens to be a student of human nature, find keen enjoyment in
observing the world-types, representing every race and nationality
under the sun, that pass and re-pass in a steady, never ceasing,
exhaustless stream. The crowd surges to and fro, past the little
tables, occasionally toppling over a chair or two in the crush, moving
up or down the great boulevards, one procession going to the right, in
the direction of the Church of the Madeleine, the other to the left
heading toward the historic Bastille, both really going nowhere in
particular, but ambling gently and good humouredly along enjoying the
sights--and life!
Paris, queen of cities! Light-hearted, joyous, radiant Paris--the
playground of the nations, the Mecca of the pleasure-seekers, the city
beautiful! Paris--the siren, frankly immoral, always seductive, ever
caressing! City of a thousand political convulsions, city of a million
crimes--her streets have run with human blood, horrors unspeakable have
stained her history, civil strife has scarred her monuments, the German
conqueror insolently has bivouaced within her walls. Yet, like a virgin
undefiled, she shows no sign of storm and stress, she offers her
dimpled cheek to the rising sun, and when fall the shadows of night and
a billion electric bulbs flash in the siren's crown, her resplendent,
matchless beauty dazzles the world!
As the supreme reward of virtue, the good American is promised a visit
to Paris when he dies. Those, however, of our sagacious fellow
countrymen who can afford to make the trip, usually manage to see
Lutetia before crossing the river Styx. Most Americans like Paris--some
like it so well that they have made it their permanent home--although
it must be added that in their admiration they rarely include the
Frenchman. For that matter, we are not as a nation particularly fond of
any foreigner, largely because we do not understand him, while the
foreigner for his part is quite willing to return the compliment. He
gives the Yankee credit for commercial smartness, which has built up
America's great material prosperity; but he has the utmost contempt for
our acquaintance with art, and no profound respect for us as scientists.
Is it not indeed fortunate that every nation finds itself superior to
its neighbour? If this were not so each would be jealous of the other,
and would cry with envy like a spoiled child who cannot have the moon
to play with. Happily, therefore, for the harmony of the world, each
nation cordially detests the other and the much exploited "brotherhood
of man" is only a figure of speech. The Englishman, confident that he
is the last word of creation, despises the Frenchman, who, in turn,
laughs at the German, who shows open contempt for the Italian, while
the American, conscious of his superiority to the whole family of
nations, secretly pities them all.
The most serious fault which the American--whose one god is Mammon and
chief characteristic hustle--has to find with his French brother is
that he enjoys life too much, is never in a hurry and, what to the
Yankee mind is hardly respectable, has a habit of playing dominoes
during business hours. The Frenchman retorts that his American brother,
clever person though he be, has one or two things still to learn. He
has, he declares, no philosophy of life. It is true that he has learned
the trick of making money, but in the things which go to satisfy the
soul he is still strangely lacking. He thinks he is enjoying life, when
really he is ignorant of what life is. He admits it is not the
American's fault, for he has never been taught how to enjoy life. One
must be educated to that as everything else. All the American is taught
is to be in a perpetual hurry and to make money no matter how. In this
mad daily race for wealth, he bolts his food, not stopping to masticate
it properly, and consequently suffers all his life from dyspepsia. So
he rushes from the cradle to the grave, and what's the good, since he
must one day die like all the rest?
And what, asks the foreigner, has the American hustler accomplished
that his slower-going Continental brother has not done as well? Are
finer cities to be found in America than in Europe, do Americans paint
more beautiful pictures, or write more learned or more entertaining
books, has America made greater progress in science? Is it not a fact
that the greatest inventors and scientists of our time--Marconi, who
gave to the world wireless telegraphy, Professor Curie, who discovered
radium, Pasteur, who found a cure for rabies, Santos-Dumont, who has
almost succeeded in navigating the air, Professor Rontgen who
discovered the X-ray--are not all these immortals Europeans? And those
two greatest mechanical inventions of our day, the automobile and the
submarine boat, were they not first introduced and perfected in France
before we in America woke up to appreciate their use? Is it, therefore,
not possible to take life easily and still achieve?
The logic of these arguments, set forth in Le Soir in an article on the
New World, appealed strongly to Jefferson Ryder as he sat in front of
the Cafe de la Paix, sipping a sugared Vermouth. It was five o'clock,
the magic hour of the aperitif, when the glutton taxes his wits to
deceive his stomach and work up an appetite for renewed gorging. The
little tables were all occupied with the usual before-dinner crowd.
There were a good many foreigners, mostly English and Americans and a
few Frenchmen, obviously from the provinces, with only a sprinkling of
real Parisians.
Jefferson's acquaintance with the French language was none too
profound, and he had to guess at half the words in the article, but he
understood enough to follow the writer's arguments. Yes, it was quite
true, he thought, the American idea of life was all wrong. What was the
sense of slaving all one's life, piling up a mass of money one cannot
possibly spend, when there is only one life to live? How much saner the
man who is content with enough and enjoys life while he is able to.
These Frenchmen, and indeed all the Continental nations, had solved the
problem. The gaiety of their cities, and this exuberant joy of life
they communicated to all about them, were sufficient proofs of it.
Fascinated by the gay scene around him Jefferson laid the newspaper
aside. To the young American, fresh from prosaic money-mad New York,
the City of Pleasure presented indeed a novel and beautiful spectacle.
How different, he mused, from his own city with its one fashionable
thoroughfare--Fifth Avenue--monotonously lined for miles with hideous
brownstone residences, and showing little real animation except during
the Saturday afternoon parade when the activities of the smart set,
male and female, centred chiefly in such exciting diversions as going
to Huyler's for soda, taking tea at the Waldorf, and trying to outdo
each other in dress and show. New York certainly was a dull place with
all its boasted cosmopolitanism. There was no denying that. Destitute
of any natural beauty, handicapped by its cramped geographical position
between two rivers, made unsightly by gigantic sky-scrapers and that
noisy monstrosity the Elevated Railroad, having no intellectual
interests, no art interests, no interest in anything not immediately
connected with dollars, it was a city to dwell in and make money in,
but hardly a city to LIVE in. The millionaires were building
white-marble palaces, taxing the ingenuity and the originality of the
native architects, and thus to some extent relieving the general
ugliness and drab commonplaceness, while the merchant princes had begun
to invade the lower end of the avenue with handsome shops. But in spite
of all this, in spite of its pretty girls--and Jefferson insisted that
in this one important particular New York had no peer--in spite of its
comfortable theatres and its wicked Tenderloin, and its Rialto made so
brilliant at night by thousands of elaborate electric signs, New York
still had the subdued air of a provincial town, compared with the
exuberant gaiety, the multiple attractions, the beauties, natural and
artificial, of cosmopolitan Paris.
The boulevards were crowded, as usual at that hour, and the crush of
both vehicles and pedestrians was so great as to permit of only a
snail-like progress. The clumsy three-horse
omnibuses--Madeleine-Bastille--crowded inside and out with passengers
and with their neatly uniformed drivers and conductors, so different in
appearance and manner from our own slovenly street-car rowdies, were
endeavouring to breast a perfect sea of fiacres which, like a swarm of
mosquitoes, appeared to be trying to go in every direction at once,
their drivers vociferating torrents of vituperous abuse on every man,
woman or beast unfortunate enough to get in their way. As a dispenser
of unspeakable profanity, the Paris cocher has no equal. He is unique,
no one can approach him. He also enjoys the reputation of being the
worst driver in the world. If there is any possible way in which he can
run down a pedestrian or crash into another vehicle he will do it,
probably for the only reason that it gives him another opportunity to
display his choice stock of picturesque expletives.
But it was a lively, good-natured crowd and the fashionably gowned
women and the well-dressed men, the fakirs hoarsely crying their
catch-penny devices, the noble boulevards lined as far as the eye could
reach with trees in full foliage, the magnificent Opera House with its
gilded dome glistening in the warm sunshine of a June afternoon, the
broad avenue directly opposite, leading in a splendid straight line to
the famous Palais Royal, the almost dazzling whiteness of the houses
and monuments, the remarkable cleanliness and excellent condition of
the sidewalks and streets, the gaiety and richness of the shops and
restaurants, the picturesque kiosks where they sold newspapers and
flowers--all this made up a picture so utterly unlike anything he was
familiar with at home that Jefferson sat spellbound, delighted.
Yes, it was true, he thought, the foreigner had indeed learned the
secret of enjoying life. There was assuredly something else in the
world beyond mere money-getting. His father was a slave to it, but he
would never be. He was resolved on that. Yet, with all his ideas of
emancipation and progress, Jefferson was a thoroughly practical young
man. He fully understood the value of money, and the possession of it
was as sweet to him as to other men. Only he would never soil his soul
in acquiring it dishonourably. He was convinced that society as at
present organized was all wrong and that the feudalism of the middle
ages had simply given place to a worse form of slavery--capitalistic
driven labour--which had resulted in the actual iniquitous conditions,
the enriching of the rich and the impoverishment of the poor. He was
familiar with the socialistic doctrines of the day and had taken a keen
interest in this momentous question, this dream of a regenerated
mankind. He had read Karl Marx and other socialistic writers, and while
his essentially practical mind could hardly approve all their programme
for reorganizing the State, some of which seemed to him utopian,
extravagant and even undesirable, he realised that the socialistic
movement was growing rapidly all over the world and the day was not far
distant when in America, as to-day in Germany and France, it would be a
formidable factor to reckon with.
But until the socialistic millennium arrived and society was
reorganized, money, he admitted, would remain the lever of the world,
the great stimulus to effort. Money supplied not only the necessities
of life but also its luxuries, everything the material desire craved
for, and so long as money had this magic purchasing power, so long
would men lie and cheat and rob and kill for its possession. Was life
worth living without money? Could one travel and enjoy the glorious
spectacles Nature affords--the rolling ocean, the majestic mountains,
the beautiful lakes, the noble rivers--without money? Could the
book-lover buy books, the art-lover purchase pictures? Could one have
fine houses to live in, or all sorts of modern conveniences to add to
one's comfort, without money? The philosophers declared contentment to
be happiness, arguing that the hod-carrier was likely to be happier in
his hut than the millionaire in his palace; but was not that mere
animal contentment, the happiness which knows no higher state, the
ignorance of one whose eyes have never been raised to the heights?
No, Jefferson was no fool. He loved money for what pleasure,
intellectual or physical, it could give him, but he would never allow
money to dominate his life as his father had done. His father, he knew
well, was not a happy man, neither happy himself nor respected by the
world. He had toiled all his life to make his vast fortune and now he
toiled to take care of it. The galley slave led a life of luxurious
ease compared with John Burkett Ryder. Baited by the yellow newspapers
and magazines, investigated by State committees, dogged by
process-servers, haunted by beggars, harassed by blackmailers,
threatened by kidnappers, frustrated in his attempts to bestow charity
by the cry "tainted money"--certainly the lot of the world's richest
man was far from being an enviable one.
That is why Jefferson had resolved to strike out for himself. He had
warded off the golden yoke which his father proposed to put on his
shoulders, declining the lucrative position made for him in the Empire
Trading Company, and he had gone so far as to refuse also the private
income his father offered to settle on him. He would earn his own
living. A man who has his bread buttered for him seldom accomplishes
anything he had said, and while his father had appeared to be angry at
this open opposition to his will, he was secretly pleased at his son's
grit. Jefferson was thoroughly in earnest. If needs be, he would forego
the great fortune that awaited him rather than be forced into
questionable business methods against which his whole manhood revolted.
Jefferson Ryder felt strongly about these matters, and gave them more
thought than would be expected of most young men with his
opportunities. In fact, he was unusually serious for his age. He was
not yet thirty, but he had done a great deal of reading, and he took a
keen interest in all the political and sociological questions of the
hour. In personal appearance, he was the type of man that both men and
women like--tall and athletic looking, with smooth face and clean-cut
features. He had the steel-blue eyes and the fighting jaw of his
father, and when he smiled he displayed two even rows of very white
teeth. He was popular with men, being manly, frank and cordial in his
relations with them, and women admired him greatly, although they were
somewhat intimidated by his grave and serious manner. The truth was
that he was rather diffident with women, largely owing to lack of
experience with them.
He had never felt the slightest inclination for business. He had the
artistic temperament strongly developed, and his personal tastes had
little in common with Wall Street and its feverish stock manipulating.
When he was younger, he had dreamed of a literary or art career. At one
time he had even thought of going on the stage. But it was to art that
he turned finally. From an early age he had shown considerable skill as
a draughtsman, and later a two years' course at the Academy of Design
convinced him that this was his true vocation. He had begun by
illustrating for the book publishers and for the magazines, meeting at
first with the usual rebuffs and disappointments, but, refusing to be
discouraged, he had kept on and soon the tide turned. His drawings
began to be accepted. They appeared first in one magazine, then in
another, until one day, to his great joy, he received an order from an
important firm of publishers for six washdrawings to be used in
illustrating a famous novel. This was the beginning of his real
success. His illustrations were talked about almost as much as the
book, and from that time on everything was easy. He was in great demand
by the publishers, and very soon the young artist, who had begun his
career of independence on nothing a year so to speak, found himself in
a handsomely appointed studio in Bryant Park, with more orders coming
in than he could possibly fill, and enjoying an income of little less
than $5,000 a year. The money was all the sweeter to Jefferson in that
he felt he had himself earned every cent of it. This summer he was
giving himself a well-deserved vacation, and he had come to Europe
partly to see Paris and the other art centres about which his fellow
students at the Academy raved, but principally--although this he did
not acknowledge even to himself--to meet in Paris a young woman in whom
he was more than ordinarily interested--Shirley Rossmore, daughter of
Judge Rossmore, of the United States Supreme Court, who had come abroad
to recuperate after the labours on her new novel, "The American
Octopus," a book which was then the talk of two hemispheres.
Jefferson had read half a dozen reviews of it in as many American
papers that afternoon at the New York Herald's reading room in the
Avenue de l'Opera, and he chuckled with glee as he thought how
accurately this young woman had described his father. The book had been
published under the pseudonym "Shirley Green," and he alone had been
admitted into the secret of authorship. The critics all conceded that
it was the book of the year, and that it portrayed with a pitiless pen
the personality of the biggest figure in the commercial life of
America. "Although," wrote one reviewer, "the leading character in the
book is given another name, there can be no doubt that the author
intended to give to the world a vivid pen portrait of John Burkett
Ryder. She has succeeded in presenting a remarkable character-study of
the most remarkable man of his time."
He was particularly pleased with the reviews, not only for Miss
Rossmore's sake, but also because his own vanity was gratified. Had he
not collaborated on the book to the extent of acquainting the author
with details of his father's life, and his characteristics, which no
outsider could possibly have learned? There had been no disloyalty to
his father in doing this. Jefferson admired his father's smartness, if
he could not approve his methods. He did not consider the book an
attack on his father, but rather a powerfully written pen picture of an
extraordinary man.
Jefferson had met Shirley Rossmore two years before at a meeting of the
Schiller Society, a pseudo-literary organization gotten up by a lot of
old fogies for no useful purpose, and at whose monthly meetings the
poet who gave the society its name was probably the last person to be
discussed. He had gone out of curiosity, anxious to take in all the
freak shows New York had to offer, and he had been introduced to a tall
girl with a pale, thoughtful face and firm mouth. She was a writer,
Miss Rossmore told him, and this was her first visit also to the
evening receptions of the Schiller Society. Half apologetically she
added that it was likely to be her last, for, frankly, she was bored to
death. But she explained that she had to go to these affairs, as she
found them useful in gathering material for literary use. She studied
types and eccentric characters, and this seemed to her a capital
hunting ground. Jefferson, who, as a rule, was timid with girls and
avoided them, found this girl quite unlike the others he had known. Her
quiet, forceful demeanour appealed to him strongly, and he lingered
with her, chatting about his work, which had so many interests in
common with her own, until refreshments were served, when the affair
broke up. This first meeting had been followed by a call at the
Rossmore residence, and the acquaintance had kept up until Jefferson,
for the first time since he came to manhood, was surprised and somewhat
alarmed at finding himself strangely and unduly interested in a person
of the opposite sex.
The young artist's courteous manner, his serious outlook on life, his
high moral principles, so rarely met with nowadays in young men of his
age and class, could hardly fail to appeal to Shirley, whose ideals of
men had been somewhat rudely shattered by those she had hitherto met.
Above all, she demanded in a man the refinement of the true gentleman,
together with strength of character and personal courage. That
Jefferson Ryder came up to this standard she was soon convinced. He was
certainly a gentleman: his views on a hundred topics of the hour
expressed in numerous conversations assured her as to his principles,
while a glance at his powerful physique left no doubt possible as to
his courage. She rightly guessed that this was no poseur trying to make
an impression and gain her confidence. There was an unmistakable ring
of sincerity in all his words, and his struggle at home with his
father, and his subsequent brave and successful fight for his own
independence and self-respect, more than substantiated all her
theories. And the more Shirley let her mind dwell on Jefferson Ryder
and his blue eyes and serious manner, the more conscious she became
that the artist was encroaching more upon her thoughts and time than
was good either for her work or for herself.
So their casual acquaintance grew into a real friendship and
comradeship. Further than that Shirley promised herself it should never
go. Not that Jefferson had given her the slightest hint that he
entertained the idea of making her his wife one day, only she was
sophisticated enough to know the direction in which run the minds of
men who are abnormally interested in one girl, and long before this
Shirley had made up her mind that she would never marry. Firstly, she
was devoted to her father and could not bear the thought of ever
leaving him; secondly, she was fascinated by her literary work and she
was practical enough to know that matrimony, with its visions of
slippers and cradles, would be fatal to any ambition of that kind. She
liked Jefferson immensely--more, perhaps, than any man she had yet
met--and she did not think any the less of him because of her resolve
not to get entangled in the meshes of Cupid. In any case he had not
asked her to marry him--perhaps the idea was far from his thoughts.
Meantime, she could enjoy his friendship freely without fear of
embarrassing entanglements.
When, therefore, she first conceived the idea of portraying in the
guise of fiction the personality of John Burkett Ryder, the Colossus of
finance whose vast and ever-increasing fortune was fast becoming a
public nuisance, she naturally turned to Jefferson for assistance. She
wanted to write a book that would be talked about, and which at the
same time would open the eyes of the public to this growing peril in
their midst--this monster of insensate and unscrupulous greed who, by
sheer weight of his ill-gotten gold, was corrupting legislators and
judges and trying to enslave the nation. The book, she argued, would
perform a public service in awakening all to the common danger.
Jefferson fully entered into her views and had furnished her with the
information regarding his father that she deemed of value. The book had
proven a success beyond their most sanguine expectations, and Shirley
had come to Europe for a rest after the many weary months of work that
it took to write it.
The acquaintance of his son with the daughter of Judge Rossmore had not
escaped the eagle eye of Ryder, Sr., and much to the financier's
annoyance, and even consternation, he had ascertained that Jefferson
was a frequent caller at the Rossmore home. He immediately jumped to
the conclusion that this could mean only one thing, and fearing what he
termed "the consequences of the insanity of immature minds," he had
summoned Jefferson peremptorily to his presence. He told his son that
all idea of marriage in that quarter was out of the question for two
reasons: One was that Judge Rossmore was his most bitter enemy, the
other was that he had hoped to see his son, his destined successor,
marry a woman of whom he, Ryder, Sr., could approve. He knew of such a
woman, one who would make a far more desirable mate than Miss Rossmore.
He alluded, of course, to Kate Roberts, the pretty daughter of his old
friend, the Senator. The family interests would benefit by this
alliance, which was desirable from every point of view. Jefferson had
listened respectfully until his father had finished and then grimly
remarked that only one point of view had been overlooked--his own. He
did not care for Miss Roberts; he did not think she really cared for
him. The marriage was out of the question. Whereupon Ryder, Sr., had
fumed and raged, declaring that Jefferson was opposing his will as he
always did, and ending with the threat that if his son married Shirley
Rossmore without his consent he would disinherit him.
Jefferson was cogitating on these incidents of the last few months when
suddenly a feminine voice which he quickly recognised called out in
English:
"Hello! Mr. Ryder."
He looked up and saw two ladies, one young, the other middle aged,
smiling at him from an open fiacre which had drawn up to the curb.
Jefferson jumped from his seat, upsetting his chair and startling two
nervous Frenchmen in his hurry, and hastened out, hat in hand.
"Why, Miss Rossmore, what are you doing out driving?" he asked. "You
know you and Mrs. Blake promised to dine with me to-night. I was coming
round to the hotel in a few moments."
Mrs. Blake was a younger sister of Shirley's mother. Her husband had
died a few years previously, leaving her a small income, and when she
had heard of her niece's contemplated trip to Europe she had decided to
come to Paris to meet her and incidentally to chaperone her. The two
women were stopping at the Grand Hotel close by, while Jefferson had
found accommodations at the Athenee.
Shirley explained. Her aunt wanted to go to the dressmaker's, and she
herself was most anxious to go to the Luxembourg Gardens to hear the
music. Would he take her? Then they could meet Mrs. Blake at the hotel
at seven o'clock and all go to dinner. Was he willing?
Was he? Jefferson's face fairly glowed. He ran back to his table on the
terrasse to settle for his Vermouth, astonished the waiter by not
stopping to notice the short change he gave him, and rushed back to the
carriage.
A dirty little Italian girl, shrewd enough to note the young man's
attention to the younger of the American women, wheedled up to the
carriage and thrust a bunch of flowers in Jefferson's face.
"Achetez des fleurs, monsieur, pour la jolie dame?"
Down went Jefferson's hand in his pocket and, filling the child's hand
with small silver, he flung the flowers in the carriage. Then he turned
inquiringly to Shirley for instructions so he could direct the cocher.
Mrs. Blake said she would get out here. Her dressmaker was close by, in
the Rue Auber, and she would walk back to the hotel to meet them at
seven o'clock. Jefferson assisted her to alight and escorted her as far
as the porte-cochere of the modiste's, a couple of doors away. When he
returned to the carriage, Shirley had already told the coachman where
to go. He got in and the fiacre started.
"Now," said Shirley, "tell me what you have been doing with yourself
all day."
Jefferson was busily arranging the faded carriage rug about Shirley,
spending more time in the task perhaps than was absolutely necessary,
and she had to repeat the question.
"Doing?" he echoed with a smile, "I've been doing two things--waiting
impatiently for seven o'clock and incidentally reading the notices of
your book."