The next morning news came to McDermott that his land on the Silver Fork
was no longer desired by the newly formed company. It was nearly a
fortnight, however, before he learned the railroad was to be built on
the Ravenel side of the river.
The information came with abruptness from John Marix, a gaminlike
broker, who encountered McDermott in the elevator to their mutual
offices.
"Say, McDermott," he cried, with a cheerful laugh, "Ravenel didn't do a
thing to you, did he? _He didn't do a thing to you!_" he repeated, with
a lively chuckle.
McDermott's eyes were bland on the instant. He did not understand the
little man's meaning. What he did understand, always understood,
however, was that he must never be taken off guard in the game of life.
"I am the football of the Street," he said, with a kind of cheerful
despondency. "Everybody does me!"
"Yes they do!" the other responded, derisively. "It's because you've
done everybody that we're glad somebody's got even for a minute!
But"--dropping the bantering tone--"this Ravenel is something of a
wonder. I was at the meeting of the new company to-day. He's full of the
scheme, knows every foot of the land, and is willing to put a whole
bunch of money into it. We've elected him president of the concern."
By the same afternoon the facts of the case were in McDermott's
possession, and the following morning, upon seeing Frank about to enter
the De Peyster offices, he advanced toward him, hand outstretched. He
was entirely unprepared for the manner in which he was received. Frank
nodded to him slightingly, with the scant courtesy he might have
accorded a domestic whom he disliked, and said, with directness, looking
him squarely in the eyes, "I don't care to shake hands with you,
McDermott."
Dermott regarded him steadily in return, the gray gleam in his eyes a
bit brighter, the lines of his mouth harder. Whatever the grave faults
of these two men may have been, there was not a whit of cowardice
between them as they stood facing each other.
"So!" said Dermott. "So!" And yet a third time he repeated "so!"--his
tone one of grave consideration. "Had another done what ye have just
done, Mr. Ravenel," he said, at length, "this little episode might not
have ended so gayly. But for you I have so slight a respect that there's
nothing you could do to me that would make me call ye to account for
it." And, raising his hat high and jauntily, he said, with a laugh:
"Good-morning, Ravenel!"
Frank turned white at the words, but the Irishman had disappeared in an
elevator, and any immediate action seemed impossible and theatric. In
the short time he had spent in New York he had learned many things, and
the narrow, tiled halls of an office building twenty-three stories high,
in Wall Street, did not seem the fitting background for a personal
encounter to which the hills of North Carolina might have lent
themselves with picturesqueness.
He sat thinking the matter over in the club that night with two things
fixed in his mind. First, that he would go to see Katrine in Paris
immediately; of the outcome of such a meeting he took no thought
whatever. Second, that he would put this railroad scheme through;
already the feeling of power, of the consciousness of unsystematized
ability, was stirring within him.
The affair with McDermott rankled, however, and it was with drawn brows
and tightened lips that he answered a telephone call--a call which
changed both of the plans which he had so carefully arranged.
His mother's doctor at Bar Harbor had rung him up to say Mrs. Ravenel
was seriously ill and wanted him to come to her at once. He started at
midnight, to find his mother in a high fever, unconscious of his
arrival, and facing an operation, as the only chance to save her life.
He had been to her always, as she herself put it, "a perfect son," and
for the next three months, which made the time well into December, he
proved the words true, living by her bedside, and allowing himself scant
sleep from the watching and service. It was when she was far toward the
recovery of her health and her old-time beauty that he spoke to her of
his newly formed intentions with characteristic unwordiness.
"I am going into business, mother," he said, "with Philip de Peyster."
She was knitting at the time, counting stitches on large needles, and
she went placidly on with the counting until the set was finished, when
she looked up pleasantly. "You think it will amuse you?" she asked, with
the kind interest which she might have shown concerning a polo game in
which he was to play.
"I am beginning to think a man should have some fixed duties in life,"
Frank explained.
"Yes, certainly," Mrs. Ravenel answered. "The Bible says something like
that, I believe. What are you thinking of doing?"
"Buying and selling things, like railroads and mines," he answered,
smiling at her indifference.
"I'm glad it's Phil de Peyster you are going to buy and sell things
with," Mrs. Ravenel said. "His mother was maid of honor at my wedding,
and a charming girl, Patty Beauregarde, of Charleston. And I am
delighted at anything you do to make you happy, Frank. I have thought
you have not been very gay of late. There is, perhaps, a trouble--"
"What an idea!" he answered.
"Will you have offices and things?" Mrs. Ravenel inquired, vaguely. "I
have always had ideas for office furnishings, you know."
"If you could see Phil's office, mother, I think you would weep. It's
very dirty, and he likes it. It's the dust of his great-grandfathers."
"Well, dearest," Mrs. Ravenel said, "if it amuses you, I'm glad you
thought of doing it," and she folded up her work and put it into her
bag. "Life's a rather dreary affair at best," she concluded, "and
anything that interests one is a positive boon."