Detroit was flying high; it was spending as few cities have ever spent.
Wealth poured in upon her, and men who, ten years before, had worried when
they heard their landlady's step on the stairs were building palaces in
the midst of grounds for which they paid fabulous sums for each foot of
frontage. No clerk or school-teacher was too poor to own a lot in a
subdivision, laid out with sidewalks and shade trees, miles beyond the
city's limits. Overnight land increased in value, so that fortunate ones
who paid ten dollars down on a lot sold their equities within the month at
profits of hundreds of dollars. Men bought distant pasture-land for a song
and sold it for an opera. The streets were full of tales of this man who
had made a hundred thousand dollars, of that man who had cleared sixty
thousand, of men by the dozens whose bank-accounts had increased more
modestly, but still by thousands. Land that had gone begging at ten
dollars a foot was eagerly sought at a hundred dollars.... This was a
by-product of that great manufactory of wealth, the automobile.
As for it, and its growing sister, munitions, one believed whatever was
told, and the tale fell short of the truth. One manufacturer filled the
banks with his deposits, and, when they refused to accept more, was
obliged to build his own bank.
When money flows in torrentially it washes away walls of economy. Detroit
spent as it earned--lavishly. It was just completing what is perhaps the
most magnificent clubhouse in the United States--a million-dollar
plaything, the money for which had been raised almost in an hour. It was
the new Detroit Athletic Club, outgrowth of that historic and honorable
old athletic club which had so long been a landmark on Woodward Avenue
when land was cheap and a quarter-mile cinder track and football-field
might be maintained in the heart of the city. Five thousand men were found
instantly who could afford this luxury.
Magnificent new hotels sprang up miraculously; department stores,
surprised in their inadequacy by the multiplication of population, were
adding annexes treble the size of the original stores. Everybody owned a
motor-car.... The cabaret moved westward and found a welcome in a town
once famous for its staidness. The handling of motor traffic became a
greater problem for the police than the protection of the city from crime.
And yet people scarcely realized what was happening. They took it as a
matter of course--and flew high with the city.
Across the ocean another type of highflyer was coming into prominence. One
might say the war had passed through its second phase. The first phase was
the phase of fighting-men, of armies, of obtaining soldiers with rifles.
The second phase was the artillery phase, the high-explosive phase. Each
for its months filled the papers and demanded the interest of the
world.... Now was approaching the third, the aeroplane phase. It was
beginning to overshadow the other two in public estimation. Aeroplanes
were no longer contraptions which one went to the country fair to watch
performing tricks. They had come into their own. They ranked as a
_necessity_. They had emerged from the cloud of obscurity which hung low
over the battle-fields, and men were made to realize that victory in the
air meant victory in the fields below....
Potter Waite had thought much of this, had hoped for it, had even ventured
to prophesy it. One might say he was deeply interested in highflying of
both sorts.
A certain fascination which mechanics held for him since childhood had
enabled Potter to finish a turbulent college career with a
mechanical-engineering degree. This, or what it represented, he had never
put to use except in the way of a pastime. But aeronautics interested him.
He was so fortunate as to be rich enough to play with aeroplanes, to fly
aeroplanes, to own and experiment with aeroplanes, and there was something
about the risk of it, the romance of it, the thrill of it, the novelty and
the miracle of it, that fitted well into the recklessness of his
unsatisfied nature. So he had been one of the country's earliest amateur
aviators. The part taken by the aeroplane in the Great War had quickened
that interest, solidified it. It had become something more than the fad of
a rich young man to him.
It was during the week that followed the sinking of the _Lusitania_ that
Potter was introduced to a Major Craig, of that then comparatively unknown
branch of the United States military machinery known as the Signal Corps.
It was at the Country Club, and Potter, who was seldom drawn to an
individual, felt something much akin to boyish admiration for the slender,
trim, uniformed figure of the young major. Craig was young for a major. He
might have been forty, but a well-spent man's life made him appear
younger. He had not the face we have taken as typical of our soldier, but
rather the softer, gentler features of the enthusiast--not the sharp,
hungry look of the fanatic. He was a man with one compelling interest in
life, a man bound to his profession, not by duty, but by love. Something
of this was apparent at a glance. It became plain upon acquaintance. There
was something about him--not the uniform he wore--but a subtle
characteristic which set him apart from the run of men. He was distinct.
After half an hour's chat with him Potter perceived that the major was
something wholly outside his experience, and he was interested. He was
interested in the major's conversation, in his appearance, but chiefly in
that peculiar something which made Craig different from La Mothe or
Kraemer or O'Mera. The others who had gathered about the table wandered
off upon the links and left Potter and the major alone.
"You are the Potter Waite who has done something in the flying way, are
you not?" asked the major.
"A little."
"I wish," said the major, enthusiasm fighting in his eyes, "that there
were ten thousand of you."
"There are people around this town," Potter said, laughingly, "who wish
there were one less."
The major did not join in Potter's laugh, but regarded the young man
shrewdly, appraisingly--with something of sympathy and understanding in
his eyes. He got to his feet abruptly. "I should be obliged, Mr. Waite,"
he said, "if you would play around with me."
Presently they were equipped and walking toward the first tee.
"Mr. Waite," said the major, "have you ever considered the possibility
that this country might be compelled to enter the war?"
"Yes," said Potter, and the major saw that darkening of his eyes, that
sullen, restless, forbidding expression which came at times over the boy's
face.
The major laid his hand on Potter's arm. "You have been disappointed in
us, is that it? You thought the country would flare into righteous rage
over the _Lusitania_ and go knight-erranting? Is that it?"
"Didn't you?" Potter countered, a bit sharply.
"I am not permitted to express opinions," said the major, simply. "You
wanted immediate war because you are young and easily moved. Perhaps
because you have not thought deeply what war means. I take it you are
impulsive.... Have you asked yourself _why_ you want war? Was it mere
resentment? That isn't an excuse for war. Was it the adventure of it? Or
was it possibly something bigger and deeper? What do you think of the
United States, anyhow?"
Potter did not reply immediately. What _did_ he think about the United
States? He did not know. As a matter of fact, he had done very little
thinking about the United States; had rather taken the United States for
granted. Somehow he felt embarrassed by the question.
"Do you perhaps _love_ your country?" asked the major.
From another man Potter might have regarded this question as a symptom of
mawkish sentimentality. From the major it seemed natural, unaffected, as
if the major had the right to ask such a question and have a plain answer.
Craig waited for Potter to answer, his face grave, gentle; his bearing
sympathetic. Potter felt the sympathy, felt that he and this officer could
grow to be friends.
"Why," said Potter, presently, "I don't know."
The major nodded his head. "I'm afraid that's the way with most of us--we
don't know. We're thinking about ourselves and our businesses and about
making money and passing the time. We have grown unconscious of the
country just as we are unconscious of the air we breathe. That's hardly a
state of mind to carry us into war, is it?"
"No," said Potter.
"Because war requires love of country," said the major. "Not the love of
country that orators talk about on July Fourth, but the kind of love that
is willing to prove itself. War, Mr. Waite, means sacrifices such as we do
not even dream of. It means that love of country must take place over
everything else. Not a stingy loyalty, but a real _love_--the sort that
gives life and everything one possesses to the country. Mr. Waite, if we
should go to war to-morrow and your country should come to you and say, 'I
want your life. I want everything you possess in the world--wealth,
comfort, place. I need _everything_ to win this war,' what would you say?
Would you give willingly and gladly? I mean what I say literally."
Potter stopped and faced his companion a moment in silence. "Could you?"
he asked.
"I think I could," said Craig. "I think my country means all that to me."
"Why?"
"That you will have to find out for yourself. I can't teach you
patriotism, love of country, in half an hour, nor in a course of twenty
lessons. I couldn't teach you to love a woman. Each man must find those
things for himself."
"I suppose so," said Potter, uneasily, and they walked along together in
silence.
"We've heard a great deal about military preparedness lately," said the
major, presently. "It's in my mind that we need another sort of
preparedness even more. There _is_ such an emotion as patriotism, Mr.
Waite, but it seems to be dormant in this people. A couple of generations
of ease and prosperity and peace have lulled it to sleep. We have grown
careless of our country, as we sometimes grow careless of our parents. But
I believe patriotism is here--more than we need universal military
training, more than we need artillery and ammunition and war-ships, we
need its awakening. We can never have one sort of preparedness without the
other."
"I had never thought about it," said Potter.
"Will you think about it, Mr. Waite? And when you have thought about it,
see if you don't find it demanding something of you.... Do you know that
an army without aeroplanes is like a blind man in a duel with a man who
sees? Think about that. I sha'n't tell you how many 'planes we have, nor
how many trained aviators. It would shock you."
"I know something about that."
"But have you realized that if events force us into this war we shall
need, not hundreds of 'planes, but thousands--possibly twenty-five
thousand?"
Potter was astonished at the number. "Really?" he asked.
"That many will be absolutely necessary, and the best and fastest 'planes
that can be had. Where will we get twenty-five thousand of them?"
"God knows," said Potter.
"Mr. Waite, the War Department is not sleeping. Will it surprise you to
know that I came to Detroit solely to have this talk with you?"
"With me?"
"We know all about you, and about every other amateur aviator in the
country. _All_ about you," the major repeated.
"I'm surprised you found it worth your while to come, then," Potter said,
with, a trace of bitterness.
"For instance," said the major, "we know what happened in your
Pontchartrain Hotel the night the _Lusitania_ was sunk."
Potter flushed angrily, but made no reply.
"The manner of it," said the major, quietly, "was regrettable. The impulse
behind it--and we looked for that impulse--was hoped to be something not
regrettable. I came to find out that and other things. I have not come to
offer advice, Mr. Waite, merely to get information valuable to our
country.... Had you thought you might be valuable?"
"General opinion seems to hold the opposite view."
It was the major's turn to remain silent. He watched Potter's face keenly.
"What do you want of me?" Potter asked, finally.
"What would you do if war came?" countered the major.
"Enlist, I suppose. As an aviator, if I could. I've been thinking of going
to France, anyhow."
"That's adventure," said the major. "And as for enlisting, would you be
most valuable there or here--helping to produce those twenty-five thousand
'planes? Think that over."
"Do you believe we shall be in it?" asked Potter.
"I don't know," said the major. "But I do know that the man who goes ahead
as if he were sure we shall will be doing the thing he should do. You, for
instance, might think aeroplanes, plan aeroplanes, dream
aeroplanes--fighting-'planes.... Shall we play around now?"
They played around, for the most part in silence, for Potter was following
the major's direction to think. In the locker-room and in the shower-baths
they did not allude to the matter of their conversation, and when they
came out on the piazza of the club they found themselves in the midst of a
party of younger members talking the sort of talk that is generally to be
heard on country-club piazzas and drinking as if that were the business of
their lives.
"Hey, Potter," called Jack Eldredge, "come over here and meet a pilgrim
and a stranger--also state your preference."
The major touched Potter's shoulder. "Think it all over," he said, and
turned away.
Potter walked to Eldredge's table, and Jack presented him to a young man
in his early thirties who stood up and shook Potter's hand warmly.
"Mr. Cantor, Mr. Waite," said Jack. "Mr. Cantor came this morning from New
York. Friend of the Mallards and the Keenes. Goin' to be around Detroit
quite some time--so I put him up here, of course."
"Mr. Eldredge was very kind indeed," said Cantor. "I have hoped to meet
you, Mr. Waite. I have letters to you from Mr. Welliver and Mr. Brevoort."
They sat down and Potter observed the stranger. He was dark, smooth of
face save for a carefully shaped, slender mustache. His features were
rather thin, but quick with intelligence. There was a hint of military
training in his shoulders. It appeared he had recently come from abroad,
and soon was talking fluently and entertainingly about his experiences on
the fringe of the zone of war. Potter wondered what his nationality might
be. At first he fancied the accent was of Cambridge, but there was another
hint of accent underlaying the careful enunciation of the Cambridge man.
Potter made the guess that Cantor had been born to some tongue other than
English, but had, probably, been educated in one of the English
universities. This supposition was proved later to be correct.
"I represent an investment syndicate," said Cantor to Potter, presently.
"They have sent me over to study the situation here, particularly the
automobile industry. I seem to have come to the place to do that
thoroughly," he added, with an attractive smile.
"Detroit suffers with the automobile-manufacturing habit. There's no
cure," said Eldredge.
"What a fascinating location your city has, Mr. Waite!" said Cantor. "I
call to mind no other great city situated directly upon an international
boundary-line. You sit in your offices and look into foreign
territory--but I presume you are so accustomed to it that you seldom give
it a thought."
"Somehow," said Potter, "we don't think of Canada as foreign."
"No," said Cantor, "but I can conceive of circumstances which would compel
you to think of it as foreign. I understand your government is irritated
by certain British actions with regard to your mails and shipping. Might
not something disagreeable grow out of that?"
"It might. These are puzzling days, Mr. Cantor. I confess I am bewildered
by them. Impossible events happen with startling ease, and inevitable
consequences fail to follow amazingly. Yes, I can imagine trouble coming
with Great Britain, but somehow it does seem unlikely as long as Germany
lays a murder on every mail-bag England plays. You aren't especially apt
to bother with a man who jostles you in a crowd if there is another man
trying to hit you with an ax."
Cantor half shut his eyes and peered into his glass. Presently he looked
up to Potter and nodded. "I get your point of view," he said. "I wonder
how many people share it."
"I've given up guessing what the people think."
"It wouldn't surprise me to see your public opinion veering to favor
Germany."
"Some of our public opinion does favor it. Our German-Americans and such
like."
"A good many of them--millions I understand."
"Yes."
"Perhaps capable of influencing a majority?"
"I don't know," said Potter, and nodded his head, not exactly with
satisfaction, but as a man does who fancies he has made a point in an
argument. "German public opinion here seems to be organized," said Potter.
"The German government is efficient. If it has felt the need of fostering
your favorable opinion, I think we may say it has taken steps to foster
it."
Potter wondered just where Cantor stood in the matter, but the courteous
air of the man, his manner of putting a question, were not those of a man
holding to one opinion or the other, but of a seeker after information. He
asked questions, but answered none, not even by the expression of his
face. He had made no direct statement; had shown neither pleasure nor
displeasure with what he had heard. Yet Potter judged him to be a man
capable of strong opinions and of taking action in support of them. There
was nothing neutral about the man. He was positive, but baffling. He was
an individual who would play his cards on the merits of his own hand,
Potter thought, and would carry his betting just as far as the value of
his cards warranted. Until that point arrived he would not lay down his
hand. Potter determined to see what a direct question would produce.
"What do you think of the sinking of the _Lusitania_?" he asked, abruptly.
Cantor regarded him for an instant with the air of a man who wishes to use
care to express himself clearly, and then he replied with such a manner of
clarity as made Potter chuckle inwardly.
"The sinking of the _Lusitania_," he said, with the positiveness of a man
stating an incontrovertible fact, "is a matter without precedent. It is my
firm opinion that the German Admiralty considered carefully every effect
which might derive from it before ordering the act."
An ironic rejoinder occurred to Potter--a rejoinder which he would have
made regardless of courtesy had his unlovable mood been upon him--but he
withheld it now, contenting himself with a smile which Cantor read
correctly and answered with a twinkle of his clear eyes. Potter knew that
Cantor had weighed his intention to draw a positive statement and rather
enjoyed the knowledge that Potter understood fully his evasion of it.
The conversation turned to less momentous affairs, but it seemed as if
Cantor could not express fully his admiration for Detroit and for its
location. He spoke of the Lakes, of the millions of tons of ore and
millions of bushels of wheat traveling past Detroit's door in the holds of
mighty vessels; of vessels which carried northward cargoes of coal to a
region where coal was a necessity. He referred to the carriage of
passengers by water on steamers of a size and luxury which the stranger
perceived with amazement on an inland waterway. He had a word to say about
the ship-canals at Sault Sainte Marie and the Welland, and of that minor
canal at the mouth of the River St. Clair. Eldredge told him something of
the new channel constructed in American waters across Lime Kiln Crossing
and Bar Point Shoals below the city, and described how engineers had
constructed the mightiest coffer dam in the history of engineering; how
they had built dikes miles in length to hold out the waters of the river,
pumped dry the areas between, and then sawed their channel out of the dry
rock. Cantor was fascinated by it all.
"But," said he, "those are points of danger, are they not? Suppose that
war with England should arrive. Would not your Eastern steel-mills, upon
which you must depend for the manufacture of ordnance and munitions, be
left helpless if one of these gateways from lake to lake should be closed?
Imagine the destruction of the locks at the Soo, for instance? Are they
well guarded?"
"Probably," said Potter, "there is an aged constable with a tin star
within calling distance."
"It is a splendid thing for a country to have the feeling of security that
yours holds," said Cantor, with open admiration that Potter felt, but
could not identify, to be derisive.
"Why should we guard them?" Eldredge asked. "We aren't fighting anybody.
Besides, an army never could get to them."
Potter shot a glance at Eldredge which was tipped with contempt, and
Cantor intercepted it and smiled at Potter as one man smiles who shares a
bit of humor with another. It was as much as to say, "You and I have more
common sense than to say that, haven't we?"
Cantor drew the conversation away from war again. "You play golf here
frequently?" he asked Potter.
"As often as I can manage it."
"I play a duffer's game myself, but I hope you will take me on some day.
They tell me you are above the average. I shall enjoy watching you--and
possibly can pick up some pointers. My approach is miserable--miserable."
"Easiest stroke in the bag," said Eldredge.
"No doubt, but there is no easiest stroke for me. In my case they are all
difficult, with some worse than the rest."
"Glad to go around with you any time," said Potter, and Cantor made it
apparent that he was really gratified. He had abilities that way, a manner
which seemed, without effusiveness, to express admiration; to show that he
was most favorably impressed by a companion.
Either the man was naturally affable or he had set himself with purpose to
make friends of those in whose company he found himself at that moment,
Potter decided. As for Potter, he did not enter into the conversation, but
sat back listening and thinking. Without setting himself deliberately to
do so, he studied Mr. Cantor, and was compelled to the conclusion that the
stranger was an exceptionally brilliant man; not only that, but a man of
personality, dominating personality. The others of the party appeared
colorless when set against him. Potter wondered if he himself seemed as
colorless as they.
Potter was one who liked or disliked swiftly. Usually, on meeting an
individual, he determined instantly and almost automatically whether or
not he cared to continue the acquaintance and to admit the stranger to
fellowship. He found himself unable to make up his mind about Cantor. That
gentleman was too complex to make the judgment of him a matter of a word
and a glance.
Potter was disturbed and uneasy. The atmosphere of the club piazza
irritated him this afternoon. He could not enter into the spirit of the
effort to make dragging time pass endurably, which was the profession of
most of the men present. Major Craig had surprised him, had increased the
restlessness, the dissatisfaction which so frequently possessed him, and
he wanted to go away alone to carry out the major's direction to think. He
got up suddenly.
"I'm off," he said. "Hope I shall see more of you, Mr. Cantor."
"I should like to call as soon as convenient," said Cantor, "to present my
letters."
"We don't go much on letters of introduction out here," Potter said,
smiling. "A letter of introduction never made anybody like a man he didn't
cotton to, nor dislike a man he took a liking to. Call when you like, and
don't bother with the letters."
Cantor laughed. "Perhaps you're right. But I've always believed that a man
coming to a strange place should come well introduced, if he can. People
are suspicious of strangers. I have provided myself with letters because
it is important to me that there should be no uncertainties about me."
"Bring them along, then," said Potter, who was by nature unfitted to
understand how anybody could care much what strangers or acquaintances
thought of him.
Potter walked to his car, and in a moment was driving toward the street. A
runabout which he recognized at once turned into the grounds and a glance
showed him Hildegarde von Essen was driving. She saw him at the same
instant, and lifted her hand, drawing over to the side of the drive and
stopping. He drew up beside her.
"To-morrow's Tuesday," she said.
"Now look here, Miss von Essen, your father--"
"My father's aunt's rheumatism!" she said. "Father's in New York, and you
promised."
"I know I promised, but in the circumstances you ought to let me off. He
didn't exactly welcome me with open arms, and the Lord only knows what
he'd do if I took you flying."
"You promised," she repeated, stubbornly.
"I know," he said, with the elaborate pretense of patience one shows to a
difficult child, "but--"
"And I'm not afraid of father. To-morrow morning? I'll be ready as early
as you like."
"Nine-thirty, then," he said, helplessly, "at the hangar."
She beamed on him. "You're a duck, Mr. Waite," she said, "and I'll not let
father hurt you."
She drove on and left him looking after her. What a flamelike little thing
she was, he thought. What he did not think was--how like she was to
himself; how her restlessness matched his; how her recklessness and his
recklessness were cut off the same piece. And she was charming in an
exciting sort of way. "If she ever cuts loose--" he said to himself.
He drove home and went up to his own rooms to sit down with his pipe and
figure matters out. Almost word for word he could repeat what the major
had said to him, and he looked for answers to the major's questions. Did
he love his country? What would he do if war came? What ought he to do?...
The first was hardest to answer. He had not been accustomed to the idea of
love of country, but had been contented with the thought that America was
a good-enough place and he was generally satisfied with it. He tried
picturing to himself the invasion of Michigan by German troops; the
re-enacting of the crime of Louvain upon the city of Detroit. His
imagination was vivid, active.... As he created the picture he felt
emotion welling up within him, a sense of the unbearableness of what he
had imagined, the feeling that he could not endure the happening of such a
catastrophe. It was not reason, but heart, that told him there was nothing
he would not sacrifice, suffer, endure to prevent it--and then he asked
himself why.... It seemed, then, that he did love his country. In that
event--what?