Potter Waite's outlook upon life had been modified by his accident and by
that period of enforced reflection which followed it; it was again
modified by the occurrences of the night when he had first helped
Hildegarde von Essen to escape from her home and then had compelled her to
return to it. His first emotion had been one of seething rage; this was
succeeded by a bitter feeling that he had been cheated, and he brooded. He
had been cheated because he had given his love to Hildegarde and received
in return for it a blow and her scorn. He did not stop to think. He did
not consider that she was headstrong, impetuous as himself; he did not
consider the suddenness, perhaps the untimeliness, of the proffer of his
love. He did not comprehend that Hildegarde's words and actions were the
result of black disappointment; that her anger with him was to have been
expected of a girl such as she, frustrated by him in a design which she
believed to be vital. Instead of weighing and reflecting he plunged into a
sinister mood.
He became morose; the old charm and magnetism seemed to have deserted him,
and the men who worked with him wondered what could have happened to their
young employer. A great part of his conduct at this time was due to
youth--to youth hugging to its bosom and fondling a hurt to its pride. If
he had been indifferent to his friends before, he avoided them now, made
them feel unwelcome. And he worked.... He drove himself, as a man will
drive himself who has riding upon his back the hag of heartburning. There
is no bitterness in the world like that of sweetness turned to aloes, and
the taste of it was constantly in his mouth.
He threw himself into his work, not with gay enthusiasm, but with the
smoldering fanaticism of a Savonarola. There could be no middle ground for
him, no moderation. He thought and dreamed aeroplanes before because he
loved the work, because he saw the value of the work, and because he
believed enthusiastically that his country required the work of him. Now
he steeped himself in the atmosphere and technicalities of the aeroplane
to crowd Hildegarde von Essen out of his thought. Perhaps now he worked
more rigorously, worked merciless hours, but it is doubtful if he worked
more valuably.
He went to Washington, where the Signal Corps received him as a friend and
gave him hours that were near to pleasantness. Major Craig gave up his
time to Potter, encouraging him, inspiring him, congratulating him. Here
the attitude was the antithesis of the attitude manifested toward him by
those with whom he came into contact in Detroit. He saw all there was to
be seen of the Signal Corps' work and plans and hopes, and was made to
feel himself an important factor. The officers who were his companions
liked him, but wondered if he returned their liking. This was because
Potter was for business and for business alone; he held himself reservedly
aloof from the personal side. From Washington, with imperative
credentials, he visited such of the aeroplane factories as were worth
while and studied what was in them to study. He was thrown into contact
with an Englishman of the Royal Flying Corps, recovering from wounds
received in air-battle with a German 'plane, and from this man of real
experience he learned much of value regarding battle conditions, and what
an aeroplane must be capable of to do its duty.
These matters consumed weeks, but the time expended returned its full
measure of value.
When he came home again the world was farther ahead by much with its grim
business of war; the country itself was in a new stage of its transition,
and unrest, together with a growing realization of the duties and perils
of the position of the United States, was apparent in the minds of
thinking men. Germany's supreme effort to crush France at Verdun was in
progress, but staggering now. The Toledo blade was proving itself able to
cope with the sledgehammer. At home there was reason to be depressed.
Military preparedness seemed doomed to failure; Secretary Garrison had
resigned in protest--and as if in rebuke for our backwardness and
shortness of vision, our very borders were desecrated by contemptible
Mexican bandits which we were not in a state to punish. Pershing's futile
invasion of Mexico in pursuit of Villa was in progress, and disquieting
rumors were filling the country. The country was beginning to seethe with
the approaching presidential campaign.... It was spring, and summer drew
near.
The talk on the streets, in hotels, in the clubs of Detroit, was all of
Mexico now; bets were heard here and there as to whether Pershing would
capture Villa, and sporting wiseacres offered odds on the fugitive. When
the bearing of European events upon America were discussed the
conversation was generally without form and void. The common attitude was
that we would not be drawn into it, but why we would not, or how we would
be kept out, or what the whole significance of matters might be, nobody
seemed to know. There was a deal of bewilderment in those days, not a
little smug complacency and asinine confidence in our immunity to such a
disease as war. Confused thinking was the rule, and the clearest-headed
could but grope and guess and find such comfort as he could in hopes for
the best. If ever a nation in the history of the world was perplexed,
baffled, had not, in the phrase of the street, the least notion where it
was at, then the United States was such a nation in those spring days of
1916.
The nation did not stand where it had stood a year before; there had been
advances, imperceptible, perhaps, to one not a close observer of popular
phenomena. But opinion against Germany was more solidified; irritation was
growing; everywhere you encountered an attitude which seemed to say,
"Germany doesn't want to crowd us too far." Yet you would have had to
search long and carefully to find a man who wanted war. Of course there
was Roosevelt, but, then, what else would one expect of Roosevelt?
Detroit, representing the attitude of the Middle West, rather sneered at
the seaboard for its nervousness. New York had the jumps, one was told. In
New York people were really excited about the situation. Detroit laughed.
A thousand miles lay between her and tidewater; she had no reason to sit
up nights worrying about the arrival of a hostile fleet. She was safe,
knew she was safe, and saw no reason why anybody else should worry. She
was safe, and she was growing richer every time the hands circled the
clock. New York was never going to bully nor frighten Detroit into any
war-hysteria.
Potter was no more certain of future events than the rest; but he was
different in this, that he was for insuring our property, as it were.
There was a chance, a remote chance, possibly, of the worst happening.
Potter was getting ready for that worst--and if it failed to materialize,
so much the better.
He was living at the new Detroit Athletic Club, that monument erected to
Detroit's swiftly acquired wealth. His family was away, the Grossepoint
house closed. Here at the club he encountered the best of Detroit's
opinion, and the worst; saw the best of that spirit which was making her
the marvel city of the continent, and the worst of the consequences of her
tidal wave of prosperity. Here about him was a curious blending of the
conservatism and gentility of older Detroit, with the new-rich, bombastic,
squandering spirit of the day. He saw millionaires whose hands had not yet
had time to free themselves of the callouses of toil in the machine-shop,
whose manners were the manners of the corner barroom, betting fabulous
sums on the rolling of the dice, at poker, at bridge--with opponents who
boasted that their ancestors had owned land in Detroit since the coming of
Cadillac. He saw boys who had once earned their clothes by carrying papers
chumming with boys whose wealth had come down through generations. He saw
much that was creditable, splendid, of great promise; he saw some degree
of that which was, perhaps, inevitable, but was nevertheless deplorable.
He joined but scantily in the life of the club.
He did not see it, did not grasp the fact, but it was impossible that such
men, riding on the crest of a gigantic wave of prosperity, should think
far beyond themselves and the miracle that had made them what they were.
They talked of the Mexican affair academically, as one talks of something
in order to have something to talk about. They discussed the war with all
the interest they would have shown in a championship prize-fight--and most
of them with no deeper interest.... It was a world-spectacle arranged for
the United States to sit by and watch--and derive immense profit from.
Here and there, fortunately, were men of broader vision, of abiding
patriotism. One great manufacturer was taking a salutary step in insisting
that every employee in his mammoth shops should be an American citizen;
one was purchasing space in the newspapers of the country to advertise,
not automobiles, but preparedness. One man had the very stationery of his
firm inscribed with words which not only showed the world where he stood,
but urged the world to step forth and do likewise.
Whatever advances had been made toward presenting a solid front, toward
coherent thought, were due, not to something moving within, something
spontaneous, some natural growth of patriotism, but to Germany. Germany
was awakening America; Germany was America's alarm-clock. Her propaganda,
her bomb plots, her labor agitations, her arrogance, and her submarines
were doing for America what America seemed unable to do for herself....
Germany, while willing quite another thing, was proving herself a friend
to America; she was clumsily, bull-headedly, forcing America to think
together and to the point; she was compelling America to think about
America.... That way lay the path to patriotism.
Tom Watts and O'Mera sat at table with Potter one evening.
"Potter," said Tom, "I'm beginning to think there's something to this
rigmarole you've been talking. This deal at the Mexican border has shown
us up bad.... Something's got to be done.... It got my goat, by Jove!
that's what it did. And I'll tell you what I'm going to do--I'm going to
Plattsburg this summer."
Potter made no reply.
"It's fierce, the state we're in," Tom went on. "Why, what the devil would
happen if some regular nation landed an army on the coast--say a couple of
hundred thousand men? By the time we got ready to fight the war'd be over
with and we'd be cleaned up plenty."
"You make me tired," O'Mera said. "Potter with his aeroplanes, and now you
with your Plattsburg." He looked up and nodded across the room to Cantor.
"Your snappy little friend is running around a lot with that man Cantor,"
he said to Potter.
"Who do you mean?"
"The von Essen girl.... She wants to go easy with that boy--he plays
marbles for keeps.... Rides with him, dances with him, eats with him. None
of my damn business."
"It isn't," said Potter, sharply.
O'Mera failed to notice, but launched into anecdotes of Cantor's
adventures with various women, each adventure cited to demonstrate a
certain cold-bloodedness in the dealings of the man with the other
sex--and a degree of success with the other sex which Potter had not
suspected.
"It's his principal occupation," O'Mera said; "he has some other one, I
guess, but I'm darned if I've ever figured it out. Handles money careless,
too. Must clean up somehow."
Cantor merely appeared in the door of the main dining-room, and, after
looking around, stepped back into the corridor. Watts drew back his chair.
"Let's go down and knock the balls around awhile," he suggested.
"Got a date," said O'Mera.
"Come on, Potter.... I want to talk to you a bit."
Potter nodded and got to his feet. They walked between the tables to the
door and out into the handsome hallway. Coming toward them from the
elevator they saw Cantor and a girl; he had evidently been waiting for her
to come up from the ladies' quarters below. It was Hildegarde von Essen.
Potter stiffened, but did not pause. It was the first time he had seen her
since she struck him across the face and flung herself into the house the
night her flight was turned into a fiasco. She was unchanged; she was the
same slender, daring, challenging, keen creature as before. Something she
was saying compelled a laugh from Cantor. Then he saw Potter and smiled
with surprise.
"Why, Waite, when did you get back?" he asked, and moved forward with hand
outstretched. Potter was walking toward him. Hildegarde's eyes were upon
him; he could feel them, but did not return her look. He dared not. "I'm
mighty glad to see you," Cantor said, as Potter took his hand. "Dined?...
Miss von Essen and I are just going to have a bite. Won't you join us? I'm
sure Miss von Essen seconds that." He turned toward her, and something in
her look, her bearing, startled him. She had grown pale, but her eyes
glittered; she was staring at Potter savagely.
"Most certainly I do _not_," she said, distinctly, and turned her back.
Cantor looked at Potter and lifted his brows. There was the merest hint of
a smile, a sardonic smile. "What's up?" he asked, under his breath. "See
you later, then."
Potter walked down-stairs in grim silence, his two friends eying him
wonderingly, neither caring to speak. The Potter Waite they knew was
accustomed in such circumstances to prove unpleasant.
"So long," O'Mera said, hastily, at the foot of the stairs, and
disappeared toward the coat-room.
"Guess I won't play billiards," Potter said, slowly, to Watts. There was
no other word. He turned abruptly away, and Tom gazed after him, wondering
what it was all about. "Huh!" he ejaculated. "What in thunder?"
Up-stairs, Cantor was equally nonplussed. Hildegarde walked to their
table, drew back her chair, and was about to sit down. Then she pushed the
chair away from her passionately, pushed it so that it fell to the floor
noisily.
"I don't want to eat," she said. "I'm going home."
"But, Miss von Essen--"
"I'm going home, and I'm going alone.... I'm going now."
"What is it? What have I done to offend--"
"Nothing," she said, ungraciously, and began to walk toward the door. He
followed her.
"I said I was going alone," she said, under her breath.
"But--"
She faced him suddenly, flamed out at him. "Go away," she said. "Have I
got to shout at you?... I don't want you.... I don't want anybody.... I'm
going home."
"I will see you to your car," he said. "Careful. People are looking at
us."
She walked rapidly to the elevator; it was as though she tried to run away
from him, but he followed closely. They descended, and she disappeared
into the dressing-room.
"Miss von Essen's car," Cantor said to the doorman.
Presently she reappeared, and was about to leave the club, it appeared,
without noticing his presence. He followed her outside and opened the door
of her car. She stepped in and flung herself upon the seat. "Home," she
said, but did not look at Cantor. He shrugged his shoulders and closed the
door.
He did not go again to the table that had been prepared for himself and
Hildegarde, but entered the grill, where he selected a table in a distant
corner, where he sat biting his lip.
"She's in love with him," he said to himself with the air of a man making
a mathematical calculation. "Um!... All the better, perhaps.... Something
may be made of it."