At first Brett did not head the launch straight for the _Sappho_. He was
not sure in his own mind whether he intended to visit her, or just to
have a near-by look at her and then return to the club. He had ordered
the launch on an impulse which he could not explain to himself. If she
had been got ready for him promptly he might not have cared at the last
minute to go out in her at all. But there had been a long delay in
finding the engineer, and this had provoked him and made him very sure
that he wanted to use the launch very much. And it hadn't smoothed his
temper to learn that the engineer had been found in the kitchen eating a
Virginia ham in company with the kitchen maid.
But the warmth and salt freshness that came into his face, and the
softness and great number of the stars soon pacified him. If she were
only with him, he thought, if her father were only not on the brink of
ruin, how pleasant the world would be. He pretended that she was with
him, just at his shoulder, where he could not see her, but there just
the same, and that he was steering the launch straight for the ends of
the world. He pretended that for such a voyage the launch would not need
an engineer. He wondered if under the circumstances it would be safe to
steer with only one hand.
But the launch ran suddenly into an oyster stake that went rasping aft
along her side, and at the same moment the searchlight from Fort
Schuyler beamed with dazzling playfulness in his face, and then having
half blinded him wheeled heavenward, a narrow cornucopia of light that
petered out just short of the stars. He watched the searchlight. He
wondered how many pairs of lovers it had discovered along the shores of
Pelham Bay, how many mint-juleps it had seen drunk on the veranda of the
country club, how many kisses it had interrupted; and whether it would
rather pry into people's private affairs or look for torpedo-boats and
night attacks in time of war. But most of all he wondered why it spent
so much of its light on space, sweeping the heavens like a fiery broom
with indefatigable zeal. There were no lovers or torpedo-boats up there.
Even the birds were in bed, and the Wright brothers were known to be
at Pau.
Once more the searchlight smote him full in the face and then, as if
making a pointed gesture, swept from him, and for a long second
illuminated the black hull and the yellow spars of the _Sappho_. Then,
as if its earthly business were over, the shaft of light, lengthening
and lengthening as it rose above intervening obstacles, the bay, the
Stepping Stone light, the Long Island shore, turned slowly upward until
it pointed at the zenith. Then it went out.
"That," thought Brett, "was almost a hint. First it stirred me up; then
it pointed at the _Sappho_; then it indicated that there is One above,
and then it went out."
He headed the launch straight for the _Sappho_, and began to wonder what
one had to do to get aboard of a magnate's yacht at night. He turned to
the engineer.
"Gryce," he said, "what do you know about yachts?"
"What about 'em?" Gryce answered sulkily. He was still thinking of the
kitchen-maid and the unfinished ham, or else of the ham and the
unfinished kitchen maid, I am not sure which.
"What about 'em?" Brett echoed. "Do they take up their gangways at
night?"
"Unless some one's expected," said Gryce.
"Do they have a watchman?"
"One forward and one aft on big yachts."
"Making two," said Brett. "But aren't there usually two gangways--one
for the crew and one for the owner's guests?"
"Crew's gangway is to starboard," Gryce vouchsafed.
Brett wondered if there was anything else that he ought to know. Then,
in picturing himself as running the launch alongside the _Sappho_, and
hoping that he would not bump her, a question presented itself.
"If I were going to visit the _Sappho_," he asked, "would I approach the
gangway from the stern or from the bow?"
"I don't know," said Gryce.
"Do you mean," said Brett, "that you don't know which is the correct
thing to do, or that you think I can't steer?"
"I mean," said Gryce, "that I know it's one or the other, but I don't
know which."
"In that case," said Brett, "we will approach from the rear. That is
always the better part of valor. But if the gangway has been taken up
for the night I don't know what I shall do."
"The gangway was down when the light was on her," said Gryce. "I seen
it."
And that it was still down Brett could presently see for himself. He
doubted his ability to make a neat landing, but they seemed to be
expecting him, for a sailor ran down to the gangway landing armed with
a long boat-hook, and made the matter easy for him. When he had reached
the _Sappho's_ deck an officer came forward in the darkness, and said:
"This way, sir, if you please."
"There's magic about," thought Brett, and he accompanied the officer
aft.
"Mr. Merriman," said the latter, "told us to expect you half an hour ago
in a motor-boat. Did you have a breakdown?"
"No," said Brett, and he added mentally, "but I'm liable to."
They descended a companionway; the officer opened a sliding door of some
rich wood, and Brett stepped into the highly lighted main saloon of
the _Sappho_.
In one corner of the room, with his back turned, the famous Mr. Merriman
sat at an upright piano, lugubriously drumming. Brett had often heard of
the great man's secret vice, and now the sight of him hard at it made
him, in spite of the very real trepidation under which he was laboring,
feel good-natured all over--the Colossus of finance was so earnest at
his music, so painstaking and interested in placing his thick, clumsy
fingers, and so frankly delighted with the effect of his performance
upon his own ear. It seemed to Brett homely and pleasant, the thought
that one of the most important people of eighty millions should find
his pleasure in an art for which he had neither gift nor training.
Mr. Merriman finished his piece with a badly fumbled chord, and turned
from the piano with something like the show of reluctance with which a
man turns from a girl who has refused him. That Mr. Merriman did not
start or change expression on seeing a stranger in the very heart of his
privacy was also in keeping with his reputed character. It was also like
him to look steadily at the young man for quite a long while before
speaking. But finally to be addressed in courteous and pleasant tones
was not what Brett expected. For this he had his own good looks to
thank, as Mr. Merriman hated, with the exception of his own music,
everything that was ugly.
"Good-evening, sir," said Mr. Merriman. "But I can't for the life of me
think what you are doing on my yacht. I was expecting a man, but
not you."
"You couldn't guess," said Brett, "why I have been so impertinent as to
call upon you without an invitation."
"Then," said Mr. Merriman, "perhaps you had better tell me. I think I
have seen you before."
"My name is Brett," said Brett. "You may have seen me trying to play
tennis at Newport. I have often seen you there, looking on."
"You didn't come to accuse me of being a looker-on?" Mr. Merriman asked.
"No, sir," said Brett, "but I do wish that could have been the reason.
I've come, sir, as a matter of fact, because you are, on the contrary,
so very, very active in the game."
"I don't understand," said Merriman rather coldly,
"Oh," said Brett, "everybody I care for in the world is being ruined,
including myself, and I said, 'Mr. Merriman could save us all if he only
would.' So I came to ask you if you couldn't see your way to letting up
on us all."
"'Mr. Brett," said Mr. Merriman, "you may have heard, since gossip
occasionally concerns herself with me, that in my youth I was a priest."
Brett nodded.
"Well," continued Mr. Merriman, "I have never before listened to so
naïve a confession as yours."
Brett blushed to his eyes.
"I knew when I came," he said, "that I shouldn't know how to go about
what I've come for."
"But I think I have a better opinion of you," smiled Mr. Merriman, and
his smile was very engaging. "You have been frank without being fresh,
you have been bashful without showing fear. You meet the eye in a manly
way, and you seem a clean and worthy young man. As opposed to these
things, what you might have thought out to say to me would
hardly matter."
"Oh," cried Brett impulsively, "if you would only let up!"
"I suppose, Mr. Brett," the banker smiled, even more engagingly, "that
you mean you would like me to come to the personal rescue of all those
persons who have recently shown bad judgment in the conduct of their
affairs. But let me tell you that I have precisely your own objections
to seeing people go to smash. But they _will_ do it. They don't even
come to me for advice."
"You wouldn't give it to them if they did," said Brett.
"No," said Mr. Merriman, "I couldn't. But I should like to, and a piece
of my mind to boot. Now, sir, you have suggested something for me to do.
Will you go further and tell me how I am to do it?"
"Why," said Brett, diffidently but unabashed, "you could start in early
to-morrow morning, couldn't you, and bull the market?"
"Mr. Brett," said Mr. Merriman forcefully, "I have for the last month
been straining my resources to hold the market. But it is too heavy,
sir, for one pair of shoulders."
A look of doubt must have crossed Brett's face, for the banker smote his
right fist into the palm of his left hand with considerable violence,
and rose to his feet, almost menacingly.
"Have the courtesy not to doubt my statements, young sir," he said
sharply. "I have made light of your intrusion; see that you do not make
light of the courtesy and consideration thus shown you."
"Of course, I believe you," said Brett, and he did.
"You are one of those," said Mr. Merriman, "who listen to what the run
of people say, and make capital of it."
"Of course, I can't help hearing what people say," said Brett.
"Or believing it!" Mr. Merriman laughed savagely, "What are they saying
of me these days?" he asked.
Brett hesitated.
"Come, come," said the great man, in a mocking voice. "You are here
without an invitation. Entertain me! Entertain me! Make good!"
Brett was nettled.
"Well," said he, "they say that Mr. Waters was tremendously extended for
a rise in stocks, and that you found it out, and that you hate him, and
that you went for him to give him a lesson, and that you pulled all the
props out of the market, and smashed it all to pieces, just for a
private spite. That's what they say!"
The banker was silent for quite a long time.
"If there wasn't something awful about that," he said at last, "it would
be very funny."
The officer who had ushered Brett into the saloon appeared at the door.
"Well?" said Merriman curtly.
"There's a gentleman," said the officer, "who wants to come aboard. He
says you are expecting him. But as you only mentioned one gentleman--"
"Yes, yes," said Merriman, "I'm expecting this other gentleman, too."
He turned to Brett.
"I am going to ask you to remain," he said, "to assist at a conference
on the present state of the market between yourself, and myself, and my
_arch-enemy_--Mr. Waters."