At eleven o'clock that night Evie Colebrook came into the room, and,
as she stooped over the bed to kiss her sister, Christina saw
something.
"You've been crying, Evie."
Evie turned away quickly and began to unfasten her skirt. "I--I
twisted my ankle--slipped off the sidewalk--I was a baby to cry!"
Christina watched her as she undressed rapidly. "You haven't said
your prayers, Evie."
"Damn my prayers!" There was a little choke at the end. "Put out
the light, Christina, I'm awfully tired."
Christina reached up for the dangling chain that Ambrose Sault had
fixed to the lamp, but she did not immediately pull it. "Mr. Sault
was talking about people he knew tonight," she said carelessly.
"Have you ever heard of a man called Ronald Morelle?" There was no
answer, then.
"Good-night, Christina."
Christina pulled the chain and the light went out.
V
Beryl Merville told herself, at least once a day, that the average
girl did not give two thoughts about the source of her father's
income. In her case, there was less reason why she should trouble
her head.
Dr. Merville had retired from practice four years before. In his
time, he was what is loosely described as "a fashionable physician,"
and certainly was regarded as one of the first authorities of cardiac
diseases in the country. His practice, as a consultant, was an
extensive one, and his fees were exceptionally high, even for a
fashionable physician. When he retired he was indubitably a rich
man. He sold his house in Devonshire Street and bought a more
pretentious home in Park Place, but--the zest for speculation,
repressed during the time he was following his profession, had
occupied the hours of leisure which retirement brought to him. An
active man, well under sixty, the emptiness of his days, after he had
turned over his work, filled him with dismay. He had broken
violently from the routine of twenty-five years and found time the
heaviest of the burdens he had ever carried. He tried to find
interests and failed. He was under an agreement to the doctor who
had purchased his practice not to return to his profession, or he
would have been back in Devonshire Street a month after he had left.
He bought a few thoroughbreds and sent them to a trainer, but he had
no love for the turf and, although he won a few respectable stakes,
he quitted the game at the end of the first season.
Then he tried the stock market, made a few thousands in oil and grew
more interested. A rubber speculation hurt him, but not so much that
his enthusiasm was damped or his bank balance was seriously affected.
He followed this loss with what might have been a disastrous
investment in South African Mines. Then, at a nerve-racking moment,
came Steppe, who held up the market and let out Merville, bruised and
shaken, but not ruinously so. Here might have ended the speculative
career of Dr. Merville, had he not been under an obligation to the
South African. Within a month of their meeting, the doctor's name
appeared on the prospectus of one of Steppe's companies--a mild and
unromantic cold storage flotation which was a success in every sense.
Merville had many friends in society; people who might look askance
at the name of Jan Steppe, and be disturbed by the recollection of
certain other companies which that gentleman had floated, accepted
Dr. Merville's directorship as evidence of the company's stability
and financial soundness. The issue was over-subscribed and paid a
dividend from the first year.
This object lesson was not lost upon the big man. He followed the
promotion with another. The East Rand Consolidated Deep was floated
for three-quarters of a million. Applications came in for two
millions. Dr. Merville was chairman of the board. Even Jan Steppe
was surprised. Large as was the circle of Merville's acquaintances,
neither his personal popularity nor his standing as a financial
authority could account for this overwhelming success. Merville
himself discounted his own influence, not realizing that in the
twenty-five years of professional life, he had built up a national
reputation. His name had been a household word since his treatment
of a foreign royalty whose case had been regarded by native
physicians as hopeless. This may not have been a complete
explanation; probably the fact that the stock in the cold storage
company stood at a premium had something to do with the rush for
Consolidated Deeps.
The new company did not pay dividends, but long before the first was
due, Mr. Steppe had launched two others. On paper Dr. Merville made
a fortune; actually, he acquired heavy liabilities, not the least of
which was his heavy participation in a private flotation which Mr.
Steppe, with unconscious humor, labeled: "The Investment Salvage
Syndicate." It was a stockholding company and in the main it held
such stock as a general public declined to purchase. There are rules
of behavior which normal people do not transgress. A gentleman does
not search the overcoat pockets of his fellow clubmen, and confiscate
such valuables as he may find; nor does he steal into the houses of
people he does not know and remove their silver. A corporation man
has a less rigid code. Dr. Merville found himself consciously
assisting in the manipulation of a stock, a manipulation which could
only be intended to deprive stockholders of their legitimate rights.
There was one unpleasant moment of doubt and shame when Merville
sought to disentangle his individuality from this corporative
existence. He tried to think singly, applying the tests which had
governed his life--he found it easier to divide his responsibility.
Somehow he felt less venal when only a fourteenth of the blame
attached to him. This fraction represented his holding in
Consolidated Deeps. Wealth is an effective narcotic. Rich and
fearless men can find a melancholy pleasure in the contemplation of
their past sins. But poverty and the danger of poverty acts as a
microphone through the medium of which the still small voice of
conscience is a savage roar.
Beryl thought he was unusually nervous when she went to find him in
his study. He started at the sound of her voice.
"Ready--yes, dear. What time did Steppe say?"
"Eight o'clock. We have plenty of time, father--the car isn't here
yet. Do you know whether Ronnie will be there?"
Dr. Merville was looking abstractedly at her; his mind, she knew, was
very far away. "Ronnie? I don't know. John Maxton will be there.
I saw him today. Steppe admires him and John is clever; he will be a
judge one of these days. Yes--a judge." The little grimace he made
was involuntary.
"One would think you expected to meet him in his official capacity,"
she laughed.
"Absurd of course--as to Ronnie? How do you feel about him, Beryl?"
The maid tapped at the door to say the car had arrived.