OLD FRIENDS
Sponley drove home immediately after the result of the election became
known; but Harriet had expected him earlier, and when she heard the
carriage drive up, she hurried into the hall and opened the door before
he reached it.
“How did you come out?” she asked.
“We win,” he answered, “and comfortably, too.”
He closed the door behind him and then kissed her, and while she was
helping him out of his great-coat, he asked her how her day had gone.
“Well enough,” she answered briefly, “but never mind about that. I want
to know all about the stockholders’ meeting.”
From a casual glance they seem to have changed but little since John
Bagsbury’s wedding day. Sponley has put on another twenty pounds of
flesh; he is so heavy now that he walks but little and sits down
whenever it is possible. His hair is thinner and his lower eyelids
sag somewhat, showing the red. As for Harriet, her once black hair
is really very gray, and the lines are drawn deeper in her face; but
her color is as fresh as ever, and her carriage is erect. Only a
close observer would note that her eyes are too bright and are seldom
still, and that the color in her cheeks flickers at a sudden noise
or movement. When she is left alone and is sure that no one sees,
her nervous energy seems to depart suddenly and leave her limp and
exhausted; then her face grows haggard, and she stares at objects
without seeing them.
Twenty years ago Sponley would have observed; he would have surrounded
her with doctors and nurses, or have taken her away to some quiet place
where she might rest. He would do all that now, and more, only he does
not see. For the years have changed him too.
Melville Sponley and others like him are the soldiers of fortune of
to-day. The world has always known these gentry in every grade in the
social scale, from the great duke, who once led the armies of the queen
of England and was never unwilling to sell out to any one who could
afford to pay his price, to the poor devil who, for a half crown, would
drive a knife into a man’s back; whatever their ability, whatever
their weapons, daggers, or collateral securities, they are all alike
in this: that not having, but getting, is their purpose; it is not the
stake but the play that interests them. In all the active years of
business, Sponley has never produced any wealth, he has never fostered
an industrial enterprise or any commercial interest whatever; he has
juggled with many and has wrecked not a few. He has fought now on this
side of the market, now on that, and he has yet to meet with his first
real defeat. That is partly due to luck, no doubt, but not so much as
many men suppose. Like any other soldier of fortune, he wins by the
difference between his nerve and quickness of judgment and that of
other men.
It is very easy to call such a man a rascal when you are reading
about him in a book; but if you begin doing it among the men of your
acquaintance, it will be awkward.
There is indeed a blind spot on Melville Sponley’s moral retina which
gives him only a very confused sense of the eighth commandment; but
still Jack Dorlin was right in saying that he is not a thorough-going
villain. In the score of years past he has done much good; he has,
whenever possible, been loyal to his friends, and he has never ceased
to hold a genuine affection for his wife; but the struggle has hardened
him, has cased him in a shell, and like an old-time man-at-arms in a
helmet, he can see only the thing immediately in front of him.
Harriet has been in the fight, too, only hers has been the harder part.
When she married Melville Sponley, she gave up everything to him,
and through all the years she has had no interests but his. She has
followed all his campaigns, has praised him and schemed with him, and
been ambitious as he himself for his success. Had she borne him any
children whose care would have brought a gentler influence into her
life, or even if she had been able to find any real companionship among
other women, it might have been different. But as it is, in spite of
her courage and determination, the strain has been unendurable, and her
nerves have been breaking, slowly at first, but more rapidly in these
last few months; and as her own ambition has always been that she might
help him win, the terror that has dogged her has been that she may
prove a drag upon him. So she has told herself every day that she is
glad he does not see.
To their friends, their home life shows few changes after the twenty
years. It was still as comfortable and quiet and unostentatious as
when John Bagsbury was first introduced into it. They live in the same
house, and to-night, after dinner, they came out into the same big
firelit room where John met Alice Blair.
Sponley lighted a cigar and dropped into his easy-chair before the
fire, while Harriet sat down at the piano. He never tired of hearing
her play, and now he listened comfortably and blew smoke rings. But
as the minutes went by her music lost consequence and ceased to be
anything but a fitful progression of hard, dissonant chords. Once
he glanced curiously at her, but her eyes were on the keys, and she
did not see him. Finally she struck a grating discord, softly, and
continued it as though loath to let it go until it throbbed away in
silence.
“What the dickens are you playing!” he exclaimed.
Her hands leaped from the keys; she caught her breath in a gasp, and
there came a splash of color into her face followed by a dead pallor.
Two or three seconds passed before she could command her voice.
“You startled me,” she said monotonously; “I was thinking.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, with real concern. “You’re so different from
other women in the matter of nerves that I never think of your having
any.”
She smiled somewhat ruefully at the compliment. “I was thinking,” she
said, “about that Jervis Curtin affair. It puzzles me. You haven’t told
me all about it.”
She paused to give him a chance to reply, but he only gazed
meditatively at the thread of blue smoke rising from his cigar, and
after a moment she went on:--
“Of course I know that you helped him out a few months ago when he
mixed himself up in some speculation or other, and I know Mrs. Jervis
Curtin, too; so that it seems queer that he should have been able to
get hold of enough of the Bagsbury stock to lay down the law to you and
John.”
“There’s nothing to make a mystery about,” he said at length. “He
hasn’t any of the stock; not a dollar of it. I hold all that’s in his
name. I had him get it for me because I thought I might be able to use
it to better advantage if it wasn’t known to belong to me.”
“Why did you put him in the bank?”
“He wanted it; he can’t afford to do nothing. You’re right in thinking
that his wife spends more than his income, and he needed the salary. I
put him in just on general principles.”
“With the understanding that he’s to watch John Bagsbury,” she said
quickly.
“With no definite understanding at all. Of course, in a general way,
he’s there in my interest, and he knows it.”
“What are you planning to do to John?” she asked. “Stick him or squeeze
him or something? I thought you two were friends.”
“We are friends,” Sponley answered slowly, patiently, as one might
speak to a child. “And I’m not laying any plot to stick him. Nobody
does that wantonly, unless he’s a great fool. It’s a kind of smartness
that doesn’t pay. We are friends,” he repeated, “and I hope we always
may be. I honestly believe that our interests lie together.”
“Then I don’t see why you go to the trouble of hiring a man to spy on
him.”
“If a man could trust absolutely to his foresight, he wouldn’t have to
do things like that, but he can’t. I don’t expect to have to fight John
Bagsbury; but something may turn up that I’m not looking for. If it
does, I’m better off for not laying all my cards on the table. That’s
all. But I’d go a long way to avoid a fight with him.”
“Then your friendship for him is just like your friendship for other
men, only a little more so; it goes just as far as it pays.”
He said nothing. She rose abruptly, walked to the window, and drawing
aside the curtain, stood looking at the dusty snow on the ledge. She
had suddenly felt that she could not bear to look at him, he sat so
still. After a moment she spoke again.
“I knew it was that way at first. We made friends with him because we
thought it would help along. But I thought that in all these years he
had got to be something more to you than just a good investment that
you’d hate to have to take your money out of.”
Still he did not speak. He had not even turned his head when she had
walked to the window.
“I wonder--” her voice, in spite of her effort, was fast getting
beyond her control--“I wonder if there’s anything--anything in the
world--that’s any more to you than that, or if I’m just part of the
game. Oh,” she choked, but recovered her voice and went on rapidly,
“you didn’t want to tell me about the Curtin business. Is it because--”
He rose heavily from his chair; and, coming up behind her, laid his
hands on her shoulders. “Steady,” he said; “you’re tired to-night. I
hadn’t noticed before, but you must be rather played out. I never knew
you to break this way before. What you need is a good rest. You go to
bed now, and to-morrow, when you feel better, we’ll talk about going
away somewhere where you can rest up.”
“No,” she said quickly, facing him, “I don’t want to go away. I’d
rather see it out here.”
With an effort, which he did not at all appreciate, she was rapidly
regaining control of herself. When next she spoke, her manner was
natural.
“I’m rather fagged to-night,” she admitted; “but I’ll be all right
in the morning. And I had been worrying over your not telling me
about--that. I’ve been acting in a very silly way about it. Forget it,
dear, won’t you?”
“I think we’d better call it square,” he answered, smiling. “I ought to
have told you all about it. I don’t quite know why I didn’t.”
He went upstairs with her; then, leaving her at the door, came down to
finish his cigar.
He sat there a long time, thinking. Harriet’s break, as he called it,
alarmed him; largely, it must be confessed, on his own account. She
was the only companion he had; she stimulated him and rested him, and,
what was most important, she appreciated him. The delight would be gone
out of a successful campaign if she were not at his elbow to perceive
and applaud and suggest. Yet his thoughts were not wholly selfish.
Harriet was the best part of him; his affection for her was perhaps
induced only by her strong devotion to him, but whatever its cause and
its limitations, it was genuine. But he did not at all appreciate how
serious her condition really was, and he soon ceased thinking about her
at all.
He took up the evening paper, and after reflecting a long while over
the commercial pages, he decided that lard was going to be a lot
higher in the next few months, and that he would buy some next day.
Then he threw aside the paper, and his mind reverted to John Bagsbury.
In telling Harriet that he did not expect ever to be forced into a
fight with John, he had not been frank. There was, indeed, as yet no
reason for anticipating such an occurrence; but Sponley was intelligent
enough to trust his intuitions, and he felt sure that sooner or later
he and John would have to settle the question as to which was the
better man.
He had no idea when the struggle would come; he would have been greatly
surprised had he known how imminent it really was; and he could form
no guess as to what could precipitate it. But he knew he would be
ready for it when it did come, and at the thought he smiled in genuine
artistic anticipation. John Bagsbury was a worthy antagonist. Sponley
did not wish to fight him, he would go far to avoid fighting him; but
if it should come to that,--and he knew in his heart it would,--well,
the fight would be worth coming a long way to see.