"Every woman with a head on her knows what she wants when she sees it.
And nowadays, thanks to the efforts of a few noble leaders of our sex,
she has the right and the courage to take it. I haven't wasted any time
talking to _her_." She indicated the flapper, who still fixed the
implacable look on Bean.
"If she doesn't know at nineteen, she never would--"
"We've settled all _that_," said the flapper loftily. "Haven't we?"
Bean nodded. All at once that look of the flapper's began to be
intelligible. He could almost read it.
"I suppose you expect me to talk a lot of that stuff about marriage
being a serious business," continued the Demon evenly. "But I shan't.
Marriage isn't half as serious as living alone is. It's what we were
made for in my time, and your time isn't a bit different, young man."
She raised an argumentative finger toward him, as if he had sought to
contest this.
"I've always--" he began weakly. But the Demon would have none of it.
"Oh, don't tell _me_ what you've 'always!' I know well enough what
you've 'always.' That isn't the point."
What did the woman think she was talking about? Couldn't he say a word
to her without being snapped at?
"What is the point?" he ventured. It was still the waiting game, and it
showed he wasn't afraid of her.
"The point is--"
[Illustration: In that instant Bean read the flapper's look, the look
she had puzzled him with from their first meeting]
And in that instant Bean read the flapper's look, the look she had
puzzled him with from their first meeting. It was like finally
understanding an oft-heard phrase in a foreign tongue. How luminous that
look was now! The simple look of proud and assured and most determined
ownership! It lay quietly on her face now as always. It was the look he
must have bestowed on his shell the first time he saw it. Ownership!
"--the point is," the Demon was saying terribly, "I don't believe in
long engagements."
He had once been persuaded, yielding out of spineless bravado, to
descend the shaft of a mine in a huge bucket. The sensations of that
plunge were now reproduced. He looked up to the far circle of light that
ever diminished as he went down and down.
"I don't believe in them either," said the flapper firmly. "They're
perfectly no good."
"I never did believe in 'em," he heard himself saying. And added with
firmness equal to the flapper's, "Silly!" He was wondering if they would
ever pull him to the surface again; if the rope would break.
"Just what I think," chanted the flapper. "Silly, and then some!"
"Then some!" repeated the male being in helpless, terrified
corroboration.
"Won't he ever come?" queried the Demon. "Oh, here he is!"
The waiter was neatly removing tea and things from the tray. Bean
recalled how on that other occasion he had fearfully believed the earth
would close upon him, how hope revived as he was precariously drawn
upward, and what a novel view the earth's fair surface presented when he
again stood firmly upon it.
It was the waiter who raised him from this other abyss where he had been
like to perish, the waiter and the things, including tea: plates, forks,
napkins, cups and saucers, tea and hot water, jam, biscuit, toast. There
was something particularly reassuring about that plate of nicely matched
triangles of buttered toast. It spoke of a sane and orderly world where
you were never taken off your feet.
"How many lumps?" demanded the pouring flapper.
"Just as you like; I'm not fussy," he answered.
This was untrue. His preference in the matter was decided, but he could
not remember what it was. Afterward he knew that he did not take sugar
in his tea, but the flapper had sweetened it with three lumps. Grandma
again addressed him, engaging his difficult attention with a brandished
fragment of toast.
"I can't imagine how you were ever mad enough to think of it," she said,
"but you were. I give you credit for that. And just let me tell you that
you've won a treasure. Of course, I don't say you won't find her
difficult now and then, but you mustn't be too overbearing; give in a
bit now and then; 't won't hurt you. Remember she's got a will of her
own, as well as you have. Don't try to ride rough-shod--"
"Oh, we've settled all _that_," broke in the flapper. "Haven't we?"
"We've settled all that," said Bean, grateful for the solid feel of a
cup in his fingers.
"Don't be too domineering, that's all," warned the Demon. "She wouldn't
put up with it."
"I understand all _that_," insisted Bean, resolutely seizing a fork for
which he had no use. "I can look ahead!"
He began hurriedly to eat toast, hoping it would seem that he had more
to say but was too hungry to say it.
"I know _you_," persisted the Demon. "Brow-beating, bound to have your
own way, and, after all, she's nothing but a child."
"I'll _want_ him to have his own way," declared the child. "I'll see
that he just perfectly gets it, too!"
"Give and take, that's my motto," he muttered, wondering if more toast
would choke him.
"Be a row back there, of course," said Grandma, "but Julia's going to
marry off the other child after her own heart, and it's only right for
me to have a little say about this one. You're a better man than he is.
You have a good situation and he's just a waster; couldn't buy his own
cigarettes if he had to work for the money, say nothing of his gloves
and ties. Born to riches, born to folly, say I. Still, Julia will fuss
just about so much. Of course, Jim--"
"Oh, poor old Pops!" The flapper gracefully destroyed him as a factor in
the problem.
Bean was feeding toast to Nap, who didn't choke.
"She always has to come around though when the girl makes up her mind. I
haven't had that child in my charge for nothing."
"I have a right to choose the--" The flapper broke her speech with tea.
"I have the _right_," she concluded defiantly.
Bean shuddered. He recalled the terrific remainder of that speech.
"I thought we better have this little talk," said Grandma, "and get
everything understood."
"'S the only way to do," said Bean, wrinkling his forehead, "have
everything clear."
"I had it all perfectly planned out long ago," said the flapper. "I
don't _want_ a large place."
"Lots of trouble," conceded Bean. "Something always coming up," he added
knowingly.
"Nice yard," said the flapper, "plenty of room for flowers and the
tennis court, and I'll do the marketing when I motor in for you. They
won't let me do it back there," she concluded with some acrimony; "and
they get good and cheated and I'm perfectly glad of it. Eighteen cents a
head for lettuce! I saw that very thing on a tag yesterday!"
"Rob you right and left," mumbled Bean. "All you can expect."
"Just leave it all to me," said the flapper with four of her double
nods. "They'll soon learn better."
"Hardly seems as if it could all be true," ventured Bean in a genial
effort at sanity.
"It's just perfectly true and true," insisted the flapper. "I knew it
all the time." She placed the old relentless gaze upon him. He was hers.
"The beautiful, blind wants of youth!" said the Demon, who had been
silent a long time, for her. "I remember--" But it seemed to come to
nothing. She was silent again.
He paid the waiter.
"It was just as well to have this little talk," murmured Grandma as they
arose.
The car throbbed before the steps. They were in and away. A reviving
breeze swept them as the car gained speed. At least it partially revived
one of them.
In the back seat he presently found a hand in his, but his own hand
seemed no longer a part of him. He thought the serenity of the flapper
was remarkable. She seemed to feel that nothing wonderful had happened.
There was something awful about that calm.
* * * * *
The car stopped before the steam-heated apartment. There were but brief
adieus before it went on. Cassidy sat at the head of his basement stairs
with a Sunday paper. He was reading an article entitled, "My Secrets of
Beauty," profusely illustrated.
"I wouldn't have one o' the things did ye give it t' me," said Cassidy.
"Runnin' inta telegrapht poles an' trolley cairs."
"Couple of friends of mine took me out for a little spin," said Bean,
clutching his stick, his gloves and Nap's leash.
He seemed to be still spinning.
In his own place he went quickly to Its closet, pulled open the door and
shouted aloud:
"Well, what do you make of _that_?"
The sound of his own voice was startling as he caught the look of the
serene Ram-tah. He softly closed the door upon what his living self had
been. He was too violent.
But he could not be cool all at once. He tossed hat, stick, and gloves
aside and paced the room.
Engaged to be married! That was all any one could make of it. All the
agreeable iniquity had been extracted from the affair. It was fearsomely
respectable. And it was deadly serious. How had he got into it? And yet
he had always felt something ominous in that girl's look.
And there would be a row "back there." Julia would make the row. And
Jim. They might think Jim wouldn't help in the row, but he knew better.
Jim was old Jim Breede, who would of course take Bunker Bean's head off.
He had been a fool all the time. In the car he had strained himself to
the point of mentioning the Hollins boy. The flapper had laughed
unaffectedly. Tommy Hollins was a perfectly darling boy, a good sport
and all that, but he couldn't be anything important to the flapper if he
were the perfectly last man on earth. How any one could ever have
thought such an absurd thing was beyond the flapper, for one.
And she didn't want a large place: flowers and a tennis court, and she'd
do the marketing herself when she motored in for him. Moreover, he was
not to be brutally domineering. He was to curb that tendency in himself,
at least now and then, and let her have an opinion or two of her own.
She was nothing but a child, after all; he mustn't be harsh with her.
He was weak before it. Once more he opened the closet door, feeling the
need for new strength. A long time he looked into the still face. He was
a king. Was it strange that a woman had fallen before him?
He reduced the event to its rudiments. He was the affianced husband of
Breede's youngest daughter, who didn't believe in long engagements.
The thing was incredible, even as he faced Ram-tah.
How had he ever done it?
"Gee!" he muttered, "how'd I ever have the nerve to _do_ it!"
Ram-tah's sleeping face remained still. If the wise and good king knew
the answer he gave no sign.
X
"Where maint'nance f'r both roadway an' 'quipment is clearly
surcharged," Breede was exploding, "extent of excess of maintenance over
normal 'quirements cannot be taken as present earnin' power, an' this'll
haf t' be understood before nex' meetin' d'r'ectors--"
"No need of _you_ making any fuss," wrote Bean. "Let Julia do that. I'm
as good a man as anybody if you come right down to it."
"--these prior-lien bon's an' receiver's stiff-cuts mus' natchally come
ahead of firs'-mortgage bon's--" continued Breede.
"Wouldn't care if she told you right now over that telephone," wrote
Bean. "You wouldn't dare touch me, and you know it."
Later he wrote "Poor old Pops!" contemptuously, and put an evil sneer
upon Breede's removed cuffs.
At the same time he wished that the flapper and Grandma hadn't been so
set against long engagements. And how long had they meant? One day, a
week, a month? Would they have _it_ done the next time they took him out
in that car for tea and things? They were capable of it. Why couldn't
they be reasonable and let things stay quiet for a while?
And how about that small place with flowers and a tennis court and a
motor to go marketing in? Did they believe he was made of money? About
all he could do was to provide a place big enough for a growing dog. And
Breede, of course, would cast the girl off penniless, as they always
did, telling her never to darken his doors again. And he'd have to find
a new job. Breede wouldn't think of keeping on the scoundrel who had
lured his child away.
Still, the flapper's mind was set on an early marriage, and, for this
once, at least, he would let her have her own way. No good being brutal
at the start. They would get along; scrimp and save; even move to
Brooklyn, maybe. He looked into the far years and saw his son, greatest
of all left-handed pitchers, shutting out Pittsburgh without a single
hit. A very aged couple in the grandstand tried to claim relationship
with his pitching marvel, saying he was their grandson, but few of the
yelling enthusiasts would credit it. One of the crowd would later
question the phenomenon's father, who was none other than the owner of
the home team, and he would say, "Oh, yes, quite true, but there has
been no communication between the two families for more than twenty
years."
There would now follow from the abject grandparents timid overtures for
a reconciliation, they having at last seen their mistake. These
overtures met with a varying response. Sometimes he was adamant and told
them no; they had made their bed twenty years before, and now they could
lie on it. Again, he would relent, allowing them to come to the house
and associate with their superb descendant once every week. He didn't
want to be too hard on them.
And he was not penniless. He would continue in the unexciting express
business for a while, until he had amassed enough to buy the ball-team.
Out at his typewriter, turning off Breede's letters, his mind kept
reverting to those nicely printed stock certificates Aunt Clara had sent
to him, five of them for ten shares each, his own name written on them.
Of course there were hundreds of shares at the brokers', but those
seemed not to mean so much. And they had gone down a point, whatever
that was, since his purchase. The broker had explained that this was
because of an unexpectedly low dividend, 3 per cent. It showed bad
management. All the more reason for getting a new man on the Board--a
lot of old fossils!
He recalled the indignant-looking old gentleman who was so excessively
well dressed. He wore choice gold-rimmed eyeglasses tethered by a black
silk ribbon. They were intensely respectable things when adjusted to the
nose, but he knew he should clash with that old party the moment he got
on the Board. He would find him to be one of the sort that is always
looking for trouble.
He wondered if he might not himself some day have sufficient excuse for
wearing glasses like those, at the end of a silk ribbon. He thought they
set off the face. And the old gentleman's white parted beard flowed down
upon a waistcoat he wouldn't mind owning: black silk set with tiny white
stars, a good background for a small gold chain. There would be a bunch
of important keys on one end of that chain. Bean had yearned to wear one
of those key-chains, but he had never had more than a trunk-key and a
latch-key, and it would look silly to pull those out on a chain before
people; they'd begin to make fun of you!
He worked on, narrowly omitting to have Breede inform the vice-president
of an important trunk-line that it wouldn't hurt him any to have those
trousers pressed once in a while; also that plenty of barbers would be
willing to cut his hair.
Bulger condescendingly wrote at his own typewriter, as if he were the
son of a millionaire pretending to work up from the bottom. Old Metzeger
was deep in a dream of odd numerals. The half-dozen other clerks wrought
at tasks not too absorbing to prevent frequent glances at the clock on
the wall.
Tully, the chief clerk, marred the familiarity of the hour by
approaching Bean's desk. He walked lightly. Tully always walked as if he
felt himself to be on dangerously thin ice. He might get safely across;
then again he mightn't. He leaned confidentially on the back of Bean's
chair and Bean looked up and through the lenses that so alarmingly
magnified Tully's eyes. Tully twitched the point of his blond beard with
thumb and finger as if to reassure himself of its presence.
"By the way, Bean, I notice some fifty shares of Federal Express stock
in your name. Now it is not impossible that the office would be willing
to take them over for you."
That was Tully's way. He was bound to say "some" fifty shares instead of
fifty, and of anything he knew to be true he could only aver "it is not
impossible." Of a certain familiar enough event in the natural world he
would have declared, "The sun sets not infrequently in the west."
Bean was for the moment uncertain of Tully's meaning.
"Shares," he said. "Right there in my desk."
"Quite so, quite so!" said Tully. "I'm not wholly uncertain, you
know--this is between us--that I couldn't place them for you. I may say
the office would not find even those few shares unwelcome."
"Well, you see, I don't know about that," said Bean. "You see, I had a
kind of an idea--"
"I think I may say they would take it not unkindly," said Tully.
"--of holding on to them," concluded Bean.
"Your letting them go for a fair price might not inconceivably react to
your advantage," suggested the luminous Tully.
"It is not impossible that I shall want them myself," responded Bean,
unconsciously adopting the Tully indirection.
"The office is not unwilling--" began Tully.
"I'll keep 'em a while," said Bean. "I have a sort of plan."
"I should not like to think it possible--"
Bean was tired of Tully. What was the man trying to get at, anyway? He
didn't know; but he would shut him off. His mind leaped with an
inspiration.
"I can imagine nothing of less consequence," said Bean.
He was at once proud of the snappy way the words came out. Breede, he
thought, could hardly have been snappier. He glared at Tully, who looked
shocked, hurt, and disgusted. Tully sighed and walked back to his own
desk, as if the ice cracked beneath his small feet at every step.
Bean resumed his work, with the air of one forgetting a past annoyance.
But he was not forgetting. He might let them have the stock; he had
never thought any too well of that express directorship; but let them
send some one that could talk straight. He didn't care if he _had_ been
short with Tully. He was going to lose his job anyway, the day after
that wedding, if not before.
He wrote many of Breede's letters, and was again interrupted, this time
by Markham, Breede's confidential secretary. Markham's approach to Bean
was emphatically footed, as that of a man unable to imagine ice being
thin under _his_ feet. He was bluff and open, where Tully lurked behind
his "not impossibles." He was even jovial now. He smiled down at Bean.
"By the way, Bean, some one was telling me you have some Federal
Express."
"Have the shares right there in my desk," admitted Bean, wonderingly. He
was suspicious all at once. Tully and Markham had both opened on him
with "By the way." He had always felt it a shrewd thing to suspect
people who began with "By the way."
"Ah, yes, fifty shares, I believe." Markham smiled again, but seemed to
try not to smile. He apparently considered it a rare jest that Bean
should own any shares of anything; a thing for smiles even though one
must humour the fellow.
"Fifty shares! Well, well, that's good! Now the fact is, old man, I can
place those for you this afternoon. Some of the Federal people going to
meet informally here, and they happen to want a little block or two of
the stuff, for voting purposes, you know. Not that it's worth anything.
How'd you happen to get down on such a dead one?"
"Well, you know, I had a sort of a plan about that stock. I don't
know--"
"Of course I can't get you what you paid for it," continued the affable
Markham, "because it's poor stuff, but maybe they'll stand a point or
two above to-day's quotations. Just let me have them and I'll get your
check made out right away; you can go out of here with more money
to-night than any one else will." Markham was prattling on amiably,
still trying not to be overcome by the funny joke of Bean owning things.
"I don't want to sell," declared Bean. There had been a moment's
hesitation, but that opening, "By the way," of Markham's had finally
decided him. You couldn't tell anything about such a man.
"Oh, come now, old chap," cajoled Markham, "Be a good fellow. It's only
needed for a technical purpose, you know."
"I guess I'll hold on to it," said Bean. "I've been thinking for a long
time--"
"Last quarter's dividend was 3 per cent.," reminded Markham.
"I know," admitted Bean, "and that's just why. You see I've got an
idea--"
"As a matter of fact, I think J.B. doesn't exactly approve of his people
here in the office speculating. He doesn't consider it ... well, you know
one of you chaps here, if you weren't all loyal, might very often take
advantage--you get my point?"
"I guess I won't sell just now," observed Bean.
"I don't understand this at all," said Markham, allowing it to be seen
that he was shocked.
Bean wavered, but he was nettled. He was going to lose his job anyway.
You might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. To Markham standing
there, hurt and displeased, he looked up and announced curtly:
"I can imagine nothing of less consequence!"
He had the felicity to see Markham wince as from an unseen blow. Then
Markham walked back to his own room. His tread would have broken ice
capable of sustaining a hundred Tullys.
He saw it all now. They were plotting against him. They had learned of
his plan to become a director and they were trying to freeze him out. He
had never spoken of this plan, but probably they had consulted some good
medium who had warned them to look out for him. Very well, if they
wanted fight they should have fight. He wouldn't sell that stock, not
even to Breede himself--
"Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!" went the electric call over his desk. That meant
Breede. Very well; he knew his rights. He picked up his note-book and
answered the summons.
Breede, munching an innocent cracker, stared at him.
"How long you had that Federal stock?"
"Aunt bought it five years ago."
"Where?"
"Chicago."
"Want to sell?"
"I think I'd rather--"
"You won't sell?"
"No!"
"'S all!"
Back at his machine he tried to determine whether he would have "let
out" at Breede as he had at Tully and at Markham. He had supposed that
Breede would of course nag him as the other two had. And would he have
said to Breede with magnificent impudence, "I can imagine nothing of
less consequence?" He thought he would have said this; the masks were
very soon bound to be off Breede and himself. The flapper might start
the trouble any minute. But Breede had given him no chance for that
lovely speech. No good saying it unless you were nagged.
He became aware that the "Federal people" Markham had mentioned were
gathering in Breede's room. Several of them brushed by him. Let them
freeze him out if they could. He wondered what they said at meetings.
Did every one talk, or only the head director? Markham had said this was
to be an informal meeting.
It is probable that Bean would not have been much enlightened by the
immediate proceedings of this informal meeting. The large, impressive,
moneyed-looking directors sat easily about the table in Breede's inner
room, and said little of meaning to a tyro in the express business.
The stock was pretty widely held in small lots, it seemed, and the
agents out buying it up were obliged to proceed with caution. Otherwise
people would get silly ideas and begin to haggle over the price. But the
shares were coming in as rapidly as could be expected.
Bean would have made nothing of that. He would have been bored, until
Markham made a reference to fifty shares that happened to be owned by a
young chap in the outer office.
"Take 'em over," said one heavy-jowled director who incongruously held a
cigarette between lips that seemed to demand the largest and blackest of
cigars.
"He won't sell," answered Markham. "I spoke to him."
"Tell him to," said the director to Breede.
"Tell him yourself," said Breede. "He said he wouldn't sell."
"Um! Well, well!" said the director.
"Exactly what I told him," remarked the conscientious Tully, who was
present to take notes, "and he said to me, 'Mr. Tully, I am unwilling to
imagine anything of less consequence.' He seemed, uh--I might
say--decided."
"Gave me the same thing," said Markham.
"Leak in the office," announced the elderly advanced dresser. "Fifty
shares!" he added, twirling the glasses on their silk ribbon. "Hell!
Going to let him get away with it?"
"Got to be careful," suggested a quiet director who had listened. "Can't
tell who's back of him."
"Call him in," ordered the advanced dresser, fixing the glasses firmly
on his purple nose. "Call him in! Bluff him in a minute!"
"Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!" smote fatefully on Bean's ears. He had expected it.
If they didn't let him alone, he would tell them all that he could
imagine nothing of less consequence.
He entered the room. He hardly dared scan the faces of those directors
in the flesh, but they were all scanning him. He stood at the end of the
table and fastened his eyes on a railway map that bedecked the opposite
wall, one of those mendacious maps showing a trans-continental line of
unbroken tangent; three thousand miles of railway without a curve, the
opposition lines being mere spirals.
"Here, boy!" It was the advanced dresser of the white parted beard and
the constant indignation. Bean looked at him. He had known from the
first that he must clash with this man.
"That sort of thing'll never do with _us_, you know," continued the old
gentleman, when he had diverted Bean's attention from the interesting
map. "Never do at all; not at all; _not-tat-tall_. Preposterous! My
word! What rot!"