small eyes ranged about. “The point is whether our railroad can
afford to let the old Southwestern, with its large business as a
carrier of both passengers and produce, and with the prejudice
of habit in its favor, continue to exist. If we do, the Imperial
can’t be a great railroad. We shall not only be forced to divide
profits—we shall have to contend for our existence. The Southwestern
stands for equal rates, and other theories worthy but impracticable.
It will bend our policy into the same lines. At this moment we
are richer than they, and can force them to sell—it is lack of
business initiative to hesitate. As to brutality, I don’t take that
seriously—sentiment has nothing to do with business. What reason,
as reasons are known in affairs, is against our absorbing the
Southwestern?” As the chilly tones fell, the men who listened saw no
reason. Trefethen sighed as if he were tired.
“Of course,” he said. “I meant it; but I was mistaken. It’s my
first affair of the sort, as Carroll said, and I’m not used to it.
But it’s got to be done. The American Beauty rose at its finest is
only obtained by nipping off buds. Well, we’ll make the Imperial an
American Beauty, and nip off the Southwestern to begin.”
As simply as a golf club committee arranging for new greens details
were settled, and the meeting ended; clerks in the great offices
lifted their heads to look sharply as the members of it filed out,
for this in flesh and blood was the plutocracy about which one read
in the papers. The most important of them all, left alone, turned to
the calendar on his desk, where his time was spaced into half-hour,
sometimes into fifteen-minute divisions, to see what came next. As he
whirled about on his swinging chair, a knock sounded at the door.
Young Haywood opened it.
“The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury had an appointment at this
hour, sir.”
“Yes.”
“He telegraphs that he is detained in Washington and cannot be here
till to-morrow.”
“Very well.” But Haywood stood in the doorway. Marcus Trefethen
lifted his head. “That’s all.”
“Yes, sir”—the young man hesitated. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but
there’s a lady here—”
“A lady?” Trefethen’s tone was surprised and not pleased.
“I hope you won’t blame me—she is not an ordinary person; she is
anxious to speak to you.”
Trefethen glanced at his calendar. Here was an empty half-hour, too
long to sit idle, too short to substitute any business effectively.
He might as well fill it in this way. “Show her in.”
In a moment he was standing before a slim woman of forty who carried
her straight figure and wore her well-made clothes with certainty,
and the air of a person used to consideration. She put out her hand
frankly.
“I used to know you, Mr. Trefethen. We went to school together—Sarah
Speed.” Trefethen remembered well enough. It was one of the old names
in the old Southern town. “I’m glad to see you,” he said cordially,
stirred a little, as a reminiscence of the place and times stirred
him always, and he placed a chair for her.
“I’m afraid you won’t be when you know my errand,” the woman said,
and looked at him earnestly with wide gray eyes. Her face was
troubled and sad, he noticed, for all her look of prosperity. He
awaited developments. “I’ll try not to keep you long,” she said; “but
the matter is life and death to me. I am Mrs. Ruthven now—Morgan
Ruthven, the president of the Southwestern Railroad, is my husband.”
The man knew now, and his face hardened as he hardened his soul, and
the woman saw it.
“Of course you know what I’m going to say”—her voice shook and then
she lifted her head courageously. “I realize that it is awfully
unpleasant for you, and not quite fair—you’re here for business,
and it’s unbusinesslike to have a woman break in and beg for mercy.
But it isn’t just mercy—it’s justice. You are going to force the
Southwestern into a position where you can foreclose on it. It is a
personal sort of business, that railroad. My husband’s father was its
president before him, and it has been prosperous and honorable forty
years. It is now. They don’t want to sell it. They’re willing to make
terms with your new road. You haven’t any right to force them out
simply because you can. You—”
Trefethen interrupted gently. “I know all this, Mrs. Ruthven,” he
said civilly.
The woman caught her breath and made an evident effort for calmness.
“I know you do. It’s foolish of me to try you on that side. I
won’t waste your time,” she brought out quickly. “What I want to
do is this: I want to tell you what it means to us, and let you
see if it means as much to you. My husband is very ill. He has
been in an alarming state for a week, and to-day and to-morrow are
turning-points. His business is on his mind, and last night when
I was trying to calm him I thought of coming to you and telling
you how things were, and asking you to remember old days and”—her
voice broke, but she cleared her throat quickly and went on in even
tones—“and just be merciful. Of course you have every right—I don’t
mean moral—but every legal right to wipe out the old Southwestern,
but you don’t understand. If I go back to Morgan and tell him I’ve
failed with you it will kill him as surely as if I gave him slow
poison. The doctor said yesterday that everything depended on his
being kept cheerful. Cheerful!” She laughed, half choking. “Keep a
man cheerful on the rack! And there’s more—the boy. He is to graduate
at Yale this summer, and he’s a boy who deserves—everything. The
happiest, cleverest, best boy! Best at everything—away up in his
classes—a hero among the other boys for athletics. But I mustn’t bore
you,” she caught herself. “Only he—he isn’t just an ordinary boy”—and
she laughed a little, tremblingly, knowing well enough through her
trouble that all women think that of their boys. “He isn’t,” she
insisted prettily. This wife of Morgan Ruthven’s was an attractive
woman, Trefethen acknowledged to himself unwillingly. “I want you
to realize about Carl, because then you will know how impossible it
seems to take away all his chances, that he has worked toward for
years. Such a good boy, Mr. Trefethen,” the gray eyes glowed with the
soul close back of them. “He has worked so hard and been so happy.
And”—she threw this impulsively at him—“he’s captain of the ’Varsity
crew. You’re a college man. You know what glory that means. To give
all that up—graduation with honors—the great race—it’s enough to
break a boy’s courage. It would break my heart to have him. He has
been promised a trip abroad with his best friend, a boy like himself,
and after that he is to have a special course in Germany. He is full
of ambition and vitality. He could do anything—be anything. He’ll
have to give it all up—if you ruin the Southwestern. You see what it
means to me—my husband’s life, my boy’s future.”
Marcus Trefethen was uncomfortable and annoyed as the low, eager
words stopped suddenly. This was all beside the question. The
question was this—to make a gigantic enterprise must small interests
be sacrificed? It had been answered. They must. That being the case,
why should he harrow his soul with the details of each sacrifice? It
served no purpose, his mind being made up, and it might unsteady his
nerves, which he needed to keep steady. While he considered how to
put things most concisely, the intense voice went on:
“Rich men nowadays, great financiers, seem to have a new standard of
right and wrong. I don’t see why. I don’t see why the old standards
of honesty and fairness don’t apply as much to magnates as to
every-day people. I don’t see how it can make you happier, anyway.
There’s no real happiness in doing wrong, and it’s wrong to crush
life and hope out of people just to be richer yourself. You can’t
be good and do that, and you can’t be light-hearted unless you’re
good—and it’s worth a few millions to have a light heart.”
The gentle, stirring tones stopped. The woman was full of
individuality and charm, and she had thrown all of it into her
speech. The quiet room was as if swept with the rush of a mountain
stream. But the man who listened meant to be the rock that such a
stream dashes against to break in foam. He looked at her with cold,
half-shut eyes.
“Mrs. Ruthven,” he answered, “you are very eloquent for your
husband’s cause. If eloquence might affect a business decision of
importance, in which a number of large interests are concerned, yours
would succeed. I considered this view of the question before I came
to any arrangement. I was reluctant”—there were other things which
Marcus Trefethen was going to say in poised sentences, but they were
suddenly caught from him. The woman was on her feet; color flooded
her face and her hand flew out in a gesture of command as she gave a
quick gasp.
“Don’t go on—it’s no use—I see,” she said. “I’ll go home now.” And
before he could reach the door she had opened it for herself and
passed out.
Always as direct and swift as a Winchester bullet, velocity and
penetration seemed to be added to Trefethen’s mind through the hours
of that day. Every second was full, hands and brain were full to
overflowing, yet not for one of the busy minutes was the memory of
the morning’s interview crowded out. Through the voices of men who
talked to him, with his intellect keyed to its keenest to follow, to
lead theirs, he heard all day the soft inflections so incongruous
down there in his office. He saw again and again the gray eyes as
she threw out her hand, heart-broken, scornful. It stabbed him that
he should have broken her heart—it stabbed him again that she should
despise him. Clearly Marcus Trefethen was not yet an expert in the
art of being cold-blooded; the woman had got on his nerves—he could
not shake off the memory of her. It was annoying. He dined at a club
with men who were not concerned in the life of his daytime, and his
spirits rose, and he walked over to his house later with a light step.
“All I needed was to get out of the rut,” he said aloud and set
himself to reading. And there, in pages of a book on Tibet was the
face, the agonized gray eyes; the descriptions of Lhassa read with
the woman’s subtle accent. He threw down the book irritably. “I’ve
overworked. I thought it was impossible, but I must have done it.
This is morbid. I’ll get to bed early and sleep it off.”
Out of the blackness, as he lay staring, he heard a low voice say,
“The happiest, cleverest, best boy!” “Stuff!” Trefethen spoke aloud
to himself. He was a bachelor—he had no boy—why should he care about
a boy? Doubtless she had exaggerated the whole business. Probably
this boy was as commonplace as the average—each woman thinks hers
exceptional. Yet at three in the morning he turned impatiently and
said words aloud to try if that might break their hold. “He isn’t
just an ordinary boy—he isn’t!” he repeated aloud. And then for a
short time he fell asleep. But at six his eyes opened and his brain
searched miserably for a moment after the thing that was harassing
him. Only a moment—the thing was at hand. He sprang out of bed.
“I have to shake off this possession—it’s out of proportion,” he said
to himself and dressed, and astonished a sleepy valet by ordering his
saddle-horse at seven.
But the park and the spring freshness and the plunging beast gave
him only temporary relief. In his office at ten he felt, with almost
a terror, the possession taking hold again. He read his paper
sternly, missing nothing, but his grip on his own powers was not as
firm as yesterday. He had a nervous dread of certain things he must
see in print. There they were—Morgan Ruthven’s name and the situation
as it was known outside. He flapped the page over, and his eyes
rested on the column beyond. Sporting news—from long habit it held
his eye—the news of the athletic world had been interesting to him
for twenty-five years.
“Boat-races at New Haven this afternoon.”
The paper fell to the floor. He knew what he would do. It would
straighten him out as nothing else could—he would go up to New Haven
and see the races. Twenty-five odd years ago he had been captain of
a famous crew, and boats and water fascinated him to this day—the
change of scene, the air, the old sharp interest in a race—these
would make him over. It was fifteen years since he had been at New
Haven. No one there would recognize him. This was not one of the
great regattas which would draw crowds of people who might know him.
He could come and go alone and unnoticed. He would do it. He went
through his mail, gave orders, changed appointments, and at twelve
o’clock he was on the train at Forty-second Street.
At two he went out from it into the New Haven station—into a throng
of fresh, boyish faces—with a sense of exhilaration. He rushed for
a car and hung from a strap with enjoyment in the discomfort of it.
Soon some one got out, and he dropped into a seat by a pair of big
shoulders which prodded into him. The owner twisted about.
“I beg your pardon,” he said in a frank young voice. “I’m afraid I’m
taking up too much room, but I’m wedged into this crack on the bias,
and I can’t help it,” and the two laughed together.
There was an irresponsible gayety in the air, and Trefethen
found himself catching it. This friendly, honest-faced boy, with
his enormous, inconvenient shoulders, pleased him. He fell to
talking—asking questions about the new buildings, about the regatta,
the university. Surprised, amused, he felt the old enthusiasm of Alma
Mater rising in him. He was a Yale man—this lad was a Yale man—the
brotherhood asserted itself—for years he had not had this feeling.
Past the green, serene with its three churches set like oases in its
broad expanse, they shot; past rows of New England homes stately with
a dignity which money does not achieve; into Whitney Avenue with its
wide lawns and fine old houses, crowned with the great sweep of the
Hillhouse place, and its dominating, pillared mansion. And about
there the car jolted and stopped. Looking ahead, there was a line of
other stopped cars—a block forward. By slow degrees the passengers
got out, and studied the case, and speculated.
“Let’s walk,” said the boy. “It’s only a mile.”
And Trefethen, with a flattered sense of being officially taken into
the guild of the able-bodied, swung out by the side of his new friend
into a gay stream of people headed for Lake Whitney. His sponsor
had gathered him under his wing with the simple, unconscious air of
an older brother, which, to the man used to dictatorship, gave a
piquancy to the situation. It was pleasant, if funny, to be looked
after in this kindly way.
“My name is Richard Elliot,” said the lad, without preface, and gave
his year, and turned his brown eyes consideringly on the older man.
Trefethen hesitated. Not to return this frank confidence would
be ungracious, yet his name suggested himself too much just now
throughout America to risk telling and hope to be unidentified. He
compromised.
“My graduation is a quarter of a century or so ahead of yours, I’m
sorry to say.” He smiled. “And my name is Lord”—and spoke truthfully,
for this was his unused middle name.
At that moment the lad’s coat swung open, and Trefethen saw, pinned
on his waistcoat, an Alpha Delta Phi pin. From some atrophied muscles
sprang a throb which astonished him. Out flew his hand, the boy’s
eyes met his, and their fingers slid into the fraternity grip.
“Why, this is bully,” spoke the youngster joyfully. “I’m awfully
glad I met you. I wonder if there’s anything I can do to make you
enjoy yourself. Tell you what”—he went on in a burst—“ginger! I’m
glad I thought of it—come out on the water with me, will you, Mr.
Lord? I’ve got a canoe, and my side-partner’s sneaked—can’t find him.
Anyhow, there’s plenty of room, even if he turns up, if you’ll sit
tight and part your hair in the middle. Are you used to boats?”
Trefethen smiled. “That was my business when I was in college.”
“What, were you on a crew?” the lad asked, his eyes bright with
interest.
Vanity betrayed Trefethen suddenly. “I was captain of the ’Varsity
crew of my year,” he stated, and then felt alarmed to see the
impression.
Elliot stopped short, quite casual as to halting a long procession
back of him. With that he gave his own knee a sounding slap.
“Ginger!” he exploded. “Ginger! Hullygee! and I never suspected. I
might have known you were something with that build,” and he glanced
over Trefethen’s figure searchingly. “Nobody has that look without
its meaning something. Ginger!” he murmured again with no sense of
monotony, and swung on, gazing sidewise admiringly at the embarrassed
Trefethen. “Why, this is simply great, Mr. Lord,” he addressed him.
“We must have you over at the boat-house to meet the men—maybe you
can row on a veteran crew—I don’t know how that is—that’s not my
line—but anyhow they’d love to meet you. Lord—Lord,” he reflected.
“Don’t seem to remember the name—but the crews are not in my beat, as
I said—they’ll place you fast enough at the boat-house. What’s your
year?”
With that Trefethen realized that his incognito was in peril. “It
won’t do, Mr. Elliot,” he said firmly. “I’m tired and came out for a
lazy afternoon, and I don’t want to meet people, even Yale men. I’m
not up to it. I’ll be delighted to go out in your canoe if it won’t
inconvenience you, but I’m a back number, and would only be in the
way at the boat-house.”
“Back number nothing,” responded the boy earnestly. “Of course they’d
be proud and glad. Yale men don’t shelve their chaps who’ve won
laurels for them. Did you win, by the way? What class were you?” he
demanded.
Now Trefethen’s crew had gained an historic victory, and to give his
class might place it and him. He did not want to be placed. He had
an uneasy feeling that the multi-millionaire Marcus Trefethen would
lose this unique comradeship which the obscure graduate Lord had
found. This afternoon he had no use for his millions and his powerful
name.
“Don’t pin an old bald-head, young man,” he argued. “Don’t you see
I’m ashamed of my age?”
The boy drew his brows and looked surprised, yet the glory of a
crew-captainship overshadowed this exhibition of human weakness. “All
right,” he agreed; “but I’ll look you up, you know. What difference
does it make, anyway? Did your crew win? You can tell me that, Mr.
Lord, and that’s the point.”
“You bet we won,” Trefethen threw at him emphatically, like another
boy.
“Hooray for you!” said the youngster, and laughed for pure love of
Yale’s greatness, and with that they were at Lake Whitney.
Girls and young men shifted in and out through a scene of gayety.
Gray-haired men, men in the prime of life, and not a few older women
with pleased faces to be there, thronged the landing-steps, and
embarked every moment in boats of all sorts. And in every mouthful
of the spring air Trefethen drew a breath of that clean and happy
out-of-doors’ enthusiasm, of forgetfulness of people for deeds, which
is the inspiration of right athletics. In five minutes, Elliot,
serious and businesslike over his responsibility, was pushing his
canoe from the dock with a well-handled paddle, and Trefethen sat
facing him in the bow. He realized so the tremendous development of
the young figure as, his coat off, the big muscles worked through a
thin silk shirt.
“You must be interested in something muscular by the look of you,” he
said. “What’s your specialty?”
The frank eyes dropped. “Oh—I’m not so good as I might be at
anything,” he answered, and his manner was confused. He went on
quietly: “My stunt’s football, but I’d like to do it better than I
do.”
“Some failure to make good, poor lad,” the older man thought to
himself, and said aloud, with friendliness, “That’s too bad—you’re a
strapping fellow. I should think you’d be strong at athletics if you
really tried. But I dare say you make it up some other way. Probably
you’re a fine scholar.”
The boy laughed. “Oh, no. Well, I’m not a positive disgrace to the
family, but I haven’t made ΦΒΚ by a good bit. Oh, no, I’m afraid you
wouldn’t call me a search-light as a student. I’m afraid I’m better
developed on the physical than the mental tack—can’t be good at
everything, you know. At least most can’t. There’s only one fellow
I know in Yale who’s all ’round first-class, and he’s a miracle.”
The brown eyes flashed sudden fire. “Gosh!” the lad shot through set
teeth. “Gosh! I wish I had the killing of that man!”
Trefethen looked at the irate youth in surprise. “The miracle?” he
inquired, smiling. “Do you want to kill the miracle?”
“No; oh, no.” Elliot’s responsive smile did not come. He was too
stirred. “Not him—of course not. He’s the finest chap in Yale
University—the pride of the whole class. He’s a peach. Why just let
me tell you, Mr. Lord, what that fellow is: He made ΦΒΚ, he was on
the Junior Prom. Committee. He made”—the boy hesitated and spoke
low—“he made Bones. He’s good enough for the tennis team, and
he could have been on the football team, and he’s captain of the
’Varsity crew. _You_ know what that means. He should have been here
to-day—and he’s gone. And the Harvard race in June will have to do
without him. We’ll lose it, likely, because of him. He’s gone—gone!”
The boy hurled the word at the man.
“Where has he gone—how?” the other asked eagerly, carried away by the
speaker’s intensity.
The paddle dipped in water for two liquid beats before he answered,
and then it was with an evident effort for self-control. “It makes
me so hot I can hardly talk about it,” he brought out in repressed
tones. “But you’re a good sport, and square and all that—you’ll
appreciate how we feel. Last night at the training table the captain
had a telegram and a special delivery. His father has been ill, and
his business has all gone wrong, and he’s—ruined. Just plain that.
And when they were certain of it, yesterday, he got a lot worse at
the news, and they were alarmed and sent for Carl. And the money’s
all lost, you see, so he can’t come back. It’s a darned shame!” the
lad brought out, losing his grip on himself again. “I’d like to have
that man, that captain of industry, that robber baron, who’s got
Carl down and out, at the end of my fist”—the great young hand shot
out, clinched. “It’s Marcus Trefethen—_the_ Marcus Trefethen, you
know—and if I got within ten feet of him I’d beat his bloomin’ brains
out.” The man in the bow, eight feet away, gazed thoughtfully at the
speaker.
The canoe had worked up the lake; far away beyond the bridge was
a stir as if those there could see the first crews of the first
race coming; dozens of boats, gay with boys and girls and talk and
laughter, lay below, beyond them, but at the turn where the canoe
floated it was quiet. There was deep silence.
“It’s all his work. He’s a thieving, cold-blooded monopolist,” the
boy went on angrily. “He doesn’t care how much flesh and blood he
chops into hash to feed to his great fortune. He doesn’t care that
Carl’s father’s railroad stands for forty years’ solid, honest work.
He doesn’t care that wrecking it is going to kill Mr. Ruthven—that
Carl’s got to give up his career and grind for bread and butter—all
that’s nothing.”
The vehement voice stopped; the boy was out of breath, and the man
felt a necessity to put in a word. “There are usually two sides,”
he said. “Possibly Trefethen may not be free to stop the workings
of a great affair—there are many men concerned in such a business.
And perhaps he may not entirely realize the suffering entailed.” He
wondered at his own tone, at his desire to conciliate. Why should he
care how a college student judged his conduct? But he cared.
The boy’s eyes, gazing up the course, questioned the distance. His
big shoulders stiffened to alertness. “They’re coming,” he announced,
and a twist of the paddle set the boat sidewise so that Trefethen
also could see. “Ginger, they’re coming fast! It’s the Columbia
freshmen against ours—golly, I hope we smear ’em! We lead—see—gosh,
we’ve got a good lead!”
Garnished with strange interjections, the pleasant, well-bred
young voice went on in staccato sentences, and Trefethen, still
thunderstruck by the bolt that had been launched from the blue
at him and all his works, watched the play of excitement on the
unconscious face. The clear eyes followed keenly every movement of
the rapidly nearing crews; they glowed with joy as the Yale boat
forged ahead; they darkened tragically as the rival shell crawled up
on it. It was a spirited scene and the impersonal rush of interest
all about him carried the man out of himself and into the bright
flood of enthusiasm. Suddenly he found himself cheering madly, waving
his hat as the blue coxswain, megaphone strapped to his mouth, howled
hoarse encouragement to his men—as the crew of Yale swept past and
first beyond the finish stakes. How glad the boy was—and how glad he
himself was! When had he had such a day?
“Hooray for Yale!”
He shouted, and laughed as he heard his own voice. He caught a long
breath and drew in a mouthful of sentiments—sport—fellow-feeling—the
game played fairly—he nearly choked with the unfamiliar taste—but he
liked it.
The first event was finished. “Rain,” young Elliot announced, turning
up his face. “We’ll put in under the bridge till it’s over. I’ll
hurry, so we’ll get there before the holy-poly.”