XXVIII

It is difficult for a man to know what to do after the first kiss. A

second kiss is not so wise as appears at first blush. It impairs mental

efficiency by rendering irresistible the desire for a third. A banal

remark is equally fatal. To tell her, "Now you are mine in God's sight,"

is worse than sacrilegious; it is conducive to acute suffragism and some

polemical oratory. To say, "Now I am yours for ever," may be of

demonstrable accuracy, but also conduces to speech.

Hendrik Rutgers was no ordinary man. He knew that one kiss does not make

one marriage nor even one divorce. But he knew that he was at least at

the church door and he had a wonderful ring in his waistcoat pocket. He

therefore became H. R. once more--cool, calm, master of his fate.

It behooved him to do something. He did. He fell on his knees and

reverently bowed his head. And then she heard him say, "Grant that I may

become worthy of her!"

Then his lips moved in silence. She saw them move. Her soul trembled.

Was she so much to this man?

Great is the power of prayer even in the homes of the rich, however

cynics may sneer.

He did not glance at her, feeling her eyes on him. When he judged it was

time he looked up suddenly, rose to his feet, and, in a diffident,

apologetic voice, observed:

"Forgive me, dear! What did you say?"

What could she say? She therefore said it:

"Nothing!" very softly.

"I was very far from New York--and yet you were with me, my love!"

She thought of Philadelphia and her hand sought his with that

refuge-seeking instinct which cannot be statuted away from them.

He met her half-way. He raised her hands to his lips and his disengaged

left sought his waistcoat pocket where the ring was.

"She is in the drawing-room, sir, with Mr. Rutgers," came in faithful

Frederick's warning voice, raised above the menial's pitch.

"What!" they heard Mr. Goodchild ejaculate. Then the titular owner of

the house entered.

H. R. politely bowed.

"How do you do?" he said, easily. "You are a trifle inopportune. Grace

and I were talking over our plans."

Mr. Goodchild turned purple and advanced. Grace rose hastily. H. R.

meditatively doubled up his right arm, moved his clenched fist up and

down, felt his biceps with his left hand, and smiled contentedly.

Mr. Goodchild remembered his manners and his years at one and the same

time. With his second calm thought he remembered the reporters. He

gulped twice and when he spoke it was only a trifle huskily:

"Mr. Rutgers, I have no desire to make a scene in my own house."

H. R. pleasantly pointed to a fauteuil.

"I must ask you--"

"Sit down and we'll talk it over quietly. You will find," H. R. assured

him, earnestly, "that I am not unreasonable. Have a seat."

Mr. Goodchild sat down.

H. R. turned to Grace and with one lightning wink managed to convey that

everybody obeyed him--excepting one, whose wish was a Federal statute to

him.

She looked with a new interest at her father. It was, she realized, the

eternal conflict between youth and age. Love the prize! _Gratia

victrix!_

"I--I--am willing to admit"--Mr. Goodchild nearly choked as the unusual

words came from his larynx--"that you have shown--er--great cleverness

in your--er--career. But I must say to you--in a kindly way, Mr.

Rutgers, in a kindly way, believe me!--that I do not care to have

this--er--farce prolonged. If you are after--if there is any reasonable

financial consideration that will--er--induce you to desist--I--you--"

"You have relapsed," interrupted H. R., amiably, "into the language of a

bank president. Suppose you now talk like a millionaire." It was not

really a request, but a command.

Mr. George G. Goodchild obeyed.

"How much?" he said.

Grace looked as she felt--shocked. She had not fully regained her normal

composure. But this was a man who had kissed her. Was he to be bought

off with money? The shame of it overwhelmed her. She listened almost

painfully to H. R.'s reply.

"I am now," H. R. impassively said to Mr. Goodchild, "waiting for you to

talk like a father."

Mr. Goodchild stared at him blankly.

"Like a father; like a human being," explained H. R. "Grace is no

bundle of canceled checks or a lost stock certificate. She is your

daughter."

"Well?"

"Excuse me; I mean she is your own flesh and blood--the best of your

flesh and blood, at that. Your wishes cannot be considered where her

happiness is at stake. Therefore what you think best is merely your

personal opinion and hence of interest to yourself and to nobody else."

Mr. Goodchild quickly opened his mouth, but before the sound could come

H. R. went on, hurriedly, "Suppose you had set your heart upon her

becoming a mathematician. Would that make her one?"

"Never!" instantly declared the non-mathematical Grace.

Mr. Goodchild shook his head violently and again opened his mouth. But

H. R. once more surpassed him in speed and pursued, calmly

argumentative:

"Or suppose you did not believe in vaccination. Is your opinion to be

allowed to prevail against the advice of your competent family physician

until Grace gets the disease and you are forced to acknowledge that you

were wrong? Or would even the sight of the most beautiful face in the

world pitted and pockmarked fail to shake your own faith in your own

infallibility?"

Grace shuddered. "_Father!_" she exclaimed, horror-stricken, and glared

at Mr. Goodchild. She was now thinking of paternal opposition in terms

of smallpox.

"But--" angrily expostulated Mr. Goodchild.

"Exactly," agreed H. R., hastily. "That's it. Now for a favor. Will you

let me talk business with you? _My_ business!"

Mr. Goodchild's business was to know all about the business of others.

But he did not take it home with him. However, before he could do more

than shake his head, H. R. went on:

"I am organizing six companies."

That sounded like good business. But Mr. Goodchild nodded

non-committally from force of habit.

"The S. A. S. A. Imperial Sandwich Board Corporation. Capital stock, one

million, of which forty per cent. goes to the public for cash, forty per

cent. given to me--"

"Forty?" irrepressibly objected Mr. Goodchild.

"Forty," repeated H. R., firmly. "I am no hog. I get what my ideas,

designs, and patents are worth at a fair valuation. And twenty per cent.

goes to the S. A. S. A."

"Why?" came from Mr. Goodchild before he could realize that he was

speaking bankerwise.

"Because the S. A. S. A. will insist upon the company's boards being

used by all our customers. And besides, as head of the S. A. S. A., I

vote that twenty per cent. I thus control sixty per cent. and--"

Mr. Goodchild brightened up, but remembered himself and said, very

coldly:

"Go on."

"We shall manufacture sandwiches of all kinds, at from one dollar to ten

thousand dollars and upward, and--"

"Dreadful word! Loathe it!"

"--The S. A. S. A. Memento Mori Manufacturing Company to manufacture and

sell the statuettes of the Ultimate Sandwich. Same capitalization. Same

holdings. You see, I have sold my ideas, designs, and patents so that

later on nobody can say my companies were overcapitalized. There are

also the Rapid Restaurant Service Appliance Company, and four others.

Same capitalization; same holdings. The money is all raised. And let me

say," finished H. R., sternly accusing, "that the people who furnish the

cash and buy the stock get _something_ for their money."

"That's all very well," began Mr. Goodchild, contemptuously, "but--"

"Exactly," said H. R. "I propose to transfer all our accounts to your

bank. You know you said you'd like to have mine when I became famous."

"I know nothing about your companies, and care less. But I want to tell

you right now--"

"What interest are you going to allow us on our balances?" cut in H. R.

"No interest!" said Mr. Goodchild in a voice that really meant "No

Grace!"

H. R. turned to his sweetheart and, desiring to forestall desertion,

took her hand in his and said to her:

"Grace, this house is a very nice house. You have spent many happy hours

here. But it is, after all, only a house. And New York is _New York_!"

And Philadelphia was _Philadelphia_!

Grace's hand remained in H. R.'s.

"You can't have her!" said Mr. Goodchild, furiously.

"Who can't have whom?" asked Mrs. Goodchild, entering the room.

H. R. released Grace's hand, approached Mrs. Goodchild, and, before she

knew what he was going to do, threw his right arm about her and kissed

her--a loud filial smack.

She quickly and instinctively put one hand up to her hair, for the

strange young man had been a trifle effusive. But before she could

transform her surprise into vocal sounds the stranger spoke, in a voice

ringing with affectionate sincerity not too playful, you understand, but

convincing, nevertheless:

"She inherits her good looks, her disposition, and her taste in dress

from you. I saw it the first time I met you. Don't you remember? And I

warn you now that if I can't marry Grace I'll kill that husband of yours

and marry _you_!"

To prove it, he kissed her again, twice.

"How dare--" shouted Mr. Goodchild.

"I am not sure," said H. R. to Mrs. Goodchild, "that I want Grace now.

Between thirty-two and forty a woman is at her best."

He patted her shoulder, as we paternally do with the young ones, and

went back to Grace. It all had happened so quickly that only H. R. was

calm.

"My dear!" said Mrs. Goodchild, looking helplessly at Grace.

"What is it, mother?" said H. R., appropriating the affectionate words.

And as she did not answer he asked, generally. "What do you say to the

eighth?"

"An eighth?" echoed Mr. Goodchild, almost amiably, thinking, of

one-eighth of one per cent.

"Of June!" said H. R. "That gives you ample time for everything, Grace.

And, remember, give the reporters the detailed list of the trousseau."

"There isn't going to be any marriage. And there isn't going to be any

nauseating newspaper articles with pictures of intimate lingerie enough

to make a decent man blush."

"A really decent man always blushes with shame when he does not give

_carte blanche_ to his only daughter," said H. R. with great dignity.

"Mr.--er--Rogers," said Mrs. Goodchild.

"Rutgers," corrected her prospective son-in-law. "The 'g' is hard. It's

Dutch, like Roosevelt, Van Rensselaer, and Cruger."

"But we don't know anything about your family," she said, very

seriously.

"Do you know," asked H. R., pleasantly, "the Wittelbachs?"

"It's beer, isn't it?" she said. It might be the best brewing blood in

Christendom, but still it wasn't Wall Street or real estate.

"Good shot!" exclaimed H. R., admiringly. "It is the patronymic of the

reigning house of Bavaria. You know, Munich, where beer is the thing.

And do you know the Bernadottes?"

"I've heard of them," replied Mrs. Goodchild, made wary by her

non-recognition of a sovereign house.

"It is not French delicatessen, but the royal family of Sweden. And the

Hapsburgs? The Emperor of Austria belongs to them. And Romanoff? The

Czar of Russia would answer to that if he voted. And there are also the

Hohenzollerns and the Bourbons and the Braganzas. And then," he

finished, simply, "there is _Rutgers_!"

"It seems to me," put in Grace, coldly, "that I have something to say--"

"Empress, you don't. Just look," interrupted H. R. "Of course, the date

is subject to your approval. I didn't have any luncheon. Will you tell

Frederick to bring some tea and a few sandwiches--"

"Damnation!" shrieked Mr. George G. Goodchild. "Is a man to be insulted

in his own home? Get to hell out of here with your sandwiches!"

"George!" rebuked Mrs. Goodchild, placidly. She never frowned.

Wrinkles.

"Yes, George!" maniacally mimicked her husband. "It's sandwiches!

Sandwiches! Sandwiches! Everywhere! Yesterday I discharged my

secretary. I told him to send out for a chicken sandwich for me and

I heard him give the boy the order: 'Son-in-law for Mr. Goodchild.

Cock-a-doodle-do!' At this week's meeting of our directors Mr.

Garrettson asked me: 'How is the King of the Sandwiches? Living at your

house yet?' And the other jackasses all laughed. _Sandwiches!_"

He turned to his daughter, and fearing that she was in the conspiracy,

asked her, vehemently: "Do you wish to be known all your life as the

Queen of the Sandwiches? Do you? Do you wish your humorous friends to

say to you, Grace, will you have a caviare husband?"

"No!" replied Grace. Fame was fame, but ridicule was Hades.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Goodchild.

"Tell Frederick," said H. R., fiercely, "to bring in fifteen Rutgerses,

if you prefer to call them that."

"That isn't funny," rebuked Grace, coldly. "I don't think you are

accustomed to surroundings--"

"No; it's hospitality. I'm starving."

"You'll have sandwiches for breakfast, luncheon, and dinner, my child,"

Mr. Goodchild told Grace, angrily but intelligently. "In the

newspapers!"

"Of course I won't marry him!" said Grace, decisively. "It's

preposterous."

H. R. went up to her. She shook her head. He spoke very seriously:

"Grace, when people tell you that I have given free sandwiches to New

York they mean that I have taken the poorest of the poor, the pariahs of

commerce, the despised of the rabble, poor human derelicts, souls

without a future, without a hope, worse than dirt, poorer than poverty,

and I have made them _men_!"

"Yes, but s-s-sandwiches," blubbered Grace.

"I took these victims of society and capitalism and organized them, and

then I emptied them into the golden Cloaca Maxima that you call Fifth

Avenue, and lo! they emerged free men, self-supporting, well-fed,

useful, artistic. They have been the efficient instruments of fame. It

is they who have made you known from one end of the city to the other."

"Yes; but sandwiches!" doggedly repeated Grace.

"I have worked," said H. R., sternly, "with human souls--"

"Sandwiches!" corrected Mr. Goodchild.

H. R. flushed angrily.

"The sandwich," he told them all with an angry finality, "is here to

stay. Our net receipts, after paying big wages, are over one thousand

dollars a day. What do you think I am, an ass? Or a quick lunch? Or a

bank president? _Pshaw!_ We've only begun! A capitalization of over five

millions at the very start and the business growing like cheap

automobiles, and me owning forty per cent. of the stock and controlling

sixty per cent. in perpetuity! These men have made me their leader. I

will not forsake them!"

"Can you give me," said Mr. Goodchild, seriously, "evidence to prove

your statements?" If the love affair was not to end in an elopement it

would be wise to have a business talk with this young man, who, after

all was said and done, had a valuable asset in his newspaper publicity.

"You may be a wonderful man," said Grace to H. R., "but all my friends

would ask me if I am going to have a mammoth sandwich instead of a

wedding-cake! I ask you not to persist--"

H. R. smiled sympathetically and said: "You poor darling! Is _that_ all

you are afraid of?"

She thought of Philadelphia and a quiet life, and she shook her head

sadly. Why couldn't he have made her famous by unobjectionable methods.

But H. R. said, "I'll guarantee that my name will never again be

associated with sandwiches--"

"You can't do it!" declared Grace, with conviction, thinking of humorous

American girls. "When they are friends all you have to do is to take out

the 'r' to turn them into fiends."

Mrs. Goodchild said nothing, but frowned. It had just occurred to her

that here they all were, amicably talking with the man who had made

their lives grievous burdens. Mr. Goodchild also was silent, but

shrewdly eyed H. R.

"I'll do it!" repeated H. R., confidently.

"How can you without killing everybody?" challenged Grace, skeptically.

"Everybody knows you as the leader of the sandwich men, and if you form

companies--"

"My child," H. R. told her, gently, "I don't know anything about

finance. That is why I want to get father's advice about my business.

Every man to his trade. But I do know New York. I ought to, hang it! My

grandfather owned what is now the Hotel Regina, and-- Well, look here!

If by the first of June nobody even remembers that I had anything to do

with sandwiches will you marry me?"

"Yes," said Mr. Goodchild.

If H. R. could do that he was fit to be anybody's son-in-law. If he

couldn't, the annoyance would end.

"Grace?" asked H. R.

"I'm willing to take a chance for two weeks," said Mr. Goodchild,

feeling certain he was displaying Machiavellian wisdom. But Grace shook

her head.

"Everything you've done," she told H. R., "is child's play--"

"What!" interrupted H. R., indignantly. "Make New-Yorkers give money for

charity that they might have spent for their own pleasure?"

"Nothing alongside of making 'em forget that you invented sandwiches. If

it had been anything else, you might--I might--you--" She floundered

helplessly. Her life for weeks had been so full of excitement that she

could not co-ordinate her ideas quickly.

"You don't know me, dear," said H. R. "I hate to say it myself, but,

really, I'm a wonder!"

He looked so confident, so masterfully sure of himself, so little like a

dreamer, and so much like a doer, that Grace was impressed.

"Can you?" she asked, more eagerly than Mr. Goodchild liked to see. But

then H. R. had never kissed him.

"With your hand for the prize and your love for my reward? Can you ask

me if I can?"

"Yes, I can. Can you?"

"Yes!" he said. "But of course I'll need your help."

"My help?" Doubt came back into her eyes.

"Yes. This way." He took her in his arms and kissed her.

Mrs. Goodchild stared, open-eyed. Mr. Goodchild grew purple, and

shouted:

"Here! This is--"

H. R. turned to him and said, "This is all right." And again he pressed

his lips to hers and kept them pressed this time.

"I won't have it!" shrieked Mr. Goodchild, going toward the young

people, one fist upraised.

H. R. ceased kissing, and spoke rebukingly:

"What do you want me to do? Kiss her in the vestibule before ringing the

door-bell, as if we were plebeian sweethearts? Or in a taxi in the Park?

Listen: _Fear not to intrust your daughter to a man who never kisses her

save in the sight of those who brought her into this world!_" H. R.

spoke so aphoristically that Mr. Goodchild thought it was a quotation

from Ecclesiastes.

H. R. took the ring out of his waistcoat pocket and gave it to Grace.

"Here, my love!"

It was a magnificent green diamond, the rarest of all. Mrs. Goodchild

rose quickly and said, "Let me see it!" Mother-like, being concerned

with her only daughter's happiness, she took the ring to the window.

Grace followed. It was her ring.

"Say, Big Chief," H. R. asked his prospective father-in-law, "do I get

the sand--do I get some slices of bread with some slices of viands, two

breads to one viand, and a cup of tea?"

"Tea be hanged! Have a man's drink," hospitably and diplomatically said

Mr. Goodchild. There was still a chance of escaping. He knew what

violent opposition had done to sentimental daughters.

"Yes, but you'll have to allow us a decent rate of interest on our

balances."

"How much do you carry?" asked Mr. Goodchild, carelessly.

"Enough for Dawson to offer three per cent. But let us not talk

business here. I'll call on you to-morrow.

"All right. But Dawson can't do it, not even on time deposits, and--"

"Scotch for mine," said H. R. "Is Frederick coming?"

Mr. Goodchild was, after all, a gentleman. He rang for Frederick. He

also was thirsty.

"Hendrik, it's beautiful," said Grace, enthusiastically. "But are you

perfectly sure you can--"

"Empress, don't you wish it done?"

"Of course."

"Then, of course, it is done. You'll be able to yell '_sandwich_'!

anywhere in New York and nobody will think of anything except that you

are the most beautiful girl in the world. Give me another before

Frederick brings 'em."

"Brings what?"

"Lamb chops!" answered H. R., who was a humorist of the New York school.

"Quick!" And he kissed her twice.

"We'll have tea up-stairs if you're really going to be one of the

family," said Mrs. Goodchild, with the dubious smile so familiar on the

faces of mothers of New York girls.

"Come, Grace!" said H. R., taking her by the unringed hand. He knew

better--by instinct.

It was a very satisfactory day. Such was the compelling force of his

self-confidence that before he left the house Mr. and Mrs. Goodchild

sincerely hoped he could accomplish the impossible and wipe out the

sandwich stain from the old Knickerbocker name of Rutgers.