CHAPTER I

[Frontispiece: (Rawn and Laura)]

JOHN RAWN

Prominent Citizen

_By_

EMERSON HOUGH

_Author of_

The Mississippi Bubble, 54-40 Or Fight

The Purchase Price, Etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

M. LEONE BRACKER

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1912

EMERSON HOUGH

PRESS OF

BRAUNWORTH & CO.

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

TO

WOODROW WILSON

ONE OF THE LEADERS IN THE THIRD WAR OF

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

Contents

BOOK I

Chapter

I Certain Notable Details in Genesis

II Purely Incidental

III In Victory Generous

IV In Love Successful

V In Adversity Triumphant

VI Mr. Rawn Announces His Arrival

VII The Difference Between Men

VIII Power

IX Change in Kelly Row

X The Woodshed in Kelly Row

XI The Test

XII The Helpmeet

BOOK II

I The New Mr. Rawn

II Graystone Hall

III The Competencies of Miss Delaware

IV At Headquarters

V Their Master's Voice

VI In Proper Person

VII John Rawn, Prominent Citizen

VIII A Princely Generosity

BOOK III

I The Extreme Monogamy of Mr. Rawn

II Asparagus, Also Potatoes

III The Silent Partner

IV The Baker's Daughter

BOOK IV

I The Royal Progress of Mr. and Mrs. Rawn

II Four Being No Company

III The Step-Mother-in-Law

IV The Second Current

V Means to an End

VI An Informal Meeting

VII They Who Sow the Wind

VIII They Who Water With Tears

IX What Cheer of the Harvest?

X Those Who Reap the Whirlwind

XI The Means--And the End

XII The Great John Rawn

JOHN RAWN

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

CERTAIN NOTABLE DETAILS IN GENESIS

I

One John Rawn is to be the hero of this pleasing tale; no ordinary

hero, as you might learn did you make inquiry of himself. His history

must be set down in full, from beginning to culmination, from delicate

flowering to opulent fruitage, from early obscurity to later fame.

Such would be his wish; and the wishes of John Rawn long have been

commands.

For the most part the early history of any hero is of small

consequence. We are chiefly concerned that he shall be tall and

shapely, mighty in war and love, and continuously engaged therein from

the first moment of his entrance on our scene. Granted these

essentials, we customarily pass carelessly over any hero's youth, even

as lightly, perchance, over his ancestry. Not so in the case of John

Rawn. He himself would say, if asked, that no hero of so exceptional a

merit as his own could be thus lightly produced; that indeed not even

the three generations accorded to the making of a gentleman could be

called sufficient for the evolution of a personage of mold such as his.

Let us yield to a will so imperious, a wish so germane to our own

amiable intent. Mr. Rawn shall have all the generations that he likes.

II

John Rawn might, in the caretaking plans of the immortal gods, have

been born at any time in the world's history, at any place upon the

world's surface. He himself, had he been consulted, might have

suggested Rome, Greece, or mediæval England, as offering better field

for one of his kidney. He might have indicated certain resemblances

between himself and persons who, through virtue given of the immortal

gods, have attained the purple, who have held permanent and admitted

ascendancy over their fellow-men. As a matter of fact, however, John

Rawn was born in Texas--and of Texas at the very spot where, had it

been left to his own candid opinion, no John Rawn, no especial hero,

ought ever to have been born. The village he honored by his birth--one

of seven which now contend over that claim to fame--was the very home

of democratic equality; and how could the home of democratic equality

be called typical environment for the production of a man believing in

the divine right of a very few?

Neither, had John Rawn been consulted in the matter, would he have

indorsed the plans of fate in respect to his ancestry any more than he

did the workings of the misguided stars in regard to his environment.

By right he should have been the offspring of parents for long

generations accustomed to rule, to command, to sway the destinies of

others. Yet far from this was the truth in our hero's case.

Which of us can tell what is in an infant's mind? At what day or hour

of a child's life does the consciousness of human values in affairs

first impinge upon the embryonic mentality? At what date, first

feeling itself human and not plant, not oyster nor amoeba, can it

logically begin that reproach of its own parentage which to so many of

us is held as a personal right, convenient and pleasant because it

explains away so many things by way of human failures? At what time,

at what moment of John Rawn's life did he, lying in his cradle, and

looking up for the first conscious time into the faces solicitously

bending above him, realize that after all, in spite of all the plans of

the watchful fates, here were no king and queen, no emperor and empress

assigned to him as parents, but only an humble Methodist preacher and

his still more humble wife?

Truly here was hard handicap even at the start, that of both birth and

environment, as he himself would have been first to admit. Not that it

could daunt him, not that it could cause a soul like his to feel the

pangs of despair. No; it meant only that much further to travel, that

much higher to climb. This American republic was expressly framed for

such as Mr. Rawn. The issue never was to be called in doubt. From

that first hour of consciousness of his ego which marks the real birth

of a human soul, John Rawn must have said to himself that success was

meant for him; that not all the hostile array of circumstances, birth,

heredity and environment, could do more than temporarily balk his aim.

From the cradle, indeed for generations uncounted--as many as he

likes--before the cradle, John Rawn believed in himself. How can we

fail to join him in that belief?

III

It was rarely that ever a smile enlivened the somewhat heavy features

of young John Rawn, even in the earliest stages of his babyhood.

Rarely did the mirth of any situation bring up in his face an answering

dawn of appreciation. He was a serious child, as all admitted even

from the first. He grew to be a grave boy, a solemn youth. He made no

jests, nor smiled at those of others. There was a corrugation between

his brows before he was twenty years of age. In his declamations at

the exercises of the village school, his hand went instinctively into a

bosom not yet ten years of age; his forelock fell across his brow

before he was twelve; already his gestures were large and wide, his

voice prematurely deep before he had reached fourteen. He was of that

temperament which, in accordance with the term, takes itself seriously.

It is astonishing what virtue lies in that habit. The world, sometimes

for many years, indeed sometimes permanently, accepts seriously those

who seriously accept themselves. Many of the most colossal asses ever

born have not "Ass" written on their tombstones, where righteously it

so very frequently belongs in the history of the great.

IV

Curious persons might have found certain explanations for these traits

in the calling, the temper and training of the father of John Rawn. In

that time and place, a minister of the gospel was a man of whom all

stood in awe. He was not much gainsaid, not much withstood, not much

disapproved. His conclusions were announced for acceptance, not for

argument. At best he was only to be avoided, if one dreaded the look

of the clerical eye, the denunciation of the clerical tongue. Other

men might be met, might be antagonized, might be overcome by fist or

thumb or firearms, per example; not so the parson of the village church.

It is an excellent profession; that of minister of the gospel. The

ranks of none offer better men than the best types of that profession,

large men, strong men, just men, not doing preaching for a business,

but really wishing to counsel and aid frail humanity as it marches

among the perpetual pitfalls, the perpetual hardships of human life.

It is an exceedingly good religion of itself, that merely of helping

your fellow-man, of saying something to soften and better him, of

giving to him something of hope and courage when he is in need of them.

Let us not argue whether or not a divine spirit can become mortal,

whether or not Christ was divine. We know by virtue of abundant human

testimony that He was a great and kindly Man, a great and adorable

Human Being, the greatest of whom we know in all our human history.

And that man who makes the creed of the greatest of us all his own, who

lives kindly and helpfully and modestly, with no blare of trumpet,

doing simply and silently that which his human hands find to do; that

man nearest to the greatest Man of whom we know, the one who went

closest to making human life endurable, who took humanity farthest away

from the cruel creed of the jungle--that minister of the gospel, let us

say then, who lives as is possible for one of his calling to live, and

attains in that calling what may be attained, may be, and not

infrequently is, a splendid human being.

But he is worth our admiration when he is worth it; not necessarily

otherwise. A minister of the gospel may not always be the central

figure of that religious fervor which has come sporadically and

spasmodically to men under many creeds, since man began to think aloud,

to doubt and despair in public, and to pray in company. Besides, there

are ministers and ministers. Some are men naturally large and are so

accepted. Others, alas! bulk larger than really they are, by virtue of

the fact that always they apparently have prevailed; whereas, in truth,

they only have met small opposition.

'Tis a sweet fashion of life which allows us always to have our own

way! Nor is it to be denied that when the preacher stands before the

flock, his disordered hair falling above his brow, his eyes flashing,

his breath sobbing in his emotion; when he hurls out questions to which

he knows there will be no answer; when he makes one assertion after

another to which he knows there is to be no contradiction; when he

rules, sways, expounds, glorifies, waxing greater in stature out of the

very situation in which he stands--let us not deny that he is then in

the way--the simple and forgivably human way--of coming more and more

into the belief that he himself is as great as the doctrines which he

expounds. There are martyrs in history because of human convictions

which led them to contradict the church. There are other and far more

numerous martyrs, made such because they dared not contradict it.

Given, then, a man of rawboned frame, of virile physical health, and of

pronouncedly good opinion of himself, this is perhaps the very

profession of all others which would be most apt to build up that man

in his own eyes into a personage of considerable stature. Such a man

might easily regard himself as set apart from his fellow human

beings--a feeling which Christ Himself never had, nor any great man in

or out of history before Him or after Him. It is understandable that

such a man, of such a profession, might be the very one to find his

philosophy feeding upon itself; with the net result of an inordinate,

ingrown egotism. And this ingrown egotism in himself might, in the

case of his son, become an egotism congenital. There are ministers of

the gospel, and other ministers of the gospel. John Rawn, Senior, was

of this particular and less desirable sort. We mention him, having

promised our hero all the analysis and all the generations he may

desire; and being, moreover, commendably anxious fully to account for

him and his many noteworthy peculiarities.

V

Had John Rawn, our hero, been able in his childhood to figure out that,

after all, God and the undying stars had no special grudge against him

in assigning his birth to a humble inland village; had he been able to

picture to himself his real value as a human unit; had he been able to

understand his own explanation,--that is to say this explanation of him

which we so patiently have given--had he been able to qualify his own

mind as that of a congenital egotist, and hence to see himself

naturally come by certain phases of his character--he might have smiled

and have been different. He might one day have extended his hand to

his fellow-man understandingly, might have gone through life much as

other men indeed, dying simply and without much outcry about it, as

most of us do, and living with small disturbance of the world's

equilibrium, as most of us also do. But in that deplorable case there

would have been no John Rawn as we know him, and no story about him

worth the telling. Let us, therefore, beg to disagree even with him,

and not hold it as entire misfortune that he was born in an unstoried

spot, and of parents one of whom, by reason of his natural character

and of his calling, was wont to consider himself the partner, and not

necessarily the junior partner, of a Divine Providence.

CHAPTER II

PURELY INCIDENTAL

I

To be sure John Rawn had a mother, but that is merely an incidental

matter for one who really was brooded among the spheres, and who

accepted a mother only as a necessary means to incarnation. We need

accord no more than scant time to a mere mother.

There was in the character of the elder Rawn's wife little to offset

the tendencies transmitted by the father. Had she herself been a trace

further removed from the blind submission of a jungle past in

womanhood, it might have been that the offspring of these two had been

accorded a better insight into the real situation of mankind, might

perhaps even have been given a saving sense of humor, a better

valuation of human affairs as pertaining to himself, and of himself as

related to human affairs. The truth, however, is that Mrs. Rawn, the

preacher's wife, was simply a preacher's wife. She was a machine for

gratifying a certain part of her husband's nature, a well-nigh apogamic

contrivance for rearing children, an appliance for tending tables and

sweeping carpets, and going to prayer meetings, or perhaps--on rare and

much-coveted occasions--for acting as witness in parsonage marriage

ceremonies, the which might haply produce a fee from the bridegroom,

temporarily generous; which fee, in a moment of aberration, might even

pass from parson to parson's wife. It is decreed that the background

of a ministerial life shall be of neutral hue, in order that the more

brilliantly shall shine the central figure of the scheme. The minister

himself, unctuous, bland, grows less unctuous and bland as he turns

from some comelier sister to his own partner in life, colorless,

silent, dutiful, devoted. There is but one family perihelion, and he

is the one planet thereat. At most a pale and distant moon may circle

about him, perhaps concerned with domestic tides, but not admittedly

related to the affairs of night and day.

It is not known, nor is it important, whence Mrs. Rawn came, or how she

happened to marry her lord, John Rawn, Senior, the Methodist preacher

in the little Texas town. They were married when they arrived at this

place, and had been for some years. No one knows whence they came, no

man can tell whither they have gone. John was the first child granted

to them as answer to his father's grumbling; the latter, very nobly and

righteously, dreading what calamity the world must suffer did none come

to perpetuate his race. He was a great preacher. He had swayed his

multitudes. He had seen a hundred souls, as he termed them, grovelling

upon the floor in the height of some revival when the grace of the Lord

had moved itself mightily upon the people, thanks to him, partner upon

the ground, whose voice had prevailed thereabout. It would cause any

just man to shudder--the mere thought of such merit lacking progeny.

But the prayers of the righteous avail much. He had, at last, a son,

our hero; none less.

II

These necessary and essential preliminaries now all stand adjusted; and

we are able finally to say that John Rawn at least and at last was

born, silently, quietly, with small rebellion on the part of his

mother. He lay there in his first cradle, silent, a trifle red, a

slight frown upon his face, a trace of gravity in his features, as he

ventured an introspective look within the confines of his couch, and

for the first time discovered that wholly interesting, remarkable,

indeed wonderful human being, Himself.

Having assured himself that he was here, John Rawn sighed, turned over

in his cradle, and presently fell asleep, well assured that, although

He had selected Texas for this event, God after all was in His heaven,

and that, in the circumstance, all in due time would be well with the

world. Could any hero of his years have acted with a finer, a larger

generosity?

CHAPTER III

IN VICTORY GENEROUS

I

The youth of John Rawn early began to show that consistency in

character which marked him later in his life. From the first, as we

have said, he took himself seriously; indeed, regarded himself with a

reverence akin almost to solemnity. Plain wonder possessed his soul

when any event fell not wholly to his liking. If the hand that rocked

his cradle failed from weariness, his reproof was not so much that of

anger or expostulation as that of an aggrieved surprise. When first he

began to walk he gravely reserved to himself the spotlight of all solar

or sewing circles. Ladies visiting the parsonage unconsciously

accepted his estimate of himself, even in those days. Familiarities

were not for such a child as this. It began to be rumored about that

here was one set apart for great things. Most frequently parents are

alone in this manner of belief as to their offspring; but the severity

of countenance, the grave assuredness of young John Rawn, forced this

belief upon the entire community. A calm, serene certainty of himself

was written on his brow.

Youth is for the most part irreverent of other youth, that is true, and

at times young Mr. Rawn was rudely handled by others of his age. In

such cases tears came to his eyes forsooth, but not tears of mere anger

or anguish. They were tears of surprise, of regret, of wonder! His

protest, when he fled to the comfort of his mother's bosom, was not of

unmanly weakness, but of astonishment and incredulous surprise that any

should have smitten the Lord's anointed. This surprise for the most

part prevented him either from turning the other cheek, or smiting the

cheek of the oppressor; one or the other of which courses, it must be

admitted, commonly is held admirable among men, and especially among

heroes.

In his younger school-days there was a way about young Mr. Rawn. He

did not really care for plodding, yet he was aggrieved if not accorded

rank among his fellow pupils. His spelling, not of the best in the

belief of others, seemed to him quite good enough, because it was his

own. When sent to the foot of the class he departed thither with a

bearing wholly dignified and calm.

Even in these early days his features were in large mold, even then his

abundant hair fell across his brow. His eyes were blue and prominent,

his nose distinct, his lower lip prominent, protruding and in times of

great emotion semi-pendulous. Even thus early he seemed old, serious,

foreordained. To tell a being such as this that he could not spell was

mere _lèse majesté_. He stalked through school, set apart by fate from

his fellow-beings, amenable to few rules, superior to such restrictions

as commonly hedge in lesser souls orthographically, socially, or

otherwise.

Much of this might have been remedied by kindly application of

educational or parental rod, but young Mr. Rawn remained largely

unchastened. His parents did not care to punish him, and his teacher

did not dare to do so. Was he not the minister's son? If his mother

had misgivings they were well concealed. She herself only shuddered in

her soul when she heard the orotund voice of the master of the house

explain, in contemplation of his first born, "How much he is like me!"

Yes, he was like. His mother knew how like.

II

At that time and in that part of the country this little western

village might have been called almost a little world of itself.

Estimates of men and affairs were such only as might grow out of the

soil. The great world beyond was a thing but vaguely sensed of any who

dwelt here. The town was apart from the nearest railway, in a section

where rural simplicity amounted at times almost to frontier savagery.

Now and then a lynching broke the quiet of the community. The local

vices and virtues came out of a life but recently individual and

unrestrained. It seemed only chance that young Rawn did not run wild,

like many other of the youth of that town, who, trained by custom in

arms and excess, disappeared from time to time, passing on to the

frontier, then not remote.

Why did not John Rawn naturally trend toward violence, why did the

frontier not call out to him? There was one great reason--he was a

coward.

Cowardice is a trait sometimes handed down from father to son, indeed

most usually it comes of heredity or ill-health. Sometimes it is

fought down by reason, sometimes it is long concealed by artifice.

Often it is hidden behind physical stature. Most frequently it is left

unsuspected, sheltered behind an air of dignity. Money conceals much

of it. Young Rawn was much like his father before him. Perhaps his

father never had stopped to think that personal conclusions were

matters he had never been called upon to carry to an end with any

fellow-man. Peter Cartwright was no saint of his. There was no need,

in his belief, to put spiritual or mental questions to the acid and

unpleasant test of physical contact. The son, given by nature a

considerable stature and gravity for his years, continued in the same

fiction, not suspecting that it was fiction. There were larger boys

than he, but chivalry restrained these. There were smaller boys than

he, but these feared him by reason of the valor which it was supposed

he owned. The ranks of life opened before him readily and easily. He

stalked forward, with small opposition, accepted at his own estimate of

himself; as presently we shall set forth in many valuable instances.

III

It may be supposed that, in a rural community of this sort, living was

cut down pretty much to the bone of actual necessities. There was no

excess of comfort, and, although there was little lack, luxury was a

thing undreamed. Transportation was in that day costly and

inefficient, the world not so small then as it is now, so that there

was less interchange of the products of distant countries and

localities. For instance, there were orange groves within three

hundred miles of this little village, yet rarely was an orange to be

seen there. Flour, salt, coffee, bacon, Bibles, six-shooters,

essential things, were carried thither, not luxuries and trifles. The

family was its own world. In large part, it tilled its own fields and

ran its own factories. Mrs. Rawn molded the candles which made the

bedroom lights and those by which she sewed--though not that by which

her husband read and wrote--in a kettle in the backyard at butchering

times, when suet came the parson's way. She made her husband's long

black coats, building them upon some prehistoric pattern. She made,

mended and washed his shirts, hemmed his stocks and darned his socks

for him. Using the outworn ministerial cloth in turn, she made also,

in due time, the garments of the son and heir, even building for him a

cap, with ear-lappets, for winter use. Her own garments might have

been seen by the most casual eye to have been the product of her own

hands. Yet, this home was not much different from others, where

countless things then were done domestically which now are fabricated

in factories and purchased through many middlemen. The lockstep of our

civilization was not then so fully in force.

Money was a rare commodity in any such community, and any manner of

personal indulgence was for but few. If, for instance, there was beef

on the parsonage table, it was the parson alone who ate it, not his

wife. Once he came home with two lemons, which had been given him,

perhaps as a peace-offering, by a generous storekeeper. These he

ordered made forthwith into lemonade; the which, forthwith also, he

himself drank, offering none to the sharer of his joys; nor did she

find anything either unusual or reproach-worthy in this act. You

wonder at these things? They happened in another day, among people

with whom you could not be expected to be familiar--your fathers and

mothers; persons not in the least of our class.

IV

In these circumstances--since we have promised value in some specific

instance--a certain interest attaches to a little event which nowhere

else, save in some such village, would have been noted or could have

been possible. The leading local merchant, in a burst of enterprise,

had imported a couple of clusters of bananas from New Orleans, the

first ever brought into the town. For a time none of the citizens

purchased, and, indeed, it required the grudging gift of a banana or so

to establish a local demand. Then--builded on the assurance of a wise

and much-traveled citizen who had once eaten a banana at Fort

Worth--the rumor of the bananas passed rapidly through the town.

Swiftly it became an important thing to announce to a neighbor that one

had eaten of this fruit. In time, even children partook thereof.

At this time young Mr. Rawn was six years of age, and by reason of his

years and his social position at least as much entitled to bananas as

any of his like thereabout. Yet, he had none. The tragedy of this

wrung his mother's soul. Was it to be thought that this, her son,

should be denied any of the good things of life, that he should have

less than equal enjoyment of life's privileges in the company of his

fellows? The climax came when young Mr. Rawn himself approached his

mother's knee, with wonder and surprise upon his face, inquiring why

others had bananas, while he himself, the Lord's anointed, and son of

the Lord's anointed, had none. It was at that time that his mother

somewhat furtively stole away down the village street. She had a few

coppers, saved by such hook and crook as you and I may not know, and

these she now proposed to devote to a holy cause.

It was at about this same time, also, that there chanced to pass by, on

the sidewalk in front of the parsonage, two boys younger than John Rawn

himself. These he regarded intently, for he saw from a distance that

each had some suspicious object in his hand. His own suspicions became

certainties. Here was visible proof that they, mere common persons,

were owners of specimens of that fruit whose excellence was rumored

throughout the town. They ate, or were about to eat, while he did not!

They had luxuries while he had none! They had not asked his

permission, yet they ate! Form this picture well in your mind, oh,

gentle reader. It is that of John Rawn and ourselves.

With great gravity and dignity young Mr. Rawn stalked down the brick

walk to the front gate of the parsonage yard. Calmly, with no word,

but with uplifted hand--nay, merely by his stately dignity--he barred

the progress of these two. They paused, uncertain. Then he held out

his hand, and, with a growl of command, demanded of these others that

which they had regarded as their own. He took it as matter of course

that Cæsar should have the things that were Cæsar's; and they who give

tribute to our Cæsars now, gave it then.

Having possession of these bananas, which as yet remained unbroken of

their owners, young Mr. Rawn showed them that, although these fruits

were unfamiliar to their former owners, they made no enigma to a person

of his powers. As though he had done nothing else all his life, he

broke open the tender skin and removed the soft interior contents.

After this he handed back to each of his young friends the disrupted

and now empty skins. Yet, with much kindness, he explained to both

that at the bottom of each husk or envelope there still remained some

portion of edible contents which, with care upon their part, might yet

be rescued. They departed, wondering somewhat, but glad they had been

shown how this thing was done; even as you and I humbly thank our great

men for robbing us to-day.

Young Mr. Rawn, age six, turned now with much dignity back to the

gallery from which he had with much dignity come. He seated himself

calmly upon the chair and began to eat that which had been given him of

fate, that which had been brought to Cæsar as a thing due to Cæsar. He

ate until at last, wearied with his labors, he fell asleep.

V

Note now our humble moral in this short and simple detail of our hero's

early years. He was at this moment more nearly full of bananas than

any other human being in all the village at that time. Yet he had

attained that success at no price save that of the exercise of the

resources of his mind. That is genius. Let us not smile at young Mr.

Rawn.

His mother, stealing home by the back way with yet other bananas

concealed in her apron, presently came upon him and discovered that,

after all, her solicitude had not been, needful. Her son slept, his

lower lip protruding, his features grave, his legs somewhat sprawled

apart, his mid-body somewhat distended, his head sunken forward, his

hands drooping at his side. In one hand, clutched so tightly as to

have become a somewhat worthless pulp, his mother discovered the bulk

of several bananas; in short, the full quota which had been assigned to

two of his fellow-beings. It was genius!

Even at that time there departed up the village street those which had

given tribute to Cæsar. They regarded with a certain curiosity the

empty husks which had been returned to them--even as you and I regard

the husks accorded us by overgreat men to-day. From time to time each

nibbled, with small return, although as per instructions, at the base

from which the main fruit had been broken. Witness the difference

among men. These had bananas for which something had been paid. John

Rawn had many, better and bigger bananas, for which nothing at all had

been paid! In return for them he had shown their late owners how to

open a banana. For the later opening of that which in our parlance we

call the melon, John Rawn was now decently under way. Already he was

showing himself to be a captain among men.

His mother looked upon him as he slept sprawled in his repletion and

made no attempt to remove the uneaten fruit from his hands; indeed,

made no query as to where he had obtained it. She did not disturb his

slumbers. "How like his father he is!" she whispered to herself,

mindful of certain lemons, certain beefsteaks, certain wedding fees,

certain gone and wasted years. She did not say: "How dear he is, how

sweet, how manly, how brave, how decent, how chivalrous!" No, with a

slight tightening of the lips as she turned back to find her belated

sewing, she spoke, as though to herself, and with no peculiar glorying

in her voice, "How like he is to his father!" And so took up her

burden.

CHAPTER IV

IN LOVE SUCCESSFUL

I

"But, my dear--but Laura, you don't stop to think!" exclaimed a certain

young man to a certain young woman, at a somewhat interesting and

important moment of their lives. "You certainly do not mean to say--to

tell me--to tell me! Why--!"

He ceased, a gasp in his throat at the unbelievable effrontery of the

woman who faced him in this situation. All he had asked of her was to

marry him. And she had hesitated. It was a thing incredible!

It was Mr. Rawn, our hero. It could have been almost no one else who

could have sustained precisely this attitude at precisely such a time.

It was not despair, disappointment, anger, chagrin, pique, regret or

resentment that marked his tones, but surprise, astonishment! Yes, it

must have been John Rawn.

As to the young woman herself, who now turned a somewhat pale face to

one side as she left her hand in his, she might have been any one of

many thousand others in that city. Her hair was brown, her features

regular enough, her complexion nondescript, her garb non-committal.

Not a person of ancient lineage, you would have said, or of much

education in the world's ways, or of much worldly goods--these things

do not always come to a saleswoman of twenty-five, whose salary is six

dollars a week. Yet her face had in it now a very sweet sort of

womanliness, her mouth a tender droop to it. Her eyes shone with that

look which comes to a woman's eyes when first she hears the declaration

of man's love--the most glorious and most tragic moment in all a

woman's life.

The fates ordain which of these it shall be--glory or tragedy. Laura

Johnson could not tell, cry in her soul as she might for some forecast

shadow from the land of fates to show, visibly, upon the subconscious

screen hidden in a girl's heart, the figure of the truth. All this was

different from what she had pictured it to be. She had thought that

love would come in some tender yet imperious way, that she would know

some sudden wave of content and trust and assuredness. There was on

her plain, severe face, now a wistfulness that almost glorified it

after all. For, indeed, our human loving is most dignified and

glorious in what it desires love to be.

He leaned again toward her, insistent, frowning, imperious. This was

as she had planned. What, then, lacked? If she had sought for some

strong man to sweep her from her calm, why was she now so calm? She

asked this swiftly, vaguely, wonderingly, demanding to be told by these

same fates which had implanted doubt in her heart, whether this was all

that she might ever hope, whether this insufficient fashion was the way

in which it came to all women--had come, always, to all the women of

the world.

"You surely do not stop to consider," he renewed. "Why, look at me!"

She did look at him, turning about, pushing him away from her that she

might, in that one moment of a woman's privilege, look at the being

demanding of her her own life. What she saw was not an ill-looking

young man of twenty-nine, of rather heavy features, rather a frowning

brow, a somewhat prominent light eye, a somewhat pendulous lower lip,

abundant darkish hair, abundant confidence in himself. He was tallish,

well built, strong, seemed somewhat of a man, yes. And he loved her.

At least he had said he did.

Laura Johnson did stop to consider. She considered the face which she

saw in the glass beyond his shoulder--her own face, not strikingly

handsome. "I might be any one of a hundred girls," she said to

herself. "I might be any one of those other hundreds who might be

sought out instead of myself," said she. "A girl of my looks and place

in life is not apt to have hundreds of opportunities. And I am tired,

and puzzled. And I want a home. I want to stop worrying for myself.

I would rather worry for some one else. I want to be--" There she

paused.

She wanted to be a wife, loved, cherished, supported, comforted and

protected. That was what she wanted, though the young of the female

sex do not know what they want or why they want it. And certainly she

could choose only among the opportunities offered her. This was her

first opportunity. It might be her last. Besides all of this, she was

a woman. She had always obeyed men all her life, at home, in her daily

labors, everywhere. And this man was so insistent, so assured, so

confident that this was the right and inevitable course for her--why,

he said it again and again--that surely--so she reasoned--she must be

crazed not to see that this was the appointed time, that this was the

appointed man.

She sighed a trifle as she laid aside the garment of her girlhood,

which had kept her sweet and clean for five and twenty years. She

folded both her worn and rather bony hands, put them both in his, and

said, with a little smile that ought to have wrung his heart, "Well,

John, if--if it must be!"

He did not catch the little sob in her voice. He never knew, either

then or at any other time in his life, what it was that lacked in her

voice, her face, in her heart, indeed. He never knew, then or at any

other time, what a woman is, what she covets, longs for, craves,

desires, demands, requires passionately, prizes agonizingly to the

last, the very last. He did not waste time to query over these

unimportant things. He drew her to him with rude care, kissed her fair

and full, and then rose.

"Well, then, I'm sure we're going to do well together, Laura, dear."

She did not answer, but sat waiting, longing eagerly for something she

lacked, she knew not what.

John Rawn looked at his watch, turned for his hat, and remarked, "I'll

be here to-morrow night, dear, at half-past seven. Right after supper."

II

Our hero, John Rawn, had grown up much as he was planned to be. Since

we have been liberal in regard to his genesis before he arrived in the

little Texas town, let us be niggardly as to his exodus therefrom, for

that is less in importance. It may be seen that he has grown, through

what commonplace conditions let us not ask. As he himself never

stopped to think, after his arrival in St. Louis to seek his fortune,

whether or not his parents still were living, we ourselves need ask no

more than he. Since he by now had well-nigh forgotten the scenes of

his youth, so may we forget them. He had come to this northern city to

seek his fortune. Here was a part of it, as he coolly reasoned. What

is especially worth noting is that he still mentioned his evening meal

as supper--and not as dinner.

These twain, about to be one flesh, as witness their sober speech, both

ate supper, and not dinner, and had done so most of their lives. They

came out of middle class circumstances, very similar in each case.

Their lives had been much similar. They both had come to the city to

seek their fortunes. She had found hers behind a dry-goods counter, he

his--temporarily and in sufferance, of course--as an ill-paid clerk in

a railway office. They met now and then as they passed out for

luncheon, met betimes at evening as they started home. For a time they

met also in the same boarding place, where they had rooms not far

apart. It was perhaps propinquity that did it. When this thought came

to Laura Johnson, with her first realization that perhaps this young

man was making love to her, or was apt to do so, she changed her

boarding place at once, actuated by some indefinable feeling of

delicacy. She wanted to see if there were no better reason for

love-making than that of mere propinquity. But he had followed; and

she was pleased at that, almost to the point of ascribing to herself

some charm which she herself had not suspected. He came again and

again, daily, each night after supper, as he had said, in fact. She

did not deny that she had made all pleasant for him to the best of her

ability. And now he was going to come again, after the next supper;

only in a different rôle, that of her accepted suitor.

III

That was almost all there was about it. What would you expect of two

ill-paid clerks, twenty-nine and twenty-five years of age? What might

they have to hope for, more than for each other? Why should the

ambition of either leap beyond what was there present, in its own

comprehensible world? Why should they not keep on meeting day after

day, after supper?

Romance is by no means a necessary thing. The truly necessary thing is

supper. John Rawn knew this.

CHAPTER V

IN ADVERSITY TRIUMPHANT

I

It might with some justice be urged that, thus far in his life, Mr.

Rawn has shown little to distinguish him from his fellow-men; that

indeed his career has been commonplace almost to the point of lack of

interest to others. There are many of us who have been born in this or

that small community, who have lived somewhat humdrum lives, have

married in a somewhat humdrum way, and who have, in like unspectacular

fashion, failed to achieve any distinguished success in affairs. Yet,

did we restrict ourselves to this point of view, we must fail of our

purpose herein, just as Mr. Rawn himself would have failed had he

allowed himself no imagination in his view of himself. For the man who

is commonplace and who is aware of the fact, the future is apt to have

but little hope, nor is his story apt to hold any interest. In the

case of Mr. Rawn the reverse of this was true. He did not rate himself

as commonplace. Always he pictured himself as central figure in some

large scene presently to be staged. His life was much like ours, and

ours are for the most part of small concern to others. But John Rawn

heard Voices. They spoke of himself. He saw a Vision. It was of

himself. The trouble with us others is that we bashfully still the

voices and timidly wipe the image from our mirrors. Let us pass all

these matters with reference to them as small as was Rawn's own.

John Rawn, then, married Laura Johnson, and they lived unhappily ever

after. That is to say, she did. As for her lord, he did not notice

his wife to any great extent after once they had settled down together,

but came to regard her as one of those incidents of life which classify

with food, clothing, the need of sleep. He looked upon his wife much

as he did upon the weather. Both happened, and both for the most part

were to be condemned. Still, he took no active measures for the

abolishment of either.

He was a solemn man in his home, or at least for the most part a

silent. Yet at times he became almost cheerful--when the talk fell

upon himself; indeed, he would explain to his wife, with much care and

elaboration, himself, his character, his virtues and his plans. In his

household life he kept up the traditions in which he had been reared.

He ate all the beefsteak there was on the table when there was but

enough for one, which latter often was the case, for his wife had need

to be frugal. At times he would purchase a solitary ticket to the

theater and go alone. Yet he was generous, and always after his return

home he would with fine feeling tell his wife what he had seen.

Sometimes he spent a Sunday in the country, but, as he himself had been

first to state, he was never selfish about this. He always would tell

his wife how green the grass had been, how sweet the songs of the

birds, how bright the sky. Most of all he would tell of the song of

one small bird which sang continually in his ear, telling him of a

success which before long, in some way, was to be their own. The

passing years left his wife a trifle thinner, a trifle more gray. He

himself continued fresh, stalwart, strong. Sometimes, coming back from

the theater or the country, after listening to the voice of this small

bird at his ear, he would smite with a heavy fist upon the family table

and say, "Why, Laura, look at me--look at me!" After which a heavy

frown would come upon his face as of one conscious of tardiness in the

fashion of fate. But he knew that he was a great man.

II

Now, what Laura, his wife, knew is not for us to say. She held her

peace. Never a word of complaint, or taunt, or reproach, or of longing

came to her lips. Never did she repine at the situation of life which

held them for more than a dozen years after they were married--one of

perpetual monotony, of narrow, iron-bound restraint. After some

incredible, some miraculous way of womankind, she managed to make the

ends meet, indeed even to overlap a trifle at each week-end. She

smiled in the morning when he went away, smiled in the evening when he

returned, and if meanwhile she did not smile again throughout all the

day, at least she did her part. A great soul, this of Laura Rawn; but

no greater than that of many another woman who does these things day

after day until the time comes for the grave, wherein she lies down at

last with equanimity and calm. Without unduly flattering the vanity,

without overfeeding the egotism of her lord and master, at least Laura

Rawn was wise enough to see he could not be much changed. Finding

herself thus situated, she accepted her case and spent her time doing

what could be done, not wasting it in seeking the impossible. He was

her husband, that was all. She knew no better way of life than to

accept that fact and make the most of it. Which is tragedy, if you

please.

III

After the birth of Grace Rawn, their daughter, which occurred within

the first year of their wedded life, Laura Rawn had something to

interest her for the remainder of their days. Her horizon widened now

immeasurably; indeed to the extent of giving her a world of her own

wherein she could dwell apart quite comfortably; one in which her

husband had no part. Simple and just in her way of thought, she

accepted the truth that without married life, without her husband, this

new world could not have been her own. Wherefore she credited him, and

in her child, somewhat reverenced him. She was an old-fashioned wife.

As to the child herself, she grew steadily and normally into young

girlhood, in time into young womanhood, not given to much display,

reserved of judgment as well as of speech, ofttimes sullen in mood, yet

withal a step or so higher than her mother on the ladder of feminine

charm. She had a clean, good family rearing, and a good grammar school

education. At about the time her father came to be a man of middle

age, Grace fell into her place in the clerical machine of the railway

office where he worked; for very naturally, being an American girl of

small means, she took up shorthand, and was licensed to do violence.

At home she joined her mother in regard and attention for the master of

the house.

IV

Here, then, was simply a good, middle-class American family, offering

for some years little to attract the attention of those who dwelt about

them. The head of this family, as he attained additional solidity of

figure, grew even heavier of brow, trod with even more stateliness

about his appointed duties. It was a privilege for the other clerks

who labored near him to see such calm, such dignity. On the street

John Rawn asked no pardons if he brushed against his fellow-man. In

his business life, in his conduct upon the street-car, at the

restaurant table, anywhere, he helped himself as though of right, and

regarded the rights or preferences of others not at all. The community

cream, the individual butter, he accumulated unto himself unsmilingly,

as once he had bananas in his youth. Broad hints, deprecating smiles,

annoyed protests, all were lost upon him. At forty-seven years of age

his salary was but one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. That

showed only the lack of wisdom of others, not unfitness in himself.

Had this been Greece, or Rome, or mediæval England, he would have shown

them who was entitled to the throne! Indeed, he would show them that

yet. He often told his wife and daughter as much.

Did we not know the genesis of Mr. Rawn, and did we not know full well

the divine right of kings, we might call this rather a curious frame of

mind for a man who dwelt in a small house with green blinds and a dingy

back yard, for whose conjoint charms he paid but twenty dollars a

month, on whose floors there was much efflorescence of art square, upon

whose be-lambrequined mantels showed few works of art beyond a series

of bisque shepherdesses and china dogs, on whose parlor table reclined

a Dying Gaul, and on whose boudoir walls hung an engraving of the Rock

of Ages. But John Rawn bided his time. He went on year after year,

grave and dignified, perhaps one new cross wrinkle coming in his

forehead with each Christmas, recorded by one more annual shepherdess

upon the family mantel.

V

And yet all this time success was lying in ambush, as it sometimes

does, ready to spring forth at the appointed hour. At about this time

there occurred changes in the arrangement of the planets, the

juxtaposition of the spheres, which meant great alteration in the

affairs of John Rawn, of Kelly Row, who dwelt in a brick house six

miles out from the railway office where he had worked for twenty-four

years, and where he had risen in so brief a time all the way from forty

to one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month.

Let us dwell upon the picture for a moment, deliriously. Could it be

possible that this man in time would own a large part of this railway

and of others? Was it possible to predict a day when an army of clerks

and others, here or there, would stand ready to jump when Rawn cracked

over them a whip whose handle well fitted in his hand? Could the time

be predicted, dreamed, imagined, when the president of this road, the

great Henry Warfield Standley, would spring to open the door for John

Rawn, twenty-four years a clerk, of whose existence he had not long

known?

Yet all these things actually did occur. They could occur only in

America; but this is America. They could occur only at the summons of

a megalomaniac selfishness, an inordinate lust of power; but here were

these, biding their time, in the seriously assured mind of an American

man; a man after all born of his age and of his country, and

representative of that country's typical ambition--the ambition for a

material success.

The lust of power--that was it! The promise of power--that was what

the small bird had sung in John Rawn's ear! The craving and coveting

of power--that was what quivered in the marrow of his bones, that put

ponderousness in his tread, that shone out of his eyes.

It was this, it was all of these, focused suddenly and unexpectedly by

the lens of accident into a burning point of certainty, which marked

the air and attitude of John Rawn one evening on his return to his home

at the conclusion of his day's work. He almost stumbled as he entered

the door, heedless of the threshold. He paced up and down the narrow

little hall, trod here and there almost as in a trance, muttering to

himself, before at last he stood in front of his wife and spread out

his arms--not for her, but for the imaginary multitude whom he

addressed in her.

"Laura," said he, "Laura, it's come! I've got the idea. It's going to

win. We're going to be rich. I've believed it all along, and I know

it now! Laura, look at me--didn't I always tell you so--didn't I know?"

He stood before her, his shoulders back, his chin up, his brow

frowning, his lips trembling in simple, devout admiration of himself.

It was not defiance that marked his attitude. John Rawn did not defy

the lightning. He only wondered why the lightning had so long defied

him.

CHAPTER VI

MR. RAWN ANNOUNCES HIS ARRIVAL

I

For some time Mrs. Rawn said nothing in answer to her husband's

declaration. She had known such things before. Indeed, with woman's

instinct for deliberate self-deception, she sometimes in spite of her

own clear-sightedness had persuaded herself to feel a sort of

resentment at the conditions which so long had held her husband back;

had been sure, as so many wives are, that only a conspiracy of

injustice had thwarted him of success. If only he could get his

chance! That was the way she phrased it, as most wives do--and most

husbands.

But to-day there was something so sincere in his air as to take her

beyond her own forced insincerity with herself. She caught conviction

from his tone. There fell this time upon the sensitized plate of her

woman's nature some sort of shadow of events to come which left there a

permanent imprint as of the truth.

"What is it, John?" she demanded. Her eye kindled, her voice had in it

something not of forced or perfunctory interest. He caught these also,

in his exalted mood almost as sensitive as herself.

"Then you believe it at last!" he demanded, almost fiercely. It was

the voice of his father speaking, demanding of a sinner whether or not

she had repented of her former fallen state. "You begin to think that

after all I'll do something for us both? Oh, well, I'm glad--"

"Why, John, I always thought so," she eluded mildly. "When did I

ever--"

"Oh, I don't know that you ever said it in so many words," he grumbled,

"but of course I knew how you felt about it. I suppose a woman can't

help that. It was my part to succeed somehow, some time, in spite of

you. I always knew I would."

He paced up and down, his coat tails back of the hands which he thrust

deep into his pockets. "I'll tell you again, since I have never spoken

of this--for fear you'd think me just a little conceited about

myself"--he smiled in a manner of deprecation, never for an instant

catching the comedy of this, more than she herself displayed proof of

her own wish to smile--"I'll tell you anyhow, though you may think I've

got a bit of vanity about myself. The truth is, I've always believed

in myself, Laura! I've kept it hidden, of course--never let a soul

know that I thought myself the least bit different from anybody else.

_You_ didn't know it, even--and you're my wife. I've been considered a

modest man all, my life. Yet, Laura, here's the truth about it--I

_wasn't_, really! I _did_ feel different from other men. I didn't

feel just like an ordinary man. I _knew_ I was not--and there's the

truth about it. I don't know exactly how to tell you, but I've always

known, as sure as anything, that some day I'd be a rich man."

II

She sat looking at him seriously, her elbows resting on the table, her

gray eyes following him as he walked, his face serious, the imperious

lock of hair now fallen across his forehead.

"Not that I would let money itself be the only thing, my dear, as you

know," he went on nobly. "I wouldn't do that. Any man worth while has

larger ambitions than merely making money. After I've made money

enough, for us--more than you ever dreamed about--after I've succeeded

and proved myself--then I'm going to do something for other men--my

inferiors in life, you know--the laboring men. I suppose, after all,

people are pretty much alike in some ways. Some men are stronger than

others, more fit to succeed; but they ought to remember that after all

they are the agents of Providence, that they are custodians, Laura,

custodians. No man, Laura, no matter what his success, ought to be

wholly selfish. He oughtn't to be--well, conceited about himself, you

know. He ought to be _humble_."

She still looked after him, wondering whether, after all, he might not

be a trifle off his head; but the seriousness of his eye daunted her.

"As for us, we'll move up to Chicago first, in all likelihood; maybe

later to New York, for I suppose business will take us there a great

deal of the time. As to where we'll make our home eventually, I hardly

know. Sometimes I think we'll come back here and build a real house,

just to show these people who we were all the time. Wherever we build,

we'll furnish, too. I'm going to be a spender. Oh, I've _longed_ for

it all my life--the feel of money going out between my fingers! Not

all for ourselves, mind you. Maybe you don't quite understand about

that--I couldn't expect you to. But after I've done something for the

common people, I want to _build_ something--churches, monuments,

something that will stick and stay after you and I are gone, and tell

them who John Rawn was. I want them to say, most of all, that he was a

_modest_ man, that he was a kind man, and not a selfish one--not a

_selfish_ man, Laura."

III

She nodded, looking at him fixedly, large-natured enough to be just in

the assembling of these crude and unformulated ambitions which she knew

tormented him. "Yes, John," she said quietly.

The next instant his mood changed.

"But one thing they'll have to do!" he said, smiting a fist into his

palm. "They'll have to admit that I _was_ John Rawn! They'll have to

realize that success comes where it belongs. _My_ brain, _my_ energy,

_my_ point of view, _my_ ability to command men, _my_ instinct for

leadership--they'll have to recognize all that. I'll make them see who

we were all the time. Why, Laura, we've just been walking along a flat

floor, more than twenty years, and now we're going to take the

elevator. We'll go _up_ now, straight and fast.

"I'm going to make you happy now," he mused. "You've been a good

enough wife. I always said that to myself--'She's been a good wife.'

I'm going to show you that you didn't make any mistake that night when

you took me, only a railway clerk, with a salary of forty a month."

She did not remind him that, so far as she knew, he was still a railway

clerk, with a salary which in twenty years had not grown abnormally.

But now her own ambitions began to vault: first of all, the ambition of

a mother for her child. She accepted all these vague statements as

convincing truths; for where we hope we are easily convinced.

"But how soon, John? You see, there is Grace, our girl."

"She'll wear diamonds and real clothes."

"I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking of her education. Grace

ought to go to some good girls' college in the East. You see, you and

I didn't have so very much education, John," she smiled.

He frowned in answer. "We didn't need so much, so far as that goes.

Books are not everything. There's plenty of college men who don't

amount to anything."

"I didn't so much mean books. But you see, John, we've lived rather

carelessly. We've not been very conventional, we don't know very many

people, and--maybe--we don't know much how things are _done_, you see.

Now suppose we were giving a dinner, and you had to take out the guest

of honor--"

"Nonsense! I reckon any guest'd feel honored enough to come to my

house. I'm not worrying about that. Cash in the bank is the main

thing for the guest of honor. As for the girl, she'll have as much

education as we had, and that's enough."

"But I want her to be a lady, John."

"Can't she be?"

"I'll want her to marry well, John."

"Won't she? If she has money, can't she?"

"But I want her to be prized for herself, for what she is."

"She'll be our daughter, and won't that be enough?"

"But herself!"

"She's our girl. I don't see where she'd find better parents."

"I was just thinking--about her education--that a little finishing

would help her. We wouldn't always live just as we are living now, and

she ought to be prepared for better things. We read about things, but

what do we know about them? Grace ought to know."

"I don't really join in your anxiety, Mrs. Rawn," said he largely, "but

that'll all come, if it's needful."

"It's needful now. Grace'll be a young woman before long. You see--"

she flushed painfully as she spoke--"I don't want to see her grow up

awkward. I don't want her to feel as though she hadn't been used to

things, you know--to be ashamed of herself and her--her parents. Not

that I care so much for myself--"

There were tears in her eyes--tears of reaction, of hope however badly

founded. She had toiled long and patiently.

"Why, what's the matter, Laura?" asked her husband.

"I'm getting to be almost old, John--I'm almost an old lady now! I've

got gray hairs. I'm forty-five."

He shook her by the shoulders playfully. "Nonsense! We're almost of

an age, and I'm just beginning life. Grace is only a child."

"She's eighteen past. That's why I asked you how soon--tell me, have

they really raised your salary, John? If we could only have two

thousand dollars a year it would be all in the world I should ask."

"Salary!" he guffawed. "Two thousand dollars a year! Say that much a

month, a week, a day!"

"You're crazy, John! What do you mean?" Indeed, some doubt of his

sanity now began to enter her mind.

"Read in the papers about the daily incomes of those big chaps, those

really great men back East, the fellows who run things. Every one of

them made it out of nothing--not one of them had any one to give him a

start. We've no right to say that I can't do as well as they have.

The start's the thing."

"But what has happened, then? I never saw you so stirred up before in

all my life, John."

"I never have been."

"But what is sure--what can I depend on for Grace?"

"Death, taxes, and a woman's curiosity are all the sure things. I

don't know anything else that is sure. No man can give all the details

of his life in advance."

"In advance?"

"Oh, it hasn't all actually happened yet, of course. I won't begin

wheeling home a wheelbarrow full of gold every night for quite a while.

But some day I may!" His lips closed grimly.

IV

"Grace'll be a young woman before long," his wife still mused,

irrelevantly.

"Let that take care of itself. I'll deliver the goods."

She allowed herself a smile. "They are not delivered?"

He flushed at this. "You think they never will be? Very well, I'll

fight it out alone. At least I believe in myself."

"But what's _happened_? What do you mean, after all?" She put her

hand upon his arm as he passed. He flung himself into a chair opposite

her, his own elbows on the table as he faced her.

"You can't understand it, Laura; but listen. There are two ways of

getting rich. You can make money without brains in real estate, other

people building you up rich. That's luck, not brains. A great many of

the great fortunes--take Astor's, for instance, in New York--have been

made in that way. But that's a fortune which you O.K. after it's made,

and you don't know anything about it in advance--it's too far in the

future. You don't hear of the ones that are not made. Astor used his

best judgment and bought land up the island, where he thought people

would go, but he didn't know they'd go there. That's as much luck as

brains. We call luck brains when it makes good.

"But there's another way of getting rich. That means real _brains_,

and not luck. It means deliberately figuring out what people are going

to do. There is only so much room on the surface of the earth. But

there's room in the air for millions and millions of basic ideas."

He gloomed across at her, but she kindled, as ready as ever to travel

with his thought.

"Look at a few of the big ideas which have paid," he said. "Give the

people something they haven't had; get them so they have to have it!

Cinch it first, and sell it afterward--and you're going to get rich.

Granted an idea which takes hold on the daily life of the whole people,

and there's no way of measuring the money you can make.

"For instance, you couldn't put the world back to the place where it

could get along without refined oil, without steam and electric

transportation, and the telephone, and a thousand other things which

have made men rich--inventions which seemed little at first, but which

were universal after a while. Oil, water, iron, wood, steel--we have

to have those things. Cinch them and sell them. That's the way to get

rich, my dear. Get an idea, get to it first, and cinch it for your

own. Then sell it. Keep on selling it. Give 'em something they've

got to have, after showing 'em they've got to have it. Teach 'em what

they ought to have known without any teaching. Some men teach and

others pay them for it. After that, all you've got to do is to take it

away from them. When you've taken away enough, make 'em crawl--make

'em _admit_ that you were greater than they were. Then build your

monument and make them keep on remembering you. After that--"

"And after _that_, John?" she said gently.

V

He did not hear her. He sat staring, as though in the mirror of his

own mind. At last he let his hand drop across the table. She dropped

her own into his, timidly.

"Listen, Laura," he went on. "I'll tell you a little of what I mean."

"Yes, John, I'm sure you will."

"What's the distinguishing thing about life to-day, my dear--the thing

that makes it different from that of the past?"

"Why, I don't know."

"A great many don't know. They don't stop to _think_! That's why so

many pass by the open door of success and never get inside. Listen,

Laura. Wait a minute--don't interrupt me. _Speed_ is the thing

to-day. Speed, speed, speed; and power! Don't you see it all around

you, don't you feel it? Can't you almost smell it, touch it, taste it?

It's on the street, in the house, in business, everywhere--we can't go

fast enough. But we're going faster. We'll go twice as fast."

"How do you know? What do you mean? Who told you, John?"

"That's my business. That's my idea. That's my invention. That's how

I'm going to get rich.

"Laura, I'm going to make it possible to gear up our national life, to

double its present speed," he went on savagely.

"When they've got it, they'll think they always had it, and after that

they all will always have to have it. I'll be there first. I'll cinch

it, and I'll sell it. That's my idea. That's not luck. It's brains,

brains, _brains_, Laura!"

VI

She leaned back in her chair, sighing. "Do you think I could have a

silk dress, John?" she said at length, her mind overleaping vast

intermediate details.

"My God, woman!"

"Could we go to the theaters--I've always wanted to so much. Could I

go into the country once in a while, where things are green?"

He made a despairing gesture at her inability to grasp the future.

"We could travel--could we go over to Europe--could we take Grace

there, John?"

"As often as you liked!"

"Could we have a new gate in the picket fence, if the landlord still

refused?"

"Oh, my God!"

She sat, trying to rise to the pitch of such ambition, but succeeded

only in remaining commonplace. "How did you come across it, John?" she

asked after a little.

He smiled. "What did I say about death and taxes and a woman's

curiosity? The truth is, I picked it up from a word or so I heard in a

chance conversation--two young fellows from the engineering department

were talking something over. That young chap named Halsey, just out of

some college, full of fads, you know. He'd been reading something his

old professor had been monkeying over. I got my idea then--the idea of

making any automobile go twice as fast as it does, any railway train,

anything else--of cutting out a lot of useless human labor, and setting

the power of gravitation to work."

"I thought you said this was your own idea?"

"It _is_ my own. What is thrown away deliberately, and picked up, is

mine, if I see the value in it. Young Halsey didn't know. He's just a

visionary--nothing practical about him. He couldn't see into this."

"Halsey--Charley Halsey of the offices? He's been here--I think

Grace--you see, the Personal Injury office, where she works, is just

across the hall from the Engineering--"

"Well, it's no difference. I'm going to take care of the affair

myself. But it might be just as well if he came, once in a while.

Grace might do worse."

"But you heard him speak of it first?"

"I've just told you, yes, woman! But there was nothing worked out.

I've got to furnish the time and money and brains and the plan of

working it out. I've never said a word to him yet, of course, and I

don't want you to say a word."

Her face fell. "I'm afraid I can't understand all these things, John.

But I should think you'd take Charley in as a partner. That is, if

Grace-- Maybe he could help."

"A partner? With me? Laura, John Rawn has no partners."

VII

She rose after a time, her eyes not seeking his.

"Grace will be coming home directly," she said briskly. "I must get

supper ready."

"One thing"--he raised a restraining hand--"keep quiet about this.

I've told you too much already."

For half an instant Laura Rawn almost wondered whether this thing might

not be true. Such things had happened in this country. Was there not

daily proof before her eyes? And might not fortune reverse her wheel

for them also; might not lightning choose, as sometimes elsewhere it

had chosen, a humble and unimportant spot for its alighting? Who can

read the plans of the immortal gods? asked the pagans of old. Who,

asked Laura Rawn, devout Christian, can foresee the plans of a Divine

Providence?

As for John Rawn, he troubled but little over the immortal gods or over

a Divine Providence, feeling small need of the aid of either. He had

himself.

CHAPTER VII

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN

I

Thus far, the Rawn planet had moved but in restricted orbit, to wit:

one bounded as to one extremity by the dingy yard and narrow walls of a

home rented at twenty dollars a month; at the other, by the still

dingier and more prosaic business surroundings of a railway's general

offices. Narrow and dull enough the Rawn life had been, and in such a

life, lived on into middle age, you scarce could have blamed a man had

he settled back for ever into the grip of the upreaching fingers of

monotony. The half mechanical and parrot-like repetition of set

phrases in a restricted line of business correspondence for Rawn

himself, day after day; the dull and endless round of homekeeping

duties for the wife--what but narrowness and dullness could come out of

life such as this? Wherefore you should not have been surprised had

you been told that Grace Rawn was simply the outgrowth of this sort of

home, this sort of life, not much different from other girls of her

class.

We are coming more and more in America to use that word "class." The

theory is that we came to this continent to escape class; but surely

class has followed us, and restricted us, and counted us out into elect

and damned, into those above and those below the salt. Rather let us

say the truth, which is that class has followed us because we ourselves

have followed after class.

But continually the great laws of survival go on after their own

fashion. In the production of human beings there continually are at

work the five laws of evolution, the five factors of heredity,

environment and selection, blended with variation and isolation. These

five factors build human characters, continue ever to do their amazing

sums in life and success and survival. Sometimes they produce a Grace

Rawn.

II

Perhaps it was the very factor of isolation that gave Grace Rawn her

quality. She was a silent girl, somewhat reserved. Silence and

reserve she got from her father's solemn self-absorption, her mother's

quiet self-abnegation. She was softened in part by the gentle training

of her mother, who talked most when her husband was not present.

Grace Rawn stood two inches taller than her mother, and had a certain

severe distinction which covered many sins in shorthand. Her brows

were dark and met above her eyes; and the latter, being somewhat

myopic, usually were covered by glasses--which also not infrequently

shield yet other multitudes of sins in stenography. Her chin was well

out and forward. Her jaw was rounded, her teeth white and good, her

carriage also good, if still a trifle stiff and awkward. In air she

was slow and deliberate. Her eyes were gray like her mother's, her

voice deep like her father's. She was what would be called old for her

years, indeed a woman at sixteen. Most would have placed her age some

years further on than the eighteen years which really were hers at this

time.

Grace Rawn could not be said to have any circle of friends. Her soul

was eclectic. In short, isolation, selection and variation, the three

less known laws of growth, had done as much for her as the more vaunted

factors of heredity and environment. Self-contained, adequate enough

in appearance, although lacking that sort of magnetism which draws men

to women, she would have passed with small notice in the average

collection of her sex. For such as these, propinquity comes as a

blessing in so far as natural selection is concerned.

III

In St. Louis, natural selection operated much as in the Silurian or the

Elizabethan, or eke the Jeffersonian age, choice being made from that

which offered at the family doorstep in either era. In Kelly Row good

folk sat upon the doorstep of an eventide. The evening assemblage upon

the Rawn front doorstep in Kelly Row grew larger as Grace grew older.

Certain young men came. Why did they come? Why do we walk about and

around a tree that hangs full in fruit not yet ripened, watching the

bloom on this, the texture of that, the size or probable flavor of

yonder example hanging as yet unfinished in the alchemy of the summer

sun? At least the little company at times was larger on the Rawn front

stoop of an evening. It all went on in the easy, careless, hopeful,

unconventional fashion of families of the Rawn class. Let it be

remembered that class really is class in this country. There seemed

little hope for Grace, therefore, other than in a marriage after the

stereotyped fashion of Kelly Row. Perhaps if good fortune attended,

she might marry a man who, at middle age, might, like her father, be

drawing a salary of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month; a

great man in the eyes of the world of Kelly Row, which lived on an

average of half that per month.

IV

In this evening company, as Laura Rawn had mentioned, occasionally

might have been found one Charles Halsey, himself now some twenty-four

years of age at next spring's lambing-time; as his father, a Missouri

farmer, would have said. Halsey had come to the city, a serious-minded

youth, to seek his fortune, just as John Rawn had done at about the

time Halsey himself was born. But whereas Rawn had concerned himself

little in books, Halsey had, by such means as only himself could have

told, managed a degree in engineering in what New England calls a

freshwater college, the same not so good as salt, yet, in Halsey's

belief better than none and cheaper than some. Once out of college and

finding himself belated, he had thrust into the thick of the fray of

the business world to the best of his ability, though to his surprise

not setting the world into any conflagration. These four years now, as

chance had had it, he had been engaged in the drafting department of

the engineer's offices in the same railway which employed John Rawn. A

thoughtful young chap enough, and one held rather student than good

fellow by his fellow clerks, because for the most part he did not join

them in their dissipations, their cheap joys, their narrow ways of

thinking. Also a chap regarded as not wholly desirable because he read

much, and because he had ideas.

Charles Halsey, as well as Grace Rawn, in some sort seemed to set the

laws of heredity and environment at defiance in favor of the lesser

factors in evolution. He had originally no right to be anything but a

farm lad, yet he had dreams, and so had fought his way through college.

There, in the world of books, close to the world of thought, not far

from the world of art, he had become what some of us might have called

an idealist, what most of us would have called a fool, and now what all

of us would have called a failure.

A studious bent, a wide and unregulated way of reading, a vague,

inexact and untrained habit of mentality, took young Halsey, as it does

many another unformed mind, into studies of social problems for which

he was but little fitted, to wit: into imaginings about human

democracy, the inherent rights of man, and much other like folly. The

questions of socialism, the rights and wrongs of capital, the

initiative, the referendum and the recall; the direct primary, the open

shop, and the living wage scale under the American standard--all these

and many other things occupied him as much as tangents, curves and

logarithms. As a result of his inchoate research, he started out in

young manhood well seized of the belief--finely expressed in a certain

immortal but wholly ignored document known in our own history--that

there is a certain evenness in human nature before the eyes of the Lord.

A young engineer with small salary, and a theoretical cast of mind,

even though he reads text-books out of hours, has only himself to trust

for his upward climb in life. Surely he might be better occupied in

wondering rather about his pull with the boss than about the eyes of

the Lord as bearing upon the future of this republic. But, at any

rate, such was the plight of young Mr. Halsey. And, such being the

nature and disposition of the doorstep-frequenting young, it chanced

that, although Grace Rawn really was not yet fledged beyond the

blue-tip stage of her final feathering, and although Mr. Halsey of the

Engineering, draftsman, himself still lacked the main quills which

support a man in his ultimate flight through life, they came more and

more to meet each other; after which, each in separate fashion came to

enjoy the meeting and to look forward to the next.

It was not unusual for Mr. Halsey, faring homeward from the office, to

meet Grace, also faring home, at the turn of the car track on Olive

Street. Taking the same car they would travel, somewhat shy and

silent, until they reached the distant corner where those bound for

Kelly Row must leave the car. Then, himself obliged by this to walk

perhaps a mile farther, he would join her, still shy and more or less

silent; and so perhaps again wander to that certain door in Kelly Row

where by that time, perhaps, both Mr. Rawn and his helpmeet were

sitting on the narrow porch. He was always welcome there, because Rawn

knew him for a steady chap; and because, in Halsey's eyes, John Rawn

was considerable of a personage. Rawn was aways ready to be consulted

by the young, and, like most failures, was not averse to giving

abundant good advice to others as to the problems of success. Halsey,

reserved and not expansive of nature, a poor boy in college, always had

had a social world as narrow as this of Kelly Row; so that after all

the parties of both the first and the second part were traveling mostly

in their own class. On the whole it was rather a dour assemblage, that

on the porch in Kelly Row. None seemed to have any definite plan or to

suspect another of plan. Life simply was running on, in the bisque

shepherdess, china dog, Dying Gaul and Rock of Ages way.

V

Let us except John Rawn. He now had certain wide plans of his own, as

we shall see--indeed, as we have seen--and these had somewhat to do

with young Mr. Halsey himself.

Mr. Halsey himself was disposed at times rather to moroseness, not yet

having discovered the full relation of liver and soul--a delicate and

intimate association. Sometimes despair oppressed him.

"Once in a while I get an idea," said he, one evening, "and I think it

might make good if I had a chance to put it over. But what's the use?

I couldn't do anything with the best idea in the world, because I have

no time nor money to work one out. I tell you, you've got to have

money or pull to get anywhere to-day. This country's getting into a

bad way. It doesn't look quite right to me, I tell you, the way human

beings are ground under to-day."

And yet it was out of precisely such talk as this that John Rawn

originally got the reason for the enthusiastic conversation with his

wife which earlier has been chronicled. Behold the difference among

men! Here was one who wanted to set all the world right, to discover

some panacea by which all men might rest in happiness for ever, by

which all men might succeed, might indeed prove themselves free and

equal, and entitled to, say, ten minutes out of the twenty-four hours

for the pursuit of happiness--innocent happiness, such as reading books

on electricity, socialism, the steaming quality of coke, or the

tortional strength of I-beams laid in concrete. Here also, one lift

above him on the doorstep of Kelly Row, was another man, John Rawn,

who, thinking he was full of ideas, had none, but who had every

confidence in himself; a man who early in his youth had proved his

ability to leave to others the skin of their bananas while he himself

took the meat, and paid naught therefor. Not much of a stage, thus set

in Kelly Row. But this is the stage as it was set.

VI

Among these, there was one idea waiting to be born. For, look you, the

air is full of ideas--even as John Rawn in ignorant truthfulness had

said. They float all about us, unborn children in the ether of the

universe, waiting to be born, selecting this or that of us--you, me,

gently, for a parent; the most of them to be pushed back unknown,

unrecognized, into the frustrate void, and so left to await a better

time. I doubt not that, at this time or that, each of us has had

offered to him, thus gently, thus unknown, some idea which would have

made any of us great, set us far above our fellow-man; ideas which for

all of that, perhaps would have revolutionized the world. But we did

not know them. What great things are left unborn, what great

discoveries remain unmade, no man may measure. We do not lay hold upon

that thin and vaporous hand which touches our shoulder. We do not

wrestle unwearied with the angel unto the coming of the dawn. So we go

on, bruised and broken, and at length buried and forgot, most of us

never grasping these unseen things, not even having a hint of their

immaterial presences. It is only as the jest-loving fates have it

that, once in a while, something in revolutionary thought drops to

earth, is caught by some materialistic mind, bred up by some

materialistic hand.

It must have been first at some chance meeting here on the doorstep in

Kelly Row that young Halsey let drop reference to an idea. It was the

whisper of some passing wing in the universal ether, but he did not

know that. It is not always the mind of the idealist which produces.

But now this thin, faint, mystic sound had fallen upon the material

mind of John Rawn, covetous, eager, receptive of any hint to further

his own interest, concerned not in the least with science, not in the

least with altruism, troubling not in the least over the fate of this

republic or the welfare of mankind, concerned only with his own fate,

interested only in his own welfare. Whereupon John Rawn--barring that

certain prophetic outburst of his egotism with which he favored his

wife but recently--in silence had accepted this sign and taken it as

his own, devised for his use and behoof, and for that of none other

than himself.

VII

This difference, then, lay between Rawn of the Personal Injury

department of the railway office, and Halsey of the drafting offices;

Rawn believed in himself, Halsey had not yet figured out whether or not

he believed in anything. They met on the doorstep at Kelly Row, and

out of their meeting many things began in Kelly Row which matured

swiftly elsewhere, and in surprising fashion.

We now come on, sufficiently swiftly, to the history of the birth and

organization of the International Power Company, Limited; a concern

which grew out of nothing except the five factors of

survival--environment, heredity, variation, selection and isolation.

Its cradle was in Kelly Row.

CHAPTER VIII

POWER

I

"Charles," said John Rawn one evening, with that directness of habit

which perhaps we have earlier noted, "I have been thinking over some

scientific problems."

"Yes?" replied Halsey. "What is it--a patent car coupler? There isn't

a fellow in our office who hasn't patented one, but I didn't know it

was quite so catching as to get into the Personal Injury

department--they only settle with the widows there."

"In my belief," went on Rawn, frowning at this flippancy, "I am upon

the eve of a great success, Charles."

"What sort of success, Mr. Rawn?" inquired Halsey, more soberly.

Rawn smiled largely. "You will hardly credit me when I tell you,

almost all sorts of success! To make it short, I have formed a power

company--a concern for the cheap generation and general transmission of

power. In the course of a few months we'll proceed in the manufacture

of electrical transmitters and receivers for what I call the lost

current of electricity."

Halsey stood cold for a moment, and looked at him in amazement.

"You don't mean to say--why, that's precisely what _I've_ been thinking

of for so long."

"I don't doubt many have been thinking of it," rejoined Rawn. "It had

to come. These things seem to happen in cycles. It's almost a toss-up

what man will first perfect an invention when once it gets in the air,

so to speak. Now, this invention of mine has been due ever since the

developments in wireless transmission. In truth, I may say that I have

only gone a little beyond the wireless idea. What I have done is to

separate the two currents of electricity."

Halsey leaned against the wall. "My God!" he half whispered. He

smiled foolishly.

"Why, Mr. Rawn," he said finally, "I've been studying that, I don't

know how long--ever since the researches in my university were made

public. I thought for some time I might be able to figure it out

further than our professors have as yet. Pflüger, of Bonn, in Germany,

has been working for years and years on that theory of perpetual motion

in all molecules."

"Mollycules? I don't know as I ever really saw any," hesitated Rawn.

"Very likely, Mr. Rawn!"

"I've never cared much for mere scientific rot," said Rawn, coloring a

trifle. "That gets us nothing. But what were you saying?"

Halsey's enthusiasm carried him beyond resentment and amusement alike.

"Molecules are everywhere, in everything, Mr. Rawn," he explained

gently; "and now we know they move, though we can see them only in mass

and as though motionless."

"I don't see how that can be," began Rawn; but checked himself.

Halsey smote his hand against the solid wall. "It moves!" he

exclaimed. "It's alive! It vibrates--every solid is in perpetual

motion. The dance of the molecules is endless. It's in the air around

us, above us--power, power--immeasurable, irresistible power,

exhaustless, costless _power_! All you have to do is to jar it out of

balance."

"Yes, I know. That's what I've been getting at, precisely--"

"I was going to figure it out sometime," said Halsey ruefully.

"I _did_ figure it out!" said John Rawn sententiously. "Moreover, I've

got the company formed."

II

"_You_--Mr. Rawn? How did you manage that? I didn't know that you--"

Halsey at last spoke.

"A great many haven't known about a great many things," said Rawn,

walking up and down, his hands in his pockets, his air gloomily

dignified. "A few men always have to do the things which others don't

know about. For instance, what did all the work of your

professors--what-d'ye-call-'ems--amount to? Nothing at all. Maybe

they'd print a paper about it. That would about end it, just as it

ended it for you. You admit you got the idea from them; but I say it

wasn't any idea at all. I saw it--in the papers. Didn't pay much

attention to it, because there's nothing in this scientific business

for practical men like me."

"I know, I know," Halsey nodded. "That's true. Here it all is." He

took from his coat pocket a creased and folded newspaper page of recent

date. "Here's the story--I was proud, because it was my own university

did the work:

"'That the molecules composing all material substances are constantly

in rapid motion, ricocheting against one another in the manner of a

collection of billiard-balls suddenly stirred up, the speed of the

air's components being about half that of a cannon ball, was the proof

announced to-day from the University of Chicago as a further

development of the experiments by Professor R. A. Threlkeld, which for

the last year have been attracting the attention of scientists from all

parts of the world. The absolute nature of the proof, upon which

physicists all over the world have been working without result for

several years, was assented to by Professor Pflüger, of Bonn

University, Germany, who arrived in Chicago last Monday to witness the

demonstration.'"

He paused in his literal reading from the printed page. "I told you

about Pflüger," he began.

"Yes, some Dutchman," assented Rawn graciously. "They're great to dig."

Halsey, being in the presence of the man whom he proposed making his

father-in-law, was perforce polite, although indignant. He went on

icily, with his reading, since he had begun it:

"'The belief that the molecules of which all matter is composed are in

a perpetual dance of motion has been held tentatively by scientists for

several years, but, owing to the general inability to make any progress

in proving it, considerable skepticism has developed among the

physicists of several of the leading scientific nations. It was

generally known as the kinetic theory. Professor Threlkeld's proof is

a further development of his experiments, showing electricity to be a

definite substance, which were announced last year and were pronounced

the most important discovery concerning the nature of electricity since

Benjamin Franklin.

"'The simple expedient of performing his experiments in almost a

complete vacuum--a method which had not occurred to scientists

before--was given by Professor Threlkeld as the foundation stone of his

discovery. Minute drops of oil, sprayed into a vacuum chamber, one

side of which is of glass, demonstrate by their own motions the truth

of the theory.

"'Surrounded by the ordinary amount of air, the oil drops are bombarded

by moving air molecules in so many thousand places at once that their

motion is so rapid as to be invisible. With few molecules of air

surrounding them, the drops are driven back and forth as though being

used as a punching-bag.

"'By reference to his previous experiments with drops of oil bombarded

by electrical ions, the motion of the oil drops has been found to be

precisely the same, showing the cause of the motion to be similar in

both cases.'"

"That's all right," said John Rawn, "all very well as far as it goes,

but it doesn't go far enough."

III

Halsey smiled. "Well, here's what the discoverer says about it," he

commented. "I reckon that's plain, too, as far as it goes:

"'For the benefit of the general public, Professor Threlkeld has

prepared the following statement concerning the experiments he has been

conducting:

"'"The method consisted in catching atmospheric ions upon minute oil

drops floating in the air and measuring the electrical charge which the

drops thus acquired. This year the following extensions of this work

have been made:

"'"The action of ionization itself is now being studied, each of the

two electrical fragments into which a neutral molecule breaks up being

caught upon oil drops at the instant of formation. This study has

shown that the act of ionization of a neutral air molecule always

consists in the detachment from it of one single elementary charge

rather than of two or three such charges.

"'"By suspending these minute oil drops in rarefied gases instead of in

air at atmospheric pressure, the authors have been able to make the oil

drops partake of the motions of agitation of the molecules to such an

extent that they can be seen by any observer to dance violently under

the bombardment which they receive from the flying air molecules.

"'"By measuring accurately the amount of the motion of agitation of the

oil drops and comparing it with the motions which they assume under the

influence of an electrical field because of the charge which they

carry, the authors have been able to make an exact and certain

identification, with the aid of computations made by Mr. Fletcher, of

the electrical charge carried by an atmospheric ion (and measured in

their preceding work), with the electrical charge carried by univalent

ions in solution.

"'"This work not only supplies complete proof of the correctness of the

atomic theory of electricity, but gives a much more satisfactory

demonstration than had before been found of the perpetual dance of the

molecules of matter."'"*

*With but a change of name, Mr. Halsey quoted literally from the

journal--The Author.

IV

"Fine! Fine! Charley!" interrupted Rawn sardonically. "Everybody's

read that who cared to read it. It's too dry for most folks. It's

public; it's wide open, no secret about it. But who wants it? What

use has a mollycule and a drop of oil in a glass jar got in actual

business? What ice does it cut?"

"I know--I know, Mr. Rawn; very little indeed. But, one idea grows out

of another. Now, what I was experimenting with was this same second

current of electricity--whatever it is. It's got something to do--I

don't just know what--with this same movement of the molecules. Now,

can't you see, something has got to move them. If you've got perpetual

motion, you've got a perpetual power somewhere back at it, and a power

that is endless, universal--

"Mr. Rawn," he resumed earnestly, "when I got that far along, I got

to--well--sort of dreaming! I followed that dance of the atoms on

out--into the universe--into the manifestation of--"

"Well, of what?"

"Of God! Of Providence! Of Something, whatever it is that begins and

perpetuates; _something that plans_! Something that created.

Something that intends life and comfort and joy for the things It

created."

V

Rawn eyed him coldly. "Charley," said he, "you're talking tommyrot!

You can't run this world into the spiritual world. That's wrong. It's

irreligious. Besides, it's rot."

Halsey hardly heard him. "So then I began to wonder what we'd find

yet, when we had that vast, universal power all for our own--all for

man, you know, Mr. Rawn. Living's hard to-day, Mr. Rawn. There's a

lot of injustice in the world nowadays. So--well, I wondered if it

weren't nearly time that things should change. We've always moved on

up--or thought we did, anyhow--so why shouldn't we keep on moving, keep

on making discoveries?"

"That's what _I_ thought, Charley!"

--"Something that would lighten the world's labor, and give the world

more time to think, more time to _grow_--to enjoy--well, to _love_, you

know--"

"Charley, you're nothing better than a damned Socialist! You're siding

with the lower classes. Labor!--There's always got to be labor, long

as the world lasts--always has been and always will be. And some do

that sort of work, while others don't. There are differences among

men. Look at those professors--look at you! A mollycule in a glass

jar--what'd it get you? Did any of you form a company for the

perpetual sale of something that's everlasting and that don't cost

anything? You didn't. But _I_ did."

"Yes. And it was my dream--but not as you state it, Mr. Rawn. I

didn't want to sell it. I wanted to _give_ it. I wanted to do

something for the people, for humanity--for the country--you see. That

is--"

"Humanity be damned!" broke in John Rawn brutally. "You _can't_ do

anything for humanity--you can't make the weak men strong--it's God

A'mighty does that, Charley. _Give_ it away, eh? Well, let me have

the second current that costs nothing, and let me sell it for ever at

my own price--and I reckon I'll let you and your professor and Mr.

Dutchman, whatever his name is, trail along any way you like with your

mollycule in the glass jar. I want canned _power_--definite,

marketable, something you can wrap up in a package and _sell_, do you

understand--_sell_ to those same laboring men that you're wasting your

sympathy on. Work for _yourself_, my son, remember that; never mind

about humanity. And I'll give you a chance, Charley--in my company,"

he added.

VI

"Is it a big company?" queried Halsey wearily.

"Twenty-five million dollars," answered John Rawn calmly. And it is to

be remembered that at this time John Rawn was drawing a salary of one

hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, the highest pay he had ever

received in all his life; also that he was at this time a man

forty-seven years of age. We have classes in America, but occasionally

the lines that separate one from the other prove susceptible of

successful attack at the hands of a determined man. As Rawn stood

before Halsey, who only goggled and gasped at such statements as his

last, he seemed a determined man.

"We are going to dam the Mississippi River, a couple of hundred miles

above here at the ledges," Rawn remarked casually. "For the time, that

will be our central power plant. We will contract for a million and a

half dollars' worth of power each year in St. Louis alone. That comes

down by regular wire transmission. That is nothing, it's only a drop

in the bucket. Our big killing is going to be with the other

scheme--the second current--the same idea you've been trifling with.

We'll go East with that."

"You seem to mean almost what I mean, when I talked with you long ago--"

"Do you think so?" Rawn's tone was affable and he held out his hand.

"I should be happy indeed to think that we had been studying along the

same lines, Charles. That will enable you all the better to understand

my own ideas and my business plans. Of course--and I'll be frank with

you, Charles--Mrs. Rawn and I have doubted the wisdom of Grace's

engagement to a young man without means or prospects. But I can give

you prospects, and you can make your own means. I'll put you in our

central factory. We need good men, of course, and I need you

especially, Charles. In fact, I've had you in my eye."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I shall be president of the concern."

Halsey smiled sardonically. "The difference between men!"

"Pardon me, but you seem to think that you ought to stand in my shoes

in this matter, Charles. I don't recall any warrant for that." Rawn

spoke with asperity, aggrieved. "Of course, we speak loosely of

certain things, all of us, and all of us have unformed wishes, all that

sort of thing. I'm willing to admit, too, as I said before, that when

the time comes for a great idea to be discovered, it may be almost by

accident that it is discovered by this man or that.

"But now, as I take it, Charles," he continued, "you never had any

definite and exact idea of handling the unattuned current of

electricity which runs free in the air, and which--according to my

theory--can be taken down by the proper receivers and used

locally--harnessed, set to work; and retailed at a price. That's the

wireless idea, of course, in one form. It's the one big thing left for

big business to discover. There's nothing left in timber, mines,

irrigation, railroads; cream's all off the country now. But now here

comes this idea of mine, and it's bigger than any of those old ones.

_Money?_" He threw out his hands. "Were you working on this yourself,

my son?" he concluded. "How singular! But it's in the air."

"Not very much," said Halsey honestly. "I didn't have time to work

steadily at it. We're pretty busy in the office. I did make a little

model, though. I spent quite a lot of time on it, as I could."

"We are busy in our office, too," said Rawn grimly. "But _I_ found

time. We'll look over your model together, some day."

CHAPTER IX

CHANGE IN KELLY ROW

I

Unless the Day of Judgment shall, in its extraordinary phenomena,

accomplish that result, it is scarcely to be held probable that any

cataclysm inaugurated by God or man ever will essentially disturb the

placid business of simply being alive. Vesuvius erupts; a few human

ants are scorched. A city burns, and a few ant-hills perish. An

earthquake rocks half a continent; the other half stands firm. Nothing

much matters, and nothing happens. That men fly in the air, that men

talk across seas by machines--as right presently they will talk mind to

mind, free of all mechanical hindrance--attracts no attention beyond

passing chronicle in the argot of the day. The large things of the

age, of course, are the ball games and the encounters of the prize

ring. Why should we think? Why should we feel apprehension, whereas

we know full well that, come what may--unless that shall be, to wit:

the ball game, the prize fight, or the Day of Judgment--nothing really

can much matter, and nothing much can happen?

Nothing much happened in Kelly Row. The old monotony of business and

domestic routine went on with no alteration. Grace went with her

father daily to the common and accustomed scene of their labors; Mrs.

Rawn baked bread, roasted meat when meat could be afforded--for this

was in the America of to-day--swept the hall carpet and dusted off the

Dying Gaul; while as to Charles Halsey, he still read late at night and

made none too good use of India ink, try-square and straight-edge by

day. No great disturbance was to be noted anywhere. All that was

proposed was that the people should be--with a very commendable

benevolence--offered the opportunity of purchasing for ever, to the

behoof of a very few, something that had been given them free and for

ever by the will of God. A simple thing, this, and of no consequence.

It ranked not even with an earthquake; certainly not with a ball game.

II

Yet, with sufficient steadiness, the plans for all this went forward,

and that with a commendable celerity also; for John Rawn now proved

himself no idler in a matter where his own welfare was concerned. He

and Halsey very often, in their daily meetings, discussed their future

plans; Halsey none too happily. Rawn consoled him.

"Never mind about it, Charles. You shall be my right-hand man. You'll

be able to understand my plans more perfectly than anybody else. And

listen, Charles--" he laid a hand on the young man's shoulder, "I'm not

going to stand in the way of your own plans. You and Grace shall marry

as soon as you like, after we get this thing going. It won't be long.

I shall have abundant means."

"How ever _did_ you do it?" demanded the young man, even as his face

lightened at what seemed to him the most desirable news in the world.

He had just gained Grace's consent and her mother's, but dreaded to ask

that of her sterner parent. "How in the world did you manage it, Mr.

Rawn? You hadn't any money, and you hadn't any influence."

"I did it by force of conviction," answered John Rawn severely, setting

his knuckles on the table and leaning forward as he faced him. "I did

it by my own original thoughts. I impressed these other men with the

importance of my invention."

III

He strode up and down now, as he went on: "I'll tell you, Charles, so

that you can understand these things. I suppose you do a certain

amount of reading on current events. You must know, as we all do, what

a keen search there has been made by capitalists all over the country

for water power sites? There are few who know to what extent the

greater power sites have been monopolized already--that's kept quiet,

and the people don't care. Oh, I admire them, those leaders--those men

who see into the future--those men who are our kings in industry. It's

_there_ I've wanted to stand all my life--among them, in their company,

shoulder to shoulder with them, even-up with them--or better.

"Of course, you know the newspapers and the magazines--all of them

managed by a lot of reformers who have no weight in the world of

affairs--have done all they could to thwart the plans of these brainier

men. But they can't stop what's going to happen. A few men are going

to control the resources of this country. A few men are going to

administer the business affairs of this country. It can't be stopped.

Even the Supreme Court realizes that now. Congress learned it long

ago--the Senate proves it every day of the week. My son, this

invention of mine is going to make that likelihood a certainty, a

certainty! I want my place among those men, those few leaders who are

to control this country. And I'm going to have it!"

Young Halsey, dull white, simply sat staring at him as he went on.

"We all know what the old ideas of fuel and power are--they're

obsolete. Electricity is the power of the future, the power of to-day.

_Speed, speed, speed_ is what we want. _Power, power, power_ is what

every industry needs, as well as what every man craves.

"Now, heretofore, the only question has been to get electricity over

the country, to distribute it cheaply. The water powers manufacture it

well enough, but even water powers cost money; and there has always

been a limit to the range of transmission. Now, when I set aside all

these old, costly, inefficient methods, and hand, ready-made, to the

great capitalists of this country the very answer to the last question

they have been asking, what is going to be the natural result? When I

tell them that I can wipe out all this enormous industrial waste that

has been going on in power, what are they going to say to me? Are they

going to kick me out of their offices?

"They didn't kick me out. When I went to them--a few of them, men who

run our road--and told them that I could separate electricity into two

parts, two sorts, common and preferred, old and new, costly and cheap,

localized and wholly mobile--what were they going to say to me? They

didn't kick _me_ out of the office! They got up and locked the office

door. That's what they did. They were afraid I'd get away from them!

"They had thought of these things before--about as much as you have, I

reckon. That is, they had _hoped_ something would be discovered some

time, by somebody. But I told them that I could send one-half of this

divided power up into the air, now! I said I could store it in the air

without cost to any one, and then take it down, at any manufacturing

plant, anywhere, any lighting plant, any enterprise using power,

whenever and wherever I pleased, at a cost not worth mentioning--and

now! It was then they locked the office door, for fear I'd get away."

IV

"It's wonderful," said Halsey, warmly as he could.

"I told them that, as certainly as anything is certain, I could take

that stored charge out of the air, and set it at work in Chicago, or

Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, or Minneapolis, or where I liked. I said I

could put in the scrap heap every factory run under the old and

obsolete power methods. Then they began to sit up. I had 'em pale

before I got through! I tell you, Charles, I saw the president of this

railroad we have been working for look pale and sick when I, I, John

Rawn, one of his underpaid clerks--a man who had had enough trouble to

get to see him--who had to make some excuse to get to see him--stood up

right to his face and proved these things."

Halsey, duller white, listened on as Rawn talked on.

"Of course, they didn't believe it--he called in his crony, the general

traffic manager--that beast Ackerman--you see, they have some side

lines of investment together, on their personal account--and it makes

'em a lot more than their salaries. But they were afraid not to

believe what I said. They tried to talk and couldn't. About all they

could say to me at the end of an hour or so was 'How much?'

"Then I _told_ them how much," concluded John Rawn.

"How much was it, then?" Halsey tried to smile, palely.

"That is not for me to say. Business men handling large matters are

pledged to mutual secrecy. The president of this railroad left for New

York yesterday. I'm taking chances in telling you this much, and

promising you as much as I have. I would not do it if I did not regard

you as one of my own family. You must keep close in this, or else--"

A savage look came into Rawn's face, which he himself would scarcely

have recognized, a new trait in his nature, kept back all these years;

the savagery of the stronger having a weaker being in its power.

"Breathe a word of this, even to Grace," he said, "and it'll cost you

Grace, and it'll cost you more than that."

V

Halsey made no answer but to sit looking at him, his eyes slightly

distended. He loved this girl. If he must pay for that love, very

well. Love was worth all a man could have, all a man could do. He

loved a girl, and he was young. Any price for her seemed small.

Rawn allowed his last remark to sink in before he resumed:

"It was some time ago that I went to these men. They sent for me often

enough after that--"

"And could you prove it out?--"

"Wait a minute--don't interrupt me when I'm speaking." Rawn raised an

imperious hand. "They sent for me, yes; until at length the president

told me they hadn't known they had had this big and brainy a man right

at their elbows all the time.

"Then," he went on blandly, unctuously, "they showed me how

large-minded and generous great business men can be when you come to

know them. The people don't know these great business men--why,

they're just as simple, and human, and kind! They said they wanted to

identify me with their own fortunes. For instance, they put me in for

five thousand shares of stock in a rubber company they are floating,

and some automobile stock. The automobile industry is sure to grow.

That rubber stock alone would make me rich, I have no doubt."

"But what have you _done_?--"

"Wait a minute! These men, it seems, are in with a lot of other

railroad men who are developing an oil field in lower California. They

have been waiting till things got ripe. They've got two or three

gushers capped out there that they're holding back until they get

ready. They'll make millions out of that alone. These men play in

with Standard Oil, and you know how strong their hold is since the

Supreme Court threw down the cards. A salary! _I_ a salary--what did

I make? They have _their_ salaries, but what do such sums count with

men of real genius in affairs?

"Well, they put me in for some of those oil shares, too. That alone

would make me rich. I could stop right here, taking no chance, and be

_rich_, now, to-day. It pays to trail in with the right bunch. What

can the muckrakers do toward stopping men like that?

"I'm telling you things which of course I ought not to, but I know I

can trust you, Charles. And, as I told you, I'm going to keep you

about me in the business. I believe in you, my son. We'll have plenty

of work to do together."

"Have you laid before them a complete plan, then, Mr. Rawn--how did you

figure it all out so soon? I've worked on this a bit, and I never got

much beyond a model that didn't quite turn the trick."

"I would hardly be foolish," smiled John Rawn. "They do not have my

secrets. Let them complete their own plans. Let them raise their

money. Let them form their company. Let them give me legally my

fifty-one shares of International Power for control--then I'll tell

them, not before. It's a question whether they're big enough to stack

up in my class, that's all."

"Why, you're like the Keeley motor man!" grinned young Halsey. "It

lasted--for a while. But can you keep on putting this over with these

people?"

"The president of this railroad started for New York yesterday, I told

you! We've not been idle. Two months ago we told our Senators in

Congress what we wanted in the way of laws in the matter of our great

central power dam. Work is going on in the state legislatures, both

sides of the river. Money? There's no trouble raising money in

America when you have a valid idea--no, not if it's only one-tenth as

good as this. And this is the best and biggest monopoly this country

ever saw. They'll _pay_ for an idea like this!"

VI

"It's an idea that'll rivet chains on this country!" broke out Halsey

suddenly, starting up. "It's an idea that'll make still worse slaves

of this American people!"

"Yet just a while ago," said Rawn, with a fine air of Christian

fortitude, "you said that you were trying to get hold of this very same

idea."

"Yes, yes, I was! I am! I did! But I wanted to take a burden off

from the shoulders of the world, not to put a greater there. I wanted

to lessen the dread and despair that our people feel to-day. I wanted

to work it out, I say, so that every man could have the benefit--and

_free_!"

"Every man is going to have it," remarked John Rawn grimly, "but _not_

free. What did I tell you a while ago? Get an idea, cinch it--and

then sell it! The people can have this benefit, yes; but they'll _pay_

for it. That's the way success is made."

"Ah, is it so?" was Halsey's answer. He flung himself against the

table, his pale face thrust forward over his outspread arms. "Success!

You mean only that the corporation grip on this country will be

stiffened more than any one ever dreamed. That's what your idea means,

then? That's your success?"

Rawn nodded. "Of course. That has to be. Business conditions have

changed. I told you, a few men are to control the destiny of this

country. Individual competition--it's foolish now. There are

differences among men. We have to take the world as we find it, and

improve it if we can. When a fortunate man hits upon some great

improvement in the living conditions of humanity, he gets rich. That's

the way of life. Why fight it? Why not get on the right side, instead

of the wrong side of the world? Why not trail in with the main bunch,

if that's where the money is?"

"Go on, then, go on!" said Halsey after a long while, the expression on

his face now changing. "I'm going to trail in, as you say. When does

the riveting begin?"

"The public will be taken in when the larger interests have completed

all their plans," answered John Rawn. "The stock of International may

not go on the market for some time; indeed, I doubt if much of it ever

gets out beyond our fellows,--it's too good a thing to share with the

public. I know what'll happen with my fifty-one per cent.--it'll stay

in my safety-box until John Rawn is in need of bread.

"We start with fifteen million bonds," he continued, "thirty millions

preferred stock, with a forty per cent., common, as a bonus. It looks

as though the thing would be all inside. The management--"

"But you?--You'll think me personal--"

"Not at all. I'll hold the control."

"Of what?"

"_Of all of it_," said John Rawn, gently smiling, as he leaned his

knuckles on the dingy table in the dining-room in Kelly Row.

Halsey smiled at him, tapping his finger on the side of his head. "I

see," said he.

"No, I'm not crazy. _What_ do you think you see?"

"Things don't happen in that way, Mr. Rawn. Inventors don't get off in

the money like that. Don't tell me that."

"Right you are," said Rawn, dropping a clenched fist on the table top.

"_Inventors_ don't! But men of that same class--men of grip and

grasp--_they_ do get off where the money is! I'll show you. They

won't rob John Rawn!"

VII

"Did they take it easy?" queried Halsey finally.

"Threatened to kill me, that was all! As I said, they locked the door.

It was the traffic manager, Ackerman, who took it roughest. We both

looked along his pistol barrel. 'All right,' I said. 'Shoot. Kill

me, and what is there left? You _can't_ take me in with you--it's only

a question whether I'll take _you_ in with _me_!

"'Now, you listen,' I said to Standley and Ackerman--and I wasn't

afraid of them--'I'll show you how to make something that everybody has

to have. I'll put speed into the work of every laboring man--I'll

double his efficiency, double his hours and halve his pay, and I'll cut

off his ability to help himself. I'll make labor unions impossible.

I'll gear up, pace up, stiffen up the whole theory of life and work, I

tell you, gentlemen,' said I, 'so that one hour will count for two, one

man will count for two, one wage will count for two! Do you get me,

gentlemen?' I asked of them--just those two were in the office then,

and the door was locked behind me. 'You're big men,' said I, 'but

you're not as big as I am. It's a cheap bluff about that gun,' I said

to Ackerman. 'Put it up. You wouldn't dare kill me, or dare do

anything I didn't want you to. I came to you because it was easier to

walk down this hall than it was to walk across the street. Do you want

me to walk across the street?'"

Rawn chuckled gently; and now indeed he did present the very image of

self-confidence. "Well, then, they saw it," said he finally. "They

didn't want me to walk across the street! Standley laughed at

Ackerman. 'No use to kill him yet,' says he. I laughed then, we all

laughed. 'No, it wouldn't be any use,' said I to them. 'The question

is, how much I ought to give you.'

"Ackerman took it hard. He's a bulldog sort of man. 'You're damned

impudent!' said he. 'I'll have you fired.'

"'I'm fired now!' says I to them. 'You think I'm only a common clerk.

Didn't both of you come up from clerking? Can't I take you higher yet

than where you are now?' The Old Man, Standley, nodded then; and

pretty soon he reached out and took my hand. 'Come in, son,' says he.

'You're on.'

"Well, that's nearly all there was about it, Charley. I say to you,

too, 'Come in, son--you're on.'

VIII

"Now then," he went on in his monologue, "we're up to the wait while

the laws are being made, and while all the plans for financing the

proposition are going through. We'll have to pro-rate this stuff with

the big railway companies, of course, and with the oil and steel

industries, and some of the other leading combinations--Standley and

Ackerman'll have no trouble, with their acquaintance among the big men

of the East. You can't stop such men. Give them this idea of mine and

you can't keep them from controlling this country. These are things

that can't be altered."

"But it will alter the world!" exclaimed young Halsey, at last

beginning to arouse. "Who knows how much power there is in the water

of even one big river? You can use it over and over again. Why, on

that one river--"

"Our river," said John Rawn, smiling.

"The people's river!" retorted Halsey fiercely. "Their river! God

made that river, and all the rest of them, for something, I don't know

what. But it wasn't for this."

"It'll have to work," answered John Rawn. "That river'll have to work

to earn its keep--they'll all have to!"

"And the country--the republic--what will become of it?"

"The republic? That was a compromise. We perhaps had to live through

that. Conditions in government change." Mr. Rawn spoke largely,

finely, with a nice appreciation of all values.

"My God!" whispered Halsey. "What do you mean?"

IX

Rawn paid small attention to him, and he broke out yet more vehemently.

"But it is an enormous thing--you are dealing with the power of powers!

The great force of the world is gravitation. It makes the world move,

keeps the sun in its place. Water running down hill never tires. _It_

doesn't know any eight-hour day."

"That term will cease to exist within two years," said John Rawn

grimly. "It is a detestable thing. It has hampered business long

enough."

"What do you mean?"

"There's no such thing as an arbitrary length for a day's work. The

agreed day has lasted long enough. Money is made by setting other men

to work for you, and then seeing that they do work. When you have

something every man must use, when you've got the final whip-hand, it's

you who set the working day, and not those who work for you."

"You're talking of using what God gave to human beings, and talking of

making worse slaves of them to that gift. That's monstrous, Mr. Rawn!"

"Is it, then? To our notion it has been monstrous what these labor

combinations have tried to do. Our great industrial leaders have been

used unjustly. Yet labor is only mechanical power, that has to eat,

and sleep, and wear clothes. _Our_ kind of power doesn't have to do

those things."

"But, Mr. Rawn! if that were true--of course it can't be true--what

would there be left for the average man? I say that a man has a right

to work when he likes, and a right to stop when he likes."

"Precisely; but the labor unions say that he must stop when they like.

Why don't you use your brains, Charles? The old war was between

capital, that is to say, concentrated power, and labor, which is

unconcentrated power. That war has held back business in this country

for years. Now, when I told these men, Standley and Ackerman, that I

had something which would wipe out every labor union within a few

years--well, they _had_ to come in with me, that was all. They _had_

to.

X

"The trouble with you," contended Rawn, himself now speaking fiercely

as he loomed and lowered above Halsey, "the trouble with all you

dreamers is that you have no real imagination. What's the use talking

about the rights of the average man? When did the average man ever

start or stop a revolutionary idea? When these things come, they come,

and you can't help them. They had machinery riots in Great Britain a

generation or two ago, but the spinning jennies stuck. It's always

been so--progress sticks. The people have to adjust. But why should

capital keep on fighting labor, or truckling to it, or treating with

it, when we can take labor for nothing, as you just said, out of the

power of gravitation--send it where we like, practically for

nothing--labor that is power, labor that doesn't have to eat and

doesn't have to be paid wages? I say if you had any imagination in

your soul, my son, you'd _rise_ to a thought like that."

"But that average man still must eat," said Halsey bitterly.

"Let him eat from our hands, then!" croaked John Rawn harshly. "I tell

you, when I explained this thing--when I showed them what we had in our

hands, those big men broke into a sweat. They could see it, if you

can't.

"But as for me," he continued, standing erect and spreading apart his

hands, his voice softened almost to tremulousness, "when I saw where

this thing really was going to put us all--in control of the labor

question--beyond the attacks of the muckraking brigade--beyond the

Supreme Court, if the time ever came for that--when I saw what perfect

political, legislative, and industrial control we'd have in all this

country--I say, when I realized what all this meant, I felt small and

_humble_--I did indeed. I saw that I was only an instrument of

Providence, that's all. The people? Why, we'll be the custodians of

their welfare, that's all. Some men are set apart, devoted to that

duty--humble agents of Providence, my son."

XI

A frown of consecrated unselfishness sat upon the brow of John Rawn.

The younger man sat looking at him, wondering whether there were not

here really some Homeric jest. "I didn't know it was in you," said he,

rather unfortunately, at last, and hastened to cover: "That's right--it

_is_ imagination!"

Rawn raised a hand magnificently. "Never mind as to that, Charles. A

great many didn't know it was in me. Why, a few months ago I told my

wife something of this. She asked if I'd ever be rich enough to give

her a silk dress! When the factory's up and the wheels are

moving--then I'll take her out to the place, and I'll say to her just

what you said to me--'You didn't think it was in me, did you? But it

was!' Women nearly always think their husbands can't do anything in

the world. A silk dress! My God! And she wanted a new gate in the

picket fence, too."

"I didn't know that about women," said Halsey simply. "I thought it

was the other way about."

"Well, well, I hope it may be that way in your case. Listen, Charles.

I love my girl, Grace. She has always been a good child. I'm putting

you in a place where you can take good care of her. I want you to

stick to her for ever, through thick and thin. Remember, my son, that

your wife is your wife, and that nothing must separate you from her."

"Maybe it'll work out something after my idea, after all." Halsey

spoke pleasantly as he could at this mention of Grace.

"We'll take our chances but what it will work out our way!" said John

Rawn, grinning in return. "You want to work for _man_, do you? Well,

I want men to work for _me_!"

XII

"But we've no quarrel," he said suddenly, wheeling about. "We'll be

partners from the start. There are some minor particulars to work out.

I've got to have some sort of shop out in the back yard. Bring your

little machine there--the model you said would not quite work."

"How long before we begin, Mr. Rawn?" asked Halsey simply.

"I have my last pay envelope in my pocket now, to-day."

"Didn't they give you any capital to start with?"

"I did not dare ask it."

"But how much funds have you of your own?"

"Mighty little. I've been kept down all my life. It's been pretty

much week to week with me, although Laura's been a wonderful manager,

I'll say that."

"I've saved a little money," said Halsey, quietly as before. "I even

believe Grace has saved her salary--eight a week. You see, we were

making plans--here's my bank-book. A little over five hundred. How

much would you need, Mr. Rawn, to take care of you for the next few

days that you require for this work?"

"I've got to have some working models made, and it'll take some cash,"

said Rawn. "I've hardly had time to work out all these things as yet.

All right. All the more pleasure for you to feel that you had a hand

in it."

He reached across the table and took the dog-eared bank-book which

Halsey extended, and ran his eye down the column of pitiable figures.

The total was more than he himself had ever saved in all his life. Yet

John Rawn stood there now calm, large and strong, and spoke in millions.

XIII

"All right, Mr. Rawn," said Halsey cheerfully. "Take it along. I'll

draw the balance out for you. I reckon Grace and I won't have to wait

any longer this way than we would the other."

"Well, be mighty careful to keep things to yourself, that's all!" was

Rawn's answer. "If you're going to be my son-in-law, you're going to

be loyal to my ideas. One of my ideas is that a man has a right to

what he can take."

"Mr. Rawn, do you know anything about socialism?" asked Halsey suddenly.

"Not very much. Why should I?"

"There's sort of a brotherhood, or chapter, or society, or what you'd

call it here, you know."

"I've heard so."

"And they let anybody who is interested come to the meetings--I've been

there often--did I ever tell you? Our rooms are up-stairs over a

saloon, up under the rafters. We have lanterns there, the way the

revolutionists used to have over in Europe, when they had to meet in

secret. We have speakers there sometimes--from Milwaukee, New York,

even from Europe. And I want to tell you it's astonishing what a talk

you'll hear there sometimes, from some chap that you wouldn't think had

it in him--just rough-dressed fellows that look as if they hadn't a

dollar in the world."

"They usually haven't," said John Rawn coldly. "They want to get the

dollars of men like myself and my friends, who really have done

something in the way of developing this country. But one thing sure,

you'll cut out that brotherhood business when you go to work with us.

The rights of man!--the future of this country! Why, good God, boy,

with the grip you can get on business, with us to help you, what

difference does it make to you whether you call this a republic or

anything else? What _is_ this republic? That is, what _was_ it?"

XIV

Halsey sat staring at him fixedly for some time, without making answer.

Rawn, carelessly buttoning up in his pocket the bank-book, as though it

had been his own, rose at length and held out his hand.

[Illustration: (Halsey and Rawn)]

"You're a good boy, Charles," said he. "You've done the best you knew,

and that's about all I've done. You couldn't say, of course, that our

ideas have been the same in regard to this discovery, so I suppose we

can't wonder they are not the same in regard to its eventual

application. Let's not argue about that. We'll start out with our

little shop, the first thing."

The young man still looked at him, still withheld comment. Rawn, once

more full of himself, almost forgot him now. He stood erect, his arms

spread out, in a favorite posture, as though exhorting a multitude. A

pleasant, gentle, generous smile spread over his countenance, a smile

which showed his content with himself, his future prospects, his past

performances.

"You ought to have been there with me, Charles, when I talked to old

Standley and his side partner, Ackerman. _That_ was the big scene of

my whole life!"

"The big scene?" said Halsey, half musingly. "No! Maybe not. We

don't know what there may be on ahead."

"Isn't that the truth!" assented John Rawn graciously. "When a man of

brains and energy gets his start, there's no telling where he won't go,

or what he won't do. Yes, that's the truth!"

CHAPTER X

THE WOODSHED IN KELLY ROW

I

The one astonishing thing about life, as we have but now mentioned, is

its utter commonplaceness. It is a terrible thing to die, to end our

connection with life as we know it; yet folk die, and the world accepts

the fact with not more than a few hours' concern. Folk are born, a

very wonderful thing, yet a common. We flash messages across the

sea--as soon we shall across the ether, to other planets. The latter

event will be but of brief interest. We travel by impounded steam, and

have long ago ceased to marvel at that miracle. Soon we will travel by

means of other power, at speeds inconceivable to-day. Were that time

here we would not wonder. It is all, all commonplace. And none of us

does much thinking. It is only over the unimportant things that we

ponder. Thus, over a revolution in politics we chatter excitedly; but

the revolution in principles excites us not at all. The revolution in

science, in thought, in life, is accepted, when it comes, with no

concern, as though belonging to us from time immemorial; as indeed it

did.

It was wholly within human practice that affairs should now go on at

Kelly Row much as they had always gone, in spite of the fact that Kelly

Row now harbored, in a certain woodshed back of the dingy Rawn abode,

ideas and deeds that had not earlier been known in Kelly Row routine.

Here Mr. Rawn and his intending son-in-law were carrying on experiments

whose most immediate result, in case of success, would be the

extrication of Mr. Rawn from rather an awkward situation; because,

although Mr. Rawn, in the usual and commonplace human fashion, had

taken as his own an idea when he saw it, he negligently had done so

forgetful of the fact that it still lacked many features as a definite

commercial proposition.

II

Rawn had told the truth regarding his resources. He had but one

month's salary in his pocket when these final experiments began, and

for this money there was just as much need as there ever had been in

any other month; for Laura Rawn had quite as much use, at the going

scale of living, for one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month now,

as she had had for seventy-five dollars a month five years earlier.

Yet when Laura Rawn suggested a deferred payment on certain weekly

bills, the shopkeepers to whom she had been paying her stipend daily

for years demurred sorely. The truth is that the poorest way in the

world to establish a credit is to pay bills in cash. Foolishly allow a

man to see your cash, and he can see nothing else. Pay him partly in

cash, partly in good checks, partly in bad ones, and partly not at all,

and he will trust you largely; this being a commercial truth not known

of all men, although worth knowing. It may be seen, therefore, that

young Halsey's little capital of five hundred dollars was as important

as young Halsey's original idea; which latter Mr. Rawn had also

appropriated.

So now these two bought very considerable bundles of copper wire and

other things, and made several machines of this and the other shape,

and tried divers experiments which need not be set down here. In all

this work young Halsey's manual skill and technical training

continually was in quest, John Rawn for the most part standing by and

frowning heavily, watching Jacob labor for the earning of Rachel: for

Halsey knew this surrender of his idea was the price of Grace. Halsey

had little hope of ultimate success in his appliances. Not so Rawn.

He had something akin to a feeling of certainty.

III

Differing thus--yet who shall say they were not partners, after all,

since all these things were true regarding them?--they at last emerged

from the woodshed in Kelly Row, after many long weeks, whose deeds we

need not further chronicle. They carried into the front room of the

Rawn house in Kelly Row a small machine, which presently was to do

large things; that is to say, to save the self-respect of certain

prominent railway men who by this time were convinced that they had

been hypnotized to their disadvantage; and also to save the face of

John Rawn, although he had not known his face had needed saving.

This novel and mysterious little machine, with a glass jar underneath,

many coils and wheels within, and an odd, toothed crest of little

upreaching metal fingers, had been produced only at great cost, great

sacrifice. It had seemed wholly right and reasonable that all of young

Halsey's five hundred dollars should disappear little by little, and it

had done so, long ago. It seemed proper that the small savings which

Grace had deposited in a tin baking-powder can--for she was like her

mother, part ground-squirrel, and secretive--should also disappear

little by little, and they also had gone. In some way, only the women

knew; how, they all had had enough to eat, so far as that meant

actually necessary food; but the entire Rawn family were a gaunt and

haggard, as well as a wearied and anxious quartette, when finally they

gathered about the little machine out of the woodshed. Their play was

on one card, and the card was turned. What was it?

If either of the women doubted, she held her peace. Rawn did not

doubt. He had been sure all along that Charles Halsey, engineer, would

work out his, Rawn's, idea.

And young Halsey, engineer, had done that very thing. There is no roof

in all the world ever has covered a vaster and more epoch-making

thought than did the patched cover of the woodshed in Kelly Row.

On the afternoon of the day wherein they emerged from the woodshed,

these two, none too well clad, took the street-car to the city, Halsey

with a newspaper bundle under his arm. In it was what Mr. Rawn called

his second-current motor, which comprised the basic idea of

International Power, soon to loom large in the business world.

CHAPTER XI

THE TEST

I

In the most commonplace way in the world, and quite as though he had

always done this very thing, Mr. Henry Warfield Standley, president of

the I. & D. A. Railway Co., warned in advance by Mr. Rawn's telephone,

came to the door himself. Presently the three, Rawn, Halsey and the

president of the company for which both so long had worked, sat at the

long glass-covered table, where lay many papers. The president pushed

a button and ordered the attendance of Mr. Theodosius Ackerman, the

general traffic manager; so that now they made four in company. The

G.T.M., as he was known, had suffered great abrasion of the nerves by

the delay of Mr. Rawn to produce a machine done up in a newspaper or in

any way whatsoever, and he had joined the president in a disgusted

belief that in some way he had been made foolish. He frowned now

savagely at John Rawn, and John Rawn now, his hat on his head, frowned

quite as savagely at him.

Very little was said, but after a time young Halsey nervously removed

the newspaper from his little machine, and displayed it uncovered on

the table, a ribbed and coiled and toothed little model, showing file

marks here and there, and resembling nothing in particular in the

world. They four regarded it calmly, curiously, this machine destined

in the belief of some to double the length of the workman's day, to

halve the distance around the world, to make or break fortunes, to make

or break a country. The president started to jest, but his voice shook

a trifle after all. To the general traffic manager the contrivance

seemed absurdly small and inadequate. He choked so much he could not

talk. Rawn did not smile. He continued his heavy frown. Young

Halsey, tacitly elected spokesman by Rawn, cleared his throat as he

addressed the president of the road, for whom he still felt naught but

awe.

"We have put our receiver in tune with the dynamo in the basement of

this building, Mr. Standley," began he, finally. Both the magnates

frowned at Mr. Halsey's presumption and turned to Mr. Rawn. The latter

waved a large gesture.

"I forgot to say, gentlemen, that Mr. Halsey has aided me in working

out my model, and it is just as well he should explain my idea."

Halsey therefore went on:

"And now you can see right here, on the table before you, about all the

rest of it that we have. It isn't attached to anything at all. There

is no wired connection of any sort whatever. Now if we can run that

electric fan over there with 'juice' that we can take right out of the

air--with the second current which we take out of the motor in the

basement--just as well as the primary current wired to the fan will run

it, why, then, it looks to me as though our receiver here ought to be

accepted as a working device."

The room was silent now. They sat looking at him. He resumed:

"Besides, this receiver is more powerful than you think. I suppose I

could burst that fan wide open with it, by just wiring the two, after

disconnecting the original wiring of the fan to the house dynamo."

Halsey spoke very calmly, yet the hands of the president of the road,

resting on the edge of the table, trembled slightly. The fighting red

had disappeared from the face of the G.T.M. He was bluish gray, as

though deathly ill. He was, however, the first to recover. "Well, why

_don't_ you burst it, then?" he exclaimed savagely, mopping at his

forehead.

II

"Very well," said Halsey quietly. "But first I suppose I ought to

explain just a little about the basic idea under this whole

proposition. You see that table there--we regard it as motionless. As

a matter of fact, it is full of nothing but motion, so tremendously

rapid that we are unconscious of it. That wall yonder is nothing but a

continuous series of vibrations, of inconceivable rapidity. This floor

is full of force, of energy. It's all around us--energy, force, motion.

"In your studies in physics, gentlemen, you learned that heat and

motion are convertible. And you learned about the resultant of

power--which always, so far as any accepted law of physics goes, is in

ratio to the distance through which applied.

"Now, what I've done," said Halsey--John Rawn frowned and coughed

heavily, but no one noticed him, and Halsey himself was unconscious of

using the first personal pronoun--"is just to cut off all need of

considering the distance through which force is applied. Now, I don't

know whether I can make it entirely plain to you, except by physical

demonstration, but what I've done here is to carry further the idea of

wireless telegraphy. We have here, to use an understandable figure of

speech, a receiver which is the equivalent of a sounding-board--a

sounding-board in tune to the vibrations of the second or free current

of electricity.

"Gentlemen, our idea was, in terms, that of harnessing up molecular

activity. If we have done that, we have, of course, tapped the one

exhaustless reservoir of power."

III

The president of the railway had grown yet paler; but he nodded wisely,

and Halsey went on:

"There isn't any miracle in science that ought to cause us any wonder.

It took science a long time to learn that heat and motion are

interchangeable. I strike a cold piece of iron with a moving hammer,

and the iron gets hot. It was cold before, and there hasn't been any

fire near it. That's just as wonderful a thing--although we all accept

it without question--as all that I've got here on the table before you.

If I can stop some of the free energy that is vibrating all around us,

I'm going to get either motion or heat out of it, and that's simple.

We have gone far enough to know that this little receiver here,

gentlemen, will arrest the free current of electricity, force, energy,

whatever you care to call it, that's in the air and which can be

multiplied and transmitted through the air. Why and how it does that,

I can't just tell, myself. No one has ever been able to explain

everything about the magnetic needle, but we use it just the same. We

don't so much care what it is if we can use it."

"Not a damned bit!" growled the G.T.M. "But can we? Why don't you get

busy with that fan?"

Halsey rose and went over to the electric fan and snipped off a length

of the wire, so that the fan stood free and unattached on its shelf.

The loose wire he now busied himself in attaching to the fan and in

turn to the little model on the table.

"To my mind," said he, after finishing this work, and arresting a

finger above a little connecting lever in the side of the receiver,

"it's a very beautiful thought that underlies all this. The forces

which run through this receiver will never grow tired. Labor will be a

joy for them, a delight, as labor ought to be in any form. Mr. Rawn

and I don't always quite agree about that," he smiled, still with his

finger above the little lever. "What I hope to do is to change the

working-man from being an object back into being a man, so that labor

may be a joy and not a dread."

"Then we don't want it," grinned the president, feebly essaying a jest.

"Mr. Rawn and I were agreed that it would do just the other thing!"

"Well, go on with it!" growled Ackerman. "I'm a busy man. To hell

with the story! We want results!"

Every man present sprang back from the little instrument on the table.

There came a slowly increasing purr of the motor, a series of intense

blue sparks showing at the toothed points of reception. The blades of

the fan began to revolve faster and faster; so fast that at length both

eye and ear ceased to record their doings. Then, after sight and sound

had failed to serve, there came a crash!

There was no fan on the shelf where it had stood. Fragments of metal

were buried in the woodwork, in the wall. John Rawn wiped the blood

from a cut on his cheek. No one said anything. It was quite

commonplace, after all.

IV

"You wished to see what it would do," said Halsey grimly. "The power

seems to be there. Any time you like, any amount you like. And you

saw that it didn't come in here by wire--it was only transmitted from

the receiver, not to it. The fan is broken, but the receiver is just

the way we left it. Well, it looks as though we had settled a few

questions, doesn't it?"

Standley, pale, could only gasp, "Why, it's--it's dangerous!" he said.

"It's devilish! Look there!" He pointed at the blood on Rawn's face.

Rawn remained silent.

"There is no use applying undue force to a minor purpose," said Halsey,

"any more than there is in throwing on the high speed of a car going

down hill. But our reserve is there, gentlemen, just the same. By

increasing the size of our receivers we can develop power to turn any

amount of machinery that can be geared together--any number of

machines, large or small, at any place. I only wanted to show what the

real power is in this device of ours. Our receiver is very small, you

see."

They all remained silent for a time. Standley at last drew a long

breath.

"We're saved!" said he. "What do you say to it, Jim?" This to

Ackerman.

"It looks like a go," said the latter, drawing a deep sigh. "We've

seen enough right here to make good with our people back East; and

we've got enough right now to get the public in."

The president turned an agitated eye upon John Rawn. "Mr. Rawn," said

he, "referring to the tenor of our earlier conversation, I desire to

say that we are not in the habit of giving the lion's share to

anybody--"

"Suit yourself," said John Rawn, smiling.

"But in this case, as I said to you at first, there's so much in this

if there's anything at all, that there's no use splitting hairs over

it." He receded rapidly from the position he coveted but saw he could

not hold.

"We ought to begin work at once. Er--Mr. Rawn, do you happen to have

any present need for any money--personally?"

"No," answered John Rawn calmly, "I am in no need of funds. When the

organization is completed, and I begin my work as president of the

power company, I shall be glad to go on the pay-roll, of course. I

should add now that I expect Mr. Halsey to be my general manager in the

mechanical department."

"In regard to salaries," said the president, hesitating, "we might

roughly sketch out something--"

"My own salary will be a hundred thousand dollars a year," said Mr.

Rawn quietly. "I don't think we should ask Mr. Halsey to work for less

than five thousand. Do you, gentlemen?"

"I've worked for less, myself," said Ackerman grimly.

"There shall be no haggling, gentlemen, no haggling," said the

president blandly. "It shall be as Mr. Rawn suggests. By the way, a

near call that, Rawn."

He waved a hand at the bloody cut on our hero's face. That gentleman

drew a half sigh of unconscious triumph. It was the first time any one

in that office had ever dropped the "Mister" from his name! He saw

himself entering into the charmed circle.

"Suppose it had come a half inch closer?" suggested the president.

"It didn't," said John Rawn. "It was never meant to."

"That's the talk!" drawled Ackerman. "I'll tell you, Rawn, come in

to-morrow. We'll get the patent lawyers and our corporation counsel,

and begin work on this thing."

V

That was all there was about it, the proceedings being wholly prosaic

and commonplace. Mr. Halsey found again his newspaper, again wrapped

up his machine therein, took it under his arm, and hesitatingly turned

toward the door, the palest now, and most unhappy of them all. He had

denied his own first-born. He had publicly disclaimed ownership in

this idea. Rawn was to have a hundred thousand dollars a year, he only

a twentieth of that. Just where and how was Rawn twenty times as

valuable as himself, when all the time it had been he.--But then, what

matter? Five thousand dollars a year and Grace! What more could any

man desire than that? He forced that to console him, forced himself to

believe it sordid to haggle on the price of love; and so passed down in

the elevator, out through the corridors to the street, without much

further speech to any.

"Charles," said his intended father-in-law, as they approached the

nearest corner, "do you happen to have a quarter left? I feel somewhat

hungry, and for the time I have no money at all with me."

CHAPTER XII

THE HELPMEET

I

After all, Charles Halsey still was young enough to be happy. There

are really very few delights for the man nearing middle age. The

period of joy in living is confined to what time, passing upon the

crowded street, the young man notes the sidelong, half-concealed glance

of the unknown young woman, unconsciously taking in his goodliness, his

god-like-ness, such as that may be; or to what time the young woman, in

turn, after some such incident, turning by merest chance to look at

some passing cloud, or to note the brightness of the sky, finds that

some young man whom she but now passed also has turned about, by mere

chance, to examine the colors of the sky, and so by accident has

fastened gaze upon her instead! As the grasshopper cometh on to be a

burden, the time arrives when this or that gray-browed man may gaze at

passing damsel and elicit no reward in turn. Sitting in crowded

vehicle he glances above the rim of his paper, and suddenly smiles to

himself that his mature charms have riveted the attention of the young

girl across the aisle. Happy moment--were it not that closer scrutiny

would prove the young girl's eye to be fixed, not upon middle age, but

upon ruddy-faced youth in the seat beyond!

No hope for Graybeard after middle age, when the grasshopper is a

burden; save such hope as may be his through the power of money.

Thenceforth perhaps remain for him only such self-deceits as that money

may purchase fidelity, joy, love, happiness of any sort; which deceits

end later on, in that hour of severe self-searching which remains for

each of us just before we depart for other spheres. As for this

particular obloid sphere and its tenantry, there are two seasons--a

season of growth and flower, a season of seeding and decaying. As for

delights, life passes at that indefinite period, from twenty-five to

fifty-five years of age, let us say, when the opposite sex, passing us

unknown upon the street, turns no longer the inadvertent sidelong gaze!

II

When John Rawn walked toward his home after the events of the meeting

last foregoing described, he cast few sidelong glances, and received

few. If that were faithfulness to a worthy wife, make the most of it.

Upon the other hand note that, as Mr. Halsey trod the air on his way to

Kelly Row, his newspaper bundle under his arm, there did not lack

abundance of young women who saw him from the corner of the eye as he

passed on. Forsooth, he was a young man of very adequate physical

appearance, clean, hard, high of cheek, square of shoulder, his hair

dark and long, his eye gray, direct, kindly. His life hitherto had

been so narrow that he had lived well and wisely. His powers were well

preserved, he remained physically clean and fit. Rather a decent chap,

you would have called him, as he passed now, his strong chin well

forward, his eye shaft-like and strong in its glances. Not an

extraordinary young man, perhaps, but certainly serving well enough to

show that youth speaks to youth; and that, when youth is past, all is

past. Excepting--as John Rawn would have noted--the making of money;

which means not much to youth itself, but which means all to middle age.

Of all this very wise and useful philosophy, be sure, Mr. Halsey was

ignorant, or regarding it, was indifferent. He had forgotten that

almost his last silver coin had furnished Mr. Rawn his last meal, in

which Halsey himself had not joined. Grace! That was in his mind. He

was young. Success was now at hand; because presently he should have

five thousand dollars a year in salary, and be married to the dearest

girl in all the world. It is, always the dearest girl in all the

world, for men when they are less than thirty-five, say twenty-five

years of age. But Halsey did not philosophize. He was guided only by

some unconscious cerebration when he descended from the street-car and

bent his way toward Kelly Row. He pulled up at the stoop of the third

house in that homely procession of brick abodes which rented for twenty

dollars a month--with no repairs by the landlord.

III

He found Grace at home, Mrs. Rawn also at home. They came to meet him,

laid hold of him before he was well into the narrow little hall. There

was that in his face, in his eyes, in his soul which told them that

success at last had come to Kelly Row.

He put his hand in Mrs. Rawn's, his arm about Grace's waist. They two

were young, they were very happy. Their hands were interclasped when

presently they all passed from the hall into the little parlor. The

eyes of Grace Rawn became soft, luminous, tender. The young man had

come into her life. She was very happy. She was young. Ambition was

as yet unknown to her. Her coin-current was not yet money; which of

all things has the very least of purchasing power. She was almost

beautiful now.

Mrs. Rawn, grave, thin, careworn, bent by many trials, her hair gray

above her temples, her eyes dark-rimmed and, sunken somewhat under her

dark-arched brows, had seated herself upon the opposite side of the

room, waiting, her own joy visible in the silent illumination of her

face. She, too, was very happy in her way; or rather, mildly

contented. While almost every woman, at one or other period of her

life admires what is known as a wicked young man; the average mother

having a daughter about to be married admires rather what is known as a

good young man. And Charles Halsey was what may be called comprised

within that loose and indefinite description, not always covering

admirable or manly qualities, but in this case serving very well.

"You've won, Charley," said Laura Rawn at last. "It is true! Thank

God!"

For these blessings about to be received, Mr. Rawn thanked himself;

Grace thanked Charles; Charles thanked Grace; only Laura Rawn had

nothing left to thank excepting an impersonal and remote deity.

IV

They sat for a time thus in the little parlor, amid an abomination of

desolation in black walnut horrors, tables done after a French king who

must have revolved in his grave at contemplation thereof, chairs

requiring nice feats in balancing upon their slippery haircloth floors,

a sofa of like sort, too large for one, yet not large enough for two.

There gazed down upon their love--as though in admiration as to love's

consequences--rows of bisque shepherdesses and china dogs. The Dying

Gaul also bent on them a saddened gaze. None the less, in spite of

all, young Halsey shamelessly maintained his position on the perilous

sofa, an arm around young Miss Rawn's waist.

V

Laura Rawn sat across the room, something still dangling from her grasp

which had been there when she met Halsey in the hall. Halsey at length

caught sight of this object. Glancing from the mother's hands toward

those of the daughter, Halsey caught up the latter, looking with close

scrutiny at what was now to be his own. He found the ends of Grace's

fingers blackened and rough. He glanced back again to her mother's

hands, worn with toil. The ends of her fingers, also, grasping this

loose something, were blackened and rough.

"No more work for Grace," said he, lovingly tightening his clasp on the

fingers in his own.

"But I say--" this to Grace--"what makes your fingers so rough, dear?

I never did notice that before."

"You've not noticed anything for two months!" said Grace chidingly.

"Why, it's sewing, of course, that does it. A needle roughens up one's

finger in spite of a thimble, don't you know?"

"You were sewing--for _us_?" he ventured daringly, yet blushing as he

spoke. "A girl has a lot of sewing to do, I suppose--when

she's--getting ready. But, Grace--I'm to have five thousand dollars a

year! Five thousand! No more sewing then for Grace, I'm thinking."

"Yes?" said Grace, smiling in her slow way. "I think Ma and I would be

glad to believe we'd never have to see a needle again. _She_ kept me

at it. You see, Charley, we've been keeping the wolf from the front

door and the kitchen door, while you and Father were guarding the

woodshed."

"What do you mean?" Then suddenly, "You don't tell me--you don't mean

that--? Was _that_ what made your hands so rough, yours and Mrs.

Rawn's yonder? What have you got there, Mrs. Rawn--something in silk?

Oh, a pair of braces, eh? For me? How nice of you."

Grace smiled again. "I'll be jealous of Ma. Shall I go and get my own

work to show you?"

"You mean for your father, of course--"

"Indeed, no. Neither Pa nor you can afford silk embroidered braces,

Charles! I've done six pairs this week, and Ma--well Ma must have done

a dozen. She's wonderful."

"But what do you mean?" asked the young man, still puzzled. Grace said

nothing further, but held up her blackened finger-tips and looked him

in the eye. A blush of comprehension came to his face.

"You women!" he exclaimed. "You've worked as hard as we did; and we

didn't know!"

"We had to do something," said Mrs. Rawn quietly. "I tried a number of

things. We could earn practically nothing in the sweatshop work.

Grace addressed envelopes here at home at night, for a while--but

that's what every other girl in all the city's doing, I think. I saw

some of these embroidered things in the window of a men's furnishing

shop. I went in and told the man I could do them as well as that for

twenty-five cents a pair. We've had as much as thirty cents for some

of our best ones. Why, dear me! I hadn't done any work in silk for

years and years; but it all came back. We earned quite a bit here. It

kept the table."

"My God!" said Halsey. "And I've been eating here!"

VI

"It was our part," said Laura Rawn. "It was all we could do. A woman

just has to do the best she can, you know. Well, we helped."

"A woman has to do the best she can," repeated Laura Rawn gently,

seeing that this left Halsey awkward. "If she's a true woman, she

tries to help. I want that Grace should always think of it in just

that way."

That, it seemed, was the foolish philosophy of Laura Rawn; a philosophy

not often written on the docket of divorce courts, to be sure. Perhaps

it is--or once was--inscribed on dockets elsewhere.

END OF BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I

THE NEW MR. RAWN

I

Some wise man has said that a man changes entirely each seven years of

his life, becoming wholly different in every portion, particle and atom

of his bodily bulk and losing altogether what previously were the

elements, parts, portions or constituent molecules which made himself.

So much as to the physical body. In respect of epochal changes in a

man's character we may wholly approve the dictum of the philosopher,

though perhaps not agreeing to any specific seven-years period. Thus,

in the case of John Rawn, the first stage of his career, in which he

lived without any very great alteration, occupied some seven and forty

years. Yet it was a wholly different John Rawn who, at forty-eight,

found himself seated at the vast and shining desk of the president of

the International Power Company, in the city of Chicago. The past was

so far behind him that he could not with the utmost mental striving

reconstruct the picture of it. He was a wholly new, distinct and

different man. The old and deadly days were gone. There never had

been such a place as Kelly Row. Fate had performed its miracle. Here

was John Rawn, where alone he ever could have belonged--in a place of

power.

Surrounded by a delicious sense of his own fitness and competence,

smug, urbane, well-clad, basking in the balmy glow of his own glory,

exulting in his own proved ability to conquer fate, John Rawn, on his

first day as chief executive of the International Power Company, paused

for a time and leaned back in his chair, giving himself over to

luxurious imaginings.

II

There is no peculiar delight in owning power unless one may exercise

that power. There being no dog present which he might kick out of the

way, John Rawn essayed other divertisements. The harness of business

system was still rather new to him, at least the harness which pertains

to this stage of a business system. He was happily unaware that he was

a lay figure here, with few actual duties beyond those of looking

impressive--happily ignorant that shrewder and more skilled minds than

his had seen to it that his official duties should be few and well

hedged about. He had not as yet ever worked at a desk blessed with a

row of push buttons, and was ignorant as yet, and very naturally, in

regard to the particular function of each of these several buttons

whose mother of pearl faces now confronted him. Resolving to take them

seriatim, he pushed the one farthest to the right; which, as it

chanced, was the one arranged to call to him his personal stenographer.

The door opened silently. John Rawn, looked up and saw standing before

him a young woman whom he had never seen before. "I beg pardon,

Madam," said he, half rising. "I didn't know you were there. How

did--is there anything I can do for you?"

"I am the stenographer assigned for your work, Mr. Rawn, until you

shall have concluded your own arrangements in the office," answered the

young woman. Her voice was even and well controlled, her enunciation

perfect. She was not in the least confused over this _contre-temps_,

else had the self-restraint not to notice it. She stood easily,

note-book in hand, with no fidgeting, in such fashion that one must at

once have classified her as a well-poised human being.

Or, again, one might have said that here was a very beautiful human

creature. She was almost tall, certainly and wholly shapely; young,

but fully and adequately feminine; womanly indeed in every well curved

line. Her hands and feet, her arms--the latter now disclosed by half

sleeves--all were of good modeling. Her hair, piled up in rather high

Grecian coiffure and confined by a bandeau of gold-brocaded ribbon, was

perhaps just in the least startling. But you might not have noticed

that with disapproval had you seen the shining excellence of the hair

itself, brown, either dark or blonde as the light had it. Her forehead

was oval, her chin also oval, the curve of the cheek running gently

into the chin like the bow moulding of a racing yacht. Her teeth were

even and brilliant, her lips well colored, her eyes large and just a

trifle full, with thin lids, and in color blue; as you might have said

with hesitation, just as you might have been uncertain regarding the

blondness of her hair. Over the eyes the brows were straight, brown,

well-defined. Her nose--since one must particularize in all such

intimate matters--was a trifle thin, high in the bridge; thus

completing what lacked, if anything, to convey the aspect of a woman

aristocratic, reserved and dignified.

III

Virginia Delaware, Mr. Rawn's personal stenographer, was born the

daughter of a St. Louis baker. She had, however, passed through that

epoch of her development and by some means best known to herself and

her family, had attained a good education, ended by three years in a

young ladies' finishing school in the East. By what process of

reasoning she had considered that this was the proper field for her

ambitions, is something which need not concern us. She was here; and

as she stood thus, easy, beautiful, competent, she was as much a new

and different Virginia Delaware from the Virginia Delaware of seven

years earlier date as was this new John Rawn different from the old.

The world moves. Especially as to American girls does it move.

"I am the stenographer assigned to you, Mr. Rawn, until you shall have

concluded your own arrangements." She spoke very quietly. Rawn

recovered himself quickly.

"I was just about to say," he went on, "that I intended to have the boy

get my car ready. Would you tell him to have it at the door in fifteen

minutes? Then come back. There are one or two little letters."

A few moments later the young woman was seated at a small table near

the end of the desk. Without any nervousness she awaited his pleasure.

"I'll trouble you for that newspaper, if you don't mind, Miss--?"

"Miss Delaware."

"Yes, Miss Delaware. Thank you!"

He glanced down the columns of the market reports. "Take this," he

said, turning to the young woman.

"Chandler and Brown, Brokers, City. Dear Sirs: Sell me two hundred

Triangle Rubber at three forty. Yours truly."

She was up with him before he had finished his first official act. He

turned again:

"Kitter, Moultrie & Johnson, Bakersfield, California. Gents: Cinch all

the Guatemala shares you can at eight cents and draw on me if you need

any money. Yours truly."

Mr. Rawn could not think of anything else. Few details had been

allowed to reach his desk. He was the last sieve in a really

well-arranged series of business screens. But even in this brief test

he had a feeling that the new stenographer would prove efficient. In

three or four minutes more he was yet better assured of that fact; for

before he could find his coat and hat she entered gently and laid the

completed letters on his desk:

"Messrs. Chandler and Brown, 723 Exchange Building, Chicago: Gentlemen:

Please sell for my account two hundred (200) shares Triangle Rubber, at

three hundred and forty dollars ($340) or the market, obliging, Yours

very truly."

"Messrs Kitter, Moultrie & Johnson, Bakersfield, California.

Gentlemen: Please buy for my account all the Guatemala Oil which you

can pick up at eight cents (8c). You are at liberty to draw on me as

you require funds. Allow two points margin. Yours very truly."

"Very good," said Mr. Rawn. A slight perspiration stood on his

forehead. The young woman silently disappeared. "Two points!" said

Mr. Rawn. "By Jove!"

IV

Mr. Rawn remained well assured of several things. First, that he was

going to make sixty-eight thousand dollars out of the Triangle Rubber

shares, which had been given him practically as a present, or as

"bonus," or as tribute, by Standley and Ackerman and their friends at

the inception of the International Power Company; second, that he might

perhaps make a quarter of a million out of his inside knowledge derived

from these same sources, regarding plans in Guatemala Oil; third, that

his new stenographer seemed to have a good head, and was not apt to be

forward.

Whereupon, having concluded his first wearying day's labor, Mr. Rawn

donned his well-cut overcoat and shining top hat, and with much dignity

passed out the private door of his office. The elevator was crowded

with common people, among them, several persons of the lower classes.

Mr. Rawn felt that the president of a great corporation like

International Power ought by all rights to have an elevator of his own.

This conviction of the injustice wrought upon presidents was so borne

in upon him that, when he stepped up to the long and shining car which

the chauffeur held at the curb, his face bore a severe frown and his

lower lip protruded somewhat. Feeling thus, he rebuked the chauffeur,

who touched his hat.

"You kept me waiting!" said John Rawn, glowering. "I wait for no one."

The chauffeur touched his hat again. "Very good, sir. If you please,

where shall I drive?"

"Take me to the National Union Club," growled Mr. Rawn. Already it may

easily be seen that one of Mr. Rawn's notions of impressing the world

with his importance was to be rude to his servants--a not infrequent

device among our American great folk.

The chauffeur touched his hat once more and sprang to his seat after

closing the door of the car. In a few minutes Mr. Rawn was deposited

at the wide stairway of one of the most estimable clubs of the city;

where his name had been proposed by members of such standing in the

railway and industrial world that the membership committee felt but one

course open to them.

A boy took his hat and coat, following him presently with a check into

a wide room, well furnished with great chairs and small tables. Rawn

stood somewhat hesitant. He knew almost nobody. Moreover, his club

frightened him, for it was his first, and it differed largely from

Kelly Row. A fat man in one group gathered about a small table

recognized him and came forward to shake his hand. "Join us, Mr.

Rawn?" he asked. Some introductions followed, then another question,

relative to the immediate business in hand.

"You may bring me a Rossington," said Mr. Rawn, with dignity, "but

please do not have too much orange peel in it." He spread his coat

tails with perhaps unnecessary wideness as he pushed back into the

great chair. You or I might not have had precisely his air in

precisely these surroundings, but John Rawn had methods of his own.

"I've never liked too much orange peel," said he gravely, putting the

tips of his fingers together. "The last time, I thought they had just

a trace too much. A suspicion is all I ever cared for."

They listened to him with respect. As a matter of fact, Mr. Rawn had

never tasted alcoholic beverages of any sort whatever until within the

year last past. All the better for his physique, as perhaps one might

have said after a glance at these pudgier forms adjacent to him now.

All the better, too, for his nerves. But it is not always the case

that the beginner in alcohol can drink less than one of ancient

acquaintance therewith; the reverse is often true. In John Rawn's

system strong drink produced only a somber glow, a confident

enlargement of his belief in his own powers. It never brought levity,

mirth, flippancy into his demeanor.

V

His acquaintances saw now in Mr. Rawn, the last member received into

their august affiliations, a man of breeding, long used to good things

in life, and trained to a nice discrimination. Perhaps the fact that

he was the new president of the new International Power Company, a

concern capitalized at many millions and reputed to have one of the

best things going, may have brought added respect to the attitude of

some of those who sat about the little table. Thus, one passed a gold

cigarette-box; yet another proffered selections from divers cigars, of

the best the club could provide; which was held thereabouts to be the

best that any club could provide.

"I was just telling Mason, here, when you came in, Rawn," said the

large man who had risen to greet him, "that at last it looks as though

that jumping-jack, Roosevelt, was down and out for good. I always said

he'd get his before long. Good God! When you stop to think about it,

hasn't he been a menace to the prosperity of this country?"

"He certainly has been, the everlasting butter-in," ventured a

by-sitter.

"In my belief," said Rawn solemnly, "he hasn't the ghost of a show for

the nomination--not the ghost of a show!"

"Certainly not," assented the large man. "He's been politically

repudiated in his own state and city for years, and now it's just

soaking into the heads of western men that he won't do. He's been the

Old Man of the Sea on all kinds of business development. In my belief,

half the labor troubles in this country are traceable to him--anyhow to

him and the confounded newspapers that keep stirring things up.

Progress! If these progressives had their way, I reckon we'd all be

progressing backwards, that's where we'd be. Look at all these new

men, too! It makes me sick to think how our Senate is changing." He

spoke of "our" Senate with a fine proprietary air.

"But there is talk that Roosevelt'll run again," said another speaker,

reaching for his second cocktail.

"No chance!" said the large man, who had had his second. "This whole

fool movement for unsettling business is going to come to an end.

There never was a time when unsuccessful people were not discontented.

Let the people growl if they like. They haven't got any reason.

Talk's cheap. Let 'em talk."

"Money talks best," ventured John Rawn oracularly, nodding his head.

The others solemnly assented to this very original proposition.

"The business of this country," went on the large man, "has got nothing

to do with Teddy's ten commandments."

"I have no doubt," said John Rawn, "that Mr. Roosevelt has, as you say,

been the most disturbing cause in the unsettling of labor conditions

all over the country. I've been following his speeches. He's always

putting out that same old foolish doctrine about the equality of

mankind--a doctrine exploded long ago. It's nothing short of criminal

to talk that way to the lower classes to-day--it only makes them more

unhappy. What's the use in misleading the laboring man and making him

think he's going to get something he can't get? I tell you, I believe

that at heart Roosevelt is a Socialist. Anyhow, he's a stumbling-block

to the progress of this republic. Why, in our own factory--"

"You're right," interrupted the first speaker. "Absolutely right.

That sort of talk means ruin to the country. I'd like to know what all

the men that make up these labor unions would do if we were to shut

down all the mills and factories and offices--where'd they get any

place to work if we didn't give it to them? Yet they bite the very

hand that feeds them."

"It sometimes looks as though we'd lost almost the whole season's work

in the Senate," gloomily contributed another of the group. "We've got

the tariff framed up to suit us, but how long will it last? Besides,

what's the use of a tariff, if we're going to have strikes that

practically are riots and revolutions, all over the country? Our

laboring men are not willing to work. That's the trouble, I tell

you--all this foolishness about the brotherhood of man. Oh, hell!"

"You have precisely my attitude, my friend," said John Rawn, turning to

him gravely. "Precisely. I have always said so."

VI

They all nodded now gravely as they sipped their second or third

cocktails. Here and there a face grew more flushed, a tongue more

fluent. The large man, colder headed, presently turned to Mr. Rawn.

"By the way, Rawn," said he, "I hear it around the street all the time

that you've got about the best thing there is going--this International

Power. What's the meaning of all this talk, anyhow? It's leaking out

that you're going to revolutionize the business world with all this

power-producing scheme of yours. Some crazy newspaper child got lit up

the other day and printed a fake story about your plan of running wires

from the river over to Chicago! Anything in that?--but of course there

isn't."

"Not as you state it," said John Rawn. "We have a very desirable

proposition, however, in our belief."

--"Say yes!" broke in the smaller man across the table. "But it looks

like you've got the Ark of the Covenant concealed, you keep it so

close. None of the stock seems to get out. You haven't listed

anything, and nobody can guess within a million dollars what a share is

worth."

"No," said John Rawn sententiously, "you couldn't. I couldn't, myself.

I couldn't yet guess large enough."

"But they tell me it's reviving commerce all up and down the river--in

the old towns."

Mr. Rawn nodded assentingly, smiling.

"Newspaper story was that there was going to be some fly-by-night,

over-all, free-for-all _wireless_ transmission, and all that! I say,

that was deuced good market work, wasn't it! We all want in on that

killing when it comes. But how are we going to get in on the killing

if there isn't any stock to be had, and if it isn't listed so the

public can be got in?"

"Standley and Ackerman got the lion's share," grumbled the large man,

explanatorily.

"Did they?" smiled John Rawn, showing his teeth a trifle.

"Well, of course that's the talk--I don't know anything about how the

facts are. But when the time comes, let us in."

"Certainly," said Rawn easily. "But we're not saying much just yet, of

course. Just beginning."

"But now, was there anything in that crazy fool's newspaper story?"

"We're working on that idea," Rawn admitted, still smiling.

VII

They threw themselves back in their chairs and joined in a burst of

laughter. "You're a wonder, Rawn!" said the large man admiringly.

The second cocktail had served to steady John Rawn. "Why?" he inquired

evenly.

"Why, according to that story, every one of us manufacturers would be

put out of business. We'd literally have to come and feed from your

hand when we wanted power, according to that."

"It would figure that way on one basis," admitted Rawn. "That _would_

be something, wouldn't it? Almost rather."

"Almost rather!" repeated the small man. "I say, that's pretty good,

isn't it? Well now, I'll tell you what; we'd almost rather you'd let

us in on the ground floor, m'friend! No more coal bills, no more

walking delegates, no more strikes, no more Roosevelt 'n LaFol't! Just

touch button. Too bad, Rawn, you didn't go into fiction yourself--it

must have been you 'nvented that newspaper story, o' course."

"You have another guess," said John Rawn. "But you haven't guessed big

enough yet. I told you, I myself couldn't guess big enough."

The large man laughed, reached into his pocket and handed out a bunch

of keys. "Take 'em along," said he. "I might as well give you the key

to my office, also to my home--and maybe one or two others." Some

smiled at this last remark.

"My keys against yours," said John Rawn keenly. "You can take

everything I've got if the time doesn't come when our company will do

everything you're laughing at now. But we're not after our friends.

Why couldn't we get together--and together get the public?"

"Fine! _Now_ you converse," smiled the large man.

"I don't deny I've got an idea up my sleeve, and have had," continued

Rawn. "I don't deny that we may make some tremendous changes in

business methods. When you tell me we can't do these things, that my

idea won't make good, and all that, why, you almost make me talk. Not

that I'm a talking man. But International Power isn't after its

friends.

"But I'm just starting home now," he concluded. "I only dropped in for

a moment. We're just getting things begun and I'm rushed day and

night. I'm rather a new man here in town as yet. But I'll see you

often."

"The central offices will be here, then?" inquired the large man.

"Yes, our main headquarters will be here for a time."

"Oh, joy! I'll drop in some time and have you do me up a choice line

of philosopher's stones, so that I can turn things into gold. Why pay

rent?" The large man laughed largely.

"Oh, all right," rejoined Rawn, also laughing. "But our invention is

not so very wonderful. The only wonder is, that 't hasn't been thought

of before. Nothing is wonderful, you know."

"By Jove! I'm just going to come in with you there," assented the last

speaker, suddenly sitting up in his chair. "There isn't anything

stranger in the world than things that happen right along, every day.

Look here."

He pulled out of his waistcoat pocket some blue strips of paper.

"Tickets to the Aviation Meet. Fifty-cent gate. What do you see?

Why, you see men doing what men couldn't have been supposed to do a

little while ago. It's easy now--and they do that--they really fly. I

tell you, fellows, when you get about four drinks in you and begin to

think, this ain't just the world our daddies knew; and if it ain't,

what sort of world is it going to be that our sons will know?"

"Precisely," assented John Rawn, with affability. "For instance, I'm

going out now to take my car home. Nobody wonders at that. What would

we all have thought of such speed ten or twelve years ago? Speed,

gentlemen, speed--and power! The man who has those has got the world

in the hollow of his hand." With a nod, half negligent, he turned away.

VIII

"_Ave Cæsar!_" irreverently remarked a man with a gray mustache as Rawn

passed toward the cloak room.

"He sets me thinking, just the same," commented the large man

grumblingly. "That fellow's a comer. He's building him a fine place,

up the North Shore, they tell me. His family must have had money,

'though it's odd, I never heard of him till just lately. Who's going

to pay for his house? Why, maybe we are!"

"Believe I'll go home for dinner to-night myself. Haven't been home

for three days," yawned one.

--"And nights," added a smiling friend.

"Naturally. But let's have another little drink. I'm telling you,

fellows, that fellow Rawn has got me guessing, too."

CHAPTER II

GRAYSTONE HALL

I

Mr. Rawn's long and shiny car was waiting for him when he stepped with

stately dignity down the broad stair of the National Union Club. His

chauffeur once more touched his hat, as he saw the hat of Mr. Rawn, so

much taller and shinier than his own.

Threading its path through the crowded traffic of the side streets, the

car presently turned up the long northbound artery of the great western

city. Surrounded by a large and somewhat vulgar throng of similarly

large and shiny cars, it floated on, steadily, almost silently, until

most of the noises and the odors of the city were left behind; until at

last the blue of the great lake showed upon the right hand through

ranks of thin and straggling trees, supported by a thin and sandy soil.

Now appeared long rows of mansions, fronting on the lake, their

amusingly narrow and inadequate grounds backing out upon the dusty

roadway with its continual traffic of long, shiny and ofttimes vulgar

cars. Miles of cars carried hundreds of men to miles of mansions. In

less than an hour, from town to home, John Rawn also pulled up at the

entrance to his home. Speed limits are not for such as Mr. Rawn. This

residence, yet another of these pretentious mansions, top-heavy on its

inadequate delimitations, and done by one of the most ingenious

architects to be found for money, was as new, as hideous, as barbarous

as any that could be found in all that long assemblage of varied proofs

of architectural aberrations. It was as new as Mr. Rawn himself. The

brick walks were hardly yet firmly settled, the shrubs were not yet

sure of root, the crocus rows in the borders still showed gaps. Large

trees, transplanted bodily, still were sick at heart in their new

surroundings. The gravel under the new _porte cochêre_ still was red

and unweathered. As to the house itself, it combined Japanese,

Colonial and Elizabethan architecture in nice modern proportions, the

architect having been resolved to earn his fee. Many who passed that

way turned and pointed approving thumbs at the residence of Mr. John

Rawn, president of the International Power Company, a new man who had

come in out of the West, and who evidently was possessed of wealth and

taste.

II

Mr. Rawn knew that many occupants of other cars were noting him. His

dignity was perfect as he left his car, not noticing that the chauffeur

once more touched his hat. His dignity remained unbroken as he walked

up the Elizabethan steps, flanked by Japanese jars, and paused at the

Colonial door. The door swung open softly. His dignity was such that

he scarcely saw the man who took his coat and hat, and who received no

greeting from his master. Calm, cold and scornful, as one well used to

such surroundings, he passed through the long central halls and stood

before the doubly glazed French window whose wide expanse fronted upon

the lake. He came from inland parts, and he enjoyed this lake view he

had bought. He did not hear the quiet footfall which approached over

the heavy rug. Laura Rawn needed to speak to him the second time.

"Well," said he, turning and sighing, "how's everything?"

"Very well, John."

"Not so bad, eh?" He jerked a thumb to indicate the lake.

"It's grand!" said his wife, yet with no vast enthusiasm in her tone.

"I should say it was grand! Anyhow, there's nothing grander around

Chicago. There's not very much here in the way of scenery. Of course,

in New York--"

"Oh, don't let us talk of New York, John."

"Why?"

"I don't see how I could stand anything bigger or grander than this."

"Stand anything more? Ha-hum! Well, that's just about what I expected

you to say, Laura. Sometimes I wonder if there ever was a man more

handicapped than I am. Look at this! What have I done for you? Why,

I changed your whole life for you, as much as though you'd died and

been born into another world. You couldn't have had all this if it

hadn't been for me. You don't enjoy it. You've got no use for it. I

don't set even this for my limit. I've got ambition, and I'm going up

as far as a man can go in this country. If that means New York, all

right, when the time comes. But what does my wife say? 'Oh, I

couldn't stand that!' Stand it--why, I half believe, Laura, you wish

you were back in Kelly Row right now--I believe that's right where

you'd be this minute, if you had your choice."

"I would, John; if things could be the way they once were."

He only growled as he turned away petulantly.

"Of course I want to see you do well, get ahead, John, as far as ever

you can go. And of course you'd never be happy to go back there again."

"Happy?--me--Kelly Row? You'd see John Rawn dead and buried first!

I'd go jump in the lake if I thought I'd ever have to live again the

way we used to."

"I wonder how they are doing back there now," said Mrs. Rawn, in spite

of all, as though musing with herself. "It's evening now, and the men

are just coming home from work. I wonder if Jane English, next door to

us, has another baby this year. She always had, you know. And there's

the young woman, Essie Hannigan, who always used to wait on the steps

for her husband. And the dogs; and the babies in the street. And the

little trees without very many leaves on them--why, John, I can see it

all as plain as if it were right here. This house of ours here is so

grand I can't understand it. How did we get it, John?--when we worked

so long, so many years, and lived just like those others there? It all

came at once. Have you earned all this--in a year or so? And how did

you get it almost finished, before we moved up here, while we still

were living in St. Louis--without either of us being here to watch the

carpenters?"

"I did it with _money_, Laura, that's how. If you have money you can

get anything done you want; and you don't have to do it with your own

hands. But don't say 'carpenters'--it was an _architect_ built this

house."

"It cost a _lot_ of money!"

"Not so much--I've not got in over two hundred and fifty thousand

dollars yet, even with most of the furnishings in."

"You're always joking nowadays, John. Of course, you haven't made that

much."

"Well, no; that's a lot of money to take out of the investments of a

beginner. I had to get accommodation for three-fourths of it."

"Accommodation?--"

"Well, mortgage, then--that's what they'd call it in Texas or Kelly

Row. I couldn't tie up all my capital--that isn't business. But what

does it amount to? My salary is a hundred thousand a year; and I'm

making more than that on the side. I didn't propose to come up here,

president of the International Power Company, and go to living in a

six-room flat. I wanted a _house_. You see." He swept a wide gesture

again.

"It's not much like our little seven-room house in the brick block, is

it, John?"

"And you wish you were back there? That's fine, isn't it? How can I

do things for you if that's the way you feel? You've never got into

the game with me, Laura,--you've never helped me; I've had to do it

all. Yet look what I've done in the last two or three years!"

"Yes, John, I know I couldn't do much."

"You didn't do _anything_! You don't do anything now! You don't try

to go forward, you never _did_ try, you always hung back! You've

always thought of your own selfish pleasure, Laura, and that's the

trouble with you. A man busy all day with large matters, who comes

home tired and worn out, looks for a little help when he gets home.

What do I hear? 'I wish I was back in Kelly Row!' Fine, isn't it?

I'll bet you a million dollars there isn't another woman in Chicago

that would feel the way you do. You ought at least to have some sense

of gratitude, it seems to me."

III

Grieved at the injustice of life, Mr. Rawn turned his troubled face and

gazed out over the unexpressive expanse of water. Laura Rawn said

nothing at the time, being a woman of large self-control. At length

she laid a gentle hand upon her husband's shoulder.

"Why, John," said she, "I'd go to New York, if it was for the best.

You ought to know that I have your interests at heart--really, you

ought to know that, John. I don't want to hinder you, not the least in

the world, John."

"But you _do_ hinder me. You make me feel as though you were not in

the game with me, that you were holding back all the time. I'm going a

fast gait. I'm a rising man; but you ought to be in my company. A man

doesn't like to feel that he's all alone in the world!"

"Why, John! Why, _John_!"

But he never caught the poignant anguish of her tone. "Why don't

people come here to see you?" he demanded. "It's like a morgue. And

by the time this place is done it'll cost pretty near another quarter

of a million."

"John!" she gasped. "Where will you get it?"

He turned and waved at her an aggressive finger. "I made it!" said he,

"and I'll make it. I made a clean sixty-eight thousand dollars,

to-day, with a turn of my wrist. I'll make the price of this house in

another two years, if all goes well. When it starts, it comes fast.

There's nothing grows like money. It rolls up like a snowball--for a

few men; and I'm one of the few! It's easy picking for strong men in

the business world of America to-day--the game's framed up for them,

when they get in. And one of these days I'm going in further. We'll

see a life which will make all this"--he swept a wide hand about

him--"look like thirty cents." His pendulous lower lip trembled in

emotion, precisely as might that of his father have trembled when he

addressed assembled and unrepentant gatherings of sinners.

"Well, John," said Laura Rawn, dropping into a chair and crossing her

hands in her lap, "you've done a lot for me, that's sure, more than I

have had any right in the world to expect. I can't do much. I'm only

going to try just all I can to keep up with you. But now let's not

bother or worry any more about things. Supper is just about ready."

"Dinner, you mean. _Dinner_, Mrs. Rawn!"

She flushed a trifle. "As I meant, dinner, yes. You'll have time to

dress for dinner, if you like, but I wish you wouldn't, John. I don't

mean to. The truth is, I had the cook make to-night something you used

to be very fond of in the old days--a pot roast--shoulder of pork with

cabbage. Somehow, it seemed to me that we wouldn't want to dress up

just for that, John."

"My God, no!" The suffering John Rawn fell into a chair and dropped

his face between his hands, shaking his head from side to side.

"Isn't it all right, John?" she asked anxiously "What else should I

get?"

"Leave it to the cook, Laura--I mean the chef. That's what he's _paid_

for. Is there anything too good for us?"

"Not for you, John. But I sometimes think," she went on slowly after a

while, "that I'm not entitled to so much as we have, when others have

so little--the same sort of people that we once were. I don't

understand it. I don't see where we _earned_ it. Why, back there

where we came from, life is very likely just as hard as it ever was."

"Haven't _earned_ it!" gasped John Rawn--"I haven't _earned_ it? Well,

listen at that, to my face! Well, I'd like to ask you, Laura, if I

haven't earned this, what man ever _did_ earn his money?"

"Don't take me wrong, John dear. I was just wondering how anybody

could ever earn so much."

"Well, don't get the habit of wondering."

"I like my things," said she softly, gazing about her. "I've always

wanted nice things, of course. I never thought we'd have a place like

this. Then the trees, and the lake--why, it's like fairyland to me!"

IV

But Rawn turned a discontented face around at the ill-assorted

furnishings of Graystone Hall--as he had named his quasi-country place.

As in the case of the architect, the house decorator and furnisher had

had full license, and each had done his worst.

"Somehow these things don't seem just the way they are down at the

club!" he grumbled. "I've been at other houses along in here, once in

a while, and somehow our things don't seem just like theirs. It's not

my fault. Surely you must see how busy I am all the time--I've not got

the time to take care of household matters, too."

He got up and took a turn or so about, gazing with dissatisfaction at

his household goods. "They tell me that J. Pierpont Morgan picks up

what they call collector's pieces. I've heard that lots of the big men

have in their houses these collector's pieces. We've got to have some

of them here. It won't do to have them say of us that we're anything

back of Morgan or anybody else. If they think that of me, they don't

know John Rawn."

"Dinner is served, Mrs. Rawn," said a low voice at the farther side of

the room. The butler stood respectful, at attention.

"_Mrs._ Rawn!" grumbled the master of the place. "I'll train him

different! Why don't he tell _me_?"

They passed into the wide dining-room, the butler now silently drawing

together the double curtains which covered the windows fronting the

lake. Rawn seated himself frowningly at the table, with the customary

grumbling comment which he used to conceal his own lack of ease. In

truth, he had never yet enjoyed a meal in his great house, and would at

this moment have been far more comfortable in his shirt sleeves at the

little table in Kelly Row, with the nearest butler a thousand miles

away for all of him. The presence of this shaven, priest-like

personage behind him always sent a chill up his spine. He half jumped

now as that icy individual coughed at his side, poured a little wine

into his first glass, and passed on to Mrs. Rawn. Laura Rawn declined,

as was her custom, and the butler turned to fill his master's glass.

"You ought to drink wine, Laura," said the owner of Graystone Hall,

regardless of the butler's presence. "Practically all the women do, I

notice. Some smoke--cigarettes, I mean; not a corn-cob pipe. But

then--" he raised his own glass and drained it at a gulp. The butler

filled it again, and passed silently in quest of the beginnings of the

banquet whose _pièce de résistance_ had caused him and the second maid

to exchange wide grimaces of mirth beyond the door.

V

It could not have been called a wholly happy family gathering, this at

Graystone Hall. Indeed, it lacked perhaps three generations, possibly

three aeons, of being happy.

With little more speech after the evening meal than they had had

before, an hour, perhaps, was passed in the room which the architect

called the library, Mrs. Rawn called the parlor, and Mr. Rawn called

the gold room. Then Laura Rawn, as was her wont, passed silently

up-stairs to her own apartments--or her bedroom, as she called

it--widely removed, in the architect's plans, from those of her

husband. One room, one couch, had served for both in Kelly Row.

The gray lake throbbed along its shore. Night came down and softened

the ragged outlines of the scrawny trees which stood sentinels along

the front of this pile of stone and steel and concrete and wood, which

paid men had striven so hard to render into lines of home-likeness. A

soft wind passed, sighing. The lights of Graystone Hall went out, one

by one, while the evening still was young.

CHAPTER III

THE COMPETENCIES OF MISS DELAWARE

I

Two-thirds of the inhabitants of this world live in that unreal

atmosphere best described by the vulgar word of "bluff." About

one-half the other third know that fact. The first two-thirds, not

being able to determine which that latter half may be, exist in

continual fear that they may guess wrongly in these vulgar fractions,

and so make pretense where pretense is of no avail. Shoddy fears

nothing so much as what vulgarly is called "the real thing;" but the

trouble with shoddy, the anxiety, nay, the agony of shoddy, bluff,

pretense, insincerity, whatever you care to call it, lies largely in

the fact that shoddy can not always tell when it has been discovered to

be shoddy.

There did not lack times in John Rawn's social life when he felt a very

considerable trepidation regarding himself. He often looked at the

tall mansion houses which he passed on his daily journey to and from

his home, and wondered whether the occupants of some of them did not

live a life of which he was ignorant. He wondered if, after all, there

might not be something money could not buy.

For instance, in regard to those collector's pieces of which he had

heard. How could they be distinguished from other and less preferred

articles of furnishing? Since he and his wife lacked judgment in such

matters, what was the remedy? How could he set matters right without

discovering his own ignorance? He was like an Indian, ashamed to learn.

II

Mr. Rawn was in an unusually abject mental state, one morning, some

months after he had taken charge of the headquarters offices of the

International Power Company. It was not often he had much recourse to

spleen-venting beyond that of the disgruntled man, who most frequently

takes it out on the minor office force. By this time he had learned

his battery of buttons, and now he pressed one after the other, in

order that he might express to the entire personnel of the office staff

his personal belief of their unfitness to exist, let alone to execute

business duties in a concern such as this.

He reserved one button for the last--the one farthest to the right upon

his glass-topped desk. He knew what pressure upon that button would

bring, and he felt a curious shrinking, a timidity, when he reflected

upon that fact. He knew he could cause to stand before him a vision of

calm, cool and somewhat superior femininity. In a few short months Mr.

Rawn had learned to trust, to respect and to dread his assistant, Miss

Virginia Delaware. In fact, it occurred to him at this very moment

that she might perhaps be one of that half of the other third who can

distinguish between pretense and the actual, between shoddy and the

valid article.

Yet though this thought gave him a manner of chill, there was with it

an attendant thought which caused him to glow with the joy of power.

By simply dropping his finger, he, John Rawn, could summon into his

presence the figure of a beautiful young woman--a woman not yet grown

old and gray; a woman of personal charm; a woman calm, cool and

superior. He stretched his own large limbs, glanced at his rugged

frame, his somewhat lined face in the glass of the cloak-room door. He

looked upon himself and saw that he was good; as God looked upon the

world when He made it. He was of belief that a little gray hair at the

temples was no such bar after all in a man's appearance.

III

Rawn had lived a life singularly clean and innocent. His youth had

been gawky, his manhood ignorant. But now, somehow, somewhere, deep in

some unsuspected corner of his nature, John Rawn felt glowing something

heretofore unknown to him. He did not know what it was. At times it

seemed to him he could see opening out before him a new world of wide

and inviting expanses, a world of warmth and light and luxury and

color; in short, a world as unlike Kelly Row as you may well imagine,

inhabited by beings wholly different from those obtaining in Kelly Row.

And there, among all these, one.... It is to be seen, in fact, that

the life of the city began to open before John Rawn. The soul of the

city is woman, as it was the soul of Rome. Rawn was learning what

hitherto he had small opportunity to learn. At times he leaned back in

luxurious realization of the fact that he, John Rawn, late railway

clerk, but born to the purple, could by a touch upon this certain plate

of mother-of-pearl call before him in reality a vision which sometimes

he saw within his mind.

John Rawn reached out and touched the last button to the right in the

row. She appeared before him a moment later, silently, as calm, as

cool, as unsmiling and as dignified as was her wont. Not even the

quiver of an eyelid evinced concern as to what her next duty was to be.

IV

In appearance Virginia Delaware might have won approval from a closer

critic than John Rawn. Her face really was almost classical in its

lines, her poise and dignity now might have been that of some young,

clean-limbed wood-goddess of old. She always seemed unfit for humdrum

duties. Surely she had won the vast hatred of all her associates, who

had experienced no raise of salaries whatever, under the new régime;

whereas, it was well known that the president's secretary had had one,

two, or perhaps several. These others detested all forward and

superior persons; as was their irreverent and wholly logical right.

"We have some letters this morning, Miss Delaware," began Rawn. "You

couldn't quite take care of them all, eh?"

"We handled all we could, Mr. Rawn, I have referred a large number to

proper department heads, and answered quite a number. It seemed better

to refer these for your own action."

"Business growing, eh?" said Rawn, turning around to his desk. The

girl's reply was just properly enthusiastic for the business:

"It's wonderful the mail we get. Inquiries come from all over the

country. Yes, indeed, it seems to grow. The idea goes like wildfire.

I never knew anything like it. When we really have the installations

made, it will be only a question of administration."

Venturing nothing further, she seated herself at her table, book and

pencil in hand, ready to begin. She did her work with a mechanical

steadiness and lack of personality which might have classified her as

indeed simply a cog in the vast machinery of the International Power

Company. Rawn had gained facility in his own work, and had found in

himself a real faculty for prompt decision and speedy handling of

detail. He went on now smoothly, mechanically, rapidly, almost

forgetful of everything but the series of problems before him, and

forgetting each of these as quickly as he took up the other. He cast a

look of unconscious admiration of the girl's efficiency when at last,

finishing, he found her also finished with her part, and without having

caused him delay or interruption. With no comment now, she took up the

finished letters which had been left for his signature. Standing at

his side, she literally fed them through the mill of his desk, taking

away one signed sheet as she placed the other before him, smoothly,

impersonally, swiftly. The work of the morning was beautiful in its

mechanical aspect.

V

The business system of "International" was shaking down into a smooth

and easy-running efficiency. At the close of this work, Miss Delaware

remained wholly unruffled. Turning toward her at last, John Rawn felt

that curious old feeling, half made up of chilling trepidation, half of

something quite different. There seemed to be something upon his mind,

some business still unfinished.

"I was about to say, Miss Delaware," he began at length, "that I am, as

you know, a very busy man."

"Yes, sir," she said, evenly and impersonally.

"I have so many things to do, you see, that I don't get much time to

attend to little things outside of my business. A man's business is a

millstone around his neck, Miss Delaware. We men of--ahem!--of affairs

are little better than slaves."

"Yes, Mr. Rawn," she said gently. "I can understand that."

"For instance, I don't even know, as long as I have been here in

Chicago, the names of the best firms of decorators, house furnishers,

that sort of thing--"

"Doesn't Mrs. Rawn get about very much, sir?"

"Mrs. Rawn unfortunately is not very well. Also she has the habit of

delaying in such matters. Then, as I don't myself have the time to

take care of everything--why, you see--"

Her eyebrows were a trifle raised by now.

--"So I was just wondering whether I couldn't avail myself of

your--your--very possible knowledge of these stores--shops, I mean."

"Oh, very well. Yes, sir. But I don't quite understand--"

"Well, I want to pick up some collector's pieces for my home, you see."

"Good pieces? Yes, sir. Of what sort?"

"Why, furniture--or--yes--some china stuff, I suppose. Maybe--er--some

pictures."

"I see. You've not quite finished the decorations of your new home,

Graystone Hall."

"Oh, you know the place?"

"Every one knows it, Mr. Rawn. It is very beautiful."

"It ought to be beautiful inside and out. To be brief about it, I know

I oughtn't to ask an assistant who is only receiving forty-five dollars

a week salary to act as expert for me in house decoration

matters--that's entirely outside your business, Miss Delaware. At the

same time--" Miss Delaware checked herself just in time not to mention

the salary figure which Mr. Rawn had stated. If her oval cheek flushed

a trifle, her long lashes did not flicker. This was ten dollars a week

more. She had herself never once mentioned the matter of salary.

VI

"Of course, Mr. Rawn, I'd be willing to do anything I could," she said.

"I know the city pretty well, having lived here for some time. If you

would rather have me use my time in that way, it would be a great

pleasure. I like nice things myself, though of course I could never

have them. I've just had to flatten my nose against the window-pane!"

She laughed, a low and even little burst of laughter, rippling; the

most personal thing she ever had been guilty of doing in the

office--then checked herself, colored, and resumed her perfect calm.

"Never mind about your other duties. Take any time you like. Go see

what you can find me in this town."

"As in what particular?"

"Well, take china. I shouldn't mind having some ornamental jars,

vases--that sort of thing, you know."

"China's difficult, Mr. Rawn--one of the most difficult things into

which one can go. There's a terrible range in it, you see. It can be

cheap or very expensive, very grotesque or very beautiful. There are

not many who know china. I suppose we mean porcelains?"

"Yes, I know. But what would you suggest, for instance, for my large

central room, which opens out upon the lake?"

"What is the color scheme, Mr. Rawn?"

"About everything the confounded builders and decorators could think

of," said Rawn frankly. "I think they called it a gray-and-silver

motive. I know there's something in white, with dark red for the doors

and facings."

Miss Delaware sat for a moment, a pencil against her lip, engaged in

thought.

"Well," said she at length, "I'm sure almost any of the good houses

would send you up what you liked. There's everything in accord. You

don't want anything that will 'swear,' as the phrase goes. If I were

in your place, I would select a few really good pieces, and try them in

place, in the rooms."

"Yes, yes! But where'll I get them? How will I find them? That's

why--"

"Mr. Rawn, there is really only one good selection in Oriental

porcelains in town to-day. The large shops have their art rooms, of

course, but they're horrible, for the most part, although most of our

'best people' buy there--because they're fashionable. There's a little

man on ---- street. I just happened to see the things in his window as

I went by one day. He has some beautiful pieces."

"And beautiful prices?"

"Much higher than you would need to pay at any of the larger places,

because these are genuine. None of them ever had such pieces as

these--they wouldn't know them when they saw them. You must remember,

Mr. Rawn, that if a piece of porcelain were only worth two dollars a

thousand years ago, and it was one, say, of a thousand others just like

it at that time, the loss by breakage of the other duplicates, and the

lowest kind of compound interest from then till now, would warrant

almost any sort of price you'd care to put on a real work of art--one

that has come down from so long a time ago."

"You've got a good business head! You know the value of interest, and

few women do. Now, all I want to know is, that I'm not being done. I

don't so much care about the price. But has this man anything in the

real goods, and if so, what would you suggest?"

VII

Miss Delaware's answer might have proved a trifle disconcerting, even

to one more critically versed than her employer. "In my own taste, Mr.

Rawn," she said judicially, "there is nothing in the world so beautiful

as some of the old Chinese monochromes. They come sometimes in the

most beautiful pale colors. There is the _claire de lune_, for

instance--this little man has some perfectly wonderful specimens, three

or four, I think; one good-sized jar. These pale blues grow on you.

They don't seem so absolutely stunning at first, but they'll go

_anywhere_; and they are beyond reproach in decoration. The pieces I

saw are of the Sung dynasty; so they can't have been made later than

1300. They came from U-Chon, in the Honan province. I thought them

very fine, and from my acquaintance with porcelains, I believe them to

be genuine pieces."

"I know," said Rawn--he was perspiring rather freely--"But I confess I

never was very much in love with Chinese art."

"But we owe so _much_ to it, Mr. Rawn," she said with gentle

enthusiasm. "We learned all we know of underglaze and overglaze from

the Chinese--the best of our old English china was not made in England,

but imported from the Orient, as you know. Chippendale got many of his

own ideas in furniture decorations from the Chinese, and so did the

French--why, you'll see Parisian bronzes, ever so old, and you couldn't

tell whether they were made in France or China. And _old_! The man at

this little shop has one piece which he says certainly was made before

the Christian era. If I were in your place, however, I would adhere,

say, to the Ming dynasty. Then you'll get as low as 1644."

"You mean apiece?"

"Oh, no, sir," she said gently, not smiling at his mistake. "I mean,

the Ming dynasty ended in the _year_ 1644."

"Of course--you didn't understand me." Mr. Rawn perspired yet more.

VIII

"No--well, at least you'll find some good jars and vases of that

period," continued Miss Delaware. "For instance, the Ching period of

that dynasty is very rich in the _famille-verte_, as the French

describe it--some splendid apple-greens can be had in this. Then

there's one piece of that same period, I believe, of the

_famille-rose_. It's a wonderful thing in egg shell porcelain, and I

don't believe its like can be found to-day in all the Lake Shore

Drive--or even Drexel Boulevard; and say what you like, Mr. Rawn, there

_are_ fanciers there! In colors there is nothing to equal some of

these fine old pieces. I wouldn't, of course, suggest the bizarre and

striking ones, but I'd keep down to the quiet and solid colors, of some

of the old and estimable periods. I don't know much about art, of

course, but I've just happened to study a little bit into the old

porcelains. I'd like to buy a few--for _somebody_! I couldn't go very

far myself--when they come at a couple of thousand dollars apiece, for

some of the better examples!"

Rawn did not lack in gameness, and no muscle in his face changed as he

nodded.

"The main thing is not to make the wrong selection, Miss Delaware,"

said he. "I wish you'd go around there to-morrow, if you find time,

and see if this man will not send up four or five of his better pieces.

I'll pass on them then."

"You may be sure of one thing, Mr. Rawn," said Miss Delaware, nodding

with emphasis, "they will be real collector's pieces, and any one who

knows about them will see what they are worth."

"All right, then. You'll be saving me a lot of time if you'll take

care of that, Miss Delaware. Now another thing. As I told you, Mrs.

Rawn is ill a great deal of the time. I want to make her a little

present--she must have--that is to say, I am desirous of sending her,

for her birthday, you know, something like a ring or a pendant, in good

stones. Could you drop in at Jansen's and have their man bring me over

something this afternoon--I'll not have time to get out, I fear."

"Certainly, Mr. Rawn. I'll be very glad, if I can be spared from the

office."

"That's all, Miss Delaware."

She passed out gently, impersonally. Rawn found himself looking at the

door where she had vanished.

IX

It was perhaps an hour later that he re-opened the door himself in

answer to a knock. Miss Delaware stood respectfully waiting. "There

is a man from Jansen's waiting for you, Mr. Rawn," said she.

"Tell him to come in," said Rawn. There rose from a near-by seat a

gray-haired, grave and slender man, of sad demeanor, who presently

removed from his pocket and spread out upon the glass top of John

Rawn's desk such display of gems as set the whole room aquiver with

light. Rawn felt his own eyes shine, his own soul leap. There always

was something in diamonds which spoke to him.

"Ah-hum!" said he, feigning indifference, "some pretty good ones, eh?"

He poked around among them with the end of his penholder, as the gray

and grave man quietly opened one paper package after another, and

exposed his wares.

John Rawn reached out and pushed the button farthest to the right in

the long row on his desk. Miss Delaware came and stood quietly

awaiting his command.

Her eyes caught, in the next moment, the shivering radiance which now

flamed on the desk top, as Rawn poked around among the gems that lay

under the beams of the westering sun which came through the window.

Rawn turned quickly. He thought he had heard a sigh, a sob.

Something in the soul of Virginia Delaware leaped! For the first time

her eyes shone with brighter fire; for the first time she half-gasped

in actual emotion. There was something in diamonds which spoke to her

also!

"Essence of power!" said John Rawn calmly, poking among the gems. The

girl did not answer. The salesman coughed gently: "I should say a

hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth there, Mr. Rawn," said he

respectfully.

The man whom he addressed turned to the girl who stood there, her eyes

dilated. He half smiled. "They're lovely!" said Virginia Delaware, in

spite of herself, and now unmasked. "Absolutely lovely! I love them!"

"Pick out two things there," said John Rawn sententiously, pushing

himself back from the desk. "I should say this pendant. Take a guess

at the rings. What would Mrs. Rawn like; and what would about suit

Mrs. Rawn?"

She bent above the desk, her eyes aflame at the sight of the brilliance

that lay before her. Something laughed up at her, spoke to her. Her

bosom heaved a bit.

"I should say your choice is excellent, Mr. Rawn," said she at length,

gently, controlling herself. "The pendant is beautiful, set with the

emeralds. See that chain in platinum--it is a dear! It's like a

thread of moonlight, isn't it? And as for the rings, I'd take this

one, I believe, with the two steel-blue stones."

"How much?" said John Rawn, turning to the grave and gray salesman.

"The two pieces would cost you twenty-eight thousand dollars, sir," the

latter replied, gravely and impersonally.

"Miss Delaware," said John Rawn, taking from his pocket his personal

check book, "oblige me by making out a check for that amount. Bring it

in to me directly--and have the boy call my car."

X

When John Rawn ascended the steps of his mansion house that night, he

fairly throbbed with the sense of his own self-approval. There was

that in his pocket which, he thought, when worn by the wife of John

Rawn at any public place of display, would indicate what grade of life

he, John Rawn, had shown himself fit to occupy. He lost no time in

summoning his wife, and with small adieu put in her extended hand the

little mass of trembling, shivering gems. She gazed at them almost

stupefied.

"Well, well!" he broke out, "can't you say anything? What about it?

They're yours."

"Oh, John!" she began. "John! What do you mean? How could you--how

could I--"

He flung out his hand in a gesture of despair. "Oh, there you go

again! Can't you fall into line at _all_?"

"But John! I've never done anything in all my life to deserve them, of

course. Besides, I couldn't wear them--I really couldn't--I'd be

afraid! And they wouldn't seem right--on me!"

"You've _got_ to wear them!" he retorted. "We've got to go out once in

a while if I'm to play this game--we've got to go to shows, theaters,

operas, somewhere. They've got to sit up and say that we've got some

_class_, Laura, I'm telling you!"

"But, John! How would I look decked out in things like that? I'm so

plain, common, you know."

"That's not the question. Do you know how much these cost?"

"Why, no--maybe a thousand dollars, for all I know!"

"A thousand dollars!" groaned Rawn. "Maybe they did! Do you know what

I paid for what you've got in your hand, Laura? Twenty-eight thousand

dollars! That's all."

Impulsively she held out her hand to him. "Take them back!" she

whispered. "It isn't right."

For one moment he looked at her, and she shrank back from his gaze.

But Rawn's anger turned to self-pity.

"My own wife won't wear my diamonds," said he. "This, for a man as

ambitious as I am, and a man who has done as much as I have!"

She came now and put her arms about his neck, the first time in years;

but not in thankfulness. She looked straight into his eyes. "John!"

she said. "Oh, _John_!" There was all of woman's anguish in her eyes,

in her voice.

CHAPTER IV

AT HEADQUARTERS

I

The International Power Company remained a puzzle in suspended

animation before the business world. Its campaign, whatever it was,

went on behind closed doors and closed mouths. The men who were

backing John Rawn were doing so with daring and courage, yet with

business discretion and business eagerness for results. There was no

leak anywhere, but the capitalists who were showing their faith in the

basic idea of the company began to grow impatient because of the slow

advancement of the most important of their plans; those bearing on

wireless transmission from the central generating station on the

Mississippi River.

Rawn's duties at the central offices, as president of the company,

although steadily increasing, were still to very large extent

perfunctory matters of routine; but the president's office evinced very

early a singular efficiency in executive affairs. Rawn's directors

looked on him with mingled approval and cautiousness, coming almost to

the belief that, if the progress of the central distributing plant, or

"Wireless No. 1," as it was known in the company's literature, did not

seem all it should be, at least the president of the company was not to

blame therefor. They turned to the department of mechanical

installation; which brought Charles Halsey under investigation.

II

Halsey and his wife, John Rawn's daughter, had taken up their residence

in the small Chicago suburb in which the central plant had been

located. Their cottage was a small one, and it was furnished much like

other cottages thereabout, occupied by salaried men, mechanics, persons

of no great means. It retained something of the complexion of the old

quarters in Kelly Row. The furniture was of imitation mahogany, the

pictures had been, for the most part, bought by mail, the decorations

were a jumble of inharmonious inadvertencies. The two young folk,

their means as small as their tastes were undeveloped, gave themselves

small concern over architects' plans and "collectors' pieces." They

were busy as are most young couples in the delights of their first

experiment in housekeeping; and Halsey himself now was deep in the

strong and somber delight of developing a beloved idea.

Naturally, Halsey was often taken to the central offices in the city

for conferences with the president of the company. He frequently met

there Virginia Delaware, even at times gave dictation to her--a thing

he never failed to remember, but never remembered to mention in his own

home. As do many men even in this divorceful age, he set aside

comparisons, forced himself into loyalty. Moreover, he yet was very

young in married life, and always had lived in an atmosphere where man,

married or single, coveted not that which was his neighbor's. It was

but unconsciously, as though moved only by force of gravitation, that

he drifted to Miss Delaware with his correspondence. He said to

himself that it was because she was so efficient. Yes, that was it, of

course, he assured himself, frowning when, once upon a time, he

detected a flush on his face in answer to a sudden question of his

soul. Thereafter he went not infrequently to the general offices.

III

On one such occasion he found himself in the position known among

salaried workers as being "called upon the carpet" before "the old

man." Rawn held a letter in his hand to which he referred as he chided

Halsey for the delays in his department of the work.

"Do you suppose I can stand for this sort of thing coming from New

York?" he began. "What's the matter out there with you?"

"Just what we might expect," Halsey replied coolly. "I've tried to cut

down the expenses, but the men won't take the cut in wages."

"Why won't they?"

Halsey smiled. "They have a hundred answers for that. One is, that

they can't live on the wages, and another is, that they want the union

scale."

"They'll never unionize our factory, Mr. Halsey! If they did, we might

as well throw away all our money and tell them our secret at the

start--we'd be working for them, not they for us."

"That's all right, sir. I think, myself, an open shop is safer for us.

But the unions make all sorts of disturbances. I can't keep on a

steady crew; and unless I do, I have to start in and educate a new set

of men every week, or every day; and I have to be careful what I let

any of them know. I can't help it, Mr. Rawn."

"Well, we'll _have_ to help it, that's all," Rawn retorted grimly. "If

the unions want fight they can have fight, until we get to the place

where we can take all the fight out of them. These laboring men want

to stop the whole progress of this country--they're a drag on the

industry of this country, a continuous tax on all consumers. I'll show

them! Once we get those motors installed, I'll make them crawl."

IV

"And yet, do you know, Charles," he went on a little later, his voice

almost trembling, "the _injustice_ of this conduct is what cuts me.

I've had it in my mind to _do_ something for the laboring men of this

country. Of course, I've seen all along that the general introduction

of our motors into all sorts of industrial uses would throw hundreds

and thousands of laboring men out of employment--put them on the scrap

heap permanently. What are they going to do then? Some one's got to

feed them just the same, as you once said to me, long ago. You talk

about problems!--Why, we haven't got to the great ones in this country

yet. The cost of living certainly will climb when that day comes. And

the scale of wages will go down, when we abolish the man who has only

muscle to sell. How are they going to eat?

"Now, I've foreseen something of this, and planned for it. These

people can't plan for themselves, and it's always got to be some

stronger mind that does the thinking. You know, I was born in Texas.

I've always resolved to do something for that state; and, as I've just

told you, I've always had it in mind to do something for the laboring

man--that is to say, the man who sees himself just as he really is, and

who doesn't rate himself worth just the same as the fellow next door to

him, so much and no more.

"I've had my eye for some time on a tract of land down in Texas, forty

thousand acres. It shall never be said of John Rawn that he forgot

either his state or his fellow-man in the time of his success. When we

get our motors going here--it will be, of course, a few years before

the full effect of it all is felt--why then I'm going to colonize

hundreds of these discarded workmen on this land in Texas. They can

put in their labor there, where it will be useful, and can produce a

living for themselves and a surplus for others. In short, it has been

my plan to put them where they could continue to be useful to society.

I wouldn't want to see them _starve_!" Mr. Rawn's lip quivered at this

thought. He felt himself to be a very tender-hearted man.

V

"Yes," said Halsey grimly, "the Czar of Russia had some such notion

regarding the serfs. Yet he freed them eventually."

"Nonsense! They'll be not in the least serfs, but will simply be men

transferred by a higher intelligence to a plane of life which otherwise

they could not reach--a plane where they can be of use not only to

themselves but to others."

"You're always talking, my son," went on Rawn, harshly, "about helping

your fellow-man, loving him like a brother--human equality, and all

that sort of rot. What have any of _you_ ever really done for each

other, I'd like to know, except to meet up there in garrets, with

lanterns hanging around, and discuss plans for taking away from

stronger men the property they have accumulated? Now, I'm not going to

take it out in _talk_--I'm going to _do_ something for these people.

I'm going to make Texas the place for my colony, because I don't want

to deprive my native state of the credit of producing a man who had two

big ideas--cheap power, and common sense in labor. There's two _big_

ideas."

"I wouldn't dare tell the men anything of that," was Halsey's comment.

"It's hard enough as it is."

"No, certainly not. We'll just go on and take our chances with these

men; and they take their chances with us. You have my instructions to

discharge any man who kicks on the wage cut, if he doesn't fire

himself. The town's full of men with families, who aren't earning

enough to eat. You can get all the help you want. Tell them we're

open shop, and if they don't like it they can do their worst. Let them

bring on their dynamite, if they want to try that--they can have all

the fight they want; and I'll stay with it until I see them crawl."

"There's something I don't understand about it, Mr. Rawn. The men are

very sullen. The foremen tell me that they never had so much trouble.

Of course, they don't understand it themselves, but it's just as though

our secret was getting out, and as if the men were afraid of cutting

their own throats when they build these machines. Not that they

understand what it's all about--it's air tight yet, that's sure."

"You begin to see some of the practical results of your infernal

socialistic ideas, don't you, then? You'll come to my notion of life

after a while."

"Mr. Rawn, what's the end of that? What's the logical conclusion?"

"Well, I'll _tell_ you! One end and logical conclusion is going to be

that I'll get some one to handle that factory if you can't; and he'll

handle it the way I tell him!"

"You want my resignation now?"

"I'd very likely take it if it weren't for Grace. Besides, we've

started on this thing together; and moreover again, I want you, when I

go to New York, to see the directors and explain to them that their

impatience is all wrong."

"Is there much dissatisfaction down there?"

"Yes. We've both got to run down East to-morrow night. Go on out now,

and reserve four compartments on the limited."

"Four?"

"Yes--we'll want a place to eat and work on the road. I've got to take

a stenographer along, of course. Next year I'll have a car of my own."

VI

Halsey cast a quick glance at him, but still hesitated. "I don't see

how I can well leave Grace right now," said he. "It's near her time."

"You both take your chances about that," growled Rawn. "Business

enterprises have to be born, as well as children. The important things

come first. The one important thing for you and me is to get down

there and see those cold-footed Easterners and tell them where they get

off in this business."

"Say three days--maybe I can get back in time, Mr. Rawn. But I must

say that they're asking us both to show a good deal of loyalty to this

company."

"It's the only way to get success--fidelity to your employers, no

matter what comes. Of course, I know how you feel, but business can't

wait on women."

"A woman doesn't always understand about business, Mr. Rawn. They're

rather strange things, don't you think? Grace doesn't talk much to

me--she never has. Sometimes--"

Rawn raised a hand. "Charles, never let me hear a word of doubt or

disloyalty regarding your wife! No daughter of Grace's parents could

be anything but faithful and worthy. You should return such loyalty

with love. Never let anything shake you out of your duty to your own

wife--my girl Grace."

"Why do you say that? We're married, and we're happy--and as you

know--"

"Very well. I like to hear you speak in that way. Always be gentle

and kind to your wife. Of course, marriage may not seem always as it

was in the honeymoon days, my son."

"That's true," said Halsey suddenly. "Do you know, I've thought that."

"What _right_ had you to think it?"

"Mr. Rawn, Grace is my wife and I love her. But I'll confess the truth

to you--she acts as though we'd been married forty years. She runs the

house well, but she--I can't explain to you what I mean. She doesn't

seem _contented_ any more. Of course, she loves me, and of course I

love her, and we're married, and all that; and then--"

"Charles, you surprise and grieve me. Grace is my daughter. She may

have self-respect and dignity, but she will never lack in dutifulness.

Did you ever stop to think, Charles, that you owe your place in life to

her?"

"I wasn't thinking of business, Mr. Rawn, and if you please, we'll not

discuss that. I only spoke freely because of what we both know--in

fact, I'd rather stay home than go to New York with you. If you took

along your assistant--Miss Delaware, I suppose?"

Rawn nodded. "Yes, she has the details of the sub-companies well in

hand. I want her along, just as I want you, so that all questions can

be answered as to details of the office and factory work, in case I

should not personally be familiar with them--as I think I am, for the

most part."

"Then you couldn't use the stenographer on the train--I mean the

regular one?"

"I could not, Mr. Halsey," said John Rawn icily. "What business is it

of _yours_?"

"None in the least. I was only thinking about any possible talk.

She's a very beautiful girl, and very--stunning. Yes, on the whole,

Mr. Rawn, I think it better for me to go. One day in New York ought to

do us, ought it not?"

Rawn nodded. "Yes, we'll be back here on the fourth day, at worst.

I've got to have you down there to explain the different installations.

I am as impatient as anybody else. I want to get to the place where

I'll be making some real money."

"I thought you had been," grinned Halsey. "Your house, for instance?"

"Over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in there now, and as much

more to go in later," said Rawn. "I've spent over a half million

altogether, private, overheads and investments, since I went in with

this company. My salary is only a hundred thousand, and no man ever

lives on his salary and lays up any money--he's got to make his start

on the side. I've not done badly in that way. I'm learning the market

from the inside. I've had one killing after another--Oil,

Rubber--awfully good luck. Charles, the next ten years in all

likelihood will see me a rich man, very rich. I've not done badly now,

for the son of a Methodist preacher out of a little Texas town. Let me

tell you something. Money is easy to make when you get the start. It

rolls, I tell you, it rolls up like a snowball. It grows and

spreads--there's nothing like it in its power. It's power itself!"

VII

Rawn rose, soon pausing in his excited walk, in his wonted posture,

feet apart, hands under his coat tails. Halsey looked at him, frowning

half sullenly, as he went on.

"Ah, Charles, there's nothing like money as an ambition for a man!

When I hear you talking your folly, about this brotherhood of man--when

I see you worrying your small head about the future of this republic,

you make me smile! What difference about the rest of the world if you

take care of _yourself_? There's one brotherhood that's worth while,

and only one, and it isn't that of laboring men, of common men--it is

the brotherhood of big men who have made big money. There's a union

for you, son! It does not break, it does not snitch, it does not

strike. It sticks, it hangs together--the union of big business men is

the only one worth while. Come with me, and I'll show you some proof

of that."

Halsey looked at him, his eyes glittering, words of scorn rising to his

tongue; but he controlled himself. "All right, Mr. Rawn," said he,

"I'll be ready to start to-morrow, and I'll count on getting back here

by the last of the week, at least. Good day, sir."

He left the room quietly. He was a handsome, stalwart young man, but

in some way his face did not look happy. Rawn sat staring at the door

through which he had disappeared. There came over his feelings some

sort of vague dissatisfaction or apprehension, he knew not what.

"I'm scared at something, just like those laborers," said he; "and when

there's no reason in the world, so far as any one can tell. Pshaw!"

VIII

He flung himself around to his place at his desk, and in doing so

struck his hand against the pointed letter-opener which lay there. A

tiny trickle of blood appeared, which he sought to staunch with his

handkerchief. At last he raised his head with a grin, and remarked

half aloud, to himself, "When in doubt, touch the right-hand button!"

"Miss Delaware," said he an instant later, as his assistant appeared,

"I've cut my hand a little. I wish you'd tell one of the boys to bring

me a basin of hot water, or some sticking plaster or something."

"If you will allow me, Mr. Rawn," she answered respectfully, "I think I

could fix that without trouble. I have a little liquid ether and

collodion in my desk. It usually will stop any small cut, and it keeps

it clean.

"All right," said Rawn, "anything to stop the bleeding--I must get to

work."

She reappeared a moment later with a small bottle and a pencil brush,

and bending over, proceeded to touch the tiny wound with the biting

liquid, with slight "Tch!" as she saw the hand wince under the

temporary sting. Rawn looked at her with a singular expression.

"It's odd, Miss Delaware," said he, "that I was just saying to myself a

minute ago that I'd bet a thousand dollars that you had something

ready, at just the right time! Thank you very much."

"By the way," he added, "I was just telling my son-in-law Mr. Halsey,

the superintendent of our works, that it's going to be necessary for

all three of us--that is to say, myself, Mr. Halsey and you--to start

for New York to-morrow afternoon. I'll probably have to do some

letters on the train, and you would better see that a typewriter is

sent on--Mr. Halsey will give us the berth numbers in the morning, I

suppose. Sorry to take you out of your work, but then--"

"I should like to go, above all things, Mr. Rawn," replied the young

woman, still respectfully.

"All right. Of course, you go on company account. Maybe you'll like

the change of work and scene. Please bring along all the reports on

those Lower Valley instalments, and all the estimates we've been

working on here for the last few days. It might be a good plan to have

your files for the last month go along, with your card indexes. We've

got to show those people down there a thing or two.

"I suppose you know our superintendent, Mr. Halsey--my son-in-law," he

added. "He's going, too."

"Oh, yes. He's here often. Sometimes I've done work for him, you

know. He does a good, clear letter--but rather long. He can't get

through so much in an hour as you can, Mr. Rawn."

When she had retired, Rawn was seized with an impulsive desire to raise

his secretary's salary again; but he reflected that it would hardly

do--although he was convinced that he had the most efficient assistant

on the Street. He did not know she was thinking of Halsey at that

moment.

Singularly enough, Charles Halsey was thinking of Miss Delaware at

about that same time. He was saying to himself, as he passed into the

hall after nodding to her: "By George, isn't she efficient!"

Practically all the male clerks would have agreed with him had they

heard him. With equal strenuousness, all the female clerks would have

dissented. After he had said to himself that Miss Delaware was

efficient, Halsey checked himself on the point of adding that she was

also something besides efficient. He stopped the thought so sharply

that it stopped his stride as well. There came to his mind the picture

of his wife, now soon to enter into woman's valley of the shadows. He

paused, obliging his soul to render to his wife all honor, all homage,

all loyalty, all duty--indeed, all those things which a wife will trade

_en masse_ for just a little real spontaneous love.

CHAPTER V

THEIR MASTER'S VOICE

I

"That may all be very well," commented one of the members at the

directors' meeting of the International Power Company, held on the day

of Rawn's arrival in New York; "that may all be true, but what do we

know about the practical application? I've heard of extracting gold

from sea water--and the fellow proved it right before your eyes! The

world is full of these things, getting rich all at once, but usually

when we get to the bottom of it, there's the same old gold brick."

The speaker was rather a slight man, with dark pointed beard, a man

whose name swayed railway fortunes, but whose digestion was not worth

mentioning. Silence greeted his comment. A dozen pairs of eyes turned

toward John Rawn from different points about the long directors' table.

The speaker went on:

"I am ready to back anything I believe in, of course, and I must say I

believed in this--maybe because I wanted to, it looked so good. It's

the pinkest, prettiest, sweetest scheme I ever saw, and that's the

fact. But we don't _get_ anywhere with it. We've been pouring money

into these Chicago works, and there's nothing doing. We've been paying

you a pretty stiff salary, Mr. Rawn, and our total expenses have footed

up enormously. We've got the work on the dam and on the central

transmission plant to show, yes, but that's all. And that wasn't why I

went into this thing. For one, I want to be shown a few things about

the Chicago installations. It's that wireless receiver that's got us

all into this, and I want to know about that."

John Rawn made characteristic answer: "How much is your stock worth, in

your opinion, Van?" he demanded quietly.

"I'll just about call that bluff right here," broke out the dyspeptic

financier. "I'll take sixty for all my holdings."

"How many shares?"

"I'm only in for three thousand."

"Push me that pen, Charles," commented John Rawn casually. "I'll make

a memorandum of that," said he. "It's a sale. Will you please initial

it? You shall have my check in due course."

The dyspeptic director hesitated for an instant. "Put up or shut up!"

exclaimed John Rawn roughly. "I'm going to buy you out, and throw you

out, right here. We don't want any cold-foot sitting here with us.

This has got to be a bunch of fighting men, and we don't want any

quitters."

"I'll not stand for that!" began the dyspeptic. "I want to say--"

"You'll say nothing, and you'll stand for that," retorted Rawn. "I'll

get you the cash here in copper pennies if you like, inside of five

minutes. O.K. that paper, and cancel your right to vote. The meeting

isn't called to order yet, and the books are not closed."

"That's the talk!" growled a deep voice farther toward the end of the

table. The general traffic man of earlier days, Ackerman, of St.

Louis, was the speaker. "I'll take half of that myself, Rawn."

"Yes, and divide it with me, Ackerman," nodded Standley, the railway

president to whom Rawn had first brought his device.

The dissatisfied director paled yet more. "Oh, well," said he, "if

that's the way you feel about it, I'll just call your bluff. Here's my

initials; and you're welcome to my stock."

"Record it!" said Rawn tersely, throwing the memorandum across to the

treasurer. "Have you got the stock here?"

"Yes, right in my inside pocket," retorted the other savagely.

"Pass it to the treasurer, then, if you please--that is to say, if you

will take the assurance of myself and these gentlemen that we'll take

up this memorandum."

"Oh, of course I'll do that," assented the other grudgingly.

"Then that'll be about all," said Mr. Rawn. "And as this is to be a

directors' meeting, why, maybe--"

The dyspeptic financier was already reaching for his hat and coat.

II

"I want _all_ you gentlemen to feel," said John Rawn calmly, "that

there's a chance to lay down right here, if your feet are getting cold.

Better quit now than later on. I won't work with men who haven't got

heart in this thing. If any of you are scared, let me know. I

couldn't take over all your stock myself, of course, but if you want to

let go, I believe I can swing another company organization."

They looked at him silently, here and there a gray head shaking in

negation. Rawn's eye lighted.

"That's the idea!" said he; "we'll all sit tight."

He turned to catch the eye of the late director, who was now passing

toward the door. "I'm going," said the latter importantly.

"And good riddance!" said John Rawn calmly.

"I'll take care of you for that, one of these days, Mr. Rawn!"

"Why not now?"

"You'll see what I'll do to you in the market!"

"The market be damned!" said John Rawn evenly. "There isn't any

market. There isn't anything to buy or sell. If there is any stock

offered, I'm the market, right here and now. Go on and do what you

can. The more you talk of what you don't know about, the more you'll

boom this thing; so turn yourself loose, if you feel like it. I've got

our superintendent here to prove this thing out--to the _directors_ of

this company, Mr. Van. The meeting is informal, but it may be

instructive. We can fill any vacancy on the board at some other time,

maybe."

A large, bearded man, with drooping lower eyelids, who sat across the

table, chuckled to himself gently as the ex-director slammed the door.

"Well, then--" said a tentative voice.

All these men were men of large affairs. They would have spared no

time for this meeting had it not seemed to them much worth their while.

"Van's going to talk," said one voice.

"Let him talk about what he likes," rejoined Rawn. "It's close

communion for the rest of us. Well, then, have we all got cards?" he

demanded.

There was a grim look on each face along the table which suited the

fancy of the speaker. "All right, then," said he. "There are only two

or three of you who ever saw our device actually at work. I've got my

report all brought up to date. Mr. Halsey will tell you what he has

been doing in the works, how he has been handicapped, why we can not

turn over at once a completed installation of one of our motors. We

know perfectly well that a great deal of money has been expended. We

don't want you to put in that money unless you are satisfied of

returns, big returns. Gentlemen, are you ready to see the gold brick?

Would you like to look at the little joker, or see if you can find the

pea under the shell? If so, there will be further opportunity for

those who want to drop out. But I'd very much prefer you'd drop out

now and not after our experiments."

There was no answer, beyond a growl from Ackerman, a twitched hand of

the bearded man.

III

Halsey rose and placed on the table the little model which he took from

the case at his side. In principle, it was the same which had been

shown in the original demonstration at St. Louis, long before, although

in workmanship it was in this instance a trifle more finished, showing

more of shining brass and steel. Halsey looked about hesitatingly.

"Shall we use the fan again?" he inquired of Mr. Rawn.

"Not on your life!" cried out Ackerman. "No more fan bursting goes.

You'll put on the little railway, here on the table, as you were

showing me the other day."

"You gentlemen all know the general theory of the invention," Halsey

went on, again assuming the post of lecturer, which Rawn once more

graciously surrendered to him, waving a hand largely in his direction

as though in explanation to the others. "It's simply the attuning of a

motor to the free electrical current in the air--the wireless idea, of

course. You're posted on all this. Now, I've got some little things

here which will show some of the applications of our idea. We'll make

a little track, for a railway train, and we'll run its motor here with

current of our own, simply by our receiver for the free current.

"I've often thought of the applicability of our receivers to the use of

automobiles. Any man could have one of these receivers in his own

garage, and could charge his own machine as he liked. That's only one

use of the idea. What is true regarding auto cars is true also of

plows, wagons, nearly all farm machinery. One of these receivers which

you could carry around under your arm would do the work of many men, of

many horses. With this model here I can, as Mr. Ackerman and Mr.

Standley will agree, burst that electric fan wide open, and with no

wire attachment for any current whatever. And I think we can run this

little train of cars."

A sigh went around the table at these calm words. These grave, gray

men looked intently, bending forward at the edge of the table as young

Halsey completed his mechanical arrangements.

"If this thing works," said the large, bearded man, leaning forward,

"where does it leave railway transportation?"

"It leaves it with us!" interrupted John Rawn. "With us absolutely!"

"What's to hinder anybody from building all the railroads they want,

and making all the cars they want, and taking all the power they want

out of the air, as you say?"

"Nothing in the world to prevent," said John Rawn, "except the

solidarity of the railway men of this country. If we take you all in

and if you all stand pat, what chance has any one else got, except

through buying power of us? Of course, this thing would break us if

used against us. But we don't propose to see it used that way. Our

patents protect us."

"Go on," said the bearded man. "Let's see the wheels go 'round."

They saw as much, and more. Halsey's little car repeated its circuit

about the long table again and again, tirelessly, operated by power

taken from the unwired receiver. Where the receiver got its power

Halsey explained in detail as he had done before.

The thing was there to show for itself. As to the breadth of its

application, these men needed no advice. They were accustomed to the

look ahead, to the weighing of wide possibilities.

"It's like the French conjurer, gentlemen," said John Rawn smiling.

"He operates with his sleeves rolled up. 'There is no _déception_, by

friends,' says he. There's the whole works on the table right before

us. If it isn't a tremendous thing I'm the worst fooled man in all

this world, and I'll be the worst broke man in the world."

"Toot! Toot!" remarked a jovial voice from Standley's end of the

table. "Start her up again, son--I never get tired of seeing that

thing go like the Chinaman's cable car." Levity was a relief to them.

There is a certain strain, after all, in planning for the ownership of

a people, a republic.

Halsey again pushed down the lever, and again the dummy car ran around

and about the table on the curved track which had been laid for it.

"That's the travel of the future, gentlemen," said John, Rawn soberly,

at length. "They can take it or leave it. So can you."

IV

Silence fell on that group of gray, grave men. The thing seemed to

them uncanny, although so simple. They looked about, one at the other.

A sort of sigh passed about the room. There sat at the table men who

represented untold millions of capital. They were looking upon a

device which in the belief of all was about to multiply these millions

many-fold. Their hands already inordinately full of power, they

contemplated yet more inordinate power. They sat fascinated, silent,

sighing at the prospect, in a delicious half-delirium. The forehead or

the upper lip of each was moist.

"You can't get away from it, fellows," said Standley, of St. Louis.

"I've tried to, my best, and I can't. I felt just the way you do when

it was first put up to me--I didn't want to face the truth, it was so

big. As soon as these two men went away from me my feet got cold; but

if they hadn't come back, I think I'd have jumped in the river. I

_want_ to let go of this thing right here--it scares me. But I just

can't, that's all."

They made no comment. The atmosphere seemed strangely strained, tense.

An old and beardless man, thin, pallid, leaned against the table, his

eyes staring, his face almost corpse-like. No voice was raised in

criticism or indeed in comment, but all sat weighing, pondering. Rawn

was the first to break the silence.

"Gentlemen," said he, "of course this is the big part of our company

patents, and it is over this that we've met to-day. You've been

doubting my executive ability. I have shown you what the prize is that

we're working for---there it is on the table. As to the difficulties

of pulling off a thing as big as this, they are bigger in this case

than could be expected or figured out in advance. Our superintendent,

Mr. Halsey here, tells me that he is having a great deal of trouble in

labor matters. The men are discontented, and what is worse, they're

_curious_, all the time. We can't employ just any sort of

irresponsible labor, and we can't complete one machine--we've got to

bring them _all_ through, at once, together--indeed, got pretty near to

finish them all ourselves. We can't take any people in on this secret,

of course. It all takes time, and it all takes money.

"I've got my report here, all these pages, which I'll not trouble you

to read unless you like. What I want to say is this: we've got our

power plant, and our wire transmitter system, and we're making money on

that, as everybody knows. We can pay dividends on the old way of

transmitting power, developing the 'juice' by water power and peddling

it out by wire. We can pay ten per cent., and a stock dividend every

year, for we are earning nineteen and eight-tenths per cent. now, on

wire work alone, not mentioning our exclusive franchises. Nobody can

put a value on those. Up to this time most of us have been contented

to reach out and get hold of water powers in the old way--that didn't

look so slow to us then as it does now. If we should throw away,

entirely, this part of our device, we still would stand just as safe as

we ever would have stood.

"Again, suppose we wanted to play the market, and throw away every idea

of using this second current of electricity. We could list this stock

to-morrow and make it the most active issue on the Street. That's

plain to all of us.

"Again, let's reason over this matter and see whether it isn't

impatience and not distrust which is troubling all of us. We haven't

really spent so very much money in the receiver installations. There

isn't a stockyards firm in Chicago which doesn't put aside a bigger

appropriation every year for scientific experimenting than we're

putting into what is no experiment, but a certainty. It is a drop in

the bucket, as my figures here show distinctly.

"Now, since these things are true, I just came down here to ask you

gentlemen what it is that you want? You've been criticizing me. We've

thought enough of this thing to plan legislation in Congress and in the

adjoining states where we are working. We've been at a lot of trouble

one way or other. We've wanted to get a grip on this country which

couldn't be shaken off by any political or industrial changes. That's

just what I'm offering you here, gentlemen. Pretty much the whole

business world will be yours. _I_ brought you this, didn't I? Now, do

you want a nice gold fence around the world with diamond tips to the

pickets; or what is it that you do want? Up to this time you've wanted

what was impossible. Now I've shown you that the impossible _is_

possible. Here it is, on the table in front of you--here's the proof.

Unless I am drunk or crazy, the future governors of the United States

of America are sitting right here at this table."

He touched the glass top lightly, gently, with his finger-tips, which

had no tremor in them. John Rawn was completely master of himself.

V

"But it _has_ cost a lot of money, Rawn," began one director

hesitatingly.

"That's a relative term," answered Rawn. "I have all the details here

among my figures. It is much or little, as you care to look at it--it

doesn't seem much to me. We've run this thing down to rock-bed economy

all the time. We cut our men a dollar a week last month, and it

started a riot. We're trying to save all the money we can, of

course--it's my money that is being spent just the same as yours, my

time that is wasting, just the same as yours. I'm as eager as you to

get my hands on this thing, and to get its hands on this country. But

there's such a thing as losing by lack of confidence, and many and many

a good thing has been lost by lack of money backed by nerve. What do

you want, gentlemen? I can't do much more than I have done."

"And it's enough!" cried the bearded man, his voice harsh, strident

with his emotion. "We've got to have it! Let's stick, let's stick,

fellows! They'll never shake us off. There is absolutely no limit to

this thing."

"Is that still the way you feel, Jim?" asked Standley from his end of

the table.

"Yes, it is; how about it, gentlemen?" answered Ackerman's deep voice.

His eyes turned from one to the other, and found no dissent, although

the air of each man was earnest, almost somber.

"Shake hands, then!" called out the bearded man with enthusiasm, a man

who had swayed millions by the force of his own convictions before that

time.

"Let's all shake hands, then, gentlemen," said John Rawn.

They did so, each man reaching out his hands to his neighbor; Halsey,

of course, stepping back as not belonging to that charmed circle. They

made a ring around that table of countless, untold millions, of

uncounted, unmeasured power. Their faces would have made study

sufficient for the greatest painter of the world. There was not a

young man present, not one whose face did not show lines deep graven,

whose hair was not white, or gray, or grizzled. Many faces there were,

but from the eyes of each shone the same light. The grasp of the hand

of each meant the same thing. They stood, hand clasped to hand, soul

clasped to soul; greed and power clasped to greed and power.

"Move we 'journ," said Ackerman. The president dropped the gavel on

the table top.

VI

Rawn finally escaping from the crowd of importunate reporters who

waited in the halls, at length broke away to go to his rooms. He met

Halsey in the lobby. The latter had in his hand a telegram, which

shook somewhat as he extended it.

"Well," said Rawn, turning toward him with a frown, "what is it?"

He read: "Charles S. Halsey, The Palatial, New York: Your child is a

girl. The mother is doing well. You would best return at once. There

is a slight deformity. You must share this grief with the mother when

she knows--"

Rawn dropped the message to the floor. Halsey's face looked so

desperately old and sad that for one moment Rawn almost forgot his own

grief. "You'd better go on home, Charley," he said. "Too bad--to get

such news now! But isn't that just like a woman!"

CHAPTER VI

IN PROPER PERSON

I

John Rawn stood looking at the unceasing throng which surged confusedly

through the corridors of the gilded hotel. Warmth, music, a Babel of

voices, were all about. There approached a little group of laughing

men coming from the carriage entrance, bound, no doubt, to a banquet

hall somewhere under the capacious roof. One voice rose above the the

others as the group advanced. There appeared, rapidly talking and

gesticulating as he came, a ruddy-faced, stocky figure, with head

close-cropped, jaw undershot, small eyes, fighting terrier make-up.

"I tell you, gentlemen, I'll compromise not in the least on this

matter! It makes no difference what they do with the ticket or with

me. There's only one way about these matters, and that's the right

way! I care nothing whether this man be a rich man or a poor man. The

only question is, whether he is _right_. If he is not right, he will

never--I say to you, gentlemen--" this with close-shut jaw and fist

hard smitten into palm--"I say to you, it makes no difference who he is

or what he is, he'll never win through; and in the event you suffer

from us--"

He passed on, gesticulating, talking. Men commented audibly, for there

was no mistaking a man idealized by some, dreaded by others, scorned by

none, anathematized by not a few. He was to address that night a

meeting of independent politicians, so-called, here in the very house

of individualistic power, and many old-line members of his party had

their doubts, the fear of a new party being ever present in the

politician's mind--the same fear professional politicians, Whig,

Democrat, what-not, had of the new party formed before the Civil War at

the command of a people then claiming self-government as their ancient

right--as now they begin again to do, facing our third War of

Independence.

"Going strong, isn't he?" commented one sardonically, within Rawn's

hearing.

"That's all right, my friend," was the smiling answer of yet another.

"Strong enough to make a lot of you hunt your holes yet. There's quite

a few people in this little old country outside this island--and

he'll--"

"Nonsense! No chance, not the least chance in the world!"

"You underestimate this new movement," began the other.

"New movement!--you're 'progressive,' eh? Got that bee? A lot of good

it'll do you. It will be simply a new line-up following our old and

time-tried political methods--it all comes to that, take my word. The

people aren't in politics. A lot of professionals do our governing for

us."

"All the same, there goes the people's candidate!"

"Take him and welcome," was the answer. "Take your candidate. We'll

eat him up--if he runs."

They also passed on down the hall, gesticulating, their voices

swallowed up with others, arising confusedly. This and that couple or

group passed by, also talking, among them many persons obviously of

notoriety, importance or distinction, though unknown to their observer.

Rawn stood and watched them all. The scene was to his liking. The

stir, the confusion, appealed to him. The flowering of the great

city's night life was here, such as that is. It was the focus of our

country's civilization, such as that is. Men worth millions passed,

shoulder to shoulder, a wondrous procession, such as that is.

II

And here and there, always moving and mingling with those men whose

reception or whose raiment announced them as persons of importance,

moved women, beautiful women, floating by, brightly, radiantly,

rustlingly--women blazing with jewels, women with bright eyes, women

whose apparel bespoke them as accepted integers of the city's vast

human sum.

Rawn stood studying the procession for a long time, eying group after

group carefully. A conclusion was forming in his mind. He was

learning that when a man has achieved power, success, wealth, notoriety

even, he turns with his next thought to some woman; and finds some

woman waiting.

Not, as he reflected, a woman grown old and gray. Not a woman with

finger-tips blackened and roughened, of bowed figure and ill-fitting

garb, of awkward and unaccustomed air--not to that sort of woman who

would be noticed here for her lack of fitness in this place. No,

rather, as he noticed, men of influence or position or power turned to

such women as these about him now--of distinct personality, of birth

and breeding, or at least of beauty; women shimmering in silks, blazing

in gems, women who looked up laughing as they passed, women young and

beautiful, whose voices were soft, around whom floated as they walked

some subtle fascination.

Rawn pondered. He saw passing a few men whom he knew, all with women

whom he did not know. In each case his new-formed rule seemed to hold

good; the exception being noted only in the bored and weary faces of

men accompanied by women perhaps rustling and blazing in silks and

diamonds, but not owning youth and fascination.

John Rawn found that power and beauty go hand in hand; that money and

beauty also go hand in hand--which is to say the same thing. He began

to ponder upon youth, beauty and love as appurtenances of wealth,

success and power.

"That's the game!" he said half to himself. "Why, look at those chaps.

They look pretty much alike, act pretty much alike, too. When a man

has money to burn, there is only one way--and there it is!"

III

And then it occurred to John Rawn with sudden and unpleasing force

that, although he was among this throng, he was not of it. Himself a

man of power, success, yes, even of wealth, he lacked in certain

betokening appurtenances thereto. A not unusual wave of self-pity

crept slowly over him. Why should he, a man of his attainments, lack

in any degree what others had?

He stood pondering, not wholly happy, until presently he felt, rather

than saw, a glance bent upon him by a man who passed, a stately and

well-garbed young woman upon his arm. He was a man now in faultless

evening dress, yet easily to be recognized--none less, indeed, than the

dyspeptic director who so summarily had been dismissed by John Rawn

himself not three hours ago. His dark face became even darker as he

saw the victor of that controversy standing here alone. He smiled

sardonically. To Rawn it seemed that he smiled because he saw the

solitary attitude of a man as good as himself, as fit as himself for

all the insignia of power, yet publicly self-confessed as lacking all

such insignia. He started, flushed, frowned. He had shown these men,

these influential magnates in New York, that he could be their master

upon occasion--he had mastered this man passing yonder. Yet now he

stood here alone, with no woman to advertise his power to the world;

and men laughed at him! No woman wore his silks, displayed his jewels.

He was John Rawn, born to the purple; yet he might be taken here for a

country merchant on his first trip from home....

He turned to the key-counter. The clerk, with infallible

instinct--without his request--handed him the key to his room, not

lacking acquaintance with men of Mr. Rawn's acquaintance, and knowing

money when he saw it.... Rawn passed down the hall, went up two

flights in the elevator, turned into the left-hand corridor, and at

length knocked deliberately at a door where a light showed.

IV

"Come!" called a soft voice. He knocked again, a trifle hesitant, and

looked down the corridor, each way. The voice repeated, "Come!" He

pushed open the door.

Virginia Delaware stood before her dressing-glass, her toilet for

evening completed except perhaps for a touch or two about her coiffure.

She turned now, and flushed as she saw her visitor.

"Mr. Rawn!" she exclaimed; "I thought it was the maid! I had just

called her."

Rawn turned and shut the door. "Never mind her," he said. "I will be

gone in a minute. I just wanted--"

"You must go!" she exclaimed. "You ought not to have come--it is not

permitted--it is not right!"

"How stunning you look, Miss Delaware!" was all he said. He had never

before seen her arrayed in keeping with these other lilies of the

field. Indeed, his life had given him small acquaintance with

conventions, or those who practised them. He had no mental process of

analysis as he gazed at her now, or he might have seen that after all

the young woman's costume was no more than one of filmy blue, draped

over a pure and lustrous white. He could not have named the fashion

which drew it so daringly close at hip and hem as to reveal frankly all

the lines of a figure which needed not to dread revelation for its own

sake, whether or not for other sake. He could not have guessed what

skill belonged to the hand that fashioned this raiment, could not have

told its cost. To him the young woman was very beautiful; and he was

too much confused to be capable of analysis. The corsage of the gown,

cut square and daringly deep, displayed neck and shoulders white as

those of any woman of any city. Her figure gave lines had her costume

not aided. She was beautiful, yes.

V

And there was something more, Rawn could not tell what. There was some

air of excitement, of exaltation, some sort of fever about her, upon

her. In her eyes shone something Rawn had never noticed there before.

Hastily he made such inventory as he might of unanalyzed charms. He

arrived at his conclusion, which was, that Virginia Delaware would do!

"You could travel in fast company, my dear girl," said he approvingly.

"What do you mean?" She turned upon him.

"That you could go quite a considerable pace, my dear girl. You'll

_do_. Let me see your hands!" he demanded. And in spite of her he

coolly took up a hand, examining the shapely finger-tips. He sighed.

No needle had blackened or roughened them, the typewriter keys had not

yet flattened them. He stepped back, looked at her from head to foot,

appraising all her graces, valuing her height and roundness of figure.

There was small light in his eye other than that of judicial approval.

She bore out his theory.

"You surprise me!" was all he said.

"How do you mean, Mr. Rawn?--But you must go, you really must!"

There came a knock at the door. Rawn's negative gesture was positive.

After a moment's hesitation the girl stepped to the door and spoke to

the maid. "You may return again in a little while, maid," she said.

"I'm not quite ready now." In turn she stood with her back against the

door, her own color rising.

"Oh, don't be uneasy," said John Rawn smiling. "This is quite

considerable of a hotel, taking it as it is. There won't be any

scandal over this."

"I don't think I understand you."

"I'm going in just five minutes. But I want to say something to you in

the way of a business proposition, Miss Delaware."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." Her head was high, her color

still rising.

"Nothing in the least wrong, my dear girl," said John Rawn. "It's

simply a matter of business, as I said. You're here as my assistant,

of course. But did it ever occur to you that as you stand there now,

and as I stand here, we might pass in that crowd below there and not be

known by _any one_?"

VI

She still stood looking at him, her color high, undecided as to his

meaning even now as he went on.

"It would be rather a pleasant experience, perhaps, for you--as it

would be for me--just to mingle with that giddy throng--say, for

dinner. Would you like to be part of it? It's just a foolish thought

that came to me."

She turned to him, her eyes bright, her face eager. "Could we, Mr.

Rawn?" she said. "I'm crazy over it!"

"I see," he commented dryly. "You were dressing to go down to dinner?"

"No, no, I couldn't afford to do that, of course. I couldn't go alone,

and I had no company. I wasn't going down at all. I just dressed

up--to--to--"

"Just to look at yourself in the mirror, isn't that it, Miss Delaware?"

"Yes, it's the truth!" She turned to him calmly at last, well in hand

again. "I couldn't be one of them--couldn't be like those people down

below, so I did the best I could up here--I dressed as much like them

as I knew how. I--I--I _imagined_! I dreamed, Mr. Rawn. I've never

known a real evening of that sort in all my life--but it's in my blood.

I want to go, I want to dine, and drink, and dance--I'm mad about it, I

know, but it's the truth! I want what I can't have. I want to be what

I'm not. I don't know what's the reason. It's in the air--maybe it's

in the day, in the country!"

VII

"Yes, it's the country," said John Rawn. "We're all going a swift

pace, men and women both. I don't blame you. I understand you. Now I

know what you want."

"What do you mean?"

"You want just about what _I_ want."

"But, Mr. Rawn--"

"It's the same thing--it's _power_ that you want, just as I do. I feel

it in the air when I come near you. You feel the same way when you

come near me!"

She nodded rapidly, her eyes narrowing. "Yes, it's true!" she said.

"That's true."

"You want to have it within your ability to influence men, just as I

do, don't you, Miss Delaware? That's what was in your soul when you

stood before your mirror there when I came in, wasn't it, Miss

Delaware? You want to win, to succeed, to triumph, don't you, Miss

Delaware--you've got _ambition_? Wasn't that your dream--isn't that

what you were imagining, as you stood there and looked in your glass?"

"Yes, yes, it's true, I know it!" she admitted panting. "I know it, my

God! yes, I can't help it! But what chance have I?"

"All sorts of chances, my dear girl. I don't make mistakes. I told

you this is a business proposition. Now, then, tell me, why did you

tog out this way?"

"I did it because I had to. I told you I couldn't help it. It was in

my blood to-night!"

"Any man waiting anywhere, Miss Delaware?"

"On my word, no! I wasn't even going downstairs. But I told you I was

mad to be in that crowd, where the rich people are. I wanted to hear

the music, I wanted to see them--I wanted to pretend for one night that

I was a part of it all!"

"You wanted to win--you coveted power! Is it not true?"

"Yes!" she blazed fiercely. And indeed at that moment the room seemed

full of some large influence, moving, throbbing all about them.

VIII

"I wanted that," the girl admitted. "All the world does!"

"I suppose you wanted to see some strong man fall on his knees and beg

of you?"

"Yes."

"I am sorry, my dear, but I'll not do that. But I understand. So you

searched out these glad rags and tried yourself out before the mirror

there! Very good! You'll do! Believe me--or ask any man in all this

city."

She nodded rapidly. "Yes, you know it, now."

"Now, you're no more mad than I am," said John Rawn. "You're as

cool-headed as I am, if I know women at all. We think alike. You're

young. I'm young enough. Where'd you get that gown?"

"I had it made--in an alley, in the city back home. It cost as much as

I could afford. Thirty dollars!" She flung out the words scornfully.

"It looks three hundred; and I've seen worse below to-night that

probably cost three thousand. But it's not yet quite complete--your

costume."

"It was the best I had. You ought not to taunt me. I stood here

facing myself. I felt disappointed, bitter! Yes, I'll admit that."

"You needn't be," said Rawn calmly. He nodded to her bare and

unadorned neck, her hair which lacked brilliants, her fingers left

unjeweled. The girl caught his meaning without further speech, and it

hurt her yet more.

"What could I do? Why did you bring me here, Mr. Rawn? You've made me

unhappy. I've seen it, and I can't be a part of it. It doesn't seem I

can go back there to work and be just the same any more, after seeing

the city here! I tell you, it's got in my blood, all at once."

"No," he said evenly, "not again just the same. We outgrow ourselves,

and can't go back. I'm not the same man I once was." He

half-unconsciously shifted to get a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

"But now, my business proposition is very simple. It holds good for

one evening, Miss Delaware. I was just going to propose that we forget

all this unhappiness, and do a little pretending for one night, say for

one hour or so."

IX

He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and drew out something which

suddenly flamed into dancing points and rays in the light that fell

upon it. She stood motionless while he passed about her neck a tiny

thread, delicate as if spun of moonlight. She held out her hand, and

he slipped over it a gleaming ring of gems. She bent her head, and he

placed a sparkling ornament in her hair. She had seen these jewels

before. She turned to the glass now, her bosom heaving as she saw them

gleam at her own neck, her own hands, in her own hair. She held out

her hands to look at them now, and the gems flashed back challenge to

her eyes, sparkling yet more brilliantly.

"It was nothing," said John Rawn tersely. "That's all that lacked.

You're good as the best now. I've seen no woman in this city that is

your equal in beauty. You were born for this life. Now do you

understand what I mean? I say, you can carry it off!"

She turned to him, another woman, changing on the instant, something in

her eyes he had never seen before. But in his own eyes there was at

the time nothing save the original calm and purposefulness.

"As I was saying, then, since we can both carry it off, why not do so

for an hour or so? I've read somewhere of masquerades. Why not try

it?"

She turned to him, flushed, radiant, but slightly frowning, puzzled,

studying him. Rawn felt the query of her look, felt also something

stirring down in his nature which he grappled at once and was able to

suppress. His voice was cool and low as it was before.

"It's a big crowd below, and we'll be lost in it. I've learned already

that you can be discreet. We'll drop down in there, where no one knows

us. We'll try ourselves out, and see whether we'll do, here where the

test is hardest. You're ambitious? So am I. This is the heart of the

world--the place of gratified ambitions. What do you say, Miss

Delaware? I've been looking around down there, and as nearly as I can

see, I'm the only man in this avenue worth a million dollars who at

this precise moment of the day isn't talking to some good-looking

woman!"

"You flatter me!" commented the girl. He did not endeavor any analysis.

"Not in the least! I simply talk sense and business to you. I covet

what you covet, love what you love, want what you want. Things which

are equal to the same thing ought to be equal to each other--for just a

little while, Miss Delaware. Isn't it true? If it is only play, why,

let's play at it.

"I forgot to tell you," he added, "that my son-in-law, Mr. Halsey, has

gone back to Chicago. He was summoned by wire. No one else knows us

both. There wouldn't be one chance in many of our being seen by any

one here who knew either of us, and if so, what harm? We'll go and

dine as well as the best of them, in the main room. What do you say,

Miss Delaware?"

X

She stood facing him now, seeming years older than she had a few

moments before. A very skilled observer might possibly have suspected

a certain new quality in the calmness of her eye. Beautiful she

certainly was; alluring, irresistible in the ancient appeal of woman,

she certainly ought to have been, and would have been to any but this

particular man who now stood facing her, half smiling; a man of middle

age, gray about the temples, of heavy-browed eyes, strongly lined face,

of strong and bony frame; not an ill-looking or unmanly man one might

have said, though years older than this young woman who stood now

threading between her fingers the filmy moonshine chain which suspended

the points of flame that rose and fell upon her bosom.

At last she said, hesitating, and holding up the flaming pendant, "I'm

not to keep them?"

"No, Marguerite!" he smiled. "This particular Papa Faust retains a

string on those jewels. They have been seen elsewhere, my dear girl.

No, one night's use of them is all this business proposition carries,

my dear."

He began to be just a shade more familiar; but she looked at him, still

curiously helpless, because she found him strong where most men are

weak and defenseless. He caught some sort of challenge in her attitude

and in spite of himself trod a half step forward.... She evaded him.

He heard her laughter rippling in the hall, and followed.... Soon they

were in the crowded lift, packed in against shirt front and aigrette,

silks and jewels, arms and bosoms bared for the evening's fray.

XI

It may be true that no gentleman is grown in less than three

generations, but it is not the case that it requires three generations

to produce an aristocrat; and here was simple and perfect proof of that

assertion. Head waiters make no mistakes! The head-waiter of the main

hall unhesitatingly took John Rawn and his companion to as good a table

as there was in the room. He knew the air of distinction when he saw

it!

Heads, in plenty, of men and other women, turned as they passed through

in that careless throng of the world-wise and blasé. They walked by

quietly, simply, took their places with no ostentation. John Rawn had

bethought him earlier as to the dinner order. He gave his directions

now quietly, without hesitation.

The two ate and drank discreetly, comported themselves, in fact, easily

as any of these scores of others. They did not lean toward each other

and obviously talk secrets, they did not laugh uneasily and stare

about. Among the many well-bred women in that room--where at least a

few such were present--none showed an easier accustomedness than

Virginia Delaware. Her eagerness, her feverish anxiety, all now were

gone. She was perfectly in hand. It was her pleasure now only to

prove her fitness for such a scene, to comport herself as though she

had known no other surroundings than these in all her life. Once more

the miracle of possibility in the young American woman was shown.

Rawn, discreet as his companion, looked on with approval. "You're

_it_!" he once whispered across the table, as he bent above the menu.

"You _are_ the part!" Suddenly there came to him out of this occasion

an additional surge of self-confidence. Yes, he said to himself, he,

too, could travel this gait. He could step easily into this life, the

summit of life in America--as he thought--as though born to it. He

could spend money with the best. He could obtain for himself as

beautiful a woman to wear his jewels as any man here in all this great

city. He could as widely advertise his power, his wealth, as any of

these. Did he not see envious eyes bent upon his companion and upon

himself? It was done! He had won! He had succeeded!

XII

After all, it had been easy, as he had found so many things easy in the

test. As to the young woman with him, John Rawn's cold heart went out

in admiration. "By Jove!" he said, "she's a _lady_, that's what she

is. She'd be--" Yet it is to be noted that his admiration for this

young woman was primarily based not upon the usual impulses of men so

situated, but upon a vast self-respect, for that _he_ had placed her

here and so proved his own judgment to be good. Some souls are slow to

any love but that of self, the approbation of self being the breath of

life to them. Even the beauty of Virginia Delaware--and she was

beautiful--was swallowed up in John Rawn's love and admiration for

himself.

There was, thus far, no suggestion of impropriety between them, now or

later. They dined long, deliberately and well. Miss Delaware drank no

wine, Rawn himself only abstemiously. The keenest delight of the

evening felt by either came not of food or drink. The intoxication of

the city's night life fell upon them, entered their souls. Distant and

low-voiced musical instruments set the air athrob with sensuous melody.

Flowers bloomed, jewels blazed, soft voices rose, wine added its

stimulus here and there. Cut beyond this luxury, this sensuousness,

beyond the novelty of it, beyond the vague impulses of a common

humanity which runs through all the world, they felt the last and

subtle delight which comes with an admitted assuredness of self--the

consciousness of power and ability to prevail, the certainty of knowing

all the path, all the full orbit of the great.

XIII

As they sat thus calmly, apparently, as most might have said, old

habitués of scenes like this, apparently persons of wealth and

distinction, Rawn felt once more bent upon him the look of a passer-by.

There approached the table where they sat the couple he had seen

earlier that evening, a stately and beautiful young woman, whose

features now were a trifle more animated, whose eyes were brighter; and

with her the same dyspeptic director, sallow, with pointed dark beard.

His face flushed still more as he saw John Rawn and his companion. He

turned an admiring gaze upon the latter, whom of course he did not

recognize. Rawn caught the gaze. It was the keenest delight of his

evening that he could smile back, showing his own teeth also.

"By Jove!" muttered the ex-director to himself.

"I beg pardon!" haughtily commented his own fair companion, who had

caught his gaze aside. "You know that person? Who is she?"

"I don't know, my dear--I'm just trying to think. Her face--it looks

like the goddess on some stock certificate I've seen--"

"Indeed?"

"Yes, goddess with a handful of lightning bolts."

"Indeed?"

"Yes. We might call her the 'Lady of the Lightnings' to-night. She

surely does shine like the bright and morning star, the way she's

illuminated--eh, what?"

"Indeed?"

"Well, hang it all! Yes. She's a looker, too!"

"Indeed?"

"Yes, _indeed_! And they both look like ready money." The ex-director

gave a little laugh.

"You don't know them?" asked his companion, more placated as they

readied the corridor, where Virginia Delaware was at last out of sight.

"No, I don't know her--never saw her before, unless, as I said, in an

engraving. Don't worry--I haven't got any of the engravings--now."

"Who is he?"

"Fellow by name of Rawn, from Chicago."

"Oh!"

CHAPTER VII

JOHN RAWN, PROMINENT CITIZEN

I

The blare and blaze of American life went on in all its capitals of

industry. Buildings sprang up, factories poured their smoke

unceasingly into the sky. Men ran hither and thither like ants, busy

about what seemed to them of importance. Vast hives of heaped-up stone

twice daily poured out their population of small creatures, some of

them crippled, hurt, shorn in the battle of life, their faces pale,

their forms bowed and stunted before their time. Out of the rich West

poured always a steady stream of the products of the soil and of the

mines, wealth unspeakable, dug from the resources of this admirable

country of ours. Many produced it, a few controlled it, all required

it.

But there came a sort of hush over all the country, as though an

eclipse were passing, or some gloom cast by a cloud coming between

these cities and the sun. Men said that business was not so good as it

should be, though the country was richer than ever. None understood

the popular unrest. Many pondered, many attempted to explain, but they

found all save the easy and obvious explanation. The masses remained

morose, dissatisfied. Pamphlets appeared. In the journals pretending

to give voice to popular trend of thought there were now to be seen

many screeds from many unknown men. Some men said that prices should

rise, others that rates of transportation should rise, but that wages

should decrease. Others said that wages should increase--a few only of

these, not many; for those who needed most a larger wage were those

most dumb of expression, least able and least apt to make any public

protest. Our proudest may be our poorest--our neediest our most silent.

II

In John Rawn's slowly growing factories near the western capital wages

did not rise. He kept on his fight with the labor organizations. For

this reason he met additional expense and additional delay in carrying

on his plans, but still waged war, relaxing not at all, meeting pickets

with policemen, force with force. The popular discontent of the day

meant nothing to him. His eye was fixed ahead. To Halsey's complaints

on the one side, his directors' discreet grumbling on the other, he

paid as little attention on the one hand as upon the other. John Rawn

had a dream, and he knew that his dream must come true. His dream was

one of a wide-reaching and relentless power, shared by those few men

destined by fate to own the so-called American republic. Let the

people do what they would, all they could. This was his dream. It had

come to him in all its fullness one evening in the great city of the

East. He exulted.

As to the industrial situation in International Power, Rawn now began

to prove himself a good business man, and he received more and more the

grudged confidence of his associates, who came from almost every rank

of big business. Through the aid and advice of these, his private

fortune began to mount up enormously. So also did International Power

make money. The only sore place of the directors' overstrained nerves

centered in affairs at the gaunt building in the suburb, where a dozen

mysterious machines, toothed and armed, cogged and coiled, still stood

in a state of half-completion, as inchoate and mysterious now as they

had been at their inception. None of the workmen, none of the foremen,

could guess what they would look like when completed.

There was something else, which not the most suspicious guessed--_John

Rawn himself did not know!_ His success was a vast bubble. Halsey was

the only man who ever had known the full secret of mantling one of the

miraculous receivers which they all had seen and all had accepted.

Rawn, bold enough, kept this to himself, although he feared to go to

Halsey and make any demands. Halsey held grim peace for

months--indeed, for more than four years in all, counting from the

first motor made in the Kelly Row woodshed. It was risky, but for once

Rawn dared make no desperate move. Halsey talked little. He was very

sad since the birth of his hunchbacked child. Sometimes he talked to

Virginia Delaware about it; never to his wife, Grace.

And still the seven days' wonder of International Power remained to

puzzle the industrial world. No inkling of the real intention of the

company ever got out. There was, as Rawn had predicted, no market for

the stock, for the reason that it was not listed and for the further

reason that it was not sold. It was held in a close communion of

hard-headed and close-mouthed men, and there were no confidences

betrayed. The thing was too big to conform to ordinary rules. In the

center of all this stood the figure of John Rawn, suddenly grown large

and strong. He ruled his army, officers, staff and line, cavalry,

infantry and auxiliaries, as one born originally to command. He

brooked neither parleying nor thwarting of his will--except in one

instance. He never made any demands on Halsey, never gave him any

peremptory orders after that one day in the office, months earlier,

before Halsey made his first trip to New York.

III

These months seemed to have aged John Rawn, none the less. He grew

grimmer and grayer, more taciturn and reserved. At the clubs he was

one of the most talked-of men in town, and one who talked least

himself. As his hair grew grayer at the temples, his jaw grew harder,

at the corner of his chin coming the triangular wrinkles which go with

hard-faced middle age. Enigmatic, self-centered, he could not have

been called a happy man. He smiled but rarely, joked not at all,

engaged in no badinage, told no stories, found no lighter side of life,

played no golf, had no vacations. Like some vast engine of tremendous

driving power he went on his way, admired in a city and country full of

able men, as one competent to hold his own with the best and strongest

of them all. And still of all his traits stood out the one of

self-confidence. He played a game of enormous and continuous

risk--fundamental risk by reason of Halsey, incidental by reason of his

widely ballooned market operations; yet his nerve held. Moreover, he

was learning the price of success--an absolute devotion to the means of

success. When he learned that the child of his daughter was not a son,

but a girl, and that it was a hunchback for life, a sad-faced,

unsmiling child--he set his jaws for a moment, but said few words of

condolence, either to his daughter or her husband. He did not smile

for three months after that, and never referred to this subject again,

after its first discussion with his wife at Graystone Hall; but it cost

him no time and no energy lost from business. It only deepened in his

soul his growing hatred for Charley Halsey, the man whom he dared not

chide.

IV

In the headquarter offices a vast, smooth running business machine had

now been built up. Rawn was an organizer. The laxness and looseness

of the old railway offices in St. Louis, where he had got his business

schooling, were missing in the headquarters of International Power.

Employees had small time to gossip in business hours. Out of business

hours, it is to be confessed, once in a while there was discussion as

to the salary of Miss Virginia Delaware, which was reported a wholly

instable affair. It was rumored in stenographic circles that she had

taken to wearing very stunning evening gowns. Yet not the most

captious--though willingness did not lack--could raise voice against

her, or couple her name with any other. Rawn and she were never seen

together excepting during business hours; he never mentioned her name

in any company. Once or twice a laughing voice at the National Union,

where rich men met in numbers, tried to create some sort of discussion

over Rawn's beautiful private secretary, but it was so suddenly stopped

by Rawn himself that it never was resumed.

Upon the other hand, few could speak in definite knowledge regarding

the domestic matters of John Rawn. He was a man of mystery, though one

of known and admitted power. He held what he gained; and, as there

must have been accorded to him strength of soul, grasp, readiness,

courage, he began to be accepted as one of the large figures of his day

alike in industry and finance. He had by this time fully arrived in

the prominent citizen class in his chosen metropolis. Did firemen

perish, John Rawn joined the list of those who aided the widows. Was

some neighboring city swept by flames, again he joined--on the front

page of the papers--those who gave succor for the needy. Did a famine

in India or China sweep off a million souls, John Rawn--on the front

page--aided the survivors. He was a member of the leading clubs of the

city, a director of the board of the art institute. He bought if he

did not occupy a box at the opera, and allowed his name to be mentioned

at the banquets offered by eager souls to celebrities of one sort or

another who proved themselves amenable to receptions, banquets,

addresses of welcome, and what-not, anything to bring lesser names into

print on any page, tails to any kite. In short, John Rawn comported

himself as a prominent citizen should. Ever he was the kite, never the

tail. He loomed a large and growing figure in his little world.

V

Above all, there seemed something uncanny in the unvarying facility

with which Rawn made money. There is no real explanation of the

difference in money-making power, except that some men make money and

some do not. Rawn did, without any doubt or question. Not lacking

ability and calmness in judgment, and not lacking full information such

as is accorded those said to be upon the sacred inside of the market,

he was in and out of Rubber, Coppers, Steel, at precisely the right

time. His oil investments in California, played up and down in proper

symphony, had made him more than a million dollars, smoothly, easily,

simply. The railways market was an open book to him, and Public

Utilities seemed something he could gage while others stood and

wondered. There are times when some men win. Rawn could not lose,

whether he dealt in Ontario Silvers, Arizona Coppers, anything he

liked. He was in with the pack when, in these last fierce days of

individual and corporate greed, it finished pulling down a republic,

and battened, guzzled at the bowels of the quarry. He partook with

these of a broad knowledge of the narrowing raw resources of the

country, and was in with them at the death. He was one of those to get

hold of large acreages of the passing timber lands, he was counted with

those who sought the great coal fields for their own; ran true to

scent, with these, the trail of monopoly in any commodity which the

people more and more must need. In the one matter of his relations

with a certain transcontinental railway, Rawn made a quarter million as

his share of the three-quarters of a billion taken in sales of mineral

lands from the railway's land-grant holdings. That the grants had

covered only agricultural lands mattered little, for when the sleepy

government at Washington reluctantly took the trail, it was shown a

law, cunningly passed a few years earlier, which barred the republic,

by virtue of a six-year statute of limitations, from recovering any of

its own property! John Rawn often laughed over that. He laughed also

when the "suckers," as they called them, bit just as eagerly at

irrigation as they had at mines. He often laughed--it was all so

ridiculously easy to pull down a country, when the running was in good

company! He was a prominent citizen.

[Illustration: (Rawn and Laura)]

CHAPTER VIII

A PRINCELY GENEROSITY

I

Mr. Rawn went on with the pack. He was in and out of the market. His

money grew. His ambition also grew. He felt coming now upon him

another change. He said to himself that he was now about to pass up,

into yet another era of his development.

One day, after his usual day's routine, he closed his office door, took

his car at the curb, dropped in at his club, imbibed the two cocktails

which were now his evening wont, and again emerging, nodded to his

chauffeur in the fashion which meant "Home!" They passed on out again

through the floating crowd of various and often vulgar vehicles,

northbound--shrieking aloud in a vast united chorus, demanding speed,

speed, and yet more speed--along the throbbing arteries of the city's

population. At last he stopped once more at the front of Graystone

Hall. "Forty-five minutes, Dennis," said he to his driver, snapping

his watch. "Twenty-one miles; you'll learn it after a while."

Mr. Rawn was in exceptional good humor. He was at peace with the world

and with his conscience. He looked about him now calmly, with

approbation in his gaze. His gardeners had done wonders. The walks

were solid and well kept, the greensward sound and flourishing. These

late stubbed and desolate trees were now wide, green and branching.

The crocus borders were unbroken, the formal monochrome beds, here and

there upon the lawn, showed clean-cut and distinct. The tall pillars

of his motley house even had a green veiling of ivy, swiftly grown by

art, and not by time. On a terrace a bed of foliage plant, thirty feet

long, grew in the shape of a word--a magic word--"_Rawn_." If any

passer-by wished knowledge as to the creator of all this, he might read

as he ran--"_Rawn_."

Rawn passed up the steps and looked out through the long hallway from

the rear of the house, or rather its real front, which lay upon the

lake shore. Beyond, he could see the faint curl of the distant

steamers' smoke against the horizon. He stopped for a moment, drinking

in the scene, of which he never tired. There were birds twittering

softly in the trees about him. He caught the breath of flowers, coming

to him from the halls within. Yes, it was an abode suited for a

prominent citizen.

There came to meet him now the quiet footfall which he had come to

expect, not always patiently or with pleasure, as the natural end of

his day's labors; his wife, Laura, had never forgotten this daily

greeting of the old-fashioned wife to her husband, as the latter

returned at the close of his day's labor.

II

He stopped as he heard her slow tread upon the stair. She was coming

to meet him. She always did. He, John Rawn, controller of men, a man

born to succeed and going yet higher, had only, after all, an

old-fashioned wife!

It was an emergency this evening. He was accustomed to meet

emergencies. He had come to-night prepared to meet this one.

"Laura," said he, after the servants had drawn the curtains and left

them alone in the central room, whither they had repaired after dinner;

"sit down here, I want to talk to you a while."

"Yes, John," said she quietly. But she looked at him startled. Her

face grew suddenly grave. Be sure the brute advancing to the poll-ax

knows its fate. That was the look in Laura Rawn's face now. "Yes,

John," she said, knowing what blow was to be hers.

He motioned her to a seat beyond the little table and seated himself

opposite. Reaching into a bulging pocket, he brought out a thick

bundle of folded papers; long, narrow papers, most of them green,

others brown, or pale pink. He pushed this bundle across the table, so

that his wife must see it. She reached out a hand, but did not look at

it.

"What is it, John?" she said. Her hand tarried, her face went still

more weary and gray, became even of an ashier pallor than was its wont.

"It's a trifle, Laura," said John Rawn. "Look at it. There's bonds

and gilt-edge dividend-payers for just exactly _one million dollars_!"

"One million _dollars_, John! What do you mean?"

"Look at it, see for yourself."

"But, John--what does it mean?"

"It means a great deal, Mrs. Rawn, a great deal for you. It took some

work to make it on my part. There are not ten men in this town to-day

who could draw out of their business clean, unhypothecated securities

for a million dollars. I've seen to it that all these are registered

in your name. It's my gift to you, without reservation."

"John, how could I thank you--but I don't want it! I've not earned it,

I wouldn't know what to do with it. You're always so--so kind, John,

with me. But I can't take it! It's not mine!"

"It is yours, Laura. And you've got to take it!"

"But I don't want to!"

"I want no foolishness," he said sternly. "That money is yours. You

can use it as you like. Of course, I will counsel with you as to

reinvestment the best I can. I don't want to see the interest wasted.

"I don't ever want to see you in need," he went on. "I don't counsel

loose investments. My lawyers will also tell you what to do with your

money, and they'll put up to you a list of good, safe, savings-bank

investments, the kind that fools and sailors ought to have. I'll help

you choose, if you like. I don't want to be ungenerous. This is your

estate."

III

"My _estate_!--But, John, I'm your wife! I don't care for this money.

I don't understand it, and I don't want it. I want to be your _wife_,

John, the way I always was--I want to help--I want to be useful to you

all the time, as I've always tried to be."

"Precisely, Laura, and I appreciate that feeling very much. I feel the

same way. I want to be as useful as I can to you. We have always been

loyal to each other, faithful with each other; I know that. There are

not ten men worth my money in this town to-day who can say what I

can--that they've been faithful to their wives as I have been to mine.

You've been a good woman, and you've worked hard. You say you haven't

earned this money, but I think you have. We've been useful, yes, to

each other. But when we can't be any more, Laura, why then--"

The tears burst from her eyes now. He frowned, that she should

interrupt him, but went on.

"It shall never be said that I was unkind to you, Laura. Indeed, I

shall always feel kindly to you--always remember what you have done."

"But you don't, you _don't_, John!"

"I don't? What do you mean by that, Laura? Isn't there the proof?

Isn't there a _million dollars_ lying right in front of you on that

table? And you say this to me, who have just given you a cold

_million_!"

"That's it, it's a _cold_ million, John," said she bitterly. "It's

_cold_!"

"Good God! The unreasonableness of woman!" said John Rawn, upturning

his eyes. "Now I've thought all this out as carefully as a man can.

I've denied myself, to take this much capital out of my investments and

set it aside for you. I can make five millions out of that money in

the next five years. But no, I reserve it, and I give it to you

without stint. I give it to you for your estate, so that you shall

never know want--more money than you ever had a right to dream of

having. You do that for a woman, and what does she say? Why, she

doesn't _want_ it! Good God!"

IV

"John," she said, struggling for her self-control, "you might at least

tell the truth."

"What do you mean--the truth?"

"It's some other woman, of course!"

"I swear to you, Laura, it's nothing of the sort. I've been guilty of

no act with any one--" But she shook her head.

"Don't I know?" she said. "It's always another woman. She's a young

woman, whoever she is. Why don't you come out and tell me the truth,

John? How long before you're going to be married?" The tears were

welling steadily from her eyes, under the last of the many and bitter

torments which are so often a woman's lot.

"I say to you again, Laura, there are no plans of that sort in my mind!"

"Then how long will it be before our--our--" She could not say the

word "divorce." She had been an old-fashioned wife.

"I've no plans as to that. I was only wanting to discuss the matter

quietly to-night, without any disturbance."

"No," she said, "I must not break down! Tell me, when does it come,

John?" But still the tears came, steadily, and she made no effort to

stop them.

"When you like. I would suggest that you quietly go to some other

place, Laura. That will be best for me. Why--" he added this in a

burst of confidence, "--there wouldn't be twenty people around town

would know you'd gone! I can keep a close tongue, and so can you."

"But, John, why should we? I've never crossed you in any way. I've

always tried to do what you liked. Why should we part? I'll be

willing just to live along here quietly. I can't bear to think of

going away. I like my things. John," she said suddenly, and seemingly

irrelevantly, "who told you about all these things, these collectors'

pieces that you've been getting for so long?"

He winced with sudden self-revelation, astonished at this intuition on

her part. He had been sincere in his statement that there was no other

woman in his affections. He had only forgotten that he had no

affections. He flushed now, but tried to pull together.

"Very well, Laura," said he; "you only prove to me what I've felt for

some time. You can't understand me, you simply are not up to my

requirements. I'm willing to say _you'd_ be content to live along

here, just as we did at Kelly Row. _I_ am not content to do anything

of the sort. I've been thinking over this, studying over it for some

time. There's the answer." He nodded toward the bundle which lay upon

the table.

V

"It's no use trying to make the world all over again, Laura," he said

after a time. "We've both done our best, but our best didn't tally.

We've hung together. What's right is right. Is it right for me to be

dragged down by your own limitations--ought I to stop in my own career

to conform to that? Would that be right, now, Laura, for a man like

me?--Is it right for any man? If you can't go forward, ought I to go

back? If we can't both travel the same gait, whose gait ought to

govern? Whatever you do, don't blame me, that's all. But you _did_

blame me--you do now." A grave look sat upon his face. He felt

himself an injured man.

"Yes, John," she said. "I do."

"Of course, of course! That's the reward a man gets for loving his

wife, treating you as I have. Well, we're not the first to face a

situation of just this kind. Things travel swifter now than they did

when we were children, or when we were married. What did then will not

do to-day. Why blame ourselves for that?--blame the time, the way of

the world, the way things go to-day. This country has changed--it goes

faster every year. We've got to keep the pace, I tell you, when we get

into it. Those who can't must drop out, and that's all there is about

it. I was born for the front, and that's all about that. Don't blame

me. I've never blamed you!"

"Then, what _do_ you blame, John?"

"Nothing, I say. It's the way life runs. We're married, why? Because

we thought we were to have some property to protect. There is much to

be said in favor of the marriage institution. It holds property safe

under its contract. _Property_--that's the sign of power! _Property_

is the only reason for marriage; or for government, when it comes to

that. _Property_ is the token of power. I've got that! But something

else goes with it! Why, Laura, when I look at us both I wonder that

I've been patient so long, held back as I have been by your own narrow

ideas. If you'd had your way, you'd have set up Kelly Row right where

we are now!"

VI

"I'm old-fashioned, John," said she, her head high, though her tears

fell free, "I'm just an old-fashioned, worn-out wife, that's all. I'm

not so very much, John, and I never thought I was very much. I just

did the best I could, all the time. I couldn't seem to do any more,

John. I don't know how. I did my best!"

"We all do!" said John Rawn philosophically. "We all do our best. But

when our best isn't good enough to keep us up, we go down!"

He spoke generously, gravely, judicially. He was arbiter, in his own

belief, not husband. The country had changed since they two had

married.

"Yes, there's much to be said for the institution of marriage, Laura,"

he repeated after a time. "In fact, it is a necessity, as society is

organized. But divorce is a natural corollary of marriage. There are

contracts, and broken contracts. That's all!"

"What is a--a corollary, John?" she asked.

"It's a consequence; it is something that follows. I meant to say,

that if it is right for two people to be married, it is right for them

to be divorced when the time comes. It's _property_, and the

consequences to property, which sometimes determine that!"

"But we said, John, when we were married--I swore it with all my

heart--'Till death do us part!' It isn't death. I wish it were!"

"No, it's property," said John Rawn.

VII

"But all this serves no purpose," he continued. "I don't want to have

you make this hard for me!"

"Ah, God! How you've changed, John, since the old times! How you've

changed!"

"So that's it, is it?" he rejoined bitterly, "I've only changed, and

you're sorry that I changed. Well, suppose we agree to that. I _have_

changed!"

"What do you want me to do, John?" she asked after a time, her breath

still, in spite of herself, coming in sobs. "When do you want me to

go?"

"To-morrow, Laura. There's no use waiting."

"Very well; where shall I go?"

"Why, I don't dictate to you, Laura--I leave that all for you to

determine. You can be happy as you like, and where you please. I

would only suggest, if you ask me, that you take up a residence in some

quiet community, a sort of place that seems to suit you."

"Very well, John; I've not many friends here to leave, that's true.

I've not been happy here; I never would be. I'll agree to that much.

I believe I'll go back to our old town--I'd feel better there!"

"You've good judgment, Laura," he noted with approbation. "What you

say has good sense about it. Very likely you'd be more happy there

than here. But wherever you go, don't forget your old husband, John.

Deep in my work as I shall be, I will always think of you, Laura, with

nothing but kindness. I want you to think that way of me--to remember

that I've been kind to you, always. You will, won't you, dear?"

She did not seem to hear. Her face was bowed down upon her arms, flung

out across the table. She was an old-fashioned woman, and still silly

enough to pray to the God who had placed her in this world of puzzles.

END OF BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER I

THE EXTREME MONOGAMY OF MR. RAWN

I

It is always more or less annoying to put away a wife. Even if the

expense of the process be little, as in these modern days it has come

to be, and even if consent thereto be mutual, as is so often the case,

there are in practically all cases so many unpleasant attendant

features as almost to dispose one to favor the abolishment of the

marriage idea, and to condemn it as one not destined to survive in

these days of modern competition. This, the more especially as regards

that monogamic idea of marriage which the government at Washington

harshly seeks to extend over our entire domain. As to the idea of

polygamy, much may be said in its favor. Thus, if one be tired of one

wife, or bored by another, in polygamy it is easy to shift the domestic

scene to a third, and that in wholly good-humored fashion. The idea of

divorce has about it something almost personal, as though one were

displeased over some matter, as though one held in one's heart

something actually of criticism, or dissatisfaction, or mayhap

condemnation of one's own earlier judgment in the selection of a

helpmeet.

Again, even after divorce has been consummated, there are so many small

habits to be broken, heritage and hold-over of relations but recently

sundered. For instance, if one has been accustomed every Friday

evening to have shoulder of pork and boiled cabbage at table, and if

only one woman has evinced ability to prepare shoulder of pork and

cabbage in the proper manner, and if that woman has chanced to be one's

lately current wife, it is, let us repeat, an annoying thing to find

that that particular woman, after deliberately forming and fostering in

one a craving for shoulder of pork and cabbage--after having

established an addiction, as it were, in one's soul for that viand--has

with shameless disregard of wifely duty and domestic decency obliged

one to divorce her, perhaps _ex vinculo_, or at least _ab mensa et

thoro_.

And again there may be yet other habits upon the one hand or the other

which must be broken or readjusted. If one's wife--or one of one's

wives--has been in the habit of leaving her tatting each afternoon on

the top of the table near the best view out of the bow window, and if

one sees continually this abandoned tatting permanently left there in

the confusion of her permanent departure--it is annoying, let us

repeat, to be reminded of a habit to whose creator we have said

farewell. It causes a mental ennui constantly to be removing tatting

or embroidery.

Or, if one's current wife has had the old-fashioned and not wholly

well-bred habit of meeting one at the door of an evening, at the close

of the day's labors--just as in the evening the cave woman greeted her

man at the mouth of the cave to ask him what had been the fortune of

the day's hunt--and if now that footfall, ill-bred, yet after all

habitual--and was it wholly unwelcome, after all?--shall have ceased

for ever, with what equanimity, let us ask, can we regard the memory of

the woman who formed that habit and handed down an annoying expectation

to her husband, impossible of fulfillment after her departure?

It is, as John Rawn wisely has said, true that much may be said in

favor of the idea of marriage; yet upon the other hand, how very much

there is that could be said against it, or at least against it as

implying an unrestricted continuance, offering no change in

association. The which is by way of saying something to prove John

Rawn's excellently philosophical course in life to have been quite

correct. There could have been no doubt as to the wisdom of his

marrying Laura, his wife, in the first place, no doubt as to the wisdom

of continuing the marriage relation with her for many years; but, upon

the other hand, it is obvious that his idea of the timeliness of the

divorce in due season was equally wise. Indeed, the only reservation

in his mind in regard to this latter matter was one of censure for a

woman who, having entered into the holy state of matrimony with a

gentleman of his parts, had had the temerity to create in his soul an

addiction for shoulder of pork and cabbage; who had left her tatting

upon the table; and who, departing, had given no future address whither

her tatting might be sent! Yes, Laura Rawn had been, without doubt or

question, an unreasonable and unkind wife.

Above all it was wrong for a woman to go away and leave her late

husband feeling so much alone. Why should he, John Rawn, be allowed to

become conscious of a feeling of lonesomeness? Why should he be left

to dread the drawing of the curtains at night, when there remained only

the pound of the surf along the wall, the wail of the wind in the

cornice? One chloroforms a formerly prized dog, but misses it. It is

much the same way with the divorced wife. Too many unpleasant features

attend the process of such separation. Any civilization worth the name

ought to devise some method less annoying for this which Mr. Rawn has

so fittingly described as the corollary of the marriage rite. Surely

our boasted age has its drawbacks, its shortcomings!

II

Some men in such circumstances brood; some drink; others search out the

other woman or women. John Rawn was cast in different mold. He had,

in short, spoken truth when he told his wife that he had no new

matrimonial plans. Situated thus, yet handicapped thus in his

new-found solitude, but a few days had passed before he sent over for

his daughter, Grace, and her husband, Charles Halsey; there being in

his mind a plan to mitigate certain unpleasant features of his life as

he now found it ordered.

He greeted Halsey and Grace at the door gravely, with dignity, when

they came one evening in response to his invitation. They entered,

just a trifle awed, as they always were, by the august surroundings of

Graystone Hall, so different from their own cottage near the factory.

The owner of the place looked well the part of owner here. John Rawn

still was large and strong, the city had not yet much softened his

lines. His hair now was whiter about the temples, but its whiteness

left his appearance only the more distinguished. You scarce could have

found in all the haunts of prominent citizens a better example of

prominent citizen than himself, John Rawn.

The major domo took the wraps of the young people and vanished

silently. Rawn, waiting for them in the drawing-room--not in the hall,

as once he would have done--with dignity motioned them to places in his

presence, even brought a low chair himself for the sad-faced,

hunchbacked child which represented the Rawn succession in the third

generation.

"Go kiss grandpa, Lola!" said Grace to her daughter; and went to show

her the way. But the child, turning suddenly, only hid her face in her

mother's skirt.

"Laura's timid," apologized the mother. The disapproval on her

father's face was obvious enough. He had passed bitter hours alone,

pondering over this child, hesitating whether to love it or to hate it,

whether to accept it or to regard it as a blot upon his life. He had

hoped a grandson, since he no longer might hope a son of his own. This

crippled child was the sole Rawn succession. His pendulous lower lip

trembled for a time in the self-pity which now and again came to John

Rawn. It seemed hard enough that he, John Rawn, president of the

International Power Company, should have no better evidence of

gratitude on the part of fortune. He hated Halsey all the more.

III

But now he did not lack directness. "Grace," he said, "I've called you

over to-night because to-morrow, as you know, is Friday."

"Yes, Pa."

"And as you know, Grace, your mother--that is to say, the late Mrs.

Rawn, always had the way--in short, I may say that she induced me to

depend upon--I mean to say that always she had shoulder of pork and

cabbage for Friday evening. Now, I am left alone, helpless--it is too

much!"

Mr. Rawn made no attempt wholly to conceal his just emotion. "Now look

at me," he resumed. "Your mother went away, and selfishly neglected to

take into consideration this habit, or to provide any means for meeting

it. My chef has tried often to prepare this dish. I must say he

always has failed."

"Why don't you write to Mrs. Rawn and ask her for the recipe?" asked

young Halsey soberly.

"That is not practical," rejoined Mr. Rawn icily, "even did I know that

lady's present address; as I do not."

His daughter sat gazing straight at him, under her heavy brows, but

made no comment. Grace had not improved with years. Her face was

heavy, pasty, her expression morose. The corners of her mouth turned

down, and deep vertical frown-wrinkles sat between her dark eyebrows.

"But I do not wish that name mentioned again," said John Rawn raising a

hand. "I dismissed that thought of asking her aid as something

unworthy of me. Let Friday come. I shall seek no aid outside of those

from whom it may fitly be expected." Ah, hero!

IV

"Now, Grace," he continued later, turning toward her, "I know very well

you're a good housekeeper."

"She is that!" Halsey nodded. Continually he forced himself into such

approval of his wife as he could compass. Continually he refused

comparisons.

"Precisely, and skilled in all the dishes which the late Mrs. Rawn had

as specialties. You do not know how things are running here, Grace. I

can't get anything done on time, I'm at untold expense all the time,

and am deprived of what I really want. Grace, I need a housekeeper!"

"Surely, Pa. Why don't you hire one?"

"How much better off would I be in that case? None in the least. No,

I want you. You'll have to come over here to live!"

The young couple sat gazing at him for a time before making reply.

"That's impossible, Pa," said Grace. "I have a home of my own, and

it's more than twenty miles from here."

John Rawn raised a hand. "I have thought all that out. You reason

now, as so many do, when any distinct change of life is proposed to

them. You let the little things outweigh the larger ones. It was a

fault your mother had. Now the large matter, the really important

thing, is this--that I can not be allowed to live on here in this way

with all these annoyances. Too much depends upon me, in business, for

me to have the quiet and peace of my life interfered with. I've got to

have a clear head--especially on Saturday. Now, then, if you can step

in here, my daughter, and establish in some measure the sort of life I

have always been used to, evidently that is your duty, and you ought

not to balance against it the small inconveniences which that course

would cause you and your husband. I'm quite sure you can teach that

chef--"

"But, Mr. Rawn, I've got to be at the factory almost day and night!"

broke in Halsey.

"Precisely. I do not mean for you to make your home here, only Grace.

You'll have to stay on where you are. Of course, you can come here at

times to report, at least once or twice a week--say Friday night. Very

much depends on you, Charles. You know how much I value you, how much

I rely on your services. Really, it all depends on you, our success as

a company. We've been very patient, although I must say--"

V

Halsey muttered something under his breath and turned away. His

attitude angered Rawn to the point of forgetting himself.

"Never mind what you think about it, young man! It's what _I_ think

about it that counts. Grace belongs here, anyhow. She will have a

wider life with me. It's time she had some things which she has never

known. It may be necessary for us to travel, to see something of this

country and Europe. Besides, this child needs care. All these things

cost more money than you can afford, young man. Don't try to balk me

in what I suggest. It is obviously the right thing to do."

"But how long--"

"Indefinitely!"

"And you want me to break up my home 'indefinitely'? Well, I must

confess I don't in the least see it that way, Mr. Rawn."

"You're selfish, and that's why you can't see it, Charles. Above all

things you ought to avoid the vice of selfishness. You are not parting

from your wife, but only helping her to a better grade of living.

Meantime, of course, your duty to her and to the company is to make a

success of your work. Think of your business, my son. There is no

good comes of selfishness. Try to be just. And for God's sake, also,

try to get one of those machines done!"

Halsey only sat and looked at him darkly for a time, making no reply.

"It seems to me that I can never get you to understand, Charles,"

resumed Rawn, "that things are not the way they used to be before we

came here to Chicago. I'm a bigger man now than I was then. I've

grown these last two or three years, my boy. I should not be surprised

if eventually I were obliged to make my residence in New York, if

indeed not abroad. We are rising in the world, rising very fast,

Charles. Do you want to go up with the Rawns, or stay down with the

Halseys of this world? Besides, in this case you ought to respect the

wishes of your own wife. You want to remember, my dear boy, that my

daughter, Grace, is half Rawn as well as half Johnson. The only

trouble with her is, the Rawn half has not yet had its innings."

VI

Halsey turned and stared at his wife. He found her sitting with her

dark eyes fixed, now on her father, now wandering hither and yon over

the rich surroundings in her father's home. To his intense surprise,

she had as yet issued no veto to this calm proposal to which they all

had listened. In his surprise he forgot comment of his own. What

caused him greatest surprise of all was his secret feeling that he was

not so reluctant to this arrangement as he ought to be! He pondered

Grace, her sour visage, her morose air. He recalled countless angry,

irritated, irritating words. He looked, and saw no longer any feminine

charm. It took all his resolution not to question why he had ever made

this choice. Almost he began a certain comparison.

"Now let this end it," resumed John Rawn. "Let comforts, and let

luxuries, come where they have been earned. It's the Rawn half of

Grace that has earned the luxuries, Charles, if I am willing to give

them to her. Take what you can get, my son, of comfort and luxury in

this life--after you've earned them. But earn them first. Your place

is over there at the works. This is your opportunity. Fall in with my

plans and I'll carry you along. Don't try to hold Grace over there

when she belongs here. Don't be selfish, Charles."

He relented just a trifle. "I don't say this is going to last for

ever. Pull off success over there for us. I'll tell you what I'll

do--the day you can charge a storage battery car from one of our second

current receivers--finished and in place there in the factory--and run

it from the factory up here, I'll make you a present of fifty thousand

dollars."

VII

"And about Grace--?" Ah! that comparison--

"She'll be a good deal closer to you then than she is now. She's half

_Rawn_, I tell you, Charles; and love in a cottage does not suit the

Rawn blood to-day!

"But I'll tell you--" his face lightened a bit at the jest--"you can go

on with your brotherhood of man ideas over there at the factory. I

hope you love them--those brothers who are trying to ruin me and this

company! Try them out--associate with them--love them all you can.

Compare that life with this, my boy; and when you've done your work,

for which you are paid--when you can charge one car at one receiver,

and come from that life to this, on the strength of your brains and

your own ability, as I have come here myself--why, I say I'll give you

a slice of a million dollars! Then you can compare that life with

this, and see how you like the two. I've made up my mind already about

that! So has Grace."

Halsey turned once more to his wife. She had changed in the last few

minutes. Her eye was brighter, her color higher. She was gazing not

at her husband nor at her child, but at these rich surroundings.

"I wonder if I could play one of my old pieces on the piano any more

now?" she said gaily, rising and walking to the seat of the grand piano

which stood across the room from them. "I've been so _busy_--"

CHAPTER II

ASPARAGUS, ALSO POTATOES

I

What is written is written. Grace moved to Graystone Hall and Halsey

remained at the factory cottage; nor did the separation, which was

regarded by both as merely temporary after all, afflict either to the

extent that both had supposed it would. Grace now became acting

mistress of a large and elaborate _ménage_. As to her husband, his

domestic affairs fell into the hands of Mrs. Ann Sullivan, wife of Jim

Sullivan, Halsey's most trusted foreman in the factory.

Mrs. Sullivan, blessed with six children of her own, alleged that it

would be no trouble whatever to her to take on the sweeping, mending,

and all else for an additional household, and to furnish meals for the

solitary head thereof; and such was her ability to make proof of all

these statements that she in part was to blame for the sad truth that

Halsey was not as unhappy as he ought to have been.

The chief reason for Halsey's easy readjustment, however, lay somewhere

in his comparison of the Halsey blood with blood half Rawn. Grace had

been cold, after all. She had openly been discontented, and especially

unhappy since the birth of the deformed child. She had left him and

gone to her father with no great protest; nor did she, at the occasions

of their rare and lessening visits, display more than lukewarm interest

in her husband and her former home. Within six months she was

beginning to blossom out in raiment, in demeanor. She spoke of things

not in his knowledge though in hers. She was changing. She was going

up in the world. He, for the time at least, was doing no better than

to stand still; as the factory now was doing, and International Power,

also--marking time, waiting for something.

II

Ann Sullivan was not a bad philosopher, besides being a good cook, and

at times she did not hesitate to engage Mr. Halsey in conversation when

they met at this or that time of the day; as when by chance, one

noontide when he came home for lunch, he found her sweeping down the

front stair.

"You're lookin' lonesome to-day, Mr. Halsey," she remarked without much

preliminary. "You're fair grievin' for your wife, I suppose? But why

should you expict anny woman to stay here whin she has such a Pa, with

such a house as her Pa has?"

"Would you have gone over there, Mrs. Sullivan?" asked Halsey, stopping

and feeling in his pocket for a pipe of tobacco. It was a question

they often had discussed.

"Would I? In a minnit! I'd lave Jim Sullivan for iver if I'd one

chanct such as your wife had."

She grinned, but her look belied her speech.

"What I'm wantin', Mr. Halsey," she went on, "is what anny woman wants.

I want a di'mond star to wear on me head whin I'm sweeping flures. I

need di'mond earrings and bracelets to wear whin I'm makin' your beds,

you mind; and a silk dress that hollers 'I'm a-comin'!' whin I start

out to scrub the steps. Ain't it the truth, Mr. Halsey? Ain't that

what ivery woman in the wurrld, at laste in America, is wantin'?"

"Sure," nodded Halsey. "Don't forget the automobile while you're

wishing."

"True it is! Whut woman of anny social position has not got her

awtomo_beel_ to-day? Luk at me. If I had me rights, I'd have me

electric bro'om brought to the coorb ivery mornin' for me to go to

market; and ivery evenin', after I'd got me sweepin' done, I'd have me

long gray torpedy corm around to take me and Jim out fer a fast spin up

the bullyvard. Me with di'monds on my hair, with rings on me fingers

an' bells on me toes, a-settin' there an' lukkin' scornful. Oh, I was

born in Ireland, but I'm American now. The day Jim Sullivan gives me

what is me due, and I git me first awtomo_beel_, 'twill be the proud

day fer me--the day whin I'm first fined fer vi'latin' the speed law of

the city. 'Tis a great counthry this!"

III

Mrs. Sullivan grinned happily at her romancing; but presently set her

broom against the door-jamb and turned to speak more in her real mind.

"Anny woman wants to blackguard a little once in a while, Mr. Halsey,

sir, and all women like to lie twice in a while. I'm just lyin' to you

now, because the birds is singin' and the weather is so fine.

"Listen! Anny woman that's goin' to be happy is goin' to be happy

because of the stomach she has for eatin', and the joy she has for

dancin', and the heart she has for love of her man and her childern.

And anny woman that has her heart in the right place is goin' to stand

by them and not by herself; and not by anny one ilse. Try me and see

if I'm lyin' now! You're the boss. Fire Jim Sullivan to-day, and see

do I stick with him, or do I go with some man that gives me di'monds,

and awtamo_beels_. I'd stick--and so'd anny other woman that loved her

man and her childern."

"I'm glad you think so, Mrs. Sullivan."

"You know I think so! Oh, maybe it's because I wasn't born in this

country. Over there, 'tis the woman helps to make the stake. Here,

she helps to spend it. 'Tis a fine counthry this--fer policemin. So

far as bein' happy in it's concerned, I dunno! Maybe it's the Irish in

me that's happy, and not the American. I dunno again. 'Tis all a

question which you want to be, rich or happy!"

"Or useful!" ventured Halsey.

"They're the same. Bein' useful is bein' happy. Ain't it the truth?"

Halsey nodded again and Mrs. Sullivan reached once more for her

implement of industry.

"Jim Sullivan fits in his job," said she. "He's strong and can hold

his job all right. I'm strong, and I can hold mine here, just the

same. We've only six childern, and I wish 'twas a dozen. No, it's no

trouble to take care of this house, too. I'm only thinkin' of that

little lamb of yours she tuk away with her. 'Tis a mother she nades."

"Please don't, Mrs. Sullivan," said Halsey quietly.

"I mane no harm, and I'm feelin' fer you, me boy, you havin' a crippled

child to face the world where even the strong has hard enough times

ahead. Still, she'll have money, maylike!"

"Well, Mrs. Sullivan, I'm not sure of that--"

"Of course it's none of me business--of course not. But only look at

the sky and only hear the birds this mornin'! You're young, and God

may give you two yet the dozen that I have longed for, denied as I do

be with only six. You'll be goin' up yerself some day, with all thim

rich folks, Mr. Halsey, boy. I'm stayin' here with Jim Sullivan. Whin

we can't afford sparrowgrass we eats potaties."

IV

"But tell me, Mr. Halsey," she went on shrewdly, "how long will we be

havin' even potaties to eat? Ye don't keep min there in the factory

long--there's not many at wurrk now. Besides, there's no smoke in thim

chimbleys! And 'tis time. _What's the mystery there, boy?_"

"A good deal of labor troubles," commented Halsey non-committally.

"More than _that_!" she insisted, drawing close to him. "Listen! I

mean well to you, boy, and so does Jim. He'll stick. But Jim told me

the night that he could walk out, and pick up a clean tin thousand

dollars fer the walkin'!"

Halsey controlled himself. This was news of staggering sort. "Why

doesn't he, then, Mrs. Sullivan? That's a good deal of money," he said

quietly.

"Yes, why doesn't he?--with me half American and gettin' more so aich

year,--me a-needin' di'monds and awtomo_beels_! The fool Irish! 'Tis

maybe his ijiotic idea he ought to stick."

Halsey made no answer except to look over at the gaunt factory

buildings. A blue-coated figure was pacing back and forth before the

door.

"There's Jim Sullivan workin' inside, and there's Tim Carney walkin'

beat outside," she resumed; "and the pickets tryin' to break in, and

some one _else_ tryin' to break in. What's it about, Mr. Halsey? For

the company? _What's_ the company?"

"It furnishes asparagus for some, and potatoes for others, Mrs.

Sullivan."

"Oh, does it, thin? Does it mind that potaties costs more than they

did, and so pay us better, or worse, for what we do? If what we eat

goes up, we can't live; and if we can't live, them that can has got to

support us somehow. Ain't it the truth? What's the ind of it, me boy?

"I'm not askin' about the justice of it, but about the business of it.

If our men starve, what'll we do? Mr. Halsey, sir, we'll raise hell!

That's what we'll do! Too much asparagus in this country, and too few

potaties, and thim of a bad class, is goin' to raise hell in this

counthry. Ain't it the truth?

"Luk at Jim workin' there. And luk at Tim protectin' of him. 'Tis

fine, isn't it? I'm thankin' God, meself, there's birds and sunshine

in the world. If it wasn't for thim and the priest, I'm wonderin'

sometimes what us poor folks would do."

V

"The theory is that some men are born stronger than others, Mrs.

Sullivan, and so entitled to the asparagus," smiled Halsey.

"Is it so? Jim Sullivan yonder is strong in what makes a man. In what

makes a woman I'm strong. Hasn't God got a place fer us, as well as

Mr. Rawn? And if God don't give it, haven't such as us just got to

_take_ it?--I don't mean the asparagus, but just the potaties?"

"But I've said enough," she went on, turning suddenly. "'Tis only

because I'm fond of you, me boy, that I've said so much. There's

devilment and mystery goin' on here. I don't ask you what your mystery

is, so don't ask me what is mine. Jim's likely to stick, and so am I.

'Tis likely we can be useful in the world, and as for bein' strong,

we're strong enough to have each other. And as I was sayin', we've the

birds and the sunshine--and the priest! So take your mystery you've

got in there, and match it up with mine. L'ave Jim Sullivan alone, and

when these two mysteries git together, yours and ours, why, maybe

there'll be _hell_!"

Halsey did some thinking when he was alone. He knew now, and had

known, that something, somebody besides the pickets of the labor

unions, had an eye on this mysterious factory of theirs. He had felt

for a long time that there was an enemy working somewhere, that a spy

was making definite attempts to get secret information. Now, this

unknown enemy was able to offer ten thousand dollars bribe money. The

case was serious enough.

It was worse than serious. He had been sufficiently warned. Why,

then, his pipe cold in his teeth, did he sit staring now and think of

things altogether apart from the factory? Why did he dream of the

birds and the sunshine? Why did comparisons still force themselves

into his mind, and why did he long for something life had not yet

brought to him--something that Ann Sullivan and her man owned, though

they had so little else?

CHAPTER III

THE SILENT PARTNER

I

There are men who make a living, sometimes a very good one, through the

process of teaching others to do what they themselves can not do. You

can purchase for a price in any of many quarters printed maxims

embodying full formula covering the secret of success; in each case

from one who has not succeeded. Nothing is cheaper than maxims, in

type, in worsted, or in transparencies. To be in the fashion you

should have certain of these above your desk, and should incline your

ear to those who profess to teach what can not be taught even by those

most nearly fitted to teach.

John Rawn cared little for maxims, being above them, in his own belief,

at least. In all likelihood he had never read the advice of the

philosopher, to wit: that each man should hitch his wagon to a star.

No, he knew something better. He hitched his to a river.

Very naturally, John Rawn selected the largest river that he could

find. His silent partner was none less than the Father of the Waters!

There is this to be said about a river, that it is wholly tireless and

immeasurably powerful; that it enters into no combinations against

capital, and does its work without unseemly disturbances. Rawn was

wise enough to know these things, nor asked any maxims to advise him

therein. In his belief it was better to allow this sort of silent

partner to furnish the industry and the economy.

II

Who shall measure the power of a river, for ever falling to the sea?

How many millions of horses and men has it equalled in its wasted power

in each generation, in each decade, in each year? Certainly sufficient

to lift the entire burden of labor from the shoulders of the world.

What mind can measure the extent of such a force, or dream the

possibilities of its application, if it could be set to work? What

equivalent of human brain and brawn could be valued against this

careless, ceaseless power, derived endlessly from the air and the

earth--power given to the peoples of the earth before the arrival of

our present political and industrial masters; given them in the time

when the earth was the Lord's and the fullness thereof. The minerals

under the earth, the food produced in the soil, the waters offering

paths and power--before the earth and its fullness passed from the

hands of the Lord into those of our present masters, these, it may be

conceived, were intended as the Lord's gift to the peoples of the

earth. That, however, was quite before the advent of John Rawn.

Toil has always been the human lot. We have carried the mechanical

burdens as well as the mental burdens of life on our own human bodies

and souls; although all the time thousands of patient giants were

waiting, willing to serve us. John Rawn could see them waiting. He

knew to whom one day would be due the power, and the kingdom, and the

glory. He could look toward the white-topped mountains, foreseeing the

day when they would be put under tribute, because they breed tumbling

waters of immeasurable strength and utility. Their heritage of beauty

and majesty is naught to minds such as that of John Rawn's. Utility is

the one word in the maxims of such as these, men beloved of the

immortal gods.

We speak of kings, of emperors, but what emperor in all the history of

the world had servants such as these, submissive giants such as these,

to work for him? We speak of miracles of old. What miracles ever

equaled the business wonders, the money-piling miracles, of the last

twenty years in America?

III

Where gat this silent partner of John Rawn's its own tremendous power?

Out of the sun and the earth, the parents of humanity. The raindrop on

the leaf, shot through with the shaft of the sun, fell to some near-by

rill and, joined by other rills, marched on, alive, tireless,

tremendous, toward the sea. Even far up toward their source, had your

little boat lodged, counter to the current, on some rock or snag, and

had you attempted to push it back against the thrust of the downcoming

waters, you might have got some knowledge of the power of even a little

stream. Ten feet below you, that power again would have been quite as

great; and ten feet below that again as great; and so on, to the sea.

It required the advice of no professional maxim makers to teach a few

of our great men, our specially endowed superiors, John Rawn first

among them, that this power one day must be used. In accordance as it

shall be used, the burden of humanity may be lifted from human

shoulders, or thrust crushingly down upon them until indeed humanity

shall cease to hope. The earth and its fullness are no more the Lord's

to-day. They are John Rawn's.

The simple plan of the International Power Company, was to make some

strong obstruction inviting the enormous resistance of the Father of

the Waters, tantalizing that power into being. Thus, in a manner

perfectly simply, this force, once evoked and utilized, would turn

numberless wheels endlessly, tirelessly. So much for the material side

of manifested power. The essence, the soul, the intangible spirit of

that material power was, in the plans of International, to be

transmitted by wire at first, and later through the free air. Its sale

in definite and merchantable quantities would come as near to the

solution of the problem of perpetual motion and perpetual profit as may

be arrived at in this world of limitations.

IV

Rawn asked nothing better than this idea. It was beautiful, and he

valued it over all his many and various other ventures. He could let

his silent partner put other men out of work; and so these could be

rehired at such price as he himself cared to set. He saw the time

approach when he would be able to retail at a price, remote from his

silent, tireless partner's labors, merchantable packages of power, to

feed a cart, a plow, a wheel of any sort; power to lift and labor, to

toil ceaselessly _without remonstrance_. It was and is a splendid

dream. Its bearing is as you be Rawn or Halsey. That power shall

labor for or against mankind as ourselves shall say.

Shall we blame ourselves, or John Rawn, in this republic, that he saw

on ahead only limitless personal power, limitless gold, jewels, wine,

women, personal indulgence of any sort that appealed to him? Shall we

blame Halsey for dreading the issue of these plans, delaying them all

he could; clinging to the belief that the earth was the Lord's and the

fullness thereof; and that the Lord gave it to all mankind? And shall

we blame the stock-holders for being impatient at renewed delays? The

wire transmission was installed, making every man in the International

rich. Yet every man in the secret of the real ambition of this company

burned inwardly at this enforced secrecy and this unseemly delay. The

mysterious factory at the edge of the great inland city still was

silent. The directors raged. They wanted to drain to the last drop

the strength even of this tireless giant. They wanted to begin to

bottle, measure and sell, sell for ever, the very force which holds the

spheres in their places! In time we shall perhaps see completed what

these men planned. There is no logical reason why, if one planet can

be owned by a John Rawn or so, yet others should not!

V

For a long time Jim Sullivan, foreman at the factory of the

International, wondered and pondered as to the real intent of these

strange machines which he saw little by little growing up under the

uncommunicative direction of the superintendent, Halsey. He had never

seen anything like them, with their vast coils of insulation, their

intricate cogs and wheels, their centrally-hidden huge glass jars, and

the long, toothed ridge, like a delicate metal comb, which surmounted

the top of each. There was something mysterious about it all. He was

sure that Halsey did something with these machines when the men were

not about. The very air seemed throbbing with some tense quality of

mystery. The men themselves were suspicious, irritable. Never was the

air in any factory more surcharged alike with ignorance and with

anxiety. Man after man, good mechanic though he was, quit the place

simply because he did not know what he was doing. The feeling of

mystery was tense, oppressive.

On one certain Sunday morning Jim Sullivan strolled over to the vacant

factory. He knew that the superintendent had spent almost the entire

night there working alone on one of these mysterious machines. It

stood there now. And--yes! it was different from what it had been when

Sullivan last saw it! It was now apparently complete, so far as he

could tell. There was no one near it. Halsey had gone home, to bed.

Of late he had been very tired, pale, haggard; and he always was at his

work in the factory, when good men slept, and knew light-winged dreams.

VI

Jim Sullivan, stood now looking at the grim, uncanny machine, hands in

his pockets, wondering. He looked about him, superstitiously. There

seemed to be something in the air, he could not explain what. He

turned, looking behind him, and tiptoed to the front door, where Tim

Carney, the blue-coated guardian, stood leaning against the wall.

"Tim!" he whispered, although there was none to hear. "Come on in

here!"

"What is it, Jim?" asked the watchman.

"I dunno; that's why I'm callin' you."

"Has anny wan broke into th' place?"

"Not as I know, but somethin's happened here. I'm figurin' 'twas the

boss done it. Come in and have a luk, now. He's gone home."

They stepped gingerly on across the floor, along the row of unfinished

machines, and paused at the one farthest from the door, which had

excited Jim's curiosity.

"Here's where the boss worked all last night!" whispered the foreman

hoarsely. "'Twas daybreak when he come home, an' he was all in. He's

been workin' on her before now, I know that. I'm thinkin' she's about

done, belike!"

"Whatever kind of a spook joint is this, anyhow, Jim?" demanded the

watchman. "What's she for, do ye think now?" They two, bullet-headed,

hairy, heavy and powerful, stood looking at this contrivance, whose

growth through many months they had been watching. The value of it

either could measure in comprehensible terms. It was worth ten

thousand dollars to either of them who would--and could--tell a certain

man how it was made.

"I dunno what she's for," answered Jim slowly, "but I'm thinkin' it's

no good at all. It's the devil, maylike. Not that she's so big

neither. I could almost turn her over with a pinch bar." He pointed

to an arm, or lever, which stood at the side of the machine. "She

looks somethin' like one o' them drills I used to run in th' tunnel,

time Hogan was mayor, do ye mind? Whin we wanted to throw her in we

pushed down an arm, somethin' like this."

"Sure, Jim, 'tis you have the head fer machines. I dunno about thim at

all," rejoined Tim, scratching his head. "But 'tis a shame we can't

throw her in, now. Manny a time I've wondered what 'twas all about in

here. Why shud strangers be so anxious as to--"

"She luks like a patent gate in a fince, as much as annything else,"

commented Jim. "But as fer throwin' her in, how cud we? She's

attached to nothin' at all, so there's nothin' to throw her into.

She's got no wire or cord runnin' to her, unless belike it comes up

through the flure. She looks like she was some sort of motor, but how

she's to run I dunno. Now if she was geared to annything, you cud

throw her in, most-like, by this thing here. It luks like she was

done, and if she is, I don't know why the boss wud go away and leave

the roof open over her." He pointed to a sliding window in the roof

directly above the machine. He then reached out and swung some of his

weight upon the end of the engaged arm or lever. Then, to the joint

surprise of the two observers, a very singular thing forthwith occurred.

VII

What happened, as nearly as either of them later could describe it,

might have been called a duplication in large of the phenomena of

Halsey's original motor, with which he burst the fan in the railway

office at St. Louis. There was a low crackling in the air, a dancing

series of blue flame points along the toothed ridge. Then began a low

purr, as of a motor in full operation. They could see sparks emitted,

somewhere at the interior of the intricate machinery. A living,

splitting, crackling roar filled the air about them--the roar of the

shackled river, far away, raging at the violence done it! A projecting

shaft, fitted with a pulley head, began to revolve, faster and faster,

until its speed left it apparently motionless.

Something had happened, they knew not what. The machine was alive!

Some force seemed to come down out of the air, to locate itself

somewhere within this intricate mechanism. They stood, two

bullet-headed, hairy, powerful men, looking at what they had done.

"Do ye mind _that_ now?" gasped Jim Sullivan, and wrenched at the

lever, restoring it to its original position. The purring of the motor

ceased, the blue sparks disappeared, the roar subsided growlingly.

VIII

"What was it?" demanded Tim Carney. "Throw her in again, Jim!"

"Not on yer life!" gasped Jim Sullivan. "I dunno what 'tis, but I'll

take no chances with the divil an' his works, on a Sunday leastways.

There's somethin' _wrong_ in here, I'm tellin' you, Tim. What made her

go, I dunno. She's under power, same like a compressed air drill--but

where'd she _git_ her power?--the divil's in it, that's all, Tim. I'm

thinkin' the best we can, do is to git away from here. Come, shut the

dure--an' watch it. Me, I'm goin' to the praste ag'in this very day!

I see now what that felly wanted!"

Jim Sullivan locked the door and left his friend guarding it; then

hurried across the street to the superintendent's cottage. Mrs.

Sullivan, busy there about her morning duties, would have stopped him,

but Jim would have no denial, and hastening up the stairs to Halsey's

bedroom, impetuously demanded entrance. Halsey, drawn, haggard,

unshorn, greeted him, half sitting up in bed.

"What's wrong, Jim?" he demanded. "Has anybody got into the works?"

"Hush, boy!" said Jim, his finger on his lips. "You need tell me

nothin'. But I know what it's all about."

Halsey sat looking at him dumbly.

"Fire me if you like, my son," went on Jim Sullivan. "'Tis true I've

done what I had no right to do. Mr. Halsey, sir, _I throwed her in_!"

"You did _what_?"

"I throwed her in. An' she worked--she worked like a bird! Then I

throwed her out ag'in an' come away an' locked the door. Tim was

there, too. 'Tis none of my business. But I've come to tell you the

truth, an' you can fire me if you like! But it's hell, it's harnessed

hell ye've got in there. An' others want to stale it."

By this time Halsey was getting into his clothing and only half

listening to what his foreman said.

"What kills _me_ is, I can't see _how_ she works! She runs by herself

all the time, chuggin' like a fire ingin. But where does she _git_ it?"

[Illustration: (Rawn and Virginia)]

Halsey made no answer. He was pale as a dead man. A few moments later

they were hurrying down the stair, across the street, and through the

long, deserted room with its rows of gaunt enginery. They stood before

the completed receiver, whose motor so perfectly had caught the power

of the free second current from the air--John Rawn's costless, stolen

Power.

"What makes her go?" demanded Jim Sullivan. "Fer what is the hole in

the roof yon?"

Halsey turned to him. "It's the Mississippi River makes it go, Jim.

If we didn't leave a hole in the roof how could the river get through?

Now do you understand?"

"My boy," said Jim kindly, laying a large hand on his shoulder, "you're

off your nut, of course. I don't blame ye, workin' so long as ye have,

an' worryin'. 'Tis a rest ye must be takin' now, or they'll be puttin'

ye in the bughouse fer fair!"

"You're right!" said Halsey. "I think I'll just take a little ride

this afternoon. Jim, come here and help me. I want to see if we can

charge up this electric car. If I can do that, Jim, my boy, I'll be

richer by six o'clock than either of us ever dreamed of being!"

Shaking his head dubiously, the big foreman lent a hand, and between

them they managed to roll the car into place.

"Want to throw her down again, Jim?" demanded Halsey, motioning to the

lever and grinning. That worthy shook his head.

"I'm scared of her, Mr. Halsey, that I am!"

"And well you may be!" was Halsey's comment. He himself threw down an

arm on the opposite side of the receiver. This time the motor did not

resume its purring, the shaft did not revolve.

"She's bruk!" said Jim. Halsey only pointed to the blue tips of

toothed ridge. "No," said he, "she's only doing another part of her

work. The power is going into the auto's motor instead of this. Two

forms, you see, Jim."

A faint spark showed at the transmitter connection. "Come!" said

Halsey. "Let her work! We don't need to now."

IX

That afternoon, Charles Halsey took his seat at the steering wheel of

an electric car which had been charged with power taken from the air

without wire transmission. His task was done. He had accomplished

what he had started out to do. Throbbing beneath him was Power, the

power of yonder distant silent partner, power taken from the earth, and

the air, and the water; power of the elements; and power now definite,

segregant, merchantable!

Halsey kicked in the gear and rolled out into the street. Pale,

preoccupied, he hardly noted where he was going; but found himself half

automatically directing the car through a maze of ill-paved, crowded

thoroughfares; until at length he reached the West-Side boulevard

system. Thence he crossed the river to the East, and headed north.

Strong and true, under a limit charge, the motor purred beneath him.

The mechanism of the car operated without defect. Nothing in the least

seemed wrong at any particular, nor did the car in any particular

differ in appearance from others of its humble and inconspicuous class.

X

None the less, midway of one of the large parks along the lake shore,

young Halsey suddenly disengaged the gear, cut off his power, and

applied the brakes. He was perhaps half way from his home on the

journey to Graystone Hall.... For a little time he sat in the car,

pale, almost motionless, deep in thought; careless of the passing

throng of other vehicles, the occupants of which regarded him

curiously. Then, suddenly, he threw in the gear again, turned on the

current; and, quickly turning about, retraced his course. He had been

gone less than an hour when he stood once more at the curb of his

cottage near the factory in the western suburb of the city.

"So you're back again, sir!" commented Jim Sullivan. "An' did ye get

all that sudden wealth ye was tellin' me about, at all?"

Halsey sat staring at him for a time. "No," said he, "I've changed my

mind. I'm going to wait a while."

The foreman turned and tiptoed off to find his wife. "Annie," said he,

his voice low and anxious, "try if ye can get the boss to bed, an' make

him sleep as long as ever he can. He's goin' off his head, an' talkin'

like a fool. Somethin's wrong here, that's sure! Hell's goin' to

break loose, in yon facth'ry some day. But whativer comes, the boss is

crazy!"

CHAPTER IV

THE BAKER'S DAUGHTER

I

A large part of our ambitious American population is prone boastfully

to ascribe its origin to one or other of those highly respectable, if

really little known monarchs to whom is commonly accorded the

foundation of Old World nobilities. We have built up a pretty fiction

regarding so-called blue blood, on the flattering, but wholly

unsupported supposition that royal qualities are transmissible to the

thirtieth and fortieth generation; so that 'tis a poor American family

indeed can not boast its coat of arms, harking back to royal days of

Charlemagne or William the Conqueror. It may be. Their Majesties were

active, morganatically at least no doubt, much-married men!

But continually there arise disturbing instances to upset us in our

beliefs regarding aristocracy. There are so very many worthless

aristocrats, in whom the theory of descent did not work out according

to accepted schedule; and there are so very many worthy but wholly

disconcerting men who are not aristocrats--so continually do Lincolns

arise who, claiming nothing of birth or breeding, show themselves to be

possessed of manhood, show themselves, moreover, masters of those

instincts and practices which go with the much-abused title of

gentleman; a matter in which not all descendants of Charles or William

join them.

II

It is well known among theatrical managers that no real lady can

imitate a real lady. The highest salaries in ladies' theatrical rôles

are paid to ladies who are not ladies, but who play the parts of ladies

as they think ladies really would act in actual life. If you seek a

woman to carry off a gown, one to assume such really regal air as shall

bring the name of William or Charlemagne impulsive to your lips, find

one still owning not more than one of the requisite three generations

which are set as the lowest limit for the production of a gentleman or

a lady.

Continually in our American aristocracy--and in that, _par

consequence_, of Europe--we find ladies whose fathers were laborers,

shop-keepers, soap-makers, butchers, this or that, anything you like.

So only they had money, they did as well as any to wear European

coronets, to assist at royal coronations. And, having proved their

powers in swift forgetfulness, they offer as good proof as any, of the

scientific fact that gentleness of heart and soul and conduct are not

things transmissible even to the third or fourth generation, either in

America or Europe. Your real aristocrat perhaps after all, is made,

not born.

As to Virginia Delaware, daughter of the baker, John Dahlen, in St.

Louis, she started out in life with the deliberate intent of being a

lady, knowing very well that this is America, where all things come to

him or her who does not wait. In some way, as has been said, she had

achieved graduation at a famous school where the art of being a lady is

dispensed. She had, indeed, even now and then seen a lady in real

life; not to mention many supposed ladies in theatrical life, playing

the part as to them seemed fit, and far better than any lady could.

III

The soul finds its outward expression in the body. The ambition shapes

the soul. It was wholly logical and natural that, having her

particular ambition--that of many American girls--Virginia Delaware

should grow up tall, dignified, beautiful, composed, self-restraining,

kindly, gracious; these being qualities which in her training were

accepted as properly pertaining and belonging to all aristocrats. We

have already seen that, put to the test, in the midst of our best

aristocrats--those who frequent the most highly gilded and glazed

hotels in New York--she was accepted unhesitatingly as of the charmed

circle, even by the head waiters. Had you yourself seen her upon the

Chicago streets, passing to her daily occupation, you also in all

likelihood would have commented upon her as a rich young woman, and one

of birth, breeding and beauty. We have spoken somewhat regarding the

futility of mottoes and maxims in the case of an ambitious man. As

much might be said regarding their lack of applicability to the needs

of an ambitious woman. Virginia Delaware would have made her own

maxims, had she needed any; and had she been obliged to choose a coat

of arms, she surely would have selected the Christian motto of "Onward

and Upward."

IV

The best aid in any ambition lies in the intensity of that ambition.

We all are what we really desire to be, each can have what he really

covets, if he will pay the price for it. In her gentleness with her

associates, in her dignity and composure with her employer, in her

conduct upon the street and in the crowded car, in all situations and

conditions arising in her life, Virginia Delaware diligently played the

part of lady as best she comprehended that; because she had the intense

ambition to be a lady. She continually was in training. Moreover, she

had that self-restraint which has been owned by every woman who ever

reached any high place in history. She kept herself in hand, and she

held herself not cheap. Likewise, after the fashion of all successful

politicians, she cast aside acquaintances who might be pleasant but who

probably would be of little use, and pinned her faith to those who

promised to be of future value. Such a woman as that can not be

stopped--unless she shall, unfortunately, fall in love.

If there was calumny, Virginia Delaware heeded it not. She accosted

all graciously and with dignity, as a lady should. And all this time

her great personal beauty increased to such point as to drive most of

her fair associates about the headquarters' offices to the verge of

rage. To be beautiful and aristocratic both assuredly is to invite

hatred! It is almost as bad as to be rich. Miss Delaware allowed

hatred to run its course unnoted. She needed no maxims over her desk,

required no ancestral coat of arms. She was an aristocrat, and meant

to be accepted as such. In all likelihood--though simple folk may not

read a woman's mind--she saw further into the future than did John Rawn

himself.

There remained, then, as against the ambition of Virginia Delaware, the

one pitfall of love, and even this she easily avoided. Beautiful as

she unquestionably was, admired as she certainly was, if there had been

fire in this girl's heart for any man, she kept it either extinguished

or well banked for a later time. She had gently declined the heart and

hand of every male clerk in the office. She had chosen her own ways,

and was not to be diverted. Cool, ambitious, perfectly in hand, she

went her way, and bided her time.

Cool, ambitious, perfectly in hand, John Rawn also went his way in

life. Two more ambitious souls than these, or two more alike, you

scarcely could have found in all the descendants of the two

bucaneer-monarchs we have named.

V

And Rawn continually found something responsive in the soul of this

young woman, something that never found its way into speech on either

side. She was the type of devotion and of efficiency. Gently, without

any ostentation, she took upon herself a vast burden of detail; and she

added thereto an unobtrusive personal service upon which Rawn

unconsciously came more and more to depend. Did he lack any little

accustomed implement or appliance, she found it for him forthwith. Did

he forget a name, a date, a filing record, it was she who supplied it

out of a memory infallible as a fine machine. From this, it was but an

easy step to the point where the young woman's unobtrusive aid became

useful even beyond business hours. John Rawn had never studied to play

in any social rôle. Did he need counsel in any social situation, she,

tactfully hesitant and modest, always was ready to tell him what he

should do, what others should do. Had he an appointment, it was she

who reminded him of it, and it was she who had made it. Were there

personal bills to pay, it was she who paid them. She presided over his

personal bank account, and there was no hour when she could not have

named the dollars and cents in his balance. Did he wish to avoid an

unwelcome visitor, it was arranged for him delicately and without

offense. Little by little, she had become indispensable, both in a

business and a social way--a fact which John Rawn did not fully

realize, but which she knew perfectly well. It had never been within

her plan to be anything less than that. She knew, although he did not,

that John Rawn also was indispensable to her.

Rawn came from no social station himself, and as we have seen, had

grown up ignorant of conventional life, so that now he remained

careless of it, as had he originally. He made it matter of routine now

that this young woman should attend in all his visits to the East in

business matters--where, in short, he could not have got along without

her. There was talk over this--unjust talk--and much amused comment on

the fact that the two seemed so inseparable. Rawn did not know or note

it. They literally were running together, hunting in couple in the

great chase of ambition. Few knew now what the salary of the

president's private secretary represented in round figures. Certainly

she dressed as a lady. Certainly also she comported herself as one.

It was, in the opinion of John Rawn, no one's business that he

registered himself at the New York hotels, and either did not register

his companion at all, or else contented himself with the wholly

descriptive word "Lady" opposite the number of the room whose bills he

told the clerk to charge to his account.

VI

Never was there the slightest ground for suspicion of actual

impropriety between John Rawn and Miss Delaware. Abundance of bad

taste there certainly was, for Rawn, without explanation or apology to

any, always ate in company of his assistant, was constantly seen with

her on the streets, at the opera, the play. He showed, in short, that

he found her society wholly agreeable upon every possible occasion. If

this was in bad taste, if many or most, in the usual guess, put it at

the point of impropriety, John Rawn gave himself no concern. The Rawn

aristocracy began in him. He founded it, was its Charlemagne, its

William the Conqueror, as ruthless, as regardless of others, as

selfish, as megalomaniac as the best of kings. Here, therefore, were

two aristocrats! They ran well in couple.

It is not to be supposed that a girl so shrewd as Virginia Delaware

could fail to realize the full import of all this. She let the slings

and arrows fall upon the buckler of her perfect dignity and her perfect

beauty, but she felt their impact. She was perfectly in hand, knew

perfectly well her mind, knew perfectly well the price she must pay.

She let matters take their course, knowing that they were advancing

safely and surely in one direction, that which she desired. She was

more skilled in human nature than her employer, saw deeper into a man's

heart than he had ever looked into a woman's!

And then, at last, the life schedule of Virginia Delaware was verified.

At last, the inevitable happened.

VII

On one of these many trips to New York, Miss Delaware had been alone in

her apartments at the hotel for most of the afternoon. In the evening,

before the dinner hour, she was summoned to meet Mr. Rawn in one of the

hotel parlors. At once she noted his suppressed excitement. He scarce

could wait until they were alone, in a far corner of the room, before

explaining to her the cause.

"I don't like to say this, Miss Delaware," he began, "but I've got to

do it!"

"What do you mean, Mr. Rawn?" she replied in her usual low and clear

tones.

"There's been talk!"

"Talk? About what?"

"Us!"

"About us? What can you mean, Mr. Rawn?" she asked.

"The world is so confoundedly small, my dear girl, that it seems

everything you do is known by everybody else. Of course, a man like

myself is in the public eye; but we've always minded our business, and

it ought not to have been anybody else's business beyond that."

"You disturb me, Mr. Rawn! What has happened?"

"--But now, to-night, now--just a little while ago--I met this fellow

Ackerman--you know him--big man in the company--used to be general

traffic manager down in St. Louis, on the old railroad where I

began--well, he was drunk, and he talked."

"What could he say?"

"He got me by the coat collar and proceeded to tell me how much--how

much--well, to tell the truth, he connected your name and mine. If he

wasn't drunk--and a director--I'd go down there yet and smash his face

for him! What business was it of his? Of course, men don't mind such

things so much. But when it comes to you--why, my dear girl!"

VIII

The truth has already been stated regarding John Rawn; that,

batrachian, half-dormant for almost half a century, and then putting

into business what energy most men put into love and sex, he had passed

a life of singular innocence, or ignorance, as to womankind. He had

never countenanced much gossip about women, because he had little

interest in the topic. The _grande passion_ marks most of us for its

own now and again, or is to be feared now and again; but the _grande

passion_ had passed by John Rawn. He was now approaching fifty years

of age. Married he had been, and divorced; but he had not yet been in

love.

He now spoke to his like, his mate in the hunt, of the opposite sex, a

young woman who at that very moment was as beautiful a creature as

might have been found on all Manhattan, a woman known in all Manhattan

now as the mysterious "Lady of the Lightnings," the goddess of the

stock certificates of one of the most mammoth American corporations, a

creature over whom Manhattan's most critical libertines were

crazed--and helpless; moreover, a woman who, out of all those in the

great _caravanserai_ at that moment, might as well as any have been

chosen as the very type of gentle breeding and of gentle womanhood

alike. But she had not yet been in love.

IX

"I don't understand, Mr. Rawn," repeated she slowly. "What possible

ground could Mr. Ackerman have had? You surely don't think he could

have spoken to any one else?"

"I wouldn't put that past Ackerman when he's drunk. If he'd talk to

me, he would to others. And you know perfectly well that when talk

begins about a woman, it never stops!"

"No, that is the cruel part of it."

Her voice trembled just enough, her eyes became just sufficiently and

discreetly moist; she choked a little, just sufficiently.

"It is cruel," she said, with a pathetic little sigh, "but the hand of

every man seems to be against a woman. Did you ever stop to think, Mr.

Rawn, how helpless, how hopeless, we really are, we women?"

He flung himself closer upon the couch beside her, his face troubled,

as she went on with her gentle protest.

"All my life I've done right as nearly as I knew, Mr. Rawn. Perhaps I

was wrong in coming to trust so much to you--to depend on you so much.

It all seemed so natural, that I've just let matters go on, almost

without any thought. I've only been anxious to do my work--that was

all. But this cruel talk about us--well--it can have but one end. I

must go."

"Go? Leave _me_? You'll do nothing of the sort! I'll take care of

this thing myself, I say--I'll stand between you and all that sort of

talk."

"Mr. Rawn, I don't understand you."

X

They sat close together on this brocaded couch among many other

brocaded couches. Crystal and color and gilt and ivory were all about

them; pictures, works of art in bronze and marble and costly

porcelains. The air was heavy with fragrance, dripping with soft

melody of distant music. She was beautiful, a beautiful _young_ woman.

He caught one glance into her wide, pathetic eyes ere she turned and

bent her head. He caught the fragrance of her hair--that strange

fragrance of a woman's hair. Dejected, drooping as she sat, her hands

clasped loosely in her lap, he could see the bent column of her

beautiful white neck, the curve of her beautiful shoulders, white,

flawless.

The flower on her bosom rose and fell in her emotion. She was a woman.

She was beautiful. She was young. Something subtle, powerful,

mysterious, stole into the air.

She was a woman!

Suddenly this thought came to John Rawn like a sudden blow in the face.

It came in a sense hitherto unknown to him in all his life. Now he

understood what life might be, saw what delight might be! He saw now

that all along he had admired this girl and only been unconscious of

his admiration. God! what had he lost, all these years! He, John

Rawn, had lived all these years, and _had not loved_!

He reached out timidly and touched her round white arm, to attract her

attention. She flinched from him a trifle, and he also from her. Fire

ran through his veins as from a cup of wine, heady and strong. He was

a boy, a young man discovering life. The glory of life, the reason,

had been here all this time, and he had not suspected it. What deed

for pity had been wrought! He, John Rawn, never before had known what

love might be! He was the last man on Manhattan to go mad over

Virginia Delaware.

She drew back from, him, seeing the flush upon his face, color rising

to her own. Indeed, the power of the man, his sudden vast passion,

were not lost upon her, different as he was from the idol of a young

girl's dreams. But Virginia Delaware saw more than the physical image

of this man beside her. She knew what he had to share, what power,

what wealth, what station. She knew well enough what John Rawn could

do; and she gaged her own value to him by the flush on his face, the

glitter in his eye.

For one moment she paused. For one moment heredity, the way of her own

people, had its way. For one moment she saw another face, different

from this flushed and corded one bent near. It was for but a moment;

then ambition once more took charge of her soul and her body alike.

XI

The net was thrown. Silently, gently, she tightened its edges with the

silken cords. He loved her. The rest was simple. She saw the world

unrolling before her like a scroll. All else was but matter of detail.

Above all, she exulted in her strength at this crucial moment. She

knew that love is dangerous for a woman, always had feared, as any

woman may, that love might sweep her away from her own safe moorings.

She rejoiced now to see this danger past, rejoiced to find her pulses

cool and even, her voice under control, herself mistress of herself.

She did not love him.

But she drew back now apparently startled, apprehensive. "We must go,

Mr. Rawn," she said; and would have risen.

He put out a hand, almost rude in its vehemence. "You shall not go!

I've got to tell you. Sit down! Listen! We'll separate in one way,

yes. You're done now with your clerking days for ever. But you're

going to be my wife. I want you; and, by God, I love you!"

His voice rose until she was almost alarmed. She looked about in real

apprehension. She turned, to see John Rawn's face convulsed, suffused,

his protruding lower lip trembling, his eyes almost ready to burst into

tears. She might almost have smiled, so easily was it all done for

her. Yet this baker's daughter dared to make no mistake in a situation

such as this!

"Mr. Rawn," she began, casting down her eyes, although she allowed him

to retain her hand, "what can you mean? Surely you must be in jest.

Have you no regard for a poor girl who is trying to make her way in the

world? I've done my best--and now--"

"Make your way in the world! What do you mean? It's made _now_! Look

down the list as far as you like. Is there anywhere you want to go?

Is there anything you want to do? Can you think of anything I'll not

get for you? Look at your neck, your hands--you've worn those jewels

almost ever since you selected them, and no one else has, though I told

you once there was a string to them. There's no string to them now.

The first time you wore them, down there in the dining-room, below, I

told you they were not yours, that they were only loaned to you for one

night, that we were only both of us masquerading, trying ourselves out!

I told you then you'd do; but I didn't know what I meant. I don't

believe I loved you then, although now it seems I always have. I know

I always will. Those things are nothing--you shall have everything you

want--handfuls of jewels. There's nothing you want to do that you

shall not do. You can't dream of anything that I'll not get for you!

You were made for me in every way in the world--every little way, as

I've come to know, little by little, all this time. But now, to-night,

it's all come over me at once. I don't know that I planned, when I

came here, to do more than to stand between you and talk!

But--this--caught me all at once, I don't know how. It's the truth

before God! I never loved a woman before now--I didn't know what it

was. Virginia--Jennie--girl--I love you! We're going to be married

to-morrow!"

"Mr. Rawn," she said, her voice trembling, "I must ask you to consider

well before you make any mistake--a mistake which would mean everything

for--for me. You have no right to jest."

"I'll show you who's in earnest!" he retorted, his hand cruelly hard on

her wrist as he forced her back into the seat. "We'll go home from

here as man and wife, that's what we'll do. We'll go from the train,

not to the office, but to Graystone Hall. I'll find a preacher in the

morning here. It's wonderful! I love you! If they want to talk,

we'll give them something to talk _about_! Let them come to the Little

Church Around the Corner--to-morrow--and see _us_, you and me!"

He had both her hands in his large ones now, and was looking into her

eyes, intoxicated, mad. She leaned just gently toward him. Forgetful

of their situation, he caught her in his arms, and kissed her full.

XII

"Mr. Rawn, how could you!" she said at last, softly, seeking to

disengage her hand. "It's like a dream! I have worked so hard, so

long. Life has had so little for me!"

"But you love me--you can?" he demanded.

"Oh, Mr. Rawn!" she said, lifting her eyes to his face, then gently

turning them aside.

"You do--you have--tell me! Confess it!"

She laughed now, ripplingly, her color rising, and at least was spared

that instance of her perjury. John Rawn accepted it as her oath.

They parted after a time, she scarce remembered how, he to a couch

which knew no sleep, she to one that long remained untouched.

In her own room Virginia Delaware stood for a long time before her

mirror, in silent questioning of herself, her brows just drawn into a

faint vertical frown. At last she nodded approvingly, satisfied that

she would do. A wave of sensuousness, of delight in her own triumph,

swept across her. She stood straight, swung back her shoulders, gazed

at the superb image in the glass through half-shut eyes. There was no

question of it! She was a very beautiful woman, stately, gracious--and

aristocratic. So. It was done. She had won. She caught glimpses of

the jewels blazing at her throat. She removed them and tossed them

lightly on the dresser top as she turned to call for her maid.

"Madam is very beautiful to-night," ventured that tactful creature when

at last she had performed her closing duties for the day.

Virginia Delaware looked down upon her with the amused tolerance of the

superior classes.

"You may perhaps find a little silver on the dresser, maid," said she

graciously.

END OF BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

CHAPTER I

THE ROYAL PROGRESS OF MR. AND MRS. RAWN

I

So they were married. Graystone Hall at last had a mistress worthy of

its architect and decorator when--love and affection and other good

considerations moving thereto, as the law hath it--the new Mrs. Rawn

moved into the place of the old Mrs. Rawn. Thereafter matters went at

least as merry as most marriage bells celebrating the nuptials of

middle age and youth, of wealth and beauty.

As Mr. Rawn had spent a million dollars to free himself from one wife,

he seemed willing to spend much more in the process of taking on

another. It became current rumor that the one great diamond show of

the western city was Virginia Rawn. The sobriquet, "The Lady of the

Lightnings," passed from New York to Chicago and became permanent

there. Not that that lady delighted in display; but there were

occasional operatic or theatrical events which demanded compliance with

her husband's wishes, in which event she blazed almost better than the

best.

But, gradually, she showed the tastes of the aristocrat, as alien to

vulgar display as to crude manners. Gradually the tone, color,

atmosphere, of Graystone Hall began to change. The porcelains which

Virginia Rawn purchased were not large and gorgeous, but a connoisseur

would have called them worthy. The vast and brilliantly framed

paintings came down one by one, and one by one masterpieces went up,

selected by one who knew. The walks, the grounds, took on simpler and

cleaner lines. Rawn of the International got a new credit as a person

of taste. He was accepted as a collector, a patron of the arts, a

connoisseur, in fact, yet more a worthy and a rising citizen.

The hospitality of Mr. Rawn's mansion house also now increased

perceptibly, and, delighted that at last numbers came to see him, Mr.

Rawn at first did not analyze those numbers very closely. Even the

fastidious, many of whom came to be amused, were unanimous in the

feeling that Mr. Rawn's house, its furnishings, its decorations, its

pictures, its works of art, its hospitality also, were beyond reproach.

The trace of _gaucherie_ was gone. The spirit of the place was

delicately reserved, dignified, yet well assured. The seal of approval

was placed upon Graystone Hall. Who, indeed, should smile at the man

who had made so meteoric a rise, who had by a few years of labor become

master of this mansion, its furnishings and its mistress? Who, upon

the other hand, might smile at that mistress, whose appearance upon the

front page of the leading journals of the city became now a matter of

course--a lady of such reserved tastes as led her to forsake the larger

marts, and to set the seal of fashionable approval upon a little

florist, a little modiste, a little milliner all her own--even a little

surgeon hither-to unknown, who honored a little hospital and made it

fashionable, by taking there this distinguished patient for a little

operation?

II

Rawn himself expanded in all this social success. He saw doors

hitherto closed, opening before him, saw his future unrolling before

him also like a scroll. A hundred times a week he walked to his young

wife, caught her in his arms, uxoriously infatuated with her youth, her

beauty, her aplomb, her fitness for this life which he had chosen. For

once he almost forgot to regard himself as a collector of beautiful

objects, although the truth was that his wife, Virginia, became more

beautiful each day, more superb of line, more calmly easy in air, more

nearly faultless of garb and demeanor. She took her place easily and

surely among the young matrons of the wealthier circles of the western

city. Whereas thousands of auto-cars had passed by Graystone Hall and

only a dozen stopped, scores now, of the largest, drove up its winding

walks and halted at its doors. The dearest dream of both seemed

realized. The hunt in couple had won! They had gained what they

desired; that is to say, self-indulgence, ease, idleness, adulation,

freedom from care. What more is there to seek? And is not this

America?

Gradually John Rawn had been losing the rusticity which had accompanied

him well up to middle age. The city now began to leave its imprint.

The waistcoat of Mr. Rawn gradually attained a curve unknown to it in

earlier years, so that his watch fob now hung in free air when he stood

erect. His face was perhaps more florid, his hair certainly more gray.

His skin remained fresh and clean, and always he was well-groomed,

having the able assistance of his wife now in the selection of his

tailoring, as well as her coaching in social usage. They always looked

their part. At morning, at noon, or at dewy eve, in any assemblage or

any chance situation, they both played in the rôle assigned to them in

their own ambitions. Born of environment wholly unconventional, they

now took on that of conventionality as though born to that instead.

You could not have found a more perfect type of respectability than

John Rawn, a more absolutely valid exemplar of good social form than

his wife, Virginia. All things prospered under their magic touch, the

genii of the lamp seemed theirs. No problems remained for them to

solve. They had in their own belief attained what may be attained in

American life, and they were happy. Or, that is to say, they should at

least have been happy, if their theory of life and success, and of

those like to theirs, be correct. At least they were what they

were--products of a wonderful country which makes millionaires

overnight and produces out of bakeries women of one generation fit to

be the wives of princes born of forty kings.

III

We are, some of us at least, accustomed to worship such as these as

they ride by upon the high car of success, accustomed to envy and to

emulate them. If that vehicle be the car of Juggernaut, crushing under

its wheels multitudes of those who worship, it is no concern of those

who sit aloft. For a long time Mr. Rawn and his wife remained ignorant

of the fact that one victim under the wheels of their success was none

other than Mr. Rawn's daughter, Grace.

Alas! for that young lady. She unfortunately had been now for almost a

year an aspirant in her own right to a seat upon the car of ease and

luxury; yet here she saw herself swiftly supplanted, and worse than

that, swiftly forgotten! Her year of quasi-place and power had left

her unwilling to return to her own humble home. She remained on at

Graystone Hall, now rarely visited by her husband. She found herself

calmly accepted, yet calmly neglected as well. Very naturally she

hated the new Mrs. Rawn with all her soul; a hatred which that lady

repaid with nothing better than a straight look into Grace's dark eyes,

a look innocent, calm, and wholly fearless. Grace must now see the

very jewels her own mother should have worn, blazing at the neck and

hands of her stepmother; must see that lady taking assuredly and as of

right, what Grace could now never ask or expect for herself. With an

unapproachable and wholly hateful air of distinction and good breeding

which rankled most of all in crude Mrs. Halsey's heart, Virginia Rawn

sat high on the car of Juggernaut; and the car of Juggernaut passed on.

In pride and delight over his young wife, John Rawn really forgot his

daughter. The young new wife did the same, or appeared to do so.

IV

John Rawn had told the truth to his wife when first he had declared his

sentiments toward her--he never before that time really had known love,

or at least had not known infatuated love such as that he felt for her.

He exulted in the vistas of delight which he saw before them, fancying

them endless. The very sight of his wife, cool, faultless,

self-possessed, haughty, filled him with a sense of his own importance,

making him feel that he was one of God's chosen. She was his, he had

found her, discovered her, collected her. She was his to put upon a

pedestal, to admire, to display, to worship, to load down with jewels.

He had something now which other men coveted and envied. He flaunted

his ownership of such a woman in their faces. What more can a rich man

do than that same? Is that not the dream and test of power--to secure

what others may not have, to secure special privileges in this life?

And is not the quest of beauty the first business of him who has

attained power? Of all these special privileges which had come to John

Rawn so swiftly in these late rapid years, none so delicately and

warmly filled his heart as that of being able to call Virginia Rawn his

own. Why blame him? The sultans of thirty or forty generations have

devised nothing better than this test of power.

John Rawn, with all properly aristocratic leanings toward sultanry,

lacked certain elements of sultanhood in strength, but had others in

weakness. He did not know that in reality he was in the hands of a

stronger nature than his own. "She's got him jumping through hoops,"

was the comment of one young man. "He'll sit up and bark whenever she

gives the word!" But Rawn did not know that he was barking and

jumping, his tongue hanging out excitedly. In all his mental pictures

of himself he fancied himself to be a figure of dignity, of strength,

indeed of majesty.