MEANS TO AN END
I
"Well, he's gone, then?"
Rawn turned toward his wife a face years older than it had been an hour
ago, a face haggard and lined, pasty in color. His bitter agitation
was evident in his voice, in his expression, in the stoop of his
shoulders--in a score of signs not usual with him. Virginia was even
more noncommittal than her wont as she faced him. Grace had
disappeared.
"What did you do--how did you handle him, Jennie?" he began--"you were
talking for over an hour there! Did you manage to hold things
together--will he let up?"
She faced him full now, as he stood in the blaze of the electric lights
in the interior of the house, where Halsey had left her, in the chair
from which she had not moved since his departure. Every delicate,
clear-cut feature was fully visible now. Her lips just parted to show
the double row of her white teeth in a faint smile. Her chin was a
trifle up, her head high.
"He will wait a little while," she answered quietly. "At least, I
think so."
"Good! Fine! I knew you'd do it, Jennie! You're a wonder!--I don't
think there's a woman in all the world like you!" He advanced toward
her.
"Don't paw me over!" she exclaimed, drawing back.
"Well, now, then--I only meant--"
"I don't want to talk," she said. "He's gone, yes, and he'll not do
anything for a little while, I think. It's enough for to-night--I'm
tired. This has been a horrible evening for me. I never thought to
see a time like this!"
"Horrible for all of us!" exclaimed John Rawn. "That man took
advantage of me out there--I ought to have wrung his neck for him, and
I would have done it if it hadn't been for you two women. Of course,
we don't want scenes if they can be avoided, for there's no telling
what talk might run into if it got out. But just the same, Jennie,
don't you see--" and his face assumed a still more anxious look--"he
can ruin us all whenever he gets ready, and he's wise enough to know
that. I can't do anything with him now. Something's gone wrong with
him, and I don't know what!"
II
"No, you don't know what," she said slowly. "I don't think you in the
least imagine what!"
"Do you, then?" he demanded. "If you do, why don't you tell? Do you
know that everything we've got in the world is up at stake on this? He
can kill my credit, he can split this company wide open, he can break
me in spite of all. See what he's done in return for what I've done
for him! Sometimes I wonder if there's such a thing as honor left in
the world!"
"So! Do you?" She rose now, and would have left him.
"Well, I want to talk this over with you. Please, Jennie. Sit down,"
he said. "Tell me what you said. I want to know where things are, so
I can act to-morrow--or maybe even before to-morrow. You don't realize
what a hole I'm in."
"What did I say to him?" she repeated, looking down at her wrists.
"Nothing very much. I told him if he went on he'd ruin us all; that it
wasn't right for him to do it. I told him we wanted him--I wanted
him--to wait--for my sake."
"For your sake?"
"Yes, I did," she answered calmly. "I said that."
"It was best!" he cried, rising and walking up and down excitedly.
"What a mind you have, Jennie--what a woman you are! Where'd I be
without you, I wonder now? Why, of course, that was the way! Any man
will do anything that _you_ tell him to, especially a young man--of
course, of course!"
"Thank you," she commented coldly; "thank you very much."
III
He sought to put a consoling or an explanatory hand on her shoulder,
but she shook him off, shivering.
"I don't mean anything," he began confusedly. "Get me straight, now.
I only wanted to say that when you work for me in this you are working
for your own sake also. It's all up to you, Jennie, right now. If you
can't land him, we're gone--it's no use my trying to do anything with
him. Do you know, I'm _going to send you out after him_."
"Send me out?"
"Yes; things have to be done the best way they can be done. That
fellow can say one word which'll ruin us in one day's time. He can
break the values in International more than we can mend in months. Our
men would begin to cover as soon as they caught a hint that anything
was really wrong. As for me, I'm spread out for millions in the
general market. If they began to hammer me I couldn't come through--I
wouldn't last a week. The thing to do is to keep this news safe until
I can protect myself--until I can protect us all. Now it's you,
Jennie, that's got to do that--it's you! I'm sending you out after
him."
"I always thought, Mr. Rawn," said she, "that you played a dangerous
game, so long as you simply trusted that he'd do anything you told him."
"Yes, I see it now. But he always was odd--he always held something
back. I tell you, he's crazy! Now, he's either just crazy over his
fool Socialist ideas, or else he's going to hold out for a squeeze. In
the first case you can handle him. In the second, I can.
"You see--I couldn't tell our directorate," he went on; "but there was
always something lacking which I couldn't handle myself. _We_ need
him, and we've got to have him! You can get him, I know you can. You
can do anything you like. You're wonderful!"
She sat and looked at him, her lips still parted in the same enigmatic
smile which he did not like to see; but she made no answer.
"What's wrong with him?" he went on immediately. "What does he _say_
is the trouble, anyway? And is it the truth that he's got the overhead
current?"
She nodded. "Of course, I know something about it from my work in the
office. Yes, he told me that he had done what you have all been trying
to do so long. He said he came over under power from the
overhead--just as he told you."
"He may be lying, for all we know. You can't look at a car and tell
where its charge came from. Electricity is electricity, to all intents
and purposes. What I want to know is, what he's got against us,
anyhow, Jennie?"
"Well, for one thing, he seemed troubled because Grace would not go
back with him. He seemed to think that you and the life you could give
her had been the reason for her abandoning him."
"Why, what nonsense! Grace hasn't abandoned him! And I only got her
over here because I needed her myself--before--well, before we were
married. Who was to take care of _me_, I'd like to know? And you say
he complains of _that_!"
"That was one of the things."
"But Grace would go back! She's none too well pleased now, since you
and I have taken charge here. She'd go back to Charley to-morrow if he
asked her--why, I'd _make_ him take care of her, of course. The
trouble with him is, he values his own personal affairs too much.
That's no way to begin in the business world. A man has to bend
everything to the one purpose of _success_. Look at me, for instance."
IV
She did look at him, calmly, coldly, without the tremor of an eyelid,
without raising a hand to touch him as he stood close by, without
indeed making any verbal answer. A slight shudder passed over her,
visible in the twitch of her shoulders.
"It's getting cooler!" he exclaimed. "I'll fetch a wrap for you." And
so hastened away, obsequious, uxorious, as he always was with her.
"But Charley never would take any counsel from anybody," resumed he
presently. "He's always been tractable enough, that's true; never
raised much of a disturbance until to-night--I don't see why he cut up
so ugly now. He's not crazy over Grace, and if the truth be told,
Grace isn't the sort of girl that a man _would_ get crazy over. You're
that sort."
"Perhaps not," she smiled faintly. "Just the same, Grace's attitude
may have started him to thinking. When he began thinking he seemed to
conclude that all the world was wrong."
"And he's starting in to set it right! He's going in for the uplift
stunt, eh? That's the way with a lot of these reformers! They want to
set the world right according to their own ideas. They don't pay any
attention to the men who keep them from starving. I _made_ that
boy--what he's got he owes to me."
"Indeed! How singular! He says that it's just the other way about;
that what you have you took from him! He says you want to take
more--more than your share--from things that belong to everybody."
"What's that! What's that! Well, now, of all the insane idiocy I ever
heard! Good God, what next! Him, Charles Halsey, the man I brought up
with me! Jennie, I never heard the like of that in all my time."
"But if that's the way he feels, now's not the time to argue that with
him!"
"But, good God, the effrontery--"
"All the world is full of effrontery, Mr. Rawn," she said--continuing
to address him formally, as she always did. "It's buy and sell.
Everything we get we pay for in one way or another. Even if we took
power out of the air by our overhead motors, we'd pay for that, one way
or another--nothing comes from nothing--we pay, we pay all the time,
Mr. Rawn!"
"_You_ don't need to go into theories and generalizations," said he
testily. "We've had enough of that from him. We are both practical.
You simply get that man and bring him back into the fold, that's all!
Do your share."
V
"My share? It's easy, isn't it?" She smiled at him again annoyingly.
"But you can do it?"
"Yes, I can do it. But I can't evade the truth I just told you. I'd
have to pay. You'd have to pay."
"We're beggars, and can't choose," said John Rawn savagely. "Besides,
there's no harm done--I'm not asking you to do anything improper,
anything to compromise yourself--but _get_ him, that's all! And when
we've got him in hand--when I know what I want to know--I'll wring him
dry and throw him on the scrap heap. That's what I'll do with him!"
"Yes, I think you would," she said.
"It's the only right thing to do," Rawn fumed. "He'll get what's
coming to him. He's been throwing down his one best friend."
"Are there any best friends in business, Mr. Rawn?" she asked.
"Of course there are. Haven't I been a friend to him; haven't I got a
lot of friends of my own?"
"What would they do for you to-morrow, Mr. Rawn?"
"Well, that's a different matter; they might take care of themselves--I
would take care of myself. But this fool here that I'm asking you to
handle isn't taking care of himself or any one else. He's crazy,
that's all about him! Did he hand you out any of this talk about the
rights of man? I more than half suspect him of sympathizing with these
labor unions. He's a Socialist at heart, that's what he is!"
She nodded her head a little. "Names don't make much difference in
such matters."
VI
"Isn't it a funny thing," he rejoined, turning to her in his walk,
"that the very men who have failed, the very ones who most need help
themselves, are the ones who are out to help everybody else! The blind
always want to lead the blind! These labor unions depend on us for
their daily bread and butter, yet they want to fight us all the time.
There's no trust in this country so big as the labor trust, and there's
no ingratitude in the world like that of the laboring man's.
"Why, look at me, Jennie--you know something of my plans. This very
month I was going to put fifty thousand dollars more into my
cooperative farm in the South, a thing I have been working out for the
benefit of my laboring people. I'm going to do more than old Carnegie
has done! You and I ought to have set up some kind of prizes,
medals--start some sort of hero competition. Helping colleges is old,
and so are libraries old. I don't place myself any station back of
Rockefeller himself. The Rockefeller Foundation was a great idea.
Just wait! I'll raise him out of the game! When I get all my plans
made, they'll speak of John _Rawn_ when they mention philanthropy!
"And just to think, Jennie," he went on excitedly, "that all such big
plans as that, plans for the good of humanity, should come to nothing!
To be held up and handicapped by the folly of a man who has never been
able to do anything for himself or any one else! It makes me sick to
think of it. He claims to be a friend of the laboring people, and here
he's tying the hands of the greatest friend of the laboring men in this
town to-day--myself, _John Rawn_, standing here! Why, if I'd hand this
country the John Rawn Foundation for industrial assistance, all thought
out, all financed, all ready to go to work to-morrow, that crazy fool
there, with his Socialist ideas, would block it all. He's _going_ to
block it all.
"Now, it's up to you. You're the only one that can keep him from doing
that very thing. Don't you see, it isn't just you and me he's ruining.
It isn't himself he's ruining. He's going to hurt the whole _country_.
Jennie, there's a considerable responsibility on you to-night. Where
he is wrong is in thinking that the weak can help the weak. It's the
other way about--it's the strong that can help--Power!--that's what
counts! It's for you to show him that. Jennie, girl--it's not so much
myself. But think of your country."
"Yes," she nodded, "that's precisely it!"
"But he didn't affect you in the least, Jennie--he didn't get _you_
going with that kind of foolishness."
"I never heard any one talk just as he did, before," said she slowly.
"You see, I hadn't thought of these things myself, for I'm only a
woman. He said that all this power, taken from the hills and the
forests and the air and the rivers, belongs to _everybody_--to all the
world--"
"But he didn't impress _you_ with that nonsense, Jennie?"
"He said things--I told him that I'd never thought of life just that
way. And I haven't, Mr. Rawn. I told him, as I admit to you, that I
hadn't thought of anybody much but myself--I just tried to climb. I
think all women do."
"It's right they should, it's the only way. Selfishness is the one
great cause of the world's progress, my dear."
"Well, I told him that his way of thinking was so new to me, that I
needed time to think it over."
"But you didn't believe a word he said--you never would!"
VII
"Mr. Rawn," said she, looking him full in the face, "we've both of us
climbed pretty fast. I always put my family out of memory all I could.
But somehow I seem to recollect that my father used to talk of things a
good deal as Mr. Halsey does. I begin to realize what I told you a
while ago--no matter how or where we climb, we pay for what we get,
sometime, somewhere, somehow!
"But listen," she leaned toward him with some sudden access of emotion.
"I can do this much! I'll agree to bring in Charley Halsey, bound hand
and foot! You can throw him and me, too, on the scrap heap when the
time comes! It's a game. I'll play it. I'll take my chance." She
half rose, thrilling, vibrant.
"I knew you would, Jennie."
"Yes, but you'll have to pay."
"Have I ever said I wouldn't? Didn't I just get done telling him I'd
make him rich the minute he said the word?"
"It doesn't seem to be money he wants. I--don't--believe--that's what
the pay would have to be."
"What do you mean? You're getting too deep for me now. I'm only a
plain man, my girl!"
She smiled at him, still enigmatic, still cool and calm, still almost
insolent, as she often was with him. "He's been talking all sorts of
folly about getting things in tune--getting gravitation in tune with
labor--all sorts of abstractions. Well, don't you see, if I got in
tune with his notions, I might be able to influence him!"
Rawn grew cold and hard. "There's one thing we can't do, Jennie," said
he. "We can't side in with any of his socialistic talk. What _he_
wants to do is to give to the people of this country for nothing what
this International Power Company is planning to _sell_ them for ever.
What _we_ want is monopoly! I've been gambling everything I've got on
the certainty of that monopoly. I'm in soak, in hock, up to my eyes on
the market, this minute. I'm margined to the full extent of my credit.
The biggest men of America are back of me. I'll be rich if this thing
goes through--one of the richest men in America. But I'd almost rather
lose it all than to see you side in with him, or listen for five
minutes to his rotten talk about the 'rights of man.' There _are_ no
rights of man except what each man can take for himself! As for him,
I'd kill him, or get him killed, if I knew first how he got that
current through the receivers. Give me that, and I'll let the rights
of man wait a while. I'll show them a thing or two!
"But of course," he added, frowning again in helpless perturbation,
"we've got to get him in hand. Grace couldn't do it."
"No; on the contrary. I can--if I pay!"
"_Then pay!_" he snarled suddenly, his voice harsh, half choking.
"What's the price--nothing worth mentioning. But it's got to be paid,
no matter what it is. We're caught, and we're squeezed! We've got to
pay, _no matter what it is_, Jennie!"
"Is it no matter to you, Mr. Rawn?"
"How can it be? I'm almost crazy to-night! Do it, that's all, and
draw on me to the limit!"
"To the limit, Mr. Rawn?"
"_To the limit!_" He looked her straight in the eye, and she met his
gaze fully. She shivered slightly again, but her delicately clean-cut
face showed no further sign. Only she shivered, and pulled her wrap a
trifle closer about her shoulders.
"Very well," she said. "I may have to draw on you--and myself, too."
"It's all in the game, Jennie--we've got to play it together--we're two
of the same sort--we've got to climb, to succeed. We run well
together. One must help the other's hand."
"Yes, it's a game," she answered; and so rose, and left him without
further word.
VIII
John Rawn followed her up the stair, mumbling some sort of conjugal
affection, but she left him at the landing and passed toward her own
apartments down the hall, giving him hardly even a look of farewell.
He followed her with his eyes, standing a little time, his hand resting
on the lintel of his own door.
Alone, Rawn seated himself in the Elizabethan armchair devised by his
most favored decorator as fitting for this Elizabethan room. A vast
oak bed, heavily carved, with deep and heavy curtains, represented the
decorator's idea of what the Virgin Queen preferred. The walls were
deeply carved in wainscot and cornice. A rude attempt was made at
strength and simplicity in this, the sanctum of the master of Graystone
Hall. Granted the aid of a lively imagination, this might have been
the apartment of some feudal lord of another day; as the designer and
architect had not failed delicately to suggest to Mr. Rawn.
It is possible that in the time of Elizabeth pier glasses with heavily
carved frames were not common in the size affected by Mr. Rawn in his
private apartment. He stood before the great glass now and gazed at
what he saw; a face haggard and lined, shoulders stooping a little
forward, body a little stooped, a little heavy, a little soft; the
watch charm hanging in free air--the figure of a man no longer
athletic, if ever so.
Rawn stood engaged in his regular nightly devotions--he made no prayers
of eventide beyond that to his mirror. But now something he saw caused
him to fling himself into a seat at a smaller glass, where the light
was better. He gazed into this also, intently. Something seemed
strange about his eyes, about his mouth. He turned his face slightly
sidewise and studied the deep triangular lines at the corner of the
chin. He saw a roll of fat at the back of his neck, and observed a
certain throatiness, a voluminousness of flesh below the chin. The
latter stood out distinct, pushing forward;--the rich man's chin, the
old man's chin. He lifted a finger and touched the arteries on his
temples. They were firmer to the touch than once they had been. He
looked at the veins on his hands, and realized that they stood fuller
than was once the case. His nose, large, just a trifle bulbous, seemed
to him to have gained somewhat in color in late years. He looked at
his eyes in eager questioning. Yes, they belonged to him! But for
some reason they lacked brilliance and fire. They were colder, less
impressive, less responsive;--the rich man's eyes, the old man's eyes.
He looked at his hair, now almost white at the temples. He hesitated
for a moment, then picked up a hand glass and deliberately turned his
back to the mirror. Yes, it was there, a shiny spot of naked
epidermis. He knew that, but always he shunned the knowledge and the
proof. For many years his thick mane of wiry hair had been his pride.
John Rawn turned and put the hand mirror on the dresser top again. He
looked full into the glass at his image once more. His pendulous lower
lip drooped, tremulously. He saw his eyes winking. He saw something
else. Yes, to his wonder, to his gasping horror, he saw something
strange and revolutionary! A tear was standing in the corner of his
eye! It dropped, it trickled down his cheek.
John Rawn for the first time in his life was learning what the one game
is--and learning that time is the one winner in that one game! He was
old.