IX

"Well, it comes to this, then," said Virgilia. "We must give them

something definite--a fully outlined--_projet_; and we must give it to

them as soon as possible." She cleared away the ruck of evening papers

from the library table, sent her younger sister off with arithmetic and

geography to the dining-room, extracted a few sheets of monogrammed paper

from the silver stationery-rack close by, and turned on two or three more

lights in the electrolier overhead. "Now, then. We'll choke off that

foolish notion of theirs; we'll smother it before it has a chance to

mature."

She put a pen into Daffingdon's hand, with the open expectation of

immediate results. She herself always thought better with a pen in her

hand and a writing-pad under it; no doubt a painter would respond to the

same stimulus.

Daffingdon bit at the end of the penholder and made a dog-ear on the

topmost of the steel-gray sheets.

"Come," said Virgilia. "Whatever follies may have begun to churn in their

poor weak noddles, we will _not_ draw upon the early pages of the local

annals, we will not attempt to reconstruct the odious architecture of the

primitive prairie town. Come; there are twelve large lunettes, you say?"

"Yes."

"Well, now, just how shall we handle them?"

"I had thought of a general colour-scheme in umber and sienna; though

Giles's idea of shading the six on the left into purple and olive and the

six on the right into----"

"Dear me! Can we hope to impress Andrew P. Hill with any such idea as

that? No; we must have our theme, our subject--our series of subjects."

"I don't want to be simply pictorial," said Daffingdon reluctantly; "and

surely you can't expect me to let my work run into mere literature."

"They're business-men," returned Virgilia. "For our own credit--for our

own salvation, indeed--we must be clear-cut and definite. Even if we are

artists we mustn't give those hard-headed old fellows any chance to

accuse us of wabbling, of shilly-shallying. We must try to be as

business-like as they are. So let's get in our work--and get it in

first."

Daffingdon's eyes roamed the rugs, the hangings, the furniture. "'The

Genius of the City,'" he murmured vaguely, "'Encouraging--Encouraging'--"

"Yes, yes," spoke Virgilia, doing a little encouraging herself.

"Or, 'The--The Westward Star of Empire Illuminating the'----" proceeded

Daffingdon mistily, raising his eyes toward the electrolier.

"Yes, yes," responded Virgilia quickly, by way of further encouragement.

"Or--or--'The Triumphal March of Progress through Our'----" Daffingdon

confusedly dipped the wrong end of the penholder into the big sprawling

inkstand.

Virgilia's teeth began to feel for her lips, and her eyebrows to draw

themselves down in an impatient little frown of disappointment. Not

through "Our Midst," she hoped. What was the matter with her idol? What

had he done with all his fund of information? What had become of his

ideas, his imagination? She felt that if she were to approach a bit

closer to his pedestal and sound him with her knuckles he would be found

hollow. What a calamity in such a discovery! She put her hand behind her

back and kept her distance.

"'The Genius of the City,'" she mused; "'The Star of Empire.' Those might

do for single subjects but not for a general scheme. 'The March of

Progress '--that might be better as a broad working basis, although----"

She saw the "lady" seated on the cogged wheel beneath the factory chimney

and stopped.

"'The Prairie-Schooner'--'The Bridging of the Mississippi'--'The Last of

the Buffaloes'--' The Corner-Stones of New Capitols'----" pursued

Daffingdon brokenly.

"Would you care very much for that sort of thing?" asked Virgilia.

"No."

"Nor I. Come, let me tell you; I have it: 'The History of Banking in all

Ages'! There, what do you think of that?" she asked, rising with an air

of triumph.

Dill hesitated. "I don't believe I know so very much about the history of

banking."

"Don't you? But _I_ do--enough and more than enough for the present

purpose. Come, tell me, isn't that a promising idea? What a series it

would make!--so picturesque, so varied, so magnificent!"

Daffingdon looked up at his Egeria; her visible inspiration almost cowed

him. "Isn't that a pretty large theme?" he questioned. "Wouldn't it

require a good deal of thought and study----?"

"Thought? Study? Surely it would. But _I_ think and study all the time!

Let me see; where shall we begin? With the Jews and Lombards in England,

Think what you have!--contrast, costumes, situations, everything. Then

take the 'Lombards' in Italy itself; the founding of the earliest banks

in Venice, Lucca, Genoa, Florence; the glamour of it, the spectacularity

of it, the dealings with popes and with foreign kings! And there were the

Fuggers at Augsburg who trafficked with emperors: houses with those

step-ladder gables, and people with puffed elbows and slashed sleeves and

feathers of all colours in those wide hats. And then the way that kings

and emperors treated the bankers: Edward the Second refusing to repay his

Florentine loans and bringing the whole city to ruin; Charles the First

sallying out to the Mint and boldly appropriating every penny stored

there--plain, barefaced robbery. Then, later, the armies of Revolutionary

France pillaging banks everywhere--grenadiers, musketeers and cuirassiers

in full activity. Among others, the Bank of Amsterdam--the one that

loaned all those millions of florins to the East India Company. And that

brings in, you see, turbans, temples, jewels, palm-trees, and what not

besides----"

"So much trouble," breathed Daffingdon; "so much effort; such an expense

for costumes."

"And if you want to enlarge the scheme," pursued Virgilia, waiving all

considerations of trouble, effort and expense, "so as to include coining,

money-changing and all that, why, think what you have then! The brokers

at Corinth, the _mensarii_ in the Roman Forum. And think of the ducats

designed by Da Vinci and by Cellini! And all the Byzantine coins in

Gibbon--the student's edition is full of them! Why, there are even the

Assyrian tablets--you must have heard about the discovery of the records

of that old Babylonian bank. Think of the costumes, the architecture, the

square curled beards, the flat winged lions, and all. Why, dear me, I see

the whole series of lunettes as good as arranged for, and work laid out

for a dozen of you, or more!" cried Virgilia, as she pounced upon a sheet

of paper and snatched the pen from Dill.

"A dozen?" he murmured. "A hundred!"

"Nonsense!" she returned. "Four or five of you could manage it very

handily. You, and Giles, and----"

"The Academy would expect recognition," said Dill. "One of the professors

for a third. And somebody or other from the Warren, I suppose, for a

fourth."

"Three subjects apiece, then," said Virgilia. "Go in and win!--By the

way, did I mention Phidion of Argos? He was one of the primitive coiners.

And then there was Athelstane, who regulated minting among the early

Saxons...."

X

Dill passed out into the cool starry night to recover his breath and to

regain his composure. It was as if he had struggled through a whirlpool

or had wrenched himself away from the downpour of a cataract. Virgilia's

interest, her enthusiasm, her co-operation had reared itself above him

and toppled over on him just like a high, ponderous wall; the bricks

bruised him, the dust of scattered mortar filled his lungs and his eyes.

"Such a mind!" he thought; "such readiness; such a fund of information!"

Never before had anybody offered so panting, so militant a participation

in his doings. He doubted too whether Virgilia could ever have felt so

extreme an interest in the doings of any other man whomsoever. Certainly

it was a fair surmise that Richard Morrell, during the formative period

of the Pin-and-Needle Combine, had never so succeeded in enlisting her

sympathy and support,--otherwise she would not have turned him off in the

summary fashion that had kept society smiling and gossiping for a

fortnight.

As Daffingdon walked thoughtfully down the quiet street a deep sense of

gratitude stirred within him--he felt himself prompted to the most

chivalrous of acknowledgments. He saw himself taking her hand--with such

deliberation as to preclude any shock of surprise, and looking into her

eyes as ardently and earnestly as good taste would permit; and heard

himself saying, in a voice as tremulous with passion as the voice of a

well-bred gentleman could be allowed to become, such things as should

make quite unmistakable his appreciation of her qualities both as an

amateur and a woman. Certainly if this great undertaking went through he

should be able to say all that was in him and to maintain it to the last

word. She had turned a deaf ear to others, but there was reason to think

she might listen to him.

Then all at once the magnitude of the scheme rose before him; such a vast

expenditure of time on books of plates in libraries--and weeks and months

to be devoted to sketches, to compositions, to colour-schemes of this

sort and that; such a tremendous outlay for models, for costumes, for

multifarious accessories! But as Daffingdon gradually pulled himself

together, a comforting little sense of flattery came to soothe his

bruises and to clear his eyes. Yes, she believed in him. This brilliant

and learned young woman had impetuously placed her boundless stores of

erudition at his disposal; she had loaded the work of twenty men on his

shoulders and was confidently expecting him to carry off the whole vast

undertaking with jaunty ease. He must not fail. Fortunately, she was

willing to admit the co-operation of a few of his brother artists.

Dill laid her plan--their plan--before two or three of his own guild,

experimentally. They gaped at it as a plainsman would gape at the

Himalayas. Nor was it, as has been said, the smallest of mouthfuls to

himself. However, the distinguished assistance of a young woman of

fashion, means and cultivation was not a matter to hide under a bushel;

besides, some firm, concrete scheme must be put promptly before the Nine

Old Men of the Bank before they should have glued their desires

undetachably upon some crude, preposterous plan of their own.

"It would cost like smoke," said Giles, "but it's an idea."

"Let's try it on," said the Academy professor. "It would show us as on

deck and would help us to take their measure. Who knows but it might be

the means of staving off a series of medallion portraits of the board

themselves!"

"An idea, yes," reiterated Giles. "But it lays out a terrible lot of work

for us. Such a job would be enormous."

"Tackle it," said Abner Joyce. He claimed as a matter of course the right

to be present at such conferences. Joyce himself had the strength and the

pluck to tackle anything.

"Well, _let's_ try it on," assented Giles. "We've got to cut in first,

that's sure--if we can. Come, let's put out our feelers."

This was more or less in harmony with Virgilia's parting advice. "Show

them to themselves in historical perspective," she had suggested to Dill

in bidding him good-night at the front door,--"the last link in one long,

glittering chain. Flatter them; associate them with the Romans and

Venetians--bring in the Assyrians if need be. Tell them how the Bardi and

the Peruzzi ruled the roost in old Florence. Work in Sir Thomas Gresham

and the Royal Exchange--ruffs, rapiers, farthingales, Drake, Shakespeare

and the whole 'spacious' time of Elizabeth. Make them a part of the

poetry of it--make them a part of the picturesqueness of it. That will

bring Mr. Gibbons around easily enough, and ought to budge two or three

of the others."

Daffingdon took his great scheme to the bank, but it failed to charm.

Andrew P. Hill poked at Daffingdon's neatly drawn-up memorandum with a

callous finger and blighted it with an indifferent look out of a

lack-lustre eye. The _mensarii_ of Rome and the trapezites of Athens

seemed a long way off. The picturesque beginnings of the Bank of Genoa

left him cold. The raid of the Stuart king on the Tower mint appeared to

have very little to do with the case. And Jeremiah McNulty, who happened

to be about the premises, showed himself but slightly disposed to fan

Hill's feeble interest to a flame.

"This is not just what we want," said Hill. "It is not at all what any of

us had in mind. It is very little in accord, I must say, with the ideas I

gave you last week. I don't think it will do. Still, if you want to get

up some drawings to show about how it would come out, and bring them

around in a week or so...."

Daffingdon groaned inwardly; after all, they were wedded to their own

notion. He explained to them the unfairness of their proposal--detailing

the cost of models, the matter of draperies, the time required for study,

the labours and difficulties of composition. To do experimentally what

they were asking him to do would be to execute half the entire work on a

mere chance.

"Well, we won't buy a pig in a poke," said old Jeremiah sturdily. He was

now on the familiar chequered pavement of black and white and felt a good

deal at home. "We've got to see what we're going to pay for. That's

business."

"Never mind," said Andrew. "After all, we want something nearer to our

own time and closer to our own town. We want to show ourselves loyal to

the place where we've made our money. We want to put on record the humble

beginnings of this great metropolis. The early days of our own city are

plenty good enough for us."

"That's right," said Jeremiah. He saw himself a lusty young fellow of

twenty-five, the proud new head of a contractor's shop, with his own

lumber pile, a dozen lengths of sewer pipe, a mortar bed, a wheelbarrow

or two and a horse and cart. No need of going farther back than that.

Those early days were glorious and fully worthy to be immortalized.

"We want to make our new building talked about," said Hill. "We want

every daily paper in town, and throughout the whole country, to be full

of it. We want to make it an object of interest to every man, woman and

child in our own community. When the little boys and girls come down

Saturday morning to deposit their pennies--for we shall open a savings

department that will welcome the humblest--we want them to learn from our

walls the story of the struggles and the triumphs of their fathers' early

days----"

"That's right," said Jeremiah again. "If you had lived here as long as I

have, young man, you would understand that there's no need of going

outside our own bor-r-ders for anything we may require."

"Yes, a great deal of history has been transacted on this site," said

Hill,--"more than enough to meet the requirements of our present purpose.

I have here"--he opened a drawer in one side of his desk and drew out a

paper--"I have here a list of subjects that I think would do. Mr. McNulty

and I drew it up together. Take it and look it over; it might be an----"

A shadow darkened the door. It was another interruption from the Morrell

Twins. This time it was not Richard Morrell, but Robin, his brother. His

pocket bulged with what seemed to be papers of importance, and his face

signalled to Andrew P. Hill to clear the deck of lesser matters.

"--it might be an advantage to you," Andrew concluded. "This about

represents our ideas; see what you can do with it."

Andrew passed the paper over to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah passed it on to

Daffingdon with an expression of unalterable firmness and decision. "You

_must_ do something with this, if you are going to do anything for us at

all," his air said. "It's this or nothing. It is our own idea; we're

proud of it, and we insist upon it. Go."