Part 13

The whole trouble, it appeared, had arisen over the red carpet--the Bolshevist meeting not being able to understand why, if they were not allowed to display red flags in Madison Square, Mr. Torby should be allowed to display a carpet of exactly the same hue in Fifth Avenue. In the interests of pure logic, the participants in the late meeting decided to point out this inconsistency to the municipal authorities, by cutting the Torby's carpet into small pieces and carrying them away. A number of returned sailors and soldiers, who felt perhaps that to fight for a poor cause was better than not fighting at all, had decided to defend the carpet. The complete harmony of everyone was proved by the fact that when driven away by the police-reserves, both parties were soon jointly engaged in upsetting all the ash-cans in a neighboring side-street.

Hewer sent the night-watchman to the housekeeper to get his wrist bandaged, got rid of the police by giving them some of Mr. Torby's second-best cigars and a great deal of irrelevant information which they said was necessary to the preservation of order, directed that the broken glass should be swept up, and then turned his attention to the young man.

"Why, Mr. Richard!" he exclaimed.

"Look here, Hewer," said Mr. Richard, "I know that Miss Evington is dining here--I saw her going in, as I happened to be passing." He glanced quickly at the butler to see if there was any criticism of an officer in the United States Army hanging about doorways to watch young ladies go in and out. "Is everyone in there frightened to death over this shindy?"

"Well, you know, sir," said Hewer temperately, "they have been very nervous about this Bolshevist movement for a long time; and they do seem anxious--all except Mrs. Grey, sir."

"What!" cried the Captain. "Is my mother dining here?" And Hewer could see that this was the last straw--that his mother should have gone over to the enemy. Hewer was sorry, but felt it his duty to go back to the dining-room. "They are anxious, sir, for fear the mob may have overpowered the police, and I ought to go back and tell them that everything is quiet."

"No, Hewer," said the Captain firmly. "Go back, but tell them just the opposite. Tell them that the police have been driven off, that the mob is in control, that a soviet committee has been formed, which will send a representative to question them and decide on the merits of each of their cases, and say that if a finger is laid on the people's delegate, the house will be blown up with T N T."

Hewer could not help smiling at the plan, but he shook his head. "I'd like to oblige you, sir," he said, "but I'd lose my job."

"Oh, the cream's off your job anyhow, Hewer," said Mr. Richard decisively. "You don't want to be a butler under the new order. I've just got a good job with a Western railroad. Come with me and run our dining-car service."

The Great War has far-reaching effects. It was the war that made Hewer yield to this insane suggestion--the sense of dissatisfaction with himself because a weak heart had kept him from fighting, and the sense of power in Grey which a year and a half of being obeyed had thrown into his tone.

"But you can't go upstairs like that, sir--they'd all know you."

"You do your part, and I'll do mine," said Richard.

When Hewer entered the dining-room again, the tension had increased. Some of the guests had arisen from the table and were looking for weapons. All had decided to behave nobly. The six footmen, as if paralyzed by the consciousness that they had identified themselves with the capitalistic class, were standing idly about the room, not attempting to go on with the serving of dinner. Mrs. McFarlane had almost fainted again, but finding that no one had time to bring her to, she was coming to by herself. Only Mrs. Grey was finishing her soup in a thorough but not inelegant manner.

Hewer bent to whisper in Mr. Torby's ear.

"Good God!" said Mr. Torby; and an electric thrill ran through the company, who did not know that the exclamation expressed anger rather than fear.

"Don't be alarmed," said Mr. Torby, addressing the table. "Keep perfectly calm. Hewer tells me the situation is this: the police have been temporarily driven off. These Bolshevist rascals are in control for a minute or two--nothing more, I am sure. I should advise our yielding for the moment to their demands."

"But what are their demands?" asked Mrs. McFarlane nervously, with a vague recollection of a program about women which her respectable morning paper had not been able to print in full, but which she had looked up later in the chauffeur's more liberal journal, while he was putting on the chains.

Divining her fears, Mrs. Torby gracefully hastened to allay them. "They demand nothing more than that we receive a delegate from their committee, and answer his questions."

"Receive him," said the Admiral with that terrible calm which seems to have replaced the old quarter-deck manner. "We'll receive him a good deal more warmly than he'll like."

Mr. Torby held up his hand. "No," he said. "Our safety, the safety of these ladies, is dependent upon the safe-conduct back of this delegate. The mob, probably through the culpable carelessness of the Administration--"

"Not a word against the Administration, sir," cried the Admiral, "--the Administration under whom this country has just won one of the most signal tri--"

"I'm afraid, sir," said Hewer most respectfully, "that the committee is not inclined to wait very much longer."

It was decided to admit the People's delegate at once. After all, however detestable his philosophy, he would be only one man against twenty-four guests, six footmen and Hewer. But when Hewer opened the dining-room door and announced in his very best manner, "The Representative of the Soviet Committee," everyone saw that confidence had been premature.

The delegate was an alarming figure. He was in his shirt-sleeves, without collar and round his waist was tied a long strip of the Torby's carpet; from this protruded the handle of an army revolver. The lower part of his face was hidden by a black silk handkerchief; and a soft hat, rather too large for him, was pulled down to his brows. It was a hat which Trevillian had passed on to Hewer some months before, but fortunately there is no way of identifying a soft felt hat. Below the brim a pair of piercing gray eyes ran over the company like the glint of steel.

The delegate was tall, and he stood in the doorway with folded arms. Mrs. McFarlane, declaring that at last the aristocracy knew how to die, burst into tears; and Trevillian Torby, bending over Miss Evington, declared in a passionate undertone that he would give his life for hers. But Miss Evington, with her eye fixed on the delegate, drew back almost rudely from Trevillian's protecting droop and said quite loudly: "Nonsense, Trevillian! I don't feel myself in any danger."

"I am here," said the delegate in a deep, rough voice, "as a representative of the first soviet committee--a form of government which, as you now doubtless understand, will soon take over this entire country--indeed, the world. How dare you, a little, idle, parasitic group, eat like this, drink like this--and," he added, snatching a bottle of champagne from the nerveless hand of a footman and quickly returning it, "and such a rotten brand, too? By what right, I say, do you feast, while better people are starving? But we are not cruel or unreasonable, and anyone here who can show that he or his immediate family belong to the proletariat and has worked with his hands, will be spared."

A confused silence greeted this speech. The company did not really take in the meaning of his words, for the reason that any identification of themselves with the proletariat--what they would have called the lower classes--seemed to them simply fantastic. Though they were continually readjusting their social standing with each other, they no more doubted their general superiority to the rest of humanity than they doubted the fact of the skies being above the earth.

Mr. Barnsell, who had had more practice than most of them in adapting himself to his surroundings, spoke first. Getting up, with his hands in his pockets, he said coolly:

"Oh, come, my dear fellow! This is ridiculous. This is un-American--extremely un-American. There are no class-distinctions in this country. We all in a sense belong to the proletariat."

"Speak for yourself," said Mrs. Grey.

Mrs. Torby bent over to her next-door neighbor and whispered, "Exactly what do they mean by proletariat?" with the manner of one who, being about to be elected to a club, would like to know what the organization signified.

"You will have to offer proof of your assertions," said the delegate in a more threatening tone. "A leisure class is a criminal class, and its wealth will be confiscated for the common good. Are you or are you not members of a leisure class?"

At this the company, which had so far shown a good deal of courage, in face of one of the most terrifying agencies in the world,--an angry mob,--began to show evidence of panic. A threat to human life, even their own, seemed to them less horrible than this danger to the existing order of society. The right of property--not their own property, but the divine right of property in general--seemed worth defending at great cost. A babel of voices arose, out of which Mr. McFarlane's soared like a lark:

"I did, I did," he was saying. "I used to help my father pick the beets and the rose-bugs. My father was a gardener. This lady"--indicating Mrs. Grey--"knows that what I say is true. My father was her father's gardener."

"Is this true?" asked the delegate.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Grey, "and a very coarse, uneducated man too, as I remember him."

"Thank you--oh, thank you," said Mr. McFarlane warmly; and his wife, raising her tiara-ed head, added:

"Yes, and as a girl I used to take in plain--"

"Hush, Maria!" said her husband. "It is unnecessary. A wife always takes the rank of her husband in any society."

Mrs. McFarlane caught the idea at once, and leaning back with folded hands, she looked about patronizingly on those whose position under the new order was less solidly founded than her own.

The complete success of Mr. McFarlane pointed the way to others, whose training had made them quick to learn new methods of pleasing--when they wanted to please. In a few minutes astounding revelations had been made on all sides. Mr. Lossing, the haughty and exclusive Mr. Lossing, confessed, or rather he loudly and repeatedly asserted, that he had long been secretly married to his cook--than whom, he insisted, no one was a more persistent and skillful manual worker. Mr. Barnsell, who had always seemed to live remarkably well on the proceeds of a somewhat tenuous law-practice, pleaded for publicity for the fact that his father had kept a tailor's shop--and he offered to produce photographs in proof of his statement.

"Did you ever work in this shop?" asked the delegate.

"I'm afraid not," answered Mr. Barnsell reluctantly. "My mother,--you know how petty women are about class distinctions,--she wanted me to rise in the world--"

"_Rise!_" exclaimed the delegate haughtily. "You are untrue to your class, sir."

"Perhaps--a little," murmured Mr. Barnsell meekly.

"But we will pass you," said the delegate, "for the sake of your father."

By a somewhat unexpected application of Bolshevist principles, the delegate exempted members of the military and naval services, and visiting foreigners, from any examination. He showed a tendency also to pass over Mrs. Grey, although she kept asserting that none of her ancestors had ever done anything useful. "Unless," she added thoughtfully, "Lionel Grey, whom they sent to the Tower for a day or two in 1673 for killing his valet. He may have had to sweep out his room. And I have a son," she added more loudly, "who is just as bad."

"You mean your son does not work?" said the delegate, as if he felt the statement so unlikely that he was ready to contradict it.

"I shouldn't call him usefully employed at this moment," replied the old lady. "Would you like me to describe what he is doing?"

"Be silent, madam," said the delegate, and turned hastily away to the examination of the Torby family.

Asked rather roughly what he had to say for himself, Mr. Torby rose. "I have to say," he began, "that I agree with my friend Mr. Barnsell, that this whole movement is extremely un-American. This country is a democracy--our forefathers died to make it so; and for you to attempt to introduce all these dangerous ideas of class antagonism is opposed to all the ideals of the founders of this nation. There are no class distinctions in America. I may rise today, and you tomorrow--or you might have, if you had not cast in your lot with these lawless rascals who all will end in jail. Take the example of Mr. Barnsell here--proud to own his father's trade." (Mr. Barnsell tried to oblige with a proud look.) "And I too--my father was a farmer. He tilled the soil with his own hands. That, ladies and gentlemen, is America."

"Ah, that's easy to say," replied the delegate, strangely unimpressed by an oration that had drawn tears to Mr. Barnsell's eyes. "It's easy to say that your father was a farmer, but can you prove it? Only yesterday I saw an interview with you in our capitalistic press on the occasion of your being elected president of one of these aristocratic social clubs,--which the people will raze to the ground immediately,--and this interview stated on your own authority that yours was one of the oldest and idlest families in this country."

"The reporter misunderstood me," said Mr. Torby with the firmness of a man whose public life has made him long familiar with the phrase.

Trevillian Torby sprang to his feet. "Father," he said pleadingly, "let me go upstairs and bring down Grandfather."

"Goodness," exclaimed Mrs. Grey, "don't tell me that the original Ephraim is still alive!"

"My father-in-law is very old," murmured Mrs. Torby faintly. "He shuns society."

For the first time since the entrance of the People's delegate, the interest of the company turned from him and rested on the door through which Trevillian had departed. The idea that the great Ephraim--the founder of the colossal Torby fortune, the ancestor who had become almost a myth--was not only alive but living somewhere in the top of the palace which his money had built, was an overwhelming surprise to everyone. Everyone began calculating what his age must be, and having reached the conclusion that he was well over eighty, they were prepared to see Trevillian lead, wheel, or even carry him into the room; but the reality was very different.

Ephraim Torby strode in ahead of his grandson. He was tall, over six feet, and the long plum-colored dressing-gown he was wearing made him look taller. The whiskers, which he wore in accordance with the fashion of his youth, gave to his shaven upper lip an added expression of shrewd humor. A slight smile wrinkled the upper part of his face, and his bright black eyes twinkled. From the moment he entered the room, the situation was in his hands.

"Well," he said in a leisurely tone, addressing the delegate, "what's all this about?"

The delegate in a few words, made less fluent by the fact that the old man had put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and was now studying the delegate in detail, explained the principles of the Bolshevist movement, and the relation of these principles to the present company.

"Foolishness!" said the old man. "For the land's sake, what are clever fellars like you doing wasting your time fighting these folks?" And he waved his hand toward the dinner-table. "Ain't you got sense enough to see that you're jest the same--jest the same? Both against justice and law and order--both discontented-- Oh, yes, Bill, you are discontented, and Trevillian too. They don't get any fun out of life--not out of spending the money I had such a heap of fun making. And you'll find, young fellar," he added to the delegate, "that there's only two kinds of folks worth fussing over in this world--them that enjoys life, and them that would jest as lief jump off the bridge tomorrow. You're both discontented, and you're both narrer: you can't see anybody's interest but your own, and you're both as selfish as the dickens--want to run the world jest for the sake of your own folks. Why, you two ought to be able to get together. But the fellars who are going to beat you both--and you're going to be beaten--is the fellars with a cheap car and a couple of acres, or a three-room flat, who are having too good a time out of it to let you bust it up. And you'll never get past them--never in your lifetime, young fellar."

"We've got a good way already," said the delegate.

"Oh, maybe, maybe," answered the old man. "And I presume you're having a good time out of trying--and if you want any advice about organization, you might drop in to see me some afternoon, when Bill is out. You can't tell; I might even want to subscribe to your campaign-fund--"

"Father," said William Torby, displaying more feeling than at any time during the evening, "that would be being untrue to your class."

"Why, Trevillian was just a-telling me, Bill, that you said there were no classes in America," answered his father.

In the slight pause that followed, Mrs. Grey rose, and approaching Ephraim, she said in her most gracious manner--and that was very gracious:

"Do come over and sit down, Mr. Torby. I should like so much to talk to you."

But the People's delegate interfered. "No, madam," he said fiercely. "As you have shown no connection whatsoever with the proletariat, I must trouble you to come with me."

Mrs. Grey nodded at the terrified company. "Good night," she said. "Such a pleasant evening! Do ask me again sometime, dear Mrs. Torby." And then she added to the delegate: "I insist on Miss Evington's accompanying me. She's quite as bad in her own way as I am in mine."

"No," shouted Trevillian.

"Yes, we'll take her along," said the delegate; and the three left the room hastily, taking the precaution to lock the door behind them.

When safely in the taxicab, which Hewer had waiting for them, Miss Evington said: "Oh, Dick, can you ever forgive me for having been a little bit dazzled by those people?"

"Well, Richard," said his mother, "I should think this would mean a jail-sentence for you when it comes out. But I shall always think it was well worth while, well worth while."

"They'll never tell if we don't," said Richard confidently.

"Perhaps not," said Mrs. Grey, settling back comfortably in her corner. "I want to say this--not that I don't know that you are holding Evalina's hand behind my back, and I should know it, even if I were as blind as a bat, which I'm thankful to say I am not--I want to say that I think I believe in democracy, after all. The only really interesting and agreeable man there this evening, except yourself, my dear Richard, was that delightful old farmer. Evidently the thing that makes American society so dull is not the people they let in nowadays, as I had always imagined, but the people they keep out. Yes, Richard, you have converted me to democracy."

But Richard and Evalina were not paying as much attention to this philosophy as it undoubtedly deserved.

THE WIDOW'S MIGHT

Fifth: To my executors hereinafter named, or to such of them as shall qualify, and the survivors of them, I give and bequeath the sum of one million dollars ($1,000,000) in trust to hold, invest and reinvest the same and to collect the income, issues and profits thereof and pay over the whole of said income, issues and profits, accruing from the date of my death, in semiannual payments, less proper charges and expenses, to my wife, Doris Helen Southgate, as long as she shall remain my widow; and upon the death or remarriage of my said wife, I direct that the principal of said trust shall be paid over to my sister, Antonia Southgate, or in the event of her death--

It was this fifth clause that Vincent Williams, the dead man's lawyer, found himself considering as he drove uptown with a copy of the will in his pocket. Was or was not a man justified in cutting his wife off in case of her remarriage? After all, why should a fellow work hard all his life to support his successor and perhaps his successor's children? The absolute possession of a large fortune may be a definite danger to a young woman of twenty-five. Yes, there was much to be said in favor of such a provision; and yet, when he had said it all, Williams found himself feeling as he had felt when he drew the will--that it was an unwarranted insult, an ungracious gesture of possession from the grave. He himself couldn't imagine making such a will; but then he had not married a girl thirty-five years his junior. Southgate may have had a vision of some pale, sleek-headed professional dancer, or dark-skinned South European with a criminal record--

Williams was shocked to find he was thinking that the widow would have a right even to such companions as these, if these were what she wanted. He had no clew as to what she did want, for he had never seen her, although he had been Southgate's lawyer for many years. Southgate, since his marriage five years before, had spent most of his time at Pasadena, although he always kept the house on Riverside open.

It was toward this house that Williams was now driving. There was a touch of the mausoleum about it--just the kind of house that a man who had made his fortune in coffins ought to have owned. It was built of cold, smooth graystone, and the door was wider at the bottom than at the top, in the manner of an Egyptian tomb. You went down a few steps into the hall, and Williams always half expected to hear a trapdoor clang behind him and find that, Rhadames in the last act of Aïda, he was walled up for good.

Nichols, Southgate's old manservant, opened the door for him and conducted him to the drawing-room, which ran across the front of the house on the second story, with three windows, somewhat contracted by stone decorations, which looked on the river.

It was an ugly, pretentious room, done in the period of modern satinwood, striped silks and small oil paintings in immense gold frames. Over the mantelpiece hung a portrait of Southgate by Bonnat--a fine, blatant picture, against a red background, of a man in a frock coat with a square beard.

The house was well constructed and the carpets were deep, so that complete silence reigned. Williams walked to the middle window and looked out. It was the end of February and a wild wind was blowing across the Hudson, but even a ruffled dark gray river was more agreeable to look at than the drawing-room. He stood staring out at an empty freighter making her way slowly upstream to her anchorage, until a rustling of new crape garments made him turn, as Miss Southgate entered.

She was tall--her brother had been tall too; nearly six feet; her face was white as alabaster, and her hair, though she was nearly sixty, was still jet black. Her mourning made her seem more majestic than ever, though Williams would have said she could not possibly have been more majestic than she had been the last time he saw her.

His first impression was that she was alone, but a second later he saw that she was followed by a tiny creature, who looked as much out of scale beside Antonia as if the Creator had been experimenting in different sizes of human beings and had somehow got the two sets mixed up--a little blond-headed doll with eyes the color of Delft china. Miss Southgate held out a solid hand, white as a camellia. "I don't think you know my sister-in-law," she said in her deep voice. "A very old friend of Alexander's, my dear--Mr. Williams."