Part 16

And both hosts and guests saw an American flag in red, white, and blue lights, and below it, in letters ten feet high, they read:

AND THE GREATEST OF THESE

IS CHARITY

H. R.

Everybody cheered, for everybody agreed with the sentiment. Some even thought it was original.

Then all the lights were turned on again. The tables were carried away by the cranes. The guests, directed by H. R.'s lieutenants, formed in line and paraded around the Garden. The lame, the old, the young, the hopeless, the wicked, the maimed--all who had hungered--marched jauntily round the vast arena that their benefactors might see who it was that really had made the Mammoth Hunger Feast a success. They carried their heads erect, proudly, conscious of their importance in the world. The benefactors thereupon cheered the beneficiaries. By so doing they showed what they thought of the benefactors. It was none the less noble!

The reporters looked at their watches. A full page on Saturday night is no laughing matter to the make-up man. One of them rose and asked H. R.:

"Is this all? We've got to write--"

"It is _not_ all!" answered H. R., and motioned to the trumpeter, who instantly blew the Siegfried motif. The crowd looked stageward. The rear drop-curtain showed in high letters:

DANCING!

The guests hesitated.

The curtain was lowered a few feet. Above "Dancing!" the crowd now read:

FREE OF CHARGE!

Everybody started for the floor.

H. R. left the stage and walked into the Goodchild box. Grace had been receiving congratulations all the evening until she had convinced herself that this was her dinner. It was all H. R. could do to force his way through the plutocracy in the Imperial Box. Talking to Grace at the same time were three young men who never before had accepted Mrs. Goodchild's invitations to marry Grace. But Grace was now the most-talked-of girl in all New York. And she was officially very beautiful and Goodchild _pere_ was not enough. And Grace was very kind to all of them. All empresses are kindly when they haven't Dyspepsia or Dynamite Dreams. All unpleasant things seem to begin with a "D." There is Death and Damnation; also Duty.

Mr. Goodchild frowned when he saw H. R. in the box. But when he saw that H. R. never even looked at him he became really angry.

Mrs. Goodchild looked alarmed and hissed, "Don't you talk to him, Grace!"

Grace, knowing herself desired by the most eligible young men in her set, decided to squelch H. R. in public. H. R., however, walked past everybody, looking neither to left nor right. Feeling themselves treated as so many chairs or hat-racks, the elite of New York began to feel like intruders.

Then, as an imperial mandate is given, H. R. said to Miss Goodchild:

"We're needed!"

He offered her his arm. The young men rose and made room for him. Duty called, and they never interfered with duty.

Grace hypnotically obeyed, for H. R. was frowning. Together they walked down to the floor of the Garden.

The Public Sentiment Corps did their duty. They had not yet received the beer. They shouted, frenziedly:

"H. R.! H. R.! H. R.!"

The public took up the cheering. Thousands of outstretched hands reached out for his. But H. R. merely bowed, right and left, and walked to the middle of the floor.

"Smile at them!" he whispered, fiercely, to Grace.

She did. She knew then what it was to be a Queen. She felt an overpowering kindliness toward all these delightful, simple people. Reggie was not brilliant, but that wasn't expected of a Van Duzen. She did not love Reggie, but she _liked_ him. As Mrs. Van Duzen she would always have what she liked. She would never marry H. R.! It was preposterous.

The band began to play. The crowd, instead of dancing, moved toward the sides--to give H. R. room to dance.

Never before on Manhattan Island had such a triumph of personality fallen to the lot of any man.

H. R. put his arm about Grace Goodchild. She shrank from the symbolism of bondage.

"The world is looking on!" he admonished her.

Knowing that she danced very well, she now had but one fear--that her partner might make her ridiculous.

But H. R. was the best dancer she had ever honored.

She felt her resolution not to marry him slipping away. He led divinely. She felt that she herself had never danced so well in her life. He brought out the best that was in her.

"Ever try the Rutgers Roll?" he whispered, tensely.

"N-no! she gasped.

"Let yourself go!"

When a woman lets herself go, all is over except the terms of the capitulation. She let herself go desperately, because she was forced to do it; fearfully, because of the appalling possibility of a fiasco.

She did not know how it was done. She had looped the loop and was still dancing away--a new but unutterably graceful undulation of torso and rhythmical leg work and exquisite sinuous motions of the arms and hands.

A storm of applause came to her ears, a hurricane steeped in saccharine. A man who could dance like that was fit to be any girl's husband!

The elite flocked on the floor and began to indulge in old-fashioned specialties, some of which were nearly a fortnight old. You heard delighted remarks:

"That's Mrs. Vandergilt!"

"There goes Reggie Van Duzen!"

"Look at Katherine Van Schaick!"

Then the New York that Americans call ruffianly, impolite, vulgar, selfish, spendthrift, money-loving, self-satisfied, and stupid, also began to dance decorously! The veteran reporters did not believe their eyes, but they made a note of the fact, nevertheless.

Grace was nearly out of breath. She said, "I'm--I'm--I'm--"

"Certainly, dear girl." And H. R. deftly piloted her out of the crush. They stopped dancing, and he gave her his arm. She took it.

"Grace," he said, "when will you marry me?"

"Never!" she answered, determinedly. "And you must not call me Grace."

"Right-O!" he said, gratefully. "I'll call to-morrow afternoon. Shall I speak to Bishop Phillipson, or will father--"

"I said _never_!" she frowned.

"I heard you," he smiled, reassuringly. "I--"

Andrew Barrett and the reporters came up to him.

"What about the men that fell for the beer?"

"Oh, give 'em the left-over grub, if you boys think it's right. But don't print it. The W. C. T. U. would howl at the thought of giving food to people who had first wanted booze."

Grace looked on, marveling at the way he ordered things done and at the way men listened to his words.

"But what about that ten-thousand-dollar cash to the coupon-holders?" asked young Mr. Lubin, finally taking his eyes off the beautiful capitalist. Feeling that he was beginning to condone with capitalistic crimes, he spoke sternly to H. R. in self-defense.

"Oh yes!" said H. R. and turned to Grace. "My dear, I'll have to leave you. Shall I take you to mother?"

Reggie Van Duzen saved him the trip.

"Say, Mr. Rutgers, could I have--"

"Yes, my boy!" gratefully smiled H. R. He shook hands with Reggie and said, very seriously, "_I leave her in your care!_"

Reggie, who was very young and careless, flushed proudly. Here was a man who understood men! He would protect Grace with his life. And it gave him a new respect for other women.

"I don't blame you, Grace," he said, with his twelve-year-old's smile that clung to him through life and made even poor people like him. "He is a wonder! Beekman Rutgers had the nerve to tell me that all the Rutgerses are like H. R. What do you think of that?"

Grace answered, "Certainly not!"

She was not going to marry H. R., but if you intend to have it known that you have refused to marry a man who is crazy to marry you, the greater the man the greater the refusal. She added, with conviction:

"There is only one Rutgers like that and his first name is Hendrik."

Reggie nodded, looked at her, sighed, and began to dance.

He didn't touch H. R. as a dancer.

"Can you do the Rutgers Roll?" she asked.

"No!" he confessed.

She could never marry Reggie. She knew it now. But of course she would not marry H. R.

In the mean time H. R., accompanied by the reporters, drove to the Cardinal's residence. They explained their mission to a pleasant-faced young priest and sent in their cards.

The young priest began to make excuses and spoke of the lateness of the hour.

H. R. said to him, deferentially: "Monsignor, we have come to the Cardinal because he is the supreme authority in this case. The Mayor of New York and the representative of the Socialist press, Mr. Lubin, here, have agreed to leave it to the decision of his Eminence."

The Cardinal sent back word that he would see Mr. Rutgers.

H. R. went in alone. He saw not the head of the Catholic hierarchy, but a man in whose eyes was that light which comes from believing in God and from hearing the truth from fellow-men who told him their sins. H. R. bowed respectfully before the aged priest.

"How may I help you? asked the Cardinal. He was an old man and this was a young man. No more; no less; both of them children.

"Your Eminence, I am the unfortunate American who in his misguided way has tried to feed the hungry in order that New York's grown children may realize that charity is not dead. If I have used the methods of a mountebank it is because I have labored where God had been forgotten, almost."

"Generalities are not always verities, though they may come close to them. I know about your work. I shall be glad to do what I can for you."

"Thank you, sir. I promised to give ten thousand dollars in cash to any New-Yorker who could answer this question: What is it we have all heard about from earnest childhood and that we acknowledge exists; that is neither a person nor a beast, neither a thing nor an object, but something that no man can kill, though it is dead to-day; that all men need and most New-Yorkers neglect; that should be present everywhere and is found in no trade? The answer is a word of five letters and begins with 'A.' There is a synonym that, though not exactly obsolete, is at least obsolescent."

"Five letters? Is it in English?" smiled the Cardinal.

"It is in every good English dictionary. I think the dictionary is the only place in which I can find it nowadays."

"Oh no, my son." And the Cardinal shook his head in kindly dissent.

"Reverend sir, I said anybody with brains could guess it."

"It was not an ingenuous question, Mr. Rutgers."

"It was a coupon that entitled anybody who held it to answer the question and get ten thousand dollars. It was part of a ticket for which the holder paid twenty-five cents to feed a starving fellow-being. But what I wish you to do is to assure the reporters that it was a legitimate question. The word is _Anima_."

"I knew it."

"Because you use it every day."

"But your condition--"

"New York's condition, your Eminence," corrected H. R., politely. "I said the synonym, _soul_, would answer. Nobody won the ten thousand dollars. New York will cudgel its brains because it did not win the ten thousand dollars. In searching for the missing word it may find something more precious--the missing _soul_."

"Your way is not our way, but perhaps--" The Cardinal was silent, his kindly eyes meditatively bent on H. R.

"The reporters, your Eminence--" began H. R., apologetically.

"Ah yes!" And the white-haired prelate accompanied H. R. to the room where the reporters were waiting.

"I have heard Mr. Rutgers's question. The word of five letters beginning with an 'A' I think answers it, from his point of view, which is not unreasonable. I cannot say that the inability to guess proves the non-possession of brains--"

"The Cardinal knew at once," put in H. R.

"But that nobody should have guessed is astonishing."

"They were not all Christians," explained H. R.

"What is the answer?" asked a reporter.

"A word of five letters beginning with 'A,'" said H. R.

"Can't we publish it?"

"It is our secret now. New York is very rich. When it discovers that one word--or its synonym of four letters--it will be infinitely richer in every way."

The reporters brightened up. They saw columns and columns of guesses. But the Cardinal looked thoughtful. Then he said to H. R.:

"Come and see me again."

"Thank you. I will, your Eminence."

The Cardinal bowed his head gravely and H. R. and the newspaper men left.

"Are you a Catholic?" the _World_ man asked.

"No," answered H. R., doubtfully.

"All roads lead to Rome," interrupted Lubin, with a sneer.

"Excepting one, Lubin," said H. R., pleasantly. "Keep on going, my boy. It's nice and warm there."

XXV

The newspapers did nobly. Too many prominent names were involved for them not to print the news. There was an opportunity for using real humor and impressive statistics in describing the new labor-saving machinery. The marvelous efficiency of H. R. as a practical philanthropist, demonstrated by his elimination of people who had money with which to buy food, and the simple but amazing efficacy of his Thirst-Detector raised the story to the realm of pure literature.

There was also a serious aspect to the entire affair. All the hungry men, women, and children in Greater New York that had no money had been fed. Assuming, as was probable, that most of the hungry were not bona-fide residents of New York, it showed that in the metropolis of the Western World less than one-thousandth of the total population were hungry and penniless. No other city in the world could boast of such statistics.

But H. R.'s work was not done. Before he retired for the night, knowing that his position in society and in the world of affairs was established on an adamant base, he nevertheless composed thirty-eight communications for the Public Sentiment Corps to send out the next day to the newspapers. A sample will suffice:

It has been clearly proven that New York is a great big city with a great big heart. As always, it responded generously to the call of Charity. The Hunger Feast at Madison Square Garden was an extraordinary bit of municipal psychology and an illuminating object-lesson. Why not make permanent a state of mind of the public which does so much to dispel the danger of a bloody revolution? Social unrest can be cured by only one thing: Charity! Man does not need justice. He needs the good-will of other men. The newspapers have it in their power to check the hysterical and un-American clamor against individual fortunes. They can throw open their columns! Treat Charity as if it were as important as baseball or at least billiards. Carry a regular Department of Charity every day. Give your readers a chance to be kind. It will be a novelty to many, but it will help all--the giver no less than the beneficiary. If you will agree, Mr. Editor, I'll send check.

Other specimens emphasized the non-sectarian phase of such charities as that conceived and carried to success by one of the most remarkable men in a city where the best brains of the country admittedly resided. Intelligent charity, wisely discriminating, truly helpful, had been placed for all time among the possibilities. Systematized charities were delusions, chimeras, thin air. There was a demand for the opportunity to be decent and kind. Let the newspapers supply it. "If your readers want lurid accounts of murder trials and divorce cases, let them have them. If they want expert advice on how to help their fellow-men give it to them, also. It remains to be seen whether there is one newspaper in New York that knows real news when it sees it!"

There were thirty-eight epistolary models in all.

In the afternoon of the day following the Mammoth Hunger Feast H. R. called at the Goodchild house.

"Frederick, tell Miss Grace--"

"She 'as _gone_, sir!" said Frederick, tragically.

"Did she leave word when she would return?"

"She 'as _gone_, sir!" persisted Frederick, in abysmal distress at the news and at his inability to convey it in letters of molten meteors. He added, "To Philadelphia."

It sounded to him like Singapore. He did not think there was much difference, anyhow.

"Philadelphia?" echoed H. R., blankly.

"Yes, sir!" said Frederick, with sad triumph.

"Whatever in the world can she--" H. R. caught himself in time. He nearly had reduced himself to the level of humanity--well called dead level--by confessing ignorance aloud.

"Mrs. Goodchild is at 'ome, sir!" suggested Frederick, ingratiatingly.

"Damned good place for her!" muttered H. R., savagely, and gave Frederick a five-dollar gold piece. In some respects, Frederick admitted, America was ahead of the old country.

H. R. walked away frowning fiercely. He went nearly a block before he smiled. Love always interferes with the chemistry of the stomach and hits the brain through the toxins. What an ass he was not to have realized the truth on the instant:

_Grace had run away from him!_

He returned to his office and told Andrew Barrett to set the Public Sentiment Corps at work on the thirty-eight models he had prepared. Then he wrote forty-two more. The consciousness of Grace's confessed weakness gave him an eloquence he himself had never before known. They were masterpieces.

The newspapers always know they have made a bull's-eye when they get letters from their readers. It is an obvious fact that a man who writes is a steady customer--at least, until his communication is printed.

The Public Sentiment Corps merely started the ball rolling. An avalanche of letters from all sorts and conditions of men, women, and merchants descended upon the editorial offices.

It became clear, even to the newspapers, that people in New York were willing to give, but they didn't know how. The papers, therefore, announced that they would thereafter run Charity as a regular department. It would be strictly non-sectarian. The world's greatest authorities and most eminent philanthropists had been asked to contribute--not money; articles. The _World_ printed a full-page biography of St. Vincent de Paul and satanically invited some of its pet aversions to send in their autobiographies.

All the papers informed the charitable men and women of New York that checks, clothing, supplies, etc., could be sent to the Charity editor.

All the papers, also, invited H. R. to accept the editorship of the page. His duties would consist of allowing his name to be printed at the top of the page.

He declined their offers with profound regret, but promised to give interviews to the reporters whenever they wished. Personal matters precluded his acceptance of their kind invitations.

The personal matters consisted of the boom in sandwich advertising. It was not uncommon to see "Sandwich-board Maker, approved by the S. A. S. A.," in signs in various parts of the city. A new industry!

XXVI

In the mean time Grace was in Philadelphia. She had gone there for sundry reasons. The telephone calls told on her nerves. Mr. Goodchild had to install a new one, the number of which was not printed in the Directory but confided to intimate friends. Requests for autographs, interviews, money, food, advice, name of soap habitually used, permission to name massage ointments and face lotions after her, contributions to magazines, and ten thousand other things had been coming in by mail or were made in person by friends and strangers until Grace, in desperation, decided to go on a visit to Philadelphia. She craved peace.

Ruth Fiddle had long urged her to come. Grace had agreed to be one of her bridesmaids in June and Ruth naturally wished to discuss marriage, generally and particularly.

Ruth delightedly met Grace at the station. Two young men were with her. One was her fiance. The other was a very nice chap who had blood, brains, and boodle. His ancestors had been William Penn's grandfather's landlords in Bristol, England, and he himself had once written a story which he had sent to the _Saturday Evening Post_. His father was in coal, railroads, and fire insurance.

They decided to adjourn to the Fairview-Hartford for luncheon. Before so doing they talked.

Ruth asked a thousand excited questions about the Hunger Feast, fame, and the Rutgers Roll. Grace answered, and then confided to Ruth her iron resolve never to marry H. R. She admitted that he was as great as the papers said, even greater, and, besides, good-looking. But her determination was inflexible.

Ruth, to show she approved, told Grace that Monty--the writer--was her fiance's chum and African hunting-companion. Monty himself told Miss Goodchild that there was a good story in the whole affair. In fact, two stories. In both of them the heroine--he looked at her and nodded his head convincingly. "Drawn from life," he added. "Of course I'll have to know you--I mean, the heroine--better. But don't you think she'd make a great one?"

She wasn't thrilled a bit. She was not even politely interested. What was such talk, Grace impartially asked herself, to one who had been madly cheered by thousands?

Still, he was a nice boy, not so consciously clever as New-Yorkers who chose to regard themselves as vaudeville wits.

Finally they got into the waiting motor and went to the Fairview-Hartford, where the eating is better than in any New York hotel.

As they were about to enter the dining-room Grace Goodchild put on her restaurant look of utter unconsciousness and stone deafness and blindness, which had grown into a habit since she became famous.

She entered the dining-room ahead of the others, as usual. She took nine steps before she stopped short. Her face went pale.

Nobody had stopped eating!

Nobody had turned around to stare!

Nobody had stage-whispered, "There she is!"

No woman had said, "Do you think she is as beautiful as the newspapers try to make out?"

Not one imbecile male look; not one feminine sneer! Nothing! No fame!

"What's the matter?" asked Monty in alarm.

Grace felt an overwhelming desire to stand there until the people looked, even if it took a year.

As the century-long seconds passed she barely could resist the impulse to shout, "Fire!"

"Anything wrong?" whispered Monty, with real concern.

"N-no-nothing!" she stammered, and followed Ruth, who had passed her, unnoticing.

Her color returned as wrath dispelled amazement.

For the first time since H. R. began to woo her in public places with sandwiches Grace Goodchild actually had to eat food in a restaurant. In New York famous people don't go to restaurants to eat.

She was distraite throughout the luncheon. She thought Monty was an ass.

And the other feeding beasts must have read the New York papers! There was absolutely no excuse.

In the evening the same thing happened. That is, nothing happened. The Fiddles' friends tried to be particularly nice to her by talking of the opera, novels, the dancing-craze, the resurgence of the Republican party, and cubism. It only made it worse. And not one knew the Rutgers Roll!

The next day Ruth and the young men took her to the Philadelphia Country Club. Same thing! And later to a dance at the Fitz-Marlton. Ditto!

Her good looks, her gowns, and her nice manners made a very favorable impression on all of Ruth's friends, male and female, young and old. Hang 'em, that's all it did!

It was like Lucullus being asked to eat sanitary biscuits.

She had wanted peace. But not in a burial crypt. On the fourth day of extinction she said to Ruth after breakfast:

"My dear, I must return to New York!"

"Oh no! Grace, darling, I've accepted seventeen--"

"I must, Ruth. I simply must!"

"But Monty is coming at one to take us to his father's--"

Grace felt like saying that Monty could take himself to Hades or to Atlantic City. But she merely shook her head. She dared not trust herself to speak. Ruth appealed to her mother. But Mrs. Fiddle shrugged her shoulders and said: "No use! New York!" She herself was a Van Duzen.

And so Grace Goodchild returned home, five days before she was expected.

"I couldn't stand it, mother," she explained, almost tearfully.

"Very well," said Mrs. Goodchild.