Part 7

The charm of this house's hospitality is that it sets one free. I need never go anywhere, or make the least apology for not going. I need not go to bed or get up till I like. I need never appear at a meal if I wish to stay away, and I need not wonder what anybody will think. And yet I feel as if I were in a whirl of excitement, I suppose because all the people about me are so bright, and the atmosphere so intellectual. Every species of high thought is represented here. Among the guests are artists, connoisseurs, musicians, authors, statesmen, financiers, and a world of brilliant and beautiful women. Good taste seems the only law existing or necessary in this society. It never occurred to me before, but good taste seems to be a complete code of morals, whose observance renders all other statutes unnecessary.

Edgar is ever the lover,--one whose caresses and endearments are never exhausted, and there is endless delight in the thought that my life holds nothing but to-morrows with him.

Gladys is altogether such as I imagined her to be at first sight--a charming, delicate woman, full of affection that never blunders, and is never lacking in tact. She is the most graceful hostess in the world. When I see her in this capacity, a sudden longing to have such a home, and such opportunities to bring about me such men and women, comes over me. I never mentioned this to Edgar until last night, for I feared he would think me dissatisfied--and that is impossible. I must always be happy where he is.

The cottage at Thebes is not forgotten, and at times, amid all this luxury and charm, I long for it with Edgar all to myself.

Last night I said something that conveyed my thought to him, quite by accident. I was confused for a moment afterward, and wanted to turn it off; but a sudden happy light came into Ed's eyes, and he said: "You would like to live like this?" I admitted it a little reluctantly, but told him that I would be just as well satisfied, though, when we were back in Thebes. He said that he was glad to know that this life made me happy, and that if I had not the ambition for it, at least the life would not be distasteful to me; that in another year I should entertain these same people in my own house, and that that house should be where I wished it to be.

This produced in me a strange emotion. It was one of joyous intoxication--and regret. I don't know what the regret was for, and it vanished in a moment.

Every one is very attentive to us. Edgar at once took the reins in his own hands. There seemed to be no effort on his part. He appeared to be almost unconscious of it. They are people whom he had never seen before, but people that every one hears of. There is something almost aggressively non-aggressive in Edgar's manner. It is impossible that he should appear in any company or walk through a room without impressing every one who sees him.

To-night there were some strange guests at dinner, and I was seated next to one of them, while Edgar took in Gladys. My neighbor did not understand that I was Edgar's wife, and during dinner the conversation turned on some public question, and some one referring to Edgar for his opinion, he gave it. He seemed to forget the company after a moment, he was so deeply interested in the subject, and talked on. Every one at the table seemed suddenly to cease talking, and to be listening intently to him. I forgot them, myself, everything but Edgar and his voice. There is a quality in his voice that I have never known in any other person's. It is a magnetic quality that compels one, that fascinates one.

When he stopped speaking every one was silent for a moment, and then a murmur of approval ran round the table.

The man next to me turned and said: "Do you remember the gentleman's name?" and I said, "Yes, Mr. Braine," and he said with a sudden surprise, "The man who has just--Why, he is a statesman; I had thought him only a speculator!"

He said it with a funny little snap of his teeth, and a decisive nod. I did not dare say that I was Edgar's wife. I felt that I deserved punishment for daring to be his wife. I cannot be interested in the conversation of people, unless they are talking of him. Every one seems to have discovered this, and so they all talk to me a great deal of him.

One or two of the gentlemen here I do not like particularly. I seem to afford them a certain amusement, and they endeavor to corner me on every occasion, and talk to me.

One of them said last night: "You are one of the most naïve women that I have ever known." It made me a little angry for some reason, and I told Edgar about it afterward, and he held my face in his hands and said: "Well, you certainly are," and his eyes smiled. I seemed to like it when Edgar said it.

There is a Mr. Everet coming to-morrow. Every one seems to enjoy the anticipation of his visit. Gladys talks a great deal of him. He is evidently a very superior man. We leave here to-morrow night, and return to Thebes. I have a little curiosity to meet the man, and hope that he will come before we leave.

_August._ We are still at Dorp House, and do not leave for some days yet. Mr. Everet came yesterday morning. He is a charming man, and reminds me of Edgar in many ways. He is a dignified man, too. I do not like men who do not impress me as earnest and grave. He is a courtly sort of man. I was very anxious to see him, for I desired to compare--impartially--Edgar and a man who is so much sought after and lauded for his brilliancy.

Well, I have seen him. Edgar is only the more magnificent. Mr. Everet and he seem to appreciate each other greatly. They smoke together and have had a long talk. They seem to have a great respect for each other's opinions--though they do not agree.

After dinner this evening, Mr. Everet came out on the piazza where I was sitting, and we had a delightful talk for an hour. I did not feel at all embarrassed. I have never felt just that since we left Thebes. I feel often that I am not the equal of many of those whom I meet, in an intellectual way, and I regret it, but I have the assurance that I am honest in doing my best for Edgar, and that they will overlook any mistake of mine, kindly, as I am his wife.

We talked of many things, and finally he regretted that we were going so soon, and hoped that he would see us in Washington--his interests are there, and he spends the winters there, and does something politically. I don't know anything about that. I told him about Thebes, and that we were to live there; that we had taken a cottage, and that I did not suppose that we could go to Washington for a long time, as I thought we should have to be quite economical.

For some reason I found myself talking very confidentially to him, and we seemed to have known each other a long time. I told him about the people at Thebes, and the _Enterprise_, and that it was just possible that sometime we could live somewhere else, and differently--a little like this.

He listened very attentively and sympathetically. There seemed to be a puzzled and surprised expression on his face at first, but soon it disappeared, and he smiled and said meditatively: "Yes, I understand."

After a while I happened to look up, and Edgar stood leaning against the railing, watching me. There was a beautiful look in his eyes, and he and Mr. Everet looked at each other and smiled.

I thought they seemed a little amused, but very much pleased. I asked Edgar afterwards, and he said, he could never look otherwise than pleased when listening to me, could he?

I presume he can't.

* * * * *

It was with a little sigh of regret that Helen received the final summons for an immediate return to Thebes. She reproached herself for the feeling, and resolutely made up her mind that her one supreme longing was to begin the quiet life she had planned to lead with Braine, in the little white cottage, with the bed of sweet-williams before the door.

Gladys had solemnly promised to visit her there during Lent, when, "Society is so deadly dull, you know." (A promise which she kept, making Thebes her place of retirement and meditation in preparation for her marriage after Easter.)

Braine set out on the return journey with a peculiar buoyancy of spirits which helped to drive away Helen's little regrets.

"Never mind, dear," he said, as they took their places in the palace car, "you have not seen the last of your New York friends. You shall spend winters there before you are many years older. I have only to _emphasize myself_ in Thebes, and then we shall seek larger pastures."

"But hasn't this trip cost you a great deal of money, Ed?"

"Well, it hasn't impoverished me, at any rate," he answered, with his queer smile. "Perhaps that is because I am not altogether the paymaster."

But he did not explain.

XV.

Abner Hildreth was closeted in the parlor of his bank with a grave, but eager-faced man of perhaps fifty, who sat with his left hand doubled up into a fist, while he snapped the spaces between the knuckles with the fingers of the right, making a succession of little nervous snaps, which would have annoyed a more irritable person than Hildreth.

The banker had been reading aloud to his companion, and half a dozen copies of the Thebes _Daily Enterprise_ lay open on a chair by his side. Hildreth had been reading the leading articles one after the other, and had just concluded, the series.

"I don't like the looks of it, Duncan. I don't know what it all means, or how much."

"Perhaps he is only guessing, and getting things wrong. These newspaper men often do that, you know."

"Yes--" returned Hildreth, meditatively, "but Braine isn't that sort. He is apt to surprise you just the other way. When you squeeze him to see if he knows what he has been saying, you're apt to find out he knows a good deal more. He's a cautious fellow, and not too previous." [Hildreth's speech declines to reduce itself to subjection, and must be reported faithfully.] "Besides, I particularly cautioned him when he began this series on 'Thebes as a Railroad Centre,' to go slow, and deal in glittering generalities. I told him we weren't quite ready to call the hand yet."

"What did he say?"

"Not much. He said he understood the situation, and I suppose he really thought so. I'm afraid he's upset the milk pail. I wish I'd taken him into full confidence."

"I wish you had, almost. But if you had, we should have had to let him in a good deal deeper than we intend. I suppose he's keen enough to know how thick the butter is on a slice of bread, when he gets a good look at it?"

"Keen enough? Yes, he's keen enough for anything. I'm afraid he's been too keen for us. I don't know what he's up to, or how much he knows, but it looks serious. Maybe after all it would have been cheaper to let him in on the ground floor, instead of pretending. What if he's leased the ground floor himself, and made up his mind to turn us out?"

"Had he money enough for that?"

"No, I suppose not. But brains count sometimes, and he's got brains. Couldn't you find out anyway what Van Duyn means to do?"

"No. He said he was in other things, and couldn't go in with us. Of course that means whatever he wanted it to mean. With a man of his wealth and banking connections, being in one thing or twenty things, don't prevent his going into others. But whether he's up to anything or not, I couldn't find out."

"Well, it looks bad. Braine played it very sharp on me when he got that charter and ferry franchise. I didn't know he knew of their existence, or would dream of their value if he did. Then he went to New York and got in with a lot of people there. I don't know how. Then came the sudden drop in Northern stock before we began selling short. Somebody must have been selling it quietly for days. Then when we went in to buy, you couldn't get a controlling interest at any price, and all we can make out is that a big block of it is held off the market. Now comes this series of articles."

"Read that last paragraph again."

Hildreth took up the paper and read:

"These plans are now about matured, and the hopes of Thebes approach fruition. It is yet too soon to publish particulars, but this much, at any rate, may be stated. A strong body of capitalists have secured control of the lines south of Columbia. Associated with them are the owners of the franchise for the connecting line between Thebes and Columbia. Contracts for the rapid construction of that line have been let, and the road will be in operation by the new year. Negotiations are in progress, or soon will be, for a traffic arrangement with the roads running north from Thebes, and there is now every assurance that the great tide of commerce between the North and South will speedily flow through this city."

The two sat silent for a time after the reading was done. Then Duncan said:

"Hildreth, there's more behind that; the fellow has a masked battery of some kind. Let's have the others down at once."

Hildreth rang for a clerk to whom he said:

"Telegraph to Tucker and Fanning to come down by the night express without fail, and meet Duncan here at ten in the morning. Say it's imperative."

When the clerk had gone, Duncan asked:

"What shall we do about Braine, in the mean time?"

"That's what puzzles me. On the whole, I think we'd better have him here to-night, and have it out with him some way. We may not be able to manage him, but I think we can. At all events, we'd best know how much powder he has in his magazine. Confound the fellow!"

"Don't be too hasty. He is evidently a man we want with us, and of course we can get him in some way. A very little slice of this cut will seem a feast to him. Send for him, and when we get him here we'll manage him."

Hildreth rang again, and said to the answering clerk:

"Go up to Braine's after you lock the vault for the day, and tell him to come down and see me here at eight o'clock sharp."

When this message was delivered to Braine an hour or two later the editor was quietly reading the "Biglow Papers" to his wife in the little white cottage with the sweet-williams in front. He had half an hour before received a note by messenger, which he crumpled up and threw into the waste basket. A moment later he picked it out again, went into the kitchen and placed it carefully on the fire.

When Hildreth's clerk delivered his summons, Braine quietly said to him:

"Take down my answer in shorthand and deliver it accurately. Tell Mr. Hildreth I am reading a very interesting book to my wife, and don't care to disturb myself. You may say to him, also, that after he has had a talk with Duncan, who is with him now, and Tucker and Fanning, who are to arrive by the express at ten to-morrow morning, I shall be at his service for any conference he may think necessary. Good evening, Charley."

"Why, Ed," exclaimed Helen, as soon as the clerk had gone, "this reading is of no consequence."

"I know it, dear. In fact I'm tired of it and shall read no more."

"Why didn't you go then? It may be of consequence."

"It is--to Hildreth."

"Why did you send him so--well, so curious a message, then?"

"Because I wanted him to know that I knew who was coming and by what trains."

"Didn't you get the information from him?"

"No, dear. He didn't know it himself till he telegraphed for them an hour ago, when we were at tea."

"Then how on earth did you find it out?"

"I pay for my education, dear, as I go on. The little note I burned in the kitchen brought me the information."

"But why did you treat Mr. Hildreth's message so--well, so curtly? I'm sure--"

"My dear, let me tell you a story. There was once a rich man and a poor man. The rich man wanted to make use of the poor man, and he carefully arranged matters so as to make himself the poor man's master. When he had things all ready, he went to the poor man and told him about it. He promised to be a kind master and to pay the poor man well for serving him. But the poor man was constituted a little curiously. He didn't like to have a master, even a kind one who paid him well. He liked to be master himself, and so he carefully arranged matters so as to make himself the rich man's master. When he had matters in readiness, he sent a reply to one of the rich man's orders, which let the rich man know that the poor man was master now. That's a little fable. But fables are often true."

XVI.

It was not until noon of the next day, after two hours of preparatory conference, that Hildreth sent Braine as courteous a note as his most accomplished clerk could manufacture, asking him to meet Duncan, Tucker and Fanning in the bank parlor, "for consultation upon matters of deep interest to all of us."

A little after one, Braine appeared at the bank, and greeted the others without seeming in the least conscious that he had kept the personal representatives of a good many millions of dollars waiting for an hour.

Meantime the group had agreed upon a plan of operations, which had only the one defect of being founded upon a total misapprehension of Braine's situation, attitude and intentions. A fresh perusal of the series of articles on "Thebes as a Railroad Centre," together with Hildreth's report of the message he had received from Braine in answer to his own, the day before, had led the quartette to certain conclusions.

"He knows what we're up to," was the verdict of Tucker, a pudgy little man, with a voice at least an octave too low for his apparent bellows-power; "at least he's worked out enough of it to bank on. He's making a strike. He proposes to get in with us, and it's my opinion we've got to let him in."

"Yes, but how far?" asked Fanning, a very thin person, with a high forehead, over which the skin seemed stretched with drum head tension.

"Well, of course, a fellow like that," said Hildreth, "isn't like one of us. He'll think it a big fortune if we let him in enough to give him a little bank account, and let his wife go to some fashionable watering-place every summer. He doesn't know how much a combination of this kind means. My notion is for us to take his ferry franchise and the railroad charter--he doesn't know what that piece of paper is worth, I fancy--and capitalize the ferry at two hundred thousand dollars, and the railroad at ten millions. The road won't cost more than three millions at the outside to build, and a ferry-boat can be had, with the landing traps, for thirty-five thousand dollars. We'll assign Braine two hundred thousand dollars' worth of stock in the road, and twenty-five thousand dollars in the ferry company. The figures will knock him over. Of course, we can fix it so as to throw most of the earnings of the ferry and connecting road over to our other properties. The idea of having $225,000 in anything will fetch him. It sounds big, that sort of thing, to a fellow that's rooted for his living as Braine has. He's sharp, but of course he doesn't know how these things are managed. He's had no experience."

"But we'll need his brains now and then, Hildreth," said Duncan, "and mustn't set him in antagonism to us. He'll find out after a while what his stock is worth, and then he'll fight us, sure. Can we afford to risk that?"

"That's a fact," said Hildreth; "well, how will it do to give him the stock and a clean cash twenty-five thousand dollars? He'll be rich on that, or think himself so. And we can help him in his political schemes, too. He is ambitious, and we shall want him in politics. I'll suggest politics after the money part is broached."

And so, when Braine entered, Hildreth was equipped.

"We've been reading your articles with interest, Braine," he began, "but we find you've been a little misled by your enthusiasm and hopefulness." A few months earlier, Hildreth had called that sort of thing "going off at half cock," but he thought it best to be more circumspect now. "After all," he continued, "I'm to blame for it, you know, because I ought to have kept you better posted."

"Would you mind telling me just wherein I have been misled?" asked Braine, without manifesting the least concern as to the seriousness of his blunders.

"Well, you see it's this way. We haven't got control of the Southern lines yet. Van Duyn disappointed us, and--"

"Yes--well?" said Braine.

"Your saying we have secured control may bother us a little in the negotiations."

"Did I say you had got control of the Southern lines? I don't recall it."

"Certainly; you say," reading, "'a strong body of capitalists have secured control of the lines south of Columbia.'"

"I see. Well?"

"Oh, I don't know as it need be very serious. It will pass as a careless newspaper statement."

"Certainly. Call it that and lay it on my shoulders. Nobody will mind me. Well, what else?"

"Well, I ought to have told you that we haven't got a good ready yet to begin work on the new line from here to Columbia, and we haven't yet succeeded in buying a controlling interest in the Northern road," said Hildreth.

"You never told me," said Braine, but without any look of surprise at the information, "that you contemplated doing anything with the Northern road, after you shut it off the river front by the levee transfer."

"Didn't I? That must have been an oversight. Well I'll tell you now. I'll be perfectly frank, Braine, for we're all in one boat you know. Our plan was to sell Northern down to the breaking point on the strength of its being cut off from the river, and then, when the bottom dropped out of it, to go in and buy up a controlling interest, consolidate the road with the Central, and send the stock up again."

"Why didn't you carry out the plan?" asked Braine, with languid interest. "It looks like a very good one."

"That's where the trouble lies. Somebody else sold the stock short on the quiet before we began, and he must have made a pile on the operation too, for the market was sold so deep that when we touched it, it tumbled to pieces like a barrel with the hoops off. And then when we began to buy on the broken market, we found another block in our way. Somebody had quietly bought while we were selling, and now holds a big block of the stock off the market. We've bought every share we can get, till we've sent the market up to where it was before the break, and even a little higher, but we can't get enough to control."

"What do you mean to do about it?" queried Braine.

"We're waiting for the fellow to weaken, and that's where the trouble comes in. Your article will stiffen him up like thunder. You must admit that you were too previous this time, Braine."

"Perhaps so. But what do you suggest now?"

"Well, we count on you to patch things up. Can't you get up some news about the thing, to knock out the impression you've made?"

"No," answered Braine, "that would never do. The first condition of success in journalism is never to print false and misleading news."

"Confound journalism!" Hildreth could not altogether repress his irritation. "The whole game is at stake, my dear fellow, and you're one of us, you know."

"Am I? How much? You've never told me."

Here Tucker winked at Fanning, and Duncan nodded at Tucker. It was clear that Braine was "striking," and they were now getting at the marrow of the matter.

"We've just been talking that over," said Hildreth with eager confidence; "and this is what we think we can afford to do for you," handing Braine a memorandum. "It's extremely liberal, you see, but we want to be as liberal as possible with you. We haven't forgotten how you served us at the pinch, and we want your brains hereafter."

Braine scanned the memorandum carelessly. Then he handed it back, and said:

"My brains cannot be had at the price. I've been trying them a little, recently, and find they're worth more to me than you offer."

"Might I ask, Mr. Braine," interposed Duncan, snapping his fingers against his knuckles, "what is your notion of a fair arrangement between us?"