CHAPTER XVII

KATE SENDS A CABLEGRAM

Now to give Carter full due, his weaning of the King of Okky from the habit of human sacrifice had been brought about more by accident than design. By a further working of the law of chance, the circumstance brought him out of modest obscurity into a very strong notoriety in a little less than six short months.

"A private trader," so ran the gist of the newspaper leaders, "has brought to pass a thing which Government authorities, both civil and military, not to mention missionaries and miscellaneous philanthropists, have been trying for ineffectually ever since the British rule was set up in West Africa. Throughout all our possessions on that sickly Coast the natives have been addicted to human sacrifice; and when instances of this from time to time leak out, civilization is on each occasion chilled with a fresh douche of horror. The West African Kingdom of Okky, though little known for other qualities, has acquired a certain detestable celebrity for these red orgies.... Mr. Carter, though he was brought up in his father's vicarage in Wharfedale, has not been noted heretofore for any special benevolence in dealing with native questions. Those who know him describe him as essentially a strong man.... In fact, Mr. Carter, in his modesty, most emphatically disclaims any such high motives, and avers that he took his now celebrated journey into the bush merely for his own business purposes, and nothing beyond. On this subject we prefer to hold our own opinions. Explorers of his rare type--the almost unknown type that does not advertise--carry with them a modesty that delights in belittling its own triumphs. But even Mr. Carter's modesty cannot explain away certain cold facts. The King of Okky till recently had a most black reputation for human sacrifice. Many Europeans have gone up to his horrible city to expostulate. Some he has sent back; some have not been heard of again since they left the Coast, and one can only shudder and guess at their fates; but none have effected any change. The 'Customs,' as these orgies of slaughter are named locally, still endured: indeed, evidence clearly showed that they were increasing under the present reign of King Kallee both in frequency and importance. Nothing, it was said by those on the spot, but a British army, and a great outlay in life and treasure, could bring these horrors of the hinterland to a close. Mr. Carter, however, thought otherwise. He went up country practically unattended. He bearded the king in his own fetich grove, and he achieved what experts called the impossible. He has induced King Kallee to abandon human sacrifice now and for always.

"As will be seen by the two interviews which appear in our news columns, the information on these points did not come from Mr. Carter himself. Mr. Carter is that man so rare to find in these pushing days, a man who does not care one jot for anything the press can do towards his own self-advancement, a man, moreover, who does not mind saying so in strong, rude Anglo-Saxon. But fortunately we have another mine of information more easily tapped. The sensational rise into a new prosperity of the old West African firm of O'Neill and Craven has been one of the features of the year's finance, and it is now an open secret that the sole partner and manager of the 'firm' is a young, attractive, and unmarried lady. This Miss Kate O'Neill has so far evaded the interviewer, but on the Okky topic she has volunteered the fullest information. It is to her that we are indebted for our description of Mr. Carter and his great achievement."

On such lines ran the leaders in most of the great newspapers, though, of course, they varied in their facts and their point of view. They all paid graceful compliments to the pretty girl who had appeared of late with such success in the field of larger finance. One paper alone had the impudence to refer in cold print to a matter that the other newspaper men smiled over quietly in the privacy of their offices.

"We wish," wrote this sentimental journalist, "that we could indicate a romance that would finish up this episode fittingly. But truth compels us to record that Miss O'Neill, along with the rest of the biographical matter which she so kindly supplied, mentioned the detail of Mr. Carter's engagement to a Miss Laura Slade, who at present resides in Grand Canary. We understand that a marriage will shortly take place."

As it happened, this journal was the one of Mrs. Craven's daily reading. She indicated the paragraph with a prim forefinger, and called her niece to read it.

"Did you say that, Kate, or is it one of the fellow's impudent inventions?"

"Oh, I told him that with the rest just to--well, to quiet him. He seemed to think I was very interested in Mr. Carter."

"And I suppose suggested you were in love with him?"

"Well, he didn't put it exactly like that," said Kate thoughtfully. "He was a very dashing young man, and rather gave me the idea that he wanted to see if the coast was clear for himself."

"I see. And so you told him about the engagement between Mr. Carter and Laura, just to encourage him?"

"I suppose so. He really was very amusing and pushing. He wanted me to go out to lunch with him there and then."

"Kate, are you going to let Mr. Carter marry Laura?"

"My dear Aunt Jane, what an extraordinary question! What possible influence can I have over either of them? I offered them both a wedding present, and asked them each what they would like. Could I go further than that?"

"And each of them," suggested the old lady, "said 'there was time enough for that,' or they'd 'let you know when the wedding day was fixed,' or put you off, somehow, like that."

"Look here, Aunt, what are you driving at?"

"I am looking."

"Well, speak, you irritating old person."

"My dear, I am waiting for you to look back at me. You have carefully avoided meeting my eye ever since I showed you the paper."

Kate looked up, and Mrs. Craven read something in the girl's face that made her sigh. "You will go your own way, I know, Kitty dear. You are very capable, and very clever, and that has naturally made you very self-reliant. You have shown yourself so wonderfully successful over your business matters that I shouldn't dream of advising you there. But do you ever bring up into mind that there is something more in life than mere financial success?"

"Of course I do, Aunt. But I suppose I am different from the other girls. They look forward to their domestic pleasures. I have made myself other interests."

The old lady shook her head decisively. "You are not at all abnormal in that way. You are the most entirely human person I ever saw. And to prove it, I'll just instance to you the way you've fallen in love with George Carter."

"I refuse to admit it."

"Even to me, Kitty?"

"Even to myself. I like the man, and there it must end. He is engaged elsewhere, and if you call me human, you must allow me pride. I run after no man, nor do I lure any man away from another girl who has been my friend, whatever my inclinations may be. And now, if you please, we will drop that subject and talk of rubber. Our third company was subscribed once and a half times over by lunch time to-day, and we've closed the lists. How's that for a real solid triumph?"

Mrs. Craven lay back in her chair and methodically folded the paper. "Do the profits on that bring up your score to the million you arrived at?"

"Oh no, no. But they will help it along very nicely."

"When you get a million will you stop?"

"When I get my million, which, mark you, Aunt, is more than any girl of my age has ever done, why, then, I shall start to make my second. It's a most fascinating amusement."

"But it doesn't make you happy. You are no better for it. You can't spend it."

"My dear Aunt, where have your eyes been? Haven't you seen my clothes since I came back from the Coast? Why, I never knew what it was to dress before. I'm seriously thinking I shall have to start a maid to look after me."

"My dear, you've a knack of carrying clothes."

"That I learned from you, you extremely smart person."

"Well, you got the knack somewhere, and you always were nicely turned out. Now I know your wardrobe as well as you do yourself, and, let me see"--Mrs. Craven took a pencil from her chatelaine, and made calculations on the edge of a newspaper--"Since you came back to England you've not spent, at a liberal estimate, above two hundred and twenty-seven pounds ten on your own adornment."

Kate laughed. "I give in to you, Aunt. I quite believe you know my wardrobe better than I do myself. Well, perhaps I shall buy pearls, then. I never had one, but I believe I'm prepared to adore a necklace of big, smooth, delicately graded pearls, with shimmery skins, and a fat, pear-shaped black pearl drop to dangle below it. Yes, that's the real reason I'm making money, Aunt--to buy and wear great ropes of pearls. Or, who knows, I may have a fancy for a peer. Now, with a million, I'm told one can buy for marrying purposes a really fine specimen of peer."

"There are moments," said Mrs. Craven sharply, "when I'm very sorry you're grown up."

Kate went across and sat on the arm of the old lady's chair. "Do you want to smack me and put me to bed?"

"I've done it many a time when you've been in this mood."

"Can you see the black dog on my shoulder?"

"Larger than ever. Kate, you should try and control yourself."

"Oh, be just, Aunt. I didn't lie down on the floor and kick or do anything like that."

"No, thanks to me you can keep your temper under more decent control now. Now, don't you kiss me, and think I'm a silly old woman, and try to get round me that way--I know exactly how you're feeling. Oh, you'd lead any man a dance who married you."

"I'm certain I should," said Kate cheerfully, "unless he was the right one. But, Auntie dear, don't you think it would be safer not to press me to marry anyone at all? I give you my word for it that there's no one marriageable I want to marry. And if you leave me alone with my other amusement, that keeps me out of worse mischief."

At the Prince's Park house in the old days there had been a room known as the Master's study. It had no books in it whatever, because the excellent Godfrey disliked books. It had a writing-desk certainly, but never even an inkpot on it to indicate use. There was just a card-table and some early Victorian furniture of hard, uncompromising ugliness. In short, it was not the Master's study at all, but it emphatically was his card-room.

It remained in its original state till Kate's return from the Coast, and then she begged it from her Aunt, who gave it gladly.

"I want a place where I can type a letter," Kate had said, "and have a copying press, without going down to Water Street. They begin to stare at me down there, and I hate it. No one objects to a girl being in business if she is merely a clerk, but if she gets hold of big successes, well, the men aren't nice about it. If I find it answers, I may lay on a secretary."

So she emptied the room and furnished it afresh, and Mrs. Craven's heart warmed as she saw the girl's natural craving for a home express itself in chairs and pictures, in pretty wall hangings and dainty carpets, in graceful flower-bowls, and all those little touches of domesticity which are the mysterious outcome of sex. There was, it turned out, a small box-room alongside, which was never used, and which could be linked up by a door knocked through the wall. This could be the secretary's room, and hold the letter files, and the copying press, and the typewriter, and all the other crude machinery of commerce; and so "Miss Kate's room," as it came to be called, fulfilled in appearance little enough of its original intention of office.

One can hardly associate walls panelled in rose-pink brocade with the much-abused art of company promotion. But Kate sat in that pretty room, and thought out there all those tremendous schemes, which brought her such brilliant success. She felt she had retired from the firing line; she schemed and planned in secure cover outside the battle; and when any idea eluded her for too long she went out and drove her motor car, or played golf, till the idea arrived. In the season she sometimes went away on butterfly-hunting trips. At the same time she had great ideas of buying an estate where she could have a private golf course of her own. She had grown so strangely sensitive to stares these days, and, people said, unsociable. Her engagement to Mr. Austin had been broken off long ago, and to tell the truth Austin was well enough pleased to be rid of her. Africa, he felt, had eliminated from her all the points which beforetime had caught his admiration. And then again she was so enormously rich one could not, he told himself, marry a woman with such an unwieldy amount of riches. At least he could not. Nor did he intend that the future Mrs. Austin, if ever there was one, should have more practice in high finance than was necessary to manage her own accounts and the household weekly bills.

In fact, it was over this question that he flattered himself had come their split. She had given him, to be sure, a pretty broad hint that day on the landing stage, but the actual rupture of their engagement had not come till a week later, and Kate was clever enough to make Mr. Austin think that the idea was his and his alone. Still they had parted on excellent terms, and any service, professional or otherwise, that Austin could render her in the future was one that he should look forward to, as he promised, most keenly.

"Though you cannot see your way to be my husband," she had said to him lightly, "you will still upon occasion act as my solicitor?"

"Let's call it 'friend,' Kate," he had answered, and they parted on that.

But that day, after Aunt Jane had showed her the Carter leader in the paper, Kate went to her room, and somehow her thoughts went back to Henry Austin. She tried to analyze why she had ever got engaged to him. As far as she could define it, a sort of empty space, a partial vacuum, had come into her life, and Austin appeared, and in a tentative way seemed to fill it. Now that he was gone, the vacuum returned. It did not exactly ache, but it caused a vague discomfort that annoyed her, and when she demanded a cure, something within her kept repeating, "Carter, Carter, Carter!"

She resented this clamor. She told herself that she was a strong woman. She refused to have her hand forced. She declined to allow an ex-employe of her own to be forced into her life as its only complement. And still that inner something, with irritating persistency, kept repeating, "Carter, Carter," and then got unpleasantly familiar, and began to murmur: "George."

She stood it for an hour, stood for that time persistent, inward voices urging her, with never a falter, to one narrow course, and then she got up from her great cushioned chair and went to an old Sheraton bureau. Only one narrow drawer in it was locked, and she carried the key of that amongst the charms on her watch-bangle. She opened the drawer and took from it a photograph.

It was only a steamer group, crudely taken by an amateur on a kodak film, a very imperfect thing at its best, and mottled now by the persistent West African mildew. A piece of brown paper with a hole in it was in the same drawer, a mask so cut that it blocked out all of the group except one individual. She fitted this into place and gazed her fill on this very crude presentment of George Carter.

Well, at any rate he was not a handsome man. But there was something about even this indifferent photograph that gave her a great thrill. It touched some inward chord that no other power on earth could set into vibration, and she was discomforted thereby.

The gong went for dinner. She ignored it. A servant came presently--she had added to the number of servants at the Prince's Park house and Mrs. Craven accepted the alteration passively--and the servant most respectfully stated that dinner would be served in ten minutes, and was not Miss Kate going up to dress? But Miss Kate was busy and would have a cup of tea and a sandwich.

Mrs. Craven below got the news, smiled grimly, and ate an extremely good dinner. She felt a fine satisfaction in having set to work exactly the right influences which would bring that ridiculous Kitty to her senses.

But upstairs, in the prettiest room in Liverpool, Kate wrestled with Fate. She pictured the man that the mask singled out of the group: Red hair, a dogged jaw, ill-cut clothes, and, upon occasion, a man who used the language more fitted to an underpaid stevedore. She had overheard Carter discoursing to the factory at large that night of the false alarm at Mokki, when he chided the Portuguese and the factory boys in phrases learned from Swizzle-Stick Smith. Was this the man she had ever fancied for a husband? No, a thousand times no.

She locked the group and the mask once more into its drawer, and went back to her cushions and a novel. There was still another great rubber company on the brink of flotation. This time the pugilistic Mr. Smith had procured for her the grant of the land, and had assured her that the King of Okky, thanks to his recent improvement in morals, would see that the title remained unchallenged. The proposition was, she honestly believed, commercially sound, but the risk lay in the British Public. Were they loaded up with rubber stock? That was the point to decide. So far she had not had a share of her companies underwritten, in spite of abundant and pressing offers. But here was an awkward question to decide: Should she insure this issue, or should she risk having it not taken up, and invite a fiasco?

She tried with cold logic to reason out the arguments for and against, and to strike a balance between them. But for once her brain refused to act. Even the novel, which she read and did not absorb, did not offer her the necessary hint. It was an old trick of hers, this reading of a dozen chapters of weak fiction, to get an inspiration, and so far it had never failed her. She was an omnivorous novel reader. She went through quite two-thirds of the fiction brought out annually by British publishers, and could never, next morning, have passed the easiest examination in a novel she had read the night before. But all her clever business ideas were evolved when she was reading these paltry books.

At last she could endure the vague things that oppressed her no longer. She dropped the book on the floor. And then she got up and went into the secretary's narrow room next door. She found cable forms and sat at a table. Then she wrote glibly enough this message.

"_Burgoyne, Monk River, West Africa, Forward this to Cascaes Mokki special runner want you act our agent Las Palmas_ 2,400 _commence cable acceptance or refusal, O'Neill._"

She counted up the words, laid down her pencil, and laughed. "At any rate," she said, "that will give one a chance. And George was fool enough to think that Mr. Cascaes was running after me. Oh, I have no patience with men who can't see further through the fog than that."