Part 12

Narcisse gave over trying to make him sensible where Amy was concerned, as soon as she saw upon what he was bent. "He wouldn't think of her seriously if she weren't rich," she said to herself. "But, since he is determined to take her seriously, it's better that he should be able to delude himself into believing he loves her. And maybe he does. Isn't love always nine tenths delusion of some sort?" So, she left him free to go on with Amy, to love her, to win her love if he could. But--could he? He feared not. That so wonderful a creature, one who might marry more millions and blaze, the brightest star in the heavens of fashionable New York, should take him--it seemed unlikely. "She ought to prefer congeniality to wealth," thought he, "but"--with an unconscious inward glance--"it's not in human nature to do it."

As they sat there together in the midst of their completed work, he waiting for some hopeful sign, she at least did not change the subject. "Hasn't what we've been doing had any--personal interest for you?" he urged.

She nodded. "Yes, I owe my interest in it to you," she conceded. But she went on to discourage him with, "We have been _such_ friends. Usually, a young man and a young woman can't be together, as have we, without trying to marry each other."

"That's true," assented he, much dejected. Then, desperately, "That's why I've put off saying what I'm going to say until the work should be done."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Don't say it, please--not now."

"But you must have known," he pleaded.

"I never thought of it," replied she with an air of frankness that convinced him.

"Well--won't you think of it--now?"

"Not to-day," was her answer, in the tone a woman uses when she is uncertain and wishes to convince herself that she is certain. She rose and crossed to the edge of the veranda.

In such circumstances, when the woman turns her back on the man, it is usually to signify that she has a traitor within, willing to yield to a surprise that which could not be won by a direct assault; and, had Alois's love been founded in passion instead of in interest, he would not have followed her hesitatingly, doing nothing, simply saying stumblingly: "I don't wish to annoy you. But let me say one thing--Amy--I love you, and to get you means life to me, and not to get you means the death of all that is really me. I think I could make you happy--you who are so interested in what is my life work. It must be our life work."

"I've thought of that," responded she softly. "But, not to-day--not to-day." A pause during which she was hoping, in spite of herself, that he would at least insist. When he remained silent and respectful, she went on: "Don't you think we may let father and Hugo come?"

"By all means. Everything is ready." And they went back to talking of the work--of the surprise awaiting Fosdick.

Fosdick had gratified her and delighted himself by playing the fondly indulgent father throughout the building of Overlook. He had put the widest limits on expense, he had asked no questions; he had let her keep him ignorant of all that was being done. It was a remarkable and most characteristic display of generosity. When a man earns a fortune by his own efforts, by risking his own property again and again, he is rarely "princely" in his generosity. But with the men who grow rich by risking other people's money in campaigns against rival captains of finance and industry who are also submitting to the fortunes of commercial war little or nothing that is rightfully theirs, then the princely qualities come out--the generosity with which the prince wastes the substance of his subjects in luxury, in largesse, and in wars. Fosdick felt most princely in relation to the properties he controlled. Whatever he did, if it was merely eating his breakfast or consulting a physician when he was ill, he did it for the benefit of the multitude whose money was invested in his various enterprises. Thus, when he took, he could take only his own; when he gave, he was "graciously pleased" to give up his own.

This simple, easy, and most natural theory reduced all divisions of profits, losses, expenses, to mere matters of bookkeeping. If his losses or expenses were heavy, the dividends to policy holders and stockholders must be small--clearly, he who had done his best and had acted only for the good of others ought not to cripple or hamper his future unselfish endeavors. If the profits were large--why dribble them out to several hundred thousand people who had done nothing to make them, who did not deserve, did not expect, and would not appreciate? No; the extra profits to the war-chest--which was naturally and of necessity and of right in the secure possession of the commander-in-chief. So, Fosdick, after the approved and customary manner of the princely industrial successors to the princely aristocratic parasites on mankind, was able to indulge himself in the luxury of generosity without inflicting any hardship upon his conscience or upon his purse.

The distribution of the cost of the new house had presented many nice problems in bookkeeping. Some of the expense--for raw materials, notably--was merged into the construction accounts of the O.A.D. and two railway systems; but the largest part was covered by the results of two big bond deals and a stock manipulation. This part appeared on the records as an actual payment by Fosdick out of his own private fortune; but on the other side of the ledger stood corresponding profits from the enterprises mentioned, and these profits, on careful analysis, were seen to have come from the fact that, when profits were to be distributed, Fosdick the private person was in no way distinguishable from Fosdick the trustee of the multitude.

If the old man had not had confidence in his daughter's good sense and good taste and in Siersdorf's ability, he would not have given them the absolutely free hand. It was, therefore, with the liveliest expectations that he took the train for Overlook. As he and Hugo descended at the station, they looked toward Overlook Hill, so amazingly transformed. "Well, you've certainly done _something_!" he exclaimed to Amy, as she came forward to meet him. "Why, I'd not have known the place. Splendid! Superb!" And he kissed her and shook hands warmly with Alois.

On the way through the village in the auto, he gushed a stream of enthusiasm and comment. "That cliff, now--what a fine idea! And the cascade--why, you've doubled the value of real estate throughout this region. I must quietly gather in some land round here-- You are in on that, Siersdorf. The railway station must be improved. I'll see Thorne--he's president of the road and a good friend of mine--he'll put up a proper building--you must draw the plans, Siersdorf. This village--it's unsightly. We must either wipe it out or make it into a model."

His enthusiasm continued at the boiling point until they ascended the hill and had the first full view of the house. Then his face lengthened and he lapsed into silence. Hugo was not so considerate. "Do you mean to tell me _this_ is the house?" demanded he of Amy. "Why, it's a cottage. How ridiculous to put such a climax to all these preparations!"

Amy's eyes flashed and she tossed her head scornfully.

Hugo continued to look and began to laugh. "Ridiculous!" he repeated. "Don't you think so, father?"

"It is hardly what I expected," confessed Fosdick. "It isn't done yet, is it, Amy?"

"Yes, it's done," she said angrily. "And it's the best thing about the place. I don't want you to say anything more until you've gone over it. The trouble with you and Hugo is that your taste has been corrupted by the vulgarity in New York. You don't appreciate the difference between beauty and ostentation. Mr. Siersdorf has built a house for a gentleman, not for a multimillionaire."

That silenced them; and in silence she led the way into and through the house, by a route that would present all its charms and comforts in effective succession. She made no comments; she simply regulated the speed of the tour, trusting to their eyes to show them what she could not believe any eyes could fail to see. At the veranda commanding the most magnificent of the many views, she brought the tour to an end. The luncheon table was there, and she ordered the servants to bring lunch. And a delicious lunch it was, ending with wonderful English strawberries, crimson, huge, pink-white within and sweet as their own fragrance--"grown on the place," explained Amy, "and this cream is from our own dairy down there."

"I take it all back," said Fosdick. "You and Siersdorf were right. Eh, Hugo?"

"It's better than I thought," conceded Hugo. "There certainly is a--a tone about the house that I've not often seen on this side of the water."

"And there's a comfort you've never seen on the other side," said Amy. "You are satisfied, father?"

"Satisfied!" exclaimed Fosdick. "I'm overwhelmed."

And when they had had coffee, which, Hugo said, reminded him of the Cafe Anglais at Paris, Siersdorf took them for a second tour of the house, pointing out the conveniences, the luxuries, the evidences of good taste, expanding upon them, eulogizing them, feeling as he talked that he had created them. "A gentleman's home!" he cried again and again. "It'll be a rebuke to all these vulgarians who are trying to show how much money they've got. Why, you never think, as you walk around here, 'How much this cost,' but only, 'How beautiful it is, and how comfortable.' A house for a gentleman. A gentleman's _home_--that's what I call it."

At each burst of enthusiasm from her father, Amy beamed on Alois. And Alois was dizzy with happiness and hope.

*XIV*

*WOMAN'S DISTRUST--AND TRUST*

Having got what she wanted of Alois, Amy now permitted her better nature to reproach her for having absorbed him so long and so completely. She assumed Narcisse was blaming, was disliking, her for it; and, indeed, Narcisse had been watching the performance with some anger and more disgust. Before Alois came upon the scene, and while Amy was still in the first flush of enthusiasm for her new friend, Narcisse had begun to draw back. She saw that Amy, like everyone who has always had his own way and so has been made capricious, was without capacity for real friendship. If she had thought Amy worth while, she would have held her--for Narcisse was many-sided and could make herself so interesting that few indeed would not have seemed tame and dull after her. But she decided that Amy was not worth while; and to cut short Amy's constant attempts to interfere between her and her work, she emphasized her positive, even aggressive, individuality, instead of softening it. Servants, fortune-hunters, flatterers, the army of parasites that gathers to swoop upon anyone with anything to give, had made Amy intolerant of the least self-assertiveness; and to be a very porcupine of prickly points; Narcisse had only to give way to her natural bent for the candid.

For example, Narcisse had common sense--like most people of good taste; for, is not sound sense the basis of sound taste, indeed the prime factor in all sound development of whatever kind? Now, there is nothing more inflammatory than steadfast good sense. It rebukes and mocks us, making us seem as stupid and as foolish as we fear we are. Narcisse would not eat things that did not agree with her; it irritated self-indulgent Amy against her, when they lunched together and she refused to eat as foolishly as did Amy. Again, Narcisse would not drive when she could walk, because driving was as bad for health and looks as walking was good for them. Amy knew that, with her tendency to fat, she ought never to drive. But she was lazy, doted on the superiority driving seemed to give, was nervous about the inferiority "the best people" attached to a woman's walking. So she persisted in driving, and ruffled at Narcisse for being equally persistent in the sensible course. It is the common conception of friendship that one's friend must do what one wishes and is no friend if he does not; Amy felt that way about it.

Alois had come back from abroad just in time to save the Fosdick architectural trade to the firm. Narcisse would soon have alienated it--and would have been glad to see it go; in fact, since she had realized where the Fosdick money came from, she with the greatest difficulty restrained herself from bursting forth to Alois in "impractical sentimentalities" which she knew would move him only against herself.

Amy expected Narcisse's enthusiasm toward Overlook to be very, very restrained indeed. "She must be jealous," thought Amy, "because she has had so little to do with it, and I so much." But she had to admit that she had misjudged the builder. It is not easy satisfactorily to praise to anyone a person or a thing he has in his heart; the most ardent praise is likely to seem cold, and any lapse in discrimination rouses a suspicion of insincerity. If Narcisse had not felt the beauty of what her brother and Amy had done, she could not have made Amy's enthusiasm for her flame afresh, as it did. Before Narcisse finished, Amy thought that she herself had not half appreciated how well she and Alois had wrought. "But it would never have been anything like so satisfactory," said she in a burst of impulsive generosity, "if you hadn't started it all."

"I wish I could feel that I had some part in it," said Narcisse, "but I can't, in honesty."

And she meant it. Those who have fertile, luxuriant minds rarely keep account of the ideas they are constantly and prodigally pouring out. Narcisse had forgotten--though Amy had not--that it was she who was inspired by that site to dream the dream that her brother and Amy had realized. It was on the tip of Amy's tongue to say this; but she decided to refrain. "I probably exaggerate the influence of what she said," she thought. "We saw it together and talked it over together, and no doubt each of us borrowed from the other"--let him who dares, criticise this, in a world that shines altogether by reflected lights.

As the two young women talked on, the builder gradually returned to her constrained attitude. She saw that Amy was taking to herself the whole credit for Overlook, was looking on Alois as simply a stimulant to her own great magnetism and artistic sense, was patronizing him as a capable and satisfactory agent for transmitting them into action. And this made her angry, not with Amy but with Alois. "Amy isn't to blame," she said to herself. "It's his fault. To please her he has been exaggerating her importance to herself, and he has succeeded in convincing her. She has ended up just where people always end up, when you encourage them to give their vanity its head." She tried to devise some way of helping her brother, of reminding Amy that he was entitled to credit for some small part of the success; but she could think of nothing to say that Amy would not misinterpret into jealousy either for herself or for her brother. When she got back to the offices, she said to him:

"If I were you, I'd not let a certain young woman imagine she has _all_ the brains."

"What do you mean?" said he, clouding at once. He showed annoyance nowadays whenever she mentioned the Fosdicks.

"She'll soon be thinking you couldn't get along without her to give you ideas," replied Narcisse. "It's bad all round--bad for the woman, bad for the man--when he gets her too crazy about herself. She's likely to overlook his merits entirely in her excitement about her own."

"You are prejudiced against her, Narcisse," said Alois angrily. "And it isn't a bit like you to be so."

Narcisse, not being an angel, flared. "I'm not half as prejudiced against her as you'd be three months after you married her," she cried. "But you'll not get her, if you keep on as you're going now. Instead of showing her how awed you are by her, you'd better be teaching her that she ought to be in awe of you, that it's what _you_ give her that makes her shine so bright."

And she fled to her own office, fuming against the folly of men and the silliness of women, and thoroughly miserable over the whole situation; for, at bottom she believed that such a woman as Amy must have feminine instinct enough fairly to jump at such a man as Alois, if there was a chance to attach him permanently; and, the prospect of Alois marrying a woman who could do him no good, who was all take and no give, put her into such a frame of mind that she wished she had the mean streak necessary to intriguing him and her apart.

It was on one of the bluest of her blue days of forebodings about Alois and Amy that Neva came in to see her; and a glance at Neva's face was sufficient to convince her that bad news was imminent. "What is it, Neva?" she demanded. "I've felt all the morning that something rotten was on the way. Now, I know it's here. Tell me."

"Do you recall Mrs. Ranier? She was at my place one afternoon----"

"Perfectly," interrupted Narcisse, "Amy Fosdick's sister."

"She took a great fancy to you. And when she heard something she thought you ought to know, she came to me and asked me to tell you. She said she knew you'd be discreet--that you could be trusted."

"I liked her, too," said Narcisse. "I think she can trust me."

"It's about--about--those insurance buildings," continued Neva, painfully embarrassed. "I'm afraid I'm rather incoherent. It's the first time I ever interfered in anyone else's business."

"Tell me," urged Narcisse. "I suppose it's something painful. But I'm good and tough---speak straight out."

"Mrs. Ranier's husband is in the furniture business, and through that he found out there's a scandal coming. She says those people downtown will drag you and your brother in, will probably try to hide themselves behind you. She heard last night, and came early this morning. 'Tell her,' she said, 'not to let her brother reassure her, but to look into it--clear to the bottom.'"

Narcisse was motionless, her eyes strained, her face haggard.

"That's all," said Neva, rising. "I shouldn't have come, shouldn't have said anything to you, if I had not known that Mrs. Ranier has the best heart in the world, and isn't an alarmist."

Narcisse faced Neva and pressed her hands, without looking at her.

"If there is anything I can do, you have only to ask," said Neva, going. She had too human an instinct to linger and offer sympathy to pride in its hour of abasement.

"There's one thing you can do," said Narcisse, nervous and intensely embarrassed.

Neva came back. "Don't hesitate. I meant just what I said--anything."

Narcisse blurted it out: "Is Horace Armstrong a man who can be trusted? Is he straight?" Then, as Neva did not answer immediately, she hastened on, "Please forget what I asked you. It really doesn't matter, and----"

Neva interrupted her with a frank, friendly smile. "Don't be uneasy," she said. "He and I are excellent friends. He calls often. I don't know a thing about him in a business way. But-- Well, Narcisse, I'm sure he'd not do anything small and mean."

"That's all I wished to know."

A few minutes after Neva left, Narcisse, white but calm, sent for her brother. "How deeply have you entangled yourself in those fraudulent vouchers?" she asked, when they were shut in together.

He lifted his head haughtily. "What do you mean, Narcisse?"

"As we are equal partners, I have the right to know all the affairs of the firm. I want to see the accounts of those insurance buildings, at once--and to know the exact truth about them."

"You left that matter entirely to me," replied he, sullen but uneasy. "I haven't time to-day to go into a mass of details. It'd be useless, anyhow. But--I do not like that word you used--fraudulent."

She waved her hand impatiently. "It's the word the public will use, whatever nice, agreeable expression for it you men of affairs may have among yourselves. Have you signed vouchers, as you said you were going to do?"

"Certainly. And, I may add, I shall continue to sign them."

"Haven't you heard that that investigation is coming?"

He gave a superior, knowing smile. "Those things are always fixed up. There's a public side, but it's as unreal as a stage play. Fosdick controls this particular show."

"So I hear," said she, with bitter irony. "And he purposes to throw you to the wild beasts--you and me."

Siersdorf laughed indulgently. "My dear sister," he said, "don't bother your head about it." The idea seemed absurd to him: Fosdick sacrifice him, when they were such friends!--it was an insult to Fosdick to entertain the suspicion. "When the proper time comes," he continued, "I shall be away on business--and the matter will be sidetracked, and nothing more will be said about me. Trust me. I know what I am about."

"Yes, you will be away," cried she, suddenly enlightened. "And the whole thing will be exposed, and they'll have their accounts so cooked that the guilt will all be on you. And before you can get back and clear yourself, you will be ruined--disgraced--dishonored."

The situation she thus blackly outlined was within the possibilities; her tone of certainty had carrying power. A chill went through him. "Ridiculous!" he protested loudly.

"You have put your honor in another man's keeping," she went on. "And that man is a thief."

"Narcisse!"

"A thief!" she repeated with emphasis. "They don't call each other thieves downtown. They've agreed to call themselves respectabilities and financiers and all sorts of high-flown names. But thieves they are, because they're loaded down with what don't belong to them, money they got away from other people by lying and swindling. Is your honor _quite_ safe in the keeping of a thief?"

"Narcisse!" repeated Alois, wincing again at that terse, plain word, rough and harsh, an allopathic dose of moral medicine, undiluted, uncoated.

"_I_ don't think so," she pursued. "What precautions do you purpose to take?"

He looked at her helplessly. "If I say anything to Fosdick," said he, "he will be justified in getting furiously angry. He might think he had the right to act as you accuse him of plotting."

"But you must do something."

He shook his head. "I have trusted Fosdick," said he. "I still think it was wise. But, however that may be, the wise course now certainly is to continue to trust him."

"Trust him!" exclaimed Narcisse bitterly. "I might trust a thief who wasn't a hypocrite--he might not squeal on a pal to save himself. But not a Fosdick. A respectable thief has neither the honor of honest men nor the honor of thieves."

"Prejudice! Always prejudice, Narcisse."

"You will do nothing?"

"Nothing." And he tried to look calm and firm.

She went into her dressing room with the air of one bent on decisive action. He could but wait. When she came back she was dressed for the street.

"Where are you going?" he demanded in alarm.

"To save myself and--you," she replied with a certain sternness. It was unlike her to put herself first in speech--she who always considered herself last.

"Narcisse, I forbid you to interfere in this affair. I forbid you to go crazily on to compromising us both."

She looked straight into his eyes. "The time has come when I must use my own judgment," said she.

And, with that, she went; he knew her, knew when it was idle to oppose her. Besides--what if she should be right? In all their years together, as children, as youths, as workers, he had always respected her judgment, because it had always been based upon a common sense clearer than his own, freer from those passions which rise from the stronger appetites of men to befog their reason, to make what they wish to be the truth seem actually the truth.