CHAPTER XII

FORWARDS VARIOUS AFFAIRS

As time passed on, Colonel Blanchard watched with interest, mixed with solicitude, the love-matters of his daughters. Judith's affairs were going to his satisfaction, for though Mather came occasionally to the house, Ellis came oftener. Ellis's land had been bought, his house was going up, and at times he came to discuss his plans with Judith. So far so good, but in another quarter the Colonel was not quite so well pleased, since the visits of Jim Wayne to Beth were becoming very frequent.

Beth was twenty, Jim was twenty-one. He found the way to Chebasset easy to follow, even though he left his mother at home alone--for the Wayne estate was low in the world, and summer-resorts were not for the widow. She, desolate soul, counted her dollars carefully, and encouraged her son's belief that by selling the house and land to Ellis she had made herself comfortable for life. "It was only for that," he explained to Beth, "I allowed her to sell. And now she doesn't need my earnings, so I use them for myself. She likes me to dress well; she says I'm so like my father that she can't bear to have me look shabby. And it's a mark of a gentleman, don't you think, Beth, to look well?"

It was so sweet of Jim to admire his father, that Beth could not bear to say how the elder Wayne was popularly regarded.

"Why," snorted Mr. Fenno, "what he spent on clothes, cigars, and wines, would have provided enough insurance to keep his family handsomely."

Fenno, when on the subject, had intended to make it clear to Beth that Jim was too much like his father. Innuendo, however, had failed with Beth--not that she was unable to perceive that Jim had his weaknesses, but she had the habit of championing her favourites against her own judgment. Thus she was sorry for the Judge who had chosen his wife unwisely and could not make her love him, and pitied old Fenno himself, who realised the hollowness of the world only after he had drummed on it for a good many years. She was fond of such men because they were weak, weak though they knew it not themselves, though the world called them strong. And so it was not unnatural that Beth should take into her innermost heart something still weaker to cherish, because she was so strong herself; something with faults, she had so few herself; something which would get into trouble, for she was so used to getting people out. She did not realise that the young fall far deeper into trouble than the old, and that she could not give backbone to a man who had none.

All this is but saying that Beth, wise in the affairs of others, with her own was not so gifted, and was so mistaken as to take Wayne at very nearly his own valuation. For Jim had a dashing air, and dressing in the fashion was the mark of many a girlish eye. He went smooth-shaven; his face had a slightly petulant expression, as if complaining of the world, yet at times he lighted with the fire of optimism, when he told Beth of the things he meant to do. And thus he approached her on two undefended sides, for never had she turned a deaf ear to a call for sympathy, and nothing in a man did she admire so much as aspiration.

Thus their affinity declared itself to them, for Jim liked to be purred over and strengthened. He enjoyed telling, to an attentive ear, the misfortunes of his family. "That we should have to sell our house to that fellow Ellis!" he said to Beth. "It seems too hard, doesn't it? And to think that in a few years I shall be earning enough to support the old house, if I had it still! But when a fellow's just starting, you've no idea how little they pay. The business world! Ah, Beth, you're lucky to be a girl, so that you don't have to rub up against life!"

He spoke as if life in its hardest form were to be met with only on exchange, and shook his handsome head so convincingly that Beth believed him. She enjoyed believing him; it gave her pleasure to think Jim a man of the world. In fact, he carried himself very well, with none of those mannerisms which so often betray inexperience. Little allusions to dissipation are very common, but Jim was not given to these, and in consequence seemed more manly than those of his set whom she met. Of course Jim took wine when her father offered it; believing in her father as she did, she thought it no sign of dissipation when he or others drank at his table. It was a pleasure to Beth that Jim and the Colonel were congenial, with more than one topic in common. For example, Wayne had a nice taste in wines, fostered by his lamented parent, and could discuss with Blanchard the merits of his '68 and '72. Jim liked the Colonel's tobacco, also, and never failed to commend it. But most of all the two enjoyed speaking of the stock-market and all which to it pertained. The Colonel always asked Jim for the "news of the street," which the two discussed with as much seriousness as if Jim were not young and the Colonel flighty. To these talks Judith and Beth always listened silently--Judith because she knew there would be no use to say anything, Beth because she did not suppose that anything was to be said.

Thus when the Colonel led the talk to Consolidated one evening, Judith remembered, but Beth forgot, that Mather had advised against all silver stocks until they should become settled. To Beth stocks were mere names, unembodied nothings without power either to wreck lives or to make people happy.

"Great possibilities," said Jim, wagging his head.

"Must go up soon, I think," commented her father, with deliberation.

"Sure!" Jim assented heartily.

Such incomplete sentences and bits of slang meant wisdom to Beth, and when Judith rose from the table, the younger sister still remained sitting to hear what further Delphic utterances might be made.

"Always said Argent would slump," stated the Colonel.

"I got out of that some time ago," declared Jim.

"Wise!" Blanchard said approvingly, not knowing that Jim's single share had been sold under pressure of necessity, when his mother, in one of the few decisive moments of her life, declared that Jim himself must buy the new carpet for his room, since she thought the old one still good enough for a couple of years' wear. Jim had at first meant to have a good carpet, then he decided on a rug, and a large part of his Argent went into something Turkish, while a little of what was left was devoted to adorning his person. One small share of Consolidated remained as an investment, and Jim was now looking for that to rise again to the point at which he had bought it.

Jim was an optimist with the instinct of self-approval, and being "in" Consolidated he had picked up the expressions which had fallen in his hearing, justifying him in his wisdom in buying and his hopefulness in waiting. He told the Colonel what Baxter said, and what Winster said, and especially what Bullfinch had declared in regard to the stock. Now, Bullfinch was that broker with whom the Colonel had his dealings.

"He said 'Hang on'?" asked Blanchard with pleasure.

"Yes," said Jim. "And I heard him giving Baxter a tip, sir, which I will pass on to you, if you're interested. He said: 'Watch Poulton Mining and Milling.'"

"Indeed?" murmured the Colonel.

"Now, you wouldn't think that, would you, sir?" asked Jim. "It's down, way down; why, it's been down for a couple of years! I had forgotten about it, almost. But now I'm watching it myself. It has moved a little lately, up a point and down again. Looks as if some one were interesting himself in it, don't you think?"

"May be," assented the Colonel judicially.

"If Consolidated rises, I'm thinking of taking my money out and putting it into Poulton. What should you say to that, Colonel?"

"Where is Poulton now?" asked Blanchard.

"Twelve and a half," answered Jim.

"Well," explained the Colonel, "the way I have always looked at these things is this. If your money is in a low-priced stock, and it rises a dozen points, then perhaps you double. But if your money is in something high-priced, then on the rise you only make twelve per cent."

"If only," said Jim, "one could be sure which stock will rise!"

"You can make sure by watching," asserted the Colonel.

Once Ellis came in as one of these conversations was in progress; he stood listening while the two amateurs finished their duologue.

"Don't you think so?" they had appealed to him at the end.

"Ah, well," replied the master of finance, "you seem to have got hold of something there." Then he went out on the piazza with Judith, leaving the enthusiasts still more cheerful.

"Your father doesn't act on those ideas of his?" he asked of Judith.

"I hope not--I think not," she answered. "He just likes to talk with Jim."

"Dabbler!" was Ellis's characterization of the young man. Meanwhile the dabblers still babbled within the house, in high good humour with themselves.

It will be noticed that the summer had brought progress to Ellis, in fact almost intimacy with Judith. Their closer acquaintance, begun over his house-plans, had been materially forwarded by Mrs. Harmon, when she invited Judith to her house on the evening of Mather's strike.

Previously, she had been very curious to know how he had got on with Judith. That the girl had supplanted her as chief adviser she became aware, and was in the beginning a little piqued thereat. When she first saw a sketch of the new house, her face fell.

"Oh, _that_ kind of a house!" she exclaimed. "Why, that's all very well for a man with an income like my husband's, but for you it seems too simple."

"I like it," he replied without explanation.

"But no carvings," she persisted. "No turrets, or anything of that sort."

"No, no," he said; "this is the only thing."

"But really, change it!" she urged. "Why, it doesn't represent you. It might be anybody's house!"

"The object isn't to attract attention," Ellis replied. "Quiet and dignity are more genteel." He quoted Judith so exactly (all but for the one word) that Mrs. Harmon perceived it.

"Oh," she exclaimed with some chagrin. "I see, it's Judith makes you do this. Of course, if you want to!"

"Now," he said with a rough tolerance, "think it over. She's right, you'll find. A city house down here won't fit. The girl has lived abroad, remember; she ought to know."

Mrs. Harmon had reflected and acquiesced. Common sense was fundamental to both her and Ellis, and combined with more frankness than was usual in the Judge's circle kept them on good terms. Ellis had laid his hand on her shoulder while he urged her to consider; she had not resented the sign of their understanding.

"Well," she said, "Judith knows a good deal, and perhaps I am wrong." Right or wrong, she did not intend that she and Ellis should fall out. Life was dull for her sometimes; she liked to have him dropping in. And then those trinkets. She turned the bracelet on her wrist.

"This is very attractive," she said.

He grunted indifferently.

"It's odd," she said further, "and bracelets aren't worn very much. It attracts attention."

"That's what Price expected," he responded. She never thanked him for his gifts more than by such commendations; he did not expect more.

But she was on each occasion interested to know how he got on with Judith. He knew she kept account of his visits there. "Go oftener," she urged him once. He was wiser, and refused. "You don't follow it up very quickly," she repeatedly said, but "all in good time" was the most she could get out of him.

"What do you talk about with her?" she asked.

"The doings in the city," he answered. "The big things going on anywhere."

"Does that get you very far with her?" she asked in surprise.

"As far as I can get," he replied.

She thought to advise him. "You don't understand girls, Stephen. The talk you give her isn't what she wants. A girl of her age needs--flattery, you know, and nice little things said."

"You'd make me into a Jim Wayne," he retorted. "A monkey in a Panama, saying foolish things." Mrs. Harmon drew herself up, but he did not perceive. "Pretty fool I'd be, saying the things he does. I heard a talk of his and Beth's, and this is the sort of thing he said--." But Ellis misrepresented Jim entirely, having looked at him from a strictly personal point of view. The conversation, harmless as it was, is best taken at first hand.

"How swell you look to-night!" Jim had begun. "Gad, that rose in your hair--trust a girl to know what's nifty!"

"Don't be silly," Beth replied.

"Straight!" Jim protested. "Never saw you look so stunning. This moonlight brings it all out, you know. Poetic, Beth, on my word! I say, let's go down on the beach, and you can recite me that thing of Tennyson's."

"Shelley's," Beth corrected him.

"Just as good," said Jim cheerfully. "Come on, do!"

Such is the literal report of a conversation which Beth thought highly delightful, but which Ellis delivered with some distortion of manner and word, calculated to throw discredit on Wayne's attractions. "Flat and silly," he characterised it. "Now if you suppose that a man of my age can say that sort of thing to a girl like Judith Blanchard, you're wrong, Lyddy--Lydia, I mean."

She seized her chance to show a little of her true feeling; long ago she had asked him not to use the old nickname. She answered coldly: "Of course, you know your affairs best. And equally of course, you can't do things which Mr. Wayne can."

"Don't be hard on me," he said. "Wayne's all right in his way, but I'm no boy, nor is Judith like her sister. If Wayne's a friend of yours, I'm sorry." For he divined that something more than his use of her name had caused her coldness.

"I scarcely know him," she responded. "But let me tell you that a woman had sometimes rather a man would make a fool of himself by calling her handsome, than be too wise in his talk."

Ellis had no answer ready, and the subject dropped, but before he left he made an attempt at conciliation. "You see, really sometimes I don't understand myself, even, or the girl. I'll try to remember what you say. Keep me in her mind, you know, Lydia."

It was a truth that he spoke: he did not understand the girl, nor himself. He still prized her fire and dreaded her theories, with each meeting he admired her more than ever, but he was finding in her a baffling reserve which taught him that he must go slow. He could not win her out of hand; some spring of action in her there was yet to find, some ideal which he must satisfy. Might it not be too high!--and there lay the new uncertainty in himself, that he was not sure of conquering her, while conquer her he must! For she was growing indispensable to him, all thought of her as a commodity had fled, and he was now familiar with that longing for her while still he found no name for it. The emotions which he understood were his own ambition and others' greed, he had no knowledge of the finer desires which can be roused in man. So, somewhat puzzled, he laboured to please Judith by the only means he knew, with far more success than might have been expected.

Then came that evening when Mrs. Harmon invited Judith to her house, where Ellis had arrived at almost the same time. It irritated the girl at first to be so evidently brought in his way, and with Mather's achievement in her mind she was for some time cool and quiet, until Mrs. Harmon, with great self-control, took herself out of the room. Then Ellis brought the conversation at once to familiar ground. He told Judith that he had for some time been working to bring about a combination of the cotton manufacturers. "We can control the whole section, and can do much toward setting prices, if this can only be managed."

"You mean to make it a trust?" asked Judith, interested.

"Yes," he said. "But some of the operators are shy, the contracts and the sharing are so intricate. They--I--they don't know what I'm really at."

Judith failed to understand that his reputation stood in the way of complete confidence. "Can't they see that the combination will benefit them?"

"Yes," he answered, "but the scheme scares them. It's big."

"I have heard of a lawyer," she said, "a New Yorker, who gives his whole time to nothing but framing agreements for trusts, and meeting the corporation laws. If you could call him in, couldn't he perhaps make it clear to the others? The advantages, I mean, and the safety?"

"Where did you hear of him?" asked Ellis.

"I read of him," she answered, "in a magazine."

"I never read magazines," he said thoughtfully. "It mightn't be a bad idea. By Gad," he went on, warming, "I think it might be just the thing. A stranger to us all, he'd be able to give confidence, I do believe. And there's so much in it!" He turned to Judith with energy. "Could you find me that magazine?"

"Yes," she answered, all her coldness gone in the rush of interest, as she saw herself influencing affairs. "It is at home."

"Let me walk back with you, then, when you go."

Mrs. Harmon entered, having heard the last part of their talk, having listened, in fact. "Is that the sort of thing she really cares about?" she asked herself in surprise.

It was, indeed, the sort of thing which attracted Judith; no wonder that there was a new light in her eyes when she came home with Ellis. No wonder that Beth tore up her letter to Mather. Judith had gained an interest in the future which put quite out of her mind the memory of the trifling strike at the mill. Ellis promised to tell her if he used her idea; she was eager to know if it bore results. He let her know, before long, that he was working on it; he would tell her if anything happened. Judith scanned daily the reports of industrial affairs, to see if the combination took shape.

Thus that invitation of Mrs. Harmon's was of great value to Ellis, but when the other tried to draw nearer to the girl it proved a different undertaking. Mrs. Harmon was lonely; she wanted companionship; it irritated her that Judith and Beth had cavaliers, while she had none. One day she asked Judith out to drive, and for a while the two sat in the victoria glum and stupid. They were too widely different in their natures ever to be intimate.

But Mrs. Harmon made the attempt. "Mr. Ellis," she said, choosing the most promising topic, "is a most interesting man, Judith--you will let me call you Judith, won't you?"

"Certainly," was the answer.

"Thank you. And don't forget that my name is Lydia; Mr. Ellis calls me by it at times. Doesn't he fascinate you with what he does?"

That was something which Judith was not prepared to admit. "He is certainly very active in many matters," she replied, wary of what she said, for fear of her companion's tongue.

"He controls so much; he plans and carries out such great things!" went on Mrs. Harmon. "Ah, he is a keen man, my dear. Don't you think so?"

Judith thought so.

"He has a great future before him," prophesied Mrs. Harmon, but she perceived that she roused no answering spasm in Judith's breast. Therefore Mrs. Harmon's artificial palpitation presently subsided, with some suddenness, and she had the feeling that perhaps the young lady was overmuch for her. Before the end of the drive Mrs. Harmon found herself obliged to say, in self-defence:

"Driving makes one so contemplative, don't you think? Sometimes I could drive for hours, just so, perfectly content but saying nothing."

Judith confessed to the same sensation. When Mrs. Harmon was alone, she concluded that the experiment had been fully tried. Later, Judith asked her over to tea, but the situation was so much relieved when other people dropped in that Mrs. Harmon lost hope of a real friendship in that quarter.