Part 15

“Oh, shut up,” said Jimmy Pendleton.

* * * * *

There is a celebration at Yale the night before commencement day which turns the campus into a stage-setting of an unearthly play. The scenery is an orgy of light and shadow; the music is a whirlpool of bands and voices of men. The townspeople are barred, but around Phelps’s archway they gather by hundreds to watch the classes march through. For all over New Haven that night are class dinners, and from the dinners, which are early, the classes in costume march in procession and, carrying torches, pass into the campus. By nine or ten o’clock alumni are congregated there from all over the world, of all ages, from the lads who graduated three years back to gray-haired men who went out from college forty-five or fifty or even more years ago.

Around the edge of the campus are small tents, each forming a casual headquarters for a class, over a keg of beer. The bands play by turns or all together. The men sing as they march; the place is sulphurous with the reek of torches. In orange blurs against the thick air torches flame out, a dozen torches, a hundred, spotty, dancing on the smoke-filled atmosphere. The atmosphere is pinkish; the windows of the buildings about flash red reflections. The quiet elms stand above this turmoil and rustle in the June night breeze.

“Welcome back, boys of mine,” they seem to say. “You are mad with play to-night, but so were your grandfathers sometimes; so will be your grandsons. Come back to me always and play, always safe, always boys, under my branches.”

And the pink smoke and the flaring red brightness lift to the branches, and the light shines on the under side of the leaves, and, against the absolute blackness of the night above, the million leaves of the campus elms have the look of carvings in the roof of a limitless cathedral.

The runaways had just missed at Stamford an up-bound train and had waited a long time for the next. When they finally landed at New Haven it was eight-thirty in the evening. They had dined en route, and Pendleton was in the blue blouse and cap which he had forgotten to change in his rush after the escaping Ellsworth. They stopped at headquarters to leave Ellsworth’s bag and to let him get into the class costume. Then, through the delirium of the town, the staid old New England town gone mad with color and uproar of two thousand “boys” of all ages, they hurried to College Street. In the tunnel of Phelps’s archway Jim Donnelly, Yale policeman, friend of every Yale boy for uncounted years, opposed his authority to trespassers, let pass the rightful lords of the campus. He honored the late-comers, as they forced their way through the crowd, with a short nod.

“Better hurry up; the Thirties are at it,” he admonished them.

Over the wall of the buildings one heard not a sound in College Street; even in the archway one did not hear. As the belated men stepped into the campus the noise burst on them like a clap of thunder.

Bands played, lights flashed, brilliant figures wove and interwove, men’s voices filled all the air. Through the kaleidoscopic crowd a man might thread his way, but there was no empty space in the campus. It was pandemonium let loose. With that, one caught here and there a costume, a face, which one knew. Then, as they stood peering, out of the smoke and darkness, out of the mad uproar, coming to them as if out of a wood, was the head of a column of marching men. And the men wore blue blouses. The Thirties—his class—his friends. By the knowledge of the friend beside him he knew that. They came on, cheered, challenged, greeted now and again out of the waving, changing crowd, marching steadily along, the workmen of the nation.

And as they came, suddenly, by a miracle, the bands all stopped playing at once; there was a moment’s lull, and one heard individual voices in the half silence. And then their own band, the blue-bloused band of the Thirties, broke into music; an indeterminate chord, and it swung full into the familiar rhythm of “Amici.” The foremost men were at Phelps’s archway by now, and somebody shouted “Johnny Ellsworth,” as they saw him and connected the song with his singing of it that morning. And behold, all along the line they were calling his name, as if they knew, as if they welcomed him back to hope and life and undying friendship.

Ellsworth, dizzy with happiness, took the torch that “little old Saint Peter” thrust at him, and fell into line beside a fat, short, bald-headed man whose face shone to him like the face of an angel. Digby and Loomis were ahead; he had met their smiling eyes, and he knew with a choking gladness that they knew that he had a right in this column of efficient workmen; that he had not come with empty hands to Mother Yale; that he, too, brought his offering of honorable work to lay on her altar. He could not find his voice; but the ambassador, turning, threw back a word.

“Sing, you devil,” he ordered. “What are you good for, Johnny Ellsworth? Sing.”

And with that the voice came, and above the others, clear and sweet through all the others, it lifted suddenly, with its undertone of words unsaid, of things men never tell, of friendship eternal. The strong tones of the world-worn men followed that wonderful voice, and tears shone in some eyes as they sang, not knowing that the man who led them was sending up a thanksgiving.

So the Thirties marched about the campus, with torches flaring and bands playing and the classes shouting, and Ellsworth’s voice led them singing “Amici.”

THE CAPTAINS

THE CAPTAINS

There was consternation in the great offices of Marcus Trefethen, for the chief had given an order that could not be understood. It was a sentence of twelve words, but its result, carried out, would be the sacrifice of more dollars than might be calmly contemplated. Beside infinite further consequences—throwing away, for instance, the glory, now almost in reach of these offices, of seeing their head the richest man on earth; that was a probable result if the twelve words went into action. It is easier to knock things to pieces than to build them. A great fortune assured, a great place in the financial world won, a future tremendous enough for a Dumas romance lying a few steps on—and the man who had done the work was tossing these immensities from him like playthings. What did it mean? Three men skilled in affairs, in touch with the delicate pulse of business life, bent their heads together and discussed it. Friday the policy of the office had been in the full vigor of its unhurrying, unrelenting swing. Saturday the chief had been restless, and had gone away and left things in a plastic form which needed his master-touch—an action out of character. And the first thing on this Monday was the extraordinary order. As long as they dared they discussed it, Compton and Barnes and Haywood, the three who stood next the throne, and at length, not over-eagerly, Compton knocked and went into the inner room of the great man and closed the door. He emerged five minutes later with a slight dizziness in his air. He answered the inquiry of his associates’ attentive silence.

“It’s so,” he said. “The order is to be carried out. He’s gone clean mad. ‘All negotiations as to the Southwestern road to be stopped at once.’”

In the inner room a man sat at a desk littered with the crisp sheets of a large mail, and stared out of the window, down over a wide landscape of jutting roofs and soaring sky-scrapers, over a harbor filled with shipping, and a broad quiet ocean. He was a big man, with a look of bygone athletic form; his face was lined, and every line meant accomplishment; his mouth was set now as if he were this moment engaged in something whose doing called for force. He drew a breath, and spoke aloud.

“It’s done,” he said. “Thank the Lord it’s done. Compton and the lot think me insane; but they can’t undo it now. Thank the Lord it’s done.” Then he dropped his head into his hand and, gazing once more across the brilliant volcano of the feverish city, across the water-city of masts and smokestacks, his eyes rested on the sea. With the crystal-clear, unwavering, and rapid consideration which was his greatest power he reviewed events; he followed up a clue which Compton and Barnes and Haywood had missed. Clearly as if it were a business affair he reviewed the time—but fully he did it—no moment of the three days’ crisis was forgotten. For an hour he sat so, withdrawn from the whirlpool in which he had been the master-swimmer, which flowed about him yet.

On Friday at ten there had been a short meeting of the directors of the Imperial and Western Railway; seven men present had decided in half an hour a few questions which would affect twenty thousand. The Southwestern Railway, covering much of the same country, willing or unwilling, was to be consolidated. Unwillingly it would be, for it was an old road, with a large clientage which could be held in spite of the new Imperial, and the routes differed enough to make both still useful. That was the point. If there was money to make, why should not the Imperial merge the Southwestern and make it all? There was a large mortgage on the Southwestern, and Marcus Trefethen held the bonds; the Imperial and Western was richer; they could afford to lower their rates, forcing the older road to do the same; it was a question of a short time before the Southwestern would be making no money and would be unable to pay interest on the mortgage. Trefethen could foreclose—the two roads would merge. And beyond this, to Trefethen’s far-seeing eye—the eye of a poet in stocks and combinations—sounded the rhythm of a greater combination, a poem in which railroads rhymed to each other, and whose metre was the swing of accumulating millions. It was not money he wanted—he had plenty—it was the interest of the great game which drew him, the poet’s joy to fit the verse and realize the vision.

The seven men decided that there was no reason why money should be made within reach of their grasp which they did not grasp. Marcus Trefethen unexpectedly demurred for a moment. In a flash of memory it came to him who the president of the Southwestern was, and that all his fortune was in the road.

“It seems a bit brutal,” he said, “to undo solid work of forty years’ standing.”

“It’s a case of the survival of the fittest,” Carroll’s harsh voice answered. “Centralization makes for efficiency—this is a world where the inefficient goes under.”

“The Southwestern isn’t inefficient. It’s a well-managed business, with a future as well as a past.”

“That’s why we want it,” Harrington slid in with suave readiness, and the others laughed cheerfully. Carroll took up the thread.

“Don’t strain at a gnat, Trefethen. You’re new to this business of absorbing small corporations, but if you want to do large work you’ve got to get used to it. If you believe in evolution you must see the reasonableness. The big beast preys on the little one through nature, and you can’t stop with a jerk when you get to man. We’re part of the scheme. Like the other beasts, if we want to live we’ve got to eat small fry.”

“Live!” said Trefethen, and he threw a glance around the circle of multi-millionaires, and gave a short laugh.

Van Vechten spoke. “All this is a side-issue,” and his glittering small eyes ranged about. “The point is whether our railroad can afford to let the old Southwestern, with its large business as a carrier of both passengers and produce, and with the prejudice of habit in its favor, continue to exist. If we do, the Imperial can’t be a great railroad. We shall not only be forced to divide profits—we shall have to contend for our existence. The Southwestern stands for equal rates, and other theories worthy but impracticable. It will bend our policy into the same lines. At this moment we are richer than they, and can force them to sell—it is lack of business initiative to hesitate. As to brutality, I don’t take that seriously—sentiment has nothing to do with business. What reason, as reasons are known in affairs, is against our absorbing the Southwestern?” As the chilly tones fell, the men who listened saw no reason. Trefethen sighed as if he were tired.

“Of course,” he said. “I meant it; but I was mistaken. It’s my first affair of the sort, as Carroll said, and I’m not used to it. But it’s got to be done. The American Beauty rose at its finest is only obtained by nipping off buds. Well, we’ll make the Imperial an American Beauty, and nip off the Southwestern to begin.”

As simply as a golf club committee arranging for new greens details were settled, and the meeting ended; clerks in the great offices lifted their heads to look sharply as the members of it filed out, for this in flesh and blood was the plutocracy about which one read in the papers. The most important of them all, left alone, turned to the calendar on his desk, where his time was spaced into half-hour, sometimes into fifteen-minute divisions, to see what came next. As he whirled about on his swinging chair, a knock sounded at the door. Young Haywood opened it.

“The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury had an appointment at this hour, sir.”

“Yes.”

“He telegraphs that he is detained in Washington and cannot be here till to-morrow.”

“Very well.” But Haywood stood in the doorway. Marcus Trefethen lifted his head. “That’s all.”

“Yes, sir”—the young man hesitated. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but there’s a lady here—”

“A lady?” Trefethen’s tone was surprised and not pleased.

“I hope you won’t blame me—she is not an ordinary person; she is anxious to speak to you.”

Trefethen glanced at his calendar. Here was an empty half-hour, too long to sit idle, too short to substitute any business effectively. He might as well fill it in this way. “Show her in.”

In a moment he was standing before a slim woman of forty who carried her straight figure and wore her well-made clothes with certainty, and the air of a person used to consideration. She put out her hand frankly.

“I used to know you, Mr. Trefethen. We went to school together—Sarah Speed.” Trefethen remembered well enough. It was one of the old names in the old Southern town. “I’m glad to see you,” he said cordially, stirred a little, as a reminiscence of the place and times stirred him always, and he placed a chair for her.

“I’m afraid you won’t be when you know my errand,” the woman said, and looked at him earnestly with wide gray eyes. Her face was troubled and sad, he noticed, for all her look of prosperity. He awaited developments. “I’ll try not to keep you long,” she said; “but the matter is life and death to me. I am Mrs. Ruthven now—Morgan Ruthven, the president of the Southwestern Railroad, is my husband.” The man knew now, and his face hardened as he hardened his soul, and the woman saw it.

“Of course you know what I’m going to say”—her voice shook and then she lifted her head courageously. “I realize that it is awfully unpleasant for you, and not quite fair—you’re here for business, and it’s unbusinesslike to have a woman break in and beg for mercy. But it isn’t just mercy—it’s justice. You are going to force the Southwestern into a position where you can foreclose on it. It is a personal sort of business, that railroad. My husband’s father was its president before him, and it has been prosperous and honorable forty years. It is now. They don’t want to sell it. They’re willing to make terms with your new road. You haven’t any right to force them out simply because you can. You—”

Trefethen interrupted gently. “I know all this, Mrs. Ruthven,” he said civilly.

The woman caught her breath and made an evident effort for calmness. “I know you do. It’s foolish of me to try you on that side. I won’t waste your time,” she brought out quickly. “What I want to do is this: I want to tell you what it means to us, and let you see if it means as much to you. My husband is very ill. He has been in an alarming state for a week, and to-day and to-morrow are turning-points. His business is on his mind, and last night when I was trying to calm him I thought of coming to you and telling you how things were, and asking you to remember old days and”—her voice broke, but she cleared her throat quickly and went on in even tones—“and just be merciful. Of course you have every right—I don’t mean moral—but every legal right to wipe out the old Southwestern, but you don’t understand. If I go back to Morgan and tell him I’ve failed with you it will kill him as surely as if I gave him slow poison. The doctor said yesterday that everything depended on his being kept cheerful. Cheerful!” She laughed, half choking. “Keep a man cheerful on the rack! And there’s more—the boy. He is to graduate at Yale this summer, and he’s a boy who deserves—everything. The happiest, cleverest, best boy! Best at everything—away up in his classes—a hero among the other boys for athletics. But I mustn’t bore you,” she caught herself. “Only he—he isn’t just an ordinary boy”—and she laughed a little, tremblingly, knowing well enough through her trouble that all women think that of their boys. “He isn’t,” she insisted prettily. This wife of Morgan Ruthven’s was an attractive woman, Trefethen acknowledged to himself unwillingly. “I want you to realize about Carl, because then you will know how impossible it seems to take away all his chances, that he has worked toward for years. Such a good boy, Mr. Trefethen,” the gray eyes glowed with the soul close back of them. “He has worked so hard and been so happy. And”—she threw this impulsively at him—“he’s captain of the ’Varsity crew. You’re a college man. You know what glory that means. To give all that up—graduation with honors—the great race—it’s enough to break a boy’s courage. It would break my heart to have him. He has been promised a trip abroad with his best friend, a boy like himself, and after that he is to have a special course in Germany. He is full of ambition and vitality. He could do anything—be anything. He’ll have to give it all up—if you ruin the Southwestern. You see what it means to me—my husband’s life, my boy’s future.”

Marcus Trefethen was uncomfortable and annoyed as the low, eager words stopped suddenly. This was all beside the question. The question was this—to make a gigantic enterprise must small interests be sacrificed? It had been answered. They must. That being the case, why should he harrow his soul with the details of each sacrifice? It served no purpose, his mind being made up, and it might unsteady his nerves, which he needed to keep steady. While he considered how to put things most concisely, the intense voice went on:

“Rich men nowadays, great financiers, seem to have a new standard of right and wrong. I don’t see why. I don’t see why the old standards of honesty and fairness don’t apply as much to magnates as to every-day people. I don’t see how it can make you happier, anyway. There’s no real happiness in doing wrong, and it’s wrong to crush life and hope out of people just to be richer yourself. You can’t be good and do that, and you can’t be light-hearted unless you’re good—and it’s worth a few millions to have a light heart.”

The gentle, stirring tones stopped. The woman was full of individuality and charm, and she had thrown all of it into her speech. The quiet room was as if swept with the rush of a mountain stream. But the man who listened meant to be the rock that such a stream dashes against to break in foam. He looked at her with cold, half-shut eyes.

“Mrs. Ruthven,” he answered, “you are very eloquent for your husband’s cause. If eloquence might affect a business decision of importance, in which a number of large interests are concerned, yours would succeed. I considered this view of the question before I came to any arrangement. I was reluctant”—there were other things which Marcus Trefethen was going to say in poised sentences, but they were suddenly caught from him. The woman was on her feet; color flooded her face and her hand flew out in a gesture of command as she gave a quick gasp.

“Don’t go on—it’s no use—I see,” she said. “I’ll go home now.” And before he could reach the door she had opened it for herself and passed out.

Always as direct and swift as a Winchester bullet, velocity and penetration seemed to be added to Trefethen’s mind through the hours of that day. Every second was full, hands and brain were full to overflowing, yet not for one of the busy minutes was the memory of the morning’s interview crowded out. Through the voices of men who talked to him, with his intellect keyed to its keenest to follow, to lead theirs, he heard all day the soft inflections so incongruous down there in his office. He saw again and again the gray eyes as she threw out her hand, heart-broken, scornful. It stabbed him that he should have broken her heart—it stabbed him again that she should despise him. Clearly Marcus Trefethen was not yet an expert in the art of being cold-blooded; the woman had got on his nerves—he could not shake off the memory of her. It was annoying. He dined at a club with men who were not concerned in the life of his daytime, and his spirits rose, and he walked over to his house later with a light step.

“All I needed was to get out of the rut,” he said aloud and set himself to reading. And there, in pages of a book on Tibet was the face, the agonized gray eyes; the descriptions of Lhassa read with the woman’s subtle accent. He threw down the book irritably. “I’ve overworked. I thought it was impossible, but I must have done it. This is morbid. I’ll get to bed early and sleep it off.”

Out of the blackness, as he lay staring, he heard a low voice say, “The happiest, cleverest, best boy!” “Stuff!” Trefethen spoke aloud to himself. He was a bachelor—he had no boy—why should he care about a boy? Doubtless she had exaggerated the whole business. Probably this boy was as commonplace as the average—each woman thinks hers exceptional. Yet at three in the morning he turned impatiently and said words aloud to try if that might break their hold. “He isn’t just an ordinary boy—he isn’t!” he repeated aloud. And then for a short time he fell asleep. But at six his eyes opened and his brain searched miserably for a moment after the thing that was harassing him. Only a moment—the thing was at hand. He sprang out of bed.

“I have to shake off this possession—it’s out of proportion,” he said to himself and dressed, and astonished a sleepy valet by ordering his saddle-horse at seven.

But the park and the spring freshness and the plunging beast gave him only temporary relief. In his office at ten he felt, with almost a terror, the possession taking hold again. He read his paper sternly, missing nothing, but his grip on his own powers was not as firm as yesterday. He had a nervous dread of certain things he must see in print. There they were—Morgan Ruthven’s name and the situation as it was known outside. He flapped the page over, and his eyes rested on the column beyond. Sporting news—from long habit it held his eye—the news of the athletic world had been interesting to him for twenty-five years.

“Boat-races at New Haven this afternoon.”

The paper fell to the floor. He knew what he would do. It would straighten him out as nothing else could—he would go up to New Haven and see the races. Twenty-five odd years ago he had been captain of a famous crew, and boats and water fascinated him to this day—the change of scene, the air, the old sharp interest in a race—these would make him over. It was fifteen years since he had been at New Haven. No one there would recognize him. This was not one of the great regattas which would draw crowds of people who might know him. He could come and go alone and unnoticed. He would do it. He went through his mail, gave orders, changed appointments, and at twelve o’clock he was on the train at Forty-second Street.