Chapter 20

"He did," admitted Allen, and then divining what was in his father's mind; "but not enough for this."

"You've run in debt, have you?" Allen noticed that the question did not contain the usual sting. The old man would have rejoiced at this opportunity to express his sympathy in the only way he knew how.

"Not yet. I sold my motor and some other things."

"Had to live like a gentleman, whatever your salary, didn't you?"

"I ought not to have done it," the boy admitted.

"Nothing of the sort," Sanford sputtered, again resorting to his favorite phrase. "My son has to live like a gentleman,--that's what I educated him for. Now help me off with my coat, and tell me all the damn fool things you've been doing."

Their conference lasted well into the afternoon,--an afternoon filled with surprises for them both. For the first time Allen found his father an interested, sympathetic listener; for the first time Stephen Sanford came to know his son. The boy made no effort to spare himself, though eager for his father to realize that he had been earnest and industrious, albeit the net results of this had been but failure. Mr. Gorham had done so much for him, and he had tried to assimilate the lessons both from his deeds and from his words; but instead he had seen chimeras breathing fire at every turn, and had charged them quixote-like to find them but windmills, harmful only to himself. He enlarged upon the personal characteristics of the directors and the other business men with whom he came in contact,--many of them well known to his listener,--and Sanford marvelled at the accuracy of the boy's insight, and the integrity of the portraits. Gorham was right,--Allen had developed, and far beyond what he himself realized. He was now a man to be reckoned with rather than a boy to be disciplined.

The old man's keen business sense also for the first time grasped the tremendous scope of Gorham's gigantic project. There was no room left to doubt the strength of the appeal of the absolute honesty of purpose after listening to Allen's unconsciously irresistible testimony. In words made pregnant by the simplicity of their utterance, he described Gorham the man and Gorham the Colossus of the business world; he pictured the waves of avarice and intrigue and discontent which he thought he saw beating against the feet of this towering figure, unheeded and unrecognized because so far beneath it; he told of his own puny efforts to warn this giant of the storm which he thought he saw approaching, but in doing this he had betrayed his own ignorance, and had prepared the pit into which he himself had fallen.

"And the worst of it all is," Allen concluded, "that I can't see even now where I was wrong; but if Mr. Gorham told me that Napoleon Bonaparte discovered America I would know that, all previous statements to the contrary, he was right."

"H'm!" ejaculated Sanford, eager to break over the injunction Gorham had placed upon him. "I don't believe there's anything in what you've said yet that you can't live down. Now I suppose if Gorham had told you that we'd had our lunch, the fact that your father was starving to death wouldn't be accepted as evidence worthy of consideration."

Allen laughed as he pulled out his watch, his mind easier and his heart lighter than it had been for months.

"I had forgotten all about that, and it's after four o'clock. Come on out with me, and I'll give you a revised version of the 'fatted calf' story."

"You think it is the return of the prodigal father, do you?"

"I hope we are both prodigals, you dear old pater," Allen replied, seriously; "I hope we both need each other so much that we never can exist alone again."

"All right; but we'd better go easy with the calf, for I've accepted a dinner invitation for us both to-night."

"You have?" Allen asked, disappointed that their visit was to be interrupted. "Where?"

"At Gorham's."

"I couldn't go there again, pater," he protested quickly. "He's just asking me because he wants you."

"No; he wants to talk with you, especially."

"With me?" Allen's face sobered. "He thinks he was harsh the other night. I would rather not open up the whole subject again. There are special reasons. Please go without me."

"You don't want to do anything which will make him think worse of you than he does now, do you?"

"No," was the frank reply, into which a genuine note of sorrow entered.

"Then we'll dine with him, as he asks us to. Now lead on to that calf, but make it a little one."

* * * * *

Allen found himself the only one at the dinner-table who seemed to be laboring under any restraint. Eleanor and Alice were in better spirits than he had seen them for months, Gorham was an ideal host, conversing with Sanford and with Allen upon lighter topics in a way which seemed to show entire forgetfulness of what had gone before. It seemed almost heartless to the boy to find these friends, so dear to him, able to conduct themselves in so matter-of-fact a manner while he was in the grip of his own life tragedy. But he could not blame them. He had assumed much which they had never granted. This last dinner together, made possible by his father's presence in New York, was intended as a lesson to him, and as Mr. Gorham had planned it, then it must be for his good. He would play his part, and, concealing the pain it cost him, he entered into the conversation with an abandon which surprised them all.

It was not until they had gathered in the library, whither Gorham had especially invited them after the dinner was over, that the atmosphere changed. Allen saw the expression on Gorham's face deepen into that serious aspect which always signified matters of important moment.

"I find myself face to face with certain duties and responsibilities," Gorham began, "which appall me with their far-reaching significance, and I have asked you, who are the nearest and dearest to me, to be witnesses of my faithful performance of them, to the extent of my understanding."

Gorham paused, and seemed to deliberate before making his next statement, unconscious of the tenseness of the silence which his words had produced.

"First of all, it is my immediate intention to take such steps as are necessary to bring about the disintegration of the Consolidated Companies."

"But you can't do it," Sanford declared. "The corporation is solvent, the directors and the stockholders will of course be against it, and you will be powerless." "I have considered all that," Gorham replied, quietly.

"What you say might be true six months from now, if the Executive Committee succeed in wrenching my control from me; but to-day I have the strength. The stockholders have invested because of their faith in me; because of this same faith they will accept my statement that the Companies' future is imperilled,--and the Government itself will help me to accomplish my purpose."

"You are convinced, then, that the principles you built on are wrong?" asked Sanford, unable to keep from showing some satisfaction in his voice.

"No," Gorham replied, firmly. "The principles are right,--the wrong lies in that human instinct which finds itself incapable of living up to its best standard. I believed that my success had been due to a recognition of my principle, when in reality it came from the simplest possible expression of self-interest. If we go on, the Companies' continued success means a growth beyond my control,--recent events show that it has almost reached that point already,--and when once in the hands of others, it can be nothing but a menace to the people.

"And now for the most humiliating confession of all: I myself have been guilty of an exercise of my own self-interest as flagrant as any of my associates, though in a different way. Their lust has been for gold, while mine has been for a justification of an idea. My self-interest has been less malignant in its possible effects, but it has been my controlling influence none the less. With due humility, I confess that I have attempted to assume a role which belongs to Providence, and that no man has a right to do. I have been guilty of violating certain laws of life, just as my associates have violated other laws which to me demand observance; but I have recognized the tendency of things to gravitate back to their natural positions before it is too late for me not to make certain that they do so. In order to prevent this corporation from becoming a great power for evil, and as a final evidence of the strength which I still possess, I propose to force its dissolution."

"You have a big contract on your hands, Gorham," Sanford replied; "I don't believe even you can do it."

"On Tuesday next," Gorham continued, "the Senate Committee will consider a bill which is in reality an amendment to the Sherman Act, and is intended to give the Government the power to discriminate between good and bad trusts. The Consolidated Companies is to be cited as a case in point, and they are depending upon me to advance the principal arguments for the passage of the bill. All the other big interests are naturally against it, and they are forcing the issue, hoping to compel the Government to act against the Consolidated Companies, and thus call down the wrath of the people upon trust legislation as a whole. If the masses find that the one agency which has reduced their cost of living is prevented from continuing its co-operative work, they will effectually put a stop to further interference, and the other interests will be the gainers."

"A clever game," Sanford exclaimed.

"But now I am convinced there are no 'good' trusts, as I have been pleased to call them. Those combinations, like the Consolidated Companies, which are really a benefit to the people to-day, may, as again in the case of the Consolidated Companies, become their greatest enemy to-morrow. I am prepared to say that all this talk--much of which I have made myself--to the effect that combination effects economies of which the public receives the benefit, is true only for a time. Just so soon as the combinations become monopolies, amounts saved by the economies simply go to swell the profits for the stockholders. Competition must not be eliminated--it is the vital spark which keeps alive the welfare of the country."

"You are going to say all this before the Senate Committee?"

"Yes, and more. I am going to use the Consolidated Companies as an example, and urge immediate active enforcement of the Sherman Act against all consolidations which aim at monopolies or the restraint of trade. The Attorney-General said that this would mean an industrial reign of terror. So be it. Even that is better than this gradual strangling of the people's rights, which is now being carried on with legislative approval. I shall at least have the satisfaction of performing this one act in the interests of the people, even though I must forego the continued administration of a corporation honestly devoted to their welfare. This statement from me, and the position I take regarding my own corporation, will go far toward defeating those other malign interests which hope to gain by their attack upon me."

Allen's face had been a study while Mr. Gorham was speaking, and Alice had particularly noted the varying emotions it expressed. She saw there first the astonished incredulity at her father's determination to dissolve the Companies; then the wonder as he heard Gorham state conclusions which coincided with those he had arrived at earlier; and finally the radiant joy as the realization came, not fully but in part, that his own understanding of the situation had not been all at fault. It needed only the words which Gorham added to make the world look bright again. But it was to his father rather than to Allen that Gorham addressed himself.

"And now, Stephen, as to this boy. You and I have done our best to make him think the world is wrong side up; but I am more to blame because I had the better opportunity to study his development, beneath my own eyes. I taught him that imagination was an essential ingredient of a successful business man, to enable him to grasp each situation as a whole, and to conceive its dangers and its possibilities. Yet, when he exercised that very quality, and came to me frankly with the results of his efforts, I refused to recognize my own handiwork. I taught him my altruistic creed, and then blamed him when he used it as his standard, and was unhappy that those around him failed to measure up to it. Never has a man been more blind than I. Never has a man settled back, so self-satisfied, with so determined a conviction that because he willed things to be so, then they were so. I have merged the white thread of my new creed with the black one of the old business morals I first learned; his pattern has been wholly woven from the white.

"My boy," he added, turning to Allen, "for the first time in my life I ask a man's forgiveness. In the face of the greatest discouragements, you have shown yourself true, and I congratulate you and your father upon the future which you have before you. I want you to stay with me until the Consolidated Companies has been placed in a position of safety to itself and to its stockholders, then you may choose your own career."

"No Sanford ever made a failure yet," Stephen proudly repeated.

"But, Mr. Gorham--" Allen began, surprised into confusion by the unstinted praise; but Alice interrupted him.

"So this is my business creation!" she exclaimed, with satisfaction. Allen looked first at her and then at Mr. Gorham. Then he smiled consciously.

"While you are about it, Mr. Gorham," he said, impulsively, "I wish you would disintegrate Alice and Mr. Covington."

A momentary shadow passed over the faces of all who knew what had occurred.

"That dissolution took place last night," Mr. Gorham replied, quietly.

Alice's cheeks were flaming, but her smile was irresistible as she spoke.

"I'll tell you all about it, Allen, if you'll come into the conservatory."

XXXI

A great event requires retrospective consideration. Unlike the laws of perspective, distance gives it greater size. So it was with Gorham's supreme and final demonstration of his strength. To Covington, who, true to his promise of the night before, was present at this crucial meeting of the Board of Directors, and marvelled that his chief demanded of him only a statement regarding the real purchaser of the stock, this dissolution of the Consolidated Companies appeared as an act of sacrilege; to his associates, aghast at the knowledge that they were powerless to prevent him, it seemed the epitome of treachery; to his family it meant a sublime exhibit of self-sacrifice;--to himself it was the crowning point of his career, and a justification of his life-work.

"You know what this means?" Litchfield had demanded of him. "You realize that your action to-morrow will deprive us of millions, and will plunge the country into a panic which will cost that dear public which you profess to love, more than we should have kept from them in a decade?"

"Yes," replied Gorham, resolutely; "I realize it all. It is a simple case of surgery--it may be necessary to sacrifice the limb to save the life. You, gentlemen, have had it in your power to place the standard of the business world so high that no longer would other nations gaze at our marvellous machine, appalled by its pace--politically, socially, financially--wondering whether they or we read correctly the danger-signals ahead. You have had it in your power, and you refused to embrace the opportunity; and if men of your intelligence and high standing in the world are not ready for it, then the world itself is not ready. The people have trusted themselves to me, and have placed in my hands power beyond that which has ever yet been given; now that I have learned how that power may be misused against them, I will prevent their betrayal."

From his office, Gorham returned to his home before leaving for Washington. It was from Riley's hand, as he entered, that he received the telegram from his Denver attorneys, announcing that the lawyer, Jennings, was already on his way East, bringing with him absolute evidence that the divorce papers had been properly served on Buckner. Strengthened for the ordeal before him by the removal of this burden, he sought Eleanor; but she met him in the hallway before he reached her room.

"Robert," she said, impulsively, after looking for a moment searchingly into his face--"something has happened, and the light in your eyes tells me that all is well. You have decided not to take that awful step."

"All is well, dear heart," he repeated, handing her the telegram; "but it would not be so except that the 'awful step' has already been taken."

"Then there is no doubt regarding the divorce?" she cried, joyfully, after reading the telegram.

"There never has been," he replied, as he pressed her to him.

"May I tell the children?" she asked, happily, a moment later, and Alice and Allen responded quickly.

The Consolidated Companies was forgotten in the joy of the new knowledge, and it was Allen who first made reference to it.

"Are you really going to put things through as you said, Mr. Gorham?"

"The die is cast, my boy; I leave for Washington to-night."

"Then monopolies are doomed?"

"Monopolies can never be prevented," Gorham answered, seriously, "but I hope that my action to-morrow will go far toward forcing their control. You and I have seen the impossibility of trying to make them change their spots. I thought I had solved the problem, but I was wrong. Far ahead in the future, beyond the point which our present vision reaches, perhaps the solution lies. Until it is found, the Government must protect itself and the people it represents."

"Please fix it so as to make one exception," the boy pleaded. As Gorham looked at him for explanation, he drew Alice closely to him. "Please let this monopoly be exempt from governmental interference."

A stifled sob, entirely out of place in the presence of such general rejoicing, came from a little human ball rolled up on the steps below them. Eleanor and Allen quickly sprang toward her, but the boy better understood Patricia's tears. He sat beside her, and wrapped his great arms around her.

"Don't cry, Lady Pat," he entreated.

"I can't help it," she moaned. "I haven't any Sir Launcelot, and you haven't stormed the castle, and I've lost my silken ladder, and I want to die so that I can go up to heaven and be mean to the angels."

"Oh, no, no!" he begged. "I've tried to think it all out, and the only thing I can do is to cut myself in two pieces the way King Solomon decided to do with the baby. Do you remember?"

"But he didn't do it," replied Patricia, showing surprising knowledge of the Scriptures.

"Well, I haven't done it yet--but I will if you say so."

"Will you really?" The child's mind was already diverted from its tragedy. "But then you couldn't wear armor or ride a horse, or storm a castle, or do any of those things."

"Not without messing everything all up," Allen admitted, sorrowfully; "but that's the best thing I can think of."

Patricia was seized with an inspiration. "Will you swear to be my Knight every time Alice is mean and horrid to you?"

"I swear," Allen responded in a sepulchral voice, his eyes laughing at the older girl above him.

"Then I'll get you most of the time," Patricia announced, joyfully; and she suffered herself to join the group in the hallway.

"So you have decided to abandon your business career?" Gorham asked, turning to Alice.

"No, daddy," she replied, slyly. "I'm just changing my company from a private corporation into a partnership."

Gorham drew her to him and kissed her tenderly. Then he held out his disengaged hand to Allen.

"The world is before you. From the time it was created, man has striven to force from it the secret of unlimited power. Events have sometimes seemed to give encouragement, but ever at the end of each seeming success has come the unmistakable warning of a wisely jealous God. Omnipotence is not for mortals. The only lever which really moves the world is love, and it rests on a fulcrum of honor."

THE END