Part 13

The next morning he was awakened by Gunther's abrupt hand.

"Up, up, you sluggard!"

He jumped out hastily and found it was almost half-past eight.

"Nice time to sleep," said Gunther sarcastically. "Have you forgotten a little visit we're to make to that sweet person, Mr. Garraboy? You've got just twenty-two minutes to beautify yourself and fill the inner being."

"If we're to see your charming friend, Mr. Garraboy," said Gunther half an hour later, as they were speeding for the congested, stirring, lower city, "we've got to nip our man before the opening of the Stock Exchange. Now let's hear what happened at Mrs. Kildair's last night."

The events in which Mrs. Bloodgood was concerned were sealed in confidence; but Beecher felt at liberty to recount to his friend the bare details of McKenna's visit as he had known them.

"What the deuce is behind it all?" said Gunther, puzzled. "I got McKenna on the wire and that's all he would tell me. What's the reason she wants to bottle up everything? What's her mix-up with Slade? Depend upon it, Ted, that woman knows more than we do--or why should she expect the ring to be returned? She's got a reason for that."

"If it's returned," said Beecher, "it's Mrs. Bloodgood who took it."

"Never! No woman ever got that ring out of the apartment--not alone; not a Mrs. Bloodgood, or a Nan Charters, or a Mrs. Cheever, or--" Suddenly he reflected. "Ted, there's one person I'd like to meet."

"Miss Lille?"

"Yes. Supposing we look her up a little more."

"I've thought quite a lot about her," said Beecher musingly; and, remembering all at once her self-possession on the night of the theft, he added: "There's nothing weak about her certainly; still, I can't see the motive."

They had left behind them the free, unbounded sky, boring their way through the towering sides of the sky-scraping district, where buildings rose in regular, comb-like structures, with their thousands of human cells tenanted by human bees. Entering a street where the obstructed sun never shone, they were swept on by the feverish rush of fellow-beings and shot up sixteen stories to their destination. The office-boy in the antechamber took their cards with the condescension which only an office-boy between the ages of twelve and sixteen can feel, and disappeared within.

"The old screw'll keep us waiting half an hour, said Gunther, who disliked all delays.

"Bet he's trying to figure out what we're here for?" said Beecher, who admitted to himself a delicious satisfaction at the prospective humiliation of the man he cordially disliked.

The next moment Garraboy himself appeared at the rail, dapper, dried up, and severe.

"How do you do?" he said sharply, but without inviting them in. "What can I do for you? It's a very busy day for me."

"I assure you I don't intend to take any more time than I am compelled to," said Beecher stiffly, with an accent that gave another meaning to the phrase. He plunged his hand into his pocket. "I have an order for you."

"Oh, yes, I remember now," said Garraboy, with a malicious drawing up of his lips. "You can save yourself the trouble."

"What do you mean?" asked Beecher, greatly surprised.

"You have an order on me to deliver certain stocks I hold for Miss Charters?"

"I have."

"Well, Miss Charters has changed her mind," said Garraboy, letting his glance rest on Beecher with the vacant, impudent stare of which he was master.

"You have seen Miss Charters?" said Beecher, growing very angry.

"I have; and when I explained to her that she had been unduly excited by some one who evidently is not aware that there are laws in civilized countries adequate to deal with those who attack the reputations or interests--"

"Sir!" exclaimed Beecher, moving so quickly toward the rail that Garraboy hastily retreated.

"When Miss Charters learned that, and likewise that she had parted with stocks worth considerably over twenty thousand dollars, she changed her mind very quickly."

"Mr. Garraboy," said Gunther abruptly, "all this is not to the point. We have a formal order on you for certain stocks. Ted, present it."

"True, I forgot," said Garraboy, and produced from his coat a letter, which he looked over with nonchalant delay and finally handed to Beecher. "I presume you are acting from altruistic motives and are not standing on technicalities. Here is a little note which Miss Charters requested me to give you."

"That has nothing to do with it," said Gunther at once, for the personality of the broker aroused the pugnacious side of him. "Your transaction has been closed. Get your stocks."

Beecher, frowning, unable to conceal the vexation that this unexpected check brought him, opened the letter. The address by its formality completed his irritation:

DEAR MR. BEECHER:

Mr. Garraboy has called and explained everything satisfactorily. I am afraid I was needlessly alarmed last night and did him an injustice. As he has shown me how advantageous it will be for me to transfer my holdings to other stocks, now far below their market value, I have decided not to lose the opportunity. Thank you just the same for your interest in this matter. I shall be in at five this afternoon and will explain to you more fully.

Cordially yours, NAN CHARTERS.

The two watched him read to the end, fold the letter carefully, and put it in his pocket.

"Well?" said Garraboy.

"Insist on the delivery, Ted," said Gunther militantly. "If Miss Charters wants to return them again, that's her affair. The stocks are yours."

He looked at his friend with a glance of warning which sought to convey to him the distrust he could not openly phrase.

"If Mr. Beecher wishes to stand on technicalities," said Garraboy, in his even, oily voice, "he can do so. He can make a very nice profit. Which is it? I repeat, I can not give you much time."

"Miss Charters' letter is sufficient," said Beecher suddenly. "Good-day."

The feeling of mortification and chagrin which her action had brought on him dominated all other feelings. He went out in a rage, tearing the letter into minute fragments. Without a word they reached the street and entered the automobile.

"Last time I ever try to help a woman!" he said, between his teeth.

"What the deuce did you play into his game for?" said Gunther. "He's bamboozled her. I believe the fellow is an out-and-out crook--he's got a rotten bad eye. Why the deuce didn't you get the stocks?"

"She can take her own risks," said Beecher furiously. "It's her own affair if she's going to blow hot and cold. By Jove, Bruce, I never met any one who could make me so mad clear through and through."

He stopped, biting his lips, and Gunther with a shy glance stored away for future comment the impression he received.

"What's the use of taking them seriously?" he said, with a shrug of the shoulders. "Amuse yourself, but don't let them absorb you. Suppose we take a turn at the Curb and see what's doing."

With the opening of the market, all the giant sides of Wall Street seemed suddenly animated with the fury of a disturbed ant-hill. Every one was rushing in and out, carrying with them the pollution of disaster and alarm. Eddie Fontaine and Steve Plunkett hurried past them with quick nods. At the curb market the brokers were shrieking and flinging their frantic signals in the air. They entered the Stock Exchange, nodding to the doorkeeper, who knew Gunther, and reached the balcony, their ears suddenly smitten with the confused uproar from below. They stood there a few minutes, marveling at that Inferno of speculation and embattled greed flung before them in all the nakedness of man's terror; and then left, oppressed by the too frank exhibition of their mortal counterparts.

"What's doing?" asked Gunther as they returned.

The doorkeeper, with a shrug of his shoulders, flung down his thumb--the gesture of the Roman circus.

"You like that?" said Beecher, when once more they were in the automobile and the din and oppression of cell-like monstrosities had receded.

"I do," Gunther replied, locking and unlocking his broad hands.

"Horrible!"

"That's only one side of it--speculation," said Gunther warmly; "but even that is impressive. Look beyond those little mobs we saw, get the feeling of the whole country, the vast nation, rising in anger--flinging over hundreds of thousands of holdings--sweeping down the little gamblers with the tremendous waves of its alarm. Beyond that the whole vibrating industry of the nation is here, within a quarter of a mile--the great projects of development, the wars of millions, the future of immense territories to the West and the South. There's a big side to it--a real side--that gets me. I've a mind to walk down now and face the old governor and tell him I'm ready."

"Why don't you?" said Beecher. He himself had felt the restlessness of indecision and enforced idleness. He gave a laugh. "You know, Bruce, I'm beginning to feel the same way. Either I've got to get into the current somewhere, or I'm going to pack off for Africa some fine day."

"By the way, Tilton's up at the club. He's here for a few days, getting ready for a lion hunt or something."

"Tilton?" exclaimed Beecher joyfully. "By Jove, I must get hold of him. I'd go in a minute!"

He believed what he said. The whirl of emotions into which he had lately been plunged--revealing to him as it had all the mercenary, clutching side of the city--had left him disturbed, rebellious, longing to be away from the mass of men in general, and of women in particular, the brilliant, keen, and calculating women of the city with whom he had been thrown. Impatient and disillusionized, without realizing the true cause, he repeated:

"By Jove, I'd go in a minute!"

In the afternoon he went to call on Miss Charters. After having declared twenty times that he would not go near her, he suddenly remembered, at the end of a wearied discussion between his conscience and his inclination, that his check for twenty thousand dollars was to be reclaimed and, at once seizing such a satisfactory reason, he abandoned the attitude of embattled dignity which he had logically built up.

"That's true; I must get the check," he said, and he set out.

But as he neared his destination and began to rehearse all the grave causes for offense that he held against her, he was surprised at the slender stock of ammunition he held.

"Why, it was perfectly natural," he thought, struck by the idea--having considered her reasons for the first time. "If Garraboy called and explained everything to her satisfaction, why shouldn't she change her mind? Besides, there is nothing against Garraboy--nothing definite. After all, I may have been unjust to him."

Very sheepish, he felt his irritation slipping away as he yielded to the eager desire of once more entering her presence.

"What the deuce was I so wild about?" he asked himself, amazed, as he entered the elevator.

But all at once he remembered that she had allowed him to receive the news at the hands of a person intensely disagreeable to him.

"Why didn't she telephone me? That's the whole point."

And, all his irritation restored by this one outstanding fact, he entered the apartment with the dignity of a justly offended person.

She was seated by the fire in an easy-chair, and she did not rise as he entered. She was bending eagerly forward, an open manuscript in her hand, and, without turning, she made a little sign to him to be seated until she should have finished.

"Wonderful!" she cried at last, dropping the play in her lap. "It is wonderful!" she repeated, her whole body vibrating with the enthusiasm of her mood. "Wonderful--astonishing--what a scene!" And, tapping the manuscript with a gesture of decision, she exclaimed: "I will play that part--it will be an enormous sensation!"

Her mind still obsessed by the thought of the newly discovered masterpiece, she turned toward Beecher, who was seated like a ramrod on the edge of his chair.

"A marvelous play! Really, that Mr. Hargrave is a coming man." Forgetting her previous estimate, she rushed on: "Isn't it strange--I always knew he would do it, from the very first! What is extraordinary is the subtlety of it--how he twines two or three emotions together in the same scene. What a glorious chance for an actress! I must telephone the office."

As she rose, a slip of paper which she had been using as a marker fluttered to the floor. She picked it up, recognized it, and handed it to him.

"Oh, yes, here's your check!" she said. "I put it there so as not to forget it. Thanks very much. I'll explain in a minute. I must telephone Stigler; I'm all excited!"

Beecher, more annoyed by this revelation of her professional life than by the rub to his vanity, took the check and pocketed it--not having pronounced a word since his arrival.

She considered him carefully from the corner of her eye as she took up the telephone; but her personal emotion was too buoyant for trivial interruptions.

Stigler, her manager, was out, and she put down the receiver with a jar of impatience. She looked at Beecher again, and, perceiving that there was an explanation due, sought at once to shift the responsibility.

"Do you know, really, you were ridiculously alarmed last night," she said, a spirit of opposition in her voice. "I don't know what made you so panicky."

"Of course," he said sarcastically, "I realize now that I should never have stirred you up, when everything was so calm. It's strange that I did not explain to you the natural reasons for Mr. Garraboy's not calling you up--but then, I usually lose my head at such times."

"You are angry!" she said.

"What a strange idea! On the contrary, it was a charming experience to enter Mr. Garraboy's office and be so delightfully reassured that everything was so prosperous with him."

She did not like irony, or know how to combat it, so she frowned and said:

"I telephoned you."

"Why should you do that? You might have deprived me of the pleasure of meeting your charming friend, Mr. Garraboy."

"I telephoned. You were not in."

"When?"

"Last night. Four times."

He was mollified by this, but tried not to show it.

"And this morning?"

"But I never get up before ten," she cried, aghast.

"Your explanations are crushingly convincing," he said, with a bow and a smile.

She watched him with an uneasy look, totally unconscious of any sense of obligation, accustomed as she was to have her requests for service regarded as favors. The reaction from their last interview had left her in a coldly antagonistic state, determined to pluck in the bud this progress toward intimacy which had so threatened her scheme of life. Now, seeing him collected and ironical, she was instinctively alarmed at the distance which he, not she, had placed between them.

"My dear Teddy," she began, in a more confidential tone.

"Teddy?" he said, smiling.

He was perfectly good-natured, and as she felt that he was not irritated, but amusing himself at her tricks which he had divined, she was uneasy under this ironical examination. She felt that he had escaped her; and, disturbed by this thought, she looked at him, seeing all at once his quality. As he had made not the slightest reference to the very apparent obligation which he had been willing to undergo for her, she felt his social superiority and his reticence of good breeding. Besides, other women--brilliant women--had been attracted by him: Mrs. Craig Fontaine, Mrs. Kildair, and, above all, Emma Fornez. But another mood had possession of her, the mood of the artist transformed by the joy of personal sensation. She wished to keep him, but at the moment she was irritated that such a little thing should come to interfere with the joy of the imagined future triumph.

"Don't be horrid, Teddy," she said impatiently, and, wishing to appease him quickly, that she might talk to him of the play, she continued: "The fact is, Mr. Garraboy has done everything he could for me. He sold my stocks a week ago, foreseeing this panic, and saved me several thousand dollars. He offered to give me his check for twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars, or to reinvest it for me when the time came in the enormous bargains that can be picked up now. What was I to do?"

"You're quite right, and I made a great mistake to mislead you so," he answered, with great seriousness.

"It wasn't your fault," she said abruptly.

"Wasn't it?" he said, opening his eyes with a show of surprise.

She comprehended that she would have to surrender, and, changing her tone to one of gentleness, she said:

"It was a great thing for you to do what you did, Teddy--I shall never forget it."

"Nonsense," he said, persisting in misunderstanding her. "I often get up early--that was nothing at all."

"You are not at all the way you were last time," she said reproachfully, forgetting that that was just what she wished to avoid.

But at this moment the telephone rang. Stigler, her manager, was calling. Immediately she forgot their misunderstanding, carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment. Beecher, with a clear vision, followed her, noticing in her voice, as she sought to cajole the manager, the same caressing pleading which she had employed a moment before with him.

"Now I really see her," he thought, with a liberation of his spirit. "Emma was entirely wrong. She's not a woman--she always an actress."

"I'll send you the play right away," she was saying. "Mr. Hargrave is coming. I'll have him take it to the hotel. But you must read it tonight. Promise! Oh, yes, lots of comedy--delicious! Heart interest and big scenes--yes, sensational. Just the part for Fannestock. I must have him for the part! You'll see him in every line! Now, Mr. Stigler, please read it tonight!"

"Ah, there's Fannestock too," said Beecher grimly to himself.

She rose from telephoning, joyous and excited.

"Oh, if Stigler will only see it! It's a great part--a great part! There's a wonderful scene at the close of the third act, between the two women and the father, that will bring down the house."

Miss Tilbury came in to announce that Mr. Hargrave was calling. An expression of delight lit up the features of the actress. But all at once she turned anxiously to Beecher, who had risen stiffly.

"By Jove, I've overstayed my time," he said readily, glancing at the clock.

She was grateful, and yet dissatisfied that he had suggested what she wished, and, recalling his new spirit of independence, she said anxiously, with a compensating smile:

"Teddy, call me up in the morning--this is so important."

In the hallway he stepped aside while Hargrave, a frail, oldish-young man, entered, with his famished, doubting glance.

"Oh, it is wonderful--wonderful!" cried the actress, seizing both his hands. "I am still thrilled. Wonderful---wonderful!"

"You liked it?" said Hargrave timidly. At her words, he saw heaven open before his eyes in a confused vision of frantic audiences, applauding critics, checks for thousands for royalty, all confused by rolling automobiles, magnificent bouquets and languishing feminine eyes.

"Like it!" continued Nan Charters, retaining hold of one hand to draw him into the salon. "It is marvelous! How could you know all this so young!"

Beecher, in the excitement, quietly made his escape. In the elevator, to the surprise of the wondering bell-boy, he was seized with a mad laughter, which continued to convulse him as he rolled into the street.

"Heaven be praised!" he exclaimed. "Cured--cured, by Jove! I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!"

On turning the corner of his club, he ran into Becker, a club acquaintance whom he tolerantly disliked.

"Becker, old boy," he said, seizing his arm and flourishing his cane in the direction of the club, "what can I buy you? Come on--_en avant_!"

"What the deuce has got in you?" said that correct youth.

"Joy, laughter, everything! I'm happy as a Croton water-bug on a hot marble slab!"

At the bar, he gathered every one in sight, slapping them on their shoulders. His comrades looked at him with envy and awe, believing that he had profited by a tip to make a killing in the market. Their own enjoyment was little enough. The market, outdoing the day before, had plunged like a wild steer into the maelstrom of panic. A billion dollars had receded, scattered, evaporated in the mad day. The disaster had reached the whole country; every bank was threatened. The United States Treasury had been implored to come to the assistance of the country. Gunther, Fontaine, Marx, Haggerty, were in hourly conference; while before the swelling hurricane of fright, every paper was imploring its readers to stand firm.

*CHAPTER XVI*

The next day Beecher did not consider for a moment telephoning to Nan Charters, despite her last request. He felt that it was a chapter closed in his life--one of those innumerable false paths down which one plunges, only the quicker to return. His own serenity did not even surprise him. He went off for the morning to play rackets with Bruce Gunther, and lunched at the club with Tilton, who urged him to join his hunt, an invitation which he discussed with enthusiasm.

The news from the stock market was the same--ten point losses in the early trading. Banks all over the country had suspended payments for a week in order to weather the storm. The panic had ceased to be one of speculative concern only. Every one was anxiously asking if a permanent blow had not been dealt to the industries of the country. Many freely prophesied that, if the downward rush were not checked within three days, it would take the country ten years to restore its shattered prosperity. There was a rumor that the big men of the Street had made up a fund, reaching to many millions, which would be brought on the morrow to the support of the market. The run on the Associated Trust still continued, checked though it was by delay and technicalities. Yet the fall of Slade was hourly predicted.

Beecher lingered after luncheon, played a hundred points at billiards and won, an hour's bridge and won again. Then he went off in high spirits to call on Emma Fornez, an appointment arranged over the telephone.

"So, you bad boy, you and your little Charters have quarreled," said the prima donna, greeting him with an accusing smile, though in her voice was the pitch of the nervous excitement which her coming debut that night had communicated.

"Not in the least," he said, a little surprised at the insinuation.

"Ta-ta-ta! Enough of your stuff and nonsense," she said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "You are too big a simpleton--a little woman like that will always get the best of you."

"But there is no quarrel, and I am not in the least interested."

"Oh, _avec ca_--keep away--better keep away! You will burn your fingers. Just the kind of a little doll that is dangerous. Women like that are like half colors between one thing and the other--very dangerous! A young girl--_jeune fille_--would bore you now, and an old campaigner like Emma Fornez would amuse you; but a little thing like that is too puzzling for you. I see just how it is," she continued, placing her hands on her hips and bobbing her head energetically, while Beecher, very much pleased to be so lectured, listened with a mocking look. "Yes, yes, I know very well! She gets you--how do you say?--going and coming. When she is an actress you say she is different from the rest--what a child! And when she is playing the child, you say what a difference--she is such an artist! You laugh--see!"

Beecher broke out laughing at this characterization which came so near the truth.