Part 12

The three worked over the letter for the rest of that day, having a scanty luncheon brought into the office from a nearby restaurant, and talking plans while they ate. All the time callers were sending in their names with requests for interviews, workers were reporting, men at the telephone were ringing up to ask instructions, and clerks and stenographers were running in and out to deliver telegrams and special-delivery letters and to receive replies.

Luke's only appreciable pause was to read two notes of congratulation from his mother and Jane, the former commending him for adopting a course that the writer was sure her husband would have adopted had he lived, the latter full of pride in his approaching success, but ending with the postscript: "Jesse [Jesse Kinzer was Jane's husband, the new Congressman] says that conditions in New York are 'purely local,' whatever that means." Altogether, Luke had a busy day. He was a tired man when, at nine o'clock, he again rang the bell of the Forbes house in Brooklyn.

Sec.5. To Luke's surprise, it was Forbes himself that opened the door.

"I've been looking for you," he said seriously. "Can you come into the library? I want to see you for a few minutes. It's important."

The concluding words were unnecessary. The tone of the words that preceded them would alone have been sufficient to warn Luke of trouble: Forbes's voice was husky, tense, uncertain.

"Of course," Luke assented.

He followed Forbes into the library, and there, as the host closed the door, Luke saw in the face that confronted him an expression which conformed with the tone and import of Forbes's first words. The elder man's face was haggard.

"I shall have to tell you something," he was saying--"something that I ought to have told you long ago, or as much of it as had happened then. But, you see, I had no idea it could be so important--ever be so important." He broke off with a remembrance of his accustomed courtesy: "I beg your pardon. Won't you sit down, Huber? I quite forgot to ask you. For my part, I couldn't sit still if my life depended on it."

Luke stood by the center-table.

"No, no," he said. "Don't bother--and don't worry." He thought that Forbes looked as if death were in the house. "Is anything wrong with Betty?" he suddenly asked.

"No, it's not that. It's what I say. Of course I never supposed your going in for the Municipal Reform League movement could have any business significance----"

Luke, relieved about Betty, was unable to follow Forbes's disjointed sentences.

"It hasn't," he said. "It hasn't any business significance whatever."

"Ah"--Forbes shook his head--"that's what I thought, too. But it has. Huber, this may mean the end of R. H. Forbes & Son. Think of it: it may mean the end of the Business--a business that has been honorably conducted by my family for three generations."

What such a catastrophe would mean to Forbes nobody knew better than Luke, but how the Municipal Reform League could be concerned in it was beyond guessing.

"Won't you try to begin at the beginning?" said Luke. He was used to getting coherent stories in preliminary interviews with incoherent witnesses, and he fell into his professional manner.

"It's this way." Forbes turned his gray eyes away and fumbled with an ornament on the mantel-tree. "When you came into the Business, I had several loans outstanding--the Business had. They were all well secured, and you know how solid the concern's always been. With the money you put in and the earnings, I was able to take up some of them, but there were the improvements and extensions made necessary by fresh competition and the new inventions and the machine-trust's raise of prices. Well, I had to leave a loan outstanding at the East County National."

"Yes," said Luke encouragingly. "How much was it?"

"Two hundred and fifty thousand. It was a good deal, I know, but, you see, when I negotiated it----"

"Never mind the reasons now. What were its terms?"

"It was a call-loan," said Forbes in a shaken voice.

Luke's amazement conquered his reserve.

"What? And for two hundred and fifty thousand?"

"Yes. There was the competition. It was growing hot. The Business----"

"How did you ever arrange it?"

"I was surprised myself at the time to find it so easy, but I was too glad to get it to ask questions. Now, I wish I had. I believe the bank was influenced by some people that wanted to get us into trouble--want to form a ready-made clothing trust."

"It's incredible!" cried Luke. "Not one of the agents that I had look into your business for me mentioned this."

"I didn't know that, Huber." Forbes looked his appeal. "I ask you to believe me."

"All right. It was my own fault. I should have asked you more questions. What puzzles me is how this loan was concealed."

"It was at the request of the bank. They said it was so unusual that they didn't want it more widely known than was absolutely necessary, and I agreed because of the credit of the Business. Now I believe it was all a trap set by the men that want to form the trust."

Luke did not pause to waste reproaches over either his own stupid blindness or Forbes's culpable rashness. He pressed forward:

"And now they're going to call the loan?"

Forbes bowed his head.

"And we can't meet it?"

"If--if we tried, we could do it only by wrecking the Business."

"But we can go somewhere else. The East County isn't the only bank in New York."

"That is what I thought. It's what I said."

Forbes was swallowing a sob. "I said it to Osserman--that's the president--I said it to him himself."

"Well?" persisted Luke.

"Well"--Forbes's eyes met Huber's--"it wasn't any use."

"Now, look here," said Luke. He put into his voice a calm that he did not feel. "Try to tell me just what happened. I can't advise you till I know that, even if I'm not the business-fool I seem to have proved myself to be. First of all, Osserman sent you some sort of word, didn't he?"

"Yes, of course."

"What was it?"

"It was a letter--just a personal letter."

"When did you get it?"

"About eleven this morning."

"So then you went over to the bank?"

"Yes."

"And asked to see this man Osserman?"

"Yes."

"And what did he say?"

"Well," he said--"I can't tell you exactly; he was careful not to use definite words; but careful to make his meaning clear."

"What was his meaning, then?"

"He said in effect that he understood you were interested in our Business."

"What of it? That's what I want to know, Forbes. What's my interest in your firm got to do with your standing at the East County National?"

"Oh, he didn't say at first. At first he said he understood we were not sound."

"So you told him he was mistaken and offered to show the books?"

"Of course I did." Forbes's chin shot upward. "I told him that the Forbes firm was one of the oldest and----"

"Yes, yes. And then he mentioned me. How did I hurt the firm's standing?"

"He was really very plausible about that. I must say, Huber, that he rather opened my eyes to a phase of your political activities I hadn't before thought of."

"What phase?"

"To be quite frank, he called your public utterances wild. He said they attacked credit and might shake it. He even intimated that if you were elected, you'd go in for a course of action--you had pledged yourself to go in for one that would upset credit altogether. And that's true, Huber." Forbes gained a certain confidence. "When you come to think of it, the business interests of the city--I mean the sound conservative business interests--ought not to be made to suffer for the sins of the big financiers."

Luke recaptured his composure. His face relaxed; he looked lazy and uninterested.

"So I suppose," he said, "that this banker asked you to tell me to get out of the fight."

"Yes, but of course----"

"Really, that's the highest testimony to the League's strength that we've had yet."

"Yes, but, of course, I told him I couldn't do that."

"What did he say then?"

"He said he was afraid the City Chamberlain would withdraw all the city funds on deposit at the East County if the bank kept on carrying a loan you were interested in."

"And you took all this like a child?"

"I didn't. You ought to know me better than that."

"What did you do?"

"I was indignant. I told you I was. I said I would not have a loan from a concern that interfered with the political convictions of its creditors. I said I would go somewhere else."

"Did you go?"

The sob returned to Forbes's throat.

"Yes, I did," he said; "and it was the most humiliating experience of my career. When I thought of the firm of R. H. Forbes & Son begging credit, I could hardly bear it. But I went to the Lexington National."

"They turned you down?"

"They listened very politely and said they would consider the proposition."

"Well, then," said Luke, "you're crossing a bridge before you come to it."

"No, I am not; for presently they sent over a messenger with a note that was no more than an insulting refusal."

"You gave up then?"

"No, I tried again. I tried Clement & Co." Forbes seemed unable to conclude.

"And they?" urged Luke.

"They wouldn't consider it for a moment, Huber."

Luke did not like to look at Forbes's suffering, but he had to hear the end.

"Well?" he said.

Forbes flung out his hands.

"What more could I do?" he demanded. "If it became known that the firm was going begging--yes, begging--from bank to bank, what would happen to our credit? I didn't dare to go anywhere else. I--Huber, I went back to Osserman and asked him for time."

Luke sat down. He picked up a paper and made a transparent pretense of glancing at it.

"Did he give you time?"

"He said he'd give me a week."

"A whole week?" Luke tried to appear encouraged. "That's six good working days. You can get the money together in that time."

"Huber"--Forbes came over to Luke and stood above the newspaper--"I've told you what it would do to our credit to try. But I've come to the conclusion that we could not get this money from any bank in America."

"What do you mean? Not if we have security?"

"Not if we could offer the Metropolitan Life Building for security. Not from any bank in America."

Luke put down the paper.

"But that----" He stopped a moment, and then went on: "But there's only one group of men in the country that could put up such a wall."

"That," said Forbes simply, "is the group I mean."

Luke's eyes were veiled. He rose and walked across the room. Presently, over his shoulder, he inquired sharply:

"What makes you think this?"

Forbes was frank:

"I don't know. I can't tell you. A hundred little things. But I am sure."

"I thought you said something about a clothing trust."

"I did. It was the same crowd. Now they have some additional reason. Oh, I couldn't doubt it. It was behind every word Osserman said. It was standing back of his words, but it was on tiptoe, looking over them."

Luke turned and came up to Forbes. He was quite calm again.

"I know what you want me to do," he said.

"Yes," said Forbes: it was his way of saying: "You have read my meaning, and I will stand by it."

"Well, I can't do it."

Luke spoke quietly. It hurt him to have to say this thing.

"I was afraid that was the way you'd take it," said Forbes.

"How else could I take it?"

"You know what it means to me, Huber?"

"Yes. I know what the firm means to you, but I can't do what you ask. You want me to give up what I think is right for the sake of saving your firm. I can't do it."

"It's your firm, too, Huber."

"Then I've got a right to hurt it."

"I'm not asking you to do anything wrong; I'm only asking you to wait."

"That's just what I can't do," said Luke.

Forbes would hear no more. He twitched with a spasm of weak rage. His voice rang high.

"You're a fool!" he cried. "You talk as if I were trying to compound a felony with you. What am I asking? I'm only asking you to hold off for this campaign. I'm only asking you to stand by the man that took you into his business--my Business, the one that my grandfather founded and my father handed down to me. Haven't _I_ stood by _you_? Didn't I trust you? I've kept out of all these big combinations, but I know how they work--nobody can help knowing these days--and when I took you in, how was I to be sure you weren't a dummy representing somebody else, and so on, higher and higher up, till the trail ended with just these same men? But no, I trusted you. I trusted you, and now---- You've no right to humiliate me! You've no right to wreck my Business! Do you know what you're doing? You're making a beggar out of my daughter--out of the girl you told me last night you wanted to be your wife!"

Luke had been expecting this. The muscles about his mouth tightened, but all that he said was:

"I suppose you have spoken to her?"

"Yes, I have. Of course I have!" cried Forbes.

"And what does she say?"

Forbes tried to take Luke's hand.

"Why do you act this way?" he pleaded. "Why can't you wait? They haven't nominated you yet. Withdraw your name. That won't hurt the League, and it will only make you all the stronger for the next time; and by the next time we'll be ready to meet all opposition. This time you can't be elected even if you are nominated. Why do you want to jump into the fire?"

"What," insisted Luke, "does Betty say?"

She was at the door. She came in as he asked the question. She looked from her lover to her father, and then she ran to her father and put her head on his shoulder.

Sec.6. Luke took a short breath. He wanted to leave them. He felt that he could not face much more. He wondered what Forbes had said to her and how much she had heard of what Forbes and he were saying.

"Betty!" said her father. He patted her head. Luke thought that the caressing hand looked old. "Betty!"

She spoke with her face hidden:

"Oh, Luke, you wouldn't hurt father?"

"It isn't that, Betty." Luke was angry. The girl was behaving as he thought that a girl placed as she was ought to behave, and he loved her no less for that, but he was angry at her father's weakness in putting her in such a position, "It isn't that, Betty, I've got to do it. You don't understand these things. You can't understand them."

"She knows that _I_ understand them," Forbes interposed.

"What of it?" challenged Luke. "Betty, I've got to do what I think's right. You wouldn't have me go against everything I believe, would you? You wouldn't have me do something I thought was wrong?"

Betty half raised her head:

"But it can't be wrong not to ruin us!"

Luke turned his words on Forbes.

"I'll withdraw from the company," he said.

"I couldn't buy you out," Forbes answered. He bit his lip; shame colored his cheeks. "And if you sold to anybody else it would be sure to be letting in our enemies. Even the mere report that you wanted to sell would wreck us, coming on top of those bank interviews."

Luke knew Forbes was right.

"Betty," he said, "a lot of men that believe in me are going to offer me this nomination. It's a nomination to a place that makes its holder an officer of the court, an officer of justice, yet the plain truth is your father wants me to let these other men's money, or the power of their money, buy me off from doing justice to them."

"Nonsense!" Forbes was strengthened by his daughter's meed of comfort. "You won't be elected if you are nominated."

"They seem to think I will," said Luke.

"And somebody else," urged Betty, "could do just as well against them, Luke."

"That's not the point, Betty. It's a personal question, a question of personal morals; it's a matter of my own conscience."

She turned until she stood no longer between the two men. She stood at her father's side. Her cheeks were damp from weeping, but her eyes shone.

"But think, Luke," she said. "You _are_ young. Father's twice as old, and he _must_ know more. He must be right. He wouldn't ask you to do anything that was wrong, would you, father?"

Forbes shook his head.

"I know it's a lot for you to have to give up," she went on; "but you ought to be willing to give up a lot if--if you----"

"If I love you?" asked Luke.

She met him.

"Yes," she said.

"She's right, Luke," nodded her father.

"Then," pursued Luke--the tone was his laziest--"what about her love for me? Isn't it to----"

Betty interrupted. She had taken Forbes's hand:

"You're not going to make me choose between you and father, are you?" she pleaded.

"I tell you," said Luke, "it isn't anything of that sort, Betty. I've got to do what I'm going to do. You haven't any choice, and neither have I. You might almost say it's a religious question. It's like saving my soul. I've got to do it; I've just got to; just because it's the one right thing, I've got to do it. Why"--his manner grew tense--"you don't know; even your father doesn't know. This North Bridge wreck, with all those people killed and wounded: that's what these men did, these men that are trying to keep me out of the district-attorneyship."

"The North Bridge wreck?" snapped Forbes. "That was on the M. & N. What are you talking about, Huber?"

Luke realized that he had gone further than the limits of his promise of temporary silence concerning the letters, but he was too bitterly tried not to go still further.

"Yes," he said, "I mean just that. Everybody knows the N. Y. & N. J. crowd own the majority of the stock in the M. & N., and you know it, too. What's more, this wreck was their direct fault. I can prove that and I mean to. That's why they're after me: I mean to prove it if they don't square things. And so they're afraid of me."

"Ridiculous!" said Forbes. "That's just the trouble with you, Huber: you're going about making wild, unfounded statements like this."

"I ought not to tell even you two," Luke answered; "but the fact is, I have letters written by one of these men that will substantiate every word I say."

"You mean they'll show these people owned the road?"

"Practically, and ordered the poor rails that caused that wreck."

"Absurd: they couldn't do that. They didn't operate the road. This sort of thing is what is upsetting legitimate business: a few men going on the way you are. I don't think these people at the top are any better than they should be--I've often said so to you--but you can't go around calling them murderers. That's ridiculous."

Before Luke could reply, Betty again shifted the issue.

"Luke, you won't do it?" she appealed. "You'll give it up--for father's sake?"

He started to speak, but she dropped her father's hand and came to him with hers upraised.

"No," she said; "don't tell me now. Don't say anything now. Don't speak. You'll only be sorry. You're hurt and angry. Of course, you are. Go away. Wait. Go away just for to-night and think it over, and come back to-morrow." Her hand crept into his. "I know it's awfully hard for you to give it all up, even for a few years. I know what it means to you. Don't think I don't know, Luke. But----" She looked into his face. "Please, dear?"

His face was set.

"Good-by," he said.

"You'll be back to-morrow?"

He freed himself.

"Yes," he said. "Good-night."

Sec.7. It was simply that he could not stay any longer. He left the house with his mind made up; he would not withdraw from the fight for the district-attorneyship. To keep his word, he would go back to see her next day, but he would go back only to end what he had not the heart to end to-night.

The thing had ended itself. This was the conclusion of all his chances for Betty. They were over.

He loved her. He went away from her with the certainty that nothing which life might henceforth rob him of could be the equal of this loss.

Yet he did not blame her. Brought up as he had been, he believed that her attitude was the inevitable one and the right. He had ventured that single question about the test of her love for him, but he felt that it was an unfair question. Until a girl married, her first duty was toward her parents. His own duty and Betty's duty clashed. There was no possibility of compromise. Forbes was a weakling, but, in cleaving to Forbes, Betty, Luke felt, did the only thing that she rightly could do.

He wondered what would come of that side of his life which she had gone out of. As much as might be, he would crowd its borders with the activities of his professional and political work, but something of the space would remain: it belonged. He was still black with the despair of his loss when he turned into Thirty-ninth Street and saw, standing there as if waiting for him, the girl that looked like Joan of Arc.

"I've been waitin' for you," she said.

Her cheeks and mouth were not painted to-night, and their lines were softer; they spoke only of what she had suffered and not of what she had inflicted. Her eyes were wet with tears; her underlip quivered.

"I thought I told you last night," began Luke.

"I know," she said. "An' then I wanted what you thought. But not now, not to-night." She spoke rapidly as if determined that he should hear her out before he could escape. "Don't mind the way I talk. I just kind of talk that way because it gets like a habit. What I want's help. I'm in trouble. Honest to God I am."

She was surely in trouble, and she was beautiful.

"You mean----" His hand went to his pocket.

"No, not money," she said. "It ain't that. It's about my sister. They've got her; my fellow has. Listen." She seized his wrist. "Will you listen a minute, please? Here, if you don't want no one to see you in this here apartment house, come on over here toward Six' Av'nue. They've got her: my kid sister!"

Luke looked at the woman. He could see nothing but sincerity. He was not afraid of an attempt at robbery, and he could think of no other reason for her request except the one she gave.

"Yes, I'll go with you," he said.

She hurried him into the darker street.

"Listen," she said: "I'm in the business. You know that. I don't let on to be nothin' much. But I've got a kid sister that lives home; an' she's straight, Jenny is. Well, I was talkin' to her to-night when my fellow came up, an' he sent me on an errand--we was all standin' right over on that corner--an' when I come back, they was gone, both of them--an' I know he's got her in here in Pearl's Six' Av'nue place."

"How do you know that?"

"I guessed it, an' then I rang the bell an' one o' the girls told me I was on, an' then Pearl came down an' yelled for the bouncer an' they throwed me out."

In the lamplight of the street her face looked like the face of an innocent girl.

"Why didn't you call a policeman?" asked Luke.

"Aw, you know them. Pearl stands in."

"But they'd have got your sister, anyhow."

"Not the cop on this beat. I wouldn't give up to him the other night, and he run me in."

They stopped at a narrow door. There was a shop on one side of it and a saloon on the other.

"This is the place," said the girl. "Pearl's joint's over the store."

"You want me," asked Luke, "to go in and bring your sister out?"

The girl assented. "She's only a kid. I know what I am all right; but she's only a kid, an' she's straight; she's always been straight. You won't have no trouble. They're always scared of anybody like you. You'll do it, won't you?" She leaned toward him. "You ain't afraid?"

The infamy burned him.

"Afraid?" he said slowly. "No, I'm not afraid." He rang the bell.

The girl wrung her hands.

"You're good. You're awful good. Mamie'll owe just everything to you."

"Who will?" asked Luke.

"Mamie. That's my sister's name. She'll----"

"I see," said Luke.

The door opened. A negro servant stood in the darkened hallway before them. Luke and the girl stepped inside.

"Wait a minute," said Luke quietly.