Part 17

As always, the office work proceeded with silent regularity. Simpson, the almoner, saw callers. Atwood, the chief broker, telephoned for orders uptown. Conover, the confidential clerk, traveled several times a day between his master's house and his master's place of business in one of his master's motor-cars. At the brown man's home, the famous physicians issued their non-committal bulletins; L. Bergen Rivington and George J. Hallett came in and went out, the former worried and elliptical, the latter loud in denial. And directly across the street the relays of reporters resumed their watching, asked hourly the same questions and received always the same replies. Rumor once more hinted dark things about a ruined digestion and an overworked brain.

Nevertheless, there was a difference between this occasion and its predecessors, and the delicate nerves of the financial world quivered with their subtle and sure appreciation of it. The interval of good health had been briefer than ever before. Simpson looked grave. Atwood received few orders. Conover more often than not failed to see whom he sought. The famous physicians called other famous physicians into consultation. Rivington and Hallett were sometimes denied audience. The reporters sent their chiefs a word that made every newspaper-office in the country hunt up a certain long-prepared obituary, set it in type and keep it standing on the bank with a slug-line that read, "Hold for Orders." Rumor shook its thousand heads, and this time rumor was right: the thumbs of the gods were turned down.

No more rising early and working late for the man with the beady eyes and hairy hands. No more gluttony. No more scheming. All hours are alike in the sickroom; his only food was tepid broth, and about a brain too tired to scheme for itself, the only scheming was how to drag forward from minute to minute its life that was death-in-life.

In the street straw had one day been strewn to quiet the noise of traffic, and the next day commands from City Hall closed that street to traffic. Outside was silence, and silence was inside, behind the brownstone walls and shuttered windows, over the rich rugs, among the pictures by the great dead artists.

In a darkened room, in a big Louis XV. bed, bought from the poor descendant of a Provencal marquis for whose mistress it was made, the patient lay. His legs were beneath the covers, but an upholstered bed-rest propped him so that his trunk was almost upright, wrapped in a house-jacket of French flannel, russet brown. Freshly shaven and carefully brushed, he was as neat as if he were about to go to business; but his cheeks hung like folds of dough over his heavy jaw-bone; his short-sighted eyes were fixed on the tapestried canopy above him, which showed the rape of Europa; his lips, turned pale, were pulled back tightly over his yellow fangs. On the edge of the coverlet, high-drawn, his hairy hands gave the only sign of life in all his body: the rounded tips of their stumpy fingers moved constantly as if they were spinning ... spinning...

He would not go to business any more.

It was the day on which Luke's month of promised suppression was to expire. In the sick-room of the man in russet-brown two doctors stood at one side of the bed now, with a nurse between them. L. Bergen Rivington and George J. Hallett were admitted to the room, and Rivington stood at the foot of the bed with his trembling hand before his face, while Hallett, beside him, squared his jaw and looked at the dying man, who did not look at him. Some servants that had worked in the house for twenty years hovered in the shadows and sobbed, because they loved their master and had long cause to love him. A clergyman, in his vestments, knelt at the side of the bed opposite the doctors and read from a little book.

"O Almighty God," read the clergyman, his voice sounding loud in the quiet of the room--"with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons; we humbly commend the soul of thy servant, our dear brother, into thy hands..."

One doctor quietly reached out and placed a seeking finger on the dying man's wrist.

"... that it may be precious in thy sight..."

The doctor looked over his shoulder at his colleague. The colleague's eyes asked a question. The examining doctor nodded.

"... it may be presented pure and without spot before thee."

Then the man on the bed died. He died silently, speedily, grimly. The stumpy fingers stopped their weaving motion; they shot into the palms of the hands, and the hands clenched until only their hairy backs were visible. The lips tightened for a moment until the pointed fangs seemed to have bitten through them; the beady eyes protruded still farther from their sockets; the crooked arms curved stiffly toward the belly; the crooked knees shot toward the chest; the whole figure seemed to curl up; the mouth fell open.

The clergyman looked, hesitated and continued:

"... teach us who survive, in this and other like daily spectacles of mortality, to see how frail and uncertain our own condition is; and so to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to that holy and heavenly wisdom, whilst we live here, which may in the end bring us to life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, thine only Son our Lord. Amen."

Far down in the offices on the twentieth floor of a Wall Street skyscraper, everything was going on as usual. Only one room of the suite was empty, and even in it, under the solemn Washington, the stock-ticker was weaving out its yards and yards of tape by the windows that looked to the web of streets on which the people buzzed always like entangled flies.

*CHAPTER XVI*

Sec.1. Public opinion had been unanimous concerning Luke's break with the Municipal Reform League. Only in the terms of their condemnation did the newspapers differ: they were all agreed that Luke was anathema. His letters to the press served him to small purpose; the Executive Committee issued a statement declaring that his withdrawal had been requested "because of inflammatory utterances and practical policies contrary to the spirit and purpose of the organization." The official statement was accepted and his individual version treated as a futile attempt to blacken a reputable, if mistaken, movement. It was everywhere believed that he had been forced to resign because of his Cooper Union speech, and it was in some quarters hinted that his former comrades held him responsible for the attempt to bribe the Heney lieutenant--a scandal made the most of during the subsequent period of the campaign and thereafter dropped before it reached the courts. In spite of the fact that the Committee had met in secret session, some of its members gave their own story of its turbulent denouement to the reporters, and this was published in a form that made Luke appear as a cornered bully.

"Mr. Huber [said the most dignified editorial on the subject] was once doubtless a well-intentioned young man, but his first taste of popular applause seems to have intoxicated him, made him see visions of one real evil in every impossible quarter and caused a fit of that acute mania wherein one's best friends are mistaken for one's worst enemies. This is the only charitable explanation of the tragic end to a promising career, but on that end the Municipal Reform League is certainly to be congratulated."

Other editorials laughed at Luke's habit of hitting at vast conspiracies of which he never produced proof, and some charged him with flagrant dishonesty. He reverted for a time to his belief in publicity and bombarded the papers with letters of explanation; but the papers at first garbled and then forgot to print what he wrote. He sent for reporters to give them interviews, but, although the men still liked him, and politely took down his every word, they could never get their "copy" beyond the editorial desks. Within a few days, the former candidate was a newspaper joke.

He had, of course, written to his mother and sister about his engagement to Betty, since publicly announced, and they had replied with kindly letters, glad because of his planned marriage to the daughter of a man of good family supposed to be well-to-do, and hopeful for his continued happiness. Now, with the news of his political overthrow published broadcast, Jane wrote to ask him why he had been so foolish and to quote her husband the Congressman, to the effect that what Luke needed was an apprenticeship at practical politics; his mother's comment was one of love triumphant over the defects of the loved object and forgiveness for behavior inexplicable in his father's son.

The strike dragged on wearily. After the first outbreak of violence, the leaders were able, for a time, to prevail upon the strikers to use more peaceable methods; but the resulting days of siege were as trying for both sides as the active warfare had been. Forbes's boasts to the contrary notwithstanding, the firm, handicapped by the unskilled labor of the strike-breakers, found itself unable to fulfil its contracts; the new recruits were all raw men, whereas much of the factory's work was intended for trained women: badly needed money was being forfeited. The dispossessed employees, on the other hand, rapidly exhausted their own supplies; because they had gone over to industrial unionism, the American Federation of Labor, to which their old "local" had been attached through the trade-union that it was a part of, refused help and forbade the union to give any; there had been a national reaction against the I.W.W., and it could furnish but little money. The strikers held angry meetings and faced starvation; Luke and Forbes met in long conferences and faced ruin.

In those days, only Luke's love for Betty sustained him, and Betty, being new to both love and disaster, remained loyal. She was confident that the politicians and the papers were conspiring against him, and, knowing her father's gentleness in his home, she was equally confident that the strikers were wrong.

Luke did not inquire as to the reasons of her steadfastness. In the first darkness of disaster, he was too glad for support to quarrel with its origin. She was warm and human, sympathetic and at hand; she loved him. With all his heart and soul, he returned her love. In the last analysis, he fought, he told himself, for an ideal that, if greater than them both or separately, was yet necessary to them. The ideal had an undeniable lien upon the best of his strength of body and mind; yet whatever of these the ideal could spare was not for him, but for Betty.

Then came the death of the man whom Luke had regarded as the personification of the evils from which the country was suffering. It came close enough upon the Cooper Union speech to make that speech appear in the worst possible taste; but it was an event considered of such tremendous importance in itself that Luke was forgotten and once for all swept from the columns of the newspapers.

Those papers, even the daring few that had once or twice had the temerity feebly to question the lesser schemes of the man who now pursued no more schemes, were crowded with reverential accounts of his illness, awed pictures of his last moments, laudatory descriptions of his Napoleonic career, and editorials that spoke only of his undeniable greatness and his outstanding benefactions. The country talked as if its king had died; the achievements of none of the three presidents killed while in office had received louder praise or more lengthy attention. He left two large fortunes to individuals: one to the niece to whom Yeates was engaged, and one to be divided among more distant relatives, with bequests to faithful servants in his house and businesses; but the bulk of his money went to the colleges and hospitals that he had so magnificently assisted during his life. Firmly, the entire press observed the Latin maxim: they let nothing but good be spoken of the dead.

Luke was by this time prepared for such an attitude on the part of the papers, but, on his own part, he permitted no illusions. The fact of death must always be solemn; but the force that ended wrong-doing did not palliate it. This blow was like a judgment from Heaven. Luke did not think so much of how it would benefit him as of how it would benefit the country, but he was of too common clay not to spare some reflection to the influence of the event upon his own affairs: it would probably mean the dissolution of the antagonism to him in business; it would surely mean the cessation of the personal persecution that had already wrecked his political and professional career. Yet it was more for the triumph of the larger and broader good that he felt ready to chant a _Jubilate_.

Once the thoughts crossed his mind: If Heaven were just, and this death were indeed Heaven's judgment, why had Heaven's judgment been so long delayed? And, since Heaven had been tardy when the death of a single man could thus ease the world and make for social righteousness, how could he have held it wrong had some sufferer from that evil struck, in Heaven's default, this single blow for the freedom of society? But he was in no mood to front casuistry: the thing had happened, and that was happiness enough.

He was reading the news in his rooms at the Arapahoe. He had sat up late with Forbes the night before and had risen late this morning, breakfasting in the apartment house. He knew that he ought to go to the factory, but he could not go at once.

He began again to dream dreams as he used to dream them. His personal failure counted for nothing in what must happen now. Suppose he were discredited and unable to win back the public confidence: somebody, without party and without politics, a larger and better man than he had been, would assume a national leadership, where his had been small and local, and would now bring the whole country back to the simple political faith and the plain, honest financial and industrial policies of the nation's founders. The mercenaries of darkness that had served the evil mind could not now, with the evil mind in perdition, stand for one day against the Army of Light.

Himself? He would begin over again, with Betty and for her. In the new order, under the reign of equity, public opinion would soon clarify, and he could re-establish himself and perform some part, however small, of the mighty work of reconstruction. He had been too busy of late with love and politics and business to continue in the social life in which Jack Porcellis had launched him. Porcellis's sporadic returns to New York--the man was just now in India on the pretense of studying its religions--were, latterly, Luke's sole occasions of approaching that existence. Save to secure the loan, he now contritely recalled, he had neglected Ruysdael, whose agent as yet evinced no misgivings over the effect of the strike upon Forbes's securities, and on his last incursions into Mrs. Ruysdael's set, though Luke had found himself liked, he was made aware that the liking for his small-talk was severely tempered by scorn for his enthusiasms. He must overcome all that now. To be of use, to help Betty, he must regain.

When he was a small boy, his ambition in life had been carpentry. At some remote time or other, he must have seen and admired one of those journeymen joiners of the elder type that used to tramp the country roads from small town to town and keep alive by doing odd jobs at the houses on their endless way. He loved tools and he loved wandering; even yet he loved them, and this figure had once represented Romance to him as definitely as the dead man in russet brown, long afterward, represented Evil. This morning, while he smiled at the memory of those young imaginings, Luke felt a little of their charm: it seemed impossible for him to form, as he should, his new plans while he sat in an apartment house in the city in which his plans must eventually be applied; he wished that he could drop everything for the day and go somewhere far out into the country to tramp the dusty roads and dream at ease.

It was then that the telephone announced a caller: ex-Judge Stein.

Sec.2. The Judge, as he entered, presented the same dignified figure that he had presented when Luke last talked with him. His strong face was solemn, but undisturbed by its solemnity. He arranged with care the tails of his frock-coat as he seated himself in the best chair, but on this occasion he came directly to the point of his visit.

"Mr. Huber," he said, "a great many things have happened since we met."

Luke shrugged his shoulders.

"I'll admit you've kept me pretty busy, Judge."

"I was not referring to the unnecessary trouble in which you involved yourself. I was referring to the fact that your month has elapsed and that the man you threatened is dead."

The news of the morning had temporarily annulled Luke's sense of time. Only yesterday he had wondered what use he should make of the Rollins letters, now carried in a safer place than his coat-pocket; to-day he had forgotten them.

"Yes," he said, gathering his thoughts behind his impassive face: "the month's over and the man's dead."

The Judge leaned impressively forward. He shook his white head gravely.

"Death," said the Judge, "wipes out all animosities. I know you would not use those letters now, Mr. Huber, because I know you would not strike a dead man. So I have come to ask you to deliver them to me." He held out his opened hand.

Luke blinked at it.

"I don't understand," said he. "I thought you always represented yourself as--well, as not professionally retained in this matter?"

"I am now," said the Judge.

"Oh! By the estate?"

"Not directly and not altogether." Stein chose his words. "I am retained by the company whose property those letters are."

"I thought you had left the railroad-claim business long ago. Perhaps you are specially retained for this one job?"

The Judge looked hurt. His firm mouth quivered.

"Mr. Huber," he said, "I am in no frame of mind for joking to-day. This man is dead, and he was my friend----"

"I'm sorry to have seemed to joke," Luke interrupted.

Stein bowed and went on:

"He is dead, and whatever his faults--we all have our faults, Mr. Huber--they died with him. I am here only to ask you to show a decent respect for the memory of a dead enemy. I am here to ask you to be magnanimous, Mr. Huber."

"Magnanimous? You talk as if I had won!"

"The living are always the winners," said the Judge.

Luke began to doubt that theory.

"And so you want me to surrender these letters?"

"Exactly. What use can they be to you now?"

"There were other people involved. Are they willing to accept my terms? I know they can't hurt me, because I know they haven't the courage or the power of the man you've been talking about. But that's neither here nor there: will they accept my terms?"

"They did not write either of the letters, Mr. Huber."

"They're inculpated by them."

"Not legally."

"Enough inculpated to serve my purpose."

"If you think that," said the Judge, "I can only repeat the offer I made you when I called here before."

Luke smiled.

"And I can only refuse it."

"Mr. Huber," the Judge began again, "the man is dead----"

Luke's nerves had been strained for many a day. He leaped to his feet.

"Of course the man's dead!" he cried. "He was dead this morning, and he's still dead. Why do you keep saying that over and over? I'm tired of hearing it." He saw the look of pain return. "I beg your pardon," he said; "but I might as well tell you first and last that I won't surrender those letters, no matter what you plead or threaten. I won't tell you what I intend to do with them, either. And the only reason I know that they must be of use to me is your coming here and saying they aren't any use."

The Judge rose also.

"Mr. Huber," said he, "I am very sorry to hear you speak this way. I can't tell you how sorry I am. You ought to know by this time----"

"I couldn't know anything," Luke cut in, "that would make me change my mind."

"But suppose," said the Judge heavily, "suppose my friends happen to know that the situation of the Forbes Company----"

Luke's face went very white.

He opened the door.

"Good-morning, Judge," he said.

Sec.3. Stein's polite, but portentous adieux were not a quarter of an hour old before Luke sought the office of the newspaper that had been the last to refuse him space in its columns for his political explanations. The man that was dead had, it seemed, left a something of his influence behind him: Luke resolved to strike at it.

The office-boy was a long time returning, and, when he did, it was to announce:

"He says ter find out whatcher want."

"Give me my card," said Luke.

He scribbled on the card: "Non-political."

"Now," he said, "try him again."

Sec.4. The editor was one of those men whom newspaper-work so affects that they look any age between thirty and fifty. His nervous face was full of tense lines, and every few minutes his mouth twitched.

Luke told his story and showed the letters. The editor read them.

"Why do you want to do this?" he asked.

"Why?" Luke was amazed. "Because I want to protect the public."

"Then you'd better go to the M. & N. railroad."

"But you know they wouldn't do anything. They've promised before."

"I can't believe that," said the editor.

"I know it," said Luke.

"I can't believe it. You have always been too sudden, Mr. Huber--if you'll pardon my saying so. At any rate, we can't print these things." He returned the letters. "After all, the man's dead, you know."

"What's that got to do with it?" Luke's voice rose in reply to the hated phrase. "I want to keep some other people from dying."

The editor picked up a proof-sheet and began to read it.

"It would be bad taste for us to print that, just now," he said. "Come around in a couple of weeks, and we may think about it. Why, the body's hardly cold yet."

Sec.5. As Forbes had once gone from bank to bank, Luke went that morning from newspaper-office to newspaper-office. Yet there was this difference: that, whereas Forbes had only tried a few banks, Luke tried a dozen newspaper-offices. His search included the papers notoriously controlled by the money or the advertising of the power that opposed him; he even tried some of those journals of the city which are printed in foreign tongues, and he tried the radical press. He tried all in vain.

Most of the editors were men that had fought him when he was the candidate of the Municipal Reform League; some that he sought were of those who had tired of him when he pestered them with explanations of his political overthrow. Many refused to see him; one or two pronounced him mad. The radicals shared the view of the man with whom he first spoke: they would not be guilty of bad taste. Wherever he got word with a person in authority, the word was the same; he met with that all-sufficient argument:

"After all, the man's dead."

Sec.6. When, finally, he acknowledged defeat, his wearied nerves manifested their condition through deep physical exhaustion. He could not front the thought of passing the remainder of the day at the factory; could not go at once from one losing fight to another. However much he might be needed, he could not do it. Until he had rested, he would be useless, and worse than useless.

He did not go back to the Arapahoe. Instead, with the open country calling him, he went to the Grand Central Station and took a train into Connecticut.