Joan and Co.

As soon as Devons was out of bed and dressed and able to walk around the house, Nichols found it quite impracticable to enforce hospital rules of any sort. Give a man like Devons a pair of legs, and the only thing to do, if you wish to keep him within certain bounds, is to put him in chains. Nichols had neither the authority nor the chains.

In reply to Mrs. Fairburne’s rather pointed question as to when he thought it possible for the patient to leave, he answered:

“Possible? To-day.”

“Then—”

Dr. Nichols shrugged his shoulders.

“Of course he is better off here than he would be wherever he lives. As I understand it, he would not be likely to receive much care in his apartments, while here he receives, if anything, too much.”

“I agree with you,” said Mrs. Fairburne. “Joan seems inclined to make rather a hero of him.”

“It is a characteristic of girls of her age,” suggested Nichols.

“A dangerous characteristic,” snapped Mrs. Fairburne.

“The most common cure is to allow the patient to see as much as possible of her hero,” smiled Dr. Nichols.

At any rate, there appeared to be no alternative. And, truth to tell, neither Mrs. Fairburne nor Fairburne himself, after meeting the young man on several occasions, could put a finger on anything objectionable in him. Of course his past was decidedly hazy (one had only his word for it), and he came absolutely unvouched for,—which was more or less natural, considering the circumstances under which he arrived,—but those details did not count for as much as they might in view of the fact that he was by no means to be considered as a social guest, but merely a sort of accident. In time he would depart, and that would be the end of him. In the meanwhile it was a comforting thought that he was not as unpleasant as he might have been. Considering how little discrimination is generally exercised in running over people, he might have been an extremely unpleasant character to have about. It was also necessary to take into account the obvious truth that he served to amuse Joan at a time when it appeared impossible for any one else to amuse her.

So Devons no longer had to wait until half-past four arrived to stand a chance of seeing Joan. He sallied forth at all hours,—sometimes as early as mid-forenoon,—and wandered around downstairs until he found her. It was curious how often he found her. Generally it was in the library off the reception-room. There was always an open fire here, and if he sat down in front of it a few minutes she would often appear. She was always just as surprised to see him as he was to see her. He was always just as glad to see her as the day before—perhaps even a little gladder.

This would have been a natural development under ordinary circumstances,—if one continued to meet her over a cup of tea in the afternoon,—but coming upon her at the extraordinary hour of eleven in the morning, and with no distraction even as simple as a cup of tea, the result was to throw them back upon themselves for entertainment. This led to a great deal of talk about themselves—just themselves as they were; just two human beings who had started from different corners of the nation and traversed different paths which had finally intersected. The time of day had a great deal to do with it. A woman is more herself and a man more himself and less a social creature before noon. There are men and women who never get to know each other until the opportunity arrives for them to meet after breakfast. Sometimes this results one way; sometimes another.

It was wonderful to Devons that any one should be interested in his affairs. It was something new to have a confidante—some one who really liked to hear the details of the days he had worked out alone. At first he doubted just how sincere she was. But as he took her with him through those plugging years at Tech, and saw her leaning forward with quick eyes and heightened color, he doubted no more. So he reached, one morning, that period of his life which marked the beginning of the dream that did not come true.

He had approached it before, but always he had stopped because it seemed of too recent a date and of too intimate a nature for even her ears. To tell her about it was in a way to involve her in it because it extended into the present. The past, up to that point, was done with. So it could be related like a tale that has been told. The other was still of his life. More now than ever before because he was beginning to dream anew and dream more steadily.

Yet at length he found himself telling her even about that—telling her quite simply and unconsciously.

She had asked him what brought him to New York after he had mentioned the fact that he had come knowing only one person—Sawyer, a classmate.

“An accident,” he answered. “My life seems to hinge upon accidents.”

“I hope the other was a happier one than this.”

“I don’t know,” he mused. “After all, an accident may be nothing but a quick and unexpected turn toward a new beginning. It all depends on how it comes out.”

Then he told her of his laboratory work on leather, and of the different ways of preparing it for the market and finishing it for shoes; and, finally, of his discovery of the process that was to make his fortune.

“I felt at the time,” he said, “a good deal as one of the lucky forty-niners must have felt. I was down to my last grubstake and had stumbled upon pay dirt. I knew the value of what I had. At least, I thought I knew, so that the effect was the same. For a week afterward I had a regular orgy of spending imaginary dollars. You see, money meant a lot to me. It meant being able to do a lot of things I wanted to do. It meant not having to wait another ten years of hard, plugging work. And I thought all I had to do was to come here to New York with my invention and show it.”

He paused.

“Go on,” she begged.

“I worked all summer perfecting it and getting it patented. I had to write to father for money in order to do that, and he mortgaged his farm to get the cash for me. I’d have starved before I’d have allowed him to take that risk if I hadn’t been sure. Then I came on. First Forsythe turned me down, then I laid it before Sawyer, who was with an investment house. He was just as enthusiastic over the possibilities as I was.

“After that came the waiting period. The firm had to test the process and look up the patent papers and all that. I didn’t care how long they were about it, because I was absolutely sure of the result. So I took a room at Mullen Court, and spent my days studying and reading and waiting for the mails. That was in October, and I waited all through that month. Then I waited through November. Then I waited through December. That was almost a whole lifetime in itself. Because—well, my funds were running pretty low by then.”

She looked up and met his eyes—her own brimming with sympathy and pity.

“Don’t think I minded,” he hastened to assure her. “I didn’t. It was the period of dreams.”

“But—you didn’t have enough to eat!” she exclaimed.

“Not any too much,” he smiled. “Still, I kept alive, and after all that was the important thing. And I knew that whatever I did not have then was going to make all the more welcome the things I was sure to have later. Besides, it was exciting. Just to hear the postman’s steps every time he came was enough to make a man breathe quicker. It was all a sort of fight—to hang on.”

She nodded as though she understood.

“Then came the end of it. Sawyer’s firm wrote that they could not handle the process because—they were afraid of the old process. It seems that one man held this particular market—a man they were afraid to compete with. I’d never considered any such development as that. I thought that any new thing which was better than the old would just naturally take the place of the latter. I hadn’t taken into account the business side of it. But the firm would not risk its capital, and I had none of my own—so that was the end.”

“The end?” she exclaimed.

“Almost. I had a vague scheme of going to work on a salary. Sawyer had offered me a job once, and I thought that in time I might save enough out of it to start in a small way. But that took me so far into the future that the prospect was hazy—compared with what I had been dreaming. I was on my way to see Sawyer when—”

“The accident happened,” she cut in, unwilling to be shielded from any responsibility.

“Considering the fact it has meant so much to me, I—I don’t like to speak of that as an accident,” he said.

“But you have paid so much for so little,” she protested.

He met her eyes again.

“It’s been worth the cost and more,” he answered.

“Oh!”

They were silent a few moments, but Devons roused himself. He felt these silences to be dangerous.

“I didn’t mean to go into all those sorry details,” he apologized.

“But I asked you to,” she reminded him. “I wanted to hear. It makes me feel as though I’d lived a little of that myself.”

“You?”

“I used to feel that way when I listened to Mildred. It’s something to live a little, even at second hand.”

“But surely—”

“Let’s not talk about me,” she interrupted. “I want to hear more about what you’re going to do next.”

“I must see Sawyer next,” he said simply. “I must go on from where I left off. And I must start soon now. I’m eager to get back.”

“You see!” she exclaimed.

“See?”

“Even you—after just a few weeks here—find it stupid.”

His lips came together. He had allowed her to persuade him into telling of the old dreams, but he must be very careful not to be enticed to tell the new. Besides, he was not very clear about them himself. They were only vague. He must keep them so, even though when he sat near her like this they tended to become concrete. That, however, was against his will. He was not here as her social equal. Even Mrs. Fairburne herself could not have seen that more clearly than he. But what Mrs. Fairburne could not have seen was the possibility he saw that in time these conditions might be changed. Give him a few years as he felt at moments like this and there need be no gulf between them. He rose from his easy-chair before the fire.

“I ought to be back at work now!” he exclaimed. “I must write to Sawyer to-day.”

Only his right hand was still bandaged to his side, and he could not so much as sign his name with his left.

“You’ll let me write for you?” she asked quickly.

He did not like to call upon her for even as slight a service as this, but without giving him time to reply, she stepped to a little writing-desk in the corner, picked up a pen, and held it poised above the paper.

“I’m ready,” she smiled.

It was not easy for him to dictate, because he was not accustomed to it, and because every time he paused for the right word she met his eyes—and then he thought of nothing else for a dizzy second but those eyes. If, in trying to escape these, he turned his gaze to the letter itself, he saw only her white hand. It was soft and tender; he could think of nothing else then but that. When he turned away from her altogether and stared out of the window, her presence so filled the room that he thought of nothing but that. So it was rather a wobbly letter. In it he said scarcely more than that he had been delayed from coming up to see him, but hoped within a week to make it, and that if in the meanwhile he saw any opening for him, he hoped he would write in care of—

He paused, because he did not know his present address. Joan filled it in for him herself and in a very businesslike way read over the letter. Then he told her how to address the envelope, and she did that and put on a stamp.

“It’s a chance, anyhow,” he concluded.

“For what?” she asked directly.

“To earn a living, at least.”

“But what of your invention?” she exclaimed.

“That must wait.”

“Again?”

“For some later date,” he smiled.

“Until you can save enough—”

“Or until Reed cares to furnish the capital,” he interrupted.

He did not like to discuss this with her. He wanted to sweep it all aside now and talk of other things. With that letter written, his stay here seemed for the first time to be coming to a definite end. He realized it with a shock.

“If you could have that mailed, I—I could forget it for a little,” he said.

But her thoughts were centered on something else—something that quite took away her breath.

“Capital?” she repeated slowly. “That’s—just money?”

“That’s all,” he answered.

“Then if you had money—your invention would not have to wait?”

“I’d start manufacturing myself,” he explained simply.

“You need a great deal?”

“Not very much to begin in a small way. In a year or two I might save enough—”

“But if you had the money now you could begin now!”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed impulsively, “if you’d only let me help!”

She paused abruptly—her cheeks scarlet. Then, before he had time to catch his breath, she ran on:

“If you’d only let me get the money for you. I’m sure I could, and it could be a loan.”

She saw his jaws come together. She was afraid of that.

“Or it could be just—a business arrangement. Isn’t there something called a—a silent partner?”

She had risen to her feet and was standing before him now.

He saw nothing but her eyes again, and that made it difficult for him to think.

Yet it was necessary, as never before in his life, for Devons to think clearly. The girl before him had made her offer in all sincerity. To dismiss it with a smile, as one does the impulsive suggestion of a child, though it partook of that nature, was impossible. It would hurt her. But he had only to repeat to himself the proposal to realize its essential absurdity. She was to raise for him the capital to start his business and act as his silent partner. She, who knew nothing whatever about business, was to assume the risk refused by experienced business men. Considered in cold blood, the proposition answered itself.

But here was the difficulty: it had not been made in that spirit, and could not be handled in that spirit. In cold blood? Good Lord, no one but a dead man could face Joan Fairburne so, as she stood within arm’s reach, her face flushed with the excitement of the moment, every sense alert.

“You are wonderful!” exclaimed Devons.

“No! No!” she protested, with a slight frown. “It isn’t—that. If anything, I’m selfish about it. Don’t you see—it will give me a chance to do something.”

“You?”

“It will give me an interest outside. My share in it would be small. Money is such a little thing. All the work—all the fighting to make the business a success—that would be yours. But it would be something to know I’d helped that much. It would be something to be able to look on with a personal interest in the outcome.”

“But if it failed?” said Devons.

“Failed?” she asked in astonishment.

And Devons felt ashamed of himself for the suggestion. It was as though Reed had spoken through him. Worse. He doubted if even Reed could have conceived such a possibility standing in his place. With her as a partner, a man could not fail: and Devons knew it. It was not merely money she would put into the firm. In one of those fantastic pictures that flash before one at moments of high tension he saw a prospectus: “The Devons Manufacturing Company; capital, Joan Fairburne, fully paid in and non-assessable.” That was worth a million dollars and more. Even now, at this moment, he felt his strength multiplied a thousand times.

“No; I would not fail!” he answered sharply.

“Then it’s all settled?” she said in relief.

“Only as dreams are settled,” he answered, getting a grip on himself. “I wish I could make you understand—without hurting you. You don’t know how much just the offer from you means to me. I can go back now with all the enthusiasm of having a partner—even without having one.”

He saw her wince.

“Joan,” he broke out,—using the name unconsciously,—“Joan, all I can say over and over again is that you’re wonderful. Even if you don’t understand. But a man couldn’t do such a thing as you suggest. He’d be a cad and worse. I’m here only by sufferance. You spoke once of the cost. It’s been worth that many times over just to know you. I must tell you that much. I’ll go back now able to do five years’ work in one. If you’ll just keep on being—the sort of partner you are now, that will be enough. Don’t you understand—a little?”

“I want to help,” she said simply. “I want something to do.”

“If you only knew—”

Devons cut himself short. He must be careful. His thoughts were running wild. He saw clearly now the face of the woman of his dreams; it was she; it was Joan; it was this girl who wanted to be his silent partner. And the reason she could not be that was because he wanted more of her than that—many, many times more.

He made for the door. He dared not stay longer with her.