Joan and Co.

It was Hartley’s proposition. He rang up Devons and asked him to drop in at the office that afternoon. There had been a delay in the last consignment of enamel, and this had set Hartley to thinking—this and a rumor, following the death of Forsythe, that all was not well with the Burnett Company. The report did not come as a surprise to Hartley. Indeed, he did not see how the new Devons process could do otherwise than cut into the Burnett business. The youngster had something that had only to be tested to prove its superiority. Still he had given Forsythe credit for being able to handle the competition in some better fashion than putting a bullet through his head. It would not have surprised him any to have seen the man manage to absorb the new invention. Forsythe was both shifty and nimble-witted. The youngster was lucky to escape him in so simple a way.

But with this danger removed, Devons was not handling his business as he should. He had a gold mine there if he only knew it and took advantage of his opportunities. One of the most obvious opportunities was that which now lay before him. If it was true that Burnett was in financial difficulties, here was one of the best plants and organizations in the country waiting for him at his own figure. Why in thunder did not Devons jump at it instead of fooling around in his little two-cent laboratory and botching his orders? Hartley had been holding up a big lot of shoes for three days now waiting for enamel. That was not business. Devons could spoil the best thing in the world if he kept this up long. He had written and telephoned, and the only satisfaction he had been able to get was that the stuff would be shipped as soon as possible. That was not soon enough as business was conducted to-day.

There was the possibility, of course, that Devons lacked capital to finance the purchase of the Burnett plant. That, however, was not a valid excuse. Any man half awake could raise what money he needed on such a good thing as this, if he knew how. Perhaps the difficulty lay here. He had sent for him to find out. Under the proper conditions, he himself might be willing to put in some money.

Devons did not find it necessary to wait this time in the outer office. He was admitted at once.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting on that last order,” he began.

“You couldn’t help it,” Hartley finished for him. “However, that doesn’t make it any the less awkward for me.”

“I know it, Mr. Hartley, but I’ve been bothered more or less lately. I expect soon to get straightened out.”

“How?”

“I’m going to have more room and try to find an assistant.”

“One?”

“To start with.”

Hartley swung his chair clear of his desk.

“Man, you need twenty. Have you heard any stories going the rounds about Burnett?”

Devons started.

“You mean about his general manager—Forsythe?”

“Forsythe’s death was only a symptom. They say the firm is in a bad way.”

“I hadn’t heard anything about that.”

“Burnett has been playing the market and lost heavily. Besides that, you are cutting into his business and are bound to cut in more every day. I’ve been wondering if this wasn’t your chance.”

“In just what way?” asked Devons.

“To take over his plant.”

“But Forsythe was trying to buy me out!” exclaimed Devons.

“That shows he knew the value of what you have. It’s none of my business, of course—but did you make him a figure?”

“I did not,” answered Devons. “He tried to blackmail me into selling.”

“That’s Forsythe,” nodded Hartley. “The only surprising thing is that he didn’t succeed.”

“If I didn’t have just the kind of partner I have, he would have succeeded,” Devons admitted. “But she—”

“She?”

Then on the impulse of the moment Devons told the whole story. Hartley listened, both interested and amused.

“She was a good sport, all right,” he exclaimed when Devons had finished. “And now—Good Lord, man, you have the whole thing in your hands! If I were you I’d get to Burnett as soon as my legs would carry me. Get an offer out of him. It wouldn’t surprise me if you could put it over for around seventy-five or a hundred thousand dollars.”

The figures took Devons’s breath away.

“Where in thunder could I get that amount?”

Hartley leaned back in his chair and thought a moment. When he spoke again it was cautiously—as though feeling his way.

“Devons,” he said, “I believe in your process. I think you have a fortune ahead of you if properly managed. I wonder now if you would care to consider letting me in on this in return for financing the proposition for you?”

Devons sprang from his chair.

“Would I?” he exclaimed.

“Steady,” advised Hartley. “It won’t do any harm to do a little figuring on it, anyhow. Pull your chair up nearer the desk.”

It was fortunate that Hartley was a man who could safely be trusted to do the decent thing, because Devons in his enthusiasm at the prospect of having a partner with the former’s wide and sound business experience was ready to agree to anything. Furthermore, Hartley stood for success. He looked and acted it. To have him connected with any enterprise was insurance. And so while the latter discussed this thing and that with him for the next half-hour, Devons did scarcely more than nod his approval. Incidentally, however, he did talk enough to give Hartley a clear idea of just where Miss Fairburne stood in the deal. She had raised the initial five thousand for him, and Devons considered that she had an equal interest with him in all rights and profits.

“We share and share alike,” he concluded briefly.

“I see,” smiled Hartley. “I might almost consider you as one then.”

Devons flushed.

“There is that possibility,” he admitted. “But I don’t think I’m justified in letting you put it just that way.”

“Well, from all I hear of her from you I should say you are to be congratulated.”

In the end Hartley’s suggestion was that in return for a one-third interest he would undertake negotiations with Burnett, furnish the capital, and without at present giving up his position with the Doggett people undertake in his spare time active management of the business.

“I know a young man I can put in to carry out my ideas and do the routine work,” he concluded. “He’s a Tech man and has had training under me. Starling is his name. You will like him. But of course you’ll want to think this over for a day.”

“I don’t see why,” answered Devons. “It sounds right to me. I’m willing to sign an agreement to that effect as soon as you can make out the papers.”

“What about your silent partner?” inquired Hartley. “She may have opinions of her own.”

“I’ll see her right away, but I know she’ll be with me.”

“We’ll leave it like that, then,” concluded Hartley. “But the sooner I’m in a position to act, the better.”

Devons left the office walking on air. This new arrangement promised to accomplish in a few months all that by himself he might have been years in bringing about. With a modern plant and a man like Hartley to oversee it and organize the selling, the whole country could be covered as quickly and as easily as it would have taken him to cover the city alone. It was like a gift from the gods. And it brought Joan just that much nearer. It brought her so near that as he walked out into the May sunshine the world became suddenly vibrant. As with quickened pulse he strode along to carry to her this wonderful news, the city became touched with magic. The very air tingled and the humdrum old buildings of wood and brick which he passed took on a romantic beauty like the buildings of some strange Old World city. He was walking on a different level now. His feet no longer clung to the surface, but were tipped with wings that raised him to some rarefied stratum. He sensed the same exhilaration as one walking upon a great height.

He took the Tube to the Hudson Terminal, and instead of at once getting into the uptown Elevated he came to the surface again. Hartley had spoken of the need of haste, but even at the risk of an hour’s delay he must enjoy this hour. So he threaded his way through the downtown crowds and past the giant buildings. Both the people and the buildings used to awe him—almost humble him. Now he faced them with a smile and a conscious power. As he went on, this grew into something akin to a feeling of superiority. He had met this city and conquered it. He had come out of the West a poor boy, and with naked hands had fought and won from it the choicest of its gifts. It was the moment before possession, and that sometimes brings keener reactions than actual possession. The past was still vivid enough to afford its full contrast to the future. He went back, gloating over the climax, to his hard luck when he staggered cold and hungry and penniless and friendless along streets similar to these—to that time when the city seemed to be on top. He remembered the indifference of the passers-by. He might have dropped dead among them and they would scarcely have turned to see him drop. Now in a few months, possibly in a few weeks, they would watch him go by with envious eyes.

He was on the threshold of success. He stood before the door which had reluctantly swung open admitting him to the sultan’s palace. Within lay all the treasures of the world—everything that money could buy. And a little way farther in lived the princess waiting for him.

His thoughts flashed back to his father and mother and brother and sisters plodding along the dull routine of their lives on the Western farm. He had not written for several weeks. He had wished to wait until he had something definite to tell them. Now—when he wrote again—how he would make their eyes open. He could go back with his suit-case bulging with ten-dollar bills. Actually that was no longer a fantastic dream. He would do it. He would do just that. Only he would not go alone. He must wait until Joan could go with him.

Joan! Joan! Joan! How the name sang to him! He allowed it to sing to him. He had suppressed the music long enough. He was going a great deal farther than he had any right, but with the right so near he could hardly be blamed. It was as though she were by his side now.

A little way farther he mounted a Fifth Avenue ’bus and climbed to the top. He could see better up there. And the elevation fitted better into his mood. He could look down on the streets—look down with Joan by his side. It was almost as if they were in their limousine together—the limousine he meant to buy. For he meant to buy for her all the choice things of the world.

To be sure she had most of them now, but they were not his gifts. That is what was going to make the difference. She must leave behind her all she had now and let them come fresh from him. What jewels she now had would count for nothing against the jewels he would buy for her. And her gowns and her hats and her dainty shoes—from head to foot he wished them all to come from him. Only by giving could he express in tangible, concrete form his love for her. Only by buying. He was no poet. He must get beautiful stones and silks and satins to express his sonnets for him.

This was possible only through the medium of money—through a king’s fortune. And that was now almost within his grasp. There were those who affected to scorn money, but they did not know what he knew. He recalled with a certain uneasiness one of his gentle-souled professors who had given his life to the investigation of abstract theories—to pure science. The man had taken an interest in him during his first two years at Tech and had sometimes asked him to his rooms at night. There he talked wisely and encouragingly to him. One evening as he was leaving the professor had placed his hand upon his shoulder and searched his eyes.

“Devons,” he had said, “there is a great future ahead of you. I wish I might look forward to seeing you take up my work where I shall be obliged to leave it.”

Devons had looked around the barren bachelor quarters crowded with books and had not answered. Here was a man who did not need money—who found a full life within himself and his work. But Devons wondered then and he wondered now if the man had any such past as his own.

All his life Mark Devons had seen money stand for the difference between a full life and an empty life. In the West it stood for the difference between some one and no one. The stature of a man was reckoned in terms of his fortune. That standard had been bred in him. He had seen it exemplified in his father’s life. He accepted it. He was forced to accept it. In and of itself money meant nothing, but interpreted in life it meant everything. In his own case it meant Joan.

It meant Joan! Once again his thoughts swirled dizzily about her. They were speeding along upper Fifth Avenue—past shop-windows laden with the choice things of the world for those with money. The world had been scoured to bring them here. Most of them were for the women—for the men to buy for their women. Here was the one opportunity for men who were not poets to materialize their thoughts for the women they loved. In a few months now he would be in a position to do just that.

He climbed down and jumped off the ’bus and made his way to the house he had not visited since that day he drove away from it. He had been humble then. But now he held his head well up and walked boldly. He would not be afraid to meet Fairburne to-day. He would not be afraid to meet Mrs. Fairburne.

Jeffrey at the door recognized him and greeted him with a respectful smile. He thought Miss Fairburne was in. If Mr. Devons would step into the drawing-room he would make sure. Devons stepped in. The room had not been changed in any detail. It was as familiar as his own home. There was the fireplace before which he had sat so often with her—where he had fought back the thoughts that flooded in upon him. But he could think them now as much as he pleased. He stood with his hands behind his back and smiled with satisfaction. He took note of details. In his new home he must duplicate as nearly as possible what he saw here. He could vary them in color and design, but here was a standard.

In the midst of this pleasant pastime she came in. She seemed somewhat disconcerted, but she was always at her best when startled out of her calm self-possession. It gave alertness to her eyes and color to her cheeks and eagerness to her sensitive lips. In her way she was as suspicious at having him appear in mid-afternoon as Mrs. Burnett had been to see her men-folk at this time. She paused halfway to him, but he was at her side in two strides.

“Joan!” he exclaimed, “it’s business this time—for the last time, I hope.”

“I know,” she nodded. “You’ve sold after all, then.”

“Sold?” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the process to-day.”

She moved away from him and sat down. She felt safer sitting down. He went back to his position before the fireplace. He stood there so confidently, almost with such an air of proprietorship that she feared.

“Well?” she inquired.

“Hartley sent for me,” he announced, as though that in itself were something to be proud of. “I’ve told you of Hartley.”

“Yes.”

“He—he wants to go into partnership with us.”

“With us?”

It was as though she failed to connect herself at all with the “us.”

“With you and me. He made an offer to undertake the full management and furnish capital, for a one-third interest. Do you realize what that means?”

She considered a moment and then replied, “I’m afraid I don’t, Mark.”

“It means success!” he exclaimed. “With a man like him with us we can accomplish in weeks what it would take us months to do alone. Why, he has a scheme in mind already to buy the Burnett plant—”

She raised her eyes quickly at that name.

“The Burnett plant?”

“They were our big rivals,” he explained. “Forsythe was with them.”

She frowned at the recollection.

“Now Burnett has lost his money in the market.”

“I—I hadn’t heard anything about that!” she exclaimed.

“There is no reason why you should, is there? Hartley told me. The man is practically bankrupt, and we expect to buy it in at our own price.”

“This is Joshua Burnett you are talking about?”

“It’s Burnett, of the Burnett Manufacturing Company. I don’t know anything more about him than that. But Hartley says it’s our great opportunity. He is willing to put up the money provided we’ll take him in. He sent me up to you to get your consent.”

“I—I don’t see what I have to do with it,” she answered.

“You? Everything,” he ran on. “Why, we’re partners, you and I. I can’t put through any deal without you. I told Hartley that we each held a half interest. Without you I couldn’t even have made a beginning. And now that success is within our grasp, why, we’re going to share that, too.”

She was leaning forward, staring at the floor.

“You—you don’t seem as glad as I thought you’d be,” he complained.

She roused herself.

“I was thinking of Burnett,” she answered. “It—it seems sort of hard on him.”

“If he speculated and lost—that isn’t our fault, is it?”

“No, Mark.”

“And after what Forsythe attempted—”

“But Mr. Burnett had nothing to do with that,” she protested.

“I only know he needed my process and tried that way to get it.”

“It was Forsythe,” she cut in.

“You know this Burnett, then?”

“I have met his wife,” she faltered. “And I have met his son. Forsythe must have acted without their knowledge. I am absolutely certain.”

He glanced impatiently at his watch.

“Well, we’ll admit as much,” he concluded. “I must get back to Hartley. You give your consent?”

“I—I don’t know anything about what to do,” she stammered. “You must act upon your own judgment.”

“Right,” he nodded briskly. “Then I shall accept the offer. And now,”—he stepped nearer her,—“I hope I won’t ever have to bother you again with such details. They disturb you. I’m sorry to have had to come to you to-day. I’ll be glad when I shan’t have to be bothered myself. Hartley is going to take over just those things.”

She was sitting back in her chair a bit rigid.

“You don’t know what this means to me, Joan,” he said.

“I’m glad if it makes you happy.”

“It won’t make me completely happy until I’m able to make you happy.”

She rose now.

“Me? Please not to worry about me.”

“The next time I come it won’t be as your business partner,” he whispered. “The next time—”

“We mustn’t look forward to the next time,” she warned.

He frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Things happen in such a queer way,” she replied.

When he found himself again outside the house he was repeating that last sentence to himself.