CHAPTER III
THE COMPETENCIES OF MISS DELAWARE
I
Two-thirds of the inhabitants of this world live in that unreal atmosphere best described by the vulgar word of "bluff." About one-half the other third know that fact. The first two-thirds, not being able to determine which that latter half may be, exist in continual fear that they may guess wrongly in these vulgar fractions, and so make pretense where pretense is of no avail. Shoddy fears nothing so much as what vulgarly is called "the real thing;" but the trouble with shoddy, the anxiety, nay, the agony of shoddy, bluff, pretense, insincerity, whatever you care to call it, lies largely in the fact that shoddy can not always tell when it has been discovered to be shoddy.
There did not lack times in John Rawn's social life when he felt a very considerable trepidation regarding himself. He often looked at the tall mansion houses which he passed on his daily journey to and from his home, and wondered whether the occupants of some of them did not live a life of which he was ignorant. He wondered if, after all, there might not be something money could not buy.
For instance, in regard to those collector's pieces of which he had heard. How could they be distinguished from other and less preferred articles of furnishing? Since he and his wife lacked judgment in such matters, what was the remedy? How could he set matters right without discovering his own ignorance? He was like an Indian, ashamed to learn.
II
Mr. Rawn was in an unusually abject mental state, one morning, some months after he had taken charge of the headquarters offices of the International Power Company. It was not often he had much recourse to spleen-venting beyond that of the disgruntled man, who most frequently takes it out on the minor office force. By this time he had learned his battery of buttons, and now he pressed one after the other, in order that he might express to the entire personnel of the office staff his personal belief of their unfitness to exist, let alone to execute business duties in a concern such as this.
He reserved one button for the last—the one farthest to the right upon his glass-topped desk. He knew what pressure upon that button would bring, and he felt a curious shrinking, a timidity, when he reflected upon that fact. He knew he could cause to stand before him a vision of calm, cool and somewhat superior femininity. In a few short months Mr. Rawn had learned to trust, to respect and to dread his assistant, Miss Virginia Delaware. In fact, it occurred to him at this very moment that she might perhaps be one of that half of the other third who can distinguish between pretense and the actual, between shoddy and the valid article.
Yet though this thought gave him a manner of chill, there was with it an attendant thought which caused him to glow with the joy of power. By simply dropping his finger, he, John Rawn, could summon into his presence the figure of a beautiful young woman—a woman not yet grown old and gray; a woman of personal charm; a woman calm, cool and superior. He stretched his own large limbs, glanced at his rugged frame, his somewhat lined face in the glass of the cloak-room door. He looked upon himself and saw that he was good; as God looked upon the world when He made it. He was of belief that a little gray hair at the temples was no such bar after all in a man's appearance.
III
Rawn had lived a life singularly clean and innocent. His youth had been gawky, his manhood ignorant. But now, somehow, somewhere, deep in some unsuspected corner of his nature, John Rawn felt glowing something heretofore unknown to him. He did not know what it was. At times it seemed to him he could see opening out before him a new world of wide and inviting expanses, a world of warmth and light and luxury and color; in short, a world as unlike Kelly Row as you may well imagine, inhabited by beings wholly different from those obtaining in Kelly Row. And there, among all these, one.... It is to be seen, in fact, that the life of the city began to open before John Rawn. The soul of the city is woman, as it was the soul of Rome. Rawn was learning what hitherto he had small opportunity to learn. At times he leaned back in luxurious realization of the fact that he, John Rawn, late railway clerk, but born to the purple, could by a touch upon this certain plate of mother-of-pearl call before him in reality a vision which sometimes he saw within his mind.
John Rawn reached out and touched the last button to the right in the row. She appeared before him a moment later, silently, as calm, as cool, as unsmiling and as dignified as was her wont. Not even the quiver of an eyelid evinced concern as to what her next duty was to be.
IV
In appearance Virginia Delaware might have won approval from a closer critic than John Rawn. Her face really was almost classical in its lines, her poise and dignity now might have been that of some young, clean-limbed wood-goddess of old. She always seemed unfit for humdrum duties. Surely she had won the vast hatred of all her associates, who had experienced no raise of salaries whatever, under the new régime; whereas, it was well known that the president's secretary had had one, two, or perhaps several. These others detested all forward and superior persons; as was their irreverent and wholly logical right.
"We have some letters this morning, Miss Delaware," began Rawn. "You couldn't quite take care of them all, eh?"
"We handled all we could, Mr. Rawn, I have referred a large number to proper department heads, and answered quite a number. It seemed better to refer these for your own action."
"Business growing, eh?" said Rawn, turning around to his desk. The girl's reply was just properly enthusiastic for the business:
"It's wonderful the mail we get. Inquiries come from all over the country. Yes, indeed, it seems to grow. The idea goes like wildfire. I never knew anything like it. When we really have the installations made, it will be only a question of administration."
Venturing nothing further, she seated herself at her table, book and pencil in hand, ready to begin. She did her work with a mechanical steadiness and lack of personality which might have classified her as indeed simply a cog in the vast machinery of the International Power Company. Rawn had gained facility in his own work, and had found in himself a real faculty for prompt decision and speedy handling of detail. He went on now smoothly, mechanically, rapidly, almost forgetful of everything but the series of problems before him, and forgetting each of these as quickly as he took up the other. He cast a look of unconscious admiration of the girl's efficiency when at last, finishing, he found her also finished with her part, and without having caused him delay or interruption. With no comment now, she took up the finished letters which had been left for his signature. Standing at his side, she literally fed them through the mill of his desk, taking away one signed sheet as she placed the other before him, smoothly, impersonally, swiftly. The work of the morning was beautiful in its mechanical aspect.
V
The business system of "International" was shaking down into a smooth and easy-running efficiency. At the close of this work, Miss Delaware remained wholly unruffled. Turning toward her at last, John Rawn felt that curious old feeling, half made up of chilling trepidation, half of something quite different. There seemed to be something upon his mind, some business still unfinished.
"I was about to say, Miss Delaware," he began at length, "that I am, as you know, a very busy man."
"Yes, sir," she said, evenly and impersonally.
"I have so many things to do, you see, that I don't get much time to attend to little things outside of my business. A man's business is a millstone around his neck, Miss Delaware. We men of—ahem!—of affairs are little better than slaves."
"Yes, Mr. Rawn," she said gently. "I can understand that."
"For instance, I don't even know, as long as I have been here in Chicago, the names of the best firms of decorators, house furnishers, that sort of thing—"
"Doesn't Mrs. Rawn get about very much, sir?"
"Mrs. Rawn unfortunately is not very well. Also she has the habit of delaying in such matters. Then, as I don't myself have the time to take care of everything—why, you see—"
Her eyebrows were a trifle raised by now.
—"So I was just wondering whether I couldn't avail myself of your—your—very possible knowledge of these stores—shops, I mean."
"Oh, very well. Yes, sir. But I don't quite understand—"
"Well, I want to pick up some collector's pieces for my home, you see."
"Good pieces? Yes, sir. Of what sort?"
"Why, furniture—or—yes—some china stuff, I suppose. Maybe—er—some pictures."
"I see. You've not quite finished the decorations of your new home, Graystone Hall."
"Oh, you know the place?"
"Every one knows it, Mr. Rawn. It is very beautiful."
"It ought to be beautiful inside and out. To be brief about it, I know I oughtn't to ask an assistant who is only receiving forty-five dollars a week salary to act as expert for me in house decoration matters—that's entirely outside your business, Miss Delaware. At the same time—" Miss Delaware checked herself just in time not to mention the salary figure which Mr. Rawn had stated. If her oval cheek flushed a trifle, her long lashes did not flicker. This was ten dollars a week more. She had herself never once mentioned the matter of salary.
VI
"Of course, Mr. Rawn, I'd be willing to do anything I could," she said. "I know the city pretty well, having lived here for some time. If you would rather have me use my time in that way, it would be a great pleasure. I like nice things myself, though of course I could never have them. I've just had to flatten my nose against the window-pane!" She laughed, a low and even little burst of laughter, rippling; the most personal thing she ever had been guilty of doing in the office—then checked herself, colored, and resumed her perfect calm.
"Never mind about your other duties. Take any time you like. Go see what you can find me in this town."
"As in what particular?"
"Well, take china. I shouldn't mind having some ornamental jars, vases—that sort of thing, you know."
"China's difficult, Mr. Rawn—one of the most difficult things into which one can go. There's a terrible range in it, you see. It can be cheap or very expensive, very grotesque or very beautiful. There are not many who know china. I suppose we mean porcelains?"
"Yes, I know. But what would you suggest, for instance, for my large central room, which opens out upon the lake?"
"What is the color scheme, Mr. Rawn?"
"About everything the confounded builders and decorators could think of," said Rawn frankly. "I think they called it a gray-and-silver motive. I know there's something in white, with dark red for the doors and facings."
Miss Delaware sat for a moment, a pencil against her lip, engaged in thought.
"Well," said she at length, "I'm sure almost any of the good houses would send you up what you liked. There's everything in accord. You don't want anything that will 'swear,' as the phrase goes. If I were in your place, I would select a few really good pieces, and try them in place, in the rooms."
"Yes, yes! But where'll I get them? How will I find them? That's why—"
"Mr. Rawn, there is really only one good selection in Oriental porcelains in town to-day. The large shops have their art rooms, of course, but they're horrible, for the most part, although most of our 'best people' buy there—because they're fashionable. There's a little man on —— street. I just happened to see the things in his window as I went by one day. He has some beautiful pieces."
"And beautiful prices?"
"Much higher than you would need to pay at any of the larger places, because these are genuine. None of them ever had such pieces as these—they wouldn't know them when they saw them. You must remember, Mr. Rawn, that if a piece of porcelain were only worth two dollars a thousand years ago, and it was one, say, of a thousand others just like it at that time, the loss by breakage of the other duplicates, and the lowest kind of compound interest from then till now, would warrant almost any sort of price you'd care to put on a real work of art—one that has come down from so long a time ago."
"You've got a good business head! You know the value of interest, and few women do. Now, all I want to know is, that I'm not being done. I don't so much care about the price. But has this man anything in the real goods, and if so, what would you suggest?"
VII
Miss Delaware's answer might have proved a trifle disconcerting, even to one more critically versed than her employer. "In my own taste, Mr. Rawn," she said judicially, "there is nothing in the world so beautiful as some of the old Chinese monochromes. They come sometimes in the most beautiful pale colors. There is the claire de lune, for instance—this little man has some perfectly wonderful specimens, three or four, I think; one good-sized jar. These pale blues grow on you. They don't seem so absolutely stunning at first, but they'll go anywhere; and they are beyond reproach in decoration. The pieces I saw are of the Sung dynasty; so they can't have been made later than 1300. They came from U-Chon, in the Honan province. I thought them very fine, and from my acquaintance with porcelains, I believe them to be genuine pieces."
"I know," said Rawn—he was perspiring rather freely—"But I confess I never was very much in love with Chinese art."
"But we owe so much to it, Mr. Rawn," she said with gentle enthusiasm. "We learned all we know of underglaze and overglaze from the Chinese—the best of our old English china was not made in England, but imported from the Orient, as you know. Chippendale got many of his own ideas in furniture decorations from the Chinese, and so did the French—why, you'll see Parisian bronzes, ever so old, and you couldn't tell whether they were made in France or China. And old! The man at this little shop has one piece which he says certainly was made before the Christian era. If I were in your place, however, I would adhere, say, to the Ming dynasty. Then you'll get as low as 1644."
"You mean apiece?"
"Oh, no, sir," she said gently, not smiling at his mistake. "I mean, the Ming dynasty ended in the year 1644."
"Of course—you didn't understand me." Mr. Rawn perspired yet more.
VIII
"No—well, at least you'll find some good jars and vases of that period," continued Miss Delaware. "For instance, the Ching period of that dynasty is very rich in the famille-verte, as the French describe it—some splendid apple-greens can be had in this. Then there's one piece of that same period, I believe, of the famille-rose. It's a wonderful thing in egg shell porcelain, and I don't believe its like can be found to-day in all the Lake Shore Drive—or even Drexel Boulevard; and say what you like, Mr. Rawn, there are fanciers there! In colors there is nothing to equal some of these fine old pieces. I wouldn't, of course, suggest the bizarre and striking ones, but I'd keep down to the quiet and solid colors, of some of the old and estimable periods. I don't know much about art, of course, but I've just happened to study a little bit into the old porcelains. I'd like to buy a few—for somebody! I couldn't go very far myself—when they come at a couple of thousand dollars apiece, for some of the better examples!"
Rawn did not lack in gameness, and no muscle in his face changed as he nodded.
"The main thing is not to make the wrong selection, Miss Delaware," said he. "I wish you'd go around there to-morrow, if you find time, and see if this man will not send up four or five of his better pieces. I'll pass on them then."
"You may be sure of one thing, Mr. Rawn," said Miss Delaware, nodding with emphasis, "they will be real collector's pieces, and any one who knows about them will see what they are worth."
"All right, then. You'll be saving me a lot of time if you'll take care of that, Miss Delaware. Now another thing. As I told you, Mrs. Rawn is ill a great deal of the time. I want to make her a little present—she must have—that is to say, I am desirous of sending her, for her birthday, you know, something like a ring or a pendant, in good stones. Could you drop in at Jansen's and have their man bring me over something this afternoon—I'll not have time to get out, I fear."
"Certainly, Mr. Rawn. I'll be very glad, if I can be spared from the office."
"That's all, Miss Delaware."
She passed out gently, impersonally. Rawn found himself looking at the door where she had vanished.
IX
It was perhaps an hour later that he re-opened the door himself in answer to a knock. Miss Delaware stood respectfully waiting. "There is a man from Jansen's waiting for you, Mr. Rawn," said she.
"Tell him to come in," said Rawn. There rose from a near-by seat a gray-haired, grave and slender man, of sad demeanor, who presently removed from his pocket and spread out upon the glass top of John Rawn's desk such display of gems as set the whole room aquiver with light. Rawn felt his own eyes shine, his own soul leap. There always was something in diamonds which spoke to him.
"Ah-hum!" said he, feigning indifference, "some pretty good ones, eh?" He poked around among them with the end of his penholder, as the gray and grave man quietly opened one paper package after another, and exposed his wares.
John Rawn reached out and pushed the button farthest to the right in the long row on his desk. Miss Delaware came and stood quietly awaiting his command.
Her eyes caught, in the next moment, the shivering radiance which now flamed on the desk top, as Rawn poked around among the gems that lay under the beams of the westering sun which came through the window. Rawn turned quickly. He thought he had heard a sigh, a sob.
Something in the soul of Virginia Delaware leaped! For the first time her eyes shone with brighter fire; for the first time she half-gasped in actual emotion. There was something in diamonds which spoke to her also!
"Essence of power!" said John Rawn calmly, poking among the gems. The girl did not answer. The salesman coughed gently: "I should say a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth there, Mr. Rawn," said he respectfully.
The man whom he addressed turned to the girl who stood there, her eyes dilated. He half smiled. "They're lovely!" said Virginia Delaware, in spite of herself, and now unmasked. "Absolutely lovely! I love them!"
"Pick out two things there," said John Rawn sententiously, pushing himself back from the desk. "I should say this pendant. Take a guess at the rings. What would Mrs. Rawn like; and what would about suit Mrs. Rawn?"
She bent above the desk, her eyes aflame at the sight of the brilliance that lay before her. Something laughed up at her, spoke to her. Her bosom heaved a bit.
"I should say your choice is excellent, Mr. Rawn," said she at length, gently, controlling herself. "The pendant is beautiful, set with the emeralds. See that chain in platinum—it is a dear! It's like a thread of moonlight, isn't it? And as for the rings, I'd take this one, I believe, with the two steel-blue stones."
"How much?" said John Rawn, turning to the grave and gray salesman.
"The two pieces would cost you twenty-eight thousand dollars, sir," the latter replied, gravely and impersonally.
"Miss Delaware," said John Rawn, taking from his pocket his personal check book, "oblige me by making out a check for that amount. Bring it in to me directly—and have the boy call my car."
X
When John Rawn ascended the steps of his mansion house that night, he fairly throbbed with the sense of his own self-approval. There was that in his pocket which, he thought, when worn by the wife of John Rawn at any public place of display, would indicate what grade of life he, John Rawn, had shown himself fit to occupy. He lost no time in summoning his wife, and with small adieu put in her extended hand the little mass of trembling, shivering gems. She gazed at them almost stupefied.
"Well, well!" he broke out, "can't you say anything? What about it? They're yours."
"Oh, John!" she began. "John! What do you mean? How could you—how could I—"
He flung out his hand in a gesture of despair. "Oh, there you go again! Can't you fall into line at all?"
"But John! I've never done anything in all my life to deserve them, of course. Besides, I couldn't wear them—I really couldn't—I'd be afraid! And they wouldn't seem right—on me!"
"You've got to wear them!" he retorted. "We've got to go out once in a while if I'm to play this game—we've got to go to shows, theaters, operas, somewhere. They've got to sit up and say that we've got some class, Laura, I'm telling you!"
"But, John! How would I look decked out in things like that? I'm so plain, common, you know."
"That's not the question. Do you know how much these cost?"
"Why, no—maybe a thousand dollars, for all I know!"
"A thousand dollars!" groaned Rawn. "Maybe they did! Do you know what I paid for what you've got in your hand, Laura? Twenty-eight thousand dollars! That's all."
Impulsively she held out her hand to him. "Take them back!" she whispered. "It isn't right."
For one moment he looked at her, and she shrank back from his gaze. But Rawn's anger turned to self-pity.
"My own wife won't wear my diamonds," said he. "This, for a man as ambitious as I am, and a man who has done as much as I have!"
She came now and put her arms about his neck, the first time in years; but not in thankfulness. She looked straight into his eyes. "John!" she said. "Oh, John!" There was all of woman's anguish in her eyes, in her voice.
CHAPTER IV
AT HEADQUARTERS
I
The International Power Company remained a puzzle in suspended animation before the business world. Its campaign, whatever it was, went on behind closed doors and closed mouths. The men who were backing John Rawn were doing so with daring and courage, yet with business discretion and business eagerness for results. There was no leak anywhere, but the capitalists who were showing their faith in the basic idea of the company began to grow impatient because of the slow advancement of the most important of their plans; those bearing on wireless transmission from the central generating station on the Mississippi River.
Rawn's duties at the central offices, as president of the company, although steadily increasing, were still to very large extent perfunctory matters of routine; but the president's office evinced very early a singular efficiency in executive affairs. Rawn's directors looked on him with mingled approval and cautiousness, coming almost to the belief that, if the progress of the central distributing plant, or "Wireless No. 1," as it was known in the company's literature, did not seem all it should be, at least the president of the company was not to blame therefor. They turned to the department of mechanical installation; which brought Charles Halsey under investigation.
II
Halsey and his wife, John Rawn's daughter, had taken up their residence in the small Chicago suburb in which the central plant had been located. Their cottage was a small one, and it was furnished much like other cottages thereabout, occupied by salaried men, mechanics, persons of no great means. It retained something of the complexion of the old quarters in Kelly Row. The furniture was of imitation mahogany, the pictures had been, for the most part, bought by mail, the decorations were a jumble of inharmonious inadvertencies. The two young folk, their means as small as their tastes were undeveloped, gave themselves small concern over architects' plans and "collectors' pieces." They were busy as are most young couples in the delights of their first experiment in housekeeping; and Halsey himself now was deep in the strong and somber delight of developing a beloved idea.
Naturally, Halsey was often taken to the central offices in the city for conferences with the president of the company. He frequently met there Virginia Delaware, even at times gave dictation to her—a thing he never failed to remember, but never remembered to mention in his own home. As do many men even in this divorceful age, he set aside comparisons, forced himself into loyalty. Moreover, he yet was very young in married life, and always had lived in an atmosphere where man, married or single, coveted not that which was his neighbor's. It was but unconsciously, as though moved only by force of gravitation, that he drifted to Miss Delaware with his correspondence. He said to himself that it was because she was so efficient. Yes, that was it, of course, he assured himself, frowning when, once upon a time, he detected a flush on his face in answer to a sudden question of his soul. Thereafter he went not infrequently to the general offices.
III
On one such occasion he found himself in the position known among salaried workers as being "called upon the carpet" before "the old man." Rawn held a letter in his hand to which he referred as he chided Halsey for the delays in his department of the work.
"Do you suppose I can stand for this sort of thing coming from New York?" he began. "What's the matter out there with you?"
"Just what we might expect," Halsey replied coolly. "I've tried to cut down the expenses, but the men won't take the cut in wages."
"Why won't they?"
Halsey smiled. "They have a hundred answers for that. One is, that they can't live on the wages, and another is, that they want the union scale."
"They'll never unionize our factory, Mr. Halsey! If they did, we might as well throw away all our money and tell them our secret at the start—we'd be working for them, not they for us."
"That's all right, sir. I think, myself, an open shop is safer for us. But the unions make all sorts of disturbances. I can't keep on a steady crew; and unless I do, I have to start in and educate a new set of men every week, or every day; and I have to be careful what I let any of them know. I can't help it, Mr. Rawn."
"Well, we'll have to help it, that's all," Rawn retorted grimly. "If the unions want fight they can have fight, until we get to the place where we can take all the fight out of them. These laboring men want to stop the whole progress of this country—they're a drag on the industry of this country, a continuous tax on all consumers. I'll show them! Once we get those motors installed, I'll make them crawl."
IV
"And yet, do you know, Charles," he went on a little later, his voice almost trembling, "the injustice of this conduct is what cuts me. I've had it in my mind to do something for the laboring men of this country. Of course, I've seen all along that the general introduction of our motors into all sorts of industrial uses would throw hundreds and thousands of laboring men out of employment—put them on the scrap heap permanently. What are they going to do then? Some one's got to feed them just the same, as you once said to me, long ago. You talk about problems!—Why, we haven't got to the great ones in this country yet. The cost of living certainly will climb when that day comes. And the scale of wages will go down, when we abolish the man who has only muscle to sell. How are they going to eat?
"Now, I've foreseen something of this, and planned for it. These people can't plan for themselves, and it's always got to be some stronger mind that does the thinking. You know, I was born in Texas. I've always resolved to do something for that state; and, as I've just told you, I've always had it in mind to do something for the laboring man—that is to say, the man who sees himself just as he really is, and who doesn't rate himself worth just the same as the fellow next door to him, so much and no more.
"I've had my eye for some time on a tract of land down in Texas, forty thousand acres. It shall never be said of John Rawn that he forgot either his state or his fellow-man in the time of his success. When we get our motors going here—it will be, of course, a few years before the full effect of it all is felt—why then I'm going to colonize hundreds of these discarded workmen on this land in Texas. They can put in their labor there, where it will be useful, and can produce a living for themselves and a surplus for others. In short, it has been my plan to put them where they could continue to be useful to society. I wouldn't want to see them starve!" Mr. Rawn's lip quivered at this thought. He felt himself to be a very tender-hearted man.
V
"Yes," said Halsey grimly, "the Czar of Russia had some such notion regarding the serfs. Yet he freed them eventually."
"Nonsense! They'll be not in the least serfs, but will simply be men transferred by a higher intelligence to a plane of life which otherwise they could not reach—a plane where they can be of use not only to themselves but to others."
"You're always talking, my son," went on Rawn, harshly, "about helping your fellow-man, loving him like a brother—human equality, and all that sort of rot. What have any of you ever really done for each other, I'd like to know, except to meet up there in garrets, with lanterns hanging around, and discuss plans for taking away from stronger men the property they have accumulated? Now, I'm not going to take it out in talk—I'm going to do something for these people. I'm going to make Texas the place for my colony, because I don't want to deprive my native state of the credit of producing a man who had two big ideas—cheap power, and common sense in labor. There's two big ideas."
"I wouldn't dare tell the men anything of that," was Halsey's comment. "It's hard enough as it is."
"No, certainly not. We'll just go on and take our chances with these men; and they take their chances with us. You have my instructions to discharge any man who kicks on the wage cut, if he doesn't fire himself. The town's full of men with families, who aren't earning enough to eat. You can get all the help you want. Tell them we're open shop, and if they don't like it they can do their worst. Let them bring on their dynamite, if they want to try that—they can have all the fight they want; and I'll stay with it until I see them crawl."
"There's something I don't understand about it, Mr. Rawn. The men are very sullen. The foremen tell me that they never had so much trouble. Of course, they don't understand it themselves, but it's just as though our secret was getting out, and as if the men were afraid of cutting their own throats when they build these machines. Not that they understand what it's all about—it's air tight yet, that's sure."
"You begin to see some of the practical results of your infernal socialistic ideas, don't you, then? You'll come to my notion of life after a while."
"Mr. Rawn, what's the end of that? What's the logical conclusion?"
"Well, I'll tell you! One end and logical conclusion is going to be that I'll get some one to handle that factory if you can't; and he'll handle it the way I tell him!"
"You want my resignation now?"
"I'd very likely take it if it weren't for Grace. Besides, we've started on this thing together; and moreover again, I want you, when I go to New York, to see the directors and explain to them that their impatience is all wrong."
"Is there much dissatisfaction down there?"
"Yes. We've both got to run down East to-morrow night. Go on out now, and reserve four compartments on the limited."
"Four?"
"Yes—we'll want a place to eat and work on the road. I've got to take a stenographer along, of course. Next year I'll have a car of my own."
VI
Halsey cast a quick glance at him, but still hesitated. "I don't see how I can well leave Grace right now," said he. "It's near her time."
"You both take your chances about that," growled Rawn. "Business enterprises have to be born, as well as children. The important things come first. The one important thing for you and me is to get down there and see those cold-footed Easterners and tell them where they get off in this business."
"Say three days—maybe I can get back in time, Mr. Rawn. But I must say that they're asking us both to show a good deal of loyalty to this company."
"It's the only way to get success—fidelity to your employers, no matter what comes. Of course, I know how you feel, but business can't wait on women."
"A woman doesn't always understand about business, Mr. Rawn. They're rather strange things, don't you think? Grace doesn't talk much to me—she never has. Sometimes—"
Rawn raised a hand. "Charles, never let me hear a word of doubt or disloyalty regarding your wife! No daughter of Grace's parents could be anything but faithful and worthy. You should return such loyalty with love. Never let anything shake you out of your duty to your own wife—my girl Grace."
"Why do you say that? We're married, and we're happy—and as you know—"
"Very well. I like to hear you speak in that way. Always be gentle and kind to your wife. Of course, marriage may not seem always as it was in the honeymoon days, my son."
"That's true," said Halsey suddenly. "Do you know, I've thought that."
"What right had you to think it?"
"Mr. Rawn, Grace is my wife and I love her. But I'll confess the truth to you—she acts as though we'd been married forty years. She runs the house well, but she—I can't explain to you what I mean. She doesn't seem contented any more. Of course, she loves me, and of course I love her, and we're married, and all that; and then—"
"Charles, you surprise and grieve me. Grace is my daughter. She may have self-respect and dignity, but she will never lack in dutifulness. Did you ever stop to think, Charles, that you owe your place in life to her?"
"I wasn't thinking of business, Mr. Rawn, and if you please, we'll not discuss that. I only spoke freely because of what we both know—in fact, I'd rather stay home than go to New York with you. If you took along your assistant—Miss Delaware, I suppose?"
Rawn nodded. "Yes, she has the details of the sub-companies well in hand. I want her along, just as I want you, so that all questions can be answered as to details of the office and factory work, in case I should not personally be familiar with them—as I think I am, for the most part."
"Then you couldn't use the stenographer on the train—I mean the regular one?"
"I could not, Mr. Halsey," said John Rawn icily. "What business is it of yours?"
"None in the least. I was only thinking about any possible talk. She's a very beautiful girl, and very—stunning. Yes, on the whole, Mr. Rawn, I think it better for me to go. One day in New York ought to do us, ought it not?"
Rawn nodded. "Yes, we'll be back here on the fourth day, at worst. I've got to have you down there to explain the different installations. I am as impatient as anybody else. I want to get to the place where I'll be making some real money."
"I thought you had been," grinned Halsey. "Your house, for instance?"
"Over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in there now, and as much more to go in later," said Rawn. "I've spent over a half million altogether, private, overheads and investments, since I went in with this company. My salary is only a hundred thousand, and no man ever lives on his salary and lays up any money—he's got to make his start on the side. I've not done badly in that way. I'm learning the market from the inside. I've had one killing after another—Oil, Rubber—awfully good luck. Charles, the next ten years in all likelihood will see me a rich man, very rich. I've not done badly now, for the son of a Methodist preacher out of a little Texas town. Let me tell you something. Money is easy to make when you get the start. It rolls, I tell you, it rolls up like a snowball. It grows and spreads—there's nothing like it in its power. It's power itself!"
VII
Rawn rose, soon pausing in his excited walk, in his wonted posture, feet apart, hands under his coat tails. Halsey looked at him, frowning half sullenly, as he went on.
"Ah, Charles, there's nothing like money as an ambition for a man! When I hear you talking your folly, about this brotherhood of man—when I see you worrying your small head about the future of this republic, you make me smile! What difference about the rest of the world if you take care of yourself? There's one brotherhood that's worth while, and only one, and it isn't that of laboring men, of common men—it is the brotherhood of big men who have made big money. There's a union for you, son! It does not break, it does not snitch, it does not strike. It sticks, it hangs together—the union of big business men is the only one worth while. Come with me, and I'll show you some proof of that."
Halsey looked at him, his eyes glittering, words of scorn rising to his tongue; but he controlled himself. "All right, Mr. Rawn," said he, "I'll be ready to start to-morrow, and I'll count on getting back here by the last of the week, at least. Good day, sir."
He left the room quietly. He was a handsome, stalwart young man, but in some way his face did not look happy. Rawn sat staring at the door through which he had disappeared. There came over his feelings some sort of vague dissatisfaction or apprehension, he knew not what.
"I'm scared at something, just like those laborers," said he; "and when there's no reason in the world, so far as any one can tell. Pshaw!"
VIII
He flung himself around to his place at his desk, and in doing so struck his hand against the pointed letter-opener which lay there. A tiny trickle of blood appeared, which he sought to staunch with his handkerchief. At last he raised his head with a grin, and remarked half aloud, to himself, "When in doubt, touch the right-hand button!"
"Miss Delaware," said he an instant later, as his assistant appeared, "I've cut my hand a little. I wish you'd tell one of the boys to bring me a basin of hot water, or some sticking plaster or something."
"If you will allow me, Mr. Rawn," she answered respectfully, "I think I could fix that without trouble. I have a little liquid ether and collodion in my desk. It usually will stop any small cut, and it keeps it clean.
"All right," said Rawn, "anything to stop the bleeding—I must get to work."
She reappeared a moment later with a small bottle and a pencil brush, and bending over, proceeded to touch the tiny wound with the biting liquid, with slight "Tch!" as she saw the hand wince under the temporary sting. Rawn looked at her with a singular expression.
"It's odd, Miss Delaware," said he, "that I was just saying to myself a minute ago that I'd bet a thousand dollars that you had something ready, at just the right time! Thank you very much."
"By the way," he added, "I was just telling my son-in-law Mr. Halsey, the superintendent of our works, that it's going to be necessary for all three of us—that is to say, myself, Mr. Halsey and you—to start for New York to-morrow afternoon. I'll probably have to do some letters on the train, and you would better see that a typewriter is sent on—Mr. Halsey will give us the berth numbers in the morning, I suppose. Sorry to take you out of your work, but then—"
"I should like to go, above all things, Mr. Rawn," replied the young woman, still respectfully.
"All right. Of course, you go on company account. Maybe you'll like the change of work and scene. Please bring along all the reports on those Lower Valley instalments, and all the estimates we've been working on here for the last few days. It might be a good plan to have your files for the last month go along, with your card indexes. We've got to show those people down there a thing or two.
"I suppose you know our superintendent, Mr. Halsey—my son-in-law," he added. "He's going, too."
"Oh, yes. He's here often. Sometimes I've done work for him, you know. He does a good, clear letter—but rather long. He can't get through so much in an hour as you can, Mr. Rawn."
When she had retired, Rawn was seized with an impulsive desire to raise his secretary's salary again; but he reflected that it would hardly do—although he was convinced that he had the most efficient assistant on the Street. He did not know she was thinking of Halsey at that moment.
Singularly enough, Charles Halsey was thinking of Miss Delaware at about that same time. He was saying to himself, as he passed into the hall after nodding to her: "By George, isn't she efficient!" Practically all the male clerks would have agreed with him had they heard him. With equal strenuousness, all the female clerks would have dissented. After he had said to himself that Miss Delaware was efficient, Halsey checked himself on the point of adding that she was also something besides efficient. He stopped the thought so sharply that it stopped his stride as well. There came to his mind the picture of his wife, now soon to enter into woman's valley of the shadows. He paused, obliging his soul to render to his wife all honor, all homage, all loyalty, all duty—indeed, all those things which a wife will trade en masse for just a little real spontaneous love.
CHAPTER V
THEIR MASTER'S VOICE
I
"That may all be very well," commented one of the members at the directors' meeting of the International Power Company, held on the day of Rawn's arrival in New York; "that may all be true, but what do we know about the practical application? I've heard of extracting gold from sea water—and the fellow proved it right before your eyes! The world is full of these things, getting rich all at once, but usually when we get to the bottom of it, there's the same old gold brick."
The speaker was rather a slight man, with dark pointed beard, a man whose name swayed railway fortunes, but whose digestion was not worth mentioning. Silence greeted his comment. A dozen pairs of eyes turned toward John Rawn from different points about the long directors' table. The speaker went on:
"I am ready to back anything I believe in, of course, and I must say I believed in this—maybe because I wanted to, it looked so good. It's the pinkest, prettiest, sweetest scheme I ever saw, and that's the fact. But we don't get anywhere with it. We've been pouring money into these Chicago works, and there's nothing doing. We've been paying you a pretty stiff salary, Mr. Rawn, and our total expenses have footed up enormously. We've got the work on the dam and on the central transmission plant to show, yes, but that's all. And that wasn't why I went into this thing. For one, I want to be shown a few things about the Chicago installations. It's that wireless receiver that's got us all into this, and I want to know about that."
John Rawn made characteristic answer: "How much is your stock worth, in your opinion, Van?" he demanded quietly.
"I'll just about call that bluff right here," broke out the dyspeptic financier. "I'll take sixty for all my holdings."
"How many shares?"
"I'm only in for three thousand."
"Push me that pen, Charles," commented John Rawn casually. "I'll make a memorandum of that," said he. "It's a sale. Will you please initial it? You shall have my check in due course."
The dyspeptic director hesitated for an instant. "Put up or shut up!" exclaimed John Rawn roughly. "I'm going to buy you out, and throw you out, right here. We don't want any cold-foot sitting here with us. This has got to be a bunch of fighting men, and we don't want any quitters."
"I'll not stand for that!" began the dyspeptic. "I want to say—"
"You'll say nothing, and you'll stand for that," retorted Rawn. "I'll get you the cash here in copper pennies if you like, inside of five minutes. O.K. that paper, and cancel your right to vote. The meeting isn't called to order yet, and the books are not closed."
"That's the talk!" growled a deep voice farther toward the end of the table. The general traffic man of earlier days, Ackerman, of St. Louis, was the speaker. "I'll take half of that myself, Rawn."
"Yes, and divide it with me, Ackerman," nodded Standley, the railway president to whom Rawn had first brought his device.
The dissatisfied director paled yet more. "Oh, well," said he, "if that's the way you feel about it, I'll just call your bluff. Here's my initials; and you're welcome to my stock."
"Record it!" said Rawn tersely, throwing the memorandum across to the treasurer. "Have you got the stock here?"
"Yes, right in my inside pocket," retorted the other savagely.
"Pass it to the treasurer, then, if you please—that is to say, if you will take the assurance of myself and these gentlemen that we'll take up this memorandum."
"Oh, of course I'll do that," assented the other grudgingly.
"Then that'll be about all," said Mr. Rawn. "And as this is to be a directors' meeting, why, maybe—"
The dyspeptic financier was already reaching for his hat and coat.
II
"I want all you gentlemen to feel," said John Rawn calmly, "that there's a chance to lay down right here, if your feet are getting cold. Better quit now than later on. I won't work with men who haven't got heart in this thing. If any of you are scared, let me know. I couldn't take over all your stock myself, of course, but if you want to let go, I believe I can swing another company organization."
They looked at him silently, here and there a gray head shaking in negation. Rawn's eye lighted.
"That's the idea!" said he; "we'll all sit tight."
He turned to catch the eye of the late director, who was now passing toward the door. "I'm going," said the latter importantly.
"And good riddance!" said John Rawn calmly.
"I'll take care of you for that, one of these days, Mr. Rawn!"
"Why not now?"
"You'll see what I'll do to you in the market!"
"The market be damned!" said John Rawn evenly. "There isn't any market. There isn't anything to buy or sell. If there is any stock offered, I'm the market, right here and now. Go on and do what you can. The more you talk of what you don't know about, the more you'll boom this thing; so turn yourself loose, if you feel like it. I've got our superintendent here to prove this thing out—to the directors of this company, Mr. Van. The meeting is informal, but it may be instructive. We can fill any vacancy on the board at some other time, maybe."
A large, bearded man, with drooping lower eyelids, who sat across the table, chuckled to himself gently as the ex-director slammed the door.
"Well, then—" said a tentative voice.
All these men were men of large affairs. They would have spared no time for this meeting had it not seemed to them much worth their while.
"Van's going to talk," said one voice.
"Let him talk about what he likes," rejoined Rawn. "It's close communion for the rest of us. Well, then, have we all got cards?" he demanded.
There was a grim look on each face along the table which suited the fancy of the speaker. "All right, then," said he. "There are only two or three of you who ever saw our device actually at work. I've got my report all brought up to date. Mr. Halsey will tell you what he has been doing in the works, how he has been handicapped, why we can not turn over at once a completed installation of one of our motors. We know perfectly well that a great deal of money has been expended. We don't want you to put in that money unless you are satisfied of returns, big returns. Gentlemen, are you ready to see the gold brick? Would you like to look at the little joker, or see if you can find the pea under the shell? If so, there will be further opportunity for those who want to drop out. But I'd very much prefer you'd drop out now and not after our experiments."
There was no answer, beyond a growl from Ackerman, a twitched hand of the bearded man.
III
Halsey rose and placed on the table the little model which he took from the case at his side. In principle, it was the same which had been shown in the original demonstration at St. Louis, long before, although in workmanship it was in this instance a trifle more finished, showing more of shining brass and steel. Halsey looked about hesitatingly.
"Shall we use the fan again?" he inquired of Mr. Rawn.
"Not on your life!" cried out Ackerman. "No more fan bursting goes. You'll put on the little railway, here on the table, as you were showing me the other day."
"You gentlemen all know the general theory of the invention," Halsey went on, again assuming the post of lecturer, which Rawn once more graciously surrendered to him, waving a hand largely in his direction as though in explanation to the others. "It's simply the attuning of a motor to the free electrical current in the air—the wireless idea, of course. You're posted on all this. Now, I've got some little things here which will show some of the applications of our idea. We'll make a little track, for a railway train, and we'll run its motor here with current of our own, simply by our receiver for the free current.
"I've often thought of the applicability of our receivers to the use of automobiles. Any man could have one of these receivers in his own garage, and could charge his own machine as he liked. That's only one use of the idea. What is true regarding auto cars is true also of plows, wagons, nearly all farm machinery. One of these receivers which you could carry around under your arm would do the work of many men, of many horses. With this model here I can, as Mr. Ackerman and Mr. Standley will agree, burst that electric fan wide open, and with no wire attachment for any current whatever. And I think we can run this little train of cars."
A sigh went around the table at these calm words. These grave, gray men looked intently, bending forward at the edge of the table as young Halsey completed his mechanical arrangements.
"If this thing works," said the large, bearded man, leaning forward, "where does it leave railway transportation?"
"It leaves it with us!" interrupted John Rawn. "With us absolutely!"
"What's to hinder anybody from building all the railroads they want, and making all the cars they want, and taking all the power they want out of the air, as you say?"
"Nothing in the world to prevent," said John Rawn, "except the solidarity of the railway men of this country. If we take you all in and if you all stand pat, what chance has any one else got, except through buying power of us? Of course, this thing would break us if used against us. But we don't propose to see it used that way. Our patents protect us."
"Go on," said the bearded man. "Let's see the wheels go 'round."
They saw as much, and more. Halsey's little car repeated its circuit about the long table again and again, tirelessly, operated by power taken from the unwired receiver. Where the receiver got its power Halsey explained in detail as he had done before.
The thing was there to show for itself. As to the breadth of its application, these men needed no advice. They were accustomed to the look ahead, to the weighing of wide possibilities.
"It's like the French conjurer, gentlemen," said John Rawn smiling. "He operates with his sleeves rolled up. 'There is no déception, by friends,' says he. There's the whole works on the table right before us. If it isn't a tremendous thing I'm the worst fooled man in all this world, and I'll be the worst broke man in the world."
"Toot! Toot!" remarked a jovial voice from Standley's end of the table. "Start her up again, son—I never get tired of seeing that thing go like the Chinaman's cable car." Levity was a relief to them. There is a certain strain, after all, in planning for the ownership of a people, a republic.
Halsey again pushed down the lever, and again the dummy car ran around and about the table on the curved track which had been laid for it.
"That's the travel of the future, gentlemen," said John, Rawn soberly, at length. "They can take it or leave it. So can you."
IV
Silence fell on that group of gray, grave men. The thing seemed to them uncanny, although so simple. They looked about, one at the other. A sort of sigh passed about the room. There sat at the table men who represented untold millions of capital. They were looking upon a device which in the belief of all was about to multiply these millions many-fold. Their hands already inordinately full of power, they contemplated yet more inordinate power. They sat fascinated, silent, sighing at the prospect, in a delicious half-delirium. The forehead or the upper lip of each was moist.
"You can't get away from it, fellows," said Standley, of St. Louis. "I've tried to, my best, and I can't. I felt just the way you do when it was first put up to me—I didn't want to face the truth, it was so big. As soon as these two men went away from me my feet got cold; but if they hadn't come back, I think I'd have jumped in the river. I want to let go of this thing right here—it scares me. But I just can't, that's all."
They made no comment. The atmosphere seemed strangely strained, tense. An old and beardless man, thin, pallid, leaned against the table, his eyes staring, his face almost corpse-like. No voice was raised in criticism or indeed in comment, but all sat weighing, pondering. Rawn was the first to break the silence.
"Gentlemen," said he, "of course this is the big part of our company patents, and it is over this that we've met to-day. You've been doubting my executive ability. I have shown you what the prize is that we're working for—-there it is on the table. As to the difficulties of pulling off a thing as big as this, they are bigger in this case than could be expected or figured out in advance. Our superintendent, Mr. Halsey here, tells me that he is having a great deal of trouble in labor matters. The men are discontented, and what is worse, they're curious, all the time. We can't employ just any sort of irresponsible labor, and we can't complete one machine—we've got to bring them all through, at once, together—indeed, got pretty near to finish them all ourselves. We can't take any people in on this secret, of course. It all takes time, and it all takes money.
"I've got my report here, all these pages, which I'll not trouble you to read unless you like. What I want to say is this: we've got our power plant, and our wire transmitter system, and we're making money on that, as everybody knows. We can pay dividends on the old way of transmitting power, developing the 'juice' by water power and peddling it out by wire. We can pay ten per cent., and a stock dividend every year, for we are earning nineteen and eight-tenths per cent. now, on wire work alone, not mentioning our exclusive franchises. Nobody can put a value on those. Up to this time most of us have been contented to reach out and get hold of water powers in the old way—that didn't look so slow to us then as it does now. If we should throw away, entirely, this part of our device, we still would stand just as safe as we ever would have stood.
"Again, suppose we wanted to play the market, and throw away every idea of using this second current of electricity. We could list this stock to-morrow and make it the most active issue on the Street. That's plain to all of us.
"Again, let's reason over this matter and see whether it isn't impatience and not distrust which is troubling all of us. We haven't really spent so very much money in the receiver installations. There isn't a stockyards firm in Chicago which doesn't put aside a bigger appropriation every year for scientific experimenting than we're putting into what is no experiment, but a certainty. It is a drop in the bucket, as my figures here show distinctly.
"Now, since these things are true, I just came down here to ask you gentlemen what it is that you want? You've been criticizing me. We've thought enough of this thing to plan legislation in Congress and in the adjoining states where we are working. We've been at a lot of trouble one way or other. We've wanted to get a grip on this country which couldn't be shaken off by any political or industrial changes. That's just what I'm offering you here, gentlemen. Pretty much the whole business world will be yours. I brought you this, didn't I? Now, do you want a nice gold fence around the world with diamond tips to the pickets; or what is it that you do want? Up to this time you've wanted what was impossible. Now I've shown you that the impossible is possible. Here it is, on the table in front of you—here's the proof. Unless I am drunk or crazy, the future governors of the United States of America are sitting right here at this table."
He touched the glass top lightly, gently, with his finger-tips, which had no tremor in them. John Rawn was completely master of himself.
V
"But it has cost a lot of money, Rawn," began one director hesitatingly.
"That's a relative term," answered Rawn. "I have all the details here among my figures. It is much or little, as you care to look at it—it doesn't seem much to me. We've run this thing down to rock-bed economy all the time. We cut our men a dollar a week last month, and it started a riot. We're trying to save all the money we can, of course—it's my money that is being spent just the same as yours, my time that is wasting, just the same as yours. I'm as eager as you to get my hands on this thing, and to get its hands on this country. But there's such a thing as losing by lack of confidence, and many and many a good thing has been lost by lack of money backed by nerve. What do you want, gentlemen? I can't do much more than I have done."
"And it's enough!" cried the bearded man, his voice harsh, strident with his emotion. "We've got to have it! Let's stick, let's stick, fellows! They'll never shake us off. There is absolutely no limit to this thing."
"Is that still the way you feel, Jim?" asked Standley from his end of the table.
"Yes, it is; how about it, gentlemen?" answered Ackerman's deep voice.
His eyes turned from one to the other, and found no dissent, although the air of each man was earnest, almost somber.
"Shake hands, then!" called out the bearded man with enthusiasm, a man who had swayed millions by the force of his own convictions before that time.
"Let's all shake hands, then, gentlemen," said John Rawn.
They did so, each man reaching out his hands to his neighbor; Halsey, of course, stepping back as not belonging to that charmed circle. They made a ring around that table of countless, untold millions, of uncounted, unmeasured power. Their faces would have made study sufficient for the greatest painter of the world. There was not a young man present, not one whose face did not show lines deep graven, whose hair was not white, or gray, or grizzled. Many faces there were, but from the eyes of each shone the same light. The grasp of the hand of each meant the same thing. They stood, hand clasped to hand, soul clasped to soul; greed and power clasped to greed and power.
"Move we 'journ," said Ackerman. The president dropped the gavel on the table top.
VI
Rawn finally escaping from the crowd of importunate reporters who waited in the halls, at length broke away to go to his rooms. He met Halsey in the lobby. The latter had in his hand a telegram, which shook somewhat as he extended it.
"Well," said Rawn, turning toward him with a frown, "what is it?"
He read: "Charles S. Halsey, The Palatial, New York: Your child is a girl. The mother is doing well. You would best return at once. There is a slight deformity. You must share this grief with the mother when she knows—"
Rawn dropped the message to the floor. Halsey's face looked so desperately old and sad that for one moment Rawn almost forgot his own grief. "You'd better go on home, Charley," he said. "Too bad—to get such news now! But isn't that just like a woman!"
CHAPTER VI
IN PROPER PERSON
I
John Rawn stood looking at the unceasing throng which surged confusedly through the corridors of the gilded hotel. Warmth, music, a Babel of voices, were all about. There approached a little group of laughing men coming from the carriage entrance, bound, no doubt, to a banquet hall somewhere under the capacious roof. One voice rose above the the others as the group advanced. There appeared, rapidly talking and gesticulating as he came, a ruddy-faced, stocky figure, with head close-cropped, jaw undershot, small eyes, fighting terrier make-up.
"I tell you, gentlemen, I'll compromise not in the least on this matter! It makes no difference what they do with the ticket or with me. There's only one way about these matters, and that's the right way! I care nothing whether this man be a rich man or a poor man. The only question is, whether he is right. If he is not right, he will never—I say to you, gentlemen—" this with close-shut jaw and fist hard smitten into palm—"I say to you, it makes no difference who he is or what he is, he'll never win through; and in the event you suffer from us—"
He passed on, gesticulating, talking. Men commented audibly, for there was no mistaking a man idealized by some, dreaded by others, scorned by none, anathematized by not a few. He was to address that night a meeting of independent politicians, so-called, here in the very house of individualistic power, and many old-line members of his party had their doubts, the fear of a new party being ever present in the politician's mind—the same fear professional politicians, Whig, Democrat, what-not, had of the new party formed before the Civil War at the command of a people then claiming self-government as their ancient right—as now they begin again to do, facing our third War of Independence.
"Going strong, isn't he?" commented one sardonically, within Rawn's hearing.
"That's all right, my friend," was the smiling answer of yet another. "Strong enough to make a lot of you hunt your holes yet. There's quite a few people in this little old country outside this island—and he'll—"
"Nonsense! No chance, not the least chance in the world!"
"You underestimate this new movement," began the other.
"New movement!—you're 'progressive,' eh? Got that bee? A lot of good it'll do you. It will be simply a new line-up following our old and time-tried political methods—it all comes to that, take my word. The people aren't in politics. A lot of professionals do our governing for us."
"All the same, there goes the people's candidate!"
"Take him and welcome," was the answer. "Take your candidate. We'll eat him up—if he runs."
They also passed on down the hall, gesticulating, their voices swallowed up with others, arising confusedly. This and that couple or group passed by, also talking, among them many persons obviously of notoriety, importance or distinction, though unknown to their observer. Rawn stood and watched them all. The scene was to his liking. The stir, the confusion, appealed to him. The flowering of the great city's night life was here, such as that is. It was the focus of our country's civilization, such as that is. Men worth millions passed, shoulder to shoulder, a wondrous procession, such as that is.
II
And here and there, always moving and mingling with those men whose reception or whose raiment announced them as persons of importance, moved women, beautiful women, floating by, brightly, radiantly, rustlingly—women blazing with jewels, women with bright eyes, women whose apparel bespoke them as accepted integers of the city's vast human sum.
Rawn stood studying the procession for a long time, eying group after group carefully. A conclusion was forming in his mind. He was learning that when a man has achieved power, success, wealth, notoriety even, he turns with his next thought to some woman; and finds some woman waiting.
Not, as he reflected, a woman grown old and gray. Not a woman with finger-tips blackened and roughened, of bowed figure and ill-fitting garb, of awkward and unaccustomed air—not to that sort of woman who would be noticed here for her lack of fitness in this place. No, rather, as he noticed, men of influence or position or power turned to such women as these about him now—of distinct personality, of birth and breeding, or at least of beauty; women shimmering in silks, blazing in gems, women who looked up laughing as they passed, women young and beautiful, whose voices were soft, around whom floated as they walked some subtle fascination.
Rawn pondered. He saw passing a few men whom he knew, all with women whom he did not know. In each case his new-formed rule seemed to hold good; the exception being noted only in the bored and weary faces of men accompanied by women perhaps rustling and blazing in silks and diamonds, but not owning youth and fascination.
John Rawn found that power and beauty go hand in hand; that money and beauty also go hand in hand—which is to say the same thing. He began to ponder upon youth, beauty and love as appurtenances of wealth, success and power.
"That's the game!" he said half to himself. "Why, look at those chaps. They look pretty much alike, act pretty much alike, too. When a man has money to burn, there is only one way—and there it is!"
III
And then it occurred to John Rawn with sudden and unpleasing force that, although he was among this throng, he was not of it. Himself a man of power, success, yes, even of wealth, he lacked in certain betokening appurtenances thereto. A not unusual wave of self-pity crept slowly over him. Why should he, a man of his attainments, lack in any degree what others had?
He stood pondering, not wholly happy, until presently he felt, rather than saw, a glance bent upon him by a man who passed, a stately and well-garbed young woman upon his arm. He was a man now in faultless evening dress, yet easily to be recognized—none less, indeed, than the dyspeptic director who so summarily had been dismissed by John Rawn himself not three hours ago. His dark face became even darker as he saw the victor of that controversy standing here alone. He smiled sardonically. To Rawn it seemed that he smiled because he saw the solitary attitude of a man as good as himself, as fit as himself for all the insignia of power, yet publicly self-confessed as lacking all such insignia. He started, flushed, frowned. He had shown these men, these influential magnates in New York, that he could be their master upon occasion—he had mastered this man passing yonder. Yet now he stood here alone, with no woman to advertise his power to the world; and men laughed at him! No woman wore his silks, displayed his jewels. He was John Rawn, born to the purple; yet he might be taken here for a country merchant on his first trip from home....