The cable

THERE was a matter of state and interstate, if not of national importance afoot, a lively correspondence in its regard flying between the Lucas and Henderson offices in Chicago, Washington and Beaconhite. A franchise was in question which must pass, not only the legislatures of three states, but at last be established or annulled by the passage of a Congressional Act which would react upon the state legislatures’ decisions on the franchise, making it effective or practically without value. Energetic and clever lobbying to insure this franchise was vehemently carrying on in the capitals of the three states concerned, and at Washington as well. Millions were at stake upon the issue; immense sums being spent for the passage of the bill; greater sums waiting those lucky stockholders who should profit by the enterprise when it was in working order, notably those who “got in on the ground floor,” who took up as much of the stock as was put out on the market for sale, at a price beyond which shares would rapidly soar once the inevitably profitable scheme was proved successful. There would not be much, or comparatively little of the stock offered upon the market; the corporation behind the enterprise was made up of solid men who could afford to wait for their future big percentage, secure to them if the thing went through. They did not purpose to let the general public share the chippings from the shell of their golden egg, except in numbers enough to forestall enmity to it on the ground of its being a private profit, maintained through public tolerance, via the Congress and legislatures. Correspondence in regard to this important matter passed in great bulk through Cicely’s hands; she was interested in it to the highest point. The newspapers were full of allusions to the franchise, opposing it, supporting it, according to their bias for or against the political party favoring the measure. It amazed inexperienced Cis to find that this was the basis of newspaper influence, never the abstract benefit or harm to the public at large, which seemed to her mind the only ground upon which to favor or oppose the franchise.

Rodney laughed at her, and called her “Donna Quixote,” a name that Cicely liked because it was linked with tender mockery in Rodney’s eyes; she had never read “Don Quixote.”

The correspondence in regard to the franchise which assailed Cicely’s desk in Mr. Wilmer Lucas’ office was couched in the code that had at first been such a stumbling block to her, but which she now read and wrote with complete fluency. It was excitingly pleasant to get inside information upon a subject that was occupying so much public attention.

“I feel as biggity as Brer Rabbit to be so deep in the know!” she told Rodney. Therefore on the Monday morning after her Sunday spent at Pioneer Falls, Cicely started out for Lucas and Henderson’s office with her mind joyously attuned to anticipation, the anticipation of an interesting day superimposed upon the delicious certainty that Rodney loved her as well as she loved him, better perhaps, and that it was a matter of a few hours before she could be his promised wife.

Perhaps she should have been that now, had they not met Father Morley the previous evening. The priest had intruded upon the perfect oneness of her comradeship with Rodney; he irritated Rod, and, though Father Morley impressed her as a saint, and attracted Cis herself powerfully, yet Rod said that priests “were good things to keep away from,” and if he felt so, then one could not expect him to find Father Morley’s inopportune intrusion upon them agreeable.

But how beautiful had been Rodney’s manner to her, Cis thought, as, in the knowing little hotel to which he had taken her, he had ordered and pressed upon her delicious food for which she had slight appetite, yet of which she ate, coaxed into eating by the wondrous delicacies and Rodney’s ministrations to her.

They had not talked upon disturbing subjects, pleasant or the reverse, but had chatted happily, in complete harmony, laughing over their own nonsense, telling each other new bits of confidences, those insignificant-significant trifles of past experience which, taken together, make up a mosaic of complete mutual knowledge. There was nothing for Cis to tell except school scrapes and triumphs, funny or piteous things which she had encountered on her short road so far through life; stories of people whom she had known, pleasures and annoyances; her reactions toward them. They were simple tales to which Rodney harkened with profound interest, deriving from them an accurate estimate of this clean-minded, gallant Cis who loved him, as he saw; whom he meant to marry, and not Gertrude Davenport with her money, realizing that in Cis he had found the woman whose existence his experience had led him to doubt.

In return for her confidences Rodney told Cis similar stories of his boyhood, of his merry college days, of victories which he had won on the fields of sport, and, later, in the field of business competition. That there was much that Rodney did not tell her, honest Cis never suspected, still less that there was a side of his life, parallel with his advancement in business, upon which he did not touch. She listened breathlessly to Rodney’s charming recitals, treasuring up his every word, so that it surprised him later to find how conversant she was with his boyhood and youth; proudly recognizing him as the cleverest and the best of lads whose present perfection had been clearly foreshown, missing nothing, because she looked for nothing beyond his revelations.

The remembrance of these intimate confidences of the evening before, lay warm at her heart; the picture of the close-drawn crimson sash curtains in the leaded window beside them; the cream-white table, with its heavy cut work doilies; its delightful copper candlesticks, their parchment shades decorated by a skilled hand in Persian colors and designs, made a poetic background for her memories. Cis went out on Monday morning, whistling in her mind, her breath keeping up the air soundlessly against her motionless lips—Cis, the secretary, no longer whistled in the street as Cis, the telephone operator, would have done—and she almost ran into Miss Hannah Gallatin.

“Good morning!” they cried together, as Cis swerved to avoid a collision.

“I sort of hoped I’d meet you, Miss Adair; I had an idea you went out about this time,” Miss Gallatin said, and added: “Mind if I walk along to talk to you?”

“Glad to have you, Miss Gallatin,” Cis replied truthfully. “I’ve thought of you lots of times, and of how kind you were that morning when you asked me home with you, and advised me about boarding at Mrs. Wallace’s.”

“But haven’t felt the need of a friend yet, so haven’t hunted me up, as I told you to in case you ever did need one?” Miss Gallatin commented.

“I’ve been busy, learning all sorts of new things in the office——”

“And out of it,” Miss Gallatin interrupted Cis. “See here, my dear girl, let me ask you bluntly: Are you engaged to my boarder, Mr. Moore?”

“No, Miss Gallatin, but I am really engaged without being! It is exactly the same thing, and I’d have been engaged when you asked me, if you hadn’t asked me to-day!” Cis laughed, but Miss Gallatin shook her head violently, having been shaking it gently as a running accompaniment and comment from the first syllable of Cicely’s answer.

“Girl alive, it’s not in the least the same thing!” cried the gaunt woman energetically. “Making love to a girl, and tying up to her under bonds are by no means the same! Men flirt and flit; woo and walk, and the girls think that there’s so much honor back of warm looks that they’re as secure behind a bow as a vow. Now, my honest Cicely Adair—for I know you’re as straight a girl as walks—these words may sound alike, but their sounds and sense are quite different. I’m going to tell you something about G. Rodney Moore; he was running hard after Gertrude Davenport a while ago; she’s a rich beauty, and now he’s dangling after you. Honorable?”

Cis laughed long and merrily; it is not unpleasant to have victory over another girl attributed to oneself, however humble-minded and gentle-hearted the conqueror may be. Cis began to sing the once popular song:

“H’m!” grunted Miss Gallatin. “That’s no answer, though it’s been given as one ever since Noë’s grandson went gallivanting! Miss Adair, you’re a good girl not to slap me and bid me go about my own affairs, but I suppose you know that I want to befriend you. I know that you go off seeing the country with my captivating lodger, and it worries me. I don’t trust that fellow; I never have. Now you will slap me! You’ll put up with my meddling, but not with my misjudging your hero; is that so?”

“Well, I don’t like it,” said Cis, “but I’m sure you mean it kindly, and can’t help seeing Rod crooked. In reality he’s splendid, true as steel, kind—splendid, that’s all!”

“He tells me that he shall not stay with me all winter, that he is looking about for an apartment, a small one. Know anything about that?” Miss Gallatin demanded.

“Oh, the absurd fellow!” cried Cis, blushing furiously to the roots of her brilliant red hair. “This winter! Mercy! No, Miss Gallatin, I don’t know anything about it, but I suppose—This winter! Just imagine!”

“I do hope there’s a deaf and dumb saint who intercedes for girls in love!” cried Miss Hannah Gallatin impatiently. “It would be the only one who could thoroughly understand her! Evidently you think the apartment means that G. Rodney expects to cage his bird, but I think that’s by no means certain. You blind, honest little bat, it might mean anything else but that! Cicely Adair, I found out lately, accidentally dropping a book out of which a card tumbled—one of G. Rodney’s books—that he was once a Catholic!”

“Yes, he was,” Cis said carelessly. “I knew that. He doesn’t believe in any form of religion; he thinks it’s all nonsense, but I’ll learn to be a good Catholic myself, and then Rod will get straightened out.”

“Cicely Adair, look out for the man that is not true to his faith; disloyalty to his God is a mighty poor argument for his loyalty to a woman. And do your converting before, not after you marry him! Something there I don’t like; never have. I’m afraid for you, Cicely Adair. I wish I had proof—or else no doubts!” Miss Gallatin looked troubled.

Across the space of several months Jeanette Lucas’ voice reached Cis as Miss Gallatin spoke; it said again to her:

“I thought that I should cure his one defect, his indifference to religion. I know now that he was false to all things, to me as to God! Cicely Adair, you’re a Catholic girl; remember this lesson when you think of marrying.”

Cicely shivered involuntarily, and the chill of the memory of this warning from the girl whom she had revered, then pitied, drove out the quick anger with which she had heard Miss Gallatin’s last words, and made her answer quietly:

“I think you mean to be good to me, Miss Gallatin, and I appreciate it, but, please, nothing more against Rodney Moore to me. I ought not to have let you say one word! He loves me, as I love him, and he trusts me as I trust him. I don’t know what he will say when I tell him that someone warned me against him and that I let them—of course I must confess it to him! I shall marry him. There isn’t anything else to do when the whole world would be black-empty without him! Even if I’m to be unhappy, still I must marry him. But I’m not afraid of being unhappy. How silly, how wrong, but still more how silly, to suspect people without a grain of reason! You haven’t the least proof of Rod’s being anything but what I’ve found him, the best, as he is the dearest, cleverest, kindest, biggest, truest man in all the whole wide world!”

“Forgive my meddling, Miss Adair,” said Miss Gallatin humbly. “No one ever rescued a girl in love from her fate, even though she brought tons of proof against the man. And I have none; you’re right. Nevertheless—But I’m to say no more! I like you, my dear; I truly like you, and I’ve known what it was to love a man madly, trust him utterly, and find him false and evil! If G. Rodney leaves my house for that apartment and you’re not domiciled in it, will you come to board with me? I’d like to have you under my roof. And the day may come when you’ll find queer, lean, ugly Hannah Gallatin better than no one. Like Mrs. Wallace’s?”

“Oh, yes; it’s all right,” said Cis, glad to be let off from answering the previous questions. “It’s clean, and she gives us lots of good food, but—Mrs. Wallace’s women boarders are not all my fancy might paint them!”

“Fancy sketches ’twould be!” returned Miss Gallatin. “Women boarders are a species by themselves; idle, censorious, meddlesome. Hers aren’t peculiar to Mrs. Wallace; she’s not to blame for ’em; mine are just the same! They’re all alike, mostly, and when they’re different from the rest, heaven help the different ones! The things I’ve seen women, who were supposed to be ladies when they were away from a boarding house table, do to get the hearts of the celery—gracious! I’m sure those at Mrs. Wallace’s pick at you; you’re too gay and independent to escape! Too young, besides! Well, that would be the same anywhere, but come to me if ever there’s a chance. You can’t come while G. Rodney’s in the house; I won’t have you! Now, good-bye, my dear! I do like you, and, somehow, the thought of you anxiously haunts me. Believe me, if you are happy with G. Rodney and can bring him back to his faith, if he’ll be to you what you expect him to be, no one will be more glad than queer Hannah Gallatin! So don’t hold a grudge in your memory of me, and come to see me some Sunday—if you have spare time!”

Cis heartily shook the worn hand which this peculiar, but sterling woman held out to her. She resented her suspicions of Rodney, yet in spite of them, she liked her cordially, and left her with a surprising warmth for her in her own heart, and a pity that recognized the tragedy which Miss Gallatin’s brief allusion to her own perfidious lover revealed.

Cis walked on thoughtfully for a short distance after leaving Miss Gallatin, her thoughts grave, almost somber. It was gloomy to know that once this woman had been young like her, full to overflowing with the joy which now filled Cicely, joy which had congealed under the cruellest ice, the cold of disappointment and disillusionment. But the perfidy of that older lover did not involve the perfidy of Rodney. Rodney! The word “perfidy” was an absurdity in connection with his name! Cis threw off her depression, squared her shoulders like a boy, and broke into a swinging pace, softly whistling: “But I never knew, dear,” the song which she had hummed replying to Miss Gallatin. This time, casting aside her dignity as Mr. Lucas’ private secretary, Cis whistled aloud in the street, albeit softly.

There were piles of letters waiting upon her desk when Cis sat down to it, letters in ordinary long-hand and typed letters, but the majority of them written in the code peculiar to that office and to the secrets of its clients and associates.

Cis plunged into them, reading and assorting into piles letters relating to legal affairs, cases in which Lucas and Henderson, as a firm, were retained; letters relating to Mr. Lucas’ personal clients, people who retained him as advisor in their affairs, rather as a wise man of sterling integrity than as a lawyer; letters of appeal, or asking information; last of all, letters in the code relating to the matter of the pending franchise; reporting its progress in the three states dealing with it, and with Congress; the likelihood of the bill passing which would make it possible; suggestions of means which would further its success. The mail relating to the franchise, as well as his personal correspondence, Cis laid upon Mr. Lucas’ desk; he would not come in before eleven, or possibly noon that day, having first gone to the bank to conduct that part of its business which fell upon him as its president.

Then Cis plunged into correspondence from yesterday’s notes, which she must write up and dispatch. She was immersed in this when Mr. Lucas entered.

“Good morning, Miss Adair,” he said and passed her to take up the papers which she had laid down, awaiting him.

He read rapidly, putting aside a few letters for a second reading, but he merely glanced through the letters which were not written in the code, stacking them for a return to them later on; evidently the one absorbing, pressing matter of that day was the franchise, soon to be decided.

“Miss Adair, you know a great deal that the outside world is eager to learn,” said Mr. Lucas, looking over at Cis as she busily wrote at her desk, a short distance from his own. “There are many people’s hopes hanging upon this pending franchise; many waiting to snatch up the shares of the new enterprise, to get them at the lowest possible figure. What would they not give to know now that the franchise is secured? They could buy to-day at 32¼, and sell within two months at fifty per cent above par! A profit not to be despised! And within a year that profit will at least double. The newspapers are agog for inside information, for a tip as to the probabilities of the outcome, partly to secure a scoop over other papers, partly to serve political ends. What do you purpose doing with your knowledge, Miss Adair? Sell out to the highest bidder? Offer your knowledge, say, to a New York paper, and make it do something handsome for you, in return for the advantage you offer it?”

Mr. Lucas spoke with a smile that showed that he considered Cicely far beyond the reach of temptation thus to betray confidence. His face also expressed great satisfaction, even relief. As the president of a national bank, it might prove unpleasant for him if the failure of the franchise disclosed him deeply concerned in its success. Mr. Lucas was playing with Cis and the fancy of her betraying him, under the necessity for some outlet for the satisfaction which his face revealed.

Cis looked up and smiled.

“No; I won’t sell you up, Mr. Lucas,” she said. “Is it settled then? Is the Big Deal on? Is the franchise secured?”

“I thought you read the letters, Miss Adair. You aren’t forgetting the code, are you?” Mr. Lucas looked half-annoyed, half-amused. “I want you to go over the mail carefully, and I surely want you to read the code straight.”

“I did read the letters, Mr. Lucas, and I understood that they were favorable, but—to tell the truth, I understood what I read enough to do the right thing with them, but the letters did not make much impression on me; I had something important on my mind,” candid Cis explained.

Mr. Lucas laughed outright. “A girl is a girl, clever or stupid, faithful or unreliable! I’d wager I could shrewdly guess the important subject. Important, mark you! The franchise being a mere bagatelle! Well, well, Miss Adair, I’ve no doubt that you did precisely as you say you did, read and understood, and forgot for really ‘important matters’ when you had read! The franchise is assured, Miss Adair, and great events are afoot! I am as delighted as I have been anxious about it. We shall all profit, but it is my honest conviction that the profit to the public will exceed the money returns. Be careful not to know all this, if you please; the information must not leak out yet, not for two months more,” Mr. Lucas warned Cis.

“I’ll keep quiet, Mr. Lucas. I’ve been approached by a few Poll Prys, but—nothing doing!” Cis laughed gaily, permitting herself a relapse into the slang which her new dignity had been making her eschew.

That evening Rodney met Cis just beyond the door of the building which housed the Lucas and Henderson offices, when she came forth at nearly five o’clock.

The sight of him, handsome, faultlessly dressed, debonair, smiling happily as they came toward each other, set Cicely’s pulses bounding joyously; his presence was the sufficient answer to the doubt of him suggested by Miss Gallatin, repudiated by Cis, yet, like all doubts, hard to silence completely, even when downed.

“Oh, Rod, I’m glad!” cried Cis almost running over the short distance intervening between them.

“Oh, Cis, I’m gladder!” echoed Rodney. “What’s amiss, Cis? Amiss-Cis; goes along slick, but Cis is never amiss!”

“I want to confess to you, Rory,” said Cis, as Rodney turned to walk with her.

“The only one I want you ever so much as to think of confessing to,” Rodney said approvingly.

“Someone warned me that it wasn’t safe to play with you, Rory O’Moore, that I’d be sorry later on, that you weren’t quite, quite all right, trustworthy, you know. I didn’t really listen; I did not believe, and I said that sort of talk had to stop, but it was said, Rod, and I’m ashamed of myself that I let more than your name get past. I didn’t listen, I didn’t truly, but too much was said.” Cis poured out her confession eagerly.

“Who was it? Who was she? Safe to say she, of course! What else did she tell you? Anything I ought to know—and that you ought not to know?” Rodney looked furiously angry, and somewhat alarmed.

“Don’t ask me who it was; I won’t tell. I won’t say it was a woman; may have been a man. And nothing was said, more than I’ve told you; that the person doubted your being safe for me to play with,” cried Cis. “I’m sorry I heard more than one word.”

“The old gal, I’ll bet! Funny old Gallatin; she always suspects me,” cried Rodney. “Why, Cis; why, Holly, my darling, there’s no one on earth half as safe as I for you to play with! How dares she think I’d harm you, grieve you? Never any other man loved a girl as I love you. I’m mad about you, Cis, you—you glowing Holly-berry! I never dreamed there was such a girl on earth. When we’re married—My heavens, when we’re married! Cis, oh, Cis, you can’t dream how happy we’re to be! Did she think maybe we wouldn’t marry? Cis, we shall, we must! You’re going to marry me, aren’t you, my darling, my glowing ruby-jewel?”

Cis looked up, trembling, forgetful of fear, of doubt, responding to the call of this love that blotted out the world with as much ardor as its summons held. “Yes, oh, yes! I’d die else,” she said.

Rodney drew her to him oblivious to the highway and its many passers-by, but Cis came to her senses, and eluded his arms.

“Oh, Rod, Rory dear, we’re engaged!” she almost sobbed. “We are really, truly engaged, and isn’t it beautiful! Do people get engaged like this, without meaning to, just sort of talking, and then there you are? And it’s so public, and so queer! But, oh, Rory O’Moore, it’s so beautiful! What can it mean, it’s so beautiful?”

“It means that by your birthday, by Christmas, my Holly-berry, you’ll be in your own home, in my home, my wife, and that no cold nor storms shall ever touch my Christmas bride! Oh, Holly, Holly of my heart, red and glowing, thorns for all else, but for me the crimson fruit of your love!” cried Rodney, stammering under an emotion which unconsciously turned back to the phrases of his Celtic forbears for its expression.