The Deluge Read online

  III. CAME A WOMAN

  In my suite in the Textile Building, just off the big main room with itsblackboards and tickers, I had a small office in which I spent a good dealof time during Stock Exchange hours. It was there that Sam Ellersly foundme the next day but one after my talk with Roebuck.

  "I want you to sell that Steel Common, Matt," said he.

  "It'll go several points higher," said I. "Better let me hold it and use myjudgment on selling."

  "I need money--right away," was his answer.

  "That's all right," said I. "Let me give you an order for what you need."

  "Thank you, thank you," said he, so promptly that I knew I had done what hehad been hoping for, probably counting on.

  I give this incident to show what our relations were. He was a young fellowof good family, to whom I had taken a liking. He was a lazy dog, and as outof place in business as a cat in a choir. I had been keeping him going forfour years at that time, by giving him tips on stocks and protecting himagainst loss. This purely out of good nature and liking; for I hadn't theremotest idea he could ever be of use to me beyond helping to liven thingsup at a dinner or late supper, or down in the country, or on the yacht. Infact, his principal use to me was that he knew how to "beat the box" wellenough to shake fairly good music out of it--and I am so fond of music thatI can fill in with my imagination when the performer isn't too bad.

  They have charged that I deliberately ruined him. Ruined! The first time Igave him a tip--and that was the second or third time I ever saw him--heburst into tears and said: "You've saved my life, Blacklock. I'll nevertell you how much this windfall means to me now." Nor did I with deep anddark design keep him along on the ragged edge. He kept himself there.How could I build up such a man with his hundred ways of wasting money,including throwing it away on his own opinions of stocks--for he wouldgamble on his own account in the bucket-shops, though I had shown him thatthe Wall Street game is played always with marked cards, and that the onlyhope of winning is to get the confidence of the card-markers, unless youare big enough to become a card-marker yourself.

  As soon as he got the money from my teller that day, he was rushing away. Ifollowed him to the door--that part of my suite opened out on the sidewalk,for the convenience of my crowds of customers. "I'm just going to lunch,"said I. "Come with me."

  He looked uneasily toward a smart little one-horse brougham at the curb."Sorry--but I can't," said he. "I've my sister with me. She brought me downin her trap."

  "That's all right," said I; "bring her along. We'll go to the Savarin." AndI locked his arm in mine and started toward the brougham.

  He was turning all kinds of colors, and was acting in a way that puzzledme--then. Despite all my years in New York I was ignorant of the elaboratesocial distinctions that had grown up in its Fifth Avenue quarter. I knew,of course, that there was a fashionable society and that some of the mostconspicuous of those in it seemed unable to get used to the idea of beingrich and were in a state of great agitation over their own importance.Important they might be, but not to me. I knew nothing of their carefulgradations of snobbism--the people to know socially, the people to know ina business way, the people to know in ways religious and philanthropic,the people to know for the fun to be got out of them, the people topride oneself on not knowing at all; the nervousness, the hysteriaabout preserving these disgusting gradations. All this, I say, was anundreamed-of mystery to me who gave and took liking in the sensible,self-respecting American fashion. So I didn't understand why Sam, as Ialmost dragged him along, was stammering: "Thank you--but--I--she--the factis, we really must get up-town."

  By this time I was where I could look into the brougham. A glance--I cansee much at a glance, as can any man who spends every day of every year inan all-day fight for his purse and his life, with the blows coming from allsides. I can see much at a glance; I often have seen much; I never saw morethan just then. Instantly, I made up my mind that the Ellerslys would lunchwith me. "You've got to eat somewhere," said I, in a tone that put an endto his attempts to manufacture excuses. "I'll be delighted to have you.Don't make up any more yarns."

  He slowly opened the door. "Anita," said he, "Mr. Blacklock. He's invitedus to lunch."

  I lifted my hat, and bowed. I kept my eyes straight upon hers. And itgave me more pleasure to look into them than I had ever before got out oflooking into anybody's. I am passionately fond of flowers, and of children;and her face reminded me of both. Or, rather, it seemed to me that whatI had seen, with delight and longing, incomplete in their freshness andbeauty and charm, was now before me in the fullness. I felt like saying toher, "I have heard of you often. The children and the flowers have toldme you were coming." Perhaps my eyes did say it. At any rate, she lookedas straight at me as I at her, and I noticed that she paled a little andshrank--yet continued to look, as if I were compelling her. But her voice,beautifully clear, and lingering in the ears like the resonance of theviolin after the bow has swept its strings and lifted, was perfectlyself-possessed, as she said to her brother: "That will be delightful--ifyou think we have time."

  I saw that she, uncertain whether he wished to accept, was giving him achance to take either course. "He has time--nothing but time," said I. "Hisengagements are always with people who want to get something out of him.And they can wait." I pretended to think he was expecting me to enterthe trap; I got in, seated myself beside her, said to Sam: "I've savedthe little seat for you. Tell your man to take us to the EquitableBuilding--Nassau Street entrance."

  I talked a good deal during the first half of the nearly two hours we weretogether--partly because both Sam and his sister seemed under some sort ofstrain, chiefly because I was determined to make a good impression. I toldher about myself, my horses, my house in the country, my yacht. I tried toshow her I wasn't an ignoramus as to books and art, even if I hadn't beento college. She listened, while Sam sat embarrassed. "You must bring yoursister down to visit me," I said finally. "I'll see that you both havethe time of your lives. Make up a party of your friends, Sam, and comedown--when shall we say? Next Sunday? You know you were coming anyhow. Ican change the rest of the party."

  Sam grew as red as if he were going into apoplexy. I thought then he wasafraid I'd blurt out something about who were in the party I was proposingto change. I was soon to know better.

  "Thank you, Mr.--Blacklock," said his sister. "But I have an engagementnext Sunday. I have a great many engagements just now. Without looking atmy book I couldn't say when I can go." This easily and naturally. In herset they certainly do learn thoroughly that branch of tact which plainpeople call lying.

  Sam gave her a grateful look, which he thought I didn't see, and which Ididn't rightly interpret--then.

  "We'll fix it up later, Blacklock," said he.

  "All right," said I. And from that minute I was almost silent. It wassomething in her tone and manner that silenced me. I suddenly realized thatI wasn't making as good an impression as I had been flattering myself.

  When a man has money and is willing to spend it, he can readily foolhimself into imagining he gets on grandly with women. But I had bettergrounds than that for thinking myself not unattractive to them, as a rule.Women had liked me when I had nothing; women had liked me when they didn'tknow who I was. I felt that this woman did not like me. And yet, by the wayshe looked at me in spite of her efforts not to do so, I could tell thatI had some sort of unusual interest for her. Why didn't she like me? Shemade me feel the reason. I didn't belong to her world. My ways and my looksoffended her. She disliked me a good deal; she feared me a little. Shewould have felt safer if she had been gratifying her curiosity, gazing inat me through the bars of a cage.

  Where I had been feeling and showing my usual assurance, I now became illat ease. I longed for them to be gone; at the same time I hated to let hergo--for, when and how would I see her again, would I get the chance toremove her bad impression? It irritated me thus to be concerned about thesister of a man into my liking for whom there was mixed much pity a
nd somecontempt. But I am of the disposition that, whenever I see an obstacle ofwhatever kind, I can not restrain myself from trying to jump it. Here wasan obstacle--a dislike. To clear it was of the smallest importance in theworld, was a silly waste of time. Yet I felt I could not maintain withmyself my boast that there were no obstacles I couldn't get over, if Iturned aside from this.

  Sam--not without hesitation, as I recalled afterward--left me with her,when I sent him to bring her brougham up to the Broadway entrance. As sheand I were standing there alone, waiting in silence, I turned on hersuddenly, and blurted out, "You don't like me."

  She reddened a little, smiled slightly. "What a quaint remark!" said she.

  I looked straight at her. "But you shall."

  Our eyes met. Her chin came out a little, her eyebrows lifted. Then, inscorn of herself as well as of me, she locked herself in behind a frozenhaughtiness that ignored me. "Ah, here is the carriage," she said. Ifollowed her to the curb; she just touched my hand, just nodded herfascinating little head.

  "See you Saturday, old man," called her brother friendlily. My loweringface had alarmed him.

  "That party is off," said I curtly. And I lifted my hat and strode away.

  As I had formed the habit of dismissing the disagreeable, I soon put herout of my mind. But she took with her my joy in the taste of things. Icouldn't get back my former keen satisfaction in all I had done and wasdoing. The luxury, the tangible evidences of my achievement, no longer gaveme pleasure; they seemed to add to my irritation.

  That's the way it is in life. We load ourselves down with toys like so manygreedy children; then we see another toy and drop everything to be free toseize it; and if we can not, we're wretched.

  I worked myself up, or rather, down, to such a mood that when my office boytold me Mr. Langdon would like me to come to his office as soon as it wasconvenient, I snapped out: "The hell he does! Tell Mr. Langdon I'll beglad to see him here whenever he calls." That was stupidity, a prematureassertion of my right to be treated as an equal. I had always gone toLangdon, and to any other of the rulers of finance, whenever I had got asummons. For, while I was rich and powerful, I held both wealth and power,in a sense, on sufferance; I knew that, so long as I had no absolutecontrol of any great department of industry, these rulers could destroy meshould they decide that they needed my holdings or were not satisfied withmy use of my power. There were a good many people who did not realize thatproperty rights had ceased to exist, that property had become a revocablegrant from the "plutocrats." I was not of those misguided ones who hadfailed to discover the new fact concealed in the old form. So I used to gowhen I was summoned.

  But not that day. However, no sooner was my boy gone than I repented theimprudence, "But what of it?" said I to myself. "No matter how the thingturns out, I shall be able to get some advantage." For it was part of myphilosophy that a proper boat with proper sails and a proper steersman cangain in any wind. I was surprised when Langdon appeared in my office a fewminutes later.

  He was a tallish, slim man, carefully dressed, with a bored, weary lookand a slow, bored way of talking. I had always said that if I had not beenmyself I should have wished to be Langdon. Men liked and admired him; womenloved and ran after him. Yet he exerted not the slightest effort to pleaseany one; on the contrary, he made it distinct and clear that he didn'tcare a rap what any one thought of him or, for that matter, of anybody oranything. He knew how to get, without sweat or snatching, all the goodthere was in whatever fate threw in his way--and he was one of those meninto whose way fate seems to strive to put everything worth having. Hisbusiness judgment was shrewd, but he cared nothing for the big game he wasplaying except as a game. Like myself, he was simply a sportsman--and, Ithink, that is why we liked each other. He could have trusted almost anyone that came into contact with him; but he trusted nobody, and franklywarned every one not to trust him--a safe frankness, for his charm causedit to be forgotten or ignored. He would do anything to gain an object,however trivial, which chanced to attract him; once it was his, he wouldthrow it aside as carelessly as an ill-fitting collar.

  His expression, as he came into my office, was one of cynical amusement,as if he were saying to himself: "Our friend Blacklock has caught theswollen head at last." Not a suggestion of ill humor, of resentmentat my impertinence--for, in the circumstances, I had been guilty of animpertinence. Just languid, amused patience with the frailty of a friend."I see," said he, "that you have got Textile up to eighty-five."

  He was the head of the Textile Trust which had been built by hisbrother-in-law and had fallen to him in the confusion following hisbrother-in-law's death. As he was just then needing some money for hisshare in the National Coal undertaking, he had directed me to push Textileup toward par and unload him of two or three hundred thousand shares--he,of course, to repurchase the shares after he had taken profits and Textilehad dropped back to its normal fifty.

  "I'll have it up to ninety-eight by the middle of next month," said I. "Andthere I think we'd better stop."

  "Stop at about ninety," said he. "That will give me all I find I'll needfor this Coal business. I don't want to be bothered with hunting up aninvestment."

  I shook my head. "I must put it up to within a point or two of par," Ideclared. "In my public letter I've been saying it would go aboveninety-five, and I never deceive my public."

  He smiled--my notion of honesty always amused him. "As you please," hesaid with a shrug. Then I saw a serious look--just a fleeting flash ofwarning--behind his smiling mask; and he added carelessly: "Be carefulabout your own personal play. I doubt if Textile can be put any higher."

  It must have been my mood that prevented those words from making theimpression on me they should have made. Instead of appreciating at onceand at its full value this characteristic and amazingly friendly signalof caution, I showed how stupidly inattentive I was by saying: "Somethingdoing? Something new?"

  But he had already gone further than his notion of friendship warranted. Sohe replied: "Oh, no. Simply that everything's uncertain nowadays."

  My mind had been all this time on those Manasquale mining properties. I nowsaid: "Has Roebuck told you that I had to buy those mines on my ownaccount?"

  "Yes," he said. He hesitated, and again he gave me a look whose meaningcame to me only when it was too late. "I think, Blacklock, you'd betterturn them over to me."

  "I can't," I answered. "I gave my word."

  "As you please," said he.

  Apparently the matter didn't interest him. He began to talk of theperformances of my little two-year-old, Beachcomber; and after twentyminutes or so, he drifted away. "I envy you your enthusiasm," he said,pausing in my doorway. "Wherever I am, I wish I were somewhere else.Whatever I'm doing, I wish I were doing something else. Where do you getall this joy of the fight? What the devil are you fighting for?"

  He didn't wait for a reply.

  I thought over my situation steadily for several days. I went down to mycountry place. I looked everywhere among all my belongings, searching,searching, restless, impatient. At last I knew what ailed me--what the lackwas that yawned so gloomily from everything I had once thought beautiful,had once found sufficient. I was in the midst of the splendid, terracedpansy beds my gardeners had just set out; I stopped short and slapped mythigh. "A woman!" I exclaimed. "That's what I need. A woman--the right sortof woman--a wife!"