_ CHAPTER XIV. THE PROPHETS
August in town found an unusual number of New York men at the clubs, at the restaurants, at the summer theatres. Men who very seldom shoved their noses inside the metropolitan oven during the summer baking were now to be met everywhere and anywhere within the financial district and without. The sky-perched and magnificent down-town "clubs" were full of men who under normal circumstances would have remained at Newport, Lenox, Bar Harbor, or who at least would have spent the greater portion of the summer on their yachts or their Long Island estates.
And in every man's hand or pocket was a newspaper.
They were scarcely worth reading for mere pleasure, these New York newspapers; indeed, there was scarcely anything in them to read except a daily record of the steady decline in securities of every description; paragraphs noting the passing of dividends; columns setting forth minutely the opinions of very wealthy men concerning the business outlook; chronicles in detail of suits brought against railroads and against great industrial corporations; accounts of inquiries by State and by Federal authorities into combinations resulting in an alleged violation of various laws.
Here and there a failure of some bucket-branded broker was noted--the reports echoing like the first dropping shots along the firing line.
Even to the most casual and uninterested outsider it was evident that already the metropolis was under a tension; that the tension was increasing almost imperceptibly day by day; that there seemed to be no very clear idea as to the reason of it, only a confused apprehension, an apparently unreassuring fear of some grotesque danger ahead, which daily reading of the newspapers was not at all calculated to allay.
Of course there were precise reasons for impending trouble given and reiterated by those amateurs of finance and politics whose opinions are at the disposal of the newspaper-reading public.
Prolixity characterised these solemn utterances, packed full of cant phrases such as "undigested securities" and "the treacherous attack on the nation's integrity."
Two principal reasons were given for the local financial uneasiness; and the one made the other ridiculous--first, that the nation's Executive was mad as Nero and had deliberately begun a senseless holocaust involving the entire nation; the other that a "panic" was due, anyway. It resembled the logic of the White Queen of immortal memory, who began screaming before she pricked her finger in order to save herself any emotion after the pin had drawn blood.
Men knew in their hearts that there was no real reason for impending trouble; that this menace was an unreal thing, intangible, without substance--only a shadow cast by their own assininity.
Yet shadows can be made real property when authority so ordains. Because there was once a man with a donkey who met a stranger in the desert.
The stranger bargained for and bought the donkey; the late owner shoved the shekels into his ample pockets and sat down in the mule's shadow to escape the sun; and the new owner brought suit to recover the rent due him for the occupation of the shadow cast by his donkey.
There was also a mule which waited seven years to kick.
There are asses and mules and all sorts of shadows. The ordinance of authority can affect only the shadow; the substance is immutable.
Among other serious gentlemen of consideration and means who had been unaccustomed to haunt the metropolis in the dog days was Colonel Alexander Mallett, President of the Half Moon Trust Company, and incidentally Duane's father.
His town-house was still open, although his wife and daughter were in the country. To it, in the comparative cool of the August evenings, came figures familiar in financial circles; such men as Magnelius Grandcourt, father of Delancy; and Remsen Tappan, and James Cray.
Others came and went, men of whom Duane had read in the newspapers--very great men who dressed very simply, very powerful men who dressed elaborately; and some were young and red-faced with high living, and one was damp of hair and long-nosed, with eyes set a trifle too close together; and one fulfilled every external requisite for a "good fellow"; and another was very old, very white, with a nut-cracker jaw and faded eyes, blue as an unweaned pup's, and a cream-coloured wig curled glossily over waxen ears and a bloodless and furrowed neck.
All these were very great men; but they and Colonel Mallett journeyed at intervals into the presence of a greater man who inhabited, all alone, except for a crew of a hundred men, an enormous yacht, usually at anchor off the white masonry cliffs of the seething city.
All alone this very great man inhabited the huge white steamer; and they piped him fore and they piped him aft and they piped him over the side. Many a midnight star looked down at the glowing end of his black cigar; many a dawn shrilled with his boatswain's whistle. He was a very, very great man; none was greater in New York town.
It was said of him that he once killed a pompous statesman--by ridicule:
"I know who _you_ are!" panted a ragged urchin, gazing up in awe as the famous statesman approached his waiting carriage.
"And who am I, my little man?"
"You are the great senator from New York."
"Yes--you are right. _But_"--and he solemnly pointed his gloved forefinger toward heaven--"but, remember, there is One even greater than I."
Duane had heard the absurd lampoon as a child, and one evening late in August, smoking his after-dinner cigar beside his father in the empty conservatory, he recalled the story, which had been one of his father's favorites.
But Colonel Mallett scarcely smiled, scarcely heard; and his son watched him furtively. The trim, elastic figure was less upright this summer; the close gray hair and cavalry mustache had turned white very rapidly since spring. For the first time, too, in all his life, Colonel Mallett wore spectacles; and the thin gold rims irritated his ears and the delicate bridge of his nose. Under his pleasant eyes the fine skin had darkened noticeably; thin new lines had sprung downward from the nostrils' clean-cut wings; but the most noticeable change was in his hands, which were no longer firm and fairly smooth, but were now the hands of an old man, restless if not tremulous, unsteady in handling the cigar which, unnoticed, had gone out.
They--father and son--had never been very intimate. An excellent understanding had always existed between them with nothing deeper in it than a natural affection and an instinctive respect for each other's privacy.
This respect now oppressed Duane because long habit, and the understood pact, seemed to bar him from a sympathy and a practical affection which, for the first time, it seemed to him his father might care for.
That his father was worried was plain enough; but how anxious and with how much reason, he had hesitated to ask, waiting for some voluntary admission, or at least some opening, which the older man never gave.
That night, however, he had tried an opening for himself, offering the old stock story which had always, heretofore, amused his father. And there had been no response.
In silence he thought the matter over; his sympathy was always quick; it hurt him to remain aloof when there might be a chance that he could help a little.
"It may amuse you," he said carelessly, "to know how much I've made since I came back from Paris."
The elder man looked up preoccupied. His son went on:
"What you set aside for me brings me ten thousand a year, you know. So far I haven't touched it. Isn't that pretty good for a start?"
Colonel Mallett sat up straighter with a glimmer of interest in his eyes.
Duane went on, checking off on his fingers:
"I got fifteen hundred for Mrs. Varick's portrait, the same for Mrs. James Cray's, a thousand each for portraits of Carl and Friedrich Gumble; that makes five thousand. Then I had three thousand for the music-room I did for Mrs. Ellis; and Dinklespiel Brothers, who handle my pictures, have sold every one I sent; which gives me twelve thousand so far."
"I am perfectly astonished," murmured his father.
Duane laughed. "Oh, I know very well that sheer merit had nothing much to do with it. The people who gave me orders are all your friends. They did it as they might have sent in wedding presents; I am your son; I come back from Paris; it's up to them to do something. They've done it--those who ever will, I expect--and from now on it will be different."
"They've given you a start," said his father.
"They certainly have done that. Many a brilliant young fellow, with more ability than I, eats out his heart unrecognised, sterilised for lack of what came to me because of your influence."
"It is well to look at it in that way for the present," said his father. He sat silent for a while, staring through the dusk at the lighted windows of houses in the rear. Then:
"I have meant to say, Duane, that I--we"--he found a little difficulty in choosing his words--"that the Trust Company's officers feel that, for the present, it is best for them to reconsider their offer that you should undertake the mural decoration of the new building."
"Oh," said Duane, "I'm sorry!--but it's all right, father."
"I told them you'd take it without offence. I told them that I'd tell you the reason we do not feel quite ready to incur, at this moment, any additional expenses."
"Everybody is economising," said Duane cheerfully, "so I understand. No doubt--later----"
"No doubt," said his father gravely.
The son's attitude was careless, untroubled; he dropped one long leg over the other knee, and idly examining his cigar, cast one swift level look at the older man:
"Father?"
"Yes, my son."
"I--it just occurred to me that if you happen to have any temporary use for what you very generously set aside for me, don't stand on ceremony."
There ensued a long silence. It was his bedtime when Colonel Mallett stirred in his holland-covered armchair and stood up.
"Thank you, my son," he said simply; they shook hands and separated; the father to sleep, if he could; the son to go out into the summer night, walk to his nearest club, and write his daily letter to the woman he loved:
"Dear, it is not at all bad in town--not that murderous, humid heat that you think I'm up against; and you must stop reproaching yourself for enjoying the delicious breezes in the Adirondacks. Women don't know what a jolly time men have in town. Follows the chronical of this August day:
"I had your letter; that is breeze enough for me; it was all full of blue sky and big white clouds and the scent of Adirondack pines. Isn't it jolly for you and Kathleen to be at the Varicks' camp! And what a jolly crowd you've run into.
"I note what you say about your return to the Berkshires, and that you expect to be at Berkshire Pass Inn with the motor on Monday. Give my love to Naida; I know you three and young Montross will have a bully tour through the hill country.
"I also note your red-pencil cross at the top of the page--which always gives me, as soon as I open a letter of yours, the assurance that all is still well with you and that victory still remains with you. Thank God! Stand steady, little girl, for the shadows are flying and the dawn is ours.
"After your letter, breakfast with father--a rather silent one. Then he went down-town in his car and I walked to the studio. It's one of those stable-like studios which decorate the cross-streets in the 50's, but big enough to work in.
"A rather bothersome bit of news: the Trust Company reconsiders its commission; and I have three lunettes and three big mural panels practically completed. For a while I'll admit I had the blues, but, after all, some day the Trust Company is likely to take up the thing again and give me the commission. Anyway, I've had a corking time doing the things, and lots of valuable practice in handling a big job and covering large surfaces; and the problem has been most exciting and interesting because, you see, I've had to solve it, taking into consideration the architecture and certain fixed keys and standards, such as the local colour and texture of the marble and the limitations of the light area. Don't turn up your pretty nose; it's all very interesting.
"I didn't bother about luncheon; and about five I went to the club, rather tired in my spinal column and arm-weary.
"Nobody was there whom you know except Delancy Grandcourt and Dysart. The latter certainly looks very haggard. I do not like him personally, as you know, but the man looks ill and old and the papers are becoming bolder in what they hint at concerning him and the operations he was, and is still supposed to be, connected with; and it is deplorable to see such a physical change in any human being, guilty or innocent. I do not like to see pain; I never did. For Dysart I have no use at all, but he is suffering, and it is difficult to contemplate any suffering unmoved.
"There was a letter at the club for me from Scott. He says he's plugging away at the Rose-beetle's life history as a hors-d'oeuvre before tackling the appetising problem of his total extermination. Dear old Scott! I never thought that the boy I fought in your garden would turn into a spectacled savant. Or that his sister would prove to be the only inspiration and faith and hope that life holds for me!
"I talked to Delancy. He _is_ a good young man, as you've always insisted. I know one thing; he's high-minded and gentle. Dysart has a manner of treating him which is most offensive, but it only reflects discredit on Dysart.
"Delancy told me that Rosalie is hostess in her own cottage this month and has asked him up. I heard him speaking rather diffidently to Dysart about it, and Dysart replied that he didn't 'give a damn who went to the house,' as he wasn't going.
"So much for gossip; now a fact or two: my father is plainly worried over the business outlook; and he's quite alone in the house; and that is why I don't go back to Roya-Neh just now and join your brother. I could do plenty of work there. Scott writes that the new studio is in good shape for me. What a generous girl you are! Be certain that at the very first opportunity I will go and occupy it and paint, no doubt, several exceedingly remarkable pictures in it which will sell for enormous prices and enable us to keep a maid-of-all-work when we begin our menage!
"Father has retired--poor old governor--it tears me all to pieces to see him so silent and listless. I am here at the club writing this before I go home to bed. Now I am going. Good-night, my beloved.
"DUANE."
"P.S.--An honour, or the chance of it, has suddenly confronted me, surprising me so much that I don't really dare to believe that it can possibly happen to me--at least not for years. It is this: I met Guy Wilton the other day; you don't know him, but he is a most charming and cultivated man, an engineer. I lunched with him at the Pyramid--that bully old club into which nothing on earth can take a man who has not distinguished himself in his profession. It is composed of professional and business men, the law, the army, navy, diplomatic and consular, the arts and sciences, and usually the chief executive of the nation.
"During luncheon Wilton said: 'You ought to be in here. You are the proper timber.'
"I was astounded and told him so.
"He said: 'By the way, the president of the Academy of Design is very much impressed with some work of yours he has seen. I've heard him, and other artists, also, discussing some pictures of yours which were exhibited in a Fifth Avenue gallery.'
"Well, you know, Geraldine, the breath was getting scarcer in my lungs every minute and I hadn't a word to say. And do you know what that trump of a mining engineer did? He took me about after luncheon and I met a lot of very corking old ducks and some very eminent and delightful younger ducks, and everybody was terribly nice, and the president of the Academy, who is startlingly young and amiable, said that Guy Wilton had spoken about me, and that it was customary that when anybody was proposed for membership, a man of his own profession should do it.
"And I looked over the club list and saw Billy Van Siclen's name, and now what do you think! Billy has proposed me, Austin, the marine painter, has seconded me, and no end of men have written in my behalf--professors, army men, navy men, business friends of father's, architects, writers--and I'm terribly excited over it, although my excitement has plenty of time to cool because it's a fearfully conservative club and a man has to wait years, anyway.
"This is the very great honour, dear, for it is one even to be proposed for the Pyramid. I know you will be happy over it.
"D." The weather became hotter toward the beginning of September; his studio was almost unendurable, nor was the house very much better.
To eat was an effort; to sleep a martyrdom. Night after night he rose from his hot pillows to stand and listen outside his father's door; but the old endure heat better than the young, and very often his father was asleep in the stifling darkness which made sleep for him impossible.
The usual New York thunder-storms rolled up over Staten Island, covered the southwest with inky gloom, veined the horizon with lightning, then burst in spectacular fury over the panting city, drenched it to its steel foundations, and passed on rumbling up the Hudson, leaving scarcely any relief behind it.
In one of these sudden thunder-storms he took refuge in a rather modest and retired restaurant just off Fifth Avenue; and it being the luncheon hour he made a convenience of necessity and looked about for a table, and discovered Rosalie Dysart and Delancy Grandcourt en tete-a-tete over their peach and grapefruit salad.
There was no reason why they should not have been there; no reason why he should have hesitated to speak to them. But he did hesitate--in fact, was retiring by the way he came, when Rosalie glanced around with that instinct which divines a familiar presence, gave him a startled look, coloured promptly to her temples, and recovered her equanimity with a smile and a sign for him to join them. So he shook hands, but remained standing.
"We ran into town in the racer this morning," she explained. "Delancy had something on down-town and I wanted to look over some cross-saddles they made for me at Thompson's. Do be amiable and help us eat our salad. What a ghastly place town is in September! It's bad enough in the country this year; all the men wear long faces and mutter dreadful prophecies. Can you tell me, Duane, what all this doleful talk is about?"
"It's about something harder to digest than this salad. The public stomach is ostrichlike, but it can't stand the water-cure. Which is all Arabic to you, Rosalie, and I don't mean to be impertinent, only the truth is I don't know why people are losing confidence in the financial stability of the country, but they apparently are."
"There's a devilish row on down-town," observed Delancy, blinking, as an unusually heavy clap of thunder rattled the dishes.
"What kind of a row?" asked Duane.
"Greensleeve & Co. have failed, with liabilities of a million and microscopical assets."
Rosalie raised her eyebrows; Greensleeve & Co. were once brokers for her husband if she remembered correctly. Duane had heard of them but was only vaguely impressed.
"Is that rather a bad thing?" he inquired.
"Well--I don't know. It made a noise louder than that thunder. Three banks fell down in Brooklyn, too."
"What banks?"
Delancy named them; it sounded serious, but neither Duane nor Rosalie were any wiser.
"The Wolverine Mercantile Loan and Trust Company closed its doors, also," observed Delancy, dropping the tips of his long, highly coloured fingers into his finger-bowl as though to wash away all personal responsibility for these financial flip-flaps.
Rosalie laughed: "This is pleasant information for a rainy day," she said. "Duane, have you heard from Geraldine?"
"Yes, to-day," he said innocently; "she is leaving Lenox this morning for Roya-Neh. I hear that there is to be some shooting there Christmas week. Scott writes that the boar and deer are increasing very fast and must be kept down. You and Delancy are on the list, I believe."
Rosalie nodded; Delancy said: "Miss Seagrave has been good enough to ask the family. Yours is booked, too, I fancy."
"Yes, if my father only feels up to it. Christmas at Roya-Neh ought to be a jolly affair."
"Christmas anywhere away from New York ought to be a relief," observed young Grandcourt drily.
They laughed without much spirit. Coffee was served, cigarettes lighted. Presently Grandcourt sent a page to find out if the car had returned from the garage where Rosalie had sent it for a minor repair.
The car was ready, it appeared; Rosalie retired to readjust her hair and veil; the two men standing glanced at one another:
"I suppose you know," said Delancy, reddening with embarrassment, "that Mr. and Mrs. Dysart have separated."
"I heard so yesterday," said Duane coolly.
The other grew redder: "I heard it from Mrs. Dysart about half an hour ago." He hesitated, then frankly awkward: "I say, Mallett, I'm a sort of an ass about these things. Is there any impropriety in my going about with Mrs. Dysart--under the circumstances?"
"Why--no!" said Duane. "Rosalie has to go about with people, I suppose. Only--perhaps it's fairer to her if you don't do it too often--I mean it's better for her that any one man should not appear to pay her noticeable attention. You know what mischief can get into print. What's taken below stairs is often swiped and stealthily perused above stairs."
"I suppose so. I don't read it myself, but it makes game of my mother and she finds a furious consolation in taking it to my father and planning a suit for damages once a week. You're right; most people are afraid of it. Do you think it's all right for me to motor back with Mrs. Dysart?"
"Are _you_ afraid?" asked Duane, smiling.
"Only on her account," said Grandcourt, so simply that a warm feeling rose in Duane's heart for this big, ungainly, vividly coloured young fellow whose direct and honest gaze always refreshed people even when they laughed at him.
"Are you driving?" asked Duane.
"Yes. We came in at a hell of a clip. It made my hair stand, but Mrs. Dysart likes it.... I say, Mallett, what sort of an outcome do you suppose there'll be?"
"Between Rosalie and Jack Dysart?"
"Yes."
"I know no more than you, Grandcourt. Why?"
"Only that--it's too bad. I've known them so long; I'm friendly with both. Jack is a curious fellow. There's much of good in him, Mallett, although I believe you and he are not on terms. He is a--I don't mean this for criticism--but sometimes his manner is unfortunate, leading people to consider him overbearing.
"I understand why people think so; I get angry at him, sometimes, myself--being perhaps rather sensitive and very conscious that I am not anything remarkable.
"But, somehow"--he looked earnestly at Duane--"I set a very great value on old friendships. He and I were at school. I always admired in him the traits I myself have lacked.... There is something about an old friendship that seems very important to me. I couldn't very easily break one.... It is that way with me, Mallett.... Besides, when I think, perhaps, that Jack Dysart is a trifle overbearing and too free with his snubs, I go somewhere and cool off; and I think that in his heart he must like me as well as I do him because, sooner or later, we always manage to drift together again.... That is one reason why I am so particular about his wife."
Another reason happened to be that he had been in love with her himself when Dysart gracefully shouldered his way between them and married Rosalie Dene. Duane had heard something about it; and he wondered a little at the loyalty to such a friendship that this young man so naively confessed.
"I'll tell you what I think," said Duane; "I think you're the best sort of an anchor for Rosalie Dysart. Only a fool would mistake your friendship. But the town's full of 'em, Grandcourt," he added with a smile.
"I suppose so.... And I say, Mallett--may I ask you something more?... I don't like to pester you with questions----"
"Go on, my friend. I take it as a clean compliment from a clean-cut man."
Delancy coloured, checked, but presently found voice to continue:
"That's very good of you; I thought I might speak to you about this Greensleeve & Co.'s failure before Mrs. Dysart returns."
"Certainly," said Duane, surprised; "what about them? They acted for Dysart at one time, didn't they?"
"They do now."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I am. I didn't want to say so before Mrs. Dysart. But the afternoon papers have it. I don't know why they take such a malicious pleasure in harrying Dysart--unless on account of his connections with that Yo Espero crowd--what's their names?--Skelton! Oh, yes, James Skelton--and Emanuel Klawber with his thirty millions and his string of banks and trusts and mines; and that plunger, Max Moebus, and old Amos Flack--Flack the hack stalking-horse of every bull-market, who laid down on his own brokers and has done everybody's dirty work ever since. How on earth, Mallett, do you suppose Jack Dysart ever got himself mixed up with such a lot of skyrockets and disreputable fly-by-nights?"
Duane did not answer. He had nothing good to say or think of Dysart.
Rosalie reappeared at that moment in her distractingly pretty pongee motor-coat and hat.
"Do come back with us, Duane," she said. "There's a rumble and we'll get the mud off you with a hose."
"I'd like to run down sometimes if you'll let me," he said, shaking hands.
So they parted, he to return to his studio, where models booked long ahead awaited him for canvases which he was going on with, although the great Trust Company that ordered them had practically thrown them back on his hands.
That evening at home when he came downstairs dressed in white serge for dinner, he found his father unusually silent, very pale, and so tired that he barely tasted the dishes the butler offered, and sat for the most part motionless, head and shoulders sagging against the back of his chair.
And after dinner in the conservatory Duane lighted his father's cigar and then his own.
"What's wrong?" he asked, pleasantly invading the privacy of years because he felt it was the time to do it.
His father slowly turned his head and looked at him--seemed to study the well-knit, loosely built, athletic figure of this strong young man--his only son--as though searching for some support in the youthful strength he gazed upon.
He said, very deliberately, but with a voice not perfectly steady:
"Matters are not going very well, my boy."
"What matters, father?"
"Down-town."
"Yes, I've heard. But, after all, you people in the Half Moon need only crawl into your shell and lie still."
"Yes."
After a silence:
"Father, have you any outside matters that trouble you?"
"There are--some."
"You are not involved seriously?"
His father made an effort: "I think not, Duane."
"Oh, all right. If you were, I was going to suggest that I've deposited what I have, subject to your order, with your own cashier."
"That is--very kind of you, my son. I may--find use for it--for a short time. Would you take my note?"
Duane laughed. He went on presently: "I wrote Naida the other day. She has given me power of attorney. What she has is there, any time you need it."
His father hung his head in silence; only his colourless and shrunken hands worked on the arms of his chair.
"See here, father," said the young fellow; "don't let this thing bother you. Anything that could possibly happen is better than to have you look and feel as you do. Suppose the very worst happens--which it won't--but suppose it did and we all went gaily to utter smash.
"That is a detail compared with your going to smash physically. Because Naida and I never did consider such things vital; and mother is a brick when it comes to a show-down. And as for me, why, if the very worst hits us, I can take care of our bunch. It's in me to do it. I suppose you don't think so. But I can make money enough to keep us together, and, after all, that's the main thing."
His father said nothing.
"Of course," laughed Duane, "I don't for a moment suppose that anything like that is on the cards. I don't know what your fortune is, but judging from your generosity to Naida and me I fancy it's too solid to worry over. The trouble with you gay old capitalists," he added, "is that you think in such enormous sums! And you forget that little sums are required to make us all very happy; and if some of the millions which you cannot possibly ever use happen to escape you, the tragic aspect as it strikes you is out of all proportion to the real state of the case."
His father felt the effort his son was making; looked up wearily, strove to smile, to relight his cigar; which Duane did for him, saying:
"As long as you are not mixed up in that Klawber, Skelton, Moebus crowd, I'm not inclined to worry. It seems, as of course you know, that Dysart's brokers failed to-day."
"So I heard," said his father steadily. He straightened himself in his chair. "I am sorry. Mr. Greensleeve is a very old friend----"
The library telephone rang; the second man entered and asked if Colonel Mallett could speak to Mr. Dysart over the wire on a matter concerning the Yo Espero district.
Duane, astonished, sprang up asking if he might not take the message; then shrank aside as his father got to his feet. He saw the ghastly pallor on his face as his father passed him, moving toward the library; stood motionless in troubled amazement, then walked to the open window of the conservatory and, leaning there, waited.
His father did not return. Later a servant came:
"Colonel Mallett has retired, Mr. Duane, and begs that he be undisturbed, as he is very tired." _