A Little Journey in the World Part 22

"Wouldn't he be satisfied with an LL.D.?" Morgan asked.

"I don't see," my wife said, "any difference between the two cases stated and that of the stock gambler, whose unscrupulous operations have ruined thousands of people, who founds a theological seminary with the gains of his slippery transactions. By accepting his seminary the public condones his conduct. Another man, with the same shaky reputation, endows a college. Do you think that religion and education are benefited in the long-run by this? It seems to me that the public is gradually losing its power of discrimination between the value of honesty and dishonesty. Real respect is gone when the public sees that a man is able to buy it."

This was a hot speech for my wife to make. For a moment Margaret flamed up under it with her old-time indignation. I could see it in her eyes, and then she turned red and confused, and at length said:

"But wouldn't you have rich men do good with their money?"

"Yes, dear, but I would not have them think they can blot out by their liberality the condemnation of the means by which many of them make money. That is what they are doing, and the public is getting used to it."

"Well," said Margaret, with some warmth, "I don't know that they are any worse than the stingy saints who have made their money by saving, and act as if they expected to carry it with them."

"Saints or sinners, it does not make much difference to me," now put in Mrs. Fletcher, who was evidently considering the question from a practical point of view, "what a man professes, if he founds a hospital for indigent women out of the dividends that I never received."

Morgan laughed. "Don't you think, Mrs. Fletcher, that it is a good sign of the times, that so many people who make money rapidly are disposed to use it philanthropically?"

"It may be for them, but it does not console me much just now."

"But you don't make allowance enough for the rich. Perhaps they are under a necessity of doing something. I was reading this morning in the diary of old John Ward of Stratford-on-Avon this sentence: 'It was a saying of Navisson, a lawyer, that no man could be valiant unless he hazarded his body, nor rich unless he hazarded his soul.'"

"Was Navisson a modern lawyer?" I asked.

"No; the diary is dated 1648-1679."

"I thought so."

There was a little laugh at this, and the talk drifted off into a consideration of the kind of conscience that enables a professional man to espouse a cause he knows to be wrong as zealously as one he knows to be right; a talk that I should not have remembered at all, except for Margaret's earnestness in insisting that she did not see how a lawyer could take up the dishonest side.

Before Margaret went to Lenox, Henderson spent a few days with us.

He brought with him the abounding cheerfulness, and the air of a prosperous, smiling world, that attended him in all circ.u.mstances. And how happy Margaret was! They went over every foot of the ground on which their brief courtship had taken place, and Heaven knows what joy there was to her in reviving all the tenderness and all the fear of it! Busy as Henderson was, pursued by hourly telegrams and letters, we could not but be gratified that his attention to her was that of a lover. How could it be otherwise, when all the promise of the girl was realized in the bloom and the exquisite susceptibility of the woman? Among other things, she dragged him down to her mission in the city, to which he went in a laughing and bantering mood. When he had gone away, Margaret ran over to my wife, bringing in her hand a slip of paper.

"See that!" she cried, her eyes dancing with pleasure. It was a check for a thousand dollars. "That will refurnish the mission from top to bottom," she said, "and run it for a year."

"How generous he is!" cried my wife. Margaret did not reply, but she looked at the check, and there were tears in her eyes.

XV

The Arbuser cottage at Lenox was really a magnificent villa. Richardson had built it. At a distance it had the appearance of a mediaeval structure, with its low doorways, picturesque gables, and steep roofs, and in its situation on a gentle swell of green turf backed by native forest-trees it imparted to the landscape an ancestral tone which is much valued in these days. But near to, it was seen to be mediaevalism adapted to the sunny hospitality of our summer climate, with generous verandas and projecting balconies shaded by gay awnings, and within s.p.a.cious, open to the breezes, and from its broad windows offering views of lawns and flower-beds and ornamental trees, of a great sweep of pastures and forests and miniature lakes, with graceful and reposeful hills on the horizon.

It was, in short, the modern idea of country simplicity. The pa.s.sion for country life, which has been in decadence for nearly half a century, has again become the fashion. Nature, which, left to itself, is a little ragged, not to say monotonous and tiresome, is discovered to be a valuable ally for aid in pa.s.sing the time when art is able to make portions of it exclusive. What the Arbusers wanted was a simple home in the country, and in obtaining it they were indulging a sentiment of returning to the primitive life of their father, who had come to the city from a hill farm, and had been too busy all his life to recur to the tastes of his boyhood. At least that was the theory of his daughters; but the old gentleman had a horror of his early life, and could scarcely be dragged away from the city even in the summer. He would no doubt have been astonished at the lofty and substantial stone stables, the long range of greenhouses, and at a farm which produced nothing except lawns and flower-beds, ornamental fields of clover, avenues of trees, lawn-tennis grounds, and a few Alderneys tethered to feed among the trees, where their beauty would heighten the rural and domestic aspect of the scene. The Arbusers liked to come to this place as early as possible to escape the society exactions of the city. That was another theory of theirs. All their set in the city met there for the same purpose.

Margaret was welcomed with open arms.

"We have been counting the days," said the elder of the sisters. "Your luggage has come, your rooms are all ready, and your coachman, who has been here some days, says that the horses need exercise. Everybody is here, and we need you for a hundred things."

"You are very kind. It is so charming here. I knew it would be, but I couldn't bear to shorten my visit in Brandon."

"Your aunt must miss you very much. Is she well?"

"Perfectly."

"Wouldn't she have come with you? I've a mind to telegraph."

"I think not. She is wedded to quiet, and goes away from her little neighborhood with reluctance."

"So Brandon was a little dull?" said Miss Arbuser, with a shrewd guess at the truth.

"Oh no," quickly replied Margaret, shrinking a little from what was in her own mind; "it was restful and delightful; but you know that we New England people take life rather seriously, and inquire into the reason of things, and want an object in life."

"A very good thing to have," answered this sweet woman of the world, whose object was to go along pleasantly and enjoy it.

"But to have it all the time!" Margaret suggested, lightly, as she ran up-stairs. But even in this suggestion she was conscious of a twinge of disloyalty to her former self. Deep down in her heart, coming to the atmosphere of Lenox was a relief from questionings that a little disturbed her at her old home, and she was indignant at herself that it should be so, and then indignant at the suggestions that put her out of humor with herself. Was it a sin, she said, to be happy and prosperous?

On her dressing-table was a letter from her husband. He was detained in the city by a matter of importance. He scratched only a line, to catch the mail, during a business interview. It was really only a business interview, and had no sort of relation to Lenox or the summer gayety there.

Henderson was in his private office. The clerks in the outer offices, in the neglige of summer costumes, winked to each other as they saw old Jerry Hollowell enter and make his way to the inner room unannounced.

Something was in the wind.

"Well, old man," said Uncle Jerry, in the cheeriest manner, coming in, depositing his hat on the table, and taking a seat opposite Henderson, "we seem to have stirred up the animals."

"Only a little flurry," replied Henderson, laying down his pen and folding a note he had just finished; "they'll come to reason."

"They've got to." Mr. Hollowell drew out a big bandanna and mopped his heated face. "I've just got a letter from Jorkins. There's the certificates that make up the two-thirds-more than we need, anyway. No flaw about that, is there?"

"No. I'll put these with the balance in the safe. It's all right, if Jorkins has been discreet. It may make a newspaper scandal if they get hold of his operations."

"Oh, Jorkins is close. But he is a little overworked. I don't know but it would do him good to have a little nervous prostration and go abroad for a while."

"I guess it would do Jorkins good to take a turn in Europe for a year or so."

"Well, you write to him. Give him a sort of commission to see the English bondholders, and explain the situation. They will appreciate that half a loaf is better than no bread. What bothers me is the way the American bondholders take it. They kick."

"Let 'em kick. The public don't care for a few soreheads and impracticables in an operation that is going to open up the whole Southwest. I've an appointment with one of them this morning. He ought to be here now."

At the moment Henderson's private secretary entered and laid on the table the card of Mr. John Hopper, who was invited to come in at once.

Mr. Hopper was a man of fifty, with iron-gray hair, a heavy mustache, and a smooth-shaven chin that showed resolution. In dress and manner his appearance was that of the shrewd city capitalist--quiet and determined, who is neither to be deceived nor bullied. With a courteous greeting to both the men, whom he knew well, he took a seat and stated his business.

"I have called to see you, Mr. Henderson, about the bonds of the A. and B., and I am glad to find Mr. Hollowell here also."

"What amount do you represent, Mr. Hopper?" asked Henderson.

"With my own and my friends', altogether, rising a million. What do you propose?"

"You got our circular?"

"Yes, and we don't accept the terms."