Paradise Garden Part 20

"Yes, I know, but it comes hard. It seems that I'm frightfully rich.

In fact, n.o.body seems to know how rich I am. I've got millions and millions, twenty--thirty perhaps. So much that it staggers me. It's like the idea of infinity or perpetuity. I can't grasp it at all. It's piling up in new investments, just piling up and nothing can stop it."

"You don't want to stop it, do you?"

"But if it was only doing some good--When I see the misery all about--"

"Wait a bit. You're putting the cart before the horse, my boy. There's no sin in being rich, in piling it up, as you say, if you're not doing anybody any harm. Have you ever thought of the thousands who work for you, of the lands, the railroads, the steamships, the mills, all carrying and producing--producing, Jerry, helping people to live, to work? Isn't it something to have a share in building up your country?"

"But not the lion's share. It's so impersonal, Roger. My companies may be helping, but I'm not. I want to help people myself."

"That's just what I'm getting at. The more money you make, the more people you can help," I laughed. "It's simplicity itself."

"In theory, yes. But I see where it's leading me. If I go on making money, where will I find the time to give it away? It seems to be a pa.s.sion with these men getting more--always more. I don't want to get like Ballard or Stewardson. And I _won't!"_

He snapped his jaws together and strode with long steps the length of the room.

"I _won't_, Roger," he repeated. "And I've told 'em so."

I remained silent for a moment, gazing at the portrait of John Benham on the wall opposite me. He had a jaw like Jerry's, not so well turned and the lips were thinner, a hard man, a merciless man in business, a man of mystery and hidden impulses. The boy was keen enough, I knew, when it came to a question of right and wrong. There was some ancient history for Jerry to learn. Did Jerry already suspect the kind of man his father had been?

"You're sure that you're right?" I asked quietly.

"Positive. It's all very well to talk about those my money helps, but it harms, too. If anything gets in the way of Ballard's interests or mine, he crushes 'em like egg-sh.e.l.ls. My father--"

Jerry hesitated, repeated the word and then paced the floor silently for a moment. I thought it wise to remain silent.

"Oh, I know what it all means to those men. Power! Always! More power!

And I don't want it if it's going to make me the kind of man that Henry Ballard is, blind to beauty, deaf to the voice of compa.s.sion, a piece of machinery, as coldly scientific in his charities as he is in the--"

"But that's necessary, Jerry," I broke in. "A man of Henry Ballard's wealth must plan to put his money where it will do the most good--"

"Or where it will magnify the name of Henry Ballard," he said quickly.

"Oh, I don't know much yet, but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing isn't what Christ meant."

He threw out his arms in a wide gesture. "Roger, I've talked to some of these poor people. There's something wrong with these charity organizations. They're too cold. They patronize too much. They don't get under the skin."

"You haven't wasted a great deal of time," I remarked when he paused.

He smiled. "Well, you know, I couldn't sit in a club window and watch the buses go by."

"Have you declared these revolutionary sentiments to your executors?"

I asked after awhile.

He threw himself in an armchair and sighed.

"I suppose I ought to say that Mr. Ballard has been very patient with me. He was. I told him that I didn't want any more money, that I had enough. I think I rather startled him, for he looked at me for a long while over the half-moons in his gla.s.ses before he spoke.

"'I don't think you realize the seriousness (he wanted to say enormity but didn't) of your point of view. There's no standing still in this world,' he said. 'If you don't go ahead, you're going to go back.

That's all very well for you personally if you choose to remain idle, but it won't do where great financial interests are involved. I want to try to make you understand that a going concern moves of its own momentum. But it's so heavy that once you stop it, it won't go again.

The thought of abandoning your career is in itself hazardous. I hope you will not repeat the sentiments you have expressed to me elsewhere.

If the street heard what you have just said there would be a fall in your securities which might be disastrous.'

"'But other people would benefit, wouldn't they?' I asked.

"He glared at me, speechless, Roger, and got very red in the face.

'And this,' he stammered at last, 'is the fine result of your Utopia.

Ideals! Dreams! My G.o.d! If your father could hear you--he'd rise in his grave!'

"I'm just what he made me,' I said coolly.

"He stared at me again as though he hadn't heard what I had said.

"'Do you mean that you're going to abandon this career we've made for you, the most wonderful that could be given mortal man?' he asked, though his tone was not pleasant.

"I did owe him a lot, you see. He's true to his own ideals, though they're not mine. And I was very uncomfortable.

"'I hope you won't think me ungrateful, Mr. Ballard,' I said as calmly as I could. 'In some ways you've been very like a father to me. I want you to understand that I appreciate all that you and the other co-executors have done for me. I've been very happy. But I want you to know, if you don't know it already, that I'm very stupid about business. It bewilders me. I'll try as hard as I can to please you and will do my best at it, but you can understand that that won't be very much when my heart isn't in it. I don't want to see the Benham securities fall, because that would hurt you, too. I'll keep silent for awhile and do just what you want me to do. But I don't want any more money. The responsibility, the weight of it, oppresses me. I'm too simple, if you like, but I don't think I'll change.'

"'And what,' he asked slowly when I stopped, 'what do you propose to do with all this money we've kept together for you?'

"His voice was low, but his face was purple and he snapped his words off short as if their utterance hurt him.

"'With your permission, sir,' I said quietly, 'I expect to give a great deal of it away.'

"Roger, he couldn't speak for rage. He glared at me again and then, jamming his hat on his head, stalked stiffly out. Oh, I've made a mess of things, I suppose," he sighed, "but I can't help it. I'm sick of the whole miserable business."

I made no comment. I had foreseen this interview, but it had come much sooner than I had expected. I felt that I had known Jerry's mind and what he would do eventually, but it was rather startling that he had come to so momentous a decision and had expressed it so vigorously at the very outset of his career. It was curious, too, as I remembered things that had gone before, how nearly his resolution coincided with the one boyishly confessed to the female, Una Smith, in the cabin in the woods last summer. At the time, I recalled, the matter had made no great impression upon me. I had not believed that Jerry could realize what he was promising. But here he was reiterating the promise at the very seats of the mighty.

The subject was too vast a one for me to grasp at once. I wanted to think about it. Besides, he didn't ask my advice. I don't think he really wanted it. I looked at Jerry's chin. It _was_ square. For all his sophistries, Jack Ballard was no mean judge of human nature.

CHAPTER X

MARCIA

Jerry came down to the breakfast table attired in tweeds of a rather violent pattern, knickerbockers and spats. He wore a plaid shirt with turnover cuffs, a gay scarf and a handkerchief just showing a neat triangle of the same color at his upper coat pocket. This handkerchief, he informed me airily, was his "show-er." He kept the "blow-er" in his trousers. At all events, he was much pleased when I told him that the symphony was complete.

"The linen, _allegro_, the cravat, _adagio con amore_, the suit--there's too much of the _scherzo_ in the suit, my boy."

"_Con amore?_" he asked, looking up from his oatmeal.

"Yes," I said calmly, for not until this moment had I guessed the truth. "_Con amore_," I repeated. "I could hardly have hoped, if Miss Marcia Van Wyck had not come to the neighborhood, that you would have done me the honor of a visit."

It was a random shot, but it struck home, for he reddened ever so slightly.

"How did you know? Who--who told you?" he stammered awkwardly.