The Deluge Part 32

"If Mr. Blacklock is guilty of circulating false stories against commercial enterprises, as his enemies allege, the penal code can be used to stop him.

But as long as I stay at the head of this bank, no man shall use it for personal vengeance. It is a chartered public inst.i.tution, and all have equal rights to its facilities. I would lend money to my worst enemy, if he came for it with the proper security. I would refuse my best friend, if he could not give security. The funds of a bank are a trust fund, and my duty is to see that they are employed to the best advantage. If you wish other principles to prevail here, you must get another president."

That settled it. No one appreciated more keenly than did Roebuck that character is as indispensable in its place as is craft where the situation demands craft--and is far harder to get.

I shall not relate in detail that campaign against me. It failed not so much because I was strong as because it was weak. Perhaps, if Roebuck and Langdon could have directed it in person, or had had the time to advise with their agents before and after each move, it might have succeeded.

They would not have let exaggeration dominate it and venom show upon its surface; they would not have neglected to follow up advantages, would not have persisted in lines of attack that created public sympathy for me.

They would not have so crudely exploited my unconventional marriage and my financial relations with old Ellersly. But they dared not go near the battle-field; they had to trust to agents whom their orders and suggestions reached by the most roundabout ways; and they were busier with their enterprises that involved immediate and great gain or loss of money.

When Galloway died, they learned that the Coal stocks with which they thought I was loaded down were part of his estate. They satisfied themselves that I was in fact as impregnable as I had warned Langdon. They reversed tactics; Roebuck tried to make it up with me. "If he wants to see me," was my invariable answer to the intimations of his emissaries, "let him come to my office, just as I would go to his, if I wished to see him."

"He is a big man--a dangerous big man," cautioned Joe.

"Big--yes. But strong only against his own kind," replied I. "One mouse can make a whole herd of elephants squeal for mercy."

"It isn't prudent, it isn't prudent," persisted Joe.

"It is not," replied I. "Thank G.o.d, I'm at last in the position I've been toiling to achieve. I don't have to be prudent. I can say and do what I please, without fear of the consequences. I can freely indulge in the luxury of being a man. That's costly, Joe, but it's worth all it could cost."

Joe didn't understand me--he rarely did. "I'm a hen. You're an eagle," said he.

XXIX. A HOUSEWARMING

Joe's daughter, staying on and on at Dawn Hill, was chief lieutenant, if not princ.i.p.al, in my conspiracy to drift Anita day by day further and further into the routine of the new life. Yet neither of us had shown by word or look that a thorough understanding existed between us. My part was to be un.o.btrusive, friendly, neither indifferent nor eager, and I held to it by taking care never to be left alone with Anita; Alva's part was to be herself--simple and natural and sensible, full of life and laughter, mocking at those moods that betray us into the absurdity of taking ourselves too seriously.

I was getting ready a new house in town as a surprise to Anita, and I took Alva into my plot. "I wish Anita's part of the house to be exactly to her liking," said I. "Can't you set her to dreaming aloud what kind of place she would like to live in, what she would like to open her eyes on in the morning, what surroundings she'd like to dress in and read in, and all that?"

Alva had no difficulty in carrying out the suggestions. And by hara.s.sing Westlake incessantly, I succeeded in realizing her report of Anita's dream to the exact shade of the draperies and the silk that covered the walls. By pushing the work, I got the house done just as Alva was warning me that she could not remain longer at Dawn Hill, but must go home and get ready for her wedding. When I went down to arrange with her the last details of the surprise, who should meet me at the station but Anita herself? I took one glance at her serious face and, much disquieted, seated myself beside her in the little trap. Instead of following the usual route to the house, she turned her horse into the bay-sh.o.r.e road.

"Several days ago," she began, as the bend hid the station, "I got a letter from some lawyers, saying that an uncle of mine had given me a large sum of money--a very large sum. I have been inquiring about it, and find it is mine absolutely."

I braced myself against the worst. "She is about to tell me that she is leaving," thought I. But I managed to say: "I'm glad to hear of your luck,"

though I fear my tone was not especially joyous.

"So," she went on, "I am in a position to pay back to you, I think, what my father and Sam took from you. It won't be enough, I'm afraid, to pay what you lost indirectly. But I have told the lawyers to make it all over to you."

I could have laughed aloud. It was too ridiculous, this situation into which I had got myself. I did not know what to say. I could hardly keep out of my face how foolish this collapse of my crafty conspiracy made me feel. And then the full meaning of what she was doing came over me--the revelation of her character. I trusted myself to steal a glance at her; and for the first time I didn't see the thrilling azure sheen over her smooth white skin, though all her beauty was before me, as dazzling as when it compelled me to resolve to win her. No; I saw her, herself--the woman within. I had known from the outset that there was an altar of love within my temple of pa.s.sion. I think that was my first real visit to it.

"Anita!" I said unsteadily. "Anita!"

The color flamed in her cheeks; we were silent for a long time.

"You--your people owe me nothing" I at length found voice to say. "Even if they did, I couldn't and wouldn't take _your_ money. But, believe me, they owe me nothing."

"You can not mislead me," she answered. "When they asked me to become engaged to you, they told me about it."

I had forgotten. The whole repulsive, rotten business came back to me. And, changed man that I had become in the last six months, I saw myself as I had been. I felt that she was looking at me, was reading the degrading confession in my telltale features.

"I will tell you the whole truth," said I. "I did use your father's and your brother's debts to me as a means of getting _to_ you. But, before G.o.d, Anita, I swear I was honest with you when I said to you I never hoped or wished to win you in that way!"

"I believe you," she replied, and her tone and expression made my heart leap with indescribable joy.

Love is sometimes most unwise in his use of the reins he puts on pa.s.sion.

Instead of acting as impulse commanded, I said clumsily, "And I am very different to-day from what I was last spring." It never occurred to me how she might interpret those words.

"I know," she replied. She waited several seconds before adding: "I, too, have changed. I see that I was far more guilty than you. There is no excuse for me. I was badly brought up, as you used to say, but--"

"No--no," I began to protest.

She cut me short with a sad: "You need not be polite and spare my feelings.

Let's not talk of it. Let us go back to the object I had in coming for you to-day."

"You owe me nothing," I repeated. "Your brother and your father settled long ago. I lost nothing through them. And I've learned that if I had never known you, Roebuck and Langdon would still have attacked me."

"What my uncle gave me has been transferred to you," said she, woman fashion, not hearing what she did not care to heed. "I can't make you accept it; but there it is, and there it stays."

"I can not take it," said I. "If you insist on leaving it in my name, I shall simply return it to your uncle."

"I wrote him what I had done," she rejoined. "His answer came yesterday. He approves it."

"Approves it!" I exclaimed.

"You do not know how eccentric he is," she explained, naturally misunderstanding my astonishment. She took a letter from her bosom and handed it to me. I read:

"DEAR MADAM: It was yours to do with as you pleased. If you ever find yourself in the mood to visit, Gull House is open to you, provided you bring no maid. I will not have female servants about.

"Yours truly,

"HOWARD FORRESTER."

"You will consent now, will you not?" she asked, as I lifted my eyes from this characteristic note.

I saw that her peace of mind was at stake. "Yes--I consent."

She gave a great sigh as at the laying down of a heavy burden. "Thank you,"

was all she said, but she put a world of meaning into the words. She took the first homeward turning. We were nearly at the house before I found words that would pave the way toward expressing my thoughts--my longings and hopes.

"You say you have forgiven me," said I. "Then we can be--friends?"

She was silent, and I took her somber expression to mean that she feared I was hiding some subtlety.

"I mean just what I say, Anita," I hastened to explain. "Friends--simply friends." And my manner fitted my words.

She looked strangely at me. "You would be content with that?" she asked.

I answered what I thought would please her. "Let us make the best of our bad bargain," said I. "You can trust me now, don't you think you can?"