White Ashes Part 43

"So do I," returned the other. "By the way, did you notice the market to-day?"

"No."

"Closed weak. Schuylkill and Susquehanna off two points and a half."

"Too bad we didn't get out of that, too," said Smith. "I remember you said it was too high."

"It still is," returned the financier, dryly. "But we got out. We sold every share we had, at the opening, this morning."

Smith looked at him.

"You mean--?" he asked.

"I mean that a good big cash balance is often a handy thing to have.

And just now I'd rather have cash than stocks. I don't mean there's going to be a panic, or anything like that, but everything's very high.

They may go some higher, but they'll certainly go a good deal lower.

And I don't think that we'll have to wait very long. Good-night--glad to have seen you."

"Good-night," replied Smith, thoughtfully.

CHAPTER XX

In the Deerfield Street apartment a young man stood waiting with perhaps less calm than was strictly Oriental. This could no doubt be attributed to the fact that he antic.i.p.ated with distinct pleasure the coming of somebody, while a true Oriental never really antic.i.p.ates anything--or if he does, the thought gives him no delight.

But Smith, as he sat in the straight-backed chair, felt very glad indeed that he was about to see the somebody for whom he was waiting.

The time which had elapsed since his most recent trip to Boston had somehow gone with unconscionable slowness, and the medium of the mails had proved an alternative means of communication only measurably compensating. He had, in short, discovered that a great deal of his life was concerned with the girl whose footsteps were now to be heard advancing down the hall.

"I'm awfully glad to see you," said Miss Maitland.

"And I you," returned the visitor; and if the words carried only the conventionalities, each found a way to make them more significant.

"Mother will be in to welcome you," the girl continued. "It's a compliment she doesn't pay everyone," she added, with a smile. "She doesn't care, as a rule, for young gentlemen visitors. By the way, we have plenty of time, have we not, before we need to start?"

"Fully twenty minutes," he answered. "I guess I'm absurdly early, but I thought I ought to give the young lady an opportunity to get acquainted with me before starting out alone with me in a taxi."

"Are we ever acquainted with any one?" the girl parried; and a moment later the conversation shifted to meet the entrance of Mrs. Maitland.

Shortly before eight o'clock they set forth for the theater. It was the evening of the twenty-first of February, and the following day, Sunday, was also a holiday in memory of a great man. It was of him that they chanced to speak, almost on entering their conveyance.

"I'm glad to-morrow is a holiday," said Smith. "After a party on the previous night it is always soothing to think one isn't obliged to get up at any particular hour in the morning. But I don't suppose that point of view would appeal to you."

"No," said his companion, with a laugh. "I much prefer having something particular to get up for. But as I seldom have, I presume that's merely another way of saying that every one wants what one hasn't got. I fancy if I had to appear punctually at breakfast every morning, I'd appreciate holidays a great deal more than I do now."

"I used to think we had too many. That was because it tears things up so abominably in an insurance office to get two or three days' work slammed at you at once. But I'm reconciled now. And if we celebrate for any one, we certainly ought to do so for George."

"Seriously speaking, why?" Helen asked. "Probably I should be ashamed of myself, but I've never been able to get up as much enthusiasm for him as I feel I should. Can you tell me any way of doing so?"

"I can tell you how I came to, at all events," said her companion.

"The story may not be so romantic, but it made more of a hit with me than the account of the same heroic gentleman nearly freezing to death at Valley Forge, or standing up in a boat while he crossed the Delaware, which is a silly thing to do, even for a hero. Nothing of that sort. But somewhere--I forget just where--I ran across the account of a little episode which showed me that the General was a man of real ability, after all."

"What was it?" asked the girl, with interest.

"Well, it seems that some earnest society of antiquaries had been digging up the back yards of Rhode Island and making idiots of themselves generally in an effort to prove that the Vikings came to America."

"But they did come, didn't they?" Helen interrupted.

"Of course they did; but it wasn't known in Washington's time.

However, somebody with a vein of enterprise or malice had salted a Viking mine, so to speak, and under the auspices--and the pay--of the society had contrived to exhume a stone tablet on which were some extremely apropos inscriptions, proving exactly what the amiable old gentlemen desired to prove."

"About the Vikings?"

"Yes. Well, the discovery of this tablet made a deep impression. The society held meetings and pa.s.sed resolutions and went through all kinds of ponderous and absurd conventionalities, culminating in asking General Washington--at that time I don't believe he was President--to make a speech. He came over from Boston, and they showed him the tablet. And after he had looked it carefully over, he casually called their attention to the fact that the inscription, which was supposed to have been cut in the eleventh century, contained script characters which appeared in no northern alphabet prior to the sixteen hundreds.

And what is more, when they looked it up, they found that he was right."

"That is really very interesting," Helen said.

"It gave me a respect for him that I'd never had before, anyway,"

rejoined Smith. "Think of the old General knowing anything at all about Icelandic sagas--and the offhand way he picked out the anachronism and smashed it in the eye. No--so far as I am concerned, he is ent.i.tled to his holiday. Long may it wave--especially as I hope to see you, if you'll let me, while if it were an ordinary business day I should probably have to devote myself to certain distinguished legal gentlemen."

"How is the lawsuit progressing?" asked the girl.

Smith surveyed her doubtfully.

"Have you seen Mr. Osgood recently?" he inquired suspiciously. "One time, you remember, you made me tell a long story all of which you knew perfectly well before I began."

"No--honestly," Helen laughingly denied. "I have hardly seen Uncle Silas for two or three weeks, and the last time we met, he said nothing about it."

"Well, then, in confidence it is my hope and belief that unless our present expectations fall through with a sickening thud, another month or two will see the Guardian and your uncle back in the office that neither of them should ever have left."

"Not really!" said the girl, delighted.

"I have no longer any real doubt of it," Smith said seriously. "It can hardly fail now. I don't mind saying to you that it's about time, too.

The Conference has made a good fight; but they were beaten from the start, and they know it now. And I'll be very glad to see some Boston business coming in to us again, I can a.s.sure you."

"Haven't you been getting any this last year?"

"Only a little, princ.i.p.ally suburban business through a small agent named George Greenwood. Of course we got a lot through Sternberg, Bloom, and McCoy, but it was so bad that I canceled nearly every policy they wrote for us. All the Guardian has left in the down-town district is some building business--a few lines written by the Osgood office for three or five years, and which haven't expired yet. And there aren't many of them, for Cole switched some into the Salamander, and besides, we always tried to keep our congested district business on an annual basis. If Boston burned to-morrow, I don't believe the Guardian would lose more than a hundred thousand dollars."

"That sounds to me like quite a loss."

"So it is, but it's only a small fraction of what most companies have at risk here. I'm really not sure but that a year ago we didn't have more than we should. I certainly know a lot of companies that would sit up and take notice with a vengeance if a big fire ever did occur."

"Do you think one likely?" asked Helen. "It makes one shudder just a little to think of it."

"No--probably not. Still, there's really no reason why one shouldn't happen here as well as elsewhere. And big fires are certain to happen somewhere. The city's improving right along, but it's still got its possibilities."