The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metropolis, by Upton Sinclair
#10 in our series by Upton Sinclair

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: The Metropolis

Author: Upton Sinclair

Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5421]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on July 14, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS ***




This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net).





THE METROPOLIS

BY

UPTON SINCLAIR

FIRST PUBLISHED 1908

PRINTED BY OFFSET IN GREAT BRITAIN






CHAPTER I





"Return at ten-thirty," the General said to his chauffeur, and then
they entered the corridor of the hotel.

Montague gazed about him, and found himself trembling just a little
with anticipation. It was not the magnificence of the place. The
quiet uptown hotel would have seemed magnificent to him, fresh as he
was from the country; but, he did hot see the marblo columns and the
gilded carvings-he was thinking of the men he was to meet. It seemed
too much to crowd into one day-first the vision of the whirling,
seething city, the centre of all his hopes of the future; and then,
at night, this meeting, overwhelming him with the crowded memories
of everything that he held precious in the past.

There were groups of men in faded uniforms standing about in the
corridors. General Prentice bowed here and there as they retired and
took the elevator to the reception-rooms. In the doorway they passed
a stout little man with stubby white moustaches, and the General
stopped, exclaiming, "Hello, Major!" Then he added: "Let me
introduce Mr. Allan Montague. Montague, this is Major Thorne."

A look of sudden interest flashed across the Major's face. "General
Montague's son?" he cried. And then he seized the other's hand in
both of his, exclaiming, "My boy! my boy! I'm glad to see you!"

Now Montague was no boy--he was a man of thirty, and rather sedate
in his appearance and manner; there was enough in his six feet one
to have made two of the round and rubicund little Major. And yet it
seemed to him quite proper that the other should address him so. He
was back in his boyhood to-night--he was a boy whenever anyone
mentioned the name of Major Thorne.

"Perhaps you have heard your father speak of me?" asked the Major,
eagerly; and Montague answered, "A thousand times."

He was tempted to add that the vision that rose before him was of a
stout gentleman hanging in a grape-vine, while a whole battery of
artillery made him their target.

Perhaps it was irreverent, but that was what Montague had always
thought of, ever since he had first laughed over the tale his father
told. It had happened one January afternoon in the Wilderness,
during the terrible battle of Chancellorsville, when Montague's
father had been a rising young staff-officer, and it had fallen to
his lot to carry to Major Thorne what was surely the most terrifying
order that ever a cavalry officer received. It was in the crisis of
the conflict, when the Army of the Potomac was reeling before the
onslaught of Stonewall Jackson's columns. There was no one to stop
them-and yet they must be stopped, for the whole right wing of the
army was going. So that cavalry regiment had charged full tilt
through the thickets, and into a solid wall of infantry and
artillery. The crash of their volley was blinding--and horses wore
fairly shot to fragments; and the Major's horse, with its lower jaw
torn off, had plunged madly away and left its rider hanging in the
aforementioned grape-vine. After he had kicked himself loose, it was
to find himself in an arena where pain-maddened horses and frenzied
men raced about amid a rain of minie-balls and canister. And in this
inferno the gallant Major had captured a horse, and rallied the
remains of his shattered command, and held the line until help
came-and then helped to hold it, all through the afternoon and the
twilight and the night, against charge after charge.--And now to
stand and gaze at this stout and red-nosed little personage, and
realize that these mighty deeds had been his!

Then, even while Montague was returning his hand-clasp and telling
him of his pleasure, the Major's eye caught some one across the
room, and he called eagerly, "Colonel Anderson! Colonel Anderson!"

And this was the heroic Jack Anderson! "Parson" Anderson, the men
had called him, because he always prayed before everything he did.
Prayers at each mess,--a prayer-meeting in the evening,--and then
rumour said the Colonel prayed on while his men slept. With his
battery of artillery trained to perfection under three years of
divine guidance, the gallant Colonel had stood in the line of battle
at Cold Harbour--name of frightful memory!--and when the enemy had
swarmed out of their intrenchments and swept back the whole line
just beyond him, his battery had stood like a cape in a storm-beaten
ocean, attacked on two sides at once; and for the half-hour that
elapsed before infantry support came up, the Colonel had ridden
slowly up and down his line, repeating in calm and godly accents,
"Give 'em hell, boys--give 'em hell!"--The Colonel's hand trembled
now as he held it out, and his voice was shrill and cracked as he
told what pleasure it gave him to meet General Montague's son.

"Why have we never seen you before?" asked Major Thorne. Montague
replied that he had spent all his life in Mississippi--his father
having married a Southern woman after the war. Once every year the
General had come to New York to attend the reunion of the Loyal
Legion of the State; but some one had had to stay at home with his
mother, Montague explained.

There were perhaps a hundred men in the room, and he was passed
about from group to group. Many of them had known his father
intimately. It seemed almost uncanny to him to meet them in the
body; to find them old and feeble, white-haired and wrinkled. As
they lived in the chambers of his memory, they were in their mighty
youth-heroes, transfigured and radiant, not subject to the power of
time.

Life on the big plantation had been a lonely one, especially for a
Southern-born man who had fought in the Union army. General Montague
had been a person of quiet tastes, and his greatest pleasure had
been to sit with his two boys on his knees and "fight his battles
o'er again." He had collected all the literature of the corps which
he had commanded--a whole librarry of it, in which Allan had learned
to find his way as soon as he could read. He had literally been
brought up on the war--for hours he would lie buried in some big
illustrated history, until people came and called him away. He
studied maps of campaigns and battle-fields, until they became alive
with human passion and struggle; he knew the Army of the Potomac by
brigade and division, with the names of commanders, and their faces,
and their ways-until they lived and spoke, and the bare roll of
their names had power to thrill him.--And now here were the men
themselves, and all these scenes and memories crowding upon him in
tumultuous throngs. No wonder that he was a little dazed, and could
hardly find words to answer when he was spoken to.

But then came an incident which called him suddenly back to the
world of the present. "There is Judge Ellis," said the General.

Judge Ellis! The fame of his wit and eloquence had reached even far
Mississippi--was there any remotest corner of America where men had
not heard of the silver tongue of Judge Ellis? "Cultivate him!"
Montague's brother Oliver had laughed, when it was mentioned that
the Judge would be present--"Cultivate him--he may be useful."

It was not difficult to cultivate one who was as gracious as Judge
Ellis. He stood in the doorway, a smooth, perfectly groomed
gentleman, conspicuous in the uniformed assembly by his evening
dress. The Judge was stout and jovial, and cultivated Dundreary
whiskers and a beaming smile. "General Montague's son!" he
exclaimed, as he pressed the young man's hands. "Why, why--I'm
surprised! Why have we never seen you before?"

Montague explained that he had only been in New York about six
hours. "Oh, I see," said the Judge. "And shall you remain long?"

"I have come to stay," was the reply.

"Well, well!" said the other, cordially. "Then we may see more of
you. Are you going into business?"

"I am a lawyer," said Montague. "I expect to practise."

The Judge's quick glance had been taking the measure of the tall,
handsome man before him, with his raven-black hair and grave
features. "You must give us a chance to try your mettle," he said;
and then, as others approached to meet him, and he was forced to
pass on, he laid a caressing hand on Montague's arm, whispering,
with a sly smile, "I mean it."

Montague felt his heart beat a little faster. He had not welcomed
his brother's suggestion--there was nothing of the sycophant in him;
but he meant to work and to succeed, and he knew what the favour of
a man like Judge Ellis would mean to him. For the Judge was the idol
of New York's business and political aristocracy, and the doorways
of fortune yielded at his touch.

There were rows of chairs in one of the rooms, and here two or three
hundred men were gathered. There were stands of battle-flags in the
corners, each one of them a scroll of tragic history, to one like
Montague, who understood. His eye roamed over them while the
secretary was reading minutes of meetings and other routine
announcements. Then he began to study the assemblage. There were men
with one arm and men with one leg--one tottering old soldier ninety
years of age, stone blind, and led about by his friends. The Loyal
Legion was an officers' organization, and to that extent
aristocratic; but worldly success counted for nothing in it--some of
its members were struggling to exist on their pensions, and were as
much thought of as a man like General Prentice, who was president ot
one of the city's largest banks, and a rich man, even in New York's
understanding of that term.

The presiding officer introduced "Colonel Robert gelden, who will
read the paper of the evening: 'Recollections of Spottsylvania.'"
Montague started at the name--for "Bob" Selden had been one of his
father's messmates, and had fought all through the Peninsula
Campaign at his side.

He was a tall, hawk-faced man with a grey imperial. The room was
still as he arose, and after adjusting his glasses, he began to read
his story. He recalled the situation of the Army of the Potomac in
the spring of 1846; for three years it had marched and fought,
stumbling through defeat after defeat, a mighty weapon, lacking only
a man who could wield it. Now at last the man had come--one who
would put them into the battle and give them a chance to fight. So
they had marched into the Wilderness, and there Lee struck them, and
for three days they groped in a blind thicket, fighting hand to
hand, amid suffocating smoke. The Colonel read in a quiet,
unassuming voice; but one could see that he had hold of his hearers
by the light that crossed their features when he told of the army's
recoil from the shock, and of the wild joy that ran through the
ranks when they took up their march to the left, and realized that
this time they were not going back.--So they came to the twelve
days' grapple of the Spottsylvania Campaign.

There was still the Wilderness thicket; the enemy's intrenchments,
covering about eight miles, lay in the shape of a dome, and at the
cupola of it were breastworks of heavy timbers banked with earth,
and with a ditch and a tangle of trees in front. The place was the
keystone of the Confederate arch, and the name of it was "the
Angle"--"Bloody Angle!" Montague heard the man who sat next to him
draw in his breath, as if a spasm of pain had shot through him.

At dawn two brigades had charged and captured the place. The enemy
returned to the attack, and for twenty hours thereafter the two
armies fought, hurling regiment after regiment and brigade after
brigade into the trenches. There was a pouring rain, and the smoke
hung black about them; they could only see the flashes of the guns,
and the faces of the enemy, here and there.

The Colonel described the approach of his regiment. They lay down
for a moment in a swamp, and the minie-balls sang like swarming
bees, and split the blades of the grass above them. Then they
charged, over ground that ran with human blood. In the trenches the
bodies of dead and dying men lay three deep, and were trampled out
of sight in the mud by the feet of those who fought. They would
crouch behind the works, lifting their guns high over their heads,
and firing into the throngs on the other side; again and again men
sprang upon the breastworks and fired their muskets, and then fell
dead. They dragged up cannon, one after another, and blew holes
through the logs, and raked the' ground with charges of canister.

While the Colonel read, still in his calm, matter-of-fact voice, you
might see men leaning forward in their chairs, hands clenched, teeth
set. They knew! They knew! Had there ever before been a time in
history when breastworks had been charged by artillery? Twenty-four
men in the crew of one gun, and only two unhurt! One iron
sponge-bucket with thirty-nine bullet holes shot through it! And
then blasts of canister sweeping the trenches, and blowing scores of
living and dead men to fragments! And into this hell of slaughter
new regiments charging, in lines four deep! And squad after squad of
the enemy striving to surrender, and shot to pieces by their own
comrades as they clambered over the blood-soaked walls! And heavy
timbers in the defences shot to splinters! Huge oak trees--one of
them twenty-four inches in diameter--crashing down upon the
combatants, gnawed through by rifle-bullets! Since the world began
had men ever fought like that?

Then the Colonel told of his own wound in the shoulder, and how,
toward dusk, he had crawled away; and how he became lost, and
strayed into the enemy's line, and was thrust into a batch of
prisoners and marched to the rear. And then of the night that he
spent beside a hospital camp in the Wilderness, where hundreds of
wounded and dying men lay about on the rain-soaked ground, moaning,
screaming, praying to be killed. Again the prisoners were moved,
having been ordered to march to the railroad; and on the way the
Colonel went blind from suffering and exhaustion, and staggered and
fell in the road. You could have heard a pin drop in the room, in
the pause between sentences in his story, as he told how the guard
argued with him to persuade him to go on. It was their duty to kill
him if he refused, but they could not bring themselves to do it. In
the end they left the job to one, and he stood and cursed the
officer, trying to get up his courage; and finally fired his gun
into the air, and went off and left him.

Then he told how an old negro had found him, and how he lay
delirious; and how, at last, the army marched his way. He ended his
narrative the simple sentence: "It was not until the siege of
Petersburg that I was able to rejoin my Command."

There was a murmur of applause; and then silence. Suddenly, from
somewhere in the room, came the sound of singing--"Mine eyes have
seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" The old battle-hymn
seemed to strike the very mood of the meeting; the whole throng took
it up, and they sang it, stanza by stanza. It was rolling forth like
a mighty organ-chant as they came to the fervid closing:--

"He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He
is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat; Oh! be
swift, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet,--Our God is
marching on!"

There was a pause again; and the presiding officer rose and said
that, owing to the presence of a distinguished guest, they would
forego one of their rules, and invite Judge Ellis to say a few
words. The Judge came forward, and bowed his acknowledgment of their
welcome. Then, perhaps feeling a need of relief after the sombre
recital, the Judge took occasion to apologize for his own temerity
in addressing a roomful of warriors; and somehow he managed to make
that remind him of a story of an army mule, a very amusing story;
and that reminded him of another story, until, when he stopped and
sat down, every one in the room broke into delighted applause.

They went in to dinner. Montague sat by General Prentice, and he, in
turn, by the Judge; the latter was reminded of more stories during
the dinner, and kept every one near him laughing. Finally Montague
was moved to tell a story himself--about an old negro down home, who
passed himself off for an Indian. The Judge was so good as to
consider this an immensely funny story, and asked permission to tell
it himself. Several times after that he leaned over and spoke to
Montague, who felt a slight twinge of guilt as he recalled his
brother's cynical advice, "Cultivate him!" The Judge was so willing
to be cultivated, however, that it gave one's conscience little
chance.

They went back to the meeting-room again; chairs were shifted, and
little groups formed, and cigars and pipes brought out. They moved
the precious battle-flags forward, and some one produced a bugle and
a couple of drums; then the walls of the place shook, as the whole
company burst forth:--

"Bring the good old bugle, boys! we'll sing another song--Sing it
with a spirit that will start the world along--Sing it as we used
to sing it, fifty thousand strong,--While we were marching through
Georgia!"

It was wonderful to witness the fervour with which they went through
this rollicking chant--whose spirit we miss because we hear it too
often. They were not skilled musicians--they could only sing loud;
but the fire leaped into their eyes, and they swayed with the
rhythm, and sang! Montague found himself watching the old blind
soldier, who sat beating his foot in time, upon his face the look of
one who sees visions.

And then he noticed another man, a little, red-faced Irishman, one
of the drummers. The very spirit of the drum seemed to have entered
into him--into his hands and his feet, his eyes and his head, and
his round little body. He played a long roll between the verses, and
it seemed as if he must surely be swept away upon the wings of it.
Catching Montague's eye, he nodded and smiled; and after that, every
once in a while their eyes would meet and exchange a greeting. They
sang "The Loyal Legioner" and "The Army Bean" and "John Brown's
Body" and "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching"; all the
while the drum rattled and thundered, and the little drummer laughed
and sang, the very incarnation of the care-free spirit of the
soldier!

They stopped for a while, and the little man came over and was
introduced. Lieutenant O'Day was his name; and after he had left,
General Prentice leaned over to Montague and told him a story. "That
little man," he said, "began as a drummer-boy in my regiment, and
went all through the war in my brigade; and two years ago I met him
on the street one cold winter night, as thin as I am, and shivering
in a summer overcoat. I took him to dinner with me and watched him
eat, and I made up my mind there was something wrong. I made him
take me home, and do you know, the man was starving! He had a little
tobacco shop, and he'd got into trouble--the trust had taken away
his trade. And he had a sick wife, and a daughter clerking at six
dollars a week!"

The General went on to tell of his struggle to induce the little man
to accept his aid--to accept a loan of a few hundreds of dollars
from Prentice, the banker! "I never had anything hurt me so in all
my life," he said. "Finally I took him into the bank--and now you
can see he has enough to eat!"

They began to sing again, and Montague sat and thought over the
story. It seemed to him typical of the thing that made this meeting
beautiful to him--of the spirit of brotherhood and service that
reigned here.--They sang "We are tenting to-night on the old camp
ground"; they sang "Benny Havens, Oh!" and "A Soldier No More"; they
sang other songs of tenderness and sorrow, and men felt a trembling
in their voices and a mist stealing over their eyes. Upon Montague a
spell was falling.

Over these men and their story there hung a mystery--a presence of
wonder, that discloses itself but rarely to mortals, and only to
those who have dreamed and dared. They had not found it easy to do
their duty; they had had their wives and children, their homes and
friends and familiar places; and all these they had left to serve
the Republic. They had taught themselves a new way of life--they had
forged themselves into an iron sword of war. They had marched and
fought in dust and heat, in pouring rains and driving, icy blasts;
they had become men grim and terrible in spirit-men with limbs of
steel, who could march or ride for days and nights, who could lie
down and sleep upon the ground in rain-storms and winter snows, who
were ready to leap at a word and seize their muskets and rush into
the cannon's mouth. They had learned to stare into the face of
death, to meet its fiery eyes; to march and eat and sleep, to laugh
and play and sing, in its presence--to carry their life in their
hands, and toss it about as a juggler tosses a ball. And this for
Freedom: for the star-crowned goddess with the flaming eyes, who
trod upon the mountain-tops and called to them in the shock and fury
of the battle; whose trailing robes they followed through the dust
and cannon-smoke; for a glimpse of whose shining face they had kept
the long night vigils and charged upon the guns in the morning; for
a touch of whose shimmering robe they had wasted in prison pens,
where famine and loathsome pestilence and raving madness stalked
about in the broad daylight.

And now this army of deliverance, with its waving banners and its
prancing horses and its rumbling cannon, had marched into the
shadow-world. The very ground that it had trod was sacred; and one
who fingered the dusty volumes which held the record of its deeds
would feel a strange awe come upon him, and thrill with a sudden
fear of life--that was so fleeting and so little to be understood.
There were boyhood memories in Montague's mind, of hours of
consecration, when the vision had descended upon him, and he had sat
with face hidden in his hands.

It was for the Republic that these men had suffered; for him and his
children--that a government of the people, by the people, for the
people, might not perish from the earth. And with the organ-music of
the Gettysburg Address echoing within him, the boy laid his soul
upon the altar of his country. They had done so much for him--and
now, was there anything that he could do? A dozen years had passed
since then, and still he knew that deep within him--deeper than all
other purposes, than all thoughts of wealth and fame and power--was
the purpose that the men who had died for the Republic should find
him worthy of their trust.

The singing had stopped, and Judge Ellis was standing before him.
The Judge was about to go, and in his caressing voice he said that
he would hope to see Montague again. Then, seeing that General
Prentice was also standing up, Montague threw off the spell that had
gripped him, and shook hands with the little drummer, and with
Selden and Anderson and all the others of his dream people. A few
minutes later he found himself outside the hotel, drinking deep
draughts of the cold November air.

Major Thorne had come out with them; and learning that the General's
route lay uptown, he offered to walk with Montague to his hotel.

They set out, and then Montague told the Major about the figure in
the grape-vine, and the Major laughed and told how it had felt.
There had been more adventures, it seemed; while he was hunting a
horse he had come upon two mules loaded with ammunition and
entangled with their harness about a tree; he had rushed up to seize
them--when a solid shot had struck the tree and exploded the
ammunition and blown the mules to fragments. And then there was the
story of the charge late in the night, which had recovered the lost
ground, and kept Stonewall Jackson busy up to the very hour of his
tragic death. And there was the story of Andersonville, and the
escape from prison. Montague could have walked the streets all
night, exchanging these war-time reminiscences with the Major.

Absorbed in their talk, they came to an avenue given up to the
poorer class of people; with elevated trains rattling by overhead,
and rows of little shops along it. Montague noticed a dense crowd on
one of the corners, land asked what it meant.

"Some sort of a meeting," said the Major.

They came nearer, and saw a torch, with a man standing near it,
above the heads of the crowd.

"It looks like a political meeting," said Montague, "but it can't
be, now--just after election."

"Probably it's a Socialist," said the Major. "They're at it all the
time."

They crossed the avenue, and then they could see plainly. The man
was lean and hungry-looking, and he had long arms, which he waved
with prodigious violence. He was in a frenzy of excitement, pacing
this way and that, and leaning over the throng packed about him.
Because of a passing train the two could not hear a sound.

"A Socialist!" exclaimed Montague, wonderingly. "What do they want?"

"I'm not sure," said the other. "They want to overthrow the
government."

The train passed, and then the man's words came to them: "They force
you to build palaces, and then they put you into tenements! They
force you to spin fine raiment, and then they dress you in rags!
They force you to build jails, and then they lock you up in them!
They force you to make guns, and then they shoot you with them! They
own the political parties, and they name the candidates, and trick
you into voting for them--and they call it the law! They herd you
into armies and send you to shoot your brothers--and they call it
order! They take a piece of coloured rag and call it the flag and
teach you to let yourself be shot--and they call it patriotism!
First, last, and all the time, you do the work and they get the
benefit--they, the masters and owners, and you--fools--fools
--fools!"

The man's voice had mounted to a scream, and he flung his hands into
the air and broke into jeering laughter. Then came another train,
and Montague could not hear him; but he could see that he was
rushing on in the torrent of his denunciation.

Montague stood rooted to the spot; he was shocked to the depths of
his being--he could scarcely contain himself as he stood there. He
longed to spring forward to beard the man where he stood, to shout
him down, to rebuke him before the crowd.

The Major must have seen his agitation, for he took his arm and led
him back from the throng, saying: "Come! We can't help it."

"But--but--," he protested, "the police ought to arrest him."

"They do sometimes," said the Major, "but it doesn't do any good."

They walked on, and the sounds of the shrill voice died away. "Tell
me," said Montague, in a low voice, "does that go on very often?"

"Around the comer from where I live," said the other, "it goes on
every Saturday night."

"And do the people listen?" he asked.

"Sometimes they can't keep the street clear," was the reply.

And again they walked in silence. At last Montague asked, "What does
it mean?"

The Major shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps another civil war," said
he.






CHAPTER II





Allan Momtague's father had died about five years before. A couple
of years later his younger brother, Oliver, had announced his
intention of seeking a career in New York. He had no profession, and
no definite plans; but his father's friends were men of influence
and wealth, and the doors were open to him. So he had turned his
share of the estate into cash and departed.

Oliver was a gay and pleasure-loving boy, with all the material of a
prodigal son in him; his brother had more than half expected to see
him come back in a year or two with empty pockets. But New York had
seemed to agree with Oliver. He never told what he was doing--what
he wrote was simply that he was managing to keep the wolf from the
door. But his letters hinted at expensive ways of life; and at
Christmas time, and at Cousin Alice's birthday, he would send home
presents which made the family stare.

Montague had always thought of himself as a country lawyer and
planter. But two months ago a fire had swept away the family
mansion, and then on top of that had come an offer for the land; and
with Oliver telegraphing several times a day in his eagerness, they
had taken the sudden resolution to settle up their affairs and move
to New York.

There were Montague and his mother, and Cousin Alice, who was
nineteen, and old "Mammy Lucy," Mrs. Montague's servant. Oliver had
met them at Jersey City, radiant with happiness. He looked just as
much of a boy as ever, and just as beautiful; excepting that he was
a little paler, New York had not changed him at all. There was a man
in uniform from the hotel to take charge of their baggage, and a big
red touring-car for them; and now they were snugly settled in their
apartments, with the younger brother on duty as counsellor and
guide.

Montague had come to begin life all over again. He had brought his
money, and he expected to invest it, and to live upon the income
until he had begun to earn something. He had worked hard at his
profession, and he meant to work in New York, and to win his way
in the end. He knew almost nothing about the city--he faced it with
the wide-open eyes of a child.

One began to learn quickly, he found. It was like being swept into a
maelstrom: first the hurrying throngs on the ferry-boat, and then
the cabmen and the newsboys shouting, and the cars with clanging
gongs; then the swift motor, gliding between trucks and carriages
and around corners where big policemen shepherded the scurrying
populace; and then Fifth Avenue, with its rows of shops and towering
hotels; and at last a sudden swing round a corner--and their home.

"I have picked a quiet family place for you," Oliver had said, and
that had greatly pleased his brother. But he had stared in dismay
when he entered this latest "apartment hotel"--which catered for two
or three hundred of the most exclusive of the city's
aristocracy--and noted its great arcade, with massive doors of
bronze, and its entrance-hall, trimmed with Caen stone and Italian
marble, and roofed with a vaulted ceiling painted by modern masters.
Men in livery bore their wraps and bowed the way before them; a
great bronze elevator shot them to the proper floor; and they went
to their rooms down a corridor walled with blood-red marble and
paved with carpet soft as a cushion. Here were six rooms of palatial
size, with carpets, drapery, and furniture of a splendour quite
appalling to Montague.

As soon as the man who bore their wraps had left the room, he turned
upon his brother.

"Oliver," he said, "how much are we paying for all this?"

Oliver smiled. "You are not paying anything, old man," he replied.
"You're to be my guests for a month or two, until you get your
bearings."

"That's very good of you," said the other; "--we'll talk about it
later. But meantime, tell me what the apartment costs."

And then Montague encountered his first full charge of New York
dynamite. "Six hundred dollars a week," said Oliver.

He started as if his brother had struck him. "Six hundred dollars a
week!" he gasped.

"Yes," said the other, quietly.

It was fully a minute before he could find his breath. "Brother," he
exclaimed, "you're mad!"

"It is a very good bargain," smiled the other; "I have some
influence with them."

Again there was a pause, while Montague groped for words. "Oliver,"
he exclaimed, "I can't believe you! How could you think that we
could pay such a price?"

"I didn't think it," said Oliver; "I told you I expected to pay it
myself."

"But how could we let you pay it for us?" cried the other. "Can you
fancy that _I_ will ever earn enough to pay such a price?"

"Of course you will," said Oliver. "Don't be foolish, Allan--you'll
find it's easy enough to make money in New York. Leave it to me, and
wait awhile."

But the other was not to be put off. He sat down on the embroidered
silk bedspread, and demanded abruptly, "What do you expect my income
to be a year?"

"I'm sure I don't know," laughed Oliver; "nobody takes the time to
add up his income. You'll make what you need, and something over for
good measure. This one thing you'll know for certain--the more you
spend, the more you'll be able to make."

And then, seeing that the sober look was not to be expelled from his
brother's face, Oliver seated himself and crossed his legs, and
proceeded to set forth the paradoxical philosophy of extravagance.
His brother had come into a city of millionaires. There was a
certain group of people--"the right set," was Oliver's term for
them--and among them he would find that money was as free as air. So
far as his career was concerned, he would find that there was
nothing in all New York so costly as economy. If he did not live
like a gentleman, he would find himself excluded from the circle of
the elect--and how he would manage to exist then was a problem too
difficult for his brother to face.

And so, as quickly as he could, he was to bring himself to a state
of mind where things did not surprise him; where he did what others
did and paid what others paid, and did it serenely, as if he had
done it all his life. He would soon find his place; meantime all he
had to do was to put himself into his brother's charge. "You'll find
in time that I have the strings in my hands," the latter added.
"Just take life easy, and let me introduce you to the right people."

All of which sounded very attractive. "But are you sure," asked
Montague, "that you understand what I'm here for? I don't want to
get into the Four Hundred, you know--I want to practise law."

"In the first place," replied Oliver, "don't talk about the Four
Hundred--it's vulgar and silly; there's no such thing. In the next
place, you're going to live in New York, and you want to know the
right people. If you know them, you can practise law, or practise
billiards, or practise anything else that you fancy. If you don't
know them, you might as well go practise in Dahomey, for all you can
accomplish. You might come on here and start in for yourself, and in
twenty years you wouldn't get as far as you can get in two weeks, if
you'll let me attend to it."

Montague was nearly five years his brother's senior, and at home had
taken a semi-paternal attitude toward him. Now, however, the
situation seemed to have reversed itself. With a slight smile of
amusement, he subsided, and proceeded to put himself into the
attitude of a docile student of the mysteries of the Metropolis.

They agreed that they would say nothing about these matters to the
others. Mrs. Montague was half blind, and would lead her placid,
indoor existence with old Mammy Lucy. As for Alice, she was a woman,
and would not trouble herself with economics; if fairy godmothers
chose to shower gifts upon her, she would take them.

Alice was built to live in a palace, anyway, Oliver said. He had
cried out with delight when he first saw her. She had been sixteen
when he left, and tall and thin; now she was nineteen, and with the
pale tints of the dawn in her hair and face. In the auto, Oliver had
turned and, stared at her, and pronounced the cryptic judgment,
"You'll go!"

Just now she was wandering about the rooms, exclaiming with wonder.
Everything here was so quiet and so harmonious that at first one's
suspicions were lulled. It was simplicity, but of a strange and
perplexing kind--simplicity elaborately studied. It was luxury, but
grown assured of itself, and gazing down upon itself with
aristocratic disdain. And after a while this began to penetrate the
vulgarest mind, and to fill it with awe; one cannot remain long in
an apartment which is trimmed and furnished in rarest Circassian
walnut, and "papered" with hand-embroidered silk cloth, without
feeling some excitement--even though there be no one to mention that
the furniture has cost eight thousand dollars per room, and that the
wall covering has been imported from Paris at a cost of seventy
dollars per yard.

Montague also betook himself to gazing about. He noted the great
double windows, with sashes of bronze; the bronze fire-proof doors;
the bronze electric candles and chandeliers, from which the room was
flooded with a soft radiance at the touch of a button; the
"duchesse" and "marquise" chairs, with upholstery matching the
walls; the huge leather "slumber-couch," with adjustable lamp at its
head. When one opened the door of the dressing-room closet, it was
automatically filled with light; there was an adjustable three-sided
mirror, at which one could study his own figure from every side.
There was a little bronze box near the bed, in which one might set
his shoes, and with a locked door opening out into the hall, so that
the floor-porter could get them without disturbing one. Each of the
bath-rooms was the size of an ordinary man's parlour, with floor and
walls of snow-white marble, and a door composed of an imported
plate-glass mirror. There was a great porcelain tub, with glass
handles upon the wall by which you could help yourself out of it,
and a shower-bath with linen duck curtains, which were changed every
day; and a marble slab upon which you might lie to be rubbed by the
masseur who would come at the touch of a button.

There was no end to the miracles of this establishment, as Montague
found in the course of time. There was no chance that the antique
bronze clock on the mantel might go wrong, for it was electrically
controlled from the office. You did not open the window and let in
the dust, for the room was automatically ventilated, and you turned
a switch marked "hot" and "cold." The office would furnish you a
guide who would show you the establishment; and you might see your
bread being kneaded by electricity, upon an opal glass table, and
your eggs being tested by electric light; you might peer into huge
refrigerators, ventilated by electric fans, and in which each tiny
lamb chop reposed in a separate holder. Upon your own floor was a
pantry, provided with hot and cold storage-rooms and an air-tight
dumb-waiter; you might have your own private linen and crockery and
plate, and your own family butler, if you wished. Your children,
however, would not be permitted in the building, even though you
were dying--this was a small concession which you made to a host who
had invested a million dollars and a half in furniture alone.

A few minutes later the telephone bell rang, and Oliver answered it
and said, "Send him up."

"Here's the tailor," ho remarked, as he hung up the receiver.

"Whose tailor?" asked his brother.

"Yours," said he.

"Do I have to have some new clothes?" Montague asked.

"You haven't any clothes at present," was the reply.

Montague was standing in front of the "costumer," as the elaborate
mirror was termed. He looked himself over, and then he looked at his
brother. Oliver's clothing was a little like the Circassian walnut;
at first you thought that it was simple, and even a trifle
careless--it was only by degrees you realized that it was original
and distinguished, and very expensive.

"Won't your New York friends make allowance for the fact that I am
fresh from the country?" asked Montague, quizzically.

"They might," was the reply. "I know a hundred who would lend me
money, if I asked them. But I don't ask them."

"Then how soon shall I be able to appear?" asked Montague, with
visions of himself locked up in the room for a week or two.

"You are to have three suits to-morrow morning," said Oliver. "Genet
has promised."

"Suits made to order?" gasped the other, in perplexity.

"He never heard of any other sort of suits," said Oliver, with grave
rebuke in his voice.

M. Genet had the presence of a Russian grand duke, and the manner of
a court chamberlain. He brought a subordinate to take Montague's
measure, while he himself studied his colour-scheme. Montague
gathered from the conversation that he was going to a house-party in
the country the next morning, and that he would need a dress-suit, a
hunting-suit, and a "morning coat." The rest might wait until his
return. The two discussed him and his various "points" as they might
have discussed a horse; he possessed distinction, he learned, and a
great deal could be done with him--with a little skill he might be
made into a personality. His French was not in training, but he
managed to make out that it was M. Genet's opinion that the husbands
of New York would tremble when he made his appearance among them.

When the tailor had left, Alice came in, with her face shining from
a cold bathing. "Here you are decking yourselves out!" she cried.
"And what about me?"

"Your problem is harder," said Oliver, with a laugh; "but you begin
this afternoon. Reggie Mann is going to take you with him, and get
you some dresses."

"What!" gasped Alice. "Get me some dresses! A man?"

"Of course," said the other. "Reggie Mann advises half the women in
New York about their clothes."

"Who is he? A tailor?" asked the girl.

Oliver was sitting on the edge of the canape, swinging one leg over
the other; and he stopped abruptly and stared, and then sank back,
laughing softly to himself. "Oh, dear me!" he said. "Poor Reggie!"

Then, realizing that he would have to begin at the beginning, he
proceeded to explain that Reggie Mann was a cotillion leader, the
idol of the feminine side of society. He was the special pet and
protege of the great Mrs. de Graffenried, of whom they had surely
heard--Mrs. de Graffenried, who was acknowledged to be the mistress
of society at Newport, and was destined some day to be mistress in
New York. Reggie and Oliver were "thick," and he had stayed in town
on purpose to attend to her attiring--having seen her picture, and
vowed that he would make a work of art out of her. And then Mrs.
Robbie Walling would give her a dance; and all the world would come
to fall at her feet.

"You and I are going out to 'Black Forest,' the Wallings'
shooting-lodge, to-morrow," Oliver added to his brother. "You'll
meet Mrs. Robbie there. You've heard of the Wallings, I hope."

"Yes," said Montague, "I'm not that ignorant."

"All right," said the other, "we're to motor down. I'm going to take
you in my racing-car, so you'll have an experience. We'll start
early."

"I'll be ready," said Montague; and when his brother replied that he
would be at the door at eleven, he made another amused note as to
the habits of New Yorkers.

The price which he paid at the hotel included the services of a
valet or a maid for each of them, and so when their baggage arrived
they had nothing to do. They went to lunch in one of the main
dining-rooms of the hotel, a room with towering columns of
dark-green marble and a maze of palms and flowers. Oliver did the
ordering; his brother noticed that the simple meal cost them about
fifteen dollars, and he wondered if they were to eat at that rate
all the time.

Then Montague mentioned the fact that before leaving home he had
received a telegram from General Prentice, asking him to go with him
that evening to the meeting of the Loyal Legion. Montague wondered,
half amused, if his brother would deem his old clothing fit for such
a function. But Oliver replied that it would not matter what he wore
there; he would not meet anyone who counted, except Prentice
himself. The General and his family were prominent in society, it
appeared, and were to be cultivated. But Oliver shrewdly forbore to
elaborate upon this, knowing that his brother would be certain to
talk about old times, which would bo the surest possible method of
lodging himself in the good graces of General Prentice.

After luncheon came Reggie Mann, dapper and exquisite, with slender
little figure and mincing gait, and the delicate hands and soft
voice of a woman. He was dressed for the afternoon parade, and wore
a wonderful scarlet orchid in his buttonhole. Montague's hand he
shook at his shoulder's height; but when Alice came in he did not
shake hands with her. Instead, he stood and gazed, and gazed again,
and lifting his hands a little with excess of emotion, exclaimed,
"Oh, perfect! perfect!"

"And Ollie, I told you so!" he added, eagerly. "She it tall enough
to wear satin! She shall have the pale blue Empire gown--she shall
have the pale blue Empire gown if I have to pay for it myself! And
oh, what times we shall have with that hair! And the figure--Reval
will simply go wild!"

So Reggie prattled on, with his airy grace; he took her hand and
studied it, and then turned her about to survey her figure, while
Alice blushed and strove to laugh to hide her embarrassment. "My
dear Miss Montague," he exclaimed, "I bring all Gotham and lay it at
your feet! Ollie, your battle is won! Won without firing a shot! I
know the very man for her--his father is dying, and he will have
four millions in Transcontinental alone. And he is as handsome as
Antinous and as fascinating as Don Juan! Allons! we may as well
begin with the trousseau this afternoon!"






CHAPTER III





Oliver was not rooming with them; he had his own quarters at the
club, which he did not wish to leave. But the next morning, about
twenty minutes after the hour he had named, he was at the door, and
Montague went down.

Oliver's car was an imported French racer. It had only two seats,
open in front, with a rumble behind for the mechanic. It was long
and low and rakish, a most wicked-looking object; whenever it
stopped on the street a crowd gathered to stare at it. Oliver was
clad in a black bearskin coat, covering his feet, and with cap and
gloves to match; he wore goggles, pushed up over his forehead. A
similar costume lay ready in his brother's seat.

The suits of clothing had come, and were borne in his grips by his
valet. "We can't carry them with us," said Oliver. "He'll have to
take them down by train." And while his brother was buttoning up the
coat, he gave the address; then Montague clambered in, and after a
quick glance over his shoulder, Oliver pressed a lever and threw
over the steering-wheel, and they whirled about and sped down the
street.

Sometimes, at home in Mississippi, one would meet automobiling
parties, generally to the damage of one's harness and temper. But
until the day before, when he had stepped off the ferry, Montague
had never ridden in a motor-car. Riding in this one was like
travelling in a dream--it slid along without a sound, or the
slightest trace of vibration; it shot forward, it darted to right or
to left, it slowed up, it stopped, as if of its own will--the driver
seemed to do nothing. Such things as car tracks had no effect upon
it at all, and serious defects in the pavement caused only the
faintest swelling motion; it was only when it leaped ahead like a
living thing that one felt the power of it, by the pressure upon his
back.

They went at what seemed to Montague a breakneck pace through the
city streets, dodging among trucks .and carriages, grazing cars,
whirling round corners, taking the wildest of chances. Oliver seemed
always to know what the other fellow would do; but the thought that
he might do something different kept his companion's heart pounding
in a painful way. Once the latter cried out as a man leapt for his
life; Oliver laughed, and said, without turning his head, "You'll
get used to it by and by."

They went down Fourth Avenue and turned into the Bowery. Elevated
trains pounded overhead, and a maze of gin-shops, dime-museums,
cheap lodging-houses, and clothing-stores sped past them. Once or
twice Oliver's hawk-like glance detected a blue uniform ahead, and
then they slowed down to a decorous pace, and the other got a chance
to observe the miserable population of the neighbourhood. It was a
cold November day, and an "out of work" time, and wretched outcast
men walked with shoulders drawn forward and hands in their pockets.

"Where in the world are we going?" Montague asked.

"To Long Island," said the other. "It's a beastly ride--this part of
it--but it's the only way. Some day we'll have an overhead speedway
of our own, and we won't have to drive through this mess."

They turned off at the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge, and
found the street closed for repairs. They had to make a detour of a
block, and they turned with a vicious sweep and plunged into the
very heart of the tenement district. Narrow, filthy streets, with
huge, canon-like blocks of buildings, covered with rusty iron
fire-escapes and decorated with soap-boxes and pails and laundry and
babies; narrow stoops, crowded with playing children; grocery-shops,
clothing-shops, saloons; and a maze of placards and signs in English
and German and Yiddish. Through the throngs Oliver drove, his brows
knitted with impatience and his horn honking angrily. "Take it
easy,"--protested Montague; but the other answered, "Bah!" Children
screamed and darted out of the way, and men and women started back,
scowling and muttering; when a blockade of wagons and push-carts
forced them to stop, the children gathered about and jeered, and a
group of hoodlums loafing by a saloon flung ribaldry at them; but
Oliver never turned his eyes from the road ahead.

And at last they were out on the bridger. "Slow vehicles keep to the
right," ran the sign, and so there was a lane for them to the left.
They sped up the slope, the cold air beating upon them like a
hurricane. Far below lay the river, with tugs and ferry-boats
ploughing the wind-beaten grey water, and a city spread out on
either bank--a wilderness of roofs, with chimneys sticking up and
white jets of steam spouting everywhere. Then they sped down the
farther slope, and into Brooklyn.

There was an asphalted avenue, lined with little residences. There
was block upon block of them, mile after mile of them--Montague had
never, seen so many houses in his life before, and nearly all poured
out of the same mould.

Many other automobiles were speeding out by this avenue, and they
raced with one another. The one which was passed the most frequently
got the dust and smell; and so the universal rule was that when you
were behind you watched for a clear track, and then put on speed,
and went to the front; but then just when you had struck a
comfortable pace, there was a whirring and a puffing at your left,
and your rival came stealing past you. If you were ugly, you put on
speed yourself, and forced him to fall back, or to run the risk of
trouble with vehicles coming the other way. For Oliver there seemed
to be but one rule,--pass everything.

They came to the great Ocean Driveway. Here were many automobiles,
nearly all going one way, and nearly all racing. There were two
which stuck to Oliver and would not be left behind--one, two, three
--one, two, three--they passed and repassed. Their dust was
blinding, and the continual odour was sickening; and so Oliver set
his lips tight, and the little dial on the indicator began to creep
ahead, and they whirled away down the drive. "Catch us this time!"
he muttered.

A few seconds later Oliver gave a sudden exclamation, as a
policeman, concealed behind a bush at the roadside, sprang out and
hailed them. The policeman had a motor-cycle, and Oliver shouted to
the mechanic, "Pull the cord!" His brother turned, alarmed and
perplexed, and saw the man reach down to the floor of the car. He
saw the policeman leap upon the cycle and start to follow. Then he
lost sight of him in the clouds of dust.

For perhaps five minutes they tore on, tense and silent, at a pace
that Montague had never equalled in an express train. Vehicles
coming the other way would leap into sight, charging straight at
them, it seemed, and shooting past a hand's breadth away. Montague
had just about made up his mind that one such ride would last him
for a lifetime, when he noticed that they were slacking up. "You can
let go the cord," said Oliver. "He'll never catch us now."

"What is the cord?" asked the other.

"It's tied to the tag with our number on, in back. It swings it up
so it can't be seen."

They were turning off into a country road, and Montague sank back
and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. "Is that a common
trick?" he asked.

"Quite," said the other. "Mrs. Robbie has a trough of mud in their
garage, and her driver sprinkles the tag every time before she goes
out. You have to do something, you know, or you'd be taken up all
the time."

"Have you ever been arrested?"

"I've only been in court once," said Oliver. "I've been stopped a
dozen times."

"What did they do the other times--warn you?"

"Warn me?" laughed Oliver. "What they did was to get in with me and
ride a block or two, out of sight of the crowd; and then I slipped
them a ten-dollar bill and they got out."

To which Montague responded, "Oh, I see!"

They turned into a broad macadamized road, and here were more autos,
and more dust, and more racing. Now and then they crossed a trolley
or a railroad track, and here was always a warning sign; but Oliver
must have had some occult way of knowing that the track was clear,
for he never seemed to slow up. Now and then they came to villages,
and did reduce speed; but from the pace at which they went through,
the villagers could not have suspected it.

And then came another adventure. The road was in repair, and was
very bad, and they were picking their way, when suddenly a young man
who had been walking on a side path stepped out before them, and
drew a red handkerchief from his pocket, and faced them, waving it.
Oliver muttered an oath.

"What's the matter?" cried his brother.

"We're arrested!" he exclaimed.

"What!" gasped the other. "Why, we were not going at all."

"I know," said Oliver; "but they've got us all the same."

He must have made up his mind at one glance that the case was
hopeless, for he made no attempt to put on speed, but let the young
man step aboard as they reached him.

"What is it?" Oliver demanded.

"I have been sent out by the Automobile Association," said the
stranger, "to warn you that they have a trap set in the next town.
So watch out."

And Oliver gave a gasp, and said, "Oh! Thank you!" The young man
stepped off, and they went ahead, and he lay back in his seat and
shook with laughter.

"Is that common?" his brother asked, between laughs.

"It happened to me once before," said Oliver. "But I'd forgotten it
completely."

They proceeded very slowly; and when they came to the outskirts of
the village they went at a funereal pace, while the car throbbed in
protest. In front of a country store they saw a group of loungers
watching them, and Oliver said, "There's the first part of the trap.
They have a telephone, and somewhere beyond is a man with another
telephone, and beyond that a man to stretch a rope across the road."

"What would they do with you?" asked the other.

"Haul you up before a justice of the peace, and fine you anywhere
from fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars. It's regular highway
robbery--there are some places that boast of never levying taxes;
they get all their money out of us!"

Oliver pulled out his watch. "We're going to be late to lunch,
thanks to these delays," he said. He added that they were to meet at
the "Hawk's Nest," which he said was an "automobile joint."

Outside of the town they "hit it up" again; and half an hour later
they came to a huge sign, "To the Hawk's Nest," and turned off. They
ran up a hill, and came suddenly out of a pine-forest into view of a
hostelry, perched upon the edge of a bluff overlooking the Sound.
There was a broad yard in front, in which automobiles wheeled and
sputtered, and a long shed that was lined with them.

Half a dozen attendants ran to meet them as they drew up at the
steps. They all know Oliver, and two fell to brushing his coat, and
one got his cap, while the mechanic took the car to the shed. Oliver
had a tip for each of them; one of the things that Montague observed
was that in New York you had to carry a pocketful of change, and
scatter it about wherever you went. They tipped the man who carried
their coats and the boy who opened the door. In the washrooms they
tipped the boys who filled the basins for them and those who gave
them a second brushing.

The piazzas of the inn were crowded with automobiling parties, in
all sorts of strange costumes. It seemed to Montague that most of
them were flashy people--the men had red faces and the women had
loud voices; he saw one in a sky-blue coat with bright scarlet
facing. It occurred to him that if these women had not worn such
large hats, they would not have needed quite such a supply of the
bright-coloured veiling which they wound over the hats and tied
under their chins, or left to float about in the breeze.

The dining-room seemed to have been built in sections, rambling
about on the summit of the cliff. The side of it facing the water
was all glass, and could be taken down. The ceiling was a maze of
streamers and Japanese lanterns, and here and there were
orange-trees and palms and artificial streams and fountains. Every
table was crowded, it seemed; one was half-deafened by the clatter
of plates, the voices and laughter, and the uproar of a negro
orchestra of banjos, mandolins, and guitars. Negro waiters flew here
and there, and a huge, stout head-waiter, who was pirouetting and
strutting, suddenly espied Oliver, and made for him with smiles of
welcome.

"Yes, sir--just come in, sir," he said, and led the way down the
room, to where, in a corner, a table had been set for sixteen or
eighteen people. There was a shout, "Here's Ollie!"--and a pounding
of glasses and a chorus of welcome--"Hello, Ollie! You're late,
Ollie! What's the matter--car broke down?"

Of the party, about half were men and half women. Montague braced
himself for the painful ordeal of being introduced to sixteen people
in succession, but this was considerately spared him. He shook hands
with Robbie Walling, a tall and rather hollow-chested young man,
with slight yellow moustaches; and with Mrs. Robbie, who bade him
welcome, and presented him with the freedom of the company.

Then he found himself seated between two young ladies, with a waiter
leaning over him to take his order for the drinks. He said, a little
hesitatingly, that he would like some whisky, as he was about
frozen, upon which the girl on his right, remarked, "You'd better
try a champagne cocktail--you'll get your results quicker." She
added, to the waiter, "Bring a couple of them, and be quick about
it."

"You had a cold ride, no doubt, in that low car," she went on, to
Montague. "What made you late?"

"We had some delays," he answered. "Once we thought we were
arrested."

"Arrested!" she exclaimed; and others took up the word, crying, "Oh,
Ollie! tell us about it!"

Oliver told the tale, and meantime his brother had a chance to look
about him. All of the party were young--he judged that he was the
oldest person there. They were not of the flashily dressed sort, but
no one would have had to look twice to know that there was money in
the crowd. They had had their first round of drinks, and started in
to enjoy themselves. They were all intimates, calling each other by
their first names. Montague noticed that these names always ended in
"ie,"--there was Robbie and Freddie and Auggie and Clarrie and
Bertie and Chappie; if their names could not be made to end
properly, they had nicknames instead.

"Ollie" told how they had distanced the policeman; and Clarrie Mason
(one of the younger sons of the once mighty railroad king) told of a
similar feat which his car had performed. And then the young lady
who sat beside him told how a fat Irish woman had skipped out of
their way as they rounded a corner, and stood and cursed them from
the vantage-point of the sidewalk.

The waiter came with the liquor, and Montague thanked his neighbour,
Miss Price. Anabel Price was her name, and they called her "Billy";
she was a tall and splendidly formed creature, and he learned in due
time that she was a famous athlete. She must have divined that he
would feel a little lost in this crowd of intimates, and set to work
to make him feel at home--an attempt in which she was not altogether
successful.

They were bound for a shooting-lodge, and so she asked him if he
were fond of shooting. He replied that he was; in answer to a
further question he said that he had hunted chiefly deer and wild
turkey. "Ah, then you are a real hunter!" said Miss Price. "I'm
afraid you'll scorn our way."

"What do you do?" he inquired.

"Wait and you'll see," replied she; and added, casually, "When you
get to be pally with us, you'll conclude we don't furnish."

Montague's jaw dropped just a little. He recovered himself, however,
and said that he presumed so, or that he trusted not; afterward,
when he had made inquiries and found out what he should have said,
he had completely forgotten what he HAD said.--Down in a hotel in
Natchez there was an old head-waiter, to whom Montague had once
appealed to seat him next to a friend. At the next meal, learning
that the request had been granted, he said to the old man, "I'm
afraid you have shown me partiality"; to which the reply came, "I
always tries to show it as much as I kin." Montague always thought
of this whenever he recalled his first encounter with "Billy" Price.

The young lady on the other side of him now remarked that Robbie was
ordering another "topsy-turvy lunch." He inquired what sort of a
lunch that was; she told him that Robbie called it a "digestion
exercise." That was the only remark that Miss de Millo addressed to
him during the meal (Miss Gladys de Mille, the banker's daughter,
known as "Baby" to her intimates). She was a stout and round-faced
girl, who devoted herself strictly to the business of lunching; and
Montague noticed at the end that she was breathing rather hard, and
that her big round eyes seemed bigger than ever.

Conversation was general about the table, but it was not easy
conversation to follow. It consisted mostly of what is known as
"joshing," and involved acquaintance with intimate details of
personalities and past events. Also, there was a great deal of slang
used, which kept a stranger's wits on the jump. However, Montague
concluded that all his deficiencies were made up for by his brother,
whose sallies were the cause of the loudest laughter. Just now he
seemed to the other more like the Oliver he had known of old--for
Montague had already noted a change in him. At home there had never
been any end to his gaiety and fun, and it was hard to get him to
take anything seriously; but now he kept all his jokes for company,
and when he was alone he was in deadly earnest. Apparently he was
working hard over his pleasures.

Montague could understand how this was possible. Some one, for
instance, had worked hard over the ordering of the lunch--to secure
the maximum of explosive effect. It began with ice-cream, moulded in
fancy shapes and then buried in white of egg and baked brown. Then
there was a turtle soup, thick and green and greasy; and
then--horror of horrors--a great steaming plum-pudding. It was
served in a strange phenomenon of a platter, with six long, silver
legs; and the waiter set it in front of Robbie Walling and lifted
the cover with a sweeping gesture--and then removed it and served it
himself. Montague had about made up his mind that this was the end,
and begun to fill up on bread-and-butter, when there appeared cold
asparagus, served in individual silver holders resembling andirons.
Then--appetite now being sufficiently whetted--there came quail, in
piping hot little casseroles--; and then half a grape-fruit set in a
block of ice and filled with wine; and then little squab ducklings,
bursting fat, and an artichoke; and then a cafe parfait; and
then--as if to crown the audacity--huge thick slices of roast beef!
Montague had given up long ago--he could keep no track of the deluge
of food which poured forth. And between all the courses there were
wines of precious brands, tumbled helter-skelter,--sherry and port,
champagne and claret and liqueur. Montague watched poor "Baby" de
Mille out of the corner of his eye, and pitied her; for it was
evident that she could not resist the impulse to eat whatever was
put before her, and she was visibly suffering. He wondered whether
he might not manage to divert her by conversation, but he lacked the
courage to make the attempt.

The meal was over at four o'clock. By that time most of the other
parties were far on their way to New York, and the inn was deserted.
They possessed themselves of their belongings, and one by one their
cars whirled away toward "Black Forest."

Montague had been told that it was a "shooting-lodge." He had a
vision of some kind of a rustic shack, and wondered dimly how so
many people would be stowed away. When they turned off the main
road, and his brother remarked, "Here we are," he was surprised to
see a rather large building of granite, with an archway spanning the
road. He was still more surprised when they whizzed through and went
on.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"To 'Black Forest,'" said Oliver.

"And what was that we passed?"

"That was the gate-keeper's lodge," was Oliver's reply.






CHAPTER IV





They ran for about three miles upon a broad macadamized avenue, laid
straight as an arrow's flight through the forest; and then the sound
of the sea came to them, and before them was a mighty granite pile,
looming grim in the twilight, with a draw-bridge and moat, and four
great castellated towers. "Black Forest" was built in imitation of a
famous old fortress in Provence--only the fortress had forty small
rooms, and its modern prototype had seventy large ones, and now
every window was blazing with lights. A man does not let himself be
caught twice in such a blunder; and having visited a
"shooting-lodge" which had cost three-quarters of a million dollars
and was set in a preserve of ten thousand acres, he was prepared for
Adirondack "camps" which had cost half a million and Newport
"cottages" which had cost a million or two.

Liveried servants took the car, and others opened the door and took
their coats. The first thing they saw was a huge, fireplace, a
fireplace a dozen feet across, made of great boulders, and with
whole sections of a pine tree blazing in it. Underfoot was polished
hardwood, with skins of bear and buffalo. The firelight flickered
upon shields and battle-axes and broad-swords, hung upon the oaken
pillars; while between them were tapestries, picturing the Song of
Roland and the battle of Roncesvalles. One followed the pillars of
the great hall to the vaulted roof, whose glass was glowing
blood-red in the western light. A broad stairway ascended to the
second floor, which opened upon galleries about the hall.

Montague went to the fire, and stood rubbing his hands before the
grateful blaze. "Scotch or Irish, sir?" inquired a lackey, hovering
at his side. He had scarcely given his order when the door opened
and a second motor load of the party appeared, shivering and rushing
for the fire. In a couple of minutes they were all assembled--and
roaring with laughter over "Baby" de Millc's account of how her car
had run over a dachshund. "Oh, do you know," she cried, "he simply
POPPED!"

Half a dozen attendants hovered about, and soon the tables in the
hall were covered with trays containing decanters and siphons. By
this means everybody in the party was soon warmed up, and then in
groups they scattered to amuse themselves.

There was a great hall for indoor tennis, and there were half a
dozen squash-courts. Montague knew neither of these games, but he
was interested in watching the water-polo in the swimming-tank, and
in studying the appointments of this part of the building. The tank,
with the walls and floor about it, were all of marble; there was a
bronze gallery running about it, from which one might gaze into the
green depths of the water. There were luxurious dressing-rooms for
men and women, with hot and cold needle-baths, steam-rooms with
rubbers in attendance and weighing and lifting machines, electric
machines for producing "violet rays," and electric air-blasts for
the drying of the women's hair.

He watched several games, in which men and women took part; and
later on, when the tennis and other players appeared, he joined them
in a plunge. Afterward, he entered one of the electric elevators and
was escorted to his room, where he found his bag unpacked, and his
evening attire laid out upon the bed.

It was about nine when the party went into the dining-room, which
opened upon a granite terrace and loggia facing the sea. The room
was finished in some rare black wood, the name of which he did not
know; soft radiance suffused it, and the table was lighted by
electric candles set in silver sconces, and veiled by silk shades.
It gleamed with its load of crystal and silver, set off by scattered
groups of orchids and ferns. The repast of the afternoon had been
simply a lunch, it seemed--and now they had an elaborate dinner,
prepared by Robbie Waiting's famous ten-thousand-dollar chef. In
contrast with the uproar of the inn was the cloistral stillness of
this dining-room, where the impassive footmen seemed to move on
padded slippers, and the courses appeared and vanished as if by
magic. Montague did his best to accustom himself to the gowns of the
women, which were cut lower than any he had ever seen in his life;
but he hesitated every time he turned to speak to the young lady
beside him, because he could look so deep down into her bosom, and
it was difficult for him to realize that she did not mind it.

The conversation was the same as before, except that it was a little
more general, and louder in tone; for the guests had become more
intimate, and as Robbie Walling's wines of priceless vintage poured
forth, they became a little "high." The young lady who sat on
Montague's right was a Miss Vincent, a granddaughter of one of the
sugar-kings; she was dark-skinned and slender, and had appeared at a
recent lawn fete in the costume of an Indian maiden. The company
amused itself by selecting an Indian name for her; all sorts of
absurd ones were suggested, depending upon various intimate details
of the young lady's personality and habits. Robbie caused a laugh by
suggesting "Little Dewdrop"--it appeared that she had once been
discovered writing a poem about a dewdrop; some one else suggested
"Little Raindrop," and then Ollie brought down the house by
exclaiming, "Little Raindrop in the Mud-puddle!" A perfect gale of
laughter swept over the company, and it must have been a minute
before they could recover their composure; in order to appreciate
the humour of the sally it was necessary to know that Miss Vincent
had "come a cropper" at the last meet of the Long Island Hunt Club,
and been extricated from a slough several feet deep.

This was explained to Montague by the young lady on his left--the
one whose half-dressed condition caused his embarrassment. She was
only about twenty, with a wealth of golden hair and the bright,
innocent face of a child; he had not yet learned her name, for every
one called her "Cherub." Not long after this she made a remark
across the table to Baby de Mille, a strange jumble of syllables,
which sounded like English, yet was not. Miss de Mille replied, and
several joined in, until there was quite a conversation going on.
"Cherub" explained to him that "Baby" had invented a secret
language, made by transposing letters; and that Ollie and Bertie
were crazy to guess the key to it, and could not.

The dinner lasted until late. The wine-glasses continued to be
emptied, and to be magically filled again. The laughter was louder,
and now and then there were snatches of singing; women lolled about
in their chairs-one beautiful boy sat gazing dreamily across the
table at Montague, now and then closing his eyes, and opening them
more and more reluctantly. The attendants moved about, impassive and
silent as ever; no one else seemed to be cognizant of their
existence, but Montague could not help noticing them, and wondering
what they thought of it all.

When at last the party broke up, it was because the bridge-players
wished to get settled for the evening. The others gathered in front
of the fireplace, and smoked and chatted. At home, when one planned
a day's hunting, he went to bed early and rose before dawn; but
here, it seemed, there was game a-plenty, and the hunters had
nothing to consider save their own comfort.

The cards were played in the vaulted "gun-room." Montague strolled
through it, and his eye ran down the wall, lined with glass cases
and filled with every sort of firearm known to the hunter. He
recalled, with a twinge of self-abasement, that he had suggested
bringing his shotgun along!

He joined a group in one corner, and lounged in the shadows, and
studied "Billy" Price, whose conversation had so mystified him.
"Billy," whose father was a banker, proved to be a devotee of
horses; she was a veritable Amazon, the one passion of whose life
was glory. Seeing her sitting in this group, smoking cigarettes, and
drinking highballs, and listening impassively to risque stories, one
might easily draw base conclusions about Billy Price. But as a
matter of fact she was made of marble; and the men, instead of
falling in love with her, made her their confidante, and told her
their troubles, and sought her sympathy and advice.

Some of this was explained to Montague by a young lady, who, as the
evening wore on, came in and placed herself beside him. "My name is
Betty Wyman," she said, "and you and I will have to be friends,
because Ollie's my side partner."

Montague had to meet her advances; so had not much time to speculate
as to what the term "side partner" might be supposed to convey.
Betty was a radiant little creature, dressed in a robe of deep
crimson, made of some soft and filmy and complicated material; there
was a crimson rose in her hair, and a living glow of crimson in her
cheeks. She was bright and quick, like a butterfly, full of strange
whims and impulses; mischievous lights gleamed in her eyes and
mischievous smiles played about her adorable little cherry lips.
Some strange perfume haunted the filmy dress, and completed the
bewilderment of the intended victim.

"I have a letter of introduction to a Mr. Wyman in New York," said
Montague. "Perhaps he is a relative of yours."

"Is he a railroad president?" asked she; and when he answered in the
affirmative, "Is he a railroad king?" she whispered, in a mocking,
awe-stricken voice, "Is he rich--oh, rich as Solomon--and is he a
terrible man, who eats people alive all the time?"

"Yes," said Montague--"that must be the one."

"Well," said Betty, "he has done me the honour to be my granddaddy;
but don't you take any letter of introduction to him."

"Why not?" asked he, perplexed.

"Because he'll eat YOU," said the girl. "He hates Ollie."

"Dear me," said the other; and the girl asked, "Do you mean that the
boy hasn't said a word about me?"

"No," said Montague--"I suppose he left it for you to do."

"Well," said Betty, "it's like a fairy story. Do you ever read fairy
stories? In this story there was a princess--oh, the most beautiful
princess! Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Montague. "She wore a red rose in her hair."

"And then," said the girl, "there was a young courtier--very
handsome and gay; and they fell in love with each other. But the
terrible old king--he wanted his daughter to wait a while, until he
got through conquering his enemies, so that he might have time to
pick out some prince or other, or maybe some ogre who was wasting
his lands--do you follow me?"

"Perfectly," said he. "And then did the beautiful princess pine
away?"

"Um--no," said Betty, pursing her lips. "But she had to dance
terribly hard to keep from thinking about herself." Then she
laughed, and exclaimed, "Dear me, we are getting poetical!" And
next, looking sober again, "Do you know, I was half afraid to talk
to you. Ollie tells me you're terribly serious. Are you?"

"I don't know," said Montague--but she broke in with a laugh, "We
were talking about you at dinner last night. They had some whipped
cream done up in funny little curliques, and Ollie said, 'Now, if my
brother Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the man who fixed
this cream, and how long it took him, and how he might have been
reading "The Simple Life."' Is that true?"

"It involves a question of literary criticism"--said Montague.

"I don't want to talk about literature," exclaimed the other. In
truth, she wanted nothing save to feel of his armour and find out if
there were any weak spots through which he could be teased. Montague
was to find in time that the adorable Miss Elizabeth was a very
thorny species of rose--she was more like a gay-coloured wasp, of
predatory temperament.

"Ollie says you want to go down town and work," she went on. "I
think you're awfully foolish. Isn't it much nicer to spend your time
in an imitation castle like this?"

"Perhaps," said ho, "but I haven't any castle."

"You might get one," answered Betty. "Stay around awhile and let us
marry you to a nice girl. They will all throw themselves at your
feet, you know, for you have such a delicious melting voice, and you
look romantic and exciting." (Montague made a note to inquire
whether it was customary in New York to talk about you so frankly to
your face.)

Miss Betty was surveying him quizzically meantime. "I don't know,"
she said. "On second thoughts, maybe you'll frighten the girls. Then
it'll be the married women who'll fall in love with you. You'll have
to watch out."

"I've already been told that by my tailor," said Montague, with a
laugh.

"That would be a still quicker way of making your fortune," said
she. "But I don't think you'd fit in the role of a tame cat."

"A WHAT?" he exclaimed; and Miss Betty laughed.

"Don't you know what that is? Dear me--how charmingly naive! But
perhaps you'd better get Ollie to explain for you."

That brought the conversation to the subject of slang; and Montague,
in a sudden burst of confidence, asked for an interpretation of Miss
Price's cryptic utterance. "She said"--he repeated slowly--"that
when I got to be pally with her, I'd conclude she didn't furnish."

"Oh, yes," said Miss Wyman. "She just meant that when you knew her,
you'd be disappointed. You see, she picks up all the race-track
slang--one can't help it, you know. And last year she took her coach
over to England, and so she's got all the English slang. That makes
it hard, even for us."

And then Betty sailed in to entertain him with little sketches of
other members of the party. A phenomenon that had struck Montague
immediately was the extraordinary freedom with which everybody in
New York discussed everybody else. As a matter of fact, one seldom
discussed anything else; and it made not the least difference,
though the person were one of your set,--though he ate your bread
and salt, and you ate his,--still you would amuse yourself by
pouring forth the most painful and humiliating and terrifying things
about him.

There was poor Clarrie Mason: Clarrie, sitting in at bridge, with an
expression of feverish eagerness upon his pale face. Clarrie always
lost, and it positively broke his heart, though he had ten millions
laid by on ice. Clarrie went about all day, bemoaning his brother,
who had been kidnapped. Had Montague not heard about it? Well, the
newspapers called it a marriage, but it was really a kidnapping.
Poor Larry Mason was good-natured and weak in the knees, and he had
been carried off by a terrible creature, three times as big as
himself, and with a temper like--oh, there were no words for it! She
had been an actress; and now she had carried Larry away in her
talons, and was building a big castle to keep him in--for he had ten
millions too, alas!

And then there was Bertie Stuyvesant, beautiful and winning--the boy
who had sat opposite Montague at dinner. Bertie's father had been a
coal man, and nobody knew how many millions he had left. Bertie was
gay; last week he had invited them to a brook-trout breakfast--in
November--and that had been a lark! Somebody had told him that trout
never really tasted good unless you caught them yourself, and Bertie
had suddenly resolved to catch them for that breakfast. "They have a
big preserve up in the Adirondacks," said Betty; "and Bertie ordered
his private train, and he and Chappie de Peyster and some others
started that night; they drove I don't know how many miles the next
day, and caught a pile of trout--and we had them for breakfast the
next morning! The best joke of all is that Chappie vows they were so
full they couldn't fish, and that the trout were caught with nets!
Poor Bertie--somebody'll have to separate him from that decanter
now!"

From the hall there came loud laughter, with sounds of scuffling,
and cries, "Let me have it!"--"That's Baby de Mille," said Miss
Wyman. "She's always wanting to rough-house it. Robbie was mad the
last time she was down here; she got to throwing sofa-cushions, and
upset a vase."

"Isn't that supposed to be good form?" asked Montague.

"Not at Robbie's," said she. "Have you had a chance to talk with
Robbie yet? You'll like him--he's serious, like you."

"What's he serious about?"

"About spending his money," said Betty. "That's the only thing he
has to be serious about."

"Has he got so very much?"

"Thirty or forty millions," she replied; "but then, you see, a lot
of it's in the inner companies of his railroad system, and it pays
him fabulously. And his wife has money, too--she was a Miss Mason,
you know, her father's one of the steel crowd. We've a saying that
there are millionaires, and then multi-millionaires, and then
Pittsburg millionaires. Anyhow, the two of them spend all their
income in entertaining. It's Robbie's fad to play the perfect
host--he likes to have lots of people round him. He does put up good
times--only he's so very important about it, and he has so many
ideas of what is proper! I guess most of his set would rather go to
Mrs. Jack Warden's any day; I'd be there to-night, if it hadn't been
for Ollie."

"Who's Mrs. Jack Warden?" asked Montague.

"Haven't you ever heard of her?" said Betty. "She used to be Mrs.
van Ambridge, and then she got a divorce and married Warden, the big
lumber man. She used to give 'boy and girl' parties, in the English
fashion; and when we went there we'd do as we please--play tag all
over the house, and have pillow-fights, and ransack the closets and
get up masquerades! Mrs. Warden's as good-natured as an old cow.
You'll meet her sometime--only don't you let her fool you with those
soft eyes of hers. You'll find she doesn't mean it; it's just that
she likes to have handsome men hanging round her."

At one o'clock a few of Robbie's guests went to bed, Montague among
them. He left two tables of bridge fiends sitting immobile, the
women with flushed faces and feverish hands, and the men with
cigarettes dangling from their lips. There were trays and decanters
beside each card-table; and in the hall he passed three youths
staggering about in each other's arms and feebly singing snatches of
"coon songs." Ollie and Betty had strolled away together to parts
unknown.

Montague had entered his name in the order-book to be called at nine
o'clock. The man who awakened him brought him coffee and cream upon
a silver tray, and asked him if he would have anything stronger. He
was privileged to have his breakfast in his room, if he wished; but
he went downstairs, trying his best to feel natural in his elaborate
hunting costume. No one else had appeared yet, but he found the
traces of last night cleared away, and breakfast ready--served in
English fashion, with urns of tea and coffee upon the buffet. The
grave butler and his satellites were in attendance, ready to take
his order for anything else under the sun that he fancied.

Montague preferred to go for a stroll upon the terrace, and to watch
the sunlight sparkling upon the sea. The morning was
beautiful--everything about the place was so beautiful that he
wondered how men and women could live here and not feel the spell of
it.

Billy Price came down shortly afterward, clad in a khaki hunting
suit, with knee kilts and button-pockets and gun-pads and Cossack
cartridge-loops. She joined him in a stroll down the beach, and
talked to him about the coming winter season, with its leading
personalities and events,--the Horse Show, which opened next week,
and the prospects for the opera, and Mrs. de Graffenried's opening
entertainment. When they came back it was eleven o'clock, and they
found most of the guests assembled, nearly all of them looking a
little pale and uncomfortable in the merciless morning light. As the
two came in they observed Bertie Stuyvesant standing by the buffet,
in the act of gulping down a tumbler of brandy. "Bertie has taken up
the 'no breakfast fad,'" said Billy with an ironical smile.

Then began the hunt. The equipment of "Black Forest" included a
granite building, steam-heated and elaborately fitted, in which an
English expert and his assistants raised imported
pheasants--magnificent bronze-coloured birds with long, floating
black tails. Just before the opening of the season they were dumped
by thousands into the covers--fat, and almost tame enough to be fed
by hand; and now came the "hunters."

First they drew lots, for they were to hunt in pairs, a man and a
woman. Montague drew Miss Vincent--"Little Raindrop in the
Mud-puddle." Then Ollie, who was master of ceremonies, placed them
in a long line, and gave them the direction; and at a signal they
moved through the forest; Following each person were two attendants,
to carry the extra guns and reload them; and out in front were men
to beat the bushes and scare the birds into flight.

Now Montague's idea of hunting had been to steal through the bayou
forests, and match his eyes against those of the wild turkey, and
shoot off their heads with a rifle bullet. So, when one of these
birds rose in front of him, he fired, and the bird dropped; and he
could have done it for ever, he judged--only it was stupid
slaughter, and it sickened him. However, if the creatures were not
shot, they must inevitably perish in the winter snows; and he had
heard that Robbie sent the game to the hospitals. Also, the score
was being kept, and Miss Vincent, who was something of a shot
herself, was watching him with eager excitement, being wild with
desire to beat out Billy Price and Chappie de Peyster, who were the
champion shots of the company. Baby de Mille, who was on his left,
and who could not shoot at all, was blundering along, puffing for
breath and eyeing him enviously; and the attendants at his back were
trembling with delight and murmuring their applause. So he shot on,
as long as the drive lasted, and again on their way back, over a new
stretch of the country. Sometimes the birds would rise in pairs, and
he would drop them both; and twice when a blundering flock took
flight in his direction he seized a second gun and brought down a
second pair. When the day's sport came to an end his score was
fifteen better than his nearest competitor, and he and his partner
had won the day.

They crowded round to congratulate him; first his partner, and then
his rivals, and his host and hostess. Montague found that he had
suddenly become a person of consequence. Some who had previously
taken no notice of him now became aware of his existence; proud
society belles condescended to make conversation with him, and
Clarrie Mason, who hated de Peyster, made note of a way to annoy
him. As for Oliver, he was radiant with delight. "When it came to
horses and guns, I knew you'd make good," he whispered.

Leaving the game to be gathered up in carts, they made their way
home, and there the two victors received their prizes. The man's
consisted of a shaving set in a case of solid gold, set with
diamonds. Montague was simply stunned, for the thing could not have
cost less than one or two thousand dollars. He could not persuade
himself that he had a right to accept of such hospitality, which he
could never hope to return. He was to realize in time that Robbie
lived for the pleasure of thus humiliating his fellow-men.

After luncheon, the party came to an end. Some set out to return as
they had come; and others, who had dinner engagements, went back
with their host in his private car, leaving their autos to be
returned by the chauffeurs. Montague and his brother were among
these; and about dusk, when the swarms of working people were
pouring out of the city, they crossed the ferry and took a cab to
their hotel.






CHAPTER V





They found their apartments looking as if they had been struck by a
snowstorm-a storm of red and green and yellow, and all the colours
that lie between. All day the wagons of fashionable milliners and
costumiers had been stopping at the door, and their contents had
found their way to Alice's room. The floors were ankle-deep in
tissue paper and tape, and beds and couches and chairs were covered
with boxes, in which lay wonderful symphonies of colour, half
disclosed in their wrappings of gauze. In the midst of it all stood
the girl, her eyes shining with excitement.

"Oh, Allan!" she cried, as they entered. "How am I ever to thank
you?"

"You're not to thank me," Montague replied. "This is all Oliver's
doings."

"Oliver!" exclaimed the girl, and turned to him. "How in the world
could you do it?" she cried. "How will you ever get the money to pay
for it all?"

"That's my problem," said the man, laughing. "All you have to think
about is to look beautiful."

"If I don't," was her reply, "it won't be for lack of clothes. I
never saw so many wonderful things in all my life as I've seen
to-day."

"There's quite a show of them," admitted Oliver.

"And Reggie Mann! It was so queer, Allan! I never went shopping with
a man before. And he's so--so matter-of-fact. You know, he bought
me--everything!"

"That was what he was told to do," said Oliver. "Did you like him?"

"I don't know," said the girl. "He's queer--I never met a man like
that before. But he was awfully kind; and the people just turned
their stores inside out for us--half a dozen people hurrying about
to wait on you at once!"

"You'll get used to such things," said Oliver; and then, stepping
toward the bed, "Let's see what you got."

"Most of the things haven't come," said Alice. "The gowns all have
to be fitted.--That one is for to-night," she added, as he lifted up
a beautiful object made of rose-coloured chiffon.

Oliver studied it, and glanced once or twice at the girl. "I guess
you can carry it," he said. "What sort of a cloak are you to wear?"

"Oh, the cloak!" cried Alice. "Oliver, I can't believe it's really
to belong to me. I didn't know anyone but princesses wore such
things."

The cloak was in Mrs. Montague's room, and one of the maids brought
it in. It was an opera-wrap of grey brocade, lined with unborn baby
lamb--a thing of a gorgeousness that made Montague literally gasp
for breath.

"Did you ever see anything like it in your life?" cried Alice. "And
Oliver, is it true that I have to have gloves and shoes and
stockings--and a hat--to match every gown?"

"Of course." said Oliver. "If you were doing things right, you ought
to have a cloak to match each evening gown as well."

"It seems incredible," said the girl. "Can it be right to spend so
much money for things to wear?"

But Oliver was not discussing questions of ethics; he was examining
sets of tinted crepe de chine lingerie, and hand-woven hose of spun
silk. There were boxes upon boxes, and bureau drawers and closet
shelves already filled up with hand-embroidered and lace-trimmed
creations-chemises and corset-covers, night-robes of "handkerchief
linen" lawn, lace handkerchiefs and veils, corsets of French coutil,
dressing-jackets of pale-coloured silks, and negligees of soft
batistes, trimmed with Valenciennes lace, or even with fur.

"You must have put in a full day," he said.

"I never looked at so many things in my life," said Alice. "And Mr.
Mann never stopped to ask the price of a thing."

"I didn't think to tell him to," said Oliver, laughing.

Then the girl went in to dress--and Oliver faced about to find his
brother sitting and staring hard at him.

"Tell me!" Montague exclaimed. "In God's name, what is all this to
cost?"

"I don't know," said Oliver, impassively. "I haven't seen the bills.
It'll be fifteen or twenty thousand, I guess."

Montague's hands clenched involuntarily, and he sat rigid. "How long
will it all last her?" he asked.

"Why," said the other, "when she gets enough, it'll last her until
spring, of course--unless she goes South during the winter."

"How much is it going to take to dress her for a year?"

"I suppose thirty or forty thousand," was the reply. "I don't expect
to keep count."

Montague sat in silence. "You don't want to shut her up and keep her
at home, do you?" inquired his brother, at last.

"Do you mean that other women spend that much on clothes?"
he'demanded.

"Of course," said Oliver, "hundreds of them. Some spend fifty
thousand--I know several who go over a hundred."

"It's monstrous!" Montague exclaimed.

"Fiddlesticks!" was the other's response. "Why, thousands of people
live by it--wouldn't know anything else to do."

Montague said nothing to that. "Can you afford to have Alice compete
with such women indefinitely?" he asked.

"I have no idea of her doing it indefinitely," was Oliver's reply.
"I simply propose to give her a chance. When she's married, her
bills will be paid by her husband."

"Oh," said the other, "then this layout is just for her to be
exhibited in."

"You may say that," answered Oliver,--"if you want to be foolish.
You know perfectly well that parents who launch their daughters in
Society don't figure on keeping up the pace all their lifetimes."

"We hadn't thought of marrying Alice off," said Montague.

To which his brother replied that the best physicians left all they
could to nature. "Suppose," said he, "that we just introduce her in
the right set, and turn her loose and let her enjoy herself--and
then cross the next bridge when we come to it?"

Montague sat with knitted brows, pondering.' He was beginning to see
a little daylight now. "Oliver," he asked suddenly, "are you sure
the stakes in this game aren't too big?"

"How do you mean?" asked the other.

"Will you be able to stay in until the show-down? Until either Alice
or myself begins to bring in some returns?"

"Never worry about that," said the other, with a laugh.

"But hadn't you better take me into your confidence?" Montague
persisted. "How many weeks can you pay our rent in this place? Have
you got the money to pay for all these clothes?"

"I've got it," laughed the other--"but that doesn't say I'm going to
pay it."

"Don't you have to pay your bills? Can we do all this upon credit?"

Oliver laughed again. "You go at me like a prosecuting attorney," he
said. "I'm afraid you'll have to inquire around and learn some
respect for your brother." Then he added, seriously, "You see,
Allan, people like Reggie or myself are in position to bring a great
deal of custom to tradespeople, and so they are willing to go out of
their way to oblige us. And we have commissions of all sorts coming
to us, so it's never any question of cash."

"Oh!" exclaimed the other, opening his eyes, "I see! Is that the way
you make money?"

"It's one of the ways we save it," said Oliver. "It comes to the
same thing."

"Do people know it?"

"Why, of course. Why not?"

"I don't know," said Montague. "It sounds a little queer."

"Nothing of the kind," said Oliver. "Some of the best people in New
York do it. Strangers come to the city, and they want to go to the
right places, and they ask me, and I send them. Or take Robbie
Walling, who keeps up five or six establishments, and spends several
millions a year. He can't see to it all personally--if he did, he'd
never do anything else. Why shouldn't he ask a friend to attend to
things for him? Or again, a now shop opens, and they want Mrs.
Waiting's trade for the sake of the advertising, and they offer her
a discount and me a commission. Why shouldn't I get her to try
them?"

"It's quite intricate," commented the other. "The stores have more
than one price, then?"

"They have as many prices as they have customers," was the answer.
"Why shouldn't they? New York is full of raw rich people who value
things by what they pay. And why shouldn't they pay high and be
happy? That opera-cloak that Alice has--Reval promised it to me for
two thousand, and I'll wager you she'd charge some woman from Butte,
Montana, thirty-five hundred for one just like it."

Montague got up suddenly. "Stop," he said, waving his hands. "You
take all the bloom off the butterfly's wings!"

He asked where they were going that evening, and Oliver said that
they were invited to an informal dinner-party at Mrs. Winnie
Duval's. Mrs. Winnie was the young widow who had recently married
the founder of the great banking-house of Puval and Co.--so Oliver
explained; she was a chum of his, and they would meet an interesting
set there. She was going to invite her cousin, Charlie Carter--she
wanted him to meet Alice. "Mrs. Winnie's always plotting to get
Charlie to settle down," said Oliver, with a merry laugh.

He telephoned for his man to bring over his clothes, and he and his
brother dressed. Then Alice came in, looking like the goddess of the
dawn in the gorgeous rose-coloured gown. The colour in her cheeks
was even brighter than usual; for she was staggered to find how low
the gown was cut, and was afraid she was committing a faux pas.
"Tell me about it," she stammered. "Mammy Lucy says I'm surely
supposed to wear some lace, or a bouquet."

"Mammy Lucy isn't a Paris costumier," said Oliver, much amused.
"Dear me--wait until you have seen Mrs. Winnie!"

Mrs. Winnie had kindly sent her limousine car for them, and it stood
throbbing in front of the hotel-entrance, its acetylenes streaming
far up the street. Mrs. Winnie's home was on Fifth Avenue, fronting
the park. It occupied half a block, and had cost two millions to
build and furnish. It was known as the "Snow Palace," being all of
white marble.

At the curb a man in livery opened the door of the car, and in the
vestibule another man in livery bowed the way. Lined up just inside
the door was a corps of imposing personages, clad in scarlet
waistcoats and velvet knee-breeches, with powdered wigs, and gold
buttons, and gold buckles on their patent-leather pumps. These
splendid creatures took their wraps, and then presented to Montague
and Oliver a bouquet of flowers upon a silver salver, and upon
another salver a tiny envelope bearing the name of their partner at
this strictly "informal" dinner-party. Then the functionaries stood
out of the way and permitted them to view the dazzling splendour of
the entrance hall of the Snow Palace. There was a great marble
staircase running up from the centre of the hall, with a carved
marble gallery above, and a marble fireplace below. To decorate this
mansion a real palace in the Punjab had been bought outright and
plundered; there were mosaics of jade, and wonderful black marble,
and rare woods, and strange and perplexing carvings.

The head butler stood at the entrance to the salon, pronouncing
their names; and just inside was Mrs. Winnie.

Montague never forgot that first vision of her; she might have been
a real princess out of the palace in the Punjab. She was a brunette,
rich-coloured, full-throated and deep-bosomed, with scarlet lips,
and black hair and eyes. She wore a court-gown of cloth of silver,
with white kid shoes embroidered with jewelled flowers. All her life
she had been collecting large turquoises, and these she had made
into a tiara, and a neck ornament spreading over her chest, and a
stomacher. Each of these stones was mounted with diamonds, and set
upon a slender wire. So as she moved they quivered and shimmered,
and the effect was dazzling, barbaric.

She must have seen that Montague was staggered, for she gave him a
little extra pressure of the hand, and said, "I'm so glad you came.
Ollie has told me all about you." Her voice was soft and melting,
not so forbidding as her garb.

Montague ran the gauntlet of the other guests: Charlie Carter, a
beautiful, dark-haired boy, having the features of a Greek god, but
a sallow and unpleasant complexion; Major "Bob" Venable, a stout
little gentleman with a red face and a heavy jowl; Mrs. Frank
Landis, a merry-eyed young widow with pink cheeks and auburn hair;
Willie Davis, who had been a famous half-back, and was now junior
partner in the banking-house; and two young married couples, whose
names Montague missed.

The name written on his card was Mrs. Alden. She came in just after
him--a matron of about fifty, of vigorous aspect and ample figure,
approaching what he had not yet learned to call embonpoint. She wore
brocade, as became a grave dowager, and upon her ample bosom there
lay an ornament the size of a man's hand, and made wholly out of
blazing diamonds--the most imposing affair that Montague had ever
laid eyes upon. She gave him her hand to shake, and made no attempt
to disguise the fact that she was looking him over in the meantime.

"Madam, dinner is served," said the stately butler; and the
glittering procession moved into the dining-room--a huge state
apartment, finished in some lustrous jet-black wood, and with great
panel paintings illustrating the Romaunt de la Rose. The table was
covered with a cloth of French embroidery, and gleaming with its
load of crystal and gold plate. At either end there were huge
candlesticks of solid gold, and in the centre a mbund of orchids and
lilies of the valley, matching in colour the shades of the
candelabra and the daintily painted menu cards.

"You are fortunate in coming to New York late in life," Mrs. Alden
was saying to him. "Most of our young men are tired out before they
have sense enough to enjoy anything. Take my advice and look about
you--don't let that lively brother of yours set the pace for you."

In front of Mrs. Alden there was a decanter of Scotch whisky. "Will
you have some?" she asked, as she took it up.

"No, I thank you," said he, and then wondered if perhaps he should
not have said yes, as he watched the other select the largest of the
half-dozen wine-glasses clustered at her place, and pour herself out
a generous libation.

"Have you seen much of the city?" she asked, as she tossed it
off--without as much as a quiver of an eyelash.

"No," said he. "They have not given me much time. They took me off
to the country--to the Robert Wallings'."

"Ah," said Mrs. Alden; and Montague, struggling to make
conversation, inquired, "Do you know Mr. Walling?"

"Quite well," said the other, placidly. "I used to be a Walling
myself, you know."

"Oh," said Montague, taken aback; and then added, "Before you were
married?"

"No," said Mrs. Alden, more placidly than ever, "before I was
divorced."

There was a dead silence, and Montague sat gasping to catch his
breath. Then suddenly he heard a faint subdued chuckle, which grew
into open laughter; and he stole a glance at Mrs. Alden, and saw
that her eyes were twinkling; and then he began to laugh himself.
They laughed together, so merrily that others at the table began to
look at them in perplexity.

So the ice was broken between them; which filled Montague with a
vast relief. But he was still dimly touched with awe--for he
realized that this must be the great Mrs. Billy Alden, whose
engagement to the Duke of London was now the topic of the whole
country. And that huge diamond ornament must be part of Mrs. Alden's
million-dollar outfit of jewellery!

The great lady volunteered not to tell on him; and added generously
that when he came to dinner with her she would post him concerning
the company. "It's awkward for a stranger, I can understand," said
she; and continued, grimly: "When people get divorces it sometimes
means that they have quarrelled--and they don't always make it up
afterward, either. And sometimes other people quarrel--almost as
bitterly as if they had been married. Many a hostess has had her
reputation ruined by riot keeping track of such things."

So Montague made the discovery that the great Mrs. Billy, though.
forbidding of aspect, was good-natured when she chose to be, and
with a pretty wit. She was a woman with a mind of her own--a
hard-fighting character, who had marshalled those about her, and
taken her place at the head of the column. She had always counted
herself a personage enough to do exactly as she pleased; through the
course of the dinner she would take up the decanter of Scotch, and
make a pass to help Montague--and then, when he declined, pour out
imperturbably what she wanted. "I don't like your brother," she said
to him, a little later. "He won't last; but he tells me you're
different, so maybe I will like you. Come and see me sometime, and
let me tell you what not to do in New York."

Then Montague turned to talk with his hostess, who say on his right.

"Do you play bridge?" asked Mrs. Winnie, in her softest and most
gracious tone.

"My brother has given me a book to study from," he answered. "But if
he takes me about day and night, I don't know how I'm to manage it."

"Come and let me teach you," said Mrs. Winnie. "I mean it, really,"
she added. "I've nothing to do--at least that I'm not tired of. Only
I don't believe you'd take long to learn all that I know."

"Aren't you a successful player?" he asked sympathetically.

"I don't believe anyone wants me to learn," said Mrs.
Winnie.--"They'd rather come and get my money. Isn't that true,
Major?"

Major Venable sat on her other hand, and he paused in the act of
raising a spoonful of soup to his lips, and laughed, deep down in
his throat--a queer little laugh that shook his fat cheeks and neck.
"I may say," he said, "that I know several people to whom the status
quo is satisfactory."

"Including yourself," said the lady, with a little moue. "The
wretched man won sixteen hundred dollars from me last night; and he
sat in his club window all afternoon, just to have the pleasure of
laughing at me as I went by. I don't believe I'll play at all
to-night--I'm going to make myself agreeable to Mr. Montague, and
let you win from Virginia Landis for a change."

And then the Major paused again in his attack upon the soup. "My
dear Mrs. Winnie," he said, "I can live for much more than one day
upon sixteen hundred dollars!"

The Major was a famous club-man and bon vivant, as Montague learned
later on. "He's an uncle of Mrs. Bobbie Waiting's," said Mrs. Alden,
in his ear. "And incidentally they hate each other like poison."

"That is so that I won't repeat my luckless question again?" asked
Montague, with a smile.

"Oh, they meet," said the other. "You wouldn't be supposed to know
that. Won't you have any Scotch?"

Montague's thoughts were so much taken up with the people at this
repast that he gave little thought to the food. He noticed with
surprise that they had real spring lamb--it being the middle of
November. But he could not know that the six-weeks-old creatures
from which it had come had been raised in cotton-wool and fed on
milk with a spoon--and had cost a dollar and a half a pound. A
little later, however, there was placed before him a delicately
browned sweetbread upon a platter of gold, and then suddenly he
began to pay attention. Mrs. Winnie had a coat of arms; he had
noticed it upon her auto, and again upon the groat bronze gates of
the Snow Palace, and again upon the liveries of her footmen, and yet
again upon the decanter of Scotch. And now--incredible and
appalling--he observed it branded upon the delicately browned
sweetbread!

After that, who would not have watched? There were large dishes of
rare fruits upon the table--fruits which had been packed in cotton
wool and shipped in cold storage from every corner of the earth.
There were peaches which had come from South Africa (they had cost
ten dollars apiece). There were bunches of Hamburg grapes, dark
purple and bursting fat, which had been grown in a hot-house,
wrapped in paper bags. There were nectarines and plums, and
pomegranates and persimmons from Japan, and later on, little dishes
of plump strawberries-raised in pots. There were quail which had
come from Egypt, and a wonderful thing called "crab-flake a la
Dewey," cooked in a chafing-dish, and served with mushrooms that had
been grown in the tunnels of abandoned mines in Michigan. There was
lettuce raised by electric light, and lima beans that had come from
Porto Eico, and artichokes brought from France at a cost of one
dollar each.--And all these extraordinary viands were washed down by
eight or nine varieties of wines, from the cellar of a man who had
made collecting them a fad for the last thirty years, who had a
vineyard in France for the growing of his own champagne, and kept
twenty thousand quarts of claret in storage all the time--and
procured his Rhine wine from the cellar of the German Emperor, at a
cost of twenty-five dollars a quart!

There were twelve people at dinner, and afterward they made two
tables for bridge, leaving Charlie Carter to talk to Alice, and Mrs.
Winnie to devote herself to Montague, according to her promise.
"Everybody likes to see my house," she said. "Would you?" And she
led the way from the dining-room into the great conservatory, which
formed a central court extending to the roof of the building. She
pressed a button, and a soft radiance streamed down from above, in
the midst of which Mrs. Winnie stood, with her shimmering jewels a
very goddess of the fire.

The conservatory was a place in which he could have spent the
evening; it was filled with the most extraordinary varieties of
plants. "They were gathered from all over the world," said Mrs.
Winnie, seeing that he was staring at them. "My husband employed a
connoisseur to hunt them out for him. He did it before we were
married--he thought it would make me happy."

In the centre of the place there was a fountain, twelve or fourteen
feet in height, and set in a basin of purest Carrara marble. By the
touch of a button the pool was flooded with submerged lights, and
one might see scores of rare and beautiful fish swimming about.

"Isn't it fine!" said Mrs. Winnie, and added eagerly, "Do you know,
I come here at night, sometimes when I can't sleep, and sit for hours
and gaze. All those living things; with their extraordinary
forms-some of them have faces, and look like human beings! And I
wonder what they think about, and if life seems as strange to them
as it does to me."

She seated herself by the edge of the pool, and gazed in. "These
fish were given to me by my cousin, Ned Carter. They call him
Buzzie. Have you met him yet?--No, of course not. He's Charlie's
brother, and he collects art things--the most unbelievable things.
Once, a long time ago, he took a fad for goldfish--some goldfish
are very rare and beautiful, you know--one can pay twenty-five and
fifty dollars apiece for them. He got all the dealers had, and when
he learned that there were some they couldn't get, he took a trip to
Japan and China on purpose to get them. You know they raise them
there, and some of them are sacred, and not allowed to be sold or
taken out of the country. And he had all sorts of carved ivory
receptacles for them, that he brought home with him--he had one
beautiful marble basin about ten feet long, that had been stolen
from the Emperor."

Over Montague's shoulder where he sat, there hung an orchid, a most
curious creation, an explosion of scarlet flame. "That is the
odonto-glossum," said Mrs. Winnie. "Have you heard of it?"

"Never," said the man.

"Dear me," said the other. "Such is fame!"

"Is it supposed to be famous?" he asked.

"Very," she replied. "There was a lot in the newspapers about it.
You see Winton--that's my husband, you know--paid twenty-five
thousand dollars to the man who created it; and that made a lot of
foolish talk--people come from all over to look at it. I wanted to
have it, because its shape is exactly like the coronet on my crest.
Do you notice that?"

"Yes," said Montague. "It's curious."

"I'm very proud of my crest," continued Mrs. Winnie. "Of course
there are vulgar rich people who have them made to order, and make
them ridiculous; but ours is a real one. It's my own--not my
husband's; the Duvals are an old French family, but they're not
noble. I was a Morris, you know, and our line runs back to the old
French ducal house of Montmorenci. And last summer, when we were
motoring, I hunted up one of their chateaux; and see! I brought over
this."

Mrs. Winnie pointed to a suit of armour, placed in a passage leading
to the billiard-room. "I have had the lights fixed," she added. And
she pressed a button, and all illumination vanished, save for a
faint red glow just above the man in armour.

"Doesn't he look real?" said she. (He had his visor down, and a
battle-axe in his mailed hands.) "I like to imagine that he may have
been my twentieth great-grandfather. I come and sit here, and gaze
at him and shiver. Think what a terrible time it must have been to
live in--when men wore things like that! It couldn't be any worse to
be a crab."

"You seem to be fond of strange emotions," said Montague, laughing.

"Maybe I am," said the other. "I like everything that's old and
romantic, and makes you forget this stupid society world."

She stood brooding for a moment or two, gazing at the figure. Then
she asked, abruptly, "Which do you like best, pictures or swimming?"

"Why," replied the man, laughing and perplexed, "I like them both,
at times."

"I wondered which you'd rather see first," explained his escort;
"the art gallery or the natatorium. I'm afraid you'll get tired
before you've seen every thing."

"Suppose we begin with the art-gallery," said he. "There's not much
to see in a swimming-pool."

"Ah, but ours is a very special one," said the lady.--"And some
day, if you'll be very good, and promise not to tell anyone, I'll
let you see my own bath. Perhaps they've told you, I have one in my
own apartments, cut out of a block of the most wonderful green
marble."

Montague showed the expected amount of astonishment.

"Of course that gave the dreadful newspapers another chance to
gossip," said Mrs. Winnie, plaintively. "People found out what I had
paid for it. One can't have anything beautiful without that question
being asked."

And then followed a silence, while Mrs. Winnie waited for him to ask
it. As he forebore to do so, she added, "It was fifty thousand
dollars."

They were moving towards the elevator, where a small boy in the
wonderful livery of plush and scarlet stood at attention.
"Sometimes," she continued, "it seems to me that it is wicked to pay
such prices for things. Have you ever thought about it?"

"Occasionally," Montague replied.

"Of course," said she, "it makes work for people; and I suppose they
can't be better employed than in making beautiful things. But
sometimes, when I think of all the poverty there is, I get unhappy.
We have a winter place down South--one of those huge country-houses
that look like exposition buildings, and have rooms for a hundred
guests; and sometimes I go driving by myself, down to the mill
towns, and go through them and talk to the children. I came to know
some of them quite well--poor little wretches."

They stepped out of the elevator, and moved toward the art-gallery.
"It used to make me so unhappy," she went on. "I tried to talk to my
husband about it, but he wouldn't have it. 'I don't see why you
can't be like other people,' he said--he's always repeating that to
me. And what could I say?"

"Why not suggest that other people might be like you?" said the man,
laughing.

"I wasn't clever enough," said she, regretfully.--"It's very hard
for a woman, you know--with no one to understand. Once I went down
to a settlement, to see what that was like. Do you know anything
about settlements?"

"Nothing at all," said Montague.

"Well, they are people who go to live among the poor, and try to
reform them. It takes a terrible lot of courage, I think. I give
them money now and then, but I am never sure if it does any good.
The trouble with poor people, it seems to me, is that there are so
many of them."

"There are, indeed," said Montague, thinking of the vision he had
seen from Oliver's racing-car.

Mrs. Winnie had seated herself upon a cushioned seat near the
entrance to the darkened gallery. "I haven't been there for some
time," she continued. "I've discovered something that I think
appeals more to my temperament. I have rather a leaning toward the
occult and the mystical, I'm afraid. Did you ever hear of the
Babists?"

"No," said Montague.

"Well, that's a religious sect--from Persia, I think--and they are
quite the rage. They are priests, you understand, and they give
lectures, and teach you all about the immanence of the divine, and
about reincarnation, and Karma, and all that. Do you believe any of
those things?"

"I can't say that I know about them," said he.

"It is very beautiful and strange," added the other. "It makes you
realize what a perplexing thing life is. They teach you how the
universe is all one, and the soul is the only reality, and so bodily
things don't matter. If I were a Babist, I believe that I could be
happy, even if I had to work in a cotton-mill."

Then Mrs. Winnie rose up suddenly. "You'd rather look at the
pictures, I know," she said; and she pressed a button, and a soft
radiance flooded the great vaulted gallery.

"This is our chief pride in life," she said. "My husband's object
has been to get one representative work of each of the great
painters of the world. We got their masterpiece whenever we could.
Over there in the corner are the old masters--don't you love to look
at them?"

Montague would have liked to look at them very much; but he felt
that he would rather it were some time when he did not have Mrs.
Winnie by his side. Mrs. Winnie must have had to show the gallery
quite frequently; and now her mind was still upon the Persian
transcendentalists.

"That picture of the saint is a Botticelli," she said. "And do you
know, the orange-coloured robe always makes me think of the swami.
That is my teacher, you know--Swami Babubanana. And he has the most
beautiful delicate hands, and great big brown eyes, so soft and
gentle--for all the world like those of the gazelles in our place
down South!"

Thus Mrs. Winnie, as she roamed from picture to picture, while the
souls of the grave old masters looked down upon her in silence.






CHAPTER VI





Montague had now been officially pronounced complete by his tailor;
and Reval had sent home the first of Alice's street gowns,
elaborately plain, but fitting her conspicuously, and costing
accordingly. So the next morning they were ready to be taken to call
upon Mrs. Devon.

Of course Montague had heard of the Devons, but he was not
sufficiently initiated to comprehend just what it meant to be asked
to call. But when Oliver came in, a little before noon, and
proceeded to examine his costume and to put him to rights, and
insisted that Alice should have her hair done over, he began to
realize that this was a special occasion. Oliver was in quite a
state of excitement; and after they had left the hotel, and were
driving up the Avenue, he explained to them that their future in
Society depended upon the outcome of this visit. Calling upon Mrs.
Devon, it seemed, was the American equivalent to being presented at
court. For twenty-five years this grand lady had been the undisputed
mistress of the Society of the metropolis; and if she liked them,
they would be invited to her annual ball, which took place in
January, and then for ever after their position would be assured.
Mrs. Devon's ball was the one great event of the social year; about
one thousand people were asked, while ten thousand disappointed ones
gnashed their teeth in outer darkness.

All of which threw Alice into a state of trepidation.

"Suppose we don't suit her!" she said.

To that the other replied that their way had been made smooth by
Reggie Mann, who was one of Mrs. Devon's favourites.

A century and more ago the founder of the Devon line had come to
America, and invested his savings in land on Manhattan Island. Other
people had toiled and built a city there, and generation after
generation of the Devons had sat by and collected the rents, until
now their fortune amounted to four or five hundred millions of
dollars. They were the richest old family in America, and the most
famous; and in Mrs. Devon, the oldest member of the line, was
centred all its social majesty and dominion. She lived a stately and
formal life, precisely like a queen; no one ever saw her save upon
her raised chair of state, and she wore her jewels even at
breakfast. She was the arbiter of social destinies, and the
breakwater against which the floods of new wealth beat in vain.
Reggie Mann told wonderful tales about the contents of her enormous
mail--about wives and daughters of mighty rich men who flung
themselves at her feet and pleaded abjectly for her favour--who laid
siege to her house for months, and intrigued and pulled wires to get
near her, and even bought the favour of her servants! If Reggie
might be believed, great financial wars had been fought, and the
stock-markets of the world convulsed more than once, because of
these social struggles; and women of wealth and beauty had offered
to sell themselves for the privilege which was so freely granted to
them.

They came to the old family mansion and rang the bell, and the
solemn butler ushered them past the grand staircase and into the
front reception-room to wait. Perhaps five minutes later he came in
and rolled back the doors, and they stood up, and beheld a withered
old lady, nearly eighty years of age, bedecked with diamonds and
seated upon a sort of throne. They approached, and Oliver introduced
them, and the old lady held out a lifeless hand; and then they sat
down.

Mrs. Devon asked them a few questions as to how much of New York
they had seen, and how they liked it, and whom they had met; but
most of the time she simply looked them over, and left the making of
conversation to Oliver. As for Montague, he sat, feeling perplexed
and uncomfortable, and wondering, deep down in him, whether it could
really be America in which this was happening.

"You see," Oliver explained to them, when they were seated in their
carriage again, "her mind is failing, and it's really quite
difficult for her to receive."

"I'm glad I don't have to call on her more than once," was Alice's
comment. "When do we know the verdict?"

"When you get a card marked 'Mrs. Devon at home,'" said Oliver. And
he went on to tell them about the war which had shaken Society long
ago, when the mighty dame had asserted her right to be "Mrs. Devon,"
and the only "Mrs. Devon." He told them also about her wonderful
dinner-set of china, which had cost thirty thousand dollars, and was
as fragile as a humming-bird's wing. Each piece bore her crest, and
she had a china expert to attend to washing and packing it--no
common hand was ever allowed to touch it. He told them, also, how
Mrs. Devon's housekeeper had wrestled for so long, trying to teach
the maids to arrange the furniture in the great reception-rooms
precisely as the mistress ordered; until finally a complete set of
photographs had been taken, so that the maids might do their work by
chart.

Alice went back to the hotel, for Mrs. Robbie Walling was to call
and take her home to lunch; and Montague and his brother strolled
round to Reggie Mann's apartments, to report upon their visit.

Reggie received them in a pair of pink silk pyjamas, decorated with
ribbons and bows, and with silk-embroidered slippers, set with
pearls--a present from a feminine adorer. Montague noticed, to his
dismay, that the little man wore a gold bracelet upon one arm! He
explained that he had led a cotillion the night before--or rather
this morning; he had got home at five o'clock. He looked quite white
and tired, and there were the remains of a breakfast of
brandy-and-soda on the table.

"Did you see the old girl?" he asked. "And how does she hold up?"

"She's game," said Oliver.

"I had the devil's own time getting you in," said the other. "It's
getting harder every day."

"You'll excuse me," Reggie added, "if I get ready. I have an
engagement." And he turned to his dressing-table, which was covered
with an array of cosmetics and perfumes, and proceeded, in a
matter-of-fact way, to paint his face. Meanwhile his valet was
flitting silently here and there, getting ready his afternoon
costume; and Montague, in spite of himself, followed the man with
his eyes. A haberdasher's shop might have been kept going for quite
a while upon the contents of Reggie's dressers. His clothing was
kept in a room adjoining the dressing-room; Montague, who was near
the door, could see the rosewood wardrobes, each devoted to a
separate article of clothing-shirts, for instance, laid upon sliding
racks, tier upon tier of them, of every material and colour. There
was a closet fitted with shelves and equipped like a little shoe
store--high shoes and low shoes, black ones, brown ones, and white
ones, and each fitted over a last to keep its shape perfect. These
shoes were all made to order according to Reggie's designs, and
three or-four times a year there was a cleaning out, and those which
had gone out of fashion became the prey of his "man." There was a
safe in one closet, in which Reggie's jewellery was kept.

The dressing-room was furnished like a lady's boudoir, the furniture
upholstered with exquisite embroidered silk, and the bed hung with
curtains of the same material. There was a huge bunch of roses on
the centre-table, and the odour of roses hung heavy in the room.

The valet stood at attention with a rack of neckties, from which
Reggie critically selected one to match his shirt. "Are you going to
take Alice with you down to the Havens's?" he was asking; and he
added, "You'll meet Vivie Patton down there--she's had another row
at home."



"You don't say so!" exclaimed Oliver.

"Yes," said the other. "Frank waited up all night for her, and he
wept and tore his hair and vowed he would kill the Count. Vivie told
him to go to hell."

"Good God!" said Oliver. "Who told you that?"

"The faithful Alphomse," said Reggie, nodding toward his valet. "Her
maid told him. And Frank vows he'll sue--I half expected to see it
in the papers this morning."

"I met Vivie on the street yesterday," said Oliver. "She looked as
chipper as ever."

Reggie shrugged his shoulders. "Have you seen this week's paper?" he
asked. "They've got another of Ysabel's suppressed poems in."--And
then he turned toward Montague to explain that "Ysabel" was the
pseudonym of a young debutante who had fallen under the spell of
Baudelaire and Wilde, and had published a volume of poems of such
furious eroticism that her parents were buying up stray copies at
fabulous prices.

Then the conversation turned to the Horse Show, and for quite a
while they talked about who was going to wear what. Finally Oliver
rose, saying that they would have to get a bite to eat before
leaving for the Havens's. "You'll have a good time," said Reggie.
"I'd have gone myself, only I promised to stay and help Mrs. de
Graffenried design a dinner. So long!"

Montague had heard nothing about the visit to the Havens's; but now,
as they strolled down the Avenue, Oliver explained that they were to
spend the weekend at Castle Havens. There was quite a party going up
this Friday afternoon, and they would find one of the Havens's
private cars waiting. They had nothing to do meantime, for their
valets would attend to their packing, and Alice and her maid would
meet them at the depot.

"Castle Havens is one of the show places of the country," Oliver
added. "You'll see the real thing this time." And while they
lunched, he went on to entertain his brother with particulars
concerning the place and its owners. John had inherited the bulk of
the enormous Havens fortune, and he posed as his father's successor
in the Steel Trust. Some day some one of the big men would gobble
him up; meantime he amused himself fussing over the petty details of
administration. Mrs. Havens had taken a fancy to a rural life, and
they had built this huge palace in the hills of Connecticut, and she
wrote verses in which she pictured herself as a simple
shepherdess--and all that sort of stuff. But no one minded that,
because the place was gr'and, and there was always so much to do.
They had forty or fifty polo ponies, for instance, and every spring
the place was filled with polo men.

At the depot they caught sight of Charlie Carter, in his big red
touring-car. "Are you going to the Havens's?" he said. "Tell them
we're going to pick up Chauncey on the way."

"That's Chauncey Venable, the Major's nephew," said Oliver, as they
strolled to the train. "Poor Chauncey--he's in exile!"

"How do you mean?" asked Montague.

"Why, he daren't come into New York," said the other. "Haven't you
read about it in the papers? He lost one or two hundred thousand the
other night in a gambling place, and the district attorney's trying
to catch him."

"Does he want to put him in jail?" asked Montague.

"Heavens, no!" said Oliver. "Put a Venable in jail? He wants him for
a witness against the gambler; and poor Chauncey is flitting about
the country hiding with his friends, and wailing because he'll miss
the Horse Show."

They boarded the palatial private car, and were introduced to a
number of other guests. Among them was Major Venable; and while
Oliver buried himself in the new issue of the fantastic-covered
society journal, which contained the poem of the erotic "Ysabel,"
his brother chatted with the Major. The latter had taken quite a
fancy to the big handsome stranger, to whom everything in the city
was so new and interesting."

"Tell me what you thought of the Snow Palace," said he. "I've an
idea that Mrs. Winnie's got quite a crush on you. You'll find her
dangerous, my boy--she'll make you pay for your dinners before you
get through!"

After the train was under way, the Major got himself surrounded with
some apollinaris and Scotch, and then settled back to enjoy himself.
"Did you see the 'drunken kid' at the ferry?" he asked. "(That's
what our abstemious district attorney terms my precious young
heir-apparent.) You'll meet him at the Castle--the Havens are good
to him. They know how it feels, I guess; when John was a youngster
his piratical uncle had to camp in Jersey for six months or so, to
escape the strong arm of the law."

"Don't you know about it?" continued the Major, sipping at his
beverage. "Sic transit gloria mundi! That was when the great Captain
Kidd Havens was piling up the millions which his survivors are
spending with such charming insouciance. He was plundering a
railroad, and the original progenitor of the Wallings tried to buy
the control away from him, and Havens issued ten or twenty millions
of new stock overnight, in the face of a court injunction, and got
away with most of his money. It reads like opera bouffe, you
know--they had a regular armed camp across the river for about six
months--until Captain Kidd went up to Albany with half a million
dollars' worth of greenbacks in a satchel, and induced the
legislature to legalize the proceedings. That was just after the
war, you know, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. It seems
strange to think that anyone shouldn't know about it."

"I know about Havens in a general way," said Montague.

"Yes," said the Major. "But I know in a particular way, because I've
carried some of that railroad's paper all these years, and it's
never paid any dividends since. It has a tendency to interfere with
my appreciation of John's lavish hospitality."

Montague was reminded of the story of the Roman emperor who pointed
out that money had no smell.

"Maybe not," said the Major. "But all the same, if you were
superstitious, you might make out an argument from the Havens
fortune. Take that poor girl who married the Count."

And the Major went on to picture the denouement of that famous
international alliance, which, many years ago, had been the
sensation of two continents. All Society had attended the gorgeous
wedding, an archbishop had performed the ceremony, and the
newspapers had devoted pages to describing the gowns and the jewels
and the presents and all the rest of the magnificence. And the Count
was a wretched little degenerate, who beat and kicked his wife, and
flaunted his mistresses in her face, and wasted fourteen million
dollars of her money in a couple of years. The mind could scarcely
follow the orgies of this half-insane creature--he had spent two
hundred thousand dollars on a banquet, and half as much again for a
tortoise-shell wardrobe in which Louis the Sixteenth had kept his
clothes! He had charged a diamond necklace to his wife, and taken
two of the four rows of diamonds out of it before he presented it to
her! He had paid a hundred thousand dollars a year to a jockey whom
the Parisian populace admired, and a fortune for a palace in Verona,
which he had promptly torn down, for the sake of a few painted
ceilings. The Major told about one outdoor fete, which he had given
upon a sudden whim: ten thousand Venetian lanterns, ten thousand
metres of carpet; three thousand gilded chairs, and two or three
hundred waiters in fancy costumes; two palaces built in a lake, with
sea-horses and dolphins, and half a dozen orchestras, and several
hundred chorus--girls from the Grand Opera! And in between
adventures such as these, he bought a seat in the Chamber of
Deputies, and made speeches and fought duels in defence of the Holy
Catholic Church--and wrote articles for the yellow journals of
America. "And that's the fate of my lost dividends!" growled the
Major.

There were several automobiles to meet the party at the depot, and
they were whirled through a broad avenue up a valley, and past a
little lake, and so to the gates of Castle Havens.

It was a tremendous building, a couple of hundred feet long. One
entered into a main hall, perhaps fifty feet wide, with a great
fireplace arid staircase of marble and bronze, and furniture of
gilded wood and crimson velvet, and a huge painting, covering three
of the walls, representing the Conquest of Peru. Each of the rooms
was furnished in the style of a different period--one Louis
Quatorze, one Louis Quinze, one Marie Antoniette, and so on. There
was a drawing-room and a regal music-room; a dining-room in the
Georgian style, and a billiard-room, also in the English fashion,
with high wainscoting and open beams in the coiling; and a library,
and a morning-room and conservatory. Upstairs in the main suite of
rooms was a royal bedstead, which alone was rumoured to have cost
twenty-five thousand dollars; and you might have some idea of the
magnificence of things when you learned that underneath the gilding
of the furniture was the rare and precious Circassian walnut.

All this was beautiful. But what brought the guests to Castle Havens
was the casino, so the Major had remarked. It was really a private
athletic club--with tan-bark hippodrome, having a ring the size of
that in Madison Square Garden, and a skylight roof, and thirty or
forty arc-lights for night events. There were bowling-alloys,
billiard and lounging-rooms, hand-ball, tennis and racket-courts, a
completely equipped gymnasium, a shooting-gallery, and a
swimming-pool with Turkish and Russian baths. In this casino alone
there were rooms for forty guests.

Such was Castle Havens; it had cost three or four millions of
dollars, and within the twelve-foot wall which surrounded its
grounds lived two world-weary people who dreaded nothing so much as
to be alone. There were always guests, and on special occasions
there might be three or four score. They went whirling about the
country in their autos; they rode and drove; they played games,
outdoor and indoor, or gambled, or lounged and chatted, or wandered
about at their own sweet will. Coming to one of these places was not
different from staying at a great hotel, save that the company was
selected, and instead of paying a bill, you gave twenty or thirty
dollars to the servants when you left.

It was a great palace of pleasure, in which beautiful and graceful
men and women played together in all sorts of beautiful and graceful
ways. In the evenings great logs blazed in the fireplace in the
hall, and there might be an informal dance--there was always music
at hand. Now and then there would be a stately ball, with rich gowns
and flashing jewels, and the grounds ablaze with lights, and a full
orchestra, and special trains from the city. Or a whole theatrical
company would be brought down to give an entertainment in the
theatre; or a minstrel show, or a troupe of acrobats, or a menagerie
of trained animals. Or perhaps there would be a great pianist, or a
palmist, or a trance medium. Anyone at all would be welcome who
could bring a new thrill--it mattered nothing at all, though the
price might be several hundred dollars a minute.

Montague shook hands with his host and hostess, and with a number of
others; among them Billy Price who forthwith challenged him, and
carried him off to the shooting-gallery. Here he took a rifle, and
proceeded to satisfy her as to his skill. This brought him to the
notice of Siegfried Harvey, who was a famous cross-country rider and
"polo-man." Harvey's father owned a score of copper-mines, and had
named him after a race-horse; he was a big broad-shouldered fellow,
a favourite of every one; and next morning, when he found that
Montague sat a horse like one who was born to it, he invited him to
come out to his place on Long Island, and see some of the
fox-hunting.

Then, after he had dressed for dinner, Montague came downstairs, and
found Betty Wyman, shining like Aurora in an orange-coloured cloud.
Sho introduced him to Mrs. Vivie Patton, who was tall and slender
and fascinating, and had told her husband to go to hell. Mrs. Vivie
had black eyes that snapped and sparkled, and she was a geyser of
animation in a perpetual condition of eruption. Montague wondered if
she would have talked with him so gaily had she known what he knew
about her domestic entanglements.

The company moved into the dining-room, where there was served
another of those elaborate and enormously expensive meals which he
concluded he was fated to eat for the rest of his life. Only,
instead of Mrs. Billy Alden with her Scotch, there was Mrs. Vivie,
who drank champagne in terrifying quantities; and afterward there
was the inevitable grouping of the bridge fiends.

Among the guests there was a long-haired and wild-looking foreign
personage, who was the "lion" of the evening, and sat with half a
dozen admiring women about him. Now he was escorted to the
music-room, and revealed the fact that he was a violin virtuoso. He
played what was called "salon music"--music written especially for
ladies and gentlemen to listen to after dinner; and also a strange
contrivance called a concerto, put together to enable the player to
exhibit within a brief space the utmost possible variety of finger
gymnastics. To learn to perform these feats one had to devote his
whole lifetime to practising them, just like any circus acrobat; and
so his mind became atrophied, and a naive and elemental vanity was
all that was left to him.

Montague stood for a while staring; and then took to watching the
company, who chattered and laughed all through the performance.
Afterward, he strolled into the billiard-room, where Billy Price and
Chauncey Venable were having an exciting bout; and from there to the
smoking-room, where the stout little Major had gotten a group of
young bloods about him to play "Klondike." This was a game of deadly
hazards, which they played without limit; the players themselves
were silent and impassive, but the spectators who gathered about
were tense with excitement.

In the morning Charlie Carter carried off Alice and Oliver and Betty
in his auto; and Montague spent his time in trying some of Havens's
jumping horses. The Horse Show was to open in New York on Monday,
and there was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement because of this
prospect; Mrs. Caroline Smythe, a charming young widow, strolled
about with him and told him all about this Show, and the people who
would take part in it.

And in the afternoon Major Venable took him for a stroll and showed
him the grounds. He had been told what huge sums had been expended
in laying them out; but after all, the figures were nothing compared
with an actual view. There were hills and slopes, and endless vistas
of green lawns and gardens, dotted with the gleaming white of marble
staircases and fountains and statuary. There was a great Italian
walk, leading by successive esplanades to an electric fountain with
a basin sixty feet across, and a bronze chariot and marble horses.
There were sunken gardens, with a fountain brought from the South of
France, and Greek peristyles, and seats of marble, and vases and
other treasures of art.

And then there were the stables; a huge Renaissance building, with a
perfectly equipped theatre above. There was a model farm and dairy;
a polo-field, and an enclosed riding-ring for the children; and
dog-kennels and pigeon-houses, greenhouses and deer-parks--one was
prepared for bear-pits and a menagerie. Finally, on their way back,
they passed the casino, where musical chimes pealed out the
quarter-hours. Montague stopped and gazed up at the tower from which
the sounds had come.

The more he gazed, the more he found to gaze at The roof of this
building had many gables, in the Queen Anne style; and from the
midst of them shot up the tower, which was octagonal and solid,
suggestive of the Normans. It was decorated with Christmas-wreaths
in white stucco, and a few miscellaneous ornaments like the gilded
tassels one sees upon plush curtains. Overtopping all of this was
the dome of a Turkish mosque. Rising out of the dome was something
that looked like a dove-cot; and out of this rose the slender white
steeple of a Methodist country church. On top of that was a statue
of Diana.

"What are you looking at?" asked the Major.

"Nothing," said Montague, as he moved on. "Has there ever been any
insanity in the Havens family?"

"I don't know," replied the other, puzzled. "They say the old man
never could sleep at night, and used to wander about alone in the
park. I suppose he had things on his conscience."

They strolled away; and the Major's flood-gates of gossip were
opened. There was an old merchant in New York, who had been Havens's
private secretary. And Havens was always in terror of assassination,
and so whenever they travelled abroad he and the secretary exchanged
places. "The old man is big and imposing," said the Major, "and it's
funny to hear him tell how he used to receive the visitors and be
stared at by the crowds, while Havens, who was little and
insignificant, would pretend to make himself useful. And then one
day a wild-looking creature came into the Havens office, and began
tearing the wrappings off some package that shone like metal--and
quick as a flash he and Havens flung themselves down on the floor
upon their faces. Then, as nothing happened, they looked up, and saw
the puzzled stranger gazing over the railing at them. He had a
patent churn, made of copper, which he wanted Havens to market for
him!"

Montague could have wished that this party might last for a week or
two, instead of only two days. He was interested in the life, and in
those who lived it; all whom he met were people prominent in the
social world, and some in the business world as well, and one could
not have asked a better chance to study them.

Montague was taking his time and feeling his way slowly. But all the
time that he was playing and gossiping he never lost from mind his
real purpose, which was to find a place for himself in the world of
affairs; and he watched for people from whose conversation he could
get a view of this aspect of things. So he was interested when Mrs.
Smythe remarked that among his fellow-guests was Vandam, an official
of one of the great life-insurance companies. "Freddie" Vandam, as
the lady called him, was a man of might m the financial world; and
Montague said to himself that in meeting him he would really be
accomplishing something. Crack shots and polo-players and
four-in-hand experts were all very well, but he had his living to
earn, and he feared that the problem was going to prove complicated.

So ho was glad when chance brought him and young Vandam together,
and Siegfried Harvey introduced them. And then Montague got the
biggest shock which New York had given him yet.

It was not what Freddie Vandam said; doubtless he had a right to be
interested in the Horse Show, since he was to exhibit many fine
horses, and he had no reason to feel called upon to talk about
anything more serious to a stranger at a house party. But it was the
manner of the man, his whole personality. For Freddie was a man of
fashion, with all the exaggerated and farcical mannerisms of the
dandy of the comic papers. He wore a conspicuous and foppish
costume, and posed with a little cane; he cultivated a waving
pompadour, and his silky moustache and beard were carefully trimmed
to points, and kept sharp by his active fingers. His conversation
was full of French phrases and French opinions; he had been reared
abroad, and had a whole-souled contempt for all things American-even
dictating his business letters in French, and leaving it for his
stenographer to translate them. His shirts were embroidered with
violets and perfumed with violets--and there were bunches of violets
at his horses' heads, so that he might get the odour as he drove!

There was a cruel saying about Freddie Vandam--that if only he had
had a little more brains, he would have been half-witted. And
Montague sat, and watched his mannerisms and listened to his
inanities, with his mind in a state of bewilderment and dismay. When
at last he got up and walked away, it was with a new sense of the
complicated nature of the problem that confronted him. Who was there
that could give him the key to this mystery--who could interpret to
him a world in which a man such as this was in control of four or
five hundred millions of trust funds?






CHAPTER VII





It was quite futile to attempt to induce anyone to talk about
serious matters just now--for the coming week all Society belonged
to the horse. The parties which went to church on Sunday morning
talked about horses on the way, and the crowds that gathered in
front of the church door to watch them descend from their
automobiles, and to get "points" on their conspicuous
costumes--these would read about horses all afternoon in the Sunday
papers, and about the gowns which the women would wear at the show.

Some of the party went up on Sunday evening; Montague went with the
rest on Monday morning, and had lunch with Mrs. Robbie Walling and
Oliver and Alice. They had arrayed him in a frock coat and silk hat
and fancy "spats"; and they took him and sat him in the front row of
Robbie's box.

There was a great tan-bark arena, in which the horses performed; and
then a railing, and a broad promenade for the spectators; and then,
raised a few feet above, the boxes in which sat all Society. For the
Horse Show had now become a great social function. Last year a
visiting foreign prince had seen fit to attend it, and this year
"everybody" would come.

Montague was rapidly getting used to things; he observed with a
smile how easy it was to take for granted embroidered bed and table
linen, and mural paintings, and private cars, and gold plate. At
first it had seemed to him strange to be waited upon by a white
woman, and by a white man quite unthinkable; but he was becoming
accustomed to having silent and expressionless lackeys everywhere
about him, attending to his slightest want. So he presumed that if
he waited long enough, he might even get used to horses which had
their tails cut off to stumps, and their manes to rows of bristles,
and which had been taught to lift their feet in strange and
eccentric ways, and were driven with burred bits in their mouths to
torture them and make them step lively.

There were road-horses, coach-horses, saddle-horses and hunters,
polo-ponies, stud-horses--every kind of horse that is used for
pleasure, over a hundred different "classes" of them. They were put
through their paces about the ring, and there was a committee which
judged them, and awarded blue and red ribbons. Apparently their
highly artificial kind of excellence was a real thing to the people
who took part in the show; for the spectators thrilled with
excitement, and applauded the popular victors. There was a whole set
of conventions which were generally understood--there was even a
new language. You were told that these "turnouts" were "nobby" and
"natty"; they were "swagger" and "smart" and "swell."

However, the horse was really a small part of this show; before one
had sat out an afternoon he realized that the function was in
reality a show of Society. For six or seven hours during the day the
broad promenade would be so packed with human beings that one moved
about with difficulty; and this throng gazed towards the ring almost
never--it stared up into the boxes. All the year round the
discontented millions of the middle classes read of the doings of
the "smart set"; and here they had a chance to come and see
them-alive, and real, and dressed in their showiest costumes. Here
was all the grand monde, in numbered boxes, and with their names
upon the programmes, so that one could get them straight. Ten
thousand people from other cities had come to New York on purpose to
get a look. Women who lived in boarding-houses and made their own
clothes, had come to get hints; all the dressmakers in town were
present for the same purpose.. Society reporters had come, with
notebooks in hand; and next morning the imitators of Society all
over the United States would read about it, in such fashion as this:
"Mrs. Chauncey Venable was becomingly gowned in mauve cloth, made
with an Eton jacket trimmed with silk braid, and opening over a
chemisette of lace. Her hat was of the same colour, draped with a
great quantity of mauve and orange tulle, and surmounted with birds
of paradise to match. Her furs were silver fox."

The most intelligent of the great metropolitan dailies would print
columns of this sort of material; and as for the "yellow" journals,
they would have discussions of the costumes by "experts," and half a
page of pictures of the most conspicuous of the box-holders. While
Montague sat talking with Mrs. Walling, half a dozen cameras were
snapped at them; and once a young man with a sketch-book placed
himself in front of them and went placidly to work.--Concerning such
things the society dame had three different sets of emotions: first,
the one which she showed in public, that of bored and contemptuous
indifference; second, the one which she expressed to her friends,
that of outraged but helpless indignation; and third, the one which
she really felt, that of triumphant exultation over her rivals,
whose pictures were not published and whose costumes were not
described.

It was a great dress parade of society women. One who wished to play
a proper part in it would spend at least ten thousand dollars upon
her costumes for the week. It was necessary to have a different gown
for the afternoon and evening of each day; and some, who were adepts
at quick changes and were proud of it, would wear three or four a
day, and so need a couple of dozen gowns for the show. And of course
there had to be hats and shoes and gloves to match. There would be
robes of priceless fur hung carelessly over the balcony to make a
setting; and in the evening there would be pyrotechnical displays of
jewels. Mrs. Virginia Landis wore a pair of simple pearl earrings,
which she told the reporters had cost twenty thousand dollars; and
there were two women who displayed four hundred thousand dollars'
worth of diamonds--and each of them had hired a detective to hover
about in the crowd and keep watch over her!

Nor must one suppose, because the horse was an inconspicuous part of
the show, that he was therefore an inexpensive part. One man was to
be seen here driving a four-in-hand of black stallions which had
cost forty thousand; there were other men who drove only one horse,
and had paid forty thousand for that. Half a million was a moderate
estimate of the cost of the "string" which some would exhibit. And
of course these horses were useless, save for show purposes, and to
breed other horses like them. Many of them never went out of their
stables except for exercise upon a track; and the cumbrous and
enormous; expensive coaches were never by any possibility used
elsewhere--when they were taken from place to place they seldom went
upon their own wheels.

And there were people here who made their chief occupation in life
the winning of blue ribbons at these shows. They kept great country
estates especially for the horses, and had private indoor exhibition
rings. Robbie Walling and Chauncey Venable were both such people; in
the summer of next year another of the Wallings took a string across
the water to teach the horse-show game to Society in London. He took
twenty or thirty horses, under the charge of an expert manager and a
dozen assistants; he sent sixteen different kinds of carriages, and
two great coaches, and a ton of harness and other stuff. It required
one whole deck of a steamer, and the expedition enabled him to get
rid of six hundred thousand dollars.

All through the day, of course, Robbie was down in the ring with his
trainers and his competitors, and Montague sat and kept his wife
company. There was a steady stream of visitors, who came to
congratulate her upon their successes, and to commiserate with Mrs.
Chauncey Venable over the sufferings of the un-happy victim of a
notoriety-seeking district attorney.

There was just one drawback to the Horse Show, as Montague gathered
from the conversation that went on among the callers: it was public,
and there was no way to prevent undesirable people from taking part.
There were, it appeared, hordes of rich people in New York who were
not in Society, and of whose existence Society was haughtily
unaware; but these people might enter horses and win prizes, and
even rent a box and exhibit their clothes. And they might induce the
reporters to mention them--and of course the ignorant populace did
not know the difference, and stared at them just as hard as at Mrs.
Robbie or Mrs. Winnie. And so for a whole blissful week these people
had all the sensations of being in Society! "It won't be very long
before that will kill the Horse Show," said Mrs. Vivie Patton, with
a snap of her black eyes.

There was Miss Yvette Simpkins, for instance; Society frothed at the
mouth when her name was mentioned. Miss Yvette was the niece of a
stock-broker who was wealthy, and she thought that she was in
Society, and the foolish public thought so, too. Miss Yvette made a
speciality of newspaper publicity; you were always seeing her
picture, with some new "Worth creation," and the picture would be
labelled "Miss Yvette Simpkins, the best-dressed woman in New York,"
or "Miss Yvette Simpkins, who is known as the best woman whip in
Society." It was said that Miss Yvette, who was short and stout, and
had a rosy German face, had paid five thousand dollars at one clip
for photographs of herself in a new wardrobe; and her pictures were
sent to the newspapers in bundles of a dozen at a time. Miss Yvette
possessed over a million dollars' worth of diamonds--the finest in
the country, according to the newspapers; she had spent a hundred
and twenty-six thousand dollars this year upon her clothes, and she
gave long interviews, in which she set forth the fact that a woman
nowadays could not really be well dressed upon less than a hundred
thousand a year. It was Miss Yvette's boast that she had never
ridden in a street-car in her life.

Montague always had a soft spot in his heart for the unfortunate
Miss Yvette, who laboured so hard to be a guiding light; for it
chanced to be while she was in the ring, exhibiting her skill in
driving tandem, that he met with a fateful encounter. Afterward,
when he came to look back upon these early days, it seemed strange
to him that he should have gone about this place, so careless and
unsuspecting, while the fates were weaving strange destinies about
him.

It was on Tuesday afternoon, and he sat in the box of Mrs. Venable,
a sister-in-law of the Major. The Major, who was a care-free
bachelor, was there himself, and also Betty Wyman, who was making
sprightly comments on the passers-by; and there strolled into the
box Chappie de Peyster, accompanied by a young lady.

So many people had stopped and been introduced and then passed on,
that Montague merely glanced at her once. He noticed that she was
tall and graceful, and caught her name, Miss Hegan.

The turnouts in the ring consisted of one horse harnessed in front
of another; and Montague was wondering what conceivable motive could
induce a human being to hitch and drive horses in that fashion. The
conversation turned upon Miss Yvette, who was in the ring; and Betty
remarked upon the airy grace with which she wielded the long whip
she carried. "Did you see what the paper said about her this
morning?" she asked. "' Miss Simpkins was exquisitely clad in purple
velvet,' and so on! She looked for all the world like the Venus at
the Hippodrome!"

"Why isn't she in Society?" asked Montague, curiously.

"She!" exclaimed Betty. "Why, she's a travesty!"

There was a moment's pause, preceding a remark by their young lady
visitor. "I've an idea," said she, "that the real reason she never
got into Society was that she was fond of her old father."

And Montague gave a short glance at the speaker, who was gazing
fixedly into the ring. He heard the Major chuckle, and he thought
that he heard Betty Wyman give a little sniff. A few moments later
the young lady arose, and with some remark to Mrs. Venable about how
well her costume became her, she passed on out of the box.

"Who is that?" asked Montague.

"That," the Major answered, "that's Laura Hegan--Jim Hegan's
daughter."

"Oh!" said Montague, and caught his breath. Jim Hegan--Napoleon of
finance--czar of a gigantic system of railroads, and the power
behind the political thrones of many states.

"His only daughter, too," the Major added. "Gad, what a juicy morsel
for somebody!"

"Well, she'll make him pay for all he gets, whoever he is!" retorted
Betty, vindictively.

"You don't like her?" inquired Montague; and Betty replied promptly,
"I do not!"

"Her daddy and Betty's granddaddy are always at swords' points," put
in Major Venable.

"I have nothing to do with my granddaddy's quarrels," said the young
lady. "I have troubles enough of my own."

"What is the matter with Miss Hegan?" asked Montague, laughing.

"She's an idea she's too good for the world she lives in," said
Betty. "When you're with her, you feel as you will before the
judgment throne."

"Undoubtedly a disturbing feeling," put in the Major.

"She never hands you anything but you find a pin hidden in it," went
on the girl. "All her remarks are meant to be read backward, and my
life is too short to straighten out their kinks. I like a person to
say what they mean in plain English, and then I can either like them
or not."

"Mostly not," said the Major, grimly; and added, "Anyway, she's
beautiful."

"Perhaps," said the other. "So is the Jungfrau; but I prefer
something more comfortable."

"What's Chappie de Peyster beauing her around for?" asked Mrs.
Venable. "Is he a candidate?"

"Maybe his debts are troubling him again," said Mistress Betty. "He
must be in a desperate plight.--Did you hear how Jack Audubon
proposed to her?"

"Did Jack propose?" exclaimed the Major.

"Of course he did," said the girl. "His brother told me." Then, for
Montague's benefit, she explained, "Jack Audubon is the Major's
nephew, and he's a bookworm, and spends all his time collecting
scarabs."

"What did he say to her?" asked the Major, highly amused.

"Why," said Betty, "he told her he knew she didn't love him; but
also she knew that he didn't care anything about her money, and she
might like to marry him so that other men would let her alone."

"Gad!" cried the old gentleman, slapping his knee. "A masterpiece!"

"Does she have so many suitors?" asked Montague; and the Major
replied, "My dear boy--she'll have a hundred million dollars some
day!"

At this point Oliver put in appearance, and Betty got up and went
for a stroll with him; then Montague asked for light upon Miss
Hegan's remark.

"What she said is perfectly true," replied the Major; "only it riled
Betty. There's many a gallant dame cruising the social seas who has
stowed her old relatives out of sight in the hold."

"What's the matter with old Simpkins?" asked tho other.

"Just a queer boy," was the reply. "He has a big pile, and his one
joy in life is the divine Yvette. It is really he who makes her
ridiculous--he has a regular press agent for her, a chap he loads up
with jewellery and cheques whenever he gets her picture into the
papers."

The Major paused a moment to greet some acquaintance, and then
resumed the conversation. Apparently he could gossip in this
intimate fashion about any person whom you named. Old Simpkins had
been very poor as a boy, it appeared, and he had never got over the
memory of it. Miss Yvette spent fifty thousand at a clip for Paris
gowns; but every day her old uncle would save up the lumps of sugar
which came with the expensive lunch he had brought to his office.
And when he had several pounds he would send them home by messenger!

This conversation gave Montague a new sense of the complicatedness
of the world into which he had come. Miss Simpkins was "impossible";
and yet there was--for instance--that Mrs. Landis whom he had met
at Mrs. Winnie Duval's. He had mot her several times at the show;
and he heard the Major and his sister-in-law chuckling over a
paragraph in the society journal, to the effect that Mrs. Virginia
van Rensselaer Landis had just returned from a successful
hunting-trip in the far West. He did not see the humour of this, at
least not until they had told him of another paragraph which had
appeared some time before: stating that Mrs. Landis had gone to
acquire residence in South Dakota, taking with her thirty-five
trunks and a poodle; and that "Leanie" Hopkins, the handsome young
stock-broker, had taken a six months' vow of poverty, chastity, and
obedience.

And yet Mrs. Landis was "in" Society! And moreover, she spent nearly
as much upon her clothes as Miss Yvette, and the clothes were quite
as conspicuous; and if the papers did not print pages about them, it
was not because Mrs. Landis was not perfectly willing. She was
painted and made up quite as frankly as any chorus-girl on the
stage. She laughed a great deal, and in a high key, and she and her
friends told stories which made Montague wish to move out of the
way.

Mrs. Landis had for some reason taken a fancy to Alice, and invited
her home to lunch with her twice during the show. And after they had
got home in the evening, the girl sat upon the bed in her
fur-trimmed wrapper, and told Montague and his mother and Mammy Lucy
all about her visit.

"I don't believe that woman has a thing to do or to think about in
the world except to wear clothes!" she said. "Why, she has
adjustable mirrors on ball-bearings, so that she can see every part
of her skirts! And she gets all her gowns from Paris, four times a
year--she says there are four seasons now, instead of two! I thought
that my new clothes amounted to something, but my goodness, when I
saw hers!"

Then Alice went on to describe the unpacking of fourteen trunks,
which had just come up from the custom-house that day. Mrs.
Virginia's couturiere had her photograph and her colouring
(represented in actual paints) and a figure made up from exact
measurements; and so every one of the garments would fit her
perfectly. Each one came stuffed with tissue paper and held in place
by a lattice-work of tape; and attached to each gown was a piece of
the fabric, from which her shoemaker would make shoes or slippers.
There were street-costumes and opera-wraps, robes de chambre and
tea-gowns, reception-dresses, and wonderful ball and dinner gowns.
Most of these latter were to be embroidered with jewellery before
they were worn, and imitation jewels were sewn on, to show how the
real ones were to be placed. These garments were made of real lace
or Parisian embroidery, and the prices paid for them were almost
impossible to credit. Some of them were made of lace so filmy that
the women who made them had to sit in damp cellars, because the
sunlight would dry the fine threads and they would break; a single
yard of the lace represented forty days of labour. There was a
pastel "batiste de soie" Pompadour robe, embroidered with cream silk
flowers, which had cost one thousand dollars. There was a hat to go
with it, which had cost a hundred and twenty-five, and shoes of grey
antelope-skin, buckled with mother-of-pearl, which had cost forty.
There was a gorgeous and intricate ball-dress of pale green chiffon
satin, with orchids embroidered in oxidized silver, and a long court
train, studded with diamonds--and this had cost six thousand dollars
without the jewels! And there was an auto-coat which had cost three
thousand; and an opera-wrap made in Leipsic, of white unborn baby
lamb, lined with ermine, which had cost twelve thousand--with a
thousand additional for a hat to match! Mrs. Landis thought nothing
of paying thirty-five dollars for a lace handkerchief, or sixty
dollars for a pair of spun silk hose, or two hundred dollars for a
pearl and gold-handled parasol trimmed with cascades of chiffon, and
made, like her hats, one for each gown.

"And she insists that these things are worth the money," said Alice.
"She says it's not only the material in them, but the ideas. Each
costume is a study, like a picture. 'I pay for the creative genius
of the artist,' she said to me--'for his ability to catch my ideas
and apply them to my personality--my complexion and hair and eyes.
Sometimes I design my own costumes, and so I know what hard work it
is!'"

Mrs. Landis came from one of New York's oldest families, and she was
wealthy in her own right; she had a palace on Fifth Avenue, and now
that she had turned her husband out, she had nothing at all to put
in it except her clothes. Alice told about the places in which she
kept them--it was like a museum! There was a gown-room, made
dust-proof, of polished hardwood, and with tier upon tier of long
poles running across, and padded skirt-supporters hanging from them.
Everywhere there was order and system--each skirt was numbered, and
in a chiffonier-drawer of the same number you would find the
waist--and so on with hats and stockings and gloves and shoes and
parasols. There was a row of closets, having shelves piled up with
dainty lace-trimmed and beribboned lingerie; there were two closets
full of hats and three of shoes. "When she went West," said Alice,
"one of her maids counted, and found that she had over four hundred
pairs! And she actually has a cabinet with a card-catalogue to keep
track of them. And all the shelves are lined with perfumed silk
sachets, and she has tiny sachets sewed in every skirt and waist;
and she has her own private perfume--she gave me some. She calls it
Occur de Jeannette, and she says she designed it herself, and had it
patented!"

And then Alice went on to describe the maid's work-room, which was
also of polished hardwood, and dust-proof, and had a balcony for
brushing clothes, and wires upon which to hang them, and hot and
cold water, and a big ironing-table and an electric stove. "But
there can't be much work to do," laughed the girl, "for she never
wears a gown more than two or three times. Just think of paying
several thousand dollars for a costume, and giving it to your poor
relations after you have worn it only twice! And the worst of it is
that Mrs. Landis says it's all nothing unusual; you'll find such
arrangements in every home of people who are socially prominent. She
says there are women who boast of never appearing twice in the same
gown, and there's one dreadful personage in Boston who wears each
costume once, and then has it solemnly cremated by her butler!"

"It is wicked to do such things," put in old Mrs. Montague, when she
had heard this tale through. "I don't see how people can get any
pleasure out of it."

"That's what I said," replied Alice.

"To whom did you say that?" asked Montague. "To Mrs. Landis?"

"No," said Alice, "to a cousin of hers. I was downstairs waiting for
her, and this girl came in. And we got to talking about it, and I
said that I didn't think I could ever get used to such things."

"What did she say?" asked the other.

"She answered me strangely," said the girl. "She's tall, and very
stately, and I was a little bit afraid of her. She said, 'You'll get
used to it. Everybody you know will be doing it, and if you try to
do differently they'll take offence; and you won't have the courage
to do without friends. You'll be meaning every day to stop, but you
never will, and you'll go on until you die.'"

"What did you say to that?"

"Nothing," answered Alice. "Just then Mrs. Landis came in, and Miss
Hegan went away."

"Miss Hegan?" echoed Montague.

"Yes," said the other. "That's her name--Laura Hegan. Have you met
her?"






CHAPTER VIII





The Horse Show was held in Madison Square Garden, a building
occupying a whole city block. It seemed to Montague that during the
four days he attended he was introduced to enough people to fill it
to the doors. Each one of the exquisite ladies and gentlemen
extended to him a delicately gloved hand, and remarked what perfect
weather they were having, and asked him how long he had been in New
York, and what he thought of it. Then they would talk about the
horses, and about the people who were present, and what they had on.

He saw little of his brother, who was squiring the Walling ladies
most of the time; and Alice, too, was generally separated from him
and taken care of by others. Yet he was never alone--there was
always some young matron ready to lead him to her carriage and whisk
him away to lunch or dinner.

Many times he wondered why people should be so kind to him, a
stranger, and one who could do nothing for them in return. Mrs.
Billy Alden undertook to explain it to him, one afternoon, as he sat
in her box. There had to be some people to enjoy, it appeared, or
there would be no fun in the game. "Everything is new and strange to
you," said she, "and you're delicious and refreshing; you make these
women think perhaps they oughtn't to be so bored after all! Here's a
woman who's bought a great painting; she's told that it's great, but
she doesn't understand it herself--all she knows is that it cost
her a hundred thousand dollars. And now you come along, and to you
it's really a painting--and don't you see how gratifying that is to
her?"

"Oliver is always telling me it's bad form to admire," said the man,
laughing.

"Yes?" said the other. "Well, don't you let that brother of yours
spoil you. There are more than enough of blase people in town--you
be yourself."

He appreciated the compliment, but added, "I'm afraid that when the
novelty is worn off, people will be tired of me."

"You'll find your place," said Mrs. Alden--"the people you like and
who like you." And she went on to explain that here he was being
passed about among a number of very different "sets," with different
people and different tastes. Society had become split up in that
manner of late--each set being jealous and contemptuous of all the
other sets. Because of the fact that they overlapped a little at the
edges, it was possible for him to meet here a great many people who
never met each other, and were even unaware of each other's
existence.

And Mrs. Alden went on to set forth the difference between these
"sets"; they ran from the most exclusive down to the most "yellow,"
where they shaded off into the disreputable rich--of whom, it
seemed, there were hordes in the city. These included "sporting" and
theatrical and political people, some of whom were very rich indeed;
and these sets in turn shaded off into the criminals and the
demi-monde--who might also easily be rich. "Some day," said Mrs.
Alden "you should get my brother to tell you about all these people.
He's been in politics, you know, and he has a racing-stable."

And Mrs. Alden told him about the subtle little differences in the
conventions of these various sets of Society. There was the matter
of women smoking, for instance. All women smoked, nowadays; but some
would do it only in their own apartments, with their women friends;
and some would retire to an out-of-the-way corner to do it; while
others would smoke in their own dining-rooms, or wherever the men
smoked. All agreed however, in never smoking "in public"--that is,
where they would be seen by people not of their own set. Such, at
any rate, had always been the rule, though a few daring ones were
beginning to defy even that.

Such rules were very rigid, but they were purely conventional, they
had nothing to do with right or wrong: a fact which Mrs. Alden set
forth with her usual incisiveness. A woman, married or unmarried,
might travel with a man all over Europe, and every one might know
that she did it, but it would make no difference, so long as she did
not do it in America. There was one young matron whom Montague would
meet, a raging beauty, who regularly got drunk at dinner parties,
and had to be escorted to her carriage by the butler. She moved in
the most exclusive circles, and every one treated it as a joke.
Unpleasant things like this did not hurt a person unless they got
"out"--that is, unless they became a scandal in the courts or the
newspapers. Mrs. Alden herself had a cousin (whom she cordially
hated) who had gotten a divorce from her husband and married her
lover forthwith and had for this been ostracized by Society. Once
when she came to some semi-public affair, fifty women had risen at
once and left the room! She might have lived with her lover, both
before and after the divorce, and every one might have known it, and
no one would have cared; but the convenances declared that she
should not marry him until a year had elapsed after the divorce.

One thing to which Mrs. Alden could testify, as a result of a
lifetime's observation, was the rapid rate at which these
conventions, even the most essential of them, were giving way, and
being replaced by a general "do as you please." Anyone could see
that the power of women like Mrs. Devon, who represented the old
regime, and were dignified and austere and exclusive, was yielding
before the onslaught of new people, who were bizarre and fantastic
and promiscuous and loud. And the younger sets cared no more about
anyone--nor about anything under heaven, save to have a good time in
their own harum-scarum ways. In the old days one always received a
neatly-written or engraved invitation to dinner, worded in
impersonal and formal style; but the other day Mrs. Alden had found
a message which had been taken from the telephone: "Please come to
dinner, but don't come unless you can bring a man, or we'll be
thirteen at the table."

And along with this went a perfectly incredible increase in luxury
and extravagance. "You are surprised at what you see here to-day,"
said she--"but take my word for it, if you were to come back five
years later, you'd find all our present standards antiquated, and
our present pace-makers sent to the rear. You'd find new hotels and
theatres opening, and food and clothing and furniture that cost
twice as much as they cost now. Not so long ago a private car was a
luxury; now it's as much a necessity as an opera-box or a private
ball-room, and people who really count have private trains. I can
remember when our girls wore pretty muslin gowns in summer, and sent
them to wash; now they wear what they call lingerie gowns, dimity en
princesse, with silk embroidery and real lace and ribbons, that cost
a thousand dollars apiece and won't wash. Years ago when I gave a
dinner, I invited a dozen friends, and my own chef cooked it and my
own servants served it. Now I have to pay my steward ten thousand a
year, and nothing that I have is good enough. I have to ask forty or
fifty people, and I call in a caterer, and he brings everything of
his own, and my servants go off and get drunk. You used to get a
good dinner for ten dollars a plate, and fifteen was something
special; but now you hear of dinners that cost a thousand a plate!
And it's not enough to have beautiful flowers on the table--you have
to have 'scenery'; there must be a rural landscape for a background,
and goldfish in the finger-bowls, and five thousand dollars' worth
of Florida orchids on the table, and floral favours of roses that
cost a hundred and fifty dollars a dozen. I attended a dinner at the
Waldorf last year that had cost fifty thousand dollars; and when I
ask those people to see me, I have to give them as good as I got.
The other day I paid a thousand dollars for a tablecloth!"

"Why do you do it?" asked Montague, abruptly.

"God knows," said the other; "I don't. I sometimes wonder myself. I
guess it's because I've nothing else to do. It's like the story they
tell about my brother--he was losing money in a gambling-place in
Saratoga, and some one said to him, 'Davy, why do you go
there--don't you know the game is crooked?' 'Of course it's
crooked,' said he, 'but, damn it, it's the only game in town!'"

"The pressure is more than anyone can stand," said Mrs. Alden, after
a moment's thought. "It's like trying to swim against a current. You
have to float, and do what every one expects you to do--your
children and your friends and your servants and your tradespeople.
All the world is in a conspiracy against you."

"It's appalling to me," said the man.

"Yes," said the other, "and there's never any end to it. You think
you know it all, but you find you really know very little. Just
think of the number of people there are trying to go the pace! They
say there are seven thousand millionaires in this country, but I say
there are twenty thousand in New York alone--or if they don't own a
million, they're spending the income of it, which amounts to the
same thing. You can figure that a man who pays ten thousand a year
for rent is paying fifty thousand to live; and there's Fifth
Avenue--two miles of it, if you count the uptown and downtown parts;
and there's Madison Avenue, and half a dozen houses adjoining on
every side street; and then there are the hotels and apartment
houses, to say nothing of the West Side and Riverside Drive. And you
meet these mobs of people in the shops and the hotels and the
theatres, and they all want to be better dressed than you. I saw a
woman here to-day that I never saw in my life before, and I heard
her say she'd paid two thousand dollars for a lace handkerchief; and
it might have been true, for I've been asked to pay ten thousand for
a lace shawl at a bargain. It's a common enough thing to see a woman
walking on Fifth Avenue with twenty or thirty thousand dollars'
worth of furs on her. Fifty thousand is often paid for a coat of
sable, and I know of one that cost two hundred thousand. I know
women who have a dozen sets of furs--ermine, chinchilla, black fox,
baby lamb, and mink and sable; and I know a man whose chauffeur quit
him because he wouldn't buy him a ten-thousand-dollar fur coat! And
once people used to pack their furs away and take care of them; but
now they wear them about the street, or at the sea-shore, and you
can fairly see them fade. Or else their cut goes out of fashion, and
so they have to have new ones!"

All that was material for thought. It was all true--there was no
question about that. It seemed to be the rule that whenever you
questioned a tale of the extravagances of New York, you would hear
the next day of something several times more startling. Montague was
staggered at the idea of a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fur coat; and
yet not long afterward there arrived in the city a titled
Englishwoman, who owned a coat worth a million dollars, which
hard-headed insurance companies had insured for half a million. It
was made of the soft plumage of rare Hawaiian birds, and had taken
twenty years to make; each feather was crescent-shaped, and there
were wonderful designs in crimson and gold and black. Every day in
the casual conversation of your acquaintances you heard of similar
incredible things; a tiny antique Persian rug, which could be folded
into an overcoat pocket, for ten thousand dollars; a set of five
"art fans," each blade painted by a famous artist and costing
forty-three thousand dollars; a crystal cup for eighty thousand; an
edition de luxe of the works of Dickens for a hundred thousand; a
ruby, the size of a pigeon's egg, for three hundred thousand. In
some of these great New York palaces there were fountains which cost
a hundred dollars a minute to run; and in the harbour there were
yachts which cost twenty thousand a month to keep in commission.

And that same day, as it chanced, he learned of a brand-new kind of
squandering. He went home to lunch with Mrs. Winnie Duval, and there
met Mrs. Caroline Smythe, with whom he had talked at Castle Havens.
Mrs. Smythe, whose husband had been a well-known Wall Street
plunger, was soft and mushy, and very gushing in manner; and she
asked him to come home to dinner with her, adding, "I'll introduce
you to my babies."

From what Montague had so far seen, he judged that babies played a
very small part in the lives of the women of Society; and so he was
interested, and asked, "How many have you?"

"Only two, in town," said Mrs. Smythe. "I've just come up, you see."

"How old are they?" he inquired politely; and when the lady added,
"About two years," he asked, "Won't they be in bed by dinner time?"

"Oh my, no!" said Mrs. Smythe. "The dear little lambs wait up for
me. I always find them scratching at my chamber door and wagging
their little tails."

Then Mrs. Winnie laughed merrily and said, "Why do you fool him?"
and went on to inform Montague that Caroline's "babies" were
griffons Bruxelloises. Griffons suggested to him vague ideas of
dragons and unicorns and gargoyles; but he said nothing more, save
to accept the invitation, and that evening he discovered that
griffons Bruxelloises were tiny dogs, long-haired, yellow, and
fluffy; and that for her two priceless treasures Mrs. Smythe had an
expert nurse, to whom she paid a hundred dollars a month, and also a
footman, and a special cuisine in which their complicated food was
prepared. They had a regular dentist, and a physician, and gold
plate to eat from. Mrs. Smythe also owned two long-haired St.
Bernards of a very rare breed, and a fierce Great Dane, and a very
fat Boston bull pup--the last having been trained to go for an
airing all alone in her carriage, with a solemn coachman and footman
to drive him.

Montague, deftly keeping the conversation upon the subject of pets,
learned that all this was quite common. Many women in Society
artificially made themselves barren, because of the inconvenience
incidental to pregnancy and motherhood; and instead they lavished
their affections upon cats and dogs. Some of these animals had
elaborate costumes, rivalling in expensiveness those of their
step-mothers. They wore tiny boots, which cost eight dollars a
pair--house boots, and street boots lacing up to the knees; they had
house-coats, walking-coats, dusters, sweaters, coats lined with
ermine, and automobile coats with head and chest-protectors and
hoods and goggles--and each coat fitted with a pocket for its tiny
handkerchief of fine linen or lace! And they had collars set with
rubies and pearls and diamonds--one had a collar that cost ten
thousand dollars! Sometimes there would be a coat to match every
gown of the owner. There were dog nurseries and resting-rooms, in
which they might be left temporarily; and manicure parlours for
cats, with a physician in charge. When these pets died, there was an
expensive cemetery in Brooklyn especially for their interment; and
they would be duly embalmed and buried in plush-lined casket, and
would have costly marble monuments. When one of Mrs. Smythe's best
loved pugs had fallen ill of congestion of the liver, she had had
tan-bark put upon the street in front of her house; and when in
spite of this the dog died, she had sent out cards edged in black,
inviting her friends to a "memorial service." Also she showed
Montague a number of books with very costly bindings, in which were
demonstrated the unity, simplicity, and immortality of the souls of
cats and dogs.

Apparently the sentimental Mrs. Smythe was willing to talk about
these pets all through dinner; and so was her aunt, a thin and
angular spinster, who sat on Montague's other side. And he was
willing to listen--he wanted to know it all. There were umbrellas
for dogs, to be fastened over their backs in wet weather; there were
manicure and toilet sets, and silver medicine-chests, and
jewel-studded whips. There were sets of engraved visiting-cards;
there were wheel-chairs in which invalid cats and dogs might be
taken for an airing. There were shows for cats and dogs, with
pedigrees and prizes, and nearly as great crowds as the Horse Show;
Mrs. Smythe's St. Bernards were worth seven thousand dollars apiece,
and there were bull-dogs worth twice that. There was a woman who had
come all the way from the Pacific coast to have a specialist perform
an operation upon the throat of her Yorkshire terrier! There was
another who had built for her dog a tiny Queen Anne cottage, with
rooms papered and carpeted and hung with lace curtains! Once a young
man of fashion had come to the Waldorf and registered himself and
"Miss Elsie Cochrane"; and when the clerk made the usual inquiries
as to the relationship of the young lady, it transpired that Miss
Elsie was a dog, arrayed in a prim little tea-gown, and requiring a
room to herself. And then there was a tale of a cat which had
inherited a life-pension from a forty-thousand-dollar estate; it had
a two-floor apartment and several attendants, and sat at table and
ate shrimps and Italian chestnuts, and had a velvet couch for naps,
and a fur-lined basket for sleeping at night!

Four days of horses were enough for Montague, and on Friday morning,
when Siegfried Harvey called him up and asked if he and Alice would
come out to "The Roost" for the week-end, he accepted gladly.
Charlie Carter was going, and volunteered to take them in his car;
and so again they crossed the Williamsburg Bridge--"the Jewish
passover," as Charlie called it--and went out on Long Island.

Montague was very anxious to get a "line" on Charlie Carter; for he
had not been prepared for the startling promptness with which this
young man had fallen at Alice's feet. It was so obvious, that
everybody was smiling over it--he was with her every minute that he
could arrange it, and he turned up at every place to which she was
invited. Both Mrs. Winnie and Oliver were quite evidently
complacent, but Montague was by no means the same. Charlie had
struck him as a good-natured but rather weak youth, inclined to
melancholy; he was never without a cigarette in his fingers, and
there had been signs that he was not quite proof against the
pitfalls which Society set about him in the shape of decanters and
wine-cups: though in a world where the fragrance of spirits was
never out of one's nostrils, and where people drank with such
perplexing frequency, it was hard to know where to draw a line.

"You won't find my place like Havens's," Siegfried Harvey had said.
"It is real country." Montague found it the most attractive of all
the homes he had seen so far. It was a big rambling house, all in
rustic style, with great hewn logs outside, and rafters within, and
a winding oak stairway, and any number of dens and cosy corners, and
broad window-seats with mountains of pillows. Everything here was
built for comfort--there was a billiard-room and a smoking-room, and
a real library with readable bogles and great chairs in which one
sank out of sight. There were log fires blazing everywhere, and
pictures on the walls that told of sport, and no end of guns and
antlers and trophies of all sorts. But you were not to suppose that
all this elaborate rusticity would be any excuse for the absence of
attendants in livery, and a chef who boasted the cordon bleu, and a
dinner-table resplendent with crystal and silver and orchids and
ferns. After all, though the host called it a "small" place, he had
invited twenty guests, and he had a hunter in his stables for each
one of them.

But the most wonderful thing about "The Roost" was the fact that, at
a touch of a button, all the walls of the lower rooms vanished into
the second story, and there was one huge, log-lighted room, with
violins tuning up and calling to one's feet. They set a fast pace
here--the dancing lasted until three o'clock, and at dawn again they
were dressed and mounted, and following the pink-coated grooms and
the hounds across the frost-covered fields.

Montague was half prepared for a tame fox, but this was pared him.
There was a real game, it seemed; and soon the pack gave tongue, and
away went the hunt. It was the wildest ride that Montague ever had
taken--over ditches and streams and innumerable rail-fences, and
through thick coverts and densely populated barnyards; but he was in
at the death, and Alice was only a few yards behind, to the immense
delight of the company. This seemed to Montague the first real life
he had met, and he thought to himself that these full-blooded and
high-spirited men and women made a "set" into which he would have
been glad to fit--save only that he had to earn his living, and they
did not.

In the afternoon there was more riding, and walks in the crisp
November air; and indoors, bridge and rackets and ping-pong, and a
fast and furious game of roulette, with the host as banker. "Do I
look much like a professional gambler?" he asked of Montague; and
when the other replied that he had not yet met any New York
gamblers, young Harvey went on to tell how he had gone to buy this
apparatus (the sale of which was forbidden by law) and had been
asked by the dealer how "strong" he wanted it!

Then in the evening there was more dancing, and on Sunday another
hunt. That night a gambling mood seemed to seize the company--there
were two bridge tables, and in another room the most reckless game
of poker that Montague had ever sat in. It broke up at three in the
morning, and one of the company wrote him a cheque for sixty-five
hundred dollars; but even that could not entirely smooth his
conscience, nor reconcile him to the fever that was in his blood.

Most important to him, however, was the fact that during the game he
at last got to know Charlie Carter. Charlie did not play, for the
reason that he was drunk, and one of the company told him so and
refused to play with him; which left poor Charlie nothing to do but
get drunker. This he did, and came and hung over the shoulders of
the players, and told the company all about himself.

Montague was prepared to allow for the "wild oats" of a youngster
with unlimited money, but never in his life had he heard or dreamed
of anything like this boy. For half an hour he wandered about the
table, and poured out a steady stream of obscenities; his mind was
like a swamp, in which dwelt loathsome and hideous serpents which
came to the surface at night and showed their flat heads and their
slimy coils. In the heavens above or the earth beneath there was
nothing sacred to him; there was nothing too revolting to be spewed
out. And the company accepted the performance as an old story--the
men would laugh, and push the boy away, and say, "Oh, Charlie, go to
the devil!"

After it was all over, Montague took one of the company aside and
asked him what it meant; to which the man replied: "Good God! Do you
mean that nobody has told you about Charlie Carter?"

It appeared that Charlie was one of the "gilded youths" of the
Tenderloin, whose exploits had been celebrated in the papers. And
after the attendants had bundled him off to bed, several of the men
gathered about the fire and sipped hot punch, and rehearsed for
Montague's benefit some of his leading exploits.

Charlie was only twenty-three, it seemed; and when he was ten his
father had died and left eight or ten millions in trust for him, in
the care of a poor, foolish aunt whom he twisted about his ringer.
At the age of twelve he was a cigarette fiend, and had the run of
the wine-cellar. When he went to a rich private school he took whole
trunks full of cigarettes with him, and finally ran away to Europe,
to acquire the learning of the brothels of Paris. And then he came
home and struck the Tenderloin; and at three o'clock one morning he
walked through a plate-glass window, and so the newspapers took him
up. That had suddenly opened a new vista in life for Charlie--he
became a devotee of fame; everywhere he went he was followed by
newspaper reporters and a staring crowd. He carried wads as big
round as his arm, and gave away hundred-dollar tips to bootblacks,
and lost forty thousand dollars in a game of poker. He gave a fete
to the demi-monde, with a jewelled Christmas tree in midsummer, and
fifty thousand dollars' worth of splendour. But the greatest stroke
of all was the announcement that he was going to build a submarine
yacht and fill it with chorus-girls!--Now Charlie had sunk out of
public attention, and his friends would not see him for days; he
would be lying in a "sporting house" literally wallowing in
champagne.

And all this, Montague realized, his brother must have known! And he
had said not a word about it--because of the eight or ten millions
which Charlie would have when he was twenty-five!






CHAPTER IX





In the morning they went home with others of the party by train.
They could not wait for Charlie and his automobile, because Monday
was the opening night of the Opera, and no one could miss that. Here
Society would appear in its most gorgeous raiment, and, there would
be a show of jewellery such as could be seen nowhere else in the
world.

General Prentice and his wife had opened their town-house, and had
invited them to dinner and to share their box; and so at about
half-past nine o'clock Montague found himself seated in a great
balcony of the shape of a horseshoe, with several hundred of the
richest people in the city. There was another tier of boxes above,
and three galleries above that, and a thousand or more people seated
and standing below him. Upon the big stage there was an elaborate
and showy play, the words of which were sung to the accompaniment of
an orchestra.

Now Montague had never heard an opera, and he was fond of music. The
second act had just begun when he came in, and all through it he sat
quite spellbound, listening to the most ravishing strains that ever
he had heard in his life. He scarcely noticed that Mrs. Prentice was
spending her time studying the occupants of the other boxes through
a jewelled lorgnette, or that Oliver was chattering to her daughter.

But after the act was over, Oliver got him alone outside the box,
and whispered, "For God's sake, Allan, don't make a fool of
yourself."

"Why, what's the matter?" asked the other.

"What will people think," exclaimed Oliver, "seeing you sitting
there like a man in a dope dream?"

"Why," laughed the other, "they'll think I'm listening to the
music."

To which Oliver responded, "People don't come to the Opera to listen
to the music."

This sounded like a joke, but it was not. To Society the Opera was a
great state function, an exhibition of far more exclusiveness and
magnificence than the Horse Show; and Society certainly had the
right to say, for it owned the opera-house and ran it. The real
music-lovers who came, either stood up in the back, or sat in the
fifth gallery, close to the ceiling, where the air was foul and hot.
How much Society cared about the play was sufficiently indicated by
the fact that all of the operas were sung in foreign languages, and
sung so carelessly that the few who understood the languages could
make but little of the words. Once there was a world-poet who
devoted his life to trying to make the Opera an art; and in the
battle with Society he all but starved to death. Now, after half a
century, his genius had triumphed, and Society consented to sit for
hours in darkness and listen to the domestic disputes of German gods
and goddesses. But what Society really cared for was a play with
beautiful costumes and scenery and dancing, and pretty songs to
which one could listen while one talked; the story must be elemental
and passionate, so that one could understand it in pantomime--say
the tragic love of a beautiful and noble-minded courtesan for a
gallant young man of fashion.

Nearly every one who came to the Opera had a glass, by means of
which he could bring each gorgeously-clad society dame close to him,
and study her at leisure. There were said to be two hundred million
dollars' worth of diamonds in New York, and those that were not in
the stores were very apt to be at this show; for here was where they
could accomplish the purpose for which they existed--here was where
all the world came to stare at them. There were nine prominent
Society women, who among them displayed five million dollars' worth
of jewels. You would see stomachers which looked like a piece of a
coat of mail, and were made wholly of blazing diamonds. You would
see emeralds and rubies and diamonds and pearls made in tiaras--that
is to say, imitation crowns and coronets--and exhibited with a
stout and solemn dowager for a pediment. One of the Wallings had set
this fashion, and now every one of importance wore them. One lady to
whom Montague was introduced made a speciality of pearls--two black
pearl ear-rings at forty thousand dollars, a string at three hundred
thousand, a brooch of pink pearls at fifty thousand, and two
necklaces at a quarter of a million each!

This incessant repetition of the prices of things came to seem very
sordid; but Montague found that there was no getting away from it.
The people in Society who paid these prices affected to be above all
such considerations, to be interested only in the beauty and
artistic excellence of the things themselves; but one found that
they always talked about the prices which other people had paid, and
that somehow other people always knew what they had paid. They took
care also to see that the public and the newspapers knew what they
had paid, and knew everything else that they were doing. At this
Opera, for instance, there was a diagram of the boxes printed upon
the programme, and a list of all the box-holders, so that anyone
could tell who was who. You might see these great dames in their
gorgeous robes coming from their carriages, with crowds staring at
them and detectives hovering about. And the bosom of each would be
throbbing with a wild and wonderful vision of the moment when she
would enter her box, and the music would be forgotten, and all eyes
would be turned upon her; and she would lay aside her wraps, and
flash upon the staring throngs, a vision of dazzling splendour.

Some of these jewels were family treasures, well known to New York
for generations; and in such cases it was becoming the fashion to
leave the real jewels in the safe-deposit vault, and to wear
imitation stones exactly like them. From homes where the jewels were
kept, detectives were never absent, and in many cases there were
detectives watching the detectives; and yet every once in a while
the newspapers would be full of a sensational story of a robbery.
Then the unfortunates who chanced to be suspected would be seized by
the police and subjected to what was jocularly termed the "third
degree," and consisted of tortures as elaborate and cruel as any
which the Spanish Inquisition had invented. The advertising value of
this kind of thing was found to be so great that famous actresses
also had costly jewels, and now and then would have them stolen.

That night, when they had got home, Montague had a talk with his
cousin about Charlie Carter. He discovered a peculiar situation. It
seemed that Alice already knew that Charlie had been "bad." He was
sick and miserable; and her beauty and innocence had touched him and
made him ashamed of himself, and ho had hinted darkly at dreadful
evils. Thus carefully veiled, and tinged with mystery and romance,
Montague could understand how Charlie made an interesting and
appealing figure. "He says I'm different from any girl he ever met,"
said Alice--a remark of such striking originality that her cousin
could not keep back his smile.

Alice was not the least bit in love with him, and had no idea of
being; and she said that she would accept no invitations, and never
go alone with him; but she did not see how she could avoid him when
she met him at other people's houses. And to this Montague had to
assent.

General Prentice had inquired kindly as to what Montague had seen in
New York, and how he was getting along. He added that he had talked
about him to Judge Ellis, and that when he was ready to get to work,
the Judge would perhaps have some suggestions to make to him. He
approved, however, of Montague's plan of getting his bearings first;
and said that he would introduce him and put him up at a couple of
the leading clubs.

All this remained in Montague's mind; but there was no use trying to
think of it at the moment. Thanksgiving was at hand, and in
countless country mansions there would be gaieties under way. Bertie
Stuyvesant had planned an excursion to his Adirondack camp, and had
invited a score or so of young people, including the Montagues. This
would be a new feature of the city's life, worth knowing about.

Their expedition began with a theatre-party. Bertie had engaged four
boxes, and they met there, an hour or so after the performance had
begun. This made no difference, however, for the play was like the
opera-a number of songs and dances strung together, and with only
plot. enough to provide occasion for elaborate scenery and costumes.
From the play they were carried to the Grand Central Station, and a
little before midnight Bertie's private train set out on its
journey.

This train was a completely equipped hotel. There was a baggage
compartment and a dining-car and kitchen; and a drawing-room and
library-car; and a bedroom-car--not with berths, such as the
ordinary sleeping-car provides, but with comfortable bedrooms,
furnished in white mahogany, and provided with running water and
electric light. All these cars were built of steel, and
automatically ventilated: and they were furnished in the luxurious
fashion of everything with which Bertie Stuyvcsant had anything to
do. In the library-car there were velvet carpets upon the floor, and
furniture of South American mahogany, and paintings upon the walls
over which groat artists had laboured for years.

Bertie's chef and servants were on board, and a supper was ready in
the dining-car, which they ate while watching the Hudson by
moonlight. And the next morning they reached their destination, a
little station in the mountain wilderness. The train lay upon a
switch, and so they had breakfast at their leisure, and then,
bundled in furs, came out into the crisp pine-laden air of the
woods. There was snow upon the ground, and eight big sleighs
waiting; and for nearly three hours they drove in the frosty
sunlight, through most beautiful mountain scenery. A good part of
the drive was in Bertie's "preserve," and the road was private, as
big signs notified one every hundred yards or so.

So at last they reached a lake, winding like a snake among towering
hills, and with a huge baronial castle standing out upon the rocky
shore. This imitation fortress was the "camp."

Bertie's father had built it, and visited it only half a dozen times
in his life. Bertie himself had only been here twice, he said. The
deer were so plentiful that in the winter they died in scores.
Nevertheless there were thirty game-keepers to guard the ten
thousand acres of forest, and prevent anyone's hunting in it. There
were many such "preserves" in this Adiron-dack wilderness, so
Montague was told; one man had a whole mountain fenced about with
heavy iron railing, and had moose and elk and even wild boar inside.
And as for the "camps," there were so many that a new style of
architecture had been developed here--to say nothing of those which
followed old styles, like this imported Rhine castle. One of
Bertie's crowd had a big Swiss chalet; and one of the Wallings had a
Japanese palace to which he came every August--a house which had
been built from plans drawn in Japan, and by labourers imported
especially from Japan. It was full of Japanese ware--furniture,
tapestry, and mosaics; and the guides remembered with wonder the
strange silent, brown-skinned little men who had laboured for days
at carving a bit of wood, and had built a tiny pagoda-like tea-house
with more bits of wood in it than a man could count in a week.

They had a luncheon of fresh venison and partridges and trout, and
in the afternoon a hunt. The more active set out to track the deer
in the snow; but most prepared to watch the lake-shore, while the
game-keepers turned loose the dogs back in the hills. This
"hounding" was against the law, but Bertie was his own law here--and
at the worst there could simply be a small fine, imposed upon some
of the keepers. They drove eight or ten deer to water; and as they
fired as many as twenty shots at one deer, they had quite a lively
time. Then at dusk they came back, in a fine glow of excitement, and
spent the evening before the blazing logs, telling over their
adventures.

The party spent two days and a half here, and on the last evening,
which was Thanksgiving, they had a wild turkey which Bertie had shot
the week before in Virginia, and were entertained by a minstrel show
which had been brought up from New York the night before. The next
afternoon they drove back to the train.

In the morning, when they reached the city, Alice found a note from
Mrs. Winnie Duval, begging her and Montague to come to lunch and
attend a private lecture by the Swami Babubanana, who would tell
them all about the previous states of their souls. They went--though
not without a protest from old Mrs. Montague, who declared it was
"worse than Bob Ingersoll."

And then, in the evening, came Mrs. de Graffenried's opening
entertainment, which was one of the great events of the social year.
In the general rush of things Montague had not had a chance properly
to realize it; but Reggie Mann and Mrs. de Graffenried had been
working over it for weeks. When the Montagues arrived, they found
the Riverside mansion--which was decorated in imitation of an
Arabian palace--turned into a jungle of tropical plants.

They had come early at Reggie's request, and he introduced them to
Mrs. de Graffenried, a tall and angular lady with a leathern
complexion painfully painted; Mrs. de Graffenried was about fifty
years of age, but like all the women of Society she was made up for
thirty. Just at present there were beads of perspiration upon her
forehead; something had gone wrong at the last moment, and so Reggie
would have no time to show them the favours, as he had intended.

About a hundred and fifty guests were invited to this entertainment.
A supper was served at little tables in the great ball-room, and
afterward the guests wandered about the house while the tables were
whisked out of the way and the room turned into a play-house. A
company from one of the Broadway theatres would be bundled into cabs
at the end of the performance, and by midnight they would be ready
to repeat the performance at Mrs. do Graffenried's. Montague chanced
to bo near when this company arrived, and he observed that the
guests had crowded up too close, and not left room enough for the
actors. So the manager had placed them in a little ante-room, and
when Mrs. de Graffenried observed this, she rushed at the man, and
swore at him like a dragoon, and ordered the bewildered performers
out into the main room.

But this was peering behind the scenes, and he was supposed to be
watching the play. The entertainment was another "musical comedy"
like the one he had seen a few nights before. On that occasion,
however, Bertie Stuyvesant's sister had talked to him the whole
time, while now he was let alone, and had a chance to watch the
performance.

This was a very popular play; it had had a long run, and the papers
told how its author had an income of a couple of hundred thousand
dollars a year. And here was an audience of the most rich and
influential people in the city; and they laughed and clapped, and
made it clear that they were enjoying themselves heartily. And what
sort of a play was it?

It was called "The Kaliph of Kamskatka." It had no shred of a plot;
the Kaliph had seventeen wives, and there was an American drummer
who wanted to sell him another--but then you did not need to
remember this, for nothing came of it. There was nothing in the play
which could be called a character--there was nothing which could be
connected with any real emotion ever felt by human beings. Nor could
one say that there was any incident--at least nothing happened
because of anything else. Each event was a separate thing, like the
spasmodic jerking in the face of an idiot. Of this sort of "action"
there was any quantity--at an instant's notice every one on the
stage would fall simultaneously into this condition of idiotic
jerking. There was rushing about, shouting, laughing, exclaiming;
the stage was in a continual uproar of excitement, which was without
any reason or meaning. So it was impossible to think of the actors
in their parts; one kept thinking of them as human beings--thinking
of the awful tragedy of full-grown men and women being compelled by
the pressure of hunger to dress up and paint themselves, and then
come out in public and dance, stamp, leap about, wring their hands,
make faces, and otherwise be "lively."

The costumes were of two sorts: one fantastic, supposed to represent
the East, and the other a kind of reductio ad absurdum of
fashionable garb. The leading man wore a "natty" outing-suit, and
strutted with a little cane; his stock-in-trade was a jaunty air, a
kind of perpetual flourish, and a wink that suggested the cunning of
a satyr. The leading lady changed her costume several times in each
act; but it invariably contained the elements of bare arms and bosom
and back, and a skirt which did not reach her knees, and
bright-coloured silk stockings, and slippers with heels two inches
high. Upon the least provocation she would execute a little
pirouette, which would reveal the rest of her legs, surrounded by a
mass of lace ruffles. It is the nature of the human mind to seek the
end of things; if this woman had worn a suit of tights and nothing
else, she would have been as uninteresting as an underwear
advertisement in a magazine; but this incessant not-quite-revealing
of herself exerted a subtle fascination. At frequent intervals the
orchestra would start up a jerky little tune, and the two "stars"
would begin to sing in nasal voices some words expressive of
passion; then the man would take the woman about the waist and dance
and swing her about and bend her backward and gaze into her
eyes--actions all vaguely suggestive of the relationship of sex. At
the end of the verse a chorus would come gliding on, clad in any
sort of costume which admitted of colour and the display of legs;
the painted women of this chorus were never still for an instant--if
they were not actually dancing, they were wriggling their legs, and
jerking their bodies from side to side, and nodding their heads, and
in all other possible ways being "lively."

But it was not the physical indecency of this show that struck
Montague so much as its intellectual content. The dialogue of the
piece was what is called "smart"; that is, it was full of a kind of
innuendo which implied a secret understanding of evil between the
actor and his audience--a sort of countersign which passed between
them. After all, it would have been an error to say that there were
no ideas in the play--there was one idea upon which all the
interest of it was based; and Montague strove to analyze this idea
and formulate it to himself. There are certain life principles-one
might call them moral axioms--which are the result of the experience
of countless ages of the human race, and upon the adherence to which
the continuance of the race depends. And here was an audience by
whom all these principles were--not questioned, nor yet disputed,
nor yet denied--but to whom the denial was the axiom, something
which it would be too banal to state flatly, but which it was
elegant. and witty to take for granted. In this audience there were
elderly people, and married men and women, and young men and
maidens; and a perfect gale of laughter swept through it at a story
of a married woman whose lover had left her when he got married:--

"She must have been heartbroken," said the leading lady.

"She was desperate," said the leading man, with a grin.

"What did she do?" asked the lady "Go and shoot herself?"

"Worse than that," said the man. "She, went back to her husband and
had a baby!"

But to complete your understanding of the significance of this play,
you must bring yourself to realize that it was not merely a play,
but a kind of a play; it had a name--a "musical comedy"--the meaning
of which every one understood. Hundreds of such plays were written
and produced, and "dramatic critics" went to see them and gravely
discussed them, and many thousands of people made their livings by
travelling over the country and playing them; stately theatres were
built for them, and hundreds of thousands of people paid their money
every night to see them. And all this no joke and no nightmare--but
a thing that really existed. Men and women were doing these
things--actual flesh-and-blood human beings.

Montague wondered, in an awestricken sort of way, what kind of human
being it could be who had flourished the cane and made the grimaces
in that play. Later on, when ho came to know the "Tenderloin," he
met this same actor, and he found that he had begun life as a little
Irish "mick" who lived in a tenement, and whoso mother stood at the
head of the stairway and defended him with a rolling-pin against a
policeman who was chasing him. He had discovered that he could make
a living by his comical antics; but when he came home and told his
mother that he had been offered twenty dollars a week by a show
manager, she gave him a licking for lying to her. Now he was making
three thousand dollars a week--more than the President of the
United States and his Cabinet; but he was not happy, as he confided
to Montague, because he did not know how to read, and this was a
cause of perpetual humiliation. The secret desire of this little
actor's heart was to play Shakespeare; he had "Hamlet" read to him,
and pondered how to act it--all the time that he was flourishing his
little cane and making his grimaces! He had chanced to be on the
stage when a fire had broken out, and five or six hundred victims of
greed were roasted to death. The actor had pleaded with the people
to keep their seats, but all in vain; and all his life thereafter he
went about with this vision of horror in his mind, and haunted by
the passionate conviction that he had failed because of his lack of
education--that if only he had been a man of culture, he would have
been able to think of something to say to hold those terror-stricken
people!

At three o'clock in the morning the performance came to an end, and
then there were more refreshments; and Mrs. Vivie Patton came and
sat by him, and they had a nice comfortable gossip. When Mrs. Vivie
once got started at talking about people, her tongue ran on like a
windmill.

There was Reggie Mann, meandering about and simpering at people.
Reggie was in his glory at Mrs. do Graffenricd's affairs. Reggie had
arranged all this-he did the designing and the ordering, and
contracted for the shows with the agents. You could bet that ho had
got his commission on them, too--though sometimes Mrs. do
Graffenricd got the shows to come for nothing, because of the
advertising her name would bring. Commissions wore Reggie's
speciality--he had begun life as an auto agent. Montague didn't know
what that was? An auto agent was a man who was for ever begging his
friends to use a certain kind of car, so that he might make a
living; and Reggie had made about thirty thousand a year in that
way. He had come from Boston, where his reputation had been made by
the fact that early one morning, as they were driving home from a
celebration, he had dared a young society matron to take off her
shoes and stockings, and get out and wade in the public fountain;
and she had done it, and he had followed her. On the strength of the
eclat of this he had been taken up by Mrs. Devon; and one day Mrs.
Devon had worn a white gown, and asked him what he thought of it.
"It needs but one thing to make it perfect," said Reggie, and taking
a red rose, he pinned it upon her corsage. The effect was magical;
every one exclaimed with delight, and so Reggie's reputation as an
authority upon dress was made for ever. Now he was Mrs. de
Graffenried's right-hand man, and they made up their pranks
together. Once they had walked down the street in Newport with a big
rag doll between them. And Reggie had given a dinner at which the
guest of honour had been a monkey--surely Montague had heard of
that, for it had been the sensation of the season. It was really the
funniest thing imaginable; the monkey wore a suit of broad-cloth
with collar and cuffs, and he shook hands with all the guests, and
behaved himself exactly like a gentleman--except that he did not get
drunk.

And then Mrs. Vivie pointed out the great Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden,
who was sitting with one of her favourites, a grave, black-bearded
gentleman who had leaped into fame by inheriting fifty million
dollars. "Mrs. R.-C." had taken him up, and ordered his engagement
book for him, and he was solemnly playing the part of a social
light. He had purchased an old New York mansion, upon the decoration
of which three million dollars had been spent; and when he came down
to business from Tuxedo, his private train waited all day for him
with steam up. Mrs. Vivie told an amusing tale of a woman who had
announced her engagement to him, and borrowed large sums of money
upon the strength of it, before his denial came out. That had been a
source of great delight to Mrs. de Graffenried, who was furiously
jealous of "Mrs. R. C."

From the anecdotes that people told, Montague judged that Mrs. de
Graffenried must be one of those new leaders of Society, who, as
Mrs. Alden said, were inclined to the bizarre and fantastic. Mrs. de
Graffenried spent half a million dollars every season to hold the
position of leader of the Newport set, and you could always count
upon her for new and striking ideas. Once she had given away as
cotillion favours tiny globes with goldfish in them; again she had
given a dance at which everybody got themselves up as different
vegetables. She was fond of going about at Newport and inviting
people haphazard to lunch--thirty or forty at a time--and then
surprising them with a splendid banquet. Again she would give a big
formal dinner, and perplex people by offering them something which
they really cared to eat. "You see," explained Mrs. Vivie, "at these
dinners we generally get thick green turtle soup, and omelettes with
some sort of Florida water poured over them, and mushrooms cooked
under glass, and real hand-made desserts; but Mrs. de Graffenried
dares to have baked ham and sweet potatoes, or even real roast beef.
You saw to-night that she had green corn; she must have arranged for
that months ahead--we can never get it from Porto Rico until
January. And you see this little dish of wild strawberries-t-hey
were probably transplanted and raised in a hothouse, and every
single one wrapped separately before they were shipped."

All these labours had made Mrs. de Graffenried a tremendous power in
the social world. She had a savage tongue, said Mrs. Vivie, and
every one lived in terror of her; but once in a while she met her
match. Once she had invited a comic opera star to sing for her
guests, and all the men had crowded round this actress, and Mrs. de
Graffenried had flown into a passion and tried to drive them away;
and the actress, lolling back in her chair, and gazing up idly at
Mrs. do Graffenried, had drawled, "Ten years older than God!" Poor
Mrs. de Graffenried would carry that saying with her until she died.

Something reminiscent of this came under Montague's notice that same
evening. At about four o'clock Mrs. Vivie wished to go home, and
asked him to find her escort, the Count St. Elmo de Champignon--the
man, by the way, for whom her husband was gunning. Montague roamed
all about the house, and finally went downstairs, where a room had
been set apart for the theatrical company to partake of
refreshments. Mrs. de Graffenriod's secretary was on guard at the
door; but some of the boys had got into the room, and were drinking
champagne and "making dates" with the chorus-girls. And here was
Mrs. de Graffenried herself, pushing them bodily out of the room, a
score and more of them--and among them Mrs. Vivie's Count!

Montague delivered his message, and then went upstairs to wait until
his own party should be ready to leave. In the smoking-room were a
number of men, also waiting; and among them he noticed Major
Venable, in conversation with a man whom he did not know. "Come over
here," the Major called; and Montague obeyed, at the same time
noticing the stranger.

He was a tall, loose-jointed, powerfully built man, a small head and
a very striking face: a grim mouth with drooping corners tightly
set, and a hawk-like nose, and deep-set, peering eyes. "Have you met
Mr. Hegan?" said the Major. "Hegan, this is Mr. Allan Montague." Jim
Hegan! Montague repressed a stare and took the chair which they
offered him. "Have a cigar," said Hegan, holding out his case.

"Mr. Montague has just come to New York," said the Major. "He is a
Southerner, too."

"Indeed?" said Hegan, and inquired what State he came from. Montague
replied, and added, "I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter
last week, at the Horse Show."

That served to start a conversation; for Hegan came from Texas, and
when he found that Montague knew about horses--real horses--he
warmed to him. Then the Major's party called him away, and the other
two were left to carry on the conversation.

It was very easy to chat with Hegan; and yet underneath, in the
other's mind, there lurked a vague feeling of trepidation, as he
realized that he was chatting with a hundred millions of dollars.
Montague was new enough at the game to imagine that there ought to
be something strange, some atmosphere of awe and mystery, about a
man who was master of a dozen railroads and of the politics of half
a dozen States. He was simple and very kindly in his manner, a plain
man, interested in plain things. There was about him, as he talked,
a trace of timidity, almost of apology, which Montague noticed and
wondered at. It was only later, when he had time to think about it,
that he realized that Hegan had begun as a farmer's boy in Texas, a
"poor white"; and could it be that after all these years an instinct
remained in him, so that whenever he met a gentleman of the old
South he stood by with a little deference, seeming to beg pardon for
his hundred millions of dollars?

And yet there was the power of the man. Even chatting about horses,
you felt it; you felt that there was a part of him which did not
chat, but which sat behind and watched. And strangest of all,
Montague found himself fancying that behind the face that smiled was
another face, that did not smile, but that was grim and set. It was
a strange face, with its broad, sweeping eyebrows and its drooping
mouth; it haunted Montague and made him feel ill at ease.

There came Laura Hegan, who greeted them in her stately way; and
Mrs. Hegan, bustling and vivacious, costumed en grande dame. "Come
and see me some time," said the man. "You won't be apt to meet me
otherwise, for I don't go about much." And so they took their
departure; and Montague sat alone and smoked and thought. The face
still stayed with him; and now suddenly, in a burst of light, it
came to him what it was: the face of a bird of prey--of the great
wild, lonely eagle! You have seen it, perhaps, in a menagerie;
sitting high up, submitting patiently, biding its time. But all the
while the soul of the eagle is far away, ranging the wide spaces,
ready for the lightning swoop, and the clutch with the cruel talons!






CHAPTER X





The next week was a busy one for the Montagues. The Robbie Wallings
had come to town and opened their house, and the time drew near for
the wonderful debutante dance at which Alice was to be formally
presented to Society. And of course Alice must have a new dress for
the occasion, and it must be absolutely the most beautiful dress
ever known. In an idle moment her cousin figured out that it was to
cost her about five dollars a minute to be entertained by the
Wallings!

What it would cost the Wallings, one scarcely dared to think. Their
ballroom would be turned into a flower-garden; and there would be a
supper for a hundred guests, and still another supper after the
dance, and costly favours for every figure. The purchasing of these
latter had been entrusted to Oliver, and Montague heard with dismay
what they were to cost. "Robbie couldn't afford to do anything
second-rate," was the younger brother's only reply to his
exclamations.

Alice divided her time between the Wallings and her costumiers, and
every evening she came home with a new tale of important
developments. Alice was new at the game, and could afford to be
excited; and Mrs. Robbie liked to see her bright face, and to smile
indulgently at her eager inquiries. Mrs. Robbie herself had given
her orders to her steward and her florist and her secretary, and
went on her way and thought no more about it. That was the way of
the great ladies--or, at any rate, it was their pose.

The town-house of the Robbies was a stately palace occupying a block
upon Fifth Avenue--one of the half-dozen mansions of the Walling
family which were among the show places of the city. It would take a
catalogue to list the establishments maintained by the
Wallings--there was an estate in North Carolina, and another in the
Adirondacks, and others on Long Island and in New Jersey. Also there
were several in Newport--one which was almost never occupied, and
which Mrs. Billy Alden sarcastically described as "a
three-million-dollar castle on a desert."

Montague accompanied Alice once or twice, and had an opportunity to
study Mrs. Robbie at home. There were thirty-eight servants in her
establishment; it was a little state all in itself, with Mrs. Robbie
as queen, and her housekeeper as prime minister, and under them as
many different ranks and classes and castes as in a feudal
principality. There had to be six separate dining-rooms for the
various kinds of servants who scorned each other; there were
servants' servants and servants of servants' servants. There were
only three to whom the mistress was supposed to give orders--the
butler, the steward, and the housekeeper; she did not even know the
names of many of them, and they were changed so often, that, as she
declared, she had to leave it to her detective to distinguish
between employees and burglars.

Mrs. Robbie was quite a young woman, but it pleased her to pose as a
care-worn matron, weary of the responsibilities of her exalted
station. The ignorant looked on and pictured her as living in the
lap of ease, endowed with every opportunity: in reality the meanest
kitchen-maid was freer--she was quite worn thin with the burdens
that fell upon her. The huge machine was for ever threatening to
fall to pieces, and required the wisdom of Solomon and the patience
of Job to keep it running. One paid one's steward a fortune, and yet
he robbed right and left, and quarrelled with the chef besides. The
butler was suspected of getting drunk upon rare and costly vintages,
and the new parlour-maid had turned out to be a Sunday reporter in
disguise. The man who had come every day for ten years to wind the
clocks of the establishment was dead, and the one who took care of
the bric-a-brac was sick, and the housekeeper was in a panic over
the prospect of having to train another.

And even suppose that you escaped from these things, the real
problems of your life had still to be faced. It was not enough to
keep alive; you had your career--your duties as a leader of Society.
There was the daily mail, with all the pitiful letters from people
begging money--actually in one single week there were demands for
two million dollars. There were geniuses with patent incubators and
stove-lifters, and every time you gave a ball you stirred up swarms
of anarchists and cranks. And then there were the letters you really
had to answer, and the calls that had to be paid. These latter were
so many that people in the same neighbourhood had arranged to have
the same day at home; thus, if you lived on Madison Avenue you had
Thursday; but even then it took a whole afternoon to leave your
cards. And then there were invitations to be sent and accepted; and
one was always making mistakes and offending somebody--people would
become mortal enemies overnight, and expect all the world to know it
the next morning. And now there were so many divorces and
remarryings, with consequent changing of names; and some men knew
about their wives' lovers and didn't care, and some did care, but
didn't know--altogether it was like carrying a dozen chess games in
your head. And then there was the hairdresser and the manicurist and
the masseuse, and the tailor and the bootmaker and the jeweller; and
then one absolutely had to glance through a newspaper, and to see
one's children now and then.

All this Mrs. Robbie explained at luncheon; it was the rich man's
burden, about which common people had no conception whatever. A
person with a lot of money was like a barrel of molasses--all the
flies in the neighbourhood came buzzing about. It was perfectly
incredible, the lengths to which people would go to get invited to
your house; not only would they write and beg you, they might attack
your business interests, and even bribe your friends. And on the
other hand, when people thought you needed them, the time you had to
get them to come! "Fancy," said Mrs. Robbie, "offering to give a
dinner to an English countess, and having her try to charge you for
coming!" And incredible as it might seem, some people had actually
yielded to her, and the disgusting creature had played the social
celebrity for a whole season, and made quite a handsome income out
of it. There seemed to be no limit to the abjectness of some of the
tuft-hunters in Society.

It was instructive to hear Mrs. Robbie denounce such evils; and
yet--alas for human frailty--the next time that Montague called, the
great lady was blazing with wrath over the tidings that a new
foreign prince was coming to America, and that Mrs.
Ridgely-Clieveden had stolen a march upon her and grabbed him. He
was to be under her tutelage the entire time, and all the effulgence
of his magnificence would be radiated upon that upstart house. Mrs.
Robbie revenged herself by saying as many disagreeable things about
Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden as she could think of; winding up with the
declaration that if she behaved with this prince as she had with the
Russian grand duke, Mrs. Robbie Walling, for one, would cut her
dead. And truly the details which Mrs. Robbie cited were calculated
to suggest that her rival's hospitality was a reversion to the
customs of primitive savagery.

The above is a fair sample of the kind of conversation that one
heard whenever one visited any of the Wallings. Perhaps, as Mrs.
Robbie said, it may have been their millions that made necessary
their attitude toward other people; certain it was, at any rate,
that Montague found them all most disagreeable people to know. There
was always some tempest in a teapot over the latest machinations of
their enemies. And then there was the whole dead mass of people who
sponged upon them and toadied to them; and finally the barbarian
hordes outside the magic circle of their acquaintance--some
specimens of whom came up every day for ridicule. They had big feet
and false teeth; they ate mush and molasses; they wore ready-made
ties; they said: "Do you wish that I should do it?" Their
grandfathers had been butchers and pedlars and other abhorrent
things. Montague tried his best to like the Wallings, because of
what they were doing for Alice; but after he had sat at their
lunch-table and listened to a conversation such as this, he found
himself in need of fresh air.

And then he would begin to wonder about his own relation to these
people. If they talked about every one else behind their backs,
certainly they must talk about him behind his. And why did they go
out of their way to make him at home, and why were they spending
their money to launch Alice in Society? In the beginning he had
assumed that they did it out of the goodness of their hearts; but
now that he had looked into their hearts, he rejected the
explanation. It was not their way to shower princely gifts upon
strangers; in general, the attitude of all the Wallings toward a
stranger was that of the London hooligan--"'Eave a 'arf a brick at
'im!" They considered themselves especially appointed by Providence
to protect Society from the vulgar newly rich who poured into the
city, seeking for notoriety and recognition. They prided themselves
upon this attitude--they called it their "exclusiveness"; and the
exclusiveness of the younger generations of Wallings had become a
kind of insanity.

Nor could the reason be that Alice was beautiful and attractive. One
could have imagined it if Mrs. Robbie had been like--say, Mrs.
Winnie Duval. It was easy to think of Mrs. Winnie taking a fancy to
a girl, and spending half her fortune upon her. But from a hundred
little things that he had seen, Montague had come to realize that
the Robbie Wallings, with all their wealth and power and grandeur,
were actually quite stingy. While all the world saw them scattering
fortunes in their pathway, in reality they were keeping track of
every dollar. And Robbie himself was liable to panic fits of
economy, in which he went to the most absurd excesses--Montague once
heard him haggling over fifty cents with a cabman. Lavish hosts
though they both were, it was the literal truth that they never
spent money upon anyone but themselves--the end and aim of their
every action was the power and prestige of the Robbie Wallings.

"They do it because they are friends of mine," said Oliver, and
evidently wished that to satisfy his brother. But it only shifted
the problem and set him to watching Robbie and Oliver, and trying to
make out the basis of their relationship. There was a very grave
question concerned in this. Oliver had come to New York
comparatively poor, and now he was rich--or, at any rate, ho lived
like a rich man. And his brother, whose scent was growing keener
with every day of his stay in New York, had about made up his mind
that Oliver got his money from Robbie Walling.

Here, again, the problem would have been simple, if it had been
another person than Robbie; Montague would have concluded that his
brother was a "hanger-on." There were many great families whose
establishments were infested with such parasites. Siegfried Harvey,
for instance, was a man who had always half a dozen young chaps
hanging about him; good-looking and lively fellows, who hunted and
played bridge, and amused the married women while their husbands
were at work, and who, if ever they dropped a hint that they were
hard up, might be reasonably certain of being offered a cheque. But
if the Robbie Wallings were to write cheques, it must be for value
received. And what could the value be?

"Ollie" was rather a little god among the ultra-swagger; his taste
was a kind of inspiration. And yet his brother noticed that in such
questions he always deferred instantly to the Wallings; and surely
the Wallings were not people to be persuaded that they needed anyone
to guide them in matters of taste. Again, Ollie was the very devil
of a wit, and people were heartily afraid of him; and Montague had
noticed that he never by any chance made fun of Robbie--that the
fetiches of the house of Walling were always treated with respect.
So he had wondered if by any chance Robbie was maintaining his
brother in princely state for the sake of his ability to make other
people uncomfortable. But he realized that the Robbies, in their own
view of it, could have no more need of wit than a battleship has
need of popguns. Oliver's position, when they were about, was rather
that of the man who hardly ever dared to be as clever as he might,
because of the restless jealousy of his friend.

It was a mystery; and it made the elder brother very uncomfortable.
Alice was young and guileless, and a pleasant person to patronize;
but he was a man of the world, and it was his business to protect
her. He had always paid his own way through life, and he was very
loath to put himself under obligations to people like the Wallings,
whom he did not like, and who, he felt instinctively, could not like
him.

But of course there was nothing he could do about it. The date for
the great festivity was set; and the Wallings were affable and
friendly, and Alice all a-tremble with excitement. The evening
arrived, and with it came the enemies of the Wallings, dressed in
their jewels and fine raiment. They had been asked because they were
too important to be skipped, and they had come because the Wallings
were too powerful to be ignored. They revenged themselves by
consuming many courses of elaborate and costly viands; and they
shook hands with Alice and beamed upon her, and then discussed her
behind her back as if she were a French doll in a show-case. They
decided unanimously that her elder cousin was a "stick," and that
the whole family were interlopers and shameless adventurers; but it
was understood that since the Robbie Wallings had seen fit to take
them up, it would be necessary to invite them about.

At any rate, that was the way it all seemed to Montague, who had
been brooding. To Alice it was a splendid festivity, to which
exquisite people came to take delight in each other's society. There
were gorgeous costumes and sparkling gems; there was a symphony of
perfumes, intoxicating the senses, and a golden flood of music
streaming by; there were laughing voices and admiring glances, and
handsome partners with whom one might dance through the portals of
fairyland.--And then, next morning, there were accounts in all the
newspapers, with descriptions of one's costume and then some of
those present, and even the complete menus of the supper, to assist
in preserving the memories of the wonderful occasion.

Now they were really in Society. A reporter called to get Alice's
photo for the Sunday supplement; and floods of invitations came--and
with them all the cares and perplexities about which Mrs. Robbie had
told. Some of these invitations had to be declined, and one must
know whom it was safe to offend. Also, there was a long letter from
a destitute widow, and a proposal from a foreign count. Mrs.
Robbie's secretary had a list of many hundreds of these professional
beggars and blackmailers.

Conspicuous at the dance was Mrs. Winnie, in a glorious
electric-blue silk gown. And she shook her fan at Montague,
exclaiming, "You wretched man--you promised to come and see me!"

"I've been out of town," Montague protested.

"Well, come to dinner to-morrow night," said Mrs. Winnie. "There'll
be some bridge fiends."

"You forget I haven't learned to play," he objected.

"Well, come anyhow," she replied. "We'll teach you. I'm no player
myself, and my husband will be there, and he's good-natured; and my
brother Dan--he'll have to be whether he likes it or not."

So Montague visited the Snow Palace again, and met Winton Duval, the
banker,--a tall, military-looking man of about fifty, with a big
grey moustache, and bushy eyebrows, and the head of a lion. His was
one of the city's biggest banking-houses, and in alliance with
powerful interests in the Street. At present he was going in for
mines in Mexico and South America, and so he was very seldom at
home. He was a man of most rigid habits--he would come back
unexpectedly after a month's trip, and expect to find everything
ready for him, both at home and in his office, as if he had just
stepped round the corner. Montague observed that he took his
menu-card and jotted down his comments upon each dish, and then sent
it down to the chef. Other people's dinners he very seldom attended,
and when his wife gave her entertainments, he invariably dined at
the club.

He pleaded a business engagement for the evening; and as brother Dan
did not appear, Montague did not learn any bridge. The other four
guests settled down to the game, and Montague and Mrs. Winnie sat
and chatted, basking before the fireplace in the great
entrance-hall.

"Have you seen Charlie Carter?" was the first question she asked
him.

"Not lately," he answered; "I met him at Harvey's."

"I know that," said she. "They tell me he got drunk."

"I'm afraid he did," said Montague.

"Poor boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Winnie. "And Alice saw him! He must be
heartbroken!"

Montague said nothing. "You know," she went on, "Charlie really
means well. He has honestly an affectionate nature."

She paused; and Montague Said, vaguely, "I suppose so."

"You don't like him," said the other. "I can see that. And I suppose
now Alice will have no use for him, either. And I had it all fixed
up for her to reform him!"

Montague smiled in spite of himself.

"Oh, I know," said she. "It wouldn't have been easy. But you've no
idea what a beautiful boy Charlie used to be, until all the women
set to work to ruin him."

"I can imagine it," said Montague; but he did not warm to the
subject.

"You're just like my husband," said Mrs. Winnie, sadly. "You have no
use at all for anything that's weak or unfortunate."

There was a pause. "And I suppose," she said finally, "you'll be
turning into a business man also--with no time for anybody or
anything. Have you begun yet?"

--"Not yet," he answered. "I'm still looking round."

"I haven't the least idea about business," she confessed. "How does
one begin at it?"

"I can't say I know that myself as yet," said Montague, laughing.

"Would you like to be a protege of my husband's?" she asked.

The proposition was rather sudden, but he answered, with a smile, "I
should have no objections. What would he do with me?"

"I don't know that. But he can do whatever he wants down town. And
he'd show you how to make a lot of money if I asked him to." Then
Mrs. Winnie added, quickly, "I mean it--he could do it, really."

"I haven't the least doubt of it," responded Montague.

"And what's more," she went on, "you don't want to be shy about
taking advantage of the opportunities that come to you. You'll find
you won't get along in New York unless you go right in and grab what
you can. People will be quick enough to take advantage of you."

"They have all been very kind to me so far," said he. "But when I
get ready for business, I'll harden my heart."

Mrs. Winnie sat lost in meditation. "I think business is dreadful,"
she said. "So much hard work and worry! Why can't men learn to get
along without it?"

"There are bills that have to be paid," Montague replied.

"It's our dreadfully extravagant way of life," exclaimed the other.
"Sometimes I wish I had never had any money in my life."

"You would soon tire of it," said he. "You would miss this house."

"I should not miss it a bit," said Mrs. Winnie, promptly. "That is
really the truth--I don't care for this sort of thing at all. I'd
like to live simply, and without so many cares and responsibilities.
And some day I'm going to do it, too--I really am. I'm going to get
myself a little farm, away off somewhere in the country. And I'm
going there to live and raise chickens and vegetables, and have my
own flower-gardens, that I can take care of myself. It will all be
plain and simple--" and then Mrs. Winnie stopped short, exclaiming,
"You are laughing at me!"

"Not at all!" said Montague. "But I couldn't help thinking about the
newspaper reporters--"

"There you are!" said she. "One can never have a beautiful dream, or
try to do anything sensible--because of the newspaper reporters!"

If Montague had been meeting Mrs. Winnie Duval for the first time,
he would have been impressed by her yearnings for the simple life;
he would have thought it an important sign of the times. But alas,
he knew by this time that his charming hostess had more flummery
about her than anybody else he had encountered--and all of her own
devising! Mrs. Winnie smoked her own private brand of cigarettes,
and when she offered them to you, there were the arms of the old
ducal house of Montmorenci on the wrappers! And when you got a
letter from Mrs. Winnie, you observed a three-cent stamp upon the
envelope--for lavender was her colour, and two-cent stamps were an
atrocious red! So one might feel certain that it Mrs. Winnie ever
went in for chicken-raising, the chickens would be especially
imported from China or Patagonia, and the chicken-coops would be
precise replicas of those in the old Chateau de Montmorenci which
she had visited in her automobile.

But Mrs. Winnie was beautiful, and quite entertaining to talk to,
and so he was respectfully sympathetic while she told him about her
pastoral intentions. And then she told him about Mrs. Caroline
Smythe, who had called a meeting of her friends at one of the big
hotels, and organized a society and founded the "Bide-a-Wee Home"
for destitute cats. After that she switched off into psychic
research--somebody had taken her to a seance, where grave college
professors and ladies in spectacles sat round and waited for ghosts
to materialize. It was Mrs. Winnie's first experience at this, and
she was as excited as a child who has just found the key to the
jam-closet. "I hardly knew whether to laugh or to be afraid," she
said. "What would you think?"

"You may have the pleasure of giving me my first impressions of it,"
said Montague, with a laugh.

"Well," said she, "they had table-tipping--and it was the most
uncanny thing to see the table go jumping about the room! And then
there were raps--and one can't imagine how strange it was to see
people who really believed they were getting messages from ghosts.
It positively made my flesh creep. And then this woman--Madame
Somebody-or-other--went into a trance--ugh! Afterward I talked with
one of the men, and he told me about how his father had appeared to
him in the night and told him he had just been drowned at sea. Have
you ever heard of such a thing?"

"We have such a tradition in our family," said he.

"Every family seems to have," said Mrs. Winnie. "But, dear me, it
made me so uncomfortable--I lay awake all night expecting to see my
own father. He had the asthma, you know; and I kept fancying I heard
him breathing."

They had risen and were strolling into the conservatory; and she
glanced at the man in armour. "I got to fancying that his ghost
might come to see me," she said. "I don't think I shall attend any
more seances. My husband was told that I promised them some money,
and he was furious--he's afraid it'll get into the papers." And
Montague shook with inward laughter, picturing what a time the
aristocratic and stately old banker must have, trying to keep his
wife out of the papers!

Mrs. Winnie turned on the lights in the fountain, and sat by the
edge, gazing at her fish. Montague was half expecting her to inquire
whether he thought that they had ghosts; but she spared him this,
going off on another line.

"I asked Dr. Parry about it," she said. "Have you met him?"

Dr. Parry was the rector of St. Cecilia's, the fashionable Fifth
Avenue church which most of Montague's acquaintances attended. "I
haven't been in the city over Sunday yet," he answered. "But Alice
has met him."

"You must go with me some time," said she. "But about the ghosts--"

"What did he say?"

"He seemed to be shy of them," laughed Mrs. Winnie. "He said it had
a tendency to lead one into dangerous fields. But oh! I forgot--I
asked my swami also, and it didn't startle him. They are used to
ghosts; they believe that souls keep coming back to earth, you know.
I think if it was his ghost, I wouldn't mind seeing it--for he has
such beautiful eyes. He gave me a book of Hindu legends--and there
was such a sweet story about a young princess who loved in vain, and
died of grief; and her soul went into a tigress; and she came in the
night-time where her lover lay sleeping by the firelight, and she
carried him off into the ghost-world. It was a most creepy thing--I
sat out here and read it, and I could imagine the terrible tigress
lurking in the shadows, with its stripes shining in the firelight,
and its green eyes gleaming. You know that poem--we used to read it
in school--'Tiger, tiger, burning bright!'"

It was not very easy for Montague to imagine a tigress in Mrs.
Winnie's conservatory; unless, indeed, one were willing to take the
proposition in a metaphorical sense. There are wild creatures which
sleep in the heart of man, and which growl now and then, and stir
their tawny limbs, and cause one to start and turn cold. Mrs. Winnie
wore a dress of filmy softness, trimmed with red flowers which paled
beside her own intenser colouring. She had a perfume of her own,
with a strange exotic fragrance which touched the chorus of memory
as only an odour can. She leaned towards him, speaking eagerly, with
her soft white arms lying upon the basin's rim. So much loveliness
could not be gazed at without pain; and a faint trembling passed
through Montague, like a breeze across a pool. Perhaps it touched
Mrs. Winnie also, for she fell suddenly silent, and her gaze
wandered off into the darkness. For a minute or two there was
stillness, save for the pulse of the fountain, and the heaving of
her bosom keeping time with it.

And then in the morning Oliver inquired, "Where were you, last
night?" And when his brother answered, "At Mrs. Winnie's," he smiled
and said, "Oh!" Then he added, gravely, "Cultivate Mrs. Winnie--you
can't do better at present."






CHAPTER XI





Montague accepted his friend's invitation to share her pew at St.
Cecilia's, and next Sunday morning he and Alice went, and found Mrs.
Winnie with her cousin. Poor Charlie had evidently been scrubbed and
shined, both physically and morally, and got ready to appeal for
"one more chance." While he shook hands with Alice, he was gazing at
her with dumb and pleading eyes; he seemed to be profoundly grateful
that she did not refuse to enter the pew with him.

A most interesting place was St. Cecilia's. Church-going was another
of the customs of men and women which Society had taken up, like the
Opera, and made into a state function. Here was a magnificent
temple, with carved marble and rare woods, and jewels gleaming
decorously in a dim religious light. At the door of this edifice
would halt the carriages of Society, and its wives and daughters
would alight, rustling with new silk petticoats and starched and
perfumed linen, each one a picture, exquisitely gowned and bonneted
and gloved, and carrying a demure little prayer-book. Behind them
followed the patient men, all in new frock-coats and shiny silk
hats; the men of Society were always newly washed and shaved, newly
groomed and gloved, but now they seemed to be more so--they were
full of the atmosphere of Sunday. Alas for those unregenerate ones,
the infidels and the heathen who scoff in outer darkness, and know
not the delicious feeling of Sunday--the joy of being washed and
starched and perfumed, and made to be clean and comfortable and
good, after all the really dreadful wickedness of six days of
fashionable life!--And afterward the parade upon the Avenue, with
the congregations of several score additional churches, and such a
show of stylish costumes that half the city came to see!

Amid this exquisite assemblage at St. Cecilia's, the revolutionary
doctrines of the Christian religion produced neither perplexity nor
alarm. The chance investigator might have listened in dismay to
solemn pronouncements of everlasting damnation, to statements about
rich men and the eyes of needles, and the lilies of the field which
did not spin. But the congregation of St. Cecilia's understood that
these things were to be taken in a quixotic sense; sharing the view
of the French marquis that the Almighty would think twice before
damning a gentleman like him.

One had heard these phrases ever since childhood, and one accepted
them as a matter of course. After all, these doctrines had come from
the lips of a divine being, whom it would be presumptuous in a mere
mortal to attempt to imitate. Such points one could but leave to
those whose business it was to interpret them--the doctors and
dignitaries of the church; and when one met them, one's heart was
set at rest--for they were not iconoclasts and alarmists, but
gentlemen of culture and tact. The bishop who presided in this
metropolitan district was a stately personage, who moved in the best
Society and belonged to the most exclusive clubs.

The pews in St. Cecilia's were rented, and they were always in great
demand; it was one of the customs of those who hung upon the fringe
of Society to come every Sunday, and bow and smile, and hope against
hope for some chance opening. The stranger who came was dependent
upon hospitality; but there were soft-footed and tactful ushers, who
would find one a seat, if one were a presentable person. The
contingency of an unpresentable person seldom arose, for the
proletariat did not swarm at the gates of St. Cecilia's. Out of its
liberal income the church maintained a "mission" upon the East Side,
where young curates wrestled with the natural depravity of the lower
classes--meantime cultivating a soul-stirring tone, and waiting
until they should be promoted to a real church. Society was becoming
deferential to its religious guides, and would have been quite
shocked at the idea that it exerted any pressure upon them; but the
young curates were painfully aware of a process of unnatural
selection, whereby those whose manner and cut of coat were not
pleasing were left a long time in the slums.--On one occasion there
had been an amusing blunder; a beautiful new church was built at
Newport, and an eloquent young minister was installed, and all
Society attended the opening service--and sat and listened in
consternation to an arraignment of its own follies and vices! The
next Sunday, needless to say, Society was not present; and within
half a year the church was stranded, and had to be dismantled and
sold!

They had elaborate music at St. Cecilia's, so beautiful that Alice
felt uncomfortable, and thought that it was perilously "high." At
this Mrs. Winnie laughed, offering to take her to an afternoon
service around the corner, where they had a full orchestra, and a
harp, and opera music, and incense and genuflexions and
confessionals. There were people, it seemed, who like to thrill
themselves by dallying with the wickedness of "Romanism"; somewhat
as a small boy tries to see how near he can walk to the edge of a
cliff. The "father" at this church had a jewelled robe with a train
so many yards long, and which had cost some incredible number of
thousands of dollars; and every now and then he marched in a stately
procession through the aisles, so that all the spectators might have
a good look at it. There was a fierce controversy about these things
in the church, and libraries of pamphlets were written, and
intrigues and social wars were fought over them.

But Montague and Alice did not attend this service--they had
promised themselves the very plebeian diversion of a ride in the
subway; for so far they had not seen this feature of the city.
People who lived in Society saw Madison and Fifth Avenues, where
their homes were, with the churches and hotels scattered along them;
and the shopping district just below, and the theatre district at
one side, and the park to the north. Unless one went automobiling,
that was all of the city one need ever see. When visitors asked
about the Aquarium, and the Stock Exchange, and the Museum of Art,
and Tammany Hall, and Ellis Island, where the immigrants came, the
old New Yorkers would look perplexed, and say: "Dear me, do you
really want to see those tilings? Why, I have been here all my life,
and have never seen them!"

For the hordes of sightseers there had been provided a special
contrivance, a huge automobile omnibus which seated thirty or forty
people, and went from the Battery to Harlem with a young man
shouting through a megaphone a description of the sights. The
irreverent had nicknamed this the "yap-wagon"; and declared that the
company maintained a fake "opium-joint" in Chinatown, and a fake
"dive" in the Bowery, and hired tough-looking individuals to sit and
be stared at by credulous excursionists from Oklahoma and Kalamazoo.
Of course it would never have done for people who had just been
passed into Society to climb upon a "yap-wagon"; but they were
permitted to get into the subway, and were whirled with a deafening
clatter through a long tunnel of steel and stone. And then they got
out and climbed a steep hill like any common mortals, and stood and
gazed at Grant's tomb: a huge white marble edifice upon a point
overlooking the Hudson. Architecturally it was not a beautiful
structure--but one was consoled by reflecting that the hero himself
would not have cared about that. It might have been described as a
soap-box with a cheese-box on top of it; and these homely and
familiar articles were perhaps not altogether out of keeping with
the character of the humblest great man who ever lived.

The view up the river was magnificent, quite the finest which the
city had to offer; but it was ruined by a hideous gas-tank, placed
squarely in the middle of it. And this, again, was not
inappropriate--it was typical of all the ways of the city. It was a
city which had grown up by accident, with nobody to care about it or
to help it; it was huge and ungainly, crude, uncomfortable, and
grotesque. There was nowhere in it a beautiful sight upon which a
man could rest his eyes, without having them tortured by something
ugly near by. At the foot of the slope of the River Drive ran a
hideous freight-railroad; and across the river the beautiful
Palisades were being blown to pieces to make paving stone--and
meantime were covered with advertisements of land-companies. And if
there was a beautiful building, there, was sure to be a tobacco
advertisement beside it; if there was a beautiful avenue, there were
trucks and overworked horses toiling in the harness; if there was a
beautiful park, it was filled with wretched, outcast men. Nowhere
was any order or system--everything was struggling for itself, and
jarring and clashing with everything else; and this broke the spell
of power which the Titan city would otherwise have produced. It
seemed like a monstrous heap of wasted energies; a mountain in
perpetual labour, and producing an endless series of abortions. The
men and women in it were wearing themselves out with toil; but there
was a spell laid upon them, so that, struggle as they might, they
accomplished nothing.

Coming out of the church, Montague had met Judge Ellis; and the
Judge had said, "I shall soon have something to talk over with you."
So Montague gave him his address, and a day or two later came an
invitation to lunch with him at his club.

The Judge's club took up a Fifth Avenue block, and was stately and
imposing. It had been formed in the stress of the Civil War days;
lean and hungry heroes had come home from battle and gone into
business, and those who had succeeded had settled down here to rest.
To see them now, dozing in huge leather-cushioned arm-chairs, you
would have had a hard time to guess that they had ever been lean and
hungry heroes. They were diplomats and statesmen, bishops and
lawyers, great merchants and financiers--the men who had made the
city's ruling-class for a century. Everything here was decorous and
grave, and the waiters stole about with noiseless feet.

Montague talked with the Judge about New York and what he had seen
of it, and the people he had met; and about his father, and the war;
and about the recent election and the business outlook. And meantime
they ordered luncheon; and when they had got to the cigars, the
Judge coughed and said, "And now I have a matter of business to talk
over with you."

Montague settled himself to listen. "I have a friend," the Judge
explained--"a very good friend, who has asked me to find him a
lawyer to undertake an important case. I talked the matter over with
General Prentice, and he agreed with me that it would be a good idea
to lay the matter before you."

"I am very much obliged to you," said Montague.

"The matter is a delicate one," continued the other. "It has to do
with life insurance. Are you familiar with the insurance business?"

"Not at all."

"I had supposed not," said the Judge. "There are some conditions
which are not generally known about, but which I may say, to put it
mildly, are not wltogether satisfactory. My friend is a large
policy-holder in several companies, and he is not satisfied with the
management of them. The delicacy of the situation, so far as I am
concerned, is that the company with which he has the most fault to
find is one in which I myself am a director. You understand?"

"Perfectly," said Montague. "What company is it?"

"The Fidelity," replied the other--and his companion thought in a
flash of Freddie Vandam, whom he had met at Castle Havens! For the
Fidelity was Freddie's company.

"The first thing that I have to ask you," continued the Judge, "is
that, whether you care to take the case or not, you will consider my
own intervention in the matter absolutely entre nous. My position is
simply this: I have protested at the meetings of the directors of
the company against what I consider an unwise policy--and my
protests have been ignored. And when my friend asked me for advice,
I gave it to him; but at the same time I am not in a position to be
publicly quoted in connexion with the matter. You follow me?"

"Perfectly," said the other. "I will agree to what you ask."

"Very good. Now then, the condition is, in brief, this: the
companies are accumulating an enormous surplus, which, under the
law, belongs to the policy-holders; but the administrations of the
various companies are withholding these dividends, for the sake of
the banking-power which these accumulated funds afford to them and
their associates. This is, as I hold, a very manifest injustice, and
a most dangerous condition of affairs."

"I should say so!" responded Montague. He was amazed at such a
statement, coming from such a source. "How could this continue?" he
asked.

"It has continued for a long time," the Judge answered.

"But why is it not known?"

"It is perfectly well known to every one in the insurance business,"
was the answer. "The matter has never been taken up or published,
simply because the interests involved have such enormous and widely
extended power that no one has ever dared to attack them,"

Montague sat forward, with his eyes riveted upon the Judge. "Go on,"
he said.

"The situation is simply this," said the other. "My friend, Mr.
Hasbrook, wishes to bring a suit against the Fidelity Company to
compel it to pay to him his proper share of its surplus. He wishes
the suit pressed, and followed to the court of last resort."

"And do you mean to tell me," asked Montague, "that you would have
any difficulty to find a lawyer in New York to undertake such a
case?"

"No," said the other, "not exactly that. There are lawyers in New
York who would undertake anything. But to find a lawyer of standing
who would take it, and withstand all the pressure that would be
brought to bear upon him--that might take some time."

"You astonish me, Judge."

"Financial interests in this city are pretty closely tied together,
Mr. Montague. Of course there are law firms which are identified
with interests opposed to those who control the company. It would be
very easy to get them to take the case, but you can see that in that
event my friend would be accused of bringing the suit in their
interest; whereas he wishes it to appear, as it really is, a suit of
an independent person, seeking the rights of the vast body of the
policy-holders. For that reason, he wished to find a lawyer who was
identified with no interest of any sort, and who was free to give
his undivided attention to the issue. So I thought of you."

"I will take the case," said Montague instantly.

"It is my duty to warn you," said the Judge, gravely, "that you will
be taking a very serious step. You must be prepared to face
powerful, and, I am afraid, unscrupulous enemies. You may find that
you have made it impossible for other and very desirable clients to
deal with you. You may find your business interests, if you have
any, embarrassed--your credit impaired, and so on. You must be
prepared to have your character assailed, and your motives impugned
in the public press. You may find that social pressure will be
brought to bear on you. So it is a step from which most young men
who have their careers to make would shrink."

Montague's face had turned a shade paler as he listened. "I am
assuming," he said, "that the facts are as you have stated them to
me--that an unjust condition exists."

"You may assume that."

"Very well." And Montague clenched his hand, and put it down upon
the table. "I will take the case," he said.

For a few moments they sat in silence.

"I will arrange," said the Judge, at last, "for you and Mr. Hasbrook
to meet. I must explain to you, as a matter of fairness, that he is
a rich man, and will be able to pay you for your services. He is
asking a great deal of you, and he should expect to pay for it."

Montague sat in thought. "I have not really had time to get my
bearings in New York," he said at last. "I think I had best leave it
to you to say what I should charge him."

"If I were in your position," the Judge answered, "I think that I
should ask a retaining-fee of fifty thousand dollars. I believe he
will expect to pay at least that."

Montague could scarcely repress a start. Fifty thousand dollars! The
words made his head whirl round. But then, all of a sudden, he
recalled his half-jesting resolve to play the game of business
sternly. So he nodded his head gravely, and said, "Very well; I am
much obliged to you."

After a pause, he added, "I hope that I may prove able to handle the
case to your friend's satisfaction."

"Your ability remains for you to prove," said the Judge. "I have
only been in position to assure him of your character."

"He must understand, of course," said Montague, "that I am a
stranger, and that it will take me a while to study the situation."

"Of course he knows that. But you will find that Mr. Hasbrook knows
a good deal about the law himself. And he has already had a lot of
work done. You must understand that it is very easy to get legal
advice about such a matter--what is sought is some one to take the
conduct of the case."

"I see," said Montague; and the Judge added, with a smile, "Some one
to get up on horseback, and draw the fire of the enemy!"

And then the great man was, as usual, reminded of a story; and then
of more stories; until at last they rose from the table, and shook
hands upon their bargain, and parted.

Fifty thousand dollars! Fifty thousand dollars! It was all Montague
could do to keep from exclaiming it aloud on the street. He could
hardly believe that it was a reality--if it had been a less-known
person than Judge Ellis, he would have suspected that some one must
be playing a joke upon him. Fifty thousand dollars was more than
many a lawyer made at home in a lifetime; and simply as a
retaining-fee in one case! The problem of a living had weighed on
his soul ever since the first day in the city, and now suddenly it
was solved; all in a few minutes, the way had been swept clear
before him. He walked home as if upon air.

And then there was the excitement of telling the family about it. He
had an idea that his brother might be alarmed if he were told about
the seriousness of the case; and so he simply said that the Judge
had brought him a rich client, and that it was an insurance case.
Oliver, who knew and cared nothing about law, asked no questions,
and contented himself with saying, "I told you how easy it was to
make money in New York, if only you knew the right people!" As for
Alice, she had known all along that her cousin was a great man, and
that clients would come to him as soon as he hung out his sign.

His sign was not out yet, by the way; that was the next thing to be
attended to. He must get himself an office at once, and some books,
and begin to read up insurance law; and so, bright and early the
next morning, he took the subway down town.

And here, for the first time, Montague saw the real New York. All
the rest was mere shadow--the rest was where men slept and played,
but Jiere was where they fought out the battle of their lives. Here
the fierce intensity of it smote him in the face--he saw the cruel
waste and ruin of it, the wreckage of the blind, haphazard strife.

It was a city caught in a trap. It was pent in at one end of a
narrow little island. It had been no one's business to foresee that
it must some day outgrow this space; now men were digging a score of
tunnels to set it free, but they had not begun these until the
pressure had become unendurable, and now it had reached its climax.
In the financial district, land had been sold for as much as four
dollars a square inch. Huge blocks of buildings shot up to the sky
in a few months--fifteen, twenty, twenty-five stories of them, and
with half a dozen stories hewn out of the solid rock beneath; there
was to be one building of forty-two stories, six hundred and fifty
feet in height. And between them were narrow chasms of streets,
where the hurrying crowds overflowed the sidewalks. Yet other
streets were filled with trucks and heavy vehicles, with electric
cars creeping slowly along, and little swirls and eddies of people
darting across here and there.

These huge buildings were like beehives, swarming with life and
activity, with scores of elevators shooting through them at
bewildering speed. Everywhere was the atmosphere of rush; the spirit
of it seized hold of one, and he began to hurry, even though he had
no place to go. The man who walked slowly and looked about him was
in the way--he was jostled here and there, and people eyed him with
suspicion and annoyance.

Elsewhere on the island men did the work of the city; here they did
the work of the world. Each room in these endless mazes of buildings
was a cell in a mighty brain; the telephone wires were nerves, and
by the whole huge organism the thinking and willing of a continent
were done. It was a noisy place to the physical ear; but to the ear
of the mind it roared with the roaring of a thousand Niagaras. Here
was the Stock Exchange, where the scales of trade were held before
the eyes of the country. Here was the clearing-house, where hundreds
of millions of dollars were exchanged every day. Here were the great
banks, the reservoirs into which the streams of the country's wealth
were poured. Here were the brains of the great railroad systems, of
the telegraph and telephone systems, of mines and mills and
factories. Here were the centres of the country's trade; in one
place the shipping trade, in another the jewellery trade, the
grocery trade, the leather trade. A little farther up town was the
clothing district, where one might see the signs of more Hebrews
than all Jerusalem had ever held; in yet other districts were the
newspaper offices, and the centre of the magazine and
book-publishing business of the whole country. One might climb to
the top of one of the great "sky-scrapers," and gaze down upon a
wilderness of houses, with roofs as innumerable as tree-tops, and
people looking like tiny insects below. Or one might go out into the
harbour late upon a winter afternoon, and see it as a city of a
million lights, rising like an incantation from the sea. Round about
it was an unbroken ring of docks, with ferry-boats and tugs darting
everywhere, and vessels which had come from every port in the world,
emptying their cargoes into the huge maw of the Metropolis.

And of all this, nothing had been planned! All lay just as it had
fallen, and men bore the confusion and the waste as best they could.
Here were huge steel vaults, in which lay many billions of dollars'
worth of securities, the control of the finances of the country; and
a block or two in one direction were warehouses and gin-mills, and
in another direction cheap lodging-houses and sweating-dens. And at
a certain hour all this huge machine would come to a halt, and its
millions of human units would make a blind rush for their homes.
Then at the entrances to bridges and ferries and trams, would be
seen sights of madness and terror; throngs of men and women swept
hither and thither, pushing and struggling, shouting, cursing
--righting, now and then, in sudden panic fear. All decency was
forgotten here--people would be mashed into cars like football
players in a heap, and guards and policemen would jam the gates
tight--or like as not be swept away themselves in the pushing,
grunting, writhing mass of human beings. Women would faint and be
trampled; men would come out with clothing torn to shreds, and
sometimes with broken arms or ribs. And thinking people would gaze
at the sight and shudder, wondering--how long a city could hold
together, when the masses of its population were thus forced back,
day after day, habitually, upon the elemental brute within them.

In this vast business district Montague would have felt utterly lost
and helpless, if it had not been for that fifty thousand dollars,
and the sense of mastery which it gave him. He sought out General
Prentice, and under his guidance selected his suite of rooms, and
got his furniture and books in readiness. And a day or two later, by
appointment, came Mr. Hasbrook.

He was a wiry, nervous little man, who did not impress one as much
of a personality; but he had the insurance situation at his fingers'
ends--his grievance had evidently wrought upon him. Certainly, if
half of what he alleged were true, it was time that the courts took
hold of the affair.

Montague spent the whole day in consultation, going over every
aspect of the case, and laying out his course of procedure. And
then, at the end, Mr. Hasbrook remarked that it would be necessary
for them to make some financial arrangement. And the other set his
teeth together, and took a tight grip upon himself, and said,
"Considering the importance of the case, and all the circumstances,
I think I should have a retainer of fifty thousand dollars."

And the little man never turned a hair! "That will be perfectly
satisfactory," he said. "I will attend to it at once." And the
other's heart gave a great leap.

And sure enough, the next morning's mail brought the money, in the
shape of a cashier's cheque from one of the big banks. Montague
deposited it to his own account, and felt that the city was his!

And so he flung himself into the work. He went to his office every
day, and he shut himself up in his own rooms in the evening. Mrs.
Winnie was in despair because he would not come and learn bridge,
and Mrs. Vivie Patton sought him in vain for a week-end party. He
could not exactly say that while the others slept he was toiling
upward in the night, for the others did not sleep in the night; but
he could say that while they were feasting and dancing, he was
delving into insurance law. Oliver argued in vain to make him
realize that he could not live for ever upon one client; and that it
was as important for a lawyer to be a social light as to win his
first big case. Montague was so absorbed that he even failed to be
thrilled when one morning he opened an invitation envelope, and read
the fateful legend: "Mrs. Devon requests the honour of your
company"--telling him that he had "passed" on that critical
examination morning, and that he was definitely and irrevocably in
Society!






CHAPTER XII





Montague was now a capitalist, and therefore a keeper of the gates
of opportunity. It seemed as though the seekers for admission must
have had some occult way of finding it out; almost immediately they
began to lay siege to him.

About a week after his cheque arrived, Major Thorne, whom he had met
the first evening at the Loyal Legion, called him up and asked to
see him; and he came to Montague's room that evening, and after
chatting awhile about old times, proceeded to unfold a business
proposition. It seemed that the Major had a grandson, a young
mechanical engineer, who had been labouring for a couple of years at
a very important invention, a device for loading coal upon
steamships and weighing it automatically in the process. It was a
very complicated problem, needless to say, but it had been solved
successfully, and patents had been applied for, and a working model
constructed. But it had proved unexpectedly difficult to interest
the officials of the great steamship companies in the device. There
was no doubt about the practicability of the machine, or the
economies it would effect; but the officials raised trivial
objections, and caused delays, and offered prices that were
ridiculously inadequate. So the young inventor had conceived the
idea of organizing a company to manufacture the machines, and rent
them upon a royalty. "I didn't know whether you would have any
money," said Major Thorne, "--but I thought you might be in touch
with others who could be got to look into the matter. There is a
fortune in it for those who take it up."

Montague was interested, and he looked over the plans and
descriptions which his friend had brought, and said that he would
see the working model, and talk the proposition over with others.
And so the Major took his departure.

The first person Montague spoke to about it was Oliver, with whom he
chanced to be lunching, at the latter's club. This was the "All
Night" club, a meeting-place of fast young Society men and
millionaire Bohemians, who made a practice of going to bed at
daylight, and had taken for their motto the words of Tennyson--"For
men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever." It was not a
proper club for his brother to join, Oliver considered; Montague's
"game" was the heavy respectable, and the person to put him up was
General Prentice. But he was permitted to lunch there with his
brother to chaperon him--and also Reggie Mann, who happened in,
fresh from talking over the itinerary of the foreign prince with
Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden, and bringing a diverting account of how Mrs.
R.-C. had had a fisticuffs with her maid.

Montague mentioned the invention casually, and with no idea that his
brother would have an opinion one way or the other. But Oliver had
quite a vigorous opinion: "Good God, Allan, you aren't going to let
yourself be persuaded into a thing like that!"

"But what do you know about it?" asked the other. "It may be a
tremendous thing."

"Of course!" cried Oliver. "But what can you tell about it? You'll
be like a child in other people's hands, and they'll be certain to
rob you. And why in the world do you want to take risks when you
don't have to?"

"I have to put my money somewhere," said Montague.

"His first fee is burning a hole in his pocket!" put in Reggie Mann,
with a chuckle. "Turn it over to me, Mr. Montague; and let me spend
it in a gorgeous entertainment for Alice; and the prestige of it
will bring you more cases than you can handle in a lifetime!"

"He had much better spend it all for soda water than buy a lot of
coal chutes with it," said Oliver: "Wait awhile, and let me find you
some place to put your money, and you'll see that you don't have to
take any risks."

"I had no idea of taking it up until I'd made certain of it,"
replied the other. "And those whose judgment I took would, of
course, go in also."

The younger man thought for a moment. "You are going to dine with
Major Venable to-night, aren't you?" he asked; and when the other
answered in the affirmative, he continued," Very well, then, ask
him. The Major's been a capitalist for forty years, and if you can
get him to take it up, why, you'll know you're safe."

Major Venable had taken quite a fancy to Montague--perhaps the old
gentleman liked to have somebody to gossip with, to whom all his
anecdotes were new. He had seconded Montague's name at the
"Millionaires'," where he lived, and had asked him there to make the
acquaintance of some of the other members. Before Montague parted
with his brother, he promised that he would talk the matter over
with the Major.

The Millionaires' was the show club of the city, the one which the
ineffably rich had set apart for themselves. It was up by the park,
in a magnificent white marble palace which had cost a million
dollars. Montague felt that he had never really known the Major
until he saw him here. The Major was excellent at all times and
places, but in this club he became an edition de luxe of himself. He
made his headquarters here, keeping his suite of rooms all the year
round; and the atmosphere and surroundings of the place seemed to be
a part of him.

Montague thought that the Major's face grew redder every day, and
the purple veins in it purpler; or was it that the old gentleman's
shirt bosom gleamed more brightly in the glare of the lights? The
Major met him in the stately entrance hall, fifty feet square and
all of Numidian marble, with a ceiling of gold, and a great bronze
stairway leading to the gallery above. He apologized for his velvet
slippers and for his hobbling walk--he was getting his accursed gout
again. But he limped around and introduced his friend to the other
millionaires--and then told scandal about them behind their backs.

The Major was the very type of a blue-blooded old aristocrat; he was
all noblesse oblige to those within the magic circle of his
intimacy--but alas for those outside it! Montague had never heard
anyone bully servants as the Major did. "Here you!" he would cry,
when something went wrong at the table. "Don't you know any better
than to bring me a dish like that? Go and send me somebody who knows
how to set a table!" And, strange to say, the servants all
acknowledged his perfect right to bully them, and flew with
terrified alacrity to do his bidding. Montague noticed that the
whole staff of the club leaped into activity whenever the Major
appeared; and when he was seated at the table, he led off in this
fashion--"Now I want two dry Martinis. And I want them at once--do
you understand me? Don't stop to get me any butter plates or
finger-bowls--I want two cock-tails, just as quick as you can carry
them!"

Dinner was an important event to Major Venable--the most important
in life. The younger man humbly declined to make any suggestions,
and sat and watched while his friend did all the ordering. They had
some very small oysters, and an onion soup, and a grouse and
asparagus, with some wine from the Major's own private store, and
then a romaine salad. Concerning each one of these courses, the
Major gave special injunctions, and throughout his conversation he
scattered comments upon them: "This is good thick soup--lots of
nourishment in onion soup. Have the rest of this?--I think the
Burgundy is too cold. Sixty-five is as cold as Burgundy ought ever
to be. I don't mind sherry as low as sixty.--They always cook a bird
too much--Robbie Waiting's chef is the only person I know who never
makes a mistake with game."

All this, of course, was between comments upon the assembled
millionaires. There was Hawkins, the corporation lawyer; a shrewd
fellow, cold as a corpse. He was named for an ambassadorship--a very
efficient. man. Used to be old Wyman's confidential adviser and buy
aldermen for him.--And the man at table with him was Harrison,
publisher of the Star; administration newspaper, sound and
conservative. Harrison was training for a cabinet position. He was a
nice little man, and would make a fine splurge in Washington.--And
that tall man coming in was Clarke, the steel magnate; and over
there was Adams, a big lawyer also--prominent reformer--civic
righteousness and all that sort of stuff. Represented the Oil Trust
secretly, and went down to Trenton to argue against some reform
measure, and took along fifty thousand dollars in bills in his
valise. "A friend of mine got wind of what he was doing, and taxed
him with it," said the Major, and laughed gleefully over the great
lawyer's reply--"How did I know but I might have to pay for my own
lunch?"--And the fat man with him--that was Jimmie Featherstone, the
chap who had inherited a big estate. "Poor Jimmie's going all to
pieces," the Major declared. "Goes down town to board meetings now
and then--they tell a hair-raising story about him and old Dan
Waterman. He had got up and started a long argument, when Waterman
broke in, 'But at the earlier meeting you argued directly to the
contrary, Mr. Featherstone!' 'Did I?' said Jimmie, looking
bewildered. 'I wonder why I did that?' 'Well, Mr. Featherstone,
since you ask me, I'll tell you,' said old Dan--he's savage as a
wild boar, you know, and won't be delayed at meetings. 'The reason
is that the last time you were drunker than you are now. If you
would adopt a uniform standard of intoxication for the directors'
meetings of this road, it would expedite matters considerably.'"

They had got as far as the romaine salad. The waiter came with a
bowl of dressing--and at the sight of it, the old gentleman forgot
Jimmie Featherstone. "Why are you bringing me that stuff?" he cried.
"I don't want that! Take it away and get me some vinegar and oil."

The waiter fled in dismay, while the Major went on growling under
his breath. Then from behind him came a voice: "What's the matter
with you this evening, Venable? You're peevish!"

The Major looked up. "Hello, you old cormorant," said he. "How do
you do these days?"

The old cormorant replied that he did very well. He was a pudgy
little man, with a pursed-up, wrinkled face. "My friend Mr.
Montague--Mr. Symmes," said the Major.

"I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Montague," said Mr. Symmes,
peering over his spectacles.

"And what are you doing with yourself these days?" asked the Major.

The other smiled genially. "Nothing much," said he. "Seducing my
friends' wives, as usual."

"And who's the latest?"

"Read the newspapers, and you'll find out," laughed Symmes. "I'm
told I'm being shadowed."

He passed on down the room, chuckling to himself; and the Major
said, "That's Maltby Symmes. Have you heard of him?"

"No," said Montague.

"He gets into the papers a good deal. He was up in supplementary
proceedings the other day--couldn't pay his liquor bill."

"A member of the Millionaires'?" laughed Montague.

"Yes, the papers made quite a joke out of it," said the other. "But
you see he's run through a couple of fortunes; the last was his
mother's--eleven millions, I believe. He's been a pretty lively old
boy in his time."

The vinegar and oil had now arrived, and the Major set to work to
dress the salad. This was quite a ceremony, and Montague took it
with amused interest. The Major first gathered all the necessary
articles together, and looked them all over and grumbled at them.
Then he mixed the vinegar and the pepper and salt, a tablespoonful
at a time, and poured it over the salad. Then very slowly and
carefully the oil had to be poured on, the salad being poked and
turned about so that it would be all absorbed. Perhaps it was
because he was so busy narrating the escapades of Maltty Symmes that
the old gentleman kneaded it about so long; all the time fussing
over it like a hen-partridge with her chicks, and interrupting
himself every sentence or two: "It was Lenore, the opera star, and
he gave her about two hundred thousand dollars' worth of railroad
shares. (Really, you know, romaine ought not to be served in a bowl
at all, but in a square, flat dish, so that one could keep the ends
quite dry.) And when they quarrelled, she found the old scamp had
fooled her--the shares had never been transferred. (One is not
supposed to use a fork at all, you know.) But she sued him, and he
settled with her for about half the value. (If this dressing were
done properly, there ought not to be any oil in the bottom of the
dish at all.)"

This last remark meant that the process had reached its climax--that
the long, crisp leaves were receiving their final affectionate
overturnings. While the waiter stood at respectful attention, two or
three pieces at a time were laid carefully upon the little silver
plate intended for Montague. "And now," said the triumphant host,
"try it! If it's good, it ought to be neither sweet nor bitter, but
just right."--And he watched anxiously while Montague tasted it,
saying, "If it's the least bit bitter, say so; and we'll send it
out. I've told them about it often enough before."

But it was not bitter, and so the Major proceeded to help himself,
after which the waiter whisked the bowl away. "I'm told that salad
is the one vegetable we have from the Romans," said the old boy, as
he munched at the crisp green leaves. "It's mentioned by Horace, you
know.--As I was saying, all this was in Symmes's early days. But
since his son's been grown up, he's married another chorus-girl."

After the salad the Major had another cocktail. In the beginning
Montague had noticed that his hands shook and his eyes were watery;
but now, after these copious libations, he was vigorous, and, if
possible, more full of anecdotes than ever. Montague thought that it
would be a good time to broach his inquiry, and so when the coffee
had been served, he asked, "Have you any objections to talking
business after dinner?"

"Not with you," said the Major. "Why? What is it?"

And then Montague told him about his friend's proposition, and
described the invention. The other listened attentively to the end;
and then, after a pause, Montague asked him, "What do you think of
it?"

"The invention's no good," said the Major, promptly.

"How do you know?" asked the other.

"Because, if it had been, the companies would have taken it long
ago, without paying him a cent."

"But he has it patented," said Montague.

"Patented hell!" replied the other. "What's a patent to lawyers of
concerns of that size? They'd have taken it and had it in use from
Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they'd have tied the case up in so
many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn't have got to the
end of it in ten years--and he'd have been ruined ten times over in
the process."

"Is that really done?" asked Montague.

"Done!" exclaimed the Major. "It's done so often you might say it's
the only thing that's done.--The people are probably trying to take
you in with a fake."

"That couldn't possibly be so," responded the other. "The man is a
friend--"

"I've found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends,"
said the Major, grimly.

"But listen," said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince
his companion that that could not be the true explanation. Then the
Major sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he
exclaimed, "I have it! I see why they won't touch it!"

"What is it?"

"It's the coal companies! They're giving the steamships short
weight, and they don't want the coal weighed truly!"

"But there's no sense in that," said Montague. "It's the steamship
companies that won't take the machine."

"Yes," said the Major; "naturally, their officers are sharing the
graft." And he laughed heartily at Montague's look of perplexity.

"Do you know anything about the business?" Montague asked.

"Nothing whatever," said the Major. "I am like the German who shut
himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an
elephant from first principles. I know the game of big business from
A to Z, and I'm telling you that if the invention is good and the
companies won't take it, that's the reason; and I'll lay you a wager
that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that
is what you'd find! Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when
we got near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food
overboard; and I made inquiries, and learned that one of the
officials of the company ran a farm, and furnished the stuff--and
the orders were to get rid of so much every trip!"

Montague's jaw had fallen. "What could Major Thorne do against such
a combination?" he asked.

"I don't know," said the Major, shrugging his shoulders. "It's a
case to take to a lawyer--one who knows the ropes. Hawkins over
there would know what to tell you. I should imagine the thing he'd
advise would be to call a strike of the men who handle the coal, and
tie up the companies and bring them to terms."

"You're joking now!" exclaimed the other.

"Not at all," said the Major, laughing again. "It's done all the
time. There's a building trust in this city, and the way it put all
its rivals out of business was by having strikes called on their
jobs."

"But how could it do that?"

"Easiest thing in the world. A labour leader is a man with a great
deal of power, and a very small salary to live on. And even if he
won't sell out--there are other ways. I could introduce you to a man
right in this room who had a big strike on at an inconvenient time,
and he had the president of the union trapped in a hotel with a
woman, and the poor fellow gave in and called off the strike."'

"I should think the strikers might sometimes get out of hand," said
Montague.

"Sometimes they do," smiled the other. "There is a regular procedure
for that case. Then you hire detectives and start violence, and call
out the militia and put the strike leaders into jail."

Montague could think of nothing to say to that. The programme seemed
to be complete.

"You see," the Major continued, earnestly, "I'm advising you as a
friend, and I'm taking the point of view of a man who has money in
his pocket. I've had some there always, but I've had to work hard to
keep it there. All my life I've been surrounded by people who wanted
to do me good; and the way they wanted to do it was to exchange my
real money for pieces of paper which they'd had printed with fancy
scroll-work and eagles and flags. Of course, if you want to look at
the thing from the other side, why, then the invention is most
ingenious, and trade is booming just now, and this is a great
country, and merit is all you need in it--and everything else is
just as it ought to be. It makes ahl the difference in the world,
you know, whether a man is buying a horse or selling him!"

Montague had observed with perplexity that such incendiary talk as
this was one of the characteristics of people in these lofty
altitudes. It was one of the liberties accorded to their station.
Editors and bishops and statesmen and all the rest of their
retainers had to believe in the respectabilities, even in the
privacy of their clubs--the people's ears were getting terribly
sharp these days! But among the real giants of business you might
have thought yourself in a society of revolutionists; they would
tear up the mountain tops and hurl them at each other. When one of
these old war-horses once got started, he would tell tales of
deviltry to appall the soul of the hardiest muck-rake man. It was
always the other fellow, of course; but then, if you pinned your man
down, and if he thought that he could trust you--he would
acknowledge that he had sometimes fought the enemy with the enemy's
own weapons!

But of course one must understand that all this radicalism was for
conversational purposes only. The Major, for instance, never had the
slightest idea of doing anything about all the evils of which he
told; when it came to action, he proposed to do just what he had
done all his life--to sit tight on his own little pile. And the
Millionaires' was an excellent place to learn to do it!

"See that old money-bags over there in the corner," said the Major.
"He's a man you want to fix in your mind--old Henry S. Grimes. Have
you heard of him?"

"Vaguely," said the other.

"He's Laura Hegan's uncle. She'll have his money also some day--but
Lord, how he does hold on to it meantime! It's quite tragic, if you
come to know him--he's frightened at his own shadow. He goes in for
slum tenements, and I guess he evicts more people in a month than
you could crowd into this building!"

Montague looked at the solitary figure at the table, a man with a
wizened-up little face like a weasel's, and a big napkin tied around
his neck. "That's so as to save his shirt-front for to-morrow," the
Major explained. "He's really only about sixty, but you'd think he
was eighty. Three times every day he sits here and eats a bowl of
graham crackers and milk, and then goes out and sits rigid in an
arm-chair for an hour. That's the regimen his doctors have put him
on--angels and ministers of grace defend us!"

The old gentleman paused, and a chuckle shook his scarlet jowls.
"Only think!" he said--"they tried to do that to me! But no,
sir--when Bob Venable has to eat graham crackers and milk, he'll put
in arsenic instead of sugar! That's the way with many a one of these
rich fellows, though--you picture him living in Capuan luxury, when,
as a matter of fact, he's a man with a torpid liver and a weak
stomach, who is put to bed at ten o'clock with a hot-water bag and a
flannel night-cap!"

The two had got up and were strolling toward the smoking-room; when
suddenly at one side a door opened, and a group of men came out. At
the head of them was an extraordinary figure, a big powerful body
with a grim face. "Hello!" said the Major. "All the big bugs are
here to-night. There must be a governors' meeting."

"Who is that?" asked his companion; and he answered, "That? Why,
that's Dan Waterman."

Dan Waterman! Montague stared harder than ever, and now he
identified the face with the pictures he had seen. Waterman, the
Colossus of finance, the Croesus of copper and gold! How many trusts
had Waterman organized! And how many puns had been made upon that
name of his!

"Who are the other men?" Montague asked.

"Oh, they're just little millionaires," was the reply.

The "little millionaires" were following as a kind of body-guard;
one of them, who was short and pudgy, was half running, to keep up
with Waterman's heavy stride. When they came to the coat-room, they
crowded the attendants away, and one helped the great man on with
his coat, and another held his hat, and another his stick, and two
others tried to talk to him. And Waterman stolidly buttoned his
coat, and then seized his hat and stick, and without a word to
anyone, bolted through the door.

It was one of the funniest sights that Montague had ever seen in his
life, and he laughed all the way into the smoking-room. And, when
Major Venable had settled himself in a big chair and bitten off the
end of a cigar and lighted it, what floodgates of reminiscence were
opened!

For Dan Waterman was one of the Major's own generation, and he knew
all his life and his habits. Just as Montague had seen him there, so
he had been always; swift, imperious, terrible, trampling over all
opposition; the most powerful men in the city quailed before the
glare of his eyes. In the old days Wall Street had reeled in the
shock of the conflicts between him and his most powerful rival.

And the Major went on to tell about Waterman's rival, and his life.
He had been the city's traction-king, old Wyman had been made by
him. He was the prince among political financiers; he had ruled the
Democratic party in state and nation. He would give a quarter of a
million at a time to the boss of Tammany Hall, and spend a million
in a single campaign; on "dough-day," when the district leaders came
to get the election funds, there would be a table forty feet long
completely covered with hundred-dollar bills. He would have been the
richest man in America, save that he spent his money as fast as he
got it. He had had the most famous racing-stable in America; and a
house on Fifth Avenue that was said to be the finest Italian palace
in the world. Over three millions had been spent in decorating it;
all the ceilings had been brought intact from palaces abroad, which
he had bought and demolished! The Major told a story to show how
such a man lost all sense of the value of money; he had once been
sitting at lunch with him, when the editor of one of his newspapers
had come in and remarked, "I told you we would need eight thousand
dollars, and the check you send is for ten." "I know it," was the
smiling answer--"but somehow I thought eight seemed harder to write
than ten!"

"Old Waterman's quite a spender, too, when it comes to that," the
Major went on. "He told me once that it cost him five thousand
dollars a day for his ordinary expenses. And that doesn't include a
million-dollar yacht, nor even the expenses of it.

"And think of another man I know of who spent a million dollars for
a granite pier, so that he could land and see his mistress!--It's a
fact, as sure as God made me! She was a well-known society woman,
but she was poor, and he didn't dare to make her rich for fear of
the scandal. So she had to live in a miserable fifty-thousand-dollar
villa; and when other people's children would sneer at her children
because they lived in a fifty-thousand-dollar villa, the answer
would be, 'But you haven't got any pier!' And if you don't believe
that--"

But here suddenly the Major turned, and observed a boy who had
brought him some cigars, and who was now standing near by,
pretending to straighten out some newspapers upon the table. "Here,
sir!" cried the Major, "what do you mean--listening to what I'm
saying! Out of the room with you now, you rascal!"






CHAPTER XIII





Another week-end came, and with it an invitation from the Lester
Todds to visit them at their country place in New Jersey. Montague
was buried in his books, but his brother routed him out with
strenuous protests. His case be damned--was he going to ruin his
career for one case? At all hazards, he must meet people--"people
who counted." And the Todds were such, a big money crowd, and a
power in the insurance world; if Montague were going to be an
insurance lawyer, he could not possibly decline their invitation.
Freddie Vandam would be a guest--and Montague smiled at the tidings
that Betty Wyman would be there also. He had observed that his
brother's week-end visits always happened at places where Betty was,
and where Betty's granddaddy was not.

So Montague's man packed his grips, and Alice's maid her trunks; and
they rode with a private-car party to a remote Jersey suburb, and
were whirled in an auto up a broad shell road to a palace upon the
top of a mountain. Here lived the haughty Lester Todds, and
scattered about on the neighbouring hills, a set of the
ultra-wealthy who had withdrawn to this seclusion. They were
exceedingly "classy"; they affected to regard all the Society of the
city with scorn, and had their own all-the-year-round diversions--an
open-air horse show in summer, and in the fall fox-hunting in fancy
uniforms.

The Lester Todds themselves were ardent pursuers of all varieties of
game, and in various clubs and private preserves they followed the
seasons, from Florida and North Carolina to Ontario, with occasional
side trips to Norway, and New Brunswick, and British Columbia. Here
at home they had a whole mountain of virgin forest, carefully
preserved; and in the Renaissance palace at the summit-which they
carelessly referred to as a "lodge"--you would find such articles de
vertu as a ten-thousand-dollar table with a set of
two-thousand-dollar chairs, and quite ordinary-looking rugs at ten
and twenty thousand dollars each.--All these prices you might
ascertain without any difficulty at all, because there were many
newspaper articles describing the house to be read in an album in
the hall. On Saturday afternoons Mrs. Todd welcomed the neighbours
in a pastel grey reception-gown, the front of which contained a
peacock embroidered in silk, with jewels in every feather, and a
diamond solitaire for an eye; and in the evening there was a dance,
and she appeared in a gown with several hundred diamonds sewn upon
it, and received her guests upon a rug set with jewels to match.

All together, Montague judged this the "fastest" set he had yet
encountered; they ate more and drank more and intrigued more openly.
He had been slowly acquiring the special lingo of Society, but these
people had so much more slang that he felt all lost again. A young
lady who was gossiping to him about those present remarked that a
certain youth was a "spasm"; and then, seeing the look of perplexity
upon his face, she laughed, "I don't believe you know what I mean!"
Montague replied that he had ventured to infer that she did not like
him.

And then there was Mrs. Harper, who came from Chicago by way of
London. Ten years ago Mrs. Harper had overwhelmed New York with the
millions brought from her great department-store; and had then moved
on, sighing for new worlds to conquer. When she had left Chicago,
her grammar had been unexceptionable; but since she had been in
England, she said "you ain't" and dropped all her g's; and when
Montague brought down a bird at long range, she exclaimed,
condescendingly, "Why, you're quite a dab at it!" He sat in the
front seat of an automobile, and heard the great lady behind him
referring to the sturdy Jersey farmers, whose ancestors had fought
the British and Hessians all over the state, as "your peasantry."

It was an extraordinary privilege to have Mrs. Harper for a guest;
"at home" she moved about in state recalling that of Queen Victoria,
with flags and bunting on the way, and crowds of school children
cheering. She kept up half a dozen establishments, and had a hundred
thousand acres of game preserves in Scotland. She made a speciality
of collecting jewels which had belonged to the romantic and
picturesque queens of history. She appeared at the dance in a
breastplate of diamonds covering the entire front of her bodice, so
that she was literally clothed in light; and with her was her
English friend, Mrs. Percy, who had accompanied her in her triumph
through the courts and camps of Europe, and displayed a famous
lorgnette-chain, containing one specimen of every rare and beautiful
jewel known. Mrs. Percy wore a gown of cloth of gold tissue, covered
with a fortune in Venetian lace, and made a tremendous
sensation--until the rumour spread that it was a rehash of the
costume which Mrs. Harper had worn at the Duchess of London's ball.
The Chicago lady herself never by any chance appeared in the same
costume twice.

Alice had a grand time at the Todds'; all the men fell in love with
her--one in particular, a young chap named Fayette, quite threw
himself at her feet. He was wealthy, but unfortunately he had made
his money by eloping with a rich girl (who was one of the present
party), and so, from a practical point of view, his attentions were
not desirable for Alice.

Montague was left with the task of finding these things out for
himself, for his brother devoted himself exclusively to Betty Wyman.
The way these two disappeared between meals was a jest of the whole
company; so that when they were on their way home, Montague felt
called upon to make paternal inquiries.

"We're as much engaged as we dare to be," Oliver answered him.

"And when do you expect to marry her?"

"God knows," said he, "I don't. The old man wouldn't give her a
cent."

"And you couldn't support her?"

"I? Good heavens, Allan--do you suppose Betty would consent to be
poor?"

"Have you asked her?" inquired Montague.

"I don't want to ask her, thank you! I've not the least desire to
live in a hovel with a girl who's been brought up in a palace."

"Then what do you expect to do?"

"Well, Betty has a rich aunt in a lunatic asylum. And then I'm
making money, you know--and the old boy will have to relent in the
end. And we're having a very good time in the meanwhile, you know."

"You can't be very much in love," said Montague--to which his
brother replied cheerfully that they were as much in love as they
felt like being.

This was on the train Monday morning. Oliver observed that his
brother relapsed into a brown study, and remarked, "I suppose you're
going back now to bury yourself in your books. You've got to give me
one evening this week for a dinner that's important."

"Where's that?" asked the other.

"Oh, it's a long story," said Oliver. "I'll explain it to you some
time. But first we must have an understanding about next week,
also--I suppose you've not overlooked the fact that it's Christmas
week. And you won't be permitted to do any work then."

"But that's impossible!" exclaimed the other.

"Nothing else is possible," said Oliver, firmly. "I've made an
engagement for you with the Eldridge Devons up the Hudson--"

"For the whole week?"

"The whole week. And it'll be the most important thing you've done.
Mrs. Winnie's going to take us all in her car, and you will make no
end of indispensable acquaintances."

"Oliver, I don't see how in the world I can do it!" the other
protested in dismay, and went on for several minutes arguing and
explaining what he had to do. But Oliver contented himself with the
assurance that where there's a will, there's a way. One could not
refuse an invitation to spend Christmas with the Eldridge Devons!

And sure enough, there was a way. Mr. Hasbrook had mentioned to him
that he had had considerable work done upon the case, and would have
the papers sent round. And when Montague reached his office that
morning, he found them there. There was a package of several
thousand pages; and upon examining them, he found to his utter
consternation that they contained a complete bill of complaint, with
all the necessary references and citations, and a preliminary
draught of a brief--in short, a complete and thoroughgoing
preparation of his case. There could not have been less than ten or
fifteen thousand dollars' worth of work in the papers; and Montague
sat quite aghast, turning over the neatly typewritten sheets. He
could indeed afford to attend Christmas house parties, if all his
clients were to treat him like this!

He felt a little piqued about it--for he had noted some of these
points for himself, and felt a little proud about them. Apparently
he was to be nothing but a figure-head in the case! And he turned to
the phone and called up Mr. Hasbrook, and asked him what he expected
him to do with these papers. There was the whole case here; and was
he simply to take them as they stood?

No one could have replied more considerately than did Mr. Hasbrook.
The papers were for Montague's benefit--he would do exactly as he
pleased with them. He might use them as they stood, or reject them
altogether, or make them the basis for his own work--anything that
appealed to his judgment would be satisfactory. And so Montague
turned about and wrote an acceptance to the formal invitation which
had come from the Eldridge Devons.

Later on in the day Oliver called up, and said that he was to go out
to dinner the following evening, and that he would call for him at
eight. "It's with the Jack Evanses," Oliver added. "Do you know
them?"

Montague had heard the name, as that of the president of a chain of
Western railroads. "Do you mean him?" he asked.

"Yes," said the other. "They're a rum crowd, but there's money in
it. I'll call early and explain it to you."

But it was explained sooner than that. During the next afternoon
Montague had a caller--none other than Mrs. Winnie Duval. Some one
had left Mrs. Winnie some more money, it appeared; and there was a
lot of red tape attached to it, which she wanted the new lawyer to
attend to. Also, she said, she hoped that he would charge her a lot
of money by way of encouraging himself. It was a mere bagatelle of a
hundred thousand or so, from some forgotten aunt in the West.

The business was soon disposed of, and then Mrs. Winnie asked
Montague if he had any place to go to for dinner that evening: which
was the occasion of his mentioning the Jack Evanses. "O dear me!"
said Mrs. Winnie, with a laugh. "Is Ollie going to take you there?
What a funny time you'll have!"

"Do you know them?" asked the other.

"Heavens, no!" was the answer. "Nobody knows them; but everybody
knows about them. My husband meets old Evans in business, of course,
and thinks he's a good sort. But the family--dear me!"

"How much of it is there?"

"Why, there's the old lady, and two grown daughters and a son. The
son's a fine chap, they say--the old man took him in hand and put
him at work in the shops. But I suppose he thought that daughters
were too much of a proposition for him, and so he sent them to a
fancy school--and, I tell you, they're the most highly polished
human specimens that ever you encountered!"

It sounded entertaining. "But what does Oliver want with them?"
asked Montague, wonderingly.

"It isn't that he wants them--they want him. They're cumbers, you
know--perfectly frantic. They've come to town to get into Society."

"Then you mean that they pay Oliver?" asked Montague.

"I don't know that," said the other, with a laugh. "You'll have to
ask Ollie. They've a number of the little brothers of the rich
hanging round them, picking up whatever plunder's in sight."

A look of pain crossed Montague's face; and she saw it, and put out
her hand with a sudden gesture. "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I've offended
you!"

"No," said he, "it's not that exactly--I wouldn't be offended. But
I'm worried about my brother."

"How do you mean?"

"He gets a lot of money somehow, and I don't know what it means."

The woman sat for a few moments in silence, watching him. "Didn't he
have any when he came here?" she asked.

"Not very much," said he.

"Because," she went on, "if he didn't, he certainly managed it very
cleverly--we all thought he had."

Again there was a pause; then suddenly Mrs. Winnie said: "Do you
know, you feel differently about money from the way we do in New
York. Do you realize it?"

"I'm not sure," said he. "How do you mean?"

"You look at it in an old-fashioned sort of way--a person has to
earn it--it's a sign of something he's done. It came to me just now,
all in a flash--we don't feel that way about money. We haven't any
of us earned ours; we've just got it. And it never occurs to us to
expect other people to earn it--all we want to know is if they have
it."

Montague did not tell his companion how very profound a remark he
considered that; he was afraid it would not be delicate to agree
with her. He had heard a story of a negro occupant of the "mourners'
bench," who was voluble in confession of his sins, but took
exception to the fervour with which the congregation said "Amen!"

"The Evanses used to be a lot funnier than they are now," continued
Mrs. Winnie, after a while. "When they came here last year, they
were really frightful. They had an English chap for social
secretary--a younger son of some broken-down old family. My brother
knew a man who had been one of their intimates in the West, and he
said it was perfectly excruciating--this fellow used to sit at the
table and give orders to the whole crowd: 'Your ice-cream fork
should be at your right hand, Miss Mary.--One never asks for more
soup, Master Robert.--And Miss Anna, always move your soup-spoon
from you--that's better!'"

"I fancy I shall feel sorry for them," said Montague.

"Oh, you needn't," said the other, promptly. "They'll get what they
want."

"Do you think so?"

"Why, certainly they will. They've got the money; and they've been
abroad--they're learning the game. And they'll keep at it until they
succeed--what else is there for them to do? And then my husband says
that old Evans is making himself a power here in the East; so that
pretty soon they won't dare offend him."

"Does that count?" asked the man.

"Well, I guess it counts!" laughed Mrs. Winnie. "It has of late."
And she went on to tell him of the Society leader who had dared to
offend the daughters of a great magnate, and how the magnate had
retaliated by turning the woman's husband out of his high office.
That was often the way in the business world; the struggles were
supposed to be affairs of men, but oftener than not the moving power
was a woman's intrigue. You would see a great upheaval in Wall
Street, and it would be two of the big men quarrelling over a
mistress; you would see some man rush suddenly into a high
office--and that would be because his wife had sold herself to
advance him.

Mrs. Winnie took him up town in her auto, and he dressed for dinner;
and then came Oliver, and his brother asked, "Are you trying to put
the Evanses into Society?"

"Who's been telling you about them?" asked the other.

"Mrs. Winnie," said Montague.

"What did she tell you?"

Montague went over her recital, which his brother apparently found
satisfactory. "It's not as serious as that," he said, answering the
earlier question. "I help them a little now and then."

"What do you do?"

"Oh, advise them, mostly--tell them where to go and what to wear.
When they first came to New York, they were dressed like paraquets,
you know. And"--here Oliver broke into a laugh--"I refrain from
making jokes about them. And when I hear other people abusing them,
I point out that they are sure to land in the end, and will be
dangerous enemies. I've got one or two wedges started for them."

"And do they pay you for doing it?"

"You'd call it paying me, I suppose," replied the other. "The old
man carries a few shares of stock for me now and then."

"Carries a few shares?" echoed Montague, and Oliver explained the
procedure. This was one of the customs which had grown up in a
community where people did not have to earn their money. The
recipient of the favour put up nothing and took no risks; but the
other person was supposed to buy some stock for him, and then, when
the stock went up, he would send a cheque for the "profits." Many a
man who would have resented a direct offer of money, would assent
pleasantly when a powerful friend offered to "carry a hundred shares
for him." This was the way one offered a tip in the big world; it
was useful in the case of newspaper men, whose good opinion of a
stock was desired, or of politicians and legislators, whose votes
might help its fortunes. When one expected to get into Society, one
must be prepared to strew such tips about him.

"Of course," added Oliver, "what the family would really like me to
do is to get the Robbie Wallings to take them up. I suppose I could
get round half a million of them if I could manage that."

To all of which Montague replied, "I see."

A great light had dawned upon him. So that was the way it was
managed! That was why one paid thirty thousand a year for one's
apartments, and thirty thousand more for a girl's clothes! No wonder
it was better to spend Christmas week at the Eldridge Devons than to
labour at one's law books!

"One more question," Montague went on. "Why are you introducing me
to them?"

"Well," his brother answered, "it won't hurt you; you'll find it
amusing. You see, they'd heard I had a brother; and they asked me to
bring you. I couldn't keep you hidden for ever, could I?"

All this was while they were driving up town. The Evanses' place was
on Riverside Drive; and when Montague got out of the cab and saw it
looming up in the semi-darkness, he emitted an exclamation of
wonder. It was as big as a jail!

"Oh, yes, they've got room enough," said Oliver, with a laugh. "I
put this deal through for them--it's the old Lamson palace, you
know."

They had the room; and likewise they had all the trappings of
snobbery--Montague took that fact in at a glance. There were
knee-breeches and scarlet facings and gold braid--marble balconies
and fireplaces and fountains--French masters and real Flemish
tapestry. The staircase of their palace was a winding one, and there
was a white velvet carpet which had been specially woven for it, and
had to be changed frequently; at the top of it was a white cashmere
rug which had a pedigree of six centuries--and so on.

And then came the family: this tall, raw-boned, gigantic man, with
weather-tanned face and straggling grey moustache--this was Jack
Evans; and Mrs. Evans, short and pudgy, but with a kindly face, and
not too many diamonds; and the Misses Evans,--stately and slender
and perfectly arrayed. "Why, they're all right!" was the thought
that came to Montague.

They were all right until they opened their mouths. When they spoke,
you discovered that Evans was a miner, and that his wife had been
cook on a ranch; also that Anne and Mary had harsh voices, and that
they never by any chance said or did anything natural.

They were escorted into the stately dining-room--Henri II., with a
historic mantel taken from the palace of Fontainebleau, and four
great allegorical paintings of Morning, Evening, Noon, and Midnight
upon the walls. There were no other guests--the table, set for six,
seemed like a toy in the vast apartment. And in a sudden fash--with
a start of almost terror--Montague realized what it must mean not to
be in Society. To have all this splendour, and nobody to share it!
To have Henri II. dining-rooms and Louis XVI. parlours and Louis
XIV. libraries--and see them all empty! To have no one to drive
with or talk with, no one to visit or play cards with--to go to the
theatre and the opera and have no ono to speak to! Worse than that,
to be stared at and smiled at! To live in this huge palace, and know
that all the horde of servants, underneath their cringing deference,
were sneering at you! To face that--to live in the presence of it
day after day! And then, outside of your home, the ever widening
circles of ridicule and contempt--Society, with all its hangers-on
and parasites, its imitators and admirers!

And some one had defied all that--some one had taken up the sword
and gone forth to beat down that opposition! Montague looked at this
little family of four, and wondered which of them was the driving
force in this most desperate emprise!

He arrived at it by a process of elimination. It could not be Evans
himself. One saw that the old man was quite hopeless socially;
nothing could change his big hairy hands or his lean scrawny neck,
or his irresistible impulse to slide down in his chair and cross his
long legs in front of him. The face and the talk of Jack Evans
brought irresistibly to mind the mountain trail and the prospector's
pack-mule, the smoke of camp-fires and the odour of bacon and beans.
Seventeen long years the man had tramped in deserts and mountain
wildernesses, and Nature had graven her impress deep into his body
and soul.

He was very shy at this dinner; but Montague came to know him well
in the course of time. And after he had come to realize that
Montague was not one of the grafters, he opened up his heart. Evans
had held on to his mine when he had found it, and he had downed the
rivals who had tried to take it away from him, and he had bought the
railroads who had tried to crush him--and now he had come to Wall
Street to fight the men who had tried to ruin his railroads. But
through it all, he had kept the heart of a woman, and the sight of
real distress was unbearable to him. He was the sort of man to keep
a roll of ten-thousand-dollar bills in his pistol pocket, and to
give one away if he thought he could do it without offence. And, on
the other hand, men told how once when he had seen a porter insult a
woman passenger on his line, he jumped up and pulled the bell-cord,
and had the man put out on the roadside at midnight, thirty miles
from the nearest town!

No, it was the women folks, he said to Montague, with his grim
laugh. It didn't trouble him at all to be called a "noovoo rich";
and when he felt like dancing a shakedown, he could take a run out
to God's country. But the women folks had got the bee in their
bonnet. The old man added sadly that one of the disadvantages of
striking it rich was that it left the women folks with nothing to
do.

Nor was it Mrs. Evans, either. "Sarey," as she was called by the
head of the house, sat next to Montague at dinner; and he discovered
that with the very least encouragement, the good lady was willing to
become homelike and comfortable. Montague gave the occasion, because
he was a stranger, and volunteered the opinion that New York was a
shamelessly extravagant place, and hard to get along in; and Mrs.
Evans took up the subject and revealed herself as a good-natured and
kindly personage, who had wistful yearnings for mush and molasses,
and flap-jacks, and bread fried in bacon-grease, and similar
sensible things, while her chef was compelling her to eat pate de
foie gras in aspic, and milk-fed guinea-chicks, and biscuits glacees
Tortoni. Of course she did not say that at dinner,--she made a game
effort to play her part,--with the result of at least one diverting
experience for Montague.

Mrs. Evans was telling him what a dreadful place she considered the
city for young men; and how she feared to bring her boy here. "The
men here have no morals at all," said she, and added earnestly,
"I've come to the conclusion that Eastern men are naturally
amphibious!"

Then, as Montague knitted his brows and looked perplexed, she added,
"Don't you think so?" And he replied, with as little delay as
possible, that he had never really thought of it before.

It was not until a couple of hours later that the light dawned upon
him, in the course of a conversation with Miss Anne. "We met Lady
Stonebridge at luncheon to-day," said that young person. "Do you
know her?"

"No," said Montague, who had never heard of her.

"I think those aristocratic English women use the most abominable
slang," continued Anne. "Have you noticed it?"

"Yes, I have," he said.

"And so utterly cynical! Do you know, Lady Stonebridge quite shocked
mother--she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that
she thought all men were naturally polygamous!"

Later on, Montague came to know "Mrs. Sarey"; and one afternoon,
sitting in her Petit Trianon drawing-room, he asked her abruptly,
"Why in the world do you want to get into Society?" And the poor
lady caught her breath, and tried to be indignant; and then, seeing
that he was in earnest, and that she was cornered, broke down and
confessed. "It isn't me," she said, "it's the gals." (For along with
the surrender went a reversion to natural speech.) "It's Mary, and
more particularly Anne."

They talked it over confidentially--which was a great relief to Mrs.
Sarey's soul, for she was cruelly lonely. So far as she was
concerned, it was not because she wanted Society, but because
Society didn't want her. She flashed up in sudden anger, and
clenched her fists, declaring that Jack Evans was as good a man as
walked the streets of New York--and they would acknowledge it before
he got through with them, too! After that she intended to settle
down at home and be comfortable, and mend her husband's socks.

She went on to tell him what a hard road was the path of glory.
There were hundreds of people ready to know them--but oh, such a
riffraff! They might fill up their home with the hangers-on and the
yellow, but no, they could wait. They had learned a lot since they
set out. One very aristocratic lady had invited them to dinner, and
their hopes had been high--but alas, while they were sitting by the
fireplace, some one admired a thirty-thousand-dollar emerald ring
which Mrs. Evans had on her finger, and she had taken it off and
passed it about among the company, and somewhere it had vanished
completely! And another person had invited Mary to a bridge-party,
and though she had played hardly at all, her hostess had quietly
informed her that she had lost a thousand dollars. And the great
Lady Stonebridge had actually sent for her and told her that she
could introduce her in some of the very best circles, if only she
was willing to lose always! Mrs. Evans had possessed a very homely
Irish name before she was married; and Lady Stonebridge had got five
thousand dollars from her to use some great influence she possessed
in the Royal College of Heralds, and prove that she was descended
directly from the noble old family of Magennis, who had been the
lords of Iveagh, way back in the fourteenth century. And now Oliver
had told them that this imposing charter would not help them in the
least!

In the process of elimination, there were the Misses Evans left.
Montague's friends made many jests when they heard that he had met
them--asking him if he meant to settle down. Major Venable went so
far as to assure him that there was not the least doubt that either
of the girls would take him in a second. Montague laughed, and
answered that Mary was not so bad--she had a sweet face and was
good-natured; but also, she was two years younger than Anne; and he
could not get over the thought that two more years might make
another Anne of her.

For it was Anne who was the driving force of the family! Anne who
had planned the great campaign, and selected the Lamson palace, and
pried the family loose from the primeval rocks of Nevada! She was
cold as an iceberg, tireless, pitiless to others as to herself; for
seventeen years her father had wandered and dug among the mountains;
and for seventeen years, if need be, she would dig beneath the walls
of the fortress of Society!

After Montague had had his heart to heart talk with the mother, Miss
Anne Evans became very haughty toward him; whereby he knew that the
old lady had told about it, and that the daughter resented his
presumption. But to Oliver she laid bare her soul, and Oliver would
come and tell his brother about it: how she plotted and planned and
studied, and brought new schemes to him every week. She had some of
the real people bought over to secret sympathy with her; if there
was some especial favour which she asked for, she would set to work
with the good-natured old man, and the person would have some
important money service done him. She had the people of Society all
marked--she was learning all their weaknesses, and the underground
passages of their lives, and working patiently to find the key to
her problem--some one family which was socially impregnable, but
whose finances were in such a shape that they would receive the
proposition to take up the Evanses, and definitely put them in.
Montague used to look back upon all this with wonder and
amusement--from those days in the not far distant future, when the
papers had cable descriptions of the gowns of the Duchess of Arden,
nee Evans, who was the bright particular star of the London social
season!






CHAPTER XIV





Montague had written a reluctant letter to Major Thorne, telling him
that he had been unable to interest anyone in his proposition, and
that he was not in position to undertake it himself. Then, according
to his brother's injunction, he left his money in the bank, and
waited. There would be "something doing" soon, said Oliver.

And as they drove home from the Evanses', Oliver served notice upon
him that this event might be expected any day. He was very
mysterious about it, and would answer none of his brother's
questions--except to say that it had nothing to do with the people
they had just visited.

"I suppose," Montague remarked, "you have not failed to realize that
Evans might play you false."

And the other laughed, echoing the words, "Might do it!" Then he
went on to tell the tale of the great railroad builder of the West,
whose daughter had been married, with elaborate festivities; and
some of the young men present, thinking to find him in a sentimental
mood, had asked him for his views about the market. He advised them
to buy the stock of his road; and they formed a pool and bought, and
as fast as they bought, he sold--until the little venture cost the
boys a total of seven million and a half!

"No, no," Oliver added. "I have never put up a dollar for anything
of Evans's, and I never shall.--They are simply a side issue,
anyway," he added carelessly.

A couple of mornings later, while Montague was at breakfast, his
brother called him up and said that he was coming round, and would
go down town with him. Montague knew at once that that meant
something serious, for he had never before known his brother to be
awake so early.

They took a cab; and then Oliver explained. The moment had
arrived--the time to take the plunge, and come up with a fortune. He
could not tell much about it, for it was a matter upon which he
stood pledged to absolute secrecy. There were but four people in the
country who knew about it. It was the chance of a lifetime--and in
four or five hours it would be gone. Three times before it had come
to Oliver, and each time he had multiplied his capital several
times; that he had not made millions was simply because he did not
have enough money. His brother must take his word for this and
simply put himself into his hands.

"What is it you want me to do?" asked Montague, gravely.

"I want you to take every dollar you have, or that you can lay your
hands on this morning, and turn it over to me to buy stocks with."

"To buy on margin, you mean?"

"Of course I mean that," said Oliver. Then, as he saw his brother
frown, he added, "Understand me, I have absolutely certain
information as to how a certain stock will behave to-day."

"The best judges of a stock often make mistakes in such matters,"
said Montague.

"It is not a question of any person's judgment," was the reply. "It
is a question of knowledge. The stock is to be MADE to behave so."

"But how can you know that the person who intends to make it behave
may not be lying to you?"

"My information does not come from that person, but from a person
who has no such interest--who, on the contrary, is in on the deal
with me, and gains only as I gain."

"Then, in other words," said Montague, "your information is stolen?"

"Everything in Wall Street is stolen," was Oliver's concise reply.

There was a long silence, while the cab rolled swiftly on its way.
"Well?" Oliver asked at last.

"I can imagine," said Montague, "how a man might intend to move a
certain stock, and think that he had the power, and yet find that he
was mistaken. There are so many forces, so many chances to be
considered--it seems to me you must be taking a risk."

Oliver laughed. "You talk like a child," was his reply. "Suppose
that I were in absolute control of a corporation, and that I chose
to run it for purposes of market manipulation, don't you think I
might come pretty near knowing what its stock was going to do?"

"Yes," said Montague, slowly, "if such a thing as that were
conceivable."

"If it were conceivable!" laughed his brother. "And now suppose that
I had a confidential man--a secretary, we'll say--and I paid him
twenty thousand a year, and he saw chances to make a hundred
thousand in an hour--don't you think he might conceivably try it?"

"Yes," said Montague, "he might. But where do you come in?"

"Well, if the man were going to do anything worth while, he'd need
capital, would he not? And he'd hardly dare to look for any money in
the Street, where a thousand eyes would be watching him. What more
natural than to look out for some person who is in Society and has
the ear of private parties with plenty of cash?"

And Montague sat in deep thought. "I see," he said slowly; "I see!"
Then, fixing his eyes upon Oliver, he exclaimed, earnestly, "One
thing more!"

"Don't ask me any more," protested the other. "I told you I was
pledged--"

"You must tell me this," said Montague. "Does Bobbie Walling know
about it?"

"He does not," was the reply. But Montague had known his brother
long and intimately, and he could read things in his eyes. He knew
that that was a lie. He had solved the mystery at last!

Montague knew that he had come to a parting of the ways. He did not
like this kind of thing--he had not come to New York to be a
stock-gambler. But what a difficult thing it would be to say so; and
how unfair it was to be confronted with such an issue, and compelled
to decide in a few minutes in a cab!

He had put himself in his brother's hands, and now he was under
obligations to him, which he could not pay off. Oliver had paid all
his expenses; he was doing everything for him. He had made all his
difficulties his own, and all in frankness and perfect trust--upon
the assumption that his brother would play the game with him. And
now, at the critical moment, he was to face about, and say; "I do
not like the game. I do not approve of your life!" Such a painful
thing it is to have a higher moral code than one's friends!

If he refused, he saw that he would have to face a complete break;
he could not go on living in the world to which he had been
introduced. Fifty thousand had seemed an enormous fee, yet even a
week or two had sufficed for it to come to seem inadequate. He would
have to have many such fees, if they were to go on living at their
present rate; and if Alice were to have a social career, and
entertain her friends. And to ask Alice to give up now, and retire,
would be even harder than to face his brother here in the cab.

Then came the temptation. Life was a battle, and this was the way it
was being fought. If he rejected the opportunity, others would seize
it; in fact, by refusing, he would be handing it to them. This great
man, whoever he might be, who was manipulating stocks for his own
convenience--could anyone in his senses reject a chance to wrench
from him some part of his spoils? Montague saw the impulse of
refusal dying away within him.

"Well?" asked his brother, finally.

"Oliver," said the other, "don't you think that I ought to know more
about it, so that I can judge?"

"You could not judge, even if I told you all," said Oliver. "It
would take you a long time to become familiar with the
circumstances, as I am. You must take my word; I know it is certain
and safe."

Then suddenly he unbuttoned his coat, and took out some papers, and
handed his brother a telegram. It was dated Chicago, and read,
"Guest is expected immediately.--HENRY." "That means, 'Buy
Transcontinental this morning,'" said Oliver.

"I see," said the other. "Then the man is in Chicago?"

"No," was the reply. "That is his wife. He wires to her."

"--How much money have you?" asked Oliver, after a pause.

"I've most of the fifty thousand," the other answered, "and about
thirty thousand we brought with us."

"How much can you put your hands on?"

"Why, I could get all of it; but part of the money is mother's, and
I would not touch that."

The younger man was about to remonstrate, but Montague stopped him,
"I will put up the fifty thousand I have earned," he said. "I dare
not risk any more."

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "As you please," he said. "You may
never have another such chance in your life."

He dropped the subject, or at least he probably tried to. Within a
few minutes, however, he was back at it again, with the result that
by the time they reached the banking-district, Montague had agreed
to draw sixty thousand.

They stopped at his bank. "It isn't open yet,--" said Oliver, "but
the paying teller will oblige you. Tell him you want it before the
Exchange opens."

Montague went in and got his money, in six new, crisp,
ten-thousand-dollar bills. He buttoned them up in his inmost pocket,
wondering a little, incidentally, at the magnificence of the place,
and at the swift routine manner in which the clerk took in and paid
out such sums as this. Then they drove to Oliver's bank, and he drew
a hundred and twenty thousand; and then he paid off the cab, and
they strolled down Broadway into Wall Street. It lacked a quarter of
an hour of the time of the opening of the Exchange; and a stream of
prosperous-looking men were pouring in from all the cars and ferries
to their offices.

"Where are your brokers?" Montague inquired.

"I don't have any brokers--at least not for a matter such as this,"
said Oliver. And he stopped in front of one of the big buildings.
"In there," he said, "are the offices of Hammond and
Streeter--second floor to your left. Go there and ask for a member
of the firm, and introduce yourself under an assumed name--"

"What!" gasped Montague.

"Of course, man--you would not dream of giving your own name! What
difference will that make?"

"I never thought of doing such a thing," said the other.

"Well, think of it now."

But Montague shook his head. "I would not do that," he said.

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. "All right," he said; "tell him you
don't care to give your name. They're a little shady--they'll take
your money."

"Suppose they won't?" asked the other.

"Then wait outside for me, and I'll take you somewhere else."

"What shall I buy?"

"Ten thousand shares of Transcontinental Common at the opening
price; and tell them to buy on the scale up, and to raise the stop;
also to take your orders to sell over the 'phone. Then wait there
until I come for you."

Montague set his teeth together and obeyed orders. Inside the door
marked Hammond and Streeter a pleasant-faced young man advanced to
meet him, and led him to a grey-haired and affable gentleman, Mr.
Streeter. And Montague introduced himself as a stranger in town,
from the South, and wishing to buy some stock. Mr. Streeter led him
into an inner office and seated himself at a desk and drew some
papers in front of him. "Your name, please?" he asked.

"I don't care to give my name," replied the other. And Mr. Streeter
put down his pen.

"Not give your name?" he said.

"No," said Montague quietly.

"Why?"--said Mr. Streeter--"I don't understand--"

"I am a stranger in town," said Montague, "and not accustomed to
dealing in stocks. I should prefer to remain unknown."

The man eyed him sharply. "Where do you come from?" he asked.

"From Mississippi," was the reply.

"And have you a residence in New York?"

"At a hotel," said Montague.

"You have to give some name," said the other.

"Any will do," said Montague. "John Smith, if you like."

"We never do anything like this," said the broker.

"We require that our customers be introduced. There are rules of the
Exchange--there are rules--"

"I am sorry," said Montague; "this would be a cash transaction."

"How many shares do you want to buy?"

"Ten thousand," was the reply.

Mr. Streeter became more serious. "That is a large order," he said.

Montague said nothing.

"What do you wish to buy?" was the next question.

"Transcontinental Common," he replied.

"Well," said the other, after another pause-,-"we will try to
accommodate you. But you will have to consider it--er--"

"Strictly confidential," said Montague.

So Mr. Streeter made out the papers, and Montague, looking them
over, discovered that they called for one hundred thousand dollars.



"That is a mistake," he said. "I have only sixty thousand."

"Oh," said the other, "we shall certainly have to charge you a ten
per cent, margin."

Montague was not prepared for this contingency; but he did some
mental arithmetic. "What is the present price of the stock?" he
asked.

"Fifty-nine and five-eighths," was the reply.

"Then sixty thousand dollars is more than ten per cent, of the
market price," said Montague.

"Yes," said Mr. Streeter. "But in dealing with a stranger we shall
certainly have to put a 'stop loss' order at four points above, and
that would leave you only two points of safety--surely not enough."

"I see," said Montague--and he had a sudden appalling realization of
the wild game which his brother had planned for him.

"Whereas," Mr. Streeter continued, persuasively, "if you put up ten
per cent., you will have six points."

"Very well," said the other promptly. "Then please buy me six
thousand shares."

So they closed the deal, and the papers were signed, and Mr.
Streeter took the six new, crisp ten-thousand-dollar bills.

Then he escorted him to the outer office, remarking pleasantly on
the way, "I hope you're well advised. We're inclined to be bearish
upon Transcontinental ourselves--the situation looks rather
squally."

These words were not worth the breath it took to say them; but
Montague was not aware of this, and felt a painful start within. But
he answered, carelessly, that one must take his chance, and sat down
in one of the customer's chairs. Hammond and Streeter's was like a
little lecture-hall, with rows of seats and a big blackboard in
front, with the initials of the most important stocks in columns,
and yesterday's closing prices above, on little green cards. At one
side was a ticker, with two attendants awaiting the opening click.

In the seats were twenty or thirty men, old and young; most of them
regular habitues, victims of the fever of the Street. Montague
watched them, catching snatches of their whispered conversation,
with its intricate and disagreeable slang. He felt intensely
humiliated and uncomfortable--for he had got the fever of the Street
into his own veins, and he could not conquer it. There were nasty
shivers running up and down his spine, and his hands were cold.

He stared at the little figures, fascinated; they stood for some
vast and tremendous force outside, which could not be controlled or
even comprehended,--some merciless, annihilating force, like the
lightning or the tornado. And he had put himself at the mercy of it;
it might do its will with him! "Tr. C. 59 5/8" read the little
pasteboard; and he had only six points of safety. If at any time in
the day that figure should be changed to read "53 5/8"--then every
dollar of Montague's sixty thousand would be gone for ever! The
great fee that he had worked so hard for and rejoiced so greatly
over--that would be all gone, and a slice out of his inheritance
besides!

A boy put into his hand a little four-page paper--one of the
countless news-sheets which different houses and interests
distributed free for advertising or other purposes; and a heading
"Transcontinental" caught his eye, among the paragraphs in the Day's
Events. He read: "The directors' meeting of the Transcontinental
R.R. will be held at noon. It is confidently predicted that the
quarterly dividend will be passed, as it has been for the last three
quarters. There is great dissatisfaction among the stock-holders.
The stock has been decidedly weak, with no apparent inside support;
it fell off three points just before closing yesterday, upon the
news of further proceedings by Western state officials, and widely
credited rumours of dissensions among the directors, with renewed
opposition to the control of the Hopkins interests."

Ten o'clock came and went, and the ticker began its long journey.
There was intense activity in Transcontinental, many thousands of
shares changing hands, and the price swaying back and forth. When
Oliver came in, in half an hour, it stood at 59 3/8.

"That's all right," said he. "Our time will not come till
afternoon."

"But suppose we are wiped out before afternoon?" said the other.

"That is impossible," answered Oliver. "There will be big buying all
the morning."

They sat for a while, nervous and restless. Then, by way of breaking
the monotony, Oliver suggested that his brother might like to see
the "Street." They went around the corner to Broad Street. Here at
the head stood the Sub-treasury building, with all the gold of the
government inside, and a Gatling gun in the tower. The public did
not know it was there, but the financial men knew it, and it seemed
as if they had huddled all their offices and banks and safe-deposit
vaults under its shelter. Here, far underground, were hidden the two
hundred millions of securities of the Oil Trust--in a huge
six-hundred-ton steel vault, with a door so delicately poised that a
finger could swing it on its hinges. And opposite to this was the
white Grecian building of the Stock Exchange. Down the street were
throngs of men within a roped arena, pushing, shouting, jostling;
this was "the curb," where one could buy or sell small blocks of
stock, and all the wild-cat mining and oil stocks which were not
listed by the Exchange. Rain or shine, these men were always here;
and in the windows of the neighbouring buildings stood others
shouting quotations to them through megaphones, or signalling in
deaf and dumb language. Some of these brokers wore coloured hats, so
that they could be distinguished; some had offices far off, where
men sat all day with strong glasses trained upon them. Everywhere
was the atmosphere of speculation--the restless, feverish eyes; the
quick, nervous gestures; the haggard, care-worn faces. For in this
game every man was pitted against every other man; and the dice were
loaded so that nine out of every ten were doomed in advance to ruin
and defeat. They procured passes to the visitors' gallery of the
Exchange. From here one looked down into a room one or two hundred
feet square, its floor covered with a snowstorm of torn pieces of
paper, and its air a babel of shouts and cries. Here were gathered
perhaps two thousand men and boys; some were lounging and talking,
but most were crowded about the various trading-posts, pushing,
climbing over each other, leaping up, waving their hands and calling
aloud. A "seat" in this exchange was worth about ninety-five
thousand dollars, and so no one of these men was poor; but yet they
came, day after day, to play their parts in this sordid arena,
"seeking in sorrow for each other's joy": inventing a thousand petty
tricks to outwit and deceive each other; rejoicing in a thousand
petty triumphs; and spending their lives, like the waves upon the
shore, a very symbol of human futility. Now and then a sudden
impulse would seize them, and they would become like howling demons,
surging about one spot, shrieking, gasping, clawing each other's
clothing to pieces; and the spectator shuddered, seeing them as the
victims of some strange and dreadful enchantment, which bound them
to struggle and torment each other until they were worn out and
grey.

But one felt these things only dimly, when he had put all his
fortune into Transcontinental Common. For then he had sold his own
soul to the enchanter, and the spell was upon him, and he hoped and
feared and agonized with the struggling throng. Montague had no need
to ask which was his "post"; for a mob of a hundred men were packed
about it, with little whirls and eddies here and there on the
outside. "Something doing to-day all right," said a man in his ear.

It was interesting to watch; but there was one difficulty--there
were no quotations provided for the spectators. So the sight of this
activity merely set them on edge with anxiety--something must be
happening to their stock! Even Oliver was visibly nervous--after
all, in the surest cases, the game was a dangerous one; there might
be a big failure, or an assassination, or an earthquake! They rushed
out and made for the nearest broker's office, where a glance at the
board showed them Transcontinental at 60. They drew a long breath,
and sat down again to wait.

That was about half-past eleven. At a quarter to twelve the stock
went up an eighth, and then a quarter, and then another eighth. The
two gripped their hands in excitement. Had the time come?

Apparently it had. A minute later the stock leaped to 61, on large
buying. Then it went three-eighths more. A buzz of excitement ran
through the office, and the old-timers sat up in their seats. The
stock went another quarter.

Montague heard a man behind him say to his neighbour, "What does it
mean?"

"God knows," was the answer; but Oliver whispered in his brother's
ear, "I know what it means. The insiders are buying."

Somebody was buying, and buying furiously. The ticker seemed to set
all other business aside and give its attention to the trading in
Transcontinental. It was like a base-ball game, when one side begins
to pile up runs, and the man in the coacher's box chants exultantly,
and the dullest spectator is stirred--since no man can be
indifferent to success. And as the stock went higher and higher, a
little wave of excitement mounted with it, a murmur running through
the room, and a thrill passing from person to person. Some watched,
wondering if it would last, and if they had not better take on a
little; then another point would be scored, and they would wish they
had done it, and hesitate whether to do it now. But to others, like
the Montagues, who "had some," it was victory, glorious and
thrilling; their pulses leaped faster with every new change of the
figures; and between times they reckoned up their gains, and hung
between hope and dread for the new gains which were on the way, but
not yet in sight.

There was little lull, and the boys who tended the board had a
chance to rest. The stock was above 66; at which price, owing to the
device of "pyramiding." Montague was on "velvet," to use the
picturesque phrase of the Street. His earnings amounted to sixty
thousand dollars, and even if the stock were to fall and he were to
be sold out, he would lose nothing.

He wished to sell and realize his profits; but his brother gripped
him fast by the arm. "No! no!" he said. "It hasn't really come yet!"

Some went out to lunch--to a restaurant where they could have a
telephone on their table, so as to keep in touch with events. But
the Montagues had no care about eating; they sat picturing the
directors in session, and speculating upon a score of various
eventualities. Things might yet go wrong, and all their profits
would vanish like early snow-flakes--and all their capital with
them. Oliver shook like a leaf, but he would not stir. "Stay game!"
he whispered.

He took out his watch, and glanced at it. It was after two o'clock.
"It may go over till to-morrow!" he muttered.--But then suddenly
came the storm.

The ticker recorded a rise in the price of Transcontinental of a
point and a half, upon a purchase of five thousand shares; and then
half a point for two thousand more. After that it never stopped. It
went a point at a time; it went ten points in about fifteen minutes.
And babel broke loose in the office, and in several thousand other
offices in the street, and spread to others all over the world.
Montague had got up, and was moving here and there, because the
tension was unendurable; and at the door of an inner office he heard
some one at the telephone exclaiming, "For the love of God, can't
you find out what's the matter?"--A moment later a man rushed in,
breathless and wild-eyed, and his voice rang through the office,
"The directors have declared a quarterly dividend of three per cent,
and an extra dividend of two!"

And Oliver caught his brother by the arm and started for the door
with him. "Get to your broker's," he said. "And if the stock has
stopped moving, sell; and sell in any case before the close." And
then he dashed away to his own headquarters.

At about half after three o'clock, Oliver came into Hammond and
Streeter's, breathless, and with his hair and clothing dishevelled.
He was half beside himself with exultation; and Montague was
scarcely less wrought up--in fact he felt quite limp after the
strain he had been through.

"What price did you get?" his brother inquired; and he answered, "An
average of 78 3/8." There had been another sharp rise at the end,
and he had sold all his stock without checking the advance.

"I got five-eighths," said Oliver. "O ye gods!"

There were some unhappy "shorts" in the office; Mr. Streeter was one
of them. It was bitterness and gall to them to see the radiant faces
of the two lucky ones; but the two did not even see this. They went
out, half dancing, and had a drink or two to steady their nerves.

They would not actually get thoir money until the morrow; but
Montague figured a profit of a trifle under a quarter of a million
for himself. Of this about twenty thousand would go to make up the
share of his unknown informant; the balance he considered would be
an ample reward for his six hours' work that day.

His brother had won more than twice as much. But as they drove up
home, talking over it in awe-stricken whispers, and pledging
themselves to absolute secrecy, Oliver suddenly clenched his fist
and struck his knee.

"By God!" ho exclaimed. "If I hadn't been a fool and tried to save
an extra margin, I could have had a million!"






CHAPTER XV





After such a victory one felt in a mood for Christmas
festivities,--for music and dancing and all beautiful and happy
things.

Such a thing, for instance, as Mrs. Winnie, when she came to meet
him; clad in her best automobile coat, a thing of purest snowy
ermine, so truly gorgeous that wherever she went, people turned and
stared and caught their breath. Mrs. Winnie was a picture of joyful
health, with a glow in her rich complexion, and a sparkle in her
black eyes.

She sat in her big touring-car--in which one could afford to wear
ermine. It was a little private self-moving hotel; in the limousine
were seats for six persons, with revolving easy chairs, and berths
for sleeping, and a writing-desk and a wash-stand, and a beautiful
electric chandelier to light it at night. Its trimmings were of
South American mahogany, and its upholstering of Spanish and Morocco
leathers; it had a telephone with which one spoke to the driver; an
ice-box and a lunch hamper--in fact, one might have spent an hour
discovering new gimeracks in this magic automobile. It had been made
especially for Mrs. Winnie a couple of years ago, and the newspapers
said it had cost thirty thousand dollars; it had then been quite a
novelty, but now "everybody" was getting them. In this car one might
sit at ease, and laugh and chat, and travel at the rate of an
express train; and with never a jar or a quiver, nor the faintest
sound of any sort.

The streets of the city sped by them as if by enchantment. They went
through the park, and out Riverside Drive, and up the river-road
which runs out of Broadway all the way to Albany. It was a
macadamized avenue, lined with beautiful and stately homes. As one
went farther yet, he came to the great country estates-a whole
district of hundreds of square miles given up to them. There were
forests and lakes and streams; there were gardens and greenhouses
filled with rare plants and flowers, and parks with deer browsing,
and peacocks and lyre-birds strutting about. The road wound in and
out among hills, the surfaces of which would be one unbroken lawn;
and upon the highest points stood palaces of every conceivable style
and shape.

One might find these great domains anywhere around the city, at a
distance of from thirty to sixty miles; there were two or three
hundred of them, and incredible were the sums of money which had
been spent upon their decoration. One saw an artificial lake of ten
thousand acres, made upon land which had cost several hundred
dollars an acre; one saw gardens with ten thousand rose-bushes, and
a quarter of a million dollars' worth of lilies from Japan; there
was one estate in which had been planted a million dollars' worth of
rare trees, imported from all over the world. Some rich men, who had
nothing else to amuse them, would make their estates over and over
again, changing the view about their homes as one changes the
scenery in a play. Over in New Jersey the Hegans were building a
castle upon a mountain-top, and had built a special railroad simply
to carry the materials. Here, also, was the estate of the tobacco
king, upon which three million dollars had been spent before the
plans of the mansion had even been drawn; there were artificial
lakes and streams, and fantastic bridges and statuary, and scores of
little model plantations and estates, according to the whim of the
owner. And here in the Pocantico Hills was the estate of the oil
king, about four square miles, with thirty miles of model driveways;
many car-loads of rare plants had been imported for its gardens, and
it took six hundred men to keep it in order. There was a golf
course, a little miniature Alps, upon which the richest man in the
world pursued his lost health, with armed guards and detectives
patrolling the dace all day, and a tower with a search-light,
whereby at night he could flood the grounds with light by pressing a
button.

In one of these places lived the heir of the great house of Devon.
His cousin dwelt in Europe, saying that America was not a fit place
for a gentleman to live in. Each of them owned a hundred million
dollars' worth of New York real estate, and drew their tribute of
rents from the toil of the swarming millions of the city. And
always, according to the policy of the family, they bought new real
estate. They were directors of the great railroads tributary to the
city, and in touch with the political machines, and in every other
way in position to know what was under way: if a new subway were
built to set the swarming millions free, the millions would find the
land all taken up, and apartment-houses newly built for them--and
the Devons were the owners. They had a score of the city's greatest
hotels--and also slum tenements, and brothels and dives in the
Tenderloin. They did not even have to know what they owned; they did
not have to know anything, or do anything--they lived in their
palaces, at home or abroad, and in their offices in the city the
great rent-gathering machine ground on.

Eldridge Devon's occupation was playing with his country-place and
his automobiles. He had recently sold all his horses, and turned his
stables into a garage equipped with a score or so of cars; he was
always getting a new one, and discussing its merits. As to Hudson
Cliff, the estate, he had conceived the brilliant idea of
establishing a gentleman's country-place which should be
self-supporting--that is to say, which should furnish the luxuries
and necessities of its owner's table for no more than it would have
cost to buy them. Considering the prices usually paid, this was no
astonishing feat, but Devon took a child's delight in it; he showed
Montague his greenhouses, filled with rare flowers and fruits, and
his model dairy, with marble stables and nickel plumbing, and
attendants in white uniforms and rubber gloves. He was a short and
very stout gentleman with red cheeks, and his conversation was not
brilliant.

To Hudson Cliff came many of Montague's earlier acquaintances, and
others whom he had not met before. They amused themselves in all the
ways with which-he had become familiar at house-parties; likewise on
Christmas Eve there were festivities for the children, and on
Christmas night a costume ball, very beautiful and stately. Many
came from New York to attend this, and others from the
neighbourhood; and in returning calls, Montague saw others of these
hill-top mansions.

Also, and most important of all, they played bridge--as they had
played at every function which he had attended so far. Here Mrs.
Winnie, who had rather taken him up, and threatened to supplant
Oliver as his social guide and chaperon, insisted that no more
excuses would be accepted; and so for two mornings he sat with her
in one of the sun-parlours, and diligently put his mind upon the
game. As he proved an apt pupil, he was then advised that he might
take a trial plunge.

And so Montague came into touch with a new social phenomenon;
perhaps on the whole the most significant and soul-disturbing
phenomenon which Society had exhibited to him. He had just had the
experience of getting a great deal of money without earning it, and
was fresh from the disagreeable memories of it--the trembling and
suspense, the burning lustful greed, the terrible nerve-devouring
excitement. He had hoped that he would not soon have to go through
such an experience again-and here was the prospect of an endless
dalliance with it!

For that was the meaning of bridge; it was a penalty which people
were paying for getting their money without earning it. The disease
got into their blood, and they could no longer live without the
excitement of gain and the hope of gain. So after their labours were
over, when they were supposed to be resting and enjoying
themselves, they would get together and torment themselves with an
imitation struggle, mimicking the grim and dreadful gamble of
business. Down in the Street, Oliver had pointed out to his brother
a celebrated "plunger," who had sometimes won six or eight millions
in a single day; and that man would play at stocks all morning, and
"play the ponies" in the afternoon, and then spend the evening in a
millionaires' gambling-house. And so it was with the bridge fiends.

It was a social plague; it had run through all Society, high and
low. It had destroyed conversation and all good-fellowship--it would
end by destroying even common decency, and turning the best people
into vulgar gamblers.--Thus spoke Mrs. Billy Alden, who was one of
the guests; and Montague thought that Mrs. Billy ought to know, for
she herself was playing all the time.

Mrs. Billy did not like Mrs. Winnie Duval; and the beginning of the
conversation was her inquiry why he let that woman corrupt him. Then
the good lady went on to tell him what bridge had come to be; how
people played it on the trains all the way from New York to San
Francisco; how they had tables in their autos, and played while they
were touring over the world. "Once," said she, "I took a party to
see the America's Cup races off Sandy Hook; and when we got back to
the pier, some one called, 'Who won?' And the answer was, 'Mrs.
Billy's ahead, but we're going on this evening.' I took a party of
friends through the Mediterranean and up the Nile, and we passed
Venice and Cairo and the Pyramids and the Suez Canal, and they never
once looked up--they were playing bridge. And you think I'm joking,
but I mean just literally what I say. I know a man who was
travelling from New York to Philadelphia, and got into a game with
some strangers, and rode all the way to Palm Beach to finish it!"

Montague heard later of a well-known Society leader who was totally
incapacitated that winter, from too much bridge at Newport; and she
was passing the winter at Hot Springs and Palm Beach--and playing
bridge there. They played it even in sanitariums, to which they had
been driven by nervous breakdown. It was an occupation so exhausting
to the physique of women that physicians came to know the symptoms
of it, and before they diagnosed a case, they would ask, "Do you
play bridge?" It had destroyed the last remnants of the Sabbath--it
was a universal custom to have card-parties on that day.

It was a very expensive game, as they played it in Society; one
might easily win or lose several thousand dollars in an evening, and
there were many who could not afford this. If one did not play, he
would be dropped from the lists of those invited; and when one
entered a game, etiquette required him to stay in until it was
finished. So one heard of young girls who had pawned their family
plate, or who had sold their honour, to pay their bills at the game;
and all Society knew of one youth who had robbed his hostess of her
jewels and pawned them, and then taken her the tickets--telling her
that her guests had robbed him. There were women received in the
best Society, who lived as adventuresses pure and simple, upon their
skill at the game; hostesses would invite rich guests and fleece
them. Montague never forgot the sense of amazement and dismay with
which he listened while first Mrs. Winnie and then his brother
warned him that he must avoid playing with a certain aristocratic
dame whom he met in this most aristocratic household--because she
was such a notorious cheater!

"My dear fellow," laughed his brother, when he protested, "we have a
phrase 'to cheat at cards like a woman.'" And then Oliver went on to
tell him of his own first experience at cards in Society, when he
had played poker with several charming young debutantes; they would
call their hands and take the money without showing their cards, and
he had been too gallant to ask to see them. But later he learned
that this was a regular practice, and so he never played poker with
women. And Oliver pointed out one of these girls to his
brother--sitting, as beautiful as a picture and as cold as marble,
with a half-smoked cigarette on the edge of the table, and whisky
and soda and glasses of cracked ice beside her. Later on, as he
chanced to be reading a newspaper, his brother leaned over his
shoulder and pointed out another of the symptoms of the craze--an
advertisement headed, "Your luck will change." It gave notice that
at Rosenstein's Parlours, just off Fifth Avenue, one might borrow
money upon expensive gowns and furs!

All during the ten days of this house-party, Mrs. Winnie devoted
herself to seeing that Montague had a good time; Mrs. Winnie sat
beside him at table--he found that somehow a convention had been
established which assigned him to Mrs. Winnie as a matter of course.
Nobody said anything to him about it, but knowing how relentlessly
the affairs of other people were probed and analyzed, he began to
feel exceedingly uncomfortable.

There came a time when he felt quite smothered by Mrs. Winnie; and
immediately after lunch one day he broke away and went for a long
walk by himself. This was the occasion of his meeting with an
adventure.

An inch or two of snow had fallen, and lay gleaming in the sunlight.
The air was keen, and he drank deep draughts of it, and went
striding away over the hills for an hour or so. There was a gale
blowing, and as he came over the summits it would strike him, and he
would see the river white with foam. And then down in the valleys
again all would be still.

Here, in a thickly wooded place, Montague's attention was arrested
suddenly by a peculiar sound, a heavy thud, which seemed to shake
the earth. It suggested a distant explosion, and he stopped for a
moment and then went on, gazing ahead. He passed a turn, and then he
saw a great tree which had fallen directly across the road.

He went on, thinking that this was what he had heard. But as he came
nearer, he saw his mistake. Beyond the tree lay something else, and
he began to run toward it. It was two wheels of an automobile,
sticking up into the air.

He sprang upon the tree-trunk, and in one glance he saw the whole
story. A big touring-car had swept round the sharp turn, and swerved
to avoid the unexpected obstruction, and so turned a somersault into
the ditch.

Montague gave a thrill of horror, for there was the form of a man
pinned beneath the body of the car. He sprang toward it, but a
second glance made him stop--he saw that blood had gushed from the
man's mouth and soaked the snow all about. His chest was visibly
crushed flat, and his eyes were dreadful, half-started from their
sockets.

For a moment Montague stood staring, as if turned to stone. Then
from the other side of the car came a moan, and he ran toward the
sound. A second man lay in the ditch, moving feebly. Montague sprang
to help him.

The man wore a heavy bearskin coat. Montague lifted him, and saw
that he was a very elderly person, with a cut across his forehead,
and a face as white as chalk. The other helped him to a position
with his back against the bank, and he opened his eyes and groaned.

Montague knelt beside him, watching his breathing. He had a sense of
utter helplessness--there was nothing he could think of to do, save
to unbutton the man's coat and keep wiping the blood from his face.

"Some whisky," the stranger moaned. Montague answered that he had
none; but the other replied that there was some in the car.

The slope of the bank was such that Montague could crawl under, and
find the compartment with the bottle in it. The old man drank some,
and a little colour came back to his face. As the other watched him,
it came to him that this face was familiar; but he could not place
it.

"How many were there with you?" Montague asked; and the man
answered, "Only one."

Montague went over and made certain that the other man--who was
obviously the chauffeur--was dead. Then he hurried down the road,
and dragged some brush out into the middle of it, where it could be
seen from a distance by any other automobile that came along; after
which he went back to the stranger, and bound his handkerchief about
his forehead to stop the bleeding from the cut.

The old man's lips were tightly set, as if he were suffering great
pain. "I'm done for!" he moaned, again and again.

"Where are you hurt?" Montague asked.

"I don't know," he gasped. "But it's finished me! I know it--it's
the last straw."

Then he closed his eyes and lay back. "Can't you get a doctor?" he
asked.

"There are no houses very near," said Montague. "But I can run--"

"No, no!" the other interrupted, anxiously. "Don't leave me! Some
one will come.--Oh, that fool of a chauffeur--why couldn't he go
slow when I told him? That's always the way with them--they're
always trying to show off."

"The man is dead," said Montague, quietly.

The other started upon his elbow. "Dead!" ho gasped.

"Yes," said Montague. "He's under the car."

The old man's eyes had started wild with fright; and he caught
Montague by the arm. "Dead!" he said. "O my God--and it might have
been me!"

There was a moment's pause. The stranger caught his breath, and
whispered again: "I'm done for! I can't stand it! it's too much!"

Montague had noticed when he lifted the man that he was very frail
and slight of build. Now he could feel that the hand that held his
arm was trembling violently. It occurred to him that perhaps the man
was not really hurt, but that his nerves had been upset by the
shock.

And he felt certain of this a moment later, when the stranger
suddenly leaned forward, clutching him with redoubled intensity, and
staring at him with wide, horror-stricken eyes.

"Do you know what it means to be afraid of death?" he panted. "Do
you know what it means to be afraid of death?"

Then, without waiting for a reply, he rushed on--"No, no! You
can't! you can't! I don't believe any man knows it as I do! Think of
it--for ten years I've never known a minute when I wasn't afraid of
death! It follows me around--it won't let me be! It leaps out at me
in places, like this! And when I escape it, I can hear it laughing
at me--for it knows I can't get away!"

The old man caught his breath with a choking sob. He was clinging to
Montague like a frightened child, and staring with a wild, hunted
look upon his face. Montague sat transfixed.

"Yes," the other rushed on, "that's the truth, as God hears me! And
it's the first time I've ever spoken it in my life! I have to hide
it--because men would laugh at me--they pretend they're not afraid!
But I lie awake all night, and it's like a fiend that sits by my
bedside! I lie and listen to my own heart--I feel it beating, and I
think how weak it is, and what thin walls it has, and what a
wretched, helpless thing it is to have your life depend on
that!--You don't know what that is, I suppose."

Montague shook his head.

"You're young, you see," said the other. "You have health--everybody
has health, except me! And everybody hates me--I haven't got a
friend in the world!"

Montague was quite taken aback by the suddenness of this outburst.
He tried to stop it, for he felt almost indecent in listening--it
was not fair to take a man off his guard like this. But the stranger
could not be stopped--he was completely unstrung, and his voice grew
louder and louder.

"It's every word of it true," he exclaimed wildly. "And I can't
stand it any more. I can't stand anything any more. I was young and
strong once--I could take care of myself; and I said: I'll make
money, I'll be master of other men! But I was a fool--I forgot my
health. And now all the money on earth can't do me any good! I'd
give ten million dollars to-day for a body like any other man's--and
this--this is what I have!"

He struck his hands against his bosom. "Look at it!" he cried,
hysterically. "This is what I've got to live in! It won't digest any
food, and I can't keep it warm--there's nothing right with it! How
would you like to lie awake at night and say to yourself that your
teeth were decaying and you couldn't help it--your hair was falling
out, and nobody could stop it? You're old and worn out--falling to
pieces; and everybody hates you--everybody's waiting for you to die,
so that they can get you out of the way. The doctors come, and
they're all humbugs! They shake their heads and use long words--they
know they can't do you any good, but they want their big fees! And
all they do is to frighten you worse, and make you sicker than
ever!"

There was nothing that Montague could do save to sit and listen to
this outburst of wretchedness. His attempts to soothe the old man
only had the effect of exciting him more.

"Why does it all have to fall on me?" he moaned. "I want to be like
other people--I want to live! And instead, I'm like a man with a
pack of hungry wolves prowling round him--that's what it's like!
It's like Nature--hungry and cruel and savage! You think you know
what life is; it seems so beautiful and gentle and pleasant--that's
when you're on top! But now I'm down, and I KNOW what it is--it's a
thing like a nightmare, that reaches out for you to clutch you and
crush you! And you can't get away from it--you're helpless as a rat
in a corner--you're damned--you're damned!" The miserable man's
voice broke in a cry of despair, and he sank down in a heap in front
of Montague, shaking and sobbing. The other was trembling slightly,
and stricken with awe.

There was a long silence, and then the stranger lifted his
tear-stained face, and Montague helped to support him. "Have a
little more of the whisky," said he.

"No," the other answered feebly, "I'd better not."

"--My doctors won't let me have whisky," he added, after a while.
"That's my liver. I've so many don'ts, you know, that it takes a
note-book to keep track of them. And all of them together do me no
good! Think of it--I have to live on graham crackers and
milk--actually, not a thing has passed my lips for two years but
graham crackers and milk."

And then suddenly, with a start, it came to Montague where he had
seen this wrinkled old face before. It was Laura Hegan's uncle, whom
the Major had pointed out to him in the dining-room of the
Millionaires' Club! Old Henry S. Grimes, who was really only sixty,
but looked eighty; and who owned slum tenements, and evicted more
people in a month than could be crowded into the club-house!

Montague gave no sign, but sat holding the man in his arms. A little
trickle of blood came from under the handkerchief and ran down his
cheek; Montague felt him tremble as he touched this with his ringer.

"Is it much of a cut?" he asked.

"Not much," said Montague; "two or three stitches, perhaps."

"Send for my family physician," the other added. "If I should faint,
or anything, you'll find his name in my card-case. What's that?"

There was the sound of voices down the road. "Hello!"' Montague
shouted; and a moment later two men in automobile costume came
running toward him. They stopped, staring in dismay at the sight
which confronted them.

At Montague's suggestion they made haste to find a log by means of
which they lifted the auto sufficiently to drag out the body of the
chauffeur. Montague saw that it was quite cold.

He went back to old Grimes. "Where do you wish to go?" he asked.

The other hesitated. "I was bound for the Harrisons'--" he said.

"The Leslie Harrisons?" asked Montague. (They were people he had met
at the Devons'.)

The other noticed his look of recognition. "Do you know them?" he
asked.

"I do," said Montague.

"It isn't far," said the old man. "Perhaps I had best go
there."--And then he hesitated for a moment; and catching Montague
by the arm, and pulling him toward him, whispered, "Tell me--you-you
won't tell--"

Montague, comprehending what he meant, answered, "It will be between
us." At the same time he felt a new thrill of revulsion for this
most miserable old creature.

They lifted him into the car; and because they delayed long enough
to lay a blanket over the body of the chauffeur, he asked peevishly
why they did not start. During the ten or fifteen minutes' trip he
sat clinging to Montague, shuddering with fright every time they
rounded a turn in the road.

They reached the Harrisons' place; and the footman who opened the
door was startled out of his studied impassivity by the sight of a
big bundle of bearskin in Montague's arms. "Send for Mrs. Harrison,"
said Montague, and laid the bundle upon a divan in the hall. "Get a
doctor as quickly as you can," he added to a second attendant.

Mrs. Harrison came. "It's Mr. Grimes," said Montague; and then he
heard a frightened exclamation, and turned and saw Laura Hegan, in a
walking costume, fresh from the cold outside.

"What is it?" she cried. And he told her, as quickly as he could,
and she ran to help the old man. Montague stood by, and later
carried him upstairs, and waited below until the doctor came.

It was only when he set out for home again that he found time to
think about Laura Hegan, and how beautiful she had looked in her
furs. He wondered if it would always be his fate to meet her under
circumstances which left her no time to be aware of his own
existence.

At home he told about his adventure, and found himself quite a hero
for the rest of the day. He was obliged to give interviews to
several newspaper reporters, and to refuse to let one of them take
his picture. Every one at the Devons' seemed to know old Harry
Grimes, and Montague thought to himself that if the comments of this
particular group of people were a fair sample, the poor wretch was
right in saying that he had not a friend in the world.

When he came downstairs the next morning, he found elaborate
accounts of the accident in the papers, and learned that Grimes had
nothing worse than a scalp wound and a severe shock. Even so, he
felt it was incumbent upon him to pay a visit of inquiry, and rode
over shortly before lunch.

Laura Hegan came down to see him, wearing a morning gown of white.
She confirmed the good news of the papers, and said that her uncle
was resting quietly. (She did not say that his physician had come
post-haste, with two nurses, and taken up his residence in the
house, and that the poor old millionaire was denied even his graham
crackers and milk). Instead she said that he had mentioned
Montague's kindness particularly, and asked her to thank him.
Montague was cynical enough to doubt this.

It was the first time that he had ever had any occasion to talk with
Miss Hegan. He noticed her gentle and caressing voice, with the
least touch of the South in it; and he was glad to find that it was
possible for her to talk without breaking the spell of her serene
and noble beauty. Montague stayed as long as he had any right to
stay.

And all the way as he rode home he was thinking about Laura Hegan.
Here for the first time was a woman whom he felt he should like to
know; a woman with reserve and dignity, and some ideas in her life.
And it was impossible for him to know her--because she was rich!

There was no dodging this fact--Montague did not even try. He had
met women with fortunes already, and he knew how they felt about
themselves, and how the rest of the world felt about them. They
might wish in their hearts to be something else besides the keepers
of a treasure-chest, but their wishes were futile; the money went
with them, and they had to defend it against all comers. Montague
recalled one heiress after another--debutantes, some of them,
exquisite and delicate as butterflies--but under the surface as hard
as chain-armour. All their lives they had been trained to think of
themselves as representing money, and of every one who came near
them as adventurers seeking money. In every word they uttered, in
every glance and motion, one might read this meaning. And then he
thought of Laura Hegan, with the fortune she would inherit; and he
pictured what her life must be--the toadies and parasites and
flatterers who would lay siege to her--the scheming mammas and the
affectionate sisters and cousins who would plot to gain her
confidence! For a man who was poor, and who meant to keep his
self-respect, was there any possible conclusion except that she was
entirely unknowable to him?






CHAPTER XVI





Montague came back to the city, and dug into his books again; while
Alice gave her spare hours to watching the progress of the new gown
in which she was to uphold the honour of the family at Mrs. Devon's
opening ball. The great event was due in the next week and Society
was as much excited about it as a family of children before
Christmas. All whom Montague met were invited and all were going
unless they happened to be in mourning. Their gossip was all of the
disappointed ones, and their bitterness and heartburning.

Mrs. Devon's mansion was thrown open early on the eventful evening,
but few would come until midnight. It was the fashion to attend the
Opera first, and previous to that half a dozen people would give big
dinners. He was a fortunate person who did not hear from his liver
after this occasion; for at one o'clock came Mrs. Devon's massive
supper, and then again at four o'clock another supper. To prepare
these repasts a dozen extra chefs had been imported into the Devon
establishment for a week--for it was part of the great lady's pride
to permit no outside caterer to prepare anything for her guests.

Montague had never been able to get over his wonder at the social
phenomenon known as Mrs. Devon. He came and took his chances in the
jostling throngs; and except that he got into casual conversation
with one of the numerous detectives whom he took for a guest he came
off fairly well. But all the time that he was being passed about and
introduced and danced with, he was looking about him and wondering.
The grand staircase and the hall and parlours had been turned into
tropical gardens, with palms and trailing vines, and azaleas and
roses, and great vases of scarlet poinsettia, with hundreds of
lights glowing through them. (It was said that this ball had
exhausted the flower supply of the country as far south as Atlanta.)
And then in the reception room one came upon the little old lady,
standing' beneath a bower of orchids. She was clad in a robe of
royal purple trimmed with silver, and girdled about with an
armour-plate of gems. If one might credit the papers, the diamonds
that were worn at one of these balls were valued at twenty million
dollars.

The stranger was quite overwhelmed by all the splendour. There was a
cotillion danced by two hundred gorgeously clad women and their
partners--a scene so gay that one could only think of it as
happening in a fairy legend, or some old romance of knighthood. Four
sets of favours were given during this function, and jewels and
objects of art were showered forth as if from a magician's wand.
Mrs. Devon herself soon disappeared, but the riot of music and
merry-making went on until near morning, and during all this time
the halls and rooms of the great mansion were so crowded that one
could scarcely move about.

Then one went home, and realized that all this splendour, and the
human effort which it represented, had been for nothing but a
memory! Nor would he get the full meaning of it if he failed to
realize that it was simply one of thousands--a pattern which every
one there would strive to follow in some function of his own. It was
a signal bell, which told the world that the "season" was open. It
loosed the floodgates of extravagance, and the torrent of
dissipation poured forth. From then on there would be a continuous
round of gaieties; one might have three banquets every single
night--for a dinner and two suppers was now the custom, at
entertainments! And filling the rest of one's day were receptions
and teas and musicales--a person might take his choice among a score
of opportunities, and never leave the circle he met at Mrs. Devon's.
Nor was this counting the tens of thousands of aspirants and
imitators all over the city; nor in a host of other cities, each
with thousands of women who had nothing to do save to ape the ways
of the Metropolis. The mind could not realize the volume of this
deluge of destruction--it was a thing which stunned the senses, and
thundered in one's ears like Niagara.

The meaning of it all did not stop with the people who poured it
forth; its effects were to be traced through the whole country.
There were hordes of tradesmen and manufacturers who supplied what
Society bought, and whose study it was to induce people to buy as
much as possible. And so they devised what were called
"fashions"--little eccentricities of cut and material, which made
everything go out of date quickly. There had once been two seasons,
but now there were four; and through window displays and millions of
advertisements the public was lured into the trap. The "yellow"
journals would give whole pages to describing "What the 400 are
wearing"; there were magazines with many millions of readers, which
existed for nothing save to propagate these ideas. And everywhere,
in all classes of Society, men and women were starving their minds
and hearts, and straining their energies to follow this phantom of
fashion; the masses were kept poor because of it, and the youth and
hope of the world was betrayed by it. In country villages poor
farmers' wives were trimming their bonnets over to be "stylish"; and
servant-girls in the cities were wearing imitation sealskins, and
shop-clerks and sempstresses selling themselves into brothels for
the sake of ribbons and gilt jewellery.

It was the instinct of decoration, perverted by the money-lust. In
the Metropolis the sole test of excellence was money, and the
possession of money was the proof of power; and every natural desire
of men and women had been tainted by this influence. The love of
beauty, the impulse to hospitality, the joys of music and dancing
and love--all these things had become simply means to the
demonstration of money-power! The men were busy making more money--
but their idle women had nothing in life save this mad race in
display. So it had come about that the woman who could consume
wealth most conspicuously--who was the most effective instrument for
the destroying of the labour and the lives of other people--this was
the woman who was most applauded and most noticed.

The most appalling fact about Society was this utter blind
materialism. Such expectations as Montague had brought with him had
been derived from the literature of Europe; in a grand monde such as
this, he expected to meet diplomats and statesmen, scientists and
explorers, philosophers and poets and painters. But one never heard
anything about such people in Society. It was a mark of eccentricity
to be interested in intellectual affairs, and one might go about for
weeks and not meet a person with an idea. When these people read, it
was a sugar-candy novel, and when they went to the play, it was a
musical comedy. The one single intellectual product which it could
point to as its own, was a rancid scandal-sheet, used mainly as a
moans of blackmail. Now and then some aspiring young matron of the
"elite" would try to set up a salon after the fashion of the
continent, and would gather a few feeble wits about her for a time.
But for the most part the intellectual workers of the city held
themselves severely aloof; and Society was loft a little clique of
people whose fortunes had become historic in a decade or two, and
who got together in each other's palaces and gorged themselves, and
gambled and gossiped about each other, and wove about their
personalities a veil of awful and exclusive majesty.

Montague found himself thinking that perhaps it was not they who
were to blame. It was not they who had set up wealth as the end and
goal of things--it was the whole community, of which they were a
part. It was not their fault that they had been left with power and
nothing to use it for; it was not their fault that their sons and
daughters found themselves stranded in the world, deprived of all
necessity, and of the possibility of doing anything useful.

The most pitiful aspect of the whole thing to Montague was this
"second generation" who were coming upon the scene, with their lives
all poisoned in advance. No wrong which they could do to the world
would ever equal the wrong which the world had done them, in
permitting them to have money which they had not earned. They were
cut off for ever from reality, and from the possibility of
understanding life; they had big, healthy bodies, and they craved
experience--and they had absolutely nothing to do. That was the real
meaning of all this orgy of dissipation--this "social whirl" as it
was called; it was the frantic chase of some new thrill, some
excitement that would stir the senses of people who had nothing in
the world to interest them. That was why they were building palaces,
and flinging largesses of banquets and balls, and tearing about the
country in automobiles, and travelling over the earth in steam
yachts and private trains.

--And first and last, the lesson of their efforts was, that the
chase was futile; the jaded nerves would not thrill. The most
conspicuous fact about Society was its unutterable and agonizing
boredom; of its great solemn functions the shop-girl would read with
greedy envy, but the women who attended them would be half asleep
behind their jewelled fans. It was typified to Montague by Mrs.
Billy Alderi's yachting party on the Nile; yawning in the face of
the Sphinx, and playing bridge beneath the shadow of the pyramids--
and counting the crocodiles and proposing to jump in by way of
"changing the pain"!

People attended these ceaseless rounds of entertainments, simply
because they dreaded to be left alone. They wandered from place to
place, following like a herd of sheep whatever leader would
inaugurate a new diversion. One could have filled a volume with the
list of their "fads." There were new ones every week--if Society did
not invent them, the yellow journals invented them. There was a
woman who had her teeth filled with diamonds; and another who was
driving a pair of zebras. One heard of monkey dinners and pyjama
dinners at Newport, of horseback dinners and vegetable dances in New
York. One heard of fashion-albums and autograph-fans and talking
crows and rare orchids and reindeer meat; of bracelets for men and
ankle rings for women; of "vanity-boxes" at ten and twenty thousand
dollars each; of weird and repulsive pets, chameleons and lizards
and king-snakes--there was one young woman who wore a cat-snake as a
necklace. One would take to slumming and another to sniffing brandy
through the nose; one had a table-cover made of woven roses, and
another was wearing perfumed flannel at sixteen dollars a yard; one
had inaugurated ice-skating in August, and another had started a
class for the study of Plato. Some were giving tennis tournaments in
bathing-suits, and playing leap-frog after dinner; others had got
dispensations from the Pope, so that they might have private chapels
and confessors; and yet others were giving "progressive dinners,"
moving from one restaurant to another--a cocktail and blue-points at
Sherry's, a soup and Madeira at Delmonico's, some terrapin with
amontillado at the Waldorf--and so on.

One of the consequences of the furious pace was that people's health
broke down very quickly; and there were all sorts of bizarre ways of
restoring it. One person would be eating nothing but spinach, and
another would be living on grass. One would chew a mouthful of soup
thirty-two times; another would eat every two hours, and another
only once a week. Some went out in the early morning and walked
bare-footed in the grass, and others went hopping about the floor on
their hands and knees to take off fat. There were "rest cures" and
"water cures," "new thought" and "metaphysical healing" and
"Christian Science"; there was an automatic horse, which one might
ride indoors, with a register showing the distance travelled.
Montague met one man who had an electric machine, which cost thirty
thousand dollars, and which took hold of his arms and feet and
exercised him while he waited. Ho met a woman who told him she was
riding an electric camel!

Everywhere one went there were new people, spending their money in
new and incredible ways. Here was a man who had bought a chapel and
turned it into a theatre, and hired professional actors, and
persuaded his friends to come and see him act Shakespeare. Hero was
a woman who costumed herself after figures in famous paintings, with
arrangements of roses and cherry leaves, and wreaths of ivy and
laurel--and with costumes for her pet dogs to match! Hero was a man
who paid six dollars a day for a carnation four inches across; and a
girl who wore a hat trimmed with fresh morning-glories, and a ball
costume with swarms of real butterflies tied with silk threads; and
another with a hat made of woven silver, with ostrich plumes forty
inches long made entirely of silvei films. Here was a man who hired
a military company to drill all day long to prepare a floor for
dancing; and another who put up a building at a cost of thirty
thousand dollars to give a debutante dance for his daughter, and
then had it torn down the day aftor. Here was a man who bred
rattlesnakes and turned them loose by thousands, and had driven
everybody away from the North Carolina estate of one of the
Wallings. Here was a man who was building himself a yacht with a
model dairy and bakery on board, and a French laundry and a brass
band. Here was a million-dollar racing-yacht with auto-boats on it
and a platoon of marksmen, and some Chinese laundrymen, and two
physicians for its half-insane occupant. Here was a man who had
bought a Rhine castle for three-quarters of a million, and spent as
much in restoring it, and filled it with servants dressed in
fourteenth-century costumes. Here was a five-million-dollar art
collection hidden away where nobody ever saw it!

One saw the meaning of this madness most clearly in the young men of
Society. Some were killing themselves and other people in automobile
races at a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Some went in for
auto-boats, mere shells of things, shaped like a knife-blade, that
tore through the water at forty miles an hour. Some would hire
professional pugilists to knock them out; others would get up
dog-fights and bear-fights, and boxing matches with kangaroos.
Montague was taken to the home of one young man who had given his
life to hunting wild gajne in every corner of the globe, and would
travel round the world for a new species to add to his museum of
trophies. He had heard that Baron Rothschild had offered a thousand
pounds for a "bongo," a huge grass-eating animal, which no white man
had ever seen; and he had taken a year's trip into the interior,
with a train of a hundred and thtiry natives, and had brought out
the heads of forty different species, including a bongo--which the
Baron did not get! He met another who had helped to organize a
balloon club, and two twenty-four-hour trips in the clouds. (This,
by the way, was the latest sport--at Tuxedo they had races between
balloons and automobiles; and Montague met one young lady who
boasted that she had been up five times.) There was another young
millionaire who sat and patiently taught Sunday School, in the
presence of a host of reporters; there was another who set up a
chain of newspapers all over the country and made war upon his
class. There were others who went in for settlement work and Russian
revolutionists--there were even some who called themselves
Socialists! Montague thought that this was the strangest fad of all;
and when he met one of these young men at an afternoon tea, he gazed
at him with wonder and perplexity--thinking of the man he had heard
ranting on the street-corner.

This was the "second generation." Appalling as it was to think of,
there was a third growing up, and getting ready to take the stage.
And with wealth accumulating faster than ever, who could guess what
they might do? There were still in Society a few men and women who
had earned their money, and had some idea of the toil and suffering
that it stood for; but when the third generation had taken
possession, these would all be dead or forgotten, and there would no
longer be any link to connect them with reality!

In the light of this thought one was moved to watch the children of
the rich. Some of these had inherited scores of millions of dollars
while they were still in the cradle; now and then one of them would
be presented with a million-dollar house for a birthday gift. When
such a baby was born, the newspapers would give pages to describing
its layette, with baby dresses at a hundred dollars each, and lace
handkerchiefs at five dollars, and dressing-sets with tiny gold
brushes and powder-boxes; one might see a picture of the precious
object in a "Moses basket," covered with rare and wonderful
Valenciennes lace.

This child would grow up in an atmosphere of luxury and
self-indulgence; it would be bullying the servants at the age of
six, and talking scandal and smoking cigarettes at twelve. It would
be petted and admired and stared at, and paraded about in state,
dressed up like a French doll; it would drink in snobbery and
hatefulness with the very air it breathed. One might meet in these
great houses little tots not yet in their teens whose talk was all
of the cost of things, and of the inferiority of their neighbours.
There was nothing in the world too good for them.--They had little
miniature automobiles to ride about the country in, and blooded
Arabian ponies, and doll-houses in real Louis Seize, with jewelled
rugs and miniature electric lights. At Mrs. Caroline Smythe's,
Montague was introduced to a pale and anaemic-looking youth of
thirteen, who dined in solemn state alone when the rest of the
family was away, and insisted upon having all the footmen in
attendance; and his unfortunate aunt brought a storm about her ears
by forbidding the butler to take champagne upstairs into the nursery
before lunch.

A little remark stayed in Montague's mind as expressing the attitude
of Society toward such matters. Major Venable had chanced to remark
jestingly that children were coming to understand so much nowadays
that it was necessary for the ladies to be careful. To which Mrs.
Vivie Patton answered, with a sudden access of seriousness: "I don't
know--do you find that children have any morals? Mine haven't."

And then the fascinating Mrs. Vivie went on to tell the truth about
her own children. They were natural-born savages, and that was all
there was to it. They did as they pleased, and no one could stop
them. The Major replied that nowadays all the world was doing as it
pleased, and no one seemed to be able to stop it; and with that jest
the conversation was turned to other matters. But Montague sat in
silence, thinking about it--wondering what would happen to the world
when it had fallen under the sway of this generation of spoiled
children, and had adopted altogether the religion of doing as one
pleased.

In the beginning people had simply done as they pleased
spontaneously, and without thinking about it; but now, Montague
discovered, the custom had spread to such an extent that it was
developing a philosophy. There was springing up a new cult, whose
devotees were planning to make over the world upon the plan of doing
as one pleased. Because its members were wealthy, and able to
command the talent of the world, the cult was developing an art,
with a highly perfected technique, and a literature which was subtle
and exquisite and alluring. Europe had had such a literature for a
century, and England for a generation or two. And now America was
having it, too!

Montague had an amusing insight into this one day, when Mrs. Vivie
invited him to one of her "artistic evenings." Mrs. Vivie was in
touch with a special set which went in for intellectual things, and
included some amateur Bohemians and men of "genius." "Don't you come
if you'll be shocked," she had said to him--"for Strathcona will be
there."

Montague deemed himself able to stand a good deal by this time. He
went, and found Mrs. Vivie and her Count (Mr. Vivie had apparently
not been invited) and also the young poet of Diabolism, whose work
was just then the talk of the town. He was a tall, slender youth
with a white face and melancholy black eyes, and black locks falling
in cascades about his ears; he sat in an Oriental corner, with a
manuscript copied in tiny handwriting upon delicately scented "art
paper," and tied with passionate purple ribbons. A young girl clad
in white sat by his side and held a candle, while he read from this
manuscript his unprinted (because unprintable) verses.

And between the readings the young poet talked. He talked about
himself and his work--apparently. that was what he had come to talk
about. His words flowed like a swift stream, limpid, sparkling,
incessant; leaping from place to place--here, there, quick as the
play of light upon the water. Montague laboured to follow the
speaker's ideas, until he found his mind in a whirl and gave it up.
Afterward, when he thought it over, he laughed at himself; for
Strathcona's ideas were not serious things, having relationship to
truth--they were epigrams put together to dazzle the hearer,
studies in paradox, with as much relation to life as fireworks. He
took the sum-total of the moral experience of the human race, and
turned it upside down and jumbled it about, and used it as bits of
glass in a kaleidoscope. And the hearers would gasp, and whisper,
"Diabolical!"

The motto of this "school" of poets was that there was neither good
nor evil, but that all things were "interesting." After listening to
Strathcona for half an hour, one felt like hiding his head, and
denying that he had ever thought of having any virtue; in a world
where all things were uncertain, it was presumptuous even to pretend
to know what virtue was. One could only be what one was; and did not
that mean that one must do as one pleased?

You could feel a shudder run through the company at his audacity.
And the worst of it was that you could not dismiss it with a laugh;
for the boy was really a poet--he had fire and passion, the gift of
melodious ecstacy. He was only twenty, and in his brief meteor
flight he had run the gamut of all experience; he had familiarized
himself with all human achievement--past, present, and future. There
was nothing any one could mention that he did not perfectly
comprehend: the raptures of the saints, the consecration of the
martyrs--yes, he had known them; likewise he had touched the depths
of depravity, he had been lost in the innermost passages of the
caverns of hell. And all this had been interesting--in its time; now
he was sighing for new worlds of experience--say for unrequited
love, which should drive him to madness.

It was at this point that Montague dropped out of the race, and took
to studying from the outside the mechanism of this young poet's
conversation. Strathcona flouted the idea of a moral sense; but in
reality he was quite dependent upon it--his recipe for making
epigrams was to take what other people's moral sense made them
respect, and identify it with something which their moral sense made
them abhor. Thus, for instance, the tale which he told about one of
the members of his set, who was a relative of a bishop. The great
man had occasion to rebuke him for his profligate ways, declaring in
the course of his lecture that he was living off the reputation of
his father; to which the boy made the crushing rejoinder: "It may be
bad to live off the reputation of one's father, but it's better than
living off the reputation of God."--This was very subtle and it was
necessary to ponder it. God was dead; and the worthy bishop did not
know it! But let him take a new God, who had no reputation, and go
out into the world and make a living out of him!

Then Strathcona discussed literature. He paid his tribute to the
"Fleurs de Mal" and the "Songs before Sunrise"; but most, he said,
he owed to "the divine Oscar." This English poet of many poses and
some vices the law had seized and flung into jail; and since the law
is a thing so brutal and wicked that whoever is touched by it is
made thereby a martyr and a hero, there had grown up quite a cult
about the memory of "Oscar." All up-to-date poets imitated his style
and his attitude to life; and so the most revolting of vices had the
cloak of romance flung about them--were given long Greek and Latin
names, and discussed with parade of learning as revivals of Hellenic
ideals. The young men in Strathcona's set referred to each other as
their "lovers"; and if one showed any perplexity over this, he was
regarded, not with contempt--for it was not aesthetic to feel
contempt--but with a slight lifting of the eyebrows, intended to
annihilate.

One must not forget, of course, that these young people were poets,
and to that extent were protected from their own doctrines. They
were interested, not in life, but in making pretty verses about
life; there were some among them who lived as cheerful ascetics in
garret rooms, and gave melodious expression to devilish emotions.
But, on the other hand, for every poet, there were thousands who
were not poets, but people to whom life was real. And these lived
out the creed, and wrecked their lives; and with the aid of the
poet's magic, the glamour of melody and the fire divine, they
wrecked the lives with which they came into contact. The new
generation of boys and girls were deriving their spiritual
sustenance from the poetry of Baudelaire and Wilde; and rushing with
the hot impulsiveness of youth into the dreadful traps which the
traders in vice prepared for them. One's heart bled to see them,
pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, pursuing the hem of the Muse's robe in
brothels and dens of infamy!






CHAPTER XVII





The social mill ground on for another month. Montague withdrew
himself as much as his brother would let him; but Alice, was on the
go all night and half the day. Oliver had sold his racing automobile
to a friend--he was a man of family now, he said, and his wild days
were over. He had got, instead, a limousine car for Alice; though
she declared she had no need of it--if ever she was going to any
place, Charlie Carter always begged her to use his. Charlie's siege
was as persistent as ever, as Montague noticed with annoyance.

The great law case was going forward. After weeks of study and
investigation, Montague felt that he had the matter well in hand;
and he had taken Mr. Hasbrook's memoranda as a basis for a new work
of his own, much more substantial. Bit by bit; as he dug into the
subject, he had discovered a state of affairs in the Fidelity
Company, and, indeed, in the whole insurance business and its allied
realms of banking and finance, which shocked him profoundly. It was
impossible for him to imagine how such conditions could exist and
remain unknown to the public--more especially as every one in Wall
Street with whom he talked seemed to know about them and to take
them for granted.

His client's papers had provided him with references to the books;
Montague had taken this dry material and made of it a protest which
had the breath of life in it. It was a thing at which he toiled with
deadly earnestness; it was not merely a struggle of one man to get a
few thousand dollars, it was an appeal in behalf of millions of
helpless people whose trust had been betrayed. It was the first step
in a long campaign, which the young lawyer meant should force a
great evil into the light of day.

He went over his bill of complaint with Mr. Hasbrook, and he was
glad to see that the work he had done made its impression upon him.
In fact, his client was a little afraid that some of his arguments
might be too radical in tone--from the strictly legal point of view,
he made haste to explain. But Montague reassured him upon this
point.

And then came the day when the great ship was ready for launching.
The news must have spread quickly, for a few hours after the papers
in the suit had been filed, Montague received a call from a
newspaper reporter, who told him of the excitement in financial
circles, where the thing had fallen like a bomb. Montague explained
the purpose of the suit, and gave the reporter a number of facts
which he felt certain would attract attention to the matter. When he
picked up the paper the next morning, however, he was surprised to
find that only a few lines had been given to the case, and that his
interview had been replaced by one with an unnamed official of the
Fidelity, to the effect that the attack upon the company was
obviously for black-mailing purposes.

That was the only ripple which Montague's work produced upon the
surface of the pool; but there was a great commotion among the fish
at the bottom, about which he was soon to learn.

That evening, while he was hard at work in his study, he received a
telephone call from his brother. "I'm coming round to see you," said
Oliver. "Wait for me."

"All right," said the other, and added, "I thought you were dining
at the Waitings'."

"I'm there now," was the answer. "I'm leaving."

"What is the matter?" Montague asked.

"There's hell to pay," was the reply--and then silence.

When Oliver appeared, a few minutes later, he did not even stop to
set down his hat, but exclaimed, "Allan, what in heaven's name have
you been doing?"

"What do you mean?" asked the other.

"Why, that suit!"

"What about it?"

"Good God, man!" cried Oliver. "Do you mean that you really don't
know what you've done?"

Montague was staring at him. "I'm afraid I don't," said he.

"Why, you're turning the world upside down!" exclaimed the other.
"Everybody you know is crazy about it."

"Everybody I know!" echoed Montague. "What have they to do with it?"

"Why, you've stabbed them in the back!" half shouted Oliver. "I
could hardly believe my ears when they told me. Robbie Walling is
simply wild--I never had such a time in my life."

"I don't understand yet," said Montague, more and more amazed. "What
has he to do with it?"

"Why, man," cried Oliver, "his brother's a director in the Fidelity!
And his own interests--and all the other companies! You've struck at
the whole insurance business!"

Montague caught his breath. "Oh, I see!" he said.

"How could you think of such a thing?" cried the other, wildly. "You
promised to consult me about things--"

"I told you when I took this case," put in Montague, quickly.

"I know," said his brother. "But you didn't explain--and what did I
know about it? I thought I could leave it to your common sense not
to mix up in a thing like this."

"I'm very sorry," said Montague, gravely. "I had no idea of any such
result."

"That's what I told Robbie," said Oliver. "Good God, what a time I
had!"

He took his hat and coat and laid them on the bed, and sat down and
began to tell about it. "I made him realize the disadvantage you
were under," he said, "being a stranger and not knowing the ground.
I believe he had an idea that you tried to get his confidence on
purpose to attack him. It was Mrs. Robbie, I guess--you know her
fortune is all in that quarter."

Oliver wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My!" he
said.--"And fancy what old Wyman must be saying about this! And what
a time poor Betty must be having! And then Freddie Vandam--the air
will be blue for half a mile round his place! I must send him a wire
and explain that it was a mistake, and that we're getting out of
it."

And he got up, to suit the action to the word. But half-way to the
desk he heard his brother say, "Wait."

He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale. "I suppose by 'getting out
of it,'" said the latter, "you mean dropping the case."

"Of course," was the answer.

"Well, then," he continued, very gravely,--"I can see that it's
going to be hard, and I'm sorry. But you might as well understand me
at the very beginning--I will never drop this case."

Oliver's jaw fell limp. "Allan!" he gasped.

There was a silence; and then the storm broke. Oliver knew his
brother well enough to realize just how thoroughly he meant what he
said; and so he got the full force of the shock all at once. He
raved and swore and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother,
saying that he had betrayed him, that he was ruining him--dumping
himself and the whole family into the ditch. They would be jeered at
and insulted--they would be blacklisted and thrown out of Society.
Alice's career would be cut short--every door would be closed to
her. His own career would die before it was born; he would never get
into the clubs--he would be a pariah--he would be bankrupted and
penniless. Again and again Oliver went over the situation, naming
person after person who would be outraged, and describing what that
person would do; there were the Wallings and the Venables and the
Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and the Wymans--they were all one
regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb into the centre of them!

It was very terrible to him to see his brother's rage and despair;
but he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that
there was no turning back for him. "It is painful to learn that all
one's acquaintances are thieves," he said. "But that does not change
my opinion of stealing."

"But my God!" cried Oliver; "did you come to New York to preach
sermons?"

To which the other answered, "I came to practise law. And the lawyer
who will not fight injustice is a traitor to his profession."

Oliver threw up his hands in despair. What could one say to a
sentiment such as that?

--But then again he came to the charge, pointing out to his brother
the position in which he had placed himself with the Wallings. He
had accepted their hospitality; they had taken him and Alice in, and
done everything in the world for them--things for which no money
could ever repay them. And now he had struck them!

But the only effect of that was to make Montague regret that he had
ever had anything to do with the Wallings. If they expected to use
their friendship to tie his hands in such a matter, they were people
he would have left alone.

"But do you realize that it's not merely yourself you're ruining?"
cried Oliver. "Do you know what you're doing to Alice?"

"That is harder yet for me," the other replied. "But I am sure that
Alice would not ask me to stop."

Montague was firmly set in his own mind; but it seemed to be quite
impossible for his brother to realize that this was the case. He
would give up; but then, going back into his own mind, and facing
the thought of this person and that, and the impossibility of the
situation which would arise, he would return to the attack with new
anguish in his voice. He implored and scolded, and even wept; and
then he would get himself together again, and come and sit in front
of his brother and try to reason with him.

And so it was that in the small hours of the morning, Montague, pale
and nervous, but quite unshaken, was sitting and listening while his
brother unfolded before him a picture of the Metropolis as he had
come to see it. It was a city ruled by mighty forces--money-forces;
great families and fortunes, which had held their sway for
generations, and regarded the place, with all its swarming millions,
as their birthright. They possessed it utterly--they held it in the
hollow of their hands. Railroads and telegraphs and telephones--
banks and insurance and trust companies--all these they owned; and
the political machines and the legislatures, the courts and the
newspapers, the churches and the colleges. And their rule was for
plunder; all the streams of profit ran into their coffers. The
stranger who came to their city succeeded as he helped them in their
purposes, and failed if they could not use him. A great editor or
bishop was a man who taught their doctrines; a great statesman was a
man who made the laws for them; a great lawyer was one who helped
them to outwit the public. Any man who dared to oppose them, they
would cast out and trample on, they would slander and ridicule and
ruin.

And Oliver came down to particulars--he named these powerful men,
one after one, and showed what they could do. If his brother would
only be a man of the world, and see the thing! Look at all the
successful lawyers! Oliver named them, one after one--shrewd
devisers of corporation trickery, with incomes of hundreds of
thousands a year. He could not name the men who had refused to play
the game--for no one had ever heard of them. But it was so evident
what would happen in this case! His friends would cast him off; his
own client would get his price--whatever it was--and then leave him
in the lurch, and laugh at him! "If you can't make up your mind to
play the game," cried Oliver, frantically, "at least you can give it
up! There are plenty of other ways of getting a living--if you'll
let me, I'll take care of you myself, rather than have you disgrace
me. Tell me--will you do that? Will you quit altogether?"

And Montague suddenly leaped to his feet, and brought his fist down
upon the desk with a bang. "No!" he cried; "by God, no!"

"Let me make you understand me once for all," he rushed on. "You've
shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth--I
don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I
shall stay here and find out--and if it is true, it won't stop me! I
shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them
till the day I die! They may ruin me,--I'll go and live in a garret
if I have to,--but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never
stop till I've opened the eyes of the people to what they're doing!"

Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver
shrank from him--he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him
before. "Do you understand me now?" Montague cried; and he answered,
in a despairing voice, "Yes, yes."

"I see it's all up," he added weakly. "You and I can't pull
together."

"No," exclaimed the other, passionately, "we can't. And we might as
well give up trying. You have chosen to be a time-server and a
lick-spittle, and I don't choose it! Do you think I've learned
nothing in the time I've been here? Why, man, you used to be daring
and clever--and now you never draw a breath without wondering if
these rich snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to
sell herself to them--you want me to sell my career to them!"

There was a long pause. Oliver had turned very pale. And then
suddenly his brother caught himself together, and said: "I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to quarrel, but you've goaded me too much. I'm
grateful for what you have tried to do for me, and I'll pay you back
as soon as I can. But I can't go on with this game. I'll quit, and
you can disown me to your friends--tell them that I've run amuck,
and to forget they ever knew me. They'll hardly blame you for it--
they know you too well for that. And as for Alice, I'll talk it out
with her to-morrow, and let her decide for herself--if she wants to
be a Society queen, she can put herself in your hands, and I'll get
out of her way. On the other hand, if she approves of what I'm
doing, why we'll both quit, and you won't have to bother with either
of us."

That was the basis upon which they parted for the night; but like
most resolutions taken at white heat, it was not followed literally.
It was very hard for Montague to have to confront Alice with such a
choice; and as for Oliver, when he went home and thought it over, he
began to discover gleams of hope. He might make it clear to every
one that he was not responsible for his brother's business vagaries,
and take his chances upon that basis. After all, there were wheels
within wheels in Society; and if the Robbie Waitings chose to break
with him--why, they had plenty of enemies. There might even be
interests which would be benefited by Allan's course, and would take
him up.

Montague had resolved to write and break every engagement which he
had made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke.
But the next day his brother came again, with compromises and new
protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme: he,
Oliver, would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go
on their way as if nothing had happened.

--So Montague made his debut in the role of knight-errant. He went
with many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would
take it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with
Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at
Delmonico's, and there came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple
tree in early April--and murmuring with bated breath, "Oh, you
dreadful man, what have you been doing?"

"Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?" he asked promptly.

"No, not mine," she said, "but--" and then she hesitated.

"On Mr. Duval's?" he asked.

"No," she said, "not his--but everybody else's! He was telling me
about it to-day--there's a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try
to find out what you were up to, and who was behind it."

Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that
her husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of
him? That was what she seemed to imply. "I told him I never talked
business with my friends," she said. "He can ask you himself, if he
chooses. But what DOES it all mean, anyhow?"

Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency.

"It means nothing," said he, "except that I am trying to get justice
for a client."

"But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?" she asked.

"I've taken my chances on that," he replied.

Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering
admiration in her eyes. "You arc different from the men about you,"
she remarked, after a while-and her tone gave Montague to understand
that there was one person who meant to stand by him.

But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to
notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it
was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions.
Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long
Island, and of course that invitation would never come; likewise
they would never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the
Jersey mountain-top.

Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain
his embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother's
affairs, he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw
fit. With the Robbie Waitings he had a stormy half hour, about which
he thought it best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie
did not break with him utterly, because of their Wall Street
Alliance; but Mrs. Robbie's feeling was so bitter, he said, that it
would be best if Alice saw nothing of her for a while. He had a long
talk with Alice, and explained the situation. The girl was utterly
dumbfounded, for she was deeply grateful to Mrs. Robbie, and fond of
her as well; and she could not believe that a friend could be so
cruelly unjust to her.

The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few
days later Alice met Mrs. Robbie at a reception; and she took the
lady aside, and tried to tell her how distressed and helpless she
was. And the result was that Mrs. Robbie flew into a passion and
railed at her, declaring in the presence of several people that she
had sponged upon her and abused her hospitality! And so poor Alice
came home, weeping and half hysterical.

All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were
lighted up with the conflagration. The next development was a
paragraph in Society's scandal-sheet--telling with infinite gusto
how a certain ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of
stranded waifs from a far State, and introduced them into the best
circles, and even gone so far as to give a magnificent dance in
their honour; and how the discovery had been made that the head of
the family had been secretly preparing an attack upon their business
interests; and of the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth which
had followed--and the violent quarrel in a public place. The
paragraph concluded with the prediction that the strangers would
find themselves the centre of a merry social war.

Oliver was the first to show them this paper. But lest by any chance
they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough
to mail them copies, carefully marked.--And then came Reggie Mann,
who as free-lance and gossip-gatherer sat on the fence and watched
the fun; Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee,
and brought them the latest reports from all portions of the
battle-ground. Thus they were able to know exactly what everybody
was saying about them--who was amused and who was outraged, and who
proposed to drop them and who to take them up.

Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went
for a walk to escape it--but only to run into another trap. It was
dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a
brilliantly lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her
carriage. And she hailed him with an exclamation.

"You man," she cried, "what have you been doing?"

He tried to laugh it off and escape, but she took him by the arm,
commanding, "Get in here and tell me about it."

So he found himself moving with the slow stream of vehicles on the
Avenue, and with Mrs. Billy gazing at him quizzically and asking him
if he did not feel like a hippopotamus in a frog-pond.

He replied to her raillery by asking her under which flag she stood.
But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a
Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy's. She told
Montague that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he
had to do was to come to her. She would gird on her armour and take
the field.

"But tell me how you came to do it," she said.

He answered that there was very little to tell. He had taken up a
case which was obviously just, but having no idea what a storm it
would raise.

Then he noticed that his companion was looking at him sharply. "Do
you really mean that's all there is to it?" she asked.

"Of course I do," said he, perplexed.

"Do you know," was her unexpected response, "I hardly know what to
make of you. I'm afraid to trust you, on account of your brother."

Montague was embarrassed. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Everybody thinks there's some trickery in that suit," she answered.

"Oh," said Montague, "I see. Well, they will find out. If it will
help you any to know it, I've been having no end of scenes with my
brother."

"I'll believe you," said Mrs. Billy, genially. "But it seems strange
that a man could have been so blind to a situation! I feel quite
ashamed because I didn't help you myself!"

The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy's home, and she asked him to
dinner. "There'll be nobody but my brother," she said,--"we're
resting this evening. And I can make up to you for my negligence!"

Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy's
mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge's palace, and
met Mr. "Davy" Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed
orders promptly. They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen
courses, and then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Billy sank
into a huge easy chair, with a decanter of whisky and some cracked
ice in readiness beside it. Then from a tray she selected a thick
black cigar, and placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then
settled back at her ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New
York, and about the great families who ruled it, and where and how
they had got their money, and who were their allies and who their
enemies, and what particular skeletons were hidden in each of their
closets.

It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete;
her thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque. She
spoke of old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting
chestnuts. He was all right, she said, if you didn't come under his
tree. And Montague asked, "Which is his tree?" and she answered,
"Any one he happens to be under at the time."

And then she came to the Waitings. Mrs. Billy had been in on the
inside of that family, and there was nothing she didn't know about
it; and she brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them,
and exhibited them for Montague's benefit. They were typical
bourgeois people, she said. They were burghers. They had never shown
the least capacity for refinement--they ate and drank, and jostled
other people out of the way. The old ones had been boors, and the
new ones were cads.

And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history
of the family?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He
fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats;
and then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and
building railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they
simply grabbed things--if you ever look into it, you'll find they're
making fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat
down on and held. There's a bridge at Albany, for instance, to which
they haven't the slightest right; my brother knows about it--they've
given themselves a contract with their railroad by which they're
paid for every passenger, and their profit every year is greater
than the cost of the bridge. The son was the head of the family when
I came in; and I found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty
million dollars to one of his sons, and only ten million to my
husband. I set to work to change that, I can tell you. I used to go
around to see him, and scratch his back and tickle him and make him
feel good. Of course the family went wild--my, how they hated me!
They set old Ellis to work to keep me off--have you met Judge
Ellis?"

"I have," said Montague.

"Well, there's a pussy-footed old hypocrite for you," said Mrs.
Billy. "In those days he was Waiting's business lackey--used to pass
the money to the legislators and keep the wheels of the machine
greased. One of the first things I said to the old man was that I
didn't ask him to entertain my butler, and he mustn't ask me to
entertain his valet--and so I forbid Ellis to enter my house. And
when I found that he was trying to get between the old man and me, I
flew into a rage and boxed his ears and chased him out of the room!"

Mrs. Billy paused, and laughed heartily over the recollection. "Of
course that tickled the old man to death," she continued. "The
Wallings never could make out how I managed to get round him as I
did; but it was simply because I was honest with him. They'd come
snivelling round, pretending they were anxious about his health;
while I wanted his money, and I told him so."

The valiant lady turned to the decanter. "Have some Scotch?" she
asked, and poured some for herself, and then went on with her story.
"When I first came to New York," she said, "the rich people's houses
were all alike--all dreary brownstone fronts, sandwiched in on one
or two city lots. I vowed that I would have a house with some room
all around it--and that was the beginning of those palaces that all
New York walks by and stares at. You can hardly believe it
now--those houses were a scandal! But the sensation tickled the old
man. I remember one day we walked up the Avenue to see how they were
coming on; and he pointed with his big stick to the second floor,
and asked, 'What's that?' I answered, 'It's a safe I'm building into
the house.' (That was a new thing, too, in those days.)--'I'm going
to keep my money in that,' I said. 'Bah!' he growled, 'when you're
done with this house, you won't have any money left.'--'I'm planning
to make you fill it for me,' I answered; and do you know, he
chuckled all the way home over it!"

Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. "We had great old battles
in those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the
Waitings into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when
I came--licking people's boots and expecting to be kicked. I said
to myself, I'll put an end to that--we'll have a show-down! So I
gave a ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp--it wouldn't
be noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed
of anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I
wanted to know in New York, and I said to myself: 'If you come,
you're a friend, and if you don't come, you're an enemy.' And they
all came, let me tell you! And there was never any question about
the Waitings being in Society after that."

Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that
doubtless she was sorry now that she had done it.

"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I find that
all I have to do is to be patient--I hate people, and think I'd like
to poison them, but if I only wait long enough, something happens to
them much worse than I ever dreamed of. You'll be revenged on the
Robbies some day."

"I don't want any revenge," Montague answered. "I've no quarrel with
them--I simply wish I hadn't accepted their hospitality. I didn't
know they were such little people. It seems hard to believe it."

Mrs. Billy laughed cynically. "What could you expect?" she said.
"They know there's nothing to them but their money. When that's
gone, they're gone--they could never make any more."

The lady gave a chuckle, and added: "Those words make me think of
Davy's experience when he wanted to go to Congress! Tell him about
it, Davy."

But Mr. Alden did not warm to the subject; he left the tale to his
sister.

"He was a Democrat, you know," said she, "and he went to the boss
and told him he'd like to go to Congress. The answer was that it
would cost him forty thousand dollars, and he kicked at the price.
Others didn't have to put up such sums, he said--why should he? And
the old man growled at him, 'The rest have other things to give.
One can deliver the letter-carriers, another is paid for by a
corporation. But what can you do? What is there to you but your
money?'--So Davy paid the money--didn't you, Davy?" And Davy grinned
sheepishly.

"Even so," she went on, "he came off better than poor Devon. They
got fifty thousand out of him, and sold him out, and he never got to
Congress after all! That was just before he concluded that America
wasn't a fit place for a gentleman to live in."

--And so Mrs. Billy got started on the Devons! And after that came
the Havens and the Wymans and the Todds--it was midnight before she
got through with them all.






CHAPTER XVIII





The newspapers said nothing more about the Hasbrook suit; but in
financial circles Montague had attained considerable notoriety
because of it. And this was the means of bringing him a number of
new cases.

But alas, there were no more fifty-thousand-dollar clients! The
first caller was a destitute widow with a deed which would have
entitled her to the greater part of a large city in
Pennsylvania--only unfortunately the deed was about eighty years
old. And then there was a poor old man who had been hurt in a
street-car accident and had been tricked into signing away his
rights; and an indignant citizen who proposed to bring a hundred
suits against the traction trust for transfers refused. All were
contingency cases, with the chances of success exceedingly remote.
And Montague noticed that the people had come to him as a last
resort, having apparently heard of him as a man of altruistic
temper.

There was one case which interested him particularly, because it
seemed to fit in so ominously with the grim prognosis of his
brother. He received a call from an elderly gentleman, of very
evident refinement and dignity of manner, who proceeded to unfold to
him a most amazing story. Five or six years ago he had invented a
storage-battery, which was the most efficient known. He had
organised a company with three million dollars' capital to
manufacture it, himself taking a third interest for his patents, and
becoming president of the company. Not long afterward had come a
proposal from a group of men who wished to organize a company to
manufacture automobiles; they proposed to form an alliance which
would give them the exclusive use of the battery. But these men were
not people with whom the inventor cared to deal--they were traction
and gas magnates widely known for their unscrupulous methods. And so
he had declined their offer, and set to work instead to organize an
automobile company himself. He had just got under way when he
discovered that his rivals had set to work to take his invention
away from him. A friend who owned another third share in his company
had hypothecated his stock to help form the new company; and now
came a call from the bank for more collateral, and he was obliged to
sell out. And at the next stockholders' meeting it developed that
their rivals had bought it, and likewise more stock in the open
market; and they proceeded to take possession of the company,
ousting the former president--and then making a contract with their
automobile company to furnish the storage-battery at a price which
left no profit for the manufacturers! And so for two years the
inventor had not received a dollar of dividends upon his million
dollars' worth of paper; and to cap the climax, the company had
refused to sell the battery to his automobile company, and so that
had gone into bankruptcy, and his friend was ruined also!

Montague went into the case very carefully, and found that the story
was true. What interested him particularly in it was the fact that
he had met a couple of these financial highwaymen in social life; he
had come to know the son and heir of one of them quite well, at
Siegfried Harvey's. This gilded youth was engaged to be married in a
very few days, and the papers had it that the father-in-law had
presented the bride with a cheque for a million dollars. Montague
could not but wonder if it was the million that had been taken from
his client!

There was to be a "bachelor dinner" at the Millionaires' on the
night before the wedding, to which he and Oliver had been invited.
As he was thinking of taking up his case, he went to his brother,
saying that he wished to decline; but Oliver had been getting back
his courage day by day, and declared that it was more important than
ever now that he should hold his ground, and face his enemies--for
Alice's sake, if not for his own. And so Montague went to the
dinner, and saw deeper yet into the history of the stolen millions.

It was a very beautiful affair, in the beginning. There was a large
private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra
concealed in a bower of plants. But there were cocktails even on the
side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the
coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would
hurl their glasses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor
dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon
companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been
composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of
laughter.

By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get
quite a history of the young host's adventurous career. There was a
house up on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in
every part of the world. There was the summer night in Newport
harbour, when some one had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing
twenty-dollar gold pieces in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down
the girls' backs! And there was a banquet in a studio in New York,
when a huge pie had been brought on, from which a half-nude girl had
emerged, with a flock of canary birds about her! Then there was a
damsel who had been wont to dance upon the tops of supper tables,
clad in diaphanous costume; and who had got drunk after a
theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway restaurant. There
was a cousin from Chicago, a wild lad, who made a speciality of this
diversion, and whose mistresses were bathed in
champagne.--Apparently there were numberless places in the city
where such orgies were carried on continually; there were private
clubs, and artists' "studios"--there were several allusions to a
high tower, which Montague did not comprehend. Many such matters,
however, were explained to him by an elderly gentleman who sat on
his right, and who seemed to stay sober, no matter how much he
drank. Incidentally he gravely advised Montague to meet one of the
young host's mistresses, who was a "stunning" girl, and was in the
market.

Toward morning the festivities changed to a series of
wrestling-bouts; the young men stripped off their clothing and tore
the table to pieces, and piled it out of the way in a corner,
smashing most of the crockery in the process. Between the matches,
champagne would be opened by knocking off the heads of the bottles;
and this went on until four o'clock in the morning, when many of the
guests were lying in heaps upon the floor.

Montague rode home in a cab with the elderly gentleman who had sat
next to him; and on the way he asked if such affairs as this were
common. And his companion, who was a "steel man" from the West,
replied by telling him of some which he had witnessed at home. At
Siegfried Harvey's theatre-party Montague had seen a popular actress
in a musical comedy, which was then the most successful play running
in New York. The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the
matinee you might observe the street in front of the stage-entrance
blocked by people waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe
and supple, like a panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal
her form. It seemed that her play must have been built with one
purpose in mind, to see how much lewdness could be put upon a stage
without interference by the police.--And now his companion told him
how this woman had been invited to sing at a banquet given by the
magnates of a mighty Trust, and had gone after midnight to the most
exclusive club in the town, and sung her popular ditty, "Won't you
come and play with me?" The merry magnates had taken the invitation
literally--with the result that the actress had escaped from the
room with half her clothing torn off her. And a little while later
an official of this trust had wished to get rid of his wife and
marry a chorus-girl; and when public clamour had forced the
directors to ask him to resign, he had replied by threatening to
tell about this banquet!

The next day--or rather, to be precise, that same morning--Montague
and Alice attended the gorgeous wedding. It was declared by the
newspapers to be the most "important" social event of the week; and
it took half a dozen policemen to hold back the crowds which filled
the street. The ceremony took place at St. Cecilia's, with the
stately bishop officiating, in his purple and scarlet robes. Inside
the doors were all the elect, exquisitely groomed and gowned, and
such a medley of delicious perfumes as not all the vales in Arcady
could equal. The groom had been polished and scrubbed, and looked
very handsome, though somewhat pale; and Montague could not but
smile as he observed the best man, looking so very solemn, and
recollected the drunken wrestler of a few hours before, staggering
about in a pale blue undershirt ripped up the back.

The Montagues knew by this time whom they were to avoid. They were
graciously taken under the wing of Mrs. Eldridge Devon--whose real
estate was not affected by insurance suits; and the next morning
they had the satisfaction of seeing their names in the list of those
present--and even a couple of lines about Alice's costume. (Alice
was always referred to as "Miss Montague"; it was very pleasant to
be the "Miss Montague," and to think of all the other would-be Miss
Montagues in the city, who were thereby haughtily rebuked!) In the
"yellow" papers there were also accounts of the trousseau of the
bride, and of the wonderful gifts which she had received, and of the
long honeymoon which she was to spend in the Mediterranean upon her
husband's yacht. Montague found himself wondering if the ghosts of
its former occupants would not haunt her, and whether she would have
been as happy, had she known as much as he knew.

He found food for a good deal of thought in the memory of this
banquet. Among the things which he had gathered from the songs was a
hint that Oliver, also, had some secrets, which he had not seen fit
to tell his brother. The keeping of young girls was apparently one
of the established customs of the "little brothers of the
rich"--and, for that matter, of many of the big brothers, also. A
little later Montague had a curious glimpse into the life of this
"half-world." He had occasion one evening to call up a certain
financier whom he had come to know quite well-a man of family and a
member of the church. There were some important papers to be signed
and sent off by a steamer; and the great man's secretary said that
he would try to find him. A minute or two later he called up
Montague and asked him if he would be good enough to go to an
address uptown. It was a house not far from Riverside Drive; and
Montague went there and found his acquaintance, with several other
prominent men of affairs whom he knew, conversing in a drawing-room
with one of the most charming ladies he had ever met. She was
exquisite to look at, and one of the few people in New York whom he
had found worth listening to. He spent such an enjoyable evening,
that when he was leaving, he remarked to the lady that he would like
his cousin Alice to meet her; and then he noticed that she flushed
slightly, and was embarrassed. Later on he learned to his dismay
that the charming and beautiful lady did not go into Society.

Nor was this at all rare; on the contrary, if one took the trouble
to make inquiries, he would find that such establishments were
everywhere taken for granted. Montague talked about it with Major
Venable; and out of his gossip storehouse the old gentleman drew
forth a string of anecdotes that made one's hair stand on end. There
was one all-powerful magnate, who had a passion for the wife of a
great physician; and he had given a million dollars or so to build a
hospital, and had provided that it should be the finest in the
world, and that this physician should go abroad for three years to
study the institutions of Europe! No conventions counted with this
old man--if he saw a woman whom he wanted, he would ask for her; and
women in Society felt that it was an honour to be his mistress. Not
long after this a man who voiced the anguish of a mighty nation was
turned out of several hotels in New York because he was not married
according to the laws of South Dakota; but this other man would take
a woman to any hotel in the city, and no one would dare oppose him!

And there was another, a great traction king, who kept mistresses in
Chicago and Paris and London, as well as in New York; he had one
just around the corner from his palatial home, and had an
underground passage leading to it. And the Major told with glee how
he had shown this to a friend, and the latter had remarked, "I'm too
stout to get through there."--"I know it," replied the other, "else
I shouldn't have told you!"

And so it went. One of the richest men in New York was a sexual
degenerate, with half a dozen women on his hands all the time; he
would send them cheques, and they would use these to blackmail him.
This man's young wife had been shut up in a closet for twenty-four
hours by her mother to compel her to marry him.--And then there was
the charming tale of how he had gone away upon a mission of state,
and had written long messages full of tender protestations, and
given them to a newspaper correspondent to cable home "to his wife."
The correspondent had thought it such a touching example of conjugal
devotion that he told about it at a dinner-party when he came back;
and he was struck by the sudden silence that fell. "The messages had
been sent to a code address!" chuckled the Major. "And every one at
the table knew who had got them!"

A few days after this, Montague received a telephone message from
Siegfried Harvey, who said that he wanted to see him about a matter
of business. He asked him to lunch at the Noonday Club; and Montague
went--though not without a qualm. For it was in the Fidelity
Building, the enemy's bailiwick: a magnificent structure with halls
of white marble, and a lavish display of bronze. It occurred to
Montague that somewhere in this structure people were at work
preparing an answer to his charges; he wondered what they were
saying.

The two had lunch, talking meanwhile about the coming events in
Society, and about politics and wars; and when the coffee was served
and they were alone in the room, Harvey settled his big frame back
in his chair, and began:--

"In the first place," he said, "I must explain that I've something
to say that is devilish hard to get into. I'm so much afraid of your
jumping to a wrong conclusion in the middle of it--I'd like you to
agree to listen for a minute or two before you think at all."

"All right," said Montague, with a smile. "Fire away."

And at once the other became grave. "You've taken a case against
this company," he said. "And Ollie has talked enough to me to make
me understand that you've done a plucky thing, and that you must be
everlastingly sick of hearing from cowardly people who want you to
drop it. I'd be very sorry to be classed with them, for even a
moment; and you must understand at the outset that I haven't a
particle of interest in the company, and that it wouldn't matter to
me if I had. I don't try to use my friends in business, and I don't
let money count with me in my social life. I made up my mind to take
the risk of speaking to you about this case, simply because I happen
to know one or two things about it that I thought you didn't know.
And if that's so, you are at a great disadvantage; but in any case,
please understand that I have no motive but friendship, and so if I
am butting in, excuse me."

When Siegfried Harvey talked, he looked straight at one with his
clear blue eyes, and there was no doubting his honesty. "I am very
much obliged to you," said Montague. "Pray tell me what you have to
say."

"All right," said the other. "It can be done very quickly. You have
taken a case which involves a great many sacrifices upon your part.
And I wondered if it had ever occurred to you to ask whether you
might not be taken advantage of?"

"How do you mean?" asked Montague.

"Do you know the people who are behind you?" inquired the other. "Do
you know them well enough to be sure what are their motives in the
case?"

Montague hesitated, and thought. "No," he said, "I couldn't say that
I do."

"Then it's just as I thought," replied Harvey. "I've been watching
you--you are an honest man, and you're putting yourself to no end of
trouble from the best of motives. And unless I'm mistaken, you're
being used by men who are not honest, and whom you wouldn't work
with if you knew their purposes."

"What purposes could they have?"

"There are several possibilities. In the first place, it might be a
'strike' suit--somebody who is hoping to be bought off for a big
price. That is what nearly every one thinks is the case. But I
don't; I think it's more likely some one within the company who is
trying to put the administration in a hole."

"Who could that be?" exclaimed Montague, amazed.

"I don't know that. I'm not familiar enough with the situation in
the Fidelity--it's changing all the time. I simply know that there
are factions struggling for the control of it, and hating each other
furiously, and ready to do anything in the world to cripple each
other. You know that their forty millions of surplus gives an
enormous power; I'd rather be able to swing forty millions in the
Street than to have ten millions in my own right. And so the giants
are fighting for the control of those companies; and you can't tell
who's in and who's out--you can never know the real meaning of
anything that happens in the struggle. All that you can be sure of
is that the game is crooked from end to end, and that nothing that
happens in it is what it pretends to be."

Montague listened, half dazed, and feeling as if the ground he stood
on were caving beneath his feet.

"What do you know about those who brought you this case?" asked his
companion, suddenly.

"Not much," he said weakly.

Harvey hesitated a moment. "Understand me, please," he said. "I've
no wish to pry into your affairs, and if you don't care to say any
more, I'll understand it perfectly. But I've heard it said that the
man who started the thing was Ellis."

Montague, in his turn, hesitated; then he said, "That is
correct--between you and me."

"Very good," said Harvey, "and that is what made me suspicious. Do
you know anything about Ellis?"

"I didn't," said the other. "I've heard a little since."

"I can fancy so," said Harvey. "And I can tell you that Ellis is
mixed up in life-insurance matters in all sorts of dubious ways. It
seems to me that you have reason to be most careful where you follow
him."

Montague sat with his hands clenched and his brows knitted. His
friend's talk had been like a flash of lightning; it revealed huge
menacing forms in the darkness about him. All the structure of his
hopes seemed to be tottering; his case, that he had worked so hard
over--his fifty thousand dollars that he had been so proud of! Could
it be that he had been tricked, and had made a fool of himself?

"How in the world am I to know?" he cried.

"That is more than I can tell," said his friend. "And for that
matter, I'm not sure that you could do anything now. All that I
could do was to warn you what sort of ground you were treading on,
so that you could watch out for yourself in future."

Montague thanked him heartily for that service; and then he went
back to his office, and spent the rest of the day pondering the
matter.

What he had heard had made a vast change in things. Before it
everything had seemed simple; and now nothing was clear. He was
overwhelmed with a sense of the utter futility of his efforts; he
was trying to build a house upon quicksands. There was nowhere a
solid spot upon which he could set his foot. There was nowhere any
truth--there were only contending powers who used the phrases of
truth for their own purposes! And now he saw himself as the world
saw him,--a party to a piece of trickery,--a knave like all the
rest. He felt that he had been tripped up at the first step in his
career.

The conclusion of the whole matter was that he took an afternoon
train for Albany; and the next morning he talked the matter out with
the Judge. Montague had realized the need of going slowly, for,
after all, he had no definite ground for suspicion; and so, very
tactfully and cautiously he explained, that it had come to his ears
that many people believed there were interested parties behind the
suit of Mr. Hasbrook; and that this had made him uncomfortable, as
he knew nothing whatever about his client. He had come to ask the
Judge's advice in the matter.

No one could have taken the thing more graciously than did the great
man; he was all kindness and tact. In the first place, he said, he
had warned him in advance that enemies would attack him and slander
him, and that all kinds of subtle means would be used to influence
him. And he must understand that these rumours were part of such a
campaign; it made no difference how good a friend had brought them
to him--how could he know who had brought them to that friend?

The Judge ventured to hope that nothing that anyone might say could
influence him to believe that he, the Judge, would have advised him
to do anything improper.

"No," said Montague, "but can you assure me that there are no
interested parties behind Mr. Hasbrook?"

"Interested parties?" asked the other.

"I mean people connected with the Fidelity or other insurance
companies."

"Why, no," said the Judge; "I certainly couldn't assure you of
that."

Montague looked surprised. "You mean you don't know?"

"I mean," was the answer, "that I wouldn't feel at liberty to tell,
even if I did know."

And Montague stared at him; he had not been prepared for this
frankness.

"It never occurred to me," the other continued, "that that was a
matter which could make any difference to you."

"Why--" began Montague.

"Pray understand me, Mr. Montague," said the Judge. "It seemed to me
that this was obviously a just case, and it seemed so to you. And
the only other matter that I thought you had a right to be assured
of was that it was seriously meant. Of that I felt assured. It did
not seem to me of any importance that there might be interested
individuals behind Mr. Hasbrook. Let us suppose, for instance, that
there were some parties who had been offended by the administration
of the Fidelity, and were anxious to punish it. Could a lawyer be
justified in refusing to take a just case, simply because he knew of
such private motives? Or, let us assume an extreme case--a
factional fight within the company, as you say has been suggested to
you. Well, that would be a case of thieves falling out; and is there
any reason why the public should not reap the advantage of such a
situation? The men inside the company are the ones who would know
first what is going on; and if you saw a chance to use such an
advantage in a just fight--would you not do it?"

So the Judge went on, gracious and plausible--and so subtly and
exquisitely corrupting! Underneath his smoothly flowing sentences
Montague could feel the presence of one fundamental thought; it was
unuttered and even unhinted, but it pervaded the Judge's discourse as a
mood pervades a melody. The young lawyer had got a big fee, and he had a
nice easy case; and as a man of the world, he could not really wish to
pry into it too closely. He had heard gossip, and felt that his
reputation required him to be disturbed; but he had come, simply to be
smoothed down the back and made at ease, and enabled to keep his fee
without losing his good opinion of himself.

Montague quit, because he concluded that it was not worth while to
try to make himself understood. After all, he was in the case now,
and there was nothing to be gained by a breach. Two things he felt
that he had made certain by the interview--first, that his client
was a "dummy," and that it was really a case of thieves falling out;
and second, that he had no guarantee that he might not be left in
the lurch at any moment--except the touching confidence of the
Judge in some parties unknown.






CHAPTER XIX





Montague came home with his mind made up that there was nothing he
could do except to be more careful next time. For this mistake he
would have to pay the price.

He had still to learn what the full price was. The day after his
return there came a caller--Mr. John C. Burton, read his card. He
proved to be a canvassing agent for the company which published the
scandal-sheet of Society. They were preparing a de luxe account of
the prominent families of New York; a very sumptuous affair, with a
highly exclusive set of subscribers, at the rate of fifteen hundred
dollars per set. Would Mr. Montague by any chance care to have his
family included?

And Mr. Montague explained politely that he was a comparative
stranger in New York, and would not belong properly in such a
volume. But the agent was not satisfied with this. There might be
reasons for his subscribing, even so; there might be special cases;
Mr. Montague, as a stranger, might not realize the important nature
of the offer; after he had consulted his friends, he might change
his mind--and so on. As Montague listened to this series of broad
hints, and took in the meaning of them, the colour mounted, to his
cheeks--until at last he rose abruptly and bid the man good
afternoon.

But then as he sat alone, his anger died away, and there was left
only discomfort and uneasiness. And three or four days later he
bought another issue of the paper, and sure enough, there was a new
paragraph!

He stood on the street-corner reading it. The social war was raging
hotly, it said; and added that Mrs. de Graffenried was threatening
to take up the cause of the strangers. Then it went on to picture a
certain exquisite young man of fashion who was rushing about among
his friends to apologize for his brother's indiscretions. Also, it
said, there was a brilliant social queen, wife of a great banker,
who had taken up the cudgels.--And then came three sentences more,
which made the blood leap like flame into Montague's cheeks:

"There have not been lacking comments upon her suspicious ardour. It
has been noticed that since the advent of the romantic-looking
Southerner, this restless lady's interest in the Babists and the
trance mediums has waned; and now Society is watching for the
denouement of a most interesting situation."

To Montague these words came like a blow in the face. He went on
down the street, half dazed. It seemed to him the blackest shame
that New York had yet shown him. He clenched his fists as he walked,
whispering to himself, "The scoundrels!"

He realized instantly that he was helpless. Down home one would
have thrashed the editor of such a paper; but here he was in the
wolves' own country, and he could do nothing. He went back to his
office, and sat down at the desk.

"My dear Mrs. Winnie," he wrote. "I have just read the enclosed
paragraph, and I cannot tell you how profoundly pained I am that
your kindness to us should have made you the victim of such an
outrage. I am quite helpless in the matter, except to enable you to
avoid any further annoyance. Please believe me when I say that we
shall all of us understand perfectly if you think that we had best
not meet again at present; and that this will make no difference
whatever in our feelings."

This letter Montague sent by a messenger; and then he went home.
Perhaps ten minutes after he arrived, the telephone bell rang--and
there was Mrs. Winnie.

"Your note has come," she said. "Have you an. engagement this
evening?"

"No," he answered.

"Well," she said, "will you come to dinner?"

"Mrs. Winnie--" he protested.

"Please come," she said. "Please!"

"I hate to have you--" he began.

"I wish you to come!" she said, a third time.

So he answered, "Very well."

He went; and when he entered the house, the butler led him to the
elevator, saying, "Mrs. Duval says will you please come upstairs,
sir." And there Mrs. Winnie met him, with flushed cheeks and eager
countenance.

She was even lovelier than usual, in a soft cream-coloured gown, and
a crimson rose in her bosom. "I'm all alone to-night," she said, "so
we'll dine in my apartments. We'd be lost in that big room
downstairs."

She led him into her drawing-room, where great armfuls of new roses
scattered their perfume. There was a table set for two, and two big
chairs before the fire which blazed in the hearth. Montague noticed
that her hand trembled a little, as she motioned him to one of them;
he could read her excitement in her whole aspect. She was flinging
down the gauntlet to her enemies!

"Let us eat first and talk afterward," she said, hurriedly. "We'll
be happy for a while, anyway."

And she went on to be happy, in her nervous and eager way. She
talked about the new opera which was to be given, and about Mrs. de
Graffenried's new entertainment, and about Mrs. Ridgley-Clieveden's
ball; also about the hospital for crippled children which she wanted
to build, and about Mrs. Vivie Patton's rumoured divorce. And,
meantime, the sphinx-like attendants amoved here and there, and the
dinner came and went. They took their coffee in the big chairs by
the fire; and the table was swept clear, and the servants vanished,
closing the doors behind them.

Then Montague set his cup aside, and sat gazing sombrely into the
fire. And Mrs. Winnie watched him. There was a long silence.

Suddenly he heard her voice. "Do you find it so easy to give up our
friendship?" she asked.

"I didn't think about it's being easy or hard," he answered. "I
simply thought of protecting you."

"And do you think that my friends are nothing to me?" she demanded.
"Have I so very many as that?" And she clenched her hands with a
sudden passionate gesture. "Do you think that I will let those
wretches frighten me into doing what they want? I'll not give in to
them--not for anything that Lelia can do!"

A look of perplexity crossed Montague's face. "Lelia?" he asked.

"Mrs. Robbie Walling!" she cried. "Don't you suppose that she is
responsible for that paragraph?"

Montague started.

"That's the way they fight their battles!" cried Mrs. Winnie. "They
pay money to those scoundrels to be protected. And then they send
nasty gossip about people they wish to injure."

"You don't mean that!" exclaimed the man.

"Of course I do," cried she. "I know that it's true! I know that
Robbie Walling paid fifteen thousand dollars for some trumpery
volumes that they got out! And how do you suppose the paper gets its
gossip?"

"I didn't know," said Montague. "But I never dreamed--"

"Why," exclaimed Mrs. Winnie, "their mail is full of blue and gold
monogram stationery! I've known guests to sit down and write gossip
about their hostesses in their own homes. Oh, you've no idea of
people's vileness!"

"I had some idea," said Montague, after a pause.--"That was why I
wished to protect you."

"I don't wish to be protected!" she cried, vehemently. "I'll not
give them the satisfaction. They wish to make me give you up, and
I'll not do it, for anything they can say!"

Montague sat with knitted brows, gazing into the fire. "When I read
that paragraph," he said slowly. "I could not bear to think of the
unhappiness it might cause you. I thought of how much it might
disturb your husband--"

"My husband!" echoed Mrs. Winnie.

There was a hard tone in her voice, as she went on. "He will fix it
up with them," she said,--"that's his way. There will be nothing
more published, you can feel sure of that."

Montague sat in silence. That was not the reply he had expected, and
it rather disconcerted him.

"If that were all--" he said, with hesitation. "But I could not
know. I thought that the paragraph might disturb him for another
reason--that it might be a cause of unhappiness between you and
him--"

There was a pause. "You don't understand," said Mrs. Winnie, at
last.

Without turning his head he could see her hands, as they lay upon
her knees. She was moving them nervously. "You don't understand,"
she repeated.

When she began to' speak again, it was in a low, trembling voice. "I
must tell you," she said; "I have felt sure that you did not know."

There was another pause. She hesitated, and her hands trembled; then
suddenly she'hurried on.--"I wanted you to know. I do not love my
husband. I am not bound to him. He has nothing to say in my
affairs."

Montague sat rigid, turned to stone. He was half dazed by the words.
He could feel Mrs. Winnie's gaze fixed upon him; and he could feel
the hot flush that spread over her throat and cheeks.

"It--it was not fair for you not to know," she whispered. And her
voice died away, and there was again a silence. Montague was dumb.

"Why don't you say something?" she panted, at last; and he caught
the note of anguish in her voice. Then he turned and stared at her,
and saw her tightly clenched hands, and the quivering of her lips.

He was shocked quite beyond speech. And he saw her bosom heaving
quickly, and saw the tears start into her eyes. Suddenly she sank
down, and covered her face with her hands and broke into frantic
sobbing.

"Mrs. Winnie!" he cried; and started to his feet.

Her outburst continued. He saw that she was shuddering violently.
"Then you don't love me!" she wailed.

He stood trembling and utterly bewildered. "I'm so sorry!" he
whispered. "Oh, Mrs. Winnie--I had no idea--"

"I know it! I know it!" she cried. "It's my fault! I was a fool! I
knew it all the time. But I hoped--I thought you might, if you
knew--"

And then again her tears choked her; she was convulsed with pain and
grief.

Montague stood watching her, helpless with distress. She caught hold
of the arm of the chair, convulsively, and he put his hand upon
hers.

"Mrs. Winnie--" he began.

But she jerked her hand away and hid it. "No, no!" she cried, in
terror. "Don't touch me!"

And suddenly she looked up at him, stretching out her arms. "Don't
you understand that I love you?" she exclaimed. "You despise me for
it, I know--but I can't help it. I will tell you, even so! It's the
only satisfaction I can have. I have always loved you! And I
thought--I thought it was only that you didn't understand. I was
ready to brave all the world--I didn't care who knew it, or what
anybody said. I thought we could be happy--I thought I could be free
at last. Oh, you've no idea how unhappy I am--and how lonely--and
how I longed to escape! And I believed that you--that you might--"

And then the tears gushed into Mrs. Winnie's eyes again, and her
voice became the voice of a little child.

"Don't you think that you might come to love me?" she wailed.

Her voice shook Montague, so that he trembled to the depths of him.
But his face only became the more grave.

"You despise me because I told you!" she exclaimed.

"No, no, Mrs. Winnie," he said. "I could not possibly do that--"

"Then--then why--" she whispered.--"Would it be so hard to love me?"

"It would be very easy," he said, "but I dare not let myself."

She looked at him piteously. "You are so cold--so merciless!" she
cried.

He answered nothing, and she sat trembling. "Have you ever loved a
woman?" she asked.

There was a long pause. He sat in the chair again. "Listen, Mrs.
Winnie"--he began at last.

"Don't call me that!" she exclaimed. "Call me Evelyn--please."

"Very well," he said--"Evelyn. I did not intend to make you
unhappy--if I had had any idea, I should never have seen you again.
I will tell you--what I have never told anybody before. Then you
will understand."

He sat for a few moments, in a sombre reverie.

"Once," he said, "when I was young, I loved a woman--a quadroon
girl. That was in New Orleans; it is a custom we have there. They
have a world of their own, and we take care of them, and of the
children; and every one knows about it. I was very young, only about
eighteen; and she was even younger. But I found out then what women
are, and what love means to them. I saw how they could suffer. And
then she died in childbirth--the child died, too."

Montague's voice was very low; and Mrs. Winnie sat with her hands
clasped, and her eyes riveted upon his face. "I saw her die," he
said. "And that was all. I have never forgotten it. I made up my
mind then that I had done wrong; and that never again while I lived
would I offer my love to a woman, unless I could devote all my life
to her. So you see, I am afraid of love. I do not wish to suffer so
much, or to make others suffer. And when anyone speaks to me as you
did, it brings it all back to me--it makes me shrink up and wither."

He paused, and the other caught her breath.

"Understand me," she said, her voice trembling. "I would not ask any
pledges of you. I would pay whatever price there was to pay--I am
not afraid to suffer."

"I do not wish you to suffer," he said. "I do not wish to take
advantage of any woman."

"But I have nothing in the world that I value!" she cried. "I would
go away--I would give up everything, to be with a man like you. I
have no ties--no duties--"

He interrupted her. "You have your husband--" he said.

And she cried out in sudden fury--"My husband!"

"Has no one ever told you about my husband?" she asked, after a
pause.

"No one," he said.

"Well, ask them!" she exclaimed. "Meantime, take my word for it--I
owe nothing to my husband."

Montague sat staring into the fire. "But consider my own case," he
said. "_I_ have duties--my mother and my cousin--"

"Oh, don't say any more!" cried the woman, with a break in her
voice. "Say that you don't love me--that is all there is to say!
And you will never respect me again! I have been a fool--I have
ruined everything! I have flung away your friendship, that I might
have kept!"

"No," he said.

But she rushed on, vehemently--"At least, I have been honest--give
me credit for that! That is how all my troubles come--I say what is
in my mind, and I pay the price for my blunders. It is not as if I
were cold and calculating--so don't despise me altogether."

"I couldn't despise you," said Montague. "I am simply pained,
because I have made you unhappy. And I did not mean to."

Mrs. Winnie sat staring ahead of her in a sombre reverie. "Don't
think any more about it," she said, bitterly. "I will get over it. I
am not worth troubling about. Don't you suppose I know how you feel
about this world that I live in? And I'm part of it--I beat my
wings, and try to get out, but I can't. I'm in it, and I'll stay in
till I die; I might as well give up. I thought that I could steal a
little joy--you have no idea how hungry I am for a little joy! You
have no idea how lonely I am! And how empty my life is! You talk
about your fear of making me unhappy; it's a grim jest--but I'll
give you permission, if you can! I'll ask nothing--no promises, no
sacrifices! I'll take all the risks, and pay all the penalties!"

She smiled through her tears, a sardonic smile. He was watching her,
and she turned again, and their eyes met; again he saw the blood
mount from her throat to her cheeks. At the same time came the old
stirring of the wild beasts within him. He knew that the less time
he spent in sympathizing with Mrs. Winnie, the better for both of
them.

He had started to rise, and words of farewell were on his lips; when
suddenly there came a knock upon the door.

Mrs. Winnie sprang to her feet. "Who is that?" she cried.

And the door opened, and Mr. Duval entered.

"Good evening," he said pleasantly, and came toward her.

Mrs. Winnie flushed angrily, and stared at him. "Why do you come
here unannounced?" she cried.

"I apologize," he said--"but I found this in my mail--"

And Montague, in the act of rising to greet him, saw that he had the
offensive clipping in his hand. Then he saw Duval give a start, and
realized that the man had not been aware of his presence in the
room.

Duval gazed from Montague to his wife, and noticed for the first
time her tears, and her agitation. "I beg pardon," he said. "I am
evidently trespassing."

"You most certainly are," responded Mrs. Winnie.

He made a move to withdraw; but before he could take a step, she had
brushed past him and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

And Duval stared after her, and then he stared at Montague, and
laughed. "Well! well! well!" he said.

Then, checking his amusement, he added, "Good evening, sir."

"Good evening," said Montague.

He was trembling slightly, and Duval noticed it; he smiled genially.
"This is the sort of material out of which scenes are made," said
he. "But I beg you not to be embarrassed--we won't have any scenes."

Montague could think of nothing to say to that.

"I owe Evelyn an apology," the other continued. "It was entirely an
accident--this clipping, you see. I do not intrude, as a rule. You
may make yourself at home in future."

Montague flushed scarlet at the words.

"Mr. Duval," he said, "I have to assure you that you are mistaken--"

The other stared at him. "Oh, come, come!" he said, laughing. "Let
us talk as men of the world."

"I say that you are mistaken," said Montague again.

The other shrugged his shoulders. "Very well," he said genially. "As
you please. I simply wish to make matters clear to you, that's all.
I wish you joy with Evelyn. I say nothing about her--you love her.
Suffice it that I've had her, and I'm tired of her; the field is
yours. But keep her out of mischief, and don't let her make a fool
of herself in public, if you can help it. And don't let her spend
too much money--she costs me a million a year already.--Good
evening, Mr. Montague."

And he went out. Montague, who stood like a statue, could hear him
chuckling all the way down the hall.

At last Montague himself started to leave. But he heard Mrs. Winnie
coming back, and he waited for her. She came in and shut the door,
and turned toward him.

"What did he say?" she asked.

"He--was very pleasant," said Montague.

And she smiled grimly. "I went out on purpose," she said." I wanted
you to see him--to see what sort of a man he is, and how much 'duty'
I owe him! You saw, I guess."

"Yes, I saw," said he.

Then again he started to go. But she took him by the arm. "Come and
talk to me," she said. "Please!"

And she led him back to the fire. "Listen," she said. "He will not
come here again. He is going away to-night--I thought he had gone
already. And he does not return for a month or two. There will be no
one to disturb us again."

She came close to him and gazed up into his face. She had wiped her
tears away, and her happy look had come back to her; she was
lovelier than ever.

"I took you by surprise," she said, smiling. "You didn't know what
to make of it. And I was ashamed--I thought you would hate me. But
I'm not going to be unhappy any more--I don't care at all. I'm glad
that I spoke!"

And Mrs. Winnie put up her hands and took him by the lapels of his
coat. "I know that you love me," she said; "I saw it in your eyes
just now, before he came in: It is simply that you won't let
yourself go. You have so many doubts and so many fears. But you will
see that I am right; you will learn to love me. You won't be able to
help it--I shall be so kind and good! Only don't go away--"

Mrs. Winnie was so close to him that her breath touched his cheek.
"Promise me, dear," she whispered--"promise me that you won't stop
seeing me--that you will learn to love me. I can't do without you!"

Montague was trembling in every nerve; he felt like a man caught in
a net. Mrs. Winnie had had everything she ever wanted in her life;
and now she wanted him! It was impossible for her to face any other
thought.

"Listen," he began gently.

But she saw the look of resistance in his eyes, and she cried "No
no--don't! I cannot do without you! Think! I love you! What more can
I say to you? I cannot believe that you don't care for me--you HAVE
been fond of me--I have seen it in your face. Yet you're afraid of
me--why? Look at me--am I not beautiful to look at I And is a
woman's love such a little thing--can you fling it away and trample
upon it so easily? Why do you wish to go? Don't you understand--no
one knows we are here--no one cares! You can come here whenever you
wish--this is my place--mine! And no one will think anything about
it. They all do it. There is nothing to be afraid of!"

She put her arms about him, and clung to him so that he could feel
the beating of her heart upon his bosom. "Oh, don't leave me here
alone to-night!" she cried.

To Montague it was like the ringing of an alarm-bell deep within his
soul. "I must go," he said.

She flung back her head and stared at him, and he saw the terror and
anguish in her eyes. "No, no!" she cried, "don't say that to me! I
can't bear it--oh, see what I have done! Look at me! Have mercy on
me!"

"Mrs. Winnie," he said, "you must have mercy on ME!"

But he only felt her clasp him more tightly. He took her by the
wrists, and with quiet force he broke her hold upon him; her hands
fell to her sides, and she stared at him, aghast.

"I must go," he said, again.

And he started toward the door. She followed him dumbly with her
eyes.

"Good-bye," he said. He knew that there was no use of any more
words; his sympathy had been like oil upon flames. He saw her move,
and as he opened the door, she flung herself down in a chair and
burst into frantic weeping. He shut the door softly and went away.

He found his way down the stairs, and got his hat and coat, and went
out, unseen by anyone. He walked down the Avenue-and there suddenly
was the giant bulk of St. Cecilia's lifting itself into the sky. He
stopped and looked at it--it seemed a great tumultuous surge of
emotion. And for the first time in his life it seemed to him that he
understood why men had put together that towering heap of stone!

Then he went on home.

He found Alice dressing for a ball, and Oliver waiting for her. He
went to his room, and took off his coat; and Oliver came up to him,
and with a sudden gesture reached over to his shoulder, and held up
a trophy.

He drew it out carefully, and measured the length of it, smiling
mischievously in the meanwhile. Then he held it up to the light, to
see the colour of it.

"A black one!" he cried. "Coal black!" And he looked at his brother,
with a merry twinkle in his eyes. "Oh, Allan!" he chuckled.

Montague said nothing.






CHAPTER XX





It was about a week from the beginning of Lent, when there would be
a lull in the city's gaieties, and Society would shift the scene of
its activities to the country clubs, and to California and Hot
Springs and Palm Beach. Mrs. Caroline. Smythe invited Alice to join
her in an expedition to the last-named place; but Montague
interposed, because he saw that Alice had been made pale and nervous
by three months of night-and-day festivities. Also, a trip to
Florida would necessitate ten or fifteen thousand dollars' worth of
new clothes; and these would not do for the summer, it
appeared--they would be faded and passe by that time.

So Alice settled back to rest; but she was too popular to be let
alone--a few days later came another invitation, this time from
General Prentice and his family. They were planning a railroad
trip--to be gone for a month; they would have a private train, and
twenty five people in the party, and would take in California and
Mexico--"swinging round the circle," as it was called. Alice was
wild to go, and Montague gave his consent. Afterward he learned to
his dismay that Charlie Carter was one of those invited, and he
would have liked to have Alice withdraw; but she did not wish to,
and he could not make up his mind to insist.

These train trips were the very latest diversion of the well-to-do;
a year ago no one had heard of them, and now fifty parties were
leaving New York every month. You might see a dozen of such
hotel-trains at once at Palm Beach; there were some people who lived
on board all the time, having special tracks built for them in
pleasant locations wherever they stopped. One man had built a huge
automobile railroad car, shaped like a ram, and having accommodation
for sixty people. The Prentice train had four cars, one of them a
"library car," finished in St. lago mahogany, and provided with a
pipe-organ. Also there were bath-rooms and a barber-shop, and a
baggage car with two autos on board for exploring purposes.

Since the episode of Mrs. Winnie, Oliver had apparently concluded
that his brother was one of the initiated. Not long afterward he
permitted him to a glimpse into that side of his life which had been
hinted at in the songs at the bachelors' dinner.

Oliver had planned to take Betty Wyman to the theatre; but Betty's
grandfather had come home from the West unexpectedly, and so Oliver
came round and took his brother instead.

"I was going to play a joke on her," he said. "We'll go to see one
of my old flames."

It was a translation of a French farce, in which the marital
infidelities of two young couples were the occasion of many mishaps.
One of the characters was a waiting-maid, who was in love with a
handsome young soldier, and was pursued by the husband of one of the
couples. It was a minor part, but the young Jewish girl who played
it had so many pretty graces and such a merry laugh that she made it
quite conspicuous. When the act was over, Oliver asked him whose
acting he liked best, and he named her.

"Come and be introduced to her," Oliver said.

He opened a door near their box. "How do you do, Mr. Wilson," he
said, nodding to a man in evening dress, who stood near by. Then he
turned toward the dressing-rooms, and went down a corridor, and
knocked upon one of the doors. A voice called, "Come in," and he
opened the door; and there was a tiny room, with odds and ends of
clothing scattered about, and the girl, clad in corsets and
underskirt, sitting before a mirror. "Hello, Rosalie," said he.

And she dropped her powder-puff, and sprang up with a cry--"Ollie!"
'In a moment more she had her arms about his neck.

"Oh, you wretched man," she cried. "Why don't you come to see me any
more? Didn't you get my letters?"

"I got some," said he. "But I've been busy. This is my brother, Mr.
Allan Montague."

The other nodded to Montague, and said, "How do you do?"--but
without letting go of Oliver. "Why don't you come to see me?" she
exclaimed.

"There, there, now!" said Oliver, laughing good-naturedly. "I
brought my brother along so that you'd have to behave yourself."

"I don't care about your brother!" exclaimed the girl, without even
giving him another glance. Then she held Oliver at arm's length, and
gazed into his face. "How can you be so cruel to me?" she asked.

"I told you I was busy," said he, cheerfully. "And I gave you fair
warning, didn't I? How's Toodles?"

"Oh, Toodles is in raptures," said Rosalie. "She's got a new
fellow." And then, her manner changing to one of merriment, she
added: "Oh, Ollie! He gave her a diamond brooch! And she looks like
a countess--she's hoping for a chance to wear it in a part!"

"You've seen Toodles," said Oliver, to his brother "She's in 'The
Kaliph of Kamskatka.'".

"They're going on the road next week," said Rosalie. "And then I'll
be all alone." She added, in a pleading voice: "Do, Ollie, be a good
boy and take us out to-night. Think how long it's been since I've
seen you! Why, I've been so good I don't know myself in the
looking-glass. Please, Ollie!"

"All right," said he, "maybe I will."

"I'm not going to let you get away from me," she cried. "I'll come
right over the footlights after you!"

"You'd better get dressed," said Oliver. "You'll be late."

He pushed aside a tray with some glasses on it, and seated himself
upon a trunk; and Montague stood in a corner and watched Rosalie,
while she powdered and painted herself, and put on an airy summer
dress, and poured out a flood of gossip about "Toodles" and
"Flossie" and "Grace" and some others. A few minutes later came a
stentorian voice in the hallway: "Second act!" There were more
embraces, and then Ollie brushed the powder from his coat, and went
away laughing.

Montague stood for a few moments in the wings, watching the
scene-shifters putting the final touches to the new set, and the
various characters taking their positions. Then they went out to
their seats. "Isn't she a jewel?" asked Oliver.

"She's very pretty," the other admitted.

"She came right out of the slums," said Oliver--"over on Rivington
Street. That don't happen very often."

"How did you come to know her?" asked his brother.

"Oh, I picked her out. She was in a chorus, then. I got her first
speaking part."

"Did you?" said the other, in surprise. "How did you do that?"

"Oh, a little money," was the reply. "Money will do most anything.
And I was in love with her--that's how I got her."

Montague said nothing, but sat in thought.

"We'll take her out to supper and make her happy," added Oliver, as
the curtain started up. "She's lonesome, I guess. You see, I
promised Betty I'd reform."

All through that scene and the next one Rosalie acted for them; she
was so full of verve and merriment that there was quite a stir in
the audience, and she got several rounds of applause. Then, when the
play was over, she extricated herself from the arms of the handsome
young soldier, and fled to her dressing-room, and when Oliver and
Montague arrived, she was half ready for the street.

They went up Broadway, and from a group of people coming out of
another stage-entrance a young girl came to join them--an airy
little creature with the face of a doll-baby, and a big hat with a
purple feather on top. This was "Toodles"--otherwise known as Helen
Gwynne; and she took Montague's arm, and they fell in behind Oliver
and his companion.

Montague wondered what one said to a chorus-girl on the way to
supper. Afterward his brother told him that Toodles had been the
wife of a real-estate agent in a little town in Oklahoma, and had
run away from respectability and boredom with a travelling
theatrical company. Now she was tripping her part in the musical
comedy which Montague had seen at Mrs. Lane's; and incidentally
swearing devotion to a handsome young "wine-agent." She confided to
Montague that she hoped the latter might see her that evening--he
needed to be made jealous.

"The Great White Way" was the name which people had given to this
part of Broadway; and at the head of it stood a huge hotel with
flaming lights, and gorgeous marble and bronze, and famous paintings
upon the walls and ceilings inside. At this hour every one of its
many dining-rooms was thronged with supper-parties, and the place
rang with laughter and the rattle of dishes, and the strains of
several orchestras which toiled heroically in the midst of the
uproar. Here they found a table, and while Oliver was ordering
frozen poached eggs and quails in aspic, Montague sat and gazed
about him at the revelry, and listened to the prattle of the little
ex-sempstress from Rivington Street.

His brother had "got her," he said, by buying a speaking part in a
play for her; and Montague recalled the orgies of which he had heard
at the bachelors' dinner, and divined that here he was at the source
of the stream from which they were fed. At the table next to them
was a young Hebrew, whom Toodles pointed out as the son and heir of
a great clothing manufacturer. He was "keeping" several girls, said
she; and the queenly creature who was his vis-a-vis was one of the
chorus in "The Maids of Mandalay." And a little way farther down the
room was a boy with the face of an angel and the air of a prince of
the blood--he had inherited a million and run away from school, and
was making a name for himself in the Tenderloin. The pretty little
girl all in green who was with him was Violet Pane, who was the
artist's model in a new play that had made a hit. She had had a
full-page picture of herself in the Sunday supplement of the
"sporting paper" which was read here--so Rosalie remarked.

"Why don't you ever do that for me?" she added, to Oliver.

"Perhaps I will," said he, with a laugh. "What does it cost?"

And when he learned that the honour could be purchased for only
fifteen hundred dollars, he said, "I'll do it, if you'll be good."
And from that time on the last trace of worriment vanished from the
face and the conversation of Rosalie.

As the champagne cocktails disappeared, she and Oliver became
confidential. Then Montague turned to Toodles, to learn more about
how the "second generation" was preying upon the women of the stage.

"A chorus-girl got from ten to twenty dollars a week," said Toodles;
and that was hardly enough to pay for her clothes. Her work was very
uncertain--she would spend weeks at rehearsal, and then if the play
failed, she would get nothing. It was a dog's life; and the keys of
freedom and opportunity were in the keeping of rich men, who haunted
the theatres and laid siege to the girls. They would send in notes
to them, or fling bouquets to them, with cards, or perhaps money,
hidden in them. There were millionaire artists and bohemians who
kept a standing order for seats in the front rows at opening
performances; they had accounts with florists and liverymen and
confectioners, and gave carte blanche to scores of girls who lent
themselves to their purposes. Sometimes they were in league with the
managers, and a girl who held back would find her chances
imperilled; sometimes these men would even finance shows to give a
chance to some favourite.

Afterward Toodles turned to listen to Oliver and his companion; and
Montague sat back and gazed about the room. Next to him was a long
table with a dozen, people at it; and he watched the buckets of
champagne and the endless succession of fantastic-looking dishes of
food, and the revellers, with their flushed faces and feverish eyes
and loud laughter. Above all the tumult was the voice of the
orchestra, calling, calling, like the storm wind upon the mountains;
the music was wild and chaotic, and produced an indescribable sense
of pain and confusion. When one realized that this same thing was
going on in thousands of places in this district it seemed that here
was a flood of dissipation that out-rivalled even that of Society.

It was said that the hotels of New York, placed end to end, would
reach all the way to London; and they took care of a couple of
hundred thousand people a day--a horde which had come from all over
the world in search of pleasure and excitement. There were
sight-seers and "country customers" from forty-five states; ranchers
from Texas, and lumber kings from Maine, and mining men from Nevada.
At home they had reputations, and perhaps families to consider; but
once plunged into the whirlpool of the Tenderloin, they were hidden
from all>the world. They came with their pockets full of money; and
hotels and restaurants, gambling-places and pool-rooms and
brothels--all were lying in wait for them! So eager had the
competition become that there was a tailoring establishment and a
bank that were never closed the year round, except on Sunday.

Everywhere about one's feet the nets of vice were spread. The head
waiter in one's hotel was a "steerer" for a "dive," and the house
detective was "touting" for a gambling-place. The handsome woman who
smiled at one in "Peacock Alley" was a "madame"; the pleasant-faced
young man who spoke to one at the bar was on the look-out for
customers for a brokerage-house next door. Three times in a single
day in another of these great caravanserais Montague was offered
"short change"; and so his eyes were opened to a new kind of
plundering. He was struck by the number of attendants in livery who
swarmed about him, and to whom he gave tips for their services. He
did not notice that the boys in the wash-rooms and coat-rooms could
not speak a word of English; he could not know that they were
searched every night, and had everything taken from them, and that
the Greek who hired them had paid fifteen thousand dollars a year to
the hotel for the privilege.

So far had the specialization in evil proceeded that there were
places of prostitution which did a telephone-business exclusively,
and would send a woman in a cab to any address; and there were
high-class assignation-houses, which furnished exquisite apartments
and the services of maids and valets. And in this world of vice the
modern doctrine of the equality of the sexes was fully recognized;
there were gambling-houses and pool-rooms and opium-joints for
women, and drinking-places which catered especially for them. In the
"orange room" of one of the big hotels, you might see rich women of
every rank and type, fingering the dainty leather-bound and
gold-embossed wine cards. In this room alone were sold over ten
thousand drinks every day; and the hotel paid a rental of a minion a
year to the Devon estate. Not far away the Devons also owned
negro-dives, where, in the early hours of the morning, you might see
richly-gowned white women drinking.

In this seething caldron of graft there were many strange ways of
making money, and many strange and incredible types of human beings
to be met. Once, in "Society," Montague had pointed out to him a
woman who had been a "tattooed lady" in a circus; there was another
who had been a confederate of gamblers upon the ocean steamships,
and another who had washed dishes in a mining-camp. There was one of
these great hotels whose proprietor had been a successful burglar;
and a department-store whose owner had begun life as a "fence." In
any crowd of these revellers you might have such strange creatures
pointed out to you; a multimillionaire who sold rotten jam to the
people; another who had invented opium soothing-syrup for babies; a
convivial old gentleman who disbursed the "yellow dog fund" of
several railroads; a handsome chauffeur who had run away with an
heiress. 'Once a great scientist had invented a new kind of
underwear, and had endeavoured to make it a gift to humanity; and
here was a man who had seized upon it and made millions out of it!
Here was a "trance medium," who had got a fortune out of an imbecile
old manufacturer; here was a great newspaper proprietor, who
published advertisements of assignations at a dollar a line; here
was a cigar manufacturer, whose smug face was upon every
billboard--he had begun as a tin manufacturer, and to avoid the
duty, he had had his raw material cast in the form of statues, and
brought them in as works of art!

And terrible and vile as were the sources from which the fortunes
had been derived, they were no viler nor more terrible than the
purposes for which they had been spent. Mrs. Vivie Patton had hinted
to Montague of a "Decameron Club," whose members gathered in each
others' homes and vied in the telling of obscene stories; Strathcona
had told him about another set of exquisite ladies and gentlemen who
gave elaborate entertainments, in which they dressed in the costumes
of bygone periods, and imitated famous characters in history, and
the vices and orgies of courts and camps. One heard of "Cleopatra
nights" on board of yachts at Newport. There was a certain Wall
Street "plunger," who had begun life as a mining man in the West;
and when his customers came in town, he would hire a trolley-car,
and take a load of champagne and half a dozen prostitutes, and spend
the night careering about the country. This man was now quartered in
one of the great hotels in New York; and in his apartments he would
have prize fights and chicken fights; and bloodthirsty exhibitions
called "purring matches," in which men tried to bark each other's
shins; or perhaps a "battle royal," with a diamond scarf-pin
dangling from the ceiling, and half a dozen negroes in a
free-for-all fight for the prize.

No picture of the ways of the Metropolis would be complete which did
not force upon the reluctant reader some realization of the extent
to which new and hideous incitements to vice were spreading. To say
that among the leisured classes such practices were raging like a
pestilence would be no exaggeration. Ten years ago they were
regarded with aversion by even the professionally vicious; but now
the commonest prostitute accepted them as part of her fate. And
there was no height to which they had not reached--ministers of
state were enslaved by them; great fortunes and public events were
controlled by them. In Washington there had been an ambassador whose
natural daughter taught them in the houses of the great, until the
scandal forced the minister's recall. Some of these practices were
terrible in their effects, completely wrecking the victim in a short
time; and physicians who studied their symptoms would be horrified
to see them appearing in the homes of their friends.

And from New York, the centre of the wealth and culture of the
country, these vices spread to every corner of it. Theatrical
companies and travelling salesmen carried them; visiting merchants
and sightseers acquired them. Pack-pedlers sold vile pictures and
books--the manufacturing or importing of which was now quite an
industry; one might read catalogues printed abroad in English, the
contents of which would make one's flesh creep. There were cheap
weeklies, costing ten cents a year, which were thrust into
area-windows for servant-girls; there were yellow-covered French
novels of unbelievable depravity for the mistress of the house. It
was a curious commentary upon the morals of Society that upon the
trains running to a certain suburban community frequented by the
ultra-fashionable, the newsboys did a thriving business in such
literature; and when the pastor of the fashionable church eloped
with a Society girl, the bishop publicly laid the blame to the
morals of his parishioners!

The theory was that there were two worlds, and that they were kept
rigidly separate. There were two sets of women; one to be toyed with
and flung aside, and the other to be protected and esteemed. Such
things as prostitutes and kept women might exist, but people of
refinement did not talk about them, and were not concerned with
them. But Montague was familiar with the saying, that if you follow
the chain of the slave, you will find the other end about the wrist
of the master; and he discovered that the Tenderloin was wreaking
its vengeance upon Fifth Avenue. It was not merely that the men of
wealth were carrying to their wives and children the diseases of
vice; they were carrying also the manners and the ideals.

Montague had been amazed by the things he had found in New York
Society; the smoking and drinking and gambling of women, their hard
and cynical views of life, their continual telling of coarse
stories. And here, in this under-world, he had come upon the
fountain head of the corruption. It was something which came to him
in a sudden flash of intuition;--the barriers between the two worlds
were breaking down!

He could picture the process in a hundred different forms. There was
Betty Wyman. His brother had meant to take her to the theatre, to
let her see Rosalie, by way of a joke! So, of course, Betty knew of
his escapades, and of those of his set; she and her girl friends
were whispering and jesting about them. Hero sat Oliver, smiling and
cynical, toying with Rosalie as a cat might toy with a mouse; and
to-morrow he would be with Betty--and could anyone doubt any longer
whence Betty had derived her attitude towards life? And the habits
of mind that Oliver had taught her as a girl she would not forget as
a wife; he might be anxious to keep her to himself, but there would
be others whose interest was different.

And Montague recalled other things that he had seen or heard in.
Society, that he could put his finger upon, as having come out of
this under-world. Tho more he thought of the explanation, the more
it seemed to explain. This "Society," which had perplexed him--now
he could describe it: its manners and ideals of life were those
which he would have expected to find in the "fast" side of stage
life.

It was, of course, the women who made Society, and gave it its tone;
and the women of Society were actresses. They were actresses in
their love of notoriety and display; in their taste in clothes and
jewels, their fondness for cigarettes and champagne. They made up
like actresses; they talked and thought like actresses. The only
obvious difference was that the women of the stage were carefully
selected--were at least up to a certain standard of physical
excellence; whereas the women of Society were not selected at all,
and some were lean, and some were stout, and some were painfully
homely.

Montague recalled cases where the two sets had met as at some of the
private entertainments. It was getting to be the fashion to hobnob
with the stage people on such occasions; and he recalled how
naturally the younger people took to this. Only the older women held
aloof; looking down upon the women of the stage from an ineffable
height, as belonging to a lower caste--because they were obliged to
work for their livings. But it seemed to Montague, as he sat and
talked with this poor chorus-girl, who had sold herself for a little
pleasure, that it was easier to pardon her than the woman who had
been born to luxury, and scorned those who produced her wealth.

But most of all, one's sympathies went out to a person who was not
to be met in either of these sets; to the girl who had not sold
herself, but was struggling for a living in the midst of this
ravening corruption. There were thousands of self-respecting women,
even on the stage; Toodles herself had been among them, she told
Montague. "I kept straight for a long time," she said, laughing
cheerfully--"and on ten dollars a week! I used to go out on the
road, and then they paid me sixteen; and think of trying to live on
one-night stands--to board yourself and stop at hotels and dress for
the theatre--on sixteen a week, and no job half the year! And all
that time--do you know Cyril Chambers, the famous church painter?"

"I've heard of him," said Montague.

"Well, I was with a show here on Broadway the next winter; and every
night for six months he sent me a bunch of orchids that couldn't
have cost less than seventy-five dollars! And he told me he'd open
accounts for me in all the stores I chose, if I'd spend the next
summer in Europe with him. He said I could take my mother or my
sister with me--and I was so green in those days, I thought that
must mean he didn't intend anything wrong!"

Toodles smiled at the memory. "Did you go?" asked the man.

"No," she answered. "I stayed here with a roof-garden show that
failed. And I went to my old manager for a job, and he said to me,
'I can only pay you ten a week. But why are you so foolish?' 'How do
you mean?' I asked; and he answered, 'Why don't you get a rich
sweetheart? Then I could pay you sixty.' That's what a girl hears on
the stage!"

"I don't understand," said Montague, perplexed. "Did he mean he
could get money out of the man?"

"Not directly," said Toodles; "but tickets--and advertising. Why,
men will hire front-row seats for a whole season, if they're
interested in a girl in the show. And they'll take all their friends
to see her, and she'll be talked about--she'll be somebody, instead
of just nobody, as I was."

"Then it actually helps her on the stage!" said Montague.

"Helps her!" exclaimed Toodles. "My God! I've known a girl who'd
been abroad with a tip-top swell--and had the gowns and the jewels
to prove it--to come home and get into the front row of a chorus at
a hundred dollars a week."

Toodles was cheerful and all unaware; and that only made the tragedy
of it all one shade more black to Montague. He sat lost in sombre
reverie, forgetting his companions, and the blare and glare of the
place.

In the centre of this dining-room was a great cone-shaped stand,
containing a display of food; and as they strolled out, Montague
stopped to look at it. There were platters garnished with flowers
and herbs, and containing roast turkeys and baked hams, jellied
meats and game in aspic, puddings and tarts and frosted cakes--every
kind of food-fantasticality imaginable. One might have spent an hour
in studying it, and from top to bottom he would have found nothing
simple, nothing natural. The turkeys had paper curls and rosettes
stuck over them; the hams were covered with a white gelatine, the
devilled crabs with a yellow mayonnaise-and all painted over in pink
and green and black with landscapes and marine views--with "ships
and shoes and sealing-wax and cabbages and kings." The jellied meats
and the puddings were in the shape of fruits and flowers; and there
were elaborate works of art in pink and white confectionery--a
barn-yard, for instance, with horses and cows, and a pump, and a
dairymaid--and one or two alligators.

And all this was changed every day! Each morning you might see a
procession of a score of waiters bearing aloft a new supply.
Montague remembered Betty Wyman's remark at their first interview,
apropos of the whipped cream made into little curleques; how his
brother had said, "If Allan were here, he'd be thinking about the
man who fixed that cream, and how long it took him, and how he might
have been reading 'The Simple Life'!"

He thought of that now; he stood here and gazed, and wondered about
all the slaves of the lamp who served in this huge temple of luxury.
He looked at the waiters--pale, hollow-chested, harried-looking men:
he imagined the hordes of servants of yet lower kinds, who never
emerged into the light of day; the men who washed the dishes, the
men who carried the garbage, the men who shovelled the coal into the
furnaces, and made the heat and light and power. Pent up in dim
cellars, many stories under ground, and bound for ever to the
service of sensuality--how terrible must be their fate, how
unimaginable their corruption! And they were foreigners; they had
come here seeking liberty. And the masters of the new country had
seized them and pent them here!

From this as a starting-point his thought went on, to the hordes of
toilers in every part of the world, whose fate it was to create the
things which these blind revellers destroyed; the women and children
in countless mills and sweatshops, who spun the cloth, and cut and
sewed it; the girls who made the artificial flowers, who rolled the
cigarettes, who gathered the grapes from the vines; the miners who
dug the coal and the precious metals out of the earth; the men who
watched in ten thousand signal-towers and engines, who fought the
elements from the decks of ten thousand ships--to bring all these
things here to be destroyed. Step by step, as the flood of
extravagance rose, and the energies of the men were turned to the
creation of futility and corruption--so, step by step, increased the
misery and degradation of all these slaves of Mammon. And who could
imagine what they would think about it--if ever they came to think?

--And then, in a sudden flash, there came back to Montague that
speech he had heard upon the street-corner, the first evening he had
been in New York! He could hear again the pounding of the elevated
trains, and the shrill voice of the orator; he could see his haggard
and hungry face, and the dense crowd gazing up at him. And there
came to him the words of Major Thorne:

"It means another civil war!"






CHAPTER XXI





Alice had been gone for a couple of weeks, and the day was drawing
near when the Hasbrook case came up for trial. The Saturday before
that being the date of the Mi-careme dance of the Long Island Hunt
Club, Siegfried Harvey was to have a house-party for the week-end,
and Montague accepted his invitation. He had been working hard,
putting the finishing touches to his brief, and he thought that a
rest would be good for him.

He and his brother went down upon Friday afternoon, and the first
person he met was Betty Wyman, whom he had not seen for quite a
while. Betty had much to say, and said it. As Montague had not been
seen with Mrs. Winnie since the episode in her house, people had
begun to notice the break, and there was no end of gossip; and
Mistress Betty wanted to know all about it, and how things stood
between them.

But he would not tell her, and so she saucily refused to tell him
what she had heard. All the while they talked she was eyeing him
quizzically, and it was evident that she took the worst for granted;
also that he had become a much more interesting person to her
because of it. Montague had the strangest sensatibns when he was
talking with Betty Wyman; she was delicious and appealing, almost
irresistible; and yet her views of life were so old! "I told you you
wouldn't do for a tame cat!" she said to him.

Then she went on to talk to him about his case, and to tease him
about the disturbance he had made.

"You know," she said, "Ollie and I were in terror--we thought that
grandfather would be furious, and that we'd be ruined. But somehow,
it didn't work out that way. Don't you say anything about it, but
I've had a sort of a fancy that he must be on your side of the
fence."

"I'd be glad to know it," said Montague, with a laugh--"I've been
trying for a long time to find out who is on my side of the fence."

"He was talking about it the other day," said Betty, "and I heard
him tell a man that he'd read your argument, and thought it was
good."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Montague.

"So was I," replied she. "And I said to him afterward, 'I suppose
you don't know that Allan Montague is my Ollie's brother.' And he
did you the honour to say that he hadn't supposed any member of
Ollie's family could have as much sense!"

Betty was staying with an aunt near by, and she went back before
dinner. In the automobile which came for her was old Wyman himself,
on his way home from the city; and as a snowstorm had begun, he came
in and stood by the fire while his car was exchanged for a closed
one from Harvey's stables. Montague did not meet him, but stood and
watched him from the shadows-a mite of a man, with a keen and eager
face, full of wrinkles. It was hard to realize that this little body
held one of the great driving minds of the country. He was an
intensely nervous and irritable man, bitter and implacable--by all
odds the most hated and feared man in Wall Street. He was swift,
imperious, savage as a hornet. "Directors at meetings that I attend
vote first and discuss afterward," was one of his sayings that
Montague had heard quoted. Watching him here by the fireside,
rubbing his hands and chatting pleasantly, Montague had a sudden
sense of being behind the scenes, of being admitted to a privilege
denied to ordinary mortals--the beholding of royalty in everyday
attire!

After dinner that evening Montague had a chat in the smoking-room
with his host; and he brought up the subject of the Hasbrook case,
and told about his trip to Washington, and his interview with Judge
Ellis.

Harvey also had something to communicate. "I had a talk with Freddie
Vandam about it," said he.

"What did he say?" asked Montague.

"Well," replied the other, with a laugh, "he's indignant, needless
to say. You know, Freddie was brought up by his father to regard the
Fidelity as his property, in a way. He always refers to it as 'my
company.' And he's very high and mighty about it--it's a personal
affront if anyone attacks it. But it was evident to me that he
doesn't know who's behind this case."

"Did he know about Ellis?" asked Montague.

"Yes," said the other, "he had found out that much. It was he who
told me that originally. He says that Ellis has been sponging off
the company for years--he has a big salary that he never earns, and
has borrowed something like a quarter of a million dollars on
worthless securities."

Montague gave a gasp.

"Yes," laughed Harvey. "But after all, that's a little matter. The
trouble with Freddie Vandam is that that sort of thing is all he
sees; and so he'll never be able to make out the mystery. He knows
that this clique or that in the company is plotting to get some
advantage, or to use him for their purposes--but he never realizes
how the big men are pulling the wires behind the scenes. Some day
they'll throw him overboard altogether, and then he'll realize how
they've played with him. That's what this Hasbrook case means, you
know--they simply want to frighten him with a threat of getting the
company's affairs into the courts and the newspapers."

Montague sat for a while in deep thought.

"What would you think would be Wyman's relation to the matter?" he
asked, at last.

"I wouldn't know," said Harvey. "He's supposed to be Freddie's
backer--but what can you tell in such a tangle?"

"It is certainly a mess," said Montague.

"There's no bottom to it," said the other. "Absolutely--it would
take your breath away! Just listen to what Vandain told me to-day!"

And then Harvey named one of the directors of the Fidelity who was
well known as a philanthropist. Having heard that the wife of one of
his junior partners had met with an accident in childbirth, and that
the doctor had told her husband that if she ever had another child,
she would die, this man had asked, "Why don't you have her life
insured?" The other replied that he had tried, and the companies had
refused her. "I'll fix it for you," said he; and so they put in
another application, and the director came to Freddie Vandam and had
the policy put through "by executive order." Seven months later the
woman died, and the Fidelity had paid her husband in full--a hundred
thousand or two!

"That's what's going on in the insurance world!" said Siegfried
Harvey.

And that was the story which Montague took with him to add to his
enjoyment of the festivities at the country club. It was a very
gorgeous affair; but perhaps the sombreness of his thoughts was to
blame; the flowers and music and beautiful gowns failed entirely in
their appeal, and he saw only the gluttony and drunkenness--more of
it than ever before, it seemed to him.

Then, too, he had an unpleasant experience. He met Laura Hegan; and
presuming upon her cordial reception of his visit, he went up and
spoke to her pleasantly. And she greeted him with frigid politeness;
she was so brief in her remarks and turned away so abruptly as
almost to snub him. He went away quite bewildered. But later on he
recalled the gossip about himself and Mrs. Winnie, and he guessed
that that was the explanation of Miss Hegar's action.

The episode threw a shadow over his whole visit. On Sunday he went
out into the country and tramped through a snowstorm by himself,
filled with a sense of disgust for all the past, and of foreboding
for the future. He hated this money-world, in which all that was
worst in human beings was brought to the surface; he hated it, and
wished that he had never set foot within its bounds. It was only by
tramping until he was too tired to feel anything that he was able to
master himself.

--And then, toward dark, he came back, and found a telegram which
had been forwarded from New York.

"Meet me at the Penna depot, Jersey City, at nine to-night. Alice."

This message, of course, drove all other thoughts from his mind. He
had no time even to tell Oliver about it--he had to jump into an
automobile and rush to catch the next train for the city. And all
through the long, cold ride in ferry-boats and cabs he pondered this
mystery. Alice's party had not been expected for two weeks yet; and
only two days before there had come a letter from Los Angeles,
saying that they would probably be a week over time. And here she
was home again!

He found there was an express from the West due at the hour named;
apparently, therefore, Alice had not come in the Prentice's train at
all. The express was half an hour late, and so he paced up and down
the platform, controlling his impatience as best he could. And
finally the long train pulled in, and he saw Alice coming down the
platform. She was alone!

"What does it mean?" were the first words he said to her.

"It's a long story," she answered. "I wanted to come home.";

"You mean you've come all the way from the coast by yourself!" he
gasped.

"Yes," she said, "all the way."

"What in the world--" he began.

"I can't tell you here, Allan," she said. "Wait till we get to some
quiet place."

"But," he persisted. "The Prentice? They let you come home alone?"

"They didn't know it," she said. "I ran away."

He was more bewildered than ever. But as he started to ask more
questions, she laid a hand upon his arm. "Please wait, Allan," she
said. "It upsets me to talk about it. It was Charlie Carter."

And so the light broke. He caught his breath and gasped, "Oh!"

He said not another word until they had crossed the ferry and
settled themselves in a cab, and started. "Now," he said, "tell me."

Alice began. "I was very much upset," she said. "But you must
understand, Allan, that I've had nearly a week to think it over, and
I don't mind it now. So I want you please not to get excited about
it; it wasn't poor Charlie's fault--he can't help himself. It was my
mistake. I ought to have taken your advice and had nothing to do
with him."

"Go on," said he; and Alice told her story.

The party had gone sight-seeing, and she had had a headache and had
stayed in the car. And Charlie Carter had come and begun making love
to her. "He had asked me to marry him already--that was at the
beginning of the trip," she said. "And I told him no. After that he
would never let me alone. And this time he went on in a terrible
way--he flung himself down on his knees, and wept, and said he
couldn't live without me. And nothing I could say did any good. At
last he--he caught hold of me--and he wouldn't let me go. I was
furious with him, and frightened. I had to threaten to call for help
before he would stop. And so--you see how it was."

"I see," said Montague, gravely. "Go on."

"Well, after that I made up my mind that I couldn't stay anywhere
where I had to see him. And I knew he would never go away without a
scene. If I had asked Mrs. Prentice to send him away, there would
have been a scandal, and it would have spoiled everybody's trip. So
I went out, and found there was a train for the East in a little
while, and I packed up my things, and left a note for Mrs. Prentice.
I told her a story--I said I'd had a telegram that your mother was
ill, and that I didn't want to spoil their good time, and had gone
by myself. That was the best thing I could think of. I wasn't afraid
to travel, so long as I was sure that Charlie couldn't catch up with
me."

Montague said nothing; he sat with his hands gripped tightly.

"It seemed like a desperate thing to do," said Alice, nervously.
"But you see, I was upset and unhappy. I didn't seem to like the
party any more--I wanted to be home. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Montague, "I understand. And I'm glad you are here."

They reached home, and Montague called up Harvey's and told his
brother what had happened. He could hear Oliver gasp with
astonishment. "That's a pretty how-do-you-do!" he said, when he had
got his breath back; and then he added, with a laugh, "I suppose
that settles poor Charlie's chances."

"I'm glad you've come to that conclusion," said the other, as he
hung up the receiver.

This episode gave Montague quite a shock. But he had little time to
think about it--the next morning at eleven o'clock his case was to
come up for trial, and so all his thoughts were called away. This
case had been the one real interest of his life for the last three
months; it was his purpose, the thing for the sake of which he
endured everything else that repelled him. And he had trained
himself as an athlete for a great race; he was in form, and ready
for the effort of his life. He went down town that morning with
every fibre of him, body and mind, alert and eager; and he went into
his office, and in his mail was a letter from Mr. Hasbrook. He
opened it hastily and read a message, brief and direct and decisive
as a sword-thrust:

"I beg to inform you that I have received a satisfactory proposition
from the Fidelity Company. I have settled with them, and wish to
withdraw the suit. Thanking you for your services, I remain,
sincerely."

To Montague the thing came like a thunderbolt. He sat utterly
dumbfounded--his hands went limp, and the letter fell upon the desk
in front of him.

And at last, when he did move, he picked up the telephone, and told
his secretary to call up Mr. Hasbrook. Then he sat waiting; and when
the bell rang, picked up the receiver, expecting to hear Mr.
Hasbrook's voice, and to demand an explanation. But he heard,
instead, the voice of his own secretary: "Central says the number's
been discontinued, sir."

And he hung up the receiver, and sat motionless again. The dummy had
disappeared!

To Montague this incident meant a change in the prospect of his
whole life. It was the collapse of all his hopes. He had nothing
more to work for, nothing more to think about; the bottom had fallen
out of his career!

He was burning with a sense of outrage. He had been tricked and made
a fool of; he had been used and flung aside. And now there was
nothing he could do--he was utterly helpless. What affected him
most was his sense of the overwhelming magnitude of the powers which
had made him their puppet; of the utter futility of the efforts that
he or any other man could make against them. They were like
elemental, cosmic forces; they held all the world in their grip, and
a common man was as much at their mercy as a bit of chaff in a
tempest.

All day long he sat in his office, brooding and nursing his wrath.
He had moods when he wished to drop everything, to shake the dust of
the city from his feet, and go back home and recollect what it was
to be a gentleman. And then again he had righting moods, when he
wished to devote all his life to punishing the men who had made use
of him. He would get hold of some other policy-holder in the
Fidelity, one whom he could trust; he would take the case without
pay, and carry it through to the end! He would force the newspapers
to talk about it--he would force the people to heed what he said!

And then, toward evening, he went homo, bitter and sore. And there
was his brother sitting in his study, waiting for him.

"Hello," he said, and took off his coat, preparing his mind for one
more ignominy--the telling of his misfortune to Oliver, and
listening to his inevitable, "I told you so."

But Oliver himself had something to communicate something that would
not bear keeping. He broke out at once--"Tell me, Allan! What in the
world has happened between you and Mrs. Winnie?"

"What do you mean?" asked Montague, sharply.

"Why," said Oliver, "everybody is talking about some kind of a
quarrel."

"There has been no quarrel," said Montague.

"Well, what is it, then?"

"It's nothing."

"It must be something!" exclaimed Oliver. "What do all the stories
mean?"

"What stories?"

"About you two. I met Mrs. Vivie Patton just now, and she swore me
to secrecy, and told me that Mrs. Winnie had told some one that you
had made love to her so outrageously that she had to ask you to
leave the house."

Montague shrunk as from a blow. "Oh!" he gasped.

"That's what she said," said he.

"It's a lie!" he cried.

"That's what I told Mrs. Vivie," said the other; "it doesn't sound
like you--"

Montague had flushed scarlet. "I don't mean that!" he cried. "I mean
that Mrs. Winnie never said any such thing."

"Oh," said Oliver, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe not,"
he added. "But I know she's furious with you about
something--everybody's talking about it. She tells people that
she'll never speak to you again. And what I want to know is,
why is it that you have to do things to make enemies of
everybody you know?"

Montague said nothing; he was trembling with anger.

"What in the world did you do to her?" began the other. "Can't you
trust me---"

And suddenly Montague sprang to his feet. "Oh, Oliver," he
exclaimed, "let me alone! Go away!"

And he went into the next room and slammed the door, and began
pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

It was a lie! It was a lie! Mrs. Winnie had never said such a thing!
He would never believe it--it was a nasty piece of backstairs
gossip!

But then a new burst of rage swept over him What did it matter
Whether it was true or not--whether anything was true or not? What
did it matter if anybody had done all the hideous and loathsome
things that everybody else said they had done? It was what everybody
was saying! It was what everybody believed--what everybody was
interested in! It was the measure of a whole society--their ideals
and their standards! It was the way they spent their time, repeating
nasty scandals about each other; living in an atmosphere of
suspicion and cynicism, with endless whispering and leering, and
gossip of lew intrigue.

A flood of rage surged up within him, and swept him, away--rage
against the world into which he had come, and against himself for
the part he had played in it. Everything seemed to have come to a
head at once; and he hated everything--hated the people he had met,
and the things they did, and the things they had tempted him to do.
He hated the way he had got his money, and the way he had spent it.
He hated the idleness and wastefulness, the drunkenness and
debauchery, the meanness and the snobbishneps.

And suddenly he turned and flung open the door of the room where
Oliver still sat. And he stood in the doorway, exclaiming, "Oliver,
I'm done with it!"

Oliver stared at him. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean," cried his brother, "that I've had all I can stand of
'Society!' And I'm going to quit. You can go on--but I don't intend
to take another step with you! I've had enough--and I think Alice
has had enough, also. We'll take ourselves off your hands--we'll
get out!"

"What are you going to do?" gasped Oliver.

"I'm going to give up these expensive apartments--give them up
to-morrow, when our week is up. And I'm going to stop squandering
money for things I don't want. I'm going to stop accepting
invitations, and meeting people I don't like and don't want to know.
I've tried your game--I've tried it hard, and I don't like it; and
I'm going to get out before it's too late. I'm going to find some
decent and simple place to live in; and I'm going down town to find
out if there isn't some way in New York for a man to earn an honest
living!"

THE END






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Metropolis, by Upton Sinclair

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE METROPOLIS ***

This file should be named tmtrp10.txt or tmtrp10.zip
Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, tmtrp11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tmtrp10a.txt

This eBook was created by Charles Aldarondo (pg@aldarondo.net).

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:
http://gutenberg.net or
http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).


Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

    1  1971 July
   10  1991 January
  100  1994 January
 1000  1997 August
 1500  1998 October
 2000  1999 December
 2500  2000 December
 3000  2001 November
 4000  2001 October/November
 6000  2002 December*
 9000  2003 November*
10000  2004 January*


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
     including any form resulting from conversion by word
     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
     *EITHER*:

     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
          does *not* contain characters other than those
          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
          author, and additional characters may be used to
          indicate hypertext links; OR

     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
          OR

     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
          or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
     "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
     let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
hart@pobox.com

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*