Scott Leroy
To Him That Hath

CHAPTER XI
A LOVE THAT PERSEVERED

Lillian Drew, as she had said, was not as high as she once was; so David, after making plain to her his poverty, managed to put her off with fifteen dollars – though for this amount she refused to turn over the letters. Before giving her the money he asked if she had kept secret her knowledge of Morton, and her answer was such as to leave him no fear. "This kind of thing is the same as money in the bank; telling it is simply throwing money away."

After he had paid her, and she had gone, he fell meditating upon this new phase of his situation. She would soon come again, he knew that – and his slender savings could not outlast many visits. When his money was gone and she still made demands, what then, if the ending of the deal was not fortunate?

And, now that he was quieter, the irony of this new phase of his situation began to thrust itself into him. Here he was, forced to pay money that the world might continue to believe him a thief! He laughed harshly, as the point struck home. He and Rogers were a pair, weren't they! – the great fear of one that he might be found out to be a thief, the great fear of the other that he might be found out not to be a thief. What would Helen Chambers think if she knew that not only was he trying to pay a debt he did not owe, but that he was paying to retain that debt?

Presently Rogers came in and they started for lunch, first leaving a note that would send Kate Morgan on a long errand so as to have the office clear for a conference with the Mayor in the afternoon. As they passed through the hall they brushed by Jimmie Morgan, who hastily slipped a bottle into his pocket. The experiment with Kate's father had not been successful. David had advised Rogers to discharge him, but Rogers, while admitting that to do so seemed a necessity, said that it would be as well to wait two or three weeks, when the end of the land deal would send them all away. David needed no one to tell him that what kept the father in his place was the fear of the daughter's disappointment.

An hour later David and Rogers, accompanied by the Mayor, re-entered the office, and the three plunged into a discussion of matters relating to the deal. After a time the Mayor asked:

"Chambers ain't showed his hand in this thing at all yet, has he?"

"No," said Rogers.

"I s'pose he's savin' himself for the finishin' touches. He's like this chap Dumas that wrote them stories I used to like to read. He's got so many things goin' on together, he's only got time to hand out the original order and then take the credit when it's done. But say – did you see the way the Reverend What-d'you-call-him jumped on him this mornin' in the papers? No? You didn't. Well, it was about that hundred and fifty thousand he's tryin' to give to help found a seminary for makin' missionaries. The preacher ordered his church not to cast even one longin' look at the coin. He said it was devil's money, and said it was diseased with dishonesty, and mentioned several deals that Chambers had got people into, and left 'em on the sandy beach with nothin' but the skin God'd give 'em. Oh, he gave Chambers what was comin' to him! Me, I ain't never seen a diseased dollar that when it come to buyin', wasn't about as able to be up and doin' as any other dollar – but, all the same, I say hurrah for the preacher."

The dozen or more times David had been with Mr. Chambers he had met him socially, and he remembered him as a man of broad reading and interest, and of unfailing courtesy. David could not adjust his picture of the man to the characterisations he sometimes saw in the papers and magazines, and to the occasional vituperative outbursts of which that morning's was a fair example. So he now said with considerable heat:

"I certainly do not believe in the centralisation of such vast wealth in one man's purse, but, the rules of the game being as they are, I can't say that I have much sympathy with those persons who call a man a thief merely because he has the genius to accumulate it!"

"And neither do I, friend," said the Mayor soothingly. "If there's any gent I don't press agin my bosom, it's a sorehead. But I know about Chambers! – you set that down!" He paused for a moment, then asked meditatively: "I suppose Miss Chambers don't believe any o' them stories?"

"She believes the stories spring either from jealousy, or vindictiveness, or from a totally mistaken impression of her father."

"I thought she must look at him about that way." The Mayor nodded thoughtfully. "D'you know, I've thought more'n once about her and her father. She's about as fine as they're turned out – that's the way I size her up. Conscience to burn. Mebbe some o' these days she'll find out just what her old man's really like. Well, when she finds out, what's she goin' to do? That's what I've wondered at. Somethin' may happen – but I don't know. Blood's mighty thick, and when it's thickened with money – well, sir, it certainly does hold people mighty close together!"

David quickly shifted the conversation back to business. They were all agreed that success seemed a certainty.

Rogers turned his large bright eyes from one to the other. "There's only one danger of failure I can see."

"And that?" said David.

"If they find out I'm Red Thorpe."

"How'll they learn you're Red Thorpe?" The Mayor dismissed the matter with a wave of a great hand. "No danger at all."

"I suppose not. But I've been fearing this for ten years, and now that my work is coming to its climax I can't help fearing it more than ever."

"Two more weeks and you'll be on your way to Colorado," the Mayor assured him. "By-the-bye, have you had an answer yet from that sanitarium at Colorado Springs?"

"Yes. This morning. I want to show it to you; it's in the other room."

Rogers walked over the strip of carpet through the open door into the living room. The next instant David and the Mayor heard his strained voice demand:

"What're you doing here?"

They both hurried to the door. On Rogers's couch lay Jimmie Morgan. The half-swept floor, the broom leaning against a chair, and the breath of the bottle, combined to tell the story of Morgan's presence.

"What're you doing here?" Rogers demanded, his thin fingers clutching the old man's shoulder.

Morgan rose blinking to his elbows, then slipped to his feet.

"Sweepin'," he said with a grin.

"Why weren't you doing it then?"

"I must 'a' had failure o' the heart and just keeled over," explained Morgan, still grinning amiably.

The Mayor sniffed the air. "Yes, smells exactly like heart failure."

"Yes, it was my heart," said old Jimmie, more firmly, and he began to sweep with unsteady energy.

Rogers, rigidly erect, watched him in fearing suspicion for a space, then said, "Finish a little later," and led him through the other door of the room into the hall. When the door had closed Rogers leaned weakly against it.

"What's the matter?" cried David.

"D'you think he heard what we said about Red Thorpe?"

"Him!" said the Mayor. "Didn't you bump your nose agin his breath? Hear? – nothin'! He was dead to the world!"

"He didn't hear me come up," returned Rogers with tense quiet. "When I saw him first his eyes were open."

"Are you sure?" asked David.

"Wide open. He snapped them shut when he saw me."

They looked at each other in apprehension, which the Mayor was first to throw off. "He probably didn't hear nothin'. And if he did, I bet he didn't understand. And if he did understand, what's he likely to do? Nothin'. You've been a friend to him and his girl, and he ain't goin' to do you no dirt. Anyhow, in a week or two it'll all be over and you'll be pointed toward Colorado."

They heard Kate enter the office and they broke off. The Mayor, remarking that he had to go, drew David out into the hall.

"He dreams o' troubles – I've got 'em," the Mayor whispered. "I asked her to fix the weddin' day last night. She'd been leadin' up to it so much I couldn't put off askin' any longer. And o' course I had to ask it to be soon – oh, I've got to play the part, you know! Did she put it away off in the comfortable distance? Not her! She said she could get ready in a month. Now what d'you think o' that? Who ever heard of a woman gettin' ready in a month! She said since I seemed so anxious she'd make it four weeks from yesterday. Only twenty-seven more days!

"And say, you remember all them lies I told her about myself when I was tryin' to scare her off. Well, she's already begun to throw my past in my face! Rogers there, he dreams o' troubles – but, oh Lord, wouldn't I like to trade!"

With a dolorous sigh the Mayor departed and David went into the office. As he sat down at his desk Kate Morgan looked sharp questions at him – questions concerning Lillian Drew. She did not speak her questions that afternoon, but they had planned a walk for the evening and they were hardly in the street when the questions began to come. David was instantly aware that the Kate Morgan beside him was the Kate Morgan of a year ago, whose impulses were instantly actions and whose emotions were instantly words.

"Who was that woman this morning?" she demanded.

"Her name is Lillian Drew."

He offered her his arm, but she roughly refused it.

"Who is she?"

"I know little of her; I have spoken to her but once before," he answered evasively.

But in thinking he could parry her with evasion, he had forgotten her old persistent directness. "I know better – you know a great deal about her! And she has something to do with you. Do you suppose I didn't see that in a second this morning?"

David looked with dismay down on the tense face the light from shop-windows revealed to him. He saw that she had to be answered with facts or blank refusals, and he studied for a moment how much of the first he could give her.

"Except for one glimpse of her in the street I haven't seen her for five years – " he was beginning guardedly, when she broke in with,

"That was just before you were sent away?"

"Yes."

Like a flash came her next question. "And it was for her you stole the money? She got the five thousand dollars?"

He was fairly staggered. "I cannot say," he returned.

She quickly moved a step ahead, and looked straight up into his face. "A-a-h!" she breathed. "So that's it!"

"I tell you that, except for a mere glimpse the other day, I never saw her but once before in my life; and that before that time I had never even heard the name; and that, since then, I had never heard of her or seen her till to-day."

Her gaze fairly pierced to his inner self. "You wouldn't lie to me – I know that," she said abruptly. "But she's got some hold on you; she means something in your life – don't she?"

"I've told you all I can tell you," David answered firmly.

She exploded. "I hate her! You hear me? – I hate her!"

He did not answer, and they walked on to the eastward in silence, through streets effervescent with playing children. In Tompkin's Square they sat down on one of the benches which edged both sides of the curving walks and which were filled with husbands, wives, lovers, German and Jewish and Magyar, who had come out for an hour or two of the soft October air. David tried to draw Kate into casual conversation, but she remained silent, and soon they rose and walked on. After several blocks the window of a delicatessen store showed him she was more composed, and he again offered her his arm. She now took it.

Presently they saw the gleam of water at the end of the street, and continuing they came out upon a dock. It was crowded with trucks, and against its one side creakingly rubbed a scow loaded with ashes and against its other a scow ridged high with empty tin cans. Sitting in the tails of some of the trucks were parlourless lovers – their courtship flanked by garbage, presided over by the odour of stables. They did not break their embraces as David and Kate brushed by them and passed on to the end of the dock.

Kate sank upon the heavy end timber and gazed at the surging tide-river that swept along under the moonlight. It came to David, who leaned against a snubbing-post at her side, that this was the very dock on which he had stood on New Year's eve; and half his mind was thinking of the hopelessness of that night and of the bitter days preceding it, when a whispered "David" reached up to him.

He glanced down. The moon, which dropped full into her face, revealed no hardness – showed appealing eyes and a mouth that rippled at its corners.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I hate her – yes." Her voice flamed slightly up with its old fire, but it immediately subsided into tremulous appeal. "But I had no right to talk to you like I did. I can't brag about what I've been, you know."

"There, let's say no more about it," he said gently.

"Yes, I must. I've been thinking about myself while we were walking along. Thinking of your past isn't always pleasant, is it, when there's so much of it that don't suit you. But I've wanted to improve, and I've tried. Do you think I've improved, a little – David?"

The wistful voice drew his hand upon her shoulder.

"I wish I had grown as much!" he breathed.

She pressed his hand an instant to her cheek, then rose and peered up into his face. "Do you say that!" she said eagerly. "If I've tried to improve – you know why."

He looked quickly from her tremulous face, out upon the million-faceted river. He writhed at the pain she must be feeling now, or would some day feel, and was abased that he was its cause.

"Oh, why did things have to happen so!" he exclaimed in a whisper.

"What happen?"

"That you should want – to please me."

She did not speak at once, but her hand locked tightly upon his arm and he felt her eyes burning into him. At length she whispered, in a voice taut with emotion:

"Then you still care – for her?"

He nodded.

She was again silent, but the locked grip told him of her tensity.

"But she's impossible to you. She lives in another world. You still believe this?"

"Yes."

Silence. "And I'm still next?"

"Yes."

"And do you like me any less than you did at first?"

He looked back upon her impulsively, and caught her hands.

"This is a miserable affair, Kate!" he cried. "Can't we forget it – wipe it out – and be just friends?"

"Do you like me any less than you did at first?" she repeated.

"More!"

Her next words tumbled out breathlessly. "I'll keep on improving – you'll like me more and more – and then – !"

Her impetuous force fairly dazed him.

"Ah, David!" she whispered almost fiercely, gripping his hands, "you can't guess how I love you!"

He could not bear her passionate eyes, they pained him so – and he looked back across the river to where a blast furnace was thrusting its red fangs upward into the night. There was a silence, broken only by the monotonous chatter of the ripples among the piles below. Then she went on, still tense, but quieter, and slightly meditative.

"Nor how differently I love you. Sometimes there is a tiger in me, and I could kill anyone that stood between us. And then again I'm not the same person; I want first of all what is the best thing for you. When I feel this way I would do almost anything for you, David. I think" – her voice dwindled to the barest whisper – "I think I could almost give you up."

CHAPTER XII
MR. CHAMBERS TAKES A HAND

Mr. Alexander Chambers sat in the center of his airy private office, panelled to the ceiling in Flemish oak, looking through the selections from the Monday morning's mail his secretary had just laid upon his great glass-topped desk. His lofty forehead, crowned with soft, white hair, made one think of the splendid dome of Walter Scott. But below the forehead, in the face that was beginning to be netted with fine wrinkles, there was neither poetry nor romanticism: power, that was all – power under perfect mastery. The gray eyes were quiet, steady; the mouth, half hid under a thick, short-cropped, iron-gray moustache, was a firm straight line; the jaw was a great triangle with the squared apex as a chin. Facetious persons sometimes referred to that triangular chin as "Chambers's cowcatcher;" but many there were who said that those that got in Chambers's way were never thrown aside to safety, but went down beneath the wheels.

As he skimmed the letters through with a rapidity that in him seemed ease, there was nothing about him to suggest the "human dynamo," which has come to be the popular conception of the man of vast business achievement – no violent outward show of effort, no whirring of wheels, no coruscating flashes of escaping electricity. He ran noiselessly, effortlessly, reposefully. Those who knew him intimately could no more have imagined Alexander Chambers in a strain than Providence.

He glanced the last letter through – a report from Mr. Jordon on the negotiations for the land controlled by Rogers – pushed the heap aside and touched a button. Immediately there entered a young man of twenty-eight or thirty.

"Please have Mr. Jordon come over as soon as he can," Mr. Chambers said in a quiet voice to his secretary.

"Yes, sir. I was just coming to tell you, when you rang, that Mr. Allen is waiting to see you."

"Have him come in."

As Allen entered Mr. Chambers raised his strong, erect figure to his feet and held out his hand with a smile. "How are you, Allen. You look as fresh as a spring morning."

"Then I look as I feel. I'm just back from Myrtle Hill. It was a glorious two days – though we missed you a lot."

"Come now, some of the party may have missed me – but you, did you think of me once?" Those who knew Mr. Chambers in a business way alone, would have felt surprise at the humorous wrinkles that radiated from the outer corners of his eyes. "The next time I arrange for a weekend party I'll see that the wires to Boston are cut. But how did you leave Helen?"

They sat down. "With nothing to be desired in point of health" – Allen hesitated a moment – "and everything to be desired in point of her regard for me."

Mr. Chambers considered Allen's strongly masculine face. "You'll win her in the end, as you've won everything else – by fighting right on. There's no one that ranks higher with her than you."

"She's told me if an edict were passed compelling her to marry to-morrow, I'd be the man. But – she's not eager for the edict."

"You've won her head, at least. That's progress."

"Not even all her head. She disapproves of my ideas. She made that clear to me again yesterday. I tell you, I do wish her concern in St. Christopher's and such things could be – well, at least lessened quite a bit."

"That's hardly possible – her concern is too deeply rooted." Mr. Chambers shook his head reminiscently. "She has it from her mother."

"Yes, but the strength with which she holds to it – that she has from you. I suppose there is little chance of uprooting her convictions. But – I feel I've gained one concession."

"Yes?"

"She's promised at the end of five weeks to give me her yes or no."

Mr. Chambers leaned forward and grasped Allen's hand. "You know which answer I want. And I'm sure it will be that."

They looked at each other steadily a moment, then settled back into their chairs.

"Now about that merger," said Allen. "That's what brought me in." And Allen, who handled the legal side of many of Mr. Chambers's affairs, began to discuss certain legal details of a railroad consolidation Mr. Chambers had under consideration.

The instant Allen was out of the office, the secretary announced Mr. Jordon and at Mr. Chambers's order ushered him in. Mr. Jordon, a man whom prosperity had flushed and bulked, wished Mr. Chambers good morning with that little tone of deference which a successful business man uses to a more successful business man, and seated himself in the leather-covered chair Allen had just vacated.

Mr. Chambers picked up Mr. Jordon's letter from the heap on his desk.

"I wanted to speak to you about the price this Mr. Rogers insists on for the land he controls," he said in his even voice. "It is at a far higher rate than we paid for the rest of the land. You've done all that's possible to get him to lower his terms?"

"Everything!" For emphasis Mr. Jordon clapped two fat hands down upon two fat knees. "But he's as solid as a rock. If we were dealing with the real owners individually, it would be different. They're anxious to sell and they're all short on nerve. It's him that holds them together and keeps them braced up."

"I suppose you've tried to get them to withdraw their land from his control?"

"I tried that long ago. But it wouldn't work. He's promised them a big price, and he's made them believe they'll get it."

"Then you think as you say here" – he laid his hand upon the letter – "that we'd better pay him what he demands and close the deal?"

"I certainly do. We've got to have that land, and to get it we've got to pay his price. He knows that and he won't come down a dollar. Since we've got to pay the price in the end, I'm for paying it right now and not losing any more time in launching the company before the public."

"Your reasoning is sound. But you're aware, of course, that the difference between his price and the rate we've been paying is considerably over fifty thousand?"

"Yes, but we're not going to lose money on it even at that." Mr. Jordon nodded knowingly. "Besides, when we come to counting up the profits on the whole deal, we'll never miss that fifty thousand."

"Fifty thousand dollars, Mr. Jordon," Mr. Chambers said quietly, "is fifty thousand dollars."

Mr. Jordon blushed as though caught in an ill deed. "Yes – yes – of course," he stammered. "We don't want to lose it, but how are we going to help it?"

Mr. Chambers did not answer – gave no sign of having noticed the other's embarrassment. "Suppose we have a meeting here to-morrow afternoon, and try again to get him to lower his price."

"Very well – I'll write him to be here. But I warn you that he'll not come down a cent."

"Then I suppose we'll have to settle on some other basis." There was a moment's pause. "By the way, who is this Mr. Rogers?"

"Never heard of him till I ran across him in this deal. Nobody seems to know much about him. He's just a little two-for-a-cent agent that was cute enough to see this chance and grab it."

Mr. Chambers said no more, and Mr. Jordon, seeing that use for himself was over, departed.

Mr. Chambers had an instinct for loss that was like a composer's ear for false notes. In his big financial productions he detected a possible loss instantly; it pained him as a discord, and he at once set about correcting it. The New Jersey Home Company was but one of the many coexisting schemes that had sprung from his creative brain, and the fifty thousand dollars was a beggar's penny compared to the sums that floated through his mind. But the fifty thousand dollars was a loss, a flaw, and he could not pass it by.

Mr. Chambers had the theory, proved by long practice, that many men have something hidden away in their lives which if discovered and properly used, or some vulnerable business spot which if struck, will so disable them that they cannot stand up against your plans. This theory, applied, had turned for him many a hopeless struggle into a quiet, easy victory – so that it had become his practice, when dealing with a man whose past life and whose present business relations he did not know, to acquaint himself with all that could be uncovered.

The moment Mr. Jordon had gone Mr. Chambers wrote a line, requesting full information about Rogers, and enclosed it in an envelope which he addressed to the man who usually served him in such confidential matters. He touched a button and handed the note to his secretary. "See that Mr. Hawkins gets this at once," he said.

That afternoon a man, whom David afterward remembered as a diamond ring, a diamond shirt-stud and a heavy gold watch-chain, walked into the office of John Rogers.

"Is this Mr. Rogers?" he asked of David, who was alone in the room.

"No. Aldrich is my name. But I represent him. Can I do anything for you?"

"I'd like to see him if I can. I'm thinking of investing in some real estate in this neighbourhood, and I've been looking at a couple of houses that I was told he was agent for."

"I'll call him – wait a minute."

David went into the living room, and at once returned. "Mr. Rogers will be right in," he said.

"Thanks." The man turned his pinkish face about the room. "Cosy little office you've got, for this part of town," he remarked, with an air of speaking pleasantries to kill time.

"Yes – we think so."

"How long's Mr. Rogers been interested in real estate in this neighbourhood?"

"I've been with him for less than a year, so I don't exactly know. But I believe about eight or nine years."

"In the same business before then?"

But the entrance of Rogers at that instant saved David a reply. The caller, who had sat down, rose and held out his hand.

"Is this Mr. Rogers? Harris is my name – William Harris."

Rogers, as he came up, laid hold of the back of a chair. He did not see Mr. Harris's hand.

"I'm glad to meet you," he returned in his low voice. "Won't you sit down?"

The three took chairs, and the next hour was filled with talk about the houses Mr. Harris had examined. Mr. Harris was very eager for the buildings, and David became excited at the prospect of the agent's commission that would come from the sale. But Rogers was quiet and reserved as always – answering all questions fully, save a few casual personal queries which he evaded. When Mr. Harris went away he said in so many words that the deal was as good as settled, except for a small difference in the price which would bother them little.

The instant the office door closed upon Mr. Harris David turned eagerly to Rogers, who was sitting motionless in his chair.

"Won't that be a windfall though if he takes those houses!" he cried. "Your commission will be at least two thousand dollars!"

There was no tinge of enthusiasm in Rogers's pale cheeks. He did not speak at once, and when he did he ignored David's exclamations.

"Did you notice, Aldrich," he said in a strained voice, "that I avoided taking his hand when he offered it at first and again when we parted?"

"No. Why?"

"I was afraid."

"Afraid?" repeated David, puzzled. "What of?"

"I shook hands with Bill Halpin – and you know what he found out."

David stepped nearer to Rogers, and saw in his eyes the look of hunted fear.

"I don't understand," he said slowly.

"Mr. Harris may be a bona-fide dealer in real estate – but fifteen years ago he was one of the cleverest detectives on the New York police force. I recognised him the instant I saw him. He helped arrest me once."

David sank slowly to a chair. "You don't say so!" he ejaculated. He stared for several moments at Rogers's thin face, on which he could now see the exhaustion of the straining interview. "Do you think he can possibly be on your trail? – and if so, what for?"

"What for, I don't know. But didn't you notice how he was constantly studying me? – how he slipped in a question about what I used to do? – how he tried to learn the names of some of my friends, whom he might quiz about me? He's clever."

"But do you think he found out anything?"

"I don't think he did. I was watching him closer than he was watching me, for any least sign of recognition. I didn't see any. But you know I can't help fearing, Aldrich! I can't help fearing!"

David tried to drive the strained, hunted look from Rogers's face by saying that there was hardly any possibility of his identity being discovered, and no apparent motive for it being used against him even if found out. David succeeded in bringing back his own confidence, and at length drew from Rogers the admission, "Well, maybe you're right."