i

"well, he's gone, then?"

rawn turned toward his wife a face years older than it had been an hour ago, a face haggard and lined, pasty in color. his bitter agitation was evident in his voice, in his expression, in the stoop of his shoulders—in a score of signs not usual with him. virginia was even more noncommittal than her wont as she faced him. grace had disappeared.

"what did you do—how did you handle him, jennie?" he began—"you were talking for over an hour there! did you manage to hold things together—will he let up?"

she faced him full now, as he stood in the blaze of the electric lights in the interior of the house, where halsey had left her, in the chair from which she had not moved since his departure. every delicate, clear-cut feature was fully visible now. her lips just parted to show the double row of her white teeth in a faint smile. her chin was a trifle up, her head high.

"he will wait a little while," she answered quietly. "at least, i think so."

"good! fine! i knew you'd do it, jennie! you're a wonder!—i don't think there's a woman in all the world like you!" he advanced toward her.

"don't paw me over!" she exclaimed, drawing back.

"well, now, then—i only meant—"

"i don't want to talk," she said. "he's gone, yes, and he'll not do anything for a little while, i think. it's enough for to-night—i'm tired. this has been a horrible evening for me. i never thought to see a time like this!"

"horrible for all of us!" exclaimed john rawn. "that man took advantage of me out there—i ought to have wrung his neck for him, and i would have done it if it hadn't been for you two women. of course, we don't want scenes if they can be avoided, for there's no telling what talk might run into if it got out. but just the same, jennie, don't you see—" and his face assumed a still more anxious look—"he can ruin us all whenever he gets ready, and he's wise enough to know that. i can't do anything with him now. something's gone wrong with him, and i don't know what!"

ii

"no, you don't know what," she said slowly. "i don't think you in the least imagine what!"

"do you, then?" he demanded. "if you do, why don't you tell? do you know that everything we've got in the world is up at stake on this? he can kill my credit, he can split this company wide open, he can break me in spite of all. see what he's done in return for what i've done for him! sometimes i wonder if there's such a thing as honor left in the world!"

"so! do you?" she rose now, and would have left him.

"well, i want to talk this over with you. please, jennie. sit down," he said. "tell me what you said. i want to know where things are, so i can act to-morrow—or maybe even before to-morrow. you don't realize what a hole i'm in."

"what did i say to him?" she repeated, looking down at her wrists. "nothing very much. i told him if he went on he'd ruin us all; that it wasn't right for him to do it. i told him we wanted him—i wanted him—to wait—for my sake."

"for your sake?"

"yes, i did," she answered calmly. "i said that."

"it was best!" he cried, rising and walking up and down excitedly. "what a mind you have, jennie—what a woman you are! where'd i be without you, i wonder now? why, of course, that was the way! any man will do anything that you tell him to, especially a young man—of course, of course!"

"thank you," she commented coldly; "thank you very much."

iii

he sought to put a consoling or an explanatory hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off, shivering.

"i don't mean anything," he began confusedly. "get me straight, now. i only wanted to say that when you work for me in this you are working for your own sake also. it's all up to you, jennie, right now. if you can't land him, we're gone—it's no use my trying to do anything with him. do you know, i'm going to send you out after him."

"send me out?"

"yes; things have to be done the best way they can be done. that fellow can say one word which'll ruin us in one day's time. he can break the values in international more than we can mend in months. our men would begin to cover as soon as they caught a hint that anything was really wrong. as for me, i'm spread out for millions in the general market. if they began to hammer me i couldn't come through—i wouldn't last a week. the thing to do is to keep this news safe until i can protect myself—until i can protect us all. now it's you, jennie, that's got to do that—it's you! i'm sending you out after him."

"i always thought, mr. rawn," said she, "that you played a dangerous game, so long as you simply trusted that he'd do anything you told him."

"yes, i see it now. but he always was odd—he always held something back. i tell you, he's crazy! now, he's either just crazy over his fool socialist ideas, or else he's going to hold out for a squeeze. in the first case you can handle him. in the second, i can.

"you see—i couldn't tell our directorate," he went on; "but there was always something lacking which i couldn't handle myself. we need him, and we've got to have him! you can get him, i know you can. you can do anything you like. you're wonderful!"

she sat and looked at him, her lips still parted in the same enigmatic smile which he did not like to see; but she made no answer.

"what's wrong with him?" he went on immediately. "what does he say is the trouble, anyway? and is it the truth that he's got the overhead current?"

she nodded. "of course, i know something about it from my work in the office. yes, he told me that he had done what you have all been trying to do so long. he said he came over under power from the overhead—just as he told you."

"he may be lying, for all we know. you can't look at a car and tell where its charge came from. electricity is electricity, to all intents and purposes. what i want to know is, what he's got against us, anyhow, jennie?"

"well, for one thing, he seemed troubled because grace would not go back with him. he seemed to think that you and the life you could give her had been the reason for her abandoning him."

"why, what nonsense! grace hasn't abandoned him! and i only got her over here because i needed her myself—before—well, before we were married. who was to take care of me, i'd like to know? and you say he complains of that!"

"that was one of the things."

"but grace would go back! she's none too well pleased now, since you and i have taken charge here. she'd go back to charley to-morrow if he asked her—why, i'd make him take care of her, of course. the trouble with him is, he values his own personal affairs too much. that's no way to begin in the business world. a man has to bend everything to the one purpose of success. look at me, for instance."

iv

she did look at him, calmly, coldly, without the tremor of an eyelid, without raising a hand to touch him as he stood close by, without indeed making any verbal answer. a slight shudder passed over her, visible in the twitch of her shoulders.

"it's getting cooler!" he exclaimed. "i'll fetch a wrap for you." and so hastened away, obsequious, uxorious, as he always was with her.

"but charley never would take any counsel from anybody," resumed he presently. "he's always been tractable enough, that's true; never raised much of a disturbance until to-night—i don't see why he cut up so ugly now. he's not crazy over grace, and if the truth be told, grace isn't the sort of girl that a man would get crazy over. you're that sort."

"perhaps not," she smiled faintly. "just the same, grace's attitude may have started him to thinking. when he began thinking he seemed to conclude that all the world was wrong."

"and he's starting in to set it right! he's going in for the uplift stunt, eh? that's the way with a lot of these reformers! they want to set the world right according to their own ideas. they don't pay any attention to the men who keep them from starving. i made that boy—what he's got he owes to me."

"indeed! how singular! he says that it's just the other way about; that what you have you took from him! he says you want to take more—more than your share—from things that belong to everybody."

"what's that! what's that! well, now, of all the insane idiocy i ever heard! good god, what next! him, charles halsey, the man i brought up with me! jennie, i never heard the like of that in all my time."

"but if that's the way he feels, now's not the time to argue that with him!"

"but, good god, the effrontery—"

"all the world is full of effrontery, mr. rawn," she said—continuing to address him formally, as she always did. "it's buy and sell. everything we get we pay for in one way or another. even if we took power out of the air by our overhead motors, we'd pay for that, one way or another—nothing comes from nothing—we pay, we pay all the time, mr. rawn!"

"you don't need to go into theories and generalizations," said he testily. "we've had enough of that from him. we are both practical. you simply get that man and bring him back into the fold, that's all! do your share."

v

"my share? it's easy, isn't it?" she smiled at him again annoyingly.

"but you can do it?"

"yes, i can do it. but i can't evade the truth i just told you. i'd have to pay. you'd have to pay."

"we're beggars, and can't choose," said john rawn savagely. "besides, there's no harm done—i'm not asking you to do anything improper, anything to compromise yourself—but get him, that's all! and when we've got him in hand—when i know what i want to know—i'll wring him dry and throw him on the scrap heap. that's what i'll do with him!"

"yes, i think you would," she said.

"it's the only right thing to do," rawn fumed. "he'll get what's coming to him. he's been throwing down his one best friend."

"are there any best friends in business, mr. rawn?" she asked.

"of course there are. haven't i been a friend to him; haven't i got a lot of friends of my own?"

"what would they do for you to-morrow, mr. rawn?"

"well, that's a different matter; they might take care of themselves—i would take care of myself. but this fool here that i'm asking you to handle isn't taking care of himself or any one else. he's crazy, that's all about him! did he hand you out any of this talk about the rights of man? i more than half suspect him of sympathizing with these labor unions. he's a socialist at heart, that's what he is!"

she nodded her head a little. "names don't make much difference in such matters."

vi

"isn't it a funny thing," he rejoined, turning to her in his walk, "that the very men who have failed, the very ones who most need help themselves, are the ones who are out to help everybody else! the blind always want to lead the blind! these labor unions depend on us for their daily bread and butter, yet they want to fight us all the time. there's no trust in this country so big as the labor trust, and there's no ingratitude in the world like that of the laboring man's.

"why, look at me, jennie—you know something of my plans. this very month i was going to put fifty thousand dollars more into my cooperative farm in the south, a thing i have been working out for the benefit of my laboring people. i'm going to do more than old carnegie has done! you and i ought to have set up some kind of prizes, medals—start some sort of hero competition. helping colleges is old, and so are libraries old. i don't place myself any station back of rockefeller himself. the rockefeller foundation was a great idea. just wait! i'll raise him out of the game! when i get all my plans made, they'll speak of john rawn when they mention philanthropy!

"and just to think, jennie," he went on excitedly, "that all such big plans as that, plans for the good of humanity, should come to nothing! to be held up and handicapped by the folly of a man who has never been able to do anything for himself or any one else! it makes me sick to think of it. he claims to be a friend of the laboring people, and here he's tying the hands of the greatest friend of the laboring men in this town to-day—myself, john rawn, standing here! why, if i'd hand this country the john rawn foundation for industrial assistance, all thought out, all financed, all ready to go to work to-morrow, that crazy fool there, with his socialist ideas, would block it all. he's going to block it all.

"now, it's up to you. you're the only one that can keep him from doing that very thing. don't you see, it isn't just you and me he's ruining. it isn't himself he's ruining. he's going to hurt the whole country. jennie, there's a considerable responsibility on you to-night. where he is wrong is in thinking that the weak can help the weak. it's the other way about—it's the strong that can help—power!—that's what counts! it's for you to show him that. jennie, girl—it's not so much myself. but think of your country."

"yes," she nodded, "that's precisely it!"

"but he didn't affect you in the least, jennie—he didn't get you going with that kind of foolishness."

"i never heard any one talk just as he did, before," said she slowly. "you see, i hadn't thought of these things myself, for i'm only a woman. he said that all this power, taken from the hills and the forests and the air and the rivers, belongs to everybody—to all the world—"

"but he didn't impress you with that nonsense, jennie?"

"he said things—i told him that i'd never thought of life just that way. and i haven't, mr. rawn. i told him, as i admit to you, that i hadn't thought of anybody much but myself—i just tried to climb. i think all women do."

"it's right they should, it's the only way. selfishness is the one great cause of the world's progress, my dear."

"well, i told him that his way of thinking was so new to me, that i needed time to think it over."

"but you didn't believe a word he said—you never would!"

vii

"mr. rawn," said she, looking him full in the face, "we've both of us climbed pretty fast. i always put my family out of memory all i could. but somehow i seem to recollect that my father used to talk of things a good deal as mr. halsey does. i begin to realize what i told you a while ago—no matter how or where we climb, we pay for what we get, sometime, somewhere, somehow!

"but listen," she leaned toward him with some sudden access of emotion. "i can do this much! i'll agree to bring in charley halsey, bound hand and foot! you can throw him and me, too, on the scrap heap when the time comes! it's a game. i'll play it. i'll take my chance." she half rose, thrilling, vibrant.

"i knew you would, jennie."

"yes, but you'll have to pay."

"have i ever said i wouldn't? didn't i just get done telling him i'd make him rich the minute he said the word?"

"it doesn't seem to be money he wants. i—don't—believe—that's what the pay would have to be."

"what do you mean? you're getting too deep for me now. i'm only a plain man, my girl!"

she smiled at him, still enigmatic, still cool and calm, still almost insolent, as she often was with him. "he's been talking all sorts of folly about getting things in tune—getting gravitation in tune with labor—all sorts of abstractions. well, don't you see, if i got in tune with his notions, i might be able to influence him!"

rawn grew cold and hard. "there's one thing we can't do, jennie," said he. "we can't side in with any of his socialistic talk. what he wants to do is to give to the people of this country for nothing what this international power company is planning to sell them for ever. what we want is monopoly! i've been gambling everything i've got on the certainty of that monopoly. i'm in soak, in hock, up to my eyes on the market, this minute. i'm margined to the full extent of my credit. the biggest men of america are back of me. i'll be rich if this thing goes through—one of the richest men in america. but i'd almost rather lose it all than to see you side in with him, or listen for five minutes to his rotten talk about the 'rights of man.' there are no rights of man except what each man can take for himself! as for him, i'd kill him, or get him killed, if i knew first how he got that current through the receivers. give me that, and i'll let the rights of man wait a while. i'll show them a thing or two!

"but of course," he added, frowning again in helpless perturbation, "we've got to get him in hand. grace couldn't do it."

"no; on the contrary. i can—if i pay!"

"then pay!" he snarled suddenly, his voice harsh, half choking. "what's the price—nothing worth mentioning. but it's got to be paid, no matter what it is. we're caught, and we're squeezed! we've got to pay, no matter what it is, jennie!"

"is it no matter to you, mr. rawn?"

"how can it be? i'm almost crazy to-night! do it, that's all, and draw on me to the limit!"

"to the limit, mr. rawn?"

"to the limit!" he looked her straight in the eye, and she met his gaze fully. she shivered slightly again, but her delicately clean-cut face showed no further sign. only she shivered, and pulled her wrap a trifle closer about her shoulders.

"very well," she said. "i may have to draw on you—and myself, too."

"it's all in the game, jennie—we've got to play it together—we're two of the same sort—we've got to climb, to succeed. we run well together. one must help the other's hand."

"yes, it's a game," she answered; and so rose, and left him without further word.

viii

john rawn followed her up the stair, mumbling some sort of conjugal affection, but she left him at the landing and passed toward her own apartments down the hall, giving him hardly even a look of farewell. he followed her with his eyes, standing a little time, his hand resting on the lintel of his own door.

alone, rawn seated himself in the elizabethan armchair devised by his most favored decorator as fitting for this elizabethan room. a vast oak bed, heavily carved, with deep and heavy curtains, represented the decorator's idea of what the virgin queen preferred. the walls were deeply carved in wainscot and cornice. a rude attempt was made at strength and simplicity in this, the sanctum of the master of graystone hall. granted the aid of a lively imagination, this might have been the apartment of some feudal lord of another day; as the designer and architect had not failed delicately to suggest to mr. rawn.

it is possible that in the time of elizabeth pier glasses with heavily carved frames were not common in the size affected by mr. rawn in his private apartment. he stood before the great glass now and gazed at what he saw; a face haggard and lined, shoulders stooping a little forward, body a little stooped, a little heavy, a little soft; the watch charm hanging in free air—the figure of a man no longer athletic, if ever so.

rawn stood engaged in his regular nightly devotions—he made no prayers of eventide beyond that to his mirror. but now something he saw caused him to fling himself into a seat at a smaller glass, where the light was better. he gazed into this also, intently. something seemed strange about his eyes, about his mouth. he turned his face slightly sidewise and studied the deep triangular lines at the corner of the chin. he saw a roll of fat at the back of his neck, and observed a certain throatiness, a voluminousness of flesh below the chin. the latter stood out distinct, pushing forward;—the rich man's chin, the old man's chin. he lifted a finger and touched the arteries on his temples. they were firmer to the touch than once they had been. he looked at the veins on his hands, and realized that they stood fuller than was once the case. his nose, large, just a trifle bulbous, seemed to him to have gained somewhat in color in late years. he looked at his eyes in eager questioning. yes, they belonged to him! but for some reason they lacked brilliance and fire. they were colder, less impressive, less responsive;—the rich man's eyes, the old man's eyes. he looked at his hair, now almost white at the temples. he hesitated for a moment, then picked up a hand glass and deliberately turned his back to the mirror. yes, it was there, a shiny spot of naked epidermis. he knew that, but always he shunned the knowledge and the proof. for many years his thick mane of wiry hair had been his pride.

john rawn turned and put the hand mirror on the dresser top again. he looked full into the glass at his image once more. his pendulous lower lip drooped, tremulously. he saw his eyes winking. he saw something else. yes, to his wonder, to his gasping horror, he saw something strange and revolutionary! a tear was standing in the corner of his eye! it dropped, it trickled down his cheek.

john rawn for the first time in his life was learning what the one game is—and learning that time is the one winner in that one game! he was old.