A Chicago Princess

All this was uttered at lightning speed.

“I need no time for consideration to answer that question. We were talking of ourselves.”

“What were you saying? Come now, out with it if you dare. I can see by your face you are trying to make up something.”

“Really, you underestimate my courage, Miss Hemster. I was asking Hilda Stretton to do me the honour of marrying me, and she was about to reply when you cut short a conference so absorbing that we had not noticed your approach.”

This explanation seemed to be so unexpected that for a moment the young woman sat breathless and expressionless. Then she gradually sank back in her chair with closed eyes, all colour leaving her face.

Now, I am well aware of the effect the words just written will have on the mind of the indulgent reader. She will think I’m trying to hint that the girl, despite her actions, was in love with me. I beg to state that I am no such conceited ass as the above paragraph would imply. My wife has always held that Gertrude Hemster was in love with me, but that is merely the prejudiced view of an affectionate woman, and I have ever strenuously combated it. The character of Gertrude Hemster has for long been a puzzle to me, and I can hardly expect the credence of the reader when I say that I have toned down her words and actions rather than exaggerated them. But my own theory of the case is this: Miss Hemster had an inordinate love of conquest and power. I think I should have got along better with her if I had proposed to her and taken my rejection in a broken and contrite spirit. That she would have rejected me, I am as positive as that I breathe. I am equally certain that, while she would have scorned to acknowledge me as a favoured lover, she was nevertheless humiliated to know that I had given preference to one upon whom she rather looked down, – one whom she regarded as a recipient of her own bounty, – and the moment I made my confession I was sorry I had done so, for Hilda’s sake.

It has also been hinted, – I shall not say by whom, – that I was on a fair way of being in love with Gertrude Hemster if everything had progressed favourably. I need hardly point out to the reader the utter erroneousness of this surmise. I do not deny that during the first day of our acquaintance I was greatly attracted by her, or perhaps I should say wonderfully interested in her. I had never met any one just like her before, nor have I since for that matter. But that I was even on the verge of being in love with her I emphatically deny. I have no hesitation in confessing that she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, when it pleased her to be gracious. She would certainly have made a superb actress if Fortune had cast her rôle upon the stage. But, as I have said, I never understood this woman, or comprehended her lightning changes of character. I do not know to this day whether she was merely a shallow vixen or a creature of deep though uncontrolled passion. I therefore content myself with setting down here, as accurately as possible, what happened on the various occasions of which I speak, so that each reader may draw her own conclusions, if indeed there are any conclusions to be drawn, and I do this as truthfully as may be, at the risk of some misunderstanding of my own position, as in the present instance.

The silence which followed my announcement was at last broken by a light sarcastic laugh.

“Really, Mr. Tremorne,” she said, “it is not very flattering to me to suppose that I am interested in the love affairs of the servants’ hall.”

I bowed my acknowledgment of this thrust.

“My statement, Miss Hemster, was not made for your entertainment, or with any hope that it would engage your attention, but merely as an answer to your direct question.”

“So two penniless paupers are going to unite their fortunes!”

“Penniless, only relatively so; paupers, no.”

“Nothing added to nothing makes how much, Mr. Tremorne?”

“Madam, I am an Oxford man.”

“What has that to do with it?”

“Much. Cambridge is the mathematical university. I never was good at figures.”

“Perhaps that’s why you threw away your money.”

“Perhaps. Still, the money I threw away yesterday belonged to your father.”

“Is that to remind me of the debt I am supposed to owe you?”

“You owe me nothing. If anybody owes me anything I am certain Mr. Hemster will discharge the debt with his usual generosity.”

“Oh, you are counting on that, are you?”

“We have Biblical assurance, Miss Hemster, of the fact that the labourer is worthy of his hire. My hire is all I expect, and all I shall accept.”

“Well, it is my hope that your term of employment will be as short as possible; therefore I ask you to resign your position as soon as we reach Nagasaki. Your presence on this ship is odious to me.”

“I am sorry for that.”

“Then you won’t resign?”

“I say that I am sorry my presence on this ship is odious to you.”

“You can at once solve the problem by resigning, as I have suggested.”

“I dispute your right to make suggestions to me. If you want me to leave the yacht, ask your father to discharge me.”

“There is always a certain humiliation in abrupt dismissal. If you do not go voluntarily, and without telling my father that I have asked you to resign, I shall put Hilda Stretton ashore at Nagasaki with money enough to pay her passage home.”

“How generous of you! First-class or steerage?”

Her face became a flame of fire, and she clenched her hands till the nails bit the pink palms.

“You sneaking reptile!” she cried, her voice trembling with anger; “you backbiting, underhand beast! What lies have you dared tell my father about me?”

“You are under some strange misapprehension, Miss Hemster,” I replied, with a coolness which earned my mental approbation, fervently hoping at the same time that I might continue to maintain control over my deplorable temper; “you have jumped at a conclusion not borne out by fact. I assure you I have never discussed you with your father, and should not venture to do so.”

I remembered the moment I had spoken that I had just promised another lady to do that very thing. What everybody says must be true when they state that my thoughts are awkward and ungainly, rarely coming up to the starting-point until too late. I fear this tardy recollection brought the colour to my face, for the angry eyes of the girl were upon me, and she evidently misread this untimely flushing. She leaned across the little wicker table and said in a calm, unruffled voice, marked with the bitterness of hate:

“You are a liar.”

I rose to my feet with the intention of leaving her, but she sprang up with a nimbleness superior to my own, and before I was aware of what she was about she thrust her two hands against my breast and plumped me unexpectedly down into my chair again. It was a ludicrous and humiliating situation, but I was too angry to laugh about it. Standing over me, she hissed down at me:

“You heard what I said.”

“Perfectly, and I am resolved that there shall be no further communication between us.”

“Oh, are you? Well, you’ll listen to what I have to say, or I’ll add ‘coward’ to ‘liar.’ Either you or Hilda Stretton has been poisoning my father’s mind against me. Which was it?”

“It was I, of course.”

“Then you admit you are a liar?”

“‘All men are liars,’ said the Psalmist, so why should I be an exception?”

“You are very good at quoting the Bible, aren’t you? Why don’t you live up to it?”

“I should be the better man if I did.”

“Will you resign at Nagasaki, then?”

“I shall do exactly what your father orders me to do.”

“That is precisely the answer I should have expected from a mud-wallower who came to us from the gutter.”

“You are mistaken. I lived up on a hill.”

“Well, I give you warning, that if you don’t leave this yacht you will regret it.”

“I shall probably regret the tender memories of your conversation, Miss Hemster; but if you think to frighten me I beg to point out that it is really yourself who is in danger, as you might know if experience taught the class of persons it is said to teach. You have called me a brute and a beast and all the rest of it, and have partly persuaded me that you are right. Now the danger to you lies in the fact that you will go just a step too far on one of these occasions, and then I shall pick you up and throw you overboard. Now allow me to say that you have about reached the limit, likewise to inform you that I shall not resign.”

I now arose, confronting her, and flung the wicker chair to the other side of the deck. Then, taking off my hat, I left her standing there.

CHAPTER XVIII

I am tired of my own shortcomings, and I have no doubt the reader is also, if she has read this far. I shall therefore make no attempt to excuse my language toward Gertrude Hemster. The heated conversation in which we indulged had, however, one effect upon my future course. I resolved not to say a word to her father against his treatment of her. Whatever the old gentleman had said to her, it could not have been cruder or ruder than the language which I had myself employed. Therefore I felt it would be ludicrous for me to act the part of censor or adviser. I had shown my own unfitness for either of those rôles. Besides this, I had been convinced that Hilda Stretton was entirely mistaken in thinking that the young woman would commit suicide or do any injury to herself. My summing up of her character led me to the belief that although she would be quite willing to inflict pain upon others, she would take good care not to act to her own discomfort. Seizing the first opportunity that presented itself, I told Miss Stretton my determination, and, while she did not agree with me, she made no effort to induce me to forego my resolution.

The bustle pertaining to our safe arrival at Nagasaki drove all other subjects from my mind, and I was inclined to think that my recent troubles and quarrels arose through the well-known activity of Satan to provide employment for idle hands. We were now busy enough. There had accumulated at Nagasaki a mass of letters and a bundle of cablegrams for Mr. Hemster which required his immediate attention, and in his disposal of these messages I caught a glimpse of the great business man he really was. However lax he might have proved in his conduct toward his only daughter, he showed himself a very Napoleon in the way he faced the problems presented to him, settling momentous affairs thousands of miles away by the dispatch of a code word or two.

In all this, so far as my abilities permitted, I was his humble assistant, and I found myself filled with admiration and astonishment at his powers of concentration and the brilliancy of his methods. The little naphtha launch was kept running backward and forward between the yacht and the telegraph office, and during the long day that followed our arrival at Nagasaki that roll-top desk was a centre of commercial activity vastly different in its efficiency from the lazy routine to which I had been accustomed in the diplomatic service. My own nervous tension kept me going until the long day had passed, and the time seemed as but a few minutes. At the end I was as tired as if I had spent twelve hours continuously on the football field, and for the first time in my life I realized how men are burnt up in their pursuit of the mighty dollar. My natural inclination was to doubt whether the game was worth the candle, but during the progress of the game there was no question, for it held on the alert every faculty a man possessed, and I could well believe that it might exert a fascination that indulgence in mere gambling could never equal.

Silas K. Hemster himself was like a man transformed; the eyes which I had hitherto considered dull and uninteresting became aglow with the excitement of battle. His face was keen, stern, and relentless; I saw he was an enemy who gave no quarter and expected none. His orders to me were sharp and decisive, and I no more thought of questioning them than of offering unsought advice regarding them. He was like an exiled monarch come again to his throne; for the first time in our brief acquaintance I had seen the real Hemster, and the sight had given me a feeling of my own inane inadequacy in the scheme of things here below. When at last the day was done, his face relaxed, and he leaned back in his swivel chair, regarding me with eyes that had taken on their old kindliness. He seemed enlivened rather than exhausted by the contest, as if he had taken a sip of the elixir of youth.

“Well, my boy,” he said, “you’re tired out. You look as if you had been running a race.”

“That is exactly what I’ve been doing, sir.”

The old gentleman laughed.

“Let’s see,” he mused ruminatingly, “did we have lunch or not?”

“You consumed a sandwich which I placed on your desk, Mr. Hemster, and I bolted another during one of my rushes for the dispatch-boat.”

Again he laughed.

“I had forgotten,” he said, “but we will enjoy our dinner all the more when we sit down to it. Confess that you’re used up.”

“Well, sir, I don’t feel just as active as I did in the morning.”

The old gentleman shook his head with a slow motion that had something of pity in it.

“You English have no aptitude for business. It shows the decadent state of Europe that Britain has held supremacy on that continent for so long.”

“I should be sorry, sir, if you took me for a typical example of the English business man. I doubt if in any respect I am a credit to my country, still I am not such an idiot as to suppose I shine as a man of affairs. My training has been against me, even if I had any natural aptitude for commerce, which I doubt. Still, we are supposed to possess some creditable captains of industry on our little island.”

“Supposed! That’s just it, and the supposition holds good until they are up against something better. Now, if you were in Chicago, and you wished me to join you in a deal while I was cruising on the coast of Japan, what would you do?”

“I should write you a letter explaining the project I had to put before you.”

“Quite so. You wouldn’t go to the expense of cabling the whole thing, would you?”

“If the scheme was important enough I might go to that cost.”

The old gentleman held in his hand two or three cable messages which I had not seen, also a letter or two.

“Now, here is a man,” he said, “who has hit upon a plan I have often thought of myself. He has, he tells me, made a combination which possesses considerable strength, but in order to be impregnable he needs my co-operation. He cables the points very concisely, and puts his case with a good deal of power; but that cablegram is merely an advance agent for himself, expensive as it is. His object is to hold me at Yokohama until he can arrive. He actually crosses the continent to San Francisco, and takes the first steamer for Japan. I received his cablegram at Yokohama, but did not wait for him. I sent off a word or two myself to Chicago, asking confidential information which I have now received. Just before we left for Corea I got a telegram from this man in Yokohama, asking me to wait for him at Nagasaki, which I did not do, because I wished to impress on the energetic individual that I was not anxious to fall in with his plan, and I knew that, having come so far, he would not return without seeing me. Meanwhile I determined to find out whether his combination is as strong as he said it was, and this information is now in my possession. Also, I wished on my own account to make a combine so formidable that whether I gave my adherence to the one or the other my weight would tip the beam in favour of the one I joined. This combination also has been completed, and I hold the balance, of course. Our friend who has come over from Japan probably does not know that there is any opposition to his scheme, and no one in the world except yourself and myself and a man in Chicago knows I have anything to do with the other combine. You see I am just yachting for pleasure and for health, and am reluctant to touch business at all. At least, that is the information which I intend to be imparted to our friend, who is now impatiently awaiting me at the Nagasaki Hotel. You might think that I should invite him to come aboard my yacht and talk the matter over, or that I should go ashore and visit him, which he asks me to do; but I shall do neither. You see I want Mr. John C. Cammerford to realize that he is not nearly so important in the commercial affairs of America as he supposes himself to be.”

“John C. Cammerford!” I cried in amazement. “I think I have met him in New York, though it may not be the same man.”

“Well, the name is not a common one, and if you know him, all the better. I now instruct you to call on him first thing to-morrow morning. You will notice that I have trusted you fully in this matter by giving you information which must not leak through to Cammerford. You will tell him, however, that his combination is not the only one in the United States, and if I’m to join his he must prove to me that it is stronger than the opposition. He must give you a list of the firms he has combined, and he will have to show you the original documents pertaining to the options he has received. I want to know how long his options last. They will probably have at least six months’ life, or he could never have taken this journey to see me. If he satisfies you that his combination is genuine, and that his options have still several months to run, then I shall consent to meet him. If he cannot do this, or if he refuses to do it, I shall send a few cables which will certainly upset his apple-cart before he reaches San Francisco. You will not promise anything on my behalf, and I should have no objection if he imagines that my lack of eagerness in meeting him is caused by the fact that the other combination appears to me the stronger.”

“Would you mind my sending to him your card instead of my own? He might possibly refuse to meet me if I sent in the name of Tremorne.”

“That’s all right. Use my card if you wish. The main point is that you get as much information as possible, and give as little in return as may be. There’s the dinner gong, and I’m quite ready to meet whatever’s on the table. Come along.”

Next morning after breakfast I went ashore, and, arriving at the Nagasaki Hotel, sent up Mr. Hemster’s card to Mr. John C. Cammerford, and was promptly admitted to his presence. He occupied what I took to be the finest suite of rooms in the hotel, and had a large table placed near the principal window of his sitting-room, so that his back was to the light, which shone full on the face of any visitor who called upon him. It was quite evident to me that Mr. Cammerford hoped to impress Silas K. Hemster with the fact that he was carrying on great affairs right here in Japan similar to those that occupied his attention in Chicago. The table was littered with papers, and Cammerford sat busily writing as if every moment was of importance. All his plans for the impression of a visitor fell to pieces like a house of cards when the astonished man saw who was approaching him. He sprang to his feet with a cry of dismay and backed toward the window. From his position I could not very well read the expression on his face, but it seemed to be one of fear.

“I’m expecting another man,” he cried, “you have no right here. Get out.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Cammerford, I have a right here, and I have come to talk business.”

“What are you following me for? Why are you here?” he cried.

“I am here as the representative of Silas K. Hemster, of Chicago, and with his permission I sent up his card to you.”

Gradually his self-possession returned to him, but he took care to keep the table between himself and me. He indulged in a little cynical laugh.

“You took me by surprise, Mr. Tremorne. I – I thought perhaps you intended trying to collect – a – a little account of your own.”

“No, I came entirely on Mr. Hemster’s behalf. Have I your permission to be seated?”

“Certainly. Sit down, sit down,” and, saying this with an effort at bluff geniality, he placed himself in the chair he had so abruptly vacated.

“I thought, as I said before,” he added, with another uneasy laugh, “that you had some notion of collecting a little money from me. The last time we met you held a very mistaken view of the business matter in which we had been associated. I assure you now – you wouldn’t listen then – that everything done was strictly legal, and no one was more sorry than I that the deal did not prove as successful as we had both hoped.”

“You cover me with confusion, Mr. Cammerford. I have no remembrance that I ever disputed the legality of the transaction, and I deeply regret that I seem to have permitted myself at the time to use harsh language which you are quite justified in deploring. If it is any comfort to you, I beg to assure you that I look upon the half-million dollars as irretrievably lost, and at this hour yesterday had no more idea you were in Japan than you had that I was, if you did me the honour to think of me.”

Cammerford gazed doubtfully across the table at me, as if he feared there was something sinister behind all this show of submission.

“It was you, then, who sent up Mr. Hemster’s card?”

“Yes. He asked me to see you.”

“Why couldn’t he come himself? Is he ill?”

“No, he never was in better health,” I answered; “but he is exceedingly busy. I am by way of being his confidential man, and if you can prove to me that the claims you have made are real, I shall have much pleasure in arranging an interview between you.”

“Oh, that’s how the land lies, is it? What do you know of my proposals to Mr. Hemster?”

“I have read all your letters and telegrams relating to the matter this morning; in fact, I have them in my pocket now.”

“Mr. Hemster seems to repose great trust in you. That is rather unusual with him. I suppose you have some document to prove that you are empowered to deal?”

“As a matter of fact I am not empowered to deal. I am merely the avant coureur of Mr. Hemster. I sent you up his card, and here are your own letters, telegrams, and cablegrams. I was told to inform you that since you have left America another combination which Mr. Hemster considers nearly if not quite as strong as your own has been put through, and Mr. Hemster has been invited to join. He is well acquainted with the person who has effected the second combination, but, as you have just intimated, Mr. Hemster is not a man to allow personal considerations to deflect him from the strict business path. If you can show that your combination is the stronger, I can guarantee that you will have opportunity of speaking with Mr. Hemster. If not, he sails away to-morrow in his yacht, and deprives himself of the pleasure of meeting you, as you happen to be an entire stranger to him.”

“How am I to show him all this if he refuses to see me?”

“You are to convince me of two things by exhibiting the original documents: first, that these firms mentioned in your letters have given you options; and second, the length of the options, – the date on which they expire, in fact.”

“And if I refuse?” said Cammerford, seemingly puzzled and displeased at the trend of our conversation.

I rose to my feet and bowed to him.

“If you refuse,” I said, “that ends my mission. Good-morning to you.”

“Wait a bit, wait a bit,” cried Cammerford, “sit down, Mr. Tremorne. This requires a little thought. Please don’t go; just sit down for a moment. I don’t see how Mr. Hemster can expect me to show my whole hand to one who, begging your pardon, is a comparative stranger, and one who will have nothing to do with our transaction. Secrecy is the very soul of such a deal as I am trying to put through. What guarantee have I that you will not cable to New York or Chicago full particulars of what I am asked to tell you.”

“None whatever, Mr. Cammerford.”

“Well, that’s not business.”

“Quite so. Then I shall report your opinion to Mr. Hemster.”

“What’s his object? Why doesn’t he come and see me himself?”

“I think I may go so far as to say that he wishes to know whether or not it is worth his while to meet you. You see, Mr. Cammerford, you are a stranger to him. He was good enough to hint that if I reported favourably on your scheme, he would wait over a day or two and go into the matter with you. As I have said, he is exceedingly busy. I left him immersed in letters and cablegrams, and all day yesterday we were over head and ears in matters of rather large importance. If you had been his Chicago acquaintance who formed the other combine, I imagine he would have seen you; as it is, he has sent me.”