The Barrier: A Novel

It was not wholly interest in his house, therefore, which took Ellis to Chebasset before many days. He went to the office of the mill, and as he stood before the chimney and looked up at it he mused that, metaphorically speaking, it would not take much prying at its foundations to make it fall: Wayne was a weak prop to such a structure. He opened the office door. Jim, from bending over Miss Jenks as she sat at her desk, rose up and stared at him. And the little pale stenographer grew pink.

"People usually knock," Jim was beginning. " – Oh, Mr. Ellis!"

"Down for the afternoon," said Ellis. "I hate to lunch alone at this hotel. Won't you come with me?"

"Why, I – " hesitated Jim.

"Going up on the hill afterward to see my house," added Ellis. "I won't keep you long."

"You're very good," decided Jim. "Yes, I'll come."

"Of course it's wretched stuff they give us here," remarked Ellis when they were seated at the hotel. "Will you take water, or risk the wine?"

"The wine's not so bad," said Jim. He was pleased at his invitation, but even deference to one so rich could not subdue his pride in special knowledge. "I don't know how it happens, but they have some very decent Medoc."

"Then we'll try it," and Ellis ordered a bottle. He began to feel sure of his estimate of a young man who took wine when alone in the country. Bad blood will show; Ellis recalled his experience with Jim's father.

For although the promoter had once met Mather's father and come off second-best, with the elder Wayne he had been easily master. Ellis had bought up most of Wayne's outstanding notes by the time alcohol removed from society one who so well adorned it; the sale of the house had been merely a return of I. O. U.'s. In just the same way Ellis was providing against Blanchard's collapse, and now was watching Jim as the wine worked on him.

"A hole, a hole!" cried Jim, and the wave of his third glass included all Chebasset. "If it weren't for a little girl, Mr. Ellis – !" Jim gulped down more wine, and Ellis ordered a second bottle.

"That little girl," he asked, "whom I saw at the office?"

"She?" cried Jim loftily. "All very well to have fun with in this place, but a fellow of my standing looks forward to something better than that. Don't pretend ignorance, Mr. Ellis. You're learning what's worth having, even if you didn't know it when first you came to Stirling."

"I know very little about women," returned Ellis steadily.

"Gad," cried Jim, "you've chosen pretty well, then."

"At least," was the reply, and Ellis sighed as if regretfully, "I can't keep three going at once."

Jim laughed. "You don't regret it, I know well enough. You've got too many other things to think of. I have to do it, to make life interesting."

Such a cub as this, it was plain, deserved no mercy. "You won't succeed in one quarter, at least," Ellis answered.

"Where, then?" demanded Jim.

Ellis took his first sip of wine. "At a certain lady's where we have met."

Jim resorted to pantomime. He reached for the bottle and filled his glass; this he held up to the light, and squinted through it; then with deliberation he drank off the wine, and reached for the fresh bottle. After filling, he looked at Ellis. All this he did with an air of very, very evident amusement, and at the end he chuckled.

"For the reason," continued Ellis, quite unmoved, "that you haven't the cash." He took his second sip, but Jim laughed outright.

Then the youth became grave. "Money," he said emphatically, "is all very well in its place. But though you've made your way by it, sir, you overestimate it. Why, that Mrs. Harmon would take – " Suddenly Jim grew red in the face. "You insult her, sir!"

"Good," remarked Ellis, very coldly. "The waiter is out of the room; recollect yourself when he returns. Recollect also that Mrs. Harmon is a very old friend of mine."

"But," stammered Jim, somewhat abashed, "when you say that she would sell herself – "

"You were drinking before you came here," said Ellis, "or you wouldn't take such ideas so easily." He removed the bottle from Jim's elbow, then, as if on second thought, he put it back again. "This is a lonely place, Mr. Wayne; I don't wonder that you take a cock-tail occasionally in the morning. But just remember that it may prevent you from seeing a man's meaning."

"I thought – " began Jim, but Ellis cut him short.

"I know; but never mind. I meant, my dear man, a libel on the sex, perhaps, but not on the individual. They're fond of finery, that's all. And you haven't the money to give it." He looked at Jim with a smile.

"You can't give it to her!" cried Jim. But the exclamation was almost a question.

"To some women you can't – perhaps. But I've never met the kind. And do you suppose the Judge knows what comes into the house?"

"Gad!" murmured Jim.

"A weakness of the sex," resumed Ellis. "Just remember that. Women are softer than we; we've got to humour them. There's no harm in it; a pearl pin now and then – something good, oh, you need something pretty good, or nothing at all."

"Then I'll go on the nothing-at-all system," said Jim with gloom.

"Rot!" answered Ellis. "Do you save so carefully?"

"Save!" exclaimed Jim. "Do you suppose I can save?"

"I forgot," and Ellis spoke apologetically. "Of course, with your salary. But there'll be a good time some day, Mr. Wayne."

"When I'm old," grumbled Jim.

"Gad!" cried Ellis, "with your ability and your youth, I'd be some thousands richer every year!"

"I know," answered the lamb, trying to look as wolfish as he should. "But a fellow can do nothing nowadays without capital."

"But you have something?"

"Some few thousands," replied Jim with deep scorn of fate. "And in my mother's name."

"Your mother is conservative?" asked Ellis.

"Scared," answered Jim.

"And all you learned on the market," said Ellis with sympathy, "going here to waste! Too bad! Get some one to back you."

Jim looked at him sidewise. "Will you do it?"

But Ellis smiled. "Why should I? No; stand on your own feet. Get your mother's power of attorney, and surprise her some day by doubling her income. But as for that, doesn't money pass through your hands down here every week."

"Passes through quickly," answered Wayne. "Comes down Saturday morning, and I pay the men at noon."

"Pay every week?" Ellis inquired. "Every fortnight is what I believe in. But of course – and yet three days, with clever placing, would be enough to make you double that money. Three weeks, and you could – do anything!"

"By Jove!" cried Jim, starting.

"I'll be off," said Ellis, pushing back his chair. "This lunch was better than I expected. We must meet here again, some day."

"Good!" answered Jim. He finished his last glass, but as he rose he was as steady as if he carried nothing. "For all that," muttered Ellis to himself, "your brain is softer than half an hour ago." They separated at the door of the hotel, and went their respective ways.

When Ellis, after inspecting his house, stood on the terrace and looked down upon Chebasset, he still had Jim on his mind. Would the ideas work? Did he still taste that wine in his mouth, or his own words? Small! and Ellis spat. Small, but well done, as the event was to prove. And yet Ellis had neither heard nor read of Mephisto and the student, of Iago and Roderigo.

CHAPTER XX

The Power of Suggestion

It is wearing when one's wishes travel faster than events, and have to wait for time to catch up. Mrs. Harmon felt it so. "The days go too slow," she declared to Ellis, a week after his visit to Chebasset.

"Not at all," he answered. "I think they go about right."

"You're like a cat," she said impatiently. "I watched one hunting a bird once, and it took forever to make its spring."

"But it caught the bird. Then wasn't the time well spent, Lydia?"

"I'm not so cold-blooded," she replied. "I can't be deliberate. I must have something going on."

"Therefore you listen for the door-bell," remarked he. "Lydia, he can't come up to-night."

"Stephen!" she cried as if indignantly – yet she began to smile.

"Mather keeps fair track of him," said Ellis.

"I hate Mr. Mather!" declared the lady with energy.

"What's the use?" inquired the gentleman calmly.

"Upon my word, Stephen," exclaimed Mrs. Harmon, "if any one in this town ought to hate him, it's you. He's the one man who stands between you and – and everything you want."

Ellis smiled. "People say so?"

"It's true!" she insisted. "What are your friends in politics most afraid of? That he will go in against them! Who can make the best stand against your mayor? Mather, of course! With him as mayor – what then, Stephen?"

"All talk," he answered, still smiling.

"Very well," she retorted. "But if ever it comes to Mather at city hall, Doddridge as district attorney, and my husband on the bench, some people will leave town hurriedly."

"You mean me?" he asked indifferently.

"Of course not," she answered. "But don't laugh, Stephen; there's really something in all this. And in other matters, too. The Judge has sold his street-railroad stock."

Ellis roused at once. "He has? To whom?"

"Mr. Pease."

"Well," and the promoter relaxed again. "I am glad that the Judge is out of it, even if Pease is deeper in."

"Abiel kept back five shares," said the Judge's worthy wife, "and when next it comes to a stockholders' meeting, he'll be there. I can't do anything with him; you know that well enough. All I can do is to tell you what he tells me. Stephen," and her voice became persuasive, "why not take notice of complaints?"

"You mean transfers?" he inquired.

"Yes, and better service: more cars at the rush hours, and more attention to the suburbs."

"Higher wages to the men, too, I suppose?" he asked.

"You don't want a strike?" she cried.

"Now stop worrying!" he commanded. "You hear the Judge at the breakfast table, and never see my side. Who does he say are against me – Pease, Fenno, Branderson – all their kind?"

She nodded. "Yes, every one of them."

"Well," he said, "if I have a majority of stock – either mine or belonging to men who belong to me – all the rich swells in the State can't touch me. Lydia, Mather made this street railroad for me; he didn't know he was doing it, but he did it, and when I wanted it I took it. It's the best thing I've struck yet, and I'm not going to let it go. Nor the profits, either. Transfers and extra cars? I tell you the public's got to ride, and ride in what I allow 'em."

"Very well," she replied. "You usually know what you're about. But the papers – "

"Rot, rot, rot!" he interrupted. "You hear so much of this Mather talk that you believe it. Do you read the Newsman?"

"Abiel won't have it in the house."

"Buy a copy once in a while, when you feel blue. You'll see that Mather's a man of straw."

"Does Judith Blanchard think him so?"

He turned upon her. "Doesn't she?"

"I don't know what she thinks," she confessed.

"Then," he advised, softening his frown, "wait and watch. I tell you it's going all right."

She wondered that he felt so sure, but she subsided; then other thoughts came into her mind. "Stephen," she asked, "are you doing much now – on the market, I mean?"

"Always doing a lot," he replied.

"What's safest and surest?"

"Government bonds," he answered with a smile.

"No, no," she said. "I mean surest to go up and do something quickly."

"Lydia," he responded, "if young Wayne wants to know anything from me, let him ask me himself."

"Oh!" she cried, pouting, "how quick you are! Well, I did ask for Jim." There was just a little hesitation as she spoke the name. "But he gets so little chance to see you. Come, tell me something; give me a tip, there's a good fellow."

"I calculated once," he replied, "that if I told every one who asked, there would be just twice my capital in the market, after the things I want. No, Lydia, let every man stand on his own feet; I do my hunting alone."

"Stephen!" she coaxed. "Stephen! Oh, you obstinate thing! At least tell me what you're buying."

"If you want to help young Wayne, don't ask that. I look long ways ahead; sometimes I buy to hold, but he can't. I'm not afraid of a drop; he is. Let him work out his get-rich-quick scheme by himself, and he'll be better off than if I helped him."

"At least tell me what you think of Poulton?" But he was obdurate. "Stephen, I'll never ask you a favour again!"

"With that pin at your throat you don't need to," he replied. "Lydia, I never gave you that."

"I have a husband," and she affected indignation. "How can you insinuate – oh, Stephen, you see too much. Well, what do you think of it?"

"I think," he responded with deliberation, "that I've not seen Miss Beth Blanchard wearing any new jewelry lately. Aren't you unkind?"

"No!" she pouted again. "I am his mother confessor." Which appeared so humorous to them both that they laughed; and then, feeling that they had been skating on rather thin ice, they left the subject. Only – Mrs. Harmon wished she knew why Ellis was so sure of Judith.

Had she seen what Mather saw she might have guessed what Mather guessed. Ellis lunching with the Colonel down town, at an out-of-the-way place, to be sure, but lunching with him openly – that meant a good deal. It was a French restaurant to which Mather went at times for the sake of its specialties, but when from the door, one day, he saw the Colonel and Ellis at one of the tables, he went away again; yet had been seen.

"He saw us," said Ellis. "And if he saw us, others will. What was the use of insisting on such a meeting-place, Colonel?"

The Colonel was annoyed, confoundedly so.

"All very well," returned Ellis. "But our business is not secret, any more than the transactions which go on in the open street. Come, Colonel Blanchard, don't you think it's time for a different line of procedure?"

The Colonel apprehensively asked his meaning.

"I'll tell you," answered Ellis. "Don't think me rude, sir, if I speak freely. All I've been thinking is that if I'm a business acquaintance merely, keep me as such. But if I'm a little more, if I'm to come to your house and your table, let us meet a little more openly – at the Exchange Club, let us say. And if I dine at your house again, let's have," the Colonel's head was bowed, and Ellis therefore spoke boldly, "other people there."

The Colonel marked with his knife upon the cloth. Three times five thousand, without security, meant that Ellis had passed beyond the stage of business acquaintanceship. Well, never mind; Judith encouraged the man, so where was the harm? The whole thing was the most natural in the world.

"Why, Mr. Ellis," he said, looking up, "I like this little place to eat in; it reminds me of Paris, you know. I hadn't thought we would seem to be dodging people." ("Lies better than Wayne," thought Ellis.) "The Exchange Club, of course, if you wish it; it's more convenient, anyway."

But Ellis's reminder, before they parted, the Colonel took hard. "And perhaps we can have a little dinner-party soon, Colonel?"

"Yes," answered the Colonel. "Yes, yes." He was as near snappish as he dared to be, vindicating his military character. Only the recollection of his daughter's wishes kept him from being rude, downright rude. Thus the Colonel to himself, as he went homeward alone. Yet, instead of informing Judith that she was privileged to give a dinner-party, he was much too absorbed to vouchsafe her any account of where he had been. "Don't bother me," was his gentle reply when she asked if he had seen any one down town.

"Father!" cried Judith, really hurt.

"But I heard this," said her father, stopping at the door of his study, and giving his piece of news with an unction for which only the passions of the natural man can account. "They say a street-railway strike is coming surely, unless Mr. Ellis gives in."

Judith stood with her hands behind her back, regarding her parent cheerfully. "Oh, well!" she said lightly.

"You don't believe it?" demanded the Colonel.

"Strikes never come as often as they are threatened," she replied.

"But this time the stockholders may have something to say."

"They need more votes for that," she answered.

The Colonel looked her over. "Ellis has been telling her what to think," he concluded. For a moment he entertained the impulse to propose the dinner-party, but Ellis's virtual ordering of him rankled. He went into his study.

Mather, on his part, took his lunch at another restaurant and then went down to Chebasset. He felt somewhat depressed; life was not pleasant, not with the sight of Ellis and the Colonel before his mental vision, nor with the task he had to do. For the returns from the mill were entirely inadequate, and Jim must be spoken to. Lecturing a sulky boy promised to be unpleasant; besides, Jim would report it to Beth. Mather would have given a good deal to put the matter off, if only for a day.

But Jim was not at the mill. "He has gone to Stirling, Miss Jenks?"

"Yes, sir, to the city. He had a telephone message from – " Miss Jenks hesitated and stammered.

"Miss Blanchard? Oh, of course." And Mather, amused at the modesty of the little stenographer, sat down at Jim's desk, which had once been his own. "The daily reports, if you please, Miss Jenks." While she went for them, he stared idly at the decorations by whose means Jim had sought to domesticate himself at the mill: dance cards, an invitation, and photographs of Beth, Jim's mother, and Mrs. Harmon. Mather frowned at the presence of the last, in such company.

Armed with the daily reports, Mather went into the mill, and certain of the men, at certain of the machines, heard words which were far from pleasing. The words were not many, and were delivered quietly, but backed by telling figures from the returns they were unanswerable. It was a slight relief that so many men were visited in Mather's round, for company made the misery a bit lighter, but the foreman trembled for his turn. He took it in the office, alone with Mather and Miss Jenks. That during the summer and fall so many pounds daily had been turned out, and in the winter so many less, was laid before him. The foreman could suggest only one excuse.

"Mr. Wayne, sir. The men – some of them don't like him, and some laugh at him."

"You attend to your men, Waller, and Mr. Wayne and I will do our part. Understand, I put the mill in your hands now; Mr. Wayne will attend strictly to the office. If you bring the men up to the old mark, ten dollars more for you in the month. If you don't – " And the manager waved his hand. Waller, between fear and hope, withdrew to the safe side of the door, and mopped his brow.

Mather also wiped his forehead; he was glad, after all, that Jim had not been there; he would try running the mill on this system, and Beth for a while, perhaps for good, could be spared unhappiness.

But when, after writing Jim a letter detailing the proposed change, he rose from his chair, he found a workman standing by his side. The man, with some appearance of unhappiness, touched his forelock. "Beg pardon, sir, but the missis is sick."

"Your wife? I'm sorry. I suppose you've come for an advance of money."

"No, sir!" and the man showed pride. "I can get along, Mr. Mather, on my regular pay."

"Then what can I do for you?"

"It's this new regulation, sir – fortnightly pay."

"Fortnightly pay!" echoed Mather.

"Yes, sir. It'll be all right usually, Mr. Mather, and none of the men cares much."

There was a tightness in the manager's brain; he put up his hand and stroked his lip. "Let me see, when did the new system begin?"

"Last week, sir. And as I say, I wouldn't care, sir, but just now it comes so hard that I'm askin' – just as a favour, Mr. Mather – to be paid weekly till the missis is well."

"So!" said Mather, recovering himself.

"I hope it's not too much to ask, sir?"

"No, no," and the manager turned to the safe.

What was he to find – an empty cash drawer? His hand trembled as he swung open the heavy door; he thought of little Beth. If Jim had been so weak, so ungrateful – it was all right! There lay the rolls of bills!

But not the same; the envelopes had been opened, the money mussed and then crammed hastily back into the drawer again. Moreover, these were not the fresh, crisp bills which Pease took pride in sending weekly to the mill. Mather took the whole drawer to the desk and paid the workman. "Make a note, Miss Jenks, that Swinton is to be paid weekly so long as his wife is ill." The man, thankful, departed; but Mather sat over the cash drawer, sorting the money and counting it. There were many bills of the high denominations which never came to the mill, since they would be of little use in paying the men. But it was all there, every cent. What was the meaning of it? And now it was Miss Jenks who stood at Mather's side, waiting to speak. He thrust the money again into the drawer.

"Miss Jenks?" As she did not speak at once he looked at her face, and asked hastily: "Is anything wrong?"

"I've – I've got to leave here, Mr. Mather."

He rose and put the cash drawer in its place; then he went back to her. "This is very astonishing. Why?"

"I must," was all she would say.

"Is it wages? Hours? Are you overworked?" To each question she shook her head. "I consider you very valuable to us. I have thought of asking you to come to the city office."

She looked up at him eagerly. "Oh, let me come!"

"Then there is some friction here?"

She looked down, blushing. "No friction."

"One question only, Miss Jenks. Is it Mr. Wayne?"

She nodded; Mather took his seat. Then she took a step nearer to him, looking to see if he were angry. "Don't be put out with him. He – I – it's nothing, Mr. Mather."

"So I should suppose," he answered grimly.

"Mr. Mather," she said suddenly, "when I worked for you here I got to think of you almost as an older brother. Don't be offended." She made a little gesture of one thin hand. "I have no mother. May I ask you if I am doing right?"

He was touched, and rose again. "Certainly."

"Mr. Wayne," she began again slowly, "has been very – nice to me. I didn't think about it; I got to like it very much. Yesterday he – kissed me. Isn't he engaged to Miss Blanchard, sir?"

"He is."

"I thought so; and yet, Mr. Mather, I couldn't be offended. This afternoon, when he went away, he came to kiss me again, and I couldn't try to stop him. Was it shameful, sir?"

He ground his teeth. "Of him!"

"And he left me this." She opened the hand which she had held tight closed, and showed a jewelled pin.

Mather took it; it was costly, very handsome. "Well, Miss Jenks?"

"I don't think I'm that kind of a girl, sir. And yet I'm frightened at myself – for not being able to resist him, I mean. And so I've got to go, sir." Up to this time she had spoken quietly, with little sign of emotion, but now she clasped her hands together, and tears welled out on her cheeks. "I cannot stay another day!"

He turned away from her, and for a space strode up and down the office, cursing silently. Then he sat and tried to think. Jim, Jim!

"You're not offended, sir?" she asked.

"Offended? You poor little girl, it tears at my heart to see your face and know what you feel. You're doing just right; yes, just right. You shall come to me in the city, to-morrow if you wish. I know an old and homely woman who will be glad of this place."

She shrank at the energy of his sneer. "You won't be angry with him, sir?"

"Not angry?" he cried, astonished. Then he said quietly, "I shall do nothing at once. But there are other considerations as well."

"Others?" she asked fearfully. "He isn't – going wrong, Mr. Mather?"

"What makes you think that?" he demanded.

"Perhaps," she said, "I'd better tell you something, if it will help you help him. There's one man – oh, Mr. Mather, I've been so glad of the way the papers speak of you – if you would only stand for mayor of Stirling, sir! I dislike that Mr. Ellis. And it's he who's been here twice to see Mr. Wayne, and telephoned him this afternoon to come to town."

"Of course you know there's no reason he shouldn't?"

"Only I don't like him, sir. And Mr. Wayne made something of a secret of it, though he's been talking with me quite freely, lately. But I couldn't help knowing, and I hope there's nothing wrong." She took a step toward her desk. "If you've got nothing for me to do, sir, I'll go now. To-morrow at your office, Mr. Mather?"