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CHAPTER XVIII

Judith Buys A Typewriter

As the winter advanced, Judith found herself never free from her struggle, the interest of which grew not only greater, but at times intense. For gossip, as she foresaw, was busy with her name; and though as yet she had not braved her circle in the endeavour to bring Ellis in, her friends took occasion to disapprove of her acquaintance with him. The disapproval being conveyed to her in a dozen ways, Judith was frequently in a blaze of anger at people's officiousness, or as often contemptuous of their curiosity. Since interference was always enough to make her obstinate, her friends had no other effect on her than to make her welcome Ellis more kindly than ever.

An unforeseen factor in her troubles was the state of public affairs. Judith read the papers diligently; she perceived a general increase of opposition to Ellis. This did not disturb her, since your true student is aware that the public is as often wrong as right. And at first she took no interest in the search for a leader which was conducted by that usually impotent party, the Reformers. These gentlemen had so often, in Judith's hearing, been gently ridiculed as milk-and-water politicians, that even amusement ceased within her as she read anew of their efforts. Any campaign which they should conduct would be the usual formal and ineffectual protest against "practical politics"; their candidate would be, as always, an obscure person with no claim on public regard. Judith's interest woke very suddenly when it was whispered that the reform candidate was to be George Mather.

Now she should see Mather and Ellis directly measured, and could know the strength of each. And yet all this was still far away, while another matter was of nearer interest: the rumour of a street-railway strike. Wages had been lowered and the men were discontented; so also were the patrons of the road. The efficiency of the service had greatly fallen off, and the reform newspaper boldly dated the change at Mather's loss of the presidency, charging Ellis with the desire to make money at the public's expense. Judith sniffed at an accusation which she believed would refute itself; she wondered that men should still trust in campaign calumnies. One statement alone caused her serious thought, namely the claim, soberly made, that in managing the details of a great enterprise rather than attending to its finance Ellis was beyond his depth. But at the call to the public to insist upon proper treatment as well as to avert the calamity of a great strike Judith smiled to herself. The public never interested itself in anything; and besides, this was none of the public's business.

Yet, though Judith was right in thinking that the management of the street-railway company concerned the stockholders alone, and though her estimate of the general harmlessness of the reform party was quite correct, her interest in Mather was renewed. Judith was always very well aware of her states of mind, and had noted by this time that whenever her interest in Ellis's brilliancy relaxed, she was certain to find Mather doggedly adding to his own achievements. And she granted it to be much in his favour that though he lacked the fascinating abilities of his keener rival, he had a formidable solidity. The very fact that his name was used in connection with the reform nomination, gave that nomination seriousness.

Still, the caucus was months ahead, and it was hard to believe that Ellis, who had never yet failed, could botch the management of the street-railway. Men should be easier to manage than securities. And though she received Mather kindly whenever he came, it was impossible not to feel more interest in the man who came oftener, stayed longer, and spoke most of himself. Mather had spoken of himself but once; he did not seek, as Ellis did, to be alone with her, and no longer showed the repressed eagerness of a suitor. He was easy, deliberate, never preoccupied, and took no pains whatever to forward himself with her.

On that evening when Beth had dragged unwilling Jim into the front parlour, to her consequent unhappiness, Mather showed no impatience at the interruption; he even rose again gladly when, Jim having gone, poor Beth came creeping back again.

"George," said Beth timidly, "Jim was a little – rude, just now."

"No, no," he answered heartily. "Don't think of it, Beth."

"If you will bear with him," she pursued, "I think he will come to see how much he owes you."

"Of course he will," he agreed. "Not that I'm anxious for any acknowledgment. I understand he's lonely, Beth."

"He is," she stated eagerly. "He misses – "

She blushed, and added hurriedly, "And much of what he says is just manner."

"Don't you suppose I know him?" he asked. "Now don't worry, Beth. Just keep him to his work, and he'll come out all right."

He took her hand; she looked up shyly. "Do you think me foolish, George?"

"Fond used to mean foolish," he answered. "We'll call you fond. Jim must succeed with you to back him!" And he kissed her hand.

"Thank you," said Beth, doubtless referring to the encouragement. "Thank you so much, George! Good-night."

"Poor little thing!" said Mather, as he seated himself after she had gone. "She's not happy, Judith."

"It's Jim," she answered.

"Have you any influence over him?" he asked. "If you have, make him work."

"I noticed," she remarked, "that you did not tell Beth that she has no cause for worry. Is he not satisfactory?"

"It may be inexperience," he answered, "it may be just Jim; I haven't decided yet. The work isn't hard, for the foreman looks after everything mechanical, yet our product is much less than it should be. All I need to do is to go and sit in the Chebasset office for an hour, without opening the door into the mill, and if the men know I'm there we turn out six hundred pounds more that day."

The statement was not surprising, as Judith compared Jim with the man before her. "You think he will not suit."

"I don't say that yet," he replied. "But it's very unpleasant, doing business with your friends."

Again she sat watching him as he stared into the fire, but not with the emotion of that former time, for the state of mind which Beth had aroused was passing. She thought of Mather, with unimpassioned interest, as a fine type of man; but it was undeniable that, emotion being absent, Ellis took an increasingly greater share of her thoughts, and stirred her imagination more. The world was growing larger before her, not the world of society but of the World's Work, the Harper's Weekly, almost of the Scientific American, those magazines which express the spirit of modern enterprise and hardheadedness, and from which she drew her current information. One of them had recently published Ellis's portrait; Judith glanced from Mather to the table whereon the magazine was at this moment lying, and compared the two men as, but a few moments before, she had contrasted Jim and Mather. Now it was Mather who stood at the little end of the sign of inequality; Ellis was the giant and Mather the mere man. Rumour set them against each other, but though Judith had heard the whisper, "Mather is back," she had also seen the smiles as people added: "Now what will he do?"

"Yes," said Mather, rousing; "between us we can help Jim along." Then he rose, and though it was early, said good-night. He left her wondering at his method of cheerful entrance and speedy exit, his manner of being at home in her presence. But after more thinking, she laid this to the fact that he had nothing on his mind.

Yet he was conscious of a future which beckoned him, and of ambitions, not of his own creating, which stood ready for him to assume. He knew that it was said that Mather had returned, knew that the idle were smiling, the serious were watching to see what he would do. Not only Pease, Fenno, Watson, Branderson, those four powers, held an expectant attitude toward him, but the reform politicians did the same. He knew the public feeling toward abuses might easily be roused, vexed and alarmed as people were with the street railroad. A determined man, in whom the city had confidence, could easily draw many votes to himself. But "wait," he said to himself, "it's not yet time." He had been approached only by Pease, who inquired: "Have you any street-railway stock?" but when Mather replied he had, Pease merely begged him not to sell, and said no more. Yet there had been that in Pease's manner which meant much.

Mather and Judith were far apart in these days; he sighed as he thought of the distance between them, and turned more willingly to the distractions which politics and business offered. He would have been glad to have his opportunities closer at hand, that he might throw himself into the work. Judith, on the other hand, shrank when first her future came suddenly near.

Her father came home late one afternoon; going to greet him, she had found him in the library, unwrapping a parcel. The Colonel, obeying his impulse toward extravagance, had picked up down town a – wait till she saw it!

"It's very much tied up," said Judith.

"It's rather a valuable thing," answered her father, struggling with the string. "If only I had it out here, I'd cut this twine."

"Is it a pair of scissors?" she asked. "Slip the string over the end, sir."

The Colonel displayed it at last, a Japanese dagger. Its hilt and sheath were massive ivory, yellow with age, carved deeply with grotesques of men in combat. A grinning mask formed the pommel, a writhing dragon the guard; the warriors were grappling, hand to hand. The Colonel offered the knife to Judith. "Look at it," he said with pride.

Something made Judith draw back. "I – it's been used."

The Colonel was irritated. "Upon my word, Judith, I should think you were Beth. Of course it's been used; you can see that on the blade. Look!"

He drew it from the sheath. The blade was of the usual stout Japanese model, with a quick edge which much whetting had made very fine. An injury had marred the symmetry of the weapon: it was evident that an eighth of an inch had been broken from the point, which, ground again as sharp as ever, had lost in beauty but gained in suggestiveness. The Colonel touched the point.

"On armour or on bone, do you suppose?" he asked.

Judith had recovered herself. "You're rather grewsome, sir."

"Hang it," he complained, sheathing the knife again. "I thought you'd like it. But Jim will, anyway." He laid the knife on the table.

"You're not going to keep it there?" she asked.

"Indeed I am," he answered. "Don't look at it if you don't want to." He started to go, then paused. "Judith, I have asked Mr. Ellis to dinner."

She was surprised by the statement, so suddenly made and of such deep meaning. All she could do was to repeat his words. "You have asked Mr. Ellis to dinner?"

"Gad!" exclaimed the poor Colonel. "Is anything wrong with you this afternoon? You are hard to please."

"Oh, if you asked him to please me – " she was beginning.

"Well," he explained, "what else could I do when he more than half suggested it? I couldn't be rude to him. I – he – we are pretty good friends."

But he only puzzled her the more. "You are pretty good friends?" asked Judith, again repeating his words.

This conduct on her part made the Colonel spring to the door, where for an instant he stood and beat his temples. "A woman's a devil!" he exclaimed after that interval, and stamped upstairs.

When a man's behaviour takes this turn, or his philosophy leads him to this conclusion, it is safe for the woman to assume that he has something on his conscience. Judith stood startled.

On what terms was Ellis with her father that he could force an invitation to dinner? And his object?

She watched Ellis during that first meal at her table. Judith had never before seen him in evening dress, nor as yet considered him so personally. His manners were good, his behaviour quiet; no one could have said that he was not a fair representation of a gentleman. That he was more he did not claim.

"This is the first time," he said, as he went in with her to the dining-room, "that I have dined in these togs in any house besides my own, public dinners excepted, of course. It feels stranger than I expected."

"Why should it feel strange?" she asked.

"Because I was not born or bred to it, I suppose."

"Certainly," she remarked, "you show nothing of what you feel."

"When I was a boy," he answered, "when I lost by being too eager on my first trade, I learned never again to show what I felt – unless it's my purpose to. To be quiet and steady, looking and not speaking – you can't imagine what that has done for me."

This frankness of his, which she felt was vouchsafed to her alone, was one secret of his success with Judith. She was interested to hear him acknowledge himself a learner; she sympathised with his effort to make himself fit to sit at any table; and she was impressed by his study of manners as earlier he had studied men and markets. She recognised the full power of his determination and his self-control. But also she felt that unmistakably she knew his object. And her father, in manner almost deferential to Ellis, consciously or not was his ally.

Ellis made no approach to the subject which was most on his mind, though through the evening he sat alone with her in the parlour. He spoke, as he always did, of his affairs. Moreover, he went away early. But Judith, when he had gone, gazed at the door which had closed behind him. He was aiming at her! All that determination, all that formidable self-control, were trained upon one object: herself. Then she must look forward, and decide.

Did she wish to marry Ellis? She found no reply as she tried to read herself; instead, her mind was confused by a lesser question: why should her father be so friendly to him?

It would not be fair to Judith to say that she enjoyed the sensation created by her intimacy with Ellis; nevertheless she found piquancy in the little thrills of horror which she caused in her circle. For she knew herself to be honestly interested by Ellis's Napoleonic force, and could retaliate upon her clique by amusement at its littleness. She looked at Ellis with clear eyes, perceiving little flaws which his great powers could condone. Yet at the same time she understood her friends' sincerity in their reprobation of him, and forgave them because they knew no better.

She was perfectly aware that her father had no greater caliber than that general to his class; without the slightest filial disrespect, she knew that the Colonel was not capable of her interest in Ellis as a type and as a force. She would not have resented opposition from her father half so much as she had been puzzled at his acquiescence in Ellis's visits; nor would she have been surprised by a sudden paternal outburst so much as by to-night's encouragement. And understanding him so well, she began to suspect that his motives were different from her own, were lower, and that his interest might be personal. Such a suspicion of her father was quite enough to make her suspect herself.

Three impulses rose within her, and battled together. The first was the old ambition, drawing her to Ellis; the second was refinement, thrusting her away from him. The third was maidenhood, which in Beth was modest but in Judith militant, impelling her to the decision to marry nobody at all. And just now this was strongest.

Nevertheless, Judith recognised the need of a weapon or at least a shield against the assaults which were bound to come. She was not so sure of herself that she dared depend on her own powers alone. Therefore she needed a barrier behind which to retire at need, and she saw but one. Friends could not shield her: she had too few; and pride stood between herself and Mather. Her father would evidently be no protection. Even with Beth her understanding was too slight to be put to use. Employment alone would help her, and of all employments only one attracted her. Yet for that she could be preparing herself.

With bent head she went into the sitting-room where were her father and Beth; they put down their books as she entered, and from the table the Colonel took up the Japanese knife.

"Beth doesn't like this much more than you do," he said.

"It's sinister," explained Beth. "All its beauty conceals a threat; its only purpose is to bring death."

"In the past, in the past!" protested her father. "It's only an ornament now."

"Perfectly horrid!" This from Beth, but Judith said: "It must have cost a good deal."

"Oh, well – " the Colonel responded, waving away the subject.

"Father," said Judith abruptly, "I want a hundred dollars."

"A hundred dollars!" he cried. "Where is a hundred dollars to come from in a jiffy?"

"Beth and I dislike the knife so," she suggested. "You might get the dealer to take it back."

Experienced women know how unwilling men are to return boughten articles. "I didn't get it on trial, like a wash-wringer," retorted the Colonel. "What do you want your hundred dollars for?"

"A typewriter."

"A typewriter!" he exclaimed, and Beth echoed the word.

Judith made no explanation. "Why, that's quite out of the usual line of expenditure," objected the Colonel. "It's an extravagance."

"A Japanese dagger might be called an extravagance," Judith returned.

"Then," answered her father, "so might those furs you bought the other day. I told you your old set was good enough."

"If I return the furs," she asked, "will you return the dagger?"

"No, by Jove!" he cried. "It's for me to decide what I will do with my own. I'm the provider."

"And you provide very well," she returned sweetly.

He looked at her with suspicion which sprang from remembrance of his methods as provider, but since she seemed to have no hidden meaning he returned to his reading. Judith, still sweetly, bade them good-night.

But the next day she started from the house dressed in all the glory of her latest possessions. "Judith," asked Beth, "you aren't going to wear those furs in the morning?"

"Say good-by to them," answered her sister.

"Judith!" gasped Beth. But Judith only smiled serenely and left the house. By the assurance in bargaining which always carries its point, and which is distinctly feminine, she got for her furs exactly what she gave for them. That afternoon a typewriter was delivered at the house.

It was Mather who had helped her to buy it, Mather who, happening into the store while she was there, had told her that the increase of his business was forcing him to employ more stenographers. So he, even by the most material of standards, was coming on. In order to forget him, she was forced to think of Ellis, and to repeat such aphorisms as Anyone can be a Gentleman, It takes Genius to be a Man. But after she had thought of Ellis for a little while, again came the revulsion.

Judith, when in her chamber she first removed the cover of her typewriter, stood for a long while gazing at its black enamel and its nickeled keys. The machine became a symbol, a warning of fate, and though in the coming days she practised its use almost eagerly, the typewriter never lost its significance. It was but a feeble defense against the victor of the two rivals.

Victor? The word was bitter. It came always with the force of a blow, staggering her amazonian spirit: must she yield in the end? Bitter, indeed, that while she rebelled against her womanhood she was forced to recognise and dread it. Temporise or struggle as she might, she felt that there lay before her an inevitable choice.

CHAPTER XIX

"Put Money in thy Purse"

While Judith Blanchard, as if defying fate, held her head higher than before, there grew on one of our characters, namely Jim Wayne, the habit of looking at the ground. Jim was one of those who, having a weak little conscience, cannot be wicked with an air.

And yet Mrs. Harmon, if she saw any change in him, thought it was for the better. Into her eyes, at least, he looked freely; his glance was more ardent, and only when she spoke of Beth did he glower and look away. In their conversations, therefore, Beth was no longer mentioned. Nor did he ever speak to Beth of his intimacy with Mrs. Harmon.

Thus Beth was surprised one day when, meeting Mrs. Wayne, the elder lady asked: "Wasn't it pleasant to see Jim last night?"

"Jim?" asked Beth. "Was he in town?"

"He came to the house for just one minute. I supposed he was hurrying to see you. Ah, Beth, we mothers!" And Mrs. Wayne sighed.

"But he didn't come to see me," said Beth. "It must have been business that brought him. I'll ask George."

Mather said he had seen Jim, but only by accident, when, returning from the theater, Wayne had passed him, apparently hurrying for the late train.

"In town all the evening and didn't come to see me?" thought Beth. The idea troubled her so much that Mather perceived it.

Yet no outsider understood the situation quite so clearly as Ellis, who had been before Jim at the Harmons' that evening, and left soon after he came. "I'm going to the Blanchards'," he said. "Shall I tell them to expect you, Mr. Wayne?"

Jim was so unskilled in finesse that he said he was going to take the early train. Ellis smiled.

"You shan't tease him!" declared Mrs. Harmon, putting her hand on Jim's sleeve. At which childishness the smile on Ellis's face became broad, and he went away. Returning after a couple of hours, he was in time to see Jim leave the house hastily, on his way to the station. A woman's silhouette showed on the glass of the vestibule door, and Ellis tried a trick. He ran quickly up the steps and knocked on the door. It was opened immediately.

"Back again?" asked Mrs. Harmon eagerly. "Oh, it's only you, Stephen!"

"Only me," and he turned to go, but she seized him.

"Why did you do that?" she demanded, and then not waiting for an answer asked: "You didn't tell the Blanchards he was here?"

"Not I," he replied. "Lydia, why do you hold me so?"

"Why did you startle me so?" she retorted. "But go along with you!" So he went, having by his manoeuver found out enough.

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.