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CHAPTER III

Sets the Ball to Rolling

No young man can bear to sit down idly under misfortune; but though the chief results of Mather's work were lost to him, and his great plans – his subway – swept away, and though his defeat rankled, he had not suspected personal feeling in Ellis's action. The promoter had merely stretched out his hand and taken, repudiating the pledges of those who spoke in his name.

Therefore, in spite of the little shock which Mather felt when he saw Ellis with Judith, he came forward and greeted politely. It was a chance, of course, to "get back"; it would have been easy to express surprise at the promoter's presence, and to ask how he liked the club now that he really was there. Mather felt the temptation, but there was too much behind his relations with Ellis for the younger man to be rude, and he presently found himself saying: "I don't suppose you play golf, Mr. Ellis?"

"No," Ellis answered. This was the first man who had greeted him freely that day, and yet the one who most might feel resentment. While his manner showed that he was about to speak again, Ellis looked the other over with a smile which concealed deliberation. It was not weakness that made Mather mild, in spite of Mrs. Harmon's belief, to which she clung the more because the Judge rejected it. "I knew his father," her husband had told her. "They are bulldogs in that stock." Ellis took much the same view; once, at the beginning of his career, he had encountered Mather's father, and had found him a bulldog indeed. The son seemed the same in so many respects that Ellis wondered if he had thought quite long enough in seizing this morning's opportunity. He knew well that Mather would be stronger when next he entered the arena; besides, the reform politicians, those bees who buzzed continually and occasionally stung, had been after the young man, who, with the leisure to enter politics, might be formidable. Thus Ellis, hesitating, ran over the whole subject in his mind; and then, as he knew how to do, plunged at his object.

"Mr. Mather, I am sorry for what happened this morning."

"Fortune of war," returned the other.

The young man certainly had a right to be bitter if he chose, judging, at least, by the usual conduct of victims. Mather's peculiarity in this did not escape Ellis, who spoke again with some hope of forgiveness. "I trust that you and I may some day work together."

"I scarcely expect it," was the answer.

"Don't say that." Ellis was not sure what tone to adopt, but did his best. "This is not the place to speak of it, perhaps, but there is surely something I can do for you."

"Now that you have nothing to do, you know," said Judith.

Mather turned to her; he saw how she had put herself on Ellis's side; how her interest in this offer was due to Ellis, not to himself. And the reminder of his defeat was most unwelcome.

"Since this morning," he said, "I have been offered three positions."

"Oh!" cried Judith. The involuntary note of surprise showed how she had underrated him, and Mather bit his lip.

Ellis spoke. "If you will take a position on the street-railroad – "

"Nothing subordinate there!" cut in Mather very positively.

"Then," said Ellis, "if you care to be the head of the water company – "

"Oh!" Judith exclaimed before Ellis had completed his offer. "Such an opportunity!"

Mather himself looked at Ellis in surprise. It was an opening which, coming from any other source, he would have accepted eagerly, as a task in which he could give free play to all his powers. Did Ellis really mean it? But the promoter, having swiftly asked himself the same question, was sure of his own wisdom. The place needed a man: here was one. Besides, Ellis would have given much to tie Mather to him.

"I mean it," he said positively.

"You must accept," added Judith.

It was too much for Mather to bear. His defeat by Ellis and his loss of Judith – both of these he could sustain as separate calamities. But when he saw her thus siding with his victor, Mather forgot himself, forgot that Ellis was not a man to defy lightly, and spoke the impolitic truth.

"I could not work with Mr. Ellis under any circumstances!"

"George!" cried Judith hotly.

Then there was silence as the men looked at each other. Had Judith been the woman that in her weaker moments she was pleased to think herself, she would have studied the two. But she was neither cool nor impartial; she had put her feelings on Ellis's side, and looked at Mather with indignation. She missed, therefore, the pose of his head and the fire of his eye. She missed as well the narrowing of Ellis's eyes, the forward stretch of his thin neck – snaky actions which expressed his perfect self-possession, and his threat. Neither of them spoke, but Judith did as she turned away.

"You are very rude," she said coldly. "Come, Mr. Ellis, let us walk again." Ellis followed her; Mather stood and watched them walk away.

"It was shameful of him," said Judith when she and Ellis were out of hearing.

"He is young," remarked the other. He was watching her now, as he had watched Mather, out of narrow eyes. Mather's words meant a declaration of interest in Judith, confirming gossip. She was supposed to have refused him, and yet she was biting her lip – would she be quite so moved if Mather had not the power to do it? Ellis promised himself that he would remember this.

"He will know better some day," he said. "But at least he is out of the question. Can you not suggest some one else?"

"There is Mr. Pease," she answered.

Pease and himself – oil and water! How little she knew! and he almost laughed. But he answered meditatively: "He is very – set."

"I see my father is coming for me," she said.

"Let me ask you this, then," he begged quickly. "May I come to see you – at your house?"

"I am afraid not – yet," she answered. She was not ungracious, and continued with much interest: "But Mr. Ellis, I shall be so anxious to hear how it all goes. I am sorry I cannot help you with the men, but the principle is [she thought of Mather] choose the weak ones, not the strong. Here is my father. Father, this is Mr. Ellis."

Colonel Blanchard was affable. "How de do?" he said breezily. "Fine day for the match, Mr. Ellis."

"A very fine day," answered Ellis, pleased by the way in which the Colonel looked at him; Blanchard seemed interested, like his daughter. But Judith thought that the conversation had best end there.

"The carriage has come?" she asked.

"Yes," answered the Colonel. "Beth is in it, waiting for us. You know she goes out to dinner." He begged Ellis to excuse them, and so carried his daughter away.

Ellis looked after them; these two, at least, had treated him well. The Colonel had stared with almost bourgeois interest, as if impressible by wealth and power. Ellis mused over the possibility of such a thing.

"The weak," he said, repeating Judith's words. "The weak, not the strong."

Then Mrs. Harmon swooped down on him. "Here you are," she said petulantly. "Everybody's going. Let us go too."

CHAPTER IV

An Understanding

Mrs. Harmon was very petulant; indeed, her aspect in one of lower station would have been deemed sulky. Reviewing the afternoon, she was convinced that to have brought Ellis there was a great mistake. Why should she take up with him, anyway? He could give her nothing but – trinkets; the old acquaintance was not so close that she was bound to help him. It had been condescension on her part; she might as well stop it now; yes, she might as well.

Yet she thought with some uneasiness of those trinkets. To accept them had not bound her to him, had it? Their money value was nothing to him. She could break from him gradually – that would be simple enough – and she could make a beginning on the drive home, for silence could show her feelings.

Ellis understood her after one glance, which expressed not only his impatience with her instability, but also a sudden new repulsion. The afternoon had opened his eyes to what the finer women were. How could he have supposed that Mrs. Harmon was really in the inner circle? How she contrasted with Judith! She seemed so flat beside the girl; she was his own kind, while Judith was better. He wished that he might drop the woman and pin his hopes to the girl.

But he could not spare Mrs. Harmon, and he had no fear that she would drop him, for he knew all her weaknesses. She was ambitious to a certain degree, but after that, lazy; she was fond of comfort, fond of – trinkets, with a healthy indifference to ways and means. In fact, although Ellis did not so phrase it, there was a barbaric strain in her, a yearning for flesh-pots and show, in which her husband's tastes and means did not permit her to indulge herself. Ellis knew that he could manage her.

"Lydia," he said, "I want to thank you for the afternoon. It must have been a great bother to you. I'm afraid I spoiled your fun."

She could but respond. "Oh, not much."

"Look here," he went on. "You know me, I think; we understand each other pretty well. These people," and he waved his hand to include the whole golf club, "are not to be too much for us. Do you mind my saying a few words about myself?"

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed with involuntary interest; for he seldom spoke his thoughts.

"That girl, Miss Blanchard," he said, "was very good to me."

"She was?" Mrs. Harmon could not subdue an accent of surprise, but hastened to explain. "I've sometimes found her haughty."

"I shan't forget you introduced me to her," said Ellis. "I mean to follow up my acquaintance there."

"No girl," suggested Mrs. Harmon, "has much influence. No unmarried woman, I mean."

"But when Miss Blanchard marries she will have it then?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Harmon thoughtfully, and then very positively: "Yes, I think she would be a leader of the younger set."

"I am sure she would." Ellis nodded confidently. Judith had faults, notably rashness, but under wise guidance she could develop masterly qualities.

"But why – " began Mrs. Harmon in some perplexity. Then she caught sight of her companion's expression. "What! you don't mean to say that you – you would?"

"Why not?" asked Ellis. "Is it so very strange?"

"You are over forty!" cried Mrs. Harmon.

"Nothing to do with the case," he replied shortly.

"N-no," agreed Mrs. Harmon slowly. "No, I believe not – not with Judith." She looked at her companion with sudden respect. "I believe you've hit upon it! I didn't know you thought of anything of the kind."

"I need you, just the same," said Ellis. "You will help me?"

"Yes, yes," she replied. She felt a nervous inclination to giggle. "It's a big affair."

"All the more credit if you engineer it," he answered, and shrewdly, for she felt stimulated. If she could engineer it! Then she could plume herself in the face of Mrs. Fenno, and would always have a strong ally in Judith.

"Yes," she cried eagerly, "it will mean a great deal to – to everybody if it happens. Why, I could – "

But Ellis would not let her run on. "Do you know her well?" he interrupted.

"I will know her better soon," she stated.

"Not too quick," he warned, fearing that she might blunder. "You know yourself that she is not a girl to be hurried. Tell me, now, what men are there of her family?"

"Only her father."

"And what sort of man is he?"

Mrs. Harmon's vocabulary was not wide. "Why, spreading," she explained. "Jaunty, you know."

"And his circumstances?"

"He is well off," she answered. "Keeps a carriage and spends freely. There was money in the family, and his wife had some too. You know how those old fortunes grow."

Or disappear, thought Ellis; he had been investigating the Colonel's standing. "Miss Blanchard has no cousins?" he asked aloud. "No other men attached to her?"

"Attached in one sense," she replied, "but not connected."

"Much obliged," he said. "Now, Lydia, if we stand by each other – "

Mrs. Harmon had forgotten her earlier thoughts. "Of course!" she cried. "Oh, it will be so interesting!"

Ellis added the finishing touch, abruptly changing the subject. "You have been to Price's recently?"

Now Price was the fashionable jeweller, and few women were indifferent to his name. Mrs. Harmon, recollecting the cause of her recent visit there, saw fit to be coy.

"Oh, yes," she said, turning her head away. "He keeps asking me to come."

"He's always picking up pretty things," said Ellis approvingly. "Did he have anything special this time?"

"Something of Orsini's," replied Mrs. Harmon, struggling to appear indifferent. For they had been lovely, those baroque pearls so gracefully set in dusky gold. Price had made her try the necklace on, and she had sighed before the glass. "I wish he wouldn't pester me so," she said irritably. "He knows I can't afford them."

"He knows you have taste," Ellis said warmly. "He calls it a great pleasure to show things to you."

"I know," she replied, mollified. "I think he means to flatter me. But, Stephen, it's getting late, and I must dress for the Fennos' ball this evening."

"Then," responded Ellis, "I will stop at Price's on my way down-town."

"Naughty! naughty!" she answered, but she radiated smiles.

Ellis, after he had left Mrs. Harmon at her door, went, as he had promised, to the establishment of the pushing Mr. Price, and asked for the proprietor.

"Got anything to show me?" Ellis demanded.

From his safe the jeweller brought out a leather case, and looked at Ellis impressively before opening it.

"Pretty small," commented Ellis.

"Ah, but – " replied the other, and opened the case. "Look – Orsini's make!"

"I don't know anything about that," Ellis said as he poked the jewels with his finger. "Look strange to me. The fashion, however?"

"The very latest," Price assured him. "Trust me, Mr. Ellis."

It was one secret of Ellis's success that he knew where to trust. He had ventured twice that day, with women at that, and the thought of it was to trouble him before he slept. But he could trust Price in matters of taste, and as to secrecy, the man was bound to him. Price had been in politics at the time when Ellis was getting "influence" in the city government; for the jeweller those days were past, but this store and certain blocks of stock were the result. Besides, he was adroit. Ellis gave the chains and pendants a final push with his finger.

"Send it, then," he said. "The usual place. By the way, how much? Whew! some things come dear, don't they? But send it, just the same, and at once. She's going out to some affair."

Thus it happened that Mrs. Harmon wore "the very latest" at her throat that night.

CHAPTER V

Various Points of View

The Blanchards' equipage was a perfect expression of quiet respectability, for the carriage was sober in colour, was drawn by a strong and glossy horse, and was driven by a coachman wearing a modest livery and a discontented countenance. As it drove away from the golf club the carriage held the three members of the family, in front the younger daughter, Beth, and on the rear seat the others: Judith erect and cheerful, the Colonel cheerful also, but lounging in his corner with the air of one who took the world without care. Blanchard was fifty-eight, military as to voice and hair, for his tones were sonorous and his white whiskers fierce. Yet these outward signs by no means indicated his nature, and his manner, though bluff, appertained less to military life than to the game of poker. Not that the Colonel played cards; moreover, he drank merely in moderation, swore simply to maintain his character, betrayed only by the tint of the left side of his mustache that he liked a good cigar, and was extravagant in neither dress nor table. He kept his carriage, of course, liked the best wines at home and at the club, and in a small way was a collector of curios. Yet the Blanchards, but for the brilliance of Judith, were quiet people; he was proud to be a quiet man.

Dullness is often the penalty of indolence; the Colonel was lazy and he had small wit. Perceiving that Judith came away from the tea stimulated and even excited, he rallied her about her new acquaintance. "An interesting man, hey?" he asked for the third time.

"Yes," answered Judith absently. "Father, what is there against Mr. Ellis?"

"Only that he is a pusher. He jars." Blanchard aimed to be tolerant.

"Isn't there more?" asked little Beth.

The Colonel, as always, turned his eyes on her with pleasure. She was dark and quiet and sweet, yet her brown eyes revealed a power of examining questions for their moral aspects. "Nothing much," he said indulgently. "You don't know business, Beth. He's beaten his opponents always, and the beaten always squeal, but I doubt if he's as black as he's painted."

"I'm glad to hear you stand up for him, father," said Judith.

"He'll be looking for a wife among us," went on the Colonel with vast shrewdness and considerable delicacy. "How would he suit you, Judith?"

"Oh, father!" Beth protested. But Judith, with fire in her eyes, answered: "He's at least a man. You can't say that of every one."

Her answer made him turn toward her with a soberer thought and a new interest. His manner changed from the natural to the pompous as he set forth his views. "Money is almost the best thing one can have."

"Father, dear!" protested Beth again.

"I mean," he explained, again softening his manner, "from a father's standpoint. If I could see you two girls married with plenty of money, I could die happy." But evidently the Colonel was in the best of health, so that his words lacked impressiveness. It was one of the misfortunes of their family life that Judith was able to perceive the incongruity between her father's Delphic utterances and his actual feelings, and that the Colonel knew she found him out.

"I wasn't thinking of Mr. Ellis's money," she said at this point.

"I was," retorted the Colonel. As he was struggling with a real thought, his tones became a little less sonorous and more genuine. "In sickness riches give everything. In health there are enough troubles without money cares. I mean it, Judith."

She took his hand and caressed it. "Forgive me, father!"

"My dear – my dear!" he responded cordially.

So this, the type of their little jars, the sole disturbers of family peace, passed as usual, rapidly and completely, and Ellis was spoken of no more. Beth, with customary adroitness, came in to shift the subject, and when the three descended at their door none of them shared the coachman's air of gloom.

He, however, detained the Colonel while the girls went up the steps. "Beg pardon, sir, but could you give me a little of my wages?"

"James," returned his master with his most military air, "why will you choose such inconvenient times? Here is all I have with me." He gave some money. "Twenty dollars."

"Yessir," replied the man, not overmuch relieved. "And the rest of it, sir? There's a hundred more owing."

"Not to-day," returned the Colonel with vexation. But he was an optimist. Though at the bottom of the steps he muttered to himself something about "discharge," by the time he reached the top he was absorbed in cheerful contemplation of the vast resources which, should Judith ever chance to marry Ellis, would be at her disposal.

Five minds were, that evening, dominated by the occurrences of the afternoon. One was the Colonel's, still entertaining a dream which should properly be repugnant to one of his station. This he recognised, but he reminded himself that as a parent his daughter's good should be his care. Another mind was Mather's, disturbed by the jealousy and dread which the manliest of lovers cannot master. And one was Mrs. Harmon's; she, like Ellis, had learned much that afternoon, and meant in future to apply her knowledge.

As that evening she went to the Fennos' ball Mrs. Harmon recalled the snubs of the afternoon, and saw how insecure her footing was among these people. Sometimes she had wondered if it were worth while, this struggle to be "in"; the life was dull, lacking all natural excitements; there was no friendship possible with any of the blue-bloods. Yet she hated to knuckle to them; if she could engineer this match between Judith and Ellis, then – ! And Mrs. Harmon, with the hope of coming triumph, felt fully equal to meeting Mrs. Fenno on her own ground. Mrs. Harmon wore Ellis's jewels on her breast, she had his brain to back her, she believed she knew Judith's weaknesses, and she saw before her a bright future.

Judith Blanchard made at that ball a searching review of her world, dominated as she still was by the thoughts which Ellis aroused. For he, the strongest personality in the city, had done more than to excite her curiosity: with his deference to her opinion and his appeal for her help he had succeeded – as Mather never – in wakening her sympathy. Questioning why fashion should reject him, stirred to a new comparison of reality with sham, she looked keenly about her at the ball. She was in one of the inner sanctuaries, where society bowed down and worshiped itself. Judith sniffed the incense, listened to the chants, and weighed the words of officiating priests and priestesses. She found everything to delight the eye, except the idols; everything to charm the senses, except sense.

In the ball-room there was dancing, pagan rites to what purpose? This usually unrhythmic swaying, skipping, sliding, seemed a profitless way to pass the hours when workers were in bed. Girls more or less innocent danced with men more or less roué; this procedure, indefinitely continued, gave occasion for jealousies among the girls and selfish scheming among the men. In other rooms the older people played cards, intent at bridge or whist upon their stakes. Near the buffet thronged bachelors old or young, with not a few married men, busied in acquiring an agreeable exhilaration. Their occupation was no worse than the passionate gambling of the old women. And the house in which all this went on was beautifully classic in design and furnishings. Beside that quiet elegance, how vacant was the chatter! As Judith thought thus, slowly the spirit of revolt came to her.

The master of the house approached her; he was leonine, massive, somewhat lame from rheumatism. She saw him, as he came, speaking among his guests; his smile was cynical. It lighted upon her father, and the Colonel, his character somehow exposed by that smile, seemed shallow. It turned to the men at the sideboard, and their interests seemed less than the froth in their glasses. The smile turned on Judith, and she felt called to give an account of herself.

But he merely asked her: "Where is Beth?"

"Gone with Miss Pease to a meeting of the Charity Board," Judith answered.

Mr. Fenno grunted, looking at her sidewise. "Better employed than we!"

Then he rambled away, neither knowing nor caring what encouragement he had given to her mood. He missed Beth, for his rheumatism was sharp, the company inane, and Beth was almost the only person who could make him contented with himself. But Judith felt the reflection of his cynicism and was stirred still deeper. What was there to interest her here?

Among all the women Mrs. Harmon alone was in disaccord. No dressmaker could conceal her natural style; the eye and carriage of the Judge's wife were bolder than those of the women about her. A free humour attracted some of the men; the women avoided her, the more delicate from instinct, the stronger with a frank dislike. This antipathy Judith had often felt and expressed, yet to-night she reviewed and rejected it. Mrs. Harmon belonged to the class of the rising Americans; in that class Judith felt interest, questioning if its vigour and freshness should not outweigh external faults. She went to Mrs. Harmon and began to talk with her.

She tried to find, within the exterior, the solid qualities of the middle class. But thought and purpose seemed lacking; in Mrs. Harmon the vulgarity lay deeper than the surface. She was frivolous; she liked the sparkle and the show, the wine, the dancing, and the gaiety. Promising herself an intimacy with Judith, she talked willingly, but it was only upon the subject of Ellis that she became interesting.

She told Judith much about him. He had always been persevering and ambitious; he had left his town as a boy because even then he found it too little. Ellis had begun small; now he was big. Some day, said Mrs Harmon significantly, people would recognise him.

Why not, thought Judith as she looked about her, admit Ellis here? What was an aristocracy for but to reward success? How could it remain sound but by the infusion of new blood? Ellis had proved his quality by the things he had done; he had beaten Mather; yet these halls which to Mather were open were closed to Ellis. It was unfair to refuse to recognise him! What were the abilities of these men here, compared with his?

Thus Judith, tolerant in her broad Americanism, admiring the forces which to-day are accomplishing such marvellous results, thought of her world. At the same time Ellis also was thinking of it. His was the fifth mind moved by that afternoon's occurrence, but moved the most deeply of them all. On leaving Judith first, like a man smitten by a slender blade he had spoken, acted, thought as before. Then the inward bleeding began, and the pain. He had gone away from her thinking of her as something to be won, but no more distant, no less a commodity, than a public franchise or a seat in the legislature. Thus he had discussed her with Mrs. Harmon, but before night his thought of the girl had changed. Her refinement was new to him; he recalled her in imagination and dwelt on her features and her voice. Yet, equally with her delicacy, her spirit charmed him with its frankness and its admiration of great things. There was a subtle flattery in her interest in him; he had never thought of himself as she did; he saw himself magnified in her eyes, which seemed to refine the baseness from his employments and purposes. She gave him a new idea of himself, and held before him vague new aims.

He had entertained some of his henchmen that evening at his table, had tasted while they ate, sipped while they drank, listened while they spoke of politics. He sat at the head of the table, like the Sphinx after which he was familiarly called, indifferent to their uncouthness and their little thoughts; then at the end he suddenly called them into executive session, asked a few keen questions, gave some brief directions, and dismissed them. Thus he had always ruled them, from outside, commanding respect by his decision, almost awe by his silence. Though his purposes were not clear, the men went to obey him, having learned to support him blindly, for he never failed. Such was Ellis among his subordinates, the "old man" of whom they never asked questions, with whom they never attempted familiarity. They praised him as they went, proud of their connection with him. But he put out the lights as soon as the men were gone, and sat at the window, looking at Fenno's house.

There was the temporary focus of social life; he saw the lights; had he opened his window he might have heard the music. Carriages drove up, people entered the house, and on the curtains of the ball-room he saw moving shadows. In that house were what he wanted – recognition, a new life, Judith. But she was guarded by the powers of a whole order, was infinitely remote.

His talk with Judith had doubled his determination to enter the upper world, and yet changed his regard for it. It became Judith's world, seeming to-night like a house which she inhabited, more precious by her presence. And because she was so much finer than he had imagined the women of her class, her sphere looked farther away, and his determination to enter it was tempered by the fear of failure.

As he took the first step in his new venture, he had been half ashamed of his desire to "better himself," quite unable to justify himself by appeal to the natural American wish to obtain the highest indorsement of his community. So long as there had been anything left for him to win, he had turned instinctively toward it. Now he suddenly realised that he faced his greatest fight. He had often said that he liked fighting; he had struggled for many years with all the power of nerve and mind. To-night his brain seemed weary, bruised and scarred as a body might be. Watching the house where Judith was, contemplating her image, a softness came over Ellis, new to him; resolution became a wish, and then turned to yearning. It was with difficulty that he roused himself, surprise mingling with his contempt of the unrecognised sensation. He was in for it now, he told himself almost roughly; the game was worth the candle, and he would see it through.