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Then she learned more of him. He was domesticating himself there, kept a cat-boat, and had even bought a cottage. Beth pointed out the little house, a good example of provincial architecture.

"You didn't tell us you were going to buy," Judith reproached him when he came to call.

"Oh," he answered indirectly, "I fell in love with the place, and the family mahogany fits in there exactly. Did you notice my roses?"

Then he spoke of gardening, and gave Judith no chance to tell him what she thought about his work. Had he done so, she might even have let him know that she had overheard his talk with Gross, and that his action pleased her. But he avoided the subject; his call was brief, and after he had gone he did not return for a number of days. Chebasset was not lively that summer; Judith grew lonesome, and more than once thought of Mather. His conduct piqued and puzzled her. Now was his chance, as he ought to know. What had become of the lover who used to bring to her his hopes and fears?

As for that lover, he had less time at his disposal than Judith supposed. All day he was at the mill, or else went to Stirling on necessary business; at night he was very tired. Yet though he knew he was leaving Judith to her own devices, he did it deliberately. Until she was tired of freedom, until she had satisfied her interest in the great world, she would come to no man's call. Perhaps his conclusion was wise, perhaps it was not, for while at a distance he watched Judith and weighed his chances, Ellis was doing the same.

To the outsider, Mather's path seemed clear; he lived in the same town with Judith, might see her every day, and, worst of all, was prospering. "I'll touch him up," said Ellis grimly to himself. "He'll buy a house, will he?" And from that time he kept well informed of Mather's business acts, watching for a chance to trip him. Ellis knew all the ways of those three great forces: politics, capital, and labour; he could pull so many wires that he counted on acting unobserved.

Minor annoyances met Mather in his business, traceable to no particular source. There was evident discrimination in railroad rates, and yet so small was the increase that proof was difficult. Freight was mislaid and mishandled; it was frequently very vexing. But the real attempt to cripple the new business came toward the middle of the summer, when Ellis, weary of the weak attempts of his subordinates at annoyance, took a hand himself, and looked for some vital flaw in the safeguards of the Electrolytic Company. He believed he found it, and various legal notices came to Mather, all of which remained unanswered. Finally an important official came in person to the office. He introduced himself as Mr. Daggett of the harbour commission.

"I have written you several times," he complained.

"So you have," answered Mather. "Miss Jenks, may Mr. Daggett and I have the office to ourselves for a while? I take it," he added, when the door closed behind the stenographer, "that we are going to be rude to each other. Have a cigar?"

"Thanks," said Daggett, "but I don't see why ye didn't answer."

"I was too busy. Besides, I wanted to get you down here, so as to settle the matter once for all. Will you state the matter plainly; your letters were vague? That is the wharf out there."

Mr. Daggett viewed it through the window. "Yes, it's surely a long wharf. Twenty feet beyond the harbour line. Ye'll have to take it down."

"Or else?" demanded Mather.

"Show a permit."

"Come, there's one other choice."

"Pay a fine," grinned Daggett. "We've set a pretty large sum. The board's irritated, ye see, because ye've paid so little attention to us."

"The board never fails to answer letters, does it?" inquired Mather.

"What do you mean?"

"You're too busy, I suppose. And you don't appear to remember seeing me before, Mr. Daggett."

"Have I?" asked the commissioner.

"You don't recollect that I wrote about this matter two months ago? I had to go to the office to get an answer. You were deep in affairs, Mr. Daggett. I found you and two others playing cards."

"Was I?" asked Daggett.

"When was this harbour line established, anyway? Wasn't it about two weeks ago?"

"Certainly," Mr. Daggett answered. "That has nothing to do with it. But what did we tell you at the office – I can't remember your coming."

"I wasn't there long enough to make much impression," said Mather. "One of your friends told me that all fools knew there was no harbour line here, and I didn't need your permission."

"Hm!" remarked Daggett doubtfully. Then he brightened. "Did we give you that in writing?"

"I didn't ask you for it. You seemed so anxious to go on with your game that I didn't trouble you further."

"Then you have no permission," stated Daggett. "And now that there is a harbour line, what will you do about it?"

"I learned all I wanted of you," said Mather. He had not yet risen from his desk, but now he did so, and going over to his safe, he threw it open. "I asked nothing further because, there being no harbour line, a permit wouldn't have been worth the paper it was written on. I wrote to the Secretary of the Navy." Mather drew a document from a drawer of the safe. "Do you care to see his answer?"

"Whew!" whistled Daggett. "Well, I suppose I might as well."

Mather gave him the paper. "You will see that I have permission to build ten feet farther if I want to, and fifteen broader. I may also build another wharf if I wish, lower down. Are you satisfied?" He touched the bell. "You may come in now, Miss Jenks. Thank you for taking it so easily, Mr. Daggett. I won't keep you from your game any longer. Good-day."

– "And before I left the office he was hard at work again, Mr. Ellis," reported Daggett. "Save me, but he's taken pretty good care of himself, and that's a fact."

Ellis had no comments to make; he did his growling to himself. Seeing nothing further to do, he left Mather alone.

Thus time passed by till that midsummer day when Ellis took the trolley to Chebasset and, once there, strolled among its streets. He viewed the mill from a distance and gritted his teeth at the sight. Mather was well ensconced; it seemed altogether too likely that he might win a wife, among his other successes. Then the promoter left the town and climbed above it on the winding road, viewing the estates of the summer residents as one by one he passed their gates. Should he enter at the Judge's?

A light step sounded on the road as he hesitated at the gate. Someone spoke his name, and there stood Judith Blanchard.

"Here, and in business hours?" she asked.

"My day's work was done," he answered. "Besides, it was not all pleasure that brought me."

Judith's eyes brightened. "Tell me," she suggested.

"Why should I tell you?" he asked bluntly. But the brusqueness only pleased her; he was a man of secrets.

"No reason at all," she answered.

"And yet," he said, "your advice would be valuable, if you will not tell."

"I! I tell?" she asked. "You do not know me."

"Then," he said, "I came to look at land here."

"To look at land here?" she repeated, questioning. "Can you buy here?"

"There is land," he said. "The price would be doubled if it were known I am after it. I have the refusal of it, through agents."

"Where does it lie?" she asked.

"Farther up the road."

"You must not be seen going to it," she declared. "People would take alarm – " She stopped, embarrassed.

"I do not mind," he said, and yet she felt his bitterness. "I am not considered a good neighbour."

"It is wrong of people," she declared earnestly.

"I should not be welcome on any one of these piazzas," he said, indicating the villas beyond them. "The Judge doesn't like me – your own father has no use for me."

"Will you come and try?" she cried. "I should like to see if my father will be rude to my guest."

"You are very kind," he said, "but do you consider – ?"

"I have invited you," she interrupted. "Will you come?"

"With pleasure," he answered. They went up the hill together.

CHAPTER VIII

The Progress of Acquaintance

Judith, before she met Ellis for this second time, had been bored. Chebasset was so dull that it was dreary; in the country-houses were given little teas, slow whist-parties, or stupid luncheons. Of the young people of her age some had married, others had gone into business, and the self-content of the first of these was not to be disturbed, nor the fatigue of the others to be increased, for the sake of giving Judith a good time. She became a little impatient with her surroundings, therefore, and as the sizzling summer brought physical discomfort, she was inclined to lay the blame where it could scarcely with justice be said to belong. Yet while her acquaintances were not responsible for the heat, Judith, with her abundant energies unused, was right in feeling that society was sunk in sloth, and that instead of giving itself to petty diversions it had better do something worth while. She was discontented with herself, her idleness, her uselessness; she felt that she would rather face even the heat of the city, and be doing, than stay longer on her piazza and keep cool. Therefore she had sought the dusty road as a sort of penance, and meeting Ellis, had been reminded of what he stood for: the world of working men and women.

She had thought of him many times since their first meeting, making his achievements a standard to which only Pease and Fenno approximated, and of which Mather fell far short. She had continued to read of Ellis in the newspapers, to watch his slow course of uninterrupted success, and had come to accept the popular idea of his irresistible genius. Feeling this natural admiration of his immense energy and skill, in her heart she made little of the two obstacles which were said to lie in his path. For it was claimed, first, that some day the street-railway would prove too much for him, bringing him as it did in contact with the organised mass of labourers, and with the public which Mather had accustomed to an excellent standard of service. Could Ellis always maintain the present delicate balance between dividends, wages, and efficiency? Again it was said that some day he would come in conflict with Judith's own class, which, when it chose to exert its power, would rise and hurl him down. Judith put no belief in either of these prophesies, considering Ellis able to avoid all difficulties, her caste too flabby to oppose him. So she thought of him as destined always to conquer; he would win his way even among the elect, and might become a friend of hers. For she could help him; they were alike in their loneliness, and their outlook upon life was the same. Therefore when she met him she welcomed him.

A fillip to the wheel of her fate was given as she and Ellis went up the hill. They met Miss Fenno coming down. Now Miss Fenno was the extreme type of the society-bred person, knowing nothing but the one thing. Her interests were so small that they included less than the proverbial four-hundred people; her prejudices were so large that they formed a sort of Chinese wall to exclude any real humanity of soul. And all she did at this juncture was to gaze very superciliously at Ellis, and then to give the coldest of nods to Judith as she passed.

"The Fenno manner," grumbled Ellis to himself.

But Judith flamed with resentment. She brought Ellis up to her own piazza, a few minutes later, with that in her bearing which her father recognised as her panoply of war: quietness, erectness, something of hauteur. The Colonel rose hastily.

"I have brought Mr. Ellis," she said.

"Glad to see him!" exclaimed the Colonel as if he had been spurred. "Mr. Ellis is a stranger in Chebasset."

Ellis had the wisdom to attempt no manner. "I come here seldom," he responded. "You are very kind to welcome me, Colonel."

He wondered if the use of the title were proper in the upper circle, and if he should have answered differently. Moments such as this made the game seem scarcely worth the candle; the nerve and fiber used up were more than a day of business would require. But his qualities asserted themselves. Here he was where he most wanted to be; he meant to win the right to come again.

"What do you think of our view?" the Colonel asked, leading his guest to the edge of the piazza. The hill fell away steeply, the town lay below, and scattered on the farther hillsides were the villas of the well-to-do. The Colonel began pointing out the residences. "Alfred Fenno over there – Alfred, not William, you know; richer than his brother, but not so prominent. And down there is Branderson; he overlooks the river, but he also sees the new chimney, which we miss." The Colonel added, "A good deal of money he has spent there."

"I should think so," agreed Ellis.

"The Dents are over there," Blanchard proceeded. "Rather pretentious the house is, in my opinion, like – " his voice faded away; he had had in mind Ellis's own house in the city. " – Er, gingerbready, don't you think?"

"The elms don't let me see it very well," Ellis was glad to answer. For what was gingerbready? Sticky?

"But much money in it," said the Colonel. "Dent has made a good thing of his mills."

"Very good thing," murmured Ellis. He was interested to hear these comments of an insider.

"Kingston's place is over there," continued the Colonel. "Now, I like, do you know, Mr. Ellis, what Kingston has done with that house. Small, but a gem, sir – a gem! Money has not been spared – and there's lots of money there!" quoth the Colonel, wagging his head.

Ellis began to perceive the monotony of these descriptions. Money, riches; riches, money. And there was an unction to each utterance which might betray the inner man. Judith perceived this also.

"Let us have tea," she said, and going where the tea-table stood, she rang for the maid. But the Colonel continued:

"And William Fenno is over there – a fine house, Mr. Ellis; pure Georgian, a hundred years old if it's a day. A very old family, and a very old family fortune. The West India trade did it, before our shipping declined."

"Long ago," murmured Ellis. He knew very little of those old days. The present and the immediate future concerned him, and as for the causes of industrial changes, he was one himself.

"Come," insisted Judith, "come and sit down, and let us leave off talking of people's possessions."

"Judith! My dear!" remonstrated the Colonel. But the maid was bringing out the steaming kettle, and he took his seat by the table. "My daughter," he said to Ellis, half playfully, "does not concern herself with things which you and I must consider."

Judith raised her eyebrows. "Do you take sugar, Mr. Ellis?" she asked.

"Sugar, if you please," he answered. He was divided in his interest as he sat there, for he had taken from the chair, and now held in his hand, the newspaper which the Colonel had been reading as they arrived. Ellis saw pencillings beside the stock-exchange reports, but though he wished to read them he did not dare, and so laid the paper aside to watch Judith make the tea. This was new to him. Mrs. Harmon had never taken the trouble to offer him tea, though the gaudy outfit stood always in her parlour. He knew that the "proper thing" was his at last, in this detail, but how to take the cup, how hold it, drink from it? Confound the schoolboy feeling!

"It was hot in the city to-day?" asked the Colonel.

"Uncomfortable," answered Ellis. "You are fortunate, Miss Blanchard, not to have to go to the city every day, as some girls do."

"I'm not so sure," she responded. "It's dull here, doing nothing. I sometimes wish I were a stenographer."

"Judith!" exclaimed her father.

"To earn your own living?" asked Ellis.

"I should not be afraid to try," she replied.

"You'd make a good stenographer, I do believe," he exclaimed.

"Thank you," she answered.

His enthusiasm mounted. "I have a situation open!" he cried.

"You wouldn't find her spelling perfect," commented the Colonel grimly. He laughed with immense enjoyment at his joke, and at the moment Beth Blanchard came out of the house and joined them.

Ellis did not see her at first; he was watching the Colonel, and divined that no great barrier separated him from the aristocrat; there had been in Blanchard's manner nothing that expressed repulsion – nothing like Fenno's coolness, for instance, or the constant scrutiny which was so uncomfortable. Blanchard had seemed willing to fill up his idle hours by speech with any one; he was a new specimen, therefore, and Ellis was studying him, when of a sudden he heard Judith speak his name, and looked up to meet the gaze of a pair of quiet eyes. With a little start he scrambled to his feet.

"My sister," Judith was saying.

He bowed and endeavoured to speak, but he felt that the beginning was wrong. Beth was in turn dissecting him; she was something entirely different from Judith, more thoughtful, less headstrong. The idea that here was an adverse influence came into his mind, as he stammered that he was pleased to meet her.

"Thank you, Mr. Ellis," she answered. Judith noticed that Beth on her part expressed no pleasure. The little sister had individuality, with a persistence in her own opinion which sometimes contrasted strongly with her usual softness. But the incident was brief, for Beth's eye lighted as she saw a visitor at the corner of the piazza, hesitating with hat in hand.

"Mr. Pease!" she exclaimed.

The little conventionalities of this new welcome also passed. Mr. Pease had met Mr. Ellis; he was delighted to find the family at home; the others were equally pleased that he had come. But when the pause came it was awkward, for Judith and Ellis were clearly uncongenial with Beth and Pease; it required the Colonel's intervention to prevent a hopeless attempt at general conversation. He drew Ellis away; Judith followed, and Beth sat down to serve Pease with tea.

Then the Colonel himself withdrew, on pretext of the need to catch the mail. He went into the library to write, and Judith turned to Ellis.

"Can we go from here to see the land you spoke of?"

"The old Welton place," he said. "Do you know the way?"

"Certainly," answered Judith. They excused themselves to the others.

As they prepared to go, the Colonel looked at them from his desk; then turned his eyes on Beth and Pease. A thrill of wonder, then a sense of exultation seized him. Attractive girls they both were, and the men were the two richest in the city.

Judith conducted Ellis through shrubbery and across fields, up the hillside to a spot where little trees were growing in an old cellar, while charred timbers lying half buried spoke of the catastrophe which had destroyed the house. "I remember the fire," Judith said. "I was a child then, but I stood at the window in the night, mother holding me, and watched the house burn down. Mr. Welton would neither build again nor sell. But the place is on the market now?"

"He's to marry again, I understand," answered Ellis. They both accepted the fact as explaining any and all departures from previous lines of conduct.

"Would you build on this spot?" she asked him.

"What would you advise?" he returned. She swept the situation with her gaze.

"There are sites higher up, or lower down," she said. "Lower is too low. Higher – you might see the chimney."

Ellis noted with satisfaction the prejudice against Mather's landmark, but he passed the remark by. "Don't you like," he said, "a house placed at the highest possible point? It is so striking."

"Couldn't it be too much so?" she inquired.

He turned his sharp look on her, willing to take a lesson and at the same time make it evident that he welcomed the instruction. "That is a new idea," he said. "It explains why that chimney, for instance, is unpleasant."

"It is so tall and – stupid," explained Judith; "and you never can get rid of it."

"I understand," he said. "Then perhaps this is the best place to build. I could get it roofed in before winter, easily, and have the whole thing ready by next summer. Stables where the barn stands, I suppose. My architect could get out the plans in a fortnight."

"The same architect," queried Judith, "that built your city house?" There was that in her voice which seized Ellis's attention.

"You don't like his work?" he demanded.

"Why," she hesitated, caught, "I – you wouldn't put a city house here, would you?"

"I like the kind," he said. "Stone, you know; turrets, carvings, imps, and that sort of thing. All hand-work, but they get them out quickly. Kind of a tall house. Wouldn't that do here?"

"No, no, Mr. Ellis," she answered quickly, almost shuddering at his description. "Think how out of place – here. On a hill a low house, but a long one if you need it, is proper."

"Oh," he said slowly, thinking. "Seems reasonable. But tall is the kind Smithson always builds."

"I know," answered Judith. Smithson was responsible for a good deal, in the city.

Again Ellis searched her face. "You don't care for my city house?"

She had to tell the truth. "For my taste," she acknowledged, "it's a little – ornate."

"That's ornamental?" he asked. "But that's what I like about it. Don't the rest of my neighbours care for it any more than you do?"

"Some do not," she admitted.

"I guess that most of you don't, then," he decided. "Well, well, how a fellow makes mistakes! One of those quiet buildings with columns, now, such as I tore down, I suppose would have been just the thing?"

"Yes," she said. "But Mr. Ellis, you mustn't think – "

He smiled. "Never mind, Miss Blanchard. You would say something nice, I'm sure, but the mischief's done; the building's there, ain't it?"

"I wish – " she began.

"And really I'm obliged to you," he went on. "Because I might have built a house here just like the other. Now we'll have it right – if I decide to build here at all."

"Then you've not made up your mind?"

"Almost," he said. "The bargain's all but closed. Only it seems so useless, for a bachelor." He looked at her a moment. "Give me your advice," he begged. "Sometimes I think I'm doing the foolish thing."

"Why, Mr. Ellis, what can I – and it's not my affair."

"Make it your affair!" he urged. "This is very important to me. I don't want to sicken these people by crowding in; you saw what Miss Fenno thought of me this afternoon. But if there is any chance for me – what do you say?"

It was the mention of Miss Fenno that did it. She sprang up in Judith's consciousness, clothed in her armour of correctness – proper, prim, and stupid. And in Judith was roused wrath against this type of her life, against her class and its narrowness. She obeyed her impulse, and turned a quickening glance on him.

"Would you turn back now?" she asked.

"That is enough!" he cried, with sudden vehemence.

For a while they stood and said no more. Judith saw that he looked around him on the level space where his house was to stand; then he cast his glance down toward those estates which he would overlook. His eye almost flashed – was there more of the hawk or the eagle in his gaze? Judith thought it was the eagle; she knew she had stirred him anew to the struggle, and was exhilarated. Unmarked at the moment, she had taken a step important to them both. She had swayed him to an important decision, and had become in a sense an adviser.

Yet aside from that, she had stimulated him strangely. Her enthusiasm was communicable – not through its loftiness, for from that he shrank with mistrust, but through its energy and daring. She drew him in spite of her ignorance and misconceptions: dangerous as these might be to him if she should come to learn the truth about his practices, he thought that in her love of action lay an offset to them, while her restlessness and curiosity were two strong motives in his favour. She was fearless, even bold, and that high spirit of hers had more charm for him than all her beauty. He did not see, and it was long before he understood, that something entirely new in him had been roused by contact with her; the most that he felt was that he was satisfied as never before, that she had strengthened his impulse to work and to achieve, and that with her to help him he would be irresistible. Yes, he had chosen well!