Part 17 (1/2)

”I've a special arrangement with them,” I replied.

His face betrayed him. I saw that at no stage of that proceeding had I been wiser than in shutting off his last chance to evade. What scheme he had in mind I don't know, and can't imagine. But he had thought out something, probably something foolish that would have given me trouble without saving him. A foolish man in a tight place is as foolish as ever, and Corey was a foolish man--only a fool commits crimes that put him in the power of others. The crimes of the really big captains of industry and generals of finance are of the kind that puts others in their power.

”Buck up, Corey,” said I. ”Do you think I'm the man to shut a friend in the hold of a sinking s.h.i.+p? Tell me, who told you I was short on Textile?”

”One of my men,” he slowly replied, as he braced himself together.

”Which one? Who?” I persisted. For I wanted to know just how far the news was likely to spread.

He seemed to be thinking out a lie.

”The truth!” I commanded. ”I know it couldn't have been one of your men.

Who was it? I'll not give you away.”

”It was Tom Langdon,” he finally said.

I checked an exclamation of amazement. I had been a.s.suming that I had been betrayed by some one of those tiny mischances that so often throw the best plans into confusion.

”Tom Langdon,” I said satirically. ”It was he that warned you against me?”

”It was a friendly act,” said Corey. ”He and I are very intimate. And he doesn't know how close you and I are.”

”Suggested that you call my loans, did he?” I went on.

”You mustn't blame him, Blacklock; really you mustn't,” said Corey earnestly, for he was a pretty good friend to those he liked, as friends.h.i.+p goes in finance. ”He happened to hear. You know the Langdons keep a sharp watch on operations in their stock. And he dropped in to warn me as a friend. You'd do the same thing in the same circ.u.mstances. He didn't say a word about my calling your loans. I--to be frank--I instantly thought of it myself. I intended to do it when you came, but”--a sickly smile--”you antic.i.p.ated me.”

”I understand,” said I good-humoredly. ”I don't blame him.” And I didn't then.

After I had completed my business at the National Industrial, I went back to my office and gathered together the threads of my web of defense. Then I wrote and sent out to all my newspapers and all my agents a broadside against the management of the Textile Trust--it would be published in the morning, in good time for the opening of the Stock Exchange. Before the first quotation of Textile could be made, thousands on thousands of investors and speculators throughout the country would have read my letter, would be believing that Matthew Blacklock had detected the Textile Trust in a stock-jobbing swindle, and had promptly turned against it, preferring to keep faith with his customers and with the public. As I read over my p.r.o.nunciamiento aloud before sending it out, I found in it a note of confidence that cheered me mightily. ”I'm even stronger than I thought,”

said I. And I felt stronger still as I went on to picture the thousands on thousands throughout the land rallying at my call to give battle.

XVIII. ANITA BEGINS TO BE HERSELF

I had asked Sam Ellersly to dine with me; so preoccupied was I that not until ten minutes before the hour set did he come into my mind--he or any of his family, even his sister. My first impulse was to send word that I couldn't keep the engagement. ”But I must dine somewhere,” I reflected, ”and there's no reason why I shouldn't dine with him, since I've done everything that can be done.” In my office suite I had a bath and dressing-room, with a complete wardrobe. Thus, by hurrying a little over my toilet, and by making my chauffeur crowd the speed limit, I was at Delmonico's only twenty minutes late.

Sam, who had been late also, as usual, was having a c.o.c.ktail and was ordering the dinner. I smoked a cigarette and watched him. At business or at anything serious his mind was all but useless; but at ordering dinner and things of that sort, he shone. Those small accomplishments of his had often moved me to a sort of pitying contempt, as if one saw a man of talent devoting himself to engraving the Lord's Prayer on gold dollars. That evening, however, as I saw how comfortable and contented he looked, with not a care in the world, since he was to have a good dinner and a good cigar afterward; as I saw how much genuine pleasure he was getting out of selecting the dishes and giving the waiter minute directions for the chef, I envied him.

What Langdon had once said came back to me: ”We are under the tyranny of to-morrow, and happiness is impossible.” And I thought how true that was.

But, for the Sammys, high and low, there is no to-morrow. He was somehow impressing me with a sense that he was my superior. His face was weak, and, in a weak way, bad; but there was a certain fineness of quality in it, a sort of hothouse look, as if he had been sheltered all his life, and brought up on especially selected food. ”Men like me,” thought I with a certain envy, ”rise and fall. But his sort of men have got something that can't be taken away, that enables them to carry off with grace, poverty or the degradation of being spongers and beggars.”

This shows how far I had let that attack of sn.o.bbishness eat into me. I glanced down at my hands. No delicateness there; certainly those fingers, though white enough nowadays, and long enough, too, were not made for fancy work and parlor tricks. They would have looked in place round the handle of a spade or the throttle of an engine, while Sam's seemed made for the keyboard of a piano.

”You must come over to my rooms after dinner, and give me some music,” said I.

”Thanks,” he replied, ”but I've promised to go home and play bridge.

Mother's got a few in to dinner, and more are coming afterward, I believe.”