Betty was staying with an aunt near by, and she went back before dinner. In the automobile which came for her was old Wyman himself, on his way home from the city; and as a snowstorm had begun, he came in and stood by the fire while his car was exchanged for a closed one from Harvey’s stables. Montague did not meet him, but stood and watched him from the shadows-a mite of a man, with a keen and eager face, full of wrinkles. It was hard to realize that this little body held one of the great driving minds of the country. He was an intensely nervous and irritable man, bitter and implacable—by all odds the most hated and feared man in Wall Street. He was swift, imperious, savage as a hornet. “Directors at meetings that I attend vote first and discuss afterward,” was one of his sayings that Montague had heard quoted. Watching him here by the fireside, rubbing his hands and chatting pleasantly, Montague had a sudden sense of being behind the scenes, of being admitted to a privilege denied to ordinary mortals—the beholding of royalty in everyday attire!
After dinner that evening Montague had a chat in the smoking-room with his host; and he brought up the subject of the Hasbrook case, and told about his trip to Washington, and his interview with Judge Ellis.
Harvey also had something to communicate. “I had a talk with Freddie Vandam about it,” said he.
“What did he say?” asked Montague.
“Well,” replied the other, with a laugh, “he’s indignant, needless to say. You know, Freddie was brought up by his father to regard the Fidelity as his property, in a way. He always refers to it as ‘my company.’ And he’s very high and mighty about it—it’s a personal affront if anyone attacks it. But it was evident to me that he doesn’t know who’s behind this case.”
“Did he know about Ellis?” asked Montague.
“Yes,” said the other, “he had found out that much. It was he who told me that originally. He says that Ellis has been sponging off the company for years—he has a big salary that he never earns, and has borrowed something like a quarter of a million dollars on worthless securities.”
Montague gave a gasp.
“Yes,” laughed Harvey. “But after all, that’s a little matter. The trouble with Freddie Vandam is that that sort of thing is all he sees; and so he’ll never be able to make out the mystery. He knows that this clique or that in the company is plotting to get some advantage, or to use him for their purposes—but he never realizes how the big men are pulling the wires behind the scenes. Some day they’ll throw him overboard altogether, and then he’ll realize how they’ve played with him. That’s what this Hasbrook case means, you know—they simply want to frighten him with a threat of getting the company’s affairs into the courts and the newspapers.”
Montague sat for a while in deep thought.
“What would you think would be Wyman’s relation to the matter?” he asked, at last.
“I wouldn’t know,” said Harvey. “He’s supposed to be Freddie’s backer—but what can you tell in such a tangle?”
“It is certainly a mess,” said Montague.
“There’s no bottom to it,” said the other. “Absolutely—it would take your breath away! Just listen to what Vandam told me to-day!”
And then Harvey named one of the directors of the Fidelity who was well known as a philanthropist. Having heard that the wife of one of his junior partners had met with an accident in childbirth, and that the doctor had told her husband that if she ever had another child, she would die, this man had asked, “Why don’t you have her life insured?” The other replied that he had tried, and the companies had refused her. “I’ll fix it for you,” said he; and so they put in another application, and the director came to Freddie Vandam and had the policy put through “by executive order.” Seven months later the woman died, and the Fidelity had paid her husband in full—a hundred thousand or two!
“That’s what’s going on in the insurance world!” said Siegfried Harvey.
And that was the story which Montague took with him to add to his enjoyment of the festivities at the country club. It was a very gorgeous affair; but perhaps the sombreness of his thoughts was to blame; the flowers and music and beautiful gowns failed entirely in their appeal, and he saw only the gluttony and drunkenness—more of it than ever before, it seemed to him.
Then, too, he had an unpleasant experience. He met Laura Hegan; and presuming upon her cordial reception of his visit, he went up and spoke to her pleasantly. And she greeted him with frigid politeness; she was so brief in her remarks and turned away so abruptly as almost to snub him. He went away quite bewildered. But later on he recalled the gossip about himself and Mrs. Winnie, and he guessed that that was the explanation of Miss Hegar’s action.
The episode threw a shadow over his whole visit. On Sunday he went out into the country and tramped through a snowstorm by himself, filled with a sense of disgust for all the past, and of foreboding for the future. He hated this money-world, in which all that was worst in human beings was brought to the surface; he hated it, and wished that he had never set foot within its bounds. It was only by tramping until he was too tired to feel anything that he was able to master himself.
And then, toward dark, he came back, and found a telegram which had been forwarded from New York.
“Meet me at the Penna depot, Jersey City, at nine to-night. Alice.”
This message, of course, drove all other thoughts from his mind. He had no time even to tell Oliver about it—he had to jump into an automobile and rush to catch the next train for the city. And all through the long, cold ride in ferry-boats and cabs he pondered this mystery. Alice’s party had not been expected for two weeks yet; and only two days before there had come a letter from Los Angeles, saying that they would probably be a week over time. And here she was home again!
He found there was an express from the West due at the hour named; apparently, therefore, Alice had not come in the Prentice’s train at all. The express was half an hour late, and so he paced up and down the platform, controlling his impatience as best he could. And finally the long train pulled in, and he saw Alice coming down the platform. She was alone!
“What does it mean?” were the first words he said to her.
“It’s a long story,” she answered. “I wanted to come home.”;
“You mean you’ve come all the way from the coast by yourself!” he gasped.
“Yes,” she said, “all the way.”
“What in the world—” he began.
“I can’t tell you here, Allan,” she said. “Wait till we get to some quiet place.”
“But,” he persisted. “The Prentice? They let you come home alone?”
“They didn’t know it,” she said. “I ran away.”
He was more bewildered than ever. But as he started to ask more questions, she laid a hand upon his arm. “Please wait, Allan,” she said. “It upsets me to talk about it. It was Charlie Carter.”
And so the light broke. He caught his breath and gasped, “Oh!”
He said not another word until they had crossed the ferry and settled themselves in a cab, and started. “Now,” he said, “tell me.”
Alice began. “I was very much upset,” she said. “But you must understand, Allan, that I’ve had nearly a week to think it over, and I don’t mind it now. So I want you please not to get excited about it; it wasn’t poor Charlie’s fault—he can’t help himself. It was my mistake. I ought to have taken your advice and had nothing to do with him.”
“Go on,” said he; and Alice told her story.
The party had gone sight-seeing, and she had had a headache and had stayed in the car. And Charlie Carter had come and begun making love to her. “He had asked me to marry him already—that was at the beginning of the trip,” she said. “And I told him no. After that he would never let me alone. And this time he went on in a terrible way—he flung himself down on his knees, and wept, and said he couldn’t live without me. And nothing I could say did any good. At last he—he caught hold of me—and he wouldn’t let me go. I was furious with him, and frightened. I had to threaten to call for help before he would stop. And so—you see how it was.”