at breakfast next morning no allusion was made to the promised excursion with edwards, but stacey was confident of its success. on this account, as well as on others, he was glad of last night’s storm. for he knew his father. mr. carroll might fancy that principles were the foundation of his life; they were not, they were mere dead wood. first and last it was by personal relationships that he was swayed. it was this that gave him his sweetness, his directness, his genius for holding friends, his absolute inability to be impartial. he would have made a very poor judge. as a result of the quarrel he would be unavoidably on edwards’ side—because it was stacey’s side.
mr. carroll was nearly always gay at breakfast; on this morning he was delightful. but he did not tease catherine, as he often tried to do. instead, he joked with the boys, with great detriment to their table manners, and reduced jackie in particular to a condition that shocked even carter.
as for catherine, she seemed to stacey shyer than usual, more withdrawn. this was natural, he thought. after that splendid outburst in defence of him she must of course retreat hurriedly into herself. which was rather obtuse of stacey, since he should surely have known by now that for catherine giving was not logically followed by taking back, but by further giving. at any rate, despite her silence, he felt a closeness to her, a deep intimacy with her. there was a touch of melancholy at his heart, too; for he felt more than he cared to admit. he did not venture to speak much to catherine—only a few matter-of-fact words. ah, well, last evening’s scene had temporarily stripped off too many discreet veils, left emotions too naked; by to-night everything would have become normal again. yet stacey did not precisely envisage this certainty with satisfaction.
he motored into town with his father and catherine, but left them at the door of the carroll building and went on to his own office.
he worked that morning with less complete absorption than usual, and at half past twelve went to the lunch-room, hoping to find edwards.
edwards was not there, but before stacey had finished eating he came in, looking radiant. “it’s all right, carroll,” he said gaily, limping over with a sandwich and coffee. “your father saw things our way. there’s something pretty fine about him. you can’t help liking him. and then mrs. blair, well, she’s just a wonder—the real thing!”
stacey was rather calmer. “what did father say he’d do?” he asked.
“oh, he was non-committal, of course! said he didn’t know whether he could do anything, but he’d try. remarked that colin jeffries was a fair man, one of the fairest he knew, also a great citizen! and i was a lamb, carroll, swallowed that without even a gulp! so it’s pretty clear he’s gone to take the thing up with jeffries—or will go.”
stacey considered his friend curiously. extraordinary, this thinking in classes! edwards did not think of capitalists as men; he thought of them as parts of a whole, which was capital. it was only capital he thought about really, as something with an existence of its own. so he took it for granted that if you swung over one capitalist to your side you could swing the whole, just as when you pulled back the lever of an engine you set the entire machine in motion. neat, very,—but not true. stacey himself, though he had suggested the scheme, was far from confident that his father could bring colin jeffries around, because stacey saw the problem as a personal problem.
“well,” he said soberly, “i hope father can pull it off. come on up to the office.”
they sat in stacey’s room and smoked silently.
“mrs. blair is a corker!” edwards announced suddenly. “the best ever! do you raise many like her in your caste?”
stacey smiled. “not so you’d notice it,” he returned drily.
“well, i’m glad of that. i should hate to find some real reason for the existence of your plutocratic bunch.”
“oh, you make me tired!” said stacey wearily. “you talk like a child. at heart you have a kind of idea that the people i know are different from you. you resent it, but you have a secret feeling that they’re superior—olympians. that’s because—”
but at this point in his attack the telephone bell rang and he lifted the receiver.
“that you, stacey?” said his father’s voice, and stacey knew at once that the attempt had failed. “i saw colin jeffries about that matter, had a long talk with him. but i couldn’t budge him. said he’d do anything else in the world for me, but that in the matter of this strike he couldn’t even hear of a compromise. said he’d be going back on every principle he had if he did. that it had come to a show-down. was business to be run as an efficient competitive proposition with moderate financial reward, or was it to become a charitable institution with the investors as donators? he made a strong case for his stand—unanswerable logically. all the same . . .”
“yes?”
“well, i’ve heard those statistics from edwards and i’ve seen some of the men. it’s not just that they should have to live like that.”
“what did jeffries say when you pointed that out?”
“said he was sorry for the men and their wives, very, but that he had to think of the stock-holders also. that they, too, were men and women, though you couldn’t get an employee to see it.”
“neat point,” stacey remarked. “jeffries owns two-thirds of the common himself. i’ve seen the list of the other stock-holders. there is one widow among them. i’d be willing to defray her losses myself.”
“i’m sorry, son.” (mr. carroll’s voice was regretful.) “i’d like to have got this through for you—and because i think it’s right, though of course my convictions on the labor and capital situation in general remain unchanged.”
“of course.”
“but i did what i could.”
“i know it, dad,” said stacey. “edwards will know that too. thanks, just as much as if you’d brought it off. good-bye. see you at dinner.”
he hung up the receiver, then looked across at edwards. “nothing doing,” he said, his face impassive.
edwards’ face had flushed a dull crimson, and his jaw was set, so that there was an effect of massive squareness about his head. his eyes glowed.
“yes,” he replied thickly, “so i judged. bombs, carroll, nice little hand-grenades,—that’s what’s wanted!”
“i agree,” said stacey coolly. “it would be a pleasure to toss one at jeffries; but that’s no use. never was. the reaction swings you back to below where you started.”
“you’re so damned cold-blooded about it!” edwards cried furiously. “can’t you put yourself—”
“shut up!” said stacey harshly. “i’m twice as angry as you are—and i’m going to take a hand in this somehow.”
and, in truth, an observer studying the two men carefully would have ended by believing stacey the more dangerous. with only a little extra tautness in the muscles of his face to alter his appearance, there was yet something hard and ruthless in his expression. it was quite clear that if, as stacey had learned, nothing of his fanciful, fastidious, early self had really vanished, neither had anything vanished of that embittered, stony, cold-and-passionate self he had brought back from the war. this morning while he was at work his thoughts about the strike and about mr. carroll’s undertaking had been haphazard, interrupted by warm memories of the scene at home the night before. now stacey’s whole mind was concentrated in a kind of chilly fierceness on the single problem of how he could force colin jeffries to yield.
“it’s got to be personal fighting—no principles; they’re no good,” he thought. “now what handle have i got? what do i know about jeffries?”
in response to this way of putting it, a casual winter-night’s memory flashed into his mind. of course! he threw up his head and laughed unpleasantly.
“i’ve got a sort of half-idea, edwards,” he observed. “maybe it will work out. now you run along and let me think it over. see you to-morrow.”
stacey sat there, reflecting intensely, for perhaps a quarter of an hour. then he got up, went out, and walked over to the building in which colin jeffries had his office.
the millionaire’s large outer-office was full of men waiting. they sat singly or in groups and talked in low tones. some of them, men prominent in one business or another, stacey recognized and nodded to. he gave his card to a young man—some sort of secretary, probably—who promised to take it in to mr. jeffries but said he feared there wasn’t the slightest chance of seeing him this afternoon except by appointment.
“take the card in, anyway,” stacey remarked, and sat down.
less than ten minutes later the secretary returned, obviously impressed, to say that mr. jeffries would see mr. carroll now; then conducted him to the financier’s private office.
“come in, stacey,” said mr. jeffries cordially, getting up to shake hands. “sit down, won’t you?”
“thanks,” said stacey, and did so, across the table from the millionaire.
this being called by his first name amused him. it must be meant as a kingly compliment by mr. jeffries, since he and stacey had not met above half a dozen times—or perhaps it was to aid in the effect of cordiality. but there were many other things besides amusement in stacey’s mind. he was thinking swiftly, taking stock of his adversary, all in the brief interval while he accepted and lighted a courteously proferred cigarette.
this cordiality now,—it was not a warmth radiating from inner good will; it was external, a fire built on snow. he felt the man as cold—perhaps cruel, too. if so, cold even in his cruelty. stacey felt aversion, something in that personality was rasping to him; but he was far from feeling contempt. he recognized that he was encountering a strong and steely character, not one—like most—only apparently strong. not a touch here of the business-man as shown in romances or movies, no nervous movement of papers, no abstracted air of meditation on vast enterprises. mr. jeffries did not even say that he could spare stacey a few minutes of his time; he was as leisurely as though he were lounging at a club. yet the man was intensely busy from morning to night, and at this moment his outer-office was crowded with those waiting to see him.
“it was about the street-railway strikers that i wanted to speak to you, mr. jeffries,” said stacey, blowing out his match. (there had only been that much of a pause.)
a look of regret came over the millionaire’s face. “i’m sorry, stacey,” he replied, shaking his head slowly, “but there’s nothing i can do. i explained my position to your father this morning.”
“yes, i know you did,” stacey continued carefully. “but you and he are so much alike” (they were alike superficially; stacey disclaimed almost passionately that there was any deep likeness) “that i feel sure you must both see this trouble as a matter of principle, as labor versus capital, as a strike,—not as men striking. the men can’t live on the wages you’re offering to pay them, mr. jeffries. can’t—live.”
“and the company can’t live and give them any better ones,” returned mr. jeffries quietly.
stacey did not express his opinion of the company’s right to life. he attended quietly to what mr. jeffries said. all this was no use, anyway.
“there’s more in this than you see, stacey. it’s a test case—an unfortunate one, i grant you; test cases are rarely the ones a man would choose. it’s come to a question of whether business organized on private capital can exist at all. if it can’t we’d better know it at once; if it can then it will have to be run on the basis of a decent adjustment between receipts and disbursements.”
stacey, quite unmoved by this, shook his head. “i don’t see how this can be a test case,” he observed. “suppose you win,—it’s a paper victory only. neither these men nor any others can work for you permanently at a wage that won’t support them and their families. know what i think?” he demanded, gazing sharply at the older man, “i rather think the whole thing’s a threat held over the head of the city council.”
mr. jeffries laughed. “that’s shrewd of you, stacey,” he remarked. “but, if so, you’ll admit it’s not very successful.”
stacey, wary because of the note of flattery, continued to gaze at him. how keen the man was! not once had he said: “you young men who’ve come back with socialistic ideas . . .” he had met stacey with apparent candor and with no touch of tolerant superiority. his manner proclaimed equality,—but perhaps just faintly over-proclaimed it.
“you won’t even consider yielding,” stacey asked, “so that these men can support their families—now—in winter?”
“i can’t, my boy. it’s to your credit, though, that you take the thing so much to heart. i admire you for it.”
the “my boy” and the admiration were under the circumstances a little too much for stacey. the muscles of his face hardened almost imperceptibly, and he leaned back in his chair.
“then, mr. jeffries, i’ve got to fight you,” he said coolly.
the other’s expression did not alter, no glint of amusement shone in his eyes; but he considered stacey intently. “i’m sorry for that,” he returned after a moment, “but i guess i can only say: go to it! i know it will be a fair fight, anyway.”
“no,” said stacey, “it won’t be. i want to warn you.”
the other’s gaze sharpened. “well?” he asked quietly.
“mr. jeffries,” stacey inquired, “do you remember a young woman named ethel wyatt?”
“yes,” replied the financier, his expression unchanged. “she was governess to our children for a time. there were reasons which made us let her go. why?”
that last sentence was the only hint of weakness. stacey felt an evil exultation. however, his face was impassive. “i was told in confidence,” he observed quietly, “that she left of her own accord because you hid in her bathroom and otherwise persecuted her.”
a faint color showed on mr. jeffries’ high cheek-bones, and his eyes hardened until they became like polished steel, but when he spoke his tone was quiet and firm, as before. stacey reluctantly admired him.
“that’s not a pretty story,” he said. “i shan’t even trouble to deny it. may i ask why you repeat it to me?”
“because i intend to use it against you.”
mr. jeffries considered him fixedly. “that seemed to be what you were driving at. i could hardly believe that i understood your meaning correctly. we’ll waive all the moral aspects of such blackmail—”
“yes, let’s!” said stacey calmly.
mr. jeffries frowned at the insolence of the interruption. only from a certain tautness in his face could stacey perceive that he was very angry, so well did he keep himself under control. “do you really fancy,” he demanded, his words like sharp staccato taps of a hammer, “that any one, any one of any account, in this city is going to believe such a story?”
“not officially, of course,” stacey replied. “being the power you are, mr. jeffries, you could go out in the street and commit publicly almost any crime short of murder, and officially even the witnesses wouldn’t admit that you’d done it. but privately most people will love to believe such a story.”
“do you believe it?”
“oh, yes,” said stacey indifferently, “or i wouldn’t use it. but, to tell you the truth, i haven’t the slightest interest in the story. it doesn’t even amuse me. i merely see it as a possible weapon.”
mr. jeffries continued to gaze at him sharply. “do you know anything about this young woman, ethel wyatt?” he inquired presently, his voice frigid.
stacey was wary. “a little,” he returned.
“then you doubtless know the sort of person she has proved to be. she has been the mistress of ames price, among others.”
“well?”
“you would take the word of a harlot in the matter of this libellous—”
“oh,” stacey exclaimed scornfully, “let’s not go in for rhetoric! there’s no dictograph in the room. let’s not be benevolent millionaire and returned hero deserving well of his country!”
“very well!” snapped mr. jeffries, his cheeks slightly flushed. “you’d take this girl’s word against mine?”
“yes.”
mr. jeffries said nothing for a moment, merely regarding stacey intently. “how you do dislike me, don’t you?” he asked then. he had quite recovered his calm.
stacey raised his eyebrows. “that has nothing to do with it,” he remarked coldly.
“hasn’t it? you can say that and still be ready to smirch my good name and make my wife miserable?”
stacey drew himself up. “what’s a man’s smirched name or a weeping wife compared with a man who’s under-nourished and a wife who can’t buy proper clothes for her children?” he demanded bitterly. “it’s useless! you can’t see why i’m doing this thing. for you i must have some other motive. well, i haven’t.”
“and you’re going to use this story unless i give in on the strike—is that the idea?”
“yes. i don’t say i’m going to throw it around broad-cast. perhaps. i shall anyway tell it to my father. if you are a man and not just a popular legend, that ought to hit you almost as hard as the other thing. because if i were you and had a friend like my father, i should want to keep him.”
for the first time mr. jeffries withdrew his eyes from his enemy and looked away, frowning. “you’ll hurt him a good deal,” he said quietly. “when are you going to tell him?”
“to-morrow morning. i won’t spoil his evening, anyway.” stacey got up.
“just a minute!” said the older man sharply. “i suppose you understand that you force me to play the same kind of game. i shall of course endeavor to learn where—and how—you have known this girl, since i’ve no doubt you got the story direct from her.”
“oh, i should,” said stacey indifferently. “it might prove discreditable. also i should fancy that what i am doing is a criminal offence. i am really sorry for one thing,—to have taken up so much of your time,” he added sincerely.
mr. jeffries considered him grimly. “you have peculiar compunctions,” he observed.
stacey went back to work. he was not particularly satisfied with the interview and he felt rather soiled mentally. the threat of the story, not the story itself, was what he had wanted to use. once set going, the story would only be punishment, and he was not at all interested in punishment.
but that evening during dinner mr. carroll was called to the ’phone, and when he returned he was jubilant.
“good news, stacey!” he cried, slapping his son on the back. “colin jeffries has come around. said you came up to see him and repeated the things i’d said, told him how strongly i felt about it (why didn’t you tell me?), and afterward he got to thinking things over till at last he said: ‘to hell with principles! it’s been my experience that if edward carroll wants a thing done the thing must be right.’ the strike’s off. it’ll be in the papers to-morrow.”
mr. carroll settled himself again in his chair and beamed. as for catherine, she uttered a cry of joy, then suddenly looked across at stacey. but he avoided her eyes. however, though he felt smirched, he also felt a fierce exultation.
mr. carroll leaned back in his chair. “another thing colin said, stacey,” he remarked proudly, “was that you were wasted on a job like architecture, that you had—let’s see!—a concentrated directness of purpose that would have got you most anywhere in business. i was to be sure to tell you that.”
stacey had looked up at this, startled. by jove! the man was a good sport! stacey was filled with admiration, and it struck him that he had been making edwards’ mistake, had been seeing colin jeffries as a symbol, not just as an individual. always this haze of legend hanging about everything! you had to tear it off.
later, when he had gone upstairs to bed, he fell to meditating on the whole affair. how incongruously people and things were tangled! the great street-railway strike had come to an abrupt end because a year ago he, stacey carroll, had run off to a disreputable road-house with a strange reckless girl.
the entire front page of the paper next morning was occupied by mr. jeffries’ statement. it was a masterpiece. it began by recapitulating the facts—the doubled and tripled cost of material, the city council’s refusal to allow a ten-cent fare, the company’s dilemma,—to the accompaniment of persuasive figures. the beau geste that followed was all the more effective for their convincingness. there were other things than gain in this world. there were human beings. we were our brothers’ keepers. (stacey thought of edwards’ remark, and grinned.) we owed them a right to a decent existence even at the cost of sacrifice to ourselves. a corporation was not a soulless machine. it had not, save in theory, any existence of its own. (stacey nodded approval. good point!) it was simply a group of individuals banded together, in accordance with the law, for the prosecution of a legitimate business and for the public service. the vernon street-railway company was such a group; and the members of this group now, after a careful investigation of conditions, made by themselves and by disinterested friends (here complimentary mention was made of mr. carroll’s generous initiative), felt that they could not at present, with harsh winter already here, require their employees to live on a reduced wage. this decision was taken though it meant not even a nominal profit but a considerable monthly deficit for the company. every effort at retrenchment would be made. economy would be rigid. the service might fall off slightly, but the public were prayed to be lenient, remembering that the company was failing in its business duty in order to accomplish a larger human duty.
there were also editorials.
stacey felt no disdain,—only amusement and admiration. mr. jeffries’ telephoned message of last evening had revealed the man as not afraid to face the truth squarely. he might live in an atmosphere of magniloquent lies; that was because they served his purpose. at least, he was not himself deceived by them.
edwards was waiting for stacey at the office. “by the lord!” he cried, waving the paper in one hand and wringing stacey’s hand with the other, “you did it! damned if you didn’t! now tell me: what did you do?”
“why, i just emphasized the things father had already said and pointed out how much my father’s loyalty to jeffries meant,” said stacey innocently.
edwards stared at him. “the hell you did!” he exclaimed. “carroll, you did some sort of dirty work—awfully dirty work, i’ll bet!” and he grinned with delight.
“now look here, edwards,” said stacey soberly, “if you ever suggest that to any one else, or if you even let on that i had anything to do in this business at all, you’ll make things awfully unpleasant for me. honestly! that’s all i can tell you.”
“well, i won’t, then. you can take my word for it.”
“sit down,” said stacey, dropping into a chair and lighting a cigarette.
“can’t. can’t possibly. i’ve got to get to work. precious little i’ve done these last days.”
nevertheless, edwards lingered. his jubilant mood had passed now, and he looked at stacey with a kind of awkward wistfulness.
“i say, carroll!” he blurted out finally, “you remember that night of the legion meeting a year and more ago?” stacey nodded. “well, then i felt the better man of us two—no, i don’t mean better—saner, perhaps. you were”—he puzzled—“sort of twisted.”
(“twisted,” thought stacey. again that word.)
edwards continued after a moment, but with a shyness that in his rough rugged personality was appealing. “now you’ve—got something, some solution for things. i don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s something. i just wanted you to know that i recognized it—that’s all.”
“that’s awfully decent of you,” returned stacey quietly, “but i don’t think i’ve got anything really—any solution, i mean. perhaps less than ever.”
edwards shook his head. “tell you what i think it is,” he observed. “you’ve come to see people as on a wrong track—struggling hard for things that don’t count, food and clothes more than they need, automobiles, fine houses, all things of existence that don’t get them anywhere,—totally without desire for life. that’s an easy enough point of view to take intellectually, but you feel it, really live it yourself. you live in a palace, but you’d as soon live in a hut. because you don’t care any more for those futile things. except,” he added, “when they’re the bare essentials—as in this strike. then you turn hard as flint in your will to get them—for other people. thanks, you know. thanks awfully! ’bye!” he stumped out, waving his hand as though to ward off an answer.
stacey was touched. edwards was an idealist, for all his rude indomitable spirit and his contact with the rough working world; stacey knew that. yet it was pleasant to have a friend who thought better of you than you deserved.
there was one corollary to the strike. four days later a grateful city council voted to allow a flat ten-cent fare. so now every one was satisfied—except the public, who had exactly what they merited, stacey thought. he laughed heartily, wondering a little whether colin jeffries had not all along counted on this possibility.
