The result was an explosion that nearly lifted the asphalt from the Drive; and Carmen, covered with tears and confusion, was given to understand by the irate Mrs. Hawley-Crowles that her conduct was as reprehensible as if she had attacked the eminent Mrs. Gannette with an axe. Whereupon the sorrowing Carmen packed her effects and prepared to depart from the presence of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, to the terrified consternation of the latter, who alternately prostrated herself before the girl and the offended Mrs. Gannette, and at length, after many days of perspiring effort and voluminous explanation, succeeded in restoring peace.

When the Beaubien, who had become the girl's confidante, learned the story, she laughed till her sides ached. And then her lips set, and her face grew terribly hard, and she muttered, "Fools!" But she smiled again as she gathered the penitent girl in her arms, and kissed her.

"You will learn many things, dearie, before you are through with New York. And," she added, her brow again clouding, "you will be through with it—some day!"

That evening she repeated the story at her table, and Gannette, who happened to be present, swore between roars of laughter that he would use it as a club over his wife, should she ever again trap him in any of his numerous indiscretions.

Again, the girl's odd views of life and its meaning which, despite her efforts, she could not refrain from voicing now and then, caused the worldly Mrs. Hawley-Crowles much consternation. Carmen tried desperately to be discreet. Even Harris advised her to listen much, but say little; and she strove hard to obey. But she would forget and hurl the newspapers from her with exclamations of horror over their red-inked depictions of mortal frailty—she would flatly refuse to discuss crime or disease—and she would comment disparagingly at too frequent intervals on the littleness of human aims and the emptiness of the peacock-life which she saw manifested about her. "I don't understand—I can't," she would say, when she was alone with the Beaubien. "Why, with the wonderful opportunities which you rich people have, how can you—oh, how can you toss them aside for the frivolities and littleness that you all seem to be striving for! It seems to me you must be mad—loco! And I know you are, for you are simply mesmerized!"

Then the Beaubien would smile knowingly and take her in her arms. "We shall see," she would often say, "we shall see." But she would offer no further comment.

Thus the summer months sped swiftly past, with Carmen ever looking and listening, receiving, sifting, in, but not of, the new world into which she had been cast. In a sense her existence was as narrowly routined as ever it had been in Simiti, for her days were spent at the great organ, with frequent rides in the automobile through the parks and boulevards for variation; and her evenings were jealously guarded by Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, whose policy was to keep the girl in seclusion until the advent of her formal introduction to the world of fashionable society, when her associates would be selected only from the narrow circle of moneyed or titled people with whom alone she might mingle. To permit her to form promiscuous acquaintances now might prove fatal to the scheming woman's cherished plans, and was a risk that could not be entertained. And Carmen, suppressing her wonder, and striving incessantly to curb her ready tongue, accepted her environment as the unreal expression of the human mind, and submitted—and waited.



CHAPTER 10

The chill blasts had begun to swoop down from the frozen North, and summer had gathered her dainty robes about her and fled shivering before them. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles stood at a window and gazed with unseeing eyes at the withered leaves tossing in the wind.

Carmen's sixteenth birthday was past by some months; the gay season was at hand; and the day was speeding toward her which she had set for the girl's formal debut. Already, through informal calls and gatherings, she had made her charming and submissive ward known to most of her own city acquaintances and the members of her particular set. The fresh, beautiful girl's winning personality; her frank, ingenuous manner; her evident sincerity and her naive remarks, which now only gave hints of her radical views, had opened every heart wide to her, and before the advent of the social season her wonderful story was on everybody's tongue. There remained now only the part which the woman had planned for the Beaubien, but which, thus far, she had found neither the courage nor the opportunity to suggest to that influential woman. Gazing out into the deserted street, she stamped her ample foot in sheer vexation. The Beaubien had absorbed Carmen; had been politely affable to her and her sister; had called twice during the summer; and had said nothing. But what was there for her to say? The hint must come from the other side; and Mrs. Hawley-Crowles could have wept with chagrin as she reflected gloomily on her own timorous spirit.

But as she stood in dejection before the window a vague idea flitted into her brain, and she clutched at it desperately. Carmen had spoken of the frequent calls of a certain Monsignor Lafelle at the Beaubien mansion, although the girl had never met him. Now why did he go there? "Humph!" muttered Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. "Old Gaspard de Beaubien was a French Catholic."

But what had that to do with Carmen? Nothing—except—why, to be sure, the girl came from a Catholic country, and therefore was a Catholic! Mrs. Hawley-Crowles chuckled. That was worth developing a little further. "Let us see," she reflected, "Kathleen Ames is coming out this winter, too. Just about Carmen's age. Candidate for her mother's social position, of course. Now the Ames family are all Presbyterians. The Reverend Darius Borwell, D.D., L.L.D., and any other D. that will keep him glued to his ten-thousand-dollar salary, hooked them early in the game. Now suppose—suppose Lafelle should tell the Beaubien that—that there's—no, that won't do! But suppose I tell him that here's a chance for him to back a Catholic against a Protestant for the highest social honors in New York—Carmen versus Kathleen—what would he say? Humph! I'm just as good a Catholic as Protestant. Jim was Irish—clear through. And Catholic, Methodist, or Hard-shell Baptist, as suited his needs. He played 'em all. Suppose I should tip it off to Lafelle that I'm smitten with the pious intention of donating an altar to Holy Saints Cathedral in memory of my late, unlamented consort—what then? It's worth considering, anyway. Yes, it's not a bad idea at all."

And thus it was that a few days later Mrs. Hawley-Crowles timed it so carefully that she chanced to call on the Beaubien with Carmen shortly after Monsignor Lafelle's car had pulled up at the same door. It was the merest accident, too, that Carmen led her puffing guardian directly into the morning room, where sat the Beaubien and Monsignor in earnest conversation. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles would have retired at once, stammering apologies, and reprimanding Carmen for her assumption of liberties in another's house; but the Beaubien was grace and cordiality itself, and she insisted on retaining her three callers and making them mutually acquainted.

With the ice thus broken, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles found it easy to take the contemplated plunge. Therefore she smiled triumphantly when, a week later, Monsignor Lafelle alighted at her own door, in response to a summons on matters pertaining to the Church.

"But, Madam," replied the holy man, after carefully listening to her announcement, "I can only refer the matter to the Bishop. I am not connected with this diocese. I am traveling almost constantly. But I shall be most pleased to lay it before him, with my endorsement."

"As you say, Monsignor," sweetly responded the gracious Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. "I sought your advice because I had met you through my dear friend, Madam Beaubien."

"It has been a great pleasure to know you and to be of service to you, Madam," said Monsignor, rising to depart. "But," he added with a tender smile, "a pleasure that would be enhanced were you to become one of us."

Mrs. Hawley-Crowles knew that at last the time had come. "A moment, please, Monsignor," she said, her heart beating quickly. "There is another matter. Please be seated. It concerns my ward, the young girl whom you met at Madam Beaubien's."

"Ah, indeed!" said the man, resuming his seat. "A beautiful girl."

"Yes!" returned Mrs. Hawley-Crowles enthusiastically. "And just budding into still more beautiful womanhood." She stopped and reflected a moment. Then she threw herself precipitately into her topic, as if she feared further delay would result in the evaporation of her boldness. "Monsignor, it is, as you say, unfortunate that I profess no religious convictions; and yet, as I have told you, I find that as the years pass I lean ever more strongly toward your Church. Now you will pardon me when I say that I am sure it is the avowed intention to make America dominantly Catholic that brings you to this country to work toward that end—is it not so?"

The man's handsome face lighted up pleasantly, but he did not reply. The woman went on without waiting.

"Now, Monsignor, I am going to be terribly frank; and if you disapprove of what I suggest, we will both forget that the matter was ever under discussion. To begin with, I heartily endorse your missionary efforts in this godless country of ours. Nothing but the strong arm of the Catholic Church, it seems to me, can check our headlong plunge into ruin. But, Monsignor, you do not always work where your labors are most needed. You may control political—"

"My dear lady," interrupted the man, holding up a hand and shaking his head in gentle demurral, "the Catholic Church is not in politics."

"But it is in society—or should be!" said the woman earnestly. "And if the Catholic Church is to be supreme in America it must work from the top down, as well as from the lower levels upward. At present our wealthiest, most influential social set is absolutely domineered by a Protestant—and under the influence of a Presbyterian minister at that! Why do you permit it?"

Monsignor Lafelle's eyes twinkled, as he listened politely. But he only stroked the white hair that crowned his shapely head, and waited.

"Monsignor," continued the now thoroughly heated Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, "why do not the women of your Church constitute our society leaders? Why do you not recognize the desirability of forcing your people into every avenue of human activity? And would you resent a suggestion from me as to how in one instance this might be accomplished?"

"Certainly not, Madam," replied Monsignor, with an expression of wonder on his face. "Pray proceed."

"You are laughing at me, I do believe!" she exclaimed, catching the glint in his gray eyes.

"Pardon me, dear lady, I really am deeply interested. Please go on."

"Well, at any rate I have your promise to forget this conversation if you do not approve of it," she said quizzically.

He nodded his head to inspire her confidence; and she continued:

"Very well, now to the point. My ward, the little Inca princess, is coming out shortly. I want her to have the entree into the very best society, into the most fashionable and exclusive set, as befitting her rank." She stopped and awaited the effect of her words.

Monsignor studied her for a moment, and then broke into a genial laugh. "There is nothing reprehensible in your wish, Madam," he said. "Our social system, however imperfect, nevertheless exists, and—dominant Catholic influence might improve it. I am quite sure it would."

"Good!" exclaimed Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. "Then will you help me?"

"Why, I really see nothing that I can do," he replied slowly.

Mrs. Hawley-Crowles was becoming exasperated with his apparent dullness. "You can do much," she retorted in a tone tinctured with impatience. "Since I have made you my Father Confessor to-day, I am going to tell you that I intend to start a social war that will rip this city wide open. It is going to be war in which Catholic is pitted against Protestant. Now, which side is your Church on?"

For a moment her blunt question startled him, and he stared at her uncomprehendingly; but he quickly recovered his poise and replied calmly, "Neither, Madam; it remains quite neutral."

"What!" she exclaimed. "Aren't you interested?"

"Pardon me if I say it; not at all."

"Oh!" she murmured, her eagerness subsiding. "Then I've made an awful mistake!"

"No," he amended gently, "you have made a good friend. And, as such, I again urge you first to respect the leaning which you mentioned a moment ago and become actively affiliated with our Church here in New York. Both you and the young lady. Will you not consider it?"

"Certainly I will consider it," she responded, brightening with hope. "And I will go so far as to say that I have long had it in mind."

"Then, Madam, when that is accomplished, we may discuss the less important matter of your ward's entrance into society—is it not so?"

Mrs. Hawley-Crowles rose, completely discomfited. "But the girl, Monsignor, is already a Catholic—comes from a Catholic country. It is she whom I am pitting against the Protestant."

"And you will efface yourself?" he queried with a peculiar smile.

"You are cruel," she retorted, affecting an air of injured innocence as she stood before him with downcast eyes. "But—if you—"

"Madam," said Monsignor, "plainly, what is it that you wish me to do?"

The sudden propounding of the question drew an equally sudden but less thoughtful response.

"Tell the Beau—Madam Beaubien that you wish my ward to be received into the best society, and for the reasons I have given you. That's all."

"And is my influence with Madam Beaubien, and hers with the members of fashionable society, sufficient to effect that?" he asked, an odd look coming into his eyes.

"She has but to say the word to J. Wilton Ames, and his wife will receive us both," said the woman, carried away by her eagerness. "And that means strong Catholic influence in New York's most aristocratic set!"

"Ah!"

"Monsignor," continued the woman eagerly, "will your Church receive an altar from me in memory of my late husband?"

He reflected a moment. Then, slowly, and in a low, earnest tone, "It would receive such a gift from one of the faith. When may we expect you to become a communicant?"

The woman paled, and her heart suddenly chilled. She had wondered how far she might go with this clever churchman, and now she knew that she had gone too far. But to retract—to have him relate this conversation and her retraction to the Beaubien—were fatal! She had set her trap—and walked into it. She groped blindly for an answer. Then, raising her eyes and meeting his searching glance, she murmured feebly, "Whenever you say, Monsignor."

When the man had departed, which he did immediately, the plotting woman threw herself upon the davenport and wept with rage. "Belle," she wailed, as her wondering sister entered the room, "I'm going to join the Catholic Church! But I'd go through Sheol to beat that Ames outfit!"



CHAPTER 11

MONSIGNOR LAFELLE made another afternoon call on the Beaubien a few days later. That lady, fresh from her bath, scented, powdered, and charming in a loose, flowing Mandarin robe, received him graciously.

"But I can give you only a moment, Monsignor," she said, waving him to a chair, while she stooped and tenderly took up the two spaniels. "I have a dinner to-night, and so shall not listen unless you have something fresh and really worth while to offer."

"My dear Madam," said he, bowing low before he sank into the great leather armchair, "you are charming, and the Church is justly proud of you."

"Tut, tut, my friend," she returned, knitting her brows. "That may be fresh, I admit, but not worth listening to. And if you persist in that vein I shall be obliged to have William set you into the street."

"I can not apologize for voicing the truth, dear Madam," he replied, as his eyes roved admiringly over her comely figure. "The Church has never ceased to claim you, however far you may have wandered from her. But I will be brief. I am leaving for Canada shortly on a mission of some importance. May I not take with me the consoling assurance that you have at last heard and yielded to the call of the tender Mother, who has never ceased to yearn for her beautiful, wayward daughter?"

The Beaubien smiled indulgently. "There," she said gently, "I thought that was it. No, Monsignor, no," shaking her head. "When only a wild, thoughtless girl I became a Catholic in order that I might marry Gaspard de Beaubien. The priest urged; and I—poof! what cared I? But the past eighteen years have confirmed me in some views; and one is that I shall gain nothing, either here or hereafter, by renewing my allegiance to the Church of Rome."

Monsignor sighed, and stroked his abundant white hair. Yet his sigh bore a hope. "I learned this morning," he said musingly, "that my recent labors with the Dowager Duchess of Altern in England have not been vain. She has become a communicant of Holy Church."

"What!" exclaimed the Beaubien. "The Duchess of Altern—sister of Mrs. J. Wilton Ames? Why, she was a high Anglican—"

"Only a degree below the true Church, Madam. Her action is but anticipatory of a sweeping return of the entire Anglican Church to the true fold. And I learn further," he went on, "that the Duchess will spend the winter in New York with her sister. Which means, of course, an unusually gay season here, does it not?"

The Beaubien quickly recovered from her astonishment. "Well, Monsignor," she laughed, "for once you really are interesting. What else have you to divulge? That Mrs. Ames herself will be the next convert? Or perhaps J. Wilton?"

"No—at least, not yet. But one of your most intimate friends will become a communicant of Holy Saints next Sunday."

"One of my most intimate friends!" The Beaubien set the spaniels down on the floor. "Now, my dear Monsignor, you are positively refreshing. Who is he?"

The man laughed softly. "Am I not right when I insist that you have wandered far, dear Madam? It is not 'he,' but 'she,' your dear friend, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles."

The Beaubien's mouth opened wide and she sat suddenly upright and gazed blankly at her raconteur. The man went on, apparently oblivious of the effect his information had produced. "Her beautiful ward, who is to make her bow to society this winter, is one of us by birth."

"Then you have been at work on Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her ward, have you?" said the Beaubien severely, and there was a threatening note in her voice.

"Why," returned Monsignor easily, "the lady sent for me to express her desire to become affiliated with the Church. We do not seek her. And I have had no conversation with the girl, I assure you."

The Beaubien reflected. Then:

"Will you tell me why, Monsignor, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles takes this unusual step?"

"Unusual! Is it unusual, Madam, for a woman who has seen much of the world to turn from it to the solace and promise of the Church?"

The Beaubien laughed sharply. "For women like Mrs. Hawley-Crowles it is, decidedly. What was her price, Monsignor?"

"Madam! You astonish me!"

"Monsignor, I do not. I know Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. And by this time you do, too. She is the last woman in the world to turn from it."

"But the question you have just propounded reflects seriously upon both the Church and me—"

"Bah!" interjected the Beaubien, her eyes flashing. "Wait," she commanded imperiously, as he rose. "I have a few things to say to you, since this is to be your last call."

"Madam, not the last, I hope. For I shall not cease to plead the cause of the Church to you—"

"Surely, Monsignor, that is your business. You are welcome in my house at any time, and particularly when you have such delightful scraps of gossip as these which you have brought to-day. But, a word before you go, lest you become indiscreet on your return. Play Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to any extent you wish, but let her ward alone—absolutely! She is not for you."

The cold, even tone in which the woman said this left no doubt in the man's mind of her meaning. She was not trifling with him now, he knew. In her low-voiced words he found no trace of banter, of sophistry, nor of aught that he might in any wise misinterpret.

"Now, Monsignor, I have some influence in New York, as you may possibly know. Will you admit that I can do much for or against you? Drop your mask, therefore, and tell me frankly just what has induced Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to unite with your Church."

The man knew he was pitting his own against a master mind. He hesitated and weighed well his words before replying. "Madam," said he at length, with a note of reproach, "you misjudge the lady, the Church, and me, its humble servant. The latter require no defense. As for Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, I speak truly when I say that doubtless she has been greatly influenced by love for her late husband."

"What!" The Beaubien half rose from her chair. "Jim Crowles—that raw, Irish boob, who was holding down a job on the police force until Ames found he could make a convenient tool of him! The man who was Gannette's cat's-paw in the Fall River franchise steal! Now, Monsignor, would you have me believe you devoid of all sense?"

"But," ejaculated the man, now becoming exasperated, and for the moment so losing his self-control as to make wretched use of his facts, "she is erecting an altar in Holy Saints as a memorial to him!"

"Heavens above!" The Beaubien sank back limp.

Monsignor Lafelle again made as if to rise. He felt that he was guilty of a miserable faux pas. "Madam, I regret that I must be leaving. But the hour—"

"Stay, Monsignor!" The Beaubien roused up and laid a detaining hand upon his arm. "Our versatile friend, what other projects has she in hand? What is she planning for her young ward?"

"Why, really, I can not say—beyond the fact that the girl is to be introduced to society this winter."

"Humph! Going to make a try for the Ames set?"

"That, I believe, Madam, would be useless without your aid."

"Did Mrs. Hawley-Crowles say so, Monsignor?" demanded the woman, leaning forward eagerly.

"Why, I believe I am not abusing her confidence when I say that she intimated as much," he said, watching her closely and sparring now with better judgment. "She mentioned Mrs. Ames as New York's fashionable society leader—"

"There is no such position as leader in New York society, Monsignor," interrupted the Beaubien coldly. "There are sets and cliques, and Mrs. Ames happens to be prominent in the one which at present foolishly imagines it constitutes the upper stratum. Rot! And Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, with nothing but a tarnished name and a large bank account to recommend her, now wishes to break into that clique and attain social leadership, does she? How decidedly interesting!"

Then the woman's eyes narrowed and grew hard. Leaning closer to the churchman, she rested the tip of her finger on his knee. "So, Monsignor," she said, with cold precision, "this is Mrs. Hawley-Crowles's method of renouncing the world, is it? Sublime! And she would use both you and me, eh? And you are her ambassador at the court of the Beaubien? Very well, then, she shall use us. But you and I will first make this compact, my dear Monsignor: Mrs. Hawley-Crowles shall be taken into the so-called 'Ames set,' and you shall cease importuning me to return to your Church, and what is more, shall promise to have no conversation on church matters with her ward, the young girl. If you do not agree to this, Monsignor, I shall set in motion forces that will make your return to New York quite undesirable." When she concluded, she looked long and steadily into his eyes.

Monsignor got slowly to his feet. "Madam!" he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, "my astonishment—"

"There," she said calmly, as she rose and took his hand, "please omit the dramatics, Monsignor. And now you must go, for to-night I entertain, and I have already given you more time than I intended. But, Monsignor, do you in future work with or against me? Are we to be friends or enemies?"

"Why, Madam," he replied quickly, "we could never be the latter!"

"And you always respect the wishes of a friend, especially if she is a lady, do you not?"

"Always, Madam," he returned after a moment's hesitation, as he bowed low over her hand.

"Then, good-bye. And, Monsignor," she added, when he reached the door, "I shall be pleased to attend the dedication of the Hawley-Crowles altar."

When Monsignor's car glided away from her door the Beaubien's face grew dark, and her eyes drew to narrow slits. "So," she reflected, as she entered the elevator to mount to her dressing room, "that is her game, is it? The poor, fat simpleton has no interest in either the girl or myself, other than to use us as stepping-stones. She forgets that a stone sometimes turns under the foot. Fool!"

She entered her room and rang for her maid. Turning to the pier glass, she threw on the electric light and scrutinized her features narrowly. "It's going," she murmured, "fast! God, how I hate those gray hairs! Oh, what a farce life is—what a howling, mocking farce! I hate it! I hate everything—everybody! No—that little girl—if it is possible for me to love, I love her."

She sank into an easy chair. "I wonder what it is she does to me. I'm hypnotized, I guess. Anyhow, I'm different when I'm with her. And to think that Hawley-Crowles would sacrifice the child—humph! But, if the girl is made of the right stuff—and I know she is—she will stand up under it and be stronger for the experience. She has got something that will make her stand! I once asked her what she had that I didn't, and now I know—it is her religion, the religion that Borwell and Lafelle and the whole kit of preachers and priests would corrupt if they had half a chance! Very well, we'll see what it does under the test. If it saves her, then I want it myself. But, as for that little pin-headed Hawley-Crowles, she's already signed her own death-warrant. She shall get into the Ames set, yes. And I will use her, oh, beautifully! to pay off certain old scores against Madam Ames—and then I'll crush her like a dried leaf, the fat fool!"

The Beaubien's position was, to say the least, peculiar, and one which required infinite tact on her part to protect. It was for that reason that the decorum which prevailed at her dinners was so rigidly observed, and that, whatever the moral status of the man who sat at her board, his conduct was required to be above reproach, on penalty of immediate ejection from the circle of financial pirates, captains of commercial jugglery, and political intriguers who made these feasts opportunities for outlining their predatory campaigns against that most anomalous of creatures, the common citizen.

It was about this table, at whose head always sat the richly gowned Beaubien, that the inner circle of financial kings had gathered almost nightly for years to rig the market, determine the price of wheat or cotton, and develop mendacious schemes of stock-jobbery whose golden harvests they could calculate almost to a dollar before launching. As the wealth of this clique of financial manipulators swelled beyond all bounds, so increased their power, until at last it could be justly said that, when Ames began to dominate the Stock Exchange, the Beaubien practically controlled Wall Street—and, therefore, in a sense, Washington itself. But always with a tenure of control dubiously dependent upon the caprices of the men who continued to pay homage to her personal charm and keen, powerful intellect.

At the time of which we speak her power was at its zenith, and she could with equal impunity decapitate the wealthiest, most aristocratic society dame, or force the door of the most exclusive set for any protegee who might have been kept long years knocking in vain, or whose family name, perchance, headed a list of indictments for gross peculations. At these unicameral meetings, held in the great, dark, mahogany-wainscoted dining room of the Beaubien mansion, where a single lamp of priceless workmanship threw a flood of light upon the sumptuous table beneath and left the rest of the closely guarded room shrouded in Stygian darkness, plans were laid and decrees adopted which seated judges, silenced clergymen, elected senators, and influenced presidents. There a muck-raking, hostile press was muffled. There business opposition was crushed and competition throttled. There tax rates were determined and tariff schedules formulated. There public opinion was disrupted, character assassinated, and the death-warrant of every threatening reformer drawn and signed. In a word, there Mammon, in the role of business, organized and unorganized, legitimate and piratical, sat enthroned, with wires leading into every mart of the world, and into every avenue of human endeavor, be it social, political, commercial, or religious. These wires were gathered together into the hands of one man, the directing genius of the group, J. Wilton Ames. Over him lay the shadow of the Beaubien.

An hour after the departure of Monsignor Lafelle the Beaubien, like a radiant sun, descended to the library to greet her assembled guests. Some moments later the heavy doors of the great dining room swung noiselessly open, and the lady proceeded unescorted to her position at the head of the table. At her signal the half dozen men sat down, and the butler immediately entered, followed by two serving men with the cocktails and the first course. The chair at the far end of the table, opposite the Beaubien, remained unoccupied.

"Ames is late to-night," observed the girthy Gannette, glancing toward the vacant seat, and clumsily attempting to tuck his napkin into his collar.

The Beaubien looked sharply at him. "Were you at the club this afternoon, Mr. Gannette?" she inquired coldly.

Gannette straightened up and became rigid. Pulling the napkin down hastily, he replied in a thick voice, "Just a little game of bridge—some old friends—back from Europe—"

The Beaubien turned to the butler. "William, Mr. Gannette is not drinking wine this evening." The butler bowed and removed the glasses from that gentleman's place.

Gannette turned to expostulate. "Now, Lucile—" he began peevishly. The Beaubien held up a hand. Gannette glowered and sank down in his chair like a swollen toad.

"May be Ames is trying to break into the C. and R. directors' meeting," suggested Weston, himself a director in a dozen companies, and a bank president besides. A general laugh followed the remark.

"They tell me," said Fitch, "that for once Ames has been outwitted, and that by a little bucket-shop broker named Ketchim."

"How's that?" queried Kane, Board of Trade plunger, and the most mettlesome speculator of the group.

"Why," explained Weston, "some months ago Ames tried to reach Ed. Stolz through Ketchim, the old man's nephew, and get control of C. and R. But friend nephew dropped the portcullis just as Ames was dashing across the drawbridge, and J. Wilton found himself outside, looking through the bars. First time I've ever known that to happen. Now the boys have got hold of it on 'Change, and Ames has been getting it from every quarter."

"Long time leaking out, seems to me," remarked Kane. "But what's Ames going to do about it?"

"Nothing, I guess," returned Weston. "He seems to have dropped the matter."

"I think you will find yourself mistaken," put in the Beaubien evenly.

"Why?" queried Fitch, as all eyes turned upon the woman. "Have you inside information?"

"None whatever," she replied. "But Mr. Ames always gets what he goes after, and he will secure control of C. and R. eventually."

"I don't believe it!" vigorously asserted Murdock, who had been an interested listener. "He will never oust Stolz."

"I have one thousand dollars that says he will," said the Beaubien, calmly regarding the speaker. "William, my checkbook, please."

Murdock seemed taken back for the moment; but lost no time recovering his poise. Drawing out his own book he wrote a check in the Beaubien's name for the amount and sent it down the table to her.

"Mr. Fitch will hold the stakes," said the woman, handing him the two slips of paper. "And we will set a time limit of eighteen months."

"By the way," remarked Peele, the only one of the group who had taken no part in the preceding conversation, "I see by the evening paper that there's been another accident in the Avon mills. Fellow named Marcus caught in a machine and crushed all out of shape. That's the third one down there this month. They'll force Ames to equip his mills with safety devices if this keeps up."

"Not while the yellow metal has any influence upon the Legislature," returned the Beaubien with a knowing smile. "But," she added more seriously, "that is not where the danger lies. The real source of apprehension is in the possibility of a strike. And if war breaks out among those Hungarians down there it will cost him more than to equip all his mills now with safety devices."

Gannette, who had been sulking in his chair, roused up. "Speaking of war," he growled, "has Ames, or any of you fellows, got a finger in the muddle in South America? I've got interests down there—concessions and the like—and by—!" He wandered off into incoherent mutterings.

The Beaubien gave a sharp command to the butler. "William, Mr. Gannette is leaving now. You will escort him to the door."

"Now look here, Lucile!" cried Gannette, his apoplectic face becoming more deeply purple, and his blear eyes leering angrily upon the calm woman. "I ain't a-goin' to stand this! What have I done? I'm as sober as any one here, an'—" William took the heavy man gently by the arm and persuaded him to his feet. The other guests suppressed their smiles and remained discreetly quiet.

"But—my car—!" sputtered Gannette.

"Have Henri take him to his club, William," said the Beaubien, rising. "Good night, Mr. Gannette. We will expect you Wednesday evening, and we trust that we will not have to accept your excuses again."

Gannette was led soddenly out. The Beaubien quietly resumed her seat. It was the second time the man had been dismissed from her table, and the guests marveled that it did not mean the final loss of her favor. But she remained inscrutable; and the conversation quickly drifted into new channels. A few moments later William returned and made a quiet announcement:

"Mr. Ames."

A huge presence emerged from the darkness into the light. The Beaubien immediately rose and advanced to greet the newcomer. "What is it?" she whispered, taking his hand.

The man smiled down into her upturned, anxious face. His only reply was a reassuring pressure of her hand. But she comprehended, and her face brightened.

"Gentlemen," remarked Ames, taking the vacant chair, "the President's message is out. I have been going over it with Hood—which accounts for my tardiness," he added, nodding pleasantly to the Beaubien. "Quoting from our chief executive's long list of innocent platitudes, I may say that 'private monopoly is criminally unjust, wholly indefensible, and not to be tolerated in a Republic founded upon the premise of equal rights to all mankind.'"

"Certainly not!" concurred Weston, holding up his glass and gazing admiringly at the rich color of the wine.

The others laughed. "Quite my sentiments, too," murmured Fitch, rolling his eyes upward and attempting with poor success to assume a beatific expression.

"Furthermore," continued Ames, with mock gravity, "the interlocking of corporation directorates must be prohibited by law; power must be conferred upon the Interstate Commerce Commission to superintend the financial management of railroads; holding-companies must cease to exist; and corrective policies must be shaped, whereby so-called 'trusts' will be regulated and rendered innocuous. Are we agreed?"

"We are," said they all, in one voice.

"Carried," concluded Ames in a solemn tone. Then a burst of laughter rose from the table; and even the inscrutable William smiled behind his hand.

"But, seriously," said Weston, when the laughter had ceased, "I believe we've got a President now who's going to do something, don't you?"

"I do not," replied Ames emphatically. "As long as the human mind remains as it is there is nothing to fear, though Congress legislate itself blue in the face. Reform is not to be made like a garment and forced upon the people from the outside. It is a growth from within. Restrictive measures have not as yet, in all the history of civilization, reformed a single criminal."

"What does Hood say?" asked Murdock.

"That we are puncture-proof," replied Ames with a light laugh.

"But what about your indictment in that cotton deal? Is Hood going to find you law-proof there?"

"The case is settled," said Ames easily. "I went into court this morning and plead guilty to the indictment for conspiring to corner the cotton market two years ago. I admitted that I violated the Sherman law. The judge promptly fined me three thousand dollars, for which I immediately wrote a check, leaving me still the winner by some two million seven hundred thousand dollars on the deal, to say nothing of compound interest on the three thousand for the past two years. You see the beneficent effect of legislation, do you not?"

"By George, Ames, you certainly were stingy not to let us in on that!" exclaimed Kane.

"Cotton belongs to me, gentlemen," replied Ames simply. "You will have to keep out."

"Well," remarked Fitch, glancing about the table, "suppose we get down to the business of the evening—if agreeable to our hostess," bowing in the direction of the Beaubien.

The latter nodded her approval of the suggestion. "Has any one anything new to offer?" she said.

Some moments of silence followed. Then Ames spoke. "There is a little matter," he began, "that I have been revolving for some days. Perhaps it may interest you. It concerns the Albany post road. It occurred to me some time ago that a franchise for a trolley line on that road could be secured and ultimately sold for a round figure to the wealthy residents whose estates lie along it, and who would give a million dollars rather than have a line built there. After some preliminary examination I got Hood to draft a bill providing for the building of the road, and submitted it to Jacobson, Commissioner of Highways. He reported that it would be the means of destroying the post road. I convinced him, on the other hand, that it would be the means of lining his purse with fifty thousand dollars. So he very naturally gave it his endorsement. I then got in consultation with Senator Gossitch, and had him arrange a meeting with the Governor, in Albany. I think," he concluded, "that about five hundred thousand dollars will grease the wheels all 'round. I've got the Governor on the hip in that Southern Mexican deal, and he is at present eating out of my hand. I'll lay this project on the table now, and you can take it up if you so desire."

"The scheme seems all right," commented Weston, after a short meditation. "But the profits are not especially large. What else have you?"

"Well, a net profit of half a million to split up among us would at least provide for a yachting party next summer," remarked Ames sententiously. "And no work connected with it—in fact, the work has been done. I shall want an additional five per cent for handling it."

An animated discussion followed; and then Fitch offered a motion that the group definitely take up the project. The Beaubien put the vote, and it was carried without dissent.

"What about that potato scheme you were figuring on, Ames?" asked Fitch at this juncture. "Anything ever come of it?"

Ames's eyes twinkled. "I didn't get much encouragement from my friends," he replied. "A perfectly feasible scheme, too."

"I don't believe it," put in Weston emphatically. "It never could be put through."

"I have one million dollars that says it could," returned Ames calmly. "Will you cover it?"

Weston threw up his hands in token of surrender. "Not I!" he exclaimed, scurrying for cover.

Ames laughed. "Well," he said, "suppose we look into the scheme and see if we don't want to handle it. It simply calls for a little thought and work. The profits would be tremendous. Shall I explain?" He stopped and glanced at the Beaubien for approval. She nodded, and he went on:

"I have lately been investigating the subject of various food supplies other than wheat and corn as possible bases for speculation, and my attention has been drawn strongly to a very humble one, potatoes."

A general laugh followed this announcement. But Ames continued unperturbed:

"I find that in some sections of the West potatoes are so plentiful at times that they bring but twenty cents a bushel. My investigations have covered a period of several months, and now I have in my possession a large map of the United States with the potato sections, prices, freight rates and all other necessary data indicated. The results are interesting. My idea is to send agents into all these sections next summer before the potatoes are turned up, and contract for the entire crop at twenty-five cents a bushel. The agents will pay the farmers cash, and agree to assume all expenses of digging, packing, shipping, and so forth, allowing the farmer to take what he needs for his own consumption. Needless to say, the potatoes will not be removed from the fields, but will be allowed to rot in the ground. Those that do reach the market will sell for a dollar and a half in New York and Chicago."

"In other words," added Fitch, "you are simply figuring to corner the market for the humble tuber, eh?"

"Precisely," said Ames.

"But—you say you have all the necessary data now?"

"All, even to the selection of a few of my agents. I can control freight rates for what we may wish to ship. The rest of the crop will be left to rot. The farmers will jump at such a bargain. And the consumers will pay our price for what they must have."

"Very pretty," mused Murdock. "And how much do you figure we shall need to round the corner?"

"A million, cash in hand," replied Ames.

"Is this anything that the women can mix into?" asked Fitch suddenly. "You know they forced us to dump tons of our cold-storage stuff onto the market two years ago."

"That was when I controlled wheat," said Ames, "and was all tied up. But this is a wholly different proposition. It will be done so quietly and thoroughly that it will all be over and the profits pocketed before the women wake up to what we're doing. In this case there will be nothing to store. And potatoes exposed in the field rot quickly, you know."

The rest of the group seemed to study the idea for some moments. Then the practical Murdock inquired of Ames if he would agree to handle the project, provided they took it up.

"Yes," assented Ames, "on a five per cent basis. And I am ready to put agents in the field to-morrow."

"Then, Madam Beaubien," said Fitch, "I move that we adopt the plan as set forth by Mr. Ames, and commission him to handle it, calling upon us equally for whatever funds he may need."

A further brief discussion ensued; and then the resolution was unanimously adopted.

"Say, Ames," queried Weston, with a glint of mischief in his eyes, "will any of these potatoes be shipped over the C. and R.?" A laugh went up around the table, in which Ames himself joined. "Yes," he said, "potatoes and cotton will both go over that road next summer, and I shall fix the rebates."

"How about your friend Ketchim?" suggested Fitch, with a wink at Murdock.

Ames's mouth set grimly, and the smile left his face. "Ketchim is going to Sing Sing for that little deal," he returned in a low, cold tone, so cold that even the Beaubien could not repress a little shudder. "I had him on Molino, but he trumped up a new company which absorbed Molino and satisfied everybody, so I am blocked for the present. But, mark me, I shall strip him of every dollar, and then put him behind the bars before I've finished!"

And no one sought to refute the man, for they knew he spoke truth.

At midnight, while the cathedral chimes in the great hall clock were sending their trembling message through the dark house, the Beaubien rose, and the dinner was concluded. A few moments later the guests were spinning in their cars to their various homes or clubs—all but Ames. As he was preparing to leave, the Beaubien laid a hand on his arm. "Wait a moment, Wilton," she said. "I have something important to discuss with you." She led him into the morning room, where a fire was blazing cheerily in the grate, and drew up a chair before it for him, then nestled on the floor at his feet.

"I sent Gannette home this evening," she began, by way of introduction. "He was drunk. I would drop him entirely, only you said—"

"We need him," interrupted Ames. "Hold him a while longer."

"I'll soil my hands by doing it; but it is for you. Now tell me," she went on eagerly, "what about Colombia? Have you any further news from Wenceslas?"

"A cable to-day. Everything's all right. Don't worry. The Church is with the Government, and they will win—although your money may be tied up for a few years. Still, you can't lose in the end."

The woman sat for some moments gazing into the fire. Then:

"Lafelle was here again to-day."

"Hold him, too," said Ames quickly. "Looks as if I had made you a sort of holding company, doesn't it?" he added, with a chuckle. "But we shall have good use for these fellows."

"He gave me some very interesting news," she said; and then went on to relate the conversation in detail. Ames laughed loudly as he listened. "And now, Wilton," said the Beaubien, a determined look coming into her face, "you have always said that you never forgave me for making you let Jim Crowles off, when you had him by the throat. Well, I'm going to give you a chance to get more than even. Jim's fat widow is after your wife's scalp. I intend that she shall lose her own in the chase. I've got my plans all laid, and I want your wife to meet the lovely Mrs. Hawley-Crowles at the Fitch's next Thursday afternoon. It will be just a formal call—mutual introductions—and, later, an invitation from Mrs. Ames to Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. Meantime, I want you to get Mrs. Hawley-Crowles involved in a financial way, and shear her of every penny! Do you understand?"

Ames looked at her quizzically. Then he broke into another sharp laugh. "My dear," said he, taking her hand, "you are charming this evening. Added years only make you more beautiful."

"Nonsense, Will!" she deprecated, although the smile she gave him attested her pleasure in the compliment. "Well," she continued briskly, "if I'm so beautiful, you can't help loving me; and if you love me, you will do what I ask."

He playfully pinched her cheek. "Why, poor old Jim Crowles! Really, I've long since forgotten him. Do you realize that that was more than ten years ago?"

"Please don't mention years, dear," she murmured, shuddering a little. "Tell me, what can we do to teach this fat hussy a lesson?"

"Well," he suggested, laughing, "we might get Ketchim after her, to sell her a wad of his worthless stocks; then when he goes down, as he is going one of these days, we will hope that it will leave her on the rocks of financial ruin, eh?"

"What's Ketchim promoting?" she asked. "I know nothing about him."

"Why, among other innocent novelties, a scheme bearing the sonorous title of Simiti Development Company, I am told by my brokers."

"Simiti! Why—I've heard Carmen mention that name. I wonder—"

"Well, and who is Carmen?" he asked with a show of real interest.

"My little friend—the one and only honest person I've ever dealt with, excepting, of course, present company."

"The amendment is accepted. And now where does this Carmen enter the game?"

"Why, she's—surely you know about her!"

"If I did I should not ask." "Well, she is a little Colombian—"

"Colombian!"

"Yes. They say she's an Inca princess. Came up with the engineers who went down there for Ketchim to examine the Molino properties. She lived all her life in a town called Simiti until she came up here."

Ames leaned over and looked steadily into the fire. "Never heard of the place," he murmured dreamily.

"Well," said the Beaubien eagerly, "she's a—a wonderful child! I'm different when I'm with her."

He roused from his meditations and smiled down at the woman. "Then I'd advise you not to be with her much, for I prefer you as you are."

They sat some minutes in silence. Then the woman looked up at her companion. "What are you thinking about so seriously?" she asked.

The man started; then drew himself up and gave a little nervous laugh. "Of you," he replied evasively, "always."

She reached up and slapped his cheek tenderly. "You were dreaming of your awful business deals," she said. "What have you in hand now?—besides the revolution in Colombia, your mines, your mills, your banks, your railroads and trolley lines, your wheat and potato corners, your land concessions and cattle schemes, and—well, that's a start, at least," she finished, pausing for breath.

"Another big deal," he said abruptly.

"Wheat, again?"

"No, cotton. I'm buying every bale I can find, in Europe, Asia, and the States."

"But, Will, you've been caught in cotton before, you know. And I don't believe you can get away with it again. Unless—"

"That's it—unless," he interrupted. "And that's just the part I have taken care of. It's a matter of tariff. The cotton schedule will go through as I have it outlined. I practically own the Commission. They don't dare refuse to pass the measure. Cotton is low now. In a few months the tariff on cotton products will be up. The new tariff-wall sends the price of raw stuff soaring. I profit, coming and going. I was beaten on the last deal simply because of faulty weather prognostications. I made a bad guess. This time the weather doesn't figure. I'll let you in, if you wish. But these other fellows have got to stay out."

"I haven't a penny to invest, Will," she replied mournfully. "You got me so terribly involved in this Colombian revolution."

"Oh, well," he returned easily, "I'll lend you what you need, any amount. And you can give me your advice and suggestions from time to time. As for your Colombian investments, haven't I guaranteed them, practically?"

"Not in writing," she said, looking up at him with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Bah! Well, do you want that?"

"No, certainly not," she returned, giving him a glance of admiration. "But, to return, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles is going to be received into your wife's set, and you are going to give her a good financial whipping?"

"Certainly, if you wish it. I'm yours to command. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles shall go to the poor-house, if you say the word. But now, my dear, have William order my car. And, let me see, Mrs. Ames is to meet Mrs. Hawley-Crowles at Fitch's? Just a chance call, I take it."

"Yes, dear," murmured the Beaubien, reaching up and kissing him; "next Thursday at three. Good night. Call me on the 'phone to-morrow."



CHAPTER 12

The Ames building, a block from the Stock Exchange, was originally only five stories in height. But as the Ames interests grew, floor after floor was added, until, on the day that Mrs. Hawley-Crowles pointed it out to Carmen from the window of her limousine, it had reached, tower and all, a height of twenty-five stories, and was increasing at an average rate of two additional a year. It was not its size that aroused interest, overtopped as it was by many others, but its uniqueness; for, though a hive of humming industry, it did not house a single business that was not either owned outright or controlled by J. Wilton Ames, from the lowly cigar stands in the marble corridors to the great banking house of Ames and Company on the second floor. The haberdashers, the shoe-shining booths, the soda fountains, and the great commercial enterprises that dwelt about them, each and all acknowledged fealty and paid homage to the man who brooded over them in his magnificent offices on the twenty-fifth floor in the tower above.

It was not by any consensus of opinion among the financiers of New York that Ames had assumed leadership, but by sheer force of what was doubtless the most dominant character developed in recent years by those peculiar forces which have produced the American multimillionaire. "Mental dynamite!" was Weston's characterization of the man. "And," he once added, when, despite his anger, he could not but admire Ames's tactical blocking of his piratical move, which the former's keen foresight had perceived threatened danger at Washington, "it is not by any tacit agreement that we accept him, but because he knows ten tricks to our one, that's all."

To look at the man, now in his forty-fifth year, meant, generally, an expression of admiration for his unusual physique, and a wholly erroneous appraisal of his character. His build was that of a gladiator. He stood six-feet-four in height, with Herculean shoulders and arms, and a pair of legs that suggested nothing so much as the great pillars which supported the facade of the Ames building. Those arms and legs, and those great back-muscles, had sent his college shell to victory every year that he had sat in the boat. They had won every game on the gridiron in which he had participated as the greatest "center" the college ever developed. For baseball he was a bit too massive, much to his own disappointment, but the honors he failed to secure there he won in the field events, and in the surreptitiously staged boxing and wrestling bouts when, hidden away in the cellar of some secret society hall, he would crush his opponents with an ease and a peculiar glint of satisfaction in his gray eyes that was grimly prophetic of days to come. His mental attitude toward contests for superiority of whatever nature did not differ essentially from that of the Roman gladiators: he entered them to win. If he fell, well and good; he expected "thumbs down." If he won, his opponent need look for no exhibition of generosity on his part. When his man lay prone before him, he stooped and cut his throat. And he would have loathed the one who forbore to do likewise with himself.

In scholarship he might have won a place, had not the physical side of his nature been so predominant, and his remarkable muscular strength so great a prize to the various athletic coaches and directors. Ames was first an animal; there was no stimulus as yet sufficiently strong to arouse his latent spirituality. And yet his intellect was keen; and to those studies to which he was by nature or inheritance especially attracted, economics, banking, and all branches of finance, he brought a power of concentration that was as stupendous as his physical strength. His mental make-up was peculiar, in that it was the epitome of energy—manifested at first only in brute force—and in that it was wholly deficient in the sense of fear. Because of this his daring was phenomenal.

Immediately upon leaving college Ames became associated with his father in the already great banking house of Ames and Company. But the animality of his nature soon found the confinement irksome; his father's greater conservatism hampered his now rapidly expanding spirit of commercialism; and after a few years in the banking house he withdrew and set up for himself. The father, while lacking the boy's fearlessness, had long since recognized dominant qualities in him which he himself did not possess, and he therefore confidently acquiesced in his son's desire, and, in addition, gave him carte blanche in the matter of funds for his speculative enterprises.

Four years later J. Wilton Ames, rich in his own name, already becoming recognized as a power in the world of finance, with diversified enterprises which reached into almost every country of the globe, hastened home from a foreign land in response to a message announcing the sudden death of his father. The devolving of his parent's vast fortune upon himself—he was the sole heir—then necessitated his permanent location in New York. And so, reluctantly giving up his travels, he gathered his agents and lieutenants about him, concentrating his interests as much as possible in the Ames building, and settled down to the enjoyment of expanding his huge fortune. A few months later he married, and the union amalgamated the proud old Essex stock of Ames, whose forbears fought under the Conqueror and were written in the Doomsday Book, to the wealthy and aristocratic Van Heyse branch of old Amsterdam. To this union were born a son and a daughter, twins.

The interval between his graduation from college and the death of his father was all but unknown to the cronies of his subsequent years in New York. Though he had spent much of it in the metropolis, he had been self-centered and absorbed, even lonely, while laying his plans and developing the schemes which resulted in financial preeminence. With unlimited money at his disposal, he was unhampered in the choice of his business clientele, and he formed it from every quarter of the globe. Much of his time had been spent abroad, and he had become as well known on the Paris bourse and the exchanges of Europe as in his native land. Confident and successful from the outset; without any trace of pride or touch of hauteur in his nature; as wholly lacking in ethical development and in generosity as he was in fear; gradually becoming more sociable and companionable, although still reticent of certain periods of his past; his cunning and brutality increasing with years; and his business sagacity and keen strategy becoming the talk of the Street; with no need to raise his eyes beyond the low plane of his material endeavors; he pursued his business partly for the pleasure the game afforded him, partly for the power which his accumulations bestowed upon him, and mostly because it served as an adequate outlet for his tremendous, almost superhuman, driving energy. If he betrayed and debauched ideals, it was because he was utterly incapable of rising to them, nor felt the stimulus to make the attempt. If he achieved no noble purpose, it was because when he glanced at the mass of humanity about him he looked through the lenses of self. His glance fell always first upon J. Wilton Ames—and he never looked beyond. The world had been created for him; the cosmos but expressed his Ego.

On the morning after his conversation with the Beaubien regarding the social aspirations of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, the financier sat at his rich mahogany desk on the top floor of the Ames building in earnest discussion with his lawyer, Alonzo Hood. The top floor of the tower was divided into eight rooms. Two of these constituted Ames's inner sanctum; one was Hood's private office; and the rest were devoted to clerks and stenographers. A telegrapher occupied an alcove adjoining Hood's room, and handled confidential messages over private wires to the principal cities in the country. A private telephone connected Ames's desk with the Beaubien mansion. Private lines ran to the Stock Exchange and to various other points throughout the city. The telegraph and telephone companies gave his messages preference over all others. At a word he would be placed in almost instant communication with New Orleans, San Francisco, London, Berlin, or Cairo. Private lines and speaking tubes ran to every room or floor of the building where a company, firm, or individual was doing business. At the office of the Telegraph Service up-town he maintained messengers who carried none but his own despatches. In the railroad yards his private car stood always in readiness; and in the harbor his yacht was kept constantly under steam. A motor car stood ever in waiting in the street below, close to the shaft of a private automatic elevator, which ran through the building for his use alone. This elevator also penetrated the restaurant in the basement of the building, where a private room and a special waiter were always at the man's disposal. A private room and special attendant were maintained in the Turkish baths adjoining, and he had his own personal suite and valet at his favorite club up-town.

This morning he was at his desk, as usual, at eight o'clock. Before him lay the various daily reports from his mines, his mills, his railroads, and his bank. These disposed of, there followed a quick survey of the day's appointments, arranged for him by his chief secretary. Then he summoned Hood. As the latter entered, Ames was absorbed in the legend of the stock ticker.

"C. and R. closed yesterday at twenty-six," he commented. Then, swinging back in his chair, "What's Stolz doing?"

"For one thing, he has made Miss Fagin his private stenographer," replied Hood.

Ames chuckled. "Now we will begin to get real information," he remarked. "Tell Miss Fagin you will give her fifty dollars a week from now on; but she is to deliver to you a carbon copy of every letter she writes for Stolz. And I want those copies on my desk every morning when I come down. Hood," he continued, abruptly turning the conversation, "what have you dug up about Ketchim's new company?"

"Very little, sir," replied Hood with a trace of embarrassment. "His lawyer is a fledgeling named Cass, young, but wise enough not to talk. I called on him yesterday afternoon to have a little chat about the old Molino company, representing that I was speaking for certain stockholders. But he told me to bring the stockholders in and he would talk with them personally."

Ames laughed, while the lawyer grinned sheepishly. "Is that the sort of service you are rendering for a hundred-thousand-dollar salary?" he bantered. "Hood, I'm ashamed of you!"

"I can't blame you; I am ashamed of myself," replied the lawyer.

"Well," continued Ames good-naturedly, "leave Ketchim to me. I've got three men now buying small amounts of stock in his various companies. I'll call for receiverships pretty soon, and we will see this time that he doesn't refund the money. Now about other matters: the Albany post trolley deal is to go through. Also the potato scheme. Work up the details and let me have them at once. Have you got the senate bill drawn for Gossitch?"

"It will be ready this afternoon. As it stands now, the repealing section gives any city the right to grant saloon licenses of indefinite length, instead of for one year."

"That's the idea. We want the bill so drawn that it will become practically impossible to revoke a license."

"As it now reads," said Hood, "it makes a saloon license assignable. That creates a property right that can hardly be revoked."

"Just so," returned Ames. "As I figure, it will create a value of some twenty millions for those who own saloons in New York. A tidy sum!"

"That means for the brewers."

"And distillers, yes. And if the United States ever reaches the point where it will have to buy the saloons in order to wipe them out, it will face a very handsome little expenditure."

"But, Mr. Ames, a very large part of the stock of American brewing companies is owned in Europe. How are you—"

"Nominally, it is. But for two years, and more, I have been quietly gathering in brewing stock from abroad, and to-day I have some ten millions in my own control, from actual purchases, options, and so forth. I'm going to organize a holding company, when the time arrives, and I figure that within the next year or so we will practically control the production of beer and spirituous liquors in the United States and Europe. The formation of that company will be a task worthy of your genius, Hood."

"It will be a pleasure to undertake it," replied Hood with animation. "By the way, Mr. Ames, I got in touch with Senator Mall last evening at the club, and he assures me that the senate committee have so changed the phraseology of the tariff bill on cotton products that the clause you wish retained will be continued with its meaning unaltered. In fact, the discrimination which the hosiery interests desire will be fully observed. Your suggestion as to an ad valorem duty of fifty per cent on hose valued at less than sixty-five cents a dozen pairs is exceptionally clever, in view of the fact that there are none of less than that value."

Ames laughed again. "Triumphant Republicanism," he commented. "And right in the face of the President's message. Wire Mall that I will be in Washington Thursday evening to advise with him further about it. And you will go with me. Hood, we've got a fight on in regard to the President's idea of granting permission in private suits to use judgments and facts brought out and entered in government suits against combinations. That idea has got to be killed! And the regulation of security issues of railroads—preposterous! Why, the President's crazy! If Mall and Gossitch and Wells don't oppose that in the Senate, I'll see that they are up before the lunacy commission—and I have some influence with that body!"

"There is nothing to fear, I think," replied Hood reassuringly. "An important piece of business legislation like that will hardly go through this session. And then we will have time to prepare to frustrate it. The suggestion to place the New York Stock Exchange under government supervision is a much more serious matter, I think."

"See here, Hood," said Ames, leaning forward and laying a hand upon that gentleman's knee, "when that happens, we'll have either a Socialist president or a Catholic in the White House, with Rome twitching the string. Then I shall move to my Venezuelan estates, take the vow of poverty, and turn monk."

"Which reminds me again that by your continued relations with Rome you are doing much to promote just that state of affairs," returned the lawyer sententiously.

"Undoubtedly," said Ames. "But I find the Catholic Church convenient—indeed, necessary—for the promotion of certain plans. And so I use it. The Colombian revolution, for example. But I shall abruptly sever my relations with that institution some day—when I am through with it. At present I am milking the Church to the extent of a brimming pail every year; and as long as the udder is full and accessible I shall continue to tap it. I tapped the Presbyterian Church, through Borwell, last year, if you remember."

Willett, chief secretary to Ames, entered at that moment with the morning mail, opened and sorted, and replies written to letters of such nature as he could attend to without suggestions from his chief.

"By the way," remarked Hood when he saw the letters, "I had word from Collins this morning that he had secured a signed statement from that fellow Marcus, who was crushed in the Avon mills yesterday. Marcus accepted the medical services of our physicians, and died in our hospital. Just before he went off, his wife accepted a settlement of one hundred dollars. Looked big to her, I guess, and was a bird in the hand. So that matter's settled."

"That reminds me," said Ames, looking up from his mail; "we are going to close the mills earlier this year on account of the cotton shortage."

Hood gave a low whistle. "That spells trouble, in capital letters!" he commented. "Four thousand hands idle for three months, I suppose. By George! we just escaped disaster last year, you remember."

"It will be more than three months this time," commented Ames with a knowing look. Then—"Hood, I verily believe you are a coward."

"Well, Mr. Ames," replied the latter slowly, "I certainly would hesitate to do some of the things you do. Yet you seem to get away with them."

"Perk up, Hood," laughed Ames. "I've got real work for you as soon as I get control of C. and R. I'm going to put you in as president, at a salary of one hundred thousand per annum. Then you are going to buy the road for me for about two million dollars, and I'll reorganize and sell to the stockholders for five millions, still retaining control. The road is only a scrap heap, but its control is the first step toward the amalgamation of the trolley interests of New England. Laws are going to be violated, Hood, both in actual letter and in spirit. But that's your end of the business. It's up to you to get around the Interstate Commerce Commission in any way you can, and buttress this little monopoly against competition and reform-infected legislatures. I don't care what it costs."

"What about Crabbe?" asked Hood dubiously.

"We'll send Crabbe to the Senate," Ames coolly replied.

"You seem to forget that senators are now elected by the people, Mr. Ames."

"I forget nothing, sir. The people are New York City, Buffalo, and Albany. Tammany is New York. And Tammany at present is in my pocket. Buffalo and Albany can be swept by the Catholic vote. And I have that in the upper right hand drawer of my private file. The 'people' will therefore elect to the Senate the man I choose. In fact, I prefer direct election of senators over the former method, for the people are greater fools en masse than any State Legislature that ever assembled."

He took up another letter from the pile on his desk and glanced through it. "From Borwell," he commented. "Protests against the way you nullified the Glaze-Bassett red-light injunction bill. Pretty clever, that, Hood. I really didn't think it was in you."

"Invoking the referendum, you mean?" said Hood, puffing a little with pride.

"Yes. But for that, the passage of the bill would have wiped out the whole red-light district, and quartered the rents I now get from my shacks down there. Now next year we will be better prepared to fight the bill. The press will be with us then—a little cheaper and a trifle more degraded than it is to-day."

A private messenger entered with a cablegram. Ames read it and handed it to his lawyer. "The Proteus has reached the African Gold Coast at last," he said. Then he threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Do you know, Hood, the Proteus carried two missionaries, sent to the frizzle-topped Zulus by Borwell and his outfit. Deutsch and Company cable that they have arrived."

"But," said Hood in some perplexity, "the cargo of the Proteus was rum!"

"Just so," roared Ames; "that's where the joke comes in. I make it a point that every ship of mine that carries a missionary to a foreign field shall also carry a cargo of rum. The combination is one that the Zulu finds simply irresistible!"

"So," commented Hood, "the Church goes down to Egypt for help!"

"Why not?" returned Ames. "I carry the missionaries free on my rum boats. Great saving to the Board of Foreign Missions, you know."

Hood looked at the man before him in undisguised admiration of his cunning. "And did you likewise send missionaries to China with your opium cargoes?" he asked.

Ames chuckled. "I once sent Borwell himself to Hongkong on a boat loaded to the rails with opium. We had insisted on his taking a needed vacation, and so packed him off to Europe. In Bombay I cabled him to take the Crotus to Hongkong, transportation free. That was my last consignment of opium to China, for restrictions had already fallen upon our very Christian England, and the opium traffic was killed. I had plans laid to corner the entire opium business in India, and I'd have cleaned up a hundred million out of it, but for the pressure of public sentiment. However, we're going to educate John Chinaman to substitute whiskey for opium. But now," glancing at the great electric wall clock, "I've wasted enough time with you. By the way, do you know why this Government withheld recognition of the Chinese Republic?"

"No," replied Hood, standing in anticipation.

"Thirty thousand chests of opium," returned Ames laconically. "Value, fifty million dollars."

"Well?"

"Ames and Company had advanced to the English banks of Shanghai and Hongkong half this amount, loaned on the opium. That necessitated a few plain words from me to the President, and a quick trip from Washington to London afterwards to interview his most Christian British Majesty. A very pleasant and profitable trip, Hood, very! Now tell Willett I want him."

Hood threw his chief another look of intense admiration, and left the room. Willett's entrance followed immediately.

"Get Lafelle here some time to-day when I have a vacant hour," commanded Ames. "Cable to acting-Bishop Wenceslas, of Cartagena, and ask him if an American mining company is registered there under the name of Simiti Development Company, and what properties they have and where located. Tell him to cable reply, and follow with detailed letter."

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "The Congregation of the Sacred Index has laid the ban on—what's the name of the book?" He drew out a card-index drawer and selected a card, which he tossed to the secretary. "There it is. Get me the book at once." He seemed to muse a while, then went on slowly. "Carlos Madero, of Mexico, is in New York. Learn where he is staying, and arrange an interview for me. Wire Senator Wells, Washington, that the bill for a Children's Bureau must not be taken from the table. That's final. Wire the Sequana Coal Company that I want their report to-morrow, without fail. Wire Collins, at Avon, to tell the Spinners' Union I have nothing to discuss with them. Now send Hodson in."

As Hood was chief of the Ames legal department, and Willett the chief of his army of secretaries, so Hodson was the captain of his force of brokers, a keen, sagacious trader, whose knowledge of the market and whose ability in the matter of stock trading was almost uncanny.

"What's your selection for to-day, Hodson?" asked Ames, as the man entered.

Hodson laid on his desk three lists of suggested deals on the exchanges of New York, London, and Paris. Ames glanced over them hurriedly, drawing his pencil through certain that did not meet his approval, and substituting others in which for particular reasons he wished to trade that morning. "What's your reason for thinking I ought to buy Public Utilities?" he asked, looking up at his broker.

"They have the letting of the Hudson river tunnel contract," replied Hodson.

Ames studied the broker's face a moment. Then his own brightened, as he began to divine the man's reason. "By George!" he ejaculated, "you think there's quicksand along the proposed route?"

"I know it," said Hodson calmly.

"Pick up ten thousand shares, if you can get them," returned Ames quickly. Then—"I'm going to attend a meeting of the Council of American Grain Exchanges at two to-day. I want you to be just outside the door."

Hodson nodded understandingly. Ames concluded, "I guess that's all. I'm at the bank at ten; at the Board of Trade at ten-thirty; Stock Exchange at eleven; and lunch at Rector's at twelve sharp, returning here immediately afterward."

Hodson again bowed, and left the office to undertake his various commissions.

For the next half hour Ames pored over the morning's quota of letters and messages, making frequent notes, and often turning to the telephone at his hand. Then he summoned a stenographer and rapidly dictated a number of replies. Finally he again called Willett.

"In my next vacant hour, following the one devoted to Lafelle, I want to see Reverend Darius Borwell," he directed. "Also," he continued, "wire Strunz that I want a meeting of the Brewers' Union called at the earliest possible date. By the way, ask Lafelle if he can spend the night with me on board the Cossack, and if so, notify Captain McCall. That will save an hour in the day. Here is a bundle of requests for charity, for contributions to hospitals, orphan asylums, and various homes. Turn them all down, regretfully. H'm! 'Phone to the City Assessor to come over whenever you can arrange an hour and go over my schedule with me. By the way, tell Hood to take steps at once to foreclose on the Bradley estate. Did you find out where Ketchim does his banking?"

"Yes, sir," replied the secretary, "the Commercial State."

"Very well, get the president, Mr. Colson, on the wire."

A few moments later Ames had purchased from the Commercial State bank its note against the Ketchim Realty Company for ten thousand dollars. "I thought Ketchim would be borrowing again," he chuckled, when he had completed the transaction. "His brains are composed of a disastrous mixture of hypocrisy and greed. I've thrown another hook into him now."

At nine forty-five Ames left his private office and descended in his elevator to the banking house on the second floor. He entered the directors' room with a determined carriage, nodding pleasantly to his associates. Taking his seat as chairman, he promptly called the meeting to order.

Some preliminary business occupied the first few minutes, and then Ames announced:

"Gentlemen, when the State of New York offered the public sixty millions of four per cent bonds last week, and I advised you to take them at a premium of six per cent, you objected. I overruled you, and the bank bought the bonds. Within forty-eight hours they were resold at a premium of seven per cent, and the bank cleared six hundred thousand. A fair two days' business. Now let me suggest that the psychology of this transaction is worth your study. A commodity is a drug on the market at one dollar, until somebody is willing to pay a dollar and a half for it. Then a lot of people will want it, until somebody else offers a bid of two. Then the price will soar, and the number of those who covet the article and scramble for it will increase proportionably. Take this thought home with you."

A murmur of admiration rose from the directors. "I think," said one, "that we had better send Mr. Ames to Washington to confer with the President in regard to the proposed currency legislation."

"That is already arranged," put in Ames. "I meet the President next Thursday for a conference on this matter."

"And if he proves intractable?" queried another.

"Why, in that case," returned Ames with a knowing smile, "I think we had better give him a little lesson to take out of office with him—one that will ruin his second-term hopes—and then close our bank."

From the bank, the Board of Trade, the Stock Exchange, and his luncheon with Senator Gossitch, Ames returned to his office for the private interviews which his chief secretary had arranged. Then followed further consultations with Hood over the daily, weekly, and monthly reports which Ames required from all the various commercial, financial, and mining enterprises in which he was interested; further discussions of plans and schemes; further receipt and transmission of cable, telegraphic, and telephone messages; and meetings with his heads of departments, his captains, lieutenants, and minor officers, to listen to their reports and suggestions, and to deliver his quick, decisive commands, admonitions, and advice. From eight in the morning until, as was his wont, Ames closed his desk and entered his private elevator at five-thirty in the evening, his office flashed with the superenergy of the man, with his intense activity, his decisive words, and his stupendous endeavors, materialistic, absorptive, ruthless endeavors. If one should ask what his day really amounted to, we can but point to these incessant endeavors and their results in augmenting his already vast material interests and his colossal fortune, a fortune which Hood believed ran well over a hundred millions, and which Ames himself knew multiplied that figure by five or ten. And the fortune was increasing at a frightful pace, for he gave nothing, but continually drew to himself, always and ever drawing, accumulating, amassing, and absorbing, and for himself alone.

Snapping his desk shut, he held a brief conversation over the wire with the Beaubien, then descended to his waiting car and was driven hastily to his yacht, the Cossack, where Monsignor Lafelle awaited as his guest. It was one of the few pleasures which Ames allowed himself during the warm months, to drop his multifarious interests and spend the night aboard the Cossack, generally alone, rocking gently on the restless billows, so typical of his own heaving spirit, as the beautiful craft steamed noiselessly to and fro along the coast, well beyond the roar of the huge arena where human beings, formed of dust, yet fatuously believing themselves made in the image of infinite Spirit, strive and sweat, curse and slay, in the struggle to prove their doubtful right to live.



CHAPTER 13

The Cossack, with its great turbines purring like a sleeping kitten, and its twin screws turning lazily, almost imperceptibly in the dark waters, moved through the frosty night like a cloud brooding over the deep. Yet it was a cloud of tremendous potentiality, enwrapping a spirit of energy incarnate. From far aloft its burning eye pierced a channel of light through the murky darkness ahead. In its wake it drew a swell of sparkling phosphorescence, which it carelessly tossed off on either side as a Calif might throw handfuls of glittering coins to his fawning beggars. From somewhere in the structure above, the crackling, hissing wireless mechanism was thrusting its invisible hands out into the night and catching the fleeting messages that were borne on the intangible pulsations of the mysterious ether. From time to time these messages were given form and body, and despatched to the luxurious suite below, where, in the dazzling sheen of silver and cut glass, spread out over richest napery, and glowing beneath a torrent of white light, sat the gigantic being whose will directed the movements of this floating palace.

"You see, Lafelle, I look upon religion with the eye of the cold-blooded business man, without the slightest trace of sentimentalism. From the business standpoint, the Protestant Church is a dead failure. It doesn't get results that are in any way commensurate with its investment. But your Church is a success—from the point of dollars and cents. In fact, in the matter of forming and maintaining a monopoly, I take off my hat to the Vatican. You fellows have got us all beaten. Every day I learn something of value by studying your methods of operating upon the public. And so you see why I take such pleasure in talking with really astute churchmen like yourself."

Monsignor Lafelle studied the man without replying, uncertain just what interpretation to put upon the remark. The Japanese servant was clearing away the remnants of the meal, having first lighted the cigars of the master and guest.

"Now," continued Ames, leaning back in his luxurious chair and musing over his cigar, "the purgatory idea is one of the cleverest schemes ever foisted upon the unthinking masses, and it has proved a veritable Klondike. Gad! if I could think up and put over a thing like that I'd consider myself really possessed of brains."

Lafelle's eyes twinkled. "I fear, Mr. Ames," he replied adroitly, "you do not know your Bible."

"No, that's true. I don't suppose I ever in my life read a whole chapter in the book. I can't swallow such stuff, Lafelle—utterly unreasonable, wholly inconsistent with facts and natural laws, as we know and are able to observe them. Even as a child I never had any use for fairy-tales, or wonder-stories. I always wanted facts, tangible, concrete, irrefutable facts, not hypotheses. The Protestant churches hand out a mess of incoherent guesswork, based on as many interpretations of the Bible as there are human minds sufficiently interested to interpret it, and then wax hot and angry when hard-headed business men like myself refuse to subscribe to it. It's preposterous, Lafelle! If they had anything tangible to offer, it would be different. But I go to church for the looks of the thing, and for business reasons; and then stick pins into myself to keep awake while I listen to pedagogical Borwell tell what he doesn't know about God and man. Then at the close of the service I drop a five-dollar bill into the plate for the entertainment, and go away with the feeling that I didn't get my money's worth. From a business point of view, a Protestant church service is worth about twenty-five cents for the music, and five cents for the privilege of sleeping on a soft cushion. So you see I lose four dollars and seventy cents every time I attend. You Catholic fellows, with your ceremonial and legerdemain, give a much better entertainment. Besides, I like to hear your priests soak it to their cowering flocks."

Lafelle sighed. "I shall have to class you with the incorrigibles," he said with a rueful air. "I am sorry you take such a harsh attitude toward us. We are really more spiritual—"

Ames interrupted with a roar of laughter. "Don't! don't!" he pleaded, holding up a hand. "Why, Lafelle, you old fraud, I look upon your Church as a huge business institution, a gigantic trust, as mercenary and merciless as Steel, Oil, or Tobacco! Why, you and I are in the same business, that of making money! And I'd like to borrow some of your methods. You catch 'em through religion. I have to use other methods. But the end is the same. Only, you've got it over me, for you hurl the weight of centuries of authority upon the poor, trembling public; and I have to beat them down with clubs of my own making. Moreover, the law protects you in all your pious methods; while I have to hire expensive legal talent to get around it."

"You seem to be fairly successful, even at that," retorted Lafelle. Then, too politic to draw his host into an acrimonious argument that might end in straining their now cordial and mutually helpful friendship, he observed, looking at his cigar: "May I ask what you pay for these?—for only an inexhaustible bank reserve can warrant their like."

He had struck the right chord, and Ames softened at once. "These," he said, tenderly regarding the thick, black weed in his fingers, "are grown exclusively for me on my own plantation in Colombia. They cost me about one dollar and sixty-eight cents each, laid down at my door in New York. I searched the world over before I found the only spot where such tobacco could be grown."

"And this wine?" continued Lafelle, lifting his glass of sparkling champagne.

"On a little hillside, scarcely an acre in extent, in Granada, Spain," replied Ames. "I have my own wine press and bottling plant there."

Lafelle could not conceal his admiration for this man of luxury. "And does your exclusiveness extend also to your tea and coffee?" he ventured, smiling.

"It does," said Ames. "I grow tea for my table in both China and Ceylon. And I have exclusive coffee plantations in Java and Brazil. But I'm now negotiating for one in Colombia, for I think that, without doubt, the finest coffee in the world is grown there, although it never gets beyond the coast line."

"Fortuna non deo," murmured the churchman; "you man of chance and destiny!"

Ames laughed genially. "My friend," said he, "I have always insisted that I possessed but a modicum of brains; but I am a gambler. My god is chance. With ordinary judgment and horse-sense, I take risks that no so-called sane man would consider. The curse of the world is fear—the chief instrument that you employ to hold the masses to your churchly system. I was born without it. I know that as long as a business opponent has fear to contend with, I am his master. Fear is at the root of every ailment of mind, body, or environment. I repeat, I know not the meaning of the word. Hence my position in the business world. Hence, also, my freedom from the limitations of superstition, religious or otherwise. Do you get me?"

"Yes," replied Lafelle, drawing a long sigh, "in a sense I do. But you greatly err, my friend, in deprecating your own powerful intellect. I know of no brain but yours that could have put South Ohio Oil from one hundred and fifty dollars up to over two thousand a share. I had a few shares of that stock myself. But I held until it broke."

Ames smiled knowingly. "Sorry I didn't know about it," he said. "I could have saved you. I didn't own a dollar's worth of South Ohio. Oh, yes," he added, as he saw Lafelle's eyes widening in surprise, "I pushed the market up until a certain lady, whom you and I both know, thought it unwise to go further, and then I sprung the sudden discovery of Colombian oil fields on them; and the market crashed like a burst balloon. The lady cleared some two millions on the rig. No, I didn't have a drop of Colombian oil to grease the chute. It was American nerve, that's all."

"Well!" ejaculated Lafelle. "If you had lived in the Middle Ages you'd have been burnt for possessing a devil!"

"On the contrary," quickly amended Ames, his eyes twinkling, "I'd have been made a Cardinal."

Both men laughed over the retort; and then Ames summoned the valet to set in motion the great electrical pipe-organ, and to bring the whiskey and soda.

For the next hour the two men gave themselves up to the supreme luxury of their magnificent environment, the stimulation of their beverage and cigars, and the soothing effect of the soft music, combined with the gentle movement of the boat. Then Ames took his guest into the smoking room proper, and drew up chairs before a small table, on which were various papers and writing materials.

"Now," he began, "referring to your telephone message of this morning, what is it that you want me to do for you? Is it the old question of establishing a nunciature at Washington?"

Lafelle had been impatiently awaiting this moment. He therefore plunged eagerly into his subject. "Mr. Ames," said he, "I know you to have great influence at the Capital. In the interests of humanity, I ask you to use that influence to prevent the passage of the immigration bill which provides for a literacy test."

Ames smiled inwardly. There was no need of this request; for, in the interests, not of humanity, but of his own steamship companies, he intended that there should be no restriction imposed upon immigration. But the Church was again playing into his hands, coming to him for favors. And the Church always paid heavily for his support. "Well! well!" he exclaimed with an assumption of interest, "so you ask me to impugn my own patriotism!"

Lafelle looked perplexed. "I don't quite understand," he said.

"Why," Ames explained, "how long do you figure it will take, with unrestricted immigration, for the Catholics to so outnumber the Protestants in the United States as to establish their religion by law and force it into the schools?"

Lafelle flushed. "But your Constitution provides toleration for all religions!"

"And the Constitution is quite flexible, and wholly subject to amendment, is it not?"

Lafelle flared out in unrestrained anger. "What a bugaboo you Protestants make of Roman Catholicism!" he cried. "Great heavens! Why, one would think that we Catholics were all anarchists! Are we such a menace, such a curse to your Republican institutions? Do you ever stop to realize what the Church has done for civilization, and for your own country? And where, think you, would art and learning be now but for her? Have you any adequate idea what the Church is doing to-day for the poor, for the oppressed? Good God! You Protestants, a thousand times more intolerant than we, treat us as if we were Hindoo pariahs! This whole country is suffering from the delirium of Roman Catholic-phobia! Will you drive us to armed defense?"

"There, my friend, calm yourself," soothed Ames, laying a hand on the irate churchman's arm. "And please do not class me with the Protestants, for I am not one of them. You Catholic fellows have made admirable gains in the past few years, and your steady encroachments have netted you about ninety per cent of all the political offices in and about Washington, so you have no complaint, even if the Church isn't in politics. H'm! So you want my help, eh?"

He stopped and drummed on the table. Meantime, his brain was working rapidly. "By the way, Lafelle," he said, abruptly resuming the conversation, "you know all about church laws and customs, running way back to mediaeval times. Can't you dig up some old provision whereby I can block a fellow who claims to own a gold mine down in Colombia? If you can, I'll see that the President vetoes every obnoxious immigration bill that's introduced this term."

Lafelle roused from his sulk and gulped down his wrath. Ames went on to express his desire for vengeance upon one obscure Philip O. Ketchim, broker, promoter, church elder, and Sunday school superintendent. Lafelle became interested. The conversation grew more and more animated. Hours passed.

Then at length Ames rose and rang for his valet. "My God, Lafelle, the idea's a corker!" he cried, his eyes ablaze. "Where'd you get it?"

Lafelle laughed softly. "From a book entitled 'Confessions of a Roman Catholic Priest,' written anonymously, but, they say, by a young attache of the Vatican who was insane at the time. I never learned his name. However, he was apparently well informed on matters Colombian."

"And what do you call the law?"

"The law of 'en manos muertas'," replied Lafelle.

"Well," exclaimed Ames, "again I take off my hat to your churchly system! And now," he continued eagerly, "cable the Pope at once. I'll have the operator send your code ashore by wireless, and the message will go to Rome to-night. Tell the old man you've got influence at work in Washington that is—well, more than strong, and that the prospects for defeating the immigration bill are excellent."

Lafelle arose and stood for a moment looking about the room. "Before I retire, my friend," he said, "I would like to express again the admiration which the tasteful luxury of this smoking room has aroused in me, and to ask, if I may, whether those stained-glass windows up there are merely fanciful portraits?"

Ames quickly glanced up at the faces of the beautiful women portrayed in the rectangular glass windows which lined the room just below the ceiling. They were exquisitely painted, in vivid colors, and so set as to be illuminated during the day by sunlight, and at night by strong electric lamps behind them. "Why do you ask?" he inquired in wonder.

"Because," returned Lafelle, "if I mistake not, I have seen a portrait similar to that one," pointing up at one of the windows, where a sad, wistful face of rare loveliness looked down upon them.

Ames started slightly. "Where, may I ask?" he said in a controlled voice.

Lafelle reflected. In his complete absorption he had not noticed the effect of his query upon Ames. "I do not know," he replied slowly. "London—Paris—Berlin—no, not there. And yet, it was in Europe, I am sure. Ah, I have it! In the Royal Gallery, at Madrid."

Ames stared at him dully. "In the—Royal Gallery—at Madrid!" he echoed in a low tone.

"Yes," continued Lafelle confidently, still studying the portrait, "I am certain of it. But," turning abruptly upon Ames, "you may have known the original?"

Ames had recovered his composure. "I assure you I never had that pleasure," he said lightly. "These art windows were set in by the designer of the yacht. Clever idea, I thought. Adds much to the general effect, don't you think? By the way, if a portrait similar to that one hangs in the Royal Gallery at Madrid, you might try to learn the identity of the original for me. It's quite interesting to feel that one may have the picture of some bewitching member of royalty hanging in his own apartments. By all means try to learn who the lady is—unless you know." He stopped and searched the churchman's face.

But Lafelle shook his head. "No, I do not know her. But—that picture has haunted me from the day I first saw it in the Royal Gallery. Who designed your yacht?"

"Crafts, of 'Storrs and Crafts,'" replied Ames. "But he died a year ago. Storrs is gone, too. No help from that quarter."

Lafelle moved thoughtfully toward the door. The valet appeared at that moment.

"Show Monsignor to his stateroom," commanded Ames. "Good night, Monsignor, good night. Remember, we dock at seven-thirty, sharp."

Returning to the table, Ames sat down and rapidly composed a message for his wireless operator to send across the dark waters to the city, and thence to acting-Bishop Wenceslas, in Cartagena. This done, he extinguished all the lights in the room excepting those which illuminated the stained-glass windows above. Drawing his chair up in front of the one which had stirred Lafelle's query, he sat before it far into the morning, in absorbed contemplation, searching the sad features of the beautiful face, pondering, revolving, sometimes murmuring aloud, sometimes passing a hand across his brow, as if he would erase from a relentless memory an impression made long since and worn ever deeper by the recurrent thought of many years.



CHAPTER 14

Almost within the brief period of a year, the barefoot, calico-clad Carmen had been ejected from unknown Simiti and dropped into the midst of the pyrotechnical society life of the great New World metropolis. Only an unusual interplay of mental forces could have brought about such an odd result. But that it was a very logical outcome of the reaction upon one another of human ambitions, fears, lust, and greed, operating through the types of mind among which her life had been cast, those who have followed our story thus far can have no doubt. The cusp of the upward-sweeping curve had been reached through the insane eagerness of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to outdo her wealthy society rivals in an arrogant display of dress, living, and vain, luxurious entertaining, and the acquisition of the empty honor attaching to social leadership. The coveted prize was now all but within the shallow woman's grasp. Alas! she knew not that when her itching fingers closed about it the golden bauble would crumble to ashes.

The program as outlined by the Beaubien had been faithfully followed. Mrs. J. Wilton Ames had met Mrs. Hawley-Crowles—whom, of course, she had long desired to know more intimately—and an interchange of calls had ensued, succeeded by a grand reception at the Ames mansion, the first of the social season. To this Mrs. Hawley-Crowles floated, as upon a cloud, attired in a French gown which cost fifteen hundred dollars, and shoes on her disproportioned feet for which she had rejoiced to pay thirty dollars each, made as they had been from specially selected imported leather, dyed to match her rich robe. It was true, her pleasure had not been wholly unalloyed, for she had been conscious of a trace of superciliousness on the part of some of the gorgeous birds of paradise, twittering and hopping in their hampering skirts about the Ames parlors, and pecking, with milk-fed content, at the rare cakes and ices. But she only held her empty head the higher, and fluttered about the more ostentatiously and clumsily, while anticipating the effect which her charming and talented ward would produce when she should make her bow to these same vain, haughty devotees of the cult of gold. And she had wisely planned that Carmen's debut should follow that of Kathleen Ames, that it might eclipse her rival's in its wanton display of magnificence.