"I'm done fighting. I've something else to do."

When Bivens failed to reply to his second letter he made up his mind to see him personally. He was sure the letter had been turned over to a lawyer and the financier had never seen it. He called at Bivens's office three times and always met the same answer:

"Mr. Bivens is engaged for every hour to-day. You must call again."

On the fourth day, when he had stayed until time for closing the office, a secretary informed him that Mr. Bivens was too busy with matters of great importance to take up any new business of any kind for a month, and that he had given the most positive orders to that effect to all his men. If he would return the first of next month he would see what could be done.

The doctor left in disgust. It was evident that the millionaire's business had reached such vast proportions that its details were as intricate and absorbing as the government of an empire and that he had found it necessary to protect his person with a network of red tape.

He determined to break through this ceremonial nonsense, see Bivens face to face, and settle the affair at once.

When he should see him personally it would be but a question of five minutes' friendly talk and the matter would be ended. Now that he recalled little traits of Bivens's character, he didn't seem such a scoundrel after all—just the average money-mad man who could see but one side of life. He would remind him in a friendly way of their early association, and the help he had given him at an hour of his life when he needed it most. He wouldn't cringe or plead. He would state the whole situation frankly and truthfully and with dignity propose a settlement.

It was just at this moment that the doctor learned of the preparations for the dinner and ball at the Bivens palace on Riverside Drive. The solution of the whole problem flashed through his mind in an instant. They would have professional singers without a doubt, the great operatic stars and others. If Harriet could only be placed on the programme for a single song it would be settled! Her voice would sweep Bivens off his feet and charm the brilliant throng of guests. He would have to accompany her there of course. At the right moment he would make himself known; a word with Bivens and it would be settled.

He imagined in vivid flashes the good-natured scene between them, the astonishment of the financier that his little girl had grown into such a wonderful woman and his pleasure in recalling the days when she used to play hide and seek behind the counter of the old drug store.

He lost no time in finding out the manager of the professional singers for the evening and through Harriet's enthusiastic music teachers arranged for her appearance.

From the moment this was accomplished his natural optimism returned. His success was sure. He gave his time with renewed energy to his work among the poor.

On the day of the ball Harriet was waiting in a fever of impatience for his return from the hospitals to dress. At half past seven their dinner was cold and he had not come. It was eight o'clock before his familiar footstep echoed through the hall.

Harriet kissed him tenderly.

"I'm glad you're safe at home at last—now hurry."

"I'll not delay you much. I can dress in thirty minutes. My! my! but you're glorious to-night, child! I never saw you look so beautiful!"

She pushed him into the dining room, crying:

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! This is really the first night in my career. Jim's been gone an hour. Dinner up there begins at eight."

"But my star does not rise to sing before eleven—the ball begins at twelve. I've plenty of time to love you a minute or two."

He drew her near again and kissed her.

"I wouldn't exchange my little girl's crown of gold for all the yellow coin of the millionaires we shall see to-night."

"And I wouldn't give the father with the loving heart and stainless name for the Kingdom of Mammon."

"That's a beautiful saying, my own, I shall not forget it; and now I'll hurry."

He ate a hasty meal, dressed in thirty minutes, and at nine o'clock led Harriet to the side entrance of Bivens's great house on the Drive.

He was in fine spirits. The reaction from the tension of a pitiful tragedy of sin and shame he had witnessed in the afternoon had lifted him to spiritual heights. For the life of him he couldn't look at his own troubles seriously. They seemed trivial in a world of such shadows as that which fell across his path from behind those iron bars. He rejoiced again that he had made up his mind to live the life of faith and good fellowship with all men, including the little swarthy master of the palace he was about to enter.

And so with light heart he stepped through the door which the soft white hand of Death opened. How could he know?



CHAPTER XVII

SOME INSIDE FACTS

As Stuart dressed for Nan's party he brooded over his new relation to his old sweetheart with increasing pleasure. She had begun to tease him with gentle raillery about his tragic exaggeration of the treachery of her betrayal, and laughingly promised to make it all up by introducing him to a group of the richest and most beautiful girls in New York. He could take his choice under her wise guidance. She promised to begin his course of instruction to-night.

Never had Bivens's offer seemed more generous and wonderful. His pulse beat with quickened stroke as he felt the new sense of power with which he would look out on the world as a possible millionaire.

He gazed over the old Square with a feeling of regret at the thought of leaving it. He had grown to love the place in the past years of loneliness. He had become personally acquainted with every tree and shrub and every limb of the nearby trees. He had watched them grow from his window, seen them sway in the storm, bow beneath the ice, and grow into new beauty and life each spring. He was deciding too soon, perhaps. There were some features of Bivens's business he must understand more clearly before he could give up his freedom and devote himself body and soul to the task of money-making as his associate.

He resolved to make his decision with deliberation. But if he should go in for money, he wouldn't forget his old friends, nor would he leave Washington Square. He would buy that corner plot on Fifth Avenue across the way for his house. There should be two beautiful suites in it for the doctor and Harriet, and from their windows they could always see the old home on the other side. He would buy the two adjoining houses, turn them into a sanitarium, endow it and place the doctor in charge. And he would give him a fund of ten thousand a year for his outside work among the poor.

He woke from his reverie with a start and looked at his watch to find he had been standing there dreaming for half an hour. He hurried across the Square to take a cab at the Brevoort.

His mood was buoyant. He was looking out on life once more through rose-tinted glasses. At Eighth Street he met at right angles the swarming thousands hurrying across town from their work—heavy looking men who tramped with tired step, striking the pavements dully with their nailed shoes, tired anxious women, frouzle-headed little girls, sad-eyed boys half-awake—all hurrying, the fear of want and the horror of charity in their silent faces. And yet the sight touched no responsive chord of sympathy in Stuart's heart as it often had. To-night he saw only the thing that is and felt that it was good.

He pushed his way through the shabby throng, found a cab, sprang in and gave his order to the driver. A row of taxicabs stood by the curb. He took an old-fashioned hansom from choice. It seemed to link the present moment of his life to the memory of some wonderful hours he had spent, with Nan by his side, years ago.

As the cab whirled up Fifth Avenue he leaned back in his seat with a feeling of glowing satisfaction with himself and the world. The shadows of a beautiful spring night slowly deepened as the city drew her shining mantle of light about her proud form. The Avenue flashed with swift silent automobiles and blooded horses. These uptown crowds through whose rushing streams he passed were all well dressed and carried bundles of candy, flowers and toys. The newsboys were already crying extras with glowing advance accounts of the banquet and ball.

Stuart felt the contagious enthusiasm of thousands of prosperous men and women whose lives at the moment flowed about and enveloped his own. This was a pretty fine old world after all, and New York the only town worth living in.

And what was it that made the difference between the squalid atmosphere below Fourth Street and the glowing, flashing, radiant, jewelled world up-town? Money! It meant purple and fine linen, delicacies of food and drink, pulsing machines that could make a mile a minute, high-stepping horses and high-bred dogs, music and dancing, joy and laughter, sport and adventure, the mountain and the sea, freedom from care, fear, drudgery and slavery!

After all in this modern passion for money might there not be something deeper than mere greed; perhaps the regenerating power of the spirit pressing man upward? Certainly he could only see the bright side of it to-night and the wonder grew on him that he had lived for twenty-five years in a fog of sentiment and ignored deliberately the biggest fact of the century, while the simpler mind of the poor white boy in Bivens had grasped the truth at once and built his life squarely on it from the beginning. Well, he had set his mind to it at last in time to reach the highest goal of success, if he so willed. For that he was thankful.

As his cab swung into Riverside Drive from Seventy-second Street the sight which greeted him was one of startling splendour.

Bivens's yacht lay at anchor in the river just in front of his house. She was festooned with electric lights from the water line to the top of her towering steel masts. From every shroud and halyard hung garlands of light, and the flags which flew from her peaks were illumined with waving red, white and blue colours. From the water's edge floated the songs of Venetian gondoliers imported from Italy for the night's festival, moving back and forth from the yacht.

The illumination of the exterior of the Bivens house was remarkable. The stone and iron fence surrounding the block, which had been built at a cost of a hundred thousand dollars, was literally ablaze with lights. Garlands of tiny electric bulbs had been fastened on every iron picket, post and cross bar, and the most wonderful effect of all had been achieved by leading these garlands of light along the lines of cement in the massive granite walls on which the iron stanchions rested. The effect was a triumph of artistic skill, a flashing electric fence built on huge boulders of light.

The house was illumined from its foundations to the top of each towering minaret with ruby-coloured lights. Each window, door, cornice, column and line of wall glowed in soft red. The palace gleamed in the darkness like a huge oriental ruby set in diamonds.

Stuart passed up the grand stairs through a row of gorgeous flunkies and greeted his hostess.

Nan grasped his hand with a smile of joy.

"You are to lead me in to dinner, Jim, at the stroke of eight."

"I'll not forget," Stuart answered, his face flushing with surprise at the unexpected honour.

"Cal wishes to see you at once. You will find him in the library."

Bivens met him at the door.

"Ah, there you are!" he cried cordially, "Come back down stairs with me. I want you to see some people as they come in to-night. I've a lot of funny things to tell you about them."

The house was crowded with an army of servants, attendants, musicians, singers, entertainers and reporters.

The doctor had been recognized by one of the butlers whom he had befriended on his arrival from the Old World. The grateful fellow had gone out of the way to make him at home, and in his enthusiasm had put an alcove which opened off the ball room at his and Harriet's disposal. The doctor was elated at this evidence of Bivens's good feeling and again congratulated himself on his common sense in coming.

Bivens led Stuart to a position near the grand stairway, from which he could greet his guests as they returned from their formal presentation to the hostess.

He kept up a running fire of biographical comment which amused Stuart beyond measure.

"That fellow, Jim," he whispered, as a tall finely groomed man passed and touched his hand, "that fellow is as slick a political grafter as ever stole the ear-rings from the sleeping form of a fallen angel. He levies blackmail on almost every crime named in the code. But you can't prove it in court and he's worth millions. His influence on legislation is enormous and he can't be ignored. He's one of the kind who like this sort of thing, and he goes everywhere. Money is power. No matter how you get it. Once gotten, it's divine. Call the man a thief and grafter if you will, but the laws of centuries protect him. There are no rights now except property rights. I'd like to kick him out of the house. I'd as lief a toad or a lizard touched my wife's hand, but he's here to-night, well, because I'm afraid of him."

Stuart nodded.

"Yes. I tried to send the gentleman to the penitentiary last year."

"But you didn't even get in speaking distance of him, did you?"

"No, and——"

"You bet you didn't; he's a lawyer himself."

"I thought he smiled when he shook hands."

"You remember that old Latin proverb we used to get off at college? I was punk in Latin, but I never forgot that—'Harus pex ad harus picem' when one priest meets another it's to smile! The lawyers are the high priests of the modern world. Only the women support the church."

"At least we can thank God there are only a few such men who force their way into decent society."

"I guess you are right," Bivens answered, "and he couldn't do it by the brute power of his money only. He has brains and culture combined with the daring of the devil. Still, Jim, most of the big bugs who come here to-night live in glass houses and have long ago learned that it don't pay to throw stones."

A titled nobleman passed, and Bivens winked.

"The poor we have with us always!"

Stuart smiled and returned at once to the point.

"Just what did you mean by that last remark about glass houses?"

"Simply this, old man, that all these high-browed society people who turn up their noses behind my back and marvel at my low origin and speak in bated whispers about my questionable financial strokes—all have their little secrets. For my own comfort I've made a special study of great fortunes in America. The funny thing is that apparently every one of them was founded on some questionable trick of trade."

"Not every one, surely."

"In my study of the subject I ran across a brilliant young Socialist by the name of Gustavus who has devoted his life to the study of the origin of these fortunes. He has written a book about them. I have read it in manuscript. It will fill four volumes when completed. Honestly I've laughed over it until I cried. For instance, speaking of the devil, here comes Major Viking. His people are no longer in trade. Such vulgarity is beneath them. He comes here because I'm supposed to be worth a hundred million and belong to the inner circle of the elect. There are less than two dozen of us, you know."

"Delighted to greet you, Major. My old friend and college mate, James Stuart."

The proud head of the house of Viking grasped Stuart's hand and gave it a friendly shake. His manner was simple, unaffected, manly and the bronzed look of his face told its story of life in the open.

"Not our distinguished young district attorney whom the politicians had to get rid of?" he asked in tones of surprise and pleasure.

"The very same," Bivens answered gravely.

The Major gripped Stuart's hand a second time.

"Then I want to shake again and offer you my congratulations on the service you have rendered the Nation. It's an honour to know you, sir."

Stuart was too much amazed at such a speech to reply before the tall figure had disappeared.

Bivens pressed his arm.

"That's why I could afford to pay you a million a year."

"You don't mean to say that his fortune is streaked with the stain of fraud?" Stuart asked, in low tones.

"Certainly. Personally, he's a fine fellow. He's a big man and lives in a big world. His fortune is not less than two hundred million, securely salted down in gilt-edged real estate, most of it. But the original fortune was made by fraud and violence in the old days of colonial history. The elder Viking was a furrier. The fur trade was enormously profitable. Why? Because the whole scheme was built on the simple process by which an Indian was made drunk and in one brief hour cheated out of the results of a year's work. His agents never paid money for skins. They first used whiskey to blind their victims and then traded worthless beads and trinkets for priceless treasures of fur. And on such a foundation was the great house founded."

"It's incredible."

"The facts have been published. If they were not true the publisher could be driven out of business. The Vikings maintain a dignified silence. They have to do it, but softly, here is the head of the house of Black Friday. Everybody knows about his father's sins. Yet he was the friend and comrade of the great who were canonized while he was cannonaded. Good fellow, too, all the same breed when you come right down to it, only some of them have the genius for getting away with the goods and saving their reputations at the same time."

"For instance?" Stuart asked.

Bivens craned his neck toward the stairs.

"There's one of them, now, one of the great railroad kings, not one of your Western bounders, but the real Eastern, New York patriotic brand, one of the brave, daring pioneers who risked all to push great transcontinental railroads through the trackless deserts of the West—with millions furnished by the government—which they dumped into their own pockets while the world was shouting their praises for developing the Nation's resources."

"My friend, Mr. James Stuart, Mr. Van Dam."

It was with difficulty that the young lawyer kept his face straight during those introductions.

Van Dam bowed with grave courtesy, and when he was beyond the reach of Bivens's voice the little dark biographer went on:

"Old Van Dam, the founder of the house, whose palaces now crowd Fifth Avenue, was a plain-spoken, hard-swearing, God-fearing, man-hating old scoundrel who put on no airs, but simply went for what he wanted and got it. He was the first big transportation king we developed. His fortune was founded on the twin arts of bribery and blackmail. The lobby he maintained in secret collusion with his alleged rivals in Washington while he was working his subsidy bills through Congress was a wonder, even in its day. He and his rival with two gangs of thieves publicly lobbying against each other met in secret and divided the spoils when the campaign was over. If a real rival succeeded in getting a Government subsidy for a transportation line in which he had no share, his procedure was always the same; he began the construction or equipment of a rival line until they bought him off by a big payment of monthly blackmail. His income from blackmail alone was frequently more than a million a year. His sons are fine fellows and doubled the old man's millions in bigger, cleaner ways, as I've doubled mine. But it gives me a pain when these men begin to nose around; inquiring about my early history."

"Well, Cal," Stuart broke in with a laugh, "the one thing I like about you is that you have never been ashamed of your humble origin."

"Still I'm not without my weak spot, even there, Jim," the little man said, with an accent of pain that startled Stuart.

"What do you mean?"

"You see that bunch of newspaper reporters over there? They are the ghosts that haunt my dreams. Oh, not what they'll say in their dirty papers. We can control that, we own them. But there's a magazine muckraker among them. He has nosed his way in here to-night as a reporter, for some devilish purpose. He has been down in North Carolina, moving heaven and earth to find my poor old father and mother and get under my hide with a biographical sketch. He has written a volume of lies about them already—but list, here's another one of the great ones you must know, old Grantly, the proud possessor of a fortune made in the services of the Nation for the nominal consideration of fifty per cent. profit, a typical Civil War nabob."

Bivens bowed with exaggerated courtesy to the great man, introduced him and said with a quiet sneer:

"The kind that makes me really sick is the patriotic poser. I suppose it was because my dad wasn't a very brave soldier." He laughed quietly. "Remember the day you knocked those brutes down at college for forcing me to make a speech in praise of my father's heroism? I could have died for you that day, Jim."

"Oh, that was nothing," Stuart protested lightly.

"To you, maybe, but to me—well, as I was saying, the great man who just passed is very proud, not only because he is a multi-millionaire but because his house is supposed to be one of the pillars of the Nation. The truth is that during the Civil War he formed a 'Union Defense Committee' and raised funds to carry on the war. Incidentally—quite incidentally, of course—he got contracts for supplies from the Government and made millions by the frauds he practised. One of his tricks was the importation of worthless arms from Europe which he sold the Government at enormous profits. He made more than a half-million selling these worthless guns to the State authorities of the North. The Hall Carbine was his favourite weapon, a gun that would blow the fingers off the soldier who tried to shoot it, but was never known to do any harm to the man who stood in front of it. I never knew what the fellow meant when he said 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,' until I became personally acquainted with that gentleman."

Bivens bent low and whispered:

"The sweetest memory of my life is that I pulled a couple of millions of wool out of his hide in the recent panic. Jim, you love to hunt. You don't know what real sport is until you jump a skunk like that in a panic. You go all the way to Virginia to shoot ducks. When you get to my office in Wall Street I'll take you on a hunt you'll not forget. What's the use to waste your time for a whole day trying to kill a poor little duck when there are hundreds of big, fat, juicy animals like that roaming around loose in New York!"

"I see," Stuart laughed, "that's what you mean by the game."

"Surely, my boy,—it's the only game worth playing, this big red game of life and death with a two-footed human beast the quarry."

Bivens's little swarthy figure suddenly stiffened and his black eyes flashed. He looked up the stairs and a smile lighted his face.

"Now, Jim, here comes one into whose hide I know you'd enjoy putting a harpoon—a pillar of the church. Look at the cut of those solemn Presbyterian whiskers. It makes me faint to remember how many times I've tried and failed to get my hooks into him. I know you could land the deacon. I'd joyfully give you a million just to see him wriggle in my hands."

Bivens grasped his hand with pious unction.

"A glorious night, deacon. I know you won't stay for the ball, but if you'll do justice to the dinner I'll forgive you."

The deacon murmured his thanks and hurried on.

"It's evident that however much he loves the Lord he don't love you, Cal."

"No, he's just afraid of me. That's why he came to-night. Jim, if you can get even with him for me, I'd give you the half of my kingdom."

"Why don't you like him?"

"Because he has slipped through my hands like an eel every time I thought I had him. His specialty is piety. That makes me tired. I'm a church member myself, but I don't trade on my piety."

"Well, there couldn't have been anything crooked about his fortune?"

Bivens chuckled softly.

"No. It was a masterpiece of fine art! His father was the original founder of the importing trade graft. He was the first man to discover that a colossal fortune could be made over night by swindling the United States Government at the port of New York. His people have been noted for their solid and substantial standing in the business world. The head of the house was known as the premier among the high-toned business men of the old school. His family set up his statue in a public square in New York. I suppose they bribed the city fathers to get a permit. Well, one day before this statue was unveiled a plain little honest fool of a U.S. Treasury agent got onto the old man's curves and the Government brought suit for a part of what he had stolen. Old William Crookes paid into the Treasury the neat sum of one million and compromised the case. Some of his modern imitators with their false weights and scales haven't been so wise."

"The world has never heard of this—that's funny!" Stuart exclaimed.

"Not so funny, Jim, when you think of the power of money to make the world forget. God only knows how many fortunes in America had their origin in thefts from the Nation during the Civil War, and the systematic frauds that have been practised on our Government since. I've turned some pretty sharp tricks, Jim, in stalking my game in this big man-hunt of Wall Street, but at least I've never robbed the wounded or the dead on a battlefield and I've never used a dark lantern to get into the Government vaults at Washington. I'm not asking you to stand for that."

"If you did——"

"Yes, I know the answer, but speak softly, his majesty the king approaches—long live the king!"

Bivens spoke in low, half-joking tones, but the excitement of his voice told Stuart only too plainly that he fully appreciated the royal honour his majesty was paying in this the first social visit he had ever made to his home.

The little financier's eyes danced with pleasure and his delicate hand trembled as he extended it to the great one.

The king gave him a pleasant nod and grasped Stuart's hand with a hearty cordial grip. He was a man of few words, but he always said exactly what he thought.

"I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Stuart. You've done us a good turn in sending some of our crooks to the penitentiary. You've cleared the air and made it possible for an old-fashioned banker to breathe in New York. It's a pleasure to shake hands with you."

The king passed on into the crowd, the focus of a hundred admiring eyes. Bivens could scarcely believe his ears when he listened with open mouth while his majesty spoke to Stuart.

"Great Scott, Jim!" he gasped at last. "That's the longest speech I ever heard him make. I knew you had scored the biggest hit any lawyer has made in this town in a generation, but I never dreamed you'd capture the king's imagination. I'm beginning to think my offer wasn't so generous after all. Look here, you've got to promise me one thing right now. When you do go in to make your pile it shall be with me and no other man."

Nan passed and threw him a gracious smile.

"It will be with you, if I go, Cal, I promise."

"Well, it's settled, then. Your word's as good as a Government bond. His majesty is in a gracious mood to-night. Watch him unbend and chat with the boys."

"At least, Cal," Stuart broke in, jokingly, "there's one exception to your indictment of all great fortunes."

"That's the funniest thing of all," Bivens whispered. "He's not an exception. Understand, I'm loyal to the king. He's a wonder. I like him, I like his big head, his big shaggy eyebrows, his big hands and big feet. I like to hear him growl and snap his answer—'Yes', 'No'—that means life or death to men who kneel at his feet. He's a dead game sport. But he, too, has his little blots in his early copy-books at school if you care to turn the pages."

"No!" Stuart interrupted, incredulously.

Bivens glanced about to make sure he could not be overheard and continued in low tones.

"Yes, sir, he turned the slickest trick on Uncle Sam of all the bunch. He was a youngster and it was his first deal. When the Civil War broke out the Government had no guns for the volunteers. He learned that there were 5,000 old Hall carbines stored away among the junk in one of the national arsenals in New York. He bought these guns (on a credit) for a song—about $3 apiece—and shipped them to General Fremont, who was in St. Louis howling for arms. Fremont agreed to pay $22.50 each for the new rifles and closed the deal at once by drawing on the Government for enough to enable the young buccaneer to pay his $3-contract price to Uncle Sam in New York and lay aside a snug sum for a rainy day besides.

"When Fremont found that the guns were worthless, he advised the Government to stop payment on the balance. It was stopped on the ground of fraud. And then the youngster showed the stuff he was made of. Did he crawl and apologize? Not much. He sued the United States Government for the full amount and pushed that suit to the Supreme Court. In the face of the sneers of his enemies he won, and took the full amount with interest. He's the king to-day because he was born a king. His father was a millionaire before him. He's the greatest financial genius of the century."

Bivens paused and a dreamy look came into the black eyes.

"Jim," he continued with slow emphasis, "I'd rather get my fingers on his throat in a death-struggle than lead the combined armies of the world to victory."

Stuart was silent.

The financier moved uneasily and asked:

"What are you brooding over now?"

"I was just wondering why the devil you've taken the pains to tell me all these incredible stories about the great ones here to-night?"

"And I answer with perfect frankness. When you come in with me it must be with your whole soul, without a single reservation. When it comes to the critical moment of your decision it may turn on a sentimental whim—a question of high-browed honour. I want you to come with your eyes wide open. I want you to know that I'm no better, no worse, than the best of the big ones whose names fill the world with awe. Every word I've told you about them is true and a great deal more that will never be told; and mind you there's not a Jew among the fellows I've sketched. There are two men in New York of old Scotch ancestry who have more money than the whole Hebrew race in America."

"The stuff you've told me seems beyond belief."

"Exactly. That's why I wanted you to know. The truth is, Jim, you'd just as well face it at once. I am asking you to resign your place in the old academic world to enter commerce, the real modern world. Commerce is built on the power to over-reach. Isn't deceit the foundation of all successful trade? The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick maker, the banker, the broker—their business is all alike. A trader is a trader, one who clutches and fights his competitor and lays traps for his customers, in short, his victims. A trader is one who by hook or crook beats down the price at which he will buy below its market value and marks it up to the limit of his victim's credulity when he sells. That's the grain of truth beneath the mountain of chaff in the old aristocratic hatred of people who are in trade. The world has outgrown this hatred. The age of the aristocrat is past."

"I'm not so sure of that," Stuart answered, thoughtfully. "The old aristocracy had their weaknesses. They were always gamblers and the devotees of licentiousness. But they despised lying and stealing. And the feudal code of the old patrician bred a high type of man. The new code of the liar has not yet made this demonstration. The grace, elegance, breeding and culture of the past are no longer binding laws on the new masters of the world. I think you may get on a while without the patrician, but the question is how long can you live without his virtues?"

An answer was on Bivens's lips when the soft tones of hidden oriental gongs began to chime the call for dinner. The chimes melted into a beautiful piece of orchestral music which seemed to steal from the sky, so skilfully had the musicians been concealed.

Nan suddenly appeared by Stuart's side, and he was given the honour of leading his hostess into the banquet hall, before even the king, while the great ones of earth slowly followed.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE DANCE OF DEATH

A flush of excited pleasure overspread Stuart's face as he led his beautiful hostess to the dining room.

He paused at the entrance with an exclamation of surprise:

"Well, of all the wonders!"

"But you can't stop yet!" whispered Nan, drawing him gently on.

Apparently on entering the banquet hall they were stepping outdoors into an enchanted pine forest. The walls were completely hidden by painted scenery representing the mountains of western North Carolina. The room had been transformed into a forest, trees and shrubbery melting imperceptibly into the scenery on the walls, and mocking birds were singing in cages hidden high among the boughs of the trees.

Stuart gazed at the great panorama painting on the wall, fascinated.

"Why, Nan," he gasped, "that's a view of the river hills at home where you and I used to roam."

"Well, if you hadn't recognized it, I should never have forgiven you."

"How on earth did your artists get it so perfectly?"

"I sent him there, of course. He did it in three weeks. There's something else in that picture I thought you'd see, too."

"Isn't it now!" Stuart laughed, as they reached the head of the central table. "A boy and girl sitting on a fence looking down at the river in the valley below."

"The very spot we found that quail's nest, you remember. You see I've begun to rebuild your dream-life to-night, Jim."

"It's marvellous!" he answered slowly. "And there in the distance loom the three ranges of our old mountains until their dim blue peaks are lost in the clouds. These tables seem spread for a picnic in the woods on the hills."

"Are you pleased with my fantasy?" she asked with quiet emotion.

"Pleased is not the word for it," he replied quickly. "I'm overwhelmed. I never thought you so sentimental."

"Perhaps I'm not, perhaps I've only done this to please a friend. Do you begin to feel at home in this little spot I've brought back by magic to-night from our youth?"

"I'm afraid I'll wake and find I'm dreaming."

Stuart gazed on the magnificently set table with increasing astonishment. Winding in and out among the solid silver candelabra a tiny stream of crystal water flowed among miniature trees and flowers on its banks. The flowers were all blooming orchids of rarest colouring and weirdly fantastic shapes.

"Those hideous little flowers cost a small fortune," Nan exclaimed, "I'm ashamed to tell you how much—I don't like them myself, I'm frank to say so to you. But they are the rage. I prefer those gorgeous bowers of American beauty roses, the canopies to shade my guests from the rays of my artificial sun shining through the trees. You see how skilfully the artist has lighted the place. It looks exactly like a sunset in a pine forest."

Stuart noted that the service was all made for this occasion, silver, cut glass, and china. Each piece had stamped or etched in it the coat of arms of his native state, "Peace and Plenty."

"And you've done all this in six weeks? It's incredible."

"Money can do anything, Jim," she cried under her breath. "It's the fairy queen of our childhood and the God of our ancient faith come down to earth. You really like my banquet hall?"

"More than I can tell you."

Nan looked at him keenly.

"The world will say to-morrow morning that I have given this lavish entertainment for vulgar display. In a sense it's true. I am trying to eclipse in splendour anything New York has seen. But I count the fortune it cost well spent to have seen the smile on your face when you looked at that painting of our old hills. I would have given five times as much at any moment the past ten years to have known that you didn't hate me."

"You know it now."

"Yes," she answered tenderly. "You have said so with your lips before, now you mean it. You are your old handsome self to-night."

Apart from the charm of Nan's presence Stuart found the dinner itself a stupid affair, so solemnly stupid it at last became funny. In all the magnificently dressed crowd he looked in vain for a man or woman of real intellectual distinction. He saw only money, money, money!

There was one exception—the titled degenerates from the Old World, hovering around the richest and silliest women, their eyes glittering with eager avarice for a chance at their millions. It seemed a joke that any sane American mother could conceive the idea of selling her daughter to these wretches in exchange for the empty sham of a worm-eaten dishonoured title. And yet it had become so common that the drain on the national resources from this cause constitutes a menace to our future.

In spite of the low murmurs of Nan's beautifully modulated voice in his ears, he found his anger slowly rising, not against any one in particular, but against the vulgar ostentation in which these people moved and the vapid assumption of superiority with which they evidently looked out upon the world.

But whatever might have been lacking in the wit and genius of the guests who sat at Nan's tables, there could be no question about the quality of the dinner set before them. When the Roman Empire was staggering to its ruin amid the extravagancies of its corrupt emperors, not one of them ever gave a banquet which approximated half the cost of this. The best old Nero ever did with his flowers was to cover the floors of his banquet hall with cut roses that his guests might crush them beneath their feet. But flowers were cheap in sunny Italy. Nan's orchids alone on her tables cost in Roman money a hundred thousand sesterces, while the paintings, trees, shrubbery, water and light effects necessary to transform the room into a miniature forest cost five hundred thousand sesterces, or a total of thirty thousand dollars for the decorations of the banquet hall alone.

When the feast ended at ten thirty the sun had set behind the blue mountains, the moon risen, and hundreds of fire flies were floating from the foliage of trees and shrubs.

Nan led the way to the ball room, where the entertainment by hired dancers, singers, and professional entertainers began on an improvised stage.

During this part of the programme the women and men of the banqueting party who were to appear in the fancy-dress ball at twelve retired to the rooms above to dress for their parts.

Nan left Stuart with a pretty sigh to arrange her costume.

"I'm sorry you never learned to dance, Jim, but there are compensations to-night. I've a surprise for you later."

Before he could reply, with a wave of her bare arm, she was gone, and he stood for a moment wondering what further surprise could be in store after what he had seen.

He noted with some astonishment the peculiar sombre effects of the ball room. He had expected a scene of splendour. Instead the impression was distinctly funereal. The lights were dimmed like the interior of a theatre during the performance and the lofty gilded ceilings with their mural decorations seemed to be draped in filmy black crepe.

The professional entertainment began on the little stage amid a universal gabble which made it impossible for anything save pantomime to be intelligible beyond the footlights. Star after star, whose services had cost $1,000 each for one hour, appeared without commanding the slightest attention. At last there was a hush and every eye was fixed on the stage. Stuart looked up quickly to see what miracle had caused the silence.

An oriental dancing girl, barefooted and naked save for the slightest suggestion of covering about her waist and bust, was the centre of attraction. For five minutes she held the crowd spell-bound with a dance so beautifully sensual no theatrical manager would have dared present it. Yet it was received by the only burst of applause which broke the monotony of the occasion.

Stuart turned to the program in his hand and idly read the next number:

"A song by an unknown star."

He was wondering what joke the manager was about to perpetrate on the crowd when his ear caught the first sweet notes of Harriet's voice singing the old song he loved so well, the song she had first sung the day he came from the South.

His heart gave a throb of pain. Who could have prepared this humiliation for his little pal! He pushed his way through the throng of chattering fools until he stood alone straight in front of the slender little singer. She saw him at once, smiled, and sang as he had never heard her sing. Her eyes shone with a strange light and Stuart knew she was in the spirit world. The rabble of ignorant men and women before her did not exist. She was singing to an invisible audience save for the one man who looked up into her eyes, his heart bursting with sympathy and tenderness.

To his further surprise Stuart saw the doctor standing in the shadows at the corner of the stage looking over the gossiping, noisy crowd with a look of anger and horror.

When the last note of the song died away, quivering with a supernatural tenderness and passion, he brushed a tear from his eyes, lifted his hands high above his head and made a motion which said to her: "Tumultuous applause!"

She nodded and smiled and he rushed behind the scenes to ask an explanation.

He grasped both her hands and found them cold and trembling with excitement.

"What on earth, does this mean?"

"Simply that I was engaged to sing to-night—and I wanted to surprise you. Didn't you like my song?"

Stuart held her hands tightly.

"I never heard you sing so divinely!"

"Then I'm very happy."

"How could you sing at all under such conditions?"

"I had one good listener."

"I could have killed them because they wouldn't hear you."

"But you enjoyed it?"

"It lifted me to the gates of heaven, dear."

"Then I don't care whether any one else heard it or not. But I did so much wish that she might have heard it, or her husband, because they are from the South. I thought they would be as charmed with the old song as you have always been and I'd make a hit with them, perhaps."

"But I don't understand, your father hates Bivens so."

A big hand was laid on his shoulder, he turned and faced the doctor smiling.

"But I don't hate him, my boy! I've given up such foolishness. We've buried the hatchet. I'm to see him in a few minutes and we are to be good friends."

"Bivens invited you here to discuss a business proposition to-night!" Stuart exclaimed, blankly.

"No, no, no," the doctor answered. "I came with Harriet, of course. Her music teacher placed her on the programme. But Mr. Bivens and I have had some correspondence and I'm to see him in a little while and talk things over quite informally, of course, but effectively."

"He has agreed to a conference here?" the young lawyer asked, anxiously.

"Why, of course. His butler has just told me he would see me immediately after the ball begins."

Stuart breathed easier.

"Then, it's all right. I was just going to suggest that I speak to Mr. Bivens for you."

"Not at all, my boy, not necessary, I assure you. It will be all right. In five minutes' talk our little differences will all be settled."

"If I can be of any service, you'll let me know?"

"Certainly," the doctor replied with a frown, "but the whole thing is settled already. Still, I appreciate your offer."

Stuart was worried. He could not press the matter further. He was sure from the sensitive tones in which his old friend declined his help that his dignity was hurt by the offer. He was positive there was a misunderstanding somewhere. The doctor's optimism had led him into an embarrassing situation and yet his association with Bivens as his first employer had surely given him some knowledge of his character.

He hesitated, about to speak, changed his mind, and turned to Harriet.

"You look glorious to-night, little pal! Funny that I never saw you in evening dress before. You look so tall and queenly, so grown, so mature. You're beginning to make me feel old, child. I'll be thinking of you as a grown woman next."

"I am twenty-four, you know," she said, simply.

"I have never believed it until to-night. I wouldn't have known you at first but for your voice, I had to rub my eyes then."

A warm blush tinged the pink and white of the sensitive face.

"Oh, Jim, I can't tell you how sweet your Southern blarney is to my heart! I dreamed of a triumph of art. I saw it was impossible before I sang, and now the pretty things you've said have taken all the sting out of defeat and I'm happy."

"Then I'm glad, dear."

He paused, leaned close and whispered:

"Won't you let me know when your father has seen Mr. Bivens? If this conference doesn't go well I may be of some help."

"All right, I'll let you know."

The lights were suddenly turned lower, approaching total darkness. The attendants noiselessly removed the temporary stage and cleared the great room for the dancers.

As the chimes struck the hour of midnight, skeleton heads slowly began to appear peeping from the shadows of the arched ceiling and from every nook and corner of the huge cornice and pillars. Draperies of filmy crepe flowing gently in the breeze were lighted by sulphurous-hued electric rays from the balconies. Tiny electric lights blinked in every skeleton's sunken eyes and behind each grinning row of teeth.

Again the chatter of fools was suddenly hushed. The orchestra began a weird piece of music that sent the cold chills rippling down Stuart's spine. Harriet's hand gripped his.

"Heavens!" she whispered. "Did you ever dream of such a nightmare!"

Suddenly two white figures drew aside the heavy curtains in the archway and the dancers marched into the sombre room.

The men were dressed as shrouded skeletons, and the women as worms. The men wore a light flimsy gray robe on which skilful artists had painted on four sides in deep colours the picture of a human skeleton.

The women wore a curious light robe of cotton fibre which was drawn over the entire body and gave to each figure the appearance of a huge caterpillar.

From the high perch of a balcony a sepulchral voice cried:

"The Dance of Death and the Worm!"

The strange figures began to move slowly across the polished floor to the strains of a ghost-like waltz.

From the corners of the high balconies strange lights flashed, developing in hideous outlines the phosphorescent colors of the skeletons and long, fuzzy, exaggerated lines of the accompanying worms. The effect was thrilling. Every sound save the soft swish of the ghastly robes and the delicate footfall of ghostly feet ceased. Not a whisper from a sap-headed youth or a yap from an aged degenerate or a giggle from a silly woman broke the death-like stillness.

Suddenly the music stopped with a crash. Each ghostly couple, skeleton and worm, stood motionless. The silvery note of a trumpet called from the sky. The blinking eyes of the death-heads in the ceiling and on the walls faded slowly. The figures of the dancers moved uneasily in the darkness. The trumpet pealed a second signal—the darkness fled, and the great room suddenly blazed with ten thousand electric lights. The orchestra struck the first notes of a thrilling waltz, and presto!—in an instant the women appeared in all the splendour of the most gorgeous gowns, their bare arms and necks flashing with priceless jewels and each man, but a moment ago a hideous skeleton, bowed before her in immaculate evening clothes.

Just at the moment each caterpillar threw to her attendant her disguise, from the four corners of the vast room were released thousands of gorgeously tinted butterflies, imported from the tropics for the occasion. As the dancers glided through the dazzling scene these wonderfully coloured creatures fluttered about them in myriads, darting and circling in every direction among the flowers and lights until the room seemed a veritable fairyland.

A burst of applause swept the crowd, as Nan's radiant figure passed, encircled by the arm of the leader.

Stuart nodded and clapped his hands with enthusiasm.

A more marvellous transformation scene could scarcely be imagined.

When Nan had passed he turned to speak to Harriet and she had gone. He felt a moment's pain at the disappointment, but before he could find her the music ceased, the dancers paused and the swaying of the crowd made his search vain.

A soft hand was suddenly laid on his arm, and he turned to confront Nan, her eyes flashing with triumph, her cheeks flushed, and her lips parted in a tender smile.

"Well?" she asked in low tones.

"You're a magician, Nan," he answered with enthusiasm.

"Come, I'm going to honour you by sitting out the next two dances, and if you're very good, perhaps more."

When she had seated herself by his side under a bower of roses he was very still for a moment. She looked up with a quizzical expression and said:

"A penny for your thoughts? Am I so very wicked after all?"

Stuart crossed his long legs and looked at her admiringly.

"I'll be honest," he said with deliberation. "I don't think I have ever seen anything more dazzlingly beautiful than your banquet and ball, except——"

"Except what!" she interrupted sharply.

"Except the woman who conceived and executed it."

"That's better, but you must give the credit to the artists I hired."

"In a measure, yes; but their plans were submitted for your approval. I was just wondering whether your imagination was vivid enough to have dreamed half the splendours of such a life when you turned from the little cottage I built for you."

A look of pain clouded the fair face and she lifted her jewelled hand.

"Please, Jim, I'd like to forget some things."

"And you haven't forgotten?"

She looked straight into his eyes and answered in even tones.

"No."

He studied the magnificent pearl necklace that circled her throat. Its purchase had made a sensation in New York. The papers were full of it at the time Bivens had bought it at an auction in Paris, bidding successfully against the agents of the Tzar of Russia. Never had he seen Nan so ravishing. Magnificent gowns, soft laces, and jewelry were made to be worn by such women. There was an eternal fitness in the whole scheme of things in which this glorious creature of the senses lived and moved and had her being.

"I suppose," he began musingly, "I ought, as a patriotic citizen of the Republic, to condemn the enormous waste of wealth you have made here to-night."

"Yes," she answered quietly.

"I ought to tell you how many tears you could wipe away with it, how much suffering you could soften, how many young lives you could save from misery and shame, how many of life's sunsets you could have turned from darkness into the glory of quiet joy; and yet, somehow, I can find nothing in my heart to say except that I've been living in a fairyland of beauty and enchantment. What curious contradictions these hearts of ours lead us into sometimes—don't they?"

Nan looked up quickly and repeated his question in cynical tones.

"Yes, don't they?"

"I know that I ought to condemn this appalling extravagance, and I find myself enjoying it."

Both were silent for a long while and then they began to talk in low tones of the life they had lived as boy and girl in the old South, and forgot the flight of time.



CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST ILLUSION

As the moment drew nearer for the doctor to make known his presence to Bivens his heart began to fail. With an effort he took fresh courage.

"Of course I'll succeed!" he exclaimed. "There's no such thing as defeat for him who refuses to acknowledge it."

As he watched the magnificent ball his eyes grew dim at the thought of the social tragedy which it symbolized, of his own poverty and of the deeper wretchedness of scores to whom he had been trying to minister. He was fighting to keep his courage up, but the longer he watched the barbaric, sensual display of wealth sweeping before him, the deeper his spirit sank.

The butler touched his arm and he turned with a sudden start, a look of anguish on his rugged face.

"Mr. Bivens will be pleased to see you in the little library, sir, if you will come at once!"

The man bowed with stately deference.

He followed the servant with quick firm step, a hundred happy ideas floating through his mind.

"Of course, it's all right. My fears were absurd!" he mused. "My instinct was right. He will be pleased to see me. He's in a good humour with all the world to-night."

When the doctor was ushered into the library, Bivens, who was awaiting him alone, sprang to his feet with a look of blank amazement, and then a smile began to play about his hard mouth. He thrust his delicate hands into his pockets and deliberately looked the doctor's big figure over from head to foot as he approached with embarrassment.

"My servant announced that a gentleman wished to speak to me a moment. Will you be good enough to tell me what you are doing in this house to-night?"

The doctor paused and hesitated, his face scarlet from the deliberate insult.

"I must really ask your pardon, Mr. Bivens, for my apparent intrusion. It is only apparent. I came with my daughter."

"Your daughter?"

"She sang to-night on your programme."

"Oh, I see, with the other hired singers; well, what do you want?"

"Only a few minutes of your time on a matter of grave importance."

"I don't care to discuss business here to-night, Woodman," Bivens broke in abruptly. "Come to my office."

"I have been there three or four times," the doctor went on hurriedly, "and wrote to you twice. I felt sure that my letters had not reached you. I hoped for the chance of a moment to-night to lay my case before you."

Bivens smiled and sat down.

"All right, I'll give you five minutes."

"I felt sure you had not seen my letters."

"I'll ease your mind on that question. I did see them both. You got my answer?"

"That's just it. I didn't. And I couldn't understand it."

"Oh, I see!" Bivens's mouth quivered with the slightest sneer. "Perhaps it was lost in transit!"

The sneer was lost on the doctor. He was too intent on his purpose.

"I know. It was a mistake. I see it now, and I'm perfectly willing to pay for that mistake by accepting even half of your last proposition."

Bivens laughed cynically.

"This might be serious, Woodman, if it wasn't funny. But you had as well know, once and for all, that I owe you nothing. Your suit has been lost. Your appeal has been forfeited. My answer is brief but to the point—not one cent—my generosity is for my friends and followers, not my enemies."

"But we are not enemies, personally," the doctor explained, good-naturedly. "I have put all bitterness out of my heart and come to-night to ask that bygones be bygones. You know the history of our relations and of my business. I need not repeat it. And you know that in God's great book of accounts you are my debtor."

Bivens's eyes danced with anger, and his words had the ring of cold steel.

"I owe you nothing."

In every accent of the financier's voice the man before him felt the deadly merciless hatred whose fires had been smouldering for years.

For a moment he was helpless under the spell of his fierce gaze. He began to feel dimly something of the little man's powerful personality, the power that had crushed his enemies.

The doctor's voice was full of tenderness when he replied at last:

"My boy," he began quietly—"for you are still a boy when you stand beside my gray hairs—men may fight one another for a great principle without being personal enemies. We are men still, with common hopes, fears, ills, griefs and joys. When I was a soldier I fought the Southern army, shot and shot to kill. I was fighting for a principle. When the firing ceased I helped the wounded men on the field as I came to them. Many a wounded man in blue I've seen drag himself over the rough ground to pass his canteen to the lips of a boy in gray who was lying on his back, crying for water. If I am your enemy, it is over a question of principle. The fight has ended, and I have fallen across your path to-night, dying of thirst while rivers of water flow about me."

Bivens turned away and the doctor pressed closer.

"Suppose we have fought each other in the heat of the day in the ranks of two hostile armies? The battle has ceased. For me the night has fallen, I——"

His voice quivered and broke for an instant.

"You have won. You can afford to be generous. That you can deny me in this the hour of my desolation is unthinkable. I'm not pleading for myself. I can live on a rat's allowance. I'm begging for my little girl. I need two thousand dollars immediately to complete her musical studies. You know what her love means to me. I have put myself in your power. Suppose I've wronged you? Now is your chance to do a divine thing. Deep down in your heart of hearts you know that the act would be one of justice between man and man."

Bivens looked up sharply.

"As a charity, Woodman, I might give you the paltry fifty thousand dollars you ask."—

"I'll take it as a charity!" he cried eagerly, "take it with joy and gratitude, and thank God for his salvation sent in the hour of my need."

Bivens smiled coldly.

"But in reality you demand justice of me?"

"I have put myself in your power. I have refused and still refuse to believe that you can treat me with such bitter cruelty as to refuse to recognize my claim. I have waked at last to find myself helpless. The shock of it has crushed me. I've always felt rich in the love of my country, in the consciousness that I did my part to save the Union. Its growing wealth I have rejoiced in as my own. There has never been a moment in my life up to this hour that I have envied any man the possession of his millions. In the fight I have made on you, I have been trying to strike for the freedom of the individual man against what seemed to me to be the crushing slavery of soulless machinery."

The little financier lifted his shapely hand with a commanding gesture and the speaker paused.

"Come to the point, Woodman, what is in your mind when you say that I am your debtor?"

"Simply that I have always known that your formula for that drink was a prescription which I compounded years ago and which you often filled for me when I was busy. As a physician I could not patent such a thing. You had as much right to patent it as any one else."

"In other words," Bivens interrupted coldly, "you inform me that you have always known that I stole from your prescription counter the formula which gave me my first fortune, and for that reason every dollar I possess to-day is branded with the finger print of a thief; and you, the upright physician, held by the old code of honour which makes your profession a fraternity of ancient chivalry, come now with your hat in hand and ask me for a share of this tainted money."

"Bivens," the doctor protested with dignity, "you know that I have made no such wild accusation against you. In our contest I have never stooped to personalities. I have always felt that the inherent justice of my cause was based on principle. But I'm an old man to-night. The sands of life are running low. I'm down and out. The one being I love supremely is in peril. I can't fight."

Bivens turned with sudden fury and faced his visitor, every mask of restraint thrown to the winds. His little bead-eyes flashed with the venom of a snake coiled to strike. He stood close to the doctor and looked up at his tall massive figure, stretching his own diminutive form in a desperate effort to stand on a level with his enemy.

The doctor's face grew suddenly pale and his form rigid as the two men stood holding each other's gaze for a moment without words.

The financier began to speak with slow venomous energy:

"I've let you ramble on in your maudlin talk, Woodman, because it amused me. For years I've waited for your coming. Your unexpected advent is the sweetest triumph of this festival night. The offer I made you was at the suggestion of my wife. I did it solely to please her. I think you will take my word for it to-night." He paused and a sinister smile played about his mouth. "The last time I saw you I promised myself that I'd make you come to me the next time, and when you did, that you'd come on your hands and knees."

The doctor's big fists suddenly closed and Bivens took a step back toward his desk when his slender hand gripped and fumbled a heavy cut glass ink stand. The older observed his trembling hand with a smile of contempt.

"And I swore," Bivens went on in a voice quivering with unrestrained passion, "that when you looked up into my face grovelling and whining for mercy as you have to-night, I'd call my servants and order them to kick you down my door step."

He loosed his hold on the ink stand and leaned across the massive flat-top desk to touch an electric button.

The doctor's fist suddenly gripped the outstretched hand and his eyes glared into the face of the financier with the dangerous look of a madman.

"You had better not ring that bell, yet," he said, with forced quiet in his tones.

Bivens hesitated and his muscles relaxed in the grip on his wrist.

"You wish to prolong the agony for another moral discussion?" the financier asked with a sneer. "All right, if you enjoy it."

"Just long enough to say one thing to you, Bivens. There's a limit beyond which you and your kind had better not press the men you have wronged. You have made a brave show of your power to-night. Well, you are mistaken if you believe you can longer awe the imagination of the world with its tinsel. You have begun to stir deeper thoughts. Look to your skin. I've always said this is God's world, and it must come out right in the end. I've begun to think to-night there's something wrong. God can't look down and see what's going on here—the God I've tried to serve and worship, whose praise I have sung beneath the stars on fields of battle with the blood streaming from wounds I got fighting for what I believed to be right. If the devil rules the universe, and dog-eat-dog is the law, there'll be a big hand feeling for your throat, feeling blindly in the dark, perhaps, but it will get there! When I look into your brazen face to-night, and hear the strains of that music, there's something inside of me that wants to kill."

"But you won't, Woodman!" Bivens interrupted with a sneer.

"When it comes to the test your liver is white. I know your breed of men, but I like you better in that mood. It gives me pleasure to torture you, and I'm not going to kick you out."

"I shouldn't advise you to try it," was the grim response.

"No. Your tirade gives me an idea. I want you to stay until the festivities end, and enjoy yourself. Observe that I'm pouring out my wealth here to-night in a river of generosity, and that you are starving for a drop which I refuse to give. Take a look over my house. It cost two millions to build it, and requires half a million a year to keep it up. I have a country estate of a hundred thousand acres in the mountains of North Carolina, with a French chateau that cost a million. I only weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds, but I require these palaces to properly house me for a year. Think this over while you stroll among my laughing guests. My art gallery will interest you. I've a single painting there which cost three hundred thousand dollars—the entire collection two millions. The butterflies those dancers are crushing beneath their feet in my ball room, I imported from Central America at a cost of five thousand dollars. The favours in jewelry I shall give to my rich guests who have no use for them will be worth twenty-five thousand dollars. You'll see my wife among the dancers. Her dresses cost a hundred thousand a year. For the string of pearls around her neck I paid a half million. The slippers on her feet cost two thousand—all you need for your daughter's education. Take a good look at it, Woodman, and as the day dawns and my guests depart, some of them drunk on wine that cost twenty-five dollars a bottle—remember that I spent three hundred and fifty thousand on this banquet which lasted eight hours and that I will see you and your daughter dead and in the bottomless pit before I will give you one penny. Enjoy yourself, it's a fine evening."

The crushed man stared at Bivens in a stupor of pain. The brazen audacity of his assault was more than he could foresee. When the full import of its cruelty found his soul, he spoke in faltering tones:

"Only he who is willing to die, Bivens, is the master of life. Well, I go now to meet Death and celebrate defeat."

"And I the sweetest victory of my life—good evening!"

Before the doctor could answer, the financier turned with a laugh and left the room.

For a long time the dazed man stood motionless. He passed his big hand over his forehead in a vague instinctive physical effort to lift the fog of horror and despair that was slowly strangling him.

"My God!" he gasped at last.

The orchestra began a new waltz while the hum of voices, and the laughter of half-drunken revellers floated up the grand stairs and struck upon his ears with a strange new accent. He seemed to have lived a thousand years, and come to life a new man with strange new impulses. The light of faith that once illumined his soul had suddenly gone out and a new sense of brutal power quivered in every nerve and muscle.

He felt at last his kinship to the torn bleeding bundle of despair he saw dying on the pavement in Union Square.

The music, soft, sweet and sensuous, seemed to fill every nook and corner of the great palace with its low penetrating notes. He felt that he was suffocating. He tore his collar apart to give himself room to breathe. He thrust his hand into the hip pocket of his dress suit where he usually carried a handkerchief and felt something hard and cold.

It was a revolver he had been accustomed to carry of late in his rounds through the dangerous quarters of the city. Without thinking when he dressed, he had transferred it to his evening suit. His hand closed over the ivory handle with a sudden fierce joy. And in a moment the beast that sleeps beneath the skin of religion and culture was in the saddle.

"Yes, I'll kill him in his magnificent ball room—to the strains of his own music!" he said half aloud. "I'll give a fit climax to his dance of Death and the Worm."

He drew the revolver from his pocket, broke it, examined the shells, snapped them in place and thrust the deadly thing in the inner pocket of his coat. He could draw it from there without attracting the attention of his victim.

He quickly descended the stairs and saw Bivens talking to his wife. He didn't wish to kill him in her presence and as he passed a look of hatred flashed from the little black eyes of the millionaire.

The doctor answered with a smile that roused the master of the house to a pitch of incontrollable fury. He left his wife's side, stepped quickly in front of Woodman, hesitated as he was about to utter an oath, changed his mind and resumed his role of host:

"If I can show you any of the treasures of the house, I'll be glad to act as your guide, Woodman!" he said with an effort at laughter.

"Thank you. I've just seen some very interesting pictures."

"Surely you have not finished with my masterpieces so soon?" he said, with mocking protest.

The doctor had made up his mind to kill him at the moment the dance was at the highest pitch of gaiety and he wanted to get him as near the great arch as possible.

His answer was given so politely and evenly the financier was puzzled.

"No, Bivens," he said in a matter-of-fact voice, "the pictures I saw were purely mental. I haven't been to your art gallery yet."

"See it by all means!" he urged with exaggerated politeness. "It's a rare privilege, you know. It's not often the rabble is inside these walls. It's the chance of your life."

"Thank you, I'll find enough to amuse me before I go."

Again the doctor smiled.

Bivens turned on his heels with a muttered oath and disappeared in the crowd. He was plainly disconcerted by his enemy's manner. To see a man of his temperament rise suddenly from the depths of despair into smiling serenity was something uncanny. He left him deliberating whether to call his servants and throw him into the street.

As the doctor waited for the music to begin, he watched the women pass, resplendent in their jewels and magnificent in their nakedness. To-night he saw it without the excuses of conventional social usage.

"And this," he exclaimed bitterly, "is the highest development of American life; this splendid, sordid, criminal degrading pageant with its sensual appeal; and yet if the house should fall and crush them all, the world would lose nothing of value except the jewelry that might be mixed with its debris!"

He felt for the moment a messenger of divine vengeance. His pistol shot would at least give them something to think about.

The music began, and the dancers once more whirled into the centre of the room and the crowd filled the space under the grand arch which led into the hall. Bivens was the centre of an admiring group of sycophants and worshipful snobs. The doctor's heart gave a mad throb of joy. His hour had come.

With quick strides he covered the space which separated them and without a moment's hesitation thrust his hand into his breast for his revolver. Not a muscle or nerve quivered. His finger touched the trigger softly and he gave Bivens a look which he meant he should take with him into eternity, when just beyond him he saw Harriet. She stood motionless with a look of mute agony on her fair young face, watching Stuart talk to Bivens's wife.

His finger slipped from the trigger and his hand loosed its deadly grip.

"Have I forgotten my baby!" he cried in sudden anguish. And then another vision flashed through his excited brain. A court room, a prisoner, his own bowed figure the centre of a thousand eyes while the jury brought in their verdict. A moment of awful silence and the foreman said:

"Guilty of murder in the first degree."

And the long piercing scream from the broken heart of his little girl.

"No, no, not that!" he groaned in sudden terror, his face white with pain. "I can't kill her, too. No, I must save her, that's why I want to kill him because he has imperilled her life, and I am about to crush her at a single blow. God save and help me!—God! Where is God? He helps those who help themselves in this madman's world. Well, then I'll look out for my own, too!"

His breath came in laboured gasps as one mad thought succeeded another.

"Yes!" he said hoarsely, "I must save her. I must be cunning. I must succeed, not fail. I must get what I came here for. I must save my baby. My own fate is of no importance. She is everything."



He watched the dancers, greedily catching the flash of their diamonds, gleaming tiaras, rings, necklaces, bracelets, each worth a king's ransom. Suddenly the idea flashed through his mind:

Bivens had taken from him, by fraud, his formula, destroyed his business and robbed him of all he possessed. The law gave him power to hold it. He, too, would appeal to the same power and take what belonged to him. No matter how, he would take it, and he would take it to-night.

Bivens had boasted that his favours in jewelry given in sheer wantonness of pride to rich guests would be worth twenty-five thousand dollars. His plan was instantly formed.

He turned quickly and began to search the house until he found the half-drunken servant arranging these packages under the direction of a secretary. These favours had been made for the occasion by a famous jeweller; a diamond pin of peculiar design, a gold death's head with diamond teeth and eyes surmounted by a butterfly and a caterpillar. The stones in each piece were worth a hundred dollars. They lay on a table in little open jewel boxes, fifty in a box, and each box contained five thousand dollars' worth of gold and precious stones.

The doctor inspected the boxes with exclamations of wonder and admiration.

The secretary who had lingered long over his champagne was busy trying to write the names of the guests on separate cards. The doctor bent low over the table for an instant, and when he left one of the jewel cases rested securely in his pocket.

He was amazed at his own skill and a thrill of fierce triumph filled his being as he realized that he had succeeded and that his little girl would go to Europe and complete her work. He spoke pleasantly to the secretary, and congratulating him on his good fortune in securing such a master, turned and strolled leisurely back to the ball room.

Not for a moment did he doubt the safety of his act. He was a chemist and knew the secrets of the laboratory. He would melt the gold into a single bar and sell the diamonds as he needed them. His only regret was that he could not have taken the full amount he had demanded of the little scoundrel.

He found Harriet and they started at once for home.

The dancers who were not staying for the second dinner, about to be announced at four o'clock, had begun to leave. Friends were helping the ladies to their cars and carriages, and other friends were labouring hopefully with those who were not yet convinced of the incapacity to take care of themselves.

Everywhere the floors were stained with the crushed forms of butterflies. The wonderful flashing creatures had darted through the rooms at first with swift whirling circling wings. But in the hot fetid air one by one they had fallen to the floor crushed into shapeless masses. Hundreds of them had clung to the leaves of the lilacs, roses and ferns until they dropped exhausted. Some of them still hung in long graceful swaying streamers of dazzling colour from the ceilings.

The doctor pointed to them.

"Look, dear, their poor little hearts are counting the seconds that yet separate them from the mangled bodies of their mates on the floor. So the hearts of millions of people have been crushed out for the sport of this evening. It's a funny world, isn't it?"

Harriet looked up quickly into his face with puzzled inquiry.

"Why, Papa, I never heard you talk so strangely. What's the matter?"

The father laughed in the best of spirits.

"Only the fancy of a moment, child. I never felt better. Did you have a good time?"

The girl's face grew serious as she drew on her wrap and glanced back toward the great doorway of the ball room.

"Yes, when I could forget the pain in my heart."

She paused and seized his arm with sudden energy.

"You succeeded? It's all right? I'm going abroad at once to study?"

The doctor laughed aloud in a burst of fierce joy.

"Certainly, my dear! Didn't I tell you it would be so?"

The tears sprang into the gentle eyes as she answered gratefully.

"You can't know how happy you've made me."

Bivens, who had heard the doctor's laughter, passed and said with exaggerated courtesy:

"I trust you have enjoyed the evening, Woodman?"

The doctor laughed again in his face.

"More than I can possibly tell you!"

Bivens followed to the door and watched him slowly walk down the steps.



CHAPTER XX

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

The two weeks which followed the Bivens ball, were the happiest Harriet Woodman had known since Nan's shadow had fallen across her life. Every moment was crowded with the work of preparing for her trip, except the hours she could not refuse Stuart, who had suddenly waked to the fact that something beautiful was going out of his life. Every day he asked her to play and sing for him or go for one of their rambles over the hills. They talked but little. He simply loved to be alone with her.

Harriet watched him with keen joy, and deep in her heart a secret hope began to slowly grow.

The day she sailed he refused to go with her to the pier.

"Why Jim, you must come with me!" she protested.

"No, I can't, little pal. Sit down at your piano now and sing my favourite song and I'll say goodbye here."

"But why?" she pleaded.

"I'm not quite sure how I would behave in public."

Without a word she took off her gloves, sat down at the piano and sung in low tones of melting tenderness. When the last note died away, he rose quietly, came to her side, and took her hand.

"I never knew, little girl, how my life has grown into yours until I'm about to lose you."

"But you're not going to lose me. Remember I'm coming back to sing for you before thousands. And I'm going to make you proud of me."

"I couldn't know how deeply and tenderly I love you, child, until this moment when I'm about to say goodbye."

The little figure was very still. Her eyes drooped and her lips trembled pathetically. She knew that he had said too much to mean a great deal. He had spoken of his love for her as a "child," when long ago the child had grown into the tragic figure of a woman who had learned to wait and suffer in silence.

She tried to speak and her voice failed. Her hand began to tremble in his.

She turned and faced him with a smile, pressing his hand. The cab was at the door and her father calling from below.

"Goodbye, Jim," she said tenderly.

"Goodbye to the dearest little chum God ever sent to cheer a lonely unhappy man's soul."

A sob stilled his voice and she turned her face away to hide her tears.

He still clung to her hand.

"It's been a long time," he said hesitatingly, "since you've kissed me, girlie; just one for remembrance!"

With a quick movement she drew her hand away and started with a laugh toward the door.

"No, Jim, I'm afraid I'm getting too old for that now."

He made no reply but stepped to her side and grasped her hand.

"Then again, goodbye."

"Goodbye."

He pressed her hand to his lips.

The slender body quivered and her face flushed scarlet. She hurried down the steps to the cab, turned and threw him a kiss.

He watched the cab roll down Fourth Street toward the pier while a great wave of loneliness overwhelmed him.

He slowly climbed the stairs toward his room, and passed the door of Harriet's on the way. It was open and he looked in expecting her to appear suddenly before him with a smile on her serene little face. He noted how neat and tidy she had left her nest; not a sign of confusion, the floor swept clean, everything in its place and the bed made with scrupulous care. The whole place breathed the perfume of her sunny character.

On the mantel he saw a love letter she had written to her father.

"How thoughtful of the little darling," he exclaimed. "God knows he'll need it to-night."

He hurried to his own room with the hope that she might have left one for him. He searched his mantel and bureau in vain and had just given up with a sigh when his eye rested on a card fastened over the old-fashioned grate in the fire place. His hand trembled as he read it:

"DEAR JIM:

"I shall miss you dreadfully, in the strange world beyond the seas. When you sit here and look into your fire I hope you'll see the face of your little pal in the picture sometimes.

"HARRIET."

He kissed the card and placed it in his pocket-book.

At night the doctor was not at home. He rapped on his door next morning and got no answer.

The girl said he had spent the night out—she didn't know where.

As Stuart was about to leave for his office the doctor entered. His bloodshot eyes were sunken deep behind his brows, his face haggard and his shoulders drooped. Stuart knew he had tramped the streets all night in a stupor of hopeless misery.

He stared at the young lawyer as if he didn't recognize him and then said feebly:

"Don't go yet, my boy, wait a few moments. I just want to know that you're here."

Stuart took his outstretched hand, and led him into the library. "I know why you tramped the streets; the old house is very lonely."

The father placed his hand on his head, exclaiming:

"I never knew what loneliness meant before!" The big hand fell in a gesture of despair. "It's dark and cold, I'm slipping down into a bottomless pit. There's not a soul in heaven or earth or hell to whom I can cry for help or pity."

Stuart pressed his hand.

"I understand. I'm younger than you, Doctor, but I, too, have walked that way, the via dolorosa alone."

The older man glared at him with a wild look in his eyes.

"But you don't understand; that's what's the matter, and I can't tell you. I'm alone, I tell you, alone in a world of cold and darkness."

"No, no," Stuart interrupted soothingly. "You're just all in; you must go to bed and sleep. Go at once, and you'll find something to cheer you in the little girl's room, a love letter for you."

"Yes," he asked, the light slowly returning to his eyes, "a love letter from my baby?"

"I saw it there after she left. Read it and go to sleep. I'll see you to-night."

"Yes, yes, of course, my boy, that's what's the matter with me. I'm just all in for the lack of sleep. I've been raving half the time, I think. I'll go to bed at once."

When Stuart returned early from his work in the afternoon he found a group of forlorn women and children standing beside the stoop. A pale, elfish-looking boy of ten, whose face appeared to be five years older, sat on the lower step crying.

"What's the matter, kiddie?" he asked kindly.

"I wants de doctor—me mudder's sick. She'll croak before mornin' ef he don't come—dey all want him." He waved his little dirty hand toward the others. "He ain't come around no more for a week. The goil says we can't see him, he's asleep."

"I'll tell him you're here. The doctor's been ill himself."

The boy rose quickly and doffed his ragged cap.

"Tank ye, boss."

He urged the doctor to go at once to see his patients. The work he loved would restore his spirits. He was dumfounded at the answer he received.

"Tell them to go away," he said with a frown. "I can't see them to-day. I may never be able to see them again."

"Come, come, Doctor, pull yourself together and go. I'll go with you. It's the best medicine you can take."

He answered angrily:

"No, no! I'm in no mood to work. I couldn't help them. I'd poison and kill them all, feeling as I do to-day. A physician can't heal the sick unless there's healing in his own soul. I'd bring death not life into their homes. Tell them to go away!"

Stuart emptied his pockets of all the money he had in a desperate effort to break their disappointment.

"The doctor's too ill to see you, now," he explained. "He sent this money for you and hopes it will help you over the worst until he can come."

He divided the money among them and they looked at it with dull disappointment. They were glad to get it, but what they needed more than the money was the hope and strength of their friend's presence. They left with dragging feet and Stuart returned to the doctor's room determined not to leave until he knew the secret of his collapse.

From the haggard face and feverish eyes he knew he hadn't slept yet. He had gotten up at one o'clock and dressed. The lunch which the maid had brought to his room was on the table by his bed, untouched.

The young lawyer softly closed the door and sat down. The older man gazed at him in a dull stupor.

"Doctor," Stuart began gently. "I've known you for about fifteen years. You're the only father I've had in this big town, and you've been a good one. You've been acting strangely for the past two weeks. You're in trouble."

"The greatest trouble that can come to any human soul," was the bitter answer.

"Haven't I won the right to your confidence and friendship in such an hour?"

"My trouble, boy, is beyond the help of friends."

"Nonsense," Stuart answered cheerfully. "Shake off the blues. What's wrong? Do you need money?"

The doctor broke into a discordant laugh.

"No. I've just sent Harriet abroad. I've some money laid away that will last a year or two until she is earning a good salary. What gave you the idea?"

The last question he asked with sudden sharp energy.

"Actions that indicate a strain greater than you can bear."

"No, you're mistaken," he answered roughly. "I can bear it all right." He paused and his eyes stared at the ceiling as he groaned: "I've got to bear it; what's the use to whine?"

Stuart stepped close and slipped his arm about the stalwart figure. His voice was tender with a man's deep feeling.

"Come, Doctor, you're not fooling me. I've known you too long. There's only one man on earth for whom I'd do as much as I would for you—my own gray-haired father down South. You've been everything to me one man could be to another during the past fifteen years. You have given me a home, the love of a big tender heart, and the wise counsel of tried friendship. If there's anything that I have and you need, it's yours before you ask it, to the last dollar I possess. Come now—tell me what's the trouble?"

Stuart could feel the big form sway and tremble under the stress of overwhelming emotion, and his arm pressed a little closer. And then the tension suddenly broke.

The doctor sank into a chair and looked up with a helpless stare.

"Yes, Jim, I will—I'll—tell—you."

He gasped and choked, paused, pulled himself together and cried:

"I must tell somebody or jump out of that window and dash my brains out!"

When the paroxysm of emotion had spent itself, he drew a deep sigh and began to speak in broken accents.

"I was in trouble for money, my boy, in the deepest trouble."

"And you didn't let me know!" Stuart interrupted reproachfully.

"How could I? I was proud and sensitive. I had taught you high ideals. How could the teacher come to his pupil and say, 'I've failed.' My theories were beautiful, but they don't work in life. And so I struggled on until I waked one day to find that I was getting old, that I had gone to war to fight other men's battles and had left my loved one at home to perish. The first hideous sense of failure crept over me and paralyzed soul and body with fear. I was becoming a pauper. You see I had always believed that a man who poured out his life for others could not fail. And then I—who had given, given, given, always given my time, my money, my soul, and body—waked to find that I was sucked dry, that I was played out, that I was bankrupt in money, bankrupt in life! The great love I had borne the world suddenly grew faint under the sense of loneliness and failure. And I gave up. I withdrew my suit and determined to throw myself on the generosity of the man who owed his wealth and power to the start I had given him, the man who destroyed my business and wrecked my fortune. He had made me two offers that seemed generous when I recalled them. I judged his character by my own and I went to his house the night of that ball without invitation."

The doctor's voice broke and he paused. And then with the tears streaming down his cheeks unchecked, his accents broken with unrestrained sobs he told the story of his meeting with Bivens, of his abject pleading when he had thrown pride to the winds, of the cruel and brutal taunts, and the last beastly insult when the millionaire boasted of his squandering of millions and rejoiced that he could flaunt this in the face of his suffering and humiliation.

"And then, boy," the broken man moaned, "he left me with a sneer and told me to stroll over his palace and enjoy the evening. That I would find his wife wearing a pearl necklace which cost a half million and jewelled slippers worth enough to finish my baby's education, but that he would see us both to the bottom of hell before I could have one penny."

Again the doctor's voice sank into a strangling sob. When he lifted his head his eyes were glittering with a strange light.

"And then," he went on with quivering voice, "I began to see things red. The lust of blood was beating in every stroke of my heart. In vivid flashes of blasphemous fury I saw life from a new point of view. I began to ask where God lived that such things could be in his world. I saw the bruised bodies of my fellow beings flung before such men as Bivens and ground to dust. I saw the lies that pass for truth, the low fights for gain at the cost of blood and tears, the deeds that laugh at shame and honour, and gloating over it all the brutal glory of success. I determined to kill the little wretch as I would stamp on a snake. And then I saw my baby standing near. My hand grew limp. I felt that I must save her first and then die if need be. I felt for the first time the cunning of the elemental man, the force that gave him food and shelter for himself and babies before the laws of property had come to rule the world. I reached out my hand and took by cunning what belonged to me by right."