Jane Cable / McCutcheon, George Barr, 1866-1928

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Title: Jane Cable

Author: George Barr McCutcheon

Release Date: June, 2004  [EBook #5971]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on October 2, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, JANE CABLE ***




Charles Franks, Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.



[Illustration: "HIS FEEBLE GLANCE TOOK IN HER FACE WITH LIFELESS
INTEREST"]

Jane Cable

By George Barr McCutcheon






CONTENTS

I When Jane Goes Driving
II The Cables
III James Bansemer
IV The Foundling
V The Bansemer Crash
VI In Sight of the Fangs
VII Mrs. Cable Entertains
VIII The Telegram
IX The Proposal
X The Four Initials
XI An Evening with Droom
XII James Bansemer Calls
XIII Jane Sees with New Eyes
XIV The Canker
XV The Tragedy of the Sea Wall
XVI Hours of Terror
XVII David Cable's Debts
XVIII The Visit of Harbert
XIX The Crash
XX Father and Son
XXI In the Philippines
XXII The Chase of Pilar
XXIII The Fight in the Convent
XXIV Teresa Velasquez
XXV The Beautiful Nurse
XXVI The Separation of Hearts
XXVII "If They Don't Kill You"
XXVIII Homeward Bound
XXIX The Wreckage
XXX The Drink of Gall
XXXI The Transforming of Droom
XXXII Elias Droom's Dinner Party
XXXIII Droom Triumphs over Death
XXXIV To-morrow






CHAPTER I

WHEN JANE GOES DRIVING





It was a bright, clear afternoon in the late fall that pretty Miss
Cable drove up in her trap and waited at the curb for her father to
come forth from his office in one of Chicago's tallest buildings.
The crisp, caressing wind that came up the street from the lake put
the pink into her smooth cheeks, but it did not disturb the brown
hair that crowned her head. Well-groomed and graceful, she sat
straight and sure upon the box, her gloved hand grasping the yellow
reins firmly and confidently. Miss Cable looked neither to right
nor to left, but at the tips of her thoroughbred's ears. Slender
and tall and very aristocratic she appeared, her profile alone
visible to the passers-by.

After a very few moments, waiting in her trap, the smart young
woman became impatient. A severe, little pucker settled upon her
brow, and not once, but many times her eyes turned to the broad
entrance across the sidewalk. She had telephoned to her father
earlier in the afternoon; and he had promised faithfully to be
ready at four o'clock for a spin up the drive behind Spartan. At
three minutes past four the pucker made its first appearance; and
now, several minutes later, it was quite distressing. Never before
had he kept her waiting like this. She was conscious of the fact
that at least a hundred men had stared at her in the longest ten
minutes she had ever known. From the bottom of a very hot heart
she was beginning to resent this scrutiny, when a tall young fellow
swung around a near-by corner, and came up with a smile so full of
delight, that the dainty pucker left her brow, as the shadow flees
from the sunshine. His hat was off and poised gallantly above his
head, his right hand reaching up to clasp the warm, little tan one
outstretched to meet it.

"I knew it was you long before I saw you," said he warmly.

"Truly? How interesting!" she responded, with equal warmth.
"Something psychic in the atmosphere today?"

"Oh, no," he said, reluctantly releasing her hand. "I can't see
through these huge buildings, you know---it's impossible to look
over their tops--I simply knew you were here, that's all."

"You're romantic, even though you are a bit silly," she cried gaily.
"Pray, how could you know?"

"Simplest thing in the world. Rigby told me he had seen you, and
that you seemed to be in a great rage. He dared me to venture into
your presence, and--that's why I'm here."

"What a hopelessly, commonplace explanation! Why did you not leave
me to think that there was really something psychic about it? Logic
is so discouraging to one's conceit. I'm in a very disagreeable
humour to-day," she said, in fine despair.

"I don't believe it," he disputed graciously.

"But I am," she insisted, smiling brightly. His heart was leaping
high--so high, that it filled his eyes. "Everything has gone wrong
with me to-day. It's pretty trying to have to wait in front of a
big office building for fifteen minutes. Every instant, I expect
a policeman to come up and order me to move on. Don't they arrest
people for blocking the street?"

"Yes, and put them in awful, rat-swarming dungeons over in Dearborn
Avenue. Poor Mr. Cable, he should be made to suffer severely for
his wretched conduct. The idea of--"

"Don't you dare to say anything mean about dad," she warned.

"But he's the cause of all the trouble--he's never done anything
to make you happy, or--"

"Stop!--I take it all back--I'm in a perfectly adorable humour.
It was dreadfully mean of me to be half-angry with him, wasn't it?
He's in there, now, working his dear old brain to pieces, and I'm
out here with no brain at all," she said ruefully.

To the ingenuous youth, such an appeal to his gallantry was well-nigh
irresistible, and for a moment it seemed as if he would yield to
the temptation to essay a brilliant contradiction; but his wits
came to his rescue, for quickly realising that not only were the
frowning rocks of offence to be avoided, but likewise the danger of
floundering helplessly about in the inviting quicksands of inanity, he
preserved silence--wise young man that he was, and trusted to his
eyes to express an eloquent refutation. At last, however, something
seemed to occur to him. A smile broke on his face.

"You had a stupid time last night?" he hazarded.

"What makes you think so?"

"I know who took you in to dinner."

The eyes of the girl narrowed slightly at the corners.

"Did he tell you?"

"No, I have neither seen nor heard from anyone present." She opened
her eyes wide, now.

"Well, Mr. S. Holmes, who was it?"

"That imbecile, Medford."

Miss Cable sat up very straight in the trap; her little chin went
up in the air; she even went so far as to make a pretence of curbing
the impatience of her horse.

"Mr. Medford was most entertaining--he was the life of the dinner,"
she returned somewhat severely.

"He's a professional!"

"An actor!" she cried incredulously.

"No, a professional diner-out. Wasn't that rich young Jackson
there?"

"Why, yes; but do tell me how you knew?" The girl was softening a
little, her curiosity aroused.

"Of course I will," he said boyishly, at once pleased with himself
and his sympathetic audience. "About five-thirty I happened to be
in the club. Medford was there, and as usual catering to Jackson,
when the latter was called to the 'phone. Naturally, I put two
and two together." He paused to more thoroughly enjoy the look of
utter mystification that hovered on the girl's countenance. It was
very apparent that this method of deduction through addition was
unsatisfying. "What Jackson said to Medford, on his return," the
young man continued, "I did not hear; but from the expression on
the listener's face I could have wagered that an invitation had been
extended and accepted. Oh, we boys have got it down fine! Garrison
is---"

"And who is Garrison?"

"Garrison is the head door man at the club. It's positively amazing
the number of telephone calls he receives every afternoon from
well-known society women!"

"What about? And what's that got to do with Mr. Medford taking me
in to dinner?"

"Just this: Suppose Mrs. Rowden..."

"Mrs. Rowden!" The girl was nonplussed.

"Yes--wants to find out who's in the club? She 'phones Garrison.
Instantly, after ascertaining which set--younger or older is wanted,
from a small card upon which he has written a few but choice names
of club members, he submits a name to her."

"Really, you don't mean to tell me that such a thing is actually
done?" exclaimed Miss Cable, who as yet was socially so unsophisticated
as to be horrified; "you're joking, of course!"

"But nine time out of ten," ignoring the interruption; "it is met
with: 'Don't want him!' Another: 'Makes a bad combination!' A third:
'Oh, no, my dear, not a dollar to his name--hopelessly ineligible!'
This last exclamation though intended solely for the visitor at
her home, elicits from Garrison a low chuckle of approval of the
speaker's discrimination; and presently, he hears: 'Goodness me,
Garrison, there must be someone else!' Then, to her delights she
is informed that Mr. Jackson has just come in; and he is requested
to come to the 'phone, Garrison being dismissed with thanks and
the expectation of seeing her butler in the morning."

"How perfectly delicious!" came from the girl. "I can almost hear
Mrs. Rowden telling Jackson that he will be the dearest boy in the
world if he will dine with her."

"And bring someone with him, as she is one man short," laughed
Graydon, as he wound up lightly; "and here is where the professional
comes in. We're all onto Medford! Why, Garrison has half a dozen
requests a night--six times five--thirty dollars. Not bad--but
then the man's a 'who's who' that never makes mistakes. I won't be
positive that he does not draw pay from both ends. For, men like
Medford, outside of the club, probably tip him to give them the
preference. It would be good business."

There was so much self-satisfaction in the speaker's manner
of uttering these last words, that it would not have required the
wisdom of one older than Miss Cable to detect that he was thoroughly
enjoying his pose of man of the world. He was indeed young! For, he
had yet to learn that not to disillusion the girl, but to conform
as much as possible to her ideals, was the surest way to win her
favour; and his vanity surely would have received a blow had not David
Cable at that moment come out of the doorway across the sidewalk,
pausing for a moment to converse with the man who accompanied him.
The girl's face lighted with pleasure and relief; but the young
man regarding uneasily the countenance of the General Manager of
the Pacific, Lakes & Atlantic R.R. Company, saw that he was white,
tired and drawn. It was not the keen, alert expression that had been
the admiration of everyone; something vital seemed to be missing,
although he could not have told what it was. A flame seemed to have
died somewhere in his face, leaving behind a faint suggestion of
ashes; and through the young man's brain there flashed the remark
of his fair companion: 'He's in there now, working his dear, old
brain to pieces.'

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Jane," said Cable, crossing
to the curb. "Hello, Graydon; how are you?" His voice was sharp,
crisp, and louder than the occasion seemed to demand, but it was
natural with him. Years of life in an engine cab do not serve to
mellow the tone of the human voice, and the habit is too strong to
be overcome.  There was no polish to the tones as they issued from
David Cable's lips. He spoke with more than ordinary regard for the
Queen's English, but it was because he never had neglected it. It
was characteristic of the man to do a thing as nearly right as he
knew how in the beginning, and to do it. the same way until a better
method presented itself.

"Very well, thank you, Mr. Cable, except that Jane has been abusing
me because you were not here to---"

"Don't you believe a word he says, dad," she cried.

"Oh, if the truth isn't in me, I'll subside," laughed Graydon.
"Nevertheless, you've kept her waiting, and it's only reasonable
that she should abuse somebody."

"I am glad you were here to receive it; it saves my grey hairs."

"Rubbish!" was Miss Cable's simple comment, as her father took his
place beside her.

"Oh, please drive on, Jane," said the young man, his admiring eyes
on the girl who grasped the reins afresh and straightened like a
soldier for inspection. "I must run around to the University Club
and watch the score of the Yale-Harvard game at Cambridge. It looks
like Harvard, hang it all! Great game, they say---"

"There he goes on football. We must be off, or it will be dark
before we get away from him. Good-bye!" cried Miss Cable.

"How's your father, Gray? He wasn't feeling the best in the world,
yesterday," said Cable, tucking in the robe.

"A case of liver, Mr. Cable; he's all right to-day. Good-bye!"

As Jane and her father whirled away, the latter gave utterance
to a remark that brought a new brightness to her eyes and a proud
throbbing to her heart; but he did not observe the effect.

"Bright, clever chap--that Graydon Bansemer," he said comfortably.






CHAPTER II

THE CABLES





The General Manager of the Pacific, Lakes & Atlantic Railroad
System had had a hard struggle of it. He who begins his career with
a shovel in a locomotive cab usually has something of that sort
to look back upon. There are no roses along the pathway he has
traversed. In the end, perhaps, he wonders if it has been worth
while. David Cable was a General Manager; he had been a fireman.
It had required twenty-five years of hard work on his part to break
through the chrysalis. Packed away in a chest upstairs in his house
there was a grimy, greasy, unwholesome suit of once-blue overalls.
The garments were just as old as his railroad career, for he had worn
them on his first trip with the shovel. When his wife implored him
to throw away the "detestable things," he said, with characteristic
humour, that he thought he would keep them for a rainy day. It was
much simpler to go from General Manager to fireman than vice versa,
and it might be that he would need the suit again.  It pleased him
to hear his wife sniff contemptuously.

David Cable had been a wayward, venturesome youth. His father and
mother had built their hopes high with him as a foundation, and he
had proved a decidedly insecure basis; for one night, in the winter
of 1863, he stole away from his home in New York; before spring
he was fighting in the far Southland, a boy of sixteen carrying a
musket in the service of his country.

At the close of the Civil War Private Cable, barely eighteen, returned
to his home only to find that death had destroyed its happiness:
his father had died, leaving his widowed mother a dependant upon
him. It was then, philosophically, he realised that labour alone
could win for him; and he stuck to it with rigid integrity. In
turn, he became brakeman and fireman; finally his determination
and faithfulness won him a fireman's place on one of the fast New
York Central "runs." If ever he was dissatisfied with the work, no
one was the wiser.

Railroading in those days was not what it is in these advanced times.
Then, it meant that one was possessed of all the evil habits that
fall to the lot of man. David Cable was more or less contaminated
by contact with his rough, ribald companions of the rail, and
he glided moderately into the bad habits of his kind. He drank
and "gamboled" with the rest of the boys; but by nature not being
vicious and low, the influences were not hopelessly deadening to
the better qualities of his character. To his mother, he was always
the strong, good-hearted, manly boy, better than all the other
sons in the world. She believed in him; he worshipped her; and it
was not until he was well up in the twenties that he stopped to
think that she was not the only good woman in the world who deserved
respect.

Up in Albany lived the Widow Coleman and her two pretty daughters.
Mrs. Coleman's husband died on the battlefield, and she, like many
women in the North and the South, after years of moderate prosperity,
was compelled to support herself and her family. She had been
a pretty woman, and one readily could see where her daughters got
their personal attractiveness. Not many doors from the boisterous
little eating-house in which the railroad men snatched their meals
as they went through, the widow opened a book and newsstand. Her
home was on the floor above the stand, and it was there she brought
her little girls to womanhood. Good-looking, harum-scarum Dave
Cable saw Frances Coleman one evening as he dropped in to purchase
a newspaper. It was at the end of June, in 1876, and the country
was in the throes of excitement over the first news of the Custer
massacre on the Little Big Horn River.

Cable was deeply interested, for he had seen Custer fighting at
the front in the sixties. Frances Coleman, the prettiest girl he
had ever seen, sold him the newspaper. After that, he seldom went
through Albany without visiting the little book shop.

Tempestuous, even arrogant in love, Cable, once convinced that he
cared for her, lost no time in claiming her, whether or no. In less
than three months after the Custer massacre they were married.

Defeated rivals unanimously and enviously observed that the
handsomest fireman on the road had conquered the mo&t outrageous
little coquette between New York and Buffalo. As a matter of fact,
she had loved him from the start; the others served as thorns with
which she delightedly pricked his heart into subjection.

The young husband settled down, renounced all of his undesirable
habits and became a new man with such surprising suddenness that
his friends marvelled and--derided. A year of happiness followed.
He grew accustomed to her frivolous ways, overlooked her merry
whimsicalities and gave her the "full length of a free rope," as he
called it. He was contented and consequently careless. She chafed
under the indifference, and in her resentment believed the worst
of him. Turmoil succeeded peace and contentment, and in the end,
David Cable, driven to distraction, weakly abandoned the domestic
battlefield and fled to the Far West, giving up home, good wages,
and all for the sake of freedom, such as it was. He ignored her
letters and entreaties, but in all those months that he was away
from her he never ceased to regret the impulse that had defeated
him. Nevertheless, he could not make up his mind to go back and
resume the life of torture her jealousy had begotten.

Then, the unexpected happened. A letter was received containing
the command to come home and care for his wife and baby. At once,
David Cable called a halt in his demoralising career and saw the
situation plainly. He forgot that she had "nagged" him to the point
where endurance rebelled; he forgot everything but the fact that
he cared for her in spite of all. Sobered and conscience-stricken,
he knew only that she was alone and toiling; that she had suffered
uncomplainingly until the babe was some months old before appealing
to him for help. In abject humiliation, he hastened back to New
York, reproaching himself every mile of the way. Had he but known
the true situation, he would have been spared the pangs of remorse,
and this narrative never would have been written.






CHAPTER III

JAMES BANSEMER





In the City of New York there was practising, at that time, a
lawyer by the name of Bansemer. His office, on the topmost floor
of a dingy building in the lower section of the city, was not
inviting. On leaving the elevator, one wound about through narrow
halls and finally peered, with more or less uncertainty and misgiving,
at the half-obliterated sign which said that James Bansemer held
forth on the other side of the glass panel.

It was whispered in certain circles and openly avowed in others
that Bansemer's business was not the kind which elevates the law;
in plain words, his methods were construed to debase the good and
honest statutes of the land. Once inside the door of his office--and
a heavy spring always closed it behind one--there was quick evidence
that the lawyer lamentably disregarded the virtues of prosperity,
no matter how they had been courted and won. Although his transactions
in and out of the courts of that great city bore the mark of
dishonour, he was known to have made money during the ten years
of his career as a member of the bar. Possibly he kept his office
shabby and unclean that it might be in touch with the transactions
which had their morbid birth inside the grimy walls. There was no
spot or corner in the two small rooms that comprised his "chambers"
to which he could point with pride. The floors were littered with
papers; the walls were greasy and bedecked with malodorous notations,
documents and pictures; the windows were smoky and useless; the
clerk's desk bore every suggestion of dissoluteness.

But little less appalling to one's aesthetic sense was the clerk
himself. Squatting behind his wretched desk, Elias Droom peered
across the litter of papers and books with snaky but polite eyes,
almost as inviting as the spider who, with wily but insidious
decorum, draws the guileless into his web.

If one passed muster in the estimation of the incomprehensible
Droom, he was permitted, in due season, to pass through a second
oppressive-looking door and into the private office of Mr. James
Bansemer, attorney-at-law and solicitor. It may be remarked at
this early stage that, no matter how long or how well one may have
known Droom, one seldom lingered to engage in commonplaces with
him. His was the most repellent personality imaginable. When he
smiled, one was conscious of a shock to the nervous system; when
he so far forgot himself as to laugh aloud, there was a distinct
illustration of the word "crunching"; when he spoke, one was almost
sorry that he had ears.

Bansemer knew but little of this freakish individual's history; no
one else had the temerity to inquire into his past--or to separate
it from his future, for that matter. Once, Bansemer ironically
asked him why he had never married. It was a full minute before
the other lifted his eyes from the sheet of legal cap, and by that
time he was in full control of his passion.

"Look at me! Would any woman marry a thing like me?"

This was said with such terrible earnestness that Bansemer took
care never to broach the subject again. He saw that Droom's heart
was not all steel and brass.

Droom v/as middle-aged. His lank body and cadaverous face were
constructed on principles not generally accredited to nature as it
applies to men. When erect, his body swayed as if it were a stubborn
reed determined to maintain its dignity in the face of the wind; he
did not walk, he glided. His long square chin, rarely clean-shaven,
protruded far beyond its natural orbit; indeed, the attitude of
the chin gave one an insight to the greedy character of the man.
At first glance, one felt that Droom was reaching forth with his
lower jaw to give greeting with his teeth, instead of his hand.

His neck was long and thin, and his turndown collar was at least
two sizes too large. The nose was hooked and of abnormal length,
the tip coming well down over the short, upper lip and broad mouth.
His eyes were light blue, and so intense that he was never known to
blink the lashes. Topping them were deep, wavering, black eyebrows
that met above the nose, forming an ominous, cloudy line across
the base of his thin, high forehead. The crown of his head, covered
by long, scant strands of black hair, was of the type known as
"retreating and pointed." The forehead ran upward and back from the
brows almost to a point, and down from the pinnacle hung the veil
of hair, just as if he had draped it there with the same care
he might have used in placing his best hat upon a peg. His back
was stooped, and the high, narrow shoulders were hunched forward
eagerly. Long arms and ridiculously thin legs, with big hands and
feet, tell the story of his extremities. When he was on his feet
Droom was more than six feet tall; as he sat in the low-backed,
office chair he looked to be less than five feet, over all. What
became of that lank expanse of bone and cuticle when he sat down
was one of the mysteries that not even James Bansemer could fathom.

The men had been classmates in an obscure law school down in
Pennsylvania. Bansemer was good-looking, forceful and young; while
Droom was distinctly his opposite. Where he came from no one knew
and no one cared. He was past thirty-five when he entered the
school-at least twelve years the senior of Bansemer.

His appearance and attire proclaimed him to be from the country;
but his sophistry, his knowledge of the world and his wonderful
insight into human nature contradicted his looks immeasureably.
A conflict or two convinced his fellow students that he was more
than a match for them in stealth and cunning, if not in dress and
deportment.

Elias Droom had not succeeded as a lawyer. He repelled people,
growing more and more bitter against the world as his struggles
became harder. What little money he had accumulated--Heaven alone
knew how: he came by it--dwindled to nothing, and he was in actual
squalor when, later, Bansemer found him in an attic in Baltimore.
Even as he engaged the half-starved wretch to become his confidential
clerk the lawyer shuddered and almost repented of his action.

But Elias Droom was worth his weight in gold to James Bansemer from
that day forth. His employer's sole aim in life was to get rich
and thereby to achieve power. His ambition was laudable, if one
accepts the creed of morals, but his methods were not so praise-worthy.
After a year of two of starvation struggles to get on with the
legitimate, he packed up his scruples and laid them away--temporarily,
he said. He resorted to sharp practice, knavery, and all the forms
of legal blackmail; it was not long before his bank account began
to swell. His business thrived. He was so clever that not one of his
shady proceedings reacted. It is safe to venture that ninety-nine
per cent, of the people who were bilked through his manipulations
promised, in the heat of virtuous wrath, to expose him, but he had
learned to smile in security. He knew that exposure for him meant
humiliation for the instigator, and he continued to rest easy while
he worked hard.

"You're getting rich at this sort of thing," observed Droom one
day, after the lawyer had closed a particularly nauseous deal to
his own satisfaction, "but what are you going to do when the tide
turns?"

Bansemer, irritated on perceiving that the other was engaged in his
exasperating habit of rubbing his hands together, did not answer,
but merely thundered out: "Will you stop that!"

There was a faint suggestion of the possibility of a transition of
the hands to claws, as Droom abruptly desisted, but smilingly went
on:

"Some day, the other shark will get the better of you and you'll
have nothing to fall back on. You've been building on mighty slim
foundations. There isn't a sign of support if the worst comes to
the worst," he chuckled.

"It's a large world, Droom," said his employer easily.

"And small also, according to another saying," supplemented Droom.
"When a man's down, everybody kicks him--I'm afraid you could not
survive the kicking."

Droom grinned so diabolically as again he resumed the rubbing of
his hands that the other turned away with an oath and closed the
door to the inside office. Bansemer was alone and where Droom's
eyes could not see him, but something told him that the grin hung
outside the door for many minutes, as if waiting for a chance to
pop in and tantalise him.

Bansemer was a good-looking man of the coarser mould--the kind of
man that merits a second look in passing, and the second look is not
always in his favour. He was thirty-five years of age, but looked
older. His face was hard and deeply marked with the lines of
intensity. The black eyes were fascinating in their brilliancy,
but there was a cruel, savage light in their depths. The nose and
mouth were clean-cut and pitiless in their very symmetry. Shortly
after leaving college to hang out his shingle, he had married the
daughter of a minister. For two years her sweet influence kept his
efforts along the righteous path, but he writhed beneath the yoke
of poverty. His pride suffered because he was unable to provide
her with more of the luxuries of life; in his selfish way, he loved
her.  Failure to advance made him surly and ill-tempered, despite
her amiable efforts to lighten the shadows around their little
home.  When the baby boy was born to them, and she suffered more
and more from the unkindness of privation, James Bansemer, by nature
an aggressor, threw off restraint and plunged into the traffic that
soon made him infamously successful. She died, however, before the
taint of his duplicity touched her, and he, even in his grief, felt
thankful that she never was to know the truth.

At this time Bansemer lived in comfort at one of the middle-class
boarding houses uptown, and the boy was just leaving the kindergarten
for a private school. Bansemer's calloused heart had one tender
chamber, and in it dwelt the little lad with the fair hair and grey
eyes of the woman who had died.

Late one November afternoon just before Bansemer put on his light
topcoat to leave the office for the day, Droom tapped on the
glass panel of the door to his private office. Usually, the clerk
communicated with him by signal--a floor button by which he could
acquaint his master with much that he ought to know, and the
visitor in the outer office would be none the wiser. The occasions
were rare when he went so far as to tap on the door. Bansemer was
puzzled, and stealthily listened for sounds from the other side.
Suddenly, there came to his ears the voices of women, mingled with
Broom's suppressed but always raucous tones.

Bansemer opened the door; looking into the outer office, he saw
Droom swaying before two women, rubbing his hands and smiling. One
of the women carried a small babe in her arms. Neither she nor her
companion seemed quite at ease in the presence of the lank guardian
of the outer office.






CHAPTER IV

THE FOUNDLING





"Lady to see you!" announced Droom. The shrewd, fearless genius of
the inner room glanced up quickly and met the prolonged, uncanny
gaze of his clerk; unwillingly, his eyes fell.

"Confound it, Lias! will you ever quit looking at me like that!
There's something positively creepy in that stare of yours!"

"Lady to see you!" repeated the clerk, shifting about uneasily,
and then gliding away to take his customary look at the long row
of books in the wall cases. He had performed this act a dozen times
a day for more than five years; the habit had become so strong that
chains could not have restrained him. It was what he considered
a graceful way of dropping out of notice, at the same time giving
the impression that he was constantly busy.

"Are you Mr. Bansemer?" asked the woman with the babe in her arms,
as he crossed into the outer office.

For a moment Bansemer purposely remained absorbed in the contemplation
of his finger nails; then he shot a sudden comprehensive glance
which took in the young woman, her burden and all the supposed
conditions. There was no doubt in his mind that here was another
"paternity case," as he catalogued them in his big, black book.

"I am," he replied shortly, for he usually made short, quick work
of such cases. There was not much money in them at best. They spring
from the lower and poorer classes. The rich ones who are at fault
in such matters never permit them to go to the point where a lawyer
is consulted. "Would you mind coming in to-morrow? I'm just leaving
for the day."

"It will take but a few minutes, sir, and it would be very hard for
me to get away again to-morrow," said the young woman nervously.
"I'm a governess in a family 'way uptown and my days are not very
free."

"Is this your baby?" asked Bansemer, more interested. The word
governess appealed to him; it meant that she had to do with wealthy
people, at least.

"No--that is--well, not exactly," she replied confusedly. The
lawyer looked at her so sharply that she flinched under his gaze.
A kidnapper, thought he, with the quick cunning of one who deals in
stratagems. Instinctively he looked about as if to make sure that
there were no unnecessary witnesses to share the secret.

"Come into this room," said he suddenly. "Both of you. See that we
are not disturbed," he added, to Droom. "I think I can give you a
few minutes, madam, and perhaps some very good advice. Be seated,"
he went on, closing the door after them. His eyes rested on Broom's
face for an instant as the door closed, and he saw a particularly
irritating grin struggling on his thin lips. "Now, what is it? Be
as brief as possible, please. I'm in quite a hurry."

It occurred to him at this juncture that the young woman was not
particularly distressed. Instead, her rather pretty face was full
of eagerness and there was a certain lightness in her manner that
puzzled him for the moment. Her companion was the older of the
two and quite as prepossessing. Both were neatly dressed and both
looked as though they were or had been bread-winners. If they had
a secret, it was now quite evident to this shrewd, quick thinker
that it was not a dark one. In truth, he was beginning to feel that
something mischievous lurked in the attitude of the two visitors.

"I want to ask how a person has to proceed to adopt a baby," was
the blunt and surprising remark that came from the one who held
the infant. Bansemer felt himself getting angry.

"Who wants to adopt it?" he asked shortly.

"I do, of course," she answered, so readily that the lawyer stared.
He scanned her from head to foot, critically; her face reddened
perceptibly. It surprised him to find that she was more than merely
good-looking; she was positively attractive!

"Are you a married woman?" he demanded.

"Yes," she answered, with a furtive glance at her companion. "This
is my sister," she added.

"I see. Where is your husband?"

"He is at home--or rather, at his mother's home. We are living
there now."

"I thought you said you were a governess?"

"That doesn't prevent me from having a home, does it?" she explained
easily. "I'm not a nurse, you know."

"This isn't your child, then?" he asked impatiently.

"I don't know whose child it is." There was a new softness in her
voice that made him look hard at her while she passed a hand tenderly
over the sleeping babe. "She comes from a foundling's home, sir."

"You cannot adopt a child unless supported by some authority," he
said. "How does she happen to be in your possession; and what papers
have you from the foundling's home to show that the authorities
are willing that you should have her? There is a lot of red tape
about such matters, madam."

"I thought perhaps you could manage it for me, Mr. Bansemer,"
she said, plaintively. "They say you never fail at anything you
undertake." He was not sure there was a compliment in her remark,
so he treated it with indifference.

"I'm afraid I can't help you." The tone was final.

"Can't you tell me how I'll have to proceed? I must adopt the
child, sir, one way or another." Her manner was more subdued and
there was a touch of supplication in her voice.

"Oh, you go into the proper court and make application, that's all,"
he volunteered carelessly. "The judge will do the rest. Does your
husband approve of the plans?"

"He doesn't know anything about it?"

"What's that?"

"I can't tell him; it would spoil everything."

"My dear madam, I don't believe I understand you quite clearly. You
want to adopt the child and keep the matter dark so far as your
husband is concerned? May I inquire the reason?" Bansemer, naturally,
was interested by this time.

"If you have time to listen, I'd like to tell you how it all comes
about. It won't take long. I want someone to tell me just what
to do and I'll pay for the advice, if it isn't too expensive. I'm
very poor, Mr. Bansemer; perhaps you won't care to heip me after
you know that I can't afford to pay very much."

"We'll see about that later," he said brusquely; "go ahead with
the story."

The young woman hesitated, glanced nervously at her sister as if
for support, and finally faced the expectant lawyer with a flash of
determination in her dark eyes. As she proceeded, Bansemer silently
and somewhat disdainfully made a study of the speaker. He concluded
that she was scarcely of common origin and was the possessor of
a superficial education that had been enlarged by conceitedness;
furthermore, she was a person of selfish instincts, but without
the usual cruel impulses. There was little if any sign of true
refinement in the features, and yet, there was a strange strength
of purpose that puzzled him. As her story progressed, he solved
the puzzle. She had the strength to carry out a purpose that might
further her own personal interests; but not the will to endure
sacrifice for the sake of another. Her sister was larger and possessed
a reserve that might have been mistaken for deepness. He felt that
she was hardly in sympathy with the motives of the younger, more
volatile woman.

"My husband is a railroad engineer and is ten years older than I,"
the narrator said in the beginning. "I wasn't quite nineteen when
we were married--two years ago. For some time, we got along all
right; then we began to quarrel. He commenced to---"

"Mr. Bansemer is in a hurry, Fan," broke in the older sister,
sharply; and then, repeating the lawyer's words: "Be as brief as
possible."

There was a world of reproach in the look which greeted the speaker.
Evidently, it was a grievous disappointment not to be allowed to
linger over the details.

"Well," she continued half pettishly; "it all ended by his leaving
home, job and everything. I had told him that I was going to apply
for a divorce. For three months I never heard from him."

"Did you apply for a divorce?" asked the lawyer, stifling a yawn.

"No, sir, I did not, although he did nothing towards my support."
The woman could not resist a slightly coquettish attempt to enlist
Bansemer's sympathy. "I obtained work at St. Luke's Hospital for
Foundlings, and after that, as a governess. But, once a week I went
back to the asylum to see the little ones. One day, they brought
in a beautifully dressed baby--a girl. She was found on a doorstep,
and in the basket was a note asking that she be well cared for; with
it, was a hundred dollar bill. The moment I saw the little thing,
I fell in love with her. I made application and they gave me
the child with the understanding that I was to adopt it. You see,
I was lonely--I had been living alone for nine or ten months. The
authorities knew nothing of my trouble with Mr. Cable--that's my
husband, David Cable. The child was about a month old when I took
her to his mother, whom I hadn't seen in months. I told Mrs. Cable
that she was mine. The dear old lady believed me; half the battle
was won." She paused out of breath, her face full of excitement.

"And then?" he asked, once more interested.

"We both wrote to David asking him to come home to his wife and
baby." She looked away guiltily. For a full minute, Bansemer did
not speak.

"The result?" he demanded.

"He came back last month."

"Does he know the truth?"

"No, and with God's help, he never shall! It's my only salvation!"
she exclaimed emotionally. "He thinks she is his baby and--and---"
The tears were on her cheeks, now. "I worship him, Mr. Bansemer!
Oh, how good and sweet he has been to me since he came back! Now,
don't you see why I must adopt this child, and why he must never
know? If he learned that I had deceived him in this way, he would
hate me to my dying day."

The infant was awake and staring at him with wide, blue eyes.

"And you want me to handle this matter so that your husband will
be none the wiser?"

"Oh, Mr. Bansemer," she cried; "it means everything to me! All
depends on this baby. I must adopt her, or the asylum people won't
let me keep her. Can't it be done so quickly that he'll never find
it out?"

"How many people know that the child is not yours?"

"My sister and the authorities at the asylum; not another soul."

"It is possible to arrange the adoption, Mrs. Cable, but I can't
guarantee that Mr. Cable will not find it out. The records will
show the fact, you know. There is but one way to avoid discovery."

"And that, please?"

"Leave New York and make your home in some distant city. That's
the safe way. If you remain here, there is always a chance that he
may find out. I see the position you're in and I'll help you. It
can be done quite regularly and there is only one thing you'll have
to fear--you own tongue," he concluded, pointedly.

"I hate New York, Mr. Bansemer. David likes the West and I'll go
anywhere on earth, if it will keep him from finding out. Oh, if
you knew how he adores her!" she cried, regret and ecstasy mingling
in her voice. "I'd give my soul if she were only mine!" Bansemer's
heart was too roughly calloused to be touched by the wistful longing
in these words.

Before the end of the week the adoption of the foundling babe was
a matter of record; and the unsuspecting David Cable was awaiting
a reply from the train-master of a big Western railroad, to whom,
at the earnest, even eager, solicitation of his wife, he had applied
for work. Elias Droom made a note of the fee in the daybook at the
office, but asked no questions. Bansemer had told him nothing of
the transaction, but he was confident that the unspeakable Droom
knew all about it, even though he had not been nearer than the
outer office during any of the consultations.






CHAPTER V

THE BANSEMER CRASH





Twenty long years had passed since David and Frances Cable took
their hasty departure--virtually fleeing from New York City, their
migrations finally ending in that thriving Western city--Denver.
Then, the grime of the engine was on Cable's hands and deep beneath
his skin; the roar of iron and steel and the rush of wind was ever
in his ears; the quest of danger in his eye; but there was love,
pride and a new ambition in his heart. Now, in 1898, David Cable's
hands were white and strong; the grime was gone; the engineer's
cap had given way to the silk tile of the magnate; and the shovel
was a memory.

But his case was not unique in that day and age of pluck and luck.
Many another man had gone from the bottom to the top with the speed
and security of the elevator car in the lofty "sky-scrapers." In
the heartless revolution of a few years, he became the successor
of his Western benefactor. The turn that had been kind to him,
was unkind to his friend and predecessor; the path that led upward
for David Cable, ran the other way for the train-master, who years
afterward died in his greasy overalls and the close-fitting cap of
an engineer. One night Cable read the news of the wreck with all
the joy gone from his heart.

From the cheap, squalid section of town known as "railroad end,"
Cable's rising influence carried him to the well-earned luxury. The
lines of care and toil mellowed in the face of his pretty wife, as
the years rolled by; her comely figure shed the cheap raiment of
"hard, old days," and took on the plumage of prosperity. Trouble,
resentment, and worry disappeared as if by magic, smoothed out by
the satiny touch of comfort's fingers. She went upward much faster
than her husband, for her ambitions were less exacting. She longed
to shine socially--he loathed the thought of it. But Cable was
proud of his wife. He enjoyed the transition that lifted her up with
steady strength to the plane which fitted her best--as he regarded
it. She had stuck by him nobly and uncomplainingly through the
vicissitudes; it delighted him to give her the pleasures.

Frances Cable was proud; but she had not been too proud to stand
beside the man with the greasy overalls and to bend her fine, young
strength to work in unison with his. Together, facing the task,
cheerfully, they had battled and won.

There were days when it was hard to smile; but the next day always
brought with it a fresh sign of hope. The rough, hard, days in
the Far West culminated in his elevation to the office of General
Manager of the great railroad system, whose headquarters and home
were in the city of Chicago. Attaining this high place two years
prior to the opening of this narrative, he was regarded now as one
of the brainiest railroad men and slated to be president of the
road at the next meeting.

Barely past fifty years of age, David Cable was in the prime of
life and usefulness. Age and prosperity had improved him greatly.
The iron grey of his hair, the keen brightness of his face, the
erect, and soldierly carriage of his person made him a striking
figure. His wife, ten years his junior, was one of the most attractive
women in Chicago. Her girlish beauty had refined under the blasts
of adversity; years had not been unkind to her. In a way, she was
the leader of a certain set, but her social ambitions were not
content.  There was a higher altitude in fashion's realm. Money,
influence and perseverance were her allies; social despotism her
only adversary.

The tall, beautiful and accomplished daughter of the Cables was
worshipped by her father with all the warmth and ardour of his
soul.  Times there were when he looked in wonder upon this arbiter
of not a few manly destinies; and for his life could not help asking
himself how the Creator had given him such a being for a child,
commenting on the fact that she bore resemblance to neither parent.

For years, Mrs. Cable had lived in no little terror of some day
being found out. As the child grew to womanhood, the fears gradually
diminished and a sense of security that would not be disturbed
replaced them. Then, just as she was reaching out for the chief
prizes of her ambition, she came face to face with a man, whose
visage she never had forgotten--Elias Droom! And Frances Cable
looked again into the old and terrifying shadows!

It was late in the afternoon, and she was crossing the sidewalk to
her carriage waiting near Field's, when a man brushed against her.
She was conscious of a strange oppressiveness. Before she turned
to look at him she knew that a pair of staring eyes were upon her
face.  Something seemed to have closed relentlessly upon her heart.

One glance was sufficient. The tall, angular form stood almost over
her; the two, wide, blue eyes looked down in feigned surprise; the
never-to-be-forgotten voice greeted her, hoarsely:

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Cable! And how is the baby?"

"The baby!" she faltered. Struggle against it as she would, a sort
of fascination drew her gaze toward the remarkable face of the old
clerk. "Why--why--she's very well, thank you," she finally stammered.
Her face was as white as a ghost; with a shudder she started to
pass him. Droom, blocked the way.

"She was such a pretty little thing, I remember;" and then,
insinuatingly: "Where is her father, now?"

"He--Mr. Cable," answered Mrs. Cable, feeling very much as a bird
feels when it is charmed by a snake, "why, he's at home, of course."

"Indeed!" was all that Elias Droom said; for she had fled to escape
the grin that writhed in and out among the wrinkles of his face.

As her carriage struggled through crowded Washington Street,
an irresistible something compelled Frances Cable to glance back.
Droom stood on the curb, his eyes following her almost hungrily.
Half an hour later, when she reached home, she was in a state of
collapse.  Although there was no physical proof of the fact, she
was positive that Elias Droom had followed her to the very doorstep.

In suspense and dread, she waited for days before there was a
second manifestation of Droom. There was rarely a day when she did
not expect her husband to stand before her and ask her to explain
the story that had been carried to him by a demon in the form of
man.

But Droom did not go to David Cable. He went to James Bansemer with
the news.

James Bansemer's law and loan offices were not far from the river
and, it is sufficient to say, not much farther from State Street.
He who knows Chicago well cannot miss the location more than three
blocks, either way, if he takes City Hall as a focal point. The
office building in which they were located is not a pretentious
structure, but its tenants were then and still are regarded as
desirable. It may be well to announce that Bansemer, on reaching
Chicago, was clever enough to turn over a new leaf and begin work
on a clear, white page, but it is scarcely necessary to add that
the black, besmirched lines on the opposite side of the sheet could
be traced through every entry that went down on the fresh white
surface. Bansemer was just as nefarious in his transactions, but
he was a thousandfold more cautious. Droom sarcastically reminded
him that he had a reputation to protect, in his new field and,
besides, as his son was "going in society" through the influence of
a coterie of Yale men, it would be worse than criminal to deteriorate.

Bansemer loathed Droom, but he also feared him. He was the only living
creature that inspired fear in the heart of this bold schemer. It
is true that he feared the effect an exposure might have on the
mind of his stalwart son, the boy with his mother's eyes; but he
had succeeded so well in blinding the youth in the years gone by,
that the prospects of discovery now seemed too remote for concern.
The erstwhile New York "shark" was now an eel, wily and elusive,
but he was an eel with a shark's teeth and a shark's voraciousness.
He had grown old in the study of this particular branch of natural
history. Bansemer was fifty-five years old in this year of 1898.
He was thinner than in the old New York days, but the bull-like
vigour had given way to the wiry strength of the leopard. The once
black hair was almost white, and grew low and thick on his forehead.
Immaculately dressed, ever straight and aggressive in carriage,
he soon became a figure of whom all eyes took notice, even in the
most crowded of Chicago thoroughfares.

Graydon Bansemer, on leaving Yale with a diploma and some of
the honours of his class, urged his father to take him into his
office, and ultimately to make him a partner in the business. James
Bansemer never forgot the malicious grin that crossed the face of
Elias Droom when the young fellow made the proposition not more
than a fortnight before the Bansemer establishment picked itself
up and hastily deserted New York. That grin spoke plainer than all
the words in language. Take him into the office? Make this honest,
grey-eyed boy a partner? It was no wonder that Droom grinned and
it is no wonder that he forgot to cover his mouth with his huge
hand, as was his custom.

The proposition, while sincere and earnest, was too impossible
for words. For once in his life, James Bansemer was at a loss for
subterfuge. He stammered, flushed and writhed in the effort to
show the young man that the step would be unprofitable, and he was
sorely conscious that he had not convinced the eager applicant.
He even urged him to abandon the thought of becoming a lawyer, and
was ably seconded by Elias Droom, whose opinion of the law, as he
had come to know it, was far from flattering.

Just at this time Bansemer was engaged in the most daring as well
as the most prodigious "deal" of his long career. With luck, it was
bound to enrich him to the extent of $50,000. The plans had been
so well prepared and the execution had been so faultless that there
seemed to be no possibility of failure. To take his fair-minded
son--with the mother's eyes--into the game would be suicidal. The
young fellow would turn from him forever. Bansemer never went so
far as to wonder whence came the honest blood in the boy's veins,
nor to speculate on the origin of the unquestioned integrity. He
had but to recall the woman who bore him, the woman whose love was
the only good thing he ever knew, the wife he had worshipped while
he sinned.

For years and years he had plied his unwholesome trade in reputations,
sometimes evading exposure by the narrowest of margins, and he had
come to believe that he was secure for all time to come.  But it
was the "big job" that brought disaster. Just when it looked as
though success was assured, the crash came. He barely had time to
cover his tracks, throw the figurative pepper into the eyes of his
enemies, and get away from the scene of danger. But, he had been
clever and resourceful enough to avoid the penalty that looked
inevitable and came off with colours trailing but uncaptured.

Perhaps no other man could have escaped; but James Bansemer was
cleverest when in a corner. He backed away, held them at bay until
he could recover his breath, and then defied them to their teeth.
Despite their proof, he baffled them, and virtue was not its own
reward--at least in this instance.

In leaving New York, he hoped that Ellas Droom--who knew too much--might
refuse to go into the new territory with him, but the gaunt, old
clerk took an unnatural and malevolent delight in clinging to his
employer. He declined to give up his place in the office, and,
although he hated James Bansemer, he came like an accusing shadow
into the new offices near the Chicago River, and there he toiled,
grinned and scowled with the same old faithfulness.






CHAPTER VI

IN SIGHT OF THE FANGS





At first, it was hard for James Bansemer to believe that his henchman
had not been mistaken. Droom's description of the lady certainly
did not correspond to what his memory recalled.  Investigation,
however, assured him that the Cables in the mansion near the lake
were the people he had known in New York. Bansemer took no one into
his confidence, not even Droom. Once convinced that the erstwhile
fireman was now the rich and powerful magnate, he set to work upon
the machinery which was to extract personal gain from the secret
in his possession. He soon learned that the child was a young woman
of considerable standing in society, but there was no way for him
to ascertain whether Frances Cable had told the truth to her husband
in those dreary Far West days.

Bansemer was rich enough, but avarice had become a habit. The flight
from New York had deprived him of but little in worldly goods. His
ill-gotten gains came with him; and investments were just as easy
and just as safe in Chicago as in New York. Now, he saw a chance
to wring a handsome sum from the rich woman whose only possession
had been love when he first knew her. If the secret of Jane's
origin still remained locked up in her heart, the effort would be
an easy one. He learned enough of David Cable, however, to know that
if he shared the secret, the plan would be profitless and dangerous.

It was this uncertainty that kept him from calling at the Cable home;
likewise, from writing a note which might prove a most disastrous
folly. Time and circumstance could be his only friends, and he
was accustomed to the whims of both. He read of the dinners and
entertainments given by the Cables, and smiled grimly. Time had
worked wonders for them! Scandal, he knew, could undo all that
ambition and pride had wrought. He could well afford to wait.

However, he did not have long to wait, for his opportunity came
one night in Hooley's Theatre. Graydon and he occupied seats in
the orchestra, near the stage and not far from the lower right-hand
boxes. It was during the busy Christmas holidays, but the "star"
was of sufficient consequence to pack the house. The audience was
no end of a fashionable one. Time and again, some strange influence
drew his gaze to the gay party in one of the lower boxes. The face
of the woman nearest to him was not visible; but the two girls who
sat forward, turned occasionally to look over the audience; and he
saw that they were pretty, one exceptionally so. One of the men
was grey-haired and strong-featured; the others were quite too
insignificant to be of interest to him. The woman whose back he
could see did not look out over the audience. Her indifference was
so marked that it seemed deliberate.

At last, he felt that her eyes were upon him; he turned quickly.
True enough, for with lips slightly parted, her whole attitude
suggestive of intense restraint, Mrs. Cable was staring helplessly
into the eyes of the man who could destroy her with a word.

The one thing that flashed through Bansemer's brain was the
realisation that she was far more beautiful than he had expected
her to be. There was a truly aristocratic loveliness in the rather
piquant face, and she undeniably possessed "manner." Maturity had
improved her vastly, he confessed with strange exultation; age had
been kinder than youth. He forgot the play, seldom taking his eyes
from the back which again had been turned to him. Calculating, he
reached the conclusion that she was not more than forty years of
age. More than once he made some remark to his son, only to surprise
that young man glancing surreptitiously at the face of the more
beautiful of the two girls. Even in this early stage, James Bansemer
began to gloat over the beauty of this new-found, old acquaintance.

In the lobby of the theatre, as they were leaving, he deliberately
doffed his hat and extended a pleasant hand to the wife of David
Cable. She turned deathly pale and there was a startled, piteous
look in her eyes that convinced him beyond all shadow of a doubt.
There was nothing for her to do but introduce him to her husband.
Two minutes later Graydon Bansemer and Jane Cable, strangers until
then, were asking each other how they liked the play, and Fate was
at work.

A few weeks after this scene at the theatre young Mr. Bansemer
dashed across the hall from the elevator and entered his father's
office just as Elias Droom was closing up.

"Where's the governor, Mr. Droom?" he asked, deliberately brushing
past the old clerk in the outer office.

"Left some time ago," replied Droom, somewhat ungraciously, his blue
eyes staring past the young man with a steadiness that suggested
reproach because he was out of the direct line of vision. "It is
nearly six o'clock--he's never here after five."

"I know that he--I asked you if you knew of his whereabouts. Do
you--or not?" The self-confident, athletic youth did not stand in
physical awe of the clerk.

"No," was the simple and sufficient answer.

"Well then--I'm off," said Graydon a trifle less airily.

Droom's overcoat was on and buttoned up to his chin; his long feet
were encased in rubbers of enormous size and uncertain age. There
must have been no blood in the veins of this grim old man, for the
weather was far from cold and the streets were surprisingly dry
for Chicago.

"I am closing the office for the day," said Droom. For no apparent
reason a smile spread over the lower part of his face and Graydon,
bold as he was, turned his eyes away.

"I thought I'd stop in and pick up the governor for a ride home in
my motor," said he, turning to the door.

"Yours is one of the first out here, I suppose," came from the thin
lips of the old clerk.

Graydon laughed.

"Possibly. The company charges a nickel a ride--half a dime--Going
down, sir?" Graydon had rung for the elevator and was waiting in
front of the grating.

A look containing a curious compound of affectionate reproach and
a certain senile gratification at being made the object of the
boy's condescending raillery crossed Droom's countenance. Without,
however, answering his question, he slowly and carefully closed the
door, tried it vigorously, and joined Bansemer at the shaft. With
Droom, words were unnecessary when actions could speak for themselves.

"Still living over in Wells Street, Mr. Droom?" went on Graydon,
thoroughly at home with the man whom he had feared and despised by
stages from childhood up.

"It's good enough for me," said Droom shortly. ''Tisn't Michigan
Avenue, the Drive or Lincoln Park Boulevard, but it's just as swell
as I am--or ever hope to be."

"There's nothing against Wells Street but--it got ashamed of itself
when it crossed the river."

"They call it Fifth Avenue," sneered Droom, "but it isn't THE Avenue,
is it?" Bansemer was surprised to oote a tone of affectionate pride
in the question.

"No indeed!"

"Oh, there's only one, Mr. Graydon," said the old clerk, quite
warmly; "our own Fifth Avenue."

"I had no idea you cared so much for swagger things, Mr. Droom,"
observed the other, genuinely surprised.

"Even Broadway is heaven to me," said Droom, some of the rasp
gone from his voice. "Good-bye; I go this way," he said when they
reached the sidewalk a little later. The young man watched his
gaunt figure as it slouched away in the semi-darkness.

"By George, the old chap is actually homesick!" muttered he. "I
didn't think it was in him."

Droom had rooms over a millinery shop in Wells Street. There was a
bedroom at the back and a "living-room" in front, overlooking the
street from the third story of the building. Of the bedchamber there
is but little to say, except that it contained a bed, a washstand,
a mirror, two straight-backed chairs and a clothes-press. Droom
went out for his bath--every Saturday night. The "living-room,"
however, was queer in more ways than one. In one corner, on a chest
of drawers, stood his oil stove, while in the opposite corner, a
big sheet-iron heater made itself conspicuous. Firewood was piled
behind the stove winter and summer, Droom lamenting that one could
not safely discriminate between the seasons in Chicago. The chest
of drawers contained his stock of provisions, his cooking and table
utensils, his medicine and a small assortment of carpenter's tools.
He had no use for an icebox.

A bookcase, old enough to warm the heart of the most ardent antiquarian,
held his small and unusual collection of books.  Standing side by
side, on the same shelf, were French romances, unexpurgated, and the
Holy Bible, much bethumbed and pencilled.  There were schoolbooks
alongside of sentimental love tales, Greek lexicons and quaint
old fairy stories, law books and works on criminology; books on
botany, geology, anatomy, and physics. In all, perhaps, there were
two hundred volumes. A life of Napoleon revealed signs of almost
constant usage. There were three portraits of the Corsican on the
dingy green walls.

The strange character of the man was best shown by the pictures
that adorned--or rather disfigured the walls. Vulgar photographs
and prints were to be seen on all sides. Mingled with these cheap
creations were excellent copies of famous Madonnas, quaint Scriptural
drawings, engravings of the Saviour, and an allegorical coloured
print which emphasised the joys of heaven. There was also a badly
drawn but idealised portrait of Droom, done in crayon at the age of
twenty. This portrait was one of his prized possessions. He loved
it best because it was a bust and did not expose his longitudinal
defects. If Droom ever had entertained a feminine visitor in his
apartments, there is no record of the fact. But few men had seen
the interior of his home, and they had gone away with distressed,
perplexed sensibilities.

He cooked his own meals on the oil stove, and, alone, ate them from
the little table that stood near the heater. Occasionally, he went
out to a near-by eating house for a lonely feast. His rooms usually
reeked with the odour of boiled coffee, burnt cabbage and grease,
pungent chemicals and long-suffering bed linen. Of his "front" room,
it may be said that it was kitchen, dining-room, parlour, library,
workshop, laboratory and conservatory. Four flower-pots in which
as many geraniums existed with difficulty, despite Droom's constant
and unswerving care, occupied a conspicuous place on the window-sills
overlooking the street. He watched aver them with all the tender
solicitude of a lover, surprising as it may appear when one pauses
to consider the vicious exterior of the man.

Drdom was frugal. He was, in truth, a miser. If anyone had asked him
what he expected to do with the money he was putting away in the
bank, he could not have answered, calculating as he was by nature.
He had no relative to whom he would leave it and he had no inclination
to give up the habit of active employment. His salary was small,
but he managed to save more than half of it--for a "rainy day," as
he said. He did his reading and experimenting by kerosene light,
and went to bed by candle light, saving a few pennies a week in
that way. The windows in his apartment were washed not oftener than
once a year. He was seldom obliged to look through them during the
day, and their only duty at night was to provide ventilation--and
even that was characteristically meagre.

He was a man of habit--not habits. A pipe at night was his only
form of dissipation. It was not too far for him to walk home from
the office of evenings, and he invariably did so unless the weather
was extremely unpleasant. So methodical was he that he never had
walked over any other bridge than the one in Wells Street, coming
and going.

Past sixty-five years of age. Broom's hair still was black and snaky;
his teeth were as yellow and jagged as they were in the seventies,
and his eyes were as blue and ugly as ever. He had not aged with
James Bansemer. In truth, he looked but little older then when we
made his acquaintance. The outside world knew no more of Droom's
private transactions than it knew of Bansemer's. Up in the horrid
little apartment in Wells Street the queer old man could do as he
willed, unobserved and unannoyed. He could pursue his experiments
with strange chemicals, he could construct odd devices with his
kit of tools, and he could let off an endless amount of inventive
energy that no one knew he possessed.

When he left Graydon Bansemer on the sidewalk in front of the
office building, he swung off with his long strides towards the
Wells Street bridge. His brain had laid aside everything that had
occupied its attention during office hours and had given itself
over to the project that hastened his steps homeward. His supper
that night was a small one and hurriedly eaten in order that he
might get to work on his new device. Droom grinned and cackled to
himself all alone up there in the lamplight, for he was perfecting
an "invention" by which the honest citizen could successfully put
to rout the "hold-up" man that has made Chicago famous.

Elias Droom's inventive genius unfailingly led him toward devices
that could inflict pain and discomfiture. His plan to get the
better of the wretched, hard-working hold-up man was unique, if not
entirely practical. He was constructing the models for two little
bulbs, made of rubber and lined with a material that would resist
the effects of an acid, no matter how powerful. On one end of each
bulb, which was capable of holding at least an ounce of liquid,
there was a thin syringe attachment, also proof against acids. These
little bulbs were made so that they could be held in the palm of
the hand. By squeezing them suddenly a liquid could be shot from
the tube with considerable force.

The bulbs were to contain vitriol.

When the hold-up man gave the command to "hold up your hands," the
victim had only to squeeze the bulb as the hands went up, and, if
accurately aimed, the miscreant would get the stream of the deadly
vitriolic fluid in his eyes and--here endeth the first lesson.
Experience alone could do the rest.

Young Bansemer hurried to their apartments on the North Side. He
found his father dressed and ready to go out to dinner.

"Well, how was everything to-day?" asked James Bansemer from his
easy chair in the library. Graydon threw his hat and gloves on the
table.

"Terribly dull market, governor," he said. "It's been that way for
a week. How are you feeling?"

"Fit to dine with a queen," answered the older man, with a smile.
"How soon can you dress for dinner, Gray?"

"That depends on who is giving the dinner."

"Some people you like. I found the note here when I came in a little
after five. We have an hour in which to get over there. Can you be
ready?"

"Do you go security for the affair?" asked Graydon.

"Certainly. You have been there, my boy, and I've not heard you
complain."

"You mean over at---"

"Yes, that's where I mean," said the other, breaking in quietly.

"I think I can be ready in ten minutes, father."

While he was dressing, his father sat alone and stared reflectively
at the small blue gas blaze in the grate. A dark, grim smile
unconsciously came over his face, the inspiration of a triumphant
joy. Twice he read the dainty note that met him on his return from
the office.

"What changes time can make in woman!" he mused; "and what changes
a woman can make in time! For nearly a year I've waited for this
note.  I knew it would come--it was bound to come. Graydon has had
everything up to this time, while I have waited patiently in the
background. Now, it is my turn."

"All right, father," called Graydon from the hall. "The cab is at
the door."

Together they went down the steps, arm in arm, strong figures.

"To Mr. David Cable's," ordered Bansemer, the father, complacently,
as he stepped into the carriage after his son.






CHAPTER VII

MRS. CABLE ENTERTAINS





James Bansemer had not recklessly rushed into Mrs. Cable's presence
with threats of exposure; but on the contrary, he had calmly, craftily
waited. It suited his purpose to let her wonder, dread and finally
develop the trust that her secret was safe with him.  Occasionally,
he had visited the Cable box in the theatre; not infrequently he
had dined with them in the downtown cafes and at the homes of mutual
acquaintances; but this was the first time that James Bansemer had
enjoyed the hospitality of Frances Cable's home.  His son, on the
best of terms with their daughter, was a frequent visitor there.

There was a rare bump of progressiveness in the character of Graydon
Bansemer. He was good-looking enough beyond doubt, and there was a
vast degree of personal magnetism about him. It seemed but natural
that he should readily establish himself as a friend and a favourite
of the fair Miss Cable. For some time, James Bansemer had watched
his son's progress with the Cable family, not once allowing his
personal interest to manifest itself. It was but a question of time
until Mrs. Cable's suspense and anxiety would bring her to him,
one way or another. Every word that fell from the lips of his son
regarding the Cables held his attention, and it was not long before
he saw the family history as clearly as though it were an open
book--and he knew far more than the open book revealed.

Frances Cable was not deluded by his silence and aloofness; but
she was unable to devise means to circumvent him. Constant fear
of his power to crush lurked near her day and night. Conscious of
her weakness, but eager to have done with the strife, sometimes
she longed for the enemy to advance. At first, she distrusted and
despised the son, but his very fairness battered down the barriers
of prejudice, and real admiration succeeded. Her husband liked
him immensely, and Jane was his ablest ally. David Cable regarded
him as one of the brightest, young men on the Stock Exchange, and
predicted that some day he would be an influential member of the
great brokerage firm for which he now acted as confidential clerk.
Mr.  Clegg, the senior member of the firm of Clegg, Groll & Davidson,
his employers, personally had commended young Bansemer to Cable,
and he was properly impressed.

Graydon's devotion to Jane did not go unnoticed. This very condition
should have assured Mrs. Cable that James Bansemer had kept her
secret zealously. There was nothing to indicate that the young man
knew the story of the foundling.

It was not until some weeks after the chance meeting in Hooley's
Theatre that Mrs. Cable came into direct contact with James Bansemer's
designs. She had met him at two or three formal affairs, but their
conversations had been of the most conventional character; on the
other hand, her husband had lunched and dined at the club with the
lawyer. At first, she dreaded the outcome of these meetings, but
as Cable's attitude towards her remained unchanged, she began to
realise that Bansemer, whatever his purpose, was loyal.

They met at last, quite informally, at Mrs. Clegg's dinner, a small
and congenial affair. When the men came into the drawing-room, after
the cigars, Mrs. Cable, with not a little trepidation, motioned to
Mr. Bansemer to draw up his chair beside her.

"I have been looking forward with pleasure to this opportunity,
Mr.  Bansemer," she said, in a courteously acidulated way. "It has
been so long in coming."

"Better late than never," he returned, with marked emphasis.
Fortunately, for her, the challenging significance of his words was
quickly nullified by the smile with which she was almost instantly
favoured. "Twenty years, I believe--it certainly came very near
being 'never,'" he went on, abruptly changing from harsh to the
sweetest of tones. "No one could believe that you--you're simply
wonderful!" and added, pointedly, "But your daughter is even more
beautiful, if such is possible, than her--her mother."

Apparently, the innuendo passed unnoticed; in reality, it required
all her courage to appear calm.

"How very nice of you," she said softly; and looking him full in
the face: "Her mother thanks you for the compliment."

It was a brave little speech; such bravery would have softened a
man of another mould--changed his purpose. Not so with Bansemer.
A sinister gleam came into his eyes and his attack became more
brutally direct.

"But the husband--has he never mistrusted?"

The blow told, though her reply was given with rippling laughter
and for the benefit of any chance listeners.

"For shame, Mr. Bansemer!" she cried lightly; "after flattering me
so delightfully, you're surely not going to spoil it all?"

Despite his growing annoyance, admiration shone clearly from
Bansemer's eyes. His memory carried him, back some twenty years to
the scene in his office. Was it possible, he was thinking, that the
charming woman before him exercising so cleverly all the arts of
society, as if born to the purple, and the light-headed, frivolous,
little wife of the Central's engineer were one and the same person?
The metamorphosis seemed incredible.

Unwittingly, his manner lost some of its aggressiveness; and the
woman perceiving the altered conditions, quick to take advantage,
resolved to learn, if possible his intentions. Presently, going
right to the point, she asked:

"Is that extraordinary looking creature you had in your office
still with you, Mr. Bansemer?"

"Extraordinary!" He laughed loudly. "He is certainly that, and more.
Indeed, the English language does not supply us with an adjective
that adequately describes the man."

The people nearest to them, by this time, had moved away to another
part of the large drawing-room; practically, the couple were by
themselves. She had been thinking, for a moment, reasoning with
a woman's logic that it was always well to know one's enemy. When
she next spoke, it was almost in a whisper.

"How much does that terrible man know?"

"He is not supposed to know anything;" and then, with an enigmatical
smile, promptly admitted: "However, I'm afraid that he does."

"You have told him? And yet, you promised nobody should know. How
could---"

"My dear Mrs. Cable, he was not told; if he has found out--I could
not prevent his discovering the truth through his own efforts," he
interrupted in a tone more assuaging than convincing to her; and
then, hitching his chair closer, and lowering his voice a note, he
continued: "The papers had to be taken out--but you must not worry
about him--you can depend on me."

"Promise me that you will make him--I am so fearful of that
awful---" she broke off abruptly. Her fears were proving too much
for her, and she was in imminent danger of a complete breakdown;
all the veneer with which she had bravely commenced the interview
had disappeared.

Bansemer endeavoured to soothe her with promises; but the poor
woman saw only his teeth in the reassuring smile that he presented
to her, together with the warnings that they were likely to
be observed.  With the hardest kind of an effort, she succeeded
in pulling herself together sufficiently to bid good-night to her
hostess.

When Mrs. Cable reached home that night, it was a full realisation
that she was irrevocably committed into the custody of these
cold-blooded men.

They met again and again at the homes of mutual friends, and she
had come to loathe the pressure of his hand when it clasped hers.
The undeniable caress in his low, suggestive voice disturbed her;
his manner was unmistakable. One night he held her hand long and
firmly in his, and while she shrank helplessly before him he even
tenderly asked why she had not invited him into her home. It was
what she had expected and feared. Her cup of bitterness was filling
rapidly--too rapidly. His invitation to dinner a fortnight later,
followed.

Jane Cable was radiant as she entered the drawing-room shortly
after the arrival of the two Bansemers.

"It's quite like a family party! How splendid!" she said to Graydon
with a quick glance in the direction of James Bansemer and David
Cable, who stood conversing together, and withdrawing her soft,
white hand, which she had put forth to meet his in friendly clasp.
"It's too good to be true!" she went on in a happy, spontaneous,
almost confiding manner.

The two fathers looked on in amused silence, the one full of
admiration and pride for the clean, vigorous manhood of his son
awaiting to receive welcome from the adorable Jane; the other, long
since conscious of the splendid beauty of his daughter, mentally
declaring that she never had appeared so well as when standing
beside this gallant figure.

Other guests arrived before Mrs. Cable made her appearance in the
drawing-room. She had taken more time than usual with her toilet.
It was impossible for her to hide the fact that the strain was
telling on her perceptibly. The face that looked back into her eyes
from the mirror on her dressing-table was not the fresh, warm one
that had needed so little care a few short months before. There
was a heaviness about the eyes and there were strange, persistent
lines gathering under the soft, white tissues of her skin. But when
she at last stepped into the presence of her guests, with ample
apologies for her tardiness, she was the picture of life and nerve.
So much for the excellent resources of her will.

Bansemer was the last to present himself for her welcome, lingering
in the background until the others had passed.

"I'm so glad you could come. Indeed, it's a pleasure to---" She
spoke clearly and distinctly as she extended her hand; but as she
looked squarely into his eyes she thought him the ugliest man she
ever had seen. Every other woman in the party was saying to herself
that James Bansemer was strikingly handsome.

"Most pleasures come late in life to some of us," he returned,
gallantly, and even Graydon Bansemer wished that he could have said
it.

"Your father is a perfect dear," Jane said to him, softly. "It was
not what he said just then that pleased me, but what he left unsaid."

"Father's no end of a good fellow, Jane. I'm glad you admire him."

"You are not a bit like him," she said reflectively.

"Thanks," he exclaimed. "You are not very flattering."

"But you are a different sort of a good fellow, that's what I mean.
Don't be absurd," she cried in some little confusion.

"I'm like my mother, they say, though I don't remember her at all."

"Oh, how terrible it must be never to have known one's mother,"
said she tenderly.

"Or one's father," added James Bansemer, who was passing at that
instant with Mrs. Cable. "Please include the father, Miss Cable,"
he pleaded with mock seriousness. Turning to Mrs. Cable, who had
stopped beside him, he added: "You, the most charming of mothers,
will defend the fathers, won't you?"

"With all my heart," she answered so steadily that he was surprised.

"I will include the father, Mr. Bansemer," said Jane, "if it
is guaranteed that he possibly could be as nice and dear as one's
mother. In that case, I think it would be--oh, dreadfully terrible
never to have known him."

"And to think, Miss Cable, of the unfortunates who have known neither
father nor mother," said Bansemer, senior, slowly, relentlessly.
"How much they have missed of life and love!"

"That can be offset somewhat by the thought of the poor parents
who never have known a son or a daughter," said Jane.

"How can they be parents, then?" demanded Bobby Rigby, coming up
in time.

"Go away, Bobby," she said scornfully.

"That's a nice way to treat logic," he grumbled, ambling on in
quest of Miss Clegg.

"The debate will become serious if you continue," said Mrs. Cable
lightly. "Come along, Mr. Bansemer; Mrs. Craven is waiting."

When they were across the room and alone, she turned a white face
to him and remonstrated bitterly: "Oh, that was cowardly of you
after your promise to me!"

"I forgot myself," he said quietly. "Don't believe me to be utterly
heartless." His hand touched her arm. Instantly her assumed calm
gave way to her deep agitation, and with a swift change of manner,
she turned on him, her passion alight.

"You---!" she stammered; then her fears found voice. "What do you
mean?" she demanded in smothered, alarmed tones.

He desisted savagely and shrank away, the colour flaming into his
disgusted, saturnine face. He did not speak to her again until he
said good-bye long afterward.

As he had expected, his place at the dinner-table was some distance
from hers. He was across the table from Jane and Graydon, and several
seats removed from. David Cable. He smiled grimly and knowingly
when he saw that he had been cut off cleverly from the Cables.

"To-morrow night, then, Jane!" said Graydon at parting. No one was
near enough to catch the tender eagerness in his voice, nor to see
the happy flush in her cheek as she called after him:

"To-morrow night!"






CHAPTER VIII

THE TELEGRAM





Bobby Rigby and Graydon Bansemer were bosom friends in Chicago;
they had been classmates at Yale. It had been a question of money
with Bobby from the beginning. According to his own admission, his
money was a source of great annoyance to him. He was not out of
debt but once, and then, before he fully realised it. So unusual
was the condition, that he could not sleep; the first thing he did
in the morning was to borrow right and left for fear another attack
of insomnia might interfere with his training for the football
eleven.

Robertson Ray Rigby, immortalised as Bobby, had gone in for athletics,
where he learned to think and act quickly. He was called one of the
lightest, but headiest quarterbacks in the East. No gridiron idol
ever escaped his "Jimmy," or "Toppy," or "Pop," or "Johnny." When
finally, he hung out his shingle in Chicago: "Robertson R. Rigby,
Attorney-at-Law," he lost his identity even among his classmates.
It was weeks before the fact became generally known that it was
Bobby who waited for clients behind the deceptive shingle.

The indulgent aunt who had supplied him with funds in college
was rich in business blocks and apartment buildings; and now, Mr.
Robertson R. Rigby was her man of affairs. When he went in for
business, the old push of the football field did not desert him.
He was very much alive and very vigorous, and it did not take him
long to "learn the signals."

With his aunt's unfaltering prosperity, his own ready wit and unbridled
versatility, he was not long in establishing himself safely in his
profession and in society. Everybody liked him, though no one took
him seriously except when they came to transact business with him.
Then, the wittiness of the drawing-room turned into shrewdness as
it crossed the office threshold.

The day after the Cable dinner, Bobby yawned and stretched through
his morning mail. He had slept but little the night before, and
all on account of a certain, or rather, uncertain Miss Clegg. That
petite and aggravating young woman had been especially exasperating
at the Cable dinner. Mr, Rigby, superbly confident of his standing
with her, encountered difficulties which put him very much out
of temper. For the first time, there was an apparent rift in her
constancy; never before had she shown such signs of fluctuating.
He could not understand it--in fact, he dared not understand it.
"She was a most annoying young person," said Mr. Rigby to himself
wrathfully, more than once after he went to bed that night. Anyhow,
he could not see what there was about Howard Medford for any girl
to countenance, much less to admire. Mr. Medford certainly had ruined
the Cable dinner-party for Mr. Rigby, and he was full of resentment.

"Miss Keating!" called Mr. Rigby for the third time; "may I interrupt
your conversation with Mr. Deever long enough to ask a question
that has been on my mind for twenty minutes?"

Mr. Deever was the raw, young gentleman who read law in the office
of Judge Smith, next door. Bobby maintained that if he read law at
all, it was at night, for he wap too busy with other occupations
during the day.

Miss Keating, startled, turned roundabout promptly.

"Yes, sir," at last, came from the pert, young woman near the
window.

"I guess I'll be going," said Mr. Deever resentfully, rising slowly
from the side of her desk on which he had been lounging.

"Wait a minute, Eddie," protested Miss Keating; "what's your hurry?"
and then, she almost snapped out: "What is it, Mr. Rigby?"

"I merely wanted to ask if you have sufficient time to let me
dictate a few, short letters that ought to go out to-day," said
Bobby, sarcastically; and then added with mock apology: "Don't move,
Mr. Deever; if you're not in Miss Keating's way, you're certainly
not in mine."

"A great josher!" that young woman was heard to comment, admiringly.

"You may wake up some morning to find that I'm not," said Bobby,
soberly. Whereupon, Miss Keating rose and strode to the other end
of the room and took her place beside Bobby's desk.

Bobby dictated half a dozen inconsequential letters before coming
to the one which troubled him most. For many minutes he stared
reflectively at the typewritten message from New York. Miss Keating
frowned severely and tapped her little foot somewhat impatiently on
the floor; but Bobby would not be hurried. His reflections were too
serious. This letter from New York had come with a force sufficient
to drive out even the indignant thoughts concerning one Miss Clegg.
For the life of him, Bobby Rigby could not immediately frame a
reply to the startling missive. Eddie Deever stirred restlessly on
the window ledge.

"Don't hurry, Eddie!" called Miss Keating, distinctly and insinuatingly.

"Oh, I guess I'll be going!" he called back, beginning to roll
a cigarette. "I have some reading to do to-day." Mr. Deever was
tall, awkward and homely, and a lot of other things that would have
discouraged a less self-satisfied "lady's man." Judge Smith said
he was hopeless, but that he might do better after he was twenty-one.

"What are you reading now, Eddie?" asked Miss Keating, complacently
eyeing Mr. Rigby. "Raffles?"

"Law, you idiot!" said Eddie, scornfully, going out of the door.

"Oh! Well, the law is never in a hurry, don't you know? It's like
justice--the slowest thing in town!" she called after him as his
footsteps died away.

"Ready?" said Bobby, resolutely. "Take this, please; and slowly
and carefully he proceeded to dictate:

"MR. DENIS HARBERT, "NEW YORK,

"DEAR DENIS: I cannot tell you how much your letter surprised me.
What you say seems preposterous. There must be a mistake. It cannot
be this man. I know him quite well, and seems as straight as a
string and a gentleman, too. His son, you know as well as I. There
isn't a better fellow in the world! Mr. B. has a fairly good business
here; his transactions open and aboveboard. I'm sure I have never
heard a word said against him or his methods. You are mistaken,
that's all there is about it.

"You might investigate a little further and, assuring yourself, do
all in your power to check such stories as you relate. Of course,
I'll do as you suggest; but I'm positive I can find nothing
discreditable in his dealings here.

"Keep me posted on everything.

"As ever, yours,"

Miss Keating's anxiety was aroused. After a very long silence, she
took the reins into her own hands. "Is Mr. Briggs in trouble?" she
asked at a venture. Mr. Briggs was the only client she could think
of, whose name began with a B.

"Briggs? What Briggs?" asked Bobby, relighting his pipe for the
fourth time.

"Why, our Mr. Briggs," answered Miss Keating, curtly.

"I'm sure I don't know, Miss Keating. Has he been around lately?"

"I thought you were referring to him in that letter," she said
succinctly.

"Oh, dear me, no. Another party altogether, Miss Keating. Isn't
the typewriter in working order this morning?" he asked, eyeing her
machine innocently. She miffed and started to reply, but thought
better of it. Then she began pounding the keys briskly.

"It works like a charm," she shot back, genially.

The letter that caused Bobby such perturbation came in the morning
mail. His friend had laid bare some of the old stories concerning
James Bansemer, and cautioned him not to become involved in
transactions with the former New Yorker. Harbert's statements were
positive in character, and he seemed to know his case thoroughly
well. While the charges as they came to Rigby were general, Harbert
had said that he was quite ready to be specific.

All day long, the letter hung like a cloud over young Mr. Rigby.
He was to have lunched with Graydon, and was much relieved when
young Bansemer telephoned that he could not join him. Rigby found
himself in a very uncomfortable position. If the stories from
New York were true, even though he knew none of the inside facts,
Graydon's father was pretty much of a scalawag, to say the least.
He was not well acquainted with the lawyer, but he now recalled
that he never had liked the man. Bansemer had impressed him from the
beginning as heartless, designing, utterly unlike his clean-hearted
son.

Bobby loved Graydon Bansemer in the way that one man loves a true
friend. He was certain that the son knew nothing of those shady
transactions--if they really existed as Harbert painted them--but
an exposure of the father would be a blow from which he could not
recover.

It came at last to Rigby that he was not the only one in Chicago
who held the secret. Other members of the bar had been warned long
before the news came to him, and it was morally certain that if the
facts were as bad as intimated, the police also were in possession
of them.

At the same time, Rigby felt a certain moral responsibility involving
himself. Bansemer, at any time, might apply his methods to people
who were near and dear to him. The new intimacy with the Cables came
to Bobby's mind. And then, there were Clegg, Groll, the Semesons
and others who might easily fall into the snare if James Bansemer
set it for them.

Appreciating his responsibility in the matter, now that he was
prepared to hear the worst of James Bansemer, Rigby's heart stood
almost still. It meant that some day he might have to expose Graydon
Bansemer's father; it meant that he might have to cruelly hurt his
friend; it meant that he might lose a friendship that had been one
of his best treasures since the good, old college days. The mere
fact that he would be compelled to watch and mistrust James Bansemer
seemed like darkest treachery to Graydon, even though the son should
not become aware of the situation. Later, in the afternoon, Bobby
went, guiltily, into a telegraph office and sent away a carefully
worded dispatch. The answer came to him at the club, that evening,
while he played billiards with young Bansemer, who, even then was
eager to be off to keep the promised appointment with pretty Miss
Cable.

The telegram which he opened while Graydon impatiently chalked his
cue and waited for him to play was brief and convincing. It read:

"Watch him, by all means. He is not safe, my word for it. There is
no mistake."






CHAPTER IX

THE PROPOSAL





The little room off the library was Jane's "den." Her father had
a better name for it. He called it her "web," but only in secret
conference. Graydon Bansemer lounged there in blissful contemplation
of a roseate fate, all the more enjoyable because his very ease
was the counterpoise of doubt and uncertainty. No word of love had
passed between the mistress of the web and her loyal victim; but
eyes and blood had translated the mysterious, voiceless language
of the heart into the simplest of sentences. They loved and they
knew it.

After leaving Rigby at the club Graydon drove to the North Side,
thrilled to the marrow with the prophecies of the night. His heart
was in that little room off the library--and had been there for
months. It was the abode of his thoughts. The stars out above the
cold, glittering lake danced merrily for him as he whirled up the
Drive; the white carpet of February crinkled and creaked with the
chill of the air, but his heart was hot and safe and sure. He knew
that she knew what he was coming for that night. The first kiss!

Jane's face was warm, her eyes had the tender glow of joy expectant,
her voice was soft with the promise of coming surrender. Their hands
met and clasped as she stood to welcome him in the red, seductive
dimness of the little throne room. His tall frame quivered; his
lean, powerful, young face betrayed the hunger of his heart; his
voice turned husky. It was not as he had planned. Her beauty--her
mere presence--swept him past the preliminary fears and doubts. His
handclasp tightened and his face drew resistlessly to hers. Then
their hands went suddenly cold.

"You know, don't you, Jane, darling?" he murmured.

"Yes," she answered after a moment, softly, securely. He crushed
her in his strong arms; all the world seemed to have closed in
about her. Her eyes, suffused with happiness, looked sweetly into
his until she closed them with the coming of the first kiss. "I
love you--oh, I love you!" she whispered.

"I worship you, Jane!" he responded. "I have always worshipped
you!"

It was all so natural, so normal. The love that had been silent from
the first had spoken, that was all--had put into words its untold
story.

"Jane, I am the proudest being in the world!" he said, neither knew
how long afterward, for neither thought of time. They were sitting
on the couch in the corner, their turbulent hearts at rest. "To
think, after all, that such a beautiful being as you can be mine
forever! It's--why, it's inconceivable!"

"You were sure of me all the time, Graydon," she remonstrated. "I
tried to hide it, but I couldn't. You must have thought me a perfect
fool all these months."

"You are very much mistaken, if you please. You did hide it so
successfully at times, that I was sick with uncertainty."

"Well, it's all over now," she smiled, and he sighed with a great
relief.

"All over but the--the wedding," he said.

"Oh, that's a long way off. Let's not worry over that, Graydon."

"A long way off? Nonsense! I won't wait."

"Won't?"

"I should have said can't. Let's see; this is February. March,
dearest?"

"Graydon, you are so much younger than I thought. A girl simply
cannot be hurried through a--an engagement. Next winter."

"Next what? That's nearly a year, Jane. It's absurd! I'm ready."

"I know. It's mighty noble of you, too. But I just can't, dearest.
No one ever docs."

"Don't--don't you think I'm prepared to take care of you?" he said,
straightening up a bit.

She looked at his strong figure and into his earnest eyes and
laughed, so adorably, that his resentment was only passing.

"I can't give you a home like this," he explained; "but you know
I'll give you the best I have all my life."

"You can't help succeeding, Graydon," she said earnestly. "Everyone
says that of you. I'm not afraid. I'm not thinking of that. It
isn't the house I care for. It's the home. You must let me choose
the day."

"I suppose it's customary," he said at last. "June is the month
for brides, let me remind you."

"Before you came this evening I had decided on January next, but
now I am willing to---"

"Oh, you decided before I came, eh?" laughingly.

"Certainly," she said unblushingly. "Just as you had decided on the
early spring. But, listen, dear, I am willing to say September of
this year."

"One, two, three--seven months. They seem like years, Jane. You
won't say June?"

"Please, please let me have some of the perquisites," she pleaded.
"It hasn't seemed at all like a proposal. I've really been cheated
of that, you must remember, dear. Let me say, at least, as they
all do, that I'll give you an answer in three days."

"Granted. I'll admit it wasn't the sort of proposal one reads about
in novels---"

"But it was precisely as they are in real life, I'm sure. No one
has a stereotyped proposal any more. The men always take it for
granted and begin planning things before a girl can say no."

"Ah, I see it has happened to you," he said, jealous at once.

"Well, isn't that the way men do nowadays?" she demanded.

"A fellow has to feel reasonably sure, I dare say, before he takes
a chance. No one wants to be refused, you know," he admitted. "Oh,
by the way, I brought this--er--this ring up with me, Jane."

"You darling!" she cried, as the ring slipped down over her finger.
And then, for the next hour, they planned and the future seemed a
thousand-fold brighter than the present, glorious as it was.

"You can't help succeeding," she repeated," the same as your father
has. Isn't he wonderful? Oh, Graydon, I'm so proud of you!" she
cried, enthusiastically.

"I can never be the man that the governor is," said Graydon,
loyally. "I couldn't be as big as father if I lived to be a hundred
and twenty-six. He's the best ever! He's done everything for me,
Jane," the son went on, warmly. "Why, he even left dear, old New
York and came to Chicago for my sake, dear. It's the place for
a young man, he says; and he gave up a great practice so that we
might be here together. Of course, HE could succeed anywhere. Wasn't
it bully of him to come to Chicago just--just for me?"

"Yes. Oh, if you'll only be as good-looking as he is when you are
fifty-five," she said, so plaintively that he laughed aloud. "You'll
probably be very fat and very bald by that time."

"And very healthy, if that can make it seem more horrible to you,"
he added. For some time he sat pondering while she stared reflectively
into the fire opposite. Then squaring his shoulders as if preparing
for a trying task, he announced firmly: "I suppose I'd just as well
see your father to-night, dearest. He likes me, I'm sure, and I--I
don't think he'll refuse to let me have you. Do you?"

"My dad's just as fair as yours, Gray," she said with a smile. "He's
upstairs in his den. I'll go to mother. I know she'll be happy--oh,
so happy."

Bansemer found David Cable in his room upstairs--his smoking and
thinking room, as he called it.

"Come in, Graydon; don't stop to knock. How are you? Cigarette?
Take a cigar, then. Bad night outside, isn't it?"

"Is it? I hadn't--er--noticed," said Graydon, dropping into a chair
and nervously nipping the end from a cigar. "Have you been downtown?"

"Yes. Just got in a few minutes ago. The road expects to do a lot
of work West this year, and I've been talking with the ways and
means gentlemen--a polite and parliamentary way to put it."

"I suppose we'll all be congratulating you after the annual election,
Mr. Cable."

"Oh, that's just talk, my boy. Winemann is the logical man for
president. But where is Jane?"

"She's--ah--downstairs, I think," said the tall young man, puffing
vigorously. "I came up--er--to see you about Jane, Mr. Cable. I
have asked her to be my wife, sir."

For a full minute the keen eyes of the older man, sharpened by
strife and experience, looked straight into the earnest grey eyes
of the young man who now stood across the room with his hand on the
mantlepiece. Cable's cigar was held poised in his fingers, halfway
to his lips. Graydon Bansemer felt that the man aged a year in that
brief moment.

"You know, Graydon, I love Jane myself," said Cable at last, arising
slowly. His voice shook.

"I know, Mr. Cable. She is everything to you. And yet I have come
to ask you to give her to me."

"It isn't that I have not suspected--aye, known--what the outcome
would be," said the other mechanically. "She will marry, I know.
It is right that she should. It is right that she should marry you,
my boy. You--you DO love her? "He asked the question almost fiercely.

"With all my soul, Mr. Cable. She loves me. I don't know how to
convince you that my whole life will be given to her happiness. I
am sure I can---"

"I know. It's all right, my boy. It--it costs a good deal to let
her go, but I'd rather give her to you than to any man I've ever
known.  I believe in you."

"Thank you, Mr. Cable," said Graydon Bansemer. Two strong hands
clasped each other and there was no mistaking the integrity of the
grasp.

"But this is a matter in which Jane's mother is far more deeply
concerned than I," added the older man. "She likes you, my boy--I
know that to be true, but we must both abide by her wishes. If she
has not retired..."

"Jane is with her, Mr. Cable. She knows by this time."

"She is coming." Mrs. Cable's light footsteps were heard crossing
the hall, and an instant later Bansemer was holding open the den
door for her to enter. He had a fleeting glimpse of Jane as that
tall young woman turned down the stairway.

Frances Cable's face was white and drawn, and her eyes were wet. Her
husband started forward as she extended her hand to him. He clasped
them in his own and looked down into her face with the deepest
tenderness and wistfulness in his own. Her body swayed suddenly
and his expression changed to one of surprise and alarm.

"Don't--don't mind, dear," he said hoarsely. "It had to come. Sit
down, do. There! Good Lord, Frances, if you cry now I'll--I'll go
all to smash!" He sat down abruptly on the arm of the big leather
chair into which she had sunk limply. Something seemed to choke
him and his fingers went nervously to his collar. Before them stood
the straight, strong figure of the man who was to have Jane forever.

Neither of them--nor Jane--knew what Frances Cable had suffered
during the last hour. She accidentally had heard the words which
passed between the lovers in the den downstairs. She was prepared
when Jane came to her with the news later on, but that preparation
had cost her more than any of them ever could know.

Lying back in a chair, after she had almost crept to her room, she
stared white-faced and frightened at the ceiling until it became
peopled with her wretched thoughts. All along she had seen what
was coming. The end was inevitable. Love as it grew for them had
known no regard for her misery. She could not have prevented its
growth; she could not now frustrate its culmination. And yet, as
she sat there and stared into the past and the future, she knew that
it was left for her to drink of the cup which they were filling--the
cup of their joy and of her bitterness.

Fear of exposure at the hand of Graydon Bansemer's father had kept
her purposely blind to the inevitable. Her woman's intuition long
since had convinced her that Graydon was not like his father. She
knew him to be honourable, noble, fair and worthy. Long and often
had she wondered at James Bansemer's design in permitting his son
to go to the extreme point in relation with Jane. As she sat there
and suffered, it came to her that the man perhaps had a purpose after
all--an unfathomable, selfish design which none could forestall.
She knew him for all that he was. In that knowledge she felt a
slight, timid sense of power. He stood for honour, so far as his
son was concerned. In fair play, she could expose him if he sought
to expose her.

But all conjectures, all fears, paled into insignificance with the
one great terror: what would James Bansemer do in the end? What
would he do at the last minute to prevent the marriage of his son
and this probable child of love? What was to be his tribute to the
final scene in the drama?

She knew that he was tightening his obnoxious coils about her all
the time. Even now she could feel his hand upon her arm, could hear
his sibilant whisper, could see his intense eyes full of suggestion
and threat. Now she found herself face to face with the crisis
of all these years. Her only hope lay in the thought that neither
could afford the scandal of an open declaration. Bansemer was
merciless and he was no fool.

Knowing Graydon to be the son of a scoundrel, she could, under
ordinary circumstances, have forbidden her daughter to marry him.
In this instance she could not say him nay. The venom of James
Bansemer in that event would have no measure of pity. In her heart,
she prayed that death might come to her aid in the destruction of
James Bansemer.

It was not until she heard Graydon coming up the stairs that the
solution flashed into her brain. If Jane became the wife of this
cherished son, James Bansemer's power was gone! His lips would be
sealed forever. She laughed aloud in the frenzy of hope. She laughed
to think what a fool she would have been to forbid the marriage.
The marriage? Her salvation! Jane found her almost hysterical,
trembling like a leaf. She was obliged to confess that she had
heard part of their conversation below, in order to account for her
manner. When Jane confided to her that she had promised to marry
Graydon in September--or June--she urged her to avoid a long
engagement. She could say no more than that.

Now she sat limp before the two men, a wan smile straying from
one to the other, exhausted by her suppressed emotions. Suddenly,
without a word, she held out her hand to Graydon. In her deepest
soul, she loved this manly, strong-hearted young fellow. She knew,
after all, he was worthy of the best woman in the land.

"You know?" cried Graydon, clasping her hand, his eyes glistening.
"Jane has told you? And you--you think me worthy?"

"Yes, Graydon--you are worthy." She looked long into his eyes,
searching for a trace of the malevolence that glowed in those of
his father. They were fair and honest and sweet, and she smiled to
herself. She wondered what his mother had been like.

"Then I may have her?" he cried. She looked up at her husband and
he nodded his head.

"Our little girl," he murmured. It all came back to her like
a flash. Her deception, her imposition, her years of stealth--and
she shuddered. Her hand trembled and her eyes grew wide with repugnance
as they turned again upon Graydon Bansemer. Both men drew back in
amazement.

"Oh, no--it cannot, cannot be!" she moaned, without taking her eyes
from Graydon's face. In the same instant she recovered herself and
craved his pardon. "I am distressed--it is so hard to give her up.
Graydon," she panted, smiling again. The thought had come suddenly
to her that James Bansemer had a very strong purpose in letting his
son marry Jane Cable. She never had ceased to believe that Bansemer
knew the parents of the child she had adopted. It had dawned upon
her in the flash of that moment that the marriage might mean a
great deal to this calculating father. "David, won't you leave us
for a few minutes? There is something I want to say to Graydon."

David Cable hesitated for an instant and then slowly left the room,
closing the door behind him. He was strangely puzzled over that
momentary exposition of emotion on the part of his wife. He was a
man of the worldj and he knew its vices from the dregs up, but it
was many days before the startling suspicion struck in to explain
her uncalled-for display of feeling. It did not strike in until
after he noticed that James Bansemer was paying marked attention
to his wife.

Left alone with Graydon, Mrs. Cable nervously hurried to the point.
She was determined to satisfy herself that the son did not share
her secret with his father.

"Does your father know that you want to marry Jane?" she asked.

"Of course--er--I mean, he suspects, Mrs. Cable. He has teased me
not a little, you know. I'm going to tell him to-night."

"He has not known Jane very long, you know."

"Long enough to admire her above all others. He has often told me
that she is the finest girl he's ever met. Oh, I'm sure father will
be pleased, Mrs. Cable."

"I met your father in New York, of course--years ago. I presume he
has told you."

"I think not. Oh, yes, I believe he did tell me after we met you
at Hooley's that night. He had never seen Mr. Cable."

"Nor Jane, I dare say."

"Oh, no. I knew Jane long before dad ever laid eyes on her." The
look in his eyes satisfied her over all that he knew nothing more.

"You love her enough to sacrifice anything on earth for her?" she
asked suddenly.

"Yes, Mrs. Cable," he answered simply.

"You would renounce all else in the world for her sake?"

"I believe that's part of the service," he said, with a smile. "Jane
is worth all of that, and more. She shall be first in my heart,
in my mind, for all time, if that is what you mean, Mrs. Cable.
Believe me, I mean that."

"Mr. Bansemer says that you are like your mother," she mused,
wistfully.

"That's why he loves me, he also says. I'm sorry I'm not like
father," he said earnestly. "He's great!" She turned her face away
so that he might not see the look in her eyes. "I think Jane is
like---" he paused in confusion. "Like her father," he concluded.
She arose abruptly and took his hand in hers.

"Go to her, Graydon," she said. "Tell her that Mr. Cable and I want
you to be our son. Good-night and God bless you." She preceded him
to the stairway and again shook hands with him. David Cable was
ascending.

"Graydon," said the latter, pausing halfway up as the other came
down, "you were ready to congratulate me in advance on the prospect
of becoming president of the P., L. & A. Do you know that I was
once an ordinary fireman?"

"Certainly, Mr. Cable. The rise of David Cable is known to everyone."

"That's all. I just wanted to be sure. Jane was not born with a
silver spoon, you know."

"And yet she is Jane Cable," said the young man proudly. Then he
hurried on down to the expectant, throbbing Jane.

Frances Cable sat at her escritoire for an hour, her brain working
with feverish energy. She was seeking out the right step to take
in advance of James Bansemer. Her husband sat alone in his den and
smoked long after she had taken her step and retired to rest--but
not to sleep. On her desk lay half a dozen invitations, two of
them from the exclusive set to whose inner circles her ambitious,
vigorous aspirations were forcing her. She pushed them aside and
with narrowed eyes wrote to James Bansemer--wrote the note of the
diplomat who seeks to forestall:

"DEAR ME. BANSEMER: Doubtless Graydon will have told you his good
news before this reaches you, but Mr. Cable and I feel that we cannot
permit the hour to pass without assuring you of our own happiness
and of our complete approval. Will you dine with us this evening--en
famille--at seven-thirty?

"FRANCES CABLE."

David Cable read the note and sent it early the next morning by
special messenger to James Bansemer. The engagement of Jane Cable
and Graydon Bansemer was announced in the evening papers.






CHAPTER X

THE FOUR INITIALS





The offices of James Bansemer were two floors above those of
Robertson Ray Rigby in the U__ Building. The morning after Graydon
Bansemer's important visit to the home of the Cables, Eddie Deever
lounged into Rigby's presence. He seemed relieved to find that
the stenographer was ill and would not be down that day. The lanky
youngster studiously inspected the array of law books in the cases
for some time, occasionally casting a sly glance at Bobby. At last
he ventured a remark somewhat out of the ordinary--for him:

"That old man up in Bansemer's office gets on my nerves," said he,
settling his long frame in a chair and breaking in upon Rigby's
attention so suddenly that the lawyer was startled into a quick
look of interest.

"Old Droom? What do you know about him?"

"Nothing in particular, of course. Only he sort of jars me when he
talks." Rigby saw that the young man had something on his mind.

"I did not know that you were personal friends," ventured Rigby.

"Friends?" snorted Eddie. "Holy Mackerel! He scares the life out
of me. I know him in a business way, that's all. He came down here
three weeks ago and borrowed some books for Bansemer. I had to go
up and get 'em yesterday. I was smoking a cigarette. When I asked
the old guy for the books he said I'd go to hell if I smoked. I
thought I'd be funny, so I said back to him: "I'll smoke if I go
to hell, so what's the diff?" It went all right with him, too. He
laughed--you ought to see him laugh!--and told me to sit down while
he looked up the books. I was there half an hour and he talked all
the time. By jing! He makes your blood run cold. He up and said there
was no such place as hell. "Why not?" says I. "Because," says he,
"God, with all His infinite power, could not conceive of a space
huge enough to hold all the hypocrites and sinners." Then he grinned
and said he had set aside in his will the sum of a hundred dollars
to build a church for the honest man. "That will be a pretty small
church," says I. "It will be a small congregation, my son," says
he. "What few real honest men we have will hesitate to attend for
fear of being ostracised by society." "Gee whiz, Mr. Droom, that's
pretty hard on society," says I, laughing. "Oh, for that matter,
I have already delivered my eulogy on society," says he. "But it
ain't dead," says I. "Oh, yes; it's so rotten it must surely be
dead," says he in the nastiest way I ever heard. He's a fearful old
man, Mr. Rigby. He made a mean remark about that Mrs. David Cable."

"What did he say?" quickly demanded Bobby.

"He said he'd been reading in the papers about how she was
breaking into society. "She's joined the Episcopal church," says
he, sarcastic-like. "Well, there's nothing wrong in that,' says I.
'I know, but she attends,' says he, just as if she shouldn't. 'She
wouldn't attend if the women in that church wore Salvation Army
clothes and played tambourines, let me tell you. None of 'em would.
I knew her in New York years ago. She wasn't fashionable then. Now
she's so swell that she'll soon be asking Cable to build a mansion
at Rose Lawn Cemetery, because all of the fashionables go there.'
Pretty raw, eh, Mr. Rigby?"

"Oh, he's an old blatherskite, Eddie. They talk that way when they
get old and grouchy. So he knew Mrs. Cable in New York, eh? What
else did he say about her?"

"Nothing much. Oh, yes, he did say--in that nasty way of his--that
he saw her on the street the other day chatting with one of the
richest swells in Chicago. He didn't say who he was except that
he was the man who once made his wife sit up all night in the day
coach while he slept in the only berth to be had on the train. Do
you know who that could be?"

"I'm afraid Droom was romancing," said Bobby, with a smile.

"Say, Mr. Rigby," said Eddie earnestly, "what sort of business
does Mr. Bansemer handle?" Rigby had difficulty in controlling his
expression. "I was wondering, because while I was there yesterday
a girl I know came out of the back room where she had been talking
to Bansemer. She's no good."

"Very likely she was consulting him about something," said Rigby
quietly.

"She soaked a friend of mine for a thousand when she was singing
in the chorus in one of the theatres here."

"Do you know her well?"

"I--er--did see something of her at one time. Say, don't mention
it to Rosie, will you? She's not strong for chorus girls," said
Eddie anxiously. "A few days ago I saw a woman come out of his
office, heavily veiled. She was crying, because I could hear the
sobs. I don't go much on Bansemer, Mr. Rigby. Darn him, he called
me a pup one day when I took a message up for Judge Smith."

"See here, Eddie," said Rigby, leaning forward suddenly, "I've
heard two or three queer things about Bansemer. I want you to tell
me all you hear from Droom and all that you see. Don't you think
you could cultivate Droom's acquaintance a bit? Keep this very
quiet--not a word to anybody. It may mean something in the end."

"Gee whiz!" murmured Eddie, his eyes wide with interest. From that
day on he and Bobby Rigby were allies--even conspirators.

Later in the day Rigby had a telephone message from Graydon Bansemer,
suggesting that they lunch together. All he would say over the wire
was that he would some day soon expect Rigby to perform a happy
service for him. Bobby understood and was troubled, He suspected
that Graydon had asked Jane Cable to marry him and that she had
consented. He loved Graydon Bansemer, but for the first time in
their acquaintance he found himself wondering if the son were not
playing into the father's hands in this most desirable matrimonial
venture. With a shudder of repugnance he put the thought from him,
loyal to that good friend and comrade.

James Bansemer came into his office late that morning. He had
not seen Graydon the night before, but at breakfast the young man
announced his good fortune and asked for his blessing. To the son's
surprise, the elder man did not at once express his approval. For
a long time he sat silent and preoccupied to all appearance, narrowly
studying his son's face until the young man was constrained to
laugh in his nervousness.

"You love her--you are very sure?" asked the father at last.

"Better than my life," cried Graydon warmly.

"She has good blood in her," said Bansemer, senior, slowly, almost
absently.

"I should say so. Her father is a wonderful man."

"Yes, I daresay," agreed the other without taking his eyes from
the son's face.

"But you don't say whether you approve or disapprove," complained
Graydon.

"Would it change matters if I disapproved?"

"Not in the least, father. I love her. I'd hate to displease you
in--"

"Then, of course, I approve," said the other, with his warmest
smile. "Jane is a beauty and--I am proud of her."

"She is too good for me," lamented Graydon happily.

"I can't very well contradict her future husband," said the lawyer.
There was a hungry look in his eyes as he glanced from time to time
at the face of the boy who had his mother's unforgettable eyes.

A messenger brought Mrs. Cable's note to Bansemer soon after his
arrival at the office. He and Elias Droom were in the back office
when the boy came. They had been discussing the contents of a
letter that came in the early mail. The lawyer accepted the note
and dismissed the boy with the curt remark that he would telephone
an answer in person.

"It looks to me as though this is going to be a rather ticklish
affair," Droom resumed after the boy had closed the outer door behind
him. Bansemer's mind was on Mrs. Cable's note; a queer smile hung
on his lips.

"I'm rather touched by her astuteness," he said. "She's cleverer
than I thought. Oh," suddenly remembering that it was not Mrs.
Cable's letter they were discussing, "you always see the dreary
side of things, Elias."

"I haven't forgotten New York," said the clerk drily.

"Ah, but Chicago isn't New York, you know."

"Well, I was just reminding you. This man is going to fight back,
that is plain."

"That's what Mrs. Norwood promised to do, also, Elias. But she was
like a lamb in the end."

"I wouldn't be very proud of that affair, if I were you."

"See here, Droom, you're getting a trifle too familiar of late. I
don't like it," said Bansemer sharply.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Bansemer," said Droom, scraping his foot
across the floor and looking straight past his master's head. "It's
for the good of the cause, that's all. It wouldn't do, on Graydon's
account, for you to be driven from Chicago at this time. You see,
he thinks you are beyond reproach."

"Curse your impudence, Droom, I won't be spoken to in that way,"
exclaimed Bansemer, white with sudden rage and loathing.

"Am I to expect my discharge, sir?" asked Droom, rubbing his hands
abjectly, but looking squarely into Bansemer's eyes for the first
time in their acquaintance. Bansemer glared back for an instant
and then shrugged his shoulders with a nervous laugh.

"We shan't quarrel, Elias," he said. "Speaking of Graydon, he is
to be married before long."

"I trust he is to do well, sir. Graydon is a fine boy."

"He is to marry David Cable's daughter."

"Indeed? I did not know that David Cable had a daughter."

"You know whom I mean--Jane Cable." He turned rather restlessly,
conscious that Droom's eyes were following him to the window. He
glanced again at Mrs. Cable's note and waited.

"I suppose you are pleased," said Droom, after a long pause.

"Certainly. Jane is a splendid girl. She's beautiful, accomplished
and--well, she's thoroughbred," said Bansemer steadily, turning to
face the old man.

"It is not necessary to remind you that she is a child of love,"
said Droom, "That's the genteel way to put it."

"It's not like you to be genteel, Elias. Still," and he sat down
and leaned forward eagerly, "she has good blood from both sides."

"Yes--the so-called best."

"You speak as if you know the truth."

"I think--yes, I'm sure I know. I have known for twenty years, Mr.
Bansemer. I had the same means as you of finding out whose child
she was."

"That's more than Mrs. Cable knows."

"She did not take the trouble to investigate. It's too late now."

"I don't believe you really know the names of her father and
mother," said Bansemer shrewdly. "You are trying to trick me into
telling you what I DO know."

"There are portraits of her ancestors hanging in Fifth Avenue,"
said Droom promptly. "Here," and he picked up a pencil, "I'll write
the initials of the two persons responsible for her existence. You
do the same and we'll see that they tally." He quickly scratched
four letters on a pad of paper. Bansemer hesitated and then slowly
wrote the initials on the back of an envelope. Without a word they
exchanged the papers. After a moment they both smiled in relief.
Neither had been tricked. The initials were identical.

"I imagine the ancestors hanging in Fifth Avenue would be amazed
if they knew the story of Jane," said Droom, with a chuckle.

"I doubt it, Droom. Ancestors have stories, too, and they hide
them."

"Well, she isn't the only girl who doesn't know."

"I dare say. It isn't a wise world."

"It's a lucky one. That's why it assumes to be decent."

"You are quite a cynic, Elias."

"By the way, now that your son is to marry her, I'd like to know
just what your game is."

Bansemer turned on him like a tiger, his steely eyes blazing.

"Game? There is no game, damn you. Listen to me, Droom; we'll settle
this now. I'm a bad man, but I've tried to be a good father. People
have called me heartless. So be it. But I love that boy of mine.
What little heart I have belongs to him. There can be no game where
he is concerned. Some day, perhaps, he'll find out the kind of a
man I've been to others, but can always remember that I was fair
and honest with him. He'll despise my methods and he'll spurn
my money, but he'll have to love me. Jane Cable is not the girl I
would have chosen for him, but she is good and true and he loves
her."

For the first time in his life Elias Droom shrank beneath the eyes
of his master. He hated James Bansemer from the bottom, of his
wretched soul, but he could not but feel, at this moment, a touch
of admiration.

Through all the years of their association Elias Droom had hated
Bansemer because he was qualified to be the master, because he
was successful and forceful, because he had loved and been loved,
because they had been classmates but not equals. In the bitterness
of his heart he had lain awake on countless nights praying--but not
to his God--that the time would come when he could stand ascendant
over this steely master. Only his unswerving loyalty to a duty
once assumed kept him from crushing Bansemer with exposure years
before.  But Droom was not a traitor. He remained standing, lifting
his eyes after a brief, shifting study of his bony hands.

"You have nothing to fear from me," he said. "Your boy is the only
being in the world that I care for. He hates me. Everybody hates me.
But it doesn't matter. I asked what your game was because we know
Jane's father and mother. That's all. Mrs. David Cable, I presume,
can be preyed upon with safety."

"Mrs. Cable has much to lose," significantly.

"And how much to pay?" with a meaning look.

"That is her affair, Droom."

"I wouldn't press her too hard," cautioned Droom. "She's a woman."

"Never fear. I'm going there for dinner to-night. It's a family
affair. By the way, here's a letter from a distinguished political
leader. He suggests that I act on the city central committee for
the coming year. You've heard of him, I daresay. He says it will
mean a great deal to me here in Chicago."

"You are not going into politics?" scornfully.

"Elias, I'm pretty bad, but I'm not bad enough for local politics."

They heard someone at the outer door at that moment, and Droom glided
forth from the inner room to greet the visitor. It was Eddie Deever.

"Say, Mr. Droom, do you suppose Mr. Bansemer would object if I sat
down here for a few minutes to look over his books on Famous Crimes
in History? Old Smith hasn't got 'em."

"Go ahead," said Droom, taking his seat at the desk. "You are a
great reader, I perceive. A literary person like you ought to live
in Boston. Everybody reads in Boston."

"Boston?" sniffed Eddie, pulling a book from the shelf. "They're
still reading the Old Testament there."






CHAPTER XI

AN EVENING WITH DROOM





Several weeks later Eddie Deever announced, quite breathlessly,
to Rigby that he was going over to visit Droom in his Wells Street
rooms. The two had found a joint affinity in Napoleon, although
it became necessary for the law student to sit up late at night,
neglecting other literature, in order to establish anything like
an adequate acquaintance with the lamented