He did not answer Martin for several moments, and just when Martin, believing that Ernest had not heard him, was beginning very patiently to repeat his words, Ernest lifted his head from the entrails of the machine and said: “I’m not accepting. You might send his messenger back with that, Martin, thanks.” He wiped his greasy hands with a piece of old cloth which the workman handed him. He shook his head, glanced at his father and Armand. “We’ll have to send it back. It’s no good. You’d better get out their bill, Martin, and send them a letter. We’ll ship out the machine first thing tomorrow.”
Martin was surprised, as was Joseph. “That’s a bloody fine offer, Ernest,” admonished Joseph. “Nine thousand dollars aren’t to be picked up every day, you know. And it’s useless to try to persuade your Ma to move over to Oldtown. She’s set against it. There it stands empty; you won’t even rent it to any one. Are you hoping Beveridge will raise his price?”
“He couldn’t have it for twice as much,” answered Ernest. It was unusual for him not to look at his father when he spoke to him, but now he seemed very intent on removing the grease from his fingers with the cloth. There was a seepage of dull color into the folds of his pale face.
“Well!” ejaculated Joseph. He grinned. “Not thinking of getting married, be you, son, and living in that house yourself?”
He expected Ernest to smile or laugh; he was not prepared for the bland blank gaze Ernest now turned on him.
“I might be,” he answered serenely. “I might be.”
“Can it be possible that our Ernest has become a victim of the grande passion?” asked Armand with a somewhat sardonic amusement.
“Not Ernest!” said Joseph roundly. “Not our lad. He’s too much sense.” He waited for Ernest’s belated explanation, but Ernest, having finished wiping his hands, fastidiously put on his coat, which he had laid over a clean workbench. He seemed unduly preoccupied with its buttoning. His expression became infiltrated with annoyance, and his color continued to rise.
Joseph was alarmed. He had ostentatiously withdrawn from Ernest during the past few months, and was now dismayed that this withdrawing had robbed him, and not Ernest. Perhaps the lad had already picked some lass, someone not worthy of him. She must be unworthy, or he would have spoken either to Hilda or to himself. With all his knowledge of his son’s character, he could still feel apprehensive about the girl Ernest might pick for a wife. “You never know,” he would often say, when told of some human inconsistency. He knew that Ernest’s acquaintances in the town were very few, his friends none. If he knew any women at all, they were most likely only those that “boarded” with Mrs. Fleury on Chestnut Street. Joseph had no illusions about that part of Ernest’s life, and as surely as if Ernest had told him he knew where his son was going on the Saturday evenings when he dressed carefully and almost daintily, mounted his own sleek horse, and rode away. In this, as in all things, Joseph knew, Ernest would be a realist. There would be little of the adventurer in his going “whoring,” little gaiety, little laughter, little drinking, little joy or ecstasy. It would be merely necessity. He would go to the rococo house on Chestnut Street, to the house where the handsome young ladies “boarded,” as a man would go to a tavern. To satisfy a hunger. Joseph had a very male curiosity, without delicacy, as to just what transpired between Ernest and the purveyor of his satisfaction. He would have given much to know, but he would never have considered asking. Sometimes he thought: the lad’s too damn young for that. No, I was married at his age, and Hilda expecting a baby. And Ernest was never young, anyway. Damn it, I suppose I ought to have told him something. There’s disease, and everything. But somehow, you can never tell Ernest anything. He looks as if he expected you to mind your own business, thank ’ee just the same.
He knew that Ernest carefully avoided the homes where marriageable daughters were laid out too suggestively reminiscent of a shopwindow. So, thought the alarmed father, it must be some girl not fit to marry Ernest.
“I hope, if Armand’s right, that it’s no strumpet of the town, Ernest he said in an angrily warning voice. And was instantly ashamed and disgusted with himself. Having given voice to the words, he knew that his whole thought had been wrong. He wanted to apologize. But Ernest, without replying, walked unhurriedly in the direction of the offices, his father and brother and Armand following. If he were outraged, it was not evident by his expression, which was somewhat thoughtful and slightly annoyed.
Joseph followed his son into the latter’s office, and shut the door behind them. Ernest pulled down his cuffs, lifted the tails of his coat, and sat down. Without glancing at his father, he picked up his pen and pulled a pile of bills toward him.
Joseph leaned his hands on the desk and bent forward. “Look here, lad, I’m sorry if I said something to hurt you. I know what you are. I should have remembered. I should have known that if you had any blasted silly notion of getting married, you would have told me.” He laughed shortly. “You’ve got too much sense, marrying yet.”
Ernest made a few neat notes on a bill. Then he lifted his eyes, bland light eyes, so without affection or kindness now, and regarded his father tranquilly.
“But I am planning on marrying, and very soon, too,” he said lightly. His eyes did not leave his father’s face; for one sick moment Joseph fancied he saw something mocking, something malevolent, in those eyes. They were all at once those of an enemy. Joseph could not speak; his hands slipped from the desk and he straightened up. He was bitterly hurt, lashed by jealousy, humiliated. Ernest returned to the bills. “It is Miss Amy Drumhill,” he said, after a long moment.
Joseph was astounded. “But you only met the lass two weeks ago!” he cried, incredulity mingling with delight in his voice. “You don’t mean she’s accepted you already?”
Ernest lifted a shoulder. “Certainly not. I’ve only seen her twice. But—I like her. She is just what I wish in a wife. There is no use waiting. I shall ask Mr. Gregory Sessions before the month is out. Time enough to speak to her then.”
Joseph blinked rapidly. He shook his head. “I doubt that Mr. Sessions will look with much favor on you, lad. After all, he is gentry—”
The sharp convulsion which passed with Ernest nowadays as a smile touched his face. “He’s in trade, Pa,” he reminded his father. “I thought ‘gentry’ never engaged in trade. They don’t, in the Old Country.”
Joseph wondered vaguely why he had never really noticed Ernest’s eyes before; or, had he? He could not tell. They were so clear and dazzlingly pale—like something—what was it? It was on the tip of his tongue: ice, ice on a brilliant winter’s day. And as emotionless, as merciless. Yet, they were not entirely without expression; there was mockery, bitterness, irony and greed in them. I would not like to be at the lad’s mercy, thought Joseph in confusion. A dim fright rose in him. Surely George must have seen those eyes on that shameful night. But I love the lad, he’s my flesh and blood! he thought with a sick pain. Sons shouldn’t look at their fathers that way. But he probably looks at every one that way. I never noticed it, though. And all these months he thought that Ernest must have seen that his father was righteously withdrawing a little! He not only had not seen: he had not cared. It was Ernest who was withdrawing from all who loved him. And frightening them into the bargain. Suddenly Joseph, confused and disturbed though he was, felt a sharp pang of pity for his son. This pity made salt water rise in his mouth. He looked down steadily into those pale and steady eyes with the light of ice in them.
“All the same, I doubt that he’ll look with favor,” he repeated. “I’m not saying you’re not worthy of the lass. But will her uncle think so? After all, she is an heiress.” Ernest’s face flickered a moment. “To be sure, Mr. Gregory has been more than kind to us. We’ve gotten on, through him. With that Army contract gotten through his brother. That was a fortune!” Joseph smiled with the delight he always felt when recalling that magnificent piece of luck. “But having you marry his niece is another thing. I was only bootlicker to Squire Broderick
, remember. But you can tell, in spite of the trade, that Mr. Gregory has got good blood in him.”
Ernest bent his head, carefully examined a bill. “I am not diseased,” he said in his monotonous voice. “We’re in a fair way to be wealthy. There are twenty thousand dollars in my account. Our shops are growing, and we can’t keep up with the orders. I’ve got to get cheaper hands,” he added, half to himself. He raised his voice again. “We’re on the way. Soon, we’ll be bigger than Sessions Steel. You know what our stocks are worth, today. Only three dollars beneath Sessions Steel. It’s almost unheard of. Miss Amy could go far and do worse.” His mouth twisted in a faint smile.
Joseph heard himself fatuously asking, like any other sentimental father: “But, son, it’s not that she’s an heiress, is it? You—like the lass, eh?”
Again, without lifting his head, Ernest smiled, thus making his father feel exceedingly foolish and rustic. “Both, Pa, both,” he answered in the light tones he used to inferiors and those who annoyed him. “I wouldn’t marry a girl without a brass farthing, no. I wouldn’t marry a girl who didn’t please me. But Miss Amy is neither without a farthing, nor does she displease me. I think,” he added very nonchalantly, as he squinted at the bill, “that Miss Amy could go far and do worse.”
“Have you told your mother?”
Ernest glanced at him briefly with that bitterly bright eye. “No, and I don’t want her to know of this, either. I suppose I was a fool to say anything.”
“To me?” Joseph was outraged. “That’s a bad punch, lad!”
Ernest shrugged. “I’m sorry, Pa.” His voice became contrite and gentle. “I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that nothing is settled yet, and it is folly to say anything about it.” Joseph was not as clearsighted as Martin. He accepted the voice’s inflections, simply; a vast relief flooded him. He was getting to be as imaginative as an old woman. Seeing witches’ shadows. If the lad would only look up, now, with the worshipping look he used to wear when he was a brat in petticoats, everything would be as it was. But Ernest did not look up. He was frowning at the contents of a neat black book.
“The United Mills order is two months old,” he said abruptly. “We must do something about it. People won’t wait forever, no matter how good your product is. We’ve got to get some foreigners. I’ll speak to Mr. Sessions and Armand about it, again. I suppose you have no objections, Pa?”
“Oh, haven’t I?” exclaimed Joseph irately. “And how do you suppose that, my fine young cockerel? Can’t you hire American workmen? God knows, you can always get them.”
“They want too much money,” replied Ernest imperturbably, affecting to be absorbed in the entries in his book. “Too much money. We’ll never get along at that rate. We can’t afford American labor, when our competitors are hiring foreign labor. When they cut throats, we must cut throats. Or we get out of business. We’re not in business for pleasure; only for profits. And I propose that we get those profits as quickly as possible.”
“Bringing those poor devils here to work for starvation wages ain’t human,” his father protested. “I’m down on it. I’ll always be down on it. They’ll be taking bread from the mouths of native workmen; they breed like rabbits, too, and first thing you know we’ll have a nation just like them, and the better people will be pushed to the wall, or out of existence. I’m down on it. We’ve got to think of other people, too.”
The pale line of Ernest’s upper lip lifted just a trifle, but that trifle was enough to make the dim fright rise in Joseph again.
“You forget that we are ‘foreigners,’ Pa.”
“No, we ain’t. We’re the same people. Don’t talk like a fool, Ernest. Why, they ain’t one hundred years away from old England. We talk the same tongue. Maybe one Government sits in London and the other sits in Washington, but they’re the same. The same people. But when you bring those poor devils from Hungary and Prussia and Bavaria, and other outlandish places, you’re not bringing the same people. You’re—you’re bringing strangers. And strangers often get to be enemies. It’s human nature. And bringing enemies inside your walls is the best way to commit suicide. We can’t do that to America. It’s our country. We can’t do it to our own people. We’ve got to think of them, too.”
Ernest’s pen hand dropped to the desk; he surveyed his father with a long and steady gaze in which contempt was mixed with wonder and surprise.
“Pa, how do you know that these people aren’t like ‘us’? What makes you think they’re inferior?”
When he was a little nonplussed and unready, Joseph blustered. He blustered now. “Did I say they were inferior? I said they weren’t the same people. You can’t mix oil and water. We—we were free in England, just as America is free. These other poor devils weren’t free; they don’t know what it means to be free. And that’s dangerous, for America. There’s scoundrels in America who’ll take advantage of these poor devils because they don’t know what it means to be free. And that’ll be very bad for men who know what freedom is. They won’t stand the things the foreigners will stand; they’ll be pushed back, to starve to death, or to give up their freedom. And then, this country won’t be free any more. You can’t bring ideas of slavery into a free country, lad, and have that country stay free. Even if the Government stayed free, the people wouldn’t be. They’d have slavery ideas; they’d have the minds of slaves. It’s very dangerous.”
Ernest rubbed his chin very carefully; the slight smile was on his mouth again. He did not look at his father, but at a little point in space near his left arm.
“I think you’re shying at bushes, Pa. We need cheap labor, lots of it, for new mills, to open new territory, to build up our cities. When these wretches get a little money, they go back to Europe. Even if they stay, they aren’t noticed by any one. They don’t interfere. You are right, they don’t know what freedom is, so they’ll never get in any one’s way, never disturb any one. Every country has a laboring class, and the Americans are too damn uppish to be a laboring class. So we need these foreigners. We’ve got to have them. Nobody mingles with them except the scum of America, so we’ll always have the labor we need. We’ll grow it.”
“There’ll be no end to their coming, until it’s too late,” warned Joseph, his excitement rising as it always did during an argument. “Men always build dams after they’ve been ruined by floods, but never before. No, I won’t have it. I won’t help pull down the country that gave me a start in life.”
“Maybe the foreign devils want a start in life, too,” said Ernest in his smoothest and coldest tones. “Who are you to deny them? Isn’t that damn selfish?”
In one clear flash Joseph saw what Martin had seen. “You don’t care about giving them ‘starts,’” he replied bitterly. “All you think of is profits.”
“And why not? Profits. Of course! What are we in business for?”
“Damn your profits! I won’t have it. I’ve set my foot down!”
Ernest wrote something in his book in his small sharp hand. He spoke, without looking at his father: “We’re going to have a little discussion about it, anyway, Pa. We’re going to vote on it, Mr. Sessions, Armand, you and I. We’re the directors and owners of the Company. So, though I understand just what you mean, and I’m sorry about it, the majority vote carries as usual.”
Impotence choked Joseph. “You’d vote against me, lad?” he asked huskily.
There was a little silence. “I’m sorry, Pa. The Company comes first.”
“You mean,” cried Joseph, “that profits come first!”
Ernest did not reply; his lips were compressed. Hard as stone, thought his father, sickened and afraid. He’s got no heart at all. I’ve brought a monster into the world. Where’s it all going to end? He went out of the room, slamming the door passionately behind him, maddeningly conscious that he had been defeated, thrown down, by a slip of a lad. No, he was no lad; he’d never been young and eager and soft like other lads. Joseph’s step accelerated. His thin face was dark red with congest
ed blood, his eyes suffused, when he ran up to Armand. The Frenchman heard the rapid running of his partner’s tread even above the sound of the machinery, and he turned alertly in the direction from which it came. The workmen lifted dull faces for an instant from their machines. Panting and breathless, Joseph plucked Armand’s sleeve, and Armand followed him to a distant wall where they would not be overheard. Then Joseph turned to him fiercely, his hand clutching the other’s wizened arm.
“Look here, Armand, I’ve just had a talk with that damn lad of mine in there! He says you’re all thinking of bringing foreigners in here to replace our men. For cheaper wages. Is that true? Damn you speak up! Is that true?”
Armand lifted his thick, wiry black brows over his small bright eyes. He watched Joseph steadily for a long moment. Then he said: “There has been some discussion about it. But only trivial discussion, my Joseph. You have heard it yourself. There is too much excitement in you, my friend. It is not good for men to be excited after thirty. You must calm yourself. We have discussed it, yes. But not too seriously. Why not wait?”
“Oh, you’re always for waiting!” cried Joseph with violence. “That’s the French in you, playing your sly games quickly and secretly, and all the time telling others to ‘wait.’ Wait for what? For treachery? For rascals to do what they want to do?”
Armand smiled. He tapped Joseph on the arm with two fingers. “I never believed your story of French blood, my good friend, until now. There is no patience in you, no fox-like watching and maneuvering, no sleek diplomacy; in short, there is little of the Englishman in you. Treachery will rest ill in your stomach.
“I beg of you to calm yourself. See, how you pant! There is too much dark blood in your face, and that is very bad. I may be a Frenchman,” and his smile broadened, “but I am also your friend. Truly your friend. And that son in his uncle’s room is friend neither to you nor to me. True, I would not allow my friendship to destroy a profit, but I would do you no treachery. Trust me. There will be nothing secret. When I think of it more, I may disagree with you, vote against you. But it will be openly, and with regrets. I will not play you false. So believe me when I say that nothing yet has been done or decided. The time may never arrive when such a thing will be necessary.” He filled his pipe carefully. “So now, you know as much as I, no less and no more.”