XXXIV. "MY RIGHT EYE OFFENDS ME"
Now that Updegraff is dead, I am free to tell of our relations.
My acquaintance with him was more casual than with any other of "TheSeven." From the outset of my career I made it a rule never to deal withunderstrappers, always to get in touch with the man who had the final say.Thus, as the years went by, I grew into intimacy with the great men offinance where many with better natural facilities for knowing them remainedin an outer circle. But with Updegraff, interested only in enterprises westof the Mississippi and keeping Denver as his legal residence and exploitinghimself as a Western man who hated Wall Street, I had a mere bowingacquaintance. This was unimportant, however, as each knew the other wellby reputation. Our common intimacies made us intimates for all practicalpurposes.
Our connection was established soon after the development of my campaignagainst the Textile Trust had shown that I was after a big bag of thebiggest game. We happened to have the same secret broker; and I suppose itwas in his crafty brain that the idea of bringing us together was born. Bethat as it may, he by gradual stages intimated to me that Updegraff wouldconvey me secrets of "The Seven" in exchange for a guarantee that I wouldnot attack his interests. I do not know what his motive in this treacherywas--probably a desire to curb the power of his associates in industrialdespotism.
Each of "The Seven" hated and feared and suspected the other six with farmore than the ordinary and proverbial rich man's jealous dislike of otherrich men. There was not one of them that did not bear the ever-smartingscars of vicious wounds, front and back, received from his fellows; therewas not one that did not cherish the hope of overthrowing the rule of Sevenand establishing the rule of One. At any rate, I accepted Updegraff'sproposition; henceforth, though he stopped speaking to me when we happenedto meet, as did all the other big bandits and most of their parasites andprocurers, he kept me informed of every act "The Seven" resolved upon.
Thus I knew all about their "gentlemen's agreement" to support the stockmarket, and that they had made Tavistock their agent for resisting any andall attempts to lower prices, and had given him practically unlimited fundsto draw upon as he needed. I had Tavistock sounded on every side, but foundno weak spot. There was no rascality he would not perpetrate for whoeveremployed him; but to his employer he was as loyal as a woman to a badman. And for a time it looked as if "The Seven" had checkmated me. Thoseoutsiders who had invested heavily in the great enterprises through which"The Seven" ruled were disposing of their holdings--cautiously, throughfear of breaking the market. Money would pile up in the banks--money paidout by "The Seven" for their bonds and stocks, of which the people hadbecome deeply suspicious. Then these deposits would be withdrawn--and Iknew they were going into real estate investments, because news of boomsin real estate and in building was coming in from everywhere. But priceson the Stock Exchange continued to advance.
"They are too strong for you," said Joe. "They will hold the market upuntil the public loses faith in you. Then they will sell out at top-notchprices as the people rush in to buy."
I might have wavered had I not been seeing Tavistock every day. Hecontinued to wear his devil-may-care air; but I observed that he was agingswiftly--and I knew what that meant. Fighting all day to prevent breaksin the crucial stocks; planning most of the night how to prevent breaksthe next day; watching the reserve resources of "The Seven" melt away.Those reserves were vast; also, "The Seven" controlled the United StatesTreasury, and were using its resources as their own; they were buyingsecurities that would be almost worthless if they lost, but if theywon, would be rebought by the public at the old swindling prices, when"confidence" was restored. But there was I, cannonading incessantly from myimpregnable position; as fast as they repaired breaches in their walls, mybig guns of publicity tore new breaches. No wonder Tavistock had thinnerhair and wrinkles and a drawn look about the eyes, nose and mouth.
With the battle thus raging all along the line, on the one side "The Seven"and their armies of money and mercenaries and impressed slaves, on theother side the public, I in command, you will say that my yearning fordistraction must have been gratified. If the road from his cell were longenough, the condemned man would be fretting less about the gallows thanabout the tight shoe that was making him limp and wince at every step.Besides, in human affairs it is the personal, always the personal. I soongot used to the crowds, to the big head-lines in the newspapers, to theroutine of cannonade and reply.
But the old thorn, pressing persistently--I could not get used to that. Inthe midst of the adulation, of the blares upon the trumpets of fame thatsaluted my waking and were wafted to me as I fell asleep at night--in themidst of all the turmoil, I was often in a great and brooding silence,longing for her, now with the imperious energy of passion, and now withthe sad ache of love. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Now thatLangdon had again played her false for the old price, with what eyes wasshe looking into the future?
Alva, settled in a West Side apartment not far from the ancestral whiteelephant, telephoned, asking me to come. I went, because she could andwould give me news of Anita. But as I entered her little drawing-room,I said: "It was curiosity that brought me. I wished to see how you wereinstalled."
"Isn't it nice and small?" cried she. "Billy and I haven't the slightestdifficulty in finding each other--as people so often have in the bighouses." And it was Billy this and Billy that, and what Billy said andthought and felt--and before they were married, she had called him William,and had declared "Billy" to be the most offensive combination of lettersthat ever fell from human lips.
"I needn't ask if _you_ are happy," said I presently, with a dismalfailure at looking cheerful. "I can't stay but a moment," I added, and if Ihad obeyed my feelings, I'd have risen up and taken myself and my pain awayfrom surroundings as hateful to me as a summer sunrise in a death-chamber.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, in some confusion. "Then excuse me." And she hastenedfrom the room.
I thought she had gone to order, or perhaps to bring, the tea. The longminutes dragged away until ten had passed. Hearing a rustling in the hall,I rose, intending to take leave the instant she appeared. The rustlingstopped just outside. I waited a few seconds, cried, "Well, I'm off. Nexttime I want to be alone, I'll know where to come," and advanced to thedoor. It was not Alva hesitating there; it was Anita.
"I beg your pardon," said I coldly.
If there had been room to pass I should have gone. What devil possessedme? Certainly in all our relations I had found her direct and frank, ifanything, too frank. Doubtless it was the influence of my associations downtown, where for so many months I had been dealing with the "short-card"crowd of high finance, who would hardly play the game straight even whenthat was the easy way to win. My long, steady stretch in that stealthy andsinuous company had put me in the state of mind in which it is impossibleto credit any human being with a motive that is decent or an action that isnot a dead-fall. Thus the obvious transformation in her made no impressionon me. Her haughtiness, her coldness, were gone, and with them had goneall that had been least like her natural self, most like the repellentconventional pattern to which her mother and her associates had molded her.But I was saying to myself: "A trap! Langdon has gone back to his wife. Sheturns to me." And I loved her and hated her. "Never," thought I, "has sheshown so poor an opinion of me as now."
"My uncle told me day before yesterday that it was not he but you," shesaid, lifting her eyes to mine. It is inconceivable to me now that I couldhave misread their honest story; yet I did.
"I had no idea your uncle's notion of honor was also eccentric," said I,with a satirical smile that made the blood rush to her face.
"That is unjust to him," she replied earnestly.
"He says he made you no promise of secrecy. And he confessed to me onlybecause he wished to convince me that he had good reason for his highopinion of you."
"Really!" said I ironically. "And no doubt he found you open wide toconviction--_now_." This a subtlety to let her know
that I understoodwhy she was seeking me.
"No," she answered, lowering her eyes. "I knew--better than he."
For an instant this, spoken in a voice I had long given up hope of everhearing from her, staggered my cynical conviction. But--"Possibly shethinks she is sincere," reasoned my head with my heart; "even the sincerestwomen, brought up as was she, always have the calculator underneath; theydeny it, they don't know it often, but there it is; with them, calculationis as involuntary and automatic as their pulse." So, I said to her,mockingly: "Doubtless your opinion of me has been improving steadily eversince you heard that Mrs. Langdon had recovered her husband."
She winced, as if I had struck her. "Oh!" she murmured. If she had beenthe ordinary woman, who in every crisis with man instinctively resorts toweakness' strongest weakness, tears, I might have a different story totell. But she fought back the tears in which her eyes were swimming andgathered herself together. "That is brutal," she said, with not a touch ofhaughtiness, but not humbly, either. "But I deserve it."
"There was a time," I went on, swept in a swift current of cold rage,"there was a time when I would have taken you on almost any terms. A mannever makes a complete fool of himself about a woman but once in his life,they say. I have done my stretch--and it is over."
She sighed wearily. "Langdon came to see me soon after I left your house,and went to my uncle," she said. "I will tell you what happened."
"I do not wish to hear," replied I, adding pointedly, "I have been waitingever since you left for news of your plans."
She grew white, and my heart smote me. She came into the room and seatedherself. "Won't you stop, please, for a moment longer?" she said. "I hopethat, at, least, we can part without bitterness. I understand now thateverything is over between us. A woman's vanity makes her belief that a mancares for her die hard. I am convinced now--I assure you, I am. I shalltrouble you no more about the past. But I have the right to ask you to hearme when I say that Langdon came, and that I myself sent him away; sent himback to his wife."
"Touching self-sacrifice," said I ironically.
"No," she replied. "I can not claim any credit. I sent him away onlybecause you and Alva had taught me how to judge him better. I do notdespise him as do you; I know too well what has made him what he is. ButI had to send him away."
My comment was an incredulous look and shrug. "I must be going," I said.
"You do not believe me?" she asked.
"In my place, would you believe?" replied I. "You say I have taught you.Well, you have taught me, too--for instance, that the years you've spent onyour knees in the musty temple of conventionality before false gods havemade you--fit only for the Langdon sort of thing. You can't learn how tostand erect, and your eyes can not bear the light."
"I am sorry," she said slowly, hesitatingly, "that your faith in me diedjust when I might, perhaps, have justified it. Ours has been a pitifulseries of misunderstandings."
"A trap! A trap!" I was warning myself. "You've been a fool long enough,Blacklock." And aloud I said: "Well, Anita, the series is ended now.There's no longer any occasion for our lying or posing to each other.Any arrangements your uncle's lawyers suggest will be made."
I was bowing, to leave without shaking hands with her. But she would nothave it so. "Please!" she said, stretching out her long, slender arm andoffering me her hand.
What a devil possessed me that day! With every atom of me longing for her,I yet was able to take her hand and say, with a smile, that was, I doubtnot, as mocking as my tone: "By all means let us be friends. And I trustyou will not think me discourteous if I say that I shall feel safer in ourfriendship when we are both on neutral ground."
As I was turning away, her look, my own heart, made me turn again. I caughther by the shoulders. I gazed into her eyes. "If I could only trust you,could only believe you!" I cried.
"You cared for me when I wasn't worth it," she said. "Now that I am morelike what you once imagined me, you do not care."
Up between us rose Langdon's face--cynical, mocking, contemptuous. "Yourheart is _his_! You told me so! Don't _lie_ to me!" I exclaimed.And before she could reply, I was gone.
Out from under the spell of her presence, back among the tricksters andassassins, the traps and ambushes of Wall Street, I believed again;believed firmly the promptings of the devil that possessed me. "She wouldhave given you a brief fool's paradise," said that devil. "Then whata hideous awakening!" And I cursed the day when New York's insidioussnobbishness had tempted my vanity into starting me on that degrading chaseafter "respectability."
"If she does not move to free herself soon," said I to myself, "I will putmy own lawyer to work. My right eye offends me. I will pluck it out."