CHAPTER XI
Mr. Sam Gwent stood in what was known as the "floral hall" of the PlazaHotel, so called because it was built in colonnades which opened intovarious vistas of flowers and clambering vines growing with all theluxuriance common to California. He had just arrived, and whiledivesting himself of a light dust overcoat interrogated the official atthe enquiry office.
"So he doesn't live here after all,"--he said--"Then where's he to befound?"
"Mr. Seaton has taken the hill hut"--replied the book-keeper--"'The hutof the dying' it is sometimes called. He prefers it to the hotel. Theair is better for his lungs."
"Air? Lungs?"--Gwent sniffed contemptuously. "There's very little thematter with his lungs if he's the man _I_ know! Where's this hut of thedying? Can I get there straight?"
The bookkeeper touched a bell, and Manella appeared. Gwent staredopenly. Here--if "prize beauties" were anything--was a real winner!
"This gentleman wants Mr. Seaton"--said the bookkeeper--"Just show himthe way up the hill."
"Sorry to trouble you!" said Gwent, raising his hat with a courtesy notcommon to his manner.
"Oh, it is no trouble!" and Manella smiled at him in the most ravishingway--"The path is quite easy to follow."
She preceded him out of the "floral hall," and across the greatgardens, now in their most brilliant bloom to a gate which she opened,pointing with one hand towards the hill where the flat outline of the"hut of the dying" could be seen clear against the sky.
"There it is"--she explained--"It's nothing of a climb, even on thewarmest day. And the air is quite different up there to what it is downhere."
"Better, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes! Much better!"
"And is that why Mr. Seaton lives in the hut? On account of the air?"
Manella waved her hands expressively with a charming Spanish gesture ofindifference.
"I suppose so! How should I know? He is here for his health."
Sam Gwent uttered a curious inward sound, something between a grunt anda cough.
"Ah! I should like to know how long he's been ill!"
Manella again gave her graceful gesture.
"Surely you DO know if you are a friend of his?" she said.
He looked keenly at her.
"Are YOU a friend of his?"
She smiled--almost laughed.
"I? I am only a help in the Plaza--I take him his food--"
"Take him his food!" Sam Gwent growled out something like anoath--"What! Can't he come and get it for himself? Is he treated like abear in a cage or a baby in a cradle?"
Manella gazed at him with reproachful soft eyes.
"Oh, you are rough!" she said--"He pays for whatever little trouble hegives. Indeed it is no trouble! He lives very simply--only on new milkand bread. I expect his health will not stand anything else--thoughtruly he does not look ill--"
Gwent cut her description short.
"Well, thank you for showing me the way, Senora or Senorita, whicheveryou are--I think you must be Spanish--"
"Senorita"--she said, with gentle emphasis--"I am not married. You areright that I am Spanish."
"Such eyes as yours were never born of any blood but Spanish!" saidGwent--"I knew that at once! That you are not married is a bit of luckfor some man--the man you WILL marry! For the moment adios! I shalldine at the Plaza this evening, and shall very likely bring my friendwith me."
She shook her head smiling.
"You will not!"
"How so?"
"Because he will not come!"
She turned away, back towards the Hotel, and Gwent started to ascendthe hill alone.
"Here's a new sort of game!"--he thought--"A game I should never haveimagined possible to a man like Roger Seaton! Hiding himself up here ina consumption hut, and getting a beautiful woman to wait on him and'take him his food'! It beats most things I've heard of! Dollarsensation books aren't in it! I wonder what Morgana Royal would say toit, if she knew! He's given her the slip this time!"
Half-way up the hill he paused to rest, and saw Seaton striding down ata rapid pace to meet him.
"Hullo, Gwent!"
"Hullo!"
The two men shook hands.
"I got your wire at the beginning of the week"--said Gwent--"and cameas soon as I could get away. It's been a stiff journey too--but Iwouldn't keep you waiting."
"Thanks,--it's as much your affair as mine"--said Seaton--"The thing isripe for action if you care to act. It's quite in your hands, I hardlythought you'd come--"
"But I sent you a reply wire?"
"Oh, yes--that's all right! But reply wires don't always clinchbusiness. Yours arrived last night."
"I wonder if it was ever delivered!" grumbled Gwent--"It was addressedto the Plaza Hotel--not to a hut on a hill!"
Seaton laughed.
"You've heard all about it I see! But the hut on the hill is a'dependence' of the Plaza--a sort of annex where dying men are put awayto die peaceably--"
"YOU are not a dying man!" said Gwent, very meaningly--"And I can'tmake out why you pretend to be one!"
Again Seaton laughed.
"I'm not pretending!--my dear Gwent, we're all dying men! One may die alittle faster than another, but it's all the same sort of 'rot, androt, and thereby hangs a tale!' What's the news in Washington?"
They walked up the hill slowly, side by side.
"Not startling"--answered Gwent--then paused--and repeated--"Notstartling--there's nothing startling nowadays--though some folks made avery good show of being startled when my nephew Jack shot himself."
Seaton stopped in his walk.
"Shot himself? That lad? Was he insane?"
"Of course!--according to the coroner. Everybody is called 'insane' whogets out of the world when it's too difficult to live in. Some peoplewould call it sane. I call it just--cowardice! Jack had lost his lastchance, you see. Morgana Royal threw him over."
Seaton paced along with a velvet-footed stride like a tiger on a trail.
"Had she led him on?"
"Rather! She leads all men 'on'--or they think she does. She led YOU onat one time!"
Seaton turned upon him with a quick, savage movement.
"Never! I saw through her from the first! She could never make a foolof ME!"
Sam Gwent gave a short cough, expressing incredulity.
"Well! Washington thought you were the favoured 'catch' and envied yourluck! Certainly she showed a great preference for you--"
"Can't you talk of something else?" interposed Seaton, impatiently.
Gwent gave him an amused side-glance.
"Why, of course I can!" he responded--"But I thought I'd tell you aboutJack--"
"I'm sorry!" said Seaton, hastily, conscious that he had been lackingin sympathy--"He was your heir, I believe?"
"Yes,--he might have been, had he kept a bit straighter"--saidGwent--"But heirs are no good anywhere or anyhow. They only spend whatthey inherit and waste the honest work of a life-time. Is that yourprize palace?"
He pointed to the hut which they had almost reached.
"That's it!" answered Seaton--"And I prefer it to any palace everbuilt. No servants, no furniture, no useless lumber--just a place tolive in--enough for any man."
"A tub was enough for Diogenes"--commented Gwent--"If we all lived inhis way or your way it would be a poor look-out for trade! However, Ipresume you'll escape taxation here!"
Seaton made no reply, but led the way into his dwelling, offering hisvisitor a chair.
"I hope you've had breakfast"--he said--"For I haven't any to give you.You can have a glass of milk if you like?"
Gwent made a wry face.
"I'm not a good subject for primitive nourishment"--he said--"I've beenweaned too long for it to agree with me!"
He sat down. His eyes were at once attracted by the bowl of restlessfluid on the table.
"What's that?" he asked.
Roger Seaton smiled enigmatically.
"Only a trifle"--he answered--"Ju
st health! It's a sort oftalisman;--germ-proof, dust-proof, disease-proof! No microbe ofmischief, however infinitesimal, can exist near it, and a few drops,taken into the system, revivify the whole."
"If that's so, your fortune's made"--said Gwent, "Give your discovery,or recipe, or whatever it is, to the world---"
"To keep the world alive? No, thank you!" And the look of dark scorn onSeaton's face was astonishing in its almost satanic expression--"Thatis precisely what I wish to avoid! The world is over-ripe andover-rotten,--and it is over-crowded with a festering humanity that isINhuman, and worse than bestial in its furious grappling for self andgreed. One remedy for the evil would be that no children should be bornin it for the next thirty or forty years--the relief would beincalculable,--a monstrous burden would be lifted, and there would besome chance of betterment,--but as this can never be, other remediesmust be sought and found. It's pure hypocrisy to talk of love forchildren, when every day we read of mothers selling their offspring forso much cash down,--lately in China during a spell of famine parentskilled their daughters like young calves, for food. Ugly facts likethese have to be looked in the face--it's no use putting them behindone's back, and murmuring beautiful lies about 'mother-love' and suchnonsense. As for the old Mosaic commandment 'Honour thy father andmother'--it's ordinary newspaper reading to hear of boys and girlsattacking and murdering their parents for the sake of a few dollars."
"You've got the ugly facts by heart"--said Gwent slowly--"But there'sanother and more cheerful outlook--if you choose to consider it.Newspaper reading always gives the worst and dirtiest side ofeverything--it wouldn't be newspaper stuff if it was clean. Newspapersremind me of the rotting heaps in gardens--all the rubbish piledtogether till the smell becomes a nuisance--then a good burning takesplace of the whole collection and it makes a sort of fourth-ratemanure." He paused a moment--then went on--
"I'm not given to sentiment, but I dare say there are still a few folkswho love each other in this world,--and it's good to know of when theydo. My sister"--he paused again, as if something stuck in his throat;"My sister loved her boy,--Jack. His death has driven her silly for thetime--doctors say she will recover--that it's only 'shock.' 'Shock' isanswerable for a good many tragedies since the European war."
Seaton moved impatiently, but said nothing,
"You're a bit on the fidgets"--resumed Gwent, placidly--"You want me tocome to business--and I will. May I smoke?"
His companion nodded, and he drew out his cigar-case, selecting from ita particularly fragrant Havana.
"You don't do this sort of thing, or I'd offer you one,"--hesaid,--"Pity you don't, it soothes the nerves. But I know your 'fads';you are too closely acquainted with the human organism to either smokeor drink. Well--every man to his own method! Now what you want me to dois this--to represent the force and meaning of a certain substancewhich you have discovered, to the government of the United States andinduce them to purchase it. Is that so?"
"That is so!" and Roger Seaton fixed his eyes on Gwent's hard,lantern-jawed face with a fiery intensity--"Remember, it's not child'splay! Whoever takes what I can give, holds the mastery of the world! Ioffer it to the United States--but I would have preferred to offer itto Great Britain, being as I am, an Englishman. But the dilatoryBritish men of science have snubbed me once--and I do not intend themto have the chance of doing it again. Briefly--I offer the UnitedStates the power to end wars, and all thought or possibility of war forever. No Treaty of Versailles or any other treaty will ever benecessary. The only thing I ask in reward for my discovery is thegovernment pledge to use it. That is, of course, should occasion arise.For my material needs, which are small, an allowance of a sum per annumas long as I live, will satisfy my ambition. The allowance may be asmuch or as little as is found convenient. The pledge to USE mydiscovery is the one all-important point--it must be a solemn, bindingpledge--never to be broken."
Gwent puffed slowly at his cigar.
"It's a bit puzzling!"--he said--"When and where should it be used?"
Seaton stretched out a hand argumentatively.
"Now listen!" he said--"Suppose two nations quarrel--or rather, theirgovernments and their press force them to quarrel--the United States(possessing my discovery) steps between and says--'Very well! The firstmove towards war--the first gun fired--means annihilation for one ofyou or both! We hold the power to do this!'"
Gwent drew his cigar from his lips.
"Annihilation!" he murmured--"Annihilation? For one or both!"
"Just so--absolute annihilation!" and Seaton smiled with a pleasant airof triumph--"A holocaust of microbes! The United States must let thewhole world know of their ability to do this (without giving away mydiscovery). They must say to the nations 'We will have no more wars. Ifinnocent people are to be killed, they can be killed quite as easily inone way as another, and our way will cost nothing--neither ships norammunition nor guns.' And, of course, the disputants will be given timeto decide their own fate for themselves."
Sam Gwent, holding his cigar between his fingers and lookingmeditatively at its glowing end, smiled shrewdly.
"All very well!"--he said--"But you forget money interests. Moneyinterests always start a war--it isn't nations that do it, it's'companies.' Your stuff won't annihilate companies all over the globe.Governments are not likely to damage their own financial moves. Supposethe United States government agreed to your proposition and took thesole possession and proprietorship of your discovery, and gave youtheir written, signed and sealed pledge to use it, it doesn't at allfollow that they would not break that pledge at the first opportunity.In these days governments break promises as easily as eggshells. Andthere would be ample excuse for breaking the pledge to you--simply onthe ground of inhumanity."
"War is inhumanity"--said Seaton--"The use of my discovery would be noworse than war."
"Granted!--but war makes money for certain sections of thecommunity,--you must think of that!" and Gwent's little shrewd eyesgleamed like bits of steel.--"Money!--money! Stores--food,clothing--transport--all these things in war mean fortunes to thecontractors--while the wiping out of a nation in YOUR way would meanloss of money. Loss of life wouldn't matter,--it never does reallymatter--not to governments!--but loss of money--ah, well!--that's avery different and much more serious affair!"
A cynical smile twisted his features as he spoke, and Roger Seaton,standing opposite to him with his fine head well thrown back on hisshoulders and his whole face alive with the power of thought, lookedrather like a Viking expostulating with some refractory vassal.
"So you think the United States wouldn't take my 'discovery?'" hesaid--"Or--if they took it--couldn't be trusted to keep a pledged word?"
Gwent shrugged his shoulders.
"Of course our government could be trusted as much as any othergovernment in the world,"--he said--"Perhaps more. But it wouldexonerate itself for breaking even a pledged word which necessitated aninhuman act involving loss of money! See? War is an inhuman act, but itbrings considerable gain to those who engineer it,--this makes all thedifference between humanity and INhumanity!"
"Well!--you are a senator, and you ought to know!" replied Seaton--"Andif your opinion is against my offer, I will not urge you to make it.But--as I live and stand here talking to you, you may bet every dollaryou possess that if neither the United States nor any other governmentwill accept the chance I give it of holding the nations like dogs inleash, I'll hold them myself! I! One single unit of the overteemingmillions! Yes, Mr. Senator Gwent, I swear it! I'll be master of theworld!"