CHAPTER XLV

The next forenoon, having obtained the privilege of absence, Forbes

crossed from Governor's Island to Manhattan Island, took the Subway from

South Ferry to Fifty-ninth Street, and, entering Central Park, kept

along its southernmost path till he reached the Plaza, where he paused a

moment to admire Saint-Gaudens' statue of General Sherman, a gilded

warrior on a gilded horse squired by a gilded girl--Victory or Peace or

something, he was not sure just what.

In his present humor of misogyny he wondered why it was thought to be

necessary to put a woman in everything. Of all the campaigns where she

was lacking, surely the March to the Sea was among her most conspicuous

absences. But he admired the lean warrior with the doffed hat and the

splendid stride of the big horse--a very different horse from the Park

horses he found, with their tan-clad grooms clustered at the

mounting-blocks near by.

Toward this starting-point fat women with looped-up skirts and top-hats

and little knock-kneed girls in breeches were hurrying. He smiled with

the superiority of a cavalry officer.

Among the living caricatures were a few expert riders. Suddenly Forbes'

heart shivered and raced with a feeling that a certain one of them might

be Persis. Surely there could not be another back so trim, another grip

so firm. But it was his longing that created the resemblance, for as the

horse whirled and loped away he caught sight of the woman's profile. It

was less like Persis' profile than like the horse's!

But the moment's agitation had gone like an earthquake through his

calmed soul. It shook down the towers of resolution and independence and

sickened him with the instability of his poise.

He would have turned back from his engagement, but he had not even the

strength for that much action. He crossed the Avenue to where the

Metropolitan Club stood four square in its gray and white dignity. As he

passed through the carved and colonnaded entrance-court a motor-car

deposited two women at the door of the annex.

He feared that one of them might be Mildred; but he was unnecessarily

alarmed. Mildred had pleaded official duties. She had shown the same

reluctance Forbes had revealed. Perhaps she saw through her father's

motives. But the old Senator was willing to wait. He was a born

compromiser, a genius at making fusions out of factions.

When Forbes entered the club and asked for Tait, the doorman consulted

the roster-board, and, finding a cribbage peg opposite the Senator's

name, sent a page for him. He was not far to fetch, and he was in a

humor of Falstaffian heartiness. He came upon Forbes' foggy mood like a

morning sun. He was just what Forbes needed.

He clapped his arm across Forbes' shoulder, and, as he registered him in

the guest-book, wrote the new word "Captain" large, and pointed to it;

then dragged Forbes to the cigar-case and commanded "the biggest cigar

there is, one with a solid-gold wrapper." He treated the forlorn victim

of a woman's jilt as a notable worthy of notable entertainment. It was

the lift that the prodigal son got when he slunk home and was met with a

bouquet instead of blame.

He led Forbes into the great central hall, with its white-marble cliffs

and its red-velveted double stairway mounting like a huge St. Andrew's

cross, placed him on a settle where a platoon of men might have sat

a-knee, and gave the bell a royal bang. He recommended a special

cocktail, and joined Forbes in it in joyous disobedience of his

physician's warning.

When the cocktail arrived Forbes gave him the army toast of "How!" and

Tait answered "Happy days!" On the way up to the dining-room he led

Forbes through the building, pausing before the crimson opulence of the

two reading-rooms; the lounging-room, with its windows commanding Fifth

Avenue; the card-rooms, deserted battle-fields now; the board-rooms,

where committees gathered to settle huge financial destinies, the solemn

library walled solid with books.

Forbes wondered at the almost complete absence of other people in the

club; but Tait explained that most of the members were hard-working

millionaires who lunched down-town "or took their dinner-pails with

them," some of them hardly stopping to eat a sandwich from a desk leaf.

On the top floor their luncheon awaited them at a table by the window.

As Forbes drew his napkin across his knee he gazed down at the corner of

the Park and the lake where white swans drifted like the toy sloops of

children. From this height the hills and curving walks looked miniature

as a Japanese garden.

When the clam-shells were emptied they were replaced with chicken, a

second waiter served rice, and a third curry. It was strangely

comforting to be well served with choice food in a beautiful room above

a beautiful scene. He felt that in places like this wealth justified

itself--wealth the upholsterer, the caterer, the artist, the butler.

Forbes looked down at a shuffling vagrant slouching across the Plaza. He

felt sorry for that man, and yet was glad that he was here instead of

there. He wished that he himself might belong to this delightful place

they called the "Millionaire's Club." He longed for riches, especially

as they would mean Persis. He remembered what she had said: "The rich

can get anything that the poor have, but the poor can't get what the

rich have." The rich Enslee could even get Persis.

He sat musing bitterly, forgetting that he had a host, and unaware that

the host was looking at him with sad affection, not resenting his

listlessness, but hoping to relieve it. Remembering Forbes' father, Tait

knew that he must move warily about that sensitive Forbes pride, as

swift to strike an awkward hand as a caged tiger that greets an

unwelcome caress with a wound.

Tait hesitated to open his real business. He began obliquely.

"Well, I've just fired the first gun in my war with Mrs. Neff."

"Yes?" said Forbes, drearily.

"Yes," said Tait, positively. "Just before you came young Stowe Webb was

here--nice young fellow. I sent for him, and said to him: 'Young man,

Miss Alice Neff, whom I believe you know'--he blushed like a house

afire--'tells me,' I said, 'that her mother objects to you because you

have no money.' He flashed me a look of amazement, and I said: 'If you

need money, why don't you make it?' And he said: 'How can I?' 'Why,

money is growing on bushes everywhere,' I said, 'just waiting to be

picked off; poor men are getting rich every day,' I said; and he said:

'Yes, and rich men are getting poor. My family is one of the bushes, and

we've been pretty well picked. My father left me nothing but his

blessing, and I can't pawn that,' he said. 'Still, I'm not dead yet,' he

said. 'I'll show you all some day.' And I said: 'There must be something

in any man that a good girl loves and believes in. And any girl that's

worth having is worth working for, and if she really wants you she'll

wait for you.' And then I lowered my voice about an octave and growled,

'I wonder if you have the grit to go out in this hard old world and work

for that girl and--and earn her?' He said, 'You bet I have!' So I said:

'Well, I know where there's a job you might get; it's small salary and a

lot of work at first, and by and by a little more salary and much harder

work; and you won't be able to see her often; perhaps not at all for a

long while; but eventually, if she'll wait, you'll be able to support

her as well as any girl needs to be supported who has love in the

bargain. Do you want that job, young man?' I said, glaring at him. And

he said: 'Lead me to it!'"

Forbes listened with eagerness and envy. The portrait of Alice, who

would wait till her lover worked his way up to a competence, contrasted

sharply with Persis, who would not accept the competence Forbes already

had. He asked, with an effort at enthusiasm:

"And what is the job?"

"I'm going to make him my secretary, at twelve hundred a year, at first.

He won't be worth it, and I'll have to do all my own work for a while;

but I'll give him his chance. I won't pamper him. I'll test him out--and

her, too. If they can't stand the test they wouldn't last long in the

battle of matrimony."

"Your secretary?" said Forbes. "Does he know any law?"

"I'm not going to be a lawyer. I'm going to be a diplomat--in Paris."

"Splendid!" cried Forbes, reaching across to squeeze his hand. "I

congratulate the country--and France. I envy you Paris. I've never been

there."

"How would you like to go?"

"How should I like to be a major-general?"

Tait opened his lips to say something important, then stammered, and

said instead:

"Waiter, give Captain Forbes some more of that curry. It's good here,

isn't it?"

"Splendid," said Forbes, who had hardly touched what was on his plate.

Senator Tait shifted uncomfortably, made to speak, pursed his lips, eyed

Forbes, and then said, with abrupt irrelevance:

"I was wrong, I see, about old Cabot."

"Were you?" Forbes mumbled, with a sudden flush at the broaching of that

dangerous theme.

"Yes, I said that he was to be closed up, forced into involuntary

bankruptcy, and all that."

"Wasn't he?" said Forbes, weakly.

"No, he got money and credit and a new start--from the Enslee estates.

There is a rumor that his daughter is to marry Willie Enslee. I thought

that perhaps you--did you--did you hear anything of it--from Enslee?"

Tait made an elaborate pretense of indifference and showed a violent

interest in the leg of a chicken. Forbes turned curry-color with shame

as he answered: "Yes, Enslee announced the engagement himself--the very

day I saw you last."

His head drooped as if his neck could no longer hold it up. Tait noted

his harrowed look and broke out angrily:

"Don't be cut up, my boy, just because she's fool enough to marry a

bigger fool than herself."

"Oh, please!" Forbes protested. He could have struck a younger man in

Persis' defense, but he could only appeal to so old a man as Tait. Tait,

however, persisted:

"You ought to be glad to be revenged so neatly."

Forbes was in desperate case; he laughed bitterly. "Revenge is a little

late. My life is ruined. I might as well put an end to it."

The old man stared at the tragic face, the brow corded with veins, the

eyes fanatic with despair. He could not believe that so brilliant an

officer could kill himself. And yet men did kill themselves--several

thousand every year. When Forbes' father was a young man courting the

fickle young beauty who was later to become the so steadfast wife and

the mother of Forbes, they had quarreled, and Forbes' father had been

frantic with grief, had threatened self-destruction. Tait himself had

taken the revolver away from him and helped to lift him across the dark

waters of jealousy. It startled him to see the father's black despair

repeated in the son. He felt that he must repeat the rescue.

Yet, as humanity is constituted, tragedy becomes grotesque when it is

repeated. He felt a certain helpless amusement at finding the son just

as desperate as the father had been. He had laughed the elder Forbes out

of his gloom. He attempted to ridicule the son free of the same

obsession. He spoke in a low tone surcharged with an anxiety whose

exaggeration was too dolorous to catch.

"You say that you can't stand the loss of Miss Cabot, and you might as

well commit suicide?"

"I might as well."

"I'll tell you, Harvey, let's commit suicide together!" Forbes' haggard

glance showed that he was not yet awake to the old man's parody of his

solemnity.

"Do you mean it?" Forbes asked.

"Yes," Tait murmured; "all good Americans go to Paris when they

die--let's go to Paris."

Now Forbes caught the twinkle in his eye. It took him off his guard. It

was as if some one had made a funny face at a funeral. A guffaw of

laughter escaped him. It shocked him and shamed him, but it shattered

his depression.

Tait seized the opportunity of Forbes' disorder and urged his idea:

"I've got to have a military attache, you know. I could get the billet

for you."

"Why select me for the honor? You'll be beset with applications."

"Yes, but I like you, Harvey. You are your father come to life again. I

love you--as if you were your father--or my son. I'm old. I need young

shoulders to lean on. I've nobody else but you. And you need me. You've

had a whack in the solar plexus. You're seeing stars. But you mustn't

let 'em count you out. Once you get your breath you'll be as good a man

as you ever were. But don't lie down and take the count.

"Besides, I can help you while you're helping me. It's a new world for

you, Harvey. Nobody ought to die without seeing France and England--the

Old World that's so much newer than ours and so much wiser in so many

ways. It's your opportunity. It may mean wonderful things for you. You

can't refuse. You won't refuse, will you?"

The very impact of his blows pounded Harvey's cold heart to a glow. The

word "opportunity" glinted like a shower of sparks in the night. He

smiled in spite of himself. He felt such a leap of new blood in his

arteries, such a rush of fresh air into his lungs, that he seemed to

waken from a coma. He could not speak, but he thrust his hand across the

table and wrung the Senator's fat old fingers till they ached.