by Frank Norris
She gave her word, and leaned her elbows on the table, prepared to listen intently. Jadwin crushed a lump of sugar against the inside of his coffee cup.
“Well,” he began, “I’ve not been doing anything very exciting, except to buy wheat.”
“What for?”
“To sell again. You see, I’m one of those who believe that wheat is going up. I was the very first to see it, I guess, way back last April. Now in August this year, while we were up at the lake, I bought three million bushels.”
“Three — million — bushels!” she murmured. “Why, what do you do with it? Where do you put it?”
He tried to explain that he had merely bought the right to call for the grain on a certain date, but she could not understand this very clearly.
“Never mind,” she told him, “go on.”
“Well, then, at the end of August we found out that the wet weather in England would make a short crop there, and along in September came the news that Siberia would not raise enough to supply the southern provinces of Russia. That left only the United States and the Argentine Republic to feed pretty much the whole world. Of course that would make wheat valuable. Seems to be a short-crop year everywhere. I saw that wheat would go higher and higher, so I bought another million bushels in October, and another early in this month. That’s all. You see, I figure that pretty soon those people over in England and Italy and Germany — the people that eat wheat — will be willing to pay us in America big prices for it, because it’s so hard to get. They’ve got to have the wheat — it’s bread ‘n’ butter to them.”
“Oh, then why not give it to them?” she cried. “Give it to those poor people — your five million bushels. Why, that would be a godsend to them.”
Jadwin stared a moment.
“Oh, that isn’t exactly how it works out,” he said.
Before he could say more, however, the maid came in and handed to Jadwin three despatches.
“Now those,” said Laura, when the servant had gone out, “you get those every morning. Are those part of your business? What do they say?”
“I’ll read them to you,” he told her as he slit the first envelopes. “They are cablegrams from agents of mine in Europe. Gretry arranged to have them sent to me. Here now, this is from Odessa. It’s in cipher, but” — he drew a narrow memorandum-book from his breast pocket— “I’ll translate it for you.”
He turned the pages of the key book a few moments, jotting down the translation on the back of an envelope with the gold pencil at the end of his watch chain.
“Here’s how it reads,” he said at last. “‘Cash wheat advanced one cent bushel on Liverpool buying, stock light. Shipping to interior. European price not attractive to sellers.’”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Well, that Russia will not export wheat, that she has no more than enough for herself, so that Western Europe will have to look to us for her wheat.”
“And the others? Read those to me.”
Again Jadwin translated.
“This is from Paris:
“‘Answer on one million bushels wheat in your market — stocks lighter than expected, and being cleared up.’”
“Which is to say?” she queried.
“They want to know how much I would ask for a million bushels. They find it hard to get the stuff over there — just as I said they would.”
“Will you sell it to them?”
“Maybe. I’ll talk to Sam about it.”
“And now the last one.”
“It’s from Liverpool, and Liverpool, you must understand, is the great buyer of wheat. It’s a tremendously influential place.”
He began once more to consult the key book, one finger following the successive code words of the despatch.
Laura, watching him, saw his eyes suddenly contract. “By George,” he muttered, all at once, “by George, what’s this?”
“What is it?” she demanded. “Is it important?”
But all-absorbed, Jadwin neither heard nor responded. Three times he verified the same word.
“Oh, please tell me,” she begged.
Jadwin shook his head impatiently and held up a warning hand.
“Wait, wait,” he said. “Wait a minute.”
Word for word he wrote out the translation of the cablegram, and then studied it intently.
“That’s it,” he said, at last. Then he got to his feet. “I guess I’ve had enough breakfast,” he declared. He looked at his watch, touched the call bell, and when the maid appeared said:
“Tell Jarvis to bring the buggy around right away.”
“But, dear, what is it?” repeated Laura. “You said you would tell me. You see,” she cried, “it’s just as I said. You’ve forgotten my very existence. When it’s a question of wheat I count for nothing. And just now, when you read the despatch to yourself, you were all different; such a look came into your face, so cruelly eager, and triumphant and keen.”
“You’d be eager, too,” he exclaimed, “if you understood. Look; read it for yourself.”
He thrust the cable into her hands. Over each code word he had written its translation, and his wife read:
“Large firms here short and in embarrassing position, owing to curtailment in Argentine shipments. Can negotiate for five million wheat if price satisfactory.”
“Well?” she asked.
“Well, don’t you see what that means? It’s the ‘European demand’ at last. They must have wheat, and I’ve got it to give ’em — wheat that I bought, oh! at seventy cents, some of it, and they’ll pay the market that is, eighty cents, for it. Oh, they’ll pay more. They’ll pay eighty-two if I want ’em to. France is after the stuff, too. Remember that cable from Paris I just read. They’d bid against each other. Why, if I pull this off, if this goes through — and, by George,” he went on, speaking as much to himself as to her, new phases of the affair presenting themselves to him at every moment, “by George, I don’t have to throw this wheat into the Pit and break down the price — and Gretry has understandings with the railroads, through the elevator gang, so we get big rebates. Why, this wheat is worth eighty-two cents to them — and then there’s this ‘curtailment in Argentine shipments.’ That’s the first word we’ve had about small crops there. Holy Moses, if the Argentine crop is off, wheat will knock the roof clean off the Board of Trade!” The maid reappeared in the doorway. “The buggy?” queried Jadwin. “All right. I’m off, Laura, and — until it’s over keep quiet about all this, you know. Ask me to read you some more cables some day. It brings good luck.”
He gathered up his despatches and the mail and was gone. Laura, left alone, sat looking out of the window a long moment. She heard the front door close, and then the sound of the horses’ hoofs on the asphalt by the carriage porch. They died down, ceased, and all at once a great silence seemed to settle over the house.
Laura sat thinking. At last she rose.
“It is the first time,” she said to herself, “that Curtis ever forgot to kiss me good-by.”
The day, for all that the month was December, was fine. The sun shone; under foot the ground was dry and hard. The snow which had fallen ten days before was practically gone. In fine, it was a perfect day for riding. Laura called her maid and got into her habit. The groom with his own horse and “Crusader” were waiting for her when she descended.
That forenoon Laura rode further and longer than usual. Preoccupied at first, her mind burdened with vague anxieties, she nevertheless could not fail to be aroused and stimulated by the sparkle and effervescence of the perfect morning, and the cold, pure glitter of Lake Michigan, green with an intense mineral hue, dotted with whitecaps, and flashing under the morning sky. Lincoln Park was deserted and still; a blue haze shrouded the distant masses of leafless trees, where the gardeners were burning the heaps of leaves. Under her the thoroughbred moved with an ease and a freedom that were superb, throwing back one sharp ear at her lightest word; his rippling mane caressed her hand
and forearm, and as she looked down upon his shoulder she could see the long, slender muscles, working smoothly, beneath the satin sheen of the skin. At the water works she turned into the long, straight road that leads to North Lake, and touched Crusader with the crop, checking him slightly at the same time. With a little toss of his head he broke from a trot into a canter, and then, as she leaned forward in the saddle, into his long, even gallop. There was no one to see; she would not be conspicuous, so Laura gave the horse his head, and in another moment he was carrying her with a swiftness that brought the water to her eyes, and that sent her hair flying from her face. She had him completely under control. A touch upon the bit, she knew, would suffice to bring him to a standstill. She knew him to be without fear and without nerves, knew that his every instinct made for her safety, and that this morning’s gallop was as much a pleasure to him as to his rider. Beneath her and around her the roadway and landscape flew; the cold air sang in her ears and whipped a faint colour to her pale cheeks; in her deep brown eyes a frosty sparkle came and went, and throughout all her slender figure the blood raced spanking and careering in a full, strong tide of health and gaiety.
She made a circle around North Lake, and came back by way of the Linne monument and the Palm House, Crusader ambling quietly by now, the groom trotting stolidly in the rear. Throughout all her ride she had seen no one but the park gardeners and the single grey-coated, mounted policeman whom she met each time she rode, and who always touched his helmet to her as she cantered past. Possibly she had grown a little careless in looking out for pedestrians at the crossings, for as she turned eastward at the La Salle statue, she all but collided with a gentleman who was traversing the road at the same time.
She brought her horse to a standstill with a little start of apprehension, and started again as she saw that the gentleman was Sheldon Corthell.
“Well,” she cried, taken all aback, unable to think of formalities, and relapsing all at once into the young girl of Barrington, Massachusetts, “well, I never — of all the people.”
But, no doubt, she had been more in his mind than he in hers, and a meeting with her was for him an eventuality not at all remote. There was more of pleasure than of embarrassment in that first look in which he recognised the wife of Curtis Jadwin.
The artist had changed no whit in the four years since last she had seen him. He seemed as young as ever; there was the same “elegance” to his figure; his hands were just as long and slim as ever; his black beard was no less finely pointed, and the mustaches were brushed away from his lips in the same French style that she remembered he used to affect. He was, as always, carefully dressed. He wore a suit of tweeds of a foreign cut, but no overcoat, a cloth cap of greenish plaid was upon his head, his hands were gloved in dogskin, and under his arm he carried a slender cane of varnished brown bamboo. The only unconventionality in his dress was the cravat, a great bow of black silk that overflowed the lapels of his coat.
But she had no more than time to register a swift impression of the details, when he came quickly forward, one hand extended, the other holding his cap.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am,” he exclaimed.
It was the old Corthell beyond doubting or denial. Not a single inflection of his low-pitched, gently modulated voice was wanting; not a single infinitesimal mannerism was changed, even to the little tilting of the chin when he spoke, or the quick winking of the eyelids, or the smile that narrowed the corners of the eyes themselves, or the trick of perfect repose of his whole body. Even his handkerchief, as always, since first she had known him, was tucked into his sleeve at the wrist.
“And so you are back again,” she cried. “And when, and how?”
“And so — yes — so I am back again,” he repeated, as they shook hands. “Only day before yesterday, and quite surreptitiously. No one knows yet that I am here. I crept in — or my train did — under the cover of night. I have come straight from Tuscany.”
“From Tuscany?”
“ — and gardens and marble pergolas.”
“Now why any one should leave Tuscan gardens and — and all that kind of thing for a winter in Chicago, I cannot see,” she said.
“It is a little puzzling,” he answered. “But I fancy that my gardens and pergolas and all the rest had come to seem to me a little — as the French would put it — malle. I began to long for a touch of our hard, harsh city again. Harshness has its place, I think, if it is only to cut one’s teeth on.”
Laura looked down at him, smiling.
“I should have thought you had cut yours long ago,” she said.
“Not my wisdom teeth,” he urged. “I feel now that I have come to that time of life when it is expedient to have wisdom.”
“I have never known that feeling,” she confessed, “and I live in the ‘hard, harsh’ city.”
“Oh, that is because you have never known what it meant not to have wisdom,” he retorted. “Tell me about everybody,” he went on. “Your husband, he is well, of course, and distressfully rich. I heard of him in New York. And Page, our little, solemn Minerva of Dresden china?”
“Oh, yes, Page is well, but you will hardly recognise her; such a young lady nowadays.”
“And Mr. Court, ‘Landry’? I remember he always impressed me as though he had just had his hair cut; and the Cresslers, and Mrs. Wessels, and—”
“All well. Mrs. Cressler will be delighted to hear you are back. Yes, everybody is well.”
“And, last of all, Mrs. Jadwin? But I needn’t ask; I can see how well and happy you are.”
“And Mr. Corthell,” she queried, “is also well and happy?”
“Mr. Corthell,” he responded, “is very well, and — tolerably — happy, thank you. One has lost a few illusions, but has managed to keep enough to grow old on. One’s latter days are provided for.”
“I shouldn’t imagine,” she told him, “that one lost illusions in Tuscan gardens.”
“Quite right,” he hastened to reply, smiling cheerfully. “One lost no illusions in Tuscany. One went there to cherish the few that yet remained. But,” he added, without change of manner, “one begins to believe that even a lost illusion can be very beautiful sometimes — even in Chicago.”
“I want you to dine with us,” said Laura. “You’ve hardly met my husband, and I think you will like some of our pictures. I will have all your old friends there, the Cresslers and Aunt Wess, and all. When can you come?”
“Oh, didn’t you get my note?” he asked. “I wrote you yesterday, asking if I might call to-night. You see, I am only in Chicago for a couple of days. I must go on to St. Louis to-morrow, and shall not be back for a week.”
“Note? No, I’ve had no note from you. Oh, I know what happened. Curtis left in a hurry this morning, and he swooped all the mail into his pocket the last moment. I knew some of my letters were with his. There’s where your note went. But, never mind, it makes no difference now that we’ve met. Yes, by all means, come to-night — to dinner. We’re not a bit formal. Curtis won’t have it. We dine at six; and I’ll try to get the others. Oh, but Page won’t be there, I forgot. She and Landry Court are going to have dinner with Aunt Wess’, and they are all going to a lecture afterwards.”
The artist expressed his appreciation and accepted her invitation.
“Do you know where we live?” she demanded. “You know we’ve moved since.”
“Yes, I know,” he told her. “I made up my mind to take a long walk here in the Park this morning, and I passed your house on my way out. You see, I had to look up your address in the directory before writing. Your house awed me, I confess, and the style is surprisingly good.”
“But tell me,” asked Laura, “you never speak of yourself, what have you been doing since you went away?”
“Nothing. Merely idling, and painting a little, and studying some thirteenth century glass in Avignon and Sienna.”
“And shall you go back?”
“Yes, I think so, in about a month. So soon as
I have straightened out some little businesses of mine — which puts me in mind,” he said, glancing at his watch, “that I have an appointment at eleven, and should be about it.”
He said good-by and left her, and Laura cantered homeward in high spirits. She was very glad that Corthell had come back. She had always liked him. He not only talked well himself, but seemed to have the faculty of making her do the same. She remembered that in the old days, before she had met Jadwin, her mind and conversation, for undiscoverable reasons, had never been nimbler, quicker, nor more effective than when in the company of the artist.
Arrived at home, Laura (as soon as she had looked up the definition of “pergola” in the dictionary) lost no time in telephoning to Mrs. Cressler.
“What,” this latter cried when she told her the news, “that Sheldon Corthell back again! Well, dear me, if he wasn’t the last person in my mind. I do remember the lovely windows he used to paint, and how refined and elegant he always was — and the loveliest hands and voice.”
“He’s to dine with us to-night, and I want you and Mr. Cressler to come.”
“Oh, Laura, child, I just simply can’t. Charlie’s got a man from Milwaukee coming here to-night, and I’ve got to feed him. Isn’t it too provoking? I’ve got to sit and listen to those two, clattering commissions and percentages and all, when I might be hearing Sheldon Corthell talk art and poetry and stained glass. I declare, I never have any luck.”
At quarter to six that evening Laura sat in the library, before the fireplace, in her black velvet dinner gown, cutting the pages of a new novel, the ivory cutter as it turned and glanced in her hand, appearing to be a mere prolongation of her slender fingers. But she was not interested in the book, and from time to time glanced nervously at the clock upon the mantel-shelf over her head. Jadwin was not home yet, and she was distressed at the thought of keeping dinner waiting. He usually came back from down town at five o’clock, and even earlier. To-day she had expected that quite possibly the business implied in the Liverpool cable of the morning might detain him, but surely he should be home by now; and as the minutes passed she listened more and more anxiously for the sound of hoofs on the driveway at the side of the house.