by Philip Wylie
All Henry's composure vanished again. He drew in his breath as if he were about to do hard work and said:
"No."
"Then I'll be useful after all," she said gallantly. "I'll teach you how to make love, Henry. Possibly you may not find me ideally suited to your own needs. Doubtless after I've wasted many valuable evenings coaching you, it will turn out that you prefer brunettes. But I'm a girl of spirit. A stranger in a strange city deserves consideration.
When would you like your lessons? Say, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from nine to twelve-thirty with options on the next three hours? We'll begin with hand-holding, dinner-table flirtations, winking, nudging, foot-foot and progress from there to embraces, kissing, vehement phrases--"
She stopped because she had just looked at Henry. On his face was an expression of amazement and shock.
For a moment she was silent. Then, quickly, she took his hand.
' I'm sorry, Henry. I didn't mean to do anything like this to you. I was just kidding.
Teasing."
He looked at her then, turning his head slowly and he spoke in a deep, dull voice.
"It is I who must apologize. I have no idea under these circumstances of what I should do. I didn't know that ladies talked about things like that as you have just been talking about them. And if--I mean, since--they do, I don't know how to respond."
Marian nodded and relinquished his hand which dropped inertly on the stair carpet.
"I probably just wanted to find out what you'd do. You're pretty nice, Henry. I've never in this city, or any other, met two hundred and twenty pounds of absolute purity and punctiliousness before. The playboys up and down the avenues of this little home town of mine are decadent at fourteen. Look. I'll try to teach you what you ought to know without being mean to you. But first we've got to see the sights. I made grandfather promise to take me along. Do you mind?"
He stood up. "Not if you can further tolerate the society of a fool."
"It's called the Empire State Building." Elihu Whitney leaned forward and spoke to his chauffeur. "Just pull over to the curb a moment, Gedney."
Henry looked.
His eyes traveled to the cylindrical, shimmering apex of the colossal obelisk, and then back to the street. He watched the ant-swarm on the pavement as if he were wondering from what incredible source they drew sufficient courage to walk beneath these awful structures. He stared again at the surrounding buildings, dwarfed by the Empire State Tower.
Blue sky and sunlight seemed phenomena subsidiary to this man-made thing.
Perception of such magnitude made him ache. It was a shock to bring back his eyes to the old man and the girl who sat beside him in the tonneau of the car. They were still novelties--but in the confinement of an apartment they had seemed more like what Henry had expected people would be, than they did here on Fifth Avenue.
They were looking at him, waiting for him to speak. He tried to push the right words into his consciousness but they would not come. Instead, he looked again at the skyscraper beyond the place where its altitude was credible, beyond that to the place where his insular sense of proportion was shattered, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears.
He felt Elihu Whitney's arm around his shoulder. He heard the old man's voice telling the chauffeur to drive on. He realized in the midst of his poignant: muteness that the girl and her grandfather were exchanging a long meaningful glance.
"Your New York offices."
Once again Henry found his eyes straining upward at the window-made geometry of unleashed, up-leaping surfaces.
This time he smiled. "Mine? I really have rather nice offices haven't I? What floor are they on?"
Whitney chuckled. "Any floor you like. The whole building is yours."
"Very convenient."
"And another building just as big in Chicago," Marian said, looking at him, "and another in Seattle, and another in San Francisco, and one in Pittsburgh. Oh, you have lots of buildings, Henry. You can play house in almost any city in the country without having to pay rent. Of course I hope you'll make your headquarters in New York. But then I'm just a little frivolous girl who'd be jealous of the equally frivolous girls in the other cities if you moved."
Whitney half interrupted his granddaughter.
"Would you like to go in and meet Voorhees?"
"He's the man at the head of all father's papers, isn't he?"
"Your papers, my boy."
Henry considered. "He's the man who you say mismanages the estate? Goes in for cheap politics? Graft?"
"He's the man."
' I'm surprised, if what you say is true, that he was allowed to remain in such a powerful position."
The car had stopped at the curb near the doors of the Record Building.
Elihu Whitney glanced at the young man beside him. There was fire in his eyes when he spoke, yet he kept turning his gaze toward the tremendous bronze doors as if he expected an eavesdropper to come out of them.
"You're the only man in the world who can interfere with Voorhees, son. Let me repeat, I've been waiting for the day of reckoning that would be represented by your return--or your father's--for a whole generation and more. I was powerless, legally, to change anything so long as the Stone newspapers made money. But I've watched in silent fury, and with an aching heart, the perversion of the finest newspaper reputation in the world to a reputation for scandalous, brazen, unprincipled, thieving, lying, blackmailing, rabble-raising villainy. I've watched Voorhees become one of the most powerful men in the country, an elector of innumerable foul politicians, a salesman of bad securities, a giant public grafter, a scourge and a menace.
"You mustn't get so excited, grandfather."
Marian addressed the old man, but her eyes were on Henry.
Whitney shrugged. "I can't help it. What do you say, Stone? Shall we go up?"
Henry had no criterion for measuring sinister men. He had expected someone ugly in appearance and uncouth in behavior. But he saw, seated behind a magnificent desk in a vast, cool, tasteful, and altogether peaceful-seeming office, a man of perhaps fifty with curly iron-gray hair, bright, straightforward eyes--eyes that a more experienced person might have found too candid--with an urbane smile and an outstretched hand. He found a man, elegantly dressed, whose diction was impeccable, whose voice was cultured--a man with none of the seeming of the rascal.
Whitney took Voorhees' hand and smiled at his words of greeting:
"Elihu! Delighted to see you. It's been a long time. And you, too, Marian."
He looked then inquiringly at Henry.
The old lawyer allowed his inspection to continue for a fraction of a second, during which Voorhees’ face was subtly altered.
Then Whitney laughed, apparently in completely good humor.
"I see you're beginning to guess my little surprise. And you're correct. This is Henry Stone."
Once again the newspaper publisher's face betokened a slight, but definite, variation. He strode around his desk and seized Henry's hand in both of his.
"Stone! Good God, young man, what a surprise! And what a story!" He smiled ruefully, then. "And how we've mishandled it. We've made the young scion of our founder into a Tarzan, without any real information about him at all."
Henry, in the suit which Elihu Whitney had secured, with his absurd mustache shaved away, was certainly spectacular, but he made a picture far removed from the stone age, he was different from other men only because of his superb physique, his indelible tan and his immaculate eyes.
He answered Voorhees embarrassedly.
' I'm very glad to make your acquaintance. I don't think the reports of me which I have seen in the Record did my pride any permanent injury. But they did serve to add to my confusion."
The confidence of Henry's speech discomfited Voorhees.
He glanced at Whitney, who said archly:
"You see he will be quite able to look out for himself in this new-found world.
Even, I dare say, to look after his pos
sessions."
Voorhees surveyed Henry surreptitiously while he opened a desk drawer, took out a box of cigars and passed them. He glanced thoughtfully at Whitney as the old man lighted his cigar and observed a smile behind the gnarled hands.
Finally Voorhees spoke, his voice casual and his words identifying themselves in the air as exhaled smoke.
"You intend to follow your father's footsteps, Mr. Stone.
Henry shook his head diffidently. "My father trained me in as much of the theory and practice of newspaper work as he knew."
Elihu Whitney interrupted him.
"Going to be a rude awakening, eh, Voorhees? Back into our midst unsullied and unchanged, come all the ideals, all the eagerness, all the public principles and ambitions of an older and a better day. They come with millions behind them and a score of great newspapers for a voice. For years and years I've wished I was young again. And a thousand times I've wondered what this boy's father would do about the cesspool modern life has become. Egad, we'll find out!"
Voorhees' brow had faintly darkened, but he wore an industriously mustered expression of amused agreement. It was Henry who spoke, partly from common sense and partly because of the confusion into which he had been thrust:
"If you gentlemen are counting on me for any such exhibition, you seriously overrate me."
Whitney glanced hastily at him and so did Marian.
"Of course we don't expect you to set the world to rights in a day--"
Henry nodded. "Or perhaps never. You see I don't know anything about the world.
I'm just beginning to realize that what my father taught me about newspapers will be useless to me. It isn't my world or my responsibility. The sort of verbal fencing to which you have just resorted is not in accordance with my nature. If subtleties of this sort must exist, they will do so without me."
He paused.
"I see I have offended both of you, but I might as well make my position clear now as later."
Elihu Whitney broke through Henry's words with an anxious phrase:
"Don't you think you better reserve all your opinions until later?"
Henry shook his head. "I hate to be disappointing, but I've seen enough of newspapers to know that I'm an ignoramus where they are concerned. My father taught me to make decisions for myself and to make them quickly. I shall certainly spend a year, and possibly two or three, in the mere business of acclimating myself with this new and fantastic world."
He smiled a little.
"You, Mr. Whitney, in your eagerness to see certain ideas of your own materialize, and you, Mr. Voorhees, in your natural agitation about your future status in my concern, have both overlooked the fact that I have been in the most solitary sort of confinement and isolation all the long years of my life. To put any sort of responsibility on my shoulders, to expect me to assume any such responsibilities, is unthinkable. It is obvious that I shall be compelled, whether I like it or not, to leave everything in statu quo for a very long time. Have I made myself clear?"
To that long and careful speech there were three reactions. Elihu Whitney threw away his fresh cigar and grunted.
Marian stared through the high windows at the sky-line of New York, her lips pursed, her eyes amused and speculative.
Voorhees rushed forward and took Henry's hand. "By George, young man, your judgment is as sound as your father's is reputed to have been, and I shan't forget the meaning of this expression of your confidence in me. . . .
"This is Broadway," Marian said.
She seemed to be talking with an effort, and its cause lay, at least partly, in the fact that her grandfather had not spoken a word since they had left the Record Tower. She glanced at him and went on conscientiously:
"Street of fame and fortune, sin and sorrow. The Great White Way. The part we're going through now is Times Square. That triangular building is the Times Building. One of your competitors. Over there is the Hotel Astor. The skyscraper with the globe on top is the Paramount Building. Maybe tonight we'll take you to the movies. It's ten to one those two bleached-blond girls walking side by side over there do a sister act in vaudeville. And that man in the light tan trousers with the pink cheeks and the bright necktie--well--never mind about him. Don't sulk so, grandfather. What Henry said is perfectly true. It's as silly for you to expect him to launch all your ideas of reform in two hours as it is for him to pilot the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic."
Whitney did not even turn his head.
Henry glanced at the girl and then at the man and seemed almost to draw into himself physically as he did so. Finally he said in a deep and carefully measured voice, lifting it above traffic, and keeping his eyes straight ahead:
"You must admit that my moral obligation toward the world is debatable. You both would sympathize with my private reactions if you had spent as long a time as I have in so circumscribed a place. It is doubtless hard for you to realize that everyone of these myriad people on the street is a new experience, a new interest, a profound surprise to me. For the rest--I'm afraid I must continue to seem ungrateful for your hospitality, and overproud."
Elihu Whitney stirred angrily and thumped on the floor of the car with his foot.
"Bosh! I can remember when I was a young fellow. I used to talk that way myself.
Your stilted logic. Your damn impertinent self-assurance. I've thought of your home-coming as a great draft of fresh air but it's only a bad memory. Look at all these people, then, since you're so eager to see people. Their mouths are turned down. They are sick, dejected, weary, wretched, cheated. Their birthright has been stolen by profiteers--by men like Voorhees. You could be their champion but since you prefer to be a little brass Gulliver, living on your newspaper's dirty money, why, go ahead, young man. The world is certainly your oyster. That I can't dispute."
Again he stamped the floor.
Henry turned hotly and directly toward him.
"I'd rather not discuss my future any further. I was impressed by Voorhees. He is a competent man, I am sure."
Whitney made a disparaging sound in his throat.
"He's too damn competent. He frightened you, didn't he? That building and its elaborate contents frightened you, didn't they?"
Henry did not answer.
After some time Marian said:
"I now wish to point out, dismally, that we are arriving in Central Park. It has miles and miles of paved roads, many fine trees and flowers. A reservoir, bridle-paths and a zoo--"
Chapter Twelve: THE WOMAN
MARIAN came into the library where her grandfather sat moodily unoccupied in a huge chair. "L h read"
. unc. eon IS. y.
"Where is Stone?"
"He's upstairs in his room. I've sent for him."
The aged lawyer stood up and walked back and forth across the room.
"He's a misfit! A social anomaly! A popinjay!"
"He's been here less than twenty-four hours you must remember."
"He's made his attitude clear. He's afraid."
"Of what?"
Elihu Whitney snorted. "Of everything."
Marian shook her head. "I don't think he's afraid of what you think he's afraid of.
Did you notice him as we drove around this morning? He was excited by the skyscrapers.
He listened very intelligently to everything that was told him down at the Stock Exchange. He enjoyed the tour of the Record Building. But what he was really looking at all those hours, whenever he, had any sort of a chance at all, was women--all women, old and young, beautiful and ugly. That's what he's thinking about. That's what concerns him.
Everything else he said was just a sort of irritated desire to postpone the responsibility of being Henry Stone until he had in some way made up the interesting half of his biological life."
Whitney looked at his granddaughter. "By George, I wonder if you're right?"
She nodded.
He tugged at his beard and said:
"In that case we should put his problems behind
him as quickly as possible because I've got to see that boy do things in this world. With all the power he has--who's going to do it? You?"
He stepped up to his granddaughter and tilted her head back so that her shining hair fell away from her eyes.
"You'd like to, wouldn't you? But you'd have to remember that he's been trained by his father for thirty years and more to hate women, and to distrust them. He didn't act as though he had any emotions today, but I have a feeling that somewhere inside him there is a considerable fire burning, and it might not be the kind of fire that can be played with successfully. Then--consider yourself and him. It will certainly be a shock to him to find out that there is here and there a grain of truth in your checkered reputation. You're like all the girls of today. You look so angelic. And yet I imagine you could frighten a great many young men in a very few minutes--young men far more sophisticated than our
impeccable islander. Still--if you're right--we may find him married to the first little doxy who is kind to him. There is that to think of."
Marian raised her eyebrows. "Has it occurred to you that this is very strange counsel for a grandfather to give his granddaughter?"
The old man shrugged. "It has occurred to me that this advice is redundant and tardy and it has occurred to me that I, myself, have changed greatly since the seventies and eighties."
Henry opened the library door. His face was so impassive that discomfort was almost unreadable there.
A few moments later they were summoned to luncheon.
Elihu Whitney sipped his coffee.
Once again they had been spellbound while Henry talked about the island, although he discussed it with less enthusiasm than he had on the previous night and with some show of polite accommodation.
They were interrupted by a servant who handed a note to Marian. She read it arid passed it to her grandfather.
"It's a young man named Tom Collins. He wants to see you."
Whitney scanned the note.
"Collins? Collins? Tom Collins? Asinine name. Who is he?"
"He's a newspaper reporter," Marian answered. "He brought me home from Webster Hall one night after Billy Laforge, who had taken me there, had passed out. He's a nice boy and if he wants to talk to you, you'd better go and see him. He works for the Record."