Well, the evening was over. In the lobby Mrs. Shane captured them, pressed them to supper, all of them. It was Edgerton who did not want to go, and it was Mary who, having learned to read his Long Primer print very easily in her elbow-to-elbow working hours with him, made their excuses. It was Mary too, who heard Tony promising that he might be there later. She grimaced, hiding it under her hood. Was a man so avid of the moment's distraction worth luring? But that was for Hope to settle, not her.
"We'll get enough of the Shanes to-morrow," said Edgerton bluntly to Mary. "We've got to dine with them."
Mary nodded. Shane was involved in Edgerton's latest deal, for the power rights on the Kenatchee Falls.
Dine they did, and Tony was at that dinner, too. He had been of the theatre party by accident; he was always at Mrs. Shane's dinners—Cora Shane said to all concerned that she needed him to mix the cocktails—and thereafter, because of the sheep instinct in people, he was everywhere asked where Emily Edgerton was asked, which was everywhere, merely because people knew of the two initial occasions.
If he had wished just such a development in the first instance, it was by no means on account of Emily herself. He needed the financial backing of Edgerton; he had staked all his own money, and some he had got from his mother, not an enormous sum, on the Kenatchee Falls deal, and without Edgerton's help, he might just as well have set it sailing down the Bow River in paper boats. Shane's backing could do no more than get him a hearing and give him a little local prestige, for Shane, though growing rich as a small city counts riches, had many irons in the fire and needed all his loose capital for himself. But a word, a scratch of the pen, from Edgerton would unlock the vaults of any of the powerful banks; he could command money enough to dam the Bow with silver if he chose. He had more than money, he had credit; he was a man who never lost.
By sheer tenacity, the ability to play a waiting game, Edgerton had recouped himself time and again in deals where one less long-sighted would have given up and admitted defeat. And there were not a dozen men in the Northwest of whom so much could be said. Boom times do not breed shrewdness. Edgerton had not floated in on the tide of any boom; he had made his start a dollar at a time, and never forgot what a dollar cost in actual effort. He was the one man Tony Yorke wanted.
But it had to be soon. The franchise was already granted, passed but a few weeks before by a gratified Assembly at Edmonton. A provincial election impended within another twelvemonth, with a threat of an overturned government. The fear of that undesirable consummation had forced even the secret shareholders of the company, who sat in the Assembly, to assent to an obnoxious rider to the bill calling for certain work upon the power plant to be completed within the year—expensive work. There were ways, certainly, to obtain a postponement, but they were also somewhat expensive. They would be doubly so with a new provincial cabinet, hungry from enforced abstinence, to appease.
"With me," Shane told Tony frankly, "it's a gamble; and I'll have to pass up the next raise. I've reached my limit. But if we can get Edgerton—why, we'll just be taking over the bank, that's all. We'll have the percentage on our side. I hope we can get him. But he's a singed cat for caution. And it's no use crowding him."
That was very well for Shane; he played within his means. But Tony had put all he had on the table; he had to win.
Pennington Yorke—that was his full name, though he had nearly forgotten it himself—had begun his financial education at the wrong end: he had learned how to spend money before he knew anything about making it. In four dizzy years at college he had dispersed the nucleus of a comfortable fortune. Thereafter he had been in the position of the Chinaman who went tobogganing, as he explained once to Hope: "Whizz-z-z—go down like helle—walk back six miles!" The walk was long, and he would dawdle by the way and follow side-paths that attracted him. And tactically he had made a mistake in coming West, lured by the fabulous tales of equally fabulous wealth to be picked up over night.
All his personal assets here were valueless: connections, charm, social polish he found quite useless in a place where the social order was just emerging from a pastoral democracy. Energy was wanted, for these people were laying foundations, not adding the last touches and decorations; he was as little needed as a mural painter would be when only the framework of a house is built, and his rewards were commensurate. True, he had friends; and from them he got friendship of a sort—just what he gave, in fact, which was just what he did not need. At home he could if he had chosen to be a little patient have come into his own; but he had no patience, and the West looked to him like an industrial faro game, where everything might be won on a single turn of the wheel—and nothing lost, if one had nothing to lose.
He had, certainly, got Shane's countenance and support. Mrs. Shane saw to that. She was bored a good deal; she and Tony had in common a million trifles and a large selfishness. Shane liked Tony too, but if Cora had disliked him, she would have seen to it that her husband shared her feelings. As it was, Tony told her all his affairs, or, at least, all his financial affairs, and she sympathised with him. Nothing is easier, when one does not have to suffer through those affairs. She had even tried to help him with Edgerton; it was one of her notable failures, and it stung, rather. She did not forget it, though she had the wit to leave alone the further conduct of the business end of matters.
Bred to the current social code, her smouldering resentment did not prevent her being entirely amiable and gracious toward Emily Edgerton. After the dinner, she contrived that Emily should pay her duty call without her father; no hard matter. Mrs. Shane lived in one of the streets of trees; her house, though small, had an inviting porch covered with vines. Within, the furnishings had the charm of comfort and taste in daily use. The three rooms stretching across the front were practically in one, and gave the needed setting for a grand piano at one end, a carved oak sideboard at the other, and deep soft chairs everywhere. There were flowers, great pink roses, nodding to their own reflection on (he polished surface of the piano top. A darning basket, filled with silk stockings, beside them, in some curious way added the last touch necessary to express the mistress of the house. To Emily it looked elegantly Bohemian, and she was thrilled by Mrs. Shane's cigarette, tossed aside when she came in, but flagrantly burning, sending up delicate little blue spirals in betrayal.
Mrs. Shane rallied the girl, not too obliquely, about Tony Yorke, pumped her dry of all relevant and irrelevant information, filled up the vacancy with the pleasantest of impressions, and produced Tony, finally, as a conjurer brings a rabbit out of a hat. Tony himself had not at all expected to see Emily, but he supported the encounter with equanimity. Her quick blush at his entrance was not unflattering; naturally, he could not know what Cora had said not more than five minutes before. But they had had the pleasantest of rides, as Emily admitted by merely mentioning it: what a woman remembers is a good index to what she likes. On the whole, that sapient observation is no less true of men.
The half-hour following amused all three very much; Emily had all the jeune fille's pleasure in being almost shocked; Cora and Tony all the amusement of talking their own language over the head of an unconscious third party. And Tony told himself that after all Emily hardly deserved to be called a "nursery chit." Some day she would be a thorough woman of the world, and the reading of her unfulfilled promise was in its way as interesting as would be the contemplation of her final perfection. Bread and butter she might be as yet, but it was "the best butter." Besides, Tony had rather a liking for bread and butter, not unusual in a man who has sampled other and at times too pungent fare. It sharpens the palate, for one thing. Yes, Emily—Miss Edgerton, of course, in his audible address of her—had all the points, physical and mental. He found himself surveying with pleasure the fine, almost imperceptible curve in the line from under her arm to her slender hip; a rare beauty, which only the connoisseur observes. She had a well-turned wrist and ankle, too.
She was quite aware of his scrutiny, but did not change colour
; only surprise had brought that first blush. Quite naturally her truly innocent, girlishly immature mind set it down to honest admiration, perhaps dawning love. There is a stage of awakening consciousness, still clean of passion and therefore un-shamed in the wildest flights of imagination, when youth perceives in every new acquaintance of the opposite sex a probable lover. The earthy substance in which love must root is ignored; Emily was saved the embarrassment of reading anything grosser into Tony's gaze. In fact, it was not there; he could take an almost impersonal pleasure in the sight of a pretty woman, as a work of art. And he was now preoccupied with Hope.
"I'll take you to the Falls next time," he told Emily, laughing. "It's only fifty miles."
"Sir, you go too far," answered Emily. "But—I rather should like to see them. Are they pretty? I believe I'll ask daddy to take us up in the car. That's where he's going to build the power plant, isn't it?"
"Very pretty," assented Tony, exchanging a glance with Cora Shane. "So he is going to, is he?"
"Why, I suppose so," said Emily carelessly. "He's always doing something; I'm sure I heard him speak of it. Shall we consider it settled—going there, I mean?"
"Both, if you like," said Tony. "You evidently have a good deal of influence with your father, young lady."
"He spoils me horribly," agreed Emily. "I always tell him he has no right to ruin my character just to gratify his own selfish pleasure in giving me things— and he does it just the same. He'll be waiting for me now; he will dine at six o'clock. Good-bye, Mrs. Shane." She gave her hand to Tony, and her eyes therewith.
They watched her graceful progress to the front gate, where Allen Kirby waited with the motor. She sprang into it, smiled and spoke to Allen, turned and waved her hand, and was borne out of sight, a little princess of democracy.
CHAPTER XI
A GINN fizz, quick, Tony," said Mrs. Shane, yawning and stretching out a trim pair of ankles. "She's a darling child—but ten minutes more and I'd have expired, a perfect lady to the last. Dio mio, to think that ten years ago I was just like her!"
"The grace of God has stretched a long way in ten years," said Tony cryptically, going to the sideboard.
She smiled vaguely, losing the allusion. When she smiled, Cora Shane was singularly sweet. The ten years seemed to melt into the dimple at the corner of her red mouth; the curve of her cheek was flawless; even her bulk—for she was a large woman—only gave her an infantile softness. And her lovely, lucent sapphire eyes seemed to gather a tender light. Cora forgot that she had an ugly nose and no waist-line.
"Oh, yes," she assented, musing. "Really, really, I was the nicest child. By the way, any progress?"
"Nothing new," said Tony. "Didn't friend husband report?"
"Yes, but you saw Edgerton afterwards. Pull hard, Tony. It means Europe for me. I don't want to wait three years, as I must if this falls through. Besides, I'd like to see you win."
"It's good to have a friend," said Tony, and, as she took the foaming glass, kissed her wrist.
It was only his way; she knew it—but she liked it.
"How I'll hate to give you up, Tony," she sighed.
"Well! Is Lent approaching?"
"Oh, don't be stupid. I was just thinking ahead. This will cut your rope; you'll go away too, or marry. High time you did, and stop philandering. Seen Miss Fielding lately?"
She prided herself on her bluntness. And she did not miss the quick, calculating look he flashed at her.
"Oh, twice a day or so," he assured her jestingly. "Rather à propos des bottes, aren't you? You do get the weirdest hunches, Cora."
"I thought you might have, with the Edgertons," pursued Mrs. Shane coolly. "What do you make of that, anyway!"
"Of what?"
She shrugged.
"Oh, you know what people are saying. A man in his position, too! Men are all fools." Cora Shane even thought in clichés, which was why her set accounted her clever. To them cleverness was a formula.
"Guilty in general," said Tony. He was gazing at a pattern of the wall-paper. "But do be more explicit. Who's been doing what?"
"Really, how should I know? Eleanor Travers was here yesterday, and was absolutely up a tree about the invitations for their dance next week—you're going, of course. Someone had said something. Wanted to know if she should ask Miss Fielding. She has to ask the Edgertons, and Mary Dark, and Lisbeth Patten. Either way, she's afraid of committing a bêtise. I told her I'd ask the devil if I wanted. But I only shocked her." She laughed.
"But what did she hear?" said Tony gravely.
"I tell you I don't know. Jim Sanderson has some story; says he used to know her..."
"Jim?" said Tony, darkening. "Did he tell you so?"
"No. I had it all second, third, fourth hand. You ask him. And she goes out in Edgerton's car."
"What a rotten little hole this is," said Tony savagely. Because she did go out in Edgerton's car, Had he not seen her once? "She goes out with Miss Dark sometimes. In the motor, I mean. And she's known him for years. There's a clever girl, that Miss Dark. I believe she could almost swing this deal for us. The women here are all cats—saving your presence, ma'am." He wanted to turn it off lightly. And he wanted to hear more, if more there was.
"Oh, well, I have nothing against her," conceded Mrs. Shane handsomely. "She seems a queer little waif; I've never heard her say a word but yes and no. Ned Angell led us to expect an intellectual prodigy And of course you know the—ah—cats have hung your scalp at her belt. Does she say yes or no?"
"Both, as you observed," returned Tony promptly, his surface unruffled. "Damn the cats!" So he sold her, with that kiss on Mrs. Shane's wrist ten minutes before. "She is clever, really; sketches the quaintest things."
"Why couldn't she turn the trick for you," asked Mrs. Shane amiably, "if Mary Dark won't? And then there's still another chance."
"Show it to me," said Tony.
"I said it was time you married. There's Emily. What more could you ask?" She studied him covertly.
"Cora, you will absolutely drive me to a blush," said Tony equably. He was inwardly conscious of a slight exasperation, a feeling that Cora was capable of forgetting good taste. "I could ask no more, and should get a great deal less. Why are you so set on springing the fatal trap on me? What have I done to you?"
"Stolen my young heart," said Cora, with a ringing laugh. "Never mind; at my age it isn't serious. But if you had sat out three dances with me the first time I saw you, Heaven knows..."
He reddened.
She said no more. But, after he had gone, she was distinctly irritable, pondered over her dinner, and snubbed her husband until he look himself off to the club. And her own idle suggestion took root in her mind. Emily Edgerton—why not? Could he be such a fool as to be thinking seriously of Hope Fielding? A little outsider. That was her grievance, crystallised. Those who credited the report that she had a deeper right than mere friendship over Tony forgot how exquisitely selfish she was. Sometimes that will safeguard a woman's virtue quite single-handed. And if Tony feared her a trifle, as he undoubtedly did—why else had he lied so valorously and subtly but now?— it was half because he never cared to antagonise the —to him—really amusing set she represented, and half because she was stronger than he, in will. Besides, every man is afraid of every woman. He considers her either sub- or super- or else merely extrahuman; she is a superstition with him.
As for Mrs. Shane. Tony belonged to her set—to her. That extraordinary jealousy of the unplaced women, of the gay little unconsidered privateers flying no flag but their own, so often felt by their secure sisters, had her. It has deep roots, that jealousy. The very security of such as Cora Shane, their livelihood, is menaced by those others. Have they not given up the right to their own flag for an assurance of their own menkind, and all that rests on their menkind, the whole foundation of their lives? To have him marry Emily Edgerton would not hurt. It would, on the whole, be an acquisition to their set. But Hope— that would be treachery. In short, he
should not.
There was an end to it. Well, she had done what she could.
It was something, also. Going the idle rounds of hotel and club that evening, Tony woke with a start of disgust to the knowledge that he had been looking for Jim Sanderson. Revulsion carried him forthwith to Hope, but there was a little devil of curiosity pricking his brain. For a long time now it had been quieted, drugged by the sweetness of her lips at first, again by the cold fact of Edgerton taking Hope out with his daughter for the world to note. But he was harassed by the knowledge that both Edgerton and Hope were greater individualists than he; he knew, instinctively, that their actions would not square with what impulses would move him to like actions. Muddled, of course, but he could get no nearer a definition of his perplexity. Ned Angell, in like case, being a sentimentalist, would never have perceived the fundamental discrepancy, and so would have been satisfied. But Tony did; and his bewilderment annoyed as much as it hurt him. He fell back, with unconscious irony, on Cora Shane's word: they were outsiders. Hehad let Hope into his very heart, and she was an outsider still! A horrible miscalculation, somewhere. The changing order of things has laid many traps for such as Tony Yorke; they were better off, selfishly considered, in the days when there were just two kinds of women, their own kind and the others.
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