the command of a people then claiming self-government as their ancient
right--as now they begin again to do, facing our third War of
Independence.

"Going strong, isn't he?" commented one sardonically, within Rawn's
hearing.

"That's all right, my friend," was the smiling answer of yet another.
"Strong enough to make a lot of you hunt your holes yet.  There's quite
a few people in this little old country outside this island--and
he'll--"

"Nonsense!  No chance, not the least chance in the world!"

"You underestimate this new movement," began the other.

"New movement!--you're 'progressive,' eh?  Got that bee?  A lot of good
it'll do you.  It will be simply a new line-up following our old and
time-tried political methods--it all comes to that, take my word.  The
people aren't in politics.  A lot of professionals do our governing for
us."

"All the same, there goes the people's candidate!"

"Take him and welcome," was the answer.  "Take your candidate.  We'll
eat him up--if he runs."

They also passed on down the hall, gesticulating, their voices
swallowed up with others, arising confusedly.  This and that couple or
group passed by, also talking, among them many persons obviously of
notoriety, importance or distinction, though unknown to their observer.
Rawn stood and watched them all.  The scene was to his liking.  The
stir, the confusion, appealed to him.  The flowering of the great
city's night life was here, such as that is.  It was the focus of our
country's civilization, such as that is.  Men worth millions passed,
shoulder to shoulder, a wondrous procession, such as that is.

II

And here and there, always moving and mingling with those men whose
reception or whose raiment announced them as persons of importance,
moved women, beautiful women, floating by, brightly, radiantly,
rustlingly--women blazing with jewels, women with bright eyes, women
whose apparel bespoke them as accepted integers of the city's vast
human sum.

Rawn stood studying the procession for a long time, eying group after
group carefully.  A conclusion was forming in his mind.  He was
learning that when a man has achieved power, success, wealth, notoriety
even, he turns with his next thought to some woman; and finds some
woman waiting.

Not, as he reflected, a woman grown old and gray.  Not a woman with
finger-tips blackened and roughened, of bowed figure and ill-fitting
garb, of awkward and unaccustomed air--not to that sort of woman who
would be noticed here for her lack of fitness in this place.  No,
rather, as he noticed, men of influence or position or power turned to
such women as these about him now--of distinct personality, of birth
and breeding, or at least of beauty; women shimmering in silks, blazing
in gems, women who looked up laughing as they passed, women young and
beautiful, whose voices were soft, around whom floated as they walked
some subtle fascination.

Rawn pondered.  He saw passing a few men whom he knew, all with women
whom he did not know.  In each case his new-formed rule seemed to hold
good; the exception being noted only in the bored and weary faces of
men accompanied by women perhaps rustling and blazing in silks and
diamonds, but not owning youth and fascination.

John Rawn found that power and beauty go hand in hand; that money and
beauty also go hand in hand--which is to say the same thing.  He began
to ponder upon youth, beauty and love as appurtenances of wealth,
success and power.

"That's the game!" he said half to himself.  "Why, look at those chaps.
They look pretty much alike, act pretty much alike, too.  When a man
has money to burn, there is only one way--and there it is!"

And then it occurred to John Rawn with sudden and unpleasing force
that, although he was among this throng, he was not of it.  Himself a
man of power, success, yes, even of wealth, he lacked in certain
betokening appurtenances thereto.  A not unusual wave of self-pity
crept slowly over him.  Why should he, a man of his attainments, lack
in any degree what others had?

He stood pondering, not wholly happy, until presently he felt, rather
than saw, a glance bent upon him by a man who passed, a stately and
well-garbed young woman upon his arm.  He was a man now in faultless
evening dress, yet easily to be recognized--none less, indeed, than the
dyspeptic director who so summarily had been dismissed by John Rawn
himself not three hours ago.  His dark face became even darker as he
saw the victor of that controversy standing here alone.  He smiled
sardonically.  To Rawn it seemed that he smiled because he saw the
solitary attitude of a man as good as himself, as fit as himself for
all the insignia of power, yet publicly self-confessed as lacking all
such insignia.  He started, flushed, frowned.  He had shown these men,
these influential magnates in New York, that he could be their master
upon occasion--he had mastered this man passing yonder.  Yet now he
stood here alone, with no woman to advertise his power to the world;
and men laughed at him!  No woman wore his silks, displayed his jewels.
He was John Rawn, born to the purple; yet he might be taken here for a
country merchant on his first trip from home....

He turned to the key-counter.  The clerk, with infallible
instinct--without his request--handed him the key to his room, not
lacking acquaintance with men of Mr. Rawn's acquaintance, and knowing
money when he saw it....  Rawn passed down the hall, went up two
flights in the elevator, turned into the left-hand corridor, and at
length knocked deliberately at a door where a light showed.

IV

"Come!" called a soft voice.  He knocked again, a trifle hesitant, and
looked down the corridor, each way.  The voice repeated, "Come!"  He
pushed open the door.

Virginia Delaware stood before her dressing-glass, her toilet for
evening completed except perhaps for a touch or two about her coiffure.
She turned now, and flushed as she saw her visitor.

"Mr. Rawn!" she exclaimed; "I thought it was the maid!  I had just
called her."

Rawn turned and shut the door.  "Never mind her," he said.  "I will be
gone in a minute.  I just wanted--"

"You must go!" she exclaimed.  "You ought not to have come--it is not
permitted--it is not right!"

"How stunning you look, Miss Delaware!" was all he said.  He had never
before seen her arrayed in keeping with these other lilies of the
field.  Indeed, his life had given him small acquaintance with
conventions, or those who practised them.  He had no mental process of
analysis as he gazed at her now, or he might have seen that after all
the young woman's costume was no more than one of filmy blue, draped
over a pure and lustrous white.  He could not have named the fashion
which drew it so daringly close at hip and hem as to reveal frankly all
the lines of a figure which needed not to dread revelation for its own
sake, whether or not for other sake.  He could not have guessed what
skill belonged to the hand that fashioned this raiment, could not have
told its cost.  To him the young woman was very beautiful; and he was
too much confused to be capable of analysis.  The corsage of the gown,
cut square and daringly deep, displayed neck and shoulders white as
those of any woman of any city.  Her figure gave lines had her costume
not aided.  She was beautiful, yes.

V

And there was something more, Rawn could not tell what.  There was some
air of excitement, of exaltation, some sort of fever about her, upon
her.  In her eyes shone something Rawn had never noticed there before.
Hastily he made such inventory as he might of unanalyzed charms.  He
arrived at his conclusion, which was, that Virginia Delaware would do!

"You could travel in fast company, my dear girl," said he approvingly.

"What do you mean?"  She turned upon him.

"That you could go quite a considerable pace, my dear girl.  You'll
_do_.  Let me see your hands!" he demanded.  And in spite of her he
coolly took up a hand, examining the shapely finger-tips.  He sighed.
No needle had blackened or roughened them, the typewriter keys had not
yet flattened them.  He stepped back, looked at her from head to foot,
appraising all her graces, valuing her height and roundness of figure.
There was small light in his eye other than that of judicial approval.
She bore out his theory.

"You surprise me!" was all he said.

"How do you mean, Mr. Rawn?--But you must go, you really must!"

There came a knock at the door.  Rawn's negative gesture was positive.
After a moment's hesitation the girl stepped to the door and spoke to
the maid.  "You may return again in a little while, maid," she said.
"I'm not quite ready now."  In turn she stood with her back against the
door, her own color rising.

"Oh, don't be uneasy," said John Rawn smiling.  "This is quite
considerable of a hotel, taking it as it is.  There won't be any
scandal over this."

"I don't think I understand you."

"I'm going in just five minutes.  But I want to say something to you in
the way of a business proposition, Miss Delaware."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."  Her head was high, her color
still rising.

"Nothing in the least wrong, my dear girl," said John Rawn.  "It's
simply a matter of business, as I said.  You're here as my assistant,
of course.  But did it ever occur to you that as you stand there now,
and as I stand here, we might pass in that crowd below there and not be
known by _any one_?"

VI

She still stood looking at him, her color high, undecided as to his
meaning even now as he went on.

"It would be rather a pleasant experience, perhaps, for you--as it
would be for me--just to mingle with that giddy throng--say, for
dinner.  Would you like to be part of it?  It's just a foolish thought
that came to me."

She turned to him, her eyes bright, her face eager.  "Could we, Mr.
Rawn?" she said.  "I'm crazy over it!"

"I see," he commented dryly.  "You were dressing to go down to dinner?"

"No, no, I couldn't afford to do that, of course.  I couldn't go alone,
and I had no company.  I wasn't going down at all.  I just dressed
up--to--to--"

"Just to look at yourself in the mirror, isn't that it, Miss Delaware?"

"Yes, it's the truth!"  She turned to him calmly at last, well in hand
again.  "I couldn't be one of them--couldn't be like those people down
below, so I did the best I could up here--I dressed as much like them
as I knew how.  I--I--I _imagined_!  I dreamed, Mr. Rawn.  I've never
known a real evening of that sort in all my life--but it's in my blood.
I want to go, I want to dine, and drink, and dance--I'm mad about it, I
know, but it's the truth!  I want what I can't have.  I want to be what
I'm not.  I don't know what's the reason.  It's in the air--maybe it's
in the day, in the country!"

VII

"Yes, it's the country," said John Rawn.  "We're all going a swift
pace, men and women both.  I don't blame you.  I understand you.  Now I
know what you want."

"What do you mean?"

"You want just about what _I_ want."

"But, Mr. Rawn--"

"It's the same thing--it's _power_ that you want, just as I do.  I feel
it in the air when I come near you.  You feel the same way when you
come near me!"

She nodded rapidly, her eyes narrowing.  "Yes, it's true!" she said.
"That's true."

"You want to have it within your ability to influence men, just as I
do, don't you, Miss Delaware?  That's what was in your soul when you
stood before your mirror there when I came in, wasn't it, Miss
Delaware?  You want to win, to succeed, to triumph, don't you, Miss
Delaware--you've got _ambition_?  Wasn't that your dream--isn't that
what you were imagining, as you stood there and looked in your glass?"

"Yes, yes, it's true, I know it!" she admitted panting.  "I know it, my
God! yes, I can't help it!  But what chance have I?"

"All sorts of chances, my dear girl.  I don't make mistakes.  I told
you this is a business proposition.  Now, then, tell me, why did you
tog out this way?"

"I did it because I had to.  I told you I couldn't help it.  It was in
my blood to-night!"

"Any man waiting anywhere, Miss Delaware?"

"On my word, no!  I wasn't even going downstairs.  But I told you I was
mad to be in that crowd, where the rich people are.  I wanted to hear
the music, I wanted to see them--I wanted to pretend for one night that
I was a part of it all!"

"You wanted to win--you coveted power!  Is it not true?"

"Yes!" she blazed fiercely.  And indeed at that moment the room seemed
full of some large influence, moving, throbbing all about them.

VIII

"I wanted that," the girl admitted.  "All the world does!"

"I suppose you wanted to see some strong man fall on his knees and beg
of you?"

"Yes."

"I am sorry, my dear, but I'll not do that.  But I understand.  So you
searched out these glad rags and tried yourself out before the mirror
there!  Very good!  You'll do!  Believe me--or ask any man in all this
city."

She nodded rapidly.  "Yes, you know it, now."

"Now, you're no more mad than I am," said John Rawn.  "You're as
cool-headed as I am, if I know women at all.  We think alike.  You're
young.  I'm young enough.  Where'd you get that gown?"

"I had it made--in an alley, in the city back home.  It cost as much as
I could afford.  Thirty dollars!"  She flung out the words scornfully.

"It looks three hundred; and I've seen worse below to-night that
probably cost three thousand.  But it's not yet quite complete--your
costume."

"It was the best I had.  You ought not to taunt me.  I stood here
facing myself.  I felt disappointed, bitter!  Yes, I'll admit that."

"You needn't be," said Rawn calmly.  He nodded to her bare and
unadorned neck, her hair which lacked brilliants, her fingers left
unjeweled.  The girl caught his meaning without further speech, and it
hurt her yet more.

"What could I do?  Why did you bring me here, Mr. Rawn?  You've made me
unhappy.  I've seen it, and I can't be a part of it.  It doesn't seem I
can go back there to work and be just the same any more, after seeing
the city here!  I tell you, it's got in my blood, all at once."

"No," he said evenly, "not again just the same.  We outgrow ourselves,
and can't go back.  I'm not the same man I once was."  He
half-unconsciously shifted to get a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

"But now, my business proposition is very simple.  It holds good for
one evening, Miss Delaware.  I was just going to propose that we forget
all this unhappiness, and do a little pretending for one night, say for
one hour or so."

IX

He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and drew out something which
suddenly flamed into dancing points and rays in the light that fell
upon it.  She stood motionless while he passed about her neck a tiny
thread, delicate as if spun of moonlight.  She held out her hand, and
he slipped over it a gleaming ring of gems.  She bent her head, and he
placed a sparkling ornament in her hair.  She had seen these jewels
before.  She turned to the glass now, her bosom heaving as she saw them
gleam at her own neck, her own hands, in her own hair.  She held out
her hands to look at them now, and the gems flashed back challenge to
her eyes, sparkling yet more brilliantly.

"It was nothing," said John Rawn tersely.  "That's all that lacked.
You're good as the best now.  I've seen no woman in this city that is
your equal in beauty.  You were born for this life.  Now do you
understand what I mean?  I say, you can carry it off!"

She turned to him, another woman, changing on the instant, something in
her eyes he had never seen before.  But in his own eyes there was at
the time nothing save the original calm and purposefulness.

"As I was saying, then, since we can both carry it off, why not do so
for an hour or so?  I've read somewhere of masquerades.  Why not try
it?"

She turned to him, flushed, radiant, but slightly frowning, puzzled,
studying him.  Rawn felt the query of her look, felt also something
stirring down in his nature which he grappled at once and was able to
suppress.  His voice was cool and low as it was before.

"It's a big crowd below, and we'll be lost in it.  I've learned already
that you can be discreet.  We'll drop down in there, where no one knows
us.  We'll try ourselves out, and see whether we'll do, here where the
test is hardest.  You're ambitious?  So am I.  This is the heart of the
world--the place of gratified ambitions.  What do you say, Miss
Delaware?  I've been looking around down there, and as nearly as I can
see, I'm the only man in this avenue worth a million dollars who at
this precise moment of the day isn't talking to some good-looking
woman!"

"You flatter me!" commented the girl.  He did not endeavor any analysis.

"Not in the least!  I simply talk sense and business to you.  I covet
what you covet, love what you love, want what you want.  Things which
are equal to the same thing ought to be equal to each other--for just a
little while, Miss Delaware.  Isn't it true?  If it is only play, why,
let's play at it.

"I forgot to tell you," he added, "that my son-in-law, Mr. Halsey, has
gone back to Chicago.  He was summoned by wire.  No one else knows us
both.  There wouldn't be one chance in many of our being seen by any
one here who knew either of us, and if so, what harm?  We'll go and
dine as well as the best of them, in the main room.  What do you say,
Miss Delaware?"

X

She stood facing him now, seeming years older than she had a few
moments before.  A very skilled observer might possibly have suspected
a certain new quality in the calmness of her eye.  Beautiful she
certainly was; alluring, irresistible in the ancient appeal of woman,
she certainly ought to have been, and would have been to any but this
particular man who now stood facing her, half smiling; a man of middle
age, gray about the temples, of heavy-browed eyes, strongly lined face,
of strong and bony frame; not an ill-looking or unmanly man one might
have said, though years older than this young woman who stood now
threading between her fingers the filmy moonshine chain which suspended
the points of flame that rose and fell upon her bosom.

At last she said, hesitating, and holding up the flaming pendant, "I'm
not to keep them?"

"No, Marguerite!" he smiled.  "This particular Papa Faust retains a
string on those jewels.  They have been seen elsewhere, my dear girl.
No, one night's use of them is all this business proposition carries,
my dear."

He began to be just a shade more familiar; but she looked at him, still
curiously helpless, because she found him strong where most men are
weak and defenseless.  He caught some sort of challenge in her attitude
and in spite of himself trod a half step forward....  She evaded him.
He heard her laughter rippling in the hall, and followed....  Soon they
were in the crowded lift, packed in against shirt front and aigrette,
silks and jewels, arms and bosoms bared for the evening's fray.

XI

It may be true that no gentleman is grown in less than three
generations, but it is not the case that it requires three generations
to produce an aristocrat; and here was simple and perfect proof of that
assertion.  Head waiters make no mistakes!  The head-waiter of the main
hall unhesitatingly took John Rawn and his companion to as good a table
as there was in the room.  He knew the air of distinction when he saw
it!

Heads, in plenty, of men and other women, turned as they passed through
in that careless throng of the world-wise and blasé.  They walked by
quietly, simply, took their places with no ostentation.  John Rawn had
bethought him earlier as to the dinner order.  He gave his directions
now quietly, without hesitation.

The two ate and drank discreetly, comported themselves, in fact, easily
as any of these scores of others.  They did not lean toward each other
and obviously talk secrets, they did not laugh uneasily and stare
about.  Among the many well-bred women in that room--where at least a
few such were present--none showed an easier accustomedness than
Virginia Delaware.  Her eagerness, her feverish anxiety, all now were
gone.  She was perfectly in hand.  It was her pleasure now only to
prove her fitness for such a scene, to comport herself as though she
had known no other surroundings than these in all her life.  Once more
the miracle of possibility in the young American woman was shown.

Rawn, discreet as his companion, looked on with approval.  "You're
_it_!" he once whispered across the table, as he bent above the menu.
"You _are_ the part!"  Suddenly there came to him out of this occasion
an additional surge of self-confidence.  Yes, he said to himself, he,
too, could travel this gait.  He could step easily into this life, the
summit of life in America--as he thought--as though born to it.  He
could spend money with the best.  He could obtain for himself as
beautiful a woman to wear his jewels as any man here in all this great
city.  He could as widely advertise his power, his wealth, as any of
these.  Did he not see envious eyes bent upon his companion and upon
himself?  It was done!  He had won!  He had succeeded!

XII

After all, it had been easy, as he had found so many things easy in the
test.  As to the young woman with him, John Rawn's cold heart went out
in admiration.  "By Jove!" he said, "she's a _lady_, that's what she
is.  She'd be--"  Yet it is to be noted that his admiration for this
young woman was primarily based not upon the usual impulses of men so
situated, but upon a vast self-respect, for that _he_ had placed her
here and so proved his own judgment to be good.  Some souls are slow to
any love but that of self, the approbation of self being the breath of
life to them.  Even the beauty of Virginia Delaware--and she was
beautiful--was swallowed up in John Rawn's love and admiration for
himself.

There was, thus far, no suggestion of impropriety between them, now or
later.  They dined long, deliberately and well.  Miss Delaware drank no
wine, Rawn himself only abstemiously.  The keenest delight of the
evening felt by either came not of food or drink.  The intoxication of
the city's night life fell upon them, entered their souls.  Distant and
low-voiced musical instruments set the air athrob with sensuous melody.
Flowers bloomed, jewels blazed, soft voices rose, wine added its
stimulus here and there.  Cut beyond this luxury, this sensuousness,
beyond the novelty of it, beyond the vague impulses of a common
humanity which runs through all the world, they felt the last and
subtle delight which comes with an admitted assuredness of self--the
consciousness of power and ability to prevail, the certainty of knowing
all the path, all the full orbit of the great.

XIII

As they sat thus calmly, apparently, as most might have said, old
habitués of scenes like this, apparently persons of wealth and
distinction, Rawn felt once more bent upon him the look of a passer-by.
There approached the table where they sat the couple he had seen
earlier that evening, a stately and beautiful young woman, whose
features now were a trifle more animated, whose eyes were brighter; and
with her the same dyspeptic director, sallow, with pointed dark beard.
His face flushed still more as he saw John Rawn and his companion.  He
turned an admiring gaze upon the latter, whom of course he did not
recognize.  Rawn caught the gaze.  It was the keenest delight of his
evening that he could smile back, showing his own teeth also.

"By Jove!" muttered the ex-director to himself.

"I beg pardon!" haughtily commented his own fair companion, who had
caught his gaze aside.  "You know that person?  Who is she?"

"I don't know, my dear--I'm just trying to think.  Her face--it looks
like the goddess on some stock certificate I've seen--"

"Indeed?"

"Yes, goddess with a handful of lightning bolts."

"Indeed?"

"Yes.  We might call her the 'Lady of the Lightnings' to-night.  She
surely does shine like the bright and morning star, the way she's
illuminated--eh, what?"

"Indeed?"

"Well, hang it all!  Yes.  She's a looker, too!"

"Indeed?"

"Yes, _indeed_!  And they both look like ready money."  The ex-director
gave a little laugh.

"You don't know them?" asked his companion, more placated as they
readied the corridor, where Virginia Delaware was at last out of sight.

"No, I don't know her--never saw her before, unless, as I said, in an
engraving.  Don't worry--I haven't got any of the engravings--now."

"Who is he?"

"Fellow by name of Rawn, from Chicago."

"Oh!"

CHAPTER VII

JOHN RAWN, PROMINENT CITIZEN

The blare and blaze of American life went on in all its capitals of
industry.  Buildings sprang up, factories poured their smoke
unceasingly into the sky.  Men ran hither and thither like ants, busy
about what seemed to them of importance.  Vast hives of heaped-up stone
twice daily poured out their population of small creatures, some of
them crippled, hurt, shorn in the battle of life, their faces pale,
their forms bowed and stunted before their time.  Out of the rich West
poured always a steady stream of the products of the soil and of the
mines, wealth unspeakable, dug from the resources of this admirable
country of ours.  Many produced it, a few controlled it, all required
it.

But there came a sort of hush over all the country, as though an
eclipse were passing, or some gloom cast by a cloud coming between
these cities and the sun.  Men said that business was not so good as it
should be, though the country was richer than ever.  None understood
the popular unrest.  Many pondered, many attempted to explain, but they
found all save the easy and obvious explanation.  The masses remained
morose, dissatisfied.  Pamphlets appeared.  In the journals pretending
to give voice to popular trend of thought there were now to be seen
many screeds from many unknown men.  Some men said that prices should
rise, others that rates of transportation should rise, but that wages
should decrease.  Others said that wages should increase--a few only of
these, not many; for those who needed most a larger wage were those
most dumb of expression, least able and least apt to make any public
protest.  Our proudest may be our poorest--our neediest our most silent.

II

In John Rawn's slowly growing factories near the western capital wages
did not rise.  He kept on his fight with the labor organizations.  For
this reason he met additional expense and additional delay in carrying
on his plans, but still waged war, relaxing not at all, meeting pickets
with policemen, force with force.  The popular discontent of the day
meant nothing to him.  His eye was fixed ahead.  To Halsey's complaints
on the one side, his directors' discreet grumbling on the other, he
paid as little attention on the one hand as upon the other.  John Rawn
had a dream, and he knew that his dream must come true.  His dream was
one of a wide-reaching and relentless power, shared by those few men
destined by fate to own the so-called American republic.  Let the
people do what they would, all they could.  This was his dream.  It had
come to him in all its fullness one evening in the great city of the
East.  He exulted.

As to the industrial situation in International Power, Rawn now began
to prove himself a good business man, and he received more and more the
grudged confidence of his associates, who came from almost every rank
of big business.  Through the aid and advice of these, his private
fortune began to mount up enormously.  So also did International Power
make money.  The only sore place of the directors' overstrained nerves
centered in affairs at the gaunt building in the suburb, where a dozen
mysterious machines, toothed and armed, cogged and coiled, still stood
in a state of half-completion, as inchoate and mysterious now as they
had been at their inception.  None of the workmen, none of the foremen,
could guess what they would look like when completed.

There was something else, which not the most suspicious guessed--_John
Rawn himself did not know!_  His success was a vast bubble.  Halsey was
the only man who ever had known the full secret of mantling one of the
miraculous receivers which they all had seen and all had accepted.
Rawn, bold enough, kept this to himself, although he feared to go to
Halsey and make any demands.  Halsey held grim peace for
months--indeed, for more than four years in all, counting from the
first motor made in the Kelly Row woodshed.  It was risky, but for once
Rawn dared make no desperate move.  Halsey talked little.  He was very
sad since the birth of his hunchbacked child.  Sometimes he talked to
Virginia Delaware about it; never to his wife, Grace.

And still the seven days' wonder of International Power remained to
puzzle the industrial world.  No inkling of the real intention of the
company ever got out.  There was, as Rawn had predicted, no market for
the stock, for the reason that it was not listed and for the further
reason that it was not sold.  It was held in a close communion of
hard-headed and close-mouthed men, and there were no confidences
betrayed.  The thing was too big to conform to ordinary rules.  In the
center of all this stood the figure of John Rawn, suddenly grown large
and strong.  He ruled his army, officers, staff and line, cavalry,
infantry and auxiliaries, as one born originally to command.  He
brooked neither parleying nor thwarting of his will--except in one
instance.  He never made any demands on Halsey, never gave him any
peremptory orders after that one day in the office, months earlier,
before Halsey made his first trip to New York.

These months seemed to have aged John Rawn, none the less.  He grew
grimmer and grayer, more taciturn and reserved.  At the clubs he was
one of the most talked-of men in town, and one who talked least
himself.  As his hair grew grayer at the temples, his jaw grew harder,
at the corner of his chin coming the triangular wrinkles which go with
hard-faced middle age.  Enigmatic, self-centered, he could not have
been called a happy man.  He smiled but rarely, joked not at all,
engaged in no badinage, told no stories, found no lighter side of life,
played no golf, had no vacations.  Like some vast engine of tremendous
driving power he went on his way, admired in a city and country full of
able men, as one competent to hold his own with the best and strongest
of them all.  And still of all his traits stood out the one of
self-confidence.  He played a game of enormous and continuous
risk--fundamental risk by reason of Halsey, incidental by reason of his
widely ballooned market operations; yet his nerve held.  Moreover, he
was learning the price of success--an absolute devotion to the means of
success.  When he learned that the child of his daughter was not a son,
but a girl, and that it was a hunchback for life, a sad-faced,
unsmiling child--he set his jaws for a moment, but said few words of
condolence, either to his daughter or her husband.  He did not smile
for three months after that, and never referred to this subject again,
after its first discussion with his wife at Graystone Hall; but it cost
him no time and no energy lost from business.  It only deepened in his
soul his growing hatred for Charley Halsey, the man whom he dared not
chide.

IV

In the headquarter offices a vast, smooth running business machine had
now been built up.  Rawn was an organizer.  The laxness and looseness
of the old railway offices in St. Louis, where he had got his business
schooling, were missing in the headquarters of International Power.
Employees had small time to gossip in business hours.  Out of business
hours, it is to be confessed, once in a while there was discussion as
to the salary of Miss Virginia Delaware, which was reported a wholly
instable affair.  It was rumored in stenographic circles that she had
taken to wearing very stunning evening gowns.  Yet not the most
captious--though willingness did not lack--could raise voice against
her, or couple her name with any other.  Rawn and she were never seen
together excepting during business hours; he never mentioned her name
in any company.  Once or twice a laughing voice at the National Union,
where rich men met in numbers, tried to create some sort of discussion
over Rawn's beautiful private secretary, but it was so suddenly stopped
by Rawn himself that it never was resumed.

Upon the other hand, few could speak in definite knowledge regarding
the domestic matters of John Rawn.  He was a man of mystery, though one
of known and admitted power.  He held what he gained; and, as there
must have been accorded to him strength of soul, grasp, readiness,
courage, he began to be accepted as one of the large figures of his day
alike in industry and finance.  He had by this time fully arrived in
the prominent citizen class in his chosen metropolis.  Did firemen
perish, John Rawn joined the list of those who aided the widows.  Was
some neighboring city swept by flames, again he joined--on the front
page of the papers--those who gave succor for the needy.  Did a famine
in India or China sweep off a million souls, John Rawn--on the front
page--aided the survivors.  He was a member of the leading clubs of the
city, a director of the board of the art institute.  He bought if he
did not occupy a box at the opera, and allowed his name to be mentioned
at the banquets offered by eager souls to celebrities of one sort or
another who proved themselves amenable to receptions, banquets,
addresses of welcome, and what-not, anything to bring lesser names into
print on any page, tails to any kite.  In short, John Rawn comported
himself as a prominent citizen should.  Ever he was the kite, never the
tail.  He loomed a large and growing figure in his little world.

V

Above all, there seemed something uncanny in the unvarying facility
with which Rawn made money.  There is no real explanation of the
difference in money-making power, except that some men make money and
some do not.  Rawn did, without any doubt or question.  Not lacking
ability and calmness in judgment, and not lacking full information such
as is accorded those said to be upon the sacred inside of the market,
he was in and out of Rubber, Coppers, Steel, at precisely the right
time.  His oil investments in California, played up and down in proper
symphony, had made him more than a million dollars, smoothly, easily,
simply.  The railways market was an open book to him, and Public
Utilities seemed something he could gage while others stood and
wondered.  There are times when some men win.  Rawn could not lose,
whether he dealt in Ontario Silvers, Arizona Coppers, anything he
liked.  He was in with the pack when, in these last fierce days of
individual and corporate greed, it finished pulling down a republic,
and battened, guzzled at the bowels of the quarry.  He partook with
these of a broad knowledge of the narrowing raw resources of the
country, and was in with them at the death.  He was one of those to get
hold of large acreages of the passing timber lands, he was counted with
those who sought the great coal fields for their own; ran true to
scent, with these, the trail of monopoly in any commodity which the
people more and more must need.  In the one matter of his relations
with a certain transcontinental railway, Rawn made a quarter million as
his share of the three-quarters of a billion taken in sales of mineral
lands from the railway's land-grant holdings.  That the grants had
covered only agricultural lands mattered little, for when the sleepy
government at Washington reluctantly took the trail, it was shown a
law, cunningly passed a few years earlier, which barred the republic,
by virtue of a six-year statute of limitations, from recovering any of
its own property!  John Rawn often laughed over that.  He laughed also
when the "suckers," as they called them, bit just as eagerly at
irrigation as they had at mines.  He often laughed--it was all so
ridiculously easy to pull down a country, when the running was in good
company!  He was a prominent citizen.

[Illustration: (Rawn and Laura)]

CHAPTER VIII

A PRINCELY GENEROSITY

Mr. Rawn went on with the pack.  He was in and out of the market.  His
money grew.  His ambition also grew.  He felt coming now upon him
another change.  He said to himself that he was now about to pass up,
into yet another era of his development.

One day, after his usual day's routine, he closed his office door, took
his car at the curb, dropped in at his club, imbibed the two cocktails
which were now his evening wont, and again emerging, nodded to his
chauffeur in the fashion which meant "Home!"  They passed on out again
through the floating crowd of various and often vulgar vehicles,
northbound--shrieking aloud in a vast united chorus, demanding speed,
speed, and yet more speed--along the throbbing arteries of the city's
population.  At last he stopped once more at the front of Graystone
Hall.  "Forty-five minutes, Dennis," said he to his driver, snapping
his watch.  "Twenty-one miles; you'll learn it after a while."

Mr. Rawn was in exceptional good humor.  He was at peace with the world
and with his conscience.  He looked about him now calmly, with
approbation in his gaze.  His gardeners had done wonders.  The walks
were solid and well kept, the greensward sound and flourishing.  These
late stubbed and desolate trees were now wide, green and branching.
The crocus borders were unbroken, the formal monochrome beds, here and
there upon the lawn, showed clean-cut and distinct.  The tall pillars
of his motley house even had a green veiling of ivy, swiftly grown by
art, and not by time.  On a terrace a bed of foliage plant, thirty feet
long, grew in the shape of a word--a magic word--"_Rawn_."  If any
passer-by wished knowledge as to the creator of all this, he might read
as he ran--"_Rawn_."

Rawn passed up the steps and looked out through the long hallway from
the rear of the house, or rather its real front, which lay upon the
lake shore.  Beyond, he could see the faint curl of the distant
steamers' smoke against the horizon.  He stopped for a moment, drinking
in the scene, of which he never tired.  There were birds twittering
softly in the trees about him.  He caught the breath of flowers, coming
to him from the halls within.  Yes, it was an abode suited for a
prominent citizen.

There came to meet him now the quiet footfall which he had come to
expect, not always patiently or with pleasure, as the natural end of
his day's labors; his wife, Laura, had never forgotten this daily
greeting of the old-fashioned wife to her husband, as the latter
returned at the close of his day's labor.

II

He stopped as he heard her slow tread upon the stair.  She was coming
to meet him.  She always did.  He, John Rawn, controller of men, a man
born to succeed and going yet higher, had only, after all, an
old-fashioned wife!

It was an emergency this evening.  He was accustomed to meet
emergencies.  He had come to-night prepared to meet this one.

"Laura," said he, after the servants had drawn the curtains and left
them alone in the central room, whither they had repaired after dinner;
"sit down here, I want to talk to you a while."

"Yes, John," said she quietly.  But she looked at him startled.  Her
face grew suddenly grave.  Be sure the brute advancing to the poll-ax
knows its fate.  That was the look in Laura Rawn's face now.  "Yes,
John," she said, knowing what blow was to be hers.

He motioned her to a seat beyond the little table and seated himself
opposite.  Reaching into a bulging pocket, he brought out a thick
bundle of folded papers; long, narrow papers, most of them green,
others brown, or pale pink.  He pushed this bundle across the table, so
that his wife must see it.  She reached out a hand, but did not look at
it.

"What is it, John?" she said.  Her hand tarried, her face went still
more weary and gray, became even of an ashier pallor than was its wont.

"It's a trifle, Laura," said John Rawn.  "Look at it.  There's bonds
and gilt-edge dividend-payers for just exactly _one million dollars_!"

"One million _dollars_, John!  What do you mean?"

"Look at it, see for yourself."

"But, John--what does it mean?"

"It means a great deal, Mrs. Rawn, a great deal for you.  It took some
work to make it on my part.  There are not ten men in this town to-day
who could draw out of their business clean, unhypothecated securities
for a million dollars.  I've seen to it that all these are registered
in your name.  It's my gift to you, without reservation."

"John, how could I thank you--but I don't want it!  I've not earned it,
I wouldn't know what to do with it.  You're always so--so kind, John,
with me.  But I can't take it!  It's not mine!"

"It is yours, Laura.  And you've got to take it!"

"But I don't want to!"

"I want no foolishness," he said sternly.  "That money is yours.  You
can use it as you like.  Of course, I will counsel with you as to
reinvestment the best I can.  I don't want to see the interest wasted.

"I don't ever want to see you in need," he went on.  "I don't counsel
loose investments.  My lawyers will also tell you what to do with your
money, and they'll put up to you a list of good, safe, savings-bank
investments, the kind that fools and sailors ought to have.  I'll help
you choose, if you like.  I don't want to be ungenerous.  This is your
estate."

"My _estate_!--But, John, I'm your wife!  I don't care for this money.
I don't understand it, and I don't want it.  I want to be your _wife_,
John, the way I always was--I want to help--I want to be useful to you
all the time, as I've always tried to be."

"Precisely, Laura, and I appreciate that feeling very much.  I feel the
same way.  I want to be as useful as I can to you.  We have always been
loyal to each other, faithful with each other; I know that.  There are
not ten men worth my money in this town to-day who can say what I
can--that they've been faithful to their wives as I have been to mine.
You've been a good woman, and you've worked hard.  You say you haven't
earned this money, but I think you have.  We've been useful, yes, to
each other.  But when we can't be any more, Laura, why then--"

The tears burst from her eyes now.  He frowned, that she should
interrupt him, but went on.

"It shall never be said that I was unkind to you, Laura.  Indeed, I
shall always feel kindly to you--always remember what you have done."

"But you don't, you _don't_, John!"

"I don't?  What do you mean by that, Laura?  Isn't there the proof?
Isn't there a _million dollars_ lying right in front of you on that
table?  And you say this to me, who have just given you a cold
_million_!"

"That's it, it's a _cold_ million, John," said she bitterly.  "It's
_cold_!"

"Good God!  The unreasonableness of woman!" said John Rawn, upturning
his eyes.  "Now I've thought all this out as carefully as a man can.
I've denied myself, to take this much capital out of my investments and
set it aside for you.  I can make five millions out of that money in
the next five years.  But no, I reserve it, and I give it to you
without stint.  I give it to you for your estate, so that you shall
never know want--more money than you ever had a right to dream of
having.  You do that for a woman, and what does she say?  Why, she
doesn't _want_ it!  Good God!"

IV

"John," she said, struggling for her self-control, "you might at least
tell the truth."

"What do you mean--the truth?"

"It's some other woman, of course!"

"I swear to you, Laura, it's nothing of the sort.  I've been guilty of
no act with any one--"  But she shook her head.

"Don't I know?" she said.  "It's always another woman.  She's a young
woman, whoever she is.  Why don't you come out and tell me the truth,
John?  How long before you're going to be married?"  The tears were
welling steadily from her eyes, under the last of the many and bitter
torments which are so often a woman's lot.

"I say to you again, Laura, there are no plans of that sort in my mind!"

"Then how long will it be before our--our--"  She could not say the
word "divorce."  She had been an old-fashioned wife.

"I've no plans as to that.  I was only wanting to discuss the matter
quietly to-night, without any disturbance."

"No," she said, "I must not break down!  Tell me, when does it come,
John?"  But still the tears came, steadily, and she made no effort to
stop them.

"When you like.  I would suggest that you quietly go to some other
place, Laura.  That will be best for me.  Why--" he added this in a
burst of confidence, "--there wouldn't be twenty people around town
would know you'd gone!  I can keep a close tongue, and so can you."

"But, John, why should we?  I've never crossed you in any way.  I've
always tried to do what you liked.  Why should we part?  I'll be
willing just to live along here quietly.  I can't bear to think of
going away.  I like my things.  John," she said suddenly, and seemingly
irrelevantly, "who told you about all these things, these collectors'
pieces that you've been getting for so long?"

He winced with sudden self-revelation, astonished at this intuition on
her part.  He had been sincere in his statement that there was no other
woman in his affections.  He had only forgotten that he had no
affections.  He flushed now, but tried to pull together.

"Very well, Laura," said he; "you only prove to me what I've felt for
some time.  You can't understand me, you simply are not up to my
requirements.  I'm willing to say _you'd_ be content to live along
here, just as we did at Kelly Row.  _I_ am not content to do anything
of the sort.  I've been thinking over this, studying over it for some
time.  There's the answer."  He nodded toward the bundle which lay upon
the table.

V

"It's no use trying to make the world all over again, Laura," he said
after a time.  "We've both done our best, but our best didn't tally.
We've hung together.  What's right is right.  Is it right for me to be
dragged down by your own limitations--ought I to stop in my own career
to conform to that?  Would that be right, now, Laura, for a man like
me?--Is it right for any man?  If you can't go forward, ought I to go
back?  If we can't both travel the same gait, whose gait ought to
govern?  Whatever you do, don't blame me, that's all.  But you _did_
blame me--you do now."  A grave look sat upon his face.  He felt
himself an injured man.

"Yes, John," she said.  "I do."

"Of course, of course!  That's the reward a man gets for loving his
wife, treating you as I have.  Well, we're not the first to face a
situation of just this kind.  Things travel swifter now than they did
when we were children, or when we were married.  What did then will not
do to-day.  Why blame ourselves for that?--blame the time, the way of
the world, the way things go to-day.  This country has changed--it goes
faster every year.  We've got to keep the pace, I tell you, when we get
into it.  Those who can't must drop out, and that's all there is about
it.  I was born for the front, and that's all about that.  Don't blame
me.  I've never blamed you!"

"Then, what _do_ you blame, John?"

"Nothing, I say.  It's the way life runs.  We're married, why?  Because
we thought we were to have some property to protect.  There is much to
be said in favor of the marriage institution.  It holds property safe
under its contract.  _Property_--that's the sign of power!  _Property_
is the only reason for marriage; or for government, when it comes to
that.  _Property_ is the token of power.  I've got that!  But something
else goes with it!  Why, Laura, when I look at us both I wonder that
I've been patient so long, held back as I have been by your own narrow
ideas.  If you'd had your way, you'd have set up Kelly Row right where
we are now!"

VI

"I'm old-fashioned, John," said she, her head high, though her tears
fell free, "I'm just an old-fashioned, worn-out wife, that's all.  I'm
not so very much, John, and I never thought I was very much.  I just
did the best I could, all the time.  I couldn't seem to do any more,
John.  I don't know how.  I did my best!"

"We all do!" said John Rawn philosophically.  "We all do our best.  But
when our best isn't good enough to keep us up, we go down!"

He spoke generously, gravely, judicially.  He was arbiter, in his own
belief, not husband.  The country had changed since they two had
married.

"Yes, there's much to be said for the institution of marriage, Laura,"
he repeated after a time.  "In fact, it is a necessity, as society is
organized.  But divorce is a natural corollary of marriage.  There are
contracts, and broken contracts.  That's all!"

"What is a--a corollary, John?" she asked.

"It's a consequence; it is something that follows.  I meant to say,
that if it is right for two people to be married, it is right for them
to be divorced when the time comes.  It's _property_, and the
consequences to property, which sometimes determine that!"

"But we said, John, when we were married--I swore it with all my
heart--'Till death do us part!'  It isn't death.  I wish it were!"

"No, it's property," said John Rawn.

VII

"But all this serves no purpose," he continued.  "I don't want to have
you make this hard for me!"

"Ah, God!  How you've changed, John, since the old times!  How you've
changed!"

"So that's it, is it?" he rejoined bitterly, "I've only changed, and
you're sorry that I changed.  Well, suppose we agree to that.  I _have_
changed!"

"What do you want me to do, John?" she asked after a time, her breath
still, in spite of herself, coming in sobs.  "When do you want me to
go?"

"To-morrow, Laura.  There's no use waiting."

"Very well; where shall I go?"

"Why, I don't dictate to you, Laura--I leave that all for you to
determine.  You can be happy as you like, and where you please.  I
would only suggest, if you ask me, that you take up a residence in some
quiet community, a sort of place that seems to suit you."

"Very well, John; I've not many friends here to leave, that's true.
I've not been happy here; I never would be.  I'll agree to that much.
I believe I'll go back to our old town--I'd feel better there!"

"You've good judgment, Laura," he noted with approbation.  "What you
say has good sense about it.  Very likely you'd be more happy there
than here.  But wherever you go, don't forget your old husband, John.
Deep in my work as I shall be, I will always think of you, Laura, with
nothing but kindness.  I want you to think that way of me--to remember
that I've been kind to you, always.  You will, won't you, dear?"

She did not seem to hear.  Her face was bowed down upon her arms, flung
out across the table.  She was an old-fashioned woman, and still silly
enough to pray to the God who had placed her in this world of puzzles.

END OF BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

CHAPTER I

THE EXTREME MONOGAMY OF MR. RAWN

It is always more or less annoying to put away a wife.  Even if the
expense of the process be little, as in these modern days it has come
to be, and even if consent thereto be mutual, as is so often the case,
there are in practically all cases so many unpleasant attendant
features as almost to dispose one to favor the abolishment of the
marriage idea, and to condemn it as one not destined to survive in
these days of modern competition.  This, the more especially as regards
that monogamic idea of marriage which the government at Washington
harshly seeks to extend over our entire domain.  As to the idea of
polygamy, much may be said in its favor.  Thus, if one be tired of one
wife, or bored by another, in polygamy it is easy to shift the domestic
scene to a third, and that in wholly good-humored fashion.  The idea of
divorce has about it something almost personal, as though one were
displeased over some matter, as though one held in one's heart
something actually of criticism, or dissatisfaction, or mayhap
condemnation of one's own earlier judgment in the selection of a
helpmeet.

Again, even after divorce has been consummated, there are so many small
habits to be broken, heritage and hold-over of relations but recently
sundered.  For instance, if one has been accustomed every Friday
evening to have shoulder of pork and boiled cabbage at table, and if
only one woman has evinced ability to prepare shoulder of pork and
cabbage in the proper manner, and if that woman has chanced to be one's
lately current wife, it is, let us repeat, an annoying thing to find
that that particular woman, after deliberately forming and fostering in
one a craving for shoulder of pork and cabbage--after having
established an addiction, as it were, in one's soul for that viand--has
with shameless disregard of wifely duty and domestic decency obliged
one to divorce her, perhaps _ex vinculo_, or at least _ab mensa et
thoro_.

And again there may be yet other habits upon the one hand or the other
which must be broken or readjusted.  If one's wife--or one of one's
wives--has been in the habit of leaving her tatting each afternoon on
the top of the table near the best view out of the bow window, and if
one sees continually this abandoned tatting permanently left there in
the confusion of her permanent departure--it is annoying, let us
repeat, to be reminded of a habit to whose creator we have said
farewell.  It causes a mental ennui constantly to be removing tatting
or embroidery.

Or, if one's current wife has had the old-fashioned and not wholly
well-bred habit of meeting one at the door of an evening, at the close
of the day's labors--just as in the evening the cave woman greeted her
man at the mouth of the cave to ask him what had been the fortune of
the day's hunt--and if now that footfall, ill-bred, yet after all
habitual--and was it wholly unwelcome, after all?--shall have ceased
for ever, with what equanimity, let us ask, can we regard the memory of
the woman who formed that habit and handed down an annoying expectation
to her husband, impossible of fulfillment after her departure?

It is, as John Rawn wisely has said, true that much may be said in
favor of the idea of marriage; yet upon the other hand, how very much
there is that could be said against it, or at least against it as
implying an unrestricted continuance, offering no change in
association.  The which is by way of saying something to prove John
Rawn's excellently philosophical course in life to have been quite
correct.  There could have been no doubt as to the wisdom of his
marrying Laura, his wife, in the first place, no doubt as to the wisdom
of continuing the marriage relation with her for many years; but, upon
the other hand, it is obvious that his idea of the timeliness of the
divorce in due season was equally wise.  Indeed, the only reservation
in his mind in regard to this latter matter was one of censure for a
woman who, having entered into the holy state of matrimony with a
gentleman of his parts, had had the temerity to create in his soul an
addiction for shoulder of pork and cabbage; who had left her tatting
upon the table; and who, departing, had given no future address whither
her tatting might be sent!  Yes, Laura Rawn had been, without doubt or
question, an unreasonable and unkind wife.

Above all it was wrong for a woman to go away and leave her late
husband feeling so much alone.  Why should he, John Rawn, be allowed to
become conscious of a feeling of lonesomeness?  Why should he be left
to dread the drawing of the curtains at night, when there remained only
the pound of the surf along the wall, the wail of the wind in the
cornice?  One chloroforms a formerly prized dog, but misses it.  It is
much the same way with the divorced wife.  Too many unpleasant features
attend the process of such separation.  Any civilization worth the name
ought to devise some method less annoying for this which Mr. Rawn has
so fittingly described as the corollary of the marriage rite.  Surely
our boasted age has its drawbacks, its shortcomings!

II

Some men in such circumstances brood; some drink; others search out the
other woman or women.  John Rawn was cast in different mold.  He had,
in short, spoken truth when he told his wife that he had no new
matrimonial plans.  Situated thus, yet handicapped thus in his
new-found solitude, but a few days had passed before he sent over for
his daughter, Grace, and her husband, Charles Halsey; there being in
his mind a plan to mitigate certain unpleasant features of his life as
he now found it ordered.

He greeted Halsey and Grace at the door gravely, with dignity, when
they came one evening in response to his invitation.  They entered,
just a trifle awed, as they always were, by the august surroundings of
Graystone Hall, so different from their own cottage near the factory.
The owner of the place looked well the part of owner here.  John Rawn
still was large and strong, the city had not yet much softened his
lines.  His hair now was whiter about the temples, but its whiteness
left his appearance only the more distinguished.  You scarce could have
found in all the haunts of prominent citizens a better example of
prominent citizen than himself, John Rawn.

The major domo took the wraps of the young people and vanished
silently.  Rawn, waiting for them in the drawing-room--not in the hall,
as once he would have done--with dignity motioned them to places in his
presence, even brought a low chair himself for the sad-faced,
hunchbacked child which represented the Rawn succession in the third
generation.

"Go kiss grandpa, Lola!" said Grace to her daughter; and went to show
her the way.  But the child, turning suddenly, only hid her face in her
mother's skirt.

"Laura's timid," apologized the mother.  The disapproval on her
father's face was obvious enough.  He had passed bitter hours alone,
pondering over this child, hesitating whether to love it or to hate it,
whether to accept it or to regard it as a blot upon his life.  He had
hoped a grandson, since he no longer might hope a son of his own.  This
crippled child was the sole Rawn succession.  His pendulous lower lip
trembled for a time in the self-pity which now and again came to John
Rawn.  It seemed hard enough that he, John Rawn, president of the
International Power Company, should have no better evidence of
gratitude on the part of fortune.  He hated Halsey all the more.

But now he did not lack directness.  "Grace," he said, "I've called you
over to-night because to-morrow, as you know, is Friday."

"Yes, Pa."

"And as you know, Grace, your mother--that is to say, the late Mrs.
Rawn, always had the way--in short, I may say that she induced me to
depend upon--I mean to say that always she had shoulder of pork and
cabbage for Friday evening.  Now, I am left alone, helpless--it is too
much!"

Mr. Rawn made no attempt wholly to conceal his just emotion.  "Now look
at me," he resumed.  "Your mother went away, and selfishly neglected to
take into consideration this habit, or to provide any means for meeting
it.  My chef has tried often to prepare this dish.  I must say he
always has failed."

"Why don't you write to Mrs. Rawn and ask her for the recipe?" asked
young Halsey soberly.

"That is not practical," rejoined Mr. Rawn icily, "even did I know that
lady's present address; as I do not."

His daughter sat gazing straight at him, under her heavy brows, but
made no comment.  Grace had not improved with years.  Her face was
heavy, pasty, her expression morose.  The corners of her mouth turned
down, and deep vertical frown-wrinkles sat between her dark eyebrows.

"But I do not wish that name mentioned again," said John Rawn raising a
hand.  "I dismissed that thought of asking her aid as something
unworthy of me.  Let Friday come.  I shall seek no aid outside of those
from whom it may fitly be expected."  Ah, hero!

IV

"Now, Grace," he continued later, turning toward her, "I know very well
you're a good housekeeper."

"She is that!" Halsey nodded.  Continually he forced himself into such
approval of his wife as he could compass.  Continually he refused
comparisons.

"Precisely, and skilled in all the dishes which the late Mrs. Rawn had
as specialties.  You do not know how things are running here, Grace.  I
can't get anything done on time, I'm at untold expense all the time,
and am deprived of what I really want.  Grace, I need a housekeeper!"

"Surely, Pa.  Why don't you hire one?"

"How much better off would I be in that case?  None in the least.  No,
I want you.  You'll have to come over here to live!"

The young couple sat gazing at him for a time before making reply.

"That's impossible, Pa," said Grace.  "I have a home of my own, and
it's more than twenty miles from here."

John Rawn raised a hand.  "I have thought all that out.  You reason
now, as so many do, when any distinct change of life is proposed to
them.  You let the little things outweigh the larger ones.  It was a
fault your mother had.  Now the large matter, the really important
thing, is this--that I can not be allowed to live on here in this way
with all these annoyances.  Too much depends upon me, in business, for
me to have the quiet and peace of my life interfered with.  I've got to
have a clear head--especially on Saturday.  Now, then, if you can step
in here, my daughter, and establish in some measure the sort of life I
have always been used to, evidently that is your duty, and you ought
not to balance against it the small inconveniences which that course
would cause you and your husband.  I'm quite sure you can teach that
chef--"

"But, Mr. Rawn, I've got to be at the factory almost day and night!"
broke in Halsey.

"Precisely.  I do not mean for you to make your home here, only Grace.
You'll have to stay on where you are.  Of course, you can come here at
times to report, at least once or twice a week--say Friday night.  Very
much depends on you, Charles.  You know how much I value you, how much
I rely on your services.  Really, it all depends on you, our success as
a company.  We've been very patient, although I must say--"

V

Halsey muttered something under his breath and turned away.  His
attitude angered Rawn to the point of forgetting himself.

"Never mind what you think about it, young man!  It's what _I_ think
about it that counts.  Grace belongs here, anyhow.  She will have a
wider life with me.  It's time she had some things which she has never
known.  It may be necessary for us to travel, to see something of this
country and Europe.  Besides, this child needs care.  All these things
cost more money than you can afford, young man.  Don't try to balk me
in what I suggest.  It is obviously the right thing to do."

"But how long--"

"Indefinitely!"

"And you want me to break up my home 'indefinitely'?  Well, I must
confess I don't in the least see it that way, Mr. Rawn."

"You're selfish, and that's why you can't see it, Charles.  Above all
things you ought to avoid the vice of selfishness.  You are not parting
from your wife, but only helping her to a better grade of living.
Meantime, of course, your duty to her and to the company is to make a
success of your work.  Think of your business, my son.  There is no
good comes of selfishness.  Try to be just.  And for God's sake, also,
try to get one of those machines done!"

Halsey only sat and looked at him darkly for a time, making no reply.

"It seems to me that I can never get you to understand, Charles,"
resumed Rawn, "that things are not the way they used to be before we
came here to Chicago.  I'm a bigger man now than I was then.  I've
grown these last two or three years, my boy.  I should not be surprised
if eventually I were obliged to make my residence in New York, if
indeed not abroad.  We are rising in the world, rising very fast,
Charles.  Do you want to go up with the Rawns, or stay down with the
Halseys of this world?  Besides, in this case you ought to respect the
wishes of your own wife.  You want to remember, my dear boy, that my
daughter, Grace, is half Rawn as well as half Johnson.  The only
trouble with her is, the Rawn half has not yet had its innings."

VI

Halsey turned and stared at his wife.  He found her sitting with her
dark eyes fixed, now on her father, now wandering hither and yon over
the rich surroundings in her father's home.  To his intense surprise,
she had as yet issued no veto to this calm proposal to which they all
had listened.  In his surprise he forgot comment of his own.  What
caused him greatest surprise of all was his secret feeling that he was
not so reluctant to this arrangement as he ought to be!  He pondered
Grace, her sour visage, her morose air.  He recalled countless angry,
irritated, irritating words.  He looked, and saw no longer any feminine
charm.  It took all his resolution not to question why he had ever made
this choice.  Almost he began a certain comparison.

"Now let this end it," resumed John Rawn.  "Let comforts, and let
luxuries, come where they have been earned.  It's the Rawn half of
Grace that has earned the luxuries, Charles, if I am willing to give
them to her.  Take what you can get, my son, of comfort and luxury in
this life--after you've earned them.  But earn them first.  Your place
is over there at the works.  This is your opportunity.  Fall in with my
plans and I'll carry you along.  Don't try to hold Grace over there
when she belongs here.  Don't be selfish, Charles."

He relented just a trifle.  "I don't say this is going to last for
ever.  Pull off success over there for us.  I'll tell you what I'll
do--the day you can charge a storage battery car from one of our second
current receivers--finished and in place there in the factory--and run
it from the factory up here, I'll make you a present of fifty thousand
dollars."

VII

"And about Grace--?"  Ah! that comparison--

"She'll be a good deal closer to you then than she is now.  She's half
_Rawn_, I tell you, Charles; and love in a cottage does not suit the
Rawn blood to-day!

"But I'll tell you--" his face lightened a bit at the jest--"you can go
on with your brotherhood of man ideas over there at the factory.  I
hope you love them--those brothers who are trying to ruin me and this
company!  Try them out--associate with them--love them all you can.
Compare that life with this, my boy; and when you've done your work,
for which you are paid--when you can charge one car at one receiver,
and come from that life to this, on the strength of your brains and
your own ability, as I have come here myself--why, I say I'll give you
a slice of a million dollars!  Then you can compare that life with
this, and see how you like the two.  I've made up my mind already about
that!  So has Grace."

Halsey turned once more to his wife.  She had changed in the last few
minutes.  Her eye was brighter, her color higher.  She was gazing not
at her husband nor at her child, but at these rich surroundings.

"I wonder if I could play one of my old pieces on the piano any more
now?" she said gaily, rising and walking to the seat of the grand piano
which stood across the room from them.  "I've been so _busy_--"

CHAPTER II

ASPARAGUS, ALSO POTATOES

What is written is written.  Grace moved to Graystone Hall and Halsey
remained at the factory cottage; nor did the separation, which was
regarded by both as merely temporary after all, afflict either to the
extent that both had supposed it would.  Grace now became acting
mistress of a large and elaborate _ménage_.  As to her husband, his
domestic affairs fell into the hands of Mrs. Ann Sullivan, wife of Jim
Sullivan, Halsey's most trusted foreman in the factory.

Mrs. Sullivan, blessed with six children of her own, alleged that it
would be no trouble whatever to her to take on the sweeping, mending,
and all else for an additional household, and to furnish meals for the
solitary head thereof; and such was her ability to make proof of all
these statements that she in part was to blame for the sad truth that
Halsey was not as unhappy as he ought to have been.

The chief reason for Halsey's easy readjustment, however, lay somewhere
in his comparison of the Halsey blood with blood half Rawn.  Grace had
been cold, after all.  She had openly been discontented, and especially
unhappy since the birth of the deformed child.  She had left him and
gone to her father with no great protest; nor did she, at the occasions
of their rare and lessening visits, display more than lukewarm interest
in her husband and her former home.  Within six months she was
beginning to blossom out in raiment, in demeanor.  She spoke of things
not in his knowledge though in hers.  She was changing.  She was going
up in the world.  He, for the time at least, was doing no better than
to stand still; as the factory now was doing, and International Power,
also--marking time, waiting for something.

II

Ann Sullivan was not a bad philosopher, besides being a good cook, and
at times she did not hesitate to engage Mr. Halsey in conversation when
they met at this or that time of the day; as when by chance, one
noontide when he came home for lunch, he found her sweeping down the
front stair.

"You're lookin' lonesome to-day, Mr. Halsey," she remarked without much
preliminary.  "You're fair grievin' for your wife, I suppose?  But why
should you expict anny woman to stay here whin she has such a Pa, with
such a house as her Pa has?"

"Would you have gone over there, Mrs. Sullivan?" asked Halsey, stopping
and feeling in his pocket for a pipe of tobacco.  It was a question
they often had discussed.

"Would I?  In a minnit!  I'd lave Jim Sullivan for iver if I'd one
chanct such as your wife had."

She grinned, but her look belied her speech.

"What I'm wantin', Mr. Halsey," she went on, "is what anny woman wants.
I want a di'mond star to wear on me head whin I'm sweeping flures.  I
need di'mond earrings and bracelets to wear whin I'm makin' your beds,
you mind; and a silk dress that hollers 'I'm a-comin'!' whin I start
out to scrub the steps.  Ain't it the truth, Mr. Halsey?  Ain't that
what ivery woman in the wurrld, at laste in America, is wantin'?"

"Sure," nodded Halsey.  "Don't forget the automobile while you're
wishing."

"True it is!  Whut woman of anny social position has not got her
awtomo_beel_ to-day?  Luk at me.  If I had me rights, I'd have me
electric bro'om brought to the coorb ivery mornin' for me to go to
market; and ivery evenin', after I'd got me sweepin' done, I'd have me
long gray torpedy corm around to take me and Jim out fer a fast spin up
the bullyvard.  Me with di'monds on my hair, with rings on me fingers
an' bells on me toes, a-settin' there an' lukkin' scornful.  Oh, I was
born in Ireland, but I'm American now.  The day Jim Sullivan gives me
what is me due, and I git me first awtomo_beel_, 'twill be the proud
day fer me--the day whin I'm first fined fer vi'latin' the speed law of
the city.  'Tis a great counthry this!"

Mrs. Sullivan grinned happily at her romancing; but presently set her
broom against the door-jamb and turned to speak more in her real mind.

"Anny woman wants to blackguard a little once in a while, Mr. Halsey,
sir, and all women like to lie twice in a while.  I'm just lyin' to you
now, because the birds is singin' and the weather is so fine.

"Listen!  Anny woman that's goin' to be happy is goin' to be happy
because of the stomach she has for eatin', and the joy she has for
dancin', and the heart she has for love of her man and her childern.
And anny woman that has her heart in the right place is goin' to stand
by them and not by herself; and not by anny one ilse.  Try me and see
if I'm lyin' now!  You're the boss.  Fire Jim Sullivan to-day, and see
do I stick with him, or do I go with some man that gives me di'monds,
and awtamo_beels_.  I'd stick--and so'd anny other woman that loved her
man and her childern."

"I'm glad you think so, Mrs. Sullivan."

"You know I think so!  Oh, maybe it's because I wasn't born in this
country.  Over there, 'tis the woman helps to make the stake.  Here,
she helps to spend it.  'Tis a fine counthry this--fer policemin.  So
far as bein' happy in it's concerned, I dunno!  Maybe it's the Irish in
me that's happy, and not the American.  I dunno again.  'Tis all a
question which you want to be, rich or happy!"

"Or useful!" ventured Halsey.

"They're the same.  Bein' useful is bein' happy.  Ain't it the truth?"

Halsey nodded again and Mrs. Sullivan reached once more for her
implement of industry.

"Jim Sullivan fits in his job," said she.  "He's strong and can hold
his job all right.  I'm strong, and I can hold mine here, just the
same.  We've only six childern, and I wish 'twas a dozen.  No, it's no
trouble to take care of this house, too.  I'm only thinkin' of that
little lamb of yours she tuk away with her.  'Tis a mother she nades."

"Please don't, Mrs. Sullivan," said Halsey quietly.

"I mane no harm, and I'm feelin' fer you, me boy, you havin' a crippled
child to face the world where even the strong has hard enough times
ahead.  Still, she'll have money, maylike!"

"Well, Mrs. Sullivan, I'm not sure of that--"

"Of course it's none of me business--of course not.  But only look at
the sky and only hear the birds this mornin'!  You're young, and God
may give you two yet the dozen that I have longed for, denied as I do
be with only six.  You'll be goin' up yerself some day, with all thim
rich folks, Mr. Halsey, boy.  I'm stayin' here with Jim Sullivan.  Whin
we can't afford sparrowgrass we eats potaties."

IV

"But tell me, Mr. Halsey," she went on shrewdly, "how long will we be
havin' even potaties to eat?  Ye don't keep min there in the factory
long--there's not many at wurrk now.  Besides, there's no smoke in thim
chimbleys!  And 'tis time.  _What's the mystery there, boy?_"

"A good deal of labor troubles," commented Halsey non-committally.

"More than _that_!" she insisted, drawing close to him.  "Listen!  I
mean well to you, boy, and so does Jim.  He'll stick.  But Jim told me
the night that he could walk out, and pick up a clean tin thousand
dollars fer the walkin'!"

Halsey controlled himself.  This was news of staggering sort.  "Why
doesn't he, then, Mrs. Sullivan?  That's a good deal of money," he said
quietly.

"Yes, why doesn't he?--with me half American and gettin' more so aich
year,--me a-needin' di'monds and awtomo_beels_!  The fool Irish!  'Tis
maybe his ijiotic idea he ought to stick."

Halsey made no answer except to look over at the gaunt factory
buildings.  A blue-coated figure was pacing back and forth before the
door.

"There's Jim Sullivan workin' inside, and there's Tim Carney walkin'
beat outside," she resumed; "and the pickets tryin' to break in, and
some one _else_ tryin' to break in.  What's it about, Mr. Halsey?  For
the company?  _What's_ the company?"

"It furnishes asparagus for some, and potatoes for others, Mrs.
Sullivan."

"Oh, does it, thin?  Does it mind that potaties costs more than they
did, and so pay us better, or worse, for what we do?  If what we eat
goes up, we can't live; and if we can't live, them that can has got to
support us somehow.  Ain't it the truth?  What's the ind of it, me boy?

"I'm not askin' about the justice of it, but about the business of it.
If our men starve, what'll we do?  Mr. Halsey, sir, we'll raise hell!
That's what we'll do!  Too much asparagus in this country, and too few
potaties, and thim of a bad class, is goin' to raise hell in this
counthry.  Ain't it the truth?

"Luk at Jim workin' there.  And luk at Tim protectin' of him.  'Tis
fine, isn't it?  I'm thankin' God, meself, there's birds and sunshine
in the world.  If it wasn't for thim and the priest, I'm wonderin'
sometimes what us poor folks would do."

V

"The theory is that some men are born stronger than others, Mrs.
Sullivan, and so entitled to the asparagus," smiled Halsey.

"Is it so?  Jim Sullivan yonder is strong in what makes a man.  In what
makes a woman I'm strong.  Hasn't God got a place fer us, as well as
Mr. Rawn?  And if God don't give it, haven't such as us just got to
_take_ it?--I don't mean the asparagus, but just the potaties?"

"But I've said enough," she went on, turning suddenly.  "'Tis only
because I'm fond of you, me boy, that I've said so much.  There's
devilment and mystery goin' on here.  I don't ask you what your mystery
is, so don't ask me what is mine.  Jim's likely to stick, and so am I.
'Tis likely we can be useful in the world, and as for bein' strong,
we're strong enough to have each other.  And as I was sayin', we've the
birds and the sunshine--and the priest!  So take your mystery you've
got in there, and match it up with mine.  L'ave Jim Sullivan alone, and
when these two mysteries git together, yours and ours, why, maybe
there'll be _hell_!"

Halsey did some thinking when he was alone.  He knew now, and had
known, that something, somebody besides the pickets of the labor
unions, had an eye on this mysterious factory of theirs.  He had felt
for a long time that there was an enemy working somewhere, that a spy
was making definite attempts to get secret information.  Now, this
unknown enemy was able to offer ten thousand dollars bribe money.  The
case was serious enough.

It was worse than serious.  He had been sufficiently warned.  Why,
then, his pipe cold in his teeth, did he sit staring now and think of
things altogether apart from the factory?  Why did he dream of the
birds and the sunshine?  Why did comparisons still force themselves
into his mind, and why did he long for something life had not yet
brought to him--something that Ann Sullivan and her man owned, though
they had so little else?

THE SILENT PARTNER

There are men who make a living, sometimes a very good one, through the
process of teaching others to do what they themselves can not do.  You
can purchase for a price in any of many quarters printed maxims
embodying full formula covering the secret of success; in each case
from one who has not succeeded.  Nothing is cheaper than maxims, in
type, in worsted, or in transparencies.  To be in the fashion you
should have certain of these above your desk, and should incline your
ear to those who profess to teach what can not be taught even by those
most nearly fitted to teach.

John Rawn cared little for maxims, being above them, in his own belief,
at least.  In all likelihood he had never read the advice of the
philosopher, to wit: that each man should hitch his wagon to a star.
No, he knew something better.  He hitched his to a river.

Very naturally, John Rawn selected the largest river that he could
find.  His silent partner was none less than the Father of the Waters!

There is this to be said about a river, that it is wholly tireless and
immeasurably powerful; that it enters into no combinations against
capital, and does its work without unseemly disturbances.  Rawn was
wise enough to know these things, nor asked any maxims to advise him
therein.  In his belief it was better to allow this sort of silent
partner to furnish the industry and the economy.

II

Who shall measure the power of a river, for ever falling to the sea?
How many millions of horses and men has it equalled in its wasted power
in each generation, in each decade, in each year?  Certainly sufficient
to lift the entire burden of labor from the shoulders of the world.

What mind can measure the extent of such a force, or dream the
possibilities of its application, if it could be set to work?  What
equivalent of human brain and brawn could be valued against this
careless, ceaseless power, derived endlessly from the air and the
earth--power given to the peoples of the earth before the arrival of
our present political and industrial masters; given them in the time
when the earth was the Lord's and the fullness thereof.  The minerals
under the earth, the food produced in the soil, the waters offering
paths and power--before the earth and its fullness passed from the
hands of the Lord into those of our present masters, these, it may be
conceived, were intended as the Lord's gift to the peoples of the
earth.  That, however, was quite before the advent of John Rawn.

Toil has always been the human lot.  We have carried the mechanical
burdens as well as the mental burdens of life on our own human bodies
and souls; although all the time thousands of patient giants were
waiting, willing to serve us.  John Rawn could see them waiting.  He
knew to whom one day would be due the power, and the kingdom, and the
glory.  He could look toward the white-topped mountains, foreseeing the
day when they would be put under tribute, because they breed tumbling
waters of immeasurable strength and utility.  Their heritage of beauty
and majesty is naught to minds such as that of John Rawn's.  Utility is
the one word in the maxims of such as these, men beloved of the
immortal gods.

We speak of kings, of emperors, but what emperor in all the history of
the world had servants such as these, submissive giants such as these,
to work for him?  We speak of miracles of old.  What miracles ever
equaled the business wonders, the money-piling miracles, of the last
twenty years in America?

Where gat this silent partner of John Rawn's its own tremendous power?
Out of the sun and the earth, the parents of humanity.  The raindrop on
the leaf, shot through with the shaft of the sun, fell to some near-by
rill and, joined by other rills, marched on, alive, tireless,
tremendous, toward the sea.  Even far up toward their source, had your
little boat lodged, counter to the current, on some rock or snag, and
had you attempted to push it back against the thrust of the downcoming
waters, you might have got some knowledge of the power of even a little
stream.  Ten feet below you, that power again would have been quite as
great; and ten feet below that again as great; and so on, to the sea.
It required the advice of no professional maxim makers to teach a few
of our great men, our specially endowed superiors, John Rawn first
among them, that this power one day must be used.  In accordance as it
shall be used, the burden of humanity may be lifted from human
shoulders, or thrust crushingly down upon them until indeed humanity
shall cease to hope.  The earth and its fullness are no more the Lord's
to-day.  They are John Rawn's.

The simple plan of the International Power Company, was to make some
strong obstruction inviting the enormous resistance of the Father of
the Waters, tantalizing that power into being.  Thus, in a manner
perfectly simply, this force, once evoked and utilized, would turn
numberless wheels endlessly, tirelessly.  So much for the material side
of manifested power.  The essence, the soul, the intangible spirit of
that material power was, in the plans of International, to be
transmitted by wire at first, and later through the free air.  Its sale
in definite and merchantable quantities would come as near to the
solution of the problem of perpetual motion and perpetual profit as may
be arrived at in this world of limitations.

IV

Rawn asked nothing better than this idea.  It was beautiful, and he
valued it over all his many and various other ventures.  He could let
his silent partner put other men out of work; and so these could be
rehired at such price as he himself cared to set.  He saw the time
approach when he would be able to retail at a price, remote from his
silent, tireless partner's labors, merchantable packages of power, to
feed a cart, a plow, a wheel of any sort; power to lift and labor, to
toil ceaselessly _without remonstrance_.  It was and is a splendid
dream.  Its bearing is as you be Rawn or Halsey.  That power shall
labor for or against mankind as ourselves shall say.

Shall we blame ourselves, or John Rawn, in this republic, that he saw
on ahead only limitless personal power, limitless gold, jewels, wine,
women, personal indulgence of any sort that appealed to him?  Shall we
blame Halsey for dreading the issue of these plans, delaying them all
he could; clinging to the belief that the earth was the Lord's and the
fullness thereof; and that the Lord gave it to all mankind?  And shall
we blame the stock-holders for being impatient at renewed delays?  The
wire transmission was installed, making every man in the International
rich.  Yet every man in the secret of the real ambition of this company
burned inwardly at this enforced secrecy and this unseemly delay.  The
mysterious factory at the edge of the great inland city still was
silent.  The directors raged.  They wanted to drain to the last drop
the strength even of this tireless giant.  They wanted to begin to
bottle, measure and sell, sell for ever, the very force which holds the
spheres in their places!  In time we shall perhaps see completed what
these men planned.  There is no logical reason why, if one planet can
be owned by a John Rawn or so, yet others should not!

V

For a long time Jim Sullivan, foreman at the factory of the
International, wondered and pondered as to the real intent of these
strange machines which he saw little by little growing up under the
uncommunicative direction of the superintendent, Halsey.  He had never
seen anything like them, with their vast coils of insulation, their
intricate cogs and wheels, their centrally-hidden huge glass jars, and
the long, toothed ridge, like a delicate metal comb, which surmounted
the top of each.  There was something mysterious about it all.  He was
sure that Halsey did something with these machines when the men were
not about.  The very air seemed throbbing with some tense quality of
mystery.  The men themselves were suspicious, irritable.  Never was the
air in any factory more surcharged alike with ignorance and with
anxiety.  Man after man, good mechanic though he was, quit the place
simply because he did not know what he was doing.  The feeling of
mystery was tense, oppressive.

On one certain Sunday morning Jim Sullivan strolled over to the vacant
factory.  He knew that the superintendent had spent almost the entire
night there working alone on one of these mysterious machines.  It
stood there now.  And--yes! it was different from what it had been when
Sullivan last saw it!  It was now apparently complete, so far as he
could tell.  There was no one near it.  Halsey had gone home, to bed.
Of late he had been very tired, pale, haggard; and he always was at his
work in the factory, when good men slept, and knew light-winged dreams.

VI

Jim Sullivan, stood now looking at the grim, uncanny machine, hands in
his pockets, wondering.  He looked about him, superstitiously.  There
seemed to be something in the air, he could not explain what.  He
turned, looking behind him, and tiptoed to the front door, where Tim
Carney, the blue-coated guardian, stood leaning against the wall.

"Tim!" he whispered, although there was none to hear.  "Come on in
here!"

"What is it, Jim?" asked the watchman.

"I dunno; that's why I'm callin' you."

"Has anny wan broke into th' place?"

"Not as I know, but somethin's happened here.  I'm figurin' 'twas the
boss done it.  Come in and have a luk, now.  He's gone home."

They stepped gingerly on across the floor, along the row of unfinished
machines, and paused at the one farthest from the door, which had
excited Jim's curiosity.

"Here's where the boss worked all last night!" whispered the foreman
hoarsely.  "'Twas daybreak when he come home, an' he was all in.  He's
been workin' on her before now, I know that.  I'm thinkin' she's about
done, belike!"

"Whatever kind of a spook joint is this, anyhow, Jim?" demanded the
watchman.  "What's she for, do ye think now?"  They two, bullet-headed,
hairy, heavy and powerful, stood looking at this contrivance, whose
growth through many months they had been watching.  The value of it
either could measure in comprehensible terms.  It was worth ten
thousand dollars to either of them who would--and could--tell a certain
man how it was made.

"I dunno what she's for," answered Jim slowly, "but I'm thinkin' it's
no good at all.  It's the devil, maylike.  Not that she's so big
neither.  I could almost turn her over with a pinch bar."  He pointed
to an arm, or lever, which stood at the side of the machine.  "She
looks somethin' like one o' them drills I used to run in th' tunnel,
time Hogan was mayor, do ye mind?  Whin we wanted to throw her in we
pushed down an arm, somethin' like this."

"Sure, Jim, 'tis you have the head fer machines.  I dunno about thim at
all," rejoined Tim, scratching his head.  "But 'tis a shame we can't
throw her in, now.  Manny a time I've wondered what 'twas all about in
here.  Why shud strangers be so anxious as to--"

"She luks like a patent gate in a fince, as much as annything else,"
commented Jim.  "But as fer throwin' her in, how cud we?  She's
attached to nothin' at all, so there's nothin' to throw her into.
She's got no wire or cord runnin' to her, unless belike it comes up
through the flure.  She looks like she was some sort of motor, but how
she's to run I dunno.  Now if she was geared to annything, you cud
throw her in, most-like, by this thing here.  It luks like she was
done, and if she is, I don't know why the boss wud go away and leave
the roof open over her."  He pointed to a sliding window in the roof
directly above the machine.  He then reached out and swung some of his
weight upon the end of the engaged arm or lever.  Then, to the joint
surprise of the two observers, a very singular thing forthwith occurred.

VII

What happened, as nearly as either of them later could describe it,
might have been called a duplication in large of the phenomena of
Halsey's original motor, with which he burst the fan in the railway
office at St. Louis.  There was a low crackling in the air, a dancing
series of blue flame points along the toothed ridge.  Then began a low
purr, as of a motor in full operation.  They could see sparks emitted,
somewhere at the interior of the intricate machinery.  A living,
splitting, crackling roar filled the air about them--the roar of the
shackled river, far away, raging at the violence done it!  A projecting
shaft, fitted with a pulley head, began to revolve, faster and faster,
until its speed left it apparently motionless.

Something had happened, they knew not what.  The machine was alive!
Some force seemed to come down out of the air, to locate itself
somewhere within this intricate mechanism.  They stood, two
bullet-headed, hairy, powerful men, looking at what they had done.

"Do ye mind _that_ now?" gasped Jim Sullivan, and wrenched at the
lever, restoring it to its original position.  The purring of the motor
ceased, the blue sparks disappeared, the roar subsided growlingly.

VIII

"What was it?" demanded Tim Carney.  "Throw her in again, Jim!"

"Not on yer life!" gasped Jim Sullivan.  "I dunno what 'tis, but I'll
take no chances with the divil an' his works, on a Sunday leastways.
There's somethin' _wrong_ in here, I'm tellin' you, Tim.  What made her
go, I dunno.  She's under power, same like a compressed air drill--but
where'd she _git_ her power?--the divil's in it, that's all, Tim.  I'm
thinkin' the best we can, do is to git away from here.  Come, shut the
dure--an' watch it.  Me, I'm goin' to the praste ag'in this very day!
I see now what that felly wanted!"

Jim Sullivan locked the door and left his friend guarding it; then
hurried across the street to the superintendent's cottage.  Mrs.
Sullivan, busy there about her morning duties, would have stopped him,
but Jim would have no denial, and hastening up the stairs to Halsey's
bedroom, impetuously demanded entrance.  Halsey, drawn, haggard,
unshorn, greeted him, half sitting up in bed.

"What's wrong, Jim?" he demanded.  "Has anybody got into the works?"

"Hush, boy!" said Jim, his finger on his lips.  "You need tell me
nothin'.  But I know what it's all about."

Halsey sat looking at him dumbly.

"Fire me if you like, my son," went on Jim Sullivan.  "'Tis true I've
done what I had no right to do.  Mr. Halsey, sir, _I throwed her in_!"

"You did _what_?"

"I throwed her in.  An' she worked--she worked like a bird!  Then I
throwed her out ag'in an' come away an' locked the door.  Tim was
there, too.  'Tis none of my business.  But I've come to tell you the
truth, an' you can fire me if you like!  But it's hell, it's harnessed
hell ye've got in there.  An' others want to stale it."

By this time Halsey was getting into his clothing and only half
listening to what his foreman said.

"What kills _me_ is, I can't see _how_ she works!  She runs by herself
all the time, chuggin' like a fire ingin.  But where does she _git_ it?"

[Illustration: (Rawn and Virginia)]

Halsey made no answer.  He was pale as a dead man.  A few moments later
they were hurrying down the stair, across the street, and through the
long, deserted room with its rows of gaunt enginery.  They stood before
the completed receiver, whose motor so perfectly had caught the power
of the free second current from the air--John Rawn's costless, stolen
Power.

"What makes her go?" demanded Jim Sullivan.  "Fer what is the hole in
the roof yon?"

Halsey turned to him.  "It's the Mississippi River makes it go, Jim.
If we didn't leave a hole in the roof how could the river get through?
Now do you understand?"

"My boy," said Jim kindly, laying a large hand on his shoulder, "you're
off your nut, of course.  I don't blame ye, workin' so long as ye have,
an' worryin'.  'Tis a rest ye must be takin' now, or they'll be puttin'
ye in the bughouse fer fair!"

"You're right!" said Halsey.  "I think I'll just take a little ride
this afternoon.  Jim, come here and help me.  I want to see if we can
charge up this electric car.  If I can do that, Jim, my boy, I'll be
richer by six o'clock than either of us ever dreamed of being!"

Shaking his head dubiously, the big foreman lent a hand, and between
them they managed to roll the car into place.

"Want to throw her down again, Jim?" demanded Halsey, motioning to the
lever and grinning.  That worthy shook his head.

"I'm scared of her, Mr. Halsey, that I am!"

"And well you may be!" was Halsey's comment.  He himself threw down an
arm on the opposite side of the receiver.  This time the motor did not
resume its purring, the shaft did not revolve.

"She's bruk!" said Jim.  Halsey only pointed to the blue tips of
toothed ridge.  "No," said he, "she's only doing another part of her
work.  The power is going into the auto's motor instead of this.  Two
forms, you see, Jim."

A faint spark showed at the transmitter connection.  "Come!" said
Halsey.  "Let her work!  We don't need to now."

IX

That afternoon, Charles Halsey took his seat at the steering wheel of
an electric car which had been charged with power taken from the air
without wire transmission.  His task was done.  He had accomplished
what he had started out to do.  Throbbing beneath him was Power, the
power of yonder distant silent partner, power taken from the earth, and
the air, and the water; power of the elements; and power now definite,
segregant, merchantable!

Halsey kicked in the gear and rolled out into the street.  Pale,
preoccupied, he hardly noted where he was going; but found himself half
automatically directing the car through a maze of ill-paved, crowded
thoroughfares; until at length he reached the West-Side boulevard
system.  Thence he crossed the river to the East, and headed north.
Strong and true, under a limit charge, the motor purred beneath him.
The mechanism of the car operated without defect.  Nothing in the least
seemed wrong at any particular, nor did the car in any particular
differ in appearance from others of its humble and inconspicuous class.

X

None the less, midway of one of the large parks along the lake shore,
young Halsey suddenly disengaged the gear, cut off his power, and
applied the brakes.  He was perhaps half way from his home on the
journey to Graystone Hall....  For a little time he sat in the car,
pale, almost motionless, deep in thought; careless of the passing
throng of other vehicles, the occupants of which regarded him
curiously.  Then, suddenly, he threw in the gear again, turned on the
current; and, quickly turning about, retraced his course.  He had been
gone less than an hour when he stood once more at the curb of his
cottage near the factory in the western suburb of the city.

"So you're back again, sir!" commented Jim Sullivan.  "An' did ye get
all that sudden wealth ye was tellin' me about, at all?"

Halsey sat staring at him for a time.  "No," said he, "I've changed my
mind.  I'm going to wait a while."

The foreman turned and tiptoed off to find his wife.  "Annie," said he,
his voice low and anxious, "try if ye can get the boss to bed, an' make
him sleep as long as ever he can.  He's goin' off his head, an' talkin'
like a fool.  Somethin's wrong here, that's sure!  Hell's goin' to
break loose, in yon facth'ry some day.  But whativer comes, the boss is
crazy!"

CHAPTER IV

THE BAKER'S DAUGHTER

A large part of our ambitious American population is prone boastfully
to ascribe its origin to one or other of those highly respectable, if
really little known monarchs to whom is commonly accorded the
foundation of Old World nobilities.  We have built up a pretty fiction
regarding so-called blue blood, on the flattering, but wholly
unsupported supposition that royal qualities are transmissible to the
thirtieth and fortieth generation; so that 'tis a poor American family
indeed can not boast its coat of arms, harking back to royal days of
Charlemagne or William the Conqueror.  It may be.  Their Majesties were
active, morganatically at least no doubt, much-married men!

But continually there arise disturbing instances to upset us in our
beliefs regarding aristocracy.  There are so very many worthless
aristocrats, in whom the theory of descent did not work out according
to accepted schedule; and there are so very many worthy but wholly
disconcerting men who are not aristocrats--so continually do Lincolns
arise who, claiming nothing of birth or breeding, show themselves to be
possessed of manhood, show themselves, moreover, masters of those
instincts and practices which go with the much-abused title of
gentleman; a matter in which not all descendants of Charles or William
join them.

II

It is well known among theatrical managers that no real lady can
imitate a real lady.  The highest salaries in ladies' theatrical rôles
are paid to ladies who are not ladies, but who play the parts of ladies
as they think ladies really would act in actual life.  If you seek a
woman to carry off a gown, one to assume such really regal air as shall
bring the name of William or Charlemagne impulsive to your lips, find
one still owning not more than one of the requisite three generations
which are set as the lowest limit for the production of a gentleman or
a lady.

Continually in our American aristocracy--and in that, _par
consequence_, of Europe--we find ladies whose fathers were laborers,
shop-keepers, soap-makers, butchers, this or that, anything you like.
So only they had money, they did as well as any to wear European
coronets, to assist at royal coronations.  And, having proved their
powers in swift forgetfulness, they offer as good proof as any, of the
scientific fact that gentleness of heart and soul and conduct are not
things transmissible even to the third or fourth generation, either in
America or Europe.  Your real aristocrat perhaps after all, is made,
not born.

As to Virginia Delaware, daughter of the baker, John Dahlen, in St.
Louis, she started out in life with the deliberate intent of being a
lady, knowing very well that this is America, where all things come to
him or her who does not wait.  In some way, as has been said, she had
achieved graduation at a famous school where the art of being a lady is
dispensed.  She had, indeed, even now and then seen a lady in real
life; not to mention many supposed ladies in theatrical life, playing
the part as to them seemed fit, and far better than any lady could.

The soul finds its outward expression in the body.  The ambition shapes
the soul.  It was wholly logical and natural that, having her
particular ambition--that of many American girls--Virginia Delaware
should grow up tall, dignified, beautiful, composed, self-restraining,
kindly, gracious; these being qualities which in her training were
accepted as properly pertaining and belonging to all aristocrats.  We
have already seen that, put to the test, in the midst of our best
aristocrats--those who frequent the most highly gilded and glazed
hotels in New York--she was accepted unhesitatingly as of the charmed
circle, even by the head waiters.  Had you yourself seen her upon the
Chicago streets, passing to her daily occupation, you also in all
likelihood would have commented upon her as a rich young woman, and one
of birth, breeding and beauty.  We have spoken somewhat regarding the
futility of mottoes and maxims in the case of an ambitious man.  As
much might be said regarding their lack of applicability to the needs
of an ambitious woman.  Virginia Delaware would have made her own
maxims, had she needed any; and had she been obliged to choose a coat
of arms, she surely would have selected the Christian motto of "Onward
and Upward."

IV

The best aid in any ambition lies in the intensity of that ambition.
We all are what we really desire to be, each can have what he really
covets, if he will pay the price for it.  In her gentleness with her
associates, in her dignity and composure with her employer, in her
conduct upon the street and in the crowded car, in all situations and
conditions arising in her life, Virginia Delaware diligently played the
part of lady as best she comprehended that; because she had the intense
ambition to be a lady.  She continually was in training.  Moreover, she
had that self-restraint which has been owned by every woman who ever
reached any high place in history.  She kept herself in hand, and she
held herself not cheap.  Likewise, after the fashion of all successful
politicians, she cast aside acquaintances who might be pleasant but who
probably would be of little use, and pinned her faith to those who
promised to be of future value.  Such a woman as that can not be
stopped--unless she shall, unfortunately, fall in love.

If there was calumny, Virginia Delaware heeded it not.  She accosted
all graciously and with dignity, as a lady should.  And all this time
her great personal beauty increased to such point as to drive most of
her fair associates about the headquarters' offices to the verge of
rage.  To be beautiful and aristocratic both assuredly is to invite
hatred!  It is almost as bad as to be rich.  Miss Delaware allowed
hatred to run its course unnoted.  She needed no maxims over her desk,
required no ancestral coat of arms.  She was an aristocrat, and meant
to be accepted as such.  In all likelihood--though simple folk may not
read a woman's mind--she saw further into the future than did John Rawn
himself.

There remained, then, as against the ambition of Virginia Delaware, the
one pitfall of love, and even this she easily avoided.  Beautiful as
she unquestionably was, admired as she certainly was, if there had been
fire in this girl's heart for any man, she kept it either extinguished
or well banked for a later time.  She had gently declined the heart and
hand of every male clerk in the office.  She had chosen her own ways,
and was not to be diverted.  Cool, ambitious, perfectly in hand, she
went her way, and bided her time.

Cool, ambitious, perfectly in hand, John Rawn also went his way in
life.  Two more ambitious souls than these, or two more alike, you
scarcely could have found in all the descendants of the two
bucaneer-monarchs we have named.

V

And Rawn continually found something responsive in the soul of this
young woman, something that never found its way into speech on either
side.  She was the type of devotion and of efficiency.  Gently, without
any ostentation, she took upon herself a vast burden of detail; and she
added thereto an unobtrusive personal service upon which Rawn
unconsciously came more and more to depend.  Did he lack any little
accustomed implement or appliance, she found it for him forthwith.  Did
he forget a name, a date, a filing record, it was she who supplied it
out of a memory infallible as a fine machine.  From this, it was but an
easy step to the point where the young woman's unobtrusive aid became
useful even beyond business hours.  John Rawn had never studied to play
in any social rôle.  Did he need counsel in any social situation, she,
tactfully hesitant and modest, always was ready to tell him what he
should do, what others should do.  Had he an appointment, it was she
who reminded him of it, and it was she who had made it.  Were there
personal bills to pay, it was she who paid them.  She presided over his
personal bank account, and there was no hour when she could not have
named the dollars and cents in his balance.  Did he wish to avoid an
unwelcome visitor, it was arranged for him delicately and without
offense.  Little by little, she had become indispensable, both in a
business and a social way--a fact which John Rawn did not fully
realize, but which she knew perfectly well.  It had never been within
her plan to be anything less than that.  She knew, although he did not,
that John Rawn also was indispensable to her.

Rawn came from no social station himself, and as we have seen, had
grown up ignorant of conventional life, so that now he remained
careless of it, as had he originally.  He made it matter of routine now
that this young woman should attend in all his visits to the East in
business matters--where, in short, he could not have got along without
her.  There was talk over this--unjust talk--and much amused comment on
the fact that the two seemed so inseparable.  Rawn did not know or note
it.  They literally were running together, hunting in couple in the
great chase of ambition.  Few knew now what the salary of the
president's private secretary represented in round figures.  Certainly
she dressed as a lady.  Certainly also she comported herself as one.
It was, in the opinion of John Rawn, no one's business that he
registered himself at the New York hotels, and either did not register
his companion at all, or else contented himself with the wholly
descriptive word "Lady" opposite the number of the room whose bills he
told the clerk to charge to his account.

VI

Never was there the slightest ground for suspicion of actual
impropriety between John Rawn and Miss Delaware.  Abundance of bad
taste there certainly was, for Rawn, without explanation or apology to
any, always ate in company of his assistant, was constantly seen with
her on the streets, at the opera, the play.  He showed, in short, that
he found her society wholly agreeable upon every possible occasion.  If
this was in bad taste, if many or most, in the usual guess, put it at
the point of impropriety, John Rawn gave himself no concern.  The Rawn
aristocracy began in him.  He founded it, was its Charlemagne, its
William the Conqueror, as ruthless, as regardless of others, as
selfish, as megalomaniac as the best of kings.  Here, therefore, were
two aristocrats!  They ran well in couple.

It is not to be supposed that a girl so shrewd as Virginia Delaware
could fail to realize the full import of all this.  She let the slings
and arrows fall upon the buckler of her perfect dignity and her perfect
beauty, but she felt their impact.  She was perfectly in hand, knew
perfectly well her mind, knew perfectly well the price she must pay.
She let matters take their course, knowing that they were advancing
safely and surely in one direction, that which she desired.  She was
more skilled in human nature than her employer, saw deeper into a man's
heart than he had ever looked into a woman's!

And then, at last, the life schedule of Virginia Delaware was verified.
At last, the inevitable happened.

VII

On one of these many trips to New York, Miss Delaware had been alone in
her apartments at the hotel for most of the afternoon.  In the evening,
before the dinner hour, she was summoned to meet Mr. Rawn in one of the
hotel parlors.  At once she noted his suppressed excitement.  He scarce
could wait until they were alone, in a far corner of the room, before
explaining to her the cause.

"I don't like to say this, Miss Delaware," he began, "but I've got to
do it!"

"What do you mean, Mr. Rawn?" she replied in her usual low and clear
tones.

"There's been talk!"

"Talk?  About what?"

"Us!"

"About us?  What can you mean, Mr. Rawn?" she asked.

"The world is so confoundedly small, my dear girl, that it seems
everything you do is known by everybody else.  Of course, a man like
myself is in the public eye; but we've always minded our business, and
it ought not to have been anybody else's business beyond that."

"You disturb me, Mr. Rawn!  What has happened?"

"--But now, to-night, now--just a little while ago--I met this fellow
Ackerman--you know him--big man in the company--used to be general
traffic manager down in St. Louis, on the old railroad where I
began--well, he was drunk, and he talked."

"What could he say?"

"He got me by the coat collar and proceeded to tell me how much--how
much--well, to tell the truth, he connected your name and mine.  If he
wasn't drunk--and a director--I'd go down there yet and smash his face
for him!  What business was it of his?  Of course, men don't mind such
things so much.  But when it comes to you--why, my dear girl!"

VIII

The truth has already been stated regarding John Rawn; that,
batrachian, half-dormant for almost half a century, and then putting
into business what energy most men put into love and sex, he had passed
a life of singular innocence, or ignorance, as to womankind.  He had
never countenanced much gossip about women, because he had little
interest in the topic.  The _grande passion_ marks most of us for its
own now and again, or is to be feared now and again; but the _grande
passion_ had passed by John Rawn.  He was now approaching fifty years
of age.  Married he had been, and divorced; but he had not yet been in
love.

He now spoke to his like, his mate in the hunt, of the opposite sex, a
young woman who at that very moment was as beautiful a creature as
might have been found on all Manhattan, a woman known in all Manhattan
now as the mysterious "Lady of the Lightnings," the goddess of the
stock certificates of one of the most mammoth American corporations, a
creature over whom Manhattan's most critical libertines were
crazed--and helpless; moreover, a woman who, out of all those in the
great _caravanserai_ at that moment, might as well as any have been
chosen as the very type of gentle breeding and of gentle womanhood
alike.  But she had not yet been in love.

IX

"I don't understand, Mr. Rawn," repeated she slowly.  "What possible
ground could Mr. Ackerman have had?  You surely don't think he could
have spoken to any one else?"

"I wouldn't put that past Ackerman when he's drunk.  If he'd talk to
me, he would to others.  And you know perfectly well that when talk
begins about a woman, it never stops!"

"No, that is the cruel part of it."

Her voice trembled just enough, her eyes became just sufficiently and
discreetly moist; she choked a little, just sufficiently.

"It is cruel," she said, with a pathetic little sigh, "but the hand of
every man seems to be against a woman.  Did you ever stop to think, Mr.
Rawn, how helpless, how hopeless, we really are, we women?"

He flung himself closer upon the couch beside her, his face troubled,
as she went on with her gentle protest.

"All my life I've done right as nearly as I knew, Mr. Rawn.  Perhaps I
was wrong in coming to trust so much to you--to depend on you so much.
It all seemed so natural, that I've just let matters go on, almost
without any thought.  I've only been anxious to do my work--that was
all.  But this cruel talk about us--well--it can have but one end.  I
must go."

"Go?  Leave _me_?  You'll do nothing of the sort!  I'll take care of
this thing myself, I say--I'll stand between you and all that sort of
talk."

"Mr. Rawn, I don't understand you."

X

They sat close together on this brocaded couch among many other
brocaded couches.  Crystal and color and gilt and ivory were all about
them; pictures, works of art in bronze and marble and costly
porcelains.  The air was heavy with fragrance, dripping with soft
melody of distant music.  She was beautiful, a beautiful _young_ woman.
He caught one glance into her wide, pathetic eyes ere she turned and
bent her head.  He caught the fragrance of her hair--that strange
fragrance of a woman's hair.  Dejected, drooping as she sat, her hands
clasped loosely in her lap, he could see the bent column of her
beautiful white neck, the curve of her beautiful shoulders, white,
flawless.

The flower on her bosom rose and fell in her emotion.  She was a woman.
She was beautiful.  She was young.  Something subtle, powerful,
mysterious, stole into the air.

She was a woman!

Suddenly this thought came to John Rawn like a sudden blow in the face.
It came in a sense hitherto unknown to him in all his life.  Now he
understood what life might be, saw what delight might be!  He saw now
that all along he had admired this girl and only been unconscious of
his admiration.  God! what had he lost, all these years!  He, John
Rawn, had lived all these years, and _had not loved_!

He reached out timidly and touched her round white arm, to attract her
attention.  She flinched from him a trifle, and he also from her.  Fire
ran through his veins as from a cup of wine, heady and strong.  He was
a boy, a young man discovering life.  The glory of life, the reason,
had been here all this time, and he had not suspected it.  What deed
for pity had been wrought!  He, John Rawn, never before had known what
love might be!  He was the last man on Manhattan to go mad over
Virginia Delaware.

She drew back from, him, seeing the flush upon his face, color rising
to her own.  Indeed, the power of the man, his sudden vast passion,
were not lost upon her, different as he was from the idol of a young
girl's dreams.  But Virginia Delaware saw more than the physical image
of this man beside her.  She knew what he had to share, what power,
what wealth, what station.  She knew well enough what John Rawn could
do; and she gaged her own value to him by the flush on his face, the
glitter in his eye.

For one moment she paused.  For one moment heredity, the way of her own
people, had its way.  For one moment she saw another face, different
from this flushed and corded one bent near.  It was for but a moment;
then ambition once more took charge of her soul and her body alike.

XI

The net was thrown.  Silently, gently, she tightened its edges with the
silken cords.  He loved her.  The rest was simple.  She saw the world
unrolling before her like a scroll.  All else was but matter of detail.
Above all, she exulted in her strength at this crucial moment.  She
knew that love is dangerous for a woman, always had feared, as any
woman may, that love might sweep her away from her own safe moorings.
She rejoiced now to see this danger past, rejoiced to find her pulses
cool and even, her voice under control, herself mistress of herself.
She did not love him.

But she drew back now apparently startled, apprehensive.  "We must go,
Mr. Rawn," she said; and would have risen.

He put out a hand, almost rude in its vehemence.  "You shall not go!
I've got to tell you.  Sit down!  Listen!  We'll separate in one way,
yes.  You're done now with your clerking days for ever.  But you're
going to be my wife.  I want you; and, by God, I love you!"

His voice rose until she was almost alarmed.  She looked about in real
apprehension.  She turned, to see John Rawn's face convulsed, suffused,
his protruding lower lip trembling, his eyes almost ready to burst into
tears.  She might almost have smiled, so easily was it all done for
her.  Yet this baker's daughter dared to make no mistake in a situation
such as this!

"Mr. Rawn," she began, casting down her eyes, although she allowed him
to retain her hand, "what can you mean?  Surely you must be in jest.
Have you no regard for a poor girl who is trying to make her way in the
world?  I've done my best--and now--"

"Make your way in the world!  What do you mean?  It's made _now_!  Look
down the list as far as you like.  Is there anywhere you want to go?
Is there anything you want to do?  Can you think of anything I'll not
get for you?  Look at your neck, your hands--you've worn those jewels
almost ever since you selected them, and no one else has, though I told
you once there was a string to them.  There's no string to them now.
The first time you wore them, down there in the dining-room, below, I
told you they were not yours, that they were only loaned to you for one
night, that we were only both of us masquerading, trying ourselves out!
I told you then you'd do; but I didn't know what I meant.  I don't
believe I loved you then, although now it seems I always have.  I know
I always will.  Those things are nothing--you shall have everything you
want--handfuls of jewels.  There's nothing you want to do that you
shall not do.  You can't dream of anything that I'll not get for you!
You were made for me in every way in the world--every little way, as
I've come to know, little by little, all this time.  But now, to-night,
it's all come over me at once.  I don't know that I planned, when I
came here, to do more than to stand between you and talk!
But--this--caught me all at once, I don't know how.  It's the truth
before God!  I never loved a woman before now--I didn't know what it
was.  Virginia--Jennie--girl--I love you!  We're going to be married
to-morrow!"

"Mr. Rawn," she said, her voice trembling, "I must ask you to consider
well before you make any mistake--a mistake which would mean everything
for--for me.  You have no right to jest."

"I'll show you who's in earnest!" he retorted, his hand cruelly hard on
her wrist as he forced her back into the seat.  "We'll go home from
here as man and wife, that's what we'll do.  We'll go from the train,
not to the office, but to Graystone Hall.  I'll find a preacher in the
morning here.  It's wonderful!  I love you!  If they want to talk,
we'll give them something to talk _about_!  Let them come to the Little
Church Around the Corner--to-morrow--and see _us_, you and me!"

He had both her hands in his large ones now, and was looking into her
eyes, intoxicated, mad.  She leaned just gently toward him.  Forgetful
of their situation, he caught her in his arms, and kissed her full.

XII

"Mr. Rawn, how could you!" she said at last, softly, seeking to
disengage her hand.  "It's like a dream!  I have worked so hard, so
long.  Life has had so little for me!"

"But you love me--you can?" he demanded.

"Oh, Mr. Rawn!" she said, lifting her eyes to his face, then gently
turning them aside.

"You do--you have--tell me!  Confess it!"

She laughed now, ripplingly, her color rising, and at least was spared
that instance of her perjury.  John Rawn accepted it as her oath.

They parted after a time, she scarce remembered how, he to a couch
which knew no sleep, she to one that long remained untouched.

In her own room Virginia Delaware stood for a long time before her
mirror, in silent questioning of herself, her brows just drawn into a
faint vertical frown.  At last she nodded approvingly, satisfied that
she would do.  A wave of sensuousness, of delight in her own triumph,
swept across her.  She stood straight, swung back her shoulders, gazed
at the superb image in the glass through half-shut eyes.  There was no
question of it!  She was a very beautiful woman, stately, gracious--and
aristocratic.  So.  It was done.  She had won.  She caught glimpses of
the jewels blazing at her throat.  She removed them and tossed them
lightly on the dresser top as she turned to call for her maid.

"Madam is very beautiful to-night," ventured that tactful creature when
at last she had performed her closing duties for the day.

Virginia Delaware looked down upon her with the amused tolerance of the
superior classes.

"You may perhaps find a little silver on the dresser, maid," said she
graciously.

END OF BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

CHAPTER I

THE ROYAL PROGRESS OF MR. AND MRS. RAWN

So they were married.  Graystone Hall at last had a mistress worthy of
its architect and decorator when--love and affection and other good
considerations moving thereto, as the law hath it--the new Mrs. Rawn
moved into the place of the old Mrs. Rawn.  Thereafter matters went at
least as merry as most marriage bells celebrating the nuptials of
middle age and youth, of wealth and beauty.

As Mr. Rawn had spent a million dollars to free himself from one wife,
he seemed willing to spend much more in the process of taking on
another.  It became current rumor that the one great diamond show of
the western city was Virginia Rawn.  The sobriquet, "The Lady of the
Lightnings," passed from New York to Chicago and became permanent
there.  Not that that lady delighted in display; but there were
occasional operatic or theatrical events which demanded compliance with
her husband's wishes, in which event she blazed almost better than the
best.

But, gradually, she showed the tastes of the aristocrat, as alien to
vulgar display as to crude manners.  Gradually the tone, color,
atmosphere, of Graystone Hall began to change.  The porcelains which
Virginia Rawn purchased were not large and gorgeous, but a connoisseur
would have called them worthy.  The vast and brilliantly framed
paintings came down one by one, and one by one masterpieces went up,
selected by one who knew.  The walks, the grounds, took on simpler and
cleaner lines.  Rawn of the International got a new credit as a person
of taste.  He was accepted as a collector, a patron of the arts, a
connoisseur, in fact, yet more a worthy and a rising citizen.

The hospitality of Mr. Rawn's mansion house also now increased
perceptibly, and, delighted that at last numbers came to see him, Mr.
Rawn at first did not analyze those numbers very closely.  Even the
fastidious, many of whom came to be amused, were unanimous in the
feeling that Mr. Rawn's house, its furnishings, its decorations, its
pictures, its works of art, its hospitality also, were beyond reproach.
The trace of _gaucherie_ was gone.  The spirit of the place was
delicately reserved, dignified, yet well assured.  The seal of approval
was placed upon Graystone Hall.  Who, indeed, should smile at the man
who had made so meteoric a rise, who had by a few years of labor become
master of this mansion, its furnishings and its mistress?  Who, upon
the other hand, might smile at that mistress, whose appearance upon the
front page of the leading journals of the city became now a matter of
course--a lady of such reserved tastes as led her to forsake the larger
marts, and to set the seal of fashionable approval upon a little
florist, a little modiste, a little milliner all her own--even a little
surgeon hither-to unknown, who honored a little hospital and made it
fashionable, by taking there this distinguished patient for a little
operation?

II

Rawn himself expanded in all this social success.  He saw doors
hitherto closed, opening before him, saw his future unrolling before
him also like a scroll.  A hundred times a week he walked to his young
wife, caught her in his arms, uxoriously infatuated with her youth, her
beauty, her aplomb, her fitness for this life which he had chosen.  For
once he almost forgot to regard himself as a collector of beautiful
objects, although the truth was that his wife, Virginia, became more
beautiful each day, more superb of line, more calmly easy in air, more
nearly faultless of garb and demeanor.  She took her place easily and
surely among the young matrons of the wealthier circles of the western
city.  Whereas thousands of auto-cars had passed by Graystone Hall and
only a dozen stopped, scores now, of the largest, drove up its winding
walks and halted at its doors.  The dearest dream of both seemed
realized.  The hunt in couple had won!  They had gained what they
desired; that is to say, self-indulgence, ease, idleness, adulation,
freedom from care.  What more is there to seek?  And is not this
America?

Gradually John Rawn had been losing the rusticity which had accompanied
him well up to middle age.  The city now began to leave its imprint.
The waistcoat of Mr. Rawn gradually attained a curve unknown to it in
earlier years, so that his watch fob now hung in free air when he stood
erect.  His face was perhaps more florid, his hair certainly more gray.
His skin remained fresh and clean, and always he was well-groomed,
having the able assistance of his wife now in the selection of his
tailoring, as well as her coaching in social usage.  They always looked
their part.  At morning, at noon, or at dewy eve, in any assemblage or
any chance situation, they both played in the rôle assigned to them in
their own ambitions.  Born of environment wholly unconventional, they
now took on that of conventionality as though born to that instead.
You could not have found a more perfect type of respectability than
John Rawn, a more absolutely valid exemplar of good social form than
his wife, Virginia.  All things prospered under their magic touch, the
genii of the lamp seemed theirs.  No problems remained for them to
solve.  They had in their own belief attained what may be attained in
American life, and they were happy.  Or, that is to say, they should at
least have been happy, if their theory of life and success, and of
those like to theirs, be correct.  At least they were what they
were--products of a wonderful country which makes millionaires
overnight and produces out of bakeries women of one generation fit to
be the wives of princes born of forty kings.

We are, some of us at least, accustomed to worship such as these as
they ride by upon the high car of success, accustomed to envy and to
emulate them.  If that vehicle be the car of Juggernaut, crushing under
its wheels multitudes of those who worship, it is no concern of those
who sit aloft.  For a long time Mr. Rawn and his wife remained ignorant
of the fact that one victim under the wheels of their success was none
other than Mr. Rawn's daughter, Grace.

Alas! for that young lady.  She unfortunately had been now for almost a
year an aspirant in her own right to a seat upon the car of ease and
luxury; yet here she saw herself swiftly supplanted, and worse than
that, swiftly forgotten!  Her year of quasi-place and power had left
her unwilling to return to her own humble home.  She remained on at
Graystone Hall, now rarely visited by her husband.  She found herself
calmly accepted, yet calmly neglected as well.  Very naturally she
hated the new Mrs. Rawn with all her soul; a hatred which that lady
repaid with nothing better than a straight look into Grace's dark eyes,
a look innocent, calm, and wholly fearless.  Grace must now see the
very jewels her own mother should have worn, blazing at the neck and
hands of her stepmother; must see that lady taking assuredly and as of
right, what Grace could now never ask or expect for herself.  With an
unapproachable and wholly hateful air of distinction and good breeding
which rankled most of all in crude Mrs. Halsey's heart, Virginia Rawn
sat high on the car of Juggernaut; and the car of Juggernaut passed on.
In pride and delight over his young wife, John Rawn really forgot his
daughter.  The young new wife did the same, or appeared to do so.

IV

John Rawn had told the truth to his wife when first he had declared his
sentiments toward her--he never before that time really had known love,
or at least had not known infatuated love such as that he felt for her.
He exulted in the vistas of delight which he saw before them, fancying