Chapter 10

AMY SWEET AND AMY SOUR

Now that Fosdick saw how he could clear himself, and more, of those he had been variously describing as pryers, peepers, ingrates, traitors and blackmailers, he was chagrined that he had been so near to panic. He couldn't understand it, so he assured himself; with nothing to conceal, with hands absolutely clean, with not an act on the record that was not legitimate, such as the most respectable men in the most respectable circles not only approved but did�with these the conditions, how had he been so upset?

"I suppose," he reflected, "as a man gets older, he becomes foolishly sensitive about his reputation. Then, too, the world is eager to twist evil into everything�and I have so many in my own class who are jealous of me, of my standing."

The silliest thing he had done, he decided, was that talk with the Siersdorfs. Why, if they were at all evil-minded, they might suspect he was using those construction accounts for swindling purposes, instead of making a perfectly legitimate convenience of them to adjust the bookkeeping to the impossible requirements of law and public opinion. "It's an outrage," he thought, "that we can't have the laws fixed so it would be possible to carry on business without having to do things liable to misconstruction, if made generally public. But we can't. As it is, look at the swindlers who have taken advantage of the laws we absolutely had to have the legislature make." Yes, it was a blunder to take the Siersdorfs into his confidence�though the young man did show that he had brains enough to understand the elements of large affairs. Still, he might some time make improper use of the knowledge�unless��

Fosdick decided that thereafter the vouchers should pass through Siersdorf's hands, should have Siersdorfs O.K. "Then, if any question arises, it will be to his interest to treat confidential matters confidentially. Or, if he should turn against me, he'd be unable to throw mud without miring himself."

And now Fosdick saw why he had instantly jumped for the Siersdorfs. They alone were not personally involved in any of the "private business" of the O.A.D. All the directors, all the officials, all the important agents, were involved, and therefore would not dare turn traitor if they should be vile enough to contemplate it. But the Siersdorfs were independent, yet perilously in possession of the means to make trouble.

"I must fix them," said Fosdick. "I must clinch them."

Thus it came about that within a week Alois was helping the directors of the O.A.D. to keep their accounts "adjusted"�was signing vouchers for many times the amounts that were being actually expended upon the building. He hesitated before writing the firm name upon the first of these documents. On the face of it, the act did look�peculiar. True, it was a simple matter of bookkeeping; still, he'd rather not be involved. There seemed no way out of it, however. To refuse was to insult Fosdick�and that when Fosdick was showing his confidence in and affection for him. Also, it meant putting in jeopardy three big orders in hand�the two office buildings and Overlook.

"It'd break Narcisse's heart to have to give up doing Overlook," he said to himself. Yes, he would sign the vouchers; now that he felt he was acting, at least in large part, for his dear sister's sake, he had no qualms. Having passed the line, he looked back with amusement. He debating as a moral question a matter of business routine! A matter approved by such a character, such a figure as Josiah Fosdick!

Some of these "technically inaccurate" vouchers were before him when Narcisse happened into his office. Though there was "nothing wrong with them�nothing whatever," and though she would not have known it if there had been, he instinctively slipped the blotting pad over them.

"What are you hiding there?" she teased innocently. "A love letter?"

He frowned. "You've got that on the brain," he retorted, with a constrained smile. "What do you want�now?"

"Amy's here. Have you time to go over the plans?"

"Yes�right away," said he, with quick complete change of manner.

She winced. So sensitive had she become on the subject of her brother and her friend that she was hurt by the most casual suggestion from either of interest in the other. Regarding her brother as irresistible, she assumed that, should he ask Amy, he would be snapped in, like fly by frog. "Yet," said she to herself, "they're utterly unsuited. He'd realize it as soon as he was married to her. Why can't a man ever see through a woman until he's had an affair with her and gotten over her?"

"Shall we look at the plans here or in your room?" he asked.

"I'll send her here.... It won't be necessary for me to come, will it?"

"No. We'll hardly get round to your part to-day," said Alois. And Amy went in alone, and spent the entire afternoon with Alois. And most attractive he made himself to Amy. In his profession, he had many elements of strength; he hated shams, had a natural sense of the beautiful, unspoiled by the conventionalities that reduce most architects to slavish copyists. He did not think things fine simply because they were old; neither did he think them ugly or stale for that reason. He knew how to judge on merit alone; and he had educated Amy Fosdick to the point where she at least appreciated his views and ideas. When a man gets a woman trained to that point, he thinks her a marvel of independent intellect, with germs of genius�if she is at all attractive to him physically. He forgot that, until Amy had "taken up" the Siersdorfs, she had been as enthusiastic about the barren and conventional Whitbridge as she now was about them. Appreciation is one of the most deceptive qualities in the world, where it is genuine. Through it we are all constantly disguising from ourselves and from others our own mental poverty.

Usually appreciation is little more than a liking for the person whose ideas we think we understand and share. In Amy's case, there was a good deal of real understanding. She had much natural good taste, enough to learn to share in the amusement of Narcisse and Alois at the silly imitations of old-world palaces her acquaintances were hastening to house themselves in�palaces built for a forever departed era of the human race, for a past people of a past and gone social order; she also saw, when Alois pointed it out to her, the silliness of the mania for antiques which in our day is doing so much to suffocate originality and even good taste. She learned to loathe the musty, fusty rags and worm-eaten woods the crafty European dealers manufacture, "plant," and work off on those Americans who are bent upon the same snobbishness in art education that they are determined to have in the other forms of education. Encouraged by Narcisse and Alois, she came boldly out against that which she had long in secret doubted and disliked. She was more than willing that they should build her a house suitable as a habitation for a human being in the twentieth century�a house that was ventilated and convenient and scientific. And she was giving Alois a free hand in planning surroundings of spontaneous beauty rather than of the kind that pleased the narrower and more precise fancy of a narrower age, to which the idea of freedom of any sort was unknown.

"Gracious! It's after half past four!" she exclaimed, as if she had just become conscious of the fact, when in truth she had been impatiently watching the clock by way of a mirror for nearly an hour.

"So it is!" said Alois, immensely flattered by her unconsciousness of time.

"I want to take these plans with me�to show them to some one."

Alois felt that the "some one" was a man, and a very particular friend�else, she would have spoken the name. "Very well," he said, faintly sullen.

"Don't be disturbed," was her absent reply. "I'll take good care of them." She saw the change in him; but, not thinking of him as a man, but as an intelligence only, she did not grasp the cause. "Thank you so much," she went on, "for being so patient with me. How splendid it must be to have always with one a mind like yours�or Narcisse's. Well, until to-morrow, or next day." And, looking as charming as only a pretty woman with a fortune can look to a man who wants both her and her fortune, she left him desolate.

The "some one" was indeed a man. But he�Armstrong�did not arrive until half an hour after the appointed time. She came into the small salon into which he had been shown, her gloves, hat and wraps on and the big roll of plans under her arm; and no one would have suspected that she had been waiting for him since ten minutes before five and had spent most of the time in primping. "I'm all blown to pieces," she apologized, as she entered. "Have I kept you waiting? I really couldn't help it."

"I just got here," said Armstrong. "I, too, was late�business, as always." Which was true enough; but the whole truth would have been that he forgot the appointment until its very hour. "I'll not keep you long," he continued. "I've got to dress for an early dinner."

She was so disappointed that she did not dare speak, lest she should show her ill humor�and she knew Armstrong detested a bad disposition in a woman. She rang for tea; when the servants had brought it and were gone, she began fussing with her coat. He, preoccupied, did not see her hinted signals until she said, "Please, do help me."

As he drew off the coat there floated to him a delightful perfume, a mingling of feminine and flowers, of freshness and delicacy, a stimulating suggestion of the sensuous refinements which a woman with taste and the means can employ as powerful allies in her siege of man. She looked up at him�her eyes were, save her teeth, her best feature. She just brushed his arm in one of those seemingly unconscious, affectionate-friendly gestures which are intended to be encouraging without being "unwomanly." "How is my friend to-day?" she inquired.

"So-so," replied he, taking her advances at their face value.

"You never come here unless I send for you, and you always have some excuse for going soon."

He smiled good-natured raillery. "How sure of yourself you feel!"

"Why do you say that?"

"Your remark. You are always making that kind of remarks. They're never made except by women who feel sure."

"But I don't," protested she. "On the contrary, I'm very humble�where you're concerned." She gave him a long look. "And you know that's true."

He laughed at her with his eyes. "No. I shan't do it. You'll have only your trouble for your pains."

She colored. "What do you mean?"

"That I won't propose to you. You've been trying to inveigle me into it for nearly a year now. But you'll have to do without my scalp."

The big Westerner's jesting manner carried his remark, despite its almost insolent frankness. Besides, what with Amy's content with herself and partiality for him, it would have been difficult for him to offend her. Never before had she been able to lure him so near to the one subject she wished to discuss with him. "What conceit," cried she, all smiles. "You fancy I've been flirting with you. I might have known! Men always misunderstand a woman's friendship. I suppose you imagine I'm in love with you."

"Not in the least. No more than I with you."

She looked crestfallen at this. Whether a woman has much or little to give a man, whether she wants his love or not, she always wishes to feel that it is there waiting for her. "Why do you imagine I wish you to ask me to marry you?" she asked, swiftly recovering and not believing him.

He did not answer that. Instead he said: "You came very near to getting your way about a year ago. I had about made up my mind to marry you."

"To marry me," she echoed ironically.

"To marry you," he repeated in his attractive, downright fashion.

"Well�why didn't you?"

"I decided I didn't need you," said he, most matter-of-fact. "I saw I'd be repeating the blunder I made when I married before. When I got out of college, I was so discouraged by the prospect, I felt so weak without money or influence, that I let myself drift into a great folly�for it is a folly to imagine that money or influence are of any value in making a career. They're the results of a career, not its cause. Once more, when I faced the big battle here in New York, I was fooled for a while in spite of myself by the same old delusion. I saw that the successful men all had great wealth, and I made the same old shallow mistake of supposing their wealth gave them their success. But I got back to the sensible point of view very quickly."

"And so�I�escaped."

"Escaped is the word for it."

"You are flattering�to-day."

"That sarcasm because I did not so much as speak of your charms, I suppose?"

"You might have said I was personally a little of a temptation."

"Why go into that?" rejoined he, with an intonation that gave her a chance to be flattered, if she chose. "Of course, if I had decided I needed you in my career, I'd have flung myself over ears into love. As it was, don't you think my keeping away from you complimentary?"

This was the nearest he had ever come to an admission that she was attractive to him; she straightway exaggerated it into a declaration of love. Very few women make or even understand a man's clear distinction between physical attraction and love; Amy thought them one and the same.

"You are so hard!" said she. "I wonder at myself for liking you." As she spoke, she rapidly thought it out with the aid of her vanity; men and women, in their relations with each other, always end by taking counsel of vanity. He wanted her; he had taken this subtle means to get within her defenses and, without running the risk of a refusal, find out whether he could get her, whether a woman of her wealth and position would condescend to him. It was with her sweetest, candidest smile that she went on, "Now it is all settled. You don't want to marry me; you aren't in love with me. I need not be afraid of any designs, mercenary or otherwise. At last, we can be real friends."

He reflected, then said with a judicial, impersonal air, "No matter how well a man plays the game of man and man, he usually plays the game of man and woman badly. Why? Because he thinks the conditions are different. He is deceived by woman's air of guilelessness into imagining he has the game all his own way."

"What has that got to do with what I said to you?" asked she, her color a confession that the question was unnecessary.

He again laughed at her with his eyes. "Why did you think it had?"

She pouted. "You are in a horrible mood to-day."

He rose. "Thanks for the hint."

She began to unroll the plans.

"Now, there's the man for you," said he, with a gesture toward her bundle of blue prints.

"Who?"

"Siersdorf."

"If I had to choose, I'd prefer�even you."

"Siersdorf is adaptable and appreciative. He's good to look at, has a good all-round mind, is extraordinary in his specialty. You couldn't do better."

"I don't want him," she cried impatiently. "I prefer to suit myself in marrying." She stood before him, her hands behind her, the pretty face tilted daringly upward. "Are you trying to make me dislike you?"

He looked down at her; there was not a hint in his expression that her dare was a temptation. "I must be going," said he.

Tears gathered in her eyes, made them brilliant, took away much of their natural hardness. "Won't you be friends?" she appealed.

He continued to look straight into her eyes until her expression told him she knew he was not deceived by her maneuverings and strategies. Then he said, "No," with terse directness of manner as well as of speech. "No, because you do not want friends. You want victims."

In sudden anger she flung off her mask. "I am a good hater," she warned. "You don't want me to turn against you, do you?"

His face became sad and somewhat bitter. There had been a time when such a menace from a source so near his career would have alarmed him, would have set him to debating conciliation. But his self-confidence had developed beyond that stage, had reached the point where a man feels that, if any force from without can injure him, the sooner he finds it out, the more quickly he will be able to make a career founded upon the only unshakable ground, his own single strength.

"I've taken a great deal off you," she went on in a menacing tone, a tone intended to remind him that he was an employee. "You ought to be more careful. I'm not all sweetness. I can be hard and unforgiving when I cease to like."

He laughed unpleasantly as vanity thus easily divested itself of its mask of love. "And to cross you is all that's necessary to rouse your dislike."

"That's all," said she. And now she looked like her father in his rare exhibitions of his true self. She had never deceived Armstrong altogether. But he was too masculine not to have lingerings of the universal male delusion that feminine always and necessarily means at least something of sweetness and tenderness.

"Shall we be friends?" she demanded sharply, imperiously. At bottom, she could not believe anyone would stand against the power that gave her a scepter�the power of wealth. "Friends, or�not?"

"As you please," replied he, bowing coldly. And he went, his last look altogether calm, not without a tinge of contempt. He realized that he had come there to put an end to his flirtation with her, to assert his own independence, to free himself from the entanglement which his temporary weakness of the first days in overwhelming New York had led him into. The swimmer, used only to pond or narrow river, is unnerved for a moment when he finds himself in the sea; but if he knows his art, he is soon reassured, because he discovers that no more skill is needed for sea than for pond, only a little more self-confidence.

He was not clear of the house when she was saying to herself, "Hugo is right about him. Father must take him in hand. He shall be taught his place."