Chapter 7

A WOMAN'S POINT OF VIEW

Narcisse, summoned by a telephone message, went to Fosdick's house. As she entered the imposing arched entrance, Amy appeared, on the way to take her dog for a drive. "It's father wants to see you," said she. "I'll take you to him, and go. I'd send Zut alone, but the coachman and footman object to driving the carriage with no one but him in it. Fancy! Aren't some people too silly in their snobbishness�and the upper class isn't in it with the lower classes, is it?"

"You don't begin to know how amusing you are sometimes," said Narcisse.

"Oh, I'm always forgetting. You've got ideas like Armstrong. You know him?"

"I've met him," said Narcisse indifferently. "You say your father wants to see me?"

Amy looked disappointed. Her mind was full of Armstrong, and she wished to talk about him with Narcisse, to tell her all she thought and felt, or thought she thought and felt. "There's been a good deal of talk that he and I are engaged," she persisted. "You had heard it?"

"I never hear things of that sort," said Narcisse coldly. "I'm too busy."

"Well�there's nothing in it. We're simply friends."

"I'm sorry," said Narcisse.

Amy bridled. "Sorry! I'm sure I care nothing about him."

"Then, I'm glad," said Narcisse. "I'm whatever you like. Is your father waiting for me?"

Narcisse liked old Fosdick�his hearty voice, his sturdy optimism, his genial tolerance of all human weaknesses, even of crimes, his passion for the best of everything, his careless generosity. "It's fine," she often thought, "to see a man act about his own hard-earned wealth as if he had found it in a lump in the street or had won it in a lottery." He seemed in high spirits that morning, though Narcisse observed that the lines in his face looked heavier than usual. "Sorry to drag you clear up here about such a little matter," said he when they two were seated, with his big table desk between them. "I just wanted to caution you and your brother. Quite unnecessary, I know; still, it's my habit to neglect nothing. I'm thinking of the two buildings you are putting up for us�for the O.A.D. How are they getting on? I've so much to attend to, I don't often get round to details I know are in perfectly safe hands."

"We start the one in Chicago next month, and the one here in May�I hope."

"Good�splendid! Rush them along. You�you and your brother�understand that everything about them is absolutely private business. If any newspaper reporter�or anybody�on any pretext whatever�comes nosing round, you are to say nothing. Whatever is given out about them, we'll give out ourselves down at the main office."

"I'll see to that," said Narcisse. "I'm glad you are cautioning us. We might have given out something. Indeed, now that I think of it, a man was talking with my brother about the buildings yesterday."

Fosdick leaned forward with sudden and astonishing agitation. "What did he want?" he cried.

"Merely some specifications as to the cost of similar buildings."

"Did your brother give him what he asked for?" demanded the old man.

"Not yet. I believe he's to get the figures together and give them to him to-morrow."

Fosdick brought his fist down on the table and laughed with a kind of savage joy. "The damned scoundrels!" he exclaimed. Then, hastily, "Just step to the telephone, Miss Siersdorf, and call up your brother and tell him on no account to give that information."

Narcisse hesitated. "But�that's a very common occurrence in our business," objected she. "I don't see how we can refuse�unless the man is a trifler. Anyone who is building likes to have a concrete example to go by."

"Please do as I ask, Miss Siersdorf," said Fosdick. "We'll discuss it afterwards."

Narcisse obeyed, and when she returned said, "My brother will give out nothing more. But I find I was mistaken. He gave the estimates yesterday afternoon."

Fosdick sank back in his chair, his features contracted in anger and anxiety. When she tried to speak, he waved her imperiously into silence. "I must think," he said curtly. "Don't interrupt!" She watched his face, but could make nothing definite of its vague reflections of his apparently dark and stormy thoughts. Finally he said, in a nearer approach to his usual tone and manner, "It's soon remedied. Your brother can send for the man. You know who he was?"

"His name was Delmar. He represented the Howlands, the Chicago drygoods people."

"Um," grunted Fosdick, reflecting again; then, as if he had found what he was searching for, "Yes�that's the trail. Well, Miss Siersdorf, as I was saying, your brother will send for Delmar and will tell him there was a mistake. And he'll give him another set of figures�say, doubling or trebling the first set. He'll say he neglected to make allowance for finer materials and details of stonework and woodwork�hardwood floors, marble from Italy, and so forth and so forth. You understand. He'll say he meant simply the ordinary first-rate office building�and wasn't calculating on such palaces as he's putting up for the O.A.D."

Narcisse sat straight and silent, staring into her lap. Fosdick's cigar had gone out. She had never before objected especially to its odor; now she found it almost insupportable.

"You'd better telephone him," continued Fosdick. "No�I'll just have the butler telephone him to come up here. We might as well make sure of getting it straight."

Narcisse did not stir while Fosdick was out of the room, nor when he resumed his seat and went on, "All this is too intricate to explain in detail, Miss Siersdorf, but I'll give you an idea of it. It's a question of the secrecy of our accounts."

"But we know nothing of your company's accounts, Mr. Fosdick," said she. "You will remember that, under our contracts, we have nothing whatever to do with the bills�that they go direct to your own people and are paid by them. We warned you it was a dangerous system, but you insisted on keeping to it. You said it was your long established way, that a change would upset your whole bookkeeping, that��"

"Yes�yes. I remember perfectly," interrupted Fosdick, all good humor.

"You can't hold us responsible. We don't even know what payments have been made."

"Precisely�precisely."

"It's a stupid system, permit me to say. It allows chances for no end of fraud on you�though I think the people we employed are honest and won't take advantage of it. And, if your auditors wanted to, they could charge the company twice or three times or several times what the building cost, and��"

"Exactly," interrupted Fosdick, an unpleasant sharpness in his voice. "Let's not waste time discussing that. Let me proceed. We wish no one to know what our buildings cost."

"But�you have to make reports�to your stockholders�policy holders rather."

"In a way�yes," admitted Fosdick. "But all the men who have the direction and control of large enterprises take a certain latitude. The average citizen is a picayunish fellow, mean about small sums. He wouldn't understand many of the expenditures necessary to the conduct of large affairs. He even prefers not to be irritated by knowing just where every dollar goes. He's satisfied with the results."

"But how does he know the results shown him are the real results? Why, under that system, figures might be juggled to cheat him out of nearly all the profits."

"The public is satisfied to get a reasonable return for the money it invests�and we always guarantee that," replied Fosdick grandly.

Narcisse looked at him with startled eyes, as if a sharp turn of the road had brought her to the brink of a yawning abyss. It suddenly dawned on her�the whole system of "finance." In one swift second a thousand disconnected facts merged into a complete, repulsive whole. So, this was where these enormous fortunes came from! The big fellows inveigled the public into enterprises by promises of equal shares; then they juggled accounts, stole most of the profits, saddled all the losses on the investors. And she had admired the daring of these great financiers! Why, who wouldn't be daring, with no conscience, no honor, and a free hand to gamble with other people's money, without risking a penny of his own! And she had admired their generosity, their philanthropy, when it was simply the reckless wastefulness of the thief, after one rich haul and before another! She saw them, all over the world, gathering in the mites of toiling millions as trust funds, and stealing all but enough to encourage the poor fools to continue sending in their mites! She read it all in Josiah's face now, in the faces of her rich clients; and she wondered how she could have been so blind as not to see it before. That hungry look, sometimes frankly there, again disguised by a slimy over-layer of piety, again by whiskers or fat, but always there. Face after face of her scores of acquaintances among the powerful in finance rose beside Josiah's until she shrank and paled. Under the slather of respectability, what gross appetites, what repulsive passions! But for the absence of the brutal bruisings of ignorance and drink, these facts would seem exhibits in a rogues' gallery.

Josiah had no great opinion of the brains of his fellow men. Women he regarded as mentally deficient�were they not incapable of comprehending business? So, while he saw that Narcisse was not accepting his statement as the honorable, though practical, truth he believed it to be, he was not disturbed. "I see you don't quite follow me," he said with kindly condescension. "Business is very complex. My point is, however, that our accounts are for our own guidance, and not for our rivals to get hold of and use in exciting a lot of silly, ignorant people."

Alois Siersdorf now entered and was effusively welcomed. "What's the matter?" he exclaimed. "Have I made a mess of some sort?"

"Not at all, my boy," said Fosdick, clapping him on the back. "Our rivals have got up an investigating committee�have set on some of our policy holders to pretend to be dissatisfied with our management. I thought until yesterday that the committee was simply a haphazard affair, got together by some blackmailing lawyer. Then I learned that it was a really serious attempt of a rival of mine to take the company away from me. They're smelling round for things to 'expose'�the old trick. They think this is a rare good time to play it because the damn-fool public has been liquored up with all sorts of brandy by reformers and anarchists and socialists, trying to set it on to tear down the social structure. No man's reputation is safe. You know how it is in big affairs. It takes a broad-gage man to understand them. A little fellow thinks he sees thief and robber and swindler written everywhere, if he gets a peep at the inside. I don't know what we're coming to, with the masses being educated just enough to imagine they know, and to try to take the management of affairs out of the hands of the substantial men."

With lip curling Narcisse looked at her brother, expecting to see in his face some sign of appreciation of the disgusting comedy of Fosdick's cant; but he seemed to be taking Josiah and his oration quite seriously; to her amazement he said, "I often think of that, Mr. Fosdick. We must have a stronger government, and abolish universal suffrage. This thing of ignorant men, with no respect for the class with brains and property, having an equal voice with us has got to stop or we'll have ruin."

A self-confessed thief trying to justify himself by slandering those he had robbed, and angry with them because they were not grateful to him for not having taken all their property�and her brother applauding!

"You're right," said Fosdick, clapping him on the knee. "I've been trying to explain to your sister�though I'm afraid I don't make myself clear. The ladies�even the smartest of them�are not very attentive when we men talk of the business side of things. However, I suggested to her that you recall those specifications you gave my enemies��"

"Is it possible!" exclaimed Siersdorf, shocked. "Yes�yes�I see�I understand. But I can straighten it all out. I was rather vague with Delmar. I'll send for him and tell him I was calculating on very different kinds of buildings for him�something much cheaper��"

"Precisely!" cried Josiah. "Your brother's got a quick mind, Miss Siersdorf."

Narcisse turned away. Her brother had not even waited for Fosdick to unfold his miserable chicane; his own brain had instantly worked out the same idea; and, instead of in shame suppressing it, he had uttered it as if it were honest and honorable!

"There's another matter," continued Fosdick. He no longer felt that he must advance cautiously. Sometimes, persons not familiar with large affairs, not accustomed to dealing under the conditions that compel liberal interpretation of the moral code, had been known to balk, unless approached gradually, unless led by gentle stages above narrow ideas of the just and the right. But clearly, the Siersdorfs, living in the atmosphere of high finance, did not need to be acclimated. "It may be this committee can get permission from the State Government to pry into our affairs. I don't think it can; indeed, I almost know it can't; we've got the Government friendly to us and not at all sympathetic with these plausible blackmailers and disguised anarchists. Still, it's always well to provide for any contingency. If you should get a tip that you were likely to be wanted as witnesses you could arrange for a few weeks abroad, and not leave anything�any books or papers�for these scoundrels to nose into, couldn't you?"

"Certainly," assented Siersdorf, with great alacrity. "You may be sure they'll get nothing out of us."

"Then, that's settled," said Fosdick. "And now, let's have lunch, and forget business. I want to hear more about those plans for Amy's house down in Jersey. She has told me a good deal, but not all."

"We can't stop to lunch," interposed Narcisse, with a meaning look at her brother. "We must go back to the office at once." And when she saw that Fosdick was getting ready for a handshake, she moved toward the door, keeping out of his range without pointedly showing what she was about. In the street with her brother she walked silently, moodily beside him, selecting the softest words that would honestly express the thoughts she felt she must not conceal from him.

"A great man, Fosdick," said Alois. "One of the biggest men in the country�a splendid character, strong, able and honorable."

"Why do you say that just at this time?" asked his sister.

Alois reddened a little, avoided meeting her glance.

"To convince yourself?" she went on. "To make us seem less�less dishonest and cowardly?"

He flashed at her; his anger was suspiciously ready. "I felt you were taking that view of it!" he cried. "You are utterly unpractical. You want to run the world by copybook morality."

"Because I haven't thrown 'Thou shalt not steal' overboard? Because I am ashamed, Alois, that we are helping this man Fosdick to cover his cowardly thief tracks?"

"You don't understand, Cissy," he remonstrated, posing energetically as the superior male forbearing with the inferior female. "You oughtn't to judge what you haven't the knowledge to judge correctly."

"He is a thief," retorted she bluntly. "And we are making ourselves his accomplices."

Alois's smile was uncomfortable. With the manner of a man near the limit of patience with folly, he explained, "What you are giving those lurid names to is nothing but the ordinary routine of business, throughout the world. Do you suppose the man of great financial intellect would do the work he does for small wages? Do you imagine the little people he works for and has to work through, the beneficiaries of all those giant enterprises, would give him his just due voluntarily? He's a man of affairs, and he works practically, deals with human nature on human principles�just as do all the great men of action."

Narcisse stopped short, gazed at him in amazement. "Alois!" she exclaimed.

He disregarded her rebuke, her reminder of the time when he had thought and talked very differently. "Suppose," he persisted, "these great fortunes didn't exist; suppose Fosdick were ass enough to take a salary and divide up the profits; suppose all these people of wealth we work for were to be honest according to your definition of the word�what then? Why, millions of people would get ten or twelve dollars a year, or something like that, more than they now have, and there'd be no great fortunes to encourage art, to employ people like us, to endow colleges and make the higher and more beautiful side of life."

"That's too shallow to answer," said Narcisse sternly. "You know better, Alois. You know it's from the poor that intellect and art and all that's genuine and great and progressive come�never from the rich, from wealth. But even if it were not so, how can you defend anything that means a sacrifice of character?" She stopped in the street and looked at him. "Alois, what has changed you?"

"Come," he urged rather shamefacedly. "People are watching us."

They went on in silence, separated at the offices with a few constrained words. They did not meet again until the next morning�when he sought her. He looked much as usual�fresh, handsome, supple in body and mind. Her eyes were red round the edges of the lids and her usually healthy skin had the paleness that comes from a sleepless night. "Well," he said, with his sweet, conciliatory smile�he had a perfect disposition, while hers was often "difficult." "Do you still think I'm wrong�and desperately wicked?"

"I haven't changed my mind," she answered, avoiding his gaze.

He frowned; his face showed the obstinacy that passes current for will in a world of vacillators.

"You've always left business to me," he went on. "Just continue to leave it. Rest assured I'll do nothing to injure my honor in the opinion of any rational, practical person�or the honor of the firm."

She was not deceived by the note of conciliation in his voice; she knew he had his mind fixed. She was at her desk, stiffly erect, gazing straight ahead. Her expression brought out all the character in her features, brought out that beauty of feminine strength which the best of the Greeks have succeeded in giving their sculptured heroines. Without warning she flung herself forward, hid her face and burst into tears. "Oh, I hate myself!" she cried. "I'm nothing but a woman, after all�miserable, contemptible, weak creatures that we are!"

He settled himself on the arm of her chair and drew her into his arm. "You're a finer person in every way than I am," he said; "a better brain and a better character. But, Cissy dear, don't judge in matters that aren't within your scope."

"Do as you please," she replied brokenly. "I'm a woman�and where's the woman that wouldn't sacrifice anything and everything for love?"

She had, indeed, spent a night of horror. She felt that what he had done was frightful dishonor�was proof that he was losing his moral sense and, what seemed to her worse, becoming a pander to the class for which they did most of the work they especially prided themselves upon. She felt that, for his sake no less than for her own, she ought to join the issue squarely and force him to choose the right road, or herself go on in it alone. But she knew that he would let her go. And she had only him. She loved him; she would not break with him; she could not.

"You know nothing about those buildings, anyhow," he continued. "Just forget the whole business. I'll take care of it. Isn't that fair?"

"Anything! Anything!" she sobbed. "Only, let there be peace and love between us."