Friday, the Thirteenth: A Novel
thousand capital and the million four hundred thousand profit you had this
morning, only your capital remains.”
Wishing to spare Bob, I interrupted and myself gave the girl briefly the
details of what had happened. She listened intently and seemed to take in
all the trickery of the “System” masters; seemed to see just what it meant
to us and to her. But she made no comment, showed by no outward sign that
she suffered. As soon as I was through she turned to Bob, who had stood
with his eyes fastened upon her face, as though somewhere out of its soft
beauty must come an assurance that this was all a bad dream.
“Mr. Brownley,” she said, “let us figure up just where we stand, so that
we may know what to do to recoup. You have said so many times, since I
have been here, that Wall Street is magic land; that no man may tell
twenty-four hours ahead what will happen to him. You have said it so many
times that I believe it. We know that this morning we were at the goal,
that we were millions ahead, and all from twenty-four hours’ effort. We
have yet almost three months left, and I do not see why we have not just
as much chance as we had day before yesterday. Yes, and more, because we
know more now. Next time we will include the dividend cuts and the Senate
duplicity in our figuring.”
We both dumbly stared in wondering admiration at this marvellous woman.
Was it possible that a girl could have such nerve, such courage? Or had
woman’s hope, so persistent where her loved ones are concerned, made
Beulah Sands blind to the awfulness of the situation? As I looked at her I
could not doubt that she fully realised our position, that she was really
suffering more than either of us, that she was only acting to ease Bob’s
anguish. Bob brought out his memoranda, and in half an hour we had the
figures. The total loss was nearly three millions. As Beulah Sands’s
20,000 shares had cost less than ours and Bob figured to leave her capital
of $400,000 intact, we felt some comfort. Beulah Sands had watched the
figuring with the keenness of an expert, and when Bob announced the final
figures, which showed that she still had what she started with, she drew
the sheet containing the totals to her. “I was willing to accept your
assistance,” she said, “when the deal promised a profit to all of us,
because I appreciated your goodness and knew how much it would hurt your
feelings if I were churlish about the division; but now that we all lose I
must stand my fair share; I must.” She said this in a way that we both
knew precluded the possibility of argument. “We owned together 150,000
shares. I was to have had the profits on 20,000 shares. Our total loss is
$2,775,000, of which I must bear my just proportion. Mr. Brownley, you
will see that $370,000 is charged to my account. I shall have $30,000
left. If our cause is as just as we think, God in his goodness will make
this ample for our purposes.”
Though Bob and I were in despair at her determination to strip herself of
what Bob had worked so hard to accumulate, we could not help feeling a
reverence for her faith and her sturdy independence. She now showed us in
her delicate way that she wished to be alone; as we went she held out her
hand to Bob. “Mr. Brownley, please, for the sake of the work we have to
do, look on the bright side of this calamity, for it has a bright side.
You wanted me to send word to my father that we were about to grasp
victory. Think if we had sent it—then you will know that God is good,
even when we think he is chastening us beyond endurance.”
Bob took me into his office. “Jim, you see what a woman can do, and we are
taught women are the weaker sex. Now listen to what you must do. Accept my
notes for the whole loss, less one hundred thousand which I have to my
credit, and which I will pay on account. I won’t listen to any objection.
The deal was mine; you came in only to help us out, and I ought never to
have tempted you. If I remain in my present busted condition, the notes
will be blank paper. Therefore you do me no harm in taking them. If I
should strike it rich, I should never feel like a man until I made up the
loss.”
It was no use arguing with him in his inflexible mood, so I took his
demand notes for $2,405,000. I begged him to go home with me to dinner,
but he insisted that he could not face my wife with his last night’s
break still fresh in her mind. Next day he did not turn up. Along in the
afternoon I received a telegram from him, saying that he was on his way to
Virginia, that he needed a rest and would be back in a week. I was
worried, nervous. It takes until the next day and the day after, and the
week after that, to get down to the deepest misery of an upset such as we
had been through. I did not feel easy with Bob out of sight while he was
sounding for a new footing. I went to Beulah Sands in hope we might talk
over the affair, but when I told her that Bob was to be gone for a week
and that I was uneasy, she said in her calm, confident manner: “I don’t
think there is anything to worry about, Mr. Randolph. Mr. Brownley is too
much of a man to allow an affair of dollars to do anything more than annoy
him. He will be back all the better for his rest.” She dropped her long
lashes in a this-conversation-is-closed way that we had come to know meant
going time.
Chapter IV.
The following week Bob returned to the office. He had not changed, and yet
he had changed greatly. Rest had apparently done much for him. His colour
was good, his step elastic as of old, and his head was thrown back as if
he were buckled up for the fray and wanted all to know it. Yet there was
something in the eye, in the setness of the jaw, in the hair-trigger calm,
yet fiercely savage grip in which he closed his strong hands on the arms
of his chair, that told me more plainly than words that this was not the
optimistic, soft-hearted Bob Brownley I had known and loved. I could not
help feeling that if I had been a leader of the Russian terrorists, and
this man who now sat before me had come to my ken when I was selecting
bomb-throwers, I should have seized upon him of all men as the one to
stalk the Czar or his marked minions. Surely the iron that had entered
Bob’s soul a week before had affected his whole being. I think Beulah
Sands had some such thoughts. For I saw a shadow of perplexity cross her
broad, low forehead after her first meeting with him, a shadow that had
not been there before.
For days after Bob’s return I saw little of him. I think Beulah Sands saw
less. During Stock Exchange hours he spent most of his time on the floor,
but he executed few of our orders. He merely looked them over and handed
them out to his assistants. As far as I could learn, he spent much of his
time there yesterdaying through hope’s graveyards, a not uncommon pastime
for active Exchange members whose first through specials have been
open-switched by the “System” towerman. So strong had become this habit of
going about from pole to pole with bent head and a far-off gaze that his
fellow members began to humour and respect it. They all knew that Bob had
gone up against the Sugar panic hard. No one knew how hard, but all
guessed from his changed appearance and habits that it must have been a
bone-smashing blow. Nothing so quickly and so deeply stirs a Stock
Exchange man’s feelings for his brother member as to know that “They” have
ditched his El Dorado flyer—that is, if he has been a good the books
showed no change in Beulah Sands’s account. There was the poor little
$30,000 balance; no other entries. One afternoon Beulah Sands had asked
for a meeting between Bob and myself in her office. She could hardly have
asked Bob to come without me, but I knew it was Bob she wanted to see, and
I felt that the best thing I could do for them was to leave them alone. So
I made some excuse for a moment’s delay at my desk, telling Bob to go on
into her office, and promising to follow shortly. He went in, leaving the
door partly open. I think that from the moment he entered the room both of
them utterly forgot my existence. From her desk Beulah could not see me,
and Bob sat so that his back was half toward me. “I dislike to trouble you
about my account,” I heard her begin in a voice a trifle uneven, “but as I
must go back to Father Christmas week, I wanted to get your advice as to
the advisability of writing him that, though there is still a chance for
doing wonders, I do not think we shall be able to save him. Of course I
won’t put it in just that blunt way, but it seems to me I should begin to
prepare him for the blow. I have not talked over any more plunging with
you, Mr. Brownley, since the unlucky one in Sugar, and——”
“Miss Sands, I understand what you mean,” Bob broke in, “and I should
apologise for not having consulted with you about your business affairs.
The fact is, I have not been quite clear as to the best thing to do. I
hope you don’t think I have forgotten. Never for a moment since I took
charge of your affairs have I forgotten my promise to see that they were
kept active. Truly I have been trying to think out some successful plunge,
but—but”—there was a hoarseness in his voice—“I have not had my old
confidence in myself since that day in Sugar when I killed your hopes and
destroyed the chance of saving your father—no, I have not had that
confidence a man must have in himself to win at this game.”
There was a silence, and then I heard an indescribable fluttering rush
that told as plainly as sight could have done that a woman had answered
her heart’s call. Looking up involuntarily, I saw a sight that for a long
moment held my eyes as if I had been fascinated. It was Bob bowed forward
with his face hidden in his hands and beside him, on her knees, Beulah
Sands, her arms about his neck, his head drawn down to her bosom. “Bob,
Bob,” she said chokingly, “I cannot stand it any longer. My heart is
breaking for you. You were so happy when I came into your life, and the
happiness is changed to misery and despair, and all for me, a stranger. At
first I thought of nothing but father and how to save him, but since that
day when those men struck at your heart, I have been filled with, oh! such
a longing to tell you, to tell you, Bob——”
“What? Beulah, what? For the love of God, don’t stop; tell me, Beulah,
tell me.” He had not lifted his head. It was buried on her breast, his
arms closed around her. She bent her head and laid her beautiful, soft
cheek, down which the tears were now streaming, against his brown hair.
“Bob, forgive me, but I love you, love you, Bob, as only a woman can love
who has never known love before, never known anything but stern duty. Bob,
night after night when all have left I have crept into your office and sat
in your chair. I have laid my head on your desk and cried and cried until
it seemed as though I could not live till morning without hearing you say
that you loved me, and that you did not mind the ruin I had brought into
your life. I have patted the back of your chair where your dear head had
rested. I have covered the arms of your chair, that your strong, brave
hands had gripped, with kisses. Night after night I have knelt at your
desk and prayed to God to shield you, to protect you from all harm, to
brush away the black cloud I brought into your life. I have asked Him to
do with me, yes, with my father and mother, anything, anything if only He
would bring back to you the happiness I had stolen. Bob, I have suffered,
suffered, as only a woman can suffer.”
She was sobbing as though her heart would break, sobbing wildly,
convulsively, like the little child who in the night comes to its mother’s
bed to tell of the black goblins that have been pursuing it. Long before
she had finished speaking—and it took only a few heart-beats for that