Joan and Co.
was conscious of a change in her attitude, which to him was most
encouraging. It was as though she were really glad to see him again.
When she offered her hand, it was not merely a social convention, but
as a friend might offer her hand. He took into account, too, the fact
that she was dressed as though ready to go out once more. It gave him
the courage to present without delay his mother’s invitation.
“Have you any engagement for Thursday afternoon?” he asked as soon as
they were seated.
“No,” she answered hesitatingly. “I have not been making any
engagements at all.”
“This is a very particular one,” he assured her. “It is from mother to
come to tea at the house.”
“Your mother? It is sweet of her to ask me,” she replied. It brought
home to her, as a rather curious truth, the fact that she had never
happened to meet either Mr. or Mrs. Burnett. But in the younger set one
did not often meet the elders unless they entertained. And unless they
had daughters, they did not entertain much.
“You will come?” he asked earnestly.
“Why, yes, Dicky,” she agreed, as though searching for a meaning.
“I told her a little something about you,” he explained.
“There is so very little to tell about me,” she laughed uneasily.
“There’s a great deal,” he contradicted. “More than a man could tell in
a book.”
“On Thursday, then,” she concluded as though to check further parley
along this line.
But he could not at that moment be checked so abruptly.
“I told her how beautiful you were and—that you would not marry me.”
“You told her that?” she gasped.
Dicky nodded.
“She came to my room and asked.”
“I—I suppose she thinks me horrid, then.”
“No,” he smiled. “Only she does not understand it. That’s why I want
her to meet you—so she will understand.”
“Dicky!” she exclaimed with a choke in her voice.
“As soon as she knows you, she will realize how much too good you are
for me,” he went on seriously.
“It isn’t so!”
“You will see. She is very wise in her quiet way—that mother of mine.
You will like her.”
“I’m sure I shall like her,” she replied.
Then for a few minutes the conversation turned to other things—to
trivial things as he tried to be entertaining. As she listened and
smiled, she kept wondering if after all it was going to be possible
for her to ask of him what she had planned to ask. At one moment it
did, and at the next it did not. Though she did not know it, this
abstraction was reflected in her eyes, and he, keenly alert to every
passing change in her, noted this. So in the end it was he who put the
question to her. He paused abruptly in his light talk and asked:
“What are you worrying about, Joan?”
She started. This was her opportunity, and yet she shied away from it.
“I’m not worrying, Dicky,” she answered.
“But there’s something on your mind.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Something you don’t want to tell me about?”
“Something I do want to tell you about,” she returned.
“Then—”
“It’s something I want to ask you to do.”
“Fine!” he exclaimed.
“Only I don’t know how to ask.”
“The way to ask is to ask,” he suggested.
“But I’m afraid—oh, Dicky, if you think it queer of me, or if you don’t
want to do it, you’ll be frank?”
She leaned forward impulsively with her hands clasped before her.
“I can’t conceive myself as not doing anything you may ask,” he replied.
“No matter how unusual it is?”
“No matter what it is.”
“You’ll promise to use your own judgment and not do it—just because of
me?”
“I’ll promise beforehand to do it.”
“Then, Dicky,” she said, blurting it out at once, because the longer
she talked about it the less courage she had,—“Then, Dicky, I—I want
you to loan me some money.”
It took away his breath for a moment.
“Money!” he gasped.
It was as absurd a request on the face of it as though she asked for
bread.
“And,” she went on, “it’s something mother doesn’t approve of.”
Dicky gave a low whistle.
“At least that sounds interesting,” he admitted.
“It’s business,” she explained hastily. “I’m going to be a sort of
silent partner.”
“Business?” he asked suspiciously.
He thought of the market. He had heard of women who played stocks on a
margin—the easy victims of unscrupulous operators. It was not like Joan
to do a thing of that nature.
“How much do you want?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe five thousand; maybe more,” she hurried on.
“Right,” he nodded. “When do you want it?”
“Perhaps within a week.”
He nodded again.
“I’ll get it for you.”
“Of course it’s only a loan,” she said.
And here Dicky thought a moment. He did not want to make it a loan. If
she borrowed the money and lost it—as at the moment it seemed to him
more than probable she would—he did not choose to have her left with
the worry. On the other hand, he saw no practical way of giving it to
her. This brought him to the question of just what her object was,
anyway, in wanting to try to make money. Still he did not like to ask
her. It was a delicate matter.
“Look here,” he exclaimed, “why don’t you let me in on the deal?”
“You?”
“I don’t want to know the details,” he assured her. “I’d rather not
know them. You can act as the promoter and I’ll furnish the capital.
Then we can go divvies on the profits.”
“You mean that, Dicky Burnett?”
“Certainly. I’ll be just another silent partner.”
“And you don’t even want to know what I’m going to do with the money?”
she asked, with warming eyes.
“No,” he answered. “Then I won’t be tempted to give you good advice.”
“Dicky,” she exclaimed, “you’re—you’re a peach!”
Different people place, of course, different values upon money. But as
far as Dicky was concerned, he received right then and there adequate
return on his prospective investment. It may have been an expensive
luxury and one he could not afford every day, but that had nothing to
do with intrinsic values. It was worth the money just to see the honest
admiration in her eyes—to grasp the hot hand she impulsively extended
to him.
“You’re so good, Dicky,” she added. “You kind of make me ache.”
“It’s a bargain, then?” he asked, with his head swimming before her.
“A bargain,” she agreed.
“Joan & Co.,” he repeated to himself. “Sounds kind of nice, doesn’t it?”
“It ought to be Dicky & Co.”
“No, because it’s your proposition. I have a notion it’s rather going
to please Dad to learn I’ve gone into business for myself.”
“He must know?”
“In some ways it’s rather essential,” he admitted. “But he needn’t know
any more than that. You—you don’t need a bookkeeper or anything, do
you?”
“No,” she answered. “There aren’t any books yet.”
“You might keep me in mind for the position,” he suggested.
“I’d be glad if there was something of the sort for me to do,” she said.
He shook his head.
“You mustn’t let this take all your time. You aren’t going downtown at
ten in the morning?”
“I’m afraid it won’t be necessary.”
“If it should be, I hope the company fails.”
“No, no, you mustn’t say things like that.”
She looked so genuinely concerned that he smiled.
“There’ll have to be directors’ meetings every so often, anyway,” he
reminded her.
“Yes?”
“Once a week,” he suggested. “I think Delmonico’s would be a good
place.”
“All right, Dicky,” she consented.
So within five minutes he secured an extra dividend of at least one
hundred per cent. He was beginning to realize that this bade fair to be
one of the best investments of his life.
She was still standing, and her eyes strayed often to the door.
“I think we’d better adjourn now,” she said.
“Very well,” he assented. “Until when?”
“Until I tell you.”
“But there’s Thursday.”
“I won’t forget.”
“That, however, is not a business meeting.”
He took her hand again, though he had no particular warrant for it.
“Here’s good luck to Joan & Co.,” he concluded, as he pressed it.
“Especially the Co.,” she smiled.
CHAPTER XIII
A CHALLENGE
Devons had no business to be impatient because Joan remained below
with a visitor three quarters of an hour. Considering the fact that
only a few hours before he had rather ignominiously retreated from
her presence, it did not seem to be good judgment to begin, almost
immediately afterwards, to look forward to an opportunity to place
himself again in jeopardy of her eyes. Yet that was exactly what he did.
He was not satisfied with the way he had handled that situation. In
the first place, he should have stood his ground and fought through to
a finish no matter what the outcome. He discovered this the moment he
found himself back in his room. Leaving as he did, nothing whatever had
been settled. Sooner or later he must have everything to do all over
again.
What the deuce had been the matter with him? Pacing the floor, he tried
to review the proposition sensibly. She had offered to furnish him with
the capital to put his dressing on the market—to enter into a simple
business arrangement with him. She had done this because of a desire to
have an active interest outside the petty routine of her present life.
He had assumed that this was a risk he was not justified in allowing
her to take. But as a matter of fact, was it a risk? Had the offer
come from a man he would not have hesitated. He knew what he had—the
best and cheapest article of its kind in the world. Even Reed had
not disputed that. Reed had been frightened off by his unwillingness
to give battle to this man Burnett, whoever he was. And that did not
influence Devons in the slightest. It was like a challenge. That was
the West in him—the youth in him. Let the conflict narrow down to an
individual, and he was at his best. Give him the money to work with,
and he would put in the rest—himself. That was what Reed did not have.
He had only the money.
Considered, then, purely as a business proposition, he stood unafraid.
If the money came from any other source, he would have accepted it.
Then what the deuce was the matter with him?
He asked the question, but even as he asked it he knew the answer. Down
deep in his heart he knew the answer. It was only a matter of admitting
it. Now, suddenly, squaring his shoulders he faced the truth. He had
dared allow himself to love this woman. He, Mark Devons, a penniless
young adventurer from the West, had ventured to turn his eyes upwards
to the stars and stare overlong at the whitest-burning one of them all.
Thrust unwarrantedly into her life, he had absorbed so much of it that
his head had been turned. For hours after she left him he had permitted
himself to feel that he belonged where he was—that she was not
impossible. It was only when he saw the inevitable end of it that he
realized, and then it was too late. Not too late for her, but for him.
If he kept his head steady, it was not too late for her. Thank God, his
lips had remained sealed. Thank God, he had given her no inkling of
how he felt. He had looked into her eyes and grown dizzy, but he had
remained dumb. That covered the present, but what of the future?
Here was where he had certain inalienable rights. Here was where it
was his privilege to fly as high and as wild as he chose. Let him get
back to his work, and he might hitch his wagon even to such a star
as this. Give him half an opportunity, and he would win for her the
place to which she was entitled. Starting with nothing, it might have
looked like a long path to one in any other mood than this. But in this
mood, worlds had been conquered in months. He had read all his life
of fortunes made in a few years in New York. It was being done every
day. The first thousand, some one had said, was the difficult thousand.
After that it was easy to make it into ten; then still easier to turn