Joan and Co.
that into a hundred thousand, and so swiftly to jump to a million. He
would need all that for her and more.
If he had the capital to-day! That is what she offered him. And to her
it meant so little. Yet because this fight was his fight and his alone,
he must refuse it. He should have stood his ground before her and
settled that once for all. He must see her again as soon as possible
and settle that. Had he stood his ground before, it would be all
settled now.
For a half-hour after he had reached this decision—a decision that left
him with his shoulders squared—he was forced to wait his opportunity to
see her. He had sent Jeffrey to find her and the latter had reported:
“Miss Fairburne is at present with a guest in the drawing-room, sir.”
“Will you let me know as soon as she is free?”
“Yes, sir.”
But Jeffrey’s services were not needed. As soon as Devons heard the
front door close, he immediately went downstairs only to find her
coming upstairs to meet him.
“Oh, do come into the drawing-room!” she exclaimed. “Everything is all
settled.”
He followed her below and into the big room with the open fire. And if
at this momentous conference he had spoken the words that first sprang
to his lips, he would have said only:
“How beautiful you are.”
“That was Dicky,” she announced.
The name meant nothing to him. There was no particular reason why he
should have immediately disliked it.
“I have known Dicky a great many years,” she went on to explain. Had
she been fifty or seventy-five that statement would have been a good
deal more reassuring than it was under the circumstances.
“Hasn’t he any last name?” he inquired.
“Yes,” she admitted. “But that’s a secret. You will understand in a
minute. Dicky is very, very nice.”
That, from Devons’s point of view, was if anything against him.
“So I told him what I wanted.”
Devons frowned. This was altogether too personal a matter to confide in
any one else.
“I told him I wanted to go into business, and somehow Dicky seemed to
understand,” she hurried on. “I didn’t even tell him what the business
was. He said he didn’t want to know. But what he did ask was if he
could not share it with me. He wanted—to be a silent partner himself.”
“He did?”
“So he offered to furnish the capital and let me do what I chose with
it.”
“As a partner?” questioned Devons.
“Yes,” she nodded. “Only he did not wish to have anything to do with
the business itself.”
Devons appeared perplexed.
“It sounds queer,” he answered. “Are you sure you understood him?”
“It wouldn’t sound queer if you knew Dicky.”
“He has a great deal of money?”
“He—he seems to have all he needs,” she answered.
“Then perhaps that explains it,” concluded Devons.
“But I don’t see the need of an explanation of any sort,” she replied
with spirit. “And I’m sure if he had more business it would be better
for him. He is to bring me five thousand dollars at once.”
“Five thousand dollars!” gasped Devons.
That in itself was a fortune.
“Then as much as we need,” she ran on.
“As much as we need,” he said over after her.
It sounded like one of those stories he used to dream.
“It certainly is mighty decent of this Dicky,” he added thoughtfully.
It was all that and a little something more. A man, no matter how much
money he had, was not apt to invest blindly five thousand dollars
unless he had a great deal of confidence in his agent—a great deal more
confidence than was common in the everyday business venture. In this
particular instance it was obvious that this generous trust was not
based upon the wide experience of the agent or any reputation acquired
by her from past successes. Clearly it was in the nature of a blind
faith not usually associated with financial deals. And yet, put himself
in the position of this Dicky, and he had a notion it was just the sort
of thing he would have done himself. He would have looked upon it as an
opportunity. Here was a fair explanation, but it brought him up with a
start.
“You aren’t going to think up any more objections, are you?” she asked.
“I seem to be in the minority now,” he answered.
“Then,” she said, “can’t we call it all settled?”
Devons drew a deep breath. He met her eyes a moment, and then as he
fought free of them it was as though standing behind her he met the
eyes of this man Dicky. And it was as though the latter were smiling a
challenge. It was as though the latter said to him this: “Well, will
you fight for her, or shall I take her?”
There was just one way. He could not wait a decade now. He must seize
this opportunity, however distasteful on general grounds it was—however
unusual. Perhaps the man had made the offer in the assurance that he,
Devons, would fail, anyhow. The thought acted like a blow on the cheek.
“We’ll call it settled,” answered Devons.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I’m so glad!”
“But we must work hard—partner.”
Her cheeks grew scarlet. He saw her eyes spring alight.
“As hard as ever we can,” she nodded.
CHAPTER XIV
PUMPKIN PIE
There was pumpkin pie on the _carte de jour_ that Thursday. Offhand one
might have said that nothing was less likely to influence the lives
of half a dozen residents of New York City. It is very probable that
the proprietors of the hotel and the chef who put it there would have
denied vigorously having any ulterior design and would, before a court
of law, have disclaimed all responsibility. Doubtless they would have
been sustained by the judge.
However, there was pumpkin pie on the _carte de jour_ that Thursday. As
Burnett picked up the card with indifferent interest, his eye fell upon
it. He glanced at his son sitting opposite him.
“Your mother used to make the best pumpkin pie in the State of Maine,”
he observed.
“So?” answered Dicky.
The waiter was standing at Burnett’s shoulder with pad and pencil ready.
“Give me some of that clear soup,” Burnett ordered.
“And whole wheat bread, sir?”
“Yes,” nodded Burnett.
He hesitated after that.
“The haddock is very good, sir, and not fattening, as you might say.”
“I’ll try some.”
“Very well, sir.”
With that the waiter was for hurrying off.
Burnett stopped him. “I’d like to try a piece of that pumpkin pie,
Dicky,” he faltered. “Just to see how it compares with your mother’s.”
“Go ahead,” consented Dicky.
“A piece of pumpkin pie, John,” Burnett ordered grandly.
He actually rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and was
immediately in better humor with himself than for a week. That is what
counted. That is where the pumpkin pie played its part.
“Forsythe handed me the January statement this morning,” he said to
Dicky. “Best month in the history of the company.”
“Fine!”
“Ought to beat it this month.”
“Hope you do.”
Decidedly this seemed to be the moment for which Dicky had been waiting.
“By the way, Dad,” he began, “I have something I want to talk over with
you.”
“The girl?”
“Not exactly. It’s business.”
“Eh?”
“I have a chance to get into something good.”
“Look here, my boy, you aren’t fooling with the Street?”
Dicky smiled.
“No, Dad. I’ll leave that game to you. This is something different.”
“What is it?”
“The devil of it is I can’t tell you. A friend of mine—”
Burnett raised his brows.
“Not the usual kind of friend,” Dicky hastened to explain. “This is a
friend I’d trust my life with. She—er—he wants me to go in as a silent
partner.”
“In what?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. But it promises big. It promises to
be the biggest thing in my life.”
“Sounds a bit queer,” exclaimed Burnett.
“Yes,” admitted Dicky, “it does. But if I give you my word that it
isn’t—”
“I don’t want your word. How much do you need?”
“Five thousand.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Burnett drew a check-book from his pocket and wrote the check. It was
done so unhesitatingly, so simply, that Dicky felt almost ashamed to
accept it.
“That’s white of you, Dad,” he exclaimed.
Burnett raised a portion of the pie to his mouth and tasted it
critically.
“It isn’t as good as your mother’s,” he decided. “But it’s almighty
good.”
CHAPTER XV
LIKE NAPOLEON
It was this same Thursday, too, that Joan came to the house to tea.
She came at four o’clock looking radiant. It was a proud moment for
Dicky when he introduced her to his mother because he knew Joan was
justifying in every detail the most enthusiastic description of her he
had ever given. It was difficult to understand how it was possible for
Joan to grow any younger than she always was, but she looked younger;
it was difficult to understand how she could look any fresher than
she always did, but this afternoon she accomplished in some way that
feat also. For one thing her eyes were wider open than they sometimes
were, and instead of merely listening in a half-amused, half-critical
fashion, she herself dominated the conversation. This, to be sure,
relegated him more or less to the background, but he was content to
have it so.
It was quite evident that in some mysterious way the older woman and
the younger woman formed an instant liking one for the other. Dicky
had expected each to admire the other and, given time, had anticipated
a formal friendship, but it was as though in minutes they spanned
months. The moment their hands clasped and their eyes met, the two
seemed to have come to some sort of an agreement. It puzzled him.
Beyond the fact that they were two women and each in her way quite
perfect, they had no common bond between them. He had been rather
afraid that his mother, in her old-fashioned way, might not be able
at once to penetrate to the woman in Joan, and he had suspected that
Joan, in her turn, might be at first confused by his mother’s quaint
frankness. But before he knew it, here they were seated at their tea
in front of the fire, talking so directly one to the other that he was
more or less on the outside.
This, because of the subject-matter, was more or less embarrassing.
There were moments when if possible he would have fled. Because in less
than five minutes his mother had revealed her one weakness and dragged
in him, Dicky, and the adventures of his infancy and early youth as the
major topic. How it happened, Lord knows. At the beginning he tried
to switch her off. It was entirely useless, because it was apparent
that she was being aided and abetted by Joan herself. The latter even
rebuked him openly.
“Dicky,” she said, when once he endeavored to turn the subject to the
weather, “Dicky, it is not polite to interrupt like that.”
“I know, but—”
She turned her back upon him and gave his mother her cue.
“So he came to the head of the stairs in his nighty—”
His mother, thus encouraged, went on. Nothing could have been more
puerilely inane than that episode of how Dicky at the age of four came
downstairs one evening in that garb and entertained two of his father’s
business friends who had come to talk over very important matters. It
seems that his father did him up in an overcoat, put him in a chair,
and made him an _ex-officio_ director of the proposed company.
Of course one such yarn inevitably led to another. Before the close of
the afternoon Joan was in possession of a first-hand report of most of
the fool things he had ever done up to the time he went to college. The
only feature upon which he could congratulate himself was that at this
point the narrative inevitably ended, although he could not say as much
about all the fool things.
And yet, when it came time to go, Joan actually told his mother with
all evidence of sincerity that she had thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.