The Web of Life Part 33

"That's the place for us!" Sommers exclaimed, gazing intently at the time-stained temple. Alves looked at the building sceptically, for woman-wise she conceived of only conventional abiding-places. But she followed him submissively into the little stucco portico, and when he spoke buoyantly of the possibilities of the place, of the superb view of park and lake, her worn face gained color once more. The imitation bronze doors were ajar, and they made a thorough examination of the interior. With a few laths, some canvas, and a good cleaning, the place could be made possible--for the summer.

"That's four months," Sommers remarked. "And that is a long time for poor people to look ahead."

The same evening they hunted up the owner and made their terms, and the next day prepared to move from the Keystone. They had some regrets over leaving the Keystone Hotel. The last month Sommers had had one or two cases. The episode with Dr. Jelly had finally redounded to his credit, for the woman had died at Jelly's private hospital, and the nurse who had overheard the dispute between the two doctors had gossiped. The first swallow of success, however, was not enough to warrant any expenditure for office rent. He must make some arrangement with a drug store near the temple, where he could receive calls.

They invited Miss M'Gann, Webber, and Dresser to take supper with them their first Sunday in the temple. Alves had arranged a little kitchen in one corner of the smaller of the two rooms. This room received the pompous name of "the laboratory"; the other room--a kind of hall into which the portico opened--was bedroom and general living room.

"We will throw open the temple doors," she explained to Sommers, "and have supper on the portico between the pillars."

From that point the lake could be seen, a steely blue line on the horizon.

But it rained on Sunday, and the visitors arrived so bedraggled by the storm that their feast seemed doomed. Sommers produced a bottle of Scotch whiskey, and they warmed and cheered themselves. The Baking Powder clerk grew loquacious first. The Baking Powder Trust was to be reorganized, he told them, as soon as good times came. There was to be a new trust, twice as big as the present one, capitalized for millions and millions. The chemist of the concern had told him that Carson was engineering the affair.

The stock of the present company would be worth double, perhaps three times as much as at present. He confided the fact that he had put all his savings into the stock of the present company at its greatly depressed present value. The company was not paying dividends; he had bought at forty. His air of financial success, of shrewd speculative insight impressed them all.

Miss M'Gann evidently knew all about this; she smiled as if the world were a pretty good place.

Dresser, too, had his boast. He had finally been given charge of _The Investor's Monthly_, which had absorbed the _La Salle Street Indicator_. The policy of the papers was to be changed: they were to be conservative, but not critical, and conducted in the interests of capital which was building up the country after its financial panic.

"In the prospective return of good times many new interests will seek public patronage," he explained to the company. "A new era will dawn--the era of business combinations, of gigantic cooperative enterprises."

"Vulgarly known as trusts," Sommers interjected. "And your paper is going to boom Carson's companies. Well, well, that's pretty good for Debs's ex-secretary!"

"You must understand that people of education change their views," Dresser retorted uncomfortably. "I have had a long talk with Mr. Carson about the policy of the paper. He doesn't wish to interfere, not in the least, merely advises on a general line of policy agreeable to him and his a.s.sociates, who, I may say, are very heavily engaged in Chicago enterprises. We are interested at present in the traction companies which are seeking extensions of their franchises."

"He's joined the silk-hat brigade," Webber scoffed. "The Keystone ain't good enough for him any longer. He's going north to be within call of his friends."

"How is Laura Lindsay?" Sommers asked.

"I saw her last night, and I met Mr. Brome Porter and young Polot, too."

"Did you tell 'em where you were going to-night?" Sommers asked, rather bitterly.

"Say, Howard," Dresser replied, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair and resting one arm confidentially on the table, "you must have been a great chump. You had a soft thing of it at Lindsay's--"

"I suppose Miss Laura has discussed it with you. I didn't like the set quite as well as you seem to."

"Well, it's no use making enemies, when you can have 'em for friends just as easily as not," Dresser retorted, with an air of superior worldly wisdom.

Miss M'Gann had drawn Alves out of the talk among the men, and they sat by themselves on the lower step of the temple.

"I saw Dr. Leonard the other day at a meeting of the Cymbals Society," Miss M'Gann told Alves. "He asked where you were."

"I hope he'll come to see us."

Miss M'Gann looked at the men and lowered her voice.

"I think he knows what was the reason for dismissing you. He wouldn't tell me; but if I see him again, I am going to get it out of him."

"Why, what did he say?" Alves asked.

"Nothing much. Only he asked very particularly about you and the doctor; about what kind of man the doctor was, and just when you were married and where."

Alves moved nervously.

"Where were you married, Alves?" Miss M'Gann pursued anxiously. "Here or in Wisconsin? You were so dreadfully queer about it all."

"We were not married," Alves replied, in a quiet voice, "at least not in a church, with a ceremony and all that. I didn't want it, and we didn't think it necessary."

The younger woman gasped.

"Alves! I'd never think it of you--you two so quiet and so like ordinary folks!"

"We are like other people, only we aren't tied to each other by a halter.

He can go when he likes," Alves retorted. "I want him to go," she added fiercely, "just as soon as he finds he doesn't love me enough."

"Um," Miss M'Gann answered. "Lucky you haven't any children. That's where the rub comes."

Alves straightened herself with a little haughtiness.

"It wouldn't make any difference to _him_. He would do right by them if he had them."

"I don't see how he could, at present," Miss M'Gann proceeded, with severe logic. "It's all very well so long as things go easily. _But_ I had rather have the ring."

After a little silence, she continued: "It must have had something to do with that, I guess, your being dropped. Did any one know?"

"I never said anything about it," Alves replied coldly. She would have liked to add an entreaty, for his sake, that Miss M'Gann keep this secret.

But her pride prevented her.

"That Ducharme woman must have been talking," Miss M'Gann proceeded acutely. "I saw her around last year, looking seedy, as if she drank."

"Possibly," Alves a.s.sented, "though she didn't know anything."

"Well, my advice to you is to make that right just as soon as ever you can.

He's willing?"

"I should never let him," Alves exclaimed vehemently; "least of all now!"

"Well, I suppose folks must live their own way. But you don't catch me taking a man in that easy fas.h.i.+on, so that he can get out when he wants to."

Alves tried to change the subject, but her admission had so startled her friend that the usual gossip was impossible. When the visitors rose to go, Sommers proposed showing them the way back by a wagon road that led to the improved part of the park, across the deserted Court of Honor. He and Alves accompanied them as far as the northern limits of the park. The rain clouds were gone, and a cold, clear sky had taken their place. On their return along the esplanade beside the lake Sommers chatted in an easy frame of mind.

"I guess Webber will get Miss M'Gann, and I am glad of it. Dresser wouldn't do anything more than fool with her. He will get on now; those promoters and capitalists are finding him a clever tool. They will keep him steady.

It isn't the fear of the Lord that will keep men like Dresser in line; it's the fear of their neighbors' opinions and of an empty stomach!"

"Don't you--wish you had a chance like his?" Alves asked timidly.

The young doctor laughed aloud.

"You don't know me yet. It isn't that I don't want to. It's because I _can't_--no glory to me. But, Alves, we are all right. I can get enough in one way or another to keep the temple over our heads, and I can work now. I have something in view; it won't be just chasing about the streets."