Aladdin and Company Part 26

"The fact is," I went on, "that things in Lattimore are not in condition to bear a shock--general money conditions, I mean, you know."

"I know," she said, nodding a.s.sent; "I can see that."

"Your father did a very large business for a time," I continued; "and when he sold lands he took some cash in payment, and for the balance notes of the various purchasers, secured by mortgages on the properties.

Many of these persons are mere adventurers, who bought on speculation, and when their first notes came due failed to pay. Now if you had these notes, you could hold them, or foreclose the mortgages, and, beyond being disappointed in getting the money, no harm would be done."

"I understand," said Josie. "I knew something of this before."

"But if we haven't the notes," inquired her mother, "where are they?"

"Well," I went on, "you know how we have all handled these matters here.

Mr. Trescott did as we all did: he negotiated them. The Grain Belt Trust Company placed them for him, and his are the only securities it has handled except those of our syndicate. He took them to the Trust Company and signed them on the back, and thus promised to pay them if the first signer failed. Then the trust company attached its guaranty to them, and they were resold all over the East, wherever people had money to put out at interest."

"I see," said Josie; "we have already had the money on these notes."

"Yes," said I, "and now we find that a great many of these notes, which are being sent on for payment, will not be paid. Your father's estate is not able to pay them, and our trust company must either take them up or fail. If it fails, everyone will think that values in Lattimore are unstable and fict.i.tious, and so many people will try to sell out that we shall have a smas.h.i.+ng of values, and possibly a panic. Prices will drop, so that none of our mortgages will be good for their face.

Thousands of people will be broken, the city will be ruined, and there will be hard and distressful times, both here and where our paper is held. But if we can keep things as they are until we can do some large things we have in view, we are not afraid of anything serious happening.

So we form this new corporation, and have it advance the funds on the notes, so as not to weaken the trust company--and because we can't afford to do it otherwise--and we know you would not permit it anyhow; and we ask you to give to the new corporation all the property which the creditors could reach, which will be held, and sold as opportunity offers, so as to make the loss as small as possible. But we must keep off this panic to save ourselves."

"I must think about this," said Josie. "I don't see any way out of it; but to have one's affairs so wrapped up in such a great tangle that one loses control of them seems wrong, somehow. And so far as I am concerned, I think I should prefer to turn everything over to the creditors--house and all--than to have even so good friends as yourself take on such a load for us. It seems as if we were saying to you, 'Pay our debts or we'll ruin you!' I must think about it."

"You understand it now?" said Jim.

"Yes, in a way."

"Let me come over this evening," said he, "and I think I can remove this feeling from your mind. And by the way, the new corporation is not going to have the ranch out on the Cheyenne Range. The syndicate says it isn't worth anything. And I'm going to take it. I still believe in the headwaters of Bitter Creek as an art country."

"Thank you," said she vaguely.

Somehow, the explanation of the estate affairs seemed to hurt her. Her color was still high, but her eyes were suffused, her voice grew choked at times, and she showed the distress of her recent trials, in something like a loss of self-control. Her pretty head and slender figure, the flexile white hands clasped together in nervous strain to discuss these so vital matters, and, more than all, the departure from her habitual cool and self-possessed manner, was touching, and appealed powerfully to Jim. He walked up to her, as she stood ready to leave, and laid his hand lightly on her arm.

"The way Barslow puts these property matters," said he, "you are called upon to think that all arrangements have been made upon a cold cash basis; and, actually, that's the fact. But you mustn't either of you think that in dealing with you we have forgotten that you are dear to us--friends. We should have had to act in the same way if you had been enemies, perhaps, but if there had been any way in which our--regard could have shown itself, that way would have been followed."

"Yes," said Mrs. Trescott, "we understand that. Mr. Lattimore said almost the same thing, and we know that in what he did Mr. Cornish--"

"We must go now, mamma," said Josie. "Thank you both very much. It won't do any harm for me to take a day or so for considering this in all its phases; but I know now what I shall do. The thought of the distress that might come to people here and elsewhere as a result of these mistakes here is a new one, and a little big for me, at first."

Jim sat by the desk, after they went away, folding insurance blotters and savagely tearing them in pieces.

"I wish to G.o.d," said he, "that I could throw my hand into the deck and quit!"

"What's the matter?" said I.

"Oh--nothing," he returned. "Only, look at the situation. She comes in, filled with the idea that it was Cornish who proposed this plan, and that he did it for her sake. I couldn't very well say, like a boy, ''Twasn't Cornish; 'twas me!', could I? And in showing her the purely mercenary character of the deal, I'm put in the position of backcapping Cornish, and she goes away with that impression! Oh, Al, what's the good of being able to convince and control every one else, if you are always further off than Kamschatka with the only one for whose feelings you really care?"

"I don't think it struck her in that way at all," said I. "She could see how it was, and did, whatever her mother may think. But what possessed Lattimore to tell Mrs. Trescott that Cornish story?"

"Oh, Lattimore never said anything like that!" he returned disgustedly.

"He told her that it was proposed by a friend, or one of the syndicate, or something like that; and they are so saturated with the Cornish idea up there lately, that they filled up the blank out of their own minds.

Another mighty encouraging symptom, isn't it?"

Not more than a day or two after this, and after the news of the "purchase" of the Trescott estate was being whispered about, my telephone rang, just before my time for leaving the office, and, on answering, I found that Antonia was at the other end of the wire.

"Is this Mr. Barslow?" said she. "How do you do? Alice is with us this afternoon, and she and mamma have given me authority to bring you home to dinner with us. Do you surrender?"

"Always," said I, "at such a summons."

"Then I'll come for you in ten minutes, if you'll wait for me. It's ever so good of you."

From her way of finis.h.i.+ng the conversation, I knew she was coming to the office. So I waited in pleasurable antic.i.p.ation of her coming, thinking of the perversity of the scheme of things which turned the eyes of both Jim and Cornish to Josie, while this girl coming to fetch me yearned so strongly toward one of them that her sorrow--borne lightly and cheerfully as it was--was an open secret. When she came she made her way past the clerks in the first room and into my private den. Not until the door closed behind her, and we were alone, did I see that she was not in her usual spirits. Then I saw that unmistakable quiver in her lips, so like a smile, so far from mirth, which my acquaintance with the girl, so sensitive and free from secretiveness, had made me familiar with.

"I want to know about some things," said she, "that papa hints about in a blind sort of a way, but doesn't tell clearly. Is it true that Josie and her mother are poor?"

"That is something which ought not to be known yet," said I, "but it is true."

"Oh," said she tearfully, "I am so sorry, so sorry!"

"Antonia," said I, as she hastily brushed her eyes, "these tears do your kind heart credit!"

"Oh, don't, don't talk to me like that!" she exclaimed pa.s.sionately. "My kind heart! Why, sometimes I hate her; and I would be glad if she was out of the world! Don't look like that at me! And don't pretend to be surprised, or say you don't understand me. I think every one understands me, and has for a long time. I think everybody on the street says, after I pa.s.s, 'Poor Antonia!' I _must_ talk to somebody! And I'd rather talk to you because, even though you are a man and can't possibly know how I feel, you understand _him_ better than any one else I know--and _you_ love him too!"

I started to say something, but the situation did not lend itself to words. Neither could I pat her on the shoulders, or press her hand, as I might have done with a man. Pale and beautiful, her jaunty hat a little awry, her blonde ringlets in some disorder, she sat unapproachable in her grief.

"You look at me," said she, with a little gasping laugh, "as if I were a drowning girl, and you chained to the bank. If you haven't pitied me in the past, Albert, don't pity me now; for the mere saying openly to some human being that I love him seems almost to make me happy!"

I lamely murmured some inanity, of which she took not the slightest notice.

"Is it true," she asked, "that Mr. Elkins is to pay their debts, and that they are to be--married?"

"No," said I, glad, for some reason which is not very clear, to find something to deny. "Nothing of the sort, I a.s.sure you."

And again, this time something wearily, for it was the second time over it in so short a time, I explained the disposition of the Trescott estate.

"But he urged it?" she said. "He insisted upon it?"

"Yes."

She arose, b.u.t.toned her jacket about her, and stood quietly as if to test her mastery of herself, once or twice moving as if to speak, but stopping short, with a long, quivering sigh. I longed to take her in my arms and comfort her; for, in a way, she attracted me strongly.

"Mr. Barslow," said she at last, "I have no apology to make to you; for you are my friend. And I have no feeling toward Mr. Elkins of which, in my secret heart, and so long as he knows nothing of it, I am not proud.

To know him ... and love him may be death ... but it is honor!... I am sorry Josie is poor, because it is a hard thing for her; but more because I know he will be drawn to her in a stronger way by her poverty.

Shake hands with me, Albert, and be jolly, I'm jollier, away down deep, than I've been for a long, long time; and I thank you for that!"

We shook hands warmly, like comrades, and pa.s.sed down to her carriage together. At dinner she was vivacious as ever; but I was downcast. So much so that Mrs. Hinckley devoted herself to me, cheering me with a dissertation on "s.e.x in Mind." I asked myself if the atmosphere in which she had been reared had not in some degree contributed to the att.i.tude of Antonia toward the expression to me of her regard for Jim.

So the Trescott estate matter was arranged. In a few days the boom was strengthened by newspaper stories of the purchase, by heavy financial interests, of the entire list of a.s.sets in the hands of the administrator.

"This immense deal," said the _Herald_, "is new proof of the desirability of Lattimore property. The Acme Investment Company, which will handle the properties, has bought for investment, and will hold for increased prices. It may be taken as certain that in no other city in the country could so large and varied a list of holdings be so quickly and advantageously realized upon."