The Cost [106]
degrees and shades and modes of greed, of hate, of fear, of despair. It was like a shipwreck where the whole fleet is flung upon the reefs, and the sailors, drunk and insane, struggle with death each in his own awful way. It was like the rout where frenzied victors ride after and among frenzied vanquished to shoot and stab and saber.
And while this battle, precipitated by the passions of a few "captains of industry," raged in Wall Street and filled the nation with the clamor of ruined or triumphant gamblers, ten-score thousand toilers in the two great enterprises directly involved toiled tranquilly on--herding sheep and shearing them, weaving cloths and dyeing them, driving engines, handling freight, conducting trains, usefully busy, adding to the sum of human happiness, subtracting from the sum of human misery.
At three o'clock Dumont sank back among his cushions and pillows. His child, his other self, his Woolens Monopoly, was again his own; his enemies were under his heel, as much so as those heaps and coils of ticker-tape he had been churning in his excitement. "I'm dead tired," he muttered, his face ghastly, his body relaxed in utter exhaustion.
He closed his eyes. "I must sleep--I've earned it. To-morrow"--a smile flitted round his mouth--"I'll hang their hides where every coyote and vulture can see."
Toward four o'clock in came Doctor Sackett and Culver. The room was flooded with light--the infinite light of the late-spring afternoon reflected on the white enamel and white brocade of walls and furniture. On the floor in the heaps and coils of ticker-tape lay Dumont.
In his struggles the tape had wound round and round his legs, his arms, his neck. It lay in a curling, coiling mat, like a serpent's head, upon his throat, where his hands clutched the collar of his pajamas.
Sackett knelt beside him, listening at his chest, feeling for his pulse in vain. And Culver stood by, staring stupidly at the now worthless instrument of his ambition for wealth and power.
XXVIII.
AFTER THE LONG WINTER.
Within two hours Langdon, in full control, had arranged with Tavistock to make the imperiled victory secure. Thus, not until the next day but one did it come out that the cataclysm had been caused by a man ruined and broken and with his back against death's door to hold it shut; that Dumont himself had turned the triumphing host of his enemies into a flying mob, in its panic flinging away its own possessions as well as its booty.
Perhaps the truth never would have been known, perhaps Langdon would have bribed Tavistock to silence and would have posed as the conquering genius, had he found out a day earlier how Dumont had put himself in funds. As it was, this discovery did not come too late for him to seize the opportunity that was his through Dumont's secret methods, Pauline's indifference to wealth and his own unchecked authority. He has got many an hour of--strictly private--mental gymnastics out of the moral problem he saw, in his keeping for himself and Gladys the spoils he gathered up. He is inclined to think he was intelligent rather than right; but, knowing his weakness for self-criticism, he never gives a positive verdict against himself. That, however, is unimportant, as he is not the man to permit conscience to influence conduct in grave matters.
He feels that, in any case, he did not despoil Pauline or Gardiner. For, after he had told her what Dumont did--and to protect himself he hastened to tell it--she said: "Whatever there may be, it's all for Gardiner. I waive my own rights, if I have any. But you must give me your word of honor that you won't let anything tainted pass to him." Langdon, judging with the delicacy of a man of honor put on honor, was able to find little such wealth.
He gives himself most of the credit for Gardiner's turning out so well--"Inherited riches are a hopeless handicap," he often says to Gladys when they are talking over the future of their children.
Pauline--
The first six months of her new life, of her resumed life, she spent
And while this battle, precipitated by the passions of a few "captains of industry," raged in Wall Street and filled the nation with the clamor of ruined or triumphant gamblers, ten-score thousand toilers in the two great enterprises directly involved toiled tranquilly on--herding sheep and shearing them, weaving cloths and dyeing them, driving engines, handling freight, conducting trains, usefully busy, adding to the sum of human happiness, subtracting from the sum of human misery.
At three o'clock Dumont sank back among his cushions and pillows. His child, his other self, his Woolens Monopoly, was again his own; his enemies were under his heel, as much so as those heaps and coils of ticker-tape he had been churning in his excitement. "I'm dead tired," he muttered, his face ghastly, his body relaxed in utter exhaustion.
He closed his eyes. "I must sleep--I've earned it. To-morrow"--a smile flitted round his mouth--"I'll hang their hides where every coyote and vulture can see."
Toward four o'clock in came Doctor Sackett and Culver. The room was flooded with light--the infinite light of the late-spring afternoon reflected on the white enamel and white brocade of walls and furniture. On the floor in the heaps and coils of ticker-tape lay Dumont.
In his struggles the tape had wound round and round his legs, his arms, his neck. It lay in a curling, coiling mat, like a serpent's head, upon his throat, where his hands clutched the collar of his pajamas.
Sackett knelt beside him, listening at his chest, feeling for his pulse in vain. And Culver stood by, staring stupidly at the now worthless instrument of his ambition for wealth and power.
XXVIII.
AFTER THE LONG WINTER.
Within two hours Langdon, in full control, had arranged with Tavistock to make the imperiled victory secure. Thus, not until the next day but one did it come out that the cataclysm had been caused by a man ruined and broken and with his back against death's door to hold it shut; that Dumont himself had turned the triumphing host of his enemies into a flying mob, in its panic flinging away its own possessions as well as its booty.
Perhaps the truth never would have been known, perhaps Langdon would have bribed Tavistock to silence and would have posed as the conquering genius, had he found out a day earlier how Dumont had put himself in funds. As it was, this discovery did not come too late for him to seize the opportunity that was his through Dumont's secret methods, Pauline's indifference to wealth and his own unchecked authority. He has got many an hour of--strictly private--mental gymnastics out of the moral problem he saw, in his keeping for himself and Gladys the spoils he gathered up. He is inclined to think he was intelligent rather than right; but, knowing his weakness for self-criticism, he never gives a positive verdict against himself. That, however, is unimportant, as he is not the man to permit conscience to influence conduct in grave matters.
He feels that, in any case, he did not despoil Pauline or Gardiner. For, after he had told her what Dumont did--and to protect himself he hastened to tell it--she said: "Whatever there may be, it's all for Gardiner. I waive my own rights, if I have any. But you must give me your word of honor that you won't let anything tainted pass to him." Langdon, judging with the delicacy of a man of honor put on honor, was able to find little such wealth.
He gives himself most of the credit for Gardiner's turning out so well--"Inherited riches are a hopeless handicap," he often says to Gladys when they are talking over the future of their children.
Pauline--
The first six months of her new life, of her resumed life, she spent