The Cost [71]
of fellowship among creatures of prey as against creatures preyed upon.
There were days when he came home haggard and blue in the lips to tell Leonora that he must fly. There were days when he returned from the chase, or rather from the skulk, elated, youthful, his pockets full of money and his imagination afire with hopes of substantial wealth. But his course was steadily downward, his methods steadily farther and farther from the line of the law. Dumont came just in time to save him, came to build him up from the most shunned of coyotes into a deceptive imitation of a wolf with aspirations toward the lion class.
Leonora knew that he was small, but she thought all men small--she had supreme contempt for her own sex; and it seemed to her that men must be even less worthy of respect since they were under the influence of women and lavished time and money on them. Thus she was deceived into cherishing the hope that her husband, small and timid though he was, would expand into a multi-millionaire and would help her to possess the splendors she now enjoyed at the expense of her associates whom she despised. She was always thinking how far more impressive than their splendor her magnificence would be, if their money were added to her brains and beauty.
Dumont had helped Fanshaw as much as he could. He immediately detected the coyote. He knew it was impossible to make a lion or even a wolf out of one who was both small and crooked. He used him only in minor matters, chiefly in doing queer, dark things on the market with National Woolens, things he indirectly ordered done but refused to know the details of beyond the one important detail--the record of checks for the profits in his bank account. For such matters Fanshaw did as well as another. But as Dumont became less of a wolf and more of a lion, less of a speculator and more of a financier, he had less and less work of the kind Fanshaw could do.
But Leonora, unaware of her husband's worthlessness and desperate in her calamities, sneered and jeered and lashed him on--to ruin. The coyote could put on the airs of a lion so long as the lion was his friend and protector; when he kept on in kingly ways after the lion had cast him off, he speedily came to grief.
As he stood looking helplessly up and down Broad Street he was debating what move to make. There were about even measures of truth and falsehood in his statement to Dumont--he did need two hundred thousand dollars; and he must have it before a quarter past two that day or go into a bankruptcy from which he could not hope to save a shred of reputation or to secrete more than fifty thousand dollars.
"To the New York Life Building," he finally said to the driver as he got into his hansom. Then to himself: "I'll have a go at old Herron."
He knew that Dumont and Herron had quarreled, and that Herron had sold out of the National Woolens Company. But he did not know that Herron was a man with a fixed idea, hatred of Dumont, and a fixed purpose, to damage him at every opportunity that offered or could be created, to ruin him if possible.
When the National Woolens Company was expanded into the huge conglomerate it now was--a hundred millions common, a hundred millions preferred, and twenty millions of bonds--Herron had devised and directed the intricate and highly perilous course among the rocks of law and public opinion in many states and in the nation. It was a splendid exhibition of legal piloting, and he was bitterly dissatisfied with the modest reward of ten millions of the preferred stock which Dumont apportioned to him. He felt that that would have been about his just share in the new concern merely in exchange for his stock in the old. When he found Dumont obdurate, and grew frank and spoke such words as "dishonor" and "dishonesty" and got into the first syllable of "swindling," Dumont cut him off with--
"If you don't like it, get out! I can hire that sort of work for half what I've paid you. You're swollen with vanity. We ought to have a young man in your position, anyhow."
There were days when he came home haggard and blue in the lips to tell Leonora that he must fly. There were days when he returned from the chase, or rather from the skulk, elated, youthful, his pockets full of money and his imagination afire with hopes of substantial wealth. But his course was steadily downward, his methods steadily farther and farther from the line of the law. Dumont came just in time to save him, came to build him up from the most shunned of coyotes into a deceptive imitation of a wolf with aspirations toward the lion class.
Leonora knew that he was small, but she thought all men small--she had supreme contempt for her own sex; and it seemed to her that men must be even less worthy of respect since they were under the influence of women and lavished time and money on them. Thus she was deceived into cherishing the hope that her husband, small and timid though he was, would expand into a multi-millionaire and would help her to possess the splendors she now enjoyed at the expense of her associates whom she despised. She was always thinking how far more impressive than their splendor her magnificence would be, if their money were added to her brains and beauty.
Dumont had helped Fanshaw as much as he could. He immediately detected the coyote. He knew it was impossible to make a lion or even a wolf out of one who was both small and crooked. He used him only in minor matters, chiefly in doing queer, dark things on the market with National Woolens, things he indirectly ordered done but refused to know the details of beyond the one important detail--the record of checks for the profits in his bank account. For such matters Fanshaw did as well as another. But as Dumont became less of a wolf and more of a lion, less of a speculator and more of a financier, he had less and less work of the kind Fanshaw could do.
But Leonora, unaware of her husband's worthlessness and desperate in her calamities, sneered and jeered and lashed him on--to ruin. The coyote could put on the airs of a lion so long as the lion was his friend and protector; when he kept on in kingly ways after the lion had cast him off, he speedily came to grief.
As he stood looking helplessly up and down Broad Street he was debating what move to make. There were about even measures of truth and falsehood in his statement to Dumont--he did need two hundred thousand dollars; and he must have it before a quarter past two that day or go into a bankruptcy from which he could not hope to save a shred of reputation or to secrete more than fifty thousand dollars.
"To the New York Life Building," he finally said to the driver as he got into his hansom. Then to himself: "I'll have a go at old Herron."
He knew that Dumont and Herron had quarreled, and that Herron had sold out of the National Woolens Company. But he did not know that Herron was a man with a fixed idea, hatred of Dumont, and a fixed purpose, to damage him at every opportunity that offered or could be created, to ruin him if possible.
When the National Woolens Company was expanded into the huge conglomerate it now was--a hundred millions common, a hundred millions preferred, and twenty millions of bonds--Herron had devised and directed the intricate and highly perilous course among the rocks of law and public opinion in many states and in the nation. It was a splendid exhibition of legal piloting, and he was bitterly dissatisfied with the modest reward of ten millions of the preferred stock which Dumont apportioned to him. He felt that that would have been about his just share in the new concern merely in exchange for his stock in the old. When he found Dumont obdurate, and grew frank and spoke such words as "dishonor" and "dishonesty" and got into the first syllable of "swindling," Dumont cut him off with--
"If you don't like it, get out! I can hire that sort of work for half what I've paid you. You're swollen with vanity. We ought to have a young man in your position, anyhow."