Chapter VI: Part 6

"During the past few years, those persons in a position to observe the inner workings of our politics, both in national and municipal affairs, have been alarmed to see the steady encroachment made upon them by High Finance. There is no longer any room left for doubt. The purpose of this invading power is clear: its purpose is conquest. Unless the free voters act, and act quickly, the true government of the United States in general, and of New York in particular, will not rest in the President or Congress, in Mayors and Boards of Aldermen, in the Constitution, the charter, or the courts: it will rest in a combination of Big Business interests that will control the men elected as representatives of the people."

Nelson slapped his thigh.

"That's it!" he said. "That's the talk. We ought to have had some of that kind of medicine long ago. Look at all this recent drug-legislation, for instance. You can't imagine what my firm's been up against. They're getting an appetite for the wholesale drug-trade now, these big fellows are, and they're paving their way by lobbies at Washington and Albany and half a dozen state capitals!"

The three worked over the letter for the rest of that day, having a scanty luncheon brought into the office from a nearby restaurant, and talking plans while they ate. All the time callers were sending in their names with requests for interviews, workers were reporting, men at the telephone were ringing up to ask instructions, and clerks and stenographers were running in and out to deliver telegrams and special-delivery letters and to receive replies.

Luke's only appreciable pause was to read two notes of congratulation from his mother and Jane, the former commending him for adopting a course that the writer was sure her husband would have adopted had he lived, the latter full of pride in his approaching success, but ending with the postscript: "Jesse [Jesse Kinzer was Jane's husband, the new Congressman] says that conditions in New York are 'purely local,' whatever that means." Altogether, Luke had a busy day. He was a tired man when, at nine o'clock, he again rang the bell of the Forbes house in Brooklyn.

Sec.5. To Luke's surprise, it was Forbes himself that opened the door.

"I've been looking for you," he said seriously. "Can you come into the library? I want to see you for a few minutes. It's important."

The concluding words were unnecessary. The tone of the words that preceded them would alone have been sufficient to warn Luke of trouble: Forbes's voice was husky, tense, uncertain.

"Of course," Luke assented.

He followed Forbes into the library, and there, as the host closed the door, Luke saw in the face that confronted him an expression which conformed with the tone and import of Forbes's first words. The elder man's face was haggard.

"I shall have to tell you something," he was saying--"something that I ought to have told you long ago, or as much of it as had happened then. But, you see, I had no idea it could be so important--ever be so important." He broke off with a remembrance of his accustomed courtesy: "I beg your pardon. Won't you sit down, Huber? I quite forgot to ask you. For my part, I couldn't sit still if my life depended on it."

Luke stood by the center-table.

"No, no," he said. "Don't bother--and don't worry." He thought that Forbes looked as if death were in the house. "Is anything wrong with Betty?" he suddenly asked.

"No, it's not that. It's what I say. Of course I never supposed your going in for the Municipal Reform League movement could have any business significance----"

Luke, relieved about Betty, was unable to follow Forbes's disjointed sentences.

"It hasn't," he said. "It hasn't any business significance whatever."

"Ah"--Forbes shook his head--"that's what I thought, too. But it has. Huber, this may mean the end of R. H. Forbes & Son. Think of it: it may mean the end of the Business--a business that has been honorably conducted by my family for three generations."

What such a catastrophe would mean to Forbes nobody knew better than Luke, but how the Municipal Reform League could be concerned in it was beyond guessing.

"Won't you try to begin at the beginning?" said Luke. He was used to getting coherent stories in preliminary interviews with incoherent witnesses, and he fell into his professional manner.

"It's this way." Forbes turned his gray eyes away and fumbled with an ornament on the mantel-tree. "When you came into the Business, I had several loans outstanding--the Business had. They were all well secured, and you know how solid the concern's always been. With the money you put in and the earnings, I was able to take up some of them, but there were the improvements and extensions made necessary by fresh competition and the new inventions and the machine-trust's raise of prices. Well, I had to leave a loan outstanding at the East County National."

"Yes," said Luke encouragingly. "How much was it?"

"Two hundred and fifty thousand. It was a good deal, I know, but, you see, when I negotiated it----"

"Never mind the reasons now. What were its terms?"

"It was a call-loan," said Forbes in a shaken voice.

Luke's amazement conquered his reserve.

"What? And for two hundred and fifty thousand?"

"Yes. There was the competition. It was growing hot. The Business----"

"How did you ever arrange it?"

"I was surprised myself at the time to find it so easy, but I was too glad to get it to ask questions. Now, I wish I had. I believe the bank was influenced by some people that wanted to get us into trouble--want to form a ready-made clothing trust."

"It's incredible!" cried Luke. "Not one of the agents that I had look into your business for me mentioned this."

"I didn't know that, Huber." Forbes looked his appeal. "I ask you to believe me."

"All right. It was my own fault. I should have asked you more questions. What puzzles me is how this loan was concealed."

"It was at the request of the bank. They said it was so unusual that they didn't want it more widely known than was absolutely necessary, and I agreed because of the credit of the Business. Now I believe it was all a trap set by the men that want to form the trust."

Luke did not pause to waste reproaches over either his own stupid blindness or Forbes's culpable rashness. He pressed forward:

"And now they're going to call the loan?"

Forbes bowed his head.

"And we can't meet it?"

"If--if we tried, we could do it only by wrecking the Business."

"But we can go somewhere else. The East County isn't the only bank in New York."

"That is what I thought. It's what I said."

Forbes was swallowing a sob. "I said it to Osserman--that's the president--I said it to him himself."

"Well?" persisted Luke.

"Well"--Forbes's eyes met Huber's--"it wasn't any use."

"Now, look here," said Luke. He put into his voice a calm that he did not feel. "Try to tell me just what happened. I can't advise you till I know that, even if I'm not the business-fool I seem to have proved myself to be. First of all, Osserman sent you some sort of word, didn't he?"

"Yes, of course."

"What was it?"

"It was a letter--just a personal letter."

"When did you get it?"

"About eleven this morning."

"So then you went over to the bank?"

"Yes."

"And asked to see this man Osserman?"

"Yes."

"And what did he say?"

"Well," he said--"I can't tell you exactly; he was careful not to use definite words; but careful to make his meaning clear."

"What was his meaning, then?"

"He said in effect that he understood you were interested in our Business."

"What of it? That's what I want to know, Forbes. What's my interest in your firm got to do with your standing at the East County National?"

"Oh, he didn't say at first. At first he said he understood we were not sound."

"So you told him he was mistaken and offered to show the books?"

"Of course I did." Forbes's chin shot upward. "I told him that the Forbes firm was one of the oldest and----"

"Yes, yes. And then he mentioned me. How did I hurt the firm's standing?"

"He was really very plausible about that. I must say, Huber, that he rather opened my eyes to a phase of your political activities I hadn't before thought of."

"What phase?"

"To be quite frank, he called your public utterances wild. He said they attacked credit and might shake it. He even intimated that if you were elected, you'd go in for a course of action--you had pledged yourself to go in for one that would upset credit altogether. And that's true, Huber." Forbes gained a certain confidence. "When you come to think of it, the business interests of the city--I mean the sound conservative business interests--ought not to be made to suffer for the sins of the big financiers."

Luke recaptured his composure. His face relaxed; he looked lazy and uninterested.

"So I suppose," he said, "that this banker asked you to tell me to get out of the fight."

"Yes, but of course----"

"Really, that's the highest testimony to the League's strength that we've had yet."

"Yes, but, of course, I told him I couldn't do that."

"What did he say then?"

"He said he was afraid the City Chamberlain would withdraw all the city funds on deposit at the East County if the bank kept on carrying a loan you were interested in."

"And you took all this like a child?"

"I didn't. You ought to know me better than that."

"What did you do?"

"I was indignant. I told you I was. I said I would not have a loan from a concern that interfered with the political convictions of its creditors. I said I would go somewhere else."

"Did you go?"

The sob returned to Forbes's throat.

"Yes, I did," he said; "and it was the most humiliating experience of my career. When I thought of the firm of R. H. Forbes & Son begging credit, I could hardly bear it. But I went to the Lexington National."

"They turned you down?"

"They listened very politely and said they would consider the proposition."

"Well, then," said Luke, "you're crossing a bridge before you come to it."

"No, I am not; for presently they sent over a messenger with a note that was no more than an insulting refusal."

"You gave up then?"

"No, I tried again. I tried Clement & Co." Forbes seemed unable to conclude.

"And they?" urged Luke.

"They wouldn't consider it for a moment, Huber."

Luke did not like to look at Forbes's suffering, but he had to hear the end.

"Well?" he said.

Forbes flung out his hands.

"What more could I do?" he demanded. "If it became known that the firm was going begging--yes, begging--from bank to bank, what would happen to our credit? I didn't dare to go anywhere else. I--Huber, I went back to Osserman and asked him for time."

Luke sat down. He picked up a paper and made a transparent pretense of glancing at it.

"Did he give you time?"

"He said he'd give me a week."

"A whole week?" Luke tried to appear encouraged. "That's six good working days. You can get the money together in that time."

"Huber"--Forbes came over to Luke and stood above the newspaper--"I've told you what it would do to our credit to try. But I've come to the conclusion that we could not get this money from any bank in America."

"What do you mean? Not if we have security?"

"Not if we could offer the Metropolitan Life Building for security. Not from any bank in America."

Luke put down the paper.

"But that----" He stopped a moment, and then went on: "But there's only one group of men in the country that could put up such a wall."

"That," said Forbes simply, "is the group I mean."

Luke's eyes were veiled. He rose and walked across the room. Presently, over his shoulder, he inquired sharply:

"What makes you think this?"

Forbes was frank:

"I don't know. I can't tell you. A hundred little things. But I am sure."

"I thought you said something about a clothing trust."

"I did. It was the same crowd. Now they have some additional reason. Oh, I couldn't doubt it. It was behind every word Osserman said. It was standing back of his words, but it was on tiptoe, looking over them."

Luke turned and came up to Forbes. He was quite calm again.

"I know what you want me to do," he said.

"Yes," said Forbes: it was his way of saying: "You have read my meaning, and I will stand by it."

"Well, I can't do it."

Luke spoke quietly. It hurt him to have to say this thing.

"I was afraid that was the way you'd take it," said Forbes.

"How else could I take it?"

"You know what it means to me, Huber?"

"Yes. I know what the firm means to you, but I can't do what you ask. You want me to give up what I think is right for the sake of saving your firm. I can't do it."

"It's your firm, too, Huber."

"Then I've got a right to hurt it."

"I'm not asking you to do anything wrong; I'm only asking you to wait."

"That's just what I can't do," said Luke.

Forbes would hear no more. He twitched with a spasm of weak rage. His voice rang high.

"You're a fool!" he cried. "You talk as if I were trying to compound a felony with you. What am I asking? I'm only asking you to hold off for this campaign. I'm only asking you to stand by the man that took you into his business--my Business, the one that my grandfather founded and my father handed down to me. Haven't _I_ stood by _you_? Didn't I trust you? I've kept out of all these big combinations, but I know how they work--nobody can help knowing these days--and when I took you in, how was I to be sure you weren't a dummy representing somebody else, and so on, higher and higher up, till the trail ended with just these same men? But no, I trusted you. I trusted you, and now---- You've no right to humiliate me! You've no right to wreck my Business! Do you know what you're doing? You're making a beggar out of my daughter--out of the girl you told me last night you wanted to be your wife!"

Luke had been expecting this. The muscles about his mouth tightened, but all that he said was:

"I suppose you have spoken to her?"

"Yes, I have. Of course I have!" cried Forbes.

"And what does she say?"

Forbes tried to take Luke's hand.

"Why do you act this way?" he pleaded. "Why can't you wait? They haven't nominated you yet. Withdraw your name. That won't hurt the League, and it will only make you all the stronger for the next time; and by the next time we'll be ready to meet all opposition. This time you can't be elected even if you are nominated. Why do you want to jump into the fire?"

"What," insisted Luke, "does Betty say?"

She was at the door. She came in as he asked the question. She looked from her lover to her father, and then she ran to her father and put her head on his shoulder.

Sec.6. Luke took a short breath. He wanted to leave them. He felt that he could not face much more. He wondered what Forbes had said to her and how much she had heard of what Forbes and he were saying.

"Betty!" said her father. He patted her head. Luke thought that the caressing hand looked old. "Betty!"

She spoke with her face hidden:

"Oh, Luke, you wouldn't hurt father?"

"It isn't that, Betty." Luke was angry. The girl was behaving as he thought that a girl placed as she was ought to behave, and he loved her no less for that, but he was angry at her father's weakness in putting her in such a position, "It isn't that, Betty, I've got to do it. You don't understand these things. You can't understand them."

"She knows that _I_ understand them," Forbes interposed.

"What of it?" challenged Luke. "Betty, I've got to do what I think's right. You wouldn't have me go against everything I believe, would you? You wouldn't have me do something I thought was wrong?"

Betty half raised her head:

"But it can't be wrong not to ruin us!"

Luke turned his words on Forbes.

"I'll withdraw from the company," he said.

"I couldn't buy you out," Forbes answered. He bit his lip; shame colored his cheeks. "And if you sold to anybody else it would be sure to be letting in our enemies. Even the mere report that you wanted to sell would wreck us, coming on top of those bank interviews."

Luke knew Forbes was right.

"Betty," he said, "a lot of men that believe in me are going to offer me this nomination. It's a nomination to a place that makes its holder an officer of the court, an officer of justice, yet the plain truth is your father wants me to let these other men's money, or the power of their money, buy me off from doing justice to them."

"Nonsense!" Forbes was strengthened by his daughter's meed of comfort. "You won't be elected if you are nominated."

"They seem to think I will," said Luke.

"And somebody else," urged Betty, "could do just as well against them, Luke."

"That's not the point, Betty. It's a personal question, a question of personal morals; it's a matter of my own conscience."

She turned until she stood no longer between the two men. She stood at her father's side. Her cheeks were damp from weeping, but her eyes shone.

"But think, Luke," she said. "You _are_ young. Father's twice as old, and he _must_ know more. He must be right. He wouldn't ask you to do anything that was wrong, would you, father?"

Forbes shook his head.

"I know it's a lot for you to have to give up," she went on; "but you ought to be willing to give up a lot if--if you----"

"If I love you?" asked Luke.

She met him.

"Yes," she said.

"She's right, Luke," nodded her father.

"Then," pursued Luke--the tone was his laziest--"what about her love for me? Isn't it to----"

Betty interrupted. She had taken Forbes's hand:

"You're not going to make me choose between you and father, are you?" she pleaded.

"I tell you," said Luke, "it isn't anything of that sort, Betty. I've got to do what I'm going to do. You haven't any choice, and neither have I. You might almost say it's a religious question. It's like saving my soul. I've got to do it; I've just got to; just because it's the one right thing, I've got to do it. Why"--his manner grew tense--"you don't know; even your father doesn't know. This North Bridge wreck, with all those people killed and wounded: that's what these men did, these men that are trying to keep me out of the district-attorneyship."

"The North Bridge wreck?" snapped Forbes. "That was on the M. & N. What are you talking about, Huber?"

Luke realized that he had gone further than the limits of his promise of temporary silence concerning the letters, but he was too bitterly tried not to go still further.

"Yes," he said, "I mean just that. Everybody knows the N. Y. & N. J. crowd own the majority of the stock in the M. & N., and you know it, too. What's more, this wreck was their direct fault. I can prove that and I mean to. That's why they're after me: I mean to prove it if they don't square things. And so they're afraid of me."

"Ridiculous!" said Forbes. "That's just the trouble with you, Huber: you're going about making wild, unfounded statements like this."

"I ought not to tell even you two," Luke answered; "but the fact is, I have letters written by one of these men that will substantiate every word I say."

"You mean they'll show these people owned the road?"

"Practically, and ordered the poor rails that caused that wreck."

"Absurd: they couldn't do that. They didn't operate the road. This sort of thing is what is upsetting legitimate business: a few men going on the way you are. I don't think these people at the top are any better than they should be--I've often said so to you--but you can't go around calling them murderers. That's ridiculous."

Before Luke could reply, Betty again shifted the issue.

"Luke, you won't do it?" she appealed. "You'll give it up--for father's sake?"

He started to speak, but she dropped her father's hand and came to him with hers upraised.

"No," she said; "don't tell me now. Don't say anything now. Don't speak. You'll only be sorry. You're hurt and angry. Of course, you are. Go away. Wait. Go away just for to-night and think it over, and come back to-morrow." Her hand crept into his. "I know it's awfully hard for you to give it all up, even for a few years. I know what it means to you. Don't think I don't know, Luke. But----" She looked into his face. "Please, dear?"

His face was set.

"Good-by," he said.

"You'll be back to-morrow?"

He freed himself.

"Yes," he said. "Good-night."

Sec.7. It was simply that he could not stay any longer. He left the house with his mind made up; he would not withdraw from the fight for the district-attorneyship. To keep his word, he would go back to see her next day, but he would go back only to end what he had not the heart to end to-night.

The thing had ended itself. This was the conclusion of all his chances for Betty. They were over.

He loved her. He went away from her with the certainty that nothing which life might henceforth rob him of could be the equal of this loss.

Yet he did not blame her. Brought up as he had been, he believed that her attitude was the inevitable one and the right. He had ventured that single question about the test of her love for him, but he felt that it was an unfair question. Until a girl married, her first duty was toward her parents. His own duty and Betty's duty clashed. There was no possibility of compromise. Forbes was a weakling, but, in cleaving to Forbes, Betty, Luke felt, did the only thing that she rightly could do.

He wondered what would come of that side of his life which she had gone out of. As much as might be, he would crowd its borders with the activities of his professional and political work, but something of the space would remain: it belonged. He was still black with the despair of his loss when he turned into Thirty-ninth Street and saw, standing there as if waiting for him, the girl that looked like Joan of Arc.

"I've been waitin' for you," she said.

Her cheeks and mouth were not painted to-night, and their lines were softer; they spoke only of what she had suffered and not of what she had inflicted. Her eyes were wet with tears; her underlip quivered.

"I thought I told you last night," began Luke.

"I know," she said. "An' then I wanted what you thought. But not now, not to-night." She spoke rapidly as if determined that he should hear her out before he could escape. "Don't mind the way I talk. I just kind of talk that way because it gets like a habit. What I want's help. I'm in trouble. Honest to God I am."

She was surely in trouble, and she was beautiful.

"You mean----" His hand went to his pocket.

"No, not money," she said. "It ain't that. It's about my sister. They've got her; my fellow has. Listen." She seized his wrist. "Will you listen a minute, please? Here, if you don't want no one to see you in this here apartment house, come on over here toward Six' Av'nue. They've got her: my kid sister!"

Luke looked at the woman. He could see nothing but sincerity. He was not afraid of an attempt at robbery, and he could think of no other reason for her request except the one she gave.

"Yes, I'll go with you," he said.

She hurried him into the darker street.

"Listen," she said: "I'm in the business. You know that. I don't let on to be nothin' much. But I've got a kid sister that lives home; an' she's straight, Jenny is. Well, I was talkin' to her to-night when my fellow came up, an' he sent me on an errand--we was all standin' right over on that corner--an' when I come back, they was gone, both of them--an' I know he's got her in here in Pearl's Six' Av'nue place."

"How do you know that?"

"I guessed it, an' then I rang the bell an' one o' the girls told me I was on, an' then Pearl came down an' yelled for the bouncer an' they throwed me out."

In the lamplight of the street her face looked like the face of an innocent girl.

"Why didn't you call a policeman?" asked Luke.

"Aw, you know them. Pearl stands in."

"But they'd have got your sister, anyhow."

"Not the cop on this beat. I wouldn't give up to him the other night, and he run me in."

They stopped at a narrow door. There was a shop on one side of it and a saloon on the other.

"This is the place," said the girl. "Pearl's joint's over the store."

"You want me," asked Luke, "to go in and bring your sister out?"

The girl assented. "She's only a kid. I know what I am all right; but she's only a kid, an' she's straight; she's always been straight. You won't have no trouble. They're always scared of anybody like you. You'll do it, won't you?" She leaned toward him. "You ain't afraid?"

The infamy burned him.

"Afraid?" he said slowly. "No, I'm not afraid." He rang the bell.

The girl wrung her hands.

"You're good. You're awful good. Mamie'll owe just everything to you."

"Who will?" asked Luke.

"Mamie. That's my sister's name. She'll----"

"I see," said Luke.

The door opened. A negro servant stood in the darkened hallway before them. Luke and the girl stepped inside.

"Wait a minute," said Luke quietly.

He brushed the servant's hand from the knob. He saw the two women standing open-mouthed, but before words came to them, he stepped back into the street, closing the door behind him. The girl's slip about her sister's name had saved him.

Sec.8. He was glad to be in the light. He hurried across the street with no purpose but that of getting as quickly and as far from the house as possible. He was escaping.

For a minute or more he did not know what it was that he was escaping from. Then he glanced back toward the doorway.

Three policemen were entering the doorway. As Luke reached the corner, a gong clanged and a patrol-wagon turned into Sixth Avenue.

A messenger-boy, who had been standing on the corner, began to trot after the wagon. Luke stopped him.

"What's the matter?" asked Luke.

The boy turned to him a leering face:

"It's a raid, I guess. I knowed there was somethin' doin' when I seen that patrol standin' over on Thirty-nint' Street."

*CHAPTER XI*

Sec.1. Luke wanted to dismiss the episode of the raid as a coincidence. He tried to argue that the girl had been a stool-pigeon employed to get him into the Sixth Avenue house solely for the purpose of robbery by confederates waiting for her there. Schemes of that sort were common enough in New York and succeeded in spite of their clumsiness; the more often one was reported in the papers and brought to the attention of the papers, the readier a certain portion of the public was to succumb to the next attempts. Luke wanted to believe that the appearance of the police might have proved welcome enough for him.

It was the news Forbes had given him that weighed against any such supposition. If his enemies were at work to ruin him financially, they might well be at work to break him and bring him to terms by means of a scandal in the police courts. It was all very well to say that the attack on the Forbes company ought to suffice them: Luke began to feel that these foes were the kind who want certainty enough to use more than one method of securing it. He had heard of a rebellious city official thus captured in a raid on a gambling-house. That man, he had been told, was released from the police station only upon signing a compromising paper, which was thereafter held by his political superiors as a bond to assure his future obedience to their wishes. Luke saw how a similar course could have been followed in regard to himself.

What worried him most, however, was, of course, the break with Betty and the difficulties in which he had innocently entangled her father. He was sincerely sorry for Forbes, whose shortcomings were forgivable because of worship of tradition, and the loss of Betty meant a descent into the pit of despair.

It was early morning before a sudden hope came to Luke. He had lain sleepless for hours, not trying to solve his financial riddle, but only contemplating its apparent impossibility of solution, and he had turned from that to the machinations of his enemies with genuine relief. This time the change must have rested his resourcefulness, for, in the midst of tearing at the sticky strands in which Stein and the men behind Stein had enmeshed him, the name of Ruysdael shot into his mind as the name of one who could and might advance the money to save Forbes and bring back Betty. He would go to Ruysdael at the earliest possible moment.

With that thought, he could dismiss all memory of the raid in Sixth Avenue. Almost immediately he fell asleep.

Sec.2. The next day was not without its fresh warnings from the powers that opposed him, and the first of these came from the headquarters of the Municipal Reform League itself. Luke thought it better taste for him to remain away from the headquarters while the formalities of the nomination were gone through with by the committee that was then to make its ticket regular by means of petition. But it was too early in the day to call on Ruysdael, so he remained in his rooms at the Arapahoe, and here, at eleven o'clock, Venable telephoned him.

"The meeting is over," said Venable.

"Good," said Luke. "The ticket is the one agreed on?"

"Yes. You have my congratulations, Mr. Huber."

"Thank you." Luke thought that the tone of his supporter was somewhat strained. "I hope everything went off smoothly," he added.

"Well, no," said Venable, "it didn't. It is all right now, but I am bound to tell you that a little opposition had developed against you. We overcame it, but it was there and from some men that we had every reason to believe would support you. I don't understand it, Mr. Huber; it was mysterious."

"I'm coming right down," said Luke.

At headquarters he learned little more. The committee had met with no indication of approaching trouble. Save for two or three persons whose means of livelihood were the practical organization of reform political movements, nearly all the members were business men, in small but sound industries, each of unquestioned probity. The candidates slated for every other post were accepted as a matter of course; but when Luke's name was brought up by Venable for the district-attorneyship, one of the politicians and several of the business men opposed acceptance. They were dogged, but vague. The politician at last spoke of Luke as having courted too much animosity from the upper regions of finance.

"He has talked too wild," said this one. "He oughtn't to have threatened till after election. Of course, I know what he's got to do if he's elected, but he needn't have begun it beforehand. I haven't got anything against him, but he's shown his hand too soon, and so he won't make a good candidate."

The business men spoke much as Forbes had spoken. The Municipal Reform League was a radical organization, but it ought to be radical within reason. Huber's public utterances had been too sweepingly radical. They feared him; they thought him too hot-headed. He was still too young. In pursuing Big Business, he was sure to trample smaller, legitimate business; he would upset credit.

The majority of the committee was loyal to Luke and had its way. Luke received the nomination, but such dissenters as were converted came to him half-heartedly, and two of the timorous business men withdrew from the organization.

"Then, there is Yeates, too," said Venable. "He wasn't at the meeting, but he telephoned he was coming here to see you about this time, and I gathered that he isn't in a particularly pleasant frame of mind."

Luke thought of Venable's long years of battle for reform.

"You know what's at the back of all this?" he said.

"I think I do," said Venable.

"I mean: you know _who's_ back of it?"

"I can guess. Your published attack was rather clear, Mr. Huber."

"Then, are you and the League prepared to go right ahead?"

"Yes, we are."

"You, too? You individually?"

Venable's old eyes glittered.

"I always suspected these people," he said. "I always felt sure they were against us. They were never so strongly against us as they are now, but their being so much more against us now only makes me the more certain that what we are doing is right."

"They have a good deal of power, Mr. Venable."

"I know that better than you do, my boy; but they can't hurt me personally, if that is what you mean. What little money I have comes from the rents of an uptown apartment house. It's in a good neighborhood and full of steady people. Nobody can take that away from me. It isn't as if I drew my income from bonds, but if I did, and if these people could ruin me"--he took Luke's hand--"I should go right ahead."

They had been talking in Luke's office. Shortly after Venable left it, Yeates was shown in. The young man was excited.

"Look here, Huber," he said. "A little bit's good, but you're going pretty damned far."

He dragged a chair toward Luke's desk, turned it about, and sat down astride of it with his arms folded across its back.

A smile twitched at Luke's mouth.

"What way-station do you want to get off at?" he inquired.

"I don't want you to make a monkey out of the League," said Yeates. "I've been reading over your letters and interviews and things, and I think you ought to realize that this is a reform organization and not a bunch of Anarchists."

"You're a slow reader, Yeates. Haven't you been hearing these things talked over, too?"

Yeates blushed, but he did not flinch.

"Well, what if I have? The people I've heard talking are the people you've been slamming, and I want to tell you that those people are the backbone of this country."

"I haven't mentioned any names."

"Oh, don't think I'm a fool, Huber, and don't think these people are fools, either. Everybody knows. What do you do it for? It won't catch any votes, if that's what you want."

"I rather wanted to do some good."

"Good? Good?" Yeates laughed angrily. "What are you talking about? You're talking as if these men were pirates. You're talking like one of those fellows that make speeches on a soap-box on the corner. It's all right to fight police-graft, and it's all right to run the crooks out of town--that's what the League's for and why I'm for the League--but I'm not going to keep on with an organization that's mixing up the biggest men in America with that sort of cattle. I won't stand for having my personal friends called thieves. I can't stand for it, and I won't!"

Luke looked at his watch. He rose.

"I have to be uptown in half a hour," he said.

"But see here----" Yeates's chair clattered to the floor as Yeates sprang up.

"When this nomination was offered to me," said Luke, "you were present. Do you remember something you said--something about outside influences and so on?"

"Oh, rot! Who's talking about outside influences?"

"I am. The nomination was given me along with certain promises. I've accepted it. I mean to act on the strength of those promises."

"You mean you're going crazy."

"Then, the League's going crazy, too. As the only sane man in it, I'm afraid you won't find yourself in congenial company, Yeates. You'd better get out."

"Get out?" Yeates could scarcely credit his ears.

"Get out," Luke repeated.

"I like that!" shouted Yeates. "This is a nice reform party, this is! Anti-boss! Why, you're more of a boss than Tim Heney ever dreamed of being."

Luke had not looked at the matter that way. He saw now that he was indeed using boss-methods, but he also saw that boss-methods were unavoidable.

"This League," he said, "is pledged to a course of action you don't agree with, so you can't consistently remain in it."

"I will!--I _will_ get out!" cried Yeates. "I'd like to know who had more to do with this League: you or me. Why, you only came in the other day, and it was me and my friends got you in. But I'll get out all right: you needn't worry about that. I'm through."

He left the room. It was a few weeks later when Luke heard of Yeates's engagement to the girl whose diamond pendant Luke had admired the first time that he went to the Ruysdaels' house. That, Huber knew, was indeed coincidence, but the previous connection of Yeates with the Municipal Reform League served the more to shake Luke's confidence in the radicalism of some of its remaining members.

Sec.3. His mission to Ruysdael was far more satisfactory than his talk with Yeates. Luke did not tell the millionaire the circumstances that made it necessary for R. H. Forbes & Son to borrow money, nor, as things fell out, did he have to explain why the Ruysdael estate, and not a bank, was wanted as a creditor. He went into details only concerning the nature of the securities that Forbes could offer; he was honest about the chances of the business, which he believed to be good, and he was no more pressing in his request than he thought it wise to be.

"So," said Ruysdael, smiling, "you find some use for predatory wealth, after all?"

Luke remembered Jack Porcellis's assertion that the Ruysdaels were in some way connected with the forces now opposed to the loan, but the connection, if it existed, must be slight. The Ruysdael money was not in a form that could well be hurt by Luke's enemies; and Ruysdael, though subsequent pressure might well stop him from further aid, was the sort of man who, having gone into such a venture as the present one, would not undo anything he had already done.

"I don't consider you one of the pirates," said Luke.

"No? Well, I'm not active, perhaps," Ruysdael reassured him. "I was just thinking you rather strong in some of your public utterances. There's no use in attacks unless they can win, you know."

The swarthy man was interested in Huber's request, though solely on Huber's own account. Ruysdael felt that he had been in a measure responsible for Luke's investment, and he was anxious to protect that investment so long as the protection was real and not a mere tossing of good money after bad. He took Luke at once to the offices of the Ruysdael estate.

There it was clear that, whatever influence Luke's enemies might have, they had issued no orders against him. Perhaps they had not thought of the possibility of his turning in this direction, perhaps they had meant to do no more than frighten him by their show of power with the banks. In any case, old Herbert Croy, the manager of the estate, was amiable and suggested that Forbes be sent for without delay.

It was a moment of triumph for Luke. He met Forbes in one of the outer offices of the suite used for the administration of the Ruysdael estate, and he was not entirely sorry to find Forbes contrite.

"Is it--it's really true?" asked Forbes.

He had been having a bad time. His face was drawn, and the feverish hand that grasped Luke's was trembling.

"Yes," said Luke. "I think I've induced Ruysdael to advance the money."

Forbes looked away.

"I'm sorry--very sorry for my attitude last night, Huber; and yet, you must have seen----"

"That's all right. Forget it."

"I know. You're good. But I do want you to understand. And you have turned out to be the real business man of the pair of us, after all!"

"So it seems," said Luke dryly.

Forbes missed the reflection on his own ability.

"Oh, but you have! Huber, you've--you've saved the Business!"

"No; that's up to you. I've only made it possible for you to get the money. You have to finish convincing these people; so buck up."

"I will, I will."

"And they'll probably turn in and fight us in the market."

"We'll see about that." All of Forbes's courage had come back to him. "Let them try. Huber, I can't thank you enough. I never can."

"Then don't try to." Luke took Forbes by the arm and led him to the door behind which Ruysdael and Croy were waiting.

But Forbes felt that there was more to be said. "It was splendid of you," he continued, as Luke drew him forward.

"Was it? You overlook the fact that I stood to lose a little money of my own--if nothing else!"

"I did. I actually did! By Jove, I don't see how you can forgive me, Huber."

Luke's answer was to push open the door. Within half an hour the interview was concluded. Forbes had deposited his securities and received a certified check. It was all so simple that, while Luke was wondering why he had not thought of it twelve hours before, Forbes was saying to himself:

"How was it _I_ didn't think of it last night?"

Sec.4. Luke intended to go from the Ruysdael offices to those of the League, but as he parted from Forbes on the street after the loan had been secured, something happened that changed his plans. At the foot of the elevator-shaft of the building, he noticed a little man leaning against the marble-paneled wall: the man was an unostentatious fellow, commonplace as to both face and clothes, but Luke thought he had seen the figure before.

He passed with Forbes through the revolving doors of the office-building and walked to the curb. He glanced back and saw the commonplace man coming through the doorway behind him. Then he remembered: when he left the Arapahoe that morning, he saw this man walking down the other side of Thirty-ninth Street. He had thought nothing of it at the time, but now his experience of detectives told him that this man bore the marks of the detective.

Luke called a taxicab. The man, he saw, prepared to call another.

"I'll try to keep my promise to see Betty to-night," said Luke to Forbes.

"You must," said Forbes. His gratitude, though not so hot as it had been, was still warm.

"I'll try. There's a lot to be done--politically, you know. But I'll try-"

They shook hands. Forbes started away. Luke gave his chauffeur that address in Wall Street at which he had issued his orders to the men who were now fighting him.

He was disappointed; the person whom he sought was not there. Luke doubted the statement of the doorkeeper, but could get no other. He went to the offices of Hallett and to those of Rivington, but with no better luck. At each descent from his taxi, he caught sight of the detective and knew that the detective meant to be seen. Then he sought the quarters of Stein, Falconridge, Falconridge & Perry, and was immediately admitted to the presence of the head of that firm.

The Judge sat at his handsome desk, a telephone at one elbow and a vase of Abel Chatney roses at the other. His plentiful white hair and his smooth frock-coat still potent, still spread around him the aura of dignity. He rose slowly as Luke came in and bowed with magisterial calm.

"How do you do, Mr. Huber?" he said pleasantly. "I am glad to see you--very glad, indeed."

He resumed his chair. Luke took a chair close by.

"The papers," pursued the Judge, "tell me that you are open to congratulations. You have mine."

"Thank you," said Luke. He stretched his legs. "Yes, I got the nomination. There was a little opposition, but I got it."

"Opposition?" The Judge raised his white eyebrows. "Hum! Well, of course, Mr. Huber, you had to expect that in the circumstances."

"What were the circumstances, Judge?"

Stein shook his head and smiled benignantly.

"There you go," he said. "You will insist on flattering me with your assumptions of my omniscience."

"But not of your omnipotence, Judge; for I did get the nomination. What were the circumstances?"

The Judge still smiled:

"You can't expect to hurt the more important business interests without hurting the lesser ones; and the lesser dislike being hurt even more than the greater, Mr. Huber."

"I gathered that you might think so."

This time the Judge's smile was a song without words.

"Very well," said the younger man. "As I say, I overcame the opposition inside the League. I believe I can overcome the same opposition at the polls."

"I hope so," Stein answered. "But it is a pity that you have not more powerful backing."

"I have a very active following at any rate."

"It will require a great deal of activity to overcome the prejudices of the majority."

"Yes, but I'm not talking about the activity of the voters. I am talking about the active following I am having from my apartments to my office, and from my office wherever else I go."

Judge Stein leaned over to smell the roses on his desk. When he looked up, his firm mouth seemed innocent. He offered the vase to Luke.

"Aren't they beautiful?" he asked.

"Quite."

"I often think it is such a pity that they haven't more perfume. What they have is good, but it is not a great deal. What we gain in form, we lose in scent. The law of compensation, I suppose."

"I know this detective had orders to let me see he was following me."

The Judge put down the vase.

"I am sorry you don't care for roses," he said. "Yes, Mr. Huber, I dare say you are followed. You are fighting the Democratic police force and the Republican District-Attorney's office; they both have detectives attached to them, and I have heard that they frequently use their detectives to watch their political rivals. You are fighting the Progressive organization, too, and they could use private detectives. I quite agree with you that it isn't pleasant."

"This fellow isn't on the job to watch me. He's only used to frighten me. I'm not easily frightened, Judge."

"No?"

"No. If I had been, I'd have turned tail when your friends tried to ruin a business I am interested in, or when they tried to have me caught in a police-raid." Luke spoke as if he were mentioning incidents in the lives of people dead these thousand years. "The raiders didn't find me, as you, of course, know. What you don't know is that the business move has failed just as badly."

If he had not known it, the Judge's face betrayed no surprise.

"Really, Mr. Huber, I told you at our last interview that I had no professional interest in this matter."

"You admitted that the people back of all this were your friends."

"I _said_ that I was a friend of certain persons."

"Then, you might as well say now that your friends intend to prevent my election and that they'll use any means to do it."

"Don't get excited, Mr. Huber." The Judge's right hand waved a deliberate protest against Luke's violent language. "Of course, I say nothing of the sort. What I do say is that you must understand that your own plan of action is bound to alienate the voters. There are more people interested in this election than you and me--more even than my friends. A great many people don't want to see you elected District-Attorney. There are the business men, there are the police, and there are the people of the underworld. You have been reckless enough to make no ethical distinctions. You lump the good with the bad, and attack everybody. Well, you must not be surprised at the result."

Luke kept to his low key.

"I only came here to tell you that I couldn't be scared."

"Why to me?"

"Perhaps just because I like to talk to you, Judge."

The Judge bowed a sincere acknowledgment.

"I have already told you," he said, "that I think you could go far if you were cooler. Now you are confusing possible legitimate influence--I say possible, not certain--with physical attack."

"They've both seemed probable, Judge."

"The former may be. As to the latter--well, like most young enthusiasts, you have forgotten that elections go by majorities, and that the majorities are controlled by the lower forces of society. That is the one flaw in our republican system, and nothing but social evolution, generations of free education, will cure it. You have not only very wrongly assailed legitimate business; you have quite properly threatened to close to the criminal classes their chief sources of revenue. It is their livelihood against yours. My friends can have nothing in common with these people. We cannot control them. You must know that."

Luke shrugged his shoulders. Stein continued:

"As a politician and a lawyer, you must have counted on the opposition of the criminal classes when you began your campaign. If you did not" the Judge bent his head to the roses--"well, I don't want to alarm you, but if I were in your place, I should leave the fight."

Luke got up.

"The alternative?" he inquired.

The Judge did not answer. He merely looked at Luke.

"I won't take it," said Luke.

"I tell you again, that we have nothing to do with the forces that seem to worry you most."

"I know you say so. Well, we haven't got much further than at our last talk, have we?"

"At that talk, Mr. Huber, I said to you that you could help yourself, your party, the public good----"

"If I'd do what you wanted? I won't. I merely thought that if I told you you'd failed so far, you might do what _I_ asked."

The Judge sadly shook his head.

"If you would only listen to reason!"

"I'll wait for the month and not a day longer. Meanwhile, I'm not the kind that's easy scared. Nothing you can do--you, and your friends, or anybody hired by your friends--will stop me."

The Judge stood up.

"I am afraid you will be stopped," he said.

"Try it," said Luke. "Good-by."

"Good-day, Mr. Huber," Stein replied. "I shall always be glad to have a call from you. I am interested in your career--more genuinely interested than you suppose."

Sec.5. That night it was Betty who came to the door when Luke rang the bell. She ran to it.

"Luke," she cried, "father told me! I knew you would find a way out. And, oh, Luke, I don't believe, in the end, I could have given you up, even if you hadn't found one!"

*CHAPTER XII*

Luke had been lied to at the offices of Hallett and at those of Rivington, but at the first office at which he had called, he was told the truth: the stout man, with the bright, short-sighted eyes and the pointed teeth was not at work that day. He was not at work for several days, and breaths of rumors, tremulous, expectant, began to shake the threads which centered at his working-place.