CHAPTER III
Dorothy glanced up from the letter which she was eagerly devouring.
"Father writes that the company is completely reorganized and that he's retiring for good—and, Reese, he says to thank you for everything! Were things so bad as that?"
"Worse," said Armstrong laconically, then smiled as his wife's fingers crept into his.
This man, to whose lips a smile came so rarely, had of a sudden become a boy again, laughing from morning to night, adoring his bride with a strangely fearful veneration yet partaking with her in a joyous and exhilarating zest, a gayety unabashed and unashamed, a sheer reckless enjoyment of youth and life—and partnership.
Partnership, that was it! That was the mystery, oldest of the world's life, before which men and women fall down and worship in prayer and joyous laughter and exalted fear, the mystery wherein two becomes as one, one in faith and hope and tears and laughter, one for better or for worse; and each of them knowing with a deliberate surety that though all the sky crash down in ruin, there remains to welcome them one soul who cannot falter or fail—past life, past death, into hell or heaven itself.
It is not every couple, however, who perceive this sort of thing in marriage.
The honeymoon was ten days gone. Another four days and New York would loom up ahead, and the deep, far-flung line of the future's horizon would begin to circumscribe things and events and destiny for these two. Now, however, was no thought of the future. Around them hung the crisp, odorous freshness of the Carolina air; the long yellow hills with their furred throats of piney woods lifted into the sky and sang under the winds, and over the reaches of yellow sand, of creamy adobe mud, of desolate green-tinged hills, there was no hint that the summer had gone again and the days were shortening.
Dorothy laid aside her letter and looked up.
"That telegram, Reese? Was it anything important?"
"From Macgowan, dear. All arrangements have been made, and on the first of the month Food Products passes into our hands. The stock-selling campaign will start moving just as soon as I get back to New York and take things in hand. I think I'll spread this stock out over the whole country."
"Are you in a hurry to reach New York?"
Armstrong laughed, and pressed her fingers in his.
"Not a bit of it! From this day forth, lady, business comes second in my young life. For your sake, business is necessary; I'm going to give you the best there is in life, and to do that I make use of business. And I like it, too."
"You'll keep it your servant, dear?"
"You bet! Afraid you'll have a rival?" Armstrong caught her hand to his lips. "Never! By this hand I swear it!"
"Don't be silly—oh, be as silly as you like; I love you!" She broke into a clear trill of laughter. Then she sobered, and gave him a swift, grave look. "Tell me something, Reese. The day we were married—that meeting in father's library! Was it because of some emergency in his affairs that the wedding was delayed?"
Armstrong nodded. He had meant to speak of this before, but no opportunity had arisen.
"Sure, Dot. You may as well know that your father's business was in bad shape. Those fellows who were running things, Williams, and the rest, were heading to a smash—and the crisis happened to come that day. It's all over with, thank heaven! We've chucked 'em out and will run the business right."
"You're not going back to Evansville to manage it?"
Armstrong's gaze came to her suddenly, as he searched for the meaning behind her words.
"Listen, Dot; are we partners?"
"In everything, my dear. Why?"
"Then in business as in other things. Good! If Food Products had not been taken over by Consolidated, it would now be out of existence; we saved it from bankruptcy, and we'll make money by it. In order to keep faith with the stockholders, in order to let your father come clear and leave everything square and fair behind him, we have to dig pretty deep; some of the assets must be totally written off. Ultimately the company will be a good investment, but it won't be any exclusive affair for me, lady.
"You see, it's one of several companies owned and run by Consolidated—which is under my control. I can't attend to any one of these companies myself; I pay other men to do that. I attend to the loan and financing business, the stock-selling campaigns, which formed the prime object of Consolidated. So, you see, if I leave New York—"
Her hand fluttered swiftly over his mouth.
"I didn't mean that at all!" she exclaimed. "I go with you, my dear, not you with me! I'm not trying to get you back to Evansville, although of course I love it there. But, Reese, father's whole life has been bound up in Food Products; he was proud of it, proud to have the company carry his name, proud of its past! Was it necessary for him to leave the company?"
Armstrong was startled by some undertone of her voice. For a moment he met her grave, steady gaze; he wondered what thoughts were stirring behind those eyes of brilliant, steely blue, which could so quickly change to a deeper violet.
And again, he wondered at the clear beauty of her—beauty of golden hair, of skin like pink-and-white coral, beauty of thought and soul within. It brought an ache into his heart, an ache of sheer sweet joy that this woman had found him worthy of her. He must never fail her—ah! And if he did?
At least, she would never fail him.
Armstrong was smiling at this thought, when her words recurred to him and his brain darted upon the answer. Perhaps it was telepathy, for he reached down and took the letter from her lap. A newspaper clipping came into his fingers. Intuition had guided him aright.
He read the clipping thoughtfully:
"It is with great regret that we announce the retirement of J. Fortescue Deming from the active management of the Deming Food Products Company. To many this announcement will come as a shock. For a generation past, the name of J. Fortescue Deming has been identified with the growth of Evansville—"
Armstrong's brow creased slightly as he read on, but he made no comment. Then he picked up the letter, asked permission with a glance, and Dorothy nodded. He read very carefully what Deming had written, and folded up the letter again.
"Dot," he said slowly, "surely you don't believe that your father cherishes any resentment because—"
"Why—Reese!" she broke out impulsively. "Can you voice such a thought, after what he wrote there? Doesn't every word of that letter show that he thinks you splendid and generous, that he feels toward you only the warmest gratitude and appreciation? Don't be silly!"
"The letter and the newspaper clipping are two very different things, my dear," said Armstrong drily. "I wanted your father to remain in the company as titular president, causa honoris; he refused. I could not offer him control of the company, of course—"
"Listen to me, dear boy!" Dorothy compelled his eyes to hers, and he found them very grave and earnest. "Get it out of your foolish head, now and forever, that father could feel anything but the deepest gratitude—"
"It's not in my head," broke in Armstrong soberly. "It's in yours, I'm afraid."
"It's not! Why, the last thing before we left home that day, father—well, he wasn't there when I said good-by, and I found him upstairs, all by himself; and, Reese, he was praying—for us—"
She broke off for a moment, struggling with swift-starting tears.
"He spoke of you, Reese; he was happy, happy! I've never seen him so happy that I can remember. It seemed that a load was gone from him. And whenever I've thought of how he spoke and what he said of you, it's made me very humble to think that you were mine, my husband—"
Armstrong drew her to him, and their lips met. His stab of disturbing fear was quite gone; gladness surged through him and faith, and wonder at the woman who was his.
Even the austere Cæsar, men say, once was young.
Later that day, Reese Armstrong sat in the hotel lobby, before a glowing pyre of logs that swept the afternoon chill out of the air. He was alone, for Dorothy was answering her father's letter. As he stared into the flicker of the flames and thought once more of that newspaper clipping, he felt a lingering doubt. Somehow it spelled evil to him.
The tone of it, the unworded, tacit insinuation of it, held a barb that stung him deeply. He could see how the impression might go forth that he had forced Deming out of Food Products and had grabbed the company. That was not true; yet here lay the hint, very cleverly written.
"And written with intent, or I'm a Dutchman!" thought Armstrong.
He had not far to seek for enemies; the former directorate of Food Products hated him bitterly enough. He had himself to blame for this, since he had not hidden his scorn and despite of them; he realized now the insolence of his own manner. They would have preferred to let the company crash, rather than be saved by him—but their pride had given way before their selfish interests. No doubt one of them had been behind the publication of this innuendo in a local newspaper. Williams, it might be; that sallow, crafty scoundrel was the sort to do such a thing.
Armstrong did not know that Williams and Macgowan were cousins. Few people did know it.
The fact that this innuendo had come in Dorothy's letter from her father, hurt; though of course Deming had not perceived the hint in the clipping. Further, Armstrong was not unmindful of a slight rift within the Consolidated lute. Findlater, his nominal president, was taking a new and active interest in the company's affairs.
Findlater, like the other directors, was a figurehead. They had been paid flatly in stock and drew no salaries. With former bank connections, Findlater had been valuable to Armstrong, and was paid for that value. Now, finding that Consolidated was a big thing, Findlater was prying about and about, intruding here and there, sniffing like a dog on the scent of game. Armstrong's lip curled at the thought of Findlater, whom he had come to dislike cordially.
"He and the rest—all of 'em on the scent, except Macgowan," he reflected. "Looking for pickings! Well, they backed me, but I have the control. Consolidated is making money, they're making money, and our investors are making money. I wonder if this sly thrust from Evansville could have any throwback to Findlater and his crowd?"
He thought of wiring Macgowan to look into this, and decided in the negative. Mac need not be troubled with such petty things. This was only some little spite-work, not worth attention. Besides, Findlater as yet knew nothing about the inside of the Food Products affair. That lay between Armstrong and Macgowan and Jimmy Wren alone.
Macgowan! There was a man for you! Armstrong's face warmed at the bare thought of his friend. Only Macgowan, from the start, had gone into Consolidated with a firm and unshaken faith. Only Macgowan had fought past one crisis after another with all the power of his keen intellect. Only Macgowan had forced those other men to stay in line behind Armstrong.
Macgowan had seen the value of that queer and extraordinary idea which Armstrong brought with him to New York. The old notion of finance as a war, said Armstrong, had seen its day and was doomed. It was purely an Old Testament teaching, wherein one side was victor, the other side vanquished; it was a preachment of conquest, of destruction without compromise—of spoils. It was a doctrine of loot, and in the new world of to-day this old doctrine was as dead as Moses.
Instead, Armstrong brought forth a New Testament ideal; that, instead of war, there should be mutual advancement. He preached that finance was a successful and worth-while thing only when all parties to the transaction were gainers. And how they had laughed!
"A fine socialistic theory!" they said. "Mac, how much of a soviet retainer are you handling? Where'd you pick up this radical, anyhow?"
Macgowan did not laugh; he merely argued, on the basis of Armstrong's detailed plan of operations. When Lawrence Macgowan argued, the gods were themselves confounded. In this instance, Macgowan flung himself into the fight whole-heartedly, with amazing vigor and energy. One would have said that he fought for himself, rather than for Armstrong. Or, perhaps, he fought for Armstrong's ideal, which he was making his own.
At all events, Macgowan won the fight. Consolidated went through, and Armstrong found himself secure in the control of this holding company, free to embark upon the larger dream. Nor was he blind to the danger that now threatened. Macgowan had once or twice warned him that Findlater had scented blood, that the other directors were sniffing uneasily; all except old Judge Holcomb, who was true as steel. Jimmy Wren had perceived it, too.
Small good it would do them! Armstrong's control was secure. The Armstrong Company, the selling organization through which he reached out to those thousands of investors, was devoted to him, was his alone. Jimmy Wren, its manager, held for Armstrong a dog-like trust and affection. The investors themselves were his; a supremely important fact, this! It was not the organization but Reese Armstrong whom they trusted.
Macgowan held a block of stock in Consolidated, and was content; he drew fees only for his services as Armstrong's personal attorney. In all the months of their close fellowship, Armstrong had never known his friend to ask an unworthy favor. There were no relatives to be given soft jobs. There were no hangers-on to be handed sinecures. Mac stood four-square.
A few short weeks before his marriage, when first arose this suspicion of loot-madness on the part of Findlater and his friends, Armstrong instructed Macgowan to handle the matter. He himself would be busy, would be away; he had more implicit confidence in Macgowan's ability to handle things smoothly than in his own.
"I'll take care of it," said the attorney. "But time has run along since we mapped out Consolidated's scheme of operations. That voting trust, for example."
Armstrong reflected briefly. At the formation of the selling company, the Armstrong Company, he had placed most of his common or voting stock of Consolidated Securities in a voting trust. Macgowan, Findlater and Jimmy Wren, who was secretary of consolidated as well as manager of the Armstrong Company, controlled this trust, all shares being pooled. Since Macgowan and Jimmy Wren were unalterably Armstrong's spokesmen, this let him control Consolidated without figuring too prominently in that control.
Now, as he stared into the log fire and remembered these things, Armstrong recalled verbatim that short conversation with Lawrence Macgowan.
"Then the trust has expired, Mac?"
"Two weeks ago."
"Renew it—say, until the end of next March, up to but not including the next annual meeting," directed Armstrong. "That leaves me free. You and Wren can handle anything that Findlater or his crowd may bring up. Send over the papers at once. Findlater won't object? He's rather puffed up over his job of president, these days."
"I'd like to see him object!" said Macgowan, drily.
Thus it had been arranged.
Now, watching visions in the ruddy flames, Armstrong's heart warmed to the thought of his friend. Few men had such a bar of steel at their back! Best of all, he had not bought Macgowan with gold. He had bought him with friendship, with the fairy coin of a mutual dream.
"I must be luckier than most," mused Armstrong. "They say that a man has only one person who'll never go back on him—his wife. But I have two. My wife, and Mac."
"A penny for your thoughts!" said a laughing voice in his ear.
Armstrong started, came to his feet, and smiled into the eyes of Dorothy.
"It'll take something better than a penny," he retorted gayly.
"Not here—not here in the lobby, you shameless creature!" Dorothy drew back hastily, her eyes dancing. "I'll pay, and with interest! What were you thinking about, as you sat there smiling into the fire?"
"About you," he answered promptly. "And how lucky I am to have both you and a friend! Your faith and love, and the friendship of Lawrence Macgowan."
He fancied that a faint shadow leaped into her eyes. The fancy was dissipated by her burst of hearty laughter.
"Oh! You should put it the other way—he's lucky to have you for a friend! Well, my letters are finished and I'm ready for a walk. Are you?"
"With you—always! I hope everybody in sight knows we're bride and groom!"
"They do, and I don't care a bit! Come on."
They went out arm in arm, laughing together.