THE BLOOD OF HIS ANCESTORS
WHEN he told me his story, prefacing it with a scrap of philosophy, John Norton assured me it differed from that of scores of other men of his class but in one or two unimportant particulars. He gave it as his opinion that one need not necessarily be a genius to get ahead in this world; there are other qualities almost any man can cultivate which command opportunity, and in spite of the fact that he spoke with the authority of a rather conspicuous success, he disclaimed the possession of any special ability above the average.
To begin with, Norton had much of the cheerful ambition characteristic of the average American. He had been thoroughly drilled in the idea that the one thing needful, if one wished to get on, was industry,—given this, the results were as certain as that two and two make four.
He was a broad-shouldered young fellow, more than commonly prepossessing, with an utter absence of any ability for sharp practise; indeed, he was inclined to view his fellows with a gentle kindly confidence that proved costly until he learned caution, and even then he was not bitter, only a little hurt.
He came of honest stock and of people in comfortable circumstances, proud of their traditions and their respectability and rather regretful of the fortune old General Norton had somehow lost when he emigrated from Virginia to Ohio in 1814.
Perhaps John would not have felt called upon to make the plunge into business had his father kept his name off the notes of his neighbors; as a consequence of his indiscretions the broad acres he had inherited slipped away piecemeal.
John was the eldest of four boys and the first to leave home. At twenty he went East. He recognized that he would probably have a good many ups and downs before he finally got placed, and he was thankful his career was to be among strangers.
He was not much worried in the beginning over ways and means, for his father sent him money each week, and small as the sums were they gave him a pleasing sense of security. He soon discovered that merely to make a living can be a difficult problem; it also dawned upon him that he reached the solving of the problem in a roundabout fashion through a haze of uncertainty.
After his father's death, when it became necessary for him to make his own way unaided, he brought to the task a sad earnestness. He was, he felt, without business tact—indeed, the word business comprehended all of which he was most ignorant. He could never impress people with the importance of those benefits they would derive from thinking as he wished them to think, for he was never quite sure about the benefits. He could feel himself shrink and dwindle and grow limp, when what he needed was a convincing force. Still it continued part of his faith that there was some work he could do well, and that sooner or later he would have the opportunity to do it. He was a little shocked to find that there was no particular merit in being well-born and well-bred.
He was in rapid succession clerk, traveling salesman, bookkeeper, advertising solicitor and real-estate agent; he went from place to place hoping each time he made a change, that now he was nearer success.
Meanwhile his mother died, and the home had been sold to pay his father's debts. His brothers had scattered,—one was in California, a clerk in a store, another was a miner in Colorado, a third has gone to South America, while Tom, the youngest, was editor of a country newspaper in Texas.
At thirty John married, and wisely concluded that the day for experiments was past. The idea that he was to acquire riches he put resolutely aside; if he could make a decent living it was all he dared expect.
It remained for Mr. Thomas Haviland, of Bliss, Haviland and Company, to give him his opportunity. When he got with this concern, John felt the connection to be a really notable one. The position carried a salary of twenty dollars a week with a fortnight's vacation each summer on full pay. There was one drawback. The managing director had the reputation of being exacting and hard to please, with a disagreeable temper and variable moods, but John was fully prepared to make some sacrifices to obtain steady employment. He wanted to be thrifty and sensible. One of the first things he did was to have his life insured. This gave him a solid and substantial feeling, alike new and comfortable. Later, perhaps, he would be able to open a bank-account.
He was relieved to find he could do this work, about which he had had many misgivings, as well as there was any need for it to be done. He was fortunate in the start in escaping all personal contact with Haviland, or his satisfaction with himself and his lot might have been less pronounced. The managing director had a genius for taking the very marrow out of a man's bones and the hope out of his heart. On principle he never respected those in his employ. He would probably have explained his attitude by saying it was impossible to respect men who were content to earn beggarly salaries of from fifteen to thirty-five dollars a week. Even at these prices it must be owned he contrived to surround himself by an uncommonly low grade of business intelligence.
Perhaps he liked the contrast it offered to the vigorous grasp he always maintained on affairs.
The clerks carried on their work in fear and trembling, conscious that at any moment Haviland might come out of the private office, purplefaced and furious over a trifling blunder, to lash them with sarcasms that cut like a knife,—or even worse, some poor devil would be summoned into the private office to explain; an utterly hopeless proposition, as Haviland could not sit quietly through an explanation. He made mistakes himself, but he refused to recognize the right of others to do so; at least he would not listen to their excuses. He complained continually that the clerks wasted his time, which he valued at a fabulous figure, but he would spend half a morning criticizing the mental equipment of a shaking, underfed, five-dollar-a-week man, and then dismiss him as if he were the scum of the earth,—a mere thing.
John saw and heard a good deal that filled him with astonishment the first few weeks he spent in the office of Bliss, Haviland and Company, and he decided that Haviland was not a gentleman, and when he discussed his character with Alice at home of an evening he said a good many hard and bitter things, for they talked of him incessantly; he was the one topic in the homes of all the men in the office; he lowered the tone of their lives, and brought servility and fear into the lives of their wives and children. That John escaped insult, he attributed to luck; apparently there was no protection in the fact that he was earnest and conscientious. Gordon, the old bookkeeper, who had been with the firm forty years, was a model of industry and exactness, yet he was in hot water pretty much all the time when he was not in deep water and trembling for his position.
To be sure Haviland had his own disappointments and his nerves were on edge most of the time. He was greedy of gain, but more greedy of fame,—or the irresponsible notoriety which he mistook for fame, and which was perhaps sweeter to him than a responsible fame would have been with its obligations, and he hated the directors, who seemed in league to limit him to a conservative business with reasonable profits.
John, whose ancestors since the days of the Norman Conquest had taken a hand in almost every war in Anglo-Saxon history, resolved that if Haviland ever “went for him” as he did for the rest, he would let him have the ink-well or some similarly convenient missile, but he was more and more grateful as the days ran into weeks and the weeks into months, that nothing unpleasant occurred involving him.
He had been with Bliss, Haviland and Company almost a year when one afternoon, Gordon, the bookkeeper, came out of the private office a dull tallowy white, with blue-drawn lips. He stopped beside John's desk.
“Mr. Haviland wants to see you,” he said. “You are to go in now,—right away.”
As John turned to obey the summons he ran over uneasily all those matters that had gone wrong in his department and for which he could possibly be held responsible. As he raised his hand to knock on the door of the private office he decided that happen what might he could not afford to lose his temper. He reached this decision quickly, and when he heard Haviland call “Come in,” pushed open the door. Haviland was seated at his desk, and the expression on his face was not reassuring.
“Oh! It's you, Norton; take a seat,—I want to speak to you.”
John closed the door and at a sign from Haviland sat down in the chair at the managing director's elbow, which one of the clerks who retained a sense of humor had christened “The Mourners' Bench.” Haviland swung round and faced him squarely.
“I shall have to send Gordon away,” he said. “How would you like his place?”
John knew that the bookkeeper received twenty-five hundred dollars a year, and he drew in his breath quickly.
“You do your work well,” Haviland continued graciously, without giving John a chance to reply. “I have never had occasion to find any fault with you; of course, you understand we shan't pay you what we are paying Gordon,—he has been with the house forty years. It's a very fine opening for a young man, Norton, and I am glad to be able to offer it to you. It will mean an advance of two hundred a year at once.”
“I shouldn't like to feel I was taking Gordon's place—” John said.
The red line of Haviland's neck with its heavy veins swelled out over the top of his collar; there was a moment's silence, and then he said curtly: “You are not taking Gordon's place;—he is to stay on until the end of the month. That will give him ample time to look up another place.”
“I doubt it,” John retorted, unconsciously imitating his employer's tone and manner. “He's an old man, Mr. Haviland, and I don't think any one will care to make an opening for him.” Haviland frowned.
“I should be sorry to believe that, Norton,—very sorry, indeed. I shall advise him to take a less responsible position—one more suited to his years,” expanding cheerfully, as though his advice would be of incalculable value to Gordon. “Will you take the place?”
Norton hesitated. It would have pleased him to tell Haviland just what he thought of him, but he remembered Alice and said, “Yes,” instead, adding grudgingly, “I shall be glad to accept it.”
“At twelve hundred a year?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, then,—that's all.”
As John went back to his desk he knew that Gordon's glance followed him from the door of the private office. He mounted his stool and took up his pen.
The old bookkeeper slunk over to his side and placed a trembling hand on one corner of the ledger above which John was bending intently.
“What sort of a mood was he in, Norton,—nasty?”
John nodded.
“Did he have anything to say about me?” Without lifting his head John nodded again. Gordon fingered the corner of the big book nervously.
“I never got such a calling down from him before. But then, you know, you've got to stand his temper if you want to get along with him, and what's the odds,—we're paid for it, and it's all in a lifetime.” He studied John's face guardedly. “What did he say, Norton?”
“I am awfully sorry,” John began, “but perhaps you'd as soon hear it from me as from him——”
“He didn't tell you I must go, did he? He didn't say that—I thought he didn't mean it——”
“That's what he said.”
Gordon leaned heavily against the desk.
“I knew he was wanting to get rid of me, but I didn't think it would come yet a while;—I—I was hoping I could hold on a little longer. Why! I have been here forty years—I'm not fit for anything else!”
Unconsciously in his excitement he raised his voice, and the last word was almost a cry. He choked down his emotion. “He'll get his deserts one of these days! A man can't go on forever, as he's gone on, walking over people, and prosper, and he'll find it so!”
John stole a glance over the room.
“I wouldn't speak so loud,” he cautioned. “They will hear you.”
“I don't care!” fiercely. “I don't care what they hear!” but he sank his voice to a hoarse whisper. “I—it isn't right, Norton,—it isn't right!” He paused an instant to let his gaze wander about the long bare room with its rows of desks, and a sudden mist came before his eyes. “Why! I haven't missed half a dozen days since I started in here. Summer and winter every morning at eight I've pulled off my coat and hung it with my hat on that nail over there,—it's been 'Gordon's nail' for forty years!” Then he broke down completely.
The office grew very hushed and still. The clerks stopped in their work and took in the scene with eager silent curiosity.
Fifteen minutes later they were working away again as though nothing unusual had happened. Gordon, at his desk, was trying to add a long column of figures, while every now and then something fell upon the pages of the ledger before him that raised a round blister or blurred the ink.
That day marked the beginning of the change with John Norton. He felt that this new position of his was held at the expense of manhood and self-respect. This left its mark on his character. Alertness and energy seemed to leave him as the ambition faded out of his life. In his despair he became morbid. His was the uncertainty of a man who feels he has failed without knowing how or where. He told himself the day was coming to him just as it had come to Gordon, when his services would no longer be of value to any one,—his little contribution to the world's progress having been made he would be discarded, he would drift farther and farther out of the moving current of things until he finally reached the great Sargasso of human energy where the wrecks stay, a derelict.
At first he had preferred to look upon the position as temporary, as a convenience to serve his end until a better offered, but nothing better did offer and he finally lost all idea of another place. His only fear was that he might be discharged, and he knew that a week's idleness would be a calamity.
Try as he would he could not get ahead. It was with difficulty that he managed to keep up his life insurance, which was the only provision he was able to make for the future.
It was probable that at this time neither his economies nor his expenditures were ordered with any particular intelligence or to any practical ends. His ability was that of the average man and he sacrificed himself to the average opinion. It was necessary for him to live in a certain way; his home must be in a respectable neighborhood, his wife and children must be well dressed. These were the essentials.
Sometimes he talked with Alice of giving up the struggle. He had a vague notion that if he went into the country, where he could work with his hands, he would do better and get larger returns for his toil. But it always ended in talk; nothing ever came of it; his point of view was the extreme one. He felt that he belonged to another race and time, with different ideals, different capacities and different aptitudes. The men he knew were all of the same sort. With the brawn of pioneers and soldiers wasting in their arms they were clutching pens pathetically enough, or selling silks and millinery when they had much rather be felling trees. But the trees are all felled, the worlds work as far as it can be done by hand is finished, and these primitive natures, who in a wilderness would have been all sufficient to themselves, retain but a doubtful utility.
Alice never really knew how difficult it was for him,—he kept that to himself.
He was held accountable for all the laxity on the part of those under him, and the office force was habitually indifferent, as men are apt to be who feel there is nothing to be gained by zeal and conscientiousness. Scarcely a day passed that he did not smart beneath the weight of Haviland's displeasure, nor could he rid himself of the terrible and degrading fear he had of the man. He would stand in dogged silence—abject, bruised and shaken—whenever Haviland chose to break the ready vials of wrath upon him. Haviland was not always disagreeable, however; he had his genial moments when it was wise to enter heartily into the spirit of his peculiar humor.
Norton's position was nominally at least, confidential. Once each year he made out a statement that found its way before the directors at their annual meeting. In preparing this statement it was necessary to go over the stocks, bonds and securities in the vaults with Haviland; then together they counted the cash in hand and John signed his name to the report, a formality having a certain significance in the mind of one of the directors at least, for he turned in his first statement unsigned, and had been called before the directors. Mr. Bliss, the largest individual stockholder in the company, had gravely interrogated him regarding the matter. The explanation was simple enough. Haviland had not told him to sign the statement. Upon learning this, Mr. Bliss had suggested that the managing director immediately inform the bookkeeper as to the exact nature of his duties. John was greatly impressed by the incident, so much so that afterward, when making out the annual statement, he was always troubled by an exaggerated sense of its importance.
He had been with Bliss, Haviland and Company three years, when he made a little discovery. Haviland was speculating,—in direct violation of his agreement with the company.
John had been in possession of this secret about five weeks when one morning he was summoned into the private office. He found Haviland looking rather disturbed.
“We'll have to be getting at our annual report,” the managing director said. “Let me see,—this is the eighth of the month; I suppose you already have it well along.”
“I've been at work on the books for the last two weeks.”
“Make a full and complete showing, Norton.”
“Yes, sir.”
At eleven o'clock Haviland left the office hurriedly in response to a telephone message.
Half an hour later a spruce-looking youth with a small paper parcel under his arm walked into the business office and inquired for him. John went over to the railing where he stood.
“Mr. Haviland's out; can I do anything for you?”
“I am from Brown and Kemper,” mentioning a well-known firm of brokers. “I want to leave these bonds for Mr. Haviland.” He untied the parcel as he spoke. “Will you take their numbers and give me a receipt?”
John was too dazed to speak. Not only was Haviland speculating, but he was speculating with the funds of the company. He was vainly endeavoring to collect his scattered wits when Haviland came in, panting and in hot haste. He gave the broker's clerk a shove that sent him spinning toward the wall, then with a single furious ejaculation he snatched up the bonds and disappeared into the private office.
During the next two or three days John in fancy lived through all the agony of an unsuccessful search for another position, and at last awoke to a proper understanding of the case. Haviland was afraid to dismiss him.
The directors' meeting was called for the twenty-ninth, and late in the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, as John was closing his desk, Haviland came out of the private office and strode to his side.
“I want you to come up to my house to-night, Norton; it's about that statement I want to see you. Can you come?”
John did not look at Haviland; he felt embarrassed and ill at ease. They had avoided each other for days.
“I am sorry to bother you, Norton. Won't you come up to dinner? I am all alone.”
“No,” hastily. “I guess I'd better not; my wife will be expecting me.”
“Just as you like. I can look for you about eight?”
“Yes.”
Haviland moved away a step. He was mopping his face with his handkerchief. He seemed old and broken. His aggressive arrogance of manner had entirely deserted him.
“Everything was all right to-day?” he inquired aimlessly.
“I think so.”
“Then I'll look for you at eight.” Haviland turned and went slowly into the private office. As John passed the door on his way out he caught a glimpse of the managing director; he was sitting with his elbows resting on his desk and his chin sunk in his hands.
When John mounted the steps at Haviland's that night, it was with a good deal of reluctance. The butler admitted him and showed him into the library, where Haviland welcomed him with an effusive cordiality that only served to increase his desire to escape from the house. A table stood in the center of the room, with cigars and decanters on it. Haviland had evidently been drinking; his face was flushed and his manner confident. John put aside the glass he pushed toward him.
“I'll have a cigar, if you don't mind—thanks.”
Haviland leaned back in his chair.
“Well, how's the statement coming on? The business makes a pretty good showing, eh?”
“It's been the biggest year in the history of the house.”
“If they'd let me alone, I'd make Bliss, Haviland and Company a power,” with something of his old self-assertiveness. “But they don't see it my way.”
John looked his assent. Haviland filled his glass.
“You won't join me?”
“No, I thank you.”
“I am going to have your salary put back to the old figure, Norton. I'll have to get the directors' consent, but you can tell your wife when you go home that you have a raise to twenty-five hundred.” He turned expectantly toward his bookkeeper; he was counting on enthusiasm—gratitude, even, but he saw no trace of either on John's face.
Their relations had undergone a great change. Haviland was no longer the despot John had known in the private office; he no longer inspired fear; he never could again. He was simply a redfaced vulgar man who was seeking to bribe an employee to betray his business associates. John had brooded over the possibilities of this interview; he had thought of the sarcasms he would hurl in his tyrant's face—but the tyrant was no longer a tyrant, he was only a guilty man, more or less pathetic to look upon, as guilty men are apt to be when retribution is in sight.
To cover his losses, Haviland had taken almost half a million dollars from the company, consequently the necessity for a statement that would satisfy the directors and leave no room for inconvenient questioning was imperative. Provided it was forthcoming, it would give him a year in which to return all the securities he had hypothecated. Personally, he felt quite safe; he had gone deep enough into the funds of the company while he was about it to protect himself effectually,—at the worst he could always effect a compromise. He could turn over his property; carefully handled, it would easily reach half a million, and there was his stock in the concern besides. But he had no notion of compromising if he could help it, for what would he do without money, his credit and reputation gone! He grew sick. It all rested with the bookkeeper, who promised to be difficult to manipulate. He silently added five thousand dollars to the sum he was willing to offer as a last recourse. He cleared his throat.
“Now about that report, Norton; I suppose you will want my help to-morrow.”
John looked distressed.
Haviland hitched his chair nearer and dropped his voice to a confidential whisper.
“You know how busy I am,—you are ready to sign that statement—what's the use—”
With a calmness he was conscious he did not feel, John took the cigar from between his teeth and said slowly:
“I am not so sure about that.”
Haviland looked at him blankly for a moment. He laughed shortly, and remarked: “I guess you are not such a fool, after all.”
He drew his check book from his pocket, took a pen from the table, and dipping it in the ink, dated a check and signed it.
“For what amount shall I make it, Norton?” The pen hovered above the blank space on the check.
John shook his head.
“No,” doggedly. “I can't do it,—I'm sorry for you, but I can't. What's the use?—it will be about as hard on me as on you,—I'll lose my place.”
But Haviland was not heeding him.
“If I make it ten thousand, will that satisfy you?”
It was John's turn to look blank. Ten thousand dollars! He turned faint and giddy; he tried to speak; he saw the pen circle and then sweep down toward the check. He put out his hand and caught Haviland by the wrist.
“No, don't!” he gasped.
“Shall I make it fifteen thousand?”
“No.” And this time there was no irresolution.
Haviland groaned aloud; the sweat clung in beads to his forehead. He rose from his chair.
“I am offering you fifteen thousand dollars for the stroke of your pen,—if it is not enough, name your own price,” he added hoarsely.
“I can't do it.”
“Do you mean you won't come to terms?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” His face was livid.
“Because I can't do what you ask of me,—I can't shield you, and I can't take your money. I don't suppose you understand,—it wouldn't do me any good—I should feel as though I had robbed some one—I could never tell my wife how I got the money; there would always be that between us. I'll finish what I can of the statement to-morrow and hand in my resignation.”
As he spoke he came slowly to his feet.
Haviland only half heard what John said. He was standing with his hands resting on the table, staring straight ahead into vacancy. The whole world would know! This stupidly honest fool, whose intelligence he had always put at zero, was the Nemesis in his path. For the first time in his life he was cowed. He turned to John with a dumb fear in his eyes.
“For God's sake, Norton—do you realize what this means?” he cried brokenly. “You must stand by me; I'll come out all right! Don't go over to them—they will never do for you what I will!”
“I hadn't thought of them, or what they'll do.”
“No!” with something of his old explosive manner. “You are looking to them for your reward when you have betrayed me! But what will it amount to? A few hundred a year, perhaps!”
“That was what you offered me first.”
“Oh, you'll get it from them! It's easy enough to see what your game is!” Then, as a last appeal, he cried: “You know nothing positively. All I ask you to do is to take your money—the money I am willing to give you, no matter why—and clear out—go where you choose—do as you please—”
But John moved toward the door, and Haviland read in the tense set lines of his face his decision.
John went down the steps slowly, like a man in a daze. It had been the most dramatic moment of his life; it left him confused and stunned, and with an inexplicable fear of the future.
Soon this fear took a definite form. He quickened his pace. He must hurry home and tell Alice the whole circumstance and ask her advice. Perhaps he had already committed himself by going to see Haviland! He revolved the matter in his mind. What could Haviland do—would he dare accuse him? He could run no risks—he owed it to Alice and the children to take every precaution. But how was he to protect himself?
John turned sharply, with a new idea. Above all other claims, above the consideration of self, he owed a duty to the stockholders. They had a right to know what he knew; he could not shield Haviland with his silence. He must see one of the directors. He paused uncertainly on a street corner. To whom should he go? At the board meetings he had been impressed with Mr. Bliss' kindliness of manner; he would go to him rather than to any of the others, and tell him what he knew of the situation, and resign. He was sick of the whole business and felt himself unequal to it. He glanced around, hoping he might see a belated cab, but the street was silent and deserted.
It was three o'clock when he reached Mr. Bliss'. Four times he halted doubtfully before the door; four times he felt his courage ebb and flow, and four times he wandered aimlessly down the block. The fifth time he mounted the steps; there was a momentary irresolution, and then he rang the bell with a firm hand. He felt like a criminal, a conspirator, as he stood there, for, after all, Haviland had his good points—only one would never have supposed it merely from associating with him. He was on the point of abandoning his project, when the sickening fear returned that in some way he might be implicated. He thought of Alice and the children, and set his lips in grim determination; he dared not do less than protect himself. At last a sleepy half-dressed footman opened the door.
“What do you want?” he asked crossly.
“I must see Mr. Bliss,” and John pushed past him into the hall.
“Come in the morning.”
“I must see him now.”
“Well, you can't! He's in bed.”
At that moment Mr. Bliss himself appeared at the head of the stairs, dimly visible in a long white sexless garment.
“What is it, Martin?” he asked. “A telegram?”
“It's I, Mr. Bliss,—Norton—the bookkeeper from Bliss, Haviland and Company. I must see you! It's a matter of the utmost importance,” he said earnestly.
“Martin, light the gas in the library. I'll be down in a moment, Mr. Norton.”
Ten minutes later he joined John down-stairs in the library.
“Now, what is it, Mr. Norton?” he asked cheerfully.
“It's about the directors' statement,” said John with a troubled air.
“Well?” his companion interrogated, while he bent upon the young man a shrewd glance. He wondered if the bookkeeper had been purloining the funds of the company.
“I have just come from Mr. Haviland,” John explained. “I want to resign. He expects me to make up the statement without going over the securities. He has offered me fifteen thousand dollars for the kind of a statement he wants.”
He paused uncertainly, and then went on hurriedly: “Last week securities to the value of thirty thousand dollars, which I supposed were in the safe and which should have been there, were returned from a broker's office. Mr. Haviland has been speculating. I have known this for some time, but I did not know that it was with the funds of the company until these securities were handed me by mistake.”
“You are quite sure of what you say, Norton?” the director asked. “These are very grave charges you are making.”
“I am quite sure, Mr. Bliss. I suppose he expects to return every dollar he has taken,” John added. It was a comfort to be able to say a good word for Haviland.
“No doubt,—every man who speculates with money not his own intends to do that. Haviland will be called on to make good within twenty-four hours, and if he can't—why—” The pause was eloquent. He was silent for a moment; then he said: “Tell me as nearly as you can just what passed between you to-night.”
Slowly and carefully John gave the substance of his interview with Haviland, while Mr. Bliss watched him narrowly.
“And you want to resign, Norton?” he asked at length.
“Yes.”
Bliss laughed shortly.
“Why don't you ask for an increase of salary,—you'll be more apt to get that.”
“I haven't told you what I have with any hope of that sort, Mr. Bliss,” said John a little stiffly.
“No—of course not. But put the notion that you are to resign out of your head. More likely you'll be asked to help reorganize the company under my direction,—for Bliss, Haviland and Company can't go under, no matter what ducks and drakes Haviland has made of our money.”
John came slowly to his feet.
“I must go home to my wife now,” he said, “she will be wondering what has kept me so late.”
“Wait a moment,” said Bliss. “I'll go with you. Let me call a cab,” and he summoned the footman.
“It is very kind of you,” said John. “But is there any reason for it?”
“It's just as well. We must see the directors before nine o'clock.”
As John leaned back in his seat in the cab, Bliss said kindly:
“You look worn out, Norton.”
“I am tired,” he admitted; but beyond his fatigue and weariness he was feeling a sense of peace, security and hope. His old ambition, long dead, as he told himself, stirred within him. After all,—after all the waiting and doubt and fear, success had come at last when he least expected it. The cab drew up before the dingy flat-house where he lived, and John sprang lightly to the pavement. They entered the building. It was still quite dark in the narrow halls, but as they came to the landing before his own door John gave a start. Two men were standing there; one was Haviland, and the other a stranger. Over their shoulders he caught a glimpse of Alice's white scared face. Hearing his steps, Haviland turned with a hungry wolfish look.
“This is the man,” he said shortly. “Arrest him.”
The stranger moved forward, but Bliss, coming slowly up the dark stairs, said gently:
“It's too late. It's no use—I wouldn't do that!”
He took the warrant from the detective's hand and tore it into long strips, while he and Haviland gazed into each other's eyes.