There is something very pervasive, coercive, permeating in the influence of cultivation, of fashion, of station in the world of wealth. It had never occurred to Lloyd, so little was he brought in contact with this element, to gauge the lack of refinement in Haxon's endowments or manners till he placed himself in contrast with the newcomers.
"Who are them guys?" Haxon asked of the porter.
The method of address obviously embarrassed the servant. It seemed derogatory to the high estate of these great ones of the earth whom he had rejoiced to serve in their sudden comings and goings. To answer a question which described them as "guys" was in itself an indignity. But he swallowed the affront and replied succinctly—"They are some of the guests what's been stayin' at the New Helveshy Springs in the mountings, sah."
"Thought the springs were closed by this time," Lloyd remarked, and the servant apprehending the observation as applicable to business interests rather than actuated by mere curiosity, replied with a placated mien, "Jes' a few stayin' on, sah—feared ter go home till frost, 'count of de yaller fever whar dey live in Mobile or New Orleans or some o' dem Southern cities. Dey got nuthin' ter 'muse dem at New Helveshy—even de band's gone,—an' dey drive down 'ere wunst in a while." He lingered for a moment, for the satisfaction of possible further queries, but none came and he betook himself within.
Lloyd looked with anxious doubt at the brow of Haxon, seeking to discern and gauge his sentiment, so slight an irritant might now disturb the precarious poise of his equilibrium. But Haxon merely remarked with a sigh, "I wish they were five hundred instead of five."
"Well, there's one comfort," said Lloyd, "the show couldn't be any better if they were five hundred instead of five."
He had struck the wrong note and the discord jangled instantly.
"Well, the railroads don't haul folks on their merits," the acrobat rejoined acridly. "It makes mighty little difference in this cursed hole whether the show is good or bad, if there ain't nobody to see it. I believe you are ambitious of playin' to a cent and a half a day."
The roseate flush on Lloyd's girlish cheek deepened, but it was one of the slow tortures privileged to rack his soul in these days of stress that he was debarred the natural vent of anger. He could not retort, in sheer humanity he could not flame out in petulance at the man whose life was to be placed in most hideous jeopardy in half an hour, balanced on the flicker of an eyelash, lost in a momentary quiver of the nerves. But Lloyd truly felt that his trials increased in a regular ratio with the demonstration of his capacity to sustain them. Sometimes he thought that a sudden sarcasm, an outbreak of the vexation that stirred him might over-awe Haxon, elicit his self-control, and serve really to steady his nerves. It was not an experiment which he was willing to try at another's cost. He braced his own nerves for endurance therefore, and taxed his capacity for expedients.
"Oh, hush," he said, with affected roughness. "You are out of your contract now. You don't know anything about the receipts yesterday—it's all up to me. You are agreed to take no share in business till you've done your leap for the day. Then we'll strike the balance."