CHAPTER 6
The Social Era had for many years made its weekly appearance every Saturday morning, that its fashionable clientele might appease their jaded appetites on the Sabbath day by nibbling at its spicy pabulum. But, though the Ames reception had fallen on a Saturday night, the following Friday morning found the columns of the Era still awaiting 72 a report of the notable affair. For Haynerd’s hand seemed paralyzed. Whenever he set his pen to the task, there loomed before him only the scene in the little waiting room, and he could write of nothing else. He found himself still dwelling upon the awful contrast between the slender wisp of a girl and her mountainous opponent, as they had stood before him; and the terrifying thoughts of what was sure to follow in consequence drenched his skin with cold perspiration.
On the desk before him lay the essay which he had asked Carmen to write during the week, as her report of the brilliant event. He had read it through three times, and each time had read into it a new meaning. He dared not run it. Not that it ridiculed or condemned––at least, not openly––but because every one of its crisp comments admitted of an interpretation which revealed the hidden depths of the social system, and its gigantic incarnation, as if under the glare of a powerful searchlight. It was in no sense a muck-raking exposition. Rather, it was an interpretation, and a suggestion. It was, too, a prediction; but not a curse. The girl loved those about whom she wrote. And yet, he who read the essay aright would learn that her love stopped not at the flimsy veil of the flesh, but penetrated until it rested upon the fair spiritual image beyond. And then Haynerd saw that the essay was, in substance, a social clinic, to which all searchers after truth were bidden, that they might learn a great lesson from her skillful dissection of the human mind, and her keen analysis of its constituent thought.
As he sat wrapped in reflection, the early morning mail was brought in. He glanced up, and then started to his feet. The letters spread over his desk like an avalanche of snow; and the puffing mail carrier declared that he had made a special trip with them alone. Haynerd began to tear them open, one after another. Then he called the office boy, and set him at the task. There were more than five hundred of them, and each contained a canceled subscription to the Social Era.
A dark foreboding settled down over Haynerd’s mind. He rose and went to the card-index to consult his subscription list. It was gone! He stood confusedly for a moment, then hastened to the window that looked out upon a fire-escape. Its lock lay broken upon the floor. He turned and rushed to the vault, which, reflecting his own habitual carelessness, was never locked. His ledgers and account books were not there. Then he crept back to his desk and sank into a chair.
The noon mail brought more letters of like nature, until the office boy tallied nearly eight hundred. Then Haynerd, as if rousing from a dream, reached for the telephone and summoned Hitt to his rescue. The Social Era was foundering. 73 Its mailing list had contained some fifteen hundred names. The subscription price was twelve dollars a year––and never, to his knowledge, had it been paid in advance by his ultra-rich patrons, most of whom were greatly in arrears. Haynerd saw it all vanishing now as quietly as the mist fades before the summer sun.
Within an hour the wondering Hitt was in conference with him, and Haynerd had told the story of the theft, of the Ames bribe, and the encounter following. “But,” he cried, “can Ames kill my entire subscription list, and in a single week?”
“Easily,” replied Hitt, “and in any one of several ways. Apparently he had caused your subscription list and books to be stolen. Your sun has set, Ned. Or, rather, Ames has lifted it bodily from the sky.”