It would be sheer madness for me to keep my apparent promise, made, in the heat of my earnestness, merely to save Natalie from her own folly, and therefore not really binding. To give her a quarter of a million a year absolutely and for life would be to invite disaster—no, to compel it. She’d be in the divorce courts ridding herself of Walter within two years.
She shall have the substance of my promise—I shall do everything for her. But she must not have the mere letter, which would injure her, would tempt her to wreck her life and my plans and the future of her children. It was wise to promise; it would be wrong to fulfil. No, I must retain full control, must keep my steadying hand firmly upon her. And, after all, what did I pledge?
I was careful to phrase it delicately, for I’m always extremely particular in my choice and use of words at crucial moments. I was careful to say, “an annual income of a quarter of a million.” All turns upon the word “an”—if it were “the,” my phrase would mean something entirely different.
I shall settle two hundred and fifty thousand on her on the day they marry—after the ceremony. I shall protest that a quarter of a million in all was what I meant—and I certainly did, though I don’t here deny that I may have meant for her to think I meant a quarter of a million a year. She will be—not in what you would call a pleasant state of mind. But what can she do? When she shall have calmed down, she’ll probably give me the benefit of the doubt, tell herself she misunderstood me, rail at herself for her folly, and then—behave herself.
True, she’s shrewd, and her parents, too. They’ll try legally to commit me before the wedding. But surely I can circumvent them.
There’s “a way out.” There always is!
IV
It was necessary for me to find, calculating liberally, about eight million dollars—the four millions definitely promised to my university, a quarter of a million to redeem my promise to Natalie, a million properly to set Walter and her going in an independent establishment, two millions to provide them with the income to maintain it, and about half a million for my own and my family’s regular annual expenses. Further, an investment of twelve millions that had been sending its seven per cent. securely and regularly for the past nine years was about to fall in through the payment of the debt it represented—I could write a volume on the harassments and exasperations of hunting investments. Finally, I was hoping that Aurora would marry Horton Kirkby, which might mean a million, perhaps several millions, more, if he should demand a dowry.
The situation commanded me to plan and carry through some new enterprise which would afford me a safe investment for my released twelve millions and in addition would net me enough to cover well the other demands upon me. Years ago—as soon as I had my first million put by—I resolved that I would never for any purpose whatsoever subtract a penny either from the principal or from the income of my fortune. Gifts of all kinds, expenses of all kinds, outgo of every description, must come from new sources of revenue; my fortune and its income and the surplus over the previous year’s outgo must be treated as a sacred fund of which I was merely the trustee. That rule has put me often in straits, has forced me to many money-making measures that in the narrow view would be called relentless. But to it the world owes my highest achievements, as a financier and industrial leader, and to it I owe the bulk of my fortune.
The brain earns in vain, however hugely, if the hands do not hoard; and, thanks to my rule, my hands have been like those valves which open only to pressure from without and seal the more tightly the greater the pressure from within.