Henry, eyeing them, rubbed a rueful hand over his chin, even while he grinned. "Next time I wish old Ben'd send the cash."
Things had come to a bad pass with Henry Kemp. It was no longer necessary for him to say that business was not going. Business, for him, was gone. Importing was as dead as war and U-boats could make it. His house, together with many less flourishing and important ones, had closed for lack of goods. It had been wiped out so completely that there remained of it nothing to tell the tale except the exquisite collection of Venetian glass, and Bohemian liqueur sets, and French enamel opera glasses and toilette table pieces, and Hungarian china and embroidery which Belle had acquired during the years in which her husband had dealt in these precious things. Sometimes you saw Henry looking at them—picking up a fine old piece of French china or Italian glass from the buffet or dresser and turning it over to scan its familiar stamp. He knew them as an expert knows diamonds. His eye could detect any flaw in glaze or colour.
Now, at fifty, Henry Kemp, for years a successful merchant and importer, was looking about for an opening. He would get something. The young men were being drawn away by the hundreds of thousands. He had been offered a position which would require his travelling for six months in the year. He had no illusions about it. On the road, a travelling salesman, at fifty. It was a bitter pill for Henry Kemp. He could not yet force himself to swallow it.
His day stretched, empty, before him, but he made himself busy. Each morning he rose at the hour to which his business had accustomed him for years. He bathed and shaved and dressed carefully, as usual. He breakfasted and glanced at the paper, doing both with the little air of hurry that had meant the car waiting outside, or the 8:45 I. C. train to catch. For twenty-five years he had gone downtown daily at a certain time, his face alight with the eager alert expression which meant the anticipation of a heavy mail and a day crowded with orders. He still followed out this programme. But the eager look was absent. His springy step was suddenly heavy, lagging. Belle sometimes wondered where he went—how he filled his day. He belonged to clubs—big, comfortable, prosperous clubs housed on Michigan Boulevard. But clubs, to American business men, meant a place for a quiet business talk at luncheon. During the day they were, for the most part, deserted. Sometimes Charley said, "Lunch with me, father?"
"I've got to see a man at twelve. It's a conference. I can't tell how long it'll last."
Henry Kemp presented that most tragic of spectacles, the American business man at leisure.
In fairness to Belle Kemp it must be said that she did not nag him, or reproach him, or bewail her lot or mope. He would get something, she knew. He had a reputation for business acumen; a standing in the community; hosts of influential friends. Besides, there was money for present needs. They had lived well, the Kemps. Henry had denied his wife and daughter nothing. Still Henry Kemp sensed that his wife was thinking, "Failure." Failure at fifty. She was too much her mother's daughter to think otherwise. So he walked off, jauntily, every morning, with a haste that deceived no one, least of all himself.
Ben Gartz got into the way of sending tickets to the Kemps. Tickets for concerts, tickets for war benefits, for the theatre. "I wonder if you wouldn't like to use these? I can't go and I thought——"
He heard Charley speak of a book she had tried to get, and failed. He sent to New York for it and had it mailed to her. It was the Bab Ballads. He did not know that she wanted them for Jesse. She and Jesse had read them together often. Now she thought that if she could send them to him if only to amuse him for a day, or an hour even, in the trenches or back of the lines, it would be something. Ben Gartz had never heard of the book but he had written down the name, carefully, in his little leather notebook. When Charley told him that she had sent the volume ($4.50 net) to Jesse, in France, his face wore the strangest look.
When Mrs. Payson heard of these things, as she inevitably did, she looked a little aggrieved. "He's been here once since Lottie left—just once. I can't blame him. Lottie treated him like a dog. If ever there was an attentive man. But what's he come to your house so much for?"