CHAPTER XVI
THE FAMILY NAME
“Reputation, reputation, reputation!”
Shakespeare.
It was long past closing time at Henry Carleton’s. Every one, from the oldest clerk to the smallest office boy, had long since gone home. For three hours, almost, the two men had had the office to themselves. A long, bitter battle of words it had been, all the stored-up brood of evil passions, hatred and envy, anger and fear, as with the bursting of some festering sore, had surged, foul and horrible, into the clear light of the open day.
Henry Carleton sat at his desk, but not in his usual attitude of calm composure, leaning back in his chair, the acknowledged lord and master of his little world, envied by all men who came to see him, to buy or sell, bargain and haggle, plot and plan. This Henry Carleton was a strangely different man. Wearily enough he leaned forward in his chair, his head propped on one hand, while in the other the pencil which ordinarily never moved but to some purpose, to jot down some pregnant list of facts or figures, now moved over the blank surface of the paper in little aimless scrawls and circles; fit index, perhaps, to its owner’s strange confusion of brain—a man for once troubled, wavering and irresolute, well-nigh, at times, despairing, yet still seeking feverishly the solution of the puzzle, making desperate hunt for the missing key.
Facing him sat Jack Carleton, astride of one of the office chairs, his hands grasping its back, his eyes never leaving the other’s face. His whole expression—the twitching mouth, the deep-set gleam in his troubled eyes, the unconsciously wrinkled brow—all seemed to bear witness to some storm of passion that had passed over him, and even in the comparative calm which had followed, had still left its traces behind. One might have hazarded that the man who sat there staring into Henry Carleton’s face was a man actuated by two feelings, one new, one old; one a fear, deep and deadly, the other a resentment so fierce and bitter, that unrestrained by time and place, it would have loosed him, like a bulldog, at the other’s throat.
Without looking up, Henry Carleton again began the argument, his tone an odd mixture, half threatening, half conciliatory, as one who, knowing that it lies within his power to effect his ends by force, yet for some reason strives first to gain them by gentler means. “Jack,” he said, “we have to find a way out somehow. And I want to play fair with you—I want even to be more than fair—”
Jack Carleton cut him short with a laugh so utterly devoid of mirth, so full of the bitterest malice, that a curse would have struck more pleasantly upon the ear. “Oh, yes,” he mocked, “of course you do. You want to be fair.” He paused a moment; then, with a naked, unrestrained, deliberate passion horrible to witness, he protruded his head with a gesture almost bestial, his tone lowered so that the words came sibilantly from between his teeth. “You damned sneak,” he said, “why, in the name of God, can’t you act like a man? Talk like a man? All these dirty, canting phrases of yours; they’ve grown on you now so you can’t drop ’em if you wanted to. You’ve stifled all the real man that was ever in you—and to start with that was precious little. You’re a money making machine; money distributing, too, if that’s any comfort to you; you credit to the Carleton name. You’ve sneaked and schemed your way so long that you do it from habit now; and a devil of a fine result you’ve got this time. You want to be fair. Fair! Oh, my God!” he laughed again.
Henry Carleton lifted a face flushed suddenly with angry crimson. “Stop it, Jack,” he commanded, and then, through force of long discipline, with a sigh he slowly shook his head, and let his clenched hands relax. “What’s the use?” he said, with infinite patience, “what’s the use now, of all times? Hear me out, Jack. I know that you hate me. And I know why. I’ve been a successful man, and you’ve been a failure, but our chances were the same. You could have done as well as I. Only you chose to use your energies in a different way. That’s all been your fault, not mine. And now this thing’s come up. You’ve had a surprise to-day. You’ve found things very different from what you expected. But what is my attitude all the while? Am I trying to press my advantage as I could? That’s the last thing I want to do. You think I hate you, Jack. Can’t you see that I don’t? If I did, would I be talking as I’m talking now? Would I talk with you at all, even? Would I above all sit here and take your insults—your abuse? Not for an instant. You sit there, alive and free—and yet a dead man, Jack. Think of it! Dead already. Dead as if you sat this instant in the electric chair. And what am I saying?—the man that you think hates you. What am I urging and advising all this time, when I could see you going in the prison door, never to come out again alive? I’m showing you how to get out of the whole thing scot-free; giving you every chance; and you won’t listen to me.”