“A lady?” Trefethen’s tone was surprised and not pleased.
“I hope you won’t blame me—she is not an ordinary person; she is anxious to speak to you.”
Trefethen glanced at his calendar. Here was an empty half-hour, too long to sit idle, too short to substitute any business effectively. He might as well fill it in this way. “Show her in.”
In a moment he was standing before a slim woman of forty who carried her straight figure and wore her well-made clothes with certainty, and the air of a person used to consideration. She put out her hand frankly.
“I used to know you, Mr. Trefethen. We went to school together—Sarah Speed.” Trefethen remembered well enough. It was one of the old names in the old Southern town. “I’m glad to see you,” he said cordially, stirred a little, as a reminiscence of the place and times stirred him always, and he placed a chair for her.
“I’m afraid you won’t be when you know my errand,” the woman said, and looked at him earnestly with wide gray eyes. Her face was troubled and sad, he noticed, for all her look of prosperity. He awaited developments. “I’ll try not to keep you long,” she said; “but the matter is life and death to me. I am Mrs. Ruthven now—Morgan Ruthven, the president of the Southwestern Railroad, is my husband.” The man knew now, and his face hardened as he hardened his soul, and the woman saw it.
“Of course you know what I’m going to say”—her voice shook and then she lifted her head courageously. “I realize that it is awfully unpleasant for you, and not quite fair—you’re here for business, and it’s unbusinesslike to have a woman break in and beg for mercy. But it isn’t just mercy—it’s justice. You are going to force the Southwestern into a position where you can foreclose on it. It is a personal sort of business, that railroad. My husband’s father was its president before him, and it has been prosperous and honorable forty years. It is now. They don’t want to sell it. They’re willing to make terms with your new road. You haven’t any right to force them out simply because you can. You—”
Trefethen interrupted gently. “I know all this, Mrs. Ruthven,” he said civilly.
The woman caught her breath and made an evident effort for calmness. “I know you do. It’s foolish of me to try you on that side. I won’t waste your time,” she brought out quickly. “What I want to do is this: I want to tell you what it means to us, and let you see if it means as much to you. My husband is very ill. He has been in an alarming state for a week, and to-day and to-morrow are turning-points. His business is on his mind, and last night when I was trying to calm him I thought of coming to you and telling you how things were, and asking you to remember old days and”—her voice broke, but she cleared her throat quickly and went on in even tones—“and just be merciful. Of course you have every right—I don’t mean moral—but every legal right to wipe out the old Southwestern, but you don’t understand. If I go back to Morgan and tell him I’ve failed with you it will kill him as surely as if I gave him slow poison. The doctor said yesterday that everything depended on his being kept cheerful. Cheerful!” She laughed, half choking. “Keep a man cheerful on the rack! And there’s more—the boy. He is to graduate at Yale this summer, and he’s a boy who deserves—everything. The happiest, cleverest, best boy! Best at everything—away up in his classes—a hero among the other boys for athletics. But I mustn’t bore you,” she caught herself. “Only he—he isn’t just an ordinary boy”—and she laughed a little, tremblingly, knowing well enough through her trouble that all women think that of their boys. “He isn’t,” she insisted prettily. This wife of Morgan Ruthven’s was an attractive woman, Trefethen acknowledged to himself unwillingly. “I want you to realize about Carl, because then you will know how impossible it seems to take away all his chances, that he has worked toward for years. Such a good boy, Mr. Trefethen,” the gray eyes glowed with the soul close back of them. “He has worked so hard and been so happy. And”—she threw this impulsively at him—“he’s captain of the ’Varsity crew. You’re a college man. You know what glory that means. To give all that up—graduation with honors—the great race—it’s enough to break a boy’s courage. It would break my heart to have him. He has been promised a trip abroad with his best friend, a boy like himself, and after that he is to have a special course in Germany. He is full of ambition and vitality. He could do anything—be anything. He’ll have to give it all up—if you ruin the Southwestern. You see what it means to me—my husband’s life, my boy’s future.”
Marcus Trefethen was uncomfortable and annoyed as the low, eager words stopped suddenly. This was all beside the question. The question was this—to make a gigantic enterprise must small interests be sacrificed? It had been answered. They must. That being the case, why should he harrow his soul with the details of each sacrifice? It served no purpose, his mind being made up, and it might unsteady his nerves, which he needed to keep steady. While he considered how to put things most concisely, the intense voice went on: