"That's the way I feel," said Raridan, hanging up his coat in the billiard room. "He's a rigid devil, some way. There's no let-go in him. I guess the law allows us to dislike some people just on general principles, and Jim likes himself so well that you and I don't matter. It's your shot."
CHAPTER XVIII FATHER AND DAUGHTER
The winds of January had no better luck in shaking down the leaves of the scrub oaks on the Porter hillside than their predecessors of November and December. The snows came and went on the dull slopes, and the canna beds were little blots of ruin in the gray stubble. The house was a place of light and life once more, for Evelyn had obeyed her father's wish rather than her own inclination in opening its doors for frequent teas and dinners and once for a large ball. Many people had entertained for her; she had never been introduced formally, but her mother's friends made up for this omission; she went out a great deal, and enjoyed it. Many young men climbed the hill to see her, and many went to the theater or to dances with her at least once. The number who came to call diminished by Christmas; but those who still came, and were identified as frequenters of the house, came oftener.
Warry Raridan had raged at the mob, as he called it, which he seemed always to find installed in the Porter drawing-room; but he raged inwardly these days, save as he went explosively to Saxton for comfort; he had stopped raging at Evelyn. He was at work more steadily than he had ever been before, and wished the credit for it which people denied him, to his secret disgust. He had idled too long, or he had too often before given fitful allegiance to labor. Young women and old, who expected him to pass tea for them in the afternoons, refused to believe that he had experienced a change of heart. Those who had bragged of him abroad, and who now lured the eternal visiting girl to town to behold him, were chagrined to find that he was difficult to produce, and mollified their guests by declaring that Warry was getting more fickle and uncertain as he grew older, or took vengeance by encouraging the rumor that he and Evelyn Porter were engaged.
Wheaton called at the Porters' often, but he did not go now with Warry Raridan; he even took some pains to go when Raridan did not. He knew just how much time to allow himself between The Bachelors' and the Porter door bell in order to reach the drawing-room at five minutes past eight. He was now considered one of the men that went out a good deal in Clarkson; he was invited to many houses, and began to wonder that social enjoyment was so easy. It seemed long ago that he had been a leading figure in the ball of the Knights of Midas. Looking back at that incident he was sensible of its poverty and tawdriness; he had sacrificed himself for the public good, and the community shared in the joke of it.
Porter had an amiable way of darting out of the library in the evenings when he and Evelyn were both at home, to see who came in; not that he was abnormally curious as to who rang the door bell, though he enjoyed occasionally a colloquy with a tramp; but he was always on the lookout for telegrams, of which he received a great many at home, and he declared in his chaffing note of complaint that the people in the house were forever hiding them from him. He sometimes brought home bundles of papers and spent whole evenings digesting them and making computations. Without realizing that Wheaton was in his house pretty often, he was glad to know that his cashier came. When he found that Wheaton was in the drawing-room he usually went over to talk to him in the interim before Evelyn came down. Sometimes a bit of news in the evening paper gave him a text.
"I see that they've had a shaking up over at St. Joe. Well, Wigglesworth never was any good. They ought to have had more sense than to get caught by him. Well, sir, you remember he was offering his paper up here. We could have had a barrel of it; but when a man of his credit peddles his paper away from home, it's a good thing to let alone. When they figure up Wigglesworth's liabilities they will find that he has paper scattered all over the Missouri Valley, and I'll bet the Second's stuck. The last time I saw Wigglesworth he was up at the club one day with Buskirk. He'd been in to see me the day before. I guessed then that he was looking for help which they didn't think he was worth at home." And then, with a chuckle: "Our people," meaning his directors, "think sometimes we're too conservative, and I reckon I do lose a lot of business for them that other fellows would take and get out of all right; but I guess we make more in the long run by being careful. Banking ain't exactly stove polish or vitalized barley, to put up in pretty packages and advertise on the billboards."
Wheaton was honestly sympathetic and responsive along these lines. He admired Porter, although he often felt that the president made mistakes; yet he, too, believed in conservatism; it was a matter of temperament rather than principle. This mingling of social and business elements pleased and flattered Wheaton. He felt that his position in the Porter bank gave him a double footing in the Porter house. Porter usually ignored Evelyn's presence while he finished whatever he was saying. Then he would go back to his chair in the library, where he could hear the voices across the hall; but he never remained after he had concluded his own talk with Wheaton.