“Don’t work yourself to death,” he warned Fulton in the hall. “I’m glad Marian’s influence is so beneficent. When your proof comes, hold it a day or two: there’s always the chance of bettering a thing.”
IX
As September waned, Fulton heard disquieting news touching Redfield. It was whispered in business circles that the broker had, the previous year, sold stock in a local industrial venture that had already come to grief. Redfield’s friends were saying that he had been misled by the enthusiasm of the men who had promoted the company, but this was not accepted at face value by some of his business rivals. Fortunately the amount was not large—a mitigating circumstance for which he was not responsible; he would have sold more, it was said, if investors had proved less wary. The story was well calculated to injure if it didn’t at once destroy Redfield’s chances of success as a dealer in securities.
Fulton was a good deal disturbed by these reports, which it became his duty to sift for the “Chronicle.” Fulton liked Redfield; Redfield was a likable person, a good fellow. The effect upon his future of this misfortune, attributable to his new-born zeal for money-making, was not to be passed lightly. There was nothing for the papers to print, as the complaining purchasers had been made whole and were anxious to avoid publicity. Fulton had watched matters carefully with a view to protecting Redfield if it became necessary, and he was confident that the sanguine promoters were the real culprits, though it was pretty clear that any scruples the broker might have had had gone down before the promise of a generous commission.
When quite satisfied that Redfield was safe so far as prosecution was concerned, Fulton spoke of Redfield’s difficulties to the Poet on an evening when he called ostensibly to report the completion of his romance. The Poet listened attentively, but the reporter accepted his mild expressions of regret as indicating indifference to Redfield’s fate. The young man’s remark that if it hadn’t been for the Poet he would have shared Redfield’s collapse elicited no comment. The Poet, imaginably preoccupied with less disagreeable speculations, turned at once to Fulton’s manuscript. After the final draft had been discussed and publishers had been considered, the young man left in the cheerful mood he always carried away from his talks with the Poet.
But the Poet spent a restless evening. He listlessly turned over many books without finding any to arrest his interest. He was troubled, deeply troubled, by what Fulton had told him of Redfield. And he was wandering whether there might not be some way of turning his old friend’s humiliation to good account. A man of Redfield’s character and training would feel disgrace keenly; and coming at a time when he believed himself well launched toward success, the shock to his pride would be all the greater.
Nothing in the Poet’s creed was more brightly rubricated than his oft-repeated declarations that the unfortunate, the erring, the humbled, are entitled to mercy and kindness. The Redfields’ plight had roused him to a defense of his theory of life; but Fulton’s story had added a new integer that greatly increased the difficulty of solving this problem. Seemingly Fate was using these old friends to provide illustrations for many of the dicta that were the foundation of his teachings. Inspiration did not visit the quiet street that night. The Poet pondered old poems rather than new ones. “Life is a game the soul can play,” he found in Sill; but the chessmen, he reflected, are sometimes bafflingly obstinate and unreasonable.
“To-morrow is All-Children’s Day,” remarked the Poet a few days later when, seemingly by chance, he met Fulton in the street; and when the young man asked for light the Poet went on to explain. “When Marjorie was born her father and I set apart her birthday to be All-Children’s Day—a crystallization of all children’s birthdays, from the beginning of time, and we meant to celebrate it to the end of our days. It just occurs to me that you and I might make it an excuse for calling on Mrs. Redfield and Marian and Marjorie to-morrow afternoon, the same being Sunday. Very likely you have another engagement—” he ended, with provoking implications that caused Fulton, who was already pledged to visit Marjorie and inferentially Marian and Mrs. Redfield on this very Sunday afternoon, to stammer in the most incriminating fashion.
“Then if you haven’t anything better to do we can call together,” said the Poet.