Never the twain shall meet

by Peter B. Kyne

What matter if her mother had been a Polynesian princess, her father a carefree, wandering love-pirate, a very Centaur? Tamea was—Tamea—and in all this world there would never, by God’s grace, exist another like her.

He got out her letter and read it again, and a lump gathered in his throat as he realized how sweet it was, how benignant, how overflowing with love and the gladness of love’s sacrifice. How prideful she was and how childish! What a tremendous indication was her act, of a tremendously regal character! Poor, bruised, misunderstanding and misunderstood heart. His tears came at last. . . .

By noon he had regained control of himself, and resolutely driving from his mind all thoughts of Tamea, he concentrated upon his business affairs. His first move was to order the firm’s books closed as of that date and a schedule of assets and liabilities drawn up, after which he wrote a form letter to the firm’s customers explaining the predicament in which Casson and Pritchard found themselves and the reason for it, pledged his own private fortune to retrieve the situation in part and invited the creditors to meet with him and his attorneys in the assembly room of the Merchants’ Exchange a week hence, when a thorough and comprehensive review of the situation would be possible and at which time he hoped to have worked out a scheme for the rehabilitation of the business and the payment of one hundred cents on every dollar of the firm’s obligations.

As yet no one, not even the chief clerk, knew that Casson and Pritchard were listed among the casualties in the post-war collapse of values which Dan had feared so long. Dan and his partner were the sole custodians of that cheerless information, but in their minds existed no illusions regarding their situation. That eight thousand tons of rice aboard the Malayan alone spelled a loss of at least a million and a half. Already the market on coffee, sugar, Oriental oils, copra and a hundred other commodities had commenced to slump, and, in the wild scramble to throw trades overboard before too heavy a loss should accrue, Dan knew that every importing and exporting house in the country would be hard put to weather the storm. Casson and Pritchard would have to face other losses in the natural order of business, and Dan was shrewd enough to realize that these, coupled with the tremendous loss on old Casson’s rice gamble, would force him to cry for quarter. Therefore he faced the issue resolutely and calmly made his preparations for the assault of the firm’s creditors by assuming the initiative.

For a week he worked all day and part of each night at the office. Old Casson, cruelly stung with remorse and fright, remained at home and did not communicate with him, a condition for which Dan was grateful. He heard nothing from Maisie, nor did his thoughts dwell long or frequently upon her. He had room in his harassed mind for thoughts of but one woman—Tamea.

All during that terrible week gossip linked irremediable disaster with some of the oldest and soundest firms on the Street. Apparently Katsuma and Company had been smashed beyond all hope of rehabilitation, for Katsuma, Jap-like, had solved his problem by hanging himself and was as dead as Julius Cæsar. There was a panic in Wall Street and already local banks had grown timid and were refusing the loans so necessary to the successful operation of the commerce upon which banks must, perforce, predicate their existence. Demand loans were being called, and when not met the collateral back of them was levied upon.

At the conclusion of that week’s business Dan had before him a written record of Casson and Pritchard’s affairs; the letters to creditors lay on his desk, awaiting his signature, and his plan of rehabilitation, even his address to the firm’s creditors, had been rehearsed until he knew it by heart. At eleven o’clock on Saturday his bank called a large loan. Over the telephone the banker informed Dan crisply but courteously that they expected the note to be paid on Monday; whereupon Dan Pritchard sent out his letters to Casson and Pritchard’s creditors and then sent for Mark Mellenger, whom he had not seen since the latter’s sudden retreat from the Italian restaurant in the Latin quarter.

“I’ve sent for you, Mel,” Dan informed his friend, “to give you two exclusive stories, one of which is for publication. In the first place, Tamea has returned to Riva, or at least she is now en route there. I am endeavoring, however, to turn her back at Tahiti in order that I may marry her.”

“Why did she leave? Did you send her away?”

Dan briefly explained and Mellenger listened in silence; at the conclusion of Dan’s recital he merely nodded and said: “I suppose any man would be a very great fool not to marry a woman like Tamea. She is the only one of her kind I ever heard of. What’s the other story?”