"You forget, Mr. Chelm," I answered, "that I am an eccentric maiden-lady of sixty-five. You have ruined any material there may have been out of which to manufacture a romance."
This turn of affairs took place a few days before the unpleasant scene with Aunt Agnes occurred, to which I have alluded, and I found that it absorbed my thoughts and tended to counteract the despondency produced by her displeasure and the injustice of her friends. All through the remainder of the season I awaited with eagerness the monthly reports sent by Mr. Prime. He was established, and cautiously feeling his way. But necessarily there was little to tell; a fortune cannot be made in a minute. However, I cherished every word of encouragement as so much vindication of my faith; and I came by degrees to feel as though Mr. Prime's new enterprise were my own business, and that my reputation for sagacity were dependent upon his success.
And yet, as I have already implied, Mr. Prime was nothing to me except so far as he represented an instrument of my will. It was not in him that I was interested half so much as in myself. In order to satisfy my curiosity, I even planned in the spring a trip to New York with Aunt Helen, and delighted my eyes with a glimpse of the sign-board over the spacious offices of Francis Prime and Company. But on that day it was veritably a glimpse that I got, for I was too timid to take a deliberate scrutiny of what I had come to see, owing to the fact that every one I met stared at me; and then too I was momentarily upset by perceiving over the way just opposite, in great gilt letters, the rival sign, as it seemed to me, of "Roger Dale, Banker and Broker." Mr. Dale I had not seen for several years, but I knew that he was living in New York, where he had not long before married an heiress of obscure antecedents, according to rumor. That it was he I had little doubt; and though the fact of his having an office in the same street could not of course affect, either for evil or otherwise, the interests of my protégé, I had an indefinable feeling of dread at perceiving they were so near to one another. It was therefore doubly necessary for me to be careful in my subsequent expeditions down-town, not only to dress in such a quiet unfashionable manner as not to attract the attention of passers, but so as to escape recognition from my former admirer.
After the first impression of unpleasantness I felt a little added zest on account of this element of risk, especially when on inquiry I learned that Roger Dale was rated as one of the most successful and enterprising of the younger banking firms in the city. I saw his advertisements in the newspapers, and gathered from current talk that he was doing a large and lucrative business. I was glad to know that he was happy and prosperous at last, for he had failed once before leaving home, though I never heard of it until a long while after; and under the influence of this mood any vestige of ill-will that may have been lurking in my mind died away, and I came to regard the rival sign with perfect equanimity from behind the thick veil by which I concealed my features. Instigated by a spirit of caution to make my disguise as complete as possible, I purchased at a cheap clothing-store some garments that did much towards rendering my personal appearance the very opposite of stylish. I even tried to give them a soiled and worn aspect, by means of experiments at home, so that I might pass for a female clerk or needy bushel-woman, and be free to pursue my investigations unobserved. In this guise I spent a number of days in wandering about the business streets of the city, attentive not only to what went on in the offices of Francis Prime and Company and Roger Dale, but to the countless sights and sounds of bustling trade, which I experienced now for the first time. At first I did not dare to appear too frequently in the street which was the centre of my interest, but a dangerous fascination led me to become bolder and more adventurous as I became familiar with the surroundings. From under the obscurity of arches and from behind pillars I noted daily who entered the doors of the new firm, and endeavored to get an idea of the amount of business that it transacted. In this respect I was somewhat disappointed, for although customers were by no means lacking, there was a dearth of patronage as compared with that enjoyed by the banking-house across the street. During the morning hours there was an incessant stream of people coming and going up and down the marble steps of the great building on the first floor of which were the offices of Roger Dale; and by far the larger proportion of this number went no farther, for I could see them through the broad plate-glass windows, chatting and grouped about a coil of tape that ran out with a snake-like movement into a basket on the floor. There were ladies too who drove up to the door in their carriages and were shown into the back office, and who when they came out again were attended by Mr. Dale himself, bowing obsequiously. He was stouter than when I saw him last, and quite bald; and he had a different suit of a prominent check-pattern for every day in the week. He seemed immensely popular with his customers, and was slapped by them on the back incessantly, and most of them he slapped back in return. But toward certain individuals he adopted a quite different style of behavior; for he listened to what they said with deference, gave them the most comfortable seat in the office, and opened the door for them when they went away. These I judged to be capitalists and men of influence, whose business he wished to secure. Some of them never came again, but others would return in the afternoon and be closeted with him for hours.
To all this I could not help giving attention, for it was forced on me, as I have indicated, by way of contrast to the style of business that was done by the firm to which my faith was pinned. Indeed I felt badly sometimes, and wondered if it could be that my hero were lacking in enterprise and what the world calls "push." But as I observed more closely, I dismissed this suspicion as unjust; for I began to note that one or two of the grave, important-looking men whom Roger Dale treated with so much suavity, were much more frequent visitors over the way. Besides, the plate-glass windows were very small, and it was next to impossible to see what went on inside. Mr. Prime always stayed at his office until nearly six o'clock, and once or twice he was still at work at his desk when the darkness drove me home. In these afternoon hours the street was nearly deserted, and sometimes I ventured close up to the window and peered through. I could see him in a little inner office, writing and poring over papers and accounts. Once while I was thus occupied, a policeman greatly alarmed me by tapping me on the shoulder and observing roughly, "Now then, young woman, move on."
After this I felt the necessity of using more discretion; and lest this narration may prejudice the judicious too strongly against me, let it be said that I passed in all only some eight or ten days in this manner during the six weeks Aunt Helen and I were in New York together. Perhaps, however, this was due somewhat to the difficulty I found in evading her eagle eye, for owing to the necessary changes in my dress I had to invent some excuse commensurate with such a dilapidated appearance. As excursions among the poor twice a week could not seem improbable, I let them account for the plain stuff-gown and unfashionable hat that I wore on the occasion of my down-town visits, and limited myself accordingly. Aunt Helen really shed tears at first because I looked so like a guy; but when I represented to her that it would be cruel to flaunt silks and satins in the faces of those to whom such luxuries were forbidden, to say nothing of the risk one ran of being insulted if gaudily attired, she withdrew her objections. "But only think," said she, "if any of your acquaintances should see you rigged out like that! It could not fail to strike the Honorable Ernest Ferroll as exceedingly peculiar at the best."
IV.
Although I had striven to keep our visit to New York a secret, it was hardly to be expected, in view of my quasi celebrity at home as a society character, coupled with my Aunt's eagerness for amusement, that our presence would long escape detection. As a fact, before the end of the first week we were inundated with invitations, many of which it was impossible to decline; and I finally gave up the struggle, and suffered myself to become a facile tool in the hands of my friends after night-fall, reserving merely the day-time for my financial investigations. I was the more willing to submit to this social demand, because I had a hope that I might meet with Mr. Prime at some of the houses to which we were asked. But though I constantly recognized, with a sense of danger that was yet delicious, faces that I had become familiar with down-town, his was never among them. I made no inquiries, but the mystery of his absence was finally explained.