The plan seemed perfectly simple, and the architect's imagination fastened on the big bait which the contractor held out. Graves repeated slowly in his thick tones:—
"A year, or say eighteen months, from now, you'll have about seventy-five thousand dollars in the bank."
That would be capital! The lack of capital had tripped him at every turn. With that amount of money, he could plant his feet firmly on the earth and prepare to spring still higher.
"Of course," Graves continued, "you'd stand by me—help me out with the trustees if there was any kick."
In other words, for the term of a year or eighteen months he would be this contractor's creature. But the architect was thinking of something else....
The line between what is honest and dishonest in business is a difficult one to plot. From generation to generation standards alter in the business world as elsewhere, and to-day men will do unblushingly, and with the approval of their fellows, that which in another generation will, doubtless, become a penitentiary offence. Business is warfare, and whatever men may say on Sundays, the hardy man of business will condone a thrifty sin of competition sooner than any other sin. Every one of the fighters in the battle knows how hard it is to make a dollar honestly or dishonestly, and he prefers to call certain acts "indelicate" or "unprofessional," rather than dishonest.
Of such "unprofessional" conduct Hart had been guilty a number of times, and the matter had not troubled him greatly. But this arrangement, which the contractor was urging, was of more positive stripe. Although it was not clear how close a connivance with fraud would be necessary, it might involve outright rascality, which, if it became known in the community, would ruin his professional standing for life. He would be taking a great risk to grasp that promised lump of money. While Graves talked in his thick, guttural tones, Hart was weighing this risk. The whiskey that he had been drinking had not obscured his vision in the least, although it shed a rosier glow over the desired capital. It must be admitted that the architect gave little consideration to the trustees or to his uncle's bequest. It would have pleased him, if he had thought much about it, to make a good round hole in his uncle's millions, of which the old man had deprived him. And as for the trustees, they were shrewd men of the world, quite able to take care of themselves.
But, instinctively, he recoiled from the act. He would much prefer a clean, honorable, "high-class" career. If he could have secured money enough to satisfy his ambitions, to lead the kind of life he liked, without resort to such knavery as this, it would have been much pleasanter. But in one way or another he must make money, and make it more rapidly and more abundantly than he had been doing. That was success. When he had come to this point, he had already consented with himself....
They had been sitting there nearly two hours, but latterly little had been said. The contractor was patient and diplomatic. Finally he asked, "Well, Hart, what do you say?"
Hart lighted another cigar before speaking, and then replied deliberately: "I will think over what you say. I understand that the stock is given me instead of my regular commission on the hotel, and will be worth a fixed sum?"