On the top floor their luncheon awaited them at a table by the window. As Forbes drew his napkin across his knee he gazed down at the corner of the Park and the lake where white swans drifted like the toy sloops of children. From this height the hills and curving walks looked miniature as a Japanese garden.
When the clam-shells were emptied they were replaced with chicken, a second waiter served rice, and a third curry. It was strangely comforting to be well served with choice food in a beautiful room above a beautiful scene. He felt that in places like this wealth justified itself—wealth the upholsterer, the caterer, the artist, the butler.
Forbes looked down at a shuffling vagrant slouching across the Plaza. He felt sorry for that man, and yet was glad that he was here instead of there. He wished that he himself might belong to this delightful place they called the "Millionaire's Club." He longed for riches, especially as they would mean Persis. He remembered what she had said: "The rich can get anything that the poor have, but the poor can't get what the rich have." The rich Enslee could even get Persis.
He sat musing bitterly, forgetting that he had a host, and unaware that the host was looking at him with sad affection, not resenting his listlessness, but hoping to relieve it. Remembering Forbes' father, Tait knew that he must move warily about that sensitive Forbes pride, as swift to strike an awkward hand as a caged tiger that greets an unwelcome caress with a wound.
Tait hesitated to open his real business. He began obliquely.
"Well, I've just fired the first gun in my war with Mrs. Neff."
"Yes?" said Forbes, drearily.
"Yes," said Tait, positively. "Just before you came young Stowe Webb was here—nice young fellow. I sent for him, and said to him: 'Young man, Miss Alice Neff, whom I believe you know'—he blushed like a house afire—'tells me,' I said, 'that her mother objects to you because you have no money.' He flashed me a look of amazement, and I said: 'If you need money, why don't you make it?' And he said: 'How can I?' 'Why, money is growing on bushes everywhere,' I said, 'just waiting to be picked off; poor men are getting rich every day,' I said; and he said: 'Yes, and rich men are getting poor. My family is one of the bushes, and we've been pretty well picked. My father left me nothing but his blessing, and I can't pawn that,' he said. 'Still, I'm not dead yet,' he said. 'I'll show you all some day.' And I said: 'There must be something in any man that a good girl loves and believes in. And any girl that's worth having is worth working for, and if she really wants you she'll wait for you.' And then I lowered my voice about an octave and growled, 'I wonder if you have the grit to go out in this hard old world and work for that girl and—and earn her?' He said, 'You bet I have!' So I said: 'Well, I know where there's a job you might get; it's small salary and a lot of work at first, and by and by a little more salary and much harder work; and you won't be able to see her often; perhaps not at all for a long while; but eventually, if she'll wait, you'll be able to support her as well as any girl needs to be supported who has love in the bargain. Do you want that job, young man?' I said, glaring at him. And he said: 'Lead me to it!'"
Forbes listened with eagerness and envy. The portrait of Alice, who would wait till her lover worked his way up to a competence, contrasted sharply with Persis, who would not accept the competence Forbes already had. He asked, with an effort at enthusiasm:
"And what is the job?"