 | XXV. The rise of Silas Lapham |  |
XXV.
Lapham awoke confused, and in a kind of remoteness
from the loss of the night before, through
which it loomed mistily. But before he lifted his
head from the pillow, it gathered substance and
weight against which it needed all his will to bear
up and live. In that moment he wished that he had
not wakened, that he might never have wakened;
but he rose, and faced the day and its cares.
The morning papers brought the report of the fire,
and the conjectured loss. The reporters somehow
had found out the fact that the loss fell entirely
upon Lapham; they lighted up the hackneyed character
of their statements with the picturesque
interest of the coincidence that the policy had
expired only the week before; heaven knows how
they knew it. They said that nothing remained of
the building but the walls; and Lapham, on his way
to business, walked up past the smoke-stained shell.
The windows looked like the eye-sockets of a skull
down upon the blackened and trampled snow of the
street; the pavement was a sheet of ice, and the
water from the engines had frozen, like streams of
tags from the window-sills and copings.
He gathered himself up as well as he could, and
went on to his office. The chance of retrieval that
had flashed upon him, as he sat smoking by that
ruined hearth the evening before, stood him in such
stead now as a sole hope may; and he said to himself
that, having resolved not to sell his house, he
was no more crippled by its loss than he would have
been by letting his money lie idle in it; what he
might have raised by mortgage on it could be made
up in some other way; and if they would sell he
could still buy out the whole business of that West
Virginia company, mines, plant, stock on hand, goodwill,
and everything, and unite it with his own. He
went early in the afternoon to see Bellingham,
whose expressions of condolence for his loss he cut
short with as much politeness as he knew how to
throw into his impatience. Bellingham seemed at
first a little dazzled with the splendid courage of his
scheme; it was certainly fine in its way; but then
he began to have his misgivings.
"I happen to know that they haven't got much
money behind them," urged Lapham. "They'll
jump at an offer."
Bellingham shook his head. "If they can show
profit on the old manufacture, and prove they can
make their paint still cheaper and better hereafter,
they can have all the money they want. And it
will be very difficult for you to raise it if you're
threatened by them. With that competition, you
and what the shrinkage on your manufactured stock
would be. Better sell out to them," he concluded,
"if they will buy."
"There ain't money enough in this country to buy
out my paint," said Lapham, buttoning up his coat
in a quiver of resentment. "Good afternoon, sir."
Men are but grown-up boys after all. Bellingham
watched this perversely proud and obstinate child
fling petulantly out of his door, and felt a sympathy
for him which was as truly kind as it was helpless.
But Lapham was beginning to see through Bellingham,
as he believed. Bellingham was, in his way,
part of that conspiracy by which Lapham's creditors
were trying to drive him to the wall. More than
ever now he was glad that he had nothing to do
with that cold-hearted, self-conceited race, and that
the favours so far were all from his side. He was
more than ever determined to show them, every one
of them, high and low, that he and his children
could get along without them, and prosper and
triumph without them. He said to himself that if
Penelope were engaged to Corey that very minute,
he would make her break with him.
He knew what he should do now, and he was
going to do it without loss of time. He was going
on to New York to see those West Virginia people;
they had their principal office there, and he intended
to get at their ideas, and then he intended to make
them an offer. He managed this business better
than could possibly have been expected of a man in
his impassioned mood. But when it came really to
to his aid against the passions that lay in wait to
betray after they ceased to dominate him. He found
the West Virginians full of zeal and hope, but in ten
minutes he knew that they had not yet tested their
strength in the money market, and had not ascertained
how much or how little capital they could
command. Lapham himself, if he had had so much,
would not have hesitated to put a million dollars into
their business. He saw, as they did not see, that
they had the game in their own hands, and that
if they could raise the money to extend their business,
they could ruin him. It was only a question
of time, and he was on the ground first. He frankly
proposed a union of their interests. He admitted
that they had a good thing, and that he should have
to fight them hard; but he meant to fight them to
the death unless they could come to some sort of
terms. Now, the question was whether they had
better go on and make a heavy loss for both sides
by competition, or whether they had better form a
partnership to run both paints and command the
whole market. Lapham made them three propositions,
each of which was fair and open: to sell out
to them altogether; to buy them out altogether; to
join facilities and forces with them, and go on in an
invulnerable alliance. Let them name a figure at
which they would buy, a figure at which they would
sell, a figure at which they would combine,—or, in
other words, the amount of capital they needed.
They talked all day, going out to lunch together
at the Astor House, and sitting with their knees
fifteen minutes of reflection and deglutition, with
their hats on, and then returning to the basement
from which they emerged. The West Virginia
company's name was lettered in gilt on the wide
low window, and its paint, in the form of ore, burnt,
and mixed, formed a display on the window shelf.
Lapham examined it and praised it; from time to
time they all recurred to it together; they sent out
for some of Lapham's paint and compared it, the
West Virginians admitting its former superiority.
They were young fellows, and country persons, like
Lapham, by origin, and they looked out with the
same amused, undaunted provincial eyes at the
myriad metropolitan legs passing on the pavement
above the level of their window. He got on well
with them. At last, they said what they would do.
They said it was nonsense to talk of buying Lapham
out, for they had not the money; and as for selling
out, they would not do it, for they knew they had a
big thing. But they would as soon use his capital
to develop it as anybody else's, and if he could put
in a certain sum for this purpose, they would go in
with him. He should run the works at Lapham
and manage the business in Boston, and they would
run the works at Kanawha Falls and manage the
business in New York. The two brothers with
whom Lapham talked named their figure, subject
to the approval of another brother at Kanawha
Falls, to whom they would write, and who would
telegraph his answer, so that Lapham could have it
that he would approve; and Lapham started back
on the eleven o'clock train with an elation that
gradually left him as he drew near Boston, where
the difficulties of raising this sum were to be overcome.
It seemed to him, then, that those fellows
had put it up on him pretty steep, but he owned to
himself that they had a sure thing, and that they
were right in believing they could raise the same
sum elsewhere; it would take all of it, he admitted,
to make their paint pay on the scale they had the
right to expect. At their age, he would not have
done differently; but when he emerged, old, sore,
and sleep-broken, from the sleeping-car in the
Albany depot at Boston, he wished with a pathetic
self-pity that they knew how a man felt at his age.
A year ago, six months ago, he would have laughed
at the notion that it would be hard to raise the money.
But he thought ruefully of that immense stock of
paint on hand, which was now a drug in the market,
of his losses by Rogers and by the failures of other
men, of the fire that had licked up so many
thousands in a few hours; he thought with bitterness
of the tens of thousands that he had gambled
away in stocks, and of the commissions that the
brokers had pocketed whether he won or lost; and
he could not think of any securities on which he
could borrow, except his house in Nankeen Square,
or the mine and works at Lapham. He set his
teeth in helpless rage when he thought of that
property out on the G. L. & P., that ought to be
chose to say so.
He did not go home, but spent most of the day
shining round, as he would have expressed it, and
trying to see if he could raise the money. But he
found that people of whom he hoped to get it were
in the conspiracy which had been formed to drive
him to the wall. Somehow, there seemed a sense of
his embarrassments abroad. Nobody wanted to
lend money on the plant at Lapham without taking
time to look into the state of the business; but
Lapham had no time to give, and he knew that the
state of the business would not bear looking into.
He could raise fifteen thousand on his Nankeen
Square house, and another fifteen on his Beacon
Street lot, and this was all that a man who was
worth a million by rights could do! He said a
million, and he said it in defiance of Bellingham,
who had subjected his figures to an analysis which
wounded Lapham more than he chose to show at the
time, for it proved that he was not so rich and not
so wise as he had seemed. His hurt vanity forbade
him to go to Bellingham now for help or advice;
and if he could have brought himself to ask his
brothers for money, it would have been useless; they
were simply well-to-do Western people, but not
capitalists on the scale he required.
Lapham stood in the isolation to which adversity
so often seems to bring men. When its test was
applied, practically or theoretically, to all those who
had seemed his friends, there was none who bore it;
people whom he had befriended in their time of need.
He said to himself that he had been a fool for that;
and he scorned himself for certain acts of scrupulosity
by which he had lost money in the past. Seeing the
moral forces all arrayed against him, Lapham said
that he would like to have the chance offered him to
get even with them again; he thought he should
know how to look out for himself. As he understood
it, he had several days to turn about in, and he did
not let one day's failure dishearten him. The morning
after his return he had, in fact, a gleam of luck
that gave him the greatest encouragement for the
moment. A man came in to inquire about one of
Rogers's wild-cat patents, as Lapham called them, and
ended by buying it. He got it, of course, for less
than Lapham took it for, but Lapham was glad to be
rid of it for something, when he had thought it
worth nothing; and when the transaction was closed,
he asked the purchaser rather eagerly if he knew
where Rogers was; it was Lapham's secret belief
that Rogers had found there was money in the thing,
and had sent the man to buy it. But it appeared
that this was a mistake; the man had not come from
Rogers, but had heard of the patent in another way;
and Lapham was astonished in the afternoon, when
his boy came to tell him that Rogers was in the
outer office, and wished to speak with him.
"All right," said Lapham, and he could not command
at once the severity for the reception of
Rogers which he would have liked to use. He found
morning's touch of prosperity that he asked him to
sit down, gruffly, of course, but distinctly; and when
Rogers said in his lifeless way, and with the effect
of keeping his appointment of a month before,
"Those English parties are in town, and would like
to talk with you in reference to the mills," Lapham
did not turn him out-of-doors.
He sat looking at him, and trying to make out
what Rogers was after; for he did not believe that
the English parties, if they existed, had any notion
of buying his mills.
"What if they are not for sale?" he asked. "You
know that I've been expecting an offer from the
G. L. & P."
"I've kept watch of that. They haven't made
you any offer," said Rogers quietly.
"And did you think," demanded Lapham, firing
up, "that I would turn them in on somebody else
as you turned them in on me, when the chances are
that they won't be worth ten cents on the dollar six
months from now?"
"I didn't know what you would do," said Rogers
non-committally. "I've come here to tell you that
these parties stand ready to take the mills off your
hands at a fair valuation—at the value I put upon
them when I turned them in."
"I don't believe you!" cried Lapham brutally, but
a wild predatory hope made his heart leap so that it
seemed to turn over in his breast. "I don't believe
there are any such parties to begin with; and in the
such figure; unless—unless you've lied to them, as
you've lied to me. Did you tell them about the
G. L. & P.?"
Rogers looked compassionately at him, but he
answered, with unvaried dryness, "I did not think
that necessary."
Lapham had expected this answer, and he had
expected or intended to break out in furious denunciation
of Rogers when he got it; but he only found
himself saying, in a sort of baffled gasp, "I wonder
what your game is!"
Rogers did not reply categorically, but he answered,
with his impartial calm, and as if Lapham
had said nothing to indicate that he differed at all
with him as to disposing of the property in the
way he had suggested: "If we should succeed in
selling, I should be able to repay you your loans,
and should have a little capital for a scheme that I
think of going into."
"And do you think that I am going to steal these
men's money to help you plunder somebody in a new
scheme?" answered Lapham. The sneer was on
behalf of virtue, but it was still a sneer.
"I suppose the money would be useful to you too,
just now."
"Why?"
"Because I know that you have been trying to
borrow."
At this proof of wicked omniscience in Rogers,
the question whether he had better not regard the
upon Lapham; but he answered, "I shall want
money a great deal worse than I've ever wanted it
yet, before I go into such rascally business with
you. Don't you know that we might as well knock
these parties down on the street, and take the money
out of their pockets?"
"They have come on," answered Rogers, "from
Portland to see you. I expected them some weeks
ago, but they disappointed me. They arrived on the
Circassian last night; they expected to have got in
five days ago, but the passage was very stormy."
"Where are they?" asked Lapham, with helpless
irrelevance, and feeling himself somehow drifted
from his moorings by Rogers's shipping intelligence.
"They are at Young's. I told them we would call
upon them after dinner this evening; they dine late."
"Oh, you did, did you?" asked Lapham, trying
to drop another anchor for a fresh clutch on his
underlying principles. "Well, now, you go and tell
them that I said I wouldn't come."
"Their stay is limited," remarked Rogers. "I
mentioned this evening because they were not certain
they could remain over another night. But if
to-morrow would suit you better—"
"Tell 'em I shan't come at all," roared Lapham,
as much in terror as defiance, for he felt his anchor
dragging. "Tell 'em I shan't come at all! Do you
understand that?"
"I don't see why you should stickle as to the
matter of going to them," said Rogers; "but if you
I suppose I can bring them to you."
"No, you can't! I shan't let you! I shan't see
them! I shan't have anything to do with them.
Now do you understand?"
"I inferred from our last interview," persisted
Rogers, unmoved by all this violent demonstration
of Lapham's, "that you wished to meet these parties.
You told me that you would give me time to produce
them; and I have promised them that you
would meet them; I have committed myself."
It was true that Lapham had defied Rogers to
bring on his men, and had implied his willingness to
negotiate with them. That was before he had talked
the matter over with his wife, and perceived his
moral responsibility in it; even she had not seen this
at once. He could not enter into this explanation
with Rogers; he could only say, "I said I'd give
you twenty-four hours to prove yourself a liar, and
you did it. I didn't say twenty-four days."
"I don't see the difference," returned Rogers. "The
parties are here now, and that proves that I was
acting in good faith at the time. There has been no
change in the posture of affairs. You don't know now
any more than you knew then that the G. L. & P.
is going to want the property. If there's any difference,
it's in favour of the Road's having changed
its mind."
There was some sense in this, and Lapham felt it
—felt it only too eagerly, as he recognised the next
instant.
Rogers went on quietly: "You're not obliged to
sell to these parties when you meet them; but you've
allowed me to commit myself to them by the promise
that you would talk with them."
"'Twan't a promise," said Lapham.
"It was the same thing; they have come out
from England on my guaranty that there was such
and such an opening for their capital; and now what
am I to say to them? It places me in a ridiculous
position." Rogers urged his grievance calmly,
almost impersonally, making his appeal to Lapham's
sense of justice. "I can't go back to those parties
and tell them you won't see them. It's no answer
to make. They've got a right to know why you
won't see them."
"Very well, then!" cried Lapham; "I'll come
and tell them why. Who shall I ask for? When
shall I be there?"
"At eight o'clock, please," said Rogers, rising,
without apparent alarm at his threat, if it was a
threat. "And ask for me; I've taken a room at
the hotel for the present."
"I won't keep you five minutes when I get there,"
said Lapham; but he did not come away till ten
o'clock.
It appeared to him as if the very devil was in it.
The Englishmen treated his downright refusal to sell
as a piece of bluff, and talked on as though it were
merely the opening of the negotiation. When he
became plain with them in his anger, and told them
why he would not sell, they seemed to have been
ready to meet it.
"Has this fellow," he demanded, twisting his head
in the direction of Rogers, but disdaining to notice
him otherwise, "been telling you that it's part of
my game to say this? Well, sir, I can tell you, on
my side, that there isn't a slipperier rascal unhung
in America than Milton K. Rogers!"
The Englishmen treated this as a piece of genuine
American humour, and returned to the charge with
unabated courage. They owned now, that a person
interested with them had been out to look at the
property, and that they were satisfied with the
appearance of things. They developed further the
fact that they were not acting solely, or even
principally, in their own behalf, but were the agents
of people in England who had projected the colonisation
of a sort of community on the spot, somewhat
after the plan of other English dreamers, and
that they were satisfied, from a careful inspection,
that the resources and facilities were those best
calculated to develop the energy and enterprise of
the proposed community. They were prepared to
meet Mr. Lapham—Colonel, they begged his pardon,
at the instance of Rogers—at any reasonable figure,
and were quite willing to assume the risks he had
pointed out. Something in the eyes of these men,
something that lurked at an infinite depth below
their speech, and was not really in their eyes when
Lapham looked again, had flashed through him a
sense of treachery in them. He had thought them
had seen them—or thought he had seen them—his
accomplices, ready to betray the interests of which
they went on to speak with a certain comfortable
jocosity, and a certain incredulous slight of his
show of integrity. It was a deeper game than
Lapham was used to, and he sat looking with a sort
of admiration from one Englishman to the other,
and then to Rogers, who maintained an exterior
of modest neutrality, and whose air said, "I have
brought you gentlemen together as the friend of all
parties, and I now leave you to settle it among yourselves.
I ask nothing, and expect nothing, except
the small sum which shall accrue to me after the
discharge of my obligations to Colonel Lapham."
While Rogers's presence expressed this, one of the
Englishmen was saying, "And if you have any
scruple in allowin' us to assume this risk, Colonel
Lapham, perhaps you can console yourself with the
fact that the loss, if there is to be any, will fall upon
people who are able to bear it—upon an association
of rich and charitable people. But we're quite satisfied
there will be no loss," he added savingly. "All
you have to do is to name your price, and we will
do our best to meet it."
There was nothing in the Englishman's sophistry
very shocking to Lapham. It addressed itself in
him to that easy-going, not evilly intentioned,
potential immorality which regards common property
as common prey, and gives us the most corrupt
municipal governments under the sun—which makes
as unscrupulous in regard to others' money as an
hereditary prince. Lapham met the Englishman's
eye, and with difficulty kept himself from winking.
Then he looked away, and tried to find out where
he stood, or what he wanted to do. He could
hardly tell. He had expected to come into that
room and unmask Rogers, and have it over. But
he had unmasked Rogers without any effect whatever,
and the play had only begun. He had a
whimsical and sarcastic sense of its being very
different from the plays at the theatre. He could
not get up and go away in silent contempt; he
could not tell the Englishmen that he believed them
a pair of scoundrels and should have nothing to do
with them; he could no longer treat them as innocent
dupes. He remained baffled and perplexed,
and the one who had not spoken hitherto remarked—
"Of course we shan't 'aggle about a few pound,
more or less. If Colonel Lapham's figure should be
a little larger than ours, I've no doubt 'e'll not be
too 'ard upon us in the end."
Lapham appreciated all the intent of this subtle
suggestion, and understood as plainly as if it had
been said in so many words, that if they paid him a
larger price, it was to be expected that a certain
portion of the purchase-money was to return to their
own hands. Still he could not move; and it seemed
to him that he could not speak.
"Ring that bell, Mr. Rogers," said the Englishman
who had last spoken, glancing at the annunciator
'ave up something' ot, can't you? I should like to
wet me w'istle, as you say 'ere, and Colonel Lapham
seems to find it rather dry work."
Lapham jumped to his feet, and buttoned his
overcoat about him. He remembered with terror
the dinner at Corey's where he had disgraced and
betrayed himself, and if he went into this thing
at all, he was going into it sober. "I can't stop," he
said, "I must be going."
"But you haven't given us an answer yet, Mr.
Lapham," said the first Englishman with a successful
show of dignified surprise.
"The only answer I can give you now is, No,"
said Lapham. "If you want another, you must let
me have time to think it over."
"But 'ow much time?" said the other Englishman.
"We're pressed for time ourselves, and we
hoped for an answer—'oped for a hanswer," he
corrected himself, "at once. That was our understandin'
with Mr. Rogers."
"I can't let you know till morning, anyway," said
Lapham, and he went out, as his custom often was,
without any parting salutation. He thought Rogers
might try to detain him; but Rogers had remained
seated when the others got to their feet, and paid no
attention to his departure.
He walked out into the night air, every pulse
throbbing with the strong temptation. He knew
very well those men would wait, and gladly wait, till
the morning, and that the whole affair was in hi
was. If he had hoped that some chance might take
the decision from him, there was no such chance, in
the present or future, that he could see. It was for
him alone to commit this rascality—if it was a
rascality—or not.
He walked all the way home, letting one car after
another pass him on the street, now so empty of
other passing, and it was almost eleven o'clock when
he reached home. A carriage stood before his house,
and when he let himself in with his key, he heard
talking in the family-room. It came into his head
that Irene had got back unexpectedly, and that the
sight of her was somehow going to make it harder
for him; then he thought it might be Corey, come
upon some desperate pretext to see Penelope; but
when he opened the door he saw, with a certain
absence of surprise, that it was Rogers. He was
standing with his back to the fireplace, talking to
Mrs. Lapham, and he had been shedding tears; dry
tears they seemed, and they had left a sort of sandy,
glistening trace on his cheeks. Apparently he was
not ashamed of them, for the expression with which
he met Lapham was that of a man making a desperate
appeal in his own cause, which was identical
with that of humanity, if not that of justice.
"I some expected," began Rogers, "to find you
here—"
"No, you didn't," interrupted Lapham; "you
wanted to come here and make a poor mouth to
Mrs. Lapham before I got home."
"I knew that Mrs. Lapham would know what
was going on," said Rogers more candidly, but not
more virtuously, for that he could not, "and I
wished her to understand a point that I hadn't put
to you at the hotel, and that I want you should
consider. And I want you should consider me a
little in this business too; you're not the only one
that's concerned, I tell you, and I've been telling
Mrs. Lapham that it's my one chance; that if you
don't meet me on it, my wife and children will be
reduced to beggary."
"So will mine," said Lapham, "or the next thing
to it."
"Well, then, I want you to give me this chance
to get on my feet again. You've no right to deprive
me of it; it's unchristian. In our dealings with each
other we should be guided by the Golden Rule, as I
was saying to Mrs. Lapham before you came in. I
told her that if I knew myself, I should in your
place consider the circumstances of a man in mine,
who had honourably endeavoured to discharge his
obligations to me, and had patiently borne my
undeserved suspicions. I should consider that man's
family, I told Mrs. Lapham."
"Did you tell her that if I went in with you and
those fellows, I should be robbing the people who
trusted them?"
"I don't see what you've got to do with the
people that sent them here. They are rich people,
and could bear it if it came to the worst. But
there's no likelihood, now, that it will come to the
changed its mind about buying. And here am I
without a cent in the world; and my wife is an
invalid. She needs comforts, she needs little luxuries,
and she hasn't even the necessaries; and you
want to sacrifice her to a mere idea! You don't
know in the first place that the Road will ever want
to buy; and if it does, the probability is that with a
colony like that planted on its line, it would make
very different terms from what it would with you or
me. These agents are not afraid, and their principals
are rich people; and if there was any loss, it
would be divided up amongst them so that they
wouldn't any of them feel it."
Lapham stole a troubled glance at his wife, and
saw that there was no help in her. Whether she
was daunted and confused in her own conscience by
the outcome, so evil and disastrous, of the reparation
to Rogers which she had forced her husband to
make, or whether her perceptions had been blunted
and darkened by the appeals which Rogers had now
used, it would be difficult to say. Probably there
was a mixture of both causes in the effect which her
husband felt in her, and from which he turned, girding
himself anew, to Rogers.
"I have no wish to recur to the past," continued
Rogers, with growing superiority. "You have
shown a proper spirit in regard to that, and you
have done what you could to wipe it out."
"I should think I had," said Lapham. "I've used
up about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars trying."
"Some of my enterprises," Rogers admitted,
"have been unfortunate, seemingly; but I have
hopes that they will yet turn out well—in time. I
can't understand why you should be so mindful of
others now, when you showed so little regard for me
then. I had come to your aid at a time when you
needed help, and when you got on your feet you
kicked me out of the business. I don't complain,
but that is the fact; and I had to begin again, after
I had supposed myself settled in life, and establish
myself elsewhere."
Lapham glanced again at his wife; her head had
fallen; he could see that she was so rooted in her
old remorse for that questionable act of his, amply
and more than fully atoned for since, that she was
helpless, now in the crucial moment, when he had
the utmost need of her insight. He had counted
upon her; he perceived now that when he had
thought it was for him alone to decide, he had
counted upon her just spirit to stay his own in its
struggle to be just. He had not forgotten how she
held out against him only a little while ago, when
he asked her whether he might not rightfully sell in
some such contingency as this; and it was not now
that she said or even looked anything in favour of
Rogers, but that she was silent against him, which
dismayed Lapham. He swallowed the lump that
rose in his throat, the self-pity, the pity for her, the
despair, and said gently, "I guess you better go to
bed, Persis. It's pretty late."
She turned towards the door, when Rogers said,
her curiosity—
"But I let that pass. And I don't ask now that
you should sell to these men."
Mrs. Lapham paused, irresolute.
"What are you making this bother for, then?"
demanded Lapham. "What do you want?"
"What I've been telling your wife here. I want
you should sell to me. I don't say what I'm going
to do with the property, and you will not have an
iota of responsibility, whatever happens."
Lapham was staggered, and he saw his wife's face
light up with eager question.
"I want that property," continued Rogers, "and
I've got the money to buy it. What will you take
for it? If it's the price you're standing out for—"
"Persis," said Lapham, "go to bed," and he gave
her a look that meant obedience for her. She went
out of the door, and left him with his tempter.
"If you think I'm going to help you whip the
devil round the stump, you're mistaken in your man,
Milton Rogers," said Lapham, lighting a cigar. "As
soon as I sold to you, you would sell to that other
pair of rascals. I smelt 'em out in half a minute."
"They are Christian gentlemen," said Rogers.
"But I don't purpose defending them; and I don't
purpose telling you what I shall or shall not do with
the property when it is in my hands again. The
question is, Will you sell, and, if so, what is your
figure? You have got nothing whatever to do with
it after you've sold."
It was perfectly true. Any lawyer would have
told him the same. He could not help admiring
Rogers for his ingenuity, and every selfish interest
of his nature joined with many obvious duties to
urge him to consent. He did not see why he should
refuse. There was no longer a reason. He was
standing out alone for nothing, any one else would
say. He smoked on as if Rogers were not there,
and Rogers remained before the fire as patient as the
clock ticking behind his head on the mantel, and
showing the gleam of its pendulum beyond his face
on either side. But at last he said, "Well?"
"Well," answered Lapham, "you can't expect
me to give you an answer to-night, any more than
before. You know that what you've said now
hans't changed the thing a bit. I wish it had. The
Lord knows, I want to be rid of the property fast
enough."
"Then why don't you sell to me? Can't you see
that you will not be responsible for what happens
after you have sold?"
"No, I can't see that; but if I can by morning,
I'll sell."
"Why do you expect to know any better by
morning? You're wasting time for nothing!" cried
Rogers, in his disappointment. "Why are you so
particular? When you drove me out of the business
you were not so very particular."
Lapham winced. It was certainly ridiculous for
a man who had once so selfishly consulted his own
interests to be stickling now about the rights of
others.
"I guess nothing's going to happen overnight,"
he answered sullenly. "Anyway, I shan't say what
I shall do till morning."
"What time can I see you in the morning?"
"Half-past nine."
Rogers buttoned his coat, and went out of the
room without another word. Lapham followed him
to close the street-door after him.
His wife called down to him from above as he
approached the room again, "Well?"
"I've told him I'd let him know in the morning."
"Want I should come down and talk with you?"
"No," answered Lapham, in the proud bitterness
which his isolation brought, "you couldn't do any
good." He went in and shut the door, and by and
by his wife heard him begin walking up and down;
and then the rest of the night she lay awake and
listened to him walking up and down. But when
the first light whitened the window, the words of the
Scripture came into her mind: "And there wrestled
a man with him until the breaking of the day. . . .
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And
he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me."
She could not ask him anything when they met,
but he raised his dull eyes after the first silence, and
said, "I don't know what I'm going to say to
Rogers."
She could not speak; she did not know what to
say, and she saw her husband, when she followed
him with her eyes from the window, drag heavily
down toward the corner, where he was to take the
horse-car.
He arrived rather later than usual at his office,
and he found his letters already on his table. There
was one, long and official-looking, with a printed
letter-heading on the outside, and Lapham had no
need to open it in order to know that it was the
offer of the Great Lacustrine & Polar Railroad for
his mills. But he went mechanically through the
verification of his prophetic fear, which was also his
sole hope, and then sat looking blankly at it.
Rogers came promptly at the appointed time, and
Lapham handed him the letter. He must have
taken it all in at a glance, and seen the impossibility
of negotiating any further now, even with victims so
pliant and willing as those Englishmen.
"You've ruined me!" Rogers broke out. "I
haven't a cent left in the world! God help my poor
wife!"
He went out, and Lapham remained staring at the
door which closed upon him. This was his reward
for standing firm for right and justice to his own
destruction: to feel like a thief and a murderer.
| XXV. The rise of Silas Lapham | |