"Oh, but you don"t or you won"t understand me. What I propose is to found a banking-house, and furnish the capital myself."
"What!" Mr. Chelm leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. "This is romance with a vengeance. Would I were twenty-five, and in search of occupation! And what, pray, is to be the name of the new concern?--Harlan and Prime; or Virginia Harlan and Company? I am confident it will be a partnership for life."
"Francis Prime and Company, of course. I will not submit to be laughed at, Mr. Chelm. This is a serious business matter."
"Oh, most certainly! Thoroughly business-like in every sense! My dear young lady, if you expect me to preserve my legal gravity you must not be so humorous; it is beyond the self-control of even a fusty conveyancer. And what part in this financial idyl am I expected to play!"
"You are to arrange it all. I am to furnish the money, and remain strictly incognito. That is the first and essential condition I impose."
"What! Mr. Prime is not to know the name of his benefactress?"
"On no account whatever!"
"He will be sure to search the earth until he finds her."
"Not if he be made to believe she is ancient and homely. Besides, how is he to know it is a woman?"
"Forgive me, Miss Harlan, but no one except a woman could invent such a project. It fairly takes my breath away. How much of your capital do you propose to embark in the enterprise,--the whole four millions?"
"No, Mr. Chelm, I am not utterly irrational yet. That is one of the points I mean to leave to your discretion. I merely insist that he shall not be scrimped. I do not think, however, that I care to advance over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."
"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? And still you talk of discretion!"
"Is not that enough?"
"Enough! Why, certainly not. If you are bent upon the plan, at least put it through handsomely, Miss Harlan. Let him have a cool million at once, and be done with it."
"I know, of course, that this must seem very quixotic to you as a business man, Mr. Chelm," I continued after a moment"s reflection. "Very likely you think I am merely jesting. But I am not. I am perfectly serious. I want to help Mr. Prime. I was very much interested by what he said, and I believe he is in earnest. The plan that I have just suggested seems to me entirely feasible. Even supposing that I lose a couple of hundred thousand dollars, what then? It is a year"s income at the worst; whereas, on the other hand, if the scheme prospers, and he turns out to be"--
"A merchant prince," interrupted Mr. Chelm. "Yes, a merchant prince, as I believe he will,"--
"You will be married, and be happy ever after, as in other fairy stories."
"Nothing of the sort, Mr. Chelm. My conclusion of the affair is much less sentimental. In case events result as I hope and predict, I shall be thankful that I have given him a chance to put his theories into practice. You may remember that he said he had theories regarding the use a rich man should make of his money."
"It strikes me you are willing to pay pretty dear for the probable value of the information, even if matters turn out as you expect. But the money is yours, Miss Harlan, not mine; and if you are resolved upon being generous in this wholesale way, it is not for me to complain. We lawyers get conservative as we grow older, and any romance that may have been in us dries up, like the sap in trees that have begun to outlast their usefulness. We know how hard it is to earn an honest living; and when we see any one in whom we have an interest developing a taste for imprudent speculations, we instinctively utter a protest. Still, as you say, it is but a year"s income; and maybe the cheapest way in the end to teach you reason is to humor this expensive fancy. If the money is lost, you will never miss it; while, a.s.suming that this young man is all your imagination paints him, I know of nothing that would give me greater pleasure than to see you happily married. That is a romance to which I would say "Amen" with all my heart."
"Thank you very much, Mr. Chelm. But I will not obtain your connivance on any such terms. If you regard this as other than a purely business enterprise, I warn you that you will be wofully disappointed."
"I shall have to take my chance of being right, just as you are going to take yours. But come now, since you insist upon my treating this matter seriously, what is it that you wish me to do?"
"Everything, Mr. Chelm."
"Even to giving away the bride? You must promise me that, eh! Miss Harlan?"
"With pleasure."
"It is a bargain then. Command my services as you will,--I wish I could say my capital also. But unfortunately I cannot afford to toss away my hundreds of thousands like some people. But that is an aside. Tell me what you wish me to do. I am all ears."
"To begin with, when Mr. Prime returns on Sat.u.r.day, I should like you to inform him that you happened by chance to mention his predicament to a friend of yours."
"Of which s.e.x?"
"That is entirely immaterial. But if he should happen to inquire, I shall depend on you to preserve my incognito. You must even fib a little, if it is necessary."
"Mercy on us! This romantic young philanthropist talks of fibbing, as if it were the most simple thing in life. No, Mademoiselle, we lawyers never fib. If we are ever obliged to forsake the narrow pathway of truth, we tell a square, honest lie. But this is positively my last interruption."
"You are to tell him that this friend of yours was very much interested in his endeavors to find something to do, and sympathized with his determination to wear a smile on his face and avoid baggy trousers to the last. That I--I mean of course the friend--am willing to give him the chance for which he asks to prove himself a man, by placing in your hands a sufficient sum to found a banking-house of undoubted solvency.
He is to have complete control of this money, on which he may pay interest if he chooses, in order to satisfy your business scruples, Mr.
Chelm; but he need never pay it back unless he wishes to do so,--the particulars of all which you will understand how to arrange better than I can tell you. Some day in the dim future, when he has realized his ambition,--for don"t imagine for an instant, Mr. Chelm, that I expect him to make a fortune all at once,--he may return the original loan if he sees fit. I shall be an old woman then, and should, it may be, have less objection to being known as his benefactress than at present. Let me see: is there anything else to say? As to the name of the firm, it ought to be Francis Prime and Company, I presume; but the "company" must be a man of straw. He is to receive no outside help, not even from you.
There, I think I have made my wishes sufficiently plain."
"You do not desire him to give security for whatever you may advance?
Not a very business-like arrangement. But as for that, the whole scheme is the most Utopian I ever heard of. These women, these women! It makes a prudent man tremble to think what would become of the universe if they had full sway! But I must submit, I suppose. I have given my word."
"I fear he has no security to offer unless it be Ike, the beautifully ugly Ike; Ike the imperious! Do you suppose he would part with the animal? I took rather a fancy to him, didn"t you Mr. Chelm?"
"Nay, there I shall put down my foot. I will have no dogs in this office. "Love me, love my dog" is a maxim to which I could not subscribe even in your case. No, unbusiness-like as it is, I prefer to make the loan without security."
It may be easily imagined that during the next few days I was on tiptoe with expectation. Let it be said at once, that I was quite aware that I was about to commit what might fairly be considered a folly by prudent-minded people. The chances of my goose proving a swan were altogether too slight to justify the extravagance I proposed. But despite this I never once wavered in my resolution, nor suffered doubt to mar the mirror of fancy in which I chose to behold my protege fulfilling the ample measure of his ambition in the years to come. What an absorbing interest it would be to me to watch from behind my mask the progress he made! If he proved successful, I could feel that part of the creating power was mine; for had I not trusted him? Let a man realize that there is some one who has faith in him, and the battle is half won.
Even suppose he were to prove the recreant and the impostor predicted, the world would not be able to jeer at me; I could hug my wretched secret, and none would be the wiser. Decidedly, I was to be envied in the acquisition of this new interest. It would be almost like having a double self, for was not my hero pondering over the same questions that were constantly in my thoughts,--how a rich man was to spend his money?
With this difference, however: his ideas were already settled, whereas mine were in process of formation. I was to share with him my fortune, and he would enlighten me in turn. Perhaps also there was a shade of irony in my reflections, and I was eager to see if he would find the role of a merchant-prince so easy to play as he seemed to fancy. Then, too, there was a delightful element of uncertainty and mystery about it all. I was original; I was not copying every one else. Although of Mr.
Prime in a personal sense I scarcely thought at all, there was a romantic flavor to the episode that stirred my imagination.
So gay and light-hearted did I feel that Aunt Helen noted it, and alluded to the fact with pleasure as we sat together on the Friday evening previous to Mr. Prime"s return.
"I have good reason to be. I feel very happy to-night. I could dance until morning, or do anything equally frivolous and erratic," I answered mysteriously. She looked up with an anxious expression. "No, Aunt Helen dear, I am not engaged. It is nothing so dreadful as that. It is merely that I think I may have found my mission at last."
"Mission! What does the child mean? Don"t tell me," she cried with a sudden access of horror, "that you are going out to convert the Indians, or to do any peculiar thing like that. That would be the last straw!"
"Try again," I said laughing.
"You gave me a scare, Virginia! You are such a strange girl, that, though you are more like other people than you used to be, I can never feel quite sure of you. If it isn"t that you are engaged, or going to do something odd, what is it, dear?"
"Nothing, Aunt Helen. I was merely romancing a little, that"s all. As you say, I am a strange girl, and very likely what I am thinking about is all a delusion, and may never come to anything. I may wake up any morning and find it is a dream. But let your mind rest easy; I am not contemplating anything that will isolate me from society."
"I should hope not, I am sure, after your last experience;" and I heard her mutter to herself as I went out of the room,--"Mission? Why does she want to bother her head about a mission? I shall never feel perfectly safe until I see her well married."
III.
I had decided to be present at the second interview between Mr. Chelm and Mr. Prime, for several reasons. I was curious to have another look at my beneficiary, and I had an impression that Mr. Chelm might feel his legal conscience p.r.i.c.k him, and so spoil the plot, if I were not within earshot. When the interview took place, however, the lawyer took a mild revenge by toying with his visitor a little at first, as though about to give an unfavorable answer; and I shall never forget Mr. Prime"s expression when the true state of the case was made known to him. After sitting in silence for a moment as though endeavoring to grasp the facts, he gave a short incredulous laugh, and stooping down to pat Ike, said nervously,--
"Is this a joke? A ghastly practical joke?"
"It sounds like one, doesn"t it?" said Mr. Chelm; and he grinned from ear to ear. "I fancy, though, that you are not in a mood to be trifled with. No, you have fallen on your feet this time, young man. What I have told you is all true."