The Last Woman.
by Ross Beeckman.
CHAPTER I
THE PRICE
The old man, grim of visage, hard of feature and keen of eye, was seated at one side of the table that occupied the middle of the floor in his private office. He held the tips of his fingers together, and leaned back in his chair, with an unlighted cigar gripped firmly in his jaws. He seemed perturbed and troubled, if one could get behind that stoical mask which a life in Wall street inevitably produces; but anyone who knew the man and was aware of the great wealth he possessed would never have supposed that any perturbation on the part of Stephen Langdon could arise from financial difficulties. And could his most severe critics have looked in upon the scene, and have seen it as it existed at that moment, they would unhesitatingly have said that the source of his discomfiture, if discomfiture there were, was the queenly young woman who stood at the opposite side of the table, facing him.
She was Patricia Langdon, sometimes, though rarely, addressed as Pat by her father; but he alone dared make use of the cognomen, since she invariably frowned upon such familiarities, even from him.
In private, among the women with whom she a.s.sociated, she was frequently referred to as Juno; and when she was discussed by the gossips at the clubs, as she frequently was (for there are no greater nests of gossip in the world than the men"s clubs of New York City), she was always Juno. There was a double and subtle purpose in both cases; one felt it rather a dangerous proceeding to speak criticizingly of Patricia Langdon, lest somehow what was said should get to her ears. She was one who knew how to retaliate, and to do so quickly. She was like a man in that she feared nothing, and hesitated at nothing, so long as she knew it to be right. A precedent had no force with her; if she desired to act, and there was no precedent for what she wished to do, she established one.
All her life, Patricia had been her father"s chum; ever since she could remember, they had talked together of stocks and bonds, and puts and calls, and opening and closing quotations, and she knew every slang word that is uttered in "the street," that is used on the floor of the stock-exchange, or that appears in the financial columns of the newspapers.
And these two, father and daughter, were as much alike in outward bearing, in demeanor and in appearance, in gesture and in motion, as a man and a woman can be when the man is approaching seventy and the woman is only just past twenty.
These two had been discussing an unprecedented circ.u.mstance. The daughter was plainly annoyed, as her glowing cheeks and flashing eyes evidenced. The man, if one could have read his innermost soul, was afraid; for he knew his daughter as no other person did, and he feared that he had gone, or was about to go, a step too far with her.
The room was the typical private office of a present-day financial king, who is banker as well as broker, and who speaks of millions, by fifties and hundreds, as a farmer talks of potatoes by the bushel. It was a large, square room, solidly but not luxuriantly furnished. The oblong table at which Stephen Langdon was seated, and upon which his daughter lightly rested the tips of the fingers of one hand, was one around which directors of various great corporations gathered, almost daily, to be told by "old Steve" what to do. Over in a far corner was a roll-top desk with a swivel chair, at which Langdon usually seated himself when he was attending to his correspondence, or looking over private papers; beside it was a huge safe, and beyond that another, smaller one. Then, there were several easy chairs upholstered in leather, a couch and two other desks. There were three doors: one of these communicated with the main office of Stephen Langdon & Company, Bankers and Brokers; another was a private entrance from the street that ran along the side of the building, which Langdon owned; the third communicated with a smaller room, really the _sanctum sanctorum_ of Stephen Langdon, into which it was his habit to take any person with whom he wished to have an absolutely confidential chat.
This room was supposed never to be entered save by himself and those whom he took with him--and by the cleaners who once a week attended to it. These three doors were now closed.
"Old Steve" moved nervously in his chair, shifted his feet uneasily, and rolled the unlighted cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, biting savagely upon it as he did so.
"Well, Pat," he said, with as much impatience as he ever showed, "have you nothing to say?"
"There seems to be nothing for me to say, dad," replied his daughter, and the intonation of her voice was different from the one she was accustomed to use in addressing her father, whom she adored. He attributed it, doubtless, to his abbreviation of her name, for he smiled grimly.
"Haven"t you heard what I said?" he demanded.
"Certainly."
"Well, then, you know the situation, don"t you?"
"I am not quite sure as to that," she replied, meditatively. "You have been somewhat ambiguous, and certainly quite enigmatical in your statement. Am I to gather from what you have told me that you are really facing failure?"
"G.o.d knows I have made it plain enough," was the quick response and Langdon pushed his chair away from the table, stretched his legs out straight in front of him, and thrust his hands deep into his trousers-pockets.
"I had not supposed it possible for you to face failure," said Patricia, with her eyes fixed upon her father"s mask-like face; "but if it is so, won"t you tell me more about it?"
"It all came about through those infernal bonds that I have just described to you. The men who were to go into the deal with me withdrew at the last moment; I have already explained that fully to you, and now, this Sat.u.r.day afternoon, I find myself in a position such as I have never faced before--where there are demands upon me which I cannot meet; and those demands, Patricia, must be met, somehow, at ten o"clock on Monday morning, or Stephen Langdon must go to the wall."
"It amazes me," she said, speaking more to herself than to him; and she tapped lightly with her gloved fingers upon the table before her.
"It amazes me more than I can say. I thought myself closely familiar with all the ins and outs of your business, dad, and I find now that I knew nothing about it at all."
"You have never known very much about it," he replied, with a half-laugh, but with a kindly smile, which changed his iron face wondrously, and which was reflected by a softened expression in his daughter"s eyes.
"Is there no one to come to your aid?" she asked him.
"No, Patricia, there is no one to whom I could apply without betraying my condition and situation, and that would be fatal. Such a course would be equivalent to going broke; for when once a man loses his credit, even for an instant, in Wall Street, it is lost forever, never to be regained. People will tell you that there are exceptions to this, but I have been fifty years among the bulls and bears, and wolves, too, and I know better. When a man who occupies the position that I have held, and hold now, goes to the wall, it is the end."
During this statement, she had walked to one of the windows and stood silently looking out, for she wished to ask a question which her own intuition had already answered. She knew what the answer would be, but she did not quite know what form it would take. She felt that sort of misgiving which belongs only to women, and she feared that there was something beyond and behind, and perhaps beneath, all this present circ.u.mstance, which was being kept from her. For Patricia Langdon did know of one man who would go to her father"s a.s.sistance, and she could not understand why he had not already applied to that person.
Presently, she returned to the table.
"Patricia," said her father, with some impatience, "I wish to the Lord you"d sit down. You make me nervous keeping on your feet all the while, and with those big eyes of yours fixed on your old dad"s face as if they had discovered something new and strange in the lines of it."
She paid no heed to this remark--one would have supposed she did not hear it; but she asked:
"Will you tell me why you sent for me? and why you wished to consult with me?"
Again, the cigar was whipped sharply to the opposite corner of the old banker"s mouth; and he replied quickly, almost savagely:
"Because I have thought of a way by which you can help me out."
His daughter caught her breath; it was a little gasp, barely audible; but she uttered only one word in reply. It was:
"How?"
For an instant, the banker hesitated at this abrupt question; then, with a suggestion of doggedness in his manner, he thrust forward his aggressive chin and shut his teeth so tightly together that the cigar, bitten squarely off, dropped unheeded upon the rug where he stood. By way of reply, he spoke a man"s name.
"Roderick Duncan," he said, sharply.
Patricia did not seem to heed the strangeness of her father"s reply, nor did she alter the expression of her eyes or features. She seemed to have antic.i.p.ated what he would say. After a moment, she remarked quietly:
"I should think it very likely that Roderick would a.s.sist you in your extremity. I see no reason why he should not do so. His father was your partner in business. Indeed, I should regard it as his duty to come to your aid, in an extremity like this. But why, if I may venture to ask, was it necessary to consult me in regard to any application you might make to him?"
The old man did not reply; he remained silent, and continued doggedly to stare at his daughter. Presently, she asked him: "Have you already made such a request of Mr. Duncan?"
A smile took the place of the old man"s frown; his face softened.
"No; that is to say, not exactly so," he replied.
"You have, perhaps, suggested the idea to him?"
Old Steve shrugged his shoulders, and dropped back into the chair, kicking away the half of the cigar in front of him as he did so.
"Yes," he said, "I have suggested the idea to him, and he met the suggestion more than half way, too. The reply he made to me is what brings your name into the question. If it were not for the fact that I know you to be fond of him, and that you are already half-promised--"
"Is that why you have sent for me?" She interrupted him with quiet dignity, although the expression of her eyes was suddenly stormy.
"Yes; it is."
"Would you please be more explicit? I am afraid that I do not clearly understand."
"Well, Pat, to put it in plain words, Roderick"s answer implied that he would be only too delighted to advance the sum I require--twenty-million dollars--to his prospective father-in-law!"