The Carleton Case Part 9

But these, of course, were thoughts merely. Outwardly, the reverend gentleman gave no sign that he dreaded, or even expected, a refusal. His little oily professional smile was as winning and as confident as ever.

Yet he realized that he was dealing with a busy man, and prudently determined, while the chance yet remained to him, to play his last card without delay.

"I understand, my dear Mr. Carleton," he exclaimed, "I perfectly understand. For a man like yourself, a man of your standing in the community, none can realize better than I what a tax these constant demands must be, on patience and on pocket-book as well." He paused for just the veriest instant, inwardly to smack his lips; he loved a well-turned phrase, above all if it had about it a flavor of alliteration, and "On patience and on pocket-book as well" struck him as distinctly good. Then, with a swift return to business methods,

"But I did feel, Mr. Carleton, that this time you would favor us.

The project of the new altar seems to have made a wide appeal to all those most interested in the beautifying of our beloved church, and example--the example, let us say, of a man of your type, Mr.

Carleton--does mean so much to some of the weaker brethren. Not every one, perhaps, realizes this, but I myself know it to be a matter of the greatest consequence, and it was this same power of example that I had in mind when I arranged to have the preliminary list made public to-morrow in six of the leading dailies. And for my part, I can see nothing out of the way in such a proceeding. The press and the pulpit--or rather, let us say, the pulpit and the press--why should they not proceed together hand in hand, so that all things, spiritual and secular, may at last work together for good. That, at least, is my conception of it. And the papers have been very kind. Almost invariably, I think I may say. To a laborer in the vineyard, to one who bears the burden and heat of the day, it is gratifying--I must confess it--very gratifying indeed."

He spoke but the truth, as Henry Carleton well knew. The Reverend William Van Soc.u.m had the reputation of being the greatest x.x.xX ecclesiastical advertiser in the city. Just how he did it, none but himself seemed to know, yet stony-hearted editors and impervious reporters were but as wax in his hands. "The pulpit and the press" was not simply another of his favorite catch-words; it meant something substantial as well. Hand in hand they traveled, in very truth, and it was the bland and smiling Van Soc.u.m who managed to unite them in this touching amity.

"Yes," he said reminiscently, "six of the leading dailies. And good position in all of them, too. It's a splendid thing for us. So far the Honorable Samuel Rogers has made the largest individual subscription--two hundred and fifty dollars--and his name at the head of the list will of course mean a great deal. We consider that he has acted very handsomely. But--" the smile again appeared, like the sun from behind the clouds, deprecating, wistful, with just a hint of gentle reproach, and oily enough to have turned an ocean into calm--"but above that of Mr. Rogers we had hoped to have one other name, one other name still more widely and--if you will pardon me--still more favorably known than even that of Mr. Rogers himself."

Henry Carleton looked, as he felt, a trifle uncomfortable. "I deplore,"

he said, a little stiffly, "any publicity in such matters. The right hand, and the left, Van Soc.u.m, you know."

Occasionally an expert boxer, for some reason of his own, will leave himself unguarded, purposely to invite a blow. With joy the Reverend William Van Soc.u.m foresaw the beginning of the end. "True! true!" he cried, "as far as the giver is concerned. But for the effect on others, Mr. Carleton. That is where you are in error. Let your light so s.h.i.+ne!

That is the injunction which covers the case. The s.h.i.+ning light, Mr.

Carleton! The s.h.i.+ning light!"

The blow sped home. Henry Carleton meekly inclined his head, as it seemed, a willing sacrifice. "I deplore publicity--" he again began, but his tone was feebler by far; and then he added, metaphorically throwing up the sponge, "in six papers, did you say?"

Van Soc.u.m bore his honors modestly. "Six," he answered, again producing the subscription book from his pocket, "six; and excellent position in all. And of course our own paper, _The Flaming Torch_, which in itself has a circulation by no means contemptible. Let me see. Five hundred, Mr. Carleton? A thousand, perhaps, would be almost too large a sum."

Inwardly Henry Carleton was returning the compliment the Reverend Doctor had just paid to him. "This fellow," he thought, "is thrown away on the church. I could use a man like him to excellent advantage." "Yes," he answered, "five hundred, I think. I shouldn't wish to be criticized on the score of ostentation."

The victor drew out his pencil; then, almost in the act of writing, paused, as if suddenly recalling something to mind.

"By the way, Mr. Carleton," he asked, "did some one tell me the other day that your nephew had returned from the West?"

Henry Carleton's face was expressionless. "Yes," he answered, "he is back. He has been in town several days."

Van Soc.u.m nodded amiably. "How very pleasant!" he said smoothly. "He is--improved--I trust?"

A slight frown seemed to hover about the banker's brow. He appeared to place a curb on his speech. "Greatly, thank you," he answered briefly.

The clerical smile again burst into bloom. "So glad; so very glad to hear it," he murmured; then continued brightly, "but I felt sure that it would be so. There was such a field for it. When he left us, one might almost have dared to uproot the tares without feeling that the wheat would be in danger. So glad--so very glad."

He paused a moment; then, as if tentatively feeling his way toward a possible germ for a sermon, he moralized, "Three years! How swiftly time pa.s.ses us by! What changes it brings to us all! To you--to me--to your nephew--" He stopped abruptly, his ideas swinging suddenly into another channel, "And speaking of the pa.s.sage of time, Mr. Carleton, what a change it has brought in your daughter, Rose! I remember her as a charming child, and behold, I met her the other afternoon at a little tea--why, Mr. Carleton, I a.s.sure you I could scarcely believe my eyes. A young lady--grown-up, self-possessed, a half-dozen young men around her.

Why, I was amazed. The pa.s.sage of time--"

He half paused; perhaps, if the truth were told, Henry Carleton half broke in upon him. "Yes," the banker agreed, "it pa.s.ses, as you say. And it's valuable, Van Soc.u.m. We can't afford to waste it, any of us."

The minister smiled--forgivingly--and bending over his book, he wrote--yet did not at once vanish. Of a man so comfortably portly, of a plumpness so suggestive of a certain counterpart in the animal creation, perhaps that could hardly have been expected. Instead he rose slowly, beaming on his conquered antagonist. "By their fruits--" he murmured.

Henry Carleton nodded, handing the check across the desk. "Exactly," he said dryly. "By the way, Van Soc.u.m, I heard a capital story the other day. It was told--this time--about a man high up in munic.i.p.al office.

'Is that fellow Blank,' asked some one who didn't know just what position he really occupied, 'is that fellow Blank a politician--or just a _common thief_?' Good, wasn't it?"

The Reverend William Van Soc.u.m laughed heartily. "Oh, capital," he cried, and then, casually, he added, "you say that was told about a politician?"

Henry Carleton met his glance. "Yes," he answered, "that time--it was told about a politician. Well, good-by, Van Soc.u.m; call again. Always glad to see you, you know, at any time. Good-by."

Half way to the door Van Soc.u.m turned. "Oh, by the way, Mr. Carleton,"

he said, "are any of these rumors that I hear true, by any chance? Are you going to give your friends an opportunity in the near future to see you reaping still further and still higher honors? Or is it merely gossip? For my part, I most sincerely hope that it's all true."

Henry Carleton's expression and tone were alike inscrutable. "Thank you very much, I'm sure," he returned, "but really I'm not at liberty to talk just now."

Van Soc.u.m nodded. "I perfectly understand," he answered. "Well, in any event I shall hope. And don't forget, Mr. Carleton, the s.h.i.+ning light.

It's most important. Good-by," and a little hastily he pa.s.sed from the room, with a certain satisfied feeling that verbal honors were at least easy, and that from the field of more practical warfare he had again returned a triumphant victor.

Left alone, Henry Carleton, smiling a little to himself, once more leaned comfortably back in his chair. As he sat there, the waning sunlight, slanting through the tall window, fell pleasantly upon him, lighting up the dark, black-bearded face, with the full red lips, and the keen and scrutinizing eyes. A noticeable man, in almost any company, he would have been, and justly so as well. Doing many things, he did them all with skill. And still, in spite of the activities in which he was actually engaged, his friends were wont to talk of the many other things he might have done--living his life over for him in retrospect, as people will--and it was significant of his many-sidedness to note the different views which different people held of him. Some said that the bar had been robbed of a great lawyer, others that the universities had lost a great teacher and instructor of youth, others still, like Mr. Van Soc.u.m, that the church alone should rightfully have claimed his great talents. No one, perhaps, had ever suggested that the stage had lost a great actor.

And now, not satisfied with the active benevolence that he had just displayed, Henry Carleton was pa.s.sively showing the same praiseworthy spirit which actuated his every deed and word. His day's work was done.

It was ten minutes after five, and there seemed to be no possible reason why he should longer wait for the young man with whom he had made an appointment at five o'clock sharp. Adding to the fact that the young man was late, the further information that Henry Carleton felt tolerably sure he was coming to ask some sort of favor of him, we behold the heights to which it is possible for a man to rise.

Even patience, however, has its definite limits, and at a quarter past five Henry Carleton snapped his watch with a click, and had one hand already outstretched to close the top of his desk, when the clerk knocked, and opened the door far enough to announce Mr. Vaughan.

Henry Carleton nodded, sighed, again leaned back in his chair, and relinquished the idea of getting the five-thirty home.

A moment later Arthur Vaughan entered the office with the rather breathless haste of the man who is thoroughly aware that to keep a great financier waiting for a quarter of an hour is an offense not lightly to be condoned. Indeed, about his whole manner, in spite of his thirty years, there was still something boyish and deprecating, the air of a man who is perhaps too modest, too slow to a.s.sert himself, yet who, if these be faults, is perhaps all the more likable for possessing them.

He came quickly forward. "I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Carleton," he began, "I know I'm late; but really I couldn't help it."

There may have been something a little less cordial than usual in the manner in which Henry Carleton shook the young man's proffered hand. Yet his voice, when he answered, was politeness itself. Early in life he had made it his invariable rule to treat every man who had once crossed the threshold of his office with complete and unvarying courtesy, until he had found out exactly what the visitor's business might be. After that, there was of course room for wider discretion. And so now, "Don't mention it," he said; "a trifle late, perhaps, but never mind. And what may I be able to do for you, Mr. Vaughan?"

Once seated, Vaughan appeared to be even more ill at ease than before.

His eyes were fixed on the floor. His hat revolved aimlessly and sheepishly enough between his nervous fingers. "Why," he began, "why, the fact is, Mr. Carleton--you see what I wanted to tell you about--you see--" and then he came to a full and embarra.s.sed stop.

Henry Carleton, through a long and varied experience, was nothing if not a shrewd reader of men. The same awkward hesitation, the same nervousness, the same half-cringing expression; he had seen them all displayed many times before by men who had sat there in the inner office in the selfsame seat which Vaughan was occupying now. And nine times out of ten it all meant but one thing. In the brief pause a.n.a.lysis and deduction in his mind were practically one. Vaughan's manner showed embarra.s.sment. Vaughan was a would-be literary man. All would-be literary men, in greater or less degree, were poor. Vaughan, presuming on a rather slight acquaintances.h.i.+p, had come to borrow money. The whole matter was painfully plain.

And then, even at the very instant when Henry Carleton had sorrowfully, but with philosophy, arrived at this inevitable conclusion, Vaughan, drawing a long breath, at last found his tongue. "Why," he said, speaking with a seeming boldness and hardihood which in reality were but the result of the most extreme embarra.s.sment, "it's like this, Mr.

Carleton; I want to marry Rose."

The proverbial bombsh.e.l.l, exploding at Henry Carleton's feet, could hardly have made the same havoc with his body that Vaughan's few words managed to create in his mind. And yet, to his credit be it said, his habitual self-control now stood him in such stead that after the one first uncontrollable glance of sheer surprise, he at once contrived to conceal not only his amazement, but as well any other feeling that might have been agitating his soul. And in another moment, indeed, he had even successfully achieved a very fair imitation of a jocular smile. "Rose,"

he echoed, "my daughter Rose! Why, you're joking with me, my dear fellow. She's not eighteen yet. She's a child."

Vaughan, now that the worst was over, did not seem to be properly disconcerted at the reply. "Oh, I know she's quite young," he answered readily enough, "but that doesn't seem to make any particular difference. We're both prepared for a long engagement. I'm not well off, in the least. It's bound to be some time before I could dream of providing for her in any proper way at all. But I love her, Mr.

Carleton--as much, I think, as any man could--and she loves me, and we think, after all, that's the main thing. The other details we'll work out somehow, I guess."

Henry Carleton had now perfectly regained his self-possession. He gazed at the young man with benevolence in his eye. "Yes, yes," he a.s.sented, a little dreamily, "love, of course; that's the great essential. With that I thoroughly agree. And yet, while with me Rose's wishes are the first consideration--no, rather I should say the only consideration--still, as I understand you to say yourself, it must equally be a point of proper pride with every man to know that he is earning an honest living, amply sufficient for all future needs. I take it that you would hardly quarrel with that, Mr. Vaughan?"

To Vaughan it appeared that he was progressing famously. "No, indeed,"

he cried readily enough, "I should say not. That's the first thing to consider, of course. But I think I'm going to be able to solve that difficulty in a short time now. I think I'm fairly on my way to a little luck at last. You know, of course, Mr. Carleton, in any of the arts it isn't exactly the same proposition for a man as if he'd chosen a business career. There, if he gets a start, and then sticks to his job, and shows any kind of ability at all, after a while he's almost certain to get somewhere or other. But with any of the arts--that's the chance a man takes when he turns his back on the solid, steady kind of things--you can work along for a devil of a while, putting in the very best that's in you, too, and yet you always stand a good chance of not arriving at all, or, if you do, perhaps not till two or three hundred years after you're dead. And of course, while even that, in a sense, is very gratifying, still it's hardly practical. Dining late, but in select company, in Landor's phrase, is all very well, if you can afford it, but the majority of us poor fellows have to dine in the middle of the day.

The other thing's a luxury we can't afford."

Henry Carleton nodded. "Quite so, quite so," he said, "I know something of that myself. I thoroughly appreciate all the difficulties in the way of combining devotion to art with a large income. It's one of the least gratifying things about our life of the present day. And still, too, each year I believe the artist is coming more and more fully into his own. But you were going to say--about your immediate prospects--"

Vaughan flushed a little. "I didn't mean to ramble on into so long a preface," he said, "I'm afraid it was nothing but a desire to excuse myself, anyway. However, here's where I think I really have a chance at last. I've written a book--a novel--and it's in the hands of Small and White now. Of course I needn't tell you what it would mean to have their imprint on a book--it would be half the battle to start with. And I've been able to get a little information in a roundabout way, so that I have some idea of what's happening. I know the book has got by the preliminary stages, anyway; I know that they're really considering it seriously, and that is something in its favor. But I'm hoping for more than that; I'm hoping that they will really accept it, and launch it in good style; and if they do, why--I know of course you'll think I'm conceited and over-fond of myself to say such a thing--but, with all sincerity, Mr. Carleton, I think the book would be a success; I think it makes an approach to something like literary merit. Oh, if I could once get my start--get some pretext for thinking that I had a right to put more and more time into writing, and less and less into what is really only the merest hack work, that has to be done so hastily and superficially that in the end it would kill any man's style--then I'd work as n.o.body ever worked before--I'd kill myself to learn to write as I want to write--"

He broke off suddenly, his hands clenched, his face ablaze with the pa.s.sion of the artist who craves to express in concrete form the dreams and visions that float athwart his brain. Henry Carleton sat regarding him narrowly, his face expressionless, but when he spoke, his tone could hardly have been kinder or more sympathetic.