This child would grow up in an atmosphere of luxury and
self-indulgence; it would be bullying the servants at the age of
six, and talking scandal and smoking cigarettes at twelve. It would
be petted and admired and stared at, and paraded about in state,
dressed up like a French doll; it would drink in snobbery and
hatefulness with the very air it breathed. One might meet in these
great houses little tots not yet in their teens whose talk was all
of the cost of things, and of the inferiority of their neighbours.
There was nothing in the world too good for them.--They had little
miniature automobiles to ride about the country in, and blooded
Arabian ponies, and doll-houses in real Louis Seize, with jewelled
rugs and miniature electric lights. At Mrs. Caroline Smythe's,
Montague was introduced to a pale and anaemic-looking youth of
thirteen, who dined in solemn state alone when the rest of the
family was away, and insisted upon having all the footmen in
attendance; and his unfortunate aunt brought a storm about her ears
by forbidding the butler to take champagne upstairs into the nursery
before lunch.

A little remark stayed in Montague's mind as expressing the attitude
of Society toward such matters. Major Venable had chanced to remark
jestingly that children were coming to understand so much nowadays
that it was necessary for the ladies to be careful. To which Mrs.
Vivie Patton answered, with a sudden access of seriousness: "I don't
know--do you find that children have any morals? Mine haven't."

And then the fascinating Mrs. Vivie went on to tell the truth about
her own children. They were natural-born savages, and that was all
there was to it. They did as they pleased, and no one could stop
them. The Major replied that nowadays all the world was doing as it
pleased, and no one seemed to be able to stop it; and with that jest
the conversation was turned to other matters. But Montague sat in
silence, thinking about it--wondering what would happen to the world
when it had fallen under the sway of this generation of spoiled
children, and had adopted altogether the religion of doing as one
pleased.

In the beginning people had simply done as they pleased
spontaneously, and without thinking about it; but now, Montague
discovered, the custom had spread to such an extent that it was
developing a philosophy. There was springing up a new cult, whose
devotees were planning to make over the world upon the plan of doing
as one pleased. Because its members were wealthy, and able to
command the talent of the world, the cult was developing an art,
with a highly perfected technique, and a literature which was subtle
and exquisite and alluring. Europe had had such a literature for a
century, and England for a generation or two. And now America was
having it, too!

Montague had an amusing insight into this one day, when Mrs. Vivie
invited him to one of her "artistic evenings." Mrs. Vivie was in
touch with a special set which went in for intellectual things, and
included some amateur Bohemians and men of "genius." "Don't you come
if you'll be shocked," she had said to him--"for Strathcona will be
there."

Montague deemed himself able to stand a good deal by this time. He
went, and found Mrs. Vivie and her Count (Mr. Vivie had apparently
not been invited) and also the young poet of Diabolism, whose work
was just then the talk of the town. He was a tall, slender youth
with a white face and melancholy black eyes, and black locks falling
in cascades about his ears; he sat in an Oriental corner, with a
manuscript copied in tiny handwriting upon delicately scented "art
paper," and tied with passionate purple ribbons. A young girl clad
in white sat by his side and held a candle, while he read from this
manuscript his unprinted (because unprintable) verses.

And between the readings the young poet talked. He talked about
himself and his work--apparently. that was what he had come to talk
about. His words flowed like a swift stream, limpid, sparkling,
incessant; leaping from place to place--here, there, quick as the
play of light upon the water. Montague laboured to follow the
speaker's ideas, until he found his mind in a whirl and gave it up.
Afterward, when he thought it over, he laughed at himself; for
Strathcona's ideas were not serious things, having relationship to
truth--they were epigrams put together to dazzle the hearer,
studies in paradox, with as much relation to life as fireworks. He
took the sum-total of the moral experience of the human race, and
turned it upside down and jumbled it about, and used it as bits of
glass in a kaleidoscope. And the hearers would gasp, and whisper,
"Diabolical!"

The motto of this "school" of poets was that there was neither good
nor evil, but that all things were "interesting." After listening to
Strathcona for half an hour, one felt like hiding his head, and
denying that he had ever thought of having any virtue; in a world
where all things were uncertain, it was presumptuous even to pretend
to know what virtue was. One could only be what one was; and did not
that mean that one must do as one pleased?

You could feel a shudder run through the company at his audacity.
And the worst of it was that you could not dismiss it with a laugh;
for the boy was really a poet--he had fire and passion, the gift of
melodious ecstacy. He was only twenty, and in his brief meteor
flight he had run the gamut of all experience; he had familiarized
himself with all human achievement--past, present, and future. There
was nothing any one could mention that he did not perfectly
comprehend: the raptures of the saints, the consecration of the
martyrs--yes, he had known them; likewise he had touched the depths
of depravity, he had been lost in the innermost passages of the
caverns of hell. And all this had been interesting--in its time; now
he was sighing for new worlds of experience--say for unrequited
love, which should drive him to madness.

It was at this point that Montague dropped out of the race, and took
to studying from the outside the mechanism of this young poet's
conversation. Strathcona flouted the idea of a moral sense; but in
reality he was quite dependent upon it--his recipe for making
epigrams was to take what other people's moral sense made them
respect, and identify it with something which their moral sense made
them abhor. Thus, for instance, the tale which he told about one of
the members of his set, who was a relative of a bishop. The great
man had occasion to rebuke him for his profligate ways, declaring in
the course of his lecture that he was living off the reputation of
his father; to which the boy made the crushing rejoinder: "It may be
bad to live off the reputation of one's father, but it's better than
living off the reputation of God."--This was very subtle and it was
necessary to ponder it. God was dead; and the worthy bishop did not
know it! But let him take a new God, who had no reputation, and go
out into the world and make a living out of him!

Then Strathcona discussed literature. He paid his tribute to the
"Fleurs de Mal" and the "Songs before Sunrise"; but most, he said,
he owed to "the divine Oscar." This English poet of many poses and
some vices the law had seized and flung into jail; and since the law
is a thing so brutal and wicked that whoever is touched by it is
made thereby a martyr and a hero, there had grown up quite a cult
about the memory of "Oscar." All up-to-date poets imitated his style
and his attitude to life; and so the most revolting of vices had the
cloak of romance flung about them--were given long Greek and Latin
names, and discussed with parade of learning as revivals of Hellenic
ideals. The young men in Strathcona's set referred to each other as
their "lovers"; and if one showed any perplexity over this, he was
regarded, not with contempt--for it was not aesthetic to feel
contempt--but with a slight lifting of the eyebrows, intended to
annihilate.

One must not forget, of course, that these young people were poets,
and to that extent were protected from their own doctrines. They
were interested, not in life, but in making pretty verses about
life; there were some among them who lived as cheerful ascetics in
garret rooms, and gave melodious expression to devilish emotions.
But, on the other hand, for every poet, there were thousands who
were not poets, but people to whom life was real. And these lived
out the creed, and wrecked their lives; and with the aid of the
poet's magic, the glamour of melody and the fire divine, they
wrecked the lives with which they came into contact. The new
generation of boys and girls were deriving their spiritual
sustenance from the poetry of Baudelaire and Wilde; and rushing with
the hot impulsiveness of youth into the dreadful traps which the
traders in vice prepared for them. One's heart bled to see them,
pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, pursuing the hem of the Muse's robe in
brothels and dens of infamy!






CHAPTER XVII





The social mill ground on for another month. Montague withdrew
himself as much as his brother would let him; but Alice, was on the
go all night and half the day. Oliver had sold his racing automobile
to a friend--he was a man of family now, he said, and his wild days
were over. He had got, instead, a limousine car for Alice; though
she declared she had no need of it--if ever she was going to any
place, Charlie Carter always begged her to use his. Charlie's siege
was as persistent as ever, as Montague noticed with annoyance.

The great law case was going forward. After weeks of study and
investigation, Montague felt that he had the matter well in hand;
and he had taken Mr. Hasbrook's memoranda as a basis for a new work
of his own, much more substantial. Bit by bit; as he dug into the
subject, he had discovered a state of affairs in the Fidelity
Company, and, indeed, in the whole insurance business and its allied
realms of banking and finance, which shocked him profoundly. It was
impossible for him to imagine how such conditions could exist and
remain unknown to the public--more especially as every one in Wall
Street with whom he talked seemed to know about them and to take
them for granted.

His client's papers had provided him with references to the books;
Montague had taken this dry material and made of it a protest which
had the breath of life in it. It was a thing at which he toiled with
deadly earnestness; it was not merely a struggle of one man to get a
few thousand dollars, it was an appeal in behalf of millions of
helpless people whose trust had been betrayed. It was the first step
in a long campaign, which the young lawyer meant should force a
great evil into the light of day.

He went over his bill of complaint with Mr. Hasbrook, and he was
glad to see that the work he had done made its impression upon him.
In fact, his client was a little afraid that some of his arguments
might be too radical in tone--from the strictly legal point of view,
he made haste to explain. But Montague reassured him upon this
point.

And then came the day when the great ship was ready for launching.
The news must have spread quickly, for a few hours after the papers
in the suit had been filed, Montague received a call from a
newspaper reporter, who told him of the excitement in financial
circles, where the thing had fallen like a bomb. Montague explained
the purpose of the suit, and gave the reporter a number of facts
which he felt certain would attract attention to the matter. When he
picked up the paper the next morning, however, he was surprised to
find that only a few lines had been given to the case, and that his
interview had been replaced by one with an unnamed official of the
Fidelity, to the effect that the attack upon the company was
obviously for black-mailing purposes.

That was the only ripple which Montague's work produced upon the
surface of the pool; but there was a great commotion among the fish
at the bottom, about which he was soon to learn.

That evening, while he was hard at work in his study, he received a
telephone call from his brother. "I'm coming round to see you," said
Oliver. "Wait for me."

"All right," said the other, and added, "I thought you were dining
at the Waitings'."

"I'm there now," was the answer. "I'm leaving."

"What is the matter?" Montague asked.

"There's hell to pay," was the reply--and then silence.

When Oliver appeared, a few minutes later, he did not even stop to
set down his hat, but exclaimed, "Allan, what in heaven's name have
you been doing?"

"What do you mean?" asked the other.

"Why, that suit!"

"What about it?"

"Good God, man!" cried Oliver. "Do you mean that you really don't
know what you've done?"

Montague was staring at him. "I'm afraid I don't," said he.

"Why, you're turning the world upside down!" exclaimed the other.
"Everybody you know is crazy about it."

"Everybody I know!" echoed Montague. "What have they to do with it?"

"Why, you've stabbed them in the back!" half shouted Oliver. "I
could hardly believe my ears when they told me. Robbie Walling is
simply wild--I never had such a time in my life."

"I don't understand yet," said Montague, more and more amazed. "What
has he to do with it?"

"Why, man," cried Oliver, "his brother's a director in the Fidelity!
And his own interests--and all the other companies! You've struck at
the whole insurance business!"

Montague caught his breath. "Oh, I see!" he said.

"How could you think of such a thing?" cried the other, wildly. "You
promised to consult me about things--"

"I told you when I took this case," put in Montague, quickly.

"I know," said his brother. "But you didn't explain--and what did I
know about it? I thought I could leave it to your common sense not
to mix up in a thing like this."

"I'm very sorry," said Montague, gravely. "I had no idea of any such
result."

"That's what I told Robbie," said Oliver. "Good God, what a time I
had!"

He took his hat and coat and laid them on the bed, and sat down and
began to tell about it. "I made him realize the disadvantage you
were under," he said, "being a stranger and not knowing the ground.
I believe he had an idea that you tried to get his confidence on
purpose to attack him. It was Mrs. Robbie, I guess--you know her
fortune is all in that quarter."

Oliver wiped the perspiration from his forehead. "My!" he
said.--"And fancy what old Wyman must be saying about this! And what
a time poor Betty must be having! And then Freddie Vandam--the air
will be blue for half a mile round his place! I must send him a wire
and explain that it was a mistake, and that we're getting out of
it."

And he got up, to suit the action to the word. But half-way to the
desk he heard his brother say, "Wait."

He turned, and saw Montague, quite pale. "I suppose by 'getting out
of it,'" said the latter, "you mean dropping the case."

"Of course," was the answer.

"Well, then," he continued, very gravely,--"I can see that it's
going to be hard, and I'm sorry. But you might as well understand me
at the very beginning--I will never drop this case."

Oliver's jaw fell limp. "Allan!" he gasped.

There was a silence; and then the storm broke. Oliver knew his
brother well enough to realize just how thoroughly he meant what he
said; and so he got the full force of the shock all at once. He
raved and swore and wrung his hands, and declaimed at his brother,
saying that he had betrayed him, that he was ruining him--dumping
himself and the whole family into the ditch. They would be jeered at
and insulted--they would be blacklisted and thrown out of Society.
Alice's career would be cut short--every door would be closed to
her. His own career would die before it was born; he would never get
into the clubs--he would be a pariah--he would be bankrupted and
penniless. Again and again Oliver went over the situation, naming
person after person who would be outraged, and describing what that
person would do; there were the Wallings and the Venables and the
Havens, the Vandams and the Todds and the Wymans--they were all one
regiment, and Montague had flung a bomb into the centre of them!

It was very terrible to him to see his brother's rage and despair;
but he had seen his way clear through this matter, and he knew that
there was no turning back for him. "It is painful to learn that all
one's acquaintances are thieves," he said. "But that does not change
my opinion of stealing."

"But my God!" cried Oliver; "did you come to New York to preach
sermons?"

To which the other answered, "I came to practise law. And the lawyer
who will not fight injustice is a traitor to his profession."

Oliver threw up his hands in despair. What could one say to a
sentiment such as that?

--But then again he came to the charge, pointing out to his brother
the position in which he had placed himself with the Wallings. He
had accepted their hospitality; they had taken him and Alice in, and
done everything in the world for them--things for which no money
could ever repay them. And now he had struck them!

But the only effect of that was to make Montague regret that he had
ever had anything to do with the Wallings. If they expected to use
their friendship to tie his hands in such a matter, they were people
he would have left alone.

"But do you realize that it's not merely yourself you're ruining?"
cried Oliver. "Do you know what you're doing to Alice?"

"That is harder yet for me," the other replied. "But I am sure that
Alice would not ask me to stop."

Montague was firmly set in his own mind; but it seemed to be quite
impossible for his brother to realize that this was the case. He
would give up; but then, going back into his own mind, and facing
the thought of this person and that, and the impossibility of the
situation which would arise, he would return to the attack with new
anguish in his voice. He implored and scolded, and even wept; and
then he would get himself together again, and come and sit in front
of his brother and try to reason with him.

And so it was that in the small hours of the morning, Montague, pale
and nervous, but quite unshaken, was sitting and listening while his
brother unfolded before him a picture of the Metropolis as he had
come to see it. It was a city ruled by mighty forces--money-forces;
great families and fortunes, which had held their sway for
generations, and regarded the place, with all its swarming millions,
as their birthright. They possessed it utterly--they held it in the
hollow of their hands. Railroads and telegraphs and telephones--
banks and insurance and trust companies--all these they owned; and
the political machines and the legislatures, the courts and the
newspapers, the churches and the colleges. And their rule was for
plunder; all the streams of profit ran into their coffers. The
stranger who came to their city succeeded as he helped them in their
purposes, and failed if they could not use him. A great editor or
bishop was a man who taught their doctrines; a great statesman was a
man who made the laws for them; a great lawyer was one who helped
them to outwit the public. Any man who dared to oppose them, they
would cast out and trample on, they would slander and ridicule and
ruin.

And Oliver came down to particulars--he named these powerful men,
one after one, and showed what they could do. If his brother would
only be a man of the world, and see the thing! Look at all the
successful lawyers! Oliver named them, one after one--shrewd
devisers of corporation trickery, with incomes of hundreds of
thousands a year. He could not name the men who had refused to play
the game--for no one had ever heard of them. But it was so evident
what would happen in this case! His friends would cast him off; his
own client would get his price--whatever it was--and then leave him
in the lurch, and laugh at him! "If you can't make up your mind to
play the game," cried Oliver, frantically, "at least you can give it
up! There are plenty of other ways of getting a living--if you'll
let me, I'll take care of you myself, rather than have you disgrace
me. Tell me--will you do that? Will you quit altogether?"

And Montague suddenly leaped to his feet, and brought his fist down
upon the desk with a bang. "No!" he cried; "by God, no!"

"Let me make you understand me once for all," he rushed on. "You've
shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth--I
don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I
shall stay here and find out--and if it is true, it won't stop me! I
shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them
till the day I die! They may ruin me,--I'll go and live in a garret
if I have to,--but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never
stop till I've opened the eyes of the people to what they're doing!"

Montague towered over his brother, white-hot and terrible. Oliver
shrank from him--he never had seen such a burst of wrath from him
before. "Do you understand me now?" Montague cried; and he answered,
in a despairing voice, "Yes, yes."

"I see it's all up," he added weakly. "You and I can't pull
together."

"No," exclaimed the other, passionately, "we can't. And we might as
well give up trying. You have chosen to be a time-server and a
lick-spittle, and I don't choose it! Do you think I've learned
nothing in the time I've been here? Why, man, you used to be daring
and clever--and now you never draw a breath without wondering if
these rich snobs will like the way you do it! And you want Alice to
sell herself to them--you want me to sell my career to them!"

There was a long pause. Oliver had turned very pale. And then
suddenly his brother caught himself together, and said: "I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to quarrel, but you've goaded me too much. I'm
grateful for what you have tried to do for me, and I'll pay you back
as soon as I can. But I can't go on with this game. I'll quit, and
you can disown me to your friends--tell them that I've run amuck,
and to forget they ever knew me. They'll hardly blame you for it--
they know you too well for that. And as for Alice, I'll talk it out
with her to-morrow, and let her decide for herself--if she wants to
be a Society queen, she can put herself in your hands, and I'll get
out of her way. On the other hand, if she approves of what I'm
doing, why we'll both quit, and you won't have to bother with either
of us."

That was the basis upon which they parted for the night; but like
most resolutions taken at white heat, it was not followed literally.
It was very hard for Montague to have to confront Alice with such a
choice; and as for Oliver, when he went home and thought it over, he
began to discover gleams of hope. He might make it clear to every
one that he was not responsible for his brother's business vagaries,
and take his chances upon that basis. After all, there were wheels
within wheels in Society; and if the Robbie Waitings chose to break
with him--why, they had plenty of enemies. There might even be
interests which would be benefited by Allan's course, and would take
him up.

Montague had resolved to write and break every engagement which he
had made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke.
But the next day his brother came again, with compromises and new
protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme: he,
Oliver, would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go
on their way as if nothing had happened.

--So Montague made his debut in the role of knight-errant. He went
with many qualms and misgivings, uncertain how each new person would
take it. The next evening he was promised for a theatre-party with
Siegfried Harvey; and they had supper in a private room at
Delmonico's, and there came Mrs. Winnie, resplendent as an apple
tree in early April--and murmuring with bated breath, "Oh, you
dreadful man, what have you been doing?"

"Have I been poaching on YOUR preserves?" he asked promptly.

"No, not mine," she said, "but--" and then she hesitated.

"On Mr. Duval's?" he asked.

"No," she said, "not his--but everybody else's! He was telling me
about it to-day--there's a most dreadful uproar. He wanted me to try
to find out what you were up to, and who was behind it."

Montague listened, wonderingly. Did Mrs. Winnie mean to imply that
her husband had asked her to try to worm his business secrets out of
him? That was what she seemed to imply. "I told him I never talked
business with my friends," she said. "He can ask you himself, if he
chooses. But what DOES it all mean, anyhow?"

Montague smiled at the naive inconsistency.

"It means nothing," said he, "except that I am trying to get justice
for a client."

"But can you afford to make so many powerful enemies?" she asked.

"I've taken my chances on that," he replied.

Mrs. Winnie answered nothing, but looked at him with wondering
admiration in her eyes. "You arc different from the men about you,"
she remarked, after a while-and her tone gave Montague to understand
that there was one person who meant to stand by him.

But Mrs. Winnie Duval was not all Society. Montague was amused to
notice with what suddenness the stream of invitations slacked up; it
was necessary for Alice to give her calling list many revisions.
Freddie Vandam had promised to invite them to his place on Long
Island, and of course that invitation would never come; likewise
they would never again see the palace of the Lester Todds, upon the
Jersey mountain-top.

Oliver put in the next few days in calling upon people to explain
his embarrassing situation. He washed his hands of his brother's
affairs, he said; and his friends might do the same, if they saw
fit. With the Robbie Waitings he had a stormy half hour, about which
he thought it best to say little to the rest of the family. Robbie
did not break with him utterly, because of their Wall Street
Alliance; but Mrs. Robbie's feeling was so bitter, he said, that it
would be best if Alice saw nothing of her for a while. He had a long
talk with Alice, and explained the situation. The girl was utterly
dumbfounded, for she was deeply grateful to Mrs. Robbie, and fond of
her as well; and she could not believe that a friend could be so
cruelly unjust to her.

The upshot of the whole situation was a very painful episode. A few
days later Alice met Mrs. Robbie at a reception; and she took the
lady aside, and tried to tell her how distressed and helpless she
was. And the result was that Mrs. Robbie flew into a passion and
railed at her, declaring in the presence of several people that she
had sponged upon her and abused her hospitality! And so poor Alice
came home, weeping and half hysterical.

All of which, of course, was like oil upon a fire; the heavens were
lighted up with the conflagration. The next development was a
paragraph in Society's scandal-sheet--telling with infinite gusto
how a certain ultra-fashionable matron had taken up a family of
stranded waifs from a far State, and introduced them into the best
circles, and even gone so far as to give a magnificent dance in
their honour; and how the discovery had been made that the head of
the family had been secretly preparing an attack upon their business
interests; and of the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth which
had followed--and the violent quarrel in a public place. The
paragraph concluded with the prediction that the strangers would
find themselves the centre of a merry social war.

Oliver was the first to show them this paper. But lest by any chance
they should miss it, half a dozen unknown friends were good enough
to mail them copies, carefully marked.--And then came Reggie Mann,
who as free-lance and gossip-gatherer sat on the fence and watched
the fun; Reggie wore a thin veil of sympathy over his naked glee,
and brought them the latest reports from all portions of the
battle-ground. Thus they were able to know exactly what everybody
was saying about them--who was amused and who was outraged, and who
proposed to drop them and who to take them up.

Montague listened for a while, but then he got tired of it, and went
for a walk to escape it--but only to run into another trap. It was
dark, and he was strolling down the Avenue, when out of a
brilliantly lighted jewellery shop came Mrs. Billy Alden to her
carriage. And she hailed him with an exclamation.

"You man," she cried, "what have you been doing?"

He tried to laugh it off and escape, but she took him by the arm,
commanding, "Get in here and tell me about it."

So he found himself moving with the slow stream of vehicles on the
Avenue, and with Mrs. Billy gazing at him quizzically and asking him
if he did not feel like a hippopotamus in a frog-pond.

He replied to her raillery by asking her under which flag she stood.
But there was little need to ask that, for anyone who was fighting a
Walling became ipso facto a friend of Mrs. Billy's. She told
Montague that if he felt his social position was imperilled, all he
had to do was to come to her. She would gird on her armour and take
the field.

"But tell me how you came to do it," she said.

He answered that there was very little to tell. He had taken up a
case which was obviously just, but having no idea what a storm it
would raise.

Then he noticed that his companion was looking at him sharply. "Do
you really mean that's all there is to it?" she asked.

"Of course I do," said he, perplexed.

"Do you know," was her unexpected response, "I hardly know what to
make of you. I'm afraid to trust you, on account of your brother."

Montague was embarrassed. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Everybody thinks there's some trickery in that suit," she answered.

"Oh," said Montague, "I see. Well, they will find out. If it will
help you any to know it, I've been having no end of scenes with my
brother."

"I'll believe you," said Mrs. Billy, genially. "But it seems strange
that a man could have been so blind to a situation! I feel quite
ashamed because I didn't help you myself!"

The carriage had stopped at Mrs. Billy's home, and she asked him to
dinner. "There'll be nobody but my brother," she said,--"we're
resting this evening. And I can make up to you for my negligence!"

Montague had no engagement, and so he went in, and saw Mrs. Billy's
mansion, which was decorated in imitation of a Doge's palace, and
met Mr. "Davy" Alden, a mild-mannered little gentleman who obeyed
orders promptly. They had a comfortable dinner of half-a-dozen
courses, and then retired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Billy sank
into a huge easy chair, with a decanter of whisky and some cracked
ice in readiness beside it. Then from a tray she selected a thick
black cigar, and placidly bit off the end and lighted it, and then
settled back at her ease, and proceeded to tell Montague about New
York, and about the great families who ruled it, and where and how
they had got their money, and who were their allies and who their
enemies, and what particular skeletons were hidden in each of their
closets.

It was worth coming a long way to listen to Mrs. Billy tete-a-tete;
her thoughts were vigorous, and her imagery was picturesque. She
spoke of old Dan Waterman, and described him as a wild boar rooting
chestnuts. He was all right, she said, if you didn't come under his
tree. And Montague asked, "Which is his tree?" and she answered,
"Any one he happens to be under at the time."

And then she came to the Waitings. Mrs. Billy had been in on the
inside of that family, and there was nothing she didn't know about
it; and she brought the members up, one by one, and dissected them,
and exhibited them for Montague's benefit. They were typical
bourgeois people, she said. They were burghers. They had never shown
the least capacity for refinement--they ate and drank, and jostled
other people out of the way. The old ones had been boors, and the
new ones were cads.

And Mrs. Billy sat and puffed at her cigar. "Do you know the history
of the family?" she asked. "The founder was a rough old ferryman. He
fought his rivals so well that in the end he owned all the boats;
and then some one discovered the idea of buying legislatures and
building railroads, and he went into that. It was a time when they
simply grabbed things--if you ever look into it, you'll find they're
making fortunes to-day out of privileges that the old man simply sat
down on and held. There's a bridge at Albany, for instance, to which
they haven't the slightest right; my brother knows about it--they've
given themselves a contract with their railroad by which they're
paid for every passenger, and their profit every year is greater
than the cost of the bridge. The son was the head of the family when
I came in; and I found that he had it all arranged to leave thirty
million dollars to one of his sons, and only ten million to my
husband. I set to work to change that, I can tell you. I used to go
around to see him, and scratch his back and tickle him and make him
feel good. Of course the family went wild--my, how they hated me!
They set old Ellis to work to keep me off--have you met Judge
Ellis?"

"I have," said Montague.

"Well, there's a pussy-footed old hypocrite for you," said Mrs.
Billy. "In those days he was Waiting's business lackey--used to pass
the money to the legislators and keep the wheels of the machine
greased. One of the first things I said to the old man was that I
didn't ask him to entertain my butler, and he mustn't ask me to
entertain his valet--and so I forbid Ellis to enter my house. And
when I found that he was trying to get between the old man and me, I
flew into a rage and boxed his ears and chased him out of the room!"

Mrs. Billy paused, and laughed heartily over the recollection. "Of
course that tickled the old man to death," she continued. "The
Wallings never could make out how I managed to get round him as I
did; but it was simply because I was honest with him. They'd come
snivelling round, pretending they were anxious about his health;
while I wanted his money, and I told him so."

The valiant lady turned to the decanter. "Have some Scotch?" she
asked, and poured some for herself, and then went on with her story.
"When I first came to New York," she said, "the rich people's houses
were all alike--all dreary brownstone fronts, sandwiched in on one
or two city lots. I vowed that I would have a house with some room
all around it--and that was the beginning of those palaces that all
New York walks by and stares at. You can hardly believe it
now--those houses were a scandal! But the sensation tickled the old
man. I remember one day we walked up the Avenue to see how they were
coming on; and he pointed with his big stick to the second floor,
and asked, 'What's that?' I answered, 'It's a safe I'm building into
the house.' (That was a new thing, too, in those days.)--'I'm going
to keep my money in that,' I said. 'Bah!' he growled, 'when you're
done with this house, you won't have any money left.'--'I'm planning
to make you fill it for me,' I answered; and do you know, he
chuckled all the way home over it!"

Mrs. Billy sat laughing softly to herself. "We had great old battles
in those days," she said. "Among other things, I had to put the
Waitings into Society. They were sneaking round on the outside when
I came--licking people's boots and expecting to be kicked. I said
to myself, I'll put an end to that--we'll have a show-down! So I
gave a ball that made the whole country sit up and gasp--it wouldn't
be noticed particularly nowadays, but then people had never dreamed
of anything so gorgeous. And I made out a list of all the people I
wanted to know in New York, and I said to myself: 'If you come,
you're a friend, and if you don't come, you're an enemy.' And they
all came, let me tell you! And there was never any question about
the Waitings being in Society after that."

Mrs. Billy halted; and Montague remarked, with a smile, that
doubtless she was sorry now that she had done it.

"Oh, no," she answered, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I find that
all I have to do is to be patient--I hate people, and think I'd like
to poison them, but if I only wait long enough, something happens to
them much worse than I ever dreamed of. You'll be revenged on the
Robbies some day."

"I don't want any revenge," Montague answered. "I've no quarrel with
them--I simply wish I hadn't accepted their hospitality. I didn't
know they were such little people. It seems hard to believe it."

Mrs. Billy laughed cynically. "What could you expect?" she said.
"They know there's nothing to them but their money. When that's
gone, they're gone--they could never make any more."

The lady gave a chuckle, and added: "Those words make me think of
Davy's experience when he wanted to go to Congress! Tell him about
it, Davy."

But Mr. Alden did not warm to the subject; he left the tale to his
sister.

"He was a Democrat, you know," said she, "and he went to the boss
and told him he'd like to go to Congress. The answer was that it
would cost him forty thousand dollars, and he kicked at the price.
Others didn't have to put up such sums, he said--why should he? And
the old man growled at him, 'The rest have other things to give.
One can deliver the letter-carriers, another is paid for by a
corporation. But what can you do? What is there to you but your
money?'--So Davy paid the money--didn't you, Davy?" And Davy grinned
sheepishly.

"Even so," she went on, "he came off better than poor Devon. They
got fifty thousand out of him, and sold him out, and he never got to
Congress after all! That was just before he concluded that America
wasn't a fit place for a gentleman to live in."

--And so Mrs. Billy got started on the Devons! And after that came
the Havens and the Wymans and the Todds--it was midnight before she
got through with them all.






CHAPTER XVIII





The newspapers said nothing more about the Hasbrook suit; but in
financial circles Montague had attained considerable notoriety
because of it. And this was the means of bringing him a number of
new cases.

But alas, there were no more fifty-thousand-dollar clients! The
first caller was a destitute widow with a deed which would have
entitled her to the greater part of a large city in
Pennsylvania--only unfortunately the deed was about eighty years
old. And then there was a poor old man who had been hurt in a
street-car accident and had been tricked into signing away his
rights; and an indignant citizen who proposed to bring a hundred
suits against the traction trust for transfers refused. All were
contingency cases, with the chances of success exceedingly remote.
And Montague noticed that the people had come to him as a last
resort, having apparently heard of him as a man of altruistic
temper.

There was one case which interested him particularly, because it
seemed to fit in so ominously with the grim prognosis of his
brother. He received a call from an elderly gentleman, of very
evident refinement and dignity of manner, who proceeded to unfold to
him a most amazing story. Five or six years ago he had invented a
storage-battery, which was the most efficient known. He had
organised a company with three million dollars' capital to
manufacture it, himself taking a third interest for his patents, and
becoming president of the company. Not long afterward had come a
proposal from a group of men who wished to organize a company to
manufacture automobiles; they proposed to form an alliance which
would give them the exclusive use of the battery. But these men were
not people with whom the inventor cared to deal--they were traction
and gas magnates widely known for their unscrupulous methods. And so
he had declined their offer, and set to work instead to organize an
automobile company himself. He had just got under way when he
discovered that his rivals had set to work to take his invention
away from him. A friend who owned another third share in his company
had hypothecated his stock to help form the new company; and now
came a call from the bank for more collateral, and he was obliged to
sell out. And at the next stockholders' meeting it developed that
their rivals had bought it, and likewise more stock in the open
market; and they proceeded to take possession of the company,
ousting the former president--and then making a contract with their
automobile company to furnish the storage-battery at a price which
left no profit for the manufacturers! And so for two years the
inventor had not received a dollar of dividends upon his million
dollars' worth of paper; and to cap the climax, the company had
refused to sell the battery to his automobile company, and so that
had gone into bankruptcy, and his friend was ruined also!

Montague went into the case very carefully, and found that the story
was true. What interested him particularly in it was the fact that
he had met a couple of these financial highwaymen in social life; he
had come to know the son and heir of one of them quite well, at
Siegfried Harvey's. This gilded youth was engaged to be married in a
very few days, and the papers had it that the father-in-law had
presented the bride with a cheque for a million dollars. Montague
could not but wonder if it was the million that had been taken from
his client!

There was to be a "bachelor dinner" at the Millionaires' on the
night before the wedding, to which he and Oliver had been invited.
As he was thinking of taking up his case, he went to his brother,
saying that he wished to decline; but Oliver had been getting back
his courage day by day, and declared that it was more important than
ever now that he should hold his ground, and face his enemies--for
Alice's sake, if not for his own. And so Montague went to the
dinner, and saw deeper yet into the history of the stolen millions.

It was a very beautiful affair, in the beginning. There was a large
private dining-room, elaborately decorated, with a string orchestra
concealed in a bower of plants. But there were cocktails even on the
side-board at the doorway; and by the time the guests had got to the
coffee, every one was hilariously drunk. After each toast they would
hurl their glasses over their shoulders. The purpose of a "bachelor
dinner," it appeared, was a farewell to the old days and the boon
companions; so there were sentimental and comic songs which had been
composed for the occasion, and were received with whirlwinds of
laughter.

By listening closely and reading between the lines, one might get
quite a history of the young host's adventurous career. There was a
house up on the West Side; and there was a yacht, with, orgies in
every part of the world. There was the summer night in Newport
harbour, when some one had hit upon the dazzling scheme of freezing
twenty-dollar gold pieces in tiny blocks of ice, to be dropped down
the girls' backs! And there was a banquet in a studio in New York,
when a huge pie had been brought on, from which a half-nude girl had
emerged, with a flock of canary birds about her! Then there was a
damsel who had been wont to dance upon the tops of supper tables,
clad in diaphanous costume; and who had got drunk after a
theatre-party, and set out to smash up a Broadway restaurant. There
was a cousin from Chicago, a wild lad, who made a speciality of this
diversion, and whose mistresses were bathed in
champagne.--Apparently there were numberless places in the city
where such orgies were carried on continually; there were private
clubs, and artists' "studios"--there were several allusions to a
high tower, which Montague did not comprehend. Many such matters,
however, were explained to him by an elderly gentleman who sat on
his right, and who seemed to stay sober, no matter how much he
drank. Incidentally he gravely advised Montague to meet one of the
young host's mistresses, who was a "stunning" girl, and was in the
market.

Toward morning the festivities changed to a series of
wrestling-bouts; the young men stripped off their clothing and tore
the table to pieces, and piled it out of the way in a corner,
smashing most of the crockery in the process. Between the matches,
champagne would be opened by knocking off the heads of the bottles;
and this went on until four o'clock in the morning, when many of the
guests were lying in heaps upon the floor.

Montague rode home in a cab with the elderly gentleman who had sat
next to him; and on the way he asked if such affairs as this were
common. And his companion, who was a "steel man" from the West,
replied by telling him of some which he had witnessed at home. At
Siegfried Harvey's theatre-party Montague had seen a popular actress
in a musical comedy, which was then the most successful play running
in New York. The house was sold out weeks ahead, and after the
matinee you might observe the street in front of the stage-entrance
blocked by people waiting to see the woman come out. She was lithe
and supple, like a panther, and wore close-fitting gowns to reveal
her form. It seemed that her play must have been built with one
purpose in mind, to see how much lewdness could be put upon a stage
without interference by the police.--And now his companion told him
how this woman had been invited to sing at a banquet given by the
magnates of a mighty Trust, and had gone after midnight to the most
exclusive club in the town, and sung her popular ditty, "Won't you
come and play with me?" The merry magnates had taken the invitation
literally--with the result that the actress had escaped from the
room with half her clothing torn off her. And a little while later
an official of this trust had wished to get rid of his wife and
marry a chorus-girl; and when public clamour had forced the
directors to ask him to resign, he had replied by threatening to
tell about this banquet!

The next day--or rather, to be precise, that same morning--Montague
and Alice attended the gorgeous wedding. It was declared by the
newspapers to be the most "important" social event of the week; and
it took half a dozen policemen to hold back the crowds which filled
the street. The ceremony took place at St. Cecilia's, with the
stately bishop officiating, in his purple and scarlet robes. Inside
the doors were all the elect, exquisitely groomed and gowned, and
such a medley of delicious perfumes as not all the vales in Arcady
could equal. The groom had been polished and scrubbed, and looked
very handsome, though somewhat pale; and Montague could not but
smile as he observed the best man, looking so very solemn, and
recollected the drunken wrestler of a few hours before, staggering
about in a pale blue undershirt ripped up the back.

The Montagues knew by this time whom they were to avoid. They were
graciously taken under the wing of Mrs. Eldridge Devon--whose real
estate was not affected by insurance suits; and the next morning
they had the satisfaction of seeing their names in the list of those
present--and even a couple of lines about Alice's costume. (Alice
was always referred to as "Miss Montague"; it was very pleasant to
be the "Miss Montague," and to think of all the other would-be Miss
Montagues in the city, who were thereby haughtily rebuked!) In the
"yellow" papers there were also accounts of the trousseau of the
bride, and of the wonderful gifts which she had received, and of the
long honeymoon which she was to spend in the Mediterranean upon her
husband's yacht. Montague found himself wondering if the ghosts of
its former occupants would not haunt her, and whether she would have
been as happy, had she known as much as he knew.

He found food for a good deal of thought in the memory of this
banquet. Among the things which he had gathered from the songs was a
hint that Oliver, also, had some secrets, which he had not seen fit
to tell his brother. The keeping of young girls was apparently one
of the established customs of the "little brothers of the
rich"--and, for that matter, of many of the big brothers, also. A
little later Montague had a curious glimpse into the life of this
"half-world." He had occasion one evening to call up a certain
financier whom he had come to know quite well-a man of family and a
member of the church. There were some important papers to be signed
and sent off by a steamer; and the great man's secretary said that
he would try to find him. A minute or two later he called up
Montague and asked him if he would be good enough to go to an
address uptown. It was a house not far from Riverside Drive; and
Montague went there and found his acquaintance, with several other
prominent men of affairs whom he knew, conversing in a drawing-room
with one of the most charming ladies he had ever met. She was
exquisite to look at, and one of the few people in New York whom he
had found worth listening to. He spent such an enjoyable evening,
that when he was leaving, he remarked to the lady that he would like
his cousin Alice to meet her; and then he noticed that she flushed
slightly, and was embarrassed. Later on he learned to his dismay
that the charming and beautiful lady did not go into Society.

Nor was this at all rare; on the contrary, if one took the trouble
to make inquiries, he would find that such establishments were
everywhere taken for granted. Montague talked about it with Major
Venable; and out of his gossip storehouse the old gentleman drew
forth a string of anecdotes that made one's hair stand on end. There
was one all-powerful magnate, who had a passion for the wife of a
great physician; and he had given a million dollars or so to build a
hospital, and had provided that it should be the finest in the
world, and that this physician should go abroad for three years to
study the institutions of Europe! No conventions counted with this
old man--if he saw a woman whom he wanted, he would ask for her; and
women in Society felt that it was an honour to be his mistress. Not
long after this a man who voiced the anguish of a mighty nation was
turned out of several hotels in New York because he was not married
according to the laws of South Dakota; but this other man would take
a woman to any hotel in the city, and no one would dare oppose him!