Pemberton replied in a severe tone:—
"That is easy to say and easy to believe. But when I think of the magnificent gift to the public just made by one of these very men whom you would consider a mere money-grabber, I confess I am obliged to doubt your easy analysis of our modern life!"
Pemberton spoke with a kind of authority. He was one of the older men of the club, much respected in the city, and perfectly fearless. But the broker, also, feared no man's opinion.
"Gifts to education!" sneered Ben Harris. "That's what they do to show off when they're through with their goods. Anyway, there's too much education going around. It don't count. The only thing that counts, to-day, here, now, is money. Can you make it or steal it or—inherit it!"
He looked across the room at Jackson Hart and laughed. The architect disliked this vulgar reference to his own situation, but, on the whole, he was much more inclined to agree with the broker than he would have been a few days earlier.
"I am sorry that such ideas should be expressed inside this club," Pemberton answered gravely. "If there is one place in this city where the old ideals of the professions should be reverenced, where men should deny that cheap philosophy of the street, by their acts as well as by their words, it should be here in this club."
Some of the others in the group nodded their approval of this speech. They said nothing, however; for the conversation had reached a point of delicacy that made men hesitate to say what they thought. Pemberton turned on his heel and walked away. The irrepressible Harris called after him belligerently:—
"Oh, I don't know about that, now, Mr. Pemberton. It takes all kinds of men to make a club, you know."
As the little group broke up, Harris linked his arm in Hart's.
"I've got something to say to you, Jackie," he said boisterously. "We'll order dinner, if you are free, and I'll put you up to something that's better than old Pemberton's talk. It just occurred to me while we were gassing here."
The young architect did not quite like Harris's style, but he had already planned to dine at the club, and they went upstairs to the dining-room together. He was curious to hear what the broker might have to suggest to him.
Hart had agreed with Pemberton's ideas, naturally enough, in the abstract. But in the concrete, the force of circumstances, here in this roaring city where he found himself caught, was fast preparing him to accept the Harris view. Like most men of his class he was neither an idealist nor a weakling: he was merely a young man, still making up his character as he went along, and taking color more or less from the landscape he found himself in.
His aspirations for art, if not fine, were sufficiently earnest and sincere. He had always thought of himself as luckily fortuned, so that he could devote himself to getting real distinction in his profession. So he had planned his life in Paris. Now, brought back from that pleasant world into this stern city, with all its striving, apparently, centred upon the one business of making money, then deprived by what seemed to him a harsh and unfair freak of fortune of all his pleasant expectations, he was trying to read the face of Destiny. And there he seemed to find written what this gritty broker had harshly expressed. There was, to be sure, another road to fortune, which had not been mentioned, and that was to make a rich marriage. This road had been followed with signal success by a number of his acquaintances: it was one of the well-recognized methods of attaining that point of vantage which he had hoped to inherit—to win one of the daughters of wealth! And since his return from Europe the young architect had had his opportunities in the society where he had been welcomed. But apart from his growing love for Helen Spellman, he was too sturdy a man to like this easy method of advancement. He turned from the idea with instinctive repugnance, and an honest feeling of contempt for the men who in that way had sneaked into fortune.
"Say, you've got a good friend in Mrs. Will Phillips," Harris began bluntly when they were seated opposite each other.
"Oh, Mrs. Phillips! I used to see something of her in Paris," Jackson acknowledged indifferently.
He remembered that he had not followed the widow's invitation to call upon her, all thought of her having been driven out of his mind by the happenings of the last few days.
"I rather think she would like to see more of you in Chicago!" the broker laughed back.
"How do you know?" Hart asked, wondering where Harris's path crossed that of the gay Mrs. Phillips.
"Oh, I know all right. She's a good customer of ours. I've been talking to her half the afternoon about things."
"Oh!" Jackson exclaimed, not much interested in the subject.
The broker's next remark had nothing to do with Mrs. Phillips.
"You fellows don't make much money building houses. Ain't that so? You need other jobs. Well, I am going to give you a pointer."
He stopped mysteriously, and then began again:—
"I happen to know that the C. R. and N. Road is going to put a lot of money into improvements this summer. Among other things they're getting ready to build new stations all along the north shore line—you know, up through the suburbs—Forest Park, Shoreham, and so on. They've got a lot of swell patronage out that way, and they are making ready for more."
Hart listened to the broker with renewed interest. He wondered how Harris should happen to know this news ahead of the general public, and he began to see the connection it might have with his own fortune.
"That's where they are going to put a lot of their surplus earnings. Now, those stations must be the top of the style—real buildings, not sheds. And I don't think they have any architect yet."
"Well!" the architect remarked cynically. "The president or one of the vice-presidents will have a son, or nephew, or some one to work in. Or, perhaps, they may have a competitive trial for the plans."
"Perhaps they will, and perhaps they won't," Harris answered knowingly. "The man who will decide all that is their first vice-president—Raymond, Colonel Stevens P. Raymond—know him?"
Hart shook his head.
"Well, Mrs. Phillips does. He lives out in Forest Park, where she's thinking of building a big house."
"Is Mrs. Phillips thinking of building in Forest Park?" the architect asked quickly.
Harris looked at him in a bored manner.
"Why, I thought you were going to draw the plans!"
"She asked me to come to see her," Hart admitted. "But that was all. I thought it was just a social matter."
"Well, if a rich and good-looking woman asked me to call on her, I shouldn't take all year about making up my mind!"
Jackson could not help thinking that it would be more embarrassing to call on the widow now than if he had not had this talk with the broker. His relations with Mrs. Phillips in Paris had been pleasant, unalloyed with business. He remembered how he had rather patronized the ambitious young woman, who had desired to meet artists, to go to their studios, and to give little dinners where every one talked French but her stupid husband.
"The widow Phillips thinks a lot of your ability, Jackie, and old S.P.R. thinks a lot of the widow. Now do you see?"
The architect laughed nervously. He could see plainly enough what was meant, but he did not like it altogether.
"She can do what she likes with the old man. The job is as good as yours, if you work it properly. I've given you the tip straight ahead of the whole field. Not a soul knows that the C. R. and N. is going in for this kind of thing."
"It would be a big chance," the architect replied. "It was good of you to think of