He had no friends—none even of the poor sort known as "business" friends. He had no social relations of any kind. He had no sense of any right relation to the community in which he lived. He had next to no family life. He had no apparent consciousness of the physical basis of existence—for him diet, rest, hygiene were mere nothings. But none of these considerations disturbed him very much. He could do without friends—having so good a friend in himself. He could dispense with social diversion—so long as the affairs of the Underground, and the Illuminating Company, and those Western mines continued to occupy his attention. He could rub along without the sympathy and respect of the community—while he and it held the relative positions of knife and oyster. He could do perfectly well without hygiene and proper regimen as long as dyspepsia and nerves and rheumatism were not too pressing in their attentions. And he could, of course, trust his family to run itself without any great amount of attention from its natural head.
His family had run itself for twenty odd years. It had gone on its scattered way rejoicing—after the good, new, Western fashion which finds the unit of society less in the family than in the individual; and now a very promising young filly, after having "run" herself for a good part of this twenty years, was on the point of taking the bit between her teeth and of running away altogether. The family carryall, whose front seat he had left in order that he might irresponsibly dangle his legs out from behind, was in danger of a runaway and a smash-up, and he was forced to the humiliating expedient of installing a more competent driver than himself in his own place behind the dashboard.
Ogden slid rapidly along the narrow aisle which ran behind the row of coops that confined the tellers, and found Fairchild going over yesterday's balances with the general bookkeeper. Here he was intercepted by the last of the messengers, who had had some delay in getting his batch of drafts and notes arranged properly into a route.
He was a boy of seventeen, with a pert nose and a pasty complexion. He had put on his hat with a backward tilt that displayed his bang. He was the son of a millionnaire stockholder, and was on the threshold of his business career. He panted for consideration, and he had found, during an experience of six months, that most consideration was to be won from the newest men.
"What's up now, George?" he asked, familiarly. He twitched his narrow little shoulders as he teetered back and forth on his toes. "Old man on the rampage some more? He's had it pretty bad for the last three weeks."
"Oh, get out!" Ogden responded briefly.
Fairchild was a man well on in the fifties. He had a quiet, self-contained manner, a smooth forehead, a gray moustache. His general trustworthiness was highly esteemed by Brainard, who generally treated him with civility and sometimes almost with consideration. He had his privileges. A member of the board of directors in the Brainard interest, he would be given the opportunity to resign whenever some especially dubious piece of business was looming up, with the certainty of re-election within the year. He was too old to tear himself up by the roots, and too valuable to be allowed, in any event, the radical boon of transplantation. Of course he paid for such a concession; he acted as a buffer between Brainard and the more pathetic of the stockholders, and now, as we see, he was summoned to deal with a domestic crisis.
"My dear girl," Ogden presently heard him saying in a dry, cautious, and yet somewhat parental tone, "you know what his position is. Not in the church; no, I don't mean that. He is only a policy clerk in that insurance office, at ten dollars a week, probably—hardly enough for him to live on decently, alone. Yes, I know he gets more from the choir, but even that—"
Ogden stopped one ear by propping his elbow on his ledger and putting his hand to his head, and went on with his writing as well as he could. But he had left the Underground for St. Asaph's; he was busy no longer with notes for collection, but with the notes—the melting tenor notes—of the all-admired Vibert. His fellow—clerks noiselessly retired, and a long train of choristers slowly made their way through the long aisle the others had left vacant. Among them Vibert—tall, dark, hard, and cruel; an angel, possibly; but if so, surely one of the fallen. And a little girl of eighteen, whose blue eyes showed out from under her fluffy blond locks, and whose lips were parted in a radiant, reverent smile, steadied a trembling hand on the back of a pew and looked after him with a fond, open, and intense regard that was a perfect epitome of love.
Those same blue eyes were now on the other side of the partition, regarding her father's lieutenant with a look as bright and hard as was ever her father's own; and as she listened to the words of warning, those same full and pliant lips set themselves in a firm line that Brainard himself could not have made straighter or more unswerving.
"Nobody really knows" the cashier went on, "who his people are, or where he is from, or anything definite about him. He is one of thousands. Here is a town full to overflowing with single young men. They come from everywhere, for all reasons. They are taken on faith, largely, and are treated pretty well. Most of them are all right, no doubt; but others—Of course I know nothing about Mr.—about this one; but your own brother, now—"
"That's just what I tell her," broke in Brainard, with a distressful whimper. "Burt says, and he knows it's true, that—"
Ogden again stopped his ears. If by any possibility there was aught good under that chaste surplice, he would not wilfully deprive himself of any chance for belief. If that full neck and heavy jaw and sinister eye and world-worn cheek and elaborate assumption of professional sanctity offered the slightest prospect of decent manliness and of happy home life, he would not allow one mere solitary phrase to shut that prospect out. But he could not shut out a disgust that gradually crept in upon him—a disgust for the man who would arrange the most sacred and confidential affairs of his family circle in the same general fashion that he would use for dealing with the concerns of an ordinary business acquaintance; a disgust for the family life in which such a state of things was possible. Had the girl no mother? She had, indeed; but that mother was an invalid—one who, with the advancing years, had come to know more and more of tonics and cordials, and less and less of her daughters' needs. Had she no brother? But what can a brother do?—order the intruder from the premises and intimidate him from returning, which Burt had done. Were there no friends or relations to see how matters were going and to speak out their minds boldly? But whenever has such a course availed? The friends cease to be friends, and the relatives are relatives at a greater remove only, and all goes on as before. No; there was only one way to settle this affair—the "business" way; and that way Brainard took—necessarily, instinctively.
He had never lived for anything but business. He had never eaten and drunk for anything but business—his family shared his farm-like fare and his primitive hours. He had never built for anything but business; though constantly investing in grounds and buildings, he had occupied his own home for fifteen years as a tenant merely, before he could bring himself to a grudging purchase. He never dressed for anything but business—he had never worn a dress-coat in his life. He wrote about nothing but business—his nearest relative was nevermore than "dear sir," and he himself was never otherwise than "yours truly"; and he wrote on business letterheads even to his family. And now that the present domestic difficulty was to be adjusted, no other method was available. But he had the satisfaction of feeling that his daughter was meeting him in his own spirit and on his own ground.
She eyed him with a cold and direct gaze like that of the sun which is setting in a clear winter sky. Not a single cloud-shred of affection showed itself in the wide expanse of crisp and tingling atmosphere which she seemed to have created about her; not a particle of floating vapor helped to diffuse a glow of sentiment over a situation which had much need of some such softening influence. Her fierce little glance tore down every scrap of reverence, of home love, of filial duty: life had never seemed to him quite so bald, so unfurnished, so bereft of un-businesslike non-essentials.'
"I shall marry Russell," she declared, "in spite of you and in spite of everything. You may say that he has no money, and that you don't know his family;