Chapter 24
"I haven't the slightest idea of what he might do. Especially"--he hesitated--"as you never have had any loans from his people--I understand--"
"No," said Neergard; "I haven't."
"It's rather out of their usual, I believe--"
"So they say. But Long Island acreage needn't beg favours now. That's all over, Captain Selwyn. Fane, Harmon & Co. know that; Mr. Gerard ought to know it, too."
Selwyn looked troubled. "Shall I consult Mr. Gerard?" he repeated. "I should like to if you have no objection."
Neergard's small, close-set eyes were focused on a spot just beyond Selwyn's left shoulder.
"Suppose you sound him," he suggested, "in strictest--"
"Naturally," cut in Selwyn dryly; and turning to his littered desk, opened the first letter his hand encountered. Now that his head was turned, Neergard looked full at the back of his neck for a long minute, then went out silently.
That night Selwyn stopped at his sister's house before going to his own rooms, and, finding Austin alone in the library, laid the matter before him exactly as Neergard had put it.
"You see," he added, "that I'm a sort of an a.s.s about business methods.
What I like--what I understand, is to use good judgment, go in and boldly buy a piece of property, wait until it becomes more valuable, either through improvements or the natural enhancement of good value, then take a legitimate profit, and repeat the process. That, in outline, is what I understand. But, Austin, this furtive pouncing on a thing and clubbing other people's money out of them with it--this slyly acquiring land that is necessary to an unsuspecting neighbour and then holding him up--I don't like. There's always something of this sort that prevents my cordial co-operation with Neergard--always something in the schemes which hints of--of squeezing--of something underground--"
"Like the water which he's going to squeeze out of the wells?"
Selwyn laughed.
"Phil," said his brother-in-law, "if you think anybody can do a profitable business except at other people's expense, you are an a.s.s."
"Am I?" asked Selwyn, still laughing frankly.
"Certainly. The land is there, plain enough for anybody to see. It's always been there; it's likely to remain for a few aeons, I fancy.
"Now, along comes Meynheer Julius Neergard--the only man who seems to have brains enough to see the present value of that parcel to the Siowitha people. Everybody else had the same chance; n.o.body except Neergard knew enough to take it. Why shouldn't he profit by it?"
"Yes--but if he'd be satisfied to cut it up into lots and do what is fair--"
"Cut it up into nothing! Man alive, do you suppose the Siowitha people would let him? They've only a few thousand acres; they've _got_ to control that land. What good is their club without it? Do you imagine they'd let a town grow up on three sides of their precious game-preserve? And, besides, I'll bet you that half of their streams and lakes take rise on other people's property--and
"That sort of--of business--that kind of coercion, does not appeal to me," said Selwyn gravely.
"Then you'd better go into something besides business in this town,"
observed Austin, turning red. "Good Lord, man, where would my Loan and Trust Company be if we never foreclosed, never swallowed a good thing when we see it?"
"But you don't threaten people."
Austin turned redder. "If people or corporations stand in our way and block progress, of course we threaten. Threaten? Isn't the threat of punishment the very basis of law and order itself? What are laws for?
And we have laws, too--laws, under the law--"
"Of the State of New Jersey," said Selwyn, laughing. "Don't flare up, Austin; I'm probably not cut out for a business career, as you point out--otherwise I would not have consulted you. I know some laws--including 'The Survival of the Fittest,' and the 'Chain-of-Destruction'; and I have read the poem beginning
"'Big bugs have little bugs to bite 'em.'
"That's all right, too; but speaking of laws, I'm always trying to formulate one for my particular self-government; and you don't mind, do you?"
"No," said Gerard, much amused, "I don't mind. Only when you talk ethics--talk sense at the same time."
"I wish I knew how," he said.
They discussed Neergard's scheme for a little while longer; Austin, shrewd and cautious, declined any personal part in the financing of the deal, although he admitted the probability of prospective profits.
"Our investments and our loans are of a different character," he explained, "but I have no doubt that Fane, Harmon & Co.--"
"Why, both Fane and Harmon are members of the club!" laughed Selwyn.
"You don't expect Neergard to go to them?"
A peculiar expression flickered in Gerard's heavy features; perhaps he thought that Fane and Harmon and Jack Ruthven were not above exploiting their own club under certain circ.u.mstances. But whatever his opinion, he said nothing further; and, suggesting that Selwyn remain to dine, went off to dress.
A few moments later he returned, crestfallen and conciliatory:
"I forgot, Nina and I are dining at the Orchils. Come up a moment; she wants to speak to you."
So they took the rose-tinted rococo elevator; Austin went away to his own quarters, and Selwyn tapped at Nina's boudoir.
"Is that you, Phil? One minute; Watson is finis.h.i.+ng my hair.... Come in, now; and kindly keep your distance, my friend. Do you suppose I want Rosamund to know what brand of war-paint I use?"
"Rosamund," he repeated, with a good-humoured shrug; "it's likely--isn't it?"
"Certainly it's likely. You'd never know you were telling her anything--but she'd extract every detail in ten seconds.... I understand she adores you, Phil. What have you done to her?"
"That's likely, too," he remarked, remembering his savagely polite rebuke to that young matron after the Minster dinner.
"Well, she does; you've probably piqued her; that's the sort of man she likes.... Look at my hair--how bright and wavy it is, Phil. Tell me, _do_ I appear fairly pretty to-night?"
"You're all right, Nina; I mean it," he said. "How are the kids? How is Eileen?"
"That's why I sent for you. Eileen is furious at being left here all alone; she's practically well and she's to dine with Drina in the library. Would you be good enough to dine there with them? Eileen, poor child, is heartily sick of her imprisonment; it would be a mercy, Phil."
"Why, yes, I'll do it, of course; only I've some matters at home--"
"Home! You call those stuffy, smoky, impossible, half-furnished rooms _home_! Phil, when are you ever going to get some pretty furniture and art things? Eileen and I have been talking it over, and we've decided to go there and see what you need and then order it, whether you like it or not."
"Thanks," he said, laughing; "it's just what I've tried to avoid. I've got things where I want them now--but I knew it was too comfortable to last. Boots said that some woman would be sure to be good to me with an art-nouveau rocking-chair."
"A perfect sample of man's grat.i.tude," said Nina, exasperated; "for I've ordered two beautiful art-nouveau rocking-chairs, one for you and one for Mr. Lansing. Now you can go and humiliate poor little Eileen, who took so much pleasure in planning with me for your comfort. As for your friend Boots, he's unspeakable--with my compliments."
Selwyn stayed until he made peace with his sister, then he mounted to the nursery to "lean over" the younger children and preside at prayers.
This being accomplished, he descended to the library, where Eileen Erroll in a filmy, lace-clouded gown, full of turquoise tints, reclined with her arm around Drina amid heaps of cus.h.i.+ons, watching the waitress prepare a table for two.
He took the fresh, cool hand she extended and sat down on the edge of her couch.