The Barrier: A Novel

  CHAPTER XIX

  "PUT MONEY IN THY PURSE"

  While Judith Blanchard, as if defying fate, held her head higher thanbefore, there grew on one of our characters, namely Jim Wayne, the habitof looking at the ground. Jim was one of those who, having a weak littleconscience, cannot be wicked with an air.

  And yet Mrs. Harmon, if she saw any change in him, thought it was forthe better. Into her eyes, at least, he looked freely; his glance wasmore ardent, and only when she spoke of Beth did he glower and lookaway. In their conversations, therefore, Beth was no longer mentioned.Nor did he ever speak to Beth of his intimacy with Mrs. Harmon.

  Thus Beth was surprised one day when, meeting Mrs. Wayne, the elder ladyasked: "Wasn't it pleasant to see Jim last night?"

  "Jim?" asked Beth. "Was he in town?"

  "He came to the house for just one minute. I supposed he was hurrying tosee you. Ah, Beth, we mothers!" And Mrs. Wayne sighed.

  "But he didn't come to see me," said Beth. "It must have been businessthat brought him. I'll ask George."

  Mather said he had seen Jim, but only by accident, when, returning fromthe theater, Wayne had passed him, apparently hurrying for the latetrain.

  "In town all the evening and didn't come to see me?" thought Beth. Theidea troubled her so much that Mather perceived it.

  Yet no outsider understood the situation quite so clearly as Ellis, whohad been before Jim at the Harmons' that evening, and left soon after hecame. "I'm going to the Blanchards'," he said. "Shall I tell them toexpect you, Mr. Wayne?"

  Jim was so unskilled in finesse that he said he was going to take theearly train. Ellis smiled.

  "You shan't tease him!" declared Mrs. Harmon, putting her hand on Jim'ssleeve. At which childishness the smile on Ellis's face became broad,and he went away. Returning after a couple of hours, he was in time tosee Jim leave the house hastily, on his way to the station. A woman'ssilhouette showed on the glass of the vestibule door, and Ellis tried atrick. He ran quickly up the steps and knocked on the door. It wasopened immediately.

  "Back again?" asked Mrs. Harmon eagerly. "Oh, it's only you, Stephen!"

  "Only me," and he turned to go, but she seized him.

  "Why did you do that?" she demanded, and then not waiting for an answerasked: "You didn't tell the Blanchards he was here?"

  "Not I," he replied. "Lydia, why do you hold me so?"

  "Why did you startle me so?" she retorted. "But go along with you!" Sohe went, having by his manoeuver found out enough.

  It was not wholly interest in his house, therefore, which took Ellis toChebasset before many days. He went to the office of the mill, and as hestood before the chimney and looked up at it he mused that,metaphorically speaking, it would not take much prying at itsfoundations to make it fall: Wayne was a weak prop to such a structure.He opened the office door. Jim, from bending over Miss Jenks as she satat her desk, rose up and stared at him. And the little pale stenographergrew pink.

  "People usually knock," Jim was beginning. "--Oh, Mr. Ellis!"

  "Down for the afternoon," said Ellis. "I hate to lunch alone at thishotel. Won't you come with me?"

  "Why, I----" hesitated Jim.

  "Going up on the hill afterward to see my house," added Ellis. "I won'tkeep you long."

  "You're very good," decided Jim. "Yes, I'll come."

  "Of course it's wretched stuff they give us here," remarked Ellis whenthey were seated at the hotel. "Will you take water, or risk the wine?"

  "The wine's not so bad," said Jim. He was pleased at his invitation, buteven deference to one so rich could not subdue his pride in specialknowledge. "I don't know how it happens, but they have some very decentMedoc."

  "Then we'll try it," and Ellis ordered a bottle. He began to feel sureof his estimate of a young man who took wine when alone in the country.Bad blood will show; Ellis recalled his experience with Jim's father.

  For although the promoter had once met Mather's father and come offsecond-best, with the elder Wayne he had been easily master. Ellis hadbought up most of Wayne's outstanding notes by the time alcohol removedfrom society one who so well adorned it; the sale of the house had beenmerely a return of I. O. U.'s. In just the same way Ellis was providingagainst Blanchard's collapse, and now was watching Jim as the wineworked on him.

  "A hole, a hole!" cried Jim, and the wave of his third glass includedall Chebasset. "If it weren't for a little girl, Mr. Ellis----!" Jimgulped down more wine, and Ellis ordered a second bottle.

  "That little girl," he asked, "whom I saw at the office?"

  "She?" cried Jim loftily. "All very well to have fun with in this place,but a fellow of my standing looks forward to something better than that.Don't pretend ignorance, Mr. Ellis. You're learning what's worth having,even if you didn't know it when first you came to Stirling."

  "I know very little about women," returned Ellis steadily.

  "Gad," cried Jim, "you've chosen pretty well, then."

  "At least," was the reply, and Ellis sighed as if regretfully, "I can'tkeep three going at once."

  Jim laughed. "You don't regret it, I know well enough. You've got toomany other things to think of. I have to do it, to make lifeinteresting."

  Such a cub as this, it was plain, deserved no mercy. "You won't succeedin one quarter, at least," Ellis answered.

  "Where, then?" demanded Jim.

  Ellis took his first sip of wine. "At a certain lady's where we havemet."

  Jim resorted to pantomime. He reached for the bottle and filled hisglass; this he held up to the light, and squinted through it; then withdeliberation he drank off the wine, and reached for the fresh bottle.After filling, he looked at Ellis. All this he did with an air of very,very evident amusement, and at the end he chuckled.

  "For the reason," continued Ellis, quite unmoved, "that you haven't thecash." He took his second sip, but Jim laughed outright.

  Then the youth became grave. "Money," he said emphatically, "is all verywell in its place. But though you've made your way by it, sir, youoverestimate it. Why, that Mrs. Harmon would take----" Suddenly Jim grewred in the face. "You insult her, sir!"

  "Good," remarked Ellis, very coldly. "The waiter is out of the room;recollect yourself when he returns. Recollect also that Mrs. Harmon is avery old friend of mine."

  "But," stammered Jim, somewhat abashed, "when you say that she wouldsell herself----"

  "You were drinking before you came here," said Ellis, "or you wouldn'ttake such ideas so easily." He removed the bottle from Jim's elbow,then, as if on second thought, he put it back again. "This is a lonelyplace, Mr. Wayne; I don't wonder that you take a cock-tail occasionallyin the morning. But just remember that it may prevent you from seeing aman's meaning."

  "I thought----" began Jim, but Ellis cut him short.

  "I know; but never mind. I meant, my dear man, a libel on the sex,perhaps, but not on the individual. They're fond of finery, that's all.And you haven't the money to give it." He looked at Jim with a smile.

  "You can't give it to her!" cried Jim. But the exclamation was almost aquestion.

  "To some women you can't--perhaps. But I've never met the kind. And doyou suppose the Judge knows what comes into the house?"

  "Gad!" murmured Jim.

  "A weakness of the sex," resumed Ellis. "Just remember that. Women aresofter than we; we've got to humour them. There's no harm in it; a pearlpin now and then--something good, oh, you need something pretty good, ornothing at all."

  "Then I'll go on the nothing-at-all system," said Jim with gloom.

  "Rot!" answered Ellis. "Do you save so carefully?"

  "Save!" exclaimed Jim. "Do you suppose I can save?"

  "I forgot," and Ellis spoke apologetically. "Of course, with yoursalary. But there'll be a good time some day, Mr. Wayne."

  "When I'm old," grumbled Jim.

  "Gad!" cried Ellis, "with your ability and your youth, I'd be somethousands richer every year!"

  "I know," answered the lamb, trying to look as wolfish as
he should."But a fellow can do nothing nowadays without capital."

  "But you have something?"

  "Some few thousands," replied Jim with deep scorn of fate. "And in mymother's name."

  "Your mother is conservative?" asked Ellis.

  "Scared," answered Jim.

  "And all you learned on the market," said Ellis with sympathy, "goinghere to waste! Too bad! Get some one to back you."

  Jim looked at him sidewise. "Will you do it?"

  But Ellis smiled. "Why should I? No; stand on your own feet. Get yourmother's power of attorney, and surprise her some day by doubling herincome. But as for that, doesn't money pass through your hands down hereevery week."

  "Passes through quickly," answered Wayne. "Comes down Saturday morning,and I pay the men at noon."

  "Pay every week?" Ellis inquired. "Every fortnight is what I believe in.But of course--and yet three days, with clever placing, would be enoughto make you double that money. Three weeks, and you could--doanything!"

  "By Jove!" cried Jim, starting.

  "I'll be off," said Ellis, pushing back his chair. "This lunch wasbetter than I expected. We must meet here again, some day."

  "Good!" answered Jim. He finished his last glass, but as he rose he wasas steady as if he carried nothing. "For all that," muttered Ellis tohimself, "your brain is softer than half an hour ago." They separated atthe door of the hotel, and went their respective ways.

  When Ellis, after inspecting his house, stood on the terrace and lookeddown upon Chebasset, he still had Jim on his mind. Would the ideas work?Did he still taste that wine in his mouth, or his own words? Small! andEllis spat. Small, but well done, as the event was to prove. And yetEllis had neither heard nor read of Mephisto and the student, of Iagoand Roderigo.