6 A New Policy

Arthur, not deficient at all in keenness, only looking hitherto in suspicion, was seeing a light of his own. While Mr. Howe and Mr. Hargrove were in caucus to decide the fate of someone for whom he cared, and incidentally his own, he communed with himself, and sought what would come of it.

It was singularly vivid to him now, and, in the light of the look backward, events appeared in their proper proportion. His opinion of the transit bill was not shaken in the least; he saw again the early enthusiasm of Radigan and then his later indifference and hesitation—he frowned at the memory—and he passed on to the emphatic way in which Mr. Howe and Mr. Hargrove had commended the bill. Then, like a flash of lightning through the clouds came that glimpse of a broad back and sturdy shoulders departing from the presence of the great banker. Now he could account for the unseen and mysterious force that was always fighting him, and that had fought him so effectively. He had been bought and sold, sold by a traitor, and bought by a banker because he opposed the East Side Rapid Transit Bill. His mental operations were almost the same as Lucy Howe’s had been and they led to the same result. He did not feel any doubt about his conclusion.

His rage at first was against Radigan, the man who had been put there to manage his campaign, and then turned from Radigan to Howe. Radigan might have some excuse, but James Howe had none—there he stopped and remembered that James Howe was Lucy’s father. How could he denounce him while he remembered her? He had another bitter mental struggle now. He knew that he loved Lucy Howe, that there was no other woman in the world for him, but he knew, also, that he and James Howe were going to meet in conflict. No other honest road led out of it for him, and he was no coward; nor would she have him to be one, if she could care for him at all.

It was late afternoon when he returned to the city, and in order to be sure, in order that no last lurking doubt might remain to trouble his mind he telephoned to Collins asking if he would meet him. Back came the answer from Collins that he would come at once to Mr. Cathcart’s house, if Mr. Cathcart would wait for him there.

The reporter was shown to Cathcart’s room and the two shook hands with warmth.

“I’ve taken a certain liberty with you, Mr. Collins,” said Arthur. “I’ve no news for you, but I want to consult you about something that is very personal to me.”

Collins sat down before the open grate.

“I can guess what it is Mr. Cathcart,” he said. “The Rapid Transit Bill?”

“Yes, the Rapid Transit Bill.”

Cathcart drew up a chair, and also sat down, but at the other angle of the fire. The reporter was expectant, intense interest showing in his face.

“I am asking you for information, Mr. Collins,” said Cathcart, “all that you feel you can give. The night after the election we walked through the street together, and you told me that you were going to make some researches about the bill. You probably have sources of information that would be closed to me. Will you tell me what you have learned?”

Collins spread out his hands towards the fire, not because they were cold, but as a gesture.

“Will you tell me first what you suspect or rather what you believe?” he asked.

“Certainly. I believe that James Howe, William Hargrove, and the Twentieth National Bank are the backers and expect to be the beneficiaries of the bill, and that they paid Radigan to have me beaten.”

“You are right, Mr. Cathcart,” said Collins. “I’ve been at work on that matter every minute, barring meat and sleep, since the election, and I’ve trailed it down. The incorporators of the bill are mere dummies, tools of Mr. Howe, financed by him and used by him whenever it suits his purposes. I got enough facts straight from one of those men himself to work out the rest. How much he paid Radigan we don’t know, and, in fact, we cannot prove that he paid him at all, but we have enough to leave the obvious inference in the minds of every sane, clear-thinking man. We shall publish the whole story tomorrow.”

“I knew it,” said Arthur.

He rested his head on his hand and gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Collins did not speak for some time, but his words then were to the point, although brief.

“I guess it’s going to be a fight to the death between you and Mr. Howe,” he said.

“I mean to do my best. I want to thank you, Mr. Collins, for the help you’ve given me.”

“I’m not wholly unselfish,” he said. “I like you, Mr. Cathcart, but you are a source of news in yourself and a source of news in others. I want to keep next to such a fountain head.”

Arthur smiled.

“I promise you,” he said, “that if I have any news that should go to the press you shall not be neglected.”

“It’s a bargain,” said Collins, “and I think that you can rely upon the support of my paper. Of course, you know that I am only a reporter, not the editor—nor even an editor cannot make any promise—but I know, from what I heard at the office, that our sheet is interested in you and means to back you, and you can always rely upon Yours Truly, Robert Collins, to boom you, because I think you ought to be boomed,”

Arthur rose early the next morning and ate breakfast a full hour before his uncle’s usual time, doing so on purpose, because he wished to read Collins’ newspaper and take it away before Mr. Cathcart could see it. The exposure was there, occupying three columns of the first page, and the news article advanced no opinion, merely relating the facts. It stated that James Howe, William Hargrove, and their associates in the Twentieth National Bank were really the East Side Rapid Transit Company. It stated that these gentlemen, in the early days of Mr. Cathcart’s campaign, had expected him to be a friend of theirs. They knew that his upright life, his attractive young personality, and the fame of his family name would make him a conspicuous figure at Albany, worth to them any half dozen in the legislature.

These gentlemen were bitterly disappointed when Mr. Cathcart suddenly turned against their bill, convinced that it was bad. Before that time his election was assured, but then the feeling in the district began to turn against him. Radigan, the district leader, became lukewarm, and a district, always Democratic hitherto, gave a Republican majority. Only a powerful agency could have achieved such a result. These facts were placed in such relation to each other that the dullest could draw only one inference, and the newspaper stated that it had not been able, until the last day or two, to discover who were the real backers of the bill. The article closed with the statement that Mr. Cathcart would be an Independent candidate for the General Assembly from the same district at the general election in the autumn, on the platform of opposition to the corrupt alliance of boss and great corporation, and closed with the prediction that New York would see a beautiful fight in one small area at least. A short editorial endorsed the news article, and said that the public might expect much from Mr. Cathcart.

Arthur smiled as he read: smiled with pleasure at Collins’ enthusiasm, and with pleasure at the good light in which he himself was put. Then putting the sheet in his pocket he went straight to the Palace Restaurant.

Radigan was in his little office reading a newspaper and his brow was clouded. Arthur could not keep from seeing that it was the Standard, Collins’ journal, and the leader’s eyes were on the exposure on the first page. He rose quickly as Cathcart entered, drove the frown away from his brow, and held out his hand with every appearance of geniality.

“I’m glad you’ve come so soon, Mr. Cathcart,” he said, “I’ve just been reading this lying stuff in the Standard, and I knew that you would pay no attention to it”

“No, Mr. Radigan,” said Cathcart quickly, “it is not lying stuff. It is true, every word of it, and you know that it is true, I guessed the story, even before it was printed there, and on that account I do not take your hand, because, after you hear what I have to say, I do not think you will want me to take it.”

Radigan had not dealt with men all his life for nothing. He did not burst into any explosion, he did not call names, he merely looked sorrowful, exceedingly sorrowful and sat down again, turning his pitying eyes upon Cathcart, while he rubbed his chin thoughtfully with the rejected hand.

“You don’t mean to say that you are a pin-headed reformer, all sorts of a fool.” he said.

“I am a reformer, or at least I hope to be one,” replied Cathcart sitting down, “and I have come here, Mr. Radigan, to tell you two or three things: First, that I knew you sold me out to the Rapid Transit Bill; second, that I intend, as you have probably read in the Standard, to be a candidate again in this district; third, that my platform will be anti-graft and down with the corrupt alliance of Radigan and the Twentieth Nalional Bank. What do you think of that?”

A slow flush came into Radigan’s face, despite all his smoothness and self command, and his fingers moved uneasily, an infallible sign of nervousness. But he was sufficiently master of himself to keep his voice calm.

“I’ve known worse platforms,” he replied judicially, “still I did not think, Mr. Cathcart, that you were a demagogue and a sore-head.”

“I am neither.”

“I let it go as you say. But you say that I sold you out to the Transit Company. What proof have you got?”

“I shall make the charge.”

“It’s a risky thing to do. I am not speaking of myself only, but James Howe is a powerful man.”

“So I have already learned.”

Radigan’s face fell a little at the quick thrust inside his guard, but he had learned long ago never to give away to temper and he forced a smile.

“Do you mean to say that you expect to smash up the party organization in this district?” he asked.

“I intend to be elected, if I can, and if that means smashing the party organization in the district, let it go smash. I only wish that I were big enough to smash both party organizations in the whole city, as they are now constituted.”

Radigan was reassured by the very scope of Cathcart’s vision.

“I never dreamed that your head was full of wheels, Mr. Cathcart,” he said, “I don’t think we have any need to be scared of you.”

“Perhaps not,” said Cathcart, “but I thought we should understand each other. Good morning.”

“Good morning,” said Radigan, turning indifferently to his newspaper. But the boss was not so composed as he seemed to be. Despite himself, he feared a man who was so open and direct, who departed so far from his own devious methods. He had seen enough of Arthur to know that he was not in any sense a coward, either physical, mental, or moral.

The interview had been without any of the features of a scene. Voices had never been raised, and tempers were not lost. Arthur was glad that it was so. Despite Radigan’s base treachery, he had a lingering liking for him. He found himself trying to make excuses for him; he thought of his birth, his environment, and the pernicious school in which he had been educated, and he regretted that he should have to attack him.

Winter fled, and spring came in its place. Spring is usually deceitful in our country, making many promises and keeping few of them, but this year it was no coy maid, coming early and staying. The grass was fresh and abundant, and the trees were all abloom when the Cathcarts went to the country, and Arthur found fresh buoyancy there. He would have been happy, if it had not been for Lucy Howe. He sought opportunities to see her, but none came in his way, and he felt that he could not go to her father’s house now.

The “exposure” had not hurt James Howe in his world, rather it had helped him. Other great financiers and the swarm of little fellows who follow in their wake trying to imitate them had acclaimed it as a wonderfully clever stroke.

Arthur knew of all that was passing. but he said nothing, and bided his time. One of the things that he did now was to study the general principles of law privately. He foresaw that he would need it in his career, and with the concentration that he had acquired bent every faculty to the task. A lawyer he never expected or wished to be, but he wished to know enough to be one had he chosen.

Cathcart was no prig, and he liked moreover the society of men of his own age and position. He took his almost daily exercise on the golf links, or in his automobile, but he never indulged in excess in either respect; master of himself, he was also the master of his sports; they were never the master of him. Thus he was thoroughly normal and healthy, only he had a purpose, wherein he differed from nearly all of those who were or had been his comrades. Hence, he began to be regarded by his relatives and associates as a little different from themselves, eccentric to say the least of it, in fact almost a freak. Some of the newspapers which still kept him in view and which opposed him, invariably alluded to him in terms of ridicule as “Little Artie,” though he was neither little nor an “Artie.”

It would be quite too much to say that Cathcart was able to ignore all these things or to view them calmly. On the contrary, they hurt him very much, but he was able to hide it. On the best day that had come so far he strolled down the road through a high and hilly country, now a sea of deep green. A fine wind blew from the sea and touched his cheeks with the pleasant salt moisture that is like the breath of life. There was no dust and the hills and the forest allowed only glimpses of the houses. Cathcart had now grown somewhat absent-minded, the invariable characteristic of all men who both work hard and think hard, and sunk in his thoughts he walked on for miles, merely feeling the physical elation, unconscious of its origin, and not noticing the country about him.

He followed the road, as it dipped from a steep hill, into a narrow little valley, down which a silver streak was cut by a brook, and there he stopped to look at the water and sniff the aromatic forest odors. Then he followed the tiny stream into a grove, and sat down on a big stone at the foot of a tree, leaning his back against a trunk. He pulled his hat down over his eyes, and quite forgot his surroundings as he studied the moves in the long political campaign that he had planned. To any one passing he would have borne the aspect of a student, because he was quite young, but his youthful face was very serious.

But the student was not proof against the powers of a summer day that had come in spring. Everything conspired against him. A wind, very warm and very soft, sprang up, and the half formed leaves kept up a most soothing little whisper; the water had a wonderfully soft, trickling sound and Cathcart fell into a doze. When he was partly awake from it he became conscious of a presence, a beautiful presence which he did not see, but which in some impalpable manner he felt through the air and at a little distance.

“Awake! dreamer, awake!” said a voice that had laughing tones in it and he awoke. Then he sprang to his feet in mingled pleasure and embarrassment. Lucy Howe was standing before him, in summer white, a white parasol tilted over her head, and the faintest flush in her cheeks. She was a vision to Cathcart, not merely for her physical beauty, but because of a new dignity, a new seriousness in her manner that come only to the women who have thought and who have suffered, and which puts the soul into the beauty that is otherwise only for the senses.

Cathcart was confused, not alone by her sudden presence there and his sudden awakening but by his equally sudden recollection of the different things for which they stood; his challenge to her father, his practical charge that James Howe was dishonest and a corrupter of the electorate, and hence the words that he intended to be an apology were stammered and disconnected. But she was apparently calm, whatever she may have felt, and she sat down on a fallen log near him.

“Won’t you occupy the stone again?” she asked, smiling a little, and Cathcart obeyed. He felt that, for the present, she was master, and he did not object.

“I want explanations,” she said with a pretense of sternness. “Why have you not been to see us. It has been months since you were at our house,”

Arthur grew red and felt about for an answer. Then he quickly decided that the true answer would be the best to make.

“I have stayed away.” he replied,“not because I wanted to do so. but because—politics, you know—I appear as one making bad charges against your father—Well, wouldn’t he show me to the door, if I ever got past it?”

She laughed in a way that made him think of the trickle of the brook. But had he been less blinded he would have noticed a note of uneasiness in the laughter, a strain telling that the laugh was forced.

“My father is one of the politest of men,” she said. “An attack is nothing new to him. He has been accustomed to them all his business life, nearly half a century, and he never gets angry. It is not his way. He bears you no animosity.”

“I’m glad to know it,” said Cathcart, and he added lamely, “I thought you had gone to Europe. Didn’t I see it in the newspapers?”

“I’m going in two weeks,” she said, “and, meanwhile, we are on Long Island. Father has a place here, and I ought to tell you that while you have not cared to meet him you have not hesitated to trespass upon his land and even to sleep upon it; in his eyes you could not commit a graver sin. Father has a great horror of tramps.”

Cathcart sprang up and, for the moment, he was seriously disturbed.

“I didn’t know it,” he said, and he added half in laughter, “I’ll get off it at once.”

But she looked so cool, so much at ease, and she charmed his eyes and mind so much that he did not move a step.

“He won’t have you arrested,” she said, “because it’s only a first offense, and I would intercede for you, knowing that you would apologize most humbly.”

Arthur sat down again, and they began to talk lightly and aimlessly, caring little what they said, but satisfied with the presence of each other. She pointed to a slender segment of roof just showing over the crest of a hill and said that it was one of their country homes. Mr. Howe was there and so was Mr. Hargrove. Arthur’s face darkened at the mention of Mr. Hargrove’s name. It may be that she saw it, and it may be that she also uttered the name to see his frown.

She did most of the talking now, and Arthur was content to watch her. He did not realize, until this moment, to what a pitch his mind had been keyed by hopes, ambitions, and calculations. It was a luxury to lean back against the tree and watch her, with the sun shining on her hair, turning its gold to deeper gold, and the play of color in her checks. He realized that, despite her grave womanliness, she was very young, and suddenly he felt sorrier for her than for himself. What might not be done with her youth and inexperience when two such strong men as James Howe and William Hargrove were forcing her? They would have the advantage, too, of absence in an alien land, where strangeness would compel her to turn to them.

“When do you come back from England?” he asked at last.

“Early in the autumn.” she replied. “I do not care to stay any longer than the summer.”

He noticed that she said “I” not “we,” and also that when she said it her chin seemed to stiffen and the curve of her lip to grow firmer. He wondered if he had not underrated her power of resistance, that is, if she cared to resist.

“I want to see how your campaign ends,” she said, bending upon him a smile that puzzled him—he did not know whether it expressed interest or irony. “You realize, of course, that as an Independent you have great obstacles—you have ’a very hard row to hoe’ is the expression, is it not?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“You have the party organizations to fight and my father, too. And my father is an extremely formidable and dangerous man; you realize that, too, do you not?”

“I certainly do,” replied Cathcart with the utmost sincerity. “I’d rather have any other man against me.”

“I wanted to warn you,” she said with a continuation of the manner that puzzled him, “and now I think I shall go.”

“Let you, at least, see me safely off your father’s property,” he said, and walked beside her to the road. There he thought he might continue, and she, not saying him nay, they strolled on together in the shade of the over-arching trees. In the midst of their aimless but none the less pleasant talk he made up his mind to one thing: He had been a fool to stay away from the Howes, he had carried the point too far; he should have known what James Howe was, a man who indulged in no heroics, who wore no coat of mail, who made suavity of manner a part of his gospel of life. He had deliberately played into the hands of Mr. Hargrove.

They heard a rumble behind them, the grind of an automobile, approaching slowly, and when Arthur looked back he saw a big, dark olive green machine appear on the crest of a hill.

“It is father’s,” said Lucy. “I knew it was he, even before he came in sight. I know that slow rumble. His machine can make eighty miles an hour, but he never allows it to go more than ten, and his chauffeur is dying of chagrin.”

Despite his previous resolution Arthur began to feel a certain anxiety. He might have been mistaken about Mr. Howe. The great banker might think him impertinent to be caught walking with his daughter, and might say things which, at the least, would be unpleasant. But not for worlds would he have made any excuse for leaving her at that time, and after a single backward look he took no further notice. He walked calmly on by her side, his figure firmly erect. Presently the machine overtook them and stopped, the well known voice of James Howe calling to his daughter.

Then Cathcart turned and saw that Mr. Hargrove, too, was in the machine, and the expression in the eyes of Mr. Hargrove was not pleasant. Bur Mr. Howe showed only geniality; he would not carry any business or political quarrel of his into private life. He held out his hand to Arthur and Arthur took it, although he felt that the stain of corrupt money was upon it. But this man was Lucy Howe’s father.

You have quite neglected us, Mr. Cathcart,“ said Mr. Howe, in his suavest tone, ”or you have completely forgotten us, which is worse. I have heard of you on the island, and for the last two or three weeks you have been only a few miles from us. Still we have not seen you.”

Arthur murmured apologies and also shook hands with Mr. Hargrove, who was not quite so warm in his greeting.

“You are going to my house now,” said Mr. Howe. “I want you to know what I can do with a country place, and to understand that I am not all business.”

Arthur accepted the invitation, and the banker even went so far as to put Cathcart and his daughter on the same seat while he and Mr. Hargrove sat in front. But Mr. Howe did nearly all the talking, talking of the farm as he called it—in reality a thousand acres on which very little farming was done—and his plans to beautify it.

“The cottage” lay in a warm nook among the hills, a long brick house of soft red tints, rambling but everywhere pleasing to the eye and restful. Arthur went in with them and saw an interior apparently of the utmost simplicity, but he knew that this very simplicity was the result of careful planning and great expenditure. The cottage carried with it the cost of a castle, and while he had long realized to the full the power of James Howe, he now understood also the many-sidedness of the man.

He stayed an hour, going through the house, into the conservatories, and on the lawns. But James Howe now deftly kept him by his side as a guide holds to a visitor, while Mr. Hargrove and Lucy came on behind, and Arthur saw that he would have no further opportunity to be alone with her.

No allusion whatever was made to finance or politics; it was all idyllic, rural, and Arthur understood that Mr. Howe would be the last man to make an open quarrel with him. He accepted the basis, and when he was ready to go and Mr. Howe offered to send him home in his machine he accepted the offer.

“We expect to see you here often.” said Mr. Howe genially.

“I shall certainly come,” said Arthur—but he knew that Mr. Howe and Miss Howe were to sail for Europe within a week.

“I may trespass again,” he said to Miss Howe.

“If you are not afraid,” she replied with her puzzling smile.

Mr. Howe and Mr. Hargrove were alert, but they did not understand, and the next moment Cathcart was bowing good bye to them.

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