“When are you going home?” asked Mrs. Gerald, ruefully.
“In September.”
“Have you engaged your passage?”
“Yes; we sail from Hamburg on the ninth—the Fulda.”
“I may be going back in the fall,” laughed Letty. “Don’t be surprised if I crowd in on the same boat with you. I’m very unsettled in my mind.”
“Come along, for goodness sake,” replied Lester. “I hope you do…. I’ll see you to-morrow before we leave.” He paused, and she looked at him wistfully.
“Cheer up,” he said, taking her hand. “You never can tell what life will do. We sometimes find ourselves right when we thought we were all wrong.”
He was thinking that she was sorry to lose him, and he was sorry that she was not in a position to have what she wanted. As for himself, he was saying that here was one solution that probably he would never accept; yet it was a solution. Why had he not seen this years before?
“And yet she wasn’t as beautiful then as she is now, nor as wise, nor as wealthy.” Maybe! Maybe! But he couldn’t be unfaithful to Jennie nor wish her any bad luck. She had had enough without his willing, and had borne it bravely.
CHAPTER XLVII
The trip home did bring another week with Mrs. Gerald, for after mature consideration she had decided to venture to America for a while. Chicago and Cincinnati were her destinations, and she hoped to see more of Lester. Her presence was a good deal of a surprise to Jennie, and it started her thinking again. She could see what the point was. If she were out of the way Mrs. Gerald would marry Lester; that was certain. As it was—well, the question was a complicated one. Letty was Lester’s natural mate, so far as birth, breeding, and position went. And yet Jennie felt instinctively that, on the large human side, Lester preferred her. Perhaps time would solve the problem; in the mean time the little party of three continued to remain excellent friends. When they reached Chicago Mrs. Gerald went her way, and Jennie and Lester took up the customary thread of their existence.
On his return from Europe Lester set to work in earnest to find a business opening. None of the big companies made him any overtures, principally because he was considered a strong man who was looking for a control in anything he touched. The nature of his altered fortunes had not been made public. All the little companies that he investigated were having a hand-to-mouth existence, or manufacturing a product which was not satisfactory to him. He did find one company in a small town in northern Indiana which looked as though it might have a future. It was controlled by a practical builder of wagons and carriages—such as Lester’s father had been in his day—who, however, was not a good business man. He was making some small money on an investment of fifteen thousand dollars and a plant worth, say, twenty-five thousand. Lester felt that something could be done here if proper methods were pursued and business acumen exercised. It would be slow work. There would never be a great fortune in it. Not in his lifetime. He was thinking of making an offer to the small manufacturer when the first rumors of a carriage trust reached him.
Robert had gone ahead rapidly with his scheme for reorganizing the carriage trade. He showed his competitors how much greater profits could be made through consolidation than through a mutually destructive rivalry. So convincing were his arguments that one by one the big carriage manufacturing companies fell into line. Within a few months the deal had been pushed through, and Robert found himself president of the United Carriage and Wagon Manufacturers’ Association, with a capital stock of ten million dollars, and with assets aggregating nearly three-fourths of that sum at a forced sale. He was a happy man.
While all this was going forward Lester was completely in the dark. His trip to Europe prevented him from seeing three or four minor notices in the newspapers of some of the efforts that were being made to unite the various carriage and wagon manufactories. He returned to Chicago to learn that Jefferson Midgely, Imogene’s husband, was still in full charge of the branch and living in Evanston, but because of his quarrel with his family he was in no position to get the news direct. Accident brought it fast enough, however, and that rather irritatingly.
The individual who conveyed this information was none other than Mr. Henry Bracebridge, of Cleveland, into whom he ran at the Union Club one evening after he had been in the city a month.
“I hear you’re out of the old company,” Bracebridge remarked, smiling blandly.
“Yes,” said Lester, “I’m out.”
“What are you up to now?”
“Oh, I have a deal of my own under consideration, I’m thinking something of handling an independent concern.”
“Surely you won’t run counter to your brother? He has a pretty good thing in that combination of his.”
“Combination! I hadn’t heard of it,” said Lester. “I’ve just got back from Europe.”
“Well, you want to wake up, Lester,” replied Bracebridge. “He’s got the biggest thing in your line. I thought you knew all about it. The Lyman-Winthrop Company, the Myer-Brooks Company, the Woods Company—in fact, five or six of the big companies are all in. Your brother was elected president of the new concern. I dare say he cleaned up a couple of millions out of the deal.”
Lester stared. His glance hardened a little.
“Well, that’s fine for Robert. I’m glad of it.”
Bracebridge could see that he had given him a vital stab.
“Well, so long, old man,” he exclaimed. “When you’re in Cleveland look us up. You know how fond my wife is of you.”
“I know,” replied Lester. “By-by.”
He strolled away to the smoking-room, but the news took all the zest out of his private venture. Where would he be with a shabby little wagon company and his brother president of a carriage trust? Good heavens! Robert could put him out of business in a year. Why, he himself had dreamed of such a combination as this. Now his brother had done it.
It is one thing to have youth, courage, and a fighting spirit to meet the blows with which fortune often afflicts the talented. It is quite another to see middle age coming on, your principal fortune possibly gone, and avenue after avenue of opportunity being sealed to you on various sides. Jennie’s obvious social insufficiency, the quality of newspaper reputation which had now become attached to her, his father’s opposition and death, the loss of his fortune, the loss of his connection with the company, his brother’s attitude, this trust, all combined in a way to dishearten and discourage him. He tried to keep a brave face—and he had succeeded thus far, he thought, admirably, but this last blow appeared for the time being a little too much. He went home, the same evening that he heard the news, sorely disheartened. Jennie saw it. She realized it, as a matter of fact, all during the evening that he was away. She felt blue and despondent herself. When he came home she saw what it was—something had happened to him. Her first impulse was to say, “What is the matter, Lester?” but her next and sounder one was to ignore it until he was ready to speak, if ever. She tried not to let him see that she saw, coming as near as she might affectionately without disturbing him.
“Vesta is so delighted with herself to-day,” she volunteered by way of diversion. “She got such nice marks in school.”
“That’s good,” he replied solemnly.
“And she dances beautifully these days. She showed me some of her new dances to-night. You haven’t any idea how sweet she looks.”
“I’m glad of it,” he grumbled. “I always wanted her to be perfect in that. It’s time she was going into some good girls’ school, I think.”
“And papa gets in such a rage. I have to laugh. She teases him about it—the little imp. She offered to teach him to dance to-night. If he didn’t love her so he’d box her ears.”
“I can see that,” said Lester, smiling. “Him dancing! That’s pretty good!”
“She’s not the least bit disturbed by his storming, either.”
“Good for her,” said Lester. He was very fond of Vesta, who was now quite a girl.
So Jennie tripped on until his mood was modified a little, and then some inkling of what had happened came out. It was when they were retiring for the night. “Robert’s formulated a pretty big thing in a financial way since we’ve been away,” he volunteered.
“What is it?” asked Jennie, all ears.
“Oh, he’s gotten up a carriage trust. It’s something which will take in every manufactory of any importance in the country. Bracebridge was telling me that Robert was made president, and that they have nearly eight millions in capital.”