The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

Co., Edward Clark & Co.—all the long list of people to whom he owed loans and find out what could be done. If he could only get time! If he could get just a week!

Chapter XXIX

But time was not a thing to be had in this emergency. With the seventy-five thousand dollars his friends had extended to him, and sixty thousand dollars secured from Stires, Cowperwood met the Girard call and placed the balance, thirty-five thousand dollars, in a private safe in his own home. He then made a final appeal to the bankers and financiers, but they refused to help him. He did not, however, commiserate himself in this hour. He looked out of his office window into the little court, and sighed.

What more could he do? He sent a note to his father, asking him to call for lunch. He sent a note to his lawyer, Harper Steger, a man of his own age whom he liked very much, and asked him to call also. He evolved in his own mind various plans of delay, addresses to creditors and the like, but alas! he was going to fail. And the worst of it was that this matter of the city treasurer’s loans was bound to become a public, and more than a public, a political, scandal. And the charge of conniving, if not illegally, at least morally, at the misuse of the city’s money was the one thing that would hurt him most.

How industriously his rivals would advertise this fact! He might get on his feet again if he failed; but it would be uphill work.

And his father! His father would be pulled down with him. It was probable that he would be forced out of the presidency of his bank.

With these thoughts Cowperwood sat there waiting. As he did so Aileen Butler was announced by his office-boy, and at the same time Albert Stires.

“Show in Miss Butler,” he said, getting up. “Tell Mr. Stires to wait.” Aileen came briskly, vigorously in, her beautiful body clothed as decoratively as ever. The street suit that she wore was of a light golden-brown broadcloth, faceted with small, dark-red buttons. Her head was decorated with a brownish-red shake of a type she had learned was becoming to her, brimless and with a trailing plume, and her throat was graced by a three-strand necklace of gold beads. Her hands were smoothly gloved as usual, and her little feet daintily shod. There was a look of girlish distress in her eyes, which, however, she was trying hard to conceal.

“Honey,” she exclaimed, on seeing him, her arms extended—“what is the trouble? I wanted so much to ask you the other night.

You’re not going to fail, are you? I heard father and Owen talking about you last night.”

“What did they say?” he inquired, putting his arm around her and looking quietly into her nervous eyes.

“Oh, you know, I think papa is very angry with you. He suspects.

Some one sent him an anonymous letter. He tried to get it out of me last night, but he didn’t succeed. I denied everything. I was in here twice this morning to see you, but you were out. I was so afraid that he might see you first, and that you might say something.”

“Me, Aileen?”

“Well, no, not exactly. I didn’t think that. I don’t know what I thought. Oh, honey, I’ve been so worried. You know, I didn’t sleep at all. I thought I was stronger than that; but I was so worried about you. You know, he put me in a strong light by his desk, where he could see my face, and then he showed me the letter.

I was so astonished for a moment I hardly know what I said or how I looked.”

“What did you say?”

“Why, I said: ‘What a shame! It isn’t so!’ But I didn’t say it right away. My heart was going like a triphammer. I’m afraid he must have been able to tell something from my face. I could hardly get my breath.”

“He’s a shrewd man, your father,” he commented. “He knows something about life. Now you see how difficult these situations are. It’s a blessing he decided to show you the letter instead of watching the house. I suppose he felt too bad to do that. He can’t prove anything now. But he knows. You can’t deceive him.”

“How do you know he knows?”

“I saw him yesterday.”

“Did he talk to you about it?”

“No; I saw his face. He simply looked at me.”

“Honey! I’m so sorry for him!”

“I know you are. So am I. But it can’t be helped now. We should have thought of that in the first place.”

“But I love you so. Oh, honey, he will never forgive me. He loves me so. He mustn’t know. I won’t admit anything. But, oh, dear!”

She put her hands tightly together on his bosom, and he looked consolingly into her eyes. Her eyelids, were trembling, and her lips. She was sorry for her father, herself, Cowperwood. Through her he could sense the force of Butler’s parental affection; the volume and danger of his rage. There were so many, many things as he saw it now converging to make a dramatic denouement.

“Never mind,” he replied; “it can’t be helped now. Where is my strong, determined Aileen? I thought you were going to be so brave?

Aren’t you going to be? I need to have you that way now.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“I think I am going to fail, dear.”

“Oh, no!”

“Yes, honey. I’m at the end of my rope. I don’t see any way out just at present. I’ve sent for my father and my lawyer. You mustn’t stay here, sweet. Your father may come in here at any time.

We must meet somewhere—tomorrow, say—tomorrow afternoon. You remember Indian Rock, out on the Wissahickon?”

“Yes.”

“Could you be there at four?”

“Yes.”

“Look out for who’s following. If I’m not there by four-thirty, don’t wait. You know why. It will be because I think some one is watching. There won’t be, though, if we work it right. And now you must run, sweet. We can’t use Nine-thirty-one any more.

I’ll have to rent another place somewhere else.”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

“Aren’t you going to be strong and brave? You see, I need you to be.”

He was almost, for the first time, a little sad in his mood.

“Yes, dear, yes,” she declared, slipping her arms under his and pulling him tight. “Oh, yes! You can depend on me. Oh, Frank, I love you so! I’m so sorry. Oh, I do hope you don’t fail! But it doesn’t make any difference, dear, between you and me, whatever happens, does it? We will love each other just the same. I’ll do anything for you, honey! I’ll do anything you say. You can trust me. They sha’n’t know anything from me.”

She looked at his still, pale face, and a sudden strong determination to fight for him welled up in her heart. Her love was unjust, illegal, outlawed; but it was love, just the same, and had much of the fiery daring of the outcast from justice.

“I love you! I love you! I love you, Frank!” she declared. He unloosed her hands.

“Run, sweet. Tomorrow at four. Don’t fail. And don’t talk.

And don’t admit anything, whatever you do.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.”

He barely had time to straighten his tie, to assume a nonchalant attitude by the window, when in hurried Stener’s chief clerk—pale, disturbed, obviously out of key with himself.

“Mr. Cowperwood! You know that check I gave you last night? Mr.

Stener says it’s illegal, that I shouldn’t have given it to you, that he will hold me responsible. He says I can be arrested for compounding a felony, and that he will discharge me and have me sent to prison if I don’t get it back. Oh, Mr. Cowperwood, I am only a young man! I’m just really starting out in life. I’ve got my wife and little boy to look after. You won’t let him do that to me? You’ll give me that check back, won’t you? I can’t go back to the office without it. He says you’re going to fail, and that you knew it, and that you haven’t any right to it.”

Cowperwood looked at him curiously. He was surprised at the variety and character of these emissaries of disaster. Surely, when troubles chose to multiply they had great skill in presenting themselves in rapid order. Stener had no right to make any such statement. The transaction was not illegal. The man had gone wild.

True, he, Cowperwood, had received an order after these securities were bought not to buy or sell any more city loan, but that did not invalidate previous purchases. Stener was browbeating and frightening his poor underling, a better man than himself, in order to get back this sixty-thousand-dollar check. What a petty creature he was! How true it was, as somebody had remarked, that you could not possibly measure the petty meannesses to which a fool could stoop!