Against the Tide

The old-fashioned Deming mansion, for the hundredth time in its sedate existence, was filled with a gayety which offset even the menacing weather.

Although noon was close at hand, the morning was deeply gloomy and ominous. Thunder clouds of late summer brooded over the Ohio, and rain, already sweeping across the wide crescent-bend of the river, was threatening to burst upon Evansville. Yet it was not because of these clouds that the old house was ablaze with light from cellar to attic.

From the twelve-foot ceilings of the huge rooms hung electric clusters, whose glare was softened yet quickened by tinkling prisms and pendants of crystal. Along the walls twinkled sconces and candelabra; this richer glow brought out the scarlet coats of tapestried huntsmen, pursuing stags through indefinite forests of Gobelin weave. Everywhere was light and sound and laughter.

A babel of tongues filled the rooms--crisply concise northern speech, mingled with the softer slur of southern accents. A listener might gather that this house was symbolic of Evansville itself, bordering both north and south, drinking of its best from either section; an Indiana city, yet of infinite variety, proudly exclusive, living more in past than present, yet cordial and open-hearthed.

At noon, in this house, Dorothy Deming was to be married to Reese Armstrong. The wedding was yet some little distance away. Macgowan, who had been dressing for his part of best man and who was a house guest, crossed the upstairs hall toward the stairway, just as Dorothy herself appeared from a room which was aflutter with excited feminine voices. With the license of his age and position, he led her to the window-nook and began to speak of Armstrong. Dorothy, oblivious of the confusion around, yielded to the detention and listened eagerly.

Why not? When Lawrence Macgowan spoke, few men but would have listened; not to mention a bride who was chatting with the groom's most intimate and trusted friend, and hearing wondrous things about the man whom she was soon to call her husband.

Macgowan was impressive. More impressive than J. Fortescue Deming, in whose features the Deming Food Products Company had seared deep lines; more impressive than Deming's business directors and social friends here gathered; more impressive by far than young Armstrong, whose financial genius was making its mark so rapidly.

Despite the gray at his temples, Lawrence Macgowan possessed a charm of personality, a steely keenness of intellect, a direct force of character, which dominated all who came in contact with him. Being quite used to making this impression, he made it the more readily. Men said of Macgowan that he disdained politics, had refused a supreme court appointment, and preferred corporation law to marriage as a means of advancement. True,--perhaps. Among the doctors of the law, among those upright ones who lived rigorously by legal ethics and by ethical illegality, Macgowan moved as a very Gamaliel, honored in the Sanhedrim and respected by all those whose fortunes his brain had made.

Men said, too, that some day he would set that brain to making his own fortune.

"Then," Dorothy was inquiring, "you and Reese are looking this very minute for some new business to take hold of? And you haven't found one?"

Macgowan evaded, smilingly. His whole person seemed to radiate that smile as some rich crystal radiates and warms the sunlight, and when he thus smiled all the strong lines of his face were softened; his level gaze lost its almost harsh intensity and became winning, genial, intimate.

"We're not looking, exactly," he said. "You see, we're more sought after than seeking--though I should not include myself. Reese is the whole thing. It's his genius that is the very breath of life in Consolidated. Do you know that he's put nearly sixteen thousand investors on our books by his sheer selling ability? He has actually sold himself to them. All small ones, people who can invest only a few hundred dollars each year. That is more than an accomplishment; it is a triumph!"

The girl's cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes shone like stars.

"But it's your help, your faith and backing, which made such big things possible for him. To think that he's been in New York only a year or two! To think where he will be after ten years--" Dorothy broke off, caught her breath sharply, and laughed at her own enthusiasm. "Oh, I'm intoxicated with the very thought of what he's accomplished and what he will accomplish! Now tell me about the companies you-all handle. Do you buy them and then sell them later for more money?"

Macgowan shook his head. "No. A manufacturing concern, let us say, is poorly managed yet essentially sound. We buy it. We reorganize it. Consolidated Securities owns it and continues to own it. A minority of the stock is sold to our investors, to the people who own Consolidated stock. It is their privilege to buy stock in this subsidiary company--"

"The preferred stock?" cut in Dorothy. Macgowan chuckled at her sapient air.

"Yes. Two shares and no more to each investor, but with these two shares goes one share of common at a nominal valuation. Suppose we start or reorganize two or three such companies in the course of a year--and we hope to do better than that--the chances are very good for our investors. Consolidated sells the stock, owns the subsidiary company, runs it! Thus, Consolidated must make sure that the company will not fail but succeed. The investor shares the profit with Consolidated; also, he shares Consolidated's profit from the whole group of companies. You see the idea?"

Dorothy nodded quickly, then was checked by Macgowan's air.

"There's just one thing." His tone was hesitant, embarrassed. Her eyes leaped to his face; his voice seemed to bring a swift apprehension into her mind.

"Yes?" she urged him with an eager word.

"There is one thing--" Macgowan was unaccountably at a loss for speech; to any who knew him well, an astounding thing. "You understand, the success of Reese Armstrong means everything to me; I may call myself his closest friend, at least in New York. And I know, my dear, that with you at his elbow, with your faith and help behind him, he is invincible."

Suspense flashed into the girl's eyes. This prelude, this slightly frowning air of embarrassment, hinted at some portentous secret.

"Yes?" she prompted again.

The lawyer regarded her a long moment, his eyes gravely steady.

"Well, there is one thing I want to say to you; that's why I dragged you away for a few moments. Yet I don't want to offend you, my dear."

"You won't--it's a promise! What is it?"

"One thing, for his happiness and yours. He is a wizard at finance; success has not flung him off balance, for his one thought has ever been of work. Now, my dear Dorothy, don't let him drink too deeply of this wine of wizardry! No man can serve two masters. Business takes its toll of souls, I can assure you; it hardens the spirit, until nothing is left sacred before its spell. A man will rob his best friend in the name of business. He will take what he can grasp, and call it finance. You must see to it that Reese is not too entirely absorbed in his work--that he is not dominated by the nimble dollar."

For a moment the girl met Macgowan's steady gaze, probing for the meaning underneath his words. In her eyes rose a question, a quick protest, an argument.

Then, before she could respond, came a breathless outcry, a swish of skirts, and two bridesmaids seized upon her.

"Dorothy, you shameless thing! These brides--they all need a guardian! You've driven us perfectly wild! Don't you know that we've been looking everywhere for you? It's time you were dressed--your mother's waiting--"

Dorothy was hustled away in peremptory fashion.

Macgowan, smiling a little to himself, sauntered away and downstairs. As he entered the great drawing-room he was instantly seized upon. New guests were each moment arriving and Macgowan, who was to be best man, was the lion of the hour. Armstrong had not yet summoned him for moral support, and he was momentarily free.

This home wedding in its very informality held a formal dignity which was novel to the New Yorker, and which he found delightful. Many of those present were out-of-town house guests, and all were old friends of the bride; Armstrong had invited only his best man. Thus the affair had a strong sense of family intimacy.

Macgowan was quick to feel any psychic and underlying influence. Behind all this glitter he perceived a curious restraint, a pride, a singular cool dignity. Through the babel of voices, underneath the laughing faces, he was vaguely aware of this thing. It was as though many of these people, guests in this house, shared some secret which they were trying to banish from memory or thought.

Lawrence Macgowan knew exactly what this hidden thing was.

He was no untutored denizen of the metropolis who viewed the country at large only through the uncertain eyes of the press. He even had direct connections with Evansville; across the room he saw his cousin, Ried Williams, a director and treasurer of the Deming company. The relationship was not, however, known to many; even Armstrong was unaware of it. Macgowan made his way to the side of Williams and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Well, Ried? How are you?"

"Hello, Lawrence!" The thin, sallow features of Williams suddenly radiated delight. "Here, I want you to meet Pete Slosson, our assistant general manager. Pete, this is Lawrence Macgowan; a man to whom the law is a servitor and shield, the Constitution an act of providence, and state legislatures mere soda-water bubbles--"

Laughing, Macgowan shook hands with Pete Slosson. A young man, this, of singularly clear-cut and intelligent features; yet the eyes were a bit sullen, the lips a trifle full. The entire face displayed a nervous energy not wholly natural. The man drank.

"Everything Lawrence touches," continued Williams warmly, "and every one in touch with him, succeeds! He simply never makes a failure of anything."