THE 
 
 CRESTING 
 WAVE 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWIN BATEMAN MORRIS 
 
 Author of 
 Blue Anchor Inn," "The Millionaire, " etc. 
 
 THE PENN PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1920
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 1920 BY 
 THE PENN 
 PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY 
 
 THE CRESTING WAVE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I INVENTOR OR PIRATE 5 
 
 II THE LADDER OF FAME 31 
 
 III ADVENTURE 55 
 
 IV OPPORTUNITY 71 
 
 V Miss BARCLAY BLUSHES 87 
 
 VI A DIVERTING GAME 98 
 
 VII THE NEW RELIGION 112 
 
 VIII THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER . . . .125 
 
 IX THE PAGEANT 139 
 
 X OLD DOMINION 158 
 
 XI A PRIOR CLAIM 164 
 
 XII A PASTEBOARD CODE 184 
 
 XIII PAPER PROFIT 193 
 
 XIV THE LEOPARD'S CAGE 200 
 
 XV THE INNER VOICE 207 
 
 XVI BOUND BEACH 216 
 
 XVII HOLIDAY 218 
 
 XVIII WILLIAM TURNS THE SCREW . . . 229 
 
 XIX A DIAMOND-SHAPED PIN 237 
 
 XX THE DISTURBING PERSON .... 245 
 
 XXI I AM THE MAN 256 
 
 XXII THE RECKONING 272 
 
 2137382
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXIII 
 
 XXIV 
 
 XXV 
 
 XXVI 
 
 XXVII 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 XXIX 
 
 XXX 
 
 XXXI 
 
 XXXII 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 XXXV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DISASTER . . . 291 
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY . . . . 
 
 DECISION 
 
 THE YAWL 
 
 THE LIFE LINE 
 
 330 
 
 345 
 358 
 
 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT .... 364 
 
 MARY SMITH 372 
 
 "THIS is WILLIAM SPADE" . . . .380 
 
 DUSK 389 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL WORLD 393 
 
 THE LETTER 399 
 
 THE ANSWER 402 
 
 RUTH TAKES OFF HER HAT .... 409
 
 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 
 
 William Spade's clearest recollection of his 
 early youth was of the amazing frequency with 
 which Sunday reappeared. For Sunday was a 
 day of sackcloth and mortification of the flesh. 
 The sackcloth was no mere playful figure of 
 speech. Early in the morning, while the birds 
 sang without and the sun shone in his window, 
 giving false assurance of the joyousness of the 
 world, he was attired in the hairy shirt of the 
 martyr. Starched shirtwaist it was, with starched 
 collar and starched cuffs, studded at the neck and 
 wristbands with pins sticking inwards. If he ex- 
 amined the thing carefully before putting it on, 
 there was no sign of these subtle instruments of 
 torture. But as soon as it had been buttoned 
 upon him, with much moistening of the button- 
 holes, and the necktie drawn up taut, the points 
 quickly appeared, like the thorns in the Bible, and 
 
 5
 
 6 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 set about choking him in the regular biblical man- 
 ner. He was then removed to a smaller torture 
 chamber, and his hair brushed by the application 
 of great pressure after which, while he stood 
 upon one foot, his necktie was patted into just the 
 proper shape, his coat pulled down, his stockings, 
 already tight as a second epidermis, pulled up, a 
 stray hair settled in just its appointed place, and 
 he was allowed to depart, feeling like a wax boy in 
 a clothing shop. 
 
 What joy did it afford him now to gaze upon 
 the alluring line of sewer pipe lying by the curb- 
 stone, through the length of which he had yester- 
 day crawled upon his hands and knees? Or upon 
 the pile of damp sand, beyond the pipes, suggest- 
 ing to his imagination bridges and caves and long 
 tunnels that could be excavated by lying upon 
 one's stomach and reaching in as far as the length 
 of an arm"? But for some reason it appeared to 
 irritate his parents if he performed any of these 
 joyful experiments in his starched white shirt and 
 his Sunday suit. He had tried it and knew the 
 disastrous results. Upon Sundays his mother's 
 mind considered him simply as a symphony of 
 clean and beautiful clothes, for which he per- 
 formed the humble part of being merely the neces- 
 sary stuffing.
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 7 
 
 He used to wonder each Sunday why his mother 
 was never late for church. He would watch for 
 the clock, knowing that if the hand passed beyond 
 a quarter before eleven, she would consider it too 
 late to go. But, at just that time, she would rus- 
 tle into the room, put on his round hat, snap the 
 elastic under his chin and behind his ears, and, 
 thus harnessed, lead him forth. It was a mourn- 
 ful pilgrimage. He was not allowed to whistle or 
 put his hands in his pockets. He was not allowed 
 to climb up on the low stone wall which adjoined 
 the sidewalk at a certain place and walk along its 
 coping, as was his usual custom. He could not 
 persuade his mother to alter her route by walking 
 through a small alley instead of on the more pre- 
 tentious street, although it was undeniably much 
 shorter. She objected to the ash barrels and gar- 
 bage receptacles, which to his mind were an inter- 
 esting and picturesque adjunct to the scenery. 
 
 The church itself was doleful. Everyone con- 
 versed in strained whispers, concealing his real 
 nature behind a melancholy solemnity. Upon 
 one occasion he had attempted to inject life into 
 the proceedings by shouting across the aisle to his 
 uncle, a hail-fellow-well-met person in real life, 
 their usual pleasant salutation of "Hi, Buster" 
 in a shrill, eager voice, but this had been emphat-
 
 8 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ically discouraged by both his mother and his 
 uncle. More than half expecting this course of 
 action from his mother, he was bitterly disap- 
 pointed in his uncle. This was, however, an illus- 
 tration of the warping influence of the religious 
 edifice. 
 
 At another time he had balanced his sailor hat, 
 inverted, upon the top of his head and, cleverly 
 placing his gloves one upon each side of the rim, 
 had by moving his head judiciously from side to 
 side, maintained it in equilibrium. This piece of 
 good comedy had made an impression upon every- 
 one for some distance about. But just as he had 
 begun to feel that they were getting into the spirit 
 of the thing, his mother, becoming conscious of 
 certain strange noises in the pews behind, had 
 deflected her attention from the first lesson to her 
 son and removed the hat and the gloves, spoiling 
 it all. 
 
 The only part of the church service that was at 
 all bearable to him was the long prayers. Then 
 he could lean forward and rest his forehead upon 
 the pew in front of him and think out the serious 
 problems of life. Or sometimes he would direct 
 his languid attention to the gullible and trusting 
 minister, kneeling at his little desk with his back 
 to the audience, reading things from a book for
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 9 
 
 them to repeat after him. And sometimes they 
 did repeat them after him. But more frequently 
 they put up a game on the unsuspecting gentleman 
 and after he had read a long speech, would answer 
 perfunctorily with a few words and he, thinking 
 they had said it all, would go on with more. It 
 seemed a transparent deception to William, but, 
 apparently, the clergyman never discovered it. 
 
 His opinion of this particular clergyman was 
 not an exalted one. As he grew older, reaching 
 the important age of eight, when it was no longer 
 sufficient for his peace of mind to lean forward 
 with his head upon the bench in front of him, he 
 began to listen in a tolerant way to the talk that 
 made up the church service. The fact that he 
 now knew that the responses of the congregation 
 were not supposed to be a repetition of the minis- 
 ter's words did not dispell the early opinion he 
 had formed that this person was a visionary 
 prophet who was responsible for the gloomy air of 
 detachment from the world that existed within the 
 four walls of the church, and whose words were 
 always urging people on to an unnecessary amount 
 of goodness. The boy did not know what nar- 
 rowness of mind and breadth of vision were, but, 
 with the placid certainty of childhood, he ascribed 
 vaguely a quality very much like the former to
 
 10 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 the reverent divine and a quality very much like 
 the latter to himself. 
 
 Upon one occasion the minister in a sermon 
 described how the Ark of the New Covenant in 
 the beginning had been borne on its journey upon 
 the shoulders of men, until the poles that sup- 
 ported it had become smooth and polished from 
 the contact of human hands, but that later this 
 arrangement had not seemed convenient and a 
 cart a new cart had been built, upon which the 
 Ark was thenceforward transported.. To the 
 clergyman's mind this unwillingness to continue to 
 bear the burden had seemed to be a matter for 
 criticism, and he had dwelt at length upon it, 
 drawing what seemed to the eight-year-old con- 
 ception an unsustained moral. To the practical 
 and straightforward boyish mind, the building of 
 the cart seemed to be a praiseworthy improvement, 
 in that it accomplished everything that had been 
 accomplished before with much less effort. He 
 did not see why the new cart drawn by its two 
 oxen was the symbol for luxury and the shirking 
 of responsibility; and the worn polished poles that 
 had borne the Ark before, the symbol of devotion 
 and earnestness. It was incomprehensible and be- 
 wildering to him. His only explanation was that 
 it was a part of the clergyman's narrow and old-
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 11 
 
 fashioned view of life. But though he thought 
 about the problem many times, he did not seek aid 
 from his mother. For there was in his mind the 
 vague conviction that he was allowing his thoughts 
 to run in channels that would not be approved by 
 parental authority, since he was certain that his 
 mother did not question the reasoning of the good 
 clergyman. 
 
 After many aeons of time his ninth birthday 
 came and passed. He particularly remembered 
 the time because there came almost simultane- 
 ously with it a change in the method of living of 
 the Spade family. They moved from the small 
 house on the narrow street to a larger house on a 
 wide street, which was furnished throughout with 
 new things. What with three servants, dessert 
 every evening for dinner, electric lights, and a 
 door-bell that you pushed with your finger instead 
 of grasping a knob and pulling it, the whole estab- 
 lishment possessed in his eyes an almost unbeliev- 
 able air of luxury. Upon communicating this 
 idea on one occasion to his father, his father, who 
 was, as he always seemed to be, reading a news- 
 paper, took off his glasses and smiled in the pleas- 
 ant way the boy liked to see. 
 
 " I don't agree with you," he replied. " I liked 
 the old house better. That was the house your
 
 12 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 mother and I went to when we were first mar- 
 ried. You were born there and your little cradle 
 used to sit in the front room against the chimney- 
 breast. A great part of my life is bound up in the 
 other house. I was quite sorry to move to this 
 bigger one." 
 
 "Then why did you?" 
 
 " Well, your mother and I discussed it and we 
 decided that it would be better for you. I am 
 anxious for you to have all the advantages that I 
 did not have. We can afford it now," Mr. Spade 
 continued. "I have been successful in my busi- 
 ness and I want my son to reap the fruits of our 
 prosperity." 
 
 William felt very responsible and grown-up to 
 think that the change was made entirely upon his 
 own account. But when the actual reaping of 
 the fruits of prosperity came, he was not so sure 
 he liked it. He found that he was expected to 
 play with the children who lived in the vicinity of 
 the new house, and they seemed to him, after ex- 
 amination, to be a flavorless crowd. They were 
 fond of discussing their own possessions and of 
 explaining to each other in what way their own 
 particular effects and chattels were superior to the 
 particular effects and chattels of the person they 
 happened to be conversing with at the moment.
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 13 
 
 Or, if one of them possessed a football, and with 
 a lordly condescension permitted others to share it 
 with him, he was amiable as long as the game was 
 conducted as he wished it to be, but as soon as 
 anyone questioned his right to decide any disputed 
 point as he saw fit, he would take his football and 
 go home. 
 
 William usually referred to this squad as 
 "sissies" in their presence if he were especially 
 irritated with them; and when they tried his pa- 
 tience too much, he would relieve his mind by 
 making a visit to his former associates and telling 
 them all about it. The former associates were a 
 much more virile organization if you called them 
 rough-necks, they felt themselves complimented. 
 When they knocked a baseball through someone's 
 parlor window, they laughed and ran. If a blue- 
 coated administrator of the law pursued, they 
 dodged around the first corner, laid a tortuous 
 course through a maze of small alleys and narrow 
 streets to some un-get-at-able spot, and were 
 never caught. For weeks beforehand they confis- 
 cated ashbarrels and boxes from distracted house- 
 holders to furnish fuel for the election-night bon- 
 fire, built in the middle of the street. 
 
 They had a common enemy in an old German 
 gentleman named Fischbach, who rendered him-
 
 14 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 self ridiculous in their eyes by wearing a black 
 skull-cap and smoking a pipe with a lid to the 
 bowl, who aroused their animosity by refusing to 
 let them chalk out squares upon his pavement for 
 the purpose of playing hop-scotch, and who rushed 
 out in a great temper whenever they played any 
 of their games (none of which could be carried on 
 successfully without a perfect bedlam of shouting 
 and screaming at the top of each particular play- 
 er's lungs) in the street before his house. This 
 unreasonable behavior gave rise to the conviction 
 that he was more than a little touched in the head, 
 and established in the youthful minds a whole- 
 some fear and at the same time a deep-seated 
 hatred of him. 
 
 Therefore they used to steal up close by the 
 window where he was sitting and, first tossing a 
 pebble lightly against the pane, drop a piece of 
 glass brought along for the purpose upon the pave- 
 ment and run! 
 
 In all these escapades running was the most 
 exciting part. They never even witnessed the old 
 man's bewilderment at finding the broken glass 
 upon the sidewalk and yet perceiving the window 
 pane still whole. Or, in the shadow of dusk, they 
 would drive a pin attached to the end of a long 
 string into the upper part of the window sash and
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 15 
 
 upon this string a few inches below the pin they 
 would fasten a nail or a stone, in such a manner 
 that they could sit across the street and by pulling 
 the string and letting it go make a mysterious tap- 
 ping upon the window pane which would keep the 
 poor Fischbach in a state of nervous tension for 
 half an hour or more. 
 
 But one day the joy of this enmity was turned 
 to gall and wormwood in William's mouth. For 
 the old gentleman, attracted by his brown eyes 
 and laughing face, finding him upon this day alone 
 in the street, called to him and showed him a new 
 way of making the pointed piece of wood called a 
 "pussy," which they used in one of their games. 
 The heretical method Mr. Fischbach employed 
 was to use a piece of wood square in section in- 
 stead of round in section, which aroused in the boy 
 the deepest contempt, for no sin is more unforgiv- 
 able in the small boy's mind than the suggestion 
 that he do any particular thing in a manner differ- 
 ent from that in which every other boy is accus- 
 tomed to do it. But worse than that was the bit- 
 ter disappointment that the common enemy, the 
 hated ogre, should have made friends with him! 
 And not only made friends with him, but pub- 
 licly for he was seen by other members of his 
 clan. Ashamed and mortified, he made his escape
 
 i6 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 as soon as possible. The disgrace rested so heav- 
 ily upon his shoulders that it was long before he 
 went back to this crowd, and never again regu- 
 larly. 
 
 Summer came during this self-imposed exile and 
 all the sissies went away most of them to sum- 
 mer camps in New England, for their parents, 
 unlike his mother and father, seemed to take more 
 pains to send them away and to be away from 
 them than to cultivate their society. William 
 had noticed that most of them were responsible, 
 insofar as they were responsible at all, to nurses 
 and governesses and not to their fathers and 
 mothers, whom they avoided and distrusted as 
 they did guests in their houses. 
 
 Mr. Spade's business kept him in the city in the 
 summer as well as in the winter. William had 
 never known him to take a vacation and his wife 
 stayed where he stayed. The father noticed that 
 his boy was having a lonely time, and on several 
 occasions took him to his office, driving downtown 
 in the shiny buggy behind the sleek sorrel horse. 
 His father's office was in a big dingy, brick build- 
 ing, across the whole front of which was painted, 
 "The Simpson and Spade Company, Bolts, Nuts, 
 Roller Bearings. The Spade Gasoline Engine." 
 
 "Father," inquired William, after he had
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 17 
 
 spelled out this legend, "are you an inventor?" 
 
 "Yes," replied his father, "I suppose I am." 
 
 William's approving eye rested upon him. 
 
 "When I grow up," he asserted with conviction, 
 "I am going to be either an inventor or a pi- 
 rate." 
 
 Whereupon his father, much to his surprise and 
 pleasure, began to laugh uncontrollably, as if he 
 had said something funny. Mr. Spade's face 
 grew red and the veins stood out on his forehead. 
 
 "Well, son," he said, presently, "that is a splen- 
 did ambition. Only you must be sure you learn 
 to tell the difference." 
 
 One day his father suggested that it would be 
 a very good idea for the boy to go to the seashore 
 for a week or two, as he needed a coat of sunburn. 
 At first William rebelled. Since no one he had 
 ever known, except the sissies, went to the sea- 
 shore, he was not at all sure that there was good 
 precedent for that sort of thing. But when the 
 ships and the sand and the prospect of bathing in 
 the ocean were depicted for his enlightenment, he 
 became reconciled and agreed to give the experi- 
 ment a trial. 
 
 There was a person, it appeared, named Stark- 
 wether who kept a modest, retiring hotel on an 
 out-of-the-way piece of seacoast, used mostly by
 
 i8 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 fishermen and, in the fall, by hunters, who was an 
 old and trusted customer of Simpson and Spade. 
 As well as being a hotel-keeper, he was a builder 
 and repairer of boats, and came to purchase mate- 
 rials for use in this enterprise. 
 
 Mr. Starkwether, having been consulted upon 
 the question of taking William for a couple of 
 weeks, replied that this arrangement would be 
 quite satisfactory to him, and that, as he was 
 expecting to come to the city the following 
 Wednesday on a matter of business, he would take 
 the boy back with him. On the appointed day, 
 therefore, William, together with a real man's-size 
 suitcase, in which his clothes were all neatly 
 packed, was driven down to the office of Simpson 
 and Spade; and at noon Mr. Starkwether, with 
 William in one hand and the big suitcase in the 
 other, left the office and started forth upon the 
 journey. 
 
 William's father had said that Mr. Starkwether 
 was a Connecticut Yankee of a very pronounced 
 type, and William, not knowing exactly what 
 sort of a person a Connecticut Yankee was, ob- 
 served the gentleman closely. After deep scru- 
 tiny he decided that a Connecticut Yankee was a 
 large person with a chin beard and no moustache, 
 whose eyebrows were very bushy and whose eyes
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 19 
 
 closed tight when he laughed, making a fan- 
 shaped cluster of wrinkles at their corners. He 
 asked his father if this was correct, and his father 
 replied that that was the outward and visible 
 sign. 
 
 William's first view of the sea was complicated 
 with many and varied emotions not all of which 
 were due to the sea. It was five o'clock in the 
 afternoon when they arrived at Mr. Starkwether's 
 house or hotel, as the sign said, although Wil- 
 liam did not think it was really much bigger than 
 an ordinary house. He was told there was an 
 hour before supper time and that he might run 
 down to the beach and see the ocean. 
 
 It all seemed very wonderful to the boy too 
 wonderful and vast for him to enjoy. It was a 
 spectacle upon too large 'a scale. All he had pre- 
 viously known of great bodies of water was the 
 placid river he had sometimes crossed in the ferry- 
 boats. Beside the ocean, this river no longer 
 seemed big. The waves of the ocean came rolling 
 in from miles away. It was incredible that there 
 could be so much water. 
 
 The whole thing rather frightened him. It 
 made him feel small and insignificant and alone 
 and it emphasized the fact that he was in a strange 
 place, among strange people, and living in a
 
 20 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 strange house. His spirits dropped to a low ebb. 
 He walked along the shore looking for the shells 
 and strange animals his father had said he would 
 see there. But he found none of these things. 
 There was a bottle half covered with sand on 
 which he found blown the fact that it had con- 
 tained Somebody's Yeast Powder. A soap box 
 lay half buried in the beach, and round it the 
 seething surf ebbed and flowed. But these were 
 not matters of interest. He looked at the silver 
 watch his father had given him, and found that 
 it was but twenty minutes after five. And he had 
 to spend a whole week here. 
 
 From far down the beach a strange animal was 
 approaching, running along at the water's edge 
 splashing in the surf. To his acute embarrass- 
 ment, he discovered presently that it was a girl 
 a girl apparently of about his own age, clad in a 
 one piece blue bathing suit and running barefoot 
 in the shallow water. He was standing close by 
 the sand hills back from the beach so that she had 
 not seen him. He would have escaped if he could, 
 but there was nowhere to go. 
 
 When she first saw him she stopped short and 
 stood with the receding water curling about her 
 ankles, gazing at him speculatively. This for but 
 a moment, and then with an unnecessarily vivid
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 21 
 
 show of unconcern, she ran along again, splashing 
 the sparkling water with her feet as before. He 
 watched her until she disappeared around a turn 
 in the shore, leaving him very much alone. 
 
 His supper he ate that night sitting silent beside 
 Mr. Starkwether at a long table around which 
 many people perhaps a dozen were also seated. 
 No one paid any attention to him except to pat 
 him on the head and say, "Good evening, little 
 man," both of which salutations made him boil 
 within. A fat lady, with a pronounced figure, 
 sat beside him and when she ate, crumbs fell and 
 bounced off the figure upon the table cloth. She 
 had a napkin, but this was spread below upon 
 the second line of defense, so to speak, and escaped 
 unscathed. William knew it was polite to spread 
 a napkin upon your lap, but in this instance it 
 seemed a useless precaution. 
 
 Mr. Starkwether talked a great deal and told 
 stories, at which everyone laughed everyone ex- 
 cept the fat lady, who enjoyed herself more when 
 she was talking. 
 
 "When I was driving from New Haven to 
 Canaan just before the blizzard of eight'n eighty- 
 eight " began Mr. Starkwether, on one occasion. 
 
 "You have told us that story before," inter- 
 rupted the lady beside William, acidly, she hav-
 
 22 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ing had her mouth open to start upon an interest- 
 ing story of her own. 
 
 "I'll tell it to you again," observed the other, 
 good-humoredly. And the fat lady, with lips set 
 in a hard line, sat through the repetition of this 
 particular story with every appearance of Spar- 
 tan fortitude, which made it more enjoyable for 
 the narrator and the others gathered about the 
 table. 
 
 William did not understand why they all 
 laughed, but presently he did not care whether he 
 understood or not. For the girl he had seen upon 
 the beach came into the dining-room and sat down 
 at the other end of the long table. She had on a 
 yellow dress and wore a yellow hair ribbon. A 
 lady was with her who was evidently her mother. 
 It seemed to him that the girl knew he was at the 
 table and recognized him as having been upon the 
 beach. But she did not so much as look at him. 
 She talked very vivaciously to her mother and to 
 the gentlemen at her end of the table, who teased 
 her about her yellow dress ; but, as far as William 
 was concerned, he might have been the mere leg of 
 the table. 
 
 After supper he slipped away and walked down 
 the sandy lane that served for a street between 
 the collection of houses and stores that in turn
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 23 
 
 served for the town. There were a dozen or more 
 persons gathered about a building which appeared 
 to be a general store, and the boy seized the oppor- 
 tunity to bury his sorrows in a bag of molasses 
 candy. He did not linger long in the store, for 
 there was a half -intoxicated individual there, who 
 addressed several remarks of facetious import to 
 him. 
 
 "Are you staying with Mr. Starkwether*?" the 
 man demanded, at length. 
 
 "Yes," William replied, as that seemed to him 
 to be a civil question. 
 
 "Well, tell him I'm coming up there to collect 
 that two dollars he owes me." 
 
 William opened the door of the store. How- 
 ever, it did not seem right to give the impression 
 that he was going to deliver the message. 
 
 "I shan't tell him that. You'll have to do it 
 yourself." 
 
 Then he shut the door and hurried up the street, 
 half fearing that his questioner would follow him 
 and force him to take the message. But it was 
 after nightfall before he saw him again. Wil- 
 liam was sitting on a wooden bench by the fence 
 that surrounded the hotel, listening to a tale of 
 Mr. Starkwether's, when the gate opened behind 
 them and the half-intoxicated individual of the
 
 24 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 store, now perhaps three-quarters intoxicated, 
 good measure, lurched in and supported himself 
 upon the rustic table beside the bench. 
 
 "I've come for that two dollars, Ezra Stark- 
 wether," he announced, unsteadily. 
 
 Starkwether eyed him through the narrow slits 
 of his eyes. 
 
 "To what two dollars do you refer, Peter*?" 
 
 "The two that's coming to me for painting the 
 keel of the Mary B" 
 
 "I paid you that." 
 
 "That's a lie." 
 
 The other looked at him thoughtfully. 
 
 "I'll ask you to get out of here now," he ob- 
 served. 
 
 "You can't put me out." Peter moved his 
 huge bulk defiantly closer. 
 
 Starkwether rose. "I don't know whether I 
 can or not, but I can try." 
 
 Thereupon he seized Peter in an iron grip and 
 tossed him bodily through the open gate. The 
 man lay dazed, sprawling in the sandy road, and 
 then wonderingly picked himself up and moved 
 away. Somewhere in the darkness he stopped. 
 
 "I didn't believe you could," he said, incredu- 
 lously, "but you did it." 
 
 Starkwether walked with the boy toward the
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 25 
 
 house. William was tremendously impressed at 
 the show of physical strength. 
 
 "Son," said the old man, "always be firm. It is 
 a good rule to follow." 
 
 When William arose in the morning, he felt 
 that his visit had lasted long enough. He saw 
 that there promised to be but little for him to do 
 here no other boys, unfamiliar places, and a fat 
 woman to sit by at the table. He came down- 
 stairs with the intention of breaking the news that 
 he was going back home at once. But the fat 
 woman met him before he had had a chance to 
 explain his position, and in an elaborately face- 
 tious manner, designed to put a child of ten at his 
 ease, told him there was to be a picnic that day 
 and he was to be invited. This was very polite 
 of the fat lady, and it would have been rude of 
 him to refuse. So he said he would be pleased 
 to go. 
 
 At the picnic, he proved to be the only repre- 
 sentative of the sterner sex. The fat lady, the 
 mother of the girl about his own age, and some 
 six other females were the body of the party. 
 The girl about his own age hovered about far 
 ahead as an advance guard, and William, like a 
 cartoon representing the oppressed common peo- 
 ple, staggered along in the rear lugging a basket
 
 26 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 (as chivalry required he should) weighing in the 
 first place about twenty pounds and growing 
 heavier as the journey progressed. He decided 
 presently that his vacation was a complete failure. 
 But just then, as if merely for the purpose of 
 proving that the night is darkest before the dawn, 
 a voice behind him a silvery, pleasant voice 
 said: 
 
 "May I help with the basket?" 
 
 "Oh," he exclaimed, facing about to look 
 straight at none other than the girl herself. "Is 
 it you?" 
 
 "Why, I think so," she replied, soberly. 
 "Pinch me and see if it isn't?" 
 
 She held out her hand. He took it between his 
 thumb and forefinger. It was soft and very much 
 like satin. 
 
 "I'm sure it's you," he said, and they both 
 laughed. "But I thought you were very far 
 ahead." 
 
 "I was, but I hid behind the sand-hills until 
 everyone had gone by." 
 
 He picked up a long stick and slipped it through 
 the handle of the basket so that each of them 
 could hold an end and let the burden swing be- 
 tween them. 
 
 "But yesterday you did not even look at me."
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 27 
 
 / 
 
 "And maybe I shan't tomorrow." She laughed 
 at him with an airy sauciness. She had a way of 
 turning in her lower lip when she laughed and 
 showing her white teeth. 
 
 This holding converse with a girl was entertain- 
 ing. She said things one did not expect it was 
 quite different from talking to a boy and after 
 she had said them it was really pleasant to think 
 of what she had said. 
 
 "And," she asserted, "I didn't know whether 
 you were nice." 
 
 "Did you find out?" he demanded, eagerly. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and made a funny 
 face at him, which made him burst out laughing. 
 It was easy to get acquainted with a girl and he 
 could not help thinking all the time how different 
 a girl was from a boy. 
 
 After this his vacation was not so tiring as it 
 had been. The next day he put on his blue bath- 
 ing suit, which was cut just like hers and was the 
 same color except that hers, from many immer- 
 sions in the sea, had turned a blue-green just like 
 the ocean itself. At first he was greatly chagrined 
 that she could swim and dive through the waves, 
 while he could only stand and let the salt water 
 break over him and impregnate his whole system, 
 starting with his nasal passages and his ears, with
 
 28 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 stinging brine. But soon he learned to swim and 
 dive a little himself and was able to uphold his 
 self-respect. 
 
 They spent almost all the hours of sunshine 
 bathing in the ocean, running up and down the 
 beach, and digging in the sand. Sometimes he 
 would excavate a large hole and bury her com- 
 pletely until only her head showed. But she did 
 not allow this often, for it usually ended by his 
 taking advantage of her helplessness to tickle her 
 lips with a wisp of sedge grass, which, while it in- 
 creased his enjoyment of the situation greatly, 
 made her furiously angry. 
 
 She invariably evened up the score, however, 
 when they were in the water, where she was mas- 
 ter, and could duck him until he promised better 
 behavior in the future. 
 
 There was one enjoyable occurrence, however, 
 for which she was never able to quite get even. 
 They had a game which consisted of seeing how 
 far each one of them could walk blindfolded along 
 the edge of the surf without getting into the 
 water; and one day when she was carefully mak- 
 ing this experiment, he seized a paint pot and 
 brush with which Starkwether had been painting 
 a boat on the beach, and while she was at the dis-
 
 INVENTOR OR PIRATE 29 
 
 advantage of not being able to see painted her bare 
 feet a robin's-egg blue. 
 
 The ultimate result of this was tremendous and 
 horrified concern among all the adults at the hotel. 
 William's popularity could not possibly have been 
 at a lower ebb than while all the various experi- 
 ments of coal-oil, gasoline, tar-soap, washing-soda, 
 and hot water and vinegar were being made, and 
 even after the report reached him that it was at 
 last entirely off, he was still frowned upon by all 
 adults and great care was taken to make him feel 
 the enormity of his crime. Even Ruth herself 
 (Ruth Dunbar being the full name of the object 
 of these delicate attentions) snubbed him until 
 three o'clock the following day, and then, becom- 
 ing bored at maintaining such a heroic pose, gave 
 it up and was natural again. 
 
 He felt that it was going to be necessary for 
 him to kiss her before he left not that he had 
 any especial desire to do so, but that he understood 
 it was the regular, grown-up sort of thing to do. 
 He deemed it best to attend to it so that if the 
 question ever came up later, he could have the 
 satisfaction of knowing that nothing had been 
 overlooked. 
 
 Accordingly upon the very last night of his stay
 
 30 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 as they were walking along the beach just before 
 dark, she in her white, beautiful frock, he caught 
 her by the shoulders. Not resenting this sort of 
 romping, she pushed him from her with both warm 
 hands on his breast, whispering : 
 
 "Billy, don't tear me." 
 
 The "me" meant only the dress. He remem- 
 bered the words long after, in a half-regretful fu- 
 ture, but then he thought only of his masterful 
 resolve and kissed her upon her lips to be sorry 
 for it immediately after. As for her, her smile 
 disappeared, and, breaking from him, she hurried 
 to the hotel. 
 
 When he left in the morning she was not there 
 to bid him good-bye. He thought then and often 
 later that one sometimes pays too highly for fol- 
 lowing the customs of the world.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 
 
 From the time William was twelve until he was 
 sixteen, his education was taken care of at an ex- 
 clusive and therefore expensive boarding school. 
 His father wished him to have all the advantages 
 of education that he himself had not enjoyed and 
 to have the opportunity of meeting the right kind 
 of companions, in order that he might turn out to 
 be a man finished in every respect. He wished his 
 son to have no handicaps such as had been his. 
 In his own modest appraisal of himself he missed 
 altogether the fact that it was the handicaps and 
 the striving against them that had made him effi- 
 cient and successful; and, while he believed that 
 chivalry in one's heart was more valuable than 
 mere chivalry of manner, he hoped that mingling 
 with children who had been well-bred would in- 
 still this latter in his son, because it was considered 
 desirable by the world at large. 
 
 In the years William spent with these boys and 
 in the visits to their homes, he learned the things 
 
 31
 
 32 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 it was proper to do and proper to say on certain 
 occasions. He learned from them that it was not 
 good form to be backward and shy; one must al- 
 ways be at ease. He discovered that they had 
 absorbed this idea so well that on most occasions 
 they were abnormally self-possessed and self-asser- 
 tive. For the rest they had not been taught, or at 
 any rate had imperfectly learned, the considera- 
 tions of unselfishness, obedience, perseverance and 
 the homely virtues which his own parents had re- 
 garded as paramount. And just as William had 
 once found himself regarding the rector of his 
 mother's church as old-fashioned and as laying 
 great stress upon unessential things, so now, 
 steeped in this atmosphere, his growing and en- 
 larging mind wondered if the teachings of his 
 youth were not out of accord with the civilization 
 he was entering. It was a horrible blunder for 
 him to say, "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," or 
 "I am pleased to meet you," which were things 
 taught to him as he had grown up at the expense 
 of much care and patience. If these were no 
 longer correct, why was it not plausible that the 
 puritanical virtues practiced by his mother and 
 father in their youth were no longer applicable, or 
 at least no longer indispensable? 
 
 During his stay at this school, he occasionally
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 33 
 
 visited the homes of the boys who were his friends. 
 He was astonished to discover how unbelievably 
 busy the parents of these boys were. One day 
 they would be home, the next three days they 
 would be away. A housekeeper, a butler, or the 
 woman whose business it was to take care of the 
 correspondence was left in authority during these 
 absences; and being, or supposing themselves to 
 be, too busy already, they adopted always the easi- 
 est course. They never spoke of unselfishness or 
 diligence nor insisted too strongly upon obedience. 
 They would say that the punishment for stealing 
 the dessert from the pantry was to have only 
 bread and water for supper, but they were always 
 wheedled out of it. The strangeness of the train- 
 ing of these children who were later to have great 
 responsibilities thrust upon them who in a way 
 could be looked upon as part of the great back- 
 bone of the nation did not then occur to him. 
 Nor did he imagine that the example thus shown 
 him could have a moulding influence upon his life. 
 William liked best to go to the big country 
 place which was the home of two boys named 
 Wharton. Here there were tennis courts and 
 horses and a swimming pool ; and when the coast 
 was comparatively clear, they could smuggle out 
 shot-guns and hunt for rabbits and squirrels.
 
 34 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 There was a strict rule laid down to the effect 
 that they were by no means to have the guns 
 which Lent a flavor to the escapade it could not 
 otherwise have had. 
 
 It was at this place he had a surprising and dis- 
 turbing experience. On one occasion, by some in- 
 advertence, the boys were allowed to come home at 
 a time when their mother was giving an important 
 lawn party, and William, quite without the moth- 
 er's knowledge, was brought along. This was a 
 piece of ill-fortune for Mrs. Wharton, for she was 
 having enough responsibility without the added 
 one of corralling the children and keeping them 
 from the mischief that inevitably followed in their 
 wake. She thought she had solved the problem, 
 however, by providing them with money to defray 
 their expenses to a ball game in a nearby town. 
 But the boys, scenting the fact that they were not 
 wanted, remained in hiding. 
 
 They had heard much conversation about the 
 "aesthetic" dancer who was to appear in the open 
 air theatre that had just been finished, and as noth- 
 ing better suggested itself to them, they hid them- 
 selves in the hedge behind the stage. ^Esthetic 
 dancing was then new, and William did not know 
 that the strange term meant bare feet and that 
 the term feet covered the zone from one's toes to
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 35 
 
 one's knees or thereabouts. When the lady ap- 
 peared thus he was covered with confusion and 
 embarrassment. But to his surprise the throng of 
 spectators before her were not disturbed on the 
 contrary they applauded her wildly. Yet he had 
 always been taught that it was wrong to appear 
 in public undressed. 
 
 His companions were not disturbed either and 
 soon proved that they were prepared to obtain 
 enjoyment out of even the dullest of perform- 
 ances. They were but a few yards behind the 
 graceful figure, whose shining limbs moved rhyth- 
 mically to a pleasant, dreamy waltz, played by an 
 orchestra hidden, as were the boys, by foliage. 
 The inspiration that came to the latter was this. 
 Each put a little lead shot between his teeth and 
 using as a catapult a toothpick obtained at a res- 
 taurant the day before, ejected the shot with great 
 force from his mouth in the direction of the 
 dancer. It was difficult at first to get the range, 
 but when this was obtained the results were im- 
 mediately discernible. As the papers said the 
 next day, the lady's technique became jerky and 
 spasmodic. And, in spite of the fact that her 
 third number was to have been the " Spirit of 
 June," her best known effort, she omitted it, giv- 
 ing as her excuse that the mosquitoes were annoy-
 
 36 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ing her although it would not have been illogical 
 to suppose that that fact would have assisted her 
 in such an interpretation. It was a bitter disap- 
 pointment to her hidden and appreciative audience 
 that she did not return, for they had just 
 learned their art, and they had many lead pellets 
 left. 
 
 This had been joyous. But when the excite- 
 ment of the interesting episode had worn off, Wil- 
 liam found himself again reverting to the dis- 
 turbed state of mind caused by the appearance of 
 the lady almost unclothed before so many people, 
 and by the fact that those people had considered 
 such an occurrence as proper and appropriate. 
 The growing-up and broadening-out process in 
 William's mind had caused him to learn and ac- 
 cept as right many things which he, emerging from 
 the chrysalis of childhood, had previously believed 
 were wrong. He was spreading his butterfly 
 wings to gain a big view of the world and finding 
 in the big world things were viewed differently. 
 Here were persons whom he respected and ad- 
 mired who by their presence and approval silently 
 asserted that it could not be immodest for a lady 
 to wear as clothing chiefly a piece of thin material 
 that looked like a veil. It was all a part of the
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 37 
 
 modelling of his mind. He explained to himself 
 that these persons were taking a broader view of 
 life. 
 
 He did not realize then how great a remodelling 
 was going on in his mind. He did not realize that 
 he was changing his point of view to fit a new 
 generation a generation that was changing the 
 point of view of the whole nation; to a broader 
 state of mind, but to a more leisurely and irrespon- 
 sible one. 
 
 It was not easy for him to accept the testimony 
 of even such a multitude and apply it against his 
 father's teachings, for his father was the person in 
 the world whose good intentions he respected most. 
 When he was with him his father's code of abso- 
 lute goodness in every detail seemed just and rea- 
 sonable. But he was an impressionable boy, and 
 most of his influences were outside his father's 
 house. The code outside his father's house he 
 found to be an insistence upon goodness, decency 
 and honesty wherever the lack of these things 
 produced actual visible harm. Otherwise they 
 viewed things broadly. For instance, they had 
 virtually repealed the Fourth Commandment. 
 
 They had the advantage over his father, for 
 they could be very logical and convincing about it, 
 while Mr. Spade's case depended solely upon the
 
 38 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 deep conviction in his heart. But William felt 
 that his companions were modern and broad of 
 mind. Unconsciously he adopted their leisurely 
 sense of irresponsibility. 
 
 The greatest argument in his father's favor was 
 his success in life. His inventions had enabled 
 his firm to take a foremost place in the manufac- 
 turing world, and yet the details of his business he 
 trusted implicitly to his partner, knowing that his 
 partner ought to be as honest and scrupulously fair 
 as he himself was. On that account he seemingly 
 got in return nothing but honesty and unscrupu- 
 lous fairness. 
 
 When William was seventeen he passed his en- 
 trance examination; and in the following fall en- 
 tered college. It was understood that when he 
 graduated he was to have a place in his father's 
 office. Mr. Simpson strongly urged sending the 
 boy to college, and Mr. Spade, who had the deep- 
 est respect for his partner's sagacity, readily 
 agreed with him, especially since that had always 
 been his ambition. Therefore the fact that the 
 business did not need a college education for prep- 
 aration to it, but rather several years in the shops 
 themselves, was set aside and the boy sent to 
 college. 
 
 College was a Utopia to him an ever-chang-
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 39 
 
 ing, iridescent dream. His was the happy- 
 spirited, optimistic, dynamic personality that the 
 undergraduates regard as their own personal prop- 
 erty. Freshman though he was, there seemed to 
 be a niche already prepared for him. Whenever 
 there was a rowdy demonstration in his dormitory 
 house and a mellow bubbling laugh rose above the 
 din, someone Sophomore, Junior or Senior 
 would say, "There is that Spade boy." Some- 
 times Sophomores would visit him in his room, in 
 punishment for his effervescent spirits, and make 
 him sit in a china wash-bowl in the garb nature 
 provided him with and row with matchsticks, or 
 similarly attired, lie on the floor and give an imi- 
 tation of a man swimming to save a companion 
 from drowning. 
 
 But when he attained the dignity of the posi- 
 tion as quarterback on the Freshman Eleven he 
 was felt to have earned the right to the pursuit of 
 happiness, even though a Freshman, and his laugh 
 could be as mellow and bubbling as he chose to 
 make it, and no one disturbed him. 
 
 He found the carnival spirit of the place to his 
 liking. The free-and-easy life, the close compan- 
 ionship of men fired with the enthusiasm of youth, 
 the absence of responsibility save for the honor of 
 the college, the heroic frenzy of patriotism with
 
 40 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 which they defended that honor all made the 
 world seem a rosy and glorious place. 
 
 He fell in with the undergraduate doctrine of 
 the non-seriousness of life. Instead of gathering 
 up energy and power for use in the big drive that 
 was to come after graduation, the providing of 
 which is theoretically the purpose of a university, 
 the undergraduates regarded their life in college as 
 a separate problem to which their energies were to 
 be devoted exclusively. The world without they 
 refused to understand. They would attack that 
 as a problem when they came to it. 
 
 He soon learned that the epithet "grind" was a 
 term of deep reproach. The midnight-oil stu- 
 dent, who professed to have a vision beyond the 
 mists that shrouded commencement day, was a 
 creation not understood by the average citizen of 
 the University. He was deliberately different 
 from the crowd. College tradition, customs, 
 habits, attire were of no importance to such a man, 
 and this closed up every avenue of understanding 
 between him and his fellows. The undergraduate 
 body (a majestic and potent term) regarded the 
 grind as a man who had sold his birthright for a 
 mess of pottage, the birthright being his youth 
 and the pottage being the approbation of his pro- 
 fessors and a little bit of knowledge.
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 41 
 
 Therefore the natural human willingness to 
 slight study and hard work was given apparently 
 legitimate excuse and encouragement. Everyone 
 wished to enjoy the spirit of college life, which 
 he would see but once, and no one wished 
 to be pointed out as a mere narrow-minded 
 student. 
 
 This was the training he received to enable him 
 to meet the buffets of the world. Its fortifying 
 nature was doubtful. It was like training for a 
 footrace by riding about in an automobile. 
 
 " The trouble with this college life," his father 
 would say, " is that there is no striving against 
 adversity. You live under a sort of anaesthetic, 
 and the troubles of this world go on without your 
 being conscious of them. When I was a young 
 man I had to fight for my foothold. You young 
 men simply taste the sugar-coating of life and 
 never know the bitterness deeper in. Now, I say, 
 which is the better training*?" 
 
 But William, confronted with this theorem, 
 only half admitted the truth of it. It is the man 
 well along in life's journey who is convinced, in 
 his heart, of the worth of adversity. No young 
 man, full of joy, physical strength and well-being, 
 wishes to court hardships for the good it will do 
 his soul.
 
 42 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." This, Mr. 
 Spade said, was the undergraduate motto. 
 
 "Why should I not do just that 4 ?" William ex- 
 claimed, stoutly. "I must live my life as it 
 comes." 
 
 "Live your life as it comes," his father repeated 
 gently. "Perhaps so." 
 
 He sat down at his desk and placed in a basket 
 marked "Mr. Simpson" the sheaf of letters that 
 lay there. "I am gathering my own rosebuds 
 now," he said thoughtfully. 
 
 In the midst of events that followed William 
 remembered this speech. His father seemed 
 happy indeed. He spent his days in perfecting 
 the work in the factory, seeing that no faulty ma- 
 terial, poor workmanship, nor covered up imper- 
 fection was permitted to be shipped. Mr. Simp- 
 son sometimes objected, saying that purchasers 
 would never know the difference, but Mr. Spade 
 invariably replied that the aim of the factory was 
 to turn out the best workmanship they knew. 
 
 When he was not in the factory he was in his 
 own little shop, where he had recently perfected 
 and obtained a patent for a revolutionary auto- 
 mobile device an improvement on the then al- 
 most experimental method of ignition, which 
 promised to double the business of the plant.
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 43 
 
 The irritating details of business his partner took 
 from his shoulders. Mr. Spade read the outgoing 
 letters only for the purpose of seeing that custom- 
 ers were treated with his own idea of fairness. 
 He saw only those customers who were dissatisfied 
 with Simpson's hard-headed dealing with their 
 complaints and who relied upon Mr. Slade's abso- 
 lute justice and impartiality. On the whole his 
 life was happy and sheltered. He was no finan- 
 cier, and he had for a partner a man who most 
 emphatically was. He was indeed happy. 
 
 As for William, the stir and excitement of col- 
 lege life, the striving after undergraduate honors, 
 more precious than fine gold in the eyes of his asso- 
 ciates, though, intrinsically, really of small value, 
 were suited to his temperament. When he was 
 awarded the privilege of wearing the college "let- 
 ter" upon his sweater, by reason of his participa- 
 tion in one game upon the 'Varsity football team, 
 he felt that he had reached an epoch in his life. 
 And this in spite of the fact that he rarely wore 
 a sweater, and, when he did, felt awkwardly 
 flaunting and boastful with the huge insignia bla- 
 zoned upon his chest. 
 
 Undergraduate activities left him but little time 
 for study, but since faculty regulations made it 
 necessary for him to obtain a certain proficiency
 
 44 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 in his work before he could indulge in athletics, he 
 kept abreast of his classes, and in so doing found 
 himself unexpectedly interested in his work. 
 There was a man named McMillan who gave lec- 
 tures upon the History of the Renaissance, illus- 
 trated by stereoptican views. These ordinarily 
 were considered as a rest course, for a man could 
 borrow a set of notes from a last year's student 
 and get the idea of the whole thing in one night 
 just before examination. Most of the men went 
 to sleep in the comfortable semi-darkness. But 
 William did not go to sleep. He found the man 
 full of ideas. 
 
 "Spade, don't look at me like that," McMillan, 
 notoriously sarcastic, would say. "You seem in- 
 terested. It disconcerts me." 
 
 This interest of Spade's was amusing to the 
 class, the more so as he sometimes had diverting 
 discussions with the preceptor, which the clan felt 
 were for the purpose of killing time and were re- 
 garded as good pieces of strategy, because McMil- 
 lan, if he finished his lecture before the end of 
 the hour, would hold an informal and embarrass- 
 ing quiz. One discussion was memorable espe- 
 cially to William himself, who frequently looked 
 upon it in after life. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the lecturer one day, with
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 45 
 
 the half-bored air he adopted as suitable to the 
 degree of enthusiasm of his class. "We come 
 now to the Republic of Venice. Venice in the 
 lyth and i8th century saw the culmination of a 
 vastly successful commercial policy and as a re- 
 sult entered into an era of over-indulgence and 
 luxury, the fuel for which was supplied by the 
 wealth she had so successfully accumulated. I 
 can point out to you all (and particularly to you, 
 Mr. Carter, if you will put up your paper and 
 live for a moment in the eighteenth in lieu of 
 the twentieth century) that this seems to be the 
 course of the great commercial nations : first, en- 
 ergy, thrift, hard work,/ abundance of mental 
 effort in a word, all the great virtues coupled 
 with ambition and perseverance. What is the 
 result*? Success, blazoned in large letters, 
 wealth, power, happiness. Success begets suc- 
 cess, wealth begets wealth. The zenith of all 
 prosperity is reached! 
 
 "Then naturally comes a generation who have 
 nothing to strive for, no further pinnacle to which 
 they can elevate themselves and their country. 
 But they have money in great quantities and time 
 and the pursuit of pleasure is theirs. They buy 
 every sort of pleasure. They sacrifice the old vir- 
 tues. They must have comfort and ease. They
 
 46 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 must not be disturbed by the seriousness of life. 
 They must not be touched by adversity. Their 
 religion must be mild. Their politics must be 
 safe they must not be interrupted by war or 
 the rumors of war. Repose in their silken bed 
 of ease must not be disturbed." 
 
 The man paused, gazing unseeingly at the 
 darkened windows, his mind far away in the 
 crowded plaza beside the grand canal, peopled by 
 the purple-robed canons of Saint Mark, the duch- 
 essa, the maid, the courtezan, each behind her 
 saving mask, the bright hued gallant of the 
 Renaissance, seeking what pleasing and round 
 limbed lady fair will touch his fancy, the music, 
 the laughter, the bright eyes, the carnival spirit, 
 He rouses himself. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Spade, I am flattered. Really a 
 question?" 
 
 "Sir, I should like to ask what other commer- 
 cial nations you class with Venice you spoke of 
 them collectively." 
 
 "Oh, yes I will name Carthage, Rome. I 
 might also mention, if you will permit me, the 
 United States of America. Mr. Barton, will you 
 kindly remember that the Renaissance means the 
 reawakening and govern yourself accordingly. 
 Your slumbers make me envious."
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 47 
 
 William Spade was aroused. 
 
 "I cannot agree with you in that last instance," 
 he asserted, eagerly. 
 
 The room came to sudden life and burst into ap- 
 plause. 
 
 "Go to it, little one," they screamed. 
 
 "Just a little order, gentlemen," observed Mc- 
 Millan. "Mr. Spade, I appreciate your interest 
 and I understand, I believe, why you make that 
 statement. The only reply I can give to it is 
 that, as I have said before, one cannot tell what 
 direction the age he lives in is taking. But I 
 will say that, in our generation, an amazing num- 
 ber of people have made great sums of money, 
 and that our national wealth is increasing; so that 
 hundreds of people have now turned their atten- 
 tion to spending where there were but scores form- 
 erly. As a nation, we are beginning to have leis- 
 ure for pleasures and money for luxuries. That 
 is often a dangerous sign. I give you this for 
 what it is worth. Your own observation must 
 complete the picture." 
 
 William was strangely impressed at this effort 
 to scrutinize the age in which they lived, with 
 an idea of determining its direction. From then 
 on he found himself many times observing the 
 world about him, in an endeavor to disprove or
 
 48 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 fit in with -the theory that the civilization of his 
 era was exchanging momentum and strength for 
 ease and pleasure and discovered it to be a far- 
 spreading problem. 
 
 It was a problem that spread to him as an 
 individual, but William did not recognize this. 
 It had not occurred to him that his companions 
 of the past six or eight years whose influence, 
 beginning about the time of the episode of the 
 undressed dancing lady, had moulded his mind 
 to a tolerance of laxity and irresponsibility 
 were the forces to whom McMillan referred. 
 Nor did he pause to think that, being in the midst 
 of forces tending towards decadence, he would 
 naturally be unable to see them. 
 
 He might have considered the matter more 
 fully had not the serenity of his Junior year 
 been marred by anxiety for his father. The de- 
 mand for the automobile improvement for which 
 the elder Spade held the patent had been steadily 
 increasing, and, at Mr. Simpson's suggestion, an 
 adjoining piece of ground had been bought at a 
 very large price, and the contract let for an ad- 
 ditional building in which the new device was to 
 be manufactured Mr. Simpson being of the opin- 
 ion that the demand would soon far exceed the 
 supply.
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 49 
 
 Just as this irrevocable step had been taken, 
 Mr. Simpson, who had never known a day of 
 sickness, retired suddenly to a sanatorium, suf- 
 fering with what was described as a nervous break- 
 down. His memory for all his business transac- 
 tions was completely gone. Strangely enough, his 
 memory for other matters was unimpaired. 
 
 Mr. Spade was distressed. In addition to his 
 sorrow at the condition of his partner, he had 
 thrown upon him a great weight of extra respon- 
 sibility. All that part of the management of the 
 business which Simpson had cared for was now 
 increased threefold, by reason of the enlarged 
 trade due to the new product and the huge finan- 
 cial responsibility incurred by the new building. 
 This building was much more sumptuous and 
 expensive than Mr. Spade had desired, but his 
 partner had assured him that from an advertising 
 standpoint it was money well spent. But in go- 
 ing over the books of the company it became ap- 
 parent that his partner's method of bookkeeping 
 had given an air of great prosperity that was far 
 in advance of the facts. The large expenditure 
 for the new site and building was not at all well 
 advised. 
 
 In the midst of this an infringement of the 
 patent by another company was discovered, and
 
 50 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 an expensive suit had to be brought against them. 
 There seemed to be no other solution of the ques- 
 tion than for Mr. Spade to pledge his whole per- 
 sonal fortune to tide over the emergency. He 
 had only to hold on until the factory was finished 
 and the suit settled and all would be plain sail- 
 ing, for the increasing sales seemed to point to the 
 fact that as soon as their exclusive right to manu- 
 facture the device was established there would be 
 a huge revenue from it. But meanwhile he hung 
 on the narrow edge between success and bank- 
 ruptcy so that the slightest push would have sent 
 him either way. 
 
 He kept the seriousness of the situation from his 
 wife and son, and, lest the latter suspect it and 
 leave college to lend his help, as the father feared 
 he would, kept up his allowance exactly as be- 
 fore. It was a strain upon his financial resources. 
 His creditors were becoming anxious for their 
 money. A wave of selling drove down the value 
 of the company's stock on the exchange. The 
 creditors served notice that unless the impending 
 suit was decided in favor of Mr. Spade they 
 would institute bankruptcy proceedings. But 
 Mr. Spade had no suspicion of foul play until he 
 saw by the records that Mr. Simpson had sold all 
 his stock in the company!
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 51 
 
 The suit was decided on the day before Thanks- 
 giving Day; and, upon Thanksgiving Day, in lieu 
 of a Thanksgiving dinner, Mr. Spade met his 
 creditors around a table upon which lay no cloth. 
 And that day, which was a day of great triumph 
 for his son, was a day of sternest sorrow for the 
 father. The same sun that shone across that 
 bare table caressing the thin hair upon the bowed 
 head of William Spade Senior, fell slantwise 
 across a white barred field where thousands of 
 people, frenzied with wild enthusiasm, called 
 upon the name of William Spade Junior. The 
 head of the old man now an old man indeed 
 was bowed down by the weight of this first great 
 humiliation unforeseen and undeserved. The 
 head of the young man shone to twenty thousand 
 people as he stood waiting waiting upon the 
 threshold of great triumph. 
 
 He stood alone, as one upon whom great re- 
 sponsibility rested. Before him between him 
 and the white goal posts crouched a double line 
 of restive beings. The shouting upon the north 
 side ceased and upon the south side. The great 
 seething cauldron of spectators was still. For an 
 instant twenty-two men stood like a group of 
 miniature bronze figures. Of a sudden every- 
 thing sprang into action. Twenty thousand
 
 52 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 human beings rose to their feet in a great heav- 
 ing wave. A tiny oval thing shot from the mass 
 of men to the hands of the waiting youth. Half 
 the double line seemed to be catapulted towards 
 him. He was enveloped in a mob. His brown 
 head remained motionless, as in a surging sea; 
 and, out of the midst of apparent chaos, the oval 
 thing shot straight and true. The silence gave 
 way instantly to a reverberating roar. Over the 
 bar went the ball; and the twenty thousand lost 
 their sanity, within the space of a fifth of a sec- 
 ond. 
 
 The next hour was a period of wild, joyous de- 
 lirium. William lived through it like a man in- 
 toxicated. His journey from the field to the 
 dressing-room door was upon the shoulders of a 
 throng of hysterical humanity. His last glimpse 
 through the door was of a field all a-quiver with 
 wave after wave of dancing, brainless, over- 
 wrought youths. The dressing-room, the sanctum 
 sanctorum, was invaded by the privileged many, 
 who swarmed about them while they lay upon 
 their deal tables to have the envied muscles 
 rubbed and kneaded and smoothed into shape. 
 Lawyers, doctors, and great men pressed the boy's 
 hand with the air of making room for him too 
 on the ladder of fame. Men whom he knew only
 
 THE LADDER OF FAME 53 
 
 by reading of them in the papers inquired anxi- 
 ously as to his physical well-being. 
 
 At length, dressed and valeted by a dozen pairs 
 of hands, he made his way through the throng to 
 the door. A newsboy in the corridor without 
 thrust a paper eagerly into his hands. He hast- 
 ened up the steps to the training quarters where 
 the members of the team and the coaches were 
 gathered. It was a joyful, yet withal an im- 
 portant gathering, for they had a solemn and im- 
 portant duty to perform. On the first ballot they 
 conferred upon William Spade the highest honor 
 the University had to offer (pedagogues and deans 
 to the contrary notwithstanding) that of cap- 
 tain of the University football team. Let Dis- 
 tinguished Service Orders and Victoria Crosses 
 dim their light upon this great glory! 
 
 While the ballot was being taken William 
 looked steadily at his paper, his heart beating 
 excitedly. Then suddenly it seemed to stop 
 and something rose in his throat. When they 
 announced his name he stood up dazed as though 
 someone had struck him a blow. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said and it seemed that his 
 voice would not last until he had said it all 
 "that I cannot accept. I am leaving the Uni- 
 versity immediately."
 
 54 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 Before anyone could speak he was gone. They 
 did not follow, for they saw the headlines of his 
 paper lying there upon the table. It was ex- 
 planation enough. The cold type, blandly in- 
 human, continued to assert with exaggerated in- 
 difference the perfectly good news item that the 
 Spade patent had been declared invalid, and that 
 in consequence thereof William Spade, Senior, 
 was a bankrupt.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ADVENTURE 
 
 The months following the failure were dismal 
 ones in the Spade house. The Spade house no 
 longer meant the big house with its rugs, its pic- 
 tures, its curtains and its mahogany furniture 
 it meant the little house in the narrow street, 
 where William was born. The humiliation of 
 his failure and the worry lest his creditors should 
 not be paid in full had driven the smile from 
 Mr. Spade's face and had substituted for it fur- 
 rows between his brows. Young William would 
 frequently surprise him sitting with his papers 
 lying beside him, gazing idly and unseeing be- 
 fore him. It would be necessary to speak twice 
 to rouse him from his lethargy. 
 
 It was soon discovered that Mr. Simpson had 
 been the chief factor in his downfall. Mr. Simp- 
 son permitted it presently to be known that he 
 owned the controlling interest in the plant that 
 was purveying the duplicate of the Spade patent. 
 The decision of the court in regard to the patent 
 
 55
 
 56 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 was all that was necessary to effect his complete 
 recovery from the malady that had laid hold of 
 him. He took charge of the new company im- 
 mediately. 
 
 Mr. Spade then understood. When the patent 
 had been granted, he had told his partner, trusting 
 the man implicitly, that he had just found an 
 article in a French engineering magazine which 
 described vaguely a device similar to his. The 
 astute Simpson made a note of the date of the 
 magazine. This was weapon enough for him. It 
 gave him an almost certain chance of proving 
 that his partner's idea was not an original one, 
 and therefore not patentable. 
 
 With this in view he had set about forming a 
 new company and, when this was formed had had 
 it openly put the Spade device upon the market, 
 inviting prosecution. To a fair-minded person^ 
 it was an unnecessarily severe way of obtaining 
 an advantage for one's self. But Simpson, whose 
 natural way was the way of adroitness and stealth, 
 had long been irked by his partner's straightfor- 
 wardness, which prevented him from increasing 
 his profits as he would have desired. Previously 
 he had been bound by the fact that Spade owned 
 the precious patents that were the life of the firm. 
 But here had been a chance to leave, and take with
 
 ADVENTURE 57 
 
 him an invention worth as much as all the others 
 combined. It was true that it gave him no mon- 
 opoly; but he had a long start on all other com- 
 petitors. 
 
 Figuring shrewdly that the expense of the law- 
 suit and of the large plant he had persuaded his 
 partner to build would cripple the latter to such 
 an extent that he would be unable to conduct the 
 selling and advertising campaign that would be 
 necessary, he knew that he would have little to 
 fear from Chat quarter. For the others, by the 
 time they had built plants and installed the neces- 
 sary machinery, he would have had a year's start 
 of them and the prestige he would have built up 
 in that time would never be equalled. No defi- 
 nite charge of fraud could ever be brought against 
 him, even had Mr. Spade the money to prosecute 
 such a suit. He had disposed of his former part- 
 ner completely. 
 
 This turmoil in the father's affairs had made a 
 similar turmoil in the affairs of the son. From 
 having a career definitely laid out before him, he 
 suddenly, without warning, found himself face to 
 face with the necessity of deciding at once what 
 his future course was to be. 
 
 In the hope of finding an opening for himself 
 he at length visited a man named Barry, who was
 
 58 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 a congressman for his district. Barry was a mem- 
 ber of the same fraternity as William and they 
 had had several conversations upon the occasion 
 of the congressman's visits to the University, upon 
 one of which the latter had assured William that 
 he must call upon him if there was ever any serv- 
 ice his official position might make it possible for 
 him to render. This is the sort of thing con- 
 gressmen usually say for the sake of effect, but 
 William believed the man meant it, and wrote him 
 a letter telling him of the difficulty he was in. 
 
 In return Barry sent him a note inviting him 
 to lunch at his club. He heard the story of the 
 failure through to the end without comment. 
 
 "I knew your father very well by reputation," 
 he said, at length. "And the only fault I have to 
 find with him is that he was a gentleman of the 
 old school." 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" 
 
 "I mean he wasn't aware of the repeal of the 
 Golden Rule or at least of certain stern amend- 
 ments to it. He relied upon his friends to be 
 just as fair as he was and well, the long and 
 short of it is, that won't do. We are in a new era. 
 We have a new code of morals, a new code of busi- 
 ness. Commercial transactions have become so 
 complicated that the old rules of morals do not
 
 ADVENTURE 59 
 
 cover them. I do not defend Simpson. Far 
 from it. But at the same time we must recognize 
 the tighter, stricter, simpler rules of business. It 
 will not do to rely upon the other fellow's chiv- 
 alry. That is lost motion, and puts a variable 
 factor in the equation. Hard and fast rules and 
 strict adherence to them that's business. Every- 
 one has to play the game according to the rules 
 and take care of his own scalp. At the same time 
 I say this without criticism of your father, for 
 whom I have the deepest respect." 
 
 William nodded. "You say," he asked, curi- 
 ously, "we are in a new era*?" 
 
 "An era in which our national prosperity has 
 become so gigantic as to be actually cumbersome. 
 We are making complicated laws in a frantic en- 
 deavor to govern what the newspapers refer to as 
 big business. And all that it means is that there 
 is so much money in the country and so many 
 opportunities for making more money that we 
 have to devise one-foot-in-the-trough rules to give 
 everybody a chance." 
 
 To William, having no money, the fact that 
 there might be too much money in the world pre- 
 sented itself as no calamity. The thought of the 
 mad scramble after riches at any price did not stir 
 indignation in him. He even failed to see that
 
 60 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 the triumph of Simpson over his father was the 
 triumph of a new bloodless efficiency over an old- 
 time honesty and fairness. His father had been 
 dull and a little too trusting, to be sure, but he 
 had paid the world the compliment of believing 
 that human kindness still existed. 
 
 Barry at length said he knew of a position in a 
 street railway company in Washington, which he 
 felt sure he could obtain for William, if he wished 
 to try it out. It was not a very important or 
 lucrative place, but if he turned out well there 
 might be opportunities for advancement espe- 
 cially if he had friends. As Barry said, night 
 clerk in a car-barn was a humble beginning, but 
 wherever he went he would have to put his foot on 
 the lowest rung of the ladder. William had some 
 time before come to this conclusion, so he said 
 without much hesitation that if the other could 
 get him the place, he would take it. 
 
 As a result some ten days later he found himself 
 reporting at a remote car-barn in the District of 
 Columbia, with his midnight lunch under his arm. 
 His duties were not complicated. He had to re- 
 ceive the money from the car conductors as they 
 finished work, pay the motorman and conductor 
 their day's wages out of it, take care of articles 
 found on the cars, answer the telephone, and be
 
 ADVENTURE 61 
 
 general office man. From two until five-thirty no 
 cars ran, but it took him a good part of this time 
 to make up his report and get his cash to balance. 
 
 His salary was small, and he had to live in an 
 extremely modest boarding-house, whose bill of 
 fare it would never have been necessary to print, 
 for one always became aware of it the instant one 
 opened the front door, as if all the various culi- 
 nary odors had been hung up on the hall hatrack. 
 
 After he had become familiar with the simple 
 duties of his position, the almost unvarying rou- 
 tine became monotonous. At the end of six or 
 eight months, he decided that it would add a little 
 interest to his life if he had a secondary means of 
 earning money. He had noticed that while many 
 of the men about him had large families and on 
 account of their small salaries were able to save 
 very little for an emergency, few of them carried 
 life insurance. An opportunity was open here 
 and in a small way he began to write life insur- 
 ance. His direct, reasonable talk made him fairly 
 successful. He made use of his modest earnings 
 to join an inexpensive coun try-club, where he man- 
 aged to keep himself in trim with tennis. Also 
 he sometimes met here men who thought favorably 
 of the idea of having their lives insured. The life 
 he was leading was a strange existence. It seemed
 
 62 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 as if he were some other person a person entirely 
 different from himself, who slept in the daytime, 
 who ate one meal from a paper bag and the other 
 two from a marble slab in a quick lunch room 
 and who was a hermit, having no friends at 
 all. 
 
 The people he knew in Washington who would 
 have been congenial acquaintances, he did not call 
 upon, for he foresaw that he would have to refuse 
 all invitations, since other people enjoyed them- 
 selves at hours when he was working. His work 
 therefore had to be his recreation also. 
 
 When fall came they made preparations to send 
 a gang along the road to fix all the places where 
 the wire connections between the rails had come 
 loose. William, remembering a certain discovery 
 he happened to make the winter before, told the 
 superintendent that if he would wait until the first 
 light snow he would show him how to save time. 
 The superintendent waited, and when the snow 
 came, William went out on the road in the work- 
 car and showed them that wherever the track con- 
 nection was broken, the heat generated by the cur- 
 rent as it jumped the gap between melted the 
 snow at that point. In this way they did in a half 
 a day what it had formerly taken the whole sec- 
 tion gang several days to do.
 
 ADVENTURE 63 
 
 His main amusement, now that it was too late 
 for tennis, was walking. After ia good day of 
 sleep, he would have his afternoon tea, consisting 
 of eggs, coffee and griddle cakes, and set out for a 
 long walk into the country or through the park. 
 On one of these occasions, upon a rather unfre- 
 quented road, he came into sight of a girl standing 
 before a big roadster, which sat still and contented 
 by the roadside. 
 
 "I'm willing to bet," he confided to himself 
 (this person being the man with whom he carried 
 on most of his conversations now), "that she has 
 an electric system in that car that runs a fireless 
 cooker, self-starter, curling iron, and sometimes 
 the electric lights ; and it's all out of whack with 
 help twenty miles away." 
 
 He stopped when he came abreast of the car. 
 
 "I'm in trouble," the girl said. 
 
 He glanced at all four tires and found none of 
 them flat. Then he looked curiously at her the 
 thing he had wanted to do first and found a 
 good-looking young person, with handsome eyes 
 and a rich, clear complexion. She took his glance 
 to be a question. 
 
 "I am sure I don't know what the matter is," 
 she said, by way of reply. 
 
 He knew the type of car, for he had driven one
 
 64 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 many times. He punched on the lights and tried 
 the self-starter and decided at length that her elec- 
 tric system was in working order. In making this 
 decision, however, he placed a great deal of weight 
 upon the fact that the automobile was practically 
 new. 
 
 "I never saw a car like this that wouldn't run if 
 it had gasoline in the tank," he observed, smiling. 
 
 "Now don't tell me " she began, and broke off 
 to walk to the back of the machine. The gasoline 
 tank proved to be quite empty. 
 
 "I hide my head in shame," she exclaimed. 
 
 "It's over a mile to the next drop of gasoline," 
 he said, comfortingly. He had walked so many 
 times on the road that he knew the geography of 
 it by heart. 
 
 "In that case I'll walk there and have someone 
 bring gasoline back to the car." 
 
 "If we could get the machine to the top of that 
 hill, I believe we could coast all the way," he sug- 
 gested. 
 
 There was down grade about fifteen or twenty 
 yards ahead. By throwing his full strength 
 against the spokes of the wheel, he put the car 
 into motion and, with her by no means negligible 
 assistance, for she was a healthy young woman, 
 they pushed it to the top of the slope. As the
 
 ADVENTURE 65 
 
 grade began to give it impetus, they leaped aboard 
 and she seated herself at the wheel. 
 
 "Now don't put your foot on the brake," he 
 said. "If you do we shall not get there." 
 
 It was a hair-raising experience. The car gath- 
 ered momentum as it rolled on down the smooth 
 macadam road. She did not put her foot upon the 
 brake, for when he saw a tremor in her right knee 
 indicating desire to cut down speed, he admon- 
 ished her with one word. As one in a hypnotic 
 spell she did as she was told. Her eyes opened 
 wide, her cheeks flushed with a fever that was part 
 excitement and part terror. No record was left 
 upon her consciousness of fields or fences or fallow 
 land upon either side of her. The only spot that 
 photographed upon her retina was the bend at the 
 bottom of the hill, rushing madly toward her with 
 ever-increasing speed. Guarding the side of the 
 road at this spot and, to her fevered mind, sepa- 
 rating her from eternity, was a mere fence. A 
 voice at her ear kept explaining that it was neces- 
 sary to keep up their speed at this point or they 
 would never reach the top of the rise beyond. 
 Pride prompted her to keep her poise for she had 
 been trained from early youth that the first prin- 
 ciple in life is to retain one's composure. 
 
 To the man beside her, with a pirate's blood in
 
 66 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 his veins, this was an adventure. He gauged the 
 distance nicely, perfectly certain that the turn 
 could be made, and the car went around it as upon 
 a steel track. They charged the next hill, car- 
 ried impetuously on by their thundering momen- 
 tum. Up the slope they moved, giving speed in 
 exchange for distance. Their galloping pace be- 
 came a trot, the trot a walk, the walk a mere 
 crawl; and the wheels just turned over as they 
 rolled toward the top and there saw, like Moses 
 viewing the Promised Land, the valley beyond. 
 The car hung poised upon the brow with the 
 wheels turning so slowly that he could read the 
 embossed letters upon their tires. He leaped out, 
 putting his shoulder against the machine, and like 
 a live thing, it moved and started again on its mad 
 journey. 
 
 A man and woman, dangerously close together, 
 strolled in the middle of the thoroughfare before 
 them. But the occupants of the car were stop- 
 ping neither for love, nor hate nor any of the petty 
 things of life. They were spell-bound by the ex- 
 hilaration of going down hill. And down hill 
 they went with leaps and bounds, roaring over the 
 wooden bridge at the foot and sliding out upon 
 the smooth sunlit level below. Here life took on 
 its ordinary proportions again. Instead of Mer-
 
 ADVENTURE 67 
 
 cury and the cousin of Jupiter coasting down the 
 clouds from Olympus, they became now merely 
 two people riding in an automobile. 
 
 Very normally and in a prosaic manner they 
 rolled along the road, stopping in an ordinary way 
 before an ordinary store and requesting the ordi- 
 nary five gallons of gasoline. And then, instead 
 of stealing power from the hills, they pulled away 
 under their own fuel, the engine purring content- 
 edly and happily once more. 
 
 "I am going into town," she said. "I can give 
 you a lift, if that is your destination." 
 
 That was not his destination at all. Still, he 
 accepted her offer. 
 
 "You are an adventurous spirit," she asserted, 
 in a well-bred, unemotional way, but with a touch 
 of admiration. 
 
 "It's reflex." 
 
 "What do you mean 1 ?" 
 
 "I live the life of a hermit thrush most of the 
 time. Once in a while I must get rid of excess 
 energy." 
 
 He felt her curious glance upon him. 
 
 "Have you been long in Washington*?" 
 
 "About a year." 
 
 "That means you are an old resident. Why 
 have I never met you*?"
 
 68 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "You have," he replied, laughing. "Just 
 now." 
 
 She made an impatient gesture. 
 
 "The real reason," he went on, seriously, "is 
 because I have been working. I have been learn- 
 ing the street railway business a worm's eye 
 view, so to speak from the very bottom." 
 
 "Not as a motorman*?" 
 
 "Why, yes," he replied, amused, seeing that she 
 was somewhat aghast at the idea. But her ear 
 was quick to catch the note of banter. 
 
 "Spoofing," she accused. And with just a 
 touch of hauteur that had nothing at all to do 
 with displeasure, but was merely a part of her 
 smooth composure, she selected, with a conjurer's 
 lightness of touch, another subject of conversation 
 and began to talk to him in an easy off-hand way. 
 He could not but admire the machine-like perfec- 
 tion of her manner. No one could have said that 
 she was not an ornamental creature, and her pleas- 
 ant, light gossip kept him amused until they were 
 almost downtown. 
 
 "Where shall I set you down?" she asked. He 
 was disconcerted for a moment. He could not 
 ask her to set him down at the moving picture 
 theatre on E street or at Carrigan's Rapid Lunch,
 
 ADVENTURE 69 
 
 which were the only places he frequented. Yet 
 he must be going somewhere it would have been 
 too frank to admit that he was driving with her 
 simply for the fun of continuing an adventure. 
 So he mentioned the name of an exclusive club 
 beyond whose portals he had never trod, but which 
 was near 'the car line he would have to take to go 
 to his work. 
 
 He alighted and thanked her, standing grace- 
 fully upon the curb, hoping that she would drive 
 away before he had to go up the steps. But, as he 
 had more than half suspected she would, she ar- 
 ranged affairs deftly so that she could see whether 
 he really did enter the club. She nodded to him 
 prettily, started the engine again, and, as if cer- 
 tain that he had disappeared from her horizon, 
 leisurely drew on her gauntlet gloves. Seeing 
 that there was no further function for him to per- 
 form standing upon the street curb, he faced about 
 and hurried up the steps of the club. William 
 Spade was quite equal to playing whatever game 
 anyone else saw fit to start. The door opened 
 automatically before him. His desire was to 
 enter, have it close behind him and then inquire 
 for someone anyone at all. But he was saved 
 that trouble. Footsteps approached behind him.
 
 70 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "Why, hello, Spade," called a familiar voice. 
 
 He turned about and saw his friend Barry. At 
 the same time the girl's motor moved slowly away 
 from the curb.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OPPORTUNITY 
 
 "Rarefied society you drive with," was Barry's 
 comment. 
 
 "Is it?" 
 
 "Don't you think so?" 
 
 "I don't know the lady's name," William con- 
 fessed. 
 
 The congressman glanced at him admiringly. 
 
 "Jove, you're a scream, Spade. Come on in." 
 
 William related the adventure that led up to his 
 having to seek assistance at the door of the club. 
 Barry listened with interest. 
 
 "The lady is named Barclay," he said, at 
 length. "That may convey something to you. I 
 think her first name is Sara. Her father is Joseph 
 Barclay a captain, or a major-general perhaps, 
 of industry. His specialty is railroads. If you 
 held out your two hands, I imagine he could hang 
 a million dollars upon each finger for you, without 
 missing it." 
 
 "I know the big white house facing the Circle 
 from the outside." 
 
 71
 
 72 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "From the outside." Barry laughed. "That 
 brings me to something I have wanted to say to 
 you. The job you have isn't much of a job I'm 
 sorry I got it for you. I find there are too many 
 people at the top in this street railway business. 
 At the end of about four years more, by a piece of 
 luck, the superintendent of that branch of the line 
 may be fired or resign, and you may, if your horo- 
 scope lies just right, be given the job of superin- 
 tendent at a salary of a hundred and twenty-five 
 dollars." 
 
 He drummed on the arm of his chair. "And 
 you'll hold that for at least ten years more. In 
 addition to that, it is one of those infected jobs." 
 
 "Infected?" 
 
 "Yes. Your friends receive you with open 
 arms just the same as they would if you had 
 leprosy. That is the strange thing about our so- 
 cial code. We have queer criterions. A young 
 man who works in a bank may go anywhere if he 
 behaves himself and is fairly attractive. But a 
 young man working in a jewelry store or in a 
 garage may not. Yet those three positions are all 
 similar in that they render service, and in almost 
 an equal degree, to the moneyed classes." 
 
 "But the job of the boy in the bank comes under 
 the head of 'financial.' "
 
 OPPORTUNITY 73 
 
 "Right. That's the solution. Banker, broker, 
 stock manipulator, Wall Street those are the 
 magic words. The fonts of gold, you know. 
 This is an age that requires money. But, to re- 
 turn to what I started out to say, you must give 
 up your job. Get into something that looks right 
 and meet people of the class you have been accus- 
 tomed to meet." 
 
 "But that is not a profession." 
 
 "It is, if you keep your eyes open." 
 
 William pondered over this. 
 
 "You mean I should attempt to marry Miss 
 Barclay, or one similar, and thus feather the 
 nest"?" he demanded, at length. 
 
 "Not necessarily. Although that would be de- 
 sirable. You might confine your attention en- 
 tirely to men if you feel that is more congenial. 
 A young man with your personal attractions makes 
 friends; and friends mean opportunities. I sug- 
 gest this line of thought to you. I believe you 
 will do well to give it your earnest consideration." 
 
 "I shall do so." 
 
 "And you must remember this. You have no 
 cash capital to work on. Your capital is a quick 
 brain and a bright face. You must place it where 
 it will do you most good. It will never help you 
 there at the car-barn."
 
 74 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 An incident that happened that evening at the 
 barn served in a way to drive home this advice of 
 his friend. As he entered his small office, Mc- 
 Gowan, the superintendent, was improvising a 
 reprimand for a couple of motormen who were 
 using too much current in running their cars as 
 registered by a device on their cars known as a 
 coasting dial. It was supposed to be an index of 
 how well the motorman in each case was conserv- 
 ing current and momentum. 
 
 "Spade," directed McGowan, "I wish you'd 
 keep an eye on the men, and report everybody that 
 drops below twenty-five percent." 
 
 "I'll do as you say, sir, but I don't like to report 
 them for that sort of thing." 
 
 "What do you mean you don't like to report 
 them 1 ?" 
 
 William thought he had been in the service long 
 enough to voice an opinion. 
 
 "It's none of my business, of course, but these 
 dials are not a good test. If you take " 
 
 "You had the right idea when you said it was 
 none of your business," growled the superintend- 
 ent. "If you have any kick on the coasting dials, 
 I'll arrange it so you can make it to Mr. Baker in 
 the morning." 
 
 This meant that he would be reported to the
 
 OPPORTUNITY 75 
 
 traffic manager. McGowan was a hard-headed, 
 two-fisted fellow, who ruled his piece of the work 
 by brawn and let somebody else higher up furnish 
 the brains. His low calibre and the low calibre 
 of the other men he had to deal with, William 
 had taken as a matter of course before. But, 
 after his experiences of the afternoon with two 
 people of his own mental level, he was suddenly 
 overcome by a feeling of homesickness the inev- 
 itable craving of a man long marooned on a desert 
 isle, for his own people and his own places. For 
 the first time in the two years he had been em- 
 ployed there, he experienced a feeling of disgust 
 for his work. 
 
 In the morning, when he returned to the house 
 where he slept, a smell of boiling cabbage greeted 
 him at the door, or the ghost of the smell of cab- 
 bage boiled yesterday. It all depended upon 
 whether the recurrence of cabbage was a daily or a 
 tertiary event. He hurried up the dingy, narrow 
 stairs. The red and blue stained glass in the 
 bathroom door gave an unwholesome illumination 
 to the hallway; as if in filtering out the pleasant 
 rays of light it had filtered out also all the oxygen 
 that should have been in the air. His room looked 
 out upon a vista of back yards, wherein his neigh- 
 bors had striven to outdo each other in untidiness.
 
 76 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 For the first time the dreariness of these sur- 
 roundings was impressed upon him. It was not 
 dreary to the others who lived there. On the con- 
 trary, a joyous air of contentment reigned every- 
 where which made its deficiencies the more pro- 
 nounced. In the yard adjoining a man sat in his 
 shirt sleeves, red undershirt showing at the wrists, 
 and tossed a ball to a grimy babe he would have 
 admitted was his own and seemed to enjoy it. 
 In the room across the way a girl sang as she 
 pressed her collar and cuffs preparatory to put- 
 ting them on. 
 
 Their optimism was unpleasant to him. It was 
 unpleasant also, when he wanted to be in the sun- 
 shine, to have to undress and go to bed. He had 
 never succeeded in accommodating himself to his 
 owl-like life. It seemed unwholesome and un- 
 healthy. He had taken the greatest pains to be 
 in the sunshine every available minute as if to 
 keep alive the red corpuscles in his blood. He 
 had a fear always that he would become pale and 
 senemic like one of those creatures that live 
 under a stone. 
 
 The next day he received orders though not in 
 so many words to substitute for his morning nap 
 a visit to Mr. Baker's office. The hour set was
 
 OPPORTUNITY 77 
 
 nine in the morning. Since he had learned, how- 
 ever, that it was customary when a reprimand was 
 to be issued to have the victim report about two 
 hours before-hand and wait, in order to add to his 
 humiliation, William took the precaution of call- 
 ing Mr. Baker's office on the telephone to find out 
 at what time that gentleman was expected to come 
 down. Being informed of the hour, he slept from 
 about half past seven until half past nine and ap- 
 peared at Mr. Baker's office promptly at ten. So 
 prompt, indeed, was he that he preceded Mr. 
 Baker himself by but a few steps and was thus 
 given the privilege of holding open the office door 
 for him. For this courtesy the traffic manager 
 thanked him pleasantly. At ten-thirty, when he 
 was ushered into the private office, Mr. Baker 
 recognized him. 
 
 "Er a Mr. Spade," he said, consulting a 
 memorandum, "you were requested to appear here 
 at nine o'clock." 
 
 "Yes, sir. But since I learned you were not 
 to be here until ten, I did not hurry." 
 
 The glances of the two men held each other for 
 a full minute. The traffic manager turned away, 
 a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth. 
 
 "Well, let that pass, Mr. Spade. I have more
 
 78 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 important business with you. I understand you 
 are interfering with the discipline of the barn." 
 
 "I took occasion to criticise the coasting-dials." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because I had noticed that the men with the 
 high percentages would let their cars coast almost 
 to a standstill, for the purpose of improving their 
 record. And I am certain that the current re- 
 quired to overcome the inertia of the car in getting 
 up speed again is greater than the current saved by 
 the extra coasting." 
 
 Mr. Baker gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. 
 "Go on," he said. 
 
 William went on to explain his observations 
 of the results obtained in endeavoring to save 
 money by substituting momentum for current, 
 when possible. The other listened attentively. 
 
 "You develop a very nice theory," he said, at 
 length. "But we don't run street railways by 
 theory." 
 
 "The practical consideration is do you save 
 current?" 
 
 "Quite so." 
 
 "Then why not put a meter on one of the cars 
 and really find out?" 
 
 The other looked at him sharply.
 
 OPPORTUNITY 79 
 
 "I will take your suggestion under advise- 
 ment," he said, finally. 
 
 As his visitor left he shook hands with him. 
 For some time nothing was done about it. Then 
 without warning one day they put a meter on one 
 of the cars and conducted a series of experiments 
 with various motormen all of which seemed to 
 prove the truth of William's contention, for al- 
 though one man made a record of nearly eighty 
 percent, the consumption of current was about the 
 same as in the case of the man who made but 
 twenty-five percent. As a result the company 
 took off the dials, and William received a letter of 
 commendation from Mr. Baker. 
 
 With this to his credit, it seemed now that there 
 was an opportunity for him to escape from his 
 present position and get a start on the upward 
 way. He kept his ear upon the ground and 
 waited for an opportunity. And when at length 
 the master mechanic resigned, the foreman of the 
 shops in consequence being made master mechanic, 
 and the assistant foreman of shops being made 
 foreman, William made application to Mr. Baker 
 for the vacant position of assistant foreman. It 
 was not a very important job the pay was but 
 one hundred dollars a month and there was no
 
 8o THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 one in the shops with education enough to fill the 
 place. He thought therefore that he stood a good 
 chance. But Mr. Baker sent for him one day and 
 said that the place had already been given to a 
 friend of someone higher up. 
 
 ''When do I get a chance, Mr. Baker?" 
 
 "You have to hit the bull's-eye many times, 
 Mr. Spade, before they ring the bell. There is a 
 generation of young men growing up now who 
 are the sons of rich fathers. They are 'not ex- 
 pected to win their way upwards from the bottom 
 by their own efforts as their fathers and their 
 grandfathers did. They are put through the mill 
 and passed upward from position to position to 
 places of trust and high salary. Young men 
 such as you must stand aside when this procession 
 is going by." 
 
 "Mr. Spade," he concluded, as William rose to 
 go, "there is only one coin that counts in the hands 
 of a young man winning his way. That's punch. 
 You have to get the world down and poke it in the 
 eye, and then it gives you what you want." 
 
 It was a gloomy and crestfallen William Spade 
 that set foot upon the sidewalk outside the Com- 
 pany's office. He felt mentally as he had felt 
 physically some years before in an interclass fight 
 when he had fallen upon the ground and a mob of
 
 OPPORTUNITY 81 
 
 eight or ten deep had settled upon him, making it 
 impossible for him to move or, except occasionally, 
 to breathe. He was down now, with no power to 
 get up, and the weight upon him was suffocating 
 him. He must pull himself up out of the stratum 
 to a level where people breathed. There were 
 persons who were contented at the level in which 
 he lay, perhaps, because they had risen from a still 
 lower one. He himself had been contented there 
 when he felt he was generating power to lift him- 
 self out of it. But now when he saw that he had 
 stored up no power, but was a mere mole, smother- 
 ing underground and waiting to be stepped upon, 
 he resented the location that had been assigned 
 him. He must get up into the light and air at any 
 cost. 
 
 Of course this state of mind was due to the germ 
 that had long ago been introduced into his system. 
 His contact with riches and ease had made poverty 
 nauseating to him. His system demanded luxury 
 and money-spending. He had been inoculated 
 with the desire for luxury and opulence and his 
 cumulative discontent with the lack of it was now 
 breaking through. 
 
 At this hour of the day it was high time to go 
 back to the nest which was his home and lay him- 
 self down to sleep. But dark nests had no attrac-
 
 82 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 tions for him. He preferred to be in a place 
 where people walked in the sunlight. This was 
 not hard to find. About him were beautiful 
 women in dresses of all hues, strangely tight 
 around the bottom as was the fashion that year, 
 in which, eagerly crippling themselves, they 
 moved slowly along with much expenditure of 
 effort, and were greatly pleased. It was strange 
 that a woman who could take a nice, thirty-two 
 inch step would voluntarily put on a type of gar- 
 ment that would make her take two steps to tra- 
 verse the same distance but they did it with joy. 
 For no female would permit herself to be comfort- 
 able if by so doing she wore other attire than that 
 prescribed for that particular season of that par- 
 ticular year. 
 
 An automobile, of a design strangely familiar, 
 hurried along on his side of the street. Suddenly, 
 in response to a quick tightening of the brakes, it 
 cut down its speed and, with a perilous double 
 turn, swung smoothly into a vacant parking space 
 by the curb. He found himself abreast of its 
 wind-shield and close to it. The girl within 
 leaned back comfortably against the cushions. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Spade," she said. 
 
 He stopped in surprise, and met a pair of hand- 
 some eyes which belonged to his lady of the
 
 OPPORTUNITY 83 
 
 stranded automobile. Small wonder the car had 
 been familiar. 
 
 "Good morning, Miss Barclay," he replied. 
 
 She raised her eyebrows as he pronounced her 
 name, but made no comment upon his knowledge 
 of it. 
 
 "You were in such a brown study, I could not 
 resist interrupting it," she observed. 
 
 "I was speculating on the propensity they all 
 have for hobbling themselves up." 
 
 "We all do it. I myself am a perfect cripple, 
 like a Chinese woman. I have positively given 
 up walking. But why do you philosophize thus"? 
 Are you going to write a book to prove that we 
 are a nation of wasters and slaves to fashion*?" 
 
 "Would you?" 
 
 "No. If I were you I should get in this auto- 
 mobile instead and help me buy a hat. It would 
 show that you rather approved of extravagance." 
 
 In his present mood, this fitted in well with his 
 desires. They drove to a luxurious sort of shop, 
 where a carriage-man opened the door of the ma- 
 chine for them, saluting her by name. A boy 
 opened the door of the shop, and they entered into 
 a spider's parlor laid with a rug whose sheen was 
 unmistakable, and set about with deep luxurious 
 chairs. A high wainscot of dark oak, a rich-hued
 
 84 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 rep wall covering above, a few pictures chosen 
 with much skill, heavy hangings this was the set- 
 ting. A woman entered and greeted them with 
 an expert blending of friendliness and deference 
 all as though there was no business to be trans- 
 acted and the girl was simply honoring them with 
 a call. An assistant presently brought out hats, 
 which were tried on one after another. In fact, 
 for a while, William was of the opinion that the 
 expedition was merely for the purpose of seeing 
 how well those lovely creations looked in conjunc- 
 tion with her glorious complexion and high color. 
 
 "Don't you think this is darling*?" was her fre- 
 quent ecstatic question. 
 
 "Darling is the word," he would reply, thinking 
 of the ensemble rather than merely the hat. 
 
 Or "I am sure this is positively the best." 
 
 "Positively," was his opinion. 
 
 "You are nothing but an echo," she objected. 
 
 "You wouldn't value my real opinion on this 
 subject." 
 
 "On the contrary, I should swear by it." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 He leaned back luxuriously into the depths of 
 his chair and glanced at the waiting assistant. 
 
 "Will you get that gwendolyn-colored hat with
 
 OPPORTUNITY 85 
 
 the rose in it*? The rose matches the lady's com- 
 plexion. Don't forget, Miss Barclay, which com- 
 plexion you yes, that's the hat. Glorious!" 
 He stood up and viewed it from the other side. 
 "That will do very nicely," he said, to the amused 
 proprietor. "You may send it." 
 
 The girl gasped, but good sportsmanship was 
 part of her training and code. 
 
 "You need not send it," she remarked. "I'll 
 wear it." 
 
 Whereupon she put the rose-decked creation 
 upon her head and secured it with the necessary 
 pins. The color in her cheeks was a trifle deeper 
 now than the roses, the excitement of surrender- 
 ing, if but briefly, to his will having moved her 
 blood on a little more quickly. They left the 
 shop and she took him back to about the spot 
 where she had picked him up. 
 
 "I am due home in a few minutes. Shall I set 
 you down at your club*?" she asked, demurely. 
 
 He named a less difficult place this time. As 
 he watched the car move away, he realized that 
 she was symbolic of something that she lived 
 above the surface of the ground. But he also 
 realized that to live where she lived required 
 strength and the exercise of power. 
 
 Both of these things, however, he proposed to
 
 86 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 attain. And if he was to attain them and make a 
 place for himself wherein he would receive what- 
 ever advancement he had rightfully earned, he 
 must set about it very soon. It was no small 
 problem to decide. His bed and he were not ac- 
 quainted that day. But when nightfall came he 
 had made up his mind. And, with his reports to 
 the main office the following morning, went also a 
 letter saying that as soon as the Company could 
 get the services of a new night clerk, he wished to 
 resign.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MISS BARCLAY BLUSHES 
 
 Some ten months later an old gentleman care- 
 fully turned the knob of the door upon which was 
 inscribed "William Spade. Life Insurance," and 
 entered the office. The young man at the desk 
 sprang to his feet. 
 
 "Well, father, how are you?" 
 
 "First rate, I thank you." He turned back to 
 look at the name on the door. "Son, it's a com- 
 fort, isn't it, to have your name printed on some- 
 thing. I used to have my name on the glass of 
 my office door and, although most of the time you 
 couldn't read it for dust, it showed I was a person 
 people wanted to see. But now you can't find my 
 name anywhere." 
 
 "Son," he went on, brushing the thin hair back 
 from his forehead, "you saw me when I was in my 
 prime when I was the chief owner of a business 
 that was the envy of all my friends. You saw 
 that taken out of my hands by a very unfair piece 
 of dealing. I want you to profit by my mistake. 
 
 87
 
 88 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 That is the only consolation I can get out of the 
 failure I have made of my life." 
 
 The elder Spade had aged greatly. To his son, 
 it seemed but a short while since the father, laugh- 
 ing, light-hearted, a young man almost, had held 
 a small boy in his arms before the fire and recited 
 poetry to him, until, still listening to its cadences, 
 the tired child had fallen sound asleep. William 
 could still remember the voice declaiming: 
 
 "The hand of Douglas is his own 
 And never shall in friendly grasp 
 The hand of such as Marmion clasp." 
 
 These stirring, heroic words, breathing war and 
 defiance, the gentle-spirited, peace-loving man, by 
 strange antithesis, never tired of hearing. 
 
 "Well," asked Mr. Spade, at length, "how are 
 you getting on*?" 
 
 "Nicely. I am going to move into a bigger 
 .office. A smaller one would be quite adequate, 
 you understand, but I have to live up to a modern 
 business axiom, which is to keep improvements 
 and expansion always ahead of business. As soon 
 as a man starts out he takes an office twice as big 
 as he needs, puts a valuable rug on the floor and 
 installs every possible known piece of mahogany
 
 MISS BARCLAY BLUSHES 89 
 
 office furniture, twice as expensive as he can af- 
 ford; and waits for business to catch up to him." 
 
 "It seems to me that such squandering could 
 only lead to failure." 
 
 "It's the bluff that counts. A man who has an 
 office in a building where there is no elevator 
 might just as well not be in any business. The 
 more marble there is in the lobby of an office- 
 building the more people go in and out through it. 
 Business men today love to be dazzled. They 
 give their business to the man who keeps them 
 waking longest in his outer office." 
 
 "But all that is not sincere." 
 
 "We do not strive for sincerity any more," re- 
 sponded William, cheerily. 
 
 He 'moved into a larger and more comfortable 
 office suite the following week. As he had fore- 
 cast to his father, he put valuable rugs on the 
 floors. He purchased the plainest and most ex- 
 pensive desks, filing cases and office equipment. 
 He selected comfortable chairs such as appear in 
 the lounging rooms of clubs. The whole had an 
 adroit air of ease and prosperity. On the door in 
 black letters was this simple announcement 
 "William Spade." 
 
 In the ten months that had elapsed since his 
 resignation from the railway company, h had
 
 90 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 slowly and carefully been accumulating acquaint- 
 ances. He looked up members of his fraternity. 
 He unearthed football men and acquaintances of 
 his school days. To these he made himself agree- 
 able in his off-hand way. They introduced him to 
 others. He played squash-ball and tennis with 
 them. He went to their clubs with them. He 
 was always ready for an adventure. If there is 
 such a thing as a man-about-town, he became one. 
 He had had himself put up for two good clubs 
 and had been taken in to one of them. He had 
 met a great many poor young men, but he had also 
 met many rich ones and a myriad of that class 
 who had great expectations. It was to this latter 
 class of men, at length, that he devoted his atten- 
 tion. He knew scores of them whose mothers 
 held large sums of money in trust for them. 
 There were others who were heirs to estates in dis- 
 pute, from which they were bound to receive 
 money as soon as the right amount was decided 
 upon. Most of them, meanwhile, were marking 
 time waiting the pleasure of the gods. Not a 
 very admirable attitude. But the certainty of 
 plenty at some time in the future had an enervat- 
 ing effect upon them. Some of them would have 
 gone into business immediately if they had had the 
 money right away instead of having to wait for it.
 
 MISS BARCLAY BLUSHES 91 
 
 Others would simply have begun to spend it at 
 an earlier date. But they were unanimous in one 
 thing they all wanted the money. 
 
 William soon accumulated a strong following 
 among them, because it began to appear that he 
 would be able to be of assistance to them. He 
 was working upon a scheme by which the life ten- 
 ant, or the trustee, or whoever it was that held 
 the money the heirs waited for, might still con- 
 tinue to hold it and the heirs possess it too. Such 
 an arrangement seemed in the nature of a miracle 
 to these hungry pups who were sitting upon their 
 haunches waiting patiently for the food at last to 
 be dropped to them and to William too it seemed 
 that it would be a miracle if he could so arrange 
 the details that the scheme would actually work. 
 
 It was a broader field for him than his life in- 
 surance and more than that it had the appear- 
 ance of being a broader field. He had become 
 strongly convinced of late, of the doctrine of ap- 
 pearances. Nothing succeeded, evidently, like the 
 appearance of success. If such were the trend of 
 the generation, he would do well to fall in with it. 
 He did fall in with it, with a vague realization 
 that it was an unsound basis to work upon. But 
 his contact with riches had made him desire rich- 
 ness, and his later contact with poverty had made
 
 92 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 him abhor drabness. His office and his life, here- 
 after, were to be civilized and by civilization he 
 understood the civilization of the rich. 
 
 And so, having run up a very big bill for office 
 furniture and mortgaged his future to pay the 
 large rent of his offices, he now, after having strug- 
 gled under this expense for nearly a year, proved 
 his confidence in himself by writing an advertise- 
 ment for a competent and therefore an expensive 
 stenographer. Having attended to this, he felt 
 that he had now started his business upon a firm 
 foundation. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon, about this time, he put 
 on his most becoming clothes and made a call. 
 He had not long before accidentally met upon the 
 street, a sister of one of his college friends. Her 
 husband had been appointed an Assistant Attor- 
 ney-General and they had taken a house in Wash- 
 ington. She insisted that he must call upon her 
 very soon, and he was taking advantage of the 
 first available Sunday afternoon. 
 
 He was rather surprised at the scale on which 
 they lived. But he reflected that, having an am- 
 ple income in addition to the honorarium the gov- 
 ernment allows assistant cabinet officers, it would 
 be a temptation to them to spread out and receive 
 the adulation their official position carried with it.
 
 MISS BARCLAY BLUSHES 93 
 
 The house had a wide, white, marble front, with a 
 hedge and some trim pine trees bordering the piece 
 of parking before it. Several automobiles stood 
 at the curb. The grilled door, whose handsome 
 iron pattern stood out sumptuously against the red 
 silk curtain behind it, was opened by a man in 
 smart livery. 
 
 "Mrs. Carver 1 ?" William asked, wondering if 
 he were calling at the right house. 
 
 The man bowed, and took his hat and gloves. 
 He said that he would find Mrs. Carver in the 
 library. As this appeared to be upstairs, William 
 ascended a curving marble stair, at the top of 
 which a murmur of conversation directed him to a 
 room at his right. Mrs. Carver rose to greet him. 
 
 "So glad you came," she said, but was too busy 
 then to add more than a few sentences to this 
 greeting. She presented him to a girl whose name 
 he never discovered, for she slurred it so adroitly 
 that he could not tell whether the cooing sound 
 she had made was really a name or just a courte- 
 ous symbol, in place of a name she had forgotten. 
 The girl consisted of an attractive dress and hat 
 with something animate within that conversed. 
 
 He looked appraisingly over the company in the 
 room. An air of forced gayety hung over them. 
 A year later he would have known that half of
 
 94 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 them were head-hunters, who came for the pur- 
 pose of telling upon the following afternoon the 
 manner in which they had occupied themselves 
 upon this afternoon, thus, by reason of the Car- 
 vers' official position, absorbing credit. 
 
 He and his companion were presently joined by 
 another girl, dragging spoils in the shape of two 
 young men social butterflies fresh from the co- 
 coon. They were abnormally blase. Not more 
 than twenty years old, they had adopted the pose 
 that the world had offered all its store of enter- 
 tainment and failed to interest them. William 
 could not but think of the waste it was that these 
 young, impressionable human beings, endowed 
 with brains and precious feelings, should pur- 
 posely view the world through dark glasses, de- 
 priving all the best things of their flavor and all 
 the beautiful things of their loveliness, in order 
 that they might sustain a pose of complete sophis- 
 tication. In place of the simple, natural joy of 
 living, they strove always for complex means of 
 enjoyment, simply for the effect of not appearing 
 to be entertained by the things which entertain the 
 ordinary individual. 
 
 They all flitted away from him presently, and 
 in their place soon came smiling Mrs. Carver 
 who noted his air of abstraction.
 
 MISS BARCLAY BLUSHES 95 
 
 "What is the bad news'?" she asked. "Let me 
 enjoy it." 
 
 "I was just meditating upon a waste of per- 
 fectly good sensibilities and brains. There go 
 two boys just turned twenty to whom the world 
 has nothing left to show." 
 
 "You don't blame them, do you? They are 
 brought up to be interested only in the things that 
 it is proper to be interested in. All other things 
 to them are common or impossible or just drab. 
 That is their great fear in life of being drab." 
 
 Mrs. Carver viewed the two young men reflec- 
 tively. "If I had children they would be just 
 like that. My husband has had brains enough to 
 make money our children, if we had any, would 
 have to be trained to spend it properly. Their 
 vision would be narrowed down just as is the 
 vision of those two boys. They would be set in 
 a class whose objective is the buying of pleasure. 
 As members of it they would have to learn to en- 
 joy themselves in a manner that would reflect dis- 
 tinction upon them to know at what combina- 
 tion of circumstances to be bored and at what to 
 appear diverted. They would make a serious 
 business of pleasure and the disbursing of money. 
 A high objective, isn't it 1 ?" 
 
 William assented. It occurred to him that it
 
 96 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 was in order not to lose his foothold on this very 
 sort of life that he was making his supreme effort. 
 For the moment he could not help thinking that it 
 was an empty ambition. 
 
 "But, as you think, without saying," Mrs. Car- 
 ver went on, quickly, "why do we stay in this 
 atmosphere? It is only because we are carried 
 on by our own inertia. If we strike out to swim, 
 the current carries us on just the same. The con- 
 duct of our special world is determined by the 
 halcyon age in which we live, which gives us 
 money and leisure. If one finds himself mentally 
 and financially equipped for such a class, he must 
 either accept it as it is, or else find himself human 
 society in a class lower in the scale which could 
 not be satisfactory." 
 
 He was about to reply when someone entered 
 the room. His hostess moved a step from him to 
 greet her. William stood where he was, a light 
 of unusual interest in his eyes as he viewed the 
 newcomer. Mrs. Carver turned to him. 
 
 "I want to present you to Miss Barclay," she 
 said. 
 
 He bowed and let his eyes rest upon hers. Hers 
 were bright, and a flush was mounting her cheeks 
 which was not the flush of embarrassment an 
 emotion she knew not.
 
 MISS BARCLAY BLUSHES 97 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Spade," she murmured 
 smiled, and in a moment had slipped away. 
 
 Mrs. Carver eyed her narrowly. "Now why 
 did she blush *?" she asked. 
 
 "Did she?" responded William.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 
 
 William's scheme to permit the impecunious 
 heir to come into possession of his inheritance 
 while the life tenant still continued to hold it, 
 progressed steadily. At length he called in a 
 young lawyer named Warburton, in whose ability 
 he had great confidence, and turned the whole 
 scheme over to him to make water-tight; and War- 
 burton, going over it inch by inch, soldered up the 
 leaks, and gave it as his opinion that the scheme 
 would work. 
 
 The problem was : to enable a man who, for in- 
 stance, would inherit one hundred thousand dol- 
 lars upon the death of his mother, to obtain that 
 money immediately. No bank would lend him 
 a hundred thousand dollars upon such a prospect, 
 because he might die and never inherit the money, 
 in which case the bank would lose. The bank 
 must be secured against such a contingency, and 
 the solution of that was so simple as to be stag- 
 gering. It was only necessary to insure the life of 
 
 98
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 99 
 
 the heir for one hundred thousand dollars and 
 make it payable to the bank in case he died before 
 inheriting the money. The bank could not lose. 
 
 The bank would insist, of course, that the inter- 
 est be guaranteed as well. This was to be accom- 
 plished by the heir buying an annuity for his 
 mother equal to the amount of the interest; and 
 making it payable to the bank. That made the 
 whole transaction absolutely iron-clad. And the 
 beauty of it from William Spade's standpoint was 
 this. He would receive: first, a commission for 
 writing a hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance 
 policy a large stroke of business in itself; second, 
 a commission for writing a six-thousand-dollar 
 annuity, which was a large annuity; and third, a 
 two-percent commission for obtaining a hundred 
 thousand dollar loan, which was a large loan. 
 
 The fact that it was possible to manipulate 
 affairs in this manner so that two people could 
 have possession of the same dollar at the same 
 time, seemed to William to be a commentary upon 
 the financial possibilities that existed in his coun- 
 try. It seemed to prove the power and plenty of 
 the nation's money, and its eagerness to take ad- 
 vantage of every scheme, however unorthodox, 
 that promised a safe return of money. 
 
 The spring of that year found the country more
 
 ioo THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 free than ever with money and strong in its reli- 
 ance upon its prosperity. It was a wave of un- 
 usual success that rose above the level of past 
 steady successes that gave promise of greater 
 opportunities and even wider fields. 
 
 William Spade was able to furnish ten starve- 
 ling heirs with their inheritances, by putting into 
 practice the method he had worked out. The 
 money involved in these cases amounted in all to 
 more than five hundred thousand dollars and, in 
 consequence, the horn of plenty dropped into his 
 lap a large sum of money. He had many debts to 
 pay. There were lawyer's fees and other ex- 
 penses. But even deducting these, he felt happy 
 in the net profit that he was able to deposit at his 
 bank. 
 
 It was not always a charitable act that he did 
 in obtaining money for these youths. He failed 
 to realize that the power he had in his hands was 
 one which needed to be used with discretion. He 
 was like a physician having in his possession a po- 
 tent drug, which was capable of great good or, 
 if not used with discretion, of lasting harm. Some 
 of the young men, perhaps it would be better to 
 say, most of them, were too inexperienced to be 
 trusted with as much money as he obtained for 
 them. The signs were plain that they had no
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 101 
 
 thought but to spend it as fast as they could. 
 William knew this, but felt no duty to interest 
 himself in it. He did not believe that probing 
 into the results of his business acts was his respon- 
 sibility. 
 
 He had had many difficulties in obtaining a 
 competent stenographer to care for his office. In 
 the course of two months he had had four or five. 
 What he wanted was a woman who could take 
 care of his office tactfully and efficiently during 
 his absence, who could keep his books for him 
 accurately, and who would take an interest in her 
 work in a word, as a snip of a thing informed 
 him upon being discharged from the place, who 
 could run the business just a little bit better than 
 he could run it himself. 
 
 One day a young woman came into his office 
 and said that she understood he wanted a stenog- 
 rapher, and, if such were the case, she would like 
 to apply for the position. He glanced at her 
 clothes and then at her face, and thereupon rose 
 ceremoniously from his desk. 
 
 "I believe there is a God," he asserted. 
 
 "What?' 
 
 "You suit me in every detail." 
 
 "You know absolutely nothing about me," she 
 exclaimed, beginning to laugh. When she
 
 102 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 laughed, an atom of memory stirred in his brain 
 and strove tantalizimgly to bring up an elusive 
 picture of something. 
 
 "I know this about you," he said, "that your 
 clothes are restful to the eye and you look as 
 though you had convolutions upon the inside of 
 your head instead of merely marcelled upon the 
 outside." 
 
 She smiled. He studied the alert, mobile face. 
 
 "Have you ever met me before?" he asked, 
 presently, the elusive memory still disturbing him. 
 But her reply gave him no assistance. 
 
 "If I had," she said, "you wouldn't admit for- 
 getting it, would you*?" 
 
 He asked her what remuneration she would 
 expect and she in turn asked what her duties and 
 hours would be. 
 
 "What makes you think you have met me?" 
 she inquired, when these preliminaries had been 
 arranged. 
 
 "I have a tantalizing memory of you in some 
 far-off past, some previous existence, maybe. It 
 is the way you laugh drawing in your under 
 lip." 
 
 "I have always done that in this existence. I 
 do not know about previous ones." 
 
 "Some day it may all come to me. Perhaps
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 103 
 
 when Gabriel blows his last trumpet and all se- 
 crets are revealed " 
 
 "We needn't wait that long," she said, unex- 
 pectedly. "I will tell you now. My name is 
 Ruth Dunbar." 
 
 The atom of memory in his brain released its 
 picture. A big, overpowering ocean, a small boy 
 wandering disconsolately among the sand dunes, 
 trying to discover something there that seemed 
 familiar and homelike, and then coming out of the 
 sea itself, apparently, a nymph of a water-sprite, 
 running along in the surf, splashing spray over 
 her brown limbs as she ran. That was the pic- 
 ture. He strode eagerly across the room. 
 
 "I'll never forgive you for not saying it the 
 instant you opened the door," he exclaimed. 
 
 "I was not certain it was you at first." 
 
 "Do you remember," he began, eagerly, "the 
 disturbance that was raised the time I " He 
 paused, suddenly embarrassed. 
 
 "Perfectly," she said, laughing. "I even re- 
 member the color of the paint." 
 
 Her appearance settled the last remaining dif- 
 ficulty that was disturbing him, and his craft at 
 last seemed to be sailing serenely over smooth 
 waters. He felt once more like the boy he had 
 'been at college care-free, light-hearted and with
 
 104 E CRESTING WAVE 
 
 no responsibilities upon him. It had been many 
 a day since he had been in this mood. 
 
 Mrs. Carver noticed it that evening. She had 
 invited him to a dinner, and, since it was the first 
 time William had been to a social function of any 
 sort for a long time, he was, in his buoyant mood, 
 as excited as a boy. 
 
 "You look tonight, somehow, just as you used 
 to look when I knew you in your college days," 
 she said. 
 
 "I feel like it. I have no troubles." 
 
 "Fortunate ! Because I am going to sit you by 
 the most attractive girl in Washington." 
 
 He caught a glimpse then of Sara Barclay com- 
 ing up the stairs, the light from a red-shaded lamp 
 on the landing falling across her round, bare shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 "If she beats the one I am looking at," he said, 
 "she has broken a record." 
 
 "She doesn't have to beat her," his hostess ob- 
 served. "That is the girl." 
 
 At the table his spirits rose. It was exciting to 
 him the babel of talk, the laughter, the lights, 
 the servants moving softly about, the girls in their 
 best dresses, the hand that rested on the cloth be- 
 side him, and, at last, the voice which said : 
 
 "Is this your glass of water or is it mine?
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 105 
 
 That is the only way I can attract your atten- 
 tion." 
 
 "Take it. It's yours. You may have every- 
 thing you ask." 
 
 "What were you thinking? The girl on the 
 other side of you has been waiting anxiously for 
 five minutes for you to come to, so she could try 
 her charms upon you. But I had to have you 
 first." 
 
 "I was entertained by the joyous mood of the 
 people here," he said. "It is so studied and per- 
 fect that when it is sprung upon you suddenly it 
 is overpowering, like the first taste of ambrosia." 
 
 "Is it studied?" 
 
 "There are sixteen persons at this table. Do 
 you see one of them that does not seem to be all 
 vivacity and sunshine*?" 
 
 She glanced about her, covertly, so that her 
 neighbor upon the other side might not take the 
 opportunity of conversationally snatching her 
 away. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " That's the result of study you call it breed- 
 ing. These same sixteen persons at the next six- 
 teen dinners will be just as uniformly gay no 
 matter how they feel. Therefore I say it is stud- 
 ied."
 
 106 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 She nodded. But her plan of campaign was 
 aimed at something more personal. 
 
 "And your present vis-a-vis is she happy at 
 this moment, just as the result of study*?" She 
 turned a mischievously contemplative face toward 
 him. 
 
 It was necessary to be wary in answering this. 
 "Since I," he said, "might be considered as a par- 
 tial cause for any such effect I should like to 
 have your opinion upon the subject." 
 
 "Oh, would you?" 
 
 "While I do not doubt my ability to make any 
 girl happy " 
 
 "Temporarily, if I understand you?" 
 
 "Temporarily, as you say. Still I like to have 
 the fact pleasantly confirmed. If you could give 
 me a hint " 
 
 "What sort of hint?" 
 
 "You might," he suggested, seriously, "say, 
 'You have made this evening one that will always 
 stay green in my memory.' Some such simple 
 thing." 
 
 She laughed aloud at his impudence. "You 
 are delightful," she exclaimed, as though he were 
 some new type of person entirely new to her. 
 
 She shot at him an arch glance which rested 
 upon him but for an instant. It was like a caress,
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 107 
 
 which he still seemed to feel, as he glanced now 
 at the curve of her shoulder turned quickly from 
 him, to make amends to her partner beyond. But 
 in the smallest lifting of those shoulders as she 
 turned, she contrived to convey an alluring mes- 
 sage of regret. He stared at her for a moment, 
 half- wondering, half -admiring, but quite conscious 
 that she had thrown her glove into the ring. And 
 when she rose to go, she left as a guerdon for him 
 to wear in his helmet the sirrfple yet provoking 
 word "Hurry !" 
 
 He was conscious that a man presently moved 
 up to the seat beside him, and something familiar 
 about the face gave him the impression that it 
 must be one of the boys he had characterized a few 
 days before as being sated with the world. The 
 boy smoked a cigar, blowing out smoke rings, as 
 indicative of thought, and seemed to be talking. 
 William, enveloped in a comfortable glow of con- 
 tent and at peace with the world, watched the men 
 about the table idly, aware of the voice beside him 
 as of some distant music; and answering now and 
 then "Yes" or "No" as one inserts a new needle 
 in anticipation of another record. 
 
 "I am glad you feel that way about it too," 
 drawled the voice; "at first I used to think an in- 
 vitation there was a command like a royal sum-
 
 io8 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 mons, y'know, bidding you appear in the presence 
 of the best and bravest. But now, d'yuh me, I 
 seldom go. Of course, it's stirring to meet the 
 President of the broad United States and so on 
 and so on. But, what with politicians' daughters 
 and a slice of hoi polloi everywhere you look, it's 
 too deadly for me. Don't you think so, too?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 William eyed the infant with general contempt. 
 
 "If I thought so, I shouldn't say it," he re- 
 sponded cheerfully. 
 
 Through this talk he was studying absently and 
 with a certain grudging appreciation the ascetic 
 features of his host. Carver was gravely convers- 
 ing with a small circle about him, emphasizing his 
 words by baton-like movements of his thin fore- 
 finger a man famous for his singleness of pur- 
 pose and his belief in the seriousness of life, who 
 stood out strongly against this light-hearted com- 
 pany. But William felt that he took life and its 
 responsibilities too seriously. 
 
 In the distance he heard laughter and voices and 
 the assembling of guests. They rose presently 
 and moved toward the alluring sounds. William 
 Spade was twenty that night as young and ready 
 for what joy the night had to offer as the boy at 
 his elbow should have been. A new actor upon
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 109 
 
 the scene, he felt curious eyes upon him. Many 
 a bright smile warned him of Alexander, willing 
 to find new lands to conquer, in response to which 
 he strove to invite thfe iron heel of any beautiful 
 woman who wished to place it. He followed 
 urbanely into what dens of danger he was led and 
 enjoyed himself thoroughly. 
 
 "The game law is off tonight," said Sara Bar- 
 clay, as he paused before her. "You are fair 
 prey for them all." 
 
 She put her hand upon his shoulder and moved 
 easily off with him, dancing not as if it were a 
 mechanical process, but as if rather she floated 
 along like a dryad of a wood-nymph lighter than 
 air. He told her of this. 
 
 "You should see me as a real wood-nymph," 
 she replied. 
 
 "Are you a real wood-nymph in private life 1 ?" 
 
 "Not so much in private as formerly since 
 people are getting more used to the idea. I am 
 doing rhythmic dancing as everyone is nowa- 
 days. And as is well known, we wear shockingly 
 few clothes." 
 
 She made the statement calmly and frankly, as 
 she would have mentioned the ring on her finger, 
 but quite well knowing that it would excite more 
 interest, In common with her kind, she used the
 
 no THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 axiom that it is ill-bred to be prudish as an excuse 
 for making, when she chose, a daring point just 
 within the rules. Half embarrassed, and curbing 
 the line his imagination would have followed, 
 William made it a point innocently to follow her 
 lead. 
 
 "Do you find you have more freedom*?" he 
 asked, suavely. 
 
 "As free as a South-Sea islander. You feel 
 quite stuffy afterwards in mere clothes." 
 
 She contrived to give to the snatch of conversa- 
 tion the air of inviting him closer into her confi- 
 dence as though she were singling him out from 
 the rest. And, although he regarded all these 
 signs as merely the familiar and yet ever new 
 points of an all-absorbing game, he was not so 
 adamant that it made no impression upon him. 
 
 After supper when people were beginning to 
 leave, Sara Barclay said, "This is my last dance. 
 If you are leaving now, there is room in our motor 
 in fact," she said, smiling, "plenty of room,' 
 since I came alone." 
 
 He drove home with her and she directed the 
 chauffeur to take him on to his apartment. He 
 stood still upon the steps watching the red light of 
 the car as, having left him, it rolled swiftly away. 
 It was not unpleasant to have someone look after
 
 A DIVERTING GAME 111 
 
 his comfort thus. It was not unpleasant to play 
 a game when beauty and fascination and money 
 happened to be united all in one as stakes in 
 event that one decided to play for stakes. And 
 whatever one played for, it was a diverting game. 
 There was no necessity for a man to curb his hand 
 or to do anything but wait to see what happened.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE NEW RELIGION 
 
 It is to be supposed that eligible young men 
 are scarce everywhere, but in Washington, where 
 residence is given as a reward for age and wisdom, 
 they appear to be doubly scarce. On that ac- 
 count, perhaps, William found himself receiving 
 many invitations. He had set himself up in an 
 expensive bachelor apartment, which, no doubt, 
 did much toward stimulating the imagination of 
 many a person bidding him to this or that affair. 
 He found he could dine out some three or four 
 evenings a week, which was interesting and divert- 
 ing, as he was meeting new people always and 
 making new friends. 
 
 But when he discovered there were some ma- 
 niacs who actually kept score of their dinner invi- 
 tations and could tell you or rather insisted upon 
 telling you on the slightest provocation exactly 
 how many times they had dined out during the 
 season, he felt that his self-respect made it neces- 
 sary to refuse many requests for his presence. 
 
 112
 
 THE NEW RELIGION 113 
 
 One limited intelligence informed him blandly, 
 "Theoretically, I dine at the Such-and-Such Club, 
 but. my friends have not given me a chance to do so 
 for a month." He found that it was considered 
 very good economics by a number of free lances 
 not to have any regular refectory but to depend 
 upon friends. The friends, therefore, soon got to 
 know who would fill in at the eleventh hour. 
 This was not William's idea of having a social 
 success. 
 
 As May drew to a close, the usual exodus from 
 the city began. Dinners and dances became less 
 frequent. Sara's father, the only other member 
 of her immediate family (her mother having died 
 several years before) at length decided that the 
 tropical climate of Washington was too difficult 
 for him and followed the throng, taking Sara with 
 him. 
 
 During the months that followed, sometimes 
 she wrote to him, and he read those letters care- 
 fully. He actually allowed himself to ponder 
 her suitability. For whatever his success or fail- 
 ure in life, it was such an ornamental person as she 
 that he would need. It was people of her class 
 with whom he must live. 
 
 He did not give consideration to the purpose- 
 lessness of that life. Sometimes in the afternoon
 
 114 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 at calling time, he would see women of the upper 
 stratum, gowned in expensive clothes and driving 
 in expensive motors, manned by expensive beings 
 in livery, making their round of calls at the houses 
 upon the fashionable streets upon people they did 
 not want to see, who had no human significance to 
 them but were simply holders of certain places of 
 wealth or influence. And, knowing that they 
 realized they were making all this outlay of effort 
 and money merely to obtain something which an- 
 noyed them, the pathos and fruitlessness of the life 
 might have been impressed upon him. But he 
 avoided that phase of it. As Mrs. Carver had 
 said, that was the only society of cultivated people 
 there was. Whatever idiosyncrasies and weak- 
 nesses they had, unelevating though they might 
 be, he had to accept them as part of the bargain. 
 In fact that seemed to be the attitude of everyone 
 who was permitted to stand on that high plane 
 they admitted the absurdity and emptiness of the 
 code, but they needed to breathe that atmosphere. 
 If that were the strata in which William Spade 
 was to live, he must have a wife used to its forms 
 and graces. No one could fit this specification 
 more fully than Sara Barclay. Should he marry 
 her, it would, he explained to himself, be because 
 of these attributes and not because of her money.
 
 THE NEW RELIGION 115 
 
 Viewed in this light, the arrangement was a suit- 
 able and permissible one. 
 
 A hot, uninteresting summer dragged on, until 
 one morning, toward the end of July, the news- 
 papers published mildly the news that the crown 
 prince of Austria had been assassinated in Bel- 
 grade an announcement causing little comment 
 and arousing small interest. But within an in- 
 credibly short time, as a result of it, the world was 
 benumbed by the spectacle of all Europe em- 
 broiled. And having exempted Europe, when one 
 said the world, it meant most of all the United 
 States. And benumbed the country was 
 stunned, frightened, awed. 
 
 The closing of the New York Stock Exchange 
 its pulse and heart left it dazed and gasping 
 for breath. Its commerce and trade were the 
 mainstays of its existence, and the mazes and in- 
 tricacies of these two were so strange and compli- 
 cated that in this great crisis it feared to touch the 
 engine of its own upbuilding. Let the machine 
 lie idle. The Stock Exchange was closed. 
 What did it matter if business at large had noth- 
 ing to do with stocks and bonds. Something was 
 the matter with Money, and Money was the guid- 
 ing star of the nation's life. 
 
 The nations that made money and the spending
 
 ii6 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 of money their guiding star old Professor Mac- 
 Millan had characterized as being on the down- 
 grade. At one time it had seemed important to 
 William to discover whether his own nation was 
 aspiring and progressing toward the apex ; or, hav- 
 ing reached the apex, was all-powerful ; or, having 
 passed it, was retrograding sliding again towards 
 the abyss. He had brushed all that aside now. 
 He was too busy striding towards wealth and 
 power. Yet here was a manifestation that might 
 have thrown light upon the question as to whether 
 the nation was moving forward or backward. 
 But he failed to note how deeply the country 
 was in the grasp of the thirst for money. 
 
 He awoke one morning to find the world chloro- 
 formed. He tried to get a loan from a bank of 
 five thousand dollars for one of his clients a 
 matter which ordinarily possessed about the same 
 importance as the purchase of a postage stamp. 
 But the bank officials drew long faces and said 
 that it was not possible. Five thousand dollars! 
 Two weeks before he had obtained a hundred 
 thousand without question! Every other source 
 was frozen up equally tight. Business was re- 
 duced to the mere process of barter and exchange 
 so much for so much just as at the time of the 
 landing of the Pilgrims.
 
 THE NEW RELIGION 117 
 
 William's business was extinguished quite as 
 though some one had clamped a snuffer tight upon 
 it. Bankers laughed when he entered their count- 
 ing-rooms. The purse-bearers held up empty 
 hands. Whatever office he entered, his call took 
 on a mere social aspect. It seemed suddenly as 
 if all money had disappeared. 
 
 "Miss Ruth," he said, entering his office and 
 throwing himself disconsolately into his chair, 
 "the world has gone wrong. Nobody has any 
 money." 
 
 "Money," she replied. "You have already 
 made enough money this year to last to the end 
 of it." 
 
 "And spent it." 
 
 She stood by the window and looked down upon 
 the sun-scorched street. 
 
 "A man like you," she answered, "who digs his 
 spoon into the cauldron of business, and brings 
 it out full, builds up a religion of which he is the 
 center and the all-powerful god. And when some 
 force, beside which he is a mere pigmy, is let 
 loose in the regular course of events, he feels he 
 is ill-used." 
 
 She was aware that his early careful training 
 had left no impression upon him that his con- 
 tact with the spenders, the people who tried to
 
 ii8 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 make life easy, had eliminated from his make-up 
 the idea of responsibility to a God. 
 
 "But you do not realize," she went on, "that 
 you are a pigmy. To you God is a legend. You 
 are your own god. It is years since you have said 
 prayers." 
 
 "Why should I say prayers'? I admit the ex- 
 istence of a Creator of all things and of the rules 
 by which they are run, but I am put on the earth 
 to be self-reliant, to order my own life, to take 
 care of myself. If I can't do it with the power 
 I am given, am I to try to get the bulge upon 
 everyone else by calling on Heaven to help me? 
 I wish you would answer that." 
 
 He set about presently to prove that he could 
 take care of himself. While the world lay 
 dormant, his alert eye scanned the horizon for 
 provender. He found the opportunity of buy- 
 ing for a small sum five acres of low-lying, un- 
 fruitful land in Prince George County, bordering 
 a stream. It seemed like the height of folly to 
 everyone who heard of it. But without vouch- 
 safing any explanation, he had a plan drawn divid- 
 ing it into lots and streets and, filing this with 
 the county surveyor, had it drawn upon the offi- 
 cial plat-book. This piece of apparent reckless- 
 ness he performed upon the knowledge, gleaned
 
 THE NEW RELIGION 119 
 
 as a result of the deft placing of two twenty-dollar 
 bills in the hands of just the proper person, that 
 this was the only available site for a bridge in 
 event of the construction of a certain new trolley 
 line. He had an idea that the company, which 
 was rich and whose business was not affected by 
 the war, would attempt to buy the right of way 
 while land was cheap. 
 
 The possibility that it might not be just fair 
 for him to act upon information gained in this 
 manner occurred to him. But it was imperative 
 that he have money, and it was not for him, a 
 single individual, to safeguard the interests of a 
 powerful corporation to the detriment of his 
 own. He felt, therefore, no hesitation in using 
 the information for his own purposes. 
 
 Another stroke of business he felt was even 
 more adventurous. He discovered one day that 
 Sara Barclay's father, stirred up not a little by 
 the war, had returned for a short while to Wash- 
 ington and had had an interview with the Presi- 
 dent, which had been made much of by the news- 
 papers. William determined upon the bold ex- 
 pedient of making use of Mr. Barclay's presence. 
 He had been besieged for a long while by a young 
 man who was to inherit, upon the death of an 
 aunt, two hundred thousand dollars, and who
 
 120 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 wanted the money immediately. There was no 
 way to get the money unless Mr. Barclay would 
 furnish it. After several efforts, William made 
 an appointment with him at the club where he 
 was staying. He found the financier sitting at a 
 table smoking a large cigar. He was a short, 
 thick-set man with a terrifyingly solemn and dis- 
 approving face. Glancing at this forbidding ex- 
 terior, William was rather sorry he had come. 
 
 "Ha, Spade! Sit down," he said, with no 
 evidence of a smile. "Come to sell me a rail- 
 road?" 
 
 Conscious of the smallness of his mission, Wil- 
 liam was genuinely embarrassed. However, 
 there was no graceful means of retreat. 
 
 "Mr. Barclay," he said, "I came here for the 
 purpose of asking you to invest two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars " 
 
 "Why, Spade," interrupted the financier, "there 
 are people who think just now that there isn't that 
 much money in the world." 
 
 William forgot his embarrassment for a mo- 
 ment. "I know," he said, earnestly, "everybody 
 thinks the bottom has dropped out of things 
 and dropped out permanently. They think as 
 long as the war lasts, this nation will be a corpse." 
 
 "Don't you?" was the cold comment.
 
 THE NEW RELIGION 121 
 
 William trod cautiously. "No," he replied, 
 slowly. "I think if you dam up the energy and 
 wealth and power of the country six months more, 
 it will burst loose with an avalanche that will 
 show everyone how really rich and resourceful 
 we are." 
 
 Mr. Barclay rose. William, feeling that he 
 had been too brash and outspoken, rose also. 
 Who was he to be explaining the financial situa- 
 tion to one of the leading financial minds of the 
 day*? To his surprise, however, he discovered a 
 miracle taking place. A smile a wry, reluctant 
 smile, but still a smile relieved for a moment the 
 tenseness of the other's face. 
 
 "Spade, you're an optimist." The rich man 
 glanced at his watch. "It will be necessary," he 
 said, "for me to lunch now," William took his 
 hat from the table "and," unexpectedly, "I 
 should like to have you lunch with me. I need 
 to hear more sunshine talk." 
 
 William was overwhelmed. But he knew, 
 from Sara's scraps of conversation concerning her 
 father, that the financier, himself a silent man, 
 liked to have people about him who would talk 
 to him, and that he would take much trouble, if he 
 found a man who for one reason or another prom- 
 ised to be congenial company, to cultivate his ac-
 
 122 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 quaintance. Accepting the invitation with some 
 trepidation, he set about, as best he knew, to make 
 himself entertaining. He put out of his mind, as 
 far as he could, the fact that he was talking to 
 an expert, and permitted himself to be drawn out 
 as to his ideas upon the business situation and as 
 to what fair weather lay beyond the banks of 
 clouds which obstructed the horizon at the mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "My idea is," he said, in the course of this con- 
 versation, wondering what his companion was 
 thinking, behind his sphynx-like quiet, "my idea 
 is that there is one quality in the average Ameri- 
 can that is going to keep him, individually and 
 collectively, from being bottled-up by this war sit- 
 uation. And that is his adaptability he doesn't 
 permit himself to be stumped by any new com- 
 bination of circumstances." 
 
 Mr. Barclay said "Just what do you mean*?" 
 In explanation William told the story of the 
 American lumber merchant who had supplied the 
 English market for years with what he called 
 hazel-wood, until at length the Englishman found 
 out that there was no such wood. The American 
 in the beginning had received an order for the 
 wood and, instead of explaining that his customers 
 were misinformed, he had looked over his stock
 
 THE NEW RELIGION 123 
 
 and supplied them with red gum, which was new 
 to them and satisfied them as long as they thought 
 it was what they had ordered. 
 
 The financier smiled his wry smile. "I see 
 your point. Typical transaction. Doubly so be- 
 cause the man allowed himself an aberration of 
 several degrees from the straight track and 
 called it good business." 
 
 William felt the cold eyes upon him as if 
 seeking his opinion upon that phase of it. 
 
 "Of course," he replied, evenly, "every man is 
 capable of deciding those questions as they arise. 
 Not long ago someone told me the American 
 business man was his own religion and his own 
 god." 
 
 "The statement contains a certain amount of 
 truth," agreed the other, cautiously. "His self- 
 reliance is so complete, he feels the need of no 
 Guiding Hand. I sometimes think," he added, 
 seriously, "it's a mistake. I am not sure that a 
 nation can continue to be successful and power- 
 ful unless it have a sincere belief in a God. That 
 is a fact, Mr. Spade, always to keep before you." 
 
 But William, a little stirred up by the ex- 
 citement of personal contact with the great man, 
 allowed this particular admonition to pass by 
 him unnoted. He considered it as merely a piece
 
 124 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 of incidental moralizing. Whereas, the great 
 financier, advanced in years and emerging from 
 the heat of battle, had now clearness of vision 
 to see and to view with no lack of concern the 
 careless agnosticism of the men who struggled 
 beside him for the money which was their real 
 religion. 
 
 As William was about to take leave of him, 
 having decided that it would be poor diplomacy to 
 bring up again the question of the loan, his host 
 surprised him by asking abruptly if the two hun- 
 dred thousand dollars was intended for a loan 
 upon a prospective inheritance. William replied 
 that it was. 
 
 "Fix up the papers then," he said, laconically. 
 "I can find the money for you." 
 
 William left the club, walking on air. At 
 the door a reporter accosted him. 
 
 "You have been lunching with Mr. Barclay," 
 he asserted. "What is his opinion as " 
 
 "My dear man," said William, "ask him."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 
 
 One day shortly after, William's purchase of 
 the small tract of land bore fruit. Mr. Baker, 
 of the street railway company, called upon him at 
 his office. 
 
 "Mr. Spade," he said, "you own five acres of 
 land in Prince George County." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "At what price do you hold it*?" 
 
 "Per lot?" 
 
 "No," returned the other, with a trace of a 
 smile, "the whole tract." 
 
 "What will you offer?" 
 
 Mr. Baker considered. "Of course," he said, 
 "as you know, we must have that land. You put 
 a spoke in our wheel and we expect to pay 
 damages. What is your price?" 
 
 "How about three thousand dollars?" 
 
 "That's two hundred per cent profit." 
 
 William reflected. "Well twenty-five hun- 
 dred." 
 
 125
 
 126 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 This was the price Mr. Baker had been in- 
 structed to offer. "Very well," he replied. 
 "Under the circumstances I suppose it is cheap. 
 Will you be so good in the future," he added, 
 "as to confine yourself to insurance. Remember 
 the old adage 'Cobbler, stick to thy last.' " 
 
 "I stuck to my last," responded William, 
 greatly pleased with a bit of rugged double en- 
 tendre he found in the words. 
 
 He told his stenographer of the success of his 
 deal. She heard through his naively enthusiastic 
 statement with a face that was frankly disapprov- 
 ing, but the perfect seriousness of which was fre- 
 quently marred by a smile that could not be 
 quickly enough curbed. It was beyond a doubt a 
 shady transaction, and even the smartness with 
 which he had taken hold of the opportunity, could 
 not erase the taint. 
 
 "Will you tell me," she demanded, when he had 
 finished, "why that isn't just plain fraud 1 ?" 
 
 "It isn't fraud. I simply held something they 
 wanted. They couldn't have it condemned as 
 farm land because it is a village laid out in streets. 
 So they had to pay more for it." 
 
 "But how do you consider you earned the addi- 
 tional fifteen hundred?" 
 
 "That was the price of the idea."
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 127 
 
 He re-entered his office. He was in a good 
 humor. In the paper which lay before him was 
 printed a delicately veiled intimation that the an- 
 nouncement of the engagement of Sara Barclay to 
 William Spade, the young business man, might be 
 expected soon possibly in the early fall. Wil- 
 liam had been busy denying this for several days 
 now. But it was evident that the rumor had 
 come to stay. His luncheon with Mr. Barclay 
 had assured that. It brought up to his imagina- 
 tion a vision of power and unlimited opportunity. 
 He saw himself standing in a high place and view- 
 ing the field with the same breadth of vision as did 
 Arnold Barclay. He saw himself possessed with 
 information that would enable him to hold a hand 
 in the big game. And when the great financier at 
 length should pass on beyond, leaving his irons 
 untended in the fire, there would be no one to 
 watch over them but his son-in-law, William 
 Spade, who would step into the seat once held by 
 the great man, and, backed by endless resources, 
 become a great power himself a power beside 
 whom the very President of the nation himself 
 would take a secondary place in fact, if not in 
 name. 
 
 It was a picture painted in strong colors. It 
 would be a way to success paved by his own ef-
 
 128 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 forts by his own ability to foresee and select the 
 proper means to bring him to the high place and 
 by his ability, having once arrived, to stay there 
 by means of his brains and courage. Suppose he 
 did marry a girl he did not love. He was con- 
 genial and friendly with her and did not all 
 marriages resolve themselves ultimately into that 1 ? 
 Love was simply the lacquer that wore off with 
 use leaving a more substantial and utilitarian 
 substance to stand daily wear. 
 
 A mood of exhilaration had lifted him above 
 the work that lay upon his desk; and his mind did 
 not seem ready to adjust itself again to it. Warm 
 sunshine shone in at the windows. A stray fly 
 buzzed lazily against the glass. It was not a day 
 for indoors and work, but one that suggested 
 rather languor and idleness. 
 
 Very well. He would be languid and idle. 
 The world had treated him well a holiday was 
 due him in celebration. He would play tennis for 
 the rest of the afternoon. No, he would not play 
 tennis. It was hot and the men with whom he 
 usually played were away. He would drive a 
 long way in his automobile and get his dinner at 
 some distant spot. But upon consideration, this 
 too became undesirable a tame and lonesome 
 achievement. He needed a companion, so that
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 129 
 
 the luxury of loafing might be doubled in being 
 performed by two. His eye rested accidentally 
 upon the diligent figure at the desk in the outer 
 office. Perhaps there was a feeling of compla- 
 cent condescension in him, perhaps it was just a 
 humanly gregarious impulsfe. He rose and strode 
 to the door. 
 
 "Miss Ruth," he asked, "has that languid feel- 
 ing reached you yet?" 
 
 She let her hands fall into her lap. "Oh, yes," 
 she replied. 
 
 "I have been thinking of antidotes for it." 
 
 "That's very easy. Go lie down under a tree. 
 Or get a canoe " 
 
 "That is the solution," he interrupted. "How 
 soon will you be able to start?" 
 
 She gazed at him wide-eyed. The relation be- 
 tween the man who employs and the woman who 
 is employed is a delicate one, and she had felt it 
 the part of wisdom to discourage spasmodic soci- 
 ability, such as that now suggested, as unnecessary 
 and as complicating an otherwise simple arrange- 
 ment. But she felt an air of comradeship in the 
 offer. To most women the touch of condescen- 
 sion, unconscious though it may have been, would 
 have been annoying. But she felt no jolt to her 
 pride, for his position, his success and his friend-
 
 130 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ship with successful people had built up an arti- 
 ficial barrier between them, the existence of which 
 would have made it unreasonable in her to expect 
 him to pay attentions to her out of deference to 
 her personal charms or for any other reason than 
 courtesy and good feeling. 
 
 Yet she did not approve of the man. His busi- 
 ness deals, of which the one he had recounted to her 
 a while before was typical, were not straightfor- 
 ward in the sense that she understood straightfor- 
 wardness. Her recent reflections upon the subject 
 had reaffirmed in her the conviction that his plan 
 of life was to take the easiest way to success, with- 
 out splitting hairs as to whether that way was 
 less righteous than it should have been. But, 
 strangely enough, such is the divided appeal of 
 others to us, her appraisal of his method of life 
 did not, or had not as yet, affected her opinion 
 of him as a person. His friendly charm made 
 him diverting to her even in telling her of those 
 acts of which she disapproved. 
 
 In reply to his question therefore she said: 
 
 "Immediately." 
 
 However, while he had been diagnosing his 
 state of mind, the afternoon had been slipping 
 away. He at length suggested that it would give 
 them more time if they took their supper with
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 131 
 
 them. He made the suggestion in a tentative 
 
 C7CJ 
 
 manner, not being at all sure that she would ap- 
 prove of it even in the interest of having more of 
 the day at their disposal. Somewhat to his sur- 
 prise she agreed readily. It was quite convenient 
 to her; for her mother was away for the day, and 
 had she dined at home, she would have dined 
 alone. 
 
 Thereupon, in his large way, he telephoned to a 
 nearby hotel and had them prepare and send to 
 the office a portable meal along the lines he laid 
 down. When it arrived, swathed in an array of 
 napkins, it was most imposing lettuce done up 
 in oiled paper looking like hothouse flowers, yel- 
 low salad dressing in a silver receptacle with a lid 
 to it, three-cornered sandwiches, French pastry, 
 and coffee in a thermos-bottle. 
 
 She was amused at this ostentation. Her idea 
 was that it would have been so much easier and 
 quicker to have purchased the things at the little 
 tea-room on the same block. However, she had 
 to admit that the layout looked festive and invit- 
 ing. It was put in the automobile that had now 
 become a part of William's equipment, the bell- 
 boy given a liberal largess, and the machine 
 started forward upon its adventure. 
 
 She held the brim of her hat against the wind,
 
 132 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 and frankly enjoyed herself. He noted this with 
 an approving glance, wondering if she took all her 
 pleasures with the same enthusiasm. It amused 
 him to think that she made no secret of the fact 
 that a ride in an automobile was a rarity to her. 
 
 This brought to his mind the fact that she rep- 
 resented a mile post somewhere behind him. 
 Against the advancing civilization which carried 
 him on, she was reactionary. She was an anach- 
 ronism. It bewildered him to note that simplicity 
 seemed to content her. He had seen that she 
 would have been as well satisfied with food from 
 the little cafeteria as with the more sumptuous 
 repast he had ordered from the hotel. After his 
 experience with other people to whom costliness 
 seemed to be synonymous with desirability, she 
 was not quite clear to him. It was clear, how- 
 ever, that she was of a former generation, a land- 
 mark of the drab, dusty past ; while his other com- 
 panions, of whom Sara Barclay was the type, were 
 the bright beacons of his future. 
 
 The canal, where presently he held the gunwale 
 of a bobbing canoe while she stepped into it, ran 
 straight as a street to the north. As they pushed 
 off from the shore, she in the bow, he in the stern 
 and the provender amidships, he watched with 
 pleasure the easy stroke of her paddle. The
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 133 
 
 water, he remembered, was the place where she 
 was at home. He was glad that she had sug- 
 gested a canoe. 
 
 Tall trees rose by the side of the water, shield- 
 ing them from the broad river beyond. These 
 caught the rays of the afternoon sun and threw a 
 cool shadow over the canal. When the small 
 breeze died down momentarily and the surface of 
 the water cleared, he could see the reflection as of 
 trees growing upside down until the rippk of the 
 moving canoe cut into them and erased the picture. 
 It was she who called his attention to this inter- 
 esting thing, resting her paddle upon her knees to 
 look. 
 
 People passed them walking upon the broad 
 tow-path and, as they approached the lock-house, 
 they spoiled the surface of the water for a man 
 upon the bank comfortably sketching. They 
 went through the lock, rising from the depths 
 upon the incoming tide until they were level with 
 the water beyond and the great gates opened easily 
 to let them pass. Picnickers stopped to ask them 
 the way to intricate places of which they were 
 blissfully ignorant. 
 
 Sometimes they passed canoes coming in the 
 opposite direction passengered each, as was 
 theirs, by a man and a girl. His companion
 
 134 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 would try to diagnose, from a hasty glance, 
 whether the two were married, or imminently so, 
 or not yet inoculated to use his words. He as- 
 serted that you could not tell, because the last 
 were conscious, the second were confused, and the 
 first were ashamed and the symptoms of all these 
 emotions were the same. 
 
 In the woods they heard the clear, liquid whistle 
 of a bird she said was a wood thrush. She rested 
 her paddle and tried to imitate the call. He lis- 
 tened attentively for a few moments and then, 
 putting two fingers in his mouth, surprised her by 
 giving a fair working imitation, to which presently 
 the little bird replied. 
 
 "You're smart," she said, admiringly. 
 
 "Yes, I am," he agreed, with experimental pla- 
 cidity, hoping to arouse her scorn. In this he suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 "Self-approbation," she asserted, aloofly, "is a 
 dull accomplishment." 
 
 In the safety of his place behind her he smiled 
 contentedly. 
 
 "Do you always go about finding shortcomings 
 in people?" he asked. 
 
 "But you made it so apparent." 
 
 "My natural honesty. I find myself unable to 
 conceal anything from you."
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 135 
 
 She turned half-way about and laughed for his 
 benefit. "Quite," she asseverated, pleasantly. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't try that stage laugh on 
 me. It makes me feel as if you thought you had 
 made a clever retort." 
 
 "I had." 
 
 He seized the diverting opportunity. "Self- 
 approbation," said he, "is a dull accomplishment." 
 
 She laughed again 'this time very naturally. 
 "Oh, well," she replied, "you set me a bad exam- 
 ple." 
 
 Overhead and through the trees they could see 
 the rose-glow of the setting sun. A calm, peace- 
 ful stillness, that was like the hush in a cathedral, 
 fell about them. Their paddles splashed gently 
 in the water. In their wake the ripples lisped 
 against the banks. She put up her paddle and 
 let him push the boat forward alone. In her en- 
 joyment of the stillness and of the absence of 
 other human beings, which gave a sombre loneli- 
 ness to the approach of dusk, he found a joy him- 
 self. She took delight in the close presence of 
 the trees, the smooth water, the birds, and in the 
 absence of any disturbing human sound to in- 
 terrupt her contemplation of them; he took 
 delight in the one human thing, beside himself, 
 that was there, never ceasing to wonder at her
 
 136 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 frank gratification at what seemed to him tiny 
 things. 
 
 "Could you return," he said, "from the celes- 
 tial heights to which you have ascended long 
 enough to partake of so mundane a thing as a 
 sandwich*?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I was just pretending to be absorbed 
 in the scenery, hoping all the time you would 
 suggest food." 
 
 She took charge of the basket with a feminine 
 confidence in her ability to administer such mat- 
 ters. 
 
 "What a fine, stimulating place it is," he re- 
 marked. 
 
 "I did not know that you observed such things," 
 she replied. 
 
 "It is unusual. But at present, under stress of 
 favorable circumstances, I am moved to consider 
 the largeness and pleasantness of the spot. It is 
 so removed from civilization. I can picture Poca- 
 hontas and Captain J. Smith sitting here on the 
 bank" 
 
 "The canal having been built in 1830." 
 
 "Well, sitting here and thinking how pleasant 
 it would be when the canal was built. It is really 
 a very large and inspiring thought. It makes 
 those stirring days seem as but yesterday."
 
 THE FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER 137 
 
 She laughed. "As a moralizer," she said, "you 
 are superb." 
 
 "Thank you," he replied, modestly. "Con- 
 genial company seems to bring out my hidden 
 talents." 
 
 Frivolous and inconsequential conversations! 
 But this was a day of idleness and adventure, 
 when it was more diverting to watch stones skip 
 pleasantly over the surface than to hear them 
 plumb the depths with large sounds. 
 
 On the bank beside them, he looked long and 
 determinedly for a clover with four leaves, finger- 
 ing the little plants over one by one and always 
 seeming just on the point of finding one. But 
 she, standing smilingly beside him, when he had 
 given up in despair, pointed one out with the toe 
 of her shoe. 
 
 "That's the first one I ever found," he said, 
 pulling it through the buttonhole of his coat. 
 
 Before them through the tree branches they saw 
 the moon, pale in the twilight. But as the light 
 failed and the sky grew dark, seeming to close in 
 upon them, the misshapen sphere, taking on in- 
 candescence, assumed charge of the night. They 
 launched their canoe into the silver reflection on 
 the water and dropped slowly down stream, fol- 
 lowing the straight ribbon of bright water that
 
 138 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ran between the dark and mysterious canyons of 
 trees. She sat in the bottom of the boat facing 
 him, while he paddled leisurely with the tide. 
 Her light dress outlined her against the dark back- 
 ground and her face, indistinct in the darkness, 
 became a memory only, wearing, as she talked, the 
 expression that his imagination gave to it. He 
 felt a pleasant sense of personal nearness to her 
 and an unexpected satisfaction in the remoteness 
 of the rest of the world. 
 
 When he returned to his room, he found lying 
 on his desk a note from Sara saying that she was 
 returning upon such and such a date to the city. 
 He read it hastily and laid it again on the desk. 
 Taking off his coat, he inadvertently put beside 
 the letter the four-leaf clover that his companion 
 of the afternoon had found for him. As they 
 lay there side by side, they were, though the re- 
 semblance did not occur to him, like the two arms 
 of a sign-post pointing in different directions.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PAGEANT 
 
 During the month of October Sara returned 
 bright, smiling, slightly tanned and with many 
 new clothes William had never seen before. She 
 put both her hands into his with a fine affectation 
 of abandon, and looked laughingly up into his 
 face in charming pretence of seeing that he was 
 really exactly as she had remembered him. Her 
 coquetry was always diverting to him, as it came 
 just up to a certain mark and stopped, leaving 
 volumes to the imagination. Whether it was an 
 alluring bit of acting or an alluring bit of natural- 
 ness, it amused him. 
 
 She had been anxious for him to meet her at the 
 station in his automobile, and insisted in her let- 
 ters that she could not exist a minute (carefully 
 underscored) after arriving if he did not appear 
 with the car for her inspection. She had pur- 
 posely omitted to tell her father of the time of 
 her arrival, so that their own automobile would 
 
 139
 
 140 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 not meet her. He accepted the expression of the 
 desire as reason enough, even though the desire 
 itself might not exist, and appeared as directed. 
 
 As she sat in the machine beside him, he was 
 impressed anew with the perfection of her. Her 
 shoes were absolutely new and fitted her as tightly 
 as the silk stockings drawn over her well shaped 
 ankles. Her gloves and hat were new, and her 
 suit had no sign of a misplaced wrinkle. A bunch 
 of violets, bought by herself, blossomed at her 
 waist. He felt how admirably she was fitted to 
 the purpose for which she was needed. For 
 money expended upon her was so effective. Her 
 purpose in life was to be the object of expenditure. 
 Her upkeep and adornment must always be lavish, 
 as if every day were a feast day. And how well 
 the festive garb became her ! A thousand dollars 
 spent upon her made her bloom and blossom like 
 the lilies of the field. 
 
 "Sara's reason for being," Mrs. Carver said to 
 William one day, "is to spend money. That is 
 her profession. For that she was born, nurtured, 
 trained and is now kept alive. It is somewhat 
 depressing, isn't it*? The preceding generation 
 gathered the harvest, so to speak, in the heat of the 
 day. She in the cool eventide idly scatters it. 
 That is her contribution to civilization, her mag-
 
 THE PAGEANT 141 
 
 num opus, the deed by which she is identified upon 
 the books of the recording angel." 
 
 A year ago this doctrine would have made Wil- 
 liam think. Now it was a platitude. It was the 
 statement of the necessary state of affairs that 
 went hand in hand with high civilization and suc- 
 cess. 
 
 "I am a spender myself," he said, to show this 
 state of mind. 
 
 "So am I," she replied, "to a certain extent. 
 We both help in a downhill movement. Sara and 
 her kind set the pace. They dissipate resources. 
 We follow them we must also dissipate re- 
 sources. But with this difference we must first 
 obtain the resources. 
 
 "I have a hard-headed husband who, when we 
 run too close to the edge, sends me into retirement 
 for a while to let the surplus accumulate again. 
 He is old and wise at the game. You are young 
 and headlong. Some day Sara and her crowd will 
 drag you down." 
 
 William glanced at her sharply. "How drag 
 me down?" 
 
 "You must make the money to spend. That 
 necessity will dull your sensibilities as to how it 
 is proper to make it." 
 
 "Do you mean I shall be dishonest 1 ?"
 
 H2 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "No. You will always be honest. But the 
 list of things our generation considers dishonest is 
 daily decreasing. You can be honest in their eyes 
 yet often be unfair, often dishonorable. Remem- 
 ber it." 
 
 "I shall remember it," he replied, putting it in a 
 remote corner of his mind. 
 
 The engagement of Sara and William to each 
 other became common news to everyone but them- 
 selves. They were invited about everywhere. 
 He, the Fortunate Youth, received everywhere 
 the adulation and admiration he deserved. Veiled 
 allusions greeted him on all sides. Consequential 
 old dowagers disturbed their aplomb to be grace- 
 fully facetious with him and perhaps to whisper a 
 word concerning the cap of Fortunatus. Men 
 cultivated him more than ever. His mail was big 
 with invitations. His telephone rang so con- 
 stantly that it was necessary for Ruth Dunbar to 
 sift the applications for his time as carefully as if 
 he had been a cabinet officer. 
 
 He discussed his relations with Sara with no 
 one. Denials of the engagement issued both by 
 the girl and himself had only served to heighten 
 its currency. It was one of those rumors that 
 must either be confirmed or allowed to die slowly 
 and painfully of its own weight.
 
 THE PAGEANT 143 
 
 Mr. Barclay, who of course could not help 
 being aware of the rumor that existed, discovered, 
 in his cold, taciturn way, a congenial feeling for 
 the young man, and if his daughter were late in 
 coming down would enter the room where Wil- 
 liam waited and smoke his cigar standing before 
 the fireplace in order to listen to him talk. 
 
 It was during one of these talks that William 
 first heard the term "war orders." It was a 
 strange term then. Probably there were not three 
 people in the city at that time who guessed how 
 important a name it was. Mr. Barclay mentioned 
 an organization known as the Federal Arms Com- 
 pany, whose stock in his opinion would be a good 
 investment. And William, acting upon the sug- 
 gestion, bought as much of the stock as he could 
 afford. 
 
 Soon after this the New York Stock Exchange 
 opened and the moneyed world stood aghast, won- 
 dering what crash was coming now. But the 
 stocks, fooling the prophets, went up instead of 
 down. Federal Arms was one of the first to feel 
 the rise. 
 
 By the middle of January the public imagina- 
 tion was beginning to be stimulated by the idea of 
 war-orders, and the stock of companies having 
 such orders rose correspondingly. A rise of fifty
 
 144 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 dollars per share became a matter that caused little 
 surprise. William looked complacently upon the 
 quotation of a hundred dollars a share for Federal 
 Arms, although that meant a profit of twenty-five 
 thousand dollars for him a pure gift, if he choose 
 to look at it closely, from Mr. Barclay. 
 
 And a proposition was presented to him that 
 proved to be the beginning of an epoch in his life. 
 An old established steel-casting company in Alex- 
 andria, whose business had been gradually dwin- 
 dling and dwindling until it was barely paying 
 expenses, had the opportunity to obtain some big 
 orders for shrapnel. But the controlling interest 
 in the company was held by a gentleman of fixed 
 ideas who was opposed to the making of war mate- 
 rials. However, he was willing to salve his con- 
 science to this extent he would sell all his hold- 
 ing to some other person at twenty-five dollars per 
 share (the quoted price being about fifteen) and 
 the new possessors of the stock could run the com- 
 pany as they pleased. 
 
 It was therefore proposed by two other directors 
 of the company, who held practically all the re- 
 maining stock, to buy him out. Having, how- 
 ever, but sixty thousand dollars between them, and 
 the margin it would be necessary to put up on the 
 stock being one hundred thousand, they came to
 
 THE PAGEANT 145 
 
 William for the extra forty thousand, hoping that 
 he would be able to write some combination of life 
 insurance policies that would enable them to bor- 
 row the money. This was impossible, but Wil- 
 liam, seeing an opportunity for profit, offered to 
 put up the forty thousand dollars himself. 
 
 The three men therefore formed themselves 
 into a company for the purpose of buying and 
 holding the hundred thousand dollars' worth of 
 stock. William was able to borrow this much 
 money by depositing his Federal Arms stock as 
 collateral and by adding to it a large fee he had 
 just received. He had Louis Warburton, his 
 lawyer and friend, go over the papers in the case 
 and also look into the charter of the Old Domin- 
 ion Steel Company to see if there was any clause 
 there which could be construed as prohibiting it 
 from making munitions of war. These matters 
 having been satisfactorily answered, he felt that 
 he had entered upon a deal that promised to re- 
 ward him with a large profit. 
 
 About this time occurred a costume ball of 
 great proportions, having for its object to mark the 
 theoretical passing on of the world and his wife 
 from the seeking after pleasure to the wearing of 
 Lenten sackcloth and ashes. It was to be a carni- 
 val a gay, a properly riotous celebration of
 
 146 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 Shrove Tuesday except as to the fact that since 
 their revelry began at midnight instead of ending 
 there as of yore, the date of the festivity had to be 
 made the day before Shrove Tuesday instead of 
 Shrove Tuesday itself, which robbed it of a little 
 of its flavor. 
 
 To this William was to go, gorgeously attired 
 in the red silk costume of the Doge of Venice, in 
 which upon Ascension Thursday the ancient ruler 
 was wont to cast the betrothal ring of the Re- 
 public into the sea. The costume was historically 
 accurate, for in order to make it so he had sent 
 home for his notes taken in college on McMillan's 
 lectures on the Renaissance, and from the notes 
 had found the names of books to look up in the 
 great Congressional Library books illustrated 
 with colored prints from which he pieced together 
 the plan for his gorgeous attire. 
 
 What Sara's costume was to be, he did not 
 learn, for she was to take part in a pageant which 
 was to be a feature of the occasion, the nature of 
 which was kept as profoundly secret as the thirty 
 participants were able to keep a secret. 
 
 When the night at length arrived, the huge ball- 
 room of a great modern palazzo was thrown open 
 to a throng of Folly's children. And, if money 
 and thought and care had been expended reck-
 
 THE PAGEANT 147 
 
 lessly in the preparation of the individual cos- 
 tumes, it had been expended a hundred-fold in the 
 costuming of the huge room. It had been trans- 
 formed into a likeness of the plaza of Saint Mark, 
 the walls masked into plaster facades of the 
 Doge's Palace, the Library and the Cathedral. 
 These were gaudy with awnings and streamers. 
 A wild maze of color filled the mimic spot Pier- 
 rots, Harlequins, shepherdesses, dancing-girls, 
 Carmens, Brunhildes and DuBarrys. One statu- 
 esque girl was Diana, in flowing drapery of soft 
 silk caught with platinum and gold clasps, bare 
 feet in sandals and leading on leash a big Russian 
 wolf-hound. She mingled with cowled friars, 
 eighteenth century gallants with lace at wrists and 
 ballet girls with stiff, outstanding skirts, revealing 
 an unexpected expanse of silk stocking. 
 
 William found himself a child among children 
 among experts in the game of enjoying them- 
 selves. Protected by their incognito, they were 
 more joyous than was their usual state. He was 
 greatly entertained. But as he was beginning to 
 warm up to the spirit of adventure of the affair, 
 he found that it was palling upon his companions. 
 
 But if their interest was just at the point then 
 of flagging, it was at once prodded into life again. 
 The pageant that was enacted was one which
 
 148 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 was devised to stir jaded sensibilities and to arouse 
 the sluggish enthusiasm of men and women to 
 whom few things were new. Repetition of old 
 things was punishment to them. Their lives 
 were so circumscribed by conventions and forms 
 which prescribed that they must dress in certain 
 set ways for certain set occasions, use certain fixed 
 phrases to express certain ideas, amuse themselves 
 at certain conventional times in certain conven- 
 tional places, and live minutely and exactly by 
 rules which they had had no hand in making, that 
 in the instances where they were allowed variety, 
 that variety must always be changing. They 
 tired like children, of the second appearance of 
 any form of diversion. It took skill and ingenu- 
 ity to cater to such sensibilities. 
 
 The skill and ingenuity of this pageant and the 
 complete understanding of the problem were ap- 
 parent in every detail. It had been directed by a 
 professional manager from New York, it had been 
 coached and handled and patted into shape by a 
 half dozen professional dancing experts, actors, 
 and artists in the production of stage pictures. 
 
 The audience was quickly seated in chairs which 
 attendants brought miraculously from nowhere, 
 the facade of the Cathedral of Saint Mark divided 
 cleanly and, rolling upon a hidden mechanism,
 
 THE PAGEANT 149 
 
 opened to reveal a stage behind, shielded by pur- 
 ple hangings. Strains from a hidden orchestra 
 floated across the room. The audience rendered 
 the unusual tribute of silence. In a moment the 
 purple hangings noiselessly drew aside, to reveal 
 a lavish and gorgeous scene. It was a skillful 
 picture, soft and appealing in its harmonizing 
 colors, which were aided and brought to life by a 
 wonderful blending and contrasting of dim and 
 strong lights. The eye was caught and held by a 
 shaft of mellow light like a burst of sunshine that 
 floated slantwise across the picture, falling upon 
 an empty throne which took the center of the 
 stage. The chair of this was of white veined 
 marble and upon it, gorgeous against the snowy 
 background, rested a purple and gold cushion. 
 The flight of steps leading up to it had the polish 
 of fine granite. Upon either side stood seven- 
 branched candlesticks heavy with gold, and over- 
 head, carved in a panel that seemed to be stone, 
 was the Egyptian winged sun. Beyond in the 
 background ran a colonnade of big shafts crowned 
 by the lotus-leaved capitals of the Temple of Kar- 
 nak; and in the openings between shone the red 
 glow of the setting sun. 
 
 The music changed to a weird, exotic march, 
 and there entered slowly two huge negroes, wear-
 
 150 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ing gaudy striped headdresses and short kilts. 
 Their skin had been oiled until they seemed to 
 have been cut from polished Numidian marble. 
 They took a place one upon each side of the 
 empty throne. Four graceful girls, dancing a 
 quaint conventional figure, followed. Long rose- 
 colored draperies fell about them. They wore no 
 ornaments save gold bands at their foreheads and 
 gold straps upon their sandals, which caught the 
 light as they moved and no clothes save the rose- 
 colored draperies. They lighted braziers upon 
 each side of the throne, and the red glow fell like 
 studded rubies upon the metal armor of the sol- 
 diers marching behind them. Under guard of 
 these, entered captives four stalwart young men, 
 selected for their development, bare of arms and 
 leg and wearing chains a strange sight, if you 
 considered them as twentieth-century youths ac- 
 customed to be tailor made, but admirably fitted 
 to the picture. After them more captives four 
 maidens, barefooted, in short skirts, with white 
 arms bound behind them. Another file of sol- 
 diers. 
 
 This realism, in the apparent interest of historic 
 accuracy, was rather breath-taking in its frank- 
 ness. William glanced covertly about him to dis- 
 cover marks of disapproval. But there seemed to
 
 THE PAGEANT 151 
 
 be none. The appearance in public of young 
 women attired for classic dances had made people 
 willing to accept things of this sort. Also it was 
 protected by the fact that this was an historic 
 pageant. 
 
 More figures in the procession appeared, filling 
 the stage until it was a charming picture of color 
 and arrangement, a rich, decorative scene that, 
 preserved upon canvas with the same skill that it 
 was arranged upon that stage, would have made 
 a gorgeous mural panel. There was an air of 
 expectance in this inert group whose completeness, 
 save for the lack of a figure upon the empty 
 throne, pointed to the coming of one more impres- 
 sive still. The soldiers, the dancing-maids, the 
 half-clad slaves, the fettered captives turned to- 
 ward the portal. A sudden blare of trumpets 
 without. The strains of the orchestra died away 
 and to the motionless tableau was added silence. 
 A nicely balanced moment of suspense ; and then, 
 as the violins, beginning again faintly, swelled 
 louder with a soft, lyrical strain entered the 
 queen Cleopatra, in an inlaid and enamelled chair, 
 borne on the shoulders of four soft-footed black 
 slaves. Splendidly graceful as only Sara Bar- 
 clay could be she alighted as the chair touched 
 the ground and stood for a moment with her foot
 
 152 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 upon the first step of the throne, while the whole 
 entourage, in a great wave, prostrated itself before 
 her. She seemed to have taken on the attributes 
 of the young Egyptian queen. She was superb, 
 but breath-taking as the other Cleopatra must 
 have been. She wore no bit of fabric above the 
 waist. Her corsage consisted of two gorgeously 
 embossed and enamelled disks supported over her 
 shoulders by rhinestone chains. A girdle of daz- 
 zling gold and jewels encircled her waist, and 
 from it hung a skirt of shimmering material like 
 cloth of gold, which stopped above her bare 
 ankles. Her ankles shone with rubies, and her 
 sandals were of yellow pliable gold that bent with 
 the movement of her foot. As she turned to 
 ascend the steps she revealed to the audience, with 
 no apparent emotion, a beautiful, graceful, un- 
 draped back, gleaming and white. 
 
 Conflicting emotions possessed William. His 
 whole being glowed with pleasant excitement. 
 He witnessed absently the remainder of the spec- 
 tacle the appearance of Csesar and Britannicus 
 and the enacting of a certain part of Shaw's 
 "Csesar and Cleopatra," selected for its lightness 
 and humor; the classic dance of a half dozen girls 
 clad in transparent silk; and, as a finale, the excit- 
 ing dance of an agile maid whose white legs and
 
 THE PAGEANT 153 
 
 feet wove themselves around a pattern of swords 
 thrust into the floor, in a maze of intricate steps 
 that carried her thrillingly close and safely away 
 from the sharp edges. 
 
 Just as earlier in the evening the masquerade 
 had been taken as an excuse for forwardness and 
 freedom of speech, the pageant had been taken as 
 an excuse to go as far as possible, in order to cre- 
 ate a sensation -and yet remain uncriticized. 
 The girls in it, for the most part, seemed to be 
 mere puppets, dancing their dances, clad only in a 
 veil, for the reason that they supposed their audi- 
 ence would be interested merely in their freedom 
 and grace of movement. It was strange that they 
 should have been willing to believe that the old 
 Adam in man was so dead. It is strange that they 
 saw no element of hoax in the proceeding that 
 they had agreed to unclothe themselves, as a re- 
 sult of the suave assurance that cultivated people 
 think no improper thoughts. They were doubt- 
 less unconscious that the audience enjoyed their 
 candor more than their proficiency and grace. 
 And it is quite possible, for that matter, that the 
 audience had deceived themselves upon that point. 
 They had come to allow themselves a wide lati- 
 tude in such things. They saw costuming in their 
 theatres that twenty-five years before would have
 
 154 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 frozen the population with horror. They saw 
 their women at the bathing beaches and in their 
 drawing-rooms attired with such carefree syncopa- 
 tion that they had come to believe that reticence 
 in the matter of one's body was unimportant. All 
 of this fitted in nicely with their philosophy of 
 life, which was to make as simple as possible their 
 moral code. In all cases where they could supply 
 additional sparkle to their lives by a broad inter- 
 pretation of the difference between propriety and 
 impropriety, they chose to follow the broad inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 Historical record shows that one of the first 
 signs of decadence in a people is their willingness 
 to appear in public unclothed. The frankness of 
 the people of this class in regard to their uncov- 
 ered skins was merely an incidental symptom of 
 the direction that their lust for pleasure and luxury 
 and ease was carrying them. 
 
 The guests, stirred into excitement by the frank- 
 ness of the unusual spectacle, and divided between 
 interest in it as a pageant and enjoyment of it as a 
 startling exercise of poetic license, talked of little 
 else. Some of the actors, flushed with their suc- 
 cess, clasping cloaks over their shoulders, and with 
 sandals on their feet, appeared in their costumes
 
 THE PAGEANT 
 
 upon the floor. William, noting that Sara was 
 not among these, followed a few adventurous 
 youths and penetrated behind the scenes. He dis- 
 covered her at length, still sitting in the shadow of 
 a piece of scenery where she had thrown herself 
 after her last exit. Her body was covered with a 
 purple robe and her sandaled feet were crossed 
 alluringly before her. She held out both her 
 hands to him as he came toward her. 
 
 A provoking smile played about her lips. As 
 she raised her arms the purple robe fell from one 
 rounded shoulder. Her white, smooth arms com- 
 pleted a picture of glorious loveliness that his tu- 
 multuous soul could not resist. Fires burned in 
 his blood. He did not touch her hands, but in an 
 instant found her warm body in his arms and his 
 lips upon the curve of her ivory shoulder. 
 
 Sudden sanity brought him to his senses like a 
 dash of cold water. His arms relaxed and he 
 stepped back from her as one newly awakened 
 from a dream. He was astonished at the strange 
 William Spade. 
 
 As for her, her poise was undisturbed. "Why, 
 Billy," she drawled, with ironical calm. "Why 
 this burst of energy*?" 
 
 Deliberately she reached for her cloak and drew
 
 156 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 it over her uncovered arms. Then, with easy im- 
 pudence, she touched him in the face with her fan 
 of ostrich-plumes and disappeared through the 
 plaster arches of the cathedral door. 
 
 William escaped from the house as soon as he 
 conveniently could. His outburst of feeling had 
 disturbed him, but also it had filled him with 
 excitement. It was not unpleasant to have 
 strayed out of bounds and then to have found the 
 rule against it had been repealed. The primitive 
 frankness of the girl had stirred his blood, and the 
 stirring of his blood had made him take her in his 
 arms. The world had approved of her frankness 
 as exhibiting a cultivated absence of prudery and 
 she had not objected to the embrace. There 
 seemed to have opened for him a luxurious ex- 
 pansion to his sphere of freedom of action. 
 
 Warburton, returning at dawn, found him sit- 
 ting before the dead embers in his fire, still con- 
 sidering this phenomenon. The lawyer stopped 
 for a moment to smoke a cigarette. 
 
 "I wonder," said William, momentarily de- 
 pressed by the cheerless morn, "if my old professor 
 could have been right when he said our world was 
 on the down grade." 
 
 "Yes theoretically and for the sake of some-
 
 THE PAGEANT 157 
 
 thing to talk about," responded the other cheer- 
 fully "but as a place to live in it is quite good 
 enough for me."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 OLD DOMINION 
 
 The stock of the Old Dominion Steel Company 
 went from twenty-five to thirty, from thirty to 
 thirty-five, showing William a paper profit of 
 about sixteen thousand dollars. But one morning 
 about a month after the formation of the holding 
 company, he received a visit from Mr. Schwartz 
 and Mr. Temple, his two partners in the affair. 
 From their air, partly of determination and partly 
 of conciliation, he saw that they had a matter of 
 importance to discuss with him. 
 
 "Mr. Spade," began Schwartz, immediately, 
 "we are facing a grave situation at the factory. 
 Our men have served notice that unless the insti- 
 tution is run upon a profit-sharing basis, they will 
 leave us in a body. There are plenty of other 
 mills only too anxious to have them. It seems 
 that other war-order places are distributing shares 
 of stock to the men, in proportion to their salaries, 
 which are paid for by monthly deductions from 
 their pay, allowing them the increase in value of 
 
 the stock." 
 
 158
 
 OLD DOMINION 159 
 
 "Why don't you do that?" asked William. 
 "You must keep your force." 
 
 "We haven't the shares of stock." 
 
 "Surely your holdings and Mr. Temple's would 
 be sufficient." 
 
 "Oh, no, no. We couldn't think of sacrificing 
 our personal holdings." 
 
 "I don't see what you are going to do, then," he 
 asserted, determinedly. That was not exactly a 
 truthful statement, for he had quite a strong sus- 
 picion of what they planned to do. 
 
 "The thing we shall do is this," replied Mr. 
 Schwartz, setting his jaw. "The Old Dominion 
 Holding Company, of which you and Mr. Temple 
 and myself are the board of directors and the sole 
 stockholders, will sell out its stock to the Old Do- 
 minion Steel Company, in order that its stock may 
 be redistributed to the men." 
 
 "I object," exclaimed William, heatedly. 
 "You permit me to help you out of a difficulty by 
 furnishing forty thousand dollars for your pur- 
 pose and just as I am about to begin to reap the 
 profit I expected from it, you crowd me out." 
 
 "Your objection will do you no good," said the 
 other coldly. "Temple and I vote sixty percent 
 of the stock against your forty." 
 
 The two men sat stolidly upon their chairs.
 
 160 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 They had the might upon their side, which was 
 the only necessary consideration. They did not 
 need to discuss the merits of the case. They had 
 only to explain what they intended to do and 
 then do it. 
 
 "I suppose," exclaimed William, sarcastically, 
 "in redistributing this stock you will redistribute 
 your shares to yourselves and my forty percent 
 to the men." 
 
 "Naturally," returned Schwartz, calmly. 
 
 "You see," added Mr. Temple, blandly, "now 
 that our stock has gone up so much we do not need 
 the assistance of your forty thousand. So we set 
 you by the roadside." 
 
 William called in Ruth and dictated a letter 
 addressed to the directors of the holding company, 
 objecting to this treatment and asserting that 
 if the stock advanced in price he would bring 
 suit. 
 
 "You can put yourself on record if you want to, 
 Spade, but it will do you no good." 
 
 "Let me explain something to you, Mr. 
 Schwartz and Mr. Temple. I serve warning on 
 you now that I can get back at you later on if 
 you crowd me out now and I will do it." 
 
 "The bluff doesn't go." 
 
 "You are going to crowd me out 4 ?"
 
 OLD DOMINION 161 
 
 "Certainly. The thing will be done in regular 
 form tomorrow." 
 
 They rose to go. William turned his chair 
 back to his desk. 
 
 "Remember what I told you," he said, in part- 
 ing. 
 
 When they had gone, he called up Warburton 
 on the telephone and asked him to come over to 
 see him as soon as possible and bring a copy of the 
 charter of the Old Dominion Steel Company. 
 
 "Warburton," he said, "the Old Dominion 
 Holding Company, as you know, bought four 
 thousand shares of stock in the Old Dominion 
 Steel Company, for two hundred thousand dollars. 
 Of the purchase price, Schwartz, Temple and I 
 put up one hundred thousand and we borrowed 
 one hundred thousand on the stock. The Steel 
 Company now proposes to buy out the interest of 
 the Holding Company." 
 
 "Paying off the loan to the bank*?" 
 
 "No. Assuming the loan." 
 
 "In other words, buying on a margin." 
 
 "Yes. Now my recollection is that their char- 
 ter prohibits them from doing that." 
 
 "Yes, it does. They are permitted by it, as is 
 legal in some states, to buy in their own stock 
 when they have a surplus sufficient to pay for the
 
 162 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 stock in full. But they are not permitted to spec- 
 ulate in it." 
 
 "At present, of course, the company has no sur- 
 plus." 
 
 "Then the action of their board of directors in 
 authorizing the purchase of this stock is ultra vires> 
 as we say beyond their power. Therefore, if 
 they do purchase this stock, which is an illegal 
 procedure, and force you to sell by virtue of the 
 vote of their own directors who are also the direc- 
 tors of your company, they work an injustice upon 
 you." 
 
 "There is no doubt in your mind of that legal 
 position*?" 
 
 "None at all. Of course, it all depends on the 
 'last guess of the last court,' but with that against 
 them, they would never let it go to court. You 
 had better tell them to back down." 
 
 William considered his lawyer thoughtfully. 
 "I think I shall let them buy it," he asserted. 
 
 "Let them buy it?" 
 
 "You think that if the stock went to seventy- 
 five, for instance, the court would make them sell 
 it back to me at thirty-five, the price they paid*?" 
 
 "The court would be bound to, since you were 
 defrauded of that difference." 
 
 William Spade leaned back in his chair, with a
 
 OLD DOMINION 163 
 
 smile of satisfaction upon his face. "Thank 
 you," he said. "You see, Warburton, the beauty 
 of the matter is this. If the stock goes down from 
 now on, they take the loss. If it goes up, I get 
 the profit."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 
 
 One afternoon, as he was about to leave his 
 office, William had a telephone call from Warbur- 
 ton, asking if he could take the lawyer and a 
 United States marshal in his machine to a remote 
 garage in southeast Washington, where there was 
 an automobile that was to be attached for a debt. 
 Warburton was that kind of man. He never 
 liked to walk anywhere if he could ride in another 
 person's automobile, he never really enjoyed 
 dining unless it was as someone's guest, never 
 went to the theatre except upon invitation in 
 short, with the utmost amiability, he hired out his 
 engaging personality in return for whatever was 
 bid for it. However, as William liked him and 
 considered him a good lawyer, he did as requested. 
 
 The garage in which the guilty automobile 
 rested was a tumble-down stable on a small street. 
 The machine was identified and the marshal per- 
 mitted to go about the mystic rites of attaching it. 
 
 164
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 165 
 
 This entailed a visit to the residence of the owner. 
 The owner and his wife and two children lived in 
 two rooms on the third floor of a dingy house 
 nearby. The rooms had all the characteristics of 
 shiftlessness and careless poverty. A broken pane 
 of glass was covered with a square of brown paste- 
 board. The knob of the door was gone and its 
 place taken by a hook, a broken lamp shade 
 was turned with the damaged portion toward the 
 wall all as though this were a mere behind-the- 
 scenes place, where the easiest means of upkeep 
 was the best. But the automobile, considered 
 presumably as the coefficient of their respectabil- 
 ity, had been accoutred and kept up to date with 
 the greatest care. Self-starter, electric lights, 
 extra tires, all the things which they seemed to 
 feel their dignity as automobile owners de- 
 manded were there on the car. 
 
 "If you wish to reflect upon the degeneracy of 
 the age," remarked Warburton, carelessly, after 
 their mission had been accomplished, as he crossed 
 his knees comfortably on the seat by William, 
 "that sort of thing gives you a better target than 
 the high society you were shooting at several 
 nights ago. The rich people can afford their 
 pleasures these people cannot. But they take 
 them anyway."
 
 i66 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 The lawyer thumped his yellow cane upon the 
 floor of the car. 
 
 "Gad, how I hate a low-class person. The old- 
 time state of respectable poverty had a certain no- 
 bility, don't you know, attached to it. Thrift, 
 honest pride, saving for a rainy day all went 
 hand in hand with it. You remember the old 
 style of person who would dust off a chair for you 
 with her apron. These were the salt of the earth. 
 But, Spade, they don't exist any more. The 
 poorer they are today the bigger the bill they run 
 at the corner grocery. Instead of saving to buy a 
 home, they buy automobiles. The poorest rented 
 hovel down by the river has an automobile stand- 
 ing before it. They are pleasure-mad and they 
 spend every cent where it makes the biggest 
 show." 
 
 "That is all very true," said William, good- 
 humoredly, "but I'll bet the reason you are irri- 
 tated now is because you think you have carried 
 away the odor of that third floor upon your 
 clothes." 
 
 The other brushed a possible trace of dust from 
 his trouser leg with a cavalier air of disgust. 
 
 "Well, I hate the person that puts on another 
 layer of cologne instead of bathing. That's the 
 characteristic of the class show. Why, the
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 167 
 
 fresh young citizen that condescends to be my 
 office boy -at ten dollars a week takes his girl 
 to the theatre and leads her. down to a two-dollar 
 seat. More than that, he takes her to supper 
 afterwards, and he has then about a dollar left to 
 carry him through the week. For a while he ab- 
 stracted car-tickets and stamps from the office 
 store to help out. That's Young America of the 
 boasted middle class." 
 
 "And it scales along like that right up to the 
 top," replied William. "Sometimes I secure 
 twenty or thirty thousand dollars, which has been 
 held in trust, for a young fellow and he starts 
 right off at full speed spending it as though that 
 were his income instead of merely his principal. 
 I think people are beginning to lose the distinction 
 between income and principal. It is all just 
 cash suitable for spending." 
 
 He said this in a sudden spirit of fairness, be- 
 cause he was aware that he and Warburton were 
 doing much the same thing in their higher strata 
 as were the people Warburton criticised in their 
 lower one. They were all expending their re- 
 sources for froth and show and glamour. And in 
 expending resources right down through the social 
 scale they were expending the net resources of the 
 nation.
 
 168 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 He dropped Warburton and his marshal at a 
 point directed. The lawyer waved him good-bye 
 with a cordial nonchalance, as if he might have 
 been the host and William the grateful invited 
 guest. 
 
 William became conscious about this time, 
 through the agency of a sixth sense, of a familiar 
 presence upon the sidewalk amidst a throng of 
 people waiting for a street-car. It was a large 
 assemblage, and he was paying but scant atten- 
 tion to people who were not seeking to occupy the 
 same territory as that over which his car had to 
 proceed. But a magnetic force caused him to 
 look up and his eye met -that of his stenographer, 
 patiently waiting. The fact that she was talking 
 to another .man did not deter him. He stopped 
 by the curb, and offered to take them in the direc- 
 tion they wished to go. 
 
 He looked, with an emotion that was somewhat 
 more than curiosity, at the man who was with her, 
 wondering what Ruth Dunbar's life outside his 
 office might be. The man was tall and broad, 
 with an air of whipcord strength, and his lips met 
 firmly in a straight line. The girl introduced him 
 as a Mr. Roth. He shook hands with a strong 
 grip that would have momentarily crippled a less 
 wiry person.
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 169 
 
 "I did not catch the name," said Roth. 
 
 The other looked into the clear blue eyes. 
 "Spade," he replied, smiling. 
 
 "Mr. Spade, I am very pleased to meet you." 
 
 The girl eyed this performance with a quizzical 
 smile. "Mr. Roth," she observed, as she seated 
 herself beside the driver, "is particular about 
 names and indeed any sort of fact. He insists 
 upon being right." 
 
 Roth, not taking this as banter but as a mere 
 interesting statement of truth, arranged his large 
 frame in a sitting position at the doorway by her 
 feet. For William Spade, a certain fascination 
 attached itself to the presence of the man. He 
 covertly watched him, and presently, having con- 
 sidered him for the space of perhaps two blocks, 
 as a result of a rough but accurate character analy- 
 sis made in that time, drew him into conversation. 
 
 He did this merely by explaining briefly what 
 his errand with Warburton had been and retailing 
 somewhat at length the lawyer's philosophic re- 
 flections concerning the lack of thrift and other 
 staunch virtues among the poorer classes. He 
 watched the Roth man narrowly, to see how he 
 would rise to this subject. The man rose to it 
 earnestly, with a certain pedantic certainty of 
 expression.
 
 170 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "The statements your friend made are to a great 
 extent true," he asserted, in the manner of a per- 
 son not giving voice to an opinion, but explaining 
 rather an inflexible truth, "but the reason the 
 poorer classes make just as much show and osten- 
 tation as they can is primarily because the rich 
 classes do it. Cultivated people do not practice 
 moderation, or the art of living within their 
 means, or any of the drab virtues. That fact is 
 made evident by the reports of their actions in the 
 papers and sets the pace for the whole social 
 scale down to the man that cleans out the sewer. 
 Respectable, frank poverty, or respectable, frank 
 modesty of means, is considered a mark of inferi- 
 ority. Everyone must make a show, no matter 
 how it unbalances his life." 
 
 "Well, now for instance*?" queried the girl. 
 
 "Take the very simple case of a nine-hundred 
 dollar clerk escorting his best girl to a dance. The 
 greatest crime he can commit is to be stingy with 
 his money. It is little short of an insult if he does 
 the thing in a cheap way even though it corre- 
 sponds exactly with his station in life, and the 
 girl's. He must endeavor to carry off the per- 
 formance as nearly as possible in the way it is done 
 by the socially elect taxicab, flowers, and the 
 rest of it. Sometimes he hires his dress-suit."
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 171 
 
 "What do you deduce from that state of af- 
 fairs," William asked, interested in the man's 
 didactic certainty. In the back of his mind a 
 curiosity arose as to the relation Roth bore to the 
 life of the girl beside him. Under his veiled scru- 
 tiny, these two gave no hint of the extent of the 
 intimacy, or the lack of it, that existed between 
 them. 
 
 "I deduce this," the man replied, "that from 
 the top down to the bottom we are expending our 
 resources lavishly for things we do not want. 
 The rich man spends a thousand dollars for a hun- 
 dred dollars' worth of pleasure, the poor man 
 spends five for one dollar's worth. And that 
 means the loss not of just so much money but 
 of the staunch virtues of thrift, caution, modera- 
 tion and plain living that have been the backbone 
 of the nation." 
 
 William found himself considering these words 
 and large words they were with a little more 
 respect and thoughtfulness than he had expected 
 to accord them. He found himself letting the 
 man measure up to a higher standard than he at 
 first awarded him. And he was conscious too 
 that, strangely enough, he was vaguely weighing 
 the merits of this man with those of William 
 Spade to what end, it was impossible to say.
 
 172 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "The loss of these virtues the loss in moral 
 fibre and stamina," continued Roth, "is serious 
 retrogression not for the individual alone but 
 for the whole country. It is the worm in the 
 bud. Carthage and Rome and Venice and pre- 
 revolutionary France went down into disgrace and 
 dishonor from just such causes. We have a na- 
 tional duty to tread carefully lest we follow them 
 over the same road." 
 
 Ruth had told him that she wanted to go home, 
 as she was taking Mr. Roth to dinner. William 
 drove to the small house facing the park, to which 
 he had taken her after their canoe trip. Across 
 the street was the grove of oak trees shading the 
 hill that sloped down to the creek and forming a 
 broad wooded lawn for their tiny house, as if it 
 had all been laid out for the purpose of furnishing 
 a view from those windows. As they alighted, he 
 asked after her mother, whom he had not seen for 
 fifteen years or more. He did not go in then, as 
 it was so near their dinner hour; but said he would 
 come again to see her a statement Ruth Dunbar 
 did not think was meant to be truthful. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. William, in com- 
 mon with other hard-worked social and business 
 men, slept peacefully through six or seven hours 
 of good morning sunshine, arousing himself about
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 173 
 
 noon sufficiently to get up for his newspaper and 
 read it in a desultory way as he lay in bed. Yet 
 once he had thought it a hardship to have to sleep 
 in the daytime. 
 
 About half past one he walked two or three 
 blocks to the club where he sometimes took his 
 meals, and had luncheon. The club was deserted 
 at that time on Sunday, lacking every appearance 
 of festivity. He sat down in a big chair by the 
 window looking out at the sunny, depopulated 
 street. An automobile went by with three people 
 in it, a man sitting on the floor. He began to 
 think about Ruth Dunbar's friend Roth the man 
 with the absolutely crystallized and certain ideas. 
 He wondered what claim Roth had upon her 
 and the speculation was not without its flavor of 
 resentment. The idea of someone seeking to 
 marry his stenographer was in the nature of an 
 affront to him. Ruth Dunbar was a part of his 
 life his business life, certainly. 
 
 He realized that what Mr. Roth's claim upon 
 her might be was no concern of his. His stenog- 
 rapher's private life and her official life were two 
 quite different things. The one he knew about 
 the other he did not. As he thought about the 
 matter, he decided that he should not allow this 
 distinction to exist. Since she was so important
 
 174 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 in his business and so much depended upon his 
 business, it was his duty to take an interest in her 
 as a person. And, he reflected, that very after- 
 noon was an unusually opportune time to begin to 
 take that interest. 
 
 Ruth Dunbar was therefore surprised to see his 
 automobile stopping before her door. Her 
 mother was just on the point of going out. Wil- 
 liam remembered nothing of her at the seashore 
 except that she had been very slender and had 
 worn black dresses. She wore a black dress to- 
 day, and was still slender graceful, he thought. 
 He liked her soft, low-pitched voice. She went 
 with him in his machine to her destination, Ruth 
 sitting on the floor in the place Roth had occupied 
 the day before. 
 
 "I hope, Mr. Spade," her mother said, "that 
 you will take care of my little girl in your office, 
 and not let her work too hard." 
 
 "I do everything I can. I am only afraid that 
 some villain is going to come along and marry 
 her." 
 
 "I sincerely trust so," asserted Mrs. Dunbar, 
 with uncomplimentary fervor. 
 
 "Judging from the men," observed William, "I 
 meet upon street-corners with her " He paused 
 eloquently.
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 175 
 
 Ruth glanced at him quickly, as if wondering 
 what turn of his mind had made him think of that 
 incident in this connection. "You raise up a glit- 
 tering generality," she said, "upon a single in- 
 stance." 
 
 "Was it Richard Roth you saw*?" asked Mrs. 
 Dunbar, conversationally. "Richard was telling 
 us last night that his sister had been so fortunate. 
 Her husband is in the employ of a steel company 
 in Alexandria that is now making munitions 
 and the company is giving its employees a share 
 of their very large profits." 
 
 "I wish something like that would happen to 
 Richard," said Ruth, thoughtfully. 
 
 Presently they set Mrs. Dunbar down at her 
 destination. "Now," he asked, as he and Ruth 
 stepped into the machine again, "where may I 
 have the pleasure of taking you 1 ?" 
 
 "Home, please," she replied. 
 
 "Is it necessary for you to be there for the rest 
 of the afternoon*?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "No engagements, plans nor expectations for 
 the next hour*?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "In that event I suggest that we look for trees 
 and meadows and things."
 
 176 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 She nodded, smiling. He held his hand out at 
 the side of the car and, turning a corner, sent it 
 speeding along a deserted asphalt street. An- 
 other turn, a change to macadam, a coast down a 
 steep hill, and a pull up another, a broad bridge 
 with a tiny, silver stream inlaid in the dizzy 
 depths below, a mile or two of woods and fields 
 and occasional houses upon the one side, and a 
 screen of swiftly passing trolley poles upon an- 
 other, the end of the trolley poles, and they had 
 been transplanted as upon a magic carpet from 
 city to country. 
 
 More macadam roads. Beside her, the pano- 
 rama of far stretching fields meadow land lush 
 and green; young wheat fields and freshly 
 ploughed fallow-lands quartering each other with 
 heraldic precision; distant woods and the indis- 
 tinct mountains afar off. The damp, earthy smell 
 of the furrow rose from the roadside like perfume. 
 A field of clover, crimson as blood, a meadow lark, 
 yellow breast and whistling his four clear notes 
 as he flew low along the surface of it, a narrow 
 stream choked with water cress and boys wading 
 barefoot among it she saw as things thrown 
 quickly upon the screen and off again. 
 
 "Gorgeous," she would exclaim in delight, and 
 the picture was gone, to be rearranged and pro-
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 177 
 
 duced for the next automobile behind their flurry 
 of dust. 
 
 "Very pretty indeed," he would reply, looking 
 at his speedometer. "You like the weather and 
 the green things," he added, on one occasion. 
 
 "If I could only see them. They are dragged 
 across my eyes so fast I only get a glimpse of 
 them. I should like, rather, to sit on a fence and 
 look at it." 
 
 A brown, untravelled lane, plunging into woods, 
 came abreast of them and, without a word, he 
 swerved the car into it like a man hitting a moving 
 target. She gasped, and he laughed back at 
 her. 
 
 The road widened out at a spot deeper in the 
 woods. He drew the car to the side, scaring from 
 the underbrush a cotton-tail rabbit. The auto- 
 mobile came to a stop and the engine ceased to 
 revolve, leaving the woods in surprising stillness. 
 
 "Now what?" she asked. 
 
 "I propose to find the fence." 
 
 He struck in among the trees, she following. 
 The wood was grown up with brush. Fallen 
 trees, whose slumbers upon the ground had long 
 been undisturbed, disputed the right of way with 
 them. He held whip-like branches aside for her 
 to pass. She felt the touch of his hand as he
 
 178 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 helped her over round trunks that offered her no 
 secure footing. 
 
 She was interested in herself, as she followed 
 his lead without question or discussion mildly 
 wondering where their course might lead them. 
 Once, as he came to an abrupt halt, entangled in 
 an unseen briar, she stopped herself unexpectedly 
 with a hand on his shoulder. The fabric on the 
 shoulder was a smooth, soft serge. Unseen, she 
 laid her hand upon her own coat sleeve. It had 
 not the same pleasant richness. 
 
 She reflected that this was because the ratio of 
 cost between the two was as of seventy to thirty- 
 five. His coat did not look better than hers, but 
 it was better. The unstarched cuffs of his shirt 
 had not the ostentatious sheen of silk, but they 
 were silk. He had taken pains, even in the mi- 
 nutest detail, to align himself with the best and 
 richest the upper few. It amused her to think 
 that he had spent money, time, energy and the 
 work of his head and hand to rear up a barrier 
 between himself and her (not singling her out in- 
 dividually, but inevitably including her with the 
 others) and now she was permitted so close to him 
 that she could feel the texture of his coat. 
 
 What quirk of his mind was it that permitted 
 him to put the serge coat in a position such that a
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 179 
 
 stray briar would cause it to be touched by her 
 hand"? Why not have remained at home and 
 have avoided this contact of inequalities? Did 
 he find her interesting, was he merely curious, or 
 was he just the seeker after adventure 1 ? Or, 
 strange as it might seem, did he momentarily re- 
 sent the fact that he had found her devoting her 
 time to another man. It was a thought such as 
 only a feminine intuition would have prompted. 
 She made a grimace at the back of his head as it 
 occurred to her. 
 
 They followed a path, which trailed on in ap- 
 parent aimlessness and ended at length at the long- 
 expected fence. This fence was at the edge of the 
 woods and commanded a view over a field, gently 
 sloping toward a road some two hundred yards 
 away, and over the undulating hills beyond the 
 road. Automobiles passed now and then upon 
 the road a view of civilization that pleasantly 
 accentuated the remoteness of the spot. The deep 
 shadow of the woods in which they stood fell far 
 out across the fields, and all the trees beyond cast 
 long, dark fingers over the sunny grass. The mo- 
 ment had the melancholy sweetness of evening. 
 
 The big shadow of the woods lengthened and 
 enveloped the road. It climbed part way up the 
 opposite hill growing more distinct until the com-
 
 i8o THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ing dusk wiped it out. The reflected red in the 
 eastern sky departed like mist, and, shining wanly, 
 one lone star appeared. 
 
 " 'Whilst twilight's curtain spreading far was 
 pinned beneath a single star,' " she murmured. 
 
 He was looking at her as she spoke. Presently, 
 perhaps something of the influence of twilight 
 prompted him to remark: "I could also repeat a 
 quotation." 
 
 "Could you?" 
 
 "It is something like 'look out upon the stars 
 and shame them with your eyes.' " 
 
 His grave glance rested steadily upon her. A 
 wave of excited interest surged up within her, like 
 the water of the ocean swelling out over a calm 
 beach, seething and then retreating, leaving it as it 
 was before. She laughed softly. 
 
 "Something like," she repeated, looking at him, 
 with nothing showing now in the eyes but amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 "Is the quotation incorrect*?" 
 
 She met his glance with a mischievous compos- 
 ure. "You omitted something*?" 
 
 "I did?" 
 
 "Have you your loose-leaf note book here*?" she 
 asked, by way of reply. 
 
 Wondering, he reached into a side pocket for a
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 181 
 
 small book to which a pencil was attached. In 
 the fading light, she wrote two lines and tore 
 out the page. 
 
 "Read it when you get home," she said. "You 
 will see that you omitted something that made it 
 quite unsuitable for your purpose." 
 
 Amused and yet surprised at their unexpected 
 crossing of words, William put the piece of paper 
 and the notebook in separate pockets. And well 
 might he be surprised if he did not realize the 
 concession he had just made. He had admitted 
 that she was a woman, a fact that in his talks 
 with her hitherto he had been unconsciously ignor- 
 ing. 
 
 They made their way back through an unex- 
 pectedly dark woods. She found herself fre- 
 quently now with her hand upon the soft serge 
 coat, for, in order not to lose his guiding influence, 
 she kept close behind him and her outstretched 
 hand brushed against him as frequently as against 
 the trees. And more often he turned to take the 
 hand to help her over rough places. The touch of 
 his coat was pleasant as was the touch of his 
 hand. 
 
 A dim lightness ahead marked the position of 
 the road. Out of the darkness the shape of the 
 automobile appeared. At a touch of a switch,
 
 182 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 two beams from its big eyes lit up the twilight. 
 She sank back upon the comfortable cushions, 
 watching him slowly warp the car around in the 
 restricted space, until the headlights pointed the 
 way home. She saw the brown road give way to 
 a white one. She saw dimly, obscure objects, like 
 the scenery of another planet than hers, moving 
 quickly by. Now and then blinding lights would 
 appear ahead, blotting out the road and the dim 
 scenery until the car appeared to be careening diz- 
 zily through space. At an impatient bark of their 
 horn, the lights would lower and the road and the 
 earth appear again. A whirring of wheels and the 
 light was gone and forgotten an intruder upon 
 their world. 
 
 A feeling of contentment possessed her of 
 physical ease, of soothing motion, of pleasant de- 
 tachment from her own life and from the ground 
 itself, as though she were indeed floating smoothly 
 through space visiting the stars. It was like 
 awaking from a fairy dream, when the light at 
 length fell upon her house and the automobile 
 came to a stop at the curb. 
 
 As he bade her good-night, he was thinking 
 that she would be almost the first person he would 
 see in the morning. For months she had been 
 almost the first person he had seen in the morn-
 
 A PRIOR CLAIM 183 
 
 ing and had been a constant companion and con- 
 fidant for many hours during the day in some- 
 what the same impersonal sense that his telephone 
 was. And in all those hundred days he had bade 
 her good-morning and said her farewell without 
 touching the hand, which he held now. 
 
 A change had come over her of which he was 
 conscious but did not fully understand. He was 
 conscious of a change in his attitude toward her, 
 and later, in his room, when he opened the paper 
 she had given him, he was still more conscious of 
 it. The hasty writing on the leaf said : 
 
 "Look out upon the stars, my love, 
 And shame them with your eyes." 
 
 It made him laugh. But he sat for a long 
 while, leaning back thoughtfully in his chair, still 
 holding the paper in his hand.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A PASTEBOARD CODE 
 
 Ruth found it was a little past eight o'clock 
 when she entered the house. Her mother had not 
 yet returned. The younger brother, who fur- 
 nished the air of masculine stability for the house- 
 hold, was to call for her and bring her home later. 
 The girl lighted the gas range in the kitchen. 
 Under the warm glow of its oven she made thin 
 toast which she buttered while it was still hot. 
 Pouring boiling water over tea leaves and adding 
 to the table a few Sunday evening accessories, 
 chief of which was marmalade, she sat down to a 
 thoughtful meal. 
 
 She might, she reflected, have been at that mo- 
 ment eating a more sumptuous repast in a much 
 more pretentious place, had she chosen to do so. 
 Her companion had made the suggestion. But 
 she felt that she liked him better in the atmos- 
 phere that she herself was always free to enjoy, 
 rather than in places which were part of his life. 
 
 She did not care to see him in his own environ- 
 184
 
 A PASTEBOARD CODE 185 
 
 ment. She disapproved of it. It was no secret 
 to her that he had invaded the circle of the socially 
 elect calmly and with farseeing eyes and that he 
 had matched the selfishness of those people with a 
 selfishness of his own that was as careful and cal- 
 culating as theirs was careless and idle. He had 
 focussed his eyes on success and he rode straight 
 for it, not caring where or over what he rode. 
 
 In his business he had been of great benefit to 
 many people. But if he saw that in the course of 
 that business he was starting a young man on the 
 road to extravagance and perhaps to dissipation 
 and ruin by furnishing him with thousands of dol- 
 lars the young man's dead father had not intended 
 him to have until later, he did not hesitate but 
 provided the money. He used no selection in 
 making his money. He had a hard and fast code 
 of decency and honor to which he firmly adhered. 
 If he said, I will, he did. If he felt an obligation, 
 he lived up to it. But the two great Christian 
 standards trust in God overhead and the unself- 
 ish love for his neighbor below he did not under- 
 stand. 
 
 His life in the fashionable world had set up 
 in him a pasteboard code of righteousness. It 
 seemed to her that that strata of society was a 
 muddle of false ideas. In her small dealings with
 
 i86 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 society people, she had met many with high ideals 
 and fine sensibilities. But their life had the effect 
 of smudging over high ideals and fine sensibilities. 
 Their respective candles were burning under bush- 
 els. Their faiths, hopes and charities were dis- 
 torted to the public gaze and before the eyes of 
 their own kind. They did not discuss faith and 
 hope and charity because their overtrained sense of 
 repression taught them that these things would be 
 dull subjects of conversation. 
 
 They were trained to be of the opinion that 
 every cultivated person had all the virtues in his 
 heart and lived up to them as a matter of course, 
 and that it was simply boasting his advanced state 
 of civilization to speak of virtues. It was taken 
 for granted that they possessed unvarying fear of 
 God and unselfish love for their neighbors but 
 taking these things for granted destroyed them. 
 They substituted for conscience a confidence that 
 their trained intellects would distinguish between 
 right and wrong. And naturally their intellects 
 sided with their desires which searched after new 
 sensations and caused them to alter their code to 
 fit the case. Their righteousness was a thing of 
 expediency. 
 
 There was money to spend and a broad field for 
 pleasure. There was an abundance of idleness.
 
 A PASTEBOARD CODE 187 
 
 They were idle themselves and they hired footmen 
 and lackeys to stand about and help them be idle. 
 Wherever he looked, Satan found a rich field of 
 inactivity. Men and women kept house with each 
 other and changed about from time to time as 
 their fancy dictated, warding off the stigma of it 
 by a succession of marriages and divorces. Their 
 theology narrowed down to the statement that 
 whatever was necessary was right. 
 
 She knew of these things, not because she ever 
 had had the money to enable her to rub shoulders 
 with such people, but because a number of fash- 
 ionable women still retained a friendship with her 
 mother. Her grandfather had been upon the Su- 
 preme Court Bench and, as a young woman, her 
 mother had been well-known in the Capital. But 
 the financial reverses that followed his death had 
 rendered association with her rich friends imprac- 
 ticable. Her slender purse permitted her to see 
 them now only occasionally at the woman's club 
 to which she belonged and at long intervals at 
 luncheons in their houses. In this way the gossip 
 of that world filtered through to Ruth. 
 
 Ruth saw, in his every move, that William 
 Spade was a proselyte to the creed of these people. 
 She was aware, from his acts and speech, that 
 some experience in his past life had given him the
 
 i88 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 notion that the world was against him, and that 
 every advantage he gained for himself was but an 
 act of self-preservation. The creed of whatever 
 was necessary was right fitted in, therefore, ad- 
 mirably with his desires. 
 
 She realized that she and William were of two 
 different sorts. She had the simplicity of ideals 
 and desires that belong to a God-fearing and in- 
 spiring generation. He had the complication of 
 ideals and desires that belong to a generation that 
 had achieved success and was celebrating the 
 event. She had the instinct to conserve and to 
 strive. He was acquiring the instinct to dissipate 
 and sow to the four winds. 
 
 With an earnestness that was totally uncon- 
 scious of the inference, she assured herself that 
 such a man was not the sort of man she would 
 marry. The man she would marry must be strong 
 and brave enough to curb his grasp as directed by 
 his conscience. He must not be so glib and plaus- 
 ible that he could argue down his conscience. He 
 must have humility rather than make a god of 
 his self-confidence as did William Spade. Then 
 with a flush of ashamed amusement, she laughed 
 aloud at herself, for there was no occasion to de- 
 cide this question in the case of William Spade. 
 And she had already spent an hour in deciding it.
 
 A PASTEBOARD CODE 189 
 
 His greeting to her as he entered the office at 
 midday was as usual, except that it contained just 
 a shade more of friendliness. There was a blaze of 
 enthusiasm then in him. He had spent the morn- 
 ing at the office of his stock-broker, and he had 
 come back fired with conviction. It seemed as 
 though the war stocks had paused at last at the top 
 of their stupendous rise. For a week Federal 
 Arms had been steady at two hundred and fifty. 
 Old Dominion Steel had gone up to one hundred 
 and dropped to ninety-five. Consolidated Steel 
 which, starting a few months before at twenty-five 
 and marching on without a halt to three hundred 
 and twenty-five, had dropped to three hundred. 
 The value of these stocks was imaginary. The 
 end of the war would cut their price in half. 
 Orders had been taken two years ahead and there 
 would be no more orders. It looked as if the wild 
 burst of enthusiastic buying was about to fall of 
 its own weight. 
 
 As he had passed that morning the private of- 
 fice of Mr. LeFevre, the head of the brokerage 
 firm, that gentleman had emerged from it to shake 
 hands with him. The Federal Arms stock they 
 were holding for him was worth a hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, and he was a person the firm must 
 cultivate.
 
 190 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "Mr. Spade, you are going to sell your Federal 
 Arms soon, are you not*?" 
 
 "Tomorrow or next day, if it looks as though 
 this is the top." 
 
 "You're wise. And bear this in mind. These 
 stocks are going to drop just as fast as they rose. 
 And someone is going to make a lot of money as 
 they go. Consolidated Steel will be down to two 
 hundred by the first of August. Remember 
 that." 
 
 William had listened absently. He was think- 
 ing only of the profit upon the stock he held, which 
 had given him the sinews of war. He was now 
 in line to step onward toward real power and 
 real wealth to make himself felt in the daily his- 
 tory of the country. Power and money! It 
 seemed that he saw them in his grasp. 
 
 His desire was to make a great deal of money 
 at one blow not to earn it, but to seize it. 
 He needed riches to maintain his position. He 
 must make a big gamble to get it, pit his own in- 
 tellect and powers of strategy against those of 
 others and get the money before they could. 
 
 Upon the following day he sold his Federal 
 Arms at two hundred and fifty, realizing a profit 
 of one hundred thousand dollars. The day after
 
 A PASTEBOARD CODE 191 
 
 it dropped to two thirty-five. Old Dominion 
 Steel dropped to ninety. Consolidated Steel 
 dropped to two hundred and ninety-five. He felt 
 that he had taken his profit at the proper mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "You managed well," Mr. Barclay said, when 
 William told him of the success of his venture. 
 
 "I think the high point has come," William as- 
 serted, eyeing the older man intently, wondering 
 what was his opinion upon the stock market sit- 
 uation. 
 
 "That seems to be the consensus of opinion," 
 said the other, noncommittally. 
 
 "Some men are selling short," William con- 
 tinued. 
 
 "Risky thing to do." The older man turned 
 to drop his cigar ash in the fireplace. "Still," he 
 said in a moment, with his wry smile, "I may do 
 so myself." 
 
 Those last five words crystallized the strength- 
 ening intention that William had had in his mind 
 for the past two days. 
 
 He saw the risks, but determined to take them. 
 Everything pointing to the fact that he was right, 
 he felt that he must put himself in a position 
 to make a profit from being right. At one time
 
 192 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 business had for an important axiom do right. 
 Now its axiom was be right. William was rea- 
 sonably sure that was his condition. 
 
 He, therefore, instructed his brokers to sell five 
 hundred shares of Consolidated Steel at two hun- 
 dred and ninety dollars a share. His rest should 
 have been troubled that night, but it was not.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PAPER PROFIT 
 
 A man's wife thinks she knows the quirks and 
 convolutions of his character better than anyone 
 else. But she does not know them better than his 
 stenographer. His stenographer sees him during 
 the burden and heat of the day, when he is in ac- 
 tion and his mind is working. His wife sees him 
 at rest and what is so uninteresting as a ma- 
 chine at rest! 
 
 Ruth Dunbar saw William Spade in action and 
 saw the workings of his mind. She was only 
 mildly interested, but it was strange to have so 
 intimate a knowledge of another person's affairs. 
 It was part of her business to be informed of his 
 bank balance. She knew his holdings of stocks 
 and bonds, because she looked over the monthly 
 statement from his broker and checked up the 
 charges for interest. His personal and his office 
 affairs he made no link between. She made out 
 the checks for his office rent and for his apart- 
 
 193
 
 194 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ment rent, for his telephone, for his tailor and for 
 his garage. She would, when he asked her, call 
 up any of these and make complaint of the service 
 given. She would buy theatre tickets if he were 
 giving a party and were pressed, or thought he 
 was pressed, for time. She had even ordered a 
 dinner for ten at a fashionable restaurant. 
 
 He was considerate in asking such service of 
 her else she might not have been willing to ren- 
 der it; but she found it interesting to do these 
 things. His enthusiasm for whatever he had on 
 his mind was contagious. When he came into the 
 office with a big envelope full of samples of shirt 
 materials, the first thing he did was to spread 
 them all out upon his desk and call her in for a 
 conference. And, sitting opposite each other, 
 they would have a splendid time deciding which 
 patterns he was to take. 
 
 Their relations with each other, however, re- 
 mained distinctly that of employer and employee. 
 Their respective lives after office hours, dissolved, 
 as far as each other was concerned, into obscur- 
 ity. Once, to her surprise, he bought her a pres- 
 ent. She was looking at the window display of 
 a picture shop which adjoined their office build- 
 ing, when he happened along. 
 
 "I have just made a hundred thousand dollars
 
 PAPER PROFIT 195 
 
 by certain stock transactions," he said, after some 
 discussion, "and I should like to make you a 
 handsome present." 
 
 "Oh, thank you. That one." 
 
 She pressed her finger against the glass. It 
 was a print of Dante and Beatrice, in a plain 
 wooden frame, and was valued at fifty cents. He 
 strode into the store with her and purchased it. 
 
 It amused her knowing -from the broker's 
 statement what stock transaction he referred to 
 to think that this was her share of the huge 
 war profit the country was accumulating. She 
 was glad it was small, for she could not quite 
 bring herself to believe that William Spade, and 
 other similar speculators, deserved the large sums 
 of money that good fortune dropped into their 
 laps. But, strangely enough, she had not gone 
 half a block on her homeward way, when she 
 met with occasion to revise her opinion somewhat 
 and to concede that in some cases the war 
 profits conferred real and deserved good upon 
 their recipients. The occasion was the meeting 
 with Richard Roth, whose way happened acci- 
 dentally to cross hers. It was a tribute to his 
 perseverance and ingenuity that this coincidence 
 occurred frequently. He was accompanied by 
 his sister, Mrs. Bullard a somewhat unusual cir-
 
 196 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 cumstance, for he usually preferred to stage the 
 accidental meetings unattended. 
 
 "Richard was telling us," Ruth said, in a mo- 
 ment, her mind still running on the same subject, 
 "that you too are among those who are sharing 
 war prosperity." She held up her picture. "I 
 have just had a present from a friend who has 
 recently made a large sum of money on war 
 stocks." 
 
 Mrs. Bullard considered the size of the pic- 
 ture. "He must have made a huge sum to buy 
 all that." 
 
 "Everyone seems to be making money on the 
 war," she continued. "We bought fifty shares 
 of Old Dominion Steel Company stock, and are 
 paying for it by giving up half our salary every 
 month. And, my dear, we have been living from 
 hand to mouth." 
 
 "I should think so," commented Ruth. 
 
 "But we were fortunate to get the stock. It 
 was allotted to the employees of the Company. 
 Yesterday it went up to a hundred and ten, which 
 gives us a profit of about five thousand dollars. 
 Our dream of a house of our own, instead of a 
 rented hovel, seems about to be realized." 
 
 "All this is paper profit," Roth explained, in 
 the interests of accuracy.
 
 PAPER PROFIT 197 
 
 "Oh, yes. We have to finish paying for our 
 stock first, before it will be delivered to us, so 
 we can sell it again. But how we have skimped 
 and saved to get along on half the salary. You 
 know, all your salary is never enough. And half 
 of it! It's sickening. We've been wearing 
 clothes that we're just simply ashamed of. And 
 as for food I hate to say. As we have three 
 children it is almost impossible to get along on 
 what we have had at our disposal." 
 
 "But surely you couldn't pay for so many shares 
 of stock simply out of a salary*?" Ruth asked. 
 
 "No. A thousand dollars we paid at the very 
 beginning, representing the savings of a life-time, 
 so to speak, plus the proceeds of a sale of furni- 
 ture and a clandestine visit to the pawnshop. 
 A Jewish gentleman is holding my engagement 
 ring as collateral. Isn't that frenzied finance 1 ?" 
 
 "But won't it be glorious," exclaimed Ruth, "to 
 have your house." 
 
 Spurred on by this sympathetic attention, Mrs. 
 Bullard stopped on the street corner to draw 
 painstakingly upon the back of a letter, several 
 squares adjoining each other which she explained 
 was the plan of a house. She extracted some pic- 
 tures, taken from a magazine, out of her pocket- 
 book a colonial staircase, an Elizabethan bay-
 
 198 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 window, a little Spanish balcony and other 
 heterogeneous items which she asserted were to be 
 incorporated in the structure. Poor architect to 
 whom that house was entrusted! But she was 
 ecstatically happy, which was the main thing. As 
 Ruth said, here was one case where the war 
 stocks had done a philanthropic act. 
 
 When William Spade entered the office in the 
 morning, she thought, as she looked at him, how 
 much more praiseworthy it was to have earned five 
 thousand dollars by self-denial and much sacri- 
 fice than to have earned a hundred thousand by 
 taking the advice of a friend. There was more of 
 compassion than criticism in this comparison. 
 
 William's training had been such that it did 
 not occur to him to doubt the importance of ma- 
 terial success. The business men with whom he 
 was now thrown spoke earnestly of the financial 
 prosperity which had enveloped the country, and 
 discussed means of making it continue. They 
 viewed with pessimism any signs of the coming of 
 the end of the carnage and bloodshed across the 
 water, which carnage and bloodshed was pouring 
 a steady stream of profits into this country. They 
 viewed with more than pessimism any signs of 
 their own government being drawn into conflict, 
 however righteous the cause, because it would
 
 PAPER PROFIT 199 
 
 cripple business and turn away the stream of 
 profits. They had translated all their emotions 
 into terms of dollars and cents. Statesmen and 
 eloquent men spoke of honor and glory and pa- 
 triotism, but the nation at large, while echoing 
 their words, thought always of the cost of these 
 things and down in their hearts, appeared to have 
 come to the conclusion that they were luxuries 
 too expensive for a great commercial nation, whose 
 business could not be interrupted. 
 
 She saw him gradually hardening under this 
 influence. She saw him absorbing, grain by 
 grain, the drug of selfishness, until the natural 
 generosity in him was inert. She saw him adopt- 
 ing new rules of life, which centered about the 
 principle that one must, before all things, pro- 
 tect and nurture and advance his own interests. 
 After that he might give thought to the welfare 
 of others. The finer sensibilities of his nature 
 were growing less distinct and materialism was 
 taking command of his aims and impulses. 
 
 She was sorry for that. For her service with 
 him had developed in her, in spite of her disap- 
 proval of him, a loyalty to him. She recognized 
 in him an efficient general in the affairs in which 
 he, and she in a smaller way, were engaged; and 
 her heart said, "Vive le roi."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE LEOPARD'S CAGE 
 
 About ten o'clock one morning Ruth answered 
 the ring of the office telephone. 
 
 "I wish to speak to Mr. Spade," a voice in the 
 instrument said a cultivated yet precise voice, 
 carrying with it the inference that nothing fur- 
 ther was necessary than that its owner should 
 say simply that such and such a desire existed 
 in her bosom. 
 
 "Who shall I say wishes to speak to him?" 
 asked Ruth. 
 
 "You need not say." The voice was unpleas- 
 antly curt. 
 
 Ruth smiled. "This is an office," she ex- 
 plained. "It is customary for us to know." 
 
 "I am aware that it is an office," returned the 
 voice. 
 
 Ruth reflected. Here was evidently a person 
 who had been roused too early in the morning. 
 
 "I am sorry to be annoying," she explained, 
 smoothly. "But Mr. Spade has been very much 
 
 200
 
 THE LEOPARD'S CAGE 201 
 
 worried of late by certain people. It is difficult 
 for me to recognize voices over the telephone." 
 
 There was a slight pause. Then the person at 
 the other end of the wire, her irascibility suddenly 
 gone, said, "Please say this is Miss Barclay." 
 
 Ruth raised her eyebrows. The thought came 
 to her that it would be necessary for William 
 Spade in his future days to be diplomatic early 
 in the morning if such were Miss Barclay's usual 
 moods. This did not promise much contentment 
 and happiness. However, she did not have space 
 then to ponder on this phase of the situation. 
 She hastened to announce to William the name 
 of the fair suppliant for audience with him, and 
 was not surprised to see him leave the office shortly 
 afterwards. 
 
 Not many minutes later, William was helping 
 Sara into his automobile. He discovered, as 
 Ruth guessed, that the lady had been aroused a 
 little too early in the morning. Noon was her 
 luxurious idea of dawn, and she did not begin 
 seeing people until three or four o'clock, by which 
 time she was ready to assume the splendid car- 
 riage of her shoulders and her mellow pleasant- 
 ness of voice and manner. But to surprise her 
 into wakefulness at ten-thirty in the morning 
 was expecting too much. Of course at that time
 
 202 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 she could be nothing but natural the primitive 
 Sara, experiencing no outward excitement to 
 stimulate loveliness of character. 
 
 It developed that she was being presented with 
 a new automobile for her summer use, and, since 
 she was to leave the city in a day or two, it was 
 necessary that she should make her choice imme- 
 diately. Her father had, in his peremptory man- 
 ner, made several appointments for her to see 
 dealers between the hours of eleven and twelve, 
 which he expected her to keep. 
 
 "I had to have your opinion on the car," she 
 said to William. "So I finally persuaded the 
 goddess who answers your telephone to let me ask 
 you to come." 
 
 "She was merely following my instructions," 
 he observed. 
 
 "You have so many silly rules. Every busi- 
 ness man spends about three-fourths of his time 
 trying to make himself seem important. You 
 were probably reading your newspaper all the 
 time." 
 
 "The irritating part about that to you is that 
 you can't be sure." 
 
 She yawned frankly, as fitting reply to this. 
 "What makes you creep about the streets'?" she 
 asked him, with an insulting lack of emotion.
 
 THE LEOPARD'S CAGE 203 
 
 "Can't this old machine move at more than three 
 miles an hour?" 
 
 "Where did you get that disposition?" 
 
 Quick as a flash her manner changed and she 
 leaned forward with a dazzling smile. 
 
 "Don't you like it*?" she asked. 
 
 He laughed at her swiftly adopted coquetry. 
 "Is that your disposition*?" he demanded. 
 
 "For my friends." 
 
 They visited four or five motor agencies. In 
 these she sat or walked about in a restless way, in- 
 terrupting long arguments, asking petty questions, 
 ridiculing any speech of William's which seemed 
 to denote a knowledge of the subject, amusing her- 
 self by irritating everyone and smoothing them 
 over with her bland smile when she felt she had 
 scored too heavily. 
 
 "Great day ! You're spoiled," exclaimed Wil- 
 liam, suspending for a moment his investigations 
 under the hood of a machine. 
 
 "Don't you think I am charming 1 ?" she de- 
 manded, when they were in his automobile 
 again. 
 
 "I think I shall recommend to your father cor- 
 poral punishment for you." 
 
 Again the dazzling smile. "Do you love me 1 ?" 
 she asked, sweetly.
 
 204 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 He looked at her seriously, weighing a number 
 of things in his mind. 
 
 "Suppose I did say I loved you," he said, at 
 length, calmly. "Would that satisfy your 
 fancy?" 
 
 She had a frivolous retort ready, but did not 
 say it. She thought of a serious speech, which 
 was too serious. And then the time for replying 
 having passed, she remained silent. Had she 
 dared to be sure she loved him, the game could 
 have ended there. Had she not been fascinated 
 by his personality, mystified by his assumption 
 of an almost contemptuous superiority over her, 
 forever uncertain whether her charms would be 
 valid upon him, she would have taken pleasure, 
 in her present mood, in rebuffing him with a hard 
 jolt. She could not adopt either alternative. 
 She could not hold him and she did not want to 
 let him go. So she said: 
 
 "I wish you would be careful where you drive. 
 We almost collided with that car. My life is 
 precious." 
 
 "You haven't answered my question." 
 
 "I didn't know you wanted me to. What was 
 the question as to your loving me. Why, my 
 boy, I have so many men loving me now I'm about 
 crazy."
 
 THE LEOPARD'S CAGE 205 
 
 In a most uncomplimentary manner, he began 
 to laugh. "Who are they*?" he demanded, with 
 an appearance of incredulity. 
 
 "They are too numerous to mention. Louis 
 Warburton is the last one unless you include 
 yourself," she added, with satanic composure. 
 
 "Warburton !" he exclaimed. 
 
 She examined him leisurely, speculating as to 
 whether that name could draw a spark of jeal- 
 ousy and wondering, if the jealousy did spark, 
 whether he could be more, or less, entertaining. 
 
 "Does that make you jealous*?" she demanded, 
 at length, weary of simply letting the problem 
 lie, awaiting decision, in her brain. 
 
 "Boiling," he replied, cheerfully. 
 
 "I believe there is no pigeon-hole for jealousy 
 in your mind. You are a mere machine." 
 
 He gave her a long, curious glance. 
 
 "Think of your saying that. Your entire pub- 
 lic manner is a machine-made product, applied for 
 the sake of appearances. When there is no pub- 
 lic of importance present, you are a spitfire. Sit- 
 ting down to breakfast with you every day would 
 be like being one of these fellows who sits in a cage 
 with a leopard." 
 
 He said it experimentally, because it amused 
 him now and then to prod her into activity but
 
 206 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 he knew how near to the truth the statement was. 
 She concealed a yawn behind her fan. 
 
 "Billy, you bore me," she said. 
 
 When he had stopped before her house, she 
 still remained seated. "We have not decided 
 upon the automobile," she remarked. 
 
 "The twin-six is the best one," he said, tenta- 
 tively. 
 
 ''Very well. I shall get it."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE INNER VOICE 
 
 In selling Consolidated Steel short, William 
 Spade had overlooked one fact that a multitude 
 of other people had already had the same idea. 
 For a week or two before he had sold his five hun- 
 dred shares people had been saying that it could 
 not possibly go a point higher and had been back- 
 ing their judgment by selling freely. This will- 
 ingness to sell had put such a quantity of the 
 stock on the market that the price began to re- 
 cede. And the more it receded the more con- 
 vinced people became that it was due to go down 
 as fast as it had gone up. William Spade was 
 one of these. He was one of a thousand or so 
 who had sold when the stock was at two hundred 
 and ninety. 
 
 There was such a horde of these that the stock, 
 after first dropping to two hundred and eighty, 
 began to rise. More speculators sold at that 
 price. Then a large contingent who had sold 
 short at three-twenty-five came to the conclusion 
 that forty-five dollars a share was a reasonable 
 
 207
 
 208 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 profit and consolidated their winnings by purchas- 
 ing stock to cover their obligations from those who 
 were selling short at two hundred and eighty. 
 This held the price up and many persons, who had 
 sold at anywhere from three-twenty-five down, 
 bought and took their profit. 
 
 Now a number of the timid sheep who had sold 
 at two-eighty ran to cover and bought at two- 
 eighty-five to keep from losing more. Other 
 "shorts" began to come to cover before they had 
 lost their profits. There was a multitude of or- 
 ders to buy and not many orders to sell. The 
 stock went to ninety to ninety-five. Hundreds 
 who had not yet covered, made a frantic effort 
 to get tangible shares to put in place of the imag- 
 inary ones they had sold. There was a large de- 
 mand and not much supply. The stock went to 
 three-ten, to three-twenty, to three-thirty. The 
 higher it went the more reluctant were people to 
 sell, believing the rise was still to continue. 
 
 When it became known that so many specula- 
 tors had been caught in this flare-back, the prac- 
 tice of selling short on that stock became decidedly 
 unpopular. There were still hundreds who had 
 sold short and had not yet covered. Some of 
 these were buying at whatever price they could, in 
 order to get rid of their obligations sending the
 
 THE INNER VOICE 209 
 
 stock up daily. Others were "sitting tight," con- 
 vinced that the rise was only temporary and that 
 they would soon be in a position to escape with 
 whole skins. 
 
 William Spade was in this latter class. While 
 not a little disturbed by the unexpected turn of 
 affairs, he still believed he was right in his first 
 diagnosis of the matter and that the stock was still 
 due for a decline. Naturally it disturbed him to 
 take his pencil and figure out that, with the price 
 at three-fifty, he had lost just thirty thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 But his confidence in his own judgment was 
 strong, and his sub-conscious faith in his luck was 
 stronger. He drew no long face. His sporting 
 spirit was good. Thirty thousand dollars was 
 thirty thousand dollars, but if he lost it it was 
 spilt milk and, as such, was not worth crying over. 
 
 But when the stock reached four hundred, the 
 thirty thousand became nearly sixty thousand. 
 The loss of sixty thousand dollars was stupendous. 
 The spilled-milk theory would not cover that. 
 He was stubborn. He rebelled at the idea of 
 losing such a sum. And his pride galled him. It 
 was like a lash upon his flesh to think that his 
 much vaunted judgment had cost him the great 
 price of sixty thousand dollars.
 
 210 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 Warburton came to visit him one day ; and Wil- 
 liam, his head and heart in fact his whole life 
 being full of but the one thing, unburdened his 
 mind. It was bitter to have to admit to this man, 
 who had looked up to William Spade as a sort of 
 semi-god, whose judgment was never wrong and 
 whose luck was perennial, that he had steered his 
 craft upon the rocks. But he must tell someone. 
 He was but human he hungered for sympathy. 
 
 "Hard luck, old fellow," observed Warburton, 
 in the easy way he took the troubles of others. 
 "Now you'll have to get after the Old Dominion 
 Steel Company and make them pay the piper." 
 
 "I've been thinking of it." 
 
 "Thinking of it ! As your lawyer, I am going 
 to do it. I shall write the letter today. And par- 
 ticularly appropriate it is. If one steel company 
 steals from you, you steal from another steel com- 
 pany to pay. Very neat, what?" 
 
 "I don't like the word 'stetil.' " 
 
 "Poietic license, my boy. Just to complete the 
 epigram. But I shall write the letter. Cheer 
 up." 
 
 "Don't write the letter until I tell you." 
 
 The lawyer paused with his hand upon the 
 door. 
 
 "When," he asked, with an affectation of care-
 
 THE INNER VOICE 211 
 
 lessness, "are you going north to see the divine 
 Sara?' 
 
 "First week in August. And you?" 
 
 "Later." 
 
 Toward the last of July, Ruth Dunbar was 
 given a two weeks' vacation. She and her mother 
 were to spend the time at Starkwether's hotel at 
 Bound Beach. The office was a dismal place 
 without her presence. In fact the city was dreary 
 anyway. All the houses William was accustomed 
 to visit in the winter were boarded up with wooden 
 shutters. His club seemed to be put away for the 
 summer. Curtains were down, chandeliers done 
 up in netting, the chairs enveloped in Mother- 
 Hubbard gowns. It was stuffy and hot there, and 
 his footsteps echoed in the empty rooms. 
 
 If he wished amusement, he could have a prac- 
 tical demonstration of the principle of the fireless 
 cooker, by going to the theatre or to any one of a 
 hundred moving picture places. He spent all his 
 afternoons playing tennis, because he felt that his 
 mind, which he could not keep from being de- 
 spondent, needed the backing of a body in good 
 condition. In his pessimistic mood, he looked 
 with a sort of amused contempt at the way the 
 other young men there took their exercise an 
 hour and a half of tennis or golf to store up physi-
 
 212 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 cal well-being and afterwards several highballs to 
 dissipate it again. To William, health and vigor 
 were precious, and this careless handling of them 
 sacrilegious. 
 
 His own good health made his courage good. 
 Every time the stock went up five points, he lost 
 two thousand five hundred dollars. Many and 
 many a day he had seen it do that, and was still 
 seeing it do that. But his tenacity never fal- 
 tered it would have been better if it had. He 
 was borne up by the conviction that some day the 
 thing must come to an end. And having that 
 conviction, he stood by it. It takes courage to 
 follow implicitly one's own judgment. - 
 
 He was doing almost no business at all. The 
 city, save for those in government service, and the 
 merchants, was deserted. There were few per- 
 sons who needed his services. He had, however, 
 expected this state of affairs and had on that ac- 
 count accepted an invitation to visit the Barclays 
 on the first of August. But a few days before 
 that date he telegraphed that he would be unable 
 to come. 
 
 He felt that he would have lost his mind had he 
 been compelled to play for a whole week the game 
 Sara liked to play, keeping her stimulated and di- 
 verted, meeting new people and keeping them
 
 THE INNER VOICE 213 
 
 stimulated and diverted, and endeavoring to ap- 
 pear stimulated and diverted himself a mental 
 feat he had no ambition to accomplish and was 
 not sure that he could. 
 
 The day he sent that telegram the stock had 
 reached four hundred and fifty a phenomenal 
 rise at which all those who took an interest in such 
 things stood aghast and marvelled. But William 
 was loser by the sum of eighty thousand dollars. 
 
 A small incident at this time made a strange 
 impression upon his mind strange because it was 
 the impression that would naturally have been 
 made upon a naked South-Sea islander but not 
 upon a product of a high civilization. But, like 
 plus infinity and minus infinity, the highest state 
 of civilization is in some respects synonymous 
 with savagery. As he was walking along a wide 
 avenue near the streets which are the centers of 
 evening festivity for poorer people, he paused for 
 a moment, idly, to listen to the hoarse talk of a 
 man in a red-banded hat, around whom a throng 
 of equally idle people had also gathered for a mo- 
 ment to hear his uncouth but earnest words. 
 
 "My friends," shouted the voice, husky from 
 long abuse in the open air, "if you are in trouble, 
 I say take your troubles to Jesus. If your heart 
 is sore, call upon Him. Brother, if you have lost
 
 214 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 your job; or, sister, if your baby is lying on a bed 
 of sickness, tell the Man in Heaven about it. 
 Don't carry that weight in your heart. If you 
 feel that all your friends are against you and the 
 world is treating you hard, Jesus Christ is on your 
 side. Take the hand He is holding out to you. 
 Most of you think this world is hard, but I say to 
 you that the world is easy, if you will trust Jesus 
 Christ, the Man who made it." 
 
 Wondering that people should listen to such 
 platitudes, such repetition of well-worn truths, 
 yet unexpectedly keeping the homely phrases in 
 his mind, he walked on up the street. "Emo- 
 tional Christianity," he thought, "for the con- 
 sumption of the half -educated who like to in- 
 toxicate their minds with temporary thoughts of 
 heaven and the golden gates, and, sobering up ten 
 minutes later, go about their sordid lives as 
 usual." 
 
 But one thought remained in his storm-tossed 
 and wave-battered mind. Suppose it were true 
 that when man had come to the end of his own 
 resources when his own feeble strength seemed 
 as but the hand of a child against a great rock 
 suppose then he could call in the aid of a Higher 
 Power and rest his trouble upon divine shoulders. 
 It was a comforting thought. But a thought for
 
 THE INNER VOICE 215 
 
 weak brothers ! For men who had failed in life ! 
 But for William 'Spade, no! His life was his 
 own problem. He would not admit defeat or the 
 weakness of his own arm. Once having sunk 
 spineless upon the ground and calling aloud for 
 help, he would be forever impotent and useless. 
 He must never give in. 
 
 This was the voice of his training and culture 
 convincing him of his own importance, his own 
 power, his own efficiency and his own ultimate 
 omnipotence. For what else is civilization*? 
 Within was the voice of the savage, awed by the 
 immensity of the powers that seemed to be turned 
 loose against him, blindly groping for a helping 
 hand in the darkness. He spurned the inner voice 
 as calling upon him to take a step backwards. 
 For the refining influence that had bred in him 
 learning and confidence in his own power, had cast 
 out humility. 
 
 The God whom he knew was a historical per- 
 son. As a present influence he ignored His power, 
 His precepts His very existence.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 BOUND BEACH 
 
 At his brokers' William had now put up all the 
 collateral he had a hundred and five thousand 
 dollars' worth of securities and continued to 
 hold on. He considered himself fortunate in that 
 he had enough money to enable him to do so. 
 Many other unfortunate individuals had no choice 
 but to buy themselves out of the trap they had 
 lucklessly entered. He was now convinced, 
 rightly or wrongly, that he was going to lose much 
 less than eighty thousand dollars if he held on 
 long enough. 
 
 When the stock, reaching four-fifty, stood there 
 for a whole week as if it had come to the end of its 
 rise, he felt as if he had been given a precious 
 gift. For the first time the tension on his nerves 
 relaxed. At first he was exhilarated. Then a 
 physical slump came over him. He awoke one 
 morning with a fever. And his doctor, looking 
 him over, told him to leave the city immediately. 
 
 It was a favorite drug with doctors; and his 
 216
 
 BOUND BEACH 
 
 217 
 
 malady was a favorite malady his system was 
 run down and required a week or two for recharg- 
 ing with strength and vigor. An easy prescrip- 
 tion for the doctor. But what of the stock mar- 
 ket, asked William. 
 
 "Has your presence had any effect on it in the 
 past month," asked the physician, briskly. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then try another system. Walk around your 
 chair. Change your luck. Forget about the 
 thing for a week." 
 
 An omen, a voice from the oracle! William 
 remained dumb, wondering. 
 
 "Is there any place you can go that is not 
 reached by telegraph, telephone or the daily 
 papers*?" 
 
 "Not that I know of," William responded, 
 doubtfully. "Yes," he added, "there is a place." 
 
 "Then go." 
 
 And William went. He could not help think- 
 ing how strange it was that, in this ebb-tide of his 
 fortunes, he had refused to seek the presence of the 
 woman who should have held a place in his heart; 
 and had ended now by seeking the presence of a 
 woman who held no place in his heart. For the 
 haven he sought now was old Mr. Starkwether's 
 hotel at Bound Beach.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HOLIDAY 
 
 It was a strangely subdued and quiet William 
 Spade that Ruth Dunbar knew at Bound Beach. 
 Curiously enough, the first glimpse she had of him 
 was from nearly the same spot as the first sight, 
 she had ever had of him. William, landed on 
 the beach by the motor-boat that had ferried him 
 across the inlet, walked up the sands carrying his 
 bag a pleasant sense of peace and quiet filling 
 his heart and an unaccustomed congeniality with 
 the world flickering within as he watched the 
 waves roll in and listened to their soothing roar.. 
 
 She was waiting for him at the bend of the 
 beach quite as if his advent was not an astound- 
 ing event and as if watching him walking along 
 she had not twenty times decided that it could not 
 possibly be he. As he had first seen her fifteen 
 years before, she had, Undine-like, just emerged 
 from the sea and the sheen of water still shone on 
 her white arms. It was not just the sort of bath- 
 ing-suit she had worn then, but she was graceful 
 
 218
 
 HOLIDAY 219 
 
 more graceful than the slender child had been. 
 
 "I was wondering," she said, as he approached, 
 "if you were going to prove to be real." 
 
 He set down his bag and took her outstretched 
 hand, looking at her with frank pleasure. 
 
 "I hope I am real. The other night I wasn't. 
 I had a fever and saw those crimson things Mr. 
 Kipling writes about." 
 
 Her appraising and serious eye rested upon 
 him, with the motherly concern that her long 
 caring for the minor things of his life had bred in 
 her. 
 
 "You look indeed as if you had been ill," she 
 said, quietly. 
 
 She let him help her on with her waterproof 
 coat. 
 
 "Why had you a fever 1 ?" she demanded, accus- 
 ingly. 
 
 He did not intend to tell her. That was the 
 main part of his plan. It was partly from shame 
 at his mistake, but mostly from pride. He 
 would not call upon her sympathy when he was 
 down. It was not her trouble, and she was enti- 
 tled to immunity from it. The troubles of others, 
 he thought, are never of interest to people. 
 
 "It was hot enough in Washington to give any- 
 one a fever," he replied, therefore.
 
 220 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 She noted the evasion in his answer. Her ex- 
 amining eye had already told her of something 
 amiss. She said nothing, but her mind went back 
 to a time when she had decided that one day his 
 luck would turn against him. It needed no ex- 
 planation now to tell her that the day had come. 
 
 She had known before that when the day did 
 come, she would be filled with compassion and 
 concern. The mother instinct in her was strong. 
 Anxiety to offer her ministrations to him 
 wounded on the field was her first impulse. 
 But she did not offer them he did not even 
 suspect that she wished to offer them; for she 
 knew she must be reserved and cautious. He 
 dwelt upon the other side of a stream, whose 
 bridge she must not cross. 
 
 She understood therefore why it was a subdued 
 and quiet William Spade that spent his week by 
 the seaside. And, because there was a certain 
 elation in her at watching what she conceived to 
 be a moulding of his character, and because of the 
 restrained sympathy she had for him, she felt that 
 he had become a person for whom she had more of 
 understanding. It was an anomalous fact that 
 heretofore she had insisted on keeping up the bar- 
 riers between them that he himself had con- 
 structed, and it was just as strange now that she
 
 HOLIDAY 221 
 
 should be interested in having him take them 
 down if but temporarily. 
 
 Either she was finding in his character some- 
 thing new or else something was developing there. 
 She had not expected that he would be entertained 
 by the simple pleasures .that the beach afforded. 
 She had not expected to find that he would be in- 
 terested in lying on the beach beside her and 
 watching the sky and the birds, while she read or 
 sewed or, having something to say, talked with 
 him. She had not expected that he would follow 
 the usual custom there of going to bed at nine, or 
 that he would be up at six in the morning to bathe 
 in the ocean. She was surprised to find that, on 
 a day when she and her mother had gone for a 
 trip to a nearby and very civilized summer resort, 
 he had helped old man Starkwether put a coat of 
 paint upon the keel of a boat, pleased as a boy at 
 his own skill. In fact that was what he seemed 
 to be a boy willing to be entertained by simple 
 things. 
 
 He never tired of Starkwether. The old man 
 brought up memories of his childhood. He 
 laughed at his blunt way of insisting upon his 
 own rights, covering up his firmness with an al- 
 most suave diplomacy. When Ruth and Wil- 
 liam were in the boat-shop one day, a man came
 
 222 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 for the purpose of buying some paint with which 
 to cover a small house he was building. There 
 was quite a colloquy as to just the color and qual- 
 ity of the paint, the customer being apparently 
 hard to suit. The old man meanwhile watched 
 him narrowly from under his bushy brows, specu- 
 lating upon something. When the material was 
 ready, the customer lifted it from the floor. 
 
 "Mr. Starkwether," he said, with a sunny 
 smile, "I'll pay you for this some time when I 
 see you." 
 
 This appeared to be the crucial point. "Ab- 
 ner," said the boat-builder, sternly, "set down the 
 can of paint." Then, with the utmost urbanity 
 and interest, "How are you getting on with your 
 new house*?" 
 
 Obviously, after that, there was no way of get- 
 ting the conversation back again to the subject of 
 the paint without paying for it, which the young 
 man did. 
 
 William found such things diverting. They 
 kept his mind from turning back to the city. In 
 addition to this he had resolved not to think of the 
 stock, and with the superstition that seems to go 
 hand in hand with anything that resembles gam- 
 bling, he did not think of it. He had a subcon- 
 scious feeling that if he kept his mind free from
 
 HOLIDAY 223 
 
 his deal for a while, it would bring him good luck. 
 It was rather an unworthy intent, but then he was 
 not engaged in a very uplifting business transac- 
 tion. 
 
 However, the weariness of his constant and 
 nerve-racking attention to the stock market in the 
 past few months made absolute freedom from it a 
 luxury he had never dreamed could be so restful. 
 He was satisfied to do nothing at all. He al- 
 lowed Ruth to decide, when she felt so inclined, as 
 to the disposition of his day. 
 
 He, who had always been on the alert for some- 
 thing to quicken his blood, found himself quite 
 content to sit under the shadow of a wreck partly 
 buried in the sand, and watch her make mysterious 
 stuff which she spoke of as "tatting." He 
 thought that after she once found she could do it, 
 she would have been satisfied. But she kept on. 
 After a while he absorbed the idea that the tatting 
 was used for something. Or he would listen to 
 her read aloud. She read to him from a pirate 
 story they had found at the hotel a tale that 
 supplied him with vicarious adventures while he 
 lay comfortably on the sands. 
 
 She was noted at Bound Beach for her skill in 
 handling a sailboat. As that was one of the 
 things about which he knew nothing, he was al-
 
 224 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ways glad when she wanted to go out in the cat- 
 boat that lay at anchor at the inlet. He soon 
 absorbed a working knowledge of her lore and 
 was able to sit at the tiller and put the little boat 
 through its paces with great satisfaction to him- 
 self. Sometimes he found her curious glance 
 upon him. 
 
 "Well," he said, on one occasion, "am I such a 
 duffer as that?" 
 
 "Why do you ask?" 
 
 "You were looking at me in such a strange 
 way." 
 
 "Don't you think the situation is strange. In- 
 stead of being in a hot office, me your handmaiden, 
 at your beck and call, we are down here on a 
 broad, windy ocean where I don't have to do what 
 you say unless I want to." 
 
 He laughed contentedly. "I would move the 
 office down here if I could," he said. 
 
 He threw over the tiller, bringing the nose of 
 the boat up into the wind. The girl dodged the 
 boom as it swung over, and took her seat on the 
 windward side. He beamed with satisfaction 
 with himself for his seamanship. 
 
 "Would you consider," he said, suddenly, "that 
 you were my handmaiden at my beck and call if I
 
 HOLIDAY 225 
 
 requested you to wear a certain white dress this 
 evening you probably know the one." 
 
 She flushed with pleasure. She had not sup- 
 posed that he knew one dress of hers from another. 
 "One having short sleeves?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It would be a pleasure for me to serve you in 
 that particular. Or," she added, with a serious 
 air of politeness, "in any other." 
 
 "I shall remember your words." 
 
 William did well in asking her to wear the 
 white dress. It left her round, smooth arms bare, 
 and was cut just low enough to show the clear 
 white skin of her neck and shoulders. She was as 
 fresh as a newly cut flower in it. It gave her an 
 air of comely cleanliness that was much more than 
 skin-deep, for it seemed to extend inwards to her 
 heart. 
 
 After dinner, or supper as they termed it there, 
 they went out upon the beach. It was low tide 
 and a wide promenade was rolled smooth and level 
 for them to walk upon. She carried a silk scarf 
 over her arm which the wind blew across him. 
 He pinned the corner of it idly to his coat with 
 the pin that was the insignia of his college fra- 
 ternity ; and, when presently she drew it round her
 
 226 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 shoulders, she found that she was attached firmly 
 to him. 
 
 "What do you wish with me?" she asked. 
 
 Apparently nothing, for he released her imme- 
 diately and fastened the scarf at her throat with 
 the pin a sacrilege that in his college days would 
 have been regarded as a signal for dire portents 
 and distress throughout the union. But the only 
 thing that happened now was that she said : 
 
 "Is that your fraternity pin?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What would Miss Barclay say at seeing it in 
 such a place?" 
 
 She had meant never to mention that name, or 
 even indirectly to bring herself into comparison 
 with this other girl. But she felt a sense of near- 
 ness and friendliness to him tonight, which made 
 her say whatever came into her mind. 
 
 "Sara Barclay is a far-away person," he replied. 
 
 The subject had a fascination for her. She 
 had a poignant curiosity concerning this absent 
 one, whom she had never seen and whose name 
 until this moment it had been expedient to keep 
 in the recesses of her mind rather than upon her 
 tongue. 
 
 "Why have you not been to see her?" she asked, 
 mildly.
 
 HOLIDAY 227 
 
 "She is so complicated. I needed rest." 
 
 Yet he had come to visit her. Non-combatant 
 though she considered herself, she could not re- 
 strain the flush of triumph that threw a sunset 
 glow upon her face. 
 
 "Rest lightly, little piece of gold," she said to 
 the pin upon her breast. "You can never tell to 
 whom your master will lend you next." 
 
 "It is in order that it may have a better opinion 
 of my constancy," he said, without wavering, 
 "that I am giving it to you now." 
 
 She bent her eyes covertly upon him. Gently, 
 gently she felt the quicker beating of her heart 
 under the pin itself. Farewell now, thin assump- 
 tion of non-combatancy ! She was in the lists 
 her badge had been pinned upon her. If she 
 wished to withdraw, she must do so quickly. But : 
 
 "Thank you so much," she replied, with her best 
 smile. 
 
 The moon shone brightly that night before they 
 left the shore. At half past nine, that midnight 
 on Bound Beach, had any one of the population 
 been suffering from insomnia, he could have seen 
 the strange sight of two people walking slowly 
 and contentedly homeward, as though they did not 
 know night had come ; when all honest folk should 
 be abed.
 
 228 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 The rest of William Spade this night is the 
 peaceful and dreamless sleep of one upon whom 
 the gods have showered favors. Let him rest! 
 Let his mind be calm and soothed with pleasant 
 thoughts while it may. For on the morrow he 
 returns to his city of strife, where Fate, nerveless 
 and heartless and free from any fear of nausea at 
 her own deeds, has staged, carefully and minutely, 
 a surprise for him. 
 
 In the early morning, motor-boat and wagon 
 and train bear him, reluctantly homeward. The 
 scheming Fate puts the morning paper in his hand 
 and laughs as he lets it lie upon his knee, unanx- 
 ious to enter the cauldron sooner than necessary. 
 But the news must have been printed in hot type, 
 and incandescent letters have burned their way 
 through the folded sheet, for, unable to stand sus- 
 pense, he tore it open and the statement hit him 
 as a blow in the face. 
 
 Everything was gone. Consolidated Steel had 
 risen seventy-five points in a week. All his hun- 
 dred and five thousand dollars huge sum it 
 seemed was wiped out. The bloodless face and 
 drawn mouth must have assured the schemer of 
 the success of her surprise.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WILLIAM TURNS THE SCREW 
 
 Dazed and beaten, William took his bag as the 
 train stopped at a station and descended with the 
 normal throng, who seemed to see nothing differ- 
 ent in the aspect of the world. This was the city 
 of his birth his home. Like the prodigal, he was 
 going to his father. 
 
 The thin-haired and bright-eyed old gentleman 
 lived over again his own misfortune in the tale of 
 his son. His mother received him with the joy 
 of mothers. The mother instinct in this case was 
 so keen that it overlooked rather than discovered 
 the trouble in his heart. The years had mellowed 
 his father's resentment. In the autumn of his life 
 he was gathering golden ears, which, lying upon 
 the floor of the granary, disguised the ever bitter 
 fact that it should have been full to the eaves. 
 But this much his philosophy taught him that no 
 unhappiness is so great but that it is followed ulti- 
 mately by a healing peace of mind. With a child- 
 like faith in the scheme of the world, he poured 
 
 229
 
 230 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 balm upon the wound. William, feeling the 
 philosophy was frail for use in the rough-and 
 tumble world, was nevertheless given heart by the 
 congenial presence of the older man. 
 
 That night he boarded a train with a surprising 
 buoyancy of spirit due partly to the trusting 
 optimism of his father, who urged him to get to 
 the scene at once, suggesting vaguely that perhaps 
 something might be done, and partly to the latter's 
 assurance that, though he had failed to achieve 
 riches and power, he would find himself ulti- 
 mately contented in poverty. But William 
 Spade was not to be content in poverty, in defeat. 
 The first stunning result of the blow had worn off, 
 and his blood was beginning to circulate. Sup- 
 pose his brokers had not sold him out. Every- 
 thing hinged on that. He might still have a 
 fighting chance. 
 
 At the same time he did not forget that he still 
 had a sheet to windward. His claim against the 
 Old Dominion Steel Company was not as straight- 
 forward an asset as he could have wished it to be, 
 but in his present extremity, it was the straw he 
 might be compelled to grasp. He regretted now 
 that he had run away from the scene of operations, 
 on his doctor's advice, in the hope that the pot, 
 unwatched, might boil. He had left word that
 
 WILLIAM TURNS THE SCREW 231 
 
 Warburton was to transact his business while he 
 was gone, but what could Warburton do under 
 the circumstances. However, he telegraphed the 
 lawyer to meet him at the station in Washington. 
 
 "Man," cried Warburton, all but embracing 
 him, "you are like one from the dead. If I had 
 had you " 
 
 "Have they sold me out*?" demanded William, 
 not hearing what he said. 
 
 "No, no. I wouldn't let them." 
 
 The other grasped an iron pillar for support. 
 
 "Louis, you're a wonder. I feel as though 
 someone had taken a locomotive off my chest." 
 
 Relief was the only emotion he felt. He lis- 
 tened uncomprehending, to his friend's long tale 
 of how he had telegraphed everywhere, even to 
 Sara Barclay, trying to find him. 
 
 "But how did you stave them off 4 ?" he de- 
 manded, at length. 
 
 "I wrote to the directors of the Old Dominion 
 Steel Company making claim upon them for the 
 advance in price of the stock you formerly held 
 and laid the case before your brokers. They were 
 satisfied that you were financially strong and held 
 on for you." 
 
 "Very good, very good," William repeated. 
 "That's all right. They put the screws on me.
 
 232 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 They have got to expect the same treatment in 
 return. I warned them that I would do it." 
 
 "That's sensible talk," said Warburton. 
 
 Had he still been in the holding company, his 
 share of the profit on the increase in value of the 
 stock since the time the company was dissolved 
 would have been about one hundred and twenty 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 "They will never let the matter come into 
 court," asserted Warburton. "It would knock 
 the bottom out of their stock. They know they 
 had no right to buy you out and, after a firm ex- 
 change of letters, they will give in. They will 
 offer to settle out of court for say half, but will 
 give us two-thirds, I imagine, if we stick up a good 
 rugged bluff." 
 
 The opening of operations against the Old Do- 
 minion Steel Company marked a very definite 
 point in William's life. Although the Old Do- 
 minion Company had forced him to relinquish his 
 interest in their stock, he had the facts then to 
 prevent them from accomplishing their purpose, 
 but had withheld them in order to get his adver- 
 saries into a trap. It was clear to him that, hav- 
 ing allowed himself to be deprived of his interest 
 in the stock, he had no possible moral claim to its 
 rise in value, since he had not participated in the
 
 WILLIAM TURNS THE SCREW 233 
 
 risk. But the doctrine of expediency he had ab- 
 sorbed from the money hunters who surrounded 
 him pointed to the great staring f act that he had 
 a strategic claim. A lever was in his hand that 
 was powerful to dislodge the cash he needed and 
 let it drop into his lap. 
 
 He had been surrounded by men who had had 
 no choice but to make money wherever they could, 
 Their servants, their houses, their automobiles, 
 their free-handed pleasures had required a steady 
 stream of money, and they had taken it where they 
 found it to throw into the hopper. William had 
 now his back against the wall. He, too, needed 
 money to throw into the hopper. His position, his 
 prestige, his self-respect made it imperative that 
 he should have money. And he saw nothing but 
 to use the lever that was in his hand. 
 
 That was the definite step. It was not the loss 
 which would thereby result to the Old Dominion 
 Company that mattered. The company was rich 
 and unscrupulous and not only could afford but 
 deserved whatever chastisement they would re- 
 ceive. But this was the first breaking down of his 
 own high personal standards the first sign of the 
 giving way of his resistance to the influence of the 
 spoiled citizens who surrounded him. 
 
 Their stagnant moral code had taken hold of
 
 234 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 him. Their state of being answerable, each man 
 only to himself, had numbed his spiritual in- 
 stincts. He had grown to consider God and the 
 hereafter in the same category as boundless ether, 
 the heat of the sun and the courses of the stars 
 stupendous and incomprehensible but of no press- 
 ing personal moment. 
 
 Warburton's letter to the directors had begun 
 by calling attention to the letter William had 
 written at the time, protesting against the sale of 
 the securities held by the holding company, and 
 warning the two other directors who were also 
 directors of the steel company that he considered 
 himself unfairly and fraudulently dealt with. In 
 view, therefore, of the rise in the price of the stock 
 and the consequent financial loss to William 
 Spade, and in view of the fact that the purchase 
 of the stock upon margin by the steel company, the 
 same being contrary to its charter, was entirely 
 illegal and beyond its power to act, and further, in 
 view of the fact that the purchase was forced upon 
 the holding company by the vote of two directors 
 who were also directors of the steel company: the 
 Old Dominion Company was, therefore, called 
 upon to make restitution to the holding company, 
 and especially to William Spade, by returning the 
 stock thus illegally acquired.
 
 WILLIAM TURNS THE SCREW 235 
 
 The reply to this was brief and evasive, avoid- 
 ing the main issues and indicating an intention to 
 take no further action. Warburton's second let- 
 ter was a brief repetition of his first with a con- 
 cluding paragraph to the effect that if satisfactory 
 answer were not made by such and such a date, 
 suit would be brought. This was William's 
 strong point, as a suit against the company would 
 result in a drop in its stock, and would cause great 
 loss to the individual stockholders. 
 
 This letter was answered by a call from 
 the company's attorney, who tried to convince 
 them that their attitude was unreasonable, but 
 who at length spoke somewhat indefinitely of a 
 compromise. He said, however, that the whole 
 matter would have to be taken up by the board of 
 directors. His attitude, however, was decidedly 
 conciliatory. Warburton found out later that 
 the reason for this was that, no matter what the 
 outcome was, the directors of the steel company 
 could not lose. For, before the stock was distrib- 
 uted to the men, the possibility of trouble on ac- 
 count of the clause in the charter had been dis- 
 covered; and the stock had been sold to the em- 
 ployees "subject to the company's legal right to 
 purchase and redistribute providing that the em- 
 ployees guarantee the company against any loss
 
 236 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 incident to such purchase and redistribution," 
 which appeared a most innocent and reasonable 
 provision to the men, who did not know how the 
 stock had been acquired. 
 
 The lawyer informed William of this state of 
 affairs, but William did not feel that it was neces- 
 sary for him to alter his course of action on that 
 account. Warburton said he saw no reason why 
 the outcome should not be in every way satisfac- 
 tory. This being the case and since the meeting 
 of the board of directors of the steel company was 
 not to occur until two weeks later, he packed his 
 trunk, told William he was going away, but did 
 not say where, and made a flying trip to the north 
 to see Sara Barclay.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A DIAMOND-SHAPED PIN 
 
 William, actuated by many motives, wrote to 
 Ruth Dunbar, telling her to extend her vacation 
 and stay a week longer at Bound Beach. Had he 
 but known Richard Roth was there at the time 
 and, upon hearing of the extended vacation, ar- 
 ranged to extend his vacation also by one week in 
 order to stay by the sea waves, William might not 
 have been so eagerly altruistic. But since he did 
 not know it, he was happy in the belief that she 
 was enjoying herself. 
 
 And she was enjoying herself. It would be in- 
 accurate to describe Roth as an engaging person- 
 ality, yet certainly he was entertaining in his own 
 rspcdal :uul particular way. His mind was like a 
 city whose streets all run at right angles and are 
 the same distance apart. A person soon got to 
 know his way about but there were no surprises. 
 Ruth felt that she could find her way blindfolded 
 about Richard's mind the plan of it was so sim- 
 ple and straightforward. 
 
 237
 
 238 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 Nevertheless the city of his brain was an inter- 
 esting place. He took her along a different street 
 of it every day. There was no street named 
 Humor Street, which, naturally, would run diag- 
 onally. Neither was there a street named Lie 
 Street, nor Selfish Street, nor Ostentation Street, 
 nor Temper Street. There was a Sensitive Street 
 which took the place of Temper Street; and there 
 was an Ego Street, an important thoroughfare, 
 from which all streets both ways were reckoned. 
 
 This was a conceit of her own, which, however, 
 was of interest to him when he understood the 
 idea. He actually set about making a plan of the 
 mind city and naming the streets with her help. 
 This was the nearest he had ever approached to an 
 appreciation of humor, and he appreciated that 
 only because he looked upon it as a diagrammatic 
 representation of an intangible thing. 
 
 His mind being thus carefully arranged, it was 
 not a difficult matter for him to think aloud, and 
 he gave her his impressions of the day as the day 
 progressed. If he found a shell upon the beach, 
 he would find a multiplicity of ideas in it. He 
 could give a Latin name to it and, like a phrenolo- 
 gist, tell her interesting characteristics and pecul- 
 iarities of the former tenant. He would take her 
 on detective expeditions to spy upon the habits of
 
 A DIAMOND-SHAPED PIN 239 
 
 the little sand snipe that fed upon small animal 
 life at the edge of the surf. Or he would pick 
 up a bottle on the sand and say that it had con- 
 tained such and such a substance and that it was 
 used upon steamers bound from certain ports to 
 certain ports, giving a careful dissertation on the 
 reason why all as though his words were being 
 taken down verbatim to appear later as a mono- 
 graph upon the subject. 
 
 As a friendship it was not unlike an intimate 
 personal acquaintance with the Encyclopdia Brit- 
 annica. But with this difference. The Britan- 
 nica book has no such thing about it as contagious 
 enthusiasm. The facts that Roth knew were of 
 infinite value and interest to him. His sympathy 
 with the birds and the flowers and the little in- 
 sects that lived in the sand was profound. To 
 have been bored with him on that account would 
 have been to show almost a sacrilegious contempt 
 for the work of God. 
 
 He would hurry from his breakfast on Thurs- 
 day mornings to watch the upset drill of the coast 
 guard men, and would talk interminably with 
 them about their self-bailing boats, embarrassing 
 them greatly by suggesting improvements that 
 theoretically were better. And they, knowing lit- 
 tle about theory, were quite unable to discuss the
 
 240 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 matter with him or to understand his point of 
 view. Ruth, meanwhile, much amused, would 
 stand around, waiting until he deigned to take her 
 away. 
 
 This was from no discourtesy upon his part. 
 He simply thought she was as much interested as 
 was he. That was a part of his straightforward 
 nature one could not blame him for it. It was 
 the mainstay of his character in other ways. It 
 was the thing, for instance, that would have made 
 him a possible choice, did all this friendly ex- 
 change of information serve in his case for love- 
 making. 
 
 And her understanding mind had long since 
 made certain that it did serve for love-making. 
 The importance he gave to all her minor whims 
 and preferences, the unknowing way he adopted for 
 his own her tricks of phraseology, the restlessness 
 that came over him did she enter the room where 
 he was talking to someone else and the uncon- 
 sciousness with which he shaped his life to fit in 
 with hers, made her more sure of his intentions 
 than she could have been of another man's had he 
 told her in so many words. 
 
 Could a woman's romantic soul be satisfied with 
 such a manifestation of love? Two years ago she 
 had asked herself that question, thinking that she
 
 A DIAMOND-SHAPED PIN 241 
 
 required ardor and impetuosity. But long famil- 
 iarity with the lack of it had moulded her spirit 
 into considering the inward and spiritual grace 
 and dispensing with the outward and visible sign. 
 Long deliberation had convinced her that it was 
 not cavalier grace and adoration that was neces- 
 sary for happiness in the years to come, but 
 staunchness of purpose and stoutness of heart. 
 Her life was to be a long life; and a man with a 
 conscience and a will to do right first of all, how- 
 ever unornamental and prosaic such a combina- 
 tion might be, would be a bulwark and a source of 
 contentment to her as long as she lived. 
 
 It is difficult for a girl, having always before 
 her the problem of marrying herself to the best 
 and most satisfactory man, to decide whether love 
 consists of acquiescence or of desire whether 
 marriage is a responsibility for the remaining half 
 of one's life and for future generations, or whether 
 it is simply the duty of following the flame in one's 
 heart. If it were acquiescence and careful plan- 
 ning for the future, Richard Roth fulfilled her 
 specifications. But as to whether her heart would 
 acquiesce to this ruling, she did not promise her- 
 self. In fact she always considered the day on 
 which she must decide as far away. When it 
 therefore came, she found herself not at all ready.
 
 242 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 Naturally the soul of the man chose eight 
 o'clock in the morning as the time to discuss this 
 matter. A leaden sky hung over a leaden sea. 
 All the world was a gray monotone and a dis- 
 mal east wind heavy with rain blew across the 
 sands. 
 
 "Ruth," said he, "I will be twenty-six years 
 old in October. The board of trustees have made 
 me, as you know, a full professor with a salary of 
 three thousand dollars a year. The time has come 
 for me to consider my future life. My prospects 
 entitle me to make a proposal of marriage to a 
 girl, knowing that I can fulfill my obligations in 
 the matter. In addition to this, neither of us can 
 be blind to the fact that the time has come for 
 you to consider your future life. You cannot go 
 on and on being a mere employee in an office. 
 Greater things are required of you. Your happi- 
 ness requires that you have a home of your own." 
 
 He paused and, earnest but unpicturesque, 
 leaned intently forward, his elbows on his knees 
 and his hands tightly clasped, as was his custom 
 when greatly concerned. 
 
 "Here are two lives, whose future is as yet un- 
 provided for. Let us join them together. I will 
 do everything in the world to make you happy.
 
 A DIAMOND-SHAPED PIN 243 
 
 You will make my life a paradise, of which I am 
 unable to give adequate expression." 
 
 He stopped then, having said everything. 
 And with his silence came the realization that she 
 must reply. But how could she reply 1 ? Until 
 that moment she had thought that her mind was 
 open upon that question. But as she looked at 
 him, in spite of the kindliness in her heart toward 
 him, she felt the conviction rising stronger and 
 stronger within her that, straightforward and true 
 though he was, she did not want him for a hus- 
 band. 
 
 "I cannot say 'Yes' to that," she answered. 
 
 "Is there anyone else?" he demanded, with a 
 certain wistfulness. 
 
 Was there anyone else! Her unexpected cer- 
 tainty that she did not want this man gave her 
 cause for reflection. 
 
 Did it mean a miraculous presentment of the 
 coming of another man, more congenial than he? 
 Did it mean simply a sudden realization that her 
 soul and his did not fit? Or did it mean that she 
 had already made a comparison that eliminated 
 him ? Not many men dotted her horizon, but she 
 would have been forced to admit that the only 
 place to which her mind turned was to the dia-
 
 244 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 mond-shaped pin that lay in a tiny box in her 
 trunk. A treasure that, but it meant nothing but 
 a memory of a pleasant moment having nothing 
 to do with the serious things of life. It was a 
 symbol of the past and not of the future. 
 
 "There is no other man," she replied, thought- 
 fully.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE DISTURBING PERSON 
 
 The following Monday morning she sat again 
 at her desk, experiencing a blended feeling of re- 
 gret and pleasure at her return. When her em- 
 ployer entered the door, a trifle ahead of his usual 
 time, she rose immediately to meet him as if she 
 were receiving a guest in her own house. The 
 firm clasp of his hand and his boyish laugh were 
 pleasant welcome. She flushed under his gaze. 
 
 "It has been a long while," he exclaimed, "since 
 I have seen you, but I should have known you 
 anywhere." 
 
 "It has been only a week," she reminded him. 
 
 "Then never tell me a week isn't a long time. 
 You cannot picture what a dismal office this has 
 been. Even the book agents refused to stay." 
 
 He entered his inner office and found his mail 
 arranged upon his desk as she had always arranged 
 it. He called through the open door to express 
 his satisfaction at seeing his desk in order again. 
 Every time she turned to the filing case, she could 
 
 245
 
 246 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 see him leaning back in His chair, reading his 
 letters and drumming idly upon the arm of his 
 chair. When he called her in he seated her as 
 usual in his own chair and walking up and down, 
 dictated rapidly, apparently unconscious of her 
 presence except when he would say "Is contin- 
 gency the word I want?" and she would reply 
 "No." "Very good, use the right word." And on 
 would go the dictation. It was all familiar and 
 homelike, as if she had been away but a day. 
 
 That much of her return was pleasant. The 
 rest was not. The street outside was hot 'with 
 no ocean breeze to move the humid air. The 
 asphalt paving was unpleasantly like the sandy 
 beach in that she could feel her shoes sinking into 
 it as she walked. The lunch room was full of 
 uncomfortable people, getting some small relief 
 from sitting under the electric fans. Ruth was 
 looking doubtfully around in the hope of finding 
 a table for herself, when she was suddenly con- 
 fronted by Roth's homely, smiling face. 
 
 "Just in time," he exclaimed, reaching down 
 and grasping her hand. "My sister is over here. 
 We have been talking about you and wondering 
 if you were coming." 
 
 "It was like crossing the Sahara." 
 
 She followed him to the table where his sister
 
 THE DISTURBING PERSON 247 
 
 was, and seated herself in the chair he pulled out 
 for her. 
 
 "My dear Alice," she said, "why do you ven- 
 ture out in such heat." 
 
 "Shopping. Besides, I had to superintend the 
 purchase of a suit of clothes for Richard. That 
 is my duty since he will not get a wife." She 
 glanced quickly at the girl opposite, as if to catch 
 her expression. 
 
 "Richard," exclaimed Ruth, reprovingly, "you 
 are old enough to buy your own clothes." 
 
 "Is that the verdict? In the future, then, I 
 shall do so." 
 
 Ruth turned to Mrs. Bullard. "How is the 
 house coming on*?" 
 
 "It is not coming on," replied the other quietly. 
 
 Richard broke in. 
 
 "What do you think," he exclaimed, "of a re- 
 putable company that would sell stock to its em- 
 ployees under the assumption that they were to 
 participate in any increase in value, and then 
 when the stock had gone up seventy-five dollars a 
 share, announce that the company could not de- 
 liver it, but that simply the purchase money would 
 be returned*?" 
 
 "But I don't understand. Wasn't there an 
 agreement?"
 
 248 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "The agreement had a loophole in it. It now 
 develops that the company had no right to pur- 
 chase and redistribute the stock without the con- 
 sent of a certain third party. Is that the idea, 
 Alice 4 ?" 
 
 "I think so. It is a little vague to us all. But 
 there is a man who has a technical claim. It 
 seems that instead of presenting it at the time and 
 having everything adjusted, he played a trick on 
 the company. He waited until the stock went up, 
 and then brought his claim for all the increase." 
 Mrs. Bullard's lip quivered, and she laughed to 
 cover a desire to cry. "That means all the money 
 we thought we had made is gone." 
 
 "But he can't get it, can he 1 ?" Ruth demanded, 
 indignantly. 
 
 The other nodded. "The employees hired a 
 lawyer who said the man's claim is good." 
 
 "And all your work and struggle was for noth- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Almost. We may possibly get a third of the 
 increase." 
 
 "But the house?" 
 
 "No house," said Mrs. Bullard, smiling bravely. 
 
 The color rose to Ruth's cheeks, and anger 
 shone in her eyes. "To think," she exclaimed, 
 "that such a man should be allowed to live. In
 
 THE DISTURBING PERSON 249 
 
 order to amass a large sum of money for himself 
 he squeezes it penny by penny from poor people 
 who had earned it by struggle and privation he 
 never dreamed of." 
 
 Roth glanced at her with admiration. "Ex- 
 actly !" he exclaimed, fervently. 
 
 "Thank you, Ruth, my dear," said the other 
 woman. "If your words could only change the 
 situation !" 
 
 Ruth was so full of sympathy for the misfor- 
 tune that had befallen her friends that she went 
 back to her office determined to tell William 
 Spade about it and ask him if there were not 
 something he could suggest that could be done to 
 help them out of their difficulty. It surprised her 
 to think that he should be the man to whom she 
 voluntarily turned for help. But, she reflected 
 with a feeling of pride, he was a man of many re- 
 sources and many friends. In spite of the patron- 
 izing way she sometimes looked upon his youthful 
 self-confidence and his faith in his good fortune, 
 she knew from working with him day by day that 
 he was a person of unusual capability and that his 
 business associates considered him so. And it was 
 a pleasure for her to believe this. 
 
 He did not come into the office, however, until 
 late in the afternoon, and then so engrossed in an
 
 250 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 application from someone for a large loan that it 
 would have been impossible for her to distract 
 his attention from it. He asked her if she would 
 mind staying a little later, as it was important 
 that several long letters be written that night. 
 The work of looking up the information he re- 
 quired, however, took longer than he had antici- 
 pated, and it was nearly seven o'clock when the 
 letters were finally written. 
 
 "I get so absorbed," he exclaimed, contritely. 
 "I had no right to keep you here so late." 
 
 She assured him that she did not mind. He 
 read through the letters, and signed them. 
 
 "You will be too late for your dinner at home," 
 he said. "Would you consider dining down town 
 with me?" 
 
 "Not very long," she replied, smiling. 
 
 He looked at her intently. "Don't keep me in 
 suspense. Does that mean yes or no 1 ?" 
 
 "I'm very hungry." 
 
 He lifted his hat from its peg. "That is 
 enough. I can't see anyone starve. Let's 
 hurry." 
 
 She got her own hat and stood before the 
 mirror. 
 
 "But, Mr. Spade, I" 
 
 "Do you always call me that*?" he demanded.
 
 THE DISTURBING PERSON 251 
 
 "At the seashore I did not call you anything," 
 she confessed. 
 
 "My name, you know, is William. Diminu- 
 tive for use of all Dunbars 'Billy.' " 
 
 She eyed her hat critically in the glass and 
 pushed a pin carefully into its place. 
 
 "All right, Billy," she said, suddenly, with a 
 dazzling smile. "I say hurry." 
 
 It had been fifteen years since she had called 
 him by his Christian name. The lightness with 
 which she did it belied the interest she felt in the 
 act. In its newness it had the breath-taking for- 
 wardness of a term of endearment and she suf- 
 fered a corresponding embarrassment. 
 
 "Aren't you going to be ashamed," she asked, 
 as they waited at the elevator, "to take me to 
 dinner in a shirtwaist and skirt 1 ?" 
 
 "No, indeed," he replied, earnestly, "if you 
 made yourself any better looking than you are 
 right now someone would take you away from 
 me." 
 
 She met his smiling eyes and found in them the 
 disturbing evidence of pride in her. That he 
 should be satisfied with her and openly show his 
 admiration for her were things she ought naturally 
 to have taken as a matter of course. To inspire 
 this state of mind was what her good looks were
 
 252 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 for. But instead of complacent contentment, she 
 felt a hot glow of pleasure. She turned from him 
 to adjust a perfectly setting hat by her reflection 
 in the glass of the door, humming softly to herself. 
 Then she glanced at him quickly to see if he were 
 still looking at her and, true daughter of Eve, ex- 
 perienced a disproportionate serenity from finding 
 that he was. 
 
 As for her companion, he was not serene. As 
 he looked at her standing there beside him making 
 mysterious yet strangely graceful adjustments to 
 her toque or bonnet, or turban or csaco, or what- 
 ever it was, he found his tranquillity greatly dis- 
 turbed. Her sudden falling into a mood of co- 
 quetry after a day of seriousness and application 
 was more than a pleasure to him. It seemed to 
 touch a hidden spring in his mind and to guide on, 
 in a direction that promised to be alluringly more 
 pleasant. 
 
 And yet he was disturbed. Tentatively and in- 
 directly, but with no chance for mistake as to his 
 meaning, he had on several occasions offered him- 
 self to another woman, who now felt herself enti- 
 tled to take him whenever the spirit moved her. 
 The feline element in this woman had caused her 
 to spend long hours of patient watching and tire- 
 less maneuvering to secure the admiration from
 
 THE DISTURBING PERSON 253 
 
 him that to her was equivalent to love and, having 
 at last secured it, she held it between her velvet 
 paws, unwilling to destroy the pleasure of the 
 game by seizing it. And he, having expended 
 much mental effort in making himself appear 
 worth catching, had long ago decided that he had 
 but to wait the crucial moment and the velvet 
 paws would drag him into riches and power. 
 
 And meanwhile he was permitting himself to 
 be dazzled by this girl who alluringly adjusted her 
 rose-decked toque on her red-brown hair. A 
 man's life was a complicated thing. It was like 
 an artist sketching a sunset. When his colors 
 were mixed and his plan laid, the scene changed 
 and those colors and that plan were useless. So 
 a man strives and strives for something until it is 
 within his grasp and then finds that thing no 
 longer fits his desires. 
 
 William had laid his plan and striven and made 
 his offer. Then the intervention of this disturb- 
 ing person. Polygamous impulse it was for him 
 to be conscious of the shade of that hair or botan- 
 ically to classify the flowers on that hat ! He had 
 restricted himself to the consideration of other 
 tresses and other roses. As that fact was im- 
 pressed on him, he became conscious that he did not 
 love the woman to whom he had offered himself.
 
 254 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 A bitter thought it was. And yet his sense of 
 honor his gentleman's sense of honor that had 
 permitted him to seek the girl for the power that 
 lay in her hands made him aware that his offer 
 bound him to her until he was released. Until 
 the return of his stenographer that day from her 
 seemingly long absence and his realization of the 
 difference her presence made to him, he had not 
 been aware that this problem would arise in his 
 life. Yet here was the problem and also the solu- 
 tion his sense of decency provided for him. 
 
 As they sat at the table later a table showy 
 with linen and silver and cut flowers he consid- 
 ered her thoughtfully, wondering what his course 
 of action toward her should be. It would be un- 
 pleasant and rude and unfair to her to eliminate 
 his recently born friendship for her and return to 
 his former formal business relations. It would be 
 unfair to himself to permit the friendliness to 
 continue. 
 
 "It isn't complimentary for you to think busi- 
 ness when you are dining with me," she said. 
 
 "What I was thinking was more than compli- 
 mentary to you." 
 
 " 'More than' ?" she repeated, derisively. 
 "Didn't you mean to say 'complimentary is not 
 the word'?"
 
 THE DISTURBING PERSON 255 
 
 "Perhaps I did," he replied, seriously. "I 
 could substitute a better word. I was thinking of 
 a multitude of things that concerned you. If I 
 were to tell you it might spoil all that becoming 
 sense of humility that sits upon you like a gar- 
 ment." 
 
 She smiled at his figure of speech, but curiosity 
 started an agency in her mind skimming over vari- 
 ous possible thoughts that might have been in his 
 head and wondering which of them it was. She 
 was burning to ask more about it, but the serious- 
 ness of his speech warned her that some complica- 
 tion, in which she was vaguely concerned, was oc- 
 cupying his attention and that it would be show- 
 ing undue eagerness to ask. But the Paul Pry in 
 her was deliciously piqued. 
 
 Thus so many things of an intimately personal 
 nature occupied her attention that, although an 
 unusual opportunity had offered itself, it did not 
 occur to her to ask his advice upon the subject that 
 had so engrossed her earlier in the day. Mrs. 
 Bui lard and the Old Dominion Steel Company 
 did not cross her mind until long after he had left 
 her. And even then the memory of many things, 
 apparently more intimately concerned with Wil- 
 liam Spade, dimmed the importance of that topic.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 "l AM THE MAN" 
 
 In the part of the evening that followed his 
 leaving Ruth, the mind of William Spade was 
 busy. He realized that the girl had made a place 
 for herself in his mind from which it would be 
 difficult to dismiss her. But a change in his atti- 
 tude had to be made and had to be made imme- 
 diately. 
 
 The situation pointed to but one thing. He 
 must make Sara Barclay decide what was her at- 
 titude toward him. It was an unpleasant task. 
 His ambition to step into power by way of mar- 
 riage had dimmed somewhat by now since he 
 had found there was more than one woman in the 
 world. It is a pleasant thought to marry a beau- 
 tiful girl and know that wealth and position and 
 power go with her as a perquisite. But it is no 
 pleasant thought to marry the wealth and position 
 and know that in doing so you must take the girl, 
 
 whether you want to or not. And this the more 
 
 256
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 257 
 
 so, as William had begun to feel, despite his Con- 
 solidated fiasco which he regarded as a mere mis- 
 fortune that he would be able to get the wealth 
 and position he needed in a way that was much 
 better than marrying it. 
 
 However, his sense of honor and decency -the 
 puny virtues of the mind prized by the people 
 with whom he was thrown pointed the way. 
 He was willing to make the sacrifice since he felt 
 that was the way a gentleman would of necessity 
 comport himself. Therefore, he called up Sara 
 Barclay on the long distance telephone, and, mak- 
 ing a pretence of business in Boston, announced 
 that on the following afternoon he would, if con- 
 venient, make a fleeting call upon her between 
 trains, as it were. This was satisfactory to her. 
 William had the additional pleasure of conversing 
 for a few moments with Warburton, who was then 
 visiting Sara. 
 
 He wrote a note to Ruth at his office saying he 
 would be back in a few days, and took the mid- 
 night train. It was an unexpected setting that 
 was provided for his interview with Sara. He 
 was met at the station by a big automobile in the 
 rear seat of which sat Sara, very lovely and com- 
 posed, her hands folded in her lap and a sweet 
 smile upon her lips. Warburton, who had been
 
 258 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 sitting beside her, got out as soon as he saw Wil- 
 liam and came to meet him. 
 
 This was the party that drove home, Sara in the 
 middle of the seat, as pretty and contented as a 
 picture on a valentine, and a man upon either side 
 of her. William noticed an unusual excitement 
 in the other man's manner which he hardly attrib- 
 uted to the simple pleasure of his arrival on the 
 scene. He himself, who had come upon the busi- 
 ness that would affect his whole future life, was 
 as calm as was Sara. And, strangely enough, the 
 business was broached and settled upon that very 
 drive. 
 
 "We have a piece of great news for you, Billy," 
 Sara said, at the end of a convenient pause. Wil- 
 liam was quick to catch in her tone a hint that this 
 was something she had prepared to say at this 
 time. She was looking unconcernedly ahead of 
 her, but when she felt his eyes upon her, she 
 turned and smiled brightly. He decided that it 
 was something that would concern him and put on 
 what might have been called a poker face. 
 
 "Let's have it quickly," he said, pleasantly. 
 
 She gave it to him quickly as though she had 
 rolled it up into as few words as possible and 
 thrown it at him suddenly, for the purpose of
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 259 
 
 noting what his emotions would be upon hear- 
 ing it. 
 
 "I am going to marry Louis," she observed, 
 touching Warburton lightly on the sleeve. Her 
 words had in them a studied lack of expression, 
 but her eyes were full upon him. But if she were 
 looking, or hoping, for a sign of regret, she saw 
 none. 
 
 "Bless you both, my children," he exclaimed. 
 "And I shall be the first to kiss the bride." 
 
 Whereupon, to her intense surprise, he leaned 
 forward and kissed her full upon the mouth. For 
 once in her life she almost lost her composure. 
 
 "Billy, you devil," she exclaimed. "You've 
 ruined my make-up." 
 
 William's only regret, however, was that he 
 might have seemed entirely too joyous. In the 
 role of a rejected suitor he should at least have 
 drawn one long face. 
 
 "At one time I had high hopes you would win," 
 Sara said, during the course of the afternoon. 
 "You are so much better looking and make so 
 much more show than Louis does and that counts 
 so in a husband." 
 
 The long ride home was a joyful one. William 
 Spade was unfettered and a free agent. He could
 
 260 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 not help seeing, however, that the engagement of 
 Sara Barclay to another man would make a change 
 in his life. It would lower his prestige in the eyes 
 of certain people. He would lose his right to the 
 title of the Fortunate Youth. This was not with- 
 out its pang of bitterness. And the large possi- 
 bility which hinged upon his marriage to Sara 
 that he would have the opportunity one day to 
 take over control of the whole Barclay system, 
 which would make him one of the foremost finan- 
 ciers of the country was gone past recall. He 
 was both sorry and glad for that sorry because 
 he had permitted it to become a castle in the air, 
 glad because he did not wish it to be said about 
 him that he had attained success by marrying into 
 it. 
 
 As a man exercising a new prerogative, imme- 
 diately upon his arrival in Washington, he called 
 up Ruth Dunbar on the telephone. He had the 
 right, without question, to see her, and he was im- 
 patient to exercise it. It was a new and luxurious 
 sensation deliberately to arrange a time to see 
 her, with the frank acknowledgment that it was 
 solely for the comfort and pleasure of seeing her. 
 At such other times as he had seen her, with the 
 exception of the time at the seashore, which was 
 a different atmosphere, it had been the result of
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 261 
 
 accident or of their business relations with each 
 other. 
 
 She, too, realized the change, although she did 
 not understand that he was exercising a new pre- 
 rogative. She was more surprised and impressed 
 by the fact that he had called her up immediately 
 upon his arrival in the city. When she had hung 
 up the telephone receiver and was still sitting 
 thoughtfully at the table upon which the instru- 
 ment rested, she wondered that she should have 
 felt that it made a difference whether he called her 
 up immediately upon his arrival or not. 
 
 As she turned her glance inwards upon herself, 
 she was surprised at finding her heart registering 
 elation over an incident so trivial. She seemed to 
 be looking upon another woman a woman with 
 unusual and unexplained emotions. 
 
 Naturally there was a feeling of loyalty toward 
 William Spade in her heart, a very certain ad- 
 miration for his ability and, lately, an unexpected 
 congeniality between the man and herself. But 
 this did not account for any quickening of the 
 pulse, or for any sudden blitheness of spirit that 
 followed the realization that she was the first per- 
 son he had thought of on coming home. 
 
 In view of the fact that she had long ago de- 
 cided that his life was entirely unrelated to her
 
 262 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 and that the principles and aims and the outlook 
 upon the world which he possessed were, to her 
 understanding, distorted and unworthy, this sen- 
 sitive response to a sign in him of preference for 
 her was unreasonable. 
 
 The only defense it had was that she felt her 
 congeniality with him must be the result of a 
 development in his character. She placed great 
 importance upon the fact that some business re- 
 verse had had a sobering influence upon him, and 
 she was willing to believe that it would induce in 
 him a thoughtfulness and a consideration for 
 others in misfortune that would make him less 
 eager to distort his principles to conform with his 
 headlong desire for success. 
 
 She believed that his hot enthusiasm to conquer 
 at any price had greatly cooled. She believed 
 that there must have been a mellowing influence 
 at work in him or she would not have found her- 
 self drawn toward him. It seemed unreasonable 
 to suppose that his character should have under- 
 gone a transformation in so short a time; but she 
 found herself believing that it had. Rose-glasses 
 they were that she wore, making her attempt to 
 ascribe to that transcendent feeling in her heart a 
 valid reason, whereas no valid reason could be 
 ascribed to it. Any joy she felt in the fact that
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 263 
 
 he was alive was not the result of plan upon her 
 part. 
 
 She did not realize, or at least not at that mo- 
 ment, that personal charm was not a thing that 
 depended for its existence upon merit and well- 
 doing. She supposed that the fact that he had 
 entered, a persona grata, into her heart must be 
 proof of his worthiness. She seemed to feel that 
 a higher power than her own human preference 
 had decided the problem for her, and, passing upon 
 his credentials, had held open the door of her heart 
 to him, whether she would or not. 
 
 She did not quite understand herself, nor the 
 brighter eyes that shone back to her from the face 
 she saw in her mirror. But she was not inquiring 
 into that. She was thinking rather that William 
 Spade liked her white short-sleeved dress. She 
 was thinking that her arms were round and smooth 
 and was glad that they were. She was think- 
 ing that her hair looked better lower upon her 
 neck and, having thus thought, took it down and 
 arranged it in that manner. 
 
 She sat in a big chair by her window, watching 
 through the trees the fading glow of the sky. In 
 her lap lay the silk scarf upon her breast the pin 
 with which to fasten it. Under the folds that 
 held the pin her heart murmured an impatient
 
 264 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 i 
 
 prelude like the tuning of strings which brings 
 nearer, while it still seems to make far off, the first 
 music of the orchestra. 
 
 And when he came she did not move. She saw 
 the automobile draw up before the door. The 
 impatience was gone. Her young brother en- 
 tered the room to announce that Spade had come. 
 She nodded, rising hastily to her feet as though it 
 had just occurred to her that she was to go. One 
 glance she gave to her mirror and then ran lightly 
 and swiftly down the stairs. 
 
 A new self-consciousness made her merely 
 glance at him a glance that paused but for a 
 moment to verify his eyes and smile and then 
 turn quickly away, to loose a fictitious entangle- 
 ment between her scarf and the clasp at her waist. 
 His laugh was just a trifle strained, as though he 
 too were covering up a consciousness of his own. 
 They were alike in this-^for each of them the 
 tuning of the violins had stopped and they stood 
 listening to the full orchestra. 
 
 She scarcely knew where they drove that night. 
 A wide white ribbon of road rolled under them. 
 Before them in the western sky hung the young 
 moon, depending by an invisible thread as from a 
 single star above it. It was a mark of unusual
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 265 
 
 mental disturbance in him that he noticed this 
 effort of nature. 
 
 They turned about presently. Beside them ran 
 the quiet river. In place of the thin moon the 
 beacon now before them was the top of the tall 
 pointed Monument, luminous in a shaft of light 
 and seeming like a snow-capped mountain whose 
 peak shone against the sky. The evening breeze 
 carried to them the strains of the waltz a distant 
 band played. She caught the familiar air and 
 hummed it softly. It was as if they were in some 
 way detached from the world; and all its scenery 
 and its people were simply a background, more or 
 less indistinct. Over there, across the now inter- 
 vening finger of the Potomac, lay a huge piece of 
 stage artifice a panorama of a city, alight and 
 alive, upon which she could pick out landmarks as 
 if it were a map and not a real city. The dark 
 bulk of the War College, lightless and grim, slum- 
 bered, like the evil of blood and carnage it typi- 
 fied, in menacing quiet. 
 
 The splendor of the dark world kindled her 
 imagination. The power of the far-stretching 
 night induced in her a realization of the heroic 
 structure of the world and with that, strangely 
 enough, of the heroic structure of the yearning in
 
 266 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 her heart a yearning as mysterious and as beau- 
 tiful as the night itself. 
 
 "Do you realize," she asked, "what a spectacle 
 has been arranged for us to drive through*?" 
 
 "Is it just for us*?" he demanded. 
 
 "Doesn't it seem so?" 
 
 He paused for a moment as if the simple idea 
 had rearranged his conception of the whole mat- 
 ter. "It does," he agreed. "And it's glorious." 
 His commendation was given with a new and 
 pleasant conviction of ownership of joint own- 
 ership. 
 
 "What is there, I wonder, about the dark," she 
 asked thoughtfully, "that makes- it so appealing*?" 
 
 "It is big and powerful," he replied, immedi- 
 ately. His definition of universal appeal ! 
 
 He was himself in a mood of bigness and power. 
 He felt a pleasant congeniality with the awe- 
 inspiring majesty of the night. He was a man 
 writ large, for whom Providence and the high gods 
 had arranged the course of events fortunately, so 
 that the world seemed to belong to him. He was 
 free and unfettered and, as he looked at the allur- 
 ing figure beside him, white-clad ankles languidly 
 crossed, well-shaped hands clasped contentedly in 
 her lap, red-brown hair blown by the breeze so 
 that when he leaned toward her a strand of it
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 267 
 
 brushed his face, she seemed almost to belong to 
 him. A vision of a fair land opened out before 
 him. 
 
 "We were speaking of power," she said, pres- 
 ently; "are you, by any chance, an influential per- 
 son 1 ?" 
 
 He looked at her searchingly. "Intermit- 
 tently," he replied. 
 
 "Might a humble stenographer consult you then 
 upon a matter of importance?" 
 
 "In a light and airy manner to match the im- 
 pudence in her eyes?" 
 
 "No. Seriously." She laughed softly, and, 
 raising her face to him, added in a low tone, 
 "With becoming deference." 
 
 He saw the gleam in her eye part amusement 
 and part the usual confidence in his ability, which 
 she never attempted to conceal. His heart accel- 
 erated its beat and the blood ran hot through him. 
 He would have taken her in his arms then had he 
 followed his impulse. 
 
 "You would not have said that," he asserted, 
 his eyes upon her, "had you not been so sure." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 "Of your own power." 
 
 The blood rose to her face, but the darkness hid 
 the flush from him. She had no reply for his
 
 268 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 speech. Instead she waited, almost painfully, 
 wondering if he would say more. Then they both 
 remembered that she was asking his advice upon a 
 question. She spoke and, unknowing, steered 
 their frail craft out of smooth harbor into turbu- 
 lent seas. 
 
 "I have a friend in trouble," she said. "She 
 and her husband, by hard work and great self- 
 denial, had earned what was for them a large sum 
 of money earned it honestly and fairly ; and then 
 some powerful outside person after having let 
 them, in common with a hundred others, struggle 
 to accumulate this, risking their last penny to do 
 it came forward with a legal quibble for which 
 they were entirely unprepared, 'took away the 
 money and left them with a mere pittance." 
 
 She paused, and something of the gravity in his 
 face seemed to warn her that her craft was no 
 longer in harbor. His mouth was drawn tight, 
 and his eye was fixed upon the road ahead. 
 
 "Are they these friends of yours employees 
 of any of the war order firms *?" he asked. 
 
 "Why, yes," she replied. "But why attempt 
 to tell you things'? You know everything, don't 
 you?' 
 
 A discomfort that he did not understand came
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 269 
 
 over him. It was no pricking of conscience, but 
 a keen disappointment that he must align him- 
 self against her, and sever with a stroke a bond 
 that had hardly been formed. 
 
 "I want your help " she began. 
 
 But he was scarcely listening. The car slowed 
 down until the hand on the dial pointed to an 
 unaccustomed figure. 
 
 "Was it was the company the Old Dominion 
 Steel Company?" 
 
 This time she showed no pleasure in his knowl- 
 edge. A fear, a disconcerting fear wedged its 
 way into her mind. 
 
 "Yes," she replied and listened to the un- 
 quiet beating of her heart. 
 
 He drew a long breath. 
 
 "Then," he said, resolutely, "I am the man 
 who is taking the money you speak of." 
 
 For a moment it seemed as if neither of them 
 breathed. Then he set his teeth and the car shot 
 forward. Unconsciously she drew away from 
 him. The night, whose charm had but a mo- 
 ment ago stirred the chords of her heart, became 
 a mere sullen darkness. She stared unseeing at 
 the road. She listened with dulled ears to the 
 throb of the engine. And when she saw again
 
 270 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 the reflection of the small moon upon the water, 
 she remembered that a short time before it had 
 given her pleasure. 
 
 With a feeling of bitterness she realized that 
 she had drawn away from him as from some- 
 thing repulsive. It was punishment to her to 
 treat him thus, for the place he had formed for 
 himself in her regard had clothed him with a 
 certain sanctity. And what is worse than a 
 broken god? 
 
 If in her disappointment there was any ele- 
 ment of pity, it was not for herself but rather 
 for him. No separate emotions, however, dis- 
 tinguished themselves in her benumbed mind. 
 She was not thinking. No words came to her 
 lips to say the reply of some sort she thought she 
 would have made ere this. 
 
 That reply was never made. The car rolled 
 on. If it was reproach she wished to convey to 
 him, she said no word of it. If it was disappoint- 
 ment, if it was contempt, if it was anger, he never 
 knew it. Nor did she pause to gather up those 
 incidental emotions and catalogue them in her 
 mind. The tragedy was that the dream was shat- 
 tered. She did not care where the pieces had 
 fallen. The pathos of it was that he had become 
 so valueless in her perspective that her mind had
 
 "I AM THE MAN" 271 
 
 not the energy to think toward him reproach or 
 indignation. 
 
 For his part, having no word from her, he 
 chose the nearest way to her house, and made the 
 big car speed along the quiet streets. It seemed 
 neither long nor short to her. She scarcely knew 
 what streets they traversed. Until presently they 
 drew up before her door. 
 
 A sudden fear of being alone seized her. She 
 did not want to be with him, yet she did not want 
 him to leave her. Mentally and bodily she was 
 lonely. In her unsettled mind his very pres- 
 ence, which was obnoxious to her, was still a com- 
 fort. 
 
 With a grave courtesy he held out his hand. 
 She put hers a cold hand it was into it and 
 instantly withdrew it. 
 
 "Good night," he said. 
 
 Her voice sounded strange and far away. 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 And it was good-bye, she felt in her heart.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE RECKONING 
 
 As she undressed that night, her mind began 
 to recover from the first shock of the blow it had 
 received and she began to think about things 
 in a more connected way. It was a limping and 
 halting analysis that she made, an analysis that 
 paused ever and again to let pass on a wave of 
 self-pity. Had her body been beaten it could not 
 have been more painful than this smarting of her 
 punished spirit. 
 
 In her own mind she had capitulated to this 
 man as surely as if they had crossed the brink on 
 which they had hovered and had told him in 
 so many words. And he had turned out to be 
 one who stole yes, that was the word under the 
 guise of taking his own! It was a fresh blow 
 upon her embittered soul each time she admitted 
 the crime and the hypocrisy that covered it up. 
 
 She wondered that she had not burst out in a 
 tirade of anger against him. She wondered, now, 
 when she was exposing herself to her own scorn- 
 
 272
 
 THE RECKONING 273 
 
 ful and humiliating contempt, that she found in 
 her mind no contempt for him. But she began 
 to know soon that her disappointment and sore- 
 ness of spirit were too strong within herself to 
 blame him. He had followed his own course. 
 She had thought that course had been leading on 
 toward the path she believed was right and 
 creditable for him to follow. Now that the sud- 
 den shock had informed her it was not such a 
 path, no blame rested upon him for her disap- 
 pointment which was the bitter thing she had 
 now to bear. 
 
 She had known before that his life was laid in 
 places which did not tend to make his path as 
 straight as she would have wished it to be. He 
 had been educated in a college where the slogan 
 had been to get through, without taking into con- 
 sideration whether he was morally satisfying the 
 requirements. One of the strongest principles 
 this life had imprinted upon him was to get as 
 much as possible in return for as little effort as 
 possible. He had had no education there nor 
 since to teach him that the most valuable 
 achievements are those earned by hard work and 
 striving. That 'was a prosaic idea; and the peo- 
 ple he had mingled with since he left college knew 
 of no crime worse than being prosaic. They had
 
 274 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 characterized as prosaic almost all the homely sen- 
 timents and virtues. Religion, faith, diligence, 
 self-sacrifice, charity, consideration for the wants 
 and rights of their fellow men they regarded as 
 quixotic, and subscribed to only their broadest 
 and most spectacular aspect. 
 
 What chance to lead an unselfish life had a 
 man whose soul had been veneered over with such 
 ideas? What chance was there that such a man, 
 as he took each step, would watch the effect of 
 it upon others instead of simply upon himself? 
 
 No, she did not blame him. He was too re- 
 mote from her to blame. She could not think 
 of him as having a personal relation with her, for 
 that brought too vividly to her the remembrance 
 of how far she had let that personal relationship 
 proceed. 
 
 She had just laid upon her bureau the enamelled 
 gold pin that belonged to him with a mixture 
 of distaste and tenderness. Everything that re- 
 minded her of him was infinitely valuable in that 
 it was symbolic of a dream of happiness, and 
 abhorrent in that it reminded her of her shame 
 because that dream was no longer possible. 
 
 There was a five line note in her desk from 
 him, treasured as the only personal message he 
 had ever written her. On the wall hung the lit-
 
 THE RECKONING 275 
 
 tie cheap picture of Dante and Beatrice he had 
 given her. On the bed lay the white dress he 
 liked. The gold pin she would send back to 
 him, but these three things were her own the 
 only remembrances of her completed romance. 
 Pathetically inadequate! A few written words, 
 a tiny picture and a white dress ! 
 
 Then her pity for herself overwhelmed her. 
 Hot tears welled up in her eyes and ran down 
 her cheeks. Hot tears dropped upon the white 
 dress as she hung it in the closet, from which it 
 would never again be taken for him. Hot tears 
 dropped upon Dante and Beatrice as she removed 
 them from their place upon the wall and, deep 
 under the white folds in the drawer of her bureau, 
 buried them. It was as if in them she were bury- 
 ing life and hope. Hot tears blinded her as she 
 tore the note across and again across and laid 
 the mangled thing in the basket, with a gesture 
 that in spite of her determined face, could not 
 but be gentle. For each rift of that paper had 
 been as a rift in her own heart. 
 
 "Oh, you coward!" she cried, with withering 
 contempt, to her reflection in the glass. "To 
 cry!" 
 
 But the image in the glass, unconvinced, con- 
 tinued to weep. Brave resolutions not to lament
 
 276 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 do not go into effect so soon. She might summon 
 all the power of her will and say "I will be calm," 
 but she could not be until all the mysterious in- 
 voluntary impulses and emotions and forces within 
 her were calm. 
 
 Far off the bells chimed musically the quarter- 
 hour. She darkened her room and, in her rib- 
 boned gown, looked out upon the night, her white 
 arms and neck gleaming in the reflected light 
 from the street. No call of sleep urged her to 
 the bed behind her. She felt that she would 
 hear the musical bells many a time before she 
 slept. 
 
 The dismal fact was that she had loved this 
 man. Her active mind, eager to continue her 
 punishment, kept this diligently before her; and, 
 as if it enjoyed finding new and entertaining ways 
 of applying the scourge, reminded her constantly 
 that, having loved him, she must see him daily 
 and, seeing him, remember that she had loved him. 
 A shamed flush rose to her face at the realization 
 of it. With the tumult fresh in her breast could 
 she treat him with the calmness and ease that 
 would cover up the effects of the storm he had 
 caused 1 ? For she would as soon now he saw her 
 naked body as her naked soul. 
 
 Many a time she heard the quarter-hours chime
 
 THE RECKONING 
 
 277 
 
 that night as she lay upon a torrid pillow. Their 
 soothing, musical tones, like far-off bells heard 
 in pleasant dreams, spoke to her of peace and 
 quiet, which came to her not at all. Toward 
 morning she slept fitfully and awoke to the real- 
 ization that here was the beginning of day a 
 hard day. 
 
 She must meet him. The hard and fast 
 schedule of her life prescribed the course of her 
 day and at certain times she must be in certain 
 places. She could not vary that course and avoid 
 him. And when she met him she must make it 
 clear to him that their ways were too divergent 
 for her to devote more of her time to the cultiva- 
 tion of his friendship. At the same time she must 
 let him see that she did not presume to be his 
 judge; and conceal from him the fact that kept 
 forcing itself so near the surface that she felt all 
 the people on the street could see and understand 
 it that the longing in her made it impossible that 
 she should be anything else but his judge. 
 
 She must frown and be firm lest he think his 
 erring was of too little importance to her; and 
 she must smile and be light-hearted lest he know 
 it was too great. 
 
 She waited at her desk, absolutely still and 
 idle, awaiting his coming like a culprit listen-
 
 278 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 ing for the step of her executioner. Her hands, 
 tightly clasped in her lap, were moist with ex- 
 citement. The forty-five minutes was many 
 hours long. And then when she felt that she 
 could stand the strain not a moment longer, she 
 heard his familiar step upon the tile floor of the 
 corridor without. 
 
 Like an actress taking position for the rise of 
 the curtain, she rose from her chair. What Spade 
 saw when he entered was an easy, nonchalant 
 figure, at the drawer of the filing case, who gave 
 him a pleasant smile over her shoulder. He re- 
 turned it in kind, giving no sign of the wonder 
 that was in his mind, and passed on into his in- 
 ner office. He too sat quiet, reading without 
 comprehending the thin sheaf of mail that lay 
 before him. For he knew too that something had 
 to be done, and done soon something to let him 
 know where he stood and where she stood. He 
 was thinking how he could best accomplish this, 
 when he looked up and found her beside him, hold- 
 ing an unimportant letter, about which she asked 
 an unimportant question, which he answered at 
 random and could not a moment later have re- 
 membered what he had said. Nor could she. 
 
 He knew that she must not leave that room be- 
 fore he had had an understanding with her. So
 
 THE RECKONING 279 
 
 engrossed was he with that idea that he did not 
 stop to think whether the letter and the question 
 were not on her part a mere excuse, and she her- 
 self as anxious as he to say her speech and stand 
 again on firm ground. She sat down in the chair 
 opposite him and with a haste so feverish that 
 she was certain he would know, in spite of her, 
 how great a stress of excitement she labored un- 
 der, she unclasped his pin from her waist. He 
 saw the intent of this act. 
 
 "Do you see this valuable jewel 1 ?" she asked, 
 lightly, extending her open hand with the 
 enamalled gold lying in it. 
 
 "It is very beautiful," he replied, trying not to 
 think how alluringly soft was the palm in which 
 it lay. He was quick to see the purpose of the 
 interview, and believed from her lightness of man- 
 ner that she was simply trying not to be too hard 
 upon him. He somehow felt instinctively the 
 uselessness of discussing the difference that lay 
 between them. It was too fundamental. He 
 saw from her one act and her one speech what 
 course she had decided upon. And if she were 
 trying not to be too hard upon him, he would try 
 not to be hard upon her. 
 
 Therefore he asked, "Is it an heirloom*?" with 
 a lightness to match her own.
 
 280 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "No, it is modern." 
 
 "A device, no doubt," he said, idly drawing 
 upon his blotter, "to fasten some gossamer thin- 
 ness about one's shoulders in the interests of 
 warmth." 
 
 She felt a certain tingling in her cheeks at the 
 memory those words brought up, but she met 
 his lifted eyes calmly. 
 
 "It has been used for that purpose. I am 
 only the custodian of it a position," she added, 
 slowly, "of trust and honor. But whose re- 
 sponsibility rests heavily upon me. I wish the 
 owner to have it." 
 
 He rose from his chair and strode twice up and 
 down the room. She rose also. When she 
 moved, he stopped where he was. She walked 
 with an affectation of carelessness to the corner 
 of the room where hung his Norfolk coat. 
 
 "The pin," she said calmly, "I shall fasten 
 with my own hand upon your coat." 
 
 He watched the operation in silence. She 
 turned to him with a smile. What she had meant 
 to say was simply that she had been away from 
 her work too long and must return. What she 
 did say, her voice faltering over the three words, 
 was, "Treasure it always." And then she hur-
 
 THE RECKONING 281 
 
 ried from the room, lest her trembling lips be- 
 tray her. 
 
 He heard the keys of her typewriter clicking, 
 with a deceiving air of industry. But what her 
 hands wrote was "Now is the time for all good 
 men to come to the aid of their country. Now is 
 the time " and so on, over and over and over 
 again, with transposed letters, with spaces where 
 there should have been no spaces, and no spaces 
 where there should have been spaces, and there 
 was no health in it. She scarcely knew that she 
 wrote it. And he, sitting at his desk, bored 
 thoughtful holes into his blotter with his pencil. 
 Until presently, as though hearing the oft-re- 
 peated call for the man whose aid was desired, he 
 rose abruptly from his chair and entered the outer 
 office. 
 
 An excited and feverish man he was, but grim of 
 purpose. He snapped the catch upon the outer 
 door, shutting out intruders. He had done this 
 a few times before when he did not wish to be 
 disturbed, and had apologized for it. He said 
 nothing now, however, and paced up and down 
 the room. Uncertainly she- reached for her note- 
 book. 
 
 "Ruth," he began, suddenly stopping where
 
 282 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 he was in his march. Then he saw the note-book. 
 "Don't take this down," he burst out. "I am 
 proposing marriage to you." 
 
 A moment of aghast silence and then, their 
 tightened nerves relaxing, they broke into uncon- 
 trolled laughter. 
 
 She had never thought that when the man she 
 loved proposed to her, she would simply laugh. 
 And yet that laugh brought them close together, 
 as if there were no flaw in the perfect sympathy 
 between them and made doubly hard the task 
 that lay before her. 
 
 "Ruth," he said, when they were rational again. 
 "I insist upon your knowing that I love you. 
 I think of you and want you every minute. 
 When I found that there was no other obligation 
 that bound me, the revolving of the train wheels 
 carrying me here was music all the way. Every 
 view I saw of rivers and hills through the car 
 windows, I wished you there to see also. Two 
 nights ago when the sun set, I thought I had 
 never seen the world so beautiful and I needed 
 only you to be with me." 
 
 Hard indeed he was making her task for her 
 now. She was filled with pride because he felt 
 thus toward her, because her influence had reached 
 to him over a thousand miles and tinged the world
 
 THE RECKONING 283 
 
 about him with thoughts of her. But it was a 
 bitter sweetness the momentary enjoyment of 
 a blessing that was to be taken away. 
 
 "I think I understand," he said, gently, "what 
 you think. I say what I have said mainly for 
 your information to keep the records straight, 
 so to speak." 
 
 "I am more honored and touched," she re- 
 plied, struggling to control herself, "than I could 
 ever explain to you." 
 
 He drew a long breath. As she sat there after 
 she had said this, not looking at him at all, he 
 knew how strongly, how passionately he wanted 
 her. But he held himself in check. 
 
 "As for myself," he said, quietly, "I love you, 
 and therefore I know that in your eyes I have 
 been weighed in the balance and found wanting." 
 
 It was a brave thing to say, for in the balance 
 that he judged himself by, he was not wanting. 
 He was simply admitting that her decision upon 
 this point could not be controverted. For the 
 question now was not what he was, but what she 
 thought he was. 
 
 Her face was pale, but she met his glance firmly. 
 "That is true," she replied, with a courage equal 
 to his own. 
 
 He resumed his walk. "This attitude of
 
 284 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 yours," he said, "is not a thing I can understand. 
 It is something above and beyond me. I seem to 
 have wronged, unknowingly, people I never have 
 seen and whose affairs have no direct connection 
 with mine. And yet this accidental wrong on 
 my part brands me and disgraces me." 
 
 She felt the note of bitterness in his words, 
 and it stirred her to self-defense. 
 
 "Was your action," she asked, "to your mind 
 absolutely straightforward, then*?" 
 
 "You are confusing straightforward with hon- 
 est," he accused. 
 
 "But the employees earned the money, and you 
 did not," she exclaimed. 
 
 "They used their hands and not their eyes. 
 I used my eyes and not my hands. That seems 
 easy to you, and you therefore say I did not earn 
 the money." 
 
 "I say," she exclaimed hotly, "that each of 
 them by saving and scrimping accumulated a for- 
 tune to them a pittance to you. And you, by 
 the exercise of a power not given to them, col- 
 lected the pittances from them all to make a huge 
 sum for yourself. You took the blood of their 
 hearts." 
 
 His face turned gray, like that of a prisoner 
 receiving sentence. He paused by the side of the
 
 THE RECKONING 285 
 
 long table and stood with his hands pressed upon 
 its surface, so that one looking closely could have 
 seen that the ends of the fingers were white and 
 bloodless. 
 
 "The question," he said in a moment, earnestly, 
 yet in a voice calm and controlled, "is just how 
 far I am my brother's keeper. Am I supposed to 
 safeguard him against his own errors of judg- 
 ment? Am I supposed to be responsible for his 
 misdirected efforts'?" 
 
 "Does that justification satisfy you 1 ?" she de- 
 manded quickly. 
 
 "I am not arguing with my conscience now," 
 he replied. "I am speaking of a universal prin- 
 ciple. I do not believe it is to any man's good 
 that I lay in his lap the thing he has not earned. 
 The fact that he has labored for it does not sig- 
 nify that he has earned it." 
 
 She passed her hand over her eyes in a baffled 
 yet determined way. "The difference between 
 right and wrong," she said, presently, "is one that 
 I am not skillful enough to define. But in order 
 to make yourself happy you have made a hundred 
 unhappy. I cannot but think that is wrong."- 
 
 He looked fixedly out of the window, his hands 
 still resting on the table. It was as if he were 
 trying to decide whether he should say what was
 
 286 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 on his mind. His pride made -him turn from any 
 appearance of one in the wrong, defending him- 
 self. 
 
 "My father," he said at length, his glance still 
 outside upon the blue sky and the white roaming 
 clouds, "in all his transactions considered the case 
 from the standpoint of the other man. He 
 played the game with his own cards on the table, 
 even if his opponents' were concealed. In this 
 way he did himself incalculable injury and, as it 
 turned out, put a premium on dishonesty. He is 
 now a broken and disappointed man." 
 
 She looked at him wondering, realizing that, 
 half unconscious of her, he had by some miracle 
 opened to her sight a recess of his spirit that be- 
 fore she had not been permitted to view a little 
 alcove, she thought, of simplicity and sincerity. 
 
 "When my father invented a certain well- 
 known device now universally used," he went on, 
 "he discovered shortly after the patent was 
 granted, in an old French engineering magazine 
 a crude but quite similar apparatus described. 
 As this would give grounds for the contention 
 that his idea was not original and therefore not 
 patentable, he felt it his duty to tell his partner 
 of his discovery. And his partner, having the 
 fact in his possession, had the patent annulled and
 
 THE RECKONING 287 
 
 is now manufacturing the article himself. He is 
 a millionaire and a successful man. My father 
 is a discouraged man, with a record of nothing 
 accomplished." 
 
 "But if he did what was right ?" 
 
 "He did what he thought was right," Spade 
 corrected. "A person's conscience is a strange 
 thing it must be regulated like a watch. A time 
 comes when it has to be set forward twenty-five 
 or thirty years." 
 
 "The honesty," he went on, "of the old fash- 
 ioned man who sold a cake of soap over the coun- 
 ter was a simple matter. Not so very long ago 
 most of our commercial transactions were like 
 that. Now our world is unbelievably complex. 
 When a dollar comes to us we cannot say from 
 whose hand it comes. In the case of the cake of 
 soap, the purchaser was the ultimate individual 
 concerned in the transaction. It was possible to 
 know whether he was wronged or not. But in 
 the maze of our business, no human power could 
 guess all the ultimate individuals of each trans- 
 action, and consider whether they would be 
 wronged. Such honesty could only accompany 
 the omniscience of God Himself." 
 
 It was not merely plausible glibness. It was 
 conviction. The insidious part of the influence
 
 288 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 that worked upon him was that as each moral 
 prop was withdrawn there was substituted in its 
 place a self-convincing reason for its withdrawal. 
 Each step backward was accompanied by a con- 
 viction that it was a step forward. The absorb- 
 ing of each principle that made for the decadence 
 of the nation was felt to be the absorbing of a 
 principle made necessary by the expanding and 
 reaching up of the nation. 
 
 Poor Ruth! As she looked at this earnest 
 figure with his broad shoulders turned to her, 
 conviction was far from her. She was helpless 
 before his words, but they could not extinguish the 
 faith within her that right was always right and 
 wrong was always wrong. 
 
 "And because of what you say," she asked him, 
 gently, "do we abolish honesty altogether?" 
 
 His jaw closed firmly. "We certainly amend 
 it," he replied, "to fit the conditions that ex- 
 ist." 
 
 Truth unanswerable it was to him heresy to 
 her. It was well he still looked meditating out 
 over the city, and did not see the bright film over 
 her eyes. It hurt her like a physical pain that 
 speech. Amended honesty! With it there also 
 seemed to be amended faith, amended charity, 
 amended unselfishness, amended right and
 
 THE RECKONING 289 
 
 amended wrong. The whole Word of God para- 
 phrased for the sake of ease and convenience. 
 As she looked at him through the mist of her 
 tears, he was like a strayed sheep. Her tears 
 were because she was not the shepherd that had 
 the power to bring him back. 
 
 He saw, or felt, the tears then. In a moment 
 he was standing over her, his hand upon her shoul- 
 der. "Don't you see," he pleaded, "I am right*? 
 I have followed my convictions. I have ordered 
 my life as I know it ought to be ordered. 
 Couldn't you consider that, and think of me as 
 the man who wants you to be his wife?" 
 
 She sprang to her feet and retreated from him, 
 both her hands clutching with vicelike grip the 
 drapery over her heart. 
 
 "No!" she cried, with eyes now frankly stream- 
 ing tears, "I could not think of you as my hus- 
 band." 
 
 He gazed long and earnestly at her. Pity, 
 admiration, longing, and an unquenchable desire 
 to possess her overpowered his reserve. The glis- 
 tening tears upon her cheeks loosed all his re- 
 straint. 
 
 "Tell me one thing," he exclaimed, hotly, im- 
 petuously, "you have talked theory to me. Could 
 you in spite of that love me*? Do you love me?"
 
 290 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 He might have had reason to think she did. 
 But he waited anxiously. And for her it was a 
 bitter question. If a willingness to give up her 
 life for him, to permit her whole existence to re- 
 volve about him, to consider his presence sunshine, 
 and his absence darkness if that were love, she 
 loved him. But if it meant looking up to him, 
 modelling her life upon his, marrying him 
 She met his eyes with her own tear flooded ones 
 steadily. 
 
 "No," she said, unflinching, "I do not love 
 you." 
 
 And held the gaze until his office door closed 
 behind him.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 DISASTER 
 
 Twice that morning after the door had closed 
 behind him was it opened again : once when she 
 entered to lay a telegram upon his desk a desk 
 unlittered with the signs of industry; and again 
 when he came to ask her to telephone and have 
 a stateroom reserved at Norfolk on the Merchants 
 and Miners boat for Boston not that he might 
 not equally well have performed that duty him- 
 self on this occasion, but that habit was strong. 
 
 The telegram was a welcome thing. It was 
 from a client he had recently seen in Boston, say- 
 ing that if he could come there immediately, the 
 deal they had discussed could be arranged. He 
 cared little for the business, but it gave him an 
 opportunity to be away from his office, where he 
 had created a situation at present too tense for 
 its two occupants to endure. 
 
 It seemed therefore, as if Providence had ar- 
 ranged this circumstance for him. Partly in or- 
 der to give Time, the Healer, more space in which 
 to apply at least first aid to the injured and partly 
 
 291
 
 292 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 on account of the more agreeable and pleasant na- 
 ture of the longer trip, he decided it would be 
 advisable to go by boat rather than by train. 
 This would be giving Ruth an opportunity to re- 
 cover from the turmoil he knew he must have 
 caused in her and to subjugate the embarrassment 
 that would result from it, and, by the same act, 
 give his own somewhat battered emotions several 
 days of calm and solitude in which to recuperate. 
 
 Could he have foreseen the calm that was to 
 result, he might have made other arrangements. 
 For Destiny, the queer, capricious damsel, hates 
 to have people prophesy as to her future acts. 
 When one counts upon calm, she furnishes turmoil 
 and when one counts upon turmoil she furnishes 
 insipid calm. 
 
 Spade went by train to Norfolk, whence the 
 boat was to leave at about sundown. The first 
 evidences of turmoil came when he walked up 
 the gang plank following a squad of people bear- 
 ing the legend "Peace." But what is in a name 1 ? 
 The dictionary's definition of that word is "calm 
 and absence of strife." The banner must have 
 referred to a different world, for the peace that 
 followed it contained neither of these properties. 
 
 The clan that rallied round this guidon were 
 inventors. They had invented a new religion,
 
 DISASTER 
 
 293 
 
 and they were promoting it to the best of their 
 ability. It did not develop in what way this re- 
 ligion was superior to other religions, except that 
 by reason of having been designed and made to 
 order to suit them, they were satisfied with it. 
 
 The boat seethed with them. At every stair 
 and door, in every easy chair, on every couch and 
 settee, to windward and to leeward, in sun and 
 in shade, lolled and lounged or scurried restlessly 
 about, like a plague of locusts, queer human peo- 
 ple with white ribbons streaming from their 
 bosoms on each of which was inscribed "Disciple." 
 William followed the squeaking shoes of one of 
 these individuals from one end of the boat to 
 the other, impelled by a curiosity of long stand- 
 ing to know just what a disciple was like. 
 
 They ran rather extensively to patriarchs. 
 The man with the complaining shoes whom Wil- 
 liam had followed, wore a venerable gray beard 
 flowing down over his chest. At first William 
 played with the thought that he was a detective 
 and that this was his disguise. But the presence 
 of other faces of similar design convinced him 
 that this was the way the gentleman desired his 
 face to look and that the beard concealed no sin- 
 ister and underhand purpose. 
 
 The decks and the saloons resounded with the
 
 294 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 buzzing occasioned by the social intercourse of 
 these persons. William gazed in wonder at 
 them. Difference in their sex, age, coloring and 
 dress could not conceal the uncanny similarity 
 that existed between them all, and differentiated 
 them from average humans. It was evident that 
 they were all laboring under the intoxication of 
 an unaccustomed excitement that this trip was 
 to them an event which was to lend the color of 
 romance to the remainder of their lives. 
 
 Therefore while their blue and white banner 
 said "Peace," they wandered about in a most un- 
 peaceful manner, like so many dipsomaniacs, 
 keyed up to an unnatural hilarity. Intemperance 
 in regard to steamboat journeys acts upon the un- 
 accustomed like strong drink and they were all 
 abnormally stimulated as a result of their over- 
 indulgence. 
 
 William thought there were a hundred of them, 
 but it turned out later that there were but twenty- 
 five, who made up in hilarity what they lacked in 
 numbers. As he watched them chattering in dis- 
 orderly joy together, he laughed aloud amidst the 
 racket to think that he had taken this trip on 
 account of the peaceful quiet of the ocean. 
 
 One of the disciples, filled with an instinct of 
 friendliness toward the whole human race, sat
 
 DISASTER 295 
 
 down beside him. "There are going to be great 
 doings on this boat tonight," he volunteered, in 
 a condescending way, as one who was to be in 
 the thick and front of the fray. "There will be 
 no sleep on board, I can promise that." 
 
 At this sweeping and thoroughly gratuitous 
 guarantee of insomnia for all, William concealed 
 what enthusiasm he might have felt. 
 
 "Going to stage a cabaret show*?" he asked, 
 mildly. 
 
 His companion appeared puzzled. "Just sing- 
 ing and some excellent addresses," he replied, a 
 little uncertainly. 
 
 "No dancing 1 ?" 
 
 "Positively no, sir," replied the disciple, 
 shocked. 
 
 "I think you are making a mistake there.. The 
 people naturally expect it." 
 
 "Dancing, sir, is part of the machinery of the 
 Evil One. It brews wrong thoughts and leads 
 on toward ruin." 
 
 "I have thought that about some of the dances. 
 But it doesn't do to say so, you know." 
 
 "The Disciples of Peace are fearless in what 
 they say. Our object is to purify the world." 
 
 "Well," responded William cautiously, "that 
 is a very worthy object."
 
 296 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "My dear sir, it is the object for which the 
 Divine One put us upon the earth. We must 
 not shirk our duty." 
 
 "It is, however, a large undertaking." 
 "That is why we propose to do it. We do not 
 wish to deal with small things." 
 
 "But wouldn't such an undertaking require 
 some preparation?" 
 
 "None but the helping hand of the Lord." 
 William eyed the disciple curiously. "Are 
 you," he asked, presently, "from Virginia?" 
 "I am from Suffolk, Virginia, sir." 
 "And you have travelled about considerably?" 
 The other moved uneasily in his chair. "I have 
 been to Norfolk and Elizabeth City quite fre- 
 quently. And some fifteen years ago I visited 
 Richmond." 
 
 The young man said no more. It seemed part 
 of the droll humor of fate that the people, usually, 
 who set out to reform the world are those who 
 have no knowledge of it. He could not laugh, 
 however, at this. It touched him too closely 
 for had he not been recently judged by one who 
 did not, in his estimation, understand. 
 
 He excused himself from the disciple pres- 
 ently and went out upon deck. It was now about 
 time for the steamer to be heading out between
 
 DISASTER 297 
 
 the capes, and he wished to see the last of the 
 shore. But to his surprise he found that the dull 
 threatening day had given way to fog, and the 
 steamer was feeling her way slowly along, send- 
 ing out raucous blasts from her whistle as warning 
 to invisible ships behind the opaque walls of mist. 
 The only intimation one had of shore was the roar 
 of the unmusical fog-horns at Cape Henry, sound- 
 ing not so much like anything as Gabriel's last 
 trump, calling up sinful souls for judgment. 
 
 The diversion of watching the disappearing 
 shore having been denied him, after taking a few 
 turns up and down the untenanted deck and peer- 
 ing about on all sides to see nothing but leaden 
 sea merging without line or break into leaden 
 atmosphere and leaden atmosphere closing about 
 them like a bell-jar and tantalizingly shutting 
 them off from the world about them, he re- 
 entered the cabin and, noting signs and sounds of 
 food in the dining room below, allowed himself 
 to be persuaded that dinner was the only remain- 
 ing form of diversion. 
 
 The dining room was full of disciples. He 
 looked bewilderedly about him as he came down 
 the steps, wondering if it would be better to re- 
 treat and come again when the excursionists had 
 been fed or whether there was a place in a quiet
 
 298 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 corner where he could dine in peace. In the 
 midst of this dilemma he saw, like an oasis in 
 the midst of a desert, a familiar face the com- 
 forting, pleasant face of a friend. In a secluded 
 part of the room, like a rose blooming in the 
 midst of necessary and essential cabbages, sat Mrs. 
 Carver. She rose joyously from her seat. 
 
 "Thank heaven," she said, "for a human com- 
 panion." 
 
 She explained that she had been in Richmond 
 and was going to Boston to meet her husband. 
 William sat beside her and in her always pleas- 
 ant company experienced a return of buoyant 
 spirits. 
 
 After they had talked a long while and the 
 dishes before them had been removed and the 
 waiters were standing impatiently about wishing 
 them gone, he explained a hypothetical case to 
 her, which was a counterpart of his own deal with 
 the Old Dominion Steel Company and asked her 
 opinion upon its merits. Much thinking about 
 it had made him wonder if his view could possibly 
 have been distorted by his own desire that it 
 should be right. 
 
 "Do you remember," she asked at length, ig- 
 noring the fact that this was supposed to be a 
 hypothetical case, "that once, a long while ago,
 
 DISASTER 299 
 
 I told you Sara Barclay and her kind would drag 
 you down." 
 
 He gazed at her in astonishment. 
 
 "You have had to make money to keep in that 
 stratum," she went on ruthlessly, "I know about 
 that. The stratum is rotten, and the tempta- 
 tion is to consummate rotten transactions in or- 
 der to stand upon its level." 
 
 He made a gesture of protest. 
 
 "I do not say your deal is rotten," she asserted, 
 "but it is debatable. It is the sort of thing the 
 urge of the desire for wealth drives a man to 
 undertake." 
 
 "You overestimate these things " he began. 
 
 "Do you think," she demanded, "a nation whose 
 foremost class is selfish and prodigal and pleasure- 
 loving can continue to be a great and aspiring na- 
 tion?' 
 
 "I think," he asserted, stoutly, "there is still an 
 abundance of goodness and stability and earnest- 
 ness in the country." 
 
 "Of course there is. But we are throwing it 
 away. Why, the sturdy and thinking part of our 
 country has become so impressed with the soft- 
 ening effect of our civilization, that thousands of 
 men, rich and poor, have journeyed up to a little 
 town in New York state to spend their vacations
 
 300 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 and their money in learning a little soldiering 
 in order to do their part in bringing up the stand- 
 ard of the country. That is the biggest proof that 
 there is something wrong." 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 "Your deal," she said, "is the result of the 
 same influence. The result of easy living, easy 
 spending, easy money-making. You are not go- 
 ing to see it now. It will take a hard jolt to open 
 your eyes." 
 
 "I 'think so. I certainly do not see it now." 
 
 They left the dining room and ascended the 
 stair to the upper deck. Half way up the flight 
 he stopped. "Into what state of mind am I to 
 be jolted?" 
 
 "Into a state of responsibility to the man on 
 the street. Into a state of realizing that God is 
 a power that protects you though you have done 
 nothing to deserve it, and that you are in duty- 
 bound to protect others even when you think they 
 have done nothing to deserve it." 
 
 "That is copy-book morality." 
 
 "Perhaps," was all she said. 
 
 Later on, as they sat unobserved in a corner of 
 the upper saloon watching an overwrought prayer- 
 meeting of the disciples, he called her attention to 
 an old lady in the crowd a placid, sweet-faced,
 
 DISASTER 301 
 
 credulous old lady. It seemed that no evil 
 thought could ever have crossed the threshold of 
 her mind. She was listening with rapt attention 
 to the speaker, drinking in every word and believ- 
 ing that his references to golden deeds and fellow- 
 ship with God proved him a doer of such deeds 
 and one who had some mysterious personal under- 
 standing with the Deity. 
 
 "Can't you construct her character complete just 
 from looking at her 4 ?" William asked. "I think 
 there are such in Heaven. But she is not a doer 
 and the world must have doers. Her goodness 
 has no relation to life for her circle is so small. 
 She approaches the limit represented by the man 
 chained to his chair for life she can do no 
 wrong. But a man active in the world and press- 
 ing the world's work cannot have his principles 
 laid down for him by the onlookers of the contest 
 however sweet and unsoiled those onlookers 
 may be." 
 
 "But she has a thing called faith," was his com- 
 panion's comment. 
 
 Presently she looked at him inquisitively as 
 though she would obtain in advance the answer to 
 the question she was about to ask. 
 
 "Tell me," she said, "what brought doubts into 
 your mind as to your Old Dominion transaction?"
 
 302 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "I had no doubts." 
 
 "But you consulted me. What made you do 
 that?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Was it a girl ?" she shot at him. 
 
 A long pause. "Why, yes," he admitted, at 
 length, "that was it. It was a girl." 
 
 "Not Sara Barclay, or one of her advanced 
 type?" 
 
 "No. You do not know her. 
 
 "She is," he added after a thoughtful pause, 
 "not of the advanced type. She is reactionary. 
 She belongs to a former generation." 
 
 "Nothing could be better," she exclaimed, un- 
 expectedly. "The former generation is a good 
 influence. My husband is a rock-ribbed Puritan. 
 He has an ingrowing conscience. He has turned 
 all my ideas backward." 
 
 "You are preaching retrogression ?" 
 
 "We ought to go back until we get into the 
 period where people are aspiring instead of satis- 
 fied, and where they accord common humdrum 
 goodness its proper consideration." 
 
 "She does that," he replied absently. 
 
 Mrs. Carver laughed. "I see how your mind is 
 running." 
 
 The disciples sang psalms and hymns and made
 
 DISASTER 303 
 
 addresses and launched long prayers, which hav- 
 ing been launched and having included all avail- 
 able objects in the animal and vegetable kingdom, 
 the weather, the crops, the government of the 
 broad land, the welfare of its elected officers, the 
 welfare of foreign nations, the comfort of the sick, 
 the health of babies and the future of all crim- 
 inals, soon obtained a momentum that was diffi- 
 cult to stop, and the prayer carried its author on 
 and on, hoping every moment for inspiration to 
 stop it until finally, no inspiration appearing, 
 he simply said "Amen" at the end of a sentence, 
 and sat down dazed and worn out, like Mazeppa 
 at the end of his wild ride. 
 
 Midnight approached, and the religious enthusi- 
 asm showed no sign of flagging. At length a fat, 
 puffing man, clad in pink pajamas, his hair stand- 
 ing up on end from hours of restless turning on his 
 pillow, appeared at the side of the room a dis- 
 turbing note rendered doubly so by the shocking 
 impropriety of his costume and shouted, not in 
 the soft tones of politeness, but with rough un- 
 couthness : 
 
 "Say, when are you psalm-singers going to let 
 honest people sleep*?" 
 
 Or words to that effect. At any rate, he used 
 the words "honest people" in a manner offensively
 
 304 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 excluding the disciples from the class embraced by 
 that appellation. Which was unjust, for this re- 
 ligious gathering were honest people and were 
 spending their lives, and indeed, holding this iden- 
 tical service of song and prayer in the interests of 
 making the world more honest. The admonition, 
 therefore, by its lack of truth, lost much of its 
 force. So, while the ladies modestly averted their 
 faces from the human gold-fish at the door, the 
 leading disciple rose with dignity and, without 
 replying to the objection of the intruder, said that 
 as they appeared to be disturbing others, the meet- 
 ing would come to a close. The objector, thus 
 ignored, retired to his couch. And presently quiet 
 reigned. 
 
 William did not sleep soundly. The deep bay 
 of the steamer's whistle continued at regular inter- 
 vals. When he was awake he was waiting for its 
 roar. When he was asleep it wove itself into his 
 dreams. At length when dawn came and the bars 
 of light that entered through the slatted door 
 burned themselves on his vision so that he saw 
 them even after he closed his eyes, he rose, dressed 
 and went out upon the deck. 
 
 The prospect was exactly the same as it had 
 been the night before. They were enclosed still 
 by the bell-jar of fog which seemed to resolve it-
 
 DISASTER 305 
 
 self into solid structure. As he passed under the 
 windows of the wheel house, he gleaned the in- 
 formation from a snatch of conversation between 
 the man at the wheel and the first officer that 
 there had been an unusual electrical disturbance 
 which had affected the compass and made their 
 reckoning uncertain. They had, of course, been 
 unable to pick up any of the usual lights in the 
 fog to check up their position. 
 
 William leaned against the damp rail and 
 watched the men taking the sounding. The ship 
 rolled with a sickening motion as it crawled 
 through the fog. He made a mental prophecy 
 that there would be only a small proportion of the 
 passengers to report for breakfast. 
 
 The heaving of the lead proceeded under ad- 
 verse conditions. The fog was so thick that it 
 was impossible for the man at the waist to see the 
 bow of the vessel. He could not see when the 
 man forward cast the lead, and on that account 
 could not time his reading of the line with the 
 precision that was necessary for a correct sound- 
 ing. If he failed to catch the depth just as the 
 line was exactly perpendicular, the sounding was 
 useless or rather, it was dangerous, for it gave a 
 greater depth than actually existed. 
 
 As there was nothing else to divert him, Wil-
 
 306 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 liam amused himself at each cast of the lead, by 
 trying to decide when he would have called the 
 line perpendicular, had he been taking the read- 
 ing. He was noted, in all athletics, for his quick- 
 ness of eye, and he was certain that the man was 
 taking all his readings too late. He glanced at 
 the young officer who had charge of the operation, 
 to see if he was observing closely, but the officer 
 was engrossed in his note-book, where he entered 
 the depths as the sailor called them out. 
 
 "How close an idea do these soundings give you 
 of your position off-shore 1 ?" William asked him, 
 at a convenient moment. 
 
 "Very close indeed, sir," responded the officer, 
 crisply. "The whole of the Atlantic coast slopes 
 off at the rate of a fathom per mile. Thirty 
 fathoms of water means thirty miles from shore." 
 
 As the dull, gloomy day dragged on, William 
 found his spirits sinking lower and lower. The 
 thick, sticky fog, which did not even permit him 
 to see the top of the ship's funnels, the regular 
 baying of the whistle and the snail's pace of the 
 boat through the water bred in him an unaccus- 
 tomed feeling of foreboding. He was not used to 
 premonitions of danger, but one was growing upon 
 him. It was doubtless due to his recently over- 
 wrought condition of mind that this premonition
 
 DISASTER 307 
 
 had come. However, he could not release himself 
 from a feeling of annoying disquiet. Some at- 
 mospheric irregularity had interfered with the 
 accuracy of their compass and the fog had inter- 
 fered with the accuracy of their soundings. In 
 his usual calm and tranquil frame of mind, he 
 would not have considered these things, being per- 
 fectly willing to leave the navigating of the ship 
 to the persons who understood such things. But 
 just now he was in a despondent mood. 
 
 A breeze began to blow about noon, but the fog 
 did not lift. William's feeling of uneasiness in- 
 creased. He did not understand it and when he 
 spoke of it, rather deprecatingly, to Mrs. Carver, 
 she laughed good-humoredly. 
 
 "A little thick weather does not worry these big 
 steel boats, does it 1 ?" she asked. 
 
 Not ten minutes later the lie was given to those 
 words. He was drinking a glass of water in 
 the smoking room, when suddenly the glass was 
 dashed out of his hand by some unseen power 
 and fell with a crash against the wooden wall. 
 He himself was projected headlong into a great 
 leather chair. 
 
 Each man looked, astonished, at his neighbor. 
 There was a moment of stunned quiet all over the 
 ship, broken only by the violent ringing of the
 
 3o8 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 engine bell. As if in response to its clang a 
 chorus of screams rose from the staterooms. From 
 every door, human beings, clad in various unsuit- 
 able garments, peeped or rushed out, whiter and 
 more frightened than the nausea of the morning 
 could have made them. The swelling murmur of 
 voices was partially drowned out by the throbbing 
 again of the engines. The churning from astern 
 denoted that the propellers were now reversed. 
 The cause of the seismic disturbance therefore was 
 that the vessel was aground. 
 
 The third officer and the purser made their way 
 diplomatically among the passengers, assuring 
 them that there was no danger. The vessel was 
 apparently aground, but with a little maneuver- 
 ing, they would be able to float her off in a short 
 time. At any rate the sea was comparatively 
 quiet, and the fog already was showing signs of 
 lifting. 
 
 It has since been held that the Brocadillo went 
 aground simply on account of the sheer perversity 
 of the elements. There was no accounting for the 
 electrical disturbance, which was greater upon that 
 day and caused more variation in the compass 
 needle than at any time during the previous 
 twenty years. There was no accounting, except 
 perhaps by the fact that it was the ebb tide of the
 
 DISASTER 309 
 
 full moon, for the strong current that set inshore. 
 No one was able to explain even why the sound- 
 ings had not revealed her position. To this day 
 it is discussed along the coast without solution 
 except to conclude that luck was against her. 
 This theory is held most strongly because thirty 
 minutes after she grounded the fog lifted, and at 
 five-thirty o'clock all on board had a fine clear 
 view of the distant shore. 
 
 Passengers began to come out upon deck, a little 
 more securely clad, a little better physically from 
 the fact that the steamer, now resting on firm 
 ground, no longer rose and fell with that sickening 
 rhythm, and a little happier mentally because the 
 fog had lifted. It was not much more than two 
 or three miles to shore, and they laughed, albeit 
 still somewhat nervously, at their first fright and 
 confusion. 
 
 At six-thirty, a crew from the coast guard sta- 
 tion, who had put out immediately, came alongside 
 in their self-bailing surf-boat. The fog had then 
 blown away entirely, the sea was calm, and there 
 was every indication of fair weather. The cap- 
 tain held a conference with the surfmen, and it 
 was soon announced that he had refused to send 
 the passengers ashore, as he believed there was no 
 danger and he was therefore not empowered to
 
 310 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 land them without instructions from the company. 
 Some second-class mail, however, that the vessel 
 was carrying, it was deemed advisable to send 
 ashore. The boat pulled away, having promised 
 to return again before dark. They watched it 
 grow smaller in the distance with no feeling of 
 regret. 
 
 When it returned again at eight o'clock the full 
 moon was shining. The captain as a precaution, 
 however, asked the surfmen to hoist their boat 
 aboard and stay through the night. This made 
 timid minds easier. At nine o'clock the wrecking 
 steamer Iroquois hove in sight and after some de- 
 lay made fast to the Brocadillo and began pulling 
 on her. Everything appeared to be calm and 
 satisfactory. The passengers, worn out with loss 
 of sleep and seasickness, went to their staterooms 
 and were soon asleep. All was quiet and peaceful 
 on the moonlit sea. 
 
 But about twelve o'clock a sudden change came 
 over the night. The wind veered around to the 
 north-east. It brought with it presently a taste 
 of rain. Over the horizon across the stretch of 
 moonlit water rose a thin black wall like a curtain 
 of smoke. It lay a huge cigar dividing the 
 water from the starlit sky. Then it began to rise, 
 blotting out the stars, a dozen at a time. The
 
 DISASTER 311 
 
 wind freshened. A roller of water, visible for 
 half a mile over the bright sea, came on toward 
 them and struck the ship broadside with a blow 
 like an underground explosion, and the spray flew 
 high over the wheelhouse. 
 
 The black curtain blotted out a third of the 
 eastern sky. It was like an eclipse of the heavens. 
 It advanced with great speed, devouring constella- 
 tions as it moved and leaving blank desolation be- 
 hind it. A moment and the moon shone. A 
 moment and the black mantle had passed before 
 it, leaving the sea in deep darkness. 
 
 The wind roared across the decks. More roll- 
 ers, invisible now in the night, bombarded the iron 
 hull. The main deck seethed with the wash of 
 them and sometimes, as the crest passed by, the 
 whole vessel except the cabins, was under water. 
 The men in the wheel-house could hear the splash 
 of the steel towing hawser as it dug in and out of 
 the wave. 
 
 Sometimes the lights of the wrecking steamer 
 were lost altogether. When she could be made 
 out it could be seen that she was struggling against 
 the waves that struck her broadside and forced her 
 inshore. The screws of the Brocadillo continued 
 to revolve, churning the water astern. 
 
 About three o'clock William was awakened by
 
 312 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 the banging of his stateroom door. Seeing that 
 the storm had risen, he dressed hastily. As he 
 stepped from his room, he met a ship's officer on 
 his rounds to wake the passengers and get them 
 together in the main saloon. He took the life 
 preserver that lay in the rack over his head. 
 
 He saw dimly the lights of the wrecking steamer 
 astern. He could feel the Brocadillo jar under 
 the impact of each wave, and it seemed as if she 
 must be being driven further aground every in- 
 stant. The ship's officer, returning, touched him 
 on the arm and said it would be better to go inside. 
 Drenched with spray, he entered, and found the 
 cabin full of dressed and half-dressed passengers. 
 
 The roar of the storm without was incessant. 
 The ship trembled at the force of the waves. 
 Women cried, and a man kneeling down on the 
 top step of the stairway to the dining saloon began 
 to pray. 
 
 This seemed fruitless and, slipping unnoticed 
 out again upon the promenade deck, William 
 wrapped his arms around an iron stanchion and 
 watched the storm. It seemed from the relative 
 position of the steamer and of the wrecking craft, 
 that the Brocadillo' s stern had been swinging 
 around. Out of the night he saw the inclined 
 side of a mountain of water coming toward them.
 
 DISASTER 313 
 
 The lights of the saloon windows shone in squares 
 for a moment on its smooth surface, before it 
 burst upon them. It was as if he were in the 
 midst of the sea. Spouting water enveloped him. 
 A great hand grasped the keel of the vessel and, 
 lifting it bodily, set it down again with a jar that 
 broke his hold and threw him prone upon the deck. 
 
 When he rose the ship was full of escaping 
 steam. He groped about for the rail and walked 
 toward the wheel-house. As he came abreast of 
 the stairs to the house, a man passed him, running, 
 and, bursting into the wheel-house, shouted that 
 the stern had gone aground and one propeller was 
 disabled. The jar had disjointed the steam-pipes, 
 and the engine room was full of steam. 
 
 "Then call the Iroquois on the wireless and tell 
 him to go while the going is good," said the cap- 
 tain, by way of reply. 
 
 The wireless cracked overhead. After a time it 
 could be seen that the wrecking steamer had cast 
 off the line and was steaming out to sea. When 
 her lights, growing dimmer and dimmer in the dis- 
 tance, disappeared at length behind the storm, 
 they were left alone at the mercy of the hurricane. 
 It seemed inhuman of the other vessel to make off 
 to safety, but it was apparent that she could have 
 lent no assistance. No small boat could have
 
 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 remained afloat in such a sea. While William 
 stood clinging to the iron supports, the coast guard 
 surf boat was crushed by the blow of a wave and 
 torn from the davits. 
 
 The waves increased in violence, and soon the 
 upper deck became untenable. He entered the 
 cabin, humid and sweltering with escaped steam. 
 The boat had listed to starboard and, as each wave 
 passed, a rivulet of water poured under the doors 
 on the port side and washed across the carpeted 
 floor. It was ridiculous that the ashen-faced 
 women, believing themselves in the presence of 
 death, should yet sit with their feet propped up 
 out of the wet. And when they prayed they 
 made islands on the wet carpet with their life- 
 preservers, on which to kneel. Thus are the 
 habits of a lifetime not easily broken. 
 
 William did not pray. It seemed to him a time 
 for action rather than supplication. When the 
 captain sent the steward below to secure provi- 
 sions from the galley, he asked permission to go 
 also. The galley was knee deep in water, which 
 for some unknown cause seemed to be rising stead- 
 ily. He called to a young man, who was standing 
 at the head of the stair, smoking one cigarette 
 after another, and got him to form a line for the 
 purpose of passing food to the upper saloon.
 
 DISASTER 315 
 
 This had been going on for about ten minutes 
 when a larger and stronger wave than usual fell 
 upon the skylight over the stair and made a clean 
 breach big enough to drop a barrel through. A 
 column of green sea dropped through the hole, as 
 if some Brobdingnagian faucet had been turned 
 upon them. Water shot in all directions. The 
 lower saloon and dining room became a lake, in 
 which the tables, still set with their white clothes, 
 stood like lily-pads, or were submerged alto- 
 gether. 
 
 The line became impractical, for the food ar- 
 riving at its destination was drenched and unfit 
 for use. In addition to this the lights were begin- 
 ning to burn low. The line was broken up and 
 the men returned to the upper saloon. 
 
 There was nothing then to do. They sat, or 
 simply stood, in the stolid and tired silence of 
 people waiting at a station for a train long over- 
 due. When one of them spoke the others turned 
 to listen as if thinking the speaker might have 
 noted some favorable sign. The lights burned 
 dimmer until the filaments of each ceased to throw 
 out an incandescent glow and were mere red 
 twisted worms within the glass. At almost regu- 
 lar intervals a shock and a roar like the passing 
 of a train, followed by the turning on of the giant
 
 316 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 faucet overhead announced the coming and going 
 of another wave. 
 
 Spade, who but a few hours before had affirmed 
 his belief that his powers were all-sufficient to 
 combat every earthly contingency, found himself 
 in a few hours helpless and less powerful than one 
 of the drops of salt spray that sprang from the 
 breached skylight. Yesterday he trod the ground 
 secure in his youth and strength. Today he saw 
 the boundary-line of eternity. Humility was not 
 in his nature but surprise at the futility of his 
 presence and prowess stupefied his brain. 
 
 At length the red twisted worms in their glass 
 cocoons disappeared simultaneously, leaving the 
 boat in a darkness that was absolute. No ray of 
 light split the night that closed about them all like 
 a solid substance. Those who had matches found 
 them soaked in brine. When a person moved, he 
 stumbled over a neighbor. Therefore, they soon 
 stopped moving. They were numbed anesthet- 
 ized. The smell of the escaping steam woke no 
 fear in them. The roar of the intermittent gey- 
 ser from the skylight above stirred no emotion. 
 They waited dully and with unaccustomed pa- 
 tience. 
 
 Somewhere in their midst but giving no sense of 
 location in that opaque darkness, rose, above the
 
 DISASTER 317 
 
 tearing of the wind and the drum-like roll of the 
 water, the booming voice of the captain. 
 
 "This is a battle," he said, solemnly, "between 
 a great storm and a strong vessel. It is a ques- 
 tion of endurance. We must put our trust in the 
 Lord God of Hosts." 
 
 "Which is not reassuring," muttered Mrs. Car- 
 ver, with unconscious blasphemy.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY 
 
 Through the window William watched the 
 coming of the dawn. It was eagerly awaited by 
 every soul in the cabin, though the dawn itself 
 meant neither peace nor safety. But it would 
 break through that stifling darkness that made 
 them all so many blind people who had lost all 
 sense of direction and distance in that unaccus- 
 tomed space. 
 
 At length, without their being aware when the 
 change occurred, they found themselves suddenly 
 able each to distinguish the shadowy form of his 
 neighbor. When he regained his bearings Wil- 
 liam made his way to the window and looked out. 
 There was no rift in the sky. The blackness of 
 night had simply turned to a sickly gray. From 
 a forward window he was able, as the light grew 
 stronger, to see long mountains of water charging 
 in upon them. The crest of each wave he saw in 
 the distance, separating itself from leaden drab of 
 rain and sea. Majestically it moved with no ap- 
 
 318
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY 319 
 
 pearance of haste a regular and smoothly sur- 
 faced mound of water as high as the third story 
 of a house. As peaceful and gentle in appear- 
 ance as the grass grown slope of a meadow it was, 
 until with a reverberating boom it broke its 
 smooth surface against the bow, sending geysers 
 spurting high above its crest and rushing headlong 
 down the length of the steamer, obliterating all 
 but the upper cabin in a sea of foam. 
 
 It was high tide again now and the stern of the 
 vessel appeared to have floated off. Her nose 
 still remained hard and fast aground, and William 
 could feel the boat turning so that the waves 
 began to strike her abeam. She rocked and 
 shook under the bombardment. Even to his inex- 
 perienced mind it was plain that no ship could 
 stand this sort of treatment for any great length of 
 time. 
 
 He found the members of the crew putting 
 on oilskins and sou'westers and rubber boots, indi- 
 cating that something was afoot. He had noticed 
 the night before in their reconnaissance on the 
 lower deck that in one of the staterooms of the 
 after saloon was just such an outfit. Slipping 
 away unnoticed he waded through the dining hall 
 and, after several wrong entries, found the room 
 he wanted, with the coat, hat and boots stuffed
 
 320 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 into a recess originally meant for life preservers. 
 
 When William returned to the upper saloon at- 
 tired in this costume, he was soon lost among the 
 members of the crew. And, when they leaped out 
 one at a time through the quickly opened and shut 
 door, he leaped out too in his turn. 
 
 It was no pleasant promenade on that deck. 
 A man did not dare for one instant to loose his 
 hold upon some firm object. The never-ceasing 
 gale that struck him in the back like the body of 
 a man thrown against him, the almost blinding 
 rain and now and again the mountain of water 
 that rolled by them and through them, made 
 merely keeping one's footing a matter of great 
 skill. He wondered how they would be able to 
 accomplish anything. 
 
 But they did. In moments of necessity they 
 trusted to luck for their footing and pulled on the 
 rope in their hands to move the great anchor be- 
 fore the next wave should come. He found him- 
 self forgetting the oncoming wave in the excite- 
 ment of giving one more heave. Each one of 
 these anchors weighed three thousand pounds. 
 But they got them into position and let them go 
 into the sea, each with sixty fathoms of steel chain 
 attached. One of these was let go first to port 
 and, when the ship swung around, another was
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY 321 
 
 let go to starboard. William, landsman that he 
 was, did not at first see the strategy of these an- 
 chors. But by hauling in upon one or the other 
 chain they were able to keep the ship's head to the 
 wind and thus give her as much chance as possi- 
 ble against the sea. 
 
 However, she was already badly sprung and 
 was leaking fast. The engine room, having taken 
 water that came in through the open skylight as 
 well as from the opened plates of the keel, was 
 flooded. When they went into the wheel house 
 after their efforts with the anchors, they could 
 hear through the engine-room speaking tube the 
 bell below ringing dismally with the roll of the 
 ship. 
 
 They could make out with the glasses the coast 
 guard station on the beach, and as there was now 
 no power for the wireless, the captain got his sig- 
 nal flags out of the locker and ran up a message on 
 the main truck. After some time an answering 
 string of flags appeared ashore. Translated it 
 read, "We cannot get to you. The country prays 
 for you." 
 
 They realized then that millions ashore had 
 read about them at their breakfast tables. "The 
 country prays for you." A bitter phrase indeed. 
 "God bless you" thrown at a starving beggar.
 
 322 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 Spade had never before given Death serious 
 thought. Life had been the problem that had 
 confronted him. He had never been in a position 
 where the termination of his existence seemed im- 
 minent. At first he had looked upon the ship- 
 wreck calmly. When the others had rushed 
 about wringing their hands and praying, he re- 
 mained cool, with the sporting air of a fatalist. 
 If the ship must sink, it would sink, and it helped 
 none to lament about it. 
 
 That was twelve hours ago. If it had sunk 
 then he would have died with unruffled mind 
 with a physical courage that might have been 
 called superb, but with no thought of his soul. 
 But as the storm continued unabated and the end, 
 while every moment becoming more and more 
 certain, still did not come, he began to have a 
 wild desire that it would come and not hold him 
 in suspense. 
 
 Little by little, there being now nothing at all 
 to do, his mind pushed every other matter from 
 it. He could think of nothing but the breaking 
 up of the ship and the swallowing of all those peo- 
 ple in the sea. He looked out across the waves 
 and wondered how long he could stay afloat in 
 that turmoil of water. 
 
 He was overwhelmed, stunned, stupefied by the
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY 323 
 
 gigantic power against which he was struggling. 
 He had always admitted the force of the elements 
 as a thing to be expected as part of the structure 
 of the world. Expanse of water, which he sailed 
 upon in a steel boat, violence of storm, from 
 which he had been protected by masonry walls, 
 cold, heat, lightning, from which he had also been 
 protected by human ingenuity, were not things 
 that in the past had proved to him the existence 
 of a Divine Power. But now, at a point where 
 the power of man had so evidently broken down, 
 realizing that his strength of body or mind was 
 quite too small to be considered in the presence of 
 the gigantic forces against him, he would have 
 been lacking in mentality indeed had he not seen 
 in it and admitted the hand of a God who con- 
 trolled his puny life and to whom, therefore, he 
 must 'be accountable. 
 
 He reentered the cabin and saw the people 
 again kneeling in prayer, led by the disciple who 
 had the day before talked to him. He felt no 
 contempt for the old man. Instead he found him- 
 self sympathizing with the idea of prayer. It 
 was the process of admitting human inability to 
 cope with the situation at hand. He admitted 
 that inability in him. But he did not pray. He 
 felt that he had no right to pray he who had
 
 324 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 not believed in it, who had at all previous times, 
 when prayer had not been necessary for his safety 
 and welfare, ignored it; what right had he to 
 seize it now? It was taking something that did 
 not belong to him. 
 
 His instinct was to follow a sort of inverted 
 golden rule to do unto himself as he had done 
 to others. Since he himself had not accorded len- 
 ient treatment to others (and had, not long since, 
 defended such a course strongly) he would not 
 now ask for lenient treatment for himself. In 
 his warped yet altogether earnest view of the 
 situation, his worst fear was lest he should be a 
 hypocrite. He felt that he had erected a barrier 
 between himself and God which he was not enti- 
 tled to attempt to remove. 
 
 There was a touch of self-castigation in this 
 that was Puritanical. It was plain that the ele- 
 ments were slowly but surely battering the iron 
 shell in which they huddled out of its shape, until 
 presently it would not be a boat at all but a hope- 
 less wreckage over which the waves would wash 
 clean and between whose decks no humans could 
 be alive. Death itself faced them and he pun- 
 ished his immortal soul by not permitting it to ask 
 for succor or to commend itself to Heaven. 
 All the day they sat cooped up in the vessel like
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY 325 
 
 rabbits in a warren. The dull dark day, the hot 
 stifling cabin, seemed to take from them the power 
 to think and to be rational beings. The wringing 
 of hands and weeping that had gone on at first, 
 would, under these conditions, soon have driven 
 every sane thought from the minds of them all, 
 had it not been that Mrs. Carver got them inter- 
 ested in the preparation and serving of the scanty 
 meals which they were able to cook on an oil stove 
 that had been rescued from the salt water. This 
 kept them occupied, and, to a certain extent, di- 
 verted. 
 
 Their greatest enemy -was thirst. The warp- 
 ing of the ship's hull had broken her water pipes 
 and filled the whole system with brine. A little 
 bit of spring water a carboy half full had been 
 rescued from the galley together with the food. 
 The steward had vouchsafed the most helpful in- 
 formation that there was more of it in the forward 
 hold, now completely submerged. A few adven- 
 turous spirits had earlier in the day made a trip, 
 which was in the nature of deep-sea diving, to the 
 ship's bar and brought back several dozen bottles. 
 Of these the captain promptly confiscated the in- 
 toxicants and left for distribution a number of 
 bottles of mineral water and ginger ale. These in 
 turn were confiscated by the steward, together
 
 326 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 with the bottle of spring water, and their contents 
 dealt out with mathematical exactness first in 
 the morning, again at noon, and later at six o'clock 
 in the evening a tablespoonful to each person 
 each time. 
 
 The torrid, breathless atmosphere of the cabin 
 induced unusual thirst and made this allowance 
 painfully inadequate. Men and women went 
 about with the perspiration streaming down their 
 faces as if they had been engaged in hard labor. 
 They tried to alleviate the situation by opening a 
 window, but this resulted in the entrance of not 
 very much air and quite too much water water 
 of which they could not taste a drop. Thirst in- 
 creased as the day wore on, and by nightfall they 
 spoke to each other in husky voices that resulted 
 from parched throats and dry lips. 
 
 They were a silent band patient with the 
 awed, powerless patience of a drove of sheep im- 
 mured in a slatted car and doomed by the red 
 stripe on their backs. In the corner of the cabin 
 sat motionless, hour after hour, a swarthy, black- 
 haired Greek, a heavily reinforced bag such as 
 bank-runners use clasped between his feet as in a 
 vise, his body performing the human functions of 
 breathing and of eating and drinking, when food 
 and drink were brought to him, but being other-
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY 327 
 
 wise as inanimate and almost as immovable as 
 the wooden pillar beside his chair. The bag was 
 full of coins, actual gold and silver coins, which 
 made a rich sound when the bag was moved the 
 proceeds from the sale of his business. They 
 represented the accumulation of a lifetime, and 
 one could see in his dull, stupid eyes that he felt 
 that his life and the money went together 
 whether to safety or into the sea. 
 
 A few feet from him, neither weeping when the 
 others wept, nor screaming when they screamed, 
 nor talking when they talked, sat the placid-faced 
 old lady he had spoken of the first night on the 
 boat, as being good because her sheltered life had 
 shown her no evil. But it was now proved that 
 the sheltered life had taught her a trusting cour- 
 age that was miraculous. It was childlike and 
 unthinking, but it was inspiring in that it was 
 evident that she had said, "I am in the hands of 
 the Lord" and believed it! William learned 
 more of the subtle nature of his relation to his 
 Maker from this unthinking yet certain old soul 
 than it had ever been given him before to know. 
 
 "That," he said, hoarsely, to Mrs. Carver, the 
 vibration of his voice rasping his parched throat, 
 "is the quality I have not yet understood. It 
 seems to be a realization of reciprocity with God."
 
 328 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 She nodded, but did not reply. 
 
 "She seems to feel that if she has been consid- 
 erate and kind to the people about her and 
 heaven knows she could not have been otherwise, 
 possessing that face God will be considerate and 
 kind to her." 
 
 "That is copy-book morality," she said, smiling. 
 
 "That may be what I need," he replied. 
 
 About six o'clock, after the tablespoonful of 
 water had driven him to a fury of thirst, William, 
 seized with a certain idea, took with him a coast 
 guard man and plunged out into the storm. The 
 other had only a vague notion of what was to hap- 
 pen, but followed anyway. The hills of lead- 
 gray water, from some inexhaustible source, still 
 rolled in upon them with unceasing regularity. 
 The wind drove welcome cold rain into their faces. 
 They grasped nearby stanchions to let the first 
 huge wave go by. As the crest passed they stood 
 to their knees in the broad Atlantic with nothing 
 but sea before and to each side of them for miles 
 and a few yards high of deckhouse behind them. 
 Part of the wave broke high over the cabins, wet- 
 ting the red top of the ship's funnel, coming awash 
 like a river down the length of the cabin roof and 
 then pouring in smooth sheets over its edge. 
 
 As soon as all these manifestations were over
 
 COPY-BOOK MORALITY 329 
 
 and before the next oncoming bank of water 
 struck, they sprang to the warped and twisted iron 
 ladder and clambered to the hurricane deck above. 
 And there upon a vertical iron surface, sheltered 
 from the salt waves, upon which the driving rain 
 beat and ran down, they drank their fill of fresh 
 water, licking it like kittens from the surface. 
 And never had a drink been so grateful. 
 
 Thus refreshed, they stood in the rain and the 
 flying spray, bracing themselves against the solid 
 onslaught of the wind contented. As they 
 looked at the dim, low-lying shore, with a sugges- 
 tion of a wide inlet to southward beyond a needle 
 of land, something strangely familiar about the 
 place impressed itself upon him. For the first 
 time, amid the confusion of their condition, he 
 asked the name of the shore. 
 
 "Bound Beach," replied the surfman, unexpect- 
 edly. 
 
 Bound Beach! What curious trick of Provi- 
 dence it was to place him here near that shore 
 where he had first seen the woman he loved 
 where his life seemed to have begun, and in sight 
 of which it might now end.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 DECISION 
 
 Ashore the newspapers were black with head- 
 lines announcing the plight of the Erocadillo. 
 It was seized upon as a topic of nation-wide im- 
 portance not that it concerned the wide nation; 
 but that the nation insisted upon all cases of mur- 
 der and sudden death being brought to its atten- 
 tion, with all the minor details. The populace at 
 large is shocked and grieved at the news of disaster 
 and their hearts are filled with grief and sympa- 
 thy; but the harboring of these large and higher 
 emotions gives a feeling of uplift and satisfaction. 
 They sit aghast at the mention of horrors, but the 
 horrors have a fascination for them that makes 
 them eager for more news of them. 
 
 The newspapers, therefore, saw to it that the 
 public was supplied with the necessary facts and 
 the usual word-painting to enable them to visual- 
 ize the scene. The morning papers on the day 
 after the running aground were the first to make 
 mention of the event. A boy left one of these at 
 
 330
 
 DECISION 331 
 
 the office of William Spade, not suspecting that 
 the important announcement therein contained 
 had no power to surprise him even if it could have 
 been put in his hands. 
 
 But it had power to surprise the girl who sat at 
 the desk in William Spade's office. She glanced 
 at it indifferently from a distance as it lay upon 
 the table, and forgot about it. Her mind was 
 untranquil and disturbed and her interest in the 
 usual routine of life was dulled. For the past 
 few days she had merely been going through the 
 motions of living, without taking an interest in 
 the process. One newspaper more or less meant 
 no more than one breath more or less. 
 
 But the newspaper lay there. And as it lay it 
 seemed to take on an air of quiet persistence, as 
 though it would have said, "I have the message. 
 I propose to wait until I have an opportunity to 
 deliver it." 
 
 Such determination could not but be successful. 
 The girl rose presently, as if under the hypnotic 
 influence of the inanimate sheet, and, going to the 
 table, spread the paper out flat upon it. She read 
 several things before she saw the account of the 
 shipwreck, and she read several paragraphs of that 
 before she realized that it contained anything of 
 importance for her.
 
 332 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 In the middle of a sentence she became aware 
 suddenly that she was reading her own history. 
 Or, at least, when she felt that first tight clutch 
 at her heart, it seemed as though it concerned her 
 more than it concerned anyone else even those 
 aboard the foundering ship. 
 
 That was her first thought. Her second was 
 that it was of no importance to her. This was 
 not really a thought it was a speech. She said 
 it several times to herself, and it was altogether 
 logical and reasonable. She seemed to feel that it 
 was reason enough for her to go on and, dispas- 
 sionately, read the rest of the column of type be- 
 fore her. And yet she did not read it dispassion- 
 ately. She read it in blocks, a paragraph at a 
 time, as if attempting to get all the facts there 
 expressed with one sweep of her eye down the 
 page. 
 
 At the end of the column in the list of pas- 
 sengers, she read "William Spade, Washington, 
 D. C." Her eye remained fixed upon the line 
 until the name became not a name at all, but a 
 mere curious arrangement of letters, and her mind 
 had wandered afar off from the printed page. 
 
 It seemed after long consideration that that 
 name was the symbol to her for happiness. She 
 rebelled and had been rebelling now for many a
 
 DECISION 333 
 
 long hour against admitting that her life had 
 entwined itself around his, like the tendrils of a 
 rose about a sturdy trellis, and, having been en- 
 twined, could never, except by tearing the vine, 
 be disengaged. But to rebel was merely futile, 
 and the proof of the fact was the physical pain she 
 suffered as she attempted to disengage and for- 
 ever separate the life of Ruth Dunbar from the 
 life of William Spade. 
 
 < Sometimes she encouraged herself to think that 
 this joining together of their souls, being wholly 
 involuntary as far as she was concerned, must 
 have been arranged and provided for by Provi- 
 dence. Eagerly she strove to believe that loving 
 the man must have been the result of an act of 
 God; only to have her conscience drive the com- 
 forting thought from her and convince her that 
 loving him was merely a temptation to try her 
 soul. And she strove to prove that her soul was 
 strong. 
 
 Bravely, therefore, she urged herself to the in- 
 human and preposterous attitude of indifference 
 to the danger of the man who was the whole 
 world to her. Indifference was the most unthink- 
 able thing to her fevered mind and the simulating 
 of it exquisite cruelty. It was therefore a pa- 
 thetically humorous comedy that she enacted for
 
 334 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 her own benefit. With a studied and unnatural 
 air of calm, she went about her routine business, 
 laboriously and painstakingly endeavoring to de- 
 ceive herself only. Her wrought-up mind did 
 not see the drollery of this performance of leger- 
 demain in which the audience was fully cognizant 
 of all the subterfuges employed, and yet the pres- 
 tidigitator, unsuccessful, still continued to per- 
 form. Until at length, she hurried home, hoping 
 that the companionship of her family would make 
 her attempt at calmness of mind more successful 
 and convincing to herself. 
 
 She thought at first that in the cool quiet of the 
 partly darkened house she would find the calm she 
 wanted. But not for long. The world seemed 
 to be vibrating with the news of the occurrence 
 that was troubling her spirit. Her young brother 
 returned home from the bank where he was em- 
 ployed, bubbling over with conversation concern- 
 ing it. He dropped a kiss upon his mother's 
 brow and an extra edition of the evening paper 
 into her lap with one motion. 
 
 "Big wrec up on the Jersey coast," he said, as 
 one whose breadth of mind calls upon him to take 
 an interest in all current events. "Bottom flew 
 up and hit a coastwise steamer. Been there
 
 DECISION 335 
 
 twenty-four hours already and storm is increasing. 
 On account of the high sea, the coast guard have 
 forbidden anyone to put out to the rescue. Fine 
 way to treat fellow human beings, what?" 
 
 He disappeared into his room for a moment to 
 drape his uncreased coat upon its appointed 
 hanger, and, returning, exuded, with a certain 
 youthful nonchalance, righteous indignation. 
 
 "If I were down there in sight of the ship, do 
 you suppose any coast guard could prevent me 
 from at least attempting to go out to her*? Do 
 you suppose I could stand by and see fellow hu- 
 man beings" the phrase pleased him "go down 
 to death before my very eyes?" 
 
 Ruth's breath came and went rapidly as this 
 discussion proceeded. She bowed her head so 
 that they might not know how eagerly she was 
 following it. 
 
 "Foolhardiness is not bravery," Mrs. Dunbar 
 asserted mildly, picking the flaw in her son's ex- 
 cited reasoning. 
 
 "Neither is smug cautiousness. Read the mes- 
 sage they sent the ship. 'The country prays for 
 you.' In case of emergency people nowadays," 
 with the air of a man who had lived down through 
 the ages, "offer a prayer or contribute fifty cents
 
 336 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 and feel their responsibility ends. I'll bet old 
 man Starkwether will go out to them if he can 
 get anyone to go with him." 
 
 Ruth's hands gripped the arms of her chair and 
 she looked up at her brother with a strange light in 
 her eyes almost of one who has seen a vision. 
 
 "Oh," exclaimed the boy, suddenly, wholly as 
 an afterthought, "there is a William Spade, of 
 Washington, among the passengers. That 
 couldn't be your William Spade, could it*?" 
 
 She did not move her eyes from his. "Yes," 
 she replied, steadily. "That is my William 
 Spade." 
 
 Her mother was looking at her strangely. The 
 labored steadiness did not deceive her. Pity and 
 concern and a new understanding came to her 
 mind. But if tears were in her mother's heart, 
 she kept them from her eyes, and if words hurried 
 to her tongue she did not speak them. 
 
 Long hours that night she lay awake listening 
 to the signs that spoke of wakefulness in her 
 daughter's adjacent room. She wished to go to 
 her and comfort her, as was her right, but the 
 sanctity of the secret she had discovered loomed 
 higher than even the ever-present instinct of moth- 
 erly protection. At midnight, as the cacophonous 
 voices of the newsboys calling extra papers dis-
 
 DECISION 
 
 337 
 
 turbed the quiet of the street, she heard Ruth rise 
 hastily from her bed. 
 
 But even she could not picture fully the chill of 
 fear that seized the girl, as drawing on her kimono, 
 she stole barefooted and silent to the front door of 
 the house, eager yet overwhelmingly afraid, to 
 hear the news that might be there for sale. But it 
 was relief that shone in her eyes as she saw at once 
 by the heavy type that it was not of the end of the 
 ship that the paper had to tell. She stood anx- 
 iously upon the steps, reading by the light from 
 the street lamp. 
 
 The purpose of the paper was to announce that 
 the wrecking craft which had been trying to pull 
 the Brocadillo off the bar had returned to port 
 with the information that the steamer was in a 
 critical position. It was rather a footless and in- 
 consequential announcement, disseminating infor- 
 mation in another form that was already known. 
 But the report, discouraging as it was upon the 
 face of it, was almost good news for the fact 
 that it had not been the announcement of disaster 
 was a reprieve a stimulus for hope. 
 
 More hours she lay sleepless upon her bed. 
 This enforced communion with herself shattered 
 beyond repair the carefully builded fiction that she 
 was no longer held to him by any bond. On the
 
 338 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 contrary she was eager now, when it appeared 
 inevitable that she would not see him again, to 
 believe that a bond did hold her to him. If he 
 should go down into the sea and be forever lost to 
 her, she would want to believe that she had be- 
 longed to him. 
 
 She was sorry that she had not allowed him to 
 hold her in his arms, to say and know that she 
 was his. She had a feeling that if they could 
 have both believed that she loved him it would 
 have made the bond between them that did not 
 now exist. And, morbid and tiny satisfaction 
 that this would have been, it was a source of bit- 
 terness to know that it was denied her. 
 
 In the morning she went to her office as usual 
 a little worn and tired from the night of disputa- 
 tion with her soul, but more disturbed by fears of 
 the future than by present weariness. The im- 
 personal jealousy she stirred up in her breast by 
 the thought that he had no claim upon her and 
 that she was no more his than any one of all the 
 other women in the world was punishment to her. 
 
 She made a pretense of working but she was 
 restless. It was impossible for her to sit still long 
 in her chair, or to concentrate her mind. She 
 found herself reading a whole letter through with- 
 out knowing at all what it was about. At last she
 
 DECISION 339 
 
 gathered her work into a thick sheaf and, putting 
 it all in a basket ironically marked "Immediate 
 attention," rose and walked irresolutely across 
 the room. On a small table in the corner of the 
 room lay the office atlas. Moved by a sudden im- 
 pulse, she bent over the volume and looked up, 
 among its intricate maze of names and symbols, 
 the location of Bound Beach. In tiny type, there 
 it was, its position represented by a dot so small 
 that the delineator in making it could scarcely 
 have allowed his pen to more than touch the 
 paper. She scaled the distance to the place by 
 laying her pencil on the map, marking the distance 
 on it with her finger and comparing it with the 
 scale of miles. Two hundred miles it was. 
 
 Two hundred miles ! Aside from all the other 
 things that separated her from him, headed by the 
 formidable fact that she could not lay claim to 
 have been affianced to him, was added now two 
 hundred miles. Although he was surrounded by 
 the storming sea, whose great forces were striving 
 to separate him from her by eternity itself, she 
 was making no use of the opportunity to come 
 nearer to him, while there was yet time, than two 
 hundred miles. 
 
 The words rang in her ears. The clock on the 
 wall ticked them off until, listening to it, she was
 
 340 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 like one in a delirium. The words were a re- 
 proach to her and the clock his clock seemed 
 forever reiterating them to her with that intent. 
 It seemed to accuse her of disloyalty in remaining 
 far away from him while it ticked away the pre- 
 cious remaining minutes of his life. 
 
 With no definite plan she put on her hat and 
 took her bag from the table. Incredulous of her 
 own half -formed intention, she counted the money 
 in the pocket-book and, sitting down at the desk, 
 hastily wrote a check for considerably more. She 
 picked up the telephone and held it in her hand 
 for a thoughtful moment. Then, calling her 
 mother, she explained that she might be compelled 
 to leave the city that afternoon and might not re- 
 turn until the next day. As she had been forced 
 to do this several times before, it was a satisfac- 
 tory explanation to offer. 
 
 Upon the street a strong wind was blowing and 
 it was beginning to rain. She hurried to her bank 
 and then, with no hesitation but with a curious 
 interest as to how far the impetus of her idea 
 would carry her, she boarded a car for the rail- 
 road station. Nearing the station the impetus of 
 the idea seemed to grow stronger rather than 
 weaker. In fact, she had come to the very firm 
 conclusion that if she showed even a fruitless loy-
 
 DECISION 341 
 
 alty by going to him in the crisis it would be a 
 comforting thing to think of afterwards. And if 
 he were saved she could escape without his 
 knowing what she had done. 
 
 There was a train at half-past twelve that she 
 must take. And when it pulled out of the station 
 she was upon it. 
 
 At half-past nine that night Ezra Starkwether 
 opened his door to the storm. He had seen the 
 wavering lantern held by someone slowly ap- 
 proaching who breasted the gale with difficulty. 
 When he saw by its uncertain light that beside the 
 man who carried it walked a woman, he took his 
 gray head, uncovered, out into the night to meet 
 them. 
 
 Unperturbed, unsurprised, unquestioning, he 
 greeted the storm-chilled girl and led her in to the 
 homely comfort of the kitchen stove, where he 
 forced her to kick off her soaked shoes, which 
 gurgled when she walked, and thrust her feet into 
 the oven. Her other clothes had been more or 
 less protected by a yellow sou'-wester provided by 
 the man Peter who had escorted her the last part 
 of the journey. Peter, curious yet anxious to be 
 of assistance, sat in a tilted-back chair, which he 
 brought down upon all fours with alacrity when 
 there was any mention of anything to be fetched
 
 342 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 or carried. Otherwise he sat quietly and stared 
 ahead with unspeculative eyes. Old man Stark- 
 wether stood by the stove thoughtfully opening 
 and shutting the blade of his clasp-knife. 
 
 "Well," he said, at length, casually, "what 
 brings you down here in this driving storm*?" 
 
 "The steamer out here," she replied. 
 
 He knitted his bushy brows. "Someone aboard 
 you know*?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Relatives?" 
 
 "No." She swallowed something that rose in 
 her throat. "A friend." 
 
 He nodded his head several times understand- 
 ingly. "One of the young men that was here 
 with you this summer*?" he asked, going to the 
 heart of the matter. 
 
 "The first one," she answered, faintly. 
 
 There was a silence in the room save for the 
 simmering of the kettle on the stove. 
 
 "The steamer's in a bad way," said Peter, in a 
 deep, toneless voice, like someone reciting a piece. 
 
 Neither one answered him nor commented upon 
 his statement. Starkwether closed his knife and 
 thrust it into his pocket. 
 
 "Peter and I were thinking," he said, "of going 
 out there in the yawl after them. I cal'late we
 
 DECISION 343 
 
 understand the humors of the seas hereabouts 
 better than most." 
 
 He gazed meditatively at the stove. The girl 
 said nothing, but hot excitement gripped at her 
 heart. She waited, wondering if there was more 
 to be said. 
 
 "However," the old man continued, "it would 
 take three to man the boat in this weather, and 
 no one else seems inclined to go." 
 
 She drew her feet from the oven and stood up 
 excitedly, overturning the chair behind her. 
 
 "Why," she exclaimed, trying to be calm, but 
 her eyes flashing fire, "I can go." 
 
 The old man eyed her wonderingly. "You 1 ?" 
 
 "Why not?' 
 
 "You're sailor enough." He hesitated. "But 
 there is danger." 
 
 "That wouldn't prevent you from going, 
 would it?" 
 
 "Yes, but we are old and useless. You are 
 young, with all your life before you." 
 
 She put both her hands upon his rough cloth 
 shoulders. "All my life," she cried, unsteadily, 
 "is behind me if the boat out there goes down." 
 
 He touched her upon the arm in a rough em- 
 barrassed way, and, as she turned away from them 
 to hide her eyes that were wet now with a storm
 
 344 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 that was not rain, he moved over to the stove to 
 set back the boiling coffee pot. 
 
 "Well," he said, at length, looking at no one, 
 "we can't go out now before dawn."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE YAWL 
 
 As the first gray of dawn brought life to the 
 dead hulk of the night and the world arranged 
 itself faintly into land and sky and sea, a phantom 
 yawl a mere smudge upon the blurred morn, ran 
 up silent sails, muffled by the whistling gale, and 
 worked its way, invisible from the shore, out from 
 the heaving inlet to the tumult of the tossing sea 
 beyond. 
 
 Behind the steersman of this phantom craft, a 
 tiny sail, double-reefed, struggled against the gale, 
 and forward another held it on its course. Mere 
 postage stamps of sail they were, but they heeled 
 over the snub-nosed, broad-beamed boat until 
 she dug her scuppers into the waves and, with 
 her blunt bow, shovelled up bulks of solid sea 
 that broke and ran awash over her deck. 
 
 The gray-bearded steersman felt, rather than 
 saw, his course across the dusky water. He could 
 scarcely see the spray that leaped up at the bow, 
 and in the tumult of the storm he was almost as a 
 
 345
 
 34-6 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 deaf man. He could not hear the rattle of the 
 stay-sail when he held his craft too close into the 
 wind, and the resulting stentorian "Shakin' for- 
 rad" of the man in the bow came back to him as 
 a whisper. 
 
 After each long struggling tack against the gale 
 his bellowing voice would roar against the storm. 
 A tiny echo, it reached the ears of the tall man 
 and his slender companion forward. As the bow 
 came up into the wind they would let go the sheet 
 of the stay-sail and, grappling with the furious 
 thing, which writhed and struggled like a wild 
 animal, make it fast upon the other side just 
 before the gale, filling it out, drew it taut with a 
 fury that strove to pull the cleat from the deck. 
 
 It was an hour before the light was strong 
 enough to make visible from the shore the little 
 craft rising upon the breast of each moving wall 
 of water and disappearing from sight in the depths 
 beyond. When eager marine glasses striving to 
 pick the stranded steamer out of the distant gray, 
 saw before them this determined creature strug- 
 gling manfully against the sea, the first feeling of 
 the onlookers was of amazement and wonder 
 and then of pity. To them it seemed only to 
 mean that here were a few more lives sacrificed 
 to the greed of the storm.
 
 THE YAWL 347 
 
 The news spread. For two hours the gathering 
 crowd watched the contest between the sea and the 
 small thing that looked like a child's toy boat. 
 People gathered from the beaches to north and 
 south and stood in patient, excited groups on the 
 shore. It had been many a day since Bound 
 Beach had harbored such a throng. The yawl 
 tacked and came about and tacked and came about 
 with monotonous regularity, seeming merely to be 
 sliding from right to left and from left to right on 
 a line parallel with the shore, without apparently 
 gaining an inch to seaward. 
 
 Yet actually it did gain, creeping steadily to- 
 ward the black hull which, lying far down by 
 the stern and keeled over, was a mere shapeless 
 mass, not like a ship at all, from which a mast and 
 a red-banded stack pointed dizzily shorewards. 
 
 To the crew upon the yawl, it was immeasur- 
 ably far away. They caught glimpses of it peri- 
 odically beyond the unending ranks of waves, each 
 of which as it came they laboriously ascended and, 
 coming down upon the other side, seemed never 
 nearer than before. The goal was always the 
 same distance from them, as though the storm 
 were solid substance that formed a wall against 
 them. 
 
 A skipper less seasoned to the humors and tac-
 
 348 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 tics of the sea and the wind on that particular 
 shore against which he had battled for nearly 
 half a century would have stood no chance. 
 Starkwether did not permit himself to be dis- 
 turbed by the storm's blind strength, but feeling 
 at length the wind upon his cheek almost imper- 
 ceptibly slacken if slacken could be used to de- 
 scribe the slight diminution in intensity of a gale 
 that was still three-fourths hurricane he seized 
 the opportunity to meet disaster half way and take 
 the offensive into his own hands. He called for 
 the raising of the three-reefed mainsail. 
 
 He brought the third member of the crew, who, 
 dripping with spray and encased in boots and yel- 
 low skins, gave no sign of her sex, to hold the 
 writhing wheel, which, borrowing power from the 
 sea, bucked and struggled like a live thing. The 
 two men then fell to the halyards. Ashore it 
 seemed like suicide when the dirty white canvas 
 rose from the deck. Aboard the wrecked steamer 
 it spelled hope. The yawl reeled under her in- 
 creased sail, but resisted the wind sturdily; and 
 from the spurting foam at her forefoot it could be 
 seen that she was taking the upper hand. For the 
 first time she seemed to be actually moving 
 through the water. 
 
 Aboard the slowly settling steamer, hope rose
 
 THE YAWL 349 
 
 in the breasts of the imprisoned passengers. In 
 the hours since daybreak they had watched the 
 sailboat coming toward them doubtfully, in- 
 credulously, not daring to believe that the tiny 
 craft could reach them. But they were grasping 
 at straws, and this rescuer was their only hope. 
 
 When at length it came so close that the mem- 
 bers of the crew were clearly visible, the hope be- 
 came a precious and sturdy bulwark to which they 
 clung with raised spirits. They made their indi- 
 vidual and characteristic preparations to leave. 
 They put on the clothes they most wanted to save, 
 for the word had been passed around that for obvi- 
 ous reasons it would be impossible for anyone to 
 carry even the smallest parcel or piece of luggage. 
 It was ludicrous to see men, having for many hours 
 faced death, gravely putting on coats and trousers 
 over those already in place, and sitting double- 
 clad in the stifling heat, hoping, with their lives, 
 to save also an extra suit of clothes. 
 
 Here stood a young girl stolidly waiting a 
 much-prized evening gown, low in the neck and 
 short as to sleeves, drawn hastily on over her dark 
 suit and buttoned incompletely arear. Rotund 
 ladies glittered with rows of breast pins, covering 
 available surface like distinguished orders, and 
 were puffed out more rotund than ever with pre-
 
 350 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 cious articles stowed beneath their outer clothes. 
 
 The purser and assistants went about among the 
 passengers collecting baggage and things of value 
 to be stored in the safest place upon the ship, so 
 that in event of its weathering the storm, these 
 could be salvaged and returned to their respective 
 owners. Receipts were carefully given and the 
 businesslike proceeding put heart into them all. 
 
 But one poor, pathetic little man took no heart 
 at this proceeding. For forty-eight hours he had 
 sat with his leather bag between his feet, scarcely 
 even moving, and when he did move, he took it 
 jealously with him. The black-haired Greek 
 watched the purser sullenly, fearfully, as he came 
 on his round, gathering precious luggage and send- 
 ing it away. Like an animal at bay, his eyes 
 blazed in desperation. His whole body grew 
 tense as the enemy approached. 
 
 The enemy stood before him. In the little 
 man seated shyly there, this enemy saw no signs 
 of pent-up emotion and reached forward cas- 
 ually for the precious burden. Quick fire shot 
 from the black eyes, and, as one whose child is to 
 be torn from him, the Greek rose to his feet and 
 miraculously held glittering steel in his hand. It 
 took several men to overpower him and wrest 
 away his avenging knife. His treasure was taken
 
 THE YAWL 351 
 
 from him, and he, who had stood the terrors of the 
 storm undisturbed, sank dejected into his chair, 
 all hope gone. 
 
 William Spade stood upon the sloping deck 
 looking shorewards. There were no horizontal 
 nor vertical surfaces now upon the steamer. One 
 had to invent his own method of passing from spot 
 to spot upon the inclined surfaces and of main- 
 taining his footing in the spot where he happened 
 to be. The passengers were not allowed upon 
 deck, but, since William had been rendering serv- 
 ice with the crew upon every available occasion, 
 it was impossible to bar him now from any place 
 because of its danger. 
 
 It was an absorbing struggle that he watched. 
 The members of the crew beside him pointed out 
 the small bits of skillful and daring seamanship 
 exhibited by the skipper of the yawl. Almost 
 forgetting that he was a person interested in the 
 success of the craft, he shouted enthusiasm with 
 the approving air of a person who watched a con- 
 test merely as a spectator. 
 
 They saw the yawl, cuffed and buffetted by the 
 waves and bent over by the wind, doggedly and 
 with a vicious determination, splitting the water 
 and moving almost counter to the gale. It moved 
 with an appearance of swaggering contempt for
 
 352 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 the storm that was heroic. For those on board 
 the steamer it changed hope to enthusiasm and 
 enthusiasm to frantic joy. 
 
 At eleven o'clock, triumphant in its breasting of 
 the storm, it stood abreast of the steamer's bow, 
 a quarter of a mile away. It soon became appar- 
 ent that no small boat could make the journey to 
 bring a line from it to the Erocadillo. The only 
 hope was that the yawl would be able to cast a 
 line to the steamer and then drop safely to lee- 
 ward and anchor. 
 
 To do this, the sailboat would have to come 
 dangerously close to the steamer. It would re- 
 quire a delicate piece of steering to bring the craft 
 close enough to cast the line, yet far enough away 
 not to be drawn down by the suction of the water 
 rushing back to fill the void made shore wards of 
 the steamer by the pull of the passing wave. But 
 the skipper of the yawl evidently felt that he 
 could do it, for after jockeying around out to sea- 
 ward for some time, he at last got into position 
 and ran down almost before the wind toward the 
 Brocadillo's bow. 
 
 So close was his course laid that to those watch- 
 ing it seemed as if he would strike her head on. 
 A tall man stood in the bow holding a line. 
 Tense excitement gripped them all. The little
 
 THE YAWL 353 
 
 boat, missing the great one by many yards, seemed 
 still to be desperately close. Gauging the dis- 
 tance, fifty minds tried to decide whether the 
 throw could be made. But as the yawl came 
 abreast of the steel bow, the hull blanketed her, 
 and, cut off from the wind, she slipped swiftly 
 away. The man threw, and the line fell into the 
 sea. 
 
 A groan of angry disappointment rose from the 
 ship deck. But the sailboat, which seemed to 
 have taken on a human personality, came about 
 briskly and, undismayed, prepared to repeat the 
 operation. After perhaps half an hour, she came 
 down again before the wind. This time the man 
 threw before the boat lost its headway. But just 
 at that point the sea, rushing by the Brocadillo's 
 bow, developed a choppy roughness that was im- 
 possible to gauge. The man was unbalanced 
 when he threw and the line sprawled, a long thin 
 snake, upon the waves. 
 
 With a calm thoroughness they tried a third 
 time and a fourth time, maneuvering for a better 
 position, but not seeming to find it. A fifth time 
 they bore down upon the steamer. The little boat 
 did not come straight on before the wind, but, 
 tacking up from shorewards, sought out a position 
 just beyond the bow and carefully timing the
 
 354 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 waves, cut in just behind the crest of one and 
 rushed by the steamer's nose so close that it seemed 
 a miracle that she did not strike. The helmsman 
 shouted. The man at the bow drew back his arm 
 to cast, but instead, measured his length upon the 
 deck. 
 
 The sea, curving round the bows like a mill 
 race, had swirled in to fill the void left by the on- 
 rushing wave. The flood of water caught the 
 stern of the yawl and whirled it round as if it had 
 been upon a pivot. The boat lay there wallowing 
 in the sea, its sails shaking helplessly, its helm 
 powerless to guide it. For a full half minute she 
 lay there. Two lines shot out from the steamer, 
 but the sloping deck gave poor footing and 
 strangely destroyed one's sense of the horizontal, 
 so that neither line reached its goal. 
 
 Then a great wave rolled over the steamer and 
 seemed literally to drop into the yawl. No one 
 aboard the Brocadillo expected ever to see her 
 mast-side-up again. But when the spray had 
 cleared, there she lay some thirty or forty yards 
 further distant, her mast still pointing skywards, 
 riding the waves bow on, with a certain appear- 
 ance of calm and unruffled confidence. 
 
 Her sails filled and, making steerageway, she 
 put off again to windward. It could be seen that
 
 THE YAWL 355 
 
 she had shipped much water and could not make 
 many more such trials. The passengers of the 
 steamer, filled with apprehension lest the little 
 boat should give up the contest, cheered lustily. 
 
 But, despite this gloom fell upon those that 
 thronged the tilting deck. The little craft, after 
 her dangerous experiment of running in close, 
 would be forced to more cautious tactics. Chance 
 alone had saved her from capsizing as she lay 
 helpless under the steamer's lee, and such a risk 
 could not be taken again. 
 
 William Spade gazed contemplatively at the 
 men on the deck and at the anxious faces peering 
 from the cabin windows. Fifty souls there were 
 depending upon the throw of a line. His habit 
 of almost subconsciously figuring out probabilities 
 and chance at the crises of his life made him feel 
 that the line would not be successfully thrown. 
 
 It was the time for a decisive action. Someone 
 aboard the Brocadillo must help. What was risk- 
 ing one's life now when they were all risking their 
 lives'? If he could do something to help his fel- 
 low men, it might give him a claim upon God. 
 He felt the urgent need of establishing now a 
 reciprocal relation such as the placid-faced woman 
 in the cabin seemed to enjoy, with his Maker. 
 
 His mind was made up. With a furious en-
 
 356 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 thusiasm he cast off boots and slicker and sou'- 
 wester. It would have dumbfounded his com- 
 panions could they have seen him as, shielded be- 
 hind the corner of the cabin, he stripped down to 
 his underclothes and made fast a line about his 
 waist. The other end of the line he fastened se- 
 curely to a cleat on the deck. All this he did 
 secretly, lest someone in authority should forbid 
 him to carry out his plan. 
 
 His heart beat high with excitement and, 
 strangely enough, the one thought that came into 
 his mind, now that he was ready for action, was a 
 feeling of embarrassment at having to step out on 
 the deck presently where all the strange motley of 
 women behind the cabin windows would see him 
 undressed. 
 
 The yawl, now dead before the Brocadillo's 
 bows, a quarter of a mile distant, came about, 
 and presently ran before the wind toward them. 
 If all other hearts upon the steamer now beat fast 
 with a painful anxiety, William's stood still. He 
 went to the rail, but no one saw him for every 
 eye was glued upon the oncoming boat. It seemed 
 hours that it took to cover the short distance. He 
 had never before known such burning excitement 
 as gripped him as he waited. He was willing to 
 act, but uncertain of his ability to succeed.
 
 THE YAWL 357 
 
 The little craft came by the Brocadillo's bow, as 
 upon her first trip, giving it ample room, yet sail- 
 ing as close as the skipper dared. The tall man, 
 now lashed to the shrouds, stood with the coiled 
 line in his hand. The smaller figure was in the 
 very bow watching the water. All these details 
 he saw. They remained pictured on his mind. 
 
 The man in the bow suddenly shouted some- 
 thing and the one with the line drew back his 
 arm. 
 
 Spade leaped upon the tafFrail. The rope rose 
 in a fine parabola, shot toward the steamer, and 
 losing its momentum, amid a groan of disappoint- 
 ment, fell into the sea. 
 
 A second later, William Spade was in the water 
 beside it.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE LIFE LINE 
 
 It is a strange thing that heroic acts are judged 
 and rated, not so much by the bravery and daring 
 required for their performance as by the surprise 
 they cause in the minds of the onlookers. The 
 long lines of soldiers who stand for hours as pa- 
 tient targets for the enemy's fire, are not heroes, 
 except in a broad, general sense, for they are doing 
 what is expected of them ; but if one of their num- 
 ber rushes out into the open to perform some use- 
 ful deed, exposing himself spectacularly to the fire 
 he has been exposed to unnoticed all alone, the 
 shock of it brings him to notice. 
 
 Had the psychology of this occurred to Spade 
 before hand, he could not have set the stage better 
 for his feat. When the line cast from the yawl 
 fell short and, with it, dropped every shred of 
 reasonable hope, his white body, leaping from no 
 one knew where, almost as miraculously as an 
 angel from Heaven, had electrified them all. And 
 when they saw at length that it was not an appari- 
 
 358
 
 THE LIFE LINE 359 
 
 tion but a flesh and blood man, grasping in his 
 hand the rope from the yawl and bound around 
 his waist by another from the steamer, they gave 
 themselves up to a frenzy of enthusiasm. 
 
 Aboard the sailboat, the tired crew saw it with 
 hardly less excitement. And to one member of 
 it, it meant more than excitement. The girl who 
 stood at the mast-foot, salt water dripping from 
 every corner of her water-proof masculine armor, 
 was lifted bodily out of her weariness as she saw 
 the man shoot overside into the ocean. But still 
 more excitation of feeling was due her. As, in- 
 voluntarily, she rushed to the gunwale to see 
 whether he had caught the rope, the swimmer, 
 striking out with a strong stroke, raised his head 
 for an instant from the sea and gave her a full 
 view of his face ! 
 
 For a moment it seemed as though she did not 
 breathe as though all her physical functions 
 paused save the power to gaze fascinated at the 
 man in the water : and know that it was William 
 Spade. Then the blood, released, rushed hot 
 through her chilled body. Her breath came 
 quickly. Forgetful of everything about her she 
 shouted aloud to him, but scarcely heard the whis- 
 per of her voice against the wind. 
 
 It was a moment of exaltation. Every nerve
 
 360 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 in her body was galvanized into life, as if she 
 would, by the force of her very will-power, lend 
 assistance to him. It was as if a part of her were 
 performing the feat she witnessed. But it was a 
 hundred times more glorious and comforting to 
 know that the heroism was his. It raised him up 
 actually to the place where she had put him, so 
 that now the image of him she had unwillingly, 
 yet uncontrollably, looked up to was replaced and 
 deposed by the actual and living man. 
 
 Then, as a wave passed on, churning man and 
 ropes about on its chaotic breast, leaving for a 
 moment quiet water beneath the lee of the 
 steamer, two score of hands drew upon the rope 
 about his waist; and, just before the next wave 
 struck, she saw him clamber over the rail, the 
 precious line to the yawl clasped tightly in his 
 hand. 
 
 The next few hours were dim and indistinct 
 filled with the steady, unexciting clinching of the 
 advantage they had gained stirring hours, but to 
 the tired girl who had touched the zenith of excite- 
 ment, anticlimactic and powerless to thrill. 
 
 While they were still struggling to get the line 
 aboard the Brocadillo, there had been coming 
 steadily toward them in the now calmer sea, unno- 
 ticed, three surf-boats, slowly propelled by many
 
 THE LIFE LINE 361 
 
 sturdy oars. These, presently arriving upon the 
 scene, were of inestimable value. What the situ- 
 ation needed now was brawn, fresh energy and 
 expertness. Here it was. 
 
 When, by means of the light line running to the 
 steamer, a heavier one had been drawn aboard and 
 made fast and had again been made fast to the 
 sailboat now anchored, bow and stern, to leeward, 
 they had a sturdy connection between the two. 
 With the aid of the small dory the yawl carried, 
 they endeavored to improvise a rope-ferry. The 
 dory, however, was too small and it was not until 
 one of the surfboats was substituted for it that 
 the arrangement appeared safe. 
 
 A trip between the two boats was successfully 
 made and then eleven others. The surfmen 
 held bags of oil upon the waves to calm them and, 
 as the transfer of passengers at each end was made, 
 poured bucketsful of oil upon the water, so that 
 no mishap occurred. 
 
 It was not necessary for Ruth to engage in any 
 part of this work. There was plenty of hardened 
 muscle available now. She gave her time there- 
 fore to trying to make the rescued women com- 
 fortable in the crowded cabin of the yawl. She 
 did not even see the work of rescue. When all 
 the women were aboard, the cabin was full to suf-
 
 362 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 focation; and the overflow lined the deck, tied like 
 convicts to a rope running from mast to helm. It 
 was decided, with reason, that the craft was full. 
 The others, therefore, with the exception of the 
 captain and the chief engineer, who elected to 
 stay aboard the steamer, were accommodated in 
 the surfboats. 
 
 It was a long, tedious journey shorewards. 
 But, as they neared the mouth of the inlet, the sun 
 burst through the clouds for a few moments and 
 threw a rainbow over the sky before them. The 
 thousand people gathered upon the shore burst 
 into a cheer real music to everyone aboard the 
 incoming boats. 
 
 A great press of people, half hysterical with en- 
 thusiasm, gathered about them as they landed 
 upon the shore. The news soon spread that one 
 of the rescuers was a woman. To her horror, 
 therefore, when Ruth came ashore she found her- 
 self surrounded by a wild, cheering crowd of 
 maniacs, who, deprived temporarily of all their 
 mental faculties, shook hands with her, embraced 
 her (regardless of sex), cut souvenir pieces from 
 her rubber coat and were only prevented from 
 kissing her by the surging of the crowd, which 
 destroyed their aim. 
 
 She was at length entirely surrounded by news-
 
 THE LIFE LINE 363 
 
 paper men. These, regarding her as their own 
 personal property, impatiently shouldered aside 
 the ordinary public, who, to their minds, were not 
 supposed to come in contact with real news except 
 through the insulating medium of the press. This 
 girl represented real news, heart throbs, human 
 interest, and what they would have called 
 "woman-stuff" the almost ideal newspaper 
 story. The girl eyed their eager faces apprehen- 
 sively, with all the trepidation of a missionary 
 about to be invited to a cannibal feast. 
 
 "My dear young lady," exclaimed one of the 
 cannibals, "this is a big woman-story. We'll ex- 
 ploit you from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Ore- 
 gon, and back again. You will awake tomorrow 
 morning to find yourself famous." 
 
 She laughed nervously, as might the reverend 
 spreader of the gospel at first sight of the boiling 
 water in the cauldron. But she was reassured 
 when she saw Starkwether coming toward her. 
 
 "Your name, please," said one of the hungry 
 journalists. 
 
 Her eyes shone. "Mary Smith," she said, and 
 grasping the old man's arm, followed his broad 
 shoulders through the crowd.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT 
 
 Evading the multitude (which was made less 
 difficult by the fact that few recognized her in 
 her street clothes), Ruth was taken by motor 
 boat from a secluded point on the inlet across 
 to the further shore, where she just succeeded in 
 catching a train, which carried her away an hour 
 or more in advance of everyone else. 
 
 The remaining participants in the battle with 
 the sea were proffered food, lodging, automobiles, 
 motor boats in profusion. Some, thoroughly ex- 
 hausted, were only too glad to stay where a chance 
 of sleep presented itself. Others, anxious to be 
 away to join friends and families who waited for 
 them, accepted the first means of transportation 
 that was offered, and went as quickly as modern 
 devices could take them. 
 
 Spade, in the heat of the closing day which, 
 now released from the caress of the north-east 
 wind, became a normal summer evening, boarded 
 a Pullman car, attired in two full suits of clothes 
 
 364
 
 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT 365 
 
 and carrying a light overcoat. With feverish 
 haste he rushed into the smoking compartment 
 and, unabashed, began to disrobe before the cold 
 gaze of the smokers. They doubtless supposed, 
 from lack of data on the subject, that he was about 
 to perform a classic dance representing Narcissus, 
 or Paris upon the walls of Troy. 
 
 But when, beneath his outer garments of mod- 
 esty, there were presently disclosed other gar- 
 ments similarly modest, and when taking off a 
 second coat and vest, he divested himself of his 
 shirt, they saw that he was merely mentally un- 
 balanced or else that he bore a charmed life, 
 so that no matter how much he took off, he al- 
 ways had the happy faculty of remaining fully 
 clothed. 
 
 "Yo* just la'ake an onion, sah," exclaimed the 
 Pullman porter, "you keep on peeling right down 
 to the bittah end." 
 
 Spade, to whom, after the wearying days that 
 had preceded, everything was serious, and for 
 whom the world had not yet settled again into its 
 normal perspective, turned in a matter of fact 
 way to the others in the room. 
 
 "It's awfully hot in those things," he said, 
 with the air of explaining away, at one fell swoop, 
 the mystery of his taking them off.
 
 366 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 The self-evident fact, however, did not explain, 
 and for the remainder of the journey he slept in 
 his chair surrounded by his additional and un- 
 necessary garments, an object of general suspi- 
 cion and distrust among his fellow-passengers, 
 who discussed excitedly the wreck of the steamer 
 Brocadillo, a subject they knew his enfeebled 
 mind would be unable to grasp. 
 
 When he awoke for a few moments as the train 
 stopped at an intermediate station he heard them 
 still discussing it heard them sleepily and half 
 comprehendingly. He realized dimly that they 
 had bought here extra papers describing the rescue 
 of the passengers. His own name arrested his im- 
 minent dropping again into the abyss of sleep. 
 
 "This fellow Spade," rumbled a voice from 
 behind a newspaper, "pulled off that grandstand 
 play. Trust an old football star for that. 
 Waited until everything else failed and then took 
 the whole works into his own hands. Ninety- 
 nine percent grit, that's what he is. Jumped 
 right into that ocean just as if it were the four- 
 foot-six end of a swimming tank and turned the 
 trick, by Jove. That's the point. When a fel- 
 low like that goes in to win, he wins!" 
 
 William moved uneasily in his chair. 
 
 "Why, I remember when I saw him playing
 
 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT 367 
 
 football about five years back " But the start 
 ing of the train and the accompanying noise 
 blotted out the words, and William was soon 
 in oblivion again. 
 
 His first thought had been of his father and 
 mother. They would certainly be worried until 
 they saw their son again face to face. The train 
 upon which he rode, in the character of harm- 
 less imbecile, was the first he could catch to take 
 him to his old home. 
 
 He was a strange sight as he walked through the 
 station, his clothes hanging upon his arm. But 
 the people about him made little difference to him. 
 The only emotion he felt was that resulting from 
 the fact that he was alive and treading upon firm 
 ground. Self-consciousness, small pride, and the 
 whole gamut of the secondary and tertiary emo- 
 tions that are the daily goads to humans, found 
 no place in his mind. His soul had been view- 
 ing big things, his mirrd was set at a wide angle, 
 and nothing petty was registering upon his con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 He found that his father had been seriously ill 
 as a result of the shock occasioned by the news 
 of the shipwreck. William saw when he greeted 
 him the signals of the old man's capitulation to 
 the years he carried upon his shoulders.
 
 368 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "The night before last," said the old gentle- 
 man, almost with unconcern, "I felt that it was 
 not to be given me to live until morning." 
 
 "And," he continued, "I made the resolve then 
 that if I recovered, I should lead a better life." 
 
 It was absurdly pathetic that this man, whose 
 only fault was that he had allowed his ideas of 
 right and duty to interfere with his own comfort 
 and happiness, should speak of chastening his 
 life! 
 
 "I am in thorough accord with your sentiment," 
 William said. "However, I had a close call my- 
 self. While things hung in the balance I had 
 plenty of time to think it over, and I have come 
 to the conclusion I have hitched my wagon to 
 the wrong star. I have not realized my respon- 
 sibilities. I have allowed an advanced state of 
 civilization and breeding to stand in the place of 
 conscience and morality. And it has not worked." 
 
 "Conscience and morality," said the old man, 
 "are the things which built up our nation. It is 
 necessary to preserve them. 
 
 "I think," he continued, "we are reaching a crest 
 of our civilization where we are exchanging these 
 desirable things for ease and pleasure. We are 
 burdened with overconfidence. We are satisfied
 
 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT 369 
 
 with our morality, our religion, the state of our 
 education and the absolute fitness of all our ambi- 
 tions. And when we find a few flaws in our 
 civilization, we reassure ourselves by saying the 
 percentage is low as compared with our general 
 perfection." 
 
 William acknowledged this in his far-seeing 
 frame of mind in the spirit of the ancient mari- 
 ner saved from shipwreck, who vowed a thousand 
 candles to the Virgin. For the present his vision 
 was clear. 
 
 He smiled a rather wry smile. "But," he con- 
 tinued, "suppose one did find that a nation's 
 morals and energy and ambitions were on the 
 decline, what can help to correct the condition*?" 
 
 "Sometimes I believe," his father asserted, 
 "only the hand of Heaven!" In recent years 
 the old man had had little to do but to read 
 and think, and he had turned his analytical mind 
 to philosophizing and cataloguing the problems 
 of the world. "England had fallen deep into a 
 state of coma, in which comfort and ease were the 
 things that concerned Englishmen most. It took 
 a horrible war to reawaken them. It took the 
 same horrible war to make heroic again a decadent 
 France. Should our own nation continue to re-
 
 370 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 gard lightly the sturdy things of life, it may take 
 just such a cataclysm to set us again upon our 
 proper path." 
 
 He sank into a sort of tired reverie, from which 
 he presently aroused himself with a reminiscent 
 smile on his lips. His mind had been going back 
 many years. 
 
 "You remember a long while ago," he said, 
 "you could not understand why a certain clergy- 
 man in his sermon said it was better to have car- 
 ried the Ark of the Covenant upon human shoul- 
 ders than upon a cart which relieved them of the 
 burden of it. I think that is the danger of civili- 
 zation. We make everything easy for ourselves, 
 and our desire is always to do the easy thing 
 rather than the right one." 
 
 He leaned forward in his chair. "What we 
 all need, son, is to do the hard thing to feel the 
 weight of the Ark upon our shoulders. If each 
 one of us remembers that, and, remembering it, 
 does his own part, no adversity will be necessary 
 to put us back upon the right road, for we shall 
 not have strayed from it. A homely and obvious 
 truth that; but it is such little grains of sand 
 that count the little grains of sand." 
 
 He sank back into his chair, his tired eyes 
 closed. His son looked at him with a real
 
 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT 371 
 
 physical pain in his heart. That soul would soon 
 be passing on to another shore and William 
 somehow felt then that his great inheritance from 
 him would be the responsibility of trying to live 
 as he had lived. A great responsibility indeed 
 meaning the taking of the Ark from its comfor- 
 table, easy cart and the bearing of it upon unac- 
 customed shoulders.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 MARY SMITH 
 
 It was two days after the wreck, when the 
 public mind had nearly forgotten it and the news- 
 papers had swept their columns clear of it as 
 mere history, except for a couple of square inches 
 of type to say that the wrecking tug, aided by 
 fine weather, was now gradually working the 
 steamer off the bar, that once again the office of 
 William Spade was opened as usual. It was 
 just the same comfortable, prosaic business office, 
 giving no sign of having had any connection, how- 
 ever indirect, with shipwreck and the high seas. 
 Doubtless indeed, it had no interest in these things, 
 being satisfied to be simply an efficient shelter 
 for its tenants, without exhibiting any emotional 
 concern over their adventures in other places. 
 
 The stoical calm of the place had a tranquil- 
 izing effect. Ruth, crossing that threshold as the 
 clock somewhere was striking nine, found herself 
 drawn into the usual groove as one who stepped 
 upon a regularly turning treadmill, whose 
 
 372
 
 MARY SMITH 373 
 
 rhythmic monotony drove away thoughts of all 
 other considerations and problems. 
 
 But not quite all. It was, indeed, difficult for 
 her to remember clearly the day before yesterday. 
 Then she was a different person. Then, instead 
 of the present dainty Georgette crepe waist (if 
 that were the name of the Roentgen fabric of 
 which it was made), the smart skirt and the trim 
 tan shoes, all spotless and immaculate as if the 
 lady therein incased had never been out in so 
 much as a sprinkle of rain, she had worn a stiff 
 rubber coat, a soiled shapeless hat and hip boots 
 that blushed beneath no encumbering skirt, over 
 which unmindful she let the sturdy sea break 
 in drenching floods. It was difficult to remember 
 this today when she, the braver of the tempest, 
 carried a fragile parasol to hold against the sun. 
 
 Yet one thing she did not forget. Prosaic as 
 was the present moment as compared with the ad- 
 venturous ones now gone past, there was one ave- 
 nue of excitement still to be traversed a wide 
 street capable of furnishing ample thrills. For 
 at some moment the door to the office would open 
 and through it would enter William Spade. Per- 
 haps today, perhaps tomorrow but as certainly 
 as the setting of the day's sun. 
 
 What could be more disturbing than that?
 
 374 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 For she must remember that, whatever adventures 
 she had lived through since she had seen him last 
 and whatever strength and bravery he had exhib- 
 ited to her, the situation would be the same when 
 he opened the door of the office as it had been 
 the day he had closed it behind him. She had 
 risked many things, but it was necessary for her 
 to remember that her risking had not altered the 
 fact that he was still the man who was operating 
 against the employees of the Old Dominion Steel 
 Company. 
 
 Meanwhile, Destiny, acting through the agency 
 of a great railroad system, was bringing William 
 Spade nearer and nearer to his office door. He 
 also was thinking of the meeting with her. But 
 while he looked forward to it with a mixture of 
 embarrassment and pleasure, he looked forward 
 to it with no uncertainty as to the attitude he 
 should adopt toward her. He looked forward 
 to it with pleasure because she was always first 
 in his mind, with embarrassment because he had 
 said to her, unresponding, that he loved her; and 
 he would always be sensitive upon that point. 
 His pride would not permit him therefore to 
 cheapen his love (the bestowing of which he re- 
 garded as a mighty thing) by thrusting it, un- 
 welcome, upon her.
 
 MARY SMITH 375 
 
 When therefore, he placed his hand upon the 
 outside handle of the door, that wood and glass 
 barrier separated, though he could not have known 
 it, two strong forces held in leash. But what 
 they each saw as the door swung open was a 
 slightly embarrassed young woman upon the one 
 hand, and a slightly embarrassed young man upon 
 the other. 
 
 But only for a moment. She rose quickly and 
 came forward with an engaging frankness. He 
 looked steadily into her eyes as he took her out- 
 stretched hand. Her color was high and those 
 eyes bright, but there was no other indication of 
 any disturbance or quickening of tempo in her. 
 Instead when he released her hand she reached 
 forward and calmly lifted the lapel of his 
 coat. 
 
 "Where are they 1 ?" she asked. 
 
 "Where are what 1 ?" he returned, puzzled. 
 
 "The medals for heroism. You should never 
 venture out without them." 
 
 He met her mischievous glance. "I am grate- 
 ful to you," he said. "You are the only person 
 who has suggested medals." 
 
 "Be of good heart. Soon you will be getting 
 so many you will dread the arrival of every 
 post."
 
 376 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "I did nothing," he observed, "except to save 
 my own life. That was not especially praise- 
 worthy." 
 
 She seated herself at her desk. Upon the blot- 
 ter she drew aimless arabesques. "I know what 
 you did," she said, at length. "The papers have 
 bored us to death with vain repetitions of your 
 name. My young brother can quote their stories 
 verbatim. You will find yourself a hero in his 
 eyes." 
 
 "I am more than glad. If he can succeed in 
 imparting the impression to his 'but never mind," 
 he broke off. 
 
 Her smile however, was alluringly quick. 
 "Perhaps it is not necessary that he should," she 
 said. 
 
 He laughed, and she, fearing that she had been 
 too lenient with herself and with him added, in a 
 manner that took her own personality completely 
 out of the conversation. "Of course you know 
 how lucky you are. All the young and beautiful 
 girls aboard, having been saved from sudden death 
 by you, owe their lives to you, and anyone of 
 them you select is certainly obliged to marry 
 you." 
 
 "What a revolting sacrifice!" 
 
 "Not at all. It is the reward you have earned.
 
 MARY SMITH 377 
 
 It would certainly be a reflection upon them all 
 for you not to pick out one of them." 
 
 "This is serious. But," he said, suddenly, "I 
 am already promised." 
 
 "In what way?" she asked, faintly. 
 
 "My own life, you see, was in turn saved, and 
 since I was the only single man aboard, I am 
 peculiarly liable. One of the three rescuers was 
 a girl. I am therefore, by your reasoning, pledged 
 to a certain Mary Smith, if she wants me." 
 
 At this unexpected speech a hit, as it were, 
 wholly in the dark the blood rushed to her face. 
 
 "Why do you blush?" he asked. 
 
 "I blush for your audacity in thrusting your- 
 self on the Smith woman," she exclaimed truth- 
 fully. "However, see that you remember your 
 obligation." 
 
 "I have no fears that I shall be held to it." 
 
 "Don't underrate your power of fascination. 
 What is she like this Mary Smith?" 
 
 "I don't know. There were three in the sail- 
 boat. They said one of them was a woman. She 
 looked just like the others a shapeless thing in a 
 rubber coat." 
 
 Ruth hid her face in her hands. "Poor Mary 
 Smith," she exclaimed, "if she could hear you 
 now."
 
 378 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 "Don't misunderstand me. She doubtless is an 
 estimable and beautiful woman in her proper 
 clothes, but " 
 
 "Surely," she interrupted, "you do not mean 
 to say hers were improper 4 ?" 
 
 "In the sense you mean they were proper, but 
 they were unusual. But in her cotton-print dress 
 and sunbonnet, I have no doubt she is all that 
 could be desired." 
 
 She made a grimace that he did not understand. 
 
 "But why," he asked, "palm me off on poor 
 defenseless Mary? Just to get rid of me*?" 
 
 "To get rid of you*?" she exclaimed, smiling. 
 
 "But what is there funny in that 4 ?" 
 
 She looked at him for a moment, the smile com- 
 ing and going on her lips like a shimmer of sun- 
 light. 
 
 "You see nothing funny in it, do you?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 She sketched little circles upon the blotter be- 
 fore her. Then close to where the thumb of 
 his hand rested on it she made an apex and drew 
 a heart. 
 
 "It points to you," she murmured, idly. "In 
 it I shall write Mary." 
 
 "Let me write it." He took a pencil from
 
 MARY SMITH 379 
 
 the desk. "M" he said, writing "R," "A," writ- 
 ing "U." "R," writing "T," "Y," writing "H." 
 
 They both looked at the result silently. It 
 was amusing while it was being made, but when 
 it was finished and her name lay there in its 
 incriminating frame, there was no suitable remark 
 for either of them to make save words they did 
 not wish to say. He rose abruptly. 
 
 "I am a poor speller," he exclaimed, smudging 
 his thumb across the word. "That was a mis- 
 take."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 "THIS is WILLIAM SPADE" 
 
 When the noon mail came that day there was 
 a letter in it from Warburton, who was out of 
 town at the time, in regard to the Old Dominion 
 Steel Company. It was the first letter that had 
 ever come into the office upon that subject, and 
 Ruth, spreading it out before her in order that 
 she might list and brief it for her files, handled 
 it as if it were unclean. 
 
 It would be good news for Spade for it an- 
 nounced that the directors of the steel company 
 had agreed to allow him two thirds of his claim, 
 in order to settle the matter out of court. To 
 her, knowing that the directors were merely 
 blandly declaring how much the employees of 
 the company should give up, it was anything but 
 good news. The realization of the conflict of 
 views between the man and herself awoke again 
 her active distrust of him. 
 
 When Spade returned she watched him covertly 
 through the open door, as if to read the thoughts 
 
 380
 
 "THIS IS WILLIAM SPADE" 381 
 
 that passed through his mind as he read the letter. 
 But from his calm demeanor she gleaned noth- 
 ing. She supposed that beneath the surface he 
 was calm and happy and it was a painful real- 
 ization. 
 
 But if she could have divined the real thoughts 
 which obsessed that mind, she would have been 
 filled with wonder. However, we seldom real- 
 ize how complicated and difficult is the simple and 
 straightforward course we lay out for others. 
 Spade had visited his broker that morning and 
 had found that that gentleman, who had obligated 
 himself to the extent of some fifteen thousand 
 dollars more than the value of the securities de- 
 posited with him by Spade, was not a little un- 
 easy. He had taken Spade's personal credit and 
 resources as security for this difference, but Spade's 
 recent near approach to death had shown the 
 evanescent character of such security, and had 
 given him cause for no inconsiderable alarm. 
 
 He had therefore explained that it would be 
 necessary for Spade, at the earliest moment, to 
 furnish tangible security for the whole amount 
 of his indebtedness. The stock he was required 
 to deliver still showed no sign of decreasing in 
 price. Indeed, there was a rumor now of an in- 
 creased dividend upon it, which would push its
 
 382 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 value up higher and make his losses even greater 
 than at present. The broker had been insistent, 
 therefore, that he secure the necessary funds at 
 once and close up the deal before he sank deeper 
 into debt. There was no use, in his words, in 
 sending good money after bad. The man who 
 could not acknowledge himself beaten when he 
 was beaten was laying himself open to disaster. 
 
 The broker had thus succeeded in conveying 
 the very positive information that William 
 Spade's personal credit was no longer adequate, 
 and the account could be allowed to run on no 
 longer. In order to close the account there was 
 fifteen thousand dollars to be paid immediately. 
 And this was just fifteen thousand dollars more 
 than he possessed. 
 
 Therefore the letter upon the desk, saying that 
 the Old Dominion Steel Company had agreed to 
 the immediate payment of eighty thousand dol- 
 lars, had all the characteristics of a gift from 
 Heaven. It swept away all his embarrassment. 
 It paid his indebtedness and left him with a sur- 
 plus of sixty-five thousand dollars. Instead of 
 stripping him absolutely of all he owned and put- 
 ting him in debt for a sum that to an impover- 
 ished man would be little short of stupendous, it 
 carried him smoothly by that yawning abyss and
 
 "THIS IS WILLIAM SPADE" 383 
 
 placed him safe and sure in his former position 
 of ease and power. 
 
 Small wonder that the single sheet o^ letter 
 paper before him was like a fairy gift 1 It took 
 no great perspicuity to see that the success he 
 had had was begotten by success. Were he re- 
 duced to poverty, his office depleted of its luxuri- 
 ous furnishing, his automobile sacrificed, his im- 
 pressive apartment abandoned, his power to pay 
 the price for mingling with people who needed his 
 services cut off; the making of his 'fifteen or 
 twenty thousand dollars a year would be impos- 
 sible. If, added to this, were a debt that would 
 absorb his surplus the moment it appeared, he 
 would be like a man pinned down to earth by 
 a great weight. It would take years to rid him- 
 self of the encumbrance, to accumulate again his 
 possessions and to rebuild his shattered prestige 
 years of the best part of his life. It was no 
 pleasant thing to look forward to spending those 
 years merely in regaining lost ground, and having 
 regained it, to find himself, the best part of his 
 youth gone, simply ready to start in again. 
 
 A bitter prospect it was. But the letter upon 
 his desk, offering an alternative, was no pleasant 
 thing. It lay there pushed back to a distant 
 spot like something polluted. He did not con-
 
 384 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 sider it polluted, for he was accustomed to con- 
 demn nothing against which the case was not con- 
 cise and clear. And the case against this letter 
 was one that rested upon so infirm a thing as an 
 impulse a newly awakened loftiness of purpose 
 implanted by the recent chastening of his soul. 
 
 Since, in the process of chastening his soul, he 
 had agreed to accept the assistance of God, he 
 was in return bound to acknowledge that God, 
 and endeavor to act as He would desire him to 
 act. He was learning over again the things he 
 had been taught in his youth which he had 
 paraphrased and remodelled to fit his life. This 
 new ethics disturbed him. It left him hanging 
 between earth and sky. What was a mere theory 
 to his mind, trained as it was to turn and move 
 only in the presence of facts? Suppose he did 
 concede that his life heretofore had been warped 
 and selfish and that he was now required and 
 bound to lay out a new course, how was he ac- 
 tually to lay the course 1 ? Admitting his respon- 
 sibility to act in such a manner that his own 
 success should not be purchased by far-reaching 
 unhappiness among his fellow men, what of the 
 sacrilege of turning his back upon business op- 
 portunity? The necessity and value of self-sac- 
 rifice was apparent. But should he give up his
 
 "THIS IS WILLIAM SPADE" 385 
 
 pride and his self-reliance by standing aside in- 
 stead of reaching out at the right moment to take 
 his own*? 
 
 He was coming into contact with the problem 
 of reconciling theoretical Christianity with prac- 
 tical Christianity, and realizing that it was a 
 problem that required not merely a moral sense 
 but the exercise of the best power of his judg- 
 ment. This was a thing he had never realized 
 before that conscience was at all dependent 
 upon mentality, that the steering of a clean course 
 between disregard and responsibility, upon the 
 one hand, and Quixotism, upon the other, was a 
 feat requiring all the skill of the ablest navigator. 
 
 Looking at it from this point of view he began 
 to see the whole situation clearly. For the past 
 few years he had been playing the game to win 
 at all costs. When he had been in college he 
 would have scorned to take an unfair advantage to 
 gain his point. He had been noted at athletics 
 for his scrupulous sense of honor and justice. 
 And when he was defeated he had taken it stoi- 
 cally, as a sportsman should. That was five years 
 ago a long while, it seemed. For since then 
 he had lost his sportsmanship. He had taken 
 the buffets of fate with a bitter heart and had 
 sought to even up with whatever means and in
 
 386 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 whatever manner came first to hand. William 
 Spade had deteriorated. 
 
 The determination strengthened itself in him 
 to regain lost ground to wipe out the charge 
 of unfairness. The time had come to do the hard 
 thing to feel the weight, as his father had said, 
 of the Ark upon his shoulders. He was the grain 
 of sand that must struggle with the others not 
 to be washed away from the straight beach, so 
 that the great land might remain intact. 
 
 With the heroic idea hot in his mind he did 
 unpleasant things that afternoon, lest it should 
 cool before he had followed its impulse. It was 
 a big deed he planned. But the bigger the deed, 
 the greater the proof it was of the sincerity of his 
 soul. And as he proceeded about the work, he 
 rejoiced in a certain sombre yet sweeping satisfac- 
 tion in being right. 
 
 Three melancholy things he did to test himself 
 and to lay the fuel for the final burning of his 
 bridges. He visited an old and familiar neigh- 
 borhood in the shabby part of town he had once 
 known so well, and, with no bitterness of spirit, 
 engaged the same little dingy room looking out 
 upon the same dingy back yards. He was to 
 be poor now as he had been in those days 
 and he must make slender funds go far. He
 
 "THIS IS WILLIAM SPADE" 387 
 
 visited an auction establishment and made ar- 
 rangements to have the luxurious and expensive 
 furnishings of his apartment and his office sold. 
 And, as a final touch, he stopped at his club, where 
 he found, as he had expected, a man who had 
 some time before offered to buy his automobile. 
 The man wrote him a check and William, leav- 
 ing the car at the curb, walked back to his office, 
 a chastened spirit, a flagellant, yet contented. 
 
 The office was deserted, as he entered it at 
 half past five. He sat before the telephone and 
 held the receiver in his hand, for a long while not 
 taking it from its hook. It was a momentous 
 deed and irretrievable when once done. Then 
 with set jaw, he removed it quickly and called a 
 number. 
 
 "I wish to speak to Mr. Warburton," he said, 
 when the connection was made. "This is Wil- 
 liam Spade." 
 
 There was a moment of delay, during which 
 the telephone hummed its meaningless song. 
 
 "Warburton," he said, presently, when the law- 
 yer had answered and his own voice was as hard 
 and metallic as a steel bar, "write a letter to the 
 Old Dominion Steel Company and say in an ab- 
 solutely clear and irrefutable way, that upon fur- 
 ther consideration I feel that I have no claim upon
 
 388 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 them in connection with the stock formerly held 
 by the holding company and that if the em- 
 ployees in the Company are given the stock to 
 which they are rightfully entitled I shall not ex- 
 pect them to pay me eighty thousand dollars or 
 any part of it on that account." 
 
 "Man, are you crazy*?" exploded the other. 
 
 "No. I know what I am doing. Don't argue 
 with me. Send a copy of this letter to the law- 
 yer who represents the employees of the company. 
 And telephone me as soon as the letters are 
 mailed." 
 
 For half an hour he sat like a man of stone in 
 his chair. Then the telephone rang and a few 
 commonplace words told him it was all over. 
 The letters were mailed. He rose from his desk 
 the desk that was no longer his, and half-dazed 
 by the magnitude of his act, descended to take 
 the street-car home to the apartment that was 
 no longer his, furnished with the pleasant and 
 much loved things that were no longer his. He 
 was possessed of nothing at all now in all the 
 world save his own great and unbelievable self- 
 respect.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 DUSK 
 
 The September sun sank low as William Spade 
 sat in his leather-cushioned chair, looking out un- 
 seeing across the green square. The western sky, 
 which his eyes did not note, flamed red. The 
 long, horizontal rays streamed across the room 
 and fell caressingly upon the gorgeous Chinese 
 embroidery on the opposite wall the sleeve of 
 a Mandarin's coat. They moved searchingly 
 over the wall as if glancing for the last time at 
 each treasure and hanging, which might not be 
 there on the morrow. Fainter and fainter grew 
 their radiance until suddenly they vanished from 
 the wall and went on upon their endless journey 
 around the earth. Dusk came quickly over the 
 city and then the darkness of a starlit night neu- 
 tralized by the glow of the street-lamps below. 
 All dark were the rooms he called home. It was 
 a melancholy thing to leave them to leave the 
 things that for the past few years he had called 
 
 389
 
 390 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 life. But he felt no regret. There was no step 
 of the day he would not have retaken. 
 
 As he sat there a greater cause for sadness 
 was brought him though not an unexpected 
 thing nor one that he felt could have been post- 
 poned for long, but nevertheless a cause of sad- 
 ness. When he received the message, almost his 
 first thought was of stern satisfaction that he 
 had done the thing his father would have wished 
 hirp to do. He had done the hard thing he had 
 taken the Ark from the cart and bore it now on 
 his shoulders. The yellow message he held in 
 his hands told of the serious and apparently the 
 last illness of William Spade, Senior. And, ex- 
 pected as it had been, it came as a shock to him 
 a shock that swept from his spirit all the lean- 
 ing toward bitterness that came as a result of his 
 recent act. 
 
 There were many things to be done before he 
 could leave the city at midnight. He sat again 
 at the desk in his office writing certain letters and 
 framing a note, bristling with instructions, to 
 Ruth. With almost no emotion he hurried a 
 letter to his brokers telling them to buy Consoli- 
 dated Steel at the market price to cover his un- 
 fortunate speculation. In the note he explained 
 that the sale of his effects and the money he
 
 DUSK 391 
 
 would be able to borrow upon his life insurance 
 would provide ten thousand dollars against the 
 present shortage of fifteen thousand. For the 
 additional five thousand he would give his per- 
 sonal note which he would pay at the earliest 
 possible moment. 
 
 When he had finished these, finding there were 
 no postage stamps in the usual drawer or that 
 Ruth had changed the place where they were kept, 
 he put the letters he had written upon her desk, 
 to be mailed in the morning except the one to 
 the brokers, which he decided to carry with him, as 
 it was necessary that it be mailed that evening so 
 that the order might be placed before the open- 
 ing of the Exchange in the morning. 
 
 He laid the letter upon his desk. Then some- 
 thing impelled him to write upon the sheet which 
 contained the instructions for Ruth, a few more 
 lines. She was the only person in the world in 
 whom he wished to confide when he was in trouble. 
 He had thought at first he would not speak of his 
 personal affairs to her, but found that it was im- 
 possible for him to go away without telling her 
 that it was his father's serious illness that was the 
 cause of his going and explaining, in a few awk- 
 wardly put but gloriously sincere words that 
 though he had been expecting this for a long while
 
 392 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 and knowing it must come, yet now when it came 
 he was unprepared for it. He was certain that 
 to the end of his life he would always be expect- 
 ing to hear from his father as one alive, that he 
 would be expecting to go to him and ask him his 
 advice that after he was dead he would never be- 
 lieve he could be gone. 
 
 He used up more of his remaining time than 
 he should have in doing this. But if that letter 
 were full of love for his father it was full of love 
 also for her. His eyes were moist with tears as 
 he finished it. But he had little chance to think 
 of what was in his heart. He seized his hand- 
 bag and hurried for the car. Thirty minutes later 
 he rolled out of the station upon the heavy train 
 of Pullmans. And the letter to his brokers lay 
 upon his desk.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL WORLD 
 
 The early morning was crisp with the unaccus- 
 tomed chill of September. The clear air revealed 
 the far depths of the solid blue sky, long hidden 
 behind the humid mist of summer. William's 
 footsteps echoed down the still streets, unpeopled 
 save for a single workman with Stillson wrenches 
 in his hand who nodded to him with the free- 
 masonry of one early riser to another. 
 
 These streets upon which he now trod were 
 the haunts of his early boyhood pathetically 
 shrunken somehow from his memory of them. 
 This comparatively narrow street was the im- 
 pressive broad one of his recollection. Over there 
 the dingy, squalid stable was the same place, un- 
 changed, whose odor whose perfume rather of 
 horses and harness, had stirred his young imagina- 
 tion, whose size and magnificence had then seemed 
 almost unattainable. It seemed, too, an unneces- 
 sary sacrilege that the drug store at the corner 
 
 393
 
 394 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 the meridian and equator of the boyish geogra- 
 phy where he and his companions had spent 
 their infrequent pennies and in the light shining 
 through whose red and green vases, they had 
 basked pleasantly in the dusk should now be 
 occupied by an impossibly drab dying and clean- 
 ing establishment. Or that the open lot upon 
 whose tiny turf they had played a constricted 
 sort of baseball should now be obliterated by a 
 neat brick structure wherein, unmindful of the 
 affront he offered to sentimental memories, plied 
 his trade a creature nominated upon his sign as 
 a Merchant Tailor. 
 
 As William swung around this corner, he came 
 into view of his father's house the old house in 
 which he was born. Each time he saw it thus, 
 among all the changing surroundings, it seemed 
 not to have changed at all. Its marble steps were 
 snowy white, its brick front was painted as of 
 yore with shining red paint in imitation of brick, 
 and the thin mortar joints between, still further 
 to carry out the semblance, were lined with white 
 paint in imitation of mortar, so that the general 
 effect was as of a piece of stage scenery repre- 
 senting a brick house. This had always been con- 
 sidered in the community as the spruce and neat 
 thing to do, and the failure to apply the disguise
 
 A BEAUTIFUL WORLD 395 
 
 at the proper time was a sign of general shift- 
 lessness. 
 
 He pulled the white-handled bell knob project- 
 ing from the wooden jamb, which started a rever- 
 berating jingle somewhere in the bowels of the 
 house. A potent memory rose as the tintinabula- 
 tion began, for he remembered that in other days 
 it had been necessary to run the instant such a 
 deed had been accomplished. 
 
 The house within was unchanged the marble 
 topped table in the hall with its bell-jar encasing 
 the same wax flowers, the same gilt-framed mirror 
 over it supported upon a nail the head of which 
 was adorned and enriched by the same pearl-white 
 button. His early impression of the magnificence 
 and grandeur of this ensemble, all his sophistica< 
 tion had never been entirely able to dispel. 
 
 In the hall dwelt the same familiar odor, com- 
 ing perhaps from the reminiscence of camphor 
 balls in the hangings, or from the balsam pillow 
 which adorned the haircloth sofa in the parlor 
 or from the chintz colored cedar chest in the up- 
 per hall or from a combination of them all. It 
 made him feel, at any rate, that it was but yes- 
 terday that he was a small boy tobogganing down 
 those padded stairs upon his mother's ironing 
 board.
 
 396 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 He ascended the steps now, his footfalls making 
 no sound into the well-remembered semi-dark- 
 ness. Waiting for him at the top was his mother 
 a little thinner, a little grayer but not appar- 
 ently older than the lady who fifteen years be- 
 fore used to await him there. When he stood 
 upon the step next to the top, she put her arms 
 about him and held him in her tight, silent em- 
 brace. No words came to her lips to express the 
 towering emotions in her. The comfort of his 
 presence was what was in her mind and that was 
 not an idea, to be spoken of in words, but a mirac- 
 ulous blessing, which gave new life to her wearied 
 body and soul. 
 
 The sick man lay upon the familiar carved wal- 
 nut bedstead. His thin, white hand rested life- 
 lessly upon the counterpane. His eyes, unheed- 
 ing, stared steadily before him as if already he 
 were seeing visions not of this world. William's 
 eyes clouded as he bent over and laid his strong 
 hand upon the white, shrunken one. 
 
 A light of recognition shone suddenly in the 
 eyes and consciousness, summoning its strength, 
 broke through its enshrouding curtain. The old, 
 happy buoyant smile appeared for a moment upon 
 the sick man's lips. 
 
 "Lift me up, son," he said.
 
 A BEAUTIFUL WORLD 397 
 
 William raised him to a sitting position and, 
 supporting him there with a strong arm and shoul- 
 der pressed against him, watched him intently, 
 wonderingly. The elder Spade, lovingly, almost 
 wistfully, stared out at the gold light on the world 
 without on the sturdy tree that he as a young 
 man had planted by the sidewalk, which had 
 grown and prospered, keeping pace with him, as 
 he had grown and prospered. But now it was 
 in its very prime, while he, no longer its con- 
 temporary, had come in sight of the end. Then 
 with a sigh he asked to be put down again upon 
 his pillow, where he lay breathing heavily. 
 
 "It is a beautiful world," he murmured, weakly, 
 "a beautiful world." 
 
 A beautiful world. Those old, unwearied eyes 
 were looking forward and backward from this 
 point where his soul prepared to change habita- 
 tions and seeing in each direction a vision only of 
 happiness the prospect of the world to come and 
 the memory of the world that was past. And yet 
 the world that he was leaving had buffetted him 
 roughly and crushed his fondest hopes. It was 
 a glorious fact that, having suffered more than 
 his share of adversity and disappointment, the 
 only thought that occurred to him looking back 
 was that it had been a beautiful place. What
 
 398 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 more potent certificate for admission to Heaven 
 than to carry with him such a memory of the place 
 where he had been tried in the fire and not found 
 wanting. 
 
 From then on until dusk gathered, William and 
 his mother watched the one-time powerful ma- 
 chine slowly running down. The labored breath- 
 ing, hoarse and echoing grimly in the room, slowly 
 decreased as the darkness drew about them. Un- 
 til at length just as the distant pleasant chimes 
 he loved to hear were striking the hour, it merged 
 quietly, almost imperceptibly into silence.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE LETTER 
 
 As soon as there was a moment of leisure 
 and that did not come until the household had 
 retired to their rooms, William wrote a letter to 
 the person who came first in his thoughts, to 
 whom, depressed now by the silence of the gloomy 
 house, he turned instinctively for comfort. It 
 was the reaching-out of one yearning to unburden 
 his soul, who nevertheless, confronted with cold 
 paper, gropes for the words. 
 
 "Mv DEAR RUTH : 
 
 "My father died this evening. With him 
 passed out of my life an influence I thought was 
 retarding me, but which was in fact uplifting me. 
 He represented the spirit of a by-gone genera- 
 tion, while I have been absorbing the spirit of 
 this very present generation. I have heard it 
 said that my father was short-sighted and over- 
 trusting one man said stupid I see now that it 
 was to his credit that he was so. He was honest 
 
 399
 
 400 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 and fair-playing in the midst of a tribe who made 
 money upon the misfortunes or the mishaps of 
 others the same who lately have been speculating 
 in and cornering food products until they have 
 forced the public to pay out higher prices, who 
 rolled up their sleeves when war broke out in 
 Europe and turned it callously into a money mak- 
 ing occurrence. It was they who, discovering 
 South America deprived of European trade, de- 
 scended in hordes upon Brazil and Argentina, 
 whom they conceived to be in hard straits. They 
 took orders for first class goods on rapid delivery, 
 and shipped third class goods when they were 
 ready. They have made the name of America 
 stand for misrepresentation and fraud and short- 
 change methods throughout the world. They 
 have set up a figure of Uncle Sam as a senile old 
 man, grasping and miserly, with ice-water instead 
 of blood in his veins. 
 
 "My father came of the generation that still re- 
 membered the clipper ships and the world-wide 
 reputation of American thrift and fairness. He 
 stood for this idea, and I did not know it. It took 
 you, who stand in my mind for the same things, 
 and one other of whom I shall tell you, to reveal 
 it to me. 
 
 "And now I know that with the sturdiness of
 
 THE LETTER 401 
 
 the old generation went a certain trust in God, 
 and with the careless self -sufficiency of the new 
 generation goes a feeling that God is unnecessary. 
 The need of religion and faith comes with ad- 
 versity, which we as a nation have not had for 
 fifty years. It took a personal adversity to make 
 this apparent to me. 
 
 "I tell you this because I should like you to 
 know that my ideas are changing. I understand 
 that I have been following the wrong influences. 
 It is an overpowering realization and one that 
 leaves me not a little upset as to myself. But 
 I do know now that I have been sailing toward the 
 wrong beacon. Whether I shall be able to shape 
 my life. . . . But that is the problem now before 
 me.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 
 To Ruth Dunbar, reading the letter late the 
 following day, his mind and heart were clear. 
 
 She could not but harbor a compelling pride 
 in the fact that she should be the one person 
 to be admitted to close communion with him. 
 It was a distinction whose realization thrilled 
 her until she seemed to feel the quickened blood 
 in her veins. But that was not her greatest 
 emotion. It was rather a motherly concern for 
 his happiness and peace of mind. 
 
 She wished for power to render him comfort. 
 She took his sorrow over into her own life, as if 
 it were her right and prerogative to suffer when 
 he suffered. The grief which now had come to 
 him drew her to him with an unexpected force. 
 It seemed as if the old state of affairs, in which 
 his life touched hers at but a few points and at 
 all others went about concerns that had nothing 
 to do with her, was gone. His life ran now 
 
 parallel to hers everywhere, and all its concerns 
 
 402
 
 THE ANSWER 403 
 
 were her concerns. In fact his joys and sorrows, 
 she began to realize, were more important to her 
 than her own. 
 
 The realization of this was beatific. For the 
 moment it seemed to raise her out of the mere 
 world. The simple sincerity of his letters, ex- 
 plaining in homely fashion how much his father's 
 life had meant to him, gave her a clear view into 
 his heart, and she felt now that it was a big, strong 
 heart, with no evil intent in it. If he were 
 in the wrong it was because he had made the 
 wrong diagnosis of life because he had drawn 
 wrong conclusions concerning the world and its 
 people. She no longer saw virtue in standing 
 aloof from him, convinced that what he needed 
 most was her assistance. And, believing that his 
 warping was mental rather than moral, she found 
 herself in a frame of mind to give that assistance. 
 What right had she, she thought, to judge him 
 for a misdeed, when he had not judged her for 
 her own misdeeds'? She was not a perfect per- 
 son. Why should she expect perfection of him 1 ? 
 The heart within was the thing she must con- 
 sider. For the rest, it was a surpassing joy for her 
 to think that he needed the clear moral insight 
 that nature had given her, and had clouded, at 
 least temporarily, for him. The mother instinct
 
 4<H THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 was strong in her. She loved him, and he needed 
 her it swept away all obstacles. Moreover, he 
 needed her most now when his greatest friend and 
 counselor had left him. 
 
 With all these thoughts running excitedly 
 through her brain, she took a sheet of paper from 
 the drawer beside her and endeavored to write 
 them in a letter to him. But that composition, 
 when she reread it, did not express the comfort 
 and sympathy she was so eager to send. It was 
 cold. It was a mere letter ink upon paper 
 instead of the assurance of the new fellowship, 
 whose strength and responsiveness to the confi- 
 dence he had placed in her, she wished him to 
 know. But how could she, who was no trained 
 writer, express this without seeming weak or else 
 strained. It was a subject too near her heart. 
 She destroyed the sheet. She would let the mat- 
 ter mellow in her mind, and, in the morning, per- 
 haps the words would come to her. 
 
 The morning brought, not words, but concerns 
 of the office, which kept her busy. Very early in 
 the day there arrived by messenger a heavy ma- 
 nilla envelope, quite fatly filled, marked with 
 much emphasis, "Personal," and bearing Warbur- 
 ton's name printed in the upper left-hand corner. 
 She called up the lawyer's office immediately to
 
 THE ANSWER 405 
 
 explain that Spade was away and to ask whether 
 the papers in the envelope were urgent and what 
 should be done about them. But Warburton 
 was also out of town. No one in his office knew 
 about the matter except that he had left .very 
 explicit instructions to have the packet delivered 
 the first thing in the morning. 
 
 Ruth was considerably disturbed. There was 
 no way of telling whether it was a matter that 
 demanded immediate attention or not. She was 
 unwilling to forward it to Spade, who, she was 
 certain, ought not to be bothered with such mat- 
 ters unless it was certain they could not wait. 
 If it had been urgent, Warburton should have 
 telephoned to find out whether her employer 
 would be there to give it his attention. There- 
 fore, although not without some uneasiness, she 
 laid the brown envelope upon his desk to await 
 his coming. 
 
 In doing this, she made a discovery, which 
 brought her face to face with another problem. 
 She discovered, under some papers which had 
 hitherto hidden it from her, a letter addressed in 
 Spade's handwriting to his brokers. She was con- 
 versant enough with stock transactions to know 
 that such a letter could not but be important, 
 especially if he were now under the impression
 
 406 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 that it had been mailed. A moment of hesita- 
 tion and she ripped it open. From the num- 
 ber of shares mentioned, she saw it was an order 
 involving many thousand dollars. In his haste, 
 Spade had forgotten it and the consequences 
 might be serious. 
 
 She telephoned to the broker and made an ap- 
 pointment with him to see her immediately. Ar- 
 riving there, she laid the letter before him and 
 explained the circumstances. 
 
 Mr. LeFevre drummed upon the arms of his 
 chair. "It is difficult to advise you in this case," 
 he said. 
 
 "Would Mr. Spade naturally wish the order 
 to be carried out, in your opinion*?" 
 
 "It is a matter of judgment. Under present 
 conditions, whatever I should advise might lay me 
 open to censure later on." 
 
 Ruth hesitated. "Has something happened 
 since he wrote this?" 
 
 The broker glanced at the date. "Very much," 
 he observed. He made a quick, crisp explanation 
 of an unexpected turn of events. Ruth, to whom 
 the details of the affair were unknown, was taken 
 aback by the statement. 
 
 "But," continued the broker, "as to whether to
 
 THE ANSWER 407 
 
 buy now or to wait for further developments, only 
 Mr. Spade can decide." 
 
 Only Mr. Spade could decide. This was too 
 important for him not to be informed of it at 
 once. She must telegraph him. At the same 
 time she could mention the envelope from his 
 lawyer. She reflected, however, that this fact 
 would mean nothing to him. She decided not 
 to mention it. She wrote out the message. It 
 took many words to explain and the telegram was 
 rather incoherent after she had written it. In the 
 end she did not send it. 
 
 The simplest manner of caring for the matter 
 might have been to send him the papers from 
 Warburton by registered mail and simply tele- 
 graph that his letter to the stock-brokers had not 
 been mailed and the order therefore not executed. 
 In a cool, calm and merely efficient moment, she 
 might have decided to do this. But she was not 
 now calm nor cool nor merely efficient. She was 
 thinking of many things, and the two reasons, fur- 
 nished by the packet from Warburton and by the 
 forgotten letter, were a plausible excuse for the 
 conclusion that her 1 personal presence was' re- 
 quired an excuse that avoided the issue of hav- 
 ing to admit the third and real reason.
 
 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 There was a train at twelve-thirty which would 
 take her, give her three hours in the city where 
 he was, and permit her to be home before ten 
 o'clock that night. She tried to believe it was 
 the business matter that was urgent but scarcely 
 succeeded for other things occupied so broad a 
 space in her heart.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 RUTH TAKES OFF HER HAT 
 
 In the waning afternoon, as the mellow autumn 
 sun was beginning to drop toward his unpic- 
 turesque horizon of chimneys and tin roofs and 
 the houses on the east side of the street, catch- 
 ing the flood of his golden light, were transformed 
 for the moment into glowing gorgeous structures, 
 picturesque as no man had intended them to be, 
 Ruth found herself walking in a strange city, her 
 heart beating almost audibly beneath the corn- 
 colored silk coat, as she searched among the sun- 
 lit structures for the house whose number was 
 graven on her mind. A disconcerting feeling of 
 being about to make a courting call disturbed her 
 equilibrium. A sense of humiliation enveloped 
 her but it was a pleasurable and exciting humili- 
 ation a self-abasement full of thrills. 
 
 She had telegraphed him that she was coming, 
 but had purposely named no train so that he 
 would not meet her at the station. As she put 
 her foot upon that first step, the walnut door 
 
 409
 
 410 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 swung open and a smiling, sturdy creature stepped 
 forward to meet her, seizing both her hands with 
 a gentle firmness that sent a glow over her whole 
 body. Very near he was, even in that bright 
 street, to gathering her up, unbidden, into his 
 arms. It took but one glance into his eyes to 
 read it there and resentment and anger and dis- 
 appointment were the things that were not in her 
 heart because of it. 
 
 The door closed behind them, and he was still 
 holding her hands, looking down into her face. 
 There were tears strange symptoms perilously 
 close to the surface in his eyes. He Winked rap- 
 idly, terribly embarrassed lest he should lose his 
 composure, and not quite knowing why the mere 
 experience of seeing her should have broken him 
 up not realizing that he had been furnishing 
 cheerfulness and comfort for his mother through 
 trying hours and that subconsciously he had been 
 craving the same thing himself and that there 
 was only one human who could give it to him. 
 
 The hidden tears were stirring eloquence to her. 
 They made transparent the windows of his soul. 
 She did not realize that her two gloved hands, 
 clasped tightly together, were held in his strong 
 grip, any more than if that were their usual posi- 
 tion when he spoke to her. She was transcended.
 
 RUTH TAKES OFF HER HAT 411 
 
 She seemed no longer to be the plain, work-a-day 
 Ruth Dunbar, but a new person whose feet rested 
 upon a cloud and whose heart throbbed with hap- 
 piness. 
 
 "My mother," she heard him saying, "is asleep 
 now. She will come down presently. Mean- 
 while, you must take off your hat." 
 
 Her eyes met his. "I shall need my hands 
 for that." 
 
 That made it doubly hard for him to give 
 them up. He attempted to carry them to his lips. 
 
 "Not my glove," she whispered. The color 
 surging to her face, she stripped off the offending 
 covering, and felt his lips upon her fingers. She 
 dared not meet his glance, but turned away from 
 him, disconcerted by the turmoil in her. 
 
 He took the coat as she slipped it from her 
 shoulders. Standing before the gilt-framed mir- 
 ror, she raised her hands above her head to unpin 
 the small turban-like hat. It was an important 
 and appealing thing to him to have her there tak- 
 ing off her hat in the house which was full of 
 so many unfading memories of his boyhood. It 
 was symbolic as if by that ceremony, she agreed 
 that it was necessary for her to visit the place 
 because it did contain memories of him. She 
 seemed to feel his thoughts and, having cast a
 
 412 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 covert glance at his reflection in the mirror, turned 
 her head to meet his glance. He moved toward 
 her until his shoulder touched lightly against 
 her. 
 
 "I appreciated your letters," she said, in a low 
 tone. 
 
 "I would have given anything to have seen 
 you on either of the last two days," he said sim- 
 ply. "I wanted you." 
 
 The significance of the speech just words 
 was nothing to them. They had mounted to high 
 places, unassisted by speeches. It did not seem 
 epochal to him merely to say that he wanted her, 
 for that was the great salient fact of his life. To 
 have him say it did not thrill her more than she 
 had already been thrilled, because it was not 
 alone the fact that he wanted her which filled her 
 with content, but the fact that she had already 
 decided that she was right in wanting him. 
 
 "Why was I not lucky enough," she whispered, 
 willing to say anything, "to come at one of the 
 times when you wanted me?" 
 
 "You could not have avoided it." All at- 
 tempt at originality or of thoughtful speech van- 
 ished now. They followed a beaten path worn 
 smooth by many thousand feet, heading toward
 
 RUTH TAKES OFF HER HAT 413 
 
 the almost unbelievable goal where was writ the 
 promise of eternal happiness. 
 
 "You want me always*?" she murmured. 
 
 His hand was now upon her further shoulder. 
 The ancient mirror that had seen him in most of 
 the epochs of his life, beginning with his first 
 descent from the floor above in the arms of his 
 nurse, saw now what it certainly would have con- 
 sidered, had it been given it to consider, the great 
 climax. 
 
 "Always," was the single word it might have 
 heard him say. After that magic sesame, it saw 
 presently white arms about his neck and a red- 
 brown head upon his shoulder resting unmoving 
 overcome by a little bit of shame and a great deal 
 of stirring happiness. 
 
 During the moments that they stood there, time 
 and place existed not at all for them. The pub- 
 licity of the hallway brought no confusion to 
 them. In fact, they were not realizing that the 
 world contained other breathing human beings 
 than themselves. Whether this finally did oc- 
 cur to them or whether a gracious and invisible 
 Providence simply moved them on to more ap- 
 propriate places, was not clear in retrospection. 
 Ruth, however, presently did find herself sitting
 
 4H THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 upon the slippery hair-cloth sofa in the parlor, 
 looking and feeling in that precentennial atmos- 
 phere, like a quaint old daguerreotype come to 
 life. 
 
 She drew her arm through his and gazed with 
 an almost child-like interest at the strange objects 
 in the room the old print of Shakespeare and 
 his friends in a monumental gold frame; a cun- 
 ningly wrought sampler whose quaint subject was 
 a map in several colors showing the extent of the 
 Union in 1847; a lock of hair in a velvet frame; 
 a marble clock on a marble mantel, and a marble- 
 topped table with a Rogers group upon it. Con- 
 cerning these she asked innumerable questions, in- 
 terrupting without apology his perusal of the 
 papers in the big brown envelope which she had 
 brought him. If he did not reply she scarcely 
 noticed. 
 
 He stopped suddenly to look squarely into 
 the blithe, smiling face. "But you had not seen 
 these," he asserted, with a grave wonder. They 
 were the papers and correspondence upon the 
 subject of his case against the Old Dominion Steel 
 Company, among them a copy of the last letter he 
 had written to the Company, repudiating his 
 claim. 
 
 "No. I hadn't seen them. "Why 4 ?"
 
 RUTH TAKES OFF HER HAT 415 
 
 "I don't understand. Why are you sitting 
 there with your hand upon my arm, then"? For 
 a piece of wrong doing of mine, you once said I 
 could not be considered as a possible husband 
 for you." 
 
 The smiling eyes grew serious. "I have grown 
 older and wiser," she said, slowly. "I am not 
 your judge. I am simply the woman who loves 
 you. I believe the heart in there," laying her 
 hand lightly on his coat, "is big and strong and 
 true. It will do what it thinks is right." 
 
 He struggled with a choking in his throat. "I 
 shall try," he said unsteadily, "to deserve your 
 confidence." 
 
 He found that that was all that he could say. 
 He simply held her tightly to him, a great pride 
 and joy welling up in his breast at the mark of 
 her simple faith in him. It was a joy that words 
 could only have belittled. He held her until at 
 length she pushed back from him with hands upon 
 his shoulders and turned a smiling face up to his. 
 But her eyes too were bright with tears. 
 
 She could keep her other piece of information 
 from him no more. His face clouded, like a 
 man drawn into another world, when she men- 
 tioned the letter to the broker. She explained 
 that he had forgotten to mail it and she had had
 
 416 THE CRESTING WAVE 
 
 an interview with Mr. LeFevre upon the sub- 
 ject. Had he seen a newspaper in the last two 
 days? No. Then she would have pleasant in- 
 formation for him. His steel stock had had a 
 spectacular drop. In the words of the broker, in- 
 stead of losing his last penny, he would save out 
 of the situation more than thirty thousand dol- 
 lars ! 
 
 William was dazed. He rose and walked up 
 and down the room. 
 
 "After all," he said at length, when words 
 came to him, "blind Providence is a better care- 
 taker for a man's business than his own vaunted 
 foresight." 
 
 What a creed for you, William Spade, who 
 but a short time back had spoken of man's own 
 invincible power! 
 
 He told her then of the events that had led 
 up to the writing of the letter to the brokers 
 his decision to give up the claim against the Steel 
 Company, his consequent prospect of straitened 
 circumstances, and his endeavor to clear the slate 
 of as many obligations as possible so that he 
 might start anew. It was a story full of straight- 
 forward heroism, but he told it haltingly, em- 
 barrassed at the magnitude of it and its results. 
 And she, feeling that it was now her own vicarious
 
 RUTH TAKES OFF HER HAT 417 
 
 act, restrained her joy and pride in it and in 
 him. It did not occur to her to congratulate 
 him or to praise him, for she had given in ad- 
 vance her opinion. The only well chosen thing 
 that came to her lips ah, well it was not spoken, 
 and the pressure of her soft arms about his neck 
 was reward for much suffering. 
 
 At last she drew back to look into his face. 
 Her practical self asserted itself. "But your au- 
 tomobile is gone," she exclaimed, "and it was the 
 apple of your eye." 
 
 He waved his hand to sweep away such idle 
 considerations. 
 
 "I am glad of it," he said. "It was too big 
 for our lives. You and I will not require ninety 
 horsepower to convince the world that we are be- 
 ing properly transported from place to place." 
 
 She might have told him this was an epigram, 
 a specification for right living, an expression of 
 belief in the things in which she wanted him to 
 believe. But she merely laughed contentedly, 
 her lower lip drawn in between her white teeth. 
 
 THE END
 
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