The Business of Life

"A damned Japanese in Tokio worked them off on us!" broke out the author of "Black Roses," hoarsely. "That was the beginning. What are you going to do about it? You've got us all right, Miss Nevers. The Jap did us. We did the next man. If you want to send us up, I suppose you can! I don't care. I can't keep soul and body together by selling what I write. I tell you I've starved half my life – and when I hear about the stuff that sells – all these damned best sellers – all this cheap fiction that people buy – while they neglect me – it breaks my heart – "

He turned sharply and passed his hand over his face. It was not an attitude; for a fraction of a second it was the real thing. Yet, even while the astonished poet was peeping sideways at his guilty companion, a verse suggested itself to him; and, quite unconsciously, he began to fumble in his pockets for a pencil, while the tears still glistened on his cheeks.

"Mr. Waudle," said Jacqueline, "I am really sorry for you. Because this is a very serious affair."

There was a silence; then she reseated herself at her desk.

"My client, Mr. Clydesdale, is not vindictive. He has no desire to humiliate you publicly. But he is justly indignant. And I know he will insist that you return to him what money he paid you for your collection."

Waudle started dramatically, forgetting his genuine emotion of the moment before.

"Does this rich man mean to ruin me!" he demanded, making his resonant voice tremble.

"On the contrary," she explained gently, "all he wants is the money he paid you."

As that was the only sort of ruin which Mr. Waudle had been fearing, he pressed his clenched fists into his eyes. He had never before possessed so much money. The mere idea of relinquishing it infuriated him; and he turned savagely on Jacqueline, hesitated, saw it was useless. For there remained nothing further to say to such a she-devil of an expert. He had always detested women anyway; whenever he had any money they had gotten it in one way or another. The seven thousand, his share, would have gone the same way. Now it was going back into a fat, rich man's capacious pockets – unless Mrs. Clydesdale might be persuaded to intervene. She could say that she wanted the collection. Why not? She had aided him before in emergencies – unwillingly, it is true – but what of that? No doubt she'd do it again – if he scared her sufficiently.

Jacqueline waited a moment longer; then rose from her desk in signal that the interview was at an end.

Waudle slouched out first, his oblong, evil head hanging in a picturesque attitude of noble sorrow. The Cubist shambled after him, wrapped in abstraction, his round, pale, bird-like eyes partly sheathed under bluish eyelids that seemed ancient and wrinkled.

He was already quite oblivious to his own moral degradation; his mind was completely obsessed by the dramatic spectacle which the despair of his friend had afforded him, and by the idea for a poem with which the episode had inspired him.

He was still absently fishing for a pencil and bit of paper when his companion jogged his elbow:

"If we fight this business, and if that damn girl sets Clydesdale after us, we'll have to get out. But I don't think it will come to that."

"Can you stop her, Adalbert – and retain the money?"

"By God! I'm beginning to think I can. I believe I'll drop in to see Mrs. Clydesdale about it now. She is a very faithful friend of mine," he added gently. "And sometimes a woman will rush in to help a fellow where angels fear to tread."

The poet looked at him, then looked away, frightened.

"Be careful," he said, nervously.

"Don't worry. I know women. And I have an idea."

The poet of the Cubists shrugged; then, with a vague gesture:

"My mistress, the moon," he said, dreamily, "is more to me than any idea on earth or in Heaven."

"Very fine," sneered Waudle, "but why don't you make her keep you in pin money?"

"Adalbert," retorted the poet, "if you wish to prostitute your art, do so. Anybody can make a mistress of his art and then live off her. But the inviolable moon – "

"Oh, hell!" snapped the author of "Black Roses."

And they wandered on into the busy avenue, side by side, Waudle savagely biting his heavy under-lip, both fists rammed deep into his overcoat pockets; the Cubist wandering along beside him, a little derby hat crowning the bunch of frizzled hair on his head, his soiled drab trousers, ankle high, flapping in the wind.

Jacqueline glanced at them as they passed the window at the end of the corridor, and turned hastily away, remembering the old, unhappy days after her father's death, and how once from a window she had seen the poet as she saw him now, frizzled, soiled, drab, disappearing into murky perspective.

She turned wearily to her desk again. A sense of depression had been impending – but she knew it was only the reaction from excitement and fought it nervously.

They brought luncheon to her desk, but she sent away the tray untouched. People came by appointment and departed, only to give place to others, all equally persistent and wholly absorbed in their own affairs; and she listened patiently, forcing her tired mind to sympathise and comprehend. And, in time, everybody went away satisfied or otherwise, but in no doubt concerning the answer she had given, favourable or unfavourable to their desires. For that was her way in the business of life.

At last, once more looking over her appointment list, she found that only Clydesdale remained; and almost at the same moment, and greatly to her surprise, Mrs. Clydesdale was announced.

"Is Mr. Clydesdale with her?" she asked the clerk, who had also handed her a letter with the visiting card of Mrs. Clydesdale.

"The lady is alone," he said.

Jacqueline glanced at the card again. Then, thoughtfully:

"Please say to Mrs. Clydesdale that I will receive her," she said; laid the card on the desk and picked up the letter.

It was a very thick letter and had arrived by messenger.

The address on the envelope was in Mrs. Hammerton's familiar and vigorous back-stroke writing, and she had marked it "Private! Personal! Important!" As almost every letter from her to Jacqueline bore similar emphatic warnings, the girl smiled to herself and leisurely split the envelope with a paper knife.

She was still intent on the letter, and was still seated at her desk when Mrs. Clydesdale entered. And Jacqueline slowly looked up, dazed and deathly white, as the woman about whom she had at that moment been reading came forward to greet her. Then, with a supreme effort, she rose from her chair, managing to find the ghost of a voice to welcome Elena, who seemed unusually vivacious, and voluble to the verge of excitement.

"My dear!" she exclaimed. "What a perfectly charming office! It's really too sweet for words, Miss Nevers! It's enough to drive us all into trade! Are you very much surprised to see me here?"

"A – little."

"It's odd – the coincidence that brought me," said Elena gaily, " – and just a trifle embarrassing to me. And as it is rather a confidential matter – " She drew her chair closer to the desk. "May I speak to you in fullest candour and – and implicit confidence, Miss Nevers?"

"Yes."

"Then – there is a friend of mine in very serious trouble – a man I knew slightly before I was married. Since then I – have come to know him – better. And I am here now to ask you to help him."

"Yes."

"Shall I tell you his name at once?"

"If you wish."

"Then – his name is Adalbert Waudle."

Jacqueline looked up at her in weary surprise.

Elena laughed feverishly: "Adalbert is only a boy – a bad one, perhaps, but – you know that genius is queer – always unbalanced. He came to see me at noon to-day. It's a horrid mess, isn't it – what he did to my husband? I know all about it; and I know that Cary is wild, and that it was an outrageous thing for Adalbert to do. But – "

Her voice trembled a little and she forced a laugh to conceal it: "Adalbert is an old friend, Miss Nevers. I knew him as a boy. But even so, Cary couldn't understand if I pleaded for him. My husband means to send him to jail if he does not return the money. And – and I am sorry for Mrs. Waudle. Besides, I like the porcelains. And I want you to persuade Cary to keep them."

Through the whirling chaos of her thoughts, Jacqueline still strove to understand what this excited woman was saying; made a desperate effort to fix her attention on the words and not on the flushed and restless young wife who was uttering them.

"Will you persuade Cary to keep the collection, Miss Nevers?"

"That is for you to do, Mrs. Clydesdale."

"I tried. I called him up at his office and asked him to keep the jades and porcelains because I liked them. But he was very obstinate. What you have told him about – about being swindled has made him furious. That is why I came here. Something must be done."

"I don't think I understand you."

"There is nothing to understand. I want to keep the collection. I ask you to convince my husband – "

"How?"

"I d – don't know," stammered Elena, crimson again. "You ought to know how to – to do it."

"If Mr. Waudle returns your husband's money, no further action will be taken."

"He can not," said Elena, in a low voice.

"Why?"

"He has spent it."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Yes."

"Then I am afraid that Mr. Clydesdale will have him arrested."

There was an ominous silence. Jacqueline forced her eyes away from the terrible fascination of Elena's ghastly face, and said:

"I am sorry. But I can do nothing for you, Mrs. Clydesdale. The decision rests with your husband."

"You must help me!"

"I cannot."

"You must!" repeated Elena.

"How?"

"I – I don't care how you do it! But you must prevent my husband from prosecuting Mr. Waudle! It – it has got to be done – somehow."

"What do you mean?"

Elena's face was burning and her lips quivered:

"It has got to be done! I can't tell you why."

"Can you not tell your husband?"

"No."

Jacqueline was quivering, too, clinging desperately to her self-control under the menace of an impending horror which had already partly stunned her.

"Are you —afraid of this man?" she asked, with stiffening lips.

Elena bowed her head in desperation.

"What is it? Blackmail?"

"Yes. He once learned something. I have paid him – not to – to write it for the – the Tattler. And to-day he came to me straight from your office and made me understand that I would have to stop my husband from – taking any action – even to recover the money – "

Jacqueline sat nervously clenching and unclenching her hands over the letter which lay under them on the blotter.

"What scandal is it you fear, Mrs. Clydesdale?" she asked, in an icy voice.

Elena coloured furiously: "Is it necessary for me to incriminate myself before you help me? I thought you more generous!"

"I can not help you. There is no way to do so."

"Yes, there is!"

"How?"

"By – by telling my husband that the – the jades are not forgeries!"

Jacqueline's ashy cheeks blazed into colour.

"Mrs. Clydesdale," she said, "I would not do it to save myself – not even to save the dearest friend I have! And do you think I will lie to spare you?"

In the excitement and terror of what now was instantly impending, the girl had risen, clutching Mrs. Hammerton's letter in her hand.

"You need not tell me why you – you are afraid," she stammered, her lovely lips already distorted with fear and horror, "because I – I know! Do you understand? I know what you are – what you have done – what you are doing!"

She fumbled in the pages of Mrs. Hammerton's letter, found an enclosure, and held it out to Elena with shaking fingers.

It was Elena's note to her husband, written on the night she left him, brought by her husband to Silverwood, left on the library table, used as a bookmark by Desboro, discovered and kept by its finder, Mrs. Hammerton, for future emergencies.

Elena re-read it now with sickened senses, and knew that in the eyes of this young girl she was utterly and irretrievably damned.

"Did you write that?" whispered Jacqueline, with lips scarcely under control.

"I – you do not understand – "

"Did you know that when I was a guest under Mr. Desboro's roof everything that he and you said in the library was overheard? Do you know that you have been watched – not by me – but even long before I knew you – watched even at the opera – "

Elena drew a quick, terrified breath; then the surging shame mantled her from brow to throat.

"That was Mrs. Hammerton!" she murmured. "I warned Jim – but he trusted her."

Jacqueline turned cold all over.

"He is your – lover," she said mechanically.

Elena looked at her, hesitated, came a step nearer, still staring. Her visage and her bearing altered subtly. For a moment they gazed at each other. Then Elena said, in a soft, but deadly, voice:

"Suppose he is my lover! Does that concern you?" And, as the girl made no stir or sound: "However, if you think it does, you will scarcely care to know either of us any longer. I am quite satisfied. Do what you please about the man who has blackmailed me. I don't care now. I was frightened for a moment – but I don't care any longer. Because the end of all this nightmare is in sight; and I think Mr. Desboro and I are beginning to awake at last."

Until a few minutes before five Jacqueline remained seated at her desk, motionless, her head buried in her arms. Then she got to her feet somehow, and to her room, where, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, she bathed her face and arranged her hair, and strove to pinch and rub a little colour into her ghastly cheeks.