"Hey, boy," called Cowperwood, listening, seeing a shabbily clothed misfit of a boy with a bundle of papers under his arm turning a corner.

"What"s that? Chicago burning!"

He looked at his father and the other men in a significant way as he reached for the paper, and then, glancing at the headlines, realized the worst.

ALL CHICAGO BURNING

FIRE RAGES UNCHECKED IN COMMERCIAL SECTION SINCE YESTERDAY EVENING.

BANKS, COMMERCIAL HOUSES, PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN RUINS. DIRECT TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION SUSPENDED SINCE THREE O"CLOCK TO-DAY. NO END TO PROGRESS OF DISASTER IN SIGHT.

"That looks rather serious," he said, calmly, to his companions, a cold, commanding force coming into his eyes and voice. To his father he said a little later, "It"s panic, unless the majority of the banks and brokerage firms stand together."

He was thinking quickly, brilliantly, resourcefully of his own outstanding obligations. His father"s bank was carrying one hundred thousand dollars" worth of his street-railway securities at sixty, and fifty thousand dollars" worth of city loan at seventy. His father had "up with him" over forty thousand dollars in cash covering market manipulations in these stocks. The banking house of Drexel & Co. was on his books as a creditor for one hundred thousand, and that loan would be called unless they were especially merciful, which was not likely.

Jay Cooke & Co. were his creditors for another one hundred and fifty thousand. They would want their money. At four smaller banks and three brokerage companies he was debtor for sums ranging from fifty thousand dollars down. The city treasurer was involved with him to the extent of nearly five hundred thousand dollars, and exposure of that would create a scandal; the State treasurer for two hundred thousand. There were small accounts, hundreds of them, ranging from one hundred dollars up to five and ten thousand. A panic would mean not only a withdrawal of deposits and a calling of loans, but a heavy depression of securities.

How could he realize on his securities?--that was the question--how without selling so many points off that his fortune would be swept away and he would be ruined?

He figured briskly the while he waved adieu to his friends, who hurried away, struck with their own predicament.

"You had better go on out to the house, father, and I"ll send some telegrams." (The telephone had not yet been invented.) "I"ll be right out and we"ll go into this thing together. It looks like black weather to me. Don"t say anything to any one until after we have had our talk; then we can decide what to do."

Cowperwood, Sr., was already plucking at his side-whiskers in a confused and troubled way. He was cogitating as to what might happen to him in case his son failed, for he was deeply involved with him. He was a little gray in his complexion now, frightened, for he had already strained many points in his affairs to accommodate his son. If Frank should not be able promptly on the morrow to meet the call which the bank might have to make for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the onus and scandal of the situation would be on him.

On the other hand, his son was meditating on the tangled relation in which he now found himself in connection with the city treasurer and the fact that it was not possible for him to support the market alone. Those who should have been in a position to help him were now as bad off as himself. There were many unfavorable points in the whole situation.

Drexel & Co. had been booming railway stocks--loaning heavily on them.

Jay Cooke & Co. had been backing Northern Pacific--were practically doing their best to build that immense transcontinental system alone.

Naturally, they were long on that and hence in a ticklish position. At the first word they would throw over their surest securities--government bonds, and the like--in order to protect their more speculative holdings. The bears would see the point. They would hammer and hammer, selling short all along the line. But he did not dare to do that. He would be breaking his own back quickly, and what he needed was time. If he could only get time--three days, a week, ten days--this storm would surely blow over.

The thing that was troubling him most was the matter of the half-million invested with him by Stener. A fall election was drawing near. Stener, although he had served two terms, was slated for reelection. A scandal in connection with the city treasury would be a very bad thing. It would end Stener"s career as an official--would very likely send him to the penitentiary. It might wreck the Republican party"s chances to win. It would certainly involve himself as having much to do with it. If that happened, he would have the politicians to reckon with. For, if he were hard pressed, as he would be, and failed, the fact that he had been trying to invade the city street-railway preserves which they held sacred to themselves, with borrowed city money, and that this borrowing was liable to cost them the city election, would all come out. They would not view all that with a kindly eye. It would be useless to say, as he could, that he had borrowed the money at two per cent. (most of it, to save himself, had been covered by a protective clause of that kind), or that he had merely acted as an agent for Stener. That might go down with the unsophisticated of the outer world, but it would never be swallowed by the politicians. They knew better than that.

There was another phase to this situation, however, that encouraged him, and that was his knowledge of how city politics were going in general.

It was useless for any politician, however loftly, to take a high and mighty tone in a crisis like this. All of them, great and small, were profiting in one way and another through city privileges. Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson, he knew, made money out of contracts--legal enough, though they might be looked upon as rank favoritism--and also out of vast sums of money collected in the shape of taxes--land taxes, water taxes, etc.--which were deposited in the various banks designated by these men and others as legal depositories for city money. The banks supposedly carried the city"s money in their vaults as a favor, without paying interest of any kind, and then reinvested it--for whom?

Cowperwood had no complaint to make, for he was being well treated, but these men could scarcely expect to monopolize all the city"s benefits.

He did not know either Mollenhauer or Simpson personally--but he knew they as well as Butler had made money out of his own manipulation of city loan. Also, Butler was most friendly to him. It was not unreasonable for him to think, in a crisis like this, that if worst came to worst, he could make a clean breast of it to Butler and receive aid.

In case he could not get through secretly with Stener"s help, Cowperwood made up his mind that he would do this.

His first move, he decided, would be to go at once to Stener"s house and demand the loan of an additional three or four hundred thousand dollars.

Stener had always been very tractable, and in this instance would see how important it was that his shortage of half a million should not be made public. Then he must get as much more as possible. But where to get it? Presidents of banks and trust companies, large stock jobbers, and the like, would have to be seen. Then there was a loan of one hundred thousand dollars he was carrying for Butler. The old contractor might be induced to leave that. He hurried to his home, secured his runabout, and drove rapidly to Stener"s.

As it turned out, however, much to his distress and confusion, Stener was out of town--down on the Chesapeake with several friends shooting ducks and fishing, and was not expected back for several days. He was in the marshes back of some small town. Cowperwood sent an urgent wire to the nearest point and then, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, to several other points in the same neighborhood, asking him to return immediately.

He was not at all sure, however, that Stener would return in time and was greatly nonplussed and uncertain for the moment as to what his next step would be. Aid must be forthcoming from somewhere and at once.

Suddenly a helpful thought occurred to him. Butler and Mollenhauer and Simpson were long on local street-railways. They must combine to support the situation and protect their interests. They could see the big bankers, Drexel & Co. and Cooke & Co., and others and urge them to sustain the market. They could strengthen things generally by organizing a buying ring, and under cover of their support, if they would, he might sell enough to let him out, and even permit him to go short and make something--a whole lot. It was a brilliant thought, worthy of a greater situation, and its only weakness was that it was not absolutely certain of fulfillment.

He decided to go to Butler at once, the only disturbing thought being that he would now be compelled to reveal his own and Stener"s affairs.

So reentering his runabout he drove swiftly to the Butler home.

When he arrived there the famous contractor was at dinner. He had not heard the calling of the extras, and of course, did not understand as yet the significance of the fire. The servant"s announcement of Cowperwood brought him smiling to the door.

"Won"t you come in and join us? We"re just havin" a light supper. Have a cup of coffee or tea, now--do."

"I can"t," replied Cowperwood. "Not to-night, I"m in too much of a hurry. I want to see you for just a few moments, and then I"ll be off again. I won"t keep you very long."

"Why, if that"s the case, I"ll come right out." And Butler returned to the dining-room to put down his napkin. Aileen, who was also dining, had heard Cowperwood"s voice, and was on the qui vive to see him. She wondered what it was that brought him at this time of night to see her father. She could not leave the table at once, but hoped to before he went. Cowperwood was thinking of her, even in the face of this impending storm, as he was of his wife, and many other things. If his affairs came down in a heap it would go hard with those attached to him. In this first clouding of disaster, he could not tell how things would eventuate. He meditated on this desperately, but he was not panic-stricken. His naturally even-molded face was set in fine, cla.s.sic lines; his eyes were as hard as chilled steel.

"Well, now," exclaimed Butler, returning, his countenance manifesting a decidedly comfortable relationship with the world as at present const.i.tuted. "What"s up with you to-night? Nawthin" wrong, I hope. It"s been too fine a day."

"Nothing very serious, I hope myself," replied Cowperwood, "But I want to talk with you a few minutes, anyhow. Don"t you think we had better go up to your room?"

"I was just going to say that," replied Butler--"the cigars are up there."

They started from the reception-room to the stairs, Butler preceding and as the contractor mounted, Aileen came out from the dining-room in a frou-frou of silk. Her splendid hair was drawn up from the base of the neck and the line of the forehead into some quaint convolutions which const.i.tuted a reddish-gold crown. Her complexion was glowing, and her bare arms and shoulders shone white against the dark red of her evening gown. She realized there was something wrong.

"Oh, Mr. Cowperwood, how do you do?" she exclaimed, coming forward and holding out her hand as her father went on upstairs. She was delaying him deliberately in order to have a word with him and this bold acting was for the benefit of the others.

"What"s the trouble, honey?" she whispered, as soon as her father was out of hearing. "You look worried."

"Nothing much, I hope, sweet," he said. "Chicago is burning up and there"s going to be trouble to-morrow. I have to talk to your father."

She had time only for a sympathetic, distressed "Oh," before he withdrew his hand and followed Butler upstairs. She squeezed his arm, and went through the reception-room to the parlor. She sat down, thinking, for never before had she seen Cowperwood"s face wearing such an expression of stern, disturbed calculation. It was placid, like fine, white wax, and quite as cold; and those deep, vague, inscrutable eyes! So Chicago was burning. What would happen to him? Was he very much involved? He had never told her in detail of his affairs. She would not have understood fully any more than would have Mrs. Cowperwood. But she was worried, nevertheless, because it was her Frank, and because she was bound to him by what to her seemed indissoluble ties.

Literature, outside of the masters, has given us but one idea of the mistress, the subtle, calculating siren who delights to prey on the souls of men. The journalism and the moral pamphleteering of the time seem to foster it with almost partisan zeal. It would seem that a censorship of life had been established by divinity, and the care of its execution given into the hands of the utterly conservative. Yet there is that other form of liaison which has nothing to do with conscious calculation. In the vast majority of cases it is without design or guile. The average woman, controlled by her affections and deeply in love, is no more capable than a child of anything save sacrificial thought--the desire to give; and so long as this state endures, she can only do this. She may change--h.e.l.l hath no fury, etc.--but the sacrificial, yielding, solicitous att.i.tude is more often the outstanding characteristic of the mistress; and it is this very att.i.tude in contradistinction to the grasping legality of established matrimony that has caused so many wounds in the defenses of the latter. The temperament of man, either male or female, cannot help falling down before and worshiping this nonseeking, sacrificial note. It approaches vast distinction in life. It appears to be related to that last word in art, that largeness of spirit which is the first characteristic of the great picture, the great building, the great sculpture, the great decoration--namely, a giving, freely and without stint, of itself, of beauty. Hence the significance of this particular mood in Aileen.

All the subtleties of the present combination were troubling Cowperwood as he followed Butler into the room upstairs.

"Sit down, sit down. You won"t take a little somethin"? You never do.

I remember now. Well, have a cigar, anyhow. Now, what"s this that"s troublin" you to-night?"

Voices could be heard faintly in the distance, far off toward the thicker residential sections.

"Extra! Extra! All about the big Chicago fire! Chicago burning down!"

"Just that," replied Cowperwood, hearkening to them. "Have you heard the news?"

"No. What"s that they"re calling?"

"It"s a big fire out in Chicago."

"Oh," replied Butler, still not gathering the significance of it.

"It"s burning down the business section there, Mr. Butler," went on Cowperwood ominously, "and I fancy it"s going to disturb financial conditions here to-morrow. That is what I have come to see you about.

How are your investments? Pretty well drawn in?"

Butler suddenly gathered from Cowperwood"s expression that there was something very wrong. He put up his large hand as he leaned back in his big leather chair, and covered his mouth and chin with it. Over those big knuckles, and bigger nose, thick and cartilaginous, his large, s.h.a.ggy-eyebrowed eyes gleamed. His gray, bristly hair stood up stiffly in a short, even growth all over his head.

"So that"s it," he said. "You"re expectin" trouble to-morrow. How are your own affairs?"

"I"m in pretty good shape, I think, all told, if the money element of this town doesn"t lose its head and go wild. There has to be a lot of common sense exercised to-morrow, or to-night, even. You know we are facing a real panic. Mr. Butler, you may as well know that. It may not last long, but while it does it will be bad. Stocks are going to drop to-morrow ten or fifteen points on the opening. The banks are going to call their loans unless some arrangement can be made to prevent them.

No one man can do that. It will have to be a combination of men. You and Mr. Simpson and Mr. Mollenhauer might do it--that is, you could if you could persuade the big banking people to combine to back the market.

There is going to be a raid on local street-railways--all of them.