Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

Chapter Thirteen

I left next morning and beyond Tonopah I noticed something in the road ahead of me. The desert air was so clear that things were visible for miles before you actually got to them, and so I drove some little time before I was sure it was a man, and some little time after that before I could see a car beside the road down on the desert floor. He stood up when I approached and motioned me to stop. This was something I would have been afraid to do anywhere near civilization, but out there in the desert everything seemed different and I felt I had to. He was a small, nervous-looking man of about fifty and wore gray flannels, a sports coat and felt hat, all very rough and yet very good quality. He lifted his hat and seemed very annoyed. “I’ll borrow your shovel, if you don’t mind.”

“Shovel?”

“They took mine out when they washed the car yesterday and forgot to put it back, damn them.”

“But I have no shovel.”

He looked at me then for the first time, and his eye was very sharp. “You have no shovel? Didn’t they tell you about that?”

“Nobody said anything to me about a shovel.”

“Never start across this desert without a shovel, a towline and a jar of water. All right, if you have no shovel we’ll have to hook on the towline.”

I got out then and saw what had happened. He had pulled out for a passing car and the whole shoulder had given way, dumping him out on the desert floor, where his wheels were buried up to the axles in the alkali dust. What he wanted the shovel for was to dig them out and probably sprinkle enough gravel in front of them to enable him to get back on the road. He wasted no time in explanations, however, but at once got the towline out of his car, made it fast to his front axle and, as soon as I had pulled up a few feet, to my rear axle. Then he got in his car, took the wheel and told me to pull up until the towline was tight. This I did. When my car stalled I started it again and he yelled: “All right, give her the gun.”

I gave her the gun but I didn’t move. Then I became aware of a smell of burning rubber, and he yelled at me to stop. I then assumed I had been spinning my wheels without moving him. But when he came, jumped in my car and pushed me from behind the wheel I discovered it had been a little worse than that. The traction of my wheels had caused the road to slide again, and there I was, hanging over the edge and about to go down in the desert any second. Before he jumped into my car he had unfastened the towline from his own front axle, and now shot my car ahead just as the whole road gave way and spilled out onto the desert in another slide. When we were on safe ground he stopped, took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Close shave.”

“Yes, it certainly was.”

“Wait a minute.”

He got out, unfastened the towline from my rear axle, coiled it up and pitched it in the bottom of my car. “Well, you’ll have to give me a ride in to Hawthorne — that’s the nearest place I can get a tow car.”

So I gave him a ride in to Hawthorne, which was about ten miles, but I let him drive, which relieved my nervousness. As soon as he made sure the garage there would pull him out he thanked me and then asked: “Where do you live?”

“I’m staying in Reno.”

“At the Riverside?”

“Yes.”

“That’s where I live. I’ll see you there.”

Next morning while I was eating breakfast he sat down at my table and began to talk without saying good morning or anything. I found out it was his custom to begin in the middle or perhaps where he left off yesterday, without any preliminaries at all, and while it was an unusual way to do, it was completely a part of him. He was in the same rough clothes, and lit a cigarette, then glanced at me sidewise. “I kept trying to place you yesterday — haven’t I met you somewhere before? My name is Bolton. Charles Bolton.”

“No, I think not.”

“Then I’ve seen you somewhere. What’s your name?”

“Carrie Harris.”

“Oh... oh yes, of course. The pictures in the papers. What happened, anyway? Did Agnes bust it up?”

“You know her?”

“For years.”

“...Do you know Grant?”

“She had three or four brats and I think one of them was a boy. I suppose I know him.”

“Yes. As you put it, she busted it up.”

“I thought she would when I read the first dispatches about it. She’s no angel, Agnes isn’t. Is she still good-looking?”

“Yes.”

“Something unhealthy about her, though. She’s not quite — you know what I mean? — normal.”

“I found that out.”

“Distinctly alarming, I would say.”

“You live here?”

“Lung.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. So long as I stay out here where it’s dry it doesn’t bother me. White, unmarried, Episcopalian. What are you doing today?”

“Why — nothing.”

“Let’s go to Tahoe.”

“I don’t know why not.”

“It’s all closed up there now so it’ll be pleasant to tramp around. We’ll drop down to Truckee for lunch and then we’ll come back. Do you have galoshes?”

“Do I need them?”

“Snow.”

“Oh — fine.”

“You’d better wear something rough and warm.”

So I hurriedly went down and bought myself a rough skirt and sweater, a beret, woolen stockings, a short reefer coat and stout shoes with galoshes, and about half-past ten we started out in his car. We drove to Truckee, which was only a few miles along the main road to the Coast, then drove up a side road for about a half-hour until we came to Lake Tahoe, and there we parked and walked around. It was marvelous, with the water so clear you could see stones on the bottom, even where it was quite deep, and the fir trees and oaks had snow on them so they looked exactly like Christmas cards. But the mountain air made it quite fatiguing, so after an hour or so we got in the car again and drove back to Truckee, where we had lunch at a little roadside stand. I was so hungry I ate two tongue sandwiches and one made with chopped olive and egg, and had two glasses of milk.

Then he said: “I’ve lived in that hotel for ten years now and I’m a little over-familiar with the menu. Let’s go over to Sacramento for dinner.”

“All right.”

So we took the afternoon driving to Sacramento, and it was one of the most beautiful trips I ever took in my life. We crossed the Sierra Nevada, where at Donner Summit the road is 8,000 feet up and away down below you is Donner Lake, which looks like a blue mirror reflecting the sky. All around us was snow, and I was almost sorry when we left it behind us and dropped down into the rolling country of California. We went marching in, rough clothes and all, to a little restaurant he was familiar with, and I had a lobster which was different from the kind I had eaten in the East, as it had no claws, only big legs with little nippers on the end. He said it was really a langouste, but I didn’t care what it was, the tail was full of white tender meat and went wonderfully with mayonnaise. After that I had a steak.

We started back for Reno around nine o’clock, and on the mountain curves not much was being said. But then suddenly with that trick he had of beginning right in the middle, he said: “So you get the divorce — and then what?”

“Well — a man wants to marry me.”

“And you?”

“I don’t know. And I won’t know until—”

I stopped, for it swept over me again what had been such an obsession with me in New York. He looked at me sharply and I went on, but my voice sounded hard and not at all humorous, as I intended. “...Until I get back at dear Agnes.”

“Now tell me what happened.”

I didn’t want to tell him, but he kept asking little shrewd questions, and then it began coming out of me in short jerks — not all of what happened, at least on Grant’s side, but enough to make sense. After I got a lot of it off my chest I sort of ran down, then added: “I wish there were some way I could snub that Agnes. Her face would be as red as—”

“Ah! Now I get it... So you hate her, is that it?”

“Wouldn’t you, if she took your husband—”

“That’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Oh? Just nothing at all?”

“If that was all you’d hate him, not her. But you don’t. You’re still in love with him.”

“Grant means nothing to me. It’s all over—”

“I say you’re in love with him. Besides, even if she hadn’t taken him away from you, you’d hate her just the same, wouldn’t you?”

“She’s an unadmirable character.”

“And she showed you up for — what did you say you were?”

“...A waitress.”

“That’s what hurt.”

“I’m not ashamed of what I was.”

“Suppose, just to pass the time and make a little money, you took a job as waitress in one of our Reno restaurants and then suppose Agnes came in and sat down. What would you do?”

“Pour hot soup down her back.”

“You would not. You’d go hide.”

“...I guess I would.”

“I know you would.”

He drove for awhile and then he said: “Well — I don’t know how you’re going to get back at her. So long as you feel this inferiority she has a bulge on you that no bawling out can ever change. That is, unless you really do enter High Society.”

“I hate High Society. And how, by the way, could I ever enter it?”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be hard. You have money. Not much, but enough. The rest of it’s simple. You merely prostrate yourself on the ground and knock your head three times in front of the Great God Horse.”

“The Great God — what did you say?”

“I said you have to worship horses. Silly horses, of course. Not circus horses, brewery horses, milk wagon horses, horses that do arithmetic, or any other horses that perform a useful function. Hunters, for example. Horses dedicated to chasing the fox, probably the most futile occupation even seen. Jumpers. Ponies. Ladies’ driving horses — in an age that travels by automobile. All sorts of horses, provided they’re conspicuously and offensively silly. It’s all covered in the literature of the subject. Aldous Huxley and Thorstein Veblen go into it thoroughly, but I do believe some of the shrewdest comment on it was written by Robert W. Chambers. The horse is a symbol. He’s this century’s pinch of incense on the altars of Caesar — and remember, it was not required that you love Caesar, or believe in his gods or like his friends. Incense was enough. So with High Society. Manners, culture, breeding — they don’t mean anything. The horse does. Funny, isn’t it, to see people spend millions to get in — on yachts, charities, music and champagne — when one $500 hunter would turn the trick? With $50,000 and a mare for the horse shows, Carrie, you’re automatically in. Nobody can keep you out.”

“I don’t want to be in. I want to—”

“Spit in her eye?”

“Yes... I know one thing I can do. I can give her back her $50,000 and—”

“What?”

“Yes. That’s it! Now I know what’s been pent up in me, making me feel miserable and ashamed. I took that woman’s money and—”

“Carrie! That won’t make her face turn red. It’ll only make her laugh!”

“Oh, don’t worry! I won’t do anything foolish!”

We went on a lot of trips after that, to Carson City and Fallon and Death Valley and all around, and we kept having the discussion. He seemed set on the idea that I had to become a social leader and kept calling himself Pygmalion, whatever he meant by that. But I was wholly indifferent to everything but some scheme for using the money I already had in order to get more money quick and pay back Mrs. Harris the money I had taken off her and perhaps in that way forget her. We took our trips mostly in the afternoon, as he wasn’t fond of getting up early, so in the mornings I began dropping in at a brokerage house that was located in an office building down the street from the hotel. In my days of sitting around the apartment in New York I had already become somewhat acquainted with financial matters through studying Grant’s books. I wanted to learn more, though at the time I had no exact idea of what I was going to do with my knowledge after I got it. But I asked a lot of questions and followed the ticker and the blackboard and kept reading the Wall Street Journal, which was on file there, until I began to have a pretty fair idea of how the whole thing worked. All during this time I could feel stirring in me ambitions much more daring than I had ever had before, and knew that my interest in money, even apart from Mrs. Harris, was becoming a most important factor in my life.

Chapter Fourteen

It was more than a month before I saw Mr. Holden, which didn’t surprise me, as the papers were full of the water-front trouble on the Coast and I assumed he had been pretty busy. But one day I went to see the lawyers again and we went over the divorce case and then when I came back to the hotel Mr. Holden was waiting for me. We went up to my suite and again he was very preoccupied, and seemed to have large affairs on his mind. He began at once asking me questions about my divorce, and wanted to know how soon it would be disposed of. I said in two or three weeks.

“Good. That’ll just work in with my plans. I’ll wash this thing up out there, then stop by for you. As soon as your decree is granted we’ll be married, and then—” and here he looked very confident and mysterious—” and then, Carrie, you’ll see something.”

I didn’t want to discuss marriage, so I quickly seized the chance to switch over to whatever it was he was talking about. “Yes? And what will I see?”

“Never mind. But it’s ready. We’ve got what we’ve been waiting for.”

“Which is?”

“A break on conditions. It’s our market, not theirs. The wheels are going round once more and they’ve got to settle with labor. And if they don’t, labor is going to force them. The war is over, and now we strike.”

“When?”

“You’ll see. Soon.”

From then on things began to move fast and it seemed almost no time before my case was set for trial, so of course when he phoned me from Los Angeles one night I had to tell him when it would come up. So sure enough, the night before I was to appear in court he came again, marched into the hotel with his bags and took a room he had wired for. We had dinner in my suite, however, and he was exuberant and greatly excited. “It’ll be the biggest thing in the history of the American labor movement, Carrie. No comic opera affair like what you had at Karb’s. This is real.”

“You talk a lot but don’t tell me what it is.”

“We’re driving at whole industries.”

“...What industries?”

He hesitated, then said: “For the moment, we’re keeping it secret, but you’ll see. Big industries.”

“That’ll take quite a while, won’t it?”

“Not too long, and this time we land on their button. They’re wide open. And we’ve got the punch.”

I was so excited I began talking about the trips I had taken around Reno, for I didn’t trust myself to discuss his plans anymore. Around ten o’clock I remarked that I had a trying day ahead of me and that I ought to get some sleep. So he went, and I took good care that time to lock the door. Then I went into the bedroom, picked up the telephone and gave the operator Mr. Hunt’s home number in New York. I didn’t make it person-to-person, as that would be quite expensive, and as it was one o’clock in New York I was pretty sure he would be home. So when the call was put through it was Mrs. Hunt who answered, and I told her who I was and she was very polite but I could tell she was worried. He came to the phone, and as soon as I had answered his inquiries about the divorce, I got down to business. “Is anybody listening, Bernie? Can you talk?”

“I’m alone on the library extension.”

“Very well. If anybody asks you, I called to give you particulars on the divorce suit.”

“Right.”

“But this is what I really want. Tonight by air mail I’m sending you a check for ten thousand dollars.”

“Thanks offering?”

“No. You buy and sell stocks, don’t you?”

“I hope so.”

“I want you to put that ten thousand to my credit in your brokerage house. Tomorrow, as soon as the divorce goes through, I’m leaving Reno for some place, I don’t yet know where. But wherever it is, I’ll call you and give you instructions as to what you’re to do with the money. Tonight all I want to know is: Can I count on you to carry out my instructions exactly as I give them to you?”

“Now wait a minute, Carrie. Stocks are my business, but after all, I like you. I don’t want you to lose your shirt—”

“That’s my lookout.”

“What is this, anyway?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m not sure it’s anything except a brainstorm. But... it may mean a lot to me. I’ve got to have somebody in New York I can trust. Bernie, you’ll do this much for me, won’t you?”

He thought so long over this that I began to worry about my charges, but at last he said: “I don’t like it. I don’t like any of it. I can tell from the way you talk you’re gambling your money on some kind of tip you expect to get, and there’s a special room on the Street where they shear lambs like you. Still, it’s your own affair and your own money. All right, send on the money. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks.”

The next day in court I stammered through my recital of Grant’s ungovernable temper, his threats to strike me, and all the other things I was required to tell, and they were all true, so I could swear to them with a perfectly clear conscience. And yet they had so little relation to the real story that it seemed as though I was taking part in a trial that concerned somebody else. Hardly anybody was there, for the Reno courts do not permit the newspapers to treat people as they do in New York, and it only took a short time anyhow. The decree was granted a few minutes after I left court, and then I went over with Mr. Hyde to his office to sign papers. He then turned over to me his own check for the remaining $25,000, shook hands with me, and that seemed to be all.

I walked around to the second-hand dealer’s where I had left the car on my way to court. He offered me $750, which I didn’t think was enough, considering how little I had driven it, but I was in no mood to argue, so I said all right and he gave me his check. I went over to the bank where I had started a local account and deposited both checks, the one for $25,000 and the one for $750. Then I started back for the hotel. When I came to the bridge over the river I stopped and stood looking down into the water. You are supposed to throw your wedding ring into it as soon as you have your divorce, but I had no wedding ring. What I was thinking about was: What am I going to do about Mr. Holden? I can’t marry him, at any rate not now, and yet I have to go with him if I am going to succeed with the stock market operations I have in mind.

Chapter Fifteen

He was waiting for me in the lobby and came up with me to my suite. For the first time in two months he became personal, put his arms around me, took my hat off and ran his fingers through my hair. I sat down on a chair, not the sofa, but he sat down on the arm beside me and continued to lift my hair and let it fall back against my neck. “So. Now you’re free.”

“Yes.”

“How do you prefer to be married?”

“I... don’t quite know what you mean.”

“I prefer the clerk of the license bureau, myself, but if you want a minister I’ve made a list of six — all different denominations.”

“...Do you mind sitting over there? I have something to say to you.”

He looked a little hurt but in a moment crossed over to another chair and sat down. I wanted to be friendly, but I am afraid I sounded very curt and businesslike when I spoke. “I can’t marry you today.”

“...I had planned on it, Carrie.”

“I know. So had I. Anyway, I had taken it for granted. But I’m not ready yet. I’m not readjusted. I want time to think and to know you a little better — under circumstances when I’m not all mixed up inside.”

It was all false and phony, and the halting way I said it gave it a sound of sincerity that made me ashamed of it all the more. He looked at me a long time, and then he burst out: “Damn it, Carrie, why do you have to feel this way? I’ve been counting on you! I have a devil’s own time ahead of me, and I’ve been looking forward to having you with me! I—”

“You may. If you want me.”

“Ah!”

“No — don’t jump to conclusions. I don’t quite mean that — or at any rate what I think you have in mind. Off and on, ever since I’ve known you, you’ve tried to persuade me to become active in union work, and even offered me positions — if you want me with you couldn’t I be your secretary? Won’t you need one?”

He was over beside me before I even finished, kissing me, with tears starting out of his eyes. “Would you do that, Carrie? I’ll have to have one. And if I have you — I know I’ll win! With that bright little head you have on your shoulders—”

“But mind you, I mean secretary. I don’t mean — something else.”

“If you’re with me, do I care what you mean?”

“I’m going to have my own suite, wherever we go, and pay for it—”

“Stop talking, Carrie. I’m too happy to argue.”

“But I’m not through yet.”

“I am. I know all I want to know.”

“If I’m to be your secretary that means I’m a full-fledged unionist — or whatever you call it—”

“Of course you are. You’re still a member in good standing of the culinary workers’ union—”

“—And I have to know more about what I’m expected to do.”

“The little head again. No wonder I love you, Carrie.”

“What is this project, anyway?”

“I told you. We’re hitting the big industries. The ones that unions so far have been afraid — or unable — really to tackle.”

“Which industries?”

“Now that you’re my secretary I can tell you. Automobiles. Steel. Rubber. The mass-production industries that employ thousands — hundreds of thousands. They’re the future of the labor movement.”

“And where do we go, you and I?”

“The ‘we’ sounds sweet, Carrie. First to Detroit.”

“Oh — the automobile industry?”

“Yes. And guess which plant we tackle first.”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“The toughest of them all — I saw to that. For the moral effect. We play one against the other, but first we move in on Geerlock.”

My heart was pounding so that I hardly knew what I was saying when I asked if I could be alone while I packed. However, he noticed nothing and told me to take my time, as we wouldn’t leave until five o’clock. He didn’t care to fly the northern airlines at this time of year so we were going by train, and he was in very high spirits when he left me to arrange both compartments. As soon as I had locked the door I darted for the phone and called Mr. Hunt at his office. The call went through in just a few minutes but it seemed a year. “Bernie?”

“Yes, Carrie?”

“Now I’ve found out what I didn’t know last night. As soon as you get my check I want you to sell me short on Geerlock common.”

“Geerlock! Carrie, you’re crazy! The stock’s a buy! It’s been zooming since the spring. They’re snowed under with orders and—”

“Bernie! Please! I know what I’m doing! And you said you’d do what I—”

“But this is lunacy! You ought to be examined!”

“All right, I’ll get examined. But will you—”

“I’ll do anything you say, but it makes me sick.”

“How much margin will you require?”

“On Geerlock? It’s now selling at 110 — ten points.”

“Then my $10,000 will cover me on 1,000 shares—”

“For a couple of weeks, until you’re wiped out.”

“And how long will it take you to get rid of that amount of stock? I mean, under the SEC rule?”

“The rule is, that if we sell short we can only sell at a price higher than the last previous sale of that stock. But that part’s easy. In this market it’s no trick to sell short — and go broke. You’ll be wiped out so fast—”

“I asked you how long it would take.”

“A day, no longer.”

“All right, then. As soon as my check arrives, sell.”

“I’ll sell, but I’m turning green.”

“Take some bicarbonate.”

I sent for my long distance phone bills, for I didn’t want them paid by Mr. Hyde. I had just sent the boy down with the money when there came a rap on the door. I opened, and it was Mr. Bolton. “Just dropped in to say goodbye. How do you feel?”

“Terrible.”

“What? You should be gay — think of it, shackles have been struck off your wrists! What’s the matter, Carrie?”

“I’ve just double-crossed a man.”

“The candidate for your hand?”

“Yes.”

“I knew you’d never marry that guy.”

“It’s a little worse than that. I’m cold-bloodedly using him to further my schemes.”

“What schemes?”

“Money.”

“You’re certainly a mercenary little rat.”

“And he’s decent and loves me. I feel like hell.”

He took both my hands in his, then dropped them and turned away quickly, for he hated to betray that he liked anybody or was anything except a crusty bachelor. But for a moment or two, while he talked, his voice was very soft and he wasn’t a crusty bachelor at all. “Carrie, if you really were a mercenary little rat and were doing what you say you re doing you’d bore me and I wouldn’t waste five minutes on you.”

“Oh, I’m doing it, all right.”

“You’re doing it, but not for the reasons you think. You can deny it all you please, but you’re really a young woman in love. You’re determined to have that Grant back and you don’t care how you do it. I guess you’re right. You’ll have to lick Agnes before you can do anything else, and all I can say is — all’s fair in love, and more power to you. If a labor leader has to be double-crossed, then to hell with him. Cross him and forget him. Look at me now, Carrie.”

“...I’m looking.”

“Get that man.”

“Then you don’t — despise me?”

“I just love you — for your cold-blooded little soul and something in your heart that isn’t cold... Get that slug and make a man out of him. Promise me?”

“...I’ll try.”

“Atta girl.”

He took my hand and gave me a kind, warm smile and I felt a great deal better.

We arrived in Detroit Christmas afternoon and at once went to a small hotel out near the factory. It wasn’t much of a place and this surprised me, as previously Mr. Holden had always lived in a very elegant way. But he explained that it would be his headquarters for some time and that it was important that the people he would see feel comfortable there and not self-conscious about coming in, as they might if he went to one of the more fashionable hotels downtown. He gave me permission to go to a better place if I wished, but I decided to stay here. I didn’t take a suite. I took a single room with bath, and my reason was that I knew most hotels had rules against their women guests entertaining visitors in a bedroom, and this would be my excuse for not letting Mr. Holden or anybody come up there. I registered as C. Selden, hoping the newspapers would not identify me from that, and thank heaven they didn’t.

My room was high up, but he took a suite on the second floor so his visitors could reach it merely by walking up one flight of stairs. I thought at first this was to make it convenient for them, but I soon found out it was also for secrecy. For they merely drifted into the hotel without having to announce themselves at the desk or attract the attention of elevator boys, and fifty or sixty a day would be in and out without any fuss. My salary was $40 a week. He offered me $60 but I told him $40 was all I would take. I would really have preferred to work for nothing, considering all the circumstances, but as this would have looked very peculiar I accepted $40 and paid my own bills.

I conscientiously made myself as useful as I could. I handled all phone calls, of which there were hundreds a day, did all sorts of small errands, kept the callers entertained while he was conferring with two or three of them in the inside room of the suite, kept a record of his expenditures. These were startlingly large. They included the pay of a large number of organizers who were working with him, the expenses of these men, the rent of halls whenever he felt it necessary to hold a large meeting, hiring of automobiles and all sorts of things.

In less than a week I could feel we were embarked on something on a very large scale that was going to mean a fight to the death. All these men who kept coming in and out, “key men,” as Mr. Holden called them, from the positions they occupied in the factory, were very grim and terribly in earnest. They had little to say when they were brought in by the organizers and waited their turn to see Mr. Holden, but there was no mistaking the frame of mind they were in. They meant business, and it was very different from the noisy pep meeting we had in Reliance Hall that night when the Karb waitresses got ready to strike.

And yet, try as I would to take some interest in it, since I realized it was important and would soon concern everybody, I remained throughout wholly indifferent to it. All I could think of was the desperate gamble I had undertaken on how it would all turn out. I was on the long distance phone every night talking to Mr. Hunt, and could hardly wait to get the afternoon papers to see what Geerlock common had done in the course of the day. For the first week things went very badly with me. Mr. Hunt made the short sales the day before Christmas while I was on the train at 111, 111⅛ and 111½ in lots of 300, 300 and 400, and then the stock climbed ½ or ¾ a point a day until it was selling for 113. He was frantic. He told me I was half wiped out already and pleaded with me to let him cover before I lost my whole $10,000. My hands would feel like ice every time I thought of it, but I made myself hold on and send him $5,000 more margin. A day or two before New Year’s one of our organizers was beaten up by company guards and ejected from the plant, and nine men were fired because they had been seen talking with him. Mr. Holden at once wired the National Labor Relations Board, then jumped in a taxicab, went downtown and gave the story to the newspapers, with a copy of his telegram. The day after that, the item appeared in the papers. That was the first general knowledge, I think, that things were brewing in the Geerlock factory. The day after that, while the market as a whole moved up, Geerlock had a little dash after it, meaning “no change.” Once more I felt a throb inside of me, for I felt it was the news of union activity that had caused my stock to sag below the others.

Next day there were more beatings at the factory, and then a representative of the National Board arrived and the day after that there was a long interview in the papers with Mr. Beauvais, the president of the company, who said the union was infested with Communists and charged the National Board with trying to run his company, and then went on to say he would fight to the last ditch. “And we’ll knock him into it,” said Mr. Holden, when he finished reading the paper. “He weighs 250 pounds, so he’ll make a fine splash.”

The day after that, although the market again moved upward, Geerlock went down a point to 112. When I went up to my room to change for dinner a message was there saying call an operator of a certain number in New York. I called and of course she put me right through to Mr. Hunt. He was quite excited. “Listen, you, what’s going on out there anyway?”

“Who’s looney now?”

“But, Carrie — baby needs shoes!”

“...It might go down more yet.”

“When?”

“Before it goes up. It might sag a little more the next few days and then drop. But if you lose your shirt don’t blame me.”

Next day, on another rising market, the stock dropped a half point to 111½.

The day after New Year’s several big union officials arrived from Washington. Except for Mr. Holden they were the first men of their type I had ever seen and I began to understand why the labor movement is much more formidable than most people seem to realize. They were all men of fine presence, with beautiful manners, but that wasn’t what struck me about them. Although one or two were only medium size, and some of them were well up in middle age, they all seemed to walk in that same springy way that Mr. Holden walked, and you knew instinctively that they were fighters. In this respect they were exactly like Mr. Holden, and this side of him I could never quite forget, even in his most romantic moments. I don’t mean that it repelled me. There was something thrilling about it and yet something a little frightening about it too.

They arrived just before noon and went into a conference with Mr. Holden to which I was not admitted. I had sandwiches and coffee sent up and when I went in to serve them they seemed to know who I was, for they joked with me in a very friendly way. Then men from the factory began to arrive and for an hour or more they were packed in the inside sitting-room so tight I wondered how they could breathe. Then, by threes and fours, they began to leave. Then, around four o’clock, Mr. Holden and the men from Washington all went out very quickly and I was left alone. I knew something was about to happen. I sent down for a paper but there was very little about Geerlock. I turned to the financial page. Geerlock, which had been sagging steadily the last few days, was down to 109. I had about a $2,000 profit. I wondered if I ought to call Mr. Hunt and tell him to cover.

About five o’clock I remembered the radio which Mr. Holden always had in his suite, as he was very fond of music. I turned it on. There was music, but then all of a sudden it stopped in the middle and an announcer very excitedly said a meeting was being held that night by Geerlock employees to take a strike vote and it was expected they would all be out by morning.

From then on things happened so fast I don’t think I could remember all the details even if I tried. Whether it was the first big automobile strike I don’t know, but it was the first that I had anything to do with, and Mr. Holden directed it with an audacity that took my breath away. Once the blow had been struck he completely abandoned his policy of secrecy and invented a succession of stunts calculated to get him space in the newspapers. The day after the strike started he hired helicopters to drop food supplies to the pickets, on the pretense that the police had placed them in a state of siege. I protested against the cost and pointed out that police were permitting pickets’ wives to visit them, or anybody else who had sensible business, and that they could bring food. He laughed and said the helicopters made a better show. Then another day he found a number of GI students who happened to be musicians, called for their cards to make sure they were members of the union, and had them go over and give a concert to serenade the pickets who by now had put up some barricades. Almost every day he thought of something new and the result was that most of the stories in the newspapers were about what the union was doing, with the company’s end of it occupying almost no space at all. Not that the company kept quiet by any means. Mr. Beauvais called on the governor to declare martial law, and to use troops, and I don’t know what all, and in addition to that demanded that the police disperse the pickets with tear bombs, but they didn’t. Then he began denouncing Mr. Holden by name and calling him a Communist and saying that such a strike was really sedition against the Government. All this seemed to entertain Mr. Holden hugely, for he would laugh loudly every time he read the paper, and comment on “the stupidity of Capital” in dealing with the public. “Who reads statements?” he wanted to know. “And who believes them? You can see a helicopter. And you can listen to music. And it sounds friendly. Didn’t Henry Ford bring a lot of bagpipers into this town once? I’ve a notion to put them on the payroll, if they have their kilts with them... No, it was the King of England that had the bagpipers. Ford had fiddlers. I guess I’ll stick to trombones.”

Chapter Sixteen

The stock didn’t drop when the strike started. It merely sagged another two points, down to 107, and hung there for more than a week. I now had a profit of about $4,000, and I was in an agony of wondering whether I shouldn’t cover. But then one day Mr. Beauvais issued another appeal to the governor, saying if the strike went on two more weeks he would be unable to make deliveries on his new model. Mr. Holden became excited when he read this and again had a great deal to say about the stupidity of business executives. “Think of that! Playing right into our hands. Only a fool would make that admission.”

The Beauvais appeal was in the morning papers. As soon as I saw it I pleaded business downtown, jumped in a taxi and dashed to a stock broker’s office. It had one of the big electrical boards and the light was constantly winking on and off for Geerlock. The stock was sagging steadily until, by the time I got there, it was 103. I rushed back to the hotel, went to my room and called Mr. Hunt. As soon as he answered I said: “Cover.”

“But, Carrie, the bottom’s dropped out of it. Let it ride! You’ll make—”

“Tomorrow the bottom may be in it again.” Because by now I had learned that Mr. Holden moved fast when he started and for all I knew the strike might be settled that afternoon. “How long before closing time?”

“Two hours.”

“All right. As long as it drops let it ride. At the least upturn, cover. And no matter what it does, cover today. Don’t leave me short for tomorrow morning’s market.”

“Is that a hint for my benefit?”

“No. I don’t know anything and nobody does. But I’ve made something and I don’t want to lose it by hanging on too long.”

It was after lunch when I got back to Mr. Holden. He was very pleased that he had been able to rent a new Geerlock, a display car. He went out to have his picture taken in it, surrounded by the GI band, so he could release it to the newspapers with a story telling what a fine car it was and how the company ought to settle so they could manufacture it. Shortly after he went out a telegram was delivered to me. It was from Mr. Hunt. He had covered at 102 to 103. Clear of commissions and interest, I had a profit of nearly $8,000.

Nothing happened that day or for a week or two. The men continued to hold the shops, Mr. Holden continued to put on his stunts and Mr. Beauvais continued to give out statements. There were several clashes outside the factory gates. Men kept coming in and going out of the hotel and Mr. Holden began to show signs of the strain. The stock continued to sag until it was down near 100 and I kept kicking myself that I could have made more by doing what Mr. Hunt said, but I kept reminding myself of something I had read somewhere, that more money is lost in the stock market by hanging on for the last dollar of profit than in any other way. But then, almost before I knew it, I was in the market again, for Mr. Holden happened to mention one day that they were moving in on Trent, another factory in Detroit, and I repeated my operation, this time making $3,000. And then he mentioned casually what was going on in other places, particularly the steel mills, and next thing I knew I was juggling four or five stocks at the same time, making money on them but becoming more and more nervous and less and less watchful of the Geerlock situation, which was the main thing we were concerned with.

So I was caught napping one day when a call came in for him. He made a memorandum while he was talking, then handed it to me and began putting on his coat. The memorandum gave the number of a room in one of the downtown hotels. “That’s where I can be reached — but only if it’s important.”

His face was set but he seemed exultant somehow. He started out, then came back to me and, as nobody was there, gave me a little kiss. Then he whispered: “I think Beauvais is going to settle.”

Then he was gone, and I let ten or fifteen precious minutes slip by, stupidly thinking how glad I was that the thing was all over, when suddenly I woke up. How I ever got up to my room I don’t know, but it seemed an eternity before I had the telephone in my hand and got the call put through and finally had Mr. Hunt on the line. “Bernie, how much of a credit have I with you now?”

“Hold the line, Carrie, I’ll look it up.”

I fairly screamed at him: “No! Don’t look it up! Don’t waste that much time! Bernie, are you listening?”

“And how.”

“Buy Geerlock for me, Bernie! Start now! Buy on margin up to every dollar I have on deposit with you! Have you got it?”

“I’m calling our floor man now.”

“Buy Geerlock! Every share you can get hold of for me!”

The joint statement over the names of Mr. Beauvais and Mr. Holden was given out at four-thirty. It called only for union recognition, all questions of wages and hours to be referred later to a board of arbitration. The men marched out at five o’clock, preceded by their band and met by their wives and families in a very joyous reunion. Mr. Holden returned around six in very high spirits and all ready to take me out to some fashionable place for dinner. He wanted to dress and really celebrate. But the settlement had been arrived at after the New York market closed and until I knew what my stock was going to do I didn’t trust myself with him or anybody else. I told him the reaction from the strain had given me a splitting headache and that I would have to go to my room. I went up there and called Mr. Hunt but he had left his office. Around six-thirty a telegram was delivered. I opened it and it was a long wire from Mr. Hunt, telling me where I stood. I had a credit of $31,000, which included the original $10,000 I had put up, the additional $5,000 margin I had sent, the $8,000 I had made on Geerlock, the $3,000 I had made on Trent and various amounts I had made on other deals, of course with commissions and other charges deducted. This afternoon for my account, on a ten-point margin, there had been bought for my account 3,100 shares of Geerlock common in lots of 300 to 500 shares, at prices ranging from 101 to 102½. It was easy to see that my buying had run the price up nearly two points while my order was being executed. I had dinner sent up but could eat nothing. I changed into pajamas, went to bed and tried to sleep. By midnight I was up walking around the room. I made myself lie down again but was still awake when the sky began to grow light.

Next thing I knew the phone was ringing and it was the middle of the morning. “New York calling.”

“Put them on.”

It was Mr. Hunt and the moment he spoke my name I could hear the excitement in his voice. “Carrie!”

“Yes, Bernie?”

“Baby, you’ve cleaned up. The stock opened at 102, ran up to 105 in the first half-hour, it’s still climbing — and what do I do now?”

“Let me think. Give me a minute to think.”

I thought and thought and then came to the conclusion it was a market question entirely and that I had better leave it to him. “Bernie?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know how high it’s going to go. Can’t you watch it for me and then—”

“You bet I can, Carrie. I’ll let it zoom and when it slacks a little I’ll close you out.”

“But today, Bernie. Don’t wait.”

“Trust me, Carrie.”

I got up, went in the bedroom and ran the water into the tub. I had just got in when the phone rang again and I answered. I was all dripping with water and had only a towel around me, but it was Mr. Hunt back on the line. “I’ve closed you out, baby. It staggered a little and I didn’t like the look of it. You can never tell how high they’ll bounce on a rally like that. So I went after it while it was still good. You’re out at 108 to 110, average about 109. I’ll give you the exact figures by wire.”

“Thanks. Many thanks.”

“And thanks. I was on the bandwagon, baby. I cleaned up, hanging right onto your skirts.”

“Oh. I’m glad of that.”

“Some skirts.”

I got back in the bathtub and tried to figure. As well as I could make out, I had made something more than $20,000 on the deal. Counting what I had made before, it left me over $40,000 for my stay in Detroit. When I had finished bathing I went to the phone and rang Mr. Holden. “If you feel like some lunch, now I think we’ll celebrate.”

“You bet we’ll celebrate. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

The rest of that winter was one mad jumble of trains, hotels, strikes, meetings and worry. On account of his success with Geerlock Mr. Holden was made a sort of general supervisor and moved about from one place to another as he was needed. After we left Detroit he concentrated on steel mills and we went first to Chicago, then into Indiana and finally to Pittsburgh, where the plan was to move in on Penn-Duquesne, one of the large independents. I made about $10,000 during these hectic days but I was curtailing my operations more and more. For one thing, the nervous strain was becoming so great I wasn’t sure I could stand it, and for another thing, some instinct told me I had ridden a great run of luck and was about due for a fall. I dreaded that. I had made enough money to pay back Mrs. Harris every cent I had taken from her, and still have enough to live on for years. Or I could even travel, something I had always secretly hoped I would be able to do, in order to broaden myself. So I determined to return to New York. My decision was hastened, perhaps, by the increasing difficulty of my relations with Mr. Holden. Almost nightly now he was making love to me and insisting that we get married. Then, also, he was becoming more and more puzzled at my attitude, and hurt by it, for which I could hardly blame him, considering everything. But I wished above everything else to avoid a big farewell scene with him and so pretended that I wasn’t saying goodbye at all. I merely said I had been called to New York to wind up some details of my financial settlement with the Harrises and told him I would call him by long distance every night. This, I am a little ashamed to say, I fully intended to do, for I had made a little $1,000 commitment against Penn-Duquesne, on the short side, I mean, and I wanted to keep track of things so I would know how to handle it. He suspected nothing. He rode with me to the airport, for by this time I went everywhere by plane, and was very affectionate and urged me to get back as soon as I could. “I’ve a hard nut to crack this time, Carrie. I need you.”

“I’ll call you — every night.”

“I’ll be standing by — every night at twelve sharp.”

I reached Newark at one o’clock. I took a taxi at once to the hotel where I had reserved a suite. Then I rushed down to my bank, which I hadn’t visited in more than three months, and went over both my balances there, the checking and the savings. Most of my money was on deposit with Mr. Hunt, but I still had several thousand here from the original $25,000 I had deposited before I left New York. As soon as I had checked over my books with them I drew $5,000 cash and took a taxi over to Fifth Avenue. The rest of the afternoon I spent buying clothes, for I wanted to look quite smart when I made my appearance at Harris, Hunt and Harris the next morning. I looked up Miss Eubanks, the lady who had been so helpful to me before, and she outfitted me again.

When I told her what I wanted she at once advised black. This I agreed to, as I had never had a black dress, and I was quite excited to know how I would look in it. She picked out a model made of sheer wool and I loved it. It made me look slim, but it was very severe and I wanted something to relieve it a little. But when I mentioned this Miss Eubanks became quite upset and said the whole point of the dress would be lost if I added anything to it whatever. She then lectured me on the need for simplicity, which was something I always tried to remember but sometimes forgot. So I took it as it was, and she helped me pick hat, shoes and stockings to go with it, as well as a smart black handbag. Then we picked out two evening dresses, one light blue, the other cream white, and again they were completely simple and unadorned.

When we got through picking the shoes and stockings to go with these it was nearly five o’clock and then I got to the main thing that was on my mind. I wanted her to go with me to pick out a fur coat, and as I already spent so much money with her store I thought they might let her off. So she spoke to the head of her department and he said all right and she called one of the leading furriers to make sure they would be open when we got there. So then we took a taxi and went down there. But next door to the furrier’s was a perfume place, and before we proceeded to buy the coat I dashed in and bought some perfume I had always loved and had never been able to afford. It cost $25 for a little bottle, and I would have taken it if it had cost $50.

At the furrier’s they brought us into a private room and paraded models in front of me. Finally I decided on a mink coat, so dark and so beautifully made that it looked like sable. Miss Eubanks advised the three-quarter length, as she said it was smarter and more becoming to me. It cost $2,500 and I paid cash and took it with me. I asked Miss Eubanks to come around to the hotel with me for dinner and when we got there the package from her store had been delivered and we spent the next two hours trying on my things and even after she had gone home that night, which was around ten o’clock, I tried them on all over again and finally stood in front of the long mirror in the bathroom door in my new black street dress, big black hat and beautiful mink coat for more than an hour. I hated to go to bed.

Harris, Hunt and Harris were in a gigantic office building on Broad Street, one of the places I had gone into at the time I was considering a restaurant business of my own downtown. They occupied one whole floor. I had not phoned Mr. Hunt I was coming, as I could not quite resist the temptation to burst in on him as a big surprise. But when I stepped out of the elevator and gave my name to the girl at the window she looked up quickly and reached for her telephone. I had barely sat down when a gentleman appeared who said he was Mr. Hunt’s secretary and invited me inside. “Mr. Hunt stepped out, Mrs. Harris, but he’s in the building and I’ll have him located at once.”

He opened a door and began leading me through a very large room with bright lights and rows and rows of desks where people were busily working. A stir went over the place as soon as I appeared. Nobody stared but I could feel that I was an object of great curiosity and that they were all aware of me, from the girls, who started talking to each other with an elaborate appearance of casualness, to the men, who kept shooting little glances at me over papers they pretended to examine.

That is, all except one. Behind a desk at the far end of the room where I would have to pass him, sat Grant, and I could tell that he hadn’t seen me or noticed any of the commotion I had caused. My heart stood still when I saw him and I almost turned around and ran out. However, I kept following the secretary, and then suddenly I wanted to cry. Because he looked so insignificant there, with a green shade over his eyes and a pipe in his mouth, writing something on a piece of paper. Most of the sunburn was gone and he looked sallow and seedy. It flashed through my mind what he had once said about being a slave, and I wished he would at least take off the green eyeshade, which depressed me most of all.

But I kept sailing bravely along, and then I remembered my perfume. As I passed his desk I opened my coat quickly so he would get a good whiff of it as I went by. He looked up and our eyes met. “Oh, hello!” I said, just as gaily as though nothing had ever happened between us at all. Then I zipped through a glass door marked “Mr. Hunt,” and the secretary was bowing me into a big leather chair. But all I could think of was the amazed look on Grant’s face, and I began fumbling in my handbag so I wouldn’t show how much I wanted to cry.

The secretary went and in a moment there came a rap on the door. I tried to look casual and said, “Come in.” Grant was standing there, the green shade still over his eyes, acting terribly nervous and not quite looking me in the eye. I struggled for control so I could act naturally, and yet it was a second or so before I heard myself say: “Well! How have you been?”

“Very well, thank you.”

But he sounded shaky and queer. I held out my hand and he took it. “And how have you been?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

“You’re looking well.”

“Thank you.”

“And you’re certainly a success.”

“Oh, am I?”

“A Wall Street celebrity, I should say. The whole place has practically suspended activity trying to find out what you’re going to do next.”

“I didn’t know I was that important.”

“Oh, you’re pretty important... You’ve become prominent in the labor movement, Bernie tells me.”

“Oh — I keep in touch.”

“I got interested in it myself once.”

“Oh, yes. I seem to remember, now you speak of it.”

“I guess I’m not cut out for large affairs, though. It never occurred to me it could be used as a basis for market speculation.”

He sounded a little bitter as he said this, and I replied: “I’m afraid you disapprove of my career in the market.”

“Oh, no. I’m merely learning things. What’s your part in the movement?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t any just at present. I was a sort of traveling secretary.”

“Oh.”

He licked his lips once or twice as though they were dry, and I knew he was dying to ask about Mr. Holden, but I volunteered nothing. There was a long uncomfortable pause and then he said suddenly: “What name are you using now, Carrie?”

This caught me wholly by surprise. I had been half enjoying the foolish talk we had been carrying on but now the same icy feeling began to creep around my heart that I had had in the last days before he left me. “...Why — that’s something I hadn’t quite got around to. The court gave me permission to resume my maiden name, and traveling around that’s what I use. But on my bank accounts and in my business transactions I’m still using yours. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know.”

“Nothing was said about it in the agreement that was drawn up.”

“No, I saw to that.”

“If my use of your name bothers you—”

“Not at all. In fact, it’s not on my account I raised the question. But mother—”

“Oh, ‘mother’ again!”

“...I guess I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“So after the way you treated me, after you let that woman wrap you around her finger like some kind of worm—”

“We don’t have to go into that.”

“Oh, yes, we do! After all that, all you can think of to say to me now is that you don’t want me to use your name because that simpleton finds it a little inconvenient to have a second Mrs. Harris around to spoil her solitary eminence! Well, I’m going to use your name!”

“It’s quite all right, Carrie.”

“But for a reason you don’t know anything about yet. I don’t know my own name!”

“You—? What did you say?”

“That’s something the newspapers didn’t find out about me, with all their snooping around. I don’t know my name! And while I was perfectly welcome to use my foster-parents’ name, yours is the first name that was ever legally mine. And I’m going to use it! The court didn’t say I had to use my former name. It only said I could if I chose. I choose. I’m going to use your name. Not that I like it. But it’ll do until I get another which, praise God, may not be long now.”

This last slipped out on me, for I truly hadn’t given Mr. Holden a thought all morning. But I was so bitter over the whole discussion that I couldn’t help saying it. He wheeled around, his eyes blazing, caught my hand and tried to jerk me up so that I would be standing, facing him. “What do you mean by that?”

I sat where I was and slowly twisted my hand out of his grasp before I answered. “What I mean by it is none of your business. You left me, you let your mother pay me to get a divorce, and now I’m free. This was your choice, not mine. Isn’t that true?”

I looked at him when I said this and his eyes dropped. He walked around the office two or three times, picking up things and putting them down, and then abruptly turned and walked out.

Chapter Seventeen

A minute or two after that Mr. Hunt breezed in, kissed me and was perfectly lovely, but the meeting with Grant had taken all the fun out of my nice surprise. I explained briefly the reason for my strained manner, and switched at once to what I had come there about. I told him I was ready to pay back Mrs. Harris what I had taken from her, shut him up when he began to protest, and said I wanted him to have her at my hotel promptly at eleven o’clock the next morning, to have the money with him in cash, and then I would wash my hands of everything called

Harris, and before many days were out even get rid of the name itself. When he saw I was not to be shaken in my decision he stopped arguing and got down to other matters he had to straighten out, chiefly concerning the large balance I was carrying with him and what he was to do with it.

However, we were interrupted by the entrance of the secretary, who told him Mrs. Jerome was waiting to see him, and he excused himself a minute. When he came back he was laughing. “Baby, are you a sensation! When that woman found out you were in here she just camped down, and a fat chance I can get rid of her until she shakes your money-clutching paw.”

“I don’t want to meet her.”

“You did meet her, at my house.”

“Oh — yes, I remember her. I can’t see her! I’m not in the humor! I... this thing has upset me and I don’t want to see anybody!”

“Carrie! Just for a minute — then I’ll ride you uptown in the car and we’ll wind up our business at lunch. Listen! This woman means dough to me.”

So he brought her in. She was a big fat woman with gray hair and I remembered her from Mrs. Hunt’s cocktail party. She began gushing over me and inviting me to spend the weekend at her place on Long Island. I said I had made engagements for the weekend. She became so insistent that, to get her out of there, Mr. Hunt said he wanted to show us his shop as he called it. I said I had to go, but he reminded me he was driving uptown and there was nothing I could do but tag along with them, though what there would be to see I couldn’t for the life of me imagine. As he went out the glass door I looked toward Grant’s desk but he was gone.

There was a big electrical board in the place but that was an old story to me now and I sat on the edge of a desk while he explained it to her. It was a desk belonging to a “customer’s man,” as they call it in the brokerage offices. The board is a great big affair which occupies one whole wall and has all the stocks listed, with the numbers winking on and off in lights as the sales are made. Some distance out from the board are chairs where people sit and watch the quotations, but directly in front of it is the battery of customers’ men, each with a separate desk on which are two telephones, one for incoming calls and the other direct to the floor of the Exchange. As the orders come in these men accept them, then phone them to the floor man at the Exchange, who executes them. There were four desks in front of this board and at three of them men were busy at their phones. However, the man on whose desk I was sitting had gone off somewhere. A secretary came up, looked around, then tucked a yellow slip into the blotting pad. I don’t remember being curious about it and must have glanced at it mechanically. But I felt my mouth go hot from fury at what I saw.

It was a “sell” order — a printed blank with spaces for name, date, stock, number of shares, etc. In lead pencil at the top was the name “Mrs. Harwood Harris,” and the Harwood was underscored three times. That was evidently to keep Mrs. Harwood Harris separate from the other Mrs. Harris, who was myself. The order was for 1,000 shares of Penn-Duquesne, and off on the side in compliance with the SEC rule was written the word “Short.”

Anybody could see that what Mr. Hunt had done was tip Mrs. Harris off to what I was doing in stocks, for it was only yesterday morning that I had phoned him from Pittsburgh to sell a small block of this stock for me. And while I was really a sort of friendly enemy with him, I couldn’t help feeling that this was a pretty dirty trick. So when he drifted over for a minute while Mrs. Jerome was examining one of the tickers I pointed to the “sell” order and said: “I don’t think that was very nice of you.”

“Listen, baby, her affairs had got to a certain point. Do you know what I mean? Something had to be done.”

“I would think you could have found some other way to do it.”

“I’d been trying for a year to find other ways and there weren’t any... I certainly hope you’re riding a winner again. She’s in deep. That’s only one little hunk of it.”

He went back to Mrs. Jerome. And then suddenly a perfectly fiendish idea entered my mind to get back at Mrs. Harris. If there were some way I could persuade Mr. Holden to leave Penn-Duquesne alone instead of calling a strike the stock wouldn’t go down. It would go up — and my lovely mother-in-law would be ruined.

Suddenly I became very sweet and interested in everything, particularly Mrs. Jerome. I joined her at the ticker and said: “I’ve been thinking over my engagements, Mrs. Jerome, and I believe I could fit you in. If the invitation is still open I’d love to spend the weekend with you.” For I thought: If everything goes the way I hope, a weekend with Society is exactly the way I’ll want to celebrate.

She was delighted, gave me directions for getting down to Great Neck, and said she would meet me at the train and that I was to bring “rough, outdoorsy” things. She went then, and Mr. Hunt took me around to his bank and introduced me. I signed the necessary cards and they started an account in my name with the credit I had with him. We then went to lunch at a little restaurant down near the Battery and then he drove me uptown. He kept laughing over my social eminence. “Carrie, I’m proud of you! Monday you’ll be on the Society page. She always consents — graciously, of course, and only after the newspapers call her — to reveal her week-end activities. Are you a success!”

But all I could think of was that I had to get hold of Mr. Holden.

I didn’t even wait to take off my mink coat and hang it up before I called him at his hotel in Pittsburgh. The report came back that he was out. I left word that he was to call me and gave the hotel number. Then I sat there and waited. Then I sent down for some magazines, to get my mind off it, but when they came up I threw them aside and began walking around, for I still didn’t know what I was going to say to him, even when he called. Then after awhile I realized that I did know what I was going to say to him, and had known all along. I was going to say I was lonesome for him, and try to entice him away from Pittsburgh by practically promising myself to him. For I knew the labor situation very well by then, and I was pretty sure if he didn’t conduct the Penn-Duquesne strike there was no other leader who would be able to. As soon as I admitted this to myself a struggle began inside of me. I kept telling myself I would be starting something I might be sorry for afterwards and that the ruination of Mrs. Harris, after all, was hardly a sufficient reason and certainly not a very creditable reason, for taking a step which might affect my whole life. It didn’t do any good. She had become a mania with me now, and now that she was so nearly within my grasp there was nothing I would stop at to satisfy what I felt against her.

The phone rang and I fairly leaped for it. It was the Pittsburgh operator to tell me that on the call to a Mr. Evan Holden, Mr. Holden had not yet returned to his hotel but that they would keep after him. That went on all afternoon and part of the night. Then along toward midnight I realized it had been a couple of hours since the last report. I picked up the phone and put the call in again. I had hardly begun to march around when the phone rang and it was the Pittsburgh operator. “On that call to Mr. Evan Holden, Mr. Holden has checked out of the hotel without leaving any address where he can be reached.”

It was nearly ten o’clock when I woke up the next morning. I hurriedly bathed and dressed, and then to save time I ordered my breakfast sent up. But just as it arrived the desk called to say Mr. Hunt was downstairs. I had the waiter wheel it in the bedroom and leave it there, so I would not have to ask Mr. Hunt to sit there and watch while I gulped down coffee and eggs. Besides, I suddenly didn’t feel like eating anything.

He came in, shook hands, and at once opened a large briefcase which he carried with him and took out a long sealed envelope to which a receipt was attached with a rubber band. He held it out to me. “Here is the money-fifty one-thousand-dollar bills. Now Carrie, I want to ask you once more: Are you sure you want to do this? Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. Some day you may need it. You can still change your mind if you want to. She doesn’t know why you’ve sent for her. I merely told her to be here and said it was important. I guess I deliberately misled her a little. I let her think you’re meditating some kind of legal action—”

“That’s impossible. The agreement took care of that.”

“Of course, but the way is still clear for you to rant and rave a little and pretend that’s what you wanted — and still say nothing about the money. If you think anything of my advice you’ll keep it.”

“I don’t know what I want to do.” Because after the chance I had seen yesterday to get back at her, merely handing the money back didn’t seem any satisfaction at all. And the envelope, all stuffed full of money, looked so thick and lovely I hated the idea of giving it to her. And yet I had sent for her and had to have it out with her or go insane, and the money seemed the only possible excuse for what I had to say.

I slid the receipt out from under the rubber band. “Do I sign here?”

He handed me his fountain pen. I signed and handed him the pen and the receipt. Then I quickly pitched the envelope up on the mantelpiece.

“You’d better count it.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Because I knew if I ever felt that money between my fingers I couldn’t bear to part with it.

He put the receipt in his briefcase and just then the phone rang. He looked at his watch. “That may be Grant. I meant to tell you. She insisted that he be here.”

“That’s all right.”

The desk said Mr. Harris was in the lobby and I told them to send him up. He came in with a hunted, hangdog look that I hated. We all sat there for a few minutes looking at our watches until I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked them if I could fix them something to drink. Mr. Hunt shook his head, Grant didn’t even answer. Then he looked at me for the first time since he had been there and almost spit at me: “What’s between mother and this man Holden, anyway?”

“Why — I don’t know, I’m sure.”

“I think you do. And what’s between him and you, by the way, too?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I’m warning you now that I’ve taken about all off that guy I’m going to take.”

“Very well, but I wish you’d make up your mind what you have against him. Because your mother is one thing, I’m something else.”

“Not necessarily.”

At this moment Mr. Hunt said, “Children, children,” and we became silent again. The significance of the threats about Mr. Holden did not dawn on me then, but in a minute or two I was to find out what lay back of them. The desk called promptly at eleven and said a Mrs. Harris was in the lobby, and I told them to send her up.

But when she knocked and I opened the door to let her in who should be with her but Mr. Holden.

I was so surprised that when she took me in her arms and kissed me I let her, although I had fully intended to refuse even to shake hands. He patted my arm, and apparently was not aware there was anything unusual going on. When I brought them in, though, and he saw Grant, he was on his guard at once. He spoke affably but I could see his quick glance shoot around at all of us. Grant nodded to him coldly, and then I introduced him to Mr. Hunt, who seemed as much surprised at his presence there as I was. Then we all sat down and he took out a cigarette and began tapping it on his finger. Then he looked at me and said: “Well. I had no idea I was going to wind up here when Mrs. Harris called me this morning, Carrie.”

“Oh, you’re back at the Wakefield?”

“M’m. For a day or two.”

“I didn’t know that.”

I was just saying things that meant nothing. I wanted to ask him how he could leave Penn-Duquesne, and what he was doing here, and what she had said to him, and a lot of other things, but I couldn’t do it before all the others, and I couldn’t quite make myself ask him to step into the bedroom. It was all going differently from the way I had planned, and I had some panicky instinct that she had got the jump on me, but there was nothing I could do but begin. I turned to her. “Mrs. Harris, I’ve asked you here to discuss a little matter of business.”

“Yes, Carrie? I love to talk business.”

Her voice was like honey, but her eyes had the old familiar glassy look, and I wanted to back down, to say never mind, that it was nothing important and I preferred not to mention it. But I knew I had to go on. “But before we get to the business part there are one or two matters I want to take up with you.”

“Why, certainly, Carrie. Speak freely. After all, you’re among friends... What matters?”

“...How you broke up my marriage, for instance.”

I sounded all muffled and frightened, and she laughed. “Now, Carrie, you’re joking.”

“No, I’m not joking.”

My voice came back when I said that, and I ripped it out as though I meant it, and stood up facing her. And she came back the same way, shrill and loud, the way she always talked when she got angry. “That’ll be enough of that, young woman. I’ve been expecting it, I know just what you’re up to—”

“You don’t know what I’m up to!”

“Yes, I do, and I warn you that anything of that kind that you attempt is going to have most unpleasant consequences.” She stood up, then, and faced me, and the two of us were in the center of the room like a pair of fighting hens. Grant said something quickly, but she paid no attention to him, and went on, shaking her finger at me. “I’m all ready for you. I’m quite prepared to prove that you never had a marriage to break up, that you deceived and betrayed my son even on his wedding day and before. I’ve taken good care to bring your paramour with me — and we’ll let him tell who broke up your marriage.”

She turned dramatically to Mr. Holden, and I don’t know what she thought he was going to say, but he just laughed. “Be your age, Agnes, if that’s why you insisted I come here with you. I broke up no marriage. And I’m not her paramour — worse luck.”

At this Grant jumped up, his fists clenching and unclenching. “That’s a lie, Holden. You’ve been traveling around the country with her. stopping at the same hotels—”

Mr. Holden looked up then, with such a queer look on his face that Grant stopped. “Mr. Harris, I understand your anger, but I don’t respect it. Only two people can break up a marriage, the husband and the wife. I can speak for the wife, in this case. I tried with every ounce that was in me to get her to come with me, to leave you, because I loved her and I thought you were no good. I tried without avail. She didn’t break up the marriage. That leaves you. Am I right?”

Grant tried to answer him and couldn’t, and slumped down in his chair again, twice as hangdog-looking as he had been before. Mr. Holden then added: “I have never been her lover, in the hotels or any other place — though I’ve tried to be, I say to my credit. I don’t care to hear any more out of you on this subject.”

Grant began to shake and put his fingers in his ears even while Mr. Holden was talking, so it was embarrassing to look at him, but Mrs. Harris wasn’t done yet. She ran over to Mr. Holden and screamed: “How about those stock deals? How about those stock deals?”

“What stock deals?”

“You can’t deny it! The stock deals you and she have been putting over! Do you mean to say you made her all that money — just to be nice to her?”

“I’ve never bought a share of stock, and I don’t think Carrie would know one from a hard-boiled egg—”

“What? Why, Bernie handled the deals! He—”

“Oh, mother, shut up, shut up — let Carrie finish and let’s get out of here, or I’ll go mad!” Grant sounded as though he was in agony, but I only half heard what he said. I was watching Mr. Holden, who had turned around suddenly toward Mr. Hunt. He then turned slowly around to me, and by the look on his face I knew he realized that what she said was true, that I had been dealing in stocks, and that he knew why. Mrs. Harris kept on screaming, but he paid no attention to her. He went over to the window and stood looking out at the sky. Then he turned to me. “That’s why you wanted to be my secretary, Carrie?”

“...Yes.”

I felt sick when I said it, and nobody spoke, and he kept looking at me. “That you could use for profit — something that was meant for glory? That men fought for, and bled for, and — believed in?”

“...Yes.”

Mrs. Harris began to scream again. “She made thousands... thousands,” but he sat down again, and motioned her to be quiet. “No more, Agnes, if you don’t mind. I had a flower in my heart when I came in here, and it’s not there any more... Give me a minute. I’ll mourn my dead, and be off.”

He sat staring ahead of him, and nobody said anything. Mr. Hunt came over and patted my cheeks with his handkerchief. Tears were pouring out of my eyes so I could hardly see.

Mr. Holden got up then, walked heavily over to the table, picked up his hat and went out. I took the handkerchief and hid my face in it. After a long time I felt Mr. Hunt tapping me on the shoulder. “Somebody’s out there. Do you want me to go, or—?”

“I’ll go.”

I went out in the hall. Mr. Holden was standing there. He closed the door, walked over toward the elevators, and stood leaning against the wall. “...I couldn’t leave you that way, Carrie.”

I went over and took his hand. “No — not that way.”

“Why did you do it, Carrie?”

“I... I had to pay her back. What I took from her. I... I just had to.”

“Well — I could have known it was something with a little spirit to it.”

“I couldn’t see that it hurt anyone—”

“It didn’t. Not Labor, certainly... But — there was no love in it. Or you would have told me.”

I began to cry again at that, and he took me in his arms, and held me until I was quiet. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t true, that there was love in it, but I couldn’t. “...Goodbye, Carrie.”

“Goodbye.”

He pushed the button for the elevator, and we stood there waiting for the car. “I hope you’re not involved with Penn-Duquesne, Carrie. They’ve settled.”

“They’ve — what?”

“I see you are involved. You’d better do something quick. They’ve settled — a few cents increase, and a union shop, given us which was all we hoped for. They, as well as some others. It’ll be announced tomorrow. We were on it all day yesterday. I got your message, but I took the sleeper. I wanted to surprise you. And then — this frantic call from Agnes this morning. And now — this.”

The car came, he got in, and sadly blew me a kiss. I went back, and I swear I wasn’t thinking about revenge or anything. But as I came in the room, I heard Mrs. Harris say: “—From that alone you can tell what kind of character she is. Well — a waitress, what can you expect?”

Penn-Duquesne shot through my mind, and I walked through to the bedroom, wondering if I could be horrible enough to ruin her, now that the opportunity was right in my hand. All I had to do was ask them to leave, and say nothing, and she would be wiped out when the stock shot up on the news Mr. Holden had just told me, and I knew from Mr. Hunt she was heavily involved. But just about that time I noticed my breakfast on the wagon, with the covers still on it, where the waiter had put it. And then, all of a sudden, I knew what I was going to do. I went back, sat down, and said brightly: “Now!”

“Yes, Carrie. We’ve had so many distractions.”

Mrs. Harris was her old smiling self again, and I smiled right back and said: “Now, Agnes, you may serve my breakfast.”

“I... what! And how dare you call me by my first name?”

“I call you by your first name as is customary, for now you’re going to be my servant. For one breakfast only, but for that long you’re going to be a waitress, as I was once, and I’m going to call you by your first name.”

Grant got up and began helping her into her coat. “I don’t see any need to prolong this any longer, Mother.”

“No — this is simply absurd.”

“It is my intention, Agnes, to give you a very handsome tip — fifty thousand dollars, as a matter of fact, the money you paid me to get my divorce from Grant. But for tips I expect service.”

“My dear, I’m not accustomed to serving breakfasts for trifles like fifty thousand dollars.”

I let her get clear to the door before I made my next remark, which was: “Then perhaps your commitment in Penn-Duquesne may make you feel differently.”

She stopped, turned pale and stared at me. But I continued to speak in a cool and casual way: “It’s an excellent stock for speculation purposes, and I compliment you on your judgment in selecting it. The only trouble is, it’s erratic. There’s only one person in this room today who knows what that stock is going to do. I’ve taken the trouble to find out, solely for your benefit. I can tell you or not. It’s entirely up to you.”

Grant had stopped and kept looking from one to the other of us like some big St. Bernard dog. But she seemed to get ten years older all in a few seconds, and then she came over to me and leaned close, and spoke in a terrible whisper: “Carrie, tell me, what do you know about that stock? Yes, I’ve treated you very badly, but only because — Grant means so much to me. Now — let’s be friends. The stock, Carrie — what do you know about it?”

“You may serve my breakfast, Agnes.”

“...Yes. Anything. Anything!”

“Yes what, Agnes?”

“Yes, Mrs. Harris.”

Chapter Eighteen

The picture of that next few minutes will remain in my memory a great many years, I think. Of Grant staring at her as though he couldn’t believe she would do such a thing. Of Mr. Hunt sitting on the sofa, fingering his moustache, his eyes shining, the color creeping up in his cheeks until his whole face was crimson. Of Mrs. Harris, like the middle-aged woman that she really was, her hands shaking so badly she couldn’t break the eggs, and almost spilling the orange juice over me in her agitation. And of myself, sitting there munching ice cold toast, which was all I could get down, drinking my revenge and yet trying to appear calm and cool.

She was just pouring the coffee when Grant leaped at her. He grabbed her with one hand, her coat with the other, and began hustling her out of the door. “Get out of here!” he kept whispering at her, but in a rasping way, as though he could hardly restrain his fury. “Get out of here! Get out of here!” He opened the door, and kept jerking her along even when they were out in the hall.

Then Mr. Hunt jumped up. “All right, baby, you’ve done it. You’ve harpooned her, up to the hilt. Now — that stock! Give it to me quick. Remember, I’m aboard that deal, too.”

“Cover.”

He hardly waited for me to finish before he dashed out. I got up to put the coffee cup back on the tray. When I turned around Grant was standing there, still panting. He closed the door and started over to me, his eyes dancing in an almost inhuman way. I backed away from him, but he grabbed me. “Carrie!.. You’ve done it! You’ve set me free!”

He began kissing me then, but I was still so surprised I didn’t give any response, and then he threw himself on the sofa and began pounding on the cushions with his fists. “Don’t you suppose I knew what she was — what she did to us, and all the rest of it? Don’t you think I hated myself, that I let her use me, make a fool out of me, torture me! Of course she broke up our marriage, and I knew she was doing it, and knew how she was doing it and why — but her will was stronger than mine! I couldn’t go up against her — nobody can. You’ve no idea what she’s like. And I was doing all sorts of things to break loose — starting unions, trying to break the System—”

“Marrying me.”

“Yes! — and I did something that time. You went up against her and you made her knuckle. I could have jumped up and yelled, like some kid at a football game. It — broke something. I could feel it snap. I was free! Think of that — she’s gone and gambled my money in some stupid stock deal — and I don’t care! I don’t care!”

He came over and looked at me. Then he touched me, the reverent way you touch something to make sure it’s there. “I know now what you meant,” he said, still in a kind of trance, — “what you meant that night. That night when I asked you to marry me, and you said I didn’t say anything about love. I didn’t know what love meant. No, I never loved you. Not then. Not until now — when I saw you fasten your will on her and make her bend to it. Oh, yes — now it’s different. Now everything’s different.”

He disappeared into the bedroom for a minute or two, then he came out and laughed. For the first time since we had been married, almost, he was the old Grant, the one I remembered from the first walk we took together, when we had hooked little fingers together and the cop had told us not to mind him. “Sorry, Carrie. I’ve... I’ve been through hell, and I’m a little off my nut.”

I desperately wanted to run into his arms and make up, but I didn’t. I got up and wheeled the breakfast tray out into the hall, and when I came back I said: “Well, it’s all very well for you to turn around and say you’re sorry, or whatever it is that you mean — but I’m afraid I can’t forget quite that easily.”

He nodded, very seriously. “I know. I’ve got some ground to win back. Don’t worry, I’ll do it. I told Bernie out in the hall just now he could cross me off his damned payroll and from now on I start.”

“Start what, may I ask?”

“My Indians.”

“How? I think you said such researches cost money.”

“I’ll find it, don’t you fear. And there’s other things I’ll do, too. For instance, that guy Holden. I’ll get him, I’ll make him like me before I get done. There’s a guy. But the first thing — I’m starting my life work. It’s the kind of life work that doesn’t show a profit, but never mind that. It’s worth doing. Well — so it takes money. Well — then I’ll get it. All right, I’m off. I didn’t expect you to take me in your arms. But you’ll be hearing from me — soon.”

I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to stay, so I could quarrel with him until I was ready to make up. So when he picked up his hat, I jumped up. “Well — if you’re looking for money, I think I can give you a name.”

I went to the mantel where the envelope with the money in it was lying, having been entirely forgotten during the rather hasty exit taken by his mother. It had my named typed on it, and I handed it to him. “...What’s this?”

“A name. I think she’ll be good for anything you need.”

He opened it, and when he saw what was inside he caught his breath. “Oh — the tip.”

“Yes, but it’s really yours. She’s cheated you out of it.”

I lay down on the sofa and he came and put the envelope on the table in front of me. “I didn’t quite get you at first. No, it’s yours. I can’t take money off you, Carrie.”

“Do you mean it about the Indians, or not?”

“Of course. But—”

“Then you take things any way you can get them.” Then I added: “That’s what I always do,” and raised my foot in a very provocative way and began to wave it around in the air. So the next second I was in his arms, and there had never been any quarrel, or any Lula, or any mother, only him and me. So I spent the weekend in sin, and it was Sunday afternoon before I remembered I was supposed to spend it at Mrs. Jerome’s, and we laughed and laughed because now I was a social celebrity, but had forgotten to show up.

I return now to our sloop, which isn’t anchored off the Bay Islands any more, but off Puerto Cortez, where Our equipment is due tonight on a freighter, and tomorrow we start into the interior, for excavations and I don’t know what-all. We spent two weeks in sin, as a matter of fact, at Atlantic City and a lot of places, for it took all sorts of red tape before Grant could get a license in New York. He had to prove the divorce was not granted against him on the ground of infidelity, or something. He kept his promise about Mr. Holden, and we all became good friends, and I don’t think Mr. Holden felt hurt any more. We spent some time getting ready for the expedition, and it took a lot of my money, but I don’t care. Tomorrow, Grant says, we start a perfectly hellish life, with mosquitoes, snakes, heat and everything else to bother us, and I guess it will be hard. But tonight there will be the Caribbean moon, and as it dances across the water, I shall think of the Modern Cinderella, and pretend that the light on the waves is really the silver slipper falling into her lap.