GREEN CHARTREUSE
There is a common law of character which is greater than the canons. It fills many volumes of records in the high court of Experience, and we add to it daily by our instinctive decisions in small matters; but only the finer natures, highly endowed with discernment, master its intricacies. The decalogue is a safe guidepost on the great highway of life; but it does not avail the lost pilgrim who stumbles in remote by-paths. The spirit is the only arbiter of the nicer distinctions between right and wrong. James Wheaton did not steal; he would do no murder; he was not even unusually covetous. If the tests which Destiny applied to him had related to the great fundamentals of conduct, he would not have been found wanting; but they were directed against seemingly unimportant weaknesses, along the lines of his least resistance to evil.
A week had passed since Saxton's appointment to the receivership and Wheaton went to and from his work with many misgivings. Several of Wheaton's friends had confided to him their belief that he ought to have been appointed receiver instead of Saxton, and there was little that he could say to this, except that he had no time for it. He had become nervous and distraught, and was irritable under the jesting of his associates at The Bachelors'. There was a good deal of joking at their table for several days after Saxton's appointment over Margrave's discomfiture, to which Wheaton contributed little. He felt decidedly ill at ease under it. Thompson, the cashier, had come home, and Wheaton found his presence irksome.
He had seen Margrave several times at the club since their last interview at the bank and Margrave had nodded distantly, as if he hardly remembered Wheaton. Wheaton assumed that sooner or later Margrave would offer to pay him for his shares of Traction stock. But while the loss of his own certificate, under all the circumstances, did not trouble him, Margrave's appropriation of Evelyn Porter's shares was an unpleasant fact that haunted all his waking hours.
One evening, a week after the receivership incident, he resolved to go to Margrave and demand, at any hazard, the return of Evelyn's certificate. The idea seized firm hold upon him, and he set out at once for Margrave's house. He inquired for Margrave at the door, and the maid asked him to go into the library. They were entertaining at dinner, she told him, and he said he would wait. He walked nervously up and down in the well-appointed library, where Warry Raridan's purchases looked out at him from the solid mahogany bookcases. He heard the hum of voices faintly from the dining-room.
He picked up a magazine and tried to read, but the printed pages did not hold his eyes. He did not know how Margrave would treat him, and he would have escaped from the house if he had dared. Margrave came in presently, fat and ugly in his evening clothes. He welcomed Wheaton noisily and introduced him to his guests, two directors of the Transcontinental and their wives, who were passing through town on their way to California.
Mrs. Margrave and Mabel greeted Wheaton cordially. Mabel was dressed to impress the ladies from New York, and was succeeding. The colored butler passed coffee and cigars and green chartreuse, and when Wheaton declined a cigar, Mabel brought him a cigarette from the taboret from which "The Men" were helped to such trifles. Mrs. Margrave was oppressed by the presence in her home of so many millions and so much social distinction as her guests represented, and she contributed only murmurs of assent to the conversation which Mabel led with ease, discoursing in her most Tyringhamesque manner of yacht races, horse shows and like matters of metropolitan interest. Wheaton was glad now that he had come; Margrave's guests were people worth meeting; he liked the talk, and the chartreuse gave elegance to the occasion.
Margrave accommodated his heavy frame to the soft indulgence of a huge leather chair and drained the liqueur from his glass at a gulp.
"Well, gentlemen, I'm glad Mr. Wheaton could drop in to-night. He's a friend of the road and of ours. If everybody treated the Transcontinental as well as he does,—well, a good many things would be different!"
He looked at Wheaton admiringly, and his guests followed his gaze with polite interest.
"Why, gentlemen," said Margrave, straining forward until his face was purple, "Wheaton did his level best for me in that Traction deal; yes, sir, he worked with us on that, and if it hadn't been for that fool judge we'd have had it all fixed." He leaned back and nodded at Wheaton benignantly.
Wheaton had merely murmured at intervals during this deliverance. He did not know what Margrave meant. He moved over by Mrs. Margrave and tried to make talk with her. As soon as he felt that he could go decently, he rose and shook hands with the visiting gentlemen and bowed to the ladies. Margrave took him by the arm with an air of great intimacy and affection and walked with him to the hall, where he made much of helping Wheaton into his overcoat.
"I wanted to see you on a business matter," Wheaton began, in a low tone.
"Oh, yes," said Margrave loudly, "I forgot to mail you that check. I've been terribly rushed lately; but in time, my boy, in time!"
The people in the library could hardly have failed to hear every word.
"Oh, not that, not that! I mean that other certificate." Wheaton was trying to drop the conversation to a whispering basis as he drew on his gloves. Margrave had again taken his arm and was walking with him toward the front door, talking gustily all the while. He swung the door open and followed Wheaton out upon the front step.
"A glorious night! glorious!" he ejaculated, puffing from his walk. His hand wandered up Wheaton's arm until it reached his collar, and after he had allowed his fingers to grasp this lingeringly, he gave Wheaton a sudden push forward, still holding his collar, then raised his fat leg and kicked him from the step.
"Come again, Jim?" he called pleasantly, as he backed within the door and closed it to return to his guests.
Wheaton reached his room, filled with righteous indignation. He might have known that a coarse fellow like Margrave cared only for people whom he could control; and he decided after a night of reflection that he had acted handsomely in saving Porter's package of securities from Margrave the night of the encounter at the bank. The more he thought of it, the more certain he grew that he could, if it became necessary to protect himself in any way, turn the tables on Margrave. He called Margrave a scoundrel in his thoughts, and was half persuaded to go at once to Fenton and explain why Margrave had been at the bank on the night that Fenton had found him there.
Wheaton continued to call at the Porters' daily to make inquiry for the head of the house. On some of these occasions he saw Evelyn, but Mrs. Whipple, whose staying qualities were born of a rigid military sense of duty, was always there; and he had not seen Evelyn alone since she gave him her father's key. Other young men, friends of Evelyn, called, he found, just as he did, to make inquiry about Mr. Porter. Mrs. Whipple had a way of saying very artlessly, and with a little sigh that carried weight, that Mr. Raridan was so very kind. Wheaton wanted to be very kind himself, but he never happened to be about when the servants were busy and there were important prescriptions to be filled at the apothecary's.
On the whole he was very miserable and when, one morning, while Porter's condition was still precarious, he received a letter from Snyder, postmarked Spokane, declaring that money was immediately required to support him until he could find work, he closed that issue finally in a brief letter which was not couched in diplomatic language. The four days that were necessary for the delivery of this letter had hardly passed before Wheaton received a telegram sharply demanding a remittance by wire. This Wheaton did not answer; he had done all that he intended to do for William Snyder, who was well out of the way, and much more safely so if he had no money. The correspondence was not at an end, however, for a threatening letter in Snyder's eccentric orthography followed, and this, too, Wheaton dropped into his waste paper basket and dismissed from his mind.