A Poor Wise Man

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XXV

  The city had taken the rioting with a weary philosophy. It was tired offighting. For two years it had labored at high tension for the Europeanwar. It had paid taxes and bought bonds, for the war. It had saved andskimped and denied itself, for the war. And for the war it had madesteel, steel for cannon and for tanks, for ships and for railroads. Ithad labored hard and well, and now all it wanted was to be allowed toget back to normal things. It wanted peace.

  It said, in effect: "I have both fought and labored, sacrificed andendured. Give me now my rest of nights, after a day's work. Give memarriage and children. Give me contentment. Give me the things I haveloved long since, and lost awhile."

  And because the city craved peace, it was hard to rouse it to itsdanger. It was war-weary, and its weariness was not of apathy, but ofexhaustion. It was not yet ready for new activity.

  Then, the same night that had seen Willy Cameron's encounter with Akers,it was roused from its lethargy. A series of bomb outrages shook thedowntown district. The Denslow Bank was the first to go. Willy Cameron,inspecting a cut lip in his mirror, heard a dull explosion, and ran downto the street. There he was joined by Joe Wilkinson, in trousers overhis night shirt, and as they looked, a dull red glare showed againstthe sky. Joe went back for more clothing, but Willy Cameron ran down thestreet. At the first corner he heard a second explosion, further awayand to the east, but apparently no fire followed it. That, he learnedlater, was the City Club, founded by Anthony Cardew years before.

  The Denslow Bank was burning. The facade had been shattered and from theinterior already poured a steady flow of flame and smoke. He stood amongthe crowd, while the engines throbbed and the great fire hose layalong the streets, and watched the little upper room where the preciousrecords of the Committee were burning brightly. The front wall gone,the small office stood open to the world, a bright and shameless thing,flaunting its nakedness to the crowd below.

  He wondered why Providence should so play into the hands of the enemy.

  After a time he happened on Pink Denslow, wandering alone on theoutskirts of the crowd.

  "Just about kill the governor, this," said Pink, heavily. "Don't supposethe watchmen got out, either. Not that they'd care," he added, savagely.

  "How about the vaults? I suppose they are fireproof?"

  "Yes. Do you realize that every record we've got has gone? D'you supposethose fellows knew about them?"

  Willy Cameron had been asking himself the same question.

  "Trouble is," Pink went on, "you don't know who to trust. They're notall foreigners. Let's get away from here; it makes me sick."

  They wandered through the night together, almost unconsciously in thedirection of the City Club, but within a block of it they realized thatsomething was wrong. A hospital ambulance dashed by, its gong ringingwildly, and a fire engine, not pumping, stood at the curb.

  "Come on," Pink said suddenly. "There were two explosions. It's justpossible--"

  The club was more sinister than the burning bank; it was a mass of grimwreckage, black and gaping, with now and then the sound of settlingmasonry, and already dotted with the moving flash-lights of men whosearched.

  To Pink this catastrophe was infinitely greater than that of the bank.Men he knew had lived there. There were old club servants who were likefamily retainers; one or two employees were ex-service men for whom hehad found employment. He stood there, with Willy Cameron's hand on hisarm, with a new maturity and a vast suffering in his face.

  "Before God," he said solemnly, "I swear never to rest until the fellowsbehind this are tried, condemned and hanged. You've heard it, Cameron."

  The death list for that night numbered thirteen, the two watchmen atthe bank and eleven men at the club, two of them members. Willy Cameron,going home at dawn, exhausted and covered with plaster dust, boughtan extra and learned that a third bomb, less powerful, had wrecked themayor's house. It had been placed under the sleeping porch, and but forthe accident of a sick baby the entire family would have been wiped out.

  Even his high courage began to waver. His records were gone; thatwas all to do over again. But what seemed to him the impasse was thisfighting in the dark. An unseen enemy, always. And an enemy whichcombined with skill a total lack of any rules of warfare, which killedhere, there and everywhere, as though for the sheer joy of killing. Itstruck at the high but killed the low. And it had only begun.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Dominant family traits have a way of skipping one generation andappearing in the next. Lily Cardew at that stage of her life had aconsiderable amount of old Anthony's obstinacy and determination,although it was softened by a long line of Cardew women behind her,women who had loved, and suffered dominance because they loved. Her veryinfatuation for Louis Akers, like Elinor's for Doyle, was possibly aninheritance from her fore-mothers, who had been wont to overlook theevil in a man for the strength in him. Only Lily mistook physicalstrength for moral fibre, insolence and effrontery for courage.

  In both her virtues and her faults, however, irrespective of heredity,Lily represented very fully the girl of her position and period. With notraditions to follow, setting her course by no compass, taught to thinkbut not how to think, resentful of tyranny but unused to freedom,she moved ahead along the path she had elected to follow, blindly andobstinately, yet unhappy and suffering.

  Her infatuation for Louis Akers had come to a new phase of its rapiddevelopment. She had reached that point where a woman realizes that theman she loves is, not a god of strength and wisdom, but a great childwho needs her. It is at that point that one of two things happens: theweak woman abandons him, and follows her dream elsewhere. The womanof character, her maternal instinct roused, marries him, bears himchildren, is both wife and mother to him, and finds in their unitedweaknesses such strength as she can.

  In her youth and self-sufficiency Lily stood ready to give, rather thanto receive. She felt now that he needed her more than she needed him.There was something unconsciously patronizing those days in her attitudetoward him, and if he recognized it he did not resent it. Women hadalways been "easy" for him. Her very aloofness, her faint condescension,her air of a young grande dame, were a part of her attraction for him.

  Love sees clearly, and seeing, loves on. But infatuation is blind; whenit gains sight, it dies. Already Lily was seeing him with the criticaleyes of youth, his loud voice, his over-fastidious dress, his occasionalgrossnesses. To offset these she placed vast importance on his promiseto leave his old associates when she married him.

  The time was very close now. She could not hold him off much longer,and she began to feel, too, that she must soon leave the house on CardewWay. Doyle's attitude to her was increasingly suspicious and ungracious.She knew that he had no knowledge of Louis's promise, but he began tofeel that she was working against him, and showed it.

  And in Louis Akers too she began to discern an inclination not to pullout until after the election. He was ambitious, and again and again heurged that he would be more useful for the purpose in her mind if hewere elected first.

  That issue came to a climax the day she had seen her mother and learnedthe terms on which she might return home. She was alarmed by his noisyanger at the situation.

  "Do sit down, Louis, and be quiet," she said. "You have known theirattitude all along, haven't you?"

  "I'll show them," he said, thickly. "Damned snobs!" He glanced at herthen uneasily, and her expression put him on his guard. "I didn't meanthat, little girl. Honestly I didn't. I don't care for myself. It'syou."

  "You must understand that they think they are acting for my good. AndI am not sure," she added, her clear eyes on him, "that they are notright. You frighten me sometimes, Louis."

  But a little later he broke out again. If he wasn't good enough to entertheir house, he'd show them something. The election would show themsomething. They couldn't refuse to receive the mayor of the city.She saw then that he was bent on remaining with Doyle until after theelection.

  Lily
sat back, listening and thinking. Sometimes she thought that hedid not love her at all. He always said he wanted her, but that wasdifferent.

  "I think you love yourself more than you love me, Louis," she said, whenhe had exhausted himself. "I don't believe you know what love is."

  That brought him to his knees, his arms around her, kissing her hands,begging her not to give him up, and once again her curious sense ofresponsibility for him triumphed.

  "You will marry me soon, dear, won't you?" he implored her. But shethought of Willy Cameron, oddly enough, even while his arms were aroundher; of the difference in the two men. Louis, big, crouching, suppliantand insistent; Willy Cameron, grave, reserved and steady, taking whatshe now knew was the blow of her engagement like a gentleman and asoldier.

  They represented, although she did not know it, the two divisions of menin love, the men who offer much and give little, the others who, out ofa deep humility, offer little and give everything they have.

  In the end, nothing was settled. After he had gone Lily, went up toElinor's room. She had found in Elinor lately a sort of nervous tensionthat puzzled her, and that tension almost snapped when Lily told her ofher visit home, and of her determination to marry Louis within the nextfew days. Elinor had dropped her sewing and clenched her hands in herlap.

  "Not soon, Lily!" she said. "Oh, not soon. Wait a little--wait twomonths."

  "Two months?" Lily said wonderingly. "Why two months?"

  "Because, at the end of two months, nothing would make you marry him,"Elinor said, almost violently. "I have sat by and waited, because Ithought you would surely see your mistake. But now--Lily, do you envy memy life?"

  "No," Lily said truthfully; "but you love him."

  Elinor sat, her eyes downcast and brooding.

  "You are different," she said finally. "You will break, where I haveonly bent."

  But she said no more about a delay. She had been passive too long to beable to take any strong initiative now. And all her moral and physicalcourage she was saving for a great emergency.

  Cardew Way was far from the center of town, and Lily knew nothing of thebomb outrages of that night.

  When she went down to breakfast the next morning she found Jim Doylepacing the floor of the dining room in a frenzy of rage, a newspaperclenched in his hand. By the window stood Elinor, very pale and withslightly reddened eyes. They had not heard her, and Doyle continued afurious harangue.

  "The fools!" he said. "Damn such material as I have to work with! Thisisn't the time, and they know it. I've warned them over and over. Thefools!"

  Elinor saw her then, and made a gesture of warning. But it was too late.Lily had a certain quality of directness, and it did not occur to her todissemble.

  "Is anything wrong?" she asked, and went at once to Elinor. She had onceor twice before this stood between them for Elinor's protection.

  "Everything is as happy as a May morning," Doyle sneered. "Your AuntElinor has an unpleasant habit of weeping for joy."

  Lily stiffened, but Elinor touched her arm.

  "Sit down and eat your breakfast, Lily," she said, and left the room.

  Doyle stood staring at Lily angrily. He did not know how much shehad heard, how much she knew. At the moment he did not care. He hada reckless impulse to tell her the truth, but his habitual cautionprevailed. He forced a cold smile.

  "Don't bother your pretty head about politics," he said.

  Lily was equally cold. Her dislike of him had been growing for weeks,coupled to a new and strange distrust.

  "Politics? You seem to take your politics very hard."

  "I do," he said urbanely. "Particularly when I am fighting my wife'sfamily. May I pour you some coffee?"

  And pour it he did, eyeing her furtively the while, and brought it toher.

  "May I give you a word of advice, Lily?" he said. "Don't treat yourhusband to tears at breakfast--unless you want to see him romping off tosome other woman."

  "If he cared to do that I shouldn't want him anyhow."

  "You're a self-sufficient child, aren't you? Well, the best of us do it,sometimes."

  He had successfully changed the trend of her thoughts, and he went out,carrying the newspaper with him.

  Nevertheless, he began to feel that her presence in the house was amenace. With all her theories he knew that a word of the truth wouldsend her flying, breathless with outrage, out of his door. He couldquite plainly visualize that home-coming of hers. The instant steps thatwould be taken against him, old Anthony on the wire appealing to thegovernor, Howard closeted with the Chief of Police, an instant closingof the net. And he was not ready for the clash.

  No. She must stay. If only Elinor would play the game, instead of pulingand mouthing! In the room across the hall where his desk stood he pacedthe floor, first angrily, then thoughtfully, his head bent. He saw, andnot far away now, himself seated in the city hall, holding the city inthe hollow of his hand. From that his dreams ranged far. He saw himselfthe head, not of the nation--there would be no nation, as such--but ofthe country. The very incidents of the night before, blundering as theywere, showed him the ease with which the new force could be applied.

  He was drunk with power.