A Poor Wise Man, Mary Roberts Rinehart [classic book list TXT] 📗

He feared her because he trusted no woman, and she knew too much.

She loved Jim Doyle, but he had watched her, and he knew that sometimes she hated Doyle also. He knew that could be, because there had been women who had both loved and hated himself.

Elinor had gone out, and Akers sat down.

“Well,” he said, in a lowered tone. “I’ve written it.”

Doyle closed the door, and stood again with his head lowered, considering.

“You’d better look over it,” continued Lou. “I don’t want to be jailed. You’re better at skating over thin ice than I am. And I’ve been thinking over the Prohibition matter, Jim. In a sense you’re right. It will make them sullen and angry. But they won’t go the limit without booze. I’d advise cache-ing a lot of it somewhere, to be administered when needed.”

Doyle returned to his old place on the hearth-rug, still thoughtful. He had paid no attention to Aker’s views on Prohibition, nor to the paper laid upon the desk in the center of the room.

“Do you know that that girl in the hall will be worth forty million dollars some day?”

“Some money,” said Akers, calmly. “Which reminds me, Jim, that I’ve got to have a raise. And pretty soon.”

“You get plenty, if you’d leave women alone.”

“Tell them to leave me alone, then,” said Akers, stretching out his long legs. “All right. We’ll talk about that, after dinner. What about this forty millions?”

Doyle looked at him quickly. Akers’ speech about women had crystallized the vague plans which Lily’s arrival had suddenly given rise to. He gave the young man a careful scrutiny, from his handsome head to his feet, and smiled. It had occurred to him that the Cardew family would loathe a man of Louis Akers’ type with an entire and whole-hearted loathing.

“You might try to make her have a pleasant evening,” he suggested dryly. “And, to do that, it might be as well to remember a number of things, one of which is that she is accustomed to the society of gentlemen.”

“All right, old dear,” said Akers, without resentment.

“She hates her grandfather like poison,” Doyle went on. “She doesn’t know it, but she does. A little education, and it is just possible - “

“Get Olga. I’m no kindergarten teacher.”

“You haven’t seen her in the light yet.”

Louis Akers smiled and carefully settled his tie.

Like Doyle, Akers loved the game of life, and he liked playing for high stakes. He had joined forces with Doyle because the game was dangerous and exciting, rather than because of any real conviction. Doyle had a fanatic faith, with all his calculation, but Louis Akers had only calculation and ambition. A practicing attorney in the city, a specialist in union law openly, a Red in secret, he played his triple game shrewdly and with zest.

Doyle turned to go, then stopped and came back. “I was forgetting something,” he said, slowly. “What possessed you to take that Boyd girl to the Searing Building the other night?”

“Who told you that?”

“Woslosky saw you coming out.”

“I had left something there,” Akers said sullenly. “That’s the truth, whether you believe it or not. I wasn’t there two minutes.

“You’re a fool, Louis,” Doyle said coldly. “You’ll play that game once too often. What happens to you is your own concern, but what may happen to me is mine. And I’ll take mighty good care it doesn’t happen.”

Doyle was all unction and hospitality when he met Lily in the hall. At dinner he was brilliant, witty, the gracious host. Akers played up to him. At the foot of the table Elinor sat, outwardly passive, inwardly puzzled, and watched Lily. She knew the contrast the girl must be drawing, between the bright little meal, with its simple service and clever talk, and those dreary formal dinners at home when old Anthony sometimes never spoke at all, or again used his caustic tongue like a scourge. Elinor did not hate her father; he was simply no longer her father. As for Howard, she had had a childish affection for him, but he had gone away early to school, and she hardly knew him. But she did not want his child here, drinking in as she was, without clearly understanding what they meant, Doyle’s theories of unrest and revolution.

“You will find that I am an idealist, in a way,” he was saying. “That is, if you come often. I hope you will, by the way. I am perpetually dissatisfied with things as they are, and wanting them changed. With the single exception of my wife” - he bowed to Elinor, “and this little party, which is delightful.”

“Are you a Socialist?” Lily demanded, in her direct way.

“Well, you might call it that. I go a bit further.”

“Don’t talk politics, Jim,” Elinor hastily interposed. He caught her eye and grinned.

“I’m not talking politics, my dear.” He turned to Lily, smiling.

“For one thing, I don’t believe that any one should have a lot of money, so that a taxicab could remain ticking away fabulous sums while a charming young lady dines at her leisure.” He smiled again.

“Will it be a lot?” Lily asked. “I thought I’d better keep him, because - ” She hesitated.

“Because this neighborhood is unlikely to have a cab stand? You were entirely right. But I can see that you won’t like my idealistic community. You see, in it everybody will have enough, and nobody will have too much.”

“Don’t take him too seriously, Miss Cardew,” said Akers, bending forward. “You and I know that there isn’t such a thing as too much.”

Elinor changed the subject; as a girl she had drawn rather well, and she had retained her interest in that form of art. There was an exhibition in town of colored drawings. Lily should see them. But Jim Doyle countered her move.

“I forgot to mention,” he said, “that in this ideal world we were discussing the arts will flourish. Not at once, of course, because the artists will be fighting - “

“Fighting?”

“Per aspera ad astra,” put in Louis Akers. “You cannot change a world in a day, without revolution - “

“But you don’t believe that revolution is ever worth while, do you?”

“If it would drive starvation and wretchedness from the world, yes.”

Lily found Louis Akers interesting. Certainly he was very handsome. And after all, why should there be misery and hunger in the world? There must be enough for all. It was hardly fair, for instance, that she should have so much, and others scarcely anything. Only it was like thinking about religion; you didn’t get anywhere with it. You wanted to be good, and tried to be. And you wanted to love God, only He seemed so far away, mostly. And even that was confusing, because you prayed to God to be forgiven for wickedness, but it was to His Son our Lord one went for help in trouble.

One could be sorry for the poor, and even give away all one had, but that would only help a few. It would have to be that every one who had too much would give up all but what he needed.

Lily tried to put that into words.

“Exactly,” said Jim Doyle. “Only in my new world we realize that there would be a few craven spirits who might not willingly give up what they have. In that case it would be taken from them.”

“And that is what you call revolution?”

“Precisely.”

“But that’s not revolution. It is a sort of justice, isn’t it?”

“You think very straight, young lady,” said Jim Doyle.

He had a fascinating theory of individualism, too; no man should impose his will and no community its laws, on the individual. Laws were for slaves. Ethics were better than laws, to control.

“Although,” he added, urbanely, “I daresay it might be difficult to convert Mr. Anthony Cardew to such a belief.”

While Louis Akers saw Lily to her taxicab that night Doyle stood in the hall, waiting. He was very content with his evening’s work.

“Well?” he said, when Akers returned.

“Merry as a marriage bell. I’m to show her the Brunelleschi drawings tomorrow.”

Slightly flushed, he smoothed his hair in front of the mirror over the stand.

“She’s a nice child,” he said. In his eyes was the look of the hunting animal that scents food.