"All this is quite unnecessary," said Bojo with quiet scorn. "We are dealing with figures. Have you the account ready--now?"

"Yes, yes--we can have it ready in a moment--look it over--take just a few moments," said Flaspoller eagerly. "Sit down, Mr. Crocker, while we look it up."

"Thanks, I prefer to wait outside. Remember I want a complete and minute statement."

He wheeled and went out with disgust, taking his seat by his old place at the window, without removing his hat and coat. He waited thus, long minutes, staring out at the dirt-stained walls of the opposite skysc.r.a.per that, five hundred feet in the air, shut them out from a glimpse of the sky, oblivious to whispered conversations, curious glances, or the nervous bustling to and fro of the partners. Presently the telephone buzzed at his side.

"Mr. Hauk would like you to step into his office, sir."

"Tell him to come to me."

It was bravado, but a revenge that was precious to him. Almost immediately Hauk came sliding to his desk, laying a paper before him.

"This is it, Mr. Crocker."

"Every claim you have against the estate--every one?" said Bojo, examining carefully the items.

"Perfectly."

But at this moment Flaspoller arrived hastily and alarmed.

"We forgot the share in the expense of the office," he said hurriedly.

"Put it down," said Bojo, with a wave of his hand. At the point of bitter scorn at which he had arrived, it seemed to him a sublime thing to accept all figures without condescending to enter into discussion.

"Anything more, gentlemen?"

Flaspoller in vain tortured his memory at this last summons. Hauk, misunderstanding the frown and the stare with which Bojo continued to gaze at the paper, began to explain: "This item here is calculated on a third share in--"

"I don't want any explanations," said Bojo, cutting him short. "You will, of course, furnish complete details to the executor of the estate.

Now if this is complete, kindly give me a written acknowledgment of a payment in full of every claim you hold against the estate of W. O.

Forshay, and likewise an attestation that this is in every respect a just and true bill of Mr. Forshay's debts." He drew out his check-book.

"Fifty-two thousand, seven hundred--"

"And forty-six dollars," said Flaspoller, who followed the strokes of the pen with incredulous eyes as though unable to believe in Providence.

Bojo rose, took the acquittals and the bill of items, and handed them the check, saying: "This closes the matter, I believe."

An immense struggle was going on in the minds of the two partners--curiosity, cupidity, and a new sense of the financial strength of the man who could thus toss off checks, plainly written in their startled expressions.

"Mr. Crocker, Tom, we should be very glad if you forgot what we said this morning," said Flaspoller hurriedly. "You've been very handsome, very handsome indeed. You can always have a desk in our offices. Mr.

Crocker, I apologize for mistaking you. Shake hands!"

"Good-by, gentlemen!" said Bojo, lifting his hat with the utmost punctiliousness.

He took a hasty luncheon and went uptown to the Court, where Della, the pretty little Irish girl at the telephone desk, opened her eyes in surprise at this unusual appearance.

"Why, Mr. Crocker, what's wrong?"

"I'm changing my habits, Della," he said with an attempted laugh.

He went to his room and sat a long while before the fireplace, pulling at a pipe. At length he rose, went to the desk, and wrote:

Dear Doris:

A good many things have come up since I left you. I think it is better that no announcement be made until we have had a chance to talk matters over very seriously. I hope that can be soon.

BOJO.

P.S. Please thank Patsie for packing my bag. I went off in such a rush I think I forgot.

P.P.S. Tell Gladys that Fred came out all right--shouldn't be surprised if he'd made a little too.

CHAPTER XVIII

BOJO FACES THE TRUTH

The next days he spent aimlessly. He had a great decision to make, and he acted as though he had not a thought in the world but to drift indolently through life. He idled through breakfast, reading the morning papers laboriously, and was amazed to find that with all his delay it was only eleven o'clock, with an interminable interval to be filled in before lunch. He began a dozen novels, seeking to lose himself in the spell of other lands and other times; but as soon as he sallied out to his club he had the feeling that the world had been turned inside out.

After luncheon he tried vainly to inveigle some acquaintance into an afternoon's loafing, only to receive again that impression of strange loneliness in a foreign land, as one after the other disappeared before the call of work. He had nothing to do except the one thing which in the end he knew had to be done, and the more he sought to put it from him, idling in moving-picture halls or consuming long stretches of pavement in exploring tramps, the more he felt something always back of his shoulder, not to be denied.

He avoided the company of his chums, seeking other acquaintances with whom to dine and take in a show. Something had fallen into the midst of the old intimacy of Westover Court. There was a feeling of unease and impending disruption. The pa.s.sion for gain had pa.s.sed among them at last and the trail of disillusionment it had left could not be effaced. The boyish delight, the frolicking with life had pa.s.sed. They seemed to have aged and sobered in a night. The morning breakfasts were constrained, hurried affairs. There was not the old give-and-take spirit of horse play. DeLancy was moody and evasive, Marsh silent, and Granning grim.

Bojo could not meet DeLancy's eyes, and with the others he felt that though they would never express it, he had disappointed them, that in some way they held him responsible for the changes which had come and the loss of that complete and free spirit of comradeship which would never return.

He had reached the point where he had decided on a full confession to Drake and a certain rest.i.tution. But here he met the rock of his indecision. What should he restore? After deducting the sums paid to DeLancy and to the estate of Forshay, he had still almost one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. Why should he not deduct his own losses, amounting to over seventy thousand dollars incurred in the service of a campaign which had netted millions?

His conscience, tortured by the tragic memory of Forshay and the feeling of the spreading circles of panic and losses which had started from his unwitting agency, had finally recoiled before the thought of making profit of the desolation of others. But if he renounced the gain, was there any reason why he should suffer loss; why Drake should not reimburse him as he had reimbursed others? To accept this view meant that he would still remain in possession of upwards of eighty-five thousand dollars, producing a tidy income, able to hold up his own in the society to which he had grown accustomed. To renounce the payment of his losses meant not simply a blow to his pride in the acknowledgment that in the first six months he had already lost two-thirds of what his father had given him, but that his whole scheme of living would have to be changed, while marriage with Doris became an impossibility.

Beyond the first letter he had written her in the first tragic reaction on his return from the office, he had sent Doris no further word. What he had to say was yet too undefined to express on paper. Too much depended on her att.i.tude when they met at last face to face. Her letters, full of anxiety and demand for information, remained unanswered. One afternoon on returning after a day's tramp on the East Side, he found a telegram, which had been waiting hours.

Return this afternoon four-thirty most anxious meet me station.

DORIS.

It was then almost six. Without waiting to telephone explanations he jumped in a taxi and shot off uptown. At the Drakes' he sent up his name by Thompson, learning with a sudden tightening of the heart that Drake himself was home. He went into the quiet reception room, nervously excited by the approaching crisis, resolved now that it was up, to push it to its ultimate conclusion. As he whipped back and forth, fingering impatiently the shining green leaves of the waxed rubber plant, all at once, to his amazement, Patsie stood before him.

"You here?" he said, stopping short.

She nodded, red in her cheeks, looking quickly at him and away.

"Doris is changing her dress; she'll be down right away. Didn't you get the telegram?"

"I'm sorry-- I was out all day."

He stopped and she was silent, both awkwardly conscious of the other.