"I think that is best," she managed so say. "We will let our acquaintanceship ripen."

He rose and helped her with her light wrap. His fingers touched her hand, and it seemed to him the battle was won. . . . But he had promised not to re-open the subject.

In the street he said, "If you will wait a moment I will take you home in my car." Their eyes met, and each of them knew what it meant. It meant announcement to her mother that she had met Dave down town. It meant, perhaps, a supposition on her mother's part that she had gone down town for that purpose. It was far-reaching. But she said simply, "I should enjoy driving home with you."

On the way they planned that the following Sunday they would drive into the foothills together. Of course they would ask Mrs. Hardy to accompany them. Of course. But it might happen that Mrs. Hardy would be indisposed. She was tired with the numerous duties incident to settling in a new home. Irene was of the opinion that what her mother needed now was rest.

As it happened, Mrs. Hardy was at the gate. She greeted Dave cordially enough; it was not possible for Mrs. Hardy to quite forget her conventional training, just as it was not possible for her to quite forget that Dave was a one-time cow puncher. Encouraged by her mood Irene determined to settle the Sunday programme at once.

"Dave was good enough to bring me up in his car," she said. "And just think! He invites us to drive into the foothills with him next Sunday.

Will you come? It will be delightful. Or are you feeling----"

"Mr. Elden is very kind," said Mrs. Hardy, with dignity. "I have no doubt Mr. Conward will accompany us. He is to call this evening, and I will ask him. . . . Yes, I think it very likely we will go."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The summer wore on, and autumn followed on its heels. The processes which had been discerned by Conward and other astute operators were now apparent to the mob which forever follows in the wake of the successful, but usually at such a distance as to be overwhelmed in the receding flood. The forces which had built up fabulous fortunes were now in reverse gear, and the same mechanism that had built up was now tearing down. As the boom had fed upon itself, carrying prices to heights justifiable only to the most insane optimism, so did the subsequent depression bear down upon values until they reached depths justifiable only to the most abandoned despondency. Building operations came to a standstill. Carpenters, masons, brick-layers, painters, plumbers, labourers found themselves out of employment. As, in most instances, they had lived to the extent of their income in the prosperous period, or had invested their surpluses in the all-alluring real estate, they were promptly confronted with the necessity of finding work; if not at home, elsewhere. Their exodus left vacant houses; the reduced volume of trade necessary for a smaller and more frugal population was speedily reflected in empty shops and office buildings. With houses, shops, and office buildings empty or rented at prices which did not pay interest on the investment there was no inducement to build more houses, shops, or office buildings. With no inducement to build houses, shops, or office buildings there was no demand for vacant lots. With no demand for vacant lots, no value attached to them. The rosy bubble, inflated with the vapours of irresponsible speculation, had dissolved in thin air.

It could not be called a collapse. There was no panic, no crash.

There was no wild rush to sell. One cannot sell without buyers, and there were no buyers. A certain latent optimism, justified in part by the undeniable natural advantages of the city, kept the flame of hope alive in the hearts of investors, or, perhaps, suffered it to be gradually diminished rather than extinguished by one icy blast of despair.

Mrs. Hardy was among the last to admit that she had bought on an ebbing tide. She contended that her house was well worth the price she had paid; what if speculation had come to a stop? So much the better; her house was still worth its price. She would stand firm. It was not until the Metfords, whose ostentation had brought them before her notice, attempted to sell their home at a tremendous sacrifice, and had found it impossible to get an offer, that Mrs. Hardy began seriously to consider her predicament. Mrs. Metford had sold the car and discharged the "chiffonier," and Mr. Metford had returned to his ancient and honourable calling of coal freighter.

Mrs. Hardy consulted Conward. It had grown to be her habit to consult Conward on all matters in which she found an interest. Conward had gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to Mrs. Hardy and her daughter, with, in the case of the former, considerable success. His status with Irene was not so well defined, but the frequency of his visits to the Hardy home afforded the opportunity for an attachment to be developed by insensible degrees, and the day was nearing when Conward would wish to trade upon that attachment.

"How is it, Mr. Conward," Mrs. Hardy said to him one evening over her fancy work, for she practised an indefatigable industry in matters of no importance,--"How is it that there is no demand for property? You are a real estate expert; you should be able to answer that."

"It is simple enough," Conward answered. "It is all a matter of confidence. So long as confidence was maintained, prices continued to advance. When confidence began to be shaken, prices hesitated. If confidence should disappear, values would follow suit."

"But why should confidence disappear? Isn't this city as good to-day as it was a year ago? Doesn't it occupy the same site? Are not the farms still producing?"

"That's just it, dear Mrs. Hardy. Why, indeed? Simply because the booster has given way to the calamity howler. Its psychological explanation is simple enough. The world lives by faith. Without faith there would be neither seed-time nor harvest. That is true of raising cities, as well as raising crops. But there are always those who ridicule faith; always were, always will be. And as soon as faith disappears, things begin to sink. Just like John, or whoever it was, on the water----"

"Peter, I think," corrected Mrs. Hardy. "Yes, yes, I begin to understand."

"Well, it's just like that. I may be a little off colour on my scripture, but I have the principle of it, and that's the main thing.

And as soon as a city loses faith it begins to sink, just like Peter in the Red Sea."

"I don't think it was the Red Sea," said Mrs. Hardy gently. "But that is a matter of detail. As you say, the principle is the main thing.

So we owe all this--these empty houses and shops, unsalable property, and everything, to those who have lost faith--or never had it. To men like Mr. Elden, for instance. You remember how he tried to discourage me from the very first--tried to break down my faith--that was it, Mr.

Conward--I see it all very plainly now--and he and others like him have brought things to their present pa.s.s. Well, they have a great responsibility."

Conward, practised though he was in the arts of simulation, found difficulty in maintaining a serious appearance. It had not occurred to him that when a woman conceives a dislike for a man, her mind may lend itself to processes of deductions that will ultimately saddle the unfortunate offender with the responsibility for circ.u.mstances with which he is not in the most remote manner connected. It was the most natural thing in the world for a mind like Mrs. Hardy's, quite without premeditated injustice, to find in Dave Elden the cause of effects as far removed as was the collapse of the boom from the good advice he had given her that day in Conward's office. Conward found the experience an illuminating one. It was rich with hints of the possibilities that might arise from apparently innocent sentences dropped at opportune moments. It was proof that the danger of consequences lies, not in wronging your neighbour, but in allowing your neighbour to suspect that you wrong him.

As a result of this discussion, Dave found himself rather less popular with Mrs. Hardy than before. She treated him with distant civility, showing such courtesies as convention demanded as an honour, not to Elden, but to herself. Dave accepted her displeasure with a light-heartedness that was extremely trying to the good woman's temper.

Had it not been for his desire to spare Irene any unhappiness, he would have treated it with open flippancy. He was engaged in a much more serious business than the cajolery of an old woman's whims. He was engaged in the serious business of capturing the heart of Irene Hardy--a task made none the easier by the self-imposed condition that he must conduct no offensive, but must await with such patience as he could command the voluntary capitulation of the besieged. On the whole, he told himself he had no reason to be dissatisfied with the progress of events. He and Irene often motored together, frequently accompanied by Mrs. Hardy, sometimes by Conward as well, but occasionally alone. And Irene made no secret of the fact that she preferred the trips in which only she and Dave partic.i.p.ated. On such occasions the warm summer afternoons found them wandering far over the prairies, without thought of the homeward trail until the setting sun poured its ribbon of gold along the crest of the Rockies. The country, with its long, rolling sweeps of prairie, its cl.u.s.ters of dark green poplars; its rugged foothills from which grey roots of rock protruded, and the blue background of the mountains, afforded a scene to charm her artist soul, and daring and more daring were the splashes of colour which she committed to canvas in her attempt to catch the moods of light and shade that played over such a landscape. And if she did not speak of love with her lips, she had eyes. . . .

The gradual shrinkage of values to the vanishing point imposed upon Dave many business duties which he would very gladly have evaded. The office of Conward & Elden, which had once been besieged by customers eager to buy, was now a centre of groups no less eager to sell; and when they could not sell they contrived to lay the blame upon the firm which had originally sold to them. Although, for the most part, these were men and women who had bought purely from the gambler's motive, they behaved toward the real estate dealer as though he had done them an injustice when the finger of fortune turned up a loss instead of a profit. For such people Dave had little sympathy, and if they persisted in their murmurings he told them so with becoming frankness.

But there were cases that could not be turned away with a sharp answer.

Bert Morrison, for instance. Bert had never mentioned her "investment"

since the occasion already recorded; she greeted Dave with the sociability due to their long-standing friendship; and her calm avoidance of the subject hurt him more than the abuse of all his irate patrons. Then there was Merton, the widower with the sick lungs and the motherless boy, who had brought his little savings to the West in the hope of husbanding out his life in the dry, clear atmosphere, and saving his son from the white death that had already invaded their little family. With a cruelty almost unbelievable, Conward had talked this man into the purchase of property so far removed from the city as to possess no value except as farm land; and the little savings, which were to ward off sickness and death, or, if that could not be, minister modest comfort in the declining hours of life, had been exchanged for property which, even at the time of the transaction, was valueless and unsalable.

Merton had called on Dave with respect to his investment. Dave had at first been disposed to tell him frankly that the property, for which he had paid twenty dollars a foot, was barely worth that much an acre.

But a second look at the man changed his purpose.

"I know you were stung, Merton," he said, "shamelessly stung. You are one of those unsuspecting fellows who think everybody is going to play fair with them. You belong to the cla.s.s who keep all kinds of rogues and scoundrels in easy circ.u.mstances. You might almost be charged with being accessories. Now, just to show how I feel about it--how much did you pay for these lots?"

"Three thousand dollars. It was all I had."

"Of course it was. If you had had more you would have paid more. I suppose Conward justified himself with the argument that if he didn't take your easy money some one else would, which is doubtless true. But just to show how I feel about it--I'll buy those lots from you, for three thousand dollars."

"I can't do it, Mr. Elden; I can't do it," said Merton, and there was moisture on his cheeks. "That would be charity--and I can't take it.

But I'm much obliged. It shows you're square, Mr. Elden, and I hold no illwill to _you_."

"Well, can I help you in some way you _will_ accept? I'm afraid--I don't mean to be unkind, but we may as well be frank--I'm afraid you won't need help very long."

Merton answered as one who has made up his mind to the inevitable, and Dave thought better of him. This little wreck of a man--this child in business matters--could look death in the face without a quiver.

"Not so long," he said. "I felt ever so much better when I came here first; I thought I was really going to be well again. But when I found what a mistake I had made I began to worry, not for myself, you know, but the boy, and worry is just what my trouble lives on. I have been working a little, and boarding out, and the boy is going to school.

But I can't do heavy work, and work of any kind is hard to get. I find I can't keep going that way."

Merton looked with dreamy eyes through the office window, while Dave was turning over the hopelessness of his position, and inwardly cursing a system which made such conditions possible. Society protects the physically weak from the physically strong; the physical highwayman usually gets his deserts; but the mental highwayman preys upon the weak and the inexperienced and the unorganized, and Society votes him a good citizen and a success.

"I had a plan," Merton continued, half-apologetically, as though his plan did him little credit; "I had a plan, but it can't be worked out.

I have been trying to raise a little money on my lots, but the mortgage people just look at me."

"What is your plan?" said Dave, kindly. "Any plan, no matter how bad, is always better than no plan."

"I thought," said Merton, timidly,--"I thought if I could build a little shack on the lots I could live there with the boy and we could raise a very fine garden. The soil is very fertile, and at least we should not starve. And the gardening would be good for me, and I could perhaps keep some chickens, and work out at odd jobs as well. But it takes money to build even a very small shack."

"How much money?" demanded Dave.

"If I had a hundred dollars----"

"Bring your t.i.tle to me to-morrow; to me, personally, you understand.

I'll advance you five hundred dollars."

Merton sprang up, and there was more enthusiasm in his eyes than had seemed possible "You will? But I don't need that much----"

"Then use the surplus to live on."

So the Merton affair was straightened away in a manner which left Dave more at peace with his conscience. But another event, much more dramatic and far-reaching in its effects upon his life, was already ripe for the enacting.

Business conditions had necessitated unwonted economy in the office affairs of Conward & Elden, as a result of which many old employees had been laid off, and others had been replaced by cheaper and less experienced labour. Stenographers who had been receiving a hundred dollars a month could not readily bring themselves to accept fifty, and some of them had to make way for new girls, fresh from the business colleges. Such a new girl was Gladys Wardin; pretty, likeable, inexperienced. Her country home had offered no answer to her ambitions, and she had come to the city with the most dangerous equipment a young woman can carry--an attractive face and an unsophisticated confidence in the goodness of humanity. Conward had been responsible for her position in the office, and Dave had given little thought to her, except to note that she was a willing worker and of comely appearance.

Returning to the office one Sat.u.r.day evening Dave found Miss Wardin making up a bundle of paper, pencils, and carbon paper. She was evidently in high spirits, and he smilingly asked if she intended working at home over Sunday.