4
Fillmore had the air of a man who thought it wasn't loaded. A wild,
startled expression had settled itself upon his face and he was
breathing heavily.
"Cheer up!" said Sally. Fillmore jumped like a stricken jelly. "Tell
me all," said Sally, sitting down beside him. "I leave you a gentleman
of large and independent means, and I come back and find you one of the
wage-slaves again. How did it all happen?"
"Sally," said Fillmore, "I will be frank with you. Can you lend me ten
dollars?"
"I don't see how you make that out an answer to my question, but here
you are."
"Thanks." Fillmore pocketed the bill. "I'll let you have it back next
week. I want to take Miss Winch out to lunch."
"If that's what you want it for, don't look on it as a loan, take it as
a gift with my blessing thrown in." She looked over her shoulder at Miss
Winch, who, the cares of rehearsal being temporarily suspended, was
practising golf-shots with an umbrella at the other side of the stage.
"However did you have the sense to fall in love with her, Fill?"
"Do you like her?" asked Fillmore, brightening.
"I love her."
"I knew you would. She's just the right girl for me, isn't she?"
"She certainly is."
"So sympathetic."
"Yes."
"So kind."
"Yes."
"And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity
the girl who marries you will need."
Fillmore drew himself up with as much hauteur as a stout man sitting in
a low chair can achieve.
"Some day I will make you believe in me, Sally."
"Less of the Merchant Prince, my lad," said Sally, firmly. "You just
confine yourself to explaining how you got this way, instead of taking
up my valuable time telling me what you mean to do in the future. You've
lost all your money?"
"I have suffered certain reverses," said Fillmore, with dignity, "which
have left me temporarily... Yes, every bean," he concluded simply.
"How?"
"Well..." Fillmore hesitated. "I've had bad luck, you know. First I
bought Consolidated Rails for the rise, and they fell. So that went
wrong."
"Yes?"
"And then I bought Russian Roubles for the fall, and they rose. So that
went wrong."
"Good gracious! Why, I've heard all this before."
"Who told you?"
"No, I remember now. It's just that you remind me of a man I met at
Roville. He was telling me the story of his life, and how he had made a
hash of everything. Well, that took all you had, I suppose?"
"Not quite. I had a few thousand left, and I went into a deal that
really did look cast-iron."
"And that went wrong!"
"It wasn't my fault," said Fillmore querulously. "It was just my
poisonous luck. A man I knew got me to join a syndicate which had bought
up a lot of whisky. The idea was to ship it into Chicago in
herring-barrels. We should have cleaned up big, only a mutt of a
detective took it into his darned head to go fooling about with a
crowbar. Officious ass! It wasn't as if the barrels weren't labelled
'Herrings' as plainly as they could be," said Fillmore with honest
indignation. He shuddered. "I nearly got arrested."
"But that went wrong? Well, that's something to be thankful for.
Stripes wouldn't suit your figure." Sally gave his arm a squeeze. She
was very fond of Fillmore, though for the good of his soul she generally
concealed her affection beneath a manner which he had once compared, not
without some reason, to that of a governess who had afflicted their
mutual childhood. "Never mind, you poor ill-used martyr. Things are sure
to come right. We shall see you a millionaire some day. And, oh heavens,
brother Fillmore, what a bore you'll be when you are! I can just see you
being interviewed and giving hints to young men on how to make good.
'Mr. Nicholas attributes his success to sheer hard work. He can lay his
hand on his bulging waistcoat and say that he has never once indulged in
those rash get-rich-quick speculations, where you buy for the rise and
watch things fall and then rush out and buy for the fall and watch 'em
rise.' Fill... I'll tell you what I'll do. They all say it's the first
bit of money that counts in building a vast fortune. I'll lend you some
of mine."
"You will? Sally, I always said you were an ace."
"I never heard you. You oughtn't to mumble so."
"Will you lend me twenty thousand dollars?"
Sally patted his hand soothingly.
"Come slowly down to earth," she said. "Two hundred was the sum I had
in mind."
"I want twenty thousand."
"You'd better rob a bank. Any policeman will direct you to a good
bank."
"I'll tell you why I want twenty thousand."
"You might just mention it."
"If I had twenty thousand, I'd buy this production from Cracknell.
He'll be back in a few minutes to tell us that the Hobson woman has
quit: and, if she really has, you take it from me that he will close the
show. And, even if he manages to jolly her along this time and she comes
back, it's going to happen sooner or later. It's a shame to let a show
like this close. I believe in it, Sally. It's a darn good play. With
Elsa Doland in the big part, it couldn't fail."
Sally started. Her money was too recent for her to have grown fully
accustomed to it, and she had never realized that she was in a position
to wave a wand and make things happen on any big scale. The financing of
a theatrical production had always been to her something mysterious and
out of the reach of ordinary persons like herself. Fillmore, that
spacious thinker, had brought it into the sphere of the possible.
"He'd sell for less than that, of course, but one would need a bit in
hand. You have to face a loss on the road before coming into New York.
I'd give you ten per cent on your money, Sally."
Sally found herself wavering. The prudent side of her nature, which
hitherto had steered her safely through most of life's rapids, seemed
oddly dormant. Sub-consciously she was aware that on past performances
Fillmore was decidedly not the man to be allowed control of anybody's
little fortune, but somehow the thought did not seem to grip her. He had
touched her imagination.
"It's a gold-mine!"
Sally's prudent side stirred in its sleep. Fillmore had chosen an
unfortunate expression. To the novice in finance the word gold-mine had
repellent associations. If there was one thing in which Sally had
proposed not to invest her legacy, it was a gold-mine; what she had had
in view, as a matter of fact, had been one of those little fancy shops
which are called Ye Blue Bird or Ye Corner Shoppe, or something like
that, where you sell exotic bric-a-brac to the wealthy at extortionate
prices. She knew two girls who were doing splendidly in that line. As
Fillmore spoke those words, Ye Corner Shoppe suddenly looked very good
to her.
At this moment, however, two things happened. Gerald and Mr. Bunbury,
in the course of their perambulations, came into the glow of the
footlights, and she was able to see Gerald's face: and at the same time
Mr. Reginald Cracknell hurried on to the stage, his whole demeanour that
of the bearer of evil tidings.
The sight of Gerald's face annihilated Sally's prudence at a single
stroke. Ye Corner Shoppe, which a moment before had been shining
brightly before her mental eye, flickered and melted out. The whole
issue became clear and simple. Gerald was miserable and she had it in
her power to make him happy. He was sullenly awaiting disaster and she
with a word could avert it. She wondered that she had ever hesitated.
"All right," she said simply.
Fillmore quivered from head to foot. A powerful electric shock could
not have produced a stronger convulsion. He knew Sally of old as
cautious and clear-headed, by no means to be stampeded by a brother's
eloquence; and he had never looked on this thing as anything better than
a hundred to one shot.
"You'll do it?" he whispered, and held his breath. After all he might
not have heard correctly.
"Yes."
All the complex emotion in Fillmore's soul found expression in one vast
whoop. It rang through the empty theatre like the last trump, beating
against the back wall and rising in hollow echoes to the very gallery.
Mr. Bunbury, conversing in low undertones with Mr. Cracknell across the
footlights, shied like a startled mule. There was reproach and menace in
the look he cast at Fillmore, and a minute earlier it would have reduced
that financial magnate to apologetic pulp. But Fillmore was not to be
intimidated now by a look. He strode down to the group at the
footlights,
"Cracknell," he said importantly, "one moment, I should like a word with
you."
