第76章

"On the contrary, I shall calm myself.I'm never so calm and cheerful as when I'm fighting, unless it's when I'm getting ready to fight.There's something inside me--I don't know what--but it won't let me rest till it has pushed me into action.That's my nature.If any one asks how I am, say you've no hope of my recovery.""I shall tell only the truth in that case," said Sackett, but with resignation--he was beginning to believe that for his extraordinary patient extraordinary remedies might be best.

Dumont listened to Culver's report without interrupting him once.

Culver's position had theretofore been most disadvantageous to himself.He had been too near to Dumont, had been merged in Dumont's big personality.Whatever he did well seemed to Dumont merely the direct reflection of his own abilities; whatever he did ill seemed far more stupid than a similar blunder made by a less intimate subordinate--what excuse for Culver's going wrong with the guiding hand of the Great Man always upon him?

In this, his first important independent assignment, he had at last an opportunity to show his master what he could do, to show that he had not learned the Dumont methods parrot-fashion, but intelligently, that he was no mere reflecting asteroid to the Dumont sun, but a self-luminous, if lesser and dependent, star.

Dumont was in a peculiarly appreciative mood.

"Why, the fellow's got brains--GOOD brains," was his inward comment again and again as Culver unfolded the information he had collected--clear, accurate, non-essentials discarded, essentials given in detail, hidden points brought to the surface.

It was proof positive of Dumont's profound indifference to money that he listened without any emotion either of anger or of regret to the first part of Culver's tale, the survey of the wreck--what had been forty millions now reduced to a dubious six.Dumont had neither time nor strength for emotion; he was using all his mentality in gaging what he had for the work in hand--just how long and how efficient was the broken sword with which he must face his enemies in a struggle that meant utter ruin to him if he failed.For he felt that if he should fail he would never again be able to gather himself together to renew the combat; either he would die outright or he would abandon himself to the appetite which had just shown itself dangerously near to being the strongest of the several passions ruling him.

When Culver passed to the Herron coterie and the Fanning-Smiths and Great Lakes and Gulf, Dumont was still motionless--he was now estimating the strength and the weaknesses of the enemy, and miscalculation would be fatal.At the end of three-quarters of an hour Culver stopped the steady, swift flow of his report--"That's all the important facts.There's a lot more but it would be largely repetition."Dumont looked at him with an expression that made him proud.

"Thanks, Culver.At the next annual meeting we'll elect you to Giddings' place.Please go back down-town and--" He rapidly indicated half a dozen points which Culver had failed to see and investigate--the best subordinate has not the master's eye; if he had, he would not be a subordinate.

Dumont waved his hand in dismissal and settled himself to sleep.

When Culver began to stammer thanks for the promised promotion, he frowned.

"Don't bother me with that sort of stuff.The job's yours because you've earned it.It'll be yours as long as you can hold it down--or until you earn a better one.And you'll be loyal as Giddings was--just as long as it's to your interest and not a second longer.Otherwise you'd be a fool, and I'd not have you about me.Be off!"He slept an hour and a half, then Pauline brought him a cup of beef extract--"A very small cup," he grumbled good-humoredly.

"And a very weak, watery mess in it."

As he lay propped in his bed drinking it--slowly to make it last the longer--Pauline sat looking at him.His hands had been fat and puffy; she was filled with pity as she watched the almost scrawny hand holding the cup to his lips; there were hollows between the tendons, and the wrist was gaunt.Her gaze wandered to his face and rested there, in sympathy and tenderness.The ravages of the fever had been frightful--hollows where the swollen, sensual cheeks had been; the neck caved in behind and under the jaw-bones; loose skin hanging in wattles, deeply-set eyes, a pinched look about the nostrils and the corners of the mouth.He was homely, ugly even; except the noble curve of head and profile, not a trace of his former good looks--but at least that swinish, fleshy, fleshly expression was gone.

A physical wreck, battered, torn, dismantled by the storm and fire of disease! It was hard for her to keep back her tears.

Their eyes met and his instantly shifted.The rest of the world saw the man of force bent upon the possessions which mean fame and honor regardless of how they are got.He knew that he could deceive the world, that so long as he was rich and powerful it would refuse to let him undeceive it, though he might strive to show it what he was.But he knew that SHE saw him as he really was--knew him as only a husband and a wife can know each the other.And he respected her for the qualities which gave her a right to despise him, and which had forced her to exercise that right.He felt himself the superior of the rest of his fellow-beings, but her inferior; did she not successfully defy him; could she not, without a word, by simply resting her calm gaze upon him, make him shift and slink?