第82章

The afternoon waned, night came on.The day's business was to be gone over; the morrow's campaign was to be planned; little, unexpected side issues, a score of them, a hundred of them, cropped out from hour to hour;new decisions had to be taken each minute.At dinner time he left the office, and his horses carried him home again, while again their hoofs upon the asphalt beat out unceasingly the monotone of the one refrain, "Wheat--wheat--wheat, wheat--wheat--wheat." At dinner table he could not eat.Between each course he found himself going over the day's work, testing it, questioning himself, "Was this rightly done?" "Was that particular decision sound?" "Is there a loophole here?""Just what was the meaning of that despatch?" After the meal the papers, contracts, statistics and reports which he had brought with him in his Gladstone bag were to be studied.As often as not Gretry called, and the two, shut in the library, talked, discussed, and planned till long after midnight.

Then at last, when he had shut the front door upon his lieutenant and turned to face the empty, silent house, came the moment's reaction.The tired brain flagged and drooped; exhaustion, like a weight of lead, hung upon his heels.But somewhere a hall clock struck, a single, booming note, like a gong--like the signal that would unchain the tempest in the Pit to-morrow morning.

Wheat--wheat--wheat, wheat--wheat--wheat! Instantly the jaded senses braced again, instantly the wearied mind sprang to its post.He turned out the lights, he locked the front door.Long since the great house was asleep.In the cold, dim silence of the earliest dawn Curtis Jadwin went to bed, only to lie awake, staring up into the darkness, planning, devising new measures, reviewing the day's doings, while the faint tides of blood behind the eardrums murmured ceaselessly to the overdriven brain, "Wheat--wheat--wheat, wheat--wheat--wheat.Forty million bushels, forty million, forty million."Whole days now went by when he saw his wife only at breakfast and at dinner.At times she was angry, hurt, and grieved that he should leave her so much alone.

But there were moments when she was sorry for him.She seemed to divine that he was not all to blame.

What Laura thought he could only guess.She no longer spoke of his absorption in business.At times he thought he saw reproach and appeal in her dark eyes, at times anger and a pride cruelly wounded.A few months ago this would have touched him.But now he all at once broke out vehemently:

"You think I am wilfully doing this! You don't know, you haven't a guess.I corner the wheat! Great heavens, it is the wheat that has cornered me! The corner made itself.I happened to stand between two sets of circumstances, and they made me do what I've done.I couldn't get out of it now, with all the good will in the world.Go to the theatre to-night with you and the Cresslers? Why, old girl, you might as well ask me to go to Jericho.Let that Mr.Corthell take my place."And very naturally this is what was done.The artist sent a great bunch of roses to Mrs.Jadwin upon the receipt of her invitation, and after the play had the party to supper in his apartments, that overlooked the Lake Front.Supper over, he escorted her, Mrs.

Cressler, and Page back to their respective homes.

By a coincidence that struck them all as very amusing, he was the only man of the party.At the last moment Page had received a telegram from Landry.He was, it appeared, sick, and in bed.The day's work on the Board of Trade had quite used him up for the moment, and his doctor forbade him to stir out of doors.Mrs.

Cressler explained that Charlie had something on his mind these days, that was making an old man of him.

"He don't ever talk shop with me," she said."I'm sure he hasn't been speculating, but he's worried and fidgety to beat all I ever saw, this last week; and now this evening he had to take himself off to meet some customer or other at the Palmer House."They dropped Mrs.Cressler at the door of her home and then went on to the Jadwins'.

"I remember," said Laura to Corthell, "that once before the three of us came home this way.Remember? It was the night of the opera.That was the night I first met Mr.Jadwin.""It was the night of the Helmick failure," said Page, seriously, "and the office buildings were all lit up.

See," she added, as they drove up to the house, "there's a light in the library, and it must be nearly one o'clock.Mr.Jadwin is up yet."Laura fell suddenly silent.When was it all going to end, and how? Night after night her husband shut himself thus in the library, and toiled on till early dawn.She enjoyed no companionship with him.Her evenings were long, her time hung with insupportable heaviness upon her hands.

"Shall you be at home?" inquired Corthell, as he held her hand a moment at the door."Shall you be at home to-morrow evening? May I come and play to you again?""Yes, yes," she answered."Yes, I shall be home.Yes, do come."Laura's carriage drove the artist back to his apartments.All the way he sat motionless in his place, looking out of the window with unseeing eyes.

His cigarette went out.He drew another from his case, but forgot to light it.

Thoughtful and abstracted he slowly mounted the stairway--the elevator having stopped for the night--to his studio, let himself in, and, throwing aside his hat and coat, sat down without lighting the gas in front of the fireplace, where (the weather being even yet sharp)an armful of logs smouldered on the flagstones.