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NOTE VII. Daring the Dark

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Chapter 7. Daring the Dark 1.

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At five o'clock that evening, Galt called me on the telephone and asked me to come to his office.

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I had never been there. It was at 15 Exchange Place, up a long, brass-mounted stairway, second-floor front.

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The building was one of a type that has vanished, gas-lighted, wise and old,

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The Old, scornful of the repetitious human scene, full of phantom echoes.

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On his door was the name, Henry M. Galt, and nothing else.

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Inside was first a small bare room in which the only light was the little that came through

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the opaque glass of a partition door marked Private.

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I hesitated and was about to knock on this inner door when Galt shouted, Come in, Coxie.

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He was alone, sitting with his hat on at a double desk between two screened windows at

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the far side of the room.

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He did not look up at once.

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Sit down a minute, he said, and went on reading some documents.

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The equipment of his establishment was mysteriously simple.

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A stock ticker at one of the windows, a row of ten telephones fastened to the wall over

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a long shelf on which to write in a standing position, a bookkeeper's high desk and stool,

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Several chairs, a water-cooler in disuse, a neglected newspaper file in the corner, a safe, and that was all.

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We are waiting for gates, he said, with divided attention, reading still while talking.

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I want you to witness.

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New. How do you spell unsailable? A-L-A or A-L-E?

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Yes, that's what I made it.

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I made it. Witness our signatures. We get superstitious down here. In this witch's garden, we do.

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There are things that grow best when planted in the last phase of the moon, on a cloudy

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night, dogs barking. There he is.

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Jonas Gates walked straight in, sat down at the other side of the desk without speaking,

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and reached for the papers, which Galt passed to him one by one in a certain order. Having

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Having read them carefully, he signed them. Then Galt signed them. Rose beckoned me to

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sit in his place and put the documents before me separately, showing of each one only the

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last page. There were six in all, three originals which went back to Gates and three duplicates

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which Galt retained. There was a seventh which apparently required neither to be jointly

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be signed nor witnessed. It lay all the time face up on Gates' side of the desk. I noted

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the large printed title of that one. It was a mortgage deed. Gates put it with the three

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others which were his, snapped a rubber band around them and went out, leaving no word

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or sign behind him.

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''Crime enough for one day,'' said Galt, going to the safe. ''You are coming up for

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dinner. Turn out that light there above you.''

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Did you expect Great Midwestern to go bankrupt, I asked, as we walked down the stairway?

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He did not answer me directly, nor at all, for a long time.

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When we were seated in the L train, he said, So you know that I was buying the stock all

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the way down?

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Yes.

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He did not speak again until we left the train at 50th Street.

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No, I didn't expect it, he said.

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It wasn't inevitable until the Lord burned up the corn crop.

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But I allowed for it, and what's worse in one way is better in another.

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We're all right.

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In the reorganization, I'll get the position I want.

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I'll be one of ten men in a boardroom.

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Everything else follows from that.

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2.

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As Natalie met us, I observed her keenly, thinking she would betray a feeling of anxiety.

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But she knew his moods at sight, and met them exactly.

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To my surprise, she hailed him gaily, and he responded.

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Then they fell to wrangling over nothing at all, and carried on a fierce make-believe

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quarrel until dinnertime.

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At the table, he tried to force a general spirit of raillery, and made reckless sallies

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in all directions.

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They failed miserably, until Natalie joined him in a merciless attack upon Vera.

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It was entirely gratuitous.

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When it had gone very far, Mrs. Galt was on the point of interfering, but checked the

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impulse, leaving Vera to take care of herself.

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She held her own with the two of them.

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When the game lagged, Natalie would whisper to Galt.

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He would say, No, with exaggerated incredulity, and they would begin again.

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Suddenly they turned on me, Natalie beginning, Don't you think Coxie ought to get married?

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Galt's name for me had long been current in the household.

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Coxy here?

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No, nobody would marry him, said Galt.

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But he's sometimes quite nice, said Natalie.

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They discussed my character as if I were not there, the kind of wife I should have and

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what would please heaven to come of it.

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Natalie knew, as Galt didn't, that this was teasing Vera still.

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Dinner was nearly over when Grandma Galt asked her terrible question.

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What is the price of Great Midwestern Stock today?

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Galt answered quietly, one and a half.

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There was no more conversation after that.

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Later, when we were alone, I asked Vera if the house had been pledged.

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The mortgage was executed yesterday, she said.

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It's roof and all this time.

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He doesn't seem at all depressed, I said.

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No, she answered.

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That is his way with disaster.

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We've seen it before.

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Don't you admire him for it, though?

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I hate him, she cried passionately.

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The intensity of her emotion astonished me.

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Her hands were clenched, her eyes were large, and her body quivered.

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We were sitting together on the sofa.

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I got up and walked around.

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When I looked at her again, she lay face downward in the pillows, weeping convulsively.