CHAPTER IX

BENEATH THE SKIN

Stuart rose next morning with a dull headache. The more he had puzzled over the speech he should make to the mob besieging Bivens's bank the more doubtful seemed the outcome. Still to remain silent longer, amid the accusations which were being daily hurled at him, was intolerable. He was possessed with a fierce desire to meet at least one of his foes face to face.

He took his breakfast early and walked down town to his office through the Bowery and Centre Street as he was in the habit of doing occasionally. Everything rubbed him the wrong way this morning. Every sight and sound of the city seemed to bruise and hurt. Never before had the ugliness of the elevated railroad struck him with such crushing hopelessness. He felt that its rusty hideous form, looming against the sky line, was a crime. The crowded trolley cars, the rushing, rattling lines of drays, the ugly, dirty, cheap-looking people hurrying past--it was all horrible!

The sense of loneliness and isolation grew upon him--a sort of dumb hatred of all these unthinking stolid beasts of burden who were bending their backs daily to their stupid tasks, trampling each other to death, too, in their own mad sordid scramble for money.

He paused at the Brooklyn Bridge and stood in silence while the black torrent of unmeaning faces, whose expression this morning was distinctly inhuman, rolled past and spread out into the square and streets.

He was glad for the moment that not one of them knew him, though he was daily giving his life to their service.

He turned and pushed his way through the throngs, crossed the City Hall Square and in a few minutes reached the Broadway corner on which the Bivens bank stood. Its magnificent marble façade, crowned with gilded dome, gleamed white and solemn in the morning sun like some proud temple man had built to the worship of God.

The crowd about its doors, which had not yet been opened, was unusually large and turbulent. With the aid of two officers he pushed and fought his way unrecognized through the mob and at last reached the side entrance of the bank.

Bivens, watching from within, opened the door and he stepped inside.

"Jim, if you try to speak to that gang of madmen you're a fool," the financier began, with a scowl. "What they need is not eloquence, they need a club."

"You can't blame them for wanting their money, Cal, after all it's theirs, not yours, you know."

"You're going to talk to them?"

"I'm going to try."

"It's a foolish and dangerous thing to do."

"Nonsense. They are at least human. They have reason."

A low howl of rage stirred the crowd without. A fight for place in the line had broken out.

"Is that reason?" Bivens asked, cynically. "It's not even human. It's the growl of the beast that always sleeps beneath the skin."

"I haven't lost faith in my fellow-men yet," was the dogged answer.

"All right, good luck. I know your intentions are the best. You think it's your duty to yourself and the people. I'm sorry I can't stay to hear you. I've an important meeting this morning. I must go at once. I've instructed my detectives inside to stand by you if you need help."

"Thanks, I won't need them."

The little swarthy figure paused at the door.

"Don't fool yourself into believing anybody in that crowd cares about the work you have done in their service. Scores of them are under deep personal obligations to me. But I'm leaving this building by my neighbour's roof this morning. You don't want to forget, Jim, that the rabble for whom even Christ lived and died, shouted in his face at last 'Crucify him! Crucify him!'"

Stuart smiled at the incongruous farce of Bivens's familiarity with the Bible--yet there was no mistaking the fact of his emotions and the sincerity of his religious faith. The little financier had already begun to pose to himself as a martyr and a public benefactor. In spite of howling mobs and crushing markets he was busy now saving the credit of the Nation! He was one of the group of the king's council engaged in that important work. The "undesirable" had been eliminated and now a vast pool was being formed to support the market and kindly hold the securities until the people could get their breath and make money enough to buy them back at a profit. In due time he knew that his name would be enrolled with the king's as a patriot and public benefactor.

Bivens lingered a moment as if reluctant to give up dissuading Stuart, waved him a friendly adieu at last, stepped into the elevator and left by the roof.

It was yet fifteen minutes to ten, the hour for opening the bank's doors, and Stuart decided to address the crowd immediately.

In accordance with Bivens's instructions the cashier opened the bronze doors and squeezed through, admitting Stuart and two detectives. At the sight of the cashier a thrill of horror swept the crowd--half-groan, half-sigh, half-cry, inarticulate, inhuman, beastly in its grovelling fear.

"Great God!"

"They're going to suspend!"

"It's all over!"

The groans melted into broken curses and exclamations and died into silence as the cashier lifted his hand.

"I have the honour, gentlemen, of presenting this morning a distinguished servant of the people who has a message for you, the man whose unselfish devotion to the cause of Justice has earned him the right to a hearing, the Honourable James Stuart, your District Attorney."

The young lawyer stepped from the doorway in front of the cashier, who retired.

A roar of rage swept the crowd. Howls, curses, catcalls, hisses, hoots and yells were hurled into his face. It was a new experience in Stuart's life. He flushed red, stood for a moment surveying the mob with growing anger, and lifted his hand for silence.

The answer was a storm of hisses. Apparently he hadn't a friend in all the swaying mass of howling maniacs. He drew his heavy brows down over his eyes and the square jaws ground together with sullen determination. He folded his arms deliberately and waited for silence. Evidently these people had swallowed every lie his enemies had printed. It was incredible that rational human beings should be such fools, but it was true.

For a moment the hideous thought forced itself into his soul that a life of unselfish public service was futile. In all this babel of jangling cries and cat-calls not one voice was lifted in decent protest. He felt that his work was a failure and he had been pitching straws against the wind.

As wave after wave of idiotic hissing rose and fell only to swell again into greater fury a feeling of blind rage filled his being. He understood at last the persistence in the human mind of the doctrine of hell. It was a necessity of the moral universe. God simply must consume such trash. Nothing else could be done with it.

With a sudden impulse, he threw his right hand high above his head and his voice boomed over the crowd in a peal of command. The effect was electrical. A painful hush followed. The swaying mass stood rooted in their tracks by the tones of authority his first word had expressed.

"Gentlemen!"

He paused and his next words were spoken in intense silence.

"My answer to the extraordinary greeting you have given me this morning is simple. I am not working for your approval, I work for my own approval, because I must in obedience to the call within me. Long ago in my life I gave up ambition and ceased to ask anything for myself. You cannot destroy my career because I cherish none. If I succeed in the work to which I have been called it is well. If I fail, it is also well. I have done my duty and obeyed the call to the service of my fellow-man!"

Again he paused as his voice choked with deep emotion. The crowd stared as if in a spell.

"The scene you are enacting here this morning is a disgrace to humanity. You have surrendered to the unmeaning fear that drives a herd of swine over a precipice. You have, by an act of your will, joined in a movement to paralyze the motive power of the world--faith! There is but one thing that runs this earth of ours for a single day--faith in one another.

"You are scrambling here for a few dollars in this bank. What can you do with it when you draw it out? There is not enough cash in the world to transact a single day's business. Business is run on credit--faith.

"Faith is the sustaining force of all personal and social life; a panic is its end--a lapse to the level of the beast of the field whose life is ruled by fear.

"Banks were not made as strong boxes for the hoarding of money. Money was hoarded in strong boxes centuries before banks were invented. Banks are institutions of public credit, to facilitate the useful circulation of money, not its withdrawal from use. The business of a bank is to keep money moving and make it do the world's work. You are attempting to stop the work by the destruction of its faith."

Suddenly a man who had quietly pushed his way through the crowd sprang on the step before the speaker and thrust a revolver into his face.

A cry of horror swept the crowd, as Stuart paused, turned pale and looked steadily down the flashing barrel into the madman's eyes.

"Who started this work of destruction?" he cried--"You--You---Do you hear me? And I've been commanded by God Almighty to end this trouble by ending you!"

As Stuart held the glittering eyes levelled at him across the blue-black barrel he could see the man's nervous and uncertain finger twitching at the trigger.

For the first time in his conscious existence he felt the stinging anguish of physical fear. Never had life--life for its own sake with strong sound limbs and alert mind--seemed so sweet. At the first touch of fear his tall body had suddenly stiffened and the pallor of death shrouded his face. The next instant came the conscious shame and horror of the moment's cowardice. The crowd that watched the tragic situation had not known, but he knew and it was enough. His face flushed red and his deep set eyes began to sparkle with anger, the red animal-anger of power wrought to insane fury. Every nerve and muscle and sinew quivered with the desire to kill, a consuming passionate desperate lust! His fingers closed involuntarily as the claws of a beast and he drew his breath with trembling intensity.

For one brief instant he hated all men. Not merely the fool who had shamed his soul with fear but all the mob of hissing howling brutes that surged about him and all the millions like them that crawl over the earth.

There was a pause of only a few seconds while these ideas flashed with the vividness of lightning through his imagination. The crowd noted no pause of any kind. His action seemed instantaneous.

With a sudden panther-like spring he leaped across the five feet which separated him from the man who held the revolver. His left hand gripped the weapon and threw it into the air as it was fired while his right hand closed on the throat of his assailant. With his knee against the man's breast he hurled him down the steps, wrenched the revolver from his hand and with a single blow knocked him into insensibility.

[Illustration: "He hurled him down the steps"]

The spell was broken. The mob that hated him saw their chance. A yell of rage swept them, and a dozen men sprang toward him with curses. For a moment he held his own, when suddenly a well-directed blow from behind knocked him down.

He sprang to his feet instantly, climbed on the shoulders of the mass of enraged men who pressed on him from every direction and attempted to walk on their heads toward the two detectives who were fighting their way toward him. He made two successful leaps missed his foothold and fell in the arms of his enemies. In blind fury he felt the smash of blows on his face and head. A stream of blood was trickling down his forehead and its salty taste penetrated his mouth. With a desperate effort he freed his hands and knocked two men down.

A sudden crash from space seemed to send the world into a mass of flaming splinters and the light faded. He heard the soft rustle of silk and felt the pressure of a woman's lips on his. Surely he must be dead was the first thought that flashed through his mind. And then from somewhere far away in space came Nan's voice low and tense:

"Come back, Jim, dear, I've something to tell you. You can't die, you shall not die until I've told you!"

A tear fell on his face and he knew no more until suddenly, into the dark cave in which he lay dead a ray of sunlight flashed.

He opened his eyes and found Nan bending over him. His hand rested on her soft arm and his head lay pillowed on her breast.

"Why, Nan, it's you."

Her lips quivered. She closed her eyes and murmured:

"Thank God, you're alive!"

"Why, yes," he said, slowly rising. "Very much alive; what's happened?"

She placed her finger on his lips.

"Oh, I remember now."

"You mustn't talk, Jim," she said, with quiet authority. "The doctor will be here in a moment."

"Oh, I'm not hurt much, just a few scratches and bruises." He lifted himself on his elbow. "Oh the snake that choked me! If I could only have killed him I think I'd be happy."

He looked at Nan in a stupor.

"But what on earth are you doing here, Nan?"

He looked about the room and saw that he was in the inner office of the president of the bank, alone with Bivens's wife. He was lying on the big leather couch.

"I heard that you were going to speak this morning. I wanted to hear you and came. I arrived just as you began and managed to get into the bank. I saw that man try to kill you, Jim, and that crowd of wild beasts trampling you to death. I saw you knock them down one at a time while I watched you, paralyzed with fear. I wanted to rush out and fight my way to your side--but I was a coward. I tried to go, but my legs wouldn't move. I only stood there trembling and sobbing for some one else to go. I'm afraid I'm not very heroic."

Stuart smiled feebly.

"I understand, Nan, I felt the same thing out there."

"The two detectives pulled you out and dragged you into the bank."

The doctor entered and quickly dressed Stuart's wounds, and turned to Nan.

"He'll be all right in a week or so, Mrs. Bivens--provided he doesn't insist on breaking the run on another bank by the spell of his eloquence. I hope you can persuade him not to try that again."

"I think I'm fully persuaded, Doctor," Stuart answered grimly, "I've seen a great light to-day."

When the doctor had gone and Nan was left alone with Stuart an embarrassed silence fell between them.

She was quietly wondering if he were fully unconscious when she was sobbing and saying some very foolish things. Above all she was wondering whether he knew that she had kissed him.

And the man was wondering if the memory of the tear that fell on his face and the pressure of a woman's lips were only a dream.

He scouted the idea of going to a hospital and Nan insisted on taking him home.

When her car stopped at South Washington Square and Stuart insisted on scrambling out alone, she held his hand tight a moment and spoke with trembling earnestness:

"You will see me now, Jim, and be friends?"

He answered promptly.

"Yes, Nan, I will. The world is never going to be quite the same place for me after to-day. There was one moment this morning in which I think I lived a thousand years."

A hot flush stole over the woman's beautiful face as she looked steadily into his eyes and quietly asked:

"What moment was that?"

"The moment I looked down that gun barrel, saw the stupid hate in that fool's eyes and felt the throb of the insane desire to kill in the people behind him, the people for whom I've been giving my life a joyous sacrifice."

Nan smiled a sigh of relief.

"Oh! I see--well, you've made me very happy with your promise, I know you'll keep your word."

Stuart looked at her a moment curiously. Was there a tear trembling in the corner of her dark eyes as she spoke the last sentence, or was it his imagination?

He pressed her hand firmly.

"You are more beautiful than ever, Nan. Yes, I'll keep my word. Good-bye until I call."

And the woman smiled in triumph.

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