The "Genius"

CHAPTER XLIII

The trouble with this situation was that it involved more power, comfort, ease and luxury than Eugene had ever experienced before, and made him a sort of oriental potentate not only among his large company of assistants but in his own home. Angela, who had been watching his career all these years with curiosity, began to conceive of him at last as a genius in every respect – destined to some great pre-eminence, in art or finance or the publishing world or all three. She did not relax her attitude in regard to his conduct, being more convinced than ever that to achieve the dizzy eminence to which he was now so rapidly ascending, he must be more circumspect than ever. People were watching him so closely now. They were so obsequious to him, but still so dangerous. A man in his position must be so careful how he dressed, talked, walked.

"Don't make so much fuss," he used to say to her. "For heaven's sake, let me alone!" This merely produced more quarrels, for Angela was determined to regulate him in spite of his wishes and in his best interests.

Grave men and women in various walks of life – art, literature, philanthropy, trade, began to seek him out, because in the first place he had an understanding mind and because in the next place, which was much more important, he had something to give. There are always those in all walks of life who are seeking something through those avenues which a successful person represents, whatever they may be, and these together with those others who are always intensely eager to bask in the reflected glory of a rising luminary, make a retinue for every successful man. Eugene had his retinue, men and women of his own station or beneath it, who would eagerly shake his hand with an "Oh, yes, indeed. Managing Publisher of the United Magazines Corporation! Oh, yes, yes!" Women particularly were prone to smile, showing him even white teeth and regretting that all good looking and successful men were married.

In July following his coming from Philadelphia the United Magazines Corporation moved into its new building, and then he was installed into the most imposing office of his career. A subtle assistant, wishing to ingratiate the staff in Eugene's good graces, suggested that a collection be taken up for flowers. His room, which was done in white, blue and gold with rose wood furniture, to set it apart from the prevailing decorative scheme and so make it more impressive, was scattered with great bouquets of roses, sweet peas and pinks, in beautiful and ornate vases of different colors, countries and schools. His great rosewood flat-topped desk, covered with a thick, plate glass through which the polished wood shone brightly, was decorated with flowers. On the morning of his entry he held an impromptu reception, on which occasion he was visited by Colfax and White, who after going to look at their new rooms, came to his. A general reception which followed some three weeks later, and in which the successful representatives of various walks of life in the metropolis took part, drew to the building a great crowd, artists, writers, editors, publishers, authors and advertising men who saw him in all his glory. On this occasion, Eugene, with White and Colfax did the receiving. He was admired at a distance by striplings who wondered how he had ever accomplished such great results. His rise had been so meteoric. It seemed so impossible that a man who had started as an artist should change and become a dominant factor in literature and art from a publishing point of view.

In his own home his surroundings were equally showy; he was as much a figure as he was in his office. When he was alone with Angela, which was not so often, for naturally they did a great deal of entertaining, he was a figure even to her. Long ago she had come to think of him as someone who would some day dominate in the art world; but to see him an imposing factor in the city's commercial life, its principal publishers' representative, having a valet and an automobile, riding freely in cabs, lunching at the most exclusive restaurants and clubs, and associating constantly with someone who was of importance, was a different matter.

She was no longer so sure of herself with him, not so certain of her power to control him. They quarreled over little things, but she was not so ready to begin these quarrels. He seemed changed now and deeper still. She was afraid, even yet, that he might make a mistake and lose it all, that the forces of ill will, envy and jealousy which were everywhere apparent in life, and which blow about so easily like gusts of wind, would work him harm. Eugene was apparently at ease, though he was troubled at times for his own safety, when he thought of it, for he had no stock in the company, and was as beholden to Colfax as any hall boy, but he did not see how he could easily be dispensed with. He was making good.

Colfax was friendly to him. He was surprised at times to see how badly the manufacturing arrangements could go awry, affecting his dates of issue, but White invariably had a good excuse. Colfax took him to his house in the country, his lodge in the mountains, on short yachting and fishing trips, for he liked to talk to him, but he rarely if ever invited Angela. He did not seem to think it was necessary to do this, and Eugene was afraid to impress the slight upon his attention, much as he dreaded the thoughts which Angela must be thinking. It was Eugene here and Eugene there, with constant calls of "where are you, old man?" from Colfax, who appeared not to want to be away from him.

"Well, old man," he would say, looking him over much as one might a blood horse or a pedigree dog, "you're getting on. This new job agrees with you. You didn't look like that when you came to me," and he would feel the latest suit Eugene might be wearing, or comment on some pin or tie he had on, or tell him that his shoes were not as good as he could really get, if he wanted to be perfect in dress. Colfax was for grooming his new prize much as one might groom a blood horse, and he was always telling Eugene little details of social life, the right things to do, the right places to be seen, the right places to go, as though Eugene knew little or nothing.

"Now when we go down to Mrs. Savage's Friday afternoon, you get a Truxton Portmanteau. Have you seen them? Well, there's the thing. Got a London coat? Well, you ought to have one. Those servants down there go through your things and they size you up accordingly. Nothing less than two dollars each goes, and five dollars to the butler, remember that."

He assumed and insisted after a fashion which Eugene resented quite as much as he did his persistent ignoring of Angela, but he did not dare comment on it. He could see that Colfax was variable, that he could hate as well as love, and that he rarely took any intermediate ground. Eugene was his favorite now.

"I'll send my car around for you at two Friday," he would say, as though Eugene did not keep a car, when he was planning one of his week-end excursions. "You be ready."

At two, on that day, Colfax's big blue touring car would come speeding up to the entrance of the apartment house and Eugene's valet would carry down his bags, golf sticks, tennis racket and the various paraphernalia that go with a week-end's entertainment, and off the car would roll. At times Angela would be left behind, at times taken, when Eugene could arrange it; but he found that he had to be tactful and accede to Colfax's indifference mostly. Eugene would always explain to her how it was. He was sorry for her in a way, and yet he felt there was some justice in the distinction. She was not exactly suited to that topmost world in which he was now beginning to move. These people were colder, sharper, shrewder, than Angela. They had more of that intense sophistication of manner and experience than she could achieve. As a matter of fact, Angela had as much grace and more than many of the four hundred, but she did lack that quickness of wit or that shallow self-sufficiency and assurance which are the almost invariable traits of those who shine as members of the smart set. Eugene was able to assume this manner whether he felt it or not.

"Oh, that's all right," she would say, "as long as you're doing it for business reasons."

She resented it nevertheless, bitterly, for it seemed such an uncalled for slur. Colfax had no compunctions in adjusting his companionship to suit his moods. He thought Eugene was well suited to this high life. He thought Angela was not. He made the distinction roughly and went his way.

It was in this manner that Eugene learned a curious fact about the social world, and that was that frequently in these highest circles a man would be received where his wife would not and vice versa, and that nothing very much was thought of it, if it could be managed.

"Oh, is that Birkwood," he heard a young swell once remark, concerning an individual in Philadelphia. "Why do they let him in? His wife is charming, but he won't do," and once in New York he heard a daughter ask her mother, of a certain wife who was announced – her husband being at the same table – "who invited her?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied her mother; "I didn't. She must have come of her own accord."

"She certainly has her nerve with her," replied the daughter – and when the wife entered Eugene could see why. She was not good looking and not harmoniously and tastefully dressed. It gave Eugene a shock, but in a way he could understand. There were no such grounds of complaint against Angela. She was attractive and shapely. Her one weakness was that she lacked the blasé social air. It was too bad, he thought.

In his own home and circle, however, he thought to make up for this by a series of entertainments which grew more and more elaborate as time went on. At first when he came back from Philadelphia it consisted of a few people in to dinner, old friends, for he was not quite sure of himself and did not know how many would come to share his new honors with him. Eugene had never got over his love for those he had known in his youth. He was not snobbish. It was true that now he was taking naturally to prosperous people, but the little ones, the old-time ones, he liked for old lang syne's sake as well as for themselves. Many came to borrow money, for he had associated with many ne'er do wells in his time, but many more were attracted by his fame.

Eugene knew intimately and pleasantly most of the artistic and intellectual figures of his day. In his home and at his table there appeared artists, publishers, grand opera stars, actors and playwrights. His large salary, for one thing, his beautiful apartment and its location, his magnificent office and his friendly manner all conspired to assist him. It was his self-conscious boast that he had not changed. He liked nice people, simple people, natural people he said, for these were the really great ones, but he could not see how far he had come in class selection. Now he naturally gravitated to the wealthy, the reputed, the beautiful, the strong and able, for no others interested him. He hardly saw them. If he did it was to pity or give alms.

It is difficult to indicate to those who have never come out of poverty into luxury, or out of comparative uncouthness into refinement, the veil or spell which the latter comes eventually to cast over the inexperienced mind, coloring the world anew. Life is apparently striving, constantly, to perfect its illusions and to create spells. There are, as a matter of fact, nothing but these outside that ultimate substance or principle which underlies it all. To those who have come out of inharmony, harmony is a spell, and to those who have come out of poverty, luxury is a dream of delight. Eugene, being primarily a lover of beauty, keenly responsive to all those subtleties of perfection and arrangement which ingenuity can devise, was taken vastly by the nature of this greater world into which, step by step apparently, he was almost insensibly passing. Each new fact which met his eye or soothed his sensibilities was quickly adjusted to all that had gone before. It seemed to him as though all his life he had naturally belonged to this perfect world of which country houses, city mansions, city and country clubs, expensive hotels and inns, cars, resorts, beautiful women, affected manners, subtlety of appreciation and perfection of appointment generally were the inherent concomitants. This was the true heaven – that material and spiritual perfection on earth, of which the world was dreaming and to which, out of toil, disorder, shabby ideas, mixed opinions, non-understanding and all the ill to which the flesh is heir, it was constantly aspiring.

Here was no sickness, no weariness apparently, no ill health or untoward circumstances. All the troubles, disorders and imperfections of existence were here carefully swept aside and one saw only the niceness, the health and strength of being. He was more and more impressed as he came farther and farther along in the scale of comfort, with the force and eagerness with which life seems to minister to the luxury-love of the human mind. He learned of so many, to him, lovely things, large, wellkept, magnificent country places, scenes of exquisite beauty where country clubs, hotels, seaside resorts of all descriptions had been placed. He found sport, amusement, exercise, to be tremendously well organized and that there were thousands of people who were practically devoting their lives to this. Such a state of social ease was not for him yet, but he could sit at the pleasures, so amply spread, between his hours of work and dream of the time to come when possibly he might do nothing at all. Yachting, motoring, golfing, fishing, hunting, riding, playing tennis and polo, there were experts in all these fields he found. Card playing, dancing, dining, lounging, these seemed to occupy many people's days constantly. He could only look in upon it all as upon a passing show, but that was better than nothing. It was more than he had ever done before. He was beginning to see clearly how the world was organized, how far were its reaches of wealth, its depths of poverty. From the lowest beggar to the topmost scene – what a distance!

Angela scarcely kept pace with him in all these mental peregrinations. It was true that now she went to the best dressmakers only, bought charming hats, the most expensive shoes, rode in cabs and her husband's auto, but she did not feel about it as he did. It seemed very much like a dream to her – like something that had come so suddenly and so exuberantly that it could not be permanent. There was running in her mind all the time that Eugene was neither a publisher, nor an editor, nor a financier at heart, but an artist and that an artist he would remain. He might attain great fame and make much money out of his adopted profession, but some day in all likelihood he would leave it and return to art. He seemed to be making sound investments – at least, they seemed sound to her, and their stocks and bank accounts, principally convertible stocks, seemed a safe enough margin for the future to guarantee peace of mind, but they were not saving so much, after all. It was costing them something over eight thousand dollars a year to live, and their expenses were constantly growing larger rather than smaller. Eugene appeared to become more and more extravagant.

"I think we are doing too much entertaining," Angela had once protested, but he waived the complaint aside. "I can't do what I'm doing and not entertain. It's building me up. People in our position have to." He threw open the doors finally to really remarkable crowds and most of the cleverest people in all walks of life – the really exceptionally clever – came to eat his meals, to drink his wines, to envy his comfort and wish they were in his shoes.

During all this time Eugene and Angela instead of growing closer together, were really growing farther and farther apart. She had never either forgotten or utterly forgiven that one terrific lapse, and she had never believed that Eugene was utterly cured of his hedonistic tendencies. Crowds of beautiful women came to Angela's teas, lunches and their joint evening parties and receptions. Under Eugene's direction they got together interesting programmes, for it was no trouble now for him to command musical, theatrical, literary and artistic talent. He knew men and women who could make rapid charcoal or crayon sketches of people, could do feats in legerdemain, and character representation, could sing, dance, play, recite and tell humorous stories in a droll and off-hand way. He insisted that only exceptionally beautiful women be invited, for he did not care to look at the homely ones, and curiously he found dozens, who were not only extremely beautiful, but singers, dancers, composers, authors, actors and playwrights in the bargain. Nearly all of them were brilliant conversationalists and they helped to entertain themselves – made their own entertainment, in fact. His table very frequently was a glittering spectacle. One of his "Stunts" as he called it was to bundle fifteen or twenty people into three or four automobiles after they had lingered in his rooms until three o'clock in the morning and motor out to some out-of-town inn for breakfast and "to see the sun rise." A small matter like a bill for $75.00 for auto hire or thirty-five dollars for a crowd for breakfast did not trouble him. It was a glorious sensation to draw forth his purse and remove four or five or six yellow backed ten dollar bills, knowing that it made little real difference. More money was coming to him from the same source. He could send down to the cashier at any time and draw from five hundred to a thousand dollars. He always had from one hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars in his purse in denominations of five, ten and twenty dollar bills. He carried a small check book and most frequently paid by check. He liked to assume that he was known and frequently imposed this assumption on others.

"Eugene Witla! Eugene Witla! George! he's a nice fellow," – or "it's remarkable how he has come up, isn't it?" "I was at the Witlas' the other night. Did you ever see such a beautiful apartment? It's perfect! That view!"

People commented on the interesting people he entertained, the clever people you met there, the beautiful women, the beautiful view. "And Mrs. Witla is so charming."

But down at the bottom of all this talk there was also much envy and disparagement and never much enthusiasm for the personality of Mrs. Witla. She was not as brilliant as Eugene – or rather the comment was divided. Those who liked clever people, show, wit, brilliance, ease, liked Eugene and not Angela quite so much. Those who liked sedateness, solidity, sincerity, the commoner virtues of faithfulness and effort, admired Angela. All saw that she was a faithful handmaiden to her husband, that she adored the ground he walked on.

"Such a nice little woman – so homelike. It's curious that he should have married her, though, isn't it? They are so different. And yet they appear to have lots of things in common, too. It's strange – isn't it?"

CHAPTER XLIV

It was in the course of his final upward progress that Eugene came once more into contact with Kenyon C. Winfield, Ex-State Senator of New York, President of the Long Island Realty Company, land developer, real estate plunger, financier, artist, what not – a man very much of Eugene's own type and temperament, who at this time was doing rather remarkable things in a land speculative way. Winfield was tall and thin, black haired, black eyed, slightly but not offensively hook nosed, dignified, gracious, intellectual, magnetic, optimistic. He was forty-eight years of age. Winfield was a very fair sample of your man of the world who has ideas, dreams, fancies, executive ability, a certain amount of reserve and judgment, sufficient to hold his own in this very complicated mortal struggle. He was not really a great man, but he was so near it that he gave the impression to many of being so. His deep sunken black eyes burned with a peculiar lustre, one might almost have fancied a tint of red in them. His pale, slightly sunken face had some of the characteristics of your polished Mephisto, though not too many. He was not at all devilish looking in the true sense of the word, but keen, subtle, artistic. His method was to ingratiate himself with men who had money in order to get from them the vast sums which he found it necessary to borrow to carry out the schemes or rather dreams he was constantly generating. His fancies were always too big for his purse, but he had such lovely fancies that it was a joy to work with them and him.

Primarily Winfield was a real estate speculator, secondarily he was a dreamer of dreams and seer of visions. His visions consisted of lovely country areas near some city stocked with charming country houses, cut up with well paved, tree shaded roads, provided with sewers, gas, electricity, suitable railway service, street cars and all the comforts of a well organized living district which should be at once retired, exclusive, pleasing, conservative and yet bound up tightly with the great Metropolitan heart of New York which he so greatly admired. Winfield had been born and raised in Brooklyn. He had been a politician, orator, insurance dealer, contractor, and so on. He had succeeded in organizing various suburban estates – Winfield, Sunnyside, Ruritania, The Beeches – little forty, fifty, one hundred and two hundred acre flats which with the help of "O. P. M." as he always called other people's money he had divided off into blocks, laying out charmingly with trees and sometimes a strip of green grass running down the centre, concrete sidewalks, a set of noble restrictions, and so forth. Anyone who ever came to look at a lot in one of Winfield's perfect suburbs always found the choicest piece of property in the centre of this latest burst of improvement set aside for the magnificent house which Mr. Kenyon C. Winfield, the president of the company, was to build and live in. Needless to say they were never built. He had been round the world and seen a great many things and places, but Winfield or Sunnyside or Ruritania or The Beeches, so the lot buyers in these places were told, had been finally selected by him deliberately as the one spot in all the world in which he hoped to spend the remainder of his days.

At the time Eugene met him, he was planning Minetta Water on the shores of Gravesend Bay, which was the most ambitious of all his projects so far. He was being followed financially, by a certain number of Brooklyn politicians and financiers who had seen him succeed in small things, taking a profit of from three to four hundred per cent, out of ten, twenty and thirty acre flats, but for all his brilliance it had been slow work. He was now worth between three and four hundred thousand dollars and, for the first time in his life, was beginning to feel that freedom in financial matters which made him think that he could do almost anything. He had met all sorts of people, lawyers, bankers, doctors, merchants, the "easy classes" he called them, all with a little money to invest, and he had succeeded in luring hundreds of worth-while people into his projects. His great dreams had never really been realized, however, for he saw visions of a great warehouse and shipping system to be established on Jamaica Bay, out of which he was to make millions, if it ever came to pass, and also a magnificent summer resort of some kind, somewhere, which was not yet clearly evolved in his mind. His ads were scattered freely through the newspapers: his signs, or rather the signs of his towns, scattered broadcast over Long Island.

Eugene had met him first when he was working with the Summerfield Company, but he met him this time quite anew at the home of the W. W. Willebrand on the North Shore of Long Island near Hempstead. He had gone down there one Saturday afternoon at the invitation of Mrs. Willebrand, whom he had met at another house party and with whom he had danced. She had been pleased with his gay, vivacious manner and had asked him if he wouldn't come. Winfield was here as a guest with his automobile.

"Oh, yes," said Winfield pleasantly. "I recall you very well. You are now with the United Magazines Corporation, – I understand – someone was telling me – a most prosperous company, I believe. I know Mr. Colfax very well. I once spoke to Summerfield about you. A most astonishing fellow, that, tremendously able. You were doing that series of sugar plantation ads for them or having them done. I think I copied the spirit of those things in advertising Ruritania, as you may have noticed. Well, you certainly have improved your condition since then. I once tried to tell Summerfield that he had an exceptional man in you, but he would have nothing of it. He's too much of an egoist. He doesn't know how to work with a man on equal terms."

Eugene smiled at the thought of Summerfield.

"An able man," he said simply. "He did a great deal for me."

Winfield liked that. He thought Eugene would criticize him. He liked Eugene's genial manner and intelligent, expressive face. It occurred to him that when next he wanted to advertise one of his big development projects, he would go to Eugene or the man who had done the sugar plantation series of pictures and get him to give him the right idea for advertising.

Affinity is such a peculiar thing. It draws people so easily, apart from volition or consciousness. In a few moments Eugene and Winfield, sitting side by side on the veranda, looking at the greenwood before them, the long stretch of open sound, dotted with white sails and the dim, distant shore of Connecticut, were talking of real estate ventures in general, what land was worth, how speculations of this kind turned out, as a rule. Winfield was anxious to take Eugene seriously, for he felt drawn to him and Eugene studied Winfield's pale face, his thin, immaculate hands, his suit of soft, gray cloth. He looked as able as his public reputation made him out to be – in fact, he looked better than anything he had ever done. Eugene had seen Ruritania and The Beeches. They did not impress him vastly as territorial improvements, but they were pretty, nevertheless. For middle-class people, they were quite the thing he thought.

"I should think it would be a pleasure to you to scheme out a new section," he said to him once. "The idea of a virgin piece of land to be converted into streets and houses or a village appeals to me immensely. The idea of laying it out and sketching houses to fit certain positions, suits my temperament exactly. I wish sometimes I had been born an architect."

"It is pleasant and if that were all it would be ideal," returned Winfield. "The thing is more a matter of financing than anything else. You have to raise money for land and improvements. If you make exceptional improvements they are expensive. You really can't expect to get much, if any, of your money back, until all your work is done. Then you have to wait. If you put up houses you can't rent them, for the moment you rent them, you can't sell them as new. When you make your improvements your taxes go up immediately. If you sell a piece of property to a man or woman who isn't exactly in accord with your scheme, he or she may put up a house which destroys the value of a whole neighborhood for you. You can't fix the details of a design in a contract too closely. You can only specify the minimum price the house is to cost and the nature of the materials to be used. Some people's idea of beauty will vary vastly from others. Taste in sections may change. A whole city like New York may suddenly decide that it wants to build west when you are figuring on its building east. So – well, all these things have to be taken into consideration."

"That sounds logical enough," said Eugene, "but wouldn't the right sort of a scheme just naturally draw to itself the right sort of people, if it were presented in the right way? Don't you fix the conditions by your own attitude?"

"You do, you do," replied Winfield, easily. "If you give the matter sufficient care and attention it can be done. The pity is you can be too fine at times. I have seen attempts at perfection come to nothing. People with taste and tradition and money behind them are not moving into new additions and suburbs, as a rule. You are dealing with the new rich and financial beginners. Most people strain their resources to the breaking point to better their living conditions and they don't always know. If they have the money, it doesn't always follow that they have the taste to grasp what you are striving for, and if they have the taste they haven't the money. They would do better if they could, but they can't. A man in my position is like an artist and a teacher and a father confessor and financier and everything all rolled into one. When you start to be a real estate developer on a big scale you must be these things. I have had some successes and some notable failures. Winfield is one of the worst. It's disgusting to me now."

"I have always wished I could lay out a seaside resort or a suburb," said Eugene dreamily. "I've never been to but one or two of the resorts abroad, but it strikes me that none of the resorts here – certainly none near New York – are right. The opportunities are so wonderful. The things that have been done are horrible. There is no plan, no detail anywhere."

"My views exactly," said Winfield. "I've been thinking of it for years. Some such place could be built, and I suppose if it were done right it would be successful. It would be expensive, though, very, and those who come in would have a long wait for their money."

"It would be a great opportunity to do something really worth while, though," said Eugene. "No one seems to realize how beautiful a thing like that could be made."