The Financier

And deciding he would make one more effort in the street be­fore seeing Butler again, he walked out briskly, jumped into his light spring runabout waiting outside – a handsome little yellow­glazed vehicle, with a yellow leather cushion seat, drawn by a young, high-stepping bay mare – and sent her scudding from door to door, throwing down the lines indifferently and bounding up the steps of banks and into offi ce doors.

But all without avail. All were interested, considerate; but things were very uncertain. The Girard National Bank refused an hour’s grace, and he had to send a large bundle of his most valuable securi­ties to cover his stock shrinkage there. Word came from his father at two that as president of the Third National he would have to call for his one hundred and fi fty thousand dollars due there. The direc­tors were suspicious of his stocks. He at once wrote a check against fi fty thousand dollars of his deposits in that bank, took twenty-fi ve thousand of his available offi ce funds, called a loan of fi fty thousand against Tighe & Co., and sold sixty thousand Green & Coates, a line he had been tentatively dabbling in, for one-third their value – and, combining the general results, sent them all to the Third National. His father was immensely relieved from one point of view, but sadly depressed from another. He hurried out at the noon-hour to see what his own holdings would bring. He was compromising him­self in a way by doing it, but his parental heart, as well as is own fi nancial interests, were involved. By mortgaging his house and se­curing loans on his furniture, carriages, lots, and stocks, he man­aged to raise one hundred thousand in cash, and deposited it in his own bank to Frank’s credit; but it was a very light anchor to wind­ward in this swirling storm, at that. Frank had been counting on getting all of his loans extended three or four days at least. Review­ing his situation at two o’clock of this Monday afternoon, he said to himself thoughtfully but grimly: «Well, Stener has to loan me three hundred thousand – that’s all there is to it. And I’ll have to see But­ler now, or he’ll be calling his loan before three».

The heart of a father! The world wanders into many strange by­paths of affection. The love of a mother for her children is dominant, leonine, selfi sh, and unselfi sh. It is concentric. The love of a husband for his wife, or of a lover for his sweetheart, is a sweet bond of agree­ment and exchange trade in a lovely contest. The love of a father for his son or daughter, where it is love at all, is a broad, gener­ous, sad, contemplative giving without thought of return, a hail and farewell to a troubled traveler whom he would do much to guard, a balanced judgment of weakness and strength, with pity for failure and pride in achievement. It is a lovely, generous, philosophic blos­som which rarely asks too much, and seeks only to give wisely and plentifully. «That my boy may succeed! That my daughter may be happy!» Who has not heard and dwelt upon these twin fervors of fatherly wisdom and tenderness?

«Very well», replied Cowperwood, who saw clearly how treach­erous the situation was. The old man was in a dour mood. His pres­ence was an irritation to him, for some reason – a deadly provoca­tion. Cowperwood felt clearly that it must be Aileen, that he must know or suspect something.

«To the library», she said easily, and yet with a sudden realiza­tion that all was not right with her father. His face was too heavy and gray. He looked tired and gloomy.