It was characteristic of the odd friendliness of the whole scene that the great man should have thought it worth while to call back and name his heir to a mere humble applicant like Millner; and that the heir should shed on him, from a pale high-browed face, a smile of such deprecating kindness. It was characteristic, equally, of Millner, that he should at once mark the narrowness of the shoulders sustaining this ingenuous head; a narrowness, as he now observed, imperfectly concealed by the wide fur collar of young Spence’s expensive and badly cut coat. But the face took on, as the youth smiled his surprise at their second meeting, a look of almost plaintive good-will: the kind of look that Millner scorned and yet could never quite resist.
“Mr. Millner? Are you—er—waiting?” the lad asked, with an intention of serviceableness that was like a finer echo of his father’s resounding cordiality.
“For my motor? No,” Millner jested in his frank free voice. “The fact is, I was just standing here lost in the contemplation of my luck”—and as his companion’s pale blue eyes seemed to shape a question, “my extraordinary luck,” he explained, “in having been engaged as your father’s secretary.”
“Oh,” the other rejoined, with a faint colour in his sallow cheek. “I’m so glad,” he murmured: “but I was sure—” He stopped, and the two looked kindly at each other.
Millner averted his gaze first, almost fearful of its betraying the added sense of his own strength and dexterity which he drew from the contrast of the other’s frailness.
“Sure? How could any one be sure? I don’t believe in it yet!” he laughed out in the irony of his triumph.
The boy’s words did not sound like a mere civility—Millner felt in them an homage to his power.
“Oh, yes: I was sure,” young Draper repeated. “Sure as soon as I saw you, I mean.”
Millner tingled again with this tribute to his physical straightness and bloom. Yes, he looked his part, hang it— he looked it!
But his companion still lingered, a shy sociability in his eye.
“If you’re walking, then, can I go along a little way?” And he nodded southward down the shabby gaudy avenue.
That, again, was part of the high comedy of the hour—that Millner should descend the Spence steps at young Spence’s side, and stroll down Fifth Avenue with him at the proudest moment of the afternoon; O. G. Spence’s secretary walking abroad with O. G. Spence’s heir! He had the scientific detachment to pull out his watch and furtively note the hour. Yes—it was exactly forty minutes since he had rung the Spence door-bell and handed his card to a gelid footman, who, openly sceptical of his claim to be received, had left him unceremoniously planted on the cold tessellations of the vestibule.
“Some day,” Miller grinned to himself, “I think I’ll take that footman as furnace-man—or to do the boots.” And he pictured his marble palace rising from the earth to form the mausoleum of a footman’s pride.
Only forty minutes ago! And now he had his opportunity fast! And he never meant to let it go! It was incredible, what had happened in the interval. He had gone up the Spence steps an unknown young man, out of a job, and with no substantial hope of getting into one: a needy young man with a mother and two limp sisters to be helped, and a lengthening figure of debt that stood by his bed through the anxious nights. And he went down the steps with his present assured, and his future lit by the hues of the rainbow above the pot of gold. Certainly a fellow who made his way at that rate had it “in him,” and could afford to trust his star.
Descending from this joyous flight he stooped his ear to the discourse of young Spence.
“My father’ll work you rather hard, you know: but you look as if you wouldn’t mind that.”
Millner pulled up his inches with the self-consciousness of the man who had none to waste. “Oh, no, I shan’t mind that: I don’t mind any amount of work if it leads to something.”
“Just so,” Draper Spence assented eagerly. “That’s what I feel. And you’ll find that whatever my father undertakes leads to such awfully fine things.”
Millner tightened his lips on a grin. He was thinking only of where the work would lead him, not in the least of where it might land the eminent Orlando G. Spence. But he looked at his companion sympathetically.
“You’re a philanthropist like your father, I see?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” They had paused at a crossing, and young Draper, with a dubious air, stood striking his agate-headed stick against the curb-stone. “I believe in a purpose, don’t you?” he asked, lifting his blue eyes suddenly to Millner’s face.
“A purpose? I should rather say so! I believe in nothing else,” cried Millner, feeling as if his were something he could grip in his hand and swing like a club.
Young Spence seemed relieved. “Yes—I tie up to that. There
Millner smothered another smile. “We’ll have lots of talks, I hope.”
“Oh, if you can spare the time—!” said Draper, almost humbly.
“Why, I shall be there on tap!”
“For father, not me.” Draper hesitated, with another self-confessing smile. “Father thinks I talk too much—that I keep going in and out of things. He doesn’t believe in analyzing: he thinks it’s destructive. But it hasn’t destroyed my ideals.” He looked wistfully up and down the clanging street. “And that’s the main thing, isn’t it? I mean, that one should have an Ideal.” He turned back almost gaily to Millner. “I suspect you’re a revolutionist too!”
“Revolutionist? Rather! I belong to the Red Syndicate and the Black Hand!” Millner joyfully assented.
Young Draper chuckled at the enormity of the joke. “First rate! We’ll have incendiary meetings!” He pulled an elaborately armorial watch from his enfolding furs. “I’m so sorry, but I must say good-bye—this is my street,” he explained. Millner, with a faint twinge of envy, glanced across at the colonnaded marble edifice in the farther corner. “Going to the club?” he said carelessly.
His companion looked surprised. “Oh, no: I never go
