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 GT CAUF. LIBRARY, LO8 ANGELES
 
 WHAT IS SAID BY THE PRESS OF 
 
 Swirling Waters 
 
 By MAX RITTENBERG 
 
 Author of "Every Man His Price" 
 
 "There are hidden currents, lurking eddies, tempestuous 
 surges, but no dead calm in this narrative of high finance and 
 marital infelicity." Chicago Tribune 
 
 "The story is very well constructed and furnishes quite a 
 contrast in the character of the women, as well as some decidedly 
 sensational episodes in the contest of wits." Rochester Herald 
 
 "Truly there are some exciting financial complexities in the 
 story . . . the plot as evolved is clever." Chicago Examiner 
 
 "It is an exciting story, for the stakes are high and the two men 
 who battle are strong. It is told in an intensely dramatic way 
 and the action is swift all through." Boston Herald 
 
 "An entertaining international romance of high finance 
 through which runs a pure love story." Sacramento Union 
 
 "A gripping story . . . convincingly told in a crisp clean 
 style." Albany Times-Union 
 
 "Mr. Rittenberg writes with spirit and force, the striking 
 denouement of the plot making virile appeal." 
 
 Boston Transcript 
 
 "The story will be read with interest by those who like vivid 
 fiction." James L. Ford in New York Herald 
 
 "There isn't a page of this book without a thrill." 
 
 Philadelphia Inquirer 
 "A distinctive story . . . powerfully written." 
 
 Book News Monthly 
 
 Cloth Bound, Illustrated. 
 
 Popular Edition, 50 cents 
 
 G. W. DILLINGHAM CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 EVERY MAN HIS 
 PRICE 
 
 BY 
 
 MAX RITTENBERG 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE MODERN CHESTERFIELD," " SWIRLING WATERS,' 
 "THE MIND READER," "THE COCKATOO" 
 
 G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1914, BY 
 G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY . 
 
 Every Man His Price 
 
 Press of 
 
 J. J. Little & Ives Ca 
 New York
 
 To 
 
 MY FRIEND 
 MRS. ROY-BATTY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I. TEMPTATION 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. "ENGLAND MISTRESS OF THE ETHER" . 7 
 
 II. THE ISLE OF SILENCE 16 
 
 III. A WORLD-OLD PROBLEM 24 
 
 IV. SEEDS OF SUSPICION 26 
 
 V. ATMOSPHERES 33 
 
 VI. THE LONE ORCHID 42 
 
 VII. SOCIAL TACTICS 49 
 
 VIII. A FATHER'S RIGHTS ....... 57 
 
 IX. THE DECLARATION OF WAR .... 64 
 
 X. THE HOODED SKATER 79 
 
 XI. COUNTING THE SECONDS 85 
 
 XII. A LOVER'S PARTING 95 
 
 XIII. THREE MONTHS APART 102 
 
 XIV. AN APPROACH TO PARADINE .... 108 
 XV. THE TOAST 120 
 
 XVI. GATHERING STORM 134 
 
 XVII. THE BIG TEMPTATION 146 
 
 XVIII. THE TURNING-POINT 154 
 
 XIX. BOATS BURNED 158 
 
 5
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 BOOK II. CAREER 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. FIVE YEARS ON 163 
 
 II. A DEATH-BED TRUST 171 
 
 III. THE FIGHT FOR CONTROL 177 
 
 IV. AFTERMATH 189 
 
 V. GROWING ENMITY 192 
 
 VI. AT LOUVAULX 199 
 
 VII. A POLITICIAN'S VIEWPOINT .... 208 
 
 VIII. A BUBBLE OF ROMANCE 220 
 
 IX. THE MODERN BAGDAD 224 
 
 X. WEAVING IN MILLIONS 233 
 
 XL SELF-ANALYSIS 242 
 
 XII. SPARK AND EXPLOSION 249 
 
 XIII. CULMINATION 262 
 
 BOOK III. PAYMENT 
 
 I. BETRAYAL OR TEMPTATION ? . . . . 273 
 
 II. EVE'S DECISION 280 
 
 III. OVERSTRAINED NERVES 292 
 
 IV. THRUST AND COUNTER-THRUST . . . 299 
 V. THE LAST PLEADING 307 
 
 VI. FORWARD! 314
 
 Every Man His Price 
 
 BOOK I. TEMPTATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 "ENGLAND MISTRESS OF THE ETHER" 
 
 YOU'RE a spendthrift," said Sir Wilmer 
 Paradine, passing the alcohol-flame for his 
 guest's cigar. 
 
 Warde laughed the easy laugh of one who has 
 been dined and wined with an exact nicety of 
 epicurean perfection. 
 
 "A spendthrift on my income!" 
 
 "Of brains," added the host, with a clean-cut de- 
 cision that told he was attempting no form of after- 
 dinner jocoseness. 
 
 Warde straightened himself a little in his chair. 
 
 "Why?" he demanded. 
 
 When a man of the financial eminence of Sir 
 Wilmer Paradine deliberately cultivates the acquain- 
 tance of a youngster like Hilary Warde, of no 
 financial position worth recording, an unusual mo- 
 tive may safely be deduced by the onlooker. Sir 
 Wilmer had met him for a few months previously at 
 Lord Merenthorpe's country house, and when back 
 
 7
 
 8 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 in London had pursued the acquaintanceship, cul- 
 minating in this specially arranged dinner a deux 
 in his bachelor flat near Regent's Park. 
 
 Sir Wilmer was a remarkably able man, and 
 looked it. Though nearly sixty, he had the car- 
 riage of thirty, a healthily fresh color, and the 
 elastic step of youth. His perfectly white hair was 
 abundant, and gave no suggestion of senility. Chin, 
 eye, voice all told of a born leader. His profes- 
 sion was that of company-director; his specialty, 
 the diplomatic handling of men. At the present 
 moment he had a very delicate task in hand, need- 
 ing all his peculiar talent. By way of oiling the 
 wheels, he had provided for Warde a dinner that 
 was luxurious without being ostentatious, and a 
 wine-list that was mellowing without being stupe- 
 fying. The young fellow was exactly in the physi- 
 cal state to be most easily molded in mind. 
 
 "In answering your question," said Paradine, 
 "I'm going to make a few very personal inquiries. 
 You're twenty-eight, aren't you?" 
 
 "Twenty-seven." 
 
 "I know your record. Scholar of Trinity; ist 
 Class, Nat. Sci. Trip., Part I; ist Class, Part II; 
 honors at Chalottenburg ; excellent research work; 
 refused a fellowship at Trinity; specialized in wire- 
 less telephony; confidential man with the Burgrave 
 Co. What's your salary ?" 
 
 The question was put in such a fatherly way that 
 Warde could not take offense at it. 
 
 "Six hundred," he admitted frankly. "Six hun- 
 dred and prospects." 
 
 "Spendthrift!" chided Sir Wilmer. "With your
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 9 
 
 brains, you ought to be commanding double or 
 treble that." 
 
 "And prospects," repeated Warde. There seemed 
 to be no call for undue modesty. "My firm has 
 a splendid future before it. Wireless telephony 
 will blanket the earth in ten years' time. Just now 
 it's only in its infancy. We're pioneers. We're 
 making history. We hold the inner secrets." 
 
 "I know Burgrave," answered Paradine. "Pos- 
 sibly I know him better than you do." He paused 
 significantly on that. 
 
 "Well?" asked Warde noncommittally. 
 "You ought to learn how he is regarded outside 
 his own firm. On that man depends what you call 
 your 'prospects.' Has he offered you a partner- 
 ship?" 
 
 "Not definitely." 
 
 "So I judged." Sir Wilmer sipped sparingly at 
 his kiimmel. "To be merely an employee is a pre- 
 carious game. The best years of your life, the 
 best energies of your brain, go to building up for 
 the employer. He may be liberal enough to recog- 
 nize it ; he may not." 
 
 "The chief has a better reputation inside the 
 firm than you imply of him outside," was Warde's 
 comment. 
 
 "I don't doubt it. What I'm telling you is by 
 way of warning. Naturally you yourself are the 
 best judge of how you stand with the firm. But 
 you ought to know that Burgrave's reputation out- 
 side is that of a man who would string on a valuable 
 employee with vague promises, use him until he be- 
 gins to realize his own value, and then start a quar-
 
 10 
 
 rel. If the other man has any spirit, he's forced to 
 resign." 
 
 "Go on," said Warde, still noncommittal. 
 
 Paradine leaned forward over the polished ma- 
 hogany, and his words came from him in deliber- 
 ately measured doses, with deliberate pauses 
 between each step in the argument. "Further, 
 Burgrave is not dependent on the success of wire- 
 less telephony. His stand-by is the general manu- 
 facture of electrical apparatus; the other is a side 
 line. You say that you are pioneers. Long before 
 your ten years, Burgrave may have tired of the ex- 
 pensive game of being a pioneer. In my opinion, 
 not only may, but will. It wants a big man to 
 blanket the earth. Is Burgrave big enough?" 
 
 That was a point of view that Warde had not 
 previously considered. Enthusiastic over his work, 
 which combined scientific research with practical 
 possibilities in a way which exactly appealed to his 
 temperament, he had taken it for granted that his 
 firm would be equally enthusiastic and confident 
 of ultimate results. He had not troubled his head 
 about the financial end. 
 
 Paradine continued : "You dream of a world 
 monopoly, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Warde, and his mobile, clean- 
 cut features lit up with the fire of his inner en- 
 thusiasm. "I don't want it only for myself or my 
 firm. That would be a poor ambition. I want it 
 for England. I want to see England mistress of 
 the ether !" 
 
 "Fine!" said Paradine cordially. "You're the
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 11 
 
 man I judged you to be. England mistress of the 
 ether that's a statesman's ambition." 
 
 Warde continued rapidly: "There are experi- 
 menters all over the world working at the practical 
 problems of wireless telephony. It's excessively 
 complex. I know we've got a long start. The first 
 essential is to get the right theoretical basis to 
 choose the right one out of a hundred possible 
 paths. I believe we've chosen right, and that's why 
 I'm so confident of the future." 
 
 "That's the scientific end. Have you also reck- 
 oned on the financial end?" 
 
 "No," admitted Warde frankly. 
 
 "It's equally important. I don't say more im- 
 portant I say equally important. To establish a 
 world monopoly wants big money and capable 
 financing. It means freezing out rivals in the bud- 
 ding stage. Take as an instance the establishment 
 of cable communication. It's open to anyone to 
 lay a cable through the ocean, but the firm that 
 gets there first and establishes itself on a commer- 
 cial basis, with good reserves of capital, is perfectly 
 able to hold its own monopoly against would-be 
 cable rivals. All it has to fear is some entirely new 
 method of communication, such as your wireless 
 telephony. In the same way, the firm that first gets 
 wireless telephony on a commercial basis, with good 
 resources of capital, will be able to hold the ether 
 against all comers with similar systems." 
 
 "I agree." 
 
 "Is Burgrave big enough?" repeated Paradine 
 softly.
 
 12 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Warde tipped off the long white ash of his cigar 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 "Do you want to finance our firm?" he asked. 
 
 The moment had come for which Sir Wilmer 
 had been so carefully preparing the ground. 
 
 "No," he stated deliberately. 
 
 "Then why ?" 
 
 "No. I shouldn't care to work with Burgrave. 
 He is too opinionated, too set, too much inclined 
 to see the small end. Burgrave hasn't the breadth 
 of thought and the nerve to establish a world 
 monopoly. In the long run, I believe he will grossly 
 disappoint you." 
 
 "Then what is your suggestion?" 
 
 "To finance you." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Leave Burgrave. Bring your brains to a more 
 lucrative field. Hold a directorship in the company 
 I propose to form. I'll give you a sufficient share 
 interest to make you one day a financial power as 
 well as a great scientist." 
 
 Warde was being led up to a high mountain and 
 dazzled with the temporal glories of the earth. 
 
 "But you don't realize perhaps what my position 
 is with the firm. I've been given the run of the 
 confidential results. Not I alone have been work- 
 ing at this problem of wireless telephony. I hold 
 information that belongs to the firm. I'm morally 
 bound not to carry it elsewhere. I'm in a position 
 of trust." 
 
 "At a mere six hundred a year," reminded Para- 
 dine. "And no definite binding promise of partici- 
 pation in results."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 13 
 
 "Naturally I've had to rely on the chief's sense 
 of fairness." 
 
 "Shifting sands to build on." 
 
 "He's trusted me." 
 
 "A little trust to win a big trust." 
 
 "If I were to leave him now, at this critical 
 experimental stage, and take all my information 
 elsewhere, I should be playing it very low down," 
 answered the young fellow warmly. 
 
 "In this world of mixed principles, you have to 
 study yourself." 
 
 "I don't want to mix my principles. As I see 
 the matter, it's plain and straightforward. Bur- 
 grave has engaged me at a fair salary to carry out 
 confidential work. I have no particular grievance 
 against him. He may be opinionated, as you say, 
 and possibly somewhat narrow in his outlook. It 
 may be, as you say, that I ought to press him for 
 a definite promise as to my future prospects. But 
 deliberately to leave him and take away what 
 doesn't belong to me !" 
 
 Warde's sincerity was unmistakable. Sir Wilmer 
 veered to another tack : 
 
 "A few minutes ago, you told me that your am- 
 bition was a bigger one than ambition for yourself 
 or your firm?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then fix your mind on it. Run in blinkers. 
 Put aside lesser considerations. If England is to 
 become mistress of the ether, as you dream, it won't 
 be via Burgrave. Presently he will jib at the ex- 
 pense of pioneering. He will try to economize. 
 Other rivals will get ahead Germany, the States,
 
 14 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Russia, Italy, France. They will crush you by 
 weight of capital. You will perhaps appeal to the 
 British Government for a subsidy. The Govern- 
 ment will procrastinate. You've seen what's hap- 
 pened with aeroplanes." 
 
 "They'll learn from that." 
 
 "No politicians learn* nothing but party-craft. 
 As it was with theJaeroplane, so will it be with wire- 
 less telephony, unless unless you're big enough, 
 you personally, to play this game on a world scale !" 
 
 "I'm morally bound to stand by the firm." 
 
 "Consider Rhodes' career. He allowed no petty 
 scruples to tangle him. Rhodes had the big out- 
 look. He saw imperially. He went straight ahead 
 on the course he had planned, regardless of the 
 minor principles. Rhodes worked for the Empire, 
 and he had no use for those who were not with 
 him heart and soul." 
 
 "I don't agree. Rhodes was not asked to betray 
 a trust." 
 
 "I'm taking the nearest analogy." 
 
 "All analogies are imperfect." 
 
 "I'm taking the nearest analogy. Consider what 
 I offer you. Independence. A wide field for your 
 brains. A future position of power and influence. 
 Work that's right in line with your biggest ambi- 
 tion." 
 
 "I can't accept. It's a matter of sheer self- 
 respect," retorted Warde with a ring in his voice 
 that made Paradine shrewdly veer from his course. 
 
 "I don't ask you to accept at this very moment," 
 he answered. "Think over the situation. Look 
 at it from all angles. Study Burgrave and form
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 15 
 
 your own mature judgment of him. Try to realize 
 the importance of proper financing to the future of 
 wireless telephony. Think over the matter in your 
 own good time. Then come and tell me your final 
 decision. 
 
 "Shall we go to the billiard-room and measure 
 up our skill?" added Sir Wilmer, knowing that 
 it was the psychological moment to switch discus- 
 sion. 
 
 "Right," said Warde, glad of relief from the 
 surge of argument.
 
 THE ISLE OF SILENCE 
 
 Saltness Island, three miles long by a mile wide 
 at its broadest, is probably known only to the crews 
 of the East Coast tramp vessels and to yachtsmen. 
 It does not figure in the census returns, because its 
 only permanent inhabitants are sheep. Except for 
 a slight rise or knoll at each end, it is flat, treeless, 
 lush-green sea-marsh a "salting" in the local ver- 
 nacular. It is separated from the mainland by a 
 tidal stream. 
 
 On the one knoll are the sheep-pens and a rough 
 stone hut for the shepherd when he elects to pass 
 the night in the lonely island. On the other knoll, 
 James Burgrave had erected a galvanized iron bun- 
 galow for experimental purposes a station for the 
 exchange of wireless messages to and from his 
 works in the East of London, roughly fifty miles 
 away. 
 
 The island had many advantages for the purpose. 
 It was essentially quiet and secluded there were 
 no prying eyes around, the only means of access 
 was by small boat, and any stranger could be asked 
 to account for his presence there. The shepherd 
 was a negligible quantity. Further, its position on 
 the edge of the sea was useful for experimenting, 
 
 16
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 17 
 
 because Warde had already discovered that his sys- 
 tem of wireless telephony was greatly affected by 
 the presence of stretches of water, and since future 
 communication would be over oceans as well as con- 
 tinents, it was very necessary to study and account 
 for the puzzling "water effect." 
 
 On a Sunday morning in early May, a month 
 after his interview with Paradine, Warde was en- 
 joying an after-breakfast pipe on the veranda of 
 the bungalow. In the rear, Amos Bills, the shep- 
 herd, was stolidly engaged in the process of wash- 
 ing up, pleased at being able to augment his income 
 by doubling the role of housemaid. Warde, after 
 a few memorable trials of Bills' quality as cook, had 
 preferred to keep the cuisine in his own hands, rely- 
 ing chiefly on tinned, bottled and packet goods. 
 
 It was a glorious May morning, sparkling with 
 sunlight, zipped with the tang of the sea. The 
 sheep were star-strewn over the salting, nibbling 
 greedily and ever pressing onward to the lure of 
 apparently lusher grass a few feet beyond their 
 noses. A sheep-dog, lying with his head between 
 paws, surveyed the nearer sheep with a look of 
 blase superiority. On the Essex flats, clumps of 
 trees, eagerly uncurling their foliage to the kisses 
 of the sun, stood out in bold relief, sheltering 
 proudly a dull-red group of farm buildings, dull 
 with age and weariness, unresponsive to the birth- 
 time of the year. A barge with close-hauled red 
 brown sails essayed the narrow passage between 
 Saltness and the mainland a short cut on its voy- 
 age of commerce tacking cautiously and frequent- 
 ly in order to avoid the brown mud-banks. A yacht
 
 18 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 slivered through the calm sea a mile or two off the 
 island. 
 
 Warde was dressed in an easy Norfolk suit of 
 gray tweed. He was the type of man who belongs 
 to a Norfolk suit. By his side on a small table was 
 a sheaf of scribbling paper. 
 
 He drew up his chair to the table and set to work 
 on a renewed mathematical search for the raison 
 d'etre of that puzzling "water effect." Completely 
 absorbed by his analysis, he would have been oblivi- 
 ous to the descent of an invading fleet on the shores 
 of Saltness ; still more so to the arrival of a yacht, 
 the transference into a dinghy of a yacht party and 
 their landing on the sands. When he looked up 
 from his figured sheets of scribbling paper, the 
 party were invading the veranda of his bungalow. 
 
 " 'Morning, Diogenes !" drawled a tall young fel- 
 low of twenty-four, whose blue serge yachting cos- 
 tume fitted him like a fashion-plate. This was the 
 Hon. Ralph Merenthorpe, only son and heir to the 
 Merenthorpe title and estates, nominally engaged on 
 the duties of a crack cavalry regiment, but more 
 seriously occupied with the problems of raising 
 enough money to keep step with his spending pace. 
 His name is carefully to be pronounced as "Rafe." 
 
 Behind him came his three younger sisters 
 Viola, Eve and Beatrice, the last in the flapper 
 stage of feminine development and a man of about 
 fifty-two who was a stranger to Warde. 
 
 " 'Morning, pirates !" greeted Warde, rising to 
 shake hands. "What's my ransom?" 
 
 "Your secrets or your life," chipped in Beatrice, 
 unashamedly nosing into his papers.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 19 
 
 "This is Lord Esk," introduced Viola, who had 
 the Merenthorpe height and looked a society hostess 
 in embryo. 
 
 "Otherwise known as Frankie," added the tom- 
 boy. 
 
 Francis Crichton Jerningham, Marquis of Esk 
 and Earl of Lidderdale, shook hands with the ex- 
 actly right graciousness of his position. He was 
 a prematurely old man carefully affecting youth 
 a widower and the owner of a fair slice of London. 
 The yacht was his. 
 
 Warde's warmest handshake was for Eve, beau- 
 tiful with youth and health and unaffectedness, 
 charming in the simplicity of white jersey and plain 
 serge skirt and shoes that were frankly for comfort. 
 
 "I surrender at discretion," said Warde to his 
 captors. "What are the orders of the Captain Kidd 
 Company ?" 
 
 "Let's have a look at the brand of your whiskey," 
 suggested Ralph, posting himself on the railing of 
 the veranda. 
 
 "Send a wireless to London," ordered Beatrice. 
 "Saltness. Ten o'clock. Ship by fast motor one 
 case early strawberries, one gallon cream, twelve 
 pounds chocolates. Disregard speed limit. Hurry 
 like B." 
 
 "Aye, aye, captain," smiled Warde. "But this 
 is Sunday. There'll be no one at the London end." 
 
 "We'd like to see how your system works," said 
 Viola. "If it's not breaking confidences." 
 
 "I can do this," suggested Warde. "Give you 
 a portable receiver to take to the other end of the 
 island, and then transmit messages from here. You
 
 20 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 won't be able to return them, but you can flag-wag 
 to let us know at this end if you receive and under- 
 stand them." 
 
 That met with instant approval. They fixed on a 
 simple code of flag-signalling, arranged an extem- 
 pore flag, and divided into two parties. Ralph, 
 who found walking a bore, and Eve elected to re- 
 main at the bungalow, and the others proceeded to 
 the knoll at the farther end of Saltness. Warde 
 supplied Ralph Merenthorpe with his whiskey and 
 soda, after the latter had examined the bottle sus- 
 piciously; and that Army man remained comfort- 
 ably seated on the veranda, with his feet on the 
 railing, to watch for flag-signals while the other two 
 entered the stoutly locked laboratory to send the 
 wireless messages. 
 
 "There was only one thing needed to make this 
 May morning perfect," said Warde, "and my good 
 fairy has guided her here." 
 
 "Then your good fairy is Bee," laughed Eve. 
 "She has the curiosity of a cage of monkeys. She 
 insisted on coming to rout out your secrets." 
 
 "I carry them safe even from Bee. It's experi- 
 ments, calculations, results thousands of experi- 
 ments that matter more than the actual apparatus. 
 A scientist might spend a whole day in this labora- 
 tory, and yet be unable to tune up the apparatus 
 for practical transmission. At sunset and sunrise, 
 for instance, the conditions alter tremendously." 
 
 "Yet you have this room well protected," said 
 Eve, glancing at the heavily barred windows. 
 
 "Yes it's a lonely spot. Better to lock the
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 21 
 
 stable-door before. Even the apparatus would be 
 well worth stealing by rivals." 
 
 "Tell me something of your future plans." 
 
 "You'd really be interested?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 The fire of enthusaism leapt into Warde's fea- 
 tures as he began to explain to her the possible fu- 
 ture of his chosen work. "Put yourself forward 
 ten years. You are in London. Your mother is 
 on the Riviera. You turn to a transmitter on your 
 bureau and ask for Cannes. A few minutes' wait, 
 and a voice answers : 'C'est ici Cannes.' You say : 
 'Donnez-moi 1' Hotel Gallia Lady Merenthorpe/ 
 In a few moments you are chatting with your 
 mother as clearly and as easily as if she were in 
 the same room. Further, you will be seeing her 
 her face, her expression, her gestures. A thou- 
 sand miles apart, and yet face to face! But we 
 shan't be stopping at a thousand miles. You will 
 call up Cairo as easily as Cannes. Petersburg, New 
 York, Delhi, Tokio, Buenos Ayres, Sydney they 
 will be at your elbow ! Yet the social convenience 
 will be trifling compared with the business, the dip- 
 lomatic, the governmental convenience. Business 
 men, ambassadors, chancelleries, the Parliament of 
 the Empire they will hold their conferences in 
 the ether. Can you picture it?" 
 
 Eve drew in her breath at the vision conjured 
 up. But then a question occurred to her : "Couldn't 
 all this be done by ordinary telephone? We can 
 speak from London to Paris at present." 
 
 "Yes, but expensive cables have to be laid, and 
 the range of communication in any case is limited
 
 22 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 by technical considerations. Wireless telephony 
 needs no cable. We shall be able to converse from 
 anywhere to anywhere land, sea or air. Ships 
 will be fitted with an installation, submarines, air- 
 craft. It will be the universal method of communi- 
 cation. Cables will have to give way to us on point 
 of expense; wireless telegraphy on point of speed 
 and convenience. Who telegraphs nowadays when 
 he can telephone?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm beginning to see." 
 
 "If you start me talking shop," said Warde with 
 an abrupt transition, "I shall go on for weeks. 
 Let's change the subject. What are your plans?" 
 
 "It's man's prerogative to make plans, and 
 woman's to alter them," smiled Eve. 
 
 "Still, your dream of the future?" 
 
 "I want everything that's to come to me love, 
 position, power, all the beautiful things of life! 
 Don't you?" 
 
 "Yes especially one of them." 
 
 Eve lightly evaded his meaning. "You deserve 
 some reward for spending months at this desolate 
 end of the world." 
 
 "I love Saltness," answered Warde very simply. 
 
 She pouted charmingly by way of com- 
 ment. 
 
 "I'd like to show you Saltness as / see it," he 
 pursued. "The clean simplicity of it! The bare 
 virility of it! Not a tree, not a fence, not a road; 
 nothing man-made but the bungalow and the stone 
 sheep-pens. Nothing to screen off God's good sky. 
 Saltness is the playground of the sunsets; and the
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 23 
 
 winds of the sea rollick at hide-and-seek with us as 
 they make their landfall." 
 
 "Hermit!" she teased. 
 
 "But Saltness alone wouldn't satisfy me. I want 
 Saltness for my house-dog, to nuzzle into my side 
 when I'm weary of the world-chatterings and long- 
 ing for the companionship of silence. I want more 
 than Saltness, big work and and big love." 
 
 Ralph's bored voice interrupted them from the 
 veranda outside. "They're wagging the 'Ready,' " 
 he called out. 
 
 Warde turned to his instruments, moved a lever, 
 and set a spark-coil sputtering and spitting like an 
 angry cat. 
 
 "Hullo! Can you hear me?" he spoke into the 
 transmitter, and waited. 
 
 "Yes," called out Ralph from the veranda, in- 
 terpreting the flag-signal from the distance. 
 
 "This is Saltness. Beatrice is on the island. 
 Famine imminent. Urge carload of food here." 
 
 "Bee is shaking a fist at you," called the inter- 
 preter. 
 
 Warde surrendered the instrument to Eve. "You 
 send your message," he suggested. 
 
 "Hullo!" said Eve into the transmitter. 
 
 "Yes," interpreted Ralph. 
 
 "Ask Lord Esk to come to the 'phone." 
 
 Ralph called out: "Esk is taking the receiver." 
 
 Eve whispered : "This is Evelyn speaking. Come 
 to my rescue." 
 
 "What does that mean?" asked Warde. 
 
 But Eve only looked at him teasingly.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A WORLD-OLD PROBLEM 
 
 The day passed quickly. Beatrice and Viola had 
 to try the dispatch of messages, while Eve went 
 to meet Lord Esk halfway and listen at the re- 
 ceiver. Then came lunch at the bungalow, a picnic 
 lunch ravished from the resources of Warde's 
 larder a meal during which his ideas of house- 
 keeping were unmercifully chaffed by the three 
 girls, while he took pains to return as good as he 
 received. Then they had insisted on taking him 
 back with them to the yacht, in order to show him 
 its trim delightfulness and to return hospitality > 
 as Beatrice phrased it, to "give him a bite of Chris- 
 tian food." 
 
 Late that afternoon, after they had sent him back 
 to shore and the yacht had sailed away into the 
 grays of the distance, Warde sat and thought deeply 
 over a very personal problem. His mathematical 
 calculations remained unfinished, unheeded. 
 
 His problem was one world-old the key to a 
 woman's heart. Did Eve love him? 
 
 Surely she could not be in love with Esk that 
 husk of a man? 
 
 It was ridiculous to think of Esk as a serious ri- 
 val. 
 
 24
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 25 
 
 And yet 
 
 What did she mean by that cryptic message to 
 Esk? Was it intended to tell Warde that he was 
 poaching? Was it merely a girl's natural co- 
 quetry? Was it intended to rouse desire, to have 
 two men fighting for her love look? 
 
 Warde tortured himself with thoughts and coun- 
 ter-thoughts, weighing up her every word and look 
 and action, trying to match them with the incom- 
 mensurable standards of his own feelings. The sun 
 went down in a blaze of glory perfect ending to 
 perfect day. Warde scarcely realized that dark- 
 ness had crept over him until the shepherd's voice 
 came to rouse him out of his reverie. 
 
 "Meal? No!" he answered curtly, and then 
 strode out to tramp the island. 
 
 A sea.-mist crept over the flats in ghostly wraiths, 
 settling to a gray, formless fog. Suddenly he re- 
 alized that he was cold and damp and shivering 
 and hungry. He looked at his watch ; struck a splut- 
 tering match. 
 
 Ten o'clock. 
 
 "Great heavens !" he exclaimed aloud in a sudden 
 revulsion of feeling. "Is this to dominate my 
 thoughts ?"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SEEDS OF SUSPICION 
 
 James Burgrave was "North Country." He had 
 the big-boned frame and the broad flat face of the 
 Northumbrian; he dressed in a stiffly, starchedly 
 old-fashioned manner, making no concession to the 
 modern sybaritic city customs of easy lounge suits, 
 soft-colored shirts and soft felt hats; his business 
 principles and business methods did not run after 
 the newest gods of "production engineers," "motion 
 studies," and "efficiency routing." Long residence 
 in London had somewhat clipped his speech to the 
 language of the South; but he still retained some 
 of the burr and the broad vowels of the North Coun- 
 try vernacular, emphasized in moments of roused 
 feeling. 
 
 His office reflected himself. Stiff mahogany fur- 
 niture, solid and somber no light relief of fumed 
 oak or walnut, no fal-lals of pictures and flower- 
 vases. 
 
 On a June afternoon, blazing hot, he was still 
 dressed in black broadcloth and stiff white shirt as 
 he sat in the close and stuffy office of his works in 
 East London. 
 
 "A yacht!" he protested to Warde. "Ye'll be 
 asking me next to buy ye a palace to worrk in!" 
 
 26
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 27 
 
 "We've got to broaden out," answered Warde. 
 "We've got to settle the special problems of com- 
 munication over stretches of sea, and there are only 
 two practical ways of doing that: either to build 
 an experimental station across the Channel, which 
 gives us one distance only, or to fit up a sea craft 
 and allow ourselves any distance we want In the 
 long run it'll be cheaper to fit up the yacht." 
 
 "But why a yacht? Couldn't ye make do with 
 a fishing-craft ? Ah could buy that cheap some old 
 tub that's slow but seaworthy. Must ye have brass 
 railings and holystoned decks and stewards with 
 rows of gilt buttons to wait on ye?" 
 
 Warde was quite prepared to rough it, as he had 
 already done during his lonely months at Saltness. 
 Yet he felt that here was arising a question of 
 broad principle, and he pressed his point. 
 
 "It would do for the immediate present, but 
 oughtn't we to look to the future? If we proceed 
 too slowly and economically, our rivals may get 
 ahead of us. There comes a point where economy 
 is wasteful." 
 
 "Agreed, lad. But ye must leave me to decide 
 when that point comes. After all, Ah'm the man 
 that's putting up the money, aren't Ah? Ah'm 
 paying ye a good salary, as well as others, and 
 Ah'm laying out money every day and every hour 
 in this experimenting business. So far it's not 
 brought me in a penny of revenue." 
 
 "It will mean big money in the future." 
 
 "Ah hope so. It's not certain. It's a gamble." 
 
 "All business is a gamble." 
 
 "Ordinary business is a gamble where ye know
 
 28 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 the rules of the game and the risks against ye. 
 This isn't ordinary business. We don't know what's 
 against us. It's possible with our system to tele- 
 phone fifty miles or a hundred miles, but is it cer- 
 tain that we can improve on it to speak five hun- 
 dred miles or a thousand miles? There may be 
 laws of nature clean against us. We don't know 
 yet. So we must go slow, lad slow and steady." 
 
 "While we're on this subject, Mr. Burgrave, I'd 
 like to ask you about my own position and pros- 
 pects. You know that I refused a fellowship at 
 Trinity in order to work with you?" 
 
 "Aye." 
 
 "Then what are my prospects ?" 
 
 "They depend on what ye do with wireless. If 
 ye go on and make our system practical and com- 
 mercial, bringing in money, Ah'll make ye head of 
 that department " 
 
 "I'm head of the department as it is," inter- 
 rupted Warde. 
 
 "And give ye full control," pursued Burgrave, 
 unheeding the interruption. "Your salary will rise 
 proportionately. What more can Ah promise ye?" 
 
 "Partnership." 
 
 "Listen, lad. Partnership means sharing loss as 
 well as gain. What ye' re asking is this : that Ah 
 should take all the money risk until the system is 
 commercial and profitable, and then ye should step 
 in and take the gain." 
 
 "Not take share." 
 
 "But are ye sharing the risk? Are ye putting 
 your own money into the experiments?"
 
 "I'm putting in my brains and energy and 
 youth." 
 
 "Agreed. Every man in business has to do that 
 if he's to make himself valuable to his firm." 
 
 "That's my share of the risk." 
 
 "Listen. Ah'm a straight man. Always have 
 been, and please God always will be. I know ye' re 
 a good lad and a straight lad and a clever lad. I'm 
 banking on ye. If things turn out well, Ah'll play 
 fair by ye. But how can Ah promise now, in 
 writing, to give ye a partnership in say five years' 
 time, when all your work may come to nothing? 
 Yours is not the only department in my business. 
 Do ye ask to be partner in the whole business when 
 ye only build up one portion of it? And maybe 
 not even one portion." 
 
 Warde recognized the reasonableness of that 
 argument. "No," he agreed. 
 
 "Then what do ye ask?" 
 
 "A definite arrangement on my department." 
 
 "Have ye worked it out on paper?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Ye'll find it very difficult to put into worrds. 
 Try. Bring it to me, and Ah'll consider it. But 
 remember this: no written agreement is worth as 
 much as an honest man's good faith. Ah'm 
 straight." 
 
 "I never doubted that. If I had, I shouldn't 
 be working for you." 
 
 "And what ye get in the future depends strictly 
 on what ye do. Your future rests with yourself and 
 the laws of nature. If ye master these laws, ye 
 make your own position."
 
 30 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Myself and the laws of nature are not the only 
 feature in the case," protested Warde. 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 "Explain your meaning, lad." 
 
 "We had an illustration of it a few minutes 
 ago. I asked for a yacht to be fitted up for long- 
 distance signalling. You offered me a fishing 
 tub." 
 
 "Well, Ah'll look into the expense and reconsider 
 it." 
 
 "It's not a mere question of my personal com- 
 fort. It's a question of principle. I know you're 
 straight. But can you see big enough on the finan- 
 cial side?" 
 
 Burgrave withdrew into his stiff collar and shirt 
 and broadcloth suit like a tortoise getting under 
 the protection of its shell. He did not object to 
 frank speech on the part of his employee, because 
 Hilary Warde was in a very different position to 
 a mere clerk. Warde was a gentleman by birth, 
 and a man of highly specialized training and expert 
 knowledge. He was accustomed to speak to his 
 chief as man to man, and would not for a moment 
 have allowed himself to degenerate into the "sir" 
 attitude. 
 
 But here, Burgrave felt, was speech beyond the 
 limit of any salaried man's prerogative. 
 
 "Go on," he said with a warning quietness. 
 
 "This business problem is as much financial as 
 scientific. If we're to blanket the earth with our 
 system of wireless telephony, it will require heavy 
 financing, won't it?"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 31 
 
 "Go on," repeated James Burgrave. "It's ye 
 that are telling me." 
 
 "Frankly, I'd like to know and I think it's due 
 to me to know how long you're prepared to run 
 the experimental stage, and how much you're pre- 
 pared to sink before we reach the commercial 
 stage." 
 
 "Are these your own questions?" was the North 
 Countryman's shrewd comment. 
 
 Warde involuntarily flushed. Though it was a 
 couple of months since that interview with Sir 
 Wilmer Paradine, and the two had never met since, 
 yet the thoughts injected by the financier had been 
 running through Warde's mental veins until now 
 they had broken out into this open protest. 
 
 "I was asked if we were going into the affair 
 hearily," he admitted. "Since then I've been turn- 
 ing the question of finance over in my mind." 
 
 "What did ye reply?" 
 
 "Naturally I gave away nothing of the firm's af- 
 fairs." 
 
 "Who was it?" 
 
 "I'm not at liberty to give names." 
 
 Burgrave looked out of the window over the low 
 gray house-roofs and challenging factory-chimneys 
 of East London, considering very thoughtfully for 
 many moments before he gave his reply. 
 
 "Listen, lad. Ah could go to yon City and raise 
 a quarter-million on the credit of ma name. Ah 
 could spend that quarter-million on bringing our 
 system to the commercial stage. Will Ah? Ah 
 can't say. Ah'm a man that seen business since 
 the age of fifteen lived in it, breathed it. Ah've
 
 33 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 seen great firms rise and Ah've seen great firms 
 fall. Ah've seen boom-time and slump. Ah've 
 learned to go slow and sure, feeling my way. May- 
 be Ah ? d bank a quarter-million on wireless tele- 
 phony; maybe not. Ah can't tell ye at this mo- 
 ment, because Ah couldn't tell any man." 
 
 Warde remained silent. He felt himself up 
 against a high stone wall the wall that shielded 
 Burgrave's innermost thoughts. Every attempt of 
 his to scale it and look over to the other side had 
 been repulsed. He was asked to trust in what was 
 hidden from him, and his natural impetuousness of 
 temperament chafed at the demand. 
 
 He too withdrew into a shell of reserve. "Very 
 well," he replied presently. "I must take your 
 word for the future." 
 
 "And ye'll not regret it, lad, I promise you." 
 
 "The yacht?" 
 
 "Bring me a specification of your requirements, 
 and Ah'll go into it this very day."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ATMOSPHERES 
 
 The enigma of Eve obsessed Warde's thoughts, 
 driving a wedge into the continuity of his work, 
 splitting up the delicately fibered mental processes. 
 
 He felt that, for mental sanity, the problem 
 must be cleared up. He and Eve must come to a 
 definite understanding, and quickly. If the Mar- 
 quis of Esk were centering his attentions on her, 
 and not on Viola, it gave additional reason for 
 prompt action. 
 
 As to his own feelings, there was no mistake of 
 mere infatuation. That phase he had experienced, 
 at the age of twenty, with one of his pretty cousins, 
 and he knew the symptoms. Looking back on 
 it, he recognized it for the ordinary and natural 
 desire of every young and healthy man. It had 
 run a rapid, hectic course. The cousin had en- 
 joyed the game on the same plane of feeling as she 
 would have enjoyed a sharp, hot rally at tennis. 
 They had arrived quickly at the boundary-stone 
 of a first kiss, and with that kiss came disillusion- 
 ment for Warde. The physical contact of lips on 
 lips brought to him, not the satisfaction he had 
 dreamt of, but a sudden revulsion of feeling. He 
 remembered vividly the quick disgust of himself 
 
 33
 
 34 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 after the furtive kiss in the night shadow of the 
 syringa bushes. The scent of syringa had ever 
 afterwards become subtly repulsive to him. 
 
 The infatuation had died down from that high 
 peak more quickly than it had arisen, and a couple 
 of months' absence had sponged it off the slate of 
 his conscious emotions. 
 
 Since the age of twenty to the present time, no 
 woman had definitely stirred him but Eve, and with 
 her it had been a slow process extending over sev- 
 eral years, frank comradeship merging impercepti- 
 bly into the deeper feelings of friendship and love. 
 That is, as to his own side. He knew it unmis- 
 takably for love, not infatuation the one big love 
 that comes to a man and lifts him out of his smaller 
 self to a world of high and unselfish emotions. 
 
 The former feeling had been desire he wanted 
 to possess. This was love he wanted to give. He 
 did not wish to marry Eve unless she herself wished 
 it wholeheartedly. If he could be certain of that, 
 he felt that he would trust his whole life in her 
 hands, would freely and gladly give anything that 
 she might ask. 
 
 So far as man's love for woman can be unselfish 
 never wholly it was with Warde. 
 
 His own feelings were clear and unmistakable. 
 The problem to settle was Eve's feelings. 
 
 During the period when Burgrave's newly bought 
 yacht was being fitted out for experimental pur- 
 poses, Warde resolved to decide the matter. He 
 went to take holiday with his godmother, Miss 
 Margaret Glenistair, whose home nestled against 
 the side of the Kentish Downs by Maidstone, and
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 35 
 
 was within a mile of "Beechhurst," the country 
 house of the Merenthorpes. She was on their vis- 
 iting list, and indeed, it was through her that he 
 had first met Eve. 
 
 Miss Glenistair did not move in that highly ex- 
 clusive, steel-armored coterie known as "county 
 society" by virtue of exalted connections or by vir- 
 tue of wealth. She was, of course, of good family 
 a family that had won honor in the field of learn- 
 ing for generations but her big asset was her 
 personality, a very beautiful, tender, unselfish per- 
 sonality. Her features carried a wonderful se- 
 renity. Though over fifty and silver-haired, there 
 was scarcely a wrinkle on her cheeks, and her color 
 held the soft rose of seventeen. She was wel- 
 comed everywhere for herself her modest means 
 and mode of living sank into the background. 
 Everyone, from villager up to the rather formida- 
 ble Lady Merenthorpe, felt the happier for her 
 presence and had a cordial welcome for her. 
 
 Warde was an orphan, and though he had near 
 relations in aunts and uncles and numerous cousins, 
 his affection was centered on Miss Glenistair. She 
 had been to him almost more than a mother; had 
 helped him through the expense of college and 
 post-graduate studies; was very proud of him and 
 his scientific attainments; saw a great future be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Her cottage snuggled into a hollow of the Downs, 
 looking southward over the smiling meadowlands 
 of the Weald of Kent. In June and July she was 
 bowered in roses, her life hobby, and her peaches 
 and Duchesse pears trained along the south wall
 
 36 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 ripened to a perfection famous at local gardening 
 shows. 
 
 The home breathed of the serenity of its mistress. 
 One could sink to rest in it. Nothing jarred. 
 There was no ostentatious beauty in its furniture, 
 no elaboration of comfort. It had the restfulness 
 of simplicity. Around the walls of the room for 
 which "drawing-room" would be too formal a term, 
 "sitting-room" too ugly, "study" too cold, were 
 photographs of many famous men in science and 
 literature. These she had known personally, as 
 the signatures attested. The books that overflowed 
 from shelves to tables told of her wide and catho- 
 lic range of reading. They too were friends. 
 
 To coin a term, it was her "friend-room." 
 
 With quick intuition, she realized that something 
 was weighing heavily on Warde's thoughts, and a 
 casual mention of Eve during a discussion of local 
 happenings brought a tell-tale flush to his features. 
 Yet she would not press him for his confidence 
 until he himself gave it of his own initiative. 
 
 Instead, she talked to him of his work, of which 
 he kept nothing hidden from her. He spoke freely 
 of Paradine and Burgrave. 
 
 "Sir Wilmer has just come to 'Beechhurst/ " she 
 mentioned. 
 
 "How does he strike you?" 
 
 "He gives me the impression of sheer unmoral 
 strength. I feel him shaping his words to the de- 
 sire of his listeners, but his thoughts are kept hid- 
 den. There is no sunshine in him only the white 
 arc-light of the city streets that pretends to be 
 sunshine. He can be witty and keep a whole room-
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 37 
 
 ful of people in smiles, but it is not the humor that 
 bubbles up from a man in joy of living. I should 
 beware of him, my dear Hilary." 
 
 "Yes, I'm not dazzled by him. Nevertheless 
 there was truth in what he said to me. The shoal 
 ahead of wireless telephony is finance. Burgrave 
 is a cautious skipper, and he may balk at thread- 
 ing the channels of the shoal." 
 
 "Better that than to be stranded as the tide 
 falls and be dependent on the help of others. I 
 have faith in Mr. Burgrave, because he is rough 
 and speaks his thoughts." 
 
 "Has Lord Esk been at Beechhurst?" asked 
 Warde after a shade of hesitation. 
 
 "He has been staying there for week-ends, but 
 at the moment he is away on the Continent. At 
 Aix, I believe, taking the cure. Such a man needs 
 the cure." 
 
 "I'm wondering " This time Warde paused 
 
 definitely. 
 
 Miss Glenistair knew the unspoken thought 
 behind the pause. Very gently she laid a hand on 
 his shoulder as they sat by the window-seat over- 
 looking the Weald, sinking to slumber in the rose- 
 gray of the twilight. 
 
 "My dearest boy, you are torturing yourself with 
 the thought of whether Eve cares for him." 
 
 "Then it's not Viola?" 
 
 "No, not Viola." 
 
 "That settles one of my thoughts." 
 
 "You must realize that Lord Esk is a very de- 
 sirable parti." 
 
 "That husk of a man!"
 
 88 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Yes, as the world views it, a great match for a 
 young girl of impoverished family. It is no secret 
 that Beechhurst is mortgaged very heavily, and no 
 doubt Ralph makes a big drain on the resources 
 of Lord Merenthorpe." 
 
 Warde's thoughts were busy with his own prob- 
 lem, and the significance of Ralph's extravagances 
 did not strike him in the present connection. 
 
 "Could she care for him?" he asked. 
 
 "He could give her a high position. She would 
 be Marchioness of Esk, and with the means to 
 gratify every possible whim. I read him as a man 
 who would be proud of a wife's extravagances." 
 
 "With unlimited means, it's easy to be generous. 
 Do you know the part of London he owns? Do 
 you know the real source of a large part of his 
 income ?" 
 
 "My dear Hilary, I know what you are referring 
 to. But let us look matters in the face. While 
 you and I would ask how a man makes his money < 
 whether by a fair reward for the services he gives 
 to the world, or by an unfair reward, or by a reward 
 for what is positively harmful to the community 
 very few others would stop to ask. If they 
 knew, they would gloss over their knowledge. 
 That's the world we live in." 
 
 "Could Eve care for him?" persisted Warde. 
 
 "That is a question which only Eve can answer 
 for you. But I want to prepare you, my dear boy, 
 for possible disappointment. The world in which 
 the Merenthorpes live is a very different world to 
 ours. We do not lay a fictitious value on money. 
 [They do. I want you to realize before you have
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 39 
 
 built your hopes too high that you are not a strong 
 rival to Lord Esk. You have not yet made for 
 yourself a position that commands the world's re- 
 spect. I know that you will, in time given the 
 time to develop your powers. You will have to 
 fight great opposition and great prejudice. But 
 now, at this moment, others do not see you as I see 
 you." 
 
 "If Eve wants to marry him really wants to 
 marry him," mused Warde, "I shall not try to turn 
 her feelings. But I must be very certain of it. I 
 must know that she is not being forced into a mar- 
 riage on monetary grounds. I must know!" 
 
 "Is there no one else you could look on as a 
 wife?" asked Miss Glenistair gently. 
 
 "No one !" he returned passionately. 
 
 "Would you like me to invite Eve here, so that 
 you can make opportunity for an explanation be- 
 tween you?" 
 
 But this did not fit in with Warde's sensitive 
 feelings. What he had to do he wished to do boldly, 
 
 openly, of his own initiative and planning. 
 ***** 
 
 It proved by no means easy to find the right 
 opportunity. The very atmosphere of Beechhurst 
 was exclusive, protective, resentful of intrusion 
 from outside. A building of cold Jacobean state- 
 liness, with far more rooms than were in active 
 use not a home so much as an ancestral monu- 
 ment, historical, oppressed by memories of the past 
 that forced a chill comparison with the parlous pres- 
 ent of the Merenthorpe fortunes. The set gardens 
 carried an air of neglect and at the same time an
 
 40 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 air of resentfulness that any stranger should notice 
 their neglect The giant beeches and oaks of the 
 surrounding parkland seemed to be wondering sadly 
 when their turn would come to be hacked into tim- 
 ber. Already they had seen their fellows thinned 
 down and dragged away at the horses' tail to the 
 guillotine of the sawmill. 
 
 Lord Merenthorpe could not afford to keep up 
 Beechhurst as his ancestors had maintained it, and 
 he had not the courage to sell it. Instead, he had 
 mortgaged it to the limit, keeping the outer shell 
 of possession while the kernel was in the hands of 
 the money-lenders. 
 
 The three girls made the life of the cold mansion, 
 sending echoes of laughter and radiations of health 
 and youthful spirits through its dim corridors and 
 brooding gardens. The blase Ralph was of course 
 in London, with his regiment and his town occu- 
 pations. 
 
 Warde, a young country squire, and the local 
 doctor came with their tennis rackets. Games were 
 heated and lively and full of zest. But however ab- 
 sorbed Warde might seem in the game of the mo- 
 ment, he was keenly studying Eve, whether as 
 partner or opponent, and seeking the moment when 
 he could take her aside and lay bare his hopes 
 before her. 
 
 And while he was concentrating thoughts on 
 Eve, another was unobtrusively studying him Sir 
 Wilmer Paradine. Primarily, the latter's presence 
 at Beechhurst was connected with business matters 
 in which Lord Merenthorpe was involved. He pro- 
 longed his stay in order to devise a fresh hold on
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 41 
 
 Warde. He had long since decided that the young 
 scientist was essential to his financial schemes. He 
 believed in brains coupled with high purpose such 
 a man would be far more useful to him than brains 
 alone. 
 
 In Eve he glimpsed an unconscious tool for his 
 purpose. Of set plan, he proposed the river-picnic, 
 which was to throw Warde and Eve together for 
 the understanding which Warde could not compass 
 under the cold walls of Beechhurst
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LONE ORCHID 
 
 Paradine carried into his match-making the same 
 finesse that he employed in his company-promot- 
 ing. He had gathered a party of twelve young peo- 
 ple for his Medway river picnic, equally divided 
 between the sexes; himself and Miss Glenistair 
 were the only titular chaperones. 
 
 It was Paradine who started the orchid-hunt in 
 the woods after lunch. Having elicited the fact 
 that Leffenham Woods were locally famous as the 
 home of the rare bee orchid, he organized a com- 
 petition for whoever could gather the most in a set 
 space of time. He had brought with him as prizes 
 some charming silver-net purse-bags for the girls, 
 and Russian leather cigarette cases for the men. 
 The young people paired off and dispersed through 
 the deep slumbrous woods on an eager search; 
 Warde and Eve found themselves together, secure 
 against prying eyes or listening ears in a way that 
 had been impossible to them at Beechhurst. 
 
 The finding of their first orchid was the moment 
 which Warde had mentally notched for his opening. 
 
 Eve, triumphant, was eagerly plucking it. 
 
 "Now let's rest on our oars," he said. "One 
 orchid will satisfy convention." 
 
 42
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 43 
 
 "No, we've got to win," returned Eve, lightly 
 moving on through the dense woods. 
 
 He hurried to confront her. "You know I've 
 been trying to find this moment for days. Don't 
 let's waste it. Sit down." 
 
 "How autocratic you are !" 
 
 "I'm serious." 
 
 "Then don't be." 
 
 "Why are you always evading me?" 
 
 "Am I?" 
 
 "Yes. Why?" 
 
 "Because I love teasing, I suppose." 
 
 "You can be serious enough when you wish." 
 
 "Then it means that I want to be talked to while 
 I think of something else. Just now my aim is to 
 find orchids and win the first prize." 
 
 "Do sit down," he pleaded, "and give me just 
 five minutes." 
 
 Eve, obeying, affected to consult a wrist-watch. 
 
 "You remember, at Saltness, when you took the 
 'phone and sent a message to Esk?" began Warde. 
 
 "Am I supposed to remember all the trivialities 
 I talked two months ago?" 
 
 "Yes. Was it meant simply to tease me, or to 
 warn me off?" 
 
 "Probably it was intended to start you guessing." 
 
 "Is Esk really in love with you?" 
 
 "Possibly." 
 
 "Do you want to marry him?" 
 
 "I haven't been asked." 
 
 "Could you, under any conceivable circumstances, 
 marry him?"
 
 44 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "At this point the witness asked for a glass of 
 water, sipped at it lightly, and then turned to face 
 prosecuting counsel with a firm smile," quoted Eve 
 mischievously from a recent cause celebre. 
 
 "I wonder if you realize what this means to me?" 
 he returned soberly. 
 
 With a lightning change of mood, Eve dropped 
 her banter. 
 
 "I don't care for Lord Esk," she admitted in a 
 low voice. 
 
 "Thank Heaven!" answered Warde fervently. 
 
 There was a pause. A distant village church bell 
 tolled out the half -hour, the chimes eddying lazily 
 among the dense foliage of the slumbering woods. 
 
 "But " began Eve, and then stopped herself. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "No you continue." 
 
 "Could you care for me?" 
 
 "I like you." 
 
 "That's not sufficient." 
 
 "The five minutes are nearly gone." 
 
 "Do you realize that I'm passionately in love 
 with you?" demanded Warde. 
 
 He noted in the silence that her hands trembled 
 perceptibly. 
 
 "You do care for me !" he cried exultantly. She 
 rose quickly, placing distance between them. He 
 rose too, but did not attempt to bridge the distance. 
 
 "I love you too well to touch even so little as 
 your hand without your consent," he declared. 
 
 She remained where she was, the color coming 
 and going in her cheeks. 
 
 "Let's find the orchids," she said unsteadily.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 45 
 
 They moved on together, and for a space neither 
 spoke, Warde full of joy at her half-confession, and 
 yet wondering still at the enigma of her changes of 
 mood. 
 
 Presently he resumed: "This love has come to 
 me gradually very gradually. You know the old 
 weather adage, 'Long foretold, last long; short no- 
 tice, soon past/ That's love as well as weather." 
 
 "If only marriage depended on love," murmured 
 Eve in a low voice. 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 "So many other things." 
 
 "Of course there's health as a factor, but that 
 doesn't apply here. We're both sound and healthy." 
 
 "So many other things." 
 
 "Name them." 
 
 With another sudden change of mood, Eve be- 
 came accusing. 
 
 "Men! They make their choice among scores 
 of girls, at their leisure, studying points and possi- 
 bilities. Then they make their proposal at their 
 
 own chosen time Women! We're ranged up 
 
 in line. We're to wait until we're asked. ^\nd 
 then we're to say yes or no at a moment's notice. 
 Not the moment we choose ourselves, but the man's 
 moment. It's not fair!" 
 
 "You know I wouldn't wish to hurry your de- 
 cision," he answered earnestly. 
 
 "I'm barely twenty-one ! I've not met four men 
 that I liked really liked. How am I to know the 
 one man?" 
 
 "Your heart tells you that." 
 
 "Yes, but am I to trust what it tells me?"
 
 46 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Warde, remembering his own former experience 
 of quick and short-lived infatuation, realized some- 
 thing of Eve's difficulty. 
 
 "You're right. One has to put it to the test of 
 time. I don't ask for your decision now. I wanted 
 only to clear up the situation to know how I 
 stood. Couldn't we make it a temporary engage- 
 ment on trial?" 
 
 "No that might drift into an arrangement we 
 couldn't break away from if we wished to. I should 
 feel bound in honor to go through with it." 
 
 "No one would know but ourselves." 
 
 "I hate secrecy. It's it's so underhand." 
 
 "How long must I wait for your answer?" 
 
 "So many other things," mused Eve. 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 Her face was averted from him as she replied: 
 "My father and mother." 
 
 "Meaning that they would object to me?" 
 
 Her silence answered him. 
 
 "I'd anticipated that. But I think I can con- 
 vince them," he returned confidently. 
 
 "You might not be able to." 
 
 "Make the supposition. In that case, would it 
 affect your answer to me?" 
 
 In their wanderings they had gone far from the 
 river, and were now crossing a country lane that 
 sauntered through the woods. Round a bend, pur- 
 ring, came a swift, well-tired motor-car. In it was 
 Lady Merenthorpe, on her way to pay a call in the 
 Tonbridge district. 
 
 It was too late to attempt to escape her eye.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 47 
 
 They had perforce to stand still by the side of the 
 lane. Warde raised his hat. At Lady Meren- 
 thorpe's command by indicator, the chauffeur drew 
 up sharply with a grinding of brakes and a spark- 
 shower from the friction of the metal-studded tire 
 covers on the hard road. 
 
 "Enjoying the picnic?" asked her ladyship icily. 
 
 "It's an orchid competition," answered Eve. 
 "Prizes for those who can find the most orchids." 
 
 "How many have you found?" 
 
 Eve showed her lone flower. 
 
 "Then you won't stand much chance of winning," 
 said Lady Merenthorpe decisively. "I want you to 
 come with me to pay a call." 
 
 Eve flushed, but no other hint of her feelings 
 came to the surface. "Certainly, mother," was her 
 answer. She entered the car. "Good-bye, Mr. 
 Warde. Explain to the others Take the orchid. 
 I hope you'll win." 
 
 Lady Merenthorpe nodded stiffly to Warde's rais- 
 ing of his hat. The car gathered speed, and dis- 
 appeared swiftly. 
 
 Warde, left alone, realized that the struggle of 
 his life had come into being. 
 
 "I hope you'll win," Eve had said. He inter- 
 preted the casual words as meaning far more than 
 their obvious application to the orchid competition. 
 
 On his return to the boats, explaining Eve's ab- 
 sence, Paradine answered: 
 
 "That's too unkind of Lady Merenthorpe. I 
 shall have to take her to task." 
 
 His words were light, but they carried an un-
 
 48 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 dercurrent of earnestness that was not lost on 
 Warde. Suddenly he knew that Paradine was on 
 his side. 
 
 The financier had made his first real grip on the 
 young fellow's feelings.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SOCIAL TACTICS 
 
 Lady Merenthorpe had not kept her lead in 
 "county" on an inadequate and falling revenue 
 without being an able social tactician. 
 
 Alone in the car with Eve, screened from the 
 chauffeur by a wind-shield, she might, had she 
 wished, given full vent to her tongue. Eve ex- 
 pected an immediate recrimination, which would 
 have aroused her fighting instincts. She was pre- 
 pared to defend herself and Warde hotly. 
 
 But Lady Merenthorpe seemed to dismiss the in- 
 cident as unworthy of serious thought. She did not 
 insult her daughter by suggesting that there was 
 anything clandestine in the stroll through the 
 woods. She made a few cursory inquiries about 
 the success of the picnic, throwing no doubts on 
 the explanation of the orchid competition, and then 
 turned to the affairs of the countryside calls, so- 
 cial engagements, the charity needs of her villagers. 
 
 Not until the return journey did she allude even 
 by implication to the matter which was surging 
 through her thoughts. 
 
 "I have had a letter from Lord Esk," she men- 
 tioned. "He tells me that he has purchased a new 
 yacht and contemplates a couple of months' cruise 
 
 49
 
 50 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 to South America. He sails over to Buenos Ayres, 
 then up to Rio de Janeiro, and takes in the West 
 Indian Islands in September, when the temperature 
 there will be cooler. It sounds delightful." 
 
 "Yes," agreed Eve noncommittally. 
 
 "It's to be a yacht party in place of the usual 
 shooting on the moors. He gives a general in- 
 vitation to us." 
 
 "Are you accepting?" 
 
 "Not for myself. I cannot very well leave Eng- 
 land for so long. Your father will go the cruise 
 will be just what he needs to build up his health. 
 I cannot spare all you girls to go with him. One 
 of you must stay with me. Of course Vi and your- 
 self will have first choice. If one of you prefers 
 to stay at Beechhurst, then Bee can go. I'm leav- 
 ing it to yourselves to settle." 
 
 "Thank you," answered Eve gratefully. The 
 suggestion was a perfectly fair one. There was to 
 be no compulsion on herself, even though it was 
 clear that her mother wished for the match with 
 Lord Esk. 
 
 Lady Merenthorpe could have planned no 
 stronger move to gain her own ends. 
 
 She made no reference to Warde. He was 
 ignored completely. 
 
 Lord Merenthorpe, on hearing from his wife of 
 the day's incident, was for straightway sending 
 for the young fellow, and teaching him his position, 
 by Gad. But his wife, accustomed to overruling, 
 overruled him in this. She pointed out that the 
 most dignified way to handle the situation was to 
 let Warde cool his heels indefinitely.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 51 
 
 "Yes, yes but Eve!" he fussed. "She'll be 
 writing to him or meeting him if he stays on in the 
 village. What are we to do about Eve?" 
 
 "Don't let us play the heavy parents," summed 
 up the tactician. "Give Eve some credit for com- 
 mon sense. I'm quite certain that if we allow her 
 free choice, she will elect to go with you on the 
 cruise. A couple of months packed with amuse- 
 ment and surrounded by the atmosphere of luxury 
 will cure her of this ridiculous boy-and-girl infatu- 
 ation." 
 
 And Merenthorpe, knowing by long experience 
 the soundness of his wife's social tactics, gave in. 
 
 Nothing was said directly to Eve on the subject. 
 There were no forbiddings or restrictions. But 
 no further invitation to tennis or tea or dinner 
 went from Beechhurst to Hilary Warde. He was 
 to be utterly ignored, until he realized the state of 
 
 affairs and left the neighborhood. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Warde waited in vain for the imperative sum- 
 mons or the angry note he expected. He had in- 
 deed to cool his heels. He could not thrust him- 
 self on the tennis-lawns at Beechhurst uninvited. 
 On a formal, front-door call, he was informed by 
 an impassive footman that both his lordship and 
 her ladyship were out palpably untrue, as he had 
 just seen Merenthorpe giving directions to a 
 gardener by the side of a greenhouse. Warde asked 
 for note-paper and pen ; these were supplied to him 
 in the drawing-room; he scribbled a note designed 
 to gain an interview with the father. 
 
 The note remained unanswered.
 
 52 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Paradine, leaving Beechhurst to return to Lon- 
 don, took an opportunity of seeking out Warde and 
 assuring him of his sympathy. "If there's anything 
 I can do to assist you, don't hesitate to call upon 
 me," he said, and meant it. 
 
 It was inevitable that Warde and Eve should 
 meet in the open. He came across her walking 
 with Beatrice to Maidstone to change a batch of 
 novels at a library. 
 
 "Hullo!" greeted the outspoken Beatrice. "The 
 pater and mater are trying to believe that you 
 never existed." 
 
 "That's a dangerous theory," laughed Warde, 
 falling into step with them. 
 
 "Spoiling our tennis," grumbled Beatrice. "Rot- 
 ten, isn't it?" 
 
 "Bee, dear, I wish you'd run on ahead," sug- 
 gested Eve. 
 
 "Right! I'm not a spoil-sport. Blessings on 
 you, my children ; but you carry these beastly heavy 
 books." She tossed them to Warde. 
 
 "We'll meet at the Bungalow tea-shop in the 
 High Street," said Warde, catching them deftly. 
 "Order all the ices you want." 
 
 Beatrice strode on at a healthy swinging pace. 
 
 "I didn't write," explained Warde to Eve as they 
 followed in Beatrice's wake along the high road, 
 "in case letters might be intercepted. I didn't pass 
 a note by a servant, because I thought you would 
 object to that" 
 
 "I didn't write because I wanted to meet and 
 tell you everything. I couldn't do it by letter."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 53 
 
 "Was your mother very angry when she carried 
 you off in the car?" 
 
 "Very." 
 
 "What did she say about me?" 
 
 "Not a word." 
 
 "Your father?" 
 
 "Not a word either." 
 
 "Nothing could have conveyed more forcibly to 
 Warde the feelings of Lord and Lady Merenthorpe 
 toward him. 
 
 "Then I've made matters highly uncomfortable 
 for you," said he in deep concern. 
 
 "No I don't mind so long as there's nothing un- 
 derhand." 
 
 "I must see your father somehow." 
 
 "Why? It's not necessary. There's no no en- 
 gagement between us." 
 
 "You don't wish for that?" he asked anxiously. 
 
 "I want to find myself," she answered in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "But you do care for me?" 
 
 Their eyes met. Eve inclined her head. 
 
 "I'm content to wait," pursued Warde. "I'm 
 sure of myself. I want you to be. Then we can 
 snap our fingers at the world. Oh, my dearest, 
 I can give you the big love of my life!" 
 
 "Lord Esk has sent us an invitation." Eve ex- 
 plained it in detail, and added: "Viola will go." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "I'm thinking of accepting." 
 
 It was a moment of test for Warde. He tried 
 to drown his own natural feelings of jealousy, tried 
 to push away the thought that for two months or
 
 54 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 more she would be in the constant company of 
 Esk, with daily opportunities to learn the material 
 allurements of the life he could offer to her. Clearly 
 the cruise must have been suggested in order to 
 provide Esk with a proper setting for his proposal. 
 
 Nevertheless, Warde managed to reply: "I 
 should accept." 
 
 Eve gave him a grateful look. "That's what I 
 hoped you would say." 
 
 "I want" his voice became husky as he strove 
 with the passion of his own feelings "I want to 
 place your happiness first." 
 
 "I'm vain and selfish," continued Eve with a sud- 
 den abasement of self-confession. "I want Lord 
 Esk to offer me marriage." 
 
 With the intuition of love, Warde understood. 
 "I know your feeling. In my own way I've ex- 
 perienced it. I was glad to be able to refuse a fel- 
 lowship at Trinity before I entered commercial 
 work. It was sheer vanity. People I knew looked 
 askance at my taking up applied science instead of 
 going for the usual demonstratorship or professor- 
 ship. When I was offered my fellowship, and re- 
 fused it, they had to change their viewpoint. So 
 with you. If you became engaged to me before 
 you had the chance of refusing the position of 
 Marchioness, people might look on you as a failure. 
 If you refuse it first, they are forced to alter their 
 opinion." 
 
 Eve quickened to his sympathetic understanding. 
 Her feelings were far more complex than this, but 
 what he had suggested was part truth. She wanted 
 the luxury of refusal.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 55 
 
 "You are quite right," she said with caress in 
 her voice. 
 
 "You see, I'm learning to understand you a lit- 
 tle." 
 
 Suddenly her mood changed to banter. "You'll 
 have so much to learn, for I don't understand my- 
 self!" 
 
 "We'll puzzle it out together." 
 
 "By the time you've arrived at your mathemati- 
 cal solution, I shall probably have changed again." 
 
 "Then I must determine the variability con- 
 stant." 
 
 "You'll have to invent a new calculus." 
 
 Warde reverted to the subject raised a few mo- 
 ments before: "What people think how it has to 
 determine our lives ! We're meshed in gear with a 
 thousand other human wheels. To make oneself 
 a king-wheel means to fight against the pressure of 
 a whole complex of social machinery." 
 
 "I love a fight." 
 
 "I too." 
 
 In this kindly shadow of some tall roadside elms, 
 her hand stole out to touch his. Warde took it 
 in his own firm grasp with a joy that tingled to his 
 
 finger-tips. 
 
 ***** 
 
 At Maidstone they found Beatrice comfortably 
 ensconced in the tea-shop and unashamedly delv- 
 ing into a second strawberry-and-vanilla ice-cream. 
 
 "Who am I to congratulate?" she asked with 
 an airy disregard of grammar. 
 
 "Eve," answered Warde. "She's going for a 
 delightful cruise to South America."
 
 56 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Oh, D! I left you hoping you'd persuade her 
 otherwise. / wanted to go." 
 
 "Perhaps Viola will give up her place to you?" 
 
 "Not likely ! Barring brothers, sisters are the sel- 
 fishest creatures on earth. You'll find that out 
 when you marry one." 
 
 "I'm ready to gamble." 
 
 "What's the arrangement between you?" asked 
 the outspoken Beatrice. "I shan't tell." 
 
 "No arrangement at all." 
 
 "Honest Injun?" 
 
 "Big White Bear," assured Warde. 
 
 "Mutual trust how very beautiful are thy feet 
 upon the mountains !" misquoted Beatrice. 
 
 "Bee, dear, let's drop the subject," suggested 
 Eve. 
 
 "Yes, you drop into a gorgeous cruise, while I 
 stay at home and make flannel petticoats for frowsy 
 old women!" 
 
 "You haven't touched a needle for a year." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake let me be metaphorical if I 
 want to." 
 
 "Have another ice," offered Warde. 
 
 "I'm sick of the older generation," pursued Bea- 
 trice. "Why are you such cowards? Why don't 
 you bolt? Why don't you defy the pater and mater 
 and the county, and run off to live in your rose- 
 bowered no, tin-roofed cottage at Saltness? 
 Then I should have some respect for you. As it 
 is, your wordliness disgusts me!" 
 
 She pushed away her plate with a clatter.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 A FATHER'S RIGHTS 
 
 The dignity game is a game at which both sides 
 can play. If Lord Merenthorpe refused to answer 
 a letter, Warde saw no reason why he should beg 
 for an interview. He was meeting Eve in the vil- 
 lage or at Miss Glenistair's openly, in broad day- 
 light. By mutual agreement there was no clandes- 
 tine rendezvous no slipping out at night-time for 
 a furtive interview. Their self-respect forbade 
 that. 
 
 Merenthorpe chafed and fussed, but his wife kept 
 him in check. 
 
 "Give Eve a loose rein," was her worldly ad- 
 vice. "Let her see that we trust her." 
 
 "Damned insolent puppy!" fumed Merenthorpe. 
 "A bit of a clerk! Sorry we ever let him into the 
 
 house. Give an inch to those sort of fellows ! 
 
 If he stops in the village any longer, I'll send for 
 Ralph and tell him to give the fellow a damned 
 good thrashing!" 
 
 The knot was cut by an urgent wire from Bur- 
 grave recalling Warde to town. He took the morn- 
 ing express from Maidstone. He was alone in a 
 first-class compartment, deep in a newspaper; the 
 engine had whistled impatiently; the train was just 
 
 57
 
 58 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 gathering way, when Lord Merenthorpe, also bound 
 for London, rushed along the platform and was 
 bundled into Warde's compartment by the guard 
 before he realized who the occupant was. 
 
 Warde nodded noncommittally. Merenthorpe, 
 away from his wife's guiding hand, was a fumbler. 
 First he ignored Warde's greeting ; then he fidgeted ; 
 finally he could stand repression no longer. 
 
 "I want an explanation from you!" he threw 
 across the compartment. 
 
 Warde laid down his paper and moved to the 
 corner facing Lord Merenthorpe. 
 
 "I am ready to give you any explanation you 
 wish for," he answered quietly. 
 
 "What do you mean by forcing your attentions 
 on my daughter?" 
 
 "Naturally I hope to marry her." 
 
 "Impossible! Out of the question! Put it out 
 of your head !" 
 
 "Why impossible?" 
 
 "Your position." 
 
 "I have nothing to be ashamed of in my posi- 
 tion. I've deliberately chosen my work because it 
 has vast possibilities in the future. In ten years' 
 time, wireless telephony will be one of the big es- 
 sentials of civilization." 
 
 "Your income." 
 
 "At present, six hundred a year from my post, 
 and another hundred from my invested capital." 
 
 "And you think that pittance a marrying in- 
 come?" 
 
 "I shouldn't expect your daughter on that. In 
 a few years' time "
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 59 
 
 "What's your age?" interrupted Merenthorpe. 
 
 "Twenty-seven." 
 
 "Twenty-seven, and six hundred a year. It 
 doesn't sound as though you were a genius, does 
 it?" 
 
 Warde might have urged the point as a philo- 
 sophic discussion, but his feelings were too earnest 
 to waste energies over mere words. He replied: 
 "My firm has a splendid future before it. I shall 
 rise with the firm." 
 
 "You're not a partner." 
 
 "Not yet, but " 
 
 "A mere employee!" 
 
 Before this love affair, Lord Merenthorpe had 
 been treating Warde with a surface graciousness 
 that pretended equality. Now the mask was 
 dropped. He looked on the other simply as an 
 employee. Scientific achievements, capabilities of 
 mind, straightness of character these scarcely 
 weighed with him. "Who are you in Burke or De- 
 brett? How wealthy are you?" were his touch- 
 stones. Any other possession was merely inci- 
 dental. 
 
 "Granted," said Warde. 
 
 "Well." 
 
 "Suppose I were in Parliament an Under-Sec- 
 retary at a thousand a year. How would you re- 
 gard that?" 
 
 "You're not." 
 
 "Still, supposing." 
 
 "The position would be a considerably better 
 one than yours." 
 
 "Yet an Under-Secretary is as much a salaried
 
 60 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 employee as I am, and very much more liable to 
 dismissal. Compared with mine, his prospects are 
 nebulous." 
 
 "But a politician is not dependent on a salary! 
 The type of man you mention has almost always 
 a large private income, and his social position is 
 vastly different from yours. You must look at this 
 matter from a common-sense point of view." 
 
 Warde abruptly changed the line of discussion. 
 "I'm very deeply in love with Eve," he said, and 
 his voice carried a world of feeling. 
 
 "I don't doubt it. Plenty of other men will fall 
 in love with her." 
 
 "And I know that she cares for me." 
 
 "Very natural." Lord Merenthorpe had dropped 
 anger for the moment and taken to a patronizing 
 condescension. "Very natural. You're good-look- 
 ing, healthy; you play games well; and you have 
 a quick tongue. Plenty of other girls will fall in 
 love with you." 
 
 "Then you don't believe that mutual liking 
 should be a strong reason for marriage?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, I've seen far more of the world 
 than you. I know that any good-looking, healthy 
 boy and girl will fall in love with one another if 
 they're given sufficient opportunity. That's what 
 we parents have to guard against. I'm glad we 
 know of this affair in time." 
 
 "And suppose it should be too late?" challenged 
 Warde, stung by this patronage. "Eve is twenty- 
 one, and her own mistress. She may not look at 
 the matter from what you call the common-sense 
 point of view!"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 61 
 
 The eyes of the older man changed from their 
 look of condescension to a weakly angry obstinacy. 
 His lower lip trembled; the Adam's apple came 
 prominently into his thin neck; his scanty gray 
 hair, arranged so as to make the most of its scan- 
 tiness, had become displaced, showing an acreage 
 of baldness. His dignity was only saved by his tall, 
 upright carriage, his high-bridged, aquiline nose, 
 and the air of aristocratic breeding which was his 
 birthright 
 
 "I rely on her sense of honor," he retorted. 
 
 "Meaning that it would be dishonorable for your 
 daughter to become engaged to me without your 
 express consent?" 
 
 "Most decidedly." 
 
 "Why?" demanded the younger generation. 
 
 "The duty to her parents." 
 
 "Eve is not an only child." 
 
 "You misunderstand me. We don't expect our 
 girls to refrain from marriage in order to make 
 comforts for our old age, or that sort of thing. 
 We're not selfish. What we expect, and have a 
 right to expect, is that they shall make suitable 
 marriages. Marriages of position. Marriages of 
 income. In regard to Eve, there are possibilities 
 at this very moment." 
 
 "Lord Esk, whose position and income are 
 founded on the ground-landlordship of red-light 
 property in a notorious district of London." 
 
 "You talk like a callow boy! Try and look at 
 this matter rationally ! What settlement could you 
 make oil a wife?" 
 
 At last Warde realized the bare truth of the mat-
 
 62 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 ter. Some of the veils had been lowered by Lord 
 Merenthorpe, and the rest Warde tore away for 
 himself. The Merenthorpes were an impoverished 
 family, with a waste fully expensive estate to keep 
 up, and a son and heir equally expensive. They 
 needed money badly, and the only way to secure 
 it was by "suitable marriages." Merenthorpe re- 
 garded his three daughters as valuable family as- 
 sets. They were in the market. They were on 
 sale. He would not sell Beechhurst, but he was 
 ready to sell them. Warde's bid was hopelessly in- 
 adequate. There was the matter stripped of the 
 veils of conventional decency. 
 
 Warde chewed on it in bitter silence. 
 
 "I ask for your promise, as a man of honor, to 
 fight down this infatuation," resumed Merenthorpe, 
 essaying a tone of friendliness. "It's a hard thing 
 to ask, I know. I went through it myself, as a boy, 
 and I can understand your feelings and all that. I 
 sympathize with you deeply believe me. But 
 Eve is not the only girl in the world." 
 
 "The only girl for me." 
 
 "That's what everyone feels at some time or 
 other. You think your case an exceptional one." 
 
 "I won't give you that promise," decided Warde. 
 "You've brought nothing up against me but my 
 present monetary position. You haven't impugned 
 my character or my record or my abilities, and 
 those who are possibly better qualified to judge than 
 yourself think that I shall make a position. If 
 marriage is to be a mere question of money the 
 luxuries I can offer a wife then it's for the one 
 most affected, the possible wife, to decide. Eve
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 63 
 
 is going with you for the South American cruise. 
 There is no arrangement between us. She is free 
 to marry Esk if he asks her. It is for her to de- 
 cide." 
 
 "Then I ask you not to write to my daughter 
 during this cruise." 
 
 "If she wishes it, I will not write. And there we 
 must leave the matter." 
 
 "I'll send Ralph to teach you your place!" said 
 Merenthorpe in impotent rage. 
 
 Warde did not answer this futile threat. He 
 went back to his corner, resumed the reading of 
 his newspaper, and at the first stop of the train left 
 the compartment to Merenthorpe.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF WAR 
 
 Arrived in London, he made straight for his 
 chief's office. 
 
 "Read this," was Burgrave's first word after they 
 had shaken hands. He passed over a letter headed 
 with the firm-name of a very large concern in Ber- 
 lin, manufacturers of a wide range of electrical 
 apparatus from the humble glow-lamp up to a ma- 
 jestic thirty thousand horse-power turbine dynamo. 
 The name was of course well known to Warde, 
 and he knew further that in the last half-dozen 
 years the firm had developed enormously, extend- 
 ing its export trade into the characteristically Bri- 
 tish fields of South Africa, South America, China 
 and Japan. 
 
 "Dear Sirs," ran the letter in correct if some- 
 what stilted English, "We are well aware that you 
 are engaged in developing your excellent system of 
 communication by wireless telephony, in which we 
 also are greatly interested. We have now perfected 
 our range of communication to several hundred 
 kilometers, securing clear hearing by day and by 
 night, and have overcome many of the practical 
 
 64
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 65 
 
 difficulties of working which no doubt you your- 
 selves have also experienced. 
 
 "We have reached the stage where our system is 
 sufficiently stable to warrant an application for 
 world patent rights, and the drawing up of specifi- 
 cations is now in the hands of our lawyers. 
 
 "We wish to inquire whether you are open to ne- 
 gotiate for the working of our patent rights in the 
 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. lv[o 
 doubt you are aware that it is open to us to es- 
 tablish a factory in the United Kingdom, and thus 
 comply with the 'manufacturing clause' of your 
 Patents Act. Our alternative is to lease these rights 
 to a British firm with already a factory in your 
 country. On the score of economy we incline to 
 this said alternative. 
 
 "Kindly let us hear from you at your conven- 
 ience. 
 
 "We beg to remain, dear Sirs, 
 
 "Your obedient servants, 
 "RADEMEYER, SCHULTZ und MACCALLUM, 
 
 G.m.b.H. 
 "(per) KARL RADEMEYER (President)." 
 
 "What do you think of it?" asked Burgrave. 
 
 "It's war." 
 
 "Aye. But what forces have they ? Look closer 
 at yon clause." His broad, squat forefinger pointed 
 to the second paragraph of the letter. "They're 
 canny. They don't say they have lodged a patent 
 specification. They say they are drawing one up." 
 
 There was no need to elaborate the point to 
 Warde. But to a layman the technical point in-
 
 66 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 volved would require some explanation. To patent 
 an invention protects it from infringements, not 
 from improvements. If one patents an immature 
 invention, it is laid bare to rivals, who can then size 
 up its weak points and invent a better device. In 
 cases analogous to the case of wireless telephony, 
 it is customary for a firm to make very sure of their 
 ground before they apply for a patent. Till then, 
 they have to rely on secrecy. The exact moment 
 when secrecy should be dropped often determines 
 the commercial value of an invention. 
 
 "They want to scare us into patenting first," was 
 Warde's comment. 
 
 "Maybe they want that. Maybe they don't hold 
 the cards they say. On the other hand, they may 
 not be bluffing. Then they would be first in the 
 field with their patent, and we should have to take 
 their terms, or lose all the money we've sunk in 
 experiments. It's a verra ticklish point." 
 
 For a couple of hours Burgrave and Warde 
 tossed arguments back and forth across the office 
 desk, trying to sum up the value of their cards 
 as compared with the unknown hand held by the 
 big German firm. They had suddenly been drawn 
 into a poker game where their "ante" was the money 
 and time and energies already spent in experiments, 
 and where the betting might run into thousands 
 and tens of thousands of pounds. The letter from 
 Berlin practically invited them to throw their hand 
 into the discard, or else display it openly. But, on 
 the contrary, they could sit tight on it and "raise." 
 
 "Maccallum sounds a verra Scotch name," re-
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 67 
 
 marked Burgrave after a long discussion had re- 
 sulted in no definite decision. 
 
 "It doesn't follow that he's a Britisher. In the 
 time of Frederick the Great, many Scotchmen went 
 into his grenadier regiments, and founded families 
 in Germany." 
 
 "Did ye ever meet Rademeyer when ye were 
 studying at Charlottenburg ?" 
 
 "No. I was too busy with work to make a large 
 range of social acquaintances. Besides, in my time, 
 Rademeyer, Schultz and Maccallum were only a 
 small firm. They've developed very rapidly since. 
 I've heard that there's a large amount of Consoli- 
 dated Oil money invested with them." 
 
 "Verra likely." 
 
 "Should we invite them to send a representative 
 over to see us?" 
 
 "No he would find out more than he gave 
 away," answered Burgrave slowly. "If we meet, 
 we must go to them. Ah must think it out. It's 
 a verra ticklish matter." 
 
 By the morning, Burgrave had resolved on the 
 right way to handle the affair. If both he and 
 Warde were to travel to Berlin, it would look as 
 though they were scared about their position in 
 wireless telephony. The sounder plan was to send 
 over Warde as a representative to discuss, but 
 without power to negotiate definitely. That would 
 be noncommittal it would not give away the 
 strength or weakness of their hand, and it might 
 be that Warde would pick up useful information. 
 
 "But listen, lad," continued Burgrave. "Ye must 
 be verra careful to give them no hint of our sys-
 
 68 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 tern works. Ye must keep a tight tongue. Ye 
 must not take much wine " 
 
 Warde laughed interruption. "I'll be the model 
 young Y.M.C.A. man!" 
 
 Burgrave frowned slightly, not caring to joke 
 over business matters. "Ye must not take much 
 wine," he repeated, "and ye must avoid all women. 
 Ah don't just mean common women that I needn't 
 warn ye against but all women. They're all dan- 
 gerous. Even the best of them may ruin a man's 
 business career. The canny ones can wheedle out 
 secrets from a man before he knows that he's giving 
 anything away. Ye have some friends in Berlin, I 
 know. Keep away from the women among them." 
 
 But with his love for Eve rooted deep into the 
 fibers of his being, Warde felt secure against any 
 
 siren. 
 
 ***** 
 
 In the five years since his student days, Berlin 
 had leapt from a dull, undistinguished Prussian 
 town to a feverishly busy, glittering, challenging 
 world city. The West End, to each side of the 
 broad boulevard of the Kurfurstendamm, tingled 
 with the pride of wealth and the refinements that 
 wealth can command. Out beyond, pine forests 
 were being garnered in to form a delightful set- 
 ting for villas, each spaced away sufficiently from 
 its neighbors to suggest a country house rather 
 than a suburban residence within easy call of the 
 city. In the center, between Wilhelmstrasse and 
 Friedrichstrasse, splendid banks and business 
 premises had arisen, designed by architects who 
 were creating a school of architecture decisively
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 69 
 
 characteristic and destined to send its ripples of 
 thought far outside the confines of its own coun- 
 try an architecture with something of the formal 
 simplicity of Egypt, free from meaningless curly- 
 cues and elaborations of scroll work, strong, virile 
 and purposeful. What Reinhardt had given to the 
 theater, these modern young architects were giving 
 to the housing of commerce. The stores of the 
 new Berlin, almost palatial in design and decora- 
 tion, challenged comparison with their confreres of 
 Paris, London and New York. Huge restaurants, 
 each bigger than the last, had sprung up magically. 
 
 Prosperity glittered in the air. The fast-growing 
 commercial wealth of Germany was being sucked 
 into the financial focus of the metropolis. As indic- 
 ative of its spending capacity, Berlin was flaunt- 
 ing the dazzle of its "night life" in the face of 
 Europe. Berliners boasted of their "grosste Nacht- 
 leben in ganzen Europa" just as the natives of a 
 rich mining city might boast of its saloons, dance- 
 halls and gambling dens. Visitors were proudly 
 conducted over a route of cabarets, garish night 
 cafes and meretricious dancing palaces, lasting 
 from ten in the evening till eight in the morning. 
 
 Warde was greatly impressed with the offices and 
 factories of Rademeyer, Schultz and Maccallum. 
 They were the last word in modernity. The best 
 ideas of England and America had been freely, 
 taken and cemented into the fabric of the new Ger- 
 man architecture. , 
 
 The policy of the firm in regard to Warde was 
 apparently to treat him as a distinguished guest 
 and show him everything he might wish to see.
 
 70 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Karl Rademeyer himself was away at the moment 
 of Warde's arrival assisting at the inauguration 
 of a branch foundry in the Essen coal and iron dis- 
 trict destined to supply part of their raw material. 
 The reception duties fell to Maccallum. 
 
 It was odd to find that this man with the Scotch 
 name had a very limited and halting command of 
 English. However, Warde's German was fairly 
 fluent, and their conversation was mostly conducted 
 in that language. Maccallum was a man of thirty- 
 seven, heavily built, slow in movement, but un- 
 doubtedly with a keen, penetrating, organizing 
 brain. He showed Warde over the general fac- 
 tories without any reserve or attempt at concealment 
 of vital processes, answering all his questions, send- 
 ing for departmental heads to explain special tech- 
 nical points. The huge dynamo-building factory, 
 pride of the firm, one enormous hall four-storied in 
 height where a man might feel himself a pigmy 
 in among the complex of high-speed milling ma- 
 chines carving iron like cheese, turbine dynamos in 
 all stages of completion, and traveling cranes that 
 lifted full-grown engines as easily as portmanteaus, 
 was a veritable temple of commerce. At Burgrave's 
 factory in East London, nothing was manufactured 
 on this scale they made electrical apparatus of 
 the smaller kinds, but left dynamo-building to spe- 
 cialized firms up North. 
 
 In the evening, Maccallum took his guest to dine 
 at his club, introducing him freely to big men in 
 the world of German commerce and finance, and 
 then afterward proposed to round off the day with 
 the show route of the cabarets and night cafes.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 71 
 
 But Warde laughingly excused himself on the 
 score of fatigue after the journey from London and 
 the heavy day's sight-seeing. He knew that he 
 needed a clear head to cope with the responsibilities 
 of his commission. The firm of Rademeyer, 
 Schultz and Maccallum were all and more of what 
 he had heard of them by report heavily capitaled, 
 finely organized, finely disciplined, splendidly ef- 
 ficient. The offices and factories were in themselves 
 a striking advertisement of the capabilities of the 
 firm, and from his brief glimpse of their manu- 
 facturing processes, he knew that they must have 
 keen brains within the organization. Naturally he 
 had not been shown the working of their system of 
 wireless telephony. It was not to be expected as 
 yet. The system depended on secrecy until world- 
 patents should be granted. What they had shown 
 him, no doubt of set purpose, were the general re- 
 sources and efficiency of the firm. It gave away 
 nothing as to the strength of their hand in the very 
 complex and difficult problem of wireless telephony 
 a department of science uncharted save for the 
 work of pioneers like Warde. 
 
 In the morning came the conference with Karl 
 Rademeyer, back from his foundry at Essen. The 
 President of the firm was a man of fine presence, 
 exceptionally tall and well-built, with a close- 
 trimmed beard and moustache of dark brown very 
 slightly tinged with gray. He spoke the English 
 of his letter, correct though somewhat stilted. Mac- 
 callum, in the background, listened and said little. 
 
 There was no hurry in the conference. Rade- 
 meyer was careful not to convey any impression
 
 72 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 that he was too busy to give much of his time to 
 the young representative of James Burgrave. On 
 the contrary, he made it flatteringly clear that 
 Warde was a man of importance, to be treated on 
 terms of equality and with studied courtesy. Mac- 
 callum had given up a whole day to the entertain- 
 ment of the firm's guest; Rademeyer was appar- 
 ently prepared to give up several days to the discus- 
 sion of matters preliminary to any definite negotia- 
 tion. 
 
 The conversation at first centered on the neutral 
 subject of Berlin and the visitor's impressions of 
 the city since his last stay. Warde was frank in 
 his appreciation of the startling growth of Berlin 
 in the past few years, though he ventured to ex- 
 press a doubt as to whether the pace could be main- 
 tained. 
 
 "We have grown feverishly, as you say," an- 
 swered Rademeyer. "Much of the growth is mere- 
 tricious yes but it is sound at the core. As you 
 passed through our country on your way from 
 Vlissengen, did you not observe, Herr Warde, that 
 the prosperity is general? That we have new fac- 
 tories arising all along the line of the railway 
 through Westphalia as far as Hannover? Yes?" 
 
 Warde nodded assent. 
 
 "Our banks are greatly interested in our com- 
 mercial development," pursued Rademeyer, "to a 
 much larger extent than is the case of your own 
 banks and your own commerce. Our Government 
 also does much to encourage our industries, espe- 
 cially when such industries are in the nature of 
 experimental. You are aware, no doubt, of the
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 73 
 
 manner in which our Government has subsidized 
 the glass industry of Jena, which now dominates 
 the world for lenses and such-like specialties, and 
 our aniline-dye industry? Pardon me if I seem to 
 be boastful; but I am proud yes of the linking 
 of science and commerce in our country. In any 
 new industry which requires much scientific ex- 
 perimenting, we are able to reckon on the help of 
 our greatest scientists as well as on the help of our 
 Government. You are aware, no doubt, that Pro- 
 fessor Emil Fischer, whose fame as a scientist is 
 world-wide, is now devoting his attention to the 
 problems of the tan-yard? Yes?" 
 
 "A fine man," assented Warde, who had known 
 him at Charlottenburg. He added: "Who has 
 been helping you with wireless telephony?" 
 
 Rademeyer gave three names with deliberate and 
 impressive emphasis. The names were known to 
 Warde, and though they were not men of outstand- 
 ing eminence, like Emil Fischer, he began to realize 
 the heaviness of the task that lay before him. Here 
 in Germany was a firm of immense resources and 
 splendid organization, with the good will of its 
 Government behind it, and the services of highly 
 trained scientists at its command. Over in Eng- 
 land was Burgrave, slow and cautious and unwill- 
 ing to risk much capital, an apathetic Government, 
 and Warde practically alone as the research brains 
 of the enterprise. 
 
 The handicap on England was a heavy one. 
 
 "You mentioned in your letter," said Warde, 
 "that you can now communicate clearly over a dis- 
 tance of several hundred kilometers."
 
 74 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "So can we," continued Warde confidently. 
 
 "Pardon me if I ask an intrusive question, but 
 are you filing your patents?" 
 
 "We have not yet filed them." 
 
 "Then you are not yet sure of your system?" 
 
 "We're sure of our system, but we're not sure 
 that it's the right moment to patent. That could 
 be carried through, if necessary, in a few days." 
 
 "One should be very gareful," put in Maccallum 
 from the background in his guttural English. "One 
 should not hurry." 
 
 "We have a call on G. W. Marshall, K.C.," an- 
 swered Warde. "He's considered to be the great- 
 est authority in England on patent law." 
 
 Rademeyer took the reins again. "Then you and 
 ourselves, we seem to have advanced abreast. That 
 is very interesting. It would be possible yes? 
 that we have both taken the same line of develop- 
 ment." 
 
 "It would be an extraordinary coincidence." 
 
 "Pardon me if I do not altogether agree, Herr 
 Warde. There must be one way which is the nat- 
 ural line of development. You remember, no doubt, 
 that your Darwin and your Russel Wallace ar- 
 rived independently at the same theory of natural 
 selection. That was not a coincidence properly so 
 called." 
 
 To this courteous rejoinder Warde could only 
 express assent. 
 
 "If it is so that we have both taken the same 
 line, then it would be advantageous to both that we 
 were to join forces. Yes?"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 75 
 
 "Possibly," was Warde's guarded answer. 
 
 "On the other hand, if one of us has found the 
 better way, the other must necessarily step aside." 
 
 "Or improve on it." 
 
 "Yes. In either case, then, our interests are 
 greatly in common. To fight against patents is 
 expensive and wasteful. We should not desire to 
 fight against your patent. We should wish to ne- 
 gotiate for the German rights. But if we have 
 found the better way, would you desire to negotiate 
 for the English rights?" 
 
 "It comes to this," said Warde. "Whose is the 
 better system?" 
 
 They had at last got to grips. Rademeyer's 
 voice, under all its studied courtesy, took on a note 
 of authority as he answered: "We are prepared 
 to demonstrate everything to you, if in return you 
 will demonstrate everything to us. That is fair 
 yes?" 
 
 It was by no means a fair proposal. One side 
 stood to gain heavily the side that was less ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 "If you mean a demonstration of apparatus and 
 method in detail," returned Warde firmly, "we 
 could not agree to it." 
 
 There was silence for some moments. 
 
 "I will put my proposal in a different form," 
 resumed Rademeyer. "If we are prepared to 
 demonstrate to you that we can communicate over 
 three hundred kilometers, without letting you in- 
 vestigate our apparatus or know the details of our 
 method, will you in return demonstrate to us in a 
 similar manner over three hundred kilometers?"
 
 76 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 That was, on the face of it, a reasonably fair 
 proposal. Yet it placed Warde on the horns of a 
 dilemma. So far he had not succeeded in getting 
 clear communication over more than a hundred 
 miles. The German firm proposed three hundred 
 kilometers (equal roughly to two hundred miles) 
 for the test. If Warde refused, there would be a 
 strong presumption that his system was not equal to 
 the test information of great value to the rival 
 firm. If Warde accepted, he might be entangling 
 himself in the discredit of a failure to make good. 
 
 He decided to play his hand boldly. "I accept 
 that in principle," he returned. "Naturally I must 
 reserve my acceptance as to details until I hear fur- 
 ther what you propose." 
 
 "Very good. You agree in principle. Shall we 
 make a note of that?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 Maccallum penciled a note on a sheet of paper. 
 
 "Our main station is here in Berlin," resumed 
 Rademeyer. "We have a branch station at Bremen. 
 We can allow you to converse with our operator 
 there." 
 
 "It would be more satisfactory if you would allow 
 some friend of mine to speak at the Bremen end." 
 
 Rademeyer rasped his chair, and he frowned per- 
 ceptibly. "Your suggestion, Herr Warde, shows 
 that you doubt our bona fides! You say that be- 
 cause you fear that the conversation might not come 
 from Bremen yes?" 
 
 "The test must be a conclusive one," rejoined 
 Warde boldly. 
 
 "I cannot agree to allow others than yourself
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 77 
 
 to look into our secrets. But I will meet your 
 doubt by this proposal. Let some friend of yours 
 carry a sealed message to Bremen, and at the time 
 of communication let him hand that message to our 
 operator. Is that not a fair test?" 
 
 "Yes," agreed Warde after a slight pause. 
 
 "Will you in return demonstrate to us communi- 
 cation between London and Briissel?" 
 
 "That would not be the same test it would be 
 over a stretch of the sea." 
 
 "Then you have diffigulty to gommunigate over 
 water?" put in Maccallum. 
 
 "I'd prefer to make our test from London to 
 Plymouth, under practically similar conditions to 
 yours." 
 
 "Will you agree to do so?" 
 
 Warde's heart was beginning to sink. He had 
 been maneuvered, very subtly and cleverly, into 
 a position from which there was no escape without 
 open discredit and damage to the interests of his 
 firm. Believing that Rademeyer was bluffing in his 
 statement that he could communicate over three 
 hundred kilometers, Warde had attempted a coun- 
 ter-bluff. Now his hand was being "called," and he 
 must face his cards on the table. 
 
 "If your test between Berlin and Bremen is car- 
 ried out to my satisfaction," he answered, "I agree 
 to do so." 
 
 "Within a week of our test?" 
 
 "As soon as the installation can be made at 
 Plymouth." 
 
 A typist was called in and directed .to prepare a 
 short document in duplicate. They conversed on
 
 78 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 neutral matters until the typed document had been 
 brought in for their respective signatures. Warde, 
 after making a few slight alterations in wording, 
 signed his name boldly, and in return received the 
 carbon copy signed by Rademeyer. 
 
 "I beg that you will join myself and my family 
 at dinner this evening," offered Rademeyer court- 
 eously. 
 
 "With pleasure." 
 
 "Meanwhile, no doubt, you will be finding your 
 friend who is to go to Bremen to-morrow ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 But that was a problem.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE HOODED SKATER 
 
 It was clear that the delivery of that sealed mes- 
 sage could not be entrusted to any of his German 
 acquaintances, any of whom might conceivably be 
 in sympathy with the firm. Warde thought at first 
 of seeking out a fellow-countryman at the Techni- 
 cal High School at Charlottenburg there would be 
 certain to be a few English students there but the 
 matter at stake was too important to be confided to 
 anyone without definite vouching for his bona fides. 
 To send for an employee at the Burgrave works 
 would involve a delay of a day or more, and it 
 seemed somewhat ridiculous to bring a man all the 
 way from England simply to carry a sealed en- 
 velope from Berlin to Bremen. 
 
 Warde decided to call at the British Consulate, 
 and ask them to recommend him an Englishman in 
 Berlin to whom he could entrust this mission. His 
 card obtained him the attention of the Consul him- 
 self, and the latter gave him the name and address 
 of an English teacher and translator who would 
 doubtless be glad to earn a little extra money. This 
 man Stevens was certified as honest and trust- 
 worthy. Warde, on seeing him, decided that the 
 recommendation was sound. 
 
 79
 
 80 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 He then made the following arrangement. Ste- 
 vens was to meet him at a cafe near the Friedrich- 
 strasse terminus shortly before ten o'clock the next 
 morning. Warde would then hand over two sealed 
 envelopes to be taken to Bremen on the ten o'clock 
 express. They were not to leave Stevens' posses- 
 sion before three o'clock in the afternoon, when he 
 was to give No. i to the Bremen operator. On 
 request, but only on request, he was to give up No. 
 2. He was not to allow them out of his possession 
 before three o'clock on any pretext whatever, nor 
 was he to let anyone know that he had more than 
 one message to deliver. Directly he had given up 
 the second envelope, he was to send a code telegram 
 to Warde telling him of the exact time of delivery 
 of both messages, return by the next train to Ber- 
 lin, and call at Warde's hotel. 
 
 Stevens accepted the mission with alacrity, and 
 promised that he would carry out orders faithfully 
 and accurately. 
 
 "Set your watch by railway time at Bremen sta- 
 tion," was Warde's last word. 
 
 In this manner Warde hoped to guard himself 
 against the possibility of trickery. Though it was 
 highly unlikely that a firm of the standing of Rade- 
 meyer, Schultz and Maccallum would descend to 
 any underhand practice, yet it was only prudent to 
 take precautions. He must be satisfied that the 
 message came from Bremen, and he must know the 
 exact time the envelopes were given up for trans- 
 mission. 
 
 ******
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 81 
 
 In the evening came the dinner with the Rade- 
 meyers. 
 
 With most German business men it was the cus- 
 tom to dine in the middle of the day, and to take 
 an afternoon siesta before resuming work. Active 
 business would be at a standstill for two or three 
 hours. Even an important negotiation would have 
 to give way to the sacred "Pause." The firm of 
 Rademeyer, Schutz and Maccallum, however, had 
 adopted "Englische Stunde," allowing only a short 
 midday interval, taking a quick lunch, eliminating 
 the siesta, and closing offices and factories at an 
 earlier hour than the majority of Berlin business 
 firms. So it came about that Karl Rademeyer dined 
 instead of supped in the evening. 
 
 His family was a large one, and a charming one. 
 Frau Rademeyer was kindness itself, mothering 
 Warde with a delightful naivete. Of her several 
 pretty daughters, Kathi, the eldest, was regarded 
 as one of the belles of Berlin. Smiling to himself, 
 Warde thought of Burgrave's warning but with 
 Eve in his heart, there was no need to steel himself 
 against sirens. 
 
 After the dinner they took him to a fashionable 
 "Eis-Palast" in the West End, where smart society 
 skated and waltzed on a perfect ice-floor in the heat 
 of summer. Warde found himself partnered with 
 dancers whose gracefulness put his own movements 
 to shame. It was in its way a relief when the floor 
 was cleared for an entertainment provided by pro- 
 fessional skaters, and the Rademeyer party ad- 
 journed to a reserved supper-table in the gallery. 
 
 The arc-lights of the arena were extinguished
 
 82 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 with a sudden fizz and splutter. Four limelights at 
 the corners of the hall took possession; the orches- 
 tra glided into the opening phrases of the "Tango 
 Argentine," then in its first budding of its popular- 
 ity; and eight dancers dressed in the national cos- 
 tume of the Argentine filed out to take their places, 
 each pair followed by a guardian limelight. Warde 
 had never seen such perfection of skating as was 
 now presented before him effortless, untiring, 
 ethereal, art concealed by art. Noisy supper-parties 
 stilled to watch the dancers; in the silence, the 
 popping of a champagne cork was received with a 
 hiss of disapproval. 
 
 The second item of the program was comic re- 
 lief a burlesque push-ball match on skates between 
 two teams labeled as England and Germany. Nat- 
 urally it was arranged to provide a last-moment 
 triumph for the fatherland. 
 
 Karl Rademeyer took the opportunity of asking 
 an important question: 
 
 "Have you found your friend who is to go to 
 Bremen to-morrow?" 
 
 "Yes. I've arranged for him to be at your 
 Bremen office at three o'clock. Will that hour be 
 convenient for you?" 
 
 "Perfectly convenient. We desire to meet you in 
 every possible way. Let him hand his message to 
 our operator at precisely three o'clock." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 "I would suggest that you come to our Berlin 
 office at two-thirty. Between that time and three 
 o'clock you will be able to converse with our Bremen 
 operator and make any preliminary test you desire.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 83 
 
 Except that we cannot allow you to examine our 
 apparatus or learn our secrets of operation, you are 
 at liberty to satisfy yourself in every possible way. 
 Yes?" 
 
 "Two-thirty will suit me admirably." 
 Then the house stilled to the advent of a slender 
 girl skater in loose white draperies. She glided to 
 the center of the ice; the four limelights changed 
 from white to red, green, orange and violet ; and in 
 their prismatic beams she began the butterfly dance. 
 It was the very poetry of skating. She seemed to 
 dart forward on the wings of her extended draper- 
 ies, to hover in the air, to alight on a flower, to flit 
 away, to droop, to wilt, to come to rest with folded 
 wings ; to stir to the scent of the music, to awake, to 
 dart once more into the air, to become intoxicated 
 with the joy of flight, to whirl in the love-dance of 
 the ephemera, to sink to the ground in a last flutter 
 of iridescent draperies. 
 
 The spectators shouted their approval as she 
 ended; and then a stir of excitement took posses- 
 sion. The last item of the program was a novelty 
 announced in large type as "The Mysterious 
 Hooded Skater." He entered the arena a tall, 
 enigmatic man. The management publicly blind- 
 folded him, and then drew a thick black hood over 
 his head. He was led to the center of the arena, 
 and the orchestra began a pot-pourri of popular 
 melodies. Meanwhile an assistant had been going 
 the round of the supper-parties with slips of paper, 
 inviting them to write down any skating figure they 
 would like to see carried out. These slips he took 
 with him to one end of the hall where a blackboard
 
 84 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 had been set up. Selecting a slip of paper at ran- 
 dom, he read it and silently chalked up "Grape- 
 vine." 
 
 The hooded skater had been turned with his back 
 to the blackboard; he put his hand to his forehead 
 for a few minutes, and then began to skate the 
 figure of the grape-vine. Again and again were di- 
 rections chalked up, and in each case the skater 
 carried out the figure correctly. The management 
 invited inspection of the hood and bandage, while 
 the audience were buzzing with guesses of "how it 
 was done." The hood was replaced and the per- 
 formance repeated, to the added puzzlement of the 
 spectators. How was it possible, except by thought- 
 reading, that the hooded man should know what was 
 being written on the blackboard? 
 
 With a final burst of triumph from the orchestra, 
 he bowed slightly, and was led away from the arena. 
 
 To Warde, this was more than a mere vaude- 
 ville "turn." It suggested his own problem of to- 
 morrow the reality of wireless telephony between 
 Berlin and Bremen. He asked himself this : if 
 a whole audience could be deceived by a performer's 
 trick pretending to be telepathy, might not he him- 
 self be deceived by a clever arrangement pretend- 
 ing to be wireless telephony ? 
 
 Before he went to sleep that night, he had planned 
 out a new set of precautions which would entirely 
 avoid any dependence on the accuracy of Stevens' 
 watch or the accuracy of Stevens' reading of the 
 watch. Warde must count on the man's honesty, 
 but he need not now count on his intelligence. He 
 intended to eliminate the "personal equation."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 COUNTING THE SECONDS 
 
 At the rendezvous near the Friedrichstrasse 
 Bahnhof, Warde handed three sealed envelopes 
 to Stevens instead of two. They contained mes- 
 sages in German. 
 
 "Give up No. i at three o'clock," he directed. 
 "No. 2 only on request from the operator. No. 3 
 only on a second request from the operator. Don't 
 let anyone know before hand that you have three 
 envelopes. Otherwise our previous arrangements 
 hold good." 
 
 "I will carry out your orders exactly, sir," as- 
 sured Stevens. "You can be quite easy in mind 
 about that. If anything unforeseen should happen, 
 I will wire at once to your hotel." 
 
 Warde then made for a shop selling office devices, 
 where he bought for his own use a time-stamping 
 machine. This instrument, small enough to be car- 
 ried in the pocket, would stamp the hour, minute 
 and second on a roll of paper by the action of press- 
 ing a knob. 
 
 At two-thirty he was at the offices of Rademeyer, 
 Schultz and Maccallum, and was at once shown to 
 a room under the dome of the roof. The greater 
 part of the room was screened off by a rough board 
 
 85
 
 86 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 partition evidently erected for the. occasion. In 
 the open against the partition was a small table on 
 which rested a receiver and transmitter, wrapped 
 in cloth so as to conceal their shape, with only the 
 openings free to his view. That was within the 
 letter of the contract, and Warde had no objection 
 to raise. 
 
 "We have tuned up our instruments and are now 
 in touch with Bremen," said Rademeyer. "Will you 
 care to speak to our operator?" 
 
 Warde's pulse was hammering in every limb as 
 he seated himself before the transmitter and began 
 in German: 
 
 "Hullo, are you there?" 
 
 "Hullo. This is Bremen," came the answer in 
 the same language. "Is that Herr Warde?" 
 
 "Please speak louder." 
 
 "Is that Herr Warde?" 
 
 "Yes. Now please speak lower. . . . Lower 
 still. . . . Whisper. . . . Tap a pencil against your 
 transmitter. . . . Tap a pencil against your 
 table. . . . Whistle softly. . . ." 
 
 Maccallum, behind the partition, called out: 
 "Gan you hear very glear? If you gannot, I will 
 make to adjust." 
 
 "Perfectly clear, thank you," returned Warde. 
 Then into the instrument: "Have you a Bremen 
 afternoon newspaper?" 
 
 "No," came the answer, "but I will get one and 
 read to you from it." 
 
 There was silence for some time while presum- 
 ably the newspaper was being obtained by the op- 
 erator. Warde, with a sinking heart, knew it for
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 87 
 
 the peculiar silence of wireless telephony, very dif- 
 ferent from the silence of an ordinary telephone. The 
 latter is filled with vague tremors and murmurings 
 due to induction currents in the wires, but the for- 
 mer is disturbed only by peculiar and characteristic 
 scratchings due to atmospheric electrical disturb- 
 ances. Warde knew the difference too well to be 
 mistaken on the point. This was indeed a demon- 
 stration of wireless telephony he was not being 
 deceived by the use of a trunk telephone wire be- 
 tween Berlin and Bremen. But he still had to be 
 convinced that he was speaking to Bremen, and not 
 to an installation in perhaps another room of the 
 building he was now in. 
 
 The operator resumed : "Hullo, are you there ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I will now read to you from an edition of the 
 'Bremen Anzeiger,' which is sold on the streets 
 after two o'clock in the afternoon. When I have 
 finished I will post you the newspaper marked with 
 what I have been reading." The operator then pro- 
 ceeded to call out one fragment of letterpress after 
 another until Warde expressed himself satisfied with 
 the test. 
 
 "Has Herr Stevens arrived at your office?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "I will inquire." Presently the answer came: 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Let me know as soon as he arrives." 
 
 It was ten minutes to three when the word came 
 that Stevens had reached the office and was waiting 
 in an ante-room. 
 
 "Ask him for my message," said Warde.
 
 88 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 There was silence while presumably the operator 
 went for the envelope. 
 
 "Herr Stevens states that he will not give up 
 the message before three o'clock," was the reply 
 after a delay of a minute or so. 
 
 By that, Warde knew he had a faithful mes- 
 senger in Stevens one who was not to be deluded 
 into disobeying orders. 
 
 Shortly after three o'clock the operator called : 
 "I have now the envelope from Herr Stevens. I 
 open it and read out: 'Saltness. Beatrice is on 
 the island. Famine imminent. Urge carload of 
 food here.' " 
 
 By turn of fancy, Warde had taken his test 
 messages from those used on the day when the 
 Merenthorpe party had descended on Saltness. He 
 answered: "Right. Ask Herr Stevens for the 
 second message," and as he spoke the words he 
 pressed in his side-pocket the knob of the time- 
 stamping machine. 
 
 Again a short delay. 
 
 Then the voice of the operator : "I have now a 
 second envelope from Herr Stevens. I open it 
 and read out : This is Evelyn. Come to my res- 
 cue.' " 
 
 Warde pressed the knob of the time-stamp a 
 second time and answered : "Ask him for the third 
 message." 
 
 This time the wait was considerably longer. 
 Rademeyer, watching keenly behind Warde's back, 
 frowned heavily as the moments dragged on into 
 minutes. From behind the screen Maccallum 
 coughed to clear his throat.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 89 
 
 When the operator's voice was again heard, 
 Warde made a third pressure on his time-stamp in 
 his pocket. 
 
 "Please excuse the delay," said the operator. 
 "I was so unfortunate as to jam my finger in the 
 door, and I turned sick. I now read from the third 
 envelope." 
 
 This time the message was a very long one, a 
 whole newspaper column taking several minutes to 
 deliver. On the last word, Warde pressed his time- 
 stamp for the fourth and last time. 
 
 "Right," he answered. "You have sent my mes- 
 sages perfectly. Best thanks !" 
 
 And he turned to face Rademeyer with a frank 
 appreciation: "The transmission is excellent. I 
 scarcely lost a word of the messages. I congratu- 
 late you!" 
 
 "You are satisfied with your tests ?" asked Rade- 
 meyer. 
 
 "I must wait, of course, to exchange notes with 
 Mr. Stevens. He'll be returning to Berlin to-night." 
 
 "Naturally. That is only prudent. Shall we 
 meet to discuss further matters to-morrow morning 
 at ten o'clock yes?" 
 
 "That will be quite convenient for me." 
 
 Late that evening Stevens presented himself at 
 Warde's hotel. His account of the day's doings at 
 Bremen was plain and straightforward. No at- 
 tempt had been made to get hold of his messages 
 beyond one request at about ten minutes to three. 
 (Warde nodded.) He had refused that; otherwise 
 the proceedings were exactly as expected. 
 
 "One more question," said Warde. "When the
 
 90 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 operator came to you for the third message, did he 
 in coming or going jam his finger in the door?" 
 
 "No!" answered Stevens in surprise. 
 
 "Was he transmitting in the next room to 
 yours ?" 
 
 "That I can't say. I was kept in a waiting-room 
 on the first floor." 
 
 He left Warde deep in thought, studying the 
 roll of paper from his time-stamp. The impressions 
 of the instrument were these : 
 
 Asked for message 2 3.0.42 
 
 Received message 2 3.1-23 
 
 Received first word of message 3 3.5.08 
 
 Received last word of message 3 3.8.10 
 
 On their right interpretation hung Warde' s 
 career. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Again Rademeyer's office; he and Warde facing 
 one another across the flat oaken desk; Maccallum 
 in the background. Outwardly, an interview of 
 perfect friendliness. 
 
 "Did you see your Herr Stevens last night?" 
 Rademeyer was saying. "Did he assure you of 
 the correct delivery of your messages yes?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 "Have you any further questions you would like 
 to ask of us? Do not hesitate, I beg of you." 
 
 "I have," replied Warde, and taking a slip of 
 paper from his pocket-book, he passed it across the 
 desk. "This is a record of the time when I received 
 my first message and asked for the next. You see
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 91 
 
 that it marks 42 seconds past .the hour, whereas Mr. 
 Stevens tells me that he gave up the message at 
 three o'clock to the instant." 
 
 Rademeyer smiled in friendly fashion. "It is 
 possible yes? that there may have been a dif- 
 ference of half a minute between your watch and 
 Herr Stevens'. Then you must also remember that 
 he was waiting in another room from that in which 
 our operator was transmitting, and to carry his mes- 
 sage from one to the other requires time. Thirdly, 
 you say that you took the time after you had re- 
 ceived the message, and so you must allow 10 or 
 15 seconds for that message to be spoken. Yes?" 
 
 "I agree," said Warde. "Let's pass on to my 
 next point. Here is another time-record the time 
 of receiving the second message." He passed an- 
 other slip of paper to Rademeyer. "You see that 
 it marks 3.1.23, which means that it took 41 sec- 
 onds to get my second envelope, open it, and trans- 
 mit half a dozen words." 
 
 "Already, Herr Warde, I have explained to you 
 that your messenger was not in the same room with 
 our operator. The latter was in a room under the 
 roof, and I understand that your Mr. Stevens was 
 in the waiting-room, which is on the first floor. You 
 must allow sufficient time to go downstairs and up- 
 stairs again. Forty-one seconds he must indeed 
 have run up and down those stairs." 
 
 "I accept that," answered Warde evenly. "Let 
 us reckon 41 seconds as the time taken to go for 
 the envelope and return. Here is a third slip, the 
 time of receiving the first word of message 3 
 3.5.08. There was a delay of 3 minutes 45 seconds.
 
 92 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Deduct the 41 seconds I have already accepted, and 
 it still leaves 3 minutes 4 seconds unaccounted for." 
 
 "But our operator jammed his finger in the door 
 and turned faint!" protested Rademeyer. 
 
 Warde smashed home a question : "How did you 
 know that?" 
 
 For just a fleeting moment Rademeyer hesitated 
 over his answer. For a fraction of a second his 
 brain wavered over the correct excuse to make. 
 "I knew that there was a delay, and so I afterward 
 telephoned to our operator to ask the reason for it. 
 He told me that he had caught his finger in the 
 door and that he nearly fainted from the pain of 
 it. It was some minutes before he recovered. If 
 you do not believe me, Herr Warde, I will send for 
 the operator this very day and you can see his 
 damaged finger for yourself." 
 
 Warde passed over the fourth time-record to 
 Rademeyer. "This represents the time of receiving 
 the last word of the last message 3.8.10. It means 
 that 3 minutes 2 seconds were required for the 
 transmission of the newspaper column. That time 
 is startlingly close to the 3 minutes 4 seconds during 
 which your operator was recovering from his hurt." 
 
 "I beg that you will put your accusation into 
 plain language," returned Rademeyer stiffly. 
 
 "I will reply by an analogy," rejoined Warde. 
 "The evening before last, we were at the Eis-Palast 
 watching the very clever performance of the hooded 
 skater. An operator chalked up a message on a 
 blackboard, and after a short but perceptible inter- 
 val the hooded man received the message and acted 
 on it. Can you explain it to me?"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 93 
 
 "What has this to do with the subject of our 
 discussion ?" 
 
 "Did you realize that the blackboard message 
 was being taken by the conductor of the orchestra, 
 and that he was incorporating it into his pot-pourri 
 music? In other words, that message was relayed." 
 
 "Egsplain yourself!" demanded Maccallum with 
 a threatening note in his voice. 
 
 "There was a delay of 3 minutes 4 seconds in the 
 transmission of my newspaper column, just the 
 time necessary to send it from Bremen to Berlin by 
 trunk telephone wire and take it down in short- 
 hand, before relaying it by wireless to myself." 
 
 "You agguse us of that?" 
 
 "I make no accusation. I point out the startling 
 coincidence between 3 minutes 4 seconds of delay, 
 and 3 minutes 2 seconds necessary to transmit a 
 newspaper column." 
 
 "I will at once send for the operator and confront 
 him with you!" said Rademeyer angrily. "Never 
 in all the history of our firm have we been accused 
 of trickery! You shall see the injured finger for 
 yourself. And then, I hope, you will be good 
 enough to make an unconditional apology to us !" 
 
 Warde could picture the unfortunate man at 
 Bremen being required to jam his finger in a door 
 before traveling to Berlin with it as evidence. He 
 answered : "It is unnecessary to send for him, be- 
 cause I shall be taking the midday express back to 
 England." 
 
 "You mean that you refuse to carry out your 
 signed agreement." 
 
 "My signed agreement was conditional on your
 
 94 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 test being carried out satisfactorily. The test was 
 not satisfactory, and therefore the agreement is null 
 and void." 
 
 Warde rose to take his leave. 
 
 Maccallum made quickly toward the door as 
 though he would bar the exit, but realizing the 
 futility of such a move, stopped short. 
 
 "You will pay for this!" he flung at Warde.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A LOVER'S PARTING 
 
 "Well, lad?" greeted Burgrave. 
 
 "They're scared of us!" smiled Warde, sum- 
 marizing the situation in one phrase. 
 
 "How far can they telephone?" 
 
 "I know how far they can't and that's two hun- 
 dred miles. On the evidence they gave me, they 
 have a system of sorts, and they've been trying to 
 bluff us that it's nearly perfected. They've been 
 wanting to frighten us into patenting hurriedly." 
 
 "Now tell me everything from the beginning." 
 
 Warde gave a complete account of his visit to 
 Berlin Burgrave interposing a shrewd nod and a 
 question here and there. He was not the man to 
 give much praise to his subordinates, and he did 
 not intend to let Warde feel puffed up. 
 
 "Ye ran a great risk in agreeing to telephone from 
 London to Plymouth," was his sober comment. 
 
 "One has to run risks in a big game. I felt they 
 were bluffing and I called their bluff." 
 
 "They won't readily forgive ye for that." 
 
 "What can they do?" 
 
 "Ye say that they have a system with a good 
 transmission " 
 
 "But on the evidence of the test, it might have 
 95
 
 96 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 been merely from one room in the head office to 
 another. That would be two years behind ours." 
 
 "It might have been halfway between Berlin 
 and Bremen. We mustn't be overconfident. We 
 only know that we have a start of them, and we 
 must work harder and quicker than ever. The 
 yacht is ready for ye can ye start to-day?" 
 
 Warde felt somewhat disappointed at the cautious 
 commendation of his chief. However, he agreed, 
 packed up some personal effects, and went to the 
 Lower Thames dockyard where the yacht had been 
 fitted up for experimental purposes. She was a 
 small schooner needing only a skipper, three seamen, 
 and a cook to man her a steady, sober, unpre- 
 tentious craft. A slow sailer, but speed was of no 
 importance to Warde. 
 
 Before settling down to the routine of the ex- 
 perimental work at sea, he went to say good-by to 
 Eve. Taking the yacht into Queensboro' Harbor, 
 he allowed himself a day in which to travel to his 
 godmother's ; and in the "friend-room" he made his 
 adieu to the girl he loved. 
 
 "Three months before we see one another again ! 
 If I hadn't my work, I should go mad with longing 
 for you." 
 
 " 'Man's love is of his life a thing apart,' " quoted 
 Eve. 
 
 "And is it your 'whole existence' ?" 
 
 "No," she admitted with a frank self-analysis. 
 "I don't feel that I could ever love in that way. I 
 must have my career too." 
 
 "With me, you would have it. There's a big
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 97 
 
 fight ahead. I need your inspiration as well as your 
 love." 
 
 "Is it fair to us that we should have no career 
 apart from men?" 
 
 "Tell me what it is you're wanting, dearest," he 
 answered tenderly. 
 
 "I scarcely know. Don't you see that I have to 
 find myself?" 
 
 Again Warde felt the mysterious barrier of sex. 
 His own desires and feelings were so plain and 
 straightforward. With his whole heart he wanted 
 her love and companionship, coexistent with the 
 pursuit of his ambition to wrest the secrets of Na- 
 ture and make his country "mistress of the ether." 
 It was hard to understand Eve's complexity of 
 moods. She had admitted that she loved him it 
 was clear too from the light in her eyes when she 
 had greeted him. Could not his love satisfy her? 
 No, she wanted a career as well. But what career 
 for her could it be apart from marriage ? 
 
 "You don't want to marry?" he groped. 
 
 "Oh, but I do!" 
 
 "Are you sure of that?" 
 
 "Quite sure." 
 
 "I wish I could understand your difficulty." 
 
 "There are so many other things in marriage 
 besides love." 
 
 "Of course there's your father's objection to me. 
 I'm not in Debrett." 
 
 The look she flashed at him told him clearly that 
 he counted with her far beyond her father's 
 prejudices. 
 
 "And I've not yet made my position. If I had
 
 98 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 any doubts about the future, I shouldn't be asking 
 you to share my life. But I'm sure! In a few 
 years' time I'll have made the world realize what's 
 in me. I shall be able to give you not only love, 
 but position and power and all the beautiful things 
 you told me you longed for !" 
 
 "Don't, Hilary!" she pleaded. "Don't press me 
 to give you a definite answer." 
 
 "You're right. I'm a brute," he returned peni- 
 tently. "You must go for your cruise with Esk 
 and be quite free to make your choice." 
 
 "It's only to test myself." 
 
 "I know that. Yet, in a way, I wish we were 
 doing what Bee proposed in jest making a run- 
 away marriage without caring a hang for the 
 world's opinion. That would be clean and strong." 
 
 "If we were savages, it would be. But we're 
 civilized man and woman." 
 
 "Is civilization progress?" he queried. 
 
 "We have to take the world as we find it." 
 
 "No, we have to take the world and shake it." 
 
 "If I were to run away with you, as" Eve 
 
 hesitated for a moment, and then continued boldly 
 
 "as I long to do, I might wake up from my 
 
 dream to a cold gray dawn of reality and find my- 
 self. Think of the horror of finding oneself after 
 one had made an irrevocable step !" 
 
 Was this the laughing, teasing Eve of that day at 
 Saltness, and of many other days of tennis and pic- 
 nic and the surface amusements of life. Warde 
 began to feel that the more he learnt of her inner 
 depths, the less he understood her. But the passion 
 of his love swept doubts away.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 99 
 
 "All red-blooded life's a risk and a gamble. 
 That's the spice of it. Those who try to play safe 
 in everything miss the zest of life. If we married, 
 you would be risking something. Perhaps you 
 would be disappointed in me. I'm not the ideal 
 lover. But I should try to make you the happiest 
 woman in the world. I should try !" 
 
 "It's not you I'm afraid of it's myself." 
 
 "There will be three months in which to test 
 yourself." 
 
 "Would you be very disappointed if I were to 
 find that I couldn't marry you?" 
 
 Warde tried to control his emotions, but the lines 
 of pain on his features told her plainly. 
 
 "Oh, Hilary, I'm not worth it !" 
 
 "You're worth all that a man can give!" 
 
 "I'm weak and vain and selfish." 
 
 "You're saying so proves that you're strong and 
 big." 
 
 "You carry me out of myself !" 
 
 "Trust to me, dearest." 
 
 He took her hand and pressed to his lips each 
 separate finger, while the flood of love mounted 
 high in her cheeks. 
 
 Presently he resumed : "You'll write to me from 
 every port, won't you?" 
 
 "Yes, I promise." 
 
 "And tell me everything your plans, your feel- 
 ings, everything?" 
 
 She broke the tension with a laugh that rippled 
 and eddied. "No girl could promise that and keep 
 her promise!" 
 
 He smiled back in sympathy. "I'm too greedy."
 
 100 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "You mustn't try to tie me until I come to you 
 freely." 
 
 "No, I'm prepared to wait." 
 
 "I shall let you know the plans of the cruise and 
 the dates we expect to reach port, so that you can 
 answer my letters." 
 
 "How crude and clumsy it is this letter busi- 
 ness ! To wait six weeks for an answer. And then 
 perhaps my answers might reach your port the day 
 after you had sailed away. When wireless tele- 
 phony girdles the earth, lovers like you and I will 
 talk to one another across the ocean. My work 
 will serve not only commerce and diplomacy and 
 governance, but love as well!" 
 
 The village clock chiming out the hour reminded 
 Eve that she must return to Beechhurst, and she 
 rose from the window-seat to say good-by. 
 
 "We've never yet kissed," he said. "Grant me 
 a kiss to carry in my heart for these long weary 
 months to come." 
 
 She hesitated. "Only one," was her condition. 
 
 But he took her masterfully in his arms and 
 kissed her full upon the lips again and again. 
 
 Color flooded her cheeks. Her bosom heaved. 
 She strove to master her feelings. 
 
 "How beautiful you are!" he murmured inade- 
 quately, and then in the full drive of passion : "For 
 
 you I would sign away my soul!" 
 
 ****** 
 
 After Eve had left, Miss Glenistair came to her 
 godson and looked him in the eyes with a great 
 tenderness of sympathy. 
 
 "I hope indeed that your hopes will be fulfilled,
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 101 
 
 dear Hilary; but do not build your whole life on the 
 shifting sands of a woman's feelings. You have 
 your work to do a great work." 
 
 "Love is the greatest thing in the world!" he 
 declared passionately.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THREE MONTHS APART 
 
 There ensued for Warde months of quiet, pur- 
 poseful, uneventful work amongst the waters of 
 the North Sea. He cruised in slow zig-zags with 
 an eastward trending, gradually increasing the dis- 
 tance from the factory in London, stretching out 
 the spider-web of communication to eighty, a hun- 
 dred, a hundred and twenty miles, until a sudden 
 change of weather conditions would snap the at- 
 tenuated thread and he would hasten Londonward 
 to pick up the connection once again. 
 
 Stripped of technicalities, Warde's main problem 
 lay in this : The wireless waves went out in straight 
 lines, like the rays from a lighthouse, whilst the sur- 
 face of the earth was curved. A ship might be able 
 to catch the lighthouse rays thirty or forty miles out, 
 but after that distance the bulge of the earth would 
 intervene, however powerful the light might be. 
 So with wireless telephony. Warde was finding that 
 with his present system a hundred miles or so was 
 the practical limit, and no increase of power from 
 the transmitting station or refinement of apparatus 
 at the receiving station could greatly increase that 
 limit. Bulgrave, with his shrewd common sense, 
 had foreseen just such a natural stumbling-block. 
 
 102
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 103 
 
 But if Warde could so take advantage of the 
 laws of nature as to bend his ether waves to the 
 curvature of the earth, as the winds are bent, then 
 a wave could be sent right round the globe. Tech- 
 nically, it was a "diffraction" problem. It was 
 necessary for him to invent a new twist to his 
 present system, and on that he now contracted all 
 his powers of mind and all his resources as an ex- 
 perimentalist. 
 
 He began to know the North Sea in a score of 
 moods. In the laze of summer calm, when the 
 waters drowse glassily and the heat-haze sews sea 
 to sky .... stirring to the whisper of the coming 
 breeze and crinkled like soft blue lamp shade paper 
 .... awake and with wavelets gamboling like kit- 
 tens at play .... rousing to the call of manhood, 
 with strong, virile waves setting out on their jour- 
 ney to unseen shores .... driving forward in 
 grim, slag-gray purpose .... breasting a cross- 
 wind that whips their faces as though to drive them 
 back from their goal .... fighting onward in a 
 tangle of great rollers and lesser waves and hissing, 
 snaky ripples .... crashing forces with hostile 
 waves driven by the flail of furious lashing gales 
 .... thundering out the mighty harmonies of the 
 storm that no human pen can put to paper .... 
 and then, on the morrow, exhausted by the struggle, 
 the waters lying prostrate, panting and heaving, 
 subdued yet never tamed, resting yet restless, beaten 
 but to gather strength for a generation that would 
 fight anew. 
 
 An epitome of the spirit of man that drives on 
 to progress though the goal is unseen and the ulti-
 
 104 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 mate purpose hidden; that meets with the cross- 
 winds of nature and is whipped back ; that fights on ; 
 that is beaten in the struggle; and yet, untamed, 
 hands on the torch of endeavor to the generation 
 
 that follows. 
 
 ****** 
 
 At intervals Warde put back to port in order to 
 receive his letters and take on fresh supplies of 
 provisions. 
 
 Eve wrote to him from Nice, where she and 
 Viola and her father joined the Esk yacht party; 
 from Majorca; from Gibraltar; from Madeira; and 
 then, after a weary wait, he received a letter from 
 Buenos Ayres. 
 
 He found her letters vaguely disturbing. They 
 were too impersonal, too full of accounts of sight- 
 seeing, of shipboard amusements, of humorous lit- 
 tle episodes of travel. They reflected the Eve of 
 the tennis parties and picnics and surface trivialities 
 of life. He wanted to know of her inner feelings. 
 He wanted letters that no eye but his own ought to 
 read. He had hoped that she would tell him some- 
 thing of her feelings toward Esk and toward him- 
 self. 
 
 In brief, they were not love letters; and though 
 he treasured them for a scrap here and there that 
 made his pulses leap, yet they left him unsatisfied 
 and with a feeling of distance between them that 
 was more than physical. Into his own letters he 
 poured out his whole heart. He laid bare his soul. 
 Something of his disappointment crept into them, 
 because he wanted her to know his innermost depths 
 of feeling.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 105 
 
 Eve's first answer came from Rio, and it was 
 dated some two months later than the good-by 
 meeting at Miss Glenistair's. 
 
 "My dearest Hilary," she wrote, "How exacting 
 you are! I see you frowning at me because I 
 haven't made my letters a crazy-quilt of all my con- 
 tradictory moods and feelings. If I did, I doubt if 
 it would satisfy you. You scientists are so orderly 
 and logical that you can't understand how a girl 
 may love to be illogical. Being illogical is like get- 
 ting into comfy slippers and tea-gown and letting 
 one's hair dangle. 
 
 "Vi is engaged to Geoffrey Armadale. They 
 seem very happy, and father blesses them audibly, 
 setting them up as the model lesson for myself and 
 Bee. Geoffrey is so rich that I believe he has a 
 motor to match every suit of clothes. 
 
 "I have the chance of being Marchioness of Esk, 
 Countess of Lidderdale, and all sorts of minor titles, 
 if I care to accept. Francis is not at all a bad sort 
 when one comes to know him if only he didn't 
 wear a toupee ! and he is terribly in love with me. 
 Everyone expects me to accept. 
 
 "From Buenos Ayres we trained it over the 
 Andes to Valparaiso. . . . (Several pages of 
 travel talk followed.) 
 
 "But I have not committed myself I mean in 
 regard to Francis. Your letters make me feel so 
 glad, and at the same time so unworthy. Some- 
 times I wish you were not in love with me, nor I 
 with you. Love is so ruthless, so regardless of 
 one's normal feelings. Society and the conventions
 
 106 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 of life tell me to marry Francis; love tells me to 
 marry you. When I sit in a deck-chair in the moon- 
 light and he sits beside and talks to me, I say to 
 myself: 'If only he were you! If only you were 
 the Marquis of Esk!' 
 
 "A letter by return to Jamaica might reach me, 
 but I'm not sure. We may be back in England 
 within a fortnight of the arrival of this letter. 
 
 "Sometimes I long for this cruise to end, so that 
 I might be back with you (Warde kissed the 
 words) and sometimes I long for the cruise to 
 continue forever, so that I might learn to forget 
 you. But you fill my thoughts, crowding out the 
 rest of the world. You would feel very flattered if 
 I told you what I had done with your letters. 
 
 "How I ramble on! Perhaps you see now what 
 an unorderly girl you are placing on your pedestal. 
 
 "Francis is coming along the deck with the 
 'gathering' look in his eye. I'm to be whirled 
 away for a jaunt over the harbor or up to the moun- 
 tains. Good-by for the moment, dear Hilary! A 
 kiss (only one this time). 
 
 "From 
 
 "EVE." 
 
 That, much more than the former letters, was 
 what Warde had been hoping for, yet still it left 
 him unsatisfied. Eve had not yet "found herself" 
 she had not yet made her decision. He was racked 
 with the torments of uncertainty. Suppose that the 
 allurements of the material advantages Esk could 
 offer her, together with the urgings of her family 
 and the tacit advice of her circle, were to weigh
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 107 
 
 with her against love and the gamble of Warde's 
 career ? 
 
 Toward the end of September, near to the time 
 when the Esk party were expected back in Eng- 
 land, Warde left the schooner in harbor at 
 Burnham-on-Crouch, and went to London to con-s 
 suit a lawyer. He wanted a draft agreement of 
 partnership drawn up, so that he could present 
 it to Burgrave and make a definite settlement for 
 the future.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AN APPROACH TO PARADINE 
 
 Burgrave examined the partnership document 
 very carefully, very methodically. "Ye've had a 
 good lawyer to draw this up," was his comment. 
 
 "Yes," answered Warde readily. "I know very 
 little about legal technicalities, and care less, so I 
 took the matter to the best firm I could hear of." 
 
 "A first-class lawyer," continued Burgrave dryly. 
 "He's assigned to ye about four times as much as 
 any business man would care to yield." 
 
 "Then will you mark the clauses you object to?" 
 
 "It would be a waste of good pencil, lad. This 
 whole agreement is impossible." 
 
 "Mr. Burgrave, I'm going to be very frank with 
 you. I need a partnership agreement vitally, be- 
 cause because I'm hoping to get engaged. Her 
 father looks down on my position as a salaried em- 
 ployee, and he's urging his daughter to refuse me 
 and accept an offer from a man of title and large 
 income. The position is a very delicate one, and 
 I need to show him my prospects in plain black and 
 white. You understand now why I'm bringing this 
 draft agreement to you?" 
 
 "May Ah ask who he is ?" 
 108
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 109 
 
 "Lord Merenthorpe the Merenthorpes of Beech- 
 hurst." 
 
 "And your rival?" 
 
 "The Marquis of Esk." 
 
 "Does she love ye?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And she's of age?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then why doesn't she become engaged to ye 
 and wait patiently until ye're in a position to 
 marry?" 
 
 "It's a big temptation to become Marchioness of 
 Esk." 
 
 "That weighs with her?" 
 
 "I gather so." 
 
 "Then, lad, ye're in love with the wrong girl." 
 
 Warde flushed and retorted: "That, Mr. Bur- 
 grave, is not your concern!" 
 
 "Lad, Ah'm thinking of your interests as well as 
 my own. Ye remember I warned ye before ye 
 went to Berlin to keep away from women. Even 
 the best of them can ruin a man's career." 
 
 "I need her!" 
 
 "But, from what ye tell me, she doesn't need 
 you." 
 
 "It's her people who are urging her into this mar- 
 riage. It's an arranged affair." 
 
 "So are most marriages in that class of society." 
 
 "I can win her away." 
 
 "As Ah understand it, the father is asking ye to 
 empty your money-bags into the scale against the 
 Marquis of Esk's. Lad, I'm really sorry to hear of 
 this! Ye ought to have kept away from those
 
 110 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 people. It's a losing game for such as ye. Don't 
 think that Ah don't value your abilities, lad, for 
 Ah do and highly and what's more, Ah trust ye." 
 
 "Then will you give me a partnership agree- 
 ment?" 
 
 "Not this one." Burgrave laid his hand firmly 
 on the typewritten sheets. It would mean that 
 ye're asking me to buy a wife for ye. Would your 
 pride let ye do that?" 
 
 "Then you consider it an unfair agreement?" 
 
 "Ah do! It's the lawyer's agreement not an 
 honest man's bond." 
 
 "What would you consider fair?' 
 
 "Something like this. Let us take the work ye've 
 done already as a fair return for your salary. So 
 far your work has not brought me in a penny nor 
 a patent-right, and Ah've spent a lot of money on 
 the apparatus and the bungalow at Saltness and the 
 yacht and all the assistants ye've needed. Suppose 
 we say that at the moment the score is even between 
 us, and start fresh for the future. Ah propose to 
 put twenty thousand pounds and your future salary 
 in the pool. If ye will put in twenty thousand 
 pounds, Ah will give ye a half interest in everything 
 connected with our wireless telephony." 
 
 "That's out of the question. I couldn't possibly 
 raise twenty thousand pounds." 
 
 "If ye put in ten thousand," continued Burgrave, 
 "Ah will give ye a third interest. If five thousand, 
 a fifth interest." 
 
 "I haven't the money." 
 
 "If two thousand, an eleventh interest, and your 
 salary in any case."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 111 
 
 "I might be able to put in two thousand, but a 
 partnership like that would mean nothing to Lord 
 Merenthorpe." 
 
 "Then don't ye see, lad, that what ye're asking 
 me is in plain words to buy ye a wife?" 
 
 Burgrave's tone was kindly. It bit into Warde 
 far more deeply than harsh opposition would have 
 done. He could not help but see the reasonable- 
 ness of Burgrave's attitude; the partnership interest 
 to be in proportion to the monetary risk, the most 
 usual form of business agreement. 
 
 After some thought he answered: "I will see 
 what money I can raise." 
 
 "Good. I'm ready to back your abilities at the 
 present moment for twenty thousand pounds. If 
 ye can find someone else to back ye for, say, ten 
 thousand pounds, then ye will have a third interest 
 and a partnership agreement that Lord Merenthorpe 
 will not sneer at." 
 
 "I'll see what can be done." 
 
 Warde had never before looked at finance from a 
 personal point of view. He had always taken it 
 for granted that if he supplied the scientific knowl- 
 edge and research abilities, someone else would 
 supply the needed money. In the fashion of the 
 scientist, he had never regarded money as on the 
 same plane of value as brains and character. But 
 now it was being driven home to him in very per- 
 sonal fashion that money is not only a great factor 
 in establishing a business or an invention, but also 
 a great factor in establishing a man. Merenthorpe, 
 Burgrave, Paradine, Miss Glenistair, in their several 
 and highly different fashions, had told him the same
 
 112 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 thing. Without money he was a nobody in the 
 eyes of the vast majority of the unthinking world. 
 They assessed his worth as a man largely by the 
 wealth he could display. That would be material 
 proof for a highly material world. 
 
 To make money he needed a nucleus of money. 
 It bred. It was the golden egg that hatched out 
 into a hen that laid a score of other golden eggs. 
 He must have stock to breed from. 
 
 Warde started to review his friends and acquaint- 
 ances from the lending aspect. It did not take him 
 long to discover that while a few would help him on 
 the scale of hundreds, there was no one he could 
 approach on the scale of thousands except Sir Wil- 
 mer Paradine. The latter was a wealthy man ; be- 
 lieved in Warde's abilities; realized the future for 
 wireless telephony. 
 
 Without hesitation, Warde telephoned to Sir Wil- 
 mer's London flat, in order to make an appointment. 
 The butler answered that his master was away. No, 
 he was not at liberty to give the address. Would 
 he forward a telegram, asked Warde. Yes, he could 
 do that. Then wire as follows : "Wish to meet you 
 on an important business matter. If you can see 
 me, will travel at once." 
 
 In the course of the day an answer came from 
 Brussels, addressed from a house in the Avenue 
 Louise quarter, 86B Rue Mazarin. Warde started 
 for Brussels by the night train, leaving his work and 
 sending a message to the skipper of the yacht to 
 remain at Burnham. 
 
 The address in the Rue Mazarin proved to be a 
 block of flats, substantial and moneyed, and as the
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 113 
 
 letter B indicated, Paradine's suite was on the first 
 floor. When Warde was shown into the elabor- 
 ately furnished drawing-room, the reason for the 
 secrecy of the address was apparent in evidences of 
 feminine occupation. 
 
 Paradine made no attempt to disguise the affaire. 
 "I don't want everyone to know why I am in 
 Brussels," he remarked with the easy smile of the 
 man of the world. "Of course I can rely on your 
 discretion." 
 
 Warde nodded. "Naturally." 
 
 "Make yourself comfortable," suggested the host, 
 moving an armchair nearer to the Louis Quinze 
 escritoire, and producing cigars and whiskey. 
 
 An inner door opened, and a tall, handsome 
 woman appeared in a billow of filmy negligee. 
 Scent and the indefinable artificiality of the actress 
 emanated from her. 
 
 "Dis done, Wilmer, quand seras-tu fini?" she 
 asked with a quick side-glance at Warde. 
 
 "Impossible de dire, ma mie. Peut-etre une 
 heure. Occupe-tio avec un roman," replied Para- 
 dine, not offering an introduction. The lady 
 shrugged her handsome shoulders and disappeared 
 into the inner room. 
 
 "Clothilde de Sevaistre," mentioned Paradine 
 with a slight tinge of conquest in his tone. "One 
 of the bright stars of the Brussels firmament. She 
 can act as well as look handsome." 
 
 "I've heard the name." 
 
 Paradine passed the cigar-box, and when cigars 
 were full alight asked: "An important business 
 matter?"
 
 114 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Yes. You remember that some time ago you 
 suggested financing me?" 
 
 "You refused it." 
 
 "Nevertheless your words went home to me. 
 Since then I've been thinking very seriously over 
 the financial side of wireless telephony, and over 
 my own prospects, and I've discussed both of them 
 with Burgrave." 
 
 "Glad to hear it. What conclusions have you 
 come to ?' 
 
 "That I can't continue as a salaried employee. I 
 must have a partnership interest." 
 
 "Very sensible. And what does Burgrave say?" 
 
 "He's willing, provided I can supply some capi- 
 tal my interest in the eventual profits to be in 
 proportion to the amount I put in the pool." 
 
 "Burgrave is canny." 
 
 "I realize his point of view. It's not unfair." 
 
 "How much do you propose to put in?" 
 
 "I want ten thousand. I've already raised two 
 thousand." 
 
 "And the rest?" 
 
 "That's what I've come to discuss with you." 
 
 Paradine puffed on his cigar and thoughtfully 
 surveyed a desk calendar a needlessly elaborate 
 affair where two heavy gilt lions supported an 
 inadequate burden. Underneath his calm outward 
 demeanor there lay a keen sense of exhilaration: 
 the seeds he had so carefully planted in the receptive 
 soil of Warde's mind, were now showing their first 
 leaves to the light. He must place a cloche over the 
 tender young plant.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 115 
 
 "I would like to ask you a very personal ques- 
 tion." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Are you engaged to Eve Merenthorpe ?" 
 
 Warde flushed in spite of himself as he answered 
 with level voice : "No, not definitely." 
 
 "A charming girl," mused Paradine. "She 
 would make an admirable wife for a young man of 
 ambition." 
 
 He paused to allow Warde the opportunity for 
 confidences on the subject, but as the latter said 
 nothing, he continued: "I expect she will soon be 
 returning from the South American cruise." 
 
 "In a few days' time." 
 
 "Merenthorpe also?" 
 
 "I expect so." 
 
 "In the meantime you want to strengthen your 
 own financial position?" 
 
 "I want to settle my future prospects, so that I 
 can get back undisturbed to my work." 
 
 "Progressing well?" 
 
 "Excellently." 
 
 "What distance can you cover?" 
 
 "That's a secret of the firm, Sir Wilmer. We 
 haven't patented yet, and naturally we have to keep 
 results very quiet." 
 
 "I don't wish to intrude into your private af- 
 fairs." 
 
 Again he paused, and this time Warde was forced 
 to resume the initiative. 
 
 "I'm wondering if you could help me to raise the 
 money I need," he ventured.
 
 116 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "I might be able to. What is your idea regard- 
 ing security?" 
 
 "I should expect to return, say, ten per cent. 
 per annum on the money advanced to me for the 
 non-productive period, and a larger percentage when 
 our wireless telephony was on a commercial pay- 
 ing basis." 
 
 "Yes but security?" 
 
 "It's personal. Myself. My character and abili- 
 ties. I know you realize what a magnificent future 
 lies before wireless telephony, and you know some- 
 thing also of my own qualifications." 
 
 Paradine smiled a friendly, confidential smile. 
 "You are asking me to gamble on your and Bur- 
 grave's business, where I should have no control 
 over expenditure or policy, and where I do not even 
 know how far you have progressed." 
 
 "It would be a sporting risk, of course." 
 
 "So many sporting risks are offered to me. I 
 am asked, for instance, to buy a theater here in 
 Brussels and finance a new light opera." 
 
 Warde frowned involuntarily at the comparison 
 suggested. He thought of the woman in the billow 
 of filmy negligee. Light opera and wireless tele- 
 phony it was an insult to place them on the same 
 level. 
 
 Paradine, guessing his thoughts, continued: "I 
 mention this merely because you asked me to in- 
 dulge in a blind gamble. If I wanted such a gamble, 
 I could find it in a dozen different directions. But 
 if you were asking me to finance you on a definite 
 business proposition, that would be very different. 
 My life has been spent in developing businesses of
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 117 
 
 an unusual nature. I love the work. It appeals 
 to my temperament." 
 
 "Then you like the idea of bringing wireless 
 telephony to the commercial stage?" 
 
 "Decidedly! That is why I approached you in 
 the first instance." 
 
 Warde considered a few moments before he re- 
 sumed: "I'm at liberty to tell you this without 
 breaking confidences. Our system is ahead of any 
 other at the present moment. Even such a big firm 
 as Rademeyer, Schultz and Maccallum are afraid of 
 us. But that's not enough. We are up against a 
 natural law which prevents communication over 
 more than a certain distance. Recently during the 
 last month, in fact I've been experimenting in a 
 new direction, and I believe I've hit on a develop- 
 ment which will allow us to bend the wireless waves 
 to the curvature of the earth " 
 
 Paradine nodded comprehension. 
 
 "And send them right round the globe." 
 
 "Excellent!" 
 
 "Distance will only be a question of sufficient 
 power at the transmitting station ajid sufficiently 
 delicate apparatus at the receiving station." 
 
 "I follow. Does anyone know of these experi- 
 ments ?" 
 
 "Burgrave, of course, but only in a general way." 
 
 "If I were you, I should keep them strictly to 
 myself until the system were ready for patenting." 
 
 "It's still in a state of flux." 
 
 "How long do you reckon this experimental stage 
 will continue?"
 
 118 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Difficult to say. I'm working in an entirely 
 uncharted region. Some months, at all events." 
 
 "I'm extremely interested in what you tell me. 
 You are now showing me something of a definite 
 business proposition. Only the outside but still, 
 something. I must think over the suggestion of 
 financing you." 
 
 "That's most kind of you." 
 
 "You want eight thousand pounds on a personal 
 guarantee, paying interest at ten per cent." 
 
 "Yes and, say, fifteen per cent after the pro- 
 duction stage. With my ten thousand pounds, I 
 should have a one-third interest in the concern." 
 
 "I'll think it over." 
 
 "Many thanks, Sir Wilmer!" said Warde cor- 
 dially. 
 
 "Another point: can I do anything for you in, 
 regard to Merenthorpe?" 
 
 "How do you mean?' 
 
 "It's reasonable to imagine that he does not look 
 on you very favorably as a possible son-in-law." 
 
 "I'm afraid so," confessed Warde. 
 
 "There's Esk." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Now a word from me would carry weight with 
 Merenthorpe. If I were to tell him that I think 
 very highly of your future, and were risking money 
 on you, it would undoubtedly influence his views. 
 Shall I do so?" 
 
 "That's extremely kind of you!" 
 
 "Not at all! I'm very interested in you. . . . 
 Have another whiskey?" 
 
 That was a polite signal to terminate the inter-
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 119 
 
 view, and Warde did not further press his points 
 or occupy his host's time. He took his leave, and 
 with the feeling that he was treading on air, walked 
 briskly down the boulevards to the Gare du Nord 
 and caught the first train back to London. 
 
 The situation was clearing; by the time Eve had 
 returned, he would have made a big improvement 
 to his material position, and Lord Merenthorpe 
 would be regarding him in a new and more favor- 
 able light. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 In Paradine's suite of apartments, the handsome 
 woman in the negligee was laying a soft caressing 
 hand on his cheek and smiling into his eyes. 
 
 "Tu m'acheteras le theatre cheri?" she purred. 
 
 "J'y penserai," was Paradine's answer.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TOAST 
 
 As a last perfect finishing touch to a cruise which 
 had formed a master-picture of the luxuries which 
 money can buy, tempered by the restraint of cul- 
 tured taste, Lord Esk had landed his yacht party 
 at Plymouth and taken them to London by a special 
 train of Pullman cars flowered by a Bond Street 
 florist and staffed by his own chef and corps of 
 assistants. 
 
 He had timed the railway journey for a farewell 
 dinner. It was a set banquet with a list of toasts 
 and speeches congratulations, mutual good wishes, 
 a revue of the incidents and humors of the cruise. 
 They were speeding Londonward through the 
 darkness to disperse to their respective homes, and 
 now they exchanged their thanks and their wishes 
 for the future, making a perfect rounding to the 
 months of continuous enjoyment. At the end of the 
 toast-list was "Our Host," proposed by Lord Mer- 
 enthorpe, and the speech in reply. Rounds of ap- 
 plause punctuated Merenthorpe's highly correct and 
 impeccably conventional remarks, ending with the 
 inevitable "For he's a jolly good fel-low!" 
 
 Then Lord Esk rose a trifle unsteadily, because 
 he had not spared the wine and champagne, flushed 
 
 120
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 121 
 
 with the pride of wealth and position and the 
 announcement he had kept secret for his dramatic 
 moment, yet a figure of power and command. 
 
 "Friends all," he said, "I thank you from the 
 bottom of my heart for all your good wishes. I am 
 indeed glad that my humble efforts have contributed 
 to your enjoyment of the moment and the memories 
 which you will carry away for the future. I am 
 glad to be able to congratulate Armadale on the 
 winning of a most charming, most delightful wife. 
 But you will excuse my egotism, I am sure, when I 
 tell you that I am still more glad to ask you to 
 charge your glasses for one further toast" he 
 paused, and his eye fixed itself on Eve at the fur- 
 ther end of the table "I ask you to join me in 
 wishing all happiness to Eve, future Marchioness of 
 Esk ! Ladies and gentlemen, to Eve !" 
 
 The announcement came upon them all as a com- 
 plete surprise. No one knew that Eve had, before 
 breakfast on that morning, given her answer to 
 Esk. At his special request, she had mentioned it 
 to no one, so that he might have the satisfaction of 
 making his news the clou of the farewell dinner. 
 
 There were shouts of surprise and congratula- 
 tion. 
 
 "Eve! Eve!" they exclaimed; drank the toast; 
 and then broke up to make their good wishes direct. 
 
 Pale and trembling, Eve found herself the center 
 of the group. Throughout the day she had been 
 strangely silent and dazed, scarcely realizing all that 
 was involved by her answer to Esk on the deck of 
 the yacht in the early morning, when the rugged 
 cliffs of Land's End, faintly seen on the far horizon,
 
 122 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 had told the end of the voyage. The others of the 
 yacht party, preoccupied with their packing and 
 the excitements of landfall and disembarking, had 
 scarcely noticed her unusual mood. 
 
 Though she had said "Yes" to his proposal, it 
 had been dragged from her. He had been careful 
 to let her understand that it was a final proposal. 
 Without putting it into so many words, he had 
 made clear that it was a case of "take or leave"; 
 that what he had to give was too valuable to be 
 cheapened by persistent offering; that there were 
 many other girls and women in the society world 
 who would jump at such a chance. It was, perhaps, 
 the sight of the Cornish cliffs in the far distance, 
 over the port bow, that had given the overbalancing 
 impulse. They marked inexorably the end of this 
 fairyland cruise. In a few hours she would be back 
 to the realities of the ordinary, everyday English 
 life. No further postponement of her answer was 
 possible. The breakfast bugle would presently ring 
 down the curtain on the scene, and if she said "No," 
 it was "No" for finality. 
 
 So Eve, torn in mind, not having "found herself," 
 had given her assent. 
 
 Then rushed back on her the thought of Warde. 
 It was betrayal. She had asked for three months 
 to allow her feelings toward him and toward Esk 
 to crystallize into certainty, with the implication 
 that if her love for Warde had not diminished, she 
 would accept him. As matters stood, distance and 
 time had accentuated rather than slurred over; 
 while for Esk, her utmost range of feeling was a 
 tolerance of companionship. The disparity in age
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 123 
 
 52 to 21 and Esk's complacent assumption that 
 his wealth and inheritance of title must give him 
 all he reached his hand for, jarred against her. To 
 accept Esk was to betray Warde, and yet she had 
 accepted. In the midst of a buzz of congratulation 
 that followed on the last toast of the dinner, Eve 
 realized that she had thrown away something of her 
 self-respect. 
 
 Lord Merenthorpe was vastly pleased, though he 
 cloaked it with an affectation of regret. 
 
 "Too bad of you," he told Esk. "Eve is the 
 apple of my eye. I shall miss her terribly. Beech- 
 hurst will never be the same to me without Eve." 
 
 Esk replied with a similar hypocrisy of conven- 
 tion. 
 
 The Merenthorpes intended to take a town house 
 in Mayfair for the winter season, but the agree- 
 ment was waiting for Lord Merenthorpe's approval 
 on his return from the cruise. In the meantime, 
 Viola, Eve and their father continued their train 
 journey to Maidstone, arriving home late at night 
 for the delighted congratulations of Lady Meren- 
 thorpe and the pert flippancies of Beatrice. 
 
 "My dearest Hilary," wrote Miss Glenistair to 
 her godson, "I am wondering if you have heard 
 already that the Merenthorpes are home again from 
 their cruise, and that Eve is definitely engaged to 
 Lord Esk ? I wish, dear, that I were not the bearer 
 of such distressing news, for I realize how deeply 
 you are attached to Eve. It will wound you sorely, 
 I know, but you will take it with a man's strength
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 and courage, and strive not to let it rankle and 
 fester and corrupt the life you have planned for 
 yourself. 
 
 "We should not blame Eve she has had a very 
 worldly environment all her life, and the allure- 
 ments of such a proposal would tempt most girls. 
 That she was deeply in love with you I have seen 
 for myself, but the temptation has been too much 
 for her. 
 
 "I wish I could help you, dear Hilary, to bear this 
 blow. Do not let it spoil the big work of your life; 
 remember that I expect great things from you. 
 
 "'Does the road wind uphill all the way? 
 
 Yes, to the very end. 
 
 Will the day's journey take the whole long day? 
 From morn to night, my friend.' 
 
 "Come to see me soon." 
 
 This letter was in the mail which Warde picked 
 up at Burnham. To say that he was stunned by 
 the news would scarcely express his state of mind 
 he felt as though he had been tripped and thrown 
 to the pavement, and a throng of people were press- 
 ing forward over his prostrate body, careless of the 
 object they kicked and pushed aside. With Eve's 
 letter from Rio and her later cable from Jamaica 
 in his pocket, both giving him hope and almost 
 promise, he had never dreamt that she would make 
 an abrupt decision without first letting him know 
 her reasons. Had some unexpected circumstances 
 arisen to induce her to accept Esk? Why had she 
 not written to him, instead of leaving him to hear
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 125 
 
 the news from an outside source? Could a letter 
 from her have gone astray ? He asked the postmis- 
 tress at Burnham to search again in her poste 
 restante boxes, but no further letter for him came 
 to light. 
 
 He wired to Eve : "Very disappointed to receive 
 no letter from you. Has it gone astray? Have 
 heard the news from elsewhere. Please wire." 
 
 The answer came: "Must see you to explain. 
 Will be in London to-morrow. Can you meet me 
 in Kensington Gardens, three-thirty, by Peter Pan 
 statue?" 
 
 Warde wired agreement, and leaving his yacht 
 once more amongst the hibernating pleasure-craft 
 and the sturdy oyster-boats of Burnham, traveled 
 straight up to town by an evening train. Work 
 was impossible in his present frame of mind. He 
 had never realized till now how insidiously his pas- 
 sion had gripped hold of him, groping with its ten- 
 tacles until it had caught and bound his very soul. 
 For the first time in his life he was angry with his 
 godmother. She was asking him to accept supinely 
 the abrupt, inexplicable decision of Eve to take it 
 "lying down." Every fiber in him rebelled. He 
 was no longer sane and normal. The world that 
 mattered had shrunk to the compass of one girl. 
 She stood to him as mistress of life arbiter of 
 destiny. Without Eve, the earth was inhabited only 
 by remote, unsympathetic, repellent creatures. All 
 the ugliness and meanness and pettiness of men and 
 women seemed to leap out at him from the faces 
 of a London crowd. He felt in himself the savage 
 who runs amuck, slaying and maiming a revelation
 
 126 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 of the ground-depths of a man's hidden emotions 
 which made him for the time being hate himself. 
 He was torn into conflicting personalities, the one 
 passing judgment on the other. 
 
 That part of his mind which stood for normality 
 sent him to a chemist's to buy sleep. 
 
 In the early morning, the sudden fancy came to 
 him to bathe in the Serpentine. He found himself 
 in a strange little world of faddists, young and 
 middle-aged and old, who take a curious pride in 
 repairing to the Serpentine morning after morning 
 in all weathers, seeking to build up "records." Sev- 
 eral spoke to him, as to a novitiate in a brother- 
 hood, quite eager to claim him as a fellow-spirit 
 and to enlighten him of the joys of breaking ice in 
 midwinter for a morning plunge. This na'ive fel- 
 lowship pleased him; and the chill of the October 
 water and wind made him tingle in every limb. 
 Dressing, he felt refreshed in mind as well as body, 
 and almost normal again. 
 
 He put in the morning at the works in East Lon- 
 don, giving directions for the making of a new type 
 of transmitter which would automatically indicate 
 the wave-length of the ether waves it was flicking 
 into space. 
 
 Shortly after the appointed hour, Eve stepped 
 from a taxi at the Lancaster Gate entrance to the 
 Gardens, and walked quickly to the rendezvous. 
 Warde was already there, studying with apparent 
 absorption the fairies and squirrels and mice and 
 birds sculptured round the base of the Peter Pan 
 statue. 
 
 Their greeting was formal and constrained.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 127 
 
 Warde, master of himself for the moment, waited 
 until Eve should speak freely to him at her own 
 good time. Eve was palpably nervous and ill at 
 ease. 
 
 "I've left mother and Vi being fitted in Bond 
 Street," she explained hurriedly. "I made an excuse 
 to get away. I'm to meet them again at our jew- 
 eler's." 
 
 "Then you can't give me very long?" 
 
 "No, I'm afraid not." 
 
 "The wind is cold. Shall we walk?" 
 
 "Yes toward town." 
 
 He set his pace to hers, and they walked briskly 
 eastward toward Hyde Park and Mayfair. The 
 sky was gray. A chill October wind was blow- 
 ing, stirring up the fallen leaves and sending them 
 scurrying like droves of tiny brown rodents. Iron 
 chairs, piled up to be carted away for the winter, 
 seemed to be huddling together for mutual warmth. 
 The water-fowl of the Long Water kept under 
 cover of the bushes, tucking their heads sideways 
 into their plumage. There came to Warde in a 
 sudden flash of memory the plaintive sing-song of a 
 German waiting-maid at a deserted summer restau- 
 rant in the Hartz Mountains. "Sommer ist schon 
 vorbei," she had lamented. 
 
 His summer too was past. 
 
 Presently Eve said with nervous abruptness : "I 
 couldn't put it into a letter." 
 
 "You left me to hear the news from others," he 
 answered. 
 
 "I wrote a dozen beginnings, and tore them all 
 up. I had to see you to explain."
 
 128 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "I want to know first one thing : do you care for 
 Esk? If you care for him more than for me, 
 everything else is side-issue." 
 
 "Must I answer that?" 
 
 "If you will." 
 
 "You know the answer," she said in a low voice. 
 
 He stopped abruptly, so that Eve too was forced 
 to stop. She threw her gray fur stole closer around 
 her neck, as though in some way it were protective 
 against Warde. 
 
 "Then why ?" he demanded. 
 
 "It's not simple to explain. I hardly know my- 
 self just why I accepted. It was the end of the 
 voyage Land's End was in sight, over the port 
 bow. The breakfast bugle would be sounding in 
 a few moments. I saw the bugler looking at the 
 ship's clock. He Francis let me know that this 
 was the last time he wculd ask me. Oh, can't you 
 realize it to have one's whole life depending on a 
 yes or no! I don't think a man ever has such a 
 decision to make!" 
 
 "But you don't care for him?" returned Warde 
 doggedly, harking back to what was in his eyes the 
 crux of the question. 
 
 "That isn't the whole consideration in marriage," 
 protested Eve. 
 
 "Surely the chief?" 
 
 "Hilary, do try to realize a girl's viewpoint! 
 For a man, marriage is an annexe to his work ; but 
 for a girl marriage is a career." 
 
 "Then you've found the career you were looking 
 for, but couldn't find?" 
 
 Her eyes brightened suddenly. "Yes, that makes
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 129 
 
 it clearer! I'm beginning to understand myself. 1 
 want to get married, and I want also to find my 
 career in marriage. To be a social success; to be 
 envied; and to have the position and the means to 
 lead movements that will help others. I want my 
 career as well as love. Oh, Hilary, if only you had 
 been Marquis of Esk!" 
 
 "The position and the means to help others!" 
 he retorted bitterly. "I wonder if you have ever 
 realized on what Esk's fortune is based?" 
 
 "Property in London, isn't it?" 
 
 But Warde checked himself. It was not through 
 fear of offending against the modesty of a young 
 girl. Eve was sufficiently old and worldly enough 
 to know something of the crude facts of life. It 
 was rather that he felt it was not playing the game 
 as he had learnt it at school and 'Varsity. If he 
 had nothing better to say than to run down Esk, 
 he had better retire at once. 
 
 "It's cold for you let's move on," he said. 
 
 They resumed their walk, passing through a gate- 
 way into Hyde Park. 
 
 "Means count for so much in this world," pur- 
 sued Eve. "I hate to seem mercenary, and yet I 
 must be frank. I can't blind myself to the advan- 
 tages Francis is offering me." 
 
 "But you don't care for him/ repeated Warde 
 doggedly. 
 
 "If I cared for him as as I care for you, I 
 shouldn't have hesitated for one moment over my 
 answer." 
 
 "I expect your father has been underlining the 
 difference in means between myself and Esk?"
 
 130 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Yes," she admitted. 
 
 "And dwelling on the point that I'm a mere 
 salaried employee?" 
 
 "Well yes." 
 
 "Since then I've been offered a partnership." 
 
 "That's good news!" exclaimed Eve cordially. 
 
 "I'm putting ten thousand pounds into the busi- 
 ness eight thousand of it is practically promised 
 me by Paradine. That will give me a partnership 
 with a one-third interest. And more than that, I'm 
 in the throes of working out a new development of 
 the system. It's quite novel, and big, and it means 
 the key to the whole problem of long-distance com- 
 munication. We shall be able to jump ahead in 
 a few years' time I shall be on the way to a for- 
 tune." He stopped abruptly, and burst out with 
 bitterness : "To think that I'm emptying my money- 
 bags into the scale before you! That's what civil- 
 ized marriage comes down to, stripped of its rags 
 of convention. Sale and barter, sale and barter! 
 For disposal by private treaty, part of the estate of 
 Lord Merenthorpe of Beechhurst; lot i, Viola; lot 
 2, Evelyn; lot 3, Beatrice. The degradation of it!" 
 
 "It's unfair to say that!" 
 
 "It's unconventional to say that," he retorted. 
 "You'll promise in the sight of God to love, honor 
 and obey a man whom you neither love, honor, nor 
 
 expect to obey. You'll bear children as though 
 
 You'll degrade your womanhood for the price of 
 jewels and fine houses and motors and yachts." 
 
 She exclaimed against it, but Warde cut on ruth- 
 lessly with his analysis : "You make your marriage 
 of hypocrisy, and what does it lead to? You must
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 131 
 
 have learned what happens in the case of others of 
 that set. Yearning for the realities of life that 
 have been thrown aside. If uncontrolled, miserable 
 secrecies and evasions and the hushing-up of scan- 
 dals; if controlled, self-torture." 
 
 She was trembling under the lash of his bitter 
 words. 
 
 Suddenly he changed to tenderness: "Oh, Eve, 
 is it worth the price you will have to pay? If you 
 had found during three months of the cruise that 
 you didn't care for me, I'd have said nothing of all 
 this. But you do care for me ; you'll go on caring 
 for me; and in the days to come you'll look back 
 regretfully to what you threw away at the prompt- 
 ings of hypocritical convention. I say it now, 
 boldly and openly, that what I offer in love and de- 
 votion is worth fifty times all that Esk can throw 
 into the scale. It's not mere egotism it's the in- 
 exorable law of nature that created man and woman 
 to mate young, of free choice, at the call of the 
 deepest of emotions, and for that call alone. A 
 young girl at the threshold of life, surging with 
 potentialities, and an old man worn out and patched 
 up by doctors and drugs it's an outrage against 
 Nature herself, and she'll one day force her reckon- 
 ing on you. If I had nothing else but my youth 
 and health, and we loved one another, it would 
 bring you more real happiness than all the treasure- 
 chests of the world. 'Better a dinner of herbs 
 where love is ' ; that's as true to-day as it was 
 three thousand years ago!" 
 
 "The world has changed since then." 
 
 "Nature has not changed. Nature plans not for
 
 132 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 a few paltry thousand years, but for a million years 
 ahead. Nature laid it down in her scheme of things 
 that you and I should mate. I know it, and you 
 know it!" 
 
 "Oh, Hilary, you make me feel so mean and 
 petty!" 
 
 "You're not mean and petty it's others who are 
 trying to force you to that. You're big and fine. 
 You're Eve, dearest, don't you see that I value 
 you above all the world ?" 
 
 They were nearing Grosvenor Gate. Suddenly 
 tears welled up into her eyes. He tried to comfort 
 her, but in the publicity of the open it could only 
 be by words. 
 
 Presently she regained possession of herself, and 
 glanced at the watch on her wrist. "It's nearly 
 half-past four! Mother will be waiting at the 
 jeweler's in Regent Street and wondering what's 
 happened to me. Find me a taxi, Hilary." 
 
 "May I come with you part of the way?" 
 
 "Yes, but you must leave me before Regent 
 Street." 
 
 In the cab they said little, for the constraint of 
 time was on them and the moments of being to- 
 gether were flying too swiftly for any lengthy con- 
 fidences. 
 
 "Am I to say good-by?" he asked, as the taxi 
 slowed down at order near Hanover Square. 
 
 Her features were pale and drawn. 
 
 "No, not good-by," she murmured in a low 
 voice. 
 
 His pulses leapt. "Then can I see you again?" 
 
 "I will write."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 133 
 
 "I'm leaving to-night for Burnham, where my 
 little yacht is waiting to take me out to the North 
 Sea. I call into port for letters now and again ; or 
 if there were any urgent message it could be sent 
 to the yacht by wireless." 
 
 "Then call in at Burnham this day week." 
 
 He offered his hand, and in the handshake she 
 felt the depths of his feeling for her surge once, 
 more into being. 
 
 No further word passed between them.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 GATHERING STORM 
 
 The Merenthorpes had rented a town house for 
 the winter in South Audley Street. It was to be 
 a season of social triumph for Lady Merenthorpe 
 two daughters engaged, and each to a highly de- 
 sirable parti. Just as a Roman conqueror trailed 
 his captives through the streets of the capital, so, 
 in social chains, did her ladyship propose to trail 
 Lord Esk and Geoffrey Armadale. Both marriages 
 were to take place early in December; meanwhile 
 she was planning a series of receptions and balls 
 where her success would be displayed to all the 
 world that mattered socially. 
 
 Ralph usually found Beechhurst too much of a 
 bore, unless he were on a money-raising campaign, 
 but he spared time to call in at South Audley Street 
 and bestow his approval on plans in general. 
 
 "Great hunting!" he remarked to the family 
 circle. "I expected it of Vi, but Eve has surprised 
 me, I confess. Never gave her credit for so much 
 pace." 
 
 "Pace!" commented Lord Merenthorpe, looking 
 up from his Morning Post. I wish you would brace 
 yourself and discover a suitable match." 
 
 "No hurry now," drawled Ralph lazily. "The 
 134
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 135 
 
 money-lender chaps will be tumbling over one an- 
 other to oblige us a leetle accommodation. 
 Besides, bachelors are all the form this year." 
 
 "When / marry," chipped in Beatrice, "I shall 
 make it a condition that five thousand a year is 
 settled on my loving and worthy bachelor brother." 
 
 Ralph threw a handy cushion at her, and found 
 it returned with emphasis. 
 
 "We'd better make one of the rooms into a 
 schoolroom," was Viola's comment, "where you can 
 find your entertainment in pulling Bee's hair and 
 she can throw ink over you." 
 
 "What superb dignity you have !" retorted Ralph. 
 "Where do you buy it? I should like to order a 
 couple of bottles for myself." 
 
 "On tick," suggested Beatrice. 
 
 "Certainly. For Heaven's sake let's avoid the 
 vulgarity of paying cash. ... As I was saying 
 before, I take off my hat to Eve. Captures the 
 biggest game of the year, and never turns a hair. 
 Takes it all as cool as a cucumber. Great style!" 
 
 "Can't we drop the subject?" said Eve. 
 
 "I'm paying you compliments. Oh, by the way, 
 when I saw you in the taxi the other day with that 
 fellow Warde, I s'pose you were giving him his 
 quietus ?" 
 
 Lady Merenthorpe, occupied at her bureau in 
 making out an extensive list of invitations to her 
 first reception, caught the words and glanced up. 
 
 "When was that?" she asked. 
 
 "Wednesday afternoon." 
 
 "Eve, you never told us that you had been see- 
 ing him on Wednesday."
 
 136 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "I didn't think it worth mentioning." 
 
 "I understood that when you left us you were 
 sauntering around the shops." 
 
 "I happened to meet him." 
 
 "In a taxi?" was the icy comment. 
 
 "No." 
 
 Lord Merenthorpe put in his word. "The fellow 
 behaved to me with gross impertinence, and I ex- 
 pect all of you to cut him dead." 
 
 "If I wish to see Mr. Warde," flamed Eve, "I 
 shall do so." 
 
 "Eve, you are forgetting yourself !" returned her 
 mother. "If you met him in order to tell him that 
 acquaintanceship was over, that was perhaps excus- 
 able; but to continue it is an insult to Francis as 
 well as an insult to your family." 
 
 "I shall not cut my friends." 
 
 "Have you no sense of your position? To be 
 seen about with a mere office clerk!" 
 
 "As it happens, he is being made a partner; but 
 in any case I shall choose my own friends." 
 
 "I absolutely forbid it!" declaimed Lord Meren- 
 thorpe. Now that Eve was safely engaged, he saw 
 no reason for any further diplomacy in the Warde 
 affair. 
 
 There ensued a lengthy recrimination, with Eve 
 white and defiant. Finally she rose, quivering, and 
 left the room. 
 
 "Well, I like her spirit," commented the out- 
 spoken Beatrice. "If I were to be ordered about, 
 I should go straight off and join the Suffragettes. 
 Just to show my independence, I should go and
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 137 
 
 bang Lloyd George over the head with an um- 
 brella." 
 
 That had the effect of turning Lord Meren- 
 thorpe's wrath in another direction. "Lloyd George ! 
 This damned democratic spirit ! It's eating its way 
 everywhere. A social canker! If I had my way 
 " He continued in this strain for a consider- 
 able period, until he noticed that his children were 
 exchanging meaning glances with one another, 
 when he trailed off lamely and returned to his 
 Morning Post. 
 
 "Get Eve married off quickly," was Ralph's offer- 
 ing to the discussion. 
 
 ****** 
 
 In the afternoon, among the callers at the Meren- 
 thorpe house was Sir Wilmer Paradine. Tiring of 
 continued evasion of Mile. Clothide's demands, he 
 had broken off the liaison and returned to London. 
 
 Learning of Eve's engagement, he offered his 
 good wishes, but he did not conceal a certain tinge 
 of formality in them. Presently he contrived to 
 get a few words with her alone in a secluded corner 
 of the reception-rooms. 
 
 "This will hit Warde very hard," he said ten- 
 tatively. 
 
 Eve did not meet his eyes. "I am not the only 
 girl he could marry," she answered in a low voice. 
 
 "A splendid young fellow, with a great future 
 before him if this doesn't spoil his life. I'm 
 afraid, very much afraid, that he will take it 
 badly." 
 
 "He tells me that you're helping him to a part- 
 nership. That's very kind of you."
 
 138 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "My idea was " He paused, and then con- 
 tinued with an assumption of candor: "My idea 
 was, frankly, that if he were needing a partner- 
 ship in order to make good his standing in your 
 father's eyes, I would help him. But as things are, 
 I shall have to reconsider my decision." 
 
 "But surely because of this you won't disappoint 
 him?" urged Eve. "I should so like to feel that 
 he was getting a fair chance in his career." 
 
 "You must realize that your engagement alters 
 matters entirely. Before, I was thinking of help- 
 ing him as a matter of sentiment because of my 
 regard for you, because I felt that you and he were 
 exactly suited to one another but now it becomes 
 a matter of business, and on that plane one has to 
 be cautious." 
 
 "You make me feel that I'm injuring his work!" 
 
 "You mustn't put it like that, my dear Eve. You 
 have made your choice, and from a worldly point 
 of view it's no doubt a very excellent one. Now 
 you must allow me a worldly attitude also. If 
 Warde had had you to help and inspire him, his 
 eventual success in his work would have been a 
 matter of practical certainty. I should have felt 
 that my risk in financing him was small. To-day, 
 it's a very different task. After a young fellow like 
 Warde has had such a bitter disappointment, on 
 the threshold of his career, there's no telling how 
 his character may develop." 
 
 "How cold-blooded it sounds!" 
 
 "Well, frankly, isn't your own attitude just a 
 little cold-blooded also? Unless you care deeply 
 forEsk!"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 139 
 
 As an old family friend, Paradine was pushing 
 his position to the limit of confidences. 
 
 Eve flushed and evaded the question. "Then you 
 intend to make me feel that I'm spoiling Mr. 
 Warde's future? That's very unjust of you!" 
 
 "You mistake me I don't intend that. You 
 asked me a definite question as to whether I was 
 helping him and I have given you a frank an- 
 swer." 
 
 "If I were to urge you?" she pleaded. 
 
 "Don't. It would be very disagreeable for us 
 both if I were forced to refuse. As I say, I shall 
 have to reconsider my position, and I can make no 
 definite promises. . . . Now tell me something 
 about the cruise. You had a glorious time, I im- 
 agine." 
 
 The subject had been turned, but his words had 
 cut home even deeper than he judged. In the sil- 
 ence of the night, Eve thought again and again of 
 the injury she was unwittingly bringing upon 
 Warde. Something more than love welled up 
 within her something of the feeling of mother- 
 hood that lies in every woman. Was there nothing 
 she could do to soften the blow of disappointment? 
 A dozen vague plans flashed up like meteors, and 
 faded away into impracticability. It was unthink- 
 able that he would accept monetary help from her- 
 self even if she could find it to offer or from 
 her fiance. But he would from Paradine. And 
 Paradine would help him, were it not for the ele- 
 ment of risk this had been made clear to her. 
 Suppose she could somehow raise the eight thou- 
 sand pounds, and give it to Paradine to lend to
 
 140 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Warde? That thought eddied feverishly through 
 her sleep, magnified into tantalizing, torturing ad- 
 ventures of the dream-world. She was in a de- 
 serted palace where treasure was hidden away in 
 some secret room. She searched through intermin- 
 able passages, through miles of silent vaulted cham- 
 bers. At last she came upon it. There was the 
 treasure-chest. But it was locked. She tore at it 
 with her bare hands ; hunted feverishly for a crow- 
 bar with which she could force the clasps. Now 
 she had found her implement; but the room had 
 changed, the chest was no longer in sight. Again 
 the race through the deserted halls. Now she came 
 upon it again. But as she pried at the heavy iron 
 clasps, the crowbar crumbled to clay in her hands. 
 The chest turned to a mocking figure sneering at 
 her, laughing at her the halls echoed with the 
 mockery 
 
 She awoke into a condition where the world of 
 reality was still intertwined with the dream-world. 
 With obstinate determination she sank back into 
 sleep to search once again for the elusive treasure. 
 But always some obstacle arose to prevent the ful- 
 filment of her desire, for the demons of sleep have 
 a thousand tricks and turns with which to lure and 
 torture their victims. 
 
 In the cold light of morning, the practical diffi- 
 culties of finding the eight thousand pounds con- 
 fronted her. To whom could she turn? It hap- 
 pened that in the morning's post were a couple of 
 money-lender's circulars addressed to Lord Meren- 
 thorpe. Uncrumpling these from the waste-paper 
 basket, Eve took two addresses.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 141 
 
 The first she went to was in Albermarle Street, 
 where a "Mr. Molyneux" offered 50 to 50,000 
 on note of hand, and secrecy guaranteed. He 
 proved to be a bland, elderly man with an ingratiat- 
 ing smile and a distinctly foreign accent. 
 
 "Be seated, my dear madam. What can I haf the 
 bleasure of doing for you?" 
 
 "I want to borrow eight thousand pounds." 
 
 "You haf not told me your name yet?" 
 
 Eve passed her card, and added : "I am engaged 
 to marry Lord Esk." 
 
 "Ah, yes I haf heard. May I be bermitted to 
 offer you my goot wishes ?" 
 
 "Can you lend me that sum of money ?" 
 
 "Do you need it at once ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But you are not yet married." 
 
 "The marriage is to take place very shortly." 
 
 'Could you not wait until after?" 
 
 "No, I need the money now." 
 
 "You must understand that the risk is very dif- 
 ferent now. Will you be baying the money for 
 jewels?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "If it were that, you could gif me a lien on the 
 jewels. Do you need it to bay for bills?" 
 
 "I can't tell you what I want it for," answered 
 Eve shortly, resenting such questions. 
 
 Mr. Molyneux studied her through heavily lidded 
 eyes. It was an essential part of his business to 
 learn his client's secrets, in case he might after- 
 ward need them as levers for enforcing payment.
 
 142 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Knowledge of an important society secret was often 
 better security for him than a bond. 
 
 "I will not bress you, dear madam," he said, "but 
 you must understand that if I am to lend you money 
 blindly, I must ask you much higher terms." 
 
 He paused invitingly, but Eve had no intention 
 of confiding in him, and she remained silent. 
 
 Continuing: "What security will you be able to 
 offer me ?" 
 
 "I understood from your circular that you lend 
 money on note of hand?" 
 
 "Yes, I would do that for the Marchioness of 
 Esk, but you are not yet." 
 
 "Of course I shall be able to pay you back very 
 shortly." 
 
 Mr. Molyneux did not want to make a short loan. 
 His business was founded on long loans at very 
 heavy interest. Consequently Eve's argument had 
 no weight with him. 
 
 "It is a very big risk," he stated. "Suppose 
 you will bardon what I haf to say, for it is necessary 
 suppose you were to meet with an accident next 
 week and get killed?" 
 
 "Couldn't I take out an insurance policy? I 
 had an idea that was the way these things were 
 arranged." 
 
 "You are very businesslike, dear madam. It is 
 sometimes done. But also I must haf security for 
 rebayment." 
 
 "What kind of security do you want?" 
 
 "If you could get the bill endorsed by someone 
 of bosition your future husband?" he insinuated 
 fishing for her secret.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 143 
 
 Eve refused, and some time they talked at cross 
 purposes. Finally she rose to leave, accompanied 
 to the door by many expressions of polite regret 
 and hopes that she would see her way to offer the 
 security asked for. 
 
 Money lenders seemed useless for her purpose 
 probably any other one would take up the same 
 attitude as this Mr. Molyneux. After considerable 
 hesitation, Eve resolved to ask her fiance for the 
 money. 
 
 The right moment seemed to come on the after- 
 noon following. Esk had invited her to look over 
 Jerningham House and suggest any alterations she 
 would fancy during the process of redecoration, and 
 for the resetting of family jewels. It was a daz- 
 zling experience. In Esk's study, under the grave 
 eyes of ancestral portraits, the jewels were laid out 
 for her inspection, while a deferential jeweler and 
 his assistant stood by to offer their technical ad- 
 vice. Diamonds, rubies, pearls, sapphires, emeralds 
 they seemed to Eve as the contents of the treas- 
 ure chest of her dreams. That necklace of pearls 
 alone, one of several, would more than provide 
 Warde with the partnership he was so needing. 
 
 "All yours !" whispered Esk. 
 
 When the jewelers had left, Eve turned to him 
 with a nervousness which betrayed itself in her 
 voice. 
 
 "I wonder if you would do me a great favor?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Anything you ask for," he at once replied. 
 
 "I happen to be needing some money just now." 
 
 "For your trousseau?"
 
 144 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "No, I wanted it to lend to an old friend." 
 
 "Is it much?" 
 
 "No, not much when I think of all those jewels. 
 Eight thousand pounds." 
 
 Esk stiffened. "Lend eight thousand pounds to 
 a friend! Who is she?" 
 
 "Must I say?" 
 
 "Naturally I should want to know." 
 
 "It's Mr. Warde the man you met at Saltness 
 Island. He needs it for the development of his 
 wireless system." 
 
 "My dear Eve, don't you realize that what you're 
 asking me is highly unusual?" 
 
 "I know it is. But you told me that you would 
 give me anything I asked for." 
 
 "I never expected a request of that kind ! Money 
 to spend on yourself yes, and willingly. But this !" 
 
 "He won't know it comes from you. I thought 
 of passing it through Sir Wilmer Paradine as a 
 purely business loan." 
 
 "Worse and worse." 
 
 "I'm asking you this as a great favor." 
 
 "It's an impossible request. No man with any 
 self-respect could countenance it. For you to lend 
 eight thousand pounds to a young man secretly 
 it's sheerly impossible!" 
 
 "When those jewels were displayed on the table, 
 you said to me, 'All yours.' The price of one neck- 
 lace would " 
 
 "All yours yes, but not to fling away on a 
 stranger. Those jewels are family jewels." 
 
 "But money " 
 
 "Is family money!"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 145 
 
 In his tone was the snap of a lock. The treasure 
 chest of her dreams was bolted again. The lever 
 of affection had crumbled to clay in her hands. 
 
 She realized that his words were final; and 
 turned reluctantly to the plans for the redecoration 
 of Jerningham House. He became affectionate once 
 more.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE BIG TEMPTATION 
 
 With Warde, work had been going badly during 
 the week following that meeting with Eve in Ken- 
 sington Gardens. He was torn in mind, harried 
 and harassed by his own thoughts hopes, doubts, 
 despondencies, dreams of what might have been and 
 what still might be. Until Eve was definitely mar- 
 ried to Esk, he could not bring himself to give up 
 hope. That moment near Grosvenor Gate, when 
 tears had brimmed her eyes, was branded on his 
 memory. She loved him, and yet she had promised 
 herself to Esk. He did not blame her it was, as 
 Miss Glenistair had said, the natural outcome of 
 her environment and the atmosphere of the Meren- 
 thorpe views. Never before had he realized so 
 vividly the crushing power of money that the aris- 
 tocracy of England, as well as of every other 
 civilized country, is founded on the possession of 
 wealth, and maintains itself essentially by the con- 
 centration of wealth. Title and money, money and 
 title, they marry and intermarry, buttressing their 
 position. 
 
 He was worried, too, in regard to Paradine, who 
 had not communicated with him since the interview 
 at Brussels, although there had been opportunities 
 
 146
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 147 
 
 to do so by letter, and also by wireless through the 
 Burgrave offices. 
 
 At the date appointed by Eve, Warde took his 
 yacht into Burnham. Her letter was awaiting him 
 in his mail, and another in the handwriting of 
 Paradine. He first opened the former. 
 
 It was a short letter, constrained and reluctant, 
 as though she hardly dared to put her inner feelings 
 into black and white. 
 
 "My dear Hilary," it read, "I am writing to you 
 as I promised, although there is very little to be 
 said. Ralph happened to see us in the taxi last 
 week, and mentioned it to my father. He is now 
 more bitter against you than ever. I am asked to 
 give up seeing you, but I shall not break old friend- 
 ships. 
 
 "My time is occupied in choosing the trousseau, 
 planning alterations to Jerningham House, and ex- 
 changing calls. I am made to feel that I have 
 suddenly become someone quite important, but it is 
 a reflected glory. I am no different to the Eve of 
 three months ago. 
 
 "Sir Wilmer was amongst the callers. Our con- 
 versation turned to you, and I was extremely sorry 
 to hear that there is now a difficulty about lending 
 you the eight thousand pounds for your partner- 
 ship. It makes me feel very mean and petty to think 
 that I am indirectly injuring your prospects. If 
 you could manage to wait a few months, I believe he 
 would probably keep to his original promise. Can 
 you wait? 
 
 "Your sincere friend, EVE."
 
 148 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 With a sinking heart, Warde turned to the letter 
 from Paradine. This was also short and con- 
 strained : 
 
 "My dear Warde, Difficulties have arisen since 
 our chat at Brussels in regard to lending you the 
 money you ask for. I fear that I can make no 
 definite promise at present. Come to see me when 
 next you are in town, and I will explain. 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 "WILMER PARADINE. 
 
 The uncertainty of it all was torturing Warde 
 beyond endurance. He could not concentrate on 
 his work while everywhere the ground seemed to 
 be crumbling under his feet. Again he hurried up 
 to London, and by telephone fixed an appointment 
 with Sir Wilmer for the evening, at the latter's 
 flat, about eleven o'clock. Until that hour, Paradine 
 had an engagement. 
 
 It was after midnight when Paradine returned 
 and found Warde waiting moodily in the study. 
 
 "The Merenthorpe dance detained me," he ex- 
 plained. "Eve was looking more charming than 
 ever. If I were a young man I should have sailed 
 in and cut her out from under Esk's bows. Age 
 is a terrible handicap." He relaxed into a deep 
 leather armchair. 
 
 "Lack of money is a bigger handicap," answered 
 Warde bitterly. 
 
 "If I could only exchange my money for your 
 youth!" 
 
 "Then you would realize my position."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 149 
 
 "The trouble with you," said Sir Wilmer with a 
 friendliness that carried off the intrusion of his 
 words, "is that you lack boldness. You are too 
 hesitant, too nicely scrupulous. You handicap 
 yourself." 
 
 "Too hesitant in what respect?" 
 
 "In regard to Eve. Don't take offense at what 
 I'm saying I am an old friend of hers, and I have 
 a high regard for you as well. Now, three months 
 ago you had your opportunity. You remember the 
 picnic by Leffenham Woods? I'll confess that I 
 planned that picnic in order to give you two young 
 people a chance of coming to an understanding. I 
 saw that the atmosphere of Beechhurst was weigh- 
 ing on you, and so I gave you your opportunity on 
 neutral ground. Why didn't you clinch it?" 
 
 His paternal tone invite'd confidences. 
 
 "It wouldn't have been fair," answered Warde. 
 "An offer from Esk might come during the cruise, 
 and she must be free to accept." 
 
 "An offer which can only lead to unhappiness in 
 the long run. She, as well as you, will some day 
 be eating her heart out in regrets. It's only natural. 
 Esk is practically a worn-out invalid. Even I with 
 my white hairs am twenty years younger than he." 
 
 "I realize all that." 
 
 "Then where's your spirit? Eve is not yet mar- 
 ried to him. Sail in and cut her out!" 
 
 "It sounds so simple." 
 
 "It is simple. I know perfectly well that she 
 doesn't care for Esk in the way she cares for you. 
 Ask her boldly to run away with you." 
 
 "To be Marchioness of Esk is a career. I can't
 
 150 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 offer her a social position anywhere approaching 
 it." 
 
 "Not at the present moment true. But in th^ 
 near future unless you persist in squandering your 
 brains." 
 
 "In your letter you said some difficulty had 
 arisen in regard to financing me?" 
 
 "Yes just the difficulty we've been discussing. 
 At Brussels I was expecting that you two would 
 marry. She returned engaged to Esk, and that 
 made a radical difference to the proposition." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I find you moody and restless and losing confi- 
 dence in yourself. That doesn't promise well for 
 your future work. Looking at it sheerly from the 
 business side as I must the risk in financing you 
 is greater than ever. Frankly" a pause lent the 
 effect of deliberateness to what he was about to say 
 "frankly, you've bungled your love affair, and it 
 may be that you'll bungle your research work as 
 well." 
 
 His words stung. "Isn't that rather like kicking 
 a man when he's temporarily down?" retorted 
 Warde. 
 
 "It is. I want to kick spirit into you. You need 
 it. You've practically given up Eve to Esk, and 
 apparently you're giving up your brains to Bur- 
 grave. That's how I see the proposition." 
 
 "I was relying on your carrying out that half- 
 promise at Brussels." 
 
 "Relying on it for what purpose?" 
 
 "It would have helped to make my standing more 
 secure."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 151 
 
 "For what purpose?" 
 
 "Naturally, for marriage." 
 
 "That's precisely my point. Married to her, I 
 believe in your future and am ready to help you. 
 Not married to her, I have doubts of you. The two 
 run together." 
 
 "One runs before the other. Financial position 
 must come before marriage." 
 
 "No, together," persisted Paradine. "Now fol- 
 low me carefully. On the day you marry Eve, 
 you receive my financial blessing. I'll take you up 
 and finance and make you a money power as well 
 as a scientist. We'll work together, you and I- 
 you at the research end and I at the financial end. 
 We'll put wireless telephony into a position where 
 Burgrave could never lift it. We'll work on the big 
 scale, taking big risks in order to get big returns. 
 We'll make a world monopoly." 
 
 "You want me to leave Burgrave." 
 
 "Naturally. As I explained to you in April last, 
 I can't see myself working in with him." 
 
 "And take to you the secrets that belong to the 
 firm that Burgrave has paid me to discover work 
 that I couldn't have carried out unless he'd provided 
 the laboratories and the assistants and the yacht 
 and all the expensive apparatus." Warde was 
 speaking to himself rather than to Paradine. 
 
 "Yes. I should rely on your bringing to me 
 especially the new development you spoke of 
 bending the ether waves. Have you given that away 
 to Burgrave?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Good."
 
 152 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "In plain words, I'm to betray my trust." 
 
 "You're talking melodrama!" 
 
 "I must look facts in the face." 
 
 "Then look straight at this one. If Eve gives 
 up Esk in order to run away with you, isn't she 
 making a very big sacrifice? Heavens, man, look 
 at it straight!" 
 
 Warde's features were haggard with the fighting 
 of temptation. 
 
 "I should feel mean and blackguardly," he ex- 
 claimed bitterly. 
 
 "You're overwrought. My dear fellow, let me, 
 with my long experience, tell you that your scruples 
 are impracticable in the world we live in. If the 
 world were ideal, you could carry out your high 
 principles and expect others to do the same. But 
 the world's not ideal or anywhere near it. Stick 
 to your over-nice scruples, and you'll write failure 
 over your career. Your brains will go to enriching 
 those who are less scrupulous. In later life, you'll 
 look back on what you threw away, and wonder 
 what induced you to be so quixotically foolish." 
 
 "To leave Burgrave trick him!" 
 
 "There's no trick. He's a shrewd North country- 
 man, and has probably protected himself amply. 
 In any case, he's not dependent on wireless tele- 
 phony. His stand-by is the general electrical busi- 
 ness." 
 
 "I should feel I had lost my self-respect." 
 
 "The sacrifice you'd be making would be for 
 Eve's sake and for no other reason." 
 
 "Still " 
 
 "Plenty of other men have done more than that
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 153 
 
 for the girl they loved. Are you going to let her 
 marry Esk and ruin her eventual happiness?" 
 
 "She wants a career as well as love." 
 
 "Then give her both ! Give!" 
 
 Warde gripped and ungripped his fingers. The 
 battle of temptation was raging fiercely within him. 
 Six months before he had been offered money and a 
 career and had refused. Now the bid was higher. 
 Eve was in the scale. 
 
 Was that his price? 
 
 A long minute passed before he could frame his 
 words. 
 
 "I must think it over," he replied unsteadily.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE TURNING-POINT 
 
 When he left Paradine's flat near Regent's Park, 
 the night was clear and cold and bracing, a fore- 
 runner of winter frosts. Warde started to walk 
 across the West End toward his hotel in South 
 Kensington. 
 
 At such a crisis in a man's career, his welter of 
 thoughts, set out on the dissection table and flag-la- 
 beled, would fill the greater part of a volume. But 
 what purpose would it serve to detail ? The matter- 
 ings of life lie in the doings, not the thinkings. 
 What a man does summarizes his innermost feel- 
 ings and reveals the resultant of emotions hidden 
 even to himself. Thoughts are merely potential 
 actions. 
 
 The West End by two o'clock is almost a deserted 
 city. A policeman on point or beat; a prowling 
 taxi; a gang of street cleaners hosing away the 
 grime of traffic; a vegetable wagon from the coun- 
 try proceeding sedately toward Covent Garden mar- 
 ket, the driver asleep and leaving the conduct of the 
 journey to his horse ; a woman of the night waiting 
 for some belated wayfarer in evening dress ; a slink- 
 ing, shoulder-bent figure searching the gutters for 
 
 154
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 155 
 
 treasure-trove these make the life of the streets 
 in the small hours. 
 
 Warde's thoughts drew him to South Audley 
 Street. Here there was more evidence of a living 
 London. A line of motors waited for their owners. 
 He had forgotten the dance at the Merenthorpes' 
 evidently it was not yet over. Warde was turning 
 aside toward Park Lane when an imperious call 
 from a plushed footman brought Lord Esk's elec- 
 tric brougham out of the rank and gliding quickly to 
 the doorway of the house. Esk, heavily fur-coated, 
 appeared. 
 
 With a sudden impulse, Warde turned briskly and 
 went up to Esk, offering a card: "My name's 
 Warde. We met at Saltness. May I have a few 
 moments' talk with you ?" 
 
 Esk, pausing at the open door of his brougham, 
 surveyed him coldly. "I can give you a few mo- 
 ments. Come in." 
 
 "Home," said Esk into the speaking-tube. Then : 
 "I had better tell you at once that what you want 
 is out of the question." 
 
 Warde misunderstood. He had no intention of 
 asking for anything. His action had been a sudden 
 quixotic impulse to try to see the best in Esk - 
 to measure up as man to man and weigh what 
 each would offer to Eve for her eventual happiness. 
 It was perhaps a foolish action a feverishly self- 
 deprecating action. 
 
 "What did you imagine I wanted ?" he replied. 
 
 "I am told the sum is eight thousand pounds. 
 I cannot see my way to advance it." 
 
 "Who " began Warde, but checked himself
 
 156 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 abruptly. Who else but Eve would have broached 
 such a matter? In a flash he saw the whole chain 
 of circumstance Eve, remorseful at injuring his 
 prospects, trying to devise a way to help him to his 
 partnership ; in her anxiety, approaching Esk to get 
 an advance of the eight thousand pounds; the lat- 
 ter giving a cold refusal; and now imagining that 
 Warde would urge the matter on the strength of 
 his former relationship toward Eve. 
 
 A hot wave of angry resentment was as quickly 
 followed by the coolness of decision. Those few 
 words of Esk's had settled Warde's problem. He 
 knew now that his tangled skein of emotions had 
 been straightened out ready for the smooth unroll- 
 ing of action. 
 
 Continuing : "You misunderstand me completely. 
 That monetary affair was settled to-night." 
 
 "Then what did you want?" 
 
 "Something I have already obtained." 
 
 "I fail to understand." 
 
 "A decision on a private concern." 
 
 "If this is some obscure form of joke " 
 
 "I was never more serious." 
 
 "You owe me some explanation," said Esk 
 stiffly. 
 
 "The explanation is entirely simple. I came to 
 talk to you in order to clear up a certain problem 
 of my own. In a dozen words you had settled it." 
 
 Esk turned to scrutinize him. "I had better send 
 you home in my car," he suggested significantly. 
 "What is your address ?" 
 
 "Thanks I prefer to walk." 
 
 The brougham drew up at order, and Warde
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 157 
 
 alighted. A phrase from an Ibsen play flitted to 
 his lips. "Good-night, and thanks for the light," he 
 said. 
 
 Reaching his hotel fresh and crisp from the walk 
 through the keen night air, Warde wrote a line to 
 Eve : "I must see you at once. I have something 
 of the greatest importance to tell you. Can you 
 meet me to-day Thursday? Please telephone." 
 
 He posted the letter, and then went to bed with a 
 mind at rest, sinking quickly into a deep and dream- 
 less sleep.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 BOATS BURNED 
 
 The rendezvous was for the afternoon, at the 
 Sheen Gate of Richmond Park. In the huge empti- 
 ness of the Park they could be as alone as in the 
 privacy of a room. 
 
 Frost still tingled in the air, though the sun shone 
 sturdily in a sky only tinged with the autumn mists 
 of London. It was a day to send the blood pulsing 
 through one's veins clamoring of the sheer joy of 
 living. 
 
 "Shall we walk through to Richmond?" he 
 asked when he had helped Eve from her taxi. 
 
 "Yes do." 
 
 "I've burned my boats to-day," he told her as they 
 stepped briskly together over the short grass of an 
 open stretch of parkland. 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 "Last night I saw Paradine. He made me an 
 excellent monetary offer if I would leave Burgrave 
 and develop my wireless system with him. I 
 thought over the offer, and this morning, after you 
 had fixed this meeting, I went to him again and 
 clinched the agreement. I'm to receive a thousand 
 a year, a directorship in the company he'll form, 
 and a certain share interest dependent on results. 
 
 158
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 159 
 
 I then went to Burgrave, told him of my decision, 
 and severed with him." 
 
 "That's excellent news! I'm so glad! Burgrave 
 was sorry to lose you, I expect." 
 
 "Yes," said Warde briefly. He gave no hint of 
 the stormy interview with his chief, the bitter re- 
 proaches, and the scathing final words : "Ah tell 
 ye straight ye've taken the crooked path, and ye'll 
 live to regret it! My God, ye've sold yourself for 
 a woman's smiles!" 
 
 "It's a great relief to me to know that you're on 
 the way to a big career." 
 
 "There's one other condition." 
 
 Eve suddenly went white. "You mean- ?" 
 
 "Paradine is offering me this in order that I can 
 be in a position to marry you. That's why I asked 
 you to meet me to-day." 
 
 "But " 
 
 "The time has gone by for buts and ifs and vacil- 
 lations! We can't let matters drift any longer. 
 Eve, don't you realize in every tiny fiber of you 
 that we must marry." 
 
 "I've promised " 
 
 "You half-promised because some sort of an 
 answer was dragged from you. You've regretted it 
 ever since. Look me straight in the eyes and tell 
 me if you haven't regretted it." 
 
 "You carry me out of myself !" 
 
 "I want to carry you out of your environment." 
 
 "You said you had burned your boats. What 
 really did you mean by that ?" 
 
 His inner meaning was that the agreement with 
 Paradine would come into being on the express con-
 
 160 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 dition of his marrying Eve. But it would be using 
 an unfair club to let her know that his future de- 
 pended in that material fashion on her acceptance. 
 He therefore slurred over the question: 
 
 "I'm playing for big stakes. Big work and big 
 love. Come with me and help me build this new 
 life ! Together we'll harness up Fortune and drive 
 her through Park Lane. You'll have your social 
 career, dearest, and you'll have the exquisite pleas- 
 ure of building it. It won't be ready-made for you, 
 as it would have been with Esk. There's no real 
 pleasure in tackling life in cotton-wool. Anyone 
 could make a social career as Marchioness of Esk 
 any girl of reasonable looks and birth." 
 
 "Hilary, you seem to have changed! I never 
 knew you before so positive and and masterful." 
 
 "I've thrown over hesitations that's the change 
 in me. I'm going straight ahead now with you, 
 we two, straight out to bend this social world to 
 our desires, as I've bent my ether waves. There's 
 always a way to bend circumstances, if one has 
 the will and the inspiration. Can't you feel the 
 frost tingling you to action? That's an allegory o 
 life." 
 
 His words were vibrant, like the tones of a vio- 
 lin where the wood has been perfectly seasoned 
 and shaped to its purpose. They resonated within 
 her. Her nerves seemed to vibrate with his, like 
 two instruments tuned to the same pitch. 
 
 "There's magic in your voice to-day!" she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 "Better, there's understanding between us. Deep 
 calling to deep, and answering. Trust to me,
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 161 
 
 dearest. I'll give you all your heart can wish for. 
 There'll be no regrets. We shall be obeying the 
 call of Nature, and Nature will show us her inner- 
 most secrets of happiness!" 
 
 They had passed over the open stretch of park- 
 land, and a group of spreading oaks, russet and 
 Indian-red, seemed to throw protecting arms about 
 them. 
 
 They turned to one another as though by simul- 
 taneous impulse, and the spark of love flashed from 
 pole to pole. She was in his arms ; he was kissing 
 her passionately; no spoken word could have told 
 more clearly of her surrender. 
 
 "My love! My dearest love!" he whispered 
 throbbingly. 
 
 She felt that nothing mattered but his kisses 
 
 the world was a thousand miles away. 
 
 ****** 
 
 They came eventually to talk of the prose of mar- 
 riage. 
 
 It was agreed between them that delay would 
 be purposeless. They would go before the regis- 
 trar the next day, and leave London straightway 
 for their honeymoon. Lord Merenthorpe and Esk 
 and Miss Glenistair would have to be informed by 
 letter. Clothes Eve would need only a light trav- 
 eling outfit, and her trousseau in general could go 
 forward in the process of making and be ready 
 for her on her return to London. 
 
 As for Warde, he would not be needed for a 
 month or so. Paradine would require fully that 
 time to set his preparations for their joint work. 
 
 And now to choose the country of their honey-
 
 162 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 moon. They discussed it with tingling zest as they 
 made their way through the park to Richmond, and 
 in a cosy corner of a tea-room definitely decided 
 details. They must seek the sun. The Riviera 
 with its hothouse artificiality was quickly ruled out. 
 Italy they lingered over, but dismissed as tourist- 
 ridden. Egypt better, but too full of acquaint- 
 ances. 
 
 The choice came to Morocco. It was not luxury- 
 ridden. It held the spice of adventure. Its lone- 
 liness would suit their mood of abandonment to one 
 another. 
 
 Morocco be it! 
 
 ****** 
 
 There was no hitch to the plans they made. 
 
 On the after-morning of that walk through Rich- 
 mond Park, Hilary and Eve were in the Sud express 
 from Paris to make their way by easy stages 
 through Spain to Gibraltar, and so across the 
 Straits to the land of burning sunshine and burn- 
 ing passions.
 
 BOOK II. CAREER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FIVE YEARS ON 
 
 Five years packed with interest, excitement, in- 
 tensity of work, ever-growing success. 
 
 There had been first that month of delirious 
 happiness in Spain and Morocco. Hilary and Eve 
 had felt that the world stood still to allow them 
 their honeymoon. The Merenthorpe family, Esk, 
 Burgrave, Paradine, were for the time being thrust 
 away to another plane of existence. They wanted 
 no letters, no interruption to their happiness in one 
 another. They lived in a crystal bubble of their 
 own creation in an inner world of glowing emo- 
 tion bounded by the swiftly changing scenes of their 
 journey. The deserted palace of the Alhambra with 
 its thousand courtyards had been reared to form a 
 setting for their kisses; the chasm of Ronda had 
 been cleft to make for them a lovers' lane; the 
 fierce wild solitudes of the Atlas Mountains had 
 been piled up, peak on peak, to awe them with the 
 majesty of Nature and send them closer to one an- 
 other's arms, seeking the protectiveness of love as 
 a child runs to the protection of a mother. In their 
 tenderly intimate abandonment, they spoke of them- 
 selves as the babes in the wood. There was no 
 
 163
 
 164 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 need in the tented solitudes of desert and moun- 
 tain, with only their Moorish escort to link them 
 with civilization, to play at being man and woman. 
 They were two little children. The world of Lon- 
 don was an ugly dream-world. This honeymoon 
 
 was the reality of existence. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Later came the inevitable shattering of the crys- 
 tal bubble. They returned to London, and the 
 unrhythmic prose of life replaced the pulsing 
 cadences of the honeymoon. 
 
 Lord and Lady Merenthorpe refused to acknowl- 
 edge Warde. Toward Eve they were bitterly re- 
 proachful; but she was their daughter, and in course 
 of time a compromise of peace was patched to- 
 gether. Beatrice, always outspoken, openly cham- 
 pioned her. Ralph, with a grandiose idea of assert- 
 ing the family position, called on Warde to adminis- 
 ter a thrashing, but found himself forcibly trans- 
 ported to the office door and deposited at the bottom 
 of the staircase, leaving him with the newborn 
 realization that there might be two sides to a public 
 chastisement. 
 
 Paradine had been very busy during Warde's 
 month of honeymoon. The financing of an enter- 
 prise such as wireless telephony, where he held 
 inside knowledge against the guesses of outsiders, 
 was work after his own heart. Warde returned to 
 find the company on the point of flotation. 
 
 It was a small "parent" company asking only 
 for 50,000 from the public. The prospectus gave 
 the vaguest of information as to present perform- 
 ance and future expectation; the list of directors
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 165 
 
 was small, and with the exception of Paradine, 
 unimpressive; there was no patent yet applied for; 
 the sub-clauses retained powers in the hands of the 
 Board to an abnormally dangerous extent that is, 
 dangerous from a shareholder's point of view. As 
 a consequence, the prospectus was adversely criti- 
 cized in the financial journals and the city columns 
 of the daily papers ; and the Stock Exchange started 
 a nominal quotation of % discount on the i share. 
 A rumor that Burgrave was applying for a patent 
 on a system of wireless telephony gained ground; 
 received confirmation from Burgrave himself; and 
 the shares before allotment were heavily "beared" 
 by speculators. 
 
 Warde, coming down to Paradine's City offices in 
 Angel Court with a sheaf of newspapers in his 
 hand, ventured to express the doubts he was feel- 
 ing. "It doesn't look as though we shall get that 
 50,000, or anything near it," he said. 
 
 "This is your initiation into finance," returned 
 Sir Wilmer, smiling imperturbably. "Wait a week. 
 Meanwhile, go about and meet men and look 
 gloomy." 
 
 That order was easy to carry out. Warde was 
 worried over this check right at the beginning of 
 their business partnership. He could not share 
 Paradine's optimism as to the obtaining of the 
 share capital. The criticisms of the financial papers 
 seemed to him well justified, and he felt that he 
 could have drafted a better prospectus himself, even 
 with his limited knowledge of company finance. 
 On the other hand, the fact of Burgrave being about 
 to patent did not disturb him. He had carried
 
 166 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 away, in his brain, the really valuable later develop- 
 ments of the wireless system. What was left to 
 Burgrave was an immature method and highly pro- 
 visional types of apparatus, and if these were 
 patented, Warde could easily out of his later knowl- 
 edge improve on them and secure new and master 
 patents. He had no doubts of the scientific end 
 his own province but he felt anxious over the 
 success of the flotation, Sir Wilmer's end. 
 
 Within a week, his anxiety was laid to rest and a 
 belief in Paradine firmly established. The bear 
 raid on "W. Tels" (as the market nicknamed the 
 stock) sent the shares down to I2s. Paradine' s 
 brokers bought in all that was offered by specu- 
 lators. The allotments went nearly all to Para- 
 dine's own nominees. As a consequence, they ef- 
 fected a neat little "bear corner." Those who had 
 rashly sold could not get stock to deliver at settle- 
 ment except by purchasing from Paradine's dummy 
 nominees. W. Tels shot up magically, and at the 
 special settlement day, three months later, the i 
 shares were standing at the purely nominal figure 
 of 10 and no sellers. They could have been at 20 
 or 50, had Sir Wilmer cared to press his advan- 
 tage. But he did not do so. His reasons were set 
 out when one of the "bears" came to settle in 
 private, Warde being present at the interview in 
 order to gain insight into finance. 
 
 "This is just a damned rig," protested the specu- 
 lator sulkily. "I've a good mind to get the Stock 
 Exchange Committee to investigate and cancel all 
 dealings." 
 
 "If it were a rig," replied Pardine pleasantly,
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 167 
 
 "you would have to pay about 50 apiece for your 
 shares instead of 10. No it's intended as a little 
 lesson for you market scalpers. Don't try bear 
 raids on my companies. It's too dangerous. I 
 only take up winning propositions. This wireless 
 system of Mr. Warde's" turning, he indicated Hil- 
 ary sitting quietly in the background "is perhaps 
 the finest thing I have yet touched. Let Mr. Warde 
 talk to you about it. The shares will certainly be 
 worth 10 apiece in the near future, when we come 
 to float our subsidiaries." 
 
 About 80,000 was the amount cleared by Para- 
 dine's shrewd manipulation, while the stock re- 
 mained practically all in his own and partners' pos- 
 session. That gave them ample working capital, 
 but it was only the beginning of Sir Wilmer's mar- 
 ket maneuvers. He made money when Warde's 
 master-patent was applied for and the shares rose 
 swiftly; he made further money when the wording 
 of the application, as he expected, caused the patent 
 to be refused, and the shares as quickly dropped; 
 he made still more money when a new application 
 found favor with the Comptroller of Patents. With 
 inside knowledge anticipating the zig-zags of share 
 fluctuation, it was easy for so experienced a 
 manipulator as Paradine to gain on the downs as 
 well as on the ups. At the end of four years, the 
 present company was worth 200,000 in cash and 
 properties, obtained solely by share manipulation 
 without a penny's income from transmission of 
 wireless messages. Burgrave, a business man pure 
 and simple, could never have developed in that 
 fashion.
 
 168 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Warde was given practically carte blanche in his 
 expenditure for experiments and the erection of 
 transmitting stations. He engaged a whole corps 
 of technical assistants, and spent money furiously 
 in order to advance his system as rapidly as possible. 
 At the scientific end, his was the master-mind. He 
 had not only to transmit over long distances; he 
 had also to invent methods of sending messages 
 which could not be "tapped" from outside tuning 
 the ether waves to a definite pitch corresponding to 
 the pitch of the particular receiving station; he 
 had to overcome the problem of the "daylight drop," 
 which meant that in sunlight his range of trans- 
 mission dropped by thirty or forty per cent. ; and 
 above all, he had to develop the "television" side 
 of his inventions, enabling those who talked by 
 wireless not only to hear but also to see a thousand, 
 two thousand, three thousand miles away. 
 
 Burgrave had long since dropped out of the 
 running; but Rademeyer, Schultz and Maccallum 
 working on lines of their own with a heavy Govern- 
 ment subsidy behind them, were developing a very 
 formidable rival system. At one time they had 
 tried to contest Warde's master-patent in the Ger- 
 man courts, which involved months of attendance 
 at Berlin and Leipzig on the part of Warde and 
 Paradine, and nearly 50,000 in legal costs. The 
 English firm had triumphed finally in the Supreme 
 Court, and then the Germans had bent their energies 
 to the evolving of a radically new system, helped 
 by the biggest of their scientists. 
 
 In the fifth year of partnership, Paradine floated 
 a subsidiary company to manufacture apparatus and
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 169 
 
 sell it to ocean-going vessels. This time there was 
 no rigging of shares or creation of artificial values. 
 The success of Warde's inventions was thoroughly 
 well known, and the English public rushed to sub- 
 scribe for stock. A large factory was established 
 in Sheffield, and the commercial era of wireless 
 telephony had begun. Up to then the profits had 
 been purely financial ; now they were establishing a 
 more enduring mercantile basis. 
 
 For Warde, it meant endless organization work. 
 ****** 
 
 On Eve's side, the social career she had dreamt 
 of had not progressed with the rapidity of Hilary's 
 career. 
 
 There had been two little daughters, Betty and 
 Mona, needing her care and attention for the early 
 years of married life. Then came her husband's 
 ever-growing preoccupation in the affairs scien- 
 tific, financial, legal and commercial of wireless 
 telephony. When she might be needing him for 
 her social functions dinners, receptions and 
 dances; or to take her to the Riviera for Mi- 
 Careme; to Aix, Baden or Marienbad; to Ascot, 
 Henley, Goodwood, Cowes, the moors he would 
 be called away by the necessities of his work. For 
 weeks at a time he would be out on the ocean ex- 
 perimenting; there were whole months spent in 
 fighting the Rademeyer firm in the courts of Berlin 
 and Leipzig; he had to travel to Newfoundland to 
 establish a wireless station; and even in London 
 the calls of his scientific and organizing work tore 
 him from her by night as well as by day. 
 
 It was not that money was lacking to her.
 
 170 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Warde poured all his monetary gains at her feet. 
 He lived up to his income and far beyond, mort- 
 gaging future prospects with Paradine, who made 
 no difficulty in advancing what he asked for. All 
 that Eve could reasonably desire in the material 
 way he gave her unstintingly. Their town house 
 in Cadogan Square was in itself equivalent to over 
 a thousand a year; to that had to be added their 
 river cottage at Maidenhead, motors, jewelry, dress 
 and the thousand incidentals of social life. 
 
 But he could not give her himself his time, at- 
 tention and solicitude in the minor matters in the 
 way she had vaguely dreamt of in the summer of 
 their half -engagement. In girlish fashion she had 
 pictured a marriage of love as a perpetual duet. 
 A marriage of convenience, as with Esk, would of 
 course be a mere living together for mutual advan- 
 tages; but with Warde the glamour of love had 
 suggested a companionship idealized, etherealized, 
 raised above the plane of the material. He would 
 be always with her; their desires would be one; 
 their mutual claims paramount. 
 
 As it was, Hilary gave to her his love, his fidel- 
 ity, his money but not his time.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A DEATH-BED TRUST 
 
 "Sir Wilmer wishes you to come over at once." 
 
 This was the message, through his own wireless 
 system, which Warde received from Brussels in the 
 autumn of the fifth year of partnership. It was 
 Paradine's valet who spoke, and his voice trembled. 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Warde. 
 
 "It's a tragedy, sir," faltered the valet. "Please 
 come at once. It will have to be hushed up. Sir 
 Wilmer needs you urgently. You are not to say 
 anything to anybody, sir, but travel over at once." 
 
 Warde hastily 'phoned to Eve to have a bag 
 packed for him and sent to Charing Cross station, 
 and just managed to catch the morning train, land- 
 ing him in Brussels in the later afternoon. The 
 brief message "A tragedy," "to be hushed up," 
 "urgently needed" caused him acute anxiety. 
 The five years of partnership with Paradine had 
 established a warm friendship between them. 
 Paradine had done all that he had promised for 
 Warde, and more. He had been liberal with mone- 
 tary arrangements, generous with advances, broad- 
 minded in regard to expenditure on research work, 
 confidential with his own business plans. He had 
 shown respect for Warde's opinions, and he had 
 171
 
 172 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 taught the young fellow a world of specialized 
 knowledge in men and finance. Once Warde had 
 made that first plunge, throwing off the scruples 
 which hampered him, relations between them had 
 developed with splendid smoothness. 
 
 Warde was shown into a bedroom of the same 
 flat in the Rue Mazarin he had visited five years 
 before. Sir Wilmer lay back, deathly white, on 
 the pillows of a Louis Quinze four-poster bed, 
 incongruous in its flippant decorativeness, as the 
 furniture in general was incongruous, with the 
 gravity of his state. A doctor and a nurse were in 
 attendance. 
 
 Sir Wilmer lighted up with a faint gleam of 
 pleasure at seeing Warde, and in a voice scarcely 
 above a whisper asked that the doctor and nurse 
 should withdraw. 
 
 "Dix minutes. Pas plus," allowed the medical 
 man as he left the room. 
 
 "My dear Paradine whatever has happened?" 
 asked Warde in deep distress. 
 
 "Clothilde you remember her? shot me. 
 Through the lungs. Jealousy revenge it doesn't 
 matter. She shot me. I'm dying. That's all that 
 matters. Don't want her arrested. What good 
 would it do? Don't want anyone to know. Doc- 
 tor thinks I shot myself accidentally." 
 
 A fit of coughing sent him back on the pillows in 
 exhaustion. 
 
 Warde, holding his hand gently, waited in silence 
 for his further words. At such a time it was 
 cruelty to waste a dying man's strength by ques- 
 tioning, or to attempt consolations and hopes that
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 173 
 
 could not deceive him. Paradine knew that his 
 hours were numbered, and he had big matters to 
 confide to Warde. 
 
 Presently he resumed in a whisper. "Made a 
 will this morning. Signed and all in order. Leave 
 all my interests in W. Tels to you." 
 
 Warde was greatly surprised as well as deeply 
 touched by this gift. He answered: "That's 
 awfully good of you! But your family all your 
 nephews and nieces it doesn't seem quite fair that 
 a stranger should " 
 
 "They get the rest. They haven't done much 
 for me. I want you to have all my holdings in 
 W. Tels. Listen why. When I first tried to get 
 hold of you remember, dinner at my flat in Lon- 
 don? I only wanted to make money out of wire- 
 less. Only that nothing more. But this thing 
 has grown beyond me. It's been too big for me. 
 Carried me along. I've been an instrument. Re- 
 member your words, 'England mistress of the 
 ether'? That's the real driver of you and me 
 now. Just an idea, but stronger than you or me or 
 anyone else in the organization. The real driver. 
 Using us all as instruments." 
 
 Warde suddenly felt mean and petty. In the 
 last couple of years the whirlpool of money-making 
 had dazed his finer feelings. The larger ambition 
 had become dulled over by the strivings of the 
 immediate present. Paradine, with the clear- 
 sightedness of the dying, knew that his own ex- 
 ample had smirched Warde, and in the short space 
 of life that remained to him, he was trying to put 
 back the clock five years.
 
 174. EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Continuing: "What I'm leaving you is a trust. 
 To make the idea reality. Not for your own pleas- 
 ures. A trust. I want you to be the instrument- 
 in-chief. Take control of everything scientific 
 end, financial, commercial. Cos way" (one of the 
 directors of the parent company) "is only a City 
 man. Thornton" (the managing director of the 
 Sheffield works) "is only a business man. They're 
 older than you, but that's nothing. You must be 
 boss. If they won't work on the big lines when I'm 
 dead, clear them out. The shares I'm leaving you 
 will almost give you control. If you need to out- 
 vote them, buy some extra stock in the market, use 
 it for voting purposes, and sell out again when the 
 voting's over. Follow me ?" 
 
 Warde pressed the hand he held in understanding 
 and gratitude and something akin to awe. The 
 strain of this long conversation on Paradine's feeble 
 strength was clear in his features. He was now 
 talking on pure nerve by strength of will power 
 alone. 
 
 The doctor entered authoritatively to close this 
 interview with its strain on the dying man, but 
 Paradine waved him away. 
 
 "Allez-vous-en!" he whispered fiercely, and broke 
 into a prolonged fit of coughing. 
 
 Warde motioned the doctor away. 
 
 Presently Paradine summoned up will power once 
 more and resumed: "You must get the Govern- 
 ment to finance wireless. I've been working on the 
 hundred thousand scale; you must work on the 
 million scale. Must be done quickly, or Rademeyer 
 will get ahead. Be a stiff task to harness up the
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 175 
 
 British Government. That's your work now. My 
 money is in trust with you to do it. No scruples. 
 If necessary, buy men. One consideration only- 
 England mistress of the ether. Nothing else." 
 
 "As God is my witness," answered Warde with 
 deep feeling, "I'll be loyal to your trust." 
 
 Paradine's pleasure was evident in the relaxing 
 of his strained features. He paused for a few 
 moments, seeking round in his thoughts for any 
 other matters he ought to confide to Warde. 
 
 "Another point. When it's known that I'm dead, 
 the shares of the companies will go down. You 
 must anticipate that 'bear' them and make money. 
 If I die to-night, you must keep my death secret 
 until you've worked the market." 
 
 Warde, horrified, tried to protest, but Paradine 
 cut him short. "No scruples you promised me. 
 Only one consideration. Nothing else to count. 
 You and I are merely instruments. That's the last 
 thing I can do die and make the market fluctuate 
 for us." 
 
 The grim humor of it seemed to please the dying 
 man. He added: "My last twist to the market. 
 You promise?" 
 
 "I promise," murmured Warde. 
 
 "Good." 
 
 Sir Wilmer relaxed, and presently dropped off 
 into a light doze. 
 
 The doctor and nurse returned to watch him. 
 
 After he had laid his trust on Warde, Paradine's 
 effort of will power was no longer called for. His 
 further words were merely weak murmurings,
 
 176 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 semi-delirious vague snatches of disconnected 
 memories. 
 
 He died in the small hours of the morning with- 
 out recovering full consciousness. 
 
 Warde's duties were grim and distasteful. He 
 had to keep the death secret until midday in order 
 to work the London market; hush up the manner 
 of death ; pacify the Brussels police authorities ; con- 
 vey the body back to England for burial; explain 
 to relatives; see to legal arrangements. 
 
 But through it all he felt that Paradine had 
 passed on to him a torch to be kept burning with 
 all his energies of mind and body.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FIGHT FOR CONTROL 
 
 It caused a decided sensation in City circles when 
 it became known that the whole of Paradine's hold- 
 ings in wireless telephony had been transferred to 
 Warde. He had, of course, established his reputa- 
 tion in the research field the technical end of the 
 enterprise but as an organizing financier he was 
 an unknown quantity. At thirty-two he was 
 scarcely more than a boy compared with the other 
 directors in the two wireless companies. The mar- 
 ket price of the shares dropped considerably. 
 Warde, with the money he had made by the pre- 
 vious "bear" sales, bought secretly all the shares 
 that he could carry on margin. He had to fortify 
 his voting position for a possible struggle against 
 his co-directors. 
 
 It was not long in coming. Some three months 
 after the death of Paradine, Cos way and Thornton, 
 on the Board of the parent company, broached the 
 flotation of another subsidiary for the purpose of 
 manufacturing in Germany. 
 
 They discussed it in Paradine's offices in Angel 
 Court, which Warde had taken over. 
 
 Thornton, a big-built, heavy-jowled, iron-gray 
 177
 
 178 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 man, used to command, laid out a pile of documents 
 on the flat-topped desk. 
 
 "This" he indicated a clip of letters "is cor- 
 respondence with the Bremen Reichsport Line. 
 They are prepared to install our apparatus on all 
 their liners if we can meet them on prices. The 
 German Government have raised a 100 per cent, 
 tariff against our stuff. That kills the negotiation. 
 The alternative suggested by them is to form a 
 German company to manufacture in Bremen, we 
 to take up half the shares and have representation 
 on the Board." 
 
 "And receive 25,000 as a clear bonus," added 
 Cosway, a trim, smallish man with an easy and 
 rather ingratiating manner. 
 
 "Let me see their plan in detail," said Warde, an 
 ugly connotation of "Bremen" in his mind. 
 
 Thornton passed over a draft prospectus in Ger- 
 man, with an English translation. 
 
 Warde read through them both with minute care, 
 comparing clause and clause. "A half-and-half 
 holding is too dangerous from our point of view," 
 was his final verdict. "Clause 19 gives a casting 
 vote to the Chairman as well as a share vote. The 
 Chairman is the President of the line. That one 
 extra vote gives them control. I advise rejection 
 of the offer." 
 
 A lively discussion took place. Thornton had 
 already tried for a three-fifths holding, but the 
 German line insisted on half-and-half. He de- 
 clared that if this offer was refused, they would 
 infallibly lose the big contract. Cosway urged the 
 further loss of immediate profit on the flotation.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 179 
 
 "Then they take up the Rademeyer system!" 
 concluded Thornton heatedly. 
 
 "Let them," said Warde. "There are two ends 
 to wireless communication, transmitting and receiv- 
 ing. The one is useless without the other. If our 
 system holds the big shore stations in England, 
 France, Spain, Canada and the States, and the ma- 
 jority of English ships are similarly installed, every 
 other Atlantic liner will be forced sooner or later 
 to buy from us, in order to communicate with them. 
 Atlantic shore stations and English ships that's 
 where we've got to concentrate. Let the B. R. L. 
 either go without or get their Government to take 
 off the tariff against us." 
 
 "But I tell you they will install the Rademeyer 
 system!" retorted Thornton, pounding the desk. 
 "It simply means that we lose installations on every 
 German liner. Not only the B. R. L. boats, but all 
 the small fry as well." 
 
 "And the flotation bonus," added Cosway, natur- 
 ally seeing his own province in the foreground. "I 
 think you ought to trust a little to our judgment. 
 We've seen a good deal of finance and business. I 
 pass on the prospectus; Thornton passes on the 
 manufacturing end. This isn't a scientific question, 
 or we'd take your opinion blindly. Come, Warde, 
 let's join hands on the proposition. Paradine would 
 have done so." 
 
 "I differ on that," said Warde firmly. "I was 
 with Sir Wilmer when he died, and he left me a 
 very explicit policy to carry out. The first con- 
 sideration is to protect the interests of Great 
 Britain. If we put up half the money for a Ger-
 
 180 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 man controlled company, we're weakening those 
 interests." 
 
 "But we're a business concern," protested Thorn- 
 ton. 
 
 "That was the policy Sir Wilmer set me," re- 
 turned Warde, "and for that reason I advise rejec- 
 tion of the B. R. L. offer." 
 
 More discussion ensued. They parted unamiably. 
 
 In the course of the day, the shares of the present 
 company rocketed up. Evidently Thornton and 
 Cosway were buying for control, so that they might 
 force through their view of the proposed transac- 
 tion at a company meeting. Warde' s broker tele- 
 phoned to know if Warde wished to sell out the 
 shares he had previously bought on margin. They 
 showed a nice profit. 
 
 "No," said Warde. "Hold on." 
 
 "Do you want to set a selling limit?" asked the 
 broker. 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 A brisk market flutter took place in the shares. 
 From 8 they rose to 10, to n, to 11^2. Warde 
 still refused to cash the big personal profit in sight, 
 because it would have meant selling his potential 
 votes. An extraordinary general meeting of the 
 company was called to pass on Thornton's resolu- 
 tion. Both sides circularized the list of share- 
 holders for voting proxies. 
 
 Warde, through his broker, called for delivery 
 of the 10,000 shares he had bought on margin. 
 Together with Paradine's legacy of 15,000 shares 
 and a few proxies he had received they would just 
 secure him control at the coming meeting, giving
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 181 
 
 him over half of the total capital of 50,000 shares. 
 
 But he had not the cash with which to pay for 
 them. 80,000 was the sum he needed, and his 
 personal cash assets were about 10,000 gained over 
 the death of Paradine. There was a paper profit 
 for him of some 30,000 if he closed out at the 
 moment at the current price of 11^-^2, but to 
 realize that profit would lose him his voting power. 
 
 Warde went to his bank for the loan, offering as 
 security the shares Paradine had left him. 
 
 The banker, a man of long experience and in- 
 finite caution, produced a Stock Exchange manual 
 giving the past fluctuations of industrial shares, and 
 pointed to the highly erratic record of W. Tels and 
 its subsidiary. 
 
 "Up and down, up and down," commented the 
 banker. "There's no stability in your shares. They 
 
 may crumble away in a day. Besides " He 
 
 paused. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Why need you take up these 10,000 shares of 
 yours? If you close them to-day, I understand you 
 would make a good profit." 
 
 "Yes, about 30,000; but I need the votes more 
 than the money." 
 
 "No, pardon me, you need money more than you 
 need votes." 
 
 Warde realized the inner meaning of the words. 
 He was considered to be too young to be in control 
 of the wireless company. Paradine could have 
 raised the loan almost on his word without security, 
 but Warde had not established a basis of credit for
 
 182 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 himself. Judged by Lombard Street standards, he 
 was far too young. 
 
 "How much will you loan me?" he asked after 
 some moments of thought. 
 
 "Frankly, I don't care at all for your security; 
 but as a personal favor to you I would advance 
 half of what you ask. As further collateral, I shall 
 also require an insurance policy on your life for, 
 say, 25,000." 
 
 Warde had difficulty in controlling his anger at 
 this essence of caution. His insurance policy had, 
 of course, been taken out for the benefit of Eve and 
 the children, and he had no intention of alienating 
 it. 
 
 That night he went home furrowed with thought. 
 The problem of five years back was being repeated. 
 Then it was only eight thousand pounds he needed ; 
 to-day it was seventy thousand; yet the problem 
 was in essence the same to obtain credit on his 
 personality. He now had acquaintances who would 
 lend him money on the scale of thousands, but 
 there was no one to turn to on the scale of tens 
 of thousands, no other Sir Wilmer Paradine. He 
 must make through this fight alone. 
 
 While he was dressing for dinner, Eve came to 
 his room. "How do I look?" she asked smilingly. 
 
 "Yourself at your best, and that's perfection," he 
 answered. "But why that elaborate gown?" 
 
 "Surely you haven't forgotten that it's the Saver- 
 nay dance to-night?" 
 
 "I had forgotten," he confessed. "I'm worried, 
 dear, over business matters."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 183 
 
 "Tell them to me and I'll clear them up," said 
 Eve gayly. 
 
 He explained in detail, but Eve became tangled 
 in this maze of votes and credit, loan and collateral. 
 The one fact that stood out boldly with her was the 
 immediate profit of 30,000 which Warde held in 
 his hand if he cared to close his shares. 
 
 "Couldn't you take the profit?" she suggested. 
 "We could do a lot with that money." 
 
 "It would be right against the grain of Para- 
 dine's policy." 
 
 "Well, you know best. But can't you leave 
 thinking till to-morrow, Hil dear?" 
 
 "I've got to worry it out to-night. Time'-s 
 short." 
 
 "The dance!" she protested. 
 
 "I'll join you there later, if you don't mind. I 
 must get this matter settled in my mind first." 
 
 "But I do mind." 
 
 "I'm sorry. As soon as I've straightened it 
 out " 
 
 Eve, nettled, interrupted. "It is unnecessary for 
 you to come at all. I can return in the car alone." 
 
 "I'll join you later," he repeated. 
 
 After dinner Warde buried himself in thought. 
 A dozen plans for raising the needed money came 
 to him, fair-seeming at first, but each with the small 
 one hitch that made it impracticable. "Sell my 
 Paradine shares," he mused. "... Refuse ac- 
 tual delivery until a fortnight later. . . . Official 
 buyer-in. . . . Fancy price. . . . Force me to 
 pay. . . . No, impossible." 
 
 It was over an hour after Eve had left in the
 
 184 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 car for General Savernay's that the real scheme 
 came to him, and he began absorbedly on a fresh 
 train of thought. 
 
 Warde's plan was daring in the extreme. 
 Though he had failed to raise the money to pay 
 for 10,000 shares, he set himself to buy a further 
 30,000. This was not simple. If he ordered such 
 a large block of shares to be bought directly on the 
 Exchange, the price would inevitably be run up 
 against him to a prohibitive figure. His plan was 
 to buy and sell simultaneously to whip the market 
 into a fever of indecision as to what was happening 
 behind the scenes, and then trust to the excitement 
 of the moment for the securing of his shares at a 
 reasonable figure. He proposed to give simul- 
 taneously orders to sell 30,000 and buy 60,000. In 
 broker's commissions alone this would cost him 
 over 10,000. 
 
 Turning to his bureau, he wrote six letters to 
 brokers of standing whom he knew by reputation, 
 and who probably knew of him. Each letter ex- 
 pressed a desire to open an account, and as a start 
 to have 10,000 shares of W. Tels bought at the 
 market price at the opening of the Exchange the 
 next morning a quarter to eleven. They were to 
 telephone early in the morning to Cadogan Square 
 to state whether they wished to execute this order. 
 No doubt they would accept, since buying shares 
 was not a dangerous operation. 
 
 It was very different with the selling of W. Tels. 
 In the present uncertain state of the market, no 
 reputable broker would care to sell a large quantity
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 185 
 
 for him, unless he had the actual shares to deliver 
 in case of necessity. 
 
 He therefore 'phoned up two further brokers at 
 their private houses, and arranged interviews for 
 eleven-thirty and twelve-thirty that night. Driving 
 straight to each in a taxi, he carried with him the 
 scrip of the 15,000 shares left by Paradine. With 
 both men he fixed the same arrangement : that they 
 should each sell any part of 15,000 shares in the 
 market at the opening of the Exchange the next 
 morning. The sight of the actual scrip smoothed 
 away their doubts. 
 
 It was a plan of dubious ethics. In effect, Warde 
 was creating for the, moment a fictitious extra 
 15,000 shares. But he had put aside scruples. 
 Only one thing counted: to carry out Paradine's 
 trust. 
 
 If anything should go wrong in this terrific gam- 
 ble, he would be cleaned out and bankrupted. He 
 took the risk, posted his six buying orders, and 
 went to the Savernay dance to find Eve. 
 
 "It's all settled," he whispered cheerfully. 
 
 "I can't leave yet," she answered, still resentful 
 of his neglect of her. 
 
 "We'll stay as long as you like." 
 
 Eve smiled gayly to an approaching partner, and 
 left her husband. 
 
 Even at the dance Warde was not free from the 
 web of business. Two young fellows came to him 
 confidentially for a market "tip." "What's doing 
 in your shares ?" they asked. "Ought we to buy or 
 sell?"
 
 186 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Warde knew them for men of ample means. 
 Again he put aside scruples. 
 
 "Sell," he answered. "First thing to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 "The shares are going to drop ?" 
 
 "Yes presently. Don't be scared by fluctua- 
 tions. Put up a good margin. Keep this tip to 
 yourselves." 
 
 But he knew the advice would be spread about. 
 
 The next morning Warde stayed at home instead 
 of going to his offices at Angel Court. His reason 
 was that he wanted no one to call on him except by 
 telephone. Five of the buyers accepted the buying 
 orders; the sixth demurred and demanded a cash 
 guarantee. Warde at once offered to send a check 
 for 10,000 by express messenger, as cover, and 
 did so. 
 
 That left him practically penniless, and his pos- 
 sible liabilities during the morning would total to 
 anything between 400,000 and 600,000. 
 
 He gave orders that he was "at home" to no one 
 under any pretext whatever, and locked himself 
 into his study with the telephone at his elbow. He 
 was not feverishly excited, for he had passed be- 
 yond the stage into a "second wind" of calmness. 
 If anything went wrong, he was bankrupt, and 
 there was the matter clean and straight. 
 
 In the City that Thursday afterward became 
 known as "Warde's day." From the opening rattle, 
 the industrial market was a bedlam of frantic 
 shouting. Six brokers offering to buy W. Tels in 
 thousands were countered by two brokers throw- 
 ing stock into the market by thousands. Other
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 187 
 
 brokers as the result of the spreading of Warde's 
 "tip" at the dance, were offering to sell in hundreds. 
 Scalpers, scenting a lively game, rushed in to get 
 their share of the spoil. The jobbers of the indus- 
 trial market who specialized in telegraphs and tele- 
 phones that is, made books on the shares found 
 themselves besieged. Struggling groups of men 
 shouted and flung out their hands in the sign-lan- 
 guage of the Exchange like maniacs. 
 
 By eleven-thirty Warde learned by telephone that 
 he had sold 30,000 and bought 60,000 shares. His 
 holdings now totaled: 
 
 Paradine's legacy 15,000 shares 
 
 Previously bought 10,000 shares 
 
 Difference on the morning 30,000 shares 
 
 55,000 shares 
 
 There were only 50,000 shares in existence. He 
 had cornered the market just as Paradine had done 
 in the very early days of wireless finance but on 
 a scale ten times larger. Someone had sold 5,000 
 shares which it would be impossible to deliver ex- 
 cept by negotiating with Warde. He could make 
 his own price for them. 
 
 But the cost was tremendous. He now stood 
 committed to find 470,000 in cash by pay day. 
 
 In the course of the morning the jobbers of the 
 industrial market refused to deal further with the 
 raging crowd of brokers. They had to even up 
 their books and find out exactly where they stood. 
 But the precaution came too late. They had over-
 
 188 TEVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 sold. They began to bid for shares at 16, 18, 20, 
 25, 30. In vain. The rumor of a "corner" had 
 spread like running quicksilver. The shares were 
 too red-hot to handle. No one dared to speculate 
 further. The market in W. Tels came to a stand- 
 still; and Warde held the whip hand. 
 If he could raise 470,000 !
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 Two days before pay day, and a week before the 
 date of the company meeting which would pass 
 on Thornton's resolution, two jobbers of the indus- 
 trial market, Helmsley and Leveson by name, came 
 to call on Warde at Angel Court. 
 
 It was an echo of that interview at which Warde 
 had silently assisted five years before. He had seen 
 how Paradine had handled such a situation, and he 
 determined to work on a similar line. 
 
 Helmsley took the word. "I've oversold three 
 thousand shares, and Leveson two thousand," he 
 admitted. "What's your price?" 
 
 "ioo a share half a million in all," replied 
 Warde without hesitation. 
 
 "In that case I can't pay. I'd rather be ham- 
 mered." 
 
 "It's a damn rig!" added Leveson. "I'll let 
 myself be hammered too." 
 
 "It's not a rig," answered Warde. "I don't 
 want to squeeze you out of existence. Let me put 
 my side of the case frankly to you. I need to hold 
 control at the coming meeting of W. Tels. I'm 
 taking up the whole of the shares, and I want half 
 a million in cash or its equivalent. Find me half 
 
 189
 
 190 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 a million for a month, and a million for a month, 
 and I'll let you have the 5,000 shares you need for 
 the price of 20 instead of 100. Will 20 break 
 you?" 
 
 "You mean that you've swung this deal without 
 any perceptible cash?" demanded Helmsley. 
 
 "No cash to speak of," admitted Warde readily. 
 
 "Damn cheek!" commented Leveson. 
 
 "It may be. Anyhow, the case stands like this. 
 Either you agree to get me a loan of half a million 
 for a month, which I know you can manage with 
 your connections, or I'll see you both hammered, 
 and we'll all three go down. Either swim together 
 or sink together. That's my proposal." 
 
 Leveson and Helmsley exchanged guarded 
 glances. 
 
 "Suppose you go into the next room and talk 
 it over," suggested Warde. "My offer to let you 
 have the shares at 20 will mean that you can't lose 
 more than 35,000 over the transaction. That sum 
 is split up between you. It's only a trifle for men 
 of your standing." 
 
 They took up the suggestion and withdrew. 
 When they returned, it was in a friendly mood. 
 
 "I understand you want the half million to pay 
 for your shares ?" asked Helmsley. 
 
 "Yes for some of them." 
 
 "Then you'll put up the shares as security for 
 the loan." 
 
 "Naturally. Get that half million into my bank, 
 and the shares will be there in due order." 
 
 "It's a deal," said Helmsley, holding out his hand.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 191 
 
 Leveson did likewise. He remarked : "We ought 
 to work in together we three." 
 
 Warde smiled as he prepared a memorandum of 
 the agreement. "You want to get back that 
 35,000." 
 
 "From outsiders," amended Leveson. 
 
 "I see no objection. You're doing me a friendly 
 turn; I shan't forget it." 
 
 The banker was more than startled at finding the 
 huge sum of half a million pounds paid in to 
 Warde's credit. It gave him a new respect for the 
 young man. Lombard Street began to take notice 
 of Warde. 
 
 The company meeting of W. Tels was now a 
 foregone conclusion. Thornton's resolution was op- 
 posed by Warde ; he gave his reasons ; he explained 
 that he held control as a direct consequence of Sir 
 Wilmer's dying wishes ; the matter was not pressed 
 to a vote. 
 
 A side issue of the gamble came in the indignant 
 reproaches of the two young Society men who had 
 followed Warde's "tip" and incurred losses. 
 Warde recouped them without hesitation. They 
 had been used as instruments of the Driver, and 
 there the matter finished. 
 
 Before the end of the stipulated month Warde 
 had sold half his shares and was able to repay 
 most of the half -million loan. The remainder he 
 was easily able to carry on the security of the 
 25,000 share-holding he now possessed. 
 
 He had established for himself a basis of credit, 
 and had created a healthy respect for his abilities 
 as a financier.
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 GROWING ENMITY 
 
 In the six months that followed, one point be- 
 came increasingly clear to Warder that a Govern- 
 ment backing of wireless telephony was essential to 
 its stability. 
 
 Enemies were rising up in all directions. 
 Abroad, the Rademeyer system had been taken up 
 and was being vigorously pushed by the big men 
 of the Bremen Reichsport Line, the leaders of the 
 German shipping industry, with the active help of 
 their Government. Their agents were seeking over 
 the whole world for suitable transmission stations. 
 Since German colonies were few, these had to be 
 found on alien territory. An English firm, on the 
 other hand, could blanket the earth from its own 
 star-scattered colonies and protectorates, and had 
 an additional advantage in the preponderance of 
 British shipping on the seven seas. 
 
 In the nature of things, an English firm had the 
 best chance of establishing the world monopoly of 
 which Warde and Paradine had dreamed. 
 
 But, on the other hand, there were difficulties 
 special and inherent. The existing cable com- 
 panies and wireless telegraph companies were most- 
 ly British. It was obviously to their interests to 
 
 192
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 193 
 
 crush this new rival offering advantages which 
 telegraphy could not hope to compete with. As 
 Warde had said to Eve on Saltness, "Who tele- 
 graphs nowadays when he can telephone?" The 
 cable and wireless telegraph firms had remained 
 passive while Warde's inventions were in the lab- 
 oratory and experimental stages, but now they were 
 becoming actively hostile. 
 
 Further, and most important of all, there was the 
 traditional attitude of the British Government. In- 
 ventors are allowed to struggle through the evolu- 
 tionary stages on their own resources, to settle their 
 commercial wars unaided ; only when they have es- 
 tablished a virtual monopoly does the Government 
 step in to take over the enterprise on the valuation 
 of its own judges. 
 
 And beyond this again was yet another obstacle. 
 A couple of years back there had been an ugly 
 scandal in connection with a contract for wireless 
 telegraphy. Ministers of the Crown had been ac- 
 cused of filling their own pockets; a Parliamentary 
 Committee had investigated; share dealings were 
 ferreted out ; a great public outcry was raised. The 
 affair had died down, and the Liberal party had 
 been replaced in office by a Tory administration, 
 but the lesson of it remained. Ministers were 
 more than ever averse to dealings with commercial 
 concerns. 
 
 The Boards of W. Tels and the Sheffield com- 
 pany had now been won over to Warde's leadership, 
 and were working with him wholeheartedly. They, 
 equally, saw the dangers threatening from rival in-
 
 194 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 terests and the necessity of having a Government 
 backing. They looked to Warde to secure it. 
 
 As a first step, he proposed the buying of a daily 
 newspaper in which to set their case before the 
 public, and his co-directors agreed. The journal 
 in question, "The Daily Courier," was in a mori- 
 bund condition. 
 
 Warde went to the owner and offered to take 
 up 50,000 of debentures; in return, it was under- 
 stood that the "Courier" should advocate Govern- 
 ment co-operation in the development of wireless 
 telephony. 
 
 Paradine had said, "Buy men." Warde was do- 
 ing so. The "Courier" would help in educating 
 public opinion, even though its circulation was 
 limited. But other papers, subsidized by rival inter- 
 ests, endeavored to drive public opinion in the 
 opposite direction, and Warde was made the object 
 of bitter personal attacks. The secession from 
 Burgrave six years ago was thrown against him. 
 He was accused of having stolen the results of the 
 early experiments from Burgrave. That, in es- 
 sence, was true. It was irrefutable. To bring a 
 libel action against the rival newspaper would 
 merely stir up further mud. 
 
 Warde was satirized to the public in the guise 
 of the unprincipled city shark. If he asked for 
 Government help for his wireless system, the public 
 might be sure it was only to feather his own nest. 
 His talk of Empire considerations was the merest 
 bluff cheap jingoism designed to curry favor. 
 His appearance thin to the point of leanness, rest- 
 less energy burning through his features was
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 195 
 
 caricatured as the hungry leanness of the wolf, 
 whilst his dress tweeded and simplicity itself 
 became checks of outrageous pattern. This is 
 how the public began to picture Hilary Warde, 
 and no photographs could undeceive them. Car- 
 toons are always believed in preference to photo- 
 graphs. 
 
 Naturally he had many so-called friends. Any 
 successful man becomes surrounded by those who 
 want money from him directly or indirectly. The 
 real friends of his school and college and early 
 professional days had dropped away. They had 
 resented his leaving the conventional lines of a scien- 
 tific career, and they resented still more that in the 
 unconventional he had found success. It reflected 
 on themselves. Relations said : " There's Warde, 
 of your own year at college. Look at the position 
 he's made for himself. Worth a quarter million. 
 Look at yourself, earning a miserable five hundred 
 a year. Why don't you do something ? " That 
 made for resentment against Warde. Life's failures 
 often have hosts of friends, because a failure makes 
 a pleasant foil to vanity. It feeds self-complacency 
 to be able to say : " Poor old Blank, nobody's 
 enemy but his own ! I always knew he would never 
 get far. Let's invite him to stay with us a few 
 days. It will be a real charity." That is a very 
 current attitude towards the failure in the conven- 
 tional ruck the idler, the waster, or the unlucky. 
 But for the man who strikes out on lines of his own, 
 and becomes what the world calls successful, there is 
 little but resentful envy from his contemporaries < 
 He has outraged their judgment and disproved their
 
 196 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 prophecies. Such success has to make on alone or 
 choose new club-mates. 
 
 It was true that Warde was worth nearly a 
 quarter million at the end of the sixth year of W. 
 Tels. Yet he was not a rich man in the usual sense 
 of the word. His money was tied up in shares of 
 the two companies necessary to give him control if 
 he were at any time to differ on a vital question 
 with his co-directors. At present they were work- 
 ing together very harmoniously in give-and-take 
 fashion, but he must be prepared for a possible 
 split one day on a big question of policy. His 
 money was, in effect, trust money. The capital was 
 to be conserved and increased for control purposes. 
 The dividends on it must suffice for his own, for 
 Eve's and the children's needs, until the day came 
 when the Empire monopoly had been established. 
 
 Therefore he spent as little as possible outside the 
 requirements of his family. He was stigmatized 
 as "mean" by those who wanted to see him open- 
 handed to their own benefit. He made yet more 
 enemies. 
 
 Warde did not regret the giving up of research 
 work necessitated by the many other demands of 
 his position. The newer interests called for a 
 wider mentality. He had not only to deal with 
 Nature, but also with the infinitely varied mind of 
 man. He had to bend men to his will as he had 
 bent the ether waves to the curvature of the earth; 
 he had to fight self-interest, conservatism, obstinacy. 
 It was engrossing work demanding the whole en- 
 ergies of mind and body, calling for constant vigi- 
 lance of forethought. No sooner was one problem
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 197 
 
 settled than half a dozen others urged his interest. 
 
 Those six years, in developing mind powers, had 
 hardened, or coarsened, character. He knew his 
 own strength, and he made others know it. At 
 times, in business matters, when obstinate foolish- 
 ness opposed him, he became brutal. The finer 
 scruples had been sloughed away. Those who 
 stood in the way of the Driver had to be thrust 
 aside. 
 
 His home-life had not developed altogether in the 
 fashion he dreamed of that summer when he had 
 eaten his heart out for love of Eve. After six years 
 of married life, she was still something of an 
 enigma to him. The early self-abandonment of 
 passionate love had given place, on his side, to a 
 steady affection sober, undemonstrative. He 
 wanted no other woman; yet in his inner thoughts 
 there was something of disappointment. His career 
 pulled against hers. She was not greatly interested 
 in his affairs except in so far as they advanced his 
 monetary or social position. If he could have said 
 to her, "I'm worth a quarter million. To-morrow I 
 give up business and retire," she would have hailed 
 the announcement with delight. 
 
 Eve was still a creature of illogical moods, many 
 of them beyond his understanding. At times she 
 would be openly affectionate more so than him- 
 self while the very next day she might be angrily 
 resentful at some trifle of enforced neglect. The 
 six years had also, but in a different way, hardened 
 her character. She was no longer simple and un- 
 affected an enamel of wordliness had slowly 
 formed around her. She was, in fact, a Meren-
 
 198 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 thorpe the product of dozens of generations of 
 land-owning, socially occupied ancestors. In out- 
 ward appearance, Eve had developed from the slen- 
 der gracefulness of girlhood into a finely figured, 
 glowing woman whose every movement was a har- 
 mony of line. She was undoubtedly the beauty of 
 the family. 
 
 The two little daughters, Betty and Mona, were 
 idolized by their father. Eve had not the instinct 
 of motherhood very strongly developed. It is so 
 with many women a matter of natural tempera- 
 ment, by no means a matter of heartlessness. Eve 
 cared for her children; was proud of them; but 
 there were long periods during which her multi- 
 tudinous engagements caused her to see very little 
 of them. 
 
 On the social plane she envied Viola. Geoffrey 
 Armadale had gone into Parliament, on the change 
 of party reins had become an Under-Secretary to 
 the War Office in the Tory administration, and 
 his wife had made herself a political hostess of con- 
 siderable influence. 
 
 Beatrice, ever independent, had not married. 
 She had elected herself organizing secretary of a 
 women's enfranchisement league, and her biting 
 tongue and pen made her a formidable thorn in the 
 side of politicians of both parties. 
 
 Ralph, after a breach of promise suit with an 
 actress which had cost the family over 20,000, had 
 exchanged into an Indian regiment and had gained 
 in India some reputation as the owner of a racing 
 stud.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AT LOUVAULX 
 
 "I wish," said Hilary reflectively to his wife as 
 he stroked Betty's golden curls one evening, "that 
 you would get an invitaion for us to Louvaulx." 
 
 This was the Armadale shooting-box in York- 
 shire. 
 
 "I thought we had settled on the motor tour in 
 the Carpathians," answered Eve. 
 
 "The reason, dear, is that Kerr-Dyce is invited. 
 I heard to-day indirectly. I want to get Kerr- 
 Dyce on our side, and you could help in this tre- 
 mendously. Meeting him casually at a dinner or 
 reception wouldn't be one-tenth as effective as be- 
 ing in touch with him for a week or fortnight." 
 
 The Right Hon. Alston Kerr-Dyce was Post- 
 master-General in the Tory Government. The 
 question of any contract with Warde's company 
 would be in his province naturally, to be approved 
 of by the Cabinet in general, but in the first place 
 to be decided on his responsibility. 
 
 Eve took up the suggestion whole-heartedly. 
 This was work that appealed to her. It was on a 
 different plane to Warde's financial strivings; it 
 was in line with her own social ambitions. She 
 welcomed the idea of being able to exert political 
 influence. 
 
 199
 
 200 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "I'll write at once to Vi. She's at Goodwood." 
 
 "Can I come too?" put in little Betty, popping 
 out from an apparent sleepiness. "I'll give him 
 a kiss." 
 
 Warde laughed at his five-year-old coquette. 
 
 "No, darling," said Eve. "Aunt Margaret is 
 going to take you and Mona to the seaside. Won't 
 you like to be with Aunt Margaret?" 
 
 Betty pouted, a tiny miniature of her mother. 
 
 The nurse entered to announce bedtime for her 
 charge. 
 
 "I don't want to go to bed!" wailed the little 
 maiden, clinging to her father. 
 
 "Another quarter of an hour?" begged Hilary. 
 
 "You'd spoil her," said Eve firmly. "No, bed- 
 time." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Viola readily gave the invitation asked for by 
 her sister. Louvaulx, though modestly called a 
 shooting-box, was a fine old Georgian house in the 
 North Riding of Yorkshire, bordering sea and 
 moor, surrounded by extensive woods, farms and 
 moorland. For six weeks in August and Septem- 
 ber, Geoffrey and Viola entertained a shooting- 
 party; another month or so in the early spring 
 found it occupied; for the rest of the year it was 
 silent emptiness, save for the caretakers. Arma- 
 dale had laid out a sporting golf-course in a valley 
 on the estate, since shooting alone was not sufficient 
 for the modern-day amusement of a house-party. 
 Kerr-Dyce was well known as a golfing enthusiast. 
 Warde, although not much of a hand with the 
 game, was a hard-hitting golfer, enjoying the game
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 201 
 
 in the very limited leisure he could snatch from his 
 business affairs. Louvaulx would afford him an 
 excellent opportunity of getting into personal touch 
 with the man on whom centered the ultimate fate 
 of wireless telephony as it concerned the Empire. 
 
 The house-party, about twenty- four in number, 
 included a rather usual mixture of the sporting 
 idler, the racing-shooting-auction-bridge woman, the 
 season-wearied debutante of the year before, the 
 match-maker, the match-spoiler and Beatrice. 
 
 "Don't be afraid," said the outspoken Beatrice on 
 her first introduction to Kerr-Dyce in the hall of 
 Louvaulx before dinner. "I'm allowing myself a 
 holiday. I've solemnly promised not to persecute 
 you. I shan't even attempt to marry you." 
 
 Kerr-Dyce was the youngest member of the 
 Cabinet in a day when the plums of political life fell 
 to comparative youth. In Opposition, he had given 
 full vent to a mordant tongue. In power, he had 
 superimposed a certain smiling good humor. He 
 defied any and all to make him angry. J'y suis, j'y 
 reste, was his attitude. Admirers praised his equa- 
 nimity in face of party attacks. Critics said that he 
 would never reach to the Premiership because he 
 lacked the fire of sincerity. No one denied that he 
 was an extremely clever man; but cleverness is a 
 double-edged quality for political life, liable to turn 
 against its possessor. Soundness and sincerity 
 carry a man further. In appearance, he had a curi- 
 ously rounded and boyish cast of feature, which 
 added to his outward good humor while masking 
 his essentially virile stiength. 
 
 "I've made no such promise," returned Kerr-
 
 202 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Dyce with his easy smile. "I shall try to convert 
 you. Failing that, I shall probably propose." 
 
 "Make it a romantic proposal. That's the only 
 way to capture me. I'm all for romance. That's 
 why I'm a crusader." 
 
 "Then I'm evidently cast for the role of Saracen. 
 Stun you; throw you across my saddle-bow; and 
 bear you off to my desert tent in Ebury Square." 
 
 "It has the advantage of being near to the Cax- 
 ton Hall. I shall be able to slip out from the 
 harem, make a speech, and return before my lord 
 and master has awakened from his after-lunch 
 siesta." 
 
 "Or find him awaiting you with the bow-string." 
 
 "He would have to reckon with the whole harem. 
 They would be solid for me." 
 
 "I must proceed to the East and study the ways 
 of dealing with refractory wives." 
 
 "It has been studied for ten thousand years, but 
 men don't seem to have progressed beyond the 
 infant class." 
 
 "Tutor me in the secret." 
 
 "Un secret de Polichinelle. Give us our own 
 way in everything, and we shall manage to put up 
 with you." 
 
 "To have one's own way in everything how 
 horribly tame! Like playing cricket with twenty- 
 one rabbits." 
 
 "Quite a man's point of view. You regard 
 women as a mere variant on men. Skirted I won't 
 say petticoated man. In reality, we're a different 
 order of being different thoughts, different codes, 
 different mainspring of action. We know you in-
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 203 
 
 side out, but you don't know us and probably never 
 will." 
 
 "How neatly you place your finger on the danger 
 of the situation." 
 
 "And the reason for cowardice. I don't blame 
 you. If I were in your place, I should be equally 
 afraid. I should call it 'regard for the sanctity of 
 the Constitution,' if I couldn't think of anything 
 more high-sounding." 
 
 "If you were a man in Cabinet shoes, what would 
 be your attitude toward the women's movement. 
 I ask in the spirit of the learner." 
 
 "I should stand firm as a rock with a sand 
 foundation. Then, when I was rolled over by the 
 waves, I could protest it was not my fault, but the 
 fault of the underpinning." 
 
 "It would be enlightening to return to the earth 
 a couple of hundred years hence and see whether 
 rock or wave had come out best. Shall we make 
 a small bet on it ?" 
 
 "There's Vi bearing down to your rescue. The 
 perfect hostess. I must talk sport. Mr. Kerr- 
 Dyce" she raised her voice in studied satire "I 
 should value your opinion on the correct length for 
 the niblick. Should it be, for a girl of my height, 
 35 inches, or 35^ inches?" 
 
 "For golf, 35. For purposes of assault, 36. For 
 mixed use, 35/^." 
 
 "Bee, dear," said Viola, approaching, "I want to 
 introduce you to Basil Roydon." 
 
 "The youth who's always dropping his monocle 
 and catching it at the very last moment? I'll ask
 
 204 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 him how many years it took him to perfect that 
 parlor trick. Well, let's get it over." 
 
 "He's to take you in to dinner." 
 
 "The martyrdom of Saint Beatrice!" 
 
 Presently Viola returned with Eve. "My sister, 
 Mrs. Hilary Warde. Mr. Kerr-Dyce," she intro- 
 duced. 
 
 Eve was looking particularly charming that eve- 
 ning. She intended to. The color-scheme was of 
 periwinkle blue sheathed in a delicate film of soft 
 green tulle "Love in a Mist" was her costumier's 
 tag to the gown alluring, discreet, mysterious. 
 Her natural color was slightly heightened ; her eyes 
 had an added sparkle; her lips were piquant. 
 
 Kerr-Dyce allowed himself a moment of frank 
 admiration a moment of silence which was in it- 
 self a compliment. 
 
 Then: "It's better to be born lucky than rich." 
 
 "Am I? I never thought of myself in that 
 light." 
 
 "I was thinking of your husband." 
 
 Eve laughed away the subtle compliment. "Hil- 
 ary takes infinite pains to be lucky. He makes a 
 science of it." 
 
 "That suggests a new definition of success: an 
 infinite capacity for being lucky." 
 
 "Someone ought to make an anthology of your 
 sayings." 
 
 "Two to a page; decorative margins; vellum 
 cover; edition de luxe strictly confined to fifty 
 copies. With a splurge of advertising, no doubt 
 a publisher would be able to dispose of fifty copies. 
 Suggest me a title."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 205 
 
 "Seed Pearls?" 
 
 "I foresee the publisher's commercial veto. 'Cast- 
 ing pearls before the public. Tut-tut !' ' 
 
 Eve laughed gayly. "Are you going out with the 
 guns to-morrow?" 
 
 "Yes I lay my sacrifice on the altar of conven- 
 tion. Every politician is expected to bag his August 
 brace or two. It's a stone in his fabric of reputa- 
 tion. We shall be photographed in a group with 
 the trophies laid in front of us; it will appear in 
 the 'Tatler' or 'Bystander' the names read from 
 left to right. Seeing it, the public will say : 'Kerr- 
 Dyce is a sportsman; he must be a sound man.' 
 Thus we build up reputation." 
 
 "Doesn't golf answer that purpose?" 
 
 "No, not south of the Tweed. To be a sports- 
 man one must hit something on the wing or on the 
 hoof. Golf is too scientific. The public look 
 askance at any science. Permit me a suggestion. 
 If I were running your husband, I should pack him 
 off to Central Africa for six months to shoot big 
 game. I should have him photographed seated on 
 a mound of lions, tigers, elephants and hippopotami. 
 Or bioscoped ambushing a crocodile. Does one 
 ambush crocodiles, or does one fish for them ? Any- 
 how, the principle is the same. Get the public on 
 their prejudiced side. Personally, I was never 
 recognized as a statesman until I went to Spitz- 
 bergen on an expedition to shoot the harmless wal- 
 rus." 
 
 "Dinner is served," announced the butler. 
 
 The house-party went in without formality of 
 precedence. Eve and Kerr-Dyce were partnered.
 
 206 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 To Hilary was assigned a lady who had achieved 
 fame by Eastern dances on the music-halls for a 
 brief period. She marked herself out from the 
 other women by wearing a turban with a sweeping 
 aigrette at the side, and a costume which had the 
 clinging definition of a bathing suit. Beatrice had 
 already battered young Roy don of the monocle into 
 a suitable sense of his own insignificance. She was 
 a merciless young woman. 
 
 To the other side of Eve at table was a Spanish 
 attache coal-dark, flashing, handsome, ordinarily 
 irresistible where women were concerned. But in 
 the case of Eve he found himself practically ig- 
 nored. She would answer him with a smiling 
 absentmindedness, and then turn away at the earliest 
 opportunity to talk with Kerr-Dyce. 
 
 "Eprise," he whispered to his neighbor, a hard- 
 mouthed woman who was known for recklessness to 
 hounds and a deadly shooting eye. With the very 
 slightest movement of the farther shoulder, he in- 
 dicated Eve and the Cabinet Minister. 
 
 "Politics," was the snap answer. 
 
 "You mean ?" 
 
 "Her husband is Hilary Warde, the financier. 
 They want to get something out of the Govern- 
 ment." 
 
 The Spaniard studied Eve with a new intent, as 
 an interesting specimen of a genus on which he was 
 an authority. 
 
 Toward the end of the dinner he whispered again 
 to his neighbor: "I think not altogether." 
 
 "Not altogether what?" asked the shooting 
 woman, missing the allusion.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 307 
 
 Again the slight lifting of the farther shoulder. 
 "Not altogether politics." 
 
 After dinner came chemin de fer. The play was 
 not heavy in comparison with West End houses or 
 Continental casinos, because there was no one to 
 start an epidemic of plunging. 
 
 "This must be somewhat tame to you," smiled 
 Kerr-Dyce to Warde on seeing him punt a single 
 sovereign against the bank. 
 
 Warde, thinking of the day when he had punted 
 470,000 on the Stock Exchange, smiled back as he 
 answered : "Taking a holiday." 
 
 "So am I," said Kerr-Dyce, and in his tone was a: 
 nuance which meant : "Don't approach me on busi- 
 ness matters while we're here." 
 
 Warde caught the warning, but decided to dis- 
 regard it. He was at Louvaulx for the sole purpose 
 of advancing the interests of wireless telephony. 
 The Cabinet Minister was to be used as yet another 
 instrument of the Driver.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 A POLITICIAN'S VIEWPOINT 
 
 A week had passed. For Warde it had been a 
 week of futility. Apparently his goal, like a dis- 
 tant mountain-range across a desert plain, was as 
 far off as ever. Kerr-Dyce, meeting him in the 
 score of companionable amusements of a house- 
 party always pleasant, always smiling, had never- 
 theless shown an unmistakable desire to keep away 
 from matters of business. With a deft twist of 
 words he would fend off the most delicate and 
 indirect line of approach. 
 
 "A sheer wasted week," said Hilary to Eve. 
 "It's damnable!" 
 
 "Can't you look on this as a holiday from work, 
 dear?" suggested Eve, surveying herself critically 
 in a full-length mirror. 
 
 "I can't afford myself a holiday." 
 
 "Is there anything more I could do ?" 
 
 "You've helped me all that's possible." 
 
 "Perhaps Geoffrey ?"- 
 
 "I might try." 
 
 Armadale, approached in the course of a private 
 chat, put the situation into plain words. 
 
 "My dear fellow," he said snapping and un- 
 snapping a cigar-lighter constrainedly, "I'm the very 
 
 208
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 209 
 
 last person to be able to help you. The fact that 
 you're my brother-in-law ties me up completely. 
 Remember the telegraph contract and the devil of. 
 a scandal it made? If I were even to whisper a 
 word in your favor, it would get round to the yel- 
 low press I suspect Jeans" (the butler) "of mak- 
 ing an income on the side out of society items. The 
 journalists would scream that I had a share interest 
 in W. Tels. No I wish you luck, but I can't 
 possibly help you." 
 
 A shift of chance, however, brought Warde his 
 opportunity. He was playing in a men's foursome 
 on the Louvaulx course one morning, partnering 
 Kerr-Dyce. They were on the sixteenth green 
 the hole on the plateau which makes one of the 
 sporting difficulties of the links when a telegraph 
 messenger was seen approaching across the valley. 
 The boy met them on their way to the seventeenth, 
 and handed his buff envelope to the politician. 
 
 "Excuse me," said Kerr-Dyce, ripping open the 
 envelope. A tinge of annoyance showed on his 
 curiously boyish features as he de-coded the cipher 
 enclosure unusual with him, as he rarely allowed 
 anything but smiling good-humor to come upper- 
 most. The message was from the Premier, who 
 with the First Lord of the Admiralty was yacht- 
 ing in the Mediterranean; it had beeen handed in 
 at Marseilles ; it requested Kerr-Dyce to travel over 
 at once to discuss an urgent matter of Cabinet pol- 
 icy which had suddenly arisen. Impossible to set- 
 tle by wire, ended the message. 
 
 "This will be our last game" mentioned Kerr-
 
 210 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Dyce as he folded away the telegram. "I'm called 
 away to the Continent." 
 
 "I'm sorry I had hoped to beat you in singles 
 some time." 
 
 "Duty," half-sighed the politician annoyed at the 
 prospect of the forty-eight-hour journey to Mar- 
 seilles and back. 
 
 Warde's quick imagination jumped at the sig- 
 nificance of the telegram. "If you want to con- 
 verse with some one abroad why not use our wire- 
 less?" he suggested. 
 
 Kerr-Dyce, not to delay the game, made his 
 stroke, and then resumed as they walked on: "In 
 the first place, it would mean traveling to London 
 to your head office " 
 
 "No we could get you through from Sheffield, 
 relaying from the London high-power station. 
 Sheffield is less than a two-hour journey from 
 here." 
 
 "Relaying? You mean that my words would be 
 received in London and then passed on?" 
 
 "No that's what's done in the case of cable 
 messages. They receive and re-transmit. But with 
 our system, there's a purely automatic device of 
 my own which would reinforce your words at Lon- 
 don make them louder and flash them on to the 
 Continent. You could speak direct from Sheffield 
 to your friend." 
 
 "As far as Marseilles?" 
 
 "Easily. We have a station at Marseilles." 
 
 "But there's an important objection the con- 
 versation would be a very private one." 
 
 "You fear that some one would listen in ?"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 "I could guarantee you absolute secrecy." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Tune the wave-length yourself to any number 
 you please. You could choose any one of ten thou- 
 sand wave-lengths. Telegraph that number in ci- 
 pher to your friend abroad ; let him make a similar 
 adjustment; and the conversation must necessarily 
 be secret." 
 
 During the finish of the game, the politician 
 thought over this proposal. "Drive with me to 
 Sheffield," he decided, "and I'll make a trial con- 
 versation." 
 
 They took one of Armadale's cars, and from the 
 local post office Kerr-Dyce sent a cipher cable to 
 the Premier explaining that he would speak by 
 wireless in two hours' time, and giving the wave- 
 length number he chose without Warde's knowl- 
 edge. At the same time, Warde dispatched a mes- 
 sage of his own to Sheffield, ordering them to open 
 up communication with Marseilles for the appointed 
 hour. 
 
 During the motor-car drive they talked only on 
 neutral topics. Warde was too diplomatic to press 
 any point of his own until the politician was satis- 
 fied that wireless telephony had saved him the 
 forty-eight-hour journey to the Mediterranean and 
 back. 
 
 There was a curious echo of Warde's Berlin ex- 
 perience in this coming test. Six years ago what 
 strides had been made since then! In those days 
 his limit of distance was a hundred miles; now, 
 one could converse over thousands. But they were
 
 212 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 still far from "blanketing the earth," and only the 
 resources of a Government could cope with the huge 
 expenditure involved. As Paradine had said on his 
 death-bed, the financing would have to be on the 
 scale of millions. 
 
 At the Sheffield works, Warde learned from the 
 operator that they were in touch with Marseilles, 
 and the two gentlemen were awaiting Mr. Kerr- 
 Dyce on the 'phone. Warde told the operator to 
 withdraw; he showed the politician how to adjust 
 the automatic wave-length indicator, and himself 
 left the room. 
 
 An hour or so later, Kerr-Dyce appeared in his 
 normal good humor. "All settled," said he, tak- 
 ing Warde's arm. "Back to Louvaulx, and we'll 
 get in a round before dinner!" 
 
 "Clear speaking?" 
 
 "Quite." 
 
 "And clear vision?" 
 
 "Rather fuzzy and flickery like a badly-lighted 
 cinema film in the very early days." 
 
 "Yes we've not yet perfected television. I have 
 a whole corps of your scientists working on the 
 problem. The principle's right, but there are many 
 practical difficulties to be smoothed over." 
 
 "So I should imagine." 
 
 They stepped into the waiting car. 
 
 "And big expense," resumed Warde. 
 
 "No doubt." 
 
 "Too big for us." 
 
 "You ought to be able to raise any capital you 
 need," answered the politician noncommittally. 
 
 "There comes a limit. For four years we or
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 213 
 
 rather Sir Wilmer created money out of air. We 
 never made a penny of actual revenue during those 
 four years, and the expenditure was very heavy. 
 A legal fight with the Rademeyer company alone 
 cost us 50,000. Then we floated the Sheffield 
 subsidiary and began to manufacture apparatus. 
 That, of course, makes revenue for us now, and we 
 get a certain amount from the transmission of mes- 
 sages. But, frankly, in essence we exist on expec- 
 tations. The high price of our shares is a heavy 
 discount on the future. Shareholders are beginning 
 to clamor for the dividends they expect. We can't 
 manipulate the market eternally. We need a new 
 cash capital a very large cash capital. As I said, 
 there are natural limits to the financing of an in- 
 dustrial company unless " He made a signifi- 
 cant pause. 
 
 "You mean, unless you have a Government back- 
 ing?" 
 
 "I was thinking of another alternative." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "One phase of it arose six months ago. We were 
 asked to form a German subsidiary half-and-half 
 capital, but German controlled. I turned it down." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "German controlled. I want to keep wireless 
 telephony all-red." 
 
 Kerr-Dyce allowed a tinge of skepticism to color 
 his habitual smile. 
 
 "At the present moment," pursued W r arde, "the 
 offer is being repeated from another direction. An 
 American syndicate wants to manufacture appara-
 
 214 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 tus, set up stations, and work all rights in the west- 
 ern hemisphere." 
 
 "Isn't that usually the procedure with patented 
 inventions ?" 
 
 "Yes. If I were running, say, a harvesting ma- 
 chine or a new chemical product, I should at once 
 accept such an offer. I should dispose of patent 
 rights on royalty all over the world. It would be 
 a matter of no national concern merely a commer- 
 cial question. But wireless telephony is on an al- 
 together different plane." 
 
 "I think you exaggerate its importance. I don't 
 mean as an invention wonderful, highly useful, a 
 great time-saver, I grant you but in its national 
 aspect" 
 
 "Let me have your views." 
 
 Kerr-Dyce gathered himself together preceptibly, 
 in his well-known House of Commons manner. 
 Usually he leaned back on the Front Bench very 
 much as he now reclined in the well-cushioned car 
 smilingly at ease. An attack might come from 
 the Opposition; he would then coil up his springs, 
 get to his feet, and pour out his energies in a stream 
 of high-power words as outwardly smooth as the 
 water-surface of a mill-flume, and as inwardly 
 forceful. 
 
 "I don't want you to attribute a Cabinet sig- 
 nificance to my views," he began. "Nor are they 
 necessarily the views of the Postmaster-General. I 
 am speaking quite unofficially and, of course, in 
 confidence." 
 
 The deadly cautiousness of it reminded Warde
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 215 
 
 of his interview with the banker when he had asked 
 for the 70,000 loan. 
 
 "You have been occupied with your inventions 
 for how long would it be, six years?" pursued 
 Kerr-Dyce. 
 
 "Over eight years." 
 
 "Therefore you must necessarily be imbued with 
 the inventor outlook. You view your wireless sys- 
 tem with the natural fondness partiality of a 
 father. The outsider may not see more of the 
 game, but he certainly sees it in better perspective. 
 Regard me for the moment as one of the public 
 the average voter." 
 
 "You're looking at this as a voter's question?" 
 
 "For the moment.' 
 
 "But essentially?" 
 
 "In the ultimate, public sentiment is the govern- 
 ing power of a nation." 
 
 It was on Warde's lips to retort that this 
 aphorism of the election platform was scarcely a 
 motto of leadership, but he refrained and kept si- 
 lent. 
 
 "As the average voter," continued Kerr-Dyce, 
 "I should ask myself what need is there for the 
 Government to spend millions of the public money 
 in buying or backing a commercial enterprise which 
 can be either carried on by its originators or by 
 their natural rivals. Taxation is already on a war 
 footing; the nation's Budget grows annually heav- 
 ier and heavier; the burden of armaments is be- 
 coming insupportable." 
 
 "If this were a new gun or a new aeroplane I had
 
 216 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 invented something far superior to existing mod- 
 els would the Government buy it?" 
 
 "Possibly. But I cannot admit the analogy." 
 
 "Then we're at the crux of the matter. I claim 
 that wireless telephony is as much a necessity of 
 national defense as any new gun, aeroplane, sub- 
 marine or battleship. As I see the development a 
 network of wireless stations on every British posses- 
 sion throughout the globe, and a moving criss- 
 cross of installations on every British merchantman, 
 warship or aircraft it would act as a scouting- 
 line of priceless value. On a rumor of war, White- 
 hall could talk with a thousand scouts give orders 
 to ten thousand merchantmen. It could cut off 
 communication with all foreign vessels. You've 
 seen already what tuning means. . . . On the other 
 hand, if you won't finance us, if you allow a rival 
 system such as Rademeyer's to catch up with us 
 and divide a world monopoly, then there's no such 
 security." 
 
 "We have wireless telegraphy already in the 
 Navy and on merchant vessels." 
 
 "To-day, when you had to discuss what I guess 
 to be state policy with some one abroad, would 
 wireless telegraphy serve you? No you had to 
 use our telephone system, you had to speak face 
 to face with your man. There's a striking practical 
 instance." 
 
 "I'm not questioning the usefulness of your in- 
 ventions I am giving you the view of the average 
 voter. Allow me to develop it. The Government 
 is asked to provide an additional couple of mil- 
 lions "
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 217 
 
 "Five millions," interrupted Warde. 
 
 "That strengthens the case I am putting up. An 
 additional five millions to the Post Office and Navy 
 estimates." 
 
 "Spread over several years." 
 
 "Granted. But it is the total sum which counts 
 with the voter. He asks why we should buy what 
 there is no need for us to buy. Private enterprise 
 will eventually provide all the stations and world- 
 wide installations you speak of." 
 
 "It's a time-question. For national security, I 
 claim that the expenditure is immediate and urgent. 
 We can't finance wireless on the scale of five mil- 
 lions unless we part with control to German, Ameri- 
 can or other foreign syndicates." 
 
 "And further," pursued Kerr-Dyce, still smooth 
 while still intent on forcing home his point, "the 
 average voter asks himself what is the record of 
 this wireless company. Frankly, it is not savory. 
 There have been rigs and share manipulations again 
 and again." 
 
 "That's quite apart from the scientific end. 
 We had to get money somehow while the system 
 was in the non-productive stage." 
 
 "With the public, the two go together. As I 
 say, the record is not a savory one. You yourself 
 I must put the matter in plain words are not 
 persona grata with the public. There have been 
 newspaper attacks libelous perhaps, but still not 
 refuted." 
 
 "Attacks directed by rival interests." 
 
 "Possibly. But the point is, not refuted. Last 
 week, I happened to remark jestingly that every
 
 218 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 public man has to be labeled in the mind of the 
 public as a 'sportsman.' There's sober truth in 
 that." 
 
 Warde realized at last that he was dealing with a 
 politician and not a statesman. To hold the sym- 
 pathies of the sheep-like public, to keep in office by 
 swaying to their prejudices, that was the first aim 
 of the man who sat beside him in the car. Unless 
 one could appeal to him on the ground of self-in- 
 terest, argument was hopeless. Kerr-Dyce would 
 have to be bought Not, of course, with crude 
 money. Bribery was out of the question. But to 
 appeal to him through his political ambitions that 
 was a very different matter. There would be his 
 accessible side. Was it possible to present wireless 
 telephony as essential to party stability? 
 
 After some moments of deep thought, Warde re- 
 plied: "I recognize the force of your objections." 
 
 "Ah I'm glad." 
 
 "I shall have to reconsider the whole position." 
 
 "Good. If I've spoken out rather frankly, I'm 
 sure you recognize that it was entirely in a friendly 
 spirit. May I count on your discretion in regard 
 to what I've said?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "Then shall we leave the subject and turn to 
 golf?" smiled Kerr-Dyce. 
 
 They managed to get in their round before din- 
 ner. Warde, with a subconscious feeling that it 
 was due to him to put out his utmost efforts, thrust 
 away the thoughts of the day and concentrated in- 
 tently on his game. Playing a round of perfect
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 219 
 
 golf, he managed to beat Kerr-Dyce by "four up 
 and three to play." 
 
 The latter, in handing over the customary ball 
 to the winner, remarked : "I seem to have put you 
 on your mettle." 
 
 "You have," said Warde.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A BUBBLE OF ROMANCE 
 
 Three times in Warde's career had the money 
 obstacle blocked his path. 
 
 On the first occasion he had needed 8,000 in 
 order to secure a partnership with Burgrave. From 
 his present-day standpoint the sum was pocket- 
 money; but six years ago it would have proved an 
 insuperable obstacle, had he not transferred his 
 services and linked up with Paradine. On the 
 second occasion he had needed 70,000 to secure 
 control of W. Tels. It was impossible to raise 
 that sum from his friends or his banker. He had 
 had to make a second plunge and secure half a mil- 
 lion from outsiders. Now it was a case of finding 
 some 5,000,000. With that money in hand, they 
 could establish stations all over the world and form 
 a complete network, making wireless telephony the 
 staple method of commercial, social and govern- 
 mental communication. 
 
 Those who knew Warde best his own country- 
 men would not supply the capital. Kerr-Dyce's 
 attitude was probably typical of the general Cabinet 
 viewpoint. Tentative efforts to interest the big 
 finance houses of London were also coldly received. 
 Lombard Street, where not actively hostile, pre- 
 220
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 221 
 
 f erred to see an industrial company build up by slow 
 stages, making sure of its ground step by step, 
 rather than plunge on the scale Warde contem- 
 plated. "Frenzied finance" was the phrase borrowed 
 by the great house of Salomons European money- 
 kings to describe the proposal. "Come to us in 
 three or four years' time," was their final word. 
 
 An appeal to the public for five millions was dis- 
 cussed at great length by the Board of W. Tels, 
 and reluctantly put aside. In view of the public 
 hostility fomented by rival interests, such a flota- 
 tion would probably prove a fiasco, and deal a 
 smashing blow at their credit. 
 
 It was then that Warde laid an altogether new 
 plan before his co-directors. It was based on his 
 two previous experiences. Having failed to secure 
 five millions at home, let them ask for ten millions 
 abroad. He had not definitely turned down the 
 preliminary negotiation of the New York syndi- 
 cate it had been kept in abeyance and he now 
 proposed to proceed with it. The Board approved 
 warmly. They opened up wireless communication 
 with the American syndicate, and it was arranged 
 in October that Warde and Cosway should travel 
 over to New York. 
 
 Hilary asked Eve if she would care to accompany 
 him. She demurred. 
 
 "It seems hardly worth while for me to rush 
 over and back. I suppose the business will be fin- 
 ished in a week or two?" 
 
 "It's impossible to say. Negotiations for such a 
 heavy amount might drag on for a long time. I
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 thought you might like, dear, to see something of 
 New York and American society." 
 
 "It doesn't appeal to me. I have crowds of en- 
 gagements in London. I scarcely know anyone in 
 New York, and American society doesn't interest 
 me." 
 
 "I should very much like to have you with me. 
 We seem to see so little of one another nowadays." 
 
 "That's because you are so immersed in business 
 matters." 
 
 "I realize it. But I can't free myself until wire- 
 less is placed on a world monopoly basis. I'm just 
 an instrument of the Driver." 
 
 "It seems as though I were too," protested Eve. 
 "I'm married to a business." 
 
 He took her in his arms and kissed her. She 
 submitted passively. II y a toujours I'un qui baise, 
 and I'autre qui tend la joue. 
 
 "We're still lovers," he answered tenderly. "Six 
 years, and still lovers. Never once has any other 
 woman held my thoughts. You have had no rival, 
 dearest." 
 
 "Except wireless." 
 
 "No human rival. We did right to marry I was 
 sure of myself then, and I am sure of myself still. 
 You remember that October afternoon in Rich- 
 mond Park? It thrills me even now. And those 
 glorious days in Granada, Seville, Ronda, the desert 
 little babe in the wood ? I remember every kiss, 
 every caress. You were the eighth wonder of the 
 world to me. It was Sir Wilmer who brought us 
 together, and it is Sir Wilmer' s trust I am now 
 carrying out. We owe something to him, don't
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 we, dearest? Give me time to carry out this last 
 deal, and then I can turn over the work to other 
 hands. We'll make a second honeymoon. We'll 
 elope once again. Plan it out while I'm away in 
 America a second honeymoon, and a sweeter!" 
 
 Eve was trembling under his words. "Don't go 
 to America!" she begged with sudden intensity. 
 
 "It may only be for a month or so," he replied 
 with tenderness. "I'll be back as soon as ever I 
 can." 
 
 "I don't want you to go." 
 
 "I must go. Come with me!" 
 
 "I can't come," she replied unsteadily. 
 
 "Then we'll chat every day by wireless. Use 
 the house installation, and relay through the high- 
 power station. Every evening I'll say good-night 
 to you." 
 
 Eve's mood changed swiftly. "When it's even- 
 ing here, it would be afternoon in New York," she 
 laughed. "In the middle of talking business you 
 would have to break off to send a kiss by tele- 
 phone." 
 
 The bubble of romance shattered into fragments.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MODERN BAGDAD 
 
 A traverse of the Atlantic on a 5O,ooo-ton liner 
 is as swift, as uneventful, as much a matter of or- 
 ganized routine as a railway journey from London 
 to Liverpool. It has not the innate dignity of a 
 voyage to the southern hemisphere it is merely 
 a glorified ferrying, the taking up of a human cargo 
 on the one bank and the discharging of it to schedule 
 time on the other bank, speeding across on a lane 
 of water as closely defined as the path of a ferry. 
 
 "A liner she's a lady," wrote Kipling; but his 
 song was not of the steel-sinewed, ice-blooded ves- 
 sel that reels up its three thousand miles in a clip of 
 four days, soullessly impervious to gale or calm, 
 sunshine or fog. The 5O,ooo-ton Atlantic ferrier 
 is not a lady, not even a female it is a mathemati- 
 cal formula. 
 
 When Warde and Cosway crossed, for four days 
 wolf-packs of gray combers had hurled themselves 
 against the bows of the vessel, ravenous for their 
 meat; been thrust aside by steel shoulders; and 
 reforming pack, had rolled on to seek easier prey. 
 The air of the hurricane deck was stinging with the 
 spray of the broken legions hissing out their im- 
 potent rage. South of the Newfoundland Banks, 
 
 224
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 225 
 
 swaths of white fog had hurried across the slag- 
 colored waters to blind the eyes of the ferrier. It 
 had pounded on with undiminished speed, booming 
 at minute-intervals a siren that quivered through 
 every muscle and sinew of its framework, regard- 
 less of danger in its. pride of bulk and merciless mo- 
 mentum. Lesser vessels must listen for the warn- 
 ing and scurry out 9f its path. Once a tossing 
 trawler, puny against its gigantic hull, sails flap- 
 ping pantingly in the sudden effort to tack, had 
 escaped by only a few feet of clearance. The 
 curses of the fisherman were as impotent as the 
 hiss of the broken waves. 
 
 Inside the decks, the life was similar to that of 
 any metropolitan hotel. One dined according to 
 one's fancy on dishes in season or out ; was barbered, 
 manicured or massaged with the routine of a hotel 
 service ; read a daily paper giving the world's news 
 hot upon its happening; took seats for a concert 
 of professional musicians or a play staged by pro- 
 fessional actors; conversed thanks to Warde's in- 
 ventions with friends or business connections in 
 Europe or America. Until an aero-service over the 
 Atlantic should sweep across the three thousand 
 miles inside the span of a day and a night, this 
 was the high peak of convenience and smoothly 
 ordered comfort. 
 
 Warde and Cos way made a very careful plan- 
 ning-out of the line they should take up with Mr. 
 Michael Riordan, the active negotiator of the 
 American syndicate. From a smoking-room ac- 
 quaintance an American they learned something 
 of the man they were to meet.
 
 226 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Michael Riordan?" said he. "You mean Red 
 Mike, don't you?" 
 
 Warde had not heard of this designation. "Of 
 Wall Street," he mentioned, to identify more 
 closely. 
 
 "The same. He began life in the Fenian busi- 
 ness, at the time when Lord Frederick Cavendish 
 was mussed up in Phoenix Park. I guess Mike was 
 somewhere on the outskirts. Anyhow, he kissed 
 good-by to your police and made out by a back- 
 door for the States. He found standing-room in 
 the Middle West, and put his brains and fists into 
 the political wholesale trade. Ward heeler, ward 
 leader, city boss that's the line of his trail. You 
 might say that he owned his city in the early part 
 of this century. The chosen representatives of the 
 people went to ask him for the morning's orders. 
 He took his split from every municipal steal. He 
 gathered in a fortune not a multimillionaire heap, 
 but anyhow a man's-size fortune and salted it 
 away in government bonds. 
 
 "Mike was always a few yards ahead of his 
 time. He foresaw the wave of reform which swept 
 over our country and retired the political bosses 
 to the middle distance. He withdrew from politics 
 and turned to Wall Street. Not as a speculator or 
 a stock manipulator, but as an organizer of indus- 
 trial concerns. The capacity for driving men in 
 harness which made him a great political boss was 
 equally handy in his reform career just as a ban- 
 dit chief might turn into a highly useful military 
 officer."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 227 
 
 "One would imagine that his record counted 
 against him," ventured Cosway. 
 
 "No, sir! He was successful, and we idolize suc- 
 cess. He was also square. No one ever accused 
 Mike of double-crossing or of playing dirt on his 
 partners. He was out for plunder, but he made a 
 fair and square divide of the swag. Mike's prom- 
 ise was gold-backed." 
 
 "You mentioned that he finances industrial en- 
 terprises," prompted Warde. 
 
 "He negotiates rather than finances. There's a 
 banking crowd behind him who lend their names to 
 the public flotations he engineers. He's next door 
 to the inner circle of the System. They know he's 
 to be trusted. Which goes to prove that honesty 
 is a mighty good policy for a political crook. . . . 
 Excuse me, there's the auction pool starting. I'm 
 going to bid for the high field." 
 
 The Englishmen were left to disentangle this 
 
 strange mixture of a reputation. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Wherein lies romance? 
 
 Venice is essence of romance, and Granada, and 
 Aries, and a score of other dead cities where the 
 present inhabitants are mere transients and the 
 ghosts of the past make the living population. 
 Linking these landmarks of bygone centuries, one 
 might form the hasty generalization that romance 
 is the mistress of history. 
 
 New York stamps a heel into that facile thought. 
 New York is attar of romance, and yet its record 
 is scarcely older than a mid-Victorian sampler; its 
 monuments are negligible ; and no ghosts live. One
 
 228 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 can label New York beautiful or hideous, majestic 
 or nightmarish, alluring or repellent, according to 
 one's individual outlook; but the feeling of its ro- 
 mance penetrates the most prosaic of visitors, and 
 the epithet "romantic" would make a common 
 ground of agreement for almost all of its lovers 
 and critics. 
 
 It is a city where the time- value is radically dif- 
 ferent from that of the great cities of the Old 
 World. On the white screen of a cinema we have 
 seen tight-rolled flower-buds unfurling with magic 
 swiftness into full-blowing blossoms. The show- 
 man has "quickened up" a process of nature too 
 slow for the human eye. So is it with New York. 
 Its budding has been bioscopic, and the full-flower- 
 ing proceeds with the rapidity of a film. 
 
 New York is a cinema city, a studio where life- 
 stories are worked out with passionate speed, and 
 human dramas melodramas, if it please you so to 
 term them are concentrated into tabloid form. 
 There is a sense of latent unreality in the atmos- 
 phere of New York. Its backgrounds are like the 
 settings of a cinema studio. View the water-front 
 from the harbor in the early haze of an October 
 morning, and its fantastic sky-line prints itself on 
 the retina as the painted canvas of a trick drama. 
 One would feel no surprise if those forty and fifty- 
 storied buildings were to shoot up under one's eyes 
 into hundred-storied giants, or collapse like a con- 
 certina into dwarfs. One might take it as an ordi- 
 nary event of the day if they were to twine and 
 untwine, bow and posture in the figures of a morris 
 dance or a tango.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 229 
 
 Wall Street, Broad Street, Lower Broadway, 
 Nassau Street, Maiden Lane and their tributary 
 canons are the inventions of a cinema director 
 filming a three-reel romance of "The Battle of Big 
 Money." By some magic of architecture they are 
 not gloomy as with the rabbit-warren of the City 
 of London for the shrewd director has arranged 
 the lighting so that his camera-man can film "in 
 once," and no fogging need call for a "makeover" 
 of the scenes. 
 
 Note how cleverly he has placed the insignificance 
 of Trinity Church and its tiny graveyard to ac- 
 centuate the relentlessness of his towering build- 
 ings alongside. Mark the showman spirit that 
 has left clear the open space of Battery Point, so 
 that the emigrants ferried over from Ellis Island* 
 the crucible of the American nation can contrast 
 across a hundred yards of greenery with the over- 
 lords of finance and commerce. 
 
 Park Row the hub of newspaperdom is the 
 cinema director's idea of how a Fleet Street should 
 look. He has posed it touching shoulders with the 
 financial district and the octagonal whiteness of City 
 Hall, and within arm's length he has gathered the 
 clotted congeries of the Russian Jews, the Italians, 
 the score of nations that vaguely call themselves 
 Austria-Hungarian, the Greeks, the Syrians, the 
 Chinese and the hundred hybrids whose mentality 
 ferments and effervesces into the life of the nation. 
 
 Brooklyn Bridge at the rush-hour, morning or 
 evening that alone is a perfect film-setting for the 
 caption of "Their Daily Bread." 
 
 The lower East Side is the apotheosis of a
 
 230 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Whitechapel or a Soho. It seethes like yeast in 
 the brewing-vat. Yet the hideous poverty of it is 
 not depressing with the hopeless fatality of the 
 slums of Europe, because the atmosphere of ro- 
 mance throws an iridescent veil over all. The 
 sweated under-dog of to-day may be a marshal of 
 industry ten years hence. Dramas of fortune work 
 themselves out with a rapidity startlingly unreal to 
 the spectator from the Old World. Class-barriers 
 practically do not exist. Brains, energy, grit and 
 unscrupulousness find an open market. A novel 
 thought, translated into terms of art or commerce, 
 is welcomed on its sheer novelty and as quickly 
 scrapped to give place to the successor. There is 
 no permanence and little stability. Yesterday is 
 forgotten. To-day is the guest in the seat of honor. 
 To-morrow is already eyeing his place and planning 
 to oust him. 
 
 The cinema director constructed his Central Park 
 to give the maximum of "locations" in a strictly 
 limited area. There is none of that broad spacious- 
 ness of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, the 
 Bois de la Chambre or the Gardens of the Villa 
 Borghese. Lake, drives, pavements and paths twist 
 and turn on one another; rocks and grottoes, 
 hillocks and minute valleys are clustered in that 
 same spirit which compresses minutes to seconds. 
 It is an epitome of a dozen parks. So with the 
 houses. A suite of apartments in London, Paris, 
 Berlin or Rome, leisurely spreading over a whole 
 floor, is here compressed to a three-room dwelling, 
 with furniture that gives the maximum service in 
 the minimum space, and cunningly devised cup-
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 231 
 
 boards which serve the purpose of kitchen, bath- 
 room and store-room. 
 
 He laid out his Broadway for night effects. Until 
 six o'clock in the afternoon, Broadway from 23rd 
 to 5Oth is a disappointingly narrow artery of traf- 
 fic. After six it becomes an Arabian Nights bi- 
 zarrity. The colored lights of the electric signs 
 blaze out a challenge to any other city in the world. 
 Flash-light advertisements battle with one another 
 to claim the fleeting attention of the crowds by 
 their novelty, .their humor, their naive childish- 
 ness or their crushing size. A siphon spouts out 
 fiery liquid into a waiting tumbler; a skirt rustles 
 electrically in a breeze; a bulldog demonstrates the 
 tenacity of brush-bristles; Roman chariots race 
 around an arena to prove which is the "World's 
 Leader" in soap, in shoes, in cigarettes, or in gar- 
 ters. 
 
 By midnight the scene in Times or Herald Square 
 "Squares" only by cinema compression is a 
 kaleidoscope of fashion, vice, beauty and rampant 
 crime. The cabaret restaurants jostle one another 
 for patronage. They are crowded beyond compare 
 with Europe. The life is glittering, feverish, ever 
 speeding with cinema rapidity. 
 
 And the noises of Broadway! How cunningly 
 the film-man has marshaled his sound effects. Tak- 
 ing the dull roar of wheeled traffic for his back- 
 ground, he splashes over it the hoots, the grunts, 
 the squeals of the motor-horns; the plaintive bleat 
 of the river-sirens; the crisp clang of the street- 
 car gongs; the thunder of the L-trains; and the 
 maxim-gun spatter of the pneumatic riveter at work
 
 232 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 on a skyscraper upshooting in a skeleton of steel 
 girders. 
 
 Hideous? Perhaps. The discords of a Strauss 
 and a Gauguin have also been labeled hideous. One 
 must not be too near to the orchestra or the pic- 
 ture. Let an elevator whizz you up to the twen- 
 tieth story of some business building in itself de- 
 serted and silent, and the discords will coalesce into 
 an intricate harmony of sound; the blaring lights 
 will tone into a soft music of color spread out 
 over the half-tones of black and brown that tell 
 of miles of roofs sheltering a life vivid and vibrant 
 ambitious, struggling, greedy, ruthless, yet ar- 
 resting in its drama and pulse-stirring in its sense 
 of speed. 
 
 New York is a cinema picture of a modern 
 Bagdad.
 
 WEAVING IN MILLIONS 
 
 The giant ferrier turned slowly in mid-stream of 
 the Hudson River until its bow pointed to one of 
 the hundred out jutting wharves which fringe the 
 margin of Manhattan Island, and then surrendered 
 itself into the care of a score of tugs hovering 
 around like terriers. They lined up their blunt 
 snouts against the huge hull, and bunted it uncere- 
 moniously, like a mere freight car into the ap- 
 pointed siding. 
 
 In the dark of the customs shed, among the 
 group of relatives and friends awaiting the incom- 
 ing vessel, was Michael Riordan. With the ready 
 courtesy or rather, good-fellowship of the New 
 York business man, he had come in person to greet 
 his guests on the doorstep of America. He had no 
 stiff pride to keep him back, nor did he consider it 
 bad business to be forward in welcome. His soft 
 felt hat was tilted on the back of his head as he 
 surveyed the upper decks for Warde and Cosway, 
 showing in full a frank, open, ruddy countenance 
 and a pair of blue eyes, alert, shrewd, humorous, 
 with a hundred tiny wrinkles at their corners. The 
 passage of fifty years had scarcely thinned his hair, 
 though its redness had toned to a reddish silver. 
 
 233
 
 234 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 He might have been placed as a country squire. 
 No stranger could have read in him a former 
 Fenian and a political highwayman. 
 
 Though he had never seen the two Englishmen 
 before since Warde's system of television was 
 not yet perfect enough to carry across the Atlantic 
 his shrewd judgment of men enabled him to pick 
 them out from the crowd on the hurricane deck. 
 He waved a hand in friendly greeting, and when 
 they came down the gangway in the line of passen- 
 gers, he extended a big fist for a cordial hand- 
 shake. 
 
 "Leave your baggage to my secretary," said Ri- 
 ordan. "He'll see it through the customs. Where 
 are you putting up?" 
 
 "We've taken rooms at the Plaza." 
 
 "I'll drive you there. I've given your names in 
 at my clubs, and if you're not too busy to-night, 
 I'd like to introduce you to a dozen good fellows. 
 And the wife wants you at our little place on Long 
 Island for the week-end. You're lions, you know. 
 Going to see the States while you're here? I can 
 get you a private car over the Penna. and the South- 
 ern Pacific, and give you introductions all round 
 the West." 
 
 It was American hospitality at its warmest 
 and, to be sure, an excellent business move. 
 
 At the Van Twiller Club that evening, Warde 
 and Cosway found themselves in an atmosphere of 
 cordial good-fellowship. Men high in finance and 
 business greeted them as though they were old 
 friends. There was no secrecy about the reason 
 of their visit to America. Riordan seemed to have
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 235 
 
 no objection to letting the whole world guess that 
 he was conducting a deal in wireless telephony. Ap- 
 parently a code of business honor would prevent 
 any rivals poaching on his preserves, or it may have 
 been that his position was secure enough to wave 
 away any fear of rivals. He introduced his guests 
 to every man he came across, and before the even- 
 ing finished Warde and Cosway had invitations 
 pressed on them sufficiently to occupy the better 
 part of a month if they cared to accept. 
 
 In the meanwhile, a game of poker was of course 
 formed for their amusement. It was tacitly as- 
 sumed that every man-of-the-world must play and 
 love poker. The stakes were, for overlords of in- 
 dustry, ludicrously small; it was not gambling so 
 much as an occasion for good-humored chaffing. 
 The national spirit of the States runs to talking 
 games. While the Englishman's etiquette demands 
 silence and restraint during the conduct of games, 
 the American seems to relish the outwitting of an 
 opponent by clever talk. 
 
 From the Club, Riordan took his guests on to 
 midnight Broadway, showing them the glittering 
 life of half a dozen of the most famous "lobster 
 palaces," pointing out celebrities, and keeping up a 
 running fire of dryly humorous anecdote. 
 
 As he left them at the door of the Plaza, Riordan 
 said: "Suppose you fellows come to Long Island 
 to-morrow to talk business ? It's more comfortable 
 than the office. I'll send the car for you. That 
 suit?" 
 
 "Excellently." 
 
 "Nine-thirty?"
 
 236 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Right." 
 
 The next morning, they were seated in comfort- 
 able basket chairs in the garden of Riordan's home, 
 with the lapping waters of the quiet Sound not 
 twenty yards distant. Though late October, it was 
 the midway of Indian summer, cloudless and hot; 
 hot enough to make open-air lazing a delight ; only 
 the stripping trees told of the fall of the year. 
 
 On tables by their sides they spread out their 
 several bundles of documents and plans, while a ne- 
 gro butler with a comic frizz of white hair, faithful 
 to his master since the old political days, served the 
 inevitable highballs. Riordan addressed him as 
 "Jim" and treated him as a friend. 
 
 "Here's to a deal that will satisfy all of us!" 
 sang Riordan to the tune of "Here's to the maiden 
 of bashful fifteen," as he raised his glass. "The 
 only good business is what's good for both sides." 
 
 Then he plunged into the heart of affairs: "As 
 you know, I want to develop the American end 
 of your business. You can't do it by running a 
 subsidiary of your own this side." 
 
 "Why not?" objected Cosway, who believed in 
 contesting every point raised by an opponent. 
 
 Riordan laughed his hearty, country-squire laugh. 
 
 "I've retired from politics, as perhaps you know, 
 but that's not to say that politics don't exist any 
 longer. Wall Street and Congress are always on 
 friendly terms. We let them in on our little deals 
 before the general public, and in return they look 
 with the gladsome eye on the measures we favor. 
 It's not called 'graft' any longer, but it's a chip 
 off the old block with college manners and a Euro-
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 237 
 
 pean finish. Now in this particular case, if you 
 were to float an American subsidiary under the laws 
 of the United States, you would find Congress run- 
 ning up a tariff or amending the patent laws or gen- 
 erally raising legal hell for you. They would dress 
 up the old scarecrow of the Constitution, and pull 
 the strings so that it hit you a mighty hard whack." 
 
 "I'll take your word for it," smiled Warde. 
 
 "On the other hand, if we run the company, I 
 guess you'll find Congress offering sites for stations 
 on a lordly dish, and smiling like the little boy at the 
 jam-jar. The men with me on this proposition are 
 Clough, of Consolidated Steel, and Leishman, Van- 
 deventer. Clough would swing the manufacturing 
 end, and Leishman, Vandeventer would charm the 
 yellow-backs from the public." 
 
 "Let's see your draft plan." 
 
 Riordan produced from his bundle of papers a 
 map of North and South America marked with the 
 proposed sites for wireless stations, and whole ta- 
 bles of figures which he proceeded to expound with 
 keen relish, like a schoolboy making holiday plans. 
 
 "Does it listen good?" he concluded. 
 
 "I have an alternative to propose," said Warde. 
 "Would you care to buy up world-rights?" 
 
 It was characteristic of Riordan that this amazing 
 suggestion did not bring from him any exclamation 
 of surprise. Within a second, within the cinema 
 quickness of a New York business man, he had ad- 
 justed his mind to the new possibility. 
 
 "Including the British Empire?" asked Riordan, 
 much as he might say: "Including the Falkland 
 Islands?"
 
 838 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Inclusive. To work our patents in Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland, their Dominions and Dependen- 
 cies; in North and South America; and wherever 
 else one could obtain a footing." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "In round figures, the capitalization I suggest 
 is ten million pounds fifty million dollars." 
 
 "Would your Government stand for it?" 
 
 "We're a free country. It's open to anyone to 
 form companies, manufacture or trade inside the 
 Empire. You would take over controlling shares 
 in our present companies." 
 
 "Fifty million dollars," mused Riordan, and then 
 a new line of thought sent a glow all over his 
 rounded countenance and his alert blue eyes. 
 
 "I've struck the right plan!" said he with em- 
 phasis. "You know what happened with the tin- 
 plate trade and the steel trade over here ? The sep- 
 arate manufacturers were cutting one another's 
 throats until the big man came along and proposed 
 amalgamation. He capitalized the tin-plate trade 
 at three times its normal valuation, and when com- 
 petition was removed, the 'water' was turned into 
 actual value. Prices were raised, and the public 
 paid. Had to. Same with steel. Now suppose 
 we try to amalgamate all long-distance communica- 
 tion cables, wireless telegraphy and wireless tele- 
 phony. That would be a job to be proud of!" 
 
 The cinema quickness of the atmosphere of New 
 York had already invaded Warde. He too showed 
 no surprise at this still more amazing proposal. 
 "I should be willing to try," he answered briskly. 
 "But while you might get the cable companies
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 239 
 
 into the ring, you would have to eliminate the wire- 
 less telegraphy people. They are tied up with our 
 Government." 
 
 "Agreed. But your wireless telephony is putting 
 them out of date. Telephony is going to be the 
 staple of communication coupled with television." 
 
 "Have you any idea," asked Cos way, "how much 
 money would be needed for such a combine?" 
 
 "I must work out figures from the present capi- 
 talization of all the companies we should want to 
 amalgamate. It may be anywhere from a hundred 
 to two hundred million dollars. But in stock. 
 Understand that. The tin-plate men and the steel 
 men were paid in stock certificates, and the public 
 made those certificates into money." 
 
 He proceeded into a discussion of technicalities 
 which continued until Mrs. Riordan came out to 
 the garden to warn them of lunch. She was a 
 homely, motherly woman, still showing her humble 
 Irish origin and making no effort to disguise it. 
 
 "Molly is ruler here," laughed Riordan. "We 
 shall have to turn up business until after lunch." 
 
 "Ruler indeed! The blarneying tongue of him! 
 
 'Tis that way he made me wife." 
 
 ****** 
 
 "Amalgamation" is a blessed word on paper, but 
 in actual practice it involves negotiations of the 
 most complex and delicate nature. 
 
 They had first to convince Clough and Vande- 
 venter harder, colder men, no silver-tongued ne- 
 gotiators, men who saw paper figures in terms of 
 solid cash. It meant endless arrayings of figures 
 and discussions with lawyers before even the pre-
 
 240 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 liminaries of amalgamation could be sanctioned by 
 the money-finders. It was agreed that the proposed 
 combine should be kept as secret as possible, while 
 outsiders would probably imagine that it was a 
 simple deal for the American rights in wireless 
 telephony. 
 
 They began with the American-owned cable com- 
 panies. Weeks lengthened out in interviews, dis- 
 cussions, prolonged considerations, renewed inter- 
 views. The Indian summer flicked away with the 
 suddenness of a cinema film, and the director 
 staged a cold snap that turned roads iron-hard and 
 made the universal steam-heating at last tolerable 
 to the two Englishmen. Then he provided a spec- 
 tacular blizzard, and switched on the sun to show' a 
 gleaming white New York before snow melted into 
 slush ankle deep and the Florida railways ran 
 double shifts of trains. 
 
 In December the three men took boat for Europe. 
 Coupled in the plan was the co-operation of the 
 Rademeyer firm. Riordan and Warde went on to 
 Berlin, while Cosway stepped off at Southampton 
 to return to London. 
 
 Warde followed at the heels of the American. 
 He was content to let matters work themselves out 
 until there came the crisis for which he was so 
 patiently playing in this intricate game of finance. 
 Rademeyer, cautious, would make no definite ar- 
 rangement, though secretly he was delighted to 
 think that his old enemy was giving himself into 
 the hands of his friends the American capitalists. 
 
 Christmas was now close at hand. Warde ex-
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 241 
 
 cused himself on the grounds of joining his family, 
 and while he returned to London, Riordan pro- 
 ceeded to Rome and Madrid in pursuance of the 
 elaborate scheme.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SELF-ANALYSIS 
 
 Christmas brought a lull to affairs of business. 
 Practically for the first time in that year of con- 
 tinuous struggle and over-weighing responsibilities, 
 Warde was able to give himself completely to his 
 wife and children. He strove to balance the neglect 
 of a twelvemonth by the compressed affection of 
 ten days, and ransacked Bond Street for presents 
 for Eve which would form an outward token. 
 
 Yet now that Eve had her husband to herself, 
 ready to fall in with any plan and satisfy any whim, 
 she appeared to resent it. The warmth of welcome 
 after a separation of two months was wholly on his 
 side. She yielded herself to him only with a passive 
 reluctance. She was cold, reserved, distrait and 
 nervy. The tiniest trifle of an annoyance seemed 
 magnified by her husband's presence. 
 
 One evening they returned from the theater to 
 the supper laid out for them in the dining-room at 
 Cadogan Square, in an oppressive silence. Since 
 the fall of the curtain they had scarcely exchanged 
 a word beyond the bare necessities. 
 
 The supper over, Eve offered a cold good-night 
 and moved to go upstairs to her room. 
 
 "I want to talk to you," said Hilary abruptly.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 243 
 
 "I'm tired. In the morning will do." 
 
 "No, now. I want to know what on earth is 
 the matter with you." 
 
 "I'm tired. The play was boring." 
 
 "It's much more than that. Since I've returned 
 from America, I seem either to bore you or irritate 
 you. For Heaven's sake let's talk out the trouble." 
 
 He pointed to a chair near the fire. With an air 
 of reluctant obedience, Eve seated herself. 
 
 "I'm listening," she said. "But please don't 
 preach at me." 
 
 "I want you to preach at me anything rather 
 than this shell of reserve, as though I were a mere 
 stranger. Tell me frankly what it is that's simmer- 
 ing in you. What have you got against me? 
 Where have I offended you ? Dissect me ?" 
 
 "Very well. For twelve months you put me in 
 the second place to wireless, and then you expect 
 to balance it with a caress and a necklace." De- 
 liberately unfastening his latest present from the 
 soft curves of her throat, she placed it on a small 
 table between them. 
 
 "And that's the whole trouble?" 
 
 Meeting his scrutiny without wavering, she an- 
 swered : "That's the root of the trouble." 
 
 "But I've explained so often before. I'm not 
 master of my own time. America I had to go 
 there in order to get a bid for W. Tels, something 
 tangible to show to Kerr-Dyce and the English pub- 
 lic in general. When I told him that I had offers 
 from foreign firms, he smiled skeptically. He rep- 
 resents the average popular view. He's a mere 
 politician."
 
 244 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Eve kept silent, her gaze intent on the glowing 
 coals. 
 
 Hilary resumed: "Only give me time to round 
 off my work. Then I'll be yours completely." 
 
 "This deal of yours may drag on for years." 
 
 "It ought to be settled for good and all within 
 six months." 
 
 "Compare us with Viola and Geoffrey. He has a 
 career as well as yourself, but he hasn't made him- 
 self a slave to it." 
 
 Hilary took up the pearl necklace and passed it 
 through his fingers. "I was trying to show you 
 that I'm still your lover." 
 
 There was silence between them. 
 
 "Do you want me to throw over my work now, 
 just when nine years of building up are leading to 
 the keystone?" he resumed. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Are you regretting Esk?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I passed him in Bond Street yesterday. He 
 looks twenty years older a pantaloon of a man 
 only held together by his doctors and his tailor and 
 his corset-maker." 
 
 Eve shuddered. 
 
 "They say," pursued Hilary, "that his wife is 
 not living with him." 
 
 "Is there anything remarkable in that? There 
 are plenty of married couples we know who are not 
 living with one another. After five or six years 
 of marriage, it's scarcely natural." 
 
 He dropped the necklace on the table with a sud- 
 den clatter.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 245 
 
 "Then that is your meaning?" 
 
 "I'm tired of being cross-examined!" protested 
 Eve. 
 
 He started to pace the room agitatedly. "I 
 didn't realize that I had made myself so distasteful 
 to you. I've been wrapped up in my work, I know, 
 but I've never ceased to love you since the day we 
 ran away together. I thought it would be the same 
 with you. . . . But of course it shall be as you 
 wish. . . ." 
 
 "You remember that day before I left for the 
 cruise to South America in Miss Glenistair's cot- 
 tage when you quoted to me that musty verse, 
 'Man's love is of his life a thing apart; 'tis woman's 
 whole existence' ?" 
 
 "Yes," nodded Hilary. 
 
 "It's not true. I don't think it has ever been 
 true. A man wrote that line. It's been held up 
 ever since as man's pattern for woman. How un- 
 fair it is to make a pedestal for us, and expect us 
 to live on it whatever our temperament may be! 
 I'm not modeled on the angels I'm just a woman!" 
 Her voice rang with resentment. "I'm not the 
 heroine in a sentimental romance. I think all 
 women, in secret thought, hate those heroines. If 
 they spoke out frankly, they would give their vote 
 for Becky Sharpe. She's a reality. The Amelia 
 type are just man-made shams. No woman I know 
 of approaches the heroine of romance. They may 
 pretend to be while they're husband-hunting that's 
 the utmost. . . . Marriage is not only a matter of 
 love or passion. It's a companionship of interests 
 give and take. There's not only the husband's
 
 246 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 career, but the wife's as well. You have been so 
 wrapped up in your work that it's never struck 
 you what people might be saying of us. 'That poor 
 Mrs. Warde, married to a business!' ' 
 
 "In plain words, I've not given you a career, and 
 that's why your love has died down. . . . Oh, my 
 dearest, I've been selfish and thoughtless! I want 
 to win you back ! I've always thought you a glory 
 of womanhood. Perhaps I haven't shown it open- 
 ly, but I've worshiped you." 
 
 To the pleading in his voice there was no 
 response from Eve. She moved wearily in her 
 chair. 
 
 "I must win you back!" he exclaimed passion- 
 ately, starting again to pace the room. "Of course 
 I shan't intrude myself on you. . . . But if you 
 would only tell me what I can do to please you. 
 .... As soon as this last deal is over. . . . 
 Couldn't we plan a voyage round the world? San 
 Francisco, Japan, India, the South Sea Islands. A 
 yacht-party, if you preferred it. Or just ourselves 
 and the babies. . . . But you're tired now. I'll say 
 good-night." 
 
 Eve rose from her chair; and taking her hand, 
 he kissed it with reverence. 
 
 She moved from the room, leaving the necklace 
 
 behind her. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Miss Glenistair had been invited to spend Christ- 
 mas with the Wardes, but sudden illness prevented 
 her at the last moment. Hilary at once traveled to 
 Maidstone to see her. 
 
 The passage of six years had left her frail, and
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 247 
 
 now, with the development of heart weakness, her 
 cheeks had almost a wan transparency. 
 
 Hilary, remorseful at the scanty time he had been 
 able to devote to her in the last few years, put his 
 feelings into words, but she would not allow him 
 any self-reproach. 
 
 "My dearest," she answered gently, "your work 
 must come before everything else. Science is a 
 jealous mistress. It has been the great happiness 
 of my life to watch you build your career and give 
 to your country this wonderful gift. You have 
 made me feel so proud of you I have lived in your 
 success." 
 
 "I was a scientist, but now I feel I'm a mere 
 money-spinner." 
 
 "As soon as you have completed this work, I 
 want you, dear Hilary, to turn again to science. 
 There are many other fields for you to explore and 
 conquer." 
 
 "Can I go back ?" he mused. "I sometimes doubt 
 it. I'm warped." 
 
 "No, that phase will pass. It came from Sir 
 Wilmer's influence. You are a scientist at heart and 
 a financier only from expediency. You will do ever 
 greater work for science in the future. And Eve, I 
 hope, will help you to return. A man's wife can do 
 so much for him." 
 
 Warde found it difficult to answer this. "I owe 
 most to you," he said. 
 
 "Eve is a woman of many talents, but I doubt if 
 she has ever found herself. Tell me, dearest, has 
 your married life been all you had hoped for?" 
 
 "Quite!" he answered firmly, for he could not
 
 248 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 be disloyal to Eve even to the extent of making 
 Miss Glenistair a confidante. "I have never met 
 any woman I could love but my wife." 
 
 "I am so glad to hear that. Sometimes I have 
 feared . . . but that is merely an old woman's 
 vague imagining. You have been so precious to 
 me that I have been very jealous of the influence 
 of others." 
 
 "I have had no regrets in my marriage. Eve has 
 been the one woman in the world to me. . . . Now 
 let us explain for yourself. You ought not to be in 
 England in the winter." 
 
 "This cottage is my delight." 
 
 "Yes, but you need the sunshine. I want to 
 pack you away to Egypt. You must have a com- 
 panion, of course. I'm going to scour London to 
 find the right girl to see to your comforts. A trip 
 up the Nile in a private dahabeah how does that 
 appeal to you?" 
 
 "It would be very pleasant." 
 
 "As soon as the doctor allows you to move, I'll 
 travel with you myself as far as Cairo." 
 
 "But your work " 
 
 "It can be left. It must be left. There's no 
 claim on my time more important than you. Al- 
 ready I've neglected you far too much." 
 
 She reached for his hand and pressed it tenderly.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SPARK AND EXPLOSION 
 
 "There is no such thing as a secret; the nearest 
 approach to it is a conspiracy of silence/' 
 
 Especially is this so with a project of amalgama- 
 tion in which a score of men, of varying degrees of 
 trustworthiness, have to be approached and their 
 agreement solicited. Rumors, at least, are bound 
 to find currency. What Warde hoped for came in 
 February, when Michael Riordan was in London 
 in pursuance of his campaign. 
 
 Warde was called to ttye 'phone one evening by 
 the editor of the "Courier," the paper he hsd sub- 
 sidized and still employed as the mouthpiece of W. 
 Tels. 
 
 "I have a report sent in," said the editor, "that 
 you are negotiating to hand over your companies 
 to an American trust." 
 
 Warde's pulse quickened. Action was starting 
 the action for which he had so patiently been laying 
 the foundation. 
 
 "Deny it," he replied briskly. 
 
 "It comes from the 'Central News' it's a report 
 sent to all the papers that take their service. 
 Usually they are very reliable with their informa- 
 tion." 
 
 249
 
 250 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Deny it," repeated Warde. 
 
 "I could ignore it altogether if you preferred 
 that," suggested the editor. He had no relish for 
 the part of his duty which bound him to take orders 
 from Warde on any matter affecting W. Tels. He 
 would have liked to avoid any reference to the com- 
 pany and keep to the legitimate work of a news- 
 paper. 
 
 "If the other papers print the report, contradict 
 it emphatically." 
 
 "On your authority? That is, mentioning your- 
 self." 
 
 "Decidedly." 
 
 "Between ourselves, Mr. Warde, is there any 
 foundation for the news?" 
 
 "None whatever." 
 
 The morning papers printed the paragraph from 
 the "Central News" mostly as a mere rumor of no 
 great public interest. The "Courier," as in duty 
 bound, stated that the story was baseless. Warde 
 sent a vigorous circular letter to all the other 
 newspapers impeaching their accuracy. 
 
 That blew the tiny spark into flame. Staid news- 
 papers and sensational newspapers alike they are 
 in London all highly touchy on the subject of ac- 
 curacy. It is part of their creed that they print noth- 
 ing but the truth, though possibly they might admit 
 to picking out those parts of the truth which are 
 in line with the particular policy of their journal. 
 
 Consequently they sent our reporters to ferret for 
 details, and on the following morning repeated their 
 statement with considerable elaboration. The 
 American trust was represented by a Mr. Michael
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 251 
 
 Riordan, now in London and staying at the Cecil. 
 Communication with New York had brought out 
 the information that this Mr. Riordan was a former 
 Fenian and a corrupt "political boss." 
 
 Riordan, waylaid by reporters, naturally denied 
 the story. It was quite against his own interests 
 that the delicate process of amalgamation should 
 be shown to the public in the undress stage. He 
 told the newspaper men that he was merely nego- 
 tiating for the Western Hemisphere rights in wire- 
 less telephony. 
 
 Public opinion, so apathetic in most matters of 
 national importance, became suddenly roused. It 
 was not the essential of the matter the selling 
 abroad of the wireless patents-=-that concerned them 
 so much as the words "trust," "Fenian," and "po- 
 litical boss." They pictured this Mr. Michael Rior- 
 dan, hitherto unknown to them, as holding a blud- 
 geon in one hand and a bomb in the other, while 
 with a third hand he distributed wads of bank- 
 notes to his menial politicians. Letters to the 
 papers protested heatedly against the exploiting of 
 England by ravenous American trusts. 
 
 Then the newspapers came out with the statement 
 that wireless telephony the product of British 
 brains and a national asset was to be sold abroad, 
 lock, stock and barrel, for the sum of eight million 
 pounds by Mr. Hilary Warde, whose career as a 
 financier was highly unsavory even if strictly legal. 
 They called on the shareholders of W. Tels and its 
 Sheffield subsidiary to protest against and outvote 
 such an unpatriotic proposal.
 
 252 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Warde, by still denying the newspaper statements, 
 added fuel to the flame. 
 
 In the course of a fortnight it had blazed a na- 
 tional question, and interrogations were made in 
 Parliament by members of the Opposition, glad of 
 any excuse to harass the Government : 
 
 "To ask the Postmaster-General if he has any 
 official knowledge of the proposed sale to an Ameri- 
 can syndicate of the world-rights in wireless tele- 
 phony ; and what steps he proposes to take to make 
 such a sale nugatory as affecting the British Em- 
 pire." 
 
 "To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he has 
 protected the interests of the Navy in the matter of 
 wireless telephony; and if not, what course of action 
 he intends to pursue." 
 
 Kerr-Dyce and the other members of the Cabinet, 
 realizing from the editorials in the papers, the let- 
 ters from readers, and the conversation of clubs, 
 that they had been placed on the wrong side of 
 popular favor by Warde' s maneuver, decided that 
 they must take some step to allay the public feel- 
 ing. Kerr-Dyce proposed to appeal to Warde's 
 patriotism; smooth him into breaking off negotia- 
 tions with the American syndicate ; and in that way 
 create much popularity for his party and himself. 
 
 Accordingly he wrote to Warde, asking if the 
 latter would call upon him at Ebury Square at an 
 early moment. 
 
 The reply, cold and curt, came over a secretary's 
 signature; Mr. Warde was extremely busy, and 
 had little time to spare. Would Mr. Kerr-Dyce
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 253 
 
 explain what it was that he wished to discuss at an 
 interview ? 
 
 The politician then endeavored to reach Warde 
 over the 'phone. Again a secretary intervened. 
 Kerr-Dyce, after vainly trying to sidetrack this 
 subordinate, was forced to mention that the subject 
 to be discussed was the rumored sale abroad of the 
 wireless telephony patents. Would Mr. Warde 
 suggest a convenient time to call at Ebury Square ? 
 
 The answer stated that Mr. Warde was still ex- 
 tremely busy; but he could accord an interview to 
 Mr. Kerr-Dyce on the following morning at Angel 
 Court. 
 
 The politician replied that Angel Court was an 
 inconvenient meeting-place. (It was, in fact, highly 
 undesirable for a Cabinet Minister to allow himself 
 to be seen entering an office in the financial dis- 
 trict.) 
 
 Then at Cadogan Square? was the secretary's 
 suggestion. 
 
 Kerr-Dyce accepted for ten o'clock the next 
 morning. 
 
 Hilary mentioned the matter casually to his wife 
 over the dinner-table. Eve had been away on the 
 Riviera during part of January, but had cut short 
 her stay on the plea of boredom and had returned 
 to London when town was filling up at the opening 
 of the Parliamentary session. 
 
 He remarked in the course of ordinary conversa- 
 tion : "I've asked Kerr-Dyce to call on me here at 
 ten to-morrow." 
 
 "Why?" demanded Eve sharply. 
 
 "He's been fishing for an interview."
 
 254 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "But why here?" 
 
 "Because I don't wish to call on him. The situa- 
 tion has changed. I'm no longer cooling my heels 
 in political ante-rooms." 
 
 "I think you are treating him very discourte- 
 ously," returned Eve with heightened color. 
 
 "It's just man-handling a necessary move in 
 the campaign. What is Kerr-Dyce to you?" 
 
 There was no ulterior meaning in Warde's ques- 
 tion. He was not voicing a suspicion. Yet Eve 
 had to control her features as she answered: 
 "Nothing, of course, beyond ordinary acquaintance- 
 ship. I meant that I object to having the house 
 turned into a business office." 
 
 "I'm sorry, dear : I'll cancel the appointment if 
 you wish." 
 
 "Now that it's made, you'd better let it stand," 
 she acquiesced grudgingly. 
 
 Hilary had made very little progress toward the 
 regaining of his wife's affection since that Christ- 
 mas evening when she had laid bare the cause of her 
 estrangement. Neither humility nor marked efforts 
 to anticipate her wishes had brought any thaw to 
 the coldness of her reserve. It strained all his pa- 
 tience to avoid an open quarrel ; and yet he was still 
 in love with her. He longed for the time when he 
 could cut free from his business responsibilities and 
 devote his energies to the winning back of Eve. 
 
 Only a few months more ! 
 
 ****** 
 
 "Mr. Kerr-Dyce," announced the butler, throw- 
 ing open the door of Warde's study the next morn- 
 ing.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 255 
 
 Warde offered a hand perfunctorily, and passed 
 cigars and cigarettes across the desk, littered with 
 letters and documents tied up into bundles. An old 
 Norfolk jacket and a favorite old briar, and his 
 general air of business careless of appearances, con- 
 trasted sharply with Kerr-Dyce's close-fitting morn- 
 ing coat and silk hat and his studied pose of leisured 
 arrivedness. 
 
 "You know, of course, why I want a chat with 
 you," began Kerr-Dyce, selecting a cigarette with 
 the care of a connoisseur; and then with smiling 
 frankness: "The Cabinet, in fact, suggested it to 
 me." 
 
 "Are you speaking for the Cabinet, or quite un- 
 officially?" 
 
 "Just an informal chat." 
 
 "Wouldn't that be a waste of time for both of 
 us? I understood that you would be speaking 
 officially." 
 
 "Very well," agreed Kerr-Dyce pleasantly. "Let 
 us talk on that footing. There are circumstantial 
 rumors floating about to the effect that you are 
 selling the world-rights of wireless telephony to an 
 American syndicate. They even go so far as to 
 name the sum at eight million pounds." 
 
 "The rumors are not of my starting, nor of my 
 co-directors on W. Tels. I have already done my 
 best to contradict them." 
 
 "Naturally. If the position were as stated, you 
 would scarcely wish to make it public." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "It would look somewhat frankly, somewhat 
 unpatriotic."
 
 256 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "I thought we had threshed out that side of the 
 question last August. You told me at Louvaulx 
 that wireless telephony was a mere commercial 
 proposition, and on reflection, I came to agree with 
 your view. If I were now endeavoring to sell the 
 world-rights, which I do not admit for one moment, 
 I should have every justification for doing so. I 
 have to do the best for my shareholders and inci- 
 dentally for myself. If this fancy figure you men- 
 tion eight million pounds were offered to us, I 
 should probably vote for its acceptance." 
 
 "The rumors name a Mr. Michael Riordan as 
 the buyer or negotiator." 
 
 "I know Riordan. I believe him to be straight. 
 I went over to the States in order to get his co- 
 operation in the trans-Atlantic side of our business." 
 
 Kerr-Dyce studied the end of his glowing ciga- 
 rette. "They have clever men on Wall Street," he 
 suggested softly. 
 
 "In England, 'cleverness' is the word that damns 
 a man." 
 
 "Exactly. We associate it with tricky dealings. 
 I quite realize that if you were to accept an offer 
 from that side, you would do so in entire good 
 faith. You would view it as a justifiable business 
 deal. But as I say, they have clever men on Wall 
 Street, and it's just possible that my somewhat 
 thoughtless words of last August unofficial, as you 
 may remember may have blinded you to dangerous 
 eventualities." 
 
 "Dangerous to whom?" 
 
 "To the country." 
 
 "In what manner ?"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 357 
 
 "As a question of national defense." 
 
 "Then the result of that chat seems to be that we 
 have convinced one another." 
 
 Kerr-Dyce laughed pleasantly. "We fling stones, 
 and are surprised when they smash air-holes 
 through somebody's windows." 
 
 "I see no national danger in having American 
 money in our business, or even controlling our 
 business." 
 
 "Largely true. But there is no reason why an 
 American syndicate should not, in their turn, sell 
 the control to some European Power. That might 
 be a matter of very grave national concern. Sup- 
 pose I merely say suppose this Mr. Riordan or 
 his associates were to offer you eight millions with 
 the ultimate idea of obtaining ten millions or more 
 from a Continental Power?" 
 
 "The merest supposition." 
 
 "A possibility." 
 
 "I cannot take account of every future possi- 
 bility." 
 
 "We in the Cabinet have to look very far ahead." 
 
 "What, in plain words, is your object in seeing 
 me?" 
 
 "In plain words, to ask you to refuse any offer 
 for world-rights from foreign syndicates, should 
 such an offer be made at any time." 
 
 "And the interests of my shareholders?" 
 
 "Your shareholders are Englishmen, and noth- 
 ing can be more important to them than the safety 
 of their country." 
 
 "Would you propose to recompense them ?"
 
 258 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "I am not offering a bribe. I am appealing on 
 the grounds of patriotism." 
 
 "A cheap patriotism on the part of the Cabinet !" 
 retorted Warde. 
 
 "It would cost us nothing personally or very 
 little to vote such a bribe. Suppose that an in- 
 come tax of a halfpenny in the pound were levied 
 to buy over your wireless telephony and run it as a 
 Government department, my personal share of the 
 tax would be about fifteen pounds a year. I think 
 we may dismiss any personal feeling in such a 
 matter." 
 
 "It would cost you popularity to raise a further 
 tax." 
 
 "I don't admit it. To buy over wireless tele- 
 phony might be a cheap way of gaining popular 
 favor." 
 
 "Then why not make a proposal to my com- 
 pany?" 
 
 "You want such a proposal?" 
 
 "We want nothing," answered Warde emphati- 
 cally. "Since last August, the prospects of W. Tels 
 have changed very materially. We ask for no 
 Government help." 
 
 "But you would not refuse it ?" 
 
 "It would be entirely a matter for the share- 
 holders to decide." 
 
 "I understand correct me if I am misinformed 
 that you yourself hold a very substantial interest 
 in W. Tels, sufficient to sway the voting one way or 
 other." 
 
 "Yes."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 259 
 
 "Then the decision if it came to a decision 
 would practically rest with yourself?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And what would it be?" 
 
 "To sell abroad." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "The dangers you speak of seem to me to be 
 entirely visionary. The dangers you don't speak 
 of seem to me to be highly material." 
 
 "And those are?" 
 
 "Since you've been frank with me, I'll be equally 
 frank with yourself." Warde paused for a mo- 
 ment, to give weight to the stinging words to 
 come. "I regard your record as a politician as 
 wholly unsatisfactory. I regard the record of your 
 Cabinet as a preposterous sham. You have de- 
 stroyed the work of others, and you have built up 
 nothing of your own that's worth the building. 
 You are not statesmen you are politicians, time- 
 servers, favor-curriers. When popular feeling was 
 against the buying of W. Tels, you tried to snub us 
 down. Now that popular feeling is the other way, 
 you ask us to sacrifice our profits in order to give 
 you cheap popularity. If you had wireless tele- 
 phony under your control, you would probably 
 muddle it as hopelessly as you have muddled the 
 ordinary telephony. A man such as yourself steps 
 into a Cabinet position with no technical training 
 whatever. You were made Postmaster-Gerftral not 
 because you had special qualifications for adminis- 
 tering a highly complex organization, but because 
 you happen to be a clever word-spinner, and an 
 adept at currying popular favor. Sooner than al-
 
 860 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 low you to play this cheap- jack party game with a 
 work which has cost me the best part of my life, 
 and a big part of Sir Wilmer's, and the many other 
 men who have slaved for wireless telephony, I'd 
 sell it abroad to any syndicate of trained organizers. 
 Go back and tell your Cabinet that we can choose 
 our buyer and dictate our price ! Go back and play 
 with words!" 
 
 Kerr-Dyce was a man who had learned to control 
 his temper in the most trying of all schools politi- 
 cal life. It was the pride of his supporters that no 
 attack could unseat his mental poise. But now, 
 for the first time in many years, he lost control of 
 himself in a wave of anger. 
 
 Damned impertinence! Your twopenny-half- 
 penny patents and your swollen head ! All inventors 
 go the same way. It develops into a megalomania. 
 You get to think the whole world is hinging on 
 your patents. The Government of a country is to 
 wait upon you and learn your wishes. Eight mil- 
 lion pounds for wireless telephony? You'd be 
 lucky to find a buyer for it at eight million shil- 
 lings!" 
 
 But Warde had not lost control of himself. With 
 a hand that was cool and perfectly steady, he un- 
 locked a drawer in the desk and brought out a 
 typewritten document occupying some thirty or 
 forty pages. 
 
 He turned over the leaves and pointed deliberately 
 to a paragraph : 
 
 "The party of the second part to pay to the party 
 of the first part for the considerations aforesaid
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 261 
 
 twenty million dollars in Preferred Stock and 
 twenty million dollars in Common Stock. . . ." 
 
 "We can choose our buyer and dictate our price," 
 he repeated.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CULMINATION 
 
 On the afternoon of Friday, April 12, an extraor- 
 dinary general meeting of the W. Tels company 
 was held in the big hall of the Throgmorton Hotel. 
 
 Warde was not acting in his usual capacity of 
 chairman. For reasons of policy, he had decided to 
 stay away and watch the proceedings by wireless. 
 He sat in the swivel desk-chair of his study at 
 Cadogan Square, with a wireless receiver banded 
 over his head to the ears, and in front of him the 
 oblong screen, about the size of a camera half-plate, 
 which would mirror to him the scene of the com- 
 pany meeting. The transmitter was so placed in the 
 hall of the hotel that he occupied, as it were, a seat 
 among the shareholders, to the back and to the 
 right-hand side. 
 
 Rows of plain bentwood chairs ; a long reporters' 
 table covered with ink-splashed green baize; above, 
 the platform for the directors with the raised desk 
 for the chairman and the long desk on either side 
 for the Board in general; behind, a doorway cur- 
 tained in dark red plush and a large, bold-figured 
 clock. 
 
 How well Warde knew the scene! Again and 
 again had Sir Wilmer and himself to face the mu- 
 
 262
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 263 
 
 tinous discontent of shareholders, the attacks of 
 financial enemies, and the instability of co-directors ; 
 to explain away the scanty dividend; to force on 
 the common mind a realization of what the future 
 must inevitably bring. 
 
 To-day, it was to be a very different order of 
 meeting. The shareholders were to come into their 
 own with overflowing measure. Two splendid bids 
 for the property were theirs to choose from. They 
 had to decide to whom they should sell. 
 
 The directors' platform was empty, but the chairs 
 below were filling so rapidly that the meeting prom- 
 ised to be full to the point of crowding. Warde 
 noted that the table for the reporters had been ex- 
 tended to double its usual length in order to accom- 
 modate an extra attendance of pressmen. 
 
 They strolled in at the last moment, these finan- 
 cial pressmen, blase with a surfeit of company 
 meetings, weary even of sensations. A couple of 
 young sketch-writers for morning papers, alert and 
 vigorous, hawking around for picturesque analogies 
 to incorporate in their reports, contrasted markedly 
 with the rutted indifference of the older men. 
 
 Warde viewed the scene as on the focussing plate 
 of a camera, with the exceptions that the picture 
 was right side up and that it was in black and white 
 instead of the natural colors. 
 
 Others besides himself were watching it from a 
 distance. The Stock Exchanges of London and 
 New York waited eagerly for the verdict of the 
 meeting and strove to anticipate it. None but the 
 directors of W. Tels could be certain of the result 
 of the voting. To outsiders, calculating shrewdly
 
 264 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 on the way in which the shares were held, it seemed 
 a toss-up as to which side would win the day. The 
 directors were keeping a cast-iron reticence. 
 
 The buzz of whispering among the sharehold- 
 ers changed to a stamping of feet and sticks upon 
 the floor as the hands of the big clock at the back 
 of the hall glided to the hour of three. 
 
 The Board of four, the secretary and the com- 
 pany lawyer appeared through the red-plush cur- 
 tains, and moved to their places. 
 
 But where was Hilary Warde? whispered the 
 shareholders. 
 
 Thornton, vice-chairman, rose from his seat to 
 explain. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, 
 "Mr. Warde is unable to be present at the meeting. 
 I am myself acting as chairman, but as a mark of 
 respect to the memory of Sir Wilmer Paradine, 
 and as a remark of respect to the scientific and or- 
 ganizing genius of Mr. Warde the two men who 
 have built up this splendid present position of our 
 company I propose to leave the chairman's seat 
 empty." 
 
 It was a graceful touch from that hard, iron-gray 
 man, and the shareholders applauded warmly. 
 
 The secretary of the company then proceeded 
 with the preliminary routine, hurrying perfunctorily 
 through a reading of the last minutes, which no- 
 body cared to hear, and handed the minute-book to 
 Thornton to sign. 
 
 "Is there any objection to the minutes?" asked 
 Thornton according to routine. "No?" He 
 signed with a broad-penned scrawl, and began with 
 the real business of the meeting.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 265 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, you have had posted to 
 you copies of two draft agreements awaiting signa- 
 ture by your Board. The one is from an American 
 syndicate headed by the great New York banking 
 firm of Leishman, Vandeventer & Co. and Mr. 
 William H. Clough, of the Consolidated Steel Cor- 
 poration. I need scarcely say that they are men 
 of unquestioned probity and financial stability. The 
 contract they offer us is for world-rights in wireless 
 telephony. From the holding company to be 
 formed to amalgamate the various systems of long- 
 distance communication, we should receive four 
 million pounds in Preferred Stock and four million 
 pounds in Common Stock. Those figures are, of 
 course, nominal par value. Their actual value to 
 you would depend on the future of the big holding 
 company. As an analogy, I refer you to the com- 
 pany known as the International Mercantile Marine, 
 which amalgamated many of the Atlantic steamship 
 lines. Its Preferred Stock, as probably you know, 
 may be many years still in attaining to par value. 
 
 "The second contract is offered by the British 
 Government. They will guarantee to spend five 
 million pounds in the next three years in the devel- 
 opment of our wireless system over the whole of 
 the British Empire, in the Mercantile Marine and in 
 the Army and Navy. The actual price to ourselves 
 would be a matter of arbitration. It would un- 
 doubtedly be a heavy price, sufficient to recompense 
 you abundantly for your years of waiting, but I am 
 unable to forecast any definite figure. You will 
 have formed some idea of it from the comments on 
 the matter in recent newspapers. In addition, you
 
 266 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 would retain a substantial interest in any contracts 
 which the British Government, at their discretion, 
 might enter into with foreign nations. I cannot say 
 that such contracts will be made it would be a 
 matter to be decided by the Committee of National 
 Defense. Before throwing the question open to 
 discussion, I will call upon our lawyer to put before 
 you the legal aspect of the matter." 
 
 The lawyer, dry, thin-lipped, pince-nezed, gave 
 a highly technical, highly cautious resume of the 
 situation. He was inclined to consider that the 
 Government held the whip hand in the matter. If 
 the American offer were to be accepted, it was with- 
 in the bounds of legal possibility that the Post- 
 master-General would introduce a bill to prevent 
 the private use of wireless telephony stations within 
 the British Empire. No legal decision had as yet 
 been tested as to the ownership of the ether, but 
 judging from the analogy of the air, the Govern- 
 ment might claim a prima facie right to it as against 
 private individuals. He foresaw the matter being 
 brought eventually before the Hague Tribunal ; but 
 a thin smile illumined the dry features of the 
 man of law it must not be assumed that a Great 
 Power would necessarily submit to the judgment of 
 the Tribunal should it prove adverse. 
 
 The question was then discussed by the share- 
 holders in general. For three hours man after man 
 rose to voice opinions on the problem. In general, 
 they asked for a definite lead from the Board, and 
 particularly from Mr. Hilary Warde. Had he sent 
 no message for them? 
 
 Thornton rose to reply. "Our chairman," he
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 267 
 
 said, "is heavily interested in the shares of the 
 company. It is probable that his share-holding vote 
 would determine the matter to one side or other. 
 But he has decided on a course most unusual with 
 a company director and if I may be allowed to 
 say so, a most honorable course. He will not use 
 his votes." 
 
 There was a sudden stampede in the hall. Men 
 were rushing out of the room to telephone to their 
 brokers; reporters hurled messages to uniformed 
 boys, who raced to deliver them to newspaper of- 
 fices. 
 
 Thornton resumed: "Nor will the Board vote 
 on this question. It is left to yourselves. The 
 facts are in your possession. You have the choice 
 between a larger profit from the American syndi- 
 cate, shaded by the doubtful legality of the action 
 and the possible interference of the Government, or 
 a smaller but still a highly satisfactory profit on the 
 second offer. I will now take the voice of the 
 meeting." 
 
 A poll was demanded ; votes were scrutinized and 
 counted. 
 
 In a tense silence Thornton announced the re- 
 sult: "18,628 for the acceptance of the offer of 
 the Government; 6,870 for the acceptance of the 
 American offer. The former is carried." 
 
 Loud cheering. 
 
 As it subsided, Cosway rose, trim and pleasant- 
 spoken, as usual, yet with a note of sincerity in his 
 voice that carried through the conventionality of the 
 motion he had to move. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the honor has
 
 68 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 fallen to me to propose the vote of thanks to the 
 man who has given his whole energies of mind and 
 body to the work of your company, and has carried 
 it from the stage of laboratory experiment to a sys- 
 tem which is deemed essential to national defense. 
 We who have worked with Mr. Warde on the 
 Board of the company know him as no person out- 
 side could possibly do; we have learned to respect 
 his abilities as an organizer and a financier as well 
 as a scientist; we have the deepest admiration for 
 his qualities as a man. He has fought his way 
 through opposition, ridicule and venomous abuse, 
 and has made it possible for you to have to-day this 
 choice of two offers, each fulfilling the utmost prom- 
 ises held out to you in the past. Let us vote him 
 our heartiest thanks and our cordial wishes for his 
 personal happiness and prosperity !" 
 
 "Seconded !" cried a dozen voices in the body of 
 the hall, and as Thornton asked for the vote, Warde 
 in his study-chair could see the whole meeting rise 
 spontaneously to their feet and hear them cheer 
 again and again to his name. 
 
 It was the culmination of the nine years' travail. 
 The goal he had set himself was attained. Further 
 development could well be left to other hands. And 
 the shares left to him in trust by Sir Wilmer Para- 
 dine were now released, so that he could sell them 
 with a clear conscience and use the money in any 
 way he pleased. He was rich enough now to give 
 Eve anything she might set her heart on, even to a 
 great landed estate. Across the screen of his mind 
 there flitted a score of plans for the future, with 
 Eve foremost in the picture.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 269 
 
 A ring of the wireless telephone cut into his 
 reverie. 
 
 "Mr. Warde ?" asked a voice. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "New York to speak to you." 
 
 A click of the connecting instrument, and Warde 
 was in touch with the city three thousand miles 
 distant. On the oblong of the receiving screen he 
 could now see though somewhat dimly the angry 
 countenance of Michael Riordan. Six months of 
 experiment by Warde's scientific staff had extended 
 television across the Atlantic. 
 
 "The dirtiest trick that ever was !" accused Rior- 
 dan. "And, by God, I'll get your scalp for it! 
 Playing with my time for six months and then 
 turning me down at the last moment ! You double- 
 crosser !" 
 
 "How much is your time worth?" demanded 
 Warde. 
 
 "More than you would ever pay for." 
 
 "Let us put it as worth half a million dollars a 
 year. Would that be right?" 
 
 "I might have made a million over this deal !" 
 
 "Well, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
 for six months' work is no bad pay. I'll send 
 you my personal check for that amount. Post it 
 at once." 
 
 Warde rang off, drew a sheet of writing-paper, 
 and composed a brief note to Riordan, stating that 
 he was enclosing a check for the amount agreed on 
 for services rendered. He was proceeding to date a 
 check, when a sudden thought of Kerr-Dyce in- 
 truded itself. He must arrange an interview with
 
 270 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 the politician in order to settle on the date of the 
 coming arbitration. 
 
 Taking up the ordinary telephone on his desk, he 
 called for Kerr-Dyce's private number at the House 
 of Commons. 
 
 The Government telephone service was notori- 
 ously inefficient, largely owing to the sweating of 
 operators at the exchanges. A harassed operator 
 on an order line, with too many switches to attend 
 to, plugged Warde into a "triple connection." 
 
 He heard Kerr-Dyce's voice speaking, and before 
 he could explain his inadvertent eavesdropping, the 
 voice at the other end of the wire answered Kerr- 
 Dyce. 
 
 It was Eve. 
 
 Rigid, Warde listened. 
 
 "Yes, I could manage Sunday," Eve was saying. 
 
 "Without any suspicion ?" 
 
 "Leave that to me." 
 
 "At the cottage?" 
 
 "Yes." Her voice became very tender. "At 
 our cottage." 
 
 "I'll dream of Sunday!" 
 
 "And I." 
 
 "Good-by, my dearest!" 
 
 The receiver dropped from Warde' s hand. He 
 saw red. He could have taken Kerr-Dyce by the 
 throat and throttled him until the veins of the 
 face were black and life were squeezed out of him. 
 
 Then, in a sudden reaction of feeling, he began 
 to doubt what he had heard. His ears might have 
 played him a trick. Suppose that the unseen
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 271 
 
 speaker was not Eve, but some woman with a sim- 
 ilar voice? 
 
 Yet intuition, gathering together a score of tiny 
 memories, hammered at him the certainty of his 
 wife's infidelity. 
 
 That the revelation should come to him at such 
 a moment, at the culmination of his career! 
 
 Half an hour later, in a blur of vision, hardly 
 seeing what it was that he was writing, Warde 
 completed the check to Riordan for "two hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars in full payment of ser- 
 vices rendered," and rang for the butler to post the 
 letter. 
 
 "Is anything the matter, sir?" inquired the butler 
 solicitously on seeing his master's haggard face. 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "I hope the company meeting went off as you 
 expected, sir." 
 
 "Quite, thank you." 
 
 "Is there nothing further I can do for you ?" 
 
 "Nothing."
 
 BOOK III. PAYMENT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BETRAYAL OR TEMPTATION? 
 
 No hurt that our enemies inflict on us can equal 
 in mental shock the betrayal of trust by a friend. 
 
 Though Warde knew of other women in his large 
 circle of society acquaintances whose infidelity was 
 a matter of common report, he had never associated 
 Eve with such a possibility. He had relied im- 
 plicitly on her sense of honor. Even a suspicion 
 of her would be an insult. He had given loyalty 
 himself in spite of the sexual temptations which 
 come to every man, his marriage pledge of fidelity 
 had remained unbroken in the more than six years 
 of married life. 
 
 Yet, through the daze of the revelation, in the 
 reaction from the surge of red anger, his tempera- 
 ment of the scientist forced him to consider how 
 far the blame might lie with Eve and how far with 
 himself. 
 
 Sitting opposite to his wife at dinner that eve- 
 ning a silent meal broken only by such conversa- 
 tion as would satisfy the conventions in the presence 
 of the servants Hilary studied her in a new light. 
 
 273
 
 274 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Her beauty struck him afresh, as though he had 
 suddenly come upon a well-loved scene from a new 
 angle of approach. Beyond that, her beauty was in 
 some subtle way heightened, intensified, as with a 
 scene in the sunlight that follows the cleansing of 
 a storm. Eve was destined to attract a circle of 
 admirers. He had never attempted to limit her 
 movements. Had he been too lax had he helped 
 unconsciously to create temptation ? 
 
 A revulsion of feeling in his welter of thoughts 
 sent anger surging through him again. He had 
 given implicit trust it should beget loyalty. Her 
 perfect freedom of action should have been in itself 
 a guard. Eve had not had the excuse of a jealous, 
 suspicious or domineering husband. 
 
 Again the temperament of the analyst supervened. 
 Was what he had overheard by telephone a betrayal, 
 or a yielding to a passing temptation? The differ- 
 ence was vital. Many wives condoned in their hus- 
 bands or closed their eyes to the infidelity of the 
 moment, regarding it as weakness rather than dis- 
 loyalty. Should such condonation come only from 
 one side in marriage ? Had women no similar temp- 
 tations ? 
 
 The infidelity of the moment is not infidelity of 
 heart. It is more a breaking of bounds under the 
 lure of adventure, a brief rebellion against the 
 monotony of the routine of life. If this case of 
 Eve and Kerr-Dyce were such an episode, Warde 
 might control himself to close his eyes to it, and 
 strive to guard Eve from further temptation in the 
 future. If it were more than an episode a be- 
 trayal in heart as well as in body but he could not
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICF 275 
 
 bring himself to face and wrestle with the possi- 
 bility. 
 
 His thoughts switched to Kerr-Dyce. There lay 
 the sting of the revelation. Kerr-Dyce, the man 
 who had opposed the development of W. Tels. In 
 essence, an enemy. No doubt he had a great fas- 
 cination for women who would be mesmerized by 
 a clever spinner of words. In very human jealousy, 
 Warde wondered at Eve's lapse of taste in allowing 
 herself to be led away by such a man a line of 
 thought of immemorial age. The love-choice of 
 man or woman is always a matter of scornful won- 
 der to the rival. 
 
 "You seem very absorbed. More wireless 
 schemes?" suggested Eve. 
 
 How shallow is the power of mind-reading, even 
 between those who have lived together for years! 
 
 "No," answered Hilary. "To-day is the final 
 chapter." 
 
 "Any plan for the week-end ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "I shall be going to Beechhurst." 
 
 "As you please." 
 
 Did it mean that Eve had reconsidered her prom- 
 ise to Kerr-Dyce? That infidelity had stopped at 
 thought? Yet this latter distinction had no essen- 
 tial reality. It did not matter whether she had 
 already surrendered herself to Kerr-Dyce or not. 
 The difference that mattered was passing tempta- 
 tion or definite breach whether or not Eve would 
 return to her husband. The suggestion of staying 
 at Beechhurst for the week-end might mean an in- 
 direct return.
 
 276 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 One fact of the case brought to Warde's mind a 
 soothing touch : Eve had not tried to blind his 
 eyes by caresses while her thoughts were with an- 
 other man. She had not played the Delilah. For 
 four months past the relationship of husband and 
 wife had been limited to living under the same roof. 
 
 He remembered that Eve as a girl had always 
 hated the underhand action. As a woman of 
 twenty-seven, that trait persisted. Suppose that she 
 had already repented of the indiscretion, and had 
 resolved to spend this coming Sunday with Lady 
 Merenthorpe instead of at "the cottage" with Kerr- 
 Dyce ? It might be the psychological turning-point 
 in her feelings toward the two men husband and 
 lover. If Warde left her free to plan her own move- 
 ments during the week-end, it might possibly be the 
 very wisest course he could pursue. 
 
 Himself, he knew, would be no welcome guest at 
 Beechhurst. Lord and Lady Merenthorpe had 
 never forgiven him for stealing their daughter away 
 from Esk. Warde always avoided meeting them 
 except on the most formal occasions, nor had he 
 ever set foot in the grounds of Beechhurst since 
 that summer of nearly seven years back. 
 
 "You'll take the car?" he asked. 
 
 "No I'll go by train. You can have the car. 
 Why don't you golf somewhere?" 
 
 "I'll see if I can fix up a match at Littlestone." 
 
 Was this suggestion intended to have his move- 
 ments accounted for during the week-end ? Doubts 
 of her again surged over him. 
 
 Presently Eve asked: "When will Miss Gleni- 
 stair be back in England?"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 277 
 
 "It's uncertain. She's now at Bellagio, and prob- 
 ably will remain on the lakes until English spring 
 is out of blankets." 
 
 "Beechhurst always reminds me of her." 
 
 Into those casual words Warde read a whole 
 revelation of meaning. A thought of Miss Gleni- 
 stair could only be associated with the highest and 
 finest feelings. Perhaps from distant Italy her in- 
 fluence was throwing a protective wing over Eve. 
 Decidedly it would be best to give Eve perfect free- 
 dom this coming Sunday, so that she might settle 
 her feelings toward Kerr-Dyce and toward her hus- 
 band. If material inducements would turn the scale 
 in her mind and he remembered as a girl Eve had 
 always been frankly appreciative of the material 
 aspects of life it would be well to put them clearly 
 forward. 
 
 Therefore he mentioned : "I'm going to sell out 
 my holdings in W. Tels. The trust money is re- 
 leased now we can do what we like with it." 
 
 "What will it realize?" asked Eve without any 
 special show of interest. 
 
 "Between three hundred and three hundred and 
 fifty thousand. I thought of buying a country 
 estate." 
 
 "The children would like it." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "I haven't thought it out." 
 
 "Excuse me a moment." Warde rose and 
 brought over from a side-table a copy of "Country 
 Life." He turned over the advertisement pages and 
 showed an illustration of a fine property for sale 
 in Sussex.
 
 278 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "How would that suit you? Or there are dozens 
 of others you could choose from. With three hun- 
 dred thousand in cash, we can do a great deal. Be- 
 sides, under the contract I shall have an advisory, 
 post with the Government at five thousand a year." 
 
 "Hasn't the contract to be ratified by Parlia- 
 ment?" 
 
 "There's no reason why it should not pass. They 
 will get our property more cheaply than they de- 
 serve to. If I had voted to selling to Riordan's 
 syndicate, I should be worth at least half a million, 
 with substantial prospects in addition." 
 
 "Let's drop business matters." 
 
 "I want to. They've done enough damage al- 
 ready." 
 
 "How do you mean?" 
 
 "They've stood between you and me. They've 
 absorbed the time I should have given to you. I've 
 been an instrument of the Driver." 
 
 Eve turned to a dish of early strawberries, and 
 let the subject lapse. 
 
 He tried again to fathom her mind. Outwardly 
 she was calm, self-possessed, untroubled. But what 
 storm of feeling might not be raging behind that 
 wall of self-possession? A promise to Kerr-Dyce to 
 meet him at "the cottage" ; an intention expressed to 
 Warde to spend Sunday with Lady Merenthorpe 
 which was her real decision ? 
 
 Or perhaps the decision lay still in the balance. 
 Warde could do no more. He had thrust aside 
 any distinction between the infidelity which was 
 mental and the infidelity which was physical. He 
 had resolved to condone either if Eve would only
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 279 
 
 return to him and give him her whole love once 
 again, as in the early years of marriage. 
 
 He could not force her love he could only wait 
 and hope.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EVE'S DECISION 
 
 On the following day, Saturday, Warde motored 
 with Cosway to the golfing hotel at Littlestone, on 
 the edge of the Romney Marshes. Cosway was a 
 weak edition of a 14 handicap man on the links, but 
 in his present anxiety of mind Warde had no wish 
 for a crack opponent. All he needed was someone 
 whose companionship was sympathetic, and with 
 whom there would be no call for the strain of forced 
 conversation. 
 
 April was in a kindly mood; the gentle links in 
 perfect condition; the sea-breeze sturdily invigorat- 
 ing. The afternoon passed pleasantly ; after dinner 
 they smoked a pipe or two and turned in early. 
 
 Incidentally, Cosway mentioned the subject of 
 Riordan. 
 
 "He'll cut up rough, I expect." 
 
 "He has," returned Warde. "He slanged me 
 by wireless on the afternoon of the company meet- 
 ing." 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "I settled it on the usual basis money. Posted 
 him a check for two hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars." 
 
 "I imagine that won't satisfy him completely." 
 280
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 881 
 
 "What can he do?" 
 
 Cosway shrugged slightly. It was a business af- 
 fair there was no sympathy to be wasted over the 
 disappointed. 
 
 "Don't let him trick you into any share deal," he 
 suggested in casual warning. 
 
 "No I shall clear out of W. Tels and invest in 
 gilt-edged securities. Want any of my shares?" 
 
 They settled amicably for the transfer of a small 
 block of stock. 
 
 "I want to thank you for that speech you made 
 in moving the vote of thanks to me," said Warde. 
 
 "I meant it!" answered Cosway with unusual 
 feeling. 
 
 On the Sunday morning, April had turned petu- 
 lant. Clouds and sun played hide-and-seek; by 
 lunch-time a miniature gale was lashing in from 
 the southwest, and further play became impossible. 
 After lounging in the smoke-room for an hour or 
 two, Warde suggested returning to town. 
 
 While passing through Headcorn, a sudden 
 thought occurred to Warde. 
 
 "If you don't mind, we'll cut across to Maidstone 
 and pick up my wife. She's staying with her people 
 at Beechhurst." 
 
 "Certainly," agreed Cosway. 
 
 Beechhurst, never a cheerful house in its cold 
 Jacobean stateliness, looked mournful under the 
 lash of rain and the soughing of the wind. They 
 drove up the carriageway to the door of the man- 
 sion, and Warde asked the footman to tell Mrs. 
 Warde that he was here and could drive her back 
 to town if she wished.
 
 282 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Mrs. Warde left this morning, sir," returned 
 the footman. 
 
 "Early?" 
 
 "About eleven o'clock, sir." 
 
 "There's no pleasure in staying in the country 
 this weather," remarked Warde to Cosway in a 
 casual tone, though in his heart a foreboding was 
 taking black shape. Would he find Eve awaiting 
 him at home, or ? 
 
 Dropping Cosway at Beckenham, Warde drove 
 on to Cadogan Square. Eve was not at the house, 
 nor had any message arrived for him. 
 
 Though the lines of anxiety were deepening on 
 his features, he tried to reassure himself. Eve 
 might have gone to call on any one of a score of 
 friends, and in that case there would be no reason 
 why she should send a message. By dinner-time 
 she would return, and his fears would have proved 
 baseless. Meanwhile, he went up to the nursery, 
 and found his little daughters at tea. 
 
 It brought to him a poignant realization of his 
 "home," that neither Betty nor Mona asked for 
 "Mummy." 
 
 He could not keep his thoughts away from the 
 cottage of which Kerr-Dyce had spoken. Where 
 was it? In the outskirts of London, perhaps, in a 
 quiet suburb of gardens and discreet little houses 1 
 with long sloping roofs in bright red tiles and dor- 
 mer windows and ingle-nooks; or it might be an 
 old-world cottage anywhere within a hundred miles 
 of London. A sudden burst of angry thought sent 
 him to his wife's bedroom to search for some clue, 
 so that he might drive furiously to "the cottage" and
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 283 
 
 learn the worst without further racking of mind. 
 But in the doorway he paused. He had no right 
 to be there without Eve's permission. It was an 
 insult to her to suspect the worst on the slender 
 basis of her leaving Beechhurst in the morning. 
 
 Dinner was a solitary, bitter meal. The copy of 
 "Country Life" thrown aside on a corner table 
 mocked at him. What use was it now to be able 
 to buy a country estate if he had lost Eve? Every 
 hour made the situation more open to suspicion, 
 and yet there was no action possible to him. He 
 could only wait. 
 
 Toward eleven o'clock he heard sounds in the 
 hall. Eve was back, throwing off her wraps. 
 
 "I've just returned," she remarked. 
 
 "From Beechhurst?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I have something to discuss with you." 
 
 "The train was slow and tiring. I want to get 
 to bed. Let's leave your discussion till the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "I prefer to-night." 
 
 "Then come to my room in half an hour's time, 
 when Elise has finished with me." 
 
 In half an hour he was knocking at the door of 
 her bedroom. The maid opened it to him and then 
 left the room. Eve, in a negligee of creamy lace 
 and bare feet in dull red morocco slippers, was 
 seated at the dressing-table, giving the last night- 
 touches to her hair, superb in its shimmering tex- 
 ture. 
 
 Their eyes met in the looking-glass. Hilary was 
 gray and drawn. A sudden quiver of her lace-
 
 284 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 covered shoulders was like a breath of wind in the 
 leaves of an aspen. 
 
 "Where have you been to-day?" he demanded. 
 
 "At Beechhurst." 
 
 "You left there this morning." 
 
 "So you've been spying on my movements?" she 
 challenged, turning in her chair to face him directly. 
 
 "I had good reason to." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "You made an appointment with Kerr-Dyce for 
 to-day." 
 
 "Who told you that?" 
 
 "I heard you speaking to him over the 'phone 
 on Friday." 
 
 Eve hesitated for a moment, as one on the brink 
 of a plunge into cold waters. 
 
 "I'm glad you know," she said with a release of 
 breath like one who has made the plunge and come 
 up to the surface of the water. 
 
 "I said nothing to you because I thought that 
 you might be reconsidering your promise to Kerr- 
 Dyce. So I left you free to-day. I was hoping 
 " A huskiness in his throat choked the re- 
 mainder of his words. 
 
 "I'm glad you know," she repeated with self- 
 possession, though color had flooded her cheeks. 
 "I loathe the underhand." 
 
 Hilary, mastering his voice, resumed the inter- 
 rupted train of thought: "I don't want you to 
 misunderstand me. For Heaven's sake let's avoid 
 misunderstandings ! I'll try to put my feelings into 
 as plain words as possible. I knew on Friday, 
 from that telephone conversation, that this was not
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 285 
 
 your first meeting with Kerr-Dyce. I felt that your 
 intimacy with him had gone to the length that most 
 people call 'unforgivable.' But I was ready to close 
 my eyes to it, and oh, Eve, I mean every word of 
 this ! I am ready to close my eyes to it still. I've 
 been as much to blame as you. I've neglected you ; 
 I've laid the way open for temptation. But I love 
 you still, and if you'll only tell me that it was a pass- 
 ing temptation, if you'll only promise to break indefi- 
 nitely and finally with Kerr-Dyce, I'll treat the mat- 
 ter as some ugly nightmare. Shut down my mind 
 on it; take up our life together afresh. I mean it, 
 Eve you must realize that I mean it ! I'm not of- 
 fering forgiveness I'm asking for forgiveness, and 
 I'm begging you to return to me!" 
 
 "You're a good fellow, Hilary," said Eve softly. 
 His words had touched her, though they could not 
 break into her resolution. "I've felt ashamed of 
 deceiving you. But I can't come back." 
 
 "Why not? No one need know. They'll never 
 know through me. And Kerr-Dyce, blackguard 
 though he is, won't speak, for the sake of his own 
 reputation." 
 
 "You said, let's avoid misunderstandings. I 
 want to talk to you as I've never talked before. 
 Please sit down." 
 
 He found a chair and obeyed. 
 
 Eve resumed : "You thought that this was just 
 an indiscretion a sudden temptation. It isn't. He 
 is not to blame. I knew when I met him at Lou- 
 vaulx last August that he was the one man in the 
 world for me. I've gone through the struggle 
 against myself. I've gone through with it, and I
 
 286 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 know that what's happened has been inevitable. 
 I'm not the girl of twenty-one you married. I've 
 changed since then. You must realize that. Life is 
 flux. You have also changed." 
 
 "But I love you still!" he protested passionately. 
 "What bigger proof could I give you than to say 
 that I'm ready to close my eyes to what's hap- 
 pened ?" 
 
 "I know. That's why I feel mean and contempti- 
 ble. Don't think that I gave myself up lightly. 
 I'm not that kind of woman. This love will en- 
 dure." 
 
 "Come away with me for six months and test 
 it!" 
 
 Eve shook her head slowly. 
 
 "It's the consequence of my neglecting you," he 
 urged. "Six months will sponge it out." 
 
 "No it's more than that. Perhaps that laid the 
 ground, but the matter goes deeper. You have 
 changed. You are not the man I married. Or I 
 don't see you with the same eyes as I did at twenty- 
 one. Little things mannerisms, tricks of habit 
 jar on me, until I have to force myself to endure 
 them without open quarreling. 
 
 "Little things!" he repeated scornfully. 
 
 "They are what matter most to a woman. The 
 root-trouble is this, Hilary: that I don't care for 
 you any longer. You must have known that at 
 Christmas, when I told you that our relationship of. 
 husband and wife must be nominal." 
 
 "I've tried all I know to please you. This idea 
 of a country estate it was to give you a county 
 position."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 287 
 
 "I know you've tried. But I can't command 
 my feelings. I can't love you to order. I admired 
 you in a way. You have made the career you 
 said you would. I forced myself to be interested 
 in it, but it gradually bored me, until finally I came 
 to loathe the word 'business.' I've longed to be 
 free from it and since Louvaulx" her voice low- 
 ered "I've longed to be free from you." 
 
 He winced. 
 
 "Yes, it's a brutal thing to say," continued Eve, 
 "but it's true. I'm laying my heart open to you, so 
 that there may be no misunderstanding. I don't 
 want your forgiveness, and I don't want to forgive 
 you. That's not my feeling. I've felt shackled. 
 Tied to a man I no longer care for. It's no use to 
 speak to me of marriage vows. How can a girl of 
 twenty-one promise that for the rest of her life she 
 will love only the man she sees in the glamour of 
 the engagement?" 
 
 "Other women keep to their marriage vows." 
 
 "Most women do, I expect, in the letter. In the 
 spirit, I should say that not more than one woman 
 in twenty does. And that's perhaps because she has 
 never afterwards met the right man. I have. I 
 tell you it frankly. There's no shadow of a doubt in 
 my mind." 
 
 "Kerr-Dyce!" exclaimed Hilary in a tone that 
 summed up all his scorn of the man. 
 
 "Naturally you don't see him as I do." 
 
 "Glamour again!" 
 
 "A woman of twenty-seven who has moved about 
 in society has few illusions left."
 
 288 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "You admit that other women manage to sup- 
 press their inclinations?" 
 
 "My temperament must be different to the ma- 
 jority. I've struggled with myself. I tell you that 
 I've fought with myself ! I've called myself mean, 
 contemptible, underhand, an ingrate. I've tried to 
 blow into flame my old love for you. You must 
 have noticed that." 
 
 "Yes," he admitted sadly. 
 
 "I've tried and failed. I can't command my feel- 
 ings." 
 
 "Let us separate for six months." 
 
 "I should go to him." 
 
 "It would come to an open scandal. That kind 
 of thing can't remain hidden for long. Already 
 perhaps, people may be suspecting " 
 
 Eve nodded slowly. "I am prepared to face 
 that." 
 
 "Would he be ? A politician's reputation is very 
 precious to him. At the first breath of open scan- 
 dal, Kerr-Dyce would bolt to cover." 
 
 Hilary could not keep out of his voice his scorn 
 of the man. 
 
 "You misjudge him," she answered. "If neces- 
 sary, he would throw up his career for me. And 
 that is more than you could ever have done." 
 
 "I doubt if he would. In fact, I'm sure he 
 wouldn't." 
 
 "Then test him," challenged Eve in defense of 
 her lover. 
 
 "I shall." 
 
 "Do so to-morrow." 
 
 "To-night!"
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 289 
 
 "He is not in town." 
 
 "At 'the cottage'? Where is it?" 
 
 "That's our secret." 
 
 "Tell me!" he demanded roughly, rising as 
 though he would force an answer to his question. 
 
 "Don't be brutal!" 
 
 "You're driving me mad!" 
 
 "Think over to-night what I've told you, and in 
 the morning you will see matters clearer." 
 
 "Have you no regard for your children?" 
 
 "I have to think of myself first. I'm twenty- 
 seven, with the greater part of my life in front of 
 me. They are so young that they will forget me. 
 Already you are more to them than myself. After 
 the divorce, you will take charge of them and bring 
 them up better than I should." 
 
 "There will be no divorce. I'm not going to let 
 Kerr-Dyce have an easy victory like that." 
 
 " 'Victory' ! Am I something to be fought over ?" 
 she protested. 
 
 "Do you expect me to take this matter calmly? 
 I was ready to forgive or ask forgiveness, but I 
 don't intend to sit down quietly and let Kerr-Dyce 
 laugh at my humble obedience. Do you think that 
 / have no feelings as well as yourself? That I'm 
 not human flesh and blood ?" Then, in a reaction of 
 feeling, his voice broke to pleading: "Come back 
 to me, Eve come back to me!" 
 
 "I can't. I've not given myself lightly." 
 
 "I'm asking for very little only that you should 
 break with Kerr-Dyce and travel by yourself for six 
 months. At the end of that time we could talk 
 frankly again and reconsider the decision. Six
 
 290 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 months before you make an irrevocable step and 
 brand yourself for life in the eyes of every man and 
 woman. It's little to ask!" 
 
 "That little is too much to ask. I can't live 
 without him." 
 
 "Then I must remove temptation!" he declared 
 in a burst of passionate resentment at Kerr-Dyce. 
 
 Eve started from her chair in terror. "You 
 mean ?" 
 
 "I mean just that." 
 
 "You must be out of your senses !" 
 
 "I may be. Am I to sit down cold-bloodedly and 
 reason this out like a mathematical problem ? No 
 there's been a man's way of settling such questions 
 since the world began. We can go to some quiet 
 sands on the Belgian coast and decide whether he or 
 I is the better man." His hands trembled with the 
 throbbing of the blood in his arteries. 
 
 "You're just a brutal savage in this mood! Do 
 you imagine it would make me care for you to 
 know that you had killed the man who is more to 
 me than anyone else in the world?" 
 
 "I'm past listening to cold reasons ! The man's a 
 blackguard, and that's all I see." 
 
 "He is the man I love a man who would sacrifice 
 his career to me. If you persist in this mad idea, 
 the moment I heard you had killed him even in 
 fair fight, as you would probably term.it I should 
 take poison !" Her voice quivered with the intensity 
 of her feeling. 
 
 Hilary stumbled to the couch, and buried his face 
 in his hands. 
 
 "You're breaking me!" he murmured huskily.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 291 
 
 Eve came to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 "Don't take it so hardly. You will find some 
 other woman to love you. Someone more in sym- 
 pathy with your aims than I can ever be. Someone 
 who will be a better mother to the children. Leave 
 me to go my own way. You've often spoken of 
 yourself as the instrument of a Driver. So am I. 
 The driving power is not the same, but it is the 
 same feeling; something outside myself." 
 
 "I must see Kerr-Dyce." 
 
 "Promise me that you will not lose control of 
 yourself and do anything violent It couldn't pos- 
 sibly help you; and it would kill me." 
 
 "I will make no promises." Throwing off her 
 hand, he rose unsteadily and went to the door, lurch- 
 ing as though he had been under the influence of 
 drink. 
 
 "I love you still !" he exclaimed brokenly, and left 
 her without further word. 
 
 Then Eve's self-control left her, and throwing 
 herself on the bed, she sobbed hysterically into the 
 pillows.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OVERSTRAINED NERVES 
 
 "Just a brutal savage." That phrase of Eve's 
 eddied and reverberated in Warde's thoughts 
 throughout a night of fiery sleeplessness. With the 
 portion of his mind trained to the cool exactitude of 
 scientific observation, he realized that he was in an 
 abnormal state. Toward morning, he could feel his 
 hand or his foot, or whatever part of himself his 
 mind momentarily dwelt on, swell to a giantesque 
 grossness, and in the next instant shrivel to a mi- 
 nute, ridiculous dwarfishness. The phenomenon, 
 purely a delusion of the senses, interested him from 
 a detached, outside point of view, as though he were 
 a student in a hospital ward. He began to analyse 
 sensations ; he went so far as to reach for the watch 
 by his bedside and time the duration of the swell and 
 shrivel. The intentness of observing killed the 
 curious delusion, but it left him with a new train of 
 thought; if his nerves were playing such tricks with 
 his bodily sensations, they must also be swelling and 
 shriveling his mental processes. He could no longer 
 trust his judgment. His mind was thrown out of 
 gear as wireless telephony during a violent electric 
 storm. Its conclusions were, for the moment, 
 worthless. 
 
 292
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 393 
 
 And by that strange course of reasoning one 
 portion of mind sitting in judgment on the other 
 portions he thrust thought aside and sank into a 
 deadening, dreamless sleep which lasted till mid- 
 day. 
 
 Dressing and shaving with more than usual care, 
 as an exercise in self-control, he went downstairs to 
 find Eve very evidently awaiting him. She, too, 
 had gone through a night of feverish thought it 
 was apparent in her features. 
 
 "You can't meet to-day," was Eve's first remark. 
 "I've 'phoned to him to go away to the country." 
 
 "I don't intend to see Kerr-Dyce to-day," re- 
 turned Warde, holding out his hand and surveying 
 it with a remembrance of the sense-delusions of the 
 night. "Nor this week." 
 
 Eve looked startled at the change of attitude, 
 fearing some new and terrible development. 
 
 "He will be quite safe in town," pursued Warde 
 with an undercurrent of scorn in his voice that sent 
 the blood flushing into Eve's cheeks. "I will not 
 see him till next Monday. Nor shall you either. 
 Let that be clearly understood. If I can control 
 my passions for a week, so can you. I want your 
 promise." 
 
 Eve, shrinking under the determination of his 
 words, gave the required promise, but asked: 
 "What's in your mind ?" 
 
 He pressed the bell to summon the butler, and 
 answered : "Simply this : we are both of us in an 
 abnormal state of feeling. Kerr-Dyce also, I expect. 
 I can't trust myself to see him yet awhile. I should 
 probably choke the life out of him. Just now, I
 
 294. EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 can't master the brute savage in me. I'm going 
 away for a week, to clear my thoughts and get back 
 my self-control. I advise you to do the same." 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "To the Continent." 
 
 "And your address, if it should be necessary to 
 send a message?" 
 
 "I want no messages. I shall return on Sunday." 
 
 Then to the butler, entering in response to the 
 bell : "Pack my bag for a week." 
 
 Warde bought anodynes sulphonal for the night 
 thoughts, the lightest of novels to kill day thoughts 
 and took the evening boat-train to the Continent 
 via Dover-Calais. 
 
 In the flush of dawn, the Basle express was run- 
 ning through the vast homely plains of the district 
 around Laon and Rheims. Warde's companion in 
 the coupe a heavy built colonel snored stertor- 
 ously in the berth below. A golf -bag in the rack 
 defined his future activity in Switzerland. Mur- 
 murs in his sleep gave the trend of his thoughts: 
 "Carry bunker with the second . . . damnation 
 . . . niblick . . . blast that bunker . . . damned 
 unfair . . ." 
 
 To every man his troubles. 
 
 Later in the morning, in a smoking compartment, 
 they chatted on the neutral subject of the links. 
 Warde was glad of any conversation which would 
 take his mind from dwelling on the problem of Eve, 
 until he had seen Miss Glenistair. That was his 
 object in traveling to the Continent. The time had
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 295 
 
 come to confide in her. She alone could advise 
 him. 
 
 The colonel proved an anodyne, till, unaware that 
 his fellow-traveler was Hilary Warde, he brought up 
 the subject of the Government contract with W. 
 Tels. A staunch Conservative, he saw in the trans- 
 action some discreditable maneuver on the part of 
 the Liberals. No doubt they had bought shares in 
 W. Tels, or had been bribed by that scoundrel 
 Warde to press their questions on the Government 
 so that a contract would be forced to the surface. 
 
 Warde passed over his card. 
 
 "I apologize, of course," said the colonel stiffly, 
 meaning that he was still of the same opinion. 
 
 Warde felt a sudden mad desire to pour out the 
 whole history of wireless telephony and the securing 
 of the final contract, to hammer home in the mind of 
 this skeptic the essential bona fides of himself and 
 his company. The next instant, he recognized it as 
 another manifestation of his overstrained nerves. 
 Withdrawing to a distant compartment, he tried to 
 escape from himself into the realm of a novel. 
 Here he found better success. The author could 
 create atmospheres and personalities, and invest 
 them with a certain charm of unreality that seemed 
 reality. Warde surrendered himself; let his mind 
 be played upon ; became absorbed in the fortunes of 
 the characters. 
 
 He did not hasten the journey. That night he 
 rested at Lucerne, with the rhythmic clash of the 
 train journey still running as an undercurrent of his 
 consciousness and acting as a sedative. He slept 
 well, and awoke freshened in mind. A bath in
 
 296 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 the lake, icy-cold, helped to brace him toward nor- 
 mality. 
 
 A sudden fancy urged him to charter a small 
 motor-launch to convey him to the far end of the 
 lake, rather than to take train or steamer. He 
 ordered a slow pace, so that the restful soothe of the 
 Lake of the Four Cantons might seep into him. 
 Even in its exploitation for the tourist, the lake is 
 unspoiled beautiful in the serenity of its western 
 end, majestic in the wildness of its headwaters, a 
 goddess drowsing in the couch of the mountains. 
 At Fluelen he took train to climb tortuously to the 
 grim battlements of the Gotthard ; and, avoiding the 
 prosaic short-cut of the tunnel, set out to walk over 
 the pass to the southern gateway of Airolo, so as 
 to miss nothing of the glories of the snow-peaks. 
 
 By night he was resting in a posting-inn on the 
 heights of the pass, soothed, humbled by the majesty 
 of Nature to a sense of the littleness of human 
 endeavor and the fleeting transitoriness of human 
 passion. Fifty years on, he and Eve and Kerr- 
 Dyce would be resolved into dust and vapor; but 
 time would have barely flaked away the outer scales 
 of epidermis from the flanks of the Gotthard, and 
 the Lake of the Four Cantons would drowse to the 
 same noonday heat, its shores unaltered save by a 
 few yards of silt at the mouth of a stream, a few 
 inches of erosion from the rocks. The life of man 
 on earth could be but the preface to the great book 
 of the hereafter; the passions of earth were as the 
 momentary joys and tears of children. 
 
 Nor did he hasten his journey on the third day. 
 The train slid down from the nipping air of the
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 297 
 
 heights by Airolo to the sun-blazed valley of Bellin- 
 zona, its white roads quivering in the heat, its fer- 
 tile fields musical with the tireless chirp of the 
 cicadas. Then to Lugano, where the clustering red- 
 brown roofs of the old town almost arch in the 
 narrow streetways, and the two white arms which 
 are Paradiso and Castagnola stretch out to clasp the 
 azure jewel of lake. 
 
 He lazed away the heat of noontide at a lakeside 
 inn, lunching in an arbor of linden, feeding crumbs 
 to the eager fishes, as tame as robins and as wary. 
 By slow stages he took the balsam-scented cliff-walk 
 to Gandria; the little steamer to the lake-end of 
 Porlezzo; the toy railway over the hills; and at 
 evening he was among the purple shadows of the 
 waters of Como. The last rays of sun were tinting 
 with pearly-rose the white villas on the hill of Bella- 
 gio. The square sail of a lake boat drooped with 
 the stillness of dusk, when the breeze seeks for 
 home. A feeling of utter peace entered into his 
 soul. Here, and with his godmother to give him 
 counsel, he would learn the way by which he might 
 win back Eve. 
 
 At the very entrance to Miss Glenistair's hotel the 
 companion met him. 
 
 She was gowned in black. 
 
 "Oh, why didn't you come before?" she cried 
 tearfully. 
 
 A horrible fear gripped at his heart, and the 
 question he tried to utter choked in his throat. 
 
 "I wirelessed for you on Tuesday morning!"
 
 298 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 He remembered that he had left no address at 
 home. 
 
 "And now she is dead without seeing you!" 
 
 "When?" his parched lips framed. 
 
 "Last night." 
 
 "When I was on the pass!" 
 
 And then, quite suddenly, the overstrained nerves 
 gave way. The heart stopped beating. He stag- 
 gered, and fell to the ground an inert, crumpled 
 heap.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THRUST AND COUNTER-THRUST 
 
 A week later, Warde was at the doorway of 
 Kerr-Dyce's house in Ebury Square. A tall, sub- 
 stantial house, cheerful with the unsullied white- 
 ness of its annual spring coating, the fresh sun- 
 blinds of pleated tussore silk, and the bright array 
 of hyacinth and tulip in the window-boxes. A 
 widowed sister kept house for the politician and 
 made of it a home. 
 
 "Yes, sir, Mr. Kerr-Dyce is awaiting you. This 
 way, sir," the butler was saying. 
 
 The study was typical of its owner, suggestive of 
 the leisure of arrivedness in its well-filled shelves 
 of modern books, and pleasantly relieved from the 
 somberness of oak paneling by a few landscapes 
 from recent academies chosen for color harmonies 
 "A Spring Morning on Capri," "At the Well, 
 Biskra," and "The Lagoon of Sapphire." A post- 
 impressionist, picturing in bold rhythm of paint a 
 scene in the coulisses of the opera, stood for evi- 
 dence of Kerr-Dyce's catholic attitude toward art. 
 The desk was Spanish inlaid, prized for design and 
 antiquity more than for convenience, and its ap- 
 pointments conveyed a slightly feminine daintiness 
 of choice. 
 
 299
 
 300 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 Kerr-Dyce did not attempt to shake hands his 
 attitude suggested that one did not do that kind of 
 thing rather than the avoidance of a snub but he 
 offered a formal condolence : "I was very sorry to 
 hear of your bereavement. Extremely sudden, 
 was it not?" 
 
 "Yes, very sudden," answered Warde, and seating 
 himself in the leather armchair indicated to him, he 
 passed on at once to the matter which had dictated 
 this interview : "Do you understand why I avoided 
 meeting you ten days ago?" 
 
 "I gathered that you wished to consider the ques- 
 tion in all its bearings," returned the politician. His 
 manner was more formal than usual not con- 
 strained so much as reserved, and no sign showed 
 of any feeling of wrongdoing toward his adversary. 
 He might, from his manner, have been dealing with 
 a debtor reluctant to settle an obligation. 
 
 "I couldn't trust myself to meet you," continued 
 Warde bluntly. 
 
 Kerr-Dyce' s eyebrows elevated fractionally, as 
 though he were saying: "Indeed?" 
 
 A drawer of the desk stood slightly open. Warde 
 pointed to it. "You won't need that now," he said. 
 
 "I keep cigarettes in there," was the unperturbed 
 answer. 
 
 "Ten days ago, you might have needeci a more 
 substantial protector." 
 
 "We are both men of the world, I hope. It 
 would be disagreeable to revert to methods of bar- 
 barism. Crude and somewhat childish." 
 
 "That phase has passed with me. I want to ap- 
 peal to you. I'm prepared to close my eyes to this
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 301 
 
 indiscretion on the part of my wife. To forget it, 
 and to take her away with me to travel round the 
 world." 
 
 "And if your wife would not agree to that?" 
 "I want your help. I realize the sincerity of this 
 passion. I neither accuse my wife of deliberate 
 deception nor you of deliberate treachery. Business 
 matters have so occupied my time these last couple 
 of years that I've not been able to give to my wife 
 the companionship she needed. She has been 
 thrown into the society of others. She has been at- 
 tracted by your personality. The consequence is a 
 natural one, and I am equally to blame. But the 
 affair need not go further. If you break now, defi- 
 nitely and finally, six months will erase it. I appeal 
 to your sense of honor." 
 
 "All that represents only your own viewpoint/' 
 came the cold reply. "There is also your wife's 
 and my own. This is no affair of momentary pas- 
 sion. We need one another. Your proposal would 
 make three people miserable. Your wife will never 
 come back to you. That's certain. Your existence 
 together would be a continual conflict." 
 
 Antagonism roused antagonism. Warde, seeing 
 that an appeal to the man's better feelings was 
 futile, moved to a more resolute line of attack: 
 "Then I must request you to find an excuse for a 
 journey abroad. You might, for instance, wish to 
 study the postal system in Canada or Australia, or 
 confer with the postal authorities in the Do- 
 minions." 
 
 "You forget that the House is in full session." 
 "There are other men who could take your place."
 
 302 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "I do not care to depute my work." 
 
 "I mean permanently." 
 
 "A threat?" 
 
 "A warning." 
 
 "In other words, you propose to make an open 
 scandal ?" 
 
 "Yes, and to force your resignation from the 
 Cabinet." 
 
 "Have you any evidence witnesses and so on 
 to make good a divorce suit ?" 
 
 "No. I don't set spies on my wife's movements. 
 But if this relationship between you continues, I 
 shall be compelled to do so." 
 
 "We can save you that trouble. We can indicate 
 the necessary evidence, and leave your suit unde- 
 fended." 
 
 "Speak for yourself and not for my wife !" flamed 
 Warde. 
 
 "Very well; speaking for myself, you can do any- 
 thing you please. It won't hurt me. I am not 
 greatly in love with politics. I could give up my 
 Cabinet post to-morrow without any special regrets. 
 If you care to have it, I will write out my resigna- 
 tion" he drew a sheet of note paper toward him 
 "and give the letter into your hands to post." 
 
 Warde, regarding it as an attempt at bluffing, 
 answered: "Do so." 
 
 With the casual manner of one writing a letter of 
 introduction for a chance acquaintance, Kerr-Dyce 
 scribbled a note, addressed an envelope to the Prime 
 Minister, stamped it, and handed the envelope un- 
 sealed to Warde. 
 
 "That makes it unnecessary for you to stir up
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 803 
 
 mud. File a plain suit for divorce, name me as 
 co-respondent, and the case will go through unde- 
 fended. After the decree absolute, I shall of course 
 marry your wife." 
 
 "And if I refuse to bring an action for divorce?" 
 
 "That would scarcely be playing the game. Your 
 wife and I would continue to meet, and matters 
 would be highly uncomfortable for yourself as well 
 as for her. Why not be a sportsman?" 
 
 "I want to know," said Warde deliberately, 
 "why you give me this letter?" 
 
 "Because I am not afraid of your threat." 
 
 "And beyond that?" persisted Warde. 
 
 "Don't you see the consequences for yourself?" 
 
 "Explain." 
 
 "I'll do so. I'll be quite frank with you. You 
 may remember that in February we discussed the 
 question of the sale of your wireless patents?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "And that you allowed yourself to get angry and 
 let loose some satirical observations? Satire is an 
 expensive luxury. I should not be sorry to see you 
 pay the price for it. You must be ready to pass 
 over an insult, but I am not. A different standard 
 of conduct, perhaps. I don't set mine up as higher" 
 Kerr-Dyce smiled his easy smile of assured posi- 
 tion "but merely as different to yours. I don't 
 close my eyes to an insult." 
 
 "You mean that, in revenge, you set yourself to 
 seduce my wife?" 
 
 "You are somewhat crude. No the attachment 
 began long before, while you were away in Amer- 
 ica." He paused.
 
 304 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Go on." 
 
 "You know already what my opinion is regarding 
 your wireless telephony. Do you imagine that it 
 was your arguments that persuaded me to offer a 
 contract ?" 
 
 "No political expediency." 
 
 "Partly. You see, I am very frank with you. 
 But there was a more important reason. I thought 
 it might be a useful lesson to you to have the con- 
 tract offered, and then in the final stage to have it 
 rejected by Parliament. As it is, I know that the 
 American syndicate are very sore over your action 
 in not voting for them. They would never reopen 
 negotiations with you. That avenue is closed to 
 you. The future of your company is now depen- 
 dent on having the Government contract ratified by 
 Parliament. That is the situation at the moment." 
 
 "Public opinion demands the ratification." 
 
 "Public opinion is very easily turned by outside 
 considerations. Suppose that the impression spread 
 about that I offered the contract to your company 
 because I happened to be in love with your wife?" 
 
 Warde felt the blood pounding through his arter- 
 ies. Only by a great effort of self-control could he 
 keep himself from laying violent hands on Kerr- 
 Dyce. 
 
 The latter continued with his calm sketch of the 
 situation : "I can foresee another telegraph scandal. 
 Public indignation would boil over. Your contract 
 would be torn to ribbons." 
 
 "And you too!" 
 
 "No. I should quietly resign and leave the matter 
 to be fought out between yourself and the public.
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 805 
 
 And that is why I haven't the slightest fear of your 
 threat. Post the letter to the Premier as soon as 
 you wish." 
 
 Warde did not answer. At last he realized the 
 trap that had been set for him. His nine years of 
 travail and his promise to Paradine were to be 
 trampled into the mud of the sty in order to make 
 a holiday of revenge for Kerr-Dyce. And even 
 then, with his work mangled, he might be no nearer 
 to regaining Eve. He saw that he had no club over 
 the politician. The letter of resignation so casually 
 written for him was useless. Kerr-Dyce was ready 
 to give up his parliamentary career for the double 
 gratification of revenge on the husband and posses- 
 sion of the wife. It was no daring bluff to offer his 
 resignation, but merely a long-foreseen move in a 
 scheme of diabolical sutlety. 
 
 A full minute passes in silence. Kerr-Dyce, sup- 
 pressing a slight yawn, looked at his watch. 
 
 He resumed: "I think you will have realized 
 why it is inadvisable to stir up the mud of an open 
 scandal. Now let me put before you a further sug- 
 gestion. When you cite your action for divorce, 
 there is no need to name a co-respondent. A case 
 can be brought against an unknown, provided that 
 the wife admits the accusation. If you were to take 
 that course, the contract would go quietly through 
 Parliament, receive ratification, and the arbitration 
 on the amount of payment to your company would 
 also proceed without hitch. It would be the most 
 satisfactory solution for all three of us." 
 
 "In plain words, to sell my wife for the ratifica- 
 tion of the contract!" flamed Warde.
 
 306 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 "Again you resort to crudities. Your wife will 
 follow her own inclination and judgment. She 
 never will return to you in any case. You might 
 allow yourself the consolation of seeing your con- 
 tract concluded. If you force an open scandal, you 
 merely lose everything. That's the cold logic of 
 the situation." 
 
 A momentary vision flashed across Warde's mind. 
 He saw a desolate stretch of sands in the gray of 
 dawn. To one hand, a tangle of sand-dunes bound 
 with wiry grass and topped with furze in which the 
 buds gleamed yellow against the dark green of the 
 spiky leaves. To the other hand, the sea, misted, 
 heaving slightly to some distant swell, lapping 
 gently against the sands with a soft hiss, resting yet 
 restless. Above, a sea-gull circling with keen, in- 
 quisitive eyes. He and his second waited. The 
 chug of a motor-car sounded from the road behind 
 the sand-dunes. Kerr-Dyce and his second appeared 
 through the tangle of dunes and furze. A doctor 
 was with them. . . . And then another scene as 
 swiftly took its place. The hotel at Bellagio. A 
 darkened room. The figure of Miss Glenistair lying 
 under her shroud, serene in her last sleep, giving to 
 him a silent message that the passions of earth were 
 vanity and the strivings of self but bubbles on the 
 sea of time. . . . 
 
 He rose abruptly from his chair. 
 
 "And your conclusion?" asked Kerr-Dyce. 
 
 "Rests with my wife." 
 
 With that he left.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE LAST PLEADING 
 
 An April breeze danced light-heartedly through 
 the trim streets of Belgravia. The noonday sun 
 smiled down paternally from a sky flecked with 
 shreds of finely carded wool. In the squares, the 
 new-born green of the trees had the sweet-shrill 
 voice of larks or little children, and the pendants of 
 lilac buds whispered softly of the dawn of love. 
 Sparrows, Cockney-born, chirped loudly of their 
 right of possession as they foraged for nest material. 
 The streets were bright with the new season's col- 
 ors in frocks and hats this year to be sparklingly 
 vivid. Spring held carnival. 
 
 But Warde's thoughts as he walked from Ebury 
 Square to home were somber and autumnal. He 
 was about to make a last pleading with Eve, and 
 already he felt its hopelessness. What more could 
 he offer her than he had offered already? Miss 
 Glenistair might have been ajble to show him the 
 way to win back Eve ; and now that she was dead, 
 he felt terribly alone. This struggle of his was not 
 as the fight of career. Then, he had been pitted 
 against men and the ways of men. To-day, he had 
 to deal with a woman whose springs of action had 
 always remained to him vaguely mysterious, and 
 
 307
 
 308 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 whose weakness was her armor. Kerr-Dyce's 
 words rankled with him: "Your proposal would 
 make three people miserable." Was it mere selfish- 
 ness that was driving him to win back Eve a pas- 
 sion fed by jealousy? Had he the right, apart from 
 the conventions of the law, to try to force her in- 
 clinations ? 
 
 He felt weak and doubtful of himself a play- 
 thing of circumstances. In the pursuance of his 
 career, there had been the drive of an outside force 
 arming him with resolution. He had thrust men 
 aside with elbow and fist because he had been 
 confident of the Tightness of his goal. He had never 
 doubted the ultimate winning. But now, there was 
 no such confidence of right-doing to spur him on. 
 
 "The mistress is in the boudoir," he was informed 
 by her maid. 
 
 He found Eve among the cushions of a window- 
 seat, smiling at her two children playing with a 
 doll's house on the floor. There was a tinge of 
 wist fulness in her smile, as though she were looking 
 into the future to the coming separation from them. 
 The mood might be a transitory one, but it moved 
 him to compassion. It made him realize the inten- 
 sity of feeling that lay in her passion for Kerr- 
 Dyce. 
 
 "I have been to Ebury Square," he said softly. 
 
 Betty and Mona were sent upstairs to the nursery 
 before further word passed of what was uppermost 
 in the minds of husband and wife. 
 
 "Then you have tested him?" questioned Eve. 
 
 "Yes. He is not afraid of a public scandal."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 309 
 
 "I knew that," she answered with a note of glad- 
 ness. 
 
 "Because such a scandal would wreck the pros- 
 pects of my contract with the Government. People 
 would say that he had offered the contract to me in 
 the first instance because he happened to be in love 
 with my wife. He foresees another telegraph scan- 
 dal." 
 
 "I'm sorry, Hilary." Her voice softened. "Be- 
 lieve me, I never thought of such a possibility. 
 Your contract must go through. There must be no 
 open scandal." 
 
 "I see only one way to avoid it give over this 
 madness of passion, thrust it aside, and return to 
 me. Oh, Eve, my dearest, can't you bring yourself 
 to love me a little? See, I'm pleading with you! I 
 would be very patient. I would wait six months, a 
 year. I will go away and leave you to yourself, if 
 only you tell me that you will sever with Kerr-Dyce. 
 Just that one promise, and I will leave you until you 
 call me to return home. I ask for nothing more. 
 I'm in your hands to break me, or to give me hap- 
 piness again. I have no other argument to make 
 I'm pleading!" 
 
 "And I too! I can't do what you ask. We 
 should both be miserable. I should grow to hate 
 you, because you had kept me from the one man I 
 care for in all the world. And you would grow to 
 hate me. How can man and woman live under the 
 same roof without love to soften the angles? Re- 
 lease me, Hilary it is the only way to make happi- 
 ness for either of us in the future! I don't ask 
 you to sacrifice your contract. I promise you there
 
 310 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 will be no open scandal yet awhile. Afterward, 
 divorce me quietly." 
 
 "It's not in your power to make such a promise. 
 We are living on the edge of a volcano. Already 
 people may be suspecting . . . talking . . . Am I 
 to lose you and see my life-work trampled upon in 
 the same moment?" 
 
 "You're torturing me with those fears !" she cried 
 passionately. "I can't love you again, and no ar- 
 gument can make me ! What you call love for me 
 is only selfishness in disguise. You want to possess 
 me. I loathe the thought of it. I can't control my 
 feelings. I shall be counting the days until my re- 
 lease comes. Let me soon be free, Hilary that's 
 all I ask from you !" Tears were in her voice. 
 
 "At the moment when I'm released from my 
 promise to Sir Wilmer, and can devote all my 
 thoughts to you and give you every material luxury 
 you could ask for! These three hundred thousand 
 pounds of mine they were to be yours. I was 
 planning " 
 
 A discreet knock at the door interrupted him. 
 
 "Come in." 
 
 It was the maid. "You're wanted on the tele- 
 phone, sir." 
 
 He went downstairs to the study and took up the 
 receiver. "This is Mr. Warde. Who's speak- 
 ing?" 
 
 The voice of his banker answered him: "A 
 check has just been presented by the London agents 
 of the City National Bank, New York. It is made 
 out by you in favor of a Mr. Michael Riordan, and 
 dated a fortnight back."
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 311 
 
 "Yes that's right." 
 
 "The amount is so large that I could not in pru- 
 dence undertake to honor it without receiving your 
 instructions." 
 
 "What is the amount?" 
 
 "Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds." 
 
 "No dollars." 
 
 "Pounds, Mr. Warde." 
 
 "Then the check is fraudulent. It must have 
 been 'raised'." 
 
 "One moment, please, while I examine it with a 
 magnifying-glass." 
 
 There was a pause of a full minute. The banker's 
 voice resumed cautiously : "I can find no trace of 
 erasion. The word dollars would have to be in- 
 serted instead of pounds a most difficult task for 
 a forger and further, there is the evidence of the 
 figures. A check made out to dollars would read 
 250,000 and a nought over a hundred; this reads 
 250,000, dash, nought, dash, nought." 
 
 "Find me an expert on check- forging, and put it 
 into his hands for examination," ordered Warde, 
 but in his heart he knew that it was a useless precau- 
 tion. There flashed across his mind the scene when 
 he had written that fatal check inserting the date, 
 then turning to the telephone to call up Kerr-Dyce, 
 the revelation of his wife making an appointment 
 with the politician, the blind fury of his thoughts, 
 and his filling in of the check in a daze of emotion, 
 scarcely seeing what it was that he was writing. 
 
 In mistake, he had written pounds instead of 
 dollars. He had given himself into the hands of 
 Riordan. Undoubtedly the latter would press home
 
 312 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 
 
 his advantage to the utmost either force payment 
 of the full amount by legal action or drive Warde 
 into the bankruptcy court. It would take away 
 from him the bulk of his fortune. 
 
 And then he realized the full bitterness of the 
 blow. He had counted on that money to weigh with 
 Eve in her final decision. With it, he would have 
 been able to provide her with all she might reason- 
 ably ask for. Now, he was by comparison a poor 
 man. His last possible straw of help had been 
 snatched away from him. 
 
 It was a half -hour later when Eve came down to 
 the study. She found him gray and haggard. 
 
 "What's been detaining you?" she asked. 
 
 "I have been thinking over the matter from every 
 aspect," he answered brokenly, pushing aside the 
 telephone from which the receiver still trailed. "I 
 have decided that you are right. You must be 
 released as soon as possible." 
 
 Joy leaped into her features. 
 
 "But I have also to consider the safety of the 
 wireless contract," he continued. "I can't risk your 
 name being associated with Kerr-Dyce's. If you 
 are lost to me, the fruit of my life-work must re- 
 main. So I have decided to let you divorce me. It 
 can be arranged very simply, a quarrel in front of 
 your maid, ending in my laying hands on you the 
 conventional 'cruelty' and some woman to spend 
 the night with me at a hotel." 
 
 "And the children ? The Court would give them 
 into my charge." 
 
 "We must share them." 
 
 "It's very generous of you. . . . You're a good
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 813 
 
 fellow, Hilary," was all that Eve could find to say. 
 
 He drew letter-paper toward him. 
 
 "Now leave me," he asked. 
 
 In the doorway she hesitated. His back was 
 toward her, bending over the desk as he penned a 
 letter. 
 
 For a moment she paused in hesitation. Then, 
 firmly, she grasped the handle of the door and 
 
 ssed'out of the room.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 FORWARD 
 
 Saltness Island. A morning in late September. 
 
 The sun is bright, but its energy is dulled from 
 the dispersal of the early morning mists. There is 
 little change in the scene from seven years back. 
 Those sheep star-scattered over the salting might 
 be the very same sheep. They nibble greedily, ever 
 pressing onward to the lure of apparently lusher 
 grass a few feet beyond their noses. In the rear 
 of the bungalow, now bought over by Warde and 
 restored from its deserted aspect, Amos Bills the 
 shepherd is stolidly engaged in the process of the 
 after-breakfast household duties. Seven years have 
 added further touches of white to his hair, but in 
 mind he is the same Amos Bills. 
 
 Little Betty is playing with a wise old sheep-dog. 
 Warde watches her from the veranda of the bunga- 
 low, a sheaf of scribbling-paper lying unheeded on 
 the table by his side. He is dressed in an easy 
 Norfolk suit of gray tweed. 
 
 The big change is in Warde himself the inner 
 man. 
 
 Gone is the light-heartedness, the zest of work, 
 the fire of youthful ambition and ideals. He has 
 achieved what he set out to do. That dream of
 
 EVERY MAN HIS PRICE 315 
 
 seven years back has become a reality. The con- 
 tract with the Government has been ratified and 
 signed ; the arbitration as to payment has been con- 
 cluded ; all over the world wireless stations are being 
 erected to knit together the commerce, the gover- 
 nance and the defense of the Empire. 
 
 Yet, darkening all is the shadow of divorce. In 
 a few months' time the decree of the courts will be 
 made absolute. Except for that formality, Eve has 
 passed out of his life. And with her has departed 
 something of himself that can never be replaced. 
 
 "What does it profit a man that he gain the whole 
 world and lose his own soul?" 
 
 But is it the goal of man to make happiness for 
 himself ? Is it not a finer thing to attain an ideal ; 
 to wrest out the secrets of nature and to fight down 
 the prejudice and foolishness and obstinacy and 
 envious malice of fellow-man; to give to one's coun- 
 try a life-work that will endure? 
 
 Those are the thoughts which chase through his 
 mind on this September morning. He has achieved 
 greatly, and in the achieving has sacrificed his own 
 happiness. Was it worth while? 
 
 With a sudden resolution, Warde turns to his 
 sheaf of scribbling-paper. There are other fields to 
 conquer, other uncharted territories of nature to ex- 
 plore. 
 
 Yes, it was worth while ! It was good work. It 
 will live. 
 
 Forward ! Like the restless sea. 
 
 THE END
 
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 "rT^HE ART OF THE PHOTOPLAY" is a condensed 
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 A 000125086 9
 
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