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The next morning news came to McDermott that his land on the Silver Fork was no longer desired by the newly formed company. It was nearly a fortnight, however, before he learned the railroad was to be built on the Ravenel side of the river.
The information came with abruptness from John Marix, a gaminlike broker, who encountered McDermott in the elevator to their mutual offices.
"Say, McDermott," he cried, with a cheerful laugh, "Ravenel didn't do a thing to you, did he? He didn't do a thing to you! " he repeated, with a lively chuckle.
McDermott's eyes were bland on the instant. He did not understand the little man's meaning. What he did understand, always understood, however, was that he must never be taken off guard in the game of life.
"I am the football of the Street," he said, with a kind of cheerful despondency. "Everybody does me!"
"Yes they do!" the other responded, derisively. "It's because you've done everybody that we're glad somebody's got even for a minute! But"—dropping the bantering tone—"this Ravenel is something of a wonder. I was at the meeting of the new company to-day. He's full of the scheme, knows every foot of the land, and is willing to put a whole bunch of money into it. We've elected him president of the concern."
By the same afternoon the facts of the case were in McDermott's possession, and the following morning, upon seeing Frank about to enter the De Peyster offices, he advanced toward him, hand outstretched. He was entirely unprepared for the manner in which he was received. Frank nodded to him slightingly, with the scant courtesy he might have accorded a domestic whom he disliked, and said, with directness, looking him squarely in the eyes, "I don't care to shake hands with you, McDermott."
Dermott regarded him steadily in return, the gray gleam in his eyes a bit brighter, the lines of his mouth harder. Whatever the grave faults of these two men may have been, there was not a whit of cowardice between them as they stood facing each other.
"So!" said Dermott. "So!" And yet a third time he repeated "so!"—his tone one of grave consideration. "Had another done what ye have just done, Mr. Ravenel," he said, at length, "this little episode might not have ended so gayly. But for you I have so slight a respect that there's nothing you could do to me that would make me call ye to account for it." And, raising his hat high and jauntily, he said, with a laugh: "Good-morning, Ravenel!"
Frank turned white at the words, but the Irishman had disappeared in an elevator, and any immediate action seemed impossible and theatric. In the short time he had spent in New York he had learned many things, and the narrow, tiled halls of an office building twenty-three stories high, in Wall Street, did not seem the fitting background for a personal encounter to which the hills of North Carolina might have lent themselves with picturesqueness.
He sat thinking the matter over in the club that night with two things fixed in his mind. First, that he would go to see Katrine in Paris immediately; of the outcome of such a meeting he took no thought whatever. Second, that he would put this railroad scheme through; already the feeling of power, of the consciousness of unsystematized ability, was stirring within him.
The affair with McDermott rankled, however, and it was with drawn brows and tightened lips that he answered a telephone call—a call which changed both of the plans which he had so carefully arranged.
His mother's doctor at Bar Harbor had rung him up to say Mrs. Ravenel was seriously ill and wanted him to come to her at once. He started at midnight, to find his mother in a high fever, unconscious of his arrival, and facing an operation, as the only chance to save her life.
He had been to her always, as she herself put it, "a perfect son," and for the next three months, which made the time well into December, he proved the words true, living by her bedside, and allowing himself scant sleep from the watching and service. It was when she was far toward the recovery of her health and her old-time beauty that he spoke to her of his newly formed intentions with characteristic unwordiness.
"I am going into business, mother," he said, "with Philip de Peyster."
She was knitting at the time, counting stitches on large needles, and she went placidly on with the counting until the set was finished, when she looked up pleasantly. "You think it will amuse you?" she asked, with the kind interest which she might have shown concerning a polo game in which he was to play.
"I am beginning to think a man should have some fixed duties in life," Frank explained.
"Yes, certainly," Mrs. Ravenel answered. "The Bible says something like that, I believe. What are you thinking of doing?"
"Buying and selling things, like railroads and mines," he answered, smiling at her indifference.
"I'm glad it's Phil de Peyster you are going to buy and sell things with," Mrs. Ravenel said. "His mother was maid of honor at my wedding, and a charming girl, Patty Beauregarde, of Charleston. And I am delighted at anything you do to make you happy, Frank. I have thought you have not been very gay of late. There is, perhaps, a trouble—"
"What an idea!" he answered.
"Will you have offices and things?" Mrs. Ravenel inquired, vaguely. "I have always had ideas for office furnishings, you know."
"If you could see Phil's office, mother, I think you would weep. It's very dirty, and he likes it. It's the dust of his great-grandfathers."
"Well, dearest," Mrs. Ravenel said, "if it amuses you, I'm glad you thought of doing it," and she folded up her work and put it into her bag. "Life's a rather dreary affair at best," she concluded, "and anything that interests one is a positive boon."