John W. McComas, at forty-five, was in apogee. His bank, as I have said, was coming to be more than a mere bank; it was now the focus of many miscellaneous enterprises. Several of these were industrial companies; prospectuses bearing his name and that of his institution constantly came my way. Some of these undertakings were novel and daring, but most of them went through; and he was more likely to use his associates than they were to use him. As I have said, he possessed but two interests in the world: his business—now his businesses—and his family; and he concentrated on both. It might be said that he insisted on the most which each would yield.

He concentrated on his new domestic life with peculiar intensity. His boys were away at a preparatory school and were looking forward to college. He centred on his daughter, a future hope, and on his wife, a present reality and triumph. Over her, in particular, he bent like a flame, a bright flame that dazzled and did not yet sear. He was able, by this time, to coalesce with the general tradition in which she had been brought up—or at least with the newer tradition to which she had adjusted herself; and he was able to bring to bear a personal power the application of which she had never experienced. She found herself handled with decision. She almost liked it—at least it simplified some teasing problems. He employed a direct, bluff, hearty kindness; but strength underlay the kindness, and came first—came uppermost—if occasion seriously required. Life with Raymond had been a laxative, when not an irritant; life with Johnny McComas became a tonic. She had felt somewhat loose and demoralized; now she felt braced.

Johnny was rich, and was getting richer yet. He was richer, much, than he had been but a few years before; richer than Raymond Prince, whose worldly fortunes seemed rather to dip. Johnny could give his wife whatever she fancied; when she hesitated, things were urged upon her, forced upon her. She, in her turn, was now a delegate of luxury. He approved—and insisted upon—a showy, emphatic way of life, and a more than liberal scale of expenditure. He wanted to show the world what he could do for a fine woman; and I believe he wanted to show Raymond Prince.

Gossip had long since faded away to nothingness. If anybody had wondered at Johnny's course—a course that had run through possible dubiousness to hard-and-fast finality—the wonder was now inaudible. If anybody felt in him a lack of fastidiousness, the point was not pressed. The marriage seemed a happy solution, on the whole; and the people most concerned—those who met the new pair—appeared to feel that a problem was off the board and glad to have it so.

Raymond, on the eve of the marriage, had softened things for himself by leaving for a few months in Rome. Back, he began to cast about for some means of occupation and some way of making a careful assertion of his dignity. At this time "society" was beginning to sail more noticeably about the edge of the arts, and an important coterie was feeling that something might well be done to lift the drama from its state of degradation. Why not build—or remodel—a theatre, they asked, form a stock company, compose a repertory, and see together a series of such performances as might be viewed without a total departure from taste and intelligence?

The experiment ran its own quaint course. The remodeling of the hall chosen introduced the sponsors of the movement to the fire-laws and resulted in a vast, unlooked-for expense. A good company—though less stress was laid on its roster than on the list of guarantors—went astray in the hands of a succession of directors, not always competent. The subscribers refused to occupy their boxes more than one night a week, and, later on, not even that: the space was filled for a while with servitors and domestic dependents, and presently by nobody....

Raymond went into the enterprise. He put in a goodly sum of money that never came back to him; and if he coÖperated but indifferently, or worse, he was not more inept than some of his associates. He was displeased to learn that the McComases had given enough to the guarantee-fund to insure them a box. And it offended him that, on the opening night, his former wife, one of a large and assertive party, should make her voice heard during intermissions (and at some other times too) quite across the small auditorium. The situation was generally felt to be piquant, and at the end of the performance people in the lobby were amused (save the few who had the affair greatly at heart) to hear Johnny McComas's comment on the play. It was a far-fetched problem-play from the German, and Raymond had been one of those who favored it for an opening.

"Did you ever see such a play in your life?" queried Johnny. "What was it all about? And wasn't he the fool!"

McComas—really caring nothing for the evening's entertainment either way—could easily afford a large amount for social prestige, and his wife for general social consolidation. It was little to Johnny that his thousands went up in exacting systems of ventilation and in salaries for an expensive staff; but it was awkward for Raymond to lose a sum which, while absolutely less, was relatively much greater. After a few months the scheme was dropped; the expensive installation went to the advantage of a vaudeville manager; Raymond felt poorer, even slightly crippled, and the voice of the present Mrs. Johnny McComas ran till the end across that tiny salle.

This, I am glad to say, was the last of Raymond's endeavors to patronize the arts.