The Third Degree. Charles Klein
and entertained lavishly. He was not identified with any particular business or profession. On leaving college he became interested in art. He frequented the important art sales and soon got his name in the newspapers as an authority on art matters. His apartment was literally a museum of European and Oriental art. On all sides were paintings by old masters, beautiful rugs, priceless tapestries, rare ceramics, enamels, statuary, antique furniture, bronzes, etc. He passed for a man of wealth, and mothers with marriageable daughters, considering him an eligible young bachelor, hastened to invite him to their homes, none of them conscious of the danger of letting the wolf slip into the lambs' fold.
What a strange power of fascination, mused Howard as the train jogged along, men of Underwood's bold and reckless type wield, especially over women. Their very daring and unscrupulousness seems to render them more attractive. He himself at college had fallen entirely under the man's spell. There was no doubt that he was responsible for all his troubles. Underwood possessed the uncanny gift of being able to bend people to his will. What a fool he had made of him at the university! He had been his evil genius, there was no question of that. But for meeting Underwood he might have applied himself to serious study, left the university with honors and be now a respectable member of the community. He remembered with a smile that it was through Underwood that he had met his wife. Some of the fellows hinted that Underwood had known her more intimately than he had pretended and had only passed her on to him because he was tired of her. He had nailed that as a lie. Annie, he could swear, was as good a girl as ever breathed.
He couldn't explain Underwood's influence over him. He had done with him what he chose. He wondered why he had been so weak, why he had not tried to resist. The truth was Underwood exercised a strange, subtle power over him. He had the power to make him do everything he wanted him to do, no matter how foolish or unreasonable the request. Every one at college used to talk about it. One night Underwood invited all his classmates to his rooms and made him cut up all kinds of capers. He at first refused, point blank—but Underwood got up and, standing directly in front of him, gazed steadily into his eyes. Again he commanded him to do these ridiculous, degrading things. Howard felt himself weakening. He was suddenly seized with the feeling that he must obey. Amid roars of laughter he recited the entire alphabet standing on one leg, he crowed like a rooster, he hopped like a toad, and he crawled abjectly on his belly like a snake. One of the fellows told him afterward that he had been hypnotized. He had laughed at it then as a good joke, but now he came to think of it, perhaps it was true. Possibly he was a subject. Anyway he was glad to be rid of Underwood and his uncanny influence.
The train stopped with a jerk at his station and Howard rode down in the elevator to the street Crossing Eighth Avenue, he was going straight home when suddenly he halted. The glitter and tempting array of bottles in a corner saloon window tempted him. He suddenly felt that if there was one thing he needed in the world above all others it was another drink. True, he had had more than enough already. But that was Coxe's fault. He had invited him and made him drink. There couldn't be any harm in taking another. He might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. By the time he emerged from the saloon his speech was thick and his step uncertain. A few minutes later he was painfully climbing up the rickety stairs of a cheap-looking flat house. As he reached the top floor a cheerful voice called out:
"Is that you, Howard, dear?"
CHAPTER II.
A young woman hurried out of one of the apartments to greet Howard. She was a vivacious brunette of medium height, intelligent looking, with good features and fine teeth. It was not a doll face, but the face of a woman who had experienced early the hard knocks of the world, yet in whom adversity had not succeeded in wholly subduing a naturally buoyant, amiable disposition. There was determination in the lines above her mouth. It was a face full of character, the face of a woman who by sheer dint of dogged perseverance might accomplish any task she cared to set herself. A smile of welcome gleamed in her eyes as she inquired eagerly:
"Well, dear, anything doing?"
Howard shook his head for all response and a look of disappointment crossed the young wife's face.
"Say, that's tough, ain't it?" she exclaimed. "The janitor was here again for the rent. He says they'll serve us with a dispossess. I told him to chase himself, I was that mad."
Annie's vocabulary was emphatic, rather than choice. Entirely without education, she made no pretense at being what she was not and therein perhaps lay her chief charm. As Howard stooped to kiss her, she said reproachfully:
"You've been drinking again, Howard. You promised me you wouldn't."
The young man made no reply. With an impatient gesture he passed on into the flat and flung himself down in a chair in the dining room. From the adjoining kitchen came a welcome odor of cooking.
"Dinner ready?" he demanded. "I'm devilish hungry."
"Yes, dear, just a minute," replied his wife from the kitchen. "There's some nice Irish stew, just what you like."
The box-like hole where Howard sat awaiting his meal was the largest room in a flat which boasted of "five and bath." There was a bedroom of equally diminutive proportions and a parlor with wall paper so loud that it talked. There was scarcely enough room to swing a cat around. The thin walls were cracked, the rooms were carpetless. Yet it showed the care of a good housekeeper. Floors and windows were clean, the cover on the table spotless. The furnishings were as meagre as they were ingenious. With their slender purse they had been able to purchase only the bare necessities—a bed, a chair or two, a dining-room table, a few kitchen utensils. When they wanted to sit in the parlor they had to carry a chair from the dining room; when meal times came the chairs had to travel back again. A soap box turned upside down and neatly covered with chintz did duty as a dresser in the bedroom, and with a few photographs and tacks they had managed to impart an æsthetic appearance to the parlor. This place cost the huge sum of $25 a month. It might just as well have cost $100 for all Howard's ability to pay it. The past month's rent was long overdue and the janitor looked more insolent every day. But they did not care. They were young and life was still before them.
Presently Annie came in carrying a steaming dish of stew, which she laid on the table. As she helped Howard to a plate full she said: "So you had no luck again this morning?"
Howard was too busy eating to answer. As he gulped down a huge piece of bread, he growled:
"Nothing, as usual—same old story, nothing doing."
Annie sighed. She had been given this answer so often that it would have surprised her to hear anything else. It meant that their hard hand-to-mouth struggle must go on. She said nothing. What was the use? It would never do to discourage Howard. She tried to make light of it.
"Of course it isn't easy, I quite understand that. Never mind, dear. Something will turn up soon. Where did you go? Whom did you see? Why didn't you let drink alone when you promised me you would?"
"That was Coxe's fault," blurted out Howard, always ready to blame others for his own shortcomings. "You remember Coxe! He was at Yale when I was. A big, fair fellow with blue eyes. He pulled stroke in the 'varsity boat race, you remember?"
"I think I do," replied his wife, indifferently, as she helped him to more stew. "What did he want? What's he doing in New York?"
"He's got a fine place in a broker's office in Wall Street. I felt ashamed to let him see me low down like this. He said that I could make a good deal of money if only I had a little capital. He knows everything going on in Wall Street. If I went in with him I'd be on Easy Street."
"How much would it require?"
"Two thousand dollars."
The young wife gave a sigh as she answered:
"I'm afraid that's a day dream. Only your father could give you such an amount and you wouldn't go to him, would you?"
"Not if we hadn't another crust in the house," snapped Howard