take care of."
He said this, standing in front of the heavy black-walnut sideboard which he abhorred, while he lit a cigarette. As he spoke he felt that he was taking his injury in a manly way, although he still reserved to himself the right to seek relief from the courts.
And in the deeper reaches of his being there lay a bitter sense of resentment, a desire to make the world pay him in some manner for his disappointment. If he had to, he would show people that he could make his own way; that he was more than the weakling his uncle had contemptuously overlooked in the disposal of his property. He should rise in his profession, make money, and prove to the world that he could swim without Powers Jackson's millions.
Oddly enough, as he stood there smoking, his eyes narrowed, his handsome face hardened into something like the stocky doctor's bull-dog expression. The rough, brute man in him thrust itself to the surface!
"What kind of a school are they going to start with all that money?" Mrs. Hart asked, as she seated herself for the evening.
"Oh, something technical. For sons of mechanics, a kind of mechanics' institute, I should say."
He thought of some of the old man's caustic remarks about charities, and added:—
"Wanted to make good before he quit, I suppose?"
"Will you have to stay on with that firm?" Mrs. Hart asked, taking up Lanciani's "Pagan and Christian Rome."
"I suppose I'll have to for a time," answered Jackson, gloomily. …
Thus these two accepted the dead man's will. Powers Jackson had come to his decision after long deliberation, judging that toward all who might have claims of any kind upon him he had acted justly and generously. He had studied these people about him for a long time. With Everett, who was only distantly related to him, he had acquitted himself years before, when he had put it in the young man's way to make money in his profession, to kill his prey for himself. Jackson, he deemed, would get most out of the fight of life by making the struggle, as he had made it himself, unaided. As for Helen, he had given the girl what was most intimately his, and what would do her the least harm by attracting to her the attention of the unscrupulous world. There remained what might be called his general account with the world, and at the end he had sought to settle this, the largest of all.
Powers Jackson had not been a good man, as has been hinted, but that he took his responsibilities to heart and struggled to meet them there can be no doubt. Whether or not he had chosen the best way to settle this account with the world, by trying to help those to live who were unfavored by birth, cannot be easily answered. Conceiving it to be his inalienable right to do with his money what he would, after death as in life, he had tried to do something large and wise with it. Thus far, he had succeeded in embittering his nephew.
CHAPTER IV
The next morning Jackson Hart was once more bending over the large sheets of the plans for the Denver hotel. Now that he knew his fate, the draughting-room under the great skylights of the Maramanoc Building seemed like a prison indeed. The men in the office, he felt sure, had read all about the will, and had had their say upon his private affairs before he had come in. He could tell that from the additional nonchalance in the manner of the head draughtsman, Cook, when he nodded to him on his way to the cubby-hole where he worked. Early in the afternoon a welcome interruption came to him in the shape of an urgent call from the electricians working on the Canostota apartment house on the South Side. The head of the office asked Hart to go to the Canostota and straighten the men out, as Harmon, their engineer, was at home ill.
As Jackson crossed the street to take the elevated train he met his cousin. They walked together to the station, and as Wheeler was turning away, the architect broke out:—
"I've been thinking over uncle's will. I can't say I think it was fair—to treat me like that after—after all these years."
The lawyer smiled coldly.
"I didn't get much, either," he remarked.
"Well, that don't make it any better; besides, you have had as good as money from him long ago. Your position and mine aren't just the same."
"No, that's so," the lawyer admitted. "But what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know yet. I want to think it over. How long"—he hesitated before finishing his thought.
"How long have you to give notice you want to contest? About three weeks," Wheeler replied coolly. "Of course you know that if you fight you'll put your mother's legacy in danger. And I rather guess Hollister and the judge wouldn't compromise."
"And you?"
Wheeler shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, I suppose I should stick with the others."
Then Wheeler nodded and was off down the street. He did not appear to be surprised or disturbed by what his cousin had told him. Hart, pondering the matter in perplexity, continued on his way to the Canostota. There he found the foreman for the electrical contractor, and spent a busy hour explaining to the man the intricacies of the office blue prints. Then the steam-fitter got hold of him, and it was nearly five o'clock before he had time to think of himself or his own affairs. As he emerged from the basement by a hole left in the floor for the plumbers and steam-fitters to run their pipes through, he noticed a space where a section of the fireproof partition had been accidentally knocked out. Through this hole he could see one of the steel I-beams that supported the flooring above, where it had been drilled to admit the passing of a steam pipe. Something unusual in the appearance of the metal caught his eye, and he paused where he was, halfway out of the basement, to look at it again. The I-beam seemed unaccountably thin and slight. He felt in his pocket for a small rule that he usually carried with him. He was not quite familiar, even yet, with the material side of building in America; but he knew in a general way the weights and thicknesses of steel beams that were ordinarily specified in Wright's office for buildings of this size.
"How's this, Davidson?" he asked the steam-fitter, who was close at his heels. "Isn't that a pretty light fifteen-inch I-beam?"
The workman looked absolutely blank.
"I dunno. I expect it's what's called for."
Even if the man had known that something was wrong about the steel, he would have said nothing. It was silly to ask a subcontractor to give evidence damaging to his employer. The architect stooped and asked the man to hand him his calipers. As he was trying to measure the section of steel, he saw a man's face looking down at him from the floor above. Presently a burly form appeared in the opening, and Jackson recognized Graves, who was the general contractor for the building.
"We haven't begun to patch up the tile yet," the contractor observed, nodding to the architect. "We thought we'd leave it open here and there until Mr. Harmon could get around and look into things. I'm expecting Mr. Wright will be out here the first of the week, too."
The contractor talked slowly, without taking his eyes from Hart. He was a large, full-bearded man, with a manner self-confident or assuming, as one chose to take it. Hart was always at a loss how to treat a man like Graves—whether as a kind of upper workman to be ordered about, or as a social equal.
"Is
