The Trespassers Read Online Free Page B

one could not simply decide, cool intellectual decision, “I will become passionately involved in this or that movement; I will devote myself to the juvenile delinquency problem; or I will crusade for better conditions for Negroes; or I will immerse myself heart and soul in the labor movement…”
    Jasper never seemed to be troubled so. His own ambitions, his own determination to own the most famous network on the world’s air, were the inner drive that propelled him onward through every obstacle, through every emotion. It made him unswerving; his enemies called him “ruthless.” Many people whom he himself would call “friends” privately thought him so, too.
    She herself did not know what he was. He did things differently from other people, that was true. He was unlike any other man she had ever known. In big ways, in little ways. Take so small an instance as his seeing her off on this very trip.
    He himself had telephoned to suggest driving her to the airport.
    It had never occurred to her that he would break into one of his crowded days to see her off on a short holiday.
    “Oh, Jas, how dear of you, when you’re so busy.”
    “Well, it’s our first separation, isn’t it?” he asked.
    But the next day, when he came for her, he strode into her apartment, elated, talkative, triumphant.
    “It’s a red-letter day, today is,” he greeted her.
    “Because I’m going away?”
    “Because it was signed and delivered this morning. The station is mine—it’s been mine legally, officially, financially mine for three hours. It doesn’t belong to Grosvenor any more.”
    “Jas, that’s grand, to have it settled at last.” She was glad for him, deeply glad. No wonder he was so high-spirited.
    “God, if it were only the whole network as well. I’m going mad at the lost chances because I’m not ready. Here’s all hell going to break in Austria and what do they broadcast? Hitler and Schuschnigg at Berchtesgaden yesterday—and CBS sends out a program called “Old Vienna.” Christ, one broadcast this whole month from Austria, and it turns out folk songs. God knows what NBC did.”
    His strong voice now had scorn and hatred in it.
    “If I were only ready—I’d be sending out news from Austria every couple of hours, not songs and music, but news, excitement, crisis. Radio’s coming to that, Vee—damn them if they beat me to it.”
    “They won’t. There’s no reason to think—”
    “The idea’s getting around. I’m the very one who’s constantly talking it up—talking to every new prospect about my plans for regular, daily news from London, Berlin, Paris. And every damn day for a year I’ve known somebody’s going straight back to the big boys, spilling my ideas, handing them right over—”
    He broke off suddenly, shrugged. The intensity went out all over him, from his voice, his eyes, his muscles.
    “Oh, the hell with them,” he said coldly. “They’ll take the idea and then muff it anyway, because they’ll be scared of its heat, the sweep of it. But I’ve got to hurry. I hurry in my sleep.”
    She looked at her watch then.
    “We’ve got to hurry now, or I’ll miss the plane.”
    He looked suddenly apologetic.
    “Vee, I’m no good, talking business now. With you going—” He looked to her for reassurance, found her face smiling. “You’re a darling to let me. Come on, not another word about it.”
    But in his car, through the gray, unlovely drive to Newark Airport, the talk soon went back to the network, and stayed there. At the airport, there was a last-minute rush to check her tickets, weigh in her luggage. The passengers were already boarding the plane.
    He took her to the gate. Then his face changed.
    “Good-by, darling, I’ll miss you,” he said. “I’ll hate your being away.”
    “I’ll miss you, too, Jas. But it’s not for so long.”
    “If you get a new beau down there, I’ll come and tear his ears off.”
    He leaned down to her, ignoring anybody who might see. He