It was still raining the next morning, still blowing. Charles Hackett
had made his adieus, had been driven to the station in Wickham’s car,
caught an early train, and got into the city. He came out of the Grand
Central into the steady downpour, pulled the shabby hat down on his
forehead, turned up the collar of the threadbare overcoat, and set off
on foot.
The wet and the mud soaked through his worn shoes, and the fine polish
was hopelessly lost. A very battered rover he looked; but the girl in
the florist’s shop thought him a splendid figure.
“Charley!” she cried.
There was no one else in the shop at this early hour, and he went with
her into the little back room, dim and chilly and bare, with a long
table, upon which the carnations she had been sorting lay scattered.
“You’re so wet! Won’t you take off your coat, Charley?”
“Can’t, Betty. I’m sailing at eleven, and there are things--”
“Sailing, Charley? But--you’re not going away?”
She stood before him, a slender, fair-haired girl in a green smock. He
had known her years ago in Havana, in the days of her father’s
prosperity; and he had found her again here, a lonely, plucky little
exile, earning her own bread. No one quite like her, he thought--no one
else with eyes so clear and candid, with so generous and sweet a smile;
but she was twenty-two and he was forty, and he hadn’t fifty dollars to
his name.
“Yes, I’m going,” he said. “I don’t fit in here, you know, Betty.”
“But--I thought you were going to get a job and stay here.”
“Well,” Charles told her, “I’ve only had one job offered me, and it
doesn’t suit me; so I’m going down to Nicaragua.”
“That’s quite a long way, isn’t it?” she said casually.
“Yes, it is,” replied Charles.
They were both silent for a time. The rain was rattling against the
window. The room was filled with the spicy fragrance of the carnations.
“I--I thought you’d stay here,” the girl said.
He knew well enough that she was crying, but he took care not to look at
her.
“No,” he said gravely. “I don’t fit in here. I’m a derelict, and a
derelict can be a danger to navigation. I’ve known some pretty good
craft wrecked that way.” He was talking half to himself. When she looked
at him in troubled surprise, he smiled cheerfully. “So I’ve come to say
good-by, Betty,” he ended.
“I’m sure I could help you to find something to do, Charley.”
He shook his head, still smiling, his teeth white against his sunburned
face. She saw the fine lines about his eyes, his shabbiness, his
invincible gallantry.
“Charley!” she cried, and threw her arms about his neck. “Oh, don’t,
_don’t_ go, Charley!”
He held her tight, clasped to his wet coat, and with one hand stroked
her fair head lying on his shoulder.
“Oh, don’t, don’t go away, Charley!” she sobbed. “I do--need you so!”
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face, streaming with
tears. He looked straight into her eyes, and smiled again. There was
something almost terrible in that smile, something inflexible, hard as
steel.
“No, you don’t!” he said. “You’re a sentimental kid, that’s all. You’re
going to forget all about me, like a nice kid, and six months from now
you’re going to write me a letter and tell me about the wonderful boy
you’ve got.”
She could smile, too, quite as steadily as he.
“All right!” she said. “All right, if you want to pretend it’s that way;
but you know I won’t forget.”
He did not smile any more.
“Anyhow,” he said, “it’s good-by now.”
She raised her head and kissed him. For a moment he crushed her against
him; then, with just the lightest kiss on her young head, he let her go,
took up his hat, and hurried off. He knew she had come to the door to
watch him go, but he did not look back.
* * * * *
All gray the harbor was that morning, and noisy with the hoarse din of
whistles and fog horns; but Charles Hackett stood on deck, in the rain,
to see the last of it.
A lucky thing, he thought, that Wick hadn’t brought her down to see him
off! Lucky that last night Wick had looked at his face, not hers! It had
been so plain there to read--the doubt, the question, the fear, in the
eyes of Wickham’s wife. She didn’t know yet, but she was beginning to
know.
“Why am I to have no life? Why am I to be shut out, denied everything
that is real?”
She had turned with her unspoken question not to Wickham, but to his
brother. Charles had come to her, almost as if the sun of the tropics
had risen in the cool skies of her homeland. He had danced with her,
talked to her, with his vivid smile, his immeasurable careless vitality.
He had had for her not only his innate charm, but the charm of the
unknown.
Even his very shabbiness had enchanted her, because it was a regal
thing. He, too, might have had his pockets well filled, but he had not
cared for money. He had thrown everything away, and had laughed a
careless laugh.
Then he had seen what was coming. He had seen the doubt, the dismay,
which she herself did not understand. He had seen her turn to him, not
to her husband.
Well, she wouldn’t turn to him any more, for he would not be there.
There would only be Wickham, chivalrous and quiet. She would forget the
doubt and the question that would never be asked and never be answered.
It was essential for Charles to go, never to be there again.
The rain and the mist almost hid the shores from his sight now. He could
see only the tops of great buildings, like castles on a mountain top.
His girl was there, the girl who had clung to him so.
He turned away from the rail, wet through.
“Not for me!” he said to himself.
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE