In consideration of one month’s wages paid in hand on the signing of
this paper, Alexander Thane agrees to give his skill and services
exclusively to the North American Manufacturing Company, Ltd.,
(John Breakspeare, agent), for a period of two years, and the North
American Manufacturing Company, Ltd., agrees to pay Alexander Thane
not less that five thousand dollars a year, plus a ten per cent.
share in the profits.
Signed {
{ JOHN BREAKSPEARE
“Put your name over mine,” he said, handing the paper to Thane, who
read it slowly.
“This the mill you meant last night?”
“Yes,” said John.
“How did you come to know as I could run a mill?”
“I think you can,” John said.
Thane signed his name in large, bold writing, blotted it hard, and
handed the paper back to John.
“You’re right,” he said. “I can. And if it appears for any reason as I
can’t that thing ain’t no good and you can tear it up.”
It never occurred to him that the business had a fabulous aspect. He
took what John said at its face value. He could imagine no other way
of taking a friend’s word. And if it were unusual for a young puddler
to become a participating mill superintendent over night, so urgently
wanted that he must sign up before breakfast, that might be easily
explained. His friend, John Breakspeare, was an extravagant person,
very impulsive, with unexpected flashes of insight. Who else would have
known what Thane could do? Anyhow he had got the right man to run the
mill. Thane was sure of that. He supposed John was sure of it, too.
John just then was sure of nothing. His one anxiety was to get Thane
and Agnes into some kind of going order. He was aware that his motives
were exceedingly complex and would not examine them. He let himself off
with saying it was his moral responsibility; he was to blame for having
got them into a dilemma that neither was able to cope with. Yet all the
time he was thrilled by what he did because he was doing it for Agnes.
Thane’s artlessness about the contract was an instant relief. A
fatal difficulty might otherwise have arisen at that point. But it
was also very surprising. Was he so extremely naïve? Or had he such
a notion of his ability to conduct a mill as to think he would be
worth five thousand a year and one-tenth of the profits? Yes, that
was the explanation, John decided: and it gave him a bad twist in his
conscience to think how hurt and unforgiving Thane would be if he knew
the truth,--that he had signed a contract with a non-existent company
to superintend a mythical mill.
They ate a hearty breakfast, coming to it from a night in the open
air with no sleep at all. Although they talked very little they were
friendly under a truce without terms, all tingling with a sense of
plastic adventure. There was no telling what would come of it; but it
was exciting; and everything that happened was new.
Both Agnes and John had a surreptitious eye for the puddler’s manners.
They were not intrinsically bad or disgusting. They were only
fundamentally wrong. He delivered with his knife, took his coffee from
his saucer, modelled and arranged his food before attacking it, cut all
his meat at once, did everything that cannot be done, and did it all
with a certain finish. That is to say, he was a neat eater, very handy
with his tools, and cleaned up. He took pride in the performance; his
confidence in it was impervious. He was not in the least embarrassed
or uneasy. He did not wait to see what they did. He did it his way and
minded his own business.
Once John caught Agnes eyeing Thane aslant, and she stared him down for
it. He could not decide whether she was scandalized or fascinated.
When they had finished Thane called for the reckoning and paid, John
politely protesting, Agnes looking somewhat surprised. After that in
all cases Thane paid for two and John paid for himself.
Instead of resting for a day in Wilkes-Barre they chose to go on by
train to Pittsburgh and arrived there in the middle of the afternoon.
John recommended a hotel where he was sure they could be quite
comfortable while deciding how they wished to live. He was acquainted
there. He would introduce them. In fact, it was where he meant to lodge
himself. So of course they all went together.
John managed the whole affair of settling them in their rooms, doing it
so tactfully, however, as to leave Thane with the sense of having done
it himself. When at last there was not another thing to be thought of
John held out his hand to Agnes, saying:
“Congratulations.”
This was subtle, wicked treachery, and in the act was a sting of shame,
yet her coolness was so audacious he could not resist the temptation to
try its depth. She took his hand and met his look with steady eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “May I share them with my husband?”
“No, don’t,” he said. “They are all his. I’m about to lose my wits.
Well, no matter.... Thane,”--turning to him,--“Mrs. Thane may want to
do some shopping. The best places are three blocks east. I’ll see you
in the morning. Or later, perhaps? There’s no hurry.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Thane answered.
They were standing in a group outside the Thanes’ rooms, loath to break
up, each for a different reason.
“I’m under the same roof, you know, if you should need me,” said John.
“Thanks,” said Thane.
Still they lingered in a group.
“Have a bit of supper with us,” said Thane, suddenly.
“Not tonight,” said John. “We shall be too sleepy.”
Agnes was silent.
After a long pause, “Well,” said Thane, “this is Pittsburgh.”
John pensively nodded his head, and added, “Well.”
Agnes might have yawned. That would have produced the necessary
centrifugal impulse. Or she might have said something to have that
effect. But she was apparently sunk in thought.
After another long pause the two men shook hands in a hasty manner
and John walked rapidly down the hall. From the head of the staircase
he looked back. They were still there,--Agnes, her hands behind her,
leaning against the wall with her head thrown back, gazing from afar at
Thane, who stood in an awkward twist, with one superfluous leg, looking
away. His face was towards John, and John waved his hand, but there was
no response. The puddler was staring at an invisible thing.
That last accidental glimpse of them left a vivid after-image in John’s
eyes. It stood there for hours like a transparent illusion. He walked
the sun down on a country road and still it was there. Returning,
he paced the streets until ten o’clock and it tortured him still.
Coming presently to a fine brick house, not very large, with a marble
fountain and small flower garden in front, he turned in. His feet knew
their way up the narrow walk and he pulled the bell knob with the air
of one to whom nothing unexpected is likely to happen. No light was
anywhere visible. The windows were hermetically shuttered. Nor did
his pull at the bell knob produce any audible sound. Yet almost at
once the door opened, revealing a brilliantly lighted interior, and a
servant in livery bowed him in. There was an air of vulgar elegance
about the hall. The servant did not speak. Having offered to take the
visitor’s hat, to which the visitor shook his head, he opened a heavy
door to the right and there came from beyond it intermittent sounds
of small clatter. The room John entered was what had been the front
drawing room. Back of it were two more rooms, in a train to the depth
of the house, all thrown together by means of unfolded doors, so that
the effect was of one very long apartment, about thirty feet wide,
laid with rich, deep carpet on which the feet made not the slightest
sound. The walls were full of pictures, some of them good. There were
several art objects on pedestals, a great many nice chairs and some
small tables, like tea tables, evidently used for serving refreshments.
On one of these tables was a large humidor and on another a tray with
a cut glass service of decanters, goblets and ice bowl. That was all,
except down both sides of the first two rooms roulette wheels and in
the last room at the end three faro layouts.
Twenty or thirty men were betting at roulette, in groups of three or
four each. John passed them with a negligent, preoccupied air, walking
straight back.
No faro play was just then going on. At one layout sat a dealer in
that state of chilled ophidian tension characteristic of professional
gamblers in the face of their prey, and by none so remarkably achieved
as by the faro bank dealer, who drinks ice water without warming it,
who sees without looking, who speaks only under great provocation
and then softly, and whose slightest movement is pontifical until he
reaches for the six-shooter. That movement is as a rattlesnake strikes.
On the players’ side of a faro table are representations of the
thirteen cards,--ace, deuce, trey, etc., to the king, in two rows of
six each with the seven at one end. On the dealer’s side, besides
the rack containing the chips, the cash drawer and the invisible
six-shooter, is a little metal box in which a pack of cards will snugly
lie, face up. The dealer moves the cards off one at a time. They fall
alternately into two piles. One pile wins; the other loses. The players
bet which pile a card will fall in, indicating it by the way they place
their money on the table. No vocal sound is necessary. It is a silent
game. The expert might play for ever and never speak a word.
John dragged up a large chair, hung his coat on the back of it, settled
himself to face the dealer and passed five hundred dollars across the
table. The dealer put the money in the cash drawer and pushed out five
stacks of yellow chips. John began to play. He did not make his bets at
random. He played a slow, rhythmic, two-handed game, never hesitating,
always thoughtful, precisely with the air of a man playing solitaire.
For an hour or more he lost steadily. Several times his hands made a
bothered gesture, as of clearing the space in front of his face. The
dealer, the cards, the yellow chips, all objects of common reality,
were dim and uncertain, by reason of the image persisting in his
eyes,--that etched impression of Agnes and Thane in the hallway, so
twain, so improbable, yet so imminent, so-- ... so--....
He groaned aloud and held his head between clenched hands. The dealer
stopped and waited. Players sometimes behave that way.
Recalling himself with a start, John looked up, cleared his play, gave
the dealer a nod to proceed and doubled the scale of his bets. That
made his game steep enough to attract attention. A little gallery
gathered. No one else cut in. He kept the table to himself. Gradually
the haunted mist broke up. The tormenting picture went away. If it
threatened to return he raised his bets again. His health revived. He
had some supper brought in and ate it as he played. He played all night.
At seven he rose, yawned, stretched, rubbed his eyes like a man coming
out of a deep sleep, pushed his chips across the table to be cashed,
and drew on his coat while the dealer counted them.
He had won over three thousand dollars. But it was neither the fact
of his winning nor the amount of his gain that floated his spirits.
It was getting that picture out of his eyes and the feeling that went
with it out of his heart. Losing would have served him quite as well,
psychically, though of course winning was only that much more to boot.
Always for him the excitement of chance was a perfect refuge from
thought and reality, better than sleep, which may be troubled with
dreams, and restful in the same way that dreamless sleep is.
Now as he walked toward the hotel, though the morning was wet and
heavy, he felt fresh in his body and optimistic in his mind. He could
think of seeing Agnes and Thane at breakfast without that ugly lurching
of his heart.
They were in the dining room when he arrived there an hour later. His
impulse was to let them alone, but Thane, seeing him, stood up and
beckoned.
“We kept a place for you,” he said.
It was so. The table was laid for three. John wondered whose wish that
was.
“I’ve had word from New Damascus,” he said to Agnes. “Your father is
all right.”
“Was there any reason to think he might not be all right?” she asked in
surprise.
“No, no,” he said. “It was merely mentioned, like the state of the
weather.”
She detected his confusion.
“You saw him last,” she said. “Did anything unusual occur?” She was
regarding him keenly.
“I thought he looked ill, or about to be,” John said, “And I asked the
servants to call the doctor. Apparently it was nothing. Anyhow ... I’ve
had word that he’s all right.”
She did not pursue the subject, but became suddenly silent, and
thereafter avoided John’s eyes, for in the midst of his explanation his
expression had changed. He had looked at her in a most extraordinary
way and she suffered a deep psychic disturbance. It was as if he had
blunderingly discovered a nameless secret. And that was precisely what
had happened. As he was talking to her,--positively as he would swear
with no wanton curiosity in his mind,--as he looked at her and as her
eyes met his in open frankness there came an instant in which he saw
how matters stood.
How can one tell? One cannot tell. It tells itself in the way the eyes
look back, in what is missing from them, in something there that was
not there before, in a certain hardness of the chin.
In no such way had Agnes changed.
That was what John saw. The discovery shook him. All his senses leaped
exultingly. She was not Thane’s,--not yet. Wild thoughts got loose.
The dining room began to sway. Then he looked at Thane and enormously
repented. His feeling for Thane was one of intense affection. He could
no more help it than he could help his feeling for Agnes. They were
separate chemistries, antagonistic. So he was torn between them, and
when he could bear it no longer he began clumsily to excuse himself.
“We are delayed by legal formalities,” he said to Thane. “May be three
or four days yet. Take it easy. The company can stand it.”
So he left them abruptly.
All that day he fled from himself. All night he played. The next
morning he looked at his haggard self in the mirror,--looked deeply
into his own eyes, and said aloud:
“But she is his, not mine, and I will let her be, by God.”
On that he slept for twenty-four hours and rose on the third day with
a strong appetite, a clear mind and a great vow to the divinity with
whom he kept now a time of feud, now a time of grace, whimsically
alternating.