AN INSULT IN THE MORNING
I paused at the gate and looked back. In the upper windows lights were
showing behind the shades, and now and then a swift shadow passed across
the pane. Yet the house was altogether quiet, free within and without
from any evidence of the unusual. A waning moon glowed large and
distorted through the shrubbery, and from all about rose the sweet
breath and innumerable tiny voices of the night, comfortable chirps and
rustlings, the creak of frogs and the rasp of an occasional katydid;
accentuating by their multiety and smallness the sense of overwhelming
peace. As I went on, a quick movement at my feet made me start; then I
smiled to recognize the clumsy hurry of a toad; and the incident seemed
to point the contrast between the human tension of the last half-hour
and the huge normality of the outer world. With every step it grew more
difficult for me to believe in the turmoil from which I had come; the
strain and secrecy, the troubled voices and the moving lights became
fictitious; as the scenes of a sensational story, plausible in the
reading, turn to pasteboard and tinsel when we have closed the book.
Only the quiet gloom was real, the hush and fresh aroma of ordinary
night.
I had anticipated some difficulty in gaining admission to a country inn
at such an hour, but as I climbed the hill I was surprised to see it
still open and alight; and a glance at my watch deepened my surprise
into astonishment. It was not yet midnight, and I had felt that it was
at least two or three in the morning. So here was another contrast to
add to the sense of unreality; and I entered the low-ceiled and dingy
little office feeling like Tennyson's Prince returning from a fight with
shadows.
My room was cool and pleasant enough, but sleep and excitement had
evaporated my drowsiness and I lay thinking in reminiscent circles,
trying in vain to puzzle out some theory that would fit the
circumstances of the night. The more I reviewed details, the more they
seemed to fly apart from any reasonable association, charged as they
were with one mysterious electricity. If some accident or sudden trouble
had befallen the house, the nocturnal alarm would be motivated; but
what motive would that furnish for driving out the guest? Some unwitting
provocation of my own (though I could imagine nothing of the sort) might
have made my further presence unbearable; but what of the anxious
bustle, the hasty conferences, the errands of the man we had met at the
gate? And who was he, by the way, that he should have a latch-key and
the airs of intimacy, without being, from what I had observed, an inmate
of the house? The fear of infectious disease was the only thing that I
could imagine that would explain the immediacy of my expulsion. But if I
was the bearer of a plague, why had Lady been allowed to talk with me in
the hall? Or if one of themselves had been stricken, why had she denied
me for all time, or indeed made any mystery of the matter? Then I
remembered her silences during the day, the ring, hidden in her breast,
and her hesitation and doubt over asking me to stay the night. Whatever
the trouble was, it had cast its shadow before: and I could not rid my
mind of the conviction that all these matters must be fitted in, that
they must all ultimately find their places in the explanation. At any
rate, an explanation was due me, and I meant to have it. Either there
had been some foolish mistake or I had been treated outrageously. It
was not curiosity, I told myself; the sorrows or the skeletons of this
family were no business of mine; but I would know by what right they had
ejected me.
Over the telephone next morning, Mr. Tabor was ominously agreeable.
"Certainly," he said. "You have a perfect right to the reason. When you
have it, I think you will agree that you have no more cause for
complaint than you have for remaining in the neighborhood. I will be
down at once."
Half an hour later he was seated in my room, polished, choleric,
aquiline, a man to be a fierce friend or a difficult enemy. He wasted no
time in approaches.
"You ask why you were sent from the house last night. Well, here it is:
You have arranged to go to Europe, and are actually on your way there.
You see my daughter on a train. You force yourself into her company,
presuming upon a very slight acquaintance, and follow her home. You come
upon us in such a way that we can hardly avoid receiving you as a guest.
Then it develops that you spent two or three hours between here and the
station instead of coming straight over; and you arrive after dark. Now,
in any case--"
"That's distorted and unjust," I interrupted, "I haven't forced myself
upon anybody. Besides, we came home as quickly as possible. The
trolley--"
"Well?" he asked, drawing his white brows together.
I had remembered Miss Tabor's version of the accident. "Go on," I said,
"let me hear the whole of this first."
"We needn't discuss terms; the facts are that you throw aside your
arrangements very conspicuously; that you follow a young lady entirely
out of your way; and that you bring her home at an unreasonable hour,
after wandering or loitering about the country. In any case this would
have been officious and inconsiderate. But in the case of a man with
such a past as yours, it might compromise her seriously. To have you
staying at the house afterward was out of the question."
This was too much. "What do you mean?" I said. "There's nothing the
matter with my past. I've nothing whatever to be ashamed of, and this is
the first time in my life I've been accused of any such thing. My
university position is proof enough of that. It's a mistake or an
infernal slander."
He looked me straight in the eye. "I know more about you, Mr. Crosby,
than you were prepared for," he said quietly. "Don't waste time in
posturing."
"I beg your pardon," I retorted; "you know nothing about me, but you've
said decidedly more than one gentleman can say to another without
explaining himself. We're two men together. Be so good as to tell me
just what you charge me with."
I had risen from my chair, struggling hard for enough self-control to
make my words carry conviction. Mr. Tabor sat unmoved while he
deliberately lighted a cigar, watching me over the end of it.
"I have no desire to dig over your life with you," he said, "any more
than I have to continue your acquaintance. I came here to tell you why
our invitation to you was withdrawn. Well, I've done so; you have an
evil reputation. That's all."
"Excuse me, but that isn't all. It isn't true, and--"
"There is just one more point," he went on; "when you arrived, of course
none of us realized who you were or how you had come. Later, when we
understood the facts, you would not, under ordinary circumstances, have
left until this morning. But Mrs. Tabor was so much excited over the
matter that I saw fit to relieve her immediately, at the cost of
disturbing your sleep. I owe you an apology for that, and for that
only."
"Look here, Mr. Tabor," said I, more calmly, "I don't know what you have
been told about me, but if it's dishonorable it's a damned lie. Now,
I'll wait here while you make any inquiries you like. I'll put you in
communication with anybody you choose. And when you've looked me up and
are satisfied, I shall expect a very complete apology for this whole
matter."
"Thank you," he answered, "I am quite satisfied with my present
information. I have no further curiosity. And now perhaps I have taken
enough of your time." He rose.
Then I lost my temper. "That's altogether too thin!" I cried. "I'm
received as your guest, and then I'm locked into my room. I'm sent away
in the middle of the night, and told not to ask why. You explain it on
the absurd ground that I'm a disreputable character, and then you won't
either specify your charges or investigate them. I believe you are
making up the whole story to cover something in your own house; and if
you were a younger man I'd have it out of you."
While I was speaking he had turned composedly to pick up his hat and
stick. He faced me now without a quiver of the eyes.
"Don't bluster, Mr. Crosby," he said slowly, uncovering the tip of one
yellow tooth in the faintest suspicion of a smile, "it isn't any real
use. Well, I won't offer to shake hands, but I'll wish you a pleasant
summer after you've forgotten this row. Shall I go first?"
If there was anything more to say, I was too angry to think of it.
"After you," I said through shut jaws. "Good morning."
I followed him down to the veranda where we went through a comedy of
leave-taking for the benefit of the people in the wicker chairs. At the
corner of the building, discreet swinging doors gave entrance to the
bar; and as Mr. Tabor started down the drive, there came from within a
stream of savage gutturals and the squeak and clatter of an over-tilted
chair. A stocky fellow in a flannel shirt lurched through the swinging
doors and followed him at a clumsy run, cursing in a tangle of English
and Italian so rapid and furious that by the ear alone I should have
thought half a dozen people were involved. It had the multiplied
brilliancy of a virtuoso's piano playing. Of the dispute which
followed, the words were indistinguishable; but there was no question
that each was threatening the other. The Italian danced and raved and
gesticulated, while Mr. Tabor pointed a steady forefinger and retorted
in low and frosty monosyllables. And presently the foreigner slouched
back into the bar, which immediately filled with babbling bystanders. I
followed to find him standing physically with his foot upon the low
rail, and metaphorically with his back against the wall. He was the same
man that had pursued our trolley-car on the day previous; a
medium-sized, stocky, leather-colored rascal in a shiny black suit and
blue flannel shirt, with a blue fur upon his face, and blue tattoo-marks
on his hairy hands.
Public opinion, led by the bartender, was against him to the point of
throwing him out or sending for the police; and his attempts at a
defense were rendered unintelligible by volubility and by the strangest
mixture of languages I ever heard in my life. Imagine a slightly drunk
and thoroughly excited Neapolitan speaking broken English with an Irish
brogue, and you may have some faint impression of the effect. His muddy
blur of intonations was impossible to follow; and I tried him in
Italian, becoming thereby a person of authority and interest. He
understood me readily enough, but his own spattering patois gave me a
good deal of trouble. By what I could make out, he was a sailor,
formerly on ships owned by Mr. Tabor; and Mr. Tabor had discharged him
and had kidnapped his wife. This sounded puzzling enough; but I could
get nothing else out of him; and my further questions brought forth only
angry reiterations and indefinite vows to have justice at any price.
Finally I persuaded the bartender to give him one more drink on
condition that he went away immediately, and satisfied the crowd with
some patched-up story of a hated employer whose resemblance to Mr. Tabor
had caused an unfortunate mistake.