reported that his friend was still imprisoned. The sound of those
falling strokes was slow to die out of the corridors of Dicky’s memory.
They awoke him in the night. It was far easier, however, to recall
the splendor of gameness in the way Nagar had taken his beating.
This satisfied every American instinct; and even above this, was the
mystery of compassion for the English, in Nagar’s face. Here was a man
on a tennis court in a remote Punjabi town, hardly heard-of in this
war-racked world, plainly putting over the thing he had marveled at, as
a small boy in Sunday school: “Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do.”
Apparently the same majestic composure. Life held many things; yet
Richard Cobden couldn’t be sure altogether, that he had not outraged
the spirit of friendship in failing to register his protest of word and
deed. Of course, the consequences might have been disastrous, but, at
least, a certain man-to-man loyalty would have been satisfied.
If further tortures were inflicted upon Nagar, Dicky was not informed.
The Amritsar story was no longer on the outside; it was in Richard
Cobden’s brain and heart. He wrote some of it and his letters were
forwarded, but still he conned and brooded. Having held still through
the whipping of Nagar, he found it easier to stand in the midst of
current events without losing his head, or letting emotion or opinion
have right of way.
Late in May, a student brought word that Nagar was free and had
gone south. This was all that Dicky had been waiting for. Crawling,
salaming, flogging, imprisonment and forced testimony had long since
become to him a full and bitter cup. At the station, as he waited for
his train, a student, edging near, managed to whisper two words:
“_Ashrama_, Ahmedabad.”
The American’s head bowed slightly. He had meant to go to Ahmedabad
anyway.
He was not met at the station there, but a servant at the _Entresden_
told him to go at once to the _Ashrama_. He obeyed, and found himself
listening for the voice of Mahatma-ji, as he entered, but his eyes
searched the shadows of the hall for Nagar, a kind of breathless pain
about it all.
As the door of an inner room opened, at last, and the native who
conducted him drew back, Dicky saw a woman standing in the dimness. Her
face, turned toward him, was a mere blur of darkness, but there was a
leap toward her in Richard Cobden’s breast. Then he stood before her,
in a daze of joy, one hand in hers, one upon her shoulder.
“It happened very quickly in New York,” she told him. “A letter saying
that I was coming could hardly have reached you before the steamer that
brought me----”
“But, Miss Claes--New York! What are we to do--no Harrow Street?”
“You will know what to do,” she said. “And about the things that were
in your rooms. I had them carefully boxed and sent to your mother, who
was well when I left. Also your aunt and sister.”
He took from his pocket the old dark key to the “parlor” door. She bent
and touched it.
“Keep it, Richard,” she said, “until I send you another.”
* * * * *
“And Nagar----” he began at length.
“He is here.”
“And well? I could get so little word.”
“Nagar has been hurt, but is healing. Look----”
Dicky turned to find his friend standing behind them at the door.
He had felt a presence there, but thought it was the native who had
brought him. Nagar’s eyes looked very large in the wasted face.
“Oh, yes, all is well with me,” he said. “I have been sorry to leave
you so much alone in the north.... Yes,” he added, “it was harder
for you than for me--the test that day on the tennis court. You were
brave, my friend. I knew all was well--when the instant passed and you
remained silent.”
“How do you mean--all was well?”
“I knew that the message of India would get to America--since you did
not spoil it by defending me.”
Nagar turned to Miss Claes, adding:
“I saw the fury and fright rise in his eyes, and all the impulses
of ethics of the West--then silence over all. It was as if we were
cemented----”
Dicky remembered that last word afterward.
As he moved about and talked, he was vaguely conscious of watching the
other two together. It was as if Pidge would want to hear of every
gesture and detail. Miss Claes was less Indian here than in Harrow
Street. There he had thought of her as belonging to the East; here she
seemed of the West. Something of the composure he had noted on the
tennis court had come to stay in Nagar’s eyes. As moments passed, Dicky
knew that they contained deep vitalities of meaning that would appear
in coming days.
It was as if his limitations were being stretched, but by consummate
hands. There was repeatedly brought to him, from them, something that
he refused to hear or dwell with: that he had done well, that he was
deeply approved of in their sight; that there was much more to take
place between them as a group, even though they were to stay in Asia,
and he was leaving for The States.... Then all faces turned, and in the
doorway stood the Little Man.
No one spoke, but to Richard Cobden it was one moment of his life
that he thought of as religious. Mahatma-ji came in between them, and
Dicky felt the old urge somehow to help with his hands; the sense,
too, of all India thronging, whispering around them. For a moment the
four had been standing in silence, when they heard the _sweep_ of bare
slow feet in the hall, and now an old dark face was in the doorway, a
smile serene as nothing else on earth but the Hills themselves--a dark
wrinkled old face, and she came forward and stood very low and little
in the midst of them--Gandhi’s comrade.
* * * * *
In San Francisco, waiting for the departure of his train east, a card
was sent up to Cobden’s hotel room. It was from Chris Heidt, the
managing editor of his former newspaper connection.
“Hello, Cobden. Just noticed you were off ship. What did you bring
back?”
Dicky reflected. “The story of Amritsar,” he said finally.
“Amritsar, what’s that?”
“The first big story I ever ran across. I feel like one of Job’s
servants, who said he alone remained to make a report.”
Mr. Heidt had been much on trains during the past few days, and had
missed the fact, so far, that _The Public Square_ had begun to publish
the story.
“Not going to bury it in a weekly, are you?”
“I have much more than _The Public Square_ could use in months. It
really should get out into the broad market. The end of one world
and the birth of another took place that Sunday in Amritsar--all in
miniature, you understand----”
He spoke of Gandhi, whose name had scarcely been heard at this time in
America, and touched upon the story of _maidan_.
“Sure,” said Mr. Heidt. “Sure, it’s a big yarn, but months ago. No way
to substantiate it. You’re a little out of perspective, Cobden, seeing
it all first hand that way.”
“I can substantiate it,” Dicky said queerly.
“I know, but the whole story’s a trouble-maker. Far as I can make out,
this Gandhi is a sort of sanctimonious Lenine, and we’re not promoting
any kind of Lenines just now. Red roughhouses all over the world, but
we’re not advertising the fact. The best newspaper interests here
and in England are letting that sort of thing die down. Everybody’s
healthily intent on getting back to business right now. Make a corking
fiction setting--your Amritsar--series of short stories that would do
no harm.”
Thus Richard had his American perspective restored.
LIII
THE WHITE LIGHT AGAIN
DICKY was considerably subdued. India had permitted his ideas to
romp at large. He had forgotten that, home again, these ideas must
be brought down to an orderly trudge. America, as a whole, seemed
one-pointedly trying to get back to work after the War, calling all
protestors untimely and in bad taste. Dicky thought out the situation
minutely and severely during the three full travel days to Chicago. At
the end of each day he was somewhat exhausted from the big bonfires
that had taken place within him--piles of rubbish, glamour and the like.
In Chicago he procured two numbers of _The Public Square_ preceding
the current issue, and before his eyes was the manner in which Pidge
had “sprung” the Amritsar story. He felt the magic of her working with
him in an altogether new way. The latest number confessed, not without
grace, that the story of Gandhi and Amritsar had aroused the more
open-minded element of the American public, as nothing else since the
War; but thanks to Chris Heidt, the returning correspondent watched the
rising tide of public interest in his work, as a spectator unexpectant,
instead of a performer who fancies he has the world by the tail. It
dawned on him, however, that Chris Heidt hadn’t known quite all that
was going on in America under the homely thunders of trade.
He reached New York in the early evening and went to Fiftieth Street at
once. There he had dinner, and an hour of talk, before he rang up Mrs.
Melton at the _Sennacherib_.
“Is this Mr. Cobden?” a voice asked presently.
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Melton left word for you to go to 54 Harrow Street--to the parlor
on the second floor, the card says.”
Mr. Cobden didn’t take out his own car that night. Perhaps he didn’t
feel as if he could keep his mind on getting himself downtown. He sat
back in the cushions of his mother’s limousine; and Conrad, whose
career as Cobden coachman had changed to Cobden chauffeur nearly twenty
years ago, handled the big box like a hearse.
“Sit tight, Dicky,” he breathed, and never once urged Conrad forward.
In fact, Dicky didn’t speak, until it became necessary to show the way
a little, for Harrow Street is tricky to find from Washington Square.
“Don’t wait--yes, you’d better wait, Conrad,” he called, crossing the
walk to the door.
The outer door was unlatched. He hurried up one flight. The same
curtain, the white light.
“Pidge----”
She came forth from the inner room. She halted a few feet from him, and
he saw her searching, imploring look. His shoulders straightened, his
hands dropped to his side. The finer elements of his understanding
sensed the great need of a woman, which his brain did not actually
register. To answer her need in action, however, was instantly more
dominant within him than his thirst for herself.
She came a step nearer. Light was filling her eyes--the shining of an
almost incredible hope.
“Oh, Dicky, you can! I believe you can!”
“Yes?”
She was nearer.
“And I can come and rest--a little?”
“Yes, Pidge----”
“I want to rest so badly, you know.”
She had come to him under the light.
“... And, oh, since I knew you were coming, everything has been
different. I haven’t been _me_ at all! I’ve never played--and now
everything--all work--is silly, unimportant. Dicky, everything seems to
be done!”
“I’m on the job, Pidge; you can play----”
“Until I find myself--you--you will stand for two?”
“Of course, Pidge.”
“All my things, your things, Dicky--so I can rush away and breathe?”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“Rufe Melton and my father and the desk--all yours?”
“And the baby, too, Pidge.”
“Dicky--Dicky--don’t dare to look! I’m going to cry!”
“... Since your telegram from San Francisco--it seemed I could hardly
stay alive! Oh, it’s so good to rest!”
“Not a hurry in the world!”
“Everything seemed done--and no place for me!... Rufe and a rich girl
uptown--oh, they’re in full blossom and he wants to be free! My father
caught on in New York--no need now for me. _The Public Square_ on the
high road at last; your Amritsar story capturing the whole field;
nothing to do but to feed the presses more and more; Miss Claes gone,
and the Legacy--oh, Dicky, I saw your hand back of that! I couldn’t
miss it. It touched me--touched me----”
“It was his idea first, Pidge. All I had to do was to help him carry it
out.”
“All happened at once--all the strains lifted--no one depending--no
one needing me!... I’ve been dying to be a woman just once. I’ve never
dared--never had time. It’s so terrible to feel like a woman and not be
able----”
“Why not now, Pidge?”
“Don’t think, Dicky! I’m just resting a little. We must work together a
lot. We must clear our heads with stacks of work--and then maybe we’ll
know if we can play.... Fanny Gallup did that for me, and Rufe Melton
is as much a baby as his infant. Other girl, or not--Rufe will always
need--us!”
“Pidge, listen! I couldn’t stand any more than that now. To have you
say that--_us_! To have the work with you--to have earned that--to have
your faith; that you dare come this close--to have years to make the
big moments we have known apart, come true together--I couldn’t stand
more, right now; that’s the fact of it--quite!”
She stepped back from him looking strangely into his face again.
“Dicky!”
“Yes?”
“The boy has come back to your face--that you lost in Africa--but the
new and lasting Boy!”
He laughed and looked around the room. It was furnished, but barely,
the “parlor” having reverted to a sleeping room.
“But how did it happen--that we should come here, Pidge?”
“I couldn’t let you come to Gramercy Park. I remembered that you waited
to see me here after Africa, not at the office. I came down this
way--the afternoon of the Legacy and saw the sign, ‘Rooms, Permanent
and Transient.’... I’m better now. It’s been hours, hasn’t it?”
He thought of Conrad, whom he had told to wait.
“... This room’s all paid for,” she whispered. “I mean we don’t have to
stop to speak to anybody--only walk out.”
Their eyes held.
“Dicky!”
“Yes----”
“Let’s go--now.”
“I’m--I’m ready.”
“Dear Dicky, the years have done so much for you! The blur, the maze
has gone out from between us. It’s so much more wonderful, isn’t it,
than that other night here, when I almost, almost----?”
He waited for her to reach the hall curtains, before he turned off the
light. In the dimness of the hall, he heard her low, slow tone:
“Fanny’s room was back--at the far end on this floor----”
“... I remember once, Pidge, I went up the next flight and knocked at
the door of your little back room----”
“That’s gone now,” she answered.
“Gone?”
“My two books that were written there--and all the rest! I can tell you
everything now--and of the book that is still to be written--our story,
Dicky.”
“A continued story,” he said.
They went down into the street, into the car.
THE END
NOVELS OF SUPREME LITERARY ART
=THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON=
By EDITH WHARTON
“I can think of no American novel, written within the last few years,
and dealing with contemporary life, to compare with it. And not only
does Mrs. Wharton write better than anyone else, but she knows how to
unfold a more exciting tale.”--Katherine Fullerton Gerould in the _New
York Times_.
=THE MIRACLE=
By E. TEMPLE THURSTON
A keen, human story of the west coast of Ireland, with peculiar
fascination in the rich background of Irish folk lore.
=THE VAN ROON=
By J. C. SNAITH
An unusual and totally absorbing plot, delightfully told, and a
remarkable set of characters, unmatched since Dickens.
=THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL TEACHER=
By MELVILLE DAVISSON POST
How would Christ act if He appeared in the world today? Through Mr.
Post’s story of the Kentucky mountains runs an impressive allegory.
=ABBÉ PIERRE=
By JAY WILLIAM HUDSON
This charming novel of life in quaint Gascony has proved that a novel
that is a work of true literary art may be a best seller of the widest
popularity.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
New York London
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.