On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
"date" with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
separate coupés. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
social position, but for _him_, Vandover, it would look too confounded
queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.
When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
amphitheatre full of colour and movement.
There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.
Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Gallery upstairs. Mrs. Wade, Ida's
mother, who gave lessons in hand painting, had an exhibit there which
they were interested to find; a bunch of yellow poppies painted on
velvet and framed in gilt. They stood before it some little time
hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another;
Ellis bought a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every
picture. Bessie professed to be very fond of painting; she had 'taken it
up' at one time and had abandoned it, only because the oil or turpentine
or something was unhealthy for her. "Of course," she said, "I'm no
critic, I only know what I like. Now that one over there, I like _that_.
I think those ideal heads like that are lovely, don't you, Bandy? Oh,
there's Van!"
"Hello!" said Vandover, coming up. "Where's Ida?"
"Hello, Van!" answered Bessie. "Ida wouldn't come. Isn't it too mean?
She said she couldn't come because she had a cold, but she was just
talking through her face, I know. She's just got kind of a streak on and
you can't get anything out of her. You two haven't had a row, have you?
Well, I didn't _think_ you had. But she's worried about something or
other. I don't believe she's been out of the house this week. But isn't
it mean of her to throw cold water on the procession like this? She's
been giving me a lecture, too, and says she's going to reform."
"Well," said Vandover, greatly relieved, "that's too bad. We could have
had a lot of fun to-night. I'm awfully sorry. Well, what are you two
going to do?"
"Oh, I guess we'll follow out our part of the programme," said Ellis.
"You are kind of left out, though."
"I don't know," answered Vandover. "Maybe I'll go downtown, and see if I
can find some of the boys."
"Oh, Dolly Haight is around here somewheres," said Ellis. "We saw him
just now over by the chess machine."
"I guess I'll try and find him, then," responded Vandover. "Well, I hope
you two enjoy yourselves." As he was turning away Bessie Laguna came
running back, and taking him a little to one side said:
"You'd better go round and see Ida pretty soon if you can. She's all
broke up about something, I'm sure. I think she'd like to see you pretty
well. Honestly," she said, suddenly very grave, "I never saw Ida so cut
up in my life. She's been taking on over something in a dreadful way,
and I think she'd like to see you. She won't tell _me_ anything. You go
around and see her."
"All right," answered Vandover smiling, "I'll go."
As he was going down the stairs on his way to find young Haight it
occurred to him what Ida's trouble might be. He was all at once struck
with a great fear, so that for an instant he turned cold and weak, and
reached out his hand to steady himself against the railing of the
stairs. Ah, what a calamity that would be! What a calamity! What a
dreadful responsibility! What a crime! He could not keep the thought out
of his mind. He tried to tell himself that Ida had practically given her
consent by going into such a place; that he was not the only one, after
all; that there was nothing certain as yet. He stood on the stairway,
empty for that moment, biting the end of his thumb, saying to himself in
a low voice:
"What a calamity, what a horrible calamity that would be! Ah, you
scoundrel! You damned fool, not to have thought!" A couple of girls, the
counter girls at one of the candy booths, came down the stairs behind
him with a great babble of talk. Vandover gave an irritated shrug of his
shoulders as if freeing himself from the disagreeable subject and went
on.
He could not find young Haight down stairs and so went up into the
gallery again. After a long time he came upon him sitting on an empty
bench nursing his cane and watching the crowd go past.
"Hello, old man!" he exclaimed. "Ellis told me I would find you around
somewhere. I was just going to give you up." He sat down beside his
chum, and the two began to talk about the people as they passed. "Ah,
get on to the red hat!" exclaimed Vandover on a sudden. "That's the
third time she's passed."
"Has Ellis gone off with Bessie Laguna?" asked young Haight.
"Yes," answered Vandover. "They're going to have a time at the Cliff
House."
"That's too bad," young Haight replied. "Ellis has just thrown himself
away with that girl. He might have known some very nice people when he
first came here. Between that girl and his whisky he has managed to
spoil every chance he might have had."
"There's Charlie Geary," Vandover exclaimed suddenly, whistling and
beckoning. "Hey, there, Charlie! where you going? Oh," he cried on a
sudden as Geary came up, "oh, get on to his new store clothes, will
you?" They both pretended to be overwhelmed by the elegance of Geary's
new suit.
"O-oh!" cried young Haight. "The bloody, bloomin', bloated swell. Just
let me _touch_ them!"
Vandover shaded his eyes and turned away as though dazzled. "This is
_too_ much," he gasped. "Such magnificence, such purple and fine linen."
Then suddenly he shouted, "Oh, _oh! look_ at the crease in those
trousers. No; it's too much, I can't stand it."
"Oh, shut up," said Geary, irritated, as they had intended he should be.
"Yes," he went on, "I thought I'd blow myself. I've been working like a
dog the whole month. I'm trying to get in Beale's office. Beale and
Storey, you know. I got the promise of a berth last week, so I thought
I'd blow myself for some rags. I've been over to San Rafael all day
visiting my cousins; had a great time; went out to row. Oh, and had a
great feed: lettuce sandwiches with mayonnaise. Simply out of sight. I
came back on the four o'clock boat and held down the 'line' on Kearney
Street for an hour or two."
"Yes?" young Haight said perfunctorily, adding after a moment, "Isn't
this a gay crowd, a typical San Francisco crowd and--"
"I had a cocktail in the Imperial at about quarter of five," said Geary,
"and got a cigar at the Elite; then I went around to get my clothes. Oh,
you ought to have heard the blowing up I gave my tailor! I let him have
it right straight."
Geary paused a moment, and Vandover said: "Come on, let's walk around a
little; don't you want to? We might run on to the red hat again."
"I told him," continued Geary without moving, "that if he wanted to do
any more work for me, he'd have to get in front of himself in a hurry,
and that _I_ wasn't full of bubbles, if _he_ was. 'Why,' says he, 'why,
Mr. Geary, I've never had a customer talk like this to me before since
I've been in the business!' 'Well, Mr. Allen,' says I, 'it's time you
_had_! Oh, sure, I gave it to him straight."
"Vandover has gone daft over a girl in a red hat," said young Haight,
as they got up and began to walk. "Have you noticed her up here?"
"I went to the Grillroom after I left the tailor's," continued Geary,
"and had supper downtown. Ah, you ought to have seen the steak they gave
me! Just about as thick as it was wide. I gave the slavey a four-bit
tip. Oh, it's just as well, you know, to keep in with them, if you go
there often. I lunch there four or five times a week."
They descended to the ground floor and promenaded the central aisle
watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was
a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her
squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked
back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile.
Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; "I guess that's mine,"
he said.
"You are not going, are you?" exclaimed young Haight, as Vandover
stopped. "Oh, for goodness' sake, Van, do leave the girls alone for one
hour in the day. Come on! Come on downtown with us."
"No, no," answered Vandover. "I'm going to chase it up. Good-bye. I may
see you fellows later," and he turned back and went up to the girl.
"Look at that!" said young Haight, exasperated. "He knows he's liable to
meet his acquaintances here, and yet there he goes, almost arm in arm
with a girl like that. It's too bad; why _can't_ a fellow keep straight
when there are such a lot of _nice_ girls?"
Geary never liked to see anything done better than he could do it
himself. Just now he was vexed because Vandover had got in ahead of him.
He looked after the girl a moment and muttered scornfully:
"Cheap meat!" adding, "Ah, you bet _I_ wouldn't do that. I flatter
myself that I'm a little too clever to cut my own throat in that
fashion. I look out after my interests better than that. Well, Dolly,"
he concluded, "_I've_ got a thirst on. Van and Ellis have gone off with
their girls; let's you and I go somewhere and have something wet."
"All right. What's the matter with the Luxembourg?" answered young
Haight.
"Luxembourg goes, then," assented Geary, and they turned about and
started for the door. As they were passing out some one came running up
behind them and took an arm of each: it was Vandover.
"Hello," cried Geary, delighted, "your girl shook you, didn't she?"
"Not a bit of it," answered Vandover. "Oh, but say, she is out of sight!
Says her name is Grace Irving. No, she didn't shake me. I made a date
with her for next Wednesday night. I didn't want to be seen around here
with her, you know."
"Of _course_ she will keep that date!" said Geary.
"Well, now, I think she will," protested Vandover.
"Well, come along," interrupted young Haight. "We'll all go down to the
Luxembourg and have something cold and wet."
"Ah, make it the Imperial instead," objected Vandover. "We may find
Flossie."
"Say," cried Geary, "can't you _live_ without trailing around after some
kind of petticoats?"
"You're right," admitted Vandover, "I can't," but he persuaded them to
go to the Imperial for all that.
At the Imperial, Toby, the red-eyed waiter, came to take their order.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Haven't seen you around here for
some time."
"No, no," said Geary. "I've been too busy. I've been working like a dog
lately to get into a certain office. You bet I'll make it all right--all
right. Bring me a stringy rabbit and a pint of dog's-head."
"You bet I've been working," he continued after they had settled down to
their beer and rabbits, "working like a dog. A man's got to rustle if
he's going to make a success at law. _I'm_ going to make it go, by
George, or I'll know the reason why. I'll make my way in this town and
my pile. There's money to be made here and _I_ might just as well make
it as the next man. Every man for himself, that's what _I_ say; that's
the way to get along. It may be selfish, but you've got to do it. By
God! it's human nature. Isn't that right, hey? Isn't that right?"
"Oh, that's right," admitted young Haight, trying to be polite. After
this the conversation lagged a little. Young Haight drank his
Apollinaris lemonade through a straw, Geary sipped his ale, and Vandover
fed himself Welsh rabbit and Spanish olives with the silent enjoyment of
a glutton. By and by, when they had finished and had lighted their
cigars and cigarettes, they began to talk about the last Cotillon, to
which Vandover and Haight belonged.
"Say, Van," said young Haight, tilting his head to one side and shutting
one eye to avoid the smoke from his cigar, "say, didn't I see you
dancing with Mrs. Doane after supper?"
"Yes," said Vandover laughing; "all the men were trying to get a dance
with her. She had an edge on."
"No?" exclaimed Geary, incredulously.
"That's a fact," admitted young Haight. "Van is right."
"She was opposite to me at table," said Vandover, "and _I_ saw her empty
a whole bottle of champagne."
"Why, I didn't know they got drunk like that at the Cotillons," said
Geary. "I thought they were very swell."
"Well, of course, they don't as a rule," returned Vandover. "Of course
there are girls like--like Henrietta Vance who belong to the Cotillon
and make it what it is, and what it ought to be. But there are other
girls like Mrs. Doane and Lilly Stannard and the Trafford girls that
like their champagne pretty well now, and don't you forget it! Oh, you
know, I wouldn't call it getting drunk, though."
"Well, why not?" exclaimed young Haight impatiently. "Why not call it
'getting drunk?' Why not call things by their right name? You can see
just how bad they are then; and I think it's shameful that such things
can go on in an organization that is supposed to contain the very best
people in the city. Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of
these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard
disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going
home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at
the supper table. Well, I had gone outside on the steps to get a
mouthful of smoke, and my little cousin, Hetty, who has just come out
and who is only nineteen, was out there with me because it was so warm
inside, and _she_ had seen Lilly Stannard filling up with champagne at
supper, and didn't know what to make of it. Well, we were just talking
about it, and I was trying to make her believe too that Lilly Stannard
was sick, when here comes Lilly herself out to her carriage. Her maid
was supporting her, just about half-carrying her. Lilly's face was so
pale that the powder on it looked like ashes, her hair was all coming
down, and she was hiccoughing. Now," continued young Haight, his eyes
snapping, and his voice raised so as to make itself heard above the
exclamations of his two friends, "now, that's a _fact_; I give you my
word of honour that it actually happened. It's not hearsay; I saw it
myself. It's fine, isn't it?" he went on, wrathfully. "It sounds well,
don't it, when it's told _just as it happened_? The girl was dead drunk.
Oh, she may have made a mistake; it may have been the first time; but
the fact remains that she always drinks a lot of champagne at the
Cotillons, and other girls have been drunk there, too. Mrs. Doane, that
Van tells about, was _drunk_; that's the word for it. She was dead drunk
that night, and there was my little cousin, Hetty, who had never seen
even a man the worse for his liquor, standing there and taking it all
in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl
was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a
little girl like that, who had always been told what nice,
irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the
same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired."
"Well, I don't see," said Geary, "why the girls should make such a fuss
about the men keeping straight. I daresay now that this Stannard girl
would cut us all dead if she knew how drunk we were that night about
four months ago--that night that you fellows got thrown out of the
Luxembourg."
"No, I don't believe she would at all," said young Haight.
"She'd think better of you for it," put in Vandover. "Look here," he
went on, "all this talk of women demanding the same moral standard for
men as men do for women is fine on paper, but how does it work in real
life? The women don't demand it at all. Take the average society girl in
a big city like this. The girls that we meet at teas and receptions and
functions--don't you suppose they know the life we men lead? Of course
they do. They may not know it in detail, but they know in a general way
that we get drunk a good deal and go to disreputable houses and that
sort of thing, and do they ever cut us for that? No, sir; not much.
Why, I tell you, they even have a little more respect for us. They like
a man to know things, to be experienced. A man that keeps himself
straight and clean and never goes around with fast women, they think is
ridiculous. Of course, a girl don't want to know the particulars of a
man's vice; what they want is that a man should have the knowledge of
good and evil, yes, and lots of evil. To a large extent I really believe
it's the women's fault that the men are what they are. If they demanded
a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a
man to go to the devil and then--and then when he's rotten with disease
and ruins his wife and has children--what is it--_'spotted
toads'_--_then_ there's a great cry raised against the men, and women
write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged
him to be what he is."
"Oh, well now," retorted young Haight, "you know that all the girls are
not like that."
"Most of them that you meet in society are."
"But they are the best people, aren't they?" demanded Geary.
"No," answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight
continued:
"No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go
out in society--people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and
keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that. You know," he added, "they
have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast."
Geary began to smile.
"Well, now, I don't care," retorted young Haight, "I like that sort of
thing."
"So do I," said Vandover. "Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at
each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off. But you
can't tell me," he went on, going back to the original subject of their
discussion, "you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred,
and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about
things. Why, man alive, how can they help but know? Look at those that
have brothers--don't you suppose they know, and if they know, why don't
they use their influence to stop it? I tell you if any one were to write
up the lives that we young men of the city lead after dark, people
wouldn't believe it. At that party that Henrietta Vance gave last month
there were about twenty fellows there and I knew every one, and I was
looking around the supper-table and wondering how many of those young
fellows had never been inside of a disreputable house, and there was
only _one_ beside Dolly Haight!"
Young Haight exclaimed at this, laughing good-naturedly, twirling his
thumbs, and casting down his eyes with mock-modesty.
"Well, that's the truth just the same," Vandover went on. "We young men
of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying
the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls
are responsible. They want a man to be a _man_, to be up to date, to be
a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't
know, they don't dream, how rotten and disgusting it is. Oh, I'm not
preaching. I know I'm just as bad as the rest, and I'm going to have a
good time while I can, but sometimes when you stop and think, and as
Dolly says 'call things by their right names,' why you feel, don't you
know--_queer_."
"I don't believe, Van," responded young Haight, "that it's _quite_ as
bad as you say. But it's even wrong, I think, that a good girl should
know anything about vice at all."
"Oh, that's nonsense," broke in Geary; "you can't expect nowadays that a
girl, an American girl, can live twenty years in a city and not know
things. Do you think the average modern girl is going to be the
absolutely pure and innocent girl of, say, fifty years ago? Not much;
they are right on to things to-day. You can't tell them much. And it's
all right, too; they know how to look out for themselves, then. It's
part of their education; and I think if they haven't the knowledge of
evil, and don't know what sort of life the average young man leads, that
their mothers ought to tell them."
"Well, I don't agree with you," retorted young Haight. "There's
something revolting in the idea that it's necessary a young girl should
be instructed in that sort of nastiness."
"Why, not at all," answered Geary. "Without it she might be ruined by
the first man that came along. It's a protection to her virtue."
"Oh, pshaw! I don't believe it at all," cried young Haight,
impatiently. "I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive
purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as
she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make
an effort herself to overcome that instinct."
"And if she don't," cried Vandover eagerly, "if she don't--if she don't
protect her virtue, I say a man has a right to go as far with her as he
can."
"If _he_ don't, some one else will," said Geary.
"Ah, you can't get around it that way," answered young Haight, smiling.
"It's a man's duty to protect a girl, even if he has to protect her
against herself."
When he got home that night Vandover thought over this remark of young
Haight's and in its light reviewed what had occurred in the room at the
Imperial. He felt aroused, nervous, miserably anxious. At length he
tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; he woke up his drowsing
grate fire, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying, "Wake up
there, you!" When he was undressed, he sat down before it in his
bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously, musing into the coals,
scratching himself as was his custom. But for all that he fretted
nervously and did not sleep well that night.
Next morning he took his bath. Vandover enjoyed his bath and usually
spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got
into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates
conveniently near. Here he stayed, for over an hour, eating and reading,
and occasionally smoking a cigarette, until at length the enervating
heat of the steam gradually overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.
On this particular morning between nine and ten Geary called, and as was
his custom came right up to Vandover's room. Mr. Corkle, lying on the
wolfskin in the bay window, jumped up with a gruff bark, but,
recognizing him, came up wiggling his short tail. Geary saw Vandover's
clothes thrown about the floor and the closed door of the bathroom.
"Hey, Van!" he called. "It's Charlie Geary. Are you taking a bath?"
"Hello! What? Who is it?" came from behind the door. "Oh, is that you,
Charlie? Hello! how are you? Yes, I'm taking a bath. I must have been
asleep. Wait a minute; I'll be out."
"No, I can't stop," answered Geary. "I've an appointment downtown;
overslept myself, and had to go without my breakfast; makes me feel all
broke up. I'll get something at the Grillroom about eleven; a steak, I
guess. But that isn't what I came to say. Ida Wade has killed herself!
Isn't it fearful? I thought I'd drop in on my way downtown and speak to
you about it. It's dreadful! It's all in the morning papers. She must
have been out of her head."
"What is it--what has she done?" came back Vandover's voice. "Papers--I
haven't seen--what has she done? Tell me--what has she done?"
"Why, she committed suicide last night by taking laudanum," answered
Geary, "and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or
anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it
seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other
for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten
o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was
unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious
all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; I've an appointment
downtown. I was just going past the house and I thought I would run up
and speak to you about Ida. I'll see you again pretty soon and we'll
talk this over."
Mr. Corkle politely attended Geary to the head of the stairs, then went
back to Vandover's room, and after blowing under the crack of the
bathroom door to see if his master was still there returned to the
wolfskin and sat down on his short tail and yawned. He was impatient to
see Vandover and thought he stayed in his bath an unnecessarily long
time. He went up to the door again and listened. It was very still
inside; he could not hear the slightest sound, and he wondered again
what could keep Vandover in there so long. He had too much self-respect
to whine, so he went back to the wolfskin and curled up in the sun, but
did not go to sleep.
By and by, after a very long time, the bathroom door swung open, and
Vandover came out. He had not dried himself and was naked and wet. He
went directly to the table in the centre of the room and picked up the
morning paper, looking for the article of which Geary had spoken. At
first he could not find it, and then it suddenly jumped into prominence
from out the gray blur of the print on an inside page beside an
advertisement of a charity concert for the benefit of a home for
incurable children. There was a picture of Ida taken from a photograph
like one that she had given him, and which even then was thrust between
the frame and glass of his mirror. He read the article through; it
sketched her life and character and the circumstances of her death with
the relentless terseness of the writer cramped for space. According to
this view, the causes of her death were unknown. It had been remarked
that she had of late been despondent and in ill health.
Vandover threw the paper down and straightened up, naked and dripping,
putting both hands to his head. In a low voice under his breath he said:
"What have I done? What have I done now?"
Like the sudden unrolling of a great scroll he saw his responsibility
for her death and for the ruin of that something in her which was more
than life. What would become of her now? And what would become of him?
For a single brief instant he tried to persuade himself that Ida had
consented after all. But he knew that this was not so. She had
consented, but he had forced her consent; he was none the less guilty.
And then in that dreadful moment when he saw things in their true light,
all the screens of conventionality and sophistry torn away, the words
that young Haight had spoken came back to him. No matter if she had
consented, it was his duty to have protected her, even against herself.
He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water,
striking his head with his hands and crying out, "Oh, this is fearful,
fearful! What have I done now? I have killed her; yes, and worse!"
He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him. What a
weight of responsibility to carry--he who hated responsibility of any
kind, who had always tried to escape from anything that was even
irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!
At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had
done. Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its
course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck. There
could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures
and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were
spoiled and rendered impossible. The rest of his life would have to be
one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime
seem more abominable.
Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to
such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against
himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
to this thing.
Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.
Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.
But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.
And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
the throes of terrible mental agony.
That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for
his own safety to feel humiliated at this possible explanation of his
security. There was as yet not even a guess that implicated him.
He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on
the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper,
his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly:
"What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?"
"Not very, sir," answered Vandover. "My throat is troubling me again."
"You look deathly pale," returned his father. "Your eyes are sunken and
you don't eat."
"Yes, I know," said Vandover. "I'm not feeling well at all. I think I'll
go to bed early to-night. I don't know"--he continued, after a pause,
feeling a desire to escape from his father's observation--"I don't know
but what I'll go up now. Will you tell the cook to feed Mr. Corkle for
me?"
His father looked at him as he pushed back from the table.
"What's the matter, Van?" he said. "Is there anything wrong?"
"Oh, I'll be all right in the morning," he replied nervously. "I feel a
little under the weather just now."
"Don't you think you had better tell me what the trouble is?" said his
father, kindly.
"There _isn't_ any trouble, sir," insisted Vandover. "I just feel a
little under the weather."
But as he was starting to undress in his room a sudden impulse took
possession of him, an overwhelming childish desire to tell his father
all about it. It was beginning to be more than he was able to bear
alone. He did not allow himself to stop and reason with this impulse,
but slipped on his vest again and went downstairs. He found his father
in the smoking-room, sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before
the fireplace.
As Vandover came in the Old Gentleman rose and without a word, as if he
had been expecting him, went to the door and shut and locked it. He came
back and stood before the fireplace watching Vandover as he approached
and took the chair he had just vacated. Vandover told him of the affair
in two or three phrases, without choosing his words, repeating the same
expressions over and over again, moved only with the desire to have it
over and done with.
It was like a burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not
as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but
this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his
hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of it with
a firm grasp. For a moment he said nothing; then:
"And--and you say you seduced her."
Without looking up, Vandover answered, "Yes, sir," and then he added,
"It is horrible; when I think of it I sometimes feel as though I should
go off my head. I--"
But the Old Gentleman interrupted him, putting out his hand:
"Don't," he said quickly, "don't say anything now--please."
They were both silent for a long time, Vandover gazing stupidly at a
little blue and red vase on the table, wondering how his father would
take the news, what next he would say; the Old Gentleman drawing his
breath short, occasionally clearing his throat, his eyes wandering
vaguely about the walls of the room, his fingers dancing upon the edge
of the mantelpiece. Then at last he put his hand to his neck as though
loosening his collar and said, looking away from Vandover:
"Won't you--won't you please go out--go away for a little while--leave
me alone for a little while."
When Vandover closed the door, he shut the edge of a rug between it and
the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his
father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his
head upon it.
He did not see his father again that night, and at breakfast next
morning not a word was exchanged between them, but his father did not go
downtown to his office that forenoon, as was his custom. Vandover went
up to his room immediately after breakfast and sat down before the
window that overlooked the little garden in the rear of the house.
He was utterly miserable, his nerves were gone, and at times he would
feel again a touch of that hysterical, unreasoning terror that had come
upon him so suddenly the other morning.
Now there was a new trouble: the blow he had given his father. He could
see that the Old Gentleman was crushed under it, and that he had never
imagined that his son could have been so base as this. Vandover wondered
what he was going to do. It would seem as if he had destroyed all of his
father's affection for him, and he trembled lest the Old Gentleman
should cast him off, everything. Even if his father did not disown him,
he did not see how they could ever be the same. They might go on living
together in the same house, but as far apart from each other as
strangers. This, however, did not seem natural; it was much more likely
that his father would send him away, anywhere out of his sight,
forwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
knew his father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
sadly, inevitably.
Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.
His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:
"I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?"
Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
sob shook him.
"Oh, governor!" he cried.
It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.