In a certain dictionary appears this substantive and this definition.
"PARASITE (par'-a-sit), n. one who frequents the table of a rich man and
gains his favor by flattery; a hanger-on; an animal or plant nourished
by another to which it attaches itself. (Greek.)"
If the animal or plant to which these other animals or plants attach
themselves goes first to its death, it is inevitable that its parasites
must speedily follow. There is no longer anything upon which to feed.
Hamilton Burton was gone and his parasites were withering. His will
provided a princely fortune for each member of his family--save his
sister, for whom they would care. But a will presupposes an estate--here
were only enormous liabilities and vanished assets.
This man's dream of power in a single hand--the hand that could
produce--had held so firm that he had never made any provision for their
independent fortunes while he lived and held at his finger ends the
touch of Midas.
Now he was dead. The coroner said, after viewing the evidence, he had
killed Haswell first and himself next--so they added to all the sins of
his overcharged account the crowning infamy of murder.
Those men who gather and print news have their fingers on the pulse-beat
of things and sometimes they develop an occult sense of prophecy.
On the night of Hamilton's death, as a certain city editor in Park row
read the proof of the "day's story," he called one of his reporters to
his desk and let him wait there while he himself rapidly penciled out
the "Stud-horse head" which should, tomorrow morning, shock many
breakfast-tables. Finally he glanced up, under a green eye-shade, and
shifted his dead cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.
"Smitherton," he instructed, "from now on keep right after the Burton
story."
Smitherton rolled a cigarette. "The follow-up tomorrow will be a big
one, too," he prophesied.
"Sure, but I'm not only talking about the follow-up. As to that you
handle the introduction and general. I'll have the various other ends
covered. I refer to next week and next month and next year--"
The staff man raised his brows, and, with an impatient and wearied
growl, his chief commented curtly: "Go, look up the word 'parasite' in
the dictionary. Maybe after that research you'll understand better what
I mean. There's copy in this for a long while. The branch is dead and
the leaves will be dropping."
The stunned parents, the ashen-lipped brother and the sister, not yet
recovered from her collapse, had months for realization; nightmare
months during which hordes of creditors arose with legitimate, but
wolf-like, hunger from everywhere, and courts adjudicated and the world
learned that not a remnant of shredded fortune nor a ragged banknote
would remain to the family which had dazzled New York since its Monte
Cristo star rose on the horizon.
While the wolves were picking the remains of the estate to its naked
bones, old Thomas Burton still went occasionally to his place in the
club and gazed out of the Fifth-avenue window. He wore a band of crêpe
around his sleeve, and a defiant glint in his eyes, and since he was
left much to himself, he drank alone. He was no longer the same portly
and immaculately fashionable man. His flesh had shrunk until his clothes
hung upon him in misfit. His face was seamed and his hair instead of
being gray and smooth was white and stringy. But no pride is so
inflexible as acquired pride, so he came to the club where he was
snubbed, because, "By Gad, sir, I have the right to come here. I am
Thomas Standish Burton, and I will not permit myself to be driven
away--even though adversities have befallen me!"
He reflected upon "pursuits to which a gentleman of my age may, with
fitting dignity, apply himself," and his ideas were random and
impractical, but after a sufficient number of toddies they appeared to
himself feasible and meritorious. One day when he called for his first
afternoon drink the negro waiter shuffled uncomfortably, and said, "I'm
sorry, sir, but I was told I couldn't serve you."
"Why?" demanded the member, stiffening with indignation.
"Your name, sir, is posted on the suspended-credit list. That's my
orders, sir."
Tom Burton rose and stalked very stiffly, though no longer with his old
time cock-sureness, for the last time out of the National Union Club,
and spent the afternoon in the rear room of a saloon further east.
Paul, whose plight was as pitiable as that of a pet pomeranian turned
out of a perfumed and cushioned boudoir to hold his own among foraging
street curs, for a while bore up with an artificial courage. Under the
long strain of successive anxieties his mother had broken in body and
mind, and Paul was with her much, though sometimes she did not
recognize him, but called him Hamilton and begged him not to leave the
mountains, lest life in a new world should hold worse things than
poverty.
Hamilton's dream-palace, with all its splendid plunder of art treasures,
had gone under the hammer in satisfaction of a court judgment. Next went
the house which his parents had occupied, and before that all the
servants had gone--save one. Yamuro's passion of devotion to Hamilton
had descended in a lesser degree to Paul and with the grave courtesy of
the Samurai he waved aside all discussion of wages. Had he not saved
much money for a Japanese boy who needed little? Already he could open a
small shop and sell kimonos and jade trinkets and embroideries ... but
that could wait until such time as his usefulness ended here.
The final day came, and the shrunken household effects were removed to a
small apartment in Greenwich Village, so it was time for Paul to say
good-by to Yamuro. It was Yamuro who had found the flat and haggled
explosively over the terms of the lease. It had been Yamuro, too, who
had gone with Mary, when she carried her mother's jewels from place to
place, offering them for sale. The faithful little attendant knew that
what was salvaged from such bargaining must be the last resort and sole
capital of this shattered family. As the lady with the pale, but lovely,
face looking out from the shadow of her mourning veil went from dealer
to dealer, he followed a step behind her, watchful of eye, guarding her
remnant of treasure against possible mischance.
Now he stood with Paul in the room which the musician would not again
occupy, and Paul's eyes suddenly filled with tears while the son of a
race called stoical turned away and occupied himself with a lump in his
throat.
"Yamuro," began the musician in an unsteady voice, "you aren't a
servant, you are a friend; good-by and God bless you."
The Jap caught the extended palm in his own two hands and bent over it.
He was not weeping and he was not talking, but he stood with his head
lowered until only the wiry black hair was visible, and in his throat
rose guttural and incoherent noises like groans.
"I can't show my appreciation as I'd like," said Paul. "The day for that
is gone, but there are some clothes that I didn't pack. I left them for
you--" Even in an hour which called for defense of every penny, Paul was
still the impractical man whose open heart and affectionate nature
called for expression. "And this--" he put his hand in his pocket and
drew out a watch upon which any pawnbroker would have advanced a goodly
sum--"this was Hamilton's." His voice broke as he held it out. "I think
he would like you to have it. His will left you twenty thousand
dollars--but--well, you know."
Yamuro straightened up. He raised both hands in a gesture of protest and
his words came fast and vehemently.
"No, no! Thanks ver' mutch--no--no! You great artist--you not un'stand
making money. You need. Mother--sister--father all need. No--please!"
He halted; then in a deep embarrassment, went on. "Me got money in bank.
Me not want be impert'nent, but--" He paused, seeking a disguised and
delicate fashion of volunteering aid and looked appealingly into the
other's face for assistance.
Fresh tears welled into Paul's eyes. "I understand you, Yamuro," he
said, laying a hand on the stocky shoulder. "No, Yamuro, you have done
enough--God bless you!" He could not trust himself further and so he
turned abruptly and left the room.
These rooms in the twisting by-ways of picturesque old Greenwich Village
seemed mean and tawdry to their new tenants, but they were very good as
compared with what Mary knew must follow. The pitiful store of money
which her last-stand financiering had raked together would not be
renewed when spent, nor would it last long. It was only that they might
have a temporary refuge in which to think out the future that the girl
had chosen these quarters.
Then very shortly came the day when the house that had been the home of
the elder Burtons also went under the hammer, and an unconquerable
magnetism drew Paul to the spot though he knew the place would be filled
with people who, to him, must seem pillagers. He had nerved himself to
ask a thing for which he had been longing ever since those doors had
closed upon him. In that house was the Pagan temple which his brother
had built for his shrine of dreams and the organ which might have graced
a cathedral. If they would allow him ten minutes there alone--ten
minutes to finger the keys for the last time--at least he meant to ask
it. It was a much changed man who presented himself diffidently at a
house to which the public had been invited by the commissioner's
advertisement. His clothes were already beginning to indicate his
deteriorated condition though, thanks to Mary's care, they were
scrupulously neat. The things to be sold this morning could find
purchasers only among the very rich, and for that precise reason the
occasion had attracted a horde of people who came as they might have
gone to a fire or to a museum. Paul Burton found it easy enough to meet
these eyes. It was when he encountered the gaze of old associates that
he shrunk and trembled.
The sale had not yet begun and the crowds were drifting hither and
thither, bent on preliminary inspection, jostling arms with the men from
the detective agencies assigned to the occasion.
Paul found the person who seemed vested with authority and to him put
his request. The individual looked at this pale young man and recognized
him. There was a pathos in his face that could hardly be denied--and
there was no reason for denying him.
"Certainly, Mr. Burton," he agreed. "I'll instruct the door-man not to
let any one else in--unless you have friends you'd like to take with
you."
Paul shook his head. "I'd rather be alone," he said. But as the two
elbowed their way through the crowd he found himself face to face with a
dark-haired, deep-eyed woman in fashionable and becoming mourning, upon
whose fingers sparkled a number of rings. The musician halted in his
tracks and turned desperately pale. He had heard that Loraine Haswell
had returned from Europe--and he had heard vague rumors which had deeply
shocked him. If they were based on truth it seemed improbable that she
would care to risk meeting any of her old associates. Yet when his eyes
encountered hers he found her laughing gaily, and he realized that,
whatever else had happened to Loraine Haswell, she had lost none of her
beauty.
"Loraine!" he exclaimed, his voice betraying his excitement, and she
responded calmly, but with no emotion, "Good-morning, Mr. Burton." It
was as though they had parted yesterday, but also as though they had
never met, save casually, before that parting; as though their lives had
never touched more intimately than in the brushing contact of
passers-by. To Paul it seemed very cruel and he was about to pass on
when she stopped him.
"Mr. Burton," she suggested, in a cautiously guarded voice, "I wish you
would send back my letters. I'm stopping at the Plaza."
The man was silent for a moment, then he said simply:
"I have already burned them."
She searched his eyes for a moment, and, seeming satisfied of their
truthfulness, smiled. "That will do just as well. Thank you. How silly
we were to write them, weren't we?"
Paul hurried after his guide, who had been deferentially waiting a few
steps distant, but at the entrance of the music-room he halted
again--and this time his cheeks blanched with a greater astonishment.
There, standing within arm's reach, was Marcia Terroll, though her face
was averted and she did not see him.
"What brings you here?" he asked in a low voice, and as she turned to
face him her hands went spasmodically to her breast.
"I didn't know that you would be here," she said faintly, but she did
not tell him that she had come in response to the same instinct which
draws pilgrims to shrines hallowed by association; because this had been
the temple of his art.
"They have promised," Paul told her, "to let me have fifteen minutes in
there undisturbed--to play my organ for the last time." His eyes met
hers and he added in an earnest undertone, "Won't you go with me,
Marcia?"
The woman's lashes glistened with a sudden moisture. "Are you sure you
wouldn't rather be--quite alone? Isn't it rather sacred to you?"
"That is why I want you," he eagerly declared. "It will be something to
remember afterward."
They went in, and for a moment the girl stood there gasping at the
magnificence of this place, of which she had read descriptions, but
which she had never seen. Then her eyes flooded and, with a sense of
revelation, she forgave him every frailty and fault--even the isolated
horror of longing she had been carrying in her heart. So sensitive a
soul as his could not have been expected to stand out Spartan-bold
against the voluptuary blandishments of such surroundings--and such a
life. He looked at her for a long while and once, unseen by her, he put
out his arms, but caught them back again with a swift gesture and shook
his head. Now he knew in all bitterness what Loraine Haswell and his own
cowardice had cost him--and it was too late.
Loraine Haswell and his own cowardice! He had not fully realized it
before, but from that episode when he fled to Hamilton from his lunch
with her had sprung the root of every succeeding chapter of tragedy--and
for her he had lost Marcia! Then he led her to a place of vantage and
went to the keyboard.
Never had Paul Burton played like that before, for as the music swelled
and pealed through the place, his heart was singing its swan song. In a
moment of manhood beyond his moral stature he had drawn back arms that
were hungry for her--and he now knew, too late, that there was no one
else who counted. But the organ was not so repressive, and as she
listened she knew that the tragedy was not hers alone. While his
fingers strayed to the improvising of his yearning and despair the woman
sat spellbound, and finally he swung into that tritest of time-worn
airs, "Home, Sweet Home."
A gasp came into Marcia's throat.
As Paul Burton left his seat and came down to her, his face was drawn
and he said bluntly, "_She_ is here today."
She did not have to ask details or if it was ended. The music had told
her everything. In a sudden gust of feeling and wrath against this woman
who had stood between her and happiness, she wanted to say bitter
things--but she only nodded.
"Now that matters have turned out as they have," the man spoke
deliberately, but tensely, "I sha'n't see you again. Now that I'm a
bankrupt and it's all over, Marcia, I want you to know that I love
you--that I love you without doubt or hesitation. In this world and
whatever other worlds there are, there is only you ... you whom I lost
because the coward _must_ lose every good thing life holds." He broke
off and asked very humbly, "Just in farewell--may I kiss you--once
more?"
With a torrent of sobs she came into his arms. "From the first," she
declared, "I've been just yours. I've never thought of myself except as
yours. Take me! Poverty doesn't frighten me. I've known it too
long--it's almost like an old friend. Let's fight our way back
together."
There are moments which turn mice into lions and make heroes of the
craven. Unfortunately they are apt to be ephemeral. Paul Burton shook
his head as he looked into her eyes, and answered with an unwonted
resolution.
"No," he said bitterly, "not now. Now I'm a bum."
"You needn't be. You are young. You have genius. We can win out yet--and
win out big--and win out together."
His lips twisted in a pallid smile of self-derision.
"At all events for once I know myself. If I ever become a man, God knows
I'll come to you. But I haven't done it yet. I mustn't know where you
are, dear. I'm strong enough--just now, but in some dark, weak moment
I'll come hurrying to you, if I can find you--before I've proved
myself."
"I'm going out--on the road--this afternoon," she spoke slowly. "I'm
going to wait, and for the first time, I'm really hoping."
* * * * *
In the weeks that followed Paul made a resolute attempt to keep his
promise. For a while he played the piano in a restaurant, but his frail
constitution had been shattered by these late months and sickness
intervened. Mary, too, with her thoughts painfully bent upon the rapid
shrinkage of the little bank account, endlessly sought employment.
Because she was beautiful, and because even through these dark and
hopeless days she had brought with her a regal poise of her lovely head,
everyone to whom she applied gave audience--and little else.
In appraising her business assets, she itemized her knowledge of several
languages, her excellent education and her willingness to work. She was
countered by the reminders that she did not know stenography, could not
use a typewriter and had no prior experience. Many business men listened
and took her address, but as the days wore on she discovered that the
only ones who ever referred again to those memoranda were such as
remembered her beauty, and insisted on discussing the possibilities in
cafés over a supper party for two.
One item of regularity Mary found time for, between her exhausting
journeys of tracking down advertisements. She went often to the cemetery
where Jefferson Edwardes slept, and her single extravagance was the
purchase of a few inexpensive flowers to carry with her.
On one of these occasions she happened upon a burial in a lot near that
she had just visited. The deceased had been a person of sufficient
consequence to warrant newspaper attention, and Mary, in passing the
spot from which the carriages were starting away, halted reverently. As
she went on again, someone overtook her and touched her arm. Turning her
head she recognized Smitherton. He had been the most courteous and
considerate of the newspaper men with whom her family's late affairs had
compelled her to have repeated meetings.
The reporter looked her straightforwardly in the eyes and inquired
bluntly, "You were in the office yesterday, looking for employment,
weren't you?"
"Yes," she said. "They offered me a position--if I would write a
'heart-interest' story of my life--signing it and concealing nothing."
The young man nodded. "I know and I saw your eyes as you refused. I'm
not talking as a reporter now, but as a human being. You won't make any
mistake by trusting me, Miss Burton. Is it so bad as all that with you?
Hunting a job?"
The girl had by this time attained a certain reliance in her own
abilities of human appraisement. She believed what young Smitherton said
and she answered with equal frankness.
"It is so bad that we face sheer starvation, that's all."
After a keen glance at her he observed quietly: "At this moment you are
not overfed."
"N--no." A faint amusement lighted her pupils as she answered, "I'm
not--well, exactly gorged."
"Now I want to talk to you, and you needn't hesitate about telling me
things." There was a frank boyishness about this young man, and his
manner reminded her of Edwardes. She thought his eyes had something of
that same straight fearlessness and honesty. "You are going with me from
here to a little restaurant I know, near by, and you are going to hear
me out. I know that you're going through sheer hell, and I know a game
scrapper when I meet one whether it be a man or woman. This business
teaches a fellow several things."
In the end she went.