"No sweetheart yet? No?--You needn't answer--we all have sweethearts at
your age--at mine it is all over. But why did you leave her? It is so
hard to do that. Ah, yes, I see--to make your bread. And how do you do
it?"
"I write."
He lowered his brows and looked at me under his lids.
"What sort of writing? Books? What is called a novel?"
"No--not yet. I work on special articles for the newspapers, and now
and then I get a short story or an essay into one of the magazines."
He was replacing the pictures as I talked, his back to me. He turned
suddenly and again sought my eye.
"Don't waste your time on essays or statistics. You will not succeed as
a machine. You have imagination, which is a real gift. You also dream,
which is another way of saying that you can invent. If you can add
construction to your invention, you will come quite close to what they
call genius. I saw all this in your face to-night; that is why I wanted
to talk to you. So many young men go astray for want of a word dropped
into their minds at the right time. As for me, all I know is
statistics, and so I will never be a genius." And a light laugh broke
from his lips. "Worse luck, too. I must exchange them for money. Look
at this--I have been all day correcting the proofs."
With this he walked to his table--he had not yet taken a seat, although
a chair was next to my own--and laid in my lap a roll of galley-proofs.
"It is the new encyclopaedia. I do the biographies, you
see--principally of men and the different towns and countries. I have
got down now to the R's--Richelieu--Rochambeau--" his fingers were now
tracing the lines. "Here is Romulus, and here is Russia--I gave that
half a column, and--dry work, isn't it? But I like it, for I can write
here by my fire if I please, and all my other time is my own. You see
they are signed 'Norvic Bing.' I insisted on that. These publishers are
selfish sometimes, and want to efface a writer's personality, but I
would not permit it, and so finally they gave in. But no more of
that--one must eat, and to eat one must work, so why quarrel with the
spade or the ground? See that you raise good crops--that is the best of
all."
Then he branched off into a description of a ball he had attended some
years before at the Tuileries--of the splendor of the interior; the
rich costumes of the women; the blaze of decorations worn by the men;
the graciousness of the Empress and the charm of her beauty--then of a
visit he had made to the Exile a few months after he had reached
Chiselhurst. Throwing up his hands he said: "A feeble old man with
hollow eyes and a cracked voice. Oh, such a pity! For he was
royal--although all Europe laughed."
When the time came for me to go--it was near midnight, to my
astonishment--he followed me to the door, bidding me good-night with
both hands over mine, saying I should come again when he was at
leisure, as he had been that night--which I promised to do, adding my
thanks for what I declared was the most delightful evening I had ever
spent in my life.
And it had been--and with it there had oozed out of my mind every drop
of my former suspicion. There was another side that he was hiding from
us, but it was the side of tenderness for his children--for those he
loved and from whom he was parted. I had boasted to myself of my
intuition and had looked, as I supposed, deep into his heart, and all I
found were three little faces. With this came a certain feeling of
shame that I had been stupid enough to allow my imagination to run away
with my judgment. Hereafter I would have more sense.
All that winter Bing was the life of the house. The days on which his
seat was empty--off getting statistics for the encyclopaedia, I
explained to my fellow-boarders, I being looked upon now as having
special information owing to my supposed intimacy, although I had never
entered his room since that night--on these days, I say, the table
relapsed into its old-time dullness.
One night I found his card on my pin-cushion. I always locked my door
myself when I left my room--had done so that night, I thought, but I
must have forgotten it. Under his name was written: "Say good-by to the
others."
I concluded, of course, that it was but for a few days and that he
would return as usual, and hold out his two big generous hands to each
one down the table, leaving a warmth behind him which they had not
known since he last pressed their palms--and so on down until he
reached Miss Buffum and the school-teacher, who would both rise in
their seats to welcome him.
With the passing of the first week the good lady became uneasy; the
board, as usual, had been paid in advance, but it was the man she
missed. No one else could add the drop of oil to the machinery of the
house, nor would it run smoothly without him.
At the end of the second week she rapped at my door and with trembling
steps led me to Bing's room. She had opened it with her own pass-key--a
liberty she never allowed any one to take except herself, and never
then unless some emergency arose. It was empty of everything that
belonged to him--had been for days. The room had been set in order and
the bed had been made up by the maid the day he left and had not been
slept in since. Trunks, books, manuscripts, photographs--all were
gone--not a vestige of anything belonging to him was visible.
I stooped down and examined the grate. On the top of the dead coals lay
a little heap of ashes--all that was left of a package of letters.