_The Beginning of the End_
Before the bitter taste of the syrup faded from his tongue, Donaldson's
thoughts shifted from the Ultimate to the Now. He was too good a
sportsman to question his judgment by worry when once committed to an
enterprise. The world now lay before him as he had wished it--an
enchanted land in which he could move with as great freedom as a prince
in the magical kingdoms of Arabia. The Present became sharpened to
poignancy. Even as he stood there musing over the marvel of the new
world into which he had leaped--the old thin world of years condensed
into one thick week--he realized that this very wondering had cost him
five precious minutes. A dozen such periods made an hour, two dozen
hours a day--one seventh of his living space. This thought so whetted
his interest that he could have sat on here indefinitely, thrilled to
the marrow by the mere pageant of life as it passed before his eyes on
the street below. The slightest incident was now dramatic; the hurry
of men and women on their way up-town and down-town, the swift movement
of vehicles, the fluttering of birds in the sunshine, the unceasing,
eager flux of life. It was through the eyes of youth he was
looking--for is youth anything more than the ability to live the
irresponsible days as they come? Youth is Omar without his philosophy.
He grew dizzy. Life taken so was too powerful a stimulant. He must
brace himself.
He settled into one of the big chairs, closing his eyes to the wonders
about him, and tried to think more soberly. He felt as though he must
dull his quickened senses in some way. His unsheathed nerves quivered
back from so direct a contact with life.
"Quiet, old man, quiet," he cautioned himself. "There 's a lot of
things you wish to do in these next few days. So you must sober
down--you must get a grip on yourself."
He rose to his feet determinedly. He must work out of such moods as
this. One of the first things for him to do was to buy a decent
personal outfit. As soon as he gave his mind a definite object upon
which to work, his thoughts instantly cleared. It was just some such
matter-of-fact task as this which he needed.
He went down-stairs, and stepping into a taxicab, was whisked to one of
the large retail stores. He had no time to squander upon a tailor, but
he was successful in securing a good fit in ready-made clothing. He
bought several street suits, evening clothes, overcoats and hats, much
silk underwear--a luxury he had always promised himself in that ghost
future--and an extravagant supply of cravats, gloves, socks, and odds
and ends. He omitted nothing necessary to make him feel a well-dressed
man so far as he could find it ready made. There was nothing conceited
about Donaldson, nothing of the fop, but he enjoyed both the feeling
and the appearance of rich garments. He hired a messenger boy who
announced his name as Bobby and who followed along at his heels,
collecting the bundles and carrying them out to the waiting cab.
He was a fresh cheeked youngster with a quick interest in things. He
could n't make up his mind whether Donaldson was really an Indian
prince or whether as a result of drinking he merely felt like one. As
time passed and he saw that the man was neither an oriental nor drunk,
his imagination then wavered between accepting him as an English duke
or a member of the Vanderbilt family.
Donaldson perceived the keen interest the boy was taking in his
purchases, saw the wonder in his eyes grow, based upon a faith that
still accepted Aladdin as an ever-present possibility, and realized
that Bobby was getting almost as much fun out of this game as he
himself. He began to humor him further by consulting his taste in the
matter of ties and waistcoats, though he found that the latter's
sporting instincts led him to colors too pronounced to harmonize with
his own ideas. Still he appreciated the fact that Bobby was indulging
in almost as many thrills as though he were actually holding the purse.
This became especially true when Donaldson allowed the boy to purchase
for himself such articles as struck his fancy. As a matter of fact
there was not so much difference in the present point of view of the
man and the boy; it was to them both a fairy episode.
They lounged from one store to another, enjoying the lights, the
colors, the beautiful cloths, choosing where they would with all the
abandon of those with genii to serve them. Donaldson was indulging
something more fundamental than his enjoyment of the things themselves;
this was his first taste, as well as Bobby's, of gratifying desires
without worry of the reckoning. His wishes were now stripped to bare
wants. He was free of the skeleton hand of the Future which had so
long held him prisoner--which had frightened him into depriving himself
of all life's garnishings until his condition had been reduced to one
of monastic simplicity without the monk's redeeming inspiration. He
was no longer mocked by the thin cry of "Wait!"
He moved about this gay store world with a sense of kingly superiority.
He listened indulgently to the idle chatter of the shop girls, the
rattle of the cash boxes, and smiled at the seriousness with which this
business of selling was pressed. What a tremendous ado they made of
living, with year after year, month after month, day after day, looming
endlessly before them! Not an act which they performed, even to the
tying up of a bundle, ended in itself, but was one of an endless vista
of acts. The burden of the Future was upon them. They drooped, poor
bloodless things, beneath the weight of the relentless days before
them. And so this faded present was all their future, too. They saw
nothing of the joyous world which spun around him bright as a new coin.
They were dead, because of the weary days to come, to the magical
brilliancy of the big arc-lights, to the humor and action of the crowd,
to the quick shifts of colors; they were stupefied by this great flux
of life which swept them on day after day to another day. Often
unexpressed, this, but felt dumbly below the chatter and dry laughter.
They waited, waited, circling about in a gray maelstrom until the grave
sucked them in. He himself had been in the clutch of it. But that was
yesterday.
To-day he saw all that lay unseen before their dulled vision--all the
show with its million actors. He saw for example the pathos in the
patient eyes of the old lady yonder--still waiting at eighty; he caught
the flash of scarlet ribbon beyond, the silent message of the black one
(another long waiting); the muffled laugh and the muffled oath; the
careless eyes that tossed the coin to the counter, the sharp eyes that
followed it, the dead ones that picked it up and threw it into the
nickeled cash box which flew with it to its golden nest; the tread, the
tread, the tread of a thousand feet, the beat, beat, beat of a thousand
hearts. All these things he saw and heard and felt.
When he had fully replenished his wardrobe he still had several hours
left to him. He remembered a unique book store just off Fifth Avenue
at West Thirty-ninth Street which he had frequently passed, often
lingering in front of the windows to admire quaint English prints. On
cloudy days especially he had often made it a point to walk up there
and breathe in the spirit of sunshine that he found in the green grass
of the old hunting scenes and in the scarlet coats of the
hearty-cheeked men riding to hounds upon their lean horses.
"Come on," he called enthusiastically to Bobby. "We 've just begun."
"Gee!" gasped Bobby. "H'aint you spent it all? Have yer gut more
left?"
"Lots. As much as I can spend until I die."
The boy's face grew eager.
"Say," he asked confidentially. "Where 'd yer git it?"
"Earned it,--the most of it. Sweat for it and starved for it and
suffered for it! And I earned with it the right to spend it, the
_right_, I tell you!"
Bobby shrank back a little before such fierceness. The boy felt a
faint suspicion of what had not before occurred to him: that the man
was crazy. But the next second the gentle smile returned to soften the
tense mouth, and the boy's fear vanished. No one could fear Donaldson
when he smiled.
In front of the modest shop with its quaint sign swinging above the
door, they paused. Donaldson found it difficult to believe that he now
had the right to enter. To him this store had never been anything else
but a part of the scenery of life, a part of the setting of some
foreign world at which he gazed like a boy from the upper galleries of
a theatre. He had rebelled at this, looking with some hostility at the
well groomed men and women who accepted it with such assurance that it
was for them alone, but now he realized the pettiness of that position.
With a few unmortgaged dollars in his pocket, he was instantly one of
them. He could stride in and use the quiet luxury of the place as his
own.
For half an hour then, he browsed about the sun-lit shop, selecting
here and there bits with which to brighten his room during the week.
He picked out an engraving or two, several English prints which seemed
to welcome him like old friends, and a marine in water color because of
the golden blue in it. His bill exceeded that of the department
stores, and Bobby confidently delivered himself of the opinion that he
had been soaked, "good and plenty."
From here Donaldson began an extravagant course down Fifth Avenue that
left the boy, who watched him closely every time he paid his bill,
convinced that he had on his hands nothing short of an Arabian Prince
such as his sister had told him of when he had thought her fooling.
They wandered from book store to art store, to Tiffany's, to an antique
shop back to another book store and then to where in his lean days he
had seen a bit of Dresden that brought comfort to him through its
dainty beauty. He took for his own now all the old familiar friends
who had done what they could through store windows to brighten those
days. They should be a part of him; share his week with him. There
was that old hammered copper tray which in the sun glowed like a
cooling ember; there was that hand-illumined volume of Keats which he
had so long craved; there was that vase of Cloisonne, that quaint piece
of ivory browned with age, that old pewter mug reflecting the burden of
its years in its sober surface. All these things he had long ago known
as his own, and now he came to claim them.
"Mine, all mine!" he exclaimed to the boy. "And was n't it decent of
them to wait for me?"
"They was waitin' for you all right," agreed Bobby. "They seen you
comin'. They waits fer the easy marks."
"Yes," returned Donaldson, ignoring the latter's sarcasm. "They saw me
coming when yet I was a great way off. They knew me, so they waited.
I told them all to wait and some day I would come to them."
"D' yuh mean that ivory monkey waited?"
"For nearly a year."
Bobby did not reply, but his respect for Donaldson fell several degrees.
"There is one thing more, boy," exclaimed Donaldson; "I need flowers."
He ordered sent to his room two dozen rich lipped roses, a half dozen
potted plants, and a small conservatory of ferns. Then he started back
to the hotel.
It took the boy several trips to carry the bundles upstairs even when
they were piled to his eyes. When he finished, Donaldson held out his
hand.
"I 've had a mighty pleasant afternoon with you," he said. "And I hope
we 'll meet again. What's your number?"
"Thirty-four fifty-seven."
"Well, thirty-four fifty-seven, give us your hand in case we lose one
another for good."
The boy gingerly extended his grimy paw. When he removed it, he found
himself clutching a ten-dollar bill.
Donaldson remained in his room only long enough to arrange his
treasures and slip into his evening clothes. There was too much
outside to be enjoyed for him to appreciate yet the luxury of his
indoor surroundings. He had a passion for people, for crowds of
people. He had thought at first that he might attend the theatre, but
he realized now that the stage puppets were but faint reflections of
the stirring drama all about him--the playwright's plot less gripping
than that in which he himself was the central figure. To pass through
those doors would be more like stepping out of a theatre into the
leaden reality of life as he had seen it before yesterday.
For an hour or more he rubbed shoulders with the press that was on its
way to find relief from their own lives in the mimic lives of others
behind the footlights. To him in the Now it was comedy enough to watch
them as they filed in; it would have been an anticlimax to have gone
further. He craved good music, but a search of the papers did not
reveal any concert of note, so he sought one of the popular
restaurants, and, choosing a table in a corner, devoted himself to the
ordering of his dinner. He was hungry and took a childish delight in
selecting without first studying the price list.
When he had concluded, he took a more careful survey of the room. His
wandering gaze was checked by the profile of the woman whose eyes had
haunted him ever since he had first seen them in Barstow's laboratory.
It was Miss Arsdale, and opposite her sat a tall, thin-visaged young
man. As the latter turned and presented a full face view, Donaldson
was held by the peculiarity of his expression. His hot, beadlike eyes
burned from a white sensitive face that was almost emaciated; his thin
lips were set as though in grim resolution; while even his brown hair
refused to lend repose to the face, but, sticking out in cowlicks,
added to the whole effect of nervousness still further exaggerated by
the restless white hands. Over all, like a black veil, was an
expression as of one haunted by a great fear. The man both repelled
and interested Donaldson. There was a shiftiness about the eyes that
excited suspicion, and yet there was in them a silent plea that asked
for sympathy. Save for the eyes, the face had a certain poetic beauty
due to its fine modeling and its savage intensity. The longer
Donaldson studied it, the more sympathy he had for it. He had the
feeling that the fellow had gone through some such crisis as his own.
But it was difficult to define the girl's relationship to him. There
was not the slightest trace of family resemblance between them, and yet
the man was hardly of a type that she would choose for so intimate a
friend as her presence here with him suggested. She did not talk much,
but seemed rather to be on the alert to protect him as from some unseen
danger which appeared to hang over him. She followed his eyes wherever
they wandered, and clearly took but little pleasure in being here.
Donaldson found the oddly matched couple absorbing his interest not
only in the other guests but also in his dinner. He finished in almost
the undue haste with which ordinarily he devoured his daily lunch and
with scarcely more appreciation of the superior quality of these richer
dishes. With his black coffee he rolled a cigarette. The familiar old
tobacco brought him back to himself again so that for a few minutes he
was able to give himself up to the swirling strains of the Hungarian
orchestra. But even through the delicious intoxication of the waltz,
the personality of this girl asserted itself to him. He got the
impression now that she herself was in some danger. He wished that he
had asked Barstow more about her. She had not noticed him as yet. He
had watched closely to see if she turned. As he studied her it seemed
certain that she was by no means enjoying herself in her present
company. If given half an opportunity he would go over and speak to
her.
[Illustration: _As he studied her it seemed certain that she was by no
means enjoying herself in her present company_]
He wished to see her eyes again. He remembered them distinctly. They
were not black--not gray, but black with the faintest trace of silver,
like starlight on a deep pool. The whites were very clear and blue
tinted. Just then she raised her head and looked at him as though she
had been called. At that moment the orchestra swept their strings in a
minor and swirled off in a mystic dance like that of storm ghosts in
the tree-tops. It caught him up with the girl and for a measure or so
bore them along like leaves, in a new comradeship. To them the light
laughter was hushed; to them the heavy smoke clouds vanished; to them
the Babel of other personalities was no more. They two had been lifted
out of this and carried hand in hand to some distant gypsy region. She
was the first to shake herself free. She started, nodded pleasantly to
him, and turned back to her companion, with a little shiver.
That was all, but it left Donaldson strangely moved. He paid his check
at once and prepared to leave, hoping that in passing her table he
might find his opportunity to stop a moment. But they too rose as he
was getting into his coat and passed out ahead, the young man evidently
trying to hurry her.
On the sidewalk Donaldson found them waiting at the curb for a big
automobile which swooped out of the dark to meet them. Making a
pretext of stopping to roll a cigarette, he paused. The girl stepped
into the machine, but her companion instead of following at once gave
an order to the chauffeur. The latter left his seat and the girl
expostulated. The chauffeur apparently hesitated, but, the younger man
insisting, he hurried past Donaldson into the café. Unconsciously
Donaldson moved nearer. He felt a foreboding of danger and a curious
sense of responsibility. He caught a glimpse of the white face of the
girl leaning forward towards her companion--heard her cry as the fellow
stepped into the chauffeur's seat--and, yielding to some impulse,
jumped to the running-board just as the man threw on the power.
The machine leaped forward with a shock that nearly tossed him off. To
save himself he sprang to the empty seat beside the girl. The man at
the wheel had apparently not noticed him; he had plenty to occupy his
mind to control the machine which was tearing along at the rate of
fifty miles an hour.
The girl leaned forward and gripped Donaldson's arm.
"You must stop him," she said. "He has lost himself again! Do you
understand? You must stop him!"