_A Long Night_
Donaldson retired to his room, and without undressing threw up his
window and stared at the hedge and the dark that lay beyond. Then he
tried to work out some solution to the problem which confronted him.
There was no use for him to try to blind himself to the fact that he
loved this girl--that was but to shirk the question. She stood out as
the supreme passion of his life and forced upon him a future that had a
meaning beyond anything of which he had ever dreamed. She quickened in
him new hopes, new aspirations, new ambitions. She made him see the
triviality of all that he had most hoped to enjoy during this week; she
opened his eyes to all that he had tried to make Arsdale see. With her
by his side every day would be like that first afternoon; every hour
thrilling with opportunities. The barren future which he had so
feared, even though it offered no greater opportunities than had always
lain before him, would tingle with possibilities. Wait? He could wait
an eternity with her by his side and every waiting minute would be a
golden minute. He could go back to that little office now and find a
thousand things to do. He could hew out a career that would honor her.
He saw numberless chances for reform work into which he could throw
himself, heart and soul, while waiting. But there would be no waiting;
life would begin from the first hour. What more did he need than her?
He shuddered back from his luxurious room at the hotel as from
something cheap.
A loaf of bread without even so much as a jug of wine would be paradise
enow. Just the opportunity to live and breathe and have his being in
this big pregnant universe was all he craved. He needed nothing else.
So the universe would be his.
He dared not try to read her thoughts. He had no right to do this. It
did n't matter. Her love was not essential. If he deserved it, that
would come. It was enough that she had given him back his dreams, that
she had taken him back to those fragrant days when his uncrusted soul
had known without knowing. It was enough that the sweetness of her had
become an inseparable part of him for evermore. She was his now, even
though he should never again lay eyes upon her. The only relief he had
was in the thought that she had accomplished this without committing
herself. At least he did not have the burden of her tender love upon
his soul further to complicate matters.
So much he admitted frankly; so much was fact. The problem which now
confronted him was how he could best escape from involving her at all
in the inevitable climax--how he could make his escape without
destroying in her the ideals with which she had surrounded him and
which she had a right to keep. He owed this to her, to Arsdale, and to
the world of men.
A dozen times he was upon the point of pushing out into the dark. If
he had followed his own impulse he would have taken some broad road and
footed it hour after hour, through the night, through the next day,
through the next night, and so till the end overtook him, striking him
down in his tracks. He would get as far away as possible, keeping out
under the broad expanse of the sky above. He could find rest only by
taking a course straight on over the hills, turning aside for nothing,
tearing a path through the tangle.
But he still had his work to do. He must lend his strength to the boy
so long as any strength was left. He must pound into him again and
again the realization of life which he himself had been tempted to
shirk. He must make him see,--must make him know. In recalling that
scene in the room by the window, in recalling his own words to Arsdale,
he felt strangely enough the force of his own thoughts entering into
himself with new life. He listened as it were to himself. Even for
him there were the Others. Down to the last arrow-sped minute there
would still be the Others. Who knew what remained for him to
do--charged with what influence might be even the manner in which he
drew his last breath? If he stood up to it sturdily, if he faced death
with his head high, his shoulders back, even though he might be
cornered in his room like a rat in its hole, so the message might be
wired silently into the heart of some poor devil struggling hard
against his death throes and lend him courage.
At the end of two hours he undressed and tumbled upon the bed.
His room was next to Arsdale's room and during the night the latter
came in.
"I 've had bad dreams about you," the boy exclaimed. "Is anything the
matter?"
"I 'm not sleeping very well," Donaldson answered.
"You haven't a fever or anything?"
"No. Just restless."
"I have n't slept very well myself. I 've been doing so much thinking.
That keeps a fellow awake."
"Yes--thinking does. You 'd better let your brain close up shop and
get some rest."
"I can't. I 've been chewing over what you said, and the more I think
of it, the more I see that you have the right idea. The secret of
keeping happy is to fight for others. It's the only thing that will
make a man put up a good fight, isn't it?"
"The only thing," answered Donaldson.
"I don't understand why I did n't realize that before--with Elaine
here. You 'd think she would make a man realize that."
Donaldson did not answer.
"I think one reason is," continued the boy, "that until now, until
lately, she's been so nervy herself that she did n't seem to need any
one. She 's been stronger than I. But last night she looked like a
little girl. And now, I'd like to die fighting for her."
Donaldson found the boy's hand.
"Never lose that spirit," he said earnestly. "But remember, she 's
worth more than dying for, she 's worth living for."
"That's so. You put things right every time. She is worth living for.
You are n't much good to people after you 're dead, are you?"
"Not as far as we know."
The boy hesitated a moment, a bit confused, and then blurted out,
"I 'm going to take up some sort of work. Perhaps you can help me get
after something. We have loads of money, you know. I don't think much
of giving it out as cash,--the charity idea. I 've a hunch that I 'd
like to study law and then give my services free to the poor devils who
need a man to look after their interests. They are darned small
interests to men who are only after their fee, but they are big to the
poor devils themselves. And generally they get done. Do you think I
have it in me to study law?"
"You have it in you to study law with that idea back of you. You 'd
make a great lawyer with that idea."
"Do you think so?" asked the boy eagerly.
"I know it."
"Then perhaps--perhaps--say, would you be willing to take me in with
you?"
Donaldson moved uneasily.
"It sounds sort of kiddish, but I know that I 'd do better alongside of
you. I 'd help you around the office. I 'd feel better, just to see
you. Anyway, would you be willing to try me for a while until I sort
of get my bearings?"
"I like the idea," answered Donaldson. "Let 's talk it over later.
You see there's a chance that I may give up law."
"Give it up?"
"I may have to leave this part of the country--for good."
"Why, man," burst out Arsdale, "you wouldn't leave Elaine?"
The silence grew ominous. The fighting spirit rose in Arsdale at the
suggestion.
"You would n't leave Elaine?" he demanded again, turning towards the
form on the bed which looked strangely huddled up.
"I must leave her with you," answered Donaldson unsteadily. The boy
scarcely recognized the voice, but it roused him to a danger which he
felt without understanding.
"Why, man dear," he exclaimed, "what would I count to Elaine with you
gone? Don't you know? Have n't you seen?"
They were the identical words Donaldson had used in trying to open
Arsdale's eyes to another great truth. And Donaldson knew that if they
cut half as deep into the boy as they now cut into him they had left
their mark. He found no answer. He listened with his breath coming as
heavily as the boy's breath had come when they had stood before the
open window.
Arsdale faltered for words.
"Why--why Elaine loves you!" he blurted out.
"Don't!"
So, too, the boy had exclaimed.
"Don't you know? I thought you knew everything, Donaldson! I don't
see how you help seeing that. But I suppose it's because you 're so
thoughtful of others that you can't see your own joys. But it's true,
Donaldson. I don't suppose I ought to tell you about it, but man, man,
she loves you! Give me your hand, Donaldson."
He found it in the dark, hot and dry.
"I want to tell you how glad I am. I suppose I must be a sort of
father to her now, and I tell you that I would n't give her to another
man in the world but you. You 're the only one worthy of her."
He pressed the big hand.
"You 're the one man who can make her happy," he ran on. "You can give
her some of the things she 's been cheated out of. Why, when I was
talking to her last night, her face looked like an angel's as I spoke
of you. It is you who makes it easier for her to forget all the
past--even--even the blow. I knew what it was when I came home--that
you 'd done even that for me--though she couldn't see it. You 've
blotted out of her mind every dark day in her life!"
"That is something, is n't it?" asked Donaldson almost pleadingly.
"Something? Something? It's everything. Don't you see now that you
can't go away?"
"I see," he answered.
"Well, then, give me your hand again. Sort of trembly, eh? But I 'll
bet you sleep better the rest of the night. And don't you on your life
let her know I told you. She 's proud as the devil. But she would
have done the same for me. They say love is blind," he laughed
excitedly, "but, Holy Smoke, this is the worst case of it I ever saw!"
Donaldson lay passive.
"Now," concluded Arsdale, "I 'll go back and see if I can sleep. Good
night."
Donaldson again lay flat on his back after Arsdale had gone. So he
lay, not sleeping, merely enduring, until, almost imperceptibly at
first, the dark about him began to dissolve. Then he rose, partly
dressed, and sitting by the open window watched the East as the dawn
stole in upon the sleeping city. It came to the attack upon the grim
alleys, the shadows around buildings, the stealthy figures, like a
royal host. A few gray outriders reconnoitred over the horizon line
and sent scurrying to their hovels those who looked up at them from
shifty eyes. Then came a vanguard in brighter colors with crimson
penants who attacked the fields and broad thoroughfares; then the
King's Own in scarlet jackets and wide sweeping banners, bronze tinted,
who charged the smaller streets and factory roofs, and finally the
brave array of all the dazzling host itself, who hurled their golden,
sun-tipped lances into every nook and cranny, awaking to life all save
those whose souls were dark within.
In watching it Donaldson found the first relief in the long night. His
own mind cleared with the dawn. The day broke so clean and fresh, so
bathed in morning dew, that once again his mind, grown perhaps less
active, clung in some last spasm to the present as when he had sat with
Elaine at breakfast, part of the little Dutch picture. Without
reasoning into the to-morrow, he felt as though this day belonged to
him. As the sun rose higher and stronger, enveloping the world in its
catholic rays, the night seemed only an evil dream. He was both
stronger and weaker. He was swept on, unresisting, by the high flood
of the new day. This world now before his eyes acknowledged nothing of
his agony but came mother-like to ease his fretting. She would have
nothing of the heavy tossings inspired by her sinister sister, the
Night. She was all for clean glad spirits, all for new hopes. So he
who had first frowned at it, who had then watched passively, now rose
to its call.
He was entitled to this day, sang the tempter sun,--one big day out of
all his life. The crisis would be no more acute upon the morrow and he
might be stronger to meet it. This day was his and hers, and even the
boy's. To accept it would be to shirk nothing; it would be only to
postpone--to weave into the sombre grave vestments be was making for
himself one golden thread. Arsdale's talk had removed the last vestige
of hope. The worst had happened. Surely one gay interlude could add
no burden. A day was always a day, and joys once lived could never be
lost. Always in her life and in his this would remain, and since he
had shouldered the other days as they had come to him, it seemed no
more than right that he should take this. Not to do so would be but
sorry self-imposed martyrdom.
Arsdale came in, still in his bathrobe, with brisk step and his face
a-beaming.
"Well," he demanded, "how do you feel now?"
"Better," answered Donaldson, unhesitatingly.
"Better! You ought to feel great! Look at the sun out there! Smell
that air! Have you had your tub?"
"Not yet," smiled Donaldson.
Arsdale led the way to the shower, and a few minutes later Donaldson
felt his skin tingle to new life beneath the cold spray.