OLD PHOTOGRAPHS
In the days that followed, John Saxton knew again the heartache and
loneliness which he had known before Warry Raridan came into his life.
He had lost the first real friend he had ever had, and his days were
once more empty of light and cheer. His work still engrossed him, but it
failed to bring him the happiness which he had found in it when he and
Warry discussed its perplexities together. His memory sought its old
ruts again; the hardship and failure of his years in Wyoming were like
fresh wounds. He talked to no one except Bishop Delafield, who had
reasoned him out of his self-indictment for Warry's death. He did not
know that his own part in the recovery of Grant Porter, as Bishop
Delafield described it, was touched with a fine and generous courage,
and he would have resented it if he had known.
Warry was constantly in his thoughts; but he thought much of Evelyn too;
through all the years to come, he told himself, he would remember them
and they would be his ideals. Echoes of the gossip which connected
Warry's name and Evelyn's reached him, and he felt no shock that such
surmises should be afloat. Warry and he had understood each other; they
had talked of Evelyn frequently; Warry had come to him often with the
confidences of a despairing lover, and John had encouraged and consoled
him. He predicted his ultimate success; it had always seemed to him an
inevitable thing that Warry and Evelyn should marry.
Three weeks passed before he saw her, and then he went to her with an
excuse for his visit in his mind and heart. Warry had left a will in
which the bulk of his property--and it was a respectable fortune--was
given for the endowment of a hospital for children. Saxton was named as
executor and as a trustee of the fund thus set apart. Warry had never
mentioned the matter to any one; he had probably never thought of it
very seriously, and John wished to talk to Evelyn about it.
It seemed strange that the Porter drawing-room was the same, when
everything else had changed; he had not been there since the afternoon
when he walked home with Evelyn through the cold. He despised himself
for that now; it was an act of disloyalty to Warry; but he would now be
more loyal to the dead than he had been to the living.
As they talked together he saw no change in her; and he felt himself
wondering what manner of change it was that he had expected to find. He
had heard of people who aged suddenly with grief, but Evelyn was the
same, save for a greater composure, a more subdued note of manner and
voice. She bent forward in her deep interest in what he told her of
Warry's bequest. He wished her help, and asked for it as if it were her
right to give it. Surely no one had a better claim than she, he thought.
"It is so like Warry," she said. "It will be a beautiful memorial, and
there is enough to do it very handsomely."
"He liked things to be done well," said John. He marveled that she could
speak of it so quietly. Failure and grief possessed his eyes, and Evelyn
was conscious of a deepening of the pathos she had always seen and felt
in him, as he sat talking of his dead friend. She pitied him, and was
obedient to his evident wish to talk of Warry.
John spoke of Warry's last photographs, and Evelyn went and brought a
number which he had never seen. Several of them dated back to Warry's
boyhood. They were odd and interesting--boyish pictures which the
spectacles made appear preternaturally old. One of these, that John
liked particularly, Evelyn asked him to take, and his face lighted with
pleasure when she made it plain that she wished him to have it. She told
of some of Warry's pranks in their childhood, and they laughed over them
with guarded mirth.
"It was wonderful that so many kinds of people were fond of Warry," said
Evelyn. "He never tried to please, and yet no man in town ever had so
many friends."
"It's like genius, I suppose," said John. "It's something in people that
wins admiration. No one can define it or explain it. I think, though,"
he added in a lower tone, "I know how it was in my own case. I had
always wanted a friend like him to take me out of myself and help me;
but a man like Warry had never come my way before; and if he had he
would probably have been in a hurry."
He laughed and then was very grave. "But Warry always had time for me."
At his last words he looked up at her and saw tears shining in her eyes.
"Oh, forgive me--forgive me!" he cried. "It must--I know it must hurt
you to talk of him. But I couldn't help it. I thought you must
understand what he meant to me. Dear old Warry!"
He held in his hand the little card photograph she had given him, and he
rose and thrust it into his pocket.
"He was a charming, gentle spirit," said Evelyn. "It will mean a great
deal to us that we knew him. You meant a great deal to him, Mr. Saxton.
You helped him. It was--" She halted, confused, and had evidently
intended to say more. The color suddenly mounted to her face. She did
not offer him her hand which he had stepped forward to take, and he
dropped his own, which he had half extended.
"Good night." Her eyes followed him to the hall.
On his way home--he still lived at the club--John reviewed, sentence by
sentence, his talk with Evelyn. He had not expected her to speak so
frankly of Warry; but, he told himself, it was like her. He touched the
photograph she had given him, and held it up as he passed under an arc
lamp to be sure of it. He was surprised that she had given it to him; he
did not think a girl would give away a rare picture of a dead lover,
which must have a peculiar sacredness for her. Then he was angry with
himself for a thought that criticised her. She had given it to him
because he was Warry's friend!
When he reached his room he put the photograph of Warry on his table and
took another similar card from a drawer. It was the little picture of
Evelyn which he had often seen on Warry's dressing-table. It showed her
standing by a tall chair; her hair hung in long braids. It was very
girlish and quaint; but it was unmistakably Evelyn.
Warry in his will had directed that John should have such of his
personal effects as he might choose; the remainder he was to destroy or
sell. John chose a few of the books that Warry had liked best, and the
picture. He put it down now beside the photograph of Warry. They bore
the name of the same photographer, and had probably been taken in the
same year. He lighted his pipe and tramped back and forth across the
floor, occasionally stopping at his desk to look at the cards carefully.
He had no right to Evelyn Porter's picture, he told himself. He was
taking advantage of his dead friend's kindness to appropriate it. He
would not destroy it; he would give it to some one--to Mrs. Whipple, to
Evelyn herself! Yes, it should be to Evelyn; and having reached this
conclusion, he put the two pictures away together and went to bed.
The next day he was called away unexpectedly to Colorado to close a sale
of the Neponset Trust Company's interest in the irrigation company. The
call came inopportunely, as the plans for the reorganization of the
Traction Company were not yet perfected; but the matter was urgent, and
Fenton told him to go. There was not time, he assured himself, to return
the photograph before leaving, so he carried both the little cards away
with him, with a half-formed intention of sending Evelyn's to her from
Denver; but when he returned to Clarkson he still carried the
photographs in his pocket.