Drinkwater moved forward. She, too, moved forward, coming into the room
and scanning him face to face.
"You don't look so awful blind."
"No, but I am--for the present."
"For the present? Does that mean that you expect to regain your sight?"
"The doctors say that it may come back suddenly as it went."
"And suppose it don't?"
"Oh, well, I've got along without it for the past six months, so I
suppose I can do it for the next sixty years. I've given it a good try,
and in some ways I like it."
"You do, do you?"
"Yes, lady."
"Then," she declared, in her tragic voice, "I like you."
He flushed like a girl flushes, though his grin was his own specialty.
"Say," he began, in confidential glee, "Miss Blair said you would--"
"Tell Lydia Blair that she's at liberty to bestow her affections when
and as she chooses; but beg her to be kind enough to allow me to dispose
of mine. You'd like to see her room."
She was turning to begin her stone march toward the stairs, but
Drinkwater held her back.
"Say, lady, is it--is it her room?"
"Certainly; it's the one she's always had when she's been with me, and
which she reserved by letter four weeks ago. I was to expect her as
soon as the steamer docked."
"Oh, then--" the boy began to stammer.
"Nonsense, my good man! Don't be foolish. She's gone elsewhere and the
room is to let. If she hadn't sent me some one I would have charged her
a week's rent; but now that she's got me a tenant she's at liberty to go
where she likes. She knows I'd rather have men than women at any time
of day."
"Oh, but if it's her room, and she's given it up for me--"
"It isn't her room; it's mine. I can let it to any one I please. She
knows of a dozen places in the city that she'll like just as well as
this, so don't think she'll be on the street. Come along; I've no time
to waste."
"Better go," I whispered, taking him by the arm, so that the procession
started.
The hall was papered in deep crimson, against which a monumental
black-walnut hat-and-umbrella stand was visible chiefly because of the
gleam of an inset mirror. The floors were painted in the darkest shade
of brown, in keeping with the massive body of the staircase. Up the
staircase, as along the hall, ran a strip of deep crimson carpet,
exposing the warp on the edge of each step.
A hush of solemnity lay over everything. Clearly Miss Flowerdew's
roomers were off for the day, and the place left to her and the little
colored maid who had admitted us. Drinkwater and I made our way upward
in a kind of awe, he clinging to my arm, frightened and yet adventurous.
The long, steep stairs curved toward the top to an upper hall darker
than that below, because the one window was in ground glass with a
border of red and blue. Deep crimson was again the dominating color,
broken only by the doors which may have been mahogany. All doors were
closed except the one nearest the top of the stairs, which stood ajar.
Miss Flowerdew pushed it open, bidding us follow her.
We were on the spot which above all others in the world Lydia Blair
called home. When the exquisite bit of jewel-weed drifted past me on
the deck of the _Auvergne_ this haven was in the background of her
memory.
Through the gloom two iron beds, covered with coarse white counterpanes,
sagged in the outlines of their mattresses, as beds do after a great
many people have slept in them. A low wicker armchair sagged in the
seat as armchairs do after a great many people have sat in them. A
great many people had passed through this room, wearing it down, wearing
it out; and yet there was a woman in the world whose soul leaped toward
it as the hearth of her affections. Because it was architecturally dark
a paper of olive-green arabesques on an olive-green background had been
glued on the walls to make it darker still; and because it was now as
dark as it could be made, the table, the chest of drawers, the
washstand, like the doors, were all of the darkest brown. Miss
Flowerdew pointed to their bare tops to say:
"Lydia has her own covers, and when she puts her photographs and
knickknacks round it makes a home for her."
"Say, isn't it grand!" Drinkwater cried, looking round with his
sightless eyes.
"It's grand for the money," Miss Flowerdew corrected. "It's not the
Waldorf-Astoria, nor yet is it what I was used to when on the stage; but
it's clean"--which it was--"and only respectable people have roomed
here. Come, young man, and I'll show you how to find your way."
Miss Flowerdew may have been on the stage, but she ought to have been a
nurse. Not even Lydia Blair could take hold of a helpless man with such
tenderness of strength. Holding Drinkwater by the hand, she showed him
how to find the conveniences of this nest, pointing out the fact that
the bath-room was the first door on the right as you went into the hall,
and only a step away.
"I hope I sha'n't give you any more trouble, lady, after this," the
blind boy breathed, gratefully.
"Trouble! Of course you'll give me trouble! The man who doesn't give a
woman trouble is not a man. I've had male roomers so neat and natty
you'd have sworn they were female ones--and I got rid of 'em. When a
man doesn't know whether to put his boots on the mantelpiece or in the
wash-basin when he takes them off, I can see I've got something to take
care of. I guess I may as well cart these away."
The reference was to two photographs that stood on the ledges of the
huge black-walnut mirror.
"I put 'em out to give Lydia a home feeling as soon as she arrived.
That's her father, Byron Blair," she continued, handing me the picture
of an extremely good-looking, weak-faced man of the Dundreary type, "and
that's her mother, Tillie Lightwood, as she was when she and I starred
in 'The Wages of Sin.'" I examined the charming head, with profile
overweighted by a chignon, while Miss Flowerdew continued her
reminiscences. "I played Lady Somberly to Tillie's Lottie Gwynne for
nearly three years on end, first here, on Broadway, and then on the
road. Don't do you any good, playing the same part so long. Easy work
and money, but you get the mannerisms fixed on you. I was a good
utility woman up to that time; but when I came back to Broadway I was
Lady Somberly. I never could get rid of her, and so ... I'll show you
some of my notices and photographs--no, not to-day; but when you come
round to see your friend--that is"--she looked inquiringly--"that is, if
you don't mean to use the other bed."
This being the hint I needed, I took it. With the briefest of farewells
I was out on the pavement with my bags in my hands, walking eastward
without a goal.
Once more I had to stifle my concern as to Drinkwater. I saw him, when
Miss Flowerdew would have gone down-stairs, sitting alone in his
darkness, with nothing to do. His trunk, the unpacking of which would
give him some occupation, would not arrive until evening; and in the
mean time he would have no one but himself for company. He couldn't go
out; it would be all he could do to feel his way to the bathroom and
back, though even that small excursion would be a break in his
monotony....
But I took these thoughts and choked them. It was preposterous that I
should hold myself responsible for the comfort of a boy met by chance on
a steamer. Had I taken him in charge from affection or philanthropy it
would have been all very well; but I had no philanthropic promptings,
and, while I liked him, I was far from taking this wavering sympathy as
affection. I was sorry for him, of course; but others must take care of
him. I should have all I could do in taking care of myself.
So I wandered on, hardly noticing at first the way I took, and then
consciously looking for a hotel. As to that, I had definitely made up
my mind not to go to any of those better known, though the names of
several remained in my memory, till I had properly clothed myself.
Though in a measure I had grown used to my appearance, I caught the
occasional turning of a head to look at me, and once the eyebrows of a
passer-by went up in amused surprise.
I discovered quickly enough that I knew New York and that I knew it
tolerably well; and almost as quickly I learned that I knew it not as a
resident, but from the point of view of the visitor. Now that I was
there, I could see myself always coming and always going. From what
direction I had come and in what direction I turned on leaving still
were mysteries. But the conviction of having no abiding tie with this
city was as strong as that of the spectator in a theater of having no
permanent connection with the play.
Coming on a modest hotel at last, I made bold to go in, finding myself
in a lobby of imitation onyx and an atmosphere heavy with tobacco. I
crossed to the desk, under the eyes of some three or four colored boys
who didn't offer to assist me with my bags, and applied for a room. A
courteous young man of Slavic nationality regretted that they were "full
up." I marched out again.
Repeating this experience at another and another, I was saved from doing
it at a fourth by a uniformed darky porter, who, as I was about to go up
the steps, shook his head, at the same time sketching in the air an oval
which I took to be a zero. I didn't go in, but I was oddly
disconcerted. It had never occurred to me till then that hotels had a
choice in guests, just as guests had a choice in hotels. I had always
supposed that a man who could pay could command a welcome anywhere; but
here I was, with nearly four hundred dollars in my pockets, unable to
find a lodging because something strange in my clothes, or my eyes, or
in my general demeanor, or in all together, stamped me as unusual.
"Who's that freak?" I heard one bell-boy ask another, and the term
seemed to brand me.
The day was muggy. After the keen sea air it was breathless. When I
could walk no longer I staggered into a humble eating-house that seemed
to be half underground. There was no one there but two waitresses, one
of whom, wearing her hair _a la madone_, came forward as I closed the
door. She did not, however, come forward so quickly but that I heard
her say to her companion, "Well, of all the nuts--!" The observation,
though breathlessly suspended there, made me shy about ordering my
repast.
And when it came I couldn't eat it. It was good enough, doubtless, but
coarse and ill served. I think the young lady who found me a nut was
sorry for me when it came to close quarters, for she did her best to
coax my appetite with other kind suggestions. All I could do in
response was to flourish the roll of notes into which I had changed my
French money on board and give her an amazing tip.
But a new decision had come to me while I strove to eat, and on making
my way up to daylight again I set out to put it into operation. Reaching
Broadway, I drifted southward till I came on one of the large
establishments for ready-to-wear clothing which I knew were to be found
in the neighborhood. On entering the vast emporium I adopted a new
manner. No longer shrinking as I had shrunk since waking to the fact of
my misfortune, I walked briskly up to the first man whom I saw at a
distance eying me haughtily.
"See here," I said, in a good-mixer voice, "I've just got back from
France, and look at the way they've rigged me out. Was in hospital
there, after I'd got all kinds of shock, and this is the best I could do
without coming back to God's country in a French uniform. Now I want to
see the best you can do and how pretty you can make me look."
On emerging I was, therefore, passable to glance at, and after a
hair-cut and a shave I was no longer afraid to see my reflection in a
glass. I had, too, another inspiration. It occurred to me that I might
startle myself into finding the way home. Calling a taxi, I drove
boldly with my bags to the Grand Central Terminal, trusting to the inner
voice to tell me the place for which to buy my ticket. With half the
instinct of a horse my feet might take the road to the stable of their
own accord.
I recognized the station and all its ways--the red-capped colored men,
the white-capped white ones, the subterranean shops, the gaunt marble
spaces. I recognized the windows at which I must have taken tickets
hundreds of times, and played my comedy by walking up first to one and
then to another, waiting for the inner voice to give me a tip. I found
nothing but blank silence. The world was all before me where to
choose--only Providence was not my guide. Or if Providence was my
guide, His thread of flame was not visible.
I suppose that in that station that afternoon I was like any other man
intending to take a train. At least I could say that. So pleased was I
with myself that more than once during the two hours of my test I went
into the station lavatory just for the sake of seeing myself in the
glass. It was a long glass, capable of reflecting some dozen men at a
time, and I was as like the rest as one elephant is like another. Oh,
that relief! Oh, that joy! Not to be a freak or a nut made up for the
moment for my sense of homelessness.
When tired of listening for a call that didn't come, I went into the
waiting-room and sat down. Again I was like all the other people doing
the same thing. Propped up by a bag on each side, I might have been
waiting for a train to any of the suburbs. I might have had a family
expecting me to supper. The obvious reflection came to me. To all
whose glances happened to fall on me I was no more than an unstoried
human spot; and yet behind me was a history that would have startled any
one of them. So they were unstoried human spots to me; and yet behind
each of them there lay a drama of which I could read no more than I
could see of the world of light beyond the speck I called a star. Was
there a Providence for me, or them, or any other strayed, homeless dog?
As I glanced at the faces before me, faces of tired women, faces of
despondent men, young faces hardened, old faces stupefied, all faces
stamped with the age-long soddenness of man, I asked if anywhere in the
universe love could be holding up the lamps to them.
Like millions of others who have asked this question, I felt that I had
my trouble for my pains; but I got another inspiration. As it was now
the middle of the afternoon, the folly of expecting help from the inner
voice became apparent. I must resort to some other expedient, and the
new suggestion was a simple one.
Checking my bags in the parcel-office, I made for the nearest great
hotel. The hall with its colossal furnishings was familiar from the
moment of my entry. The same ever so slightly overdressed ladies might
have been mincing up and down as on the occasion of my last visit there;
the same knots of men might have begun to gather; the same orchestra
might have been jigging the same tunes; if only the same men were at the
office desk I might find my ingenuity rewarded.
"I wonder if there are any letters for me here? I'm not staying in the
house; but I thought--"
"Name?"
No one said, as I hoped, "I'll see, Mr. Smith," or, "I'll find out, Mr.
Jones," as often happens when a man has been a well-known guest.
Nevertheless, it was a spot where strangers from other places
congregated, and I knew that in the lobbies of hotels one often met old
friends. I might meet one of mine. Better still, one of mine might
meet me. At any minute I might feel a clap on the shoulder, while some
one shouted, "Hello, old Brown!" or, "Why, here's Billy Robinson!
What'll we have to drink?" These had been familiar salutations and
might become so again.
So I walked up and down. I was sorry I had neither stick nor gloves,
but promised to supply the lack at once. In the mean time I could
thrust my hands into my pockets and look like a gentleman at ease
because he is at home. Having enjoyed this sport for an hour or more, I
went out to make my purchases.
Fortified with these, I repeated my comedy in another hotel, and
presently in a third. In each I began with the same formula of asking
for letters; and in each I got the same response, "Name?" In each I
receded with a polite, "Never mind. I don't think there can be any,
after all." In each I paraded up and down and in and out, courting the
glances of head waiters, bell-hops, and lift-men, always in the hope of
a recognition and a "How do, Mr. So-and-so?" that never came.
But by six o'clock the game had played itself out for the day and I was
not only tired, but depressed. I was not discouraged, for the reason
that New York was full of big hotels, and I meant to begin my tramp on
the morrow. There were clubs, too, into which on one pretext or another
I could force my way, and there were also the great thoroughfares. Some
hundreds of people in New York at that moment would probably have
recognized me at a glance--if I could only come face to face with them.
All my efforts for the next few weeks must be bent on doing that.
But in the mean time I was tired and lonely. There were two or three
things I might do, each of which I had promised to myself with some
anticipation. I could go to a good restaurant and order a good feed; I
could go to a good hotel and sleep in a good bed; I could buy the
evening papers and find out what kind of world I was living in.
As to carrying out this program, I had but one prudential misgiving. It
might cost more money than it would be wise for me to spend. My visit
to the purveyor of clothing in the afternoon had not only lightened my
purse, but considerably opened my eyes. Where I had had nearly four
hundred dollars I had now nearly three. With very slight extravagance,
according to the standards of New York, it would come down to nearly two
and then to nearly one, and then to ... But I shuddered at that, and
stopped thinking.
Having stopped thinking along one set of lines, I presently found myself
off on another. I saw Harry Drinkwater sitting in the dark as I was
sitting in the hall of a hotel. That is, he was idle and I was idle.
He was eating his heart out as I was eating out mine.
It occurred to me that I might go back to Thirty-fifth Street and take
him out to dinner. Alfonso, recommended by Miss Blair, might be no more
successful as a host than the lady with tresses _a la madone_ who had
given me my lunch; but we could try. At any rate, the boy wouldn't be
alone on this first evening in New York, and would feel that some one
cared for him.
And then something else in me revolted. No! No! A thousand times no!
I had cut loose from these people and should stay loose. On saying
good-by to Drinkwater that morning I had disappeared without a trace.
For any one who tried to follow me now I should be the needle in a
haystack. What good could come of my going back of my own accord and
putting myself on a level to which I did not belong?
Like many Americans, I was no believer in the equality of men. For men
as a whole I had no respect, and in none but the smallest group had I
any confidence. Looking at the faces as they passed me in the hall, I
saw only those of brutes--and these were mostly people who had had what
we call advantages. As for those who had not had advantages I disliked
them in contact and distrusted them in principle. I described myself
not only as a snob, but as an aristocrat. I had worked it out that to
be well educated and well-to-do was the normal. To be poor and ill
educated was abnormal. Those who suffered from lack of means or
refinement did so because of some flaw in themselves or their
inheritance. They were the plague of the world. They created all the
world's problems and bred most of its diseases. From the beginning of
time they had been a source of disturbance to better men, and would be
to the end of it.
It was the irony of ironies, then, that I should have become a member of
a group that included a lady's maid, a chauffeur, and two stenographers,
and been hailed as one of them. The lady's maid and the chauffeur I
could, of course, dismiss from my mind; but the two stenographers had
seemingly sworn such a friendship for me that nothing but force would
cut me free from it. Very well, then; I should use force if it was
needed; but it wouldn't be needed. All I had to do was to refrain from
going to take Drinkwater out to dinner, and they would never know where
I was.
And yet, if you would believe it, I went. Within half an hour I was
knocking at his bedroom door and hearing his cheery "Come in."
Why I did this I cannot tell you. It was neither from loneliness, nor
kind-heartedness, nor a sense of duty. The feet that wouldn't take the
horse to the stable took him back to that crimson rooming-house, and
that is all I can say.
Drinkwater was sitting in the dark, which was no darker to him than
daylight; but when I switched on the light his pug grin gave an added
illumination to the room.
"Say, that's the darnedest! I knew you'd come in spite of the old lady
swearing you wouldn't. I'd given you half an hour yet; and here you
are, twenty-five minutes ahead of time."
The reception annoyed me. It was bad enough to have come; but it was
worse to have been expected.
"How have you been getting on?" I asked, in order to relieve my first
anxiety.
"Oh, fine!"
"Haven't you been--dull?"
"Lord, no!"
"What have you had to do?"
"Oh, enjoy myself--feeling my way about the house. I can go all round
the room, and out into the hall, and up and down stairs just as easily
as you can. It's a cinch."
"Have you heard anything of Miss Flair?"
"Sure! Called up about an hour ago to say she'd found the swellest
place--in Forty-first Street. But, say, Jasper, what do you think of a
girl who gives up the room she's reserved for a month and more, just
to--"