I saw a man of between thirty-five and forty. (I have since learned
he was forty-one.) His face was clean-shaven, and while not exactly
wrinkled, was lined on the forehead and about the mouth. It was lean
and rather haggard-looking. His lips were thin, and his steel-gray eyes
were, I think, the weariest and bitterest eyes I have ever seen, though
when he smiled I felt strangely drawn to him, even that first time.
He was dressed in a light gray suit, and it looked well on him, as his
hair at the temples was of the same color. As my glance met his curious
smile, I remember that, embarrassed and blushing, I dropped my eyes to
his hands, and found that they impressed me almost as much as his face.
It is strange how one may be so moved by another at the first meeting!
At once I had a feeling, a sort of subtle premonition, you might call
it, that this man was to loom large in my life for all the rest of my
days.
Stooping down, he patted Verley as he lay on my lap, but as he did so,
he kept looking at me with a half-teasing, half-searching glance. I
felt flustered, embarrassed, ashamed, and angry with myself for feeling
so much confusion.
"What's your dog's name?" he asked.
He was opening and shutting his hand over Verley's mouth. The dog was
licking his hand as if he liked him.
"Verley," I replied.
"Verley! That's a pretty name. Who's he named for?"
"The young Englishman who gave him to me," I said.
"I see!"
He laughed as if I had confided something to him. I said ingenuously:
"He's a real thoroughbred," and that caused him to smile again.
He had turned Verley over on my lap, and was dancing his fingers over
the dog's gaping mouth, but he still kept looking at me, with, I
thought, a half-interested, half-amused expression.
"He's a fine little fellow," he said. "Where is he going?"
"To Richmond."
"To Richmond!"
That seemed greatly to surprise him, and he asked why I was going
to that city, and if I knew any one there. I said that I knew Dr.
Manning; that I had met him in the West Indies, and he had promised me
a position as his secretary.
By this time he had let Verley alone, and was staring at me hard. After
a moment he said:
"Do you know Dr. Manning well?"
"No; but he has been kind enough to offer me the position," I replied.
He seemed to turn this over in his mind, and then he said:
"Put your little dog back in his box, and suppose you come along and
have dinner with me."
I did not even think of refusing. Heedless of the frantic cries of my
poor little dog, I followed this stranger into the dining-car.
I don't know what we ate. I do know it was the first time I had ever
had clams. I did not like them at all, and asked him what they were. He
seemed highly amused. He had a way of smiling reluctantly. It was just
as if one stirred or interested him against his will, and a moment
after his face would somehow resume its curiously tired expression.
Also I had something to drink,--I don't know what,--and it came before
dinner in a very little glass. Needless to say, it affected me almost
immediately, though I only took two mouthfuls, and then made such a
face that again he laughed, and told me I'd better let it alone.
It may have been because I was lonely and eager for some one I could
talk to, but I think it was simply that I fell under the impelling
fascination of this man from the first. Anyhow, I found myself telling
him all of my poor little history: where I had come from; the penniless
condition in which I had arrived in Jamaica; my work there; the people
I had met; and then, yes, I told _him_ that very first day I met him,
of that horrible experience I had had in the Government House.
While I talked to him, he kept studying me in a musing sort of way,
and his face, which perhaps might have been called a hard or cold one,
softened rather beautifully, I thought, as he looked at me. He did not
say a word as I talked, but when I came to my experience with Burbank,
he leaned across the table and watched me, almost excitedly. When I was
through, he said softly:
"Down South we lynch a nigger for less than that," and one of his long
hands, lying on the table, clenched.
Although we were now through dinner, and I had finished my story,
he made no move to leave the table, but sat there watching me and
smoking, with neither of us saying anything. Finally I thought to
myself:
"I suppose he is thinking of me as Mr. Campbell and Sir Henry Drake and
other people have--as something queer and amusing, and perhaps he is
laughing inside at me." I regretted that I had told him about myself
one minute, and the next I was glad that I had. Then suddenly I had
an eloquent desire to prove to him that really there was a great deal
more to me than he supposed. Down in my heart there was the deep-rooted
conviction, which nothing in the world could shake, that I was one of
the exceptional human beings of the world, that I was destined to do
things worth while. People were going to hear of _me_ some day. I was
not one of the commonplace creatures of the earth, and I intended to
prove that vividly to the world. But at that particular moment my one
desire was to prove it to this man, this stranger with the brooding,
weary face. So at last, awkwardly and timidly, and blushing to my
temples and ears, and daring scarcely to look at him, I said:
"If you like, I'll read you one of my poems."
The gravity of his face softened. He started to smile, and then he said
very gravely:
"So you write poetry, do you?"