The days that followed passed in a blur. Fred Starratt went through
the motions of living, but they were only motions. Between the
intervals of legal adjustments, court examinations, and formal red
tape he would lie upon his narrow bed at the hotel reading his wife's
message--that sharp-edged message which had shorn him of his
strength--as if to dull further his blunted sensibilities. In all this
time he saw only Watson. He did not ask for Hilmer or Helen. But one
day the attorney said to him:
"Your wife is still ill, otherwise--" "Yes, yes ... of course," Fred
assented, dismissing the subject with an impatient shrug.
Finally, on a certain afternoon at about two o'clock, Watson came in
quite unexpectedly.
"I think by to-night everything will be settled. ... What can I do for
you? ... Perhaps you would like to go to your apartment and get some
things together... Or see a friend... Just say the word." Fred roused
himself. A fleeting rebellion flickered and died. He wanted nothing
... least of all to so much as see his former dwelling place. He made
only one request.
"If you're passing that dance hall where they arrested me--you know,
near Jackson Street--drop in and ask for a girl called Ginger. I'd
like to see her."
Watson smiled widely...
The girl Ginger came that very afternoon. She was dressed very quietly
in black, with only a faint trace of make-up on her cheeks. Almost
anyone would have mistaken her for a drab little shopgirl. Fred felt
awkward in her presence.
"I'm going away to-night--for some time," he said, when she had seated
herself. "And I wanted to thank you for your interest when--"
She shook her head. "That wasn't anything," she answered.
He wondered what next to say. It was she who spoke finally.
"I suppose you got out of your mess all right," she half queried.
He opened his cigarette case and offered her a smoke. She declined.
"Well, not altogether... My friend Hilmer worked a compromise... I'm
going to a place to sober up." He laughed bitterly.
She folded her hands. "One of those private sanitariums, I suppose,
where rich guys bluff it out until everything blows over."
"No, you're wrong again... I'm going summering in a state hospital."
Her hands, suddenly unclasped, lifted and fell in startled flight. "An
insane asylum?" she gasped. He leaned forward. "Why do you say that?"
"Because it's the only place in this state where they send drunks... I
know plenty who've been through that game... You can't tell me
anything about that."
He stared at her in silence and presently she said:
"What are they doing to you, anyway? Railroading you? I don't believe
you know where you _are_ going."
He shrugged wearily. "No; you're right. And I don't much care."
"Why didn't you send for me?" she demanded. "That night when they got
you I told you I had a pull... I'm not a Hilmer, but I can work a few
people myself... I haven't always been a cheap skate. There was a time
when I had them fighting over me. And that wasn't so long ago,
either... I'm still young--younger than a lot that get by. But,
anyway, I've got a lot of old-memory stuff up my sleeve that can make
some people step about pretty lively... There's more than one man in
this town who would just as soon I kept my mouth shut... I could even
run Hilmer around the ring once or twice if I wanted to."
He felt a bit tremulous, but he put a tight rein upon his emotions.
"It's very good of you," he said, "but, really, I couldn't quite have
that, you know... I don't mean to be ungrateful or unkind, but there
are some things that--"
She laughed. "Oh yes, I know... You feel that way now, of course...
You're a gentleman; I understand that... And I haven't run up against
many gentlemen in my day... Oh, there were a lot who had plenty of
money and they were polite enough when it didn't matter ... but ...
Well, I know the real thing when I see it... You're going to that hell
hole, too, just for that very reason... Because you haven't got the
face to be nasty..."
He crumpled the unlighted cigarette in his hand and flung it from him.
"What do you know about me?" he asked.
"Women aren't fools!" she retorted. "And least of all women like me!
... I wish to God I'd known you sooner!"
He watched the quivering revelations run in startled flight across her
face, hiding themselves as swiftly behind the dull shadows of
indifference. For a moment the room seemed flooded in a truant flash
of sunshine. She seemed at once incredibly old and as incredibly
touched with a vagrant youth. How eagerly she must have given herself!
How eagerly she could give herself again!
He rose in his seat, confused. She seemed to have taken it for a sign
of dismissal, for she followed his example.
"Maybe it isn't too late," she faltered. "Maybe I could work that pull
I've got ... if you want me to."
He shook his head. "It's out of my hands," he answered. She moved to
the door, as if to place a proper distance between them.
"What does your wife think about it?"
He shrugged.
"You won't like what I'm going to say," she flung out, defiantly. "But
that night when I saw your wife _I_ knew."
"Knew what?"
"That she wasn't playing fair..." Her face was lighted with a
primitive malevolence. "She isn't straight!"
He tried to pull himself up in prideful refutation, but the effort
failed. He was turning away defeated when a knock sounded on the door.
Watson entered. Ginger drew herself flatly against the wall. The
attorney gave a significant glance in her direction as he said to
Starratt:
"Your wife is waiting in the hall ... just around the corner. I
thought it best to ..."
Ginger came forward quickly. "Good-by!" she said, hurriedly.
He put out a hand to her. She moved a little nearer and, suddenly,
quite suddenly, she kissed him. He drew back a little, and presently
she was gone...
He looked up to find Helen standing before him. She was a little pale
and her lips more scarlet than ever, and her thick, black eyebrows
sharply defined. He had never seen her look so disagreeably handsome.
"That woman who just went out," she began, coolly, "she's the same one
who--"
"Yes," he interrupted, crisply.
"Who is she?"
He looked at her steadily; she did not flinch. "A friend of mine."
Her lip curled disdainfully. "Oh!" she said, and she sat down.
* * * * *
Toward evening they came for him, or rather Watson did, with a
taxicab.
"Everything has gone nicely," Watson explained, pridefully. "You
certainly were lucky in having Hilmer for a friend ... no humiliation,
no publicity."
Fred, standing before the bureau mirror, brushed his hair. "Where are
you taking me now?" he inquired.
"To the detention hospital... You'll stay there a week or so for
observation... It's a mere form."
"And from there?"
"To the state hospital at Fairview."
Fred Starratt flung down the brush. "Why don't you call it by its
right name? ... I'm told it's an insane asylum."
Watson stared and then came forward with a little threatening gesture.
"You better not start any rough-house, Starratt--at the eleventh
hour!" he admonished, with a significant warmth.
Fred turned slowly, breaking into a laugh. "Rough-house?" he echoed.
"Don't be afraid. ... I've got to the curious stage now. I want to see
the whole picture." He reached for his hat. "I'm ready ... let's go."
A half hour later Fred Starratt was booked at the detention hospital.
They took away his clothes and gave him a towel and a nightgown and
led him to a bathroom... Presently he was shown to his cell-like room.
Overhead the fading day filtered in ghostly fashion through a
skylight; an iron bed stood against the wall. There was not another
stick of furniture in sight.
He crawled into his bed and the attendant left him, switching on an
electric light from the outside. A nurse with supper followed
shortly--a bowl of thin soup and two slices of dry bread. Fred
Starratt lifted the bowl to his lips and drank a few mouthfuls. The
stuff was without flavor, but it quenched his burning thirst... After
a while he broke the bread into small bits--not only because he was
hungry, but because he was determined to eat this bitter meal to the
last crumb. When he had finished he felt mysteriously sealed to
indifference.
The nurse came in for the tray and he asked her to switch off the
light. He lay for hours, open-eyed, in the gloom, while wraithlike
memories materialized and vanished as mysteriously. Somehow the
incidents of his life nearest in point of time seemed the remotest.
Only his youth lay within easy reach, and his childhood nearest of
all. He was traveling back ... back ... perhaps in the end
oblivion would wrap him in its healing mantle and he would
wait to be made perfect and whole again in the flaming
crucible of a new birth... Gradually the mists of
remembrance faded, lost their outline ... became confused,
and he slept.
He awoke with a shiver. A piercing scream was curdling the silence.
From the other side of the thin partition came shrieks, curses, mad
laughter. He heard the heavy tramp of attendants in the hallway ...
doors quickly opened and slammed shut. ... There followed the sounds
of scuffling, the reeling impact of several bodies against the wall
... then blows of shuddering softness, one last shriek ... dead
silence!
He sat up in bed--alive and quivering. Was this the rebirth that the
swooning hours had held in store for him? ... Quickly life came
flooding back. Indifference fell from him. In one blinding flash his
new condition was revealed. His life had been a futile compromise. He
had sowed passivity and he had reaped a barren harvest of negative
virtues. He would compromise again, and he would be passive again, and
he would bow his neck to authority ... but from this moment on he
would wither the cold fruits of such enforced planting in a steadily
rising flame of understanding. He knew now the meaning of the word
"revelation."