you don't really know us--"
"It's not decent--"
Nelly was all patience.
"But, you know, Joey dear, I think maybe it is true. Don't you
think so?"
Cameron swallowed two or three retorts; then with a laugh that seemed
to break to pieces in the air, he went into he hall, got into his
hat and coat, and left the house.
Nellie listened gravely.
"Poor dear old land-lubber!" she sighed. "But it had to come sooner
or later!" Then she went to the telephone.
"57900 Bryant, please. May I speak to Mr. Crane?"
II
When Cameron came in at midnight he found his wife and his old
friend Willoughby Crane playing chess in the dining room.
"Hello, Joe, old man," murmured Crane. "That you?"
"Why, yes, I believe it is I," said Cameron.
"Almost forgot what you looked like," Crane rambled pleasantly.
"Dropped in for a reminder."
"I'm sorry to have missed you," muttered Cameron.
"Well, you haven't altogether missed me, you know: so cheer up,
old man. If Nell's good for a rubber, you may have the joy of my
presence for an hour or two longer. You're lucky, having a wife
who can play chess!"
"Get yourself a drink, Joey," suggested Nellie. "The whisky's in
the sideboard, down on he left."
"Don't you suppose I know where the whisky is?" demanded Cameron.
"Maybe there's not much left." Nellie looked on, all solicitude.
Cameron, his thought babbling over the good old days of the
ducking-stool, poured himself carefully a highball that was brown.
Silence reigned. The light fell upon the head and shoulders of
Crane and his long, quick-fingered hands.
"After a man has slaved his soul out," Cameron moaned, "these are
the things a woman cares about!"
Crane won the rubber, and spent considerable gallantry upon Nellie
in compensation. Cameron had yawned all through, but no one had
noticed. Crane lighted a cigarette and perched upon the corner of
the dining-table.
"I say, Joe, got anything on to-morrow night?"
"I have," said Cameron.
"Something you can't chuck?"
"Scarcely. A director's dinner."
Crane grew thoughtful.
"You certainly are a victim of the power-passion," he sighed,
considering Cameron. "I don't know how you stand it. I'd have
more money, no doubt, if I weren't so apathetic, but, by Jinks, it
doesn't look worth it to me!"
"A question of taste," said Cameron briefly.
"Taste? If that were all!" He smoked, looking at Nellie through
the haze. "I say, Nell, I've got tickets for Kreisler to-morrow
night. Come with me, there's a good girl! Lend me your wife, will
you, Joe?"
"Lend?" echoed Nellie. "I like that! Anybody'd take me for goods
and chattels. Of course I'll come. I'd love to."
"You know, Joey," Crane went on simply, "Nellie's the only woman I
know that it's real joy to hear music with. She knows what she's
listening to. A fellow can sort of forget that he's got her
along, an still be glad he has. As for you, you old money-hunting
blunderbuss, the way you squirm in the presence of music ought to
be a penitentiary offense. I'm almost glad you can't go." He gave
a laugh that was dangerously genuine, and bolted for the hall to
get his coat and hat.
"Poor old Joe is almost asleep," said Nellie, sweetly.
Joe did not look it, but Willoughby got out solicitously, and he
sat upon a damp bench opposite Cameron's glowing windows, and he
laughed and laughed till a policeman sternly ordered him to move
on.
"Isn't Willoughby a dear!" Nellie commented as she moved about,
putting things in their places for the night. Cameron yawned
obviously. Nellie hummed a snatch of a tune.
All that long night Cameron lay stretched upon the edge of their
bed, staring into the lumpy darkness. Nellie slept like a baby.
But once, soon after the lights were turned off, Cameron's blood
froze by inches from his head to his feet. It seemed to him that
Nellie was laughing, was fairly biting her pillow to keep from
laughing aloud! Gravely, of the darkness, he asked how all this had
come about. He asked it of the familiar, shadowy heap of Nellie's
clothes upon the chair by the window, asked if he had deserved it.
Toward dawn he slept.
III
Cameron, after the way of the new man, kept some evening clothes
down town. It saved traveling. The next afternoon, about four
o'clock, there came, somewhere between the pit of his stomach and
his brain, an aching weight. Conscience! At six-thirty he hung
his dinner-jacket back in the closet and sent the directors word
that he had a headache. Then, as blind as a moth, he started for
home, for that lamp about which Nellie "Loved to buzz."
He let himself into the apartment, chuckling to think of Nellie's
surprise, at just the hour at which they were used to dining. The
place was shadowy, the table in its between-meals garb. The aching
weight came back. He tapped on the nursery door.
Miss Merritt, the nurse, was dining by the nursery window, Billy's
high chair drawn near by. Billy, drowsy and rosy, was waving a
soup-spoon about his head, dabbing at the lights upon the silver
with fat fingers that were better at clinging than at letting go.
"Good evening, Miss Merritt," said Cameron. "Hello, Bill! Where's
your mother?" His tone struck false, for through his mind was
booming the horrible question, "Can Nellie have gone out with that
ass Crane to dine?"
Miss Merritt's mousy face became all eyes.
"Why, sir, Mrs. Cameron has gone out to dinner, and after to a
concert. I guess you forgot, sir."
"Oh, yes," said Cameron, easily. "This is the night of the concert.
I had absolutely forgotten. I'd have got a bite down town if I'd
thought. Is the cook in?"
"Sure, sir. I'll call her."
She left Cameron alone with Billy, who, cannibal-wise, was chewing
his father's hand and crowing over the appetizing bumps and veins.
"If you'd jest 'ave 'phoned, sir," panted the cook, who was a large,
purple-faced person.
Cameron sighed.
"Just anything, Katy. I have a headache. Some eggs and toast--poached
eggs, I think."
In another moment the maid passed the nursery door, with white
things over her arm, on her way to set the table.
Cameron, dazed as never in his life before, lifted Billy to his
shoulder and trotted up and down the room. "Nice little boy!" he
laughed, Billy's damp fists hitting at him in ecstasy. "I'll just
take him to the sitting-room while you finish your dinner." He did
his best to pretend that the situation was not unusual, to act as
if, in his own home, a man could be nothing but at home. All these
confounded hirelings, acting as if they owned the place, had the
cheek to be amazed over his dropping in!
Miss Merritt beamed.
"I always say, sir, that boys should know their fathers."
"Boys should know their fathers?" This was almost the last straw.
"Here!" said Miss Merritt, holding out a pink-edged blanket. "Jest
put in on your lap, sir." There was about her that utter peculiar
lack of decorum that is common to nurses and mothers and Cameron,
blushing furiously, grabbed the blanket and fled.
"Boys should know their father, hey?" Cameron was enraged.
"We'll see about that pretty quick!" Billy crowed with joy as the
blanket flapped about them, and, above the chasm of his doubts and
his conscience Cameron heard himself laugh, too. He got into his
arm-chair. Billy, so warm and solid and gay, so evidently liking
him, gave him, parent that he was, the thrill of adventure as his
hands held him and knew him for his own. The blanket spread upon
his knees, the door closed, Cameron expanded with the desire to
know his son, even as it was desirable that his son should know
him. He turned him over and around, he studied the vagaries of
scallops and pearl buttons; profoundly he pitied his small image for
all of his discomforts, and advised him to grow out of safety-pins
as fast as possible. He fell into a philosophical mood, spouting
away at Bill, and Bill responded with fists and delicious gurgles
and an imitative sense of investigation. Cameron reflected, with
illumination, upon the amusing sounds a baby makes when the world
is well. They were really having an awfully good time.
Billy was fuzzy and blond, one of those moist, very blue-eyed
babies that women appreciate. Cameron all at once saw why. Warmth
expanded his aching heart, and his arms circled his own mite of
boy. Billy yawned, agreed instantly with Cameron that a yawn from
a baby was funny, and with a chuckle pitched against Cameron, bumped
his nose on a waistcoat button, considered the button solemnly,
with his small mouth stuck out ridiculously, and then snuggled into
the hollow of his father's arms, and, closing his big eyes with a
confidence that made thrills creep over him, the man, and brought
something stinging to his eyes, Bill went to sleep.
After an unmeasured lapse of time, Miss Merritt came for the baby.
"Oh, the lambkin! Ain't he sweet, sir?"
Cameron ached in every joint, but he did not know it.
"Take care how you handle him!" he whispered. "It's awful to be
awakened out of one's first sleep!"
"I know better than to wake a sleepin' baby, believe me," said Miss
Merritt with a touch of spice.
The door closed. Cameron sat stretching his stiff arms and legs
and staring before him, and upon his usually tired and lined face
was the beam of full joy.
Then came dinner, a lonely, silent mockery of a meal. And back the
question came, booming over the soft tinkling of glass and silver.
He realized, with his salad, that four nights out of seven, Nellie
dined like this, alone. His lower lip protruded, and lines of
conscience fell in a curtain on his face.
"Mrs. Cameron hates eatin' 'lone, too," said the maid. "She generally
eats early, so 's t' have Billy in his high chair 'longside. If
he sleeps, she reads a book, sir."
He was alone in the sitting-room with his coffee, and the place had
sunk into fathomless silence. It was only half after eight! He
stuck his head out of the window. Soft flakes touched and soothed
his feverish head. "Damn money!" he whispered suddenly, then stood
back in the room, startled, staring his blasphemy in the face.
He'd go out in the snow, and get rid of himself. This was awful!
Bundled in a greatcoat, collar high, trousers rolled up, he ducked
out of the great marble and iron vestibule into the night. There
was no wind, and the snow was falling softly, steadily. The drive
was deserted, and he made his way across to the walk along the wall.
By the light of the lamp, blurred by the flakes till it looked like
a tall-stemmed thistle-ball, he looked at his watch. No matter
where Nellie had dined, she was a the concert by now, and a great
sigh of relief fluttered the flakes about his mouth.
He turned north, glad of the rise in the ground to walk against.
"By jinks!" he smiled grudgingly, "it's not so bad out here. We
city idiots, we--NEW MEN, with all our motors and subways, we are
forgetting how to prowl."
The world fell of to shadow a little beyond the shore-line, a mere
space of air and flakes. Ice swirled by its way to the sea, for
the tide was going out. He peered; he began to hear all sorts
of fine snow-muffled sounds; and suddenly, away out on the river,
something was going on--boats whistling and signaling, chatting
in their scientific persiflage, out in the dark and cold of the
night. "Lonesome, too!" Cameron laughed, and, boyishly, he tossed
a snow-ball into the space, as if he'd have something to say out
there, too! "I'm soft!" he groaned, clutching his arm. And suddenly
he smiled to think how one of these days he and Bill would come
out here and play together. He looked about, and a sudden pride
filled him. He was actually the only creature enjoying this splendid
snow! He had passed one old gentleman in a fur-lined coat, with
a cap upon his white hair, walking slowly, a white bulldog playing
after him in the scarcely trodden snow.
Cameron turned home, a new and inexplicable glow upon him, cares
dropped away. He marched; he laughed aloud once with a sudden
thought of Bill. "Little corker!" He let himself in, and went
straight to the bedroom to change his shoes. "I must get some
water-tight things to prowl in," he thought, and he whistled a line
of "Tipperary." Blurred in a pleasant fatigue he sat on the edge
of his bed, staring at his wet socks, when the telephone jingled,
and he hurried out to answer.
"Yep, this is Cameron. Oh, hello, old girl! Thought I'd just come
up for a quiet home dinner, you know." A grin like the setting
sun for warmth spread over his face as he listened, as he felt the
tables turning under his wet feet.
"Nope. Just bored down-town. Felt like bein' cozy and--buzzin'
round the lamp in something comfy. Fine! Had a regular banquet!
Bill's all right, little devil! I tucked him in so he shouldn't
be lonesome.
"Me? I've been out walkin'. Been throwin' snow-balls at the
street-lamps. My feet are soakin', but I don't care, I don't care.
Heard a concert myself, thanks. Whistles and things tootin' out
in the snow on the river to beat the band! Don't think of it! I'm
fine. Enjoy yourself. What's life for? Good night, old girl.
Don't lose your key!"
Cameron got as far as the cedar chest in the hall, but there, in
his wet socks, he sat down and he laughed until he ached all over.
Suddenly he stiffened, and his heels banged against the chest.
Miss Merritt, mouth and eyes wide open, stood absorbing him, as
crimson as was Cameron himself.
"I heard the 'phone," she faltered. "Miss. Cameron always calls
up to know if Billy's all right--"
"I know that she does," said Cameron, stiffly, and, rising, he
stocking-footed it past her and shut himself in his bedroom.
"yes, sir; good night, sir." Miss Merritt stared at his door. "Good
Lord!" she whispered in the nursery, "how awful for Billy and her
if he takes to drink!"
Nellie came out of the telephone booth, her face white with horror.
"Willoughby," she gasped, "get me a taxi quick!"
"Billy--"
"No, no, NO! It's Joe!"
"What--"
"Oh," she wailed, "I've gone too far! Joe is--drunk!"
Willoughby's face went to pieces.
"Don't look like that, Nell! Don't! What of it? Just what we've
been up to, isn't it?"
"How can you say that? Get my wraps. I am going home."
"Your car isn't ordered till eleven--"
"What do I care what I go in? Oh, I have been such a fool!"
"Don't mention it," grinned Crane as he wrapped her coat about her.
Gaily Crane waved his white-gloved hand to her, her face gleaming
back pearl-like for an instant in the shadowy taxi; then she was
whirled northward and lost in the snowy night. Back in his place
next to Nellie's empty chair, he mused tenderly over the vagaries
of a mere bachelor till the incomparable Austrian carried his mind
off to where tone is reality, where there is neither marriage nor
giving in marriage.
Nellie fitted the key into the lock. Her fingers shook. The
apartment was dark except for a light in the hall, and as still
as if it were empty. If only Joe would STAY asleep till he'd had
time to sleep this horrible state of affairs away!
She switched off the light and carefully let herself into their
room, and stood a moment, huddled, breathless, against the door.
The room was ghostly. The vague, snow-veiled light filtered in
from the street-lamp below, making of Cameron an incoherent lump,
wrapped to his eyes in the covers of their chintz-hung bed.
Her hands clasped tight, she peered at him through the shadows.
He did not move. He was sleeping heavily, curiously, irregularly,
his breath coming in jerky little snorts. "Oh," she wailed in her
guilt heart, "he is, he is! Poor dear old Joey, drunk! And it's
all, all my fault!" Swiftly she undressed in the dark. If he were
to awaken, to begin saying awful maudlin things---
Her heart pounding, she lifted the covers and crept into martyrdom
on the hard edge of the bed. Cameron slept on. Once he seemed
to be strangling in a bad dream, and she fought with her sense of
duty to awaken him, then, miserably, let him strangle!
Gravely Nellie's tired eyes traveled from familiar shadow to shadow,
to rest at last upon the dangling heap of clothes upon a chair by
the window that symbolized Joe Cameron by the sane light of day.
Fatigue tossed her off to sleep now and then; terror snatched her
back and made her cry. In the first faint dawn she awakened with
a start to find that in her sleep her tired body had slipped back
to its place, and her head was resting deliciously upon her pillow.
And, with the growing dawn, humor came creeping back, and try
as she would, her mouth twitched. Of all people, dear old Joey!
Carefully she turned her head and peered at him. His face was turned
toward her, what light there was fell full upon him. Wonder took
away her smile. His face was fresh, the lines of care and worry
softened away as if he were at the end of a two weeks' vacation.
She rested her chin on her arm, amazed, puzzled. And suddenly
a grin like the sunrise spread over Joe's face, and he opened his
eyes.
[signed] Alice Woods
By courtesy of "The Century."
To Those Who Go
In a sense the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who go
to France are modern crusaders. Like the valiant men of the Middle
Ages who traveled far to fight in strange lands for the ideal that
possessed their souls, these twentieth-century knights-errant go
to defend the ideals of liberty and right and honor which are the
issues of this war and which our Allies have successfully upheld
for more than three years.
In that chivalric spirit General Pershing stood at the tomb
of LaFayette and said, "LaFayette, we are here." As a young man
only twenty years old LaFayette went out to a new land to fight
for liberty, and now after nearly a century and a half the same
inspiration that sent him forth is taking our young men back to
fight in the land o his birth the old fight for right. The great
romance of international history which the relations of France and
America have afforded from the birth of this republic has entered
a new chapter with the pilgrimage of our fighting men to Europe,
and the inestimable service of LaFayette and his comrades to our
infant republic is now to be in part repaid by the nation that
France helped to establish.
But though it is a chivalric mission on which our soldiers go,
they should not enter France in the attitude of saviors. It must
be remembered that the United States came very late into this war,
and while our troops and even more our money and material resources
may have decisive weight toward victory, yet it is France, England,
Italy, Russia against whom the enemy has spent his strength. Our
Allies have brought the war already to its turning point, and we can
at best only add completeness to their achievement. Furthermore,
while we aid France and her Allies, we are defending ourselves
also. We went to war because Germany was killing our citizens,
was plotting against the peace and security of our nation, because
her restless ambition and lust for power were choking not only
Europe but the world.
Our American soldiers will find in France a people who have endured
with wonderful courage and devotion through more than three years
of terrific strain against odds which must often have seemed
hopeless. The French are the heroes of this war. They have been
in the fight from the beginning and will be there until the end.
Their armies were fully engaged when England had not a hundred
thousand men under arms and Italy was a neutral; they fought on
when Russia lost her grip; and they will not quit until their land
is cleared of invaders and the Prussian shadow that has darkened
France for more than forty years is lifted. More than any other
country except Belgium, France has felt the horror and hardships
of the war which we are spared because she has paid the price of
our protection.
American soldiers who go to France are to be envied because they
are getting what comes to few men,--opportunity to be of direct,
vital service to that country. To be young, to be fit, to have a
part however small in the great events that are making the world
over into a safer and happier place for our children to live in,
is something for a man to be proud of now and to remember with
satisfaction to his last day.
The war may last much longer than we now anticipate, but there can
be no doubt of the ultimate victory of the cause to which we are
committed. The world never turns back, it moves always forward,
always upward. Our soldiers may go out, as the Crusaders went of
old, with absolute faith that their service will not be given in
vain, that their effort and daring will not be unavailing.
[signed] Myron Herrick
The Hero's Peace
There is a peace that springs where battles thunder,
Unknown to those who walk the ways of peace
Drowsy with safety, praising soft release
From pain and strife and the discomfortable wonder
Of life lived vehemently to its last, wild flame:
This peace thinks not of safety, is not bound
To the wincing flesh, nor to the piteous round
Of human hopes and memories, nor to Fame.
Immutable and immortal it is born
Within the spirit that has looked on fear
Till fear has looked askance; on death has gazed
As on an equal, and with noble scorn,
Spurning the self that held the self too dear,
To the height of being mounts calm and unamazed.
[signed] Amelie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy)
Castle Hill, Virginia