A roar of laughter broke from the big front room as Enoch crossed
the club’s hall. The volley of hilarity came from a group of men
seated around a small table littered with eight freshly drained
cocktail-glasses, a silver-plated bell with a hair-trigger, and three
brazen ash-trays heaped with cigarette butts. It was one of those
high-keyed, cackling outbursts that perorated the point of a new story
and left no possible doubt to the passer-by as to what kind of a story
it was. Some stories, like some poisonous weeds, are born and thrive in
the shade.
As Enoch entered the room, he saw, to his satisfaction, that Lamont was
among the group. It was evident, too, from his manner and his quiet
smile, that the tale had been of his telling. The merriment subsided
in chuckles; the group, still red to the gills from laughter, suddenly
caught sight of Enoch, and one of those abrupt silences ensued, that
told plainly he was not welcome. He came forward, however, receiving
a sullen glance of recognition from Lamont, a half-hearted “Hello,
Crane!” from another, and a hesitating “Er--won’t you join us?” from a
third, and the third was Teddy Dryer.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” said Enoch, and drew up a chair, which they
grimly made room for.
“Take the orders, please,” he said, turning to the waiter hovering back
of him.
“They’re taken, Mr. Crane.”
“Take them again,” said Enoch sharply, and sat down.
“You missed it,” wheezed little Teddy Dryer at his elbow, wiping his
small, bleary eyes. “Lamont’s latest from Paris--a screamer--go on,
Pierre, let’s have another--hot off the stove this time, old top.”
“Go on,” shouted the rest (new stories were rare). “Encore! Encore!”
“All right,” acquiesced Lamont, leaning forward. “Here’s another,”
and the group bent close in greedy expectation, eager to catch every
syllable, pricking up their cocktail-ruddied ears, for it was not the
sort of a tale that could be shouted to the housetops.
Another roar broke forth as he finished--a tale that would have made a
scullery-maid blush to her knees.
“Oh, Lord!” they wheezed when they could get their breath. “That’s the
limit.”
“Where the devil did you get that, Pierre?” choked Teddy Dryer.
“From a girl in Paris,” smiled Lamont; “a big brunette who lived back
of the Moulin de la Galette. Best-hearted girl you ever met. She said
it was a fact; that it happened to _her_.”
Enoch’s jaw stiffened, but he did not open his lips.
A clean tray with nine half-frozen Martinis arrived. The table,
relieved of its stale litter of drained glasses, became again the
centre of thirsty interest, and the talk drifted on into past and
present scandal, in which the varied vicissitudes of those who had been
unfortunate enough to marry were freely discussed; at length a circle
of old friends were touched upon with a certain loyal camaraderie, and
their womanly virtues extolled. Enoch was enlightened to the fact that
they were all “thoroughbreds” and the “salt of the earth.” Some of them
were exceedingly handsome, others still pretty--nearly all of them, he
learned, had cleverly managed to be freed from the bond of matrimony,
looking none the worse for the experience, with a snug fortune as a
comforting recompense. There were incidentally a few children among
them as an annoying hinderance to the freedom their mammas had paid
so dearly for, but as long as there were governesses in the world and
fashionable boarding-schools with short vacations, things were not as
bad as they might be.
The talk grew deeper, more confidential, and so low in tone that the
listening waiter caught next to nothing. He had, however, two new
stories for the barman, and should have been content.
There were widows whose hearts and whose bank-accounts were large, and
whose afternoon teas were popular; the seasoned group about Enoch knew
them all. Indeed, their daily lives would have been dull existences
without them. At their homes they met other charming women--and so
it went. New York was not such a bad place after all. Some of these
faithful pals of theirs were getting older, but that was to be
expected; besides, they were getting older themselves, and the woman of
thirty--let us say thirty-six, to be truthful--was beginning to seem
young to them. As for “the old guard,” their good hearts and presence
of mind had been tried and proven scores of times, never a reproach,
God bless them, _never_--even when a fellow called after a heavy day
at the club, the good old welcome was there, the same genial gleam of
womanly affection and understanding. Then those formal occasions--a
bevy of people to tea when a chap least expected it, and had to hang
on like grim death to his best manners, and the soberest corner of his
brain to pass the trembling sandwiches, and keep a cup of tea on its
saucer with the skill of a juggler. Then on with a fresh whiskey and
soda, served far more daintily than at the club--the heavy, generous
decanter, the tall, frail glass, the Irish-lace doilies. Laughter,
the fragrance of violets, those serious little tête-è-têtes which
generally amount to nothing. The warm pressure of a hand in a formal
good-by--bah! it is a dull game to be always drinking with men. Those
interminable rounds at the club; the same dull men and the same dull
stories. Men bored Lamont. The horizon of his playground lay far
beyond that of most of his friends. His knowledge of life, too. When
there were a woman’s eyes to drink to he lost no time--to him the
subtle spell of her whole being slipped, as it were, into his glass,
quickening his pulse like a magic draft. What did it matter if he was
now and then dragged to the opera, that she might see and be seen?
There were moments which amply repaid the sacrifice.
Throughout it all Enoch had not opened his lips. He had absorbed
their blasé twaddle about marriage, the hinderance of children, and
had drunk in with increasing disgust their eulogy over their various
women friends. They had to a man at that table laid bare to him the
worthlessness of their lives, their contemptible egoism, the hollow
mockery in which they held love. Even at the Rabelaisian tale of
Lamont’s he had held his tongue, but now the slow-gathering pent-up
rage within him exploded, as sudden as a pistol-shot.
“It’s a cheap game some of you fellows are playing,” he cried hotly,
wrenching forward in his chair and riveting his gaze on Lamont.
The rest stared at him in amazement.
“I mean exactly what I say--a cheap game--do you understand me?”
The muscles of his jaw quivered. A murmur of grumbling protest circled
the table.
“I’m talking to _you_, Lamont,” he half shouted. “You seem to forget,
sir, that there are some things sacred in life.” He brought up his
closed fist sharply. “That there are some good women in this world,
whom marriage has made happy, whom children have made happy, whom the
love of an honest man has been a comfort and a blessing.”
“Oh! cut it out, Crane,” groaned fat Billy Adams. “We’re not here to
listen to a sermon.”
“To whom,” continued Enoch vibrantly, bringing down his closed fist on
the table’s edge, “men with your blasé worldly ideas, your sapped and
satiated senses, your ridicule of everything that stands for honesty
and common decency, your mockery of that which life holds dear, are
loathsome. That’s exactly the word for it--loathsome.”
Lamont shifted back in his seat, flicking the ashes from his cigarette
irritably--a sullen gleam in his black eyes.
“I don’t see where my private affairs concern you,” he said evenly,
while the rest watched him with bated breath, wondering with lively
interest if the next word from Enoch would start a worse quarrel.
“Your private affairs concern me,” ripped out Enoch, “when they concern
those who are dear to me. I need not make it clearer--you understand
perfectly whom I refer to.”
There was a louder murmur and a raising of eyebrows in quick surprise.
“I warned you, Lamont, you remember--some time ago--I thought that
would be sufficient. I have learned since that it was not.”
“See here,” cried Lamont, “you leave my affairs alone. My affairs are
_my_ affairs--not yours.”
“You’re right,” put in fat Billy Adams, and was seconded by a chorus of
approval.
“They’re mine, I tell you,” snapped Enoch, “as long as they concern
those who are dear to me; those whom I have every right to protect.”
“Protect!” sneered Lamont. “Ah, _mon Dieu_!” he exclaimed, lapsing into
French with a low, easy, laugh, “the one you refer to does not need
your protection. I assure you she is quite capable of taking care of
herself. Don’t worry; she’s no fool; let me tell you that Miss----”
Enoch’s eyes blazed.
“I forbid you,” he cried, facing him savagely, “to drag that child’s
name before this company.”
“You seem to be extraordinarily interested in young girls for a man
of your age,” sneered Lamont. “Your attitude in this trifling matter,
barring its insolence, is amusing.”
“Trifling matter!” retorted Enoch, half springing out of his chair.
“Yes, you’re right--it _is_ a trifling matter. You are trifling, sir,
with the affections of a child. Your attentions to this child are
damnable, sir! You seem to be determined to continue them; very well,
let me tell you once for all, that it will be my business to put a stop
to them, and I intend to do it.”
“A child,” chuckled Lamont. “At about what age may I ask do you
consider childhood ceases? I’m not interested in children, though I
know a good many old gentlemen who are, who become doddering idiots
over a girl of sixteen, until they find she is twenty. I know that
fatherly sentimentality of yours. Paris is full of it.”
“Stop, sir!” cried Enoch.
“The Bois de Boulogne is full of them any afternoon,” continued
Lamont. “Old beaux who go tottering up and down the Avenue des
Acacias--_tous ces vieux gagas--ces vieux marcheurs_,” he laughed,
lapsing again into French. “There’s the Compte de Valmontier--he’s one
of them; he’s eighty if he’s a day. You can see him any afternoon with
his valet back of him to keep him from falling, and his victoria and
pair followed him in waiting.” Lamont turned slowly, and for the space
of a few seconds gazed at Enoch, with his black eyes half closed and
his mouth half open.
There are some expressions far more insolent than words.
“But the Compte de Valmontier is a gentleman,” he added coldly. “He
does not choose his club to denounce a fellow member in, over an affair
which does not concern him--among a circle of friends where he is not
welcome.”
“S-sir!” stammered Enoch, white and quivering, as the group about him
rose to a man.
They had had enough of “that choleric old fool,” they agreed among
themselves. In fact, before Enoch could utter another word, they had
risen and left him alone, bearing away with them their boon companion,
Lamont, to the more exclusive locality of the bar, where, between
two more rounds, they damned Enoch soundly for his impudence--his
“unbelievable impertinence.”
“If that old fossil thrusts himself upon us again,” said Teddy Dryer,
“I’ll have him put out of the club. ’Pon my word, I will----”
[Illustration: “I forbid you,” he cried, facing him savagely, “to drag
that child’s name before this company!”]
“Didn’t you ask him to sit down?” growled fat Billy Adams. “What in the
devil did you ask him to sit down for?”
“He’d have sat down anyway, old chap,” declared Teddy. “I know his
kind. He’s a pest. You might as well be polite to a gorilla.”
“I’d like to see him try that trick in a club in Paris,” put in Lamont.
“He’d have a duel on his hands in twenty-four hours. Really, you’ve
got some astounding people in America--damned if you haven’t. All his
tommyrot about that kid. You’d have thought I’d abducted her--” at
which they all roared.
Enoch still sat before the deserted round table--alone, grim, white,
and silent, the muscles of his jaw twitching, both fists clenched in
his trousers pockets.
In this attitude Teddy Dryer, strolling nervously back into the
big front room, found him. He was muttering to himself, his legs
outstretched, sunk low in his chair, oblivious of Teddy’s presence,
until that thin young man slipped into the empty chair at his elbow and
bravely ventured the part of a peacemaker. It would not be fair to say
that Teddy was drunk, and as much of an exaggeration to infer that he
was anything like half-seas-over, or well in his cups, but there was no
gainsaying that his British pronunciation, gleaned from several trips
to London, had lost its usual clearness and purity, and that his small
eyes were as bright as a squirrel’s.
“Mosh distressing, don’t yer know,” he began courageously, in his
high-keyed, nervous little voice. “Hadn’t slight-tush idea--I mean to
say--not slight-tush idea--you and he didn’t hit it off together. Mosh
shocking ordeal for all of ush. Rather.”
Enoch did not turn his head or reply.
“Awf’ly upset ’bout it--Pierre--’pon my word he is. Horribly angry--old
chap. Went off ripping mad--sensitive, yer know--slight-tush thing
offends him. Awf’ly clever, Pierre--I say--you _were_ mighty rough on
Lamont. Rather. Besh sort in the world. Poor old Pierre wouldn’t hurt a
fly. Ought to really ’polgize--good idea--’polgize--eh?----”
Without a word Enoch rose, tapped the bell, and ordered a little
Bourbon and seltzer.
“Put it over there,” said he to the waiter, indicating a small table by
the window.
“Mosh imposh’ble old brute,” muttered Teddy to himself, as he left the
club to lunch with a widow.