THE TIME WAS DRAWING NEAR.
One morning, when DeGolyer called at the hospital, young Witherspoon
said to him: "You are Hank, and I'm Henry." And this was the first
indication that his mind was regaining its health.
Every day George Witherspoon would ask: "Well, how's your peculiar
friend getting along?" And one evening, when he made this inquiry,
DeGolyer answered: "He is so much pleased that he doesn't think it
will take him quite three months to decide."
"Good enough, but why doesn't he decide now?"
"Because it would hardly be in keeping with his peculiar methods. I
haven't questioned him, but occasionally he drops a hint that leads me
to believe that he's satisfied."
DeGolyer was once tempted to tell Richmond and McGlenn that he was
feeling his way through a part that had been put upon him, but with
this impulse came a restraining thought--the play was not yet done.
They were at luncheon, and McGlenn had declared that DeGolyer was
sometimes strangely inconsistent.
"I admit that I am, John, and with an explanation I could make you
stare at me."
"Then let us have the explanation. Man was made to stare as well as to
mourn."
"No, not now; but it will come one of these days, though perhaps not
directly from me."
"Ah, you have killed a mysterious lion and made a riddle; but where
is the honey you found in the carcass? Give us the explanation."
"Not now. But one of these bleak Chicago days you and Richmond will
sit in the club, watch the whirling snow and discuss me, and you both
will say that you always thought there was something strange about
me."
"And we do," McGlenn replied. "Here's a millionaire's son, and he has
chosen toil instead of ease. Isn't that an anomaly, and isn't such an
anomaly a strange thing? But will the outcome of that vague something
cause us to hold you at a cooler length from us--will that 'I told you
so' result in your banishment? Shall we send a Roger Williams over the
hills?"
"John, what are you trying to get at?" Richmond asked.
McGlenn looked serenely at him. "Have you devoured your usual quota of
pickles? If so, writhe in your misery until I have dined."
"I writhe, not with what I have eaten, but at what I see. Is there a
more distressing sight than an epicure--or a gourmand, rather--with a
ragged purse?"
"Oh, yes; a stuffer, a glutton without a purse."
Richmond laughed. "Hunger may force a man to apparent gluttony," he
said, "and a sandbagger may have taken his purse; and all on his part
is honesty. But there is pretense--which I hold is not honest--in an
effort to be an epicure."
"Ah, which you hold is not honest. A most rare but truthful avowal,
since nothing you hold is honest."
"In my willingness to help the weak," Richmond replied, "I have held
your overcoat while you put it on."
"And it was not an honest covering until you took your hands off."
"Neither did it cover honesty until some other man put it on by
mistake," Richmond rejoined.
DeGolyer went to his office, and Richmond and McGlenn, wrangling as
they walked along, betook themselves to the Press Club. "I tell you,"
said McGlenn, as they were going up the stairs, "that he needs our
sympathy. He has suffered, but having suffered, he is great."
Thus the weeks were sprinkled with light incidents, and thus the days
dripped into the past--and a designated future was drawing near.
"Well," Witherspoon remarked one Sunday morning, "the time set by your
insane friend will soon be up."
"Yes, within a week," DeGolyer replied.
"I should think that he is more in need of apartments in an asylum
than of a newspaper; but if he thinks he knows his business, all
right; we have nothing to say. What has he agreed to give for the
paper?"
"No price has been fixed, but there'll be no trouble about that."
"I hope not."
"Did you understand mother and Ellen to say they were going out
shopping to-morrow afternoon?" DeGolyer asked.
"Yes, but what of it?"
"There's this of it: If they decide to go, I want you to meet me here
at three o'clock."
"Why can't you meet me at the store?"
"Don't I tell you that my friend is peculiar?"
"Oh, it's to meet him, eh? All right, I'll be here."
His play was nearing the end. To-morrow he must snatch "the make-up"
off his face. He felt a sadness that was more than half a joy. He
should be free; he should be honest, and being honest, he could summon
that most sterling of all strength, a manly self-respect. He had
thought himself strong, but had found himself weak. The love of money,
which at first had seemed so gross, at last had conquered him. This
thought did not sting him now; it softened him, made him look with a
more forgiving eye upon tempted human nature. But was it money that
had tempted him to turn from a purpose so resolutely formed? Had not
Witherspoon's argument and Ellen's persuasion left him determined to
reserve one refuge for his mind--one closet wherein he could hang the
cast-off garment of real self? Then it was the appeal of that gentle
woman whom he called mother; it was not money. But after yielding to
the mother he had found himself without a prop, and at last he had
felt a contempt for a moderate income and had boasted to himself that
he could buy a man. And for this he reproached himself. How grim was
that something known as fate, how mockingly did it play with the
children of men, and in that mockery how cold a justice! But he should
be free, and that thought thrilled him.
In the afternoon he went over to the North Side, and along a modest
street he walked, looking at the houses as if hunting for a number. He
went up a short flight of wooden steps and rang the bell of the second
flat. The hall door was open, and a moment later he saw Miss Drury at
the head of the stairs.
"Why, is that you, Mr. Witherspoon?"
"Yes; may I come up?"
"What a question! Of course you may, especially as I am as lonesome
as I can be."
He was shown into a neat sitting-room, where a canary bird "fluttered"
his hanging cage up and down. A rose was pinned on one of the white
curtains. The room was warmed by a stove, and through the isinglass
the playful flame could be seen. She brought a "tidied" rocking-chair,
and smiling in her welcome, said that as this was his first visit, she
must make him comfortable. "Don't you see," she added, "that you
constantly make me forget that I am working for you?"
"And don't you know," he answered, "that you are most pleasing when
you do forget it? But I am to infer that you wouldn't give me the
rocking-chair if you didn't forget that you were working for me?"
"You must infer nothing," she said. "But am I most pleasing when I
forget? Then I will not remember again. It is a woman's duty to be
pleasing; and her advantage, too, for when she ceases to please she
loses many of her privileges."
DeGolyer went to the window, took the rose, brought it to her and
said: "Put this in your hair."
She looked up as she took the rose; their eyes met and for a moment
they lived in the promise of a delirious bliss. She looked down as she
was putting the flower in her hair. He spoke an idle word that meant
more than old Wisdom's speech, and she answered with a laugh that was
nearly a sob. He thirsted to take her in his arms, to tell her of his
love, but his time was not yet come--he was still Henry Witherspoon.
"How have you spent the day?" she asked.
"I'm thinking of to-morrow."
"And will to-morrow be so important?"
"Yes, the most important day of my life."
"Oh, tell me about it."
"I will to-morrow."
"Well, I suppose I shall have to wait, but I wish you would tell me
just a little bit of it."
"To tell a little would be to tell all. The story is not yet
complete."
"Oh, is it a story? And is it one that you are writing?"
"No, one that I am living. It is a strange tale."
"I know it must be interesting, but what has to-morrow to do with it?"
"It will be completed then."
"I don't understand you; I never did. I've often thought you the
saddest man I have ever seen, and I've wondered why. You ought not to
be sad--fortune is surely a friend of yours. You live in a grand
house, and your father is a power in this great community. All the
advantages of this life are within your reach; and if you can find
cause to be sad, what must be the condition of people who have to
struggle in order to live!"
"The summing-up of what you say means that I ought to be thankful."
"Yes, you were stolen, it is true, but you were restored, and
therefore, by contrast and out of gratitude, you should be happier
than if you had never been taken away."
"All that is true so far as it _is_ true," he replied. "And let me say
that I'm not so sad as you suppose. Do you care if I smoke here?"
"Not at all."
He lighted a cigar and sat smoking in silence. A boy shouted in the
hall, a dog barked, and a cat sprang up from a doze under a table,
looked toward the door, gave himself a humping stretch, and then lay
down again.
Whenever DeGolyer looked at the girl, a new expression, the rosy tinge
of a strange confusion, flew to her countenance. His talk evoked a
self-possessed reply, but over his silence an embarrassment was
brooding. She seemed to be in fear of something that sweetly she
expected.
"I may not be at the office to-morrow until evening, but will you wait
for me?"
"Yes."
"And when I come, I'll be myself."
"Be yourself? Who are you now?"
"Another man."
"Oh, then I shall be glad to see you."
"I don't know as to that. You may have strong objections to my real
self."
"You are _so_ mysterious."
"To-day, yes; to-morrow, no."
He was leaning back, blowing rings of smoke, and was looking up at
them.
"Perhaps I shouldn't say it," she said, "but during the last three
months you have appeared stranger than ever."
"Yes," he drawlingly replied, "for during the last three months it was
natural that I should be stranger than ever."
"I do wish I knew what you mean."
"And when you have been told you may wish you had never known."
"Is it so bad as that?"
"Worse."
"Worse than what?"
"Than anything you imagine."
"Oh, you are simply trying to tease me, Mr. Witherspoon."
"Do you think so? Then we'll say no more about it."
"Oh, but that's worse than ever. Well, I don't care; I can wait."
They talked on subjects in which neither of them was interested, but
sympathy was in their voices. Gradually--yes, now it seemed for
months--they had been floating toward that fern-covered island in the
river of life where a thoughtless word comes back with an echo of
love; where the tongue may be silly, but where the eye holds a
redeemed soul, returned from God to gaze upon the only remembered
rapture of this earth.
She went with him to the head of the stairway. "Don't leave the office
before I come," he called, looking back at her.
"You know I won't," she answered.