Kenyon got rid of Peter, too.
Apart from the fact that he was going to wait up for Belle, he wanted to
be alone. He was angry. It was just like his bad luck to come all the
way to America and find that the two men who had it in their power to be
of substantial use to him were both fully occupied,--one being
hopelessly in love, the other in money trouble and in what he recognized
as a difficult and even dangerous position. With characteristic
selfishness he resented these things. They made it necessary for him to
exercise his brain,--not for himself--which was his idea of the whole
art of living--but for others. There were other things that he resented
also. One was the fact that Peter was what he called a damned child. He
had no admiration whatever for his friend's absolute determination to
look only at the clean things of life. A thousand times since they had
shared the same rooms he had cursed Peter because of his sweeping
refusal to discuss a question which he knew to be of vital and
far-reaching importance. At these times Peter had always said something
like this: "My dear Nick, I'm not going to be a doctor, a woman-hunter,
or a sloppy man about town. I don't want to know any details whatever of
the things which stir up other men's curiosity. I've no room in my brain
for them. They don't amuse me or interest me. I'm jolly well going to
remain a damned child, whether you like it or not, so you may chuck
trying to drag me into these midnight discussions of yours with the men
who hang nudes all over their walls and gloat over filthy little French
books."
And then there was Graham. He, like untold hundreds of his type, had a
certain amount of precocity, but no knowledge. He had merely peeked at
the truth of things through a chink. He had looked at life with the
salacious eyes of a Peeping Tom. And what was the result? Worse than
total ignorance. Deep down in whatever soul he had, Nicholas Kenyon
honestly and truly believed in friendship between father and son. He
knew--none better--because it was his business to observe, that a young
man was frightfully and terribly handicapped who went out into the world
unwarned, unadvised and uninitiated. He had often come across men like
Peter and Graham whose lives had been absolutely ruined at the very
outset for the reason that their fathers had either been too cowardly or
too indifferent to give them the benefit of their own experience and
early troubles. In fact, most of the men he knew--and he knew a great
many--had been left to discover the essential truths and facts for
themselves. The inevitable end of it was that they made their
discoveries too late.
Fate certainly must have had a very grim amusement in watching Nicholas
Kenyon as he walked up and down the library of Dr. Hunter Guthrie's
house that night, blazing at the delinquencies of fathers. Nevertheless,
Kenyon had the right to be indignant, whether his reasons for being so
sprang out of his selfishness or not. His own father was an
unscrupulous, unserious man, that was true, but at any rate he had given
his son a human chance. He could take it or leave it as he liked. And
when Kenyon, piecing together all that he had heard of Dr. Guthrie from
Peter, from Graham and from Belle, added all that to the very obvious
fact that these two boys were out in the world with blind eyes, he burst
into a scoffing laugh. In his mind's eye he could see the excellent and
distinguished Doctor rounding his back over experiments for the benefit
of humanity, while he utterly neglected to give two of the human beings
for whom he was responsible the few words of advice which would render
it unnecessary for them to become his patients.
If Kenyon had been a more generous man--if in his nature there had been
one small grain of unselfishness--he would have gone at that very
moment, then and there, to the door of the Doctor's laboratory--into
that wonderful room--sat down opposite the man who spent his life in it
with such noble concentration and begged him to desert his microbes and
turn his attention to his sons. As it was he neglected to take an
opportunity which would have enabled the recording angel to make one
very good entry on the blank credit side of his account, and
concentrated upon a way in which he could use Peter and Graham for his
own material ends. He was immediately faced therefore with two "jobs,"
as he called them,--one to queer Peter's engagement with Betty, in order
that he might achieve his friend's whole attention, the other to lift
Graham out of his ghastly entanglement, for the same purpose. Bringing
himself up to that point and relying upon his ingenuity with complete
confidence, Kenyon mixed himself another high-ball and listened with a
certain amount of eagerness for Belle's light step.
He hadn't long to wait. He had just gone into the dimly lighted hall
with the intention of getting some air on the front doorstep, when the
door opened and Belle let herself in.
"You keep nice hours," he said.
Belle had been dancing. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes bright. She
had never looked so all-conqueringly youthful or so imbued with the joy
of life. She came across to him like a young goddess of the forest, with
the wild beauty and that suggestion of unrestraint which always made
Kenyon's blood run quickly.
"Have you waited for me?" she asked. "How perfectly adorable of you."
"What have you been doing?"
"Oh, the usual things--dinner, theatre, dancing."
Kenyon went nearer and put his hands on her arms, hotly. "Curse those
men!" he said.
"What men?"
"The men who've been holding you to-night. Why have I come over? Can't
you scratch these engagements and wait for me? I'm not going to share
you with every Tom, Dick and Harry in this place."
A feeling of triumph came to Belle--a new feeling--because hitherto this
man's attitude had been that of master. "You're jealous!" she cried.
Kenyon turned away sharply. For once he was not playing with this girl
for the sport of the thing, just to see what she would say and do in
order to pass away the time. The whole evening had tended to upset his
calculations and plans. He had found himself thrown suddenly into a
position of responsibility,--a state that he avoided with rare and
consummate agility. And now came Belle, radiant and high-spirited, from
an evening spent with other men,--more beautiful and desirable than he
had ever seen her look.