THE QUESTION
Whatever else might be said of General Drake, his Bacchanalian
adventures were those of a gentleman. Not for him were the sinister
streets and the sordid taverns of the town. When his wild moods came
upon him, he struck out straight for open country. Up hill and down
dale he trudged, a knight of the road, finding shelter and refreshment
at wayside inns, or perchance at some friendly farm.
The danger lay in the lawless folk whom he might meet on the way.
Unshaven and unshorn he met them, travelling endlessly along the
railroad tracks, by highways, through woodland paths. They slept by
day and journeyed by night. By reversing this program, the General as
a rule avoided them. But not always, and when the little lad Derry had
followed his strange quests, he had come now and then upon his father,
telling stories to an unsavory circle, lord for the moment of them all.
"Come, Dad," Derry would say, and when the men had growled a threat, he
had flung defiance at them. "My mother's motor is up the road with two
men in it. If I don't get back in five minutes they will follow me."
The General had always been tractable in the hands of his son. He
adored him. It was only of late that he had found anything to
criticise.
Derry, driving along the old Conduit road in the crisp darkness,
wondered how long that restless spirit would endure in that ageing
body. He shuddered as he thought of the two men who were his
father--one a polished gentleman ruling his world, by the power of his
keen mind and of his money, the other a self-made vagabond--pursuing an
aimless course.
The stars were sharp in a sable sky, the river was a thin line of
silver, the bills were blotted out.
Bronson was waiting by the big bridge. "He is singing down there," he
said, "on the bank. Can you hear him?"
Leaning over the parapet, Derry listened. The quavering voice came up
to him.
"_He has sounded forth the--trumpet--that shall never call--retreat--
He is sifting out the--hearts of men--before his judgment--
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! Be jubilant, my feet--'_"
Poor old soldier, beating time to the triumphant tune, stumbling over
the words--held pathetically to the memory of those days when he had
marched in the glory of his youth, strength and spirit given to a
mighty cause!
The pity of it wrung Derry's heart. "Couldn't you do anything with
him, Bronson?"
"No, sir, I tried, but he sent me home. Told me I was discharged."
They might have laughed over that, but it was not the moment for
laughter. In the last twenty years, the General had discharged Bronson
more than once, always without the least idea of being taken at his
word. To have lost this faithful servant would have broken his heart.
"I see. It won't do for you to show yourself just now. You'd better
go home, and have his hot bath ready."
"Are you sure you can bring him, Mr. Derry?"
"Sure, Bronson, thank you."
Bronson walked a few steps and came back. "It is freezing cold, sir,
you'd better take the rug from the car."
Laden thus, Derry made his way down. His flashlight revealed the
General, a humped-up figure on the bank of a little frozen stream.
"Go home, Derry," he said, as he recognized his son. "I want to sit by
myself."
His tone was truculent.
Derry attempted lightness. "You'll be a lump of ice in the morning,
Dad. We'd have to chip you off in chunks."
"You go home with Bronson, son, He is up there. Go home--"
He had once commanded a brigade. There were moments when he was hard
pushed that he remembered it.
"Go home, Derry."
"Not till you come with me."
"I'm not coming."
Derry spread his rug on the icy ground. "Sit on this and wrap up your
legs--you'll freeze out here."
His father did not move. "I am puf-feckly comfa'ble."
The General rarely got his syllables tangled. Things at times happened
to his legs, but he usually controlled his tongue.
"I am puf-feckly comfa'ble--go home, Derry."
"I can't leave you, Dad."
"I want to be left."
He had never been quite like this. There had been moods of rebellion,
but usually he had yielded himself to his son's guidance.
"Dad, be reasonable."
"I'd rather sit here and freeze--than go home with a--coward."
It was out at last. It struck Derry like a whiplash. He sprang to his
feet. "You don't mean that, Dad. You can't mean it."
"I do mean it."
"I am not a coward, and you know it."
"Then why don't you go and fight?"
Silence! The only sound the chuckle of living waters beneath the ice
of the little stream.
"Why don't you go and fight like other men?"
The emphasis was insulting. Derry had only one idea--to escape from
that taunting voice. "You'll be sorry for this, Dad," he flung out at
white heat, and scrambled up the bank.
When he reached the bridge, he paused. He couldn't leave that old man
down there to die of the cold--the wind was rising and rattled in the
bare trees.
But Derry's blood was boiling. He sat down on the parapet, thick
blackness all about him. Whatever had been his father's shortcomings,
they had always clung together--and now they were separated by words
which had cut like a knife. It was useless to tell himself that his
father was not responsible. Out of the heart the mouth had spoken.
And there were other people who felt as his father did--there had been
Drusilla's questions, the questions of others--there had been, too,
averted faces. He saw the little figure in the cloak of heavenly blue
as she had been the other night,--in her gray furs as she had been this
morning--; would her face, too, be turned from him?
Words formed themselves in his mind. He yearned to toss back at his
father the taunt that was on his lips. To fling it over the parapet,
to shout it to the world--!
He had never before felt the care of his father a sacrifice. There had
been humiliating moments, hard moments, but always he had been
sustained by a sense of the rightness of the thing that he was doing
and of its necessity.
Then, out of the darkness, came a shivering old voice, "Derry, are you
there?"
"Yes, Dad."
"Come down--and help me--"
The General, alone in the darkness, had suffered a reaction. He felt
chilled and depressed. He wanted warmth and light.
Mounting steadily with his son's arm to sustain him, he argued
garrulously for a sojourn at the nearest hostelry, or for a stop at
Chevy Chase. He would, he promised, go to bed at the Club, and thus be
rid of Bronson. Bronson didn't know his place, he would have to be
taught--
Arriving at the top, he was led to Derry's car. He insisted on an
understanding. If he got in, they were to stop at the Club.
"No," Derry said, "we won't stop. We are going home."
Derry had never commanded a brigade. But he had in him the blood of
one who had. He possessed also strength and determination backed at
the moment by righteous indignation. He lifted his father bodily, put
him in the car, took his seat beside him, shut the door, and drove off.
He felt remarkably cheered as they whirled along at top speed.
The General, yielding gracefully to the inevitable, rolled himself up
in the rugs, dropped his head against the padded cushions and, soothed
by the warmth, fell asleep.
He waked to find himself being guided up his own stairway by Bronson
and the butler.
"Put him into a hot bath, Bronson," Derry directed from the threshold
of his father's room, and, the General, quite surprisingly, made no
protest. He had his bath, hot drinks to follow, and hot water bags in
his bed. When he drifted off finally, into uneasy dreams, he was
watched over by Bronson as if he had been a baby.
Derry, looking at his watch, was amazed to find that the evening was
yet early. He had lived emotionally through a much longer period than
that marked by the clocks.
He had no engagements. He had found himself of late shrinking a little
from his kind. The clubs and the hotels were crowded with officers.
Private houses, hung with service flags, paid homage to men in uniform.
He was aware that he was, perhaps, unduly sensitive, but it was not
pleasant to meet the inquiring glance, the guarded question. He was
welcomed outwardly as of old. But, then, he had a great deal of money.
People did not like to offend his father's son. But if he had not been
his father's son? What then?
He dined alone and in state in the great dining room. The portraits of
his ancestors looked down on him. There was his mother's grandfather,
who had the same fair hair and strongly marked brows. He had been an
officer in the English army, and wore the picturesque uniform of the
period. There were other men in uniform--ancestors--.
But of what earthly use was an ancestor in uniform to the present
situation? It would have been better to have inherited Quaker blood.
Derry smiled whimsically as he thought how different he might have felt
if there had been benignant men in gray with broad-brimmed hats,
staring down.
But to grant a man an inheritance of fighting blood, and then deny him
the opportunity to exercise his birthright, was a sort of grim joke
which he could not appreciate.
For dessert a great dish of fruit was set before him. He chose a peach!
Peaches in November! The men in the trenches had no peaches, no
squabs, no mushrooms, no avacados--for them bully beef and soup cubes,
a handful of dates, or by good luck a bit of chocolate.
He left the peach untasted--he had a feeling that he might thus,
vicariously, atone for the hardships of those others who fought.
After dinner he walked downtown. Passing Dr. McKenzie's house he was
constrained to loiter. There were lights upstairs and down. Was Jean
McKenzie's room behind the two golden windows above the balcony? Was
she there, or in the room below, where shaded lamps shone softly among
the shadows?
He yearned to go in--to speak with her--to learn her thoughts--to read
her heart and mind. As yet he knew only the message of her beauty. He
fancied her as having exquisite sensibility, sweetness, gentleness,
perceptions as vivid as her youth and bloom.
The front door opened, and Jean and her father came out. Derry's heart
leaped as he heard her laugh. Then her clear voice, "Isn't it a
wonderful night to walk, Daddy?" and her father's response, "Oh, you
with your ecstasies!"
They went briskly down the other side of the street. Derry found
himself following, found himself straining his ear for that light
laugh, found himself wishing that it were he who walked beside her,
that her hand was tucked into his arm as it was tucked into her
father's.
Their destination was a brilliantly illumined palace on F Street, once
a choice little playhouse, now given over to screen productions. The
house was packed, and Jean and her father, following the flashlight of
the usher, found harbor finally in a box to the left of the stage.
Derry settled himself behind them. He was an eavesdropper and he knew
it, but he was loath to get out of the range of that lovely laughter.
Yet observing the closeness of their companionship he felt himself
lonely--they seemed so satisfied to be together--so sufficient without
any other. Once Dr. McKenzie got up and went out. When he came back
he brought a box of candy. Derry heard Jean's "Oh, you darling--" and
thrilled with a touch of jealousy.
He wondered a little that he should care--his experiences with women
had heretofore formed gay incidents in his life rather than serious
epochs. He had carried in his heart a vision, and the girl in the Toy
Shop had seemed to make that vision suddenly real.
The play which was thrown on the screen had to do with France; with
Joan of Arc and the lover who failed her, with the reincarnation of the
lover and his opportunity, after long years, to redeem himself from the
blot of cowardice.
In the stillness, Derry heard the quick-drawn breath of the girl in
front of him. "Daddy, I should hate a man like that."
"But, my dear--"
"I should hate him, Daddy."
The play was over.
The lights went up, and Jean stood revealed. She was pinning on her
hat. She saw Derry and smiled at him. "Daddy," she said, "it is Mr.
Drake--you know him."
Dr. McKenzie held out his hand. "How do you do? So you young people
have met, eh?"
"In Emily's shop, Daddy. He--he came to buy my Lovely Dreams."
The two men laughed. "As if any man could buy your dreams, Jeanie,"
her father said, "it would take the wealth of the world."
"Or no wealth at all," said Derry quickly.
They walked out together. As they passed the portal of the gilded
door, Derry felt that the moment of parting had come.
"Oh, look here, Doctor," he said, desperately, "won't you and your
daughter take pity on me--and join me at supper? There's dancing at
the Willard and all that--Miss McKenzie might enjoy it, and it would be
a life-saver for me."
Light leaped into Jean's eyes. "Oh, Daddy--"
"Would you like it, dear?"
"You know I should. So would you. And you haven't any stupid
patients, have you?"
"My patients are always stupid, Drake, when they take me away from her.
Otherwise she is sorry for them." He looked at his watch. "When I get
to the hotel I'll telephone to Hilda, and she'll know where to find us."
It was the Doctor who talked as they went along--the two young people
were quite ecstatically silent. Jean was between her father and Derry.
As he kept step with her, it seemed to him that no woman had ever
walked so lightly; she laughed a little now and then. There was no
need for words.
While her father telephoned, they sat together for a moment in the
corridor. She unfastened her coat, and he saw her white dress and
pearls. "Am I fine enough for an evening like this?" she asked him;
"you see it is just the dress I wear at home."
"It seems to me quite a superlative frock--and I am glad that your hat
is lined with blue."
"Why?"
"Your cloak last night was heavenly, and now this--it matches your
eyes--"
"Oh." She sat very still.
"Shouldn't I have said that? I didn't think--"
"I am glad you didn't think--"
"Oh, are you?"
"Yes. I hate people who weigh their words--" The color came up finely
into her cheeks.
When Dr. McKenzie returned, Derry found a table, and gave his order.
Jean refused to consider anything but an ice. "She doesn't eat at such
moments," Doctor McKenzie told his young host. "She lives on
star-dust, and she wants me to live on star-dust. It is our only
quarrel. She'll think me sordid because I am going to have broiled
lobster."
Derry laughed, yet felt that it was after all a serious matter. His
appetite, too, was gone. He too wanted only an ice! The Doctor's
order was, however, sufficiently substantial to establish a balance.
"May I dance with her?" Derry asked, as the music brought the couples
to their feet.
"I don't usually let her. Not in a place like this. But her eyes are
begging--and I spoil her, Drake."
Curious glances followed the progress of the young millionaire and his
pretty partner. But Derry saw nothing but Jean. She was like
thistledown in his arms, she was saying tremendously interesting things
to him, in her lovely voice.
"I cried all through the scene where Cinderella sits on the door-step.
Yet it really wasn't so very sad--was it?"
"I think it was sad. She was such a little starved thing--starved for
love."
"Yes. It must be dreadful to be starved for love."
He glanced down at her. "You have never felt it?"
"No, except after my mother died--I wanted her--"
"My mother is dead, too."
The Doctor sat alone at the head of the table and ate his lobster; he
ate war bread and a green salad, and drank a pot of black coffee, and
was at peace with the world. Star-dust was all very well for those
young things out there. He laughed as they came back to him. "Each to
his own joys--the lobster was very good, Drake."
They hardly heard him. Jean had a rosy parfait with a strawberry on
top. Derry had another.
They talked of the screen play, and the man who had failed. If he had
really loved her he would not have failed, Jean said.
"I think he loved her," was Derry's opinion; "the spirit was willing,
but the flesh was weak."
Jean shrugged. "Well, Fate was kind to him--to give him another
chance. Oh, Daddy, tell him the story the little French woman told at
the meeting of the Medical Association."
"You should have heard her tell it--but I'll do my best. Her eloquence
brought us to our feet. It was when she was in Paris--just after the
American forces arrived. She stopped at the curb one morning to buy
violets of an ancient dame. She found the old flower vendor
inattentive and, looking for the cause, she saw across the street a
young American trooper loitering at a corner. Suddenly the old woman
snatched up a bunch of lilies, ran across the street, thrust them into
the hands of the astonished soldier. 'Take them, American,' she said.
'Take the lilies of France and plant them in Berlin.'"
"Isn't that wonderful?" Jean breathed.
"Everything is wonderful to her," the Doctor told Derry, "she lives on
the heights."
"But the lilies of France, Daddy--! Can't you see our men and the
lilies of France?"
Derry saw them, indeed,--a glorious company--!
"Oh, if I were a man," Jean said, and stopped. She stole a timid
glance at him. The question that he had dreaded was in her eyes.
They fell into silence. Jean finished her parfait. Derry's was
untouched.
Then the music brought them again to their feet, and they danced. The
Doctor smoked alone. Back of him somebody murmured, "It is Derry
Drake."
"Confounded slacker," said a masculine voice. Then came a warning
"Hush," as Derry and Jean returned.
"It is snowing," Derry told the Doctor. "I have ordered my car."
Late that night when the Doctor rode forth again alone in his own car
on an errand of mercy, he thought of the thing which he had heard.
Then came the inevitable question: why wasn't Derry Drake fighting?