“I should hope not!” he muttered.
I paid no heed to him. The thing now was to get the truth out and have
it over with.
“There have been one or two moments when I dared think she was beginning
to love me,” I went on. “But I was reasoning from my hopes. She was
alone. She was destitute--desperate. There was no one she could turn
to, except myself. She knew that I had come to love her. And hurt and
crushed as she was--with all the gratitude that the biggest heart I have
ever known could--But what is the good of this! What fault there has
been, is mine. She is a buoyant, vital thing, an artist, all spirit and
fire. Even in her suffering I can see that. There have been glimpses,
when we were working and she could forget for a moment. I am a quiet
man, a man of the study, a narrow man.”
“Yes, you _are_ narrow,” he put in.
“She must have variety. She must have stirring moments, strong
reactions. She could not possibly be happy with me. And as for you,
Crocker--well, we know about that. You are quite impossible. You thought
you could possess her. Finding that you couldn't, you would kill her.”
He winced. I was glad to see it. I must make him wince. I must show him
that he was not only a brute, but an absurd one.
He went over to the bureau and rummaged nervously in the top drawer. I
could see, in the mirror, that his face was working, in the way it has
when he is deeply stirred. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he came
back to the table, and with a fair assumption of an offhand manner
reached for the whisky bottle.
I snatched it away from him, sprang to the window, and threw it out,
hard. I heard it break on the pavement below.
Then I turned and faced him, wondering, with a swift uprush of
excitement, what he would do. I had taken him quite by surprise, which
was a point for me. His great strength had not enabled him to keep that
bottle.
His first expression was a sort of hurt bewilderment. He took a step
toward me, but without any particular evidence of anger--more as if he
meant to protest.
Next he turned, slowly and heavily, in the direction of the bell. This
was over by the hall door. I ran toward it. A chair stood in the way,
and I remember throwing it over in my rush. I had my back against the
bell before he had got to the middle of the room.
He just stood there, trying to think. Then, abruptly, he turned back,
dropped on the sofa, and buried his face in his hands.
I came across the room, as far as the table, and stood over him until he
lifted his head. He was evidently fighting to keep from going to pieces.
And his pride was not yet wholly gone, for he said--
“See here, Eckhart, I'm not feeling well at all. Just let me ring for
a drink, and I'll talk with you. I will. I 'll talk. This thing has
driven me wild. But you're right enough, I suppose. Just push the bell,
will you? The thing has got to be settled. We'll settle it, you and
I. If you think there's really any show for her, on her own, I'll be
reasonable. It's been the thought of that fellow--of other men--Oh,
God!” His face dropped again on his hands.
It was at this point that I began to feel discouraged over the prospect
of arriving at any real settlement of the business. The man could not
be counted on to remain in the same state of mind for two consecutive
hours. I told him, in good round language, that he could not have
another drop of whisky; and he exhibited self-respect enough (for the
moment) to stop his whining.
Then for a little while I just sat on the edge of the table and looked
at him. This was Heloise's husband. My spirit revolted at the thought.
Her husband! The crude law under which we live actually gives such a man
“rights” over that fine woman. It was unthinkable. And it was so.
“Come out with it,” I heard him saying. “What's your proposition?”
I had to think quickly. For this, after all, was the opportunity I had
been so desperately seeking. I must talk straight.
“You are to let her have a divorce. If I know her at all, she will not
accept alimony--”
“Stuff!” said he. “Did you ever see anybody that would n't take money!”
They were as far apart as that, those two. I pushed right on--“but she
will have to accept something. A lump sum, say, on the ground that you
have held back her training and limited her immediate earning capacity.
I think, if that point is made very clear to her, she will be reasonable
about accepting enough to carry her through her two or three years of
study and the getting up of a repertoire. I would not ask her to agree
to more than that. Not from you.”
There, that was plain talk enough, surely, even for Crocker!
He took it pretty calmly. In fact, I am not sure that it wasn't
something of a relief to his hard head to get down to what he would call
“brass tacks”--meaning money, and the traffic in money.
“That's your proposition?” he said.
“That's my proposition.”
“And when do you want an answer?”
I must admit that he surprised me here. “Why,” I replied, “now. On the
spot.”
He shook his head.
“No,” said he. “You are asking me to agree to a plan that would change
my whole life.”
“For the better!” I interrupted eagerly.
“Perhaps,” said he. “Do you think I have traveled from New York to
Peking for the purpose of changing my mind in one minute, because you
ask me to?”
He had stiffened up, as he sat there, and was talking, all of a sudden,
quite like a responsible business man. Whether this change was merely a
momentary outcropping of self-respect, or whether there was man enough
in him to bring that drink-fuddled brain so swiftly under control, I
could not imagine.
“What else can you do?” I asked, as quietly and reasonably as I could
manage. “At this moment you seem more like your real self, Crocker, than
at any other time since I came in here--”
“I'm myself, all right,” he broke in gruffly. “Never you mind about
that. Let me hear your arguments.”
“--and you can't sit here, and look me in the eye, and tell me that
you seriously consider carrying out the insane purpose that brought you
here. You can't, man!”
“Cut that talk out!” he cried angrily. “Stick to your own side of it.”
“There is no other side of it, Crocker. You're not going to kill her.
She'll never go back to you. Your only possible course is to give her
up. And my guess is that you'll show yourself a reasonably good sport.”
This touched him. At last I had hit on a phrase that he could
understand, in all this ugly talk that I was driving so desperately at
him.
“Never mind that, either,” he growled.
I stood up, and looked at him. It seemed to me that I had him.
Certainly, he was avoiding my eyes.
He jerked out his watch, and stared at it, turning the stem around and
around between his fingers.
“It's eleven-fifteen,” he said, then slowly let the watch drop back in
his pocket.
He had smoked the last of his cigar. Now he lighted a fresh one.
“I'll give you my answer at two,” he added.
For a moment I did not know what to say to this.
“What's the matter,” he said, in that rough voice.
It was such a voice, I imagined, as he would employ with business
subordinates. “What's the matter? Isn't that reasonable? You've stated
your proposition. I'll think it over and give you my answer after lunch.
If I accept it, I'll pack up and leave Peking on the first train.”
Still I hesitated. He just sat and smoked.
“You know what's the matter,” I replied, finally. I decided to stick to
my policy of talking in his own blunt way. “How do I know that you will
be sober at two?”
“I'll be sober,” said he. He thought this over, and added, “After all,
Eckhart, I suppose you have a right to ask that question. I'll admit
that I've been making a dam' fool of myself. I've been drunk ever since
I got here.”
“Yes,” said I, “I know it.”
This disturbed him a little, but he went on--“I'm glad you threw that
bottle out. It was what I needed to bring me to my senses. I'm all right
now. You 'll see. Tell you what I 'll do--I'll take a cold bath. That
always sets me up. Then I'll order up a lot of coffee with my lunch, and
only a light wine.” He got up, and stood over me. “There's my assurance
that you'll find me here, O. K., at two. I'm not a common drunkard,
Eckhart. You're not a man of the world, and you don't see these things
quite as they are. I've been stewed, that's all. I'm through. Now for
the coldest bath they've got.” He began stripping off his clothing.
“Come right in at two. Don't bother to send your name up.”
For a moment I could only look up at him. I must admit that he was
convincing. What he said was quite true--disordered as he had been,
through passion and drink, he was not yet a common drunkard. There was
yet stuff in the man Besides if, as I was beginning to hope, he really
meant to accept my plan, the less than three hours he asked for was a
quite reasonable concession to his pride.