"every man knows his own weakness. I like the society of Bruce Brainard
so well that when I'm in it I can forget all the pain and sorrow in the
world. When I'm with Mrs. Kelcey I have to remember the hurt, and the
grind, and the hardness of life--and it's good for me. It helps me, as
St. Paul said, to '_keep under my body and bring it into subjection_.'"
"That's monkish doctrine."
"No, it's St. Paul's, I tell you. Remember the rest of it?--_'lest that
by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway_!'"
"You! A castaway!" The doctor laughed.
Brown nodded, rising. "You can see a long way into a man's body, Doctor,
but not so far into his soul. There's been a pretty rotten place in
mine.... Come, shall we go to bed? It's almost two."
The doctor assented, and Brown went into his bedroom to make it ready for
his guest. Closing the drawers he had opened in such haste two hours
before, his eye was caught by something unfamiliar. Against one of the
framed photographs which stood upon the top of the chest leaned a new
picture, unframed. By the light of the small lamp he had brought into the
room he examined it. As the face before him was presented to his gaze he
stopped breathing for the space of several thudding heartbeats.
Out of the veiling brown mists of the picture looked a pair of eyes at
which one glance had long been of more moment to him than the chance to
look long and steadily into other eyes. The exquisite lines of a face
which, having seen, men did not forget, were there before him, in his
possession. It was the face of the woman, young and rich with beauty and
with worldly wealth, who had, three years before, refused to marry
Donald Brown.
"How did this come here? Did Sue leave it? Or did _you_?" He questioned
the photograph in his mind, staring at it with eager eyes. "Wasn't it
enough for you to come here to-night, to make me realize how far apart we
are? You like to play with men's hearts--so they say. Don't you think
it's a bit cruel to play with mine--now?"
But he looked and looked at the enchanting face. And even as he looked
Doctor Brainard called out from the other room:
"By the way, Don, I suppose you've noticed that Atchison seems to be
getting on with his suit. Everybody thinks it's either an engagement or
likely to be one soon. Pretty fine match, eh?"
It was a full minute before the answer came. When it did it sounded a
little as if the speaker had his head in the clothespress which opened
from the small bedroom, albeit the tone was gay enough:
"Webb's one of the best men I know. He deserves to win whatever he wants.
Do you like a hard pillow or a soft, Doctor?"
XII
BROWN'S OLD WORLD
On a certain morning in February, Mrs. Hugh Breckenridge alighted in
haste from her limousine in front of a stately apartment house in the
best quarter of a great city. She hurried through the entrance hall to
the lift and was taken up with smooth speed to the seventh story. In a
minute more she was eagerly pressing the button at the door of a familiar
suite of rooms into which she had not had occasion to enter for more than
a year, for the very good reason that they had been closed and unoccupied
in the absence of their tenant.
The returned tenant himself opened the door to her, a tall figure looming
in the dusk of an unlighted corridor--a tall figure infinitely dear to
Sue Breckenridge.
"O Don!" cried the visitor in an accusing tone. "How could you come back
without letting us know?"
"I've been back only an hour," explained Donald Brown, submitting to and
warmly returning his sister's embrace. "How in the world did you hear of
it so soon? Did Brainard--"
She nodded. "Mrs. Brainard called me up at once, of course. She knew you
couldn't be serious in trying to keep people from knowing you were here,
least of all your sister!"
"I was intending to come to you before luncheon; I only meant to surprise
you. As for the rest--I should be glad if they needn't know; at least
until I'm ready to leave."
"To leave! Don! You're not going to persist in going back! It can't be
true! You won't give up this apartment--tell me you won't!"
His sister's tone was anguished. Before he answered Brown led her into
the library of the suite, the room in which he had been occupied when her
ring came, and put her into a big arm-chair, taking from her her wrap and
furs. Then he sat down upon the edge of a massive mahogany writing-table
near by, crossing his long legs and folding his arms, while she mutely
waited for him to speak.
"Sue," he said--and his face had in it a sort of reflection of the pain
in hers--"you may be sure I haven't come to this decision without a deal
of thought. But I've made it, and I'm going to stick to it because I
believe it's the thing for me to do. I assure you that since I came into
these rooms they have been beseeching me, as loudly as inanimate things
can not to desert them. I'm going to find it the hardest task of my life
to take leave of them."
"Don't take leave of them! Lock them up for another year, if you must
persist in your experiment, but don't, _don't_ burn your bridges behind
you! Oh, how can you think of leaving your splendid church and going off
to consign yourself to oblivion, living with poor people the rest of
your days? You--_you_--Don!--I can't believe it of you!"
His face, in his effort at repression, grew stern. His folded arms became
tense in the muscles.
"Don't make it harder for me than it is. I can't discuss it with you,
because though I argued till I was dumb I could never make you see what I
see. Accept my decision, Sue dear, and don't try my soul by pleading with
me.... I have a lot to do. I should like your help. See here, would you
care to have any of my things? Look about you. This is rather a good rug
under your feet. Will you have it--and any others you fancy?"
She looked down at the heavy Eastern rug, exquisite in its softness and
richness of colouring.
It was one of which, knowing its value, she had long envied her
brother the possession. She put up her hand and brushed away the mist
from her eyes.
"Aren't you going to take _any_ comfortable things with you? Are you
going to go on living on pine chairs and rag carpets--you, who were
brought up on rugs like this?"
He nodded. "For the most part. I've been wondering if I might indulge
myself in one big easy chair, just for old times. But I'm afraid it
won't do."
"Oh, mercy, Don! Why _not_?"
"How should I explain its presence, opposite my red-cushioned rocker?
Give it a good look, Sue, that chair, and tell me honestly if I can
afford to introduce such an incongruous note into my plain bachelor house
up there."
She surveyed the chair in question, a luxurious and costly type standing
for the last word in masculine comfort and taste. It was one which had
been given to Brown by Webb Atchison, and had long been a favourite.
"Oh, I don't know," she said hopelessly, shaking her head. "I can't
decide for any monk what he shall take into his cell."
Brown flushed, a peculiar dull red creeping up under his dark skin. He
smothered the retort on his lips, however, and when he did speak it was
with entire control, though there was, nevertheless, an uncompromising
quality in his inflection which for the moment silenced his sister as if
he had laid his hand upon her mouth.
"Understand me, once for all, Sue--if you can. I am going into no
monastery. To such a man as I naturally am, I am going out of what has
been a sheltered life into one in the open. You think of me as retiring
from the world. Instead of that, I am just getting into the fight. And to
fight well--I must go stripped."
She shook her head again and walked over to the window, struggling with
very real emotion. At once he was beside her, and his arm was about her
shoulders. He spoke very gently now.
"Don't take it so hard, dear girl. I'm not going to be so far away that I
can never come back. You will see me from time to time. I couldn't get on
without my one sister--with father and mother gone, and the brothers at
the other side of the world. Come, cheer up, and help me decide what
disposal to make of my stuff. Will you take the most of it?"
She turned about, presently, dried her eyes determinedly, and surveyed
the room. It was a beautiful room, the sombre hues of its book-lined
walls relieved by the rich and mellow tones of its rugs and draperies,
the distinguished furnishings of the writing-table, and the subdued gleam
of a wonderful reading-lamp of wrought copper which had been given to
Brown by Sue herself.
"If you will let me," she said, "I'll give up one room to your things and
put all these into it. Aren't you even going to take your books?"
"I must--a couple of hundred, at least. I can't give up such old friends
as these."
"A couple of hundred--out of a couple of thousand!"
"There are five thousand in this room," said Brown cheerfully. "But two
hundred will give me a very good selection of favourites, and I can
change them from time to time. I have sixty or seventy already with
me.... Hello! Who can that be? Has Brainard been giving me away right
and left?"
He answered the ring, and admitted Webb Atchison, rosy of cheek and
rather lordly of appearance, as always. The bachelor came in,
frowning even as he smiled, and bringing to Donald Brown a vivid
suggestion of old days.
"Caught!" he cried, shaking hands. "Thought you could sneak in and out
of town like a thief in the night, did you? It can't be done, old man."
He was in a hurry and could stay but ten minutes. Five of those he
devoted to telling Brown what he thought of the news he had heard, by
which he understood that St. Timothy's was to lose permanently the man
whom it had expected soon to have back. Brown listened with head a little
down-bent, arms folded again, lips set in lines of determination. He had
been fully prepared for the onslaughts of his friends, but that fact
hardly seemed to make it easier to meet them. When Atchison had delivered
himself uninterrupted, Brown lifted his head with a smile.
"Through, Webb?" he asked.
"No, I'm not through, by a long shot, but it's all I have time for now,
for I came on a different matter. Since I heard you were here I've been
telephoning around, and I've got together a little dinner-party for
to-night that you won't evade if you have a particle of real affection
for me. I'm not going to be cheated out of it. It'll be a hastily
arranged affair, but there may be something decent to eat and drink.
Brainard tells me you're not going to linger in town an hour after your
business is done, so I thought best to lose no time. You'll come, of
course? The way you're looking just now I don't know but you're equal to
refusing me even such a small favour as this one!"
Brown crossed the room, to lay his hands on Atchison's shoulders. His
eyes were dark with suppressed feeling.
"My dear old friend," said he affectionately, "I wish you wouldn't take
the thing this way. I'm not dealing blows at those I love; if I'm dealing
them at anybody it's at myself. I can't possibly tell you what it means
to me--this crisis. I can only ask you not to think hardly of me. As for
the dinner, if it will please you to have me agree to it I will, only--I
should a little rather have you stand me up against a wall and take a
shot at me!"
"For a deserter?"
Atchison spoke out of his grief and anger, not from belief in the motive
he imputed. When he saw Donald Brown turn white and clench the hands he
dropped from his friend's shoulders, Atchison realized what he had done.
He winced under the sting of the quick and imperious command which
answered him:
"Take that back, Webb!"
"I do--and apologize," said the other man instantly, and tears smarted
under his eyelids. "You know I didn't mean it, Don. But--hang it
all!--I'm bitterly disappointed and I can't help showing it."
"Disappointed in me--or in my act?" Brown was still stern.
"In your act, of course. I'm bound to acknowledge that it must take a
brave man to cut cables the way you're doing--a mighty brave man."
"I don't care about being considered brave, but I won't be called
a coward."
"I thought," said Atchison, trying to smile, "there was something in your
Bible about turning the other cheek."
"There is," said Brown steadily. "And I do it when I come to your dinner.
But between now and then I'll knock you down if you insult the course
I've laid out for myself."
The two men gazed at each other, the one the thorough man of the world
with every sign of its prospering touch upon him, the other looking
somehow more like a lean and hardened young soldier of the army than a
student of theology. Both pairs of eyes softened. But it was Atchison's
which gave way first.
"Confound you, Don--it's because of that splendidly human streak in you
that we love you here. You've always seemed to have enough personal
acquaintance with the Devil and his works to make you understand the rest
of us, and refrain from being too hard on us."
At which Sue Breckenridge--who had been listening with tense-strung
nerves to the interview taking place in her presence--laughed, with an
hysterical little sob shaking her. Both men looked at her.
"Poor Sue," said Brown. "She doesn't like to have you quarrel with me,
yet it's all she can do to keep from quarrelling with me herself! Between
you, if you don't undermine my purpose, it will be only because I've been
preparing my defenses for a good while and have strong patrols out at the
weak points."
"I give you fair warning, I'll undermine it yet if I can," and Atchison
gripped Brown's hand with fervor before he went away, charging Sue
Breckenridge with the responsibility of bringing her brother to the
dinner to be given that evening.
"Now, what"--said Brown, turning to his writing-table when Atchison had
gone, and absently picking up a bronze paper-weight which lay
there--"put it into his head to fire a dinner at me the moment he knew I
was here?"
"We all have a suspicion," said Sue, watching him as she spoke, "that he
and Helena are ready to announce their engagement. It may have popped
into his head that with you here it was just the time to do it. Of
course," she went on hurriedly, in answer to something she thought she
saw leap into her brother's face, "we don't absolutely know that they're
engaged. He's been devoted for a good while, and since he's never been
much that sort with women it looks as if it meant something."
"It looks it on his part," said Brown, opening a drawer in the table and
appearing to search therein. "Does it look it on hers?"
"Not markedly so. But Helena's getting on--she must be twenty-six or
seven--and she always seems happy with him. Of course that's no evidence,
for she has such a charmingly clever way with men you never can tell when
she's bored--and certainly they can't. It's just that it seems such a
splendidly fitting match we're confident there's ground for our
expectations."
"I see. Altogether, that dinner promises well for sensations--of one sort
or another. Meanwhile, shall we pitch into business?"
Together they went through Brown's apartment, which was a large one, and
comprised everything which he had once considered necessary to the
comfort of a bachelor establishment. As he looked over that portion of
the place pertaining to the cooking and serving of food he smiled rather
grimly at the contrast it inevitably brought to his mind. Standing before
the well-filled shelves in the butler's pantry he eyed a certain
cherished set of Sèvres china, thinking of the cheap blue-and-white ware
which now filled all his needs, and recalling with a sense of amusement
the days, not so long past, when he would have considered himself ill
served had his breakfast appeared in such dishes.
"It's all in the way you look at it, Sue," he exclaimed, opening the
doors of leaded glass and taking down a particularly choice example of
the ceramic art in the shape of a large Satsuma plate. "Look at that,
now! Why should a chop taste any better off that plate than off the one I
ate from this morning at daybreak? It tastes no better--I vow it doesn't
taste as good. I've a keener appetite now than last year, when Sing Lee,
my Chinese cook, was cudgelling his Asiatic brains to tempt me."
"That's not the way I look at it," Sue answered mournfully. "To me it
makes all the difference in the world how food is served, not to mention
how it is cooked. Do you ever have anything but bacon and eggs at that
dreadful place of yours?"
"Bless your heart, yes! I don't deny myself good food, child--get that
out of your mind. Why, just night before last Jennings and I had an
oyster roast, on the half-shell, over the coals in my fireplace. My word,
but they were good! If Webb can give us anything better than that
to-night he'll surprise me."
"Who is Jennings? A laundryman or a policeman?"
"Neither. Jennings is a clerk in the office of a great wholesale hardware
house. He was down on his luck, a while back, but he's pulled out of his
trouble. When his wife's called out of town, as she often is by the old
people back home, he keeps me company. He's particularly fond of roasted
oysters, is Jennings, since a certain night when I introduced them to his
unaccustomed palate. It's great fun to see him devour them."
Sue shook her head again. She could seem to do little else these days,
being in a perpetual state of wonder and regret over that which she could
not understand--quite as her brother had said. He sent her away an hour
before luncheon time, telling her that he would follow when he had
attended to certain matters in which she could not help. Having put her
into her car, he waved a cheery hand at her as she drove away, and
returned to his apartment. He lingered a little at the lift to ask after
the welfare of the young man who operated it, whom he had known in past
days; but presently he was in his library again with the door locked
behind him. And here for a brief space business was suspended.
Before the big leather chair he fell upon his knees, burying his head
in his arms.
"_Oh, good Father_,'" said Brown, just above his breath, "_only Thou
canst help me through this thing. It's even harder than I thought it
would be. I want the old life, I want the old love--my heart is weak
within me at the thought of giving them up.... I know the temptation
comes not from without but from within. It's my own weak self that is my
enemy, not the lure of the life I'm giving up.... Give me
strength--fighting strength.... Help me--'not to give in while I can
stand and see_.'"
Presently he rose to his feet. He was pale, but in his face showed the
renewed strength of purpose he had asked for. He set about the task of
packing the few things he meant to take with him, working with a certain
unhurried efficiency which accomplished no small amount in that hour
before luncheon. Then he descended to find his sister's car waiting for
him, and was whirled away.
XIII
BROWN'S TRIAL BY FLOOD
At nine o'clock that night, feeling a little as if he were in some sort
of familiar dream, Brown, wearing evening dress for the first time in
more than a year, sat looking about him. He was at Mrs. Brainard's right
hand, in the post of the guest of honour, for Mrs. Brainard was playing
hostess for her bachelor friend, Webb Atchison, in the apartment of the
princely up-town hotel which was his more or less permanent home.
About the great round table were gathered a goodly company--the company
of Brown's old friends among the rich and eminent of the city. Not only
men of great wealth, but men distinguished in their professions, noted
for their achievements, and honoured for their public services, were
among those hurriedly asked to do this man honour. They had all been
more or less constant members of his congregation during the years when
he was making a name as the most forceful and fearless young preacher who
ever ventured to tell the people of aristocratic St. Timothy's what he
thought of them.
And they were gathered to-night to tell him what they thought of him.
They were sparing no pains to do so. More than once, while he parried
their attacks upon his resolution to leave them permanently, parried them
with a smiling face, with a resolute quiet voice, with the quickness of
return thrust for which he was famous in debate, he was inwardly sending
up one oft-repeated, pregnant petition: "_Lord, help me through this--for
Thy sake_!"
They were not men alone who combined against him with every pressure of
argument; there were women present who used upon him every art of
persuasion. Not that of speech alone, but that subtler witchery of look
and smile with which such women well know how to make their soft blows
tell more surely than harder ones from other hands. Among these, all of
whom were women of charm and distinction after one fashion or another,
was one who alone, though she seemed to be making no direct attack, was
waging the heaviest war of all against Donald Brown's determination.
Atchison, in arranging the places of his guests, had put Helena Forrest
at Brown's right, at the sacrifice of his own pleasure, for by this
concession she was farthest from himself. Whether or not he understood
how peculiarly deadly was the weapon he thus used against his friend, he
knew that Helena was capable of exerting a powerful influence upon any
man--how should he himself not know it, who was at her feet? He had no
compunction in bringing that influence to bear upon Brown at this moment,
when the actual word of withdrawal had not yet been spoken.
Yet as from time to time Atchison looked toward these two of his guests
he wondered if Helena were doing all she could in the cause in which he
had enlisted her. She was saying little to Brown, he could see that; and
Brown was saying even less to her. Each seemed more occupied with the
neighbour upon the farther side than with the other. Just what this meant
Atchison could not be sure.
The dinner, an affair of surprising magnificence considering the brief
hours of its preparation, drew at length to its close. It seemed to Brown
that he had been sitting at that table, in the midst of the old
environment in which he had once been carelessly happy and assured, for
hours upon end, before the signal came at last for the departure of the
women. And even then he knew that after they had gone the worst was
probably to come. It came. Left alone with him, the men of the party
redoubled their attacks. With every argument, renewed and recast, they
assaulted him. He withstood them, refusing at the last to argue, merely
lifting his head with a characteristic gesture of determination, smiling
wearily, and saying with unshaken purpose: "It's no use, gentlemen. I've
made up my mind. I'm sorry you think I'm wrong, but I can't help that,
since I believe I'm right."
They could not credit their own failure, these men of power, so
accustomed to having things go their way that they were unable to
understand even the possibility of being defeated. And they were being
defeated by a man whom they had never admired more--and they had made
him, as Sue Breckenridge had said, the idol of the great church--than now
when he refused them. But they, quite naturally, did not show him that.
They showed him disappointment, chagrin, cynicism, disbelief in his
judgment, everything that could make his heart beat hard and painfully
with the weight of their displeasure.
Suddenly he rose to his feet. A hush fell, for they thought he was going
to speak to them. He was silent for a minute, looking down at these old
friends who were so fond of him; then he opened his mouth. But not to
speak--to sing.
It was a powerful asset of Donald Brown's, and it had never been more
powerful than now, this voice which had been given him of heaven. They
had often heard him before but now, under these strange circumstances,
they listened with fresh amazement to the beauty of his tones. Every word
fell clean-cut upon their ears, every note was rich with feeling, as
Brown in this strange fashion made his plea, took his stand with George
Matheson's deathless words of passionate loyalty:
"Make me a captive, Lord,
And then I shall be free;
Force me to render up my sword,
And I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life's alarms
When by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Thy arms,
And strong shall be my hand."
When they looked up, these men, they saw that the women of the party had
come back to the doors, drawn by an irresistible force.
In a strange silence, broken only by low-spoken words, the whole company
returned to the living-rooms of the apartment. Here Brown himself broke
the spell he had laid upon them.
Speaking in the ringing voice they knew of old, and with a gesture of
both arms outflung as if he threw himself upon their friendship, he
cried blithely: