George Derring, Julian Fairless, and Harry Stayr organized the Fireside
Club in New York to gratify the instincts of the slovenly well-to-do.
Limited membership and a long waiting-list told its successful story.
Derring also had financed the big new building on 57th Street, where
the Fireside occupied the entire second floor.
The remainder of the building harboured members in apartments of one to
three rooms. Some apartments had studios attached.
The Fireside Club was the common meeting-ground. Members could sprawl
there in evening dress or bath-robe and slippers, all day and all night
if they liked.
Men with an inclination to conversation and a disinclination for work
seemed to compose the bulk of membership. Which gave to the Fireside
that intellectual allure so impressive among the mindless millions.
The glamour of genius played about the Fireside like St. Anthony’s
fire; its Thinkers and its Talkers found its exclusive luxury a
paradise.
But a few common and irreverent folk characterised it as an
intellectual doldrums where talent lay becalmed; or a maelstrom of talk
where creative energy was sucked under and ultimately engulfed.
In midsummer a majority of the Fireside wandered far and wide in that
restless quest for satisfaction characteristic of those who talk much
and do little.
But always a sprinkling remained to loaf about the club. From which
retreat, having dined well, the dusky tropic brilliancy of Manhattan’s
streets lured them into endless wanderings through a thousand and one
Metropolitan Nights.
* * * * *
Early in spring Sadoul had cabled from Paris that he was giving up his
apartment there on May first. So somebody else moved in on that date.
Derring returned in June from a gastronomic tour of European Ritz’s. He
mentioned meeting Julian Fairless in Paris, but had not seen Sadoul.
Before Sadoul returned, Julian Fairless brought back a budget of
gossip, including news of him. Only a small percentage of Talkers are
doers. Fairless was industriously both.
To a question from Stayr he replied that Paris, the Latin Quarter,
and Julian’s were about the same as ever. A similar and dingy crowd
infested the schools; similar masters gave similar instruction. All
the unkempt ruck and reek of the atelier was there; massiers, models,
blague, noise--nothing had changed except the individuals composing the
mess.
Fairless, an incessant Talker, gossiped on without encouragement. Which
is the instinct of the true Talker.
So-and-so was dead--killed at Verdun; so-and-so goes on crutches; old
Clifford has a studio in the Court of the Dragon; Rowden died at Mons;
Creed, now wealthy, lives in the Parc Monçeau and paints no more; the
Beaux Arts is below par this year, and “our men” appear to be the pick;
etc., etc. So Fairless chattered on and on, talking the talk of the
Talkers.
He was still at breakfast, eating a soft-boiled egg out of its own
shell, in the rather dirty English fashion.
“I sold several pictures to profiteers,” he continued; “Paris is lousy
with nouveau riche. Derring bought two from me----”
Stayr remonstrated: “Derring isn’t nouveau riche.”
“Oh, no, but he played about with them. He wanted to see Julian’s. I
took him over. He was disgusted with the models. Besides, he kept his
hat on and they bawled him out.”
Fairless wallowed in a finger-bowl, dried his celebrated scarab ring:
“I saw quite a lot of Casimir Sadoul. He was doing philology at the
University, but he associated mostly with Julian men.... He had a girl;
went about everywhere with her. That’s a new idea for him, eh?”
“I suppose Sadoul did not wish to be conspicuous in the Quarter,”
suggested Mortimer Lyken.
“This affair was conspicuous. Fancy the contrast!--that big, blackish,
beetle-browed ruffian hooked up to a red-headed slip of a thing, so
bashful that you got no more out of her than yes and no.”
“Did she really belong to Sadoul?” asked Stayr.
“Apparently. He behaved savagely if you looked at her. Somebody told me
he got her by hypnotising her.”
“He knows how,” remarked Pockman. “He’s done it for me.”
“Bunk,” murmured Stayr, “--wasn’t it?”
“Well,” returned Pockman with his pallid smirk and hunching up his
wide, bony shoulders, “I’ve performed minor operations on patients with
Sadoul’s aid, inducing hypnosis instead of anesthesia.”
“The devil!” exclaimed Lyken. “That was Charcot’s graft.”
Fairless chattered on: “All the fellows concluded that Sadoul had some
sort of hold on her. She seemed too pretty and refined to fall for a
big, swarthy brute like Sadoul. She really was an exquisite little
thing, Harry--such features, such skin, such hands and hair--and the
fellows all wild to paint her--and old Sadoul foxy and sardonic....
They say the souls of the damned cast no shadows. I fancy Sadoul’s girl
still has a chance: he certainly was her shadow--always at her heels,
always on the job.... Somebody said he had threatened to kill her if
she ever fooled him. But I think Sadoul’s more likely to beat up the
man in the case.”
Fairless got up from the table.
“Now, if you fellows care to see what I brought back----”
A few of the other men rose and followed Fairless upstairs to his
studio where Angelo, his factotum, had already placed the first picture
upon an easel.
As usual, all the elements of popularity were apparent in the
picture--a typical Julian Fairless canvas, full of that obvious charm
so attractive to an obvious public, so acceptable to the professional
critic.
Fairless lit a cigarette and sat down to chat with Sidney Pockman, who
didn’t care for pictures.
“Where did Sadoul get that girl you mentioned?” he inquired, the smirk
still stamped on his flat, colourless face.
“In Paris.”
“How did she happen to be there?”
“Oh, a story of sorts. She and mama were living in London when the Huns
dropped bombs. Mama was blown into unpleasant gobs all over the house.
Then it was canteen work in Paris. Then no job. Then Sadoul ran into
her. That’s the story.”
“She’s English?”
“American, I believe. I couldn’t tell by her speech. She’s a dumb
youngster.”
“What’s he going to do with her? Marry her?”
“Well, I don’t know, Pockman. I fancy it’s high time--if he means to do
it at all.”
“Oh, that sort?”
“She doesn’t look it. She’s so dumb she seems almost drugged. Maybe
it’s true he’s obtained some sort of hold on her. I don’t know.”
“I had a letter from Sadoul last week,” said Pockman. “He must be on
his way back here by this time.”
Fairless nodded inattentively, motioning Angelo to take away the
picture and replace it by another.
Pockman seemed to grin at the new picture--or perhaps his pallid smirk
was habitual.
“What do you get for that kind of painting?” he inquired.
“Five thousand.”
“Did it take you very long?”
“Two mornings.”
Pockman laughed: “Yours is a soft graft, Julian.”
“So is yours, you pill-rolling fakir!”
“Not very soft, so far. But it ought to be when I succeed in grafting
the nymphalic gland to a corpse and break fifty-fifty with the New
Testament.”
“Isn’t Voronoff grafting glands and things?”
“Some glands; not the nymphalic. And that’s the whole problem, because
it governs----” Pockman hesitated, shrugged: “--Well, adios, Julian!
Much obliged for a view of your new pictures. Hope you sting the
profiteers.”
“You bet,” nodded Fairless complacently.
* * * * *
But July is too late for an “exhibition.” Besides, the great American
profiteer had been rolling in art since the war ended, and, now
satiated after an orgy of antique-buying during the past winter and
spring, had begun to build bungalows. October or the middle of November
would see the town crawling again with newly rich. There was plenty
of time to prepare pasture for absent cattle--ample time for Julian
Fairless to plan his show. Besides, he desired a vacation at Greenwich,
in the vicinity of Veronica Weld.
* * * * *
It was there, early in August, that Fairless again ran across Pockman
entering the railroad station.
Among other items of gossip he learned that Sadoul had returned to New
York, bringing with him his red-headed companion, and, furthermore,
that the red-headed one had suddenly disappeared within the first week.
“Sadoul’s a bad actor if you do things to him,” added Pockman. “He’s as
vindictive as hell. I’m wondering what will happen if he ever finds a
man with her.... Or finds her again, even alone.”
“What’s Sadoul doing?” inquired Fairless, pleasantly entertained with
the account of another man’s misfortune.
“Oh, he’s writing his free-lance stuff, as usual, and hanging around my
laboratory.”
“Grouching?”
“No; he’s rather quiet. I wouldn’t care to be the Johnny in the
case.... Or the girl, either.”
Fairless shrugged; then, inattentive: “Where are you bound for? Town?”
“I came up here to get a gland.”
“A what?”
“That young fellow who was killed here yesterday in the motor
accident.... You heard? Well, he proved a healthy subject, and his
nymphalic gland was of no further use to him. So I came up to get it.”
“What good is a dead man’s gland?” demanded Fairless.
“The gland isn’t dead.”
“What!”
“Not at all. I’ve got it in this grip packed in ice. I can keep it
alive for weeks in a refrigerator.”
“What for?”
“Graft it on some senile subject and add twenty years to his life.”
“It’s rather a loathsome business, yours,” said Fairless frankly.
“Not at all. You’ll need a new gland yourself some day. When you do,
give me a ring.”
Pockman smirked at the disgusted painter, picked up his satchel, and
stalked off at a stiff, crazy gait characteristic of him. Stayr always
said it reminded him of Holbein’s Dance of Death.
* * * * *
When Pockman reached New York he telephoned Sadoul from his laboratory:
“Come on over; I’ve got a lively nymphalic on ice. Some gland, believe
me, Sadoul.”
But Sadoul seemed incurious and morose, and Pockman could not persuade
him.
So the latter continued to examine and caress his rather ghastly
acquisition, and Sadoul’s powerful, bony fingers drove his pen through
a mordant article destined to stimulate a moribund periodical in the
senile stage, kept alive only by Derring’s money.
Sadoul’s and Pockman’s remedies for inanition were, after all, similar:
gall and gland to stimulate the decrepit and delay ultimate dissolution.
* * * * *
Derring, financing _The Revolt_ to please a rather handsome woman with
bobbed hair, had found himself let in for a deal of trouble.
She of the bobbed hair suggested that Sadoul “put a kick into the damn
thing.” Derring, at Newport, wired assent.
Sadoul, in seething silence, gave himself to the job with a fierce
persistence which made _The Revolt_ smoke enough to attract attention.
But it was all smoke: the fire itself smouldered in Sadoul, not in the
magazine. All that long summer and autumn Sadoul watched and waited and
burned. His olive skin and black eyes grew more shadowy; one noticed
his teeth under the crisp beard when he smiled.
He was usually at the Fireside Club in the evenings, but he lived
elsewhere--in a big, handsome housekeeping apartment, according to
Julian Fairless, taken, probably, on account of the red-headed one, now
vanished.
Twice, already, since her disappearance, Sadoul mistook others with
auburn tresses for the slender runaway for whom his smouldering gaze
was always searching amid the multitudes by night and day.
The third time there was no mistake. They met face to face on Fifth
Avenue, the red-headed one and Casimir Sadoul.
“Where have you been?” said Sadoul, smiling and offering his hand. But
his dark skin had turned greyish.
After the first startled glance, reassured by his smile and offered
hand, the girl seemed inclined to meet the issue with laughing and
youthful defiance.
She told him frankly that she had been bored; that she desired to enjoy
herself like a modern girl, and meant to do so.
“The modern girl,” said Sadoul, laughing, “is one who is determined to
have a good time in the world, no matter at what cost.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she conceded. “The trouble is that I don’t know
how to begin.”
“Haven’t you begun in all these months?” he inquired, fixing his black
eyes on her.
She laughed, made a childish face at him, mocked him in friendly
fashion.
“I’m not going to let you resume your way with me,” she said.
“Will you let me lunch with you, Gilda?”
“Why, yes. It’s nearly one, now. It’s quite agreeable to see you again.
I’ve sometimes wondered how it would seem....”
The Ritz was only a block away.
She was a piquant figure in her furs; and the touch of turquoise to her
hat made her red hair redder and her white skin whiter as she faced the
November east-wind beside Sadoul.
The raw air smelled of snow, but no flakes fell.
“So--you’re having a good time,” said Sadoul, showing his teeth in a
sudden smile.
“I told you I haven’t learned how, yet.”
“Will you let me try again?”
“Not--that way,” she said, colouring.
“No; that was a mistake, Gilda.”
She laughed in surprise and relief: “So you admit it?” she cried.
“I’ve got to, haven’t I? You left me flat.”
“I had to.”
* * * * *
She was animated and friendly at luncheon--perfectly frank as
always heretofore, not untruthful, not evasive, but gaily declining
information concerning her recent career and her present domicile.
“It’s none of your business,” she said decisively. “I can always find
you if I care to.”
This attitude seemed to amuse him. He appeared to her to be very much
changed, and decidedly for the better.
He said: “George Derring is giving a dance at his studio apartment
tonight. If you care to come you’ll have one of those ‘good times’
you’re always wishing for.”
“Who is George Derring?”
“An intellectual panhandler.”
“What?”
“A beggar begs food from door to door; Derring, brainless and
resourceless, begs his daily modicum of amusement from friend to
friend.... He’s very rich. He has to be.”
“That sounds more like you,” she said with an uneasy smile.
“Oh, no; I’m off that stuff. Gilda, you’d better come to Derring’s
dance. It will be gay--a masked affair. All the men dress as kings; all
the women as queens. You have that wonderful green costume you wore at
the Julian ball, haven’t you?”
She nodded. Her eyes, which were emerald green, widened.
“I’d like to go,” she said.
“Very well. But where am I to call for you?”
At that she laughed outright. “I’ll take a taxi and drive to your
apartment. But I shall not go in.”
He made no attempt to persuade her. They fixed the hour amicably; she
told him in her frank way that if he followed her and attempted to spy
on her, she’d move elsewhere.
So, when luncheon ended, he lifted his hat and turned away, leaving her
to find her own taxi. Which she did, and drove to the matinée for which
she had a ticket, but where, alas! nobody awaited her.
For, even after all these months alone, and free to seek pleasure where
she wished, the acme, so far, of the “good time” so ardently desired by
her was a matinée; and the most delirious dissipation a drive on Fifth
Avenue all alone in a small limousine car hired and steered entirely by
herself.
* * * * *
Sadoul’s face was ghastly when he entered Pockman’s laboratory, and the
latter noticed it and commented.
“Gilda Greenway is coming to Derring’s party with me,” he said.
“Oh, is she back?”
“No. I met her on the street.”
Pockman cast a stealthy glance at Sadoul, then continued to filter the
contents of one test-tube into another.
“You were--er--glad to see her?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Pockman, “you have a funny way of showing it. I’d run if I
met you in a dark alley.... Hand me that smeared slide, will you--and
that bowl of Reakirt’s solution----”