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THE DOMINANT DOLLAR
_By the Same Author_
BEN BLAIR. THE STORY OF A PLAINSMAN.
With frontispiece in full color by Maynard
Dixon. _Seventh edition, 60th thousand._
[***] Besides the wide success of "Ben Blair"
in this country the book appeared in a large edition
in London and also in Australia.
PUBLISHED BY A. C. MCCLURG & CO., CHICAGO
[Illustration: "Most of all because I love you" (_Page 242_)]
The Dominant Dollar
_By_ WILL LILLIBRIDGE
AUTHOR OF
"Ben Blair," "The Dissolving Circle," "The Quest
Eternal," "Where the Trail Divides," Etc.
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
BY LESTER RALPH
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT
A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
1909
Published September 11, 1909
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS
BOOK I
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Prophecy 9
II. Understanding 35
III. Pleasure 56
IV. Uncertainty 70
V. Certainty 87
VI. A Warning 110
VII. Rebellion 126
VIII. Catastrophe 146
BOOK II
I. Anticipation 165
II. Acquaintance 185
III. Friendship 203
IV. Comprehension 217
V. Fulfilment 241
VI. Crisis 268
VII. Travesty 285
VIII. Celebration 302
IX. Admonition 320
X. Decision 330
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"Most of all because I love you" (_Page 242_) _Frontispiece_
"I'm tired of reading about life and hearing about
life. I want to live it" (_Page 66_) 64
"Steve!" The girl was on her feet. "I never dreamed,
never--You poor boy!" (_Page 153_) 156
"You mean to suggest that Elice," he began, "that
Elice--You dare to suggest that to me?" (_Page 107_) 278
The Dominant Dollar
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
A PROPHECY
"You're cold-blooded as a fish, Roberts, colder. You're--There is no
adequate simile."
The man addressed said nothing.
"You degrade every consideration in life, emotional and other, to a
dollar-and-cents basis. Sentiment, ambition, common judgment of right and
wrong, all gravitate to the same level. You have a single standard of
measurement that you apply to all alike, which alike condemns or
justifies. Summer and Winter, morning, noon, and night--it's the same.
Your little yardstick is always in evidence, measuring, measuring--You,
confound you, drive me to distraction with your eternal 'does it pay.'"
Still the other man said nothing.
"I know," apologetically, "I'm rubbing it in pretty hard, Darley, but I
can't help it. You exasperate me beyond my boiling point at times and I
simply can't avoid bubbling over. I believe if by any possibility you
were ever to have a romance in your life, and it came on slowly enough so
you could analyze a bit in advance, you'd still get out your tape line
and tally up to the old mark: would it pay!"
This time the other smiled, a smile of tolerant amusement.
"And why shouldn't I? Being merely the fish you suggest, it seems to me
that that's the one time in a human being's life when, more than another,
deliberation is in order. The wider the creek the longer the wise man
will linger on the margin to estimate the temperature of the current in
event of failure to reach the opposite bank. Inadvertently, Armstrong,
you pass me a compliment. Merely as an observer, marriage looks to me
like the longest leap a sane man will ever attempt."
"I expected you'd say that," shortly,--"predicted it."
"You give me credit for being consistent, then, at least."
"Yes, you're consistent all right."
"Thanks. That's the first kind word I've heard in a long time."
The other made a wry face.
"Don't thank me," he excepted. "I'm not at all sure I meant the admission
to be complimentary; in fact I hardly think I did. I was hoping for once
I'd find you napping, without your measuring stick. In other words--find
you--human."
"And now you're convinced the case is hopeless?"
"Convinced, yes, if I thought you were serious."
Roberts laughed, a big-chested, tolerant laugh.
"Seems to me you ought to realize by this time that I am serious,
Armstrong. You've known me long enough. Do you still fancy I've been
posing these last five years you've known me?"
"No; you never pose, Darley. This is a compliment, I think; moreover,
it's the reason most of all why I like you." He laughed in turn,
unconsciously removing the sting from the observation following. "I can't
see any other possible excuse for our being friends. We're as different
as night is from day."
The criticism was not new, and Roberts said nothing.
"I wonder now and then, at times like this," remarked Armstrong, "how
long we will stick together. It's been five years, as you say. I wonder
if it'll be another five."
The smile vanished from Darley Roberts' eyes, leaving them shrewd and
gray.
"I wonder," he repeated.
"It'll come some time, the break. It's inevitable. We're fundamentally
too different to avoid a clash."
"You think so?"
"I know so. It's written."
"And when we do?"
"We'll hate each other--as much as we like each other now. That, too, is
written."
Again Roberts laughed. A listener would have read self-confidence
therein.
"If that's the case, wouldn't it be wiser for us to separate in advance
and avoid the horrors of civil war? I'll move out and leave you in
peaceful possession of our cave if you wish."
"No; I don't want you to. I need you. That's another compliment. You hold
me down to earth. You're a helpful influence, Darley, providing one knows
you and takes you with allowance."
The comment was whimsical, but beneath was a deeper, more tacit admission
which both men understood, that drowned the surface banter of the
words.
"I think again, sometimes," drifted on Armstrong, "that if the powers
which are could only put us both in a pot as I put things together down
in the laboratory, and melt us good and shake us up, so, until we were
all mixed into one, it would make a better product than either of us as
we are now."
"Perhaps," equivocally.
"But that's the curse of it. The thing can't be done. The Lord put us
here, you you, and me me, and we've got to stick it out to the end."
"And become enemies in the course of events."
"Yes," quickly, "but let's not think about it. It'll come soon enough;
and meantime--" The sentence halted while with unconscious skill
Armstrong rolled a cigarette--"and meantime," he repeated as he scratched
a match and waited for the sulphur to burn free, "I want to use you."
Again the sentence halted while he blew a cloud of smoke: "I had another
offer to-day."
Following the other's example, Roberts lit a cigar, big and black, and
sat puffing in judicial expectancy.
"It's what you'd call a darned good offer," explained Armstrong:
"position as chemist to the Graham Specialty Company, who are building
the factory over on the East side--perfumes and toilet preparations and
that sort of thing."
"Yes."
"Graham himself came to see me. As a matter of fact he's the whole
company. He labored with me for two hours. I had to manufacture an
engagement out of whole cloth to get away."
"And you decided--"
"I didn't decide. I took the matter under advisement."
"Which means that you did decide after all."
Armstrong grimaced in a mannerism all his own, an action that ended in an
all-expressive shrug. "I suppose so," he admitted reluctantly.
"I hardly see where I can be of service then," commented the other. "If
you were ten years younger and a minor and I your guardian--"
"You might point out with your yardstick how many kinds of an idiot I am
and stir me up."
His companion smiled; as suddenly the look passed.
"I'd do so cheerfully if it would do any good. As it is--" The sentence
ended in comprehensive silence. "What, by the way, did Graham offer?"
"Five thousand dollars a year, and if I made good an interest later in
the business. He said four thousand dollars to begin with and gradually
crawled up."
"You're getting now from the University--"
"Twelve hundred."
"With ultimate possibilities,--I emphasize possibilities--"
"I'll be dean of the department some day if I stick."
"With a salary of two thousand a year."
Armstrong nodded.
"And that's the end, the top round of the ladder if you were to remain
until you were fifty and were displaced eventually without a pension."
"Yes; that's the biggest plum on the university tree. It can't grow
anything larger."
In his place Darley Roberts dropped back as though he had nothing to say.
Involuntarily, with a nervous impatience distinctive of him, his fingers
tapped twice on the edge of the chair; then, aroused to attention, the
hand lay still.
"Well?" commented Armstrong at length.
Roberts merely looked at him, not humorously nor with intent to
tantalize, but with unconscious analysis written large upon his face.
"Well?" repeated Armstrong, "I'm waiting. The floor is yours."
"I was merely wondering," slowly, "how it would seem to be a person like
you. I can't understand."
"No, you can't, Darley. As I said a moment ago, we're different as day is
from night."
"I was wondering another thing, too, Armstrong. Do you want to know what
it was?"
"Yes; I know in advance I'll not have to blush at a compliment."
"I don't know about that. I'm not the judge. I merely anticipated in
fancy the time when you will wake up. You will some day. It's inevitable.
To borrow your phrase, 'it's written.'"
"You think so?" The accompanying smile was appreciative.
"I know so. It's life we're living, not fiction."
"And when I do--pardon me--come out of it?" The questioner was still
smiling.
"That's what I was speculating on." Again the impatient fingers tapped on
the chair, and again halted at their own alarm. "You'll either be a
genius and blossom in a day, or be a dead failure and go to the devil by
the shortest route."
"You think there's no possible middle trail?"
"Not for you. You're not built that way."
The prediction was spoken with finality--too much finality to be taken
humorously. Responsively, bit by bit, the smile left Armstrong's face.
"I won't attempt to answer that, Darley, or to defend myself. To come
back to the point, you think I'm a fool not to accept Graham's offer?"
As before, his companion shrugged unconsciously. That was all.
"Does it occur to you that I might possibly have a reason--one that,
while it wouldn't show up well under your tape line, to me seems
adequate?"
"I'm not immune to reason."
"You'd like to have me put it in words?"
"Yes, if you wish."
"Well, then, first of all, I've spent ten years working up to where I am
now. I've been through the mill from laboratory handy-man to assistant
demonstrator, from that to demonstrator, up again to quiz-master, to
substitute-lecturer, until now I'm at the head of my department. That
looks small to you, I know; but to me it means a lot. Two hundred men,
bright fellows too, fill up the amphitheatre every day and listen to me
for an hour. They respect me, have confidence in my ability--and I try to
merit it. That means I must study and keep up with the procession in my
line. It's an incentive that a man can't have any other way, a practical
necessity. That's the first reason. On the other hand, if I went to work
for Graham I'd be dubbing around in a back room laboratory all by myself
and doing what he wanted done whether it was interesting in the least or
not."
"In other words," commented Roberts, "you'd be down to bed rock with the
two hundred admirers removed from the bed."
"I suppose so--looking at it that way."
"All right. Go on."
"The second reason is that my employment as full professor gives me an
established position--call it social position if you wish--here in the
University that I couldn't possibly get in any other way. They realize
what it means to hold the place, and give me credit for it. We're all
human and it's pleasant to be appreciated. If I went to work in a factory
I'd be an alien--outside the circle--and I'd stay there."
"There are eighty million people in the United States," commented
Roberts, drily. "By stretching, your circle would probably take in two
thousand of that number."
"I know it's limited; but there's an old saying that it's better to be a
big toad in a small puddle than a small toad in a large pond."
"I recall there's an adage to that effect."
"Lastly, there's another reason, the biggest of all. As it is now the
State employs me to deliver a certain number of lectures a semester. I do
this; and the rest of the time is mine. In it I can do what I please. If
I accepted a position in a private enterprise it would be different. I
should sell my time outright--and be compelled to deliver it all. I
shouldn't have an hour I could call my own except at night, and the
chances are I shouldn't have enough energy left for anything else when
night came. You know what I'm trying to do--that I'm trying to work up a
name as a writer. I'd have to give up that ambition entirely. I simply
can't or won't do that yet."
"You've been keeping up this--fight you mention for ten years now, you
told me once. Is anything definite in sight?"
"No; not exactly definite; but Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm willing to
wait."
"And meantime you're getting older steadily."
"I repeat I'm willing to wait--and trust a little."
Tap, tap went the impatient fingers again.
"Something's bound to drop in time if one is only patient."
Roberts looked up quickly, the gray eyes keen, the tapping fingers
stilled.
"Something has dropped, my friend, and you don't recognize it."
"The tape line again. The eternal tape line! It's pure waste of energy,
Darley, to attempt to make you understand. As I said before, you're
fundamentally incapable."
"Perhaps," evenly. "But for your sake I've listened and tried. At least
give me credit for that." Of a sudden he glanced up keenly. "By the way,
you're not going out this evening?"
"No, Elice is out of town." Armstrong caught himself. "I suppose that is
what you meant."
For a moment before he answered Roberts busied himself with a stray flake
of ash on his sleeve.
"Yes, in a way," he said. "I was going to suggest that you tell her what
you told me before you said 'no' to Graham."
"It's unnecessary." The tone was a trifle stiff. "She at least
understands me."
The other man made no comment.
"You're not going out either this evening, Darley?" returned Armstrong.
"No; I'm scheduled for bed early to-night. I've had a strenuous day, and
to-morrow will be another."
It was already late of a rainy May evening, the room was getting dim, and
silently Armstrong turned on the electric light. Following, in equal
silence, his companion watching him the while understandingly, he lit a
pipe. Stephen Armstrong seldom descended to a pipe, and when he did so
the meaning of the action to one who knew him well was lucid. It meant
confidence. Back in his seat he puffed hard for a half minute; then blew
at the smoke above his head.
"Was that mere chance that made you suggest--Elice in connection with
that offer of Graham's," he asked, at last; "or did you mean more than
the question seemed to imply, Darley?"
Again for an appreciable space there was silence.
"I seldom do things by chance, Armstrong. To use your own simile, I'm too
much of a fish. I don't want to seem to interfere with your personal
affairs, however. I beg your pardon if you wish."
"But I don't wish you to do so," shortly. "You know that. Besides there's
nothing to conceal so far as I'm concerned. Just what did you mean to
suggest?"
Again the other hesitated, with a reluctance that was not simulated.
Darley Roberts simulated nothing.
"If you really wish to know," he complied at last, "I think you ought to
tell, her--without coloring the matter by your own point of view in the
least. She should be as much interested as you yourself."
"She is. Take that for granted."
Roberts waited.
"I know, though, so certainly what she would say that it seems a bit
superfluous."
Still Roberts waited.
"As I said before, she understands me and I understand her. Some things
don't require language to express. They come by intuition."
And still Roberts waited.
"If it were you, now, and there were any possibility of a yardstick it
would be different; but as it is--"
"Miss Gleason then, Mrs. Armstrong to be, doesn't care in the least to
see you come on financially, is completely satisfied with things as they
are?"
It was Armstrong's turn to be silent.
"You've been engaged now three years. You're thirty years old and Miss
Gleason is--"
"Twenty-five in August."
"She is wholly contented to let the engagement run on indefinitely,
knowing that your income is barely enough for one to live on and not at
all adequate for two?"
The other stiffened involuntarily; but he said nothing.
"I beg your pardon the second time, Armstrong, if you wish; but remember,
please, I'm doing this by request."
"I know, Darley. I'm not an absolute cad, and I'm glad you are frank.
Doubtless from your point of view I'm a visionary ass. But I don't see
where any one suffers on that account except myself."
"Don't see where any one suffers save yourself! Don't see--! You can't be
serious, man!"
Armstrong had ceased smoking. The pipe lay idle in his fingers.
"No. Come out into the clearing and put it in plain English. Just what do
you mean?"
"Since you insist, I mean just this, Armstrong--and if you'll think a
moment you'll realize for yourself it's true: you can't drift on forever
the way you're doing now. If you weren't engaged it would be different;
but you are engaged. Such being the case it implies a responsibility and
a big one. To dangle so is unjust to the girl. Let this apply in the
abstract. It's damnably unjust!"
"You think that I--"
"I don't think at all, I know. We can theorize and moon and drift about
in the clouds all we please; but when eventually our pipe goes out and we
come down to earth this thing of marriage is practical. It's give and
take, with a whole lot to give. I haven't been practising law and dealing
with marital difficulties, to say nothing of divorces, without getting a
few inside facts. Marriages are made in Heaven, perhaps, but married life
is lived right here on earth; and the butcher and the rest play leading
parts. I recognize I'm leading the procession a bit now, Armstrong; but
as I said before, you can't dangle much longer if you're an honorable
man; and then what I've said is right in line. If you'll take a word of
advice that's intended right, even if it seems patronizing, you'll wake
up right now and begin to steer straight for the flag-pole. If you keep
on floundering aimlessly and waiting for an act of Providence you'll come
to grief as surely as to-morrow is coming, old man."
"And by steering straight you mean to save money. To get my eye on a
dollar, leave everything else, and chase it until it drops from
fatigue."
"I mean get power; and dollars are the tangible evidence and
manifestation of power. They are the only medium that passes current in
any country any day in the year."
Armstrong smiled, a smile that was not pleasant to see.
"You'd have me give up my literary aspirations then, let them die
a-borning as it were--"
"I didn't say that. So far as I can see you can keep on just the same.
There are twenty-four hours in every day. But make that phase secondary.
I don't discount writers in the least or their work; but with the world
as it is the main chance doesn't lie that way--and it's the main chance
we're all after. Fish or no fish, I tell you some time you'll find this
out for yourself. To get the most out of life a man must be in the
position to pass current wherever he may be. In the millennium the
standard may be different--I for one sincerely hope it will be; but in
the twentieth century dollars are the key that unlocks everything.
Without them you're as helpless as a South Sea islander in a metropolitan
street. You're at the mercy of every human being that wants to give you a
kick; and the majority will give it to you if they see you are
defenceless."
Armstrong was still smiling, the same being a smile not pleasant to see.
"Now that I've got you going," he commented, "I've a curiosity to have
you keep on. You're certainly stirring with a vengeance to-night,
Darley."
"And accomplishing nothing. Strange as it may seem to you, I'm serious."
"I don't doubt it, old man." Of a sudden the smile had passed. "I can't
adjust my point of view to yours at all. If I thought dollars were the
end of existence I'd quit the game now. If the world has come to this--"
"The world hasn't come to it and never will. You simply can't or won't
see the point. I repeat, that of themselves they're nothing, but they're
the means to everything. Get your competency first, your balance-wheel,
your independence, your established base of supplies; then plan your
campaign. The world is big, infinitely big, to the human being who can
command. It's a little mud ball to the other who has to dance whenever
some one else whistles."
"And how about happiness, the thing we're all after?"
"It isn't happiness, but it's the means to it. There can be no happiness
without independence."
"Even marital happiness?"
"That most of all. I tell you the lack of a sufficient income is the rock
on which most married people go to pieces. It isn't the only one, but
it's the most frequent. I've seen and I know."
"You'd drive our old friend Cupid out of business, Darley. You don't give
him an inch of ground to stand on."
"On the contrary, I keep him in business indefinitely--"
"Moreover, the examples of the rich, scattered broadcast through the
daily papers, hardly bear you out."
"They are the exception that proves the rule. Nine hundred and
ninety-nine poor couples come to grief, and the world never hears of it.
In the thousandth case a rich man and woman make fools of themselves and
the world reads the scandal next morning. The principle is unaltered. The
exceptions, the irresponsibles whether rich or poor, are something to
which no rule applies."
"All right." Armstrong sat up, preventingly. "I don't want to argue with
you. You're a typical lawyer and always ride me down by pure force of
mass." He smiled. "Gentlemen of the law are invariably that way, Darley.
Figuratively, you fellows always travel horseback while the rest of us go
afoot, and if we don't hustle out of the way you ride us down without
remorse."
Roberts was listening again in silence, with his normal attitude of
passive observance.
"I'm feeling pretty spry, though, to-night," went on the other, "and able
to get out of the way, so I'm going to get in close as possible and watch
you. I've tried to do so before, but somehow I'm always side-tracked just
at the psychological moment." The quizzical voice became serious, the
flippant manner vanished. "Honestly, Darley, I can't understand you any
more than you can me. You said a bit ago you wondered where I would end.
I have the same wonder about you. Just what are you aiming at, old man,
anyway? In all the years I've known you _you've_ never come right out and
said in so many words."
"You mean what do I intend to do that will make me famous or infamous,
that will at least make me talked about?"
Armstrong laughed shortly. The shot was well aimed.
"I suppose that is approximately what I had in mind," he admitted.
"To answer your question then, directly, I don't intend to do anything.
Nothing is further from my plans than to get a position where I'll be
talked about."
"Just what do you want, then?"
"I want the substance, not the husk. I want to be the party that pulls
the wires and not the figures that dance on the front of the stage. I
want things done when I say they shall be done. I want the piper to play
when I pass the word. I'm perfectly willing that others should have the
honor and the glory and the limelight; but after the play is over I want
to be the boy to whom the report is made and who gives directions for the
next performance. Is that definite enough?"
"Yes, definite enough; but are you going to get there? You asked me the
same question, you recall, a bit ago."
"Yes, if I live."
"And if you don't live?"
Again the shrug. "I shall have tried. I can tell Saint Peter that."
"I didn't refer to Saint Peter. I meant you yourself. Where is your own
justification except in the attainment of the end?"
"Justification!" Roberts leaned suddenly forward, his attitude no longer
that of an observer but of a participant, one in the front of the charge.
"The game is its own justification, man! Things don't have to be done
with two hundred bright young students watching and listening to be worth
while, my friend."
Armstrong shifted uncomfortably, then he tacked.
"Just one more question, a repetition again of your own. Have you the
attainment of this object you suggest definitely in sight? You're older
than I and have been playing the game some time yourself."
"I think so."
"Do you know so?"
"As nearly as a man can know anything that hasn't come to pass."
"Just how, Darley? I'm absolutely in the dark in regard to your deals and
I'm curious to know the inside. You've got something particular in mind,
I know, or you wouldn't speak that way."
For the first time in minutes Roberts looked at the other, looked
steadily, blankly.
"I'm sorry genuinely, Armstrong, but I can't tell you now. Don't
misunderstand, please. I'd tell you if I were not under obligation; but
I'm not at liberty yet to say." His glance left the other's face. "I
trust you understand."
"Yes, certainly." The voice was short. "No offence, I'm sure."
That there was offence was obvious, yet Roberts made no further comment
or explanation.
For perhaps a minute there was silence; in characteristic change of
thought absolute Armstrong shifted.
"As long as we're in the confidant business," he digressed, "there's
still one question I'd like to ask, Darley. Elice and I have been
intimate now for a number of years. I've asked you repeatedly to call
with me and you've always refused. Even yet you've barely met her. I
quote you by the yard when I'm with her, and, frankly, she's--curious why
you stay at arm's length. Between yourself and myself why is it,
Darley?"
Roberts laughed; an instant later the light left his face.
"You know I have few women acquaintances," he said.
"I know, but this particular case is different."
"And those I do have," completed the other, "are all securely married."
Armstrong colored.
"I don't mean that," smiled Roberts, "and you know I don't. I'm not fool
enough to fancy I'm a charmer. The explanation, I believe, is in my
ancestry. I think they must have been fishes too, and instinct warns me
to avoid bait. It's my own peace of mind I'm considering and preserving,
friend Armstrong."
"Peace of mind!" the other laughed. "From you that's good, Darley. But
the tape line--"
"Can't you find it?"
"I confess--You think there is a time then, after all, when it pays?"
"Do you fancy I show signs of feeble-mindedness?"
"No, emphatically not; but--Jove, you are human then after all! I begin
to have hope."
Roberts stifled a yawn, a real yawn.
"I think I'll turn in," he said.
"Just a moment, Darley. I feel as though I'd discovered a gold mine, and
I want to blaze its location before departing. Just when, with your
philosophy, do you contemplate taking this important leap among the
attached?"
Roberts looked at his companion in silence.
"Pardon me, Darley," swiftly, "that was flippant, I admit, but I'm really
serious."
"Serious? I'll take you at your word. It'll be when I mean business, not
pastime. Stretch the tape if you wish. There are some things it doesn't
pay to play with. It'll be when I can give a woman the things, the
material things, she wants and demands to make her happy and contented.
The world is artificial, and material things are its reflection. When I
can make the woman who chooses to marry me pass current anywhere, when I
can be the means of giving her more pleasure, more opportunity, more of
the good things of life than she has known before, then, when I know, not
hope, this,--and not a minute before--Does that answer your question?"
"Yes; that's clear enough, I'm sure--the implication, too, for that
matter." The speaker yawned, unnecessarily it seemed, for his look was
keen. "By the way, though, you haven't given me a satisfactory
explanation for avoiding Elice. She's attached practically, not
unattached; and I personally want you to know her. I think it would make
you understand some things you don't understand now. You might even
approve of--dangling. What do you say, will you go out with me some
evening or will you have another engagement as usual? I shan't suggest it
again, Darley."
Standing, as he had risen a moment before, Darley Roberts looked down at
the speaker steadily, the distinctive half-smile of tolerant analysis
upon his lips. He laughed outright as though to clear the atmosphere.
"Certainly I'll go, Armstrong, if you wish. It never occurred to me
before that you took it that way. I had supposed that you and Elice were
an example of two being a company and three making a crowd; also, to
change the simile, that previously your invitations were the proverbial
crumbs of charity. I'll be pleased to go any time you wish."
"All right." Armstrong too had risen. "How about Sunday evening next
week? Elice will be back Saturday."
"A week from Sunday; I shall not forget."
With the attitude of a big healthy animal, a bit sleepy now, Roberts
stretched himself luxuriously, then started for his own room adjoining,
calling back, "Good-night."
Armstrong watched him in silence until the other's hand was on the knob.
"Good-night," he echoed absently.
CHAPTER II
UNDERSTANDING
"What is it, Elice? You're transparent as spring water. Out with it."
"Out with what, Steve?"
"The secret information of vital importance that you're holding back with
an effort for a favorable moment to deliver. The present isn't
particularly dramatic, I'll admit, but it's the best circumstances
permit."
"You're simply absurd, Steve; more so than usual."
"No, merely ordinarily observant. I've known you some time, and the
symptoms are infallible. When you get that absent, beyond-earth look in
your eyes, and sit twisting around and around that mammoth diamond ring
your uncle gave you on your sixteenth birthday--Come, I'm impatient from
the toes up. Who is engaged now?"
"No one, so far as I know."
"Married, then; don't try to fool me."
"Who told you, Steve Armstrong?"
"No one." The accompanying laugh was positively boyish. "I knew it was
one or the other. Come, 'fess up. I'll be good, honest."
"You get younger every day, Steve," grudgingly. "If you keep on going
backward people will be taking me for your mother soon instead of--merely
myself."
"You shouldn't go away then, Elice. I'm tickled sick and irresponsible
almost to have you back. I'm not to blame. But we're losing valuable
time. I'm listening."
"You swear that you don't know already--that you aren't merely making fun
of me?"
"On my honor as full professor of chemistry. I haven't even a
suspicion."
"I wonder if you are serious--somehow I never know. I'll risk it anyway,
and if you're just leading me on I'll never forgive you, Steve, never.
It's Margery."
"Margery! The deuce it is--and Harry Randall, of course."
"Certainly. Who'd you think it was: Professor Wilson with his eight
children?"
"Now I call that unkind, Elice. After all the interest I've shown, too!
Honest, though, I am struck all in a heap. I never dreamed of such a
thing--now."
The result of the revelation was adequate and Miss Gleason relented.
"It was rather 'sudden,' as they say. No one knew of it except their own
families."
"Sudden! I should decidedly say so. I certainly thought they at least
were to be depended upon, were standbys. When did it happen?"
"Last evening. Agnes Simpson just told me before you came."
"She did, did she? I thought she looked wondrous mysterious when I met
her down the street. It was justifiable, though, under the circumstances.
I suppose they, the Randalls, have gone away somewhere?"
"No; that's the funny part of it. They haven't gone and aren't going."
"Not at all?"
"No. I'm quoting Agnes."
"And why aren't they going? Did Agnes explain that?"
"Steve, you're horrid again."
"No; merely curious this time. Agnes is something of an authority, you'll
admit."
"Yes; I guess I'll have to admit that. I didn't ask her, though, Steve
Armstrong. She suggested gratis--that Harry couldn't afford it. They
went into debt to buy furnishings for the house as it was."
"I don't doubt it. History pays even less than chemistry, and the Lord
knows--No; I don't doubt it."
"Knows what, Steve?"
"Who knows what?"
"The one you suggested."
"Oh! I guess you caught the inference all right. No need to have put it
in the abstract. We professors of the younger set are all in the same
boat. We'd all have to go into debt under like circumstances."
Elice Gleason meditated.
"But Harry's been a full professor now a long time," she commented; "two
years longer than you."
"And what difference does that make? He just lives on his salary."
"Is that so? I never thought of it that way. I don't think I ever
considered the financial side before at all."
Armstrong looked his approval.
"I dare say not, Elice; and I for one am mighty glad you didn't. Life is
cheap enough at best without adding to its cheapness unnecessarily."
The girl seemed scarcely to hear him, missing the argument entirely.
"I suppose, though," she commented reflectively, "when one does think of
it, that it'll be rather hard on Margery to scrimp. She's always had
everything she wants and isn't used to economizing."
Armstrong sat a moment in thought. He gave his habitual shrug.
"She should have thought of that before the minister came," he dismissed
with finality. "It's a trifle late now."
"They've been putting it off for a long time, though," justified the
girl, "and probably she thought--one has to cease delaying some time."
"Elice! Elice!" Armstrong laughed banteringly. "I believe you've got the
June bug fluttering in your bonnet too. It's contagious this time of
year, isn't it?"
"Shame on you, Steve!" The voice was dripping with reproach. "You always
will be personal. You know I didn't mean it that way."
"Not a bit, honest now?"
"I say you ought to be ashamed to make fun of me that way."
"But honest--"
"Well," reluctantly, "maybe I did just a bit. We too have been engaged
quite a while."
"Almost as long as the Randalls."
"Yes."
The quizzical look left Armstrong's eyes, but he said nothing.
"And I suppose every woman wants a home of her own. It's an instinct. I
think I understand Margery."
From out the porch of the Gleason cottage, shaded from the curious by its
climbing rose-vines, the girl looked forth at the sputtering electric
globe on the corner.
"And, besides, people get to talking and smiling and making it unpleasant
for a girl after so long. It was so with Margery. I know, although she
never told me. It bothered her."
"You say after so long, Elice. How long?"
"I didn't mean any particular length of time, Steve. There isn't any rule
by which you can measure gossip, so far as I know."
"Approximately, then."
"Oh, after a year, I suppose. It's about then that there's a comment or
two sandwiched between the red and blue decks at bridge parties."
"And we've been engaged now three years. Do they ever sandwich--"
"How do I know. They don't do it to one's face."
"But Margery--you say they made it uncomfortable for her."
"Steve Armstrong," the voice was intentionally severe, "what possesses
you to-night? I can't fancy what put that notion into your head."
"You did yourself," serenely, "just now. I never happened to stumble upon
this particular continent before, and I'm intent on exploration and
discovery. Honest, do they," he made an all-inclusive gesture, "talk
about you and me?"
"I tell you they don't do those things to our faces."
"You're evading the question, girl Elice."
"They're not unpleasant intentionally."
"Still evasion. Out with it. Let's clear the air."
The girl drummed on the arm of her chair, first with one hand, then with
the other. At last she looked the questioner fairly in the face.
"Frankly, Steve, they do; and they have for a year. But I don't mind. I
didn't intend to say anything to you about it."
The look of the boy vanished from the other's eyes.
"I--see," he commented slowly.
"People are horrid that way, even people otherwise nice," amplified the
girl. "As soon as any one they know has an--affair it immediately becomes
public property. It's almost as bad as a murder case. The whole thing is
tried and settled out of court."
The figure of the man settled down in his chair to the small of his back.
His fingers locked over one knee.
"I suppose it was something of that kind Darley had in mind," he said.
"Darley Roberts? When?"
"We were talking about--similar cases a few days ago."
"You were?" There was just a shade of pique in the tone. "He must be a
regular fount of wisdom. You're always quoting him."
"He is," tranquilly. "By the way, with your permission, he's going to
call with me to-morrow night."
"With my permission!" The girl laughed. "You've solicited, and received,
that several times before--and without result. I'm almost beginning to
doubt the gentleman's existence."
"You won't much longer. I invited him and he accepted. He always does
what he says he'll do."
"Very well," the voice was non-committal. "I'm always glad to meet any of
your friends."
Armstrong warmed, as he always did when speaking of Darley Roberts.
"You will be when you know him, I'm sure. That's why I asked him to come.
He's an odd chap and slow to thaw, but there isn't another lawyer in
town, not even in the department, who's got his brains."
"They couldn't have, very well, could they?" evenly.
"I'll admit that was a trifle involved; but you know what I mean. He's
what in an undergraduate they call a grind. The kind biographers describe
as 'hewing forever to the line.' If we live and retain reasonably good
health we'll hear of him some day."
"And I repeat," smilingly, "I've heard of him a great deal already."
Armstrong said nothing, which indicated mild irritation.
"Excuse me, Steve," said the girl, contritely. "I didn't mean to be
sarcastic; that just slipped out. He has acted sort of queer, though,
considering he's your room-mate and--I had that in mind. I am interested,
however, really. Tell me about him."
Armstrong glanced at his companion; his gaze returned to his patent
leather pumps, which he inspected with absent-minded concentration.
"I have told you before, I guess, about all I know. He's a good deal of
an enigma to me, even yet."
"By the way, how did you happen to get acquainted with him, Steve?" From
the manner spoken the question might or might not have been from genuine
interest. "You've never told me that."
"Oh, it just happened, I guess. We were in the collegiate department
together at first." He laughed shortly. "No, it didn't just happen either
after all. I went more than half way--I recognize that now."
The girl said nothing.
"Looking back," continued the man, "I see the reason, too. He fascinated
me then, as he does yet. I've had comparatively an easy enough sort of
life. I was brought up in town, where there was nothing particular for a
boy to do, and when it came college time my father backed me completely.
Darley was the opposite exactly, and he interested me. He was unsocial;
somehow that interested me more. I used to wonder why he was so when I
first knew him; bit by bit I gathered his history and I wondered less.
He's had a rough-and-tumble time of it from a youngster up." The voice
halted suddenly, and the speaker looked at his companion equivocally.
"Still interested, are you, Elice? I don't want to be a bore."
"Yes."
"I'll give you the story then as I've patched it together from time to
time. I suppose he had parents once; but as they never figured, I infer
they died when he was young. He came from the tall meadows out West
straight to the University here. How he got the educational ambition I
haven't the remotest idea; somehow he got it and somehow he came. It must
have been a rub to make it. He's mentioned times of working on a farm, of
chopping ties in Missouri, of heaving coal in a bituminous mine in Iowa,
of--I don't know what all. And still he was only a boy when I first saw
him; a great, big, over-aged boy with a big chin and bigger hands. The
peculiar part is that he wasn't awkward and never has been. Even when he
first showed up here green the boys never made a mark of him." Again the
short expressive laugh. "I think perhaps they were a bit afraid of him."
"And he got right into the University?"
"Bless you, no; only tentatively. He had a lot of back work to make up
at the academy. That didn't bother him apparently. He swallowed that and
the regular course whole and cried for more." Armstrong stretched lazily.
His hands sought his pockets. "I guess that's about all I know of the
story," he completed.
"All except after he was graduated." It was interest genuine now.
"So you have begun to take notice at last," commented Armstrong,
smilingly. "I'm a better _raconteur_ than I imagined. When it comes to
being specific, though, after he graduated, I admit I can't say much
authoritatively. He'll talk about anything, ordinarily, except himself. I
know of a dozen cases from the papers, some of them big ones, that he's
been concerned in during the last few years; but he's never mentioned
them to me. He seemed to get in right from the start. How he managed to
turn the trick I haven't the slightest conception; he simply did. As I
said before, he grows to be more of an enigma to me all the time."
Apparently the girl lost interest in the party under discussion; at least
she asked no more questions and, dilatory as usual when not definitely
directed, Armstrong dropped the lead. For a minute they sat so, gazing
out into the night, silent. Under stimulus of a new thought, point
blank, whimsical, came a change of subject.
"By the way," commented Armstrong, "I'm considering quitting the
University and going into business, Elice. What do you think of the
idea?"
"What--I beg your pardon, Steve."
The other repeated the question, all but soberly this time.
"Do you mean it, Steve, really, or are you just drawing me out?"
"Mean it!" Armstrong laughed. "Perhaps, and perhaps not. I don't know.
What do you think of the notion, anyway?"
The girl looked at him steadily, a sudden wrinkle between her eyes.
"You have something special in mind, I judge, Steve; something I don't
know about. What is it?"
"Special!" Armstrong laughed again, shortly this time. "Yes, I suppose
so; though I didn't know it when I first asked the question. Now I'm
uncertain--you take the suggestion so seriously. Graham, the specialty
man, made me an offer to-day to go in with him. Five thousand dollars a
year to start with, and a prospect of more later on."
The wrinkle between the girl's eyes smoothed. Her hands recrossed in her
lap.
"You refused the offer, I judge," she said.
"No; that is, I told him I'd take the matter under advisement." Armstrong
glanced at his companion swiftly; but she was not looking at him and he
too stared out into the night. "I wanted to hear what you said about it
first."
"Steve!"
In the darkness the man's face colored.
"Elice, aren't you--ashamed a bit to doubt me?"
"No." She was looking at him now smilingly. "I don't doubt you. I know
you."
"You fancy I refused point blank, without waiting to tell you about it?"
For the third time the girl's fingers crossed and interlocked. That was
all.
"Elice!" The man moved over to her, paused so, looking down into her
face. "Tell me, I'm dead in earnest. Don't you trust me?"
"I trust you absolutely, Steve; but that doesn't prevent my knowing
you."
"And I tell you I took the matter under advisement."
"He persuaded you to. You refused at first even to consider it."
Smilingly she returned his injured look fair in the eyes. Still smiling,
she watched him as in silence he recrossed slowly to his place.
"Yes, you're right--as usual," he admitted at last. "You do know me.
Apparently all my friends know me, better than I know myself." He
shrugged characteristically. "But you haven't answered my question yet.
What do you think of my accepting?"
"I try never to think--about the useless. You won't accept."
"You may be mistaken, may compel me to against my best judgment."
"No, you won't do that. I shan't influence you in the least."
For answer Armstrong stood up, his hands deep in his pockets, his
shoulders square. A minute perhaps he stood so. Once he cleared his
throat. He sat down. An instant later he laughed--naturally, in genuine
amusement.
"I surrender, Elice," he said; "foot, horse, and officers. I can succeed
in deceiving myself, easily; but when it comes to you--" He dropped his
hands hopelessly. "On the square, though, and between ourselves, do you
want me to quit the University and accept this--job? It's a good lead, I
realize."
"I'd rather not say either way," slowly. "I repeat that it's useless to
disagree, when nothing would be gained."
"Disagree! We never disagree. We never have in all the time we've known
each other."
"We've never discussed things where disagreement was probable."
"Maybe that's right. I never thought of it before." A pause. "Has that
harmony been premeditated on your part?"
"Unconsciously so, yes. It's an instinct with me, I think, to avoid the
useless."
Armstrong stared across the dim light of the porch. Mentally he pinched
himself.
"Well, I am dumb," he commented, "and you are wonderful. Let's break the
rule, though, for once, and thresh this thing out. I want your opinion on
this Graham matter, really. Tell me, please."
"Don't ask me," repeated the girl. "You'd remember what I said--and it
wouldn't do any good. Let's forget it."
"Of course I'd remember. I want to remember," pressed the man. "You think
I ought to accept?"
A moment the girl hesitated; then she looked him fair.
"Yes," she said simply.
"And why? Tell me exactly why, please? You're not afraid to tell me
precisely what you think."
"No, I'm not afraid; but I think you ought to realize it without my
putting it in words."
Armstrong looked genuine surprise.
"I suppose I ought--probably it's childishly obvious, but--tell me,
Elice."
"To put it selfishly blunt, then, since you insist, I think you ought to
for my sake. If an income you can depend upon means nothing in particular
to you you might consider what it would mean to me."
Unconsciously the lounging figure of the man in the chair straightened
itself. The drawl left his voice.
"Since we have stumbled upon this subject," he said quietly, "let's get
to the bottom of it. I think probably it will be better for both of us.
Just what would it mean to you, that five thousand dollars a year?"
"Don't you know, Steve, without my telling you?"
"Perhaps; but I'd rather you told me unmistakably."
As before the girl hesitated, longer this time; involuntarily she drew
farther back until she was completely hidden in the shadow.
"What it means to me you can't help knowing, but I'll repeat it if you
insist." She drew a long breath. Her voice lowered. "First of all, it
would mean home, a home of my own. You don't know all that that means
because you're a man, and no man really does understand; but to a woman
it's the one thing supreme. You think I've got one now, have had all my
life; but you don't know. Father and I live here. We keep up appearances
the best we can; we both have pride. He holds his position in the
University; out of charity every one knows, although no one is cruel
enough to tell him so. We manage to get along somehow and keep the roof
tight; but it isn't living, it isn't home. It's a perpetual struggle to
make ends meet. His time of usefulness is past, as yours will be past
when you're his age; and it's been past for years. I never admitted this
to a human being before, but I'm telling it to you because it's true.
We've kept up this--fight for years, ever since I can remember, it seems
to me. We've never had income enough to go around. I haven't had a new
dress in a year. I haven't the heart to ask for it. Everything I have has
been darned and patched and turned until it won't turn again. It isn't
poverty such as they have on the East Side, because it isn't frank and
open and aboveboard; but it's genteel poverty in the best street of the
town: University Row. It's worse, Steve, because it's unadmitted,
eternally concealed, hopeless. It isn't a physical hunger, but again a
worse one: an artistic hunger. I'm a college graduate with letters on the
end of my name when I choose to use them. I've mixed with people, seen
the niceties of life that only means can give, couldn't help seeing them;
and they're all beyond my reach, even the common ones. If I didn't know
anything different I shouldn't feel the lack; but I do know. I'm not even
to blame for knowing. It was inevitable, thrust upon me. I'm the hungry
child outside the baker's window. I can look and look--and that is all."
The voice ceased. Frankly, unhesitatingly, the face came out of the
shadow and remained there.
"I think you understand now what I mean, Steve, unmistakably. I suppose,
too, you think me selfish and artificial and horrid, and I shan't deny
it. I am as I am and I want things. To pretend that I don't would be to
lie--and I won't lie to you whatever happens. I simply won't. We both
know what your place in the University means; I perhaps better than you,
because I've seen my father's experience. I don't often get bitter, but I
come very near it when I look back and think how my mother had to plan
and scrimp. I feel like condemning the whole University to the bottomless
pit. I suppose Margery Randall would resent it if I told her so, but
honestly I pity her; the more so because I've always envied her in a way.
She's not used to denying herself anything, and there's bound to be a
reckoning. It's inevitable, and then--I don't like to think of how it
will be then. It's a tragedy, Steve, nothing more or less."
Opposite the man sat motionless in his place looking at her. All trace of
his usual lounging attitude was absent. He was not even smoking. For
almost a full minute after she was done he sat; then he arose abruptly.
This time he did not offer to come over to her.
"So this is the way you feel," he commented at last, slowly. "It's a new
phase of you entirely, Elice, that I admit; but at least I'm glad to know
it." He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "In plain English, you'd
barter my position and ambition gladly for--things. Frankly I didn't
think that of you, Elice, before. I imagined I knew you better, knew
different."
Responsive, instinctively the girl started to rise. Her breath came
quick. Swiftly following came second thought and she sank back, back into
the shadow. She said nothing.
A moment the man waited, expecting an answer, a denial, something; when
nothing came he put on his hat with meaning deliberation.
"I repeat I'm very glad you told me, though, even if I do have to
readjust things a bit." He shrugged his shoulders. Despite the wounded
egotism that was urging him on, it was the first real cloud that had
arisen on the horizon of their engagement and he was acutely
self-conscious. "Rest assured, however, that I shall consider your point
of view before I say yes or no to Graham. Just now--" He halted, cleared
his throat needlessly; abruptly, without completing the sentence or
giving a backward glance, he started down the walk. "Good-night, Elice,"
he said.
CHAPTER III
PLEASURE
"The trouble with you, Darley," said Armstrong, "is that you took your
course in the University in too big doses. You went on the principle that
if a little grinding is good for a man a perpetual dig must be a great
deal better." He was in the best of humor this Sunday night, and smiled
at the other genially. "A college course is a good deal like strychnine.
Taken in small doses over a long period of time it is a great tonic.
Swallowed all at once--you know what happens."
From her place in a big easy chair Elice Gleason watched with interest
the result of the badinage, but Roberts himself made no comment.
"You started in," continued Armstrong, "to do six years' work in
four--and did it. You were a human grinding machine and you ground very
fine, that I'll admit; but in doing so you missed a lot that was more
valuable, a lot that while it doesn't make credit figures in the sum
total of university atmosphere."
"For instance?" suggested the other, laconically.
"Well, for one thing, you never joined a fraternity. I know," quickly,
"that the frats are abused, as every good thing is abused, but
fundamentally they're good. When it comes to humanizing a man, rounding
him out, which is the purpose of college life, they're just as essential
as a course in the sciences."
"Unfortunately," commented Roberts, drily, "the attitude of a student to
the Greeks is a good deal like that of woman to man. She can't marry
until she is asked. I was likewise never sufficiently urged."
"In that case," laughed Armstrong, "I'll have to acquit you on that
count. There wasn't, however, anything to prevent you warming up
socially. No student has to be asked to do that. You and Elice, for
instance, took your courses at the same time. Normally you would have met
at social doings on a hundred occasions; and still you have never really
done so until to-night, several years after you were graduated. You can't
square yourself on that score."
"No," acquiesced Roberts with judicial slowness; "and still a man with
one suit of clothes and that decidedly frayed at the seams labors under
appreciable social disadvantages even in a democratic university." He
smiled, a tolerant, reminiscent smile. "I recall participating
tentatively a bit early in my career, but the result was not entirely a
success. My stock went below par with surprising rapidity; so I took it
off the market."
Armstrong glanced at the listening girl swiftly. Purposely he was trying
to draw the other man out--and for her benefit. But whatever the girl was
thinking her face was non-committal. He returned to the attack.
"All right," he shifted easily; "we'll pass charge number two likewise.
One thing at least, however, you'll admit you could have done. You might
have taken up athletics. You were asked often enough, I know
personally--nature did a lot for you in some things; and as for
clothes--the fewer you have in athletics the better. You could have mixed
there and warmed up to your heart's content. Isn't it so?"
This time Roberts laughed.
"I was engaged in athletics--all the time I was in the University," he
refuted.
"The deuce you were! I never knew before--All right, I bit. How was that,
Darley?"
"Simple enough, I'm sure," drily. "I venture the proposition that I sawed
more wood and stoked more furnaces during my course than any other
student that ever matriculated. I had four on the string constantly."
Armstrong sank back in his chair lazily.
"All right, Darley," he accepted; "when you won't be serious there's no
use trying to make you so. I surrender."
"Serious!" Roberts looked at the younger man peculiarly. "Serious!" he
echoed low. "That's just where your diagnosis fails, my friend. It's the
explanation as well why I never did those 'other things,' as you call
them, that students do and so humanize themselves." Involuntarily his
eyes went to the girl's face, searched it with a glance. "It is, I
suppose, the curse of my life: the fact that I can't be different. I seem
to be incapable of digressing, even if I want to."
For answer Armstrong smiled his sceptical smile; but the girl did not
notice. Instead, for the first time, she asked a question.
"And you still think to digress, to enjoy oneself, is not serious, Mr.
Roberts?" she asked.
"No, emphatically not. I'm human, I hope, even if I haven't been
humanized. I think enjoyment of life by the individual is its chief end.
It's nature."
"But you said--"
"Pardon me," quickly; "I couldn't have made myself clear then. We're each
of us a law unto himself, Miss Gleason. What is pleasure to me, perhaps,
is not pleasure to you. I said I was never asked to join a fraternity.
It's true. It's equally true, though, that I wouldn't have joined had I
been asked. So with the social side. I wouldn't have been a society man
if I'd had a new dress suit annually and a valet to keep it pressed. I
simply was not originally bent that way. Killing time, politely called
recreation, merely fails to afford me pleasure. For that reason I avoid
it. I claim no credit for so doing. It's not consecration to duty at all,
it's pure selfishness. I'm as material as a steam engine. My pleasure
comes from doing things; material things, practical things. For a given
period of time my pleasure is in being able to point to a given object
accomplished and say to myself: there, 'Darley, old man, you started out
to do it and you've done it.' Is that clear, Miss Gleason?"
"And if you don't accomplish it, what then?" commented Armstrong.
"I shall at least have tried," returned the other, carelessly. "I can
call the attention of Saint Peter to that fact."
Armstrong leaned back farther in his chair. His eyes sought the ceiling
whimsically.
"That would naturally bring up the old problem," he philosophized, "of
whether it were better to attempt to do a thing and fail or not to make
the attempt and retain one's self-confidence."
In her place the girl shifted restlessly, as though the digression
annoyed her.
"To return to the starting point," she said, "you think the greatest
pleasure in life is in action, not in passive sensation? We lazy
folks--"
"Pardon me," interrupted Armstrong, "but I want to anticipate and enter
an objection. Some of us aren't lazy. We're merely economical of our
energies."
"We lazy folks," repeated the girl, evenly, "are sometimes inclined to
think differently."
This time Roberts hesitated, his face a blank as he studied the two
before him. Just perceptibly he leaned forward. His big hands closed on
the chair arms.
"Are you really interested in hearing the definition of pleasure as I
have formulated it for myself, Miss Gleason?" he asked; "I repeat, as I
have formulated it for myself?"
"Yes."
Again Roberts hesitated, his face inscrutable, his body motionless as one
asleep.
"Pleasure," he began low, "is power; conscious, unquestionable, superior
power. In a small way we all experience it when we are hungry and have
the ability to satisfy that hunger. The big animal feels it when the
lesser animal is within its reach and the big animal knows it. The lover
tastes it when he knows another returns that love completely,
irresistibly--knows, I say. The student comprehends it when he is
conscious of ability to solve the problem presented, to solve it
unqualifiedly. The master of men realizes it when those in his command
obey him implicitly; when his word is law. Pleasure is not necessarily an
exercise of that power, in fact is not generally so; but it lies in the
consciousness of ability to exercise it at will. For the big animal to
annihilate the less would bring pain, not pleasure. Hunger satisfied is
passivity, not pleasure. And so on down the list. Superior, conscious
power exercised defeats its own purpose. It is, as men say,
unsportsmanlike. Held in reserve, passive, completely under control, it
makes of a human being a god. This to me is pleasure, Miss Gleason."
For a moment after he ceased speaking the room was quiet. Armstrong still
sat staring at the ceiling; but the smile had left his lips. The girl was
watching the visitor frankly, the tiny pucker, that meant concentration,
between her eyebrows. Roberts himself broke the silence.
"You've heard my definition, Miss Gleason," he laughed; "and no doubt
think me a savage or something of that kind. I shan't attempt to deny it
if you do either. Just as a matter of curiosity and of interest, though,
so long as the subject is up, I'd like to hear your own definition." Of a
sudden he remembered. "And yours, too, Armstrong," he added.
The wrinkle vanished from the girl's forehead. She smiled in turn. An
observer might have said she sparred for time. "After you, Steve," she
accepted.
Armstrong shifted in his seat elaborately.
"This is indeed a bit sudden," he remarked in whimsical commonplace,
"however--" His hands went into his pockets automatically. His eyes
followed a seam on the paper overhead back and forth, before halting
preparatorily.
"Pleasure with me," he began, "is not practical, but very much the
reverse." His lips twitched humorously. "Neither has it reference to any
superior power. I wouldn't give one single round penny, providing I had
it, to be able to whistle and have a thousand of my fellows dance to the
tune--against their wishes. If I could whistle so sweetly or so
enchantingly that they'd caper nimbly because they wanted to, because the
contagion was irresistible, then--" The whimsical look passed as suddenly
as it had come. "Pleasure with me, I think," he continued soberly, "means
appreciation by my fellow-men, in big things and in little things. I'm a
kind of sunflower, and that is my sun. I'd like to be able to play
marbles so well that the kids would stare in amazement; to fashion such
entrancing mud pies that the little girls would want to eat them; to play
ball so cleverly that the boys would always choose me first in making up
sides; to dance so divinely that the girls would dream about it
afterward; to tell so entertaining a story that men would let their
cigars go dead while they listened, or under different circumstances the
ladies would split their gloves applauding--if they happened to have them
on; last of all, to write a novel so different and interesting that the
reading public, and that means every one, would look on the cover after
they'd turned the last sheet to see who the deuce did it; then trim the
lamp afresh, loosen their collar comfortably and read it through again.
This to me spells pleasure in capitals all the way through: plain
appreciation, pure and simple, neither more nor less."
[Illustration: "I'm tired of reading about life and hearing about life. I
want to live it" (_Page 66_)]
Again silence followed, but a far different silence than before. Of that
difference the three in the room were each acutely conscious; yet no one
made comment. They merely waited, waited until, without preface, the girl
completed the tacit agreement.
"And pleasure to me," she said slowly, "means something different than it
does to either of you. In a way, with you both pleasure is active. With
me it's passive." She laughed shortly, almost nervously. "Maybe I'm lazy,
I don't know; but I've worked so long that I'm weary to death of
commonplace and repression and denial and--dinginess. I want to be a free
individual and have leisure and opportunity to feel things, not to do
them. I'm selfish, hopelessly selfish, morbidly selfish; but I am as I
am. I'm like the plant that's raised in a cellar and can't leave because
its roots are sunk there deep. I want to be transplanted perforce out
into the sunshine. I'm hungry for it, hungry. I've caught glimpses of
things beyond through my cellar window, but glimpses only. I repeat, I
want to feel unhampered. I know pretty things and artistic things when I
see them, and I want them: to wear, to live among, to look at. I want to
travel, to hear real music, to feel real operas and know real plays--not
imitations. I'm tired of reading about life and hearing about life. I
want to live it, be a part of it--not a distant spectator. That is what
pleasure means to me now; to escape the tyranny of repression and of
pennies and be free--free!"
For the third time silence fell; a silence that lasted longer far than
before, a silence which each was loth to break. While she was speaking,
at first Armstrong had shifted about in his chair restlessly; at the
last, his hands deep in his pockets, he had sat still. Once he had looked
at her, peculiarly, the tolerant half smile still on his lips; but she
had not returned the look, and bit by bit it vanished. That was all.
For a minute perhaps, until it became awkward at least, the silence
lasted--to be broken finally by the girl herself. Slowly she arose from
her seat and, tall, slender, deliberately graceful, came from her place
in the shadow into the light.
"I'm a bit ashamed to have brought out the family skeleton and aired it
to-night," she said evenly. Under drooping lids she looked from one face
before her to the other swiftly. "I don't know why I did it exactly. I'm
a bit irresponsible, I guess, to-night. We are all so, I think, at
times." As deliberately as she did everything she took a seat. Her hands
folded in her lap. "If you'll forget it I'll promise not to offend in the
same way again." She smiled and changed the subject abruptly. "I see by
the papers," she digressed, "that at last we're to have a trolley line in
town. The same authority informs us as well that you are the moving
spirit, Mr. Roberts."
"Yes." It was the ordinary laconic, non-committal man of business who
answered. A pause, then a significant amplification. "This is the age of
the trolley. There are a hundred miles of suburban lines contracted for
as well. No one will recognize this country as it is now ten years
hence."
"And this suburban line you speak of--I suppose you're the spirit back of
that too?" queried the girl.
"Yes." This time there was no amplification.
"So that was what you had in mind the other night when we were
talking,--what you wouldn't tell me," commented Armstrong, a shade
frostily.
"One thing, yes." Roberts ignored the tone absolutely. "I was not at
liberty to make the announcement at that time. The deal was just closed
last night."
Armstrong made no further comment, but his high spirits of the early
evening had vanished not to return, and shortly thereafter Roberts arose
to go. Promptly, seemingly intentionally so, Armstrong followed. In the
vestibule, his hat in his hand, by design or chance he caught the
visitor's eye.
"Pardon me a moment," he apologized, "I--forgot something."
Perforce Roberts waited while the other man returned to the tiny library
they had just vacated. The girl was standing within precisely as when
they had left and, as Armstrong did not close the door, the visitor knew
to a certainty that his presence as listener and spectator was
intentional. It was all a premeditated scene, the climax of the evening.
"By the way, Elice," said the actor, evenly, "I've been considering that
Graham offer carefully since I spoke to you about it the other night."
He did not look at her but stood twirling his hat judicially in his hand.
"I tried to convince myself that it was for the best to accept; but I
failed. I told him so to-day."
There was a pause.
"Yes," suggested the girl.
Another pause.
"I hope you're not--disappointed, Elice."
Still another pause, appreciable, though shorter than before.
"No; I'm not disappointed," replied the girl then. At last Armstrong had
glanced up and, without looking himself, the listener knew as well as
though he had seen that the speaker was smiling steadily. "I'm not
disappointed in the least, Steve."
CHAPTER IV
UNCERTAINTY
It was ten minutes after three on the following afternoon when Stephen
Armstrong, in the lightest of flannels and jauntiest of butterfly ties,
strolled up the tree-lined avenue and with an air of comfortable
proprietorship wandered in at the Gleason cottage. A movable sprinkler
was playing busily on the front lawn and, observing that the surrounding
sod was well soaked, with lazy deliberation he shifted it to a new
quarter. As he approached the house a mother wren flitted away before his
face, and at the new suggestion he stood peering up at the angle under
the eaves for the nest that he knew was near about. Once, standing there
with the hot afternoon sun beating down upon him, he whistled in
imitation of the tiny bird's call; nothing developing, he mounted the
steps and pulled the old-fashioned knocker familiarly.
There was no immediate response and he pulled again; without waiting for
an answer, he dropped into the ever-convenient hammock stretched beside
the door and swung back and forth luxuriously. Unconsciously, and for the
same reason that a bird sings--because it is carelessly oblivious of
anything save the happiness of the moment--he began whistling softly to
himself: without definite time or metre, subconsciously improvising.
Perhaps a dozen times he swung back and forth; then the whistling
ceased.
"Anything doing at this restaurant this afternoon, Elice?" he plunged
without preface. An expansive smile made up for the lack of conventional
greeting. "I'm as hungry as those little wrens I hear cheeping up there
somewhere."
The smile was contagious and the girl returned it unconsciously.
"I believe you're always hungry, Steve Armstrong," she commented.
"I know it. I was born that way."
"And you never grew up."
"Physically, yes, unfortunately. Otherwise--I'm fighting to the last
ditch. I believe about three of those cookies you make--and, by the way,
they're much better than mother used to manufacture--will fill the void.
Don't you hear that cheeping?"
The girl hesitated, disappeared, and returned.
"Thank you, Elice. Sit down over there, please, where I can see you. It
makes them taste better. That's right. Thank you, again. I'm going to pay
my bill now by telling you your fortune. You're going to make a great
cook."
"I wonder," said the girl, enigmatically.
"There's no question about it. And for good measure I'm going to retail
the latest gossip. What, by the way and as a preliminary, do you suppose
I've been doing all day?"
"It's vacation. Fishing, I presume."
"Stung! I did go fishing this morning--four o'clock, caught one too; but
it was so small and innocent looking that I apologized and threw it back.
That wasn't what I referred to, however. You'll have to guess again."
"I haven't the slightest idea."
"I'm compelled to assist you then. I've been helping the Randalls settle.
Harry 'phoned me early this morning and wanted to know if I didn't desire
to be useful; said he would exchange compliments sometime." A significant
pause, then a reminiscent sigh. "Every vertebra in my spinal column aches
with an individual and peculiar pain."
"They're really settled at last, are they?" inquired the girl,
interestedly. "I can hardly wait to see how things look."
"I don't blame you for being curious, Elice," sympathized Armstrong. "I
felt a bit the same way myself." A rueful grin. "Merely among ourselves,
however, and as a word of advice between friends, you'd better curb your
impatience for about a week longer."
"And why? You're darkly mysterious, as usual."
"Mysterious! Heavens, no; merely compassionate." He held up his hand for
inspection. "Look at that blister. It's as big as a dime and feels like a
prune. They're not done yet and they'd induce you to duplicate it if they
ever got you into their clutches. So long as it's all in the family I
think one blister is about sufficient. Better lay low for a week
anyway."
"Steve," the voice was severe, "you're simply impossible. They'd never
forgive you if they knew you talked that way."
"Yes, they would," easily. "I promised to come back and help complete the
job." Of a sudden he laughed boyishly, reminiscently. "Seriously, Elice,
I've had a memorable day." He laughed again. "Pardon me, but I've wanted
to do that for hours and didn't dare. Such a mixture of furnishings as
those two people have accumulated you never saw brought together under
one roof before in your life."
"Mixture, how? I fail to see the joke."
"You will when you visit them, all right. I warn you in advance to be
discreet." He looked at his companion with whimsical directness. "You see
it was this way. They started out together to buy things, with Margery at
the helm. She's not accustomed particularly to consider cost and went at
the job with avidity. She's methodical also, you know, and began at the
front door. In fancy she entered the reception hall, and the first need
that appealed to her was a rug. She picked out one. It's Oriental, and a
beauty: cost one hundred dollars if a cent. Next, in her mind's eye, she
noticed the bare windows--curtains were required, of course. So she
selected them. They're the real thing and two pairs--another hundred,
I'll wager. Following came three or four big leather chairs--nothing
better in town. I can fancy old Harry's heart sinking by this time; but
he didn't say a word--yet. Margery took another spurt and went on to the
living-room. In consequence another big rug--and another hundred
withdrawn from circulation. A jolly big davenport--more curtains;--and
then something happened. They told me so, but I didn't need to be told;
for it was then that Harry butted in. They were bankrupt already, and he
knew it. He simply had to call a halt. It's the funniest contrast I ever
saw, and pathetic too; for from this point on the whole house is a
nightmare. Cheap! he bought the cheapest things he could find and even
then he got scared. By the time they got through the dining-room he must
have been a nervous wreck, for the kitchen and upstairs furniture is
second-hand, every stick and frying pan; and even then--" The humor left
the speaker's face. "It's a shame to make fun of it, though, Elice.
They're going to replace it all as soon as they can."
For a moment neither said anything.
"And Margery?" suggested the girl at last.
"That's where the little tragedy crops out. You see we began the way she
had begun--at the front door. She was pleased as a boy with new boots at
the reception hall. Still cheerful over the living-room. Non-committal in
the diner. From there on Harry and I carted things upstairs and juggled
with them alone and according to our own ideas."
For the second time there was silence; then, low-voiced, came another
suggestion.
"And--Harry?"
"He's game," admiringly. "He may be thinking a lot--I've no doubt he is;
but he's not letting out a peep or making a sign. He pretended Margery
was just tired out and bundled her out of doors under the trees. That's
one thing they've got at least: a whole yard full of grandfather elms. He
sort of looked at me cross-eyed while he was doing it to see if I caught
on, but I was blind as a post. By the way, I nearly forgot to mention it,
but you and I are invited there for dinner this coming Thursday--sort of
a house-warming and appreciation of my efforts combined."
"For dinner, so soon?" The girl stared incredulously. "I don't believe
Margery ever cooked a meal in her life."
"She isn't going to try to yet, she informed me, so be of good cheer.
That sort of thing is all to come later on, with the replaced furniture.
At present she's to have a maid and take observations." The speaker
laughed characteristically. "I asked her if she referred to the sort of
individual my mother used to call a hired girl, but she stuck to 'maid.'
It seems they are to pay her six dollars a week. Hired girls only command
four."
Elice Gleason joined in the laugh sympathetically. The other's good
spirits was irresistible.
"You seem to have been gathering valuable data," she commented drily.
"I have indeed. I couldn't well help it. I was even forced into the
conviction that it was intended I should so gather." He smiled into his
companion's eyes whimsically. "They're deep, those Randalls. After all is
said I fancy my assistance was acquired not so much from any desire to
save as to point a valuable object lesson; scatter the contagion, as it
were." He paused meaningly and smiled again. "Elice mine, we're in grave
danger, you and I. That worthy pair have designs upon our future. They
are in the position of a certain class, famed in adage, who desire
company. The dinner is only another illustration of the same point."
Elice Gleason returned the smile, but quietly. She made no further
comment, however, and the subject dropped.
In the hammock Armstrong swung back and forth in lazy well-being.
Overhead the mother wren, a mere brown shadow, flitted in return over
their heads. There was an instant's clamor from hidden fledglings, and
silence as the shadow passed back once more into the sunshine. Watching
through half-closed eyes, comfortably whimsical, Armstrong gazed into
space where the shadow had vanished.
"What a responsibility the care of a family must be," he commented,
"particularly in this hot weather. That wren certainly has my
sympathy--and respect." He paused to give the swinging hammock a fresh
impulse. "I wonder though," he drifted on, "that is, if it is permissible
to tangle up a variety of thoughts, if it's any harder than it is to
attempt to pull an idea out of one's self by the roots and work it up
into readable form with the thermometer above ninety in the shade--I
wonder."
Elice Gleason was observing him now, peculiarly, understandingly.
"How is the book coming, anyway, Steve?" she asked directly.
"Which book?" smilingly.
"_The_ book, of course."
"They're all _the_ books--or were at one time." A trace, the first, of
irony crept into his voice. "To be specific, however, masterpiece number
one has just completed its eighteenth round trip East, and is taking a
deserved rest. Masterpiece number two is _en route_ somewhere between
here and New York, either coming or going, on its eleventh journey.
Number three has only five tallies to its credit--but hope springs
eternal. Number four, the baby, still adolescent, has temporarily halted
in its growth while I succor a needy benedict friend in distress. I
believe that covers the family."
The characterization was typically nonsensical; but, sympathetic, the
listener read between the sentences and understood.
"Isn't the new one coming well?" she asked low. "Tell me, Steve,
honest."
"Coming well, Elice! What a question to ask of probably America's
foremost living writer!" The speaker was still smiling. "What
reprehensible misgiving, suspicion even!" Sudden silence, wherein bit by
bit the smile faded. Silence continued until in its place came a new
expression, one that changed the boy's face absolutely, made it a man's
face--and not a young one at that.
"Coming well, Elice?" he repeated. "Honest, as you say, I don't know."
The hammock had become still, but the speaker did not notice, merely
lying there looking up into the sunshine and the blue unseeingly.
"Sometimes I think it is, and then again--if one could only know about
such things, know, not hope--of course every writer in his own soul
fancies--and his friends, for that matter, are just about as useful--"
The speaker drew himself together with a shrug. For an instant his jaw
locked decisively.
"I know I'm more or less irresponsible, as a rule, Elice," he analyzed
swiftly, "and probably create the impression that I'm even more
irresponsible than I am; but in this thing, at least, I'm serious. From
the bottom of my soul I want to write well, want to. As I said before,
sometimes I think I can--auto-intoxication maybe it is, I don't know--and
I'm as happy as a child, or a god, or a bird, or any completely happy
thing you can fancy. Then again, as it's been the past week, or the past
month for that matter, I don't seem to be able to do anything new. On top
of this everything I've already done fairly personifies and leers at me.
I get so that I fairly hate myself for the utter failure that I am, that
at least I have been so far. I get to analyzing myself; I can't help it,
and the result isn't pleasant. I've been doing so lately. I don't
overestimate myself in the least, Elice girl. Practically, commercially,
I'm a zero. I'm simply not built that way. If I'm ever of any use in the
world, ever amount to anything whatever, it will be in an impractical,
artistic way. Whether I'll ever win out so--oh, for light, for light!...
Frankly, the new novel is going badly, Elice, cursedly bad!"
"I'm sorry, Steve. You know--"
"Yes, I know."
"I've believed always, and still believe--"
"Yes, I know that too."
"You've got it in you to win; I know it, and you know it. You've done
good work already, lots of it, and--"
"Wade into him and lick him!" bitterly. "He's only three sizes larger
than you are, and afraid--I know you can lick him. Wade in!"
The girl said nothing.
"Forgive me, Elice," with quick contrition. "That was nasty of me, I
confess. But I'm sore to-day, raw. It's genius I suppose," sarcastically,
"genius unappreciated."
Still the girl said nothing.
"If I could only get a ray of light, a lead, the flutter of a signal from
outside the wall. But I keep hammering my head at it day after day, and
it remains precisely as it was years ago when I began. It's maddening."
Yet the girl was silent, waiting silent.
"And, last of all, if I should eventually succeed, should break through
into my own, as Darley Roberts says, even then--from any point of view
it isn't a cheerful prospect."
"As Mr. Roberts says? What was that, Steve?"
"I referred to the reward, pecuniary reward. He figured it out in dollars
and cents once when he wanted to bring me out of the clouds. Looking at
it that way, there isn't much to the game even for the winners, Elice."
"Not much if you win? I can't believe it, Steve. I always supposed--"
"Everybody does. The public, the uninitiated, are long on supposing. Even
the would-be's like myself delude themselves and build air castles until
some hard-headed friend calls the turn. Then--no; there really isn't much
in it, Elice; nothing in comparison to the plums in the business world.
That job of Graham's, for instance, offers greater possibilities than
success even, and when it comes to partial success or failure! It's a
joke, the artistic temperament in this commercial twentieth century, a
tremendous side-splitting joke! One nowadays should be born with suckers
on his fingers, such as a fly has on its feet, so that whenever he came
into the vicinity of a bank note it would stick fast. That would be the
ideal condition, the greatest natural blessing, now!"
"You know you don't mean that, Steve. It's hot and you're out of the mood
to-day--that's all. To-morrow will be different; you'll see things
straight again."
"Thank you, Elice. You're right, as usual. I said I was raw to-day. It's
boyish to be so too, I realize that. But it's hard sometimes, deucedly
hard, when others are doing something and getting somewhere to see
yourself standing still. One gets to thinking and imagining things that
probably don't exist." He took a long breath. "It's this thing of
imagination that's worse than reality. It crawls in between everything
so; and somehow you can't keep it out. It gives one a scare." He laughed
shortly, ill at ease. "It even makes one doubt a little the people one
believes in most: take you and me, for instance. In my sane moments I
know nothing could get between us; but sometimes I get to
imagining--times like the last few days when I am--raw--that we're
gradually drifting apart. A little difference of opinion comes up and
imagination magnifies until it becomes a mountain and--I know I'm
preposterous, Elice, and there's nothing really to it, but the thing's
been on my mind and I wanted to tell you and get it out of my system." He
had hurried on, leading up to the point, making the situation
deliberately. Now he turned to her, smiling frankly. "It's preposterous,
isn't it, Elice? Tell me so. I like to hear you say it."
"Preposterous, Steve?" The girl returned the look, but for some reason,
probably one she herself could not have told, she did not smile. She
merely looked at him, steadily, unwaveringly. "I have never thought of
the possibility before, never questioned. Certainly nothing has come
between us. To imagine--I never imagine the unpleasant, Steve."
The figure in the hammock shifted restlessly, as though but half
satisfied.
"And nothing ever will, Elice?" he pressed. "Say that just to please me.
I think an awful lot of you, girl; so much that at times I'm afraid."
This time the girl smiled, quietly, very quietly.
"And I of you, Steve," she echoed. "Must I protest that?"
"No," swiftly, "not for an instant. I don't doubt, mind.... It's all that
cursed imagination of mine. I was only thinking of the future. If things
shouldn't come my way, shouldn't--I put it at the worst possible--if by
any chance I should remain a--failure such as I am now--you wouldn't
mind--would overlook--it wouldn't make any difference at all with you and
me, would it, Elice?"
"Steve, you mustn't say such things--mustn't, I say. It's morbid. I won't
listen."
"But tell me," passionately, "what I asked. I want to hear you say it. I
want to know."
For an instant the girl was silent, an instant that seemed minutes to the
expectant listener. For the second time she met him eye to eye.
"Whether or not you become famous as a writer," she said slowly, "won't
make any difference in the least. It's you I care for, Steve; you as you
are now and nothing more." The voice paused but the eyes did not shift.
"As for the future, Steve man, I can't promise nor can you. To do so
would be to lie, and I won't lie. I say I love you; you as you are. If
anything ever should come between us, should, I say--you suggested it
and--persist--it will be because of a change in you yourself." For the
second time she halted; then she smiled. "I think that's all there is to
say," she completed.
"All!" With a buoyancy unfeigned the man swung out of the hammock upon
his feet. "That's just the beginning. You're just getting under way,
Elice."
"No," peremptorily; "all--for the present at least. It's four o'clock of
the afternoon, you know, and the neighbors have eyes like--Look at the
sun shine!... You've scared away the wren too, and the brood is hungry.
Besides it's time to begin dinner. Cooks shouldn't be hindered ever." She
turned toward the door decisively. "You may stay if you don't bother
again," she smiled over her shoulder. "Meanwhile there's a new 'Life' and
a July 'Century,'--you know where," and with a final smile she was gone.
CHAPTER V
CERTAINTY
Four months had drifted by; again the University was in full swing.
Of an evening in late October at this time, in the common living-room
which joined the two private rooms in the suite occupied by himself and
Darley Roberts, Stephen Armstrong was alone. It was now nearly eleven
o'clock, and he had come in directly after dinner, ample time to have
prepared his work for the next day; but as yet he had made no move in
that direction. On the roll-top desk, with its convenient drop light, was
an armful of reference books and two late scientific magazines. They were
still untouched, however, bound tight by the strap with which they had
been carried.
But one sign of his prolonged presence was visible in the room. That, a
loose pile of manuscript alternately hastily scribbled and painfully
exact, told of the varying moods under which it had been produced;--that
and a tiny pile of cigarette stumps in the nearby ash-tray, some
scarcely lit and others burned to a tiny stump, which had become the
manuscripts' invariable companion.
For more than an hour now, however, he had not been writing. The night
was frosty and he had lit the gas in the imitation fireplace. The open
flame had proved compellingly fascinating and, once stretched comfortably
in the big Turkish rocker before it, duty had called less and less
insistently and there he had remained. For half an hour thereafter he had
scarcely stirred; then, without warning, he had risen. On the mantel
above the grate was a collection of articles indigenous to a bachelor's
den: a box half filled with cigars, a jar of tobacco, a collection of
pipes, a cut-glass decanter shaded dull red in the electric light. It was
toward the latter that he turned, not by chance but with definite
purpose, and without hesitation poured a whiskey glass level full. There
was no attendant siphon or water convenient and he drank the liquor raw
and returned the glass to its place. It was not the quasi-aesthetic
tippling of comradery but the deliberate drinking of one with a cause,
real or fancied, therefor and for its effect; and as he drank he shivered
involuntarily with the instinctive aversion to raw liquor of one to whom
the action has not become habitual. Afterward he remained standing for a
moment while his eyes wandered aimlessly around the familiar room. As he
did so his glance fell upon the pile of text-books, mute reminder of a
lecture yet unprepared, and for an instant he stood undecided. With a
characteristic shrug of distaste and annoyance, of dismissal as well, he
resumed his seat, his slippered feet spread wide to catch the heat.
Another half-hour passed so, the room silent save for the deliberate
ticking of a big wall clock and the purr of the gas in the grate; at last
came an interruption: the metallic clicking of a latch key, the tramp of
a man's feet in the vestibule, and Darley Roberts entered. A moment after
entering the newcomer paused attentive, his glance taking in every detail
of the all too familiar scene; deliberately, as usual, he hung up his
top-coat and hat.
"Taking it comfortable-like, I see," he commented easily as he pulled up
a second chair before the grate. "Knocked off for the evening, have
you?"
"Knocked off?" Armstrong shrugged. "I hardly know. I haven't knocked on
yet. I'm stuck in the mud, so to speak."
Roberts drew the customary black cigar from his waistcoat pocket and
clipped the end methodically. As he did so, apparently by chance, his
glance swept the mantel above the grate, and, returning, took in the
testimony of the desk with its unopened text-books and pile of scattered
manuscript. Equally without haste he lit a match and puffed until the
weed was well aglow.
"Any assistance a friend can give?" he proffered directly. "We all get
tangled at times, I guess. At least every one I know does."
Armstrong's gaze left the fire and fastened on his companion peculiarly.
"Do you yourself?" he asked bluntly.
"Often."
"That's news. I fancied you were immune. What, if I may ask, do you do at
such times to effect your release?"
"Go to bed, ordinarily, and sleep while the mud is drying up. There's
usually a big improvement by morning."
"And when there isn't--"
Roberts smiled, the tight-jawed smile of a fighter.
"It's a case of pull, then; a pull as though Satan himself were just
behind and in hot pursuit. Things are bound to give if one pulls hard
enough."
Armstrong's face returned to the grate. His slippered feet spread wider
than before.
"I'm not much good at pulling," he commented.
Roberts sat a moment in silence.
"I repeat, if I can be of any assistance--" he commented. "No butting in,
you understand."
"Yes, I understand, and thank you sincerely. I doubt if you can help any
though--if any one can. It's the old complaint mostly."
"Publishers who fail to appreciate, I gather."
"Partly."
"And what more, may I ask?"
Armstrong stretched back listlessly, his eyes half closed.
"Everything, it seems, to me to-night, every cursed thing!" Restless in
spite of his seeming inertia he straightened nervously. His fingers,
slender almost as those of a woman, opened and closed intermittently.
"First of all, the manuscript of my new book came back this morning, the
one I've been working on for the last year. The expressman delivered it
just after you left. That started the day wrong. Then came a succession
of little things. Breakfast, with coffee stone-cold, and soggy rolls; I
couldn't swallow a mouthful. Afterward I cut myself shaving, and I was
late for lecture, and there was no styptic in the house, and I got down
to my class with a collar looking as though I'd had my throat cut. The
lecture room was chilly, beastly chilly, and about half the men had
colds. Every twentieth word I'd say some one would sneeze and interrupt.
On top of this one chap on the front row had neglected to complete his
toilet and sat there for half an hour manicuring his nails, every blessed
one of the ten; I counted them, while I was trying to explain proximal
principles. At noon we had some more of that abominable soup with carrots
in it. Carrots! I detest the name and the whole family; and we've had
them every day now for a week. After lunch another big thing. I'd applied
for position as lecturer in the summer school, applied early. The
president met me to-day and remarked casually, very casually, that the
man for the place had already been selected. He was very sorry of course,
but--Back at the department I found that Elrod, one of my assistants, was
sick, and of necessity I had to take his place in the laboratory. Inside
half an hour some bumpkin dropped an eight-ounce bottle of sulphuretted
hydrogen. It spattered everywhere--and the smell! I feel like holding my
nose yet. Later the water got stopped up, and for love or money no
plumber--" The speaker paused, his shoulders lifted eloquently. "But
what's the use of itemizing. It's been the same all day long, one petty
rasp after another. To cap the climax Elice is out of town. She's got an
English class in a high-school in a dinky little burg out about twenty
miles and goes out there every Thursday. I forgot this was the day until
I pulled the knocker. That's all, I guess, except that I'm here."
Roberts smiled, the deliberate smile of tolerant understanding.
"One of those days, wasn't it," he commented sympathetically.
"Yes," shortly, "and it seems lately as though that was the only kind I
had--seems as though it was not one but an endless succession.... It's
all so petty, so confoundedly petty and irritating, and the outlook for
the future seems so similar." Of a sudden the speaker arose, selected a
bit of rice paper from the mantel, and began rolling a cigarette swiftly.
The labor complete he paused, the little white cylinder between his
fingers. A moment he stood so, irresolute or intentionally deliberate;
without apology or comment he poured a second glass of liquor even full
from the red decanter and drank it in silence. "On the square, Darley,"
he blazed, "I expected a lot from that last book, banked on it; and it's
gone flat, like the others." He resumed his seat and the cigarette
flamed. "I worked hard on it, did my level best. I don't believe I can
ever do any better--and now it's failed miserably. It knocks my pins
clean out from under me."
For a time the room was quiet. Roberts did not smile this time, or offer
sympathy. The occasion for that had gone by. He merely waited in the
fulness of knowledge, until the first hot flood of resentment had cooled,
until the inevitable reaction that followed was on. Deliberate, direct to
the point, he struck.
"You're satisfied I'm your friend, are you?" he asked abruptly.
The other looked his surprise.
"Emphatically, yes. One of the few I have--it seems to-night."
"And I couldn't possibly have any selfish motive in--in tearing you loose
from your moorings?"
"None whatever that I can imagine. Why?"
"You won't take offence either if I advise plainly?"
"No, I'm not a fool--yet. What is it, Darley,--your advice?"
Again Roberts paused, deliberately now, unemotionally.
"My advice then is to chuck it, for to-day and to-morrow and all time:
the University, this whole artistic rainbow, chuck it as though it were
hot, red hot, and get down to earth. Is that brutally plain enough?"
Unconsciously Armstrong had sat up, expectant. A moment he remained so,
taking in the thought, all its implications, its suddenly suggested
possibilities; as the full revolutionary significance of the idea came
home of a sudden he dropped back in his place. With an effort he smiled.
"To answer your question: yes, I think that is brutally frank enough," he
said. A moment longer he remained quiet, thinking, the idea expanding.
"Chuck it," he repeated half to himself. "It sounds sensible certainly,
to-night particularly." New thoughts came, thoughts like the sifting of
dead ashes. "Chuck it," feverishly, "and admit incompetency, cowardice,
failure absolute!" For the third time he was on his feet. "No, never.
I'll go to the devil first." His fingers were on the red decanter, his
brown eyes aflame. "I'll--"
"Armstrong!"
No answer, although the fingers halted.
"Steve!"
Still no answer; but bit by bit the hand retreated.
"Steve," repeated, "sit down, please; please, I say. Let's talk this
matter over a little rationally. People have changed their minds before,
some few billions of them--and made good afterward too. Have a little
patience, man, and sit down. I have a proposition to make to you."
Reluctantly Armstrong obeyed. His face was still unnaturally pale and he
was breathing hard, but he obeyed. Back in his seat he waited a second,
uncertain; with an effort he faced his companion fairly.
"I--realize I'm an ass, Darley," he began, hesitantly, "and that this
sort of thing is melodramatically cheap." The white had left his face now
and words were coming more easily. "I won't attempt to apologize, I just
simply admit the truth. I've lost my grip this evening."
"Forget it." The voice was commonplace. "Just forget it."
"I can't; I'm not built that way; but I wish you would. If there's one
thing I hate more than another it's cheap heroics."
"I know it--and understand. Let it go at that."
"Thank you. All right." It was matter of fact, but such with an effort.
"Let's hear your proposition."
As usual Roberts wasted no preface.
"The suggestion is merely in line with what I said before. In so many
words, it's to throw up this place of yours in the University and get
into business. You'll come into contact with realities that way and
realities are eternally opposed to--cobwebs. You'll be happier and more
contented, I'm positive, once you get adjusted." He gave his listener a
keen look. "I've got an opening in mind right now. Say the word and I'll
have the place ready for you the day they appoint your successor in the
University. Do you care to consider it?"
"Consider, yes, certainly." Armstrong had lit a pipe and puffed at it
shortly. "It's white of you too to offer it. I know it's a good thing or
you wouldn't make the suggestion."
"It's not as good as Graham's offer," refuted the other evenly, "places
like that don't dangle loose every day; but it will pay you better than
a university chair, and it offers possibilities--you anticipate
probably,--it's in connection with the new electric line. Between
ourselves, Armstrong, this system is going to be a big thing when it's
complete. This is a straight tip. I happen to be in a position to know. I
also happen to be in position to put you very near the basement,
providing you wish to come in with us unhampered." The voice halted
meaningly. "That's all I'm at liberty to say now, until you are really in
and prove unmistakably--I'll have several things more to tell you then."
"Don't misunderstand me, Darley," he said slowly, "or take offence,
please; but--but, to scrape off the veneer, you don't trust me very far
even yet, do you?"
There was a moment of silence, time for second thought.
"I can't misunderstand what you mean," said Roberts; "but unfortunately
there are others besides yourself for me to consider." The voice was
patient, unnaturally so. "I've already talked more than I should."
"If I accepted," unobservant, Armstrong's mind was running on in its own
channel, "the place you mean would take my entire time. In a way it
would be like Graham's offer. I'd be compelled--you catch the idea, don't
you?"
"Yes." This time the other did not amplify.
"You know why I refused that proposition before. We beat the brush pretty
thoroughly at that time." It was declination involved, but declination
nevertheless unmistakable. "It's a rocky road I'm on, and with occasional
mudholes such as--well--such as I fell into to-night; but somehow I can't
leave it. I won't try to defend it this time. I'm not in the mood. But
when it comes to breaking free, taking a new trail--I simply can't do it,
can't!"
"Very well." The voice was non-committal. Waiting, Armstrong thought
there would be more to follow, a comment at least; but there was none.
Roberts merely leaned back more comfortably in his place, remained so for
a minute while like smoke the former subject faded from the horizon.
Armstrong grew conscious that he was being observed intently.
"By the way," introduced Roberts, abruptly, "I've decided to give up my
residence here in the suburbs. They're remodelling the office building
I'm in, you know: adding another floor, an elevator, and one thing and
another. I've rented a suite in the addition, to be fitted out after
some ideas of my own. They'll begin on it inside a week."
For a moment Armstrong said nothing.
"I'm not particularly surprised," he commented at last, "that is, not
surprised that you're going to quit me. It was merely a question of time
until this place we're living in here got too small for you. When will
you go?"
"The lease gives them a month to deliver."
"A month. All right." There was frost forming in the tone. "I'll try and
lassoo another mate in that time. The place isn't particularly
pretentious, but, nevertheless, I can't afford to inhabit it alone." He
smiled, but it was not his customary companionable smile. "You're on the
incline and trudging up steadily, aren't you, old man?"
For an instant Roberts returned the look with the analytic one Armstrong
knew so well.
"I trust so," he returned. A pause, again sufficient for second thought.
"Looking into the immediate future I see a lot of grinding to be done,
and I need machinery to do it with. This down town move is merely part of
the campaign."
"I see," Armstrong ignored the explanation, even perverted it
intentionally. "And the next installation of machinery will be in stone
out on Nob Hill among the other imitation colonial factories. When's
that to be, if I may ask?"
Roberts said nothing.
"When's it to be, Darley?" repeated Armstrong. "You have it in mind,
haven't you?"
This time Roberts turned, his eyes unsmiling, his lips tight.
"When have I offended you, and how, Armstrong?" he countered directly.
"Tell me that."
"Offended!" Roused out of his ill humor Armstrong flushed penitently.
"You've never offended, never. On the contrary, you're only too patient
with my tantrums." He jerked himself together impulsively. "I didn't mean
anything by that at all. I'm blooming glad to see you prosper. I always
knew you would."
"The imitation colonial--factory then--" Roberts recalled slowly.
"Just a dream, a fancy, an air castle."
"No, a reality--I hope."
"What?--a miracle! But how about the tape line?"
"I repeat: I hope. Hope always refers to the future--the indefinite
future."
Armstrong smiled broadly, shrugged. Banter tingled on the tip of his
tongue, but for some reason remained unspoken. Abruptly as it had arisen
the subject vanished beneath the surface. Merely the memory of that
suggestion of things to come remained.
In the silence Roberts glanced at the clock and arose preparatory to bed.
Watching the familiar action, a new thought sprang full-fledged to
Armstrong's brain, a sudden appreciation of the unconscious dependence he
had grown to feel on the other man. The thought took words.
"On the square, old man," he said soberly, "I hate to have you go. It'll
be beastly lonely here without you to sit down on me and make me feel
foolish." He gestured in mute eloquence. "It means the end between you
and me the moment you pack your trunk. We may both put up a bluff--but
just the same it's the end."
Roberts halted thoughtfully where he stood.
"The end? I wonder--and who will be to blame?"
"Neither of us," swiftly. "It was inevitable. We'll simply drift apart.
You recall I prophesied once before--"
"Yes, I recall."
Armstrong started involuntarily. Another memory had intruded.
"You remember--something else I predicted, do you?"
A slow smile formed on Roberts' lips.
"You said that sometime we'd hate each other, in the same measure that we
were friends now."
"Yes; and it's so. I feel it; why I don't know, can't imagine--yet. But
it will come about as surely as to-morrow will come." He looked at his
companion steadily, unsmilingly prophetic. "Good-bye, friend Darley
Roberts. You're going--and you won't return. Good-bye."
An instant Roberts stood as he was, motionless; then he turned swiftly.
"You're morbid to-night, Armstrong," he returned slowly. "In the morning
the sun will shine and the world will look very different. As for my
leaving--you'll find another man who'll make a lot better mate than I am.
I'm not a good fellow in the least."
"I know it," bluntly. "That's why you're good for me." Unconsciously his
glance travelled to the mantel, and shifted hurriedly. "I'm a kind of
clinging vine, I guess. To change the figure of speech, I need a stiff
rudder to keep me headed straight to windward. I'll--miss you," simply.
Roberts hesitated a moment, choosing his words carefully.
"We can't very well always be together, though," he suggested at last
slowly.
"No, we can't. I realize it. It's--Pardon an ass and go to bed, old
man."
For perhaps half a minute Roberts stood there, the fire from the open
grate lighting his face, his big capable hands loose at his sides. He
made no motion to leave, nor for a space to speak; characteristically
abrupt, he turned, facing his companion directly.
"Armstrong," he said, "I can't work up to things delicately and have them
seemingly happen by chance. Nature didn't endow me with that ability. I
have to come out with a broadside shot or not at all. I'm going to do so
now. Why don't you get married? Miss Gleason will be a better rudder
immeasurably than I am."
Involuntarily Armstrong flushed, slowly the color faded. He said
nothing.
"I know I'm intruding and offending," went on the other; "you show that,
but you said a bit ago I was your friend and the thing is on my mind.
Believe this at least: I was never more your friend than when I advise
the move now. I repeat: why don't you get married, at once?"
"Why? You know why, Darley. It's the old reason--the butcher, the baker,
and the candlestick maker. They still hold the fort."
"No, not for you--unless you let them. Forgive another broadside. If you
get pinched temporarily let a friend be of service. I'm not afraid to
trust you. Anyway I chance it. We all have to chance something for
happiness. Don't delay any longer, man, don't!"
"Don't?" Of a sudden Armstrong glanced up and met the other's look
steadily. "Don't?" he repeated. "Why do you say that, please?"
A second Roberts met the lifted questioning eyes.
"Because I meant it," he said. "Please don't ask me to say more."
"But I do ask it," pressed Armstrong, stubbornly. "You meant something
particular by that, something I have the right to know."
"Won't you consider what I suggested," asked Roberts in a low tone;
"merely consider it?"
"Perhaps after you tell me what you meant. Why 'don't,' please?"
On the cosy room fell silence,--the silence of midnight; the longest
silence of that interrupted understanding. For a long while Roberts stood
precisely as he was; he started walking, measuring the breadth of the
room and back again; something the watcher had never known him to do
before, never in the years of acquaintance, no matter what the
uncertainty or difficulty confronting. A second time he followed the
trail back and forth, until, watching him, the spectator felt at last
something like terror of the thing he had deliberately conjured and that
now was inevitably coming very near; for at last Roberts had halted, was
standing over him.
"In all the time that I've known you, Armstrong," said a voice, a new
voice, "you've asked my advice repeatedly, asked the reason for it,
insisted that I explain minutely, and disregarded it absolutely. I've
tried to be honest with you each time, tried to be of service; and still
you've disregarded. It's been the same to-night, the old, old story. I've
been dead in earnest, tried to be unselfish, and still you question and
doubt and insist." A second the voice halted, the speaker glancing down,
not analytically or whimsically, as usual, but of a sudden icy cold. "You
insist now, against my request, and once more I'm going to humor you. You
wish to know what I meant by 'don't' delay. I meant just this, man, just
this and no more: Chances for happiness come to us all sometime in our
lives. They knock at our door and wait for us to open. Sometimes, not
often, they knock twice; but they don't keep on knocking forever. There
are a multitude of other doors in the world and, after a while,
opportunity, our opportunity, goes by, and never returns; no matter how
loudly we call. Is that clear enough, man?"
"In the abstract, yes." Armstrong's lips were dry and he moistened them
unconsciously. "In the concrete, though, as it applies to
my--happiness--"
"God, you're an egotist, Armstrong! Is it possible you can't understand,
or won't?"
Slowly, with an effort, Armstrong arose; his face of a sudden gray, his
hands fastened to the back of his chair.
"You mean to suggest that Elice," he began, "that Elice--You dare to
suggest that to me?"
"Dare?"
They looked at each other, not three feet apart.
"Dare?" Roberts repeated.
"Darley!"
"Don't! I've argued, advised, used persuasion--everything. Take that as a
warning if you wish, or disregard it if you choose. I'm done."
On the chair back the fingers locked tighter and tighter, until they grew
white. Tardy comprehension was coming at last.
"You mean to warn me," Armstrong scarcely recognized his own voice, "that
you yourself--"
"Yes, I myself. That's why I warned you."
"You yourself," he repeated, "whom I introduced and took with me as my
friend, my best friend--you--Judas!"
"Re-introduced." Roberts' eyes were as steady as his voice.
"Re-introduced--mark that. Miss Gleason has forgotten, but she was the
first girl I met in the University, when I had one suit of frayed clothes
to my name, and my stock was below par. Miss Gleason has forgotten, I
say, had no reason to remember; but I--Nor--Judas; drop that for all
time.... I've warned you, you understand."
"Darley!"
"No--Roberts. I'm no hypocrite. You've precipitated this understanding,
compelled it; but perhaps it's as well. I'll move out of here to-morrow
instead of in a month, if you wish. Do you wish it?"
Bit by bit the hands on the chair back, that had been so tense,
loosened, and Armstrong sank back in his seat, his face turned away.
"I don't know--yet." His fingers were twitching aimlessly. "I want to
think.... You, of all men, you!" He turned, his eyes ablaze, his voice
thick. "Yes, go to-morrow, damn you! and as for your warning, do as you
please, get between us if you can." He laughed raspingly. "I'll
delay--dangle, you catch that--as long as I see fit. I dare you."
An instant Roberts stood as he was; slowly and without a word he started
for his room. As he did so Armstrong arose swiftly and, all but
gropingly, his hand sought the red decanter on the mantel. "I dare you,"
he repeated blindly, "dare you!"
"Armstrong!" Roberts had halted, looking back. "Not for any one's sake
but your own--think a second, man."
"To hell with you and thought!"
Without a sound this time or another glance the door to Roberts' room
opened and closed and Armstrong was alone.
CHAPTER VI
A WARNING
With a dexterity born of experience Harry Randall looked up from his
labor of separating the zone of carbon from the smaller segment of chop
that had escaped the ravages of a superheated frying-pan and smiled
across the table at his wife.
"On the contrary," he said, refuting a pessimistic observation previously
made by the person addressed, "I think you're doing fine. I can see a
distinct improvement every month. On the whole you're really becoming an
admirable cook."
"Undoubtedly!" The voice dripped with irony. "That very chop, for
instance--"
"Is merely a case in point," amiably. "Some people, unscientific people,
might contend that it was overdone; but the initiated--that's us--know
better. Meat, particularly from the genus hog, should always be well
cooked. It obviates the possibility of trichina infection absolutely."
"And those biscuits," equivocally. "I'll wager they'd sink like steel
billets."
Her husband inspected the articles designated with a judicial eye.
"Better so. We're thus saved the temptation of eating them. All
statistics prove that hot biscuits and dyspepsia--"
"The salad, then," wearily.
"Hygienic beyond a doubt. The superabundance of seasoning to which you
doubtless refer may be unusual; nevertheless, it's a leaning in the right
direction. Condiments of all kinds tend to stimulate the flow of the
gastric juice; and that, you know, from your physiology, is what does the
digestive business."
Margery Randall laughed, against her will.
"And last of all the coffee," she suggested.
"Frankly, as coffee, it is a little peculiar; but considered as hot water
merely, it leaves nothing to be desired; and science teaches again that,
like condiments, hot water--"
The two laughed together; temporarily the atmosphere cleared.
"Seriously, Harry," asked the girl, "do you really think I'll ever get so
I can cook things that aren't an insult?" She swept the indigestible
repast between them with a hopeless look. "I'm trying my best, but at
times like this I get discouraged."
"Certainly you will," with conviction. "Now this bread, for instance," he
held up a slice to illustrate, "is as good as any one can make."
"And unfortunately was one of the few things that I didn't make. It's
bakery bread, of course, silly."
Randall dropped the offending staff of life as though it were hot.
"These cookies, then." He munched one with the pleasure of an epicure.
"They're good thoroughly."
"Elice Gleason baked them for me to-day," icily. "She was here all the
afternoon."
An instant of silence followed; glancing half sheepishly across the board
Randall saw something that made him arise from his seat abruptly.
"Margery, little girl," his arms were around her. "Don't take it so
seriously. It's all a joke, honest." With practised skill he kissed away
the two big tears that were rapidly gathering. "Of course you'll learn;
every one has to have practice; and it's something you never did before,
something entirely new."
"That's just the point," repeated the girl. The suddenly aroused tears
had ceased to flow, but she still looked the image of despondency. "It's
something I've never had to do, and I'll never learn. I've been trying
for practically a year now and things get worse and worse."
"Not worse," hopefully; "you merely think so. You're just a bit
discouraged and tired to-night--that's all."
"I know it and, besides, I can't help it." She was winking hard again
against two fresh tears. "I spoiled two cakes this afternoon. Elice tried
to show me how to make them; and I burned my finger"--she held up a
swaddled member for inspection--"horribly. I just can't do this
housework, Harry, just simply can't."
"Yes, you can." Once more the two teary recruits vanished by the former
method. "You can do anything."
The girl shook her head with a determination premeditated.
"No; I repeat that I've tried, and it's been a miserable failure.
I--think we'll have to have the maid back again, for good."
"The maid!" Randall laughed, but not so spontaneously as was normal. "We
don't want a maid bothering around, Margery. We want to be alone." He had
a brilliant thought, speedily reduced to action. "How could I treat
injured fingers like this properly if there was a maid about?"
"There wouldn't be any burned fingers then," refuted the girl.
Intentionally avoiding the other's look, she arose from the neglected
dinner-table decisively and, the man following slowly, led the way to the
living-room. "Joking aside," she continued as she dropped into a
convenient seat, "I mean it, seriously. I've felt this way for a long
time, and to-day has been the climax. I simply won't spend my life
cooking and dusting and--and washing dishes. Life's too short."
From out the depths of the big davenport Harry Randall inspected steadily
the rebellious little woman opposite. He did not answer at once, it was
not his way; but he was thinking seriously. To say that the present
moment was a surprise would be false. For long, straws had indicated the
trend of the wind, and he was not blind. There was an excuse for the
attitude, too. He was just enough to realize that. As she had said, she
was born differently, bred differently, educated to a life of ease. And
he, Harry Randall, had known it from the first, knew it when he married
her. Just now, to be sure, he was financially flat, several months ahead
of his meagre salary; but that did not alter the original premise, the
original obligation. He remembered this now as he looked at her,
remembered and decided--the only way it seemed to him possible an
honorable man could decide.
"Very well, Margery," he said gravely, "you may have the maid back, of
course, if you wish it. I had hoped we might get along for a time, while
we were paying for the things in the house, anyway; but"--he looked
away--"I guess we'll manage it somehow."
"Somehow!" Margery glanced at him with only partial comprehension. "Is it
really as bad as that, as hopeless?"
Randall smiled the slow smile that made his smooth face seem fairly
boyish.
"I don't know exactly what you mean by bad, or hopeless; but it's a fact
that so far we've been spending a good deal more than my income."
"I'm sorry, dear, really." It was the contrition of one absolutely
unaccustomed to consideration of ways and means, uncomprehending.
"Particularly so just now with winter coming on and--and girls, you
know, have to get such a lot of things for winter."
This time Randall did not smile; neither did he show irritation.
"What, for instance?" he inquired directly.
"Oh, a tailored suit for one thing, and a winter hat, and high shoes,
and--and a lot of things."
"Do you really need them, Margery?" It was prosaic pathos, but pathos
nevertheless. "There's coal to be bought, you know, and my life insurance
comes due next month. I don't want to seem to be stingy, you know that;
but--" he halted miserably.
"Need them!" It was mild vexation. "Of course I need them, silly. A girl
can't go around when the thermometer's below zero with net shirtwaists
and open-work stockings."
"Of course," quickly. With an effort the smile returned. "Order what you
need. I'll take care of that too"--he was going to repeat "somehow," then
caught himself--"as soon as I can," he substituted.
The girl looked at him smilingly.
"Poor old Harry, henpecked Harry," she bantered gayly. Crossing over, her
arms went around his neck. "Have an awful lot of troubles, don't you,
professor man!"
The argument was irresistible and Randall capitulated.
"No, none whatever," he answered, as he was expected to answer; and once
more sweet peace rested on the house of Randall.
Back in her place opposite once more Margery looked at her husband
seriously, a pucker of perplexity on her smooth face.
"By the way," she digressed, "I've been wondering for some time now if
anything's wrong with Elice and Steve. Has he hinted anything to you?"
"No; why?"
"Oh, I don't know anything definite; but he's been here three evenings
the last week, you know, Sunday evening for one at that, and it looks
queer."
"I've noticed it too," admitted Randall, "and he's coming again this
evening. He asked permission and I couldn't well refuse. Not that I don't
like to have him come," quickly, "but it interferes with my lectures next
morning."
"And with our own evenings. I--just wish he wouldn't come so often."
Randall said nothing, but unconsciously he was stroking the bald spot
already appearing on the crown of his head in a way he had when worried.
"And, besides," justified Margery, "it isn't treating Elice right. I
think it's a shame."
This time the man looked up.
"She didn't say anything, intimate anything, I hope?" he hesitated.
"Of course not. It isn't her way. She's--queer for a woman, Elice is; she
never gets confidential, no matter how good an opportunity you offer." A
pause followed that spoke volumes. "Agnes Simpson, though, says there is
something the matter--with Steve at least. They're talking about it in
the department."
"Talking about what, Margery?" soberly. "He's a friend of ours, you
know."
"Yes, I know," the voice was swift with a pent-up secret, "and we've
tried hard to be nice to him; but, after all, we're not to blame that
he--drinks!"
"Margery!" It was open disapproval this time, a thing unusual for Harry
Randall. "We mustn't listen to such gossip, either of us. Steve and I
have been chums for years and years and--we simply mustn't listen to such
things at all."
For an instant the girl was silent; then the brown head tossed
rebelliously.
"Well, I can't help it if people talk; and it isn't fair of you to
suppose that I pass it on either--except to you. You know that I--" she
checked herself. "It isn't as though Agnes was the only one either," she
defended. "I've heard it several times lately." Inspiration came and she
looked at her husband directly. "Honest, Harry, haven't you heard it
too?"
The man hesitated, and on the instant solid ground vanished from beneath
his feet.
"Yes, I have," he admitted weakly. "It's a burning shame too that people
will concoct--" He halted suddenly, listening. His eyes went to the
clock. "I had no idea it was so late," he digressed as the bell rang
loudly. "That's Steve now. I know his ring."
Alone in the up-stairs study, which with its folding-bed was likewise
spare sleeping-room and again smoking-room,--Margery had not yet
surrendered to the indiscriminate presence of tobacco smoke,--Steve
Armstrong ignored the chair Randall had proffered and remained standing,
his hands deep in his trousers' pockets, a look new to his friend--one
restless, akin to reckless--on his usually good-humored face. Contrary
again to precedent his dress was noticeably untidy, an impression
accentuated by a two-days' growth of beard and by neglected linen. That
something far from normal was about to transpire Randall knew at a
glance, but courteously seemed not to notice. Instead, with a familiar
wave, he indicated the cigar-jar he kept on purpose for visitors and took
a pipe himself.
"I haven't had my after-dinner smoke yet," he commented. "Better light up
with me. It always tastes better when one has company."
"Thanks." Armstrong made a selection absently and struck a match; but,
the unlighted cigar in his fingers, let the match burn dead. "I don't
intend to bother you long," he plunged without preface. "I know you want
to work." He glanced nervously at the door to see that it was closed. "I
just wanted to have a little talk with you, a--little heart-to-heart
talk."
"Yes." Randall's face showed no surprise, but his pipe bowl was aglow and
his free hand was caressing his bald spot steadily.
"Frankly, old man," the other had fallen back into his former position,
his hands concealed, his attitude stiffly erect, "I'm in the deuce of a
frame of mind to-night--and undecided." He laughed shortly. "You're the
remedy that occurred to me."
"Yes," Randall repeated, this time with the slow smile, "I am a sort of
remedy. Sit down and tell me about it. I'm receptive at least."
"Sit down! I can't, Harry." The restless look became one of positive
repugnance. "I haven't been able to for a half-hour at a stretch for a
week."
"Try it anyway," bluntly. "It won't do you any harm to try."
"Nor any good either. I know." He threw himself into a seat with a
nervous scowl upon his face. "I haven't been able to do any real work for
an age, which is worse," he continued. "My lectures lately have been a
disgrace to the college. No one knows it better than myself."
A moment Randall hesitated, but even yet he did not put an inquiry
direct.
"Yes?" he suggested again.
"I'm stale, I guess, or have lost my nerve or--or something." Armstrong
smiled,--a crooked smile that failed to extinguish the furrows on his
forehead. "By the way, have you got a little superfluous nerve lying
about that you could stake me with?"
Randall echoed the laugh, because it seemed the only possible answer, but
that was all.
In the silence that followed Armstrong looked at his friend opposite, the
nervous furrow between his eyes deepening.
"I suppose you're wondering," he began at last, "just what's the matter
with me and what I want of you. Concerning the first, there's a lot I
might say, but I won't; I'll spare you. As to what I want to ask of
you--Frankly, Harry, straight to the point and conventional reticence
aside, ought I to marry or oughtn't I?" He caught the other's expression
and answered it quickly. "I know this is a peculiar thing to ask and
seems, looking at it from some angles, something I shouldn't ask; but you
know all the circumstances between Elice and me and, in a way, our
positions are a good deal similar. Just what do you think? Don't hesitate
to tell me exactly."
In his seat Randall shifted uncomfortably; to gain time he filled his
pipe afresh,--a distinct dissipation for the man of routine that he was.
"Frankly, as you suggest, Steve," he answered finally, "I'd rather not
discuss the subject, rather not advise. It's--you know why--so big and
personal."
"I realize that and have apologized already for bringing it up; but I
can't decide myself--I've tried; and Elice--there are reasons why she
can't assist now either. It's--" he made a motion to rise, but checked
himself--"it's something that has to be decided now too."
"Has to?" Randall's eyes behind the big lens of his glasses were suddenly
keen. "Why, Steve?"
"Because it's now or never," swiftly. "I've--we've hesitated until we
can't delay any longer. I'm not sure that it's not been too long already,
that's why Elice can't figure." He drew himself up with an effort, held
himself still. "We've crossed the dividing line, Elice and I, and we're
drifting apart. Just how the thing has come about I don't know; but it's
true. We're on different roads somehow and we're getting farther apart
every month." He sprang to his feet, his face turned away. "Soon--It's
simply hell, Harry!"
Randall sat still; recollecting, he laughed,--a laugh that he tried to
make natural.
"Oh, pshaw!" He laughed again. "You're mixing up some of the novels
you're writing with real life. This sort of thing is nonsense, pure
nonsense."
"No, it's so," flatly. "I've tried hard enough to think it different, but
I couldn't because it is so. It's hell, I say!"
"Don't you love her, man?" abruptly.
"Love her!" Armstrong wheeled, his face almost fierce. "Of course I love
her. A hundred times yes. I'm a cursed fool over her."
"Sit down then and tell me just what's on your mind. You're magnifying a
mole-hill of some kind into a snow-capped peak. Sit down, please.
You--irritate me that way."
A second Armstrong hesitated. His face a bit flushed, he obeyed.
"That's better." The brusqueness was deliberately intentional. "Now out
with it, clear the atmosphere. I'm listening."
Armstrong looked at his friend a bit suspiciously; but the mood was too
strong upon him to cease now even if he would.
"Just what do you wish to know?" he asked in tentative prelude. "Give me
a clew."
"What you wish to tell me," evenly. "Neither more nor less."
"You have no curiosity?"
Randall made no comment this time, merely waited.
"Very well, then, if you have no curiosity.... I don't know how much to
tell you anyway, what you don't already know. As I said when I first came
in, I didn't have it in mind to bore you at all, I just wanted to ask
your opinion--" The speaker halted and hurriedly lit the cigar he had
been holding. "To jump into the thick of it, I got a little letter from
the president to-day, a little--warning." Armstrong smoked fiercely until
the flame lit up his face. "It's the bitterest humiliation of my life,
Harry, the last straw!"
CHAPTER VII
REBELLION
For a moment Harry Randall said nothing, then deliberately he glanced up
and met his friend's eyes direct.
"Begin at the beginning and tell me the whole story," he said soberly. "I
had no idea the thing was really so serious."
"Well, it is, take that for granted. It's likely to be the end, so far as
I am concerned."
"Cut that out, Steve," shortly. "It's melodramatic and cheap. Things
can't be so bad if we look at them sanely." He hesitated, and went on
with distinct effort. "To begin with, I'm going to ask you a question. I
hate it, you know that without my telling you, but things have gone too
far to mince matters evidently. I've heard a number of times lately that
you were drinking. Is it so?"
"Who told you that?" hotly.
"Never mind who. I tell you I never believed a word of it until you
mentioned the president's warning. Now--Is it so?"
Armstrong's face went red,--red to the roots of his hair,--then slowly
shaded white until it was ghastly pale.
"Yes; it's useless, it seems, to deny it. That others knew, were talking
about it, though--It's true, Harry. I admit it."
Slowly, slowly, Randall knocked the ashes out of the pipe-bowl and put it
away in a drawer of the table.
"Very well, Steve. I shan't moralize. None of us men are so good we can
afford to begin throwing stones.... Let's go back a bit to the beginning.
There must be one somewhere, a cause. Just what's the trouble, old man?"
"Trouble!" It was the spark to tinder, the lead at last. "Everything,
Harry, everything." A halt for composure. "I suppose if I were to pick
out one single thing, though, that was worse than another, it's my
writing. I think, I know, that's what brought on the whole cursed mess.
Until my last book failed I had hope and the sun shone. When that went
down--down like a lump of lead--I haven't been able to do a thing, care
for a thing since. My brain simply quit work too. It died, and the best
of me died with it."
"And you began to drink."
"Yes, like a fish. Why not, since I was dead and it helped me to
forget?"
"Steve! I hate to preach, it doesn't become me; but--"
"Preach if you want to; you can't hurt my feelings now." Armstrong grew
calm, for the first time that evening. "When a fellow has worked as I
have worked for years, and hoped against hope, and still hoped on and
worked on after failure and failure and failure three times repeated--No,
don't worry about hurting my feelings, Harry. Say what you please."
"I wasn't going to hurt your feelings," evenly; "I was only going to
preach a little. I merely wanted to take exception to that forgetting
business. If you'll just hold hard for a bit you'll forget normally, not
artificially. Another six months and you'll be hard at another scheme,
developing it; and the way you feel now--It'll be a joke then, a sort of
nightmare to laugh over."
"Never.... Don't get restless; I'm not irresponsible now. I'm merely
telling you. I've been asleep and dreaming for a long time, but at last
I'm awake. Come what may, and truly as I'm telling you now, I'll never
write another novel. I couldn't if I wanted to--I've tried and know; and
I wouldn't if I could. There's a limit to everything, and the limit of my
patience and endurance is reached. I'm done for now and for all time."
The voice was not excited now or unnaturally tense, but normal, almost
conversational.
"For ten years I've fought the good fight. Every spare hour of that time
that I could muster I've worked. I've lain awake night after night and
night after night tossing and planning and struggling for a definite end.
The thing got to be a sort of religion to me. I convinced myself that it
was my work in the big scheme, my allotted task, and I tried faithfully
to do it. I never spared myself. I dissected others, of course; but I
dissected myself most, clear to the bone. I even took a sort of joy in it
when it hurt most, for I felt it was my contribution and big. I'm not
bragging now, mind. I'm merely telling you as it was. I've gone on doing
this for ten years, I say. When I failed again I tried harder still. I
still believed in myself--and others. Recognition, appreciation, might be
delayed, but eventually it would come, it must; for this was my work,--to
please others, to amuse them, to carry them temporarily out of the rut
of their work-a-day lives and make them forget. I believed this, I say,
believed and hoped and waited and worked on until the last few months.
Then--I told you what happened. Then--" For the first time the speaker
paused. He shrugged characteristically. "But what's the use of disturbing
the corpse. I've simply misread the signs in the sky--that's all. I
couldn't produce a better novel than I've written if I had the longevity
of the Wandering Jew and wrote to the end--for I've done my best. The
great public that I've torn myself to pieces to please has seen the
offering and passed it by. They will have none of it--and they're the
arbiters." He shrugged again, the narrow shoulders eloquent. "So be it. I
accept; but I offer no more. For all time, to finality, I'm done, done!"
"Even if some of your books should win?"
"If every one of them should do so. If half a dozen publishers came to me
personally and begged me to resume work. I may be a poor artist, may lack
completely the artistic subservience to or superiority to discouragement,
probably I do; but at least I know I'm human. I'm like a well in the
desert that's been pumped empty and left never a mark on the surrounding
sand. I couldn't produce again if I wanted to; I'm drained dry."
Randall said nothing. He knew this other man.
"I tell you I'm awake, Harry, at last, and see things as they are; things
now so childishly obvious that it seems incredible I could have gone on
so long without recognizing them. People prate about appreciation of
artists of various kinds and of their work, grow maudlin over it by
artificial light in the small hours of the night. And how do they
demonstrate it? Once in a while, the isolated exception that proves the
rule, by recognizing and rewarding the genius in his lifetime. Once in a
very, very long time, I say. Mind, I don't elevate myself as a genius.
I'm merely speaking as an observer who's awakened and knows. As a rule
what do they do? Let him struggle and work and eat his heart out in
obscurity and without recognition. Let him starve himself body and soul.
After he's dead, after a year or a hundred years, after there is no
possibility of his receiving the reward or the inspiration, they arouse.
His fame spreads. His name becomes a household word. They desecrate his
grave, if they can find it, by hanging laurel on his tombstone. They
tear the wall-paper from the house where he once chanced to live into
ribbons for souvenirs. If he happens to be a painter the picture that
brought him enough perhaps to keep body and soul together for a month is
fought for until eventually it sells for a fortune. If he was a writer
they bid for a scrap of his manuscript more than he received for his
whole work. There are exceptions, I say; but even exceptions only prove
the rule. Think over the names of the big artists, the big geniuses. How
many of them are alive or were appreciated in their own lives? How many
living to-day compare in the public appreciation with those dead? None of
them, practically, none. And still do you or does any other sane person
fancy that human beings are degenerating every generation, that artistic
genius is decadent? It's preposterous, unthinkable! It merely points the
moral that history repeats itself. Some place, somewhere, the greatest
artist in the world is painting the greatest picture the world has ever
known--and this same world passes him by. It must be so, for human beings
advance with every generation inevitably. Some place, somewhere, the
biggest writer of all time is writing the biggest book--and his neighbors
smile because his clothes are rusty. This is the reward they get in
their own day and their own generation, when it would sweeten their
lives, make them worth living. The fellow who invents a mouse-trap or a
safety razor or devises a way of sticking two hogs where one was killed
before, inherits the earth, sees his name and fame heralded in every
periodical; while the other, the real man--God, it's unbelievable,
neither more nor less; and still it's true to the last detail. Again,
it's all civilization, the civilization we brag of; magnificent twentieth
century civilization!"
Still Randall said nothing, still waited.
Armstrong hesitated, drumming on the arm of his chair with his slender
fingers. But the lull was only temporary, the storm not past; the end was
not yet.
"I suppose," he forged on, "the work should be its own reward, its own
justification. At least would-be artists are told so repeatedly. Whenever
one rebels at the injustice the world is there with this sophistry, feeds
him with it as a nurse feeds pap to a crying child, until he's full and
temporarily comatose. But just suppose for an instant that the same
argument were used in any other field of endeavor. Suppose, for instance,
you told the prospector who'd spent years searching for and who'd
finally found a gold mine that his reward should be in the mere knowledge
of having found it, the feeling of elation that he had added to the sum
total of the world's wealth, and that he should relinquish it intact as a
public trust. Just preach this gospel, and how long would you escape the
mad-house? Or the architect who designs and superintends the construction
of a sky-scraper. Take him aside and argue with him that the artistic
satisfaction of having conceived that great pile of stone and steel
should repay him for his work, that to expect remuneration was sordid and
disgusting. Do you think he'd sign a certificate to the effect that you
were normal and sane? And still how is it with a writer in this the
twentieth century,--century of enlightenment and of progress? First of
all he must go through the formative period, which means years. Nothing,
even genius, springs without preparation into full bloom. No matter how
good the idea, how big the thought, it must be moulded by a mastery of
technique and a proficiency that only experience can give. And meanwhile
he must live. How? No matter. The suggestion is mundane. Let him settle
that for himself. At last, perhaps, if he has the divine spark, he gets
a hearing. We'll suppose he accomplishes his purpose,--pleases them,
makes them think, or laugh, or forget temporarily, as the case may be. In
a way he has made an opening and arrived. And yet, though an artist, he
is, first of all, a human being, an animal. The animal part of him
demands insistently the good things of life. If he is normal he wants a
home and a family of his own; and wants that home as good as that of his
neighbor who practises law or makes soda biscuits. With this premise what
do the public, who don't know him personally but whom he serves just the
same, do? The only way they can show their appreciation tangibly is by
buying his work; giving him encouragement, making it possible to live and
to write more. I repeat I know this is all mundane and commonplace and
unaesthetic, but it's reality. And do they give this encouragement, buy
themselves, and let him make his tiny royalty which in turn enables him
to live, pass an appreciation on to their friends and induce them to buy?
In a fractional proportion of times, yes. In the main, John, whom the
writer has worked a year, day and night, to reach, by chance meets his
friend Charley. 'By the way,' he remarks, 'I picked up that novel of
Blank's lately. It's good, all right, all right; kept me up half the
night to finish it. I want you to read it, old man. It's just your style.
No use to buy it, though,' he adds hurriedly. 'Drop in sometime and I'll
lend it to you.' Of a sudden he remembers. 'Come to think of it, though,
I believe just now it's lent to Phil--or was it Dick who took it. The
story's a corker and they've both had it.' He thinks again hard and
remembers. 'I have it now. Dick gave it to Sam; he told me so. Get it
from him yourself. I know you'll like it.' And so the lending goes on so
long as the covers hold together. Meanwhile the writer, away off
somewhere waiting and hoping and watching the sale, in return for the
pleasure he gives John and Charley and Phil and Dick and Sam and the
rest, and in consideration of that year of work and weariness and
struggle, gets enough perhaps to buy a meal at a Chinese restaurant. This
is appreciation, I say, enlightened twentieth century appreciation; and
the beauty of it is that every one of that company who get his work for
nothing feel that by their praise and by reading his work they've given
that writer, who can't possibly know anything about it, all that he could
possibly desire." For the first time that evening Armstrong paused to
laugh. "Oh, it's humorous, all right, when one stops to consider and
appreciate! Just suppose, though, in the name of fair play, some one had
suggested to John that he throw that copy of his in the furnace where no
one could possibly borrow it, and then go on telling his appreciation.
Just supposing some one had suggested that! Do you fancy John would have
considered that person wholly sane? And still that writer, besides being
an artist, is an animal with a stomach and needs a home to live in, and
maybe is human enough to have burdened himself with a wife and--and
children--"
"Steve, confound it, you've gone on long enough."
"I know it--too long."
"It doesn't do any good to rail at something you can't help, that no one
can help."
"Admitted. I'm just talking to myself--and you. It's all the same."
"You've never starved yet or gone without clothes, so far as I know."
"Starved, no. I had soup at my boarding-house for lunch again
to-day--soup with carrots in it. Hungry--I don't know. This is a big
world we're in and I've never had the chance even to look over the
horizon yet. Hungry? I've been hungry for--Elice for years, and I don't
dare--Hunger is awfully near to starvation sometimes, friend Harry."
Harry Randall squirmed. He saw it coming--it!
"Oh, things will come all right if you'll be patient," he said--and
halted himself for the trite optimism.
"Elice won't; for she's gone already while I've been patient--gone and
left me hungry."
"Nonsense. Rot, plain rot!"
"No, reality, plain reality. She probably wouldn't admit it yet, not even
to herself, maybe doesn't know it yet herself; but I know. It's been
coming on a long time. I see it all now."
Randall made a wry face. That was all.
"Yes, it's true, Harry, God's truth. I asked you a peculiar question a
while ago,--asked whether I ought to marry. I didn't mean it; I was just
maudlin. I know without asking that I mustn't. Even if Elice would
consent--and I think she would consent yet, she's game--I mustn't. I'm
waking up more all the time."
"Steve, you're maddening--impossible. I tell you, Elice will never
change. You know it without my telling you."
"Yes, I know. It's I who have changed." He remembered suddenly. "Yes;
it's I who have changed," he repeated slowly.
"Well, you'll change back again then." The effort to be severe and
commonplace was becoming cumulatively difficult. "You must."
"Must change back--and marry Elice?"
"Yes," desperately.
"No, not if by a miracle I could change back."
"Why? For heaven's sake, why? Don't be a fool, man."
"Why?" without heat. "Do you really wish to know why?"
"Yes."
Armstrong deliberated.
"You yourself are one reason, friend Harry."
"I--I don't understand."
"Yes, you do. I'm not without observation. You yourself wouldn't advise
me to marry now."
"Steve!"
"You wouldn't, and you know you wouldn't. No offence. We're simply
looking things squarely in the eye. It's merely the tragedy of pennies
among evolved humans who require dollars to live--and must live. Am I not
right, friend of mine?"
No severity this time, no commonplace--nothing.
"I repeat, no offence; just square in the eye. Am I not right?"
"Right? I don't know. I can't answer." A sudden blaze. "You have no right
to suggest--"
"No. Pardon me." Armstrong's face worked in spite of himself. "Forget
that I did suggest, Harry. It was brutal of me."
Randall said nothing.
"But with Elice and myself it's different. I've awakened in time.
Providence, perhaps, sometimes when we least expect it--"
"Steve!" Randall had glanced up quickly, self for the moment in abeyance.
"What do you intend doing, tell me that?"
"Doing?" It was almost surprise. "Have you any honest doubt yet, after
what I've told you?" He halted, scrutinizing his friend's face, and
seemed satisfied. "I'm going to release her; release her unqualifiedly. I
can at least be man enough to do that."
"And if you do--what of yourself?"
Armstrong smiled forcedly, a slow, mirthless smile. "Never mind about
myself. I've glowed genially for a long time, tried after my own fashion
to warm a hearth somewhere; but at last I'm burned out, nothing but
cinders. Never mind about myself. The discussion is futile."
Randall hesitated; then he gestured impotently.
"Elice, then--For her sake at least--"
"It's for her sake I'll do it, because she'll never do it herself. I
repeat, I can at least be man enough to do that much for her, make amends
to that extent." He looked straight before him, seeing nothing. "She'll
be happy yet, when I'm well out of the way."
"Steve!" Argument would not come, rebuttal; only that cry that
acknowledged its own helplessness. "I can't bear to have things go that
way. I know you both so well, like you so much."
"I realize that," dully; "but it's not your fault,--not any one's fault
in particular that I can see."
Randall did not gesture this time. Even that avenue seemed barred.
"If I could only say something to influence you, to convince
you--something adequate."
"There's nothing to be said that I can see, or done, for that matter.
It's like a church catechism, cut and dried generations ahead."
It was the final word, and for a long time they sat there silent,
unconscious of the passing minutes; alike gazing at the blank wall which
circumstance had thrown in the way, alike looking for an opening where
opening there was none. At last, when the silence had become unbearable,
Randall roused, and with an effort forced a commonplace.
"Anyway, as yet you're reckoning without your host--in this case Elice,"
he formalized. "After you've seen her--"
"It will merely be ended then--that is all."
"I'm not so sure, even yet."
"I repeat that I know, know to finality. Some things one can't question
when they're awake. Moreover, I have a reason for knowing."
It was a new note, that last comment; a note of repression where all
before had been unrepressed. Moreover, it was a lead intentionally
offered.
"What is it, Steve?" asked the other simply. "There's something yet which
you haven't told me."
"Yes." Once more Armstrong's eyes were on the wall straight before him,
the wall he did not see. "I merely suggested it a bit ago. I said Elice
had drifted away while I was being patient. At first that drifting was
very slow, so slow that I didn't realize it myself; during the last few
months she's been going fast." The speaker moistened his lips
unconsciously; but, watching, the other noticed. "Things seldom happen in
this world without a reason, and they didn't in this case." Suddenly,
without warning, he whirled, met the other eye to eye. "Do I need to
suggest more?" he asked steadily.
"Suggest--more?" Randall's look was blank. "I don't believe I
understand."
"I mean concerning--the reason I mentioned. Haven't you noticed anything
yourself, had any intimation?"
"I know nothing, have noticed nothing."
"No?" Armstrong's scrutiny was merciless, all but incredulous. "Nothing
concerning Elice and--and Darley Roberts--not a whisper?"
Against his will Randall's eyes dropped. At last he understood.
"You have heard. I thought so." Armstrong fumbled with his cuffs, played
for time, which meant for self-control. "I'm glad. It saves
my--explaining."
"Yes, I've heard." Randall's tongue lagged unwillingly. "I couldn't help
it; but believed, in the least, before--no. I thought he was your
friend."
"Was, yes. Now--It's been some time since we came to an understanding;
and he told me, warned me. I don't blame him--or her. I've had my chance,
ample chance, God knows.... It's simply true."
Randall looked up unbelievingly.
"And you don't hate him, you who were his friend?"
"Hate?... I don't know, don't know anything these days except that I'm
down--down; down in the mire, deep!" It was the end, the last crumb of
confidence, and Armstrong leaped to his feet. "But what's the use of
dissecting any more, what possible use?" His hat was in his hand and he
was heading for the door. "It's all simply maddening, and I'm a fool, a
visionary fool, who can't change myself or alter events; powerless--" He
halted, turned half about. Instinctive courtesy sprang to his lips.
"Pardon me, Harry, for bothering you with all this when you can do
nothing. I had no idea when I came of staying so long or--or of making a
spectacle of myself." He smiled, almost his old smile. "Forgive me this
time and I promise never to do it again, never." He turned once more to
the door. "Don't get up, old man. I can find my way out. Good-night."
"Steve! Wait!" Randall too was on his feet, a sudden premonition of
things to come in his mind, a feeling, more than of pity, for the
intention he read clear in the other's face. "Don't go yet--don't go at
all. Stay with me to-night, please."
"Stay!" Armstrong too understood, and, understanding, smiled; a smile the
other man never forgot. "Stay--to-night?... No, thank you. I appreciate
your motive," hurriedly, "don't fancy it's not that; but--" no
questioning that preventing gesture, no combating it--"but to-night I'm
going to forget.... Yes, and to-morrow night, and the next--and the
next!"
CHAPTER VIII
CATASTROPHE
Three evenings in succession a tall young man with an ulster turned up
high above his chin and a derby hat lowered well over his eyes circled
the block of which the Gleason lot and cottage was a part. The first
time, in front of the house itself, he had merely halted, hands deep in
his pockets, obviously uncertain; then, as though under strain of an
immediate engagement beyond, had hastened on. The second time he had
passed up the walk, half way to the door; had of a sudden changed his
mind, and disappeared rapidly as before. The third evening, the present,
however, there had been no uncertainty, no hesitation. Instead, he had
walked straight to the knocker, and, a gray-haired man in lounging-jacket
and carpet slippers answering his ring, had come to anchor in the
familiar den. From his moorings in the single comfortable chair the place
afforded, which had been compellingly pressed upon him, he was listening
to the other's explanation.
"I think she'll return soon, though, very soon." Mr. Gleason adjusted his
horn-rimmed eyeglasses and peered near-sightedly at his big open-faced
silver watch. "She said she'd be back early and it's nearly nine now."
"Something going on, something important, I mean?"
"No; I don't think so. Just out for a little air, and dropped in on one
of the girls maybe. She's got three freshmen she's coaching now, and with
that out-of-town class and the house here--" The long bony fingers tapped
absently tip to tip. "It's the only time that she has and I encourage,
insist almost, that she go."
"Yes."
The tapping fingers went still.
"I think sometimes I'm a bit guilty that she at her age--that it should
seem to be necessary, I mean--Maybe I imagine it, but it seems to me as
though Elice was sort of fagged and different this winter."
The visitor unbuttoned his coat leisurely.
"I hadn't noticed it," he refuted.
"No? I'm glad to hear you say it. You'd have noticed, I guess, if any
one. Probably it's all my imagination."
"Elice herself hasn't said anything, intimated anything?"
"Not a word or a hint. Certainly not." Something akin to surprise spoke
in the quick reply. "She even wanted to take on another out-of-town
class, but I vetoed that. She's as her mother was, Elice: always planning
on doing just a little more."
"Than she ought, you think?"
"Yes."
Without apparent excuse, unconsciously, the visitor rebuttoned his
double-breasted coat.
"Some people," he commented, "work--more than they ought to, to forget;
and others again do--various things."
"What? I beg your pardon."
"To forget, to attain callousness, to cease to feel. There are many
formulas tried, many."
"I fear I fail to understand."
"Doubtless. I don't understand myself. I was simply rambling. Pardon
me."
Over the horn nose-glasses Mr. Gleason scrutinized the face of the
younger man intently.
"Certainly. For what, though, I admit I'm mystified." He glanced away
perfunctorily. "Everything is running normally, I suppose, in your
department?"
"Yes, about as usual, I guess, practically so."
"Better than usual according to Dean Sanford," cheerfully. "He's inclined
to brag a little this year, justifiedly, too, one must admit from the
attendance."
"Yes, the attendance is excellent--among the students. Among the
faculty--did the dean seem inclined to brag any on the faculty?"
"No; he only talked a few moments." Mr. Gleason produced the big
timepiece again hastily. "Nine o'clock. I wonder what can be keeping
Elice," he fidgeted.
The visitor smiled, an odd smile, neither of bitterness nor yet of
amusement.
"Not inclined particularly to brag on his faculty, the dean, I gather?"
returned Armstrong.
The older man straightened. Out of kindness he would retreat so far; but
if pursued--
"No, he barely mentioned the faculty, as I remember."
"Not even the professor of chemistry?"
The horn-rimmed glasses had left their owner's nose and, as they had a
way of doing when the old man was abstracted, swung like a pendulum from
his fingers.
"Not even the professor of chemistry?" repeated Armstrong.
Very quietly the older man held his ground, very steadily.
"Just what is it you wish to know, Steve?" he asked directly. "You
gathered, of course, it was a board meeting I referred to--and
confidential naturally. I think I need say no more."
"No, no more, certainly. I was merely curious to know if you knew. You've
satisfied my curiosity, I believe."
"Satisfied! I'm afraid you're taking a bit for granted. I repeat, if
you'll tell me explicitly what you wish--"
"I was mistaken, then, after all," with a peculiar direct look. "You
don't really know, Sanford didn't announce--I'm surprised. I never
fancied he'd miss the opportunity. It's superhuman repression!"
For fully half a minute Mr. Gleason said nothing; then at the
interrupting sound of footsteps in the storm vestibule, followed an
instant later by the click of a latch-key, he leaned suddenly toward the
younger man.
"That's Elice now," he said. The voice was almost childishly hurried and
curious. "What was it that you wondered I didn't know, that Sanford
didn't announce?"
From under shaded lids Armstrong observed the change and smiled. The
smile vanished as a shadow passed through the entrance.
"I merely marvelled that the dean didn't announce that there would be no
professor of chemistry after another week, the close of the present
semester," he said evenly. "That is, until a new one is appointed."
"Steve!" The old man's face went gray,--gray as the face of a believer
whose gods have been offered sacrilege. In the silence the shadow
advanced to the doorway of the room itself; very real, paused there
waiting, all-seeing, listening. "You mean you're leaving the department
then, quitting for good?"
"For good, no, hardly." Again a laugh, but tense now, forced. "Nor
quitting. In plain English I mean I'm kicked out, fired. By request, very
insistent request, I've resigned." With an effort he met the girl's eyes
fairly. "I've babbled my last lecture in college halls, piped my swan
song. The curtain is down, the orchestra has packed its instruments. Only
the echo now remains."
* * * * *
"Tell me about it, Steve." The old man had gone, dodderingly, on a
pitifully transparent pretext. The girl had tossed coat and gloves on
one chair and herself had taken another, removing her hat as she spoke.
"Begin at the beginning and tell me what's the matter--what this all
means."
"There is no beginning that I know of," with a shrug that fell far short
of the indifferent. "What it means I've already told you."
The hat followed the coat, hanging where it caught on the latter by one
pin. "Let's not dissimulate for the present," pleaded the girl, "or
juggle words. There's a time for everything."
"And the present?"
"Don't, please! As a favor, if you wish. Begin at the beginning."
"I repeat, there is none to my knowledge. There's only an end."
"The end, then," swiftly; "the reason for it. Don't you wish to tell
me?"
"No, I don't wish to. I intend to tell you, however. It was all regular,
my retirement; no one at fault among the powers that are. I had been
warned--and failed to profit. It was very regular."
"Yes, yes; but the reason! Tell me that."
"Certainly. I was just coming to it. I failed to materialize at the
department two days in succession. I overslept."
"Steve Armstrong! Steve--what do you fancy I'm made of! Do you mean to
tell me or merely to--dissect?"
"No, not dissect, to tell you. That's why I came; to tell you several
things, this among the rest. Elice, don't do that, don't cry. Please!--I
don't intend to be a brute, I didn't mean anything. I'm simply ashamed to
tell you straight from the shoulder. I'm down in the gutter. You'll hear,
though, anyway. I might better--I was drunk, irresponsible, two days in
succession. That's all."
"You--that way; you, Steve Armstrong!" No tears now, no hysterics; just
steady, unbelieving expectancy. "I can't believe it--won't. You're
playing with me."
"No, it's true. I won't say 'God knows it's true.' I'm not dog enough yet
to--blaspheme. It's simply true."
"Steve!" The girl was on her feet, half way to him. "I never dreamed,
never--You poor boy!"
"Elice, don't--don't touch me. I ask it--don't!"
"What--you can't mean--that!"
"Yes. Sit down, please." The voice was thick. "I have several things to
tell you. This was only one."
For long, interminably long it seemed to the watcher, the girl stood
where she had paused, midway; the figure of her still, too still, her
face shading first red to the ear tips, then slowly colorless as
understanding drove home. A half-minute probably, in reality,
immeasurably longer to them both it seemed, she stood so. Without a word
she went back to her seat, remained there, unnaturally still, her arms,
bare to the elbow in half sleeves, forming a great white V as the clasped
hands lay motionless in her lap.
For another half-minute no word was spoken, no sound from without drifted
into the room. Suddenly the girl turned, her great dark eyes met those of
the man, held them steadily.
"You said there was something else you wished to tell me. I can't imagine
anything more, anything you didn't tell just now. However, I'm
listening."
The man said nothing, nor moved--just looked at her.
"I repeat, I'm listening."
"Yes, I notice." Armstrong pulled himself together absently. "I was
thinking of something else; I'd forgotten momentarily. I always was an
absent-minded specimen; and lately--I've been worse than usual lately."
The girl merely waited this time, the great brown eyes wide and dry.
"When it comes to telling you, though," stumbled on the man, "what I came
to tell you to-night, what I don't wish to tell you but must--Elice,
don't look at me, please; don't! My nerve's gone. Don't you wish to ask
me questions instead?"
"Perhaps," obediently the girl turned away, "after you've made things
clear a bit. Don't fancy I'm trying to make it hard for you. I'm not,
only, only--Remember, I'm all in the dark yet, all confused."
"Yes, I know--and I'm to blame. I've been trying for a week to bring
myself to tell you, one thing at a time; but I couldn't, and
now--everything's tumbled on my head together now."
"Everything? Steve, begin somewhere, anywhere. Don't suggest things; tell
me. It's been ten days since you called last. Why was that?"
"I was afraid. I tried to come, but I couldn't."
"Afraid of what?"
"Of you, of myself, of life. I've known that long to a certainty that the
play was over between you and me, but I couldn't bring myself to say the
word. It's just this I was afraid of. This!"
"You mean to tell me now that all is over?" Unconsciously this time the
girl had shifted facing; quietly--again, too quietly--was putting the
query direct: "That's what you're telling me now?"
"Yes."
"And why--Am I the cause--have I by word or act--have I?"
"No."
"Is it because you've lost your chair in the University?"
"No."
"Why, then?"
"Because we've ceased to be necessary to each other, have grown apart."
"You think we've changed?... I've not changed."
"No. It's I who have changed, have grown away from you."
"Since when? Let's have it all. Let's understand everything. Since
when?"
"I don't know when, can't set a date. I merely know."
"That--that you don't care for me any more?"
[Illustration: "Steve!" The girl was on her feet. "I never dreamed,
never--You poor boy!" (_Page 153_)]
A halt, a long, long halt.
"Yes, Elice," said a voice at last. "I've found out that I don't care for
you any more."
As before, the girl said nothing, never stirred.
"I shan't try to defend myself, try to explain," stumbled on the man. "I
couldn't if I would. The thing has simply come about--I wish to ask you
to release me."
"Steve!" Of a sudden the girl was on her feet, the forced composure of a
moment ago in tatters, the tiny hands locked tight. "I can't believe it,
can't credit it. I love you, Steve, in spite of all you've told me; more,
because you need me more now." The locked fingers opened. She came a step
forward in mute appeal. "Tell me that you don't mean it, that you're
merely acting, that, that--" As suddenly she halted. Her face hidden in
her hands, she dropped back into the seat. "Forget, please," she halted,
"that I did that. I didn't mean to. I--I--forget it."
"Elice--dear!" Aroused beyond his purpose, his determination, the man
sprang from his seat, his eyes ablaze, glorious. "Elice--"
"No, not pity! Never, a thousand times no! Leave me alone a minute. I
release you, yes, yes; but don't come near me now. I'm hysterical and
irresponsible. Don't, please!"
Precisely where he stood Armstrong paused, looking down. After that first
involuntary sound he had not spoken or come closer. He merely remained
there, waiting, looking; and as he did so, though the room was far from
close, drops of sweat gathered on his forehead and beneath his eyes. With
a restless hand he brushed them away and sat down. Another minute passed,
two perhaps; then suddenly, interrupting, incongruous, there sounded the
strained rasp of his laugh.
"Elice," followed a voice, "aren't you through--nearly?" Again the laugh;
grating, unmirthful. "I've done this sort of thing identically in novels
several times, done it realistically, I thought; but it never took this
long by minutes. Aren't you almost through?"
Surprised out of herself the girl looked up, incredulous.
"Something must be wrong, art or reality, one or the other. I--I
wonder--which was wrong, Elice?"
As suddenly as the mood of abandon had come it passed; incredulity, its
successor, as well. In the space of seconds the miracle was wrought, and
another woman absolutely sat there looking forth from the brown eyes of
Elice Gleason.
"Steve! I thought I was ready for anything after what you just told me,
what you just asked. But this deliberate--insult.... Did you mean it,
Steve, really; or are you merely acting?... Don't look away; this means
the world to you and me, and I want to be sure, now.... Did you mean it,
Steve, the way you did it, deliberately? Tell me."
"Mean it? Certainly. It's important, what I asked, from an artist's point
of view. Either I was wrong or else reality is--overdone.... Repression's
the word, all critics agree, repression invariably."
"Steve Armstrong! Stop! I won't stand it. Listen. It's unbelievable, but
I must take you at your word--your own word. Do you mean exactly what
you've said, and done?"
Again the moisture sprang to Armstrong's face, but this time there was no
attempt at procrastination.
"Yes, Elice," he said, and looked her fair.
"Yes? Think. This is final."
"Yes."
An instant the look held; the brown eyes dropped.
"I repeat, then, you are released, free." She sat very still. "Is there
anything else you wish to say?"
"Perhaps. I don't know.... You mean, if I have I'm to say it now. I can't
come again.... You're not going to forgive me?"
"Forgive? Certainly, if there is anything to forgive. I had no thought
otherwise."
"I'm not to come again, though. You mean that?"
"I fail to see the object.... To use an expression of your own, it's
desecration to disturb the corpse."
"Even if--"
"Let's not argue about nothing. I'm not cursed with nerves ordinarily,
but there are times--" She arose slowly, stood there beside her chair,
gracefully slender, gracefully imperious. "You've chosen deliberately,
you know."
"Yes, I know." Armstrong too had arisen in his dismissal, involuntarily
obedient. "But you said, before I told you, before you understood, that
afterward, perhaps--You remember you said that?"
"Yes; I remember. Things are changed now, though. What I had in mind
you've answered yourself.... One thing I would like to ask, however, one
thing that I hope you will answer truly, no matter whether it hurts me or
not. It's this: Was I to blame in any way whatever, by word or act or
suggestion, for your losing your place in the University? Will you answer
me that--and truly?"
From the chair where he had thrown it down Armstrong took up the long
ulster and buttoned it mechanically to his throat.
"No, Elice," he repeated; "you're not at fault in any way, by word or act
or suggestion. There's no one at fault except myself."
"Thank you. I would always have feared, if I hadn't asked, that somehow
unintentionally--" She was silent.
Armstrong hesitated, waiting until there was no longer hope.
"You have nothing else you wish to say, then?" he asked at last.
"Nothing; unless it is this, that you know already: I shall always
believe in you, Steve, always."
"Believe in me!" The shade of the old ironic smile did duty. "You think I
shall still become wealthy and famous?"
"Perhaps not," swiftly. "I never demanded either qualification of you.
Why should I lie now? Both are right and desirable in their place,
provided they come normally; but their place is second, not first. You
know what I mean. I believe that you will always be clean and fair and
likeable--always."
Involuntarily the man turned away, until his face was hidden.
"You believe this, and still--you don't give advice or--or warning?"
"I repeat, I believe in you. Even if it weren't an insult advice would
not be necessary."
A last second they stood there, so near, so very near together and still
so infinitely far apart. Dully, almost ploddingly, the man turned to
leave.
"Thank you, Elice," he said. "That's probably the last kind word I'll
hear for a long time. Perhaps, too, it's justified, perhaps--who knows?
Good-night and--good-bye."
The girl did not follow him, did not move.
"Good-bye, Steve," she echoed.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
ANTICIPATION
"Are you given to remembering dates, Elice?"
There had been a pause,--one of the inevitable, normal pauses that occur
when two people who are intimate are alone and conversation drifts where
it will. Into this particular void, without preamble, entered this
question.
"Sometimes. Why?"
"Not always, then?"
"No. I haven't any particular tendency that way that I know of. Possibly
I'm not yet old enough for it to develop."
"To be more specific, then, to-day is December the sixth." Darley
Roberts' eyelids narrowed whimsically. "Does that particular date have
any special significance, recall anything out of the ordinary to you?"
Elice Gleason glanced up from the four-leafed clover she was bringing to
life on the scrap of linen in her lap, and looked at her companion
thoughtfully.
"From the way you come at me, point blank," she smiled, "I have no doubt
it should. Your chance questions, I've discovered, always do have a
string attached to them somewhere. But just at this particular moment I
admit December the sixth recalls nothing in particular."
"Not even when I add, at approximately eight o'clock in the evening? It's
that now. I've been consulting the timepiece over there."
"No; not even that. I'm more and more convinced it's a distinct lapse on
my part; but again I'm compelled to confess incompetency. When did what
happen at approximately eight P.M. on December the sixth?"
Darley Roberts stroked his great chin with reminiscent deliberation.
"On December sixth, at eight o'clock P.M., precisely one year ago," he
explained minutely, "a certain man called on a certain young woman of his
acquaintance for the first time. It was, I am reliably informed, a
momentous occasion for him. Moreover he--Had you really forgotten,
Elice?"
"Yes--the date."
"Strange. I hadn't. Perhaps, though, it meant more to me than to you."
He laughed peculiarly. "I fancy I didn't tell you at the time that it was
the first call I'd ever made on a young woman in my life." He laughed
again with tolerant amusement. "I was thirty-three years old then, too."
The girl drew a thread of green from a bundle of silk in her lap
deliberately. "No; you never told me that," she corroborated.
The wrinkles gathering about Darley Roberts' eyes suddenly deepened,
infallible precursor of the unexpected.
"By the way," he digressed, "I'm growing curious to know what you do with
those things you're embroidering, those--"
"Lunch cloths?"
"That's it, lunch cloths. The present makes seven, one after the other,
you've completed. I've kept count."
"Curious, you say?" The girl laughed softly. "And still you've never
asked."
"No. I fancied there'd ultimately be an end, a variation at least; but it
seems I was mistaken. Do you expect to keep them, as a man does a case of
razors, one for each day of the week?"
Again the soft little amused laugh.
"Hardly. I sell them. There are five more in prospect--an even dozen."
"Oh. I wondered."
Another void; an equally abrupt return.
"To come back to the date," recalled the man, "I remembered it distinctly
this morning when I tore the top leaf off the desk-pad. It stood out as
though it were printed in red ink, like the date of a holiday. I--do I
show signs of becoming senile--childish, Elice?"
"Not that I've noticed. You seem normal."
"Nor irresponsible--moonstruck--nothing of that kind?"
"No."
"I'm glad to hear it. I didn't know.... Somehow this morning the sight of
that date made me do a thing I haven't done since--I don't know when. I
had a consuming desire to celebrate."
The girl's head was bent low, the better to see her work.
"Yes?" she said.
Again the man stroked his chin, with the former movement of whimsical
deliberation.
"Do you know what people down town, people I do business with, call me,
Elice?" he asked.
"No."
"Never heard of 'old man' Roberts?"
"No," again.
"Well, that's me--old man Roberts--old man--thirty-four.... By the way,
what do you call me, Elice?"
"Mr. Roberts," steadily.
"Not Darley; not once in all this last year?"
No answer.
"Not Darley--even once?"
"I think not."
The eyes of the man smiled, the eyes only.
"To return again, old man Roberts had a desire to celebrate. The date was
on his brain. He didn't even take off his coat after he'd seen
it--normally the old man works in his shirt-sleeves, you know--he just
walked back from his private room into the general office. 'To-day's a
holiday,' he said.
"They stared, the office force--there are seven of them. They didn't say
a word; they just stared.
"'I say to-day's a holiday,' the old man repeated, 'shut up shop.'"
There was a silence. In it Miss Gleason glanced up--into two eyes smiling
out of a blank face. Her own dropped. Simultaneously, also, her ears
tinged scarlet.
Darley Roberts laughed a low tolerant laugh at his own expense.
"Still think I wasn't irresponsible--moonstruck--nothing of the kind?"
"No--Mr. Roberts."
"Wait. After the force had gone, still staring, the old man went back to
his desk. He looked up a number in the telephone directory. 'Mr. Herbert?
Roberts, Darley Roberts.--I'd like to see you personally. Yes, at once.
I'm waiting.'"
Again the girl glanced up; something made her. And again she encountered
those same eyes smiling out of a masked face.
"The old man waited; ten minutes maybe. He didn't do a thing; just
waited. Then events came to pass." Once more the little throaty laugh.
"'Mr. Herbert,' he said, 'your house you advertise for sale. How much
this morning?'
"Mr. Herbert seemed surprised, distinctly surprised. He was only half
through the door at the time.
"'Eighteen thousand dollars. It cost twenty,'--after he's caught his
breath.
"'It cost _you_ fifteen even. I've been to some trouble to find out.'
"'You can't know the place, Mr.--Mr. Roberts.'
"'Yes. Top of the hill. Faces east and north. Terra cotta, brick. For
reasons you know best it's been vacant for a month now.'
"'You can't know the inside, I mean. It's finished in solid hardwood,
every inch.'
"'Yes, I've seen it; oak in front, mahogany in the dining-room, rosewood
in the den. I've seen it.'
"'When? I've lived there nine years until just lately. Not in that
time.'
"'Yes, during that time. I was at a party there once,--a university party
which Mrs. Herbert gave.'
"'All right. Maybe you know.'
"'Unquestionably. I repeat the place cost you fifteen thousand.'
"'The price now is eighteen.'
"'You don't wish to sell--at fifteen?'
"'No.'
"'That's all, then.'
"'Roberts--confound it--'
"'I'm sorry to have bothered you. I thought you wished to sell.'
"'I've got to, but I don't have to give it away.'
"'I repeat I'm sorry to have bothered you.'
"'I'll see you again; to-morrow perhaps--'
"'I shall be very busy to-morrow. To-day's a holiday.'
"'A holiday! Anyway I haven't the abstract.'
"'Unnecessary. I said I knew all about the place. I see the deed there in
your pocket. You anticipated, I see.'
"'Well, of all the inexplicable hurry!'
"'Shall I write you a check for--fifteen thousand?'"
Darley Roberts halted. For the third time he laughed.
"You gather, perhaps," he said, "that I bought a house this morning.
Afterward I bought a few other things--just a few. After that I
moved in; into two rooms. I've had rather a busy day, all told,
celebrating--celebrating December the sixth.... How about it, Elice,
now that I've elaborated. Any signs of senility, irresponsibility,
yet?"
"No," very steadily. "It seems perfectly natural to me for a man to want
a house."
"Perhaps you're right. Yes; I do want a house, no doubt about it;
particularly that house. I've been intending to own it sometime for quite
a spell--for some eight years now; to be exact, since the time I saw it
before.... You know the place, don't you?"
"Yes, very well."
"I fancied so.... By the way, do you recall that--occasion I referred
to?"
"Indistinctly."
"I fancied that too.... You don't remember by any chance what a lion I
was that night?"
"No, Mr. Roberts."
"Not 'no, Darley'?"
"No."
"Not even yet; and it's been a year!... As I was about to say, though, I
recall distinctly. I remember I had a perfectly delightful
time--listening to the others' conversation. Likewise dancing--with
myself in a shadowy corner. Also eating lunch--with myself later. I had
ample time to think--and I decided eventually that there'd been a slight
mistake somehow when my name got on the list.... I liked the house,
though, very much; so much that I decided to buy it sometime--at a
nominal figure. I didn't feel peculiarly generous that night when I made
the decision.... Last of all, I recall I met a girl; rather young then,
but rather pleasant also, I thought. She talked to me for an entire
minute. I know because I held my breath the while, and that's my limit.
She was the only one who apparently did see me that night, though.
Perhaps her being rather young was why."
The voice ceased. The speaker looked at the listener. Simultaneously the
listener looked at the speaker. They smiled, companionably,
understandingly.
"That's all, I believe, I have to impart concerning December the sixth,
all concerning the celebration. That is--" of a sudden the bantering
voice was serious and low--"that is, unless there's something more you'd
like to know."
The girl was busy with the clover again, very busy.
"I think you've told me all there is to tell," she said steadily. "I
understand."
Darley Roberts waited; but that was all.
"Very well." The voice was normal again, tolerant, non-committal. "It's
your turn, then. I fear I'm becoming positively loquacious. I monopolize
the conversation. Let's hear your report since--Thanksgiving, I
believe,--the last time I heard it."
For some reason the girl lost interest in her work. At least there seemed
less need of immediate haste. She rolled the silks and the linen
together with a little unconscious sigh of relief.
"Since Thanksgiving," she said, "I've cooked eighteen meals for father
and myself. I've been out of town once, coached two thick heads twice
each, attended one bridge party--or was it five hundred? I believe that's
all."
"Not had a call from Miss Simpson?" smilingly.
"How did you know?"
"I don't know. I asked you."
"Yes; Agnes called--of course."
"What report of your friends the Randalls, then?"
"Shame on you--really."
"No. I didn't mean it that way--really. You know it. I'm interested
because you are. How are things coming on with them?"
The girl fingered the roll in her lap absently. "Badly, I'm afraid.
Margery's gone to Chicago to visit her cousin, and shop. She can't seem
to realize--or won't. I went over and baked some things for Harry
yesterday. He's dismissed the maid they had and the place looks as
cheerful as a barn. I didn't even see him."
"You noticed the house, though, doubtless. Much new furniture about?"
"Yes, for the dining-room; a complete new suite, sideboard and all, in
weathered oak. It's dear.... How in the world did you know, though?"
"A big rug, too, and curtains, and--a lot of things?"
"How did you know, you? Tell me that."
"Would you say it was worth four hundred dollars in all, what you saw?"
The eyes were smiling again.
"Perhaps. I don't know. I have never bought such things.... You haven't
answered my question yet."
"I know because Mr. Randall told me. He also requested me, as a favor, to
ask you about them instead of going to the house myself."
"Which means you made him a loan to pay the bill. Are you a friend of
Harry's?"
"A loan, yes. A friend--only as your friends are mine."
"It's too bad, a burning shame--when Harry works so hard, too." The girl
winked fast, against her will. "I can't quite forgive Margery."
"For going to Chicago?"
"For everything. For that too."
"Not if I told you I advised her to go?"
"You!" In astonishment complete the girl stared. "You advised her to
go?"
"Yes, the same day I made Randall the loan. It was really a coincidence.
I wondered they didn't meet in the elevator."
"A lawyer in a little town like this, with several departments in his
business, comes in contact with a variety of things," he commented after
a moment.
"Tell me about Margery." The girl seemed to have heard that suggestion
only. "I can't understand, can't believe--really."
For a moment Roberts was silent. There was no banter in his manner when
he looked up at last.
"I didn't tell you this merely to gossip," he said slowly; "I think you
appreciate that without my saying it; but somehow I felt that you ought
to know--that if any one could do any good there it is you. I never met
either of them before, that's another coincidence; but from what you've
told me and the little I saw of them both that day, I felt dead sorry.
Besides, life's so short, and I hate--divorce."
"You can't mean it has come to that?"
"It hadn't come, but it was coming fast. She visited me first. From
there she was going straight to her father--to stay."
"It's horrible, simply horrible--and so unjustified! You induced her,
though, to go to Chicago instead?"
"It was a compromise, a play for time. I tried to get her to go back
home, but she refused, positively. The only alternative seemed to be to
get her away--quick.... Was I right?"
"Yes, I think so, under the circumstances. But the trouble itself, I
can't understand yet--Was it that abominable furniture?"
"Partly. At least that was the final straw, the match to the fuse. The
whole thing had been gathering slowly for a long time. I didn't get the
entire story, of course. She wasn't exactly coherent. It seems she
ordered it on her own responsibility, and when the goods were
delivered--the thing was merely inevitable, some time--that was all."
"Inevitable? No. It was abominable of Margery--unforgivable."
"I don't know about that; in fact I'm inclined to differ. I still
maintain it was inevitable."
"Inevitable fiddlesticks! Harry is the best-natured man alive, and
generous. He's been too generous, too easy; that's the trouble."
"'Generous?'" gently. "'Generous?'... Is it generous for a man with
nothing and no prospect of anything to take a girl out of a home where
money was never a consideration, and transplant her into another where
practically it is the only thought?... 'Generous' for his own pleasure,
to undertake to teach her a financial lesson he knew to a moral certainty
in advance she could never learn? Do you honestly call that 'generous'?"
"But she could learn. It--was her duty."
"Duty!" Roberts laughed tolerantly. "Is 'duty' in the dictionary you use
a synonym for 'cooking' and 'scrubbing' and 'drudgery'? Is that your
interpretation?"
"Sometimes--in this case, yes; for a time."
"Permanently, you mean?"
"No; for a time--until Harry got on his feet."
"He'll never get on his feet unaided. Instead he'll get more and more
wobbly all the time. The past proves the future. He's proved it."
"You're simply horrid." There were real tears in the girl's eyes now, not
a mere premonition. "I'm sorry I ever told you anything about them."
"I know I'm horrid, grant it. A friend I once had told me I was a
fish,--cold-blooded like one. Nature made me that way, you see, so I
can't help it. And still I'm inclined to believe if Mrs. Randall had
chanced to select any other lawyer in town there'd be a real separation,
instead of one in prospect, right now."
Elice Gleason looked up penitently.
"I'm sorry," she said simply. "I didn't mean that."
"I don't doubt it," equally simply.
"You're so blunt and logical though; so--abstract."
"Yes; I am that way."
The girl drew a long breath. Seemingly, after all, the victory was hers.
"Well, what are we going to do about it? We, their friends, have to do
something."
"Yes, that's the question--what?"
"Margery will never go back now of herself. I know her."
"No; she'll never go back of herself, never. Do you blame her?"
No answer. The query was sudden.
"Honest, do you blame her?" insistently.
"I thought I did. I don't know--I don't know."
"Does 'love, honor, and obey' mean 'wash, bake, and scrub' to a girl who
has never in her life before done any of the three?"
Still silence.
"Would you, if you were in her place, come back--would you?"
"I?" It was almost a gasp. "I'm not like Margery. I've counted pennies
all my life." A sudden flame. "But why do you bring me in?"
"Why? That's true. I had no right. I apologize. To come back to Mrs.
Randall. Do you still blame her?"
"No, I don't believe I do. I ought to, I feel that; but I don't. It's
tangled, tangled!"
"Yes. It's the first symptom of divorce."
The girl flashed him a sudden look.
"And you hate divorce. You just said so."
"From the bottom of my soul. I meant it."
Miss Gleason flashed a second look. Suddenly, unaccountably, she held the
reins.
"What's to be done then? Margery is as she is, we both know that;
and--and Harry loves her, we both know that, too. What do you suggest?"
"I?" Roberts smiled, his slow smile. "I'm her lawyer and--abstract.
Besides, her father is wealthy. There'd be a fat fee if she returned to
him."
"You forget that I apologized."
"That's right. I'm always forgetting." Apparently he did not remember
even yet.
"You've neglected to answer my question," impatiently. "I repeat: what
are you going to do about it?"
"I asked your solution first. Do you give it up?"
"Yes," with a little gesture; "I give it up."
Darley Roberts smiled; a contagious, convincing smile.
"Very well, I'll try then," he said. "I shan't promise anything. I'll
simply try."
"Try how?"
Again Roberts smiled; but through whimsically narrowed lids now.
"I'm not sure of the details yet myself. I merely have an idea. There's
an old adage concerning Mahomet and the mountain, you know."
"And in this case Margery represents the mountain?"
"Yes."
Unconsciously the girl's color heightened.
"You really fancy," swiftly, "that Harry can be stirred up enough, can be
made practical enough--you forget you said a moment ago that he would
never advance financially."
"No. The adage will have to be adjusted a bit to meet the requirements.
He'll have to be carried there."
Elice Gleason drew a quick little breath of understanding and something
more.
"If you'll do this for one almost a stranger, one wonders what you would
do for a friend," she said; "one--wonders."
For an instant the man said nothing; abruptly, dismissing the subject, he
arose.
"There's just one other thing that I meant to tell you," he said;
"something that perhaps you know already. I'm pretty busy and I don't
always find time to read the local news. So it's not unusual that I
didn't know before. Steve Armstrong is back."
Quietly the girl arose also, stood so very still.
"Yes," she said. "He's been back a week. He's working in the big
drug-store on the corner, Shaw's place, in the laboratory."
"That's all, then. I thought perhaps you didn't know."
For an instant the girl was silent; she looked her companion full in the
face.
"He called the afternoon he came. He was almost--pitiable. Father came
home finally."
"Elice!"
Their eyes held. Not three feet separate they stood there; but neither
stirred.
"Mr. Roberts."
In silence the man put on top-coat and gloves; not hastily, nor yet
lingeringly. Equally naturally he picked up his hat.
"December the sixth," he said. "One whole year. To-morrow will be the
seventh--and business--battle, again." For the first time he dallied, the
big soft felt hat turning absently in his hand. "Somehow I'd hoped a lot
for the sixth, planned a lot--and now it's past." His eyes shifted,
fastened elsewhere compellingly.
"It is all past, all over, gone into history, isn't it, Elice?"
"Yes, it's past, Mr. Roberts."
"Not even 'past, Darley,' not even that--yet?"
The brown eyes dropped. They had fought their fight and won--for December
the sixth.
"No. Not even that--yet," she said.