FRIENDSHIP
"Very well, I'm listening."
It had come about, that return of composure, more quickly than a stranger
would have thought possible, perhaps more quickly than the visitor had
expected. At least for a moment he did not follow the obvious lead.
"Particularly I'm waiting for an explanation of that word 'justified' you
used." The voice this time was low. "You recall you said 'justifiable
action,' do you not?"
"Somewhat justifiable, yes."
Randall looked straight before him.
"Don't you agree with me?" added Roberts.
"Frankly, no. I admit I'm biassed, however--at least I trust I'm not a
cad, unable to acknowledge a deficiency when shown."
"Or to administer the remedy, providing that remedy is proved
innocuous?"
"Yes; I trust that also."
"Very well, we'll return to 'justifiable' qualified. It will make things
easier perhaps. You don't wonder how I happen to know about your
trouble?"
"There could be only one explanation."
"Thank you. That simplifies matters also." A halt; then the fundamental
question direct: "Will you trust me to help you, trust me
unqualifiedly?"
"Yes," no hesitation, no amplification, just that single word, "yes."
Darley Roberts remained for a moment quite still.
"Thank you, again," he said. "I have had few compliments in my life, and
that is one." Again he sat quite still, all but the great hands, the only
feature of him that ever showed restlessness or rebellion. "To begin
with," he resumed suddenly, "I am a lawyer, not a preacher. My business
is with marriage the contract, not marriage the sacrament. Sentiment has
no place in law. Contracts are promises to deliver certain tangible
considerations; otherwise there would be none. Again contracts are
specified or implied; but morally equally binding, equally inviolable. In
the eye of the law when you married Margery Cooper you contracted, by
implication, to deliver certain considerations, chief among them one
purely psychological--happiness. By implication you did this. Is it not
so?"
"Yes, by implication."
"Have you fulfilled that contract?"
"I have tried."
"The law does not recognize attempts. We're ignoring the Church and
sentiment now. Have you fulfilled your contract?"
"No; I failed."
"You admit it freely?"
"Yes; I can't do otherwise."
"Let's drop the legal point of view then. You know why you failed?"
"Yes, and no. A contract carries a mutual obligation. Margery failed
also."
Roberts flashed a look.
"Do you desire a separation, too?" incisively.
"No, God, no!" It was sudden panic. "I love her."
"And she loves you," evenly. "She'll return, unquestionably--and in the
future will go again as inevitably, unless you fulfil your contract. It's
life."
Again Harry Randall stared straight before him, the weight of the
universe suddenly on his shoulders.
"Fulfill--" he halted. "Supposing I can't fulfill?"
"Wait. We'll discuss that in a moment. First, you admit there was a
certain justification for what she has done?"
No rebellion this time, no false pride.
"Yes," simply; "you were right. I admit it."
"The contract of implied happiness then; you failed because--"
Randall completed the sentence as was intended. "Because we could not
live, cannot live, as Margery demands, upon what it is possible for me to
make. There is absolutely no other reason."
"She is extravagant, you think?"
"For the wife of one in my position, yes."
"I didn't ask you that. Is she extravagant, for herself as she is?"
Against his will the first suggestion of color showed on Randall's face.
"I fail to see the distinction," he said.
"In other words," remorselessly, "you question my right to wield the
probe. You prefer not to be hurt even to effect a cure."
"No, I repeat that I'm not a cad. Besides, I've told you I trust you.
When a woman marries a man, though, with her eyes open--" He caught
himself. "Pardon me, I'm ashamed to have said that. To answer your
question: no; Margery wasn't extravagant in the least by her standard."
"You mean by 'her standard,'" apparently Roberts had heard only the last
sentence, "the habit and experience of her whole life, of twenty-two
years of precedent when you married her."
"Yes."
"And of generations of inheritance back of that. The Coopers are an old
stock and have always been moderately wealthy, have they not?"
"Yes, back as far as the record goes."
"Very good. Can you, by any stretch of the imagination, fancy Mrs.
Randall, being as she is, ever living happily in an atmosphere so
different from that she has known, which time and circumstance have made
her own? Can you?"
"No." The voice was low again, very low. "In my sane moments, never."
Roberts waited deliberately, until the pause added emphasis; with equal
deliberation he drove the wedge home.
"And still, in the fulness of this knowledge, you contracted by
implication to deliver to her this same thing--happiness," he said.
A second Harry Randall waited, then unconsciously he passed his hand
across his face.
"Yes," he echoed, "in the fulness of knowledge I did it. I loved her."
"Loved? And yet you sacrificed her! And on top of that again labelled her
rebellion unjustified!" He was silent.
Again Harry Randall's hand passed across his face, and this time it came
back damp.
"God, you're hard on me!" he said. "I deserve it, though, and more. She
was ignorant absolutely of what it meant to count pennies and deny
herself. She couldn't realize, couldn't!"
Roberts said nothing. The leaven was working.
"I hoped, deluded myself with the belief, that it would be different; yet
from the first I knew better. I was to blame absolutely. I simply loved
her, as I do now--that was all."
"Yes." This time the voice was gentle, unbelievably gentle. "I think I
understand--think I do. Anyway," the voice was matter of fact again,
startlingly, perhaps intentionally, so, "we're wandering from the point.
The past is dead. Let's bury it and look into the future. Do you see the
solution yet?"
Randall looked up swiftly. He smiled; the smile of a noncombatant.
"Yes, I see it; I can't help seeing it; but--" The sentence completed
itself in a gesture of impotency confessed.
"Don't do that, don't!" The annoyance was not simulated. "It's
unforgivable.... You're healthy, are you not?"
"Yes."
"And strong?"
"Reasonably."
"Well, what more can you ask? The world's full of work; avalanches of it,
mountains of it. It seems as though there never was so much to be done as
now, to-day; and the world will pay, pay if you'll do it. Can't you see
light?"
Randall caught himself in time to prevent a second gesture.
"No, frankly, I can't. I've tried, but I'm fundamentally incapable."
Roberts' great fighting face flashed about.
"You've tried--how?"
Randall hesitated, and once again the color mounted his cheek.
"I do my work here in the department the best I can, creditably, I think;
but still there isn't much to look forward to, nothing adequate."
"And that's as far as you've tried?"
"Yes; I have no other training."
Roberts looked at him, merely looked.
"No other training!... You fancy this little university, this little
bounded, contracted circle, is the world? You've tried! Let me see your
hands."
Higher and higher mounted the tell-tale color; obedient as a schoolboy
Randall obeyed. Something compelled.
Again Roberts looked and turned away. "A woman's hands; I fancied so....
And you hoped to fulfil your contract, defied fate--with those hands!"
His own worked, and under command went still. "You agreed to let me help
you, did you not?" he digressed suddenly.
"Yes."
"And promised to trust me? I wish that understood clearly in the
beginning."
"Yes," again.
"Very well, then, that brings us back to the starting-point. I repeat my
proposal that Mrs. Randall and you change your residence immediately.
Must I analyze further?"
"No, I understand--and appreciate. I accept too if Margery--" he halted
with a wry smile. "Do you think she--would if I asked her?"
Roberts' expression did not alter. "Supposing you write her and find
out," he suggested. "And in the meantime you'll have three days to
settle in your new home," he added irrelevantly.
Again Randall colored, like a youth planning on building his first nest.
The contagion of the thing was upon him, the infinite, rosy possibilities
manifest.
"I can do it easily," he said, "and she'll be surprised--and pleased--I
can fancy the way she'll look now." Second thought intruded. "I'm afraid,
though, the few things we've got here won't even make an impression
there. The place is so big by comparison."
"That's all right," easily. "I said I'd want to take a hand." He had a
seeming inspiration. "Supposing you get Miss Gleason to help you and
suggest what more is needed. I'm sure she'd do it for Mrs. Randall and
you. I'll speak to her too."
"Just the thing. I'd like that immensely. No one can help that way like
Elice."
"Let's consider it settled then." His point carried, Roberts' great hands
were loose in his lap again. "I had just one other matter I wished to
speak about to-night. How'd you like to accept a position under me with
the new company?" He did not elaborate this time, did not dissimulate.
"I'll personally guarantee you four thousand a year, beginning January
first, with three weeks' vacation."
"How would I like it!" For the third time Harry Randall fell to polishing
his glasses; but this time, in spite of an effort to prevent, his hand
shook visibly. "You don't need to ask me that. It would be a miracle;
only--only I'm a bit afraid of a position of that kind--afraid it would
be too big."
"The company would expect you to earn it, of course," impassively.
"But I'm not worth it. I know that and I don't want to accept under false
representations. It's beyond me."
"Beyond nothing!" curtly. "If I say you're worth it, you are. I'll make
you so--help if necessary. Do you accept?"
"Accept, yes, and thank you. I won't protest, or presume to misunderstand
your intent in offering it to me. I realize you're giving me a chance to
make good where I failed to fulfil my obligation with Margery." The voice
was not so steady as it might have been and for an instant Randall
halted. "If you don't mind, though," he went on, "I'd like to ask you a
question. I can't conceive why you, a stranger, practically, should do
all this for me. I'm simply confused, it's all so unprecedented. Why do
you do it, please?"
Into Darley Roberts' eyes crept the old odd smile that spread no
farther.
"You mean it's all so unprecedented--of me," he returned bluntly.
Randall said nothing. It was true.
"Wasn't that what you meant?" he repeated, and just for a second the
smile crept beyond the eyes.
"Yes. It's useless to lie."
"--To me?"
This time Randall's face flamed undeniably.
"Yes--to you," he admitted. "You're positively uncanny."
"Don't do it then," shortly, "ever. To answer your question: The main
reason, I think, is because to-day is December the sixth--a holiday."
"A holiday!" Randall stared, as in the morning Herbert had stared.
"With me.... Another reason is that I've been an under dog myself for a
very long time and--perhaps, though, I am mistaken."
"No, I'm one of the breed unquestionably."
"And under dogs have a fondness for each other instinctively."
Randall held his peace. He had the quality of presentiment and it was
active now.
"There was still a third reason." No smile in the blue eyes now, just an
impassive blank. "I had a call a few days ago from an upper dog, by
heredity. He offered me a thousand dollars cold not to do--what I've just
done."
Randall was not a good gambler. His face whitened to the lips.
"You refer to Margery's father," he said.
"Yes. It seemed to me well, under the circumstances, for you to know. He
was strongly in favor of letting matters drift. I gathered he has never
been particularly fond of you."
"No, never. But Margery--"
"I understand absolutely. Take this for what it is worth from a
disinterested observer: Your wife is square, man, from the ground up.
Don't ever for an instant, because you were reared differently and have a
different point of view, fancy otherwise. Tote your end of the load
fair--I believe you see how now--and she'll tote hers. It'll be worth
your while."
"Roberts!" Randall was upon his feet, he could not do otherwise.
"Honestly I don't know how to thank you. Anything that I can say, can do
even--"
"Don't try, please. I'd rather you wouldn't." No pretence in that frank
aversion, no affectation. He arose as one whose labor is over. "Let it go
at that."
In sheer perplexity Randall frowned. His hands sought his pockets.
"But, confound it, I don't like to. It's so inhumanly ungrateful." The
frown deepened. "Besides, when this intoxication is off I'll realize what
a lot I'm accepting from you. That house, for instance. You didn't buy a
place of that kind for an investment or for yourself alone. I'm not an
absolute ass. You'll want it all some of these times, and then--"
Slowly Roberts faced about; equally slowly he smiled.
"Would it relieve your mind any," he finally asked, "if I were to promise
to tell you the moment I do want it--all?"
"Yes, a lot."
"I give you my word then."
"Thanks. I believe that too; but--"
For the second time Roberts smiled, the smile of finality
unquestionable.
"Must we return and go through it all again?" he asked. "It's after
midnight now, but if you wish--"
"No; not that either."
"All right. I'll send the office-boy around in the morning to help you
move. He has nothing else really to do." Roberts paused at a sudden
thought. "By the way, I'll not be back until a week from to-morrow.
Suppose we have a little housewarming, just we four--strangers, that
night?" and before the other could answer, before the complex suggestion
in its entirety took effect, he was gone.