Then she said, rather sharply: 'Don't stand there looking like a whipped
dog, Henry.'
'I'll go,' he said; and turned.
'You re the strangest person I ever knew,' she said. 'Maybe you _are_
a genius. Considering that Mildred completely lost her nerve, your
handling of Arthur came pretty near being it. I wonder.'
Humphrey and Mildred came out.
She came straight to him; gave him both her hands. 'You've settled
everything for us. Humphrey, I want to kiss Henry. I'm going to.'
Henry received the kiss like an image. Then he and Humphrey went away
together into the dawn.
'No good going to the rooms now,' Humphrey remarked. 'Let's walk the
beach.'
Henry nodded dismally.
7
The sky out over the lake was a luminous vault of deep rose shading
off into the palest pink. The flat surface of the water, as far as they
could see, was like burnished metal.
Henry flung out a trembling arm.
'Look!' he said huskily. 'That star.'
It was still incandescent, still radiating its little points of light.
'Hump,' he said, a choke in his voice--'I'm shaken. I'm beginning life
again to-night, to-day.'
'I'm shaken too, Hen. The real thing has come. At last. It's got me.
It'll be a fight, of course. But we're going through with it. I want
you to come to know her better, Hen. Even you--you don't know. She's
wonderful. She's going to help with my work in the shop, help me do the
real things, creative work, get away from grubbing jobs.'
It was a moment of flashing insight for Henry. He couldn't reply;
couldn't even look at his friend. His misgivings were profound. Yet the
thing was done. Humphrey's life had taken irrevocably a new course.
No good even wasting regrets on it. So he fell, in a tumbling rush of
emotion, to talking about himself.
'I'm beginning again. I--I let go a little. Hump, I can't do it.
It's too strong for me. I go to pieces. You don't know. I've got to
fight--all the time. Do the things I used to do--make myself work hard,
hard. Keep accounts. Every penny. Leave girls alone. It means grubbing.
I can't bear to think of it.' He spread out his hands. 'In some ways it
seems to help to let go. You know--stirs me. Brings the Power. Makes me
want to write, create things. But it's too much like burning the candle
at both ends.'
Humphrey got out his old cob pipe, and carefully scraped it.
'That's probably just what it is,' he remarked.
'Oh, Hump, what is it makes us feel this way! You know--girls, and all
that.'
Humphrey lighted his pipe.
'You don't know how it makes me feel to see you and Mildred. Just the
way she looks. And you. Corinne and I don't look like that. We were
flirting. I didn't mean it. She didn't, either. It's been beastly. But
still it didn't seem beastly all the time.'
'It wasn't,' said Humphrey, between puffs. 'Don't be too hard on
yourself. And you haven't hurt Corinne. She likes you. But just the
same, she's only flirting. She'd never give up her ambitions for you.'
'There's something I want to feel. Something wonderful. I've been
thinking of it, looking at that star. I want to love like--like that. Or
nothing.'
Humphrey leaned on the railing over the beach, and smoked reflectively.
The rose tints were deepening into scarlet and gold. The star was
fading.
'Hen,' said Humphrey, speaking out of a sober reverie, 'I don't know
that I've ever seen anybody reach a star. Our lives, apparently, are
passed right here on this earth.'
Henry couldn't answer this. But he felt himself in opposition to it. His
hands were clenched at his side.
'I begin my life to-day,' he thought.
But back of this' determination, like a dark current that flowed
silently but irresistibly out of the mists of time into the mists of
other time, he dimly, painfully knew that life, the life of this earth,
was carrying him on. And on. As if no resolution mattered very much. As
if you couldn't help yourself, really.
He set his mouth. And thrust out his chin a little. He had not read
Henley's _Invictus_. It would have helped him, could he have seen it
just then.
'Let's walk,' he said.
They breakfasted at Stanley's.
Here there was a constant clattering of dishes and a smell of food.
People drifted in and out--men who worked along Simpson Street, and a
few family groups--said 'Good-morning. Looks like a warm day.' Picked
their teeth. Paid their checks to Mrs Stanley at the front table, or had
their meal tickets punched.
They walked slowly up the street as far as the Sunbury House corner, and
crossed over to the _Voice_ office. Each glanced soberly at the hotel as
they passed.
They went in through the railing that divided front and rear offices.
Humphrey took off his coat and dropped into his swivel chair before
the roll-top desk. Henry took off his and dropped on the kitchen chair
before the littered pine table. Jim Smith, the foreman, came in, his
bare arms elaborately tattooed, chewing tobacco, and told 'a new one,'
sitting on the corner of Henry's table. Henry sat there, pale of face,
toying with a pencil, and wincing.
After Jim had gone, Henry sat still, gazing at the pencil, wondering
weakly if the rough stuff of life was too much for him.
He glanced over toward the desk. Humphrey, pipe in mouth, was already
at work. Hump had the gift of instant concentration. Even this morning,
after all that had happened, he was hard at it. Though he had something
to work for.
A sob was near. Henry had to close his eyes for a moment. His sensitive
lips quivered.
Humphrey would be, seeing his Mildred again at the close of the
day. Henry found himself entertaining the possibility of crawling
shamefacedly around to Corinne.
Then he sat up stiffly. Felt in one pocket after another until he found
a little red account-book. He hadn't made an entry for a week. Before
Corinne came into his life he hadn't missed an entry for nearly two
years.
He sat staring at it, pencil in hand.
His mouth set again.