The outward usualness of things continued after dinner. It was
Sheridan's custom to read the evening paper beside the fire in the
library, while his wife, sitting near by, either sewed (from old habit)
or allowed herself to be repeatedly baffled by one of the simpler forms
of solitaire. To-night she did neither, but sat in her customary chair,
gazing at the fire, while Sheridan let the unfolded paper rest upon his
lap, though now and then he lifted it, as if to read, and let it fall
back upon his knees again. Bibbs came in noiselessly and sat in a
corner, doing nothing; and from a “reception-room” across the hall an
indistinct vocal murmur became just audible at intervals. Once, when
this murmur grew louder, under stress of some irrepressible merriment,
Edith's voice could be heard--“Bobby, aren't you awful!” and Sheridan
glanced across at his wife appealingly.
She rose at once and went into the “reception-room”; there was a flurry
of whispering, and the sound of tiptoeing in the hall--Edith and her
suitor changing quarters to a more distant room. Mrs. Sheridan returned
to her chair in the library.
“They won't bother you any more, papa,” she said, in a comforting voice.
“She told me at lunch he'd 'phoned he wanted to come up this evening,
and I said I thought he'd better wait a few days, but she said she'd
already told him he could.” She paused, then added, rather guiltily: “I
got kind of a notion maybe Roscoe don't like him as much as he used
to. Maybe--maybe you better ask Roscoe, papa.” And as Sheridan nodded
solemnly, she concluded, in haste: “Don't say I said to. I might be
wrong about it, anyway.”
He nodded again, and they sat for some time in a silence which Mrs.
Sheridan broke with a little sniff, having fallen into a reverie that
brought tears. “That Miss Vertrees was a good girl,” she said. “SHE was
all right.”
Her husband evidently had no difficulty in following her train of
thought, for he nodded once more, affirmatively.
“Did you--How did you fix it about the--the Realty Company?” she
faltered. “Did you--”
He rose heavily, helping himself to his feet by the arms of his chair.
“I fixed it,” he said, in a husky voice. “I moved Cantwell up, and put
Johnston in Cantwell's place, and split up Johnston's work among the
four men with salaries high enough to take it.” He went to her, put
his hand upon her shoulder, and drew a long, audible, tremulous breath.
“It's my bedtime, mamma; I'm goin' up.” He dropped the hand from her
shoulder and moved slowly away, but when he reached the door he stopped
and spoke again, without turning to look at her. “The Realty Company'll
go right on just the same,” he said. “It's like--it's like sand, mamma.
It puts me in mind of chuldern playin' in a sand-pile. One of 'em sticks
his finger in the sand and makes a hole, and another of 'em'll pat the
place with his hand, and all the little grains of sand run in and fill
it up and settle against one another; and then, right away it's flat on
top again, and you can't tell there ever was a hole there. The Realty
Company'll go on all right, mamma. There ain't anything anywhere, I
reckon, that wouldn't go right on--just the same.”
And he passed out slowly into the hall; then they heard his heavy tread
upon the stairs.
Mrs. Sheridan, rising to follow him, turned a piteous face to her son.
“It's so forlone,” she said, chokingly. “That's the first time he spoke
since he came in the house this evening. I know it must 'a' hurt him to
hear Edith laughin' with that Lamhorn. She'd oughtn't to let him come,
right the very first evening this way; she'd oughtn't to done it! She
just seems to lose her head over him, and it scares me. You heard what
Sibyl said the other day, and--and you heard what--what--”
“What Edith said to Sibyl?” Bibbs finished the sentence for her.
“We CAN'T have any trouble o' THAT kind!” she wailed. “Oh, it looks as
if movin' up to this New House had brought us awful bad luck! It scares
me!” She put both her hands over her face. “Oh, Bibbs, Bibbs! if you
only wasn't so QUEER! If you could only been a kind of dependable son!
I don't know what we're all comin' to!” And, weeping, she followed her
husband.
Bibbs gazed for a while at the fire; then he rose abruptly, like a man
who has come to a decision, and briskly sought the room--it was called
“the smoking-room”--where Edith sat with Mr. Lamhorn. They looked up in
no welcoming manner, at Bibbs's entrance, and moved their chairs to a
less conspicuous adjacency.
“Good evening,” said Bibbs, pleasantly; and he seated himself in a
leather easy-chair near them.
“What is it?” asked Edith, plainly astonished.
“Nothing,” he returned, smiling.
She frowned. “Did you want something?” she asked.
“Nothing in the world. Father and mother have gone up-stairs; I sha'n't
be going up for several hours, and there didn't seem to be anybody left
for me to chat with except you and Mr. Lamhorn.”
“'CHAT with'!” she echoed, incredulously.
“I can talk about almost anything,” said Bibbs with an air of
genial politeness. “It doesn't matter to ME. I don't know much about
business--if that's what you happened to be talking about. But you
aren't in business, are you, Mr. Lamhorn?”
“Not now,” returned Lamhorn, shortly.
“I'm not, either,” said Bibbs. “It was getting cloudier than usual, I
noticed, just before dark, and there was wind from the southwest. Rain
to-morrow, I shouldn't be surprised.”
He seemed to feel that he had begun a conversation the support of
which had now become the pleasurable duty of other parties; and he
sat expectantly, looking first at his sister, then at Lamhorn, as if
implying that it was their turn to speak. Edith returned his gaze with
a mixture of astonishment and increasing anger, while Mr. Lamhorn was
obviously disturbed, though Bibbs had been as considerate as possible in
presenting the weather as a topic. Bibbs had perceived that Lamhorn had
nothing in his mind at any time except “personalities”--he could talk
about people and he could make love. Bibbs, wishing to be courteous,
offered the weather.
Lamhorn refused it, and concluded from Bibbs's luxurious attitude in the
leather chair that this half-crazy brother was a permanent fixture for
the rest of the evening. There was not reason to hope that he would
move, and Lamhorn found himself in danger of looking silly.
“I was just going,” he said, rising.
“Oh NO!” Edith cried, sharply.
“Yes. Good night! I think I--”
“Too bad,” said Bibbs, genially, walking to the door with the visitor,
while Edith stood staring as the two disappeared in the hall. She heard
Bibbs offering to “help” Lamhorn with his overcoat and the latter rather
curtly declining assistance, these episodes of departure being followed
by the closing of the outer door. She ran into the hall.
“What's the matter with you?” she cried, furiously. “What do you MEAN?
How did you dare come in there when you knew--”
Her voice broke; she made a gesture of rage and despair, and ran up the
stairs, sobbing. She fled to her mother's room, and when Bibbs came up,
a few minutes later, Mrs. Sheridan met him at his door.
“Oh, Bibbs,” she said, shaking her head woefully, “you'd oughtn't to
distress your sister! She says you drove that young man right out of the
house. You'd ought to been more considerate.”
Bibbs smiled faintly, noting that Edith's door was open, with Edith's
naive shadow motionless across its threshold. “Yes,” he said. “He
doesn't appear to be much of a 'man's man.' He ran at just a glimpse of
one.”
Edith's shadow moved; her voice came quavering: “You call yourself one?”
“No, no,” he answered. “I said, 'just a glimpse of one.' I didn't
claim--” But her door slammed angrily; and he turned to his mother.
“There,” he said, sighing. “That's almost the first time in my life I
ever tried to be a man of action, mother, and I succeeded perfectly in
what I tried to do. As a consequence I feel like a horse-thief!”
“You hurt her feelin's,” she groaned. “You must 'a' gone at it too
rough, Bibbs.”
He looked upon her wanly. “That's my trouble, mother,” he murmured. “I'm
a plain, blunt fellow. I have rough ways, and I'm a rough man.”
For once she perceived some meaning in his queerness. “Hush your
nonsense!” she said, good-naturedly, the astral of a troubled smile
appearing. “You go to bed.”
He kissed her and obeyed.
Edith gave him a cold greeting the next morning at the breakfast-table.
“You mustn't do that under a misapprehension,” he warned her, when they
were alone in the dining-room.
“Do what under a what?” she asked.
“Speak to me. I came into the smoking-room last night 'on purpose,'” he
told her, gravely. “I have a prejudice against that young man.”
She laughed. “I guess you think it means a great deal who you have
prejudices against!” In mockery she adopted the manner of one who
implores. “Bibbs, for pity's sake PROMISE me, DON'T use YOUR influence
with papa against him!” And she laughed louder.
“Listen,” he said, with peculiar earnestness. “I'll tell you now,
because--because I've decided I'm one of the family.” And then, as
if the earnestness were too heavy for him to carry it further, he
continued, in his usual tone, “I'm drunk with power, Edith.”
“What do you want to tell me?” she demanded, brusquely.
“Lamhorn made love to Sibyl,” he said.
Edith hooted. “SHE did to HIM! And because you overheard that spat
between us the other day when I the same as accused her of it, and said
something like that to you afterward--”
“No,” he said, gravely. “I KNOW.”
“How?”
“I was there, one day a week ago, with Roscoe, and I heard Sibyl and
Lamhorn--”
Edith screamed with laughter. “You were with ROSCOE--and you heard
Lamhorn making love to Sibyl!”
“No. I heard them quarreling.”
“You're funnier than ever, Bibbs!” she cried. “You say he made love to
her because you heard them quarreling!”
“That's it. If you want to know what's 'between' people, you can--by the
way they quarrel.”
“You'll kill me, Bibbs! What were they quarreling about?”
“Nothing. That's how I knew. People who quarrel over nothing!--it's
always certain--”
Edith stopped laughing abruptly, but continued her mockery. “You ought
to know. You've had so much experience, yourself!”
“I haven't any, Edith,” he said. “My life has been about as exciting as
an incubator chicken's. But I look out through the glass at things.”
“Well, then,” she said, “if you look out through the glass you must know
what effect such stuff would have upon ME!” She rose, visibly agitated.
“What if it WAS true?” she demanded, bitterly. “What if it was true a
hundred times over? You sit there with your silly face half ready to
giggle and half ready to sniffle, and tell me stories like that, about
Sibyl picking on Bobby Lamhorn and worrying him to death, and you think
it matters to ME? What if I already KNEW all about their 'quarreling'?
What if I understood WHY she--” She broke off with a violent gesture, a
sweep of her arm extended at full length, as if she hurled something to
the ground. “Do you think a girl that really cared for a man would pay
any attention to THAT? Or to YOU, Bibbs Sheridan!”
He looked at her steadily, and his gaze was as keen as it was steady.
She met it with unwavering pride. Finally he nodded slowly, as if she
had spoken and he meant to agree with what she said.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I won't come into the smoking-room again. I'm
sorry, Edith. Nobody can make you see anything now. You'll never see
until you see for yourself. The rest of us will do better to keep out of
it--especially me!”
“That's sensible,” she responded, curtly. “You're most surprising of all
when you're sensible, Bibbs.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “I'm a dull dog. Shake hands and forgive me, Edith.”
Thawing so far as to smile, she underwent this brief ceremony, and
George appeared, summoning Bibbs to the library; Dr. Gurney was waiting
there, he announced. And Bibbs gave his sister a shy but friendly touch
upon the shoulder as a complement to the handshaking, and left her.
Dr. Gurney was sitting by the log fire, alone in the room, and he merely
glanced over his shoulder when his patient came in. He was not over
fifty, in spite of Sheridan's habitual “ole Doc Gurney.” He was gray,
however, almost as thin as Bibbs, and nearly always he looked drowsy.
“Your father telephoned me yesterday afternoon, Bibbs,” he said, not
rising. “Wants me to 'look you over' again. Come around here in front of
me--between me and the fire. I want to see if I can see through you.”
“You mean you're too sleepy to move,” returned Bibbs, complying. “I
think you'll notice that I'm getting worse.”
“Taken on about twelve pounds,” said Gurney. “Thirteen, maybe.”
“Twelve.”
“Well, it won't do.” The doctor rubbed his eyelids. “You're so much
better I'll have to use some machinery on you before we can know just
where you are. You come down to my place this afternoon. Walk down--all
the way. I suppose you know why your father wants to know.”
Bibbs nodded. “Machine-shop.”
“Still hate it?”
Bibbs nodded again.
“Don't blame you!” the doctor grunted. “Yes, I expect it'll make a lump
in your gizzard again. Well, what do you say? Shall I tell him you've
got the old lump there yet? You still want to write, do you?”
“What's the use?” Bibbs said, smiling ruefully. “My kind of writing!”
“Yes,” the doctor agreed. “I suppose if you broke away and lived on
roots and berries until you began to 'attract the favorable attention of
editors' you might be able to hope for an income of four or five hundred
dollars a year by the time you're fifty.”
“That's about it,” Bibbs murmured.
“Of course I know what you want to do,” said Gurney, drowsily. “You
don't hate the machine-shop only; you hate the whole show--the noise and
jar and dirt, the scramble--the whole bloomin' craze to 'get on.' You'd
like to go somewhere in Algiers, or to Taormina, perhaps, and bask on a
balcony, smelling flowers and writing sonnets. You'd grow fat on it and
have a delicate little life all to yourself. Well, what do you say? I
can lie like sixty, Bibbs! Shall I tell your father he'll lose another
of his boys if you don't go to Sicily?”
“I don't want to go to Sicily,” said Bibbs. “I want to stay right here.”
The doctor's drowsiness disappeared for a moment, and he gave his
patient a sharp glance. “It's a risk,” he said. “I think we'll find
you're so much better he'll send you back to the shop pretty quick.
Something's got hold of you lately; you're not quite so lackadaisical as
you used to be. But I warn you: I think the shop will knock you just as
it did before, and perhaps even harder, Bibbs.”
He rose, shook himself, and rubbed his eyelids. “Well, when we go over
you this afternoon what are we going to say about it?”
“Tell him I'm ready,” said Bibbs, looking at the floor.
“Oh no,” Gurney laughed. “Not quite yet; but you may be almost. We'll
see. Don't forget I said to walk down.”
And when the examination was concluded, that afternoon, the doctor
informed Bibbs that the result was much too satisfactory to be pleasing.
“Here's a new 'situation' for a one-act farce,” he said, gloomily, to
his next patient when Bibbs had gone. “Doctor tells a man he's well, and
that's his death sentence, likely. Dam' funny world!”
Bibbs decided to walk home, though Gurney had not instructed him upon
this point. In fact, Gurney seemed to have no more instructions on any
point, so discouraging was the young man's improvement. It was a dingy
afternoon, and the smoke was evident not only to Bibbs's sight, but to
his nostrils, though most of the pedestrians were so saturated with
the smell they could no longer detect it. Nearly all of them walked
hurriedly, too intent upon their destinations to be more than half aware
of the wayside; they wore the expressions of people under a vague yet
constant strain. They were all lightly powdered, inside and out, with
fine dust and grit from the hard-paved streets, and they were unaware of
that also. They did not even notice that they saw the smoke, though the
thickened air was like a shrouding mist. And when Bibbs passed the new
“Sheridan Apartments,” now almost completed, he observed that the marble
of the vestibule was already streaky with soot, like his gloves, which
were new.
That recalled to him the faint odor of gasolene in the coupe on the way
from his brother's funeral, and this incited a train of thought which
continued till he reached the vicinity of his home. His route was by
a street parallel to that on which the New House fronted, and in his
preoccupation he walked a block farther than he intended, so that,
having crossed to his own street, he approached the New House from the
north, and as he came to the corner of Mr. Vertrees's lot Mr. Vertrees's
daughter emerged from the front door and walked thoughtfully down the
path to the old picket gate. She was unconscious of the approach of the
pedestrian from the north, and did not see him until she had opened the
gate and he was almost beside her. Then she looked up, and as she
saw him she started visibly. And if this thing had happened to
Robert Lamhorn, he would have had a thought far beyond the horizon of
faint-hearted Bibbs's thoughts. Lamhorn, indeed, would have spoken his
thought. He would have said: “You jumped because you were thinking of
me!”