Indeed Fifi was not well. Her cheek spoke of the three pounds she had
lost since he had first helped her with her difficulties, and the eleven
pounds before that. The hand upon the Turkey-red cloth was of such
transparent thinness that you were sure you could see the lamplight
shining through. Her eyes were startling, they were so full of
other-worldly sweetness and so ringed beneath with shadows.
"And if I stopped coming down here to work nights," queried Fifi
shamelessly, "would you--miss me?"
"Miss you?"
"You wouldn't--you wouldn't! You'd only be glad not to have me around--"
"I can truthfully say," said the little Doctor, glancing at his watch,
"that I am sorry you are prevented from graduating."
Fifi retired in a fit of coughing. She and her cough had played fast and
loose with Queed's great work that evening, and, moreover, it took him a
minute and a half to get her out of his mind after she had gone. Not
long afterwards, he discovered that the yellow sheet he wrote upon was
the last of his pad. That meant that he must count out time to go
upstairs and get another one.
Count out time! Why, that was what his whole life had come down to now!
What was it but a steady counting out of ever more and more time?
The thirty days of hours ceded to Klinker were up, and instead of at
once bringing the prodigal experiment to a close, Doctor Queed found
himself terribly tempted to listen to his trainer's entreaties and
extend by fifty per centum the time allotted to the gymnasium and
open-air pedestrianism. He could not avoid the knowledge that he felt
decidedly better since he had begun the exercises, especially during
these last few days. For a week "the" headache and he had been
strangers. Much more important, he was conscious of bringing to his
work, not indeed a livelier interest, for that would have been
impossible, but an increasing vitality and an enlarged capacity. He kept
the most careful sort of tabs upon himself, and his records seemed to
show, at least for the past week or two, that his net volume of work had
not been seriously lowered by the hour per day wrung from the Schedule.
The exercises, then, seemed to be paying their own freight. And besides
all this, they were clearly little mile-stones on the path which led men
to physical competency and the ability to protect their articles from
public affront.
Still, an hour out was an hour out--three hundred and sixty-five hours a
year--three months' delay in finishing his book. Making allowance for
increased productivity, a month and a half's delay. And that was only a
beginning. The _Post_--Klinker's Exercises for All Parts of the
Body--Klinker himself, who called frequently--now Fifi (eighteen minutes
this very evening)--who could say where the mad dissipation would end?
On some uncharted isle in the far South Seas, perchance, a man might be
let alone to do his work. But in this boarding-house, it was clear now,
the effort was foredoomed and hopeless. Once make the smallest
concession to the infernal ubiquity of the race, once let the topmost
bar of your gate down never so little, and the whole accursed public
descended with a whoop to romp all over the premises. What, oh, what was
the use of trying?...
"Ah, Mr. Queed--well met! Won't you stop in and see me a little while?
You're enormously busy, I know--but possibly I can find something to
interest you in my poor little collection of books."
Nicolovius, coming up the stairs, had met Queed coming down, pad in
hand. The impertinence of the old professor's invitation fitted superbly
with the bitterness of the little Doctor's humor. It pressed the
martyr's crown upon his brow till the perfectness of his grudge against
a hateful world lacked nor jot nor tittle.
"Oh, certainly! Certainly!" he replied, with the utmost indignation.
Nicolovius, bowing courteously, pushed open the door.
It was known in the boarding-house that the remodeling of the Second
Hall Back into a private bathroom for Nicolovius had been done at his
own expense, and rumor had it that for his two rooms--his "suite," as
Mrs. Paynter called it--he paid down the sum of eighteen dollars weekly.
The bed-sitting-room into which he now ushered his guest was the
prettiest room ever seen by Mr. Queed, who had seen few pretty rooms in
his life. Certainly it was a charming room of a usual enough type:
lamp-lit and soft-carpeted; brass fittings about the fireplace where a
coal fire glowed; a large red reading-table with the customary litter of
books and periodicals; comfortable chairs to sit in; two uncommonly
pretty mahogany bookcases with quaint leaded windows. The crude central
identity about all bedrooms that had hitherto come within Queed's ken,
to wit, the bed, seemed in this remarkable room to be wanting
altogether. For how was he, with his practical inexperience, to know
that the handsome leather lounge in the bay-window had its in'ards
crammed full of sheets, and blankets, and hinges and collapsible legs?
The young man gravitated instinctively toward the bookcases. His expert
eye swept over the titles, and his gloom lightened a little.
"You have some fair light reading here, I see," he said, plucking out a
richly bound volume of Lecky's _History of European Morals_.
Nicolovius, who was observing him closely, smiled to himself. "Ah, yes.
I'm the merest dilettante, without your happiness of being a specialist
of authority."
The old professor was a tall man, though somewhat stooped and shrunken,
and his head was as bare of hair as the palm of your hand; which of
course was why he wore the black silk skull cap about the house. On the
contrary his mustaches were singularly long and luxuriant, they, and the
short, smart goatee, being of a peculiar deep auburn shade. His eyes
were dark, brilliant, and slightly sardonic; there were yellow pouches
under them and deep transverse furrows on his forehead; his nose, once
powerfully aquiline, appeared to have been broken cleanly across the
middle. Taken all in all, he was a figure to be noticed in any company.
He came forward on his rubber heels and stood at his guest's elbow.
"Your field is science, I believe? This Spencer was bound for me years
ago, by a clever devil in Pittsburg, of all places; Huxley, too. My
Darwin is hit and miss. Mill is here; Hume; the American John Fiske. By
chance I have _The Wealth of Nations_. Here is a fine old book, Sir
Henry Maine's _Ancient Law_. You know it, of course?"
"All--all! I know them all," murmured the little Doctor, standing with
two books under his arm and plucking out a third. "I look back sometimes
and stand amazed at the immensity of my reading. Benjamin Kidd--ha! He
won't be in so many libraries when I get through with him. You are
rather strong on political economy, I see. Alfred Marshall does very
well. Nothing much in philosophy. The _Contrat Social_--absurd."
"Do you care for these?" asked Nicolovius, pointing to a row of
well-worn works of Bible criticism. "Of course the Germans are far in
the lead in this field, and I am unhappily compelled to rely on
translations. Still I have--"
"Here! Look here! I must have this! I must take this book from you!"
interrupted Queed, rather excitedly dragging a fat blue volume from a
lower shelf. "Crozier's _Civilization and Progress_. What a find! I need
it badly. I'll just take it with me now, shall I not? Eh?"
"I shall be only too happy to have you take it," said Nicolovius,
blandly, "and as many others as you care for."
"I'll have another look and see," said Queed. "My copy of Crozier
disappeared some time before I left New York, and so far I have been
unable to replace it. I am showing him up completely.... Why, this is
singular--extraordinary! There's not a history among all these
books--not a volume!"
Nicolovius's expression oddly changed; his whole face seemed to tighten.
"No," he said slowly, "I have some reason to dislike history."
The young man straightened sharply, horrified. "Why don't you say at
once that you hate Life--Man--the Evolution of the Race--and be done
with it?"
"Would that seem so dreadful to you?" The old man's face wore a sad
smile. "I might say even that, I fear. Try one of those chairs by the
fire. I shall not mind telling you how I came by this feeling. You don't
smoke, I believe! You miss a good deal, but since you don't know it, how
does it matter?"
Nicolovius's haughty aloofness, his rigid uncommunicativeness, his
grand ducal bearing and the fact that he paid eighteen dollars a week
for a suite had of course made him a man of mark and mystery in the
boarding-house, and in the romancings of Miss Miller he had figured as
nearly everything from a fugitive crown prince to a retired
counterfeiter. However, Queed positively refused to be drawn away from
the book-shelves to listen to his story, and the old professor was
compelled to turn away from the fire and to talk, at that, to the back
of the young man's head.
Nicolovius, so he told Queed, was not an American at all, but an
Irishman, born at Roscommon, Connaught. His grandfather was a German,
whence he got his name. But the lad grew up in the image of his mother's
people. He became an intense patriot even for Ireland, an extremist
among extremists, a notorious firebrand in a land where no wood glows
dully. Equipped with a good education and natural parts, he had become a
passionate leader in the "Young Ireland" movement; was a storm-centre
all during the Home Rule agitations; and suddenly outgrew Ireland
overnight during the "Parnellism and Crime" era. He got away to the
coast, disguised as a coster, and once had the pleasure of giving a lift
in his cart to the search-party who wanted him, dead or alive. This was
in the year 1882.
"You were mixed up in the Phoenix Park murders, I daresay?" interjected
Queed, in his matter-of-fact way.
"You will excuse my preference for a certain indefiniteness," said
Nicolovius, with great sweetness.
On this side, he had drifted accidentally into school-teaching, as a
means of livelihood, and stuck at it, in New York, St. Paul, and, for
many years, in Chicago. The need of a warmer climate for his health's
sake, he said, had driven him South, and some three years before an
appointment at Milner's Collegiate School had brought him to the city
which he and the young man now alike called their own.
Queed, still sacking the shelves for another find, asked if he had never
revisited Ireland.
"Ah, no," said Nicolovius, "there was no gracious pardon for my little
peccadillo, no statute of limitations to run after me and pat me on the
head. I love England best with the sea between us. You may fancy that a
refugee Irishman has no fondness for reading history."
He flicked the fire-ash from his cigar and looked at Queed. All the time
he talked he had been watching the young man, studying him, conning him
over....
"My life ended when I was scarcely older than you. I have been dead
while I was alive.... God pity you, young man, if you ever taste the
bitter misery of that!"
Queed turned around surprised at the sudden fierceness of the other's
tone. Nicolovius instantly sprang up and went over to poke the fire; he
came back directly, smiling easily and pulling at his long cigar.
"Ah, well! Forgive the saddening reminiscences of an old man--not a
common weakness with me, I assure you. May I say, Mr. Queed, how much
your intellect, your culture, your admirable--ah--poise--amazing they
seem to me in so young a man--have appealed to me among a population of
Brookes, Bylashes, and Klinkers? You are the first man in many a day
that has inspired me with an impulse toward friendship and confidence.
It would be a real kindness if you'd come in sometimes of an evening."
At the word "friendship" the young man flinched uncontrollably. Was the
whole diabolical world in league to spring out and make friends with
him?
"Unfortunately," he said, with his iciest bow, "my time is entirely
engrossed by my work."
But as his eye went round the pretty, dim-lit room, he could not help
contrasting it with the bleak Scriptorium above, and he added with a
change of tone and a sigh:--
"You appear wonderfully comfortable here."
Nicolovius shrugged. "So-so," he said indifferently. "However, I shall
make a move before long."
"Indeed?"
"I want more space and independence, more quiet--surcease from meeting
fellow-boarders at every step. I plan to move into an apartment, or
perhaps a modest little house, if I can manage it. For I am not rich,
unhappily, though I believe the boarders think I am, because I make Emma
a present of a dollar each year at the anniversary of the birth of our
Lord."
Queed ignored his little pleasantry. He was struck with the fact that
Nicolovius had described exactly the sort of living arrangement that he
himself most earnestly desired.
"I should have made the move last year," continued Nicolovius, pulling
at his auburn mustaches, "except that--well, I am more sensitive to my
loneliness as I grow older, and the fact was that I lacked a congenial
companion to share a pleasanter home with."
The eyes of the two men met, and they moved away from each other as by
common consent. Apparently the same thought popped simultaneously into
both their minds. Queed dallied with his thought, frankly and with the
purest unaltruism.
Though this was the first time he had ever been in the old professor's
pretty room, it was the third or fourth time he had been invited there.
Nothing could be clearer than that Nicolovius liked him
enormously,--where on earth did he get his fatal gift for attracting
people?--nothing than that he was exactly the sort of congenial
companion the old man desired. Why shouldn't he go and live with
Nicolovius in his new home, the home of perfect quiet and immunity from
boarders? And unbroken leisure, too, for of course Nicolovius would bear
all expenses, and he himself would fly from all remunerative work as
from the Black Death. Nay more, the old chap would very likely be
willing to pay him a salary for his society, or at least, see that he
was kept well supplied with everything he needed--books to demolish like
this one under his arm, and ...
He looked up and found the sardonic Italian eyes of the old professor
fixed on him with a most curious expression.... No, no! Better even Mrs.
Paynter's than solitude shared with this stagey old man, with his
repellent face and his purring voice which his eyes so belied.
"I must be going," said Queed hastily.
His host came forward with suave expressions of regret. "However, I feel
much complimented that you came at all. Pray honor me again very soon--"
"I'll return this book sometime," continued the young man, already at
the door. "You won't mind if I mark it, of course?"
"My dear sir--most certainly not. Indeed I hoped that you would consent
to accept it for your own, as a--"
"No, I'll return it. I daresay you will find," he added with a faint
smile, but his grossest one, "that my notes have not lessened its value
exactly!"
In the hall Queed looked at his watch; ten minutes to ten. _Twenty-five
minutes to his visit upon the old professor!_
However, let us be calm and just about it. The twenty-five minutes was
not a flat loss: he had got Crozier by it. Crozier was worth twenty-five
minutes; thirty-five, if it came to that--fifty!... But how to fit such
a thing as this into the Schedule--and Klinker's visits--and the time he
had given to Fifi to-night and very likely would have to give through an
endless chain of to-morrows? Here was the burning crux. Was it endurable
that the Schedule must be corrupted yet again?
So far as little Fifi was concerned, it turned out that these agonies
were superfluous; he had helped her with her lessons for the last time.
She did not appear in the dining-room the next night, or the next, or
the next. Inquiries from the boarders drew from Mrs. Paynter the
information that the child's cough had pulled her down so that she had
been remanded to bed for a day or two to rest up. But resting up
appeared not to prove so simple a process as had been anticipated, and
the day or two was soon running into weeks.
Halcyon nights Queed enjoyed in the dining-room in Fifi's absence, yet
faintly marred in a most singular way by the very absence which alone
made them halcyon. It is a fact that you cannot give to any person
fifteen minutes of valuable time every night, and not have your
consciousness somewhat involved in that person's abrupt disappearance
from your horizon. Messages from Fifi on matters of most trivial import
came to Queed occasionally, and these served to keep alive his subtle
awareness of her absence. But he never took any notice of the messages,
not even of the one which said that he could look in and see her some
afternoon if he wanted to.