TWO FRIENDS HAVE IT OUT
Clarence Sidwell was alone in his down-town bachelor quarters; that is,
alone save for an individual the club-man's friends termed his "Man
Friday," an undersized and very black negro named Alexander Hamilton
Brown, but answering to the contraction "Alec." Valet, man of all work,
steward, Alec was as much a fixture about the place as the floor or the
ceiling; and, like them, his presence, save as a convenience, was
ignored.
The rooms themselves were on the eleventh floor of a down-town
office-building, as near the roof as it had been possible for him to
secure suitable quarters. For eight years Sidwell had made them his home
when he was in town. The circle of his friends had commented, his mother
and sisters (his father had been long dead) had protested, when, a much
younger man, he first severed himself from the semi-colonial mansion
which for three generations had borne the name of Sidwell; but as usual,
he had had his own way.
"I want to work when I feel so inclined, when the mood is on me, whether
it's two o'clock of the afternoon or of the morning,'" he had explained;
"and I can't do it without interruption here with you and your
friends."
For the same reason he had chosen to live near the sky. There, high
above the noise and confusion, he could observe and catch the influence
of the activity which is in itself a powerful stimulant, without
experiencing its unpleasantness. Essentially, the man was an æsthete. If
he went to a race or a football game he wished to view it at a distance.
To be close by, to mingle in the dust of action, to smell the sweat of
conflict, to listen to the low-voiced imprecations of the defeated,
detracted from his pleasure. He could not prevent these
features--therefore he avoided them.
This particular evening he was doing nothing, which was very unusual for
him. The necessity for society, or for activity, physical or mental, had
long ago become as much a part of his nature as the desire for food.
Dilettante musician as well as artist, when alone at this time of the
evening he was generally at the upright piano in the corner. Even Alec
noticed the unusual lack of occupation on this occasion, and exposed the
key-board suggestively; but, observing the action, Sidwell only smiled.
"Think I ought to, Alec?" he queried.
The negro rolled his eyes. Despite his long service, he had never quite
lost his awe of the man he attended.
"Sho, yo always do that, or something, sah," he said.
Sidwell smiled again; but it was not a pleasant smile. So this was the
way of it! Even his servant had observed his habitual restlessness, and
had doubtless commented upon it to his companions in the way servants
have of passing judgment upon their employers. And if Alec had noticed
this, then how much more probable it was that others of Sidwell's
numerous acquaintances had noticed it also! He winced at the thought.
That this was his skeleton, and that he had endeavored to keep it
hidden, Sidwell did not attempt to deny to himself. One of the reasons
he had _not_ given to his family for establishing these down-town
quarters was this very one. Time and again, when he had felt the mood of
protest strong upon him, he had come here and locked the doors to fight
it out alone. But after all, it had been useless. The fact had been
obvious, despite the trick; mayhap even more so on account of it. Like
the Wandering Jew he was doomed, followed by a relentless curse.
He shook himself, and walking over to the sideboard poured out a glass
of Cognac and drank it as though it were wine. Sidwell did not often
drink spirits. Experience had taught him that to begin usually meant to
end with regret the following day; but to-night, with his present mood
upon him, the action was as instinctive as breathing. He moved back to
his chair by the window.
The evening was hot, on the street depressingly so, but up here after
the sun was set there was always a breeze, and it was cool and
comfortable. The man looked out over the sooty, gravelled roofs of the
surrounding lower buildings, and down on the street, congested with its
flowing stream of cars, equipages, and pedestrians. Times without number
he had viewed the currents and counter-currents of that scene, but never
before had he so caught its vital spirit and meaning. Born of the
elect,--reared and educated among them,--the supercilious superiority of
his class was as much a part of him as his name. While he realized that
physically the high and the low were constructed on practically the same
plan, he had been wont to consider them as on totally separate mental
planes. That the clerk and the roustabout on ten dollars a week,
breathing the same atmosphere,--seeing daily, hourly, minute by minute,
from separate viewpoints, the same life,--that they should have in
common the constant need of diversion had never before occurred to him.
Multitudes of times, as a sociologist, or as a literary man in search of
realism, he had visited the haunts of the under-man. Languidly,
critically, as he would have observed at the "zoo" an animal with whose
habits he was unacquainted, he had watched this rather curious under-man
in his foolish, or worse than foolish, endeavor to find amusement or
oblivion. He had often been interested, as by a clown at a circus; but
more frequently the sight had merely inspired disgust, and he had
returned to his own diversions, his own efforts to secure the same end,
with an all but unconscious thankfulness that he was not such as that
other. To-night, for the first time, and with a wonder we all feel when
the obvious but long unseen suddenly becomes apparent, the primary fact
of human brotherhood, irrespective of caste, came home to him. To-night
and now he realized, diminutive in the distance as they were, that the
swarm of figures that he had hitherto considered mere animals vain of
display were impelled upon the street, compelled to keep moving, moving,
without a pre-arranged destination, by the same spirit of unrest that
had sent him to the buffet. At that moment he was probably nearer to his
fellow-man than ever before in his life; but the truth revealed made
him the more unhappy. He had grown to consider his own unhappiness
totally different and infinitely more acute than that of others; he had
even taken a sort of morbid, paradoxical pleasure in considering it so;
and now even this was taken from him. Not only had his own secret
skeleton been visible when he believed it concealed, but all around him
there suddenly sprang up a very cemetery of other skeletons, grinning at
his blindness and discomfiture. His was not a nature to extract content
from common discomfort, and but one palliative suggested itself,--the
dull red decanter on the sideboard. Rising again and filling a glass, he
returned and stood for a moment full before the open casement of the
window gazing down steadily.
How long he stood there he hardly knew. Once Alec's dark face peered
into the room, and disappeared as suddenly. At last there was a knock at
the door.
"Come in," invited Sidwell, without moving. The door opened and closed,
and Winston Hough stood inside. The big man gave one glance at the
surroundings, saw the empty glass, and backed away. "Pardon my
intrusion," he said with his hand on the knob.
Sidwell turned. "Intrusion--nothing!" He placed the decanter with
glasses and a box of cigars on a convenient table. "Come and have a
drink with me," and the liquor flowed until both glasses were nearly
full.
Hough hesitated in a reluctance that was not feigned. He felt that
discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would be well to
escape while he could, even at the price of discourtesy.
"Really," he said, "I only dropped in to say hello. I--"
"Nonsense!" interrupted Sidwell. "You must think I'm as innocent as a
new-born lamb. Come over here and sit down."
Hough hesitated, but yielded.
Sidwell lifted his glass. "Here's to--whatever the trouble may be that
brought you here. People don't visit me for pleasure, or unless they
have nowhere else to go. Drink deep!"
They drank; and then Sidwell looking at Hough said, "Well, what is it
this time? Going to reform again, or something of that kind, are you?"
Hough did not attempt evasion. He knew it would be useless. "No," he
said; "to tell you the truth, I'm lonesome--beastly lonesome."
Sidwell smiled. "Ah, I thought so. But why, pray? Aren't you a married
man with an ark of refuge always waiting?"
Hough made a grimace. "Yes, that's just the trouble. I'm too much
married, too thoroughly domesticated."
The other looked blank. "I fail to understand. Certainly you and Elise
haven't at last--"
"No, no; not that." Hough repelled the suggestion with a gesture as
though it were a tangible object. "Elise left to-day to spend a month
with her uncle up in northern Wisconsin, and I can't get out of town for
a week. I feel as I fancy a small bird feels when it has fallen out of
the nest while its mother is away. The bottom seems to have dropped out
of town and left me stranded."
The host observed his guest humorously--a bit maliciously. "It is good
for you, you complacent benedict," he remarked unsympathetically. "You
can understand now the normal state of mind of bachelors. Perhaps after
a few more days you'll have been tortured enough to retract the argument
you made to me about matrimony. I repeat, it's poetic justice, and good
for a man now and then to have a dose of his own medicine."
Hough smiled as at an oft-heard joke. "All right, old man, have it as
you please; only let's steer clear of a useless discussion of the
subject to-night."
"With all my heart," said Sidwell. The decanter was once more in his
hand. "Let's drink to the very good health of Elise on her journey."
Hough hesitated. He had a feeling that there was an obscure desecration
in the toast, but it was not tangible enough to resent. "To her very
good health," he repeated in turn.
For a moment he looked steadily into the face of his companion, now a
trifle flushed. Again an inward monitor warned him it were better to go;
but the first flood of the liquor had reached his brain, and the
temptation to remain was strong.
"By the way, how are you coming on with your own affair of the heart?
Have you propounded the momentous question to the lady?"
Sidwell pulled forward the box of cigars and helped himself to one.
"No," he returned with deliberation. "I haven't had a good opportunity.
A gentleman from the West, where they wear their hair long and their
coat-tails short, has suddenly appeared like an obscuring cloud on the
Baker sky. I have a suspicion that he has aspirations for the hand of
the lady in question. Anyhow, he's haunted the house like a ghost
to-day. Mother Baker has for some reason taken a fancy to your humble
servant, and over the 'phone she has kept me informed of the stranger's
tribulations. He seems to be meeting with sufficient difficulties
without my interposition, so out of the goodness of my heart I've given
him an open field. I hope you appreciate my consideration. I fear he's
not of a stripe to do so himself."
Hough lit his cigar. "Yes, it certainly was kind of you," he said. "Very
kind."
With a sweep of his hand Sidwell brought the two glasses together with a
click. "I think so. Kind enough to deserve commemoration by a taste of
the elixir of life, don't you agree?" and the liquor flowed beneath a
hand steady in the first stages of intoxication.
Hough pushed back his chair. "No," he protested. "I've had enough."
"Enough!" The other laughed unmusically. "Enough! You haven't begun yet.
Drink, and forget your loneliness, you benedict disconsolate!"
But again the big man shook his head. "No," he repeated. "I've had
enough, and so have you. We'll be drunk, both of us, if we keep up this
clip much longer."
The smile left the host's face. "Drunk!" he echoed. "Since when, pray,
has that exalted state of the consciousness begun to inspire terror in
you? Drunk! Winston Hough, you're the last man I ever thought would fail
to prove game on an occasion like this! We're no nearer being babes
than we were the last time we got together, unless the termination of
life approximates the beginning. Drink!"
But still, this time in silence, Hough shook his head. From a partially
open door leading into the adjoining room the negro's eyes peered out.
Sidwell shifted in his seat with exaggerated deliberation and leaned
forward. His dark mobile face worked passionately, compellingly.
"Winston Hough," he challenged, "do you wish to remain my friend?"
"I certainly do."
"Then you know what to do."
Deep silence fell upon the room. Not only the eyes but the whole of
Alec's face appeared through the doorway. Hough could no more have
resisted longer than he could have leaped from the open window. They
drank together.
"Now," said Sidwell, "just to show that you mean it, we'll have
another."
And soon the enemy that puerile man puts into his mouth to steal his
brains was enthroned.
Sidwell sank into his chair, and lighting his cigar sent a great cloud
of smoke curling up over his head. Hand and tongue were steady,
unnaturally so, but the mood of irresponsible confidence was upon him.
"Since you've decided to remain my friend," he said, "I'm going to tell
you something confidential, very confidential. You won't give it away?"
"Never!" Hough shook his head.
"On your honor?"
The big man crossed his hands over his heart in the manner of small
boys.
Sidwell was satisfied. "All right, then. This is the last time you and I
will ever get--this way together."
Hough looked as solemn as though at a funeral. "Why so?" he protested.
"Are you angry with me yet?"
"No, it's not that. I've forgiven you."
"What is it, then?" Hough felt that he must know the reason of his lost
position, and if in his power remove it.
"I'm going to quit drinking after to-night, for one thing," explained
Sidwell. "It isn't adequate. But even if I didn't, I don't expect we'll
ever be together again after a few days, after you go away."
The listener looked blank. Even with his muddled brains he had an
intimation that there was more in the statement than there seemed.
"I don't see why," he said bewilderedly.
Again Sidwell leaned forward. Again his face grew passionate and
magnetic.
"The reason why is this. I have had enough, and more than enough, of
this life I've been living. Unless I can find an interest, an
extenuation, I would rather be dead, a hundred times over. I've become a
nightmare to myself, and I won't stand it. In a few days you'll have
departed, and before you return I'll probably have gone too. Nothing but
an intervention of Providence can prevent my marrying Florence Baker
now. Life isn't a story-book or we who live it undiscerning clods. She
knows I am going to ask her to marry me, and I know what her answer
will be. We'll be away on our wedding-trip long before you and Elise
return in the Fall." The speaker's voice was sober. Only the heightened
color of his face betrayed him.
"I say I'm through with this sort of thing," he repeated, "and I mean
it. I've tried everything on the face of the earth to find an
interest--but one--and Florence Baker represents that one. I hope
against hope that I'll find what I'm searching for there, but I am
skeptical. I have been disappointed too many times to expect happiness
now. This is my last trump, old man, and I'm playing it deliberately and
carefully. If it fails, Florence will probably return; but before God, I
never will! I have thought it all out. I will leave her more money than
she can ever spend--enough if she wishes to buy the elect of the elect.
She is young, and she will soon forget--if it's necessary. With me, my
actions have largely ceased to be a matter of ethics. I am desperate,
Hough, and a desperate man takes what presents itself."
But Hough was in no condition to appreciate the meaning of the selfish
revelation of his friend's true character. Since he married his lapses
had been infrequent, and already his surroundings were becoming a bit
vague. His one ambition was to appear what he was not--sober; and he
straightened himself stiffly.
"I see," he said, "sorry to lose you, old pal, very sorry; but what must
be must be, I s'pose," and he drew himself together with a jerk.
Sidwell glanced at the speaker sarcastically, almost with a shade of
contempt. "I know you're sorry, deucedly sorry," he mocked. "So sorry
that you'd probably like to drown your excess of emotion in the flowing
bowl." Again the ironic glance swept the other's face. "Another smile
would be good for you, anyway. You're entirely too serious. Here you
are!" and the decanter once more did service.
Hough picked up his glass and nodded with gravity "Yes, I always was a
sad devil." By successive movements the liquor approached his lips.
"Lots of troubles and tribulations all my--"
The sentence was not completed; the Cognac remained untasted. At that
moment there was a knock upon the door.